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There is a league starting in Liverpool in a few weeks so a bunch of the guys decided to get together for some practice games. I played 3 games today with the new DE Codex and I have to say the changes suit my play style down to the ground.

Sorry this is a lot of reading and is not particularly well structured, for Dark Eldar players though it might be of some interest!

First the list I used (1850)...

HQ
Archon: Armor of Misery, Blaster, WWP
Autarch: Fusion Gun

Elites
5x Fire Dragons - Wave Serpent

Troops
5x Kabalite Warriors - Venom (Dual Cannons)
5x Kabalite Warriors - Venom (Dual Cannons)
3x Guardian Jetbikes

Fast Attack
5x Scourges - 4x Haywire Blasters
5x Scourges - 4x Haywire Blasters
5x Scourges - 4x Haywire Blasters
1x Razorwing Jetfighter - 2x Disintegrators, 1x Splinter Cannon, 4x Monosythe
1x Razorwing Jetfighter - 2x Disintegrators, 1x Splinter Cannon, 4x Monosythe
1x Razorwing Jetfighter - 2x Disintegrators, 1x Splinter Cannon, 4x Monosythe

Heavy Support
1x Ravager - 3x Dark Lances
1x Ravager - 3x Dark Lances
1x Ravager - 3x Disintegrators

Would love to hear peoples comments on the list if you want to leave them below...


Games 1 - Orks

We had night fighting turn 1 and I got the only Warlord trait worth a damn from the new codex giving me re-roll night fighting, Seize and Reserves. Opponants list was basically 2x Morkanaughts with riggers and meks, 2x 20 Boys, Battlewagon with Warboss in Mega Armor and nods with combi scorchas and 3 copters.

Turn 1 I simply hid the Kabalites (not in their venoms) and the jetbikes so I couldnt be tabled turn 1, my opponant moved up the board but could not shoot anything. My turn 1 was rather boring as I simply moved the jetbikes to take a Maelstrom objective.

Turn 2 he shot up the bikes I moved and managed to kill 1 of them.

My turn 2 was rather more eventful, all my reserves came in and started laying into the Orks. The 3 Scourge squads deep struck in around the morkanaughts, the wave serpent came in using the WWP and deposited the fire dragons, autarch and archon next to his morkanaughts, the Ravagers with lances squared up the to Morkanaughts as well and the Dissintegrator Ravager dropped near the copters. The 2 venoms deep struck near the boys to finish anything off left alive.

Shooting began, the first squad of Haywire scourges stripped 2 hull points off the front morkanaught and the fire dragons finished it off. The 2nd Morkanaught then took fire from one ravager and 2 haywire scourge squads and died as well. The Razorwings and 1 of the venoms layed into the 2x squads of boys with vicious abandon and left just 1 boy alive from one unit and none from the other unit (monoscythes are nasty!).

Effectively after this turn there was not much left on the orks side of the table, 2 more turns of mopping up finished them off and the orks get tabled turn 4.


Game 2 - Smurfs and Grey Knights

This could have gone horribly wrong based on the fact he had a centurien deathstar with tiggy, draigo and a librarian, luckily for me he didnt get invis! On top of this he had a thunderfire, deadknight, 5 terminators, 2x SM squads in drop pods and 2x units of scouts.

I let him take turn 1 first turn and deployed as little as I thought I could get away with without being tabled turn 1, this consisted of 2x warriors squads, the jetbikes and 2x scourge squads.

Turn 1 my opponant gated next to the bikes, terminators dropped in near the warriors on one side of the board and a drop pod scattered off the table into ongoing reserves, the dreadknight shunted up near some warriors. Needless to say after the round of shooting that followed I had 5 warriors and 2 scourges left on the board and luckily they didnt break. I did nothing turn one other than shoot my warriors at the centurians and actually managed to take a wound off one of them.

Turn 2 went pretty much the same way, he left me with nothing on the board so its lucky that everything of mine came in from reserves (except my dragons, autarch, archon and serpent).

I fired all the Ravagers, a Venom and 2 Razorwings at the deathstar killing all the centuriens, librarian and leaving draigo and tiggy on 1 wound each. My other Venom failed to kill the techmarine manning the thunderfire and my scourges failed to do anything at all. My 2rd Razorwing removed one of the combat squadded marines and killed 2 from the squad next to them from random scatter with the monoscythes Not a bad turn really although kind of annoying I left tiggy and draigo alive.

His turn 3 wasnt bad, his dreadknight charged and killed a ravager, his thunderfire killed a couple of my scourges and he made me jink one of the razorrwings and that was about it.

My shooting was a bit more effective, 1 of the venoms finished off draigo and tiggy on its own (2 1's from 4 wounds), I took all but 1 wound off the dreadknight with shooting from the ravagers still alive and 2 razorwings, my venom at the back of the board once again failed to kill the techmarine.

Turn 3 was pretty much the same as turn 2, the dreadknight charged and killed another ravager, the thunderfire cannon killed another scourge leaving that unit with 2 guys left, the scouts, terminators and some marines mid table took a few pot shots at a Razorwing but that was about.

On my turn 3 I managed to finish off the dreadknight, the techmarine still didnt die and i killed off 4/5 scouts and a squad of marines mid table.

Turn 4 was mostly a turn of shuffling for the Marines without anything of mine dying.

My turn 4 was a bit more effective with the wave serpent coming in and the squad within it killing 3/5 of the terminators and the wave serpent killing 1 more. The stupid ass thunderfire finally died to the Venom and the razorwings just did some mopping up.

Turn 5 was more shuffling, the Marine player trying to grab objectives as best he could, nothing in the way of shooting came except for some scouts firing at and killing 1 fire dragon.

My turn 5 was a mopping up exercise, the Autarch and Archon split off from the fire dragons so I could split my fire up, between them, the serpent and the fire dragons I killed off the scouts and the terminator, a venom killed another scout and the wave serpent took out a drop pod.

If the game had ended at this point it would have been a marine victory as it was 7 maelstrom points to 2. As it was it went onto turn 6 and the marine player conceeded as I had 3 razorwings coming back in and half my army still on the table.It would have been a tabling and I would of won of pts anything if it wasnt as I could of just jumped all the objectives.


Game 3 V's Necrons

There was way too much going on in this game to write it all out, the game ended turn 7 and the score was 24 / 19 to the Necrons. The Necron list was rather nasty with 2 CCB's, 2x Deathmarks in Flyers, 2x Warriors in Flyers, a Doomscythe and 2 ANNI Barges.

Just got home from playing this game and I cant really remember what happened other than the guys on the CCB's both being left on 1 wound at the end of T2 when I came in.

The game actually came down to the wire, I had a lowly scourge on the relic (not holding it) at the end of T6, if the game had ended there I would of won but cest la vie!


All in all I am liking the new Codex so far, the Haywire Scourges are somewhat horrid to anything they come across, although once the vehicles are dead they are a tad useless, perhaps blasters would be better but its hard to drop pts from my list. The ability of the list I have taken above is devastating in a turn 2 alphastrike scenario, the Razorwings just annihilate hordes, the Disintegrators ravage anything with a 2+ save, the scourges just remove vehicles like they are not even there (except the jinking Anni Barges, I think the necrons jinked about 7 glances turn 1) and the rest of the support (ravagers are support!!!) is pretty good at mopping up anything else.

I think the Codex from a controlling the game standpoint is excellent, Venom spam I would say is dead now, at least I hope so because I never liked it in the first place!

Would love to try a combat list with loads of Beasts and I think a Deathstar is possible using Grotesques. In the last Codex I used to run Iyanden primary with 10 Spiritseers, the Grots and Urien and that was pretty devastating, with the grots now having ID weapons its all the more horrid...


Sorry this has been a wall of text and not massively detailed, never fear we are doing a Video Battle report in the next week or 2 which I will post up here when done.

Necron are broken and OP. If you meet someone putting 4 or more flyers on the boards in a less than 2000 points game, you can slap him in the face.

Well I killed the Doomscythe at least, a lowly fire dragon managed to blow it up.

Also with DE and Eldar I think you can get 11 flyers in a 2k list with some squishing and no upgrades (3x Crimson Hunters, 6x Razorwings and 2x Voidravens).

Might work actually! Might have to try it

bibotot wrote:
Necron are broken and OP. If you meet someone putting 4 or more flyers on the boards in a less than 2000 points game, you can slap him in the face.

you been smoking bro? Necrons are not even tier 1 anymore even with 4 flyers... Face some serpent Eldar then you know what op is...

Against any faction without or with few jinking units, that is an auto win.

Great minds think alike - i just played a game similar to yours - GK with a sandwiched centstar - I used one more flyer though and a medusae bomb. Still close list at 1850. My game was last night. Seems very similar to yours ...

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t6960p920-a-tdc-blog-strategies-unit-analysis-batreps-observations-tactics#bottom

last three posts ... as you can see - very similar - almsot eerie. Now I think my list would handle Necs just fine - cannot be sure - but they would not scare me.

Yeah very similar, Medusa in theory look good but for the pts I don't think they are worth it. I'd probably just take D-Scythe wg instead and try to drop pts elsewhere.

Crimson Hunter is a nice choice, I considered that but dropped the idea.

I was hoping my medusae bomb would have some prime targets - you never know what you are up against.

It is my belief that Necrons have been and will continue to be a rough matchup for the Dark Elves. However, that may all change when the new Necron codex comes out....which may be sooner than you'd think.

Thanks for sharing!

Will make sure I post up the vid when it's done in the next couple of weeks.

The game against Necrons was tight. He made a massive amount of jink saves. Leaving both chariots on 1 wound was also a mistake as they both killed something next turn. Live and learn.

You've got so much anti-tank. How would your list fare vs a greentide?

Well both those boys squads got wiped out by 2 razorwings and a venom, im pretty sure I could wipe out 3 boys squads in 1 turn and then I still have over 80 shots a turn without the missiles.

Should be pretty easy to be honest, same with Nids.

List is designed to be as balanced as possible with horde destroying units (Serpent, Venoms, Razorwings), MC killing units (FD's, Ravagers, Razorwings, Venoms, Kabalites), Anti Tank (Scourges, Ravagers, Razorwings).

Seems pretty tight to be honest, all seems to work rather well, just pick off the easiest units to kill each turn and essentially win the war of attrition.

The other bonus of reserving pretty much everything is that i am guaranteed the alpha strike without losing any of my important units (unless interceptor is an issue).

Shooting wise the list has...

12x Large Blasts S6 AP5
6x Dark Lance Shots S8 AP2
27x Disintegrator Shots S5 AP2
53x Poison Shots SX AP5
6x Fusion Guns S8 AP1
1x Blaster S8 AP2
12x Haywire Blasters S4 AP4 *Haywire
Plus the Wave Serpent and Jetbike Shooting

Its all effective shooting with all the AP2, its cover saves or nothing, the whole point of the list is to deny saves as much as possible and remove units with pinpoint attacks.

Seems to work for me anyway

 koooaei wrote:
You've got so much anti-tank. How would your list fare vs a greentide?

I thought the same thing. 40 orks isn't a lot at all and looks like no pain boyz. Throw in a tide with a painboyz it suddenly gets a lot harder. Also high model count can deny areas to deep strike onto forcing your opponent to deep strike in non optimal spots. At 1850 I'm running 80 boyz min with fnp and kff support.

80 boys shouldn't really be that much of an issue even with kff and fnp.

It's interesting to see that you say Venom Spam is dead as I was about to purchase my third one today, might have to reconsider.

Congratulations on your wins though How well did the Ravagers (both versions) perform?

Lance ravagers are still okay if you don't have much other AT.

Dissie Ravagers are and have always been my favourite so I'm sort of biased in that regard. However they should in theory wound the same amount on mcs as dark lance ravager would and still AP2. Against infantry they are brutal, it's just far more effective shooting wise to take the AP2.

Venoms still have their place bit spamming them I don't think is as good as other options we have atm.