Brief Report of 750 Dark Eldar vs Blood Angels Drop Pod Assault

So on the back of the tailoring article on Wednesday I did play two games in the evening vs an Imperial Guard player and then Blood Angels.

I won't report much on the first game as it was pretty one sided in the most part.

He ran:

Leman Russ Vanquisher with Camo Netting
Leman Russ Destroyer? with Camo Netting (The thing with a Demolisher Cannon)
Leman Russ Destroyer? with Camo Netting
Vendetta with lots of Las Cannons and Heavy Bolters

Basically my Ravagers blew up one of the Troops first turn while my Blasters and Haywire Blasters from Scourges took out another, my Venom ran and hid on an objective.

Rest of the game was firing absolutely everything at his HQ Tank and him passing 13-14 cover saves on a 3+ and when I finally gave up and flew over him to get no cover shots... he passed the cover saves on a 6.

Regardless though his Vendetta and Vanquisher just couldn't kill enough to stop me grabbing 3 of the objective to his 1 (Went into hover with the vendetta turn 5) and won 11-4 (He had one objective and one for destroying  a Heavy, I had 3, line breaker and first blood)

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Second game against Blood Angels was much more interesting, as per my article Wednesday I did run a more balanced list (not just kabalites in transports) that I felt would give me more of a chance.

This is the two lists:

Blood Angels:

Sanguinary Priest with Combi Melta and Auspex
7 Sternguard with Heavy Flamer, Flamer, 2 Combi Meltas
Drop Pod

10 Tactical Marines with Heavy Flamer/Flamer
Drop Pod

Furioso Dread with Frag Cannon and Heavy Flamer Power Fist
Drop Pod

5 Tactical Marines with Heavy Bolter

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Dark Eldar:

Medusa
Raider with Enhanced Aethersails

5 Kabalites with Blaster
Raider

5 Kabalites with Blaster
Raider

5 Scourges with 4 Haywire Blasters

Venom with 2x Splinter Cannon

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances

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So looking at his list I was still very worried about the flamers (2 S6 // 3 S5 // 2 S 4), but hoping that by deploying my kabalites in reserve I'd be able to limit the damage done.

Mission was Relic and Night Fighting was in effect, I won the roll and asked Fred to deploy his Blood Angels first and I would go second, reasoning if I went first I'd only be able to hurt the 5 tac marines, and I wanted to be able to go last come the end of the game.

I deployed my Scourges and Medusa (Not joined) in the bottom right corner and spaced all my vehicles to block access to them and try and limit how many vehicles he could catch with one template.

He landed the Dread and Sternguard first turn, pretty much central and as close to my deployment zone as he could get. Frag Cannon explodes a Ravager and stuns a Raider while the Sternguard blow up the venom. Painful but not as bad as it could have been had my kabalites been sat in their vehicles.

I managed to put 2 HP and immobilise the dread but couldn't finish it off, Medusa got 8 marines under the template and wounded 4... which they all save with FNP due to the Sanguinary Priest. Disappointing!

Most of the rest of the game involved me trying to run away whilst firing what I could into the Sternguard to whittle them down. The Dread went down T2 with a Disintegrator Cannon in the back, but by T4 I had 1 Raider on 2 Hull Points hiding on the far left, 1 Ravager on 2 Hull Points and 1 Kabalite with Blaster on the right near his deployment zone, and my other unit of kabalites at full strength about halfway up the field in the centre. He had 2 Sternguard, 10 Tac Marines, and the 5 man Combat Squad. Not looking good!

Turn 5 he started moving his Combat Squad towards the objective but they were still a good 5-6 inches short after running. The Sternguard moved and charged the Ravager, putting a Hull Point on it, while the 10 Marines ran towards the Relic, ending about 1/2 " from it.

I moved the Raider within 1" of the objective and everything moved and fired at the marines by the Relic, between them killing I think 5-6 marines but leaving a few still within 3" of the Relic.

We rolled for end of game and hit a 2 so tallied up the scores. I had Slay the Warlord to his First Blood and Slay the Warlord. I checked with my opponent what detachment he was running and it was the Blood Angels specific one so no Objective Secured. My Raider therefore could steal the Relic from under the nose of the Tactical Marines and claim the win for me at 4-2.

Overall I was pretty happy with the game. I think I played reasonably well and did what I could to minimise the alpha strike, I was unfortunate with the Ravager exploding and my opponent passing 4 FNP on the Sternguard  but that's dice for you. By t2 it was clear that the only way I was going to win was through the objective, so I did what I could to pull the marines after my Ravager and Kabalites etc. to try and ensure they wouldn't go and sit on the objective, which would have made it almost impossible for me to shift them (If they pick it up I'm pretty sure I can't claim it by being in 3")

My main learning points from the 2 games were:

• As long as I've got a plan for my opponent bringing drop pods, I "can" limit the destruction they cause and not automatically lose the game. I think my deployment worked well to limit the damage and although it hurt me (1 Ravager, the Venom and stunning the Raider meant it was pretty much confined to dying t2) I was happy enough after his first turn that I would still be able to strike back. I think if we hadn't been doing the relic mission it would have been easier for me to leave the marines there and fly off, but sadly they were within 10-12" of the Relic the whole game so I couldn't just leave them to themselves.

• Objective Secured is huge, I think the way Dark Eldar play you need to have this and it's fantastic that you can take an absolute pounding, be almost completely tabled, but that one Raider can still win you the game from almost anywhere on the board (12" move, 24" boost with aethersails)

• Scourges with Haywire Blasters are fantastic reliable anti tank, I've not really used them before, preferring to spam Raiders with Kabalites in, but there is a massive difference between glancing on a 4 and glancing on a 2. These have definitely won a bump up my painting queue and I'll likely be using two units with 4 Haywire in most of my games in future. 240pts for 8 haywire shots from 36" away (12" move, 24" range) seems great value, and with a 4+ save and 5+ FNP from T3, they're a fairly survivable unit by Dark Eldar standards.