Dark Eldar Versus the Universe at the ATC Tournament

The ATC tournament was this last weekend, and 48 teams of 5 people each met up in Chattanooga to battle it out to see who is the best of the best.

For those unfamiliar with the ATC, it runs like this:
Each 5 man team may take an army. No other player on that team may take the same army, or ally with any army already being played in any way on that team.
So this FORCES a wide variety of armies to be played, and unique and off the wall lists... right?

Right?

Wrong.

I would say over 3/4 of the teams there had the same cookie cutter net-lists you see everywhere. I mean if I saw one freaking more "Skyhammer" formation I was going to punch someone!


So... there are 240 players, each team with no duplicate armies.  Guess where Dark Eldar ranked in the hearts and minds of competitive gamers?

Dead Last.
We had the lowest turnout for any army faction with 4.  Here is a list of the armies:

Quote :

Eldar - 34
Space Marines - 30
Necrons - 27
Tau - 18
Tyranids - 18
Space Wolves - 15
Dark Angels - 14
Adeptus Mechanicus - 12
Daemons - 11
Orks - 11
Imperial Guard - 9
Imperial Knights - 9
Chaos Marines - 8
Blood Angels - 7
Grey Knights - 7
Sisters of Battle - 6
Dark Eldar - 4

4 people out of 240 thought that Dark Eldar could be competitive against today's top players and beat armies like Decurion, Adeptus Astares, Eldar and Dark Angels.

Of those 4, 2 were minimum 5 man squads just to get 2 webway caddy's, 1 I am not sure of but I believe it was a caddy list as well, and then there was me.

Single Cad
Pure Dark Eldar
No Allies
No Formations
No Fortifications
No Dataslates

Just Dark Eldar.

So to play against the big boys with all their shiny new toys, I went with the nastiest list I could think of, and one no one would ever expect.
Since 4 of the 6 missions played were going to be Kill Points, I thought a lot of armies will go small, low kill point elite armies, so i did the opposite:
28 Kill Point Dark Eldar!

My list was:
2x Lahmeans in Venoms with cannons
6x Warriors with blasters in venoms with cannons
2 x 3 Incubi in raiders with Lances
1x 6 Incubi/ Klaivex (warlord) in Raider with dissie
3x raiders with lances
3x  Ravagers w/ triple lances

17 Vehicles.

I deployed 3 warrior squads in the fast attack raiders to spread the objective secured love around.
I figured if the enemy had 17 vehicles in their face, they would panic and make mistakes.  

Our first pairing was against last years winners (of course! Why not?) We picked armies, picked tables and began the tournament.

Battle report #1 to follow later today:

Game 1- Versus Gladius Space Marines!

I read on BoLS that there were a couple of pure Harlequin lists as well?

Regardless, I am looking forward very much to reading your reports, Skulnbonz, on how your pure DE fared over the weekend.

Cheers.

Thanks! I read there were going to be some there too, but never saw them. They may have changed or rolled them into "Eldar". Not Sure.

Anyway, We were randomly paired with last years winning team. What a way to start.

The first mission was:

10 points- Progressive objectives. Starting turn 2, gain 1 point for each objective you control. The one with the most wins.

10 Points- Control the center. The center of the board is worth 10 points at the games end.

10 Points- Emperors will. 1 objective in each deployment zone. Whoever controls more wins.

1 point each- First blood, warlord and linebreaker.

Our opponent won the roll to toss out a list first, and threw a Gladius list.

All units in this list, each and every one was objective secured. They felt that this army was the best to be put down as it was fast, and would get objectives fast!

I do not have this list, but from memory-
5 razorbacks w/ las/plas (1 was heavy bolter)
Each squad inside had a melta and multi melta.
Some psychic guy (Tigerius?)
3 centurion devestators w/ grav and all the trimmings
3-4 scout squads
1 heavy weapon squad with lascannons.

Our team felt that I was the best to at least match him for objective grabbing, so down I went. He chose a heavily terrained table covered in ruins.

No Nightfight.
Deployment: Dawn of war
Objectives were placed 2 in each deployment zone.
We both got warlord trait: Stealth and move through cover ruins.
(I feel this is the best trait DE can get if the table has ruins. It is better than nightfight. Your vehicles just go into the ruins, never take a terrain test, and have a 3+ cover without jinking.)

I won the roll to deploy and did so, spread evenly across the board, lances and venoms spaced so that I had plenty in each area if he decided to castle up. Both my objectives had a raider with warriors on it, as did my emperors will objective.

He deployed centrally in a ruin and put scouts out on objectives.  All 5 razorbacks were either in or touching a ruin.
He rolled to seize but failed.

Dark Eldar Turn 1-
I simply close in, keeping to terrain, and line up optimal shots for my lances while the venoms take aim at the heavy weapons squad and the scouts.
Shooting phase I turbo 2 empty venoms over to his two objectives.
Everything else opens fire.

After shooting, 3 razorbacks were destroyed, 1 was weaponless and down to 1 hull point, and 1 was immobile.
both scout units on his objectives and 1 unit of marines was wiped from the board by venom shots.

A crippling alpha strike from the Dark Eldar.

His turn 1, he cast invisibility on his centstar unit, shuffled around with marines to melta out some venoms, and pretty much that was it.

One displaced marine squad attempted to enact revenge from the loss of its razorback by blowing up the empty venom on the objective, but I jinked one shot and his other missed.  The lascannon devs shot at a ravager in the ruins, but the 3+ cover (no jinking needed!) saved the 2 that penned.  The gravguns then shot, got 4 immobile results on the same ravager, who failed 1 and was now immobile in the ruins but facing the right direction, so no biggie.

Dark Eldar turn 2-
Gained 4 points on objectives.

Moved the empty venoms off and full ones on his objectives, aimed raiders and venoms where needed and moved all 3 Incubi units up to get ready for a turn 3 assault.

Shooting was as brutal as before. All the vehicles were destroyed, the unit on his emperors will objective was brought down to one lone man, as was his lascannon dev squad.  At this point he had 1 scout unit, his warlord and centstar, 1 man with a lascannon, 1 man on his emperors will objective and 2 squads of melta marines.

His turn saw him go for and get invisibility again, and move the centstar closer to the middle. The sole lascannon shot, hit and penned a venom, and i failed my cover.
He rolled a "1".

I felt bad for him, but his melta squad was able to destroy a 3 man incubi raider, who passed their pinning with no casualties.

Dark Eldar 3,  
4 more points for objectives, it was out of his reach at this point.
the 3 incubi move up close to one marine squad while the 6 man disembarks and moves close to another.  Vehicles fly around and target the few remaining models. A Lhameian moved up, got out and ran to contest his Emperors will.

Shooting removed some few marines (bad moving on my part) and wiped the last scout squad and his lone guy on his Emperors will. Everything else went into his invisible deathstar, but due to being invisible and a 3+ cover, only 1 wound went through! Ouch!

Assault saw the 3 Incubi charge the depleted marine squad and the 6 charge the full one. I lost nothing to overwatch, and both marine squads were turned into a fine red mist with no chance of being struck back.

His turn he invisibled and hid his centstar unit in the ruins housing the center objective. His shots took out the grounded ravager.

LAST TURN.
DE- I flew everything that could to the center objective, shot what I could but could not kill that darn invisible deathstar. Since he was objective secured, he was able to tie that mission!

He did not even bother taking his last turn. He ended the game with 3 models left on the table.

Dark Eldar had
Progressive Objectives= 10
Emperors Will= 10
Tied Center Objective = 5
First Blood and Linebreaker = 2 for a total of 27.

My opponent got 5.

So Dark Eldar Victory, Game 1 versus last years winners 27-5!


Game 2- Orks, Orks and MORE Orks!

Yeah! That if funky awesome! A dark Eldar mech army might be a good idea actually...! You said it was kill point heavy, but I don't see any kill points in your game. Or am I mistaken?

Luv'ly job all round!  That must have felt particularly good against last year's winner!

Good job

Gladius? Pff... Dark eldar, OP!

CptMetal wrote:

You said it was kill point heavy, but I don't see any kill points in your game.

There are 6 games over 2 days, 4 of them had kill points. My next game did....

So my team did well as a whole, so we moved up the ladder to face Allies of Inconvienience.

Mission 2:
10 points- Kill points

10 points- Marked for death. Each player nominates 3 units from his opponent to destroy. Each one is worth 1 point. The player with the most points wins. ties are 5 points.

10 points- Slay the warlord. Gain 10 points if you kill the opposing warlord. If both players do, get 5 each.

1 point each- First blood, Last Blood, Linebreaker

So My team throws me to play against Ty and his Orks.
Ty had:
A Blitz Brigade formation
(5 Battlewagons with reinforced rams!)
A Big Mek
Painboy on bike
Warboss on bike
Bunch of nobz on bikes
3 units of 15 boyz
and 2 units of 12 lootas.

I was worried about the lootas, as they are pretty bad, but at best they can each take out 1 vehicle a turn, so they were priority 1.

I marked for death the 2 battlewagons holding his lootas (as I would be shooting at them anyway) and his nob bikers, as my venoms could take them out pretty easily.

He marked 3 venoms. They are easy to kill, so why not, right?

Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Warlord traits- I got nothing worth anything, He was able to roll twice and got stealth ruins (darn!) and nightfight. There goes my only advantage!

I won the roll to deploy, and again, with 17 vehicles, there is not much to do but put them all out and fill up your deployment zone. (all except the 3 marked for death venoms, they stayed in reserve)

He deployed the battlewagons in a line, but kept the 2 loota ones in ruins.

He then scouted the 3 wagons with his boyz right up into my face! I was unaware they could do that! If he goes first, i am thinking he will be shooting and ramming down my vehicles in droves!

He rolls to seize but fails. Whew!

Dark Eldar Turn 1-
Well, he is close now, but I go first. That did 2 things. It left his bikers kind of exposed, and brought 3 of his 5 wagons into blaster range!
2 ravagers and 1 raider brought down the first wagon with an explosion. (first Blood) I rolled to wound and out of 16 passengers, i wounded 14! Wow! He made 2 saves.  Well, that unit was neutered and no longer a threat!

The rest of the lance weaponry brought down another battlewagon (he made good cover saves) and immobilised the third, leaving it with 1 hull point left.
All the venoms opened on his bikers, killing them all getting me Warlord (10 points ) and my first "marked for death" point. I ignored the loota wagons as the other three were an immediate threat.

Ork Turn 1- The displaced but full strength ork boyz unit moved to block my access to the loota battlewagon on my left. 1 loota unit with some slow and purposeful guy moved a bit to target my ravager.

Ork shooting saw the raider holding my 6 incubi (and warlord) dropped, and my incubi were not pinned. Other shooting saw a ravager die.  There were no charges.

Dark Eldar 2- All 3 venoms in reserve came on, and I hid them pretty well, and could still get some shots off.
My Incubi moved within 1" of his 15 man boyz squad, ready to charge in. Everything else just moved for better line of sight and positioning.

First dark lance I shot took the last hull point off the wounded battlewagon, exploding it and killing about half the boyz inside.
More lance weaponry shots saw the right side loota battlewagon destroyed (Marked for death #2!)
Any and all shots against his last wagon were ineffective.
The venoms, however, were NOT ineffective, and wiped half of the exposed lootas out, as well as almost all the boyz my incubi were about to charge, and every last one from the recently destroyed wagon.

Charging saw the Incubi just decimate the few remaining Orks to a man.

Ork turn 2, and all he has left is a battleweagon, 12 lootas in it, and a few lootas on the other side of the board.

He disembarks the lootas, and tank shocks my Incubi, hoping to break them. they pass their leadership and step aside.  Lootas open up on the Incubi, and kill the only 3 they could see, but I pass leadership.
I know my opponent was going for warlord, and that was the smart play as it was worth 10 points this game, so I made sure with the tank shock my warlord was behind a wall, out of sight! good thing I did!
His other loota squad shot (poorly) at a venom, and did nothing to it. My opponent laughed at this point, I mean come on.. lootas were unable to kill a measly venom?

Dark Eldar 3- Pretty much, everything on the board died except for that unkillable battlewagon! It came out of the round with 1 hullpoint left!

Ork turn 3, and another attempted ram on my warlord.
I passed my leadership, and at this point, my opponent threw in the towel.


Dark Eldar Had:
Kill Points = 10
Marked for death = 10
Warlord = 10
First Blood, Last Blood and Linebreaker = 3

Orks had:
Nothing.

Dark Eldar Victory 33-0

Well, this game could not have gone better for me or worse for my opponent.  When an exploding vehicle kills 14  toughness 4 models, things are going your way.

My opponent did, in fact, let me know he had no idea that Incubi were as good as they were.  
Overall, my opponent was a great guy with a bad matchup. He would have done better against some of my other teammates.

So 2 games, and Dark Eldar are at 60 points out of 66.
Everyone knows they suck, right?



Game 3- Against Space Marines with the dreaded Skyhammer force!

Awesome work, Looking forward to seeing the next 4.

So, again my team did well, and so the matchups are not getting any easier!
We face off against another good team, and I am matched up against a nasty Space Marine list featuring the Skyhammer Annihilation Force.
Great! Just what I want to see.. a bunch of first turn assaulting marines there is nothing I can do to stop!

His List:
Tigerius
2 tac squads in drop pods
3 fast attack drop pods
3 centurion Dev squads, all with grav and amps and missles.

The Skyhammer
2 x 5 assault marines
2x devs in drop pods, 1  4 grav, 1 4 multimelta

Holy crap, thats a lot of firepower dropping in and shooting that I can do absolutely nothing about.

Mission:
Kill Points- 10 points
The Relic- 10 points
Progressive Objectives- 10 points.  Starting turn 2, gain 1 point for each objective controlled. The first one to 10 wins. If both players achieve it on the same turn it is a tie. (5 points each)
First Blood, Warlord and Linebreaker- 1 point each.

My Warlord trait was the infiltrate one, so that was useless. I forgot what his was, but I dont think it was a bad one.
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
Nightfight: no! Rats!
He won the roll to deploy, and chose to deploy first. He deployed NOTHING, he just let me know the skyhammer was coming down turn 1. I know he did this because it let him force me to take the first turn if he wanted, giving me an entire turn to do nothing!

So my dilemma began. How was I going to beat him on objectives and relic? I pretty much gave up killpoints as a lost cause.  My only choice was to use what Dark Eldar have at their disposal, and that was SPEED.
I decided I WANTED to go first! If i could zoom onto objectives, I could go out on an early and almost insurmountable lead, and win that. The relic I could contest at any time by simply moving an objective secured unit next to it. Even if he is holding the relic, i win it because I was objective secured, and he was not. I just had to eliminate his tac squads if they got close.

Ok, with a solid plan in mind, I suddenly WANTED to go first. I felt he would give it to me anyway, but I couldn't take that for granted, so I rolled to seize, And a "6" came up!
My opponent seemed amused (yeah, it looked like he was going to give it to me anyway) but when after turn 1, and my entire army was spread out and on 4 of the 6 objectives, he saw what I was up to.

Dark Eldar Turn 1:
I moved a lot! Covered 4 of 6 and the relic. I did not get out though, and kept a lot of my heavy hitting firepower in my deployment zone, hoping to bait him into dropping everything up there leaving his backfield wide open.

Marine turn 1:
Well, i guess you do not play on the top tables by being stupid.
He saw through the bait and did not fall for it at all. Both assault squads dropped in with direct hits next to some venoms. the two dev squads dropped (again 2 direct hits)on the only 2 unoccupied objectives which were way back in his "deployment" zone, not that he deployed anything....
The three Centurion squads dropped centrally(all 3 direct hits again... hmmm), with multiple targets to choose from.
Shooting. Before he even picked up a dice, i informed him if he was shooting at my vehicles with anything stronger than a boltgun, I was jinking!
His shooting began with the multimeltas way back on his objective shooting at a venom.
1 hit, I Jinked the pen.
The other squad with grav immobilised a raider with Incubi.
His cent squads split shot, and every missle that hit was jinked, but some grav got through, 1 immobilizing a venom, the other a raider with warriors in it, and 1 squad dropped a raider holding 3 Incubi. (first Blood) They passed their pinning.
My opponent was displeased. His assault squads shot and threw grenades at some venoms, to no avail. He then charged the venoms, but he was unaware of flickerfields, and he managed to get 1 glance through on each!

Wait... Did Dark Eldar just make it through 2 devestator squads, 3 centurion squads and 2 assault squads split firing and assaulting with only losing a single kill point?

Oh yes they did, and now I had something to shoot at!

Dark Eldar turn 2:
+4 points for objectives.
I moved up venoms to contest his 2 objectives, so i now had Obj Sec units on all 6 and the relic.  1 3 man Incubi unit got out next to assault squad #1, the raiderless Incubi headed near cent squad #2 that had tigerius, and the last got out (6 man) near cent squad #3 and Assault squad #2.
I moved the rest of the non-imobilised vehicles around for better angles.
Shooting:
I start by removing 4 of the 5 multi meltas from his deployment zone. I then remove 2 from the other squad.
I whittle 1 cent squad by the 6 incubi down to 1 guy, who fails his LD and ran.  1 assault squad (by the 3 incubi) were reduced to 3 models.  Both other cent squads took wounds, but they were spread out and I was unable to remove any whole models.
Sadly, my immobilized vehicles were sometimes facing the wrong direction, so my full shooting could not be brought to bear.

Assault saw the 3 man Incubi charge Tiggy and the cents, another charge 3 assault marines, and my squad of 6 assault the squad of 5. No wounds to overwatch (made 2 3+ armor saves on my squad of 6).
Needless to say, both assault squads wished they never came down. The three man on tiggy and cents killed 1 centurion and wounded another!
Not bad.. Not bad at all.

Marine turn 2.
0 Points from Progressive
1 Drop Pod with marines came in, (another direct hit! I mean come on!)
He rallied (of course with ATSKNF) his fleeing centurion, shuffled about and got to shooting.
He was able to take out the venom on the relic, and the passengers were pinned. Other shooting saw an immobilized venom on his deployment objective and another destroyed (empty) raider. Once again, i was able to jink every missile.  He mentioned my luck against his missiles, and i mentioned his with his no scattering. It became a game within a game at that point, would he ever scatter or would i miss a jink against a missile first?
Combat saw the wounded cent die to the incubi, but they took 2 casualties in return! The lone incubi fled!

Dark Eldar 3:
I reached 10 objectives. He would not be able to match, so 10 points at least for the Dark Eldar!

The 3 man Incubi headed for the lone centurion, everything else moved for positioning.
My lone Incubi rallied (he can never drop below 25% as there were only 3 models!  )

Shooting was more deadly this turn. Tigerius and the remaining centurion in his squad died (warlord), the lone multimelta died, and the other dev squad was taken down to 2 models. Assault wiped the lone centurion.

So at the end of Dark Eldar turn 3, my opponent has drop pods, 3 centurions, 2 of which have wounds and 2 devestators, only 1 with a grav gun.

Marine turn 3:
The last pod came down close to but not on the relic, but more importantly, He scattered! Whoot! Yeah, it was only 3" but it was a scatter!
Shooting saw a venom (empty) go down from the newly arrived marines, and yet again, i was able to jink his missile.  

Dark Eldar turn 4.
Incubi moved next to his centurions, and a venom with warriors flew up to within 3" of the relic.
Shooting was concentrated on the newly arrived (and objective secured) marines that could, potentially threaten to tie the relic.  They died in a mass of venom and well placed disintegrator shots.
I was unable to kill the 2 remaining devestators.
The rest of my shooting was able to take out his last centurion squad.

Marine turn 4:
He just shot his drop pods at wounded vehicles and the lone incubi hoping to get some easy kill points (but was unable to). He did drop an immobilized raider with the grav gun from the last of the dev squads.

Dark Eldar turn 5:
Mop up.
Dropped a pod and the last dev squad.
My opponent conceded at this point.

Scoring:
Dark Eldar:
relic= 10 points
Kill Points = 10 points
Progressive Objectives= 10 points
Warlord and linebreaker- 2 points

Marines:
First blood= 1 point
Linebreaker = 1 point.

Victory to the Dark Eldar 32-2!

Well... that put things into perspective a bit, didn't it?
Against a null deploy alpha strike from hell list, Dark Eldar showed again how resilient they can be.  Could you imagine having the stealth ruins warlord trait on a ruins table? I doubt he would have gotten first blood!
Grav amps are nasty, but not too scary to us.
think about it, if you kill a landraider with one, that hurts, but a 55 point raider? Who cares?

My opponent again was suprised by the Incubi. He thought i was an idiot when I charged Tigerius and the centurions with them, but in the long run it worked perfectly. They killed some, held them up to keep them from shooting, and ran but never gave up a killpoint.
Perfect!

When we were packing up for the day, my opponent was looking over my list and his, and gave me mine back and said, and i will try to quote exactly here:
"I still think I am a good matchup for you".

I asked him to clarify, did he think It was easy for me, or that he thinks it is easy for him?

He thought Dark Eldar was an easy matchup for HIM.


Ok, I just won 32-2, but go ahead and keep drinking the Space Marine Kool-Aid.

Overall, a great game against a friendly and very smart opponent.

At the end of Day 1- My Dark Eldar are sitting at 92 out of a possible 99 points!

Day 2 and game 4 upcomming:
Against Fateweaver/ Belakor and Screamerstar!

Very impressive so far. MSU is probably the only way to run DE competitively at the moment but I'm surprised just how well you've been doing. Keep it up!

I think I have to copy that list at one point XD

Makes me want to get more lances in my list. Doing work!

Day 2 and game 4....

Our team did very well up to this point, so our competition is going to be fierce! We showed up, got our pairings and headed for our tables.
Our opponents won the roll to throw a list down first and they started with Demons. Since this mission was the same as the first on day 1, a demon spawning factory would be ideal for a progressive objective game.

My team all looked at me. Flying demons are no picnic, and a screamerstar (which i assume would be invisible to boot) is no laughing matter. But, as i had a lot of shots, and demons have toughness and not an armor value, I was the one chosen to play against it.

It was a NASTY list!
A Great unclean One (lvl 3)
Fateweaver (lvl 4?)
1 unit of 16 pink horrors (lvl 3?)
1 unit of 11 pink horrors (lvl 2?)
9 screamers
Demon Prince of Nurgle (lvl 3)
Belakor (lvl 3)
10 cultists
Imperial Bastion

So what, 18 casting dice before I even get 1 denial dice?
No problem!

He chose a board with almost no cover. It had some low lying hills, but I am sure he was hoping to deny me any and all cover saves.

It was at this point, as we were shaking hands and making intorductions my opponent, Kevin, informs me he is an avid Dark Eldar player. In fact, he just recently gave up on the Dark kin for tournament play, as they were just not competitive enough. He also said
"I think i am about to be on the other end of what I have done to 100 tyranid and demon players before... "
We both laughed, and i said "You betrayed your army, anything bad that happens you fully deserve!" and we both laughed again. I love games where you meet new people and are having a blast before a dice even hits the table!

The mission was the same as game 1:

10 points- Progressive objectives. Starting turn 2, gain 1 point for each objective you control. The one with the most wins.

10 Points- Control the center. The center of the board is worth 10 points at the games end.

10 Points- Emperors will. 1 objective in each deployment zone. Whoever controls more wins.

1 point each- First blood, warlord and linebreaker.

Deployment= Vanguard
Nightfight = yes

My warlord trait was useless, his was, of course, reroll the warp storm table!

I won the roll to deploy, and did so, venoms, raiders and ravagers all stacked up in my little deployment triangle.

My opponent started to deploy and ran into a snag. He chose the table with small hills but they were too small to hide any of his greater demons! Belakor, the unclean one, fateweaver and the nurgle prince could not hide! As they start on the ground, that is bad news for him as one at least will surely die turn 1!

So he deployed the bastion, put fateweaver right behind it to where I could not see it no matter what i did, even if I moved up 12"! The rest of the demons he left behind whatever terrain he could scrap together, but he was ok with losing one or two as long as fatey lived!

He rolled to sieze but failed

Dark Eldar turn 1:
I moved up as much as I could, and covered 4 objectives but he deployed so far back some of my vehicles were out of range. I did have enough venoms, raiders and ravagers in range to wipe a greater demon or, hopefully maybe 2 off the board.

But I had another plan in mind.
Starting with the raiders, i began to fire lances at the bastion. the 8th lance did the trick, and caused an "explode" result.
The bastion was gone, and lo and behold, what do I see before me, just sitting on the table, out in the open?
FATEWEAVER!
My opponent was grimacing as the rest of my army started to open fire on that two headed birdman, and even though he had a 3+. and could re-roll 1's, he went down pretty hard. The final shots came from the disintegrator of my warlords raider. It was poetic.
The rest of my shots went into the unclean one, doing 1 or 2 wounds.

First Blood
Slay the Warlord

Demons 1:
Ouch.
He just got punched in the face and knew it. Anything that could fly did, everything else shuffled for position. His screamers went for a venom on an objective.
In the psychic phase, he cast invisibility on the screamers (this is my surprised face ) and sacrificed his 11 man horror squad for a greater demon of tzeentch.
He had no shooting, except to fly his screamers over the venom, slashing it for 1 hull point.

Dark Eldar turn 2:
4 Objective Points.
Keeping the objectives, I moved everything around to get better and multiple shots at multiple targets. I flew a ravager to the middle of the table onto the center objective. 1 raider of incubi flew 12" at his remaining horror squad.

Shooting saw a wound or two on a few flyers, a wound or two on the invisible screamer star, and the unclean one sent back to take a shower. His psychic dice were slowly being taken away!

Demon turn 2:
0 points from objectives.
He lined up a sweet multicharge on 2 venoms and a raider with his screamers. other demons flew over, vector striking 2 venoms, 1 of which exploded killing 2 warriors.
Psychic saw invis go off again, and a beam power was denied! yup, i had 3 dice and 2 came up sixes!
a few cursed earth and shroudings got off.

Assault saw 1 screamer bite it to overwatch, but the rest hit all 3 vehicles.
The raider was immobilized and 1 venom was shaken.
Thats it.
Thank god for flickerfields!

Dark Eldar turn 3:
4 points (8 total). At this point, my opponent said "Dont bother counting, you got that!)

My incubi got out of the immobile raider and moved up really close to the pink horrors.
Other vehicles spread out to try to avoid multicharges from the screamerstar.
Shooting was pretty ineffectual. A few scattered wounds on the demon princes, but most of the firepower went into the screamers, much to no avail. I may have killed 1, but a lot of them only had 1 wound left.

Assault saw the 3 Incubi charge the demons and win by 4. The demons passed their test.
Demon turn 3:
More moving and lining up for multicharges. The nurgle prince glided behind a hill or he would have had to leave the table.
Psychic started great... for me! Belakor, while casting invisibility on the screamers, periled! He took a wound with no save of any kind.
My eyes got big as I knew that meant he had to take a grounding test.
I could tell My opponent knew that too by the way he dropped his head onto the table.
He then cast every defensive spell he could muster on Belakor in case he fell. he was shrouded for a 2+ jink and anything else he could do.
At the end of the phase he rolled a "2" and belakor fell to the ground! He was not wounded in the fall.
Assault saw the screamers roll horribly on the charge, and only get to 2 vehicles, but lost 2 in overwatch! (he declared on 4!)
He was able to shake one, but destroyed a venom.
The Incubi again won combat against the horrors, this time by 2, but the horrors did not care.

Dark Eldar turn 4:
Ignoring the screamers, my vehicles all looked over and saw Belakor sitting down by a tree. Oh yes, this was going to be fun!
Sure he had a 2+, but is he not going to roll some 1's on a couple hundred shots?

Shooting began and i started to ask if he wanted to jink, but he just laughed and pointed at Belakor. He had snuck a small marker saying "Jink" over to the model without me seeing! Yeah, i guess he was jinking.

All the jinking in the world did not save him. He went down to about 1/3 of my shooting. The rest started on the screamers and demons. I was unable to target the nurgle demon prince on the ground, as I had faced everything at belakor.

Assault still had the Incubi win, but they lost a model. The horrors again made their check.

Demon turn 4. He flew his demons closer, got his screamers ready, and did what he could.
Psychic saw the beam go off, but do no real damage.
Assault saw a venom drop to the screamers.
The Incubi AGAIN won combat, but this time, on his test, he rolled a double "1". The entire unit came back! Crap!

Dark Eldar turn 5. Last turn of the game.
I flew a ravager and raider up to box out the horrors in case they beat the incubi.
I flew an objective secured raider with warriors in it up to the center objective.

Everything else opened on the screamers until they were all dead. Easier to do when they were not invisible!
When the screamers died, I shot at his FMC's, doing a smattering of wounds.

Assault saw the Incubi die! Good thing I thought ahead and boxed the objective secured horrors from getting to his emperors will objective to contest it!
He dropped down both demons, and tried every power he had to remove me from that middle objective, but was unable to do so.
Game over

Dark Eldar:
10 points- Emperors Will
10 Points- Progressive Objectives
10 Points- Center Objective
3 points- First Blood, Warlord, Linebreaker

Demons:
0

Dark Eldar Win, 33-0!

This was a great game. There was a lot of laughing and joking, reminiscing about old rules and models and just a pleasant experience. My next game, not so much.
My opponent took a copy of my list with him. He was intrigued by me bringing Incubi and asked how they have done for me. I told him the truth... they have been great.
The last thing he said to me was "Well, I deserved what I got for playing Demons!" Which got me laughing again.

Next, game 5 against Space Wolves/ Dark Angels.

The other was me running a pure kabalite raiding party with raiser spam.

JackKnife01 wrote:

The other was me running a pure kabalite raiding party with raiser spam.

Well that is refreshing! I don't know about you, but I was kind of upset to see our once competitive army reduced to being scroll caddys for wraithguard.

Indeed. I ran three Razorwings and bunches of raiders.

Congrats on you success so far. Hope it continues untill the end. How was your team doing each round?

It's good that our dex isn't regarded as one of the best. It can surprise a few people at tournaments.

I had a nid player, nice fellow, tell me my list was the one he was hoping to face because hisnlist was geared to beat it. He was running two flying dakkarants, swarmlord, two tevigons, two marlocks, and bunches of gaunts. Dawn of war deployment and I just let him come to me. Even snap shooting I put so many shots up that his two flyrants went down to 2 wounds. On turn two he lost a flyrant, swarmlord, and a mawlock.

You said you boxed in the screamer. What do you mean? Can't they just fly over your Raider

Vasara wrote:

How was your team doing each round?

Pretty well. In fact, the game 5 pairings went up and we were sitting at #2!

So Game 5 was #1 vs #2 , and i was matched up against....

Space Wolves and Dark Angels.

I did not get a copy of his list as our game was... well, lets just say less than pleasant.

From memory:
2 giant squads of thunderwolves, each with some dark angel models thrown in.
2 scout squads
an outflanking dark angel squad
named dark angel guy on a bike.

Deployment= Dawn of war
Warlord trait = -1 to reserves (which I forgot about anyway)

Mission:
Same as #2 from before
Kill Points
Marked for Death
Escalated Slay the Warlord

He marked my 3 incubi raiders, and i marked his scouts and outflanking small DA squad

Wolves won the roll to deploy and did so.

I deployed across the whole deployment zone, right at the line. I knew he was going to scout, so could not charge turn 1 giving me a round to shoot the heck out of his army.

After I deployed, I had a nagging doubt. I never played against DA before, so i asked if there was anyway he could pull off a first round charge.
"Yes" was the answer. He had something that gave him +3 to charges.

Ouch. Well, that means if he didnt scout, and rolled a "9" on his charge, he would take my entire army out turn 1.
So instead I castled in the corner, but kept the three incubi in reserve.

I roll to seize but fail.

He scouts.

DA turn 1:
Everything right up in my face. He shoots and immobilizes a venom with people in it, but not much more than that.

Dark Eldar turn 1:
I move a bit to screen more important units, in other words, If i don't kill him, I want him hitting stuff that I wont miss as much.
I start shooting. He has his 2+ save thundercav in front, dogs and DA bikers equally spaced off of them. He starts saves on his 2+, but if it is a lance shot, he sends it to a rerollable 3+ biker. Oh, and did I mention, they all have feel no pain?
Yeah, after all of my shooting, i killed a bunch of dogs, and pretty much put a single wound on most of deathstar unit #1.

I was in big trouble!

DA turn 2:
All scouts and outflanking DA come in. He places the scouts in cover and the DA behind me on my left.
No shooting.
Assault:
Well, everything multicharges.
I did a good job limiting his access, and sacrificed about 5 vehicles. they were all wiped of course.

We did have a slight rules argument here, as to if a dog could go UNDER a ravager to attack something else, but this was after he already moved and blocked with his other models.

Then, right before my turn, he informs me "Oh, i forgot to shoot the outflankers".

Ok. in a fun tournament, I would not have any problem, but we are a good 2 giant combats away from the shooting phase. This is the top table at a national tournament, and every point either hurts or helps my team.
I told him "sorry, but we are way past that"
I kind of felt bad, but if the roles were reversed, i would never have even asked.

At this point, his already, shall we say abrasive attitude went way south.

Dark Eldar turn 2:
All 3 of my Incubi came on. I moved and turboed them away from the big scrum and after his scouts.

My thought was there is no way i can win kill points at this juncture, so I wanted to get his marked for death, go for his warlord and see how many points I could salvage here.

So I moved to ensure maximum shots at his DA bikes in my zone.

Shooting saw a huge number of shots needed to take out his outflanking bikers, but they did. Other shots started to whittle down his remaining wolves and DA bikers.

DA turn 3:
He saw what I was doing with the incubi, and sent 1 deathstar after them. In his haste, however, he moved his warlord well outside of 2" coherency from the unit. New target priority #1!

The other wolfstar in my deployment zone spread out, and prepared to multicharge. He shot some shots, dropped a vehicle and then asked which ones had people in them. I pointed the units out, (they were already marked) and he was a tad upset he shot the wrong vehicles.
Then he said "oh, wait, i think I was in base with that venom over there, I get close combat attacks from your turn"

You "think" you were, and now you want to not go back a phase, but an entire turn and hit my vehicle?
Without waiting for an answer from me, he picked up dice and rolled them, saying "4 pens!"
I did not reply for a few seconds.
He asked "Well?"
I said " I am debating if I am going to let you do that."

lol, his attitude did not improve.

In the end, i allowed it because, well, he was having a conniption fit and in the long run, i already lost kill points and my game hinged on my incubi and his warlord, which was nowhere near where this was occurring.
But I will tell you, i did not appreciate the way he felt he could just force what he wanted, which was outside the rules to begin with.

He multi assaulted and wiped a lot, but there were plenty left to keep up the fight.

Dark Eldar 3:
Before I move the incubi, i ask what his warlord has for armor, attacks etc. He tells me but says he would just pass off the wounds to others in the combat.
I then informed him the warlord was more than 2" out, and was on his own.
"oh, thats not right" he says and picks up the model and moves it back into coherency.

I can only laugh at this point...
My 1 raider with ncubi fly towards the scouts he has farther away.
my other incubi go for his scouts that were closer. The unit of 6 goes 12", the unit of 3 6" and gets out. They are right on top of his scouts.

My opponent has a fit.
"You moved too far!"
I inform him that no, I did not.
He measures from the board edge 12" move, 18" turbo and 6" move.
"See!" he says, pointing to the 6 unit raider.
"That one moved 12", no one got out of that one, they got out of this one." I pointed to the correct raider.
He remeasured, and i was correct.

Sadly to say, i lost my temper a bit here. This guy just picked up a model, put it back in coherency, and wanted to go back a phase and an entire turn, but tried to say I was cheating.
Good god... I didn't yell at him or anything, i just told him that I think he needs to reassess what he thinks is cheating, and perhaps apply it to himself.

Anyway, after all that fun, I was done with this game.
Shooting saw some casualties, and assault saw the incubi win but not wipe the scouts.

DA turn 4:
He moves and tries to help his scouts.
No real shooting

Assaults he declares on the incubi in combat with his scouts.
He was unable to even see them, and i informed him so.
He looked, and agreed, so declared a dual charge on both raiders.
My god, a rule he agreed with and abided to! I was prepared for a big fit, but he was 100% reasonable.
I think at this point we both may have felt a bit... embarrassed for our behavior. I was hoping that this meant our arguments were over.

He destroyed both raiders, but my 6 man Incubi got out next to his few remaining scouts.

In combat, his scouts were brought down to 2.

Dark Eldar turn 4:
My 6 Incubi move on his scouts. The other incubi also go for his scouts that have not been touched.
He asks about shooting but I tell him I don't need to. Everyhting hinged on if my 3 incubi could wipe his 5 scouts. The other scouts were in combat with 9 incubi, 6 of which just charged. They were as good as dead.

Well, he was not happy with my charges, so called a judge over. Guess what, I was right. He was not happy with wound allocation (guess what, i was right again) and in the end, I did what he did.
I just rolled it anyway.
"Lets see if this even matters" I said. If my 3 incubi failed to kill his scouts, he had the game in full.
I killed 3.

Then he was ok and happy with everything

Dark Eldar-
Linebreaker 1 point

Dark Angles
33 points

Dark Eldar loss 1-33

So what went wrong?
In truth, my opponent was smart and played a well thought out game. The result would have been the same even if he was pleasant and friendly. Sadly, he was not.
I am not sure if he felt he had to play that way to win, but he didn't.

I failed on 2 fronts.
1. i did not know my opponents armies. If I knew the unit had feel no pain, i would have castled in the other corner and shot them. I was bunched up, but in a situation like this again, i would spread out to deny more multi charges.

2. I overestimated the offensive shooting of my army, or I underestimated his resiliency. Either way, the result was the same. He hit me full force instead of crippled, like I thought he would.

My game plan after was solid, and I did everything right to try to get points. I thought for sure I had warlord, but he just moved the model to deny me that.
I wonder what would happen if I did the same thing to him? Something tells me that it would have gone drastically different.

Anyway, 5 games down, 4 great opponents and one I would rather never play again. Heres hoping the last game is back to fun!

Game 6:
Versus Orks/ tau

CptMetal wrote:

You said you boxed in the screamer. What do you mean? Can't they just fly over your Raider

I boxed in the pink horrors. I shot the screamers back into the warp when invisibility dropped off of them.

You seriously let him just pick up his Warlord and move him to a safe location? I'd have picked up his Warlord and moved it to a distant location, such as the car park!

Ah. My bad. Sorry

Count Adhemar wrote:

You seriously let him just pick up his Warlord and move him to a safe location? I'd have picked up his Warlord and moved it to a distant location, such as the car park!

I wish i could thumbs up this!

Game 6:
Versus Orks and Tau.


So coming off of my last game, I was just hoping for a good, clean, fun game.
And I got one!

Our team fell a little off of our performance (partly my fault) so we were hoping for a good rebound.
I was paired against an Ork/Tau list the likes I have never seen before.

Orks:
Stompa!
3 units of grots
Big mek with a KFF
unit of burna boyz

Tau:
Farsight Enclave (I think?)
Ethereal
Unit of Crisis suits
Crisis suit commander
3 riptides


Wow. So I am facing a Stomps (never fought one before) and 3 riptides! (Fought those plenty!) When I asked what a stompa did, I was told:
Str D attacks
Str D stomp
a 10" apocalypse large blast at str 10 ap 1
3 str 8 1 shot rockets, large blast ap 3?
3 big shootas
a twin linked big shoota
and some gun that did 2d6 str 7 shots 3 times a TURN! That gun could potentially rip off 11 str 7 shots at 3 targets. (11 because if he rolled doubles, it jammed.)
FYI- He did not roll doubles the entire game!

So this was pretty much like david vs. goliath. 4 big nasty shooty units against the peashooters I was armed with.

Mission was #3 from yesterday,
Kill Points
Relic
Progressive Objectives

Warlord Trait: outflank yet again
No Nightfight.
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

He won the roll to deploy, and did.
Stompa in the middle, 2 riptides on my left, 1 on my right. Grots hiding behind the stompa, and were fearless because of it.
Suits and ethereal in reserve.

I felt my best bet would be a lot of units in reserve. I could then come on and shoot before he had a chance to take me out.
I then asked if his riptides had "Interceptor" and they did.
Change of plans! Everything on the table and hope to weather the storm!

Being hammer and anvil, I had to bunch up, and his giant 10" pieplate would hit 3-4 units. I was not looking forward to this, but I could always jink!
I roll to seize the initiative, and DO!
I rolled a freaking "6"!

So I move up, spread out and begin shooting!
I concentrate ALL lances on his stompa! I even snap shot a bunch of blasters! Out of 17 shots, 4 Hit, Glanced or penned and went through his KFF.

I asked him how many he had left, and was told "8"

That thing has 12 freaking Hull Points!

The venoms all targeted a riptide until it died, netting me "first blood".

I then turned the turn over to him.
Not sure if it was in his turn or mine, but he rolled to "repair" the stompa, and repaired all 4 hull points! All of them!
Right that second, I came up with a new plan. Ignore the stompa, and take out everything else he has!

Ork 1:
Stompa moved up and sat on the relic. great!
Riptides shuffled and then the shooting started!
He targeted my ravagers first, making them all jink.
Other shots were scattered around, trying to make as many vehicles jink as possible. In the end, I think only 2 venoms and a raider with warriors in it did not jink.
The good news is: He did a hull point here or there, but did not drop anything.

Dark Eldar turn 2:
A 3 man incubi raider flat outted behind the stompa to reach his gaunts next turn.
the rest Moved up, target the riptides, and shot.
My shooting was less effective with all the jinking, but I was able to kill another riptide. the last riptide had 2 wounds left.

Orks 2:
He rolled reserves, and used a reroll from the ethereal to keep them all off the table.
The stompa stayed on the objective, but turned a bit to target most of my army, which was now spread out pretty good.
His shooting saw 1 unit of warriors baked alive in a venom from a scorcha and burna boyz (the venom was unhurt), a ravager destroyed and that was about it. Again, a lot of jinking and a few hull points scattered around.
Assault saw the stompa charge the baked venom and wipe it.

Dark Eldar 3:
Incubi moved up 6", got out 6" and were in the grots grill behind the stompa. Everything else spread out to avoid the stompa.
Shooting took out the last riptide, some grots and since there was nothing else to shoot, started back on the stompa. (to no effect)

Assault saw the Incubi win easily, but the grots were fearless. However, combat res pulled the unit far enough away from the stompa they were no longer fearless for the next round.

Tau 3:
Both the suits and ethereal came in, but the commander did not. My opponent was slick, and put the suits 1" away from a raider, and made it so they misshaped back in reserve. The ethereal came on and ran for cover but was out in the open. He was as good as dead next turn.

The stompa decided to stay on the relic rather than make the grots fearless again. It turned once more for a better angle, and in his haste, he exposed a part of the relic underneath. A plan began to form in my head...

The other 2 grot units circled the incubi to charge in and try to win by weight of numbers.

Shooting was better this turn, removing a raider and immobilizing a ravager.

Assault saw the grots run in. I chose to hit the chargers to reduce incoming attacks, and won by 2! (they killed 1)
He rolled his leadership. Unit 1: failed and ran!
Unit 2: failed and ran
Unit 3: Made it! Rats! It would have been great for 2 incubi to run down 30 models!

Dark Eldar 4:
My opponent said "Time is short, this the last round?"
I said I was ok with it, but if we call it last round, it is. It would change what I do drastically.
We both agreed this was the last round.

So, I move an objsec raider with warriors, a objsec venom with warriors, another objecsec venom with warriors and a lahmean and venom (I disembarked the lahmean) all within 3" of the slightly exposed relic.

My opponent saw what I did and was upset with himself that he moved the stompa..

Shooting saw all the grots running dead, the ethereal dead, and a hull point or two on the stompa.

Combat with the incubi and grots went as expected.

Ork 4:
Al his reserves came on. He put one way in the back for linebreaker, the others dropped by the incubi.

The suits killed the incubi, and the real test began...
He had to kill all the vehicles and all the troops inside or I win the relic.
After all was said and done, I still stood tall! He charged a venom, hoping to stomp multiple units, but the impact hit took it out! I never wanted to fail a 5+ flickerfield save so much in my entire life!

So we then added up killpoints...
He beat me by 1!
This game was really really close to being a massive win for the Dark Eldar...

Dark Eldar:
Relic: 10
Objectives: 10
First Blood and Linebreaker: 2

Orks:
Killpoints: 10
Linebreaker: 1

Dark Eldar win 22-11!

So with that game, the Dark Eldar's realspace raid came to an end...
They won 5-6 games convincingly, and had a great time for most of them.

Teamwise, we lost only 1 game, and that was to the overall winners.
We had a rough schedule...

5 out of our 6 opponents ended up in the top 10! That is a rough schedule no matter how you slice it!
We ended up 6th as a team.
Personally, I was 29th out of 240!
I also won a nice medal for "Best Dark Eldar"

So in the roughest meta out there, against 240 world class players, Dark Eldar beat 211 of them!

Not too shabby for the true kin!

Thanks for reading!