Red Grief vs. Combined Arms Guard

recently started playing 40k again, after dabbling in 3rd and 4th edition many years ago. I was able to recruit a buddy who's interested in the tournament scene (very competitive dude). this was a playtesting game, trying to figure out what units we like and don't like and he allowed me to make use of the point values and updated rules that have been revealed thus far on gw community page and some of the preview battle reports floating around out there. our lists are pretty spammy, and not neccesarily legal... (edit: definitely not legal, i badly miscalculated the points on my reavers, i should have ony been able to bring three units and at a lower model count, also did not have enough units on the board start of game.)

Cult of the red grief (~1500) edit: closer to 2000
hq: succubus, blast pistol

troops: wychs x5 power sword, blast pistol, hydra gauntlet {3 units}

fast attack: Reavers x12, 4x blaster, 4x grav talon {4 units}
Scourges x5, 4x haywire blaster

heavy support: tantalus


Imperial Guard (~1500)
Hq: company commander relic of lost cadia
company commander kurov's aquila
company commander warlord, grand strategist

troops: infantry squad x10 lascannon {6 units}

heavy support: manticore {4 units}
leman russ battle tank

Lord of War: Banehammer

battlefield: 4 identical buildings in a box pattern in the center of the table, forests touching table edges on center line, one large forest in the center of each deployment zone.

mission: the relic (which was completely ignored by both of us)

deployment: 2 of my reaver squads hid behind the buidings, 1 in the forest and one in the open oposite his weaker flank. the wychs and succubus piled into the tantalus which i held in reserve using the new strategem. scourges also held in reserve. my opponent deployed 3 of his manticores on one side using the building to block LOS to 2 of them and employing the same trick for his final manticore and leman russ on the other side. the bane blade deployed in the open opposite my weak side reaver squad, a forest blocking our LOS. his infantry and company commanders managed to mostly huddle together in the large central forest, with one squad kind of trying to bubblewrap the 3 manticores.

turn 1: despite my +1 to first turn, i went second. he moves up his leman russ and baneblade to get LOS on the reavers in my central forest and fires both. thanks to the cover and some good luck, i take only 2 casualties. the manticores all fire into the flank squad on my strong side. he rolls about average but i get lucky on my saves and fnps and only lose 3 models there. reluctant to break cover i suppose, the infantry squads do nothing. i was very impressed with my reavers durability here.

2 squads of reavers move and advance 24" toward the 3 manticore formation, easily in charge range (re-rollable on turn 1 with this obsession) the other 2 only have to move to get in charge range of the banehammer. the scourges deepstrike about 11" away from the relic, using a building to block LOS from most of the infantry squads. the tantalus drops basically in the corner of the table behind the bane hammer and leman russ. shooting 8 blasters from 2 reaver squads into the lead manticore and a few lucky damage rolls bring it down. splinters go into the bubblwrap. the scorges fire their newly improved haywire blasters at the banehammer and get 5 mortal wounds, plus 2 he fails to save. 8 blasters from the 2 reaver squads put it in the single digit wounds. the tantalus fires both it's pulse disintegrators into it to make sure it dies, which it does, overkilling by about 8 damage. thankfully it doesn't explode.charge phase, one reaver squad charges the bubblewrap and the other charges the manticore closer to his infantry blob in the forest. the other 2 squads of reavers both charge the leman russ. grav talons do some work here, putting a wound on the manticore, and 3 wounds on the leman russ. the infantry squad is wiped out easily by the reavers. i was very happy with this turn, killing his centerpiece model and removing the threat of 2 manticores, i thought this was an excellent beta strike.

turn 2 my opponent was very flustered by the violence of action i was able to bring to bare (only his 3rd game after all) and seemed to forget his target priority. his manticore and leman russ fall back. he unloads rapid fire las at my reavers, wiping out one squad, but decides that his lascannons are best used to take out more reavers instead of the tantalus. i lose a few reavers to that and some more manticore shots, but manage to keep all my remaining blasters on the table.

my wyches and succubus disembark and put themselves in blast pistol range of his weak flank manticore, one squad going after the russ instead. the 2 reaver squads threatening the russ shoot 8 blasters into it which is enough to take it out. the tantalus drops all its shots into the infantry squads in the forest and kills a unit (they actually die in moral) and the 2 wych squads in range fire blast pistols on the manticore. the reavers over on the other flank fire blasters at the middle manticore that fell back, putting it into its most degraded state. the scourges put some haywire shots on the manticore the wychs shot at, but roll poorly, only doing a few wounds. in the charge phase the reavers charge the one fresh manticore on the flank, the wyches charge the manticore they shot at. nothing really dies but its tied up.

turn 3. my opponent concedes, siting that hes surrounded and i will be able to tie up his units over and over and easily eliminate his infantry with the wychs and tantalus. i agree, that's what i was gonna do.

conclusion. reavers rocking cult of the red grief are great at getting first turn charges. reavers in general are very durable and pack a punch with the combination of blasters and grav talons (or cluster caltrops). its a shame the arena champion cant take a ccw that would threaten tanks, but probably balanced. i dont think i got to see the wychs and succubus in action enough to make a judgement there. The shooting of the tantalus and it impressive transport capacity make me like it, but i still have no idea of its durability or close combat potential. this was my second game with dark eldar and my first using primarily wych cult units and im very impressed and looking forward to the codex.

36 reavers wow that's pretty crazy, but I bet also a lot of fun.

I don't really think reavers are all that durable, mainly just sounds like you got lucky. Not sure what the guns are on that baneblade variant but it probably should have killed more reavers. Regardless though it seems like your opponent was very unprepared for the massive charge of that many reavers, glad to hear that they really ended up pulling their weight in melee and shooting down tanks.

Did you think the haywire scourges were worth taking over blasters? I ordered a unit to assemble with haywire blasters, really looking forward to trying them out.

Wait, did you use 48 Reavers? Because if that's what you mean, you're massively over in terms of points. I don't know what the points cost is for the Tantalus but if that's 4 squads of 12 you were using then there's no way you were at the 1500 mark. 48 Reavers with 4 Blasters and 4 Grav talons per squad costs approximately 1250 pts by themselves.

You also have to have 50% or more of your units on the board and by the sounds of things you had 5 ( Succubus, 3 wyche units, the Tantalus and scourges) in reserve and 4 on the board, so keep that in mind for your next game.

Can't really comment on the IG list, don't know enough but I'm not sure what detachment he's using? Would be worth finding that out just to double check if it's legal. In the future as well, you should state what detachments you and your opponent are using, as it's easier for us to get an idea of the lists!

Sorry if I've burst your bubble a bit there, but I'm glad you've seen the power of Reavers and enjoyed one of your first games back! It sounds like it was carnage.

I'd also say that I appreciate that you detailed out deployment and the terrain set up, as I was able to picture it well in my head!

yeah, checking my list again, i paid way too little for the reavers. good catch. the haywire blasters rolled about average for me on number of shots, but a bit higher on mortal wounds. i liked them and they're half the price of a blaster. i knew the scourges were going to have plenty of targets so they made sense to me for the role i wanted the them for. as far as keeping too much of my army in reserve, i did not realize that deploying in a transport falls under the tactical reserves rule as well, so something i'll have to look out for in the future. thanks for the feedback.