Bat Rep Draigo-Wing

So I got in a round of 40k with a friend of mine known as Deathbringer. He brought his draigo-wing out to play and I was glad to get in a round against the loathsome paladin terminators. We decided on two thousand points apiece.

My List was:
Eldrad Ulthran with warlock council 10x (full of magnificent powers) embarked on a scatter laser clad wave serpent.
10x fire dragons in a scatter laser equipped wave serpent.
10x Warp Spiders.
10x Dire avengers in a Bright lance wave serpent
2 squads of 7x Pathfinders
and a Fire Prism for kicks

Deathbringer brought:
A unit of 10 paladins with Draigo himself lending his support
a Venerable psyfleman dreadnought
a 5 man strike squad inside an assualt cannon razorback
a Storm raven with a 10 man purifier squad led by a Librarian in termie armor.

The battlefield was three tiered high ruins with the exception of a raised platform and a statue of the emperor. I apologize for not taking pictures. We rolled table quarters and annihilation, I immediately cringed with displeasure. A slug fest was not to my advantage, I brought 11 kill points and Deathbringer brought only 7 to the field of battle.

Going into the battle I knew I could ill afford a slug fest with the hard hitting grey knights, but I felt that if I could disable his storm raven early I could buy plenty of time to deal with his forces in the manner I wanted.

I won first turn and deployed castled up at point charlie. My opponent deployed everything on the board behind point alpha. one squad of pathfinders infiltrated on the platform and the other deployed on top of the northern ruins at point charlie.

Turn 1:

My opponent failed to seize. My turn one was by and large ineffectual. I hung back with most of my forces and took pot shots with pathfinders and the fire prism. He made his psychic check for the shrouding and his stacked forces had cover from everything.

He then proceeded to make every cover save I could throw at him. The pathfinders had the mission of pinning the paladins at least once to give me some much needed breathing room. Sadly, that mission would be left unfulfilled.

His turn had his forces move across the board for the most part. The storm raven turbo boosted and between the power of the machine spirit multi-melta and the psyfleman dread they managed to turn the dire avengers transport into all but a wreck, without any weapons and completely immobilized. The paladins unleashed a torrent of fire into the pathfinders, killing 2. They had taken position on the platform but no sissy silver knights would be able to displace them from their cover. The razorback failed to cause any lasting damage because they forget to have Jesse Ventura behind the assualt cannon.

0 - 0 

Turn 2:

My turn brought my frustration back out again. I held true to my battle plan of not engaging him head on but tried to collapse my army around the now encroaching storm raven.

The fire prism completely missed despite being the recipient of a guide from Eldrad. The warp spiders brought their fire to bear upon the storm raven and only managed one glance that took off the multi-melta. The pathfinders again failed to make it through the cover that the grey knights waded amongst. My scatter lasers didn't find any purchase on the storm raven either. The paladins once again didn't manage to fail even one of their 3 cover saves from ap 1 shots.

So between my first two turns I didn't manage to do any more than take a multi-melta off.......

The paladin squad moved in closer to my now perilous position They took a few more shots into the pathfinders knocking off another two. The psyfleman managed to immobilize the fire dragons wave serpent. The remaining lascannon from the storm raven didn't make it through the, generally durable, armor of the fire dragons wave serpent.

The purifiers however got out and destroyed the warp spiders with extreme prejudice, exacting a bloody vengeance for their lost multi-melta. They managed to kill every last one of the warp spiders before their initiative even came round.

At this point I had a full squad of purifiers running amok in my back field, I admit I felt that the game was going to degenerate faster than a pile of cocaine in the vicinity of Charlie Sheen.

0 -1 Grey Knights Lead

Turn 3:

The beginning of my turn did nothing to bring the morale back around for the Eldar, Eldrad failed to cast even one of his three psychic powers. The librarian shut down each of my powers from his hood. (I am notoriously bad at rolling off for hoods and mind wars)

I had Eldrad turbo boost north as a feint to hopefully bring the paladins northward away from the majority of my forces and to protect his venerable dreadnought from the attentions of my witchblades.

All of my troops evacuated their transports and prepared to cause some havoc. The dire avengers blade stormed the purifiers and killed nearly half of their number. The fire dragons used their expertise as tank hunters to blow the storm raven into as many small pieces as they could manage. My snipers finally managed to put a wound on the paladin squad, but of course there was no respite for the dying race, draigo kept his squad from getting pinned. Finally, the fire prism was able to blow up the razorback that had been agitating me.

Deathbringer responded in kind, the psyfleman immobilized Eldrad's personal wave serpent. The paladins shot up the wave serpent as well but failed to actually cause damage. The 5 man squad of marines shot up the fire dragons but didn't manage to break them.

The Purifiers charged the dire avengers, the libby put on his "try-hard cap" and killed more brain cells than putting his head inside a micro-wave thanks to runes of warding being in full effect. The combat, despite not getting hammer hands off, saw the dire avengers lose combat by a total of 5. Needless to say, they broke and proceeded to run off the board.

2 - 2

Turn 4:

Eldrad fled away from his immobile skimmer.....I mean advanced towards future victories.....away from paladins.

The fire prism let loose upon the dreadnought but missed in fine fashion. The fire dragons took up a firing line next to the purifiers turned them into wisps of ceramite armor. Funny enough the librarian blew his own mind while trying to cast shrouding so the squad could hit the dirt. Between the remaining scatter laser on the immobile vehicles and sniper rounds, the 5 man strike squad died a miserable death.

The grey knights, now getting low on the ability to engage multiple targets, had the paladins shoot the fire dragons into oblivion. Luckily the Exarch comes slightly better armored and survived long enough to have his head blown off by the psyfleman.

5 - 3 Eldar Leads

Turn 5:

Without the presence of the librarian, Eldrad went to town with some psychic powers, even going as far as to confront draigo's minditself. Eldrad sadly blinked and failed to kill the ancient grey knight.

The remainder of my shots failed to inflict too much damage on the paladins but the fire prism did manage to shake the psyfleman.

The psyfleman tried to cast fortitude but instead of regaining the ability to fire, he accidentally ripped off his arm, not once but twice because of the reroll granted from being venerable. The Grey knights unleashed a volley of fire into the warlocks killing 5 of their number but breaking their will just yet.

The grey knights were still down and desperately needed another turn to equalize the score, but you can never underestimate my ability to roll a 1.

Game Ends
5 - 3 Eldar Victory

I was very proud of how my army performed, luckily the grey knights were unable to finish the job on my transports. At the end of the game I had 3 that absolutely none could move under their own power..

My plan of stalling the paladin squad worked and I was able to keep them at arms reach the entire game. I have also grown fond of running two 7 man squads of pathfinders, I've had good success with them throughout my recent games and I think I will be incorporating them for quite some time.