Battle Report: Eldar vs Space Marines & Tau Empire

A long time has passed since Chris and I had our last game. It was a really good game of Chaos Daemons & Dark Eldar vs Eldar & Orks that I won with an amazing game of Skarbrand wiping out all the Orks in Chris' army. He went on holidays to his homeland for a month and I bought and moved to a new place and had surgery in my mouth, getting all my wisdom teeth removed. 

During that time, Eldar, Chris' main army, came out. As he was in UK, he basically bought everything that came out, including Illic, Wraith Knight, 2 flyers... while I started my Tau Empire army with a unit of Fire Warriors. So our first game after he came, was of course Eldar vs Tau, allied with Space Marines, as I don't have many points yet. 

We rolled for deployment and Chris won, so he deployed first. We were playing with 6 secret objectives around the table, 1 on Chris' side, another one in mine, and 4 in the middle of the table. 

Chris' deployment, in my opinion, was quite peculiar and weird. He focused all his troops on one flank and the middle, leaving his left flank completely empty. He also didn't realize that he didn't put any troops close to the objective in his deployment zone. 

I spread all my troops around my deployment area, all in 2" coherency, as spread as possible because of Chris' Suncannons and d-scythes. He had all his Wraith Guards in a Wave Serpent on his left flank, so I didn't want that anywhere close to me. 

Turn 1

So game starts and...I steal the initiative!! First time that has happened since we´ve been playing together. 

All my troops were in a defensive position, so I didn't have a lot of line of sight, but my main concern was in the open field: Wave Serpent full of WG. Quad Gun ready to fire, 4 hits, 3 wounds, 2 penetrating hits and 1 glance hit...mission accomplished....I can hear from the other side of the table "For f$@k sakes". My predator, that was positioned to fire at the wave serpent decided to fire at Chris' jetbikes as they didn't have Jinx yet. 3 lascannon hits, unit vanished. I got First Blood. My Whirlwind decided to fire at Chris' warlord Illic and the rangers, killing 3 rangers in the process. My Tau pathfinders and one of my fire warriors squad with Cadre Fireblade decided to advance towards the guardians and the WK. They killed 3 Guardians and made them run. 

Chris on his side, after cursing, was ready to get his revenge. He shoot with Illic at the predator, getting a penetrating hit, destroying one of his weapons. The WK shot at one of my Tactical Squad, leaving them in 2 members that would run. Chris killed as well the Space Marine next to the Quad Gun. His revenge will have to wait. 

Turn 2

This was a stupid move for me, as I completely forgot rapid fire weapons shot can't assault, which I think is the most stupid rule in W40K, and should be changed for Space Marines in the next codex. My turn was basically shooting with everything I had at the WK, all of that just to wound him twice. My sternguard positioned themselves to charge Chris' Jetbikes unit that turbo boosted the previous turn, but I shot at them first like an idiot...Not no mention that as usual, I failed to deep strike my terminators and Stealth Team...

Chris' second turn was more destructive than mine, not much though...His units came from reserve with the Swooping Hawks doing....nothing. His plane came from his right flank of the table, far away from my Quad Gun, and decided to kill some pathfinders. The WK kept killing an average of 3 models per turn, not much, but consistant, and jetbikes killed one of my sternguard. 

Turn 3

I finally rolled for my deep strike units, and both came from reserve. Now, I have to say that it wasn't a stupid move, but Chris wanted to see his d-scythes in action, and after I killed the wave serpent, chances were that he wouldn't be able to have a chance to use them against anything. So I deployed my Stealth Team next to Illic and rangers, and the Terminators with Lysander next to his WG. I knew I was giving Chris Slay the Warlord, but at the end of the day, is all about the fun, so I didn't care that much.

I shot at the Dire Avengers with my Quad Gun, killing 3 of them and making them run, Stealth Team shot at Illic, killing all the remaining rangers, but Illic managed to survive with his bloody cover save. Fire warriors killed 1 swooping Hawk and Pathfinders kept trying to kill the WK, doing nothing. It's a tough mother fucker. I also killed almost all the guardians but 1 that didn't run. And at last, the Sternguard charged Chris' jet bikes killing the 3 of them with nothing in return. 

Chris face changed when he saw me deploying my terminators next to his WG and he even told me before I rolled or anything "Are you stupid?". That's how nice he is. He kept saying that I was kicking his ass pretty bad, but I knew that the storm was coming. As anyone could imagined, he moved his WG towards my Terminators, in deep strike formation all together, and flamed them to death. 27 d-scythes hits are a lot of hits. Even for assault terminators...but after all the smoke vanished, a man was still standing still. Lysander still had 2 wounds left. Dire avengers stop running and shoot at him, doing nothing. The WK kept shooting and jumping and shit killing more fire warriors, and Swooping Hawks charged the Fire Warriors team that has holding a 3 points objective ("I'm fucked" it's what came to my mind). Illic, got in coherency with the Guardian left, and assaulted my Stealth Team by my surprise, when Chris told me "Yeah, he has a power weapon and WS6" and I was like "Are you fucking serious?". Long story short, Stealth Team disappeared from the map. The surprise was in the opposite side of the table, were the Swooping Hawks only killed 1 fire warrior in their charge, suffering one wound in return as well. I couldn't believe it. 

Turn 4

I gave "Slay the Warlord" to Chris on a silver tray, but I wanted it as well, and Illic was in open field right now, after killing my Stealth Team. So my Quad Gun turned pointing at him shooting all his S7 AP4 hitting all of them, wounding 3. Poor Illic has T3...instant death. Lysander decided to charge the Dire Avengers, so at least that way he wouldn't be hit by the D-Scythes again. Pathfinders and fire warriors were still on their own fight with the WK still doing nothing to him, and my other fire warriors was stuck on close combat with Swooping Hawks. The predator and the Whirlwind did nothing for the rest of the game, just trying to wound the WK and scatter 10" away from anything. Lysander didn't suffered any wounds from the dire avengers, and with his 4 attacks on charge...he did nothing. Four 2s. On the other side, fire warriors and swooping hawks were playing Jenga, and did nothing to each other. 

Chris decided to charge with his WG to Lysander. The WK was still on the middle of the table, killing the remains of my Cadre Fire blade and fire warriors team. With nothing else remaining, there's not much to say. Only that the Swooping Hawks got humiliated by the Fire Warriors, suffering one wound, loosing combat, and getting killed afterwards when running. WG strike against Lysander, causing him one wound, and he strike back, causing 2, winning combat, but WG are fearless so didn't really matter. 

Turn 5

I don't know if this happened in turn 4 or 5, as I don't remember well, but it was funny as well. A simple pathfinders team, with one markerlight and one rail rifle, took down the Crimson Hunter. Markerlight to improve the BS to 2, and Penetrating hit with a 4 on the table, that because of the AP1 of the weapon, becomes a 6 and BOOOOOMMM!! I thought it was hilarious. Chris didn't. I moved my remaining Tactical Squad and Pathfinders towards, trying to get any objetives and claim Line breaker. Lysander finally died in the hands of a Dire Avenger, giving Chris "Slay the Warlord". As usual, you put a good fight my friend. 

Chris claimed an objective with his WG, jumped close to my side to shoot at all the Sternguard killing 2, and the rest running away from the side of the table(I think this happened in turn 4), and tried to charge my remaining Fire Warriors holding a 3 point objetive...but he failed the charge. 

After that, we went to turn 6 and roll for the end of the game...and Chris rolled a 1. That was it!

Time to count. 

Ruben: First Blood, Slay the Warlord, 3 points objective, 1 point objective

Chris: Slay the Warlord, Line breaker, 3 points objective

Space Marines & Tau Empire - 6

Eldar - 5

Highlights of the game (according to Chris)

- Seeing how effective the D-scythes were, even against Assault Terminators

- I guess a lowlight but interesting was how ineffective the sun cannon is against small, spaced out squads. 

- Cheating Quad Cannon for you was good(this comment goes for ages).

- Guardians while potentially good were stuck in the opening because of my dreadful morale rolls.

- Wraith Knight walking around ignoring everything shooting at it.