Tournament reports Part III B

Game 3

Special mission with special deployment rules. Let me explain it: Both player own 3 objectives worth 1,2 and 3 points. All of them must be placed inside terrain, you can't place them in the open field, and you can't stack more than one of yours in a single piece of terrain. So you can have one objective of yours and one from your opponent in the same piece of terrain, but never two of yours. Deployment zones were opposing triangles with a ~25" neutral zone.

Tournament reports Part III A

Some weeks after playing at the TOS in my home town, I went to the W.E:T tournament, which is annually hosted by the Wertheimer Exterminatus Club (short WEC). Those guys have friendly relationship with our gaming club, some of them showing up at our club-honchos birthday parties on a regular basis, killing all the tasty booze. I played against some of them before and they are all real nice fellas, but I hadn't found the time so far to visit their tournament. Which is a sad thing, because it really is a premium tournament  in terms of location, size and tables. They really own a lot of beautiful and well build tables, which are on par with those the german GW HQ uses for the german TOS, and with a size of 60 players I would call it a major tournament. The german TOS only allows up to 50 players, thanks to size of the playrooms of the flagstore.

This time I decided to bring my eldar army on the table again. No borrowed IG or Eldar army for extra softscore/paining points.

Tournament reports Part II

Second tournament I went to this year was the german Throne of Skulls. Missed the ticket deadline first, but a friend of mine ordered 4 tickets and they send him 5, so  I was back in the game. I will keep the tourament reports short again, because I got no pictures and I didn't play my beloved eldar. You ask why? Last year they used 1750 points and this year it was cut down to 1500. I had some major problems building a competitive eldar force for that size, esp. one which favored my gaming style. So instead of borrowing the Sam Hain Eldar I used 2009, I went for a boring IG build.

Tournament reports Part I

Well, as I mentioned in a couple of postings before, I went to two tournaments in the last 5 months. I hope that number will increase a bit over the course of the year, the next one is on the pentecost weekend this month. Don't anticipate much from the reports, since I don't intend to write full battle-reps anyway. My reason to host them is mainly to create a background for the changes my eldar force will go through in the next weeks.

First tournament this year was the 1. Ratisbona 2days tournament. The guys from the local club - called TTCR- stay at my home every year for the german Throne of Skulls, which is hosted in my hometown. Regensburg, or Ratisbona as the romans called it, lies in Bavaria (the beer and bretzel state of Germany) and the distance between it and my home is ~350miles.

3 Generals Part 1

After a good breakfast we arrived at the inn, greeted all those player we knew and the staff. Since one team didn't made to the tournament, we had an uneven number of teams (19) and the captains decided together with the staff that we would use a free ticket system, giving the last team from each round after the first one a 13:7 victory.

The first mission was then announced:

- 6 rounds
- pitched battle deployment
- objectives each worth 250 points.
- +2 tournament points if you win the mission, +1 for a draw and +1 if you destroy all of your opponents HS choices.

We met up with the first team, who brought along a DE army, a SM force with 2 raiders and Witchhunters with some drafted IG choices. After shaking hands I lost the roll, the other captain went first and nominated the SM army. I matched our SW player against them, which wasn't that clever. The other pairing ended in CSM vs DE and my eldar vs WH. In retrospective I should have set our CSM player against the SM, since he was the only one in our team with a raider. SW vs DE would have been in our favour.

My army was:

Jetseer with fortune
+7 jetlocks

2x6 FD incl. a DBF-Exarch + SC-Serpents

2x5 DA + BL-Serpents

DAVU-Falcon with Stones, Holo and SL+SC
2xprism tank

My opponent had:

HQ with holy weapon, 2+ save and jump pack
2xElite sisters with 2 melter and a immolator
4x10 sisters with a HF, Melter and rhino
1xsquad of jumping sisters
2xexorcist tanks
1x IG command squad and AC
2x10 IG with a LC
2x3 HW teams with AC

The game started rather succesfully for me with a exorcist tank and a rhino dying rather fast. I also get rid of the AC teams quite easily. Then I made a big fault in my humble opinion: I played rather offensive with the jetlock council. Guess I should have tried to get rid of his tanks through firepower, aiming for a small victory thanks to contesting objectives. So I moved the council in the direction of his tank wall, failed to spear a immolator and then charged to tanks. In return he unloaded most of his infantery (except for the two squads of sisters held in reserve), unleashed a firestorm on my council (only one lock died)and then charged it. I won the first round with a -4 modifier, but thanks to that damned 5 points wargear those girls have, I failed to run them down. In return I failed two fortuned inv-saves on my seer in one turn, lost a round of combat with a -1 modifier and rolled 11 with the council, rerolled it and got a 10. Meh! They got away, but I feeded too much units into that grinder, distracting me in return.

Thanks to those 8 scoring units he scored a minor victory over me in the end, with the overall result for the whole team was a draw.

Lesson learned: don't get in charging range with sisters, unless you own a breaker unit like Yriel, the Avatar or 1-2 Lords.


After one hour of free time (lunch hurray, did I mentioned that the tournament was hosted inside a inn?) the second mission and the pairings were announced

Second Mission:
- 6 turns with Dawn of War Deployment
- HQ, each player must declare one piece of terrain inside his DZ as his HQ.
- Holding your own was worth 500 points, holding your opponents HQ 750
- +2 TP for winning the mission, 1 for a draw and +1 if you manage to kill his whole elite-department

Our opponents were called "Westerwaelder Waagh and fielded the following armies: A hybrid Eldar force, Nidzilla with a focus on big and mean CC fexes and a mechanised BT force without a single raider.

We won the toss and after shaking hands I placed my eldar army first. The other team captain matched that with their nidzilla army, so I choose a desert table with some small tau buildings and landing plattforms as the battlefield. He placed his eldar next, which I matched up with our SW. 18 longranged S8 shots and a runic priest sounded like a clever idea to me.

My opponents army was:

A flying fex with 2xtalons
A broodlord with a stealer-retinue
One large squad of cc-warriors
Two elite-fexes with a strangler
3x6 stealers as troop choices
2 HS fexes with T7 2+ armour and talons
3 Zoas with blast

Rather toothless against my uber-mobile eldar army. I won the right for the first turn, but forfeited that to him. In retrospective I shouldn't have done that...

He placed nothing on the table and then brought his whole army except the stealers on the table. The broodlord and the warriors moved behind his HQ, which was the only large building on the whole table. On his side was that building and something looking like a small tau oil tank, which didn't provide full TLOS cover. I had a shallow landing plattform and two small terrain pieces. If I had picked going first, I would have denied him that terrain piece. Shame on me.

The match was kind of boring. My tanks killed all his elite fexes, the one dragon squad killed the tyrant and the other one brought one of the cc fexes down to one wound. Sadly my council failed to kill that one in CC. I destroyed most of his nidzilla department, but that took me too long and with the huge building my prism tanks didn't manage to blast the stealers off the table.

I tried to contest his HQ with one prism tank. In return I only lost some seers, one squad of FD and got one immobilised serpent. With his HQ not in my hands, one cc-fex only slightly scratched, one barely alive and all those hiding stealers and warriors I only got a minor victory. I also didn't get the extra TP for killing his elite, since I forgot that I needed to wipe out the warriors for that too. Dunno why I forgot that over the course of the game.

Lessons learned:
- Think more about choosing table sides vs going first
- getting only 5 melter wielding FD in each squad hurt me a lot against those T7 W5 fexes.

Jochen maimed the hybrid eldar army. That his opponent was drinking a lot of beer over the course of the game (and the day) didn't help their team either. Manuel even felt pity for his BT opponent. That player was a really nice guy, but his list was pure crap with no raider and only to LCs against our CSM force with a raider carrying some zerkers, 6 oblis, a lashprince and squad of terminators with combi-plasma bolters. Basicaly he smoked all the rhinos and then used the BT special rule against him, letting the guys in black running into rang for lash or a countercharge from his zerkers and the winged prince.

Overall result: Major victory

And that's enough for today, game 3-5 will be written over the course of the weekend.

Battle report - german TOS game 5

I promised some battle reps and I will now deliver the first one, or rather last one of the german TOS.

My army list was:

Eldrad
Yriel
8 Quins incl. seer&master, 7xkiss and a pw for the troop master
8 dragons incl. a breath/SS exarch + Serpent with stones&ShuCannon
9 Avenger incl. a dual-cata/Storm exarch + Serpent with stones&EML
5 Avenger, riding the falcon
3 Jetbikes with SC upgrade
2 Lord with EML/BL, twin flamer
1 Falcon with BL/stones/holo

Mission was Annihilation with spearhead deployment. My opponent won the roll-off and choose to go first.

He played a fluffy World Eaters army with:

Winged prince
Greater Deamon
5 Terminators (various equipment)+ Landraider
3x8 Berzerkers+Rhino, all with champs and only one wielding a PW.
2x8 lesser deamons
Defiler with extra cc-arms
Deployment

He placed all his units in a line in the middle, trying to keep the distance to my army as short as possible.

I placed both serpents behind a building, used the falcon as a cover for the lords, left the jetbikes in reserve and placed the quins+yriel save out of scatter distance. Tried to steal the ini, but only rolled a 5.

Turn 1 CSM

He moved all his tanks forward, triggering the smoke launchers in the shooting phase. The defiler tried to move over the hill, but failed miserably on the terrain role.
Turn 1 Eldar

Eldrad guided the falcon he was embarked in and fortune on both lords. In my movement phase I moved the EML-serpent with the DA 12" up towards his table edge, trying to get a LOS on his defiler, who hide in the shadow of the large building.

Everything else moved backwards, trying to keep the gap between our forces and denying him any cc-attacks on turn 2.

The EML-serpent missed the defiler with a rocket and the combined fire of the SC-serpent, both lords and the falcon only resulted in one penetrating hit and I rolled a one on the damage chart.

Turn 2 CSM



On the picture you can see the battle field before he started rolling for his reserves. He passed both tests for the lesser deamons and failed the one for the big guy. There wasn't any spilled blood yet, so no need for him to leave the warp.

In his movement phase we discovered that we didn't talked about terrain, which was crucial for him because the building had a door albeit a one glued close. We decided to roll a dice 1-3 for no door and 3+ save and 4-6 for a 4+ save and a door. He rolled a 6 and used his icon in the rhino to DS his deamons in the shadow of the building, moving them further into it in the shooting phase. The defiler moved towards my serpent and the other vehicles and the DP moved up straight forward, placing one rhino between the wall and the raider.

In his shooting phase he used the "run" rule to get the deamons into the building, popped smoke on the last rhino (which was in cover in turn 1) and aimed with the defilers cannon at my serpent. rolled a hit but thanks to the serpent field he only managed to stun it.
Eldar Turn 2

Eldrad cast guide on the falcon, fortune on the quins and doom on one of the deamon units in the building. My jetbikes didn't arrive that turn.

In my movement phase I used the shaken EML serpent to deny him the door (1" rule), disembarked the DA behind it. The serpent with the dragons moved 12" and placed itself in front of the rhino between the ruin and the raider, with his rear towards the raider. The dragons disembarked. The falcon also moved 12" turning itself with the rear towards my long edge an so blocking the direct way for his rhino placed between the raider and the edge. The quins moved up towards the dragons. The two lords moved towards his raider too but stayed well out of cc range.

My dragons popped the raider, his terminators disembarked out of the one side-door, because the other one was blocked by his rhino and the front ramp was blocked by the serpent/falcon/dragons. The lords popped the rhino in front of my falcon and the Avengers wipped out a squad of deamons even without using bladestorm.

Sadly the quins rolled a 1 on their fleet role. The falcon killed one terminator, which we revoke in turn 3 because I rolled for all weapons (and moved the tank 12").

Turn 3 CSM



That was the situation at the bigging of turn 3. His greater deamon stayed in the warp.

In his movement phase he run the defiler around the building, trying to get into CC with my EML serpent. His remaining deamons moved towards the blocked door, aiming for a cc too. The berzerkers from the boxed in rhino disembarked into the building and aimed their pistols on my DA.

His DP used his wings and moved on top of the destroyed raider, bellowing a challenge in the direction of my dragons. The terminators and the zerkers, who both lost their transports moved towards my falcon. The remaining rhino with embarked troops moved around the burning wreck.

In his CC-phase his defiler turned my serpent into a exploding wreck. The berzerkers in the building killed a few avengers and the CC between my helpless falcon and his two troops lead to a destroyed eldar skimmer. The DP won the combat against the dragons, killing half of them and the remaining 4 flew towards the closest table edge, which sadly was within 1" of his zerkers, so that troop died to.

After his CC phase the KP went from Eldar 3 : Chaos 0 to 3:3

Turn 3 Eldar

Eldrad, who escaped the destruction of his ride fortuned the quins and doomed the two units, who killed the falcon. My jetbikes arrived and moved onto the table getting a clear LOS on the berserkers hiding behind the wrecked falcon.

Both lords moved into the direction of the deamons&defiler. Yriel left the quins and moved around the wreck into the back of the berzerks. The quins moved towards the prince and the terminators. Eldrad left the 5 DA and attached himself to the quins. The large DA squad used the lords as a mobile cover and the other DA squad tried to get out for range from the berzerkers.

In my shooting phase one lord killed the defiler, the other used his twin flamers to turn 4 deamons and one or two zerkers (in the building) into grilled chicken. The DA used storm on the zerkers in the building, killing another one or two of them.

The jetbikes and the 5 DA aimed their guns on the other disembarked zerker squad, resulting a few more dead traitor marines.

Yriel then charged the zerkers, the lord who flamed the deamons passed his terrain check (the exploded serpent) and attacked them. EU+quins started a multiple combat with the prince and the terminators.

Yriel chopped the zerkers down to four, saving all the wounds in return but one. (Thank god that my opponent didn't put PF in his zerker squads!). The lord wounded one deamon but my opponent passed his 5+ save.

The prince lost 2 of his wounds to two quins, the other 6 killed all but one terminator. Eldrad then managed to steal another wound from the prince, in return only one quin was slain. His DP then failed two out of 6 NR wounds, resulting in his untimely dead. The last terminator botched his LD test and was overrun.

That turned the 3:3 into a 6:3

Turn 4 CSM

His greater deamon arrived, enough blood was spilled on the battlefield. The champion from the zerker squad in CC with yriel turned into a great hairy monster. The last squad of zerkers disembarked. In his shooting phase he used his two rhinos to kill some quins and his zerkers in the ruin to kill another DA.

The greater deamon then charged the helpless squad of 5 DA, the 8 zerkers with the PW champion moved into CC with yriel, helping their fellow brothers in red.



The lord managed to wound a deamon, he passed his save. 3 out of 5 DA died under the merciless attacks from the greater deamon. Yriel then plugged his pirate patch of and triggered the bomb, hoping for 72 naked eldar women in the afterlife. 10 zerkers died and the last one succumbed to the 10 NR saves...

That raised the score to 8:4 and the game then ended, because time was running out...