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I quit 40k fifteen years ago when I discovered drugs, girls, and computers. Now I'm back because I need a time-sink hobby. My friend-from-back then is also getting back into the game so we're practicing 7th edition. This is our fourth game together.

We've been playing the Maelstrom missions from the book, but were disappointed by how much those objective rolls swung the outcome. After reading about the BAO tournament, we used one of their missions because they're so simple and balanced: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByVzaY23LOX-akxFRUk2cE02WDA/edit

I'm working on a Dark Angels MSU list but without any tricks or combos this game:


The Dark Eldar list has gone through several iterations, this one is more tailored to fight marines:


I won the deployment roll and elected to deploy and go first. My army is mostly homogeneous, so I can't really deploy against his deployment. The three tanks were up against the edge in the center and my right side with more objectives. The Ravenwing bikes were held in reserve to outflank later.

The skimmers hid behind buildings expecting to wait out the first turn, while the jetbikes edged up to bladevane my exposed tactical squad on the first turn.



The Dark Eldar seize the initiative! Their first shooting phase hits hard, immobilizing and glancing the Razorback and killing two exposed marines on top of the building with 6 bladevanes. The other jetbike squad moves to contest a central objective.



Those jetbikes on the objective were my First Blood, flamered by the Razorback's disembarked six-man squad. The Rhinos moved flat-out as far forward as they could.

I knew that dropping my Warlord into his deployment zone would be risky, but I wanted my pod on that three point Scouring objective. But it scatters onto a ruin and fails its dangerous terrain test! Per BAO, that's two HP off. It wouldn't survive the next shooting phase.

The Command Squad and Interrogator-Chaplain grab cover and flame the Wyches' Raider, killing four passengers:


The Raiders responded quickly. I'd left my warlord the closest model to the Splinter Rack Raider; The Command Squad Looked Out for him and lost a couple to that fusillade I'd underestimated. The Incubi, Archon, and remaining Wyches wasted no time charging in:


My Chaplain accepted the Archon's challenge, protected from the Huskblade by his Rosarius, and instantly killed the challenger with one blow. The Incubi rolled very poorly, knocking only two wounds off of the warlord, while he crushed two of them.

After a few more dead marines, both bike squads arrived to start my second turn. The Attack bike shot and charged at the Ravager for the rest of the game but only Immobilized it, being forced to jink.



The next few turns were a bit of a blur and I didn't get many pictures. The Ravenwing charged into the big melee, hoping to tie everyone up until the Rhinos could arrive. When they did, one squad sat on the smoking drop pod to claim objective 3, while the other took some shots at the Warriors' Raider but it made all its flickerfield saves.

The game felt fairly evenly matched at turn 4. The Dark Eldar had an extra Maelstrom point or two, but I had full units on both 2pt objectives and my 3pt objective.



But the last two turns were not good for the Emporor's finest. A swarm of bladevanes and shooting wiped out the 3pt objective squad. The last broken Incubi rallied and re-charged to kill both bikers. On the last turn, another Bladevane swarm and that gunboat Raider wiped out the six-man squad on one of the 2pt objectives. Only the tanks and one tactical squad remained of my army:


The game ended after turn 6. The Rhinos retained the two central objectives, and I'd killed one Fast Attack jetbike squad, yielding 5 points. But the Dark Eldar sat on both 3pt objectives and killed both of my bike units, so they won the Primary Objective. They also pulled far ahead in Maelstrom points, so the final score was 9 Mission Points to 2, and the victory to Dark Eldar!

This was a great game and we're getting much better at the 7th Edition Rules. It felt like my marines couldn't step foot outside of their rides without getting mowed down! Expect a rematch soon.

Nice batrep, Dark Eldar are pretty much an all or nothing army [I know this through experience!] and they seemed to do well here. There was lots of big LoS blocking terrain which really helped the DE player. A bit less of the large terrain and the result might well have been different. Thanks for the up!