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Had my first clash with the new Dark Eldar last night, I hope you like the report~

http://synaps3.blogspot.com/2010/12/2000pt-competitive-match-vs-dark-eldar.html

Thanks for reading!

Youve got some good tactics in there! Thanks for sharing.

man, you laid some serious hurt. Forcing his wyches and incubi to reckon with your genestealers was crippling, it seems. Neither are a good matchup against them by any stretch.

Having said that, it's telling when someone takes such a finesse-driven army for it's first dozen or so games; there's really no room for error in a dark eldar game plan.

Yeah, I've been pleased with the results when using large units of genestealers except for one multi-assault out of synapse that went bad. My typical lists would strike last against Dark Eldar, but 6 intiative is nice. TBH, it was the catalyst that made the most difference as 5+/4+ with FnP was the deciding factor as I was very often assaulting into cover.

Tim actually won several games at DaBoyz GT with the old DE codex so I'm sure he will be a strong opponent and even stronger partner for the team event we were practicing for.

Great game again man, really well played and a well detailed report. Nice table too.

As has been said, I think you played really well and displayed some real tactical acumen although he'll obviously be nastier when he knows his army better...

I'm still yet to see your T-Fex do much yet...

Brutal game for the DE. I think when you play an army based on speed it is important to start tying the noose at the start (Genestealers) and then tightening it down to remove that advantage and you did a good job of that.

It seemed that you had a number of units with a portion of their strength left and with an army like his it is important to break focus fire on a single unit 'pining' him in, break that and then use speed to get to the softer targets in the back.

I have to say, I really enjoy your bat reps. And now I have a strange desire to play nids.
In all, a great game with two solid armies and good generals.

This is what Tyranids should play like! Great list on your part and great pics. So many bodies are a pain in the ass to paint and collect but you end up with a very awesome battle and a great army. Thanks for sharing. I wish I had your patience.

You guys both played very well. Bad luck on the PoM, My wife has had amazing success in the past with him so I think he was a bit underfeared in this bat rep.

Thanks for all the kind comments!

Zonder ~ I totally agree. He was out of assault the first phase and wiffed the second phase, dying to no retreat. Mathematically that shouldn't have happened with so many gargoyle guards but they also wiffed. On the other hand, if he hadn't died it would have likely been a shut out so I deserved to take losses somewhere.

Powerclaw ~ I wish I were more patient hehe. When I finally settled on nids, I threw down enough to build an 1850 army from day 1. I've since been adding models and have about 4,000 points available. My fiance will confirm that when I get a new box, I sit in my chair with knives, files, and glue until they're assembled. Painting is the harder part which needs more patience. Luckily, players in my region are hardcore hobbyists so they keep the pressure on me to keep painting.

Wow, you REALLY had the initiative this game. It was kind of sad to see an army that was entirely embarked in fast skimmers let his opponent dictate where and in what manner the battle would be fought.

Wide-line battles of attrition are something that DE were never designed to win.

I'm the DE player that got spanked. I played pretty poorly, but I think I learned quite a bit (for a partial list of errors, see my comment on the blog page).

Whenever you want a re-match, let me know. I think I'll fare much better next time.

Nice batrep. Overall you had decent tactics, although I will say that if your opponent had had a slightly different setup, things would have swung wildly in his favor. Honestly, this is the first time I've seen a convincing Nid victory against DE without the list having a ton of Stranglethorn Cannons to deal with all of the FnP.

@afireinside: If you don't mind, couple suggestions:

1) Probably realize this yourself by now, but Hexrifles are a massive fail in design. You need to first hit, which you have a 3/6 chance of doing, then you need to wound on a 4+, and THEN your opponent needs to fail a T test. I attempted to use them myself, and in two games of two Hexrifles firing every turn, got a total of 1 ID. Not worth the point cost.

2) If you haven't tried it yet, try one of your Ravagers with Disintegrator Cannons. 9 S5 AP2 shots are brutal, especially to Nids. Most of there bigger units rely on that 2+/3+ armor save to survive, and that many shots means a couple will get through, even with needing 5s to wound.

3) Nightshields are the awesomepossumsauce. Hive Guard are limited to an 18" range, meaning by the time they can hit any of your vehicles, they themselves are in Splinter Rifle/Blaster range and become easy targets. It's especially useful on Razorwings and Voidravens, since they have missiles that wipe fields (necrotoxins are sick against Nids btw).

Otherwise, looks like you saw most of your own mistakes, which is good. Hope to see you do a rematch and smack down the Nids for all us evil pirates

One note on night shields versus Hive Guard - the Hive Guard can move and shoot so night shield really limits them to 24" versus 18", still it's better than 32" and you can easily outrange them with your raiders. Also remember that there is a psychic power for the Tervigon that allows the target unit to run and shoot (Onslaught ?). You don't want to get caught flatfooted on that one!

@vishra: Thanks for the feedback. With the last codex, I played a DE army that was based around a few hammer CC units. So this time around, I'm trying a more shooting-based approach. Needless to say, I need some practice.

In response to your points:

1) Yeah, I'm on the fence about hex rifles. I fired it three times, and never even scored a wound. I like the idea of having a FnP 20 Warrior blob to hold home objectives, though. And the hex rifle's really the only long-range option for Haemonculi. I might switch to a liquifier gun to deter assaults.
2) I'm so disheartened by the changes to Disintegrators that I switched mine over to lances. I'll definitely give 'em a try with Dissies though.
3) Against pretty much anything but Nids, I'm out-ranged anyway, so Night Shields don't make a huge difference. I've generally run them on my Ravagers, so I'll probably try that out soon.

Thanks!

Nice batrep Hyve, good to see you're still rockin the Nids

Is it just me, or are some of the photo links not working? I can see only about 4-5 photos. The rest are broken links.

I wanna say good battle, but then that would be lying. It was a mauling. It was also most likely an aberration. Nids won't dominate DE like yours did here. With more experience with the newer codex, I think you'll find more competitive battles. But it's always like this with the release of newer codices. There's usually a few months of "experimentation" time before army lists start getting serious. DE could potentially be very deadly. Then again, they've always had problems against hordes and shooty armies. That means hive guards + tervigons are your best chances against them.

Hmm I haven't had anyone else mention broken photos. They aren't linked to photobucket, they are directly uploaded to the blog.

jy2 ~ It was pretty lopsided with me taking first turn, stopping two of his assault units transports, and preventing the razorwing from firing. Tim is a regular opponent so I'm sure the tides will start turning in my batreps.