Dark Eldar vs CSM (750pt)

Okay this was just a casual game between my friend and I to get a decent feel for our armies. His list was as follows:

HQ
Typhus

Troops
29 Plague Zombies
1 Zombie Chamion

6 Plague Marines w/Melta, Flamer
1 Plague Champion w/Power Fist
Inside Chaos Rhino

Elite
Hellbrute w/TL Lascannon, Missile Launcher

My list was the following:

HQ
Succubus w/Agonizer

Troops
5x Kabalite Warriors
Inside Venom w/2x Splinter Cannon

9x Wyches
Hekatrix w/Venom Blade
Inside Raider w/Splinter Rack, Disintegrator

Elite
4x Incubi
1x Klaivex
Inside Raider w/Splinter Rack, Disintegrator

Heavy Support
Ravager w/Dark Lances

Okay, so the mission was The Emperor's Will, in which our respective relics were of no use to the fight.

Turn one began with him stealing initiative under the Night fight rules, a slight disappointment to me, and he began to move his troops forward, but still far beyond his reach due to his heavy melee army, aside from his Hellbrute, who was much too far away to be a threat. As a precautionary measure, he deployed smoke over his Rhino

I began by moving my fleet at cruising speed, adjusting my Ravager to open fire on his Rhino, forgetting about the smoke he had on it, and consequently missed all three shots.

Thus began turn two, in which he continued to press forward, the Hellbrute now getting a Raider within range, in turn disabling it with a missile after Jink saved me from the Lascannon shots. The marines in the Rhino took a melta shot at my second Raider, but to no avail courtesy of Jink.

I pushed onward, placing my Venom in killing position, my Raider a bit closer and ready to deploy, and the Ravager in position to take down that Hellbrute that was threatening my Raider. My wyches made their exit, and pushed forward to his Rhino, set on destroying it soon. The Venom mowed down a small patch of his zombie army, while the Ravager failed to destroy the opposing Hellbrute. More zombies were taken out from the Disintegrators, and the wyches proceeded their assault on the Rhino. After a relentless grenade assault, the inhabiting plague marines were forced to exit their now wrecked vehicle.

Turn three began with me realizing the fatal error in my Venom's placement, in which his zombies and Typhus were able to close in on it. Expectedly, the Venom was unable to flicker free from Typhus's onslaught as the zombies clawed at the vehicle in desparation. The plague marines then shot away at half my wych army. Fortunately, my Succubus was unharmed,however the Hekatrix was not so fortunate. The following assault left the remainder of the wyches dead or wounded, while the Succubus sustained minor damage taking out the champion plague marine with a quick snap of her Agonizer, fleeing after the assault. Her agile frame was too swift for the sluggish plague marines to catch up.

At this point I was forced to bear fangs, my Incubi deciding to come out and play. The leftover Kabalites hopped into the now empty Raider, taking up battle stations. The Incubi made their charge for Typhus, the Succubus coming along with them to flay zombies. The ensuing assault resulted in the losses of many more zombies, the Klaivex deciding to go toe to toe with Typhus himself. They exchanged blows, but little damage resulted from their fight.

Now at turn four, the Plague Marines made a mad dash toward the Raider, easily dispatching it and annihilating the Kabalites inside, save for two, who died short after from the assault. One Incubi went down at the cost of three zombies, and the Klaivex finally fell to Typhus's vicious attacks.

Turn four began with the Hellbrute exploding under Dark Lance fire, and the fight showed favor to the Dark Eldar with another mess of fallen zombies before the blades of the Incubi and Succubus. The remaining Raider took pot shots at the Plague Marines, but the disintegrator was less than effective on the pestilent creatures.

Turn five began with Typhus finally beheading the opposing Klaivex, the Incubi with him slowly dropping one by one, leaving only the Succubus against the 9 zombies and Typhus. The Plague Marines began their mad dash to the objective.

The Succubus tore into the zombies, dispatching two or three more, while the Ravager and Raider took shots at the plague marines with little success.

Turn five began with the Succubus wildly lashing at zombies with little success, sustaining a second wound in all the fighting while Typhus continued to attempt destroying her with Psyker-enhanced attacks from his scythe.

The succubus finally ran out of gas, Typhus's ability to ignore pain negating the damage she was finally able to get past his Terminator armor. Down, but not out, she managed to avoid further damage from the remaining undead

Turn 6 began with my Succubus falling to the last of the undead, unable to score any more kills courtesy of lousy rolls.

The Ravager pilot, enraged at the sight of his leader falling to the zombie scum made a quick flight to open fire on Typhus, the disintiegrator shots digging through his flesh, and only a smug laugh came from the demon, much to the pilot's frustration.

Final score was 1-1, with me getting First Blood, and him getting Slay the Warlord.

All in all I feel I did decently. I forgot about rolling combat drugs, which could have potentially turned things more in my favor, as well as the judgment call on attacking Typhus on turn 6 instead of flying for the linebreaker point. An overlook on the Agonizer's AP3 cost me a lot, and in retrospect I think I'd have been better taking the Incubi and Succubus into the Plague Marines for a pain token before taking on the zombies and Typhus. That said, Typhus was only at half power, forgetting the Daemon weapon extra hits.

Awesome batrep, I love the little bits of added narrative. Zombies sound pretty nasty. Few things, I don't think your sucubuss could assault on the same turn as she regrouped. You talked about flying your ravager over to get line breaker, I think only denial units (non-vehical units) can get line breaker. If the plague marines rapid fired when they destroyed your raider, they shouldnt be able to charge your warriors.(can't charge after rapid firing).

Enjoyed the read thanks again.

Great report!

A few things typhus has to challenge (champion of chaos rule) so the succubus would have be locked in a challenge with him after the klaivex, and models in a challenge can only hit each other. Also typhus scythe makes him S6 so any successful wound would kill your succubus outright (and ignore FNP).

Thanks for sharing the pain.

Just one quick thing I saw in your list:

Splinter Racks on the wyche raider? Wouldn't it be worth more to take a flicker field, as they don't have rifles to fire?

The thing bout the flickerfield is that my vehicles are constantly getting a cover save for the Jink rule, so the 5+ save is a bit redundant, and from what I've gathered, anyone can fire the splinter racks, but people with splinter rifles or pistols can reroll to-hit rolls. Now I did just assume Splinter rifle range because that's how I see it in my mind, but again I'm very new to the game so I can be wrong. Also from what I've gathered the troops onboard open top vehicles can still get their overwatch to help reduce numbers for when my wyches pop out to actually go in for the kill.

Ferox77 wrote:

If the plague marines rapid fired when they destroyed your raider, they shouldnt be able to charge your warriors.(can't charge after rapid firing).

This I did not know, I wish I did at the time, as it could have helped me eliminate that unit of silly plague marines.

Splinter Racks aren't weapons on their own. They simply give models armed with Splinter Rifles/Pistols rerolls on their attacks. If they don't have a Splinter Rifle/Pistol of their own then the Splinter Racks don't help them in any way.

Murkglow wrote:

Splinter Racks aren't weapons on their own. They simply give models armed with Splinter Rifles/Pistols rerolls on their attacks. If they don't have a Splinter Rifle/Pistol of their own then the Splinter Racks don't help them in any way.

Thanks for that; I'll invest in some other things instead for them. How about Torment Grenades? I'm almost always utilizing my Jink saves so I'm not too fond of Flickerfield, as staying mobile is pretty easy to accomplish in my experience. I figure the Torment grenades can be the one thing that saves me from being assaulted for those situations, I can't seem to find my codex at the moment, but that's been my current thoughts.

Night shields are golden and in my mind, almost mandatory in 6th! Swap the racks for them!

Yeah I was running shields and racks on all of 'em; they are a pretty big deal I'll agree.