Monday, August 30, 2010

The Warp Widow

Well, D'Ork came over with his burgeoning Eldar army and we played a 1500 point game as I mentioned in my previous entry. The outcome was definitely something I was anxious to see, but more importantly i was just happy to be playing again after months of inactivity. My squeezed down 1850-into-1500 points list had some good firepower, but it also had some flaws that I was hoping didn't get exploited.

I think D'Ork is planning on doing up a full on BATREP, so I will just do a tactical review on some of the more important maneuvers. Scatterlasers shook my tanks repeatedly. This was something I was unused to playing against Orks so often. Spirit Stones until this game had been a strategic move so I didn't get too used to playing against range-handicapped enemies. I will pretty much say they are a necessity in an Eldar army.

My attempt to use Spiders, Dragons, AND a Warlock with a Singing Spear to open up his right-flanking DA Serpent really failed horribly as all I did was lay it out on the table for the impending outflank. When it happened, it happened bad. Both Scorpions and the Scatterwalkers came in on my right flank while my dragons and storm guardians were just sitting ducks. The Scorpions owned my Guardians. Walkers downed some spiders and were sorta killed shortly after.

My inability to do anything to Pathfinders in mid-field without committing a unit that would be dropped instantly by one of the Bladestorm units in left or right flanks is what really killed my strategy. I was really timid while he was bold and had fire control of the field. He shook my tanks repeatedly. Bright lances are pretty useless on a single 2+ invul save ranger so I started really, really wishing I had some scatters. My Shuricannon serpent tried in vain to stop them.

These rangers... They killed Warp Spiders, they dropped one of my tanks, they controlled the board and kept me away. This allowed the Fire Dragons, which admittedly he mistakenly put forth WAY too early to pretty much run unabated killing things before I finally ran in with my Farseer to stop them (that stupid combat against 2 dragons lasted the rest of the game... )

However... one truly scary thing happened. My Warp Spider Exarch became the Black Widow of Death. He just jumped around alone after his squad suffered death after death. He wounded a hiding Farseer, dropped Warwalkers, troops, tanks, everything. He even tried to be a hero and help the Farseer against the dragons... Someone wished they'd spent 10 points on powerblades after that! Anyway, he kept my losing battle going for a while. I lost the game, but for him I would have had more than just a 100 point difference lost.

I think I'm going to call him Warp Widow now. He's a super hero of the future. He will hate Pathfinders and their ilk for all eternity or until he dies, whichever comes first.

3 comments:

  1. That thing was, in fact, an unholy terror, and I intend to go buy myself some Warp Spiders soon. My new plan is to go mainly mech, but then to have a selection of foot soldiers ready to go for any game. So one day, Scorpions run alongside the troops, but on the next day it's Spiders, then Pathfinders, etc.

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  2. I think your list could do well with Spiders at higher costs, or if you drop the pathfinders. I can't wait to give it a go next time!

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  3. Yeah, we'll definitely set that up. I need to get some things painted, tho...otherwise you'll have to face the same thing each time.

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