There are some variants for the Beast Pack, mostly using Eldar as primary and D.E as a secondary. I have a slight problem in that I don't have much Eldar stuff (apart from the Allies I specifically bought for the tournament and general games). So I made the decision to use Dark Eldar as primary and attach allies on top. Whatever happened, I was going to give the Beast Pack a go using my style of game play and the way I wanted to play with them!
My first game of the evening saw me play a very rare
sight… a sober Pete… Now a drunk Pete can be dangerous (to objects around him)
but a sober Pete can be dangerous on the battlefield! Playing a marine list, I
knew roughly what to expect. It should be noted that Pete has actually changed
his unit selections from BBV and is looking more towards an army that isn’t piecemeal
(maybe I should follow his example!). From his original list, he took out a
unit of Sternguard in a drop pod and included 3 units of 5 Legion of the
Damned. Other changes included swapping in a unit of Plas/Las devastators, two
units of warrior acolytes to go with Cotez’s Inquistion detachment and put ten
man squads of marines in rhinos instead of the 5 men squads he used at BBV.
Roughly (without seeing or taking a photo of his
army list) his list looked like this:
Tigger
Dev Cents (all with Grav Weapons)
2 x 10 Tacts with Rhino
Dev Sqaud (2 las, 2 plas)
Thunderfire
2 x 3 Acolytes
Land Raider Redeemer
3 x 5 Legion of the Damned
Now I may be missing something in this 1850 list but
that was more or the less the jist of it!
Me? Well, I’m using my beast pack list to try it out
and see what it can do!
Dark Eldar with EldarHQ:
Baron Synthonax [105] 105
Haemonculi [50] 50
Troops:
5 Wracks [50] 50
5 Wracks [50] 50
5 Wracks [50] 50
Dedicated Transport:
Venom [55] Night Shields [10] 65
Venom [55] Night Shields [10] 65
Raider [60] Night Shields [10] Flickerfields [10] 80
Elites:
3 Grotesques [105] 105
Dedicated Transport:
Raider [60] Night Shields [10] Flickerfields [10] 80
Fast Attack:
4 Beastmasters [48] 18 Khymerae [216] 264
Allied Detachment:
HQ:
Eldrad [205] 205
5 Warlock Council [175] 5 Jetbike [75] 5 Singing Spears [25] 275
Troops:
Windrider Jetbikes [51] 51
Windrider Jetbikes [51] 51
Heavy Support:
Wraithknight [240] Suncannon [40] Scatter Laser [20] 300
Total: 1846
So, a straightforward
list, or so I thought! What I forgot about was the fact I needed fortune on the
Pack and when I rolled for powers, I completely forgot and went down the route
of Divination without giving Runes of Fate a second thought! What I had
included in this list was a mini seer council all with their powers, they could
deal some damage or alter things for the opponent. Useful, I thought but I didn’t
count on the coming events!
Mission: Purge the
Alien (Kill points)
Deployment: Hammer and
Anvil
Warlord Trait: Acute
Senses… What is it with this bollocks?!
So, a kill point game.
Not ideal for an army like this with units which are so light that even the
wind can break them! Deployment was key. It was night fighting, so that gave me
a slight advantage. Pete won the roll off for 1st turn so he
deployed. With one side rhino heavy and the other land raider heavy, I wanted
to keep away from the LR. I set my Pack up in line with the rhinos, so I could pop them and then assault the troops next turn. Yet, without fortune it would prove a fatal mistake!
So, my turn 1... The beast pack stormed forward and were within charge range of the two rhinos Pete has brought forward! It would be a decent idea to smash them up and earn two kill points, what I didn't bet on was the fact that the guys inside, not tooled up, had rapid fire bolters! The bottom line of this Battle Rep is that I didn't roll for the right powers and consequently my stuff died...quickly!
My seer council did manage to get the centurions down to AV3 so that was a chance, but without my Wraithknight I couldn't do a great deal of damage to that unit! This enabled his Cents with Tigger to move where they like! Within turn 2, he decimated my seer council; all 5 gone in an instant! I did pop the rhinos but as previously suggested, the mass of bolter fire did for most of the beast pack leaving Eldrad, The Baron and 4 beasts after the 3rd turn.
I'm getting ahead of myself... Turn 2 all 3 units of Legion of the Damned dropped into my deployment zone. Now, ever since I was a child I loved Legion! I loved the imagery and the fact they had bones (ish) for armour! I love the fact they have a 3+ invun, ignores cover on shooting and you can reroll the scatter dice for their deep strike! A solid disturbance unit. Something which will stick around for a while! Well, they did! It took me unit turn 5 to get rid of all of them and then I was so far out of position I was ready to get shot at! Now, you might look at the pictures and say 'Hmm...the Legion of the Damned look suspiciously red!' and you'd be right!
Here's my proxy...
Anyway,my proxy is a Spirit Seer acting as Eldrad... I know... Not girly enough! So to combat that I gave his a wonky staff (damn you Failcast!).
Where was I? Beast Pack, Baron, Wraith...dead, charging, Legion... oh yes! So, we are at the stage in turn 4 where I have charged units of marines but I still can't touch the Devs, Thunderfire, Cotez and 2 units of Acolytes! Big kill points I can't get near because of the way Pete has lined up his force! I'm currently very stuck! I haven't got much left on the board in T4 - A small beast pack, 3 grosteques, Haemonculi, unit of 3 wracks... So yes, I'm pretty much FUBARed!
Not a great first game but something which needed to be done if I was to learn the list and to get a feel for what I have. At this stage I wasn't overly impressed with the list but that was due to my power selection and stupidity!
Next up, Nigel. Now for this, I decided to alter my list. Due to the fact that I'm on half term and instead of planning I'd rather write army lists and avoid anything to do with work I think I did a rather good job of avoidance!
My second list swapped the Seer Council, Eldrar and Grotesques for 2x3 Trueborn with Blasters in Venoms, Farseer and 3x10 Wracks in Raiders. On top of this, I increased my beastpack to 23! We hadn't rolled for mission yet so I thought it would be an ideal time to try these out and see what this list can do. Again, after this game I left with the distinct feeling that you have to play the beastpack the other way around with Eldar primary!
Game: Big Guns Never Tire (3 Objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War
Warlord Trait: Conqueror of Cities (Units have move through cover if moving through ruins)
Powers:
Well... he was fine... until that powergaming forgeworld bollocks got in range!
I will tell you that before I started to play Pete, one of his sons picked my Wraithknight up and was playing with it (in mid air) along with a few of my beastpack. As soon as Pete came in he said "put that down, it's worth £70"... what I wish he said was "Drop it! It's useless!" For not having a Wraithknight is better than having one in this game!
So for the second time, the Wraithknight watches this battle from the sidelines stewing in the fact that he is just a disappointment. Anyway, onwards and upwards!
Nothing else had much of an effect that turn but one thing worth noting was that the Baron (on a 2up invun) failed a invun save and bit the dust! So a beastpack without a leader...well...sort of! Nige did move his jetbikes forward, within charge range of the beastpack, so in the first turn, that is what I obliged to do!
It did take two rounds of combat but I chewed through the 8 jetbikes which would have caused great problems in my backfield.
Again, not angry... just disappointed!
Right.. back to the battle rep!
Like I said earlier, tit-for-tat. My pack manged to kill 2 hornets on top of the Warp Hunter in the following turn then trying to make their way across the board towards Nigel's objective.During turn 3 onwards, I came under heavy fire around the objectives I was holding! Thankfully the Wracks held strong and at the end of the game 1 Wrack was holding my objective!
At the end of Turn 5 I think we would have had a draw, if not a sneaky win for me, as my jetbikes were contesting and I was hold 1 objective! But, as ever, the game continued...for 2 more turns!
There wasn't much left on the board apart from a few troops, Wasps and a flier! My contesting jetbikes were light work for the mass of firepower laid down my Nige's Corsairs! I knew it was going to be close, even if I didn't show it on my face!
The final play of the game and the ball is in my court! I may have a possibility of contesting Nige's objective with the beastpack but it would be tight! I moved and charged the Wasps. With my 6" initiative move I tried to edge closer to the objective but Nige's placement meant that I was 1" out!
I ended up losing the 6-5! A fantastically close game and one which I came away feeling like I got trounced! Whereas, I should have been feeling that it was close and I could have nicked it! I think had I have won it would have been an injustice but I can't help wonder what would have happened if I had kept my Wraith, even for 1 turn!
All in all, I've played two games with players who are now developing their lists, play styles and understanding of the game to make for a very competitive environment. Something which is good because you don't always want 'soft' games where the atmosphere is always social. I really enjoyed the games and it has taken a while to write the report because I was trying to think of a way that my play style will fit the beastpack, unfortunately I don't think the way I play is suited for the dainty Eldar style. I would like to continue using them, but with the rush of tournaments I cannot afford to waste time in learning a new army when I need to update and evolve my lists for Death or Glory (8th-9th March), Throne of Skulls and War of the Roses!
I think for ToS I'll be taking Sisters and the other two... GKs (with some allies!)
But that is for another post!
For today I will leave you with a picture I call: The Wraithknight's Dream...
Thanks for reading! I'll see you soon!
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