A few days ago I got the opportunity to play another game of 40k, I haven't had the possibility for quite some time, I really haven't had time for much of any hobby related stuff for a fair few weeks, as can be seen on this blog as it has been rather quiet for a few months.
But anyways, I got to play a 1000 point intro game for one of the fellas at the club, he hadn't played any 40k since 3ed, and as I have played all of two game since that time I took it on to teach him a bit about it.
Army of the Imperial Guard;
1 Command HQ, Medic, Standard, Vox, carapace armor, commander with power weapon
5 Ratlings
1 Veteran squad, 3 Plasmaguns, Vox
1 Platoon command, Medic, Standard, Vox
3 Infantry squads, Plasma gun, 2 with Lascannon team
1 Platoon command, Medic, Vox, Meltagun
2 Infantry squads, Flamer, 1 with Autocannon team
2 Heavy weapon squads, 3 Autocannon teams, 3 Missile Launcher teams
Eldar war host;
1 Farseer with Guide and Eldritch Storm
5 Howling Banshees
5 Fire dragons, exarch with firepike, they deployed in the falcon
4 Jetbikes, 1 Shuriken cannon
12 Guardians, 1 Warlock with enhance, Shuriken cannon platform
4 Rangers (I know, one to few, but that is all he had)
2 Vypers 1 with Shuriken cannons and 1 with Scatterlaser
4 Dark Reapers, exarch
1 Falcon with Scatterlaser, Holo fields, Spirit stones
The game we got was size ground with spearhead deployment, not realy what I wished for with my slow force, but I thought that I at least should be able to get something up there if I just got going form the start.
I got to deploy first and was dead set on getting stuck in, but as I was explaining what seize initiative was he promptly rolled a 6 and stole if from me… So, onto the game.
Eldar turn 1
He moved up his vypers to get somewhat closer to my lines as the buildings in the middle of the board did a very good job in blocking los for both of us, with them he advanced his banshees and farseer. On the other flank he slowly moved his falcon and jetbikes up to take a few shots at my infantry in the forest.
The firing for the turn was a bit disappointing, although most of his fire hit and wounded I could not fail any cover saves. Of all the fire from his Vypers, platform, Falcon, Jetbikes, Rangers and Reapers, only a single veteran perished.
In my turn I basically stayed where I was with my army, the only exception was one of my flamer units that advanced all that it could around the houses in the middle followed by one of the platoon commands shouting at them to move faster. My HQ moved up a bit as well to be able to draw los to the vypers that had placed themselves in my missiles fire lanes.
In the shooting the missiles responded quickly and efficently to the order of their commander, and managed to hit both vypers, wrecking one and exploding the other, and managed to take a banshee and a guardian with it. Some more scattered fire managed to take another few of the banshees down but all others survived any fire coming their way.
Eldar turn 2
In this second turn the guardians advanced slowly, now with the farseer watching over them, the jetbikes inched a bit more forward to get some more shots on the veterans and the Falcon followed suit. On the other side the jetbikes decided to try out this "turbo boosting" rule and moved right next to the veterans and infantry in the forest, ready to punish anything still around in the next round.
In the shooting phase the flamer unit that came charging around the houses got the worst of the fire as the guardians open up with the cannon while the farseer got of his storm right in the middle of them, when the smoke cleared amazingly only five of them had dropped. On the other side the reapers, scouts and falcon decided that veterans and heavy weapons was bad, and promptly erased the autocannon teams, and got about half of the remaining veterans down, and only just did they pass the morale check to remain in the fight.
My reduced flamer squad rushed forward to get into flamer range of the hated guardians while the command squad that had followed them decided to not risk runner out in the torrent of fire from the guardians and instead move towards the houses in the middle to try to get a shot at the banshees charging though it. Down by the veterans the command squad there moved over to help bring down the jetbikes that now was to close for comfort. And for the second turn in a row I forgot about my snipers, I had a brief moment of seeing them in the bog where they was hiding, but not sooner had I seen them then they fell out of my memory, well spent points…
In the shooting phase all hell broke loose around the jetbikes, as the two infantry squads around them, as well as the veterans opened up, aided by a few "First rank, second rank" orders the bikes was reduced to smoking piles of slag. The reduced flamer unit did what it could against the guardians, and with a flamer just in range and a few lasguns, some of them fell, but not enough to secure the continued life of the guardsmen. Even with the aid of the missile launchers they still could put out more fire then a guard squad could hope to survive.
My time to play was starting to run out here, so the next turn we decided to be the last one so that I would not miss my buss home.
Eldar turn 3
The banshees rushed forward to catch anything that can get in their way, while the falcon jet again advances towards the middle buildings, ready to spew out it's deadly cargo next turn. The Guardians advances a bit to really catch the flamer guardsmen.
The shooting started off with the guardians and farseer completely annihilated the guardsmen. The reapers continued to kill off the veterans in the forest with the help of the rangers. The total end effect though was not that impressive and the unit fights on.
In the assault phase the banshees charged my platoon command, and in a serious case of whiff, and only killed two of the command squad members, in return they promptly killed both banshees and consolidated into the courtyard.
IG turn 3
As I was in quite a hurry when my turn started I thew everything without a heavy weapon against the falcon, my missile teams ran towards the home objective together with the command HQ, just to hold it. In the shooting phase I got some more extremely lucky shots from my veterans with plasmas, and got a penetrating hit on the falcon that ended in a double six on the damage table and as such exploded the whole thing, taking a dragon with it. The follow up fire didn't do squat though, even if it included a hit fom a lascannon and loads of lasguns.
Here we concluded the game with me throwing my army back into the case while running though the door.
It was a fun game though even if I had quite a bit of luck with my cover saves, hindering my opponent from killing of a lot of things that should have died instantly. I had quite an advantage that I could more or less stand still and out shoot him, especially once I got his vypers down. But it was to be expected, he threw together what he had from an army built for 3ed and it was his first 40k game since that time. I at least had an army built for 5ed, even if I didn't know the rules that well =)
Thankfully we had a spectator down at the club that helped us whenever we got confused.
I do however think that I should do something about my ratling, I forgot them all game since they stood in a marsh and blended in perfectly, I think I remembered to shoot with them once, and then they didn't do anything. So either I get rid of them or I get a big arrow pointing to them wherever they may stand.
Thats all for me this time.
