Friday, May 2, 2014

Battle for Blacksburg Bat Rep - Game 2 - Tyranids vs. Eldar

Following my Round 1 Victory, I was paired against David and his Eldar, who had just beaten up some other Tyranids in round 1. Round 2's mission had the same triple primaries, but this time Heavy Support would be scoring and give up additional VPs, and deployment would be Vanguard Strike.

vs.

David's Eldar list was:

  • Farseer: Shard of Anaris, Iyanden Warlord, Guide, Prescience, Foreboding
  • 20 Guardians: 2 Bright Lance Platforms
  • Wave Serpent: TL Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon
  • 5 Dire Avengers: Wave Serpent
  • 5 Dire Avengers: Wave Serpent
  • 5 Dire Avengers: Wave Serpent
  • 3 Guardian Jetbikes
  • 3 Guardian Jetbikes
  • 8 Swooping Hawks
  • 3 War Walkers: 2 Brightlances
  • Wraithknight
  • Skyshield Landing Pad
The three Crusade objectives were placed along the center line, while our Emperor's Will objectives were in our corners. Dave won the roll for deployment and chose to deploy first, with his Guardians, Wraithknight, and War Walkers on the skyshield, and then two serprents on the flank, with the other two under the skyshield. I bunched my deployment in the middle, using my bastion and the central ruin to block as much line of sight as possible to my force, while the gants screened and spread out across my zone. I opted to reserve my flying monstrous creatures.

We were playing on a Daemon world, what about it?
In the top of turn one, David moved the serpents to my right along with the wraithknight. The bright lances all fired on the bastion with the venomthrope, but only managed a single glance, which I saved. The serpents all fired into the lead exocrine and with some high numbers on the shields, managed to take him out with the final volley.

In my turn I paroxysmed one wave serpent, and then shot it with an exocrine, taking off the shuriken cannon. The rest of my army simply shuffled around and hid. The biovores fired on the guardians, but scattered 12", leaving a single spore mine floating in the middle of the board.


In turn two, David repeated turn 1, shuffling a bit and hiding the damaged serpent, before unloading on the bastion, destroying it and killing the venomthrope inside and killing the remaining exocrine with weight of fire. The swooping hawks dropped in on my right and killed a handful of termagants.

In my turn my warlord flyrant and one crone arrived from reserves. I flew them on the right side of the board, vector striking the occupied wave serpent with the crone and landing behind it with the flyrant. The vector strike did two hull points but left it alive. With poor prioritization, I shot a missile at the wounded wave serpent and then predictably rolled a 1 for the haywire. I then used the flyrant to kill the serpent. Had I gone the other way, I could have used the crone's flamer to more or less wipe out the dire avengers. The biovores killed a few guardians and managed 3 hull points on the war walkers, destroying one.

In turn three, the swooping hawks jumped back up into the air. The jetbikes arrived and hid. The surviving Wave serpents and the Wraithknight lined up shots on my FMCs and promptly killed the flyrant (I didn't make a single save) and then grounded the crone with a single wound remaining. Other shooting was directed at the zoanthrope and warriors, killing all but one warrior. The wraithknight charged and killed the crone with its hammer of wrath hit.

In my turn, my remaining flyers stayed off the board. The tervigon finally spawned out, after producing three broods of 10+. My termagants began spreading out across the board while the surviving warrior moved back toward my emperor's will objective. The only shooting was the biovores, who killed a few more guardians off the blob.

Lacking the FMC threat, Dave turned his attention to my synapse this turn, cutting down my Tervigon. He also dropped the swooping hawks in to kill some more termagants. In the bottom of the turn, my Crone and Flyrant came on the same places as their predecessors. I passed most of my instinctive behavior checks, and the one I failed gave the unit stealth. The flyrant and crone took down another wave serpent, and killed four of the occupants.

Turn 5 would be the final turn, so it was objective grabbing time. The jetbikes jumped forward and turbo boosted onto two of the crusade objectives while some dire avengers and the wraithknight positioned themselves to assault a spawned blob of gants holding the third. Shooting downed the flyrant but left the crone alone. The two dire avengers units and the wraithknight assaulted and broke the termagants before consolidating onto the Crusade objective. On the other side of the board, the swooping hawks failed a short charge to tie up my blob and draw them away from contesting a crusade objective.

In my turn, the termagants contesting the middle objective failed instinctive behavior and ran away. To counter, the biovores moved to the ruin, but fell just short on their move to contest, and so had to run. The crone landed and killed a dire avenger and contested the crusade objective on the right. Finally, the blob of termagants moved for the jetbikes on my left, killed two with shooting, then failed a short charge that would have removed the third and given me Crusade.

The final tally saw Eldar resoundingly win on Kill points (8 points), us draw Emperor's Will and Crusade (4 points each), and take Warlord (2 points) and First Blood (2 points), totaling a 21-9 Victory.

In hindsight, I should have started the flyers on the board. One might have died turn 1, but with them coming on late and in patches, I was left punchless for turns 1 and 3. I also should have conceded Crusade and used the crone to Contest David's Emperor's Will Objective. This would have guaranteed me 8 points for Emperor's will, and left me the opportunity to draw Crusade if I'd made the charge on the surviving jetbike. That move and a successful 4" charge could have brought it much closer, though I still would have lost on secondaries (17-13).

All in all, it was a really tough game, that despite some poor luck early for me, I brought close. David was a great opponent and really tested me while still having fun.

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