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This is my first real battle report. I don't count the video battle report of space marines vs. necrons that I made in my less-mature college years as an actual tactical analysis:

http://youtu.be/KLhYX6DFskg

Ahem, moving on.

Courtneyfro and I set-up a 1500 point game so that I could make an attempt at my first battle report. I will be using my Kroot counts-as Dark Eldar, and he will be using his Space Wolves. I’ve fought against his army a few times already as my webway portal list has begun to evolve, and I’ve never been able to beat his thunderwolf cavalry. In fact, I haven’t even come close. My army lacks any shooting, and wyches and beasts are simply too weak to wound those wolves in assault. I have had the most success with talos attacks, but even they are ripped apart rather quickly if they are thrown into the melee without any support. Still, I would rather have a talos in assault than out in the open when I’m guaranteed to be facing long fangs as well.

Oaka’s Dark Eldar

Asdrubdael Vect
Haemonculus with webway portal
Haemonculus with liquefier
Hameonculus with liquefier
10 Harlequins with harlequin’s kiss, Shadowseer
15 Wyches with haywire grenades, Hekatrix with agoniser, 2 shardnets and impalers
15 Wyches with haywire grenades, Hekatrix with agoniser, 2 shardnets and impalers
Talos with chain flails, twin-linked haywire blaster
Talos with chain flails, twin-linked haywire blaster
Talos with chain flails, twin-linked haywire blaster



This is my typical webway portal list with some slight variations specifically to go up against thunderwolf cavalry- the inclusion of Vect and harlequin’s kisses. I usually just take a bare minimum harlequin unit to benefit from the veil of tears and deploy the webway portal, but after seeing how ineffectual wyches were against thunderwolf cavalry before, I wanted to see if Vect and some rending attacks were the solution.

Courtneyfro’s Space Wolves

Wolf lord with frost blade, storm shield, thunderwolf
5 Thunderwolf cavalry with different wargear for wound allocation shenanigans
10 Grey Hunters with 2 melta guns, standard, power fist
- Rhino
10 Grey Hunters with 2 melta guns, standard, power fist
- Rhino
9 Grey Hunters with 1 melta gun, standard, power fist and combi-melta
- Wolf Guard with mark of the wulfen
- Rhino
Land Speeder with multi-melta, heavy flamer
6 Long Fangs with 5 missile launchers

This is a tough list for me to face because I have to crack transports to get to the squishy stuff inside. I have no problem killing grey hunters or long fangs in the open, it’s getting to them that is the challenge. I have to rely on talos shooting if he wants to play keep-away with the vehicles. The thunderwolves, which are all too happy to get into assault, have an immense mathematical advantage against wyches because of their toughness.

We roll-off for mission, and get Capture and Control and Pitched Battle. I win the roll and elect to go first. Here is the board from my side, the two stone monolith arches are the two objectives. I placed mine right in the middle of the board where I expect to set down my portal, and he crams his in the far left corner of his deployment zone like a pansy.



We deploy, I only start with the harlequins, with Vect and the portal haemonculus attached. He starts with everything on the board. Thus, we begin a game full of incompetence and constant bitching about dice rolls.



Dark Eldar Turn 1-

The haemonculus leaves the unit and his pain token in the trusty hands of Vect, and moves forward and lays down a webway portal. Vect and the harlequins run into the woods to the left of the portal. I hope I know what I’m doing (Spoiler: No, I don’t).




Space Wolf Turn 1-

The marines grab the reins of their wolves and… run away? I didn’t expect that, Courtney is usually all too happy to get his cavalry stuck in. Instead it’s a tactical retreat with everything, forcing me to advance out of the woods if I want to assault. The rhinos and long fangs all fail the range checks to shoot at the harlequins. The speeder does approach my right flank and take a pop shot at my lone haemonculus, but rolls a ‘1’ to wound.



Courtney begins complaining about dice at this point. His new favorite phrase for the day was, ‘that’s balls’.

Dark Eldar Turn 2-

Ok, now to get some units in and advance them behind the shifty harlequins. Nope, only two Talos come in. Crap, I can’t just move up with two Talos, I’ve seen what 5 krak missiles do to a toughness 7 model with no invulnerable save. I just hoof them into the trees and move up to the edge of the terrain in order to charge out of it next turn. Both haywire launchers miss. The squawking and chittering coming from those woods is surely striking fear into the hearts of the Emperor’s finest.



Space Wolf Turn 2-

Lots of ineffectual shots from rhinos do nothing except break some branches and scare away the local fauna. Then the long fangs aim at the nearest Talos and hit with five kraks. Wound rolls- 4, 1, 2, 1, 2. Hah!

Dark Eldar Turn 3-

Time to make my move, I’ll bust out of the trees, welter one turn of shots, and then massed chicken carnage will be upon him. Only the other Talos decides to show up… I’m still going to advance. My difficult terrain rolls continue to be poor, the closest Talos rolls 1, 2, 1 and can’t get out of the forest. Page 51 from the BRB- “All monstrous creatures have the ‘move through cover’ special rule (see page 75). They simply bash their way through trees and ruins!” The exclamation point at the end of the second sentence pisses me off. I manage to shake the speeder and the rhino near the long fangs with shots from the haywire launchers.



Space Wolf Turn 3-

He advances with the closest rhino and the thunderwolves, and disembarks the grey hunters. Everything else is content to watch.



I do some quick math in my head on a full unit of rapid fire shots into the harlequins and feel a bit ill. Maybe he’ll roll two 1s for spotting them. Nope. Only about half of the shots hit, and even less wound, I lose a total of three harlequins from all his shooting. The long fangs take aim at the fresh talos, and only two hit! Courtney murmurs something about how average rolls should have reduced me down to one talos and Vect at this point. Cry me a river, I won’t mind, my harlequins ignore difficult terrain. The thunderwolves charge the harlequins.



The wolf lord goes straight into Vect, who only manages to get one wound past his storm shield. Now I get to see whether my rending harlequins are a good match-up against those toughness 5 wolves. It turns out not so much, I still need 6s to wound, they’re just power weapon wounds this time around. I cause two wounds total, in fact, a wych unit would have done better simply because it has an agoniser. Ah well, now I know. The wolf lord hits Vect with a flurry, and I begin making my shadowfield saves. It’s strength 6, and Vect is toughness 3, and 240 points… Making those saves is tense, but fortunately he passes them all. The harlequins are not so lucky, and get completely decimated by the thunderwolves (6 attacks each on the charge?!?!). Vect is rendered fearless and holds the combat by himself.



Dark Eldar Turn 4-

I feel pretty good at this point. I will have Vect and 3 Talos in assault with his thunderwolves this turn, so their high toughness will not matter. The leaves of the webway portal begin rustling, the wyches have arrived. A billion chickens come screaming out of the portal, two turns later than I would have preferred.



I assault the wolves with one wych unit and all three talos. The rest of the wyches group up in the woods with all three haemonculi. The haemonculi spent the rest of the game like chickens with their heads cut off (hehe). I think I’ll have to give them hex rifles so that they can do something, anything, when I hold them back like that, as they cause the wyches to lose fleet. Vect puts all his attacks into regular thunder wolves, my plan is to try to kill all of them but leave the lord in combat so I can’t get shot at during his turn. He causes three more unsaved wounds, but at this point all five wounds on the thunderwolves are spaced out so that each model has one (of course). The wyches do crap all, and I would be upset except I’m looking forward to those talos attacks. The lord again lays into Vect, and on the seventh wound I fail my shadowfield save and am insta-gibbed. I feel like I pay 240 points for a model with a 4+ seize the initiative, 4 wounds, and a ranged attack that gets me wounds back, that are all far too easy to circumvent during a game. Those talos attacks had better do something. “In Soviet Tau Space, chicken eats you!” 13 strength 7 monstrous creatures wound the unit, killing all of them. I do a merry dance of joy, only to scream like a girl when the thunder outside causes the lights in the back of the store to flicker a bit. The lord holds the combat up, and I feel great about finally taking out those expensive resin models Courtney ordered from Poland.



Space Wolf Turn 4-

The super heroic grey hunters pledge to sculpt an elaborate memorial to their lord and load up into their rhino and peel off in a cloud of dust. Even the long fangs run as far as they can from the mess of poultry that is going to belch forth at the end of this turn. The speeder tries to flame some of the wyches in the woods near my objective, but only kills two. Feel no pain works amazingly well for wyches against flame weapons. The lord tries to do what he can in combat, but is bogged down by two shardnets and is then, quite literally, impaled (see what I did there?). Now this is where I was riding a bit of a high about winning that combat, and just decided to keep going rather than actually thinking about the mission. Each talos consolidates towards a rhino, and the wyches set their eyes on the long fangs, hoping to catch them in my turn. The two leftside talos each received a pain token from the victory.



Dark Eldar Turn 5-

My army all advances towards something. Two talos head towards his objective, guarded by two rhinos full of grey hunters. One talos and a wych unit run towards the other rhino and the long fangs, and the last wych unit decides to test out their haywire grenades on the speeder that just rotisseried two of their buddies.





Each talos launches haywires at a rhino, and all three are immobilized! Hah, no more running away for you, now if I can take care of that speeder my objective should be safe from him being able to contest it. The wyches fail to assault the long fangs through difficult terrain, and the speeder is only shaken by haywire grenades (just drag the pilots out, guys!).



Space Wolf Turn 5-

Two rhinos of grey hunters deploy to deal with the talos closest to the objective.



Courtney wants to disembark from both doors so that he can rapid fire but remain within 3” of the objective, but can’t do so without breaking coherency, and begins some sort of diatribe about how GW mustn’t have any sort of play-testing. I don’t pay much attention, as I’m under the table shivering after another loud thunderclap. The long fangs run rather than stand and shoot, and the grey hunters accompanying them form a meat shield and produce yet another round of unspectacular shooting to try and whittle the numbers of the wych unit bearing down on them. On the other side of the board, I gloat that a talos with feel no pain is quite invincible against bolter fire, but then spot the four meltaguns. The smell of Colonel’s famous original recipe wafts through the battlefield. At this point I realize, due to my overeagerness to kill things, that my wyches are not within 3” of my objective, and that if the game ends I lose. Fortunately, we roll to take a turn six.

Dark Eldar Turn 6-

Focusing back on the objectives, my wyches break off from the speeder and head towards the one in my deployment zone. Both remaining talos head back to my side to try to deal with that speeder, and my most distant unit of wyches gets ready to assault the grey hunters screening the long fangs.



The speeder is immobilized by haywire launchers, neutralizing his last unit that could contest my objective. This game has draw written all over it, and we call it at this point. I’m not getting to his objective, and he’s not getting to mine.




I claim that my wyches would have no problem getting through his grey hunters, as it is a matchup I am always confident about. Courtney says “I don’t think you know exactly how badass grey hunters are, let’s play it out.” He fails 3 out of 4 armor saves to my splinter pistol shots, then loses a couple more in combat and breaks. Courtney murmurs some more nonsense about testicles, and on that note we pack up and head out to grab some dinner…

Result: DRAW!!!

With such poor army composition, a laughable grasp of the rules, and dice rolls that would get us shanked in a back alley game of craps, what else would you expect?

Nice betrep! Loved the light touch to the narrative and the running gags about the chickens were great. Do you have any plans to do an actual DE army, because if they're done to the same standards as your space chickens, they'll look fab.

Oh yeah - nice pics too.

The space chickens are fantastic.

As to the list, any plans to include a beast unit? They'd be pretty easy to do with a 'krooty' theme, and would add some much-needed threat radius to the list...

Space Wolves list was illegal.

Your friend cannot buy a single Wolf Guard to add to his Grey Hunters. They can only be bought as 3.

Unless he was buying a Wolf Guard Battle Leader and you just named it wrong.

Very nice counts as army there, but wow Vect in a 1500pt game is surprising to say the least, he takes up a huge chunk of your points. I guess that assault shows the potential problems with T3 characters leading from the front. If you had put Vect in the second rank (i.e not right at the front) then the Lord would have been forced to assault (and therefore only attack) the Harlies, which would have kept the S10 hits off Vect for at least 1 turn.

I actually think you would have been better going second in this game, which is unusual for a Portal based list. Harlies mean you don't care about going second since he isn't going to be able to shoot the unit and you can force him to commit earlier and/or waste a turn of shooting.

I would suggest you try using the Talos with Heat Lances rather than Haywires, as your anti tank firepower isn't spectacular. I would also be inclined to drop most of the upgrades from the Wyches just to get more bodies (in another unit obviously), 2 scoring units is very light when they are both assault based (and therefore more likely to get killed).

Brother Ramses wrote:Space Wolves list was illegal.

Your friend cannot buy a single Wolf Guard to add to his Grey Hunters. They can only be bought as 3.

Unless he was buying a Wolf Guard Battle Leader and you just named it wrong.

I had three wolf guard, one for each squad of grey hunters.

I dropped the beasts from the lists because until I get my razorwing flocks built, I only use khymerae, which have extreme difficulty getting through thunderwolves and rhinos. It may have been nice having a unit that could catch the long fangs, though, and beasts will definitely be part of future lists.

Powerguy, thanks for all the input. This was my first game with Vect, and I don't think I'll be using him again anytime soon. I've been using a simple succubus with agoniser before, but took Vect for this game simply because his 3+ to wound power weapon caught my eye as a possible thunderwolf-counter. I've gone second against this wolf list before, and he surrounded the portal before I could deploy from it, but I agree that going first isn't nearly as important with my list as it is with most DE builds. I like the haywires on the talos because the heat lance doesn't have enough range to my satisfaction. I plan on adding two units of 4 trueborn with blasters to fulfill my ranged anti-tank role. I need to get them painted, but in playtesting they do really well coming out of the portal with a 24" threat range and always get to shoot. I'm also thinking of getting a unit of 5 scourges with haywires to help out, and since they can jump over my other portal units they won't clog up deployment.

I second putting heat lances on the Taloses, good game

Oaka wrote:I dropped the beasts from the lists because until I get my razorwing flocks built, I only use khymerae, which have extreme difficulty getting through thunderwolves and rhinos. It may have been nice having a unit that could catch the long fangs, though, and beasts will definitely be part of future lists.

Powerguy, thanks for all the input. This was my first game with Vect, and I don't think I'll be using him again anytime soon. I've been using a simple succubus with agoniser before, but took Vect for this game simply because his 3+ to wound power weapon caught my eye as a possible thunderwolf-counter. I've gone second against this wolf list before, and he surrounded the portal before I could deploy from it, but I agree that going first isn't nearly as important with my list as it is with most DE builds. I like the haywires on the talos because the heat lance doesn't have enough range to my satisfaction. I plan on adding two units of 4 trueborn with blasters to fulfill my ranged anti-tank role. I need to get them painted, but in playtesting they do really well coming out of the portal with a 24" threat range and always get to shoot. I'm also thinking of getting a unit of 5 scourges with haywires to help out, and since they can jump over my other portal units they won't clog up deployment.

This is why Portal lists work much better above 1500pts, because you really want 2 Portals so you can place one aggressively and one more conservatively, or against a gunline army both very aggressively. Either way it makes it almost impossible to block them both off, you place them so that if he somehow manages to block one everything arrives from the other one and is still in range to mess him up. Even still there is no way he can surround a Portal turn 2 unless you let him, he gets 12 + 2D6" of movement with the cavalry, so should only be able to surround it if he gets a charge off (and breaks you or you are standing in really silly spots). You can block him from getting to it in multiple ways, leave the Haemonculi behind and run the Harlies up ahead of him if you have to just to make a physical screen. One WWP list I am running has 6 units of Hellions and 3 units of Reavers, which bypasses this issue completely if its something you are worried about. Only lists with mass infiltrating units (which you can usually just deploy normally against because they aren't packing many shooting weapons), large number of Deep Striking units (Pods with large infantry units mostly, DoA doesn't arrive early enough and Terminators won't have the numbers), scouting units or massed fast vehicles (which you both deploy at least some stuff against to threaten things moving close to the Portals) should really be able to block off a WWP if you place it well.

Trueborn are nice but Heat Lances are definitely worth considering in this kind of list because you don't have to worry about range as much and tend to need to kill things faster (so the AP1 bonus is nice). The other obvious place to get more anti tank is with Fusion Pistols on the Harlies, trim a couple of Kisses (because you tend to lose some before you hit combat anyway, its nice having meatshields) and you are halfway there on points. If you move up in points and take a second Portal then taking 2 units with Fusion Pistols and Shadowseers is a very reliable delivery system, although I've found you can actually deliver 2 Portals fine with a single reasonably sized unit (max coherency with 6 Harlies + 2 Haemonculi = 22" which is perfect).

Sorry I didnt feel like readin this late... that video was sick though. All 40k gamers should be swiggin from 40's and have that level of tactical analysis provided by commentators with xbox headsets. Ill read the rep next!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
DUDE you made featherless chickens!!!!??? I always quote that gak! Nobody knows what Im talking about but my Dark Eldar always DESCEND UPON YOU FROM THE DARKNESS!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PPS: MR ANDERSONNNN!!!! Gah! Dude frigging LOVED THESE DAMN THINGS! Cant believe they were almost lost to the warp! Matrix Unplugged should have been in the animatrix or something

Thanks Nelson, I was actually just starting my Kroot army when a buddy said they looked like chickens, but what happened to their feathers? That was the result. It's a fluff rewrite that Matt Ward himself would be proud of, it turns out the grey knights were behind it!

Powerguy wrote:
although I've found you can actually deliver 2 Portals fine with a single reasonably sized unit (max coherency with 6 Harlies + 2 Haemonculi = 22" which is perfect).

That idea really intrigues me, and I had never thought about it. I assumed that if I wanted two portals, I would have to take two units of harlies. What do you think of two archons with portals attached to the same harlie unit on either side? Two portals could be deployed, and each archon could join a unit that comes out of the portal. I would probably add a cronos pain engine or two to help throw around pain tokens to the wyches, because they certainly need them. I'm trying to make Dark Eldar competitive without venom/ravager spam, and it sounds like you've been having some success, what does a typical list look like for you?

Yeah it works fine because in most cases you don't care whether your opponent is hanging back or being aggressive, you still want to put the Portals in roughly the same (theoretically optimal) places. With two Portals if he hangs back with everything you can save the second and deploy it further up on turn 2. 7 Harlies is probably about right to give you some more space to work with but if you really need some more distance you can always detach.

Archons would work I guess but they would be expensive. It would make that unit scare off any early game assaults like you were worried about in this game, as no one wants to assault two Archons (and you could take a Blaster as well for vehicles) and in general they are quite a bit harder to kill if something goes wrong and the Harlies get shot/assaulted. I prefer to use Haemonculi mostly because they are cheaper and can hopefully live long enough to give a unit a Pain Token, but it also leaves me an HQ slot free if I want to take the Baron.

I've been considering taking a Chronos (one is probably plenty, there are only so many Pain Token you need) but its hard to justify them over Talos when you don't have a whole heap of anti tank firepower to start with and Talos are such great heavy hitters in combat as well.

The list I'm currently building for 2000pts (largely proxy atm even though its incredibly repetitive) is something which you could quite easily work in with your Kroot. It's roughly:

2 Haemonculi with Portals

2 units of 5 Harlies with Fusion Pistols and Shadowseers (I wanted the extra Fusion Pistols for anti tank so took two units)

3 x Talos with T/L Heat Lances

3 units of Beasts, 4 Beastmasters, 5 Khymerae, 6 Razorwings

6 x 8 Wyches with Haywire Grenades

The other list I'm playing around with is the 'don't really care if the Portal is blocked list' (again roughly and its proxied, its a lot of Hellions to buy and paint):

Baron

2 Haemonculi with Portals

6 Harlies with Fusion Pistols and Shadowseer

3 x Talos with T/L Heat Lances

3 x 6 Reavers with Heat Lances

5 x 7 Hellions
1 x 9 Hellions + Helliarch with stuff (Baron's unit)

What models did you use for the TWC? they look brillant

.

This...is an epic battle report, and I thank you for sharing it. I will have to consider DE for my own Kroot army.

Great bat rep. But the tactics was a bit laughable. Sorry.
Deploying the WWP close to the enemy is key if he holds back his units.

nice rep, and dropping vect would definetly give you more options

get those razorflocks ready though, beasts are great

In fact, if you can afford to drop Vect (due to his roll to attain 1st turn), take some more Beasts as they are fast and deadly.

With the elimination of WWP assaults in 6th edition, this army sadly has to be reworked. I'm trying to figure out how, though!