Eldar vs Ultramarines 1850: Rematch!

In a rematch of last week’s massacre the Eldar come back for another go at the Ultramarines. The army lists are different this game and might be able to get a different results (I hope!). The game is Emperors will with dawn of war deployment in this 1850 points game.

The Armies

Eldar 1846

I attempt to try out my 1850 pure Eldar tournament list, but i make 1 slight change, i give one of the wave serpents a bright lance instead of scatter laser for a little extra anti-tank.

Farseer – 115 (warlord: -1 enemy reserves) w/dark reapers

Spirit stone of Anath’lan [Guide, prescience, foreboding]

Spiritseer – 70

[conceal, mental fortitude]

5 Wraithguard – 165

Wave serpent – 135

Twin-linked scatter laser, holo field

10 guardians – 110

Bright lance

Wave serpent – 135

Twin-linked scatter laser, holo field

10 Guardians – 105

Shuriken cannon

Wave serpent – 135

Twin-linked bright lance, holo field

5 rangers - 60

6 Swooping hawks – 96

7 Warp spiders – 133

Crimson Hunter – 160

2 War walkers – 140

Scatter laser/Bright lance

5 Dark reapers – 207

Exarch, fast shot, night vision, 4 x starshot

Defence line – 85

Lascannon

Space Marines 1850

Captain Sicarius w/ tactical squad

10 tactical marines

Lascannon, plasma gun

10 tactical marines

Lascannon, plasma gun

10 Sternguard (in storm raven)

2x combi-melta, combi-flamer

Predator

Imperial Knight

Void Shield Generator

2x extra shield

Stormwing data slate

StormRaven

Assault cannon, multimelta

Storm Talon

assault cannon, missiles

Storm Talon

Assault cannon, missiles

The Mission

Rolling for mission we get the Emperors will (or more commonly called the draw game). We then got dawn of war for deployment, so a very basic game with not many points available. Before we roll for deployment we put down out fortifications, I place my defence line on the edge of my deployment zone in the centre of the table and he places the void shield generator towards the left.

For deployment we rolled off and the Eldar won the roll for deployment so I selected to go first and deploy first. I place the dark reapers and guardians with lance go behind the defence line with the exarch manning the lascannon. On the right I place the warp spiders and on the far left the swooping hawks. The Wraithguard wave serpent (purple) and the empty wave serpent go on the left while the guardians wave serpent was deployed on the right. The crimson hunter stays in reserve.  

To counter this, his entire force starts within the protective bubble of the void shield, both tactical squads, the knight and the predator. All the flies are in reserve.

I then infiltrate my rangers onto the battlements of the bastion, nice and safe with good line of sight.

Night Fight: Turn 1

Steal the initiative: Yes

The Battle

Space marines turn 1

Most of the force stays inside the protective bubble of the void shield, but the knight moves out to the edge of the protection, but stays just inside.

Firing its melta cannon at the wraithguards wave serpent though the night was obviously too much of a task as it scatters and hits the empty wave serpent and a single guardian. Its serpent shield reduces the hit to a glancing hit, leaving it on 2 hull points and the guardian dies in fiery death. Lobbing its shots at the guardians, the thunderfire cannon scatters off and lands in the middle of nowhere, attempting to do some damage before their return fire the tactical marines target their lascannons at wave serpents but fail to do any damage. A long shot from the predator hits a dark reaper and blows a hole straight though his chest, reducing the squad by 1.

Eldar turn 1

Casting his powers, the farseer guides the dark reapers, gives the guardians both prescience and foreboding. The spiritseer casts mental fortitude on the guardians then fails to conceal his own unit. Jumping to the sky the swooping hawks leave the battle field. All of the wave serpents move forwards and the wraithguard get dropped off within 12 inches of the knight. The warp spiders jump forwards behind the empty bastion.

Scatter laser shots and bright lance shots come from the war walkers and target the knight knowing they will just hit the void shield. They get lucky and manage to blow though two of the void shields in a single turn. The empty wave serpent shoots both its scatter laser and serpent shield at the knight and takes down the last void shield with its shots, leaving the knight unprotected. With their pray open, the wraithguard shoot at the knight, but I miss with 3 of the 5 shots, but the other 2 manage to get though and cause 2 hull points worth of damage. A perfectly timed shot from the guardian’s bright lance blows another chunk of imperial knight into the air, reducing it to 3 hull points. Unfortunately the lance shot from the wave serpent just bounces off the ion shield of the knight (you can’t win them all) and the dark reapers follow suit, getting 3 penetrating hits but 2 of them are saved and the one that gets past only does 1 hull points worth of damage, 2 left. Sniping from their vantage point the rangers kill a single tactical marine on the right squad, and the scatter laser from the last wave serpent manages to do the same.

Space marines turn 2

None of the void shields manage to come back online (thank god) but the stormwing comes in on the right hand side. For some reason my opponent is so scared of the Icarus lascannon manned by the exarch he manages to hide all the fliers behind the bastion out of sight of the gun. Determined to do some damage before its demise the knight goes after the guardians.

Combining fire onto the warp spiders both storm talons and the storm raven pound the aspect warriors with bullets. But once the storm of fire had stopped a single warp spider stood tall! The squad took over 20 wounds, I get lucky there. Using power of the machine spirit the raven did get a missile off onto the war walkers but it hit a force field. Shooting its heavy stubber the knight hits the guardians but fails to kill one, it then fires its melta cannon at the wraithguard and kills them all in a perfect shot. Another barrage hits the eldar defence line, this time hitting the dark reapers, he gets 10 hits and the exarch is the first to be hit, he passes 5 look out sir rolls and the brave warriors saving him pass their armour save. He takes the next 5 himself, rolling nothing but 6’s on the first 4, then a 1 for the last wound. Still only a single model dies to 10 wounds. A lascannon from the tactical marines blows off the shuriken catapults off the damaged wave serpent.

Assault phase and the knight charges into the guardians and just murders every one including the farseer. I just couldn’t prevent the 3 stomps from destroying everyone, strength 6 ap 4 really upsets eldar.

Eldar turn 2

Screaming in from reserve the crimson hunter goes straight for the stormraven and gets so close to its face it won’t be able to target it next turn. The hawks return to the battle field and drop grenades into the tactical squad in the centre, but do nothing, they land next to the bastion. The remaining dark reapers move to reclaim the lascannon, hoping it will be enough to stop the knight.

Shooting point blank into the knight the dark reapers manage to get a single penetrating hit past the ion shield but don’t explode it, leaving it on 1 hull point. In a desperate attempt to kill it, the war walkers fire their lances and get 2 glancing hits, 1 gets saved, the other makes it though detonating the knight! The blast template scatters a little but still manages to kill 2 dark reapers in the process. But it’s destroyed at least. On the right side of the battlefield the crimson hunter shoots at the stormraven, only 2 shots it and fail to do anything, but it gets to re-rolled failed results vs flyers and I manage to get 1 penetrating it, he fails to evade and I roll on the damage chart, 6. It gets blown out the sky. As it had the sternguard inside we roll to wound them and 9 out of the 10 die, leaving a lone survivor with combi-flamer left.  A light show from the swooping hawks is directed towards the tactical squad again and 2 marines die to the pretty lasers (I didn’t expect them to do anything really). Using both its lance and serpent shield, the full wave serpent targets the predator and strips 2 hull points off it and shakes it. The other 2 serpents fire everything as well at the two different tactical squads killing 2 marines from each squad, killing bot the sergeant and lascannon on the right hand squad.   

Space marines turn 3

Again the void shields fail to come back online, but it’s potentially too late now. Both of the storm talons fly over the crimson hunter, the rest of the force holds.

The lone sternguard uses his flamer on the rangers and they all die, that was horrible. My opponent shows me that the storm talons assault cannon can face behind it… damn, so they both target the crimson hunter. They both get some hits in but only get a single penetrating hit each, I fail to evade any and they both strip a weapon off the flyer, a bright lance and the pulse laser. In a rather unusual turn of events the thunderfire cannon targets the war walkers and manages to wreck 1 and explode the other, I really didn’t see that coming. The last lascannon shoots at a wave serpent but it just jinks out the way of the shot.

Eldar turn 3

With nothing to really do the crimson hunter flys off the table. The full wave serpent drops off the guardians next to the woods held by the marines and their objective, and the hawks move to lend their fire power. The other two wave serpents move up the right hand side of the table.

The lascannon shot from the dark reapers fails to hit a storm talon, they will probably die next turn for that. A wall of shurikens from the guardians manages to deal some real damage to the tactical squad on the objective, they kill of the marines and even inflict a wound on Sicarius himself. The hawks attempt to finish him off but do nothing. Trying to finish off the pred, the guardians wave serpent shoots at it again, but fails to do anything. Both of the other wave serpents target the remaining tactical marines but only kill 2 between them. On the right the warp spider kills the lone sternguard.

Space marines turn 4

Both of the talons move towards the dark reapers while Sicarius moves to charge the guardians who killed his bodyguard.

Again the thunderfire cannon proves very powerful, it targets the guardians but scatters into the perfect position to hit the rear of the wave serpent and still hit the guardians. It manages to explode the serpent and kill 7 guardians and the weapons platform as well. The first storm talon targets the dark reapers and gets enough hits to force a save on every one, and I fail them all, the spiritseer even getting instant killed by a missile. With that threat gone, the other talon targets the purple wave serpent and immobilises it.

Sicarius charges into the guardians, they fail to do any damage with over watch and get cut down, they never stood a chance.

Eldar turn 4

In a very bold and rather desperate move, the crimson hunter comes back onto the battle field and to regain its honour, goes on an assassination run, trying to kill Sicarius. Again another risky move, the lone warp spider attempts to jump towards the talons, and gets a 14 inch jump, no double, and gets within range of 1.

One shot, that’s all the crimson hunter has and it hits its mark, and wounds Sicarius. He’s forced to take his invulnerable save and fails, gaining slay the warlord!!! It’s unlikely to happen but the lone spider shoots at a storm talon, and a single shot hits, it penetrates and my opponent decides not to attempt to evade. The shot blows straight though the cockpit window and kills the pilot, it crashes to the ground and explodes. Both of the wave serpents again shoot at the tactical marines and this time kill a grand total of 3 marines. Knowing I have left it too late, the hawks shoot at the thunderfire cannon but fail to wound it.

The hawks then try for the long charge on the cannon but fail to make it and one gets shot for their trouble.

Space marines turn 5

The lone talon moves up 18 inches and the tactical marines move behind the void shield generator trying to hide from the wave serpents.

In the rear of the mobile wave serpent the talon tries to take it out, but the tank just jinks out the way. Unfortunately the thunderfire cannon somehow wrecks it though, with it getting 3 glances! Nothing you can do about that. The tactical marines shoot a few shots and kill a single swooping hawk.

Eldar turn 5

Turning to face the talon, the crimson hunter attempts to knock another flyer out of the sky.

Shooting its serpent shield the wave serpent takes out the predator and the crimson hunter kills the storm talon with another lucky shot.

We roll to see if the game carries on but it ends. Thank god otherwise I was in trouble.

Eldar: 2 (line breaker, slay the warlord) – Marines: 2 (first blood, slay the warlord)

DRAW

Post-Battle

That game really did test my list quite considerably, with its being so flyer heavy but still being a hard force to shift before they turn up. And lucky me having one of the 1000 void shields to play against. I know I made a few mistakes this game, but if you guys saw any I didn’t I would love for you to comment.

·        Thunderfire Cannon: These guys can wreck face if allowed to. I need to deal with these things as soon as possible, otherwise they will just kill any and all infantry on the table.

·        Getting out of transports: I think I got the guardians out a turn to early, if they came out turn 4 or 5 they would have most likely have done more damage and possibly lived. It’s a hard call though as they did manage to kill a lot of marines when they did appear. The wraithguard got out at the right time, just some unlucky rolls prevented them from doing much damage.

·        Defence line: I do like having one but I feel it’s a waste only having 2 units benefitting from it. A bastion might be a better investment; I will test that out in the future.

Sorry this week has been so messed up with posts, but it’s been a bad week for me so but I will attempt to get back on track for next week. Something new will be coming in the next week or so, and more updates for the painting challenge, so please come back soon.

Hope you enjoyed.