Dark Eldar: The First Tourney

Dark Eldar: The First Tourney

So as I said in my previous blog I was travelling to Aldershot to take part in a small tourney there. Unfortunatly due to the organiser placing this the same weekend as games day it meant the numbers ended up relatively low. (15 people). I have to say though it is a great venue with plenty of space and good terrain and hopefully this tournament will continue to grow.

I was a bit naughty on two accounts. Firstly a number of my models were purely 3 colours (I feel ashamed!) Secondly in my previous blog I put up an army list. I made a few alterations to this after practise game 4 against Luke and helpful notes from Ken my Scottish protégé (maybe the student has become the master!). I removed the jet bikes and the sergeant on the wych units. With the points saved I added 3 units of true born in venoms. The list therefore looked like this…

Baron

Haemonculus

3 Blasterborn in Venoms x 3

5 Wych’s with haywire grenades in Venoms x 3

1 Wrack unit in Venom

1 Wrack unit

Beast Unit (10 Kymera, 5 Razorwing Flocks)

2 Ravagers

1 Voidraven Bomber.

The Tournament

Right so a brief review of the tournament for me was 4 wins 2 losses. Despite using the baron I went first a total of once, loosing the dice to go first twice and having the inititive seized off me 3 times. Fortunatly that was only a issue in the game I played against Luke (yes I refer to my fellow DoG member!) where his firepower had the ability to take advantage. The other games I lost were against James (also DoG) with a very similar army to Luke. Unfortunatly I think to beat that army ill need a couple of things to go my way. Firstly the opponent not seizing the inititive. Secondly getting night fight. Nightfight is Dark Eldars best friend especially against Necrons. I found it was a case of almost against James 2 horrific mitsakes by myself gave away the game.

The games I won I won convincingly using the venoms ability to sit on 36 to restrict shooting back whilst shooting at full power. My final opponent mark however had the unluckiest loss to me. I was down to the baron, a razorwing flock on 1 wounds, 2 wrack units and 2wych units (on foot and miles away from the enemy) in the final turn I managed to contest 1 objective with the baron, 1 with the razorwing flock and took 1 objective of my own. Mark had received first blood but I had both linebreaker (yes from the razorwing flock) and slay the warlord. The game promptly ended turn 5 with a win to me despite being battered silly! This however did alert me to the growing power that is Tau. Allies have really given this army a real lease of life.

Unit Review

Ill briefly go through the units giving a ++,+,-,x,xx to show how I think they worked.

Baron Sathoynx +

I found out on the day that as the baron has hit and run he gives it to the beast unit. This is absolutely brilliant. He’s still THE dark eldar HQ choice, every army should really use him if they use a big infantry unit.

Haemonculus x

Hmm. I’m really starting to doubt these guys use. The unit they give the pain token to is the Barons’s Beasts and then only the beastmasters get fnp. As such his worth comes from giving the wracks units as troops and his shattershard. Well the shattershard is situational at best and if I was to take the haemonculus out both wrack units could be wych’s anyway with the saving. This guy will probably be dropped in my next list.

Wychs –

Worked out very well in their role as tank hunters and I was very pleased with them.

Wracks –

They were there to get objectives and that’s what they did. Not much more to say here

Venoms +

I wouldn’t be surprised to see venoms in other armies, these tanks can sit at max range pouring fire power to infantry. Yes they die easy but who cares if 1 goes down, there are others to take up the slack. They performed above expectation and I’m very happy with them. Against Kiran Reddy they sat at 36 inches peppered a seer council down to nothing with no chance of retaliation as the guns of his army were all 24 inch range.

Beastmaster Unit: +

Very good replaces the hellion units as the big threatening unit drawing fire destined for venoms. I may add in more kymera however they seemed to have a lot more damage output than the flocks even with the flocks extra attacks, strength 4 made the difference.

Trueborn with blasters: ++

I was pleasantly surprised with these guys a lot of damage output, still pretty cheap points wise there definatly here to stay in the list. They bring more haywire to the party too which helps. The 9 extra blaster shots helped against the flyers I faced

Ravagers: -

They performed as they allways did and as such are pretty much a staple of any dark eldar army.

Void Raven: xx

I think I chose this for the sake of having a flyer. In 6 games it destroyed 1 vehicle. Not good for 145 points. It doesn’t start on the table which doesn’t work with the dark eldar army concept of pure damage output. It is also a target for any anti flyer fortifications the opponent has and by not taking it I remove that option. This will definatly be going out of my army, probably for another ravager.

Thanks for reading next time I’m going to have a look at some ideas for allies for the GT tournament that is coming up in a few weeks. I’ll also be showing you my updated army list. It’s written up already and I’m very happy. The result may surprise a few of you!

Till then everyone!