Team Tournament Game 1 Results vs Blood Angels & Eldar

This is the first of 3 reports of the games from the Team Tournament that I played with Caanaan at Games 2D4.

Our first game was against GraveMind, who was playing his new Blood Angels army.  At the last minute, GraveMind's team-mate bailed on him, and he was paired with Mike, who was playing Eldar.  The mission was Anhillation with Pitched Battle deployment.

Their army was as follows:



Captain w/combi-melta & power sword
Retinue w/4 meltaguns & flamer in a drop pod
5 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield Terminators
5-man assault squad in a Razorback w/lascannons
10-man assault squad w/jump packs
2 Land Speeder Typhoons

Jetbike Farseer w/Eldritch Storm and Mind War
Wraithguard w/Warlock
2 squads of Rangers
Falcon w/missile launcher
2 Wraithlords with missile launchers

We set up our units on our right side, keeping the Penitent Engines under the cover of the sturdier vehicles and a squad of Storm Troopers.  I wanted to try and keep my close combat units out of his melta range.  The drop pod came down as expected immediately in front of the Land Raider and Penitent Engines.  The screen that we had put up to protect the PE would be enough, and the shots would prove to be ineffectual.

We would charge into the command squad and drop pod with the Emperors Champion and 14-man squad, and tried to get into combat with the Penitent Engines.  Being out of melta range, he fired at the closest unit, the Storm Troopers, who immediately broke and ran off.  Here is where we made a mistake.  There was too much stuff in that area to allow the Penitent Engines to fit into combat and it ended up taking 3 rounds of combat to finish off the command squad with the 15-man Crusader Squad (damn Feel No Pain!).

This would set the tone for the rest of the battle.  GraveMind's army came at us piecemeal, and we were able to put most of our combined forces against a small portion of his without much meddling from the Eldar, which stayed to our left flank.

We wound up winning the game 6 kill points to 5.  We learned a few things about our combined force, and about playing team games in general.

• Lesson one is to play quickly.  A team game can quickly eat up time when each team deliberates amongst itself.  We only got through 4 turns, but were able to pull off a win by taking the available kill points when they presented themselves.  Mike's Eldar were in position to engage our army on the next turn, had we gotten to take it.
• Lesson two is to practice.  This was our first game playing with two armies on one table.  The Penitent Engines have a very large footprint, and got held up between our own units, preventing them from getting into hand to hand (the only place they can do much damage).
• Lesson 3 is to know your army.  Mike brought an Eldar force that he hadn't played since 3rd Ed.  This caused him to play very timidly, and his units were not used in conjunction with GraveMind's Blood Angels.