Battle for Salvation Fall 2009 Tournament Game 2 Battle Report

Game 2

I ended up on table 1 against one of the hardest armies to beat in a 5 loot counter mission. Ben Bangley was my opponent and he had an Eldar army that would have made Fritz proud!

Eldrad with 5 warlocks
Autarch on bike with troop bike squad
another bike squad
a vyper squad with scatters
two fire prisms
a falcon grav tank with brightlance
three wave serpents with dire avengers

Ben came to the tournament because he is a daily follower of The Way of Saim-Hann and he knows Fritz's tactics in and out. It was obvious from the start, he did a classic Fritz objective deployment! I knew this was going to be a death match to the end. And was not disappointed.

Mission: 5 Loot counters
Deployment: Table Corners

Ben gave me 1st turn.

I deployed with my preds as forward as possible, standard opperating procedure for table corners. The objectives were clustered mostly in the center, with one in the far left corner of my deployment zone. I placed a las cannon combat squad on that single objective and would move my rhinos in behind my tanks later in the game to take objectives in the middle.
He deployed his vypers, prisms and eldrad with warlocks in the Falcon. Every thing else was in reserve.

Turn 1:

With very little to shoot at, I focused on his Vypers, which were deployed behind cover getting saves. I hit them hard with heavy bolters and las cannons, but only destroyed one. I advanced my preds to move on and contest objectives. I knew that this game was going to come down to turn 5 WOSH style contesting, so I had to be prepared.

On his turn he opened up on my tanks with his prisms. Immobilizing one, luckily in range of contesting an objective. That was about it!

Turn 2:

Prepare for pods.

I rolled for reserves, and NOTHING came in. I had a bike squad in reserve too and nothing. Oh well. I turbo boosted my bikes to the far side of the table to prep for his entry, taking a wound in the process. During my shooting I finished off his vypers and actually penetrated his Falcon, but only shakened it. The trend of the day for me was to roll a 6 to penetrate, and then roll a 1 for damage. It also didnt help that all of his tanks had the sneaky Eldar 2d6 take the loweset trick.

A serpent and his autarch/jetbike squad came in for him, which he brought on on the left side of the table, far away from the objectives and action. Yup, a Fritz tactic for sure! His shooting would blow the Asscannon off a pred and shake the other two. Grr. He would not be in range to assault my immobilized pred though.

Turn 3:

All three pods come down. Now it is time for a party.
I deployed one pod next to his Prisms. And the other two next to Eldrad's Falcon and close to his Autarch. They were about 12" from the table edge and close to the objectives. I wanted them in position to eat him if he tried to move his bikes in.

I popped the prism with the first dread, but Eldrad shenanigans managed to save the Falcon. That would be all the melta fire they would get. Ben smartly took those arms off when he damaged them.

On his turn he destroyed one of my predators and assaulted one of my dreads with Eldrad. Those nasty warlocks managed to destroy him... my first dread loss of the day.

Turn 4:
Every thing was in play for me. I started moving my Rhinos and one of my Las teams towards objectives. Now it was going to be a matter of positioning. I actually managed to get a predator to fire all of its guns at Eldrads squad, killing 4 of the 5 warlocks. Lucky for him the one that survived had Embolden, because he failed his leadership test but got to reroll. I destroyed a serpent with meltagun fire and killed off some of the Dire Avengers. In the assault I sent my death company and a dread after the autarch and bike squad, and sent my other dread after his other bikes. Those definitely had to be destroyed. The autarch was squished and his bikes killed, but the other squad managed to make their leadership and live.

On his turn, he made his move on the single objective in the corner. He moved the remnants of the first dire avenger squad on them, and the serpent with another. He slaughtered the bikes that were supporting the combat squad, leaving me with one bike squad.

At the bottom of 4 it was working out as follows:
He had a prism, weapon destroyed falcon, serpent, 1.5 dire avenger squads, and eldrad with a warlock and a few bikes locked in combat with a dread. (dead meat)

I had a bike squad 2 predators, 2 dreads, and four combat squads. Three of them were moving on objectives. He was going to try to take the lone objective in the corner and contest the other 4. I was going to try to hold the lone objective and stop him from contesting the others for the win. Our strategies were obvious, it would come down to trying to stop each other!

Turn 5:

I move a rhino up with my captain to claim an objective, and got out and unloaded on Eldrad. My captain vaporized him with his combi melta after I killed the warlock with a predator. My dread finished up the bike squad and my bikes assaulted his 5 dire avengers, killing them. Good round for me. Now I just had to hope he could not squeeze his boys into contesting range. I was holding 4 objectives and he had none.

On his turn though, he turned the tables. He bladestormed my combat squad holding the corner objective and destroyed them. On the other side, he moved his prism and Falcon into contesting range, tank shocking one of my troop squads in the process. The squad failed leadership and fell back! So much for using my meltagun to destroy the damn prism.

Bottom of 5 and the game was lined up to be a draw. All objectives were contested.

Die roll! Game goes on.

Turn 6:

I assaulted his prism with two dreads, but since it moved fast failed to destroy it. He had a serpent with dire avengers in it on the lone objective and moved my last bike squad to not only contest the objective but get shots at the back. I immobilized it and weapon destroyed it. But the kicker was that I blockd his boys inside! That objective would remain contested if I did nothing. My squad fell back again because of proximity to his tank. I spread out one of my combat squads to contest two objectives. At the bottom of my turn the game was going to end a victory for me. All he had left was an immobile serpent with trapped dire avengers inside that were contesting an objective. he had a serpent and weapon destroyed prism that were also contesting. But I had one more objective then him and would get the victory... unless I screw up. Commence screw up. I assaulted his immobilized prism with my bikes to get them into better position to contest and trap the avengers. I just wanted to get them to a guaranteed contesting position, I was unsure that I could reach, and wanted to make sure he could not unload and vape my bikes. Of course, I roll two penetrations on the krak grenades and destroy the damn thing.

On his turn his avengers slaughter my bikes and claim the objective. His tanks contest two and I claim one. We each hold an objective... draw. Game ends. Guh.

The play of the game though was managing to squeak in his tanks to contest. He found one little hole that I was unable to plug and angled the front wing of his tank into it, but stay an inch from my tanks.

I have to say that a draw was a very good result for me, despite the fact that I almost tabled him. His list is almost tailored to win this mission and is very very hard to beat. Plus he was a pro at palying it. At the end of the game he had a few dire avengers, and two weapon destroyed tanks. I had two preds, two dreads, two rhinos, 3 combat squads and my captain. His tank shocking my combat squad and them failing leadership was huge for him. They had a melta and would have dome some damage to his contesting tanks. He also employed the very smart "Tank Shock Snipe" attack, by staying well away from my melta gun so I could not Death or Glory and just clipping the base of one of my models. Great move!

At the end, the game was a well played nail biter. Every turn there were ups and downs, with die rolls deciding the results instead of cheeze. Neither of us could point to any single instance that dominated the game or turned it one way or another. Cant ask for more! I hit him hard and he hit back. Ben was a smart opponent and knew the capabilities of his army. It was also stressful, because we both knew that every centimeter mattered. It certainly was a game of inches. We both knew the rules for movement and model proximity and this game was an artful chess match to try to stop each other from them. For example, had I rotated my rhino about half an inch to the left, he would not have been able to get that tank in to contest... the game was that close.

The one big mistake was me assaulting his serpent. I really did not want to destroy it at that point, just get closer to the objective. I may or may not have been within 3" to contest and had to make sure. But thats ok, he made a pretty big tactical mistake by exposing his Autarch and Bikes to my dread assault. I don't think he was prepared for the horror that is Venerable Furioso. Maybe he thought he could pop the dread before it got a chance to attack with his superior initiative. Venerable was key.

So there you go. Game two ended with me having 31 battle points and primed for a shot at the top. I would have liked to have scored a minor victory, which would have gotten me a few more points, but a draw is better then a loss!

Next game would have me on table 4, in 7th for battle points. When I got to the table though, I got very very nervous, because across from me was a jacked out Space Wolves army with 2 Vindicators, 2 characters, a rune priest, a land raider full of terminators and loads of troops in transports. Yes folks, I was in for a rumble! That batrep tomorrow and watch my youtube channel for the video.

Eldar armies are no joke when it comes to the objective contesting game. What have your experiences been like? What was your one biggest game losing blunder?