The Apostles of Contagion: June 2013

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Battle Report Links

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Fighting Eldar: Some things I think I learned

My previous post was a battle report from the last game I played. It was Chaos Space Marines with Guard allies at 2,000 points against Eldar.

I have played against Eldar many times over the years. I have some knowledge of how they like to operate. With a new codex here one of the big questions on my mind and probably everyone else's is; How have the Eldar changed? Can the old school players still play the Eldar like they like to? Does the new codex invalidate older models in favor of new ones? What in the devil does one do to fight the new Eldar?

Well I have some ideas. I had some good comments from the battle report I listed and I thought I would write up a new post to address the questions and concerns from those comments.

A few things that stood out about the Eldar.

The majority of their heavy weapons still have only a 36" range.

The first turn I got seized on. I had deployed first with the idea that I would go first as well. Well I went second. Bad news right? I am going to get blown off the board before I get a chance to do anything, right?
Wrong.
The Eldar haven't dropped in points enough to change their army composition dramatically from their previous codex to this new one. Especially if they still take vehicles. This limits their heavy long range fire power to about what it used to be in the old codex. There are a few exceptions but there were some before as well like the fire prism.
What this means is you are looking at mainly one or two long range weapons per squad, in a 2,000 point list that means probably between 7 and 14 long range guns spread throughout the army. The majority of these long range weapons will be 36" range.

So what does this mean?

If you are playing an Imperial army that means you can out shoot them at range. The majority of Imperial long range heavy weapons are 48" range.
If you are playing Guard you can really overload the amount of heavy weapons you take. Take lots of Autocannons and missile launchers and lascanons. Heavy weapon squads are cheap.

The Eldar are deadly at 24" range or less.

In the previous game I took a 30 man Guard blob squad with a commissar and attached Primaris Psyker who had the Endurance Biomancy power. It gave this unit feel no pain and with the commissar they had reliable leadership. I counted on their numbers and their leadership and their feel no pain (which i successfully cast every turn) to keep them alive and be able to move into the open field.
Once I got in range, in one turn I was shot down to just 2 models. It wasn't pretty and it was a bit surprising. I didn't think that they would be able to do that but with their shuriken weapons now with essentially rending and the amount of shots they get, you just can't survive when you get close to them.

My other squad of 25 cultists with an attached chaos lord to make them fearless didn't do any better. In one turn a Guardian Squad and a Dire Avenger squad killed them all.
Guardians have gotten much better as have dire avenger because of their new Shuriken ammo.

So what does this mean?

It means blobs will disintegrate against Eldar fire power. But only up close. If you must take blobs keep them far away. Maybe Nids can pump out enough gaunts that they don't care. I am not sure though.

Vehicles are not the enemy in 6th like many tend to think. Against Eldar you need to be protected from their anti-personnel firepower because of how much they have and how potent it is. Staying in vehicles and shooting can be a solution to the Eldar especially if you use your longer ranged guns to site back and fire while staying in vehicles. Make them come to you, do not go to them, you are walking into a trap.

Eldar are much more mobile and that does extend the range of their guns.

All of the basic Eldar infantry units have anew ability that allows them, in the shooting phase, to run then shoot or shoot then run which combined with fleet gives them the ability to extend the range of their shooting up to possibly 12". This allows their infantry's basic weapons (shuriken weapons which are deadlier now) to hit the enemy harder from farther away then they could before.

Their vehicles can also move farther (under 6th ed rules they can move 12" and shoot 2 weapons, which is better than 5th ed) and with their vehicle upgrades they can even move flat out and fire a weapon. This also extends the range of their wave serpents' weapons and their falcons' weapons.

So what does this mean?

It means that at the end of your turn you have to make sure you understand the Eldar's threat range appropriately. In my game I underestimated just how well their basic infantry could be effective in shooting because I was still thinking about how most infantry move. The Eldar move farther so when they reach their shooting phase all of a sudden they are on top of you firing at full effect with a bazzillion weapons shredding your troops when other armies' guns would still be out of range or at least out of most effective range.

If you stay in transports their shurikens are not effective. Stay in vehicles if you can or stay out of their ranged weapons range until you can bring the full force of your attack. Again make them come to you don't stumble blindly at them.

Their vehicles need to be a priority.

Their vehicles are much better now (yes even the Falcon no matter what the interwebz thinks). Their transports can move 6" dump the squad 6" out and then they can run a d6 with a reroll to get closer. This gets their infantry even closer to you than other armies allowing their guns to be more effective when and where the Eldar want them to be.

Wave Serpents can get a 3+ cover save when they flat out and a 4+ when they just move normally. They are tough nuts but must be dealt with. If you score a penetrating hit against their vehicles they also can turn it into a glance on a 2+ making them tough to take out in one shot.

So what does this mean?

You need to focus fire on their vehicles first. They are armor 12 so autocannons are only mildly effective unless you have tons of them. Missile launchers and above are the best bet. Again with Imperial armies that can spam these weapons I would recommend doing so.

Hit the vehicles early and often and take them out first. It will cut down their long range fire and slow down their transported troops. Once Eldar infantry are on the ground they generally only have a 5+ or 4+ save and are toughness 3 so can be easily shot down.

Eldar Psykers are not as important as they once were.

While the Eldar still have Psykers and can have a lot of them, they are not as integral to their strategy as they once were.

Farseers are level 3 psykers and can take powers from either chart in their codex or the divination tree in the main rulebook. They are able to then get Prescience and Guide to allow them to target two units who can reroll their to-hit rolls. Farseers can also do all the tricks they used to be able to do with psychic powers except now they are not guaranteed to get Doom or Conceal like they used to. They also have some perils of the warp defense. The other thing is Runes of Warding no longer makes opponents roll 3d6 and add them together when trying to cast powers.

Warlocks can be bought like wolf guard. They are only Ld 8 and can take powers from the psychic table that has dual powers in the codex. They are less powerful and more random but their psychic powers are potentially useful.

Spirit Seers are the new guys who are half way between Farseers and Warlocks. They usually join up with Wraithguard squads. Not much more to say about these guys really.

So what does this mean?

This means that armies playing against Eldar need not be afraid to take and cast psychic powers. If you are casting primarily Blessings you will have no problems. If you cast Maledictions and Witchfire just know their deny the witch rolls will be either 5+ or possibly as good as a 2+ so those powers will not work as reliably against Eldar as against other armies.

Eldar used to rely on their psychic powers to enhance their armies ability to shoot. Now they all have BS 4 across the army so their buffs with their psykers are not as required as they once were.

They used to also rely on psychic powers to give them cover saves and reroll dice. They still do this but there are a lot of things in the game that ignore cover and again hitting on 3s now with everything allows the Eldar to play with less psychic powers than they used too. I think there are viable builds now in the codex that don't even use Psykers.

This means that when playing against Eldar sniping out their Psykers is not a strategy that needs to be pursued as rigorously as it did before. If they still have all of their psykers at the end of the game it is not as big a deal because even without psykers they are more potent than they used to be.

Some other notes on Eldar.

They have one flyer which is great at shooting down other flyers. If it gets the jump on your flyer it will shoot it down.
To mitigate this you could go second to help with the odds that your flyer comes in after theirs and cn shoot down their flyer. Both their flyers are only armor 10 so they are easy to take out.
Perhaps investing in some sort of reserve manipulation could help with this either an aegis with comms relay or the imperial guard advisors or even use the warlord table in the main rulebook that affects deployment (i can't think of the name of it offhand).

If you do take guard blobs give them Krak grenades. If you do not and you assault a wraithlord or get assaulted by one that squad can't hurt it most likely. With krak grenades they are a threat to Wraithlords, WraithKnights and all of their vehicles.

Be careful of getting lured into traps. The Eldar can move and reposition themselves so quickly in one turn that they can lure you in one direction then move all the way across the board and leave you stranded.

Pure assault armies will get destroyed against Eldar. Do not think you can get into assault with them and win. The will out shoot you and out maneuver you and have surprises in hand to hand as well.

Warp Spiders are amazingly good do not underestimate them, their guns are better and they are faster than ever before.

I think I will leave it at that. If anyone wants to comment on this post that would be great maybe we can get a conversation going about Eldar here.

Until next time...

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Eldar are what we thought they were! - New Eldar Vs Chaos Battle Report

So this past weekend I played my first game against the new Eldar codex. My friend Seti came over and we played a 2,000 point game.

I used Imperial Guard allies and he played straight Eldar.

We played Dawn of War deployment and the Relic.

Here is a look at the deployment (I deployed first also thinking I would go first):

But he seized the Initiative on me. I believe this was the third time in the last 4 games that has happened to me.

But anywho you can see here my deployment. I used a 30man blob squad with a comissar and had an attached Primaris Psyker who got the spell Endurance, giving my squad feel no pain and relentless along with the useless ability of it will not die.

I had two Dreadnoughts, two Basilisks, two Obliterators a squad of 10 chaos marines in a rhino as well as a squad of plague marines in a rhino with a sorceror of Nurgle. In the middle was my new Chaos Lord of Khorne joined to a 25 man squad of cultists. This squad is the first squad of my new Dark Mechanicus Army.

On the other side was the new Eldar. He had a Wave Serpent loaded with Dire Avengers, next to them was a Guardian Squad with an attached Warlock, next to them was another Wave Serpent with a Farseer attached to a Squad of Dire Avengers. Also pictured is his Wraithlord.

In the ruins to the Wraithlord's left was a squad of Guardians with an attached Farseer. Behind the ruins was a Fire Prism. In the forest he infiltrated a squad of Rangers and in the back corner was a Falcon Grav tank with a squad of Fire Dragons inside.

He kept a squad of Warp Spiders in reserve, declaring he would deep strike them.

You can also see the relic in the center of the board.

His first turn of shooting blew up one of the Basilisks and one of the Dreadnoughts(Helbrute).

That was about all he did so I felt fairly good going into the bottom of turn 1. I had lost a good amount of firepower but not enough for me to feel worried.

I began my bottom of turn 1 by moving forward. Probably a bad idea in hindsight but at the time I figured that is what I should do.

My shooting was fairly insignificant with a lot of templates scattering off of what they were shooting at.

His turn two things started hitting the fan for me.

Looking down the road my chaos lord feels good about himself.

Then the squad of Guardians moves out of the ruins and opens fire.

After killing my lord and about half the squad of cultists, his Dire Avengers attempt to mop up the rest of them.

They almost succeed leaving only 3 left. But he is not done and the Farseer casts a psychic power that can kill up to three models. And 3 models he did kill, wiping the unit from the board in fell swoop.

The Falcon moves up and the Fire Dragons emerge. They move forward and the Falcon blows up the rhino. The Plague Marines emerge from the far side of the rhino staying out of line of sight of the Fire Dragons. The Exarch fires his pike at the other Basilisk and does nothing.

The Plague Marines are pissed now and move out of cover and the Sorceror casts Plague wind on the Fire Dragons killing several of them.

They then charge into combat my Sorceror challenges the Exarch and niether of them do anything but the Plague Marines make short work of the rest of the squad. The Exarch makes his leadership and we are stuck in combat.

Elsewhere, my army moves forward. The Dreanought was stunned in the last turn and had to run at the enemy forgoing shooting because of the crazed table.

The Obliterators move forward and take some potshots at the Wraithlord doing not much.

On my other flank the blob squad moves forward trying to avoid the Wraithlord.

In his turn he begins to maneuver around and begins dismantling the blob squad.

One squad of Dire Avengers after another fires into the blob killing swathes of them with ease.

The Wraithlord advances ready to charge the Dreadnought.

One last volley from a Dire Avenger squad....

....kills all but one of the remaining guardsmen and my sorceror.

The Falcon moves around the ruins and blows up my last Basilisk.

The Guardian squad fires on and kills the veteran squad with the plasma guns that was moving up the road.

My Plague marines make short work of the Exarch in hand to hand and in my turn they move up and assault the Guardians killing most of them and they break into the ruins.

The Wraithlord had killed my Dreadnought and moved back. The Obliterators shoot the Wraithlord again and again don't do much.

My Primaris Psyker and his lone guard buddy move up into the ruins hoping to hide from the Eldar.

His next turn the Warp Spiders deepstrike in right next to my Plague Marines. Between them, the Fire Prism and the snipers they wipe them out.

The Dire Avengers line up to shoot down the Primaris Psyker and kill him and his buddy.

The Falcon had moved around the building ready to fire.

I had not much left just an Obliterator a 5 man platoon command squad and the squad of marines in the rhino.

In his assault phase the Wraithlord assaults the Rhino and the marines pile out the back.

At this point its my turn the bottom of four and we decide to call it.

There was no way I could hold out against almost the entirety of his army which remained.

They were who we thought they were!

The Eldar played pretty much as they had before the new codex. Seti has been a long time Eldar player and really knows how to play them.

This new codex doesn't change the way he plays, its always been lots of skimmers and lots of fire power. What the new codex has done however, is improve his mobility and the quality of the guns army-wide.

The new codex is quite good and not a huge departure from what it was but thats a good thing.

The ability to run then shoot or shoot then run combined with the new bladestorm rules which all shuriken weapons have really improves the basic Eldar troops (both guardians and dire avengers). The vehicles are more survivable and also more mobile being able to move farther and still keep their firepower.

I look forward to our next match and I was spurred on to make new army lists because of what I saw.

The new Eldar change the 'meta' as the internet pundits call it because alot of lists in 6th had liked to use large blobs and I was kind of curious to see just how potent the new Eldar firepower was. It is definitely good enough to blow blobs off the table in one round of shooting.

I am excited for more games against the new codex. Soon I should be able to play them again.

Until then.....

Friday, June 7, 2013

Eye of Terror Campaign: Iron Warriors Vs Craftworld Eldar Game 4 Part 2

And now for the exciting conclusion.....

The Iron Warriors Champion, feeling brave leading a ten man squad of marines points his combi-melta at the advancing Wraithlord readying himself for the charge.

The Warpspiders warp right in front of the squad of Havocs and open fire.

The other Wraithlord charges into the Harlequin and Terminator combat.

The Wraithlord charges the marine squad and the Champion challenges. It was a foolish move because instantly the Wraithlord squishes him. The marines attempt to plant grenades on the Wraithlord but are unsuccessful. The marines may have lost combat but they are resolved to finish this and pass their leadership.

The next round of combat comes and goes and the Wraithlord kills a few more marines but they stay stuck in regardless.

The other marines squad snuck behind the combat and opened fire on the Dire Avengers killing a few and forcing them to retreat.

An Iron Warrior activates the control panel. Immediately the lights turn on and night fight is ended. No other effects occur.

The Wraithlord in the central combat swings the balance to the Eldar and kills off the remaining terminator squad. The Chaos Lord is still locked in a challenge with the Farseer and is fearless. The combat continues.

The Eldar advance and the Iron Warriors' numbers are dwindling. The Chaos Marines chances are swiftly going south.

A squad of Wraithguard open a door and slowly shuffle into the central chamber.

The Warpspiders move forward and set their sights on another marine squad.

After shooting and killing several marines, the Warpspiders charge into combat supported by their Autarch.

The marine squad is doomed both literally and figuratively and is wiped to the man.

Meanwhile on the Chaos Marines' left flank a squad of disguised cultists advance hoping to remain hidden from the Eldar's sight to try and grab an objective late game.

A squad of Dire Avengers rounds a corner and spots the cultists. Not a good place to be in if you are a weedy human Chaos Cultist. After the Eldar Bladestorm not a single cultist remains.

A squad of Fire Dragons advance along with the remaining Warp Spiders and Autarch to wipe out another marine squad.

A Warp Spider and his Autarch turn a corner after dispatching a marine squad.

The Wraithlord chases away the remnants of the marine squad but is then gunned down by another marine squad who then advance and take an objective.

The central 3pt objective is held by the Eldar.

The Wraithguard climb up to a high point and take another objective.

At this point the game is over. The Iron Warriors were decimated and the Eldar held the majority of the objectives.

This was the final game I played against the old Eldar codex.

Tomorrow I will play my first game against the new Eldar codex.

Watch for pics and a review of the battle.

Until then.....