Archon Dalur's path to domination of the universe

Ok so this is going to be a record of the successes and (hopefully few and far between) failures of my Dark Eldar Archon, Ylos Dalur, and his Kabal and their Cult allies.

I've not played 40k since 3rd edition, so it's not only a record of results, but hopefully also each report will teach me something about using the DE. The intention therefore is that each report will just give a relatively brief commentary on what happened, focussing on things that I wasn't expecting to happen.

So, my first starter game, I took:
Succubus with hydra gauntlets and haywire grenades

5 Wyches in venom with extra splinter cannon, hekatrix with blast pistol & agoniser. Unit has haywire grenades.
9 Wyches in raider with disintegrator cannon, hekatrix with venom blade and blast pistol, 1 wych has razorflails.
5 Warriors in venom with extra splinter cannon, sybarite with blast pistol and agoniser.

Razorwing with 2 necrotoxin & 2 shatterfield missiles, dark lances & splinter cannon.
Ravager with 3 dark lances.

Opponent: space marines (red ones, but using normal space marine codex)
Captain in terminator armour
5 Terminators

Tactical squad split into 2 5-man combat squads

Dreadnought with multi melta

I take the first turn, with my troops advancing down the centre of the board in their transports, I don't disembark. Razorwing shakes the dreadnought, as does the ravager. Fire from the venoms takes out 3 of the flamer combat squad of marines.

My raider is taken out by the combat squad with missile launcher, immobilised after moving 12" (I swear the missiles were made of wet toilet paper, failed to get a penetrating hit on a raider twice in a row!)

Succubus and 9 wyches charge the terminators & captain, 5 wyches charge the dreadnought. In the resulting combats, the 5 wyches failed to get any hits on the dreadnought with their haywire grenades in 4 combat turns, but lost only 1 wych to the return attacks. Succubus and her wyches demolish the terminators and their captain, Succubus twice rolling sixes for her hydra gauntlet attacks. captain survived the combat, but fell back and was riddled with splinter cannon fire from the venoms. While the combat was going on the 2 venoms and 5 warriors hammer the two combat squads with splinter fire over a couple of turns, wiping them both out.

Opponent concedes with just the dreadnought remaining in combat with the wyches.

Highlight: Succubus performed brilliantly against the captain, and her back up squad of wyches helped admirably in wiping the terminator squad.

Lowlight: Forgetting the flickerfield on my razorwing, which didn't manage to use any of its missiles after I decided to use the dark lances in the first turn and it then got shaken and stunned.

Learning points:
1. Don't forget the upgrades you've paid for, I'll be making unit cards for each unit to specify what each's stats are and what special rules etc they have.
2. Dodge is awesome. Who needs feel no pain, get your wyches into combat early and they'll be fine, I lost only two all game to five terminators, a dreadnought and a captain in terminator armour.
3. Don't rely on your dice rolls 20 attempts to hit a dreadnought with haywire grenades and not a single 6. 3 rolls for hydra gauntlets? 2 sixes. The only way to play the averages is by rolling LOTS of dice, and freak results are always possible.
4. Know how much firepower to bring. My opponent only had one vehicle, which i decided to engage in close combat. Consequently my ravager was wasted for most of the game.
5. Combat drugs are always useful, I rolled hypex, but it meant my Succubus and Wyches got straight into combat without being shot up

Awesome report. Try a Haemi with the wyches. 4+ Invuln in combat + 4+ FNP =not many dead wyches.

yeah, i would agree as it lets them survive for much longer, effectively giving them a double save.
Nice game though