As some here may know I qualified for the Crucible Grand Tournament by winning a regional qualifier, giving me free entry! I am not one to let that go to waste, so off to Orlando I went!
Saturday morning, as I walked around, I can tell you now the current high-level meta that is being played. You all may have guessed, but TAUDAR is running rampant! Not only that, almost all the TAUDAR lists were the same, something along the lines of:
Buff commander
Eldrad (or farseer)
riptide (x2 in some cases)
3 broadside suits
2 missle tanks
a unit of dark reapers
2 wave serpents
outflanking kroot
and the kicker..... a Skyshield Landing Pad!
Almost every freakin TAUDAR player had a skyshield. There were more skyshields than aegis lines!
That did not fill me with hope, as the Dark Eldar die in droves to all the no cover save shots that will be filling the air. But, Time to see if the True kin can hang with the big boys!
Out of the 60 players, there were:
a TON of Taudar or Tau/Eldar/Allies of some sort.
A surprising number of NECRONS (one had like 11 scythes!
)
Marines
Dark Eldar
Orks
Sisters
Demons/ Chaos marines
Imperial Guard
and a smattering of others.
I unpacked my army, and got ready to rumble. My list was comprised of:
Baron
4 Beastmasters 1 w/venomblade
20 dogs
5x venoms w/cannon & trophies with 5 wyches with haywires inside
3x ravagers, 1 triple dissie
Farseer/ Jetbike/ Shard/ Runes of Warding/ Helm/ Spear
10 Warp Spiders
6 windriders w/2 cannons
2 war walkers with dual scatter Lasers
They announced table assignments, and I was off to face an Ork Horde which had:
Meganobz lead by lord
nob bikers led by lord
2x 30 orks, 1 shoota 1 not
aegis
quad gun
grots
battlewagon
looted wagon
2 planes
wierdboy
2x 7 lootas
Deployment: Hammer and anvil
Nightfight: No
Warlord trait: Utterly Useless!
Combat Drugs: Pain token!
So, overview of round one would be I am facing a ton of orks in a hammer and anvil game, a battlewagon, looted wagon and lootas. I would just stay back and shoot, but the lootas tipped the scales in his favor in that war. So... I plan on pressing up one side while using the fearless beastpack to hold the other. The bikes did not scare me unless they get into combat, as venoms kill them pretty easily. The Meganobz on the other hand... I had my triple dissie ravager as a suprise for them! And people wonder why I take it...
Initiative Dark Eldar
Orks fail to seize.
As the game opened, I jumped the warp spiders up by some lootas he had on the left side, followed by the windriders. My beastpack moved up to hold he middle and on the right, all the venoms I could muster went into the bikers until they were gone (First Blood) and the rest went into the lootas on the right side. After shooting, the right side lootas were down to 4, the left side were wiped by the spiders who then jumped into the cover where the lootas had been.
He retaliated by moving up the shootas, and unloading on the dogs. His lootas on the right opened a can of whoop a$$ on my walkers, dropping both! He disembarked the meganobz, hoping to get a charge on the dogs as well, but it would not be easy. After his shooting, the dogs were down a beastmaster and 6 khymerae, and the meganobz charge failed!
My turn saw the spiders jump BEHIND his aegis to tackle either the shootas or grots, the beastpack moved up to triple charge grots, shootas and boyz, a venom moved up and some wyches jumped out to have a go at the battlewagon.
Shooting was devestating. Venoms took out the quadgun, and almost all the shootas. Ravagers took out the meganobz, and the warp spiders, facing no real threat, vaporized the looted wagon. Hand to hand saw the dogs eat the grots and shootas to a man... or ork, as it were. The wyches threw (and missed) a haywire, then charged, hit 3 times, and got 2 glances and a pen... Guess what the pen result was... go on, guess! Yup, a "6", taking out 2 wyches even WITH the feel no pain!
Desperation time for my opponent, one plane came in, and the lootas managed to drop a venom. Dang! The bomba hit the warp spiders, doing middling damage. The game was almost over... time to put him out of his misery!
Shooting, charging and combat res saw only the lootas and plane left on the table. We had a rules dispute, where he wanted to use the unit strength of his boyz (4 left) instead of his base LD.
Seeing as i won combat by a million or so, he needed snake eyes, but he claimed he just needed 4 as it replaced his LD. I said yes it does, but combat res is still applied. He begged to differ. So of to the judge for a ruling which was of course in my favor, and the game was over. We shook hands, and I walked away with 18/20 points. (drew on the tertiary, "kill a marked heavy support after deployment"... he chose my walkers.)
So, game 1 in the books, and Dark Eldar came to play! Bring on my next opponent!
I will update this as I go.. I am at "work" right now
Game 2:So, with almost full points, I headed to table 6 to face.... Dan and his nids!
Dan is a great Orlando player who makes his home at Sci Fi city. In practice for this and other tournaments, I attended 3 tournaments at his store, and won them all. I even faced his nids for first place in one of those. So, I knew he was a good player, but I felt Dark Eldar have a great edge on nids, so I was pretty confident.
He saw me on the other side of the table and laughed... "Oh great, I am playing Dark lance.."
I told him I did not have a lot of lances, and he laughed harder, saying the orlando players nicknamed me that as my real name is Lance, and I play dark eldar.
So I now have a 40K nickname... Anyway, onto the game!
He had:
3 Flyrants with the 12 shot reroll stuff
4 15 man genestealer units
some biovores
some warriors
a gargoyle unit
Mission: turn 1-5 scatter objectives from the center of the table. The turn number dictates the point value of the objective.
Deployment: Vanguard
Nightfight: no
Combat drug: Reroll wounds
Warlord trait- Useless
First turn: Nids
My Psychic- fortune, guide, prescience
Overview-
I hate those dakka flyrants! I know he will easily take down 3 vehicles a turn, and I know dan is smart enough not to go for my ravagers, and concentrate on my venoms. His stealers I just plan on playing keep away and venoming them to death. So I decide to deploy in my own corner, giving me more turns at shooting.
He infiltrates his stealers 18" away.
I roll but fail to seize.
He takes to the air, moves and runs all 4 stealer units netting me in my own corner, and shoots 3 venoms from the sky, leaving 3 wyches, 2 wyches and 0 wyches!
Well, my turn! I fortune and move up the dogs, prescience and guide the other 2 venoms, and move to assault range of his stealers.
Venom 1- lots of hits, few wounds, all saved, stays in the air.
Ditto for venom 2
Ditto for walkers
Ditto for warp spiders, but they at least snuck 3 wounds on his warlord.
Ravagers, ditto.
All the wyches shot with pistols. Ditto.
32 total hits.
0 fell from the sky.
I was in deep trouble!
After the shooting, I saw I fell for the trap he set. The Flyrants were not the threat... the 60 stealers knocking on my door were! Too late, I had to make a move to rectify it!
I double charged 2 units of genestealers with the dogs!
I won combat handily, but he was fearless, and now I was trapped.
His turn, the other 2 stealer units circled my dogs. It was going to be a bloodbath!
His flyrants downed the last 2 venoms and the dissie ravager. I was being systemantically dismantled!
Combat saw the charges I was dreading, and we fought.
And boy, did those dogs fight!
Against 4 units of genestealers, the dogs WON combat! Dan was stunned. He said he never thought anything could stand up to 4 units of stealers, but fortuned dogs can! I hit and run outta dodge!
My turn saw me whittling down the stealers with what I had left. the dogs went for his warriors and deployment zone.
More multi charges, winning easily but they are fearless, so i am countercharged by stealers... it was a big ol mess!
As the game time was winding down he had dismantled all but 1 ravager, some 3 units of wyches on foot and my beastpack which now had 3 dogs, the baron and the farseer. he had 3 objectives in his zone but only 1 scoring unit, and the one it was on was next to my baron, I had 1 in mine which he controlled.
So, last turn due to time constraints saw his warlord with 1 wound left swoop in to eat some wyches for Last blood. He also circled the objective he held in my zone with some stealers (only like 6 left in that unit.)
he charged the wyches with the flyrant. Stand and shoot saw nada.
wyches struck first, getting 2 hits, 0 wounds. Reroll wounds due to drugs, 1 wound.
Dead Flyrant/warlord! Whoot! 1 wych just got me 2 points!
My last turn, I saw a chance for a draw. I split off the farseer at the objective in my zone, and my baron jumped out to get to the objective in his to contest. He was now winning 1 objective to 0.
My farseer on jetbike shot the stealers circling the objective.
2 hits.
2 6's for wounds meant no saves and a hole for me to jump the bike in to contest and cause a tie!
Rolled my jetbike move.... a total of 3", leaving me 1" from contesting!
Ah well.... close but no cigar.
Dark Eldar Loss... 3-18
Afterthoughts:
Oh, but to have a redo! I am sure that in 5 games out of 6 my list would win... I was just too caught up in the threat of the Flyrants I never saw the stealers as the real threat! Anyway, Dan was a great player and deserved the win.
The hard part about this is that in over 15 tournaments, I had never lost a game! This is almost a 2 year winning streak that just got snapped, and that hurt more than the loss did. I was beginning to take real pride in the fact that the Dark Eldar are looked upon as sub-par by many tournament players, just to play them and wipe that smirk off their face. But, that being said, I couldnt dwell on it too much, I had another game yet to go today!
Game 3:So, I assumed I would be in the middle of the pack, but the missions were pretty hard, and most players did not max their games, so i was in the top third. I had to win this game to stay in contention for a decent showing. After they posted the opponents, I was less than thrilled to see I would be facing Eldar in a kill point mission!
My opponent had:
5 wave serpents (4 dire avengers, 1 dark reaper)
2 units of 3 war walkers with double scatter lasers
Farseer
Maxed out Dark Reaper squad w/exarch
Mission: Kill points
Deployment: Dawn of War
Drugs: +1 Str
Warlord Trait: Nightfight! Finally, a good trait!
First turn: Eldar
Overview:
Well, playing an eldar force of waveserpents (all maxed out) and dark reapers is not a way to an easy victory in kill points. I always read my opponents lists, just to see what they have so i get no surprises, and i was shocked to see the farseer was bare. i mean, 100 points, no upgrades bare bones. I figured he would go with the dark reapers (rightly so) but still, it seemed odd to me.
I roll and fail to seize.
In deployment, i kept WAY back to take advantage of the nightfight, but I put my dogs up front and center to act as a threat and hopefully take some heat off the vehicles. If my opponent wanted to, there is nothing I can do to stop him moving 12 to get within 36" and popping his serpent shields!
My opponent moved cautiously. he got within range of a ravager I had hidden in some ruins, and all the rest stayed back, just in range of my dogs! Sweet!
His shooting saw the one waveserpent in range of the ravager unload on it, popping its shield, but rolling a "1" for hits, which he got 1 hit and 1 glance! All the other vehicles and reapers opened up on the dogs, but they did not pop the shields, waiting for the retalitation coming next round. My dogs held up pretty good, that is UNTIL his 48 str 6 scstter laser shots from his walkers decimated the unit down to the baron, 1 beastmaster, the farseer and 7 dogs! Ouch!
My turn saw the dogs move at the waveserpent that went after my ravager, as it moved a tad to close and my dogs, with a decent charge roll could reach it. After some shuffling around, I unleashed splinter and lance death upon his army. The venoms mowed down all but 2 of his reapers, and the ravagers with the walkers wiped 1 walker unit from the table and brought the other down to 2, one of which had a hull point.
Charging saw the dogs and baron make short work of his wave serpent, dislodging the full unit of dire avengers.
He fought back on his turn, dropping a ravager and taking out 1 of the warwalkers. His dire avengers lit up the dogs but did no real damage, as the farseer was closest and tanked all the wounds.
My turn had wyches move up, jump out and go for his serpents. the dogs ate the dire avengers and consolidated toward the farseer and 2 reapers. This turn, 3 out of the 4 serpents left dropped.
He went and shot 2 units of wyches from the board, but it was too little too late. My dogs charged his farseer and reapers, venoms and ravagers took out his dire avengers, and the walker glanced the last (empty) serpent, and wyches finished it off.
In combat, I wiped the reapers but the farseer lived after an amazing bout of saves. I told him he needed to take a break test -2, at which point he informed me he was fearless because he had the shard of annaris.
I informed him that no, he did not, as I distinctly remember his 100 pt farseer was bare bones. He looked at his list, said "damn, I thought I took that!" and promptly rolled a 9 for ld.
Dogs ate him in pursuit.
Dark Eldar Tabling, Full points. 20-0
Afterthoughts:
Well, a good bounce back against a tough army in a horrible mission. As I look back, i find it amazing he did not get first blood. I mean he went first, even with nightfight, he could have toasted
something! The issue with the shard bothered me a bit, and made me vow to read the rest of my opponents lists a little more thoroughly. truthfully, I don't believe it was done intentionally, as the guy I was playing was the nicest, most outgoing and friendly guy you could ever want to meet.
So, after day 1, I was doing pretty well, and was looking forward to day 2.
Game 4:As I entered the room, they already had the next pairings up and ready. This mission was AGAIN a kill point mission, and I saw I was playing against Demons/Chaos.
So, i set up and waited for my opponent. Game on was at 9, and it was not until 8:58 when he showed up!
So, he unpacked, and I saw what i was facing....
A Demon Bomb Flying Circus.
He had:
Fateweaver
Lord of Change
2 chaos demon princes/ tzeentch/ wings
aegis line with comms
2x full units of horrors
1x cultist unit
and BELAKOR
So, that led me to ask him... what the hell is a Belakor?
Well, it seems Belakor is some uber nasty, super dude that flies, knows a lot of magic, and is pretty heinous in close combat.
Fair enough.
Mission: Kill Points
Deployment: Dawn of War
Combat drugs: +1 str
Warlord trait: useless
Initiative: Dark Eldar
He rolled to seize and failed.
Overview:
So let me get this straight. I am facing an army with a whopping 8 kill points in a kill point mission, when I give up what.. 20? On top of that, all his flying monsters are psychic, so i will be unable to contend with all that stuff, and on top of THAT, he brings in some named guy that was ruled as legal but I know nothing about. So much for the art of war and know thy enemy... Good thing is I go first.
Turn 1.
Moved up all my stuff just in range, and unleashed hell.
Target priority was: fateweaver, then the LOC, then the princes, then belakor.
2 venoms alone put paid to fateweaver. To say my opponent was shocked and stunned is an understatement.
I then dropped the LOC to 1 wound and he declared he was going to ground for a rerollable 2+ cover save. I did not think demons or MC's could go to ground, but I was overruled. So, i ignored the LOC and moved on to dp#1.
When all was said and done, Fateweaver and 1 demon prince was dead, the other demon prince and the lord of change had gone to ground, and belakor was untouched.
Deadly and crippling first turn.
He used belakor to make the LOC fearless, thus removing him form the gone to ground rule, letting him fly at my lines... that was a very slick and smart move. Kudos to him. He shot some, but did no damage, so it was back to me.
After the shooting, the other demon prince was dead, and belakor took a wound.
All his reserves came in, and via shooting, vector and psychic he managed to drop a venom. The wyches jumped out right by his one unit of horrors.
My turn came, and the wyches threw a grenade (str 4 ap4 is sweet) wiping a lot of the horrors. The lord of change and belakor were both killed, and in a charge, my wyches ate his horrors and moved on to the next unit.
At this point, he called the game.
Dark Eldar Victory.. 20-0
Afterthoughts:
Wow. In what could have been a very tough game, it was instead a demonic bloodbath! Tzeentch himself will be having nightsweats remembering what happened here. pretty much, me going first gave me the win. Venoms on MC's is not even remotely a fair fight, but since when do Dark Eldar care about fairness? If he went first, the game may have been very different indeed.
Game 5:So... when the final pairings go up, I see I am plying for second place! There are only 2 undefeated players... a necron scarab farm and the Nid player that beat me round 2!
Wow... I was pretty happy with the comeback after that disappointing game 2.
So.. the postings are up and I am facing... A Taudar Player.
Funny thing is, the top table had necrons and nids (which noone would have ever seen comming), then Dark Eldar and taudar, then taudar and taudar, then necrons, etc etc etc... The two red headed step children in all this is the Dark Eldar and Nids!
Mission: Objectives. 1 pt per player turn per objective held
Deployment: Vanguard
Drugs: +1 ws
Trait: Nightfight
I did not get fortune...
He had:
Eldrad
Buff tau commander
3x missle broadsides
1x kroot packs w/hound
2x windrider squads
1x guardian squad (20) w/ 2 scatter laser platforms
dire avengers
2x wave serpents
1 riptide
1 wraithknight
skyshield platform
Warp spiders
He did not attempt to seize.
Overview:
I was going to lose tertiary. It was any model that could challenge is worth 1 pt, he had 2, I had 6! Secondary mission is who controls center objective with most non vehicle units. Primary was 5 objectives, if at the end of a GAME turn you are on it, you get a point. Most points win.
I was not going to make the same mistake as I did with the nids. I planned on ignoring the riptide and wraithknight, and go for his troops and HQ's! All the while, with my wyches on objectives.
Turn 1- wyches had deployed on 3 objectives, vehicles moved up, only 2 venoms were close enough after a 12" move to take some shots on his buff commander w/ broadsides. Did 1 wound though. Beasts moved and ran 6", so next turn i would be charging! Spiders went forward a whoping 10"
His turn 1 saw everything come out of hiding from behind the skyshield. Bikes went on to 2 objectives. 1 ravager went down to serpentshields, 1 ravager went down to 2 bright lance shots from what I
thought was his waveserpent, but found out later that was wrong! 1 venom was imobolised (it was an empty one though) the riptide dropped 3 wyches who failed the morale but rerolled due to trophies and stayed put.
End of turn 1:
De winning 3-2
My turn saw beasts move up to charge the buff commander and the bikes on the objective. Shooting did some damage here and there, but nothing drastic. i was concentrating on his troops only.
Charges went off, and I hit and killed all 3 units, the commander, the bikes and the broadsides. I consolidated on the pad as best I could, but 1/2 my beasts were under it.
His turn saw the 20 man squad and eldrad prescience themselves, then move to smack the dogs. Last ravager went down, and a venom did as well. Shooting the dogs hurt them bad, leaving baron, 3 masters, farseer and 4 dogs. Even with the 2+ cover under the skyshield! It was when he was shooting the dogs and said "I shoot these bright lance platforms" that i remember that he had Scatter laser platforms!!!
WTF?I asked to see and reread his list and yup, no bright lances!
I was a tad upset, seeing as how brightlances are better at taking out a ravager than scatter lasers! I wanted to put the ravager back on the table, he of course did not want that. In the end, I let it go but was a bit ticked! He had to play the platforms as lances the rest of the game. The only thing I can say is the models on the table were lances, not lasers. I know he could have both in his bag and pull out whichever would be better for him depending on the army he is facing, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt about it being an honest mistake.
His outflanking kroot came in and shot 4 out of the 5 wyches off the objective, but I did not run. His hound was within 3, I was not.
End of turn 2-
Dark Eldar winning 5-4
I charged his eldar blob squad, losing all the rest of the masters in overwatch at full ballistic skill. Spiders charged in to help as well. The farseer broke off, but charged in also when he could not reach his target.
Shooting wiped the troops off the table except his blob squad.
He challenged, i refused (mistake on my part) and he sent the baron to the back.
He then went on to tank ALL 12 wounds inflicted on the unit. EVERY SINGLE ONE!
Luckily, the spiders and farseer inflicted some wounds, winning combat by 2. He held.
His turn his riptide moved in to assault my farseer, spiders came in and vaporized a venom, and the waveserpent dropped another.
Combat saw a challenge accepted by the baron, the riptide smash once which was saved, and all the guardians wiped because eldrad could not tank anymore. Riptide broke and was run down by the farseer. I hit and run out of combat and make it to the center objective for tertiary.
After 3-
DE won primary.
De winning secondary
DE lost tertiary.
They called last turn, and he was unable to make it to the center objective with his wraithknight. Game seemed in the bag.
Then he said we had time for another. AUUGGHHH. He was technically right, as we both had only a couple models, but he would kill the baron and grab secondary.
I said go ahead, and that is exactly what he did.
In the end:
DE: 8 for primary +2
Taudar: 5 for secondary, 3 for tertiary, +2
10-10 tie.
we both knocked each other out of second place!
Afterthoughts:
Well, i could have been a jerk and said they already called last turn and not allowed the last turn. It would have given me a 15-4 win. Nice guys DO finish last!
After all was said and done, i got a trophy for "Best Dark Eldar" which when I went up to get it, everyone yelled 'Dark lance!'
and I ended up in 6th or 7th place out of 60.
Not too bad! The Dark Eldar shocked some people, and are geting ready for Adepticon!
Subject: Crucible Grand Tournament - The Dark Eldar attempt to make a showing. 
Mon Mar 03 2014, 19:11
Ok, we still lost, but we made quite a mess of his big gribblies!
