40K VWMkV - Final Round - Battle #65 - Night Lords versus Siam-Hann Eldar

[Miril]

Originally Posted by Lost Nemesis

You can't base an argument on the "what if" of going first, in my opinion.

I think you're misinterpreting. He's not saying "whoever goes first wins." Read the part before this quote.

He's saying, "if the eldar go first, the night lords can still win" and then what you've quoted leads into his arguement saying "if the night lords go first, they definitely win."

So, therefore, he is arguing that the night lords, in fact, have a greater than 50% chance of winning - if they go first, they win, and if they don't go first, they may win, compared to the eldar's if they go first, they may win, if they dont go first, they lose.

[Tulugaq]

Originally Posted by Caluin

Infiltration + Daemonic Speed = First turn charge, no matter what. Assuming of course you pull first turn. That's why people hate Chaos Lords so much.

I'm aware of that, Caluin. But there are always strange oddities popping up in this game. It's more than likely that the Lord could get a first turn charge (and not do too much damage) but there's always the possibility that something odd happens. I don't know what, I just know there's always that possibility. Putting the Lord in that position, of course, means that if he doesn't get first turn, the Lord will most likely end up being toast...

[JORMAGI]

Originally Posted by Miril

I think you're misinterpreting. He's not saying "whoever goes first wins." Read the part before this quote.

He's saying, "if the eldar go first, the night lords can still win" and then what you've quoted leads into his arguement saying "if the night lords go first, they definitely win."

So, therefore, he is arguing that the night lords, in fact, have a greater than 50% chance of winning - if they go first, they win, and if they don't go first, they may win, compared to the eldar's if they go first, they may win, if they dont go first, they lose.

Thank You Miril that's exactly what I'm getting at.

[TheWamp]

Originally Posted by Caluin

Infiltration + Daemonic Speed = First turn charge, no matter what. Assuming of course you pull first turn. That's why people hate Chaos Lords so much.

Difficult terrain tends to be useful to ensure that if he doesn't get first turn, he dies

Marines shooting: 3.55 penetrating hits, .88 glancing hits from plasma, 1.3 more glances from bolters. (perhaps more with closer infilration options) these are spread across a couple squads. Say the starcannons. That's gonna keep them pretty much in place and a target next turn as well.

Havocs: 2.67 hits 2.22 pens, that's pretty much 2 vipers out right dead. . . or very good odds on killing the falcon.

First, the odds of killing the falcon, is EXTREMELY low. To demonstrate:

4 missile launchers
8/3 hits
4/3 glances
4/27 kills. So, if they were alive to fire those rockets at the falcon every turn of the game, they should kill it. Assuming, you know, it's nice enough to stay in range and LoS.

On the other note, why do you assume that the starcannon vypers are in range of the marines? It's quite easy to block the infiltration of those marines with the brightlance vypers placed as sort of "roadblocks." Then, sitting way behind them, 24-30" in front of the marines, are the starcannon vypers, who are also probably behind cover. Those hits aren't happening. Possibly they could be going on the brightlance vypers, but frankly, they're useless this game.

So, to point: Say the chaos get the first turn. They shoot, blow the crud, and possibly destroy the entirity of the brightlance squadrons (possibly with the help of that lord. It doesn't really matter). Then, the starcannon vypers fly off. They move to the side, behind terrain whatever. If they can get in position, they let lose a few volleys at the havocs, and frankly it doesn't take much. They die. Or, they focus their fire on the now exposed marines for two turns and only half the furies are even coming in. They just stick out of the LoS of the havocs (relatively easy) and they're good.

furies start to come in, but the vypers are all ready out of there. The farseer and wildriders do a bit of damage, the terminators do a bit of damage, but both will likely die quickly, and then for the rest of the game, the vypers and falcon run circles around the marines and try to avoid the furies while shooting the bejeezus out of them. Maybe the furies catch up occasionally, but statistically, they kill 1 vyper, a fraction of the time. So no worries.

And after another 4 turns of that, the Nightlords have most of their units dead or below half strength. The eldar have taken some losses, made some mistakes, accidentally got trapped against the board edges a little, but they're mostly high and dry.

Or, the eldar could go first. In which case, the eldar gun down the marines and the lord, and deny the furies the chance to ever enter the game. And after that? It's all over.

But see, the main point is, the Night Lord strategy for winning relies on eldar stupidity. Of course they're going to block their infiltrate, allowing the bulk of the eldar forces to set up farther back. And of course, they're going to do it with the least useful units. And of course, they're going to scurry out of their afterward leaving some very confused marines.

Furies can kill a viper a turn per squad. They do need a 6 to hit true, but they also have plentiful attacks, and a strenght of 5, making any hit they do have pretty likely to do damage.

But if the eldar simply want to jump 24" once, the furies are out of range. And rework those odds:

24 attacks
4 hits
4/3 glances. So it's closer to one vyper damaged per assault

I want to point out infiltration. the setup could easily so that the plasma guns would cover the locations that the Saim-Hann need to fire from to hit the missile launchers so that if they did pull off the entire army shooting at the missile launcher stunt that the return from Night Lords would be 16 plasma gun shots, and 28 bolt shots, doing 10 glancing hits spread across 4 viper squads. Each glance prevents a future shot, half represent a down viper, and 1/3 of the rest represent a destroyed weapon never to shoot again.

But if they did so, they'd have to deploy in the open. And in that case, there's no reason to go for the missile launchers. Just stay out of their LoS and shoot the bejeezus out of the marines, once, twice, and the furies aren't even coming in. Then, do their thing with the havocs.

And the havocs only kill one vyper on average in any case. So there's no issue.
4 shots
8/3 hits
40/18 glances
1ish kills

The terminators will take 22 ap 2 shots to take them down in one turn. There are that many in the eldar list, but they're only going to all die if Night Lords has thus far been inable to do damage for their first 2 turns. I have already shown they are perfectly capable of eliminating 9 of those needed shots as they come in.

That's about 2 starcannon squads...
There's a total of 38. They shouldn't be hard to take down. 22 sounds like alot, but if we look at the number of shots being fired in this game, it really isn't. It's just another impressive number.


Interestingly, here's the wild riders shooting and then charging a furies unit
10 shots (TL shuricats)
9 hits
4.5 wounds
3 deaths

3 shots (shurikannon)
2 hits
2 round up wounds
1 round down deaths

Charging... simultaneous striking:

19 attacks by wild riders, 4 at WS 5. 12.1667 hits, 4.0555 wounds, about 3 kills.

Strike back
8 attacks, 4 hits, 8/3 wounds, 8/9 kills.

Either next turn or that turn (IAL doesn't tell me what deamonic instability means, so I can't calculate the odds of whatever it is happenin), the furies die. The wild riders took 1 casualty. Either way, they're probably going to be charged, but they've done their damage. They've slaughtered a furies squad and forced another (or several more) to spend a long while killing them, in the meanwhile, wearing them down. Though, if the situation allows it, they'd be better flying around, avoiding combat, except where strictly necessary.

The point is:

If eldar goes first, there aren't even any furies.

Even if they go second, it's likely 2 furies squads don't show up

The missiles are stationary, are only 48" range (which, if you consider 6 feet of width, is relatively easy to avoid), plus there's going to be pleanty of intervening terrain. They're easy to avoid until it's time to deal with them.

The marines have practically no range. If the eldar use the brightlance squadrons to block their infiltration, they will never get to shoot the important eldar squads, and the furies will be forced to deploy a considerable distance from their targets.

Mindwar is so pretty.

The terminators are walking, talking victory points

EDIT: I underlined that last bit, once I realized how long this post actually is... sorry.

[ForgedInTheFurnaceOfWar]

[quote=TheWamp]Difficult terrain tends to be useful to ensure that if he doesn't get first turn, he dies

First, the odds of killing the falcon, is EXTREMELY low. To demonstrate:

4 missile launchers
8/3 hits
4/3 glances
4/27 kills. So, if they were alive to fire those rockets at the falcon every turn of the game, they should kill it. Assuming, you know, it's nice enough to stay in range and LoS.

15 percent chance of killing a tank is good.
Anyway, most likely the falcon cant shoot, even if it can, falcons arent exactly that deadly.

the so called 'super falcon' - 2.51 kills per turn, wow. Though very hard to kill, (some of us will except to to be less hard to kill in the next codex)

On the other note, why do you assume that the starcannon vypers are in range of the marines? It's quite easy to block the infiltration of those marines with the brightlance vypers placed as sort of "roadblocks." Then, sitting way behind them, 24-30" in front of the marines, are the starcannon vypers, who are also probably behind cover. Those hits aren't happening.

So, the brightlance skimmers deploy in the front of there deployment zone.

The Nls deploy out of LOS, about 18 inches away from the vypers, what 18 you say..
Of course the deployment zone is only 12 inches deep, a squad of vypers needs about 6 inches.

Thus 18.

But see, the main point is, the Night Lord strategy for winning relies on eldar stupidity. Of course they're going to block their infiltrate, allowing the bulk of the eldar forces to set up farther back. And of course, they're going to do it with the least useful units. And of course, they're going to scurry out of their afterward leaving some very confused marines.

Yes, because the eldar use there farseers to know what in the box of the NLs player, those farseers, is there anything they cant do?

Obvioulsy the eldar need to deploy entirely before they know a single unit of the NLs, making this strange deployment unlikely.

However, we also must assume the NL isnt stupid, and deploys his forces in the deployment zone of the eldar player, so instead of being blocked by the brightlance skimmers he goes around them.

And the havocs only kill one vyper on average in any case. So there's no issue.
4 shots
8/3 hits
40/18 glances
1ish kills

Um.. the actual stats are: 2.67 hits, 2.67 glances, 1.33 dead + 1.33 damaged these are vehicle squads.

The missiles are stationary, are only 48" range (which, if you consider 6 feet of width, is relatively easy to avoid), plus there's going to be pleanty of intervening terrain. They're easy to avoid until it's time to deal with them.

So placed in the center of the board, the MLs can hit everything on it. :rolleyes:

So if we assume the NLs are stupid, maybe a few of your points are valid, but otherwise

[Bugs_n_Orks]

I'm going to have to go with a solid Draw for this battle

As in the Battle this night lord list fought against the Dark Eldar, if the Night Lord set up close to the Saim-Hann Skimmer fleet it simply becomes a coin toss and whoever goes first wins.

Infiltrating, Rapid fireing bolters and plasma will put a squad of 3 vypers out of the game before they can move, and the havocs can mess up the falcon if they catch it before it moves.

Conversely if the Eldar get first turn, Starcannon/Shuriken/Lance fire will annihilate the Chaos marines before they can blink.


While Night lords could deploy further back and try to hold out in cover, this would surely be an uphill battle for them with a high chance of loosing.

If I were given the choice between deploying close and having a 50/50 chance of winning, or deploying faroff and facing certain defeat, I would absolutely deploy close and force the coin toss.

As chaos has this choice, they would be foolish not to use it. With this situation I can give no one team a more likely chance of victory.

Edit: Fluff vote goes to the Night Lords for obvious reasons.

[TheWamp]

Originally Posted by Bugs_n_Orks

Infiltrating, Rapid fireing bolters and plasma will put a squad of 3 vypers out of the game before they can move, and the havocs can mess up the falcon if they catch it before it moves.

That's why there's cover and that's why marines can be pushed back with those less valuable brightlance squadrons...

But fair reasoning.

[LordLink]

how do chaos get to rapid fire? infiltrate only gets you to 19". Also since they want cover they are in difficult terrain.

I dont think bolters and a few plasma guns can outshoot starcannons...

Falcon is only 1 vehicle, last game we assumed 6 LST's could hide. Its safe to assume 1 falcon can hide.

Can no-one field mass LST's/vypers in the next votewar. A few is fine but when you have so many of them games start to get tedious and annoying.

[ForgedInTheFurnaceOfWar]

Hey, 6 landspeeders, and 19 skimmers, a quite a huge differance.

I see no problem with a player fielding up to 9 skimmers.

After that is where the problem lies...

The eldar had a pretty easy treck as well..

They faced almost no hords, which is what normally would kill a list like this, such as da orcs..

[LordLink]

Thats because no-one entered horde.

My alaitoc were the only non mech/MEQ army entered except for a few guarg, tau and LatD.

Next votewar I hope to see a lot more orks and nids entered. Less toasters please and chaos please.

Anyway forged I wasn't talking about the vypers hiding. I was just saying that a single falcon can easily hide from the havocs considering 6 LST's were allowed to hide.

Without rapid-fire the night lords simply cant pull off the shots required to take out the skimmers before they are blown away by starcannons.

If the lord tries for a 1st turn charge he will be alone as the closest model, he will be snapped by lances and requiring 6 to hit he wont take out to much before he gets killed.

edit: oh I understand what you were talking about Forged. Disregard the 1st part of this post.