Manipulating the Strings of Fate

Ard Boyz is over and the dust has settled.  The Eldar were victorious...........Just not mine.  Four of us went and two of us placed in the top three.  Third place went to local Evolution games Warboss Luke Slocum and Dark Future Games ( see their blog at Darkfuturegaming.blogspot.com) own Lord Solar Steve led his Imperial Guard to a second place win.  Myself and Samsquanch Monster, with his space wolves, did not do as well.  In fact he had to play Warboss  Luke's war band and I had to face the guns of Lord Solar Steve.  The winner, Greg sparks, led his Eldar to the overall win.
My first Game was against a codex marine force that consisted of Pedro Cantor, 2x 10 man stern guard squads, 4x tactical squads, a vindicator, a land raider and a land raider redeemer.  He broke his squads into combat teams giving him 10 squads capable of holding objectives.  This was a little daunting to say the least.  The set up was odd as well.  it was table corners that were essentially cut in half.  The table was divided diagonally with a 12 inch no mans land on either side of center.

This game went well until the end.  There were 5 objectives to hold.  I had control of 2 right form the start.  I had my large squad of guardians holding one with my dire avengers holding the other.  I had 3 objectives in or within reach of my deployment.  I took objective 3 on turn two once I deployed the other squad of dire avengers at it.  Eldrad and the seer council turbo boosted into enemy territory on the left flank to swoop in and take out some combat squads and one unit of stern guard.  The wraith guard in their wave serpent went to the right flank supported by the dire Avengers holding objective 2 and one of the wraith lords.  The Avatar went right up the middle.  I managed to kill off two combat teams and the vindicator in the first two turns.  The avatar made short work of two more more combat teams before he was gunned down by the land raider.  Now what struck me as odd is the Space Marine player did not advance or kill anything until turn 3.  Despite this and the fact I was killing marines enmasse he managed to come back.  Eldrad and his warlocks got dragged into combat with the stern guard and one combat squad.  The wraith guard destroyed the redeemer then proceeded into close combat with Pedro.  They killed his team and inflicted a wound but Pedro came out o top.  My squad of dire avengers was wiped out and a late game squad of scouts contested my other objective leaving me in control of one. SO I lost with a marginal defeat.
Game two was much the same I started out strong and then things went bad.  Lord Solar Steve brought his guns to bear and blasted me into submission.  A major defeat.  This is only the second time I have faced Imperial guard.  I knew i was going to take lots of fire so I used the terrain to as much advantage as I could.  With Creed and Kell on the table though and the orders flying out I could not hold out.  Lord Solar likes his Heavy weapons teams and i took them out as fast as I could.  Unfortunately he had a good number and some storm troopers to back them up.  He admitted he was worried when I got first turn and I took out a leman russ and the main weapon of the hellhound.  I was starting to see the flaw in my army list.  I lacked bright lances.  I was facing lots of armor. I had a twin linked bright lance on one wave serpent and a bright lance on one wraith lord.  I lacked enough fire power to bring down armor at range.  I had no fire dragons as they tend to become flying targets for fire when they are en route to a tank squadron.  My warlocks could take out vehicles, they did in fact, but it was an inefficient use of them.

Game three taught me a very valuable lesson.  Close combat with Space Wolves is not a good idea when the game is for kill points.  In a pitched battle with lost of terrain in a city scape I had some advantage.  I could move my army around quicker thanks to the wave serpents.  The only issue was the 2 squads of long fangs that seemed immune to death no matter how much fire I poured into them.  I have to say it was a good call on Neils part to put a wolf guard terminator into the long fang squads.  They took a lot of hits that would have otherwise killed a heavy weapon.  I was massacred by the Space Wolves.  Logan Grimnar was a beast and the long fang fire really took its toll.  So i was at the back of the pack but I did not come in last place so that is something.  I had fun and the competition was fierce.  Congrats to Slocum and Lord Solar Steve for their victories. 
I do have a treat for later this week.  I have the winning Army list and my analysis will be the topic for my next post.  I only wish i could have watched it in action but i was fighting battles of my own at the time.

I hope to also get my seer council conversion kits this week.  I have the jet bikes prepped and ready to receive their riders.
So next post we will have some more discussion and analysis of the first round of Ard Boyz as well as the winning Eldar

until then...................................



Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!