March RTT Game #1: Dark Eldar vs Blood Angels

This month's tournament brought in 24 players from as far as Buffalo, Watkins Glen, and Erie.  We had a great mix of armies with just about every codex represented except sisters, tau, and tyranids.  This was my first time out with my full dark eldar army and I was really excited to see how it performed.  I have been playing out some deployment scenarios on my home table, so I won't be totally lost in the deployment phase.

My first opponent was Kris from Erie and his mech BA.  His list was approximately:

Librarian + shield, unleash rage
Sanguinary Priest
Furioso Dread + talons, drop pod
Assault Squad x5 + melta, power weapon, rhino
Assault Squad x5 + melta, power weapon, rhino
Assault Squad x5 + melta, power weapon, razorback w/tl lascannon
Assault Squad x5 + melta, power weapon, razorback w/ lascannon & plasma
Scouts x5 + cloaks, rifles
Baal Predator x3 - assault cannons, hvy bolters
Predators x2 - autocannons, lascannons x2
Whirlwind



My list:

Archon + agonizer, blaster, shadow field, haywire grenades
Haemonculi x2 + agonizers x2, webway portals x2
Grotesques x10 + aberration, liquifier
Trueborn x3 + blasters x3
Trueborn x3 + blasters x3, venom w/2 splinter cannons
Wyches x6 + agonizer, shardnet, haywire grenades
Warriors x5 + blaster
Warriors x5 + blaster
Beastmasters x3 + 5 khymera, 2 razorwings, 1 clawed fiend
Scourges x5 + blasters x2
Scourges x5 + heat lances x2
Talos + chain flails, tl heat lance
Talos + chain flails, tl heat lance

The theory behind my list can be found HERE.

The mission had a primary scoring condition (4 objectives all in the 24" pitched battle "no-man's land") and a secondary condition (kill 3 marked units).  Each player chose 3 units in their army to receive specified USR's.  These units must be killed for the secondary condition.  The mission looked fun, but there were a few ways to exploit the secondary condition.  Kris's army has 12 pieces of armor to my 1 and 5 scoring units to my 3.  However, he has no str10 and I doubt even enough fire power to cut through my Grotesques.  I just need to keep the furioso away from them and I should be able to work some magic.

I win the dice roll and give Kris first turn.  I definitely don't want any last turn tank shocks.  Kris marks his libby with stealth, scouts with fearless, and a baal (which is wasted).  He deploys the full spread with the furioso in reserve and scouts infiltrating.

I mark my grotesques with fearless, allowing me to deploy one less haemonculi with them.  Instead, he joins a unit of trueborn in the venom.  The archon gets marked with stealth and deploys with the grotesques and one haemi.  A unit of warriors gets marked with relentless.  I deploy the grotes in a refused flank and behind cover to minimize Kris's firepower.

Kris infiltrates his scouts on the far left on an objective and scouts all 3 baals up.  Turn 1 begins with the furioso dropping down right in front of the grotes, but it scatters back 7".  Everything else drives up or shifts sideways for better shots.

The entire mechanized force opens fire, but my cover + FnP rolls were pretty hot.  I take a couple allocated wounds on the aberration, liquifier, and regular grotes, but don't have to remove a full model yet.

The furioso is in my face and my grotes can't even hurt it, so I break off the archon to go tie it up.  The grotes shuffle up and the haemi drops his WWP.

The archon's blaster causes no damage so he charges in.  His haywire grenade hits but only shakes the dread, the dread hits but the shadow field holds.

Kris shuffles his fast tanks again so I don't auto-hit.

All those tanks open fire again and I may have lost a grotesque or two, but damage is still minimal.  In assault, both archon and furioso fail to cause damage.

My turn two brings in my first alpha strike wave.  I get: the trueborn on foot, wyches, heat lance scourges, and both talos.  I only have one WWP up to come through and the board edge doesn't offer much atm, but I think some tanks must be in assault range of the portal.

Each talos goes after a baal.  The scourges go for the rhino with priest inside.  Trueborn get out directly in front of the portal, and wyches run into terrain to throw a net over the furioso and reduce his attacks and try some more haywire grenades.  Grotesques move and run forward.  Scourges explode the lead rhino.  Trueborn blow a the lascannon off the las/plas razorback. The talos twins each wreck a baal.  The wyches assault, I lose 1, my archon breaks and runs away.  He won't be able to rally as he didn't get past 6" from the dread.

Kris is now forced to react to my push.  He unloads the unit from the las/plas razorback on the right.

Combined meltas, lascannons, and autocannons put 2 wounds on each talos but both survive.  Small arms kill 4 of the scourges (putting the survivor out of assault range) and 1 trueborn.  Assault marines on the right charge the talos, but are unable to do 1 wound.  The talos kills 2 and we lock.  Furioso and wyches both fail to cause damage.

My turn 3 brings on the trueborn in the venom who fly up the left flank and disembark to drop my second portal.

baal.  Archon falls back, grotesques head for the drop pod, unengaged talos goes after the priest's unit, and lone scourge hides behind the tree.

The archon fires on the black baal and immobilizes it.  Trueborn on the right wreck the las/plas razorback.  Trueborn on the left and venom drop 2 scouts.  Grotesques assault the drop pod and wreck it.  The talos on the right kills 2 more marines.  The talos in the center assaults and kills the priest, but the marines score his last wound.  Wyches and furioso continue their stalemate.

It's now the top of turn 4 and most of Kris's targets are locked in cc or out of LoS.

On the right, he is able to kill the 2 trueborn on foot, the last scourge, and put a few more wounds on grotes.  On the left, he snipes one trueborn and my unit breaks and falls back.  In assault, the talos finishes the assault squad and consolidates towards the furioso.  Wyches and furioso continue to cause no damage.

My turn 4 sees the arrival of everything else I have.  Beasts come in on my board edge and angle for the immobile baal.  Marked warriors also arrive nearby.  Archon rallies and also heads towards the baal.  Grotes move towards the de-meched scoring unit and the talos goes after the furioso.

On the left, blaster scourges come through the new portal and position to shoot the razorback or baal.  Trueborn rally, jump back in the venom, and scoot up 6".

My archon wrecks the baal with his blaster.  Scourges wiff.  Venom and trueborn finish the scouts with the trueborn getting the pain token.  Beasts and warrior run.  The furioso tries to finish the talos but fails.  The talos hits and explodes it, but my units take no damage.  Wyches consolidate onto an objective.  Grotes assault the scoring unit in the center and smash the marines.  They stay in place to contest the center objective.

Turn 5 begins and Kris is running out of units.  He disembarks the razorback squad to come after scourges.

His shooting kills the last talos, all scourges, and stuns the venom.

It's now my turn 5 and I move to take the bottom objective while my wyches hold the objective on the right.  Grotes stay on the central objective to contest and beasts go for the scoring unit in the open.  Trueborn and haemi disembark from the venom and move up.

Blasters immobilize the lascannon razorback.  Beasts fleet and assault the marines, wiping them out.

I let Kris roll for the end and it does.  I'm holding objectives 2-0 and neither of us were able to kill all marked units so we drew on secondary, making the final score 16-7.

Almost everything went according to plan.  I knew his list would have a real problem with my deathstar especially since my archon and wyches held down the furioso for several turns.  His dice did fail him a few times with the furioso rolling 1's for several turns to hit or wound.  Very few people out there have faced a list like mine, so he could have done some things differently.  Keeping the baals away from my WWP's could have helped, or just moved them fast and give up some firepower which was largely ineffective against cover + FnP on a fearless unit with multi-wound models and several allocation pools.

Stay tuned for my game #2, my first time against the new necrons!