Showing posts with label dark eldar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dark eldar. Show all posts

Wednesday, 3 May 2017

1500pts battle report - Tyranids v Ynarri/Aeldari/Eldar/DarkEldar/Space Pixies/Evil Space Pixies - game 1

It's been over four years since I last went to the Scythe and Teacup but they announced on Facebook a 1500pt, 3 game tournament for only £5, what's not to like? Limitation were only one flyer or LoW and a CAD must be taken before Formations or other shenanigans, apparently to keep the cheese down [not so sure it was successful ;) ]. More of a concern was the 2 hour time limit for each game! You know me and how long I take, couple that with the event starting an hour late and things were less auspicious than I'd hoped. Now pictures are less than usual because of the time factor so I'll do my best to try and remember what went on, bear with.

However, when I was there last I picked up the Miniature Paints Aquamarine that I'm now using as my Anita's Turquoise substitute and I hoped to find some more. I've found it on ebay but when you add postage on too it's like £4 a pot which just seems a bit annoying.

Anyway Round 1 and Ryan with his new Aeldari alliance, wonder if they'll get a new name in 8th. He had some Venoms, a Raider full of Incubi and Harlequin Solitaire, a couple of Farseers on Jetbikes, Warp Spiders and the Yncarne...

Psychic Powers
Winged Tyrant HQTervigon CC TRBroodlordZoanthrope
DominionDominionDominionWarp Blast
The HorrorPsychic ScreamThe HorrorParoxysm
Catalyst



The low down:
  • Eternal War mission - Crusade [5 objectives]
  • Vanguard Strike
  • I went second whatever happened with deployment and whoever went first.
  • Warlord Trait - 3 Enemy units pinning check [useless against these]
  • Not sure about night fighting.
You can see 3 of the objectives, top left between the bunker, debris and hill. One below my Genestealers and one in the middle on the hill next to the Honoured Imperium Statue.


The other two are on the hill and in the Shrine. Ryan focused on the Genestealers taking them all out and leaving the Broodlord with one wound! Serves me right for not putting them within range of the Venomthrope!


My turn and the Flyrant managed to destroy a Venom getting me First Blood, the Broodlord retreated to gain cover from the Venomthrope and the Carnifex moved up with the Tervigon, who spawned Gaunts to secure the centre objective on the hill.


As the Venom, or one of it's occupants died the Yncarne was born [reborn? reincarnated?], bother!


My Tfex had done a little damage on the Warp Spiders with his torrent weapon but that Raider moved up


It disgorged it's Incubi and the Solitaire then was made Invisible and everyone decided to shoot the Tfex.


Which couldn't stand the Firepower of the Raider and Warp Spiders. The Incubi charge the blob of Gaunts, cutting through a third of them without any opportunity for me to hit back.


I spawned Gaunts to throw into the melee but really these would be suicidal sacrifices if they got into combat next turn.


I think the Flyrant downed another Venom but I think it was just wrecked leaving the occupants safe in their disembarkation.


Ryan's turn and both the spawned gaunts in the centre and the Carnifex were dispatched with ease.


Additionally the second brood of gaunts were shot to one left and was subsequently killed alongside what was left of the big blob by the Incubi.


My Tyrrannocyte arrived and I managed to put a wound on the Yncarne and kill of the Dark Eldar next to the Venom leaving a bigger gap around the objective. Unfortunately the Yncarne did his best Fenella the Witch impression and popped up where the Dark Eldar once stood. So much for securing that flank. The rest of the Dev Gaunt and Flyrant shooting did significantly less than I'd hoped, probably killed the other Warriors though.


Last of the Warp Spiders arrived to steal another of the objectives, alongside some turbo-charged Farseers.


I think the final score was 10:4. Ryan had three objectives amd Linebreaker, I just had one and First Blood. I think at some point I realised I may well not have been out-gunned but definitely out-classed. Certainly seems odd that a faction/factions that have so many benefits were given a new way to play with equally good benefits. With the Soulburst actions allowing movements and shooting in my turn it was a tough ask of the nids. That said Ryan was an awesome player and he went on to the final and think may have won the entire tournament, so there's no shame in my efforts.


So, reinstated my habit of losing first game, what's up next.


Monday, 12 September 2016

The tale of 5 Kill Teamers [or 4 Kill Teamer and 1 cheater!]

I don't know what celestial alignment occured to get 5 of the hobby crew in one room but we only went and done it. Ben hosted Liam, Otty, PeteB and myself for a night of Kill Team, even more surprsing when you take into account PeteB has moved over to Age of Sigmar! So we set up on a 4'x4' playing the Supply Drop mission.


Ben chose the typically orky position of facing off against everyone in the middle of the board. Nobs on bikes and his tank busters.


Otty brought his Inquisition Force and it was round about now he realised he'd cheated and brought a HQ - his Inquisitor. We let it pass on the udnerstanding that he would never live it down, forever!


Liam brought evil space pixies.


PeteB had some Chaos Space Marines hiding in a shoe box, next time I imagine it'll be Khorne Daemonkin. I brought four Ravenwing bikes and my Sniper scouts, with a Missile Launcher.


We rolled off for who went first, I think it was Liam, PeteB, Otty, Ben and then myself. Realistically it was a nightmare to follow what was going on for a coherent battle report. Pretty much everyone scored a 'first strike' [First Blood in their first turn] Liam took out PeteB's lone Missile Launcher marine in the tower next to him. PeteB picked up a valuable supply drop and we all seemed to target and kill a specialist so we were each 2 or 3 VPs up each by the end of turn 1.


Personally I was able to take out the nearest threat to my scouts - the three Chaos Marines. Then I charged my Ravenwing at Ben's bikes. I'd killed one biker with the plasma gun then the Warlord charged his Warlord and was cut down in overwatch which thanks to Ben's Warlord trait netted him 3 VPs for almost no effort and left my army worse off than I'd hoped. Other amusing things included Liam's Venom getting stuck on a crater [or immobilized by Ben's bomb Squig] meaning his Incubi had to foot slog across the board. Otty's Servitors kept on getting mind-locked so hardly advanced out of their DZ


My Scouts remained pretty much steadfast for the game, while PeteB was morale checking quite early on. His shooting seemed to be always spot on but his 10,000 year old ammo couldn;t wound for toffee. While my Ravenwing entered into combat with an Ork biker, we had 3 rounds each at combat with me getting 1s and 2s to hit and then getting 5s for Hit & Run it was ludicrously comical. The deadlock was only broken by a Deathcult Assassin getting in on the melee and killing both parties!


The end result saw Ben, who was currently out of reach on at least 10 VPs being tabled, so he was out of the scoring, with Liam also with no models on the board. We then got points for other forcess that routed or killed. Otty was the only faction not to rout so PeteB and I got 3 VPs each bringing us both up to 9 and Otty was on 5 but got 4 VPs for the other factions.


That left the three of us in a three way tie for first place with PeteB and I taking a moral victory as we did not cheat :) Bottom line we had an absolute blast and we were done by 11:30. A great night was had by all and although it;s crushingly bad when any model dies in this game it's also highly amusing. Everything is so valuable, the stakes are so much higher and although a 5-way game skews the game into weird territories I think it worked out OK. I'll look forward to our next game.

Saturday, 14 November 2015

Blog Wars X 1850pt battle report - nids vs Dark Eldar/Eldar

Game 2 and I'm facing Kyle McSweeney and his Dark Eldar/Eldar. Now we know how good Eldar can be and I'm 50:50 with their darker kin, having suffered at the hands of Liam and my first tabling ever at Throne of Skulls but pulling it back to win objective missions at Blog Wars 6 and the Scythe and Teacup tournament. These were 6th Edition games and Codices so there's a lot of change to overcome.

Psychic Powers
Winged Tyrant 1Winged tyrant 2ZoanthropeTervigon
DominionDominionDominionDominion
OnslaughtCatalystWarp BlastThe Horror
Psychic ScreamOnslaughtParoxysm
Broodlord
Dominion
The Horror

The low down:
  • Emperor's relic - 3 objectives - 5VPs for your own, 10VPs for the middle one and 15VPs if you capture your opponents objective - Vanguard Strike
  • Warlord Trait - Warlord and 3 units infiltrate
  • Not sure about night fighting, looks like I went first but pretty sure I lost deployment. 
We spent a significant amount of time deploying, my Warlord trait made Kyle debate long and hard over positioning and once he'd got everything just right I then had to think long and hard too because his deployment was so good it made my trait more of a hindrance. I also knew he had a DE Archon who could confer deep-strike on a unit and he was doing just that to Wraithguard with D-Weapon flamers and Prince Yriel so I'd deployed in the star fromation again to help mitigate his arrival.

I was able to swoop my flyrants forward I must have killed the unit of Dark Eldar in this ruin, despite going to ground as I'm sure I got First Strike. I even put a wound on the Wraithknight!


My Carnifex had contibuted to the Dark Eldar First strike but the Stealers and Deathleaper remained skulking in the ruins to hold onto the 10pt objective.


While my Tervigon and gaunts [spawned out on 16] secured my own 5pt objective underneath the skyshield, which Kyle had immidiately predicted would be my tactic as soon as he saw the fortification. It does make me equally happy that someone is aware of it's effectiveness and disappointed they're working out a counter attack.


Kyle was able to put a couple of wounds on the Carnifex but no First Strike.


My turn 2 and both my reserves arrive. The Mawloc appears inside the ruined factory, the Tyrannocyte deviates but the Rippers get out and hide from the remaining Dark Eldar and jetbikes. Not much happens, I do some shooting and feel quite proud of myself as this seems relatively painless and dare-I-say-it 'easy'!


Oh $hit, yeah. Why had I forgotten about the four Venoms, and two Ravagers and the deep striking Wraithguard?! Wraithgouard arrive spot on, all clustered perfectly on the roof of the building next to the Skyshield. Why had I not thought to deploy something there?


Kyle d-templates everything he can, desparate to kill the Venomthrope. It's 'key' to his plan apparently but the flamer just can't do it. Plenty of Gaunts get obliterated but it was the many splinter shots from the Venoms that eventually cut through his spore cloud to kill him outright. Now I'm reliant on the 4+ invul save to keep me alive.


I try swarming the Wraithguard but 'wall of fire' roasts the gaunts and what I have left of them can't breach the Wraithguard Toughness to force a saving throw.


The Tervigon backs up, trying to keep as far away from the D-weapons as possible. The spawned gaunts cluster round the objective underneath hoping to hold onto it.


The Venom's have other ideas, weight of fire pops the Tervigon, taking most if not all of the spawned gaunts with it. The other Termagant brood continues to claw ineffectively at Yriel's Wraithguard their numbers culled by the los sof their brood mother.


More Venom shots cut through the two Carnifex, leaving the last one with just one wound left.


Which is removed by the Wraithknight, who;d been singularly unimpressive for most of the game, either missing or failing to wound.


My Rippers were unceremoniously erased from existence also - double strength weapons insta-killing them one after another.


Wraithguard and gaunts continued to have it out but the Gaunts ultimately perished. The objective underneath the Skyshield was wide open now and he hard Venoms waiting to capitalise on it's exposure.


My Flyrants both swooped back to my Deployment Zone and I was able to riddle the Wraithguard with Brainleech Worms.


Yriel, the Archon and most of the Wraithguard died giving me Slay the Warlord [at least].


The Wraithknight jumped in to contest the centre objective, it was all falling apart now.


Venoms screamed across the battlefield heading for my objective.


Fitting with ease under the safe canopy of my own fortification!


The centre ruin became a fierce battle. I'd moved Deathleaper down but then the Ravagers got a bead on him through the window and insta-killed him. He'd been invisible stood on top of the ruin all game, as soon as he changed position he was toast. The children of Cryptus swarmed the Wraithknight putting another wound on him but getting stomped in the process. The Venom digorged it's Dark Eldar warriors who got savaged by Brainleech Worms, but not enough to lose the objective.


My Mawloc had popped in the Ruins second turn, burrowed back down and then deviated here to miss the venom.


Time ran out and Kyle had secured all the objectives and got Line Breaker and I'd managed lose everything except Slay the Warlord and First Strike! So a 31 to 2 loss. That sounds so painful but once again so much pain happened so quickly there really wasn;t enough time to feel miserable about it and Kyle was such a good player it wasn's depressing in any way. Really I only had myself to blame as I forgot he had most of his army off the table and went for his objective which put the Flyrants completely out of position, taking them too long to Swoop back to defend my own base. But this was his plan all along, to draw out the Flyrants and then attack my Skyshield with the Wraithguard - kudos to Kyle for planning and executing that plan to perfection. So 0 for 2, can I scratch a win in the final game

Wednesday, 19 November 2014

Blog Wars 8 Armies

Alex already put up his photographs from the painting competition but I didn't want to steal his thunder[wolves] so here are my own shaky cam shots of those armies who mustered for the painting competition. I'll let the pics do most of the talking so just enjoy.

First up Space Wolves:




Secondly, Space Wolves.



And thirdly, erm Space Wolves - PeteB's very own.


Typically PeteB has put the Imperial Knight on ebay already!


Finally, something different, Space Pixies!



Evil Space Pixies.



More Space Pixies, Evil and the Poet kind.


Gareth's Ta on a trampoline.



Howling Griffons [?] and the Rebel Alliance.





Brazen Claws [although I thought they were the Brown Claws, which conjured a completely different fluff image for me].



Crimson Fists


Ben's Necrons, I still think these are really good, certainly the best painted of his armies, even if I've still to smash their little metal minds apart.



And the overall winner with Evil Space Pixies, my mate Liam. Of course he cheated by adding in his Tantalus which wasn't in his army list but I'll forgive him, it was his birthday afterall, although he kept it very quiet.






Sorry, just trying to get a decent shot of this...



And here was my own effort, that came second but you've seen all this stuff before.


Incidentally Alex mentioned he didn't get a pic of my 'Deathleaper', that's no surprise as I was still proxying my Lictor but if you want to see him in all his glory all the pics are here: http://40kaddict.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/nids-part-144-to-done-four-horsemen-of.html