Another Adepticon has gone by, and I was actually able to attend this year! I sadly missed last year due to it being on Friday, which was super sad. Oh well, had to let someone else win, eh?
Last year I found an entire Eldar fleet at retail cost in the bits guy's bins, so I resolved to play them this year, putting aside my Imperial Navy for another year. Good thing too, because out of the 14 players (16 had signed up, so wooo attendance!), I had Eldar, another guy had Tau, one more had Orks, and the rest were split evenly between IN and Chaos. Sooo much IN and Chaos!
Here was my fleet of choice:
Void Stalker
Shadow Cruiser
Eclipse Cruiser - Prince, reroll
Eclipse Cruiser
Aurora Light Cruiser
Aurora Light Cruiser
And I had an auxiliary fleet that was made up of some ships recommended on here, and some I liked. In hindsight, should have gone with all Hemlocks because that's broken and awesome, but oh well.
2 Hellebore Frigates
3 Nightshade Destroyers
I took a lot of cruisers, because I'm still indifferent/uncaring about escorts so much, and Eldar cruisers are badass. Yea I have 6 of each escort, but bah! Wanted the cruisers. What does the forum think of said list?
Game 1 vs Imperial Navy (Bastion Fleet list)
Retribution Battleship - Fleet Admiral
Armageddon Battlecruiser
Dictator Cruiser
Lunar Cruiser - Nova cannon
Lunar Cruiser - Nova cannon
Dominator Cruiser
Aux Fleet (Dark Eldar):
- 3 Corsairs - phantom lance
- 2 Corsairs - impalers
The mission was a simple VP for kills scenario, but with a twist of asteroids that come flying through the table. Fun!
I was happy for two reasons: there was a lot of LOS blocking terrain, and I was playing Eldar, so I wouldn't have to worry much about the three Nova cannon I was staring down.
The first couple turns involved me dancing forward through the terrain, trying to get close so I could unleash a nasty strike on his ships. All the while he's still shooting at me with Nova cannon, which I had a point of contention with.
I was hiding on the complete opposite side of an asteroid field, and he was targeting the far side of the asteroid field (next to my ships) saying it was legal to target anywhere on the field. He was then hoping to scatter onto my ships. Isn't that...totally illegal? I know you can target the field via the 2010FAQ, but I thought it only ever resulted in blast marker creation. It'd be completely broken to allow a weapon that cannot see any ships in or behind a piece of terrain to still shoot into or "through via scatter" said terrain as if it wasn't there. What are the real rules there?
Anyway, I still ducked and weaved my way up (taking a couple early phantom lance strikes, because snake eyes on holofields is fun!) and punished his fleet hard. After that, he ended up disengaging with the remainder of his fleet, leaving me with a big win.
Game 2 vs Ruckdog's Imperial Navy (Gothic fleet)
Retribution Battleship - Admiral
Mars Battlecruiser - Targeting Matrix
Gothic Cruiser
Tyrant Cruiser
5 Cobra Destroyers
6 Sword Frigates
Aux Fleet (Space Marines)
Strike Cruiser
3 Gladius Frigates
This was a pretty fluffy list I think, very representative of an Imperial fleet in the fluff, which is awesome to see of course! I wasn't worried about the special weapons, but the massed guns of the Swords, Gladius, and Battleship were very threatening to me. To that end, I somehow thought putting the Shadow cruiser in front of them hoping for a first turn annihilation would be a good idea.
"Unfortunately", I did go first, leaving me to flounder in front of the Swords (bad sun placement) because we only started 20cm from the board edge; all scenarios started fleets only 20cm off the table, which is really damn far away for the short range fleets, a complaint of mine about the scenarios. Anyway, the Swords simply plowed forward and I promptly failed my BFI, and they turned it into a sad hulk of a ship in short order.
Luckily, that was the extent of his damage to me! While the right side (where I put up some big ships) was fairly open as far as terrain goes, the left side was heavier, letting me get close and pound on his ships. This inspired him to bravely retreat his entire fleet. I caused enough to get a small victory however, putting me on a high table for the third round!
Game 3 vs the Ringer
For starters, how did the Ringer fleet get up on table 2, vying for 1st place??? Because it was way too damn strong/silly/slow play gamey! Whatever the reason, I've already had a discussion with him about how it's not supposed to be that way for the filler fleet, but ho hey, here's what he brought:
He didn't bring a fleet list either, but it was something like:
RT veteran captain
RT cruiser(+1 S)
RT Armagedon BATTLECRUISER(+1 S)
Dauntless
ENDEAVOUR
Carnage(targeting array)
Carnage(targeting array)
Kroot Warsphere
4 Escort carriers(+1 carrier w/mines)
5x Fire ships
Auxillary Fleet
ELDARSOLARIS CLASS LIGHT CRUISER
3X Hemlock Class Destroyers
It was a bad scenario, with bad rewards, vs a bad fleet, but a great guy, haha. We only went two turns, but it was enough to get me a big victory still (somehow), so there's that. Didn't even take any pictures! Though I was pretty tired by that point.
My final score put me tied with the Tau player in every aspect (though at least my AC counters were fully painted and should've given me the tie breaker
), but he was given the Best Overall (I'll just say I gave it to him
), while I took home the Best Admiral award. Wooo, 1st place once again!
Overall, while my Eldar fleet performed quite well, I don't know if I like playing them that much. They are very, very fragile and expensive...I dunno. Not getting rid of them, if anybody's going to ask though, I'll still keep them for playing, it's just I'm not used to them I guess.
Here are pics of other fleets I had time to snap, as well as games and playing. A great time as always!
Best Appearance:
Best Overall:
As a side note, there were at least 5 Andrews playing, if I counted right, and it was all Andrews who won awards
. It'd be nice if the results go up on the Adepticon site, but we have to wait and see!
