Eldar Tournament Report

Rob speaking,

Since the new Eldar codex was released, I’ve been playing with it pretty much consistently and having a lot of fun with it! Now it was time to take the list I’ve been working on to a tournament. I would be attending a 1500pt, standard rulebook mission with the exception that Secondary objectives count towards actual tournament points: Firstblood 1pt, Linebreaker 2pts, Warlord 2pts and do not count towards primary in anyway.

Firstly here is my 1500pt list:
1x Farseer – Jetbike, Mantle
4x 5 Dire Avengers in Serpents with TL Scatter Lasers and Holofields, 2 have Shuriken Cannons
1x 5 Fire Dragons in Serpent with TL Scatter Laser and Holofields, Shuriken Cannon
1x Fire Prism with Holofields
1x Night Spinner with Holofields

Game 1: Dan Sackett (3rd place), Eldar/DEldar: Crusade and Dawn of War

Dans list:
2x Farseer on Jetbike, one with Shard and Spiritstone, other with spear.
4x 3 Jetbikes
2x Wraithknights
1x Baron
5x Warriors
7x Khymera, 2 Razorwing Flocks and 5 Beastmasters 

Dans list was a nasty one for me, a fast moving, tough to kill deathstar with two Knights following up! Then Dan rolled Fortune (re-roll saves), Invisibility (Stealth and Shrouded) in his first two rolls...
I played like an idiot to be fair, I took first turn, then my mind went firstblood would be good.... so shot into a Wraithknight and took four wounds off... second turn I didn’t scratch it as I failed to cast doom and he denied the witch on me when casting Misfortune. But it was all too late, the Deathstar and the Wraithknights were all over me and in turn six I was tabled... not a good start!

Game 2: Shamus Beardmore (37th place), Tau: Big Guns and Vanguard Strike

Shamus’s list:

1x Ethereal

2x 12 Fire Warriors

10x Kroot

3x Battlesuits 2 with double plasma, 1 with double fusion, 6 shield drones

2x Riptides with FnP and Interceptor

2x 6 Pathfinders

3x Broadsides with 6 Missile Drones

1x Aegis Defence Line

Shamus’s list looked pretty okay for me to deal with, it has four threats to my list, both Riptides and Broadsides and the Battlesuits once they land. I played pretty well, going second, I lost firstblood as the Dragons Serpent went down (High Yields have 36” range apparently... damn!). I then took out both Pathfinder units to remove markerlight support, then targeted a fire Warrior unit, the Night Spinner sniping the Ethereal! Then I took most of the Warrior unit out. the Battlesuits landed and failed to scratch a tank, so I removed them, I had to worry about both Riptides next, but luckily five Fire Dragons decided they liked the idea of taking on a Riptide in combat... they did well, holding it for four rounds, even won combat twice lol, in the end that was enough as by turn four I had removed one Riptide, the other was then removed turn five and so where a couple of Broadsides, the Kroot came on and did nothing. I was able to stay largely out of the Broadsides range and capture three objectives for a 24pt win!

Game 3: Jacek Stefaniak (29th), Ultramarines/Imperial Guard: Scouring and Hammer and Anvil 

Jaceks list:
1x Tigarias
1x Commander with Shield and Hammer
2x 10 Marines with Missiles and Plasma in Rhinos
1x Storm Raven with Melta and Ass Cannon
2x separate double multimelta Landspeeders
1x Company Command with 4 Plasma in Chimera
1x Vet Squad with 3 Flamers
1x Vendetta 

A balanced list, so I thought I could do well as with most balanced lists, it struggled by it’s nature to deal with mass tanks... but then I looked closer... I was in massive trouble... mass anti-tank, every unit can deal with a tank either in combat or at range! I played this one pretty much perfectly, Jacek gave me turn one, it was night fight, so I set up as far forwards as possible, then rushed forwards turn one, then turn two I took out... Both Rhinos, Tigarius, his five Marines, the Chimera and a few Marines from the other squad. Jacek then got both flyers on which did cause some damage, then I took out the Vendetta and the Company Command, then left two Marines in the large squad. Turn three the Storm Raven survived with one HP, it’s five Marines were dead and the Commander had eaten a tank. Turn four, five and six, I took out the Storm Raven and Jacek's Commander went on the rampage making a 10” charge through cover and chased down two scoring units. But I had control of two other objectives for a very nice max pt win.

Game 4: Nick Counsell (10th) Marines (Crimson and Ultramarines); Emperors Will with Relic and Vanguard Strike. 

1x Tigarius
1x Lysander
10x Marines with Grav Gun and Combi-Grav
5x Marines with Meltagun
5x Marines with Meltagun (ultra)
2x Storm Ravens with Melta and Assault Cannons
4x Dev Centurions 2 with Lascannons,2 with Grav Cannons and 4 Missiles. 

Nick rolled pretty much the perfect powers, re-rolls to hit, ignore cover and 4+ inv save on the Dev Centurions and got the perfect side against me. I only had a 12” squad plate/hill on my entire side... so I couldn’t even hide my fragile tanks, so going first would be vital! Nick got first turn... at this stage I knew this would be a game of my fighting tooth a nail for every little scrap of pts I could get. Nick got first blood from the first shot of the game as a 2 lascannons and 3 missiles wrecked the fire prism. My first turn I took two wounds off Lysander, took out a Centurion and wounded a second. Nick's flyers came on and I lost three Wave Serpents. My turn, I threw everything into the Storm Ravens and did zero HPs, I don’t think I caused a single HP, the rest of the game was a matter of me hiding Dire Avenger squads behind a wrecked Wave Serpent then on turn five with just five models on the table, one Avenger ran across to grab my home objective, while I had a chance of contesting the relic I didn’t want to be tabled, so played for the draw and luckily I did... one objective each. I was extremely happy with the draw, Nick played pretty much the perfect game!

Game 5: James McNoughton (11th) Eldar/Dark Eldar: Purge the Alien and Dawn of War 

James was taking basically the same list as Dan from my first game, he even admitted he copied it, I would be facing: two Farseers, Baron in a beast pack containing twenty Khymeras, two Razorwing Flocks, five Beast Masters, four small Jetbike units, one squad of Warriors, two War Walkers with Scatter/Star Cannons, a Night Spinner and a Wraithknight. Ugh, was my first thought, then he rolled fortune on his first Farseer and then rolled a few naff powers. Then we got Night Fight and James took first turn.... this was another nightmarish scenario, as the Beast Pack was 6” from me from turn one, I had learnt a lot from game one, which after talking to Dan and doing the math, going first, no nightfight, open terrain, I should have removed the beast pack in two turns of shooting from my army... anyways back to this game... this beast pack was up and running, it was game over unless I could thin it enough to limit multi-assaults... I didn’t do enough damage only removing five or so Kymeras and a couple of Beastmasters. Turn four it was still close four all on KPs, but by turn six it ended, 5 or 6 – 10... I still got linebreaker and firstblood for four tournament pts.

Aftermath:

That was a lot of fun for me! It has been a while since my last tournament and it was good to get back into the swing of things!

The list did okay, but it wasn’t optimised, I think too many points were tied up in the Serpents at 1500pts. I was happy to finish 26^th after a poor start and last game.

One thing that dawned on me was the lack of variety at the tournament, lots of Screamer Councils, Riptides, Wraithknights, Tau in the usual way of Broadsides, Riptides, Kroot. I was pretty lucky and avoided most of these builds, but they were so prevalent they dominated the top 10. Another thing also dawned on me, not a single Seer Council was in use across the entire event and I feel the need for another challenge!