Ultramarines vs Dark Eldar 1750 pts Urien Takes on the NEW U's

Chief Librarian Tigrus - ( rolled 4++, re- roll misses, and overwatch at full BS)

10 SternGuard (2 combi meltas, 2 combiplasmas) - Drop Pod

10 Tactical Marines, ML, Plasmagun, Combiplasma - Rhino

10 Tactical Marines, ML, Plasmagun, Combiplasma - Rhino

5 Sniper Scouts, camo cloaks

Storm Talon - Typhoon Missiles

Storm Raven - Hurricane Bolters, Assault cannon, multimelta

Land Speeder - typhoon

3 Centurion Devastators - Grav Cannons + Amps, Omniscope, Chest Hurricanes

Thunderfire Cannon

Urien Rackarth

3 Grotesques, liquifier, aberration - Raider

3 Trueborn, 2 splintercannon - Venom, dual cannon

3 Trueborn, 3 blasters - Venom, dual cannon

10 Kabalites on Foot, Blaster, Darklance

10 Kabalites, Splinter Cannon, Blaster - Raider, Grisly Trophies

10 Wracks, 2 Liquifier Guns - Raider

5 Wyches, haywires - Venom, dual cannon

5 Wyches, haywires - Venom, dual cannon

Talos, TL Splinter Cannon, TL Liquifier

Talos, TL Splinter Cannon, TL Liquifier

Razorwing, 4 monomissiles, 2 lances, rifle, flickerfield

Ultramarines:

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The Ultramarines have the tools for the job. Centurions to take on the talos, tactical units not split up into combat squads are more than a match one to one with any Dark Eldar unit. They have speed with the fliers and the rhinos, they will be able to get up the table fast. They are expecting Urien and his army to rush them and so prepare defensively. The thunderfire cannon is key, this unit can kill anything in the DE army, from the tanks to the infantry and is now barrage so will be able to hit anything in range. The Ultras need to look out for the venoms! They will make short work of the thunderfire. But the fliers should be able to crack open the venoms in short order with assault cannon and missile fire.

Dark Eldar:

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The Dark Eldar are quite fragile. This is their worst mission matchup! Kill points... ug. Great time to test the mettle of generalship. Last game against the necrons the key was first blood... if we can secure those 2 points early on we have a chance. The thunderfire has to die or that will mean the demise of the army in short order. The dark eldar are also on the back foot when it comes to air support, the razorwing is the only AA unit in the list. At least the marines are going first, this means that it should have its pick of a target when it arrives after the storm talon/raven. The coven has never faced off against the centurions but it I treat them like terminators and just force a lot of saves I should be able to deal with them, maybe even score warlord as well.

The Advantage in this match will clearly go to the Ultramarines, they have less kill points, the tools to take out all the Dark Eldar targets. Lets get to deployment!

The ultramarines deployed in a centralized position, the thunderfire was back as well as the land speeder, both rhinos flanked by the centurions and Tiggy.

In reserve, the Ultramarines have their air support on standby, and the sternguard in orbital support.

Urien senses an advantage, and the lack of Night fight will hamper him. But the thunderfire cannon has been placed too far back! Allowing the raiders to deploy out of range. This is risky but could provide great pay off if they are able to move up unscatehd. In another risk-taking move the dark eldar leave 50% of their army in reserve! (I have not done this since 5th, when I could put everything in reserve)... this is because of the deployment style. All the venoms will then arrive to threaten the thunderfire cannon and open up another flank that the Marines must turn their attention to. The razorwing is also in support. And the foot warriors are also walking on to prevent them from being blasted by thunderfire shells.

The sniper scouts deploy near the Dark Eldar table edge (a mistake! because of the large number of DE reserves). But are also acting as bait to draw the DE out.

The Sternguard drop in. Feeling confident the Ultramarines deploy with only the combi plasmas within 12" to safeguard the squad from retaliation from the remainder of the army (namely the second talos nearby). Tiggy casts powers with no issue (presience and 4++ on the centurions, assume this happens every turn unless I say something).

The Ultramarine army Soars forward, the thunderfire cannon as well to prevent the Dark Elda from doing any more hiding! The centurions are well out of range as they lack anything more than 24" and they also advance.

The Scouts stay put, they open fire on the Talos that they can see! - Doing no damage as the rhinos and land speeder boost up to support the sternguard veterans.

The Sternguard now open up on their pray! when the smoke clears the talos has ESCAPED! taking only one wound making 5 out of 6 saves the plasma has done no damage.

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Tactical note: holy crap! This is huge. By not guaranteeing the death of the talos (putting all the hellfire rounds out of 12" the Ultramarines player has just handed lady luck a chance to spoil their plan. There is a glimmer of home now, it is the dark eldar turn and that talos is now very angry.

The Dark kin have to take advantage of this tactical blunder. They advance, the angry talos prepares his TwinLinked Liquifier gun as he moves up to smite the sternguard, all the raiders move up and get a bead on the land speeder who has boosted. The second lance shot lands a hit and pens the speeder, wrecking it.

This earns the Dark Eldar First Blood and aKill Point!
The Talos then focusses on the sternguard. The liquifier is ap3 and liquifies 4 out of the 5 that it hit. (gotta love twin linked). The talos then gets ready to charge. Rolls an 11! And makes it into the combat. The Sternguard overwatch does nothing and the talos smites another 3 leaving 3 alive. They fail their morale test and the talos fails to catch them.

This is good as it means the space marines have a chance to fire at the talos once again. And have saved the point from the sternguard.
Dark Eldar - 2 (land speeder, first blood)
Ultramarines - 0

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Tactical note: This turn went well, the sternguard have been neutralized as a main threat, the centurions are still out of range for another turn, now it depends on the Ultramarine air support showing up as well as the advancing tactical squads to put a lot of pressure on the dark eldar lines.

Sensing the need to deal a critical blow to the Dark Eldar the Ultramarines declare a Tactical Doctrine for this turn. Both rhinos full of tactical marines advance into rapid fire range of the taloi, the centurions will be out of range this turn once again, and move up as far as they can.

The Thunderfire cannon takes a shot at the wracks raider, and puts one penetrating hit on it! - Rolls.... a 1 it may only snap shoot next turn.
The tactical squad in the cathedral, with help from the Sniper scouts (that found their range and put a rending wound onto the talos) manage in killing the talos near the cathedral. The Sretnguard AND the other tactical squad unload on the Talos that had just rampaged through the sternguard unit...

They fail to kill it! Yet again, the talos has survived, only taking another wound.

And now, both units of Marines are all bunched up and ready for the liquifiers once again...  

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Tactical Note: The Ultramarines have not been graced with air support... they have failed to kill the taloi, or remove the DE of their mobility... Hoping that the dark eldar reserves also fail to arrive the Marines hold on.

Dark Eldar - 2
Ultramarines - 1

The Dark Eldar reserves begin to poor in. All 4 venoms show up. And as per the plan, they arrive on the far table edge, with 2 venoms and the splinter cannon trueborn having a bead on the thunderfire cannon. And the other two venoms getting ready to blast the scouts.

The Thunderfire cannon goes down, the techmarine survives rolling all his armour saves and two of the scouts survive as well. On the other flank, Urien rackarth and his grotesques get out of their raider, hit 10 marines with an ap 3 liquifier and kill 6. The Talos also hits 10 marines, ap 3, 6 dead... Then both of the units fail their charges the marine units have taken a great hit this turn. But the dark eldar have taken zero killpoints this turn!

The Warriors in the green raider have also killed another of the sternguard. All the units pass their morale checks.

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Tactical Note: The Dark Eldar have taken out the Thunderfire cannon, this is critical, yet even with all the damage dealt the Dark Eldar have failed to take any killpoints home with this turn. The Storm Raven and Talon will definately turn the tide in this battle, with all the easy killpoints (venoms with 3 man truebornsdquads) now on the table.

Dark Eldar - 2
Ultramarines - 1

The Start of the Ultramarine turn. Rolling for reserves. The Storm raven and storm talon fail to come in again! Tiggy uses his re roll and once again fail. It seems like the Boys in Blue are in between a rock and a hard spot. They need to eliminate the wounded Talos and do some damage to urien and his grotesques.
The Survivine marines move back and spread out to prevent another ap 3 liquified disaster... more importantly, the Centurions are now in range. On the other flank, the Techmarine tries to hide from the venoms.

The centurions elect to fire at the Grotesques. A combination of their 6+ save, cover and FNP saves means that only 3 wounds are taken, dropping one of the grotesques. The sternguard veterans and the other tac marines once again, -fail- to take out the talos!
Then in a tactically important move, the rhinos boost in front of the tac squads to protect them from potential charges.

The space marines brace for another turn.

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Tactical note: Holy Crap! The storm raven and talon fail to arrive again? This seems to put the last nail in the coffin. Also failing to kill the talos once again, can anything go well for the Ultramarines?

The Razorwing, and the foot warriors arrive. The talos, gets ready to eliminate the sternguard once and for all and suceedes. The Wracks disembark from their raider and charge into the rhino that gets blasted by the razorwing, wrecking it. The grotesques charge into the other rhino and wreck it as well. The blaster trueborn take out the techmarine, also a lot of poison fire eliminates one centurion and succeed in putting 2 wounds on Tiggy! (the warrior unit that had arrived also was able to put some long range poison shots into the unit. As a small unit of wytches assaults and eliminates the scout sniper squad in the building. A very telling turn for the Space Marines as Uriens Pain Train begins its steamin.

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Tactical Note: This was a key turn. The lack of air support and all the small, easy to get, kill points the marines had makes the dark eldar leap ahead in the killpoint game. With the thunderfire cannon gone, targetting the centurions with poison fire is key, forcing many saves and putting the warlord point at risk

Ultramarines - 1
Dark Eldar - 7

The Storm Raven and Storm Talon arrive! But have they made it too late? They have at least 2 turns to turn the tide of battle. The Storm raven blasts the razorwing out of the sky! And the storm talon puts one hull point on one very lucky venom (who made its flickerfield save against a pen). This has earned the space marines another killpoint.

The centurions once again open fire on the grotesques and fail to kill the unit, loosing one centurion really puts a hamper on the unit in terms of firepower as both tactical marine units (that had fallen back last turn) fail to kill the talos! (once again!)

The Dark Eldar venoms all move up on the flank to continue to pepper the centurions with firepower. But also, to put pressure on the zooming fliers who will have to hover in order to target them next turn (and would then put them in danger of the haywire grenades.

The grotesques and urien hide in the cathedral and the venoms all fire into the centurions! Killing them all off! And netting the Dark Eldar Warlord. The wrack unit on the far side liquify the last 3 members of one tac squad whule the warriors from the raider disembark to take on the other 3 and eliminate them to gain a pain token. The Unkillable talos moves over and smashes the drop pod for another point.

All the ultramarines have are the fliers left.

Knowing that the game is pretty much over the space marines try to go out as strong as possible. The Talon and Raven prepare to take on the warriors(who could fall back after some casualties) the wyches in the building and their immobile venom.

The smoke clears, the wyches go to ground to only take one casualty. The warriors dont fall back and the venom makes its one flickerfield save VS the multi melta.

The Dark Eldar move up and shuffle to score linebreaker and to safeguard warlord. The 3 blaster trueborn score one hit on the storm talon and blow it out of the sky after it fails an evade save!

We roll to see if the game goes on! And it does. Night fight does not come into effect.

Only the lonely storm raven remains. In a fit of glory, he hovers the flier. There is only one mission. Kill that damned talos! The one talos that started it all, for the moral victory!
He fires, the assault cannon, the remaining missiles, assault cannon, hurricanes at the talos. (that has one wound remaining, but a FNP save as well).
He scores one wound with a bolter shell.
Roll:

The talos is no more! Failed the one FNP save that it needed to make. The Ultramarines regoice at this small victory.

With the Storm Raven in hover mode, the remaining wych unit disembarks, and charges in, as well as urien and his grots.

The result is clear!
Crushing Victory to the Dark Eldar!
Ultramarines completely destroyed.

The Game is now over.

What a game! This went down hill for the Ultramarines from the start. Not gaining first blood, not having any of the reserves arrive until it was too late. I feel like the Boys in blue made quite a few tactical blunders and played into the Dark Eldar hands, regardless of the Dice. On the other hand I feel that the game would have been a lot closer but even with the dice being a bit better for the marines and the DE taking some more casualties I can see that it would have still been a victory for the dark kin. The tactical use of reserves, the target priority and the application of pressure in the right locations of the battlefield. Well. thats all I have. Thanks a lot for reading! As my first official written batrep on Dakka comes to a close, I appreciate the time you have taken to read over it.