Dark Eldar: Aldershot Ardboyz April 2013
It’s been a
long while since our last tournament, due to the after effect of a certain stag
do floored me for a week and so when the Aldershot reared into the ever present
I felt happy and relieved that finally I had a tournament to go to. Aldershot
is an 1850 pt. tournament, held by our very own James French in Aldershot Games
shop. It’s a rulebook tournament with a win lose draw system with a few soft
scores and the like. After gearing up after a few list tweaks, I was finally
ready to go and this is how I fared…
The List
A quick
recap of the list….
Baron
1 unit of
trueborn with splinter cannons
3 units of 5
warriors
2 units of Wych’s
(haywire grenades)
All the
above in venoms
3 Ravagers
Beast pack
(10 Kymera, 4 Flocks, 4 Beastmasters)
Eldrad
3 Jetbikes
Warphunter
Aegis+ Quad
Gun
I’d done exactually 0 practice games with this particular
list. As such I was a bit apprehensive on how it was going to do. Turns out it
did alright!
Game 1: Michael
Johnson – Space Wolves/Blood Angels - Loss
Michael Sported 2 units of grey hunters, one in a drop pod,
2 rune priests, 2 long fang squads and two speeders.
This was backed up by Dante, jump infantry and a devastator squad.
On paper this seemed like the perfect match up for me.
Plenty of 3+ save infantry little in the way of tanks, I even got some very
good spells with Eldrad. Eldrad could stop the rune priests, my massed venom
fire could harm the on foot marines…. So how did I lose?
The story of this game lies with 1 dice roll. Michael went
first ad shot everything at the beastmaster unit that promptly went to ground.
I lost the 6 models required for a leadership…. And ran away off the table.
That was my warlord, my psychic defence and offence a whole
600 odd points gone in one roll of a dice. I battled on but ultimately I was
fighting a battle of 1850 points against 1250 and ended up losing.
You get games like this in tournaments that’s just how the
dice go. Fortunately I still had a good game and did a lot of damage before I was
eventually wiped out. Unfortunately I didn’t learn anything about my army in
this game and so onto the next!
Game 2: Tim Newman
–Space Wolves/ Imperial Guard – Win
Tim had your standard blob unit, a manticore two vendettas,
supporting his wolf army of two priests, 3 units of grey hunters in drop pods
and 2 pesky lone wolves.
Ultimately I won this game due to a bit of a mistake from
Tim. He brought his vendettas down to the floor to kill a Ravager, what he didn’t
realise is how quick a beastmaster unit can be. A hit and run, a 12 inch move
left a 6 inch charge and the beast master unit duly delivered taking down both
vendettas and a 2nd unit they charged. Eldrad was the man of the
match however, after shooting and ultimately failing to kill the lone wolves, Eldrad
killed both and got me line breaker. This was after he casted misfortune on two
grey hunter units, allowing me to wipe both units out in one turn of brutal
shooting and combat.
His final act was to get line breaker and cause the guard
blob to hallucinate making them not be able to do anything for the crucial
final turn of the game, which ultimately allowed me to win it.
This game taught me how powerful Eldrad truly is when he
gets 1 or two good powers…. And doesn’t run off turn 1!
Game 3: Jack
Masters – Chaos Space Marines – Win
Jack had a chaos army with two units of veterans in rhinos,
2 mauler fiends, two heldrakes, 3 obliterators some cultists a daemon prince, a
forge master. Ultimately he lost the game on his warlord trait….
Now I went first on the scourging here but Jack rolled the warlord
trait that allowed units to outflank so he put his csm into reserve.
This left very little on the table and by the end of my
second turn Jack had 1 maulerfiend and 5 cultists and his forge master left on
the table. And with a full army left to command even two heldrakes couldn’t
spoil my party.
I was pretty confident my army was living up to its
potential at this point and I went home happy and ready for the challenge of
the top tables the next day!
Game 4: Stephen
Setterfield – Necrons – loss
Stephan had 2 doomsday arcs, 2 ghost arcs, 1 annialation
barge 5 wraiths lots of Necron warriors and a token lord with mindshackle. Oh
yes and 3 night scythes
Stephan had an unusual army for necrons in that everything
was in tanks except one unit of wraiths. Ah, a veritable 5th Ed army
and one I was always going to struggle against. My anti-tank was diabolical,
but I downed all the tanks. The problem was the night scythes. This game ended
up exactually as most games against necrons end with me. All the opposing army
dead except 3 night scythes and there cargo all holding objectives. The quad
gun was awful shooting 4 times and doing nothing, this was compounded when Stephan
refused to evade with them and I still did nothing… it was quite annoying
Another good game but another loss!
Game 5: John Hall –
Grey knights – Win
4 Land Raiders and Coteaz. One of my worst nightmares. This
was supported by 2 psybacks and a stormraven rounded the army off.
Fortunately the dark
lances were on tune killing more tanks in one turn this game than in the entirety
of the previous game combined. I destroyed the first raider to dark lances, the
second to haywire and the third forth to more lance fire. This was a good win
for me and John informed me I was the first to kill all the raiders…. Reeesult!
Game 6: Luke
Nurser – Necrons – Loss
Me and Luke have played each other a lot at tournaments,
this latest one was, if I may say so the most enjoyable game we’ve had at a
tournament.
Luke used his standard 18 wraiths and 2 destroyer lord army.
Luke got the roll to go first but it was night fight and it
was hammer and anvil. So I effectively got the first strike. Ultimately Luck
was even and the dice rolls were tight.
Luke beat me at kill points and it ended up 14-13 points.
Luke had 1 destroyer lord, 5 warriors and a night scythe remaining, I had the
beast unit, several warrior units and an injured Ravager left. Ultimately my failure
to kill his warlord in combat with Eldrad (the epic conclusion to the
tournament if I may say so!) was my downfall but I can’t fault him, he’d
already killed the other destroyer lord in single combat!
Conclusion
I came away with 3 losses and 3 wins and 12th
place. I was unlucky in game 1 but other than that the list went as expect. I still
struggled against flyers but I always will. I am thinking of ditching the quad
gun and maybe the aegis and just accepting I suck at killing flyers. Eldrad is
very powerful he won me two games and almost the final one against Luke as
well. So he’s staying at 1850pts for now.
With the next tournament for me at the end of June, I’ve got
a lot to think about and a few months to mull.
Until next time!
Thanks for the tournament overview. It was really helpful, particularly as I'm not getting much practice with my army in.
ReplyDeleteDid you find any issues with Eldrad causing the Beastmaster to string out to keep him in coherency ? I'm considering Eldar allies, but I was going to choose a cheap Farseer on a jetbike (80 odd points cheaper than Eldrad).
Regarding flyers I've come to the same conclusion as you, however I think the quad gun is worth it, just to have a chance to take one or two hull point off allowing a ravager (or blaster shot) to get lucky and get the last one. Rather than a quad gun I use a voidraven.
You didn't mention the warphunter, was it the nasty nasty thing it looks on paper (and has been in your previous reports) ?
Rathstar
PS. I've never managed to make it to the Games Shop for one of the 'Ard Boyz, how easy it is to find parking ?
Eldrad really doesn't slow the beasts down as lets say the beast unit moves and runs and gets a 4 say.
ReplyDeleteEldrad moves therefore 10 and the beasts move 16. Depending on who your charging their probably going to be within range of something next turn. Lets go conservative and say the opponent set up 30 inches away. in the next turn the beasts jump to 2 inches (guaranteed charge) but Eldrad at this point is 14 inches away. say the average charge of 7 is rolled. Eldrad then moves 7 and then another 3 of his initiative step getting him just about in the action and once again amongst his friends.
I'm not saying he doesn't slow the unit down at all, but unless your not in combat for a good few turns the conga line effect you've described shouldn't happen at all.
The only issue is when they charge, they don't get fleet because of him, so get as close a possible and depending on what is snap firing at them, depends at what you put nearest, is all the opponants snap firing guns str 5 or less? take the hits on a flock!
I'd allways take eldrad ahead of a farseer on jetbike. Mastery level 3 and the ability to cast powers twice really is worth that extra few points. If he gets precognition hes also a match for any charecter in the game in a duel aswell.
we agree on the quad gun. its crap but needed!
The warp Hunter is very good. i'm thinking of dropping it though because i think well its a bit cheesy and its forgeworld and i'm against the use of forgeworld in tournaments (broken fw stuff anyway)
Parking is very easy, theres a multistore right next to it!