The View from the Bottom Tables

Today was the first day of the 1,750pt UK Team 'Singles' Championships at Maelstrom in Mansfield. Sixteen of the top players in the country descended like angels on the venue at around eight o'clock this morning for the first three games of a six-game tournament. To face these gaming behemoths I decided to take... Eldar. Yup, the Eldar that I recently denounced as being 'like doing A-Level Maths homework' and the self-same Eldar that I've only ever used four times previously.

So how did it go? Well, after three games I have two points out of a maximum of sixty (seems worse when you put it like that) and I am currently on -4,100 victory points. The first two games were actually good fun and actually quite close (honestly) and I was close to a few more game-points.

Game one saw me facing a Space Marines army consisting half-a-dozen Dreadnoughts, a couple of Predators and eight Land Speeders, all tooled up with heavy bolters. This game was Annihiliation and was actually quite close for three or four turns, but once my transports & Falcons were downed, things went south pretty quickly.

In the second game I faced a Genestealer / double-Tervigon swarm Tyranid list. I made a good set-up and started first, but didn't kill enough Genies in the first two turns, so when he got into contact with my forces it was a foregone conclusion.

Finally, my plucky Eldar faced the Tau Empire in the third game of the day in a dawn of war race for five objectives. Now then I thought, surely this was my chance to shine? Nope. Turns out this Tau army consisted almost entirely of battlesuits (fifteen I counted) and a Kroot meat-shield. It was ballistic overkill. All my tanks were wrecked by midway through turn two, and though I protected my scoring troops as best I could, my retarded set-up (caused by tiredness) had doomed me from the start.

So, have I learnt anything? Well, I know that me and the Eldar will be infrequent bedfellows in the future, that's for certain! After the tournaments this week and next, they will be going back into their spirit-stone beds for a long, long rest, and I will concentrate on armies that suit my neanderthal mentality a bit more - namely Tyranids (loadsa big bugz!), Squats-as-IG (loadsa big tankz!) and Pre-Heresy World Eaters (loadsa, umm, three-up saves). I've realised I don't have the attention to detail or chess-player mind to cope with the Eldar glass hammer. That said, don't get me wrong - it's been a fun day and I am really looking forward to continuing the tournament tomorrow!