Hahaha I was there and tabulated the results (Mard did really) but after reading this thread so far I am looking forward to reading the remaining Batreps to see what happens!
I am also keen to take on these squat in a game soon

Cheers

Mic

Deployment!
The 'Revenge on the Pointy-Ears: Eldar vs Squats' was played on the forested and hilled table. This was lots of excellent, long cover for my skimmers to hide behind.

The BTS/Arty went down in the center and i made a second attack group off to the right. I was very aware of the fully loaded Vampire aircraft coming down so I was ensuring my AA bubbles were in place.

At the start of this game I vowed I would take better care of my aircraft, and would be more cautious in the first few turns.


*Note that unlike the Nid game, I thought it worthwhile to delineate the actual different forces arrayed against me


The Eldar were spread out fairly evenly. I focused a lot on where he deployed that huge titan.

I thought that it would be best to reuse this photograph as it will show the two main fields of battle. It might give you a little bit of a heads up on where the flow of battle is going to go




With strategy rating 1 vs strategy rating 5 it wasn't surprising that the Eldar won first turn.

Turn One

E1: The Void Spinner activates, and fires at the Airwing blob on the right. The Squats are generally not impressed with fragile eldar Artillery and take no casualties
S1: With a cry of "This is how Artillery is done!" The Goliaths fire at the rangers, killing one and breaking the unit.
E2: The Scorpion draws a bead on the Land Train, stripping off a Void Shield. Obviously it had decided that the Train was it's preferred victim
S2: The Land Train engineer has his feelings hurt by this, and decides that repayment is due. The return fire against the Scorpion knocks a DC off it and the overblast hits and kills a Fireprism, breaking that unit too.
E3: The Guardians attempt to overwatch, but fail
S3: The Mortars fire on the broken Guardians, killing one
E4: The Jetbikes rush forward to the middle of the table, and but a single blast marker on the land train.
S4: The Squat Warrior unit walks forward and shoots, killing two jetbikes
E5: The Fire Prisims move forward, but the Thudd Guns active their overwatch first, killing one.
Demoralized, the Eldar fire Prisms kill nothing.
S5: On the left wing, the Gyrocopters pop up and take a second DC off the scorpion.
E6: Scouts fire and miss
S6: On the right, the Gyros move forward and fire on the Phantom Titan, doing nothing.


Stuff Gets Interesting
E7: Finally the Phantom Titan activates. Striding forward, it brings the exposed flank of the Land Train into view. It pours all the power from it's Titan Killing Pulsars into the Squat carriages, collapsing all the void shields and taking down one DC. The Land Train is one blast marker away from breaking.
The Squats have learned what a Phantom titan can dish out!

S7: Of course, the remaining Squat formation is the Overlords, who with a whirr, pop up from behind the treeline, sustain and unload hell onto the Titan. The holofields save all except two hits, leaving the titan one blast marker away from breaking.
The Eldar have learned what twin Overlords can dish out!



End of turn one. The Eldar are missing a huge chunk of their forces after one turn, but I am worried about that titan. We know that the Eldar are likely to win initiative and get a second round of shooting into the Train. Will it hold?

Turn Two

As expected, the Space Elves win first activation. Luckily the Land Train has rallied and has a number of shield regenerated.

E1: The Phantom Titan fires again, the shields collapsing and damage taken. This time the hit causes a critical!

*Important Note*
The Land Train has one of the more interesting critical results of any War Engine. The rearmost carriage is blasted off (I had to snap off the final miniature) and from then on the Train has less weapons/DC/Voidshields.

S1: Identifying the Scorpion as a threat to the now unshielded Train, the Gyros pop up again and let loose with a hail of autocannon shots, removing the last DC and blasting it off the board.



Squats retain, and the Goliaths kill a Fire Prism

E2: The Void Spinner kills a Thunderfire AA gun, and spreads a lot of blast markers over the Big Arty group.
S2: The Land Train marshals, gaiing back the void sheilds, and fires back at the Titan, inflicting another DC with its Macro Attack
E3: The Guardians marshall

Stuff Gets Interesting
S3: Revenge! The twin overlords sustain for a second time on the hapless Titan. This time the holofield collapses due to a critical. The Titan retreats, broken and on it's final DC!
E4: Rangers do nothing against the Mortars
S4: Mortars fail to activate and marshall


*You can tell this is a nice shot by the official photographer, better than my blurry ipad ones.

E5: Jet bikes fail to activate, and break
S5: On the right wing, the Gyrocopters fire after the retreating Titan and do nothing

Stuff Gets More Interesting
E6: The Vampire comes crashing down into the main Arty block, intermingling everything!
A last ditch attempt by the Eldar to break the squats!



The Aspect warriors carve up two Mortars and a rhino. In return the huge amount of FF fire kills three Striking Scorpions, two Fire Dragons and a DC on the Vampire. the combat resolution is rolled....

And it's a tie! Refight combat!

The second round it more brutal. One Mortar dies and the Eldar are wiped out to a man (elf?).






S6: The Squat Warriors move forward and fire on the Titan, doing nothing
E7: Fire Prisms fire and kill a Rhino
S7: The Thudd Guns indirect fire for a fluke shot and take down the Phantom Titan!



End of turn two. With the Titan down and few remaining units left I know I have it in the bag. The next turn will be mopping up and attempting to get as many victory points as possible

Turn Three

The final turn was very quick, so I'll burn through it as fast as I can:

The Bezerkers tunnel up on the Blitz, encountering the Guardians. The Farseer inside the Guardians pop out the Avatar, turning the Bezerker attack into likely suicide run.


E1: The Eldar Guardians / Avatar engage and as expected, cream the Bezerkers.
S1: The Gyrocopters blast the voidspinner down to two DC, breaking it
S2: The Land Train destroys the remaining Fire Prisms

End Game



At this point it was easier to work out what Eldar units survived (The guardians, the Void Spinner) when working out the Victory points

Game Over Man!

End Result
4-0 Loss (Everything except Blitz)
2625 points of Eldar killed vs 312 squats killed on countback

With a complete mirror of the first game, the swiss rankings bounce me back up to the middle table!

Post Game Analysis

There are some victories which a well deserved. This one felt just...rude. Adam was a fine chap, but was usually a guard player and new to Eldar. And Eldar that don't use hit-and-run and pop up attacks are very fragile, especially against an army designed to take them down.

Points in my favour
+2 Had a great army list for killing Eldar
+1 Conserved my airwing this time
+1 Opponent probably didn't realise how much firepower twin overlords can do when sustaining twice in a row.
+1 Opponent concentrated too much on the Land Train


On to Round Three! (Will post tomorrow)

Thanks for the report.

I agree, one of the first targets for my opponents are the Overlords. For a Phantom with two Pulsars not to pop one a turn, as a minimum is surprising. Did your opponent not realise that he could effectively see them all the time?

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I think Adam was a relatively new player that had not met Squats before. Be honest, the first time you laid eyes on the relatively tiny GoodYear balloons did you think they actually pack that much firepower?

I find the reverse is true on the Land Train. Experienced players tend to ignore it, as the firepower really isn't something to be worried about, considering the effort needed to destroy it.

Very nice battle reports. Clear and very easy to follow with the picture texts. Appreciated!

Aye, a double overlord unit should be a walking bullseye for a scorpion and double pulsar phantom, especially as it also nerfs the land train by removing the best spotting unit. Agree he should've ignored the land train as not your bts. Your opponent did have the units to cause you problems so definitely well played to you!

Also interesting you think it's a strong squat list to play eldar. I'd have thought against the optimal biel tan double vampire, double void spinner (or even a storm serpent plus vampire) you'd be in real trouble sure to lack of aa plus little starting on the board for your artillery to shoot at? That said, I'm paranoid and the UK has an air heavy meta, so tend to go minimum 3 units of thunderfires.

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Theese reports are great! Thanks for doing them!

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Great reports, very easy to follow and the pictures add depth to the reports.

Popping up cannot be done on a sustain fire order, from the skimmer rules.

Overlords are support craft (like the tau manta) not skimmers, they function as if they're skimmers which are always popped up so can sustain. In fact a sustaining overlord is the sort of thing a squat player dreams of! I once got one to sustain, in crossfire from 15cm, greatest moment of my war gaming life!

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Indeed. If you want to think about it this way: 'Poping up' counts at movement (as per the FAQ on overwatch), but an overlord is permanently 'popped up' and doesn't have to move. In fact a 5km long hydrogen airship is probably one of the most stable firing platforms around.

Although in dptdexy's defense I did describe the action with a bunch of flowery prose that made it seem like the Overlord was moving. Sorry about the confusion. I was trying to make it sound 'cool'*

And to SteveK, I got to sustain not once, but twice with twin overlords against the Phantom. Why the opponent didn't move his unit after shooting, or after being shot at once by the overlords is beyond me. I can't really take credit for 'good generalship' in this game and actually feel a bit guilty for beating up on a relatively new player.




*because fully grown men who play with 6mm dolls need all the cool they can get

I'm interested to hear about your local meta. I've never encounter the 2x vamps and 2x void spinners set up. Around here we have a lot of trouble with mass teleporting terminators/droppods/daemons (just look at the preview lists for this tourney!) rather than aircraft insertions.

That being said, a better description of my list would rather be "strong against hit/run, cover using tactics". I've found that the very best 5-6 players in the region all play 'like' eldar no matter what army they are using:

1) Very intelligent use of cover and unit placement
2) Make you struggle to get a clear shot in return
3) Lot of small, faster units, good activation order
4) 'Hit and run' tactics - even if they don't have the hit and run rule.

In my fourth bat rep (as yet unposted) I'll be facing a very good space wolf player that used these tactics - almost impossible to get a clear shot in on anything, even though the list was traditionally a 'rush you in the face list'

I built my list to be able to take on these kinds of strategies - Ignore cover, Indirect Fire, Popup Skimmers, with the metathinking that I'll be stronger against the top half a dozen players. I might be weaker against the 'stand still and shoot you' guard players but I feel I can handle those 'less tricksy' players with skill on my own part.