An update of things to come and a mini BR...

So it's been a while since my last post and I still owe you guys some Battle Reports from the Throne of Skulls tournament but I wanted you guys to know I am working on it and more!

But first, a preview of a treat to come...

 A few months ago, I was asked to take someone's spot in a local gaming league (Southern California Games Workshop League scgwl.com) and ended up winning the whole thing for an obnoxiously huge trophy. But more than that, I also had a chance to play a George Mason who also went to the Throne of Skulls tournament in Las Vegas and won not only best Blood Angels player but best overall. You can expect the battle report shortly and maybe some more tactical based articles after that. I also plan on gearing up for the 2011 'Ard Boyz and you guys can follow my progress in regards to that event, too.

Well, with that said, I'll just finish up this post with a sort of mini-battle report on my final league game that was against, of all races, Eldar!?

Eldar on Eldar? No wai!

The thing about the league is you know the army type and any special characters they might be using before the game, so you are able to tailor your list a bit so with that in mind, this was the list I took:

-Farseer with Fortune, Witnessing/Warding

-2 squads of 5 Fire Dragons with Exarch, Crack Shot, Tank Hunters in Wave Serpents with EML, Spirit Stones and Star Engines

-1 squad of 8 Harlequins with Shadow Seer

-1 squad of 10 Wraithguard with Enhance Spirit Seer Warlock

-2 squads of 5 Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents with EML, Spirit Stones

-3 Wraith lords with EML/BL

My strategy:

I figured, all that S8 would be helpful against AV12 Eldar tanks and my Fire Dragons would be great against his skimmers with the +1 from tank hunter and crackshot from the Exarch ignoring the skimmer moving flat out cover save; the Star Engines would help me either contest objectives or get into a better position, too. The rest of the army was just there to be tough to kill and secure objectives.

The army he took (and his special character he chose to stick with was Yriel):

-Farseer with Fortune, Guide, Doom, Stones, fancy runes

-Yriel

-Fully kitted out unit of Harlequins, farseer and Yriel went in here

-3 10 man units of DA w/ Exarch in Wave Serpents with EML

-2 Night Spinners with holofields, spirit stones

-1 unit of 3 War Walkers with 2X EML each (he had a special league territory that allowed cover saves to be reduced by 1 by this unit)

The mission:

The mission we rolled for was capture and control, pitched battle so it seemed pretty straight forward... Keep my Wraithlords and Wraithguard on my objective while everything else of mine keeps him from getting to my Objective and I get stuff on his. His plan was probably something similar and so the game begins with my opponent getting first turn, which suits me fine since in objective games, going second is a great advantage late game.

Turn 1:

Opponent:
Turn one saw my opponent Fortune the Harlequins and move up through the forest while casting Guide on the War Walkers which take out one Wraith Lord. The rest of his shooting wounds another while shots from the Night Spinners entangled a Wraith Lord and my Wraith Guard.

Me:
Losing 1 Wraithlord a turn to that shooting is not a trend I would like to see continue so I fortune a Fire Dragon wave serpent, move both Fire Dragon squads up flat out towards his left flank so they ended in a position to threaten everything on his right (my left) and ideally take out those pesky war walkers. My shooting pretty much did nothing except miss everything. I kept my Dire Avengers in reserve with their Wave Serpents so that I can come on later and just move onto his Objective to contest.

The tides turn during turn 2!

Turn 2:

Opponent:
Reacting to the advance of my Fire Dragons, he shoots everything he can at the leading Wave Serpent and even assaults it with Yriel/Farseer and Harlequins but does not manage to do anything other than shake it.

Me:
I capitalize on this by moving one Fire Dragon squad up by his War Walkers, get out and shoot them all up destroying every War Walker, my other Fire Dragon squad moves up behind his ruined building for cover and with the other Wave Serpent manages to get 12 hits on his bunched up Harlequins but I fail to wound at all.  I moved my Fortuned Harlequins up hoping to engage a depleted Harlequin squad but instead am hard pressed to charge my Harlequins into his near full squad and hope for the best. The rest of my shooting didn't do much of anything.

The real turning point in the game was this turn, I believe-I took out his major fire power in the War Walkers and got a good charge off on his Harlequins- I charged and killed something like 6 of his harlequins and only lost 2 after a good set of invul rolls-my opponent fails his LD test and falls back but I fail to catch him so I am forced to escort his Harlequins off the board with what I have around-So his major threats to my Wraithguard and Wraithlords are dealt with-his War Walkers and Harlequins.

The rest of the game:
The rest of the game saw him summarily destroying my Harlequins and Fire Dragons along with one of their Wave Serpents with his return fire and I retaliated with immobilizing or destroying most all of his tanks and managed to get my Dire Avenger Wave Serpents into contesting range of his objective while my Wraith Guard and a lone Warithlord sat tight on my own objective-all he could throw at my objective would have been quite easily dealt with from the hefty shooting/close combat punch of the 5 remaining Wraithguard and Wraithlord so the game eventually ended with me having my objective while contesting his. He still put up quite a fight throughout the game though, all I had left was my 2 Dire Avenger squads in Wave Serpents and a wounded Wraithlord and whittled down Wraithguard squad.

Conclusions/final thoughts:

Well, all of that preparation to handle AV 12 sort of paid off. The EML on the Wave Serpents were a big let down, every game I used them they let me down. I have found that the truly best weapon on a BS3 platform is something like the Shiruken Cannon or Scatter Laser-one single BS3 S8 shot just won't do it, it won't! I definitely liked the crack shot from the Exarch on the Fire Dragons and the tank hunter paid off every time-practically guaranteeing that their target died-I am used to them just maiming my intended tank targets but not killing-this definitely helped-even though a full volley at one of his tanks still did nothing more than immobilize it.

Wraithlord shooting, while sometimes the best that a Wraithzilla style army has to offer, just doesn't cut it in today's tank spammed battlefield but they are still pretty nice to have around-I think they just add a nice amount of pressure in the game and if you take away an enemies capability of dealing with them at range, you have a very big threat to throw around the battlefield either killing stuff or contesting objectives.

Wraithguard are great to hunker down on an objective-this game they did nothing but sit on the objective but oh what a pain it would have been to try to take their objective from them-I think Wraithguard are the best troop choice in the game in regards to holding an objective, one of the reason's I am definitely taking  a unit to 'Ard Boyz this year. They also can be devastating at close range should you get the jump on anything, sadly, this game nothing came to play with my Wraithguard =(.

Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents are still a very solid choice in terms of cheap and reliable scoring units. You are basically paying for a fast tank that can score with them and they just add so much utility being able to tank shock things off of objectives or boost into the heart of enemy territory with an immunity to enemy retaliation, sometimes (just keep making those cover saves and hope nobody rolls a 6 in assault).

All in all, Eldar still have a lot of tools to play a good game, its just a real uphill battle when the enemy has so many mech units and so much anti tank (*cough* IG)