Vulkan (joined one of the tac squads)
2 x Iron Clad dreads in drop pods
3 Tac squads in drop pods
7 Assault termies (3x LCs 4 x TH/SS)
3 Land Speeders deep striking with multi meltas
The board was 4x4 with 4-5 pieces of ruined buildings scattered around.
Scenario – Annihilation, pitched battle.
I won the roll to go first and gave it to my opponent and I held all my forces in reserve.
Salamanders Turn 1With his first turn he dropped down his 3 tac squads kind of centred with some ruined buildings all around (he told me later he was under the impression the Eldar vehicles can deep strike).
Eldar Turn 1 Whole Force remains in reserve.
Salamanders - 0 Eldar - 0
Salamanders Turn 2He dropped his first dread near the back of his forces and the second dread about 15” in from my right board edge and 20” or so from my board edge. Also his termies came in and he placed them pretty much right in the middle of the board surrounded by his tac squads. Still nothing to shoot at ;) I was hoping for his speeders to have come in that turn so I could pounce on them but it wasn’t to be.
Eldar Turn 2 My Farseer + Banshees and both Fire Dragon Squads come in (I rolled pretty shocking on the reserves >.>)
He had boxed himself in pretty hardcore and didn’t have much room to move on my right flank thanks to drop pods blocking most of the way so I went to the right with my banshees and one dragon squad and the other dragon squad near the middle and for some reason I thought drop pods were AV 10 all around… I stopped smiling when I found out I could only glance with my shuriken cannons. I shot at the dreadnaughts drop pod as I judged that walking around he wouldn’t be able to get close enough to enter CC with my Serpents so I fired my Banshee serpent at it and managed to knock off a gun, I then fired my middle dragon serpent and wrecked it! My last dragon serpent fired at the tac squads Pod that was on the right all hit I then rolled all 6s! 3 glances oh baby! Too bad he had cover and proceeded to roll three 6s for his cover saves :p
Salamanders - 0 Eldar – 1Salamanders Turn 3 His speeders came in and landed in front of my Banshee serpent he moved his 2 tac squads up the middle and started walking both dread off to the middle of the board whilst the termies moved 5” thanks to the wrecked drop pod.
Shooting saw 3 multi meltas aimed for my banshee serpent, only managing to immobilize it. With the tac squad that didn’t move he fired a mutli-melta through a building at my middle dragon serpent it failed to damage it.
Eldar Turn 3 Fortuned my banshees + Farseer and doomed the closest tac squad (I wanted to go for the one furthest left but wasn’t sure on range oh well). I got in my Autarch + DA serpent and one of my BL serpents from reserves, positioning them left and middle respectively and both squads jumped out. I then got my girls and Farseer out of the immobilized serpent and moved them behind a building and I moved my right dragon serpent back to be out of any range of the termies should they come closer, I then moved my middle dragon serpent to the left.
Shooting from my immobile serpent + dragon serpents saw 3 dead land speeders. My Dire Avenger squad’s blade stormed, sadly coz of terrain I had to split targets the doomed squad only lost 3 or so guys whilst the non-doomed squad lost 5-6 it was massive. Neither unit’s fell back.
Salamanders - 0 Eldar – 2Salamanders Turn 4He moved the doom squad up the middle through an open building his other 2 tac squads (Vulkans’ in one of them) went to my left whilst his termies continued to climbed over some rubble towards my immobile serpent getting into charge range (come to think about it they had lost a termie from something earlier I think a shuriken cannon perhaps?) His dreadnaughts were heading to the left as well.
His tac squad in the middle shot their pistols at my middle DAs killing 1 maybe. One squad on the left shot a melta at a wave serpent not able to pen one dread then fired a melta as well failing to pen (this happened to many times I LOOOOOVE the energy shield) and iirc the other tac squad fired at some DAs killing a couple.
He then charged his middle tac marines into my middle DAs and the DAs backhanded him something shocking killing 2-3 marines. The marines did a few wounds too and we stayed in combat. His termies managed to charge my immobile serpent of course destroying it.
Eldar Turn 4 I fortuned my banshees and doomed the tac squad that was fighting the DAs my last wave serpent came in and I deployed it on the very left board edge 12” up and obscured by a building.
My eyes lit up as I saw in my opponents back field had 3 drop pods all by themselves so I went flat out with my right fire dragon serpent I shuffled my middle dragons a bit further to the left into the open, jumped my autarch back into his serpent and I moved my other Serpent (the ones that belonged to the DAs who were locked in combat) around and got my banshees inside of it I didn’t want to charge a full squad of banshees into killing 3 or so marines as it’d leave them stranded and in rapid fire range not to mention 2 dreads looming nearby. A few of my wave serpents shot not much happened. The DA serpent on the far side shot its brightlance at one of the back drop pods and blew off its storm bolter. Woo!
A death or so on each side of the combat, it stayed drawn.
Salamanders - 1 Eldar – 2Salamanders Turn 5My opponent moved his termies towards the combat, one tac squad went towards the combat (all in the middle more or less on my side of the board). Both his dreads went left into the clearing, as did Vulkans’ squad.
A few melta shots at my dragons serpent failed to pen (<3) though one managed to explode the autarch+ DA serpent and killed half the poor lads.
He then charged his tac squad into CC and the DAs eventually fell, holding the line and giving up their lives, the banshees looking on from the monitor inside their wave serpent that was nearby…
Eldar Turn 5Fortuned the Banshees and doomed the larger squad that had killed the DAs, they jumped out of the serpent and moved between both marine squads setting up for a multi assault.
The dragons in the backfield dropped off next to a drop pod.
The serpent my Banshees were in flew up a bit to draw LoS to the remaining drop on the right. My DA serpent that was furthest left flew into the clearing and dropped off its Dire Avengers.
Dragons in the back bagged a drop pod their serpent failed to do anything to any of the others back there.
My recently deployed DAs blade-stormed Vulkans’ squad killing a few in the process.
Serpent fire didn’t do much.
Held back firing the banshees pistols in case they somehow forced the marines to fall back out of assault range
My lovely ladies multi assaulted both marine squads finishing them both off before they could react though they only managed to massacre 3”
Salamanders - 3 Eldar – 5Salamanders Turn 6Vulkans’ squad and the termies both moved in against the banshees the dreads didn’t do much (perhaps a few more failed to pen meltas?).
Vulkan fired his heavy flamer thing at the girls causing 4 wounds so I took one on my exarch and one on my Farseer (fortune was still up) they both lived though I lost 2 ladies =(
Vulkans’ squad then charged the girls who managed to kill the rest of the tac squad he was with before he hammered them. I think I love combat but the girls held.
Eldar Turn 6Fortuned my banshees + Farseer
I moved my left dragons (the ones who hadn’t done a thing the whole game cept sit in their tank and shoot) up in front of the front dread and dropped them off there. DAs jumped back into their serpent. The dragons in the backfield moved towards the next drop pod back there whilst their serpent flew in to get LoS on the back dreadnaught.
The dragons in front of the dreadnaught fired managing to stop it shooting and blowing off its hammer arm (I have terrible rolls with them).
The serpents on the left failed to do squat.
Dragons in the back bagged the drop pod and their wave serpent managed to immobilize and blow off the heavy flamer arm of the back dread (the dreads are standing right behind each other in kind of an alley way to give you a better idea of what’s going on).
The banshees either failed to hit or failed to wound Vulkan even with fortune. Vulkan focused his attacks onto my Farseer 3 hits 3 wounds, failed 2 saves. Rolled fortune… failed one save, poor lad got instagibbed.
The girls held their ground now only 3 left.
Salamanders - 4 Eldar – 7Yes, it went to turn 7!
Salamanders turn 7Not much left to do, termies got within charge range of the banshees and the ironclad that could move charged the dragons.
My ladies got killed =( Horribly!
The termies and Vulkan joined up and then started marching back across the field towards the combat between the fire dragons and the dread.
Dragons missed all their melta bombs and the dread killed one but they held.
Eldar Turn 7The dragons in the backfield moved towards the drop pod on the middle/right, their serpent moved right up behind the back ironclad.
Both remaining DA squads got into position to fire upon the termies.
The dragons failed to do much damage from shooting at the drop pod (sigh) even with them all in <6” range too (Think they all missed bar one who failed to pen)! Their serpent didn’t do much to the back ironclad.
Both DA squads blade stormed, their serpents fired and after the smoke had cleared only 2 termies had been killed.
I charged my dragons into his drop pod and they managed to blow it sky high with their melta bombs, the other dragons who were in CC with the dread missed all their bombs again, the dread killed one in return but still they held.
Salamanders - 5 Eldar – 8
This is an older battle report I had wrote up it was my first time versing the new Marines. In future Im going to colour code my Dire Avenger and Fire Dragon squads so its easier to follow (or I could just buy a camera right?).
