Eldar vs Grey Knights - Turn 1

ELDAR VS GREY KNIGHTS 1750 POINTS

Over the last few months Elrad Ulthran had spent an increasing amount of time searching in his astral form for answers he barely knew the questions too. His visions were clouded with uncertainty. Swirls of colours and fractured futures disappeared from existence as quickly as they appeared.

On Praxis the vision had become clearer. A new incursion of an ancient foe was beginning. A blue and black storm of tyranids had invaded this world. Eldrard had sent his spirit self, taking charge of the defences personally. He had been certain this was a key point to halting this latest incursion.

Then the gods of chaos intervened and sent a force of there own. Manipulating the mindless beasts to swarm eldar lines before being mercilessly torn apart. The world was lost but the portents of what the Chaos gods had been after.

Eldrard had finished viewing things in this form and was reasserting himself in the material world. Flashes of silver entered his peripheral vision and he stopped. He followed the threads of fate and smiled.

As if reacting to his thought the craft world amended its gliding course, straight to Xi-Lan and a silver incursion. He only hoped he could reach them in time.



Elrad Ulthran
Prince Mahtan of Dorthonian (autroch: Mandi Blaster, Laser Lance Lance, Jet bike
10 Pathfinders
10 Dire Avengers : Exarch (2 Shruiken Catapaults), Blade storm,
6 Jetbikes: 2* shuriken cannons
9 Harlequins: Harlequins Kiss, Shadowseer
10 Striking Scorpions: Exarch, Chain Sabres, Stalker
Wraithlord: Scatter laser, Bright Lance
3 War walkers: 2*Scatter Lasers
Fire Prism: Shruiken Cannons


Eldar: The Eldar won the roll off and chose to deploy and strike first. Not a great shock given that I had Eldrad on my side checking the strings of fate and picking the correct moment to strike.

The Eldar split into two main forces – the shooty bit and the close combat bit. The idea was simple. The shooty bit were to get me kill points. The close combat part were to hold up potential threat and expose more things to shoot. The jetbikes and Wraith Lord were there to look cool! Actually they were there to support which ever side was going to be over run first!

Gay Knights: Much like the Gay knights, this picture was somewhat premature….. On the near side the paladins in land raider, the standard HQ and the troops were placed, hoping to own the obvious vantage point created by the over size rock formation in the middle. On the far ide the Dread Knight and the other troops choice waited out of sight. The dreadnught hid by the tunnel, while the assassin was cunning and hide just behind the mountain.

Eldar shenanigans

After deployment, Eldrad moved several units to get better line of sight for their allotted targets. The Wraith Lord jumped the close combat section to target the land raider while the walkers moved into cover with a direct line of sight under the tunnel.
The pathfinders moved into position using their scout move and took a better shooting position with better cover.

Initiative was not stolen.

Turn one.

On the left hand side of the Eldar battlefield, the close combat troops began to move forward. The harlequins danced their way up with the more disciplined Scorpions stalking behind them in search of pray. Between them the giant form of a Wraith Lord, might fallen warrior of past and present kept pace, shooting his bright lance at the now exposed land raider but failing to damage its protected hull. Alerted to the potential threat of the towering Wraith giant, the land raider knocked a wound off with its lascannon, whilst terminators followed in its tracked path.

Eldrad himself called forth powers of the Warp to aid his allies. His foresight guided both the pathfinder and the war walkers as they shot into their respective target. Despite Eldrads aid and penetrating the terminator armour, the pathfinders could not find a way through the force fields of the hulking monkhee. Sensing the potential harm to his comrades, the dread knight confidently strode forward from the shadow of the mountain and sent a blast of pain towards the source of the fire. When the cloud had passed, two pathfinders were dead. Without waiting for the cloud to clear, the dreadnought destroyed a war walker. This despite combined with the fire prism the War Walkers, knocking two hull points from the dreadnaught. Despite exposed wiring and flames, the ancient marine had proven a worthy and resilient foe.

In the centre of the battlefield, the Autroch screamed a War Cry and his jet bike entourage accompanied him to a central location, using the strange giant rock formation as cover from imperial forces. The terminators by the dread knight saw the danger and shot down three bikers, providing cover fire for the Vindicare Assassin to take a steady aim and shoot two saves from the might Eldar General.

Turn Two

The cracks appearing in the Wraith Lord infuriated the Harlequins, who danced forward at pace to engage at close quarters. The scorpions went after them, hoping to offer some more heavily armoured protection to their strange cousin’s assault. Sadly the harlequins were too eager and were wiped out by the cold and calculating counter charge of the highly regimented marines.
The Wraith Lord was mildly amused by the small little men challenging his might but, at seeing another shot bounce off the moving metal box and seeing an entire harlequin unit killed without mercy or remorse he disconnected the lance weapons, scouring the field of battle for the shortest way to end this with the maximum death.

Having successfully read the lines of fate Eldrad now commanded the Eldar vanguard to shoot the exposed dread knight. War Walkers, pathfinder and the falcon shot at the doomed beast, leaving a crater and primitive metals scattered over a small radius. The assassin had eluded Eldrads sight and visions but was glad to see his chosen Autroch’s battle instincts had already drawn him into combat with that particular annoyance.

The Autroch called for his riders to bank high and attack the assassin who had dared to shoot at, let alone hurt, the mighty Eldrad. He and his squad unleashed their full arsenal at the assassin as he made for cover. But he was outmatched in manoeuvre ability and, despite striking first against the Eldar Warriors, was cut down by the sheer impact of the jet bikes on him. Moving back into cover the Autroch was pleased to see a nod of acknowledgement from Eldrad but this had distracted him from the shots being fired from the nearby terminator squad. The Autroch cursed his complacency and swore he would never let his personal pride compromise the mission again. His fallen brothers had seen to that.

Turn Three

After consulting the fates Eldrad guided the war walker’s aim and protected them as best he could. Both the Walkers and the Fire Prism moved to counter any future incoming threat from the left hand flank.

The autroch and remaining jet bike moved backwards, whilst lining up the terminators who had killed his squad mates. Sensing a potential threat the terminators chanced running under the tunnel. The Eldar shot but the terminators were protected by their armour. The autroch melted away, taking over behind the rock formation.

The scorpions charged the terminators who had killed the harlequins, taking down one of the hulking beasts. In return the terminators destroyed the Scorpions as if they were nothing. Eldrad sighed at such a waste of his kin, but always remembered the threads of time rarely run smoothly. They had bought valuable time while the real mission was accomplished.

Alone on the left, the Wraith Lord shot at the land raider but failed his charge range. In return the land raider shot everything at the Wraith Lord wounding him one further time.

Turn Four

The War Walker and Fire Prism were once again guided in an effort to remove the threat from the left flank. The Fire Prism shot but Eldrad had foreseen the wrong thread and the shot had scattered clear off the battlefield. Eldrad and his body guard themselves repositioned to a more central role, while the scout gained a better line of sight.

The autroch and his squad repositioned to shoot, but ailed to penetrate.

Both units of terminators began the foot slog round the mountain and towards the Eldar. The land raider could not move forward for fear of crushing their general, so chose to fire at the fire prism instead, damaging it sufficiently to remove a hull point.

The Wraith Lord noted the unaccompanied Brother Captain and charged him, unleashing his rage in severe attacks that would have cleared a normal man. Every hit bounced off of his force field. Yet when the captain struck back his sword could not penetrate the giants Wraith body. The captain glanced up at the faceless construct, suddenly becoming aware that this battle was far from won. Clearly sensing this, the dreadnaught charged in but failed to wound.

Turn Five

The Wraith Lord finally penetrated the Generals force field, ripping the spine from the great general. In return the dread knight howled in anguish ripping the Wraith Lord to pieces before moving on to shoot at the next available target. His mind, already warped from his incarceration, flooded with thoughts of violence and revenge.

Eldrad and the shooting element of the army continued to move towards the threat. The walkers and prism adjusted position unloading guided shots at the foremost terminator squad, killing all but one of them.

The Land Raider, rolling over the broken construct of the Wraith Lord, unloaded the paladins and joined both the and the dreadnought in shooting at the War Walkers. Despite Eldrads intervention the sheer storm of fire power blew the Walkers apart

Sensing the battle could turn wither way the Autroch chose to leave the fighting and seek the objectives for which they came. The Jet Bikes turbo boosted across the board, zooming straight into the deployment area of the grey knights. The three remaining terminators chased them but to no avail. They could not get a clean shot at that speed and had to watch them flew away, unscathed.


Final Score


Eldar 6: Line breaker (Autroch), First Blood (Assasin), Warlord (I killed the Warlord)
Assasin, Dreadknight, Independant character/HQ

Grey Knights 5: Line breaker
Scorpions, Harlequins, Wraith Lord, War Walkers.

Conclusion – Rich should have chosen a better (more interested) war adviser…..


Comment

Jokes aside this was a tight game that could have gone either way – just look at the score! Both of us had units that were fairly worthless (rangers and paladins) for whatever reason and both of us struggled to kill the other one at times.

For me there were several moments of the match that changed its curse. The most important one was the bloody hill! I love it and loathe it in equal measure. It cut off an entire section of the battle field from line of sight and potentially easy movement. In hind sight I should have set up my shooty side on the left and the close combat on the right (all three element have the move through cover special rule so it wouldn’t have mattered – but may have got them the in one piece!)

The second moment was realising that the Grey Knight General was alone and not with a unit. This made him a much easier target form instant kill. It doubly helped when I se that the grey knights could not hurt the Wraith Lord apart from krak grenades. This gave me the survivability I needed to get through that damned 4+ invun, but meant the general could not run out of combat.

My highlight as definitely seeing the Dread Knight go down. But what a lot of fire power it took! That invulnerable save makes that thing a beast! Not over powered due to the cost, but a beast none the less!

Rules I got wrong, as sponsored by this burger


ELDRAD: - OK, in this particular game I played Eldrad correctly. However in both the mega game on Sunday and the defence of my planet I did not. After conversation with Mark and Paul it transpires that (somehow) the (arguably) greatest mortal psychic in the known universe does not have a force weapon! As such he can not insta kill anything as I thought. I had also failed to note that the force weapon needed a warp point to activate! I did neither of those things.

Given that level zero psykers (eg terminators, shadowseers) do not generate warp points I am not quite sure how this works for them. Perhaps someone can offer some confirmation or point me to the page in the rule book?

This would also count for Warlock weapons. Which also do not seem to be power weapons at all. I find it so hard to believe because otherwise, what is the point of taking them!! Rule book help again please!

WRAITHLORD: - I seem to have forgotten to roll for his Wraith sight on some turns. Please help me by reminding me!