Return to Competitive 40K: Full Auto Tournament

Here we are, part 3 of my journey with Eldar. It’s been a ride hasn’t it? I’ve returned from my first tournament with them and it was: Good.

The list changed a fair bit since the last blog so before anything, I want to show you what I’ve been running:

Aeldari
Strike Force (2000 points)
Battle Host

CHARACTERS

Autarch Wayleaper (140 points)
• Warlord
• 1x Dragon fusion gun
1x Howling Banshee Mask
1x Star glaive
• Enhancement: The Phoenix Gem

Avatar of Khaine (335 points)
• 1x The Wailing Doom

Farseer (80 points)
• 1x Eldritch Storm
1x Shuriken pistol
1x Witchblade

OTHER DATASHEETS

Falcon (140 points)
• 1x Bright lance
1x Pulse laser
1x Twin shuriken catapult
1x Wraithbone hull

Fire Dragons (85 points)
• 1x Fire Dragon Exarch
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Dragon fusion gun
• 4x Fire Dragon
• 4x Close combat weapon
4x Dragon fusion gun

Rangers (55 points)
• 5x Ranger
• 5x Close combat weapon
5x Ranger long rifle
5x Shuriken pistol

Shroud Runners (80 points)
• 3x Shroud Runner
• 3x Close combat weapon
3x Ranger long rifle
3x Scatter laser
3x Shuriken pistol

Support Weapons (125 points)
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x D-cannon
1x Shuriken catapult

Swooping Hawks (75 points)
• 1x Swooping Hawk Exarch
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Hawk’s talon
• 4x Swooping Hawk
• 4x Close combat weapon
4x Lasblaster

Warp Spiders (115 points)
• 1x Warp Spider Exarch
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Death spinner
1x Death spinner
1x Powerblades
• 4x Warp Spider
• 4x Close combat weapon
4x Death spinner

Firstly, I dropped the Yncarne. Surprised? I’m not. This unit has always failed me in every way. Dies quickly (because I’m bad,) hits nothing (because I’m cursed,) and always rolls a 1 on its damage (because I don’t cheat.) Honestly, kind of a loser if we’re being honest here. Also the sword has snapped every game I’ve ever played her in so I’m biased.

What did I get for taking her out? Oh buddy.

Double D-Cannons. Every game I had I would suffer against all these crazy toughness 11-12, 4+ invulnerable save monsters that I had to hope I’d get lucky to kill with fire dragons and falcons. Do you know what requires no luck? Turning that useless 1 on a fate die into a 6 for some dev wounds. Bye-bye Maleceptor (Loser.) Having a board wide threat is also nice, helping to backup the absolute giga-chad of the list Khain when he needs it, or cracking open a Rhino quickly for the Warp Spiders. These things rock. Two might be one too many, but I’m comfortable with it for now.

The list also gained back Rangers and one squad of Swooping Hawks. These were just cheap objective grabbers and screening units. Love hawks, but I’m super indifferent about rangers. If I could find 25 more points for another Shroud Runner squad instead, that would make me happy.

Other changes to the list include finalizing having the fire dragons all use the base melta. The few times I wanted that assault keyword, it really hurt. I haven’t regretted it yet and given they usually have full re-roll wounds from the falcon it’s been smooth.

Shroud runners and Wayleaper continue to be amazing, always getting me Deploy Teleport Homers turn 1 and 5. If you list doesn’t run a Wayleaper, I’m convinced it’s an awful list.

In total, post tournament, I have played 23 games with Aeldari. My wins are slightly below my losses but my games are all super close.

My performance from the start of this adventure is so noticeable it’s honestly night and day. I have had to morph as a player to get any success. Sometimes the old aggressive Josh who likes to slam everything in the middle shows up and loses a game, but the new calm Josh is a nice guy who gets to look big brain once every three games. Thanks fire and fade.

Before I go over the tournament I want to throw out some tips to any aspiring Aeldari players out there who want to avoid my unending suffering.

The first is to take your time in the movement phase. Your army is already elite enough that no other phase will take that much time. If you get shot you’re done playing the game with those models, so make sure you’re not rushing the boring movement part to get to the “D-Canon go brrrr” part of the game. You won’t get to do the fun part more than once if you don’t take the time.

Khain is your best friend and can do whatever he wants on his own. Find your opponents weak flank, send all your stuff there, and then send Khain to hold off their scary stuff. I promise you, unless it’s melta guns (Yes, melta ignores the half damage) or something that ignores modifiers, he will survive 3 turns minimum and take out a good chunk of the enemy with him.

Slow roll. If you use your fate dice on the first roll, you’re wasting your fate dice. Turns out only having 6 is rough. Roll to hit first, then use your Eldar re-roll to replace the dice. Same with the wound roll. Does Khain have to make 5 saves? Roll the first 4 before you use a fate dice. He’s either passing them all, or the dice gods have forsaken you. Luckily we don’t need the dice gods anymore, we have: A 4 on the fate dice. Hell yeah.

Don’t get baited into not doing your secondary’s. Deploy Teleport Homers is guaranteed 20 if you’re not bad like me. Then just take assassinate/bring it down/behind enemy lines. It’s really fun and tempting to try and use all your hawks to kill off their Marine Scout unit, but that doesn’t get me 4 victory points. It gets me my opponent shrugging going: “Yeah that was my chaff haha.” Steal primary with your cheap stuff, score big on it later. Missing secondary’s will lose you the game every time.

The best advice I was ever given was “Don’t get shot.” Thanks Arthur.

Onto the event!

The Red Claw Full Auto is a very special event in my heart. Up until February this year, I was running it. I no longer can for a thousand reason, primarily school, but when I was in charge of it I put my heart into it and really gave it the shakeup it needed to be successful today under its new organizer Dan. Dan is already doing things way better than I ever could and I couldn’t be happier that he’s steering the ship now.

With that being said, yeah, I’m a little bias.

The format was GW terrain, which is the only way to play this game in any capacity competitively. Fight me. Its enough cover with uncomplicated terrain rules to make the play experience smooth. And gives melee armies a chance against those pesky T’au (Foreshadowing is a literary device) helping prevent a turn 1 tabling. Getting to use all your expensive toys? Crazy. What a concept.

Some of the tables lacked the needed 4″ measurement between templates but that was easily fixable on the players part. Turns out conversation between players is a part of the game. Incredible.

Enough of the preamble, let’s get into the game.

Game 1: Tyranids – Crusher Stampede

Mission: Vital Ground, Chilling Rain, Dawn of War

Nothing is better than waking up at 7 a.m. to find out you get to play one of your main practice partners, Logan, who I’ve lost too every time for the last year. No matter what, I always lost against his Crusher Stampede list. So I went into this match already thinking I had lost.

I had deployed pretty terribly, with 2 of my falcons super visible to 2 exocrine and a Tyranofex. So as far as I was concerned, it was pretty over.

Then he whiffed all his dice rolls (Foreshadowing is a literary device). It was honestly incredible.

My turn rolls around and my Warp Spiders kill his Biovore turn 1 as is there Khain given right. Some falcons take out the Tyranofex on the left side of the map. Then the D-Cannons take out a Maleceptor. Honestly, I could not have asked for a better turn.

His turn 2 was the same as his turn 1, just nothing happened. Khain got charged, Khain did Khain things. I think I lost 3 fire dragons that turn. With nothing to shoot Spore Mines for secondary’s every turn, his Trygon just deep struck in the back and did Deploy every turn. Making one of his worst to deal with threats do nothing.

Turn 3 was a bit different. Things started to go his way and Khain stopped existing, no longer able to challenge his primary scoring. In addition, my Falcon was destroyed, which exploded, killing another Falcon. It turned it into anyone’s game turn 3 which was fun and dramatic.

He got really tricky when he auto exploded his Exocrene to kill my 1 Warp Spider behind the wall to stop my Deploy that turn. I felt like a real dummy, it was awesome.

On the last round, nearly everything of mine battle-shocked, which really hurt my ability to sneak some last minute primary. This game was everything awesome about 40k. Just sweet automated story telling.

Final score: 74 – 61 Win

Plus a picture of Logan looking so handsome and strong!

Game 2: Death Guard

Mission: Supply Drop, Secret Intel, Sweeping Engagement

This is one of the harder matchups for Aeldari I think. Mortarion and some Plagueburst ignore all modifiers to thin out your scoring pieces, then just out attrition your damage.

I had lots of practice before this game against Death Guard so I wasn’t in the dark. The opponent picked the -1 save plague instead of -1 BS/WS which was really good for me I think. Everything is 1 AP away from their 5+ invulnerable anyways, so it wasn’t too bad. Just made taking out fire dragons easier. Pro’s and cons.

The mission came in my favor for deployment. with the omega objective being mostly unguarded by his army and in an opportune place for mine. While the alpha objective was closest to his.

I really misplayed a lot of the later turns however. I lost easily about 20 primary by not grabbing an objective with my swooping hawks and Autarch around turn 3-4. Which might have been ok if I went second, but going first calls for a different game plan.

Regardless, the highlights of this game was definitely Mortarion charging Khain, whiffing, then getting beat down by our favorite war god. His ignoring modifiers makes that damage 4 so scary its wild.

Also can we talk about Typhus? D6 mortals on a 2+ is crazy. Man he’s so good. Playing this game made me so sad to sell my Deathguard back in December. Really happy to see this army doing so well.

Shout out to my opponent too. I’ve watched him become such a good player since the first time I played him. Guys got me stressing against Death Guard. Crazy.

Final score: 63 – 63 Tie

Game 3: Space Marines – Vanguard Spearhead

Mission: Priority Targets, Delayed Reserves, Hammer and Anvil

Calgar Eradicator Brick, Centurion Brick, 12 Inceptors. 2×3 Bolter, 1×6 Plasma.

This was so rough my brother in Khain.

My opponent really misplayed his Calgar brick deployment, so I got some really good D-Cannon shots on them. The sad part is my 10 warp spiders chose to roll a total of like 4 devastating wounds against the brick. My all in really, really didn’t pay off.

My real only hope for this mission was that delayed reserves would stop his inceptors from deepstriking 3″ away and wiping my backline.

It in fact: did not stop his reserves.

It was pretty clear once split firing was able to kill everything in my backline that I was not winning this game. Maybe if the Spiders did more and lived I would of been able to keep playing the hold 2 primary game while doing secondary’s game better, but that was not the case.

I did what Logan did my first 3 turns and rolled so bad it was crazy (There’s that foreshadowing I was talking about). I don’t blame the dice for this game, I played bad. But man they were not helping.

If my opponent wasn’t so chill I might have been salty, but we had good round 3 vibes and that was ok.

Honestly, I did way better this game than I thought I would. Once I realized I had lost, I just did my best to have two objectives at all times and to score my secondary’s. Not my worst, not my best either.

Final score: 77 – 95 Loss

That’s all there is to the event. It was a good time and as always I learned a lot. It’s always good to have an event that’s a bit more laid back, a nice small group of people who you all know. My only complaint is the event ending at 8.

Mans that’s so late.

I’ve been doing this Aeldari thing non-stop for 3 months, and I think it’s time to take a small break from them. The T’au codex is on the horizon and I bought a bunch stupidly last year and hardly played them. Maybe it’s time to justify the buy (There’s that other foreshadowing, incase you’re wondering.) Or uh, if you want to buy my T’au hit me up I guess.

To really close this out I wish to leave us with a quote:

If Josh doesn’t sniff glue like he always does, he’ll win this whole thing.
Jeremy

I’ll never stop sniffing glue and you can’t make me. 9th place for life.

See you soon. Drink water.

Stay Safe.