2500 Doubles Tournament Practice

Hello and welcome to the first post! This blog serves to put everything 40k that I am doing out in a public forum. A little bit about me, I have been playing 40k since March of 2012, my first army was Dark Angels from the Dark Vengeance set, I had picked up about 5-7 of the Dark Angels sets to build up my army, but my first models were the Eldar. I built them up for my friend and I loved them all so much, that here I am now, I've sold every other army I've collected to focus and perfect my Eldar gameplay, painting, and collection. Now onto the content!

This last Saturday I played a practice game for an up coming (this weekend) doubles tournament at the FLGS. Rules being two players, 1250 each, 1 HQ, 2 Troops, 1 Elite, 1 Fast Attack, 1 Heavy Support, and 1 slot each (except HQ) to be shared between the team. So it's basically 2500, 1 Detachment, 2 players. For the sake of simplicity and 'balance', all teams are counted as Allies of Convenience, which means that there's no buddy-buddy transport riding, no psychic powers being shared, and you can't be within an inch of each other, seems okay.

Moving onto the game, this was Space Wolves and Astram Militarum vs Double Eldar! It was a really fun game that took us from about 1-6pm, going the full 7 turns, not something you see all the time. Since I didn't notes to write a battle report during the game, this will all just be what I remember. Lets start with the that were made. I only played with a 2250 list against their 2500 total list. Whoops, I don't know why but I just had in my head that it was 2250 not 2500. Second, my Space Wolves opponent took 2 Lone Wolves with dedicated transport Drop pods, he text me later saying that they lost that in the new codex and apologized, I just laughed it off. Third, I accidentally started playing my army as one, like battle brothers, so by the time we found out it was too late, and we just said they can do the same. Kind of hard though to pilot TWO armies that are identical right?

The mission was 1 objective in deployment, one in the dead center. My two Farseers rolled Shrouding and Fortune, nothing else mattered all game. I had them sitting on the objective with my Striking Scorpions (probably my favorite unit) in ruins, a Sun-cannon Wraithknight on the top deck in ruins within 6" for the 2+ cover save. I knew from the beginning I was out gunned, out tanked, and fighting a losing game. The summary of my focus was to bait his droppods with Infiltrating Rangers on the left flank of the field, protect the objective, and turbo out on the last turns. I lost 3/4 Wave Serpents by turn 3, the fourth lasting surprisingly until turn 6, my Jetbikes came on board preemptively turn 2, and were blasted by the Wyverns (which in retrospect I should have focused earlier), and on turn 6, my only remaining units were Scorpions with 2 Farseers on the objective, a Wraithknight, and a Wave Serpent. The Wave Serpent bit the dust turn 6 from 2 Vendettas, a Lascannon Devastator squad, and a Tank Command squadron, ouch. Wraithknight breaks for the middle objective while the Farseers bust out to provide Shrouding for the now dead Wave Serpent, my 2+ save were so tired at this point, the Scorpions are Hammered by Wyverns, everything falling apart here. Turn 7 and Wyverns blast off my 3+ armor Farseers on jetbikes and my Wraithknight falls to the full volley of the Imperium, Eldar loss tabled on the last turn.

Thinking now I feel kind of silly that I forgot 250 points, taking a second Wraithknight probably would have done the trick, it would have done better than my Nightspinner who ate a S10 scattered large blast from the Tank command squad, poor guy didn't have time to jink. I have a good bit to think about before this weekend, I usually go into tournaments with a losing attitude, but I look forward to having fun and laughing with my opponent, so we will see how the weekend fares for me!

-Autarch Deafbeats