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JF Opening Comments:
Honda: John (jfrazell) and I got together for a 3000 pt Sotec-Eldar vs. Tau battle last night to help us get in shape for the Memphis SPEC CON in October. These training sessions are intended to give us room to try new ideas, have John get familiar with how the new Eldar play, and have a lot of fun.
Game: Mech Tau vs. Sam Hainish Biel Tan Eldar, 3000 pts
375 ? ? shining spear ? 8 shining spears 1 autarch ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
350 ? ? guardians ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 7 guardians 1 farseer 4 wave serpents ?
350 ? ? guardians ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 7 guardians 1 farseer 4 wave serpents ?
400 ? ? SOV: 4 falcons, 2 firestorms ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
250 ? ? SOV: 2 firestorms, 3 fireprisms ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 500 ? ? 2 scorpions ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
200 ? ? windriders ? ? ? ? ? ? ?6 bikes or vipers ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
200 ? ? windriders ? ? ? ? ? ? ?6 bikes or vipers ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
200 ? ? windriders ? ? ? ? ? ? ?6 bikes or vipers ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
200 ? ? windriders ? ? ? ? ? ? ?6 bikes or vipers ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
?Really, we?re the Good Guys?, 3000 pts
200 ? ? Hero ?
150 ? ? 2 (6) x RST (Marker Light Turrets) ? ?
550 ? ? 2 x Scorpionfish + Supreme Commander ?
425 ? ? 8 x IC-HH + Networked Drones ?
425 ? ? 8 x IC-HH + Networked Drones ?
375 ? ? 6 x Stingrays ?
250 ? ? 10 x Piranhas ?
250 ? ? 10 x Piranhas ?
375 ? ? 4 x Crisis + 3 x Stealth ? ? ?
Honda note: All geographical references will be from John?s perspective. Assume that he is on the South edge facing North and I am at the opposite.
Honda: The table was covered with about 60% terrain in the form of rolling hills and forests. There was a large manufacturing complex on West side of the board. Objectives are placed in the outer thirds of the board near table edges. Honda?s Blitz is in the Eastern third, John?s in the Western third. ?
Honda: My intent was to use my Ion cannon Hammerheads to fence with all the bike units, use the Piranha?s to engage his tank formations and let the Hero take out the Scorpions, assisted by the Marker Light Turrets. I wanted to stay concentrated on a flank and then roll up that side, collapsing his line. Early in the list development, I debated whether to take two IC Hammerhead formations vs. 1 Railhead and 1 Ionhead. In the end, I think I would have been better off taking one of each as the Railheads would have done a better job during the game of remaining mobile and taking on his tank formations in support of the Piranhas. The Ionhead vs. jet bike skirmishes I had envisioned did not materialize due to a lot of Eldar ?Hit and Run? attacks.
JF: Honda castled the majority of his force in the right corner. ?1 unit of pirhannas was to the left. ?Later the drones dropped near my major formation clusters. ?He put the crisis suits in some trees and hid most of the other formations behind them, using marker lights to create havoc.
JF: Left: I moved left, took out the left pirhannas with guardians and some jetbikes. Shining spears came along but didn?t attack due to FF. before dying the pirhannas put some fire into the fireprism formation-breaking them initially (Honda: This was a pleasant surprise. The 10 Piranhas popped up, fired their seekers and killed 2 x Firestorms and 1 x Prism, breaking the unit). ?He followed with a tank formation (Ionheads) and my scorpions moved and exchanged fire. ?He dropped his sensor buoys and pounded on the scorpions with Pinpoint attacks + Gravitic Tracers, destroying one and damaging the other. A follow on move by Tau tanks to come forward and do a pop up took the last scorpion out (whereupon my follow up FF would have taken them alas mistakes were made).
Honda: This was an interesting flank. It had good terrain to support jet bike jump offs on the far Western edge and not a lot of positions to support sustained operations. So, I put the Piranha formation over there to slow down the inevitable sweeping maneuvers sure to come. As I said above, popping the Fire Prism formation was a nice bonus, but the Piranhas were in a bad spot and going to pay. The Marker Light turrets deployed in good spots to support the orbital attack, allowed me to get my shots off, then died shortly thereafter.
JF: Right. The castled formation took some fire from hit and run falcons. I began in the bottom right and moved to shift towards the center, to pinwheel and set up for good times FFing. ?He dropped a Marker Light Turret formation near my units and guided some serious Tau nukage which obliterated one viper formation (not good when Honda has to crack open a whole brick of dice). ?Another Tau tank unit slipped around and helped break the fireprisms. ?The Tau tank unit that moved to kill the scorpion was left in no man?s land between the trees and castled formation, and my hordes. ?Falcons popped it and dropped into FF range with a follow guardian formation. ?But made the rookie mistake of not employing earlier so couldn?t employ/move/deploy to take something down. Guardians ended hitting the sensor formation wiping it out and falling back into a forest where it could contest two objectives. Vipers/bikes took up the call and hit the Tau tank unit instead, breaking it (barely) ?but barely surviving. ?During this time his crisis suits also popped them (the horror the horror) and was holding his own against slashing attacks from vipers and jetbikes (Honda: The cover saves the Stealth+Crisis got really helped out).
JF: Towards the end I scooted across the table with an unharmed viper unit to set up another FF taking a risk I would get first move in turn 3. ?I didn?t and they were smeared. ?More marker light directed shooting hit my formations but used up his activations. ?The falcons were hit badly but moved off to put a BM on an inactivated unit (trying to get him to miss the activation). ?It was later wiped out. The Prisms rallied and put some fire into the same unit, but were broken again by return fire.
JF: Unusually bloody game (when playing Honda either you win big or lose big). ?I won on turn 3 due to my units in his field turning the tide, but it was unusually bloody. ?At turn 4 ?he could have moved out in force and brushed my surviving units out of his space. ?Had we more time I would have recommended we play another turn but the store was closing and work calls the next day : (
Honda AAR Comments: We had another intense, but extremely fun game. My concern about being able to deal with all the bike units proved to be valid and although I was able to deliver a lot of firepower on any one unit, the extra activations that John had really helped him own the latter stages of a turn.
As we were cleaning up and discussing things that had happened during the game, I did a better job of keeping his units at arm?s reach so that I could shoot at him, but I still ended up in a battle of attrition which I didn?t have a chance of winning. By the end of the game, I had:
2 x Scorpionfish + Supreme Commander
6 x Stingrays
4 x Crisis + 3 Stealth
8 x Piranhas in one formation
3 x Ionheads in one formation
Tau formations that performed well:
I married up the SC Scorpionfish with the Stingray formation and Coordinated Fire two out of three turns (T2 & T3). Their combined firepower (18 -22 dice) wiped Inf/LV units out. I liked how they performed and supported other actions even with the loss of activations I experienced.
Crisis+Stealth performed beyond my expectations. I usually watch this unit die in T1 or T2 due to air assault and so I don?t normally field it in my list. They did a really good job of dishing out hits to jet bike/Vyper units and the ML on the Stealth was extremely handy for facilitating shots from other formations.
Other formations didn?t disappoint me as much as only deliver what was expected. I am a firm believer in Piranha formations and usually add a Tetra contingent to give them their own ML capabilities, but didn?t this game. I won?t make that mistake again. They need that mobile ML if only to be able to double and not lose their shooting effectivness.
One observation I made on the new Eldar list is that John seemed to have to make harder decisions than what I have observed in the past. I won?t say that he?s cavalier in regards to how he approached other lists, but the earlier versions seem to be a lot more forgiving than this version. I see that as a good thing.
Although I felt like I was in an uphill battle the whole game, I felt like I had a pretty decent chance of getting into Turn 3 with a credible force, thus allowing me a chance to contest the game. With earlier versions, I?ve usually been ripped to shreds by the end of Turn 2 and getting to the end of the Turn 3 was more a formality than anything.
So, I think the Eldar list is moving in the right direction, even if it appears to be a little more painful for the Eldar players.
We?ll be playing more games with differing combinations of units in the coming weeks and I look forward to all of them.
Great game John!
JF comments. ?The Tau units were better employed to take advantage fo the terrain situation. Castling and using the markerlights to direct ordnance was extremely effective, although it bled your unit activations. In turn 3 I was really just trying ?to stuff him from realizing how much blood loss the Banditos had taken and moving out to sweep me back. ?Personally I was a bit rusty as the rookie guardian miss reflected, but this was especially hampered by Honda?s castle and his refusal to come out and get into my FF gunsights (obstinate Tau!). ?Conversion to the BT list also threw me a bit, which Honda played well against. ?
JF Eldar List Comments:
-Pulse weapons: We tested pulse weapons via scorpions and falcons/firestorms. ?The 2x change made these weapons more effective. ?On average achieved an additional hit vs. the old method when performing shoot and scoot (tested the old method at the same time).
-larger SOV formation. ?The larger SOV formation is slightly more durable, especially in light of the increased cumulative impact of BM?s on breaking without spirit stones. ?Decent for hit and run attacks-moderately better than original formation type-especially when combined with pulse.
-spirit stones. Oh how I miss thee. ?The lack of spirit stones had a strong impact on activations. ?Without the autarch it could have been very bad. ?Without spirit stones elder lists now need some sort of supreme commander for that. ?
-hit and run. ?The hit and run option substantially changed the game. ?Earlier I had been able to utilize cover sufficiently, but my opponent castled up close and needed the distance to escape. However, in this context I was unable to get several formations out of harms way, and they were quickly hammered. ?Jetbike/viper formations were not able to effectively pull back and paid for it.
-jetbikes. ?Didn?t test the jump pack effect (other than infantry for shooting) as Tau weren?t into direct CC. ?However, the 5+ save did have the intended effect of making them substantively weaker. ?In FF it took materially larger losses in the exchange than previously. Combined with the maximum formation size and the strength of jetbikes is pretty balanced now. ?It actually makes vipers more efficacious. ?As jetbikes can only FF, and their armor is reduced, not sure why one would have many jetbikes over vipers. ?If you add jump packs the net effect will likely be the demise of jetbikes in favor of vipers.
-Fire Prisms: ?As there were no aircraft played I didn?t miss their antiaircraft capabilities (the only reason originally took them). ?Hard to notice any difference. They were moderately effective in anti-tank mode, but didn?t feel any special difference in effectiveness, except I was forced to get closer.
Aside: yet again I am reminded why me and war engines do not get along. ?What do you mean that thing in space just blew up my scorpion?!? ?
General comment: the BT formations are quite small, especially the jetbike/viper units. ?Come on I need a horde of bikes roaring across the field in true bandido fashion to eel good about myself?Good game Honda
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"Advance to the Rear!"
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