Kill Team Battle Report 2: Alaitoc V.S Orks

We hadn't made it very far before we ran into some more aliens on this wretched planet, this time it was the loathsome Orks. As soon as the beasts saw us they began to charge forwards, shooting wildly, ostensibly at us, but doing nothing more than minor paint scratches to our fine armour. As they approached, we launched our attack. Using the runes as you taught me I was able to strike down nearly half their number in a psychic storm, while our warriors all but shredded their leader. The orks continued to try and resist, but it wasn't long before we had wiped out the majority, and sent the rest fleeing for their lives. We decided not to pursue, our own agenda being more important than the lives of a few battered and bloody greenskins.

--- Psyhic message from Warlock Ylrad to Farseer Aldean of Alaitoc ---

My second battle in the Battle for Piscea Prime was against Jordan and his Orks. We played the same mission that I played against Ben in the last game, as he wanted to try it out. I think I mentioned before that this particular mission is one that my particular list really excels at, as I can use my speed to great effect. Jordan is also relatively new to 40k, and unlike with Ben I thought to give him a bit of a briefing on what each of my models was capable of before we had started, to make things a little more fair. The lists were as follows:

Alaitoc Strikeforce

Team Leader:

Warlock Ylrad - Warlock on a Jetbike with the Spirit Stone of Windfall - 65

Core:

Jetbike - 17

Jetbike - 17

Jetbike with Shuriken Cannon - 27

Ranger - 12

Special:

Warp Spider - 19

Warp Spider - 19

Fire Dragon - 22

Total: 198

Fast, shooty, tough (for Eldar at least), and with psychic support. Whats not to like here? The only change here is that I had some RP from my battle with Ben. I put my jetbikes into a group and upgraded them to be BS 5, and I upgraded the Fire Dragon to BS 5 as well. Maybe now he'll hit something.

Boss Bludkrumpa's Boyz

Team Leader:

Boss Bludkrumpa - Boss Nob with Big Choppa, Eavy Armour, Metal Skull, Ammo Runt, Bosspole - 55

Core:

Boyz Mob with 4x Shootas, 1x Big Shoota, and 'Eavy Armour - 60

Boyz Mob with 4x Shootas, 1x Rokkit Launcha - 40

Special:

Killa Kan with Grotzooka - 55 

Total: 200

What we have here is a few Boyz, a Nob and a Walker. Bludkrumpa could be a problem, as T5 is pretty tough, and if he makes combat I'll be in trouple, and if the Kan makes combat i'm losing the model that it fights pretty much for sure, so they are probably the biggest threats. Personally, I would probably have ditched the armour on the Boyz, and gone with sluggas instead to take a whole other squad, but the injury rules are pretty punitive towards melee armies, so I see why he may have wanted guns instead. I think that this list will really start to come into its own once we get to higher points levels and he's able to add a few more toyz.

The Playing Field

I went with Destructor/Renewer for this battle, which may have been a little dirty, but I just couldn't resist the idea of being on the other side of the flame template for a change. Jordam one the roll to deploy/go first and elected for first turn. As I wanted him to get a little closer anyways, I decided not to attempt to seize the initiative. His deployment was pretty simple, as it generally is with this few models. The Big Shoota Boyz went on the right behind the piece of defence line, while the Rokkit squad went in the forest. The Kan deployed half in the forest, a bit behind them , and Bludkrumpa stood boldly in the middle, able to go either way.

I continued with my tactic from last game, mostly clumping up as close to the center as I could, trying to hide behind the hill as best I could, with the Ranger on his own guarding my objective.

Turn 1

With a great cry of "Waaagh!" the orks surged towards the Eldar battle group, the Boyz with the Big Shoota moving into cover behind the defence line section, joined by their Nob, and the Rokkit squad moving carefully through the trees. The Killa Kan moved up a bit, but was also hindered by the thick woods. Firing wildly at the assembled Eldar was inneffective, the few shots that did manage to make contact with the sleek Jetbikes skipping harmlessly off their armour. 

The Orks had advanced, just as Ylrad knew they would, so the Eldar of Alaitoc sprang their trap.the entire force heading directly toward's Bludkrumpa and the Boyz on the right flank. Calling upon his runes of psychic destruction, Ylrad send bolts of eldritch lightning washing over the Boyz, causing four of them to collapse writhing on the ground. With that threat all but neutralized, Ylrad directed his warriors to shoot at Bludkrumpa himself, bringing him down under a volley of Shuriken and Deathspinner fire. The Jetbike with the Shuriken Cannon fired instead into the Killa Kan, stunning the rickety walker. Their targets neutralized, the force faded back towards the hill.

Turn 2

Angered by the loss of their leader, the Boyz in the forest fought their way free, while Ork resilience made itself known, with some of the hardier members of the ravaged squad on the right managing to struggle to their feet, despite the psychic lightnings still lingering in the area. Unfortunately, their rage didn't manage to improve their aim, and their shooting continued to leave the Eldar warhost unscathed. 

Having dealt a heavy blow to the Ork forces, Ylrad ordered his host forwards once more for another attack on the beleaguered Orks. Once again calling upon his Runes, he managed to bring down the final members of the squad with the Big Shoota, though the Rokkit Boyz were left unharmed. to make up for it, the entire warhost blasted into the Rokkit squad, cutting them down where they stood, leaving just a few weakly struggling survivors. The Shuriken Cannon's heavier discs finished off the Killa Kan, turning it back into a useless pile of junk. In a final act of contempt, Ylrad smashed into the injured Boyz from the Rokkit squad, slaying them. With the battle turned hopelessly against them, the remaining wounded Orks fled the battle, dragging the body of their fallen leader along with them.

Post Game Thoughts

Well, this game turned into a massacre very quickly. I attribute most, if not all of that to Ylrad and his psychic power. In two turns, Ylrad was able to all but decimate the boyz, leaving the rest of the force to mop up survivors and key targets. Stunning the Killa Kan right away was a huge deal for me, as it meant that I could sort of throw caution to the wind that turn and clup up without fear of the Grotzooka just wrecking me.

I think that this battle illustrates the massive gap between the armies on the top of the food chain versus those closer to the bottom. The difference in the sheer offensive and defensive capabilities of what an Eldar force can bring compared to the Orks is just crazy, considering his troops were slower than mine, squishier than mine, and with worse shooting than mine, and he scarcely had more of them to make up for it. I think this is where community moderation has to step in a little, as even with the Heralds of Ruin ruleset, which I think is great, these imbalances still occur, simply because the lists still rely heavily on the codices that have little to no semblance of balance. I think that next time we play, 

There is another potential problem I see with the campaign rules for this game, and that is with how RP is handled. The way that RP is done is that it is awarded at the end of the game based on a team's specific accomplishments in that battle, so in essence the more crushing your victory, the more likely you are to gain more RP. If you win, you get 5, if you kill the enemy leader that's 3, if you lose 25% or less of your models that's another 2, etc. Once you determine your RP, you are free to spend it as you wish, and it can be spent to buy your models stat boosts, or cool special rules, as well as to buy back models that were lost in the previous game (which you also roll for). What this means, is if I have played a game already and won, gaining a sizable amount of RP (say 20+), I am at a pretty substantial advantage over a player who hasn't played a game yet, or who hasn't done too well and had to spend virtually all their RP on buying back their troops. What this does is create a game where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer so to speak. I understand that the point is to give players a bonus for doing well, and I don't totally disagree with that, but I think that the system could use a little work. Maybe not forcing players to use RP to get back models that they lost in the battle so that they will still be able to use their points to get things for their guys, though maybe have a restriction of not being able to give upgrades to models that were previously lost (these are new recruits, not the battle hardened vets after all). That way if I gained 20 RP, and my opponent gained 15, but he lost models at the end, he's not getting penalized both for losing AND for losing models as well.

So let me know. What do you think about the Heralds of Ruin campaign rules? Do you think they work fine as it is, or do you think that a reworking would be beneficial?

Kill Team Battle Report 1:: Alaitoc V.S Necrons

We arrived at Piscea Prime via a small webway gate. After a small amount of recon, we encountered a small group of our ancient enemies, the Necrons. We struck hard and fast, easily out maneuvering their clumsy warriors while picking them off one by one. None of our number were killed, though I was wounded by their leader's staff. In short order we were able to locate their teleporter and destroy it, securing the area surrounding our gate, and we have begun to push further out into the wilderness. I will update you as to our progress soon.

--- Psyhic message from Warlock Ylrad to Farseer Aldean of Alaitoc ---

This was the first battle in our new Kill Team campaign. I played my Alaitoc strikeforce against Ben's Necrons. The mission was a custom scenario created by the league organizer called Gain Ground 

This mission uses the diagonal deployment from the original missions 3 and 4 in the Kill Team rules.

Each player places an objective in his/her deployment zone. This must be at least 6" from the table edge.

When the game ends, a player wins if he/she is controlling the opponents objective while the opponent does not control his objective. If both controls each others' objective or no objective is controlled, the game is a draw.

At all cost - Any model within 3" of an objective is fearless. 

Alaitoc Strikeforce

Team Leader:

Warlock Ylrad - Warlock on a Jetbike with the Spirit Stone of Windfall - 65

Core:

Jetbike - 17

Jetbike - 17

Jetbike with Shuriken Cannon - 27

Ranger - 12

Special:

Warp Spider - 19

Warp Spider - 19

Fire Dragon - 22

Total: 198

As I said in my last post, this list gives me tons of mobility with a good amount of high strength firepower. The main downside is that virtually all of my units need to get within 12" to do any damage. This shouldn't be too  much of a problem, as even footslogging Eldar are pretty fast, particularly in Kill Team. I also have quite the advantage in this mission, as I can easily jump a jetbike or tow to go claim his objective whilst leaving the rest of my force behind to secure my own, while he'll have to footslog across the whole board to get to mine.

Necrons (Aproximation)

Team Leader: 

Noble (maybe with some upgrades. It never came up) - ~45

Core:

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

Necron Warrior - 13

While this list is very basic, it is actually very intimidating on the table. Firstly, he greatly outnumbers me, plus Warriors can be very tough, due to their Reanimation protocols. This is made even worse by the fact that I have no real AP on my weapons, barring lucky 6's on my guns, other than the single Fire Dragon, so he'll usually be getting his 4+ as well. It also leaves him with the option of leaving a couple guys to secure his objective and then just bum rushing me with the rest of his force, penning me in and letting his volume of dice take its toll. On top of that, the Staff of Light that the noble gets is a pretty scary weapon that could easily punk a model every turn if I'm not careful. Finally, with such a large model count, and Ld 10 all around, he's basically immune to being routed, so no early victory there.

I decided to take Protect/Jinx as my Psychic power for this battle, as having essentially an army-wide 2+ save is very appealing, plus, I could always use it to reduce the save of some warriors to make them more vulnerable to my Shuriken weaponry, if I was having a hard time with killing them. Ben won the roll to deploy/ go first, and elected to do so, deploying his Noble in the middle, leaving 2 warriors back near his objective and then splitting his remaining force in half to try a pincer attack.

The Necron Phalanx

I countered by setting up pretty much my entire force behind a central building, trying to stay  more or less out of sight to limit his targets, and allowing me to spring forward on either flank as he advanced. The Ranger stayed back on my objective, peeking around a corner to take some pot shots at the warriors on the left flank.

The Ranger Hangs Back

Turn 1

The Necrons launched their attack by advancing their larger force toward the Eldar huddled behind the building, while a single warrior broke off from the second group, running far along the flank. The others from that group moved around the flank before running forward behind some barrels. The Noble boldly advanced up the center of the battlefield. The two Warriors by the objective held their place, waiting to see if they would be needed. Shots from the Necrons' Gauss Flayers lanced towards one of the Windriders, but either missed, or fizzled harmlessly against the jetbike's wraithbone plating. 

With their prey closing in, Ylrad ordered the attack, the entirety of the Eldar force springing out towards the right flank, and the largest concentration of Necrons. Casting his runes to show him of the enemie's comming attacks, Ylrad is able to shield his force. The The combined fire of the Jetbikes, Warp Spiders, and Ylrad himself is enough to knock down a Warrior, and destroy another two. The Fire Dragon leveled his Fusion Gun, but his shot went wide. The Ranger attempted to pick off one of the advancing group behind the barrels, but was unable to find his target. Activating their Warp Jump Generators, the Warp Spiders phased back towards their objective, joined shortly afterwards by the Jetbikes and Ylrad, with the Fire Dragon remaining relatively concealed behind the building.

Turn 2

With heir forces encountering stiff resistance, the Warriors guarding their teleporter began to advance in support of their main assault team. The lone flanker continued his run, finding an excellent vantage point with which to see the ranger. The rest of the force advanced towards the Eldar. Once again Gauss Flayers blast into the Eldar, trying to destroy a pair of jetbikes and the Fire Dragon. Ylrad's psychic might is able to mitigate the damage however, and not a single Eldar warrior falls. Deciding to take matters into its own hands, the Noble lets loose a trio of dazzling bolts from its Staff of Light, which manage to injure one of the Warp Spiders. The Noble atempts ot charge in and finish the helpless aspect warrior off, but is driven back into cover from a hail of razor-sharp shuriken from Ylrad.

His main foe now revealed, the Fire Dragon moves towards the Noble, hoping to reduce the elite warrior to molten slag. The rest of the force again moves towards the Warriors on their right flank, though Ylrad is careful to remain near the outliers of his force. Once again the Warlock attempts to cast his runes, but this time his attempts are blocked, perhaps by some machinations of the Necrons.

Once again, the Fire Dragon's shot goes wide of his target, forcing the aspect warrior to run back into cover behind the building. A withering hail of shuriken fire, as well as a web of monofilament fibers slashes into the advancing warriors dropping a couple more. On his flank, the Ranger takes careful aim on the approaching warrior, and sends a round straight through its metal skull, dropping it to the ground in a heap of metal. Once again, the Eldar disengage from the firefight.

Turn 3

Having identified Ylrad as the main threat, the Warriors, along with the Noble move towards him, tightening the noose. The rearguard of the Necron force continues to advance on the Eldar in support. The Necrons on the left flank shoot their weapons at Ylrad, wounding him, only for the Noble to fifnish him off with its staff of light. The warriors on the right are less disciplined in their fire and don't manage to get a shot through the Eldar's armour. 

With their leader having fallen, the Windrider with the Shuriken Cannon is badly shaken up, refusing to move from his leader's side.The injured Warp Spider manages to shake off the worst of his injuries for the time being and gets back in the fight. One of the Jetbikes peels off from the group and boosts over to the Necron portal generator, hiding being the building there. Without the guidance of their leader, shooting is scattered and relatively ineffective, only managing to destroy one more Necron Warrior.

Turn 4

With their ancient enemies seemingly in disarray, the Necorns continue to advance. Realizing their mistake, the pair of Warriors in charge of their objective turn around and begin to run back towards it. Once again the Necrons fire their weapons at the Eldar, but aspect armour and jetbike proves more durable than it first appeared and the Alaitoc warriors go unharmed. Even a charge from the Noble is repelled by a hail of shuriken fire.

Realizing that the Necrons have gotten perilously close to their webway gate, the Eldar redouble their attack. The Shuriken Cannon-toting jetbike peels off to support his comrad attempting to secure the Necron objective, while the rest form up a firing line to take down some more Warriors. Shooting from the two Jetbikes by the objective is enought o destroy one of the warriors, while combined shooting of just about everything else finally kills the Noble.

Turn 5

Things are looking more desperate for the Necrons with the loss of their leader. unsure of what else to do, the Warriors each advance to launch an assault on a different target. Each warrior charges towards one of the remaining Eldar. The Warrior charging the Fire Dragon is vaporized by the Aspect Warrior's Fusion Gun, while the Necron trying to reclaim his portal is badly damaged and goes down as well. Finally, one of the Warp Spiders is able to critically injure his assailant. Of the six charging Warriors, only half manage to make it into combat with the Eldar. In their respective melees, no combatants are wounded, and the Warp Spider activates its jump generator to hit and run out of the combat.

Only a trio of Necrons remain, and the Eldar begin to consolidate what now appears to be a resounding victory. The unengaged members of the strikeforce shoot into the Necron Warrior who was left in the lurch by the warp spider, injuring it, before the Fire Dragon, a Warp Spider, and the Jetbike launch assaults to finish off some of the badly damaged warriors strewn about from their disastrous charge. Badly outnumbered, the Necrons phase out, leaving the battlefield to the Eldar.

The Eldar Stand Victorious

Post Game Thoughts

That was a really fun game, and though it seemed a little one-sided at the end, it actually felt much closer than it appeared. Ben was a very gracious opponent, as he always is, and I feel that he played a tactically sound game. The dice really weren't with him for much of the game, and he just couldn't seem to force many wounds on me. I think his main tactical error in this game was moving both his warriors so far from his Objective. I was sort of hoping I could draw him out, but if I had been him, I would have left at least one to guard it, and make my later turn gambit a little more risky. That being said, Ben hasn't played a whole lot of 40k, and so his unfamiliarity with what exactly my units could do may have been a part of it. In retrospect, I should have warned him of just how fast my units really are, but at the time I honestly just didn't even think about it, as I'm just so used to playing against people that know exactly how dirty Eldar can be.

At the end of the game, we rolled for our injuries on our removed models, and both our leaders escaped none the worse for wear, but Ben ended up losing 4 of his warriors, which will likely eat up most of the RP he gained from this mission As for me, I ended up with 22 RP to spend as I please (10 for participating, 5 for a victory, 3 for killing his leader, 2 for removing the first model, and 2 for losing fewer than 25% of my models), so I will likely group up the 3 Jetbikes and upgrade the BS of as many of my models as possible.

My MVP this game would probably have to be my Jetbikes. Most of the wounds I did were through them, even getting a few bladestorms in on Warriors who had broken cover. My Fire Dragon on the other hand sucked HARD. out of the 6 shots he took in this game, he only hit 1, and of course it was the overwatch shot, which incidentally I even predicted to Ben when he declared the assault. He is definitely top on my list to get an increased BS so that maybe next game he can actually hit something!

Also, I would like to apologize for the lack of pictures in this report. I got caught up in the action and just forgot to take more pictures. As for the lack of content on the blog, that's more simply because I haven't been playing a whole lot recently. I was very busy over the Holidays and just really haven't had time for a lot of games, and those I have had have been generally not really worth reporting, usually being pretty clearly resolved by turn 3 or 4. That all being said, I do hope to thoroughly document this campaign, and the Alaitoc Eldar's progress, and hopefully eventual purging of all these barbaric upstarts on their planet!

New Year, New Kill Team Campaign

Hey everyone. We have recently started a new Kill Team campaign at Dice Bag Games, and I'm quite excited about this one. The last campaign was sort of a test - getting a feel for the Heralds of Ruin kill team rules and how they play, and so this time we've added in a couple of things. The main new bit is there is a campaign map. Each team starts somewhere at the edge of the map and must forge their way towards the centre tile. Whomever holds the centre tile at the end of the campaign will be declared the winner. This adds a bit of extra strategy outside of the regular game, which is pretty cool. 

This time, I have chosen to bring out my Alaitoc Eldar, led by Warlock Ylrad. 

My initial 200 point list is as follows

Team Leader

Ylrad - Warlock with Jetbike, and Spirit Stones of Windfall - 65

Core

Jetbike - 17

Jetbike - 17

Jetbike with Shuriken Cannon - 27

Ranger - 12

Special

Warp Spider - 19

Warp Spider - 19

Fire Dragon - 22

Total: 198

This list gives me lots of tactical flexibility. It's very fast, apart from the Ranger and Fire Dragon, dishes out a good amount of high strength shooting, and some of the powers that Warlocks can take are excellent, protect/jinx, conceal/reveal, embolden/enervate and destructor/renewer in particular. The spirit stone of windfall will help the warlock out in combat, should that come up as well, as it will give his fleshbane/armourbane melee weapon an ap value of d6 each turn, allowing him to potentially take out even terminators if he needs to. The list also works well thematically as a compact Strikeforce that perfectly plays to its craftworld's advantages and way of war. A ranger to lead them through the webway and the planet's wilderness, with a fast core of aspect warriors and jetbikes to strike fast and hard at key targets, sowing confusion, discord, and fear throughout the enemy ranks before fading away as quickly as they come. 

As the points cap increases, I think I'd like to add in a war walker, and maybe some fire avengers, and/or another fire dragon depending on what I feel like I need at the time. The dire avengers would be nice to get some more bodies on the table to help prevent routs, and more shuriken catapults is never a bad thing, and the war walker can put out a disgusting amount of fire power for a kill team game.