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Just finished up a local tournament (Dec 7th) that was a lot of fun, so figured I'd share the results and lessons learned.

I've been experimenting with DE for a while now, but haven't had much time to actually playtest with them (or any army) much recently, so I went in a bit rusty...here's the list I used:

2 X Dracon with agonizer, 5 incubi, 3 warriors with 2 splinter cannons in raiders with DL and nightshields
6 x raider squads with 5 troops (1 DL, 1 blaster) in raiders with DL and nightshields
3 X ravagers with 1 DL, 2 disintegrators and nightshields

Never used night shields before, but after reading Stelek's list and the discussion of many other DE players, thought I'd give it a shot. I took a calculated risk on the build by putting the DLs in the raider squads instead of splinter cannons...would make me vulnerable to hordes, but I guessed there would be few of those, and I'm finding just the vehicles DLs struggle against heavily mech armies, lots of monstrous creatures, etc.

8 players showed up, and it looked like my gamble might pay off looking at the spread:
2 Dark Eldar
1 Eldar
1 Pod Marine
1 Tyranid (mostly large creatures)
1 Necron
2 Tau

The tournament organizer based the missions and scoring off of 'ard boyz, I believe. I'll go into details for the missions in each battle writeup, but the kill points scoring was 3 per ind character, 2 per fast, elite, heavy, retinue, ded transport over 100 points 1 per troop, ded transport under 100 points. This was a bit of a surprise, as the tournament flyer mentioned custom missions, but these details weren't published until the day of the tournament ( as far a I and some of the other players knew), so I went in with 30 KP. The mission types were fun and some still gave me a chance, though.

Mission 1- Recon vs Tau

First opponent was a newer (I think) player, and this was his first tournament. His list kind of showed it, too:

1 shas'o with PR, FB 2 shield drones, shield generator
squad of 3 crisis suits with PR, FB, MT
5 squads of 12 fire warriors with shas'ui (on foot)
15 kroot and one shaper
2 hammerheads with railgun, burst cannons (other trimmings, too, I assume)
squad of 2 broadsides with ASS

Mission was "Recon". Massacre for getting 3 more scoring units in your opponent's deployment zone than he got in yours, 2 for major victory, 1 for minor...KPs not involved at all. Terrain was pretty simple, with hills in each corner and a large, very tall hill in the center. He won the rolloff and took first turn. From my view, he setup two firewarrior squads, the broadsides and a hammerhead on the left side of the board, and 3 firewarrior squads and a hammerhead on the right side of the board. I thought about deploying everything, as I'd be able to outgun him, but held everything in reserve to drive on, hoping to see if his suits and kroot would show up.

For the first two turns, then, he left a firewarrior squad on each hill in his two corners (and the broadsides) and ran everything forward. The suits dropped in at the top of two around 20" from my edge on the right, and the kroot came in (his choice) on the right flank, right along my edge.

My reserve rolls were slow...both HQs, 1 raider squad and a ravager. One HQ wiped out the kroot and hid behind the hill in the corner, while everyone else stayed on their vehicles and stunned the hammerhead.

My reserves came on slowly, so the right side of the board involved me shooting the few static (to get passenger DL shots in) troops choices on the board at his hammerheads (the second one swung around the central mountain at the top of three) while one HQ took out the two advancing firewarrior squads and the second tried to run the crisis suits down (hopped in their vehicle and tried to get them). Eventually, at the bottom of 5 he jumped the suits in to shoot the HQ raider and wrecked it, so they hopped out but would be in charge range the next turn. His two squads on the left were very close to my zone...one had actually gotten in on 4, but the last ravager came in and shot them enough that they failed a morale test and ran off, and he did the same to the other squad at five. Game went to turn 6, which allowed me to turbo the rest of my squads (except one that kept sitting back to stun hammerheads) into his deployment zone and win 5-0. I immobilized both hammerheads and stunned them repeatedly, but didn't kill either of them. The crisis/HQ squad, too, proved remarkably resilient to incoming fire. The terrain really hurt him, though, allowing me to avoid his broadsides for almost the entire game. Very light losses for me, and I was pretty pleased how everything worked. The nightshields helped a bit, limiting the shots from his crisis teams and firewarriors, so all in all, aside from the slow reserve rolls, it went great.

So, one massacre and on to round two.

So, round two was against the drop-podding marine. He had tabled the tyranid player pretty quickly the previous round, and it was pretty obvious he had played quite a bit. I believe he had been to the 'ard boyz at some place or another, so he was no slouch. Lit was something along the lines of:

Marneus Calgar
Pedro
3 Tactical squads with fists, lascannons and plasma/melta guns in pods with beacons (I think all?)
2 sternguard squads with combi-weapons in pods

Mission was to hold the center primarily, with KP upgrading/downgrading the victory by a level (basically). He won the rolloff and had me go first, and I choose to hold everything in reserve and drive on. I think this surprised him, and we looked it up to show that I can voluntarily do so. We also discussed me being able to drive in anywhere along my board edge, even though the mission was spearhead deployment. So, he went first at the bottom of the first and dropped two pods. Another bit of a rules look up until I showed him he MUST drop the half (rounding up). Nothing underhanded on his part or anything, just a situation he had never run into and hadn't had to consider in the past. He seemed to think it should be FAQ'd to make it more optional for the marines...didn't seem to convinced when I said the pods are powerful enough they need SOMETHING to tone them down/balance for the opponent. Anyway, he has the troops drop in first all around the objective, and I come on with another light load of 2 HQs, 2 troops and 1 ravager.

Game went fairly closely throughout, but I was slowly ground down to nothing. I was afraid to sit back and snipe from range, as the lascannons could shoot back from cover (and the two characters could drop orbital strikes), so I tried to stay close in the field of drop pods. The incubi did very well in the field of combat squads, one of which walked/assaulted through 3-4 squads before finally being shot to pieces on the objective. The other killed a combat squad but was butchered by Calgar. The ravagers shot several troops up, as well, but not enough. In the end, I made a desperate dash to contest the objective with my only mobile raider squad, but they were shot up and assaulted. The remaining warrior failed his leadership check and the game ended with him getting a massacre. At best, contesting the center, he'd have received a minor victory.

Biggest lesson learned for me is to learn more about the special marine characters. I let my squads get way too close to calgar and pedro, so they were assaulted many times (or, for calgar, I assaulted him and his sternguard squad). His "eternal warrior" status was a surprise after a couple dark lances wounds I was counting on, as was his complete ownage ability in assault. I mean, I figured he was good, but he was so good I should have avoided him completely. Still, it was a close match, and I think my list was the only one with any chance of beating him at the tournament...I just need a bit more experience piloting it (and playing against podding marines) before doing so.

So, onto the third game...a straight-up annihilation scenario on a very open table (lots of craters scattered around, but not much in the way LOS blocking except for a small building in the center of the table. I figure this mission is going to be rough for me, but as fortune would have it, I draw the other DE player, so at least I'll have a chance. His list looks something like:

Archon with all the trimmings
3 haemonculi with destructors and scissorhands
4 large raider squads with splinter cannons and blasters in raiders with night shields and DLs
1 large wych squad with blasters, agonizer, goblet of spite in raider with night shields and DL
2 ravagers with all DLs, nightshield
1 ravager with all disintegrators, nightshield
6? reavers with blasters, maybe an agonizer

So, about 29 KPs for him. He won the roll off and had me go first (3 times in a row! Yeah!). I thought about having everyone stay off, but figured I stick the full three units near the center hiding by the center building to see what he did. He held everything off the table to drive on first turn.

So, on my turn I have everything drive on just enough to get onto the table, spreading from the center of my edge through my right side, with the units originally in the center turbo-boosting to the far left to cover that flank. He turbo boosts everything to the centerline along the left side of the board...I assume gambling on only half my army shooting at his obscured targets and then firing back with his whole army. Unfortunately for him, with all my troop selections sporting dark lances, I had more ranged anti-armor firepower in the firefight than he did. I shot a few vehicles down/blew off a weapon and turbo-boosted my far-right units behind the center building. He fired back with minimal effect and had his reavers pop around the building to shoot at my raiders. They, in turn, were slaughtered by a HQ and retinue, and the game was a see-saw of both sides wracking up kill points. He caught up towards the end briefly and would have tied(?) at the end of 5, but the game went an extra turn, killing him. He had split his forces with his wyches and a troop unit with the archon driving into my center, but didn't destroy many vehicles, giving him few units to assault. My HQs charged his remaining units in the center, killing 2-3 troop choices and 2 haemonculi (losing 1 HQ/retinue in the process) for a good chunk of points. At the end of 6, he managed to charge his archon all the way back to the center, ripping apart my remaining HQ/retinue (he was a beast, even alone), but in the end my unit held and the game (mercifully) ended, with the KP score something like 24 17 in my favor. Another turn and the archon would have probably wiped them out, giving him another 5 points and giving me a minor victory instead of a massacre.

So, 2-1 overall with big wins or big losses. The podding marine phased out the Necron army for 3 straight massacres. Sounds like the necron was actually ahead, but made the mistake of trying to fall back and hide after getting ahead, and the two orbital strikes from Calgar and Pedro punished him for that.

Biggest lesson for me, overall, is to play the army more. I am terrible at picking the appropriate strategy half the time, cautiously sitting back and sniping when I should be getting in and mixing things up, and charging in up close when I should snipe.

Best unit for me was probably the HQs and retinues. Very expensive, which made me hesitant to take them, but they were outstanding in every game. 1st game they took out, together, 3 firewarrior squads, a kroot squad, a crisis team and an HQ suit. Second game was 4-5 marine combat squads, and the third was a reaver squad, 2 haemonculi and 3 raider squad. Enemy AT was usually busy trying to down raiders/ravagers, so they could usually get close enough to attack, and they had enough numbers/armor to weather some small arms fire if they needed to for a turn or two.

Most disappointing unit would probably be the ravagers. They did some decent damage the first two games, but were always such a high priority target that they never lasted very long. Still, they were a critical component of the army and will be taken again in the future.

Bah...still frustrated thinking about that second game. I could have beat him with some better tactical decisions and such, but I'll have to wait until next time I guess.

I got second place overall with a decent prize in store credit, with the pod marines (obviously) in first and the necrons (I think) in 3rd. All the opponents were friendly, so I had a lot of fun and learned a bit, too.