With a high percentage of nid players, 6 out of 34, it was no surprise for me to face at least one of our mast hated foe, Dark Eldar or Eldar. Daniel Russel brought both with a scary mix of Reaver jetbikes, ]OK not much poison but you know I hate cluster caltrops] Eldar Shadow Spinner and 4 flyers - a Crimson Hunter, a Void Raven and 2 Razorwings. My son took a lot of the pictures so bare with some of the more eclectic shots he takes, not necessarily of the action but they're usually quite cool pictures though.
Psychic Powers
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| Winged Tyrant HQ | Winged Tyrant | Tervigon CC TR | Tervigon Plain Tr |
| Enfeeble | Enfeeble | Smite | Endurance |
| Life Leech | Warp Speed | Life Leech | Smite |
Psychic Shriek |
The low down:
- Crusade
- Dawn of War
- I think I lost deployment and went second.
- Warlord Trait - Tenactiy - FnP with 3" of an objective
The tournament was running late at this stage so the game time was reduced by 15 minutes, so no pressure then. Daniel set up with his Reavers next to his objective and his Shadow Weavers occupying three storeys of the nearby ruins.
I swooped the Flyrant forwards but still within cover from the ruins.
My Tervigon remained in the ruins, he's actually on the ground floor so he could not be barraged by the Shadow Weavers who'd put 2 wounds on the Mawloc because of this. I'm trying to think now should he be able to claim being on the ground floor if he can't physically fit. Obviously MCs can just barge through any ruins and leave it standing but something makes me second guess this now and I can't find the rules to say whether I can/can't. Anyway, he's got the objective and spawns 13, which head toward my other objective.
The Flyrant swooping through the ruins.
Hive Guard and Biovores hunker down next to the Tervigon in the ruins out of Barrage from the Shadow Weavers..
On comes the Crimson Hunter with the Reavers moving forwards in the background.
I think this is the Void Raven and everything put the hurt on the Flyrant in the ruins - so I'd played him conservatively game 1 and this is what happens when I play him aggressive and he's giving me the +1 to reserves!
He takes a hit, then falls out of the sky, he's taken either 1 or 2 wounds at this point and then he's swept by these Reavers who cheekily revel in the gore-soaked battlements of my own Bastion.
As they pass the Flyrant they slash him with their blades and caltrops killing him outright - First Blood and Slay the Warlord.
My 13 gaunts are heading for my 2nd objective [a Skyfire Nexus]
But their advance is obliterated by a Shadow Weaver barrage!
I move the Biovores towards the Bastion.
The Reavers continue to posture atop my own Fortification
One of the Devgaunt pods arrive in Daniels backfield to face the three Wracks holding his objective.
The Wracks did not survive the Devourer fire, even going to ground.
My other Flyrant Deep Strike Swooped behind the Void Raven...
and shredded it with Devourer fire.
The Doom arrived in the background and was able to take some life from the Haemonculous and the Shadow Weaver gunners.
The Doom now had the objective. Apparently Duke Silacus tried to engage him in combat at some point but failed abysmally which I think eventually meant he was killed by the Doom's Spirit Leech.
I though the Flyrant was safe but didn't realise the Crimson Hunter had Vector Dancer which meant it was suddenly facing down the king of the skies.
Unsurprisingly the Flyrant did not survive the encounter.
More Reavers arrived but positioned to shoot the Doom without having their life leeched from their bodies. He suffered a few wounds, he may even have been reduced down to 1 under the intense shooting but he managed to survive another turn.
With my Hive Commander Tyrant gone my vanilla Tervigon could no longer outflank which ended up handy as it meant this turn it could move to secure my objective alongside the 13 gaunts my CC Tervigon had spawned out on this turn
Biovores head for the Bastion which is now free of Reavers.
The Reavers had been shot by everything nearby and fled. Daniel pointed out an FAQ anomaly that they can still turbo-boost in their turn and as such are never likely to move off the table. I didn't quite follow but time was running out so I went with it and I'll return the debate at the end of the report. Whatever shooting I had done at this stage was being marred by my inability to process my roll-to-hit and then roll-to-wound routines. My earlier clumsiness was being replaced by senior moments of having in my head the four 'to-hit' rolls from my Stinger Salvo where in fact the 'to wound' rolls from some blast weapon. Luckily Daniel kept me on track. You'll also notice a lack of Devgaunts controlling the objective there, not sure what got them, but I think 2 or 3 survived but bolted and where heading for my table edge.
My Mawloc popped up to little or no effect.
The 2 Razorwings arrived.
And some more Reavers.
Razorwings moved to engage my vanilla Tervigon.
Reavers screamed across the backfield.
The Doom was now on 9 wounds having sucked the life from some more Dark Eldar and presumably the Haemonculous and the Duke but he was now in the sights of the Crimson Hunter.
And with time running out I had about 3 minutes to do my turn, not enough to do everything I needed but in the far right another trio of Wracks had turned up but my last Devgaunt Brood also arrived and would have mown them down in the same fashion as their retreating siblings and captured the objective so we called that one mine. The Doom still had the objective above and linebreaker, the other objective to the right of those ruins could have been unclaimed unless a bike squad had it.. My CC Tervigon was still holding the objective next to the ruins having never moved all game. The only problem was a unit of Reavers who had contested the Skyfire Nexus next to the Bastion and trees. With time called I quickly threw four dice for the Tervigon's assault on them but it was just 1s and 2s so it wouldn't have killed the 2 or 3 remaining bikers. I still had some Termagants to Assault and there were probably shooting that could have taken them beforehand but we called it contested and I had
Therefore I had 3 objectives for 15VPs, plus the 2 secondary VPs. Daniel may have been without any objectives, unless he had the one on the other side of the ruins from the Doom but I think he had all three secondary VPs so it could have ended up 17-3 or 17-8 I'm not sure, either way a win for me. We had quite a nice analysis afterwards about what could have been. Daniel had a lot still on the board I couldn't deal with - Razorwings and Reavers zipping about with impunity. Another turn - those 15 lost minutes and it could have been very different with most all of the objectives being contested/secured by Daniel but the last turn went by so fast I couldn't believe I was left with just 3 minutes when I was sure when I looked and saw Daniel start his turn with 17 minutes to go that 14 minutes hadn't gone by. It's funny how time plays tricks on you.
OK, so two rules issues that came up during play that I didn't have time to deal with given the shortened game:
Shooting on fall back: Daniel was of the belief that you shoot at full BS during fall back moves. This was my gaunts falling back and I was convinced they shoot as snap fires but he insisted. It is in fact only as snap shot fire. [pg 30 BRB]
Turbo boost on fall back: Like I said above I'm not sure what this rule was but Daniel mentioned it to Alex, the event organiser who seemed to be in agreement. I think the gist of it is that units on fall back can choose to run instead of shooting [though why you would do this...] but Jet Bikes get to turbo boost 24" and Eldar/Dark Eldar Jet Bikes get to turbo boost 36". Now he mentioned it hadn't been FAQ'd that somehow even if it was falling back you could then Turbo Boost in the opposite direction to remain on the board. If this is the case and anyone knows what this issue is please explain as I can't find the usual hotly contest RAW Vs RAI debate on the usual forums.
My look at the rules suggests that [in bold] on page 30 'the only moves they can make in subsequent phases are Fall Back moves until they regroup' and subsequently a Fall Back move is described as each model in the unit moves directly towards their own table edge by the shortest possible route. So I would understand it to be that the movement in the shooting phase [should you be foolish enough to make one] is still a 'fall back' move, because that's the only type of move you can make when you're falling back, and therefore it should be in the direction of your own table edge and with a 36" turbo boost that's likely to be off the table. I don't see how that allows you to boost in the opposite direction but if anyone knows the issue please let me know.
Regardless of this and the ramifications on what would/could have been it makes no difference to me, I'm putting it down to an aberration of the warp :) . Daniel was an absolute gent and together with Phil and Adam capped a great day. 3 competitive but more importantly fun games. I had some challenges and even the horror of facing Dark Eldar, usually my nemesis was replaced with an extremely civilized and equal match up. So thanks to all I played against, see you next Blog Wars
Incidentally, this didn't come up in the game but I was reading about Barrages and how they affect levels on page 100. The assumption I always had was that if you targeted the 1st story of a ruin and a barrage deviates off the ruin and there are models on the ground but none on level 1 then the ground floor figures are unharmed - NOT SO. It says:
"If a blast of large blast weapon scatters, it can still only hit models on the level targeted, though this may be the corresponding level of a nearby ruin. If there is no corresponding level, it instead hits the highest level under the template and can only wound models on that level. If the blast marker scatter to non-ruin, or open terrain, resolve as normal."
So, resolve as normal. No dodging the barrages, when it's raining death from above, just because it missed the first floor window originally targeted!
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| Daniel's army list |
