Hello everyone!
I've just joined and I thought that I might as well jump into a battle report (if that's not against the rules mind).
I played a good friend of mine last weekend at our local GW. He brought an odd but effective Grey Knight Tau alliance.
I busted out my evil space elves for a maniacal spin in my mechdar list.
His 2000pt list is as follows:
HQ
Grey Knight Libby with summoning
Brotherhood champ with brain mine
Tau battlesuit commander with shooty stuff
Elites
3 man Stealthsuit team
Troops
10 man pysbolted strike squad with two pyscannons
5 falchion, banner Termies
12 fire warriors in devilfish
12 fire warriors in devilfish
10 Kroot
Heavy Support
3 broadsides with trackers and filters
Dreaknight with sword, incinerator and psycannon, teleporter
I brought 2000pts with double force org.
HQ
Lelith
Haemonculus with liquifier gun
Haemonculus with liquifier gun
Each go with a wych squad
Elites
4 Blasterborn in a venom with dual cannons
4 Blasterborn in a venom with dual cannons
Troops
9 wyches with haywire, Heka with venom blade
Raider with dissie, FF and SP (Lelith's ride)
9 wyches with haywire, Heka with venom blade
Raider with dissie, FF
9 wyches with haywire, Heka with venom blade
Raider with dissie, FF
5 warriors with blaster in venom with dual cannons
Fast attack
4 Reavers with heat lance
4 Reavers with heat lance
Heavy Support
Ravager with dissies and NS
Ravager with lances and NS
Ravager with lances and NS
Talos with twinlinked liquifier
Scenario: Hammer and Anvil
Mission: Purge the Alien
Night Fight turn 1
Warlord traits: Legendary fighter
Combat Drugs: +1 strength
The board was very symmetrical in layout. There was a trench in the center and each end had a ruin, forest, lake, and building.
I won the roll off and decide to deploy first, I wanted to cause as much as possible turn 1 placed my ravagers out front so that they could not only be in range, but also to give armor protection to the paperplanes hiding behind. Lelith and Haemy's raiders both deployed on the left behind a side-on ravager. The other ravagers provided a mobile wall for the venoms to cluster behind. The talos hid behind the building.
My buddy deployed his broadsides in ruin at back of his zone, he places a servo skull on the tower I'm hiding my stuff behind. The Kroot start on the flank to my right in a very open spot for some reason. A flotilla of 2 devilfish are behind them with fire warriors inside. The strike knights and Champ start behind the trenchline and the dreadknight stands behind a devilfish. The tau commander hides with the broadsides and stealthsuits sit next to the building on his side, on my left flank. The libby and Terms went into reserve.
He them rolls to sieze and.....rolls a six!
Grey Empire Turn 1:
I was not expecting that! Good thing I prepared. He starts by moving everything up. One devilfish flats out and lands in front my building shield everything else shuffels forward. The Kroot trudge across open ground, acting as fleshy meatshield for the devilfishs zooming up behind. The shooting phase rolled around and prepared myself for a beating, lucky for me the only things that could fire in the dark were the broadsides, with despite firing three rail guns only managed to rip of the rightmost raider's dissie and leaving it with two hull points left. The dreadknight lobbed a shell onto the rightmost ravager and trueborn venom. The shot scattered away a little bit, hitting only the ravager but failed to penetrate my paper box. The strike knights ran into the trench line annnnnd that was it.
Dark Eldar Turn 1:
I kicked off the movement phase by zooming Lelith and the damaged raider down the left flank. I hoped to use the angle and direction to limit incoming fire and be in optimal postion to assault stuff next turn. The warrior venom also went flat out, landing on the building the devilfish had stopped by, chasing that pesky servo skull away in the process. Can't have Termies in my zone so early on now can I?
My ravagers shifted for better fire angles and the remaining venoms skulked behind, one managing to draw bead on the foremost devilfish. The dissie ravager lined up the stealth suits and the last ravager on the right stared down the dreadknight ready for some darklight payback. The talos advanced on the devilfish but made sure to hide behind the building.
My shooting was just as successful as my opponents. The dissie ravager blasted the stealth suits but the defense line and stealth generators prevented any harm.
The leftmost lance ravager pound the devilfish, but disruption pods blocked both pens.
The talos ran forward whilst remaining hidden.
My ravager on the right let it rip on the dreadknight but it made both invulnerable saves.
Trueborn zap the devilfish, immobilizing it and stunning it, leaving it with a single hull point. Desperate for first blood I fire the dissie on the one raider that didn't flatout at the devilfish and glance it once, but disruption pods saved it! The rightmost venom, the one behind the ravager fired at the Kroot killing five, the remaining five passed leadership.
Oh dear. That was not a great start.
Grey Empire Turn 2:
My buddy start his turn by calling his terminators that walked on from his board edge. The strike knights blundered forward and activated an archeotech which turned out to be a degenerative terraforming node which ended up killing three of them. Three, even after armor saves.
Bad luck pal!
The firewarriors in the damaged devilfish disemebarked on top the archeotech and lost none of their number. Well, that was unexpected. Should have been the otherway round!
The stealth suits backed away from lelith's raider. The dreadknight advanced on my ravager. The undamaged devilfish deployed it's passengers and hovered in front of them to provide cover saves.
The Kroot moved forward, longing for the shelter of my building.
You'll have to take from my demon pixies first!
His shooting phase now with night fight gone, went off, with....a bang. The firewarriors rapid fired into the raider on their doorstep, wrecking it. The stealthsuits proved their worth by exploding Lelith's raider, killing five of her handmaidens and putting a wound on Lelith. The strike knights wrecked the venom on the building, I had forgotten it's flatout save! Oops. All squads passed pinning.
Last but not least the broadsides opened up on the rightmost ravager and despite getting three pens at ap 1, only managed to stun and immobolize it. But that wasn't the shocking event, what was shocking was that a lowly marker drone on the immobilized devilfish succeeded in wounding Lelith! Leaving her with one wound left!
Dark Eldar Turn 2:
One reaver squad arrived from resrve and setup harrying the Kroot. My turn started with my remaining venoms, ravagers, and lone raider spread out for max firing opportunities. The warriors angry at the loss of their venom moved a massive distance of 1 inch. The talos drifted over to the devilfish in preparation to give it a good whacking. Lelith and her squad advanced on the fire warriors while the other squad hope to get to them too and shoot them with a liquifier gun.
The shooting phase began with one of Lelith's handmaidens chucking a plasma grenade on some firewarriors killing two. The Haemy liquified them, but only managed ap 5 so he didn't kill very many. The remaining wyches pistoled down a couple more. The stunned and immobolized ravager snap fired at dreadknight knocking a wound off it. Yay! The three warriors on the building that could see the Kroot, rapid fired into them dropping three. The reavers rapid fired and killed another one. My venoms and the dissie ravager peppered the strike knights, bringing their number to just under five. The last raider shot the broadsides, but failed to hit.
Then it was the assault. Lelith and her four wyches charged the remaining firewarriors a tore them a new one and conviently left three survivors who passed leadership. Unfortunately that left the Haemy's squad in the open unless I charged them in too. In hindsight I should have tackled the stealthsuits intead and consolidated into the building in his zone. But I shot the liquifier gun at the firewarriors. Oh well. There're dreadknight barbeque next turn. Unsuprising the last firewarriors evaporated off the board. Both squads consolidated as far away from his front lines as possible.
On a happier note the talos took the devilfish to town, causing a spectacular explosion for everyone to see.
Grey Empire Turn 3:
As expected the Dreadknight disappeared and reappeared in a poof of smoke like an over large ninja right next to my wyches. Funnily enough I had seen that coming and had my blasterborn were nearby to light him up next turn.
The last opperational devilfish flew forward to shield the Kroot from further harm. The full strength fire warriors and the Libby's unit prepared to wipe the remaining wyches off the board. The stealthsuits jumped further away from my skimmers. And the remaining strike knights skirted the trenchline, keeping away from the archeotech.
My buddy's shooting phase turn was even more brutal than before. The broadsides remembered their trackers and fired into my three ravagers. After the dust settled only one undamaged ravager was still hovering. Both the damaged and the dissie ravagers had been annihalated by rail gun fire.
The dreadknight used it's incinerator to incinerate 6 wyches and to my horror Lelith who had one wound left after that pesky drone shot her up! The remnants of her squad died to pulse fire and bolter shells awarding another victory point. The Haemy survives with four members left in his squad. Both squads had went to ground.
My buddy just gained a massive lead in victory points as Lelith was my warlord.
Dark Eldar Turn 3:
The last reaver squad came on and turboosted behind the building in my zone. My trueborn zipped forward while the last ravager backed away from the dreadknight. No twelve inch flamer for you! The other trueborn venom put the strike knights in its sights and the warriors on top of the building lined up the Kroot. The talos went to smash the last devilfish. Shooting opened up with the trueborn on the left, firing on the dreadknight, atomizing him (only just). The ravager blasted the broadsides, which I should have been shooting from the start, vaporizing one. The first reaver squad shot their heatlance at the devilfish but missed. The warriors finished off the Kroot. The last dissie raider sniped the brotherhood champ out of the dwindling strike knights awarding me the warlord kill. The two trueborn venoms attempted to continue that feat, but only managed to kill four strike knights leaving one left. Drats.
To compound further bad luck, the talos charged the flying fish and only managed to immobolize it and break a frisbee.
Conclusion:
Unfortunately the game ended at this point as the store was closing, but the game could have gone either way had it continued.
We tallied the points and come up with a narrow victory for my friend. Congrajulations to the Grey Empire! It was a well played win and came very close, indeed my friend was worried when I gained back four points in one turn.
Result: Grey Knight Tau victory! (First blood, Slay the warlord, Units killed:6. Total of 8 victory points.) Dark Eldar lose...(Slay the warlord, Units killed: 5. Total of 6 victory points.)
Well close but no cigar. Thanks for reading everyone. I hope to get battlechronicler up running for the next one, after I get the hang of it of course.
Thanks everyone! Hope it was enjoyable!
Shrike out.
Subject: Battle report 1: Grey Knight Tau alliance versus Dark Eldar wych list 
Thu Nov 08 2012, 22:00
