Well I had the 3rd “Eldar” army as follows:-
400 Shining Spears, Ex & Au
700 2x Guardians in Wave Serpents
350 Phoenix Bombers
750 3x Cobras (separate formations)
250 Void Spinner
250 Falcons with 2x Firestorms
200 Bikes, 1x Vyper
100 Rangers
Things did not go at all well in the 1st turn. I had castled most of the army behind a hill, but failed to notice that he had placed his fully shielded MG on a road. I won the strategy roll and let him go first whereupon his MG motored up the road to a point where it could just see 2x units of the ‘castle’, so was able to drop 3x templates over the entire lot. Then he doubled his GG and shot a Guardian formation. Finally his FBs destroyed 2x broken cobras (the 3rd failed to rally for the rest of the game).
I was within a whisker of calling it after his first two activations (which had broken or destroyed 1500 points of troops), but decided to carry on and concentrate on destroying the monster with what remained while hiding from everything else. In the end he wiped out the few remaining rangers and my BTS remnants in his table half claiming 2-0.
On reflection, while very powerfull indeed, I suspect that the Gargant Bigmob list probably needs more ground forces to support the big beasts, so at 3000 points, 2x Gargants of any size are probably the limit.
Battle Vs the Mega Gargant – an analysisOver the game, I threw 1400 points at it, got lucky to break it early in turn #2 and luckier still for it not to rally. I had three formations shoot effectively at it seven times, and three others assault it (which destroyed two formations outright and broke the third).
Here is what happened in each turn as far as I remember the detail.
- Void Spinner 5x hits (disrupt); Rangers OW, Bikes - 8BMs (7x shields remain). End phase it rallied, leaving 3BM.
- Phoenix Bombers (1 down to MWAA) 3x hits, VS 3x hits (disrupt), Falcons 4 hits (2x damage). The bikes then assaulted it in a do-or-die attempt and to our mutual surprise scored 2x hits for the loss of only three bikes and won the roll off! The MG failed to rally in the end phase. Broken, 12DC.
- PB (6x hits 3x damage), VS 5x hit, 2x damage; Falcons 3x hits, 1x damage; Guardian assault (falcon support) 5x hits, 3x damage; Avatar assault, Falcon support 4x hits, 2x damage.
Attacking it takes 2-3 distinct phases; removing shields, breaking it if possible, and finally reducing the DC. Barrage weapons are actually more effective at removing shields than most conventional or TK weapons, because the size of the thing gives you 8x dice usually removing 4x shields a go. When reducing the DC, remember to cross-fire if at all possible.
Is it balanced?I would say it is considering the forces arrayed against it. BUT, arguably it is actually slightly weaker than a Great Gargant because of the 4+RA on the GG. It does mean that conventional forces have some chance to destroy it while the GG can only be realistically taken on by TK armed troops. This being the case, I could see an argument for making it’s shields D6 + 9 to reflect its size.
That said, I also think the GG is slightly under-costed at 850, and definitely should not be allowed extra shields for 50 points.
What if - - -With a different deployment and start of the game, in turn #1, the Eldar should be able to out-activate the Orks, using the last 6x activations to move the Cobras and Warhosts into position for turn #2; using the Void Spinner and Phoenix Bombers to weaken the shields on one Gargant (on average they will remove 7x shields from a Gargant, 9x from a GG and 11x from a MG). Meanwhile, the Ork aircraft should concentrate on the Void Spinner, destroying it and probably breaking a Cobra as well for the loss of 2-3 a/c.
Assuming the Eldar win the SR, in turn #2, they triple retain to use the VS or PB to remove the final shields and 2x sustained Cobra shots to get 8x, 12x and 16x TK hits respectively, which should kill any of the targets. However, one or both will almost certainly be flattened in response by the other Gargants and Ork air-force.
Assuming the remaining forces are not idle, this should leave one other Gargant broken, which means the Eldar should be in position to grab sufficient objectives in turn three to claim Blitz, CTF and possibly BTS for a 2 point victory.
However, the list *was* specifically tailored to give a reasonable chance of taking on titans, I just played it appaulingly badly here
