Sunday, May 15, 2011

6 Nations Round 4: Wales

God-damned Holofields.
So no hangover despite a bottles of Hoegaarden and a few pints of Leffe (on tap in the Abbot's Ale House) and I was ready for the Welsh challenge. There were a few lists I wanted to avoid, namely the Captain Stu's Dark Eldar Venomspam (because of my distinct lack of firepower) so it was with a mixed feeling that I was told I was playing Gary's Eldar.

My thinking was that I could take out the Seer Councils one at a time by throwing the 3 2+ save Lords at them at once but if they both jumped me then I was going to be in trouble. Gary won the roll for first turn and chose to go first. Then he reserved everything.

I tried not to let the 'lolwut?' show on my face too much for fear of changing his mind.


Primary: Kill Points
Secondary: 3 Objectives (1 in the centre, 1 within 6" of each table edge)
Deployment: Dawn of War

2 x Farseer with Fortune, Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing
2 x 9 Warlocks with 2 Embolden, 2 Enhance and a few Spears
2 x Wave Serpents with Shuriken Cannon and Spirit Stones

3 x 6 Dire Avengers

3 x Falcons with Scatter Lasers, Holo Fields and Stones

Mech Eldar. With 2 Seer Councils and Holo-fields. That's a lot of re-rolls and re-rolled damage results. I had to get into midfield to bring the Meltas to bear and wait for the inevitable tank shock. At least the AP1 bonus should give me hand dragging them down.

Turn 1
Gary reserved everything.

I rush everything forward.

Turn 2
I'm in the middle and the Seer Council is walking.
One of the Falcons shows up and so do both Seer Councils. One stays on the board edge but has boosted while the other two push right and take shots at the Long Fangs but do nowt.

I rush everything forward. I'm now in midfield with the Wolfblob with 2 Rhinos to support them. Nice. The Fangs - they take out the Wave Serpent while the Council in it fall out. Nicer.

Turn 3
More reserves: all but one Falcon are now on. Some more shooting occured and a Rhino was stunned. The Seer Council on foot jogged right. While Fortuned. Because Gary had a huge sign with Fortune written on it.

I had a Rhino on the right but it backed off towards the centre as another one had arrived from reserve (full of Plasma) which allowed me to reinforce the centre or push right. The Lords shuffled about a bit, heading toward the right while my 2 central Rhinos bunkered down behind terrain just to the blob's left. I've got one KP at this stage so its not looking good.

Turn 4

The last Falcon shows up on the right and pops the melta Rhino on the right. Sigh. The Seer Council on my left boost to the left objective on the halfway line, there's more shooting and another one of my tanks are taken out. At least its near the centre objective.

The Lords and Wolves do a bit of shimmying to the left while the Plasma Hunters Rhino moved up to grab the right-most objective, and I reckoned that if the Rhino was popped I could use its husk to shield the squad while I made a dash for an objective. My Fangs shook a tank but little else.


Turn 5
The Lords go a-hunting.
So potentially the final turn. Gary moves the Falcon forward and takes out the Plasma Hunters Rhino while the Farseer & co. on the right job toward the objective.

The other Council in their ride move behind terrain in my left-hand corner behind terrain looking at the Long Fangs but they did nothing. A unit of Dire Avengers in their Falcon boosted onto the objective on my left. I'm losing 5 KP to 2 on Primary and I'm drawing on objectives. In short, I'm getting a hiding.

The Hunters in their tank near the centre swing out wide left in case they can contest but they elect to stay in their Rhino and not give away a Kill Point. I manage nothing with my shooting while the Plasma Hunters hunker down behind their Rhino hoping the game goes on. The Melta Hunters out there chase down the Falcon wide right but their Meltas only shake it. They're in the open looking too close to the Seer Council that have jogged right. The game goes on, saving me from an absolute mauling.

Turn 6
The Falcon on the left shoots a tank but only tears off its gun while the Seer Council chews through the Hunters in their way on the right. The Council's Wave Serpent moves up along my board edge and dumps its payload of Warlocks next to my Long Fangs. Ok. They shoot the Fangs, as does their tank, but they only kill two, including the Pack Leader, and I pass my Morale Test. Which is really handy when I've got a Wave Serpent's back armour looking at me.

The Plasma Hunters moved into the woods away from the Seer Council but close enough to contest the objective as well as rapid fire at the Falcon if it came close. Two of the TWC Lords chase after a Falcon (boosting along the centre of Gary's board edge) but only manage to tear off a gun. The Long Fangs cheer me up though when they bag the Serpent on my board edge behind the Council.

The Warrior Born TWC Lord and the GH in the Rhino on the left run at the Falcon on the objective and I Immobilise it. I've a good feeling when I charge it with my Wolf Banner popped and all those attacks auto-hitting. That's 2 Meltas from Grey Hunters, 5 Krak Grenades auto-hitting, 6 S6 attacks auto-hitting and 3 Fist attacks auto-hitting: I tear off 3 guns. Its still alive and contesting an objective.  Its game over unless it continues.

Turn 7
I ran away - Hooray!
I was very happy to see Turn 7 rolling around. The Dire Avengers hopped out of their Falcon and were backed up by the Council on my right. They were pounded and failed their Morale test falling back 11". I was delighted - I would now be able to rally, move and possibly contest the objective on the right to claw back some points.

The Council mangled the Long Fangs: it wasn't hard rolling this many dice. The Falcon in combat was wrecked in the Eldar turn and the DAVU squad pinned while the Eldar shooting phase was successful.


The DAVU on the left were mangled by the Lord and Hunters (not surprising really) netting me a KP while the Hunters on my right auto-rallied 3", moved 6", and I was back on the objective.

Then I realised there was an easy KP in it: a 6-man unit of Dire Avengers were within 6" of them. In they went, and the 3 lads killed 2 and the squishy Eldars ran away giving me a KP. I'd also managed to contest the objective on the right to boot.

With that the game ended. My jaw dropped when Gary told me that I'd tied the game at 5KP (netting 3 in my final turn) and won the secondary with 12-8 the final score. Some of the lads present started to piss themselves laughing when they saw my reaction but all I could think about was the lovely 12 points I'd picked up.

If you read this Gary, I owe you a pint in Montreaux.

3 comments:

  1. Well played for someone with only one pack of long fangs. Just remember to keep those lords on as many serpents as you can and leave holo-fields to the melta and eldar fold. Which is a shame because they're so excellent at everything forever.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cheers.

    Yeah, that AP 1 makes a huge difference against HoloFields when you pen: it makes a roll of a 2 dangerous because it will at least allow you to wear them down through attrition.

    And Eldar aren't supposed to be that good: they're not Ultramarines you know.

    ReplyDelete
  3. No but they do so wish that they could live up to the ridiculously amazing standards of the spezz marines and Primarch Matt Ward.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...