Battle Reports for the first 5 games of the league

One of my best friends plays Necrons, and plays them well. Because of my position his army is the one I've had the most chances to play, but against my Tau. Over time I'm afraid that my tactics have evolved to defeat power armor infantry that doesn't know when to die. The "we'll be back" has proved the cause of many of my headaches. But that hasn't stopped me from achieving a very long winning streak recently against him. I'm not sure if its his tactics, his list, or his codex that is the problem, but I'm sure that this league will help point out my strengths, and my weaknesses. The specific rules of the league are that every 2 weeks, each player must get at least 4 games against 4 separate opponents at an escalating point value each phase. There are 6 phases, the first at 500 points, the second at 750 points, and so on and so forth until the last one which is 1850. Not sure why there's a random 100 point at the end, but oh well. I have decided to start a new army for the purposes of this league, the Eldar, which requires a much different strategy than Tau.

IF I had gone with Tau, my list would have consisted of 2 squads of Fire warriors, a Devil fish, A Shas'el commander (with shield drones), and a Broadside(also with shield drones). My strategy with them would have been to place a squad of Fire warriors on one of the objectives along with the Broadside, put the other in the devil fish and move them around to another objective, and use my commander to deal with the biggest threat on the field. If not to kill it, then to harass it long enough that I can stall the game with as many objectives under my control as possible. If the game were kill points my strategy wouldn't change much, as the devil fish would take a more aggressive role.

But I decided to play Eldar and my tactics are strangely similar. I have devoted 143 points to a farseer with runes of witnessing, spirit stones, doom, fortune, and a singing spear. I have dedicated another 140 points to a wraithlord, with a wraith sword and a bright lance. The rest of my points are dedicated to a squad of guardians with a scatter laser and a squad of Ranger/Pathfinders. The wraithlord and the broadside are comparable in roles as both are extremely hard to kill and they both have strength 10 attacks in their own respects. In other words, they see something and they make it die. The broadside can do it from 72" away but the wraithlord has 2x the probability of doing so if it can get into close combat. The wraithlords biggest drawback is that it doesn't have an invulnerable save and therefore lascannons are extremely effective in bringing it down. The broadsides drawback is that if it gets assaulted by something with rending or a power weapon, I might as well write it off as it(along with almost everything else in the Tau list) isn't very good in close combat.

The Ranger/Pathfinders and the guardians are designed to sit on objectives and not vacate them unless they get assaulted or get hit by flamers. The farseer is supposed to support the wraithlord or the guardians(which ever needs it more) while the wraithlord is lumbering toward the enemy absorbing incoming fire and the attention of the enemy and possibly making them die. This has proved to be an average strategy because of the 5 games I've played so far I've won 2, lost 2 and tied 1.

There are about 16 others in the league right now. 3 of them play Necrons. My friend is one of them. This combined with my experience against Necrons of all shapes colors(including pink) and sizes, I didn't have much problem dispatching them. Games 1 and 2 involved me sitting on an objective on my side of the field, my Wraithlord and my farseer charging the warriors and the lord, and my guardians and pathfinders picking off what they can before I crash into them. I won both of those games, the second one of them I got a couple of lucky rolls and phased my opponent out on turn 3.

Game 3 is when my luck turned against me. The my opponent was running a Chaos Daemon army, with Nurgle as its primary sponsor. My biggest disadvantage was that this was the first game I had ever played against Chaos Daemons. I found out that my list doesn't really have an answer to the big ugly blob known as "Papa Nurgle" or an ramped out Great Unclean one. He had a couple splashes of Tzeench and Khorn but except for the changeling they proved inconsequential.His hearlds of Nurgle popped up on the field, and his horrers did the same close to his objective. The first 3 turns consisted of his hearolds advancing on my objective held by my guardians and my farseer shooting at them and doing almost nothing because of their feel no pain rule. When they were 6" from my squad his Forgeworld "Papa Nurgle" popped up threating to eat my guardians. While looking at his stats i decided that the best move I could make would be to use my farseer to engage the hearolds in close combat after leaving the guardians and to assualt my wraithlord into close combat with papa nurgle. What I missed on his stats was that he wounded on a 2+ in close combat, and since he's a monsorous creature...well, yea let's just say that my wraithlord was smeared across 3 tables. From there it just went downhill. The changling made my guardians shoot my farseer, killing her, and then papa nurgle ate them. A bloodcrusher also appeared but died pretty quickly against my pathfinders. But rending sniper rifles couldn't save them from papa nurgle, which promptly ate them too. That ended the game pretty thoroughly right then and there.

The next game was against a mechanized Imperial Guard army. A video verson of the game can also be found on Defending Humanity's blog. The short version is that his Vendetta(a completly broken unit) killed my wraithlord on turn one before I can even get a shot off. From then on I was on the defensive and never really stood a chance against his tactical planning.

The last game I played was against the store owner, who runs Necrons. Because he has a much better understanding of tactical game play(and because my wraith lord stood still for 2 turns while he shot it), he was able to pull a draw from as disavantaged army at 500 points. For those of you who aren't familiar with Necrons, at 500 points the have 2 lists. One has 2 squads of warriors, and a lord with a resurection orb, and the other has 2 squads of warrirs and a lord with a warsycthe on a destroyer body. By the time my Wraithlord had engaged his models in close combat it was down to its last wound. The most damage I did to his army was when I caught 13 of his warriors in the wraithlords flamers. Both of them. In that one turn I knocked down 6 warriors and the lord. But the lord got back up. Twice. So in the end his lord got a lucky hit with his power weapon and killed my wraithlord.

Only the first 4 games counted towards my points with a win being worth 4 points, a loss worth 1 and a draw worth 2. From those I earned 10 points. Another 5 is awarded for my Army Being Built and painted(not the best of paint jobs, I know. But I intend on balancing that out with a hopefully good back story to my Cadre and pirate fleet). But each additional game after the 4 are worth 1 point, no matter the outcome, so I intend on getting in as many as possible as I am currently in 4th or 5th points wise right now.