Managed to get a game in against Mick Fair with him using the Biel Tan and me the Cadians. The goal is to test out some of the features and balance of the Cadian developmental list.
Mick was running (From memory!)
AVATAR [0]
ASPECT WARRIOR WARHOST [400]
8 Shining Spear, Autarch, Exarch
ASPECT WARRIOR WARHOST [350]
8 Shining Spear, 2 Exarchs
GUARDIAN WARHOST [150]
Farseer, 6 Guardians, Heavy Weapon Platform
RANGER TROUPE [100]
4 Ranger
RANGER TROUPE [100]
4 Ranger
SWORDS OF VAUL TROUPE [300]
4 Falcon, 2 Fire Storm
SWORDS OF VAUL TROUPE [250]
3 Falcon, 2 Fire Storm
NIGHT SPINNER TROUPE [175]
3 Night Spinners
ENGINE OF VAUL TROUPE [250]
Scorpion
VOID SPINNER [275]
Void Spinner
REVENANT TITANS [650]
2 Revenant Titans
And my Cadians looked like this.
Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Cadian Shock Troopers (NetEA v1.5 *DEVELOPMENT*)
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CADIAN REGIMENTAL HEADQUARTERS [600]
1 Imperial Guard Supreme Commander unit, 7 Kasrkin units and 1 Leviathan Mobile Command Centre, Sanctioned Psykers (2 Sanctioned Psyker units)
KASRKIN INFANTRY COMPANY [225]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit and 7 Kasrkin units, Sanctioned Psykers (2 Sanctioned Psyker units)
KASRKIN INFANTRY COMPANY [225]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit and 7 Kasrkin units, Sanctioned Psykers (2 Sanctioned Psyker units)
KASRKIN INFANTRY COMPANY [200]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit and 7 Kasrkin units, Sanctioned Psykers (1 Sanctioned Psyker unit)
SENTINEL SQUADRON [125]
6 Cadian Sentinels
SENTINEL SQUADRON [125]
6 Cadian Sentinels
FLAK BATTERY [150]
3 hydras
FLAK BATTERY [150]
3 hydras
SUPER HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword
SUPER HEAVY TANK PLATOON [200]
Shadowsword
DEATHSTRIKE BATTERY [200]
2 Deathstrike Missile Launchers
AIRBORNE KASRKIN [300]
1 Imperial Guard Commander unit, 7 Kasrkin units, and 4 Valkyries
THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS [150]
2 Thunderbolts
THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS [150]
2 Thunderbolts
Anyway here's how it played out.
Turn 1 - the iconic cagey snipe and position fest that I've taken to associate with elders armies. Don't know about you but in my experience nothing much happens prior to turn 3. Both armies essentially advanced in lines to take more ground and set up camp on objectives. The scorpion zoomed up to snipe the deathstrikes in the first activation but the rest was pretty anticlimactic. The shadowsword missed the scorpion, revenants missed most of the Valkyrie unit, valkyries missed the shining spears with a BP4 barrage and the leviathan missed the Falcons with all its AT guns. In return the Falcons AA basically missed the thunderbolts killing 1 with 16 shots. Big pile of nothing.
End of Turn 1
Turn 2 - deathstrikes went down almost immediately and some Falcons got blown up by sustained las cannons from the leviathan. Voidspinner rained death of some sort and the revenants carved up the Valkyrie unit who couldn't be lucky twice and got broken. After Mick had run out of activations I thought I had a chance to do some damage running up the two stormtrooper units you can see in the photo on the left and then engaging with the shadowsword. That's when Mick told me that the only units that can be killed by supporting fire are those engaged by the shadowsword... So 1 guy. Damn. Plan buggered. I did break the gaurdians and intermingled scouts but sadly they rallied anyway and began prepping the avatar enima that defines turn 3 in every eldar game ever.
Going into turn 3 we both still have plenty of units left over and the objectives are hotly contested but the revenants damage count is starting to hurt and I know there will be some painful engagements coming up. If I was lucky I would win initiative but otherwise it was brace time.
End of Turn 2
Turn 3 - wasn't lucky. Void spinner primed the stormtrooper unit on the left for the newly arrived avatar supported by the shining spears to break both of the sadly intermingled storm troopers that had charged up at the end of turn 2. Left flank looking very bad! In the middle it was worse with the Falcons sustaining and dropping the shields and 2 DC off the the leviathan. It lost another to difficult terrain and was subsequently wiped by the revenants! The right flank was the one I thought was the weakest at the beginning of the turn and it went as expected with the shining spears picking off more troopers for few losses. I realised that mick had 2-0 and I would need to get into his half to stop the win. 3 failed activations later on the right flank (sentinels, hydras and stormtroopers) it was looking grim. Only a single rallied stormtrooper (last from the valkyries) on the extreme right could save me... And only if he rallied on a 5+
Turn 4 - well he did! Eldar did the maths and worked out that this game was probably going to points. Falcons, revenants and void spinner combined to take out the remaining troopers of the the BTS, everything else really was just sniping and trying to finish things off. Final result was a win by points count back to eldar and a battlefield littered with corpses. Margin was around 400pts. Great game.
End of Turn 4 - Left Side of Board
End of Turn 3 - Right side of board
Thoughts on tactics during the game.
Mick is a very experienced eldar player and frankly I can't tell you any mistakes he made. I reckon he sniped what he needed to, dropped the avatar at the right time, used hit and run amazingly and generally had me reacting the whole time.
For my part I reckon I made a few mistakes:
Deploying across the board isn't necessarily s bad thing with my army but trying to Engage the eldar everywhere caused me to bleed waay too fast. I underestimated the assault synergies of the hit and run shining spears and really paid for that in bodies.
Also having played a lot against prisms I spread my WE armour thinking that Falcons would cut my shadowswords up. In hindsight I don't think I had anything much to fear and would have been better off concentrating shots onto the revenants. Interestingly the shadowswords hit a grand total of once each all game so perhaps it wasn't a drama either way!
I also really struggle with how to use the leviathan. It is such an awkward unit with a super long range BP macro gun, 6 twin las cannons at 45 and stormtroopers who only work in engage. I've tried it as a blitz gaurd before but this time thought I'd try moving up to use the las cannons. Apart from 3 Falcons it did nothing and ended up dying so I don't think this was a good use for it! Try again later
An interesting run for an army I'm still getting my brain around. If anyone has thoughts or comments that would help please post them up!
Balance analysis
Army overall - I really like my Cadian army TBH, it plays very differently to other varieties of gaurd and other armies in general which is important. The army is all about short range FF engagements and using the big activation count to compensate for guards appalling strat rating. This game really illustrated though the weakness in my build. Once you get past 30cm my options are seriously limited. Look at the positioning of the armies at the end of turn 1 and 2 and note the two opposing lines to see what I mean, mick stayed outside my engage range and then used his much faster bikes to duck in, snipe something and then run back, death by 1000 cuts and I didn't have an answer. Cadians lacking in warhounds as an option is a huge detriment be has they would make my storm troopers so much more powerful I'm combined engagements. Overall I think this game illustrated that a good player can identify and exploit the weaknesses, activation advantage didn't really let me capitalise but I'll keep working on that.
Psykers - I have 7 in my army. 2 in the bts never got to attack and died, 2 in a storm trooper unit got taken out by bp template (no armour saves) and didn't get to attack, one survived but never attacked and the last 2 got one attack each which was in close combat. I've always felt that the attention these get is unwarranted and this supports that. I definitely agree with the new idea of making them macro 6+ in combat, it gave Mick a tactical alternative to exploit and that's a good thing. Units should have strengths and weaknesses so I like the revised version.
Sentinel units - I think that the new points of value of 125 for 6 Cadian sentinels seems ok. In this game they did very little due to consistently atrocious activation rolls but 6 models can be tough to break and the extra armour kept 1 guy alive so yay to that. The loss of scout wasn't really tested in this army because of no deep strike/ lander attackers.
, but against dodgy opponents overwatch can be a really good asset and ground denial tool.