Ok first off, this thread is my attempt to write up as many batreps as I can for 6th edition - some may be short, others long: I will try and add some photos as much as I can (time and equipment allowing) because I like pretty pictures...
So, 6th edition came out - cries of anguish and despair (including my own) were heard across the webway until even Slaanesh (that perverted son of a... erm... Eldar races excess and exploitation...?!
) had to cover his ears at the sounds of moaning that erupted from the internet void! Assault was not possible! Wyches are useless! The Webway Portal is pointless! And so they went on... As to whether they were right? Perhaps only time (and games) shall tell...
However, in order to determine these facts, experimentation must be made: bold (and suicidal) expeditions into these once well trod paths that are now covered in shadows and confusion - the Haemonculi tapped their fingers together in a surprisingly most eeeeeexcellent impression of Mr Burns from the Simpsons (anyone else reckon he was the role model for Urian?) at this prospect. And so my own Kabal - a newly flourished group who will one day (when/if I ever have enough time to get round to it) have an eclectic and varied history and fluff section written about them, leaped into the void in an attempt to (vainly) forge history for themselves and set a pathetic example to others!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Game 1: originally going to be VS Ultramarines, I arrived later than anticipated and quickly sorted a game VS Tyranids. But then, like a flash of blue fleshed and Deneb Stone coloured brilliance (or should that now be Tau Light Ochre?) a Tau player turned up and we decided to have a messy 3 player free for all!! HURRAH!
Dark Eldar Army List: should be found at this link HERE
an experimental list that sought to test out:
- Wyches in large units (with pain token)
- support mini unit of Reaver Jetbikes (RJBs for you newer Dark Brethren out there)
- Mandrakes with Haemie and Web Way Portal (Haemie gets flown in with the small unit of Wych's Raider)
- Razorwing Jetfighter (RJF) with Disintegrators
- Large unit of RJBs
- Talos and Scourges arriving via the WWPLoose idea of the other Armies:
Tyranids- Hive Tyrant with big flappy wings and the psyker power from the 'Nid codex that allows him to hurt D3 enemy models and for him to then regain lost wounds
- a tunnelling Trygon
- 2 units of max. sized Hormagaunts
- 1 solid unit (think it was 6?!) Tyranid Warriors with nasty assault 3 Str 5/6 AP 5 weapons...
- x3 Zonathropes
The Tau Empire- x3/4 Sniper Drones and Seeker dude
- Devilfish with 10 man Fire Warrior Squad
- think it was x2/3 Broadside Battlesuits with shield drones
- x2 units of normal Battlesuits with shield drones
- x1 Command battlesuit guy
- 10 Kroots who were Outflanking
- 6 pathfinder guys with markerlight sheenanigans
- the big ol' Tau Tank thing with markerlights, rocket battery thing and a couple of attached gun droney things
I haven't really fought either of these Codexes previously so this was a serious learning experience for me! The Tau were SERIOUSLY shooting and the Nids were seriously combaty with some solid psyker and shooting support (thanks to the Nid Warriors)
OBJECTIVES: Just one central piece of Area Terrain (ruin with a half destroyed Chimaera and a sort of wall section around the other half of it - see photos later...), we decided that any unit can capture it (not just troops)
DEPLOYMENT ZONES: the Tyranids chose first and selected a corner with reasonable cover, I chose second and deployed in the opposite corner - thus forcing the Tau player to be kinda sandwiched between us both (ignoring the objective) to the right of my deployment zone: he did however have VERY solid cover. We each had up to 18" away from either board edge in our respective corners to deploy.
WARLORD TRAITS: The Nids rolled up Nightfight choice, I rolled up Outflank re-rolls (yaaaaaay
) and the tau rolled something like furious charge or something weird like that. Basically on Nightfighting affected the game.
DEPLOYMENT:
The Nids placed their warriors in the further section away from their corner (ie. nearest the objective) with about a 20" range or so to the objective - they were in their middle ruins. Hormagaunts flanked them on either side of it with 2 Zoanthropes accompanying the Hormie squad nearest my force and the Hive Tyrant with his other squad.
I then squeezed into as much cover as I could find with the mandrakes sitting 12" outside my deployment (and 12" away from the Haemie with the WWP) overlooking the objective and having some clear lines of fire over the Tyranid Zoanthropes and Hormies who were ready to leg it my way (they were miles away though).
The tau kinda copied me in squeezing as much cover out of the building as possible, but arrange themselves more to get as many lanes of fire as possible (see picture below):
TURN 1. We decided to roll randomly to determine who went in what order each turn. Sadly we forgot to clarify that the same player who finished the last turn cannot go first in the next! Oh well....
The Nids ran forwards and tried to psykic blast my mandrakes, but scattered wildly. The Hive Tyrant took to the air and flew an almighty 24" towards the tau with some hormies hot on his tracks. The nid warriros cowered in the central ruins as the left unit of hormies ran at me. Nothing much else happend as everything else was out of range.
I then went 2nd and moved the WWP Haemie into contact with the Mandrakes and was ready to drop the WWP in the shooting phase. The Venom moved 6" up to the edge of a ruins (and gained LOS to the Broadsides) outside the Tau firehouse and the Blasterborn disembarked and moved a full 6" into the ruins to take fire points against the broadsides sat opposite them. The large wych squad in raider moved up to the end of the blasterborn ruins so only the pathfinders could see them. The smaller unit of RJBs moved up to a firepoint overlooking the Broadsides as well whilst the bigger unit turbo boosted up past the mandrakes. The smaller wych squad disembark and walk towards the objective.
My shooting saw lots of poisoned weaponry piled into the broadsides in the hope of taking out the 2 shield drones - only 1 died. The blasterborn then shot and took out the 2nd shield drone but no broadside damage sadly! The Mandrakes were out of range but the WWP was deployed HUZZAH! See below for the 'ruins' outside the tau firehouse
The Tau then showed how almighty their shooting was and accuracy with markerlights (which combined with extraordinary shooting managed to pile in a massive number of hits and took the Tyrant down to 2 wound remaining: the tyrant tried to dive but failed the roll and took a strength 9 hit dropping it to its last wound! I suffered casualties too: the Venom was destroyed and the explosion caught 2 blasterborn who died, the blasterborn then got shot up badly and were wiped out. 1 mandrake died to a snipershot and 1 RJB from the small unit died too (despite a 3+ save thanks to Stealth on turn 1).
Rules Question: On this matter, does Nightfighting on last for turn 1? You don't roll to see if it lasts for turn 2? I must have misread the rumours as I thought it 'lingered'...
TURN 2.
The nids rolled highest and went again! The Tyrant moved up into the Tau's face ready to glean some wounds back through his psychic power - except that he rolled a 12 and suffered perilds of the warp! With a soft mewing noise like the sound a cat left out in the rain, the Tyrant threw his arms up in the hair, shouted "WHY is it ALWAYS bloody ME that goes down first?! What is Trygon gonna say when he hears of this?! Ya shouldda TUNNELED Larry, ya shoulda tunneled... God I hate this game..." Still, at least he wasn't poisoned by splinter fire... *AHEM* Ok, so the Tyrant dies, everything else moves up, I save all the Psychic blasts on the mandrakes (cover and FnP baby!)
The Tau go next and the Kroot appear on my board edge behind where the Venom exploded - they shoot at the Raider with the large unit of wyches and take off a hull point (my flickerfield saved 1). A single tactical suit lands down in the corner of the now dead trueborn ruin, the rest of the Tau turn to face the oncoming hormies and wych raider.
Shooting see the (occupied) raider survive all punishment (not many tau can see it), the other (now empty) raider gets blown up and 2 Dark Eldar Warriors die in the blast, fail their morale check and leg it off the board... The rest of the tau focus on the hormies and kill a few.
Finally my turn, the Razorwing Jetfighter arrives to kick arse and immediately moves towards the central congregation of tau combatsuit-warriors, devilfish and fire warriors on the ground floor that are pouring fire into the oncoming Hormies. The Talos also arrives and wanders towards the Devilfish transport and succeeds in getting within 9" for Heatlance range. The BIG unit of RJBs moves up to the left unit of Hormeis read to turbo boost in the shooting phase. The mandrakes shimmy over some to the left and ready to get some shots into the hormies. The smaller unit of RJBs moves up close the Deep Striking solo combat-suit guy and try to turbo boost him in the shooting but fail to deal any damage. The large wych squad disembarks and faces down the kroot warriors ready for the assault.
Shooting see the Devilfish blown up by the Talos' heatlance (but the 2 drones that accompany it had unattached in the previous turn and moved towards the objective), The razorwing tries to pie plate the combat-suit tau but only kills 2 shield drones with the missiles and then deals 1 wound with the disintegrator cannons. The big unit of RJBs blast over the Hormies and deal massive casulaties on the little 'nids, the mandrakes kill 1 of the zoanthropes and the small unit of wyches manage to get up to touching the objective terrain but are not within it yet. The wyches grenade and pistol down 5 kroot.
Assault see the Wyches wipe out the Kroot and gain a 2nd pain token (their Haemonculus is still with them), the consolidate towards the solo-combat-suit.
Not a bad turn!
TURN 3. We decide that we're running out of time and that this will be the last turn: I go first!
The Scourges arrive and move from the Webway Portal onto the objective as does the small unit of wyches. The mandrakes ensure they are in range of the 2nd Zoanthrope and the bikes get ready to boost over the Hormies again. The smaller unit of RJBs gets forgetten about! The large wyches seperates from the haemie and moves up towards the lone deep striking combat suit but its a dicey 8" (hence why I removed the Haemie). The Jetfighter moves on but keeps the same targets in sight. The talos makes a fail move and ignores the unattached Devilfish drones and instead tries to get into assault range of the Broadsides
Shooting sees the Hormies reduced to 2 models from the big RJBs unit, the last Zoanthrope dies to combined Scourges and Mandrake firepower, the Razorwing deals 2 wounds to the enemy combat-suit squad by using the splinter cannon, 2 dissies and 1 missile. The big wyches get an 11" charge vs the solo combat suit and wipe it out thanks to the agoniser and mass attacks. The talos fails to reach the broadsides.
Tyranid turn: the warriors move out from cover and annihilate the Scourges, the 2 remaining hormies try to get into assault range of the wyches on the objective but fail their charge.
The Zoanthrope that had headed towards the tau now warp blasts the objective wyches and kills 4 leaving just 1! (lots of fluffed cover saves!).
Oh and the Trygon does not turn up all game... otherwise THIS wouldda happened...
Tau last turn: as much firepower as possible was poured into that last remaining wych, but as soon as the first unit drew bead I declared that I was going to ground! 3+ cover saved the 3 sniper shots and then all the rest of the tau could not see! Unfortunately however, the failed Talos move now became apparent as the remaining 2 tau drones from the devilfish walked (or floated) onto the objective to contest it.
FINAL RESULT: Tau and Dark Eldar draw!Morale victories: the Tau caused the most deaths, the Dark Eldar *should* have won (if I remembered to use the talos correctly and didn't ignore the drones - even using the small squad of wyches to shoot their pistols could have done the trick!) and finally the Nids for failing the most crucial rolls in the game (Trygon reserves and Hive Tyrant failed rolls!)
Overall a really good fun game! Lots learnt, which I shall write about later! I hope you enjoyed this first report and some of the photos (altough hazey thanks to my ipod camera) which I hope to one day improve if I ever buy a better camera (probably 6 months away).
Subject: Kabal of the Vile Rose - 6th Ed. Battle Log 
Thu Jul 12 2012, 01:26
