As a christening for the new scenery, both me and William would blood it in a 1500pts friendly.
Sadly it's "con" season and my wife being a big Con goer dominated the house with guests a plenty. Luckily, while they were away, I quickly shoved everything to one side and reclaimed the dining table. FOR WARGAMING!!!
Dragging out the complete set I still had to throw on some extra bits from the older set (still need to adjust the base paint to match the board). The gantries really offer a new 3rd dimension of play to the game. Gantry hand rails would offer 5+ cover, possibly higher if the shots came from an odd angle that put the floor in the way. Ladders provided access up, 3" per floor, while units could drop down 1 floor without damage.
Not able to help myself, I added some Necron pylons, giving the impression that this Imperial mine works had disturbed something under the soil.
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| To my dismay, figures do not slide down the ramp... :( |
For the army, I knocked together a quick Decurion that was heavy in numbers. A warrior horde. Making the most from the Decurions improved Ressurection rolls, I was hoping to control the majority of the battlefield against Wimaro's sneaky Eldar.
LINKIEST LINK ON ZEE PLANET!!
He was sure to use this Wraith Knight, and instead of trying to take her down, I decided to ignore it. Focus on the mission.
- Overlord with phase shifter, void reaper.
- 5 Lych Guard
- 20 Warriors
- 20 Warriors
- 20 Warriors
- 10 Warriors
- 10 Warriors
- 3 Tomb Blades
To my knowledge, Wimaro played hard with a Wraith heavy host using lots of jet bikes and a Wraith Knight. I was mostly right, though he did play things slightly differently than in our larger 3 V 3 games.
- Wraith Knight ghostglaive / 1x scatter laser
- 10 Wraithguard D-scythes
- Farseer skyrunner singing spear
- Warlock skyrunner singing spear
- 3x3 windriders scatter laser
- 3 vyper missile launcher + shuriken catapult
- Illic Nightspear
The Mission.
The mission we rolled for was Lost Contact, a very standard Maelstrom game but for one very distinct element: You only get cards from held objectives at the start of your turn. I'd played this mission several times before and already knew how important dominating the battlefield was.
Although William had 1 more unit than me, I was feeling strangely confident. The warrior horde play was still new to me, but being as tough as they were, grabbing them and boxing in my opponent seemed like a plan.
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| My deployment. |
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| Wimaro's (aka William's) deployment. |
Turn one was very telling. Firstly, thanks to the warlord trait I rerolled Seizing the initiative and managed a 6. ARGH!!! That never happens!
Moving first meant my line of bone and blood shuffled forward into firing range and seized 4 objectives. Though the first turn still only yielded 1 card, it allowed me to hold those objectives with huge tough units.
Wimaro's retaliation was telling his forces were shooty, tough too, but too few and spread out to make a dent. Plus, the Wraith knight didn't dare jump in while the Wraith knights held back, waiting for me to come close enough for those D scythes...
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| Closer..... a little more.... |
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| NOPE! |
The game in itself was a great opportunity in learning and relearning those rules one always forgets. For me and Wimaro this was largely in the psychic phase (I never go for psychic armies for some reason!), but with his Eldar jetbikes, we discovered some amazing stuff.
Shoot and scoot. Also known as moving 2d6 in the assualt phase. Not to mention that objective trolling 36" Turbo boost. Essentially making his bikers with those scatter lasers very annoying. Lucky for me between Wimaro's bad rolls and my Decurion nastyness, I was seeing very little damage. A few warriors here and there for more than 5 Bikers in the first turn. And a wound on the Warlock.
Meanwhile Illic Nightspear, attempting to assassinate the Overlord, discovered that Look Out sir still counted. So... he took photoes and dreamed of times long passed...
Turn 2 and 3.
My report will get a bit sketchy here as things heated up fast. Wimaro got his feet and layed the Eldar pain. The Wraith knight jumped over the 3 walkways and charged in against 20 Warriors while Vypers with Missile Launchers preyed on my Overlord.
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| Haha! I hope things are going as well on the left flank! |
Strangely, the for two combats, the Wraith did nothing for stomping, but did more than enough with his sword. It would be three turns of combat before my Warriors finally broke and got crushed, but by then, it would be too late.
On my right, over 50 Warriors assembled and layed out nearly 100 shots on the Wraith Guard. 1 died.
x1 DIED!!!
Between the toughness 6 and the 3+ save, my attacks just couldn't get those Mannequin lookalikes to sit down and die.
Still, the Wraith Knight was nearly free and could potentiall fold the flank, sensing a possible victory, Wimaro pushed forward. His Wraith Guard using their D Scythes (well 4 of them the others had no room to fire!) to wipe out 10 Warriors in one go. Boom, gone. Dust.
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| Err... |
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| Still here. Fighting.... |
Wimaro's jetbikes took more of a pounding, reducing them to squads of 1. Using 1 such surviving unit, he turbo boosted and grabbed a point for Behind Enemy Lines, taking an objective and potentially more for Line Breaker.
The only unit nearby was my Overlord and bodyguard, currently looking hopelessly at the Wraith Knight still stomping up and down.
Maybe I could use that?
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| Hold my beeeeer!!! |
Between the Thrall of the Silent King combined with killing in CQC for my Overlord, mixed with the challenge objective, getting the max from the extra D3 meant going from 2 to 7 points in one go. Check mate!
Illic wrote a great poem while his kin was slaughtered though!
End result 7 to 3. Victory Necrons.
Post battle musings.
You can never tell much about the effectivness of your tactics or units until you play a basic game or three. While a great spectacle, the big games don't give much for feedback, and most of the time units get wiped out before really displaying worth. In a game where everything needs to be working, all the time, earning their points back, this is doubly important.
We'd been playing a lot of large games and this was possibly the first time that Wimaro got to see what his guys and gals could do.
Sadly, while I was familiar with the Mission, he was not, and concerned about the welfare of his shiniest units, held them back in the first turn. He needent have worried. As the late game showed, those Wraith units are hard as nails. Arguably harder than my Necrons. The jetbikes have firepower, but the Scatter lasers seemed ill fitted against Warriors, where perhaps Rending Shruikin Cannons would have done better?
The psychic phase went will, but many powers and cross combinations didn't work out. A lot of buffs and freebies went wasted as the best units for them simply werent in the army. It seems on reflection that despite their being a lot of BAMF in the new Craftworld list, it really takes practice to combine those units getting the best synthesis. You really cannot just throw down like Space Marines and Necrons can. Safe in the assurance that there will be a save to pull your ass out of the fire.
That said, damn his rolls were bad.
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| Game winning Eldritch Storm.... |
As his opponent, what did I fear the most? The rematch...
A quick rematch. Aka. OW OW MY FACE!!
We played a quick no holds barred 1000pts rematch. Me, feeling smart arse, took Praetorians with their Rods of Covenant. I was hoping to put to rest this myth of the unkillable Wraith Guard. 3 units of Warriors, 1 of Immortals and a basic Overlord.
Wimaro took his trusty Wraith Knight, too 1 squad of Wraith Guard with D-Scythes and his Jetbikes into x4 units with Shruikin Cannon.
The mission was Cloak and Shadows. Playing typically down the narrow of the board.
Charging head long into the fray, I was feeling confident from the last game. Too confident, perhaps. This time Wimaro played the Eldar way, shooting hard and fast and sneaking away before I could return fire. Illric Nightspear found himself largely ignored as a non threat and, agreeing, went back to writing poetry.
The Wraith knight pounded down the left flank towards a unit of Warriors.
Meanwhile, the action was in the centre. 10 Immortals, and Overlord and my 10 Praetorians went after the Wraith Guard. Screw the mission, this myth would die.
Under fire from Rending shots everywhere, the jetbikes quickly suffered from the disappearing board space. The Wraith Knight, beginning to think everyone secretly disliked it, ran after the remains of those 10 Warriors. Or maybe it was after the objective they sat on?....
Putting everything into the attack, I pounded the Wraith Guard with 10 Tesle Carbines (really not as good as they used to be) and 10 shots from the Rods of the Covenant. Which at BS 4 decided to most miss. 3 hit. Ap 2 though, so no armour save!! Still needed 5+. 1 Wound.
The Tesla fired, scoring a modicum of wounds William failed a couple of saves. And then picked up the dice and re-rolled them.
WAT!=
Lets rewind.
In the largely unknown world of the psychic phase, Wimaro had put something on the Wraith I hadn't bothered registering until now. Fortune I believe it was. Allowing them to reroll failed armour saves.
NEIN!!!!
I charged in with the Praetorians. And got 5 D3 D-Scythe automatic hits in the face, wiping out everyone in the Elite unit bar 1, who failed to hit.
On my right flank the Eldar Jetbikes had whittled down a 10 man Warrior unit to 3 Warriors in just 2 turns of shooting.
I looked at my secret Tactical Objective Cards, then at the battlefield, then at Wimaro and offered him my hand.
Good game. I said. And found a quite spot
to cry some. reflect on my loss.
In the space of 1 game, my opponent had learned the errors from one game and applied them to the next.
The rematch is pending...
