To Arms!! A rather short battle report!

Yup, that's right! I played a battle without having to traverse the county!

AGAIN No pics- Sorry!

Turns out my nephew is inching towards the hobby! He did say he liked the look of LOTR, but I offered him a chance to play 40k with one of my armies and see if he liked it. All GW games use a similar system when it comes to tabletop wargaming, which is why they work so well.
Anyway... YER goes:


Nephew picked Eldar for his army, based upon the generalisation that they are fairly quick with good basic troops, great leaders and some interesting specialist troops and vehicles. He was offered the option of CSM, guard or eldar and each one was generalised to him so his choice was (reasonably) informed.

As I am thinking along guard lines, I though it was a good opportunity to play the necromundan guard army.
I didn't want to overcomplicate his first ever 40k game with special rules for characters and wargear, so we both kept it nice and simple.
I said that 1000 pts was a good base to start from (though it later proved too much in terms of time frame) and so these are the forces we picked:


ELDAR

HQ- Avatar
Elites - 5 Howling Banshees
Troops 1- 8 Dire avengeres with exarch packing a diresword and shuriken pistol
Troops 2 - 15 Guardians (storm squad) with fusion gun and flamer
Fast Attack 1 - 6 Swooping Hawks
Fast Attack 2 - Vyper Jetbike with shuriken cannon
Heavy Support 1 - 3 Dark Reapers with exarch carrying shuriken cannon
Heavy Support 2 - Wraithlord with scatter laser
Heavy support 3 - Fire Prism Grav Tank

Now, for a first timer, and given the general hints and tips I was giving him, this army aint alf bad. He's got himself a cheesey leader with good special effects for the troops, some nasty firepower elements, a large assault squad and some good quality specialist troops. A healthy mix of speed and firepower. Nice!


GUARD

HQ- Company command squad with body guard for the officer
HQ- Ministorum Priest
Troops 1 - Infantry platoon with commisar, heavy weapons sqaud and 2 infantry squads
with heavy weapons and a platoon command squad
Troops 2 - Veteran squad (ratskins) with camo cloaks
Fast Attack - Armoured Sentinel
Heavy Support - Leman Russ Battle Tank

My Loyalist guard army is limited in its options at present, but I knew I had numbers on my side here, along with ole reliable, the leman russ!
After rolling on the various tables in the book, we were to play annihilation scenario, using spearhead deployment rules.

We only got to play 2 turns out of the 4, which was a shame, because as usual things were getting good when it was time to clear up!

The action summed up:

Nephew launched a strong flank attack with his Hawks and vyper, which my company command squad was getting hit hard, but (barely) holding the line. In the centre, things were faring a little better thanks to the infantry platoon and the vehicles pouring fire into the banshees, wraithlord and the avatar (who ran to the flank for cover after suffering 2 wounds from heavy weapons fire!) The banshees were wiped out before they could assault the line, but my leading infantry squad were battered by the wraithlords firepower and the Dark reapers.
On the opposite flank, things were porgressing much slower, with the veterans assisting with the centre's firing before pouring some shots onto the dire avengers.
The fire prism managed to vaporise the sentinel, and the commisar executed the cowardly lieutenant and held the line in a brutal attritional assault with the guardian storm squad.

At the end of the second turn, it was time to clear up. The winner was decided on "kill points" which were allocated per unit and per vehicle. Final score was 1:1, but it was such a shame that the game had to end there.

The assault in the centre was getting interesting as more units joined in from the guard lines, and the opposite flanks were starting to close in for inevitable hand to hand fighting over barricades and ruins.

Looking at it now, I think the eldar would eventually have overrun the guard, mainly due to their speed and better quality assault troops. That said however, the guard army firepower was potent enough to drive the Eldar's main offensive beastie back and give my nephew thoughts of how he could bring him back into play, and the centre was holding really well thanks to the commissar and the priest


Overall:
Great game! My nephew had fun playing, and is now torn between 40k and lotr. He really liked the eldar too, which I think is nice, because almost everyone goes for marines first!

The armies were too big for the time frame we had to play in. 4-500 points would have been quicker and easier, though we would have lost out in terms of tanks and hard stuff. Still, he got to see how lots of different weapons work in play, along with assaults and difficult terrain rules. He didn't make the most of the fleet rule, but then again it was his first game and he did really well.

We talked for a while later about warlocks and their abilities, as well as the benefits of jetbikes etc. And I gave the advice to "start small." The hobby has just got a little more expensive (check the website) and a 12 year old on pocket money needs to be shrewd about his purchases, as do we all now...

As for me, well, guard..... tanks.... stormtroopers.... sentinels.... traitors...chaos...daemons...