The disparate group of Eldar picked their way through the ruins dotting the grassy plain, starlight their only source of illumination. The large majority of them had begun their exodus from the Craftworld Saim-Hann after hearing of the renegade Harlequins of the Third Act, hoping to join their ranks.
They had brought their vehicles and a Wraithknight with them, and as they got closer to the rendezvous point, two more looming Wraithknights from the Third Act stepped out of the gloom to meet them as an escort.
A sudden volley of poisoned splinters and shimmering shurikens bounced off one Wraithknight, and a combined force of Dark Kin and Saim Hann burst out of the gloom. It seemed that some took exception to the exiles' flight, and they had allied with Archon Elian Maiburiarch to prevent their leaving....
After the double WK cheese last time out, Alan and I had a rematch, and we brought different lists to prepare him for an upcoming tournament. I decided to up the cheese factor, bringing 3 WKs and a squadron of Night Spinners in a Craftworld Warhost, while he brought 1 WK as allies for his CAD of Dark Eldar. We both got Invisibility as one of our Psychic Powers (oh the cheese) and away we went...
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| Pure Eldar deployment; bikes are scattered (hehe) across the deployment zone, Wraithknights and Night Spinners clustered at one corner, to avoid the Wraithguard D-Scythe bomb. |
Made a first mistake with the deployment, which would condition the rest of the game. Worrying about his D-Scythes, I tried to cluster my units together to deny them space to drop in. Perhaps I should have spread them out to give him only one unit to target, and pushed my Knights up more.
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| Made a mistake here, decided my firepower could win me a couple of points, and began spreading them out. This left space for Alan to drop his Wraithguard right behind the yellow Knight. |
Realising my mistake, I began to move up with the Night Scythes and the Wraithknights, but had already conceded the initiative to Alan, who had pushed his Wraithknight and bikes up to put pressure on me.
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| Here comes the pain. He had of deployment problems with the DS, trying various combinations to get the maximum amount of templates on a target. |
Interesting thing about deep striking, you don't actually need to have the character with the Portal in the centre. The other thing about this D-Scythe bomb, is that it statistically isn't as scary as people might think, particularly with the -1 on the Destroyer table. 33% chance to do nothing? I'll take it.
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| In the end, Alan decided to plonk them down behind the yellow knight. |
This is where we found that the D-scythe will do damage, but not an inordinate amount. The drop only does 2 Wounds to the yellow WK.
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| Alan's WK begins smashing his way through my lines (despite looking as if I killed him). At this point I'm down to basically one Night Spinner and the Wraithknights. The Vyper is basically useless. The red WK will soon go down to the attacks from his grey WK. |
Something else to note. Two D strength wraithcannon shots were really underwhelming. While you always have a chance to hit something with a double 6 and wipe out a monstrous creature or gargantuan, you're only hitting 4/6 times, unless you have psychic buffs.
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| Night Spinners manage to remove the Wraithguard bomb with their Monofilament Shroud shooting. |
Monofilament weapons are absolutely deadly against high toughness/low initiative stuff like Wraithguard, but because I only had one squadron, target priority was important. Could I have just avoided the slow Wraithguard and fired my squadron at something else like his Wraithknight?
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| The Scourge will eventually die, but for all my shooting, Alan still has quite a lot of stuff on the table. Those Reavers at the top of the pic came in from reserve, nullifying a lot of my shooting. |
Another instance where deployment was important. Alan knew that I had a lot of firepower on the table, so he smartly put a large bulk of his forces in reserve, preventing me from shooting at them on the first turn.
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| Razorwing shooting will wipe out the farseer's unit at the bottom right hand pic. |
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| Reaver jetbikes prepare to charge the sole remaining Night Spinner. At this point all I have left is a Wraithknight, a Warlock, a Windrider, the Night Spinner, and the Vyper (who was so inconsequential we both forgot about him) |
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| Those reavers are about to wipe out the last remaining squad of Windriders, and the Night Spinner is wrecked by Alan's shooting. We call the game here as I have 1 WK and 1 Vyper left. |
Crushing victory for the combined Dark Eldar/Eldar alliance!
Granted, it was my first time running the Craftworld Eldar, but man I made so many mistakes. Still, it was a great learning game and I definitely am planning to give Alan a better match for preparation next time!
