Friday 4 April 2014

Eldar vs Ultramarines with Knight 2000: Macragge Air Force


The ground trembles with the footsteps of a knight titan, aiding the forces of Ultramarines. This Battle report is between my Eldar and the Ultramarines air force aided by a knight. The game is 2000 points, with the Relic mission and Dawn of war deployment. 

The Armies

I once again use my 2k footdar list

 Jain Zar – 200 (Warlord: Falcons swiftness) w/ Guardians

Farseer – 100 w/ guardians
[Prescience, guide, Doom]

20 Guardians – 220
2x starcannon

5 rangers - 60

10 Dire Avengers - 130
10 Dire Avengers - 130
5 Dire Avengers – 65
5 Dire Avengers - 65

10 Banshees – 150

8 Warp spiders – 152

Crimson Hunter – 180
Exarch

6 Dark reapers – 228
Starshot

Wraithlord – 160
2x bright lance

Wraithlord – 160
2x bright lance

Ultramarines with Knight ally

Captain Sicarius w/ plasma tacticals

Tactical squad
10 man, plasma cannon

Tactical squad
10 man, lascannon

Tactical squad
10 man, lascannon

5 Scouts
Sniper rifles, heavy bolter

10 Sternguard (inside the storm raven)
Combi-flamer, 2 x combi-melta

Predator
Autocannon, heavy bolters

Thunderfire Cannon

DataSlate: Storm wing

Storm raven
Assault cannon, multi melta, hurricane bolters

Storm Talon
Assault cannon, stormhammer missiles

Storm Talon
Assault cannon, stormhammer missiles

Knight Errant

This is a rather scary list and with the combination of the knight, and the dataslate which gives teh storm raven strafing run. The sheer amount of anti-infantry this army has will likely destroy me, unless I can get forward quickly and get into combat. Wish me luck.

The Mission

A nice straight forward mission, the Relic, one objective, no hassle. Deployment for this game is dawn of war as we couldn’t be bothered to roll for it. The roll off for first turn and I win electing to go first, hoping that I can get into combat with him turn 2 to avoid the fire power his air force will have.

I deploy in a line as I really don’t have the room to do much else. On the far left I deploy the banshees, I then place a unit of 10 dire avengers next to the woods on the left but not inside so they don’t get slowed down. In the middle of my line is a large hill so I place the dark reapers at the back, hiding behind some trees. To their left is a wraithlord, and in front of them on the hill are the guardians and the two hq units. To the right of this hill the other wraithlord is deployed along with another 10 man dire avenger unit. On the far right the warp spiders deploy across the river. I infiltrate my rangers.

His counter deployment is a refused flank. In the middle he deploys his tactical squad with plasma cannon inside some woods. Behind the woods go the thunderfire cannon. To the right of this a tactical squad gets deployed along with the predator. Far right the last tactical squad, scouts and the knight. All the flyers are in reserve.

I infiltrate my ranger’s forwards in the woods close to the objective.  


Night Fight: Turn 1
Steal the initiative: Didn’t try

The Battle

Eldar turn 1

With little to no time to kill his force I cast guide on the dark reapers and prescience on the right wraithlord. My whole force moves forwards, apart from the dark reapers and right wraithlord who move towards the knight. The spiders jump forwards 14 inches towards the marines in the middle right of the board.


The banshees attempt to run and roll a 2, so I use fleet to roll a 1, so only 4 inches for them this turn. Shooting from the right wraithlord targets the knight and both miss, even with the re-roll. I measure to see if the dark reapers are in range but unfortunately because of night fight they are just out of range of the 36, so they target the tactical marines in the middle and only manage to kill 1 thanks to the 3+ cover save. Trying to get first blood the left wraithlord shoots at the predator and gets a single penetrating hit, but he makes his 5+ cover safe from the darkness. Running forwards 4 inches the guardians target the plasma tactical and kill 2 of them with their star cannon. Both dire avenger units run forwards but the right one is able to shoot at the middle right tactical and kills 2. The warp spiders attempt to run forwards and shoot at them but only roll 1 and fail to get in range.

Assault phase and the warp spiders jump back 11 inches out of harm’s way (hopefully).


Ultramarines turn 1

Not much movement this turn, the knight stomps forwards towards my line and sicarius leaves the tactical squad.


Straight to shooting, the knight uses its cannon on the closest dire avenger squad and kills 4 of them in the blast, its stubber does nothing. Lobbing shells over the woods the thunderfire cannon targets the guardians and places the template over the farseer, the shot locks on and after all the templates come down he ends up with 16 hits. The majority of these wound and I attempt to look out sire the first few onto Jain zar as she can absorb a lot of punishment, but she manages to take 2 wounds on the first 4 wounds. I then fail a look out sir killing the farseer, the next closest model is a weapons platform and that also fails its save, then to finish it off 8 more guardians die. Brilliant. The plasma tactical shoot at the guardians killing 8 more (all look out sir rolls from jain zar), the predator gets a few shots in and kills 2 more. Finally the tactical squad in the middle shoots at the guardians as well, and getting a number of wounds and has me do the bolt wounds first, killing 2 guardians, his lascannon hit and wounded as well so that's next and I fail the lookout sir roll, killing Jain Zar. End of the turn and the two remaining guardians hold but the dire avengers run for it.


Eldar turn 2

From reserve comes the crimson hunter, and after the performance of the thunderfire cannon, goes straight for that. A single unit of dire avengers comes in and moves towards the relic. Warp jumping the warp spiders go 14 inches again and attempt to get behind the knight to do some damage. The rest of my force moves towards the relic.  Rally! The running dire avengers get back into the fight.

3 shots from the hunter exarch hit their target and 2 wound, the techpriest is the closest model so gets removed, stopping that threat. Running first to get into the back arch the spiders then shoot at the knight, they manage to get 2 glancing hits on his rear armour reducing it to 4 hull points. The right wraithlord shoots both lances at the knight and 1 penetrates but his ion shield saves the day. The dark reapers do the same but again any damage is saved by the shield. On the left the wraithlord again shoots at the predator and this time gets a single glancing hit. In the middle the dire avengers shoot at the plasma tactical and manage to bring down 3 of them, the marines fail their moral test and run away 6.

Assault phase and the warp spiders jump 11 inches towards the enemy, hoping to draw back the knight for a turn.


Ultramarines turn 2

Needing a 2+ the Stormwing comes into play. A single storm talon goes after the crimson hunter while the storm raven and other talon move into the middle of the table. Again the knight moves forwards and ends up next to the dire avengers. On the right both the scouts and tactical move to attack the warp spiders. The plasma tactical rally and move back into the woods to face the banshees.


With both assault cannon and missiles the left storm talon attacks the crimson hunter and manages to get 2 penetrating hits and 2 glances, I fail to evade any and the crimson hunter gets wrecked. With the banshees getting very close the plasma tactical shoot them, but all the shots fail to wound. The storm raven now shows how devastating strafing run can be, it targets the 10 man dire avenger squad next to the relic, and guns down 9 on its own, the hurricane bolters and assault cannons needing 2+ to hit with a re-roll, it’s scary. But that's not all; it uses power of the machine spirit to fire a missile off at a wraithlord and wounds it (the left one).  The other talon targets the undamaged wraithlord and manages to rend it dealing a wound to it. On the right the tactical marines use their pistols and kill 2 warp spiders. The knight targets the dark reapers with its cannon this turn and locks on, hitting and wounding 4 of the warriors, but they go to ground and only 2 die.

Assault phase and the knight charges into the wraithlord in the woods, the over watch does nothing and the lord misses all of its attacks. It cuts the lord to ribbons with its D weapon. In my opponents deployment zone the scouts and tactical charge the warp spiders, and despite a lucky knife to the face which kills a tactical marine the warp spiders were out matched and outnumbered, unfortunately more eldar souls are lost.


Eldar turn 3

With my force in tatters I don’t have much left I can do but try to take the relic and hide. From reserve the last unit of avengers arrives and moves towards it. The banshees go straight for hte plasma tactical and can possibly get into assault. In a desperate attempt to do some damage the wraithlord goes after the knight, the lone dire avengers and guardians move past the relic allowing the rangers to pick it up.

Shots from the dark reapers miss the knight and the wraithlord does exactly the same. The guardians and dire avengers attempt to take out some tactical marines but fail to wound.

With nothing else but to charge the banshees attempt to assault the plasma tactical, they need a 9 charging though cover and manage an 8, shame but they don’t make it. The wraithlord charges into the knight and glances with its hammer of wrath attack, reducing it to 3 hull points. Unfortunately the knight strikes first and deal 7 wounds to it, killing him with ease.


Ultramarines turn 3

Dropping into hover mode the storm raven drops off the sternguard who go after the banshees, and in support the left talon does the same. Sicarius then joins the sterngaurd as they are more fitting body guards. The knight goes stomping into the middle of my line able to charge whatever he wants. The right stormtalon flies towards the dark reapers, for some reason he wants them dead. The right/middle tactical squad moves forwards wanted to grab the objective.

Talon vs dark reapers, the assault cannon gets 2 rends on its own and the missiles deal and extra 2, the remaining dark reapers die. The knight targets the newest dire avenger squad with its cannon and melta 2 of them. The heavy stubber shoots at the other and kills 1. Using kracken bolts the sterngaurd shoot the banshees, with the 30 inch range they are all in rapid fire range, and with ap 4, the banshees never stood a chance and despite going to ground all get cut down. The hovering talon shoots the 2 remaining guardians and kills them both. Sniper fire from the scouts kills 3 dire avengers on the right and the tactical target them as well killing 2 more. The far right tactical marines shoot at them finishing them off. Storm raven again kills a squad in a turn, this time it’s the rangers dropping the relic. To finish off the shooting phase the predator targets the dire avengers on the hill and finishes them off. Leaving me with a lone dire avenger and a crippled squad.

Assault and the knight charge both squads. His D weapon only kills 1 but his stomp attacks reduce the larger dire avenger squad to 1 man. Both units brake from combat and run for it running 11 and 9 inches.


At this point its game over, I need double 1 to rally either model and even if I did, I'm getting gunned down next turn any way.

Victory to the UltraMarines.

Post-Battle

When thinking of a word to describe this game, Massacre comes to mind. But this was bound to happen sooner or later, having an army which is skewed in such as way its always going to have a hard counter which will just destroy it. This game I faced that hard counter, its a shame to end this list on a loss but that’s what happens. Over all I played 4 games with the list and it ended 2-2-0 so not terrible.

·         Guardians: I need to spread them out more when I'm not attacking to reduce template damage, its such a simple thing to do but It has to be done. School boy error really

This was my first game facing a knight and honestly it didn’t feel bad so I would happily face them again. And next time I hope I destroy it!

But with that over, its time to move onto different things. Next month I will be entering another 1850 tournament, so I will be focusing on a list for that and testing it out. So expect to see more army lists soon and I would really appreciate feedback on them when I do post them. I don’t really want to use the same list as I did last time but I’m not against it.

Hope you enjoyed the battle.

5 comments:

  1. In the grim darkness of the far future unmechanized toughness 3 infantry die like dogs.

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  2. Don't feel bad, your list was good but his was mean. Plus, it seemed like your dice did not like you one bit. How many BS4 shots did you miss in a row? With re-rolls no less! Maybe you could have taken out his knight and mauled his infantry but you were out of options once his three flyers came on.

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  3. No wave serpents against his list pretty much meant you were dead from the get go. I play Dark Eldar, and toughness 3 infantry MUST have a transport or be stuck behind cover, running out in the open is suicidal in 6th ed. That storm wing is brutal and requires a dedicated anti air presence to counter, you either needed additonal fliers, aegis line, or the eldar anti-air tank (can't remember what it is called). You can't really be faulted for not having those things though. Overall, assault units don't perform too well unless they can assualt from a transport (like mine can) or sport a 3+ or better armor save so I would dump the banshees in the future.

    Servicious, the Disgruntled Dark Eldar

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  4. Heh, wave serpents are actually GREAT as anti air

    And imo that eldar list needs work. Badly

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  5. For list advise, drop all howling banshees and there leader. There trash.
    Mantle sear and wave serpents are great replacements.
    Also....foot dar doesnt work competitivly.

    ReplyDelete