Team Championships France- Game 2

Game 2

The first game was under our belt as a team and at the end of the day was not too bad. As a team we came out with a draw. What we discovered was that the majority of teams actually had a draw the first game. The reason for this was the four man team concept. Five people to a team would have seen a lot less draws, but the TOs felt it was easier to bring four people together than five.

Our next opponents were from the local area and had the following armies: Blood Angels, Marines, Tyranids, and Eldar.

Mission- basic seize ground with five objectives and the secondary objective was on odd take on one I had seen in many tournaments. Where as before you had to get as many of your units in your opponents deployment zone. This mission called for you to have more of your units in your deployment than your opponent. So you would have to simultaneously go on the attack to seize objectives but hold back enough units to achieve the secondary objectives. Interesting turn for an old mission objective.

Pre-game strategy session- looking at the four tables I noticed right away which table I did not want to play on if at all possible. The reason was because one of the tables had four of the five objectives already placed on pieces of terrain that my bikes just could not reach (objectives were placed by TOs on all tables prior to game). I quickly pointed out to my captain that I really had to stay away from that table. As for my opponents I listed Marines/Eldar/Tyranids/Blood Angels as my preferred opponents.

The captains roll off and we lose both the initial and the “trade list” rolls. In addition I end up playing on the table I wanted at all cost to stay away from and my opponent was to be the Eldar.

Eldar Army list

1. Eldrad
2. 2 Fire prisms
3. Falcon (fire dragons)
4. Falcon (dire avengers)
5. warp spiders
6. Dire Avengers (wave serpent)
7. 3 units of 3 each jet bikes
8. war walkers
9. Dire avengers(wave serpent)
10. Wraithguard
    

Deployment-

Eldar

The deployment zone was slightly different than standard. You measured 10 inches back from the center of the table and that was your deployment zone, so basically reverse of pitch battle with an added few inches.. The Eldar player won the roll and selected to go first and pick his side. The majority of his army was deployed near the back of his deployment zone and he had a fire prism on each flank. In reserve was placed the three jetbike squads and the war walkers outflanking. Wraithguard were deployed in a building, center of his deployment zone with Eldrad.

Marines

Ok yes I was feeling slightly screwed at this point. Not only was I playing a mission on a table that completely was in favor of my opponent. But he also had enough speed to achieve all his objectives while with a smaller force I would be forced to make some hard choices. Looking at the table I could really only achieve one objective on my far left flank because unlike the rest it was at least in dangerous terrain( great right...). I could probably not even deny the other objectives from my opponent because most of them were up on the 3^rd floor of buildings. Yea my terminators could contest but he had the mobility to pick where he wanted to strike. So I decided on the big gamble. I needed to attempt to table him. I deployed my entire army up to the front edge of my deployment zone and combat squaded everything I could. Everything was spaced so that I would not take to many hits from fire prisms but once I got though the first turn of fire I should be ok.

Turn 1 – I seized the initiative!! Ha this helps a lot but will not win the battle if I play this timid. If you go for a table win you need to commit everything to the attack. So my whole army turbo boosted turn one. The terminators walked/ ran (shooting) and the stern guard rhino went 12 inches and pulled into some ruins.

Eldar- Vehicles moved to get LOS and warp spiders jumped to take shots at my command squad. Fire Prisms/ Warp Spiders / Wraithguard/ Missile Launchers and Dire avengers opened up on my bikes and command squad. Guide and Doom was being used against my command squad. My bikes and command squad were taking losses and so were my terminators but everything passed leadership.

Turn 2 – Like the movie The Light Horsemen where the Australian Cavalry finally gets under the guns of the Turkish artillery. I felt relief, it was my turn. My bike squads pushed forward. Attack bike sections went after the fire prisms and bike squads went after the fire prisms and wave serpents. Terminators continued to run forward. Pretty much every transport or Eldar tank was disabled/immobilized/destroyed this turn (melta is great for eldar vehicles and everyone of my squads has them). My bike troops were able to chase down dire avengers after the assault and the command squad ran over the warp spiders. Only thing left out of combat was Eldrad with his Wraithguard who climbed up to the third floor of the building they were in and fire dragons that I was not able to assault after I destroyed their Falcon.

Turn 3 – None of the reserves came in for the Eldar. He moved the grav tanks that could move but not fire and tried firing on my terminators with the fire dragons (all that was in range). Eldrad / Wraithguard fired on one of my bike squads and cut down 4 bikes but that was it for the turn.

On my turn I finished off the rest of the Eldar army( Terminators came in and hit the wraithguard hard) that was still on the board and than positioned myself for the reserve rolls of the jetbikes and war walkers.

Turn 4 - Two units of jetbikes make it on the table. Probably wishing they were somewhere else or at least a close web way portal nearby. They try to move out of range of my bikes.

My bikes chase them down.. The rest of my army I deploy on both flanks waiting on the war walkers and the final squad of jetbikes. I felt a little like Eldar skeet shooting at this moment. I could almost hear someone yell “pull” and out flys the eldar as my bolters open fire.

Turn 5- Without going into the gruesome details. The Eldar finally lose the game on this turn with nothing left on the table.

I get full points for the game. However as a team we had another draw. Albert beat the blood angel player with his chaos and David lost to another tyranid player with his necrons. Our blood angels lost to a marine stern guard army.

As a side note. My opponent was the first player I had played since I have been in Europe that spoke no English. However, being a long time Eldar player we had no real problems and again there were enough people around to help explain any points of interests.

Overall it would have been nice to pull a full victory for the team on this round but losing the second roll allowed the other team to match their tyranid player to our necrons. This gave them a good chance for a win and a overall tie. Prior to the second roll we had concluded that we should be able to get two wins / 1 tie and a loss but overall the win for the team.

However we are still upper third as the tournament goes so surprisingly still hanging tough.