Battle Report #16: Dark Eldar vs. Double Land Raiders (with pictures!)

Well y'all, it's me again, with more Battle Report love from Dark Eldar.  I realize that all I've been doing lately is Battle Reports, but what you must realize is:

1. I have limited time
2. I definitely have limited hobby time
3. I've been painting up a storm with some of that hobby time
4. I've been playing as much with my new army as I can, to get used to it by next weekend for the Bugeater GT

So, just deal with it, haha.  Battle Reports are kind of 'my thing' anyways, so hopefully they are at least helpful.  Once I'm more experienced with the army, I'll start posting up tacticas and the like.  Alright, enough chat, let's get on to the Batrep!


I played against Vince, a regular opponent for me.  He generally places pretty high in most tournaments (even the big regional ones) with his tried and true Khan + Double Raider list.  He doesn't make a lot of mistakes, and though Land Raiders are generally at a disadvantage against Lance spam, his reserves shenanigans make it a lot harder to deal with.

Here are the lists (1850):

Dark Eldar (Kabal of the Awesome Sauce):


Baron Sathonyx
Haemonculus

7x Incubi // Raider w/ Flickerfield, Grisly Trophies, Aether Sail

19x Hellions w/ Helliarch
5x Warriors w/ Blaster // Venom w/ 2x Splinter Cannons, Grisly Trophies
5x Warriors w/ Blaster // Venom w/ 2x Splinter Cannons, Grisly Trophies
5x Warriors w/ Blaster // Venom w/ 2x Splinter Cannons, Grisly Trophies
3x Wracks // Venom w/ 2x Splinter Cannons, Grisly Trophies

6x Reaver Jetbikes w/ 2x Heat Lances
6x Reaver Jetbikes w/ 2x Heat Lances

Ravager w/ Flickerfield
Ravager w/ Flickerfield
Ravager w/ Flickerfield


His List (from memory, feel free to correct me Vince):


Korsarro Khan
Librarian w/ Null Zone/Avenger


5x Assault Terminators w/ 2x Lightning Claws, 3x TH/SS // Land Raider Crusader w/ Extra Armor, Multi-Melta
5x Assault Terminators w/ 1x Lightning Claws, 4x TH/SS


5x Tactical Marines // Razorback w/ Las/Plas
5x Tactical Marines // Razorback w/ Las/Plas
5x Tactical Marines // Razorback w/ Las/Plas



Land Speeder w/ MM/HF

Land Speeder w/ MM/HF

Land Raider Crusader w/ Extra Armor, Multi-Melta

Heh, he's played this list for literally forever.  Well, not quite that long, but he's getting bored with it.  It's good practice for me though!

The Mission:

Since the Bugeater is a Nova-style tournament, we rolled randomly for which objective was the primary, secondary, etc.  The results:

Primary:  Kill Points (have to win by more than 2)
Secondary: 5 Objectives (one in each table quarter, one in the center)
Tertiary:   Table Quarters, as determined by total victory points in each quarter

Victory Points as Tie-breaker

Deployment was Dawn of War (my first DoW with Dark Eldar).

We rolled off, and I won the roll to go first.  Since it was an objective mission, and since I knew he was likely to put everything into reserves, I gave him first turn.

Combat Drugs:  "5"- Gives all models (Hellions and Reavers) +1A.  One of my more favorites, actually.



Marines Turn 1:

Heh, just twiddled his thumbs.  For the record, he had Khan + 2 Razorbacks outflanking, both speeders in Deep Strike, and Librarian's Land Raider + 1 Razorback in regular reserves.


Dark Eldar Turn 1:

I moved on, turbo-boosting everything into the middle, since I didn't want Khan + Terminators to outflank and crush me.  The big center piece of terrain was great to hide behind.

Vroom!  You can see that the Wracks/Haemonculus are with the Hellions/Baron, ready to swap places, leaving the Hellions/Baron with 2 Pain Tokens.  No, I'm not doing it wrong, go look at my last battle report, in the comments if you really want to know what's going on.

 Marines Turn 2:


He rolled for reserves and got the Librarian Land Raider and a single speeder.  The Libby Raider hid behind a hill, and the speeder decided to try to melta me.  I saved my 4+ cover save, and he gave me the turn.

Also, I think the Raider took off a weapon from one of my Ravagers.

 Dark Eldar Turn 2:


Well, the Reavers on the right moved up, ready to try and melta his Raider.  Everything else got ready to kill the stupid speeder.


In shooting, I killed the Melta off the speeder, and stunned it (multiple) times.  The Reavers were outside of double melta range, but tried anyways.  They got lucky and immobilized his Land Raider.  Heh, at the time, I thought this was a good/lucky thing.

I charged the speeder with my Hellions, and stunned/shook it like 5 times, lol.  The Reavers on the right combat-moved into cover.

Kill Point Count:

Dark Eldar: 0
Marines: 0

Lol, when my entire flotilla can't kill a damn speeder, I start to get nervous.

Marines Turn 3:

He rolled for reserves, and got both outflanking Razorbacks and his last speeder.  His only remaining reserves was a single Tac Squad in their Plaserback.

Khan came in on the left, but would be unable to get out and charge me, so he settled for shooting my vehicles.  The speeder scattered 12" away, but was still in range with long-range Melta.  The Razors came in on opposite ends of the board.  He chose to keep the Libby + Terminators in their ride.


His shooting didn't do a whole heckofalot.  Killed a few Reavers here and there, and shook some various vehicles, but nothing I really cared much about.  Cover and flickerfields FTW!

In combat, the Hellions glanced his speeder to death.

Hm, I'm starting to feel surrounded, somehow.

Dark Eldar Turn 3:


It was time for me to make some sort of move.  I may have played it wrong though.  :-p

I moved the Hellions up to assault range of his leftmost Razorback, though hoping to pop his Land Raider, shoot the Terminators, and charge them. The Reavers all moved around to their respective Land Raiders, ready to pop them.  Two of the Ravagers moved over to shoot Khan's Land Raider, and another decided to try downing his Speeder on the right.  The Incubi hung back some, ready to charge in where needed.  In hindsight, they should have been a little more aggressive- they were useless to me in the back.


I was able to kill his speeder with shooting, but little else.  I did manage to kill 3 weapons off of his Khan Raider.  All three Reavers missed their BS4 melta shots.  Doh!  I did fleet the Hellions, and got ready to charge his Razorback, since the Termies remained snug in their (nearly) weaponless Raider.

In combat, I easily killed his Razorback.

Hm, well, now the proverbial ball is in Khan's proverbial court.  Gotta do something soon!

Kill Point Count:

Dark Eldar: 3 (speeder, speeder, razorback)
Marines: 0

Marines Turn 4:

His remaining razorback w/ Tacticals showed up, and decided to take advantage of my rightmost (remaining 3) Reaver's placement.  I had placed them extremely poorly outside of cover.  The Tac marines got their bolters ready.  Khan got out, as did the Termies, both ready to charge different squads (Termies at a Ravager, Khan at the Reavers).  He also got his Terminators + Librarian out of their ride at the top of the board.

Here's a picture of the situation on the left, pre-charge.  Looks like the Raider moved around a little bit too.

His shooting was a little bit better this turn, exploding a Ravager, and also exploding a Venom, whose crew passed leadership.  He also immobilized another Venom- the one closest to his Terminators up top, though not close enough for them to charge.  The tactical marines made short work of the already depleted Reavers, who got no save due to my blundering.

Then it was time for him to charge, and though the poor Reavers put a wound on Khan, he butchered them mercilessly.  The Terminators had difficulty hitting my Ravager, and only immobilized/stunned it.

Well, do or die time for the Hellions.  And the Venoms, for that matter.

Kill Point Count:

Dark Eldar: 3 (speeder, speeder, razorback)

Marines: 4 (reavers, reavers, ravager, venom)


Dark Eldar Turn 4:

I moved the Hellions to a place I could multi-charge Khan and the Terminators, but still shoot the Termies without worrying that he'd take them out of combat.  The Venoms shifted around, trying to get good beads on the Terminators + Librarian, and for the Blasters inside to shoot at whatever was close.  The Incubi, sensing that they could actually be of use, moved up and disembarked next to the Khan Terminators, ready to charge through terrain, lol.

Shooting went... well.  I killed a number of Terminators from the Khan Raider with Hellions.  I killed the Librarian and 4 Terminators from the top Terminator squad.  I also managed to kill his last weapon off his Land Raider!   Woo!

I charged in with only the Hellions (I actually forgot to move the Incubi in- I think it's because they blended in well with the white/grey terrain they were in- they need paint!) and butchered the remaining Terminators and Khan.

I guess it was 'do' time, heh.

Kill Point Count:

Dark Eldar: 6 (speeder, speeder, razorback, librarian, khan, terminators)

Marines: 4 (reavers, reavers, ravager, venom)

Marines Turn 5:

He had very little he could do but shoot my flimsy vehicles.  His 5 marines on the left who had been forcibly disembarked from their Razorback climbed into the now-vacant Land Raider.  The lone terminator up top moved a little downward, ready to charge my immobilized Venom.

Shooting saw Vince kill the immobilized Venom, but the guys inside piled out just outside the Terminator's range.

No combat, woo!!
  

Heh, it's almost like two different battles, on different sides of the board.

Kill Point Count:

Dark Eldar: 6 (speeder, speeder, razorback, librarian, khan, terminators)

Marines: 5 (reavers, reavers, ravager, venom, venom)

Dark Eldar Turn 5:

Well, since it looked to be very close for Kill Points, I went and grabbed a few objectives, in case the game ended early.  The Hellions just sat there... for some reason, contesting the bottom left objective, instead of also claiming the top left.  I blame apathy.  The single mobile Ravager decided to join the shootout up top.

My shooting was abysmal, and I barely managed to kill his remaining Terminator.  Nothing else though.

If the game ends this turn, we'll draw on Kill Points (have to have 3 more than the opponent to 'win'), but I'll win via multiple objectives.

Kill Point Count:

Dark Eldar: 7 (speeder, speeder, razorback, librarian, khan, terminators, terminators)

Marines: 5 (reavers, reavers, ravager, venom, venom)

We rolled to see if the game ended and.... it continued.

Marines Turn 6:

He shifted around a bit, not much to really do with his few models remaining.

Shooting was outstanding for him, the Land Raider downing both a Venom and a squad of Warriors. 

Last picture!

Kill Point Count:

Dark Eldar: 7 (speeder, speeder, razorback, librarian, khan, terminators, terminators)

Marines: 7 (reavers, reavers, ravager, venom, venom, venom, warriors)

Dark Eldar Turn 6:

I was pretty apathetic- I knew if the game ended, I'd win, and it wasn't worth trying to 'max out' my objectives/table quarters.  But, I decided to try to kill a little more stuff. 

So, I opened fire with only a few things, but it was enough to kill both of his razorbacks.

Kill Point Count:



Dark Eldar: 9 (speeder, speeder, razorback, librarian, khan, terminators, terminators, razorback, razorback)

Marines: 7 (reavers, reavers, ravager, venom, venom, venom, warriors)

We rolled to see if the game ended, and it did.

Kill Points: 9-7 in favor of Dark Eldar (but still technically a draw)
Multiple Objectives:  2-1 in favor of Dark Eldar
Table Quarters:  3-1 in favor of Dark Eldar

Results:  Win for the Dark Eldar!!

Man of the Match:  I'll give this one to my Hellions.  They did what they were supposed to- kill stuff in combat.  They ended up with 3 KP total, which is a full third of my total.  I can't really say any part of my army did exceedingly well, but they all performed admirably.  The Flickerfields did their part too- once I saved two pens in a row with one!  They can't be relied upon though.

Thoughts:

It was a fun game, albeit one that Vince didn't really want to play.  He said his list is a bad matchup for Dark Eldar, which I tend to agree with.  I didn't see a whole lot he could have done differently, other than just trying to bum-rush me.  I'm getting the feeling that Dark Eldar with DoW are going to be very strong.

I liked the way the Hellions handled the Terminators and Khan- I think they'll continue to do good things.  Reavers are something I need to get better with (clearly), but I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of them.

The Incubi continue to be indifferent in my games- they can't really kill Terminators, and are overkill for most marines.  They're there for my matchups against Wolves and Blood Angels mostly, though Templars certainly come to mind.  Hopefully next weekend will give me some matchups with all the newest, hardest codexes, and then maybe one 'Nid player, haha.

So, any thoughts or questions? Hope you enjoyed!


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