My Eldar 'horde' army had been slightly altered to counter the titans I expected to encounter.
4x Guardians,
4x Falcons,
4x Night Spinners
4x Rangers
(deployed as four groups containing one of each formation type)
2x Cobras
2x Vampires to 'recycle' my
1x Aspect BTS (with Autarch and Exarch).
Game one vs Tim H - Siam HannProbably the worst army for me to meet, as it has lots of long range shooting and mobility, which Tim used to great effect. This started with his space bombardment pinpointing one of my four 'castles', breaking or destroying 3 of the 4 formations. He then concentrated on nullifying the AA in two other 'castles' so that his Vampires could attack. By the end of turn one I had 8 broken formations, at the end of turn two we were on parity with ~9 formations each, but mine were Rangers and Guardians with little firepower or speed. Dice did play their usual role with Tim throwing slightly better than average against my usual sub-par luck.
A master class in how to beat my hordes and 0-4 to Tim
Game two vs Simon W - World EatersIn a bold gamble, Simon tried to assault my initial deployment with his terminators but they were narrowly defeated. I was able to maintain the large activation advantage which allowed me to advance two Falcon formations to mid table. This in turn provided AA cover for the Vampire + Aspects assault. Though on CAP, the Helltalons decided the odds were too great and stayed airborne allowing the second Vampire to recover the Aspects after they had destroyed a small formation of Daemon engines. Thereafter the 'recycling' Aspects picked off formations, the Eldar artillery and tank formations were able to keep the World eaters from advancing too far and I was able to keep his formations out of my table half. 2-0 to me
Game three vs Rohan M - Black LegionThe two Death wheels proved remarkably useful to Rohan; one of them managing to break the left-hand Night Spinners, and then assaulting a formation of Rangers carelessly intermingled with some Guardians and another Rangers formation. The other supported his Ravager as it advanced in the centre, screened by some Chosen scouts. The Cobras tried to engage the Ravager, but were not well positioned and were subsequently destroyed. Throughout the BL advance, Eldar firepower whittled away formations and at the end of turn #3 the Deathwheels were both finally killed, the Ravager broken, and the scouts driven off the central T&H objectives leaving me 1-0 up. Unfortunately we did not have time for a 4th turn so it was declared a draw.
Game four vs Chris W – World Eaters (again!)Because Chris had a space cruiser drop assault, and fearing a repeat of the 1st game, I positioned my Blitz near the right hand corner while putting my ‘castles’ deployed to the left side. Despite an impressive cold, Chris attacked with gusto. His bombardment landed on the right most ‘castle’ with predictable results, the Terminators teleported near the next one (but were ineffective) and Chris simply bunched his entire army opposite my Blitz and steamrollered forwards. Some ineffective combat occurred in the centre of the table as our two armies passed each other moving on the opposing Blitz and T&H objectives. In turn #3 Chris got mine, while my air assault could not quite pinch his. 0-2 to Chris,
Game five vs Chris S – OrksThe game I was looking forwards to, as these games are always fun and well fought; this was no exception. Chris started by attempting an air assault against my Right hand ‘castle’, but after some extremely careful measuring and dice rolling, this failed (to my intense relief). This left Chris with a problem because my army was almost a perfect counter to his. However, in true Ork style he then advanced under withering fire. Dodging from wood to wood, the Great Gargant broke and rallied after the 1st turn, broke and rallied again at the end of the 2nd turn, and by the end of the 3rd turn had 1 damage remaining and 3 fires. Two other armoured formations also made it into the Eldar side of the table, but were beaten back by two Vampire air assaults. At the end of the turn these failed to rally leaving the Great Gargant between me and a 3-0 win. It rallied, so I threw three dice for the fires – and in a complete reversal of my usual luck I threw three ‘6’s so all the fires went out (to the great amusement of all)! 1-0 to me. (Dave B took a picture at this point!). As there was not enough time to continue this was declared a draw.
Unfortunately Game 6 did not happen because Chris W’s cold had got worse and he did not make the Sunday games.