Weapons testing field

This last Sunday myself and a few friends decided to have a game of warhammer 40k. However this wasn’t really a game. You know those tutorial levels on video games where they give you the best guns just so you can get a preview for what things will be like later on? Well that was basically this game. My opponents where Ethan and Jayden (my fellow authors here on the NZ version of The Dice Odyssey), and my fellow weapons testing target was Arnold, a friend and member of the local gaming club.

The lists don’t matter, all that matters was that Ethan had recently acquired and built a Eldar Revenant Titan and wanted to try out .

The Eldar Grim Reaper

I was using my Space Wolves and Arnold was using Dark Eldar, and of course both Jayden and Ethan were using Eldar. The battle weapons testing field looked like this.

The Weapons Testing Field, complete with cardboard cover

Myself and Arnold (the weapons testing targets) attempted to deploy in a way that blocked the Titan's line of sight. However the Titan was the tallest thing on field and so this proved fruitless .

"So this Titan is big right?"

The eldar deployed gunline style. It was kind of a waste, they were only there to watch the show.

The Eldar cheer leading squads

We sized the initiative (yaay) and began to move forwards. I had in my army both Njal Stormcaller and a Rune Priest. The plan was to get Njal within 24 of the Titan and Jaws of the World Wolf it (it only has Initiative 2 so on a 4 or more it would die). Unfortunately Njal and the Rune Priest died before getting anywhere near 24 inches of the titian.  

The plan going wrong

I do think that Arnold and myself did as well as we could given the circumstances. His Raiders and Ravagers took a heavy toll on Jayden’s eldar (accounting for a squad of Striking Scorpions, in cover, and the majority of a howling banshee squad as well as other assorted eldar) his jetbikes ran over the shinning spears and killed 2 out of 3, and his flyer knocked the fight out of the shadow specters (and the life out of 3 of them).

A Dark Eldar hit-and-run is a violent thing

For my part I did some damage. Once again the Thunder wolves (accompanied by a wolf lord on a Thunderwolf) were the unit of the match of me, killing those pesky warp spiders, causing a squad of guardians to flee and being my last unit left alive. The wolf lord challenged Jayden’s Autarch and this time won, smunching the puny space elf with his thunder hammer. He then stood his ground as a horde of Eldar surrounded him and cut him down, a fitting end for a space Viking riding a monster wolf. 

The Thunderwolves eating some Eldar

The Eldar side murdered us. Ethan was the primary murderer, as he had a Titan, a Wraith Knight and a fire prism. The Titan reaped a horrifying toll as it could fire its two main weapons at different targets, it killed the raiders first then moved onto the space wolves. The Wraith knight was eventually brought low (thanks to Arnold's remaining vehicles) but not before killing poor Njal. The Eldar flyers took a toll, knocking out Arnold's flyer and then sowing death amongst our ranks. The Eldar infantry did very little, by the time they could do something my squads ( I was running forward while Arnold was being more tactical) had been whittled down by Wraith Knight and Titan fire

 

The Titan surveying its work

There was one huge and very important lesson to come out of this game, and that was Don’t use apocalypse models in a non-apocalypse game. But wait, you say , surely the Titan must cost a tonne points wise and if you have equal points to your opponents then you should be able to beat them. Not so. Apocalypse models have such powerful rules that even though it did cost a lot and we did have equal points to our opponents we still couldn’t beat it. Imagine if a Leman Russ Demolisher could take two Demolisher Cannons and fire them at different targets. That would represent a fraction of the fire power that the Titian could bring to bear on us.

Titan victory dance

So remember dear readers that fighting a titan without super heavy support is like bringing a knife to a gun fight, just that the knife is a mouldy stick and the gun is a mini-gun, that fires explosive shots, and has auto target lock, and is strapped to the back of a armoured fighting bear.

Until next time.

Rex