Dark Eldar vs Blood Angels 1500p - rematch

New batrep but playing the same guy, albeit a new list of his.
 
My list:
Archon; Huskblade, Soultrap, Drugs, Shadow Field
Grotestques; 3 normal, 1 Liquifier, Abberation with Vblade in stock Raider
Splinterbornes; 3 Trueborn, 2 Cannons in a dual cannon Venom
2x Kabalite Warriors x10, splinter cannon in stock raider
Wyches x5 with HWG
2x Ravager Stock with lances
Farseer stock
Guardians x10 + platform with elder missile launcher
 
His list:
Mephiston
Sanguine Priest in terminator armor with Meltabombs
Sternguard x5 Sergeant 5x Combi-plas
Assault marines x10 with sergeant and 2x flamers in a razorback
Assault marines x10 with sergeant and 2x Meltas in a land raider
Scout squad x 5 with sergeant
2x Predator with searchlight and smoke Auto + 2x lascannon
 
We set up terrain quite evenly (rolls were nice enough) but accidentially put all nice big terrain in opposite corners, what would become his corner especially.
 
Mission; Purge the alien (17p vs his 10p...)
Deployment: Dawn of war
Traits: Useless for both of us. Outflanking for him and reserves for me
Drugs: Splintermind (paintoken)
Roll off: He wins the roll and decides to go first, I don’t try to steal
Nightfight T1: Yes
Mephiston has sword + rage + wings
Farseer get: Dominate, Guide and Executioneer
 
Deployment
He deploys predators on one side of his ruin and everything else behind the ruins. Assault marines are in respective transport.
I castle in the far corner from him behind ruins as much as but my deployment is NOT good. All my units except guardians are in their boats.  Serpent in an angle giving no cover save on the front and no acute angle and Archon raider is wide open. Forgot about range/searchlights. His scouts deploy top of his ruin.
 

 
T1 BA: Movement: Assault marines get out and Sternguards get into Razor and move up the other side of the ruin (opposite of predators) Landraider follows the predators, Mephiston and disembarked assault marines footslog behind the razor. Predators move up 12 to get in range.
Shooting: Opens up and manages to wreck Archons raider with a pen + natural 6 on pen table, no wounds this time but they are pinned. Other predator pops the wych venom killing 4 in the explosion (nice rolling, 4 wounds, no armor save or FnP made...), the wych holds and is not pinned. 2 shots and 4 snapshots manages to kill off 2 transports. Scouts fire at guardians doing nothing.
 

 
T1 DE: Guide is cast on one of the ravagers. Movement: Ravagers shuffle to one side to get jinx and get in range of predators, one warrior squad disembark into ruins to provide a new boat for Archon when they are unpinned, the other moves up behind cover on the Predator/Land raider side. Splinterborn and serpent shuffle slightly for jinxes. crap error on my side: I move guardians forward slightly into cover placing the guardians in front of wave serpent. Wych is moved into deep cover in the ruins.
Shooting: with clear view of the razor I plan to pop it with serpent and open up hell with splinterborns. Works like a charm, except i placed my guardians in front of the serpent giving him a 5+ cover save. He makes 3 saves. 2 pens and a glance. Hooray for me! Missile launches misses razor. The two Ravagers fluffs and only manage to kill 1hp off front predator. Since splinterbornes can’t shoot at sternguards as planned they fire at Scouts, killing 2.
 

 
T2 BA: Movement: Everything moves forward on both sides of the ruin, nothing special but sternguard is disembarked into fire range of serpent. He nearly made the mistake of giving me shots on Mephiston with serpent and splinterbornes but decides against it.
Shooting: One of the predators puts a hullpoint and immobilizes the boat i emptied for Archon. Land Raider and the other predator fires and kills one of my ravagers and puts a hullpoint on the other. Scouts doesn’t manage to do anything. Sternguard shoot and miss serpent 1 die from Gets Hot. God bless jinx.
 

 
T2 DE: Guide on the only living ravager. Movement:  Move guardians away from the serpent. Shuffle serpent, ravager and Splinterbornes. Disembark the other warriors into cover, park my only moveable raider next to the archon to be ready to embark him T3.
Shooting: Splinterbornes kills 2 sternguards. Ravager kills of the predator it previously damaged. Serpent wrecks razor with Scatter laser meaning shield and cannon can’t fire. Turns out to be a good thing later. Missile launcher tries to lob it’s blast on assault marines but scattering too far away. Immobilized raider fires at the living predator glancing it.
 

 
T3 BA: Movement: Landraider moves forward. Mephiston jumps over the wrecked razor stopping just behind the stern guard. Assault marines jumps after, still behind Mephiston and spread around the wrecked Razorback. Predator doesn’t move as far as I recall.
Shooting: Mephiston and Sternguard shoot at serpent managing one pen, jinx is failed but serpent shield is successful. 1 hp stripped but at the cost of 1 sternguard dying to gets hot! Land Raider fires everything at my ravager. 2 pens and a glance. Jinx em’ all! Predator fires everything into Ravager as well. 1 pen, Jinx it! Scouts fire and kill one guardian. Awesomely lucky turn, Ravagers absorbs ALL his high Str shots and is still standing.
 

 
T3 DE: Try to guide Ravager, i fail. Movement: Archon and grots embark on my last moveable Raider. Raider moves and then turbo boost toward his two remaining tanks. Ravager shuffle. Both squads of warriors move toward the infantry heavy side. Guardians move slightly forward to get closer to Mephiston. Splinterborns and Serpent shuffle.
Shooting: Ravager fires into Land raider, 2 pens but my raider is blocking the view giving him a 5+. He fails both and I roll a 5, exploding it. One Marine is killed in the explosion. Serpent and splinterbornes open up on Mephiston managing 3 wounds between em. Down to 2 wounds. Farseer tries to dominate Mephiston, Denied. Farseer also tries to use Executioneer but fails to wound. Ignore the fact that one warrior squad went missing in the picture below. Damned Vassal!
 

 
T4 BA: Mephiston rolls all his powers failing none Movement: Assault marines on both sides advance. Mephiston moves to get in range for assault on either Serpent, Splinterbornes or guardians.
Shooting: Assault marines that fell out of land raider tries to pop archon raider but fail miserably with all shots. I don’t even have to Jinx. Predator fluffs everything as well. 1 glance goes through in the end. Scouts pop another 2 Guardians. Sternguard shoots the guardians, no casualties on my side. Awesomely lucky again.
Assault: Mephiston charges the serpent and with Str 10 he instagibbs it with 3 or 4 pens, it explodes. Guardian squad takes 1 casualty, Mephiston and Venom are both ok. Assault Marines charge Archon raider. 20+ attacks with furious charge of course pop the raider. No explosion tho.
 

 
T4 DE: Guide on ravager. Movement: Archon stays put to kill assault marines. Warriors squads move closer to Mephiston. Farseer de-attach himself from Guardians to save himself. Guardians spread out to block charge paths on everything. Ravager move forward and slightly towards his deployment to be able to hit the Predator and grab linebreaker. Splinterbornes move back behind guardians.
Shooting: Ravager pops the remaining predator with ease. Splinterbornes open up on Mephiston. crap dice, the few hits that go through is saved. Farseer fluff both psychic powers. Guardians shoot with platform, miss. Shuriken. 6 guardians left, 12 shots, 8 hits. 2 sixes. Bladestorm! Huzzah. The big scary guy is dead! 1 warrior squad cannot shoot, the other shoots at the last stern guard, only cannon in range, dead. LFG kill 2 assault marines despite a nice 2 on the AP roll.
Assault: Archon and grots charge assault marines. He challenges with his sergeant. I accept with aberration. Archon fails miserably only managing 1 kill. I win the duel and my grots kill 1 more. 6 down, 4 to go.
 

 
T5 BA: Movement: Assault marines that are not yet in combat move forward to assault guardians.
Shooting: Assault marines shoot first killing 2 i think. Somehow they fail their 6 inch charge. Overwatch does nothing. Scouts does nothing.
Assault: Archon and grots wipe the rest of the squad. They are now fearless. I take one wound on the aberration. They consolidate 6 towards assault marines. Lucky dice!
 

 
T5 DE: Guide is failed on ravager again. Movement: Ravager moves further up to be able to shoot at scouts. As does splinterbornes. Archon and grots move towards assault marines for an easy charge.
Shooting: All warriors open up on assault marines but shooting is largely ineffective only killing 1. LFG from grots does nothing. Ravager fires at scouts 2 hits, they go to ground, no save made and the Scout is now very lonely. As start shooting with my splinterbornes it is clear that i messed up. No LOS. I shoot at assault marines instead. Poor rolls, only 4 wounds from 24 shots and he makes all saves.
Assault: Archon assault. His Sergeant challenges, aberration accept again. I kill 2 with archon, another 1 with grots and duel is a slapfest.
 

 
We roll and game goes into T6. (I didn’t count here but I think the score was 8-7, 2 raiders, serpent, ravager and a venom + Linebreaker and first blood vs Sternguard, 2x Predator, Land raider, Mephiston, Assault Marines, Razorback + warlord +), i was soo eager to win the game i forgot to move my ravager into deployment zone. It’s parked just outside...
 
T6 BA: Scout shoots does nothing. Assault is ongoing, general slapfest but marines are down to sergeant and priest.
 
T6 DE: Movement: Splinterbornes move to get LOS on scout but in the end it was not needed. Ravager kills him. Archon kills the priest and aberration/sergeant kill eachother.
 
Game is over. I tabled him end of 6.
 

 
These two games puzzle me. I don’t really get how I am winning “so convincingly” (close game today at t5 simply because purge the alien). It doesn’t feel like a 1500 vs 1500 game, it feels like 1500 vs 1000 or something like this. If this is because I am a lucky lucky git, his list being fairly poor or just a very beneficial match up. Since he doesn’t have a whole lot of shooting and still deploy fairly passively it really does feel like I am allowed to dictate the game, even when I make poor decisions I still never lose control of the game. In this last game I had stints of amazing lucky saves which could explain a lot I suppose.
 
C&C is appreciated. Thanks

Edited

All in all, that was great report, I like how you managed to keep the archon and co in the game after their raider was trashed. You played it very well, however there were a couple of mistakes.
Firstly, I believe you have to declare that you are using the shield on your serpent at the beggining of the shooting phase, meaning that if even you manage to destroy your target with a laserlock weapon per say as in your case with the Razorback, then that pen you received in the next turn would have still stayed a pen.
There is one other thing. I believe if you had place the archon's raider at the back rather than out front in your opponents sights then you could have mitigated his shooting against it completely. I realise that being up front is gives you more distance when you turboboost, however I think keeping it protect may have saved you some trouble.
Blood Angels are assault orientated so the inches you lose when keeping your archon's raider hidden will be closed when he comes to you. He wants to be close with his assault marines and so do you with your archon, just hide patiently at the back for turn one then strike out in turn two.

Other than that you are mistake free.

I do have one question though.

How did your opponents Razorback claim cover from serpent with the guardians? Vehicles need to be at least 25% obscured to gain cover (unless a moving Skimmer). Vehicles do not gain cover from the presense of intervening units unless they are well obscured by them and the scatter laser on the serpent is much higher than a line of guardians plus the shield ignores cover.

Those are just my thoughts.

I like your reports alot and thank you for sharing an excellent battle

Thanks for the kind words.

The serpent shield things: I forgot about the ignore cover T1 (DOH!) and I was not aware of the declaring part of it, I will have to re-read the codex/faq. As for the intervening units, i proxied the serpent as mine isn't finished building. The tank I was using was intervened and we played it as intervened as he was nice enough to let me proxy the serpent. I will however read up regarding intervening units and cover saves.

You are 100% correct regarding Archon raider and I drew the same conclusion myself when writing this up. Hindsight :/. I messed up with distancing as i got greedy during deployment, not factoring in searchlights and his threat range. If i wanted the extra inch i should have deployed the wych venom to give cover and at least force him to chose a 5++ flickerfield or a 5+ coversave.

Thanks for the feedback and food for thought!

Ok, the serpent thing makes sense now  

It does not actually say that you do have to declare it, but I normally do to avoid mix ups with my opponents about whether the shield is down or not.

I find that premeasuring the threat ranges of my opponents weapons is an extremely sound strategy, keep in mind that you need to factor in the units movement into the equation for example, a tau fire warrior is ranged 30' but with a six inch movement through open ground or a potential six inch terrain move then that squad actually has 36' range on any turn it moves. I always factor in the movements and deploy accordingly. I find night shields are brilliant for deployment shenanigans and are your best friend against longer range weapons such as lascannons and most of the time my opponents find it frustrating when they realise they should have moved that triple las predator!