Yellow Submarine Display Board WIP

I will be playing in Orktoberfest this weekend and whilst my Crimson Fists are not ready (because they only arrived a week ago), I am going to enjoy taking my Iyanden Eldar.  After seeing that I have received the third highest comp score, I decided to do something a little bit out there.....

Yellow Iyanden

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Third softest list at the event

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Yellow Submarine Display Board!

Eltnot

Battle Report Sisters of Battle vs Ulthwe Eldar

Last Sunday I managed to get in a game versus my mate Ross and his Ulthwe Eldar.  You can find his blog HERE.  I took some photos of the game with the intention of doing up a battle report, which I have done, but the following should be stated first:

Yes I know the lighting is bad, I will bring down more lights next time.
Yes my camera work is shaky, I will try using a timer next time, and failing that, fork out the cash for a tripod.
Battle Chronicler prefers a North/South engagement, not the East/West layout that I used which causes labels to switch constantly.
I will endeavour to get better starting photos for the map in the future.

With that out of the way, this batrep has been done using Battle Chronicler which I hope to use again in the future.  It took me a while to create the units and learn how to use it, but now that I've created my army, it will take me less time in the future.  The actual diagrams took less than an hour after I''d created the unit and map etc.

Armylists:
Witch Hunters - Sister of St Joseph
Eldar - Ulthwe

Deployment
Ross won the roll for choosing sides and opted for me to choose, I picked the side with the pig pen for some extra cover for my guardsmen.  I deployed with my armoured elements split into two groups backed up by an Exorcist each.  The Guard platoon deployed centrally to provide covering fire and to old the objectives located near my deployment area.  The Canoness and Seraphim deployed behind my North flank Rhinos to help push through onto the objectives there.  Ross deployed his War Walkers and Dark Reapers opposite my armoured forces on the Northern flank.  His Wave Serpents with the Storm Guardians, Dire Avengers and Farseer deployed centrally hoping to swing to either flank.  The Wraithlord, Wraithguard and Defender Guardians deployed on the Southern flank.

Ross' Ulthwe deployed.

Turn 1

 Ross failed to steal the initiative, so I began my first turn by rolling forward with my Rhinos, popping their smoke launchers as they went to reduce the impact of incoming fire (I will need to create some sort of smoke token for BC).  The Seraphim and Canoness jumped up behind the Rhinos, heading towards the Dark Reapers and War Walkers.  The Guard squad to the North pushed up into the first floor of the building, and the Exorcists manoeuvred for optimal firing positions.  I started by firing both Exorcists into each of Ross' Wave Serpents and in a wave of luck, wrecked the Storm Guardians' ride, pinning the unit, and exploding the other containing the Dire Avengers and Farseer (I also need some crater markers).  The guard unit then ran to the top of their building for a good firing position, and the Seraphim ran for some extra cover.  My Guardsmen failed to hit the Wraithlord with their missile launchers.

 With an abysmal start, Ross went to work on trying to bring the game back in his favour, pushing hard up on the Southern flank whilst the War Walkers ducked out from behind their building ready to fire on the oncoming transports.  Between the Wraithguard and Wraithlord, he managed to immobilise and stun one Rhino on the Southern flank, but the Walkers only managed to stop my Immolator from shooting next turn.  The Dark Reapers shot at the Seraphim but they were saved by Spirit of the Martyr.

 An Exorcist lines up the Wraithlord.

Turn 2

With Ross' forces now committed on the Southern flank, and looking at what I had to face them, I decided to pull back my forces to give my other units more time to whittle them down.  The second BSS squad's rhino pulled back behind the building whilst the first squad got out of their damaged vehicle and made a run for the safety of the building.  On the Northern flank I pushed up aggressively and disembarked my units ready to fire whilst the Seraphim jumped up behind ready to counter attack.  Between Exorcist two and my Guard platoon I was able to take out the Wraithlord threatening the Southern flank, whilst Exorcist 1 and my Celestian squad managed to either shake or weapon destroy all of the War Walkers leaving them defenceless for the next turn.  BSS 3 opened up on the Dark Reapers knocking them out with bolters and flamers.

The Sister Squad removes the Dark Reapers from the equation in a storm of fire and flame.

Ross was really under the pressure now, but kept on coming.  His Wraithguard moved up ready to assault the immobilised Rhino supported by the Dire Avengers and Defender Guardians.  His War Walkers also moved up along the with the Storm Guardians on the Northern Flank.  Shoot mainly consisted of trying to whittle down BSS 1 and fleeting with the Storm Guardians.  The Wraithguard charged the Rhino blowing it up meanwhile the War Walkers and Storm Guardians charged BSS 3 in a hopes to break it and remove a valuable scoring unit from that flank, however the sisters held.

 The charge of the Ulthwe.

Turn 3

In my turn I shot up the Wraithguard some more, hoping to reduce them with the Exorcists, but a timely fortune and their high toughness kept them strong.  On the Northern flank things went a little better with the Seraphim and Celestians charging the War Walkers bringing them down in a hail of Eviscerator attacks and causing the Storm Guardians to flee.

 Sisters push the Guardians back.

With not many options left Ross charged the Wraithguard into BSS 2 hoping to break them, but in a score of abysmal dice rolls neither side managed to score any wounds.  We decided to call it there as it was getting a little late and with the Wraithguard not likely to go anywhere any time soon, not much was likely to change.

Conclusion
I realised early on that I had made a mistake in my deployment, as my goal was to push through with the attack on the Northern flank, whilst using the Southern flank as a I diversion/optimistic attack designed to hold up the enemy or take a lightly defended objective.  However I only had minimal scoring units on the Northern flank and had the game not gone so well for me, I may not have had enough bodies left alive to claim the objectives.  As it was, BSS 3 was whittled down to only four members, and came close to being swept away.  Ross failed to use cover enough in his deployment which led to the loss of his mobility early on which really crippled him.  We discussed this after the game along with a few tweaks for the list, mainly to drop the Dark Reapers for either a unit of Jetbikes or some Rangers for taking down MC's.

Please feel free to leave any feedback on the format of the report or any suggestions on improvements for next time.

Eltnot.

RSGA Apocalypse Game 19-12-2010

I headed into the club the other day to help Wonna run the end of year Apocalypse battle.  It was much smoother run in the past thanks to a few handy changes that had been implemented since the last time (such as making people pay in advance for the day to ensure that they actually turned up and didn't screw up the balance).  I stayed unitl just after lunch to do the pizza run and took a few photos of the first and second turns.  It seems a lot of fun was had by all though and the smoothness of the event is promising for future events.

The teams were spilt into four chaos armies versus three space marine forces, an Eldar force and a smaller contingent of Imperial Guard.  In the end the forces of evil won holding three objectives to none, probably due to their aggressive playstyle and their more co ordinated attack.

Enjoy the pictures:

Turn 1

From the other end of the table

Wes failed to call down an Orbital Bombardment but the weather did instead

fester's Hellblade screams over the forces of good strafing them

Another shot of the Hellblade

The two sides shape up to each other

A very large Greater Daemon of Nurgle (mostly made from expanding foam)

The Alliance of Good consults with one another

The forces of Chaos push into the enemy's lines

Sons of Horus Terminators bring up the rear of one flank

Dark Angels try to hold off a Daemon invasion

Wes' Orbital Bombardment arrives

Nurgle Terminators hunt the damaged Baneblade...

...and take it out in a storm of melta shots

 

 A general overview of the battle

Eltnot.

Eldar Armylist Critique

A friend of mine recently sent me an Eldar armylist of his asking me what I thought about it.  I was a bit busy at the time but he pestered me, so I thought I'd put it up as a post (I asked his permission first).  I figure it might give others insight into how I go about building my lists and evolving them into a lean mean fighting machine.

First of all, I should point out that I don't like making sweeping changes to an army list generally.  I usually go about slowly evolving the force through little changes into something that I'm happy with.  This means that by the time that I get to my final build, I've played quite a few games with the army in a similar form and know what it reasonably can and can't do.  I feel this approach works best for me, it may not though for others.

Enough waffling on, onto the list.

Autarch Rosu - Power Weapon, Fusion Gun, Mandiblasters

10x Dire Avengers - Exarch with Bladestorm, Shuriken Pistol and Diresword
Wave Serpent - Vectored Engines, Scatter Lasers

5x Guardian Jetbikes - Shuriken Cannon, Warlock with Embolden

5x Rangers

12x Storm Guardians - Flamer, Warlock with Enhance
Wave Serpent - Vectored Engines, Missile Launchers

5x Fire Dragons

8x Warp Spiders

Wraithlord - Brightlance, Wraithsword

3x War Walkers with double Scatter Lasers


Falcon - Vectored Engines, Holofield, Starcannon

Total - 1747

Here's my suggested rebuild:


Autarch Rosu - Power Weapon, Fusion Gun, Mandiblasters - 100
I prefer to run a Farseer instead of an Autarch.  I find the way that a Farseer acts as a force multiplier to be very handy, but if you want to run an Autarch, this is a reasonable way to do it.

10x Dire Avengers - Exarch with Bladestorm, Power Weapon and Shimmershield - 162
The Diresword is one of these really cool but utterly useless weapons, the odds of one instant killing it's target is appalling.  Much better to spend the points on making the squad more survivable.  Twin Shuriken Catapults is another perfectly acceptable option for the Exarch when in a Wave Serpent.
Wave Serpent - Spirit Stones, Bright Lances - 145
Vectored Engines are a want, Spirit Stones are a must have.  If your tank can't move, than any enemy can hit it automatically in HtH and bypass the energy field.  Don't let this happen.  The Bright Lances will help you deal with heavy armour more easily from afar.

5x Guardian Jetbikes - 105
Cheap scoring unit that is reasonably tough and very mobile.  Keep them in reserve so that they're more likely to be alive at the end of the game.  Killing things should be secondary to them staying alive to hold or contest objectives.  They're small enough that they will generally only have to take one leadership test most games so I don't bother with the Warlock.

5x Rangers - 95
As above.  Don't be afraid to go to ground with them if you have to, to keep them alive to hold that objective.

11x Storm Guardians - 2x Flamers, Warlock with Destructor - 127
Enhance looks nice on paper, I5 and WS4.  But in the real world, Guardians just don't wound often enough to make it worth it.  Better to kill more before hitting combat so less of the enemy get to hit back.  The triple flamer layout of this unit should also help with orks and guard blob squads, especially after you tank shock into the edge of the unit to bunch them up.  Keep a spot free so that the Autarch can jump in if his transport finds itself burning.
Wave Serpent - Spirit Stones, Bright Lances - 145
Don't rely on only one brightlance, always have two in case the first one goes down.

6x Fire Dragons -96
These guys don't need any explanations really.  Where possible, have the brightlances pop landraiders and use these guys on the termies inside.

8x Warp Spiders - Exarch with two spinnerets, powerblades and withdraw - 260
Use this unit to either finish off weakened units or shoot then assault large units like guants or guard blob squads.  Their 3+ save should keep them safe long enough for them to use withdraw at the end of the opponent's turn, to allow the rest of your army to shoot them.

3x War Walkers with double Eldar Missile Launchers - 210
30 points more than the original unit and much more likely to blow up tanks.  Still excellent vs infantry when they switch over to plasma missiles instead of kraks.

Wraithlord - Eldar Missile Launcher, Wraithsword - 125
The EML is 15 points cheaper than the brightlance on a Wraithlord.  Better to put BL's elsewhere.

Falcon - Spirit Stones, Holofield, Eldar Missile Launcher - 180
Move up to 6" and fire three S8 shots, or move 12" and shoot at infantry.


Total - 1750

I had about 50 points left over at the end so added in the Exarch for the Warp Spiders and the extra Fire Dragon.  You could easily use those points to take a Farseer instead of the Autarch, or simply increase the size of your Ranger and Jetbike squads.  Try things out and see how you go.

As you can see, I haven't changed what units "Autarch Rosu" has taken, just tweaked them slightly into something more cohesive.  The army now has plenty of high strength weaponry to deal with hordes and all of those EML's will be just as effective vs hordes like guants, guard and orks.  The list is fairly mobile with all units moving at least 6" a turn and still firing at full effect (except the rangers which should be placed as far from the action as possible in kill point games, and preferably holding an objective on top of a ruin in objective games.

Hope you like it, enjoy.

Eltnot.

Prince Yriel's Raiders

Well I received a package today at work that I had been expecting with a couple of jetbikes inside.  These are for what is to be my next big army that I have been collecting.  I won't go into to many details now, excpet that I have spent a long time collecting these guys, hunting on Ebay and various buy and sell forums.  Enough of the boring stuff, here's the pic:

As you can see, a lot of stuff needs to be stripped, so they'll be getting the simple Green treatment over the coming months.  I quickly wrote down everything that I have to for future reference when working out what I do and don't need.

1x Farseer
2x Warlocks with Singing Spears
19x Storm Guardians
31x Defender Guardians
17x Generic Guardians (without arms)
9x Heavy Weapon Guardians
2x D Cannons with crew
6x Rangers
9x Swooping Hawks
1x Swooping Hawk Exarch
1x Banshee Exarch
3x Fire Dragons
1x Fire Dragon Exarch
5x Assassin Drones
4x Executioner Drones
11x Dire Avengers
1x Dire Avenger Exarch
13x Jetbikes (-1 Handlebars, -3 rider torsos, -1 rider legs)
4x Shrieker Jetbikes
6x War Walkers (-1 Power Plant)
1x Vampire Dreadnought (-1 Power Plant)
2x 3rd Ed Dreadnoughts (probably won't be used)
2x Wave Serpents
1x Falcon
10x Arm Sprues +1 incomplete
9x Weapon Sprues +2 incomplete
8x Scatter Lasers
4x Lascannons
3x Heavy Plasma Guns
2x Missile Launchers
2x Small Tripods
2x Large Tripods
2x Hover Platforms
6x Gun Shields
2x Weapon Mounts

Eldar.

Battle Report - Eldar vs Tyranids

I decided to challenge Dan to a game tonight to get in some practice with my Eldar against the new Tyranids which I know will be out in force for the upcoming Quartermaster tournament. We rolled up a Capture and Control, Dawn of War with Dan winning the choice of sides.

The picture below shows mine and his deployments and his first turn of movement. My objective is in the open below and to the left of the crater, Dan's objective is located in the trees directly above the ruins as shown in the picture.
His shooting was mostly ineffective, killing two of the Rangers hiding in the woods.

I then proceeded to move most of my force on, leaving my two units of guardians and the guardian jetbikes in reserve. The dire Avengers spread out to minimize the amount of hits from Dan's three biovores, lobbing spores from the rear.
My turn one's shooting saw the majority of the termagaunts hiding in the ruins eliminated as my Dire Avengers opened up on them.
Dan's force moved forward across all front except for the Warriors hiding in the other ruins who positioned themselves better for shooting. The termagaunt and the (proxy) Alpha Warrior ran out of the ruins and into the crater hoping to get to grips with the Eldar next turn. Dan's Dethleeper showed up and he placed him near my rangers. I lost a few Dire Avengers to the Biovores and took a wound on my Farseer.

In my turn two, my wave serpent carrying the banshees moved around to flank the oncoming wave of bodies, hoping to force him to fight on two fronts. I tried to guide my war Walkers but failed due to my lowered leadership courtesy of the Deathleeper. I did however doom the gaunts in the crater and the combined shooting of my infantry killed all of them and reduce the (proxy) Alpha Warrior to his last wound. The War Walkers also nailed a Ravenor with their krak missiles. The Wraithguard got out of the transport and fired at the Deathleeper. Hitting four times with my waraithguns and rolling three sixes causing instant death but Dan passed all of his saves taking only a single wound from the Spiritseer's destructor. They finished him off in combat though.
In Dan's third turn, the Ymgarl Stealers pooped out of the crater and proceeded to charge my guardians and avengers. Six wounds later, he'd broken and caught both of my squads along with my Farseer before consolidating back into the crater.
My Jetbikes and other squad of guardians then arrived, hoping to contain the new threat. Their shooting killed half of the stealers before they charged in, killing the remainder in combat. shooting from Wraithlord and Wave Serpent finally took down the Alpha Warrior whilst the other Wave Serpent nailed a Zoanthrope.
The following turn, Dan's remaining Zoanthrope penetrated my Wave Serpent carrying the Wraithguard. The Hormogaunts then charged out from the line, and killed the Spiritseer and two of the Wraithguard with their poisoned attacks.
The following turn, my Wraithlord failed his wraithsight test and I decided to concede the game as it was getting late. Without the Wraithlord to charge and hold up the termagaunts, I could only really hope for a draw and that was if I was lucky.

Congrats to Dan on his win. We both made a few mistakes during the game.

Dan's mistakes:
He should have kept popping the Deathleeper back into reserve so that is could come out on turn five right next to the objective,or turn four ready to charge in if I had it well secured.

Tom's mistakes:
Maybe I should have placed the objective elsewhere hoping to split Dan's line more, creating more gaps to slip through.
I shouldn't have spread the Dire avengers out so much when I brought them on, it meant that Dan's stealers could charge both units easily instead of just one.

Eltnot