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| Get dat cover! |
Mission: Purge the Alien
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Warlord Trait: Strategic - Re-roll reserves
Drugs: 6 - Pain Token
My list:
1490
14 VP
HQ:
Succubus (Agonizer, BP, Haywire) = 105
TROOP:
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
9x Wyches (Raider NS/AS, Hekatrix/VB/PGL, Haywires) = 210
10x Wyches (Raider NS/AS, Hekatrix/VB/PGL, Haywires) = 220
HEAVY:
Ravager (NS) = 115
Ravager (NS) = 115
Voidraven (NS/FF, 4x SF) = 205
His List:
10 VP
2x big ass squads of Shootas w/ Nob on foot
2x 12-man units of Shootas w/ Nob in Trukks
2x 15-man squads of Lootas, one with a Mekboy w/ Shokk
1x 11-man unit of Shootas
1x unit of 3 Kans
Summary:
- Well, the two squads of Lootas scared the shit out of me because I know how much damage they can do to my army. Thankfully, Night Fighting was rolled and he chose to go first.
- I had most of my army positioned in a way where his Lootas would shoot me but I would have Shrouded + Cover, so I did alright for the most part. The first round of his shooting saw him down a gunboat with his Mekboy's Shokk Attakk gun, so I exited my dudes and got as close as I can in rapid fire range of his 11-man Shoota squad. First blood goes to the Orks!
- On my turn, I rapid fired his Shoota boy squad down to 3 dudes and he broke (they ran off the board eventually). I disembarked my Succubus and Wych squad and charged a unit of Kans with Haywires. I killed 2 of them and his Kans did nothing to me so I was stuck in combat in front of a green tide.
- I moved my remaining gunboat on a flanking mission around some terrain and turbo-boosted it behind some ruins on a good angle. The gunboat was in good position to shoot up some Lootas next turn, and his return fire would be weak because of how many Lootas could see and the cover save that I would get (3+).
- The rest of my army backed up from the Lootas (Night Shields) and shot up Trukks, downing both of them. Everything else turbo-boosted into more advantageous positions to separate distance with his Orks. I needed my Voidraven on the field to thin out some numbers first.
- Next turn, he charges my Succubus and her Wych squad with 2 units: 1 giant squad of Shootas, and 1 from the dudes that got shot out of the Trukk. I seriously thought I was going to get rolled, but between his terrible dice, my good dodge saves and FNP kept my Wyches in the game with a positive combat resolution. Not all of his dudes made it into combat, which greatly helped that combat stay in there. I directed 2 of my Wyches on the Kan but only 1 did damage.
- His Lootas had nothing to shoot at so he shot at my Warrior squad who shot his small Shoota squad off he table. Let's just say he rolled 3 on D3 and had hot dice, so the entire unit vanished from the table. The rest of the Lootas did nothing because of Night Shields and good cover usage.
- My return fire saw me pick off the diminished squad of Trukk Shootas as they were fleeing, and my Lances had to relocate to draw better targets. Sadly, the Lances had no better targets since all the armor was dead or tied in combat, so the Ravagers just picked off some Shootas.
- The Voidraven came in this turn and dropped of a Void Mine in the middle of combat (on all his Orks of course), but it scatted and only killed 3. The Shatterfield Missiles hit a whole bunch of Lootas on the second story of a building and killed all of them and put a wound on the Mekboy. The Void Lance woulds were LoS!'d off onto the bottom floor. No worries though, my flanking gunboat made his move this game by coming in and declaring Focus Fire on all the Lootas on the bottom floor without cover. I killed every single one of them except for the Mekboy, but one Dark Lance later from the Raider saw him evaporate after a failed cover save. Combat in the middle is still going even though he has a crap ton of Orks. He kills some Wyches but my Succubus keeps the score even. The Kan is still alive because I rolled a 1 for Haywire.
- My other Wych squad gets out of their Raider and charges the remaining Trukk squad of Shootas still alive and Overwatch manages to catch 2. I slaughter the remaining Orks in combat after his Nob rips the head off my Hekatrix and I gain a Pain Token.
- His next turn saw the Lootas move through difficult terrain to get more shots in at my Voidraven. They need 6s anyways right, so who cares! He rolled a bunch of die but poor rolling kept the Voidraven in the game.
- The other giant blob of Shootas move in the direction of my Wyches and shoot the squad down to 5 girls. To make things even more insulting, he gets the 8" charge after by rolling exactly that. If my Overwatch would of killed at least 1 Ork, he wouldn't have got into combat, but that was not to be. Regardless, he gets in combat with my Wyches and kill them all. He consolidates into some cover.
- The combat in the middle with my Succubus goes poorly and I lose 6 Wyches. I kill the Kan, 3 Orks, lose combat but manages to stay in with decent rolling. We laugh like huge nerds because this one combat has lasted since my Turn 1.
- My next turn sees the Voidraven turn 90 and head towards the giant blob of Shootas. 18 cover saves later and a good amount of Orks are dead, but there's still a good amount remaining. Really poor shooting from my Dark Lances kept the Orks numbers pretty decent and I'm afraid I got a little too close with my 5-man Raider unit. Thankfully, they roll better and more Orks are killed from the front, but not enough to strip Fearless.
- The flanking gunboat now goes to work on the other Loota squad and I focus fire all the Lootas out of cover. Half of them die but they pass their morale check and stay on the field. Next turn, they fire into the back of my Voidraven and score 2 penetrating hits: one of which locks the velocity of the aircraft.
- Not much happens from this point forward: He manages to charge the 5-man Raider and down it with his Power Klaw before I erase the unit with Lances and rapid fire Splinters. His remaining Loota squad gets shot to shit and runs off the board, my Voidraven flies off the board and comes back on my next turn, and the giant fight in the middle ends when he rolls like ass and I roll hot. He loses Fearless, loses combat by 3, breaks and I chase him down with I8 on my Succubus. 11-6 victory to DE.
7 comments:
Nice battle summary.
How do you rate the void raven over the razorwing, is it worth the extra 40 pts ?
PGL on the wyches looks odd, when they already have plasma grenades. +1 cover save when shot at within 8" and charging opponents lose the +1 attack doesn't seem worth 20 pts.
With premeasuring the Nightshield definietely got better, and even though it would be 80 pts accross my army (same as yours) I may have to see what I could drop to fit them in. The fact it reduces most rapid fire weapons to 24" threat range (6" move + 18" range) could stop raiders/venoms being glanced out of the sky. How often did you find you were able to set yourself up 25" away to stop rapid fire shots, or was it more about get single shots rather than suffering double shots from the rapid fire weapons being within short range.
Rathstar
Hello Rathstar!
I see that you're still playing DE, it's been a long time :)
One of the first things I've noticed after this battle is that I don't think the Voidraven is worth the points. The Void Mine is OK.. but unimpressive so far. The S9 Void Lances are also nice, but I haven't really had any real targets for them yet. It seems that the Flyer is best used when taking out big clumps of infantry, so I'm thinking about switching to the Razorwing next game.
You're right, the PGL don't seem worthy of the 15 points I keep spending on it. It was odd that it came into effect last game because I got charged by so many Orks, but I don't think that's a good example of it being worth the points. I'm thinking about dropping those too.
Night Shields, however, are always worth it. I definitely agree with you on the Razorwing and PGL, but NS is one of the best tools that we have when playing mech. It allows us to prevent damage and allow us to do damage in return and in confidence. I've been using Night Shields ever since I picked up DE in '03, and there's no better upgrade that fits our motto of glass cannon than that.
Nice battle report! Big fan of you site as a fellow DE player.
I have not had a chance to try the new edition yet and been curious how much of a impact this new edition will be to the DE. Just had a couple of questions on the new edition and just wanted your opinion on them.
Do you think DE will be a competitive army in top tournaments such as Adepticon?
How do you think over watch has effected your wyches when they charge in, is it as bad as it seems on paper with the potential of loosing few to many wyches on the charge?
Have DE tanks become more effective or less effective with hull points? In 5th edition glances would have a high chance of stop DE vehicles in there track preventing us from are much need advancement forward. However with hull points we are able to keep on moving but the trade off being your opponent can wreck your vehicle a lot faster. In your experience so far was the hull points a good trade off for DE or did you prefer the 5th way.
Math-hammer says 2 S9 lances = 3 S8 lances when shooting at vehicles; and the S8 > 2 S9 when shooting at MC. I can't see the Voidraven adding any value. Similarly, the Razorwing has a mix of weapons that make it suffer form identity crisis...the DL want to shoot vehicles; the Splinter wants to shoot meat; the missiles (particularly Shatterfield, my choice too) go both ways, but excel at killing mass bodies...OTOH the restriction to firing only 2 missiles takes away the unit-clearing ability it had when it could unload all 4.
I really want to like our fliers, but can't really justify paying the extra cost. With all the splinter firepower we have, the reaver bladevanes, and the hellion/wych melee-power, I can't see us really hurting for ability to clear out hordes. This really has me wanting to stick with the ubiquitous three ravagers to fill our heavy slots cost-effectively.
Nightshields are something I've consistently struggled to justify, and I'll explain why. There are really three ranges of weapons I really care about...24", 36", and 48". Nids and Orks have some 18" stuff that can threaten, but I should be able to avoid that 18" range without Nightshields anyway. Up close Melta stuff...well, if I'm up that close it's desperate times anyway, as I tend to fly "stay away" style, with lots of retrograde movements and hiding in corners.
To my mind, pre-measuring makes it a lot easier for me to NOT need nightshields. For 24" range threat (assault/psy-cannons; RF stuff) I can sit myself just under 36" range and fire away...they can only move 6" before shooting, leaving them 30" away. Nightshields not needed.
48" range (Autocannon, Lascannon, Missiles) is kind of the opposite. If I have to be in 36" range to shoot them, then they're already within range whether I have nightshields or not. Nightshields not needed.
That leaves 36" stuff (Heavy Bolters, other DE). If I want to shoot them, I get at 36" range. They move 6" to get closer, and are in range with Nightshields. Nightshields not needed.
I recognize that working the flanks and edges that Nightshields can help keep the 'farther back' units from firing, possibly allowing us to concentrate on the edges while minimizing the fire from "unengaged" units...but in practice I don't see that working too often, as if I achieve maximum range on the "edge" units, the unengaged are probably already out of range (if 36 or less) or in range (48").
So, personally, I think being able to premeasure makes it easier for me to stay in positions where I'll be out of range without having to worry about Nightshields, and saving 80-100 points is pretty significant.
I'm anxious to read more batreps about our paper airplanes and how they'll fare against more dedicated shooting armies. Raiders and Ravagers in particularl I think may have gotten a bit tougher, as a single Pen would kill them 50% of the time, now a single Pen only kills 33%, and we require 3 glances.
I'm rambling, as I tend to do. Thanks for a great report and conversation!
Fantastic post, and thank you for contributing.
I understand your feelings about Night Shields and you're right to a certain extent. The one thing that catches on 6th Ed. is the imprint of hull points and the fact that lucky Bolter shot can put damage on our vehicles. Our Raiders only have 3 HP, so that means 6 glances form a Bolter is enough to drop it. With Night Shields, I feel more comfortable that my opponent's max shooting distance is -6", for 9" total on his Rapid Fire. To me, I translate that to unit movement. Most things in the game only move 6". Night Shields effectively negates enemy movement when it comes to how you want to move your vehicles. You are essentially always +6" ahead of him, and that's before you even move any of your stuff.
Let's take the Loota example from the game I just played against Orks. Lootas shoot 48" and with Night Shields, they shoot 42". Against tank-based AT, Night Shields lose a little bit of their effectiveness because Tanks move and fire at full BS. Throw Eldar skimmers and Dakkajets into the equation and shit can get really messy really quick for our Raiders. However, if you consider the 6" penalty that units such as Long Fangs have to move to even get in range of our vehicles, you can be more than happy you paid for Night Shields. The biggest strength from Night Shields is vs. stationary emplacements or infantry-based AT fire. With 12" movement on all of your vehicles, you can literally run circles around them between Jinking, building cover, Night Shields and Night Fighting. Without Night Shields, I just feel like I have one less tool to use against my opponent in the game of dealing damage while denying damage in return. I don't like losing tools and I would gladly pay the 10 points for each vehicle to justify it.
On the Razorwing vs. Voidraven note, I agree completely that our Flyers are not worth it compared to Imperial ones. Even the Ork Dakkajet has ours beat for the points. If GW only gave our shit Vector Dancer, since you know, the rule was practically written for Eldar, I could find better use of navigating to our advantage on the battlefield. The main reason why I have the Flyer now is that it's the only form of AA I have aside from concentrating all my lances at enemy flyers. I'm thinking about making an Aegis Defense Line out of slain Space Marines, but I really hate the static playstyle of the ADL. It's just not very Eldar-ish.
I think the only reason why DE placed high in tournaments is because Venomspam hard-countered a lot of lists. Now that Venoms are only 2 HP, I think DE will revolve around more Dark Lance play in a tournament setting. Venoms are still useful, just not as good as they were before because of the HP drop. To answer the question more directly, I think DE will have a decent showing at tournaments, just not placing at the top tables. Imperial Flyers such as the Vendetta (it's basically a Ravager on roid) will make sure of it.
Overwatch is dangerous to Wyches, especially on things like 20 Shoota Boyz or Lootas, but I think this can be dealt with with weight of fire, shooting before charging in, S4 AP4 Blast Plasma Grenades, and target priority in combination with Focus Fire. 6th Ed. made DE a shooting army more so than an assault army, so its best to take advantage of our shooting elements before investing a more hands-on approach.
DE vehicles have increased a boost in toughness for the Raider, Ravager and Flyers (3 HP), but not for the Venom. I think that we got a lot of linear buffs in the form of Night Fighting and Jinking (and FF on Flyers) as well as a more direct buff. As Ordo Bob said below: "Raiders and Ravagers in particularl I think may have gotten a bit tougher, as a single Pen would kill them 50% of the time, now a single Pen only kills 33%, and we require 3 glances."
On the ADL; place your objective behind it and take wracks (+ haemunculus). Hth once AA tasking is done for +2 cover (3+) and FNP. if you don't want them.static, give them a boat to pick them up afterwards.
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