I had been a hapless DE player for quite some time until I met you all at the Dark City. With all our helpful guides and opinion swapping over the years, I have become a better Archon. In fact, much to my amusement, I am the number one ranked DE player in my country. As flattering as that sounds, what it actually means is that few other people use DE in NZ at all, let alone in consecutive tournaments. Tempest 2015 turned out to easily be the best outing I have ever had with my DE.
The Tournament: 5x 1000 point missions in one day! Each mission combined victory conditions for winning Maelstrom (4 points), eternal war (3 points) and Tertiary objectives (a max of 3 points if the player nets First Blood).
Winning was only 65% of our final score, so I had to try and make my force look good, too. I have been running a brown/yellow scheme since I started the hobby and inspired by so many here, I had a go at redoing my very basically painted DE and incorporated highlights and blends. I made sure fiddly things like chains and spikes were painted. There is quite a way to go before I am of Evil Space Elf 's or Barking Agatha's standard, but I am still enjoying the journey. Above is a sample of one of my raiders, Kabalites and Trueborn.
As Maelstrom was important, I chose a list inspired by the likes of HERO, which was very shooty, very fast and replete with lots of failsafe redundancy.
Archon w/ WWP and blaster.
1x 5 Raider-riding Trueborn w/ 4blasters
4x 5 Raider-riding Kabalites w/ blaster.
2x Venoms w/ obigatory extra SC.
1x Dissie Ravager.
Playtesting in the 4 weeks prior to the tournament, I found the list to be very strong against SMs but I had 2 close losses to Orks and a foot Eldar horde of aspect warriors. What I had learned was to burn unlikely tactical objectives as quickly as possible and maximise my 36" range payload of dice.
Game 1 was supposed to be against Grey Knights, but the player was late, so I played against a Black Templar player instead. Great fella, his force was made up of :
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In a rare departure from most tournaments, the players could decide the placement of our 5 obectives. Recalling Mushkilla's sagely battle reports, my objectives were always placed in the open. This way I could avoid DT checks, jink if targetted and rain pain down on contesting units.
I won the deployment roll on a vanguard strike deployment for a combined mission of Cleanse and Control/Crusade. I positioned my DE in a refused flank formation covering all available firing lines.
Turn 1 I picked on the bikers and wittled them down to 2. My raiders jinked off incoming fire from the heavy weapon marine squads.
Archon WWP dropped right behind the Vindicator in Turn 2 and blew it up, then lurked backfield for the rest of the game, clinching linebreaker and upsetting a backfield lascanon squad for the loss of a raider and 2 trueborn. The rest of the units zipped and zapped, getting tactical objectives all over the show.
The BTs also got a fair few tactical objectives with some handy D3 rolls keeping the game tight. Vanguards and Chappy withstood 3 turns of DE shooting before succumbing to weight of dice and the laws of probability. The Templar bike and vanguard units caused the loss of 2 raiders on their journey, but my failsafe of "chicken pansy eldar" were constantly chipping away from 24-36", asking hard questions. Termies walked up the board but were left kind of stranded in no mans land with a ruin obscured dissie ravager aimed their way should they try and skirt from the cover they ran into. By turn 5, it was time to pack away our toys, 10-1 victory to the DE, which indicates the game was an easy win, but I felt both sides had incurred equal losses on each other at the end.
Game 2 against Slaneeshi Chaos Daemons
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The above image is a sample from a past tournament of what the Daemon player's force looks like. He won our local February tournament and I knew he was one sharp cookie on the tabletop. He consistently places top 5 in most events he enters. I am typically a bottom 3rd player. We had never played each other before.
Basically Mr Daemon's list consisted of 3 squads of 17 daemonettes, a soul grinder with a torrent flamer vomit weapon (how pleasant), a massive horde of seekers and the Grimoire of True Names. His army was fast and resilient but had virtually no shooting phase.
The second mission was COntact Lost/Emperor's will. Unless I held an objective, I ouldn't generate cards. I once again deployed in a refused flank, making my home in the corner of the board, DOW set up, after winning the roll off to go first. I pinned my hopes on a Soul Grinder kill with the Archon and his Trueborn retinue held in reserve.
The Daemon player toyed with the idea of mass rushing me but elected to deepstrike 2 squads of daemonettes, instead. A massive LOS blocking building, like a "swappa crate" beer box took up the centre of the table. It was so big, my DE couldn't even move and flat out to sit on top of it!
Turn 1, I filled the half visible Daemonettes full of holes from dissie, venom and raider fire, and drew cards that were advantageously all objectives that I could reach in ongoing turns on my side of the board. Mr Daemons had to come at me quickly as I had already got a handy lead on Maelstrom. His turn 1 was about reshuffling his line and running his units behind the big building so I couldn't chew more holes. Grimoire duffed the invulnerable save enhancement throw and instead hurt himself and reduced his unit of seekers to Inv save 6+. 1 raider got warp stormed to death and I gave up FB.
My turn 2 kicked off well with the Archon appearing right behind the Soul Grinder, just as planned. "No guts, no glory" I told Mr Daemon. "This will either work magnificently or fail gloriously." The dice rolled 3/4 hits for the Trueborn and Archon got his hit on a re-roll. All four hits deliver penetrating hits. I am smug. Mr Daemon replies with 2/4 5-up inv saves. GAAAHHH! I roll for damage. Funnily our eyes track to the 'one' I roll first, and Mr Daemon is very sportingly starting to utter "Oh, hard lu-" then the pause and exhale of "That'll do it..." My eyes dart about the board and there she is: bounced off a ruin, one glorious white dice beaming a "6" to the heavens. I ask my opponent to allow me a moment to celebrate this feat, I have never blown up a Soul-Grinder.
I knew the rest of my units could try and take advantage of this 6+ inv save situtation but now most of the Seekers were in 4+ ruins. Pointless to go towards them, I thought. They are plenty fast enough and will counter charge later with utter destruction. Play the game, I reminded myself, remember the lessons of the Dark City... So I focused on my Maelstom objectives and opened up a 7 point lead. Mr Daemon's conceded that he probably couldn't get me on that front anymore, but then proceeded to get 3+ inv saves for the rest of the game.
As it turns out, the Seekers were like the bastard child of a Red Bull and Usain Bolt. By turn 2 they had followed my kite of raiders and venoms and succeeded in a series of big multi-charges that pulled them a looong way across the board.
The seekers accounted for both venoms and 2 of my raiders by turn 4 but were down to about 4 left with the Grimoire on one wound as we hit turn 5. Mr Daemon had sown up the Crusade secondary objective with Daemonette squads sitting resolutely in ruins on both halves of the table, grabbing line breaker. We were tied 5 all, with my only hope of winning getting a slay the warlord point. The daemons were like a tsunami and my firepower was quite depleted. With my remaining dissie ravager, 2 squads of rapid firing warriors and trueborn, I pored everything into those seekers. 3+ inv saves were being passed left right and centre until probability played its part. With 2 more saves to make from my final throws, it was a hurdle just too far for the Grimoire and his unit and the DE emerged battered, yet victorious.
I was stunned. Getting one over Mr Daemons!? ME!? What a scalp! I was 2 from 2!
Game 3 Blood Angels
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Mr Blood Angels had travelled across Cook Strait to be at Tempest. His list was fast, jumpy and choppy. It included my favourite marine unit: a drop-pod command squad armed with flamers. The Primary mission was tactical escalation and secondary mission was the scouring.
Once again I won first turn and kept with what was working. Just as we were about to start, Mr BA throws a 6 to seize. OH DEAR!
The Drop Pod came down on one side, the side I didn't mind losing and thankfully only put 2 hull points on the raider, however the squad inside was as good as toast. A second raider also got torched but I only lost 2 in that squad and the raider was fine. FB went to Mr BA!
This start could have been a lot worse and I was thankful that my warlord or ravager hadn't been targetted, instead. My response was to reposition and turn all available guns toward the imminent threat of flamers and krak grenades. The command squad got newtered by a range of dissie, splinter cannon and darklight firepower and I had weapons left to offer pot shots at the rhino. Then I began to focus on the maelstrom cards and securing objectives. The Death Company and Sanguinary guard fanned out to pin me down, but I had too much speed and space to work with in the end and there were just too few of them. Time seemed to pass really quickly in this game and as I heard the umpire calling for last turn, I sped onto all available objectives. My one hull point raider accrued 3 points over the course of the game, other squads zipped here and there and stole points from objectives, making decisions tough for Mr BA.
In the end, my list with ObSec proved its worth over a fluffy marine formation like this. DE make life hell for marines, even the quick ones. I walked off with an 8-1 victory, making me 3/3 and damn near top of the table at the tournament.
Game 4 vs Space Wolves, The Spoils of War/Big Guns Never Tire
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Mr SW rocked up with an awesome display army of assault only Thunderwolf Cavalry, resplendent with 3+ invulnerable save storm shields, power weapon glory and the odd Cyberwolf for ablative wounds. We both knew we'd done well to get this far and make it onto the top tables. We traded battle stories, he'd just beaten out the Tau in the game before in a thrilling 1-point decider and he'd been 1 wound from being tabled.
He said he'd played against DE once prior to this tournament and was destroyed by them. I explained that my whole list was very shooty, I have no answers to assault so will either try to avoid it or kill it from range with poison 4+, S5 AP2 or S8 Ap2 lances. He listened as I explained what a Venom could do, what a dissie ravager could do, etc and by the end of my talk he joked: "Your army is going to do sick stuff to mine."
Once again I won first turn and set up objectives in open ground. Mr SW could have a career in stand-up with his running commentary as he denounced: "In the open!? Are you insane?" The Vanguard strike, refused flank was set. I was then seized for the second time in a row.
Mr SW had deployed everything in a lump diagonally opposite to me with a large Basilica Admin ruin between us. He opted to run and dash toward me in this tight formation and everything was in obscured cover 24" away at the end of his turn.
I needed to break this lump up and sent a raider unit of warriors away up near the centre of the board to claim objective points. Then I repositioned everything else along the edge of my table half to get LOS through the ruin windows and maximise the distance required for a no man's land charge from the Wolves.
My first shooting salvo reduced the HQ retinue down to 2 models and all the other units suffered loss. It was fairly brutal and my list is extremely hard on elite specialists like Thunderwolf Cavalry. It asked hard questions from my opponent. Every time a 1 or 2 was rolled, that was another costly wound or chunk of my opponent's army list removed. In the meantime, I am getting free "armour" positioned in terrain with inherent tripping hazards.
Mr SW knew the lonesome raider warriors 10" away were bait, but First Blood was a valuable tertiary point and easily made the charge with his HQ. The remnants of the cavalry emerged from the ruins and swept on to my half of the board, chomping on the farthest flank unit, another raider w/warriors. In assault, my 2 raiders had no chance and were easily brought down, but both warrior units passed their leadership tests and remained on the objectives they'd zipped to.
By the end of turn 3, my opponent basically conceded the game. I had kept repositioning and applying Mo'Dakka with a continuous 18+" gulf on everything visible. It was like a matador red-sheeting an exhausted bull around and I felt bad being so clinical. Mr Space Wolf had a beautifully painted and well designed army, but the DE were perect archvillains for these brave heroes. All the cards I drew were giving me points with my ObSec weak as 60point kabalite units somehow denying these feral wolf beasts from claiming much of the spoils of war. There were about 4 space wolves left on the board once my last dice were rolled and we called it. The rune priest had gone down in a hail of poison and the surviving passengers from the baited raider had run off to get linebreaker when their target had been taken down. The DE were all over this board like locusts. Against an Armoured Comapany of Guard, I am sure I would be found out but today things were all going my way.
I secured victory by 9-1 or 9-2 and was sitting pretty in 3rd spot going into the final round. All was not lost for Mr SW. As fate would have it, he went on to claim second spot, with a brilliant smashing victory in his final game. Afterward though, he said to me he'd had his gluteus maximus served to him and praised the way I went about dismantling the Space Wolves from thw word go.
Game 5 and my last match up was against the new resilient Necrons.
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The end game. Win this and I might have a podium finish! It was good to have an opponent that was not a Space Marine, too. Mr Necron was running Cover save ignoring tomblades, 2 units of wraiths, a 10 'man' unit of warriors, a squad of 5 immortals, a lord and a nightscythe. I had heard about some of their shenanigans, effectively 4+ FNP ignoring instant death or some such, but this was only my 4th game against Necrons since I had started playing. I figured that the interwebz were correct in denoting Wraiths and Tomb Blades as the main threats.
The mission was Deadlock and Take-and-hold-the-unmoving-Relic on a Dawn of War set up. I got the strategic warlord trait I wanted, Stealth and move through cover ruins, won the roll off to go first and set up aggressively in the firing lanes so that my venoms and raiders could touch most parts of the board. Mr Necron deployed in ruins on virtual eye to eye opposite ends of the board, witht he wraiths and tomblades in 4+ cover. He failed to seize.
Turn 1, my venoms swooped in, the raiders delivered poison and the ravager assisted in removing 2 of 3 Tombblades, and 2/3 of one of the wraith units. A very solid start, except I've scored none of my drawn cards.
Mr Necron uses his tactical warlord trait and discards all his cards. The new ones he draws are mint for him and he claims 3 points for basically being where he started (in a deployment zone), sitting on objective 2 and having more objectives. He passes leadership or is fearless and moves the remaining tomb blade into ruins. He fails the dangerous terrain check and then his armour save. First Blood to me.
I draw rubbish cards, for the first time in the tournament. Kill stuff in an assault (I don't do assault), cause the opponent to fail a leadership test (but uh...they're leadership 10) grab objective 2 (where his warriors will happily keep there ObSec and Lord for the time being. I will be burning these later on I decide.decide. I focus fire on the remaining wraiths.
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T2, the nightscythe doesn't show. The wraiths are removed under bucketloads of saves as probability pays off again. I can move up for the kill. Next target: destroyers lurking the mid-table area. Mr Necrons has a chuckle as I approach the end of my turn: "Where did my army go?" Then things start to go awry as I burn my card and his T2 starts.
Once again, Mr Necrons draws an awesome hand, more points are due to him if he destroys a vehicle, holds the same objective as last turn, does something Necrony (like lord is still alive a the end of the turn), causes a failed leadership check, get into my deployment zone. The Destroyers and Necron Warrior unit focus on a raider and I duff my cover saves. It blows up, naturally, because Necrons looked at it funny. The Kabalite Warriors are then pinned. The destroyers jump shoot jump up the field into my deployment zone. Bottom of T2 and it looks like I have to concede Maelstrom for the first time, with him leading like 8-3.
My T3, I position raiders and venoms and ravager so that 80% is aimed at the destroyers, the immortals and warriors are out of range and 20% is making a play for the relic. Attention needs to start going on the warriors in the back field. I light up the destroyers with multiple hits, but the wound conversion rate tapered off markedley. One venom got 10 hits but when I roll to wound, no dice go higher than 3. Grrrr. One destroyer goes down, the rest shrug off everything I have with saves or reanimation protocols. A squad of 5 Kabalites dash for the relic and hide in terrain
Mr Necrons T3 and his cards are again better than great but the night scythe is still diverted elsewhere. He gambles on a move to the relic to sow this up and moves up to rapidfire my warriors on the relic. Combined with the immortals, a huge amount of dice go into 5 kabalites, so I GTG. Very disappointing 3+ saves and no FnP rolls eventuate. That's OK, I have more of those units and even better, the necron warriors are out of terrain. The destroyers force a raider to jink, I pass the save.
T4, 20 minutes to play. I ignore the destroyers. I reposition and encircle my prey to heap fire onto the necron warriors, scything through armour, with 2 venoms, dissie ravager, archon/trueborn, dissie ravager. A hideous portion of them keep making reanimation protocols on 5-ups/6 ups. They are cut down to a squad of 4 with the lord. I have linebreaker. One more turn could finish them off. The immortals run well, Mr Necron realised he had to get more ablative wounds in the proximity of his lord but are 10" away.
The lord and warriors dash into the ruins and onto the relic. He is contesting me on this point. The night scythe flies on but I jink save its ferocious blast template. The destroyers kill a venom. It is time to finish this off.
T5. Last turn, time is running out, pressure decisions. I have the necrons on the ropes. The battle is on for Slay the Warlord, keeping Line breaker and getting the relic. I must get those 6 points! My play is to move everything into rapid fire and finish with a venom flat outting and blocking the immortals path to the lord and the relic.
My dice start hot and Mr Necrons saves desert him. 1/4 of my remaining units have shot, he is down to his last warrior and the lord on the relic. My dissie ravager, trueborn, archon and 2 kabalite warrior squad rolls go well. He makes 10 successful saves with his warrior. I am forced to shoot my venom and rue the fact I could have just disembarked, blastered and then assaulted to tie it up. The warrior goes down in this volley. The lord needs his immortals to roll a 5 for difficult terrain and run 5 to join him and deny me a draw. Mr Necrons dice deliver a 6 to move and a four to run.
Defeat, 5-3, even though the tide of battle and position of my army had been so good for 4 turns, my final execution was denied by good dice and time pressure.
4/5 wins, what a tournament. I would be keen to run this list again. My final placing is 4th out of 42 players on battle points.
Subject: Dark Eldar at Tempest 2015 
Fri May 22 2015, 22:46
