12.12.22 1850 Harlistar/Invisi-council vs Chaos Space Marines

Note: I used Psychic Powers incorrectly so I deem that I lost lost this game.  Take from the Battle Report, BatRep, what you will.

Set up a game with Shawn a couple of days ago.  Turns out one of his boys wanted to play me.  So there was a change of plan.  What I thought was going to be an Eldar vs Eldar game turned into an Eldar vs Chaos Space marines.  Little worried that it would change my game plan.  Invisi-council is coined by Fritz.

Abaddon eyeballs a squad of Guardians near an objective.

Seems a lot of people are googling Harlistar.  Specifically they are googling "What is Harlistar Eldar?"  To answer the question.  It is a Harlequin-centric hard to beat Eldar army designed to use Shadowseer's Veil of Tears with a hard to kill HQ and Eldrad's Fortune cast upon them to re-roll any failed save.

Longer mechanical inclined answer.  Veil of Tears Eldar FAQ pg 2 upper right gives the squad Stealth 40k6 pg 42 and Shrouded 40k6 pg 41.  This confers a 4+ cover save in the open.  The hard to kill HQ is usually Feugan.  Like all Pheonix Lords he has Eternal Warrior.  Cannot be instant killed.  He has 2+ armour save.  The main reason he is picked because he has the special rule Feel No Pain, FNP.  Eldrad's Fortune cast upon the squad allows the squad to re-roll failed saves.  When this squad is positioned in a way that the shooting squad has to fire through another squad things become awesome.  Intervening models provide a 5+ cover save 40k6 pg 18.  Stealth and Shroud stack giving the squad 2+ cover save out in the open.  Meaning they are not in area terrain.  Feugan is placed infront of the squad as the closest model.  Wound pool is assigned to him.  He is rolling 2+ cover, or armour, save with re-rolls.  What 1 he rolls for the first save usually doesn't happen second time.  Chance of rolling 1 twice in a row is 1 in 36.  When that happens Feugan can use his 5+ FNP.  With Eternal Warrior he takes only one wound when the shot is instant death.  The squad he's with simply moves across the board to their destination soaking up shots, saving wounds left and right and generally upsetting their opponent.  Potentially making said opponent go into a fit a rage.

First of all one of the main tactics of this army tonight wasn't my brain-child.  Actually its Fritz's.  He deserves the credit.  I won't take any.  He came up with this Invisi-council Eldar tactic.  I used it with Harlistar.  It was crushing.  Of course many 40k'ers are already nay-saying the Harlistar tactic by coming up with doomsday scenarios how it wouldn't work because of X or Y.  They would be happy to hear that the scenario only came up once in tonights game and it did worry me for a second.  Kept my head in the game.  My eye on the ball and it did not let it frustrate me.

Regarding those "doomsday scenarios" when you use this against someone for the first time they aren't going to have a lot of template weapons.  Second time they most likely will.  Third time definitely.  Tournaments, nope.  When that happens you adapt or become obsolete.

How does Fritz's Invisi-counsil work?

Quick answer (in the creators own words, worth the read): Fritz's awesome Eldar tictacs

Game Mechanic answer:

Telepathy Invisibility result of 5 on table 40k6 mini-rule book pg 147.  Invisibility allows squad to have both Stealth and Shrouded. Conceal; Eldar Warlock power Eldar Codex 4th ed pg 28: Warlocks whole squad receives a 5+ cover save.  Squad starts with 5+.  Shrouded makes that 5+ actually 3+.  Stealth stacks with Shrouded to make 3+ actually 2+ cove save.

Now since that is out of the way.  Onto the BatRep.

Wore my new red Permanent Skin Art (where I go for all my tattoos) t-shirt.

Mission: Big Guns Never Tire.  Deployment: Hammer and Anvil.

Chaos Space Marines list.

Abaddon, Ahriman, 3 Obliterators, 5 Chosen, 2x 10 Chosen in Rhinos, 2x 10 Chaos Cultists, 5 Terminators, Heldrake and Vindicator.  Abaddon and Ahriman are with terminators.  Has five scoring units.  5 Chosen and one Chaos Cultists squad sit on one objective.  Another Chaos Cultists squad sit on the other.

Harlistar list.

Eldrad, Olonora (Farseer [my golden boy]) w/Spirit Stones and Runes of Witnessing; Fortune and Guide, 10 Warlocks; 1 Conceal; 1 Enhance; 1 Embolden; 7 Destructor, ten Harlequins; 1 Shadowseer; 1 Death Jester; 2 Fusion Pistol; 8 Kisses, 10 Guardians with Bright Lance weapon platform, 5 Dire Avengers, Falcon w/Bright Lance; Buanna (shuriken cannon); Spirit Stones; Holo-field, Fire Prism; Buanna; Spirit Stones; Holo-field, 5 Striking Scorpions and 3 War Walkers w/Star Cannons; Holo-field and Spirit Stones.  Eldrad joins Harlequins and Olonora stays with her Warlocks.

Note: I kept Eldrad's Fortune and Guide Psychic Powers instead of rolling a new one on the Telepathy table.  That was incorrect per Eldar FAQ pg 1 bottom right.  Same goes for Olonora.  Giving credit where it is due: Thanks, Anon 9:56pm, for catching my mistake.  Look forward to using the new version of this list against you.

(correct way to use this is to exchange just Eldrad's powers for Telepathy powers.  Your other Farseer has Fortune and maybe Guide.  Fortune for obvious reason.  Guide so the Seer Council can re-roll misses when assaulting.  Keep Eldrad infront.  Conceal  Warlock in back.  Farseer in the middle.  I'll  make a post about it.)

The plan is a simple one.  Switch out Eldrad's and Olonora's powers from Telepathy til Invisibility is procured.  Eldrad finally had it on the third roll.  Traded Eldrich Storm, Mind War and Doom for it.  Keep Olonora close to Eldrad and have the olde Farseer cast Invisibility.  They move up the field together taking down anything they want.  Two farseers cast Fortune on their own squads to re-roll their failed saves.  Eldrad is infront of Harlequins so he can use his 3++ instead of 2+ cover when weapon ignores cover.  Same for Olonora.  Will probably put Olonora in the middle of the Warlocks next time.  To avoid that instant death failed wound.  Troops sit back on the objectives deep in my deployment zone.  Skimmers also sit back shooting anything that will threaten the troops objectives.  War Walkers do their stuff with 2x S6 Ap 2 Heavy 2 shots (I Really Love these guys).  Striking Scorpions are there because I had 80 extra points (they did almost nothing).

Chubbs won roll off and decided to deploy and go first.

One last note.  I was kicking myself all evening.  I've been looking forward to this game for the last 48 hrs and forgot my Harlequins at home.  They are the soon-to-be Grey Knight case.  Been meaning to pick up a little case just for my Harlequins.  Will make that a priority now.  Banshees are proxy for Harlequins.  Jain-Zar Shadowseer.  Karandras Death Jester.

Our stage of massacre Sat evening.

Chaos Space Marines deploy.

Eldar deploy.

Didn't try to seize initiative.  Should try next time.  Olonora's Warlord trait has Night Fight first turn.

Top of first.  Vindicator launches its round.  It takes out three Harlequins and two Warlocks.  No cover saves because nothing has been cast yet, grrr.  5 Chosen sit on Objective with 10 cultists in far middle.  10 cultists sit on Objective behind far wall.

Bottom of first.  Cast Invisibility.  Move up Olonora and entourage.  Eldrad with Harlequins.  Fire Prism takes out Vindicator.  First Blood 1 VP Eldar.  War Walkers take out near Rhino.  Dire Avengers sit on Objective behind wall in far back.  Guardians sit on their objective behind far rock.

Top of second.  Invisibility and Veil of Tears with failed save re-rolls per Fortune are helping tons.  Haven't lost a model yet.  Chosen from Rhino War Walkers wrecked shoot them assault the walkers.  Shooting takes out one walker.  Four glances and last two are removed.  Far 10 Chosen assault Eldrad and Harlequins.  WS 1 does wonders for saving tender Eldar.  Chosen lose combat and fall back.  For some reason Eldar don't want to catch them.

Bottom of second.  Eldrad and Harlequins cut down the fleeing Chosen.  Seer Council are moving up also. Fire Prism, Falcon, Guardians and one Striking Scorpion shoot into the few Chosen remaining on the right side of the board.  Single model falls back. 

Top of third.  I get a little worried because Heldrake shows up with flamer.  Takes out some Harlequins.  Abaddon and friends are moving up.  Not fast enough to be a threat.

Bottom of third.  Guardians pull back to be outside of assault range of Terminators.  Fire Prism and Falcon remove several terminators.  Eldrad and Harlequins assault Chosen on objective.  The goal is to cut a bloody path across the field from one objective to another remove scoring units from them.  That assault will save the Harlequins from the flamer.  Seer Council on other hand.  Obliterators have only fired once.

Top of fourth.  Cultists pull back to not be caught up in the Harlequins after the Chosen are removed.  Heldrake flamers Seer Council.  Rune Armour and Fortune only removes a model.

Bottom of fourth.  More shooting into Abaddon's squad, only him and Ahriman remain.  Abaddon takes a wound.  My Harlequins aren't tired of their toy yet so they keep the two Chosen in H2H, hand-to-hand.

Top of fifth.  This is where things go really wrong.  Heldrake flies up board to take Dire Avengers off their objective.  In a way I don't blame him.  Trying to mitigate the point spread at the end of the game.  Harlequins are looking for new play things and head towards cultists.  Seer Council does the same.  They have carved a disgustingly bloody path across the board.  Nothings stopping them.

Bottom of fifth.  Abaddon takes two more wounds from Falcon and Fire Prism.  Move up one Guardians so that one can be within 3" of objective.  Cultists are gone and consolidate towards Cultists in objective in foreground.  Chubb's knows this.  He hopes he rolls the die to end the game so it would be 4-3 Harlistar.

Rolls die for turn 6.  Four comes up.  Onto more Chaos killing.

Top of sixth.  Heldrake takes out last Dire Avenger.  Abaddon moves up to take Guardians off objective.  Doesn't bother rolling assault distance.

Abaddon must be nearsighted.  I wouldn't poke my head around this corner.  If I did I would sure as hell roll the dice for the chance to assault the Guardians.

Eldrad and Harlequins with Seer Council converge on the Cultists on their objective.  Down to the last two.  Eldrad with staff that ignores armour saves does three wounds to them.

Win 5-0 Harlistar vs Chaos Space Marines.  Correction: Lost per incorrect use of Psychic Powers thanks to Anon 9:56pm.

Since it was one of Shawn's boys I decided to not sugar-coat anything during game debriefing.

Told him he had terrible game and really needs to work on it.  Then provided a list of things for him to work on.

*His terminators didn't shoot their Storm Bolters at all.
*Rhino that was still on the table didn't do anything the rest of the game.  He thought it was immobilized.  Didn't even shoot with it once.
*Obliterators were too far away.  Deploy them at 24".  They will attract fire.  They are also heavy.  Could've sat them on an objective in his deployment.
*Get rid of the Heldrake.  Put those points elsewhere.
*Abaddon, Ahriman and Terminators could've moved to Seer Council and tied them up in H2H for multiple turns.

He came up with one.  He didn't use any of Ahriman's powers til turn 5.  He said he completely forgot about Big Guns Never Tire.  Told him because he was Shawn's boy I wasn't planning on pulling any punches.  I was out for blood.  Informed him that next time we play he can ask me to take it easier on him and/or help him out with in game tactics.

The number of Harlequins lost during the entire battle 6, Warlocks 3.  Already working on polishing the Invisi-council to make it better.  Thanks again, Fritz.


slainte mhath