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Hey folks!


You can read my other battle reports for this event here:
Round One
Round Two
Round Three
Round Four
Round Five

I flew 3,000 miles to the Southern California Slaughter in Space GT this past weekend, to find and ridicule some hippies and so that my wife could visit Disneyland. Regrettably I saw little tie-die, no tree-hugging, no granola-munching, no liberal protests, no hemp-chains, and no one approached me offering peyote or marijuana.

However, I did meet some kick-ass 40k gamers, and shook hands with Yakface, then decided to never wash my hands again. Then I shook hands with Reecius, whom I suspect is secretly a tree-hugger and immediately had to wash my hands. I wish I could say that I don't know where those hands have been, but regrettably I do. *chuckles*

Hulksmash and his wife met my wife and I at LAX, and took us around the town, and while he and I were gaming, the wives spent time together and spent our money together, and not only did I get to play in a GT, but my wife got to go to Disneyland (dream for her), she'd never been to California (dream for her), we got to go to Medieval Times (dream for us both), and we met some great new friends.

The event was held in the Ontario Convention Center, which was amazingly huge; we had one of the rooms in the convention center, and during the entire tournament 40k music, Final Fantasy music....nerdy stuff was playing. It was blissful. I was a little starstruck on the first day - I got to meet some of the big names of 40k. I'd done some practicing for the games, so I had a general idea of what to expect in each of them, but to the surprise (and apparently disappointment) of a lot of the gamers there, I chose to bring Dark Eldar instead of the famous Pink Waaaugh! This was my first serious event using Dark Eldar, and also my first time playing with the army in person - I'd had it out for commission painting with Hulksmash (here on Dakka) who does a great job and doesn't overcharge. I was worried because not only did I not really know how to make my army work (not only did Brad paint the army, he also built the list for me - I showed up to California, he gave me the Dark Eldar, and I took them out for a spin), but I'm an Ork player, which is a very different game than Dark Eldar.

As pairings were announced, I went to look at the comp score, which determined pairings for the first two days. I had scored a 6.5 out of 15, putting me about #6th hardest for lists. A couple players had slightly worse comp score than me(5-6.5), and a couple players had 1 or 2 points out of 15.

As I headed to my table to meet my first round opponent...my worst nightmare was realized. Shep stood at the other end of the table with his mechanized IG. My hesitance to use Dark Eldar in a competitive event stem mostly from my fear of mechanized IG, whom even if you get a good round of shooting in against, can answer back with 3x the shots from multi-lasers, which hurt worse - and that's before the vendettas, manticores, hydra flak cannons, and everything else in their arsenal. As we got to talking about terrain, there was some kind of shuffling mixup, and Shep was whisked away from my table and replaced by Manimal's Blood Angels, from our own Dakka Dakka!

Purple People Eaters:
HQ: Lelith Hespirax + Wych Retinue + Raider
Troop1 - Troop6: Units of 5 Wyches, Succubus+Agonizer, Raider. Couple squads had blasters, couple raiders had horrorfexes. All wyches in the army had haywire grenades.
Elite 1 - Elite 3: Units of 5 Warriors, each with a Dark Lance, each with a raider. Two squads with a sybarite, one with a Nightmare Doll, one with a Crucible of Malediction.
Heavy 1 - Heavy 3: Three Ravagers, all with Disintegrators.

I brought a little bag of washers, and each washer was labelled twice on both sides in magic marker 1-6 so that I could denote my wych powers - I haven't thought of a better system yet. As you look through this and other of my battle reports from this tournament, that's what those washers are.

Manimal's Blood Angels:

HQ: Librarian in Terminator armor with storm shield, with Fear the Darkness + Unleash Rage
Troop1: 10x Assault Marines with 2 melta guns, sergeant with power fist and storm shield.
Troop2: 10x Assault Marines with 2 melta guns, sergeant with power fist and storm shield.
Elite1: 6x Assault terminators; 2 with lightning claws, 4 with thunderhammers, inside elite land raider crusader with multi-melta and extra armor
Elite2: Sanguinary Priest in Terminator Armor
Elite3: Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack
Fast1: Baal Predator with twin-linked Assault Cannons
Fast2: Baal Predator with twin-linked assault Cannons

Heavy1: Vindicator with siege shield
Heavy2: 5 Devestators with 4x Missile Launchers
Heavy3: Predator with Autocannon and Lascannon sponsons


The mission packet can be found HERE and Mission One is on page seven.
Primary:(12 points) Claim more objectives at the end (can only be held by non-embarked units, and the objectives are booby-trapped - on a roll of 5+ the unit takes D6 wounds. 5 points if neither player have more than the other.
Secondary: (5 points) Keep all enemies out of your deployment zone
Bonus: (2 points) Destroy all enemy Heavy Support choices
Bonus: (1 point) If your most expensive "Troops" unit is alive and not fleeing.

It was an L-shaped deployment (see mission packet picture attached) with one nugget that I had missed in my practice games: Dawn of War! I elected to deploy and go first, and put everything in reserve. Here you can see a picture of my raiders on my impromptu moving tray - I didn't bring one with me (because I don't have one) and I've attempted to magnetize my stands to the raiders, which will end up being a disaster as the are constantly falling over and spinning around during the game, until for games 3-5, I left them on the table and put them on a stand for LOS when my opponent needed to measure to me if LOS wasn't clear.


My deployment: With a crucible in my army, I want to use it as soon as I can, and the model carrying it cannot move or shoot to use it - so the sybarite and warrior squad with the crucible need to start out of their transport. I squeeze two warrior squads into the three floors of this building, although they will be out of range of the battle for pretty much the entire game (something I wasn't anticipating). The rest of my army starts in DoW reserve.


Enemy Deployment: Manimal keeps his whole army in DoW reserve, except for his two assault marine squads, whom he elects to keep in true reserve - he doesn't want them on the table getting shot up with 3 objectives on the table and him having two troop choices.

Dark Eldar Turn1:
I have the L-shaped deployment in the bottom right of the table. My deployment zone is halfway down the long and short table edge, and 12" in, while Manimal has the same zone in the opposite corner. I bring my entire fleet onto the table moving flat-out so that I can get cover saves as he moves onto the board firing. I moved out of my deployment zone and towards his knowing that he would get the first shots in, but hoping to be close enough to answer with dark lances and haywire grenades. The one exception was my third warrior raider, which moved on 12" and disgorged its warrior complement behind terrain to get ready for the firefight. You can see the three objectives in this game as well - one in the middle, and two equidistant from the middle in each table quarter, although one is hidden inside that nearest building.



Blood Angel Turn1:
Manimal springs his first surprise on me: My illiteracy! I didn't realize that you could normally deploy from the side of the table this round, and he brings his Baal predators in from the sides, his demolisher in from the side, and his land raider in from the back, while his predator creeps around the other side. Instead of him being 24" away and ranging nightfight like I thought he would, he's 12" away and in my face with autocannons and a demolisher template. His guns reach out, I fail cover saves, two of my wych raiders go down while a third loses its dark lance.

Dark Eldar Turn2:
My suddenly foot-slogging Dark Eldar make for the Baal predators while two of my raiders and Lelith's entourage jump a building and prepare to lance and grenade those infernal tanks. On the other side of the table, I line up for some lance shots into his predator.


Without a decent target for my ravagers (since his assault marines are in reserve) I attempt to range them with disintegrator cannons, and three small templates nets me a total of one hit, two scatters off the board, and one failed coversave for a dead devastator.


After an army's worth of shooting, both predators explode, leaving Lelith and her retinue out in the open - I had hoped to shake/stun/immobilize so that I could assault into them (my lances never fire very well) but they actually performed about to average. Instead, that wych squad and Lelith are going to have to attempt to fleet/assault into that demolisher.


On the other side of the table, my single only dark lance shot into his predator wrecks it. I rejoice.


In the rear, I killed another of his devastators from something or another, leaving three left.


My shooting finished, I make it into assault with his demolisher, and one of my wyches sticks his "spear" into that demolisher turret and weapon destroys it.

At the end of my turn2, I've lost two raiders in exchange for killing two Baal predators, a heavy support predator, 2 devastators, and weapon destroying his demolisher. I'm feeling like perhaps my famous Dark Eldar dice rolling only apply on Vassal, not in real life....because I NEVER roll this well, (despite failing every cover save against his shooting turn1). I also used my crucible to no effect; his librarian passed leadership. In fact, the entire weekend my crucible killed nothing.

Blood Angel Turn2:
Manimal rolls for reserves and gets.....NOTHING! He's got a land raider on the table full of assault marines and three devastators in the backfield, along with a weaponless demolisher. He moves his land raider up the field a bit, pops smoke, then opens up with a PotMS Assault Cannon and his remaining devastators - each unit weapon destroys and immobilizes a full wych raider. The weaponless demolisher tank shocks forward and through some wyches, who pass leadership and dust themselves off, preparing to assault it.


Dark Eldar Turn3:
My rampaging forces form up optimal firing lines to range his land raider, and my ravagers hover, prepared to unleash death on whatever comes out. Manimal has a smoked raider and a depleted Devastator squad on the board:


My closest wyches to his land raider (in a weaponless immobilized raider get out and start screaming towards his land raider, intent on popping it open. I'm circling his demolisher getting ready to pop it (can't reach the devastators), and figure the game is probably about to reach a violent and early end.


Then, three very bad things happen.
1. My wyches that were disembarked turn1 move onto the closest objective. The booby trap explodes, killing the entire squad. I have no troops in that corner, nor a way to get any troops there in the next turn without moving flat out.
2. Wych blasters wreck his demolisher, ,and Lelith - without an assault target now attempts to fleet and gets 1" of movement - not enough to get into cover.
3. Every single dark lance in my army fires at his Land Raider and whiffs. 3+ to hit, 4+ to glance....I didn't get a single one. He didn't even NEED the smoke.

I shake my head in disbelief and throw my last trick at the land raider....an assaulting wych squad. Despite needing 6+ to hit, I get TWO HITS! 2-5 to glance, 6 to penetrate....and I roll double 1s. *sigh*


Blood Angel Turn 3:
Manimal rolls for reserves and gets both of his assault marine squads, which he combat squads onto the table in 5 man units. Now, he's got an advantage. Of my six troop choices, one is dead, two are out in the open without cover, one is in an immobilized, weapon destroyed raider. And he hits me again - the damnable side of the board is part of his deployment zone. He jumps in one of his tac squads near the objective while the second goes on the other side of the building in front of the picture.


Meanwhile, his land raider happily sits still while the terminators inside disembark to go play with Lelith, who is out in the open. On the other side of the board, his marines come out behind a hill and wait for a late game snatch and grab of the other corner objective. Then the pain arrives. The wyches in the open flare up and disappear. His land raider opens up on the wyches assaulting him, who go to ground. Miraculously, they all live - although they're pinned and helpless for future rounds. His assault terminators+Librarian+Priest assault into Lelith with Lightning Claw and Thunderhammer. Lelith and her retinue down two thunderhammers, while they in return kill three wyches - Lelith passes leadership and combat is locked. I think his devastators killed another vehicle.

At the bottom of turn3, Manimal has one objective, is closing on a second, and half my troops were just vaporized.

Dark Eldar Turn4:
My (last?) remaining mobile raider zooms onto his side of the board and disembarks wyches into the building - he's got his 4th tac squad in there waiting to grab the middle objective. I plan on disabusing him of the idea. Two of my ravagers zoom off to the right and open up on his tac marines behind the hill, killing three.


I spend another shooting phase pouring every dark lance in my army into his land raider, who shrugs them all off without a single hit, glance, or penetrate.

My last wych squad disembarks from their immobilized raider and starts making for the middle objective. My third ravager completely annihilates the third tactical squad. We jump into combat and Lelith whiffs, and loses another wych. She'll stay in combat another turn, but I'm getting desparate; I don't have reinforcements to throw over there. In the enemy backfield, my wyches eat into his tac squad, killing 3/5, who swing back without effect.

Blood Angel Turn4:
His Land Raider backs up a few inches from the pinned wyches, and they evaporate before hurricane bolters and assault cannon. Poof. I'm down to 2 wych units. His two remaining assault marines in the far corner try to stay hidden, while his remaining full squad hugs the terrain and holds onto the objective for dear life - they melta out the window and and kill the closest raider. In close combat, Lelith attempts to hurt the Librarian, who passes his invulnerable saves....but combat remains locked. He's down to his Librarian, the Priest (who I thought was a regular terminator) and a single terminator - I think I have just lelith at this point.

In the backfield, his reduced marines and my wyches continue to beat on each other.

Dark Eldar Turn5:
My remaining wyches jump onto the middle objective. On the left of the field, one ravager moves onto the objective, while the other moves into firing lines for his two remaining marines behind the hill and zaps them dead. My third ravager pokes its nose into the window where he's sitting and unleashes close ranged hell (sustained burst) into his objective holders. Both melta guns die, the rest live. Lelith lives through one more round of combat, killing the last terminator - leaving the Librarian and the chaplain, although she's lost her shadowfield by now and has but one wound left. My wyches in his backfield successfully kill off his other tac squad and consolidate towards his land raider.

I also fly two empty raiders up and park them in front of his land raider so that he can't tank shock into the middle of the table and contest my center objective (or at least I'll try).

At this point, I control one and contest two....and short of assaulting my ravager and killing it, he can't win.

Blood Angel Turn5: He attempts to ram through my raider, but I successfully dodge and he's stuck. His marines on the left objective fail to kill the ravager.
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Now....at this point, we just finished turn 5. The mission packet calls for a 5 turn game, with turn6 happening on a 3+ of the dice roll. We've all been instructed to not start another round if less than 30 minutes remain....and the clock just passed the 5 minute mark. Manimal asks me for another round, and I tell him that we don't really have time. I've still got a chunk of stuff on the board, he's got an empty land raider, 3 devastators, 3 tac marines, and a librarian and chaplain.

He says that we can get it in if we play fast, and I respectfully disagree...we're inside the 5 minute mark. He says that if we don't make it through the whole turn, and have to stop in my turn....he's ok with that. At that point, I agreed to go another turn.

Dark Eldar Turn6: My victorious wyches in his backfield circle around his land raider to get into position to assault it. I jammed a second raider into his objective area so that I was contesting it with dual units and moved into my shooting phase. My ravager opened up on his marines, but they lived. At this point, time elapsed. The judge wandered by and told us to go ahead and finish the round. My wyches assaulted into his land raider and actually exploded it, while Lelith finally gave up the ghost to his librarian, who consolidated towards the middle objective I was holding.

Blood Angel Turn6: Manimal moved his Chaplain 6" towards the middle, and rolled a 6" to run - the only dice roll that would get him anything, which put him within 3" of the middle objective I was holding - at which point the game ended with neither of us having the primary objective.

We stood there talking about the fun we had for a minute, and then I realized that we never rolled for turn6. If we hadn't done turn6, I would have won. Manimal rolls.....and rolls a 2! We're about to revert back to me with a 20 point massacre when he realizes he has a reroll token and uses it - and rolls a 5; IE, the game had a turn6.

At game end, neither of us had primary (5 points each) while I had secondary and bonuses, and the game ended 13 points to 5. I had a great game, caught a good chunk of the points, and got to meet Manimal, who is absolutely a great character. Upon reflecting on how the game ended, I end with this: I don't begrudge Manimal wanting another turn to try pulling a draw...not at all. I'd do the same in his shoes. We went out for lunch afterwards and I'm glad to have made his acquaintance. However, I'm left a bit uncomfortable with how the draw arrived - we weren't even supposed to be having that turn, and I only agreed to start another turn inside the 5 minute mark because of his agreement to stop at time regardless of where we were.

I'd like to stress that I'm not making an issue of it, but I'd like to know what other folks would have done. I ended the tournament with max sportsmanship and max player comp score - I've been heavily influenced by Hulksmash, who brings butt-raping armies, but is so nice to play against that you can't help liking him. My sportsmanship improvements are his fault. =p Anyway; like I said - it was a good sportsman thing to do, but was a little strange in how it turned out. I'd like to know how other folks would have responded.
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At the end of round 1, I've got 13 battle points, and am in the middle of the pack; maybe in the 60-70% pack; not many folks got big scores on the first mission.

nice report. so pink orks and purple dark eldar.... definitely nontraditional color scheme. i anxiously await your mauve tau!

p.s. i think you need more skimmers. there is a small space in your deployment zone that is not occupied. this is unacceptable!

That made me laugh.

I actually *do* have more skimmers. Just not the Force org spots for them.

And the Tau.....are polka-dotted.

I just wanted to pipe in here for a second. I don't recall a new no turns after 30 minutes rule (though I could be mistaken) just a don't start if you can't both finish rule. As I only needed 30 seconds for my turn I felt comfortable asking for the game to continue with 5 minutes left.

Dash was a good sport and allowed it to happen.

I did however dial back what I could have done on my last turn. I had the oppurtunity to fear of the darkness ( a minus 2 morale test, so on a Ld of 6 for wyches) his wyches and claim the middle objective for the win (with the right combination of lucky rolls). I also could have shot my 3 missile devastators at the raider in my deployment zone to gain another 5 battle points. I selected not to do either of these things because dash seemed uncomfortable having a last turn.

Well, seems like you had some poor rolling throughout the game, which would make me very upset for the first round of a tournament.

Anyway, good battle report, can't wait to see the rest.

I personally would have let the turn go, though I would have voiced my regretting it afterwards.

Hulksmash... how much did he charge you for your dark eldar? I don't have the time of day to paint my eldar. >.>

Also, didn't know you had a wych army, thought you played warrior spam like the rest of them.

EDIT: Your top link, (to this page?) doesn't work, brings me to a new thread page.

Manimal wrote:I just wanted to pipe in here for a second. I don't recall a new no turns after 30 minutes rule (though I could be mistaken) just a don't start if you can't both finish rule. As I only needed 30 seconds for my turn I felt comfortable asking for the game to continue with 5 minutes left.

Dash was a good sport and allowed it to happen.

I did however dial back what I could have done on my last turn. I had the oppurtunity to fear of the darkness ( a minus 2 morale test, so on a Ld of 6 for wyches) his wyches and claim the middle objective for the win (with the right combination of lucky rolls). I also could have shot my 3 missile devastators at the raider in my deployment zone to gain another 5 battle points. I selected not to do either of these things because dash seemed uncomfortable having a last turn.

*nods*

I wasn't complaining. And if I was really uncomfortable, I would have put down my foot.

I am looking foward to reading the rest of your battle reports.

Great battle report sounds like a fun game, me personally I would of done the extra turn, that fear of darkness power sucks, it's forced me to take wolf guard battle leaders on all my gray hunter squads. once again great job!

I said it once, but I'll say it again - congratulations.

I really like the look of the army, Hulksmash did a sweet job for you. Turn 3 was almost painful to watch and seeing that many Wyches stumbling around without a assault to make is just sad.

How are you liking Lelith as your Archite?

I keep rolling 1s early on in Lelith's saves.

Also, Dark Lances don't impress me; you'll see a theme as the reports grow. I always miss. It's a joke on Dakka and Vassal, but it happens in real life too.

That was not mech IG that was BA might want to edit that out.



Great rep as always, keep up the good work representing the true eldar race.



Oh and I can't hit anything with lances either. Disintegrators on the other hand....



You mentioned you didn't take blasters on all of the wyche squads, why not?

Nice report - easy to follow and good pics. Great to see a Dark Eldat army fully painted, against a fully painted opponent and on a well laid out table

Dash, good report on game 1. I have to say I was anxious to see how a full wych army would do. I agree with you on Dark Lances in that if I really intend for them to do well, you have to take an overwhelming amount of them which would require more warrior oriented army.

Sad that Lelith didn't accomplish more. I wanted her to wreck some marines. Too bad positioning saw her mostly ineffective. I don't envy you those dice.

Good report. It is nice to see how the Blood Angels play, as I haven't really faced them yet. Love the Tau drones, too.

However, one thing stuck out. How did the Blood Angels player shoot the Land Raider's Assault Cannon on the same turn he used the smoke launcher? As far as I know [I am not aware of what FAQ this tournament was using, or if GW has put one out for BA already], the BA codex says to look to the basic rulebook for the rules for the smoke launcher, and there it says no weapons can be fired on the same turn the launchers are used.

Clthomps wrote:That was not mech IG that was BA might want to edit that out.

Great rep as always, keep up the good work representing the true eldar race.

Oh and I can't hit anything with lances either. Disintegrators on the other hand....

You mentioned you didn't take blasters on all of the wyche squads, why not?

I know it was BA - I said so in my post. Read it again. The end of the paragraph.

In terms of blasters....its how points came out. I wanted more blasters, but getting them would have cost me a unit of something - I would have ideally liked to have blasters on all wyches and horrorfexes on all raiders, but points didn't allow.

Hmmm, I usually cut Horrofexes prior to Blasters (especially seeing as how your list only had 13 Lances, which is about as low as I like to run my Lances, and I'm the 'lucky' Lance guy.

Those Horrorfexes paid for themselves. I think.

Through 5 games I think I pinned a BA tac squad game 1 (can't remember); I know I pinned a Chaos marine unit somewhere, and in round 3 I pinned a full dire avenger squad for a turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Thor665 wrote:Hmmm, I usually cut Horrofexes prior to Blasters (especially seeing as how your list only had 13 Lances, which is about as low as I like to run my Lances, and I'm the 'lucky' Lance guy.

Also worth noting is that fearless units don't get a free pass against a Horrorfex because they inflict a leadership test, not a morale or pinning test. Some people will argue that its semantics due to the old codex....and others will note that semantics or not, we play by the rules we're given; starting to freely interpret rules because you disagree with how you think they should work is a dangerous and slippery slope.

Besides, everywhere I've taken them, when the question has come up its been ruled in favor of the horrorfex because it calls for leadership, not for pinning.

I play Horrorfexes even with the lesser interpretation, so if you've got that more permissable ruling going you'd be crazy not to bring them. I approve of the choice.

Nice to meet you too , brotha! And yeah, i don't blame you for washing your hand after shaking mine, I know where my hands have been! Haha.

Congratz on the win, I thought I had it but you just sneaked by me!

Van Grothe wrote:
However, one thing stuck out. How did the Blood Angels player shoot the Land Raider's Assault Cannon on the same turn he used the smoke launcher? As far as I know [I am not aware of what FAQ this tournament was using, or if GW has put one out for BA already], the BA codex says to look to the basic rulebook for the rules for the smoke launcher, and there it says no weapons can be fired on the same turn the launchers are used.

'Power of the Machine Spirit' lets you shoot one more weapon than you normally are able to. So normally 0 + 1 for PotMS == Assault Cannon

You can group smoke launchers along with moving at cruising speed, crew shaken and ramming when it comes to Power of the Machine Spirit. Some people may view it as cheesy, but technically it's do-able, at least in the eyes of most people.

Great game Dash, though I was thinking you'd rape the BA's. Nothing you can do though when the dice aren't with you.

Manimal, you should've done what you mentioned, which is try to go for the win by using your psychic power and shoot down his raider in your deployment zone. I'm sure Dash would probably have done the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot. It is a competitive event, after all. As long as the last turn was agreed upon by both parties, there shouldn't be any crying over spilled milk and there is no need to "take it easy." It's not as if someone was being massacred. Anyways, just my opinion.

30 minutes is plenty for a turn 6, especially considering how beat up your armies were. You made the right choice continuing. I know when you've got a win locked on turn 5 that clock suddenly looks like you should call the game.

I know I wish my game had ended on 5 for game 3. If I had a re-roll I would have used it to try and end the game.

I noticed your games didn't finish that fast Dash. Your game 5 was like 15 minutes over the time limit (I'm sure the judges allowed it since it was table 1) While I really appreciate the pics and the batrepping, if snapping those pics is adding any time to your games, you should probably scale them back a little.

Otherwise great showing... I'll be reading the rest now.

Dashofpepper wrote:I'm an Ork player, which is a very different game than Dark Eldar.

Still, a lot of similiarites, especially Kult of Speed.

Dashofpepper wrote:I brought a little bag of washers, and each washer was labelled twice on both sides in magic marker 1-6 so that I could denote my wych powers - I haven't thought of a better system yet. As you look through this and other of my battle reports from this tournament, that's what those washers are.

Excellent idea, might have to borrow it.

Dashofpepper wrote:Manimal springs his first surprise on me: My illiteracy!

I've had the same problem!

Dashofpepper wrote:Lelith lives through one more round of combat, killing the last terminator

Is she an Archon, god I hate those things!

Dashofpepper wrote:I'd like to stress that I'm not making an issue of it, but I'd like to know what other folks would have done.

Since you asked, I would not have go on to turn 6 in your position or ever with 5 minutes left. Feeling rushed causes me to make mistakes.

Thanks for the awesome reports, this one and the rest over the years. Your reports inspired me to start adding my own!

I went to go burn my dark eldar when I saw "only 13 dark lances".

Off to read battle two right now, I am cheering for you (only because I don't know who the other guy was ).

Though in all honesty, good you had a great game against manimal.

I didn't end up getting Hulksmash's services, nice quality, and nice price... but a little bit too much for me.

Inquisitor_Syphonious wrote:I went to go burn my dark eldar when I saw "only 13 dark lances".

Off to read battle two right now, I am cheering for you (only because I don't know who the other guy was ).

Though in all honesty, good you had a great game against manimal.

I didn't end up getting Hulksmash's services, nice quality, and nice price... but a little bit too much for me.

He's one of the cheapest out there, and he has great quality stuff. Also, don't burn your Dark Eldar yet. I'll get game three posted tonight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Shep wrote:30 minutes is plenty for a turn 6, especially considering how beat up your armies were. You made the right choice continuing. I know when you've got a win locked on turn 5 that clock suddenly looks like you should call the game.

I know I wish my game had ended on 5 for game 3. If I had a re-roll I would have used it to try and end the game.

I noticed your games didn't finish that fast Dash. Your game 5 was like 15 minutes over the time limit (I'm sure the judges allowed it since it was table 1) While I really appreciate the pics and the batrepping, if snapping those pics is adding any time to your games, you should probably scale them back a little.

Otherwise great showing... I'll be reading the rest now.

Shep:

Couple of points:

1. There weren't 30 minutes left at the end of turn5, there was 5 minutes left at the end of turn5. Obviously you should start another turn with 30 minutes left....but with 5 minutes left?

2. In terms of my games not finishing quickly, please keep a couple things in mind:
A.) This was my first time using Dark Eldar in force at a tournament. I've played the holy bejesus out of them on Vassal, and had a couple local tournaments in January with them, but this was their first painted, assembled, showing. I was unfamiliar with actually using the models in person, handling them, etc.
B.) Since I had them professionally painted, and Saturday was the first day that I actually saw the models....I ran into more issues. Brad painted them the way I wanted, which was to create a Kabal - warriors as troops with wych elites. They aren't painted for 5 person wych squads, and I had trouble figuring out squad markings on models I'd never touched before that weren't painted to be 5 person squads. This will get fixed with time and practice. Plus, I ran a wych cult, not a kabal, further confusing matters.
C.) I thought magnetizing the bases of the raiders was a brilliant idea. I sent Brad the magnets, asked him to do it and he did. It turned out horribly. My opponents would measure to my raiders, and they'd fall over off their magnetic stands. I'd bump the table and they would fall off. I'd put a washer or dice (to mark weapon destroyed / immobilized / etc) on a raider, and it would unbalance and fall over. This in itself was a serious time-inhibitor in my first three games. The second day, I explained to both my opponents that I had stands available, why I wasn't going to use them, and that for measuring and LOS purposes I'd stick any raider they needed on a stand for a moment. For the future I'll be taking those magnets off and just not gluing the bases in. With clipped nipples, and an enlarged stand hole, those flying bases should fit in adequately and by not transporting them with affixed bases, breakage should be minimal to nonexistant. The whole magnet idea was because of the frequency with which my deffkopta stands break - but I glued those in.
D.) I'm fairly new to Dark Eldar. The first two rounds I think (maybe three?) I had opponents that used to play Dark Eldar - I abused them to know my stats and wych powers. In the rest of my games, I had my codex open and was having to make references back to my codex to make sure I was using my powers correctly, taking the right number of attacks, etc. Multiple wych squads assaulting into the enemy, with the one on the left having +1WS needing 3+ to hit, 4+ to wound with the agonizer, 5+ to wound with the regular wyches, while the squad on the right has +1 attack, but not +1WS....keeping the two squads separated....there were a couple of times when I threw dice and as my hand went down I realized I was throwing too many and couldn't abort in time, and told my opponent to disregard my dice roll....
E.) Drunken-ness. I'm pretty sure that this only affected me during game 5.....without David Fay to come along and tell us (when I make my battle report for game 5) how the game actually went, we'll never know, but I know we only made it through 3 turns. I think he was also having to use small words with me; I remember his dreadnought going crazy and shooting at himself, and he spent a couple of minutes trying to explain to me what was happening because he wanted me to roll the dice for him against his own units, which was alien to me, and I wasn't sure what was going on. I'm actually glad that he beat my tail; if I was losing in a game that only had 3 turns and felt that I could turn it around in the next two turns....I'd feel like my opponent slow-played me. I'll elaborate more on this later when I get to my game5 batrep, but I think Dave got a good deal...a great deal out of it all. Don't want to spoil the rest of my batreps though. =p

i assume one of the sanguinary priests was actually corbulo? otherwise, theres nothing that allows him a re-roll of one dice, only corbulo gives you that

Mafty wrote:i assume one of the sanguinary priests was actually corbulo? otherwise, theres nothing that allows him a re-roll of one dice, only corbulo gives you that

Pre-registering for the tournament (as I mentioned in my battle report) got you a re-roll token. Once during the tournament, you were allowed to use your re-roll token to reroll a single dice. He used his at the end of turn5 to reroll for turn6.

I don't want you to take my light criticism of your game finish times personally. I was totally excited to get paired up against you on round one. And not just because i was running guard. So its not like I'm hating on you...

Your reasons behind why some of your games were long make perfect sense, it is just that to me as a 'sometimes' tourney organizer myself, its just really important to me that people finish their games. It can really skew the balance of certain slow-cooking armies. For instance, a blood angels army will likely do some critical damage in the last couple turns against an alpha striking fragile army like dark eldar. Maybe enough to tie the game.

I'm not making any accusations about any malicious intent, I could tell you were just there to have a great time, and I wish you and I could have played. I just think you need to endeavor to speed up the play-time a bit. And if you are playing with a new army in the future, see if you can't get a few practice games in with it. Obviously you didn't need to practice to 'get better' with them. But you may discover things like those magnet problems and the lack of markings on wyches.

Oh and the part about the flying stands was really good to hear. The hills that were at the tournament were of a certain height that if you "forgot" your flying stand you could get a 4+ cover save and keep shooting. It was very sporting of you to remind your opponents that your TLOS would be different when raised up from the stand. Silas and I had that discussion on game 5, and he was an excellent sport about it as well...

See you at the next one

Shep wrote:Oh and the part about the flying stands was really good to hear. The hills that were at the tournament were of a certain height that if you "forgot" your flying stand you could get a 4+ cover save and keep shooting. It was very sporting of you to remind your opponents that your TLOS would be different when raised up from the stand. Silas and I had that discussion on game 5, and he was an excellent sport about it as well...

I ran into stand-less DE, and they were pretty much invisible behind hills....

Janthkin wrote:

Shep wrote:Oh and the part about the flying stands was really good to hear. The hills that were at the tournament were of a certain height that if you "forgot" your flying stand you could get a 4+ cover save and keep shooting. It was very sporting of you to remind your opponents that your TLOS would be different when raised up from the stand. Silas and I had that discussion on game 5, and he was an excellent sport about it as well...

I ran into stand-less DE, and they were pretty much invisible behind hills....

At this tournament? Did you mention something about "modeling for advantage?"