1750 pts versus thousand sons

So I went to my local club last night expecting a 1750 pts game against sisters + imperial fists.. However the guy had dropped his sisters which were now in need of repair so he played thousand sons instead, which unfortunately involved a hel-turkey :/

I've got a few picture but sadly forgot to take them in the middle few turns... so will be bullet points and appropriate pictures for each turn if I have them!

Briefly the armies:

DE:

Baron + 13 hellions + helliarch

Archon with VB Aggie SF and PGL - 6 Hellions + Klaivex with demi-klaives (these are important!)

6 reavers + heat lance + cluster caltrops

10 warriors with splinter cannon with DL raider with flickerfield

5 haywyches in venom - two of these

2 lanceborn + 3rd member

3 blasterborn in venom

trip diss ravager

Talos with splinter C and TL liquifier


Thousand Sons:

Sorcerer Lord person - murder sword centred on my Archon
Squad of 15 marines inc sorcerer and banner bearer

Squad of 10 marines inc sorcerer

Squad of 5 marines

2 Obliterators

2 Vindicators

Forgeworld desolation engine thing

HELLTURKEY!

We played Big Guns Never tire with 3 objectoves in centre and middle left and upper right as you look at it in the first picture - vanguard strike deployment, Night fighting on first turn and i wad going second failed to seize!









I had my Hellions and reavers in reserve and the 2 larger squads of his infiltrated...

FIRST TURN:

In his first turn:

-Vindicators glanced a point from 1 venom
-Decimator took 1 lanceborn out
-Talos absorbs a huge amount of fire and lost only 1 wound!

In my first turn:

-Talos and ravager took a few causalties from large squad with Talos failing charge
-Venom took one wound off an obliterator with its blasterborn taking 1 hull point off a vindicator
-Incubi ran behind its raider as cover heading towards large blob of marines and behind cover
-Turbo'd one wych venom across table...


(1 lance gone...)


(Talos shoots itself out of charge range)


(Suicide wyches!)


SECOND TURN - sadly no pictures for this one!

His Second turn:

-Heldrake comes on and vector strikes a venom but FF saves all! Then baleflames my lanceborn to dust...
-Vindicators nukes my large warrior squad who then run off rest of match also destroys blasterborn venom taking one blasterborn out but squad aren't pinned. PHEW!
-5 marines and obliterators hug the turbo'd wych venom and destroy it but it explodes taking one obliterator out, a wound off the other and 3 marines! 125 points of suicide took 120 points out! Huzzah!!
-Talos saves all wound in shooting then takes 3 out in CC before succumbing

My Second turn:

-Reavers come on and turbo over warlord taking 3 out of his squad
-Hellions come on and take out another 4 with there shooting
-Ravager covers hellions from squad of ten marines and takes a couple out of it in shooting
-Wych venom moves up and they dismount ready to assault next turn
-Incubi raider hop behind them to pop a shot at vindicators but nothing going
-Incubi assault warlords squad - sorcerer with murder sword challenges as has too and Klaivex accepts for archon - takes one wound of sorcerer and only 2 of rest of squad remain


THIRD TURN

His third turn:

-Heldrake vector strikes incubi raider to pieces and baleflames a large chunk of hellions who pass Ld test
-Ravager survives shooting but wrecked in assault
-1 vindicator takes out 2 reavers and the other wrecks wych venom
-Decimator charges raider but does naff all with FF saving everything!

My third turn:

-Wychs assault decimator and lose all but one to overwatch :(with the thrown haywire and haywire attack taking 2 hull points off!
-Incubi Polish of warlord squad and consolidate as far part as possible with klaivex and archon in best cover
-Hellions assault second squad with baron accepting challenge lose combat by 1 but hold
-Reavers move up and snapshot at heldrake with heat lance,, I roll.... 5! Booooo


(raider wrecked)


(challenge locked!)


(not many hellions left...)


(SLAY THE WARLORD! woooo oh my god that bird is looking at us HIIIDDDE!)

FOURTH TURN

His fourth turn:

-Heldrake hovers and blasts incubi but only 2 die!
-Decimator destroys raider and wych - consolidates with eyes on blasterborn + recovers a hull point
-2 marines from 5 man squad hug an objective
-Baron wins challenge but has lost shadowfield and only 2 marines left to fight in that squad
-Reavers hoot obliterator and do nowt - charge and lose all but one on overwatch, one wound done but he stays...
-NOW - the incubi and archon charge the hovering heldrake - klaivex takes + 2 strength on demiklaives - hits! Rolls a 6! PENETRATES! aaannnnddd rolls a motherfudging 6!!! Explosion! Takes out another incubi but Heldrake is gone!


(mmmmm objective)


(What bird? Did you see a bird anywhere   )

FIFTH TURN

His fifth turn:

-Decimator kills blasterborn
-Vindicators kill Archon and incubi
-Reaver gets mulched
-Hellion combate is a draw

My Fifth Turn:

-Hellions win combat and consolidate on objective!

Roll for end and it does!


(now you see them)


(now you don't)


(just falling short of middle objective)


(hugging it like a hugging thing)

So this ended up with both of us having an objective and slay the warlord but he had first blood so:

Thousand Sons: 5

Dark Eldar: 4

A narrow defeat!

I could have played smarter and I rolled a 1 for the 2 Shadowfield saves I had to make with one being instant death for the archon

I didn't focus fire anywhere near enough forgot to shoot the odd squad and should have just hid with reavers to nick linebreakers

But having faced IG, Tau, Eldar and Thousands sons and this being my first defeat after a draw win win streak and a narrow one at that I am very happy!

Comments welcome (sorry the pictures aren't great!)

Dragon

Early on you said that your FF saved your venom from the drakes vector strike, doesn't VS ignore cover?

Also, I'm sure in turn 2 your incubi were in combat with his warlord unit and the drake VS 'to dust'
Can the drake do that against a unit in combat? Or have I just read it wrong?
Apologies if I have, but have been playing against a drake and wondering about ways to counter it?!

Apologies, just read the raider part, regarding the vector strike!

Sorry

No worries! Thanks for reading!

All the vehicles have flickerfields so always got that 5+ to fall back on!

The incubi raider gets pummeled by the in turn 3 but the incubi are safe in combat. I don't think I've written turn two wrong as I read it..

I wan't expecting this army, otherwise I would have brought a razorwing and void raven instead of the talos, ravager and a squad of wych..

Oh well!

No it was my mistake, just read the incubi bit wrong, was reasonably sure the FF save counted as a cover save though. Can anyone else shed any light?

Its an invulnerable save so shouldn't be discounted.. Otherwise be no incentive for it I would have thought...

Might be wrong though!!!

EDIT: This seems to cover the question Lord P

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t7277-have-i-and-everyone-i-know-been-playing-ignores-cover-saves-wrong

Yeah, having read around, you are correct, I played against CSM last night and something similar came up and I think I have been getting jink (cover save) mixed up with FF.

Great read though!!

Good report, and what a beautiful gaming table!

Any battle when you roast a turkey is a win, especially if you do it on foot!

Did you find yourself short of darklight/AT?

@CommanderSasha - Thanks! My local club has some amazing tables, sadly its closing down for 7 months for serious building works so that'll be a dry spell :/ glad you enjoyed the report!

@lcfr - I think I was short darklight, partly that I would normally have a flyer with 2 extra lances but I think I could have done with another lanceborn squad too.

A big part of my problem was not focus firing all my lances at one target, I was intimidated by the decimator which actually wasn't that bad and wasted time on him when all the dark lance that went into him and the wyches that assaulted him should have gone for the vindicators instead.

The majority of my army was taken out by the vindicators and the heldrake.

Lesson learned hopefully!

Nice match, looks like you know exactly how to improve to beat him next time!
Too bad aboutt your intel regarding what you were supposed to be facing   

D'you remember which weapons the Decimator was equipped with?

Quick question, did you give your archon a shadowfield? As I don't think you can take two in one dark eldar detachment (one per army) unless you took two detachments to get around that o.o

Dodo_Night wrote:

Quick question, did you give your archon a shadowfield?  As I don't think you can take two in one dark eldar detachment (one per army)  unless you took two detachments to get around that o.o

No, it's fine. You just can't give a model both a Clone Field and a Shadow Field. It's one or the other.

Beautiful table!

Quick question - on turn one you said his Vindicators glanced a Venom. Vindi's are S10 so they auto-pen our AV10 Venoms. Unless it had a combi-bolter and used that instead I suppose?

@Count - yeah it was a twinlinked combi bolter, should have probably added that detail but didn't take enough notes or pictures as usual!

As much as I would like to claim great tactical skill in coming close to a draw (damn shadowfield saves!) he had absolutely torrid luck with his blast weaponry with the vast majority missing me.

Incidentally I have a 1750 3 game warm up tournament at this club a week on saturday, they will all be very competitive player (24 in total) so will have to post a thread up about that and hopefully you shall see more of their lovely tables

Count Adhemar wrote:

Dodo_Night wrote:

Quick question, did you give your archon a shadowfield?  As I don't think you can take two in one dark eldar detachment (one per army)  unless you took two detachments to get around that o.o

No, it's fine. You just can't give a model both a Clone Field and a Shadow Field. It's one or the other.

aaaah yes, you are right. I'm getting confused with our old codex xD cheers ^^