Battle report: Eldar VS Imperial Guard

This weekend my fiancée wanted to play something, normally we play some board or card game, but this time I asked if she wanted to try some miniature game instead.

So it ended in me showing her how 40k is played. As she haven't played any miniature game before, we started of with just a few models per side, no vehicles, and no fancy stuff what so ever, only a few troops on each side.

To start with I had to explain in a few words what the different armies I have is in the 40k world, using references mostly to World of Warcraft as she plays this quite a lot. I have never thought about it, but when we discussed the Imperial Guard she said "Oh, so they are kind of like the goblins" and I have to say that she kind of hit the mark with that one, if you ignore the green part of the goblins that is.

But anyways, we ended up with me taking charge of some Imperial Guard, and she got a bunch of Eldar. The armies was about 500 points of what I could find on short notice so we had this;

Eldar

12 Guardian defenders w/ Star Cannon

12 Guardian defenders w/ Bright Lance

10 Storm guardians w/ 2 Fusion guns

6 Jetbikes w/ 2 Shuriken cannons

Imperial Guard

1 Command squad w/ Melta gun and Medic

2 Infantry squads w/ Flamer and Vox

1 Command squad w/ Standard

2 Infantry squads w/ Grenade launcher

1 Veteran squad w/ 3 Plasma guns

We used the small table I've created before and filled it up with terrain and I started the quite lengthy explanation to how this thing works.

After this we started our setup, we didn't use any objectives of mysterious terrain or anything like that, I thought it was more than enough to concentrate on the very basics of the game.

I had the first turn of the game and just advanced everything I had. Tanking a few shots at long range. Here the flaw in my showing of the game to new people started, as I rolled like a god, hitting far more than I should have, and my fiancée failing almost every save she had to take. This was unly to get worse as the game continued.

But for this turn I shot a few of the defenders on the right, and another few of the storm guardians in the center.

In her turn I gave the tip, that her jetbikes are dead hard, and they can move in the assault phase, great for jumping in front of cover and then back again. So this she did and I could see how she would slay almost everything I had on the left flank. The rest of her units advanced, mostly in cover.

The jetbikes then… well they didn't do as well as they should have in the shooting, but at least they killed a little over half of the leftmost squad, while the center defenders shot another two in one of my center squads as that was all they could reach. But in the assault when the bikes should have had no problem to get back behind the house, they rolled only 3" and could get nowhere at all.

In my second round I advanced most of my army again, getting closer to the eldar lines. And when the shooting came around we had a serious case of the dice loving me, and hating my fiancée. On the right the front squad annihilated most of the defenders right in front of them, so much that the veterans behind them could hardly hit anyone. In the end only a single guardian was left.

In the center the reduced squad shot at the center defenders, taking out a good bunch of them as well.

But most depressing was on the left where one full squad and the reduced infantry squad managed to take down four of the jetbikes. She could not make a single of the 3+ saves she had to take.

When it was the eldar turn again, she was getting a bit frustrated with her dice, but I pointed out that my full infantry squad on the left was very close to her close combat experts, and that they should have no problem killing them off, even if she had to charge though the difficult terrain, after all, guardsmen suck in close combat. So she advanced the storm squad, and the other guardians to get a bit closer to use the 12" range of the catapults. And on the right the remaining guardians fired the bright lance and vaporized a veteran, and the center squad fired into the squad in front, killing a few and made them break. On the far left the remaining jetbikes tries to kill some more of the reduced squad, but not a single hit is scored, even though the catapults is twin linked...

The storm squad fired their pistols into the squad in front of them, killing a few, and then they charge home. And here they failed again, getting two guardians killed, for no casualties for the imperial side. Here I really start to think that my dice loves me, and hates anyone else that uses them. The guardians hold at least.

In what would be the last turn we played I again advanced with my whole army, except for the broken squad, that fails to rally and again runs closer to the board edge. The veterans fire upon the defender squad in the center, killing all but one and the squad in the center advances so they can charge into the storm guardians. On the left the command squad and remains of the infantry squad fire upon the jetbikes, but fail to do anything at all.

In the assault phase the infantry squad charges, and even though the guardians have a much better round, killing two guardsmen, they still loose all but one, and they flee from combat.

Here we stop as most of the imperials are still standing, but on the eldar side there are three units with just one model in them, and two jetbikes.

So my track record for showing people how to play (and letting them win) is kind of bad, but my fiancée wasn't discouraged, and wanted to try it again. So another game is planed for to be played this week, but this time I think she will get to use the far more forgiving Space Marines I have, we also ordered some new dice, so she can have her own tat doesn't hate her from the start =)

40k 6th edition tryouts

Yesterday we had a little 40k 6th edition tryout day down at the club. Everyone had a copy of the rules and was ready to get some dice and models on the table.
The day started with me and two others, being the first ones to get to the club. I did get my copy there and then, so I was a bit behind since I've only seen some youtube videos, and read a few forum/blogposts about the new rules.
I took some more or less random pictures during the day, I figured that trying to capture the whole of a battle was pointless when there was new rules to be learned.

My new and still shrink wrapped rulebook

Me and one of the others got going in testing out the rules, with the third acting as a rule compendium, answering any stupid question from me, and any reasonable question from my opponent. The game was between my guards and his eldar, and at just a 1000 point, to get the feel of the rules, and not spend the entire day with each battle. We did however spend most of the afternoon figuring things out, the changes was not in them selfs that great, but many small things and having to consult the rulebook at each turn did make the game go on for quite some time.

The game we played was The Emperors will, one objective in each deployment zone, and with Hammer and Anvil deployment, meaning that we used the the sort edges as our deployment zones, this felt a bit weird, but refreshing to see the table from that perspective as well.


My deployment

Tank heavy eldar, that was to be my doom

Guarding the eldar objective

More guardians in forward position

As the game went on, my inability to kill anything remotely tank shaped hindered my quite a lot, and in the end I lost both the first unit (my Rough Riders) and my warlord, resulting in a sound defeat for the imperial forces.


I used to have Rough Riders here, can you see the smoking remains?

Tanks shuffling forward, blasting my troops all over the place

Cornering a wave serpent with fire dragons, resulting in absolutely nothing, no damage what so ever, I really hate the new jinx rule for skimmers

My storm troopers got in from reserve, blasted some eldar in the first turn and in the next charged the guardians protecting the objective, resulting in the eventual defeat of the eldar

During the day more players arrived to our little gathering, resulting in a few more battle. Among others this shootout between some newly painted (and therefor doomed) Dark Eldar, and some more known marines in the form of salamanders. The mission was was the Relic one, and mostly they both stood around and looked at it, while trashing each other quite soundly everywhere. The result however was in the marines favor, and they walked away victorious.

Another game with Dark Angels vs Orks started just as I was packing my stuff and I only got to see the first half of the first turn. The Orks started by shooting with some wickedly good dice and got a Razorback blown up and quite a lot of marines killed, while swarming forward. They also played with the short edges, but their mission was to hold a bunch of objectives all over the place, each worth a different amount of Victory points. But since I didn't really see anything, here are some pictures of the event.

Overall I'm so far quite pleased with the rules, vehicles are a bit softer as they die quite handedly to glancing hits, but at the same time, they remain operational while getting shot up. The snap fire rule makes everything shoot more, but the effect is quite limited, not sure I really like it since it results in lots and lots of dice being thrown for more or less not effect, but at the same time it's nice to at least have some chance of hurting something even if you move your heavy weapons.

Assaults have defiantly been nurfed quite a bit, between not being able to assault on the same turn as you leave your vehicle hurts assault armies and being shot when the assault is launched is bad. In the Dark eldar vs Marines game, a character got killed when assaulting as a result of this. Perhaps not what something as fragile as Eldar needs.

Flyers are really good, they are a sick movement speed, and are very difficult to shoot down. As the game at present lack more or less anything that can shoot them down they will probably dominate the early battlefields of 6th.

The new missions have potential, they are defiantly different, and the secondary objectives is realy nice as breakers when you normally would have been playing for a draw.

All in all, I think this will work, I need to play some more, read the rulebook one or ten times before final judgment is called, but after the response at the club, I thing this will stay for quite some time before people wanders of and play something else.

Battle report Eldar vs Imperial Guard

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.

IG turn 1

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.

IG turn 2

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.