Dark Eldar vs Grey Knights (1000pts)

I want to start this off by saying I had no clue Tom was going to bring Grey Knights. Was expecting his Orks. This was also my first game as Dark Eldar, and the only armies I've played before are Astra Militarum, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Orks, Dark Angels and Vanilla Marines. So I haven't played anything similar to the Dark Eldar before.


===THE ARMIES===

Mine: Dark Eldar
*UNBOUND*
NOTE: My army mostly had filler due to no one wanting to play a game under 1000pts.

HQ:
1 Archon with Archangel of Pain, Agoniser, Blast Pistol, Webway Portal, Shadow Field and Soul Trap. *WARLORD*

ELITES:
5 Grotesques
-1 Aberration with two Flesh Gauntlets
-1 Grotesque with Liquifier
NOTE: Totally forgot about their Rampage rule the entire game.

5 Wracks
-1 Acothyst
-1 Wrack with Liquifier
-1 Venom with two Splinter Cannons

8 Kabal Trueborn
-1 Dracon
-3 Trueborn with Blasters

FAST ATTACK:
3 Reavers
-1 Arena Champion with CCW

3 Reavers
-1 Arena Champion with CCW
-1 Reaver with Blaster

HEAVY SUPPORT:
1 Talos with Twin-Linked Liquifiers and Twin-Linked Haywire Blasters


Tom's: Grey Knights
*UNBOUND*

HQ:
Brother-Captain Stern *WARLORD*

ELITES:
5 Paladins
-1 Apothecary
-1 Paladin with Incinerator

TROOPS:
5 Terminators
-1 Justicar, no upgrades
-1 Terminator with Incinerator

HEAVY SUPPORT:
2 Nemesis Dreadknights with Heavy Psycannons


PRE-GAME:
Tom set up the board and terrain and then deployed first, no rolls to see scenario, deployment type or to see who went first.

Tom placed little terrain offering no cover.

The scenario chosen by Tom was Kill Points.

Board is 4ft by 4ft.

No rolls allowed for Night Fighting.

I rolled for my Warlord Trait and got the one that gives Rage, which I then forgot about for the rest of the game.

I deployed second, setting up my Reaver Squad with the blaster and my Trueborn to go after one Dreadknight and my Talos to go after the other, while my Venom and remaining Reavers were set up to go down the middle of the battlefield. Foolishly put my Archon in the Grotesques and held them in reserve because I forgot you can't assault after deep striking.

Tried to seize the initiative, rolled a 1.

ROUND 1:
Tom's Turn:
Blew up my Trueborn with a Dreadknight, killed the Reaver with the blaster with his Terminators and then killed two Reavers of the other squad with his Paladins. Inflicted one hull point of damage to my Talos, nothing shot at the venom.

Made my saves so my Reavers didn't run.

My Turn:
My Reavers moved into position to try and take out the Terminators and missed all their shots. My Venom moved close enough to the Paladins to hit three with the Wrack's Liquifier, then opened fire with its splinter cannons. This kills 1 Paladin. My Talos fires on a Dreadknight and misses.

I immediately begin to regret keeping my Grotesques in reserves.

ROUND 2:
Tom's Turn:
Finished off the Reaver squad with 2 Reavers left, using a Dreadknight. My lone Reaver survives an onslaught from the Terminators, making all of his cover saves from Jinking. Tom then popped my Venom with his Terminators, forcing my Wracks to come out, and then immediately ends the lives of said Wracks. The other Dreadknight fires on my Talos, missing all of his shouts.

My Turn:
My Grotesques and Archon come in, deepstriking behind the Paladins and killing one of them with a Liquifier and my Archon's Blast Pistol. My remaining Reaver fires at the terminators and then begins to run away. My Talos inflicts a wound onto the Dreadknight its been fighting.

ROUND 3:
Tom's Turn:
Tom's Dreadknight kills my Talos, his Terminators, Paladins and Dreadknight assault my Grotesques and Archon. Archon challenges Stern. My Grotesques are all killed but my Archon's save from the Shadowfield prevents him from taking any wounds. My Archon does manage to wound Stern. My lone Reaver is ignored.

My Turn:
I fire shots at his Terminators with my Lone Reaver, missing. My Archon continues his battle with Stern, the two unable to injure each other. I concede as I only had two models left on the field.

Trazhras wrote:

PRE-GAME:
Tom set up the board and terrain and then deployed first, no rolls to see scenario, deployment type or to see who went first.

Tom placed little terrain offering no cover.

The scenario chosen by Tom was Kill Points.

Board is 4ft by 4ft.

No rolls allowed for Night Fighting.

This is roughly the point at which I flip Tom the bird and go and find someone who actually wants a game rather than a rigged slaughter.

Indeed, that guy must like winning really hard...

Agreed.

Also @Trazhras you made a surprising amount of mistakes even though you play so many armies and should have according experience. Forgetting about one's Warlord Trait is something a beginner makes in his first game but it should not happen to someone who has played the game more than five times. Same goes for you forgetting about your Grotesque's Rampage. That's like bringing Scourges with Haywire but forgetting that they have Haywire...

Why did you only take 3 Blasters on the Trueborn?

And forgetting that you can't assault after deep striking is just bad knowledge of the rules. Probably wouldn't have changed the outcome much if you had remembered your rules but it is still very unsatisfactory to read a bat rep where one side makes so many rule errors whilst the other side rigs the game before it even started, as the Count said.

Thanks for sharing anyway! I hope it goes better the next time and you remember those rules.

I've played a lot of armies, but I've maybe only played 10 games since I started back in 2009.

EDIT:
As for the load outs of the models, it had to be WYSIWYG, and only three of the Trueborn were modeled with Blasters. I didn't put together the models, it's an army I got from someone else who found out I was starting Dark Eldar and had my first army stolen.

That.... was brutal. Even if you brought two of those lists to his single list it would have been hard. Upon seeing those lists I bet myself you would get tabled before turn 4, and it looks like I was right.

I hope you know that this is not a great match-up, where you were at a very heavy handicap. In the future, why dont you request a more fair set up. KPs are just terrible for DE, and coupled with lack of LOS blocking terrain I doubt even Skari could have done much here.

Last notes: drop the sargents and always max/min squads. Also, reavers are CC units, so equip them with the Cluster Caltrops rather than guns

Also tell your opponent the Internet thinks he should do unkind things to himself with the broad end of a rake.

That kind of rigging isn't even subtle. It's disgusting and deserving of nothing but the utmost loathing.

It might be because I was asking that everyone at the store stop treating me like a new player. I've been playing there since last March and I've played about eight games since then. 2 as Orks, 1 as Space Wolves, 1 as Blood Angels and 4 as Astra Militarum. Before coming to Colorado from California, I've only played maybe 2 or 3 (At least 1 game each as Vanilla Marines and Dark Angels) games because there were not many 40k players in my area so games against other players were rare. Because of this, most players at the shop treat me as a new player and often heckle me about switching armies. I'm trying to find an army that fits me, and I'm hoping that Dark Eldar is that army.

So it could be this happened because Tom was annoyed that I switched armies again. Either that or because I asked him to not treat me like a new player anymore.

Still no excuse for that poor board-setup. When I play at my LGS we always fill the board 2/3 with terrain, no matter if I play Ad Mech or Deldar.

@Trazhras: Are you more of a collector than an active player? It sounds strange that you have so many armies but only played so little games which would suggest that you aren't in the hobby for the gaming experience.

It sounds more like that guy thought you would be too inexperienced to call him on all of the obvious cheating.


You roll for first turn.
You AGREE on terrain.
You roll for night fight it either player wants to.
You roll for scenario.
You roll for deployment.
You don't play on a tiny table.

Feel free to ask him to explain why he decided to ignore all of that. Cheating blatantly is still treating you like a new player and actively harmful to the hobby as a whole.

Let me start by saying...welcome to the true eldar! DE have a steep learning curve but can be absolutely terrifying once you get to grips with the army. Fair point having to push stuff on to units to put points up to 1000 (I did the same for a 4000 points game, I just didn't have that many models!). You have already pointed out the mistakes you made as have others for reaver jetbikes are mostly for assaults using cluster caltrops (speed and pain are our bread and butter). slight mistake i saw when typing up the report, talos take wounds, not hull points and are monstrous creatures (yay for smash!).

assault type units in raiders or venoms (venoms are highly recommended for the awesome splinter cannons) and if you do webway deep strike again, i'd say take the blasterborn with you. non scatter deep strike behind an enemy vehicle you say? I look forward to the explosions...As for your archon, i recommend a huskblade for its ap2 and instant death.

Small games can be both fun and hard, even harder for the dark kin as when we make a mistake, we can't shrug it off like space marines can. remember we are a fast, fragile and very hard hitting army that gets deadlier over time and if you do get raiders i say night shields are your friends! Have fun playing as the dark kin and I look forward to seeing more captives for commoragh...

@Causalis
I love playing, actually. It's just I don't get many games in. Especially before the move from California to Colorado. Finding games in my area was difficult. I don't drive (I have a phobia of driving), so I have to try and find people willing to come my way. Since moving down here, I try to get in games as often as possible. I have one coming up Friday.

I actually got into 40k through Dawn of War and I played all the races equally, although I had the most fun as Tau, Necron and Dark Eldar. When I was quitting Astra Militarum in the tabletop I got my girlfriend's opinion on what army to play and she, being a fan of movies like Hellraiser, said I should play Dark Eldar.

Dodo_Night wrote:

.As for your archon, i recommend a huskblade for its ap2 and instant death.  

I'm pretty sure AP2 Huskblade is past, in this edition it's Succubus' Archite Glaive that has AP2, with Huskblade being AP3 but still Instant death at least.
Succubus is quite popular to go with the Grotesquerie.

Also, everything has to be WYSIWYG, and I don't have anything to model a huskblade on my Archon. It's a 5th Edition Archon with an Agoniser.

The Red King wrote:

It sounds more like that guy thought you would be too inexperienced to call him on all of the obvious cheating.


You roll for first turn.
You AGREE on terrain.
You roll for night fight it either player wants to.
You roll for scenario.
You roll for deployment.
You don't play on a tiny table.

Feel free to ask him to explain why he decided to ignore all of that. Cheating blatantly is still treating you like a new player and actively harmful to the hobby as a whole.

Exactly. Tom is either annoyed at you or obsessed with winning.

This is beating a dead horse with a stick, but hey this is the Dark City and every ounce of pain matters. Even your own.

Tell Tom that he is a tool and that that kind of crap is why I insist on both of use setting up the table. The dude is flipping brutal on the kind of stacking he was doing. He literally knew you didn't know your army extremely well (not saying anything bad, just that you had never actually played them and had no field experience with Dark Eldar). Taking advantage of this and then literally stopping you from getting all the things that is suppose to be there to help your army.....

Now, I will saw, blasters into Terms hurt. Remember Grots have rampage, as said above, and will destroy somebody. Also Incubi destroy terminators.

@Causalis - I love terrain but 2/3rds is an exceptional amount. Personally I feel games on crowded boards are great but it's abnormal to have so much terrain on offer.
Having said that it's good advice to any DE player to try and cram as much LOS blocking terrain onto the board as possible. That probably matters more than list TBH. Being hidden and untargettable is better than any jink save!