catalyst2 | Battle #18

Tonight was 2000 points against Mitch's Eldar. It was pitched battle deployment with Annihilation mission. I won the toss but got Mitch to deploy first. Having seen Mitch play before I was wary because he usually plays a shooty (OK, a particularly shooty) Eldar army. Exactly on cue, he had of course tried out a new build, with two large Striking Scorpion squads and only one 5-man squad of his favoured Fire Dragons. He deployed everything on the left so I put a shot magnet over there (Vindicator) and then set up everything else to try to hit anything that went near there.

Consequently, his first round of shooting was largely ineffective but both his Fire Prism and his Falcon streaked over to land next to the Vindicator. Rather strangely, he left all 3 War Walkers right in the middle of the board, completely in line of sight for me. My round nearly wiped everything off the table - my favourite Drop Pod dread immobilised his Falcon and my attack bike took a weapon off his Fire Prism. My Whirlwind took 8 of 10 Dire Avengers out whilst a combination of Predator Annihilator and Vindicator took out all three of his War Walkers.

Turn 2 - his Shining Spears came hurtling over but were largely ineffective because of the density of terrain and the lack of a suitable place to land. The two units came out of the Falcon and the Fire Prism and did some damage but not too much. On my right, both his squads of Striking Scorpion squads came on and promptly did their job by munching an entire tactical squad with Chaplain attached. Because the Scorpions were now right next to my Whirlwind, I moved the Whirlwind away twelve inches. I'm always amused by the surprise that people show when the Whirlwind actually moves - sure, it can't fire that turn but at least it lives to fight another day. It turned out that the Striking Scorpion squads had done their job a little too well because 10 sniper scouts and 3 HB/assault cannon Land Speeders could pour their fire into them. One squad shrunk to 4 and the other down to 3 men only. The Drop Pod dread finished the job and destroyed the Falcon. A combination of Deathwind ML and Vindicator cut the emerging Dire Avengers down to three plus an IC, whose name I can't quite remember - Prince Imrael (sp?) maybe? My losses to this point was the CCW of the dread and one tactical squad.

Turn 3 - the Striking Scorpions, small as the squads were, managed to get to another combat squad and kill it off. The Fire Prism hopped over the back of the Vindicator, the Fire Dragons got out and promptly inmmobilised it. The Dire Avengers caused some mayhem and killed off the Attack bike. On the right, both Striking Scorpion squads failed difficult terrain tests and so couldn't assault. In retrospect, this was the turning point of the game because I suspect that they may well have rolled the entire right if they had got into CC now. As it was, they were in no man's land again and another round of sniper scouts and Land Speeders reduced each squad to Exarch only.

Turn 4 - even though the Eldar were very low on numbers now, the presence of the two Striking Scorpion Exarchs, Prince Whatisname, a Farseer and a Wraithlord meant that I still had to be very careful - if I lost too many of these combats and any units ran, I might well lose those units. Sure enough, one Exarch went for a combat squad, made it run, caught it and killed it. The sniper scouts did well though and resisted the other Exarch with the loss of just two scouts. Inexplicably, the Eldar became obsessed with the Drop Pod and wasted most of the shooting this round on it, finally managing to destroy the Deathwind ML. In doing so, opportunities for many CC's were lost and they also didn't use cover well. Consequently, the Whirlwind got the Farseer, the TL HB and storm bolter of a Razorback got one Exarch, the sniper scouts resisted another round of CC with the other Exarch but then another combat squad charged the final Exarch and got him.

Turn 5 - although the Eldar had almost nothing left, they managed to destroy the Vindicator at last and then the Wraithlord got the Dread. Fortunately, in a very nice round of shooting, one little combat quad managed to kill the Prince and the last remaining Dire Avenger, the sniper scouts took out a stray Dire Avenger lurking in some cover who I had barely even noticed, the Predator took out the Wraithlord, the second Razorback got the last two Fire Dragons and the Land Speeders cleared the last of another unit off the board. In the end, all he had left on the board were the last two Shining Spears who had been remarkably ineffective for almost all of the game.

Result was win to me by 11KP to 6.

What I learned this week:
1)Patience - many of his units were shot up in the last round, boosting my count enormously.
2)The value of combat squads as bait: several times he charged combat squads, killed them but then left himself wide open to shooting in the next turn
3)Combinations: on the left, I expected to get really cut up but the combination of Vindicator, Dread, 1 combat squad and attack bike held up everything he threw at me and did it whilst devastating the incoming vehicles and troops. It was only on turn 4 that they finally did major damage to me.
4)Strking Scorpions: these bastards are just horrendous in CC. I don't know why so few Eldar players in the club don't use more of them.

My W-L-D record is now 13-5-0.