You can read my other battle reports for this tournament here:
Pictures of some of the armies in attendance
Round Two
Round Three
Hey folks! This is the first battle report for the second Atlanta Circuit Event. They are
GT in scale, although not on the official circuit this year; the organizer says that he's thinking about making one or more official
GTs next year.
Mission: Seize Ground with 5 Objectives
Deployment: Spearhead
Purple People Eaters
HQ: Lelith Hesperax
Troop1: 5x Wyches, Succubus+Agonzier, Haywire Grenades, Wych Weapons, Blasters x2 // Raider+Dark Lance+Horrorfex
Troop2: 5x Wyches, Succubus+Agonzier, Haywire Grenades, Wych Weapons, Blasters x2 // Raider+Dark Lance+Horrorfex
Troop3: 5x Wyches, Succubus+Agonzier, Haywire Grenades, Wych Weapons // Raider+Dark Lance+Horrorfex
Troop4: 5x Wyches, Succubus+Agonzier, Haywire Grenades, Wych Weapons // Raider+Dark Lance+Horrorfex
Troop5: 5x Wyches, Succubus+Agonzier, Haywire Grenades, Wych Weapons // Raider+Dark Lance+Horrorfex
Troop6: 5x Wyches, Succubus+Agonzier, Haywire Grenades, Wych Weapons // Raider+Dark Lance+Horrorfex
Elite1: 5x Raiders, Dark Lance // Raider+Dark Lance
Elite2: 5x Raiders, Dark Lance, Sybarite+Crucible of Malediction // Raider+Trophy Rack
Heavy1: Ravager + 3x Disintegrators
Heavy2: Ravager + 3x Disintegrators
Heavy3: Ravager + 3x Disintegrators
A note on my list: This is my 2k list that I won a Golden Ticket with last month; I scaled it back to 1750 by removing an elite and Lelith's retinue. There's also no Nightmare Doll - their rules don't allow it. I added a Trophy Rack to the raider with the Crucible on the chance that an opportunity would present itself to flat out into an enemy deployment zone, survive, and cause their psychers -2 leadership tests. With the spare points from losing the Nightmare Doll, I added Horrorfexes as a last minute expense. In hindsight, wish I had spent them on something else, but 25 points to spare in a
DE list....I would have bought more blaster wyches, but I don't HAVE enough wych models toting blasters to kit out my units
WYSIWYG. Horrorfexes seem like a great idea, but you can't fire a lance and the 'fex at the same time....and in a wych cult I already have few lances. If I did it again, I think I'd look for a way to get in a squad of warp beasts, or a unit of reaver jetbikes.
Also worth noting is that Lelith is by herself. She can be targeted now, but she *is* WS7 with a 2+ invulnerable save. My plan is to stick her with whatever squad has the wych powers I want her to have (typically a 12" assault). I'm hedging that statistically I should get one per turn. Its a risk, but its a new idea and I decide to run with it.
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My opponent's list:
Chris' Chaos Marines
HQ1: Daemon Prince with Wings,
MoN, Warptime
HQ2: Kharn the Betrayer
-Summoned Greater Daemon
Troop1: 8x Khorne Berzerkers + Skull Champion
Troop2: 4x Plague Marines, 2x Plasma Guns + Plague Champion //Rhino with Daemonic Possession,
TL Bolter, Combi-Plasma
Troop3: 4x Plague Marines, 2x Melta Guns + Plague Champion // Rhino with Daemonic Possession,
TL Bolter,
TL Bolter (his list has two on this rhino?)
Heavy1: Land Raider+Dozer Blade+2x
TL Lascannons+
TL Heavy Bolter+Combi-Melta; Daemonic Possession (Kharn + Khorne Berzerkers)
Heavy2: Defiler + Battle Cannon +
TL Heavy Flamer + 2x
DCCWs
Heavy3: 2x Obliterators
Pre-Game tactical assessment:
1.
DE are an
MEQ killer, no doubt. At the same time, I've been playing Orks lately ('Ard Boyz) and had no practice for this tourney, and my last game against Chaos Marines was Game5 of the SoCal Slaughter, and I lost.
2. My opponent said before the game that he had never played against
DE before. Ouch.
3. Worse for him, he seemed pretty new to
40k. I offered a comparison against Eldar but he didn't know much about them either. I walked him through how
DE work, how the raiders work, speed...I realized that playing against
DE in a seize ground mission is rough; if you go first the
DE have the last say on objectives, and they're *very* good at assaulting things off objectives, not to mention having a 24" flat out move; if all the vehicles aren't dead you risk the game. On the other hand, if the
DE go first, they get to strike first.
A couple of pictures:
My ravager gunners (and all my sybarites) have a poignant message to
GW for making me use an antiquated codex:
NEW CODEX YOU JERKS!
Lelith wants to play.
Mechanized DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM:
Can you face these down without wincing?
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My opponent won the roll for objectives and placed three to my two. Then won the roll to go first and gave me first turn. Like I said....tough choice, either way is bad news for you unless you can really cripple the
DE mobility.
I troubled over the corner to pick. Every table at the tournament was terrain heavy - some where obscenely heavy in terrain. On this one, I picked my corner such that the opposite had the least amount possible. so that I could move in / fire / assault as easily as possible.
Here's a front view of my deployment. The warriors without the sybarite are outside their raider; those with are inside. He only has one psyker (the
DP) but I initially want to try getting in there and dropping the crucible on him.
Enemy Counter Deployment: The berzerkers are in the land raider, obliterators in cover (He's afraid of the lances), the defiler hanging out in the back, and the two rhinos with plague marines up on the line (almost) with the
DP hiding behind them.
Chris fails to seize.
DE Turn One:
My raiders move up 12" and my ravagers shift around 6" to gain
LOS towards potential targets. I forgot to flat-out my warrior raider across the board towards his
DP. I line up for some shooting and hopeful assaults! I want to get Lelith and her squad into that Land raider; I'm afraid of assaulting obliterators because Lelith is an
IC with no retinue now and any failed 2+ invul save is instant death.
DE Turn One Shooting:
I didn't take a picture of this part, but my first lance shot wrecked his rightmost raider. Every other Dark Lance whiffed. Typical. Also typical...my ravagers chimed in to try making up for my horrible lances. The nurgle marines that came out of the first raider all jumped behind it by the daemon prince. His cover saves were abysmal; the first ravager took down 2 nurgle marines, the champion, and put two wounds on the
DP. The second ravager finished the unit and the
DP.
With my inability to open any other transport, my other ravager opens up on his obliterators. All three shots land on target, woot! He rolls cover saves:
Wyches fleet towards his other rhino and roll a 6!:
DE Turn One Assault:
My wyches assault his rhino; I get three glances and no penetrates; his daemonic possession ignores it all. I was assaulting in 6" to cover two hatches in the hopes he would have to get out on the other side into dangerous terrain, but I failed to do anything.
On the other side, Lelith and friends whiff against the Land Raider. ARG! Couple of shaken/stunned, but daemonic ignores it.
Chaos Turn One:
Chris lost a rhino, a daemon prince, and a squad of nurgle marines the first turn; 25% of his army. Here he definitely illustrates his newbness. Not noob, but newb, and made some rookie mistakes.
1. He didn't move his Land Raider; wanted to sit still and shoot everything.
2. Didn't move his rhino either. Not sure why. I had models in assault with both of them.
His Defiler comes to loom over my wyches, and his obliterators
2d6 and move 2" closer to my raiders.
Chaos Turn One Shooting:
His obliterators open up on the nearest raider; which also happens to be the empty one that used to have the squad in base with his land raider in it. He explodes it.
The land raider opens up on the wyches assaulting him, who oblige with 4+ cover saves and a 2+ invulnerable save (taken with trepidation). None die!
His defiler shoots at a ravager and scatters off, while the nurgle marines in the rhino shoot at the wyches killing three. They pass leadership.
Chaos Turn One Assaults:
The only assaulting here are my assaults against his rhino and land raider that didn't move and that I'm still in base contact with. The rhino gets wrecked and his nurgle marines pile out.
The land raider gets a weapon destroyed result and immobilized.
DE Turn Two: I move around to gain positioning on his defiler, and to line up the ravagers on his nurgle marines. All my dark lances whiff against his defiler. Every single one. My ravagers kill 3/5 nurgle marines (including his champion) leaving him only one more outlet for his greater daemon. The two obliterators get assaulted by Lelith and friends and die agonizingly to agonizers...
In assault, my wyches whiff against his land raider again.
Chaos Turn 2:
His greater daemon comes out! RAWR!
His defiler turns to get a flamer positioned at my wyches, which....will also handily present back armor to the side of the board I have some raiders on.
He flames me, but can only get one model under the template.
His greater daemon assaults! He takes a wound, inflicts two, but I stay in combat with him.
Here's the battlefield at the end of turn two:
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At this point, my opponent concedes. I've only killed half his army, but have survived mostly unscathed in return, and am positioned here to dump Lelith into the greater daemon along with a wych squad, dark lance his rear defiler armor, and have a bunch more grenades going into the land raider...which I intend to surround and throw dark lances at anyway. He only has two infantry models in the open, and all three ravagers are ready to pounce on them.
Props to my opponent for taking a beating without complaint. Being fairly new to
40k is hard; doing so in a tournament even harder - against an army you've never seen before, and wielded by a competent player even more difficult. I had a chat with him after the game about what I would have done differently in his shoes, how to react to Dark Eldar, what my weaknesses are - my wych cult is a very assault oriented army, and in a spearhead deployment, if he had stuck back in the corner and shot at me for two turns....my lances just aren't that effective. One rhino wrecked during the whole game.
Interestingly, quite funny, and makes me feel extra sorry for this guy - he ended up facing the OTHER Dark Eldar player round two. The other guy plays a kabal, which is the exact opposite of my army.....so all the lessons about 'stay back and shoot, make me come to you' were bad for him facing up against 25 or so dark lances in his second game.
Nothing to write home about in terms of a stiff matchup, but it put me at a 17 point win with 3 bonus points, or 20/20 points for game1 and an extra 45 minutes tacked onto my lunch break! I laid out my army for painting scoring and went out with some of the other crew that finished early to Applebees for lunch and a perfect margarita.
I hope you got some better competition in the next few round! Keep up the Bat Reps!
