Thought I'd get around to posting an update based on Monday night's gaming, and try and evolve onwards from last week's game against the Imperial Guard.
I tweaked my list a bit to try and get around some of the problems I had last week, 2 units of Wyches in Venoms didn't seem to work, so I went with (roughly) the following.
Duke Sliscus
Haemonculus (Venom Blade, Shattershard)
Haemonculus (Power Weapon, Hex Rifle)
4 Incubi in a Venom (2 x Splinter Cannon, Night Shield)
9 Kabalite Warriors (Blaster) in a Raider (Flickerfield, Splinter Racks)
10 Kabalite Warriors (Splinter Cannon, Blaster, Sybarite, Agoniser) in a Raider (Flickerfield, Splinter Racks)
5 Wyches (Hydra Gauntlets, Hekatrix, Agoniser, Phantasm Launcher) in a Venom (2 x Splinter Cannon, Nightshield)
3 Wracks in a Venom (2 x Splinter Cannon, Nightshield)
3 Beastmasters (1 x Agoniser) w/ 10 Khymarae and 3 Clawed Fiends
Ravager (3 x Dark Lance)
Set up was Dawn of War, Capture and Control 5 objectives, facing off against Craftworld Eldar, which the list was roughly this:
Eldrar
Asurman
10 Dire Avengers
10 Dire Avengers
10 Guardians with a Scatter Laser (?)
3 War Walkers with Scatter Laser and Missile Launcher
3 Individual Vypers with Eldar Missile Launcher
Fire Prism
Wraithlord
The only thing I set up on the board was the Wrack unit, with it's Venom, along with the Hexrifle Haemonculus. I deployed the Wracks right on my objective, in a good piece of cover with low visibility for incoming fire. The Haemonculus deployed just outside of the Venom, ready to hop in first turn.
Rather than cover the game in detail, I'll try and deal with a few main points for me...
1. Night Vision
This is obviously far, far more useful than 4th ed, since roughly 1/3rd of the time (or if you're Brother Captain Ventris, EVERY MISSION) you're playing with Dawn of War.
Being able to re-roll those poor Night Vision rolls allowed me to fire on the deployed Dire Avengers and Guardians with practically everything, rather than the odd bit here and there. This combined with Dark Eldar mobility means that anything mid-table in Dawn of War, isn't safe at all from my fire power moving onto the board.
2. Night Shields.
This saved me the game. First turn as the Craftworld Eldar moved on, there were some extremely close Night Vision rolls for the vehicles to shoot my Raiders and Venoms. Thankfully, paying for the Night Shields ended up knocking off the extra inches that meant most things were safe, mobile and still able to shoot, when it came to Turn 2.
3. Cover
I'm starting to use cover a bit better now with the Dark Eldar. Starting my setup hugging buildings, or using their agile nature to position myself well.
4. Supporting Fire
In previous games I had been relying on my Dark Lances off the Raiders in order to damage vehicles. At best I wanted to destroy them, at the very least I'd prefer to stop them shooting for a turn, rather than an immobilise.
What I'd began to do was to use the Blaster and Blast Pistol (if in range) from the Raider squad first to have 1 hit, then decide if I could use the Dark Lance elsewhere. This meant usually, 3 shots on a single vehicle, that could help keep me alive, or better yet, remove the threat.
5. Supporting Units
Similar to supporting fire with other units, the concept of tag-teaming units together. This usually came in the form of a Warrior Squad thinning infantry units, to allow the Wyches or Incubi an easier fight.
What I tried to do, was to ensure that rather than Unit A shoot Enemy Unit A, Unit B shoots Enemy Unit B, etc. I tried to make it so that I had 3 - 4 units attacking a single target at a time, crippling or removing that enemy unit completely.
6. Shattershard.
This was an awesome 15pt spend. Basically, it's similar to Jaws of the World Wolf in that it's a "Remove from play" attack, with no savesof any kind allowed, just a toughness test. The other good thing about it is that it's "Models Hit by..", which means any model under the template takes the test. Not distributed around the unit like Wound Allocation, as there are no wounds to allocate.
What this meant on Monday was that I got the template over 6 or so Dire Avengers, along with Asurman. Asurman failed his Toughness test, and despite being a bad-ass Phoenix Lord with Eternal Warrior, he was popped... No doubt that my Haemonculi won't be getting anywhere near the enemy lines in the future.
On the bright side (down side if you're me) it's only One Shot and you can only take 1 per army.
7. Beastmasters run. All the time.
However solid they may be, my Beastmaster unit seems to run away in every game. They'll do some damage, and soak up fire, but so far they've legged it each time. I'm thinking maybe I need to invest in some Razorwing Flocks to go with them to try and get some rending rolls and deny armour saves. Since y'know, you can roll a shedload of attacks, but still have everything saved. (With Craftworld scum casting Fortune!).
Conclusion
I've done a fair bit of reading on the Dark Eldar, along with some changes, but I'm really enjoying playing using them. They're making me think alot more about cover, my positioning of units and my mobility around the board.
It also REALLY helps when your opponent forgets half of his upgrades and special rules... Unfortunately, I've not got a clue when it comes to Codex: Eldar so didn't know what most of it did to help out.
So that's that for another week. I think that we may be partaking in some Battlefleet Gothic next Monday!
Peace,
SB
No comments:
Post a Comment