Dark Anecdotes

In a game against Grey Knights, I stole the initiative and blew up his Land Raider with a good Dark Lance shot from a Ravager, then proceeded to kill the lone guy inside (an HQ, can't remember the guy's name) with another Dark Lance shot from a Raider.

Yet another shadow field story. We just gotta love 'em. I'm playing an Ork opponent, who tends to bring skorcha's and burners when playing me. I had the Baron with some beasts as a forward unit. After taking out a couple of skorchas, the unit ended up in front of his battlewagon ready to assault it. He had a full unit of burnaboyz in it. His overwatch was robust, 2 or 3 hits from all of them.

Do you see it coming?

The Baron was in front. *22* Shadow field saves later, the beasts rip the battlewagon apart.

Stellar.

I just finished my second game playing as Dark Eldar, and had a pretty convincing win vs a Chaos Nurgle Marine player in a 500 point game. I popped a rhino turn one with Blasterborn in a Venom for First Blood, and then slowly whittled down the rest of his forces while his Chaos Lord on a Bike with Chaos Spawn escort hunted down a unit of 5 Warriors...who lasted 3 turns in combat, and managed to put 2 wounds on the Chaos Lord. I threw the venom full of Blasterborn at him as a distraction, and camped an objective with Duke Sliscus and a unit of warriors to win the game. I'm pretty happy since I almost always loose horrifically with my main army (Blood Angels), and almost tabled my opponent for once.

My lances seem to be cursed... Last game I shot about 30 shots total with them and did absolutely nothing. On the other hand, I managed to kill a Venomthrope with a single VenomCannons burst on 3+ cover and my co-player singleshot a Hive Tyrant with Shattershard. :-) And on my side of the table a Hive Tyrant + his 3 Hive guards failed to destroy a raider on charge. :-D

Our first game of 7th was Sunday, Cloak and Shadows game with 3000 points a side. I allied up with some Nurgle CSMs to ruin the astra militarum pathetic mon-keigh, exchanging lightning fast strikes for the promise of some Possessed captives to take home and play with!

Should've played a smaller one really, to get used to things, but some highlights from a slow-moving game:

A late turn 4 deepstrike by a 5-squad of tempests landed right next to my (randomly generated) gun emplacement, and nobody from my side was close by. They had nobody to shoot at yet, and next turn the Talos walked on from the board edge and casually liquefied the whole squad. Turned out he had the "destroy a gun emplacement" card!

I did my reaver boosting SO WRONG and Pask rocked up in a Punisher to gobble them all up. At least it meant he couldn't shoot my incubi, who were busy dismantling a hellhound that all my darklight fire had failed to touch. That was turn 3, and afterwards my Archon fought Yarrick forever. We rolled two more turns of combat after the game, to see who would've won - a wound each. Pathetic/awesome.

Webway portal proved mad useful in securing objectives, too. Something to consider for those "how am I gonna get all the way over there again" draws.

EDIT: CSMs are also pathetic mon-keigh, but they're so ugly I forgot.

Second game of 40k ever. I'm playing a 1.5k game against my friend's thousand sons. He gets first turn and flies Be'lakor(?) Some crazy flying daemon prince thing towards my lines and casts psychic shriek on my 10 man warrior squad behind ruins killing 9 of them. I then choose to replace the last warrior model with the "pimp daddy" which is my pride and joy and the first model I ever "painted" which I simply covered in gold paint. He goes on to survive the fusillade of two full squads of thousand sons by going to ground and denies the witch with 3 6's from 4 dice, stopping Ahriman in his tracks. The next turn he gets up and snapshots the demon prince, hitting but failing to wound. My friend then fails the grounding check wounding the prince as he falls from the sky. It just so happens that he lands next to my raider full of wyches who manage to finish him off with their pistols. Sadly Pimp Daddy's luck ran out with his snapshot and he got obliterated in the next volley from a squad of thousand sons. Needless to say I refuse to leave home without my gilded beast. He's had other near death experiences but never anything like that!

Too good not to share... had a maelstrom game (Deadlock) against Necrons last night. Streaked into an early lead and it became clear that my opponent was going to have to table me to win. Bottom of turn 6 he forces 6 cover saves on a Venom (2+ thanks to Jink, Night Fighting having just come into play, and being parked on a Scatterfield) with one hull point left... I get three 2s and no 1s, and the game ends; Necrons have a mostly untouched army with 2 dead ghost arks and a cryptek here and there, all I have left is the one hull point venom.

Go Go Gadget pyrrhic victory!!

Played a game last night that was probably the worst I've ever played. I was the Eldar part of a Deldar army and we were up against a Grey Knight army consisting of 3 squads of terminators inside land raiders. I had literally nothing in my army that could damage a land raider in any way. I spent 3 turns doing absolutely sod all whilst the grey knights eliminated 2 squads of wyches, a FW Reaper and the dark lance from a raider. At that point we had nothing that could damage him in any way and conceded.

It was a perfect storm for the GK really. He picked an army that could only really be dealt with outside of their transports, we rolled a mission that only involved having a single unit outside of the transport for 2 turns and he rolled the warlord trait that enabled him to infiltrate all 3 land raiders on top of the Relic before the game even started. Combined with the wyches failing two charges by 1" each time, the Reaper not turning up until turn 3 and rolling a 1 to hit with the only shot it would ever get to fire and my Farseer (who technically could have damaged the land raider with his witchblade) not arriving until after the game was over and it was the worst possible game for us.

Yesterday was Barons last raid if rumors are true. He was leading a 19 Khymerae supported by 4 Spiritseers against the foul Orks. I won the initiative to go first but it was stolen.

On my turn 1 Beast were 5" away from deffkopta on objective -> No charge even with fleet. Secon turn it was artillery unit 7" away. I rolled two 3's and reroll didn't help. T4 I was only 1" away and made the charge finally. Almost nothing happened and the fight was draw. Still managed to win the game as my supporting elements (1 DA serpent, 2 wych venoms, 6 spiders and a WK) was more that up to the task even with me failing some moves due to lack of playing during last month or so.

We played 1500pts game with killpoints and 1 maelstrom mission simultaneously. Opponent had two 30 boyz mobs, two grot squads, 30 storm boyz, 2 single deffkoptas, 2 warboss (bike and mega-armor) and painboy supported by two 4 strong artillery unit. That 2+ armor is very good with lucky stick rerolls.

In my very last game with the last codex (5th ed. codex, but playing a 7th ed game just a couple of weeks before the new codex dropped):

Battling Orks. He had a mob of 30 Boyz with a Weird Boy all together marching towards me. I threw a blind grenade (old rules for Phantasmal Grenade Launcher defensive grenades) at them so they were WS and BS 1, and then I assaulted the squad with my Archon (with the old-school AP2 Huskblade, Soul Trap, and Shadow Field) + 4 Incubi (including a Klaivex with Demi-klaives), and a unit of 5 Wyches that I sent in first to soak up Overwatch. The Wyches assaulte the Ork mob from the opposite side that my Archon and Incubi were on. Anyway, 4 Wyches died from Overwatch, but 1 made it. The Archon and Incubi pounded in without having to worry about Overwatch. Archon goes first at Initiative 7, kills 6 Boys. Lone Wych go next; Wych kills 1 Ork, Klaivex kills 3. 4 Incubi pile in, kill 9 more Orks. So far I've killed 19 Orks and they have only killed 4 Wyches, from Overwatch. Finally the Orks start to hit back, but so many of them have died near the Archon and Incubi that they can't pile in close enough to engage the Incubi; most of the Orks have to attack the lone Wych. They need 5s to hit, thanks to being WS1 from the blind grenade, and only manage to put a few hits and wounds on the Wych, and she makes a few Dodge 4++ Invulnrable saves and a couple of Feel No Pain rolls and is fine. Orks lost combat by 19, but thanks to their Mob Rule and Boss Pole they stay in combat (a few more Orks go splat from the roll on the Mob Rule table). My Archon and Incubi pile in, as do the Orks, so they are now back in base to base contact; the Wych is surrounded by Orks. During the opponent's turn, his Weird Boy issues a challenge, which I accept with the Achon. (The Weird Boy had been at the very back of the mob before and thus was not engaged in the combat at the beginning of the fight sub-phase and thus was ineligible to challenge or accept a challenge.) The Archon easily kills the Weird Boy, and kills a couple more Orks from spillover wounds. Next, Klaivex and Wych go. Klaivex kills 2 more, Wych doesn't kill any. Incubi kill 3 or 4 more. Orks hit back, again so many are dead they are not in range to Pile In into the Incubi, so they attack the Wych. This time they manage to kill her. They still lost combat by 7 or 8, and the 2 or 3 remaining Orks just get wiped out in a Sweeping Advance. The Archon and Incubi squad just picked up 2 Pain Tokens (1 for the mob, 1 for the Weird Boy), and consolidate towards another 30-boy Mob. The first mob lasted just long enough to keep my guys out of the enemy shooting phase. In my turn, I move the Archon and his Incubi bodyguard to 1" away from the Boys, throw another blind grenade, fry about 5 Boys with the Klaivex's Bloodstone (I miss that piece of wargear, why did they remove it from the new Codex???), and then charge in, this time without the Wych squad to soak up Overwatch. But they do all right, only 1 Incubi dies to Overwatch, and then they start carving up Orks again. They kill something like 15 Orks before the Orks can even hit back, and once again they are too far away to pile in and hit them, although the Pile In move at the end of the battle brings them back together. Once again, Mob Rule kills a few more Boys, but they stay in combat, thus shielding my unit from enemy shooting again, and once again I finish them off in the opponent's turn, getting my third pain token. (Oh yeah, the Incubi was hitting at S7 on my charge due to the Weird Boy trapped in the Soul Trap + Furious Charge.) Oh, the carnage! It was awesome.

Pretty dramatic moment in yesterday's second game vs CSM...

There are 10 cultists huddled between two wrecked rhinos, desperately trying to follow orders to hold the large green crystal covered in mysterious runes (1-20) nearby.
A raider full of warriors approaching from the South opens fire, killing over half the ragged cultists, as a jetfighter appears on the Northern horizon, ferociously knocking holes in the roaring forgefiend to the East.
Caught in this double-pronged lightning strike, the remaining trio of cultists start to question their faith in Grandaddy Nurgle's beneficence. But lo! a meteor appears in the distance, behind the Eldar gunboat. Taking it as a sign, their spirits rise, and they prepare to open fire on the spiky pale ones.
The meteor screams closer, and grows a pair of wings, claws and a gaping maw. Slowing not one bit, the hellturkey swipes at the raider and a hail of debris, fire and dismembered space elves is the last thing any of those cultists ever see.

In the same turn, the turkey continued its uber-dramatic arrival, swooping upward to flame a hull point off the razorwing, shaking (and blinding, it seems) the pilot. Since he could only snapshoot the following turn, I boosted him off the table, figuring to lance the old bird when he reappeared. The poor pilot must have had his eyes burnt right off, because he snake-eyed, and the following baleflamer attack cost me the blue twenty-faceted crystal, and the game!

...

Meanwhile, a plague marine attempts to defend a ruin against a team of attacking reavers. He opens fire with his plasma gun against the charging jetbikes, and blows himself up.

I had a moment in my game against Chaos Marines last night. My solitary Talos, having lost his buddy and one of his own wounds to combined fire from a lascannon predator, forgefiend and plasma gun squad, decides the chaos sorceror looks like a nice target for his ire. Bearing down on the squad, it seems one of his impellers was damaged and failed to charge.

As he closed the gap on the squad, the chaos sorceror let out a psychic shriek. In an unbelievable sequence of rolling, I managed a triple six for my leadership test, causing 8 wounds on the Talos. 'I'll never make all of these', I mutter under my breath, shaking the dice in a resigned fashion, 'I might as well take it off the board now'. Nonetheless, I let the dice roll, and watched stunned as 6 of the 8 5+ Feel no Pain rolls came up successful. The final irony of course was that the two I failed were enough to kill the Talos after all, but it was a truly heroic attempt!

Hehe... good one... at least he didnt feel most of the pain. :-D

Played a 100pts game yesterday at logal game store. It was apart of escalation tourney (500 - 1000 - 1500) Winner get to continue. Round one I took an easy victory fron DA Greenwing.

This time my opponet was DA again. Rawenwing bikes, dark shroud, Predator and 2 tac squads. I had 3 Raiders, ravager, Talos, Archon & grots and Reaves + Scourges as fast attack. We rolled Purge the alien mission with Vanguard deployment. No night fight. He deployed first.

Ravenwing in the middle. Pred and 1 full tacsquad on my left and one tac squad on foot on my right. I deployed quite far and in to the ruins (I got "Conquer of Cities)

Due my deployment to negatate his range I got to go first. I moved to right flanc with whole army managing to kill 3 marines from there and the rest ran off the board. He then advanced cautiously to avoid grot charge but didn't manage to do anything to my army.

T2 my Scourges deepstruck behind his predator and wrecked it.

Retaliation was fierce but it took the whole army worth of shooting to kill the scourges due some nice saves and jinked bikes.

In the end I was able to pick a few bikes from 2+ cover before he saw that it was too late to commit his forces as I had better range and speed. T4 I charged his remingng bikes and wiped the last tac squad on T5.

After the game I advied that he really should have gone first and pushed me in to the corner. That would have been the only way to win this game for him. Even though I deliberatly took a subpar list my experience made the difference.

But It's always nice to play against nicely painted army and a fun opponent.

Had a smashing doubles game today that ended Dark Eldar/Imperial Guard 24 : Grey Knights/Farsight 21 on kill points. Some particularly spectacular highlights:

Archon got charged by a 5 man intercepter squad turn 2. Rolled 5 dice to hit. Hit with all. Whipped the agoniser out. Wounded all 5. Bye-bye interceptors.

3 Grotesques got charged by 5 GK Terminators. Managed to kill all the terminators somehow and managed to shake off all the inflicted wounds (he failed to activate force weapons phew!).

5 Scourges with blasters hopped behind an Imperial Knight, hit with all 4 blasters. His shields were directed to the front to shake off all of the imperial guard shots. All 4 penetrated with a quad 6 before also causing two explodes result. (Get aboard the luck train!) He then stumbled and fell onto a crisis team and removed them from play!

5 Mandrakes killed two 10 man pathfinder teams and one survived until the end OUT OF COVER....

A single reaver with cluster caltrops took 3 wounds off a riptide with hammer of wrath to finish it off.

Sometimes the dice really do fall better for one player!

However, the GK Vortex Vacuum cleaner of doom managed to nimbly scatter wherever it was most needed and subsequently took out the archon, the grotesques, the dark artisan formation, a reaver, a chimera and a broadside. Cant remember what its called but in the right place, that destroyer mobile caravan of death is possibly the nastiest thing in 40K I have ever seen! Any one encounter that before or know how to deal with that!

Two Scalpel Squadrons took down two Dreadknights. That is all.

My list of "Improbable Things I Have Killed With Overwatch" now includes a Destroyer Overlord (that I'd already put down once in the game) and a Chaos Lord with Mark of Nurgle on a bike.

I gave two squads of Wyches an outing in my most recent game. One of them charged a Wraithknight with only two wounds left.

Aha! The hekatrix was up to the challenge with her agoniser, dealing the two wounds required. A knight down for no loss!

What's that? It has a scattershield? Oh. Well it saves one wound, but with only one wound left I can still kill it in my next assault phase. My Wyches won't even get shot at now!

You'd think Initiative 6 would be enough to pass a blind test, but evidently my Wyches weren't expecting the scattershield any more than I was. So now they are blinded until the end of my next turn. That's not good.

Oh, and they are easier to hit back now, so the Wraithknight goes ahead and smacks 3. Maybe being blind impairs their dodging too, because suddenly I've lost combat by one.

That's ok, I've got Ld 9 with only a minus one penalty. *rolls* Well, at least Initiative 6 should save me from being swept. *rolls*

*sigh*

Back to the shelf.

Not Dark Eldar related, but just thought I'd share the efforts of my space marine first company this week vs a chaos list, in particular a squad of Nurgle bikes accompanied by two level three sorcerers.

Needless to say by the time I could charge they were 'invisible', but I figured four thunder hammer terminators and Lysander would be ok. Over 40 attacks later without having rolled a single six I'd lost the four terminators to power axe attacks (yup, four wounds caused and four failed storm shield saves!).

Lysander did redeem himself eventually, wiping out the unit over two turns of combat (first managing to kill the invisibility sorcerer then squashing the rest of the unit, but by then he was on his own and got killed once he'd won the combat.

An anecdote from last night's game here, Dark Eldar this time!

playing against a mechanised marine list with a squadron of 3 land speeders. My heat lance scourges arrived on turn 4 to threaten the squadron, and promptly fluffed ever shot (all four of them). the speeders moved away in the next turn, and I followed. the speeders shot at the scourges, a frag missile from the typhoon launcher however scattered so far that it clipped the land speeder next to the firer and stripped its last hull point, boom!

My Scourges fluffed themselves in my last game... Fout Deep Striking scourges with heat lances blew up one War Walker, out of a squad of three. Three of the five Scourges promptly expired in the explosion

My Eldar opponent repaid me by losing his Spiritseer to Perils of the Warp next turn, handing me a warlord point, and later, Kingslayer. :twisted

Played a game vs. Tau (Farsight Enclave) today. Purge the Alien (randomly determined, as I would never *choose* to play a killpoint game against a list like that). Lost 11 - 13, but it was a very close game. The other player had a list which included a Retaliation Cadre with a unit of 3 Riptides.

I started off with a strong lead, snagging 6 victory points on turn 1 - Scalpel Squadron dropped in and killed a drone squad and I rolled a 3 for first blood. One of my ravagers took out his Broadside. My other ravager took out his warlord Farsight (he flubbed his Look Out Sir roll).

However, by turn 5, he had caught up to my lead. All that he had on the table were his unit of 3 riptides, a single drone, and a single crisis suit. He made sure to carefully hide his single model units to keep me from getting to them, and the 3 riptides were able to pump out enough firepower (along with lots of smart missiles, which ignored cover and do not require LOS) to push his VP count ahead of mine, as I still had plenty of kill points to offer up.

In short, a unit of 3 riptides is a tough nut to crack, but can't be easily ignored either. However, after seeing his guy completely dismantle a blood angels army (8-1; also Purge the Alien), I think I did pretty well.

Game against Death Guard, including Mortarion and a CSM Daemon Prince with Warptime, allowing Mortarion to charge me in 1 turn. He kills my Wracks, consolidates into my Grotesques. I forget to attack him in his turn... but in my turn I proceed to disengage and shoot him point blank with all of my army, and in the combat phase my second-in-command Archon finishes him, so I trap Mortarion in his SoulTrap and also use the 'Pray they don't take you alive' stratagem to inflict a -1 Leadership to all of his army.

Next turn, the Daemon Prince charges my Archon Warlord. My haemonculus uses the Vexator Mask on the Prince, and my Archon kills him. Again, he also traps the daemon in his Soultrap and I use 'Pray they don't take you alive' stratagem for a second time.
(I wasn't able to do this stratagem against non-Warlord characters, but I didn't matter anyway, no morale tests were made from then onwards)
Then, my Primarch- and Deamon Prince- eating Archons proceeded to advance at the front of my whole army, aiming to dispatch the rest of the Death Guard forces. The battle was already won, but the feast had just started.