Dark Eldar Raid Lauttasaari

Another short report from a tournament last Sunday. My list was "The Fox Hunt"

Baroness Sathonyx 105
3 Trueborn, 2 dl, Venom, 2sc 151
3 Trueborn, 2 dl, Venom, 2sc 151
5 Wyches, hg, Raider, disint, 120
5 Wyches, hg,Raider, disint 120
5 Kabalites, bl, Raider, disint, 120
5 Kabalites, bl, Raider, disint, 120
5 Kabalites, bl, Venom, 2sc, 125
5 Kabalites, bl, Venom, 2sc, 125
4 Beast masters, 7 Khymera, 4 RWF 192
Razorwing jet, 2dl, ff 155
Razorwing jet, 2dl, ff 155
Ravager, dl, ns 115
Bastion, comm’s 95
1849pts.

The first game was against friend of mine with a big mustache and an Imperial guard list with Dark Angels Ally this time. He had 50 guardsman blob including 5 autocannons, 5 plasma guns and 5 power axes accompanied by DA librarian. 2 mini squads of tactical with plasma cannons started on the board behind some buildings. One artillery piece with S6 plates was behind another building. Al Rahem (or something) made the big blob come from outflank while 3 vendettas transported 3 squads of flamer veterans.

IG reserves are preparing to come in on T2

The mission was the Scourging with Hammer and Anvil deployment. Objectives were evenly placed and I was forced to take the first turn while all of his army was hidden from me even after first moves. I dashed full forwards on the long board. Neither of us took the first blood on T1. On T2 my beast herd was in the middle of the board unable to charge anything. Ravager was able to take down the artillery for fist blood but the two tac squads were able to survive the little shooting I was able to point to them. I stalled successfully both Jets with comms relay so that they didn’t show up before there was anything to shoot on the board. Then his reserves arrived. One Vendetta shot down Ravager which exploded taking whit it 5 Khymerae. Another vendetta managed to stun one of the Venoms and the third one didn’t show up. The outflanking blob killed all the birds and baron with concentrated shooting with autocannons and plasma along normal lasgun fire. Outflank in Hammer and Anvil is brutal since I had nowhere to hide on the board. Next turn my Jets arrived and I decided to retaliate on the blob instead of trying to take down the Vendettas. I hit him big time. App. 40 guardsman were killed along with all the autoacannos and four plasmas. Next turn Vendettas tried retaliate on my Jets. One of them survived intact and the other was destroyed after stun move.

Since the T4 was my last turn I deployed to the objectives and tried to take down one of the vendettas with Razorwing managing a stun which was downgraded to shake due to extra armor. On his turn he did what vendettas are good at: Flamer veterans to objectives. I got killed and he had most of the objectives giving him 11 points lead on me which resulted 20-0 tournament points.
A very bad start for me in the tournament. The result might have been better had I been able to protect the Kabalites on objectives with my reminding raiders. But the time was running out and I didn’t do it properly enough and he was able to use flamers on my troops.

Game two will be posted soon…

Awesome stuff, shame about the loss. Interesting to see the stun move killing a flyer because it could be place (you mentioned this in another post). You clearly had an opponent with a thorough understanding of the game: taking extra armour on vendettas to prevent any stun move kills! Using the comms to delay your flyers was a wise move. I can imagine outflanking on hammer and anvil must have been a nightmare!

All in all a really insightful first game, thanks for sharing! Looking forward to game 2.

The second game was against a Chaos Marines. Deployment was Dawn of War and the mission Crusade with 4 objectives. He’s list included 10 cultist and 10 chaos marines as troops. 5 terminators, 5 Autocannon havocs, 5 warp talons, 5 possessed with a lord in a Landraider, Hellbrute, Marine killing Forge Fiend with 3 S8 small blast and a Hell Drake with Baleflamer. We had first turn night fight and He wanted to go first after winning the roll. (Second time even with the Baron on my side)

T1 he dashed forwards with Landraider before my lances get to blast it to pieces. Havocs managed to shoot down on venom giving him first blood and Hellbrute immobilized the other. On my turn I killed all but 2 havocks and two terminators. Then I proceeded to shoot 9 lances (inc. 2 blasters) to the Landraider which resulted a one glancing hit. Great! The thing was now 6” from my deployment zone and the beast pack was next to it in a nice clump. On his turn 2 the dragon (and all the other reserves) failed to arrive. The Lord and his retinue were not interested in my beast since they didn’t have the necessary grenades to assault in to the cover. This also his shooting was for nothing. Autocannons failed to penetrate, Forgefiend missed all its shots and Hell brute overheated and lost a hull point. In assault the lord and possessed killed one of my Kabalite warriors and trueborn squads and gaining good access to my back lines. On my turn both planes arrived in addition to the 2 raiders with warriors that I had also left in reserves to avoid the dragon. Shooting managed to kill a havoc and 2 possessed. One of the Jets shot in to the squad of chaos marines on objective to ease beast masters charge on them. Ravager managed to immobilize and shake Landraider this turn while the other Razorwing only managed to glance the Forge Fiend. Wyches tried to get away from the lords squad. In assault Beasts killed rest of the marine squad except champion who was in challenge with one of the beast masters. Just as I wanted since now the beast pack was safe from the torrent flamer.

T3 cultists and warp talons arrived on the left side of the board while all the other action was on the right side. Chaos lord killed my squad of wyches but was forced to move away from all the other action to do so. Still no dragon! In assault phase the marine champion killed my beast master but I was still able to hit and run towards the middle board. In my turn I changed direction of my attack and tried to remove talons and cultists from that side. I was able to shoot 2 of the talons with dissies making them flee. I was also able to assault the cultist with wyches after shooting them with Razorwing and throwing plasma grenade. (Area ruins are real pain when trying remove enemy that has gone to the ground for 2+ cover save.) 3 of 5 wyches made it to the cc after over watching flamer and the combat was a draw. I also moved the beast in wrong direction leaving the lone champion to his objective confident that I can shoot him away from it.

T4 was again the last turn. Dragon came and grilled one of my Kabalite squads heading for central objective. The Forge fiend failed to charge other Kabalites leaving them intact to grab one objective. Wyches were able to kill all of the cultists and so gain that objective. The Hell brute charged and tied the beastherd so that it was not able to try to get to the lone champion. Hit&Run test was successful, but the 3d6 roll was only 6 so I was not able to get away from that combat. Rest of my force shot that one champion and it managed to make all its 12 or so 2+ coves saves except the very last one. YEAH!

In the end I had two objectives to his zero. We both had linebrakers and got the first blood. Both warlords were alive. 5 VP difference ended the game in 15-5 tournament points for me.

Sorry no pictures this time as I forgot to take them

That sounds more like it! I'm surprised he was running warp talons. Were they actually a threat?

The game three was a bit of disappointment. My opponent had taken a wrong figure case in the morning and thus had to make do with borrowed models. Originally he would have played DE but now he had a miss matched Eldar with DE allies. His list included Farseer with prescience accompanied by 5 Fire dragons in a scatter laser wave serpent. 10 Storm guardians also had similar wave serpent. In addition there were two times five pathfinders and Maugan Ra manning Quadgun atop bastion. His allies included baron and 10 Hellions who deep stroked for some reason, 10 Reavers with blasters and agonize on arena champion. His only heavy support was Talos with twin linked splinter cannon. The mission was big guns with vanguard strike.

Since there was 2 barons on the board I won the roll of and made him go first. He deployed the all the Eldar except fire dragons and reserved the Dark kin. I placed the Venoms in front row covering the raiders. Ravager was hiding behind the bastion. Beasts were placed in to the ruins in the middle of my deployment line. One raider with warriors was in reserves with the Jets.

T1 he managed down one raider for fist blood. My retaliation was better as I shot down Dragons empty Serpent and took away scatter laser from the other. Venoms took care of the quad gun. Raiders flat outed for better cover and placement. Beasts covered in the ruins. T2 He used his warlord trait to keep his reserves in reserve as I had avoided his side and there were no easy targets. Only the Talos came in hiding behind a ruin. In my turn I shot the remaining serpent down with a dissie form 3+ cover and downed his bastion with Ravager killing all the pathfinders in there. Maugan Ra survived the collapse. I also concentrated on the other pathfinders with a lot of shooting that did nothing with their 2+ cover in ruins.

Beasts take cover in the central ruins while wating for the suitable target to apear.

T3 his reavers, fire dragons and hellions came in. Reavers positioned them shelves in ruins to shoot my bastion while fire dragons shot down one Venom. Hellions misshaped back to reserves. The Reavers blasters failed totally but fire dragons managed to down the empty venom. I then charged the Reavers with beasts wiping them down. The Talos was also shot down. The reminding pathfinders continued to elude my shooting.

T4 He finally got his Hellions to board but it was all over for him that time. T5 I killed last unit of his army taking full 20 tournament points.

All in all a good tournament with me placing 6th out of 18 players. Winner was chaos marines with daemon allies. The IG I lost to was 5th in the end having lost badly to Csm/Necron second game.

Ouch taking the wrong case that's a bummer! Well done on placing 6th, it sounded like a tough tournament. Did you learn anything worth sharing with your fellow Archons?

Mushkilla wrote:

Ouch taking the wrong case that's a bummer! Well done on placing 6th, it sounded like a tough tournament. Did you learn anything worth sharing with your fellow Archons?

Thanks for commenting Mush.

Did I learn anything? "Plan ahead for stun"
In the first game (the only one where my razorwing got shot) my flyer was destroyed because the stun move ended up halfway off the board.

As I said in chatango box earlier, Bastion is really good. Lanceborn can shoot from it quite freely and it gives you cover when going second. And it can be used to as a decoy to where you deploy. It also grants you access to reserves manipulation which works well with flyers.

Vasara wrote:

Did I learn anything? "Plan ahead for stun"
In the first game (the only one where my razorwing got shot) my flyer was destroyed because the stun move ended up halfway off the board.

Wow, that's pretty cruel, losing a flyer by 2-3". To be honest I had never thought about stun kills until you mentioned it in another thread. Something eldar jetbikes are good at doing! Your stormraven is stunned? I see, let me place these bikes 18" in front of it.

I see extra armour being a must on flyers that get access to it (and don't have suppression resistance: GK, Necrons, Helldrakes). Funny as the upgrade was ignored for most of 5th.

Stuns don't happen very often. every sixth penetrating hit. So paying 15pts for storm raven might not be worth it, It definetly would not be worth it to by it for Deldar flyers. Those Vendettas have them for free

One thing I realized while reading other thread is the choice between Razorwing jet and Voidraven bomber. If enemy have no vehicles or flyers then the jet is better suited to take down infantry while bomber is not so efficient in that role. The bomber is better suited for dogfights for sure (GW got the names mixed ) The Razorwing Jet has good duality so it remains to be my choice for heavy support.

I will try to remember to put something in the stun footstep against a heavy flyer list if I can.

Thanks for the reports.

In the first time you mentioned that you had no place to hide when he outflanked. Could a solution be to leave the transports? When he comes in from reserves he will probably get to tap whatever is near him with a lot of shots and an explosion result is just hard for us in 6th edition. But if you could somehow leave the transports his vendettas would be worse as cannons vs troops is bad. I do not know, I am merely speculating in a hard position .

Completely forgot vendettas get them for free.

Good point on the razorwing it's got nice duality, which can be handy with all those infantry hordes running all over the place. The void raven does have the bomb, but it's hardly spectacular.

MSU troops and transports are not the problem. Usually blob is used to area control or tar pit and its weight of fire can take down a lot of things. This time my opponent eliminated my beasts since they were on the field and a clear threat to the blob. And Hammer & Anvil leaves the beast herd no place to hide other than reserves and then they would be in my own end of the table with no possibility to charge anything.