Game Two - Blip's Bieltan Eldar
Incompertus, 2875 POINTS - I'm not sure where the other 125pt were.
Biel-Tan Craftworld (Epic-UK v121013)
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AVATAR [0]
ASPECT WARRIOR WARHOST [600]
4 Dire Avenger, 4 Wave Serpent, Exarch, Autarch, 2 Fire Dragon, 2 Dark Reaper
GUARDIAN WARHOST (MOUNTED) [350]
Farseer, 4 Wave Serpents, 4 Guardians, 3 Heavy Weapon Platform
RANGER TROUPE [150]
6 Ranger
WINDRIDER TROUPE [200]
5 Jetbike, Vyper
NIGHT SPINNER TROUPE [200]
3 Night Spinners, Spirit Stones
VOID SPINNER [275]
WARLOCK TITAN [850]
FALCON TROUPE [250]
3 Falcon, 2 Fire Storm
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I forgot to take a photo, so this one shows the previous game of Nids v Marines. I deployed on the left side of the photo and placed the far side objectives around the hill in the foreground of the photo, Blip was on the right side and placed his two far side objectives around the hill at the back of the photo, the one surrounded by yellow Marines, clearly aiming for a position where the Warlock Titan could take both of them. My Contagion Engines garrisoned behind that hill, the big Retinue in the central city and the smaller SC Retinue in the city in the middle of my table side. The Warlock Titan went in the middle of the Eldar deployment zone near the Aspect Host and the Night Spinners and Guardians were off on my right flank behind The city bottom-right in the photo, with a screen of Rangers up on the halfway line.
This time the Terminators didn't do nearly so well, landing near the Night Spinners and picking up two BMs on landing and my then losing the initiative roll to Blip, who took advantage of this to shoot the Terminators with the Rangers and then the Guardian Host, killing one stand but breaking them anyway. They decided to hang around the Night Spinners and attempt to look scary. The Avatar had also turned up at the start due to the Terminators, but he bounced off them being unable to get into the city they were hiding in.
At this point things didn't look good. I had been considering holding back the Terminators to help deal with the Warlock once it got closer but was really scared of the Titan Killer firefight attacks if Blip managed to get the Warlock positioned for supporting fire on them.
Other notable events included:
My DG Retinue BTS garrisoning too far forwards and suffering for it, eventually surviving an assault with the Warlock Titan with the Sorcerer Lord stand a Havoc stand, who, being Fearless, spent the rest of the game refusing to die.
The BTS getting sandwiched between the Warlock and the Aspect Host (who had previously munched an unsupported Fester Titan), only to see the Aspects fail to Engage due to a BM, then fail their Supreme Commander re-roll. The Aspects repositioned to keep the BTS bottled up near the Warlock and provide supporting fire, but this left them too strung out and a clipping assault from my Warlord's Retinue managed to break the Aspect Host! Which I then punished with the remnants of the Contagion Engine formation, wiping them out to a pointy ear and removing the SC.
The Rangers managed to stop the Plague Tower advancing up the right flank or moving across to provide supporting fire against the Warlock, so it ended up heading back to guard my Blitz, after nearly breaking the Guardians that had broken the Terminators.
The Terminators eventually rallied at the end of turn two, and in turn three summoned Uncle Fester the GUC (at maximum 20cm coherency) so that the formation could Double towards the Warlock and get Uncle Fester into supporting fire range of the Warlock back in the middle of the table, putting a BM or two on the Warlock on the way.
A semi-suicidal Engage by the Warlord's Retinue into the Warlock Titan actually saw them put some damage on it without too many non-daemon casualties, getting the Warlock down to 2DC remaining (I'd been slowly getting hits through here and there) but this let it consolidate across between the two forward objectives on my table half, where it shot and broke the Contagion Engines, although one managed to survive.
The Guardian Host assaulting the remnants of the broken Predator/Vindicator formation (who had been moving up the right flank taking pot-shots at the Rangers), only to be beaten off due to their 4+ FF values, fleeing towards my two forward objectives on the other end of the table.
The remaining two Terminators and GUC reversing direction to assault the Falcon formation holding the two forward objectives in the Eldar table half, beating them and neatly moving up to hold the same two objectives.
Then the second big game-changer that swung it to an overwhelming Death
Guard victory - the Plague Tower that had been 'forced' back to my Blitz did an Advance to get LoF to the Warlock holding two objectives and managed to take off it's last DCs and incidentally clipping the now-rallied Guardian formation that was
also holding those two objectives, breaking the formation without any hits due to 6 Barrage Points and therefore 2BMs for being fired at.
The end result was:
BTS kill,
Holding all three objectives in my half (the last two units from the BTS and the sole remaining Contagion Engine had all rallied the previous turn and moved up),
Holding two objectives in the enemy half.
For a 3-0 result.
Unit-specific feedback:
Even though the Terminators started off very badly, the last two stands (Death Warden with Sorcerer Lord, Death Warden with Chaos Champion) just
wouldn't bleeping die due to their 4+/4+/6+ saves, and once Fester had arrived they ran around causing havoc.
The Plague Tower again made a lot of shots that would have been impossible with a 15cm range due to LoF or range, but taking out the Warlock and breaking the Guardians at the same time was just amazing.
The Fester Titans did well if sacrificially, making good use of the AT5+ part of the Decay Cannon compared to the lack of AT firepower on the EpicUK Plaguehound Titans.
Overall feedback:The Terminators as the Uncle Fester delivery system makes for a pretty swingy list that wins big or loses big, although the robustness of the rest of the force goes a long way towards keeping things going if the Terminator arrival goes wrong. Oh so wrong...
By rights, Blip should have won game two and would have if it hadn't been for the failed activation on the Aspect Host, although he compounded the issue by focusing on the broken BTS and not spotting that he'd set himself up for my clipping assault. I'd also been concentrating a fair amount on whittling down any supporting formations to try and keep the Warlock isolated to stop it simply sweeping through everything nearby.
Although two big victories isn't the best sign for force balance, it's a small sample size and I've got very good with EpicUK Death Guard over the last 2-3 years, especially when it comes to Disrupt Barrage weapons. It feels about right but I'd also be interested in hearing from Blip on that second game.
I'm not likely to get any normal test games in in the near future due to needing to test some siege rules, but something I'd like to try is Terminators supported by/supporting Plague Zombies so that they come in close together, the Terminators do an Engage and end within 15cm of a second formation, then retain and engage that formation with the Zombies so that the Terminators get their massed Firefight supporting fire. Maybe even with the GUC as well.
Edited for a bunch of auto-correct fails...