The point of this battle was to determine how unbalancing using super-heavies in "normal" 40k would, or would not, be. A number of people claim that escalation is balanced, and relatively routine units such as deep-striking meltas can take care of super-heavies easily. I have obviously been very vocal in that I think it's just destructive to normal play.
An important note: Rob and I apparently misunderstood each other -- his initial list included void shield (with three fields total), which is a natural response if you're going to be facing D weapons. But from my perspective the goal was to try an Escalation list against a "standard" 40k list --which meant nothing from the stronghold book, either. So I insisted that he replace the points with some else. It certainly would have been more sporting had he been allowed to use the void shields (though I don't know how much it actually would have mattered, I certainly had the tools to pop 3 AV 12 shields before laying down D weapons) -- but to a large extent being sporting was the reverse of the point. Rob was claiming that Escalation was fine to use with "normal" 40k, I was claiming it would be destructive, that the only way to deal with a D-weapon super heavy was to take on of your own or something like void shields, that fortification with a D weapon, or maybe very specialized dedicated teams like Drop command squads filled with Meltas.
I took:
1 Revenant.
1 Farseer on a bike.
3 x minimum squads of guardian jet bikes.
1 buff commander
1 Riptide, SMS & Ion, skyfire and intercept.
1 six man FW
1 Skyray
1 Aegis defense line with Quad gun.
Now, I was fairly sure Rob would be taking necrons, and probably at least 3 nightscythes. I have 3 units with skyfire, you can look at it as tailoring to fight Rob list, but I think it was just covering my weaknesses. The revenant can kill anything on the ground but can't do much to flyers, so obviously Flyers is what I need to protect against.
Rob had:
Immotept (which replaced the void shield array)
Destroyer lord
6 wraiths.
3 X warriors (not sure how many) in a nightscythe, each accompanied by a Cryptek with staff
3 Annihilation barges.
1 Daemon prince with Black Mace, psychic powers, wings, power armor, etc...he was pretty kitted.
10 cultists.
I believe Rob's plan was to engage whatever super heavy with the daemon prince, SMash + rerolls should kill it. Obviously the nightscythes with gauss and haywire staff would be great against vehicles too.
We roll for mission and it is Kill points, Dawn of war. After pciking sides, Rob wins roll-off, wants me to setup first, he will seize ona 3+ (immotep + bonus from fighting a Lord of War) which he does.
I set up my Aegis with the quad gun pretty much center, Skyray goes behind that, as does the riptide, joined by the buff commander and jetseer. Revenant is off to the side behind a building. (and stupidly, 15" away). For psychic powers, I rolled Guide, Forewarning (that's the one that gives you 4+, right?) and misfortune. ALl my troops are reserved.
Rob deploys wraiths very central, Destroyer lord in front. Two barges one side, 1 on the other, which also had the demon prince roughly lined up with my Revenant.
Top of Turn 1:
Rob seizes, moves everything up pretty much full move. Daemon prince flies to within charge range of the revenant. Immoteps lightning doesn't do anything. 1 barge snapfires at the revenant, surprisingly gets one hull point despite holo-field and 3+ cover. No other shooting is significant. Wraiths run.
Bottom of 1:
Farsee casts guide on Revenant. I would like to cast 4+ invo on him but he's more 12", cuz I'm stupid, so I cast that on the riptide. I misfortune the wraiths. I'm worried about getting assaulted by the daemon prince.....turns out this is silly, as I can move 36" sideways, cuz eldar. SO I move all the way to other end of my deployment line, in charge range of absolutely nothing. 36" is really far, guys. You are never ever going to catch this thing unless you literally have the entire board flooded.
The riptide squad, with farseer shooting the quad gun, twinlinked, skyfire, ignore cover, shoots down the Daemon prince easily.
The Revenant shoots the wraith squad and kills them utterly, as well as the barge next to them, that I was able to clip with one blast. Turns out there are like 3 or 4 different possible ways you might be intended to wound models with D weapons -- the table and the preceding paragraph are contradictory. Excellent rules work yet again, GW! We went with "you see how many hits you get, then roll on the D table for each model, causing 0-bazillion wounds, until all the hits are exhausted". Anyway, I think no matter how you counted it, they were gone.
He has two barges left, I only have one skyray left to shoot, so I can't quite table him end of turn 1. I could shoot seeker missiles to try to pop one but don't bother.
Top of Turn 2.
Rob gets 2 Nightscythes in. I intercept with SMS (only) from Riptide and the quad gun. Each Nightscythe survives with only 1 hull point left. He does not deploy from them, instead firing all the tesla at the revenant, surprisingly (to me, anyway) doing 4 hull points, bringing it down to 4 left. (I will note that had I not been stupid, it would have had a 4+ invo and taken half that damage). Barges too, I think.
Bottom of turn 2:
My FW come in. Farseer give 4+ to revenant, guides him, and misfortunes a nightsythe. Riptide finishes off 1 nightsythe, skyray burns 3 seeker missiles (why not?) to waste the other. Revenant hilariously overkills the two annihilation barges. (they were right next to each other, I got 3 hits on one, 2 on the other) That's Game.
Tl;DR: The none-superheavy player was tabled end of turn 2.
