Eldar vs Thousand Sons & Daemons

Today we played ITC 2000pts game. I had to proxy some models, as currently it's quite difficult to get some models due to pandemic (let's hope this madness ends very soon).

Venoms proxy for Vipers, and Fire Prism for Night Spinner.

Rafał won the roll-of and chose to be an attacker. His horde of Daemons and Thousand Sons extended along whole border of his deployment.

I deployed way more carefully, knowing that disciples of Tzeentch will go first. I tried to hide everything I could. Rafał moved everything forward, and shot with only two units that were in range: Rhino and Land Raider. Havoc launcher did nothing, but Land Rider did some serious damage to Wave Serpent, scoring 4 wounds.

In return I fired all Falcons, Wave Serpent and big unit of Reapers managing to destroy Land Raider. I had some bad rolls, so all of this firepower was necessary. After this game I think I made a mistake. Way better use for this whole firepower would be to fire at other units, leaving Land Raider. It wasn't that much of a threat. Hey, that's why we are playing such games, to make mistakes and learn from them. From the wreckage of huge tank emerged some Rubric Marines. Only one of them died while their transport got destroyed.

My Windriders, Vypers, two small units of Reapers and Night Spinner destroyed enough models from two units of Pink Horrors that rest of them fled to warp, securing me the center of the board. One point can make all the difference in some games :).

Second turn began with Rafał advancing all his army. Of all those units everything but two rolled 6 for advance...

Second unit of Rubrics moved out of their Rhino and advanced forward.

The other flank pressed on as well.

Ahriman flew to the top of one of big buildings at the center of the board. Then he rolled some insane dice, leaving all three Falcons and Wave Serpent almost dead. Rafał's rolls this turn were insanely good.

At the beginning of my second turn I thought I will loose. So much damage to my tanks, only two Windriders left after Daemon Prince's charge, generally speaking things didn't look good. I disembarked all of my Dire Avengers, and moved one unit forward, and second to the objective on my left flank.

After such an agressive turn I knew I had to push the forces of Tzeentch back. It's very rare for the Eldar to be cornered. Holding the line is not a favourite tactic of the Eldar (and it ain't mine as well). As two important characters were close to my lines (Ahriman and Daemon Prince warlord) I moved my tanks and psykers forward to kill both of them. Reapers moved from safe hideouts behind the cover.

After loads of psychic (most of it didn't go off or got denied) and even more shooting both characters were dead, remaining Windriders held another objective and Tzaangors fled due to massive casualities done to them by Reapers. Bikers shot the psyker on the Disk, leaving him on single wound. Then they charged, but didn't kill him. I had to spend 2CP to make them attack again, which finally brought him down.

I not only killed several characters, securing my dominance over psychic phase...

...but also pushed Tzeenth's forces out of my left flank. I think I cought up a bit.

Horrors, Skyfires and Rubric Marines moved towards my right flank. Daemon Prince flew to the center of the board to attack my Dire Avengers. Syll'Esske moved closer to Windriders holding the objective.

At this point I knew that my tanks are quite safe as long as big daemons are ocuppied somewhere else.

Daemon charged and killed two Dire Avengers, Skyfires tried to destroy one of my Venoms, but left it on single wound.

Syll'Esske killed rest of Windriders. Those were the losses I could accept. Tanks killed Prince, Reapers - Skyfires and all my indirect - Horrors. At this point there were only Rubric Marines and Syll'Esske left, so we decided to call it and go home :)

The result was 27 to 14 for the Eldar. Rafał is learning fast, each game is way tougher than the last.

My thoughts about the army are:

- Reapers are very powerfull as long as I'm able to feed my enemy other targets to kill.

- Dire Avengers with Superior Shurikens and Bladestorm are AWESOME. IMO the best troop choice in the game (I guess Space Marines' players would disagree).

- Venoms are not as bad as everyone says, as long as they are Saim-Hann and can shoot on 3+ even after move. Despite that I will get rid of one and bring Windriders to maximum unit size (I'm even considering taking second unit). Till the next time :)