battle report – Twitchy Bristles

Double-Feature Eldar Crusade Report!

The bad news with writing a Masters’ draft the last month is I did very little painting. The good news is that I got a couple of great games in, playing at Noble Miniatures with KinpatsuSamurai and playing Floorhammer at my apartment with my roommate. In both games I ran my Craftworld Ulthwe Eldar, with wildly varying results. They still hold their own decently against the Sisters of Battle, but I am in desperate need of a solution to to army’s kryptonite – Tyranids.

Pictured: An image taken moments before disaster

Both games were in the Crusade format, and the first involved getting my Warlord – in this case Jain Zar – to cast a ritual using the Webway Gate, which we busted out because it fit the mission type and…I will take absolutely any excuse to use my Webway Gate. I sorely underestimated the amount of damage KinpatsuSamurai’s Exorcist could put out, and I paid dearly for it in the first turn of the game. My Banshees took a beating from Repentia Sisters and other close-combat units, but I think what really shone this game were my Storm Guardians. They’re really starting to grow on me.

Pictured: My surviving elves by the game’s end, and smoking legs where a Penitent Engine used to be, courtesy of the Storm Guardians. The exploded Falcon also did not survive.

I managed to just barely win out through time and technicality against KinpatsuSamurai. My roommate is a different story. With her Tyranids, it’s never a question of whether or not I’m going to win, it’s a question of how long the game go on until she tables me and has her run of my objectives! The Banshees probably did best out of my units in this game, but that’s not saying much – we got halfway through turn three when I was wiped off the board. One of these days I’ll figure out how to hold my own against Tyranids – but today is not that day, and tomorrow doesn’t look good either.

Pictured: Jain Zar and a squad of Howling Banshees against a Broodlord, which was the only one of my roommate’s units I defeated this game. The *only* one. Definitely *not* salty.

(No fluff this week! Me and KinpatsuSamurai have to hammer out the results of the last narrative game, and given the way the last match ended that may involve an Eldar vs. Sisters rematch. Fortunately, I have a few reinforcements on the way to help my elves out!)

Crusade Continues – Mistakes Were Made!

I’ve been playing Eldar for a long time – maybe a little too long! Taking my Death Guard out for a spin over the last couple Crusade games with KinpatsuSamurai has been a blast, but it’s definitely come with a sharp, blight-ridden learning curve. The first game against the Sisters of Battle was a train wreck – pun intended – with my Thomas the Chaos Rhino and Plague Marines all being bogged down in Repentia Sisters while the Sisters’ Immolator picked off cherished Nurgly characters.

Pictured: “Thomas had never heard of such bullsh*t before.”

I think in some ways I learned more in the second game, on a much more open board, against the Death Watch. Compared to Eldar, I definitely need to be more conscious of movement limitations, and I need a solid “delivery method” for my heavy hitters. KinpatsuSamurai won this one by a pretty wide margin, but the final melee between the Death Watch and my Biologus Putrifier and Foul Blightspawn was – pun once again intended – a blast.

Pictured: Two Elite Death Guard characters, soon reduced thereafter to mist and bone chips.

As always, Noble Miniatures in Paradise, just outside of St. John’s, was a fantastic location for the games and the setup for both games was great. I’d like to extend a thanks and a shout-out to KinpatsuSamurai for the awesome match, and for doing a battle report of his own on the second game, which is hosted on the Rolling Intentions website. They’re a group of awesome people writing on the tabletop scene in my neck of the woods, and definitely worth checking out!

The Death Guard on Castiel thought they had found hosts for their innumerable plagues, and passengers for their dreams of a planetary railway industry. Instead, they found a thrashing at the hands of the Adeptas Sororitas and the Death Watch. They will return – the Death Guard are nothing if not disgustingly resilient.

Embarking on my 9th Edition Crusade

Pictured, 25 PL of my Eldar, taking on the Deathwatch after exiting their landing craft.

I’ve wanted to do narrative-style play in Warhammer 40K for a long time, so when a couple of friends of mine wanted to start up a Crusade game and came up with a strange new world for us to fight over, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I packed up my Eldar, and a friend of mine packed up their Deathwatch, and we went to our FLGS – Noble Miniatures in Paradise, Newfoundland – to kick things off.

Pictured: The Eldar take some calculated risks, but boy are they bad at math.

I brought a squad of Storm Guardians with fusion guns, my Howling Banshees, Jain Zar, and a Falcon transport and we went up against a squad of Primaris Intercessors, a Redemptor Dreadnought, a Primaris Captain in Gravis Armour, and an Inquisitor. The dreadnought was definitely the target that gave me the hardest time, but in the end my space elves recovered most of the supplies from their crashed cruiser’s debris and escaped.

Pictured, my Guardians defending an objective (and also coming to space elf Jesus.)

There were definitely some lessons learned this game but the fusion guns worked brilliantly, and I think I’m getting better at playing my Banshees to their strengths. Looking forward to switching my roster up a little for the next Eldar game, and looking forward to debut my Death Guard on the tabletop sometime soon, too, in this campaign. As always, I can’t say enough good things about Noble Miniatures and about their table setups. They’re a phenomenal shop and made for some great pictures, and a great starting point for our Crusade.