Friday 2 August 2013

Battle report: Eldar & Tau Empire Vs CSM & Dark Eldar & Imperial Guard

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That picture defines perfectly the thoughts of everyone around the table during this game. It was a great game, epic I would say, full of randomness, crazy moves, lots of luck (good and bad), insane rolls but especially, fun. 


GW Sydney was closed, so we decided to go to play at Good Games, just next door, which is bigger and smells better (slightly...seriously, higiene is not optional...), but has worse tables. If I can say one negative about this game, and all of us agreed, it would be the spectators.....people around the table commenting all the time, asking you why you didn't use this unit, or why did you put that there, or why are you shooting at that...for fuck sake...SHUT THE FUCK UP BLOODY GURUS OF WARHAMMER!!

Saying this, the armies on the board were:
Chris and Ruben: Eldar and Tau Empire allied. 
Alex (by himself as Alasdair couldn't make it): CSM and Dark eldar allied, and CSM and Imperial Guard Allied. 

This game was a kinda of preparation for next week, as all of us are going to play a Charity Fund Raising Tournament, and it's Doubles 1000 points with allied teams, so AA (as Chris and I called Alasdair and Alex always) were testing their destructive close combat army against Chris and I, playing our first game with Tau and Eldar. 

Turn 1

Rolls for deployment and initiative. Chris and I picked side of the table, Alex starts and deploys first. (CrAzY424 - Quick interjection. Ruben managed to roll a 1 for going first and with Baron giving me +1 i didn't even bother rolling). The mission for the game was "Big guns never tire" or something like that. Basically, Heavy support are scoring units and provide extra VP's.

Chris and I talked throughout the week with me telling him that we should really focus on the Chaos Lords with the Spawn, but, he seemed to be pretty relaxed. I believe that in his eyes, they were something like this:

(Wut)

I was surprised too later. I didn't realize that 12" plus running represented that on the table. One thing is theory, another one is when you see it, and after Alex first movement phase, rolling 5 and 6 to run too, with my mouth wide open I told Chris "Oh shit, we're fucked." The Manticore shot twice, killing one broadside, but it could have been all of them, so not too bad. Alex had nothing else to shoot, and was still not in range to assault, so our turn started with the threat of lots of scary units next to us. The Chaos Lords looked like an angry mother in law right now. We had to do something. 

I moved the Riptide closer to the Chaos Lord on the edge of the table, but with a perfect view of the Manticore's rear. My Stealth units moved forward trying to get in range of the Baron, and, that was it. Chris moved his DA, WG and Guardians forward on the flank. It was shooting time. 
My first time playing a Riptide, I was so excited. Perfect position for my shooting, Nova charged succesful, he was guided by Chris' farseer...time to shine! But not this time. Scatter 9 and 11 inches away. Smart Missiles did nothing either...huge disappoint. Pathfinders used markerlights to remove cover from baron and company, and FW caused a few wounds on the unit. The other pathfinders used markerlights on the bigger unit of spawns that were doomed, increasing the BS of the FW with Cadre fireblade and the Broadsides in 1 each. Problem about playing Tau and Eldar, and doing battle reports is that there are so many shots that you dont remember what do you kill and what you didn't. Thing is, that all the Spawns on the table but one were wiped out between FW, BS, DA and Vypers, and one of the Chaos Lords was down to 3 wounds. Good and promising turn for us, but we knew that next turn was gonna be a payback...

Turn 2

Vendettas coming from reserve alongside Marbo. After telling Alex that the Riptide has Interceptor rule, he decides to change Marbo to the other side of the table, far from his first objetive, the Broadsides, and placed him next to Chris' Guardians. All Alex units moved forward and started salivating. Our defense line was wetting their pants...
In the shooting phase, Vendettas shot at the Broadsides, but shield drones did their job and protected them. The other Vendetta shot at the Walkers with 2 pens and 1 glance, but Chris rolled 2 5++ saves getting just crew saken on a pen. Marbo throw his bloody grenade and killed 6 guardians making them run far far away (off the board)...Manticore failed to hit anything this turn with just one shot. The venoms that came from reserve shot at the WG killing 3 of them. Pain was coming...

Alex charged with both Chaos Lords, one against the Riptide, the other one against the pathfinders and DA. Baron charged against one of the fire warriors team. I guess he doesn't like Tau...Lots of shots in overwatch with a few hits but nothing got hurt but my pride.

Alex rolled for Daemon weapon against the Riptide and....1! WS 1 vs WS 2. It was like a monkey's shit fight. Chaos Lord failed to do anything, drones did nothing but hitting his armor and Riptide decided to do 2 Smash attacks, hopefully Insta killing the lord...but once again, managed to roll two 1s wounding....

Meanwhile, the other Chaos Lord wiped out the Pathfinders team, forced the DA to flee and Baron's circus gay parade (as Chris said) killed all the fire warriors too...

On the other side, we were actually quite happy that it could had been worse. Chris rolled for reserves, but failed to bring his plane, but Spiders got into the game, just behind the Manticore. 
With nothing to move around, we decided to shot the shit out of everything we had and hope for the best. Fire warriors shot at the Chaos Lord and killed the Spawn left. Guardians wound the Chaos Lord once. Walkers shot at the circus parade causing some wounds, same as stealth team and Broadsides caused 2 hulled points on a Vendetta. Highlight of this turn, and a saving in this game in my opinion in our side, was Chris, with his spiders shooting at the rear of the Manticore destroying it in the turn that they arrived, giving us a victory point and destroying that Barrage 72"range s10 large blast pain in the ass. 
Moved by courage and trying to see what Wraithblades were capable of, he charged them against the Baron circus, doing nothing but getting stuck in combat, which was good for us. 
In combat, the monkey's shit fight kept going. Alex rolled a 1 again in his daemon weapon managing to wound himself this time too, leaving him with one wound left. This time, both drones and riptide managed to wound him 3 times, but Alex armor and inv saves avoid any damage. It was a bizarre situation...

Turn 3

This turn was a little bit of a joke. Vendettas shot at Stealth team, killing 2 thanks to their cover. Venoms did the rest of the job, killing the remaining ones, and Marbo was chilling out in the flank of the table by himself looking at the guards running away. I don't really know what happened as I was telling to fuck off someone, but when I saw the table I saw Chris rolling a bunch of 1s and 2s and picking up all the Spiders...damn it. 
In the combat phase one of the Chaos Lords charged the Walkers and destroyed both of them in the blink of an eye. Baron circus killed both Wraith Blades consolidating 1".
Monkey's shit fight came to an end in the most pathetic way possible. Alex didn't manage to roll a 1 this time so he got a shit lots of attack, but only managed to kill one drone. Riptide and drones strike back and no nothing once again. Lost combat by 1. Roll LeaderSHIT test. 9. Because I lost by one, Riptide is running...and destroyed...MC with 5 wounds running because a drone is destroyed...seriously...
Our turn wasn't very promising as most of our units were either destroyed, or crying in a corner, or running away...But Chris' Hunter was coming from reserve to save the day. Or at least that was our hope. We couldn't really move almost anything, but I was so clever that I moved my Broadsides to find out later that they just could shoot snap shots...clever "move" Ruben...
I was willing to avenge the Riptide, although he didn't deserve any revenge...So my fire warriors shot at him, with a volley of fire that could have killed him twice after being guide by the Farseer(I love that guy). DA wound the other Chaos Lord once leaving him with 2 wounds left. Pathfinders shot at the circus causing some more wounds and Broadsides took a hull point out of a Vendetta. 

Turn 4

At this point of the game, Alex was holding 3 objetives. We were holding just one. His close combat units were cutting through us like if we were butter...out of the fridge...on summer...
That Chaos Lord turn back and head against the poor DA that saw all the massacre in first row, and shit was about to get real with them. The baron circus got pissed off at the Pathfinders, so decided to charge them too. Venoms moved around dropping troops to hold those objectives and shoot at something that I don't remember. I think it was focus fire on my Fireblade, but with look out Sir, just 2 fire warriors died, and he got a wound. Broadsides got shot by the Vendettas, but they went to ground and avoid any damage with their cover safe. 
Baron destroyed all the pathfinders like nothing, and the Chaos Lord started an epic challenge against Chris' Farseer, that started rolling 4++ helped by fortune, avoiding insta kill. 
On the other side, we knew we were gonna die soon, so we decided not to do it without a fight. Fire warriors moved forward, still holding the 3 points objective, to get in range of the imperial guard infantry holding one of Alex objective while Chris with is Vypers went for the other objective, at least it wouldn't be a huge difference in the lost. The broadsides took down one of the Vendettas with their Twink Link fire. In close combat, the Farseer kept surviving all the blows with his Fortune and 4++ save. 

Turn 5

The game was coming to an end. Both armies had lots of casualties already but the scales were on Alex side with all his venoms untouched and both warlords alive. The venoms shot everything they had at the Broadsides, but their 2+ save avoid any damage at all out of all that fire. The Vendetta shot at the Crimson Hunter that spend the day flying around doing nothing, and blew it up in pieces. In close combat, the Chaos Warlord finally slay the Farseer and consolidated towards the Broadsides. 
As this was turn 5, we decided not to go for the heroic killing of the warlord, but for the points that we could deny, so we completely ignored the Chaos Warlord, and focus all our fire on the units holding the objectives. Effectively, we either slay them all or made them run from the objectives between the FW and Vypers. The broadsides shot at the remaining Vendetta destroying it as well (once again, I thought it was considered Heavy support). We could just pray for the next turn. 

Turn 6

Last turn. All the cards were on the table. Final decisions and rolls will make the difference. Alex wanted to kill those broadsides and fire warriors holding the objective as he could do nothing about the vipers with poison weapons. That Chaos Lord will make disappear the Broadsides as soon as he reach them in close combat, which it would be in that turn. Alex shooting phase was really unsuccessful not managing to kill anything. So the Chaos lord credited to charge the Broadsides as expected to get that victory point...but this is why I love Tau: support fire. Fire warriors shot everything they had but failed to wound the Chaos Lord...but broadsides, with their Twink Link weapons, manages to get 8 hits on the Warlord wounding him twice and killing him before he reached them!! That clearly was for The Great Good. 
In our turn, we barely did anything but cleaning up the remaining units around 2 of Alex objectives so they wouldn't claim them any longer. And that was it! Time to count points!

Score

Alex: Walkers (1 point) + line breaker (1 point) + 3 points objective = 5 points
Chris & Ruben: Manticore (1 point) + First blood (1 point) + 3 points objective = 5 points

It's a draw!

This time I will let the guys to write their own comments and highlights.




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