Battle Report Mechanicum vs Eldar 4000 points

Yesterday, a battle was fought between forces of the Mechanicum and my Eldar Iyanden Warhost. We agreed on a 4000 points game. Here are the Armies:

My warhost consists of:

• a Windrider Host as a core choice, 
• two Wraithhosts, 
• a lone Wraith Knight, 
• an Avenger Shrine and 
• an Aspect Host with two units of Dark Reapers and  some Warpspiders as auxiliary choices as well as
• a Seer Council (here proxied with Shining Spears).

Key command benefits are 6" guaranteed run distance, battle trance and spirit mark v2.0 for the wraith as well as +1 BS for the aspect warriors.

The Mechanicum force consists of a new formation that combines:

• a trio of knights (two errants, one warden), 
• a Skitari formation that consists of Rust Stalkers, Snipers and Tropers, Lancers and a Dune Crawler, 
• a Mechanicum force with two units of heavy weapon servitors, two units of two big robots with herder each and an HQ.

Key Command benefit is that all upgrades a free of point cost.

In addition, there is a force of Iron Hands with:

• a Master of the Forge,
• three Tactical Squads with some Plasma and Grav weapons,
• two Contemptor dreadnaughts.

We set up two tables with a bunch of ruins. Given the time challenges of the game size, we didn't bother with eleborate mission parameters and just went for "Destroy the Alien". ;-]

The IOM forces won the deployment roll-off, deployed first and elected to take the first player turn. The crafty Eldar forces managed to steal the initiative! The Rust Stalkers scouted 9" forward.

Turn 1.1 Eldar forces advance on the entire front, skewing left to meet the Mechanicum infantry advance. A unit of Rust Stalkers and the majority of models from a second Rust Stalker unit fall to S6 monofilament and shuriken cannon fire. S6 does the job primarily because the Stalkers are T3 with 2LP each.

Turn 1.2 Sees a clash of the heavy units commence. A Knight Errant shoots and charges a unit of Wraithguard, takes one Overwatch D-Hit and a result of 6 on the D-Table for 6+D6 hull points lost with no saves allowed. Ouch!
Unfortunately it turned out later that my oppoonent wasn't aware that he should have charged in first with another unit to avoid the overwatch fire on the knight.

The other Knight Errant charges one of the Wraithknights. Even though the Wraithknight gets to hit first and has an edge over the Imperial Knight with a Master-crafted weapon, it barely survives and only scratches the opponent.

The Johnny 5 revival unit brings it's torsion weapons to bear on the wraithknight with the ghost glaive. Those are AP3, bring enough strength to wound well and do D3 wounds instead of one wound. This takes five wounds in one round of shooting.

Turn 2.1 The Eldar cast invisbility on the left wraithknight and the wraithlord, since both of them are down to one wound. I consistently forgot FNP and IWND rolls for my knights. The advance of the Mechanicum infantry on the left is halted

The remaining Wraithguards with D-Scythes move and run into range of the master of the forge and inflict an overload of D3 D-wounds on the unit as well as graze the Warden.

The heavy weapon servitors with the torsion guns are taken down by a ridiculous amount of fire made necessary by all mechanicum forces having both Shrouded and Stealth this turn.

A lone Wraithguard manages a 10" (8+2) charge on the Knight Warden just ahead of the knights in the picture above. The Warden elected not to waste overwatch due to the long odds of the Wraithguard's charge. The strikes of the Ghostglaive destroyed the Imperial Knight. The resulting explosion killed the wraithguard and took a wound from the knight with the heavy wraith cannons.

The invisible Wraith Knight and Wraith Lord take the remaining hull points of the Knight Errant and weather the explosion.

Turn 2.2 Mechanicum forces advance, the big robots wipe out units left and right in melee. Marines wipe out the Wraith-Scythe unit. I missed out on taking a picture during this player turn.

Turn 3.1 One of the almost-dead Wraithknights dies in Overwatch fire. I forgot FNP again.

Turn 3.2 Heavy weapon servitors finish off the last wound of the Wraithknight on the left. Big robots wipe out a unit of wraithguard on the left and damage a wraithlord on the right. Some warlocks on jetbikes die due to being too dumb to jink in time. ;-]

We called the game at this point. While there was only one knight out of six left standing, there were more troops left on my side with the mobility needed to evade and kite the remaining hard hitting, but slow remaining mechanicum units.

It was impressive to see what the mechanicum infantry can do. Interesting special rules, powers and weapons combined with dynamic BS/WS boosts and other effects like spreading cover boni around has a lot of potential. Even more interesting is that all these are deliberate choices rather than silly random tables!