ShortRep 1500: Blood Angels vs Eldar+Dark Eldar

Alan and I rocked up for a 1500 game. Trying to get my Blood Angels to work has been interesting. I created a variant to the list I played previously with Alan. This time I applied everything I have learnt from our previous game into the new list. 

Mephiston

Sanguinary Priest on a Bike: Combo-grav

Death Company x6: Power Fist x1

Tactical Marines x10; Sergeant with Combo Melta, Meltagunner and Heavy Flamer + Drop Pod

Tactical Marines x10; Sergeant with Combo Melta, Meltagunner and Heavy Flamer + Drop Pod

Tactical Marines x10; Sergeant with Combo Melta, Meltagunner and Heavy Flamer + Rhino with Dozer Blade

Assault Marines x5; Meltagun x2 Combo-Melta

Stormraven; TL Multi Melta; TL Assault Cannon

Alan brought an Eldar + Dark Eldar combined list with an Autarch, 5 D Scythes Wraithguard in a Wave Serpent, Night Spinner, 2 Venoms, 1 Wraithknight, 3 Groteques  and 2 units of 3 Scatter Laser Jetbikes. 

Looks like I have models to build and paint-those Ultramarines aren't mine

Abby was the one who set the table up for us and we rolled for table halves. I chose the side with all the ruins to deny Alan from being able to hide. I depended less on Cover owing to his D flamers.

We rolled for missions and chose to combine the Relic and Deadlock. Relic was worth 3VP.

I won the rolloff and let Alan deploy first.

Alan kept his Wraithknight away from my GravBikes

I played exceptionally cagey but forgot about the Marines hidden in the terrain. Genius

With minimal LOS, Alan didn't manage to do as much damage

I prioritized the Relic and went for the Wave Serpent with his Wraithguard armed with D Scythes. 

Unfortunately I did not manage to pop the Wave Serpent and now would receive payback. I did however manage to get First Blood by killing off the Venom.

In turn 2 Alan made these Marines pay for my forgetfulness

And the D Scythes toasted majority of my guys

In my turn, I poured all my firepower into the Wraithguard and managed to wipe the squad from shooting and close combat combined. In return I had little left myself

Put my remaining Meltagunner out to threaten his Wave Serpent while keeping my Sanguinary Priest hidden

In Alan's Turn 3, his flyer turned up. He tried taking my Rhino down but it survived! Seem to be living on some kind of lucky charm. Then in my Turn 3, my Stormraven turned up and managed to take his flyer down.

Aerial combat

I dropped my Tactical Marines out to toast his Jetbikes behind the ruins. This meant leaving them in the open to be charged by his Groteques which he did. He managed to take 3 out but Emperor Protects! They held.

In my Turn 3, I was caught with a conundrum. I brought Mephiston to test him against Knights, which included Wraithknights and Imperial Knights. However, I drew the Kingslayer card. The "Autarch" that led the Groteques was Alan's Warlord. I also drew Secure Objective 6 which was next to the Groteques. Freeing this unit up would allow me to score 3 VPs, including Slay the Warlord.

In the end, I dropped Mephiston next to the Groteques and charged him in. I challenged the "Autarch" and managed to gazed him down, allowing me to hit on 2+. Magically, Alan made all his Invul saves! Ah well!

Mortal combat! 

In turn 4 however I chose to Hover my Stormraven to attempt to take out the Night Spinner.

Wraithknight charges in

Mephiston destroyed the unit of Groteques and move off toward the Wraithknight. This was important to me because I really wanted to see if he could take on that behemoth and hold his own.

Wraithknight failed to take out my Stormraven 

Charged Mephiston in! 

This was it. This was the reason I brought Mephiston. Rolling the dice, Mephiston managed to get the charge in. Couldn't do the Gaze because the Wraithknight isn't a character. I failed to get get Force up (insert horrid Star Wars or Viagra joke here) but got the STR10 power off.

After a flurry of attacks, the Wraithknight took no wounds. Whaaaaaaaat?

In return, he loped the head of Mephiston with its long fingers. Lame!

At the end of Turn 4, we had come close to the 3 hour mark (tourney standard and I had to run). We decided to tally points here.

Alan got 13
I counted my cards and included all First Blood and Slay the Warlord and came up to 12!

That charge cost me the game because I didn't have to charge and risk losing my Warlord like that. Nonetheless, this was a practice game and I think it proved to me that Mephiston is not able to fulfill the function of Knight Killer.

Great game and much closer than our previous game. Really glad it worked out. Granted, Alan did bring a softer list than previous but the Knight sure made a dent to my list.

So I have modified my list a little based on this game and will be working on it. I suspect that Mephiston can't cut it in today's meta and may have to look at other characters. I will be back.

Rematch of the Roquefort - 1850pt batrep Dark Eldar/Eldar v Eldar

The disparate group of Eldar picked their way through the ruins dotting the grassy plain, starlight their only source of illumination. The large majority of them had begun their exodus from the Craftworld Saim-Hann after hearing of the renegade Harlequins of the Third Act, hoping to join their ranks. 

They had brought their vehicles and a Wraithknight with them, and as they got closer to the rendezvous point, two more looming Wraithknights from the Third Act stepped out of the gloom to meet them as an escort. 

A sudden volley of poisoned splinters and shimmering shurikens bounced off one Wraithknight, and a combined force of Dark Kin and Saim Hann burst out of the gloom. It seemed that some took exception to the exiles' flight, and they had allied with Archon Elian Maiburiarch to prevent their leaving....

After the double WK cheese last time out, Alan and I had a rematch, and we brought different lists to prepare him for an upcoming tournament. I decided to up the cheese factor, bringing 3 WKs and a squadron of Night Spinners in a Craftworld Warhost, while he brought 1 WK as allies for his CAD of Dark Eldar. We both got Invisibility as one of our Psychic Powers (oh the cheese) and away we went...

Pure Eldar deployment; bikes are scattered (hehe) across the deployment zone, Wraithknights and Night Spinners clustered at one corner, to avoid the Wraithguard D-Scythe bomb.

Made a first mistake with the deployment, which would condition the rest of the game. Worrying about his D-Scythes, I tried to cluster my units together to deny them space to drop in. Perhaps I should have spread them out to give him only one unit to target, and pushed my Knights up more.

Made a mistake here, decided my firepower could win me a couple of points, and began spreading them out. This left space for Alan to drop his Wraithguard right behind the yellow Knight.

Realising my mistake, I began to move up with the Night Scythes and the Wraithknights, but had already conceded the initiative to Alan, who had pushed his Wraithknight and bikes up to put pressure on me.

Here comes the pain. He had of deployment problems with the DS, trying various combinations to get the maximum amount of templates on a target.

Interesting thing about deep striking, you don't actually need to have the character with the Portal in the centre. The other thing about this D-Scythe bomb, is that it statistically isn't as scary as people might think, particularly with the -1 on the Destroyer table. 33% chance to do nothing? I'll take it.

In the end, Alan decided to plonk them down behind the yellow knight.

This is where we found that the D-scythe will do damage, but not an inordinate amount. The drop only does 2 Wounds to the yellow WK.

Alan's WK begins smashing his way through my lines (despite looking as if I killed him). At this point I'm down to basically one Night Spinner and the Wraithknights. The Vyper is basically useless. The red WK will soon go down to the attacks from his grey WK.

Something else to note. Two D strength wraithcannon shots were really underwhelming. While you always have a chance to hit something with a double 6 and wipe out a monstrous creature or gargantuan, you're only hitting 4/6 times, unless you have psychic buffs.

Night Spinners manage to remove the Wraithguard bomb with their Monofilament Shroud shooting.

Monofilament weapons are absolutely deadly against high toughness/low initiative stuff like Wraithguard, but because I only had one squadron, target priority was important. Could I have just avoided the slow Wraithguard and fired my squadron at something else like his Wraithknight?

The Scourge will eventually die, but for all my shooting, Alan still has quite a lot of stuff on the table. Those Reavers at the top of the pic came in from reserve, nullifying a lot of my shooting.

Another instance where deployment was important. Alan knew that I had a lot of firepower on the table, so he smartly put a large bulk of his forces in reserve, preventing me from shooting at them on the first turn.

Razorwing shooting will wipe out the farseer's unit at the bottom right hand pic.

Reaver jetbikes prepare to charge the sole remaining Night Spinner. At this point all I have left is a Wraithknight, a Warlock, a Windrider, the Night Spinner, and the Vyper (who was so inconsequential we both forgot about him)

Those reavers are about to wipe out the last remaining squad of Windriders, and the Night Spinner is wrecked by Alan's shooting. We call the game here as I have 1 WK and 1 Vyper left.

Crushing victory for the combined Dark Eldar/Eldar alliance!

Granted, it was my first time running the Craftworld Eldar, but man I made so many mistakes. Still, it was a great learning game and I definitely am planning to give Alan a better match for preparation next time!

Tourney Prep: Tyranids vs Eldar and Dark Eldar Alliance

As we continue to gear up for the tourney, I got a game in with Alan who was also preparing for the same tourney. We had both agreed to bring as strong a list we can to test it out. My list is the same and everything is WYSIWYG and so is his. 

Mission was Emperors Will + Contact Lost.

I won the first turn and took it.

I spread my Gants all out and pushed my Hormagants forward with the intent to tarpit the Wraithknight

Alan kept his jetbikes far behind to remain out of range

Turn 1

I managed to secure the objective

I had also managed to Stun the Ravager

Alan moved up along his table edge, keeping out of range as much as he can

He attempted to charge his WK into my Gants hiding in the ruins and needed an 8 but failed it. This would allow me to send in my Hormagants to tie the WK up

Turn 2

I charged in and lock the Wraithknight in. I managed to also destroy the Ravager

Love this pic

In Alan's turn 2, his Razorwing came in a made a hole in my unit of 30. That thing is powerful

Turn 3

By now I was sitting in his deployment side and he was in mine. It was really down to the wire. His WK had disengaged from my swarm and moved down to try to get a unit of Gants off the objective.

Game end 

The WK goes for the charge but fails the roll. We tallied the points and I won by a margin of 1.

One roll made a huge difference

If Alan had managed to complete the charge, the WK may have killed off enough of the Gants to secure the last objective, giving him a point swing of 3 his way.

Alas, it is games like these that I love. Close and intense. More to come! 

Slowburn Month 2: 2v2 Games Day at ITE Central

It is the end of Month 2 for the Slowburn League at Titan Games and this time we had the opportunity to participate in a Games Day. This was held in conjunction with the Campus Game Fest held over at ITE Central. Starting at 12PM, we broke off into groups of 2. Owing to the size of the venue, each 2v2 grouping only had 4x4 play space. It was a little cramp but overall it turned out excellent. 

Keeping the games simple, these were the rules we played to:

1. 500 points per player. This army must be fully painted with completed bases.
2. Armies should be composed using detachments or formations found in the main rulebook or faction specific books.
3. Two Rounds of games with random pairing per round (i.e. you will be playing with a random player each Round). Pairing will be drawn out of a hat.
4. You will be playing two of the six Maelstrom Missions from the main 40k Rulebook. The mission will be randomly determined on the actual Games Day itself.
5. The pair will score and are treated as one individual throughout that pairing.
6. The pair will nominate a Warlord for that Round and declare it to the opponent.
7. For the duration of the pairing, both players share Maelstrom Mission Victory Objectives and Points.
8. Faction restrictions remain the same (e.g. Come the Apocalypse remain Come the Apocalypse – all restrictions remain).
9. Power Dice for the Psychic Phase will be determined based on 1D6 and this will be shared by the pair.
10. For the purpose of the 2v2, the pair will use the Tactical Mission Objective cards instead of the faction specific cards.
11. Win: 3 points, Lose: 1 point, Draw: 2 points. Tie breakers are determined using the difference in Maelstrom Mission Victory Points so do keep track of your round scores and report it to the Organizer. 

The Participants were:
1. Wei Ming
2. Samuel Kan
3. Mark Ong
4. Edward Goh
5. Austin
6. Timothy Dorville
7. XY
8. Charles Lee
9. Raymond Tan
10. Marshall Sim
11. Rico Chia
12. Melvin Cheng
13. Alan Maybury
14. Tze Min Lim

With 14 players, it meant 2 players had to duke it out as a 1v1 which turned out to be excellent. It created a scenario where you need to bring balanced lists! 

Here are some pics of the event and some of the games I played in. 

The first mission was Contact Lost, forcing us each to capture Objectives in order to generate more Tactical Objectives

My first match up was with Charles and he brought Grey Knights. Our opponents were Alan and Defeng who played Dark Eldar and Imperial Guard. It was a close game and at the end, we lost by 1 VP! If that Drop Pod had survived, we would have secured Line Breaker and drew the game! 

The table to my right had Rico (Necrons) and Sam (Nids) paired up against Marshall (IG) and Edward (Chaos)

More games at the back with White Scars by Zim vs Necrons by XY. Not too sure who were the others. 

Rico as always pulling out best painted stuff! So sickly sweet! 

We played on Table 1 and this was aptly named. We kept rolling ones.

Glorious last stand by Librarian Xavier (Charles Xavier, get it? X-Men reference right there)

After consolidating the results, YC (whom I have to thank for the excellent job of creating a powerful spreadsheet with Defeng to monitor the results) put us into our next pairs. I was teamed up with Tim and played against Alan (AGAIN!) and Marshall.

The second mission was The Spoils of War, where each side will "share" Secure Objective cards, effectively allowing you to "steal" the opponents' Tactical Objectives.

Tim and I decided to play the Refused Flank strategy and went for the objectives from turn 1.

Behind me, Zim was playing with Melvin and Charles was teamed up with Defeng

First Turn

This game was extremely hard fought with the game going strong early. I have found a new hero in my list and he will be getting an Honour Roll for his armour. His name is Hiron and he will be promoted!

Brother Hiron's unit disembarked from his Drop Pod together with Sergeant Gorro. It was deep in enemy territory and he had a desperate mission. Gorro opened fire on the Chimera hidden behind the ruins and managed to take it out with his Combo Melta. Subsequently, the Guardsmen realised the threat and opened up on the unit, taking everyone out except for Hiron. Brother Hiron threw himself through the wall, punching through the broken door and came face to face with the enemy Warlord. Picking himself up, he fired with his Bolt Pistol and let out a resounding shout to the Emperor and charged right in. Sanguinus was with him that day. He struck true and felled a Guardsmen. The enemy was caught surprised by the moment and having seen what the embodiment of the Emperor could do, quaked in their pants. The enemy Warlord would have no more of this and fled the battlefield. Brother Hiron picked himself up, leaped up to take cover in the ruins. Mission was a success. 

Brother Hiron's actions managed to secure the Tactical Objective twice and scored my team 3VPs for Slaying the Warlord. A true hero.

Brother Calistus joined up with the Wolves to provide some good Feel (No Pain). 

After tabulating the scores, the top scoring players were Tze Min and Edward. Tze Min came out as numero uno due to VP scores while Edward came in 2nd. Marshall came in 3rd.

It was an awesome day. Not only we managed to play with different people, but the hall was full of other gaming goodness. I hope you guys all felt the same way too!

750 points for next month! I will be working my lists to play at the 1000 point Games Day we will be running at the end of Month 4 so stay tuned! 

Batrep: 2v2 Tourney Prep

Ed is preparing for the 2v2 tourney over at Titan Games and wanted to get in a few games prior to the actual event. I volunteered to help him hone his army. He plays Dark Eldar. I brought my Nids.

I was meant to participate in the 2v2 tourney too but am caught with another event planned a long time ago so had to sit this one out.

My list is pretty straight forward with 2 of each. Flyrant, Carnifex and Hormagants. All WYSISYG.

Just started working on those Hormagants

Ed brought the Venom Spam with Incubi, 2 Ravegers and 1 Razorwing.

Dark Eldar Army Showcase & a little "Color Theory"

Today I'm gonna be discussing about the problems with painting armies as a whole. Daunting no doubt, but very achievable if we prioritise the steps and compromise a little. This allows us to field largely "painted" armies. Providing us the visual treat we all yearn for when we play a game of 40K.

Space Wolf Updates and Dark Eldar

Very impressed with Defu's progress with his Stormfang so I thought I would share it with everyone.