Gladiator Tournament: Bigred’s Journey
So there I was all ready to go in the big hall on Friday, at 11:00. I had already swiped a room-service tray (nice idea mkerr) to keep my army on and move it quickly, had my bag-o-dice, rulebook, rules packet, and finally 5 copies of my list.
The Big Secret
Now before I start, lets finally let the cat out of the bag on the true Evil of my Eldar Revenant list. I will first note several key points for you rules lawyers to chew on:
a) The Revenant is categorized as a: Superheavy, Tank, Skimmer, Fast (think about that for a while)
b) Titans can tankshock as deeply into their target units as they wish.
c) Units tankshocked by a titan make their leadership test at -1 or fallback.
d) Models who pass the tankshock test and have to move, are placed into BtB contact with the titan.
e) Titans get 2 attacks at WS:1, I:1, S:6 (ignores armour) on any model they end up in BtB contact with during the assault phase (only 1 attack per model if they are charged in the enemy assault phase).
f) At the end of any assault phase, if the Revenant’s opponents have not destroyed it, they automatically fallback (unless fearless)
g) The Revenant gets a 4+ invulnerable save against all shooting.
OK, now go look a few posts down and look at my Eldar list again. Remember the 2 farseers on jetbikes (so they can keep up with the Revenent)? One had Fortune and Guide, while the other has Fortune and Doom. What you really have are the ingrediants for one of 40k’s most terrifying units. A fast skimmer, that has the normal skimmer protections vs shooting and HtH (glances only and hit on a 6 in assault), with a 4+ invulnerable with a reroll (fortune) against any criticals that make it through to successfully glance. It usually does not shoot but when it does, it hits (guide), and pulsars kill whatever they hit (R:60″, S:9, AP:2, Heavy 2 , Blast, Lance). The Revenant has 2 of them. It will break any unit it can reach if they are not fearless.
The game is not so much 40k as bowling, with my general strategy as follows:
1) Locate the largest concentrations of critical non-fearless units in the enemy army.
2) Revenant move forward 12″ on turn one and fire the pulsar, leading the enemy into thinking this was to be a shooting game, and using the falcon as a lure in a very exposed position.
3) This usually drew the enemy forward into my army.
4) On turn 2, spring the trap, tankshocking the revenant 24″ into a set of adjacent units, still near the board edge and breaking them off the table.
5) Begin to rampage 24″ each turn repeating the process against the enemy army that is now running for its life, while gunning down escapees with the remainder of the army.
6) On turn 6, fast skimmers move full speed to take critical objectives (the revenant, tank-shocking anything left off of prmary objectives).
The Gladiator Tournament
Game 1: 12:00 Ultramarines.
His deployment was spead thinly out across his entire deployment edge, and 3 drop pods were to arrive mid-game. Very messy for my Revenent. It did not hit its first unit till turn 3, and the rest of army had to fight a traditional eldar positional battle with most of his forces, complicated by the rearfield arrival of 3 hamsterball-droppods, until about turn 5, when 5 units had been routed off the board. Turn 6 ended with the Revenant on the central objective and the fearless tatters of his army vainly trying to kill it in in HtH (2 dreadnoughts).
Results: SOLID VICTORY, I go and get a burger, famished.
Game 2: 2:30 Necrons.
Textbook game. His entire army stays on the board edge on turn one and shoots at my falcon, vyper, and revenant that advance and fire. Turn 2 the titan hits 2 Necron warrior units STILL TOUCHING, the board edge and they are gone. The player asked if this behavior will affect any non fearless units (he has none), and I say yes. He says “Well, then we are gonna have about an hour and a half to get some nice drinks at the bar”. Turn 3-4 break a further 4 units off the board resulting in a Necron phaseout after 30 minutes of the allotted 2 hours.
Results: COMPLETE VICTORY, Getting tired, I down a candybar and a soda.
Game 3: 5:00 Chaos Space Marines
I face a undivided force led by a 380pt Slaneeshi Siren lord and a 260pt Slaneeshi Siren Lieutenant (…yes I know, I did not have the CSM codex with me to validate this, my bad). The secondary mission objective in this game is to kill the highest cost enemy HQ. I hit his lines with the revenant on turn 2, and the terror begins. He calmly writes off all of his basic CSM squads and deepstrikes a unit of 3 Obliterators deep into my rear areas and vaporizes my hiding senior farseer in a volley of 3 linked melta shots. I am sad. I pulverize the meat of his army during the remaining turns while fleeing from his fearless siren lord who had reduced the titan to 0 structure points with a very lucky single melta hit. I end the game achieving all objectives except the secondary one.
Results: VICTORY, Really, really tired, its time for a Double Mocha from Starbucks
Game 4: 7:30 Eldar
I face a Dire avenger foot army led by Eldrad, supported by Dark Reapers, twin Warwalker squadrons, twin Harlequin troops, and the Avatar. I deploy the Revenant on my far left flank early, and he masses to face me, even using Eldrad to reposition some of his forces closer. On the top of turn one, my entire army moves 24″ laterally across my depoloyment edge to midfield. The foe’s Eldar army slowly follows on foot fleeting, and in turn leaves the Avatar and his 12″ fearless zone behind. On turn 2-4, my army turns in to fight on my right flank and the tankshocking begins in earnest. The fighting is bitter, and most of non-titan forces fall to his combined shooting (the warwalkers), and the harlequins, while the Revenant is breaking all of his avengers and and reapers, before doubling back on turn 6 to claim a right flank objective and tankshock the harlequins into falling back at the end of the game (counting as destroyed).
Result: SOLID VICTORY, Hits the hotel bar for celebratory shots!!!
…and I could have won it if it wasn’t for those damn meddling kids 😉
