Coven Heavy Dark Eldar vs Tau

Dark Eldar Army

Dark Artisan Formation
Haemonculus (warlord)
Talos - Ichor Injector
Cronos - Spirit Probe

Grotesqurie - 4+ feel no pain bonus
Haemonculus - Scissorhand
4 Grotesque - 1 upgarded to Aberration with Scissorhand in a Raider with Enhanced Aethersails
4 Grotesque - 1 upgraded to Aberration with Scissorhand in a Raider with Enhanced Aethersails

Combined Arms Detachment
Haemonculus - Scissorhand and Armor of Misery
5 Warriors - Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
5 Warriors - Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
5 Warriors - Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Scourges - 4 Haywire Blasters
Scourges - 4 Haywire Blasters

Tau Army

Combined Arms Detachment

Buffmander (warlord) - warlord trait that causes pin checks at the start of the game
3 Missilesides - 6 missile drones
3 Missilesides
Darkstrider with 11 fire warriors in a devilfish
6 fire warriors
8 pathfinders
4 pathfinders with recon drone
3 stealth suits - 1 fusion gun
3 Piranhas - 3 fusion guns
20 kroot with kroot hound
20 kroot with kroot hound


To describe the mission, there were 4 objectives and a player would score 1 point for each one they controlled at the end of their turns (2 points for each at the end of turn 5).  It was a 1500 point game and my opponent won the roll to deploy and go first and there was night fighting.

Deployment looked a bit like this:




I set everything up so he was basically out of range or los with anything that could cause damage.  I did end up failing the pin check from his warlord trait on the unit of scourges on the left though.

Tau Turn 1

He marched one broadside unit up to get some snapshots off at least but failed to cause any damage.  He also jumped the piranhas out in front of them and disembarked all the drones to form a bubble in front of the brave broadsides.

Dark Eldar Turn 1

I rushed full steam ahead with the dark artisan and grotesqurie units aiming to crush one side of his army quickly before the reinforcements arrived.  My 3 venoms all moved up on the right side of the board being careful to stay at max range and poured all their shots into the right broadside unit managing to just barely kill one.  With my nearby raider full of grotesque and attached haemonculus with armor of misery, this forced a failed morale check and enticed them to make a hasty retreat.  Only one unit of scourges was able to shoot because the other unit was pinned but they did force a jink and knock down one piranha.







Tau Turn 2

All but one unit of kroot arrived from reserves and my opponent went into what he described as "full panic mode" bringing a kroot unit, devilfish full of firewarriors and darkstrider, pathfinders with drone, and stealth suits all in right next to my two raiders full of toys.  The good news was the missilesides were still quite scared of the whole ordeal and ran off the board getting me first blood just in time because I knew those raiders were about to be smoking debris.

I was able to minimize a lot of the damage from the remaining missileside unit by using the ruins to block los from most of their shots.  Sure enough, the raiders went down quickly.  Darkstrider's shooting did the most damage to the grotesque because of the reduced toughness but I believe I only lost 5ish wounds by careful placement to ensure cover saves on top of the feel no pains.  

I sadly did not get a picture of everything deployed around them and my grotesque huddled in amongst the raiders seeking shelter.

Dark Eldar Turn 2

Having endured the barrage relatively intact, I knew this game would be pretty well in my hand here.  I positioned my two large grotesque units to essentially surround all of his reserves that had just entered near my raiders and to ensure easy multi-charges.  My Dark Artisan continued their march forward and my scourges all advanced toward the piranhas.  Venoms continued their approach on the right hand side with one turboboosting up to steal an objective out from underneath the stealth suits.

Scourges forced more jinking from the piranhas but only got 1 hull point through.  My trusty venoms managed a few paralyzing shots into the unit of pathfinders that had entered from reserves.

I made a long charge into the piranhas with my dark artisan, but sadly the hammer of wrath from my trusty talos killed the closest one and the pile-in wasn't enough to let him get his attacks into the other one.  One grotesque unit multicharged the 8 pathfinders and 20 kroot unit.  The other multicharged the kroot, devilfish, and fire warrior squad.  The kroot were the only ones to pass their fear test and I only lost one more grotesque to overwatch so one squad was down to just 2 grotesque and a haemonculus while the other was still at full strength.  The combat went about how you'd expect and all 4 units were either cut down, blown up, caught as they tried to flee, or run off the board.

It was supposed to be a 5 turn game, but we were getting low on time so I didn't get as many pics in from here.  Also, that combat had pretty well decided the outcome as I was well established on 3 of the objectives getting a bigger and bigger lead and I'd just successfully cut down 500ish points of his army in one combat phase...





Tau Turn 3

Second kroot unit arrived and outflanked by one of my back objectives with 2 warrior squads sitting on it.  He did enough damage to force a morale check on one of them and caused them to run off the board but I still had the second there as a backup anticipating that outcome.

The stealth suits and pathfinders that were too far away from the grotesque massacre of the previous turn tried to get more distance from them and solidify their hold on the objective in his corner.  They did blast the brave venom to pieces who had stolen it from under them in my last turn but I knew my revenge was coming.  His missile side unit, various drones, and remaining piranhas obliterated the rest of the weakend grotesque unit but the haemonculus from that group was still standing.

Dark Eldar Turn 3

This turn was going to end the game because it had been going a bit slow and we fell behind the other tables so we only played out the pieces that could still affect scores (mostly my fault as this was my first venture with a lot of the coven units and I was having to keep double checking things).  Also, I'm a very deliberate player when it comes to lining up firing lanes and optimizing ranges.

I had the scourges jump up and shoot down the small fire warrior squad to make space for a turboboosting venom to steal the objective the remaining missileside unit held and my grotesque advanced on the remaining pathfinders and stealth suits in his back corner.  The combat was another massacre so I was able to hold all 4 objectives and we both got linebreaker (but no warlord kill for either side)



Game wrap-up: I believe the final score was 11-5 or something close to that at the end.

I think getting the first turn kill on the broadside unit was huge for me.  I'd taken some gambles on rushing out there aggressively and if they had survived I might not have had two grotesque units for that first decisive combat.  The leadership bubbles were great against the Tau though and he was really having a hard time getting any damage on the grotequrie or the dark artisan.  

I haven't really had the dark artisan accomplish much in any game I've used them, but they do often draw a lot of firepower which keeps other things alive for me so I'm happy with that.  I've considered giving them a WWP, but I like having them on the table from turn one to absorb shots and it keeps enemies at bay so I can better play the range game from the back field.  Otherwise, I find enemies often advance quickly straight at me and I can't keep getting free rounds of shooting into them without fear of retaliation.

The grotesqurie did a hella good job at shrugging off blows, terrifying the opponent, and crushing the enemy.  I'll definitely field them again.  I am sad I didn't get to test them against Necron though because that was what I really wanted to see.

Great batrep, well played even if it didn't go all the way.

That was a pretty epic combat... grotesques were on rampage!

Ha! I see what you did there. Funnily enough my Grotesque never even benefited from rampage in this game because they kept killing everything in the first round of combat off of disordered charges.

Thanks though, it was a lot of fun and I'm glad my first test with the grotesque went so well. It was definitely a massacre getting them in against Tau units and the same list did very well in my second game against Eldar too, so hopefully I'll get that batrep up soon.

Great battle report, thanks for sharing the pain!

It's good to see covens doing well. Grotesques are just fantastic (they were last edition as well, but they are even better now). It really catches people of guard. What army are you playing? Dark Eldar. Ok so lots of fast skimmers and fragile infantry? Well about that...

Great batrep. I really like your use of the Grot/DA combo. I think they synergized really well as your Tau opponent had no real good choices. He could either try to kill the DA or the Grots. The Grots were absolute all stars and I really think Coven units are our best answer to the Tau since it's usually futile to try and outshoot them. Looking forward to seeing more batreps with this list!

Ask and ye shall receive! I just posted the second batrep from the same day with the exact same list.

Thanks though guys! It was fun and I do so love my Dark Eldar. There really is some great synergy here between those units and they offer a much stronger board control presence with their durability than I'm used to.

I do change my lists dramatically from game to game (and often rotate through my armies too. Don't tell the others, but the Dark Eldar are my favorite playstyle-wise even though I have another favorite for theme/paint scheme) but I'm positive I'll bring the Coven again soon. I still need to test against the Necron after all because that was my hope for one of these matches.