Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Had a recent battle on vassal, thought I’d throw up a quick batrep on it. First, the lists:

My Dark Eldar:

2 x Dracon with agonizer, pistol
4 incubi
2 warriors with splinter cannons
Raider with DL

3 x 5 warriors, 1 with splinter cannon, 1 with blaster
Raider with DL

3 x 5 warriors, 1 with DL, 1 with blaster
Raider with DL

3 x Ravarger with 3 disintegrators

His Space Marines…wanted to go with the new SMs, which was fine with me:

<[-HQ-]>
Chapter Master Erithias Dominus (230pts)
Relic Blade, Artificer Armor, Hellfire Rounds, Digital weapons, auxiliary grenade launcher, jump pack

X-Elites-X
Sternguard Veteran Squad Zeta (310pts)
10 Veterans, Sargent w/Power Fist
Drop Pod

V-Troops-V
Tactical Squad Alpha (240pts)
10 Marines, Meltagun, Plasma Cannon, Sargent w/Power Fist
Drop Pod
Tactical Squad Beta (240pts)
10 Marines, Meltagun, Plasma Cannon, Sargent w/Power Fist
Drop Pod
Tactical Squad Gamma (240pts)
10 Marines, Meltagun, Plasma Cannon, Sargent w/Power Fist
Drop Pod
Tactical Squad Saga (240pts)
10 Marines, Meltagun, Plasma Cannon, Sargent w/Power Fist
Drop Pod


For mission, we rolled spearhead annihilation. I won the roll, but let him pick quarters and go first. Wasn’t aware he’d get to drop half his army (rounding up) on the first turn, but it probably wouldn’t have made a difference in my choice. He picked the upper-left corner. I held everything in reserve.

First turn

He drops his troops kind of strangely. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. I guess I figured he’d drop towards the middle/my corner, to force the fight. Obviously nothing from my side this turn.

Top of two

He rolls for his sternguard (with HQ attached) and other troop squad to drop in. Again…surprised by his choice of placement. He moved a squad into the building.

Bottom of two

1 HQ and all the splinter cannon squads come in. Strange split of the units. HQ goes over to assault the close squad, rest inch in two suppress building. Managed to shake building to prevent shooting. Kill a few of the marines to shooting, all but three in the subsequent assault. Lost one warrior in return. They failed morale and (I thought) should have been cut down, but apparently marines are treated as fearless or something, so they took the 4 hits and stayed locked in combat. Wasn’t sure, but it kept my guys safe.

Top of three

Marines continue to advance, shooting (limited) does nothing, kill the marines in assault and move back towards raider

Bottom of three

Roll for reserves, and everything else comes on. Wow…quick escalation of this battle. Obviously, I want to stay at range and pick him apart, so I do my best to spread out in a “C” shape along my corner. HQ gets back on the raider and hides. Early shooting wrecks the building, so the marines bail out and get shot up quite a bit.

Top of four

Some more advancing, then the commander drops his orbital strike on my middle ravager. It drifts to the right quite a bit and annihilates one of my squads. They rout (under half strength), so I take them of the board. The close marine squads immobilizes the closest raider (lots of damage rolls, but I made a lot of saves).

Bottom of four

And now, with the raiders and ravagers on line, the blasting begins. Both pods and the close marines mowed down. In fact, the middle ravager took out the far squad AND the pod! Two direct hits on the squad for 10 hits total (and can see 5 of 8 squad members, so no saves) and the third shot drifts south onto the pod, rolls a 6 for penetration and 5 on the damage table. Heck of a turn.

At this point, he concedes.

I’m fairly pleased with the list so far…seems like a good balance between assault power and mobile firepower. Really fragile, both with troops (for objectives) and everything (for annihilation). I’m considering dropping 1 troop choice to beef the others up, and maybe swap all the troop squads to splinter cannon and blaster. The HQ and incubi aren’t incredibly powerful, but good enough to take out most squads, and could hurt more dedicated melee units after a bit of fire weakened them, I think.

Raiders/Disintegrators coming in from reserve sounds really nasty, as a lot of shots can be had from the open topped vehicle.

The opponent won't be able to do anything about them except pray for a staggered deployment across turns of your big guns.

(Edited for Engrish and my grandma).

Well, it's a bit of a problem with the new rules, actually. The passengers on the vehicles can't shoot if it travels over 6", which makes it tough to drive on and shoot (unless you're willing to have the passengers disembark, but then they're exposed to enemy fire).

Ravagers do a little better, but they have problems, too, as they have to shoot disintegrators on low power if they move over 6".

Instead of a rapidly striking force flying around and blasting stuff, it feels more like a bunch of old people slowly shuffling around and getting in each others' way. More assault elements would help prevent that, but I'm not sold on wyches...they're even more fragile than the warriors, and with so many new types of assault threat, I don't know if they'd hold up well enough.

It seems that your opponent was erm... gifted in alternative tactics? like pacifism?

Your army is good, and you played it well, but your opponent... well, I'm baffled as to what he was trying to accomplish.

Looks like you did everything right and your opponent did everything wrong.

This game was over as soon as he deployed.

Looks like they wanted to outflank but decided not to a turn later.

Also what did you use to get those pictures? I want a program to set up terrain for practice purposes

The program is called "Vassal"...quick search should bring up some links to download it. There's a button on it to capture screenshots with. If you want to play online, or get all the 40K icons, you can download the module for the program. Most recent file is V40K+V5-0

Lovely battle report, thankyou, and Well done to not only fielding dark eldar but also a massicar victory, i love DE.

I think the problem your mate had was drop pod disorder, this was a major let down on his behalf, i mean i dont know the rules but i think that the new ig gun thing, the thunder cannon or whatever wuld be such a better choice

Well done anyways thankyou

Yeah, I don't think he quite knew what to do with my whole army off the board. I assume he figured he'd get shot up and assaulted if he landed near the edge and allowed me to roll in and attack, so he was planning on setting up at a distance in cover to exchange shots with me.

Obviously that wasn't going to work, as I have tons more long-ranged firepower than he did, and could use mobility (and the large building in the middle) to isolate and destroy pieces of his army.