Raining Death... Imperial fists vs Eldar 1500

Imperial fists, lead by the legendary captain Lysander took on my eldar in a 1500 point game of Crusade, with vanguard strike deployment. So my phoenix lord would have a worthy challenge if the two characters meet on the field of battle. Do they? Read on and find out...

The Armies

So as you can tell from above, I'm against the imperial fists using the vanilla space marine codex. I was expecting to be facing blood angels (again) but this was a nice change. And with a lot less combat potential in the marine army, I should stand a little more of a chance. We shall see, so here is my army list for those who don’t know.

Eldar

Farseer – 140 (warlord: Target priority) w/ Dark eldar warriors

Runes of witness, Runes of warding, Spirit stones, guide, mind war (just to swap)

Karandras - 215

5 Pathfinders – 120

8 Dire avengers – 96

3 War walkers – 180

6 x scatter laser

6 Fire dragons – 96

Falcon – 135

Missile launcher

Fire prism - 115

Dark Eldar

Haemonculus – 55 w/ warriors

Venom blade

10 warriors – 115

Blaster, syberite

5 wyches – 60

Haywire grenades

Venom – 65

2 x splinter cannon

Ravager – 105

3 x dark lance

And my opponent brought the following space marine army. Just a little note, he forgot that assault marines are fast attack and not troops, he’s used to using blood angels. This was just a friendly game so who cares?

Imperial Fists

Lysander – 200 (warlord: Strategic genius) w/ Terminators

10 Tactical Marines – 195

Combie-plasma, melta gun, melta bomb

Drop Pod – 40

Locator beacon

5 Terminators – 200

Dreadnaught – 105

Multi-melta

Drop pod – 40

10 Assault marines – 205 (in Land raider)

Power sword

Land Raider – 250

Predator – 60

5 Devestators – 165 (not deploying in pod)

Lascannon, 3 x missile launcher

Drop Pod – 35

So this was not the kind of army I was expecting, a drop pod force, never faced one before so I'm not 100% sure what to do. I will just do what I intended to do and see what happens, if it doesn’t work I will learn for the future (hopefully).

The Mission

Mission: Crusade

Deployment: Vanguard strike

Night fight: No

The battle field

Rolling for who set up first, the space marines won, not quite what I wanted, as I wanted to blow him off the table before his drop pods came in. Never mind, So he deploys his devastators in the cover provided in his deployment zone (which he boosts with Lysander’s skill) and flanks them with the land raider on the right, and the predator on the far left. Lysander and the terminators are in reserve going to deep strike into my face. So that’s a lot of reserve, but allowed by the rules.

Imperial fist deployment

As I'm very aware I will lose something first turn so I took an age to deploy. I placed the warriors in the ruins joined by the haemonculus and farseer (never added him before, why not try?). The fire prism set up at the back behind the large tree which blocks line of sight. The falcon hid behind some ruins while the ravager and venom hid behind the ruins holding the warriors. I placed my war walkers in reserve as they didn’t have any where to go without getting shot to hell and my dire avengers chilled behind a hill. I infiltrate the pathfinders into a ruin and karandras out of sight behind a ruin in the middle of the table.

Eldar deployment

I rolled to steal the initiative: Failed.

The Game

Blood angels turn 1

Down come the pods, two of them. One holding a dreadnaught aimed for my ravager and scattered a little off but nothing to prevent the dread getting to where it wanted. The other containing tactical marines lock on a hill next to karandras and split into combat squads, both facing the pheonix lord. The land raider and predator then move forward to get better lines of sight.

With a roar from its autocannon the predator kills two dire avengers, but they hold. The dreadnaught shoots its multi-melta at the ravager in front of it and it explodes, +3 on the table... that was always going to happen. The two combat squads of tactical marines shoot at Karandras, a combi-plasma, melta gun, and 8 boltguns take their toll on the phoenix lord and his is killed... first turn. Not great. Firing a lascannon and heavy bolter, the land raider shoots at the venom which is can just about see and it explodes, killing 4 of the 5 wyches in the process. A final insult to injury comes in the form of the devastators killing 2 of my pathfinders. Not a great first turn to be honest.

Eldar turn 1

I psychic the hell up with the farseer, casting prescence on the warriors, and precognition on the farseer himself. I move my falcon up and drop off the fire dragons next to the tactical marines, hoping I can exact some sort of revenge. The dire avengers move behind the dreadnaught, hoping to glance it once if I'm lucky. As its so far away, the prism moves a little to get a better line of sight for its prism cannon.

Shooting starts with the dire avengers managing to glance the dreadnaught twice! That was unexpected. Throwing a haywire grenade, the final wyche wrecks the metal monstrosity before I can do any more damage. Combining fire, the fire dragons and falcon bring down one of the two combat squads of tactical marines. In a bit of a long shot, the prism targets the land raider but doesn’t get though its thick armour. The warriors shoot at the other combat squad but fails to do anything.

Blood angels turn 2

Obviously the strategic genious knows something we don’t as he stays in reserve dispite his re-roll. The half a tactical squad moves towards the fire dragons while the land raider moves forward and drops off the assault marines towards the ruin containing the dark eldar warriors.

Unleashing the big guns, the devastators only manage to kill a single dark eldar warrior. The Land raider shoots at the prism but thanks to a lucky jink the lascannon shot doesn’t penetrate the armour. A lone melta gun fires at the falcon, but misses, followed by the predator which fails to get though the armour.

The first charge of the game is declare by the assault marines on the dark eldar, but over watch kills the front two marines, preventing them getting into charge range.

Eldar turn 2

I cast the same psychic powers as last turn on the same units (not much else I can do). The war walkers fail to arrive. As the terminators will probably appear next turn so the fire dragons jump back in the falcon so they can hopefully hit them when they appear. I forget to move the falcon however... idiot.  The dire avengers move towards the remaining tactical marines, and again moving to get a better target, the prism moves around a little.

With just as much enthusiasm as last turn, the prism fires... and scatters off the predator. The dark eldar warriors shoot at the front combat squad of assault marines, killing them all in a single round, the re-roll to hit really helped with that. It took a combination of both the dire avengers and the flacon shooting at the tactical marines to kill 4 out of 5 guys. The path-finders miss their shots...

Blood angels turn 3

The big man himself appears as predicted, deep striking right next to the dire avengers and fire prism. Seeing their brothers cut down, the remaining assault marines move forward, getting ever closer to the dark eldar warriors. The land raider moves forward towards the eldar tanks.

Shooting a lascannon at the falcon, the land raider makes the tank explode, killing 3 of the dire avengers in the process. With power of the machine spirit the other lascannon is fired at the prism but I jink it again. Unleashing the torrent of fire from their storm bolters, the terminators kill 3 of the dire avengers through sheer weight of numbers. The lone tactical marine shoots at the path-finders killing 1, bloody sniper shot or what? Firing the frag missiles, the devastators shoot at the dark eldar warriors, hitting 15 times, but thanks to the cover save, only 1 dies.

Combat is finally initiated, as the assault marines charge the warriors, no over watch this time, and they make it. I fail to kill any marines while they kill 6 warriors. I lose the combat, escape, and run off the table with a 12. Not great.

Eldar turn 3

Again, no war walkers for me. The prism moves to get away from the terminators as do the dire avengers and fire dragons, but still say in range to shoot.

The fire dragons, dire avengers and prism all fire at the terminators. They manage to kill 3 terminators and do a single wound to Lysander himself. Showing the tactical marine what a true sniper shot is, the path-finders get a shot through the last tactical marine’s eye socket, killing him.

Wow, these are some quick turns now.

Blood angels turn 4

The assault marines go towards the land raider, aiming to get in next turn. Lysander separates from the terminators and goes after the fire prism.

The big man is disappointed as the land raider blows up the prism before he can get to it. a single dire avengers is killed by the storm bolter fier from the terminators and they then brake for it.

Combat and Lysander charge the fire dragons, taking a wound from over watch amazingly. He murders them though. The terminators charge the dire avengers but they fail to regroup so are destroyed.

Eldar turn 4

The war walkers come in automatically, but on the wrong flank, they appear behind the devastators. Shooting they kill 2 of the marines while the path-finders fail to wound Lysander.

Blood angels turn 5

Turn 5 and the day turns to night, NIGHT FIGHT!!!

The land raider turns around, and the terminators run towards the path-finders. Shooting has the devs and the land raider destroying all of the war walkers, while the shooting from the terminators at the snipers does nothing.

 Eldar turn 5

As I'm screwed either way I make a brake for the objective in the centre, I jump out of my cover and run into the middle of all firing lines with the path-finders attempting to be able to make it if the game continues.

We roll and the game carries on.

Blood angels turn 6

My ninja path-finders take all the shots fired at them bar the very last two shots from the imperial armour, it was soul destroying to see. They almost made a brake for the objective. So I am tabled.

The points no longer matter as I'm not on the table any more: Space marine Victory.

Post-Game

Well that went differently from the last time I used the list. The phoenix lord did very little and the tanks did some damage before getting destroyed. Having the farseer with the dark eldar warriors was interesting and I probably will try it again. So what have I learnt?

·         Karandras: I don’t think I will be keeping him, not having an invulnerable save hurts him so much, and unless I give him a squad of scorpion to shield him (which will be stupidly expensive at this points level) he’s going to die like this too often. He was fun to use but 2 plasma guns and he’s dead. Not worth the risk.

·         Path-finders: They did nothing useful for me so I'm going to drop them down to rangers and see if they are worth their points. Not sure they will be though.

·         Warriors: Adding the farseer helped free up the avengers for objective grabbing (theoretically) so this will be done more often in future.

·         Fire Prism: He misses loads but he blew up a unit of terminators last game, so he’s still in for now I think.

·         Deployment: I screwed that one up, keep war walkers on the table all the time, that's what I have learnt. And maybe reserve the ravager or prism if needs must.

And there we have it, I get another ass kicking. So let’s see what list I can come up with next time, maybe I will just steal that list I was given in the comments section last game. We will see...