ATC Overview- 170 players, 5 of them Dark Eldar

This will be a simple overview of my ATC experience. I am running on 3 hours of sleep so I am a bit foggy on details, but still coherent enough to give an account of how the true kin fared at the ATC.

First off, here is a breakdown of the armies that attended:
Space Marines - 22
Necrons - 22
Eldar - 21
Daemons - 16
Grey Knights - 16
Tau - 15
Imperial Guard - 11
Imperial Knights - 11
Blood Angels - 7
Chaos Marines - 6
Orks - 6
Tyranids - 5
Dark Eldar - 5
Dark Angels - 4
Sisters of Battle - 1
Space Wolves - 1
Black Templars - 1

So, as you can see, the Dark Eldar are way way down on the list of what people think are "competitive" lists- and believe me, there were 9 scythe necrons, 5 Knight and demon bomb lists a plenty. But only 5 braved the Dark Eldar.

I was one of them, and headed into game 1:
As we read the lists, i informed my team captain "any list is fine, but not the 4 wyvern, pask, dual earthshaker list please.

So, Imperial guard turn 1 it was!
  
My list:
Baron
Jetseer
20 dogs
4 wych venoms
3 ravagers (1 triple dissie)
2 waveserpents w/ 5 dire avengers)

This game was pretty straight forward. He hung back as far as he could, I deployed as close as i could. He had pask in a gatling tank, a plasma tank, 2 units of 2 wyverns, 2 earthshakers and a bunch of chimeras.
I had to remove those wyverns, and going first let me pop the serpent shields, destroying 1 tank, stunning the other and the ravagers removed 1 weapon from a third. Dogs moved and ran, the dissie ravager managed side shots on a chimera, dropping the people inside which the venoms wiped.
First blood

He went, and pask dropped a venom (wyches were fine), executioner shot at a ravager (jink!) but no damage. Basalisks dropped the other ravager despite nightfight and jink.

turn 2 had dogs charge pask( only baron and jetseer could hurt him) and glanced him once. It was more to move closer to his units than anything else.
Waveserpents wiped the squad of 1 wyvern, and snap shooting ravager dropped the wounded wyvern. Wyches moved up, tossed some grenades, etc...

He was panicked now as my dogs were in his face. He shot EVERYTHING at them, but they had fortune up, so no real damage.

My turn saw the dogs multicharge the wyvern, a chimera, and 2 earthshakers. They ate them all. 2 wych units charged pask after tossing grenades, (2 glances) and in HTH did 4 more removing all the tanks.

After that it was just mop up.
30 points.

Game 2- Versus Imperial Knights with some marine allies.
3 knights (2 melta, 1 cannon)
2 landraiders w/tac squads (sormbolter raiders)
bikes with banner that lets bolters salvo, apoth, etc...

We set up, and it was game on.
He went first, and for some unknown reason, moved his landraiders 12" forward. He snapshot, but jinks saved em all but 1 venom which was glanced out. (first blood)
His knights took potshots, and stunned the dissie ravager. (jink!)

My turn, the dogs went after all 3 knights, the wyches went up 6, deployed 6, threw grenades, then charged and removed both landraiders. Venoms and ravagers (even got three hits with stunned ravager) wiped his bike squad.
(slay the warlord. )

He then asked what in the dogpack could even hurt him. I informed him my baron could glance on a charge, and the farseer could pen with a hit, a and another 5-6 with rending at str 5.
He then ignored them and took out two ravagers.
That was game over pretty much.
Dogs charged all 3 and tied them up until i got wyches where I wanted them, then took out all 3 knights.
28 out of 30.

Game 3-
Guard from hell.
This game I lost. He had 2 units of 50 man blob squads. It was hammer and anvil and he deployed WAY WAY back except blobs. I got the infiltrate warlord trait and did so to get there quicker.

Long story short... Prescience on both squads, first rank, second rank on both and 240 rerollable shots later, the dogs were pretty much gone.
i did manage to wipe the blobs, and tie him on objectives until his flyers went into hover and contested. I also failed a rerollable 3" run to tie on capture/control.
So 4 points (first blood/ slay the warlord)

Game 4- Versus Knights with eldar allies.
This game was funny. My opponent literally told me my tactics sucked when i turboed 4 venoms right in his knights faces. He then ignored said venoms to take out the "real" threat of my ravagers.
My turn 2- wyches ate his warlord and then continued to mow down his army. Dogs ate the waveserpents and pretty much kept the knights corralled. Board control for the win on this one.
30 points

Game 5- Demon bomb.
In this game, the waveserpents were the hero, not the dogs! Nurgle in cover is nasty, but shields were nastier! Dogs did eat his warlord,3 nurgle units and tied up 3 soulgrinders until wyches were in position to haywire em, so it is not like they were a non factor or anything.
Demons have a hard time with Dark Eldar....
Not sure of points... 28-30 or so. I think he may have gotten first blood.

Game 6- versus tau and eldar.
He had 2 riptides, 3 kroot squads, a bastion filled with a buffcommander, fireblade, and broadsides, a wraithknight, some jetbikes and a waveserpent with firedragons and an autarch.

I went first, venomed up his knight doing 2 wounds, and ravagered up 1 riptide killing it for first blood.
He went and shot some stuff, dropping a venom that turboed up at his bastion, and i jink saved the rest of the shots. he then charged my dogs with his knight.
I overwatched, doing another wound, then hit and run, and surrounded his bastion.
Long story short.. dogs surrounded bastion, except for one little spot where wyches charged in, haywired it to death and killed every model inside because they could not disembark!
Sweet!

Game ended turn 5 where he turboed to claim an objective, used his serpent on another and shot 5 gone to ground guardians off another to claim objectives, taking 8 points.
If the game continued, he was tabled. If is bike failed a test, ditto, and if even one save was made by my avengers, I would have had 30 points.
Instead I ended up with 22.

So, out of 170 people, i ended up 17th with dark eldar.
Not too shabby!

The best general overall? Dark Eldar as well!
Perhaps until we get boned with a new dex, more people will start looking at Dark Eldar as a viable tournament army!

-DarkLance

Way to go Skulnbonz! Thanks for the report and good to see the DE doing well

I like it. Shoving the Haywire love into their face grills is fun. Tying the enemy up until the REAL threat can show up is fun. and making people think for one second the Ravagers should be the target: Fun as well.

ATC was a ton of fun. Awesome to hear you did well with the dark kin at ATC. Too bad we didnt get to run into each other.

I was also one of the few the proud...

so at least 2 of the 5 players are on this forum! Would have been great to meet you.
Hope you never had to play one of the night scythe lists everyone seemed to have!

No night scythes for me.

I did pretty well on the weekend. Finished with 172pts.

So you were the other Dark Eldar player that stole my "Best dark Eldar" trophy!   

Congrats on best general! In my original post I said the best general overall was a Dark Eldar player also, I did not know it was you.

So, you know you have to share your list... I kind of glossed over mine, but in detail it was:

Baron
Farseer/ jetbike/ shard/ spear/ ROF/ ROS
4 beastmasters
20 Khymerae
4x 5 wyches/ haywire/ venoms/ extra cannon
2 ravagers triple lance
1 ravager triple dissie
2x 5 dire avengers/ waveserpents/ scatterlasers/ shrukien cannon/ ghostwalk


What armies did you end up facing?

Skulnbonz wrote:

So you were the other Dark Eldar player that stole my "Best dark Eldar" trophy!   

Yesss Lord Vect appreciates your tears   .

My list:

Lord Asdrubael Vect Master of the Universe Cutter of souls King of Awesome

Baron Boot Licker Sathonyx Personal attendent to Lord Vect

14 Wyches - haywire Hexatrix venom blade

14 Wyches - haywire

5 Beast Masters - 20 Kymerra, 2 razorwings

5 Beast Masters - 20 Kymerra, 2 razorwings


Karandras

3 Guardian jetbikes

3 Guardian jetbikes

8 Warp Spyders


Round 1: Typhus, 117 plague zombies, 2 helldrakes, 2 Imperial Knights

Round 2: Librarian, 3 assault squads in blood angel obj secured land raiders, 2 imperial knights

Round 3: 4 wave serpents, 3 wraithknights, 2 jet bike units, farseer

Round 4: warboss in mega armor with lucky stick, warboss on bike, 2 30 man stormboys units with nobs, 3 max units of orkish artillery, 2 units of grots, 1 unit of cultists, chaos lord with black mace, 4 nurgle spawn

Round 5: pask in a punisher with another punisher, 3 leman russ exterminators?(large blast str 6 ignore cover) with plasma cannon sponsons, 2 other leman russes, land raider crusader with coteaz, inquisistor and acolytes, 2 veteran squads.

Round 6: Shield eternal chapter master, Tigurius, 2 5 man in pods, 1 5 man in rhino, 5 scouts in storm, thunderfire cannon, 4 centurians, Dante, 5 men in pod.

@Skulnbonz

Thanks for sharing the pain.

@ordosean

Wow! nice to see a "Dark Eldar" list that doesn't have waveserpents and seerconcil. That's impressive. A pheonix lord to boot! Awesome!

@ordosean

Must say you fielded a really unconventional list.

Considering you had no transport or heavy support, what was your gameplan to handle opponents armour and fliers? Was the beastpack enough distraction for your wyches to footslog and use the haywires untouched?

Yeah across the last 4-5 years and 3 editions of the game now Ive fielded exactly 2 venoms for around 10 games total. Most of that time has been exclusively foot dark eldar with eldar allies, or token eldar base with mostly dark eldar allies.

The beast pack definitely draws attention. And against most of the mech out there can kill the vehicles too. The wyches are there for imperial knights and landraiders. And the good imperial knight players will shoot them, so you need to get the beasts their fast to tie up the knights in combat.

But as far as foot dark eldar and eldar goes its a completely viable way to play the armies. From friendly all the way up to the highest levels of competition.

Many thanks to Skulnbonz & ordosean for the great discussion. This thread gave me a big impression and some ideas!

EDIT: What do you mean in 'breakdown of armies'? Does '22 of SM' indicate 22 of 170 players participated in the tourney with SM army?

Sean how do you typically deploy? It seems with so many bodies your DZ would be very cramped. Do you shield the Beasts with the Wyches so the Wyches can be up in front of the DZ as they are slower and the Beasts can have a cover save or do you do it in reverse?

I personally have been messing around with a squad of 15 Wyches for another CC threat and of course the Haywire Grenades. They seem to be hit or miss. They either tend to do tons or are really a non-factor throughout the game.

lelith wrote:

EDIT: What do you mean in 'breakdown of armies'? Does '22 of SM' indicate 22 of 170 players participated in the tourney with SM army?

Yes. 22 sm means that 22 of the 170 players were using Space marines. This tournament was a 5 man team tournament, and no 2 players from a single team could have the same army. So the most of any army allowed would be 34.



As for the deployment question, i cannot see putting his 6+ save models in front of his 4+ invul save models. I would be putting Wyches in buildings, behind walls and out of sight as much as possible, but that is just me.

Skulnbonz wrote:

lelith wrote:

EDIT: What do you mean in 'breakdown of armies'? Does '22 of SM' indicate 22 of 170 players participated in the tourney with SM army?

Yes. 22 sm means that 22 of the 170 players were using Space marines.  This tournament was a 5 man team tournament, and no 2 players from a single team could have the same army. So the most of any army allowed would be 34.



As for the deployment question, i cannot see putting his 6+ save models in front of his 4+ invul save models.  I would be putting Wyches in buildings, behind walls and out of sight as much as possible, but that is just me.

Now I understood the tourney system. Thank you for the answer, Skulnbonz!

Great report that escalated to double report of the two best.

I might need to reconsider my list for the next two tournaments as I'm too taking the Beaststar with me.