Crucible of Winter: Game 2

For game two of this GT, I was faced with a mechanized Chaos build.

Traditionally my armies do not really like playing against Mech Heavy list, and this one was no exception. My solution is usually to try and tag as many vechiles as I can to prevent them from shooting, but everything except for my opponents Deredo Dreadnoughts was good in combat. My Guardians and Spears do not want anything to do with that. We had a vanguard deployment and for secondaries, I picked Kingslayer on his Knight, Big Game Hunter, and Recon. My opponent picked Headhunter, Butchers Bill, and Old Skool.

Here is my opponent’s list:

Chaos Knight Super Heavy (Iconoclast)

• Knight Despoiler (Character, 2x Thermal Cannon)

• War Dog (Thermal Spear, Reaper Chain Cleaver)
• War Dog (Thermal Spear, Reaper Chain Cleaver)

Night Lords Air Wing

• Heldrake (Baleflamer)
• Heldrake (Baleflamer)
• Heldrake (Baleflamer)

Iron Warriors Spearhead

• Demon Prince (Warlord: Stoic Advance; Fleshmetal Exoskeleton, Hellforged Sword, Warp Bolter, Mark of Slaanesh

• Hellforged Deredeo Dreadnought (Butcher Cannon array, Greater Havoc Launcher, Heavy Bolter)
• Hellforged Deredeo Dreadnought (Butcher Cannon array, Greater Havoc Launcher, Heavy Bolter)
• Hellforged Deredeo Dreadnought (Butcher Cannon array, Greater Havoc Launcher, Heavy Bolter)

He deployed all of his evil robots in a cluster on his front line, and I deepstruck a Guardian Squad and my Spears, leaving one Guardian Bomb, the Nightspinners, and my Characters on the table. I was worried about losing too many casualties to an aggressive play by the Helldrakes and his Indirect fire, so I wanted to be able to stack defensive buffs on one Guardian unit if he went full Aggro.

It was an even mission and I had the option for first turn. I chose to give it my opponent and he tentatively moved his army into the middle. He shot his indirect Havoc launchers into my Guardians and killed a couple, but I didn’t lose any to morale and that wrapped up his first turn. He didn’t score an Old Skool which was nice.

His army was bearing down on me and I spent an incredibly long time figuring out what I should do. His Knight was the leading model which meant I could hit it with smites and my Guardians. I had two options: I could jump the Guardians out alone and then use Fire and Fade to retreat behind the ruin after they shot, or I could expose my characters (Shadowseer, Farseers) to cast the smites at the Knight as well. The Knight also had a 5+++ feel no pain.

I was also concerned that If I didn’t kill the Knight my opponent could box me into my deployment zone from the front with his War Dogs, and from the back with the Helldrakes. So I decided to go all in and jump out with the Characters and the Guardians. I got Doom and Jinx off, and pushed a few wounds through the Feel No Pain with smite. After all the shooting the Knight survived on three wounds.

While it would have been great if the Knight had died, it’s not super likely that it happens with that 5+++ against mortals. I should have played this more conservatively and done the Fire and Fade play while casting restrain on the Knight. I usually forget that Restrain is a power, but is it, and it’s really useful! So all of my stuff was exposed and the Guardians weren’t buffed in any real way. all they would have is Celestial Shield. I also didn’t get a kill, so the score was locked at 1-1.

In my opponent’s turn, he went ham on those Guardians. He moved his vehicle ball forward and jumped one of the Helldrakes into my backfield. He ended up smoking the Guardians with his three Deredeos which exposed my characters to shooting from the Knight. The Knight killed the Shadowseer, my Guideseer, but the Doomseer was left with four wounds. Lucky break for me! That was really bad, but I still had my reserves left and the game wasn’t over.

I needed to lay the pain down, so I dropped in the Guardians and the Spears. The Spears went into my ruin to hide from the rest of his army, and the Guardians went on the left side of the board to grab a corner for recon. I also dropped two Ranger squads in the other corners to secure that point this turn. I was able to kill one Helldrake with the Spears and my Troupe Master Fusion (that is the name of my 40k cover band: Troupe Master Fusion) and a War Dog with the Guardians after I Doom/Jinxed it. Not a bad turn. Two Big Game Hunter points and my Spears poised to leap out of my ruin and start causing mischief.

In my opponent’s turn, he was able to waste the Guardian’s pretty quickly, those Deredeos are nasty! He focused down that whole squad with all of his shooting and grabbed the middle objective while sending his Demon Prince back to kill my Ranger squad in his back corner. This gave him two kills and the potential to hold more.

In my turn, I was pretty much down to the Spears, Nighstpinners, and characters. He had two Helldrakes positioned just beyond the wall of my ruin that had each taken a couple of wounds. I positioned my Harlequin Characters to blast one and moved the Spears out from the Ruin to shoot the other that I would Doom/Jinx, with the intent of moving back into the Ruin with Fire and Fade. He also had a lone War Dog that I cast Restrain on to help keep it off my lines. I also moved one of my Nightspinners out from the ruin to help screen my Characters from the War Dog, using it to help move-block the beast’s path to my characters. I was able to get the powers off and kill both Helldrakes which was big for points and reducing my opponent’s threat. I still had almost a full Spear squad left and some decent character threat.

In my opponent’s turn he picked up the Nightspinner easily, but the War Dog wasn’t able to make any headway because of Restrain. In my turn, it was do, or die time. I had to leap out of the ruin of risk my opponent getting kill and hold more, so the Spears soared out into battle against the Deredeos and their Demon Prince. We were also pretty low on time at this point. I moved my characters up the left side of the board to deal with the limping War Dog and get me another recon point. I was able to get quicken off on my Spears, so they jumped even further up the board, with a few of them able to target the Demon Prince. That thing was the last threat on the board. If I killed it I would be able to hug the Deredeos with the Spears for eternity and start to jump up on Hold More points and eventually kill more as the Spears worked through the Deredeos. I also jumped a Warlock Skyrunner onto the middle objective.

Unfortunately, after I killed the War Dog It blew up and Killed both of my Troupe Masters. That would secure kill more for my opponent. My Spears did a few wounds to the Demon Prince in Shooting and prepared to charge in. Unfortunately yet again, the Spears failed to kill the Prince in combat. Spears are pretty squishy in combat, and the Prince punched right through them, but enough survived the combat and morale to keep the Deredeos tied up. At the end of my turn, we hit time, and the game ended.

We tied! I have been to this tournament twice now, and I also tied in the previous one. Weird.

It was a real tight game. If there was more time on the clock I definitely would have been tabled, but that is Eldar life. I think I would have played that first turn differently, and maybe even deployed another unit of the board. Other than that I don’t think I made any huge mistakes. Generally, most of my mistakes do come in deployment, and I feel like I’m a pretty competent end game player.

Tune in next week for game three!