Teach me the error of my ways!

The hard hitters are in reserve... Damn. As i said earlier it looks like we have to waste our first turn. In preparation for reserves to come in. Especially seeing that no one seems to think it's acceptable to take risks with raiders :-P
If you can move the candy teams to threaten and hopefully take out some of the foot troops, specifically the devastators (they're likely to he a pain in the rear) if you can, try and get some damage on the predators with the raider lances. You want them to be snap firing.
You can turbo boost the Reavers across the table out of sight ready to cluster caltop some stuff next turn. (dirty trick you can do is to charge a rhino and put your models at each exit point so the models inside can't evacuate if you wreck it. The whole squad just dies.

Yeah it is a bit disappointing. To be honest, it is a bit difficult to visualise what's going on. But I'll keep trying to help!

You got two Raider troops, the grotesques Raider and an Incubbi Venom right? And the reavers. Get everything onto your right flank. Everything. Use the tanks as line of sight blocking cover from the other side and get the lances to bear against his tanks.

The grotesques: go fast! If he shoots them down, you will want to attack nevertheless.

The Incubbi not so much. Move them to the right and try to shoot the devastor squad if possible to utilize the tank terrain. The Chemical tanks, not a mobile tank.

Only stuff already on your right flank is allowed to shoot. The rest: flat out!

Objectives you want to discard the psychic one, and try an fire all your lances into the blue predator to try and get big game hunter. You want to rush your grotesque raider next to the blue predator. (minimising the linevof sight his army can draw to it and using the bulk of his army to obstruct itself). Basically you are trying to apply pressure to that flank. He should react by moving more of his army to counter the grotesques. Try to make sure the grotesques will have cover even if their raider gets destroyed. Move your reaver up aggressively along the same flank but make sure they cannot get flammed. At least that's my initial thoughts.

Edit: not sure how many lances you have so it might be best to use those raiders to apply more pressure. Along with the grotesque. In short you want your grots to be in a position to multi charge next turn. Honestly I'm a bit out of touch with conventional dark eldar lists (mostly playing coven without transports or ravagers). So, used to winning with objective placement and playing the mission that shooting things is a radical concept.

I'll throw my vote into the "right flank" strategy". It's difficult for me to perfectly envision the board-state without being able to measure distances, and having to piece together 2-3 different pictures into one focused state-of-play.

General principles - Move the collective behind the right skull/fuel tanks/ruins, blocking LOS (or granting cover) to your dude-mans. Be wary of the assault range of those Assaulterines, although it's difficult for me to say where you can safely place without being able to measure.
Splinter shots go into Devs. Likely to be the Venom, and snap-firing Warriors off of the Raiders.
Lances go into right-most Pred. Once shaken/stunned, can move onto secondary target.

Grotesques want to move into a position to pounce. What's the collective target for their butchery?

The grotesques can perhaps multiple charge several tanks. But that's just a quick idea.

Regarding board state it might be worth posting a picture of the whole board top down if possible from your deployment zone.

Regarding the "right flank" are we talking about the marines right or the dark eldar right? I was talking about the marines right (where the blue predator is). Its also the flank where the grots can get into the best position. There are 2 preds that would need to consider moving 12" reducing their fire power or get charged.  The idea being your opponent moves off objective 6 to support his right flank, leaving you free to score it next turn.

I agree with firing whatever splinter fire you can muster into the devs.

Barking Agatha wrote:

It's a little disappointing. When it was about making a list, we got a dozen responses and a lively discussion. Then it was about setting up the pieces on the table, and it went down to a handful of people. And now that it's about actually moving those pieces on the table, you could cut the silence with a Citadel knife!

As someone who intentionally decided not to get involved with this, and seeing your clear frustration with the way this is going, I'm going to toss out my thoughts about why I chose not to get involved, and maybe you can look at those and use them to build a better method of how to train at the game, as it were.

Firstly - I thought the whole 'play by committee' thing sounded silly. When I look at other good DE lists that have won tournaments, I do not see lists I would build or use. I am sure other good DE players would feel the same about my lists. So, right off the bat, people can play an army, play it well, and still play different versions of the army, make different value calls, et al. Add in that if someone is working a strategy angle one day, and then isn't around the next turn and someone else advises something else, it just...y'know, seems messy. To quote Terry Pratchett "The IQ of a mob is the IQ of its dumbest member divided by the number of mobsters."

Secondly - the time, I check in on this post about once a week, this changed from my early once a day glance. That is because the pace of this game is glacial. So I am hardly surprised that people have lost interest. Even from the start it was clear it would be a very slow game, and I wanted no part of a multi week commitment (that looks to have become multi-month).

Thirdly - the images are of very beautiful DE models, but they are not good images to tell what the hell is really going on. Note how many of the people still offering help are commenting about wanting to see this or understand that - playing a game of Warhammer through pictures is dificult to begin with, and if you want good advice it is very strong on you to try to make stuff as clear as possible at all times.

My thought, when I first saw this, was actually "why doesn't she just use Vassal?" Like, you could literally snag someone from here as a volunteer, and meet up on Vassal - even bring in a third party as an opponent who is dedicated to winning, and plug the sucker out in a few hours with a much clearer ability of the person advising you to see what's going on in real time, and to have a better understanding of the board (and even to avoid little pratfalls like you wanting advice on everything but selecting basically the 2nd worst trait table for DE to roll on - though I feel you did that with a tongue in cheek intention when you claimed it was supposed to be good for us   ).

But, assuredly that would solve the time, board comprehension, and the committee issues.

Those are just my thoughts, I am perfectly fine if you want to continue this experiment, and you do seem to still have some interest from people willing to help you, and I'll admit the read is interesting enough for me to tune in occasionally and read the thread, so I'm not claiming it's a bad thread or idea, I'm just pointing out the barriers I saw and why I chose not to participate as you're now expressing some concerns that appear to be connected to those issues.

Regards,
Thor.

Thor665 wrote:

selecting basically the 2nd worst trait table for DE to roll on

That's not true. I rolled on the codex table at first because that's what I always do. Then someone said that it would be better to roll on the Tactical one, so I changed it and did that instead. It's all there, you can check it! What is the best table to roll on, then? And if Tactical is the second worst, which one is the worst?

You assume that I already know this. I don't! It's like 'why don't I just use Vassal'. I'd never even heard of this Vassal until just now, when you mentioned it. I've downloaded it and I can't make heads or tails of it. You must think that everyone is some kind of cyber-genius!

Strategic is what you rolled on. Tactical is the table that affect maelstrom objectives. I guess this comes down to Thor's committee point. I'm not a fan of the strategic table and I almost always roll on tactical. But that's because I like playing the mission. It depends on your list though. Some members swear by the strategic table.

As for vassel its really good for this sort of thing as you can arrange a game online against other members of TDC (its also what I use for battle reports). Its a bit complicated at first but there are some good YouTube guides on how to use it out there.

I've also been checking this thread as close to daily as my schedule will allow. I've had thoughts on this.

First, I think the idea behind this thread is brilliant. It (hopefully) sets up a learning experience, but it also asks the loud, faceless voices on the internet (I am speaking in general terms, and not thinking of any specific TDC members) to actually demonstrate what they're claiming.

I've never heard of anyone doing something like this before. Of course there's going to be a learning curve.

I agree that playing by committee is messy, especially when the committee isn't necessarily the same committee from day to day. I don't think the glacial pace is a problem. I don't like the idea of doing this with individuals rather than groups, because I think that renders the entire process anecdotal. Maybe form like-minded members into one or more teams?

I think the other issue is the map. My experience with Vassal doesn't extend very far beyond knowing that it exists, but I thought of it too. My thought was to take a top-down photo of the game table (use a selfie stick if you know someone with one, or stand on a ladder, or what have you) and then try to recreate it to scale in Vassal. Alternatively, I guess it's possible to just play the game in Vassal? (But then *no one* gets to push around little models, and where's the fun in that?)

I haven't chimed in on tactics during this thread because I don't claim that if people aren't able to win with Dark Eldar, it's because they're doing it wrong. I know the Dark Eldar very well. I have not, however, studied every other army or played the hundreds of games that I'd need to confidently either say that or deny it. I can talk about the games I have played, but since you're not playing against those players on those tables with my army, I don't know how useful my experiences would be for you.

I love the idea behind this thread. If it doesn't work out this time, that doesn't mean that it isn't doable.

Barking Agatha wrote:

That's not true. I rolled on the codex table at first because that's what I always do. Then someone said that it would be better to roll on the Tactical one, so I changed it and did that instead. It's all there, you can check it! What is the best table to roll on, then? And if Tactical is the second worst, which one is the worst?

Wow - suddenly I'm in a lawyer verification process  

Yeah, i didn't notice the stragtegic switch, or if I did, I forgot, it was a while ago - but the Dark Eldar table is a joke. Strategic isn't brilliant, but it is better than that and is probably our second best bet depending on warlord choice - I'll second Mush's thoughts on tactical. If I'm playing Maelstrom I never take anything else.

Barking Agatha wrote:

You assume that I already know this. I don't! It's like 'why don't I just use Vassal'. I'd never even heard of this Vassal until just now, when you mentioned it. I've downloaded it and I can't make heads or tails of it. You must think that everyone is some kind of cyber-genius!

Honestly I did assume people knew about Vassal, but if you didn't I'm glad I opened your eyes to it.
Also, if you're unaware of Vassal you should go read some of Mush's battle reports (incidentally another good way to learn how to play the army is to read bat reps)

I do not think everyone is a cyber genius - I just thought you were

I know that the DE table is abysmal, but what if you're using something like the RSR detachment or (heaven help us) KRP Formation?

Would it be better to roll on the DE table because you get a reroll, or roll on Strategic without a reroll?

For starters I would never use either the formation or the detatchment
For Maelstrom I would still roll Tactical regardless.
As for the rest, hurm, I guess it would be down to the numbers.

So, Strategic has 3-4 okay options depending on whether ruins are on the table.
Dark Eldar has 1 good one unless you're a brawling Warlord.

So, even with a re-roll you're better off on Strategic *unless* you're a brawling Warlord.
So I would say, if you are running an assault Warlord in the detachment or formation, and don't want to roll on 'Personal' then, yes, the DE one is the better bet to Strategic since you have the re-roll.

Thor665 wrote:

For starters I would never use either the formation or the detatchment

Fair enough.

Thor665 wrote:

For Maelstrom I would still roll Tactical regardless.
As for the rest, hurm, I guess it would be down to the numbers.

So, Strategic has 3-4 okay options depending on whether ruins are on the table.
Dark Eldar has 1 good one unless you're a brawling Warlord.

So, even with a re-roll you're better off on Strategic *unless* you're a brawling Warlord.
So I would say, if you are running an assault Warlord in the detachment or formation, and don't want to roll on 'Personal' then, yes, the DE one is the better bet to Strategic since you have the re-roll.

That makes sense. Thanks for replying.

I've been following this thread silently in the hope of learning a trick or two, and so have been reluctant to chime in with my own opinion (I'd hate to drop the DE IQ of the mob... ). As such, I'll just make a couple of general comments on the thread.

I think it's a great idea. As others above have said, the fact that the first try has encountered some difficulties is unfortunate, but not necessarily the end (easy for me to say, spectating and putting no work into it...   ).

There are a couple of directions that this could be taken. I think that some overhead photos or maps could salvage the current game, if desired; it's always easier to conceive and execute strategy with a complete picture. I will briefly note here that the real life generals likely have far less information than we are used to, and it might be an interesting (although very different) experience to have a third party mediate a game between two players entirely on model's eye pictures. But I digress.

Recreating the experience on Vassal is another option. It would also be possible, and perhaps useful given the differing opinions, to split into teams and play parallel games - using the same setup, mission, and enemy forces to create a mirror, and assess the performances of two or more different approaches against a particular situation - ideally one of your regular opponents. If the logs of the participants can be preserved, and regular pictures taken, the experience together with the strategic narrative can then be prepared afterwards and consumed as learning material.

Another option would be to play a game with slightly fewer points of committee decision. For example, post a battle report with army list, missions, and deployment done, maybe the first turn as well, then throw it open for advice on what to do next. While this does offer the unenticing prospect of many posters complaining that "you should have deployed like this, taken this in your army not that," etc, it also presents a story that is more fully formed (and thus easier to draw potential participants in), and by presenting options for game-altering constructive discourse can hopefully achieve the original aim.

(sorry for the wall of text, I got carried away. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it is usually found at a different address)

With regard to this idea, I'm just wondering if it would work better to have just one player on TheDarkCity write the list and offer advice - as opposed to trying to get everyone involved at once.

I like the idea, I'm just not sure that this is the best way to go about it.

For example, I imagine most of us write lists based on the tactics we use (and possibly even the armies we know we're likely to face). But, when you have a community-designed list, it seems you're more likely to end up with whatever list people dislike the least - rather than what anyone actually wants. If you see what I mean.

To put it another way, I imagine a lot of people will look at the list you ended up with and be unsure of what to do - because there are units they don't normally use (and so, at the very least, don't feel qualified enough to start offering advice about), and/or see that it's lacking units/wargear they rely on for their strategy.

For example, I'm used to fielding a list with 5 venoms and no gunboats or blasterborn (both of which I removed some time ago having found them lacking). I use units of 3 Reavers, but they all have Heat Lances or Blasters - which I find pretty important. Finally, I do use Incubi, but I certainly don't feel qualified to give advice on them. Mainly because I could replace them with 5 jam doughnuts and not see any drop in their effectiveness.

Now, I'm not saying that the list is bad. All I'm saying is that I take one look at it and immediately feel out of my depth. I can't really offer advice on it because it's quite different to the lists I play and would require very different tactics to what I'm used to.

I could be wrong, of course, but I suspect many people will feel the same way. So, it just seems like you're liable to end up with a list that no one really wants to play - as opposed to one that everyone will offer advice for.

That's why I'm wondering if it would be better to ask a specific player to do this, so that you can use a list (and strategy) that that player is very familiar with.

If this comes across as the gibberish of a bad player, then I apologies.

That's actually the best idea yet...
Put a specific player on a hangout chat and both of you can communicate in real time. Granted: you should have WiFi available.

Getting back to 'what to do next' we seem to be in two camps. Most are suggesting shifting over to our right flank and trying to get out of LOS of as much as possible. Mushkilla however seems to be suggesting that we stick to our left flank piling everything as far forward as possible. I think I actually agree. That was certainly my intention when I made my suggestions for deployment.

Shifting to the right has its merits but looking at this picture...



...I'm not convinced that we are going to be able to block LOS to many of his units if we actually want to advance up the table beyond our own deployment zone and it leaves us further away from the majority of his army. But we want to be up close!

If instead we pile everything forward on our left we present target saturation. He has 3 Raiders and 3 units of Reavers all charging headlong at his lines. Can he take them all? If he concentrates on one or two targets he'll probably get first blood but that was pretty much inevitable in this game and it leaves the rest of our army intact. Ideally we want him to be shooting at the Grot's Raider so we'll put that front and centre and see if he takes the bait.

Here are my suggestions:

Move and flat out the Blue Candy Pack's Raider to the left of the leftmost building in tile 3. Hopefully will be out of LOS of a lot of the army and will have 4+ cover and night shields anyway so no need to jink. If the Predator on our left wants to shoot at it it will probably need to move and therefore reduce its firepower.

Move and flat out the Grot's Raider into the middle of tile 3, as far forward as it can get. Jink anything that fires at you. The Grots should be able to survive even if their Raider goes up in smoke and it leaves them in a good position for next turn.

Move and flat out the Pink Candy Pack Raider behind the Grot's Raider. Hopefully won't get too much shooting at it and with 5+ from the Grots and Night Shields you shouldn't need to jink but feel free to do so if you get too much coming at you.

Move all the Reavers up and turbo boost them into tile 3. Hard to judge distances but you should be able to get them quite far forward. Make sure you spread them out so any flamer templates can't catch any other units as well as the Reavers.

Nothing will be able to fire this turn so it should be fairly quick! Discard the Harness the Warp card as we cannot achieve it. You get to draw another at the start of your next turn.

Ideally we will force some or all of the Marines to move, either to get away from us or to get us in their sights. Either way it reduces the amount of firepower we have to endure next turn.

Okay. I can live with that plan. Are you still with us Agatha?

Still here

I'll do that. I'm also trying to learn Vassal.

How are we doing? Any update on turn 1 yet?

Agatha, did this fall over?

Hi. Sorry, yeah, I don't think I can finish this. I thought it would be easy, but scheduling it turned out to be a nightmare, and my friend is now gone for the holidays.

Well, it was an idea. I still think that there has to be a way that we can help each other out somehow other than the usual 'here is my list, what do you think?' and 'take out the whatever and put in another whosis', or worse, second-guessing with 'why didn't you attack the x's with your y's' when obviously that is not always possible.

Or sometimes you get vastly different experiences. Some people never play against meringues in droopods with flamers, or tellyporting nemeses, and so on, so in their experience X works fine, so you try X and get charred to pieces on the first turn. You get the idea. We need a way to put our coaches 'in there' so that you can actually give us advice that we can apply to our games!

But I guess this wasn't it

I've been away for a few years, and after my first game of 40K in ~11months last week, today I opened up TDC, and this was the first thread I read, start to finish.

Firstly...My God, Agatha, your models are stunning! What a body of work!

Secondly...what a great idea for a thread. I, like you, find that batreps and tactica only get you so far; finding out what clever people did, or would have done in your place, helps a bit, but is an erratic way to actually improve; imagine if your maths teacher never taught you, only ever told you what you got wrong in yesterday's homework! A bad way of learning, as negative experience gets reinforced with practice.  Having just joined, clearly Vassal (which I have never used) would be the key to a lot of this; Mushkilla's batreps are so easy to read because of the images.

I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing there was televised, commentated 40K, like snooker: a live game, with overhead camera, Vassal simulator, a floating cameraman to give LOS shot, and a studio of pundits and advisors saying "if she moves forward to here, she can do this, but that will open her up to that..." etc.

I only get a few game sessions a month, and that includes modelling&painting, other games, board games etc, so I average a 40K battle less than once a month, far too little to learn purely by my mistakes.

I hope that another thread like this gets a go, with better results: my suggestions would be use the previous discussions to present your list as a given (there's no shortage of list threads), along with WL,mission and drug rolls as a fait accompli, then present an overhead and few angle shots pre- deployment, and pre- each turn, to have the discussion; then playout that turn, and your opponent's, before posting the next report.  Thus you can get input from other TDCers, act on it, get results and analysis, without it slowing the whole game too much.

I will be eagerly watching!

And again, my god, your painting is exquisite!

Obviously 40k isn't televised, but what if someone livestreamed a game?

That way, people could offer tactical suggestions whilst the game was still in progress.