MISSION: MAELSTROM OF
WAR TACTICAL ESCALATION
DEPLOYMENT: DAWN OF
WAR
FIRST DEPLOYMENT: DARK ELDAR
FIRST TURN: DARK ELDAR
NIGHT FIGHTING: NO
I get lucky on the roll off and choose to deploy first in order to take the first turn. I am weary of the One Eye Open rule and decide to keep all my venoms off to the left flank alongside the Talos while keeping the daemons in the center and right side of the table. I feel this will let me distribute pressure to the entire table with units that can rapidly redeploy as needed. I keep the Bloodletters in reserve to drop either into his lines for further pressure or to drop onto an objective.
Turn 1, I get an easy objective to achieve. #43 Hold the Line, great start! The flesh hounds scout up 12" and then move up their normal 12" putting them right into the enemy territory and i run them behind the ruined building so i can get some nice cover saves if they get shot at hoping for a turn 2 assault on something important.
The Daemon Prince and Bloodthrister move up their 24", my opponent is surprised at the distance the Bloodthrister was able to cover, as he misjudged how far his Sniper Drones and
HQ (Ethereal) were from the Bloodthrister who is now only 2 or 3 inches away from them. The Prince runs in mid-air, anime-style and lands on ruins for a nice 4+ cover save. The bloodthrister rains hellfire down on the sniper drone and crushes that unit single handedly, killing off the enemy warlord in the process who was trying to hide under the ruin but templates don't care and fry him anyway. In doing this i claim First Blood, Slay the Warlord and the extra
VP for killing an Ethereal.
The Venoms hose down the Pathfinders that were conveniently placed where the Daemon Prince wanted to land, and force the few remaining pathfinders to flee. The Soulgrinders toss Phlegm at the fire warriors first to active their formation bonus and then double down attacking Crisis Suit teams and the Sky Ray near them. The re-roll to hit working wonders!
Dark Eldar claim 4
VPs from the start.
Turn 2, coming off hot from a great first turn and the Tau's inability do to more than to put 1 wound on the Daemon Prince and destroying a Venom hidden in ruins, the Dark Eldar forces start to target the left flank's devil fishes and broadside team.
The Chaos Daemons
FMC decide it's time to start setting up some deadly assaults and thus fly down in anticipation making sure to stay within RUINS now that they are no longer soaring the skies waving a middle finger at all ground units, they need to ensure safety first. Skulls for the skullthrone!! But wear a helmet.
The soulgrinders continue to march forward while still attacking the crisis teams and vehicles. And I totally forget that the flesh hounds even exist after moving them into position to assault either the sky ray or crisis teams. Totally forgot the assault phase because I felt that my forces were doing such a great job that I could get away with being forgetful just this once...
Score is now 6 to 1 in Dark Eldar favor.
Then Tau gets his reserves on time and has 2 single units of crisis teams drop in front of the Soul Grinders packing some serious heat. By serious heat i mean twin-linked fusion blaster + fusion blaster. At this point i remember my flesh hounds and I go 'Oh nooooooes' I pray to the Dark Gods that the Soul Grinders live in the name of Khorne. Luckily the Blood God was listening and with his favor the Grinders survive largely unscathed as the fusion blaster to the face epic fails at doing anything more than stunning 1 of them. Tau begin to lose all hope...
Turn 3
I press the advantage and bring the fight to the enemy in the form of assaults, nice brutally deadly assaults. This time i let the dogs out, and they much on some leftover sky ray, while the Prince and Thrister decimate the rest of the Tau heavy vehicles, and the Soul Grinders crush the suicide crisis teams with ease.
The Talos finally for the first time since i started using him gets into assault with something...a sacrificial 2 man drone team dropped off by the Devilfishes. Yay!
At this point I collect several Tactical Objectives including some D3 points and the score is sitting with my army in double digits vs 1 point for the Tau army. I offer my opponent the chance to concede the game and play another match with different lists. He accepts and we move on to the next
GG
