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Man, it's been an age since I've posted a report here. I've been so busy painting and with work/RL stuff that I haven't been playing nearly as much as previous years. Here's one from last night.
I had a chance to have my friend Gerry over for a casual game this week. He's been using my tyranids to get a feel for the 6th ed mechanics before he builds an army of his own.
Here's a shot of the table and terrain. I had set it up earlier so we use the "narrative" setting rather than the alternating method. We rolled up The Scouring and Hammer/Anvil deployment.
I don't own many eldar, but I wanted to try the new rules out. Our local July tournament is 1500pts battle + painting + comp so this is the list I'm practicing with for the event.
Gerry won the roll off and made me take the first turn. Night fight was in effect.
DEldar deployment
Spoiler:
I put beasts up front with the baron and farseer attached alongside the talos. My archon was attached to the 15 warriors and in b2b with the icarus. My flyer was reserved and rangers outflanking.
Tyranid deployment
Spoiler:
Gerry deployed the big gaunt blob up front screening the hive guard. Tfex, tervigon, tyrant, and warriors hid behind a big BLoS wall. 20 genestealers were outflanking.
We flipped the objectives and for once, it was an even split! We both had 2pt and 3pt objectives with the 1pt and 4pt ones in the middle.
Turn 1
Spoiler:
War walkers get prescience, beasts get fortune and advance. My venom inflicts 3 wounds on hive guard, but they save every wound from war walkers thanks to night fight. The tyranid warriors also make all saves from the talos' cannon.
Tyrant gets warp speed and swoops up to flank my beasts. Tervigon gets iron arm and advances behind the gaunts and hive guard. Tfex pops out and warriors pull back. The tyrant unloads all his dakka into beasts and a precision shot ID's a razorwing flock. I lose 1 khymerae but fortuned saves pass the rest. The Tfex bingo's my venom despite night fight and the ensuing explosion kills 3 wyches and 5 warriors! (first blood). I pass all pinning and morale tests.
Turn 2
Spoiler:
My flyer arrives heading for the tyrant. My rangers arrive deep in his flank and hide behind the jungle/hill. Beasts get fortune and walkers get prescience. Everything shuffles around. I form a wall on the far side with beasts and the talos to keep the tyrant from landing and assaulting my warriors. My flyer puts 3 wounds on the tyrant despite evading and my archon on the icarus finishes it off (slay the warlord). Walkers fire on hive guard and his saves are hot again, leaving 1 model surviving.
Tervigon gets iron arm and spawns 9 gaunts (no doubles) which head for the outflanking rangers. Tfex advances while the last hive guard pulls back. Genestealers fail to arrive. I lose around 6 khymerae and 3 wounds off the clawed fiend despite fortune (I failed about 75% of my saves even after rerolls!). The tfex also hits my flyer once but only destroys a missile.
Turn 3
Spoiler:
Beasts get fortune, my flyer gets prescience, and the tfex gets dominate. My warrior blob moves up a bit and 2 surviving wyches hunker down on my backfield objective. My flyer, war walkers, talos, and warriors all fire on the tervigon and score 4 wounds. Missile blasts and beastmasters drop about half of the big gaunt blob. Beasts then assault and I lose 4 more khymerae (fortuned invulns failing left and right again), but still manage to win combat. I guess I should have put the baron up front for the 2++ rerollable.
20 genestealers arrive in my backfield.
The tervigon saves its warp charge for life leech. It spawns 9 more gaunts (no doubles again) and both spawned units head for my rangers. They unload fleshborers, cluster spines, and life leech. I go to ground and make every save. Gaunts then assault and my rangers are wiped out. The tfex fails his leadership test to fire for dominate. My beasts finish off the big gaunt blob and consolidate towards the far edge.
Turn 4
Spoiler:
Beasts get fortune and prescience, tfex gets dominate.
Talos heads for the genestealers. I elect to fly the jetfighter off the table. My warrior blob abandons the icarus and pulls away from the genestealers. War walkers finish the tervigon. The explosion kills 7 of the 9 spawned gaunts in the closest unit. Beasts fire on the tyranid warriors but he only fails 1 save. Talos uses focus fire and drops 3 genestealers.
Beasts declare a disordered assault on the warriors and tfex and I lose a few to overwatch. I'm able to wipe out the warriors and inflict 1 wound to the tfex.
he genestealers make for my talos. Tfex is locked in combat. The unit of 2 gaunts passes their IB test and makes for the central 4pt objective. The unit of 9 gaunts fail IB. The hive guard passes, but fails to wound my talos.
Genestealers assault the talos and I drop 1 to overwatch. He has 5 attacks with the broodlord and 30 from genestealers in range and only scores 1 rend. My talos kills 3 genestealers and the unit breaks and runs!
At this point, my opponent concedes. Here's what the situation is:
Regardless of the tfex combat, my unit will hit-and-run out at the end. I then have my returning flyer, beasts, warriors, and war walkers to make sure the genestealers are finished off. He has no synapse left, a unit of 2 gaunts, a unit of 9 gaunts, a dominated tfex, and a single hive guard. I'm sitting on 2 objectives (2pt, 3pt) with scoring beasts controlling the center (possibly linebreaker), and slay the warlord. He conceded due to the lateness of the hour, but my remaining units, firepower, and mobility were enough to inflict serious casualties and keep him off objectives.
Post Game
Spoiler:
This was a really fun game, and very close in the beginning. I failed sooo many fortuned saves on my beasts and gave up first blood and 9 models to a single tfex shot when he pegged my venom. Losing the flyrant on turn 2 hurt, but in my experience they either die very early or survive to win the game. I could have used my vehicle mobility better, but that's what the practice is for. In his shoes, I would have infiltrated the genestealers for early pressure and enfeeble, but outflanking in hammer/anvil games with 6 objectives is a solid choice also. I really like the new war walkers with bs4, 5++, and battle focus. That mid strength, high RoF is just what dark eldar need. I got lucky rolling up fortune, but there's enough good powers between fate, divination, and telepathy to make anything work.
Great battle, thanks for sharing. Really love the table and the paint jobs on the Dark Eldar. Did you do that table yourself? Were those Dark Eldar vehicles/MCs done with an airbrush?
I think you fairly dominated this match despite a rough start. Failing that many saves for the kyhmarae is absurd, but it happens. I do think it would have been better to infiltrate the Genestealers, as that would have caused more of a target priority issue. Considering the majority of your stuff was in the 24-36 inch range except for the super quick beast pack and Wych Venom, keeping them off the board a turn just meant that you had less to focus fire on. Though I suppose if his luck had been a bit better, the outflanking would have been great. I just find that infiltrating is a more predictable and controllable option.
Also, why go stock with the Talos? Did you know you were fighting 'nids? I've been meaning to expand my Deldar list to have a Talos but was looking at the heatlance and extra CCW so he'd serve more of a purpose in my pure Dark Eldar games. The CCW is kind of expensive though...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/06/27 23:20:37
tanuvein wrote: Great battle, thanks for sharing. Really love the table and the paint jobs on the Dark Eldar. Did you do that table yourself? Were those Dark Eldar vehicles/MCs done with an airbrush?
I think you fairly dominated this match despite a rough start. Failing that many saves for the kyhmarae is absurd, but it happens. I do think it would have been better to infiltrate the Genestealers, as that would have caused more of a target priority issue. Considering the majority of your stuff was in the 24-36 inch range except for the super quick beast pack and Wych Venom, keeping them off the board a turn just meant that you had less to focus fire on. Though I suppose if his luck had been a bit better, the outflanking would have been great. I just find that infiltrating is a more predictable and controllable option.
Also, why go stock with the Talos? Did you know you were fighting 'nids? I've been meaning to expand my Deldar list to have a Talos but was looking at the heatlance and extra CCW so he'd serve more of a purpose in my pure Dark Eldar games. The CCW is kind of expensive though...
I built the army back in 5th when webway portals were viable and used to be able to assault out of them with talos. Now I use them as a counter assault unit to keep linebreakers away. I like the splinter cannon for its range and being twin linked. I didn't tailor the list to fight nids and it will be my tournament list next month. It is useful for all the FMCs and such that are becoming so popular. Plus 100pts stock for a MC that can shoot and fight isn't shabby.
Oh man, you are amazing. I really like those Grotesques. Seeing as I've always wanted to us Grotesques but not buy them, and I have a handful of ogres and Talos bits laying around, I think I'll try to make some.
I'll need to find something simpler for their bellies though. I don't have the skills to do that. Might just end up using their belly shields.
Edit: Or maybe throw some greenstuff in there and some spare Guard, Ork, etc. heads and hands and such. Might look silly though.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/06/28 00:11:20
Automatically Appended Next Post: Great job sir! Always a pleasure reading your battle reports!
Thanks to you and baktru.
I'm using my Malys model as my vanilla archon for now. Since the upcoming event has player ranked comp scoring I didn't want to run double uniques and the baron brings a lot more to the army.
What are your thoughts on Pheonix Lords now for Dark Eldar? I don't have the book and have just skimmed through it. Obviously those psychic powers are good for the beasts.
somerandomdude wrote: What are your thoughts on Pheonix Lords now for Dark Eldar? I don't have the book and have just skimmed through it. Obviously those psychic powers are good for the beasts.
I have Maugan painted up from last year's GT list and he's pretty much the same. I would use him to make a key scoring unit fearless because that's huge. His ability to allocate precision shots on 5+ is pretty key too. I've used him to great effect in the past to take out special weapons and actually won me a game when he pinned 10 terminators on t1. The only thing that sucks is he lost the ability to ignore cover with the old crack shot.
I've also been considering Baharroth as an alternate to join the beasts. The baron is very good giving them stealth, grenades, and hit and run. Baharroth would give them hit and run, and fearless which is a great combo for a large beast pack. Plus his ability to skyleap and come back down to contest an objective late game would be pretty useful, though the timing would be tricky.
Those are the only 2 PL's I would consider using in my lists. The others just don't fit my playstyle or existing armies.
Very nice report-- it's always a joy to see your Dark/Not So Dark Eldar alliance in action. How has the Talos been working out for you, by the way? Is it much more worthwhile in 6th, or is it still a unit that requires effort to get some mileage out of?
@ Lord of Nonsensical Crap ~ First game with it since the death of webway portals.
For 100pts stock, it can do a lot of things. In this game it single handedly broke a 300+pt genestealer unit. Granted the dice favored me.
I intend to use him to maintain midfield control with the beasts, or as a bodyguard for my warrior block. The t/l cannon is nice for hitting quad guns, artillery, or even FMC's.
Don't underestimate t7 either. They're great for chewing up scarabs and other str3 annoyances.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/06/28 20:34:29
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