*Image from Deviant Art.Its been 2 weeks since I added to a column other than the loss column, and this time I get to start incrementing the win column as well. I was able to get in two games during tonight's club gaming and the Dead Tau Project's new record is:
2 wins - 7 losses - 2 draws
The two games tonight were 1750 vs Rich's Khorne Daemon army, and 1850 vs Casey's Daemon army for the Big Waaagh this weekend. I am still fighting hard against daemon armies, but I think I am starting to get the hang of things. I used a couple tactics for these two games that seemed to work out for me in games vs daemons.
- I am giving them first turn and not trying to seize the initiative
- I left the bulk of the army in reserve
- Combined fire, focused fire, combined focused fire
- "Kill it till its dead"
For my game vs Rich's Khorne Daemons @1750:
HQ
Autarch (Mandiblasters, WJG, Power Weapon, Fusion Gun)
Farseer (Doom, Runes of Warding, Spear)
Elite
6x Fire Dragons
w/ Wave Serpent (Spirit Stones, SCan, TL Scatter Laser)
8x Banshees
w/ Banshee Exarch (Executioner, Warshout, Acrobatic)
w/ Wave Serpent (Spirit Stones, SCan, TL Missiles)
Troops
9x Dire Avengers
w/ Dire Avenger Exarch (Bladestorm, 2x Avenger SC)
w/ Wave Serpent (Spirit Stones, SCan, TL Bright Lance)
9x Dire Avengers
w/ Dire Avenger Exarch (Bladestorm, 2x Avenger SC)
w/ Wave Serpent (Spirit Stones, SCan, TL Scatter Lasers)
3x Jetbikes
w/ 1x SCan
3x Jetbikes
w/ 1x SCan
Fast
7x Warpspiders
w/ Warp Spider Exarch (Withdraw, Powerblades, 2x Deathspinner)
Rush's army @1750 *updated with Rich's list from comments
Initial Wave
Bloodletters x8 - Fury of Khorne, Icon
Bloodletters x8 - Fury of Khorne
Flesh Hounds x8 - Karanak, Fury of Khorne
Soul Grinder - Phlegm
Soul Grinder - Phlegm
Reserves
Bloodthirster
Bloodthirster
Bloodletters x8 - Fury of Khorne, Icon
Bloodletters x8 - Fury of Khorne
Flesh Hounds x8 - Fury of Khorne
This seems smaller than his army last time I played him, but that's what I remember. I am still having trouble fully dealing with his big units of bloodletters, but am getting better at avoiding his bloodthirsters and soulgrinders. I did get to throw a singing spear into the rear armor of a soulgrinder for a destroyed result. That was nice.
For my second game vs Casey, here is what I took @1850
HQ
Autarch (Mandiblasters, WJG, Power Weapon, Fusion Gun)
Farseer (Doom, Runes of Warding, Spear)
Elite
6x Fire Dragons
w/ Wave Serpent (Spirit Stones, SCan, TL Scatter Laser)
8x Banshees
w/ Banshee Exarch (Executioner, Warshout, Acrobatic)
w/ Wave Serpent (Spirit Stones, SCan, TL Missiles)
Troops
10x Wraithguard
w/ Spirit Seer (destructor, spear)
9x Dire Avengers
w/ Dire Avenger Exarch (Bladestorm, 2x Avenger SC)
w/ Wave Serpent (Spirit Stones, SCan, TL Scatter Lasers)
3x Jetbikes
w/ 1x SCan
3x Jetbikes
w/ 1x SCan
Fast
7x Warpspiders
w/ Warp Spider Exarch (Withdraw, Powerblades, 2x Deathspinner)
Caseys Army @1850
*updated from comments
Fateweaver
Herald of Tzeentch, We Are Legion, Master of Sorcery, Bolt
Herald of Khorne, Chariot, Unholy Might, Blessings of the Blood God
14 Plaguebearers, Musician, Icon
17 Pink Horrors, Changeling, Bolt
5 Blood Crushers, Rending, Icon, Musician
6 Fiends of Slaanesh, Unholy Might
2 Daemon Princes, Mark of Tzeentch, Bolt of Tzeentch, Unholy Might, and one had Daemonic Gaze
This was a better game overall for me. The largest downfall I had was my DA + Farseer sitting in reserve until the start of turn 4. This was strange, but did not really hurt the game. It would probably have helped to have Doom on the board earlier, but not significantly.
Our mission was 3 objective, with objectives set out as follows:
- 1 in his deployment zone to the right, out in the open
- 1 mid table in some open terrain
- 1 in some trees at the edge of my deployment zone (to my right)
Casey made a couple mistakes, which he caught as the game went on and will be unlikely to make moving forward. He left his pink-horrors un-supported and on the mid-field objective. I was able to take this with my spiders over 2 turns of shooting/close combat. He also moved his plague bearers away from his side objective to attack one of my jetbike squads. This left him at least 2 turns away from his objective and I was able to tie him up for close to 3 turns between my banshees and my bikes.
At the end of the game, my game against Rich was a tie with 1 objective a piece, and my game against Casey was 2 objective for me, 0 for him.
Some overall thoughts:
I believe I am doing better supporting my Dragons. Its only been 2 games since I have started to look at this, but I am keeping my dragons, Avengers + Farseer, and Banshees near each other when I start playing. This is letting me support my dragons a bit more, although they are still dieing.
I am also doing better at focusing fire. It is important as Eldar to keep shooting until the squad is dead, even if there seem to be better targets out there. My rolls with Shuriken Cannon's on Serpents are so bad that its not really wasting shots to put a serpents shooting into the 2 - 4 models left from a depleted squad to try and wipe them out. I need to watch this more, but it means I am only really good for the following in a single game:
- DA should wipe out a squad to a blade-storm and doom. Banshees can clean up if necessary.
- Banshees should wipe out a squad if doomed
- 3 Serpents + spiders should wipe out a squad. Doom helps but is not necessary
- Dragons should clear a single vehicle (with armor)
- Spiders should wipe out a squad on the turn they deepstrike
Comments welcome!
Posts
That's only about 1450 points... I had a lot more than that. :) My list was:
ReplyDeleteInitial Wave
Bloodletters x8 - Fury of Khorne, Icon
Bloodletters x8 - Fury of Khorne
Flesh Hounds x8 - Karanak, Fury of Khorne
Soul Grinder - Phlegm
Soul Grinder - Phlegm
Reserves
Bloodthirster
Bloodthirster
Bloodletters x8 - Fury of Khorne, Icon
Bloodletters x8 - Fury of Khorne
Flesh Hounds x8 - Fury of Khorne
I think you did a great job of concentrating fire on single squads, and you concentrated on blowing away the squads you needed to blow away. I mean, at the end of the game, I had three Bloodletters; just three scoring models. Sure, I had the Bloodthirster and a Soul Grinder, but they don't score.
That, and Bladestorm is nasty and Banshees should be able to wipe out most squads even if they're not Doomed (Daemons, with their Invul save, are the worst thing for Banshees to be fighting).
I thought I had your list small, but could not remember all the squads. Thank you for posting up your list, I have updated it above. In the future I need to make better notes after the game!
ReplyDeleteAs always, it was a great game.
Once all you're stuff's painted, we should do a straight-up WD-style battle report. Take notes and photos as we play. (I'll use my Dark Angels, since they're painted. :) )
ReplyDeleteThanks for the game again!
ReplyDeleteMy list was:
Fateweaver
Herald of Tzeentch, We Are Legion, Master of Sorcery, Bolt
Herald of Khorne, Chariot, Unholy Might, Blessings of the Blood God
14 Plaguebearers, Musician, Icon
17 Pink Horrors, Changeling, Bolt
5 Blood Crushers, Rending, Icon, Musician
6 Fiends of Slaanesh, Unholy Might
2 Daemon Princes, Mark of Tzeentch, Bolt of Tzeentch, Unholy Might, and one had Daemonic Gaze
I made some big mistakes. Honestly, I've been lucky in the 15 or so previous games with this army in that I usually get what I want for my first drop down. Doing so allows me to have a clear center point to keep my army around, Fateweaver, and puts me into a better position for other reasons. Not having that happen in our game got me screwed up and I made a lot of mistakes, such as not supporting my Pink Horrors and wasting their shots against your Wraithguard instead of shooting your Spiders. It's better to make these mistakes now than this weekend, though ;)
You also played very well and drowned me in a ton of firepower.
It was a good game. The dice were pretty flat, I rolled well a few times and you did as well (*coughScatterLaserscough*) but I think at the end the dice ended up flat. I made some mistakes and you played your army well and you just outplayed me and that's a mark of a good game.
I'm up for a rematch next Tuesday if you are, though! Everything is fully painted now, too, so I won't feel like a bum for having 8 Pink Horrors unpainted and one of my Daemon Princes halfway done.
Thanks again!
Casey
@Rushputin
ReplyDeleteTrue, Banshees are better against non-daemons. I am finding it funny that out of the 11 games I have played with the Eldar, 4 have vs. Daemons. This number seems to be growing as I hear of more players building Daemon armies.
- Regarding your idea of setting up a WD style battle report with pictures, I think this is a great idea! My Dragons are on the list and I just received my Tank bases. Once I get them painted up (aiming for the first week of August) I say we schedule something.
@Casey -
Thanks you very much. I take your comment that I outplayed you as a compliment. Your army certainly had me worried through the game, although things started falling in place (in my head) at the end of turn 3. I look forward to hearing how your games go this weekend! Its unfortunate, but I will not be out to play next Tuesday due to work. I will have to postpone to the week after.
Aye, 'kill it 'til it's dead' is a solid lesson. Even with wound allocation, it's still possible that you'll ALMOST kill everything, and still have the specialists. I mean, those 10 guard vets with 3 meltaguns are just as much a threat to your tanks when it's down to 1 lasgun and 3 meltaguns.
ReplyDeleteWith Daemons, you can't even hope to luck out and run 'em off the board since they're Fearless, so it's just a matter of splattering 'em.
The other note? As much as I like Wraithguard, there are just times where I'm starting to feel like 500 points for 'em isn't enough for the damage they do. I mean, they're durable vs. shooting with fortune up, but just sometimes...well, mostly if a powerfist gets into 'em, it's a problem.