The Eldar Cometh again... This time in Numbers! 5000 points mega battle!

The slaughter had continued for weeks now. The city centre now empty, finally free of human life. Thousands slaughtered like cattle, thousands more stolen away by the Dark Eldar, thousands fleeing into the outskirts. The Eldar would pay vowed Captain Harkol. His relief force had occupied the old church, now a ruin but still glorius. The priest had hidden hundreds of refugees in the crypt, saved them from certain death. The combined force of Black Scorpions and the proud Hydrobian 8th would stand their ground. The Eldar would be stopped here! They would not take another step forward, not a single citizen more would be taken! Harkol opened the comms. 'Men, load your weapons, fix bayonets, prepare the defences, make ready and say your prayers. Today.... we fight!'


5000 pts - Dark Eldar + Craftworld Eldar vs Black Scorpion Space Marines & Imperial Guard.

Tactical escalation: objective cards going 1,2,3,4,5 as the turns increase.


The city was occupied by the Eldar, the outskirts and the church occupied by my forces. This would be brutal! I'd be facing a fast, hard hitting Eldar alliance. That meant 2 Wraithknights, lots of poison and archon+wraithguard perfect deepstriking ambushes.

Blackheart Jack's Dark Eldar - Grotesque and twisted

The Lord Baron Sir Billy Bob's Blue Eldar - Gorgeous army

I'd assembled a formidable force. Imperial guard platoon, vetereans, chimeras and field artillery along with 4 leman russ in an armoured company. 3 vanquishers with Beast Hunter shells would assist me in taking down the big nasties! The Space marines brought thunders fires, landspeeders and grav cannons. I had several scout squads as back up /infiltrating objective takers.

The mighty Good Guys!

 TURN 1 - Imperials

We deployed. I won the roll off to go first but as we deployed the devilish Eldar had warlord traits. They both rolled 3's meaning 3 units each could infiltrate! My backline suddenly looked like this:

My Knight Cerastus was too juicy a target for them and they committed their strength to my back lines. I'd have one shot at taking them down before they rampaged through my lines! I brought out the big guns!

The Battle lines are drawn!

The holy church firmly in control of true believers!

Death Company ready to sally forth!

The city in control of the pointy ear'd devils!

Filth!

More filth!

Villians!

Captain Harkol ready to give orders!

My turn commenced and I moved some forces forward. A rhino and a chimera pushing up the bridge, first into the fray, ready to take back the city!

A fine force!

Fuckers!

My grav devastators came in on the drop pod. I'd combat squadded them so I had some flexibility. Only 2 grav cannons and 1 combi grav would be available for action. They took off 3 wounds from the blue Wraithknight. Guardsmen in chimeras and autocannons and grenade launchers stubbers, pots and pans and helmets and foul language was all unleashed on the two wraith knights. The thunderfires faired better. Taking a wound off the blue wraithknight and one off the Dark Eldar wraithknight. The spiritseer was vapourised by a thunderfire shell to the face! First Blood!

The rest of the dark eldar were ensconced in the city and took a few casualties here and there. A drop pod of flamer tacticals came down and roasted the occupants of two venoms but not fully!

A cool narrative bit was the scouts in the tavern on the far right corner. I'd infiltrated them along with a landspeeder storm as a distraction. They killed a wraithblade. My field artillery killed another two wraith blades and took a wound of the Wraith Lord there too. I like to imagine they were directing the artillery fire.

Scored: First Blood! & Behind Enemy Lines! (2 total)

 Turn 1 - Eldar!

Heroes!

The eldar were fully in control of the city, the tacticals in the drop pod were promptly annihilated by the surrounded venoms, warriors and eldar jetbikes. A noble death! :)

The real action took place in my rear (lol). The wraith knight each chose a target. I'd bubblewrapped the Knight Cerastus but one of the knights found a way thru! The blue knight charged into the grav devs. Their overwatch causing a wound! They lost several members but held on and didn't run away! which was annoying meaning the wraithknight was locked in combat.

The Dark Eldar monstrosity charged my knight cerastus. An epic duel! The Knight Cerastus is designed to fight gargantuans and makes them hit at -1. Jack hit twice cause 2x d3 hull points. I saved a couple with my 5+ invul and lost a few hull points. In return I swung back causing 3 wounds! 2 left! 

Scored: Objective 1 (1)

Scariness!

Tacticals Die!

 TURN 2 - Imperials

The Eldar alliance had an OK turn. They managed to avoid disaster and held the city. I'd have to pull out all the stops to try and not get distracted by the wraith knights in my back lines.

I sent the 2nd tactical squad into the fray. I saw a weak stop in their back lines. I unloaded 3 flamer templates and bolter shots on the 4 bikes killing them all.

Tacticals come to the rescue of the scouts!

Tank Commander Lywis saw it through his scope. A great lumbering beast way off in the distance. A wraithlord! The scouts in the city had reported being under fire from it. Lywis saw his chance. He yelled out to his gunner. 'Target! 12 o'clock 350 meters!' His well trained crew responded quickly 'Target acquired! BH Loaded!
'Fire!' bellowed the commander. The tank shook with force. Lywis traced the shot off into the distance. It felt like forever. The shot hit dead on! The shell exploded and covered the construct in vile mutagenic acid. Lywis could make out the shape of it in the haze. He witnessed the construct disintegrate as the horrible weapon did its work.

The mighty wraithlord goes down!

Pushing forward

A sweet shot from a beast hunter shell took out the wraith lord! More artillery annihilating the wraithblades. The death company also sallied forth. My thunderfires opened up with viciously accurate shooting. The ruins containing the rangers erupted in airbust fragmentation shots. The poor rangers were shredded. Their mangled corpses a testament to the power of the thunderfire!

Death comes to the rangers!

 The Assault phase began. The epic duel of monsters continued. Another two hull points were removed from the mighty Cerastus. It's shield managed to deflect a few hits! In return, it parried, swung and decapitated the Wraithknight (I rolled a 6 on the D table). A crushing blow to Jack Blackhearts morale! The grav cannon devs held on again against the blue wraithknight! now only 1 man remaining.

This turn I scored nothing in terms of victory points. My two cards weren't achievable. I had however eliminated 5 whole units. The 4 bikers, the rangers, the wraithlord, the wraithblades and the Dark Eldar Wraithknight. A good turn of destruction.

Scored: 0 (2)

Turn 2 - Eldar!

It was the Eldar's turn to take the fight back to me. Archons allied with wraithguard came down to unleash death! 

The first lot came down and D-cannoned the crap out of my landspeeders, killing 2 and leaving the third one with a single hull point. 

 The second lot came down and d-Scythed my Cerastus, blowing it to hell. A titanic explosion ensued! That explosion killed a techmarine and his cannon, and 4 wraithguard. This scored them Big Game Hunter D3 - a 3! 3 victory points for killing my Cerastus.

Ravagers descended from the heavens and blew up a leman russ killing a scout in the ensuing blast!
The Wraithknight finally squished the last devastator and was now open to shooting from me! 

Scored: 3 Big Game Hunter! (4)

Turn 3 - Imperials

My air support arrived! Two Fire raptor gunships and 1 vulture gunship. Ready to bring the pain.
My first move was to move my grav bikers out and kill the 1 wound Wraithknight. Done. I drew 3 cards that were attainable. My planes opened fire, killing the Dark Eldar Flyer. Scour the Skies! My other forces, which were numerous opened fire downing ravagers, venoms and just slaying stuff in general. The artillery was particularly effective. The sheer amount of fire power I was throwing out was a sight to see.

BRRRRRRRRT!

More BRRRRRRRRT!

I had another turn of very effective shooting. The deepstriking forces were all but eliminated. Having 30 guardsmen, 3 leman russes and 3 chimeras is a lot of shooting. The wraithguard and the archon fell to massed fire from my lines. The Vulture swept over the scythe-wraiths and the warlord archon. 20 shots was enought to eliminate the Dark Eldar Warlord!

My death company in the city charged and slaughtered the Eldar Warlock scoring a second Slay the Warlord point! (we we're playing with two warlords per force)

With that, I'd scored Scour the Skies, Witchhunter, Slay the warlord x2 and Ascendency D3 where I scored a 3!

Scored: 7 (8) (+1 if you include linebreaker)

At this point we looked at the table. The Eldar forces had a scattering of Dark Eldar warriors in the city and the Iybraesil Eldar were wiped out. They drew their cards and it was nigh-impossible to score more points let along survive another turn of furious firepower.

Result? 9-4 - Imperial Victory

Conclusion

A number of people have said to me... 'It always feels like I'm killing you, and murdering stuff, but I never feel like I'm making progress... you just keep coming'


I suppose it's my play style. I favour lots of cheap units. I favour taking scouts and cheap imperial guard squads as my back-up. I also always make sure I have small response units hidden away. I had my 3 bikers hanging out in the back, ready to respond. I had a chimera full of veterans and rhino with a demi.squad of grav devastators. My philosophy is never to have any key units, never to rely on 1 thing to do a job. Always have back up.

I was faced by a powerful combo of strong firepower and speed... but they lacked resilience. Too many specialists and hard units that, once removed, left them flat-footed and unable to carry the day.

It was an OK game but almost an annihilation. It's easy to let a string of victories go to my head. It's easy to let my ego tell me I'm a tactical genius but that would be wrong. It's a combination of luck, decent unit placement and most importantly....unit availability. I have a cupboard full of different units so I can build a versatile force ready to face Eldar type units. My opponents on the other hand were maxed out, using all their stuff. Their armies were therefore at a disadvantage as they weren't geared or built to any particular strategy.

An ok battle but a great day full of laughs, beer and spicy chicken wings!
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The smoking city was littered with shattered alien corpses. The guardsmen of the Hydrobian 8th were piling the dead high in funeral pyres. The acrid smell filled Evodius' nostrils. He savoured it. It smelled like justice. His forces had crushed the aliens and scoured the city. Only a handful escaped. Evodius had personally slain the enemy warlock. He held the beautiful soulstone in his hands and examined it carefully, almost entranced. He caught himself admiring the beauty. Disgusted with himself he threw it into the pile of soulstones the Black Scorpions had collected. The Legion master had ordered them collected, cleaned and stored. Leverage? Bargaining chips? Evodius didn't care.  He knew it would drive them mad, and he imagined the Master had some plan for them.

Captain Harkol approached Evodius, the men behind him shoving a wounded blue-armoured Eldar along. The Eldar was severely injured. It's left arm a tattered stump below the elbow and great shrapnel gashes sliced across it's chest. The trooper smacked his lasgun butt of it's head and it crumpled to the ground in front of Evodius. It spoke in some filthy language and spat at Evodius feet. Evodius laughed... and then kicked it the face with his power-armoured boot, knocking it out cold. 'Medic!' shouted Evodius. 'Make sure this filth doesn't die and take him shipside. We'll interrogate it fully'