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.

‘Ard Boyz has come again and I was really eager to see if I could repeat last years success and maybe take it another step further (I won the preliminary round last year (batrep here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/218268.page ) but had to miss the semi’s because my wife had a major jaw surgery).

I made a few tweaks to last years list:
HQ

Archon – punisher, tormentor helm, combat drugs, shadow field, plasma grenades, animus vitae, trophy rack (rides with a wyche squad)

Dracite – agonizer, plasma grenades
7 wyche retinue – succubus w/agonizer, w.w., plasma grenades, x2 blasters, goblet of spite
Raider – nightshields, horrofex, torture amp

Elite

3x 8 Wyches - succubus w/agonizer, w.w., plasma grenades x2 blasters
Raider – nightshields, horrofex, torture amp

Troops

3x 7 warriors – sybarite w/poison blades, terrofex, blaster, splinter cannon
Raider – nightshields, horrofex

2x 5 warriors – dark lance
Raider– nightshields, horrofex

10 warriors – 2 dark lances

Heavy

3x Ravagers – x3 disintegrators, nightshields

So a lot of boats in the air.

My opponent on the first mission (5 objectives with pitched battle deployment + nightfight) was a guard
player that I knew well, and I wasn’t looking forward to facing. Then I saw that the first round was nightfight and that our table was absolutely blanketed in terrain! Holly hell, almost every bit of the table had a hill, crater, or rock formation on it, with just enough spots open for my narrow raiders to fit in.
His list (what I remember anyway)

Iron Hand Strakken
squad with 4 meltaguns
Chimera

2x Storm troopers x2 melta, grav chutes

Marbo

2x PCS 4 melta in chimera
2x 30 man mob squads w/ x3 autocannons x3 grenade launchers + commissar w/ power weapon

2x 10 man grey knight squads

Vendetta (all lascannons)

2x leman russ w/ 3 heavy bolters + heavy stubber

Basilisk

So he won the role to go setup/go first and took it. He put the basilisk, 1 30 man squad, 1 PCS chimera, and 1 unit of the grey knights on my left, the vendetta (with the other 10 grey knights inside) in the center and then strakken, the other PCS chimera, other 30 man squad, and the leman russ’ on my right. I deploy heavy on my left with most the wyches and 2 of the ravagers, while the rest goes mostly in the center with one wyche squad and a few of the warriors on my right to keep him busy.
He then scout moves the vendetta as close as he can to my lines…uh oh.

I fail to steal the initiative.

Turn 1

Guard – he disembarks the grey knights from the vendetta into difficult terrain and then immobilized the skimmer when it tries to leave. All the chimeras move forward as do the GK on foot. Shooting sees a lot of failed knight fight rolls leave only one of the 5 man raiders wrecked and the squad pinned. Not bad. Importantly, his grey knights fluff their difficult terrain roll and are stuck in the open in a tightly packed formation.

Dark Eldar – I turbo boost all my wyche raiders towards his two big 30 man squads and move 2 of my ravagers in position to kill the GKs in the open. Otherwise its just some shuffling around to get blasters in range of the Vendetta. Shooting sees 1 ravager kill all 10 grey knights! The vendetta losses a lascannon and is stunned. I brace for sunrise

Turn 2

Guard – All his reserves come in, both of his drop storm troopers try and land near my 2 ravagers and one goes off the table and is destroyed while the other deviates way off course and is out of range. Marbo comes out near my 10 man sniper squad and on an objective. He moves one PCS chimera out to the far right to handle the lone ravager, and it gets immobilized on a crater and the squad disembarks, well out of the now 6” range of their melta guns. Strakken moves up 6” in an attempt to hit one of the wyche raiders with meltas. His chimera on the left moves to hit one of my wyche raiders threatening that side as do the remaining GKs. Shooting sees marbo kill a number of warriors with his demo charge but they hold. My only ravager on my right flank gets detonated by the russes and one of my wyche raiders going up the center right gets stunned, shaken and degunned by a fusillade of fire. On the left he poors a ton of fire into a wyche raider and only manages to shoot the lance off it (of course I did make about 9 cover saves!)

Dark Eldar – Time to get into his lines…maybe. On the left I move up and deploy both wyche squads and the archon 1” from his 30 man guard squad sitting on the left side objective. On the right, my dracon’s undamaged raider hops over strakken’s chimera and the dracon and crew hop out on all sides (they have 3 potential targets), while the other wyche squad jumps out of their barely floating stunned raider and head over to take out the PCS whose chimera immbolized itself. In the shooting phase I manage to destroy strakken’s chimera, shake the basilisk, wipe out the storm troopers and shoot another gun of the vendetta. I also manage to kill about 3-4 GKs. The two wyche squads also fire at the 30 man guard squad and kill a few as well. The wyches with the busted raider managed to roll a 6 on their fleet so they will be able to assault both marbo and the dismounted PCS. They do and succeed in killing all the opposition. In the center the dracon’s squad charges strakken and wipes out his squad and leaves him with 1 wound remaining (and the dracon safe from shooting). On the left the archon wounds himself with drugs (boh!) and then kills 5 guardsmen (yay!), while the wyches managed to do enough wounds to force a save on the commissar, who dies and then the squad is run down.
Turns 3-4
Its clean up at this point, he manages to finally down that raider he was shooting the crap out of and kill off the dracons retinue but he ends up losing his last PCS a chimera, the vendetta, the basilisk and 1 of the russes.
Massacre to me +1 point

Game 2 Headhunters

My opponent was running Khorne CSM. We know each other’s lists very well and its going to be an uphill battle for him.
His List

Abbadon the Despoiler

Greater Demon

5 Chaos Terminators w/ combi-meltas, IoT

3x 10 bezerkers w/ skull champ with fist
rhino extra armor

10 CSM IoCG (not sure what else they had)

10 Raptors IoK, champ with lightening claws

2 Obliterators

1 Obliterator

Vindicator

I won the roll to go first and took it.

This was a horrendously one sided game as my dice where REALLY on fire. Suffice it to say that I killed 3 rhinos , the vindicator, and a number of bezerkers and most of the CSM on turn 2. On turn 3 the final rhino died as did all of the Terminators who had deepstruck in (abbadon only took 1 wound from 4-5 lance wounds), in return he shoot down a raider, immobilized a ravager (abbadon in h-t-h) and his raptors killed my 10 man sniper squad. In turn 4 I killed the raptors and a bezerker squad with a double charge of 2 wyche squads and my archon (who then killed another bezerker squad on his turn, yay init 6+), and my dracon with retinue managed to kill abaddon in h-t-h on my turn and then his greater demon, who charged them, on his turn! I also managed to kill all the oblits with lance fire. On turn 5 I just needed to kill the last few bezerkers in combat with a wyche squad and then shoot the last 4 CSMs hiding behind the wall of dead rhinos.

Massacre with 4 bonus points.

Final round (2 Objectives with spearhead deployment. Objectives are in the center of the non-deployment quarters.)

My opponent is Necrons and the being played by the only Necron player to beat my Dark Eldar….goodie.

His list as I remember it
Nightbringer

Lord with orb

4x 10 warriors

3x 4 destroyers

3 heavy destroyer

2 monoliths

Again another table covered in terrain, city fight style this time, and not really to my advantage. I need LOS to kill those destroyers early on. And theres always the problem of the literally un-killable (to me) monoliths. I will have to do something to keep these off the objectives.

He wins roll to set up first and takes it. He deploys all his warriors in the back and the destroyers are in a position to shoot but are all within range of one another…

Turn 1

Necrons The liths roll forward as does the Nightbringer and the destroyers. I get off really easy as I only lose a few warriors (yay nightshields).

Dark Eldar I need to play aggressive and I have the tools to do it (2 squads with 12” assault). One of these wyche squads (with the archon) moves forward and jumps out (im only about 14 inches away from 2 units of destroyers I should have this Right?) Other raiders move into position to threaten assaults next turn. Shooting sees most of the destroyers threatening the left objective knocked down as well as 2 of the heavy destroyers. I roll the fleet move for my wyches+archon 1 inch! Oh uh that’s gonna change things….

Turn 2

Necrons He starts by having most of the destroyers get back up, he then moves in to pounce on the exposed wyches. In the shooting phase he immobilizes a ravager and wrecks a raider, and the wyches are wiped out, but the lord survives.

Dark Eldar The 2nd wave of wyches goes in but due to the damage I’ve take its not gonna be pretty. This is also the turn that my dice stop working. My dracites squad moves to assault the now 7 man strong destroyer unit on the left, another assaults the other destroyer squad and the last assaults a warrior squad. Shooting accounts for a half squad of warriors and gets rid of the heavy destroyers. I assault, the lord goes after a half strength warrior squad but I make the mistake of getting within 6 of the nightbringer….I thought his blast only worked on units in base to base…but I was wrong ouch….So he gets blown back. Both my normal wyche squads fluff their attacks…crap, but my dracite squads rises to the challenge again and takes out the destroyer squad…

Turn 3

Necrons He moves the nightbringer over to smack my archon and he pulls the units out of combat through the liths. Both the normal wyche squads are annihilated as is the archon….I think I lose a raider near the left opbjective as well.

Dark Eldar Things are looking bad. There is a lot of warriors and a necron lord all over the right objective and a monolith bearing down on the left. But I still have plenty of raiders left. I decide that since I can’t stop the monolith I will just blockade my objective with raiders. Shooting knocks down a whole squad of warriors and that’s about it. In assault my dracites squad takes out the last of the destroyers (that came through the lith) and consolidates into cover.

Turn 4

Necrons The monolith moves slowly towards the left objective and some warriors move to try and get rid of the dracites squad. He wrecks a raider sitting on the left objective and shoots the gun of a raider and wrecks a ravager. The dracite loses most of her retinue but holds

Dark Eldar The dracite squad moves to take out the small warrior squad that shot at them and I move another raider to blockade the monolith. I also move some of my warrior squads closer to the right objective. Shooting is a lot of me trying desperately to hurt the left lith and trying to get some wounds on the nightbringer..fail In assault the the dracite kills the warriors but now its just her and a blaster armed wyche.

Turn 5

Necrons Time is short. He tries to ram the raider out of the way but I make my 3+ dodge to keep him off the left objective. His warriors are all over the right objective and. The monolith explodes the raider that’s in the way and the warriors try to shoot my raiders on the right but forget the nightshields equals 6” rapid fire range…yay.

Dark Eldar ok looks like there will still be a turn 6…crap. I move my raiders into position to horrorfex the crap out of the warriors. The dracite moves up to assault the warriors next turn. I move a raider ontop of the crater left by the last raider and I get immobilized….but still in the way… In shooting I still cant hurt the damn liths and he makes 4 different pinning checks ranging from 9 to 6….grrr!

Turn 6

Necrons He moves to ram the immobile raider and …..only knocks the gun off! So at worst a minor loss to kill points. His warriors move closer to the raiders in their midst and wreck one and immobilize /stun the other (well no tank shocking now). The flux arc immbolizes the last in the vicinity.

Dark Eldar Make or break turn here. I move my dracite towards the group of warriors on the right objective and I also disembark a 7 man warrior squad and move them towards the warriors as well. If either of these squads can get a good fleet roll they can get within 3” of the objective without getting into melee. Alas it is not to be. Also important to note that my last ravager was unable to get LOS to this giant mob of warriors either. So in go the warriors and dracite and again the dracite carries the day and they win combat and contest the objective.

Major win to me +2 bonus points.

That last game was a severe beating and I only managed to win do to the speed and maneuverability of dark elder.

My MVP for this tournament is definitely the Dracite and retinue. In the first game they took out Ironhand Strakken, in the 2nd game they killed both Abbadon and a greater demon, and in the final game they bagged 2 squads of destroyers, a squad of warriors, and contested the final objective. And to think I almost cut that unit out for fear of giving up easy KPs in the head hunter mission.

So I ended up taking first. The necron player I just played took 2nd and the guard player I played first took 3rd.

Well done. 5th doesn't seem to suit DE very well, I'd say that's an impressive showing.

I might say the armies you were up against were fairly optimal for DE to beat, particularly the Necrons, with their melee impotence.

In the hardboy I was in the Necrons didn't even make top half.

Good luck next round.

that was a great batrep! the match against the necrons was an intense read so I can imagine it was alot of fun to play!

I always like seeing a unique top 3. Kudos to your local club for gaming with style. A quick thing:

Turn 5

Necrons Time is short. He tries to ram the raider out of the way but I make my 3+ dodge to keep him off the left objective. His warriors are all over the right objective and. The monolith explodes the raider that’s in the way and the warriors try to shoot my raiders on the right but forget the nightshields equals 6” rapid fire range…yay.

Just to let you know for the Semis, skimmers can't dodge other skimmers during a ram. His monolith also can't shoot when it rams, so it's probably about even anyway in terms of the batrep, but make sure you keep that in mind if you ever have your own intentions with a lonesome shaken raider...I love to see Leman Russes kamikazed.

Great report, and congrats on taking first with Dark Eldar.

Augustus wrote:Well done. 5th doesn't seem to suit DE very well, I'd say that's an impressive showing.

How do you figure? They mech up really well, they have cheap fast skimmer transports with great guns, and they have excellent access to extra weapons in their line squads, and they have rock hard HQ's. Their speed and firepower allowsthem to overwhelm objectives from all the way across the board, and even a single raider squad can be dangerous with BS4 Blasters and a Raider Dark Lance.

68 points for a WS5 wych hero, 4 attacks on the charge always wounding on a 4+, I 6 4+ invul save in combat and always reducing WS by 1/2 vs attack against her. And frag grenades.

What's not to like?=P

Yeah DE got better with this edition. The only downside was not being able to keep wyches in combat with the new consolidation rules.

But nice report, and well done. Good luck in the next round!

Greetings,

You must have danced a jig when Strakken survived the charge - ah, the glory of a safe round from shooting.

Good to see the pointy elves of pokey spikiness performed up to their usual standard. I was really pleased with all the objective and night fight style missions as those can really allow the DE to shine thanks to their Raiders.

I have to say I'm jealous you had two different city-fight style maps - at our local store we only have the one and I always feel my DE perform better on it. ANything that bogs down the opposition in terrain makes all my skimmer transport/gun platforms smile. (though, yeah, drawing LOF to tag important targets can sometimes be rough).

Congratulations on a win well fought and I wish you and Archons everywhere the very best in all their tourney matchups...unless, y'know, wishing that luck will detract from my own. I need it the way I like to drop three drugs at a pop after all.

Regards,
Thor.

Nice fights, but I thought you couldnt take a wych lord choice with a standard one.

You can't take an Archite without becoming a Wyche Cult list, but if you have an Archon/Dracon then the Dracite is always willing to tag along like the good little MC killer he is.

Augustus wrote:Well done. 5th doesn't seem to suit DE very well, I'd say that's an impressive showing.

I might say the armies you were up against were fairly optimal for DE to beat, particularly the Necrons, with their melee impotence.

In the hardboy I was in the Necrons didn't even make top half.

Good luck next round.

On the contrary 5th ed did a huge favor to the DE by giving their fragile units cover saves...hence they have been doing much better in 5th ed!

Thor665 wrote:Greetings,

You must have danced a jig when Strakken survived the charge - ah, the glory of a safe round from shooting.

I have to say I'm jealous you had two different city-fight style maps -

Actually I did what I could to make sure Strakken survived (I actually fleeted most of my unit away from strakken so that when I charged only a few of my wyches made it into combat, ensuring that the combat lasted into the next round.

And as far as the heavy terrain, it actually hurt me pretty bad against the necrons as it limited the amount of fire I could bring to bear against his destroyers early on. If it had been more open he would have been hard pressed to hide more then a few of his units.