The game has come and gone, and it was a wild game with massive destroyer weapons obliterating units, regenerating void shields creating a thin veil of life and death, a deadly flyer dual, and in the end, the game was a blow out and called after 4 rounds. The Revenant Titan threw down its blasts and often Vaporized what it shot at as it maintained a distance away from a majority of my closer ranged firepower to bring it down. Literally in a single round, my long ranged Titan killing firepower was neutralized and vanquished.
Here is what happened............
The Lists
What I faced. A list of Taudar and a Revenant Titan with dual Crimson Hunters to control the skies. The list looked something like this. His suits with 4 S7 ap 4 shots each would be enough to rip apart my shields, and start taking down light armour or units at a range, while being able to jump back into cover after delivering their firepower. The Wave Serpents, well, do we need to go into how good these are, and one was delivering some nasty Wraith Guard with D-Scythes. Obviously Crimson Hunters would cover the air, coming in to take out flyers with ease to dominate the skies quickly with some skyfire support on the ground. Of course there were some markerlights to help support the suits, and a Farseer to help mitigate prescience and other powers where needed.
2500pts
Eldar
Eldar Revenanat Titan
Crimson Hunters x2
Farseer
Spiritseer
Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent
Wraith Guard with D-sythes in a Wave Serpent
Farsight Enclave
Commander
Crisis Suits (4) with dual missile pods (i think) x2
pathfinder (6)
Skyray Missile Defence Gunship (skyfire shots plus a smart missile system)
Along my side of the field, I went with Inquisitorial Grey Knights as my primary, and Imperial Guard Allies. My thoughts on this was to have 3 armour penetrating long range shooters, (conversion beamers and assassin) to get in some early hits. My thinking that a Vindicare Assassin behind Void shields could be devastating. Then protect my backfield with two fully outfitted void shield generators and MSU units that could put out a lot of fire power if the Revenant came in close. Of course dual command squads with 4 meltas might be able get in close and pop the Revenant. I was hoping for a miracle in the backfield when it came to the Callidus, possibly getting in close to take down a farseer or other a hard hitting long range target.
Inquisitorial Grey Knights
Coteaz
Xenos Inqusitor (psyker with prescience) with Conversion Beamer x2
Vindicare Assassin
Callidus Assassin
Inquisitorial Henchmen; 3 warriors with plasma guns in a psyback x5
Stormraven with psybolt ammo, assaunt cannon, hurricane bolters, and multi-melta
Dreadnoughts with two twin linked autocannons and psybolt ammo.
Imperial Guard
Company Command squad with 4 meltas x2
veteran squad with autocannon x2
Vendetta x2
Fortifications
Void Shield Generator with two additional projected shields x2
Now of course you can nit pick both lists to death, and say this should of been different to be efficient; but to be honest, I was facing an ugly beat down. When I saw the Crimson Hunters I knew that going second would be ideal, as my air just had to survive the air battle to control the skies.
The Game
The Mission: Big Guns Never Tire 3 objectives were rolled, and the Taudar won the roll to place two of the three on their side of the board.
Of course we went with the player placement of terrain. The battefield ended up very light on terrain with 6 pieces in total of which my fortifications would take up one quarter.
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil. I won the roll of for first deployment, and chose to go second.
Night Fight was rolled for the first round. (my first break, as that limited had the opportunity to limit some of his firepower.
He deployed with a large blocking piece of terrain to give his Revenant some cover if needed against a seize, and took to the ruins in his deployment zone. With my void shield generators deep in my own deployment, I had spread my forces out and back some to limit firepower from nightfight, and to limit what was going to be able to take down my voidshields. Everything else was placed to be able to move round one into range and fire.
Special note with the pictures. We proxied a Revenant titan with a Wraith Knight for this game. Everything else was as is.
I did not attempt to seize the initiative. I needed to survive round 1 and then hope to control the air from those crimson hunters.
Taudar Round 1
The Revenant hoping to blast through and wipe out a void shield generator found it protected by overlapping generators and chose instead to take out the Vindicare and pummel two shots into the remaining void shields. One of the shots to kill the Vindicare assassin scattered enough to remove the last three remaining void shields on my side of the board, but with no more shooting available, the Tau conceded with getting first blood with the deadly Vindicare.
Grey Knights Turn 1
Taking advantage of my fortune round 1, I moved forward, hoping indeed that some void shields would return to protect vulnerable troops. With my Vindicare Assassin Dead, I turned to my two prescienced Inquisitors with conversion beamers. Both ended up hitting the Revenant Titan, and under one of the templates a unfortunate crisis suit died. Of the two S10 AP1 shots from the Beamers one missed from the holofields of the Titan, and the other got through, but only glancing the titan.
The rest of the shots turn one turned to the ruins. I fired my psyammo'd Dreadnoughts at the crisis teams, removing one more near the titan, and killing 3 in the ruins. The rest of my fire power proved fruitless, but in my favor, both crisis teams failed their leadership checks and fled from their positions. (this was very fortunate, as the return firepower coming my way was greatly reduced.
At the end of the turn, two void shields came back online from my corner generator, leaving vulnerable my center forces on the board.
Taudar Turn 2
The Taudar' firepower at shield breaking had been greatly reduced, but with minimal shields up, both Crimson Hunters sped onto the field from reserves ready to rip apart the shields and do some damage. Seeing how this would turn out, the Revenant backed up some, removing itself from the range of all my guns except the Conversion Beamers, but keeping the Titans massive pulsar's within its 60' range.
The Crimson Hunters both fired on targets to take down the remaining void shields, and amazingly enough, failed miserably with 4 S8 Ap2 shots each. That left a Wave Serpent to take them down, and failed. The Revenant decided to take out both Conversion Beamer Inquisitors with D weapons, which also took out an entire squad of veterans in the same blasts. A second squad of vets took casualties, 4 or 5 dying to the radius of the pulsars. With that remaining shots took out the last two void shields, ending the Taudar's turn.
The Wraithguard Serpent flew directly into the ruins right into the center of my forces this round. This was going to be a serious problem as it went flat out to get into a deadly location.
Grey Knights Turn 2
Long range firepower was now gone, and the my Callidus, 1 Vendetta and the Stormraven came in. With the Revenant way in the backfield, my shots at were severely limited to the Lascannons on the Vendetta, so instead I went after the lightly armoured Crimson Hunters. Everything else moved forward, hoping that I could get a backfield wipe out with the Callidus and long range shooting.
Both Crisis teams were exposed, and it took all three Dreadoughts with their twin linked psyammo'd autocannons to kill the commanding crisis suit team and the farseer were not able to get back into cover. The callidus assassin failed only doing one wound to the two crisis suits in the backfield with both its template and S4 Ap2 hits. The Vendetta did its thing, and failed to destroy one of the the Crimson Hunters, as it amazingly rolled its evasions like a god. The second hunter had just too much coming at it, and the Hurricane bolters ripped it apart.
My forces turned on the undamaged Wave Serpent, and inquisitional henchemen with plasmas came from everywhere to take down the waveserpent. Amazingly enough it survived the hail of fire, and had to be taken down by my remaining veterans as they assaulted it. This left 5 Wraithguard and their spiritseer right in the middle of my forces and staring at my Coteaz.
At the end of my turn, the center generator brought two of its shields back up, the other remained barren.
Taudar Turn 3
Dire Avengers disgorged to take out my backfield assassin, and the two crisis suits moved forward to break shields. The surviving Crimson Hunter flew off the board to enter ongoing reserves.
The Skyray unleashed hell upon my loaded Vendetta, but only managed to shake me and remove a single hull point. The Dire Avengers shot up my Assassin who somehow managed to only take a single wound, leaving it with one. Meanwhile more shield madness, the two crisis suits shots bounced off void shields, failing to remove any. The Eldar Titan then proceeded to remove another unlucky razorback, and the remaining void shields. It did shoot its S5 missiles at the Callidus to try and get her out of the Tau's backfield, and the Callidus luckily made both of its saves.
Grey Knight Turn 3
In the center of the board. My vendetta flew off the field (the other one failed to come in). However, my command squad inside attempted a risky drop and scattered to a favorable position within double tap range of the Wave Serpent. They proceeded to blow it up with orders to make it re-roll cover saves. Dreadnoughts killed the last two crisis suits, and the callidus now about to make its value known, killed the Dire Avengers in assault (one died to the template shot). It then consolidated behind a rock to guard an objective.
My surviving plasma teams (which were dying to their own guns as well), gunned down the Wraithguard to a man, and the surviving spiritseer, went down to the remaining vet squad rapid fire.
My Stormraven had flown right in front of the Revenant and unleashed everything it had. Not a single hull point. (my multi-melta rolled double ones for penetration), and everything else failed to hit it.
4 shields regenerated this round.
Taudar Turn 4
The Crimson Hunter then came in aiming at removing the stormraven from the skies, of which it failed to remove it due to evasive rolls saving its butt. With very little to remove void shields left on the Taudar side, the Revenant Titan moved foward 36", but was still outside of the 12 void shield bubble.
My Command Squad that had risked a jump from the Vendetta got shot to down to a man from remaining forces Taudar, and void shields were removed.
Grey Knights Turn 4
The Titan was coming in hard, and it was time to throw everything at it. Both Vendettas were coming in, my Stormraven flew off the board. Everything else turned on the Eldar Titan. Amazingly 3 surviving Razorbacks and the remaining plasma gunners failed to do any damage, (those holofields protected it well). However, the Dreadnoughts then turned to shoot. The first of which hit it hard, doing an amazing 5 hull points of damage with penetrating hits. The others failed to holofields, and the final Vendetta struck, doing the last two remaining hull points and downing the Revenant Titan.
With nothing really left on the Taudar side of the table, we called it, and tallied up the points at the end of round 4.
Grey Knights: 8
Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker, one objective, and three victory points from the Titan
Taudar with Revenant Titan: 2
First Blood and Slay the Warlord.
In the end, we both looked at the game over all, and the regenerating void shields were on the verge of collapse every round, and should of went down more than once, leaving them exposed. If the titan had been sitting in the backfield to protect itself, it really didnt have enough shots to get through the shields, which late game were becoming stronger and stronger with the loss of firepower able to be brought against them. Getting into Void shields is vital to taking them down, as more generators is viable at this point level.
Were there mistakes in the game, probably, but we played to the best of what we could at that moment. Both of our lists could of been more efficient in a couple areas, and like always dice came and went. Overall though the game was a desperate battle, and the line between complete devastation seemed to be a thin veil of luck and positioning.
I had rolled the no scattering warlord trait in escalation, and if I had been a drop pod army, the revenant would not of survived that. But then again you can what if a game til the sun comes up.
I'm tired and taking a break.
