Dark Eldar: Woking War Tournament

So obviously with our tournament around the corner, I’m busy organising and meeting and greeting, sorting out the final details with my brother with Ru and the rest of the Death or Glory team. So I popped into Tolworth first founding to sort out the boards and Ian Courtney came up to me and asked whether I’d like to play at Woking war…. It was a 1 day event and my girlfriend was away all during the week, so I thought what the hell! And packed my Dark Eldar and off I went!

Woking War is held at the Maybury centre in Woking and is an offshoot from the Tolworth first founding. A lot of people use this tournament as attest for the mayhem tournament and the DoG tournament. A lot of tournament regulars were testing out their DoG army lists and so I was up against a few tough opponents.

The system was at a net victory points plus fifteen to a maximum of 30 points, so a margin of victory tournament… I had no idea what to expect!

The List

So the list looked a little something like this….

Baron Sathonyx

3 Trueborn, 2 Splinter Cannon, Venom Extra Splinter Cannon

3 Trueborn, 2 Splinter Cannon, Venom Extra Splinter Cannon

5 Dark Eldar Warriors, Venom, Extra Splinter Cannon, Grisly Trophies

5 Wych's, Haywire Grenades, Venom, Extra Splinter Cannon

5 Wych's, Haywire Grenades, Venom, Extra Splinter Cannon

5 Wych's, Haywire Grenades, Venom, Extra Splinter Cannon

5 Warriors

Beast pack, 4 Beast masters, 10 Kymera, 4 Razorwing Flocks

Ravager, Night Shields

Ravager, Night Shields

Ravager, Night Shields

Farseer, RoW

Jetbikes

Night Spinner

Aegis/Quad gun

So I had last minute thrown in an extra venom and trueborn unit, and decided to try out night shields.

Game 1: Blood Angels: Big Guns Never Tire: Dan Folly

Dan had a fear of the darkness army. Lots of dreadnaughts Mephiston and librarians who could scare people off the board. Brilliant against Tau, Terrible against a mounted Dark Eldar army.

I got first turn and I deployed aggressively. Dan had put 1 furioso librarian 10 assault marines and scouts on the board. Meph, 2 furioso dreads, 1 tactical squad, a storm raven and 1 assault squad sat in reserve. At the end of my turn 1, I killed the majority of the assault squad and the librarian dreadnaught.

The tragedy stuck. Dan landed a drop pod right next to the baron and flamed the beast pack and the baron died to ugly flame fire! Unfortunately for him that’s pretty much all he did do and in my turn 2 Dan had 1 drop pod on 1 hull point left on the board…..

Fortunately for Dan only Meph didn’t turn up in his next turn and his reinforcements finally took down a few ravagers and venoms. But the piecemeal nature of his army meant that the pure fire power of the dark eldar army finally took him out, with meph dying on turn 5 to some determined splinter fire shots from 1 very annoyed venom.

So a pretty comprehensive victory and a 30-0 score line took me onto table 2 to play….

Game 2: Grey Knights/Tau: Relic/Base Swap: Rob McDougal

A combination I’ve never come across before but certainly interesting!

Rob brought to the table broadsides and a crisis suit unit of awesomeness with a commander. The main force included a grey knight squad, a henchmen squad with Coteaz, 2 dread knights and a psyflemen dread.

Small but tough!

Relic AND base swap was new as well with 7 points for the opponents objective 5 for the middle and 3 for your own base.

I went second this time and deployed at the extreme ranges of his guns with the ravagers being protected with their night shields. Due to my deployment a lot of pain was diverted away from my tanks with only 1 ravager taking big damage. Rob made a big mistake by charging both of his dread knights forward when he didn’t really need to. This meant I charged both with my beast pack held them both in combat whittled there wound count down (I had the fearless psychic power from telepathy up!) So I hit and ran in his turn then killed the remaining dread knights with my fire power turn 3

I used a tactic I use a lot and that’s using the fearless telepathy power after going to ground to force the beast pack from being pinned and this means there free to move freely after often going to ground for a 2+ cover.

Some unlucky pin tests and constant pressure finally whittled down Rob’s list with his models slowly disappearing from the board. The beast pack killed the crisis unit and the commander with the venoms and night spinner claiming almost everything else.

I took all objectives and got another 30-0 victory and a date with…

Game 3: Tau/Eldar: Scourging: Rob Waller

So table 1 final game then and Rob Waller stood before me with 3 riptides and 1 wraithknight. Ah.

He also had the crisis commander and bodyguard unit with marker drones, warp spiders and your standard kroot and jetbikes.

Obviously it was the big things that stood out and with a hammer and anvil set up they could hide at the back. Fortunately I got fortune and first turn so I set up aggressively and Rob set up at the back of the board.

You know what happens when I get fortune! Rob stole the initiative…

He lept forward but due to bad luck on his part did very little in terms of damage, 1 dead empty venom and a wound of his own riptide was the result of his shooting!

In my turn 1, I killed the wraithknight, not surprising with the silly amount of venom fire going his way, took a riptide down to 1 wound, which was thoroughly annoying.

His next turn of shooting took down all 3 ravagers in a combination of his warp spiders, the 3 riptides 2 units of outflanking kroot. His command squad and his farseer were too far away to do anything still but in retaliation in my next turn I took out a riptide all the warp spiders, and both units of kroot giving the beast pack 3 pain tokens and fearless in the process.

Rob slowly killed my remaining vehicles as I eliminated his remaining troops and on turn 5 I was holding a 3, 4 and a 1 objectives, and I boosted my own 3 man jetbike unit to contest Rob’s 2 objective while also giving me line breaker.

I had also failed fortune on my turn and so turn 6 woulda been messy with a massive swing of victory points.

However fortune smiled upon me, the game ended and I got myself a 23-7 win and a tournament win!

Conclusion

Very happy obviously with the tourney win plenty of positives here!

The night shields were very good and I had the right balance just having them on the ravagers. The night spinner was very good at clearing out kroot after they had appeared, thank god for torrent! The extra splinter cannons really worked and this has made me doubt my choice of taking a wraithknight!

Bear in mind my 2 victories against the Grey Knights/Tau and the Tau/Eldar occurred with it not being night fight and against the Tau I was seized against, it coulda been a total massacre, but Dark Eldar have moved on from needing to go first to have a chance of winning.

Till next time people!