Battle Report: 1750 Dark Eldar vs. Ultramarines

My good friend Rodrigo and I are preparing for a 1750 tournament next weekend at Gaming, Etc in Stratford, CT. I've never been to this venue, but am told it's a nice place to play with nice people, and it's only about 45 minutes from home!

The expected format is ~30 players, 3 games at 2.5 hours each at 1750 points. They do not require full painting, but give extra points for fully painted, based, wysiwyg, and I think there was a free point for bringing a piece of terrain.


I didn't struggle too much with my list, I just dropped 250 points off the 2000 point list I've been using in the quickest and easiest way I could: bye-bye, Incubi!

Frankly, they're there because I like the models and they draw bullets like nothing else. They have such a sinister reputation that my opponents typically waste no opportunity to shoot all they can at them...which is fine by me. If they don't get shot up, and make it in to melee with something, they will probably beat it up pretty good. If they do get shot up, well, the have 3+ save, so take a bit more shooting than the typical DE to kill, but moreover every bullet that's going at them is a bullet that's NOT going towards my Reavers or Hellions...and those are the 'meat' of my army!

So, I'm a bit sad to see them go, but I still have the meat...Hellions, Reavers, Ravagers, and adequate Venoms.

1750
Baron Sathonyx Malagant
Haemonculus

3 Wracks Venom w/ xtra Cannon
18 Hellions w/ Agonizer Helliarch
5 Warriors Blaster; Venom w/ xtra Cannon
5 Warriors Blaster; Venom w/ xtra Cannon
5 Warriors Blaster; Venom w/ xtra Cannon

6 Reavers 2 Heat Lance
6 Reavers 2 Heat Lance
6 Reavers 2 Heat Lance

3 Ravagers (Lances) Flickerfields

Rodrigo's Ultramarines force was a fun mix of Armor, Troops, and Dreads with some solid Drop Pod action:

Librarian in Terminator Armour (Null Zone, Gate)

5 Assault Terminators (I believe 3 TH/SS, 2 LC)
Land Raider Redeemer
Ironclad (Meltagun, HF) in Drop Pod
normal Dread (MM, HF) in Drop Pod

10 Tactical Marines (Flamer, ML) in Rhino
10 Tactical Marines (Melta, MM) in Drop Pod

Vindicator
Lascannon Predator
Lascannon Predator

I think this is the kind of army mine deals with best. Not too much long ranged firepower, with lots of points used in high-value vehicles. Still, the Vindicator and Redeemer (and the Dreds) have the tools to put a lot of hurt on my Hellions and Reavers.

We rolled Dawn of War and Seize Ground, with 3 Objectives. We used our ubiquitous ruined city terrain. I must apologize, I honestly can't remember who won the roll, but he ended up going first. I rolled a 6 for drugs, giving half the army a free Pain Point!

He deployed his Tactical in Rhino behind a ruin. I deployed the Hellions in and around a large church. On his first turn, the Dreads came in. The Regular one tried to drop on an objective, but scattered off a bit, the dred getting out where he'd have cover from me but have a decent field of fire to where my forces would come in. His Ironclad dropped in to the left of the same church, and they both unloaded some Heavy Flamer love on to the Hellions. Some lucky FNP rolls kept the casualties to a reasonable number, though, only losing a handful. His Predators had come in to the left of his Rhino, the Vindicator came on to it's right, and the Redeemer came barrelling down on my right.

On my first run I flew and ran the Hellions off towards a Bastion where they could hide from the Redeemer and Vindicator on my right. Two Reavers flew on to my left to shoot at the Ironclad, the third went for the normal Dread. The Wracks and Baron came on, the Baron taking their pain and joining the Hellions, the Wracks getting in their Venom. The Warrior Venoms hid behind the church, since there was nothing for them to shoot at yet. The Ravagers came on my right, hoping to shoot at the Land Raider and Vindicator next turn before their offensive fire could do too much.

In shooting, the left Reavers first shot was outside melta range, but the second was in. He Glanced, and rolled a 6, with AP1 that's a Wreck! The other Reavers didn't do so well, so the Ravagers unloaded on him...the final shot immobilized him. That'll do, I thought! The Reavers jumped over the Hellions providing cover for them, while the right Reavers shifted over to provide cover to the Ravagers.

On his turn 2 he opened fire with everything. The Rhino sidestepped to get better LOS to what he wanted, the LR and Vindicator moved up. The Vindicator dropped a large blast on the Hellions, scattering on to Hellions and Reavers! All had cover, so the damage wasn't too extreme..2 bikes and 2 Hellions, I believe. The LR Assault Cannon killed some of the right Reavers. A Predator killed a Ravager; while the other killed the Wracks' Venom...the explosion killing two of the Wracks, though the survivor passed both Pinning and Morale.

My turn 2: The Hellions flew and ran to get ready to assault the Predators (and Rhino if I could reach); The Venoms moved to get LOS to the Rhino, in case the Reavers were lucky and blew it up. One of the Reavers flew mid-field to take a shot at said Rhino, another turbo-boosted over the vindicator, to be behind Vindicator and LR (I think this was a typical error I make with these things. I thought being back there they'd tie something up and keep them from coming towards me, but really they did nothing and got killed for their effort); the Ravagers side-stepped to try to get out of the firing arc of the immobilized dread (90deg?). One Venom went Flat Out to the right to be in position to move on either objective later.

In shooting, the Reavers shot at the Rhino, I believe getting an Immobile...not bad. The other Reavers shot at the Land Raider, and exploded it...not bad. The Ravagers got side shots on the Vindicator, and wrecked it...not bad! The Hellions didn't have the range to get to the Rhino, but did get most of them in to the Predators. One was Stunned and Immobilized, the other exploded! Not bad!!! The explosion rolled a 5, getting all but 2 of the Hellions...it killed 4 of them, causing them to not only be below half strength, but they failed their Ldr 9 test, and ran off the table.

Bad!

Still, with the LR and Vindicator out of the way, I felt ok! The reavers jumped in to or behind terrain to try to survive to the next turn!

Ultramarines Turn 3. His third Pod shows up, and tries to drop on the right-most objective. It scatters a bit. The Assault Terminators backtrack to assault the Reavers behind them. The Tactical Squad gets out of Pod and takes aim at the Reavers near them.

The first two Pods gun down the lone Wrack. The Dreadnought misses the shot at the Ravager...seems I didn't get far enough over to get out of his arc! The Missile Launcher shoots out of his rhino, doing 2 wounds to Reavers, but they make their cover saves. The Pod-squad lights up the Reavers near them, and the Assault Terminators wipe out the other squad, and consolidate back in to their crater.

DE Turn 3. The surviving Reaver squad drops down from their perch, shoots at the Predator, and does nothing at all. They celebrate their ineptitude by flying back up to the top of the Bastion. The Venoms all move to take shots at the Tactical squad on foot, as do the Reavers.

The shooting does well, leaving just one lonely guy with a Meltagun, who fails his morale, but auto-rallies and gets his extra ATSKNF move anyway...

Turn 4, and the Rhino Squad decides maybe they should go do unpleasant things to the Reavers on the Bastion and claim an objective. They get out and move behind the Predator. The Lone Meltaman hunkers down behind the ruins holding that objective, while the Assault Marines move up to try to wrap it, but they are too few and the terrain makes placement difficult.

The Lone Meltaman takes down a Ravager, while the Tactical squad shoots at and kills a Reaver!

Time to get ready for the end-game! Two Venoms go Flat-Out to mid-field, ready to jump on any objective as needed. The Third gets near enough to move to the middle objective pending Drop Pod destruction...

...which the Blaster-warrior embarked was able to do! The Ravager wrecks the Lone Meltaman's Pod. The Venom unloads on the Lone Meltaman, but he refuses to go down. The Reavers slide down and take out a Tactical or two, and slide back out of assault range, hoping to draw fire to them instead of Venoms.

Turn 5, and the Marines move up to find they're too far from the Objective! They're forced to run to prevent a turn 5 loss! The Terminators and Lone Meltaman hunker down on their objective, with some juking to get better positions.

The Predator shoots at the nearest Venom, which passes it's cover-save; the Meltagun is out of range of anything.

Bottom of 5, and I wanted to be ready for the game to end here.

The last Ravager snuck in to the ruins within 3" of  the objective, and passed his Dangerous Terrain. Two Venoms moved on to Objectives, giving me the middle one (the Dreadnought was about 5" away), and I contested the other two. Ravager shot lances at the Lone Meltaman, who went to ground and lived...so a Venom shot at him, and he still lived!

We roll to see if it would go on...

...and get a 4...another turn!

We were pressed for time here, so started playing fast and lose. The Terminators move to assault the Ravager. The Tactical guys move to rapid fire on the Venom (they had MM and Flamer, I believe).

The Predator shot at a Venom, which passed Flickerfield. The Tactical squad shot at another Venom to no effect. The Terminators blew up the Ravager.

I moved the Reavers behind the Tactical squad, just to see if I could assault them and make them Pile-In off the objective (practice makes perfect!). Warriors get out in to the crater near the Dread, just to hold objective while their Venom joins another to get LOS to the Lone Meltaman.

The Reavers and Venom shoot up the Tactical...honestly I think if I'd not shot I could have done the assault to get them to pile-in off the objective, but I killed too many and it didn't work out. The assault was something of a wash (those Reavers with FNP are no joke!), so the Tactical and my Warrior-Venom contested that left objective.  The other two Venoms were able to finally kill the Lone Meltaman, dropping him down to 0 objectives. And I held the objective in the middle near the immobile Dread.

1-0 for the Dark Eldar!

I felt really good about this game, giving me a lot of confidence about my Reavers, which I've squandered the last several games (even did some here, too!). They were able to pop a Land Raider; an Ironclad; take away the mobility his Rhino Squad needed; keep the Assault Terminators off me for an extra turn; attract the fire of his Tactical Squads...I felt like they contributed a lot, and I even had some survive to the end of the game! (thanks to FNP, anyway!)

I felt like I played a decent game. I have a mental-block about Drop Pods, and always feel like I'm pushed back on my heels when playing against them. I considered myself lucky that the tactical squad didn't Combat Squad, and only killed one Ravager! If he'd split them up, the MM could have stayed static on the objective, while the Melta could have moved up with PF Sgt to threaten the center objective near the Dread.

I didn't really miss the Incubi. Almost everything was wrapped in Ceramite for most of the game, and I wouldn't really want to throw them in to assault terminators (the Math-hammer says the Incubi win, but it's damned close!), and the Tacticals were not hard to deal with with Venom shooting.

I was pretty bummed about the Hellions just running off. A fellow DE player swears by Grim Totems, but I wouldn't have had one that far forward anyway.

I forgot my Haemonculous the whole game. I found him sitting next to my dead-pile later on, and threw him with some Warriors who never got out or fired a shot...but that wouldn't work, as there would be no room for them.

I also re-did this list going up from 0 instead of down from 2k, and found I was *gasp* 1 point over. Forgive me Rod, I cheated! To make this up, I drop down to 17 Hellions and add a Liquifier Gun and Venom Blade to the Haemi...I figure he can jump in the Wrack's Venom and they can be a credible threat with all those poisoned attacks, at least vs. things I4 or less :)

The 1750 Tournament is this Sunday. I'm struggling to get everything 3-colors (not required, but extra points) and based (same) before then. I hope to have some pics and reports from the event! Wish me luck!!