Eldar vs Chaos 2000: Unrestricted Chaos

Back to the Battle Reports and this time I have a 2000 point game with my Eldar versus as combined Chaos force of Chaos space marines, Daemons and a formation. In this game we play purge the alien with hammer of wrath deployment. I take a rather different list, based around making the enemy fail moral, which I wrote before knowing I was playing Chaos, as most of his units ignore that nonesence.

The Armies

Eldar – Combined arms detachment

Spiritseer – 70 (warlord: night attacker)

Conceal, protect, horrify

10 Dire Avengers – 130

Wave Serpent – 145

Holo field, twin-linked scatter laser, shuriken cannon

10 guardians – 120

Missile launcher

Wave Serpent – 145

Holo field, twin-linked scatter laser, shuriken cannon

6 Fire Dragons – 132

Wave serpent – 145

Holo field, twin-linked scatter laser, shuriken cannon

Hemlock wraithfighter – 185 (proxied by crimson hunter)

Hemlock wraithfighter – 185 (proxied by razorwing jetfighter)

Wraithknight – 240

Heavy D cannon

War walker – 70

2x bright lance

Lynx – 430

Sonic lance, scatter laser

Total: 1997

This list is rather odd, but it has a plan behind it. By using the hemlocks and as many weapons that cause as much pinning and moral tests, hopefully I can pin him in place or make him run off the table. It could be potentially good, as long as he can fail moral tests.

Chaos Space Marines

Chaos Lord (warlord: re-roll chaos boon table) w/ spawn

Axe of blind fury, juggernaut, mark of khorne, 4+ invulnerable

10 Khorne berzerkers

Rhino

Havoc launcher

10 Chaos space Marines

Power first, 2x plasma gun

Heldrake

Bale flamer

2 chaos spawn

3 Bikes

Mark of khrone, melta gun

Maulerfield

lasher tendrils

Maulerfiend

lasher tendrils

Forgefiend

2x hades autocannon, ectoplasma cannon

Chaos Daemons – allied detachment

Herald of Khorne w/ blood letters

Herald of Khorne w/ blood crushers

juggernaught

10 Blood letters

banner of blood

4 Blood Crushers

Helcult - Formation

Helbrute

twin-linked lascannon

20 cultists

Autoguns

20 cultists

autoguns

The Mission

We rolled for mission and got Purge the Alien, and for deployment type Hammer and Anvil. So a very simple game. Rolling for deployment zone the elder win and select the deployment zone with the skyshield landing pad in.

Rolling for deploying, first the chaos win and select to deploy first. On the far right, the bikes deploy, next to a maulerfiend. The two cultists units and helbrute flood that area as well making the right flank hard to deal with. Behind the cultists the chaos lord joins the unit of spawn ready to counter attack any one foolish enough to go near. In the middle the other maulerfiend and the berzerkers rhino are placed as a hard hitting assault force up the centre. To their left the forgefiend and blood crushers are deployed, backed up by the chaos marines on foot. In reserve the heldrake and unit of blood letters (joined by the herald) start ready to come in later.

The elder counter deployment has the wraithknight anchor the left flank ready to wreck it. On top of the landing pad the war walker deploys, and the lynx hides behind the pad as it has enough movment to get into a good position turn 1. The 3 wave serpents deploy together on the right to stay away from the forgefiend and hopefully thin the cultists. The two fliers start in reserve.

Night fight: turn 1

Steal the Initiative: Didn’t try

The Battle

Chaos turn 1

The whole force moves forwards in traditional khornate fashion. Ignoring terrain and being ridiculously fast the maulerfiends get to close for comfort.

With horrific luck he seems to just roll 6’s for run rolls as both units of cultists, and a maulerfiend move forwards 6. Most of the force runs less than 6 though. The bikes take a long range shot on a wave serpent with their melta gun, and manages to get a glancing hit on the front one. On the other side the unlikely happens, the forgefiend shoots at the wraithknight, and gets 3 wounds past its armour save! And to finish the turn the rhino uses its smoke launchers.

Chaos: 0 – Eldar: 0

Eldar turn 1

With a maulerfiend so close to my lines, the fire dragons jump out of their wave serpent and head towards it, hoping to destroy it before it can do much damage. The other wraithknight goes towards the other mauler fiend hoping to destroy it. The big boy, the lynx moves ontop of the landing pad with a dominating view of the field.

Doing what they do best, the fire dragons fire at the daemon engine and explode the abomination and a single cultists dies in the fire. Bright lance fire from the war walker targets the other mauler fiend but the daemonic resilience ignores any potential damage. The wraithknight adds in its fire which just misses. The lynx fires next, its scatter laser into the maulerfiend which does nothing, but it did hit so the sonic lance becomes twin-linked. It fires the lance and it covered the mauler fiend as well as the blood crushers. The crushers take 2 wounds and the mauler fiend gets immobilised. Wave serpent fire targets both the cultists and the bikers, killing 2 bikes and 8 cultists.

Chaos: 0 – Eldar: 2

Chaos turn 2

Swooping in from reserve the hell drake heads straight for the fire dragons, obviously too dangerous to stay alive. Summoned from the warp the blood letters come into reality behind the skyshield, and scatter back but just stay on the table. The lone biker moves towards the fire dragons. With the lynx being so dangerous the blood crushers move straight for it, hoping to assault it this turn. The helbrute gets fire frenzy. Again the cultist push forwards, as does the rhino and drops off the berzerkers.

Firing their plasma guns into the wraithknight, the chaos marines manage to take a single wound off the monster. In a frenzy, the helbrute shoots at the empty wave serpent and it jinks, preventing any damage. Spreading out, the blood letters run so they can't be as easily shot at. Again firing everything at the wraithknight the forgefiend again manages a single wound on the construct, leaving it on 1 wound. The other daemon engine, the heldrake flames the fire dragons and kills all but 1, who is then gunned down by the autocannon fire of the cultists. A lucky shot from the rhino glances the war walker.

Assault phase and the bike charges into a wave serpent but misses with its single grenade attack. Its a long charge but possible, the blood crushers attempt to take out the lynx but needing 11, they fail, even with fleet.

Chaos: 1 - Eldar: 2

Eldar turn 2

Both of the hemlocks come in from reserve and go towards the berzerkers. With the maulerfiend immobilised its out of the game, so the wraithknight goes after the forgefiend. The wave serpents move back and drop off the dire avengers and guardians towards the blood letters.

Psychic phase and the spiritseer casts protect on the dire avengers, not that it will help in combat against the blood letters. The seer then casts horrify on the blood letters, hopefully it will reduce the chance of them wanting to charge the dire avengers.

Unleashing the bladestorm the guardians shoot at the blood letters, and manage to kill off 3 of them. Adding in their shots, the dire avengers bring down 4 more. Shooting from the wraithknight targets the forgefiend and only 1 shot hits, and gets saved by the daemon save. The war walker targets the single bike who jinks, and avoids the shot. As the heldrake could be a bit of a problem later on, the three wave serpents target it, and not a single shot hits, out of a good 30 dice, not a single 6 appears... one of those days. To make up for all of this though the lynx targets the berzerkers with its scatter laser, killing 1 (but more importantly, twin-linking the sonic lance). It then fires its sonic lance and covers the lone biker, the berzerkers, a few cultists and the rhino. The biker and ALL of the berzerkers die, 2 cultists die to the sonic weapon and the combi-bolter gets blown off the rhino.

Assault phase and the wraithknight charges into the forgefiend, not a single over watch shot hits, and the knight rips the abomination to its base parts, banishing the daemon back to the warp.

Chaos: 1 – Eldar: 5

Chaos turn 3

I'm not 100% sure why but my opponent flies the heldrake off the table, ready for another swoop next turn. While doing so it vector strikes a hemlock and stuns it. The chaos lord starts to act like one and leads from the front! Seeing its devastating salvo, the blood letters and crushers go straight for it. With limited heavy weapon left, the helbrute and marines with plasma guns converge on the wraithknight.

Super hot plasma arcs towards the wraithknight, but its wraith bone shell is to strong, and the plasma fails to wound. However the helbrute fires and takes off the last wound from the monster, removing it from the table. The rhino may have lost its storm bolter but its havoc launcher is still functional, and targets the guardians on foot, killing 5!

Blood for the blood god! Or rather wraithbone? Either way both the blood letters and crushers charge into the lynx. All of the attacks from the herald of khorne do nothing, the blood crusher champion does nothing, the blood crushers them selves take off just 2 hull points, but then by some miracle the two remaining blood letters take off the remaining 4! the engine of the super heavy goes super nova and explodes, killing 1 blood crusher, the 2 blood letters, a single dire avenger and the war walker.

Chaos: 4 - Eldar: 6

Eldar turn 3

With little room on the table, one of the hemlocks moved off the table and the other pushes towards the helbrute. Trying to avoid getting shot at again, the guardians and dire avengers move back towards the table edge while the wave serpents also fall back away from the blood crushers.

Psychic phase and the spiritseer attempts to cast protect on the dire avengers again, hopefully to keep them alive, but the will of khorne denies the psykers attempts at using magic, for he hates such trickery.

Using their extra range, the dire avengers target the lone herald and banish him back to the warp where he belongs. The wave serpents again pool their shots together and target the blood crushers. After all is said and done, only 4 wounds are inflicted as the daemon save prevents a lot of damage. Targeting the helbrute, the hemlock fails to do any damage.

Chaos: 4 – Eldar: 7

Chaos turn 4

Returning to the battlefield, the heldrake strikes at the hemlock, vector striking it and shakes it. The khorne lord gets ever closer to the wave serpents. With the unit mangled, the herald leaves the blood crushers and goes after its own target while they push forwards. The horde of cultist swarm forwards.

Firing bolter and plasma, the chaos space marines target the hemlock trying to bring it down, but all the shots miss. The helbrute tries as well, again but misses.

The assault phase, just what khorne likes, and the chaos lord charge into a wave serpent taking off 2 hull points, some how the spawn fail to finish it off. Blood crushers show their skill, they charge into a wave serpent and wreck it with ease. The herald on juggernaut charge into the dire avengers and just butchers the unit, he kills 3 dire avengers and kills the spiritseer. The few left run for it but get cut down as they turn to run.

Chaos: 8 - Eldar: - 7

Eldar turn 4

The second Hemlock comes back onto the filed and moves towards the chaos lord, backed up by the other flier. The pilot amazed he's still alive, backs up the wave serpent getting away from the chaos lord and spawn. Backed in a corner, the guardians come out a little to be able to target the blood crushers.

Avenging the wrecked wave serpent, the guardians target the blood crushers with shuriken fire, and fortunately their luck has run out and all die to the wall of fire. Firing everything it had, the wave serpent closest to the herald shoots everything at it, and brings it down, earning another kill point. The last remaining serpent shoots at the lord and chaos spawn, and kills off the spawn, leaving the lord on his own. This lets the hemlocks attempt to instant kill him, but all the shots either fail to wound, or just bounce off his invulnerable save.

Chaos: 8 – Eldar: 10

Chaos turn 5

Again the heldrake vector strikes a hemlock but fails to do any damage. Frenzied by all the blood shed around him the lord goes straight for the guardians while the cultists chase after him. On the other side of the table the space marines move to attempt to get a few shots on the fliers.

Bolter rounds and plasma fire into the sky, aiming at the hemlock with full hull points, but only a few bolter rounds hit and fail to do any damage to the flier. The helbrute targets the closest wave serpent, who declarers to jink, but the shot misses anyway. Long range autogun fire brings down 3 guardians. Again the rhinos havoc launcher clips them and kill 2 more. They take a moral test but thankfully hold their ground.

Assault phase and the lord charges the jinked wave serpent, rolling a 6 for his extra attacks, his rage consumes all and he wrecks the tank with ease.

Chaos: 9 – Eldar: 10

Eldar turn 5

At this point I have to kill the chaos lord or I have lost. The guardians get as many models just in range of him and the last remaining wave serpent moves back 12.

firing all 3 guns first, the wave serpent manages to reduce the chaos lord down to a single wound! The guardians then fire and get 2 blade storm wounds, of which a single one passes though his invulnerable save killing the warlord!

We roll to see if the game carries on, it doesn't.

Eldar: 12 (slay the warlord, first blood, 10 units destroyed) – Chaos: 9 (slay the warlord, 8 units destroyed).

Eldar Victory

Post-Battle

That game didn't really test out the list as much as I wanted it to, as most of his units where immune to moral tests via different means. It meant that I paid a lot of points for the hemlocks which didn't really do anything all game, yay. Still I had a good run with the lynx, even though it got destroyed quite early on. So what did I learn?

• Lynx with Sonic lance: This unit was really good, and I wish that you could still get them from forgeworld as I would happily purchase one. Unfortunately that's not the case so I will have to look for an alternative means. In the game it murders infantry with ease, and can be useful vs tanks but its not a dedicated anti-tank unit. Compared to the pulsar version, this one is much more role specific, but if you buy it you can easily build the rest of your force up around it, as your anti-infantry has been sorted.
• Wave Serpents: As normal they did quiet a bit of damage, but in this game they seemed a little obsolete as they are mainly anti-infantry which is the same role as the lynx. If I used the lynx again, I would probably use a different set up for the wave serpents if I used them as all.
• Hemlocks: while this game wasn't great for them, and you mainly pay for their powers and ability's, with out them they did very little this game. The potential is minimal though so I would avoid them in future, even if I wanted to use them in a themed list like this. Maybe the new dark eldar codex could open up better options then these.

Over all this game was rather fun and the chaos almost had me. Hope you enjoyed.