Well, this Sunday came and went with one of the most eagerly anticipated games of recent times. My Eldar taking on the Master Of Sanctitiy's Dark Angels, and away we go.
Deployment, well, it was perfect for me, and a bit of a pain for the Dark Angels with a huge castle taking up almost half of the area. I think this is my preferred layout, the Fire Prism has three clear firing lanes offering much covering fire and nothing much can get at it due to the terrain, the Wraithknight is poised to charge to the middle and take out the Rhino and it's contents, the Wave Serpent will then charge up the middle, deposit the Wraithguard and be as much of a nuisance as possible until it dies. My Guardians and Spiritseer will hold the back objectives, there are 2 on my side and three on the other, we rolled Big Guns Never Tire, which again was pretty much perfect for me as that made the whole of my army scoring. I successfully seized the initiative (for once) and had first turn.
The Wraithknight immobilised the Rhino, and a single biker fell, everything else moved up. Then the heavens opened. A flamer equipped Dreadnought roasted most of my forward Guardian squad and the Terminator Librarian took out a couple of the other Guardians. Round here, the Drop Pod seems to be back in fashion, but thankfully, I still had the means to deal with what was coming, so although my Guardians were being bullied they still had back up.
The Fire Prism had a perfect line of sight to the rear of the Dreadnought, so fired a lance shot right at it....and missed, meaning I had to use the disembarked Wraithguard to get rid of it, not ideal I thought, but they were in the mix and ready to cause some havoc. The combined might of the Wraithknight and Wave Serpent took out the Rhino and continued to beat chunks out of the Marines before the Wraithknight charged in to start cutting them down. In other news, a single shuriken catapult put a wound on the Terminator Librarian, before he charged and was cut down by, none other than the only Guardian to wound him. This is why I am so fond of the simple Guardian, in the direst of times, a hero comes to the light. The Spiritseer decided to assault the Drop Pod to deal with the storm bolter, but even with Armourbane, only managed a single glancing hit.
With the rear of the board safe for now, I moved the Fire Prism forwards to get a shot at the Scouts that were hunkered down in the building. I was in two minds about which squad to shoot, what with them being so close to my units, so I lance shot the building instead, getting a penetrating hit and an 8 on the table (which only goes up to 7). The whole structure collapased and the scouts took 4D6 hits each. One squad was wiped out, and the other left a few survivors that were probably thinking themselves lucky, that was until my Wave Serpent unleashed it's armaments and finished them off. More of the Marines fell to the Wraithknight as the bike squad charged the Wraithguard. Overwatch saw off one of them, and the combat started to resemble the previous game, where both sides just looked at each other menacingly.
The Marines managed to disengage from combat with the Wraithknight, but that just allowed him and the Serpent to bring their guns to bear on the survivors and wipe out the squad. I moved the Fire Prism across to hold the centre objective and point it's turret back towards yet another drop pod. The Marines that jumped out then wiped out the entire Guardian Defenders, losing me an objective. The Spiritseer finally disposed of the Drop Pod and the Wraithguard and Biker just looked longingly at each other for another turn.
...And this was how it ended, the Spiritseer was killed by the Tactical Squad and the Fire Prism proved too accurate as I tried to scatter a shot on top of them. The Biker finally fell to the Wriathguard who consolidated onto an objective. The final score was 15-5 to the Eldar, with me holding 4 objectives, First Blood, Slay the Warlord and Line Breaker and the Dark Angels holding one Objective, Slay the Warlord and Line Breaker.
One-Nil to Path of the Artisan, and I'm pretty sure there will be a rematch.
Gotta say I couldn't have written better report for that fight!
ReplyDeleteHaving all 10 scouts die to a single shot not actually aimed at them was game breaking for me. In my following turn they'd have had free run at the wraithknight, maybe could have changed the face of the fight, we'll never know!
You can bet your ads there will be a rematch, list is already modified to pack more punch and has the capacity to deal with vehicles (& the sodding wraithknight ;-)) just need to get it battle ready now.
15-5 was a sound thrashing though lol