Chaos Wins!

Manimal took the Dark Eldar codex for a test drive this weekend and decided to square off against Shep's Imperial Guard. They played a 1500 point test game and I got some of the coverage second hand from Shep.

Note the Dark Eldar codex isn't officially legal for another couple of weeks. But these guys got the inside scoop from a store copy and applied the rules to the list created below.


Dark Eldar 1500

HQ

Haemonculus with liquifier

Elite

4x trueborn with 4x blasters in a venom with extra splinter cannon
4x trueborn with 4x blasters in a venom with extra splinter cannon
4x trueborn with 4x blasters in a venom with extra splinter cannon

Troops

5x wracks with liquifier in raider
5x wracks with liquifier in raider
5x wracks with liquifier in raider
5x wracks with liquifier in raider

Fast Attack

3x reavers with heat lance

Heavy

ravager with flickerfield
ravager with flickerfield
ravager with flickerfield


IG 1500

HQ

CCS 3x melta chimera HHF

Troops

veterans 3x plasma chimera HHF
veterans 3x plasma chimera HHF
veterans 3x melta chimera HHF

Fast Attack

vendetta
vendetta
vendetta

Heavy

manticore HHF
manticore HHF
manticore HHF


The batrep per Shep:

I won the roll and used that advantage to pick the side with the tighter objective spread and deployed everything on the table. Manimal wisely reserved out his army.

A note on Vect. I have said that I like Vect, scratch that. I hate him now. He fights well, but the rule I liked him for was the seize the inititive on a 4+. We faked that roll to see if he would have successfully siezed, and he wouldn't have. Deploying on-table, and not getting frst turn is a pretty bad thing to happen to dark eldar. Lets just say that its very bad. Keeping the chance of that happening at 8% is the wise thing to do. So paying the massive amount of points for Vect does not seem wise to me, unless you went for some kind of resilient dark eldar list. The Baron wouldn't have helped this particular roll either. The barons rule is ok, it slightly helps going first, and his other rules makes one hellion unit 'playable'. You have to really want the hellion unit, and at 1500 points a speedy, survivable yet expensive troops choice isn't worth giving up tank hunting.

Ok, so here is how I deployed, and my first two turns of movement.

Some notes here. Ordinarily, I would have taken advantage of a scout move and two turns of moving to redeploy my vendettas. That move was taken away from me by the FRIGHTENING range from off table by trueborn. A unit of trueborn coming off-table has a 32" threat range. That kept me pinned in my back 16" until some DE arrivals happened and I can use my smoke.

On the bottom of turn 2, Manimal got some favorable reserves to turn up. Here they come....


He got 2 of 3 ravagers, 2 of 3 trueborn/venom packages, the reavers, one wrack/radier package, and the wrack/raider/haemonculous package.

He noticed that I had respected his trueborn, and so he went flat out with the two venoms, the raiders moved on 12" as did the ravagers.

Check out those reavers! That was there on table move, unbelievable! 36" turbo boost might have been difficult to quantify for some of you guys. Its sick. He is threatening all three of my vendettas next turn, and he has severely restricted the multi-lasers I can put on him with both range and LOS with that move.

Manimal matched his excellent reserves rolling with some pretty below average shooting. He went after the vendettas that had flying in very tight circles to confuse their targetting (cheesy 4+ cover) He immobilized one and shook one other along with a weapon destroyed result. He had one look at side armor on the CCS chimera and managed only to shake it.

TOP OF 3

Ok, now I've got my strategy to create. Unfortunately, although a high priority, I don't have the tools I need to take out those reavers. It was far too early for any real movement, I didn't take a picture of my shift. The manticores and their screening chimeras merely rotated to face the lances, and one troop chimera carrying meltagun vets shifted over to take a potentially lucky shot at the reavers.

I did my best with manticore shells and the one vendetta, immobilizing an already scoring raider, and weapon destoying a ravager. I also managed to weapon destroy a venom and crew stun both venoms with stationary plasma guns. And most importantly to me, I killed a reaver with a couple multi-laser shots. Did he fail his morale? No.

BOTTOM OF 3
In came the third trueborn/venom package another wrack/raider and the third ravager. The venom went flat out to join up to the other two stunned venoms, the third ravager came on in the centerish of Manimals long edge, and the wracks were allocated to the extreme objective corner, that isn't heavily pictured until later. In the regular moves, this happened...



Here come the Trueborn. They raised their blasters with lithe grace, took careful aim, and failed to wreck any chimeras! No wrecks means no tokens, and no tokens means, hot burny death awaits. His dark lances took a second consecutive turn off, and he even missed with his heat lance. Its good that his reserves went well, because the door is wide open for me to take a few steps out of the dark eldar trap. I think he managed to wreck a vendetta, and weapon destroy a chimera and stun another one.

TOP OF 4

Ok, the first of two armored thrusts happens right now, the manticores wheel around the stunned chimera and prepare to lay out some souffle, the mobile but flamerless chimera moves up as well, prepping an objective block move next turn. The CCS chimera shifts over to help on the reavers alongside the untouched IG chimera. The shaken vendetta takes evasive maneuvers for its cover save, and the immbolized vendetta just waits its doom.

I laid out the teardrops and killed 3 of 4 trueborn in one unit, and 2 of 4 in the other, embarked plasma was able to wreck the newly arrived venom, and the flamerless chimera killed one of the passengers. I used the CCS to kill the 4th trueborn, and two multi-lasers were able to take out the now, 4+ cover having reavers. The 2 remaining trueborns passed their morale, but the new unit of 4 failed morale and hopped back 10".

BOTTOM OF 4

Manimal was happy to see that he had two trueborns deep in my lines, albeit untokened. He knew that my mobile vendetta was priority number one, but I decided to get stupid hot on cover saves, he could only manage to stun it, which was downgraded to a shaken. He had to throw every lance to get even that, the only other shooting was the two trueborns who comically failed to pen armor 10, were yet again denied feel no pain, and destined to die on the next turn.

TOP OF 5

Go, Go, Go!


My moves were the best combination of contesting denial, ability to fire, and contesting that I could dream up. I had two, he had one, that was a turn from being overrun, but we both had enough firepower to change that score. At this point I was in 40k heaven, a tight game that is going to go down to the last turn. I tank shock past the trueborn, who pass their test and one decided to get brave, glory was not his, which just left death. Someone shot out of a firepoint to finish off his buddy, my CCS did a deadly drive-by on an empty venom that was angling to contest my center (and most important) objective. Various and sundry plasma and multi-laser wrecked another venom and immobilized two raiders. There was a loose Raider on my far right flank, which is TROUBLE. But I'm out of shooting, so we'll just have to look at the dice and see what happens.

BOTTOM OF 5

Manimal and I both knew what the deal was. He MUST kill the vendetta, then he MUST contest one of my objectives, then, well, the game has got to end.

And this time, thats exactly what happened.

I had a great fun game, I took a loss, but I'll take something close like that any day over rolling over someone.

Shep's Analysis:

Manimal and I both knew what the deal was. He MUST kill the vendetta, then he MUST contest one of my objectives, then, well, the game has got to end. And this time, thats exactly what happened. I had a great fun game, I took a loss, but I'll take something close like that any day over rolling over someone.

Since the DE book is new, I'm gonna share my thought on the units.


Haemonculous - Absolutely! Not only does he actually give dark eldar the vital 'resilient troop' that they have needed since 5th ed came out, but he has other flexibility as well. In this particular game, he should have begun joined to one of the trueborn. FNP would have been worth splitting liguifiers.




trueborn - No one should be having any trouble seeing how pro this unit is. The threat of a 12" move, 2" debark and 18" blaster shot, and then having them pick up FNP if that blaster shot hits paydirt. At 1500 I insist that 3x3 would be a starting off point.



wracks - It wasn't mentioned in the batrep, but I laid out a flamer flush over 4 wracks when I did my big turn 5 push. The reason it wasn't mentioned is that it only wounded 2 wracks, and only one failed FNP. Consider this unit to be the "missing link" to tournament success with dark eldar. Giving them access to an excellent flamer solidifies their 'best troop' status IMO.



raider - well, the venom is better, unless you are short anti-tank. You can't count on a mere three ravagers, especially in larger points size games. They don't suck, and you'll end up with a few of these just to shore up anti-tank.



venom - Astute readers might notice that at no point in the short game did I ever deploy a single infantry model, Through some twisted warped probability I lost a game without a single chimera being wrecked. I didn't need to see them in action for me to know that dark eldar need some consistent LONG RANGE anti-infantry firepower. Venoms deliver. As soon as I was comfortable with my anti-tank, I'd take venoms and nothing else.



reavers - This is how good those reavers were. Manimal has already decided to drop one trueborn from each unit in order to add a second reaver unit. And I wholeheartedly agree with him. Even with them whiffing, and even with Manimal being way below odds on the two rounds of cover saves they took, I was truly intimidated by them. They had no opprotunities to use their slave snares n account of me never having an infantry unit in play, yet just as a dirt cheap and insanely speedy meltagun, they are worth it.



ravagers - Well, they didn't get more expensive, they GAINED 12" move and fire all weapons, and gained access to a flickerfield. Res Ipsa Loquitur.



Just because I am raving about all of the units Manimal fielded doesn't mean there isn't plenty of fail in the book. That's ok as far as I'm concerned, their seems to be ample units with which to have a fun and competitive game against. I certainly didn't have any complaints about the fun I was having as their opponent.

This batrep while also posted over at dakkadakka.com