Text Batrep - Vs Dark Eldar

(no, this is not my Razorback)

Whassup people?

I have played a couple of games with the list I last posted (the post right before this one), and so far I'm still doing very well with it. I just recently played a 2,000 point game against a Dark Eldar player, and the reason was because I wanted to see if running one of my more competent lists would make any difference in the usual ass-whupin's I receive whenever I play against the emo elves in space....

I rolled up our mission and deployment, and we got Capture and Control and Spearhead (what many of us at my LGS call "Space Draw" for how many times this mission/deployment combo ends in a draw).

My opponent got the first turn and deployed a 9-man Helion unit with the Baron, three Dark Lance Ravagers, two Venoms with Wyches, three Raiders with Wyches, a Raider with Incubi and an Archon, and two Raiders with what he called "Blaster-Born", or more simply 5 Trueborn with 4 Blasters. I do know he had the Flicker Fields on almost every vehicle (the 5+ invulnerable save against all shooting attacks) though I'm not sure of much else because he didn't have his army list with him, and I'm still not 100% familiar with their book.

He deployed on the edge of his deployment zone (while I deployed only the Razorbacks and the Death Company's Rhino almost near my rear table corner) and in his first turn he zoomed across the table only to immobilize a Raider and Venom on terrain (though they still had line-of-sight on all of my stuff) and shot at my Razorbacks, destroying one, weapon destroying another, and stunning another.

My first turn was pathetic as I failed to destroy anything with the one good Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasmagun turret I had, though when I brought in my Furioso in a Pod I did pop a Ravager. I also popped smoke with my DC Rhino, but that was the end of my turn.

His second turn allowed him to get some assaults off after getting much closer with everything, destroying another Razorback and stunning/weapon destroying what was left, though my DC Rhino was untouched. He assaulted my Furioso with some Wyches (who hopped out of the immobilized Venom) with Haywire Grenades and that combat lasted almost the rest of the game as he failed to destroy the Furioso and made almost all of his 4+ invulnerable saves against the Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon.

My second turn was even worse than my first since my Stormraven had not come in from reserve yet (a move I decided considering he would have shot the thing out of the sky turn one since he would have had range). I tried to move around a little bit (with what could move) and shoot/assault where possible, but nothing was going in my favor. He was winning combats and dominating the battlefield. I disembarked my Death Company and assaulted his Hellions which got too close, and picked all but two up as the Baron laughed with his 2+ invul save.

His third turn was just a wash/rinse/repeat of his second turn, but with more units and stronger units. He was winning all the little fights he had started, and there was nothing I could do about it. He sent in his Archon and Incubi against the Death Company and wiped them out, though he lost the Baron in the process as I still had the Chaplain left due to how base-to-base-contact was conducted.

My third turn saw the arrival of my Stormraven which moved flat-out 24" into the middle of my lines to bolster my objective (which was nearly lost). I fired it's Twin-Linked Multi-Melta at a Ravager but did nothing past his flicker field. At that point I realized that being able to ignore 1/3rd of your opponent's fire was too good of a wargear item to pass up, despite what any nay-sayers might say. That wargear item had successfully prevented the destruction of 3 vehicles over the three turns I got to fire. With only 8 Raider-sized vehicles, that's huge. Anyways, the rest of my turn was quite uneventful as combats/shooting went back and forth in my opponent's favor even more.

His fourth turn was just brutal. he wiped the DC and the Chaplain, wiped another assault unit, blew the arms off of my Furioso, popped my DC's Rhino, and weapon destroyed another Razorback. I was all of a sudden getting tabled, but I still had my Stormraven and it's contents at full strength. On a side note, I believe each of his Wych units started at 10 models with 2 shard-nets, and a leader with an agonizer.

In my fourth turn, I instantly noticed his objective was empty. My passengers disembarked, and I put the DC Dread 2" away from the base of the Stormraven facing the Incubi and the super Honor Guard on the other side. I then moved the Stormraven flat-out 24" across the table to be within 8-9" of his objective, though I tried to distract him by rotating the Stormraven to face the middle of the table to not only use Power of the Machine Spirit and shoot something, but also if it were to get immobilized I would still be able to use it in my next turn. I then assaulted his Incubi with my DC Dread, and assaulted his Wyches with my super Honor Guard. I killed all of the Incubi, and slaughtered the Wyches. Done and done.

In his fifth turn, he stumbled around a bit model-wise and tried to pick off models out of my three Assault Squads that were left (I had one unit with two models, and two units with one model, out of twenty Assault Marines). He couldn't pull it off between me having them all go to ground, and having my Sanguinary Novitiate nearby for some Feel No Pain awesomeness. He however did not fall for my little trick with the Stormraven and moved his only mobile Venom flat-out 24" across the table (with a "pivot" at the end to put him within 3" of the objective).

In my fifth turn, my Stormraven moved 8" to contest and fired at his Venom, destroying it, while my DC Dread continued to fight his Archon and my Honor Guard consolidated backwards a bit to help block the way to my objective (and get into some cover).

We rolled for another turn and got a 4. Sigh.

In his sixth turn, he moved his Wyches (previously in the Venom) onto his objective, and continued to harass mine. I don't remember much of what he did that turn but honestly it wasn't anything other than continuing to shuffle vehicles around, pop-off weapons off of my Razorbacks or destroy them, and shoot at my Honor Guard and the Assault Marine units holding my objective.

In my sixth turn, I kept the Stormraven near his objective to be able to contest (but moved it an inch so that I wouldn't be auto-hit by some over-zealous Wyches) and fired EVERYTHING it had at them. I did so many wounds that he was unable to save the unit even with going to ground, and at that point my opponent called the game because it was super late and he had to go.

I won 1-0.

The funny thing is though, that we rolled to see if there was a 7th turn, and got a 5, which means there was. What would have happened is he would have blown-up my Stormraven with the shots he had coming (and I didn't have my 4+ flat-out save this time), plus he would have had the range and ability to assault my Honor Guard and four Assault Marines with the unit or two of Wyches/Warriors he had left and if he didn't wipe them out he would have still been contesting. I'm also pretty sure he still would have been able to zoom a Warrior Raider 24" next to his objective to officially end the game 1-0 in his favor.

That upset me a bit since I knew that's exactly what he would have done, and we WERE supposed to have a 7th turn.

If you don't want to read a bunch of ranting and raving, then the batrep is over and I hope you enjoyed!



Otherwise, continue at your own risk...

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So, moral of the story, Dark Eldar are fucking awesome. They are perfectly able to do what they were designed to do. Assault through cover? Sure, they have Assault Grenades unlike Tyranids. Blow your shit up in the shooting phase? Sure, they've got 15-35 Dark Lances (not including Blasters, Disintigrators, and other nasty shit) and the ability to get them where they are needed unlike Marines, Tyranids and Orks. Ignore what you have in hand-to-hand? Sure, they ALWAYS strike before Marines and either have a 4+ invul with TONS of attacks, or they have Power Weapons, or both, unlike everyone else.

You may say, "But, but, Dark Eldar are kinda weak! They have drawbacks! Their armor is 10 with open-topped, and they have a 6+ save". Jesus christ, big fuckin deal! Every army has drawbacks, but a fucking two-year-old, blind, deaf, mute, quadriplegic retard can win almost any game they play with armies like this. Dark Eldar's vehicles should ALWAYS be deployed/reserved in such a way that prevents them from getting shot up too much in the first turn (which has always been the case in my experience, in the 9-10 games I've seen them used in and played against), that ZOMG 6+ armor turns into a fucking  massive 4+ invul in combat which they should be using in the first or second turn anyways (since they fucking have FLEET OF FOOT), and honestly against a competent Dark Eldar player like my opponent in this battle report, you'll rarely get the opportunity to actually shoot those 6+ armor save units because they'll either be in combat or in cover. Do anything different from the above and you're either full of shit (purposely making up the scenario) or a complete idiot (accidentally falling into the scenario due to poor generalship).

Also, I hate codex-jumpers. There's nothing wrong with starting a new army, but giving up your own army because "they're not good enough" (even though several other players are proving that COMPLETELY wrong by, I don't know, acutally trying and winning lots of games) and starting the hot, new, shiny, codex of the month is just wrong. Just my opinion, and not fact in any way.

But yay, I won, and I will no longer play against Dark Eldar. The games against them are not fun at all, and the excuse of "but it's not supposed to be fun, they're Dark Eldar" is worth getting molly-whopped over.