2000 pts Mechanized Kabalite spam vs. Dark Angels infantry

Index drukhari list.

My list wasn't optimised because I forgot to bring all my raiders and ravagers, so I instead just added a couple more razorwing jetfighters and a foot-slogginng kabalite warrior unit.

Archon, agoniser
Succubus, archite glaive (+1 attack combat drug)
6 wyches (+1 toughness combat drug)
raider (dark lance)

4 * 10 kabalite wariors (no special weapons)
4 * raider (dark lance)

1 ravager (3 dark lances)

4 Razorwing Jetfighters (2 dark lances)

15ish Kabalite warriors with an agoniser.

The dark angels list had 2-3 special characters and 4-3 other independent characters (most/all were elite slots or something) from memory it was
Azreal (gives an awesome 4+invulnerable save)
1st company terminator special character
some guy with a relic blade that wounds on 2+, hits on 2+ has d3 damage and an extra d3 attacks against units of 5 or more guys. he was in terminator armour.
some random guy that gave units +1 attack. he was in terminator armour.
apothecary in terminator armour
company captain (someone who gives rerolls of 1's when wounding)

3 units of space marines with 2 plasma guns 1 meltagun, 2 plasma pistols. 2 with missile launchers and one with a plasma cannon.
a unit of 5 terminators.
10 hellblasters with the cool plasma-gun
5 or 10 intercessors with bolt rifles.
3 bikes with 2 plasma guns.
Maybe there was another space marine squad, I can't remember, but his army only looks ~1500 points.

The deployment is dawn of war and the mission is seize and control (2 objectives worth 3 points each, 1 in each deployment zone).


Everything in terminator armour is deepstriking in. The hellblasters, azreal and a marine squad (or 2?) are front and centre of his army. He has a marine squad holding his objective and the intercessors and a second marine squad doing jack all on the side of the board with no objective markers. those 2 units will shoot mostly ineffectually at my jetfighters the entire game.

I deploy evenly spread out across the entire board (successfully baiting the opponent into deploying those 2 units of marines/intercessors opposite 2 raiders and 2 jetfighters.) the blob of 15 kabalite warriors is deployed next to some cover and the objective (and will walk into it for the rest of the game first turn).

I win the roll to go first. The raiders on the useless flank move up into the useless no mans land but out of line of sight of the hellblasters so I don't have kabalite warriors out of position the entire game from a downed raider. The jetfighters move up. my other 2 kabalite raiders and the ravager moves towards his objective (they will eventually all contest his objective). the raider with wyches and HQ's stay near my objective to counter assault the deep striking terminators (who will obviously deep strike near my objective because his army is so slow).

First turn my dark lances did almost nothing. I shot 10 into the hellblasters, 4 hit, 1 wounded and then the last one bounced off an invulnerable save. The remaining dark lances, splinter rifles and necrotoxin missiles killed the 3 bikers and 1-2 of the out of position marines.

His first turn he moves everything but the 2 units in the middle of nowhere up and deep strikes his terminators behind my objective (I deliberately left a massive opening for him to do so). He does 5 wounds to the wych raider with an assault cannon and kills 8 warriors with storm bolters. He used a cool strategem that lets him shoot twice with the terminators. I luck out and roll a 1 on my morale check with the kabalite warriors and have 7 left. He fails the charge distance to assault with his unit of terminators and his characters can't charge anything because they are behind the unit and are being body blocked.

Oh, his shooting killed nothing. He didn't supercharge his plasma shots for some reason and spread damage around on 1 razorwing and 1 raider. I was a little lucky on my invulnerable saves and none of his missile launchers connected.

Turn 2 I have my 2 raiders out in the irrelevant half of the board reverse course and collapse on the terminators. the wyches, archon and succubus get out to charge the terminators. with heaps of splinter rifle shooting and a couple dark lances I kill 2-3 terminators. My flyers, ravager and 2 remaining kabalite raiders shoot hellblasters and kill 3. I absorb the overwatch of the remaining terminators from the wych raider and then charge the remaining unit and the terminator solo that gives +1 attack with my archon. The succubus and the wyches kill the terminator squad and the archon does stuff all. He heroic interventions and over the course of the fight phase does 7 wounds to the archon and 5 to the wyches. My invulnerable saves all succeed from the archon and a single wych dies.

His turn he kills a razorwing jetfighter and spreads wounds out over another razorwing jetfighter, a kabalite raider almost at his objective and the ravager. my archon dies horrifically in the terminator assault phase but my succubus only loses a single wound and the wyches don't die either, which was weird. He deep strikes in his apothecary and fails to revive a hellblaster, even with a reroll. This apothecary fails to revive a hellblaster again next turn (and again even after using a reroll) so basically did nothing the entire game until dying to a dark lance ravager volley.

Turn 3 I run away with my wyches but the succubus fights on against one of this terminators. My 5 dark lances from a razorwing and 3 raiders connected and melted the 2 terminator solos that my wyches ran away from, leaving 27 kabalite warriors with nothing to shoot at. It's so satisfying getting 5 damage from the first dark lance shot and melting a terminator character in a single hit. My 2 kabalite raiders and ravager are now all within 6 inches of his objective and look like they will be able to contest it if the game goes to turn 5. They whittle down 1 squad of space marines (the one on his objective) and there are now only 3 hellblasters left.

He responds by bringing down a raider to 1 wound and killing a second razorwing. The ravager is on 3 wounds. My succubus goes down to 2 wounds but then kills the space marine terminator in combat. I was on fire with my succubus and wych invulnerable saves this game.

Turn 4 I kill his hellblasters and every spacemarine unit that could contest his objective. The ravager pops his apothecary. He is left with Azreal and some elite/HQ that lets space marines reroll 1's to wound around his objective and nothing at all to contest my objective and so concedes.

Conclusion; Shooting flyers when I have 4 of them was a mistake. I still had 5 raiders alive by the end of the game, which meant that all my kabalites and wyches never got shot at by boltguns. This meant that he never got to efficiently use any grunt space marine model in his army . Even without disintegrators in my list, my dark lances were more efficient at taking out hellblasters and terminators then his plasma guns were at taking out vehicles, so he never got to efficiently bring his specialist marines to bear. His terminators never got to efficientl attack because of the wych, succubus and archon's invulnerable saves. In short, I had the army advantage because I was a mechanized horde army and he didn't target my transports to get to my squishy underbelly.

New Codex thoughts. My real 2000 points list will now be ~1650 points becuse of the dramatic points reduction of ravagers, raiders and kabalites so I will be getting 2 units of wyches in raiders for free. I think that troop spam will be really competitive for Drukhari now. The basic kabalite warrior with a splinter rifle is a very reliable and points efficient model against every infantry model but toughness 3 hordes at 7 points and is now not that that bad against T3 hordes at 6 points. Obviously wyches are our answer to T3 hordes with their enormous number of attacks and easy access to strength 4. Finally, with 5+ invulnerable saves our vehicles are extremely tough for their speed and points cost. Kabalite gunboats without any upgrades or special weapons are a very tough, versatile and points efficient unit ranged attrition unit that can pressure any objective on the board with their speed. I don't see many lists being able to out-attrition a mechanized kabalite horde list.