1650 point Touney report with pure Dark eldar list.

Greetings my fellow archon,

Just a quick report on a recent tournament I attended over the last weekend.

First of all I would like to thank everyone who made suggestions about this list, all thoughts and opinions on the matter were very appreciated.

The list I used can be found here - http://www.thedarkcity.net/t12983-1650-pure-de-army-list

As mentioned on the that thread, I'm a Purist in regards to playing armies in 40k. I despise using allies and I'm firm believer in working the best with what you've got in regards to a codex (and obviously by picking DE I really like a challenge!! ;D). For me, I like themed armies and also they have to feel right (no spam armies for me either, lacks character etc.) I suppose I restrict myself in a few ways as a result of this, but as mentioned I like a challenge!

Here's my army before round one -



Anyway the tourney went as follows -

Round 1 Blood angels

His army looked like this -



First round we set up like this -



I won the roll to go first and due to the Short table edges meant I was out of range of most of his army other than some scouts in a wood on the right of the picture. So I shot everything at it and they died eventually thus getting first blood. In his turn, he moved up but most things where still out of range other than some lascannon shots from the land raider which forced a jink from one of my ravagers.

Turn 2 went amazing well for me, made all reserve rolls thanks to Labyrinthine Cunning, deep striking my 2 units of scourges and 2 RWJ who came roaring on from my table edge eager to get to grips with the enemy. Focused fire on the land raider and the vindicator, trying to crack them before they assaulted my army. Between the haywire blasters, dark lance shots and blaster shots the Landraider exploded and the vindicator was wrecked. The Death company inside the landraider disembarked unscathed, only to be greeting by 8 monoscythe missiles shots and poisonous splinter fire from the rest of the army. As the smoke cleared, none of the death company from the landraider survived. On the blood angels turn 2 involved the remaining jump pack death company butchering some scourge up on the top right of the board and the Storm raven flew onto the board all guns blazing destroying the succibus/ incubi's raider killing an incubi in the explosion!

Turn 3 was less effective in regards to fire, with the flyers moving forward to get off some dark lance shots at the storm raven only managing to get a hull point off it.



Blood angels turn 3 - the rhino moved forward to try and extract for vengeance of their fallen comrades and the sanguinary guard disembarked from the storm raven and shot to pieces my incubi and succibus with their wrist mounted guns with the remainder being dispatched in HtH, with only the succibus remaining, locked in a challenge with the blood angel sanguinary priest.

In Dark elder Turn 4, the remaining rhino was wreck by haywire blaster fire from the scourge  and the disembarking were then shot to pieces by blaster and splinter fire for the 2 squads of reaver jet bikes. The hovering storm raven shot down dark lance fire from the ravagers and exploded beside the ongoing duel in the middle of the table. Succibus survived the duel in hth but failed to kill the priest. Blood angel turn 4 - my succibus was finally killed off getting slay the warlord in the process and the sanguinary guard and priest consolidated preparing to make a last stand.

Dark elder Turn 5 - nearly all the dark elder units on the table converged on the middle of the table, where the remaining sanguinary guard were  finally brought down with a hail of splinter fire, avenging their warlord death.


The remaining jump death company were also killed off by the combined fire of my remaining scourges and both RWJ's. game over.




19 -1

Round 2 continued coming soon.

Round 2 - Necrons

Happy with the way my first round with, on to round 2. The army looked like this -



In hindsight, I was annoyed with myself for the way I played this game, despite a huge hangover setting in (a session until 3am the night before will do that to you. Apparently, Sake, Rum and cider are not the best combination. Who Knew! ) Immediately, after seeing this army, I was like, well my scourge are not going to be very useful this game. The tomb blades also started to fill me with dread with their ignore cover weapons. He won the roll to set up first and went first spreading out across the table. I castled in the left hand side of the table. This reduced the amount of shots he could off at me turn 1. But I forget to roll for night fighting, forgot about my detachment cover saves, rolled terribly for warlord traits, got +1 leadership for combat drugs . Turn 1 both squads of jetbikes were killed (failing 6 out of 6 jink +3 jink saves) and the other murdered by tomb blades. The both RJF showed up shot 8 missiles for a total of 2 wounds . 1 unit of scourge arrived via deep strike and misshaped off the table back into ongoing reserves. My incubi and succibus got in combat with a 5 man destroyer unit and proceeded to slowly take wounds off them, my opponent made a lot of reanimation rolls over the next few rounds. when my other scourge unit show up 3 of them were killed by some death mark unit with a destroyer lord via some kinda special rule that they have before they were even able to shoot! my other scourge unit that already misshaped once misshaped again this time killing themselves in the process!

His warlord was a special character who (I found out a little later, too late to my cost, turns into a c'tan!) My succibus was caught in a challenge with him with the 5 man destroyer squad and my incubi. I got him to 1 wound but every time after that he made his 4+ invun, save or reamination protocols! Then in turn 4 he turned into a C'tan and ID my succibus!! I killed off his destroyer lord with some dark lance shots to the face and my remaining RJF (the other got gaussed to death after 3 units fired at it!) managed to immobilize his flyer, only to have it have enough movement to make it off the table and not crash!! (lady luck was not my friend this game!) but this game was over with only a ravager with 1 hP left we called it in round 5.

1-19

Lessons learned - don't get distracted by the resilience of an army, keep calm and focus on the mission and try to get as many tactical ob/ kill points/ objectives/ warlord, first blood other points as you can. (I was flustered and annoyed at my lack of attention in certain areas of the game as well as my poor dice rolling and it showed.) If I was to play that army again, I would have focused all my armies shooting on one thing/unit until it was completely dead. then move onto the next unit and repeat. I'm not sure I would have won as that army is a tough nut to crack, but I think I could have made it closer for sure.

1 win 1 loss thus far.

Round 3 -daemons/tyranids

Despite my worsening hangover, poor decisions and dice rolling, I was determined to do better this round, needless to say my heart when I saw this match up. I heard about a daemon summoning army online but never faced one. It took my opponent 10 minutes to roll up his spells alone. I was filled with such disgust and dread, I just wanted to concede and walk away from the table. But I didn't. No pictures as my mood was low to say the least. the army looked something like this =

3 flying hive tyrands with 12 shot devours and baneflame? (haywire template weapon)
1 vemonthorpe/malethorpe?
4 floating balloon guys who can also charge flyers appartently and explode!
1 fate weaver
2 level 3 heralds on discs
5-6 screamers
3 nurglings

once again I rolled terrible for warlord traits and combat drugs, and he won the roll to go first.
His turn he summoned 3 more screamers fate weaver zoomed across the table and pychic screamed my jetbikes for 17!! with no saves I removed my 6 jetbikes from the table. Jesus. My turn, my options were shoot 4 zooming MC on 6's most had FNP from a spell they cast on themselves as well, shoot some nurglings with 2 plus cover save or some screamers with a 3 + invul.and reroll 1's!!
needless to say it went down hill from here, at the end of the game fate weaver was on one wound with a 2+ invun. that rerolls ones! 3 units of pink horrors on the table and another unit of nurglings holding the relics for the mission. Most of the game he had 19 power dice and perils did not bother him at all. I had a few units on the table and did kill all 3 of his flying hive tyrants but got no kill points for them! lol!

Lessons learned - I got some tactical cards scored this game and contested some objectives but did not have the units to get the relics. obviously this game illustrated how busted the physic phase is and how unthreatening the perils chart is. The fact that you have to get rid of all their successes to cancel a spell is crazy in the extreme! oh and DE have no counter to this crap! After this match went on a drunken rant until 3am that morning illustrating how BS it was!

2-18

round 4 - skitarii/mech

after 2 disappointing games I was ready to throw in the towel, but I relented (I stubborn like that )
I was determined to play better and hopefully not face anymore cheesy armies and have some fun.

formation that gives loads of free up grades.
Skitarii Vanguard
Skitarii Rangers
SICARIAN RUSTSTALKERS
SICARIAN INFILTRATORS
Ironstrider Ballistarius
Onager Dunecrawler with icarius auto cannon.

TECH-PRIEST DOMINUS
3 units of 3 Kataphron Destroyers in drop pods
lvl 2 librarian
1 unit of 5 space marine scouts

imperial knight

I took my time setting up, I won the roll to go first and set up first in vanguard deployment. My opponent was a good guy and was patient with me as I was once again hungover! lol my bad! Anyway we had a great game in turn 1 and 2 it looked like I was running away with it, but the drop pods came in and destroyers began to make there presence felt. In turn 1 I killed off the ruststalkers in the center of the board for first blood and killed off 2-3 infiltrators, he shot at some of my raiders/ ravager but they jinked and only took off a few hull points. my turn two both RJF showed up and 1 unit of scourge. He still had some sky fire with interceptor on his dunecrawler, so I placed my RJF out of range of his dunecrawler shooting missiles at his destroyers with little effect. my scourges took some interceptor shoots to the face killing the only guy without a haywire blaster. My scourge along with help from a ravager managed wreck the dunecrawler. My jet bikes managed to charge and kill a iron strider with their caltrops on the charge. my other jetbikes managed to kill off one unit of destroyers and the final 2 were stuck in combat with the librarian. my incubi and succibus charged another unit of destroyer with their warlord in it. their over watch killed all the incubi and the succibus was left to fight the unit all on her own. Grim.

Turn3 things started to turn, the final drop pod landed on an objective, the scouts out flanked onto my table edge and started shooting up a ravager. the librarian with one wound left killed off the jetbikes and consolidated to another objective. His knight charged my jetbikes that had just killed the iron strider, stomping them to death and did some BS stomp move that killed all my scourge who were close by but not in the combat!?

we could have called it there as time was technically up but I agreed to play out turn 4 as I was slow setting up etc. probably cost me more VP's but I was having fun and he was a good and fair opponent. the imperial knight went on the rampage, charging my raider and killing my kabalite warriors inside. my succibus got his warlord down to one wound but he saved every last one and eventually killed my succibus in the last turn, much to my annoyance as I had in cost me between 2-5 tactical points due to the cards I had. The venom with the 5 kabalite warriors got shot down as well and they tried to kill the wounded librarian to no avail, as he also refused to die.

4 - 16 in the end, but a very enjoyable game and my first against this army.

round 5 coming soon...

round 5 DE/elder

I laughed when I saw this match up, question popping in my head can mono DE beat De and there busted cousins? Needless to say I playfully mocked him for requiring the assistance of his weak willed cousins and would show him the error of his ways in the forth coming battle.

His army list was not the typical one you would see via elder allies (like scatter bikes, autarch,wrp spiders etc.) It looked like this -

archon wwp, soul trap, huskblade, shadowfield
in raider with lance and night shield with 9 wytches.

2 units of true born with 4 blasters in venoms

2 units raiders with 10 kabalite warriors, 2 splinter cannons, a splinter rack dark lance and night shields

talos

elder allies -
3 crimson hunters (one with an exarch)

he picked a side, but I won the roll to go first, and elected to set up and go first. He set up 3 units of the top left hand corner of the board (talos and 2 raiders with warriors in them) and deep sruck or reserved the rest. The objectives were set up in an X formation with 2 near his table edge about from each corner, one dead centre of the table, and the last 2 near the opposite corners on my table edge (long table edge set up - dawn of war)

I drew my 3 cards and laughed again. I got 1 card that gave me 3+D3 VP's if I controlled all the objectives, an other that gave me D3 if I controlled twice as many objective's as my opponent and one for objective 3. Normally that first card is an awful one to get as it is very hard to achieve. not today!! I set up everything on the board other than the scourges and RJF'S.

Turn 1 - I shot his raiders, they jinked, with what I had in range and caused 1 point of damage on one and 2 on the other and moved everything up to seize to objectives, both units of jetbikes securing the 2 nearest his table edge. my raider with the succibus in it and the venom took the centre objective. I rolled well for my d3 vps and at the end of my turn one I was on 10 VPs to 0!

His turn 1 he charged his talos into my reavers, they overwatched, taking a wound off him with a blaster shot. killing 4 other them in hth but they held. his snapshots did no damage to anything.

My turn 2, my 2 RJF came on from reserve and 1 unit of scourges. My dark lance and dis. cannon fire wrecked both raiders despite their night shields and then both RJF let loose 8 missile shots on the 20 disembarking kabalite warriors, killing 17 of them. the 3 remaining passed the leadership test. the talos killed the 2 remaining jetbikes and consolidated.

His turn 2 his talos tried to charge the second unit of reavers but failed his charge (unlucky only needed a 6inch charge) his reserve rolls did not go well only getting a trueborn venom and 1 crimson hunter to show up. the trueborn tried to take out my raider on an objective with warriors in it but only managed to knock a hull point and dis. cannon off it.

my turn 3, the talos got picked off, the trueborn go shot up by 4 other units with one trueborn with a blaster who broke and started running towards his table edge. Hilariously, one of my ravagers shot at the crimson hunter and rolled 3 6's!! blowing it out of the sky! my RJF's flew off the table, hoping to dodge the other two crimson hunters

His turn 3, his archon still did not show up but the 2 crimson hunters did and did the trueborn. The hunters caused some off my ravagers to jink and took a hull point off 2 of them. Trueborn failed to kill the raider again, who successfully jinked once more.

turn 4, the second unit of trueborn were once again destroyed as well as the one fleeing trueborn who was gleefully shot in the back by his fellow dark kin. The RJF's showed up and it looked an awesome sight (should have taken a pic, it really looked cool!) hot on the tail to both elder fighters. But it was to good to be true, one duffed his shots and the other had his shots dodged like he was some noob fighter pilot. other units tried in vain to take down the elder flyers but to no avail.

his turn 4 the archon finally showed up and shot a hull point off a ravager and his crimson hunter used vector dancer to out manoeuvre the RJF's and suddenly the hunter became the hunted with both fighter crossing each other paths(practically high fiving as they passed! ) and we now on the tails of my fighters!!

My turn 5, My RJF flew further down the board but could not shake the elder fighters. I failed to crack his raider (one hull point left!) units once again tried to shoot down the fighter but failed once again.

his turn 5, his exarch (typical!) shot down one of my RJF but the other jinked and survived. His wytches charged and much to my dismay killed my incubi and succibus!! his archon made short work of some scourge and retook one of the objectives

my turn 6, my units avenged their warlord by shooting the wytches to pieces and

his crimson hunters failed to finish off the remaining RJF his warlord tried to kill a vemon but missed.

game over! 22-0 in VP from tactical cards.

18-2 victory overall

2-3 in games and finished 17th out of 28.

two really enjoyable games in the end, glad I didn't give up. will write up a overall summary later.