Have another game against a different mates Aeldari next week. 1500pts. Do I roll out a Salamanders Melta/flame bomb? 9 Eradicators and a bunch of Aggressors. Maybe a Leviathan or two?
Or should I not be a massive chode?
Well, ended up running 3 dreads. Two Redemptors and a Leviathan. The Leviathan was a monster, killed a Wraithlord, 2 Spiritseers, a load of guardians and a Farseer skyrunner. All for 1 wound on it in return.
Different chap I know with 1500pt Salamanders vs Eldar. First game I've played in a very long time where there was a bit of huffiness.
He won the dice off and gave me first turn with his army fully behind LoS blocking but also deployed very heavily against his back line. I pushed forwards with everything apart from a squad of Eliminators and a squad of Suppressors. I knew he had Swooping Hawks in reserve so wanted to keep something at the back that could provide a reasonable threat to them. Frustrating that it was like 200pts to counter though! I had a Phobos librarian and a 5 man Incursor squad in reserve
Anyhow after moving forwards I ended up with my forward deployed 2nd Eliminator squad (las fusils) able to see his 3 man Vyper unit due to elevation. He got rather huffy at this point saying that I couldn't see enough to justify shooting at them. Now to be fair, I agree rules as written are generally terrible due to the 'dynamic' poses of a lot of minis so tend to ignore a mini if I can see a hand or foot or part of a weapon but the Vypers are fairly straight forward, he even had them off their bases flat on the table and I could still see most of the turrets on them. Luckily we had another friend there (the guy I played against last time) who intervened on my behalf saying it was pretty clear they were visible.
I managed to pop one and put a few wounds on the next due to some good rolls. That was it though. On the plus side I now had at least 2 units on each of 3 out of 5 objectives. No points scored first round however.
He started his turn with quite a bit of movement - 2 Wraithlords moving out of cover, the Vypers popping up along with a 3rd solo armed with a brightlance. The Waveserpent with its Banshees inside moved towards my third objective. Shooting was fairly effective with the two Wraithlords pairing up with a platform and another couple of units to almost pop one of the dreads, killed a Suppressor and put a few wounds on another dread. The las Eliminators were insane however, they absorbed a massive amount of firepower without a scratch due to popping smoke, Transhuman and being in cover already.
My second turn and I pushed the dreads forwards, consolidated more units on objectives where possible and moved my Lancer forwards (I know they're terrible but I like the mini). Shooting was again mediocre at best here. I managed to down the part wounded Vyper, killed a few guardians and put a few wounds on each of the Wraithlords - that was it. I'd focussed massively on downing the Waveserpent as I needed it dead to try and limit what the Banshees could charge. I left it on 1 bloody wound. My rolls were shockingly bad. Rolled 3 1s with a squad of the Eliminators to hit. My first Redemptor rolled a 2 for number of shots on its plasma and then failed to hit with 1 of those. The other did wound though. The Fusil squad did 4 wounds to his second Wraithlord. The second Redemptor however pulled off a blinder - I managed a 10 inch charge in to the Waveserpent and managed to kill it with my last attack! It didn't go boom but...crucially 4 banshees didn't make it out. Importantly though I'd bagged 15 points.
He moved forwards with his lonely Vyper but kept the other near the back, a Guardian squad rushed my third objective in support of the Banshees and the swooping hawks rocked up on my first. Annoyingly he healed both of his Wraithlords to full. He emptied everything he could at my units killing a single Incursor, another Suppressor, leaving my first Redemptor on 1 wound but crucially killing the one that had just charged his Waveserpent with the combo of Kuonos's bow, Incomparable Hunter and Hail of Doom (a ridiculous combos where 6s to hit autowound and count as 6s which means they're mortals and also generate an additional wound which counts as a 6 so is a mortal, using fate dice you can basically guarantee 6 mortal wounds). He finished off by popping a wound on the Leviathan. My Chaplain and the Las Fusil squad again weathered a massive amount of shooting without a scratch. His D-Cannon Platform shot on my Redemptor that did the majority of the damage was very dubious (he could see one of its toes) but with him being a bit pissy I couldn't be bothered to argue. The absolutely insane swooping hawks then disappeared off to the back of the board where I couldn't touch them. A completely broken unit unless you have a force designed specifically to counter them. 14" move, auto wound on 6's with 4 shots each and then can move an unlimited distance after shooting. Mental.
His Banshees were the only unit to charge but in doing to they managed to only drop 1 Incursor and wound another. In return I wiped them out with said squad of Incursors! Somehow he'd still failed to remain on a single objective meaning he scored nothing.
My third turn and I brought my deep-strikers in in the corner where he'd just parked his Swooping Hawks. I then promptly failed to do anything with my psychic powers! A combo of my Chaplain, Leviathan flamers and Banshee-slicing Incursors killed the remaining guardians near objective 3 securing it for me. My 1 wound dread did some damage to a Wraithlord. My Leviathan at this point decided to finally enter the fray - meltas went in to the Brightlance armed Vyper, killing it. Hunter-killer missile went in to the damaged Wraithlord, killing it. It later charged the first Spiritseer, killing it. The las-fusil Eliminators popped some more wounds on the remaining Wraithlord with the deep-striking Incursors helping out! Frustratingly he'd moved everything out of charge range (or I'd shot them to death) with the exception of his remaining Wraithlord. Which the deepstriking Incursors butchered! Crazy rolling had by me! Another 15 points bagged.
His third turn was a bit meh in terms of movement, the Farseer skyrunner and remaining spiritseer moved out of move + easy charge range of the deep-strikers and my Leviathan. He moved his Rangers which had done nothing in to a building to control his first objective. The Spiritseer smited the Incursors and killed 2 plus wounded another. The squad was then easily finished off by the ridiculous Kournos' combo. Not a thing can be done against it. His rangers tried to shoot the Librarian but he made his saves. Then came the pants on head Swooping Hawks which did their massive move, shot the suppressor, killing him and then moved to a corner out of the way again. He scored 5 points but this meant that he couldn't win the game - he refused to concede however!
My turn 4 involved me splitting up my forces as much as possible to try and do something against those damn Swooping hawks! I basically moved what I could to cover corners. Shooting phase and my Chaplain popped a pair of the Rangers, the Leviathan then decided to cook the Spiritseer with his heavy flamers before putting the two meltas in to the Farseer. Who melted. My chaplain charged the Rangers and battered the 3 of them to death before the Leviathan who also made the charge could hit.
Another huff ensued when my Eliminators were able to target the Swooping hawks with some hyper-frag shots. For reference these are original Swooping hawk minis on the old style bases so they're freaking tiny and therefore really easy to cluster behind terrain however I could still see the full set of wings on 1 (again judged by the other Aeldari player). Frustratingly they only killed 2 but this meant that I couldn't then see them next turn...15 more points scored.
Aeldari turn 4 and the Swooping hawks targetted the Eliminators killing 1 and wounding 1 before...you guessed it...moving back out of line of sight behind the same cover they came from. No points.
My turn 5 and the Gladiator was able to get line of sight on the Swooping hawks as was my lone Eliminator. The combined shooting from the two left 3 alive. Which I then charged...the Eliminator killed 2, the Gladiator finished off the Exarch. 15 more points scored.
Bit of a frustrating game overall - the Eldar have some exceptionally cheesy rules which really have no counters. I can see a couple of units of Swooping hawks + Baharroth as being an absolute nightmare. If the Eldar have good board control there's effectively nothing you can do against them unless you get lucky with some indirect fire (which marines sorely lack). That farseer combo is also crazy and can delete minor characters comfortably or seriously harm tougher units. He can put out about 15 mortals a turn if the psychic powers succeed, combined with 16" movement and being able to get out of danger after shooting that's very potent. I'm not sure if the weapon combo was being used correctly as it features the text 'attacks end' after it does a mortal but there's no FAQ/Errata to confirm.
It also annoyed me he got a bit huffy about being able to target units, especially when he had removed bases in one case to minimise the profile and on others was using old scale minis with incorrect bases to minimise footprint, yet he was then happy to shoot at my toe on an outstretched leg.
I think poor objective aggression and target selection by him is probably what won it for me. He put a lot of firepower in to squads that were heavily buffed/in cover and so able to absorb a lot of damage. My Leviathan was a bit of a tinker though! I think he'll look more at it next time we play but that may mean something else survives unscathed in its stead. Pretty sure I'll drop the Gladiator as it really is crap. May replace it with a Whirlwind.
