Batrep: 1850 Eldar vs Imperial Guard

Melvin will be playing the Imperial Guard (IG) in this batrep and myself, the Eldar. I split one of my War Walkers into the other Heavy choice so it is now 2 War Walkers and 1 War Walker. Totally forgot about First Blood! What a blunder...

Anyway, we rolled the following:
Mission: Emperor's Will
Deployment: Dawn of War

My list is the same as the previous game in trying to learn and master a list first. It also allows me to focus the painting on these units:

Farseer: Mantle of the Laughing God, Runes of Witnessing, Witchblade, Jetbike [Warlord]
Farseer: Runes of Witnessing, Singing Spear, Jetbike
Fire Dragons x6: Wave Serpent - Holofields, Twin Linked Scatter Lasers (proxy), Shuriken Cannon (proxy)
Guardians x10: Wave Serpent - Holofields, Twin Linked Scatter Lasers (proxy), Shuriken Cannon (proxy)
Dire Avengers x10: Wave Serpent - Holofields, Twin Linked Scatter Lasers (proxy), Shuriken Cannon (proxy)
Windrider Jetbike x3
Windrider Jetbike x3
Warp Spiders x8
Warp Spiders x8
Fire Prism: Holo Fields
War Walker x3: Bright Lance (proxy), Scatter Laser

Melvin brought a simple "IG Net List which comprised Veterans and Melta spam" (his words not mine)

Company Command Squad, 3x Melta, Chimera
3x Veteran Squads 3x Melta, Chimera
3x Veteran Squads 3x Melta, Vendetta
3x Demolisher

Finally got Fortune on the Warlord. He also managed to secure Fate's Messenger as a Warlord Trait. 

Eldar Deployment

IG Deployment

Melvin recently finished painting these from his Deadzone Kickstarter pack so I wanted to showcase the lovingly painted terrain here

As the Eldar hover into view, they were going to prevent the Imperial fools from digging too deep into the recesses of this planet

Turn 1 IG: Melvin advanced his Chimeras and Leman Russ Demolisher 6" forward to fire all their weapons at me

Tank formation spread out. Melvin fired a lot this turn and managed to remove one Hull Point from my Guardian Serpent

Turn 1 Eldar: I advanced my Serpents up 6" to fire all their weapons. Did not realise that the Demolisher had a ARM13 at the front. Wow that thing is tough

Managed to ping off enough Hull Points on the Chimera which resulted in an explosion, killing off majority of the unit

Melvin did one Hull Point to the Guardian Serpent in Turn 1

Fired my weapons at the Chimera and busted it in return

Turn 2 IG: Melvin's Vendetta's arrive. 2 out of 3. 

Meanwhile his men jumped out of the wreck to try to melta my Avenger Serpent

Melvin moved up his tanks to push me back to my table half. A very aggressive IG army

Each Chimera contained 3 Meltas so it allowed the IG to close in quickly and safely

Turn 2 Eldar: I actually moved my units on the right flank back and the units in the centre sideways to counter Melvin's hard push

I was struggling to take down his vehicles. I have not seen such a vehicle spam in awhile

Turn 3 IG: another Vendetta shows up and zooms quickly for my lines

Melvin manages to destroy one War Walker and leave the other on 1 Hull Point. It was also stunned, effectively removing it from the game for one turn

Boom! The Dragon Serpent was destroyed by combined arms

Turn 3 Eldar: I disembarked my Dire Avengers since the Avenger Serpent was immobilized and moved back out to the building.

Meanwhile this group of Spiders went into the IG deployment zone 

To bust this Demolisher from the back

Ran the Avengers into the building as much as possible - I wanted to use their pseudo Rending to take out the Vendettas in the next turn

Left side of the field

In my shooting phase, I turbo boosted the 2 jetbikes which just arrived from Reserves deep into his table to capture an objective

Turn 4 IG: Melvin drops his men via drop chutes! 

And drops another unit on the other side. The Avengers were in trouble

Surprisingly though, Melvin chose to take out the Avenger Serpent, saving my Avengers! 

Meanwhile the other unit shot into the rear of my Guardian Serpent, also destroying it

Warp Spiders jumped out into the open to hunt down the Vendetta

Turn 4 Eldar: Shuriken fire is an IG Guardsmen's worst nightmare. Managed to take out both with two separate units. 

Turn 5 IG: Melvin knew that he had First Blood and I had Slay the Warlord. We were both also sitting on our Objectives. If he could slay my warlord, he could win this game on 1 point

Just cinematic. Str8 weapons meant that if I failed to save just 1 shot, I would lose the Farseer. As luck would have it, I survived! 

IG men disembarked and shot into the lonely Jetbike

Killed the Jetbiker and captured the Objective, netting him 4 points thus far

Eldar Turn 5: A view from the top

An overall view of the battlefield from the top. Melvin called the game at this stage. 

We concluded that the Eldar would have won regardless of the Turns going up to 7.

I had Slay the Warlord (1 VP), Objective (3 VP) and Linebreaker (1VP)
Melvin had Firstblood (1 VP) and Linebreaker (1VP)

My last unit of White Jetbikers would have just turbo boosted up to capture the last point on his side. Personally I felt that Melvin should have continued but I guess it was a difference between drawing and losing.

These two Troop choices were not going anywhere in a hurry

The White Jetbiker just at the periphery of this photo would have contested and if they failed would have left this game in a draw. 

A good game nonetheless as it was quite hard to play against such an aggressive IG list. One thing I will not do is to separate the War Walkers. This game also made me realised the importance of the Holo Fields and Fire Prism without which I would not have survived long enough or damage potential against his Demolisher. I will keep working on polishing up this army from a paintjob perspective.