The Nebula Raiders

APOLOGY

Sorry, guys, I've been very busy and time at hand is really short. I have not yet held true to my promise of posting another blog entry on how the storytelling part of our campaign has evolved, and I even missed my weekly update Monday night after last week's strategical phase.
I am very sorry and beg your pardon for that. I hope you forgive me.

Note that it is only postponed, not abondoned. I will stick true to my words as soon as things have cleared up around here. I will probably be late with my update next week too because I will be at a funeral next Monday and therefore unable to post a blog entry.


STRATEGIC UPDATE

As the battle for Duglum XIII rages on, territories are conquered and lost, fortifications built and destroyed, troops recruited and killed.
As foretold, the Eldar have joined our campaign. Guarding the sleeping horror on the ancient tomb world of Duglum XIII for many thousands of years the Eldar have been hiding amongst the battling factions all along and have witnessed the war ever from the day on when the minions of Chaos woke the slumbering Necrons. For several weeks have they contented themselves with their trickery, secretly guiding their enemies from the shadows, playing them off against each other. But they have come to realize that only the Orks are susceptible to the Eldar schemes to full extent, and intervening on the battle-fields in person is no longer evitable.
So the Eldar, too, have taken to bloody war. We now have the Imperial faction (Nebula Raiders and Imperial Guard), the Chaos faction (Chaos Space Marines and Lost and Damned), the Xeno1 faction (Necrons and Tyranids, both sharing the goal of eliminating all life, thus, given the number of enemies, silently agreeing not to attack each other as long as there is still other foes to worry about) and the Xeno2 faction (Orks and Eldar, the first being involuntarily and unknowingly guided by the latter).
I have only had one game last weekend, and it was against the newly joined Eldar. A short battle report will be posted below. As the Eldar were in need of territory on the campaign map we have -again- assigned some to them randomly. Unfortunately the dice took an entire sector from me (which was sealed-off against any attacks from the outside, but not from within) which hurt a lot, but the Imperials are still the best-faring faction in the campaign, so I'm up and running! The Eldar starting-territory has been deducted from the other factions' starting-territory.

The Xenos1, initially holding 26.4% of the warzone, have gained 3.3% of territory and can now only claim 29.7%. [+6]
The Xenos2, initially holding 20.3% of the warzone, have lost 4.4% of territory and can now claim 15.9%. [-8]
Chaos, initially holding 36.8% of the warzone, have lost 12.6% of territory and can now only claim 24.2% but call sector M their own. [-23]
The Imperium, initially holding 16.5% of the warzone, have gained 13.7% of territory and can now claim 30.2% and call sector J their own. [+25]


BATTLE REPORT

vs. Eldar

I used an entirely different list this time. Biker captain and two bike squads (4 bikes, 1 attack bike, plasma gun) were my core and they were backed up by typhoons (2 squads of 2 each) as usual, but I added four sniper scouts and Boromar (my Telion-equivalent), two whirlwinds, and two minimum sternguard units with a heavy flamer and razorback each.
Mission was seize ground with five objectives. I would usually have been happy about that, but my list was week on troops. Pitched deployment. My opponent won the roll to decide who goes first and he took first turn.

He spaced four dark reapers and an exarch out using the two upper levels of a ruin in his deployment zone, joining a farseer with guide and fortune to them. A squad of guardians with a bright lance were on gound level of the ruin, and a squad of four banshees with an exarch hidden from line of sight was nearby as a counter-charge unit. Two squads of five pathfinder rangers each were to infiltrate, and two tooled-up wave serpents were waiting in reserves: one with five fire dragons plus their exarch, one with five wraithguard, warlock, and a joined autarch.
I had a small ruin in my deployment zone too, and I chose to deploy everything this time. I hid the whirlwinds first, then the speeders tightly packed in a column behind them. The razorbacks and bikes were on the flank, ready to spring forward and attack.
He then infiltrated his pathfinders into some woods opposite to my ruin, while I infiltrated my scouts into the upper level of my ruin. I tried to steal initiative and failed.

The Eldar overestimated the range of their brightlance and of the reapers' missile launchers. Both picked targets that were just out of reach. The reapers were fortuned and the rangers sniped one of my bikers dead, nothing else happened though.
On my first turn the whirlwinds took out the majority of the rangers and pinned one squad. My typhoons came out of their hiding place and hit the reapers with krak missiles and heavy bolter fire, forcing five cover and seven armor saves, of which my opponent first fails all but two, but in the end passes all but one due to fortune. My scouts shot the dark reapers too, failing to do any damage. Bike and razorbacks approached the pathfinders in a flanking maneuver.

Both wave serpents come in from reserves. To save his rangers he moves them flat out in front of my flanking force. The dark reapers try to hurt my speeders and fail, destroying only a weapon. The two rangers who can shoot accomplish nothing. The guardians' bright lance misses.
I surround one of the serpents with my bike squad and give them hell. Typhoons blow the brightlance off one of the serpents and shake it, while they fail on the second serpent, cover saves giving me a bad time. Heavy bolter and bolter fire into rear armor fails too, but the plasma gun finally blows it up. Unfortunately this gives my opponent room for placing his wraithguard. My sternguard kill only one of the wraithguard, my scouts again accomplish nothing (argh dice!), the one bike squad and captain charge the wraithguard, warlock and autarch. The whirlwinds, though, in the meantime killed off the guardian squad except for the two models "crewing" the bright lance - they make their morale check.

The Eldar unload the fire dragons and kill three in one of my sternguard squads, while their serpent dashes off to safety, unable to perform a good tank shock. The banshees start charging towards the area of battle. The dark reapers kill all but the sergeant and attack bike in my bike squad not locked in the assault, the surviving three rangers (a squad of two and a squad of one, all made their morale checks) are desperate and take shots at my speeders, shots just bouncing off. The close combat of my bikes versus the wraithguard has been going really badly, no side being able to do any harm, my captain's relic blade missing all the time.
One of my whirlwind annihilates the banshees with the exception of the exarch, the other one kills the ranger squad that still had two models. The sternguard kill the fire dragons, the speeders manage to kill two dark reapers. My bike squad finally manages to kill the autarch while my captain kills the warlock.
The Eldar resign bottom of turn 3. Nebula Raiders win!

Can't blame him. I had lost some bikers and a weapon on one typhoon, my opponent had lost almost his entire army. There was no chance for any of his troops choices surviving until turn five and probably I would have tabled him.



This is it for last week (sorry again for the delay). I hope to battle Chaos Marines and Necrons this weekend, I'll post updates some time next week, if time allows...
Best regards to all fellow players out there!