TenderToes BR2: Dark Eldar VS Chaos Space Marines - 1500pts

So I played another game last saturday, and made a report, I figured I might aswell post in the comments here to avoid spamming this subforum with my silly games! Anyway here's the report! Enjoy!

Mission: Big Guns Never Tire
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
# Objectives: 4
First Turn Nightfighting: Yes
Points: 1500

First Turn: Dark Eldar!

Mysterious objectives and terrain were ignored, we are lazy.



Terrain:
We used the rules for setting up terrain from the rulebook, and somehow I ended up with all line of sight blockers in my deployment zone, guess he didn't want any... oh well. Again we played on a 8 by 5 table and all terrain is either bits of paper, books or rolls of toilet paper. The convention is the same as in my previous report, tile are line of sight blockers, forests are forests, ruins are (~3" high books) ruins, logos are objectives. The book used this time was Medical Physiology by Boron, as it's not my field I haven't read it, so can't recommend or whatever the opposite of recommend is.


My list is slightly updated (as I bought a Venom) and this time I played my Avatar-obsessed Chaos friend, so once again: LISTS!

Kabal of the Tender Toes (DE/E)
Main Detachment,
HQ: (A) Archon (Huskblade, Combat Drugs, Shadowfield, Haywire Grenades, Phantasm Grenade Launcher) - 'Ghost-plate Killah'
Troops: (W) Wyches (5, Haywire Grenades)
-> DT: (VW1) Venom (SC)
Troops: (KW) Kabalite Warriors (10, Splinter Cannon)
-> DT: (RW) Raider (Nightshields)
Elites: (G) Grotesque (4, Liquifier Gun, Aberration w/ Scissorhand) - 'Aberration RZA is joined by his friends Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man and Masta Killa'
-> DT: (RG) Raider
Elites: (KT) Kabalite Trueborn (4, 4x Blaster)
-> DT: (VTB) Venom (SC)

Allied Detachment,
HQ: (AoK) The Avatar of Khain (Fast Shot)
Troops: (DA) Dire Avengers (10, Exarch w/ Powersword+Shimmershield)
-> DT: (WS2) Wave Serpent (Scatter Laser, Holo-fields)
Fast: (WS1) Warp Spiders (5, Exarch w/ Spinneret Rifle & Fast Shot)

Warlord Trait: Divide to Conquer (-1 to opponents reserve rolls)
Combat Drugs: Splintermind


Slaaneshian Chaos Space Marines
HQ (WL): Chaos Lord (Mark of Slaanesh, Steed of Slaanesh, The Murder Sword, Burning Brand of Skalathrax)
HQ: Daemon Prince (Daemon of Slaanesh, Power Armour, Wings, The Black Mace)
Troops: Noise Marines (5, Blastmaster)
Troops: Noise Marines (5, Blastmaster)
Troops: Noise Marines (10, Icon of Excess, 9x extra CCW, Doomsiren, Powersword, Meltabombs)
->DT: Rhino
Troops: Chaos Cultists (20, Flamer, Heavy Stubber, 8x Autogun)
Elites: Helbrute (Heavy Flamer)
Fast: Chaos Spawn (3)
Heavy: Defiler (Warpflame Gargoyles)

Warlord Trait: Flames of Spite (CSM special table, warlord has Soul Blaze)

The Eldar fight against their nemesis start now!



Deployment:
I put my 2 objectives on his half of the table which I think sort of threw him, he seemed really confused when deploying and placing his own. He placed his objectives far back as his blastmaster squads and defiler hardly want to move and are all scoring. Anyway, I made sure all my more fragile vehicles were behind the LOS blockers incase I get siezed, the only vehicle visible was the Wave Serpent but that's unlikely to go down in one turn with nightfighting. He put his melee units right at his deployment line and the Helbrute and Daemon Prince out of line of sight behind the ruins of a giant book. The Chaos Lord puts the Murder rule on the Avatar and join the Chaos Spawn hoping to outflank my forces at a later stage, my Archon joins his BFFs the Grotesques. My friend despite having any chance of doing anything tries to sieze, why do people do this?! If there is nothing to shoot or charge or do anything to why try to sieze, why not wait for the defensive formation to be broken up?



DE turn 1:
My Warrior-Raider moves up very conservatively making sure the warriors get to fire at full BS and still being outside of Vector Striking range of the Daemon Prince, knowing my friend will be very aggressive with his Prince my warpspiders stay back hoping to ground it next turn. My Grotesque-Raider and Avatar move forward as far as possible hoping to get in melee quickly. My other transports carefully move up staying out of nightvision range of the Defiler and back Blastmaster Squad while being able to shoot the front one.

The two dark lances make up for last game by blowing up the Rhino, no marines were hurt, but a few Cultists die. The two Venoms team up with the Wave Serpent firing its shield to wipe out the front Blastmaster squad, First Blood to the Dark Eldar!



CSM turn 1:
Just as I thought my friend flew his Prince forward a whole 24" not vector striking anything and is now stranded next to a lot of firepower. The Defiler move forward to be within 'night sight' of my Wave Serpent, the Helbrute does the same but is barely out of range, my friend really hates Wave Serpents for some reason. His melee squads move up, with the apperently Fearless Noise Marines hiding behind the Cultists.

My friend's shooting phases tend to be rather uneventful, however alot of autogun and bolter fire take 2 wounds off of the Avatar and the Defiler manages to get a unsaved pen through on the Wave Serpent immobilizing it.



DE turn 2:
As I felt my friend had fallen into my devious plan I manouver the Venoms within line of sight of the Daemon Prince, the Warp Spiders warpjump across the Blos terrain and the Warrior Raider make sure they can fire at full BS and are within rapid fire range while slowly making its way towards the closest objective. The Wu Tang Clan disembark and move uptogether with the Avatar to face the chaos melee squads head-on. Suprisingly my immobilized Wave Serpent doesn't move, who would have thought!

Onto the diabolical plan! As planned the Warp Spiders ground the Daemon Prince putting a wound onto him in the process, almost 50 splinter shoots later Slaanesh's chosen Prince falls. The Lances keep up the theme of outdoing themselves compared to last game and the Grotesque raider manages to glance the helbrute putting a crazed token on him. The Wave Serpent does nothing when trying to fire at the Defiler. An ap6 liquifier does nothing to the noise marines.

Assault phase begins with the Clan charging the Noise Marines and Cultists putting the Archon and Aberration with the Cultists and the rest with the marines, the Avatar goes rawr and charges the Cultists. As suprised no one the Cultists get demolished and then sweept by the Avatar when trying to run, run little girls! The Noise Marines squad are left mostly unharmed. The Warp spiders jump a whole 2" away from the side expecting the outflankers.



CSM turn 2:
The helbrute goes full retard and has to run towards and try to charge the Grotesque raider, so that is exactly what it tries to do. Outflanking forces arrive and come in next to the warp spiders, despite having murder on the Avatar and being nowhere near anything to charge later.

My friend's blastmasters keep doing what they normally do and accoplish nothing! However the Defiler shaves another hullpoint of the Wave Serpent and manages to immobilize the Venom next to it, rude :<. The burning brand pays for itself and then some by mowing down 3 warp spiders who pass their moral test.

In the assault phase an already wounded grotesque dies while the Archon slays the Champion, another marine death leaves combat tied.



DE turn 3:
My remaining warp spiders move in for, dice-god willing, a last hurra at the Spawns, the Warriors stay in placing loving that heavy 6 and rapid fire. The Dire Avengers leave their immobilized transport moving into firing range of the Spawns.

Warp spiders keep going above and beyond duty putting 5 (so all their shots fired hit and wounded) wounds into the spawns. The Dire Avengers and Kabalite Warriors team up and wipe the last spawns and my friend's warlord off of the table. The Avatar together with my Blasterborn fell the Helbrute. My raiders keep up their very much appriciated habit of being awesome this game and blow the defiler up. The last of my friend's unengaged noise marines die to some venom fire, those 3+ really aren't working out all too well for my friend.

The Chaos forces get tabled in melee by the Clan!

End Score: DE 4 VP (Firstblood, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord, 1 Heavykill) - vs - CSM 0 VP
Another completly crushing victory for the Kabal of Tender Toes!

This unlike my first game felt more like planning and target priority won me the game rather than poor rolling on behalf my opponent. I'm really in love with the Venoms, holy hell they are amazing! My wyches didn't contribute much, but they couldn't really have as I felt I couldn't really charge his walkers since all of them had a heavy flamer and loosing 3 in overwatch is a very real possibility, if the game hadn't gone as much my way the plan was to swoop in on his backlines and contest the back objective but an immobilized venom aint going nowhere, but with my darklight weapons behaving themselves it wasn't really a problem.

Personally I don't like my friend's list much, 125pts for a blastmaster to sit way back and fire 1 admittedly good blast every turn just doesn't feel... worth it, and I'm not entirely convinced by the 'melee' noise marines either.

We tried swapping lists and playing another game, that was a lot closer ending 4-3 in his favour but I made a huge mistake and lost myself linebreaker by leaving his deployment zone for no reason the last turn. When I used the daemon prince I played him a lot more carefully and I feel my friend usually throws his away by flying straight into entire gunlines hoping to survive, my devious plan turn 2 was a pretty safe bet as he has done this or something similiar every game I've seen him use it. The spawns are there since I recommended he try them (they were proxied using terminators) but I felt outflanking them isn't really a good idea as you spend atleast a HQ slot and a lot of points for it, when I used his list I kept them in cover and on the table from the start and they performed much, MUCH better. I don't feel his loadouts on certain things (especially the Lord) are that good either. I guess I don't like his list at all pretty much.

After we had tried each other's lists we went back to our own and played another game (Emperor's Will), on the back of some amazing armour saves on his part (10+ saves on a single marine) the tabling was delayed to turn 5 but in turn I scored 9 points to his 0.

I still don't like the Avatar much...

Once again I feel like quoting Christopher Walken because he is awesome, this time however the quote is perhaps... less related. "Then he died of dysentery"

TotingTenderToes wrote:

So I played another game last saturday, and made a report, I figured I might aswell post in the comments here to avoid spamming this subforum with my silly games! Anyway here's the report! Enjoy!

Split this into it's own thread, makes it easier to index these reports for the sticky. It doesn't matter what experience level you think you are, these reports help players old and new!

Added this one to the sticky as well. I'll post tactical feedback for both reports, when I have a bit more time on my hands.

Mushkilla wrote:

... makes it easier to index these reports for the sticky. It doesn't matter what experience level you think you are, these reports help players old and new!

Ah sorry, sort of missed your comment in the other thread, but thanks a lot!

Mushkilla wrote:

Added this one to the sticky as well. I'll post tactical feedback for both reports, when I have a bit more time on my hands.

That'd be much appriciated, I feel my grasp on events are still a bit... loose.

TotingTenderToes wrote:

When I used the daemon prince I played him a lot more carefully and I feel my friend usually throws his away by flying straight into entire gunlines hoping to survive, my devious plan turn 2 was a pretty safe bet as he has done this or something similiar every game I've seen him use it.

This must be a Chaos player thing, as my Chaos playing friend has done it practically every time he's used it in 6th. They stand a good chance of drawing a lot of fire, but they're so potentially destructive with weapons like the Black Mace and the Murder Sword that they just aren't worth using as a fire magnet (to my mind anyway). Exposing them to as few squads as possible and leapfrogging round the board from combat to combat must be the better option...

Good game anyway, pleased to see lances work for you this time! I think the Avatar brings more to a list that has Eldar as the primary detachment, as his fearless bubble is more useful, but the Wailing Doom is welcome in any list! He's not bad, but he's not the best HQ in terms of utility. A Farseer is a great force multiplier, as well as being cheaper than the Avatar even if he's mounted on a jetbike. Spiritseers are also cost effective ways to get some useful psychic abilities, particularly on squads that wouldn't be able to have Runes of Battle powers cast on them normally, such as Dire Avengers.

Congratulations on another crushing win!

I'm with you, TotingTenderToes; I don't like his list at all. My first army, and the one I've got more experience and success with, is CSM.

Things I'd change due to learned experience, maybe you could pass this off to him?
Murder sword -> anything else. A regular Power Sword does better and costs less. It's too easy for someone to play keep-away after you've declared your target. BBoS, though, is basically always worth the points.
The Daemon Prince is solid, but as you mentioned his tactics are way off. Hop-skotch match of death is a DP's key to victory.
Cultists are cultists, no problem there.
Helbrute is decent with flamers, but takes too long to get anywhere. I've had much more success fielding it as a ranged platform, with either Plasma Cannon or TL-LC, and missile launcher. It can fire and move every round due to walker, then eventually smash face when it needs to or just be scary.
Chaos Spawn are great always, especially when with a mounted Lord. Again you have the right of it; why would anyone ever start a CC unit that has 12" move and move through cover in reserves, delaying it's assault until at least T3?
As far as the noise marines go; Personally, I've had much more success fielding sonic blasters than just blast masters. The CC squad is solid if delivered properly, but those blobs of 5 are def not worth sitting in the back. Bolters with salvo 2/3 & ignores cover DESTROYS xenos. Blastmasters are great, but so price it isn't always worth it.

Now, in regards to your side of the match as DE... Pretty much just going to say props on an execution well-executed. I've learned a few things from your commentary, pics, and gameplay, so thanks for posting the bat rep!

More than anything else is shows how an experienced player can easily table an inexperienced player. This not made as a slap. I think you are just too good a player for your opponent who made a lot of poor decisions in the match. So nice to see someone playing the Avatar (although a farseer would be better, no?). Still, you played quite well with him. Enjoyed the report.