The poor, broken Russes try their best to hide, but the Guardians in the background can just see them, and so finally finish them off.

The commissar in the rough riders holds the objective on the beach, until the Phantom titan moves over to turn the tables with overwhelming force.

As night falls, the bloodied Reaver holds the blitz.

Come on then - I'll have you!!!

In an inspired use of the limited resources left available to him, Mephiston moves the Avatar over to block the Imperator's route back to my own blitz. He throws his spear and takes a shield. That one blast marker could be the difference between victory and defeat.

Who's the daddy?!  

In the last move of the game, the Imperator passes his activation test (despite the Avatar's efforts), doubles round the Eldar god and takes up position right at the centre of the board.

With support from the thunderbolts, the god-machine bathes the revenants in enough withering fire to break them (mainly due to the extra blast markers from that 10bp hellstorm cannon).

With that, the Eldar go from having 2 goals to none, and the day is decided.

Phew!

Thanks to Mephiston for a great game, and for writing up the report.

That was fun!

Although the Imperials carried the day, I think the moral victory goes to the Eldar. Allying two armies gave me a bit of an advantage by diluting one of the Titan's main weaknesses (lack of activations). And I think Mephiston played particularly well, setting up a string of cool little crossfires down his left flank etc. In the final turn especially, Mephiston used every last resource he could muster to take it to the last move, breaking all my little formations before they could activate to even the odds.

But, at the end of the day, there's no arguing with an Imperator  

Fantastic battle, gentlemen! (I think it's worth repeating that!  *laugh*)

Nice to see the Imperator as a "workable" unit in the game.

Looking forward to your after-action report.

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Thoughts on the Imperator

I liked him. I was a bit paranoid that everything would hide from him so comprehensively that he would never get to shoot, but he had targets in all 4 turns of this game, partly because I usually activated him early.

His firepower wasn’t as destructive as you might imagine. I kept doubling (and also rolled a bit poorly with him), but even on top form he might not rip formations to shreds as easily as I thought he would. Having said that, he does tend to break stuff without really trying (on 3 out of 4 turns in this game), and that ability won me the game on the last turn.

The defence laser is brilliant as an AA gun, and had Mephiston’s planes desperately skirting the edge of the board to stay away from it. I find this comforting as, even if the juicy ground targets hide from the Imperator, he can still keep the skies very safe.

1250 points, as per AMTL 3.12, feels about right I think. For reasons of enemy cowardice/good sense, the Imperator probably won’t kill enough stuff to “earn back his pointsâ€Â

Smashing report guys - a rip roaring read.

On the Imperator, Gary points out one of the major strengths / issues in the way it controls the game just by its presence. Can anything be done to adjust the victory conditions to compensate this?

_________________
"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

Brilliant report fellas! It must have been a real treat to play on such a fantastic board with all of those gorgeous looking models.  

_________________
-Malakai

"You'll never understand how much watching other people's pain gets me off, hearing their screams and knowing that I have the power of a god." -Velvet Acid Christ

very nice, I really enjoyed that. So I guess nothing really tried to take down the Imperator? My Eldar army's on the High Seas from the UK at the moment, so these reports are a great inspiration

Not very impressed with the Falcon troupes though, they always seem to spend all their time broken

_________________
numquam culum es

Great report, thanks guys!!

_________________
http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

So time for some post battle reflections.

Imperator - Really imposing on the battlefield and did pretty much what I expected. Lots of guns, but on the double only the MW stuff hurts, barrages against vehicles is never that good. The AA attack (90cm 4+ TK) really stopped my nightwings from being more aggressive. So they just kept hitting the broken formations as far away from the beast as possible. On a 6'x4' board it would be worse as if centrally placed its going to be impossible not to get your attack in. The only time I shot at it was with the Avatar to put a blast marker on it and force Gary to roll to activate. Even though I knew there would be an Imperator in Gary's force I didn't go out of my way to build a list to take it on.

Baneblades - much better under the netERC changes, probably worth their points now.

On a general note I made some dumb moves, had some really bad rolls in assaults but the dice were pretty even across the game. We both failed quite a high number of activations. Pretty sure Gary had the fail - reroll - fail result at least twice too.

So overall a great game to start the year.

What an incredible battle report

Thank you!

Great battle report guys, thanks for all the effort.  

_________________
My head is full of War...

[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]

Is that a teeny tiny Stargate floating around towards the center of the battledield?

Anyways, great report.  I always enjoy looking at BatReps with fully painted models.