Tanks and pew pew and stuff

In the grimdark future of the 41st millenium...

I got the chance to try out the Armoured Battlegroup I had mentioned in the previous post against, of all things, the new Eldar. Some salient points of the scrap:

1. John's Eldar list was a reasonably TAC list. Jetbike squadrons for scoring, accompanied by Warlocks, so stupidly fast scoring units with, insane cover saves. i.e. An extremely hard army to kill.
2. Since it was TAC, it was loaded out mostly with Starcannons. Quite meaningless against my list, so I let him switch 'em all out for Bright Lances.
3. My army was half painted and mostly proxies. As we know, the dice gods do not look fairly upon such silliness. This is also why I didn't record any pics of the scrap. Too ugly to look at!

So how did it go? Honestly, I think I suffered some cripplingly bad luck throughout, most notably one Commisar Tank getting immobilized on terrain in the 1st turn, effectively depriving me of 3 BS4 Heavy Bolters. Given how much I needed those to hurt his scoring units, that was quite a blow. Bad reserve rolls delayed my Vendettas and a Command Tank. And holy hell, John's dice were hot rolling for his cover saves...

All in all, this was a game in which the dice really screwed me over. Still, the list was great fun. BS4 Exterminators with heavy bolter sponsons are awesome! As such, I like this list, I shall try it out a few more times and construct it.

Meanwhile, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

I've been trying out a fun 100pt list using the Imperials which I like to call Top Gun...

Tie Advanced with Darth Vader, Engine Upgrade, Push the limit and Concussion Missiles
Tie Interceptor with Soontir Fel, Push the limit and Shield Upgrade
Tie Interceptor with Toor Fenirr and Veteran Instincts

Yah. 3 skill 9 fighters, all of which are insanely maneuverable. Against a standard Rebel 3-fighter list, I surmised it would be ludicrously hard for the Rebel player to manage to both get one of these guys in their sights AND shoot it down before taking a horrible amount of firepower first. So I hurled this list against the great equalizer, the Millenium Falcon. Well, Han Solo with Chewbacca and a gunner as copilots, at any rate. This combination makes a mockery of any attempts to outmaneuver it. 2 salvos would quite likely take down one my meager 3 fighters, and the remaining 2 simply wouldn't have the firepower necessary to kill Solo in time before getting picked apart themselves.

The conclusion is: while Top Gun is in concept great fun to use, Solo ruins it for everyone. I just don't think it's possible or even fun to try and take on Solo with a gunner with this list.

That having been said, I took on the list that murdered my poor Top Gun list using a more traditional list:

Tie Interceptor with Soontir Fel and Push the limit
Tie Fighter with Howlrunner and Swarm Tactics
Tie Fighter with Obsidian Squadron Pilot
Tie Fighter with Obsidian Squadron Pilot
Tie Fighter with Academy Pilot
Tie Fighter with Academy Pilot

Nuked Solo and the 2 X-Wing Rookie Pilots flying with him in pretty short order. I'm now satisfied that the Millenium Falcon is far from broken, but I really, really don't like the way its turret and the obscene number of rerolls to shoot so easily renders highly skilled pilots in excellent machines utterly useless...