2000 pt Pure DE, 3 Round casual tournament

Hi, thanks for reading! I went to a 3 round tournament at my LGS today and we had a 20 person tournament! Heckuva turnout for our area. Then again, maybe it's poppin' more than unrealized, I can't usually make it down on 40k nights, so maybe it's bigger than I realised. I digress...

Here's the list:

Vanguard Detachment
74: Haemonculus, Haemonculus Tools, Electro-corrosive Whip, Crucible of Malediction. Warlord, <Coven>
96: 8 Wracks; Acothyst, Electro-corrosive Whip <Coven>
116: Raider, Dark Lance, Shock Prow <Coven>
90: 5 Incubi
95: Venom, 2 splinter cannons <Coven>
90: 5 Incubi
95: Venom, 2 splinter cannons <Coven>
95: 5 Mandrakes
95: 5 Mandrakes
186: Ravager, 3 Dark Lances, Shock Pros

Outrider Detachment
72: Succubus, Archite Glaive <Cult>
109: 10 Wyches, 3 Hydra Gauntlets; Hekatrix, Agonizer <Cult>
116: Raider, Dark Lance, Shock Prow <Coven>
150: 5 Scourges, 4 Dark Lances
130: 5 Scourges, 4 Blasters
28: 2 Razorwing Flocks
28: 2 Razorwing Flocks
169: Voidraven Bomber <Cult>
156: Ravager, 3 Dark Lances
Total: 2000 points, 5 CP

Game 1: No Mercy, diagonal deployment zones
I played Ty with Tau. Don't have the exact list but he had:
-4 Commanders, 2 with 3x missiles, 1 FW one with a missile/marker light combo, 1 w 3x CIB
-2 marker drones
-4 Ramoras(?) FW supersonic drones with seeker missiles and super burst cannons
-3 Crisis suits, fusion blasters
-2 squads of 6 pathfinders
-2 squads of 6 fire warriors, SMS drop drone
-10 kroot
-Riptide
-Longstrike

He castled his riptide, longstrike, pathfinders, missile commanders, and fire warriors in the corner. His CIB commander, marker/missile commander,  4 remoras, and crisis suits. I deployed my transports around the haemonculus at the edge of my DZ, with the ravagers on the flanks and flocks behind my lines so the deep strikers would have to stay back a bit. My 2 mandrake squads and scourges were in reserve.

I had first turn and raced forward with my transports, making sure to stay within 6" of my move+adv haemonculus. I brought in my scourges to shoot the riptide, and mandrakes near his castle. I dropped the riptide with all my dark light and the mandrakes wiped both pathfinder squads between some hot mortal wounds and morale. Also killed a few kroot with random poison shots.

He dropped I his missile marker commander, marker drones, remoras, and crisis suits in my backfield. He shot the hell out of my dissy ravager but didn't kill it--2 wounds left. He blew up the wyches' raider and shot them down to 4 models. I think he wounded the other raider but not enough to matter, and shot up both mandrake squads but didn't kill either. The kroot charged my wyches, but they rolled hot on their dodge saves and shredded the kroot with hydra gauntlets. Morale brought them to just the hekatrix.

Turn 2 I lanced Longstrike down, killed a crisis suit, a remora, and all but the squad leader of a fire warrior squad. I charged the fire warrior with 2 mandrakes and lost one from overwatch. I also charged a remote with birds but only wounded it twice.

On his turn I rolled hot with my 5++ on my severely wounded ravager and it took both missile commanders to kill it, but kill it he did. The mandrake finished the fire warrior off and the crisis suits charged and killed the birds.

On my turn 3 he called it. My incubi were positioned to kill his crisis suits, commander, and marker drones and I still had enough shooting and flying transports to kill 2-3 remoras and a commander. He would have likely had a couple commanders and maybe a remora left at the end of my turn so he conceded and gave me max points.

Game 2: Retrieval, hammer and anvil
Pat was playing Necrons. He had:
-Some special character necron lord
-cryptek
-2 squads of 20 warriors
-8 tomb blades? The jetbike guys with TL immortal guns
-10 immortals
-monolith
-10...uhh...Close combat guys with T5 and 2 wounds.

I got to choose deployment zones and had 3 objectives in my DZ. I deployed deep into the deployment zone to keep out of range of his mid-range shooting, with only the razorwings at the front to keep the deep striking monolith off my nuts.


First turn he moved and advanced the warriors and immortals, and flew his tomb blades forward but the birds were his only target. Only 4 had range to the birds but his rolls were kinda poor and he only pulled 3 wounds off one, so no morale test.

I dropped both units of mandrakes behind his lines, one on the objective in his zone, and dumped every bit of shooting I could into the tomb blades, wiping them out.

Turn 2 he had no choice to deal with the mandrakes, so he moved everything backwards again and rapid fired them to death. But it bought me another turn of space to leverage my mobility and superior range.

I dropped in my dark lance scourges and again focused all of my shooting on one unit--the immortals--until they were gone from the table.

Turn 3 he dropped the monolith out of range of my dark lance scourges, and tried to blast the dissy ravager, but only brought it to 3 wounds.

I dropped the blaster scourges in some ruins behind his lines and poured all my dark light into the monolith, but unfortunately only managed to bring it to 2 wounds. I didn't realize at the time that killing it would've stranded the 600 point squad embarked inside on some far off tomb world. So close... I also good bombed, poisoned, PGLed, and charged one necron squad with one squad of Incubi and razorwings and hacked them down to about 5 or 6 models. He had no choice but to spend 2 CPs or those Necrons would've popped and the Incubi would be right on top of his cryptek and special character.

He disembarked the CC Necrons but failed the long charge to my lines. That was probably his last chance to claw his way back into the battle. The reanimating Necrons began to drag down the Incubi but they continued to give a good account of themselves.

I shot up the CC 'crons a bit and finished off the monolith. I charged the CC crons with wracks, incubi, and wyches. The succubus failed her 4" charge (rolling double 1s twice! Ha!) but she was still close enough to lend her aura. The incubi put a large dent in the Necrons, and the wyches finished them off. Side note: I know wyches get a lot of hate, and I totally get why, but on turn 3 with a succubus nearby, they are a very efficient source of saturation. Hitting on 2s with re-rolls, and then re-rolling wounds with hydra gauntlets too makes them pretty reliable. I like them.

On his turn 5 the squad of Necrons not in combat shot my other unit of incubi off the table, and the other squad finally dragged down the last of my other squad in close combat.

My turn 5. Final turn. I hopped the scourges out of the ruins and onto his objective and raced the wracks, wyches, and succubus towards his lines. I shot up the mostly ignored squad of warriors and PGLed them too but realized I couldn't do enough damage to force a significant morale test. Oh well, I'll have to deal with these robots the old fashioned way. I charged the smaller necron squad with the succubus and wracks, and multi-charged the Necrons, and both characters with the wyches. The succubus and wracks butchered the Necrons so I directed as many wych attacks at the cryptek as possible. The hydra gauntlets and agonists got the job done and killed the warlord.

So I had all 4 objectives, and all 3 secondary objectives. Max points again!


Game 3: The Relic, frontline assault (the triangular DZ on the long edge)
Alex had:
-Belial
-Ancient terminator
-5 SS/hammer termies
-5 Bolter termies with an assault cannon
-5 devastators with 4 missiles
-Venerable dread with TL las, missile

-Imperial guard commander with some relic that regens command points
-3 squads of guard
-1 Chimera
-Punisher LR Pask
-Tank Commander LR Executioner with a relic of super tank shooting
-Standard  leman russ

I chose this deployment because it allowed my haemonculus to have the opportunity to move and advance onto the relic turn 1. I deployed my 2 raiders' prows at the tip of the deployment zone, with the haemonculus just behind.

Then I seized the initiative, and that was the beginning of the end. I grabbed the relic and built a box around him with birds and transports. The wyches shot pistols, grenade, and PGL out of the lead raider and brought the guardsmen down to 2 after morale. The mandrakes rolled hot with mortals and killed the devastators. All the lances went into Pask and killed him, and the blaster scourges took a few wounds off the tank commander.

In response he dropped the deathwing blob behind my lines, the storm bolters shredded my dark lance scourges, and the other scourges were brought to 1. The wyches' raider got blown up by leman russes and the wyches were shot down to 4 by various lasguns and such. I spent 2 CPs to pass their morale. The lance ravager got brought to 3 wounds by the dread. The termies failed their 9" charge against a venom.

Turn 2 I blew up the leman russ executioner and began chipping away at the last one. The dissy ravager shot up the stormbolter terminators and a squad of incubi charged and finished them off. I sloppily piled in and accidentally brought The other terminator squad who then consolidated into my road-blocking birds and promptly slaughtered them all and consolidated towards my relic bunker. Oops. The wyches charged the guard HQ and tore him to shreds (damn regenning CPs). The mandrakes charged and killed the other IG squads, and my transports charged the chimera to keep it from shooting.

On his turn, he didn't do much with his shooting. I think he brought a raider to 1 wound. His remaining terminator squad charged and killed the empty venom and consolidated into my warlord.

On my final turn, I ran my haemonculus out of combat, then bombed the terminators, shot them up, and charged them with wracks and incubi and finished them. The leman russ got shot up and charged so it couldn't shoot, and the last guard squad got charged by the succubus and remaining wyches and were killed. The transports charged the chimera again to keep it quiet.

He didn't bother playing his last turn as all he had were 2 terminator HQs, a leman russ that couldn't shoot and was almost dead, a chimera that couldn't shoot, and a dreadnaught. None of it was anywhere close to the relic.

Thanks again for reading!

{Edit}

As this was a casual tournament, there was no prize for winning, which is good because (as was pointed out by the next poster down) that I had an illegal list. I thought the razorwing flocks had been changed to minimum 2 and 14 points, not minimum 3. I must have been thinking of khymerae...I don't think it would've changed much, but I still feel crummy.

Anyway, onto post game thoughts:

I realize this is not a fully optimized list, but it's as competitive as I tend to get. It's got enough teeth that to do nasty things but also a bit of fat to display the incredible model range of Drukhari.

That said, I really enjoyed the mix of close combat units, and feel their whole is better than the sum of their parts. Neither wyches, nor wracks are particularly efficient on their own, but they compliment eachother well. Add in the Incubi and you've got a tool for any occasion. Wracks are an excellent tar pit for numerous low-quality attacks, and wyches can tar pit low quantity but high-quality attacks. Offensively wracks match well against high toughness and wounds, and wyches throw out a blistering amount of very reliable attacks. Str 3 isn't amazing, but being able to wound toughness 5 on 5+ in this edition is much better. Hydra gauntlets, in particular, really impressed me a few times.


This was my first real go with Incubi, and one of the things I'm most excited about. I've owned 15 Incubi, including 5 pewter ones, for a long time now, and I'm finally giving myself a reason to paint them up. What I found throughout the games was that people were more worried about shooting up my ravagers and raiders, than my venoms, so the Incubi were usually able to get delivered where they needed to go, and boy are they deadly. They saughtered crisis suits, Necrons, and terminators alike with contemptuous ease.

I love my mandrakes, and it brings my black heart such joy now that they're good. I absolutely love them. The value of delivering mortal wounds to anywhere on the table cannot be over-stated. Being able to cut the pathfinder heart out of a tau fire base very well could have been the difference between a win and a loss in the first battle; and killing the devastators before they shot surely saved at least one of my long boats.

Overall, I was very satisfied with the list--the legal bits anyway...

razorwing flocks are now 3-12 no?

PFI wrote:

razorwing flocks are now 3-12 no?

Oh no! You're right, I thought it was 2! Good thing this was a casual tournament, there was no prize for winning. There was a very cool Tzeentch demon army with these purple, bubbling brimstone horrors that won best painted, and a roll-off tie for best sportsman between two well-deserving guys.

I will have to apologize to my opponents as I come across them. Sigh...but at least it's an easy fix to lump the birds, maybe drop one.