40k 8th Edition 2000 point Battle Report - Imperium vs Craftworlds

2000 point Battle Report - Imperium vs Craftworlds

I'm a glutton for punishment, so this was my third game against Joel and his Alaitoc Eldar in as many weeks. The first two had been very one sided in favour of the elves. For each game, I had foolishly brought a list whose strength (I imagined) was playing the mission. I got unceremoniously trounced both times.

For this game I went back to the tried and true method of 40k list building:

1) Bring as much killy stuff as possible
2) Forget any rubbish about objectives
3) Abuse your own particular 'soup' keyword (Imperium, in my case) and cherry pick from best available allies.
This is what I came up with when I stopped thinking:

Dark Angels battalion:

- Sammael in Sableclaw
- Talonmaster with Heavenfall Blade relic
- Librarian on Bike with storm bolter and force axe. Powers: Aversion and Mind Worm
- 3x five man squads of Scouts with bolters.
- Darkshroud

Dark Angels Air Wing:
- 3x Dark Talons

Imperial Knights Super Heavy Auxiliary:


- Knight Gallant with the relic giving him a 2+ armour save. He was also my warlord, with the Landstrider warlord trait (+2" to both advance and charge)

Officio Assassinorum Vanguard:

- 3x Eversor Assassin (I used a Culexus as a proxy for one of these)

So, first off, the list had four detachments. I know that the tournament norm is three (is four frowned upon?) and I would certainly look to get it down to three to make it tournament ready.


Despite the high detachment count, the list had a low command point count of seven (six after I paid for the Heavenfall Blade on the Talonmaster). I was certainly not going to get to use any of the more expensive stratagems on the Knight.
I wasn't too fussed, however: my plan for him was to use that nuanced Knight tactic of running straight at the opposing gun line, Hopefully he would take up a large chunk of Joel's best shooting for a while, while my less resilent units could get up the field unmolested.
With the Dark Talons, I was hoping that I would either get first turn (another solid tactic), and they could get a solid round of shooting in, or, worst case scenario, that at least one of the three would survive an opening salvo from possibly the worst units they can come up against, Hemlocks and Dark Reapers, before getting to hit back.

Sammael and the Talonmaster were there because they have proved themselves to be all stars in every game I've used them in. With their mobility, shooting and close combat capabilities these two can respond to multiple threats at once, and their survival is usually the difference between me winning games or not. They also elevate the Dark Talons with their reroll auras, who return the favour by providing the two characters with the screens they need in the early game to get up the field.

Lastly, I decided to bring three Eversor assassins to provide the list with some table coverage and ability to threaten the backfield.

Joel's list was as follows:

Alaitoc Batallion:

-Autarch with Reaper Launcher and warlord trait allowing him to snipe characters
- Farseer with Doom and Executioner
-1x twenty man Guardian blob with two Starcannon weapon platforms
- 2x five man Ranger squads
- 1x five man Wraithblade squad
- 2x Hemlock Wraithfighters, both with Jinx
- 1x Wave Serpent

Alaitoc Spearhead:

- Warlock with Quicken/Restrain

- Warlock with Conceal/Reveal

- 2x Fire Prisms

- 1x Six man squad of Dark Reapers

Mission, Deployment Map, and Objectives

The mission we rolled was the Maelstrom of War mission Tactical Escalation. This is where each player draws cards up to the current turn number, meaning one on the first turn, two on the second, and so on. We rolled for a deployment map, and got Frontline Assault (better known as Pointy Dawn of War).

With none of my army wanting to sit back, I placed no objectives in my deployment zone. Joel's army was a flexible gunline type common to Alaitoc lists, so he placed his objectives in or near his deployment zone.

We then got to deploying.

Deployment: Imperium

I placed the bulk of my force in the centre, with the Knight at the tip of the spear. In order to do his thing, I knew that he would have to be placed as far forward as possible. I placed the three squads of scouts just out of my deployment zone to the front of the Knight, on a couple of objectives and ready to bravely eat smites for him. My Darkshroud sat in the centre, making sure it was 6” away from the three Dark Talons for the -1 to hit aura (not that this mattered greatly against Joel's army). Along with the Knight, the Dark Talons formed a diamond, and inside this sat Sammael, the Talonmaster, and the Librarian on Bike, safely screened. I put the three Eversors in reserve.

Deployment: Craftworlds

Joel's deployment mirrored mine in many ways, with almost all of his hard-hitting units sat in the centre, opposite my main force. In his Wave Serpent sat his Dark Reapers, Farseer and Autarch. On each flank he had a squad of Rangers, both on or near to an objective. He sat his unit of Wraithblades in a building on the right flank, ready to advance in to the centre with his Quicken Warlock. 

Turn 1 - Craftworlds
Joel won the roll to go first, and I failed to seize. I braced myself to say goodbye to a large chunk of my army!

Before he did anything, I popped the Prepared Positions stratagem. This gave each unit in my deployment zone (apart from the Knight) +1 to their save as if they were in cover. This put my CP down to four before the game had begun!


Joel's first objective draw was Psychological Warfare. It's not usually easy to make a marine army fail a morale check, but Joel, deceitful Aeldari that he is, had a knowing smile on his face.

The above picture is how Joel's army looked after his movement phase.
The Farseer, Autarch and Dark Reapers got out of the Wave Serpent and into a nearby ruin. The Guardian blob moved from behind the crates and towards the centre of the battlefield. And the two Hemlocks flew towards the centre of the battlefield.
The positioning of these two was crucial and showed off some clever play on Joel's part. Firstly, the one in the centre of the picture was positioned in such a way as to block off my Knight's movement. As I obviously couldn't charge the flyer with my Knight, and as he didn't have any shooting, this effectively meant that I would lose a turn with him. Secondly, each Hemlock was positioned so the scout squad in the building were the closest to them for smiting purposes, while at the same time being in range of two of my Dark Talons to shoot them with their Heavy D-Scythes. Furthermore, my scouts were now at -2 Leadership thanks to being in range of the Hemlocks' Mindshock Pods ability. The middle Hemlock was effectively doing four things at once!

Nowhere to go.

Of most relevance in Joel's psychic phase was using his Hemlocks to smite my scouts down to two, to set up a failed leadership check for his Maelstrom point.

In the shooting phase the two Hemlocks destroyed a Dark Talon, while his Dark Reapers and Fire Prisms brought another down to a single wound (this would have been destroyed completely had it not been for Prepared Positions - good job, GW!)


A single squad of Rangers managed to take three wounds off my Librarian, putting him down to two remaining.
In the morale phase my scouts failed their leadership check, scoring Joel one point for Psychological Warfare, and he also scored First Blood for the downed Dark Talon.
This was a very effective turn for Joel. He had effectively rendered my Knight useless for the following turn, reduced my airforce by half, and done about as well in scoring as you could wish for in a mission with such a slow start.

Turn 1 - Imperium

For my turn I drew Advance, meaning I would have to move every unit out of my deployment zone to score it. This is about the only time that I've ever been glad to see this card, as I had an army that both wanted to get up the field, and that actually had the means to do so!
I decided that killing at least one Hemlock should be my top priority, as they were made for murdering my Dark Talons. Ditto Dark Reapers.

The above ridiculous mess is how my army looked following my movement phase.
There was method to this mess though! The aim was to position Sammael and the Talonmaster within easy charge range of the Hemlock, while still handing their shooting buffs out to the two Dark Talons ahead of them. I also moved my Darkshroud up to both hand out its -1 to hit aura for the Talons, and also to make the initial charge against the Hemlock and soak up its horrendous overwatch. To this end I used the Speed of the Raven stratagem to allow the Darkshroud to advance and still charge. Importantly, advancing gives Ravenwing units a 4++, so this would almost guarantee the Darkshroud's survival as it charged in, and subsequent safe passage for the real damage dealers, Sammael and the Talonmaster.
In the psychic phase my Librarian did absolutely nothing...
But he did manage to bring down a single solitary Guardian in the shooting phase! This was to be his one and only achievement in the game, before his innocuous and unheralded death at the hands of some more Rangers in the following turn. For the Emperor!


In the rest of my shooting phase the combined might of the Ravenwing brought the Reapers down to one and finished off the Guardian blob.
In the charge phase my Darkshroud charged in to the Hemlock, taking four wounds. Sammael and the Talonmaster were then safely in.
Unfortunately, in the fight phase they only managed to get the Hemlock down to three wounds, meaning that it was free to fly off and wreak havoc on Joel's next turn. At the end of my turn I scored one point for Advance.
I felt that this was a mixed turn. I was glad to get the Reapers down to one, but I really needed to finish that Hemlock off. I'm having trouble remembering now if I put Sam's and the Talonmaster's shooting in to it, but if I didn't, I definitely should have!
As always facing a Craftworlds turn in which they were at near full strength, I feared the worst!

Craftworlds - 2
Imperium - 1

Craftworlds Turn 2

For his Maelstrom cards, Joel drew Kingslayer and Area Denial. Not a great draw, as my warlord was the Knight and so would be tough to bring down. Area Denial looked even worse, as almost my entire army were converged around the centre point!
In Joel's movement phase he moved his Hemlocks their minimum 20" move, in order to stay in range of my units. He shuffled his Wave Serpent forward in order to better screen his Farseer and Autarch in the building to its left. His Rangers on the right and left flanks stayed where they were, as did the Fire Prisms. And his Wraithblades ran out of the building on his right and towards the centre of the battlefield. They were joined by his two Warlocks.

The damaged Hemlock makes its escape.

In his psychic phase Joel used Executioner on the damaged Dark Talon to finish it off. His Warlocks cast Conceal on the Wraithblades to make them -1 to hit, and Quicken to allow them to move again.

Post-Quickened Wraithblades.

He also most likely cast some other shenanigans on the Knight, but my appalling memory and even worse note taking skills means exactly what was cast is lost in the ether. (The smart money would be on that duo of Elvish salt mining, Doom and Jinx)

In the shooting phase Joel's Rangers finished off my Librarian, making him possibly the least heroic Space Marine that ever existed. One of his Hemlocks destroyed my other Dark Talon, while the other put my Knight down to a mere twenty wounds remaining. Details are hazy, but I believe Joel then spent a pleasingly (on my part) inordinate amount of firepower getting rid of my Darkshroud.


Joel scored nothing, but he did kill a silly amount of my army - a Darkshroud, two Dark Talons, and a Librarian on Bike killed in a single turn. I would need some luck to turn this one around.

Imperium Turn 2

Although I had lost a stupid amount of my army at this point I had to remind myself that this is par for the course in 8th edition. I also knew that I still had some of my best units remaining in Sammael and the Talonmaster, the Knight and the three Eversor assassins.

Just to add to this warm and fuzzy feeling, came my card draw: Overwhelming Firepower and Secure Objective Two. Objective 2 was 3" away from one of his units of Rangers, but I believed that I could easily take them out with an Eversor or two then consolidate on to it. I believed with a bit of luck I could get the three units required for the d3 points on Overwhelming Firepower.
Now that Sammael and the Talonmaster were in the middle of the field, they had the pick of units to engage next. I moved them both in to the building in which Joel's Autarch, Farseer and last remaining Dark Reaper were stood. The plan was to remove these with the two characters' shooting, and then charge into one of the Fire Prisms near the building. I also used my last command point on the Speed of the Raven stratagem on the Talonmaster, to give him a 4++ against any impending Hemlock attacks in Joel's next turn.

The Knight, now freed from being blocked off by the Hemlock, was able to move within easy charge distance of the Wraithblades. My two scout squads stayed where they were. And my three Eversors dropped on to the battlefield, two of them 9" away from the unit of Rangers on Joel's right flank, and the other 9" away from the Rangers on Joel's left flank.

In the shooting phase, Sammael and his mate killed the last remaining Dark Reaper as well as the Farseer. One of the Eversors gunned down a Warlock.

In the charge phase, Sammael and the Talonmaster made it into contact with the Fire Prism, while the two Eversors on Joel's right flank made good use of their 3d6 charge ranges by getting into the squad of Rangers. Meanwhile, the Knight made his charge into the Wraithblades. Lastly, the remaining Eversor failed his charge into the other squad of rangers, rolling a 5 on 3d6!

In the fight phase, the Knight put fifteen sweep attacks into the Wraithblades, downing four of them. The two Eversors did what I asked of them, making light work of the Rangers before consolidating on to Objective 2. Lastly, Sammael and the Talonmaster damaged the Fire Prism, putting it down to three wounds.

Two drug-addled psychopaths take on the West Alaitoc Poetry Circle.

I rolled a lucky three on Overwhelming Firepower, and alongside Objective 2 scored a total of four points.

A positive turn!

Craftworlds: 2
Imperium: 5

Craftworlds Turn 3

Joel still had a good number of hard hitting units left on the battlefield, and would need to use them to good effect against the characters now rampaging around his backfield. I would need to pass some 4+ invulns!


Joel drew Secure Objective 1, which I believe his surviving Rangers were stood on. He still had Kingslayer and Area Denial in hand.


In the movement phase, Joel disengaged his surviving Wraithblade from the Knight, and his Fire Prism from Sam and the Talonmaster. Joel surrounded the Knight with a Hemlock, Wave Serpent and damaged Fire Prism. The undamaged Fire Prism remained stationary, its cannon aimed squarely at the Knight.

Surrounded

Joel's Autarch moved towards the Talonmaster, with the hope of slowing him down by surviving combat with him for a round, and his other Hemlock hovered near the Talonmaster. Joel's preferred method of slowing him down would be killing him dead!

My note-taking skills again let me down here, but I believe Joel's shooting brought the Knight down to around half its wounds. Not ideal on a Knight Gallant, that would still be able to hit on threes next turn!

The Hemlock targeting the Talonmaster whiffed on its shooting, as I began a long run of 4+ invulns made.

This left the Autarch having to charge in to the Talonmaster in order to slow him down... And he did, surviving the Talonmaster's attacks with one wound remaining!
This was an unlucky turn for Joel, who really needed one of the big three of Knight, Talonmaster or Sammael to fall. That said, he did score two points for Secure 1 and Area Denial.

Imperium Turn 3

This was the first time in the game that I felt I was gaining the upper hand. I was leading on points and my characters were alive and kicking, free to continue rampaging around the Alaitoc base.
I had another lucky draw with Kingslayer, Secure 3, and Big Game Hunter, all objectives I could achieve easily.
In my movement phase I edged an Eversor close to Joel's Autarch, and moved the other two round the corner, ready to engage the undamaged Fire Prism. Sammael also moved towards this Fire Prism, while my Knight prepared for an auto charge against the surviving Wraithblade and the damaged Fire Prism. One of my Scout squads moved on to Objective 3.
In the shooting phase, Sammael and two Eversors shot in to their charge target Fire Prism, doing five or six wounds. I didn't have any firepower of note left, so I moved swiftly on to the assault phase.


The Knight chopped the Fire Prism in half with its chainsword, but failed to stamp the Wraithblade to death. The Talonmaster killed the Autarch before the Eversor had a chance to do anything, so he just loomed menacingly. Sammael and the two Eversors worked together to destroy the Fire Prism.

I scored another four points in this turn, with Kingslayer, Secure 3 and Big Game Hunter for Maelstrom, and Slay the Warlord for Secondary.

Craftworlds: 4
Imperium: 9

Craftworlds Turn 4

The game was probably up for the Eldar now, trailing heavily on points and lacking the units to table me. But Joel had Knight killing on his mind!


Muddled by my sheer delight at an impending victory against the Eldar, I failed to make note of Joel's Maelstrom cards. Joel still had Kingslayer active, however, and, alongside a point for Slay the Warlord, this made my Knight public enemy number one.


In his movement phase his two Hemlocks and Wave Serpent surrounded the Knight, and his Wave Serpent popped over the crates.


In the shooting phase Joel put virtually everything into the Knight. Unfortunately, he only reduced it to six wounds.

Imperium Turn 4

I really did have the game now, so it was just a case of making as many Elf corpses as possible.
I had a pretty bad draw, with the only card I could possibly achieve being Blood and Guts.
In the movement phase I moved Sam and Talonmaster to within easy charge range of the Hemlock with its full compliment of wounds. I also moved my three Eversors to within 4", of the Wave Serpent, so they could chuck some melta bombs at it and give themselves easy charges.
The Knight, again blocked off by a Hemlock, had to go the long way round some crates to charge the Wave Serpent. (I realise as I'm writing this that the Knight shouldn't have been able to make this charge - I moved him 12" rather than the 6" to which he was limited, being down to the lowest tier on his profile. My apologies, Joel! This wouldn't have made any difference to the final result, however, and the three Eversors, who also charged in and didn't get to swing, may have killed it anyway).
In the shooting phase I put the two Ravenwing characters into the Hemlock, taking around a third of its wounds. I also put the Eversors' melta bombs into the Wave Serpent, taking around half its wounds.
In the fight phase the Knight chopped the Serpent in two, and the Ravenwing characters did the same to the Hemlock (Sammael again made a silly number of 4++s to survive overwatch!)
For my Maelstrom I scored Blood and Guts.
This was a good turn, leaving Joel with a single surviving Hemlock and a squad of Rangers left. I realise now that I could have ended it there and then by ignoring the flyers and taking out the Rangers and the Serpent, leaving only the flyers remaining.

Craftworlds 4
Imperium 10

Craftworlds and Imperium last turns

We went through the motions a little here, Joel finally getting his wish of killing the Knight, and me returning the favour by killing his Hemlock. Joel picked up three points.

Joel finally fells the Knight

Final score:

Craftworlds 7
Imperium 11

Post-game thoughts This was a good game, that given the two armies could have gone either way. I got pretty lucky with Joel's poor rolling in bringing down the Knight, and certainly lucked out with my 4++ saves on the two Ravenwing characters.
The Eldar had a strong start, which is often the case when their brilliant shooting and psychic powers combine at full effect. To make matters worse, it is often hard (if not impossible) to deploy against this shooting phase with their mobility and ability to redeploy. (Just one of the many things I find infuriatingly game breaking about Elves!)
In many games this strong start can be overwhelming, leaving opposing armies with little to fight back with. Alaitoc especially can often compound this, keeping their distance and stacking to hit debuffs to buy them time so by the time the opposing army get in their lines they are often too far depleted to get back into the game.
Crucially however, the distance to them was not so great here. Though I lost all of my Dark Talons very early, these were nothing but 200-pt-a-piece shields of scrap metal! Once my characters got in it was game over.
I believe Joel should probably have deployed his main force on one of his two flanks, rather than bang opposite me. This would have given him that extra bit of distance and probably another turn of shooting at near full effect. It may also have been better to go after everything other than the Knight, as its resiliency essentially wasted shooting that could have gone elsewhere. With the eldar mobility it may have been easy to back off from the Knight and focus fire on the two Ravenwing characters who in the end were possibly more useful than the Knight itself. That said, the Knight did represent some points, and it wouldn't have been possible to escape a 12" moving, Landstriding Knight forever!

For my part I certainly could have hidden my Librarian better. A couple of squads of Rangers and a sniping character can certainly down a character like my Librarian fairly quickly, as happened in the game, and I should have planned for this.
I also should have made sure to kill Joel's Hemlock in a single turn, rather than taking off nine wounds. Even at its lowest profile a Hemlock can still move 45" while shooting and casting psychic powers at full effect, so it is not a unit to that you can really ever be happy with 'weakening'.

I should also probably try to focus fire and charges with Sammael and the Talonmaster a little more. Sometimes you just need to make sure something dies.

In terms of army construction I'll probably take a similar list to my next game - I should probably get it down to three detachments though. I may drop a Dark Talon or two in favour of more Knights. As durable screens for Sammael and the Talonmaster they are probably far superior than Dark Talons, which in my view are now twenty points or so too expensive (especially when you consider that you have to take the further 140 point tax of a Darkshroud to put them close to the survivability of a Hemlock, say). I really feel now that for 200 points you have to squeeze all of the value that you can out of them. Perhaps sticking to one, placing it out of range in deployment, and giving it Speed of the Ravenwing every turn for a 4++ against shooting would be the most efficient way to incorporate one in to my list.

I really rate the Eversors, who proved to be surprisingly versatile with their melta bombs. The drawback however is that they both take up a detachment slot and offer no CP benefit.

Thanks for reading!