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Batrep: Dark Eldar vs Space Puppies!

Now that I am unemployed, it seems like I play a lot of 40k. I'm not sure why I don't do more battle reports...Maybe I can remedy that.

I called up my buddy Grizzly Adams (Jake from If it wears power armor) and asked if he would be interested in a game last week, and I promised him a battle report as compensation, so here goes.

I haven't used many special characters in the new codex besides the Baron, so I decided to mix things up:

Vect
4 Trueborn, 3 blasters in Venom with 2 splinter cannons
4 Trueborn, 3 blasters in Venom with 2 splinter cannons
4 Trueborn, 3 blasters in Venom with 2 splinter cannons
5 Warriors with 1 blaster in Venom with 2 splinter cannons
5 Warriors with 1 blaster in Venom with 2 splinter cannons
5 Warriors with 1 blaster in Venom with 2 splinter cannons
5 Warriors with 1 blaster in Venom with 2 splinter cannons
9 Wyches with Hydra Gauntlet, Haywire grenades Hekatrix with agonizer in Raider with Flickerfield
9 Wyches with Hydra Gauntlet, Haywire grenades Hekatrix with agonizer in Raider with Flickerfield
Ravager with Flickerfield
Ravager with Flickerfield
Ravager with Flickerfield

Jake brought:

 

---List---

Rune Priest ---Storm Bolter, Living Lightning, Jaws Of the World Wolf

Rune Priest ---Bolter, Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane

Rune Priest ---Living Lightning, Tempests Wrath

3x Wolf Guard ---Combi Melta, Power Fist

3x9 Grey Hunters ---Melta, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard

---Rhino w/ HK Missile

5x Grey Hunters ---Plasmagun

---Razorback - HK Missile, Las/TL Plas

3x6 Long Fangs ---2x Lascannons, 3x Missile Launchers

---Razorback - HK Missile, Las/TL Plas

The mission: We played an ATC mission, so we had sieze ground (3), capture and control and kill points, deployment was pitched battle. the adepticon poker chips were the sieze ground, the metal swords marker was capture and control. Above is the terrain setup, we decided everything was 4+ and the bastions were entirely impassable.

My Initial thoughts: Damn, that is a lot of shooting. I don't know if my paper airplanes can stand up to that. If I can get Vect into his lines I have a chance of killing anything, but I'm not sure I can keep the pressure off long enough to do that. I hate hk missles.... and that many living lightnings is gonna hurt...

Jake's Initial thoughts: Well, well, well, a game against the ol' Wiley. Time to put my money where my snout is. I have been running my Wolves' list for the past couple weeks and have had some success, going 2-1. I thought I had enough shooting to go toe to toe with most, but I knew Wiley was bringin a pretty good DE list, one that I have had trouble with in the past. In fact, I have a stunning 0-4-0 record against the Nord, So I had something to prove. Luckily, I have quite a bit of experience against DE, in most of its iterations, so at least I shouldn't have any surprises! The main key to victory is quality shooting phases on my part, and some luck during his, as I can't afford to have a bad Turn1-2 shooting, or the poor Wolves may be makin Happy Hour a few turns early! I have to pick my targets carefully, and make good decisions. Hopefully, we can stick to it. On To The Game!!

We roll to see who goes first and he wins, but decides to concede it to me. I am feeling better about this game already! By getting first turn I figure I can neutralize the long fangs on the left and center and hide behind bastions to protect from the right fangs! I knew with the cover where it was he would deploy there. And luckily (maybe) he did!

My First Turn:

I move up and start shooting. I shoot the 3 venoms on the left at his long fangs, the 4 venoms on the right at his long fangs in the center. I move everything possible up to hide behind the bastions.










I have some success, 84 Splinter cannon shots and 11 Dark Lance shots later I have immobilized
1 vehicle, killed 3 long fangs and put 1 wound on a rune priest....yeah it turned into one of those games that quickly...At this point in the game I am sweating and I have some strange leakage pouring from my anal cavity, which doctors will later explain was me shitting my pants....in disbelief.




So I reluctantly turn it over to Jake, who decides not to move anything and instead shoot the living piss out of me! Which is exactly what I would have done if I were him.
From the picture you can see he blew both Raiders out of the sky, sunk 3 venoms and blew a Ravager away. So much for flickerfields and cover saves...


He also pinned a warrior unit and a wyche unit. Dammit son!








Kill Points: Willie 0 Jake 6

My Turn 2:
I'm realizing that with such a bad turn of shooting, i"m gonna have to capitalize on my speed and maneuverability to attempt a come from behind win. So I strategically redeploy to the left!

So after shooting pretty much my entire army at his long fangs on the left, I manage to kill the rune priest and all but 1 missle launcher. I also blew up a Razorback on the other side of the table I also attempted to move vect's unit up out of the crater to get towards hit lines and only manage to roll a 4, then out of frustration of knowing they are screwed I ran only to roll a 1, so they are out in the relative open. Not good as you will see later.





I only took 1 picture of Jakes turn, this is no surprise to anyone. 6 frag missles and 4 lascannon shots later....Vect is dead and most of his squad is toast. They manage to hang around, for a little while longer. This is the only kill point he earns this round.









Kill Points: Willie 2 Jake 7

My Turn 3:

Ok, feeling like some redemption definately has to be headed my direction sometime soon, I continue with the redeployment and head left!














Shooting sees me finally start to make some headway, wiping out the 1 man long fang pack and taking the middle squad down to 1 man. I also manage to crash a Razorback. I moved my wyches on the right side out to multi-assault the two rhinos praying that I choke him in keep control of that side of the board and I hustle that small warrior squad back onto my capture and control objective. It wasn't a great turn, but it was the best turn I've had, so I'm trying to relish it!




Jake's Turn 3, I didn't take any pictures. He really only had 2 targets to shoot at and he made it count, getting a boatload of smelly grey hunters out to shoot down my wyches and using his long fangs to pummel my warriors holding my objective, who promptly roll a 29 and run off the table.

Kill Points: Willie 5 Jake 9

My turn 4:

Time to bring some pain, I have to prepare for the end of the game, this mission is random game length, I'm starting to wonder if I will have enough models to make it...

I manuever up to get some warriors near his capture and control objective, get my trueborn into position to shoot a rhino and move a lone warrior back in craters towards my objective. I position a venom with 2 wyches in it to zoom and get on objectives later and I get another venom out of LOS of the fangs. 


Shooting sees me kill the rest of the middle long fangs squad and wreck a rhino that was threatening to come towards the objectives I hold. I killed all but 3 of the hunters that fell out but they managed to not run. I also immobilized the other Razorback that is near his capture and control objective. My trueborn on the right fail to harm the rhino between the buildings, so their souls will be going to meet Slaanesh soon...




Jake's Turn 4

Sorry this picture is blurry. Jake moves his squad in the rhino over to the side of the bastion and takes his 5 man squad down towards my trueborn in the crater. Shooting sees him get 1 shot from a razorback at my ravager in the middle of the table and get thru my cover save to wreck it. He also wrecks a venom up near his capture and control objective and drops some frags on my poor warriors on the objective, thank the gods they held!


The assault phase sees his 5 man hunter squad charge the trueborn in the crater and then slingshot over towards my lone warrior heading towards my objective.

Kill Points: Willie 7 Jake 11
My turn 5:

I know this could be my last turn, so I survey the field, I am holding 1 C&C objective, and can grab 2 Sieze ground objectives, but in order to make them count for anything I will need to neatralize a rhino and the grey hunters that are squatting in the building.






I accomplished nothing...I killed 1 guy in the ruin and made the guys close to my objective run, but I completely forgot that there was another rhino full of guys between the bastion and the building, I should have tried to neutralize that rhino...instead my ravager shot at the rhino coming down to my C&C objective and did nothing lol. But I did get into position to own 1 C&C obj and 2 Seize objectives if the game ends.


Jakes turn 5:

I need him to fail, hard to win, but I know it won't happen  as soon as I see him move that rhino...in my head a baby rabbit committed suicide...He moves them up and unload them, well within 3" of that objective and proceeds to shoot my venom with 2 melta shots and a 1000 bolter shots, the venom crashes taking both the Wyches with it.







The other rhino moves up and unloads its contents to get my C&C objective and kill my last little guy.

He also shoots down some various aircraft scatter about the board to take his kill points to untouchable levels.










Kill Points: Willie 7 Jake 14

Jake lets me roll for the game length, thank the gods my streak stays alive!




Then a crucial measurement proves to be his undoing! Ha! He didn't massacre me! I managed to win C&C, Jake got the Kill Points and the Sieze Ground!

Closing thoughts:
Wileythenord: Well I knew this one would be tough, but I never expected to have such a terrible first turn of shooting. He played well and capitalized on my bad luck. Living lightning really hurt me, having unlimited range meant I really couldn't hide anywhere. I had fun, I can't believe I had a chance at all really. But if both my wyches hadn't died when their plane crashed it would have been a draw. I will get his goofy Auburn loving ass next time!

Grizzly Adams:Aaahh Dark Eldar!!! Thats what makes Dark Eldar a pain in the butt. You can blow them to Kingdom Come and they will still push you all the way to the edge. That is a testament to a well built Codex (Thanks Phil Kelly!), a well designed list, and an opponent that can play it to perfection, rolling with the punches, and thinking on his feet. I really lucked out top of turn one, with Wiley's shooting kinda goin to crap on him, and my wolves made the most of it. My early game shooting phases were near perfect, and really is what kept me in the game. Not being able to drop his Ravagers really hurt, and The Nord made me pay for it. I feel my list executed well, even though I kinda deployed like an idiot. I still cant get over how shooty these wolves can be. My dice did me well, the list played just like it was designed to do, and I was able to pull out the Big W. Fun was had by all, and can't wait to do it all again!

Webway Dark Eldar vs DoA Blood Angels

My buddy "The Dude" agreed to let me batrep our game. Somehow Dude and I always have super bloody fights, and this one was no exception! I knew going in that it would be gruesome with DoA vs foot DE.

The Lists: (from memory)
DoA:
Sanginor
Libby with jump pack, Unleash Rage and Blood Lance
5 Man Honour Guard with 4 Plasma guns

3 Sanguinary Priests with Jump packs and Power Weapons
3 X 10 Assault Marines with 2 meltas and pf Serg
7-9 Vanguard with 2 LC/SS, 1 PF, 1 TH, 1 TH/SS (from memory)

Webway:
Vect
2 Haemonculus with Webway Portals
4 x 10 Wyches with 2 Hydra Gauntlets, Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix with Agonizer
5 Warriors with Blaster
3 Wracks with Venom
2 X 5 Scourges with 2 Haywire Blasters
5 Beastmasters 5 Kymera 6 Razorwings 1 Clawed Fiend
2 Chronos Parasite Engines with all upgrades

Mission: Drawfest
Deployment: Spearhead
The board: (Red circles show where the bases are)
 
I won first turn and put my objective in the woods on the bottom left. I should have taken second turn, but I was an idiot and didn't think about it...gotta get sharper...I roll for drugs and get +1 WS

Turn 1 deployment:

All I deploy is my Venom with the Wracks and both Haemonculi embarked. Dude declines to sieze so here we go!


I move 12" toward the Dudes base, disembark and lay down 2 webways in the shooting phase. Dude is in full reserve, so he has no turn 1.

Turn 2:

I roll for reserves and get 3 units of Wyches, the warriors, 1 Chronos, 1 Scourges. Warriors walk on behind my objective. Everything spreads out to try to keep the DoA from hitting too hard. Haemonculi split from the wracks, one takes 2 pain tokens and joins Vect's unit, the other takes the last pain token and joins the far right Wyche squad. The Wracks load up and head towards my base. Everyone runs and spreads out, warriors get into cover.


Dude rolls for Reserves and gets everything except 1 Assault squad. Top squad has Libby inside. The small squad is the honour guard, the bottom squad is the Vanguard. Vanguard declared heroic intervention and planned to assault the warriors. The Honour guard landed and opened a can on the Venom. Vanguard charged my warriors and turned them into clam chowder. Sangiunor looked majestic...

Turn 3:
I roll reserves and get everything else on. 2nd scourge squad comes off the back edge towards the forest in front of Sanguinor. My scourges both maneuver to be able to shoot Sanguinor, I manage to put 2 wounds on him. Beastmasters and Wyches come on near my objective. Vect's unit, the chronos and another wyche unit manuever to be able to charge the libby squad. Chronos causes wounds with both shooting weapons, throwing a pain token to both wyche squads, which make Vect's squad have 3, the other squad have 2. I fleet around and charge. Beastmasters charge the honour guard, wyches charge the vanguard, and I multi assault the Libby's Assault Squad.



Somehow my Beastmasters kill 1 Honor guard and I lose by 5...with him running down the whole squad...seriously?

1 Agonizer targetted the Sang Priest to deny fnp, the rest of my attacks go on the squad...I caused 23 wounds and didn't have vect involved. Libby lives. I can't remember the details, but he must have rolled snake eyes, I don't know how he could have survived otherwise lol.

The Wyches and the VV are obviously not interested in fighting, this one will last a while.

Dudes turn three he moves his other assault squad south to get fnp on his VV, moves his honour guard up to plasma my unengaged chronos. Drops his last Assault squad in the big open area on my side of the board. The honour guard start shooting....



and somehow only kill themselves...that was insane!
The VV forget how to fight, but thanks to fnp bubble all survive, drawn combat. I kill the libby in hand to hand, now Vect's squad has 4 pain tokens, the other wyche squad has 3 pain tokens and the Chronos has 2 pain tokens. Sanguinor charges 1 scourge squad and turns them into swiss cheese. They lose by 4 and get ran down.

Turn 4:
My green wych squad had a high consolidate last round, so they roll up to engage the assault squad. I realize that I need to pull the priest so I string my wyches out so only 1 wyche can assault into hand to hand and he will have to pile into me. The Chronos shoots that squad and kills a few, the other chronos shoots the squad that just dropped and did nothing.  Vect and his cronies move up. I assault the painted squad. He wins the combat by a couple, but thanks to FNP and fearless I stick around.



This is what the other half of the table looks like at this point, the other scourge squad shot Sanguinor to death gaining a pain token. Those Wyches are squatting unmolested on that objective.



Dudes turn four sees his newest assault squad move over towards the wyche/assault squad fight. He breaks his Priest off to bubble his VV and his Assault squads. Then he dual charges the wych fight and the Chronos, killing everything.

Yet another round of fighting between this wyche squad and the VV, nobody dies. What the hell!

Turn 5:

Vect and the Wyches come down to play with the assault squads. I move the scourges towards all the fighting. The chronos comes down to see what he can target. I fleet in such a way that I can charge vect into the small squad and the wyches into the big squad, I think I should have reversed that, but again, I haven't played wyches much so this was a learning experience. Vect slaughters 5 of the Assault marines, but leaves the priest and the pf...foreboding...I don't think the wyches kill many if any.

These wyches still fighting the VV...will this ever end?


Dude's Turn 5 sees Vect only able to swing at the painted squad, he throws 3 at the priest and 3 at the pf...and didn't kill the pf (3s to hit, preferred enemy, 3s to wound with a power weapon...) and he gets squished in return, wyches kill a few but lose a few, I think the final tally was wyches losing by 3.

Turn 6:
Dude rolls and we get a 6th turn.

Scourges continue to move towards the objective, shooting the lone priest on the way over. Finally killing him. The remainder of my wyche squad whittles dudes other assault squad down to where its only 2 in one squad the the pf in the other. But in return gets squished down to just 1 hydra gauntlet left in the fight. My Wyches finally kill a few VV, now its 1 hydra gauntlet and an agonizer vs 1 LC/SS VV without Fnp, I should shore this fight up during dudes turn and be ready to consolidate onto my obj.

Dudes turn 6 sees me die to the 1 assault marine and 2 assault marines. I kill the VV and don't roll high enough to get to the obj, dude did make it to the obj though. If the game ends now, its a tie....

I roll for turn 7 and get it!

Turn 7:


I move scourges over and shoot at the lone pf guy, doing nothing. Those last 2 wyches charge the 2 assault marines left in the open, he consolidated them so I couldn't assault both. I kill those assault marines. And are now contesting the obj with my Scourges.

Dudes last turn he assaults the scourges, hoping to kill them and win, but only manages to kill 1 due to Ghostplate armor 6+ invul saves and I stick around.



End of the game sees my Wyches holding his objective, and contesting mine.

It was a great game, I think it might have been different if the Beastmasters hadn't sucked so hard in their only assault, but thats how it goes sometimes. Looking back I probably should have just brought the warriors up through the webways so I could protect them, and just used wyches to get to mine in the back.

I had a lot of fun with this list, I can't way to get all the models put together and get paint on them!

What do you guys think?

Bring on the Webway!

I've been toying with the idea of making my Dark Eldar force into a more assault based army ever since I started the long road to the ATC. But due to all the playtesting I was doing with Deathwing I never got the opportunity to use the ninja DE list. Now that the Maul in the Mall is around the corner, its time to dust off those Webway Portals and grease up the Talos!




Tenative List: 2000 pt Dark Eldar Roster

Vect
I'm bringing Vect over the Baron for a few reasons. 
1) He is a combat monster and that is always fun! 
2) He has a str 10 blast with 12" range, and with his BS 8 he shouldn't get much of a scatter :p 
3) He gives a 4+ to sieze, with my list I will probably set up the same regardless of winning the roll or not, but I guarantee that when my opponent realizes that I can seize on a 4+ they will deploy differently. (Sean Combs would say I'm mindfucking my opponent!)

2 Haemonculus with Webway Portals
3 Wracks in Raider with Flickerfield
If the board has LOS blocking terrain that I can hide my Raider behind, then Vect will join up with this super unit so he can thieve a pain token after the webway deployment. If not he probably reserves with the rest of the army. By having 2 Haemmies joining the wracks, the unit starts with 3 pain tokens and is therefore fearless, so you have to kill them all to keep the webway from deploying.



4 X 10 Wyches with Haywire Grenades, 2 Shardnets/Impalers, and a Hekatrix with Agonizer
Wyches are the backbone of the army, these guys can lay the smack down if they get a good drug roll, but regardless they should be able to beat up on vehicles and tie units up for vect to slap into.

2 X 5 Scourges with 2 Haywire Blasters
These guys serve a few purposes, they tote 2 Haywire Blasters to stun vehicles and they can fly 12" to create blocking lanes if needed. They also have 3 shardcarbines which can help throw some poison shots out from time to time.





5 Beastmasters, 1 Clawed Fiend, 5 Kymera, 6 Razorwing Flocks
Beastermaster squads popping out of a webway can be pretty nasty, with 6 inch move, fleet and 12" assault they can close the gap quick. And with the wound allocations shenanigans they can pull off, they can live for a long time.

2 Talos Pain Engines with Chainflails and TL Haywire Blasters
Talos with Haywire Blasters can help with a vehicle horde, but they really shine in hand to hand, by getting 1+d6 attacks and the chainflails let you roll 2d6 and take the highest. These monstrous creatures can also get pain tokens, so when they go off on a unit chewing it to pieces, they could get boosts like every other DE unit.

I'll be playtesting this over the next couple of weeks and will probably write up some tactica after I play a few games with it. Any suggestions for improvement?

ATC - A Preview of the S.I.E.G.E.'s best event

 This is the 3rd Annual S.I.E.G.E. (Southern Invasion of Everything Gaming Extravaganza!) I have attended every year so far and have had a great time every year. I have fond memories:

• SIEGE year 1 saw my first ever Apocalypse game (and the first time I saw a Titan!), one of the worst tournament showings I have ever had, a couple of douchebag players, a couple of awesome players, and some really awesomely painted armies! It also saw the death of my non-special character codex marines army.
• SIEGE year 2 saw a much larger event, 3 more games played (9 games for the weekend!), an ass ton of IG armies, and a great showing for my old Dark Eldar Army, Kabal of Violet Shadows (until it met Rob Baer's ridiculous IG army!). Tons of people showed up and it was a fantastic time. Hard to believe that Blood Angels were the new thing last year at that time!
• SIEGE year 3 promises to be even bigger, with a bigger tournament, bigger prizes, a bigger venue, and a bigger crowd.

 This year the big event for the SIEGE is called the ATC, or American Team Championships. This is modelled off of the ETC that the crazy Europeans hold every year. A bunch of the guys in the gaming community have pretty much talked our local illustrious game shop proprietor to host this event at his venue. And tons of people are responding! Seems like this is gonna be a great event!

We have been discussing this even on our local gaming forum, Fixed Dice, for a few weeks and several have shown interest in playing. Thankfully, the guys from Nashville (Blade and Bolter!) are coming, as are the guys from the tri-cities and Knoxville, hopefully TN can represent!

I have formed up a team with some local players, we are working on a team name currently, but the army mix is something like this:

• Player 1: Codex: Space Marines
• Player 2: Codex: Space Wolves
• Player 3: Codex: Orks
• Player 4: Codex: Imperial Guard
• Player 5: Coxex: Dark Eldar or Dark Angels

I think we have a pretty good setup. One of the trickiest things so far has been constructing armies that can compete vs all the top tier codexes that are available presently (ie Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Dark Eldar, IG) and I think we have accomplished that with our lists. One of our guys is still a little green, but we have been practicing the missions every Friday and Wednesday to get everyone used to playing them. I'm hoping to have a good showing.

There are tons of other things going on at the SIEGE though, including a team tournament on Friday for 40k, and lots of Fantasy, card games, board games, pretty much any kind of game you can think of will be played there!

I hope everyone makes it out and has a great time, my team is pretty excited about it!