Wednesday 11 August 2010

Kabel of Darkness - List Redesign and Nids Battle


I'd been musing over my Dark Eldar, my main concern being their kill point total. The list I used to use was a dark lance, disintegrator, & blaster spam, so it had a number of small squads (warriors with raiders, bikes and even warp beasts) which were nice support units and were fine in 4th edition because they didn't cost many points, but are a nightmare in 5th edition kill point games.

To try and bring my kill point total down a bit I decided to go a bit more assault heavy which would allow more expensive squads, and combine 2 of my small dark lance, blaster, raider squads into one foot squad and give one of the raiders away. My new list looked like this:

Archon (Punisher, Helm, Combat Drugs, Shadow Field, Plasma Grenades)
Dracon (Agoniser) with 3 warriors & 4 Incubi (2 Blasters) on Raider

8 Wyches with Succubus (Agoniser, 2 Blasters) on Raider
8 Wyches with Succubus (Agoniser, 2 Blasters) on Raider

8 Warriors with Sybarite on Raider (Agoniser, Splinter Cannon, Blaster)
7 Warriors with Sybarite (Agoniser, Splinter Cannon, Blaster) on Raider (joined by Archon)
10 Warriors with 2 Lances
10 Warriors with 2 Lances & 2 Blasters
10 Warriors with 2 Lances & 2 Blasters

Talos
Ravager (3 Disintegrators)
Ravager (3 Disintegrators)

Total: 1744 Pts

My kill points dropped to a managable 16, and I would have 5 raiders moving forwards with assault elements in them.

For my first game I played a tyranid army consisting of:

Prime
3 Zoanthropes
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
Tervigon
Tervigon
10 Termagants
10 Termagants
4 Strikes
5 Raveners
18 Gargoyles
Trygon

The game ended in a draw on turn 6 with both sides having no troop choices left, but I had loads of fun.

My mate deployed mainly on one flank, so I deployed my vehicles in the other corner as his firepower was only 24" or less ranged. It didn't help that I stole the initiative and killed a tervigon on turn 1 which killed half a gaunt unit in front of it.

2nd turn I got the trygon down to 2 wounds and the other tervigon (which had spawned 12 termagants and run out in turn 1) to 3 wounds. Some wyches which were left as a diversion on the flank the tyranids were on charged into 18 gargoyles, and killed 8, but failing 6 out of the 8 wounds from the return attacks meant that I hadn't dented them enough, and they wyches would die over the next few turns.

Turn 3 I killed the trygon with my first 3 shots, but the remaining tervigon made all it's cover saves or I rolled 1's to wound for the stots with no cover :( To make matters worse I failed a charge from wyches on the other flank by millmetres which left them exposed.

I underestimated the speed of raveners and they charged a unit of warriors on my board edge, shredding them. After finding my firing ineffective against gaunts going to ground in cover I sent in the talos, while my archon sped off to kill the prime who was with the zoanthropes. Both the talos and archon whiffed but both survived unharmed. The Strikes counter charged the archon, and he just managed to kill the prime before the strikes rended him to pieces (he'd already lost 2 wounds to drugs).

My Dracon and retinue went in to free up the talos and clear up the centre. they charged the zoanthropes (with one warrior to tie them up), the termagants and the 8 remaining gargoyles. They won easily and the termagants and gargoyles popped due to being fearless. The strikes charged in the following turn to stop the talos killing the last 2 gants (only remaining troops), but eventually died over a few turns, due to me allocating wounds to the 3+ armour save incubi, and the talos finally remembering how to hit.

The raveners meanwhile cleared by back line of the 2 remaining units of warriors with dark lances. One was in a building, and in my effort to spread them between the floors (to reduce the effect of blast templates) I left 2 on the ground floor (otherwise the raveners who are beasts wouldn't have been able to charge them). The other unit rolled poorly to leave differcult terrain to get in a raider, so were promtly shreded by the raveners as well. The raveners were finally taken out by a raider, ravager and falling back wyches (2 blasters help). I also gunned down the last 2 gaunts who were going to ground on an objective.

Hive guard made the match a draw by killing the last of my troops which were going to ground on an objective after killing the the last model from one of the hive guard units.

As usual a very bloody game against the nids. The models left on the board were 3 Hive Guard, 2 Zoanthropes who were in combat with half of my Dracon's retinue, a Ravager & 2 Raiders. I was helped by stealing the initiative, but made a few mistakes which cost me badly:
  • Underestimating the charge of the raveners
  • Leaving 2 models from a unit on the bottom floor of a building allowing the raveners to charge
  • Being too aggressive with the 2nd unit of wyches
  • Not concentrating on the objectives and therefore not evacuating my last warrior squad with dark lances into a nearby raider (and zooming to an objective) early enough
Now my decision on whether to take Dark Eldar or Tau to the tournament in 11 days is even more differcult.

Rathstar

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