Salamanders
HQ
Captain - boltgun, hellfire rounds, artificer armour and power sword
Chaplain - melta bombs and jump pack
Elites
Terminator squad
Dreadnought - extra armour
Troops
Tactical squad - flamer and missile launcher
Fast Attack
Assault squad - sergeant has thunder hammer and storm shield
Eldar
HQ
Farseer - singing spear, spirit stone, runes of witnessing, doom and guide
Troops
Dire Avengers - exarch has power weapon, shimmershield and bladestorm
Rangers
Elites
Howling Banshees - exarch has executioner, war shout and acrobat
Striking Scorpions
Fire Dragons - exarch has firepike
Fast Attack
Swooping Hawks
Heavy Support
Dark Reapers
The mission was domination which meant the player controlling the most ruins by the end of the game would be the winner.
The Space Marines took the first turn and moved into the ruins to lay their claim. There were five potential objective ruins and the marines held two of them as a result of their first turn. The terrain was so dense there was nothing for the marines to shoot at. On the left, the chaplain-led assault squad pushed forward, spying the banshees in front of them.
The reapers and the rangers moved into better firing positions, supported by the farseer. The banshees moved towards the assault squad supported by the Striking Scorpions and the Dire Avengers moved through the centre of the ruins towards the middle of the board.
Turn two saw the terminators deep strike into the midst of the Eldar line. They fired ten shots from their storm bolters at the dark reapers and yet none fell. The assault squad charged into the banshees killing two of them for only one loss. On the right, the dreadnought and the Space Marine captain moved towards the fire dragons.
In the Eldar turn, the dire avengers unleashed a devastating fusillade helped by the fact the farseer had successfully doomed the terminator squad and yet only two of the elites fell. The Striking Scorpions charged the assault squad to help the banshees and managed to wipe out three marines, but lost two in return.
The Swooping Hawks entered play by deep striking near to the Space Marine Captain and the dreadnought. They fired off their lasguns and managed to wound the leader.
In turn three, the terminators fire upon, and then charged into the Dire Avengers, slaughtering them and causing them to break and flee. The combined might of the banshees and the scorpions brought down the chaplain leaving just the assault squad sergeant.
The Swooping Hawks were wiped out by combined bolter fire from the tactical squad. The farseer cast doom on the terminators again and then guide on the rangers. This, with the withering fire from the reapers wiped out what remained of the squad.
The Fire Dragons managed to score three glancing hits on the dreadnought and destroyed its multi-melta and immobilised it, rendering it useless. The squad was then charged by the captain and wiped out.
The reapers targeted the tactical squad killing three, despite the 4+ cover save and the rest of the squad were wiped out by the remaining banshees.
As turn six drew to a close, victory went to the Eldar who held three of the five potential objectives. The Space Marines had been all but wiped out.
The game was really fun, despite the Eldar army being fragile, they managed to hold up some of the key Space Marine units and the ability of the farseer to doom units, and help other with guide, was invaluable. The banshees are brilliant, their low strength of 3 is offset by their power weapons. I still need to figure out how to use Swooping Hawks more effectively. My aim was to use them to assault the dreadnought to make use of their haywire grenades, but they were wiped out before they got the chance.
Having never played a cityfight scenario before, but having played Necromunda and Mordheim, I wasn't sure how the dense scenery would impact on the game, but made the game much more intense and the troops longer lasting!
With the various upgrades, this force comes out at 3175 points (using the standard SM list on the GW website). It gives me 8 activations each turn in a game of Epic Armageddon which is good enough to react and adapt to most situations.
As can be seen in the image above, I have yet to finish the vindicators and obviously, the bases of the troops need to be flocked. I'm undecided as to whether to base the tanks. It will avoid unnecessary wear and tear but I like the tanks as they are at the moment, so I'll decide at a later date.
The assault formation has some simple conversions using paper clip wire to lift some of the marines off their bases.
I've yet to play an Apocalypse game and whilst if the opportunity arose, I would not say no, the sheer amount of troops that you can field in an EA game more than make up for the lack of Apocalypse games (and it's considerably cheaper!).
