Just a quick battle report for the lols

At slow grow the other night my incredibly bad CSM army played against perhaps the most tooled up Eldar army you can possibly make at 750 points. My opponent was also WAAC, but he's only just started playing so I forgive him for bringing such an approach to a hobby league. In any case, the match-up went comically badly for me and I thought I'd share the details with ya'll.

My army:
Chaos Lord with Mark of Khorne, power axe
6 Beszerkers of Khorne; champion has a power fist, Rhino
10 Cultists with close combat weapons
Helbrute with multi-melta and power fist
Defiler with t/l flamer, hades autocannon and 2 fists
Vindicator

So yeah, probably one of the worst lists you can make from the Chaos Space Marine codex, but I'm using this league as an excuse to paint stuff that has been sitting on my shelf for literally years (and I use chaos to practice painting styles so the army is very motley), and it's kind of fun playing knowing that you are almost definitely going to lose.

My opponent's army:
Farseer on jetbike with speer
4 jetbikes with scatter lasers
3 jetbikes with scatter lasers
3 jetbikes with scatter lasers
Wraithlord with sword
5 fire dragons in wave serpent with bright lance

Ouch. This is a photo of us setting up. It's a 4x4 table because it's only 750 points. Because jetbikes have 36" range on scatter lasers he can actually stay out of range of my vindicator even on this table! There is also a defence turret in the middle that was part of the mission for the day. At the end of each movement phase it does D3+3 STR6 AP- hits on any units within 12. It was really nasty. Otherwise the mission was Maelstrom #1.

He took first turn and took a hull point off my Rhino and moved his Wraithlord up towards the turret. Not much else. I had no targets for my vindicator except his Wraithlord but missed at 12". Boo. I took a shot with the defiler at his Farseer's jetbike squad but scatter to nothing. My helbrute failed to wound the Wraithlord. My Rhino boosted as far up the field as it could.

His turn he destroyed my Rhino but I disembarked to the safety of the trees and the cover of my wreck. The Wraithlord assaulted and detonated my Vindicator and his scatter bikes did a wound to the Helbrute, who raged as a result. His Wraithlord was wounded by the defence turret. My turn my boys moved to assault the wave serpent but were all cut down by the defence turret on route. Boo. I wonder whether I should have disembarked them on the other side, but I figured there was no way I could catch the jetbikes there and the fire dragons were the main threat to my vehicles who were pretty much only threat to him. My lord survived the turret but failed to roll any 5+s to glance on 5 hits with his axe. Boo. My Helbrute took a glance on the front armour. That turret was hot with the dice. Both my defiler and helbrute charged the lord because I had an objective to win an assault. He whiffed his attack and my Helbrute went on a mad rampage doing 3 AP2 wounds. Raaaarrrrgggghhh! Defiler did nothing. 

His turn 3 he drove the wave serpent forward and disembarked the dragons but forgot about the turret and failed to hide his dudes behind the tank. 3/5 were promptly killed. I hoped for a moment that maybe my defiler would survive the turn and be able to go on to do something. The remaining two scored one penetrating hit on the defiler; I failed my save and clenched my butt-cheeks. It's a 4, plus 3 because firedragons are bullshit, kaboom. Then, to add insult to injury, the blast hit my helbrute on his back armour and killed him. At this point I got a call from Tzeentch on my mobile; he wanted to tell me that "hope is the first step on the road to disappointment". 

I conceded on my turn because I just had my 10 cultists standing on an objective. They wouldn't survive a turn from those scatter lasers. 

A few thoughts on Eldar emerging from this game. 

1. Jetbikes are so fucking bullshit. Why do they have the 2D6 assault move? How is that even physically possible? Why do scatter lasers have 36" range? These guys mow through anything that isn't heavy and are basically immune to everything they might get in return because they are too fast for assault units and out-range all other infantry. They can even play range games against grav-gun bikes because 12+18 only equals 30. :-(

2. Heavy army does seem fairly effective against an eldar army that goes lite on anti-armour i.e. spams jetbikes. Unfortunately, I don't see this being possible. The only good heavy armour things for the current maelstrom heavy format are Leman Russes (cheap and cheerful) and Imperial Knights. Knights are 12 on the side so Jetbikes can take you down with weight of fire. Knights are also a huge points sink and so they are likely to be one of your only pieces of heavy. This makes them susceptible to shots from WWP Wraithguard and Wraithknights with D cannons, or flyers with D-scythes. Flamer guard can also delete carparks pretty well, so I don't know how Leman Russ spam will go against that. 

Next fortnight I'm playing something marginally more competitive so that I can use my second squad of cultists, my daemon prince and my HELDRAKE!!! Hooray for the coolest model in 40K. Also my girlfriend bought it for me because she also thinks it's the coolest model so I have to paint and use it even though it's a bit meh nowadays. We go to 1000 points in a fortnight and can bring flyers, so I'm going to roll with this:

Daemon Prince w/Mark of Nurgle (2+ Jink!), ML3 (summoning!), spell familiar

Sorcerer w/ML3, force sword (Axe would be better but I don't have the model)

10 Cultists with close combat weapons and a flamer

10 cultists with autoguns

Heldrake with baleflamer

Vindicator

Defiler

I am very tempted to replace the sorcerer with a Helbrute so I have a lot of armour on the board but then I am worried I can't get summoning off every turn and I've painted a sorcerer so I am going to use him. I can't win anyway!

The plan is to fly the prince forward, cast summoning and then run off the board into ongoing reserves. With 6 dice base and a spell familiar I should be able to manage. I might even be able to cast a second power! Wouldn't that be neat? Meanwhile my pie plates try to kill objective secured units. I don't have any good way to open transports (besides my drake who will arrive too late) or kill tanks and monstrous creatures, which is a bit of a worry, but whatever! I will summon daemonettes and win! Plaguebearers will hold all the objectives! Glory to the dark Gods!