The triple nickel!

o/

For blog post number 555, I offer a battle report for your reading amusement...

After hunting around a bit on our FLGS' FB group, I accepted a challenge to a game of 40k from Neverness. Referring to it as my quarterly game of 40k, I opted for a small allied contingent of Eldar with which to tack onto Wolfy's Fem Fa'Tau.

1500 points, straight up Kill Each Other/Victory Points game (as none of us have the 7th ed rulebook to select an actual scenario), 1k of Fem Fa'Tau backed up by 500 points of old codex Eldar. Facing us were Neverness' Ultrasmurfs and a formation of 4 (WTF?) Imperial Assassins! Speaking of, as he put them on the table, we had this conversation:

So, how many psykers do you have?
None.
None? Really?
Yup.
Not even a single warlock?
Nope. No guardians just Dire Avengers, so no Warlocks
A farseer?
Nope. This is probably the 1st time since 3rd ed that I've fielded Eldar without  psykers.
Well crap.

lol. We won the roll to deploy and go first. Having done so the Imperium stole the initiative via some assassin trickery and the casualties quickly started to mount on both sides...

My apologies for the shaky photo of the Imperial battle line. Neverness, our combat photographer was no doubt already shaking with fear...

The Taudar's left flank deployment...

...and our right flank.

Turn one saw the assassins advance, with the Vindicare getting first blood after destroying a hammerhead (taking a pair of Dire Avengers with it), whilst the Evesor's rapid firing took a wound off of the Wraithlord.

Not amused, the Taudar gun down the Evesor and Culexus in the ruins, though the exploding Evesor killed another Dire Avenger!

Termies deep strike in and unload on the Autarch's bodyguard, killing an Exarch and 2 Dire Avengers, but they hold their ground under the withering assault!

A precarious deep striking scatter placed my Vyper in a quite dangerous 'don't bump the table' scenario. The result was that the panicky crew was unable to make good use of its firing position behind the Whirlwind.

The Dire Avengers leave the Termies to the Wraithlord who wades in, resulting in a 1st round tie of 1 wound a piece.

Despite moving to safety, the Vyper crew continues to fail utterly. It would be 2 more turns of leaving not a scratch on the tank's rear armor before finally taking it down. Post battle, they were introduced to the Eldar path of latrine duty...

The Autarch and avengers break a tactical squad whilst the wraithlord had finished off the termies. My contingent was racking up the kills nicely, but was down to a mere 5 models...

After wallowing about in terrain for too many turns (Neverness rolled a bucket load of 1's and 2's in a row for difficult terrain), the Smurfs' right flank emerges into the open only to find that the Tau had relocated to good firing positions which were well out of charge range!

The Stealth suits finally arrive on the wrong flank to find it bereft of targets. Thus they commenced graffiti operations with gusto!

Here we see the cold and calculating gaze of the Fem Fa'Tau Commander, as she watches the piece-by-piece slaughter of her enemies...

With the dreadnought's demise the Ultramarines make the call for an evac!

Curiously, Neverness' photos seem to have focused on my side of the board. However make no mistake, the Fem Fa'Tau were kicking ass and taking names on their side too (as was that infernal Vindicare till we eventually managed to kill him)! The arrival of the Callidius and her subsequent removal was a tense moment in particular, with a drone and a pathfinder or two falling victim to her neural shredder before her demise.

The final Tally: 10:5 in our favor! It was a good game overall, but I think there were too many points spent on assassins to make Neverness' army truly effective. Well, that and his inability to get out of difficult terrain and into the fight. Here are his thoughts on the game:

Of the four assassins, the Vindicare was the one that more than earned his points back. Taking out a tank, a battle suit and scaring the hell out of the combined Taudar force, he also drew an impressive amount of firepower in order to take him out. On hindsight, I should have used him to eliminate the Wraithlord, but the urge to obliterate more tanks was too tempting. 

The Callidus should've performed better but I botched her deployment. She got to show off her scary Neural Shredder but in turn the Tau got to show off their firepower. The Eversor put a wound on the Wraithlord with his fast shooting needle gun but again, my deployment of him was a bit too bold and he was gunned down. The Culuxus had no Psykers to hunt but even with power to reduce the BS of his attackers to a 1, he was still gunned down. I think next time I take an assassin it will definitely be just a Vindicare or a Calidus.