Dark Eldar vs Dark Angels 2000 with diagrams

My buddy (LaughingCarp) and I recently played a game of our Dark Eldar against Dark Angels, a rematch of our previous 2000 point game in which the Dark Angels won.
Being silly, we forgot to take pictures until halfway through turn two, so we gave up on that and I've made diagrams instead. apologies for the lack of pictures.

Armies  (I may a get some stuff wrong, i don't have the lists)

DE
Urien
4x Grotesques with a liquifier gun

3x Venoms with extra Splinter Cannon, Night shields
each has 5x wytches with haywire grenades

2x Raiders,
each with 10 wracks, 2x liquifier guns

1x raider for Urien and Grots, with NS, FF

2x Reapers, NS, FF

1x Ravager NS, FF

6x Reaver Jetbikes with 2 Blasters

1xRaider w/ NS, FF
10x Kabalite Warriors with Splinter Cannon

DA
Librarian with Infravisor (Warlord)
Librarian
3x Tac squad Combat squadded 5 in drop pod (Sarge w/ Combi-melta. 3 bolters, 1x meltagun) and 5 at home (with 1 missile Launcher)
1x full tac squad at home with flamer
2x TL Autocannon Dreads
Devastators with 4x lascannon, 5 extra bolter guys
Aegis Defence line with quad gun
Command squad with BoD and Apothecary
2x Deathstorm Drop pod (Whirlwind)
1x ravenwing support squadron of 3 speeders with 2x Heavy Flamer

Drop pods and speeders begin in reserve at board edge left.


Setup
We rolled Hammer and Anvil board setup, and terrain density 3 and 3 in dark eldar DZ, 1 and 1 in the middle (we put a chest-high wall along the right board edge at middle, it never mattered so i left it off the map) and 2 and 1 in the DA DZ with the Aegis taking up one of the terrain pieces in the '2' zone.
Grey areas on the map are ruins, Black are Impassable and LoS blocking, and green are a dilapidated bastion at left, and a dilapidated imperial bunker in the DE zone.

DA won deployment roll and the armies were set up as shown. Purple circles on the impassable are the jetbikes, forgot the tag for the first couple pics, and the green circles which make a brief appearance are the haywire wytches.



DA Turn 1

The three drop pods full of melta-rines showed up in the DE deployment zone and took down the raider carrying the grots, as well as the ravager and one reaper. Other marines just moved up as there was nothing to shoot at, and the relic wasn't going to seize itself.



DE Turn 1

The wracks and grots turned their liquifier guns on red and yellow squads, crushing them with help from the center venom, and the jetbikes and venom at right mowed down brown squad. Wytches from the venoms, as well as the Reaper fired haywire into the drop pods, but were unable to destroy them.



DA Turn 2

Turn two for the Dark Angels is uneventful, no reserves arrive (thanks to DE Warlord getting -1 to enemy reserve rolls as trait). Marines advance on the relic.



DE Turn 2

Having cleared the marines out of their end, the dark eldar venture forth, turbo-boosting wrack raiders around the relic while wytches disembark and haywire all the drop pods to death. The Reaper at right fires at a dreadnought but misses.



DA Turn 3

Timing is everything. the two deathstorm drop pods arrive for the Dark Angels, crushing wytches, and destroying a pair of venoms, as well as destroying the dark lance on the Warriors' raider. The rest of the Angels' fire is poured into the wrack raiders and it takes all they have to bring them down, only killing 3 of 20 wracks in the process.



DE Turn 3

Wracks capture the relic and pass it back a little, while they open up on two combat squads of marines with liquifiers, and then charge, killing the marines and advancing into the thick of the Dark angels with their consolidation, but taking heavy losses. In the backfield, the Reaper fires again at the dreadnought to no effect, and the jetbikes move up behind cover in preparation for their attack. On the left, the kabalites abandon their transport and fire at the marines, supporting the wracks' attack with the one remaining venom while Urien and the grotesques jump in to the raider.





DA Turn 4

The Ravenwing arrives from reserve and cooks the exposed kabalites while the big guns finish off the Dark Eldar attack craft. the infantry pours fire onthe the wracks, killing the squad up close and killing all but the relic bearer at midfield.



DE Turn 4 & DA Turn 5

Urien and his transport hop over the skimmers and unload in front of blue squad marines in order to screen the relic bearer, while the one surviving wytch, who had hidden in the imperial bunker comes to try help the wrack carry off their prize. Dark Eldar jetbikes turbo-boost over the devastators, killing two and maiming the Dark Angels' Warlord.
The Dark angels use their speeders to kill the wytch, while a dreadnought takes down the last wrack. Tactical squad marines Manage to bring down the grotesques with help from the deathstorms, while the command squad and devastators pour everything they have into the jetbikes, just managing to destroy them.



DE Turn 5

With nought but Urien left on the field, the Dark Eldar warlord sprints for the Angels' deployment zone, but falls short.
Game DA 1 (First Blood) DE 0



Both Players would like comments on their performance, what they could ameliorate, and what worked well. please post with any comments, and I promise next time we'll remember pictures.

Ah, bad luck! As is so often the case, the game can be won or lost for Dark Eldar by the placing of the terrain - one of the bigger pieces to block line of sight across the middle of the board might have stood you in good stead here, as whoever went for the relic was exposed to a lot of fire.

An army where Wracks outnumber Warriors two to one is an unusual one. You are going with Urien as your HQ though, so fair enough, but I'd try more Warriors than Wracks so you can compete more in a firefight. Two squads of five Wracks in Venoms and another squad of Warriors in a Raider might work well, for example.

One thing I noticed - there probably wasn't much point trying to take out the initial drop pods. After they've come down and done their thing, they're not going to do much else. Leave the units that have been de-mechanised by them to deal with the survivors/keep them busy, and just fly off with everything else. Disembarking Wyches to haywire them is probably not going to benefit you in the long run, as you could lose some to the explosion then have them run away (always embarrassing). Disembarking squads to deal with them just loses you a turn of movement.

Those Deathstorm drop pods, on the other hand, are very nasty. Having just read the rules for them, they seem pretty powerful. BS2 hardly matters with a barrage weapon, and they can plug away quite happily wherever they come down. However, had the Wyches been in their Venoms as they came down (if they were even still in the area) they'd have just been hit by the strength four explosion of the vehicle blowing up, as opposed to taking the barrage shots they don't get a save against. Had the Venoms and everything else been moving up the left side of the battlefield, using the bastion to block line of sight from as much stuff as possible, the Deathstorms would have been forced into coming down in more open terrain to make use of their 12" automated weapons rule, and their forces would have been more spread out, as opposed to being concentrated in two areas.

The reavers didn't accomplish much, I was sad to see. Perhaps if they'd taken another angle and ended their move on the right hand side the Dreadnought building they'd have stuck around a little longer. It's easy to get carried away with the sheer speed of them and move them really aggressively into the enemy deployment zone, but that just means everything can see them and will gun them down. Putting them next to the Dreads would have meant they had to turn to deal with them or face the possibility of one of them being destroyed if the Devastators didn't do enough damage (if the Devastators could see them over the terrain the dreads were in). Obviously that depends if the dreads would be able to charge them, although even that might not have been such a bad thing as they wouldn't have been firing at something else for a turn. Also, because they spent most of the game stationary, they didn't really need to start on the board. In fact, the turn in which they actually started moving was the one they would have come on from reserve in automatically, if they hadn't already, so they might as well have started in reserve to keep them safe.

Your opponents kept you at arms length and mostly in your own deployment zone in this game through helpful terrain placement and an in-your-face assault. Dark Eldar lose when they're not dictating the pace of the game, and your opponents hampered your movement pretty effectively. Hindsight is always 20/20 though, so I wouldn't get too down about it. At least the Grotesques seem like they were a good bullet sponge, and the wracks got stuck in  

The reason the DE player in this game sent the wytches to zap the drop pods, I forgot in the at list that the two on the right had locator beacons, and the DE player was worried about giving the ravenwing free on-target drops
The pace of the game was definitely dictated by the drop pod assault. Downing 2/3 of the heavy support, and grounding the melee-oriented grotesques was a serious impediment to the DE battle plan

The Dark Eldar player lost the game at deployment. The Dark Angel army split itself by design which would have been a flaw to exploit instead the Dark Eldar just played to it's strengths.

After seeing the Dark Angel deployment, the Dark Eldar should have castled with spacing between models just small enough for a drop pod not to fit. He could have then placed his most valuable units in the center of the castle. This would have stopped the Dark angels from being able to get easy shots at rear armour, and with good arrangement could have prevented melta guns from being in melta range.

Turn 1 when the drop pods come in, the Dark Eldar could have focused on anyalating them piecemeal, as the rest of the Dark angel army had a reasonable amount of foot slogging to do before getting in range. He could have done the same with the second wave. Once they were all dealt with, the Dark Eldar could focus on the relic and the rest of the Dark Angel force.

The Dark Eldar failled to protect his resources at deployment, and failled to play to the board set up and the fractured nature of the Dark Angel forces, relinquishing control of the game, and failing to exploit his mobility.

This article might be helpful.

EDIT: Nice report btw, thanks for sharing.

Yeah in this case where the DA player did not bring any whirlwinds or other long range barrage/ordnance, the DE player should have done what is often seen in battles where the troops start outside the boats to block up space against deep striking drop pods, then hop in turn 1. That article looks good, thanks.

Added the report to the sticky.

nwabudikemorgan wrote:

Yeah in this case where the DA player did not bring any whirlwinds or other long range barrage/ordnance, the DE player should have done what is often seen in battles where the troops start outside the boats to block up space against deep striking drop pods, then hop in turn 1.

He didn't even need to go that far, deploying so as not to expose his rear armour would have gone a long way to making the game more winnable. That being said even if the dark angels brought a whirlwind, it's only 48" range, S4, and has a 66% chance of scattering, if he spread out his troops at most it would have killed 4-6 inantry, if it managed to get in range (which would have left it easy pickings for the Dark Eldar next turn). A small price to pay to keep meltas out of melta range.

As Dark Eldar you are always going to lose models at the beginning of the game, the trick is making sure the models you lose are the ones you don't depend on to beat your opponent.

Thanks for taking the time to critique, folks!
Mr. Believer, I've had good luck with Wracks in the past, and continue to enjoy the effects of employing them. Our previous battle I believe I did have 2x Kabbies, I've been altering bits and pieces of this list to test our army's capabilities (I know, I should probably build one list and stick with it to properly learn first!).
As for BLoS terrain, that was my goof. I put that big green block (dilapidated bastion) off-set to help cover my forces first turn. Had it been more centralized, could have been a totally different game.
Yes, in hindsight and after it having been pointed out, killing the drop pods was a huge waste of resources and a turn. By that point we figure I should have rushed ALL the wyches, kabbies, and wracks up to the centreline to nab the relic.
The reavers I didn't put in reserve due to those Dreadnoughts being the FW ones with skyfire/interceptor and I didn't want 'em evaporating before they accomplished anything. On the flip, maybe that would've been worth it; tie up the Dreads shooting for a turn and get bladevane anyway. You're right, having them on the right side vs near the marines likely would've ensured a better turnout. We were both surprised how little fire it took to pile through their 3+ jink  The bikes went south to try threaten his warlord for the game-tying point, but alas.

Mr. Mushkilla; my issue with castling was the Deathstorm drop-pods. If I'd castled with troops in the open, DA would have simply dropped those first and wrecked me a new one. Plus at that proximity those large blasts would be overlapping and I'd be even more pudding then before. In the scenario of "Jam or Jelly", he'd be the jam.
I've read nearly all of your fantatsical batreps Mushkilla, and am totally aware there is much to be learned from your stockpiles of experience. My issue is taking the relevant lessons from them and knowing when to apply them. Why learn the easy way when I could learn the hard way, eh?

But you should be happy to hear these losses have done nothing but flail uselessly at my resolve to become an expert and successful realspace raider! Culling the weaker members of my House, if you will.

Well, except for the Grots. I've fielded them three times, and successfully made it into CC never. Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong!

Laughingcarp wrote:

The reavers I didn't put in reserve due to those Dreadnoughts being the FW ones with skyfire/interceptor and I didn't want 'em evaporating before they accomplished anything.

Interceptor happens at the end of the movement phase, any weapon that is fire with interceptor can't shoot in the subsequent shooting phase. Reavers do most of their movement in the shooting phase.

The trick is to come in from reserve and end your movement phase, either out of range from things with interceptor, or out of line of sight. If this is not possible you still have a 4+ jink save to fall back on, so the difference is getting shot with a 4+ save in your movement phase, rather than with a 3+ save in their shooting phase. Your enemy will not get extra shots out of interceptor, so it's really not that bad.

Laughingcarp wrote:

Mr. Mushkilla; my issue with castling was the Deathstorm drop-pods. If I'd castled with troops in the open, DA would have simply dropped those first and wrecked me a new one.

Deathstorm is a whirlwind profile DP from forgeworld right? Does it have any special rule saying it can still fire on the turn it lands? Drop pods count as moving at cruising speed when deepstirking (like all vehicles), drop pods are not fast vehicles, and can only snapshot weapons when they move at cruising speed, you can't snapshot blast weapons, therefore the drop pod can't fire on the turn it lands unless it has a special rule that circumvents that.

Pretty sure the IA12 rules (the latest ones) don't have any rules to circumvent this (the main reason I don't like forge world, so many different versions of the rules, even more problematic for Dark Eldar as we depend on knowing the rules to survive, seeing as we don't have any armour/saves).

Even if it could you could still get away with it as it's only S4, and your models will be spread. Just because you're castling doesn't mean you have to clump up as much as you can.

Here's an example of how you could have deployed your army (bare in mind pick a corner where you will get the least incoming fire from his units at home (dreadnoughts for example). You get to see him deploy first so make the most of it.

In this picture all the important vehicles are protected (in cover or by flicker fields), and it's impossible for drop pod units to get in melta range of any of them. The two vehicles that are exposed, the raiders, are in close proximity to your grotesque, anything that lands there will be charged and tied up pretty quickly. The small wych squads are still in their transports (as it's the safest place for them). The warriors and reavers can at most take 3 hits from a 5" blast, in the case of a whirlwind, that's an average of 2 wounds on the warriors, and 1.5 wounds on the reavers. In order for his metla weapons to even be in range of your ravagers/reapers they need to leave themeselves exposed to counter assault.

This would have meant you would have survived your first turn with: your grots/assault units in postion to tie up your opponents drop pod troops (learn to multi charge with grots, it's an invaluable skill), and all your ranged AT still intact.

Laughingcarp wrote:

I've read nearly all of your fantatsical batreps Mushkilla, and am totally aware there is much to be learned from your stockpiles of experience.

Haha, don't be silly! I'm just your average player, I probably only get a game once a month. To quote Shadows Revenge "All your battle reports prove is that your local meta is absolutely terrible, and most likely beyond help.". My army is quite specific so doesn't really apply to a lot of DE armies out there. No to mention hindsight is a wonderful thing, it's easy to point out mistakes after a game that were impossible to know during the game.

Laughingcarp wrote:

My issue is taking the relevant lessons from them and knowing when to apply them.

Dark Eldar are like that. My best advice, is take a picture of your opponents deployment. Then you can come back to it later after the game, and try and work out how to deploy your own forces to take minimal casualties (Vassal is great for testing stuff like that out). It really helps you improve your set up when going second.

Laughingcarp wrote:

But you should be happy to hear these losses have done nothing but flail uselessly at my resolve to become an expert and successful realspace raider! Culling the weaker members of my House, if you will.

Good! The only reason I'm harsh with my feedback, is because, beating around the bush doesn't help you improve with DE.

Sometimes it's hard to see why you lose with DE. My first game I lost against the new Tau, I was devastated, I was convinced there was nothing I could have done against their overwhelming fire power. But a few members on here pointed out that my deployment was terrible, they were right, my deployment lost me the game, not Tau fire power. But the overwhelming defeat completely obscured the reality of the situation.

Laughingcarp wrote:

Well, except for the Grots. I've fielded them three times, and successfully made it into CC never. Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong!

With grots, you either want to hide their raider out of sight. Keep them in reserve that way they can move flat out when they come on (the reaver trick against interceptor works here too). Or my personal favourite run a few back up raiders, and start them empty within embarking distance of the grots, that way your opponent has to shoot empty raiders, if he doesn't want them crashing into his line.

Hope that helps.

Mushkilla wrote:

Deathstorm is a whirlwind profile DP from forgeworld right? Does it have any special rule saying it can still fire on the turn it lands? Drop pods count as moving at cruising speed when deepstirking (like all vehicles), drop pods are not fast vehicles, and can only snapshot weapons when they move at cruising speed, you can't snapshot blast weapons, therefore the drop pod can't fire on the turn it lands unless it has a special rule that circumvents that.

The PDF that I found for the Deathstorm had some information about automated weapon systems - they get to fire D3 shots at BS2 with whatever weapon they're equipped with (whirlwind or assault cannon) on the turn they come down at ANY AND ALL units within 12". Absolutely ridiculous  

Mr Believer wrote:

The PDF that I found for the Deathstorm had some information about automated weapon systems - they get to fire D3 shots at BS2 with whatever weapon they're equipped with (whirlwind or assault cannon) on the turn they come down at ANY AND ALL units within 12". Absolutely ridiculous  

Those rules are out of date.

Now you might not be able to stop people from using forgeworld, but you can damn well make sure they use the latest rules! *grumble grumble*

The current rules for them are (imperial armour 12 page 153). They have 5 deathstorm launchers (which are S5 AP4 48" range but DO NOT ignore cover, ARE SMALL blast (3"), pinning, and NOT barrage weapons). They can shoot them at 5 different targets (note that they are each hull mounted guns, and therefore have a 45degree fire arc, so the ones facing the wrong way can't shoot anything).

There is no rule that circumvents the fact that they count as moving at cruising speed and need to snap shot on the turn they arrive (and therefore can't fire blast weapons). So it can't fire on the turn it lands. Problem solved.  

The amount of Tau players I still catch using tetra markerlights as BS4 Heavy 4, when now they are only BS3 twinlinked Heavy 2 is ridiculous. Again forge world is a mess, as without research it's very hard to make sure your opponent is using the latest rules!

Wow, my bad. I 100% thought that the "old" rules for the Deathstorm were the most recent. By the Way, under those old rules, even though it just arrived it gets free shots with all the guns against units within 12", via a special rule that overrides the normal restriction on cruising speed.

That being said, HOLY NERF BATMAN. 20% cost bump, and drop from 5"blast to 3"blast, losing barrage, and no freebie shots on the turn it comes in, therefore meaning it cannot even fire when it arrives, so it'll get zapped super fast.

Well, never taking one of these again.

That being the case, I completely agree that you should castle up like Mushkilla's diagram, that'll keep you safe from melta and without fear of death storms, you're gonna be fine.

Sweeeeet salvatiooooon!

Ok, we're definitely going to ramp back our use of Forgeworld until we know what's what. At least, I am. Cheers Mr. Believer & Mushkilla!
Yeah our local Tau fanboy is sadly the guy who knows the rules best, so he's likely playing it straight. And he doesn't really bother with FW. Thankfully.

As to your previous reply;
'Course, I could have totally hidden the reavers behind cover for the movement phase! D'oh. And the concern isn't that he'll get extra shots, it's that his shots taken out-of-turn can take your models out of the action before they've accomplished anything.

Ok I'm seeing all the useful you've bundled into that setup, lots of things that make sense that I can think of individually but scramble together into about two useful thoughts when I actually deploy (If I'm lucky). And I'll definitely start studying up on previous games and how I could've improved.
Now I'll just have to read up on people's first turn strategies to learn how to pull that kind of deployment off as well!

As for you being harsh with your feedback, I wouldn't have it any other way. I absolutely appreciate you taking the time to go over batreps and help us out with what you've learned to do, and what NOT to do. It's one of the best ways for a padawan such as myself to learn.

PS - Love the idea of having extra raiders kicking 'round!

nwabudikemorgan wrote:

Wow, my bad. I 100% thought that the "old" rules for the Deathstorm were the most recent.

It's not your fault, it's the fact that forge world releases new rules every other month, and it's very hard to know what's current and what isn't.

Just one of the may problems with forgeworld, the others being: lack of balance, imperium favoured (in terms of options), bad rule writing, constant updates/amendments, and your opponent not having access to the rules as readily as normal codexes, meaning most games with forgeworld end like this:  "What do you mean it ignores cover, invulnerable saves, can shoot at three different targets, and assault when it comes in from reserve???".

I understand the cool models, and all that, but using them to proxy normal models rather than throwing your opponent curve balls is probably more fun for both parties.

nwabudikemorgan wrote:

That being said, HOLY NERF BATMAN. 20% cost bump, and drop from 5"blast to 3"blast, losing barrage, and no freebie shots on the turn it comes in, therefore meaning it cannot even fire when it arrives, so it'll get zapped super fast.

Well, never taking one of these again.

The fact that they have a special rule that allows them to force units to re-roll passed pinning tests on the turn they land, implies that the forgeworld team "assumes" they can shoot on the turn they land. But as usual no one at GW seems to read their own rules...

Yeah I saw that rule too, maybe thats just intended for the Assault Cannon version, cause that can still snap-shot

nwabudikemorgan wrote:

Yeah I saw that rule too, maybe thats just intended for the Assault Cannon version, cause that can still snap-shot

But it mentions pinning, and only the missile version can pin.

GW are notorious for writing inconsistent rules, seeing things how they want to see it, rather then what they have actually written. Forgeworld just amplify this as they have even less play testing/ stringent rule checks (as they are not as mainstream as the core 40k books).

Yeah they really are, and as we've only been playing for ish the last 6 months we're learning about FW the hard way.
And you're right, after browsing some of the IA books, Space Marines and IG get so much more support than any of the xenos. That right there throws the balance off quite nicely. Not to mention, who'd use the Raven fighter thingy? AV 10/10/10, 2HP, for ~125 pts? One TAC squad of bolters could drop that thing out of the sky!

On a slightly different note, have either of you chaps ever used our Codex flyers to good effect?

Allow me to drop the math hammer on that one for you. 140pt squad of 10 tac rines has 10-20 shots depending on rapid fire. Assuming they had 20, they'd hit on 6's (flyer) so thats 3.33 hits, then need 6's to glance, so thats 0.555 glances per round. I would not worry about the tac rines if I were you. That being said, sexypants mortis dreadnought (oh how i'm going to miss those when i play SM), or a quad gun on aegis line gets 4 TL skyfire shots for 3.55 hits, hurting the flyer on 3's = 2.37 HP taken off on average. kaboom

See? Exactly what I didn't say.
...darnit.