Howdy all,
So tomorrow I'll be participating in a 2k tourney using a revamped version of my
DE. I wasn't quite able to finish painting the last bit, but meh. I'll get docked a bit in painting
lol... Heres my list:
HQ
----
Duke Sliscus - 150 pts
Succubus - agonizer - 85 pts
Elites
-------
3x Trueborn - 3 blasters, Venom w/ dual splinter cannon - 146
3x Trueborn - 3 blasters, Venom w/ dual splinter cannon - 146
9x Bloodbrides - Agonizer, 2x Razorflails - Raider w/
FF/
ns - 236
Troops
--------
7x Wyches - Agonizer, haywires, 1x Hydra Gaunts - Raider w/
FF/
ns - 204
7x Wyches - Agonizer, haywires, 1x Hydra Gaunts - Raider w/
FF/
ns - 204
8x Wyches - Agonizer - Raider w/
FF - 190
9x Warriors - Raider w/
FF, Splinter Racks - 161
5x Warriors - Blaster - Venom w/ dual splinter cannon - 125
Heavy
-------
Ravager -
FF,
DL's - 115
Ravager -
FF,
DL's - 115
Ravager -
FF,
DL's - 115
Total: 1997 pts
P.S. The magenta model counts as when I use a succubus, or archon w/ soul trap/Djin blade
Mission 1
Primary Objective: Kill Points
Secondary objective: Table Quarters
Deployment: Spearhead
Vs spacewolves
Hq
-----
Logan
Troops
-----------
6x wolfguard -
tda on all,
pf/combiplas, claw/combiplas,
th/
ss, chainfist/
sb,
pw/
sb/
cml
6x wolfguard -
tda on all,
pf/combimelta, claw/
ss, frostblade/
ss, claw/
sb/
cml,
pw/
sb,
pf/
sb
6x wolfguard - tdaon all,
pf/
sb, chainfist/combimelta,
th/
ss,
cml/claw/
sb,
pw/
sb
10x grey hunters - 2x melta,
pw, banner,
motw
10x grey hunters - 2x melts,
pw, banner,
motw
Heavy
---------
6x longfangs - 5x
mls
6x longfangs - 5x
mls
6x longfangs - 5x
mls
I win the roll off and deploy up front in a line; plan is to bum rush him and wipe him out with mass multi assaults! He deploys centrally in his zone,
th/
ss goes with one
gh squad, frost wep
/
ss goes with other squad, and
cml w/ claw joins logan and a fang squad. Wyches get reroll wounds or pain tokens, I take reroll wounds
He rolls and seizes!
sw turn 1
He stays stationary as he really doesn't need to move.
Even with some bad rolling he blows up one trueborn venom killing 1. He blows up my warrior venom as well, no one dies. He immobilizes dukes venom. Nightshields save a few vehicles as his longfangs are just out of range.
Sw 2 -
de 0
de turn 1
All three wych raiders up top (one is the brides) turbo toward his lines. My last venom and three ravagers moved along the bottom. My last wych raider turbos along the south. My warriors and trueborn move up.
Shooting he makes some saves but I do wipe out one longfang squad he left out in the open.
Sw 2 -
de 1
sw turn 2
He shuffles around,logans squad gets relentless to move.
Shooting I make a few saves, but he blows up my middle raider killing 2 wyches. He wipes my small warrior squad as well, and immobilizes my last venom.
Sw 4 -
de 1
de turn 2
I move up everybody disembarking all my wyches. Duke gets out of his raide with my warriors. My disembarked wyches get good rolls.
Shooting I unload but he makes a ton of saves, I think I kill a few termis.
I charge his back fangs, and multi 2 termi squads and 1
gh squad. After everything, I kill 1 termi squad, but everyone else sticks.
Sw 4 -
de 2
sw turn 3
He shuffles for more firing lanes.
He unloads all over the place, when the smoke clears, he wrecks a raider and kills all the dukes warriors.
He charges his other
gh squad into the large scrum. His saves are hot as hell, and in the end, he runs off. One wych squad, losing all but 2
gh in the original squad and 4 termis. His
ghs that charged in lost their termi and 2other guys, he consolidates after the broken wyches. In the back his fangs still hold on!
Sw 6 -
de 2
de turn 3
I keep pressing. Duke runs to help my wyches.
Shooting I wipe out logans fangs and he takes a wound. I also pick off a few of his grey hunters.
In assault I wipe his fangs in back, finish his
gh in
cc. At this point we have a rules dispute; his termis broke. I wasn't sure if I had to sweep, so I did. But we also weren't sure if both squads had to sweep... Judge ruled all my squads engaged with his termis had to sweep. I catch em and they make their saves.
Sw 6 -
de 5
sw turn 4
Logan joins his remaining terms.
Shooting he wipes out my running wyches so he doesn't have to follow them off, he wrecks a ravager, and logan and his termis wipe out my rearmost wyches.
In combat one terminator holds on!
Sw 9 -
de 5
de turn 4
I press to table him... If he gets even 1 more
kp I cannot win as he only has 9
kp total!
shooting I unload on logan. When the smoke clears, all die and logans alone!
I finally wipe his last termi. Duke makes it to his last
gh and goes beastmode, killing 4! I make my saves, killing 2 more
gh with fearless. Its duke vs his last
gh!
Sw 9 -
de 7
sw turn 5
He moves logan to charge my 3 wyches.
Shooting he decides against shooting so he can make assault.
Assault logan takes 1 wound, I take nothing. Duke wipes his
gh.
Sw 9 -
de 8
de turn 5
I move everyone to charge logan.
In assault, 3 agonizers, tons of wyches, and logan fails just enough saves to bite it....
Sw are tabled!
Aftermath: rough game! That seize put me on the backfoot, and I really couldn't get past his saves. In the end, I barely pulled a draw on primary.
Results thus far for me: draw primary, massacre secondary, 6 bonus points. I get 18 points, egan gets 10. This puts me in around 6th. Next up sm gunline!
Mission 2
Primary Objective: Area Control (much like table quarters, cept 5 parts)
Secondary objective: Objectives (4)
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Vs spacemarines
Hq
-----
Librarian - smite, null zone
Elites
--------
Ironclad - melta,
hf, drop pod
Ironclad - melta,
hf, drop pod
Dread - 2x
tlac, drop pod
Troops
----------
10x
tac squad -
pf/combimelta, plasma cannon, melta, rhino
10x
tac squad -
pw/combimelta,
mm, melta, rhino
5x
tac squad - melta - razor w/
tllc
5x
tac squad - melta - razor w/ lasplas
Fast attack
--------------
Speeder -
mm,
hf
Speeder -
mm,
hb
Speeder -
mm,
hb
Heavy
--------
Vindi
Vindi
Autolas pred
I win the roll off and let him go first. He reserves everything and so do I. I roll plus 1 strength twice
lol
sm turn 1
Chirp chirp. He drops 2 empty pods in the middle
de turn 1
Chirp chirp
sm turn 2
He rolls reserves and gets in everything minus his flamer speeder, pred, and 1 pod. He spreads out along his edge, popping smoke on his lead vehicles to provide cover to his other stuff.
de turn 2
I roll reserves and get in everything minus my warrior venom, 1 trueborn venom, and 1 ravager. My lert flank 2 wych raiders flat out, my trueborn come in and disembark in ruins, on my right 2 of my raiders flat out, while my ravagers and last raider aim to kill.
Shooting I explode his speeders, and shake his front rhino... Lots of 1s and 2s here
lol.
sm turn 3
None of his reserves come in.
He moves everything up, his foremost
tac squad getting out.
Shooting he wrecks the dukes raider and blows up one ravager. I make lots of
ff saves and cover saves, but he takes a lance off one raider as well.
de turn 3
I move both my lh raiders up, getting my wyches out of my top raider. On my right, I pivot around a lot to fire at stuff. I make the mistake of leaving duke attached to the warriors :( my other trueborn come in and turbo toward the middle. My other other haywire wyches turbo their raider north, their goals simple: stop his dreads from getting onto the left flank.
Shooting I roll horribly and fail to do any real damage. I kill 2 marines with the dukes sqquad (12 wounds!).
In assault my left wyches charge his razorback and vindicator, stunning, immobilizing, and wep destroying both.
sm turn 4
His sm on my right reembark. His rh ironclad goes for dukes squad. His last pod comes in and whiffs to the left, his pred also comes in. On my lh side he gets out of both razors to charge my units. His speeder deepstrikes and lands next to my bottom venom.
Shooting, even with null zone active, I roll stupid well and he only wrecks a couple raiders, takes a weapon off another, and wrecks both venoms.
In assault I kill all but one razor marine to the north, and duke and pals cannot even hurt his ironclad.
de turn 4
My last venom comes in near my lh objective. I get my brides out to charge his rh
tac squad should the rhino wreck. Up top my other haywire wyches go to charge his north pod and ironclad there. On my left my last wyches go to charge his librarian squad.
Shooting I fail again, only wrecking his predator. I shake his speeder 4 times (penned 4 times and 4 1s)
In assault dukes squad fails leadership and fall back only 4 inches. My left wyches finish their
tac squad, my other wyches wipe out the libbys squad and he falls back when I fail my sweep, my other wyches blow an arm off and stun the other ironclad, and my brides flub and only immobilize his rh rhino (but its surrounded)
sm turn 5
I've failed to mention, his bother vidicators been shaken all game. He tries to tank shock my trueborn. His libby falls back to his table edge. His rh ironclad moves to try and get to my succubus squad. His last
tac squad gets out to rapid fire on my full wych squad. The remaining speeder turbos away.
Shooting he kills all but 1 wych on my left, he also kills all but my succubus and 3 wyches on the right. He cannot kill enough warriors to reach my brides with hiis ironclad
In assault I stun his ironclad and immobilize it.
de turn 5
Not much happens, I finally wreck his rh rhino and my bloodbrides wipe that
tac squad. I kill his libby with a lance. Move my warriors onto an objective.
We roll to continue and it doesn't.
We read the mission packet and it says all troops count as full points unless wiped... This gives me 4 table sections to 1! I get the massacre on primary, I also get a minor on secondary as I have 1 obj to his 0. I also score 7 bonus points! This gives me 23 pts this round.
Aftermath: so just game pointswise I'm in 4th after this round. My painting score was decent (I got a 14 or so) so I'm still in contention.
This game was brutal. I never missed haywire grenades and
fnp so much! He was mowing down units very fast, and my shooting blew. This game was a prime example: do not rely on lances alone, they aren't very reliable! Was still a great game and was close to the end. If my troops didn't count so much we figured it out it wound have been a major win instead (he would have had 1 section and 1 tied).
Mission 3
Primary Objective: Objectives (5)
Secondary objective: Kill Points
Deployment: Dawn of War
Vs black templars
Hq
-----
Emps champ - pref enemy vow
Elites
--------
5x terminators - 2x
cmls, tank hunters
Dreadnaught - drop pod,
ccw,
ac, ea
Dreadnaught -
ccw,
ac, ea
Troops
---------
9x crusader squad -
pf, melta, 2x initiates, rhino w/ ea
9x crusader squad -
pf, melta, 2x initiates, rhino w/ ea
9x crusader squad -
pf, melta, 2x initiates, rhino w/ea
Fast attack
--------------
Speeder -
cml,
hb
Speeder -
cml,
hb
Heavy
--------
Vindicator -
potms, ea
Predator -
ac,
potms, las sponsons
Predator -
ac,
potms, las sponsons
I lose the roll off and my opponent takes first after much thought. He deploys nothing, I deploy the dukes ride in the middle behind the
LOS blocking terrain. For this mission, all outside corner objectives are worth 2, the middle objective is worth 1. I roll drugs and get +1 wep skill and +1 attack. I take +1 attack.
Black Templar T1
Everything moves on. His foremost rhinos pop smoke.
Shooting he unloads on dukes raider, but fails to see or damage it.
DE 0 Obj Pts –
BT 4 Obj Pts
Dark Eldar T1
Everything moves on. My wyches + bloodbride raiders on my left turbo, other wych raider in middle turbos, my duke raider turbos to my left.
Shooting I fail to see a lot (even with rerolls) and only manage to wreck his foremost rhino and kill 2 termis. They pass
ld. I also wipe out the bikers.
DE 2 Obj Pts –
BT 4 Obj Pts
Black Templar T2
His drop pod comes in and lands spot on my RH bottom corner objective. Dread hops out. Everything else just repositions.
Shooting I roll stupid well for cover and
FF’s, he wrecks one ravager and my bottom wych raider killing 3. They pass
ld. He also shakes another ravager.
DE 0 Obj Pts –
BT 4 Obj Pts
Dark Eldar T2
My middle wyches move up and get out for a huge multi assault. My
LH raiders loop around to get some side shots on his vehicles. Everything else shuffles from his dread, I turbo the ravager that got shaken. Duke also gets out to charge his remaining termis. My disembarked wyches move and run toward the dread in my deployment zone.
Shooting I kill a few marines in the middle, and shake a few vehicles, but fail to do much. I miss a ton.
In assault I kill most of the marines in the middle, but his emporers champ and 2 other marines hold on. I lose a couple wyches, and he passes his fearless saves. I also assault his middle vindi and rhino, immobilizing the rhino, and shaking the vindi. Duke makes it to his termis, killing 1, and subsequently fails his Shadow Field save and gets instagibbed by the terminators who wounded twice… lame : ( My wyches make it to the dread, hitting it with 2 haywires… and cant roll more than a 2. None die.
DE 2 Obj Pts –
BT 2 Obj Pts
Black Templar T3
All his vehicles shuffle around. His immo’d rhino squad gets out to charge my wyches.
Shooting he does horrible, terrible things to me. He wrecks both my
LH raiders, wep destroys my middle raider, wrecks my rearmost venom, blows up my other venom, as well as kills a ton of wyches. I forget my wyches are in craters, so I lost a lot more to shooting than I should have : ( Everyone passes
ld.
In assault his second squad joins the scrum in the middle, I fail to do ANY wounds with 20 or so attacks, and the wyches all die. Everything consolidates, but not too far. The dread gets hid some more by haywires, but still nothing more than 2… he kills 1 wych.
DE 4 Obj Pts –
BT 0 Obj Pts
Dark Eldar T3
I’m in bad shape; I’ve lost all my mobility for the most part, I have 1 venom, 1 raider, and 2 ravagers alive. My succubi squad is toast, duke bit it, and my opponent has most of his army still in tact. I need to start actually doing some damage!
I move everything to kill his disembarked guys and termis. Shooting I kill all but the emps champ in one squad, and wipe out half the other squad, who break and run! I also wreck both speeders. Nice!
In assault I charge his termis with my wyches, and fail to do any agonize wounds… I lose 1 wych and we stick. *sigh* Dread scrum continues, no wyches die, and I fail to hit.
DE 4 Obj Pts –
BT 0 Obj Pts
Black Templar T4
His army shuffles around to fire on my remaining mobility. His last rhino starts making it for an objective.
Shooting he wrecks my warriors raider, they pass pinning. He blows a weapon off my remaining venom, and blows 2 weapons off one ravager, and immobilizes the other.
In assault his emp champ charges and wipes one of my trueborn squads. My wyches fail to kill their two terminators again, this time I lose no wyches… *sigh* how can killing terminators give me so much trouble today? The dread kills off one more wych, leaving two, and I can’t get anything over a 2 again! Oddly enough I keep hitting it 2 or more times with grenades as well
lol… all my lucks being wasted on hits!
DE 4 Obj Pts –
BT 0 Obj Pts
Dark Eldar T4
I’m running low on units. My warriors stay put in cover. My warriors on the hill shuffle to hide. My venom turbos to keep his troops running off the board. I really don’t have anything else…
Shooting I fail to scratch the remaining rhino, even with 3 lances and 3 blasters. I also fire tons of poison wounds into the emps champ who makes all his saves… I eventually hit him with ONE blaster and he gets instagibbed (it was my last shot too!)
In assault I kill 1 terminator and lose 2 wyches… we stick. JUST DIE!!!!!!! The dread fails to hurt my wyches, I stick hit again and one again roll a 1…
DE 4 Obj Pts –
BT 0 Obj Pts
Black Templar T5
He has 1 troop, all his heavy firepower, and 1 dread left that can do stuff. He moves to start knocking out my scoring units.
Shooting he fires a (lot) into my warriors in cover, and I go to ground losing 2. They pass
ld. He also blows a weapon off one ravager, and stuns my last venom.
In assault his dread can’t hurt my wyches and I fail to hurt him too. My wyches FINALLY wipe out the last terminator, consolidating onto the objective fully.
DE 4 Obj Pts –
BT 0 Obj Pts
Dark Eldar T5
I honestly have nothing left… everything is pretty much dead or sitting on objectives or immobilized.
Shooting I do manage to wreck the vindicator with a lucky blaster hit. I still fail to hurt his last rhino with my remaining lances.
In assault the dread scrum keeps on trucking, those 4 wyches did me proud!
DE 4 Obj Pts –
BT 0 Obj Pts
Black Templar T6
He fires everything into my warriors on the hill and warriors headed toward the middle. He kills a few in the middle, and kills one on the hill… the last warrior fails
ld and hoofs it. He also makes it to the bottom rh objective with his last rhino, and stuns my last venom.
DE 2 Obj Pts –
BT 2 Obj Pts
Dark Eldar T6
I run my warriors toward the middle building. My wyches surround my
LH top objective. My last warrior down south keeps on hoofin it. My ravager whiffs.
In assault my last wych holds on against his dread! GO DUDE GO!
DE 3 Obj Pts –
BT 2 Obj Pts
Black Templar T7
He focuses all his firepower on my wyches. They go to ground and make a crapload of 3+ cover saves.
In assault my last wych finally bites it against the dread! He consolidates onto his objective further.
DE 3 Obj Pts –
BT 2 Obj Pts
Dark Eldar T7
I turbo my venom over and contest his objective. We call it here.
DE 3 Obj Pts –
BT 0 Obj Pts
So in the end I managed a Major victory, needing 4 more to get the massacre. Chris got the secondary massacre as it was 10
KP to 15
KP. I managed to get 7 bonus points, while he got 6 bonus points. This gave me 14 points.
Aftermath: This was probably the most knock down, drag out fight of the day for me. For every blow I delivered to chris, he hit right back just as hard. That turn where he dropped 5 vehicles I feel was the point where things started to go badly, but I just kept playing the mission, and I was able to pull it out. Honestly this was a crapload of fun and I always love playing chris, he gives me a good game!
Once everyone finished we waited around 15 or so minutes while they figured results… and they were calculated and put in:
Best General – Jon with Mechdar (guy I beat with my
DE in another tourney) – 1st place
Best Overall –Alex with 20 paladin draigowing – 2nd place
3rd Place (2nd best overall) – Jim (me) with Dark Eldar!
What a nice surprise honestly! I feel my painting is what put it over the top, as I barely beat out chris (my round 3 opponent) by 3 battlepoints. Lucky me! I happily took my prize to buy further necron goodness.
So I bet everyones thinking (as I do many times I read reps): how do you feel your list played? What units worked? What units didn’t work? What would you have done differently?
As far as tactics go, I feel I played a solid game. The dice revolted many times, as they sometimes do, and playing
DE youeven further at the mercy of the dice gods. One wrong move and your toast.
As far as my list, I feel it played far too clunky than my normal
DE list. I changed up a LOT of things for this tourney, and many of them just didn’t work. I would have probably went with my original idea, but these games definitely taught me a thing or two. For the units heres my breakdown:
Duke Sliscus – A+ - This guy is totally underrated by many players I feel.
2d6 drugs is awesome for any player who wants a wych cult. His ability to allow all your vehicles to
DS gives some nice strategic options, he can beat face in his own right, and you can toss him with some warriors to give them a nice boost. 3+ poisoned warriors can really throw down the hurt!
Succubus – D – I was just not impressed. Yes, shes a cheap agonizer. But shes still just a 3 wound wych. She dies just as easily to firepower, cannot take shooting wounds for her squad, and her killing power is kind of meh.
WS 8 is wasted, as is I8. An archons got far better options, is just as killy, and just overall better.
Venom Trueborn – A – These squads always rock. They don’t fit the wych cult theme, but they add much needed anti-tank firepower that all lists need. They die very easily, but at least they do SOMETHING.
Venom Warriors – D – Honestly, I don’t see why so many people love venomspam lists. Yes, its uber redundant. Yes, you can throw down tons of shots. But it relies on the (already) unreliable one shot blasters, at a short range, to do anything, in a very fragile vehicle. All these guys did for me was die in two games, and capture an objective in another. They just don’t do much damage and rely so heavily on redundancy and luck I just didn’t like em.
8x Wyches – B – I love wych squads. I feel 7 or 8 is the sweet spot; they will hurt something, but not tear it a new one and get shot up. They really needed haywires though, I needed them soooo badly a few times.
7x Wyches – B+ - Hydra Gaunts didn’t do much, but these killed a lot, and were a threat to everything. I LOVE HAYWIRES!
Raiders w/
FF +
NS – C – The
NS only came into play once, and be that as it may, I’m normally throwing wyches at someone… so
NS were really unnecessary. I’m finding more, and more, that
FF’s are just unneeded in this list. Yes, they saved like 3 vehicles all day. But most of the time I’m turbo boosting at you anyway; so whats the point of spending 10 points on something I don’t use half the time? I’m also finding more opponents running things capable of doing 2-3 results per round, which means I will lose the raider normally.
Venoms – A+ - These little guys always rock. I just feel they are only useful for trueborn or incubi. I’m just not a fan of
MSU DE; your taking a fragile army, making it more fragile by taking small squads, and trying to win through attrition. Any good opponent will see through this, and experienced players will mow down your units as fast as you will theirs. I feel these best augment my army by softening up targets for the wyches, not my be-all end-all anti-infantry.
Raider w/
FF + Racks – B – Turns my Duke warriors into a powerhouse unit. One or two good broadsides on a unit will always kill it. Sadly, need to keep the dukes warriors further back I reckon; his rides almost always one of the first two to drop
lol.
9x Warriors – B – They’re scoring, give the duke a forward moving unit, and shoot things up. Best thing is they’re cheap. I love em! I just wish they didn’t get eaten up in
CC, and that I could charge after shooting : (
Ravagers – A+ - Always perform. Can’t think of anything else to say about these.
Bloodbrides – C – Ok, I know some players have found success with these… but how? You spend 3 more points for more attacks, a bigger bulls eye on a unit, but the same fragility of a normal wych squad? On top of all this, if you want to give them haywires, they become far more! Screw these guys. I’ll just stick with my typical wyches.
What I’d change
So overall I was unhappy with the list. Here were my ultimate findings:
- Wych squads seriously NEED Haemis to keep them alive. While Duke gave me a higher chance of a pain token on all my units, I found that even if I’d rolled it, I probably wouldn’t have taken the token anyway. Drugs increase your wyches effectiveness and make them kill stuff, why take a pain token they will get anyway?
- Succubus was a fail. A shattershard in one game would have probably done more damage than she did all tournament. She accounted for around 10 marine kills, if that.
- Wyches with haywires > bloodbrides. They are far more flexible, score, and most of all, don’t curbstomp units to be left out in the open.
- Hydra Gauntlets were fun, but don’t do much unless it’s a 10 man wych squad. Razorflails really suck. I played all marines, and they didn’t help much at all.
- Haywires ROCK (I love em, obviously)
-
DE AT is a harsh mistress. I’m thinking that (maybe) a couple heat lance reaver units might be nifty… they benefit from drugs, have a higher chance of popping a vehicle, and don’t cost that much.
- Flickerfields are only really needed on vehicles that will be sitting still a lot (venoms, warrior raiders, ravagers). That said, I can cut at least 40 points cutting fields off the wych raiders. Even if I’m going second I can use other raiders for cover. Playing smarter will net me more pointage for other units.
- After facing this many
MEQ armies and having issues, I’m almost thinking a unit of Incubi to pretty much “push” my large multis over the edge for my wyches. A unit of 5 in a venom is cheap, and pretty powerful. It also won’t die to a stiff breeze like my wyches. They can also punch vehicles as well.
All this makes me rethink my tactics, my listbuilding, and most importantly the way I view the army as a whole.
Hope ya’ll enjoyed my reports, and until next time, keep on gaming!
(P.S. Next tourney I’ll get some more pics, this tourney I was sooooo focused on playing : ( Sorry guys)
5000+ pts. 
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
