I always read batreps with great victories. Here is a recap of my first tourney using my Dark Eldar which contains none of that
. I am an intermediately experienced player and still learn quite a bit from every game played. Having just finished up building the army, I didn't get a lot of time to field test it and as a result, I can see a lot of places to tweak it.
The tourney was the same in which Xtapl played. I got a chance to see his models (which were in WD). I have to comment on his basing, which looks even more amazing in person. He also has an extremely nice looking space wolf army. I don't know Xtapl very well. I have met him twice (and he probably couldn't even tell you who I am). I know who he is only because of his WD article and that he played a buddy of mine in the Dakka grudge match. I will say that he seems like a very nice guy and he is an accomplished general.
The scenarios were fairly interesting but there was very little terrain. It was hard to screen the wwp carriers because of this.
My list, 1750 Cult:
HQ
Lelith
9 wych ret w/ WW and PG's
Succ w/ Agonizer and PG
Raider w/ Dis and fex
Dracite w/ drugs, punisher and WWP
Elites
10 Warrior w/ 2 dl's
10 Warrior w/ 2 dl's
16 Warriors w/ 2 dl's
Syb w/ WWP
Troops
10 Wyches w/ WW and PG's
Succ w/ Agonizer and PG
Raider w/ Dis and fex
10 Wyches w/ WW and PG's
Succ w/ Agonizer and PG
Raider w/ Dis and fex
5 Warp beasts
5 Warp beasts
Heavy
Ravager w/ 3 Dissies, Night Shield
Ravager w/ 3 Dissies, Night Shield
The Dracite, warriors and WB's were on the table and all the rest in the WWP.
Game 1
I drew an Eldar player with falcons and two hq's mounted on bikes. He was a great guy and fun to play against. He drew table side and was able to go first. As a result, I was starting at a disadvantage. I was able to get both wwp's deployed by turn two and everything into the game by turn four. However, because of the star canons, I did end up losing all my warriors and my dracite. I was able to take out his long range shooters and both of his hq's. In the end, we got 4 turns played (mainly because there was a power outage problem which cost us time setting up).
This was my first time playing the eldar and it was bloody like I heard it would be. Although a draw, I was happy with my performance.
Results:
Draw (De was ahead on points)
DE 12
EL 10
Game 2
My second opponent was a black templar list. He was a terrific guy and the kind of opponent that is always fun to play against. He fielded two dreads, a LRC with blessed hull, two land speeders, an assault squad and two five tac squads. His HQ was a chaplain.
The LRC with the anti DL hull was just a bear. My dl's were totally ineffective against it. I fared better against the dreads. In the early go, I again lost the warrior squads, dracite and one beast pack. But by turn 5 I had taken out his hq, assault squads and one of his tac squads. I was ahead again by points but wasn't able to get the victory.
I gave my opponent high scores as he was a great guy and I really liked his vehicles.
Results:
Draw (De was ahead on points)
DE 11
EL 10
Game 3
I played another marine army on game three. You can see his forge world drop pods (which were amazing looking) on Xtapl's write up. This was an all drop pod army and caught me a little off balance as I have never seen one before. I made a two mistakes which really cost me the game. I also let him do a few things which in hind sight we should have discussed. Those being, I let him use the drop doors as a 5 cover save and he rolled all his reserves at one time instead of rolling and placing a unit before rolling for the next unit. However, I wasn't sure about the cover save having never seen the FW model before. The rolling for all the reserves is often debated and there are arguments on both sides about if you can roll them all at once. But rolling all at once definitely gives you a huge advantage as you never have to hang anything out there when you deploy.
By turn two, I had deployed both WWP's. He got all of his tac squads and two of his dread pods in which immediately flamed all the warriors. On turn three, I was able to get Lelith, the ravagers and one wych squad in. I still had the other wych squad and both warp beast squads in the WWP. My horrofex's really came through. I was able to pin his force down. Unfortunately, letting him have the drop door cover save made a big difference because he made quite a few saves against my disintegrators which should have killed the marines outright with AP 3 and 2.
On turn 5, I rolled a 1 and wasn't able to get my third wych raider into play. I got both warp packs in. The first I charged a squad with. The other, I made a huge mistake. I tried to run them to his deployment zone to grab a victory point. Had I charged them, I would have kept them as scoring and we would have drawn. On his last turn, he was just able to shoot them with assault canons and killed them.
The doors counting as difficult terrain and cover saves really hurt me. My wyches were tearing him up, but I had trouble assaulting into follow on squads as I had to deal with terrain checks and that slowed me down. The game could have turned out better had I been able to get the last wych squad in or if I hadn't made a dumb mistake with my beasts. If I played this army again, I would deploy my warriors with the max distance possible between them (IE have a 10 man squad on the far flanks with the 17 squad in the middle.) Then it would force the marines to either deploy together or spread way out. Secondly, I should have turboed my whole force from the wwps into his deployment zone. Then he would have had to slog across the board. As he had 24" max firing range, I could have had 9 disintegrators to pick off his dreads and hammer his marines.
Results:
Loss (De was behind by @190 points)
DE 7
Marines 17
Overall, I was happy with the tourney even though going 0-1-2. I played fairly well and didn't make a lot of mistakes with the exception of the warp beasts in the last game. My opponents were all good guys and fun to play against. And more importantly, I learned a great deal about my new army. If I had trimmed points off my dracite or better used my warp beasts, I could have easily turned my draws into wins.
Here are some lessons learned and things I need to change up.
1. I need blasters in my wych squads. I was seeing a lot of dreads in my games and in the tourney in particular. Having only an agonizer to glance a dread in CC
on a 6 is a pain.
2. Having a dracite with a 10 warrior squad and a warp pack running interference actually works pretty well. She can be cheaper than using the 17 warrior squad. However, I have too many points put into her. I should have run her with only poison blades and the WWP and that would drop her cost way down.
3. I was drawing mainly because I was losing the dracite, and all the warriors every game ( @ 565 points worth there alone). In a 6 turn game this isn't a problem because I can easily make the points back. In a two hour time limit game, you just can't get 6 turns in. If your opponent plays at a slow pace, you just can't get that last turn started.
4. Units that worked very well were the wyches and the ravagers. Units which I didn't use well were the warp beasts. I need to refine my tactics using them. I also need to rethink what gets left out on the table and what is put into the wwp.
5. Maybe using a DL on one or two of my raiders is worth thinking about. I love the dissies but it would have been nice to have the S8 shot to give me a better chance knocking out the dreads I played.
6. Not really sure about using the night shields. I tended to use the ravs at closer range so these are probably wasted points.
