Kabal of the Bloody Claw vs Blood Angels

Battle Report: 1500 points: Blood Angles vs. DE

This is my first battle of a campaign, as I missed the first weekend. We decided to play on my desert field with equal and symmetrical terrain. So as part of the narrative, I guess this was an engagement in the far desert of planet Angmar, where the Blood Angels and the Dark Eldar are both trying to expand their foothold and the ancient resource reserves hidden there.

With the campaign rules, based on what we own, Blood Angels got an extra 50 points to spend and I got +1 to my deployment rolls.

The armies:

DE

HQ
Archon, Huskblade, soultrap, combat drugs, shadow field
Haemonculus: LG

Troops
9 Wyches: Raider with DL, NS (Haemonculus starts here)
10 Warriors: SC a Raider with DL, NS, Splinter Racks
5 Wracks, LG in a Venom with SC X 2, NS
5 Wyches, HWG, Venom with SC X2, NS

Elites
4 Incubi, SC X 2, NS (archon starts here)


Fast
3 Reavers with HL
3 Reavers with HL


Heavy
Ravager NS
Ravager NS
Razorwing, 2 DC, FF

Blood Angels

HQ
Mephiston
Sanguinary Priest with power armor and jump pack

Troops
10 man Assault Squad: meltagun X2 Split into two combat squads
10 man Assault Squad: Flamer X2, Lighting Claw on sergeant with sanguinary priest attached
5 man Assault Squad: meltagun, sergeant with melta bombs
Death Company: Power fist

Fast
1 bike
1 bike
1 bike

Heavy
Devastator Squad: 4 ML, Signum
Devastator Squad: 4 ML, Signum


Mission: #1: rolled for 5 objectives
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Special Issues: Mysterious objectives
Warlord Traits: We both rolled for the one that lets the warlord roll three dice when running.
Terrain: See diagram
Ability rolls: I rolled for combat drugs and got a pain token. He failed red thirst on everyone.
Night Fighting: Yes

Board


Objectives: We decided to just take the corners where we had our armies stacked since the board was symmetrical. We rolled off and he placed the first objective. He placed it in the middle of my deployment zone, figuring that is where he would be. I then put one in a corner figuring that if he had it, my jetbikes could get there and contest and he would have to be out of the action to hold it. We then put the rest pretty much in no man’s land.

Deployment: I won the roll off. We tied with threes, but my campaign bonus gave me the turn.

I left my reavers and the razorwing in reserve. I tried to spread and stay in cover, in case he stole initiative. The wracks were in the center venom (v1), the archon and incubi in the lower venom (v2) and the wyches in the upper corner (v3). The warrior gunboat was by the wych venom (r3) and the wyches were in the venom near the incubi (r4). A ravager was on each end of the deployment zone.

He left one squad of 5 marines and his death company in reserve to deep strike. He then hid is devastators behind cover and mephiston was also out of line of site of everything. He put the bikes out front for their longer range weapons.

He elected not to try and steal initiative.


Turn 1 Bloody Claw:
I moved my ravager and venom that were near the top of the board 12 inches, getting line of site on mephiston. I then moved my wyche raider over to get a shot on whatever I could, figuring I could get the devastators or mephiston next round. On the lower portion of the board I moved my venom with the archon over the hill to get shots on squads or bikes, my ravager up and out just enough to see mephiston (though he would get a cover save) and my wrack venom over to get shots on his bikes. Other than mephiston, the bikes became top priority because they were the only thing that could reach my vehicles this turn because of night fighting. I knew the devastators would be firing snapshots if they moved out of cover, and I couldn’t see them anyway.

Shooting phase: First ravager took two wounds off mephiston and the second one did as well, despite his cover save and feel no pain. The wyche venom (v3) got a lot of hits, but only wounded a couple of times and he made his 2+ save. The lower raider (r3) took a shot at the bike, hit but rolled a one to wound. The upper raider took a shot at the bike there and also rolled a one to wound. The archon’s venom put 12 shots into a bike and killed it-DE gets first blood. The wracks venom wasn’t going to be able to see anything so I just moved it back to safety and nothing else was in range.



Turn 1 BA:
He moved his devastators up but going into difficult terrain one of them couldn’t get up the cliff from each squad. He moved all his assault squads as fast as he could towards me. His top most squad losing one to a dangerous terrain test after landing in difficult terrain. Actually, he failed A LOT of these, but saved all the rest the rest of the game…high adventure for us, but I won’t note them anymore since he passed them all. Mephiston hid.

Shooting phase: Between night shields and night fighting there was not a lot he could do. He snapshot his devastators, but failed to hit anything. His northern bike fired and hit the ravager there, but failed to glance or pen. The southern bike managed a hit and a glance, but the night fighting cover save prevented any damage He ran everything.




Turn 2 Bloody Claw:

Only one reaver squad came out of reserve. I moved everything around to get shots at the devastators and bikes as top priority, then moved to marines with whatever was left over. I passed all dangerous terrain tests the whole game, so will not mention them. I moved the archon venom over to try and prep for an assault on the 5 man squad…but then realized it had no independent character…

Shooting phase started with the wych raider in the south finishing off the bike there. The ravager and the two venoms in the south then combined to take out 6 marines on the hillside. In the north, in sort of opposite symmetry to the first turn the raider’s single lance finished off a bike, so after both failing to wound first turn, the both killed the bike second turn. The other ravager and venom killed the four visible devastators on the far hill, then the 3 reavers turbo-boosted over the other squad killing two and landed in prep to kill the single devastator left behind the hill. The 5 wyches failed to kill any marines with their pistols, but the warriors in the raider managed to kill one.

In assault the wyches killed another marine, leaving two, but with “know no fear” they just sat there.



Turn 2: BA

Both his reserves came in. He deep struck his death company right in front of my Archon’s venom and his 5 man squad with the melta right in front of a ravager. His big squad with the priest moved to hide and towards an objective and mephiston came out to deal with the reavers that were going after the last devastator.

In the shooting phase his melta gun squad ended up 2 and a half inches from the ravager and blew it up, wounding 4 of them, but they made their saves. His death company only managed one hull point off the venom and his devastators took a hull point off the raider with the warriors. Yeah, Jink!

In the assault phase mephiston failed to make his charge by one inch and on the reroll failed by two. There were no injuries in the ongoing wych-marine battle with lots of wounds and lots of saves and FNP.




Turn 3 Bloody Claw:
Reavers and Jet still failed to arrive. Darn Higher HQ!
I then moved my northern vehicles to get shots at mephiston or the devastators. I then moved my wyche filled raider towards the north, figuring that the archon had things under control in the south. I moved my southern ravager into position to fire at mephiston and everything else to soften up the death company before I assaulted. The archon and incubi exited the venom before it moved.

Shooting: The lone ravager killed Mephiston. Warlord point. Then the venoms killed a couple of death company and the archon threw his grenade, wounding five but only killing one. The combined firepower of the northern vehicles and warriors killed four of the five marines there, he then ran 11 inches or so, putting him in great position to get into combat with the marines mired in combat with my wyches once he auto regrouped the next turn. The reavers killed the lone devastator.

In the assault phase the archon wiffed, but the Incubi killed two bringing the company down to three. In his attack he got two regular wounds and a power fist. I took the regular on my incubi making both saves and the power fist on my archon who made his 2+ invul. In the other combat the wyches and marines continued to stalemate. The reavers used their assault move to hide from the devastators and marines on the hillside.




Turn 3: BA

He moved is one mobile squad towards my ravager getting into melta range. His lone marine regrouped and moved towards the wyches with a regular move. His squad with the priest moved to take and hold the objective behind the devastators, which turned out to be a sykfire nexus.

In shooting, the devastators failed to do anything but a hull point from the raider. He failed with his melta and a krak grenade to hurt the ravager.

In the assault phase his lone marine joined the fight with the wyches and used a hammer of wrath but an invul save nullified it. Then in combat there were still no wounds. Back with the archon, two more death company marines died and the archon saved the first of two wounds from the power fist, then I let an incubi die once I could not loose combat.



Turn 4 Bloody Claw:

My reavers and fighter finally arrive. I move all the north units to try and get the marines off the objective. My wyches unload from their raider and run towards the empty objective on the north side of the ridge. My wracks jump out of their venom and claim the objective deep in my territory. The raider with the warriors moves over, ready to let them out turn five on the objective up on the hill.

In the shooting phase, all the southern units managed to only kill two marines. In the north, the ravager took out two devastators. The fighter took out all four marines and the priest, and one missile actually scattered onto the remaining devastator sergeant but failed he made his save. The three reavers then came in and killed the sergeant. Blade vanes killed no marines.

In assault the archon made quick work of the power fist death company marine and then the marines and wyches managed to actually kill one of each other.



Turn 4: BA

In the movement phase his three marines chased down my turbo boosted reavers, fired at them but a 3+ jink held. He then charged them, killing two. Overwatch and attacks from the reavers went for naught. The lone reaver rolled a 3 on his leadership test.

In the other combat one marine and one wych died.



Turn 5: Bloody Claw

In the movement phase the warriors unloaded on the objective on top of the hill. The wyches moved towards the marine/wyche combat. Fighter moved, as did all the vehicles to keep their jink, preparing to take out the three marines after they manage to kill the last jetbike this turn. The archon and incubi jumped into their venom to try and chase down the three marines.

In assault, the 9 wyches manage to get 8 into combat and with those 24 attacks they got 22 hits but then managed only two wounds, which he then failed. Made for funniest moment of the game. The small squad consolidated towards one objective and the large one towards the other. The three marines killed the jetbike and then consolidated towards the objective that their buddies just died on.



Turn 5: BA

In the movement phase he moved towards the objective hoping to have one at the end of the game and snapfired at the fighter missing.

Then the objective that the wracks were on finally blew up and killed two of them, but they held. Second funniest moment of the game.

He wanted to see if he could get one objective so we rolled and the game continued.



Turn 6: Bloody Claw

Movement: I got wyches on both of the northern objectives giving me four. In the shooting phase the ravager took out two blood angels and then a venom killed the last.



Victory DE: 4 objectives, first blood, warlord, linebreaker (15). BA: Dead but didn’t take any slaves 

I think he was surprised at the mobility and firepower that we had. It really came to play on the first turn when he thought mephiston was out of line of sight, but he didn’t realize how far we can move and still shoot. We did share lists and all the abilities of our armies. Night shields were nice but did not play a big part in this game, though it did make him get really close to use his melta weapons. I think the volume of splinter fire was a bit shocking to him. It was either a wall of poison or AP2 shots. When we talked, he was not used to the enemy being as mobile as he was and his charge in and get to close combat played to my favor. He felt the cover was a dual edged sword. It kept his devastators alive the first turn, but forced snapshots. As for his decision to not try to steal the initiative, I think that was probably the right call, and I was kind of hoping he would. I would have had a lot more targets to shoot at, and with night fighting and NS, he could not have done any more than he did anyway, and I probably would have had more shots at mephiston and would have been able to take out his devastators, instead of going for his bikes. Last, 4 wounds on mephiston first round was huge and made him a non-factor the rest of the game-basically tying up 250 points and nullifing the extra 50 he got at the beginning. His priest though with FNP saved a lot of wounds, especially the first two turns.

His choice of three bike squads of one was interesting. Makes sense in the new systems, except the purge the alien, it would really work to your advantage. It took a venom for each one with no chance of killing more than one model.

My thoughts on the list build really came down to the archon vs the duke and I really wanted to try out the archon. I went without the blast pistol on the archon and the HWG on my big squad of wyches to get just enough points for NS on everything. I figured the grenade would be fine for the archon and I felt I had enough AT with all my DLs. Ultimately I used pretty close to my typical 1500 point list except the archon.

I thought about dropping the incubi for more reavers, but in the end I wanted a good support CC unit for the Archon and the extra venom, so stayed with them. If it went up to 2k points I would have added beasts and more reavers.

That was pure awesome sir!

I find the BA to be the toughest match up for my dark eldar. Their manueverability coupled with their marine stats and the added bonus of feel no pain can be really troublesome to take down.

The part with wyches was really funny. Lol

I also have those kinds of moments especially with my Hekatrix who always rolls ones to wound with her venom blade.
She once got thrashed by a got runtherd in a challenge. Funniest fail I have ever seen.

Glad to see you kicking butt once more! Keep on trucking! (Should I say Bladevaning? Lol )

Excellent report. Your images give the impression of an honest-to-the-Dark-Muses flanking maneuver, which is something I had not thought about with the diagonal deployment scheme. It's certainly possible given our immense speed and can start working on dividing up armies into bite-size chunks.

I'm looking at using the Duke in my own army, which has led me to put my Incubi aside for the moment. Crazy dice-rolling aside, how do you assess the wyches' ability to attack a hard target (Marines in cover, large numbers of cultists/guard)?

First I try my best to have a pain token first, either by starting with a Haeme or killing something small. In this case I got lucky with my combat drug roll. In fact, that is one of the main reasons I take the duke. I use a lot of wyches and need that pain token.

Next I try hard to soften the unit up a bit with SC fire from a venom, shooting (and don't forget the grenade) from the wyches and whatever else I can think of. I have been known to waste a lance shot on a group my wyches are going to charge.
Then If I have the option, I throw something harder or smaller in first to soak up overwatch. But to be honest, even a group of 10 marines with rapid fire will get 2-4 hits and then at least one or two won't wound, So you are likely to only lose one or two to overwatch. If you can get them down to 5 or less, you probably won't take any.
Once they are in combat, they almost always go first. They come standard with plasma grenades so don't lose thier initiative when fighting through cover (p62BRB). Then with 3 attacks each on the charge you will likely kill enought to not lose combat. Then the 4+ invul followed by 5+FNP still makes them a great tarpit unit.

The two big things are 1) that if they ever get caugt in the open they die. T3 and a 6+ save means that against about everything they are just taking the FNP if they have it and any S6 weapon is instant death. 2) If their vehicle blows up you will lose a third of them. At least that is how it seems to me, so you can't be blazen with the vehicles they are in.

Overall, I have found them still very viable in 6th, but more fragile. The biggest nerf was the transport explosion strength change.

Thanx you for finding the time to give us this great Batrap!
I realy appreciate it.

Great game just goes to show how powerful Dark Eldar mobility is this edition! In my opinion more than any other army we win in the movement phase. Great report as usual (added to the sticky).

One bit of advice when you use the desert back ground in battle chronicler change the unit name text to a colour other than white, because white on yellow is really hard to read. I had the same problem in my report against salamanders.

Thanks for sharing the pain!

Yeah, I saw that. I wasn't even thinking about the text

But I am so glad I figured out the terrain bit, so I can put the actual terrain there. It makes it so much easier.

Yeah the terrain makes the report look awesome!

It is more the positioning of the units. It is so hard to do it with terrain that isn't what was there.