vs Craftworlds Eldar

Just got back from a game against my buddy's Craftworlds Eldar. This guy has been pretty busy with life, so it's been a minute since we played. We went to our local club and had a few beers and threw dice at plastic dudes for a few hours and it was a great time.

Eldar.

Hoo, boy. There is an army that I constantly have trouble against. Before I go into this battle report I really want to stress that my buddy is not That Guy. He doesn't spam Crimson Hunters or Hemlocks or anything like that. He doesn't cover every roof with Wave Serpents full of Dark Reapers. He doesn't even run his elves as Alaitoc, so he is definitely not That Guy when he plays Eldar. He runs a lot of bikes, loves his Fire Prisms, and makes good use of Ranger positioning.

But I always struggle against Craftworlds.

They have such incredible mobility, firepower, and psychic powers that I always seem to fend up on the back foot. When I do get through his troops and bikes and into the meat of his characters and tanks my Force Swords have an absolute blast tearing all his T3 bodies apart, but before that point I always find myself taking gambles and jockeying for cover as a storm of silent jetbikes take objectives and murder my characters. Over the years I've learned what parts of his list are squishiest and what parts will make the entire thing fall apart, but getting at those juicy pieces is always so tough. He jealously guards the vulnerabilities in his army.

Tonight we played a fun narrative game. We did the mission Doomsday Device from Vigilus Ablaze. To spice it up, we threw in the Battlezone: Field of Nightmares rules from the same book. 2000 points with matched play rules is how we always roll, even in narrative games.

The Forge World where we clashed.

In essence, the mission is a defend/attack game where one player is trying to protect a Doomsday Device and the other player is trying to disable it. Every round the attacker has to deal at least 5 wounds to the Doomsday Device and the defender has to not let them do that. If the Doomsday Device has been dealt 5 wounds in at least 4 rounds by the end of the game, then the attacker wins. There are stratagems and sub rules for this mission, but that's the gist of it. The Battlezone rules simulate a world wracked with warp disturbances, and every round you roll a die to determine how the tormented spirits are fucking with you (example: on a 2, every unit that doesn't move this round suffers d3 mortal wounds as angry ghosts prey on the stragglers).

I decided that I would be the defender. This world is lost to Chaos, so the Grey Knights are setting up an exterminatus device that will both destroy this planet and seal the warp rifts that have opened in this sector. The Asuryani wish to stop the destruction of this world and, like typical Eldar, aren't telling us why.

That is a lot of models with the FLY keyword.

I guessed I would be facing his prized Windrider/Shining Spear flock, so I brought two Stormhawk Interceptors with the missiles and the cannons.

Otherwise I brought my fancy new Paladin mob, long range firepower in the form of Ven Dreads and a Razorback, and a small battalion of Deimos AdMech for the command points. Actually, that last part is not entirely true. I don't just bring the AdMech for CPs. The Deimos boys have really been pulling their weight lately so I'm rewarding them with another game on the table. You play well, you get to keep playing.

My buddy got the first turn by default, since he was the attacker. His first turn was surprisingly gentle. He sent his bikes up the field and poked my Razorback and blasted one of my Stormhawks into atoms. I'd used the Prepared Positions stratagem and most of my units are in TDA so they soaked a lot of damage, except for the aforementioned Stormhawk because flyers can't benefit from Prepared Positions -- which makes sense, I guess, but also sucks.

He sent a few shots at the Doomsday Device (it is treated like a unit in my army for all game purposes, except that it has no save characteristic and melee attacks automatically hit it), but because the Device is T20 he only wounded it once. I could see the gears turning in his head as he realized that none of his guns were big enough to even wound the Device on a 5+, and that this was going to be much harder than he anticipated. He passed to me and my turn proceeded swimmingly.

The Doomsday Device, with Deimos Skitarii tending to its preparations.

An apocalypse comet made of blades, sorcery, exploding lances, and bullshit.

My Stormhawk moving in and just ruining those Shining Spears. I don't care what anyone says, I love these little planes.

The one highlight during turn one is a quote from my buddy. I asked him for maybe the hundredth time over as many games if his bikes can fire and advance without penalty, and he responded with this gem:

 "That's kind of the thing with Eldar; you can just do whatever the fuck you want."

That's facts.

On turn two he had to adjust his strategy. Heavy weapons weren't going to do the trick because he was just going to fail his wound rolls against the Device. So he opted for massed fire, which was smart. His Windriders unloaded with their scatter lasers and wounded the Device a couple times, but not enough to score him the check mark for the round. In my last turn I had made it clear that I was going to be leveling a lot of fire at him in the form of autocannons, lascannons, and 24" smites. Reasonably, he opted to deal with them. But failing to deal 5 wounds to the Device in the second round meant he could only win if the game went into round 6 and he got 5 wounds on the Device in every single remaining turn.

Most armies have gunlines. Grey Knights have smitelines.

I blew up one of his strange little two-man brightlance bikes that I forget the name of, and then smote a bunch of Windriders to death. I could feel my inner machine grinding into position, just pushing until something breaks. I could see the shatterpoint of his army. The only way he was going to get enough attacks to make enough successful wounds was if he got his melee units up to the Device and started wailing on it in close combat. He had to come into my castle and let my Force Swords feast on his tender T3 bodies. I deepstriked (deepstruck? deepstroked?) my Paladins into the rear of the facility, ready for him to move in.

You can see the remaining Shining Spears in the upper middle. Soon they would become very intimate friends with 40 bolter rounds.

I was feeling pretty confident at this point, which all changed during his next turn when he realized he could cast Doom on the Device itself and then reroll every single wound roll that came its way. His infantry and bikes started tearing at the Device like crazy. Suddenly his most effective unit became his Rangers, who only wounded the Device on 6s which also generated mortal wounds. He'd roll all their shots and then reroll wounds, invariably finding a couple 6s in each volley. He took like 9 wounds off the Device in round three.

This Dire Avenger Exarch is dual wielding shuriken cannons. Those four dice there are his roll as he advanced across a gantry and fired at my entrenched AdMech. This dude was a fucking badass.

The next two rounds proceeded very similarly. I did my best to take out his heavy weapons (Fire Prisms and the Linked Fire stratagem are absolutely nuts) and also contend with his massed Ranger fire, but there was little I could do to stop it beyond putting bodies in front of the Device and preventing him from charging it. The one time he did was with Striking Scorpions, who were all slaughtered mercilessly, but not before getting off two successful mandiblaster shots onto the Device.

Castling as best as we can.

I didn't want to just hope the game ended on round 5, but I also didn't know what else I could do. I tried to deny Doom when I was in range, but the dice did not favor me. In a desperate gambit I Gated my Apothecary into his backline and tried to make a charge -- if not to kill a Fire Prism, then just to tie them up and force them to devote fire to taking out an 88 point unit instead of firing on the Device.

"Emperor, please, some day give me the 'reroll one or both dice when you charge' rule."

It didn't work. I failed the charge and his Skyrunner Autarch swooped in and obliterated my valiant Apothecary. 

At the end of turn 5 we rolled to see if the game would continue, and we got a 4. The game went into round 6 and he put 5 more wounds onto the Device, disabling it and denying my Grey Knights the opportunity to destroy this infested world and cleanse the space around it. No one knows why they sought to stay our hands, but they did it. Perhaps some day men and elves will reach a point where they can talk about their problems.

In the end it was a really fun game with a really good friend and I'm glad we played. The Eldar are so tricky to deal with! They have so many options available to them, and I feel like they always surprise me with something new and cunning. Honestly, I really enjoy that. Facing an army that feels complex and crunchy from my side of the table is a very satisfying experience.