DE vs Imperium 2000pts

Lately I have been getting a bit better about remembering to take pictures during my games and so I thought I would try my hand at writing a battle report.

Pre-Game Details
For this game we used the Renegade Open Format since my opponent is helping to playtest the updated 8th edition mission packet. It’s an interesting format and played well with the new rules. Each player gets to choose their primary mission for the game (from 4 possible choices) as well as secondary objectives each turn. The scoring breakdown is primary 8 points, secondary 8 points, tertiary 3 points for a total of 19.

Dark Eldar Army List:

Imperium Army List:

After exchanging army lists we selected our primary missions. I decided upon No Mercy (Kill Points) because we had the same number of kill points and I felt I could get more than him. I also felt that with him having a high number of reserve units and good mobility that fighting over table quarters or the objectives could be a risk. My opponent chose Assassination for his mission. For this one he secretly choses 5 units in my army that he has to kill by the end of the game and reveals them right before the Roll to Seize.

Warlord traits:
Archon: +1 A
Tempestor Prime: 6+ FnP

Combat Drugs:
Succubus: +2 M
Wyches with Agoniser: +1 A
Wyches with Power Swords: +1 S
Reavers: +1 T

We rolled dawn of war deployment and I had the first placement. As I expected he kept half his army in reserve and so I was nearly done deploying before he had any models on the table. I castled up in the corner in an attempt to mitigate the damage from a first turn drop. His Taurox were spread out along his deployment zone. Two of the Taurox had squads in them and there was a Tempestor Prime in the building directly opposite me. Since we were using ITC rules I got +1 on my roll for first turn instead of automatically going first but won the roll anyways. My pponent failed to seize.

My opponents assassination targets were both Raiders, both Venoms and the Incubi.

DE Deployment    


Imperial Deployment



Imperial Reserves


Dark Eldar Turn 1
The Dark Eldar forces surged forward and opened fire. The Reavers advanced while everything else maneuvered to line up shots on the Taurox. The dark lance gunners were on point and shooting saw 2 Taurox destroyed and 2 others lightly damaged. I targeted the ones with squads inside first so that my splinter fire wouldn’t be wasted and one of the disembarked squads died as well. A solid first turn that really set the course of the game.

DE Turn 1




Imperium Turn 1
Despite my attempt to make his drops difficult the Imperium reinforcements found a window and arrived en-mass behind the Dark Eldar lines. Shooting saw a Ravager destroyed by plasma and melta fire while 5 of the bikes were killed by the nearby Taurox and Scions. My opponents dice were not being kind and only made 1 of his 4 declared charges (and only then with a reroll). The successful charge was the Furioso into the Archons Raider and he put the hurt on it. Unfortunately when it was all over the Raider had 1 wound remaining. In the morale phase I used 2 CPs to save the lone biker as it had a heat lance and I had a plan for it.

Imperium Turn 1






Dark Eldar Turn 2
Both Raiders disembarked all of their passengers before moving away. All of my melee troops moved towards the mass of forces in my backfield to setup some charges while the Ravagers lined up their shots on the now unengaged Dreadnaught. The flyers harassed the forces left in the Imperium deployment zone and the lone Reaver moved up by the 2 Taurox on my left. Shooting saw the damaged Taurox as well as the most of the scions in the building die. In my deployment zone the Dreadnaught exploded and took the damaged raider with it. The rest of my fire softened up the imperium forces prior to the charge. I charged an undamaged venom into 3 units in an attempt to absorb the overwatch. Well it absorbed it because 3 of the melta gunners rolled 6’s and it was promptly destroyed taking 2 warriors with it. Angered by this (and because we couldn’t find anywhere that said otherwise) the newly disembarked warriors then charged a lone melta gunner. The rest of the Dark Eldar  forces charged with minimal losses to overwatch. The Incubi engaged a unit of Terminators, while the Wyches and Succubus engaged the other terminators and some of the scions. The Archon and Sslyth went for the Sanguinary Priest. Finally the lone Reaver charged the other Taurox to tie it up. The Imperium forces took heavy losses in the melee but none fled in the morale phase.

DE Turn 2




Imperium Turn 2
With most of his forces dead or engaged in combat my opponent had few options. The Taurox fell back from the Reaver to claim a secondary objective while the other surviving Taurox shot it to death. Combat saw more of the Incubi cut down by the Terminators and the rest of the Scions killed with only the Tempestor Prime remaining.

Imperium Turn 2


Turns 3 – 4
By this point there were few Imperium forces left. My opponent continued to manoeuver to capture some secondary objectives as best he could while I cleaned up his remaining forces and did the same. The last imperium forces were killed on the top of turn 4 when the Succubus cut down the remaining terminator sergeant.

DE Turn 4





The final score was 18-0 for the Dark Eldar since no one was able to claim solo blood.


Tactical points
I wanted to end with a few points that I noted throughout the game.

First is my movement phase on turn one. Had I arranged my forces slightly differently my opponent’s options would have been even more limited. It all comes down to the position of the Venom on the left side of the big building. I had initially placed it there to prevent any drops inside the building but if I had moved it back slightly it would have filled the gap and kept him out of my deployment zone. I could have then strung the bikes back in a line to keep the building off limits as well. 9” is a pretty big bubble. See below for what I mean.

Alternate Movement



From what I have seen, and not just during this game, but deep striking assault units are not very good without some help to get them into combat. The Furioso seemed ok because its magna-grapple gives it an extra 2” but both terminator squads failing really hurt my opponent.

This one was noted by my opponent after he failed to destroy my raider but having an idea of how much damage you could do is huge. The Furioso’s weapon was D3 so 9 damage was not unreasonable to expect. He really wished he has stripped a couple wounds with small arms fire before he charged..

Overall it was a good game if a little one sided. I hit hard on turn one and the return from my opponent was lackluster (his dice didn’t help much). By the end of turn two it was pretty much over for the Imperium.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts or questions.

I don't want to be picky, but that Drop Pod is not Lucius Pattern... I believe normal pods cannot transport Dreadnoughts...

Really like how you took the time to take pictures. Especially the deployment pic, gives new players, like me, a bit of insight on how to deploy a bit better

Yeah, less than a 30% chance to charge is definitely not great. Don't have maths for the charge with a reroll, but I have a feeling I saw it was around 50%? So I wouldn't feel bad about your opponent not getting his charges. @Aurynn is right, you can't use a regular drop pod for a dreadnought. Not that it really matteres by the looks of things! Great report overall, definitely liked the little tactical section at the end as well.

Well I said it for the OP to check if the opponent paid at least the points for it while using proxy. Lucius pattern pod is like 120 pts.

50% cca is 9" with reroll. 7" without is the same chance roughly, bud you can use CP to reroll one dice to get it to reasonable chance.

Nice report. Thanks!
What is your take in the lance vs Disintegrator discussion?
And I'd like to know your opining in the raider vs venom discussion as well.
Thanks

So the drop pod was just a normal drop pod and was an error we both missed. I think we still had the old rules in mind. A Lucius Pattern pod is just 15 points more now so a relatively minor mistake in the long run.

On point I missed about my deployment was who went in the transports. The warrior squads were in the Venoms, both Wych squads in one of the raiders, and the Archon, Succubus, Sslyth, and Incubi in the other Raider.

Regarding the Dark Lance vs Disintegrator discussion there is no doubt that the Dark Lance is ridiculously good. I have already had opponents saying it might be too good because of the -4 AP but that’s a whole other discussion. They tear through armor and you should take lots of them. 3 DL Ravagers will be a staple in my list for the foreseeable future. That said I have always been (and still am) a big fan of Disintegrators, and despite the increased cost feel they are quite good as well but fulfill a different roll. I have been taking some on a Razorwing as a bit of a hedge against the elite multi-wound models such as Primaris, Terminators, Nobs, Battlesuits and the like. While I haven’t seen much of that locally yet, I have found them very useful for clearing marines out of cover. Previously massed splinter fire used to be my go to for clearing marines out and just hope for failed saves. Now a Devastator squad in cover has a 2+ save and splinter fire is much less effective. The Disintegrators are a great counter to this this because they wound on 3+ and have -3AP. I prefer taking them on Razorwings for the high mobility in getting at my targeted units and if my opponent is careless with his character placement they can fly up beside and try to snipe. Definitely having a few around has gone a long way.

With Raiders and Venoms, really, they are both very good. I generally just take what I need based on my required transport capacity. Before I added the Incubi to my list, I just had the Archon, Succubus, and Sslyth cruising around in a Venom. I have seen a lot of discussion about taking 9 man units in a Raider to fit a character in. I think this generally wrong and is an old way of thinking, simply because you are often losing out on the benefit of some special weapon upgrades for hitting the 10 man threshold. With the Venoms I still take 2x Splinter Cannons for a couple reasons. First that’s how mine are modeled and second because I like the added range, even if it is less shots. I have been tending to hang back at 36” and just pepper the enemy from range for a few turns while PfP builds up to turn 3.

I hope that answers your questions

Yeah. Thanks. I´d like to play more but I´m too much involved in work right now