Hello all!

My Local Game Store hosted its monthly ITC tournament, and I took part bringing a variation of my tried and true combined Aeldari list. That list consisted of:

Craftworld Alaitoc Battalion:

•HQs

Farseer (Guide/Fortune)

Warlock (Conceal/Reveal)

•Troops

Rangers x5

Rangers x5

Rangers x5

•Heavy Support

Dark Reapers x3 w/ Exarch Tempest Launcher

Dark Reapers x3 w/ Exarch Tempest Launcher

Dark Reapers x3 w/ Exarch Tempest Launcher

Kabal of the Black Heart Battalion:

•HQs

Archon (WL with Writ of Living Muse and Labyrinthine Cunning)

Archon

•Troops

Kabalites x5

Kabalites x5

Kabalites x5

•Heavy Support

Ravager x3 Disintegrators

Ravager x3 Disintegrators

Ravager x3 Disintegrators

Harlequins Battalion

•HQs

Troupe Master (Fusion/Embrace)

Troupe Master (Fusion/Embrace)

•Troops

Players x5 (4 Fusion, 5 Embrace)

Players x5 (4 Fusion, 5 Embrace)

Players x5 (4 Fusion, 5 Embrace)

•Transports

Starweaver

Starweaver

My over all objective revolved around using my Kabalites and Dark Reapers to hold my back line objectives, Farseer and Warlock to buff the Reapers, and Ravagers to provide some big boy bullets to support my Harlequins as they pushed into the front lines. Rangers were tasked with either deploying in each corner in order to secure me Recon, or sit in mid field to intercept the enemy as they encroached on me. Thanks to being Alaitoc Rangers, and with abilities like Pathfinder and Lighting Fast Reactions, Rangers can be super hard to kill on the first turn, and along with Agents of Vect- this plan is the main reason I ran a triple Battalion and farmed up 18 command points.

Game 1: Versus Ultramarines

My first round kicks off and I get paired up with my buddy LJ… playing Ultramarines. I hate Smurfs. Have I mentioned yet how much I hate smurfs? Because I hate smurfs. Anyway, LJ is running a pretty standard Smurf gunline with Guilliman, a librarian, triple Predators to utilize Killshot, Hellblasters, Devastators, and bolter scouts for ObSec. First turn begins and LJ gets the first turn on me. He chooses HeadHunter, Old School, and Big Gang Hunter against me as his secondaries. Now. A pro-tip if you’re every facing me, or a list like mine:

Don’t take Headhunter. I will give you MAYBE 2 characters to kill, and as tempting as it is to see 6 squishy elf characters across the field from you- you’ll never see them. LJ ended up scoring one point of Headhunter this game, and even that could have been avoided.

Anyway. LJ kicks off, and attempts a bombardment run on my Dark Reapers.

Vect said no. Vect is love, Vect is life.

LJ skips his movement phase as gunlines tend to do, and proceeds to psychic. Gets might of Heroes off on Guilliman to dissuade a first turn assault on him, had no range on Smite or Null Zone. We enter his shooting phase, and most of my stuff is fairly well protected. He ends up eating one of my ranger squads and denying me a guaranteed Recon, and puts a couple wounds on one of my Starweavers. He Scores Hold, Kill, and First Strike. My turn.

The flood gates open, and my Starweavers each advance in different directions to divert attention and split the enemy forces. My Ravagers come out from hiding, and only have range on his Devastators camped out in a building. I enter psychic, and end up through Fortune and Conceal on one Dark Reaper squad, then put Guide on another. I end up putting down a group of Scouts, and mangled the group of Devastators in the building. Ended up scoring myself Hold, Kill, Kill +, First Strike, and Recon.

I make a big mistake in this turn, and that is ignoring the three predators cuddling with Guilliman. Truth be told, Guilliman isn’t much of a threat aside from his reroll auras. But the Predators were a cause for a concern that I neglected capitalize on.

Turn 2 comes around, and Smurfs begin swinging the momentum in their favor. He capitalize on my Codex-less Harlequins not having tricks, and shoots both clown cars off the board, and puts a big hurting on my Ravagers. My turn comes along, and my steam starts running out. I end up only scoring 4 points to LJ’s 5.

Turn 3, and it’s do or die. LJ ends up taking down all 3 Ravagers, and my forces are spread super thin. I have one shot at scoring a win- and it requires a perfect turn. I need to kill something to secure kill (and last strike as the game was about to end), I need to successfully charge a Troupe Master and Troupe into combat with his Predators in order to steal the Objective from under him, thus getting me the bonus point, and I needed to successfully charge an Archon and Troupe into Guilliman himself (who had moved previously and killed a Ranger squad in combat) and secure Behind Enemy Lines. Everything falls into place and I roll my Charge into the Predator- I get an 11. Awesome! The pred is now locked in combat and I can charge my Troupe risk-free! I roll…

A 3. Twice. What a heart breaker. The game ends at a score of 14-11 in favor of the Ultramarines, and man was it a close fight. We pack up and report, then I saddle up for game 2

Game 2: Versus Drukhari

Second game kicks off, and its versus Dan playing his Drukhari. He is running predominantly Wych Cults, with a Black Heart Battalion for Warlord. This game only went 2 rounds due to some difficulties with the round as a whole. There were some list discrepancies with other players that caused some confusion and turned the whole round on its head, but we played the most we could with the time we had. Dan brought a giant blob of Hellions as well as Reavers, with several Raiders full of Wyches, and they were in my front lines IN A HURRY.

Anecdotally; using Agents of Vect to counter another Agents of Vect is hilarious. After all was said and done, we rolled for 8 command points, and I managed to net one CP from the exchange- even though my Vect was countered. Worth it.

This game didn’t have a whole lot of flair and fervor to it, but I edged out a victory with a 9-8 lead at the end. It is however relevant to note that I rolled to play on the same table with the same deployment type on both rounds. Search and Destroy is killer on a list like mine. I pretty much only had 1.5 pieces of cover to hide 3 Ravagers, all my Dark Reapers, and two Starweavers. Not a good time.

Game 3: Versus Dark Angels

Round 3 was against Dom playing Dark Angel’s. Dom is relatively new to the game as whole, and while he has a good grasp on strategy and tactics, he’s still rounding out the edges on his list building mechanics. He had 2 squads of Hellblasters, Azrael, a Dreadnought, a handful of Tacticals, some Knight Terminators- and a Repulsor.

Repulsors are in a tricky place right about now. Being a flying Land Raider that can carry Primaris is a pretty appealing proposition- until you realize it folds to melta fire and dies in a single turn, as Dom so painfully learned. Now Dom is a good buddy of mine, and we often talk about his lists and I help him play test when we can. That being said, this game was not kind to him and the score reflected that.

Dom drops the majority of his troops in a bubble around Azrael with the Repulsor and a series of Tacts across the way in the other side of his deployment. We ended up rolling Dawn of War, so we have plenty of room to spread out this time around. Unfortunately, Dom left me room to drop a squad of Rangers in each of his table edges, and thanks to Pathfinder and LFR, failed to remove either of them. Mixing that with his Repulsor going up on turn one, Doom was spelled for my buddy with the “loyalists”. I systematically removed threat after threat while prioritizing keeping my Rangers up. Those Rangers net me 2 victory points per turn, as I took Behind Enemy Lines and Recon with them in place.

I end up tabling the Marines on Turn 4, and score out for the remainder, finishing the game out to a score of 32-7 in my favor. Fun story though: I had a single Kabalite survive nearly two full turns of shooting thanks to Power From Pain, and modifiers from LFR. That specific model is getting a spiffy new paint job to celebrate his promotion to Sybarite.

Conclusion.

After all was said and done, I took third in the whole shebang, and took home some valuable information.

• The Ravagers performed admirably. While S5 AP3 D2 doesn’t hit dreadnoughts or heavy armor (like repulsors) very hard, having 27 shots worth, rerolling 1’s is pretty likely to inflict damage on virtually anything you shoot at.

• I won’t miss Codex Harlequins. It sucked not having access to stratagems and such to supplement my Clowns, and man was I aching to use the Soaring Spite trait to fire fusions after advancing at full BS.

• Kill shot is a game changer. Kill Predators on sight if your opponent telegraphs it.

• Don’t under estimate low power attacks. Even though they’re S4 AP2, 6d6 Tempest shots is going to put a hurt on anything with toughness sub-8.

• Consider using more Doom-esque powers. Rerolling to wound is great. It’s even better when it’s not JUST Asuryani who can do it. Rerolling with my Ravagers or my Harlequins would have been fantastic.

Anyway, that’s my short write up of this past weeks tournament! Stay tuned for a write up coming that will give my thoughts on the remainder of the Harlequin Codex, and a discussion of the lists I will be playing in the coming weeks.

Thanks everyone who stuck around and read through this, and as always I look forward to hearing any critiques or comments you have for me!

As Always,

Batty