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We are now at week three of the campaign and armies are at 1250. Here was my list:

HQ: 140
Autarch w/ Jetbike, Mandiblasters, Laser Lance, Fusion Gun

Elites: 223
x6 Fire Dragons w/ Exarch, Dragon's Breath Flamer, Crack Shot (113)
Wave Serpent w/ Twin-Linked Shuriken Cannons, Spirit Stones (110)

Troops: 426
x6 Jetbikes w/x2 Shuriken Cannons (152)
x6 Jetbikes w/ x2 Shuriken Cannons, Warlock: Embolden (202)
x6 Dire Avengers (72)

Heavy Support: 260
Fire Prism (115)
Falcon Tank w/ Missile Launcher, Spirit Stones (145)

Fast Atk: 200
Vyper w/ Star Cannon (70)
Vyper w/ Star Cannon (70)
Vyper w/ Scatter Laser (60)

Total: 1249

Autarch Aidran Calhaiin's blood sang with battle fury as the cold air whipped past his hair. The Saim-Hann warhost raced alongside him as they pursued the Necrons, a red blur of grav tanks and jetbikes streaking across the frozen tundra.
Calhaiin felt the the presence of Farseer Selia Raghnall enter his mind.
"The servants of the Old Ones are close to your position," she said, her voice ringing like chimes in the Autarch's ears. "The human's obscene battle tanks and filthy guardsmen have already engaged them."
Calhaiin laughed.
"Very well! We will descend upon them like the wrath of Khaine and slay them all!"
"Wait," she said, "Something is wrong. I sense...an intruder. Webways...opening..."
Selia gasped.
"On your guard, Autarch!" She yelled. "Dark Eldar are approaching from behind!"

Tonight's game was against a raiding party of Dark Eldar led by Lelith. The warrior models are proxies for whyches.


The mission we played was called "Vertical Envelopment." The objective was to have more kill points than the enemy by the end of turn six. Only the Dark Eldar were permitted to hold units in reserve for this game, and their skimmers had to come in on my table edge when they enter from reserve.

Dark Eldar/Saim-Hann turn 1:




DE had the first turn and kept everything in reserve. For this mission, this meant that his whole army would move onto my table edge on his turn two.
In response, I turbo boosted my bikes and moved flat out with my tanks onto his side, hoping to give my dark kin a warm reception when they arrived.

DE/Saim-Hann turn 2:




Only two of his skimmers made it onto the board on his turn. They fired their dark lances at my Fire Prism, but either failed to damage it or were blocked by terrain.

Since they were equipped with those special fields that reduced my line of sight by 6", I scooted my forces closer on my turn and tried to gun down his skimmers.
Thanks to those fields, my Wave Serpent's twin-linked cannons were one inch short of hitting his skimmer. Blarg. On top of that, the rest of my shooting phase was terrible as I only succeeded in shaking the other one. Double blarg.

DE turn 3:




Two more raiders entered the fray, bringing with them Lelith, Succubi, and more whyches.
Lelith and her peeps disembarked and hungrily eyed my nearby Serpent. The whyches in the shaken raider jumped out and ran into the nearby woods for cover.
He only succeeded in immobilizing my Serpent in his shooting phase. Lelith and her squad rolled a 6 for their run and surrounded the immobile transport.
They charged it in his assault phase and tore off the Shuriken cannons and shook it a lot. Not looking good for my Fire Dragons inside.

Saim-Hann turn 3:




I moved the warhost further away from the DE, scooting around the edges to outflank them.
I didn't think I would have been able to save the Serpent and the Fire Dragons inside. I hoped that the DE would fail to break through the Serpent's armor in following turns.
The Jetbike squad led by the Warlock destroyed the whyches hiding in the woods while the Autarch's squad immobilized one of his raiders.
The Fire Prism fired the large template over his whyches near the Serpent, but they had Feel No Pain and shrugged off most of the wounds.

DE turn 4:




Uh oh. Forgot he had another raider in reserve. It came on and unloaded more whyches dangerously close to my jetbikes. Meawhile, the other squad of whyches got back onto their radier and moved closer to my lines.
In his shooting phase he destroyed one of my vypers, bringing the score to 1-1.
Amazingly, the whyches that just arrived rolled a for their run and could not assault my bikes!
On the other side of the board, though, he completely surrounded the Serpent and rolled high for his assaults and wrecked the transport.
Since there was no place to safely disembark, the Fire Dragons were destroyed as well, putting the score at 3-1, DE favor.
That was a good move on the DE player's part. I would have done the same. I was still sad, though, that my Dragons died before killing anything .

Saim-Hann turn 4:




I took advantage of my good fortune and positioned my forces to focus fire on the whyches slowed down by the terrain. I killed a mess of them in the shooting phase, but they passed their morale check.
The jetbike squad on the other side of the board blew up the raider near the wreckage of my Serpent. Score was 3-2 by the end of my turn.

DE turn 5:




Because my shooting failed to destroy the other raiders, one moved closer to my Autarch's bike squad and unloaded whyches.
In his shooting phase he immobilized the vyper near the Autarch, but failed to do any other damage to the warhost.
He charged the Dire Avengers in his assault phase and killed two, but the DAs killed two in return, drawing combat.
The squad of whyches tried to assault the Autarch's squad, but both of our jaws dropped when he rolled another and could not close in!

Saim-Hann turn 5:




Once again, I took advantage of my incredibly good fortune and moved my forces to fry the whyches near my Autarch, killing all but three in my shooting phase.
Meanwhile, the squad led by the warlock swooped around his flanks and destroyed another raider with Shuriken Cannons, bringing the score to 3-3.
There was a good chance my Autarch could have wiped out the remaining three whyches with his laser lance, but the close proximity of Lelith made me nervous, so I just moved him and his squad back in the assault phase.
Three DAs were cut down by power blades, but one lone Avenger dropped his foe and won combat! The score was then 3-4 with Saim-Hann in the lead!

DE turn 6:




Last turn for the Dark Eldar.
He moved everything he had left to charge my forces.
Dark lances shook my Fire Prism, but that was all for his shooting.
The whyches moving to counter the Warlock's squad rolled to run but, lo and behold, another ! Incredible. They ran into the nearby hill for cover instead.
Lelith and her band charged the immobile vyper and wrecked it, bringing the score to 4-4.
Other squad of whyches charged the Autarch and his squad, killing four bikes whilie losing one whych. Thanks to my Autarch's leadership, the squad stayed in combat.

Saim-Han turn 6:




It was anybody's game at this point.
My shooting phase was awful. My remaining Vyper and Falcon tank could not pop those last two raiders, and my jetbikes failed to kill off the wyches in the hill.
Warlock and her boys charged in, but failed to do anything. In the other combat, the jetbikes died and my Autarch could not finish them off.

Final score was: 5-4, Dark Eldar victory.

Calhaiin kneeled before Selia and the Seer Council in the darkened chamber of the Eldar flagship, still bloodied from his previous battle with Lelith's raiding party.
"I have failed the craftworld," Calhaiin said, "and I am prepared to receive whatever punishment the Council sees fit."
The Seer Council murmured amongst themselves for a moment, but were silenced when Selia waved her hand.
"The fault lies with me, Autarch, for I have failed to forsee our dark brethern interferring with our plans. You, however, did not make their victory an easy one as their losses were just as great as our own. Now mend your wounds and gather your forces for another assault. This campaign is not over yet."
"Yes, Farseer," Calhaiin said.

Once the Council and Autarch had left the chamber, Selia gazed intently into the Runes of Fate and closed her eyes in meditation. She separated her spirit from her body to survey the battles raging across the planet below. She could feel that soon, very soon, the Saim-Hann strike force would have to choose sides in a final battle that will determine the fate of this world. Before that battle, though, the Wild Riders will have to fly one more mission in an attempt to tip the outcome of this conflict in their favor.

This was a really close game with a lot of crazy dice rolling. It was amazing how many ones the DE rolled, for instance. I would have suffered a more crushing defeat if he had rolled higher for his running, but poor dice rolls are apart of the game we play. Overall, I had fun and I would love to have a rematch against this gentlemen's army.

Couple things. One, the fire dragons could do an emergency disembark when the vehicle is surrounded, either getting out from where there isn't an access point [if you're mostly but not entirely surrounded] or by just deploying inside the wreck [if you are]. You lose your next turn, but aside from that you're still alive - and it makes him have to at the very least divert something to kill it.

Also, if there's only ONE line of infantry attacking your tank, you can often still place models. Models can be placed 2" away, can't be within 1" of the enemy, sure. But models have 1" bases, so there's a way to have a few, like just 3 or 4, deploy out the back on the opposite side of his models. Just barely!

For future reference.

You are correct, Spellbound. It was only after our game that I realized the ruins next to the Serpent had enough room for the Dragons to disembark into. They would have gotten a cover save and, like you said, forced him to divert forces. And hey, he might have rolled more ones in the assault phase and fail to charge them as well!

You said that the Dragons could have deployed inside the wreckage even if it was completely surrounded. Don't all the models inside of a vehicle die if it is completely surrounded and wrecked?

It says that if the exits are blocked, you can place them within 2" of the hull. Inside the wreck is within 2" of the hull - the wreck is just terrain now, it's not a model, so you're not stacking them.

Slightly wrong. You have to disembark and then the vehicle is wrecked. This order makes it impossible to place models "inside the wreck" as you can't place a model on another model.

Spellbound wrote:It says that if the exits are blocked, you can place them within 2" of the hull. Inside the wreck is within 2" of the hull - the wreck is just terrain now, it's not a model, so you're not stacking them.

What Oscarius said.

The vehicle doesn't become a wreck until after the unit inside is forced to disembark.