Wow that did not look so hot for the Eldar. Bad dice rolls can happen.

D.

This nicely demonstrated the main weakness of the HBs:- when performing an assault they need to avoid situations where there is a lot of support fire, because their weaker armour usually means they get destroyed. The problem with having to go into CC with a target is that this requires the target formation to be at least 15cm from its neighbouring friends to avoid this supporting fire, so fairly isolated and ripe for any assault. Alternatively they need to completely destroy the target to prevent supporting fire, requiring the target to be relatively small and weak.

Here, they target the remaining 2x Baneblades from a super-heavy support company that is right next to the Regimental infantry HQ company. This amounts to 6x DC of 4+RA, which statistically will require some 24 hits to assure its destruction - though it is reasonable to assume at least one critical as well. At best the HBs and Vampire can generate 12 hits including a MW hit, so might reasonably expect a maximum of 3 DC damage which is not enough to destroy both Baneblades unless they both crit. This in turn almost guarantees the support fire from those units of the Reg infantry HQ that can see past any surviving WE.

As the HBs are nearly always played very aggressively in your games, I am slightly surprised that they were not positioned to attack both Baneblades, attempting to crit both WE (at the risk of self destruction ). As it was, attacking a target that had just removed all its BMs was never going to be easy, and given the poor dice rolling, doing so through AA fire (thus starting the assault resolution -2) was very *courageous*.

Note, if the Vampire had been positioned touching the target Baneblade with all the HBs behind it and the Vampire (relative to the infantry company), this would prevent the second Baneblade from targeting the HBs and a large part of the support fire might well have been blocked by that Baneblade and the Vampire (had it survived). Against a prepped target, this might have given the HBs a slim chance of winning and consolidating beyond the ruins, outside the assault range of the Reg Infantry HQ. . . .

Thanks for the report. Always fun to read with so many pictures

To add a little more to the Howling Banshees. (I agree with Ginger) I personally do not think it is wise to take them in units of 8. Not every opponent will let you put the miniatures on top of their models to get into CC so it is very likely that 3-4 units will be firefighting when you assault. Why not try out Warp spiders if you want the first strike feel or even better some Fire dragons or Avengers if you use them as "ordinary" assault units. It is also very risky to have the Exarch in a CC unit so they might be killed and the Inspiring bonus is lost.
(And when your BTS is broken you should probably run as far away from the enemy as posssible )

And some questions/advice as always

Did you count the Banshees etc that were blown up by criticals in the combat resolution? (Not sure about the rules so...)

I noticed that the mounted Guardians were placed in front of the Wave Serpents (and not touching them thus not gaining cover) When we play I almost always have the Serpents up front and the guardians touching them thus denying the enemy to get into base to base. Did i miss something or why do you play that way? (I might play them wrong so I want to learn )
I also noticed that the Rough riders moved around the guardians to hit the Wave serpents instead. I know this was the opponents choice but it feels crazy. Why did he chose to use his 6+ FF instead of 4+ FS in close combat and forcing the Guardians to hit on 6+ instead of 4+...

It might be good to check if the opponent is "cheating" and shooting with their Bombards every turn when they have the Slow ability

/Uven

Aha, that explains some of it.
Still think attacking the guardians in the ruins would have been better...or not attacking at all, but that was not my decision

Thanks for posting another great battle report. I posted a reply on wargamerau, but since there are more Eldar players on here I'll add it to the discussion here.



Since you're testing the army and want C&C on it, IMHO the BT list you've been using regularly is sub-par.



+



= $$PROFIT$$

The infantry-heavy DK list was clever in that it got around the power of your cobras and scorpions, but simultaneously incredibly weak vs any sort of barrage weapon.

'But if PFIEE had Void Spinners the DK would have deployed differently' - Yes, spread out to mitigate against the effect of the template weapons. And then they'd have been extremely clippable and lost their assaults to the hyper-mobile eldar.

The lack of any barrage weapons and the way some formations accommodatingly parked less than 30cm from huge krieg infantry formations that are weak as kittens to anything 31cm away are why the game was lost. (to be fair, the Krieg also retreated a broken grenadier formation to the safety of terrain containing an eldar Warp Gate )


Winning requires 1 list change and 1 change of tactics: Void Spinner & 31cm.

(Alright maybe a 3rd change, you could try being luckier with activations lol)
I hope that helps. In fact, you might even want to play the game again with the simple tweak of adding to VS at the expense of some of your other inclusions and see if it is enough to gain you a victory.