Linear deployment essentially for IG behind the Aegis kind of as expected



Ratlings hide in some ruins. I noticed that with these models I had initially wanted them to man the Quad gun but they are too short to see over the defense line lol. True LOS works both ways I guess.



The CCS hides behind in the brown chimera behind the manufactory



DE go for long range denial by counter deployment behind LOS blocking terrain on the far flank away from the IG parking lot.



He luckily had enough free space on the opposite side to plop his bastion down with the archon and 2 dark lances inside the building along with the ravager behind LOS of the building. Deny the IG shots is key to his strat.



He fails to steal the initiative and a way we go

Pretty much everything is out of range or out of LOS other than 2 jetbikes so the IG tries to move up and engage.

First turn of movement....

and the LR exterminator (proxied via the demolisher) immobilizes itself and lose a hull point >.<



Initially I wanted to move up some and then retreat after the DE got out of hiding hoping to get first blood on something. After the rest of the premeasuring, nothing else I had on that flank can get in range to shoot or would have to snap fire so I decide to stay put.

The left side russ moves a bit and shoots at the ravager, scattering a bit but hits both the ravager and the building. Amazingly enough str 8 ordinance and everything fails to pen even with 2 dice. I think I got like 1, 2, 1, 3 (3 for the building). The heavy bolter snap fires and actually glances the ravager but it makes its flickerfield save. The rest of the army with very limited ranges to the enemy shoots all that can hit at the jet bikes that are slightly exposed and scores about 4 wounds. He fails his armor but makes 3 FNP rolls.

3 lascannons shoot at the bastion from the embarked vet teams and fail to pen the bastion.

After all the shooting from round 1, all he looses is 1 jetbike.



Terrible turn for IG. I took first turn knowing that there was no night fighting but didn't expect the bastion to be such good LOS.

The start of turn for the DE, essentially everything is camped in the corner. Yet another tactical mistake here. I got greedy trying to get first blood that my LR is in the open on the closer board edge. Also I thought for some reason that dark lances are 48' when they are actually just 36' so my tank was too close to the enemy >.<


He goes onto frag the LR with 5 dark lances with good rolls. (eventually wrecks from a pen but didn't explode, just died to hull points - 3 from the ravager and 2 from the trueborn in the bastion fire points) His 2++ invul HQ goes to the top floor and shoots at some side armor of the chimera but I make my Aegis cover saves. He gets first blood at this point, neuters my ordinance, and an extra VP from the mission.

DE venoms and jetbikes forgo shooting at tanks and go flat out to get into better LOS denying cover. Jetbikes also use their eldar jetbike assault move to cross the entire board in one movement essentially. Those things are crazy fast.
I think the ratlings are gonna die lol.

Ok time for some payback. Neither flier shows up but I try to move my melta vets chimera out and plan to frag me some venoms. That way it'll clea LOS to the HB sponson on the now immobilized exterminator. Move for difficult terrain... and... blam, immobilized again



all I can do now is just rotate the plasma vets chimera to get some shots off but they are too far still to go just 6' and plasma fire so I don't move them. The melta vets can only get some turret shots on the jetbikes at their angle. The HB sponson is blocked and the Las cannon hull mount is pointed at nothing. (technically he's got scourages in the ruins facing the turret weapon but they are hidden out of LOS. I have very bad angle with some auto cannon shots and essentially my own vehicles are giving him cover at this point along with the LOS ruins.

All the shooting on the right flank still scores about 5 pens and like 2 glances on the first venom between the aegis quad gun, multi-laser, Heavy bolter, exterminator cannon, and a las cannon from the vets. He then proceeds to make all of his 3+ cover saves as he's very obscured and I can at most see 25% of the vehicle. (alot of 3's rolled)

The craziness continues as the jetbikes take all of the ratlings and multi-laser and lasguns from the melta vets inside and makes a bunch of 3+ flatout jetbike saves along with FnP to survive with 2 guys left.



The 2 other lascannons on the left flank fail to get past the ravager's jink save and fail to pen the bastion yet again. My dice are failing me pretty hard here while he's making practically all of his saves. 3 squishy jetbikes killed after 2 turns of shooting is just miserable.

Top of the turn... ya, this is gonna hurt.



He luckily doesn't get his fliers either but does alot better for his movement and shooting. The venom he reserved had arrived but he plays it safe and leaves it behind his nearly invincible bastion lol.



First off, he flies closer to the ratlings with the jetbikes and the venoms move over to further use the LOS against my immobilized tanks's side arc's. His warlord with the quad gun gets side armor shots on the melta chimera as I immobilize against the aegis so now it's exposed and proceeds to explode it with some good rolling. I of course fail all my 4+ Aegis cover saves. Ensuing explosion kills just 1 trooper.

On the other flank, with 5 dark lances fully operational, he blows up the plasma vets's chimera easily and the explosion kills practically everyone. All that is left is 1 wound on the lascannon team and 2 squad members. All the plasma guns and the sarge are killed. Since I am rolling so poorly with almost nothing but 1's and 3's, I pass pinning and morale.

As the melta squad bails out, they are essentially right in the path of some nice caltrops along with the ratlings. He scores some 6 hits on the ratlings and then 11 hits on the melta vets. The ratlings still get cover and only lose 2. (still a morale check) and the vets luckily makes like 3 saves but does lose a melta gun. The venoms then tries to mop up the remaining 3 ratlings and here I decide wth, and go to ground as I didn't think I can survive some 24 splinter cannon and another 24 rifle shots. His rolls finally are somewhat normal for once and eventhough they are T2, he still wounds on 4+, and puts another 7-8 wounds on them. With a 2+ cover, I lose just 1.

As my dice are still cursed, I go on to make my morale checks easily even for the ratlings as I roll a combined 4, 5, 7 for the different squads. (4 for the ratlings, and vet squads).

The game is basically his at this point but I play on anyway.

My vendetta with the melta guns inside show up finally and I essentially have no good targets. If I flew up on the far corner away from the quad gun, I'd have no good LOS to any targets. (He moved his venoms up specifically for that as they are hugging the board at around 18's or so) If I flew the other side, I'd basically risk quad guns. I decide to go for the quad gun straight on essentially flying straight at the bastion. He of course intercepts and gets a pen and a glance which I jink save both finally getting some 5's.



I try to move out with the remaining plasma vets inside their chimera and AGAIN, IMMOBILIZES myself on the Aegis defense line.
There is no other mobility left to me so I just go ahead and line up what shots I got. The above vendetta shoots all the twin linked lascannons now snap firing at the ravager and actially get a hit! It glances and he finally fails a save on one of his vehicles. First glance rawr. I shoot ouf of my remaining tanks with the las cannons at the bastion and again fail to pen. The dismounted survivors of the melta squad and plasma squad combine fire with a palsy FRFSRF on like 2 guys, manages to kill the 2 surviving jet bikers despite their cover and FNP. Go Go Lascannon lol. The ratlings snap fired too and got a hit also but failed to wound.



My first VP lol. He's not even using a venom and still hiding 2 squad of scourages. I've essentially lost all momentum and has no LOS to essentially anything while he's barely using half his army.

He's pretty much just mopping up at this point. He picks out the one lane that my quad gun has no LOS to since it's blocked by the factory and flies right through there with the anti-infantry jet fighter denying me shots again. His ravager moves up a bit to get better angles at the remaining tanks. He dismounts some of the warriors via the venom moving up 6's and dismounting directly onto the 2nd floor with the 2 surviving ratlings trying to pick off the rest of my units.

Shooting, his venoms pick off the 3 men surviving from the plasma squad. The other venom and the fighter gun down another 3 vets from the depleted melta squad despite decent cover saves. I of course pass morale as I roll nothing but 1's and 2's lol. There's only the sarge, 1 lasrifle, and 1 melta left in the squad. The Ravager and the darklances in the bastion strip off another hull point from the LR. It's down to 1 now.



Well it took 3 turns but his dice are finally cooling down a bit. I may make a game still of this. I think he's still not using all of his stuff as he's not sure he wants his scourages out in the open as they are pretty fragile but I don't have much that can deal with him either so it's anyone's guess what he should be doing.

The last vendetta comes in automatically and has a target and is outside of quad gun range so gets ready to shoot down the dark eldar flyer.



The other vendetta has nothing within range and even if turns 90', can't land 18' away as he strategically placed the ravager there. Clever! Going past that, I have no good targets other than some distant scourages in 4+ cover ruins so I decide to fly it off the table to come in turn 5. Before the vendetta leaves the table however... they drop off the melta vets via grav chute.

I go super ballsy as I figure I have nothing left to lose and deep strike about 3 inches from the bastion, board edge and 6' from the venom and 9' from the other board edge. They get a direct hit! (no one has to take dangerous terrain lol)
Skipping ahead to the shooting phase, the melta vets actually hit with all 3 meltas and get 2 pens on the bastion cause I hate it so much lol. They actually get a 6 and 7 on the damage result table

The resulting explosion was insane as 4d6 str 6 hits scored some 11 hits on the true born inside. It also killed his HQ as he finally gets some 1's on the saves for the building explosion wounds. It also killed a guardsman but man was it worth it.



while we're not sure if it should be played this way, we counted the building and quad gun as one thing and the quad gun went away with the building. We also counted the building as a victory point for the mission but didn't count the quad gun. Probably some better way to figure out the legalities of it but we decided to make it so. So in one fell swoop, I got slay the warlord, a building VP, true born squad VP, and VP for his HQ again! 4 vp's from one unit was pretty insane. I claim the morale victory here if nothing else lol.

The rest of the shooting was kind of meh. The vendetta shooting at the DE flyer gets 2 hits and a pen and a glance. He nightshields/jink I can't remember the pen but takes a glance though is still airborne.
The 3 man surviving melta squad goes to avenge their honor as well and marches up to one of the venoms and blows it up with their melta wmahahahaha. Unfortunately due to positioning, they couldn't get a good LOS on the venom with warriors still inside so pop the dismounted one anyway. Yay! another VP. Unfortuantely, they will probably die gloriously next turn at least they score another morale victory.

His bomber arrives as well on the far corner and tries to snipe at my vendetta with lances but only does 1 glance. I take the glance and don't jink. The anti-infantry jetfighter zooms off the table. His remaining venom and warriors easily kill off my 3 melta vets on the right flank. His ravager moves up and also shoots at the disabled LR exterminator and gets a weapon destroyed only through. Randomly assigning weapons, with 4 choices, he gets lucky and takes off the autocannon. The rest of the guns are essentially stuck doing nothing but the tank survives with 1 hull point.



On the other side, the venom with 5 guys inside all open fire on the suicide melta vets that blew up the bastion hoping to get an easy VP here. Now his dice fail a bit and only manages to kill 1 after I make some 3 armor saves Unfortunately the one was a melta gun but it could have been worse.



Currently he has 7 VP's, I've got 6. It's kind of close again!

Top of the turn but essentially looks like this at the end too. My other Vendetta comes on and I try to kill his bomber with it but he makes his jink saves luckily. The other Vendetta tries to blow up the ravager and again fails to pen with one hit and the other hit he jinks again. His 5+ jinks are just on fire all game.

I shoot his venom next to the ruins of the bastion with my one melta gun and actually kill it and killing 1 guy. I charge in with my vets as they just fired one assault melta since the lasguns can't hurt the vehicle. I have some combined 17 attacks on the charge but only do 3 wounds after he went ahead and failed his hits. He luckily makes his saves and we're locked in combat lol

Nothing else can do much shooting so it's technically kind of a tie game again.

Unfortunately, he has other ideas as his still alive ( I make all my jink saves like a boss) ravager kills off the wounded LR. His bomber tries to dogfight the vendetta but this time I make some saves and nothing happens. He mobilies out osme of his scourages but they are too far away to do anything. His fighter having no good targets as things are either metal boxes or in CC, flies off the table.

He's up essentially up 9 to 8 at this point and we roll to see if the game goes on......

Dark Eldar victory!

GG overall. We played it out for another turn just to see what would have happened. The melta vets would have stayed locked in combat with the surviving warriors. The scourages would not make it in time to help out. I would have killed the ravager by next turn with the vendettas and he'd have failed to damage my vendetta with his bomber. It would have ended up as a draw on turn 6 if it had ended then. Still overall very fun game.

I totally played my LR wrong and forgot that dark lances are 36' only. Also My aegis deployment was bad though I was trying to keep the quad gun alive to shoot at his planes and to keep out of the range of 4+ wounding venom spam on the T7 gun. Getting those massive number of immobilizes really sucked. I practically lost the game on the movement phase for him lol. He was being a bit too conservative in some estimates on his scourages and could have possibly deep struck them in closer but was afraid of the quad gun I think. They may have helped somewhat as he had heat lances on some of them. I'm surprised at how well ratlings can hold up to venom splinter cannon fire honestly. That was entirely unexpected. Ratlings being too small to see over the aegis line also sucked.

In future games, I'd probably do more of a denied flank aegis deployment and kept the quad gun out as bait to get better LOS. I may also try some guardsmen with cammo capes or the like behind the aegis, not sure if that'd help. Simply put, the obscene numbers of 1's I rolled combined with him making every jink save on a vehicle up until turn 3 (and then it was just a glance) sealed his victory though it did come close at the end. Still for future games and house rules, we'll still have to work out how to count fortifications and gun emplacement kill points. With how effective they are and how powerful some of these things turn out to be, we'll probably assign them to be worth VP's especially as we don't deploy by the rule book anyway for tournaments as the terrain is already on the table. For things that you can't destroy, I'm leaning towards counting any guns you buy to count as a VP while a bastion and the gun is worth 1 vp together. The skyshield is generally too big and as you can see, there's a fair amount of terrain. I think for local tourny may rule that if you can't find a place for your fortification (i.e. landing pad) you automatically lose it and the points you spent for your list with it are also lost so take at your own risk.