Wednesday 29 September 2010

Dark Eldar at Gamesday



With Games Day been and gone there's lots of info out on the web regarding the new dark eldar.

Most sources say that copies of the codex will be hitting the GW stores in 2-3 weeks (unfortunately not for sale, which in November), so more details info about the rules will be coming out soon.

A good summary of the info people have heard at gamesday is at Hersey Online. There's some good pictures of the models and sprues at gamesday, plus discussions about the unit rules. There's no points values so we've no idea how useful anything will be, but it's all sounding very interesting particularly the Power from Pain rule.

There's also a very good summary on the Dark Eldar blog, an excellent blog for all information on Dark Eldar.

Another source for preview pics is the GW site.

I must get on with my Space Wolves painting, because I'm going to be really busy with Dark Eldar once they come out, as I'm sure I'll be adding bits to my Dark Eldar.

Rathstar

Tuesday 7 September 2010

OGC Tournament - Intro and Game One (In Progress)

Tournament Introduction

Last saturday I attended the Oxford Gaming Club 40K Singles Tournament. It was a 1750 Pt tournament, but with a big difference compared to most tournaments. Rather than scoring points for wins or losses, all you scored were victory points, with a few extra bonus for objectives (or kill points in the anniliation mission). In the anniliation game and a special mission they created for the third game there was a bonus of 300 points if you won the game. The other main bonus was 250 points per objective in the first objective game, and in the first and last games you got a bonus of about 400 points if you wiped the opponent out.

I wrongly thought that the best was play the missions as normal - stupid me :( As you only scored the victory points you scored, and not the difference between yours and your opponents victory points conserving your forced did not gain you anything apart from they could fire a bit longer. Also contesting objectives did not add anything to your score at it would not increase your vps, it would only reduce your opponents by denying them the vps for the objective.

This radically changed how battles would be fought and which armies would be good. An agressive army that would get in the face of the enemy and ensure mass carnage occurred would still score big whether it won the game or not, hence the strong showing for assault marine armies (13 out of the 24 competitors were either Space Wolves, Blood Angels or Black Templars). The latest change I made to my Tau army list (swapping a crisis suit for a unit of kroot) was definitely not the best for this tournament.

For those who are interested here's a link to the rules pack

With the Introduction out of the way it's on to how I did


Game One

I was up against a space wolves army to start with. The army was very simular to the list I am building. I only include 1 runepiest and don't have a wolf guard with a cyclone and instead have 2 landspeeders. Other differences are minor; I have less upgrades on my thunderwolves so I can have a full squad rather than 4, and I only include missile launchers in my long fangs.

The list I faced was:

2 Rune Priests (living lightning on both, one also had murderous hurricane, not sure what the other one had as a second power as he always used lightning.

3 units of 9 grey hunters (each including a wolf guard, and special and close combat upgrades)
1 unit of 6 grey hunters (can't remember exactly what they had)
Each grey hunter unit was transported in a rhino with extra armour, the rhino for small grey hunter squad and one of the large grey hunter's rhinos also had a hunter killer missile

2 x long fangs (each with 2 lascannons and 2 missile launchers)

Spare wolf guard in terminator armour with a cyclone missile launcher

1 unit of 4 thunderwolves (1 thunderhammer, 1 storm shield, 1 melta bomb, 1 normal)

My list for the tournament can be found at the bottom of this post.

The army I played against was very nicely converted, and it would be interesting to see what the sons of russ would do to my Tau. At least I was getting my wish and seeing space wolves in action :)

He won the roll off for table side and first turn, and decided to go first. He's a picture of the table during my opponents turn one that one of the tournament organisers took:

The 5 objectives are located:
1) By the bottom right ruin next to the wolf guard with the cyclone
2) Near right just in front of my double kroot screen
3) In the middle of the choas ruin in the middle of the table
4) Just in front of the forest at the top left of the picture (just in front of long rangs)
5) 12" to the right of the fourth objective at the top of the picture

Deployment

2 large grey hunter units (one containing one of the rune priests) on my left (bottom of the photo) along with the cyclone wolf guard.

In the craters in the middle one unit of long fangs deployed, with the thunder wolves just to their left (up in the photo).

On my right hand side (top of the picture) the second unit of long fangs deployed in the forest, while the 2 remaining grey hunter squads with the second rune priest deployed behind the forest (these rhinos were the ones with hunter killer missiles).

My initial thoughts on the deployment was that the space wolves had split their army. From reading the Space Wolves Grey blog, I thought it was best to ensure space wolve units could support each other well. To test the issue I wanted to nullify the right flank (top of the photo) by deploying as far away as possible. However my army was too big, so the toughest things that could take the long fangs fire (a hammerhead and the devilfish) were deployed in the middle, with the rest of my army on the left flank.

The army was screened by the two large units of kroot, with the pathfinders in the middle of my army at the back. The crisis suits were in between the kroot screen and the vehicles, broadsides & pathfinders at the back. My commander joined the first kroot screen to give them better leadership, and I hoped to quickly get that half the unit either in or behind the small bunker. The crisis suits most likely to die, ie. the ones on my left (bottom of the photo), were the firestorms (missile pod & burst cannons), as the plasma on the other suits would probably prove invaluable.

6 Fire warriors and 10 kroot were left in reserve, hoping the empty devilfish would be left alone for the first one to arrive and hop into. The first one to arrive would head cautiously towards the middle objective, followed on foot by the other.

[As it's late I will finish this report tomorrow, however feel free to comment on deployment and your predictions on the outcome]

Rathstar

Friday 3 September 2010

Once More Into the Breach...


Time seems to fly much too fast these days, with battle reports still in drafting, I have another tournament to go to tomorrow.

This time I'll be driving to Oxford for a 3 game, 1 day, tournament.

I must apologise to all of you who are waiting me to finish the battle reports for the last three tournament I have attended, but I will make some progress next week.

I'm really worried about the chances of my Tau finishing in the top half of this tournament. Although they (and I) have performed well so far this year with a record of 8-1-1 over three tournaments, but I have to admit I have been lucky with the draws. This tournament they put up the attendees and what armies they are using, and when I look at the list I easily recognise a high number of good generals, and the armies used are dominated by Space Wolves, Imperial Guard, Orks & Blood Angels. Not surprisingly with a more competitive tournament (it's part of a set of tournaments where the top players will be going to a final) there are no necrons, dark eldar or other Tau armies for me to draw against.

Quick Update: I just read the forum thread about the tournament and the armies I could face are:

Imperial Guard 2

Space wolves 9
Blood Angels 2
Orks 1
Tau 1
Tyranids 2
Black templars 2
Chaos warriors 1
Space marines 1
Daemons of chaos 1
Eldar 1
Sisters 1

So Space Wolves taking nearly half the field, and 3+ armour save making up exactly two thirds (16/24) of the field, my Dark Eldar are looking envious at my Tau wishing they had been picked for this tournament.

With Space Wolves making up so much of the field I should get some Space Wolves experience to help me hone my Space Wolves tactics, lets hope they don't smash my Tau too badly. I need to get used to playing Space Wolves with my Tau, as my assembling (let alone painting) of my Space Wolves is going well too slow for them to be ready for my Oct & Nov tournaments.


Undeterred I'm going to give it my best, and will let you know how I get on later in the weekend.

In upcoming posts I found a lovely model (toy) to represent Tyranid Spore Pods, and I've bought some of the old rhinos and razorbacks from ebay to give myself the option of playing a totally mech Space Wolf army. Blog posts concerning where to get the Tyranid Spore Pod model, and my musing on hybrid vs mech space wolves will follow over the next week.

Rathstar

For reference here's the army taking to the tournament tomorrow (I submitted the list before I got lots of good advice about piranhas, so I will be trying out losing the last kroot squad and a broadside to include 2 piranhas in the near future):

Shas'el - 107
Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi-tracker, 2 Gun Drones

3 Crisis Suits - 211
Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi-tracker
Team Leader upgrade with 2 Gun Drones

2 Crisis Suits - 124
Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi-tracker
(joined by Shas'el, sometimes later in the game if he wants to improve the kroot wall's leadership)

3 Crsisi Suits - 163
1 with Twin-linked Missile Pods & 2 Gun Drones
2 with Missile Pod, Burst Cannon, Multi-tracker

6 Fire Warriors - 60

10 Kroot with 7 Hounds - 112

10 Kroot with 7 Hounds - 112

10 Kroot - 70

8 Pathfinders - 96
in Devilfish with Disruption Pod - 85

Hammerhead - 165
Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pod

Hammerhead - 165
Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pod

3 Broadsides - 280
Advanced Stabilisation Systems
Leader Upgrade with Target Lock & 2 Shield Drones

1750 Points, 83 models, 14 Kill Points

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