Last Saturday I grabed my swarm and warped to the mighty halls of conquest and glory in order to face my opponent. But suprise, Kevin, the copyright-violator used my own tactics against me. He fielded an Eldar army following the mean strategies I´ve posted on my blog when I used to play Saim-Hann. And this was his tribute:
Farseer, Soulstones, Doom, re-roll hits "spell"
8 Banshees, Exarch, S5 blade in Serpent with 2 ShurCas (Farseer within)
5 Firedragons in Serpent with 2 ShurCas
2x3 Jetbikes
3 Warwalkers with 2 ShurCas each
1 Fire Prism, Holo
First thing I thought was "damned" and the second one was "hmmm, just 2 scoring units at a mission objective mission? Yeah baby, yeah!"
Before a game starts I like to think about what I want to do. In this game I´ve seen that I´ll be troubled by all the skimmers, contesting and claiming mission objectives. So the primary targets were:
1. Kill all jetbikes (so the worst case could be a draw)
2. Destroy or imobilise the skimmers
1st turn:
As I kept my whole army in reserve (army list see previous blog entry) the first turn was rather quick. Suprisingly Kevin deployed his jetbikes instead of keeping them in reserve ... ok, works fine for me. He maneuvred his skimmers so, that the firedragons had a difficult terrain in their back and the other two tanks were exactly at the tableborder. That would make it impossible for the banshees to jump out of their serpent and charge.
2nd turn:
I began the second turn with rolling my hive tyrant, a zoantrophe and two genestealer untis into the game. As the Eldar massed his units at the centre of the board I deepstriked the tyrant in my table quarter in order to charge next turn. The Zoa immobilised the firedragons serpent and the mycethic spore desintergrated one jetbike unit with a little help of my hive tyrant. The genestealers attempted to charge the warwalkers, which were about 15" from the table edge (both genestealer units got to choose from which edge to outflank). One unit made it into cc and destroyed a warwalker (thanx randing there are no chances to a glancing hit and I need a 4, 5 or 6 to destroy a warwalker).
I lost one and he continued the slaughter by "firedragoning" my mycethic spore and the zoa lost a wound as the farseer (!!) shot at the creature. Despite of doom and all the re-rolls, my hive tyrant didn´t even lose a wound. On the other side I lost a genestealer but destroyed a warwalker too.
3rd turn:
The rest of my army came in and I deep striked my termagaunts infront of the bikes but shot at the firedragons which lost 3 men. The trygon prime also came in front of the bikes and with some help of the mycethic spore, his second and last scoring unit was dead. Now I´ve got to get rid of the fast skimmers. One was immobilised, so I charged the other one with the hive tyrant. Maybe he will die in the subsequent turn, but I´m playing toward a possible win, so I have to eliminate all fast moving threats. I managed to immobilise the serpent which wasn´t what I hoped (damaging the banshees insede) but for the purpose of eliminating his fast units, it worked well. The hormagaunts deep striked behind my trygon and run towards the assimilation party and to a mission objectives. The genestealers killed the last warwalker and ran to the next terrain to get cover.
Realising he couldn´t win this game, Kevin tried to do as much damage as possible. He pired his prism at my genestealers and killed 3, so one genestealer remained. The serpents shot at the termagaunts and killed 4 of them. With a ear-popping shreek, the banshees charged my tyrant and the zoa and ripped them to pieces ... oh, feht!! The Firedragons fired on the one-genestealer-unit but he made his cover save.
Time for a second glace at the options:
1. He can´t win any more (no bikes left)
2. One fast skimmer left and the rest of his army shouldn´t be near enough to contest a mission objective.
3. At the beginning of the game I deployed a mission objective near one of his. I outflanked the genestealers there and deep striked the hormagaunts (termagaunts would have bin better, but I needed them for the firedragons). Now this strategy began to work as I would concentrate my scoring units in that area (the objectives were 7" away from eachother.
4. I could charge the banshees with my termagaunts in hope to cause some causualties. But I want to keep the banshees out of contesting range. If I charge they would get nearer through the massacre movement. So I´ll let them get slaughtered!
4th turn:
I double charged the immobilised firedragon serpent and the fireprism with my trygon. I destroyed the serpent, but as it had moved previous turn, I had to roll a 4+ to hit (re-roll missed hits thanx talons) the fire prism with 5 attacks. All missed (incl. re-rolls). I was not amused! I shot 3 banshees with termagaunts and the mycethic spore and devoured the firedragons with my hormas. But the point was, I´ve let the damned skimmer alive ...
... which laughed at my luck and flew to my hormas (holding objective 1) to contest and shot at my 5 genestealers which lost 2 (face down in the dirt behind a tree gives a 3+ cover save). The bansees shot with the last sperpent at the termagaunts and killed 5, then the chicks charged and killed them all.
5th turn:
I drew back in the woods with my hormas and followed with the trygon in order to keep them in synapse range as they moved out by retreating. The one-man-genestealer-unit moved to the 2nd objective to help holding it. The trygon shot at the banshees (with a little help of the mycethic spore) and killed all but 1 banshee (incl. farseer ... har har har, autokill spores are nice). I widened my horma line and claimed both objectives with this one unit
The banshee moved, ran (6") and charged in difficult terrain (6") into the hormas just to be slaughtered by the fearsome foe. But Kevin achieved what he wanted and pulled my hormas away from the second mission objective as I rolled to low for the massacre movement. Grabing his last chance (and contesting my second mision objective) the prism shot at the genestealers and killed three of the three genestealers unit and killed one horma. My one genestealer unit made its cover save and as it came to no further turns, I won the game with 1 mission objective to 0.
Things I learned:
1. Keep an eye on the mission objectives
2. Make a priority list (which enemy units can harm you, claim mission objectives, ruin your plan to win the game,...)
3. Follow your priority list (I shouldn´t have split my attacks between the two skimmers, but I should have throw everything a trygon can deliver on the still intact fire prism)
4. Always take enough troop choices.
5. Sometimes sacrificing a unit can be the right thing. In my case I sacrificed the termagaunts in order to slow down the banshees.
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