Tournament Battle Report: 2000 point Eldar

To cap off my year, I took the Eldar to a 2,000 point, three game tournament. I took this list:

Asurmen

Farseer w/ singing spear, Spirit Stone of Anath’lan

Warlock w/ singing spear

10 Guardian Defenders w/ Bright Lance

10 Dire Avengers

Wave Serpent w/ scatter lasers, shuriken cannon, holofields

9 Dire Avengers

Wave Serpent w/ scatter lasers, shuriken cannon, holofields

5 Fire Dragons

Wave Serpent w/ scatter lasers, shuriken cannon, holofields

6 Swooping Hawks

10 Warp Spiders

10 Warp Spiders

Wraithknight w/ heavy wraithcannons

Life has been hectic since the tournament, so it took me longer to write these reports than usual. As a result, my memory is a bit hazy and these won’t be super in-depth reports.

My first game was against Grey Knights with Space Marine allies. The bulk of his army was contained in a Centurion Star, with 5 grav Centurions, Draigo, Tigurius, a Grey Knight Librarian, and Coteaz. His Troops were two 5 strong Strike squads and 5 Scouts, all of which stayed in reserve. He also had 3 Dreadknights with heavy psycannons and incinerators. He also had two fortifications with quad icarus lascannons.

There were three objectives in the center of the table, with the center one being worth 15 points and each of the side objectives being worth 10 points.

I got to go first, but I was unable to do much damage to the Dreadknights first turn. All three of them shunted into my deployment zone, shooting my Wave Serpents but failing to kill any. His CentStar used Gate of Infinity to teleport into my deployment zone and blast my Wraithknight into oblivion.

I replied by disembarking my Dire Avengers and Fire Dragons. Between them, their Wave Serpents, and the Warp Spiders, all three of the Dreadknights were killed.

The rest of the game was pretty straightforward. My army ran away from the CentStar, and killed off the Strike Squads and Scouts as the arrived from reserve.

In the end, the CentStar was alone, holding the center objective, while my squads held both side objectives. This ended up being a win for me, and I was pretty proud of it. My opponent had played a really aggressive list, taking advantage of multiple allies to create a true Deathstar, but I managed to concentrate on the mission and pull out a win even though I couldn’t kill it.

My second game was against a Demon list, heavy on Tzeentch units and obviously designed to summon more units. It included Fateweaver, Be’lakor, and the Gargantuan Demon of Slaanesh, as well as some Horrors and Heralds of Slaanesh, and a unit of Cultists. Points were awarded for killing enemy units and holding 6 objectives scattered around the table.

This game was not a tremendous amount of fun. Essentially, flying Greater Demons (including a new Lord of Change that he summoned) strafed my army while the Gargantuan Demon kept me from getting close enough to target the more vulnerable Horrors and Heralds.

 I never managed to kill any of the flying Demons (that re-roll 1s for saves turned out to come up more than I expected), and the Gargantuan Demon killed off my faster units when they tried to attack the Horrors. My sole kill point was earned by my Wraithknight, who stomped the unit of Cultists to death.

I did manage to hold two of the objectives, so I gained some points from this game, but it was a substantial loss.

My last game was against a player that I knew, and who always gives me a fun game. It was certain to be a pleasant way to finish the day. He was using Chaos Space Marines, with Kharn leading a unit of Khorne Marines in a Land Raider, a squad of Cultists, a squad of Raptors, and two units of Obliterators. For allies, he had a Necron Overlord, two squads of Warriors in Nightscythes, and unit of Deathmarks in a Nightscythe.

The game was essentially Emperor’s Will, with an objective in each deployment zone. At the beginning of the game, you chose a FOC slot that you would receive points for killing. I chose to hunt the enemy Heavy Support, while my opponent came after my Fast Attack units. In addition, we each secretly chose a VIP that the enemy would get extra points for killing. I chose Asurmen since he’s pretty hard to kill, and it turned out that my opponent chose his Necron Overlord.

The game started off with my Wraithknight and Wave Serpents trading fire with the Obliterators, killing them off relatively quickly. Nightscythes strafed my Warp Spiders, trying to claim their points, while Raptors deep struck near my Guardians.

My Warp Spiders shot down a Night Scythe, but it crashed directly on top of them, reducing the squad to four, who started falling back.

Between a lot of shuriken shots and casting Jinx on the Raptors, the Guardians killed all but one of them. He charged them, but one of the Guardians was able to kill him before he could swing.

After I shot down the Nightscythe, I misjudged the distance I needed to jump my Warp Spiders away from the approaching Land Raider, and Kharn and his squad assaulted them and tore them apart.

 Kharn soon learned what the Dreadknights learned in my first game, as his squad was torn apart by Dire Avenger and Wave Serpent fire. My Fire Dragons swung around and destroyed the Land Raider, earning me the final points for destroying enemy Heavy Support.

I didn’t really have any chance to take the enemy objective, as the Necron Overlord, Warriors, and Deathmarks all used their Nightscythes to deploy near my objective. The Overlord and his Crypteks just kept standing up, meaning I couldn’t spare many units to harass the enemy objective. Only my Swooping Hawks were in the enemy deployment zone, and they were doing a good job killing the Cultists holding the objective. The Warriors and Crypteks from the downed Nightscythe arrived from ongoing reserve to bolster their objective, forcing the Swooping Hawks to hide or else give up more points.

When the game ended, the primary objective was a tie, but I had scored more points on the secondary (I killed three of his Heavy Support and I think he only killed one of my Fast Attack), and I had killed his VIP while mine was still alive. Overall, another solid victory for me.

At the end of the day, I came in 11^th out of 18 players, which is one of my better showings. Though I didn’t score as crushing victories as the players above me, I was very happy with two wins. The Eldar definitely feel very strong, even with my less than optimal list. I like how the list functions, and I’m pretty happy with all my unit choices. I think I’m starting to get better at using their speed and their overwhelming, if often short-ranged firepower.

All that said, it’s time for me to set the Eldar aside for a bit. While I’m really enjoying them, and I think I’m definitely more successful with them than my other armies, the Blood Angels are back and they are my first love. I’ve been playing Blood Angels since 1998, and I can’t wait to get back to work on them.