Battle Report – Dark Eldar v Grey Knights

Mission: Crusade (3 objectives)
Deployment: Hammer & Anvil

My list was:

Haemonculus (Warlord), Liquifier Gun

4 Kabalite Trueborn, 2 Dark Lances

5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster, Venom, Splinter Cannon
5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster, Venom, Splinter Cannon
5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster, Venom, Splinter Cannon

Ravager, Night Shields
Ravager, Night Shields
Ravager, Disintegrators, Night Shields

Eldrad Ulthran (Prescience, Foreboding, Forewarning, Perfect Timing)

5 Pathfinders

4 Dark Reapers, Exarch, Fast Shot, Crack Shot

Bastion, Icarus Lascannon

The Grey Knight list was:

Crowe (Warlord)

10 Purifiers, 4 Psycannons, Hammer, 5 Halberds, Rhino
10 Purifiers, 4 Psycannons, Hammer, 5 Halberds, Rhino
10 Purifiers, 4 Psycannons, Hammer, 5 Halberds, Razorback (TL LC)

Dreadnought

Stormraven

Deployment
Objectives were placed in the ruins on my left in my deployment zone, in area terrain in the middle of the field and in ruins on my left in his deployment zone.

I deployed first, placing the Bastion centrally with good LOS to the entire battlefield. All my Venoms were placed on the left and one Ravager was just behind the Bastion. The other Ravagers were on my right beside a large ruin. I put the Trueborn went in the Bastion with the Hameonculus. The Dark Reapers and Eldrad went on top of the Bastion.

The Grey Knights split each Purifier unit into Combat squads. Two squads with Psycannons went into ruins on my right and another in area terrain on my left. The others remained in their transports which formed a parking lot in the middle of the battlefield with the Rhinos in front of the Razorback. Crowe and the Dreadnought went in the Stormraven in reserve.

Eldrad used his Divination ability to move the 3 Venoms over to the right, leaving one Purifier Squad with very little to see or do.

There was no useful place to infiltrate my Pathfinders in the other half of the battlefield so I placed them in the ruins on my left near the objective.

The Grey Knights failed to seize the initiative and we rolled Night Fight for the first turn. Neither side had any useful Warlord Traits

Turn One
Eldrad cast Prescience and Perfect Timing on his unit and Prescience on the nearby Ravager. The Haemonculus left the Trueborn with a pain token and joined the Craftworld Eldar on the battlements (giving them Night Vision). All the vehicles moved (to give them a Jink save). The Pathfinders opened fire on the Purifers in area terrain on the left but without Night Vision they were unable to do any damage. The Dark Reapers, guided by the sinister Haemonculus, suffered no such problem. With Eldrad’s vast psychic might behind them they opened fire with Reaper Launchers and the Icarus lascannon, utterly obliterating the foolish Purifiers. First Blood to the Dark Eldar! The Ravagers then fired Dark Lances at the Rhinos and wrecked both, causing the Purifiers inside to pile out into the waiting guns of the Venoms. Two Venoms reduced one combat squad to 2 men but the Fearless warriors remained in the fight. The third Venom could not draw LOS to the surviving Purifiers in the centre and opted to fire on one of the squads in the ruins on the right. The cover afforded by the ruins meant only one Grey Knight fell though. The Dark Lances and Heavy Bolter inside the Bastion opened fire on the Razorback but only caused a single Hull Point. The Ravager on the right targeted the intact combat squad in the centre and reduced it to 2 men. The passengers in the Venoms opened fire on the remnants of the squads in the centre and managed to finish one squad off, earning a pain token.

The Grey Knights were somewhat shell-shocked at the ferocity of the Dark Eldar onslaught but did their best to rally. The Razorback moved forward slighty and the 2 remaining Purifiers huddle behind it for cover. One of the squads in the ruins on the right moved up a level to get better LOS. Nothing else moved, either because it was dead or in cover. The Razorback fired on the nearest Venom and caused a penetrating hit but the Flickerfield deflected the shot. One squad of Purifiers in the ruins opened fire and wrecked a venom before their comrades targeted the disembarked passengers with a hail of Psycannon fire. The power of the Grey Knight weaponry made a mockery of the Kabalite Warrior’s armour and their newly earned pain token was of no avail. They vanished in a spray of blood and pain.

Turn Two
Eldrad again cast Prescience and Perfect Timing on his unit and Prescience on the nearby Ravager, which moved for a better shot on the Razorback. The other Ravagers and Venoms also moved for better angles but realized that one of the Purifier squads in the ruins was still going to be mostly hidden from sight. The Ravager on the left blasted the Razorback with 3 Dark Lances, causing an explosion which killed one of the passengers and one of the Purifiers that had moved behind it for cover. The Pathfinders opened fire on the Razorback’s former occupants, killing 2 more. The Trueborn in the Bastion killed the lone surviving Grey Knight from the Rhinos and earned a 2nd pain token. The combined fire of a Venom and its passengers killed off the remaining Razorback squad for a pain token. Everything else opened fire on the Purifiers in the ruins, The Dark Reapers destroyed the squad on the upper level (rerolling 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, no armour and no cover is brutal against MEQ) but only 2 of the lower squad were visible to any of the Dark Eldar. They quickly fell, leaving only 2 Grey Knights on the field at the end of the Dark Eldar’s 2nd turn!

Things were about to look up for the Imperium though as the Stormraven arrived, zooming into the centre of the table. It took a single glance from the Icarus Lascannon manned by the Dark Reaper Exarch and then opened fire on the Bastion with its twin-linked multi-melta. The fortification shook but remained mostly intact. The gunship’s remaining weapons targeted the Dark Reaper unit on the roof, killing two of the Eldar and inflicting a wound on Eldrad via Mindstrike Missile. This was however saved by his Ghosthelm. The surviving Purifiers moved out of the ruins and opened fire on the closest Venom, wrecking it. They then assaulted the former occupants but were cut down by a surprisingly accurate burst of Overwatch fire.

Turn Three
Eldrad again cast Prescience and Perfect Timing on his unit and Prescience on the nearby Ravager. Everything else that could possibly damage the Stormraven attempted to do so but sadly it survived to prevent a Turn 3 tabling!

The Stormraven switched to Hover mode and Crowe and the Dreadnought disembarked. The ‘Raven opened fire on the Bastion again but inflicted only minor damage. The assault cannon killed another Dark Reaper and caused a wound on the Exarch. The Dreadnought opened fire with it’s multi-melta on the Bastion but missed. Both Crowe and the Dreadnought then assaulted the Bastion but by some miracle, the building survived, albeit with an AV of 3!

Turn Four
Eldrad cast Prescience on two Dark Lance Ravagers and Foreboding on his own unit (in case it got charged). They then vacated the premises as fast as they could! Everything else moved to get decent shots at the surviving Grey Knight force. One of the Prescience-guided Ravagers wrecked the Stormraven, the other destroyed the Dreadnought. The Disintegrator Ravager fired everything at Crowe and the last Grey Knight toppled lifeless to the ground.

Conclusion
Dark Eldar. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every muddy funster on the field! Accept no substitutes!

shame those last 2 survived turn 2 lol that would have made him cry

great report

Great game, bet that grey knight player is hurting! Thanks for sharing the pain.

The GK player couldn't believe what happened on the first turn. I don't think he quite understood the firepower I could bring to bear and made little effort to hide. One squad in area terrain (which I negated with Perfect Timing) and all three vehicles out in the open, although the Razor was hidden behind the Rhinos. Only the squads in the ruins were really enjoying any sort of real cover or LOS blocking.

I very much doubt he will make the same mistakes again. I was also very lucky not to have the Bastion collapse with my Warlord, Eldrad and the Dark Eldar inside. I also forgot to mention in the report that the damage to the Bastion did actually kill the Trueborn inside (S6 hits are a killer).

Wow, what a win! I couldn't believe how small that GK force looked on paper, must've looked even smaller on the table with the stuff in reserve. Easy job for target priority. Did your opponent really think he could deploy like that against such a shooty list?

Are you gonna keep the bastion in your list? I know the icarus can threaten flyers, but it seems almost as important as a crow's nest for Eldrad & his reaper buddies. Good idea putting the haemonculus in the unit to help with night fight.

Speaking of Eldrad, Perfect Timing on rolling Perfect Timing! Nice to see a game where he doesn't just use the codex powers. In fact all the powers he picked up were useful, even though you couldn't use them all. Guess the reapers would have had a harder time without him.

Good report, you'll defnitely have to do a rematch if he's up for it.

I tend to use a Fortification of some kind in most games. We're lucky that we have 2 Bastions, 3 Aegis Lines and a Skyshield in our group so I'm spoilt for choice.

Eldrad has 4 powers so it's a pretty good chance to roll Perfect Timing if you use them all on Divination. It's one of the reasons why I think he's worth the extra points over a standard Farseer.

I had Huron roll perfect timing as one of his random powers, just wiped a warrior squad off the board with bolter fire (squad of 19 chaos marines), it was really unexpected.

Mushkilla wrote:

I had Huron roll perfect timing as one of his random powers, just wiped a warrior squad off the board with bolter fire (squad of 19 chaos marines), it was really unexpected.

For some reason it seems to be underestimated by most people. I never see any of the well known blogs talking about Perfect Timing but I'm always hoping to roll that power for my psykers. I tend to place psykers with heavy support and the damage such units can do when there is no cover cannot be ignored.

Count Adhemar wrote:

For some reason it seems to be underestimated by most people. I never see any of the well known blogs talking about Perfect Timing but I'm always hoping to roll that power for my psykers.

You know what the blogs are like if its not prescience it doesn't matter. The chaos codex gets slagged off fore not having access to divination, however it has access to Telepathy, cheap level 3 psykers, and spell familiars an absolutely brutal combination with one of the best disciplines in the game, and it gets completely ignored because it's not Divination. Damn if I can't re-roll my to hit with my bolters the discipline sucks.

The DA codex is getting rave reviews because they have cheap (for no apparent reason) Librarians with access to Divination. Suddenly they're the Next Big Thing.

Woops totally edited your post instead of quoting it, damn mod powers. Can't seem to recover it either how embarrassing. Sorry. Mush


Haha! Not to worry, it wasn't exactly earth-shattering stuff anyway. Mark Twain can rest easy.

Think I just remarked that there are plenty of decent psychic powers in all the rulebook powers CSM can access. And, yeah, bloggers are about list building!

Yeah most blogs are all about list building, that's great if your on a equal footing with your opponent. But most 40k players aren't and that's why tactics and strategy are so much more important. Yet get overlooked by most of the 40k community.

Pyromancy does one thing really well, and that's ignore cover. With all those going to ground light infantry units around this can be very strong, especially now that most marine players bring some guard along too (meaning we are not fighting power armour 24/7). People should also embrace the random nature of the powers, as it's something your opponent can't really account for.

Great report and you are right, a lot of people underestimate DE's weapons and mass fire capability.

Yikes! I don't think I have ever seen Grey Knights go down that quickly!

That was a great display of synergy on your part. With Eldrad boosting up your units, the battle seemed to flow alot faster with some vehicles exploding at key points. Masterfully done

A little note on Eldrad though. Mr. Old elfypants actually has five powers that can be exchanged for Rulebook ones.
Fortune, Doom, Guide, Mind war, and Eldritch storm respectively.
That means that you have five rolls on the table and a higher chance at getting perfect timing. Potentially more than once!

Another little thing is that I saw that your opponent's Storm Raven fired an assault cannon on you dark reapers and put a wound on the exarch. Sadly all exarchs have a single wound so he would have gone down.
That didn't stop you from tabling him though

One part I liked alot was the eldar jumping out the bastion in the face of the storm raven. Reminded me of pirates jumping overboard. Lol

"Abandon ship me hearties!" *they all jump in a raider*

Well done again! I enjoyed grey knights getting a taste of pyschic devastation for once.

I hope to see more of Eldrad in the future (truth be told your report has inspired me to take him as allies for tau. Broadsides ignore cover is just mean).
I'm sure his elfy exploits will be wonderful!

Thanks very much for your comments. Rather shamefully it appears you're right about the Exarch. I even looked it up during the game and could swear it said 2 wounds! My bad!!

Sadly, according to the FAQ, Eldrad 'only' gets 4 rulebook powers, despite having 5 codex powers. He's still an absolute psychic powerhouse though!

Hmmm... I see you are correct about Eldrad.

However, in the FAQ wording it says that he generates four Rulebook powers. Does that mean that he has a left over power from codex eldar?

The FAQ doesn't seem to clarfy that...

No, you can't mix rulebook and codex powers. Unless you're Grey Knights of course because the normal rules don't apply to them.

Or Chaos

They can boost their toughness and strength and make your weapons get hot.
Just...just so mean!