The Forgotten Battle... Eldar Vs Deathwing 1750

Unfortunately this week I don’t have a proper battle report as I lost my notes from the game and it was about 2 weeks ago so I can’t really remember what happened all too well. Regardless I have some pictures and a rough idea of what happened. It’s Eldar vs Deathwing, 1750 points, the game was purge the alien, with vanguard strike deployment.

The Armies

I tried using a fun list with a mix of units I can’t remember exactly what I had but something like…

Farseer

Farseer

10 guardians

Lance

10 guardians

Lance

10 storm guardians

Wave serpent

scatter laser

8 Dire avengers

Wave serpent

scatter laser

6 warp spiders

6 swooping hawks

Crimson hunter

5 dark reapers

3 war walkers

Scatter lasers

Fire prism

If I remember correctly I didn’t have holo fields and I didn’t buy any upgrades for the dark reapers or storm guardians to save points. I placed a farseer with a unit of guardians and another with dark reapers.

My opponent brought

Belial

Deathwing command squad

Apothecary, some thunder hammers thrown in

10 Deathwing terminators

Missile launcher, plasma cannon

6 Deathwing terminators

Assault cannon, some thunder hammers thrown in

5 Deathwing knights

Land raider Redeemer

A very small but compact army that I had to face and I didn’t bring much ap 2.

The Mission

We rolled up Purge the alien which was a major disadvantage for me as I only had 6 units to kill and he had 13. So I am probably going to have to table him in order to win. The deployment was vanguard strike and he won the roll for first turn.

The marines set up with the large unit of terminators on the right hand side, Belial with command squad in the land raider, the small terminator squad on the left and the knights in reserve (coming in turn 2).

To counter this I set up both my guardian squads on the right with the wave serpents and fire prism behind them. The war walkers and dark reapers went towards the left and both the warp spiders and hawks went into reserve.

Night fight: Turn 1

Steal the initiative: No

The Battle

Deathwing turn 1

The land raider pushes straight for my line while both foot units’ move forwards aiming to take a few chunks out of my force before I can shoot.

Shooting is rather uneventful apart from the large terminator unit shooting at my warlord and his guardian’s bodyguard. The combination of 8 storm bolters, 2 frag missiles and plasma cannon kills 8 guardians, the weapons platform and the farseer… even with night fight in affect. So straight away from just killing the farseer he jumps 3 points into the lead with First blood, Slay the Warlord and a Kill point. Damn. The guardians run.

Eldar turn 1

I cast what powers I can but it doesn’t really help. The dark reapers move a little and the guardians run further. The none running guardians move back a little as do the tanks.

A sheer torrent of fire power Is poured into the small terminator unit from the war walkers and both of the wave serpents but only 3 terminators fall! The lance and fire prism fail to do anything to the land raider.

Deathwing turn 2

Deathwing knights appear in front of the dark reapers and lock on, not much I can do about that. The land raider moves 6 inches forwards and drops off Belial and friends right in front of my remaining guardians. Both terminator squad move a little bit.

Again shooting from the terminators proves more dangerous that I expect as both units target the war walkers and manage to either wreck or explode all 3 in a single turn. Their force field proves useless under the weight of shots. The land raider shoots both its assault cannon and multi-melta at the dire avenger’s wave serpent and wrecks it.

Assault phase and Belial and command squad charge into the guardians and kill 6 guardians and the rest run for the hills.

Eldar turn 2

I move the dark reapers away from the knights, the wave serpent moves to the left while the fire prism moves far right. The warp spiders deep strike next to the small terminator unit and lock on.

Avenging the war walker crew the warp spiders manage to kill the remaining 3 terminators in the small unit gaining me my first kill point! The rest of my army doesn’t do anything apart from kill 1 of Belials command squad… great.

Deathwing turn 3

Unsparingly the knights go after the dark reapers and Belial goes for the Dire avengers. The large unit of terminators move towards the centre of the table.

Shooting again from the terminators wipes out yet another squad this times the warp spiders, they are really damaging me.

Assault and the knight’s charge into the dark reapers, killing them all bar the farseer who holds. Belial and friends charge the avengers and kill them all.

Eldar turn 3

My crimson hunter comes in from reserve towards the land raider and the swooping hawks deep strike behind his terminators on the left. I move the fire prism up the table as does the wave serpent, if I am going to table him I need them operational next turn and not with a big terminator shaped hole in their sides.

Surprisingly the hawks manage to kill a couple of terminators but the crimson hunter manages to reduce the land raider down to 1 hull point and its stunned (it would have exploded but he had the deathwing rule making me re-roll my explode result).

Unfortunately the farseer dies in combat the turn to the knights.

Deathwing turn 4

Belial and friends move towards my hawks and the remaining wave serpent with storm guardians in.

Shooting at the hunter fails to do anything thanks to needing 6’s to hit but the hawks take 4 casualties but hold their ground.

Eldar turn 4

The hunter goes after the land raider again, as the fire prism and wave serpent turn their sights onto the terminators. The storm guardians jump out towards the terminators hoping to get a few pistol shots on them.

In a spectacular fashion the crimson hunter misses all of its shots on the land raider… but thankfully the combined shots from the rest of my army manage to kill some terminators, reducing them down to 4 models.

Deathwing turn 5

The land raider reawakens and moves towards the storm guardians. The terminators go after the storm guardians and both other squads go into the middle.

The land raider kills a single hawk.

The 4 terminators charge into the storm guardians and kill a few of them and they run.

Eldar turn 5

The storm guardians regroup! The hunter has no choice but to move off the table as he can’t see anything this turn. The fire prism and wave serpent move to get a better view of the terminators.

I kill the 4 remaining terminators with the tanks but that’s all. The hawk runs for line breaker.

We roll to see if the game carries on… it doesn’t.

Deathwing: 11 (first blood, slay the warlord, 9 kill points) - Eldar: 3 (line breaker, 2 kill points)

Deathwing Victory!

Post-Battle

I know it's not the most detailed report i have ever done but i hope you get the idea that i got massacred. I tried playing around with a list and it back fired amazingly. It was useful though as a few things did get high lighted which might help me in future.

• Don't under estimate weight of fire: The sheer volume of shots that came from the terminators was devastating, especially losing my warlord turn 1! either stay the hell away from them or focus on them and drag their numbers down before engaging them. 
• Running away: When the terminators got to close and i moved the fire prism and wave serpent away i thought it would at best buy me a little time but it proved to be very useful. I will have to try and run away more often as if nothign else... its an eldar tactic.
• Duel seers: i would want to try using 2 farseers again but this game they really let me down. granted they both rolled bad powers (i think) and that might have been why. but that can happen.

Sorry i don't have more for you this week. Hope you enjoyed any way, and please forgive any inconsistencies, it is from memory.