1500 points - Dark Eldar VS Nurgle Daemons

Hey Everybody.
I just made the battle report tool work, so now you guys get to act as ginneypigs. C&C appreciated

The Armies

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Dark Eldar CAD
HQ1: Succubus w. Archite Glaive (S)
T1: 5 kabalite Warriors w. blaster, in Transport 1 (KW1)
T2: 5 kabalite Warriors w. blaster, in Transport 2 (KW2)
E1: 4 grotesque w. aberration, in Transport 3 (G)
FA1: Razorwing Jetfighter w. 4 shatterfield missiles, dark lances (RW1)
FA2: Razorwing Jetfighter w. dark lances (RW2)
HS1: Ravager w. 3 dark lances (R1)
HS2: Ravager w. 3 dark lances (R2)
HS3: Ravager w. 3 dark lances (R3)
Transport1: Venom w. splinter cannon (V1)
Transport2: Venom w. splinter cannon (V2)
Transport3: Raider mw dark lance, enhanced aethersails, night shields

Scalpel Squadron Formation
E1: 5 Wracks w. liquifier gun, in Transport 1 (W1)
E2: 5 Wracks w. liquifier gun, in Transport 2 (W2)
Transport1: Venom w. splinter cannon (V3)
Transport2: Venom w. splinter cannon (V4)

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Nurgle Daemons CAD (from memory)
HQ1: Great Unclean One w. exalted reward (regain wounds in melee), level 3 psyker (2 Nurgle powers, Endurance) (GUO)
HQ2: Herald of Nurgle w. greater reward (sword) (H)
HQ3: Epidemius (E)
T1: 10 plaguebearers w. champion (sword) (P1)
T2: 10 plaguebearers w. champion (sword) (P2)
T3: 20 plaguebearers w. champion (sword) og musician (P3)
T4: 6 nurglings (N)
FA1: 5 beasts of Nurgle (BoN)
HS1: Soulgrinder of Nurgle, Pflehm cannon (S)

The Mission:

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Deployment: Vanguard Strike
-Kill Points: The difference in kill points is awarded to the player with the most kill points. Max 8.
-The player with most points represented in a quarter at the end of the game scores 2 points for each quarter.
-Heavy Support units completely destroyed give 1 point each.
-Line Breaker, First Blood, Slay the Warlord

Nurgle Daemons win the roll to deploy first, and choose to give DE first turn.

Deployment

2 x 10 plaguebearers, and the Beasts, deploy behind ruins for a mostly 2+ coversave. DE deploy everything but the Scalpel Squadron to get the best line of sight. The Nurglings Infiltrate, and the remaining Daemons Deep Strike.

Dark Eldar - Turn 1

The Scalpel Squadron deep strikes. One Venom misshaps over the board edge, and Nurgle puts it right in the middle of his units, covering a gap in the cover from shooting. The other Venom only scatter a little. Onwards to shooting!
The misshapped Venom boosts away, and the rest kills 2 plaguebearers from one unit, 8 plaguebearers from the other, 2 nurglings and puts a wound on a Beast. But no First Blood.
DE 0-0 NU

Nurgle - Turn 1

The two surviving plaguebearers tactically head straight for the cover of a remote forest. The rest move foreward into the ruin, but 5 plaguebearers don't quite make it in.
The Storm yields -1 to Invulnerability saves. Unfortunately every single one of the have at least 5+ cover anyway.
DE 0-0 NU

Dark Eldar - Turn 2

The first Razorwing enters and aim 4 missiles at the plaguebearers, but is a fairly poor shot. Still, it kills all the plaguebearers trapped outside the ruin. DE dedicate a single Venom to the two running plaguebearers for an easy first blood. 12 shots, 5 hits, 0 wounds No first blood.... The remaining army don't make any wounds stick at all.
DE 0-0 NU

Nurgle - Turn 2

All reserves enter. Epidemius and his large unit of plaguebearers scatter into the river, and 5 of the drown The Soulgrinder scatter perfectly into a forest for a 3+ coversave. He is a happy Grinder GUO hits smack in the front of all my vehicles, and immediately cast Endurance on himself.
The Storms changes its mind and yields +1 Invulnerability this turn. Grinder hits a Ravager for a stun, making it impossible to escape the GUO next turn.
The Beasts succeed a 10" charge to a Venom, whom had poked it's nose a bit too far ahead. First blood and a kill point for Nurgle.
DE 0-2 NU

Dark Eldar - Turn 3

Grots disembark for a charge on the BEasts. Succubus remain behind to get them Rampage. Quite stupid considering you're always charging disordered against Nurgle Daemons. I'd forgotten that, though.
The remaining Flyer enters and aim everything at Epidemius, since he's standing in a nice, tight circle. The missiles yield 41 hits, and poison takes care of the survivors. the 4+ invulnerability save almost helped them survive. Combined might of lances wiped the smirk from the grinder and took him down. Heavy kill.
I really screwed up in the assault phase, charging the Beasts through terrain (my own dead Venom), getting initiative 1. 3 grots died, and the last one fled without causing a wound.
DE 5-2 NU

Nurgle - Turn 3

The storm turns out a 5, rerolled to a 7 with warlord trait. So nothing.
GUO charges and kills the stunned Ravager. Heavy kill! The Beasts multicharge Wracks and a Venom, but only succeed in killing one wrack. Nurglings and plaguebearers charge the other wracks, killing one. The wracks win the fight with a large margin, killing two entire bases of nurglings. Both units sign off with a double 1 on their Instability rolls. What a waste of good attacks
DE 5-4 NU

Dark Eldar - Turn 4

The last grot keeps running. He's almost at the border, but will be Fearless next turn. The Succubus disembark to keep him company.
GUO is the only worthwhile shooting target, so he succumbs to combined poison/lances. Yay warlord kill.
Wracks stick in there, but are thinning their ranks.
DE 7-4 NU

Nurgle - Turn 4

The Storm once again reduces invulnerability by one.
The BEasts finally kills their wracks, but doesn't consolidate enough to get into cover.
DE 7-5 NU

Dark Eldar - Turn 5

One Venom move towards the remaining plaguebearers. The rest unleash on the Beasts. Two survive.
Kabalite Warriors charge into the Nurglings to help the last wrack. Not until later we remember that defensive grenades doesn't work when you're already engaged in combat. Doh. I lose the fight, but are fortunately Fearless now. The wrack and the plaguebearer kills eachother.
DE 8-6 NU

Nurgle - Turn 5

The Storm is a 6, and Father Nurgle himself shows up to evaporate a Razorwing in a cloud of rust. Is this Jinkable?
The two plagebearers charge the Venom to no effect. The Beasts succeed an 11" charge at the Succubus. No damage here either.
The battle continue.
DE 8-7 NU

Dark Eldar - Turn 6

All skimmers shuffle around to secure quarters, and the Venom kills the last plaguebearers.
The Nurglings win their combat, but cannot damage anything else, and cannot secure a quarter. The grot finally kills a Beast.
DE 9-8 NU

Nurgle - Turn 6

Close combat once more yields no wounds, and thus ends the fight.
In addition to the kill points already awarded, both armies have linebreaker, and the Dark Eldar get 8 points for controlling all 4 quarters.
DE 18-9 NU

Dark Eldar victory : 14-6 (ETC-style points).

Nice win, and nice maps. If you'd also snap a pic of the armies/deployment I'd give you an A+, just because I like pics

How did the Grots get wipped so bad, are the beasts of nurgle really that tough? Poor things!

What was your reason to equip one of the Razorwings with Shatterfield missles and the other not?

And lastly, normally I only see the Scalpel Squadron in null deployment lists - do you feel you still got their points worth deploying normally?

Grots got (almost) wiped because they went through terrain, allowing the beasts to strike first. They have 1d6+1 attacks each (turned out to be a 7, of course), with 4+ poison. And grots only have 6+ armor and 5+ FNP.

I equipped the shatterfield missiles because I had 20 points to spare, and I was curious to see if the rerolls to wound were better than AP5.

Scalpel Squadron is there to allow for Null Deployment if needed. I didn't know who I was going to play in advance. I figured in this case against Nurgle, I would benefit most from deploying everything, because he only had a single shooting attack on his deep strike.

Nice report, thanks for sharing! I see you have quickly mastered Battle Chronicler

Looks like it was all about turn 3. If only the Beasts had been considerate enough to explode the Venom, the Grots could have struck at initiative... although you didn't need them in the end. Well played!

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Looks like it was all about turn 3.

No, it was all about the lists.

That daemon list is probably the single most God awful list I've ever seen.

I have no idea how that daemon army was ever supposed to win vs. any army at all.

In which world does plague bearer spam win anything? They can't even beat cultists.

Only one single unit that has any kind of mobility.

No shooting, apart from one single grinder and maybe a psy power.

And to top it off Dark eldar are kinda the hard counter to daemons - especially nurgle as DE just giggle at their toughness.

This was no battle.