1 Farseer - Doom, Guide, Fortune, Runes of Witnessing and Spirit Stones
10 Dire Avengers - Exarch with additional catapults and Bladestorm
1 Wave Serpent - Twin linked missile launchers and star engines, carrying the Dire Avengers.
10 Guardians - Eldar missile launcher, Warlock, Conceal
1 Wraithlord - Shuriken cannon and missile launcher
7 Warp Spiders - Exarch with additional deathspinner
6 Swooping Hawks - Exarch with Skyleap and hawks talon
5 Dark Reapers - Exarch with Crack Shot and Tempest Launcher
3 Vypers - Eldar missile launchers
I had rather big concerns about my army having almost no close combat clout, my wraithlord being the only weapon in my army capable of killing anything up close and even then with only 2 attacks. It seemed that manouvreability was going to have to be my biggest weapon especially seeing as in both games I was facing huge close combat orientated opponents; Dave's massive boyz dominated ork horde and Rob's band of blood hungry World Eaters - a charge off either of them in the middle of my line would be very costly.
Without getting too specific into the details of each game I've chosen to discuss my two favourite units from the night; my Reapers and my Spiders.
Essentially in both games I set my Reapers up as a base of fire to work from, they were the anchor around which all my crazy fast troops would work. I was dubious about using such a points heavy unit that in all fairness seems to be weaker now that the rules for cover saves have been buffed in 5th. Thankfully I managed to set them up in a tall building in my game against the Orks - massive range, massive field of fire, could see over pretty much all of the terrain - they delivered big. The tempest launcher with crack shot was a gift from Khaine himself, boyz falling across the table in their advance towards me. The reaper launchers also suprisingly took a heavy toll on the Orks due to some wicked jammy rolls on my part - without cover to hinder them they were reaping way above the odds each turn. Against the World Eaters this squad was massively instrumental in some seriously focussed first turn shooting against a massive hammer unit of berzerkers with a juggernaught mounted lord - the rest of the game however they had less to shoot at before falling to a brutal charge by a deep striking unit of chaos terminators.
My spiders were without doubt the stars of the night. They were iconic in second edition (the last edition I'd used them in before 5th) and I couldn't help but feel I'd bigged them up a little too much in my mind. Again they delivered. Against the Orks they seemed to throw out massive amounts of webby death before being able to jump out of charge range. Helped by doom and usually by guide they were instrumental in taking down not only boyz but limiting the effects of some of the 6 killa kanz that were lumbering across the board towards me (as well as sometimes soaking up some fire - MEQ is very handy). The ability to break cover, batter a unit with s6 firepower then warp back behind cover is awesome, I want more! Against the World Eaters these guys laid down a decent amount of pain, again they contributed to the turn one fussilade against the berzerkers but really stepped up when my Wave Serpent was immobilised, leaving my avengers to walk half the length of the board in order to contest Rob's objective. My favourite moment was my spiders jumping over a blocking squad of possessed to spray the beleagered chaos marine behind - I was set up to assault the remaining couple of marines (in some heroic spidery action) only for my Swooping hawks to seal the deal, clearing the objective.
As both games were capture and control they both stunk of draws from turn one - indeed against the Orks I'd spent so much time trying to get my vypers to stop killa kanz and kommandos reaching my guardians and denying me my objective I didnt have time to zoom them up the table to attempt a contest til turn five. They went flat out, weathered a turn of shooting and an assault only for the game to end with them around 18 inches away, vexxing!
The game vs Chaos, although it started well for me turned into a bit of a footslogfest for my eldar. My objective being held by guardians and reapers was cleared by a very well landed deep strike by a chaos lord and his terminator bodyguard. Landing in heavy flamer range sealed the deal of half the guardians on the point. I managed to whittle the squad down to 3 members but it wasn't enough, both my squads ended up eating dirt in assault the next turn. My frontal attack was blunted by a single pesky possessed marine that refused to die in assault with my avengers and farseer leaving neither of us with any troops on an objective. Then came possibly the rudest streak of luck ever:
-In turn 6 my wraithlord managed to kill the chaos lord without taking a wound causing the remaining terminator to lose combat by one. It failed it's no retreat armour save.
-At the other end of the board even after forgetting to doom the last possessed marine in combat with my avengers it finally fell to a couple of well placed hits from my Exarch.
-My spiders unleashed everything they had on a previously damaged rhino, wrecking it in a slew of immobilised and weapon destroyed results.
-My Hawks charged into a predator with haywire grenades and managed to wreck it.
The battlefield was clear of the agents of Khorne, a (lucky) victory for the Eldar!
