Dark Eldar/Eldar tournament recap

Played a 40k tournament this weekend and thought I’d share my thoughts pre tournament as an intro before doing some batreps afterwards. The schedule is 4 games Saturday and one game Sunday (pretty gruelling), but I’ll try my best to catch at least the important details of games.

My list is the following, and I will be facing of against a wide variety of ETC style lists from some of the best players in Sweden and Norway.

Dark Eldar Primary:
HQ:
Urien Rakarth 140p Warlord

Elite:
4 Grotesques 140p
Raider with Dark Lance, Enhanced Aethersails, Nightshields 80p

Troops:
5 Warriors 40p
Venom with extra splinter cannon 65p
5 Warriors 40p
Venom with extra splinter cannon 65p
5 Warriors 40p
Raider with Dark Lance & Nightshields 75p

Fast:
Venom with extra splinter cannon 65p
Venom with extra splinter cannon 65p

Heavy:
Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and Nightshields 140p
Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and Nightshields 140p

Eldar Allies:
HQ:
Farseer with Spirit Stone of Anath’lan 115p

Trrops:
5 Dire Avengers 65p
Wave Serpent  with Scatter lasers and holo-fields 135p
5 Dire Avengers 65p
Wave Serpent  with Scatter lasers and holo-fields 135p

Heavy:
Wraithknight 240p

Looking at the playerbase there 31 players joining, 7 are playing SM/SW or SW/SM variants with a lot of pods or wolf mount oriented among these. The other common one is Daemons with a bunch of Heralds Fatey, Screamers etc. 2 Lists with Adamantium Lance formation (I hope I don’t have to face these guys) and a decent mix otherwise. I will definitely be on the lower side, simply because I don’t play enough to be able to compete with many of these guys and their lists are generally better than mine. I tried to do as hard of a list with the models I had available right now. With this list I for instance think that Farseer, Grotesques and Urien could have been better used as Autarch and FIredragons with WWP Archon. To get some nice melta action going .

I will be trying for invisibility most of the time and if I am lucky to get it early I’ll try to get as many good “buffs” as possible. Ie grabbing prescience and possibly something from Runes of Fate.

Game 1. White Scars + Company of the Great Wolf
His list was something like this:
Kitted Captain on bike with Auspex
Librarian on bike (i think) with Auspex
5 squads of bikes with combi grav sarge and 2 gravguns
Thunderfire cannon
Wolf Lord with Fist, shield and runic armor
2 iron priests on thunderwolves
6 thunderwolf cavalry, fist + 3 shields

Mission: Marker 1-4 worth 2p each. Tactical objectives (max 8p difference), Kill points (max 4p difference). Warlord, First blood and Linebreaker 1p. Max 23 (20+ dif = 20-0, otherwise take the point dif and allocate 20p according to the dif (rounding down uneven numbers),. Ie you win 16-5, difference is 11, round it down to 10. You win 15-5.

I don’t get invis on my 3 rolls for it (won’t have much luck with invis all tournament) he however does with his first roll out of 2.
I get the side where I can deploy behind a losblocker and he gets first turn.

I have most of my army within range after deployment of his tfc after deployment and somehow I missed that wraithknight is barely visible ABOVE the losblocker. He rolls way above average on his rolls, I fail 6 out of 8 4+ coversaves and my knight is no more. TFC just puts a HP on my warlord raider (urien, farseer and grotesqus) are rocking here. His STR 10 wolf dudes are spread out across the line giving me few attractive charging targets. He gets invis through on his wolves who proceed to move very very close to my lines. I move up my grotesques towards his right flank. Deciding to try to block 2 bike units (sadly one str 10 wolf is also here) The raider they disembarked from goes hero mode and kills of his TFC with his one shot. The rest of my boats, 2 ravagers, 1 raider and 4 venoms tries to kill some bikes but he is saving like a god and I think I might get 1 squad down max. In CC grotesques swings wildly killing 2 bikes before his wolf priest or lord or whatnot goes heromode and kills 3 grotesques and urien. Farseer and remaining grotesque then proceed to flee and get swept. During t2 t3 he wipes me and by his t4 he just scuttles around maxing maelstrom for a quick and easy 20-0.

Thoughts after the game. T1 and invis made a big difference. Especially T1 as the invis just forced me to target something else besides his wolfpack Me giving away wraithknight essentially for free didn’t help. His list had so much str 10 in CC that my grotesques with Urien were in a situation where there was NO good targets except for the TFC which died t1 anyways. I should probably played completely different, hiding as much as possible close to my corner. Giving the TFC a field day would have been better. And I could have tried to survive to r5-6 and grab at least some points. Lesson learnt. I hope.

Game 1. White Scars + Company of the Great Wolf
His list was something like this:
Kitted Captain on bike with Auspex
Librarian on bike (i think) with Auspex
5 squads of bikes with combi grav sarge and 2 gravguns
Thunderfire cannon
Wolf Lord with Fist, shield and runic armor
2 iron priests on thunderwolves
6 thunderwolf cavalry, fist + 3 shields

Mission: Marker 1-4 worth 2p each. Tactical objectives (max 8p difference), Kill points (max 4p difference). Warlord, First blood and Linebreaker 1p. Max 23 (20+ dif = 20-0, otherwise take the point dif and allocate 20p according to the dif (rounding down uneven numbers),. Ie you win 16-5, difference is 11, round it down to 10. You win 15-5.

I don’t get invis on my 3 rolls for it (won’t have much luck with invis all tournament) he however does with his first roll out of 2.
I get the side where I can deploy behind a losblocker and he gets first turn.

I have most of my army within range after deployment of his tfc after deployment and somehow I missed that wraithknight is barely visible ABOVE the losblocker. He rolls way above average on his rolls, I fail 6 out of 8 4+ coversaves and my knight is no more. TFC just puts a HP on my warlord raider (urien, farseer and grotesqus) are rocking here. His STR 10 wolf dudes are spread out across the line giving me few attractive charging targets. He gets invis through on his wolves who proceed to move very very close to my lines. I move up my grotesques towards his right flank. Deciding to try to block 2 bike units (sadly one str 10 wolf is also here) The raider they disembarked from goes hero mode and kills of his TFC with his one shot. The rest of my boats, 2 ravagers, 1 raider and 4 venoms tries to kill some bikes but he is saving like a god and I think I might get 1 squad down max. In CC grotesques swings wildly killing 2 bikes before his wolf priest or lord or whatnot goes heromode and kills 3 grotesques and urien. Farseer and remaining grotesque then proceed to flee and get swept. During t2 t3 he wipes me and by his t4 he just scuttles around maxing maelstrom for a quick and easy 20-0.

Thoughts after the game. T1 and invis made a big difference. Especially T1 as the invis just forced me to target something else besides his wolfpack Me giving away wraithknight essentially for free didn’t help. His list had so much str 10 in CC that my grotesques with Urien were in a situation where there was NO good targets except for the TFC which died t1 anyways. I should probably played completely different, hiding as much as possible close to my corner. Giving the TFC a field day would have been better. And I could have tried to survive to r5-6 and grab at least some points. Lesson learnt. I hope.