Dark Eldar: Brighton Warlords Tournament

Hey guys and welcome along to the next chapter of my Dark Eldar blog. I love tournaments and this next one is definitely one of the best. Brighton Warlords was a 1650 pt., forge world allowed tournament in which secondary objectives didn’t count for who won the game, but contributed bonus points each round. I was quite sceptical about this rule but stormed on regardless. I was coming off a 5th place from Aldershot and the only way was up right?














The List

So the list looked a little something like this….

Baron Sathonyx
3 Trueborn, 2 Splinter Cannon, Venom Extra Splinter Cannon, Grisly Trophies
5 Dark Eldar Warriors, Venom, Extra Splinter Cannon
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
Beast pack, 4 Beast masters, 10 Kymera, 4 Razorwing Flocks
Ravager
Ravager
Ravager
Farseer, RoW
Jetbikes
Night Spinner
Aegis/Quad gun

So I had removed the crimson hunter and a venom and added in more Wych’s and runes of witnessing. I was pretty happy with this make up and so I went confidently into my first game against…

Game 1: Death Korps of Krieg: Big Guns Never Tire: Corin Doyle

You what? Death Korps of Krieg? What the hell do these guys do?! Well there a normal guard list that was ws 4 and doesn’t run away from shooting casualties. That’s not too bad. My Opponent was Corin and he brought to the table 8 artillery pieces (2 earthshakers, 3 Quad launchers and 3 Rapiers) and 1 hydra platform. He also had a cheeky flyer in reserve. A blob a command section and a vet squad (engineers) finished off the list.

No Fortune this game but I have guide and hallucinate a useful duo of spells.

With that in mind I had first turn and night fight. Now artillery pieces are a pain in the arse to kill. Not so much for dark eldar. In turn 1 I killed the hydra and quad gun and peppered the artillery with venom fire and advanced my beasts. Unfortunately the artillery went to ground so I only caused the death of a few crewmen.

And then Corin’s tactic came to light as he got both artillery units back in the fight….. Oh dear.

His rapiers shot and didn’t do anything (it was night fight after all) Then his quad guns shot. These bad boys do 4 strength 5 barrage shots each so 12 in total fortunately for me he aimed at a beast flock and as I had spread out well he only did 7 wounds. This only managed to kill a single flock and 1 kymera. It was looking pretty ominous for the rapiers and the command section.

My beast pack duly got stuck into my line and then the inevitable slow demise of the rest of his army ensued. Corin’s mistake was to put his platoon into reserve. The turn they came on they couldn’t do much damage and then the beast pack and venoms had easy pickings. At the end of turn 4 and with not much left of his army on the board, we called it a day and I had 2 objectives and all of his heavy support as well as all the secondary objectives. So a 30 point wins and a bucket load of VP’s, it took me onto table 1 to play…

Game 2: Grey Knights/Necrons: Crusade: James French

So fellow DoGer and good friend James French was my next game. James had 5 razorbacks, Coteaz 3 dreadknights supported by a destroyer Lord and 6 wraiths (nice and characterful there James!) We hammered and anvil’d and as is standard so far in the tournament it was night fight first turn and I went first.

I deployed along my deployment edge and James deployed out of shooting range other than 1 dreadknight in range. Who took a cheeky wound from a venom that sneakily got in range. The problem for James then boosted 30 inches forward with his dreadknights and did not a lot to my venoms with his flamers.

James I think made a little bit of a mistake here as his tanks were out of range and couldn’t provide support to his dreadknights. As such I only had 1 target to shoot at and duly gunned 2 of the dreadknights leaving 1 left on 1 wound.

As I often do in such situations, I got a bit cocky and instead of finishing the final dreadknight with my beast pack I charged the encroaching wraith unit. I took the destroy lord out of the combat with a valiant beastmaster and the full strength beast pack charged and did…. 3 wounds…. Ah dear. The wraiths were similarly rubbish and only did 2 wounds.

In his next phase and another round of terrible dice rolling from the two of us meant the beast pack pegged it bereft of any more kymera the destroyer lord in hot pursuit. James charged and finished off the beasts in his next turn. Unfortunately for him he was then sitting in the open with his wraiths and they were gunned downed by my gunline.

At this point it was just a case of me mopping up James remaining razorbacks and troops. It really helped being Hammer and Anvil as James couldn’t get everything into the shooting range he wanted and so my tanks survived where his died. Turn 5 woulda ended up as a draw, but the game went on and I had a good victory, but only 1 bonus point.

Game 3: Space Wolves: Relic: Mike Pike

Now I like playing space wolves. Squishy long fangs that can die to venom fire? Lovely! Unfortunately Mike brought 3 units of 3 hyperious missile launchers to the table… Not only that but 4 units of wolves in drop pods and a rune priest. Fortunately…. It was nightfight first turn and I was going first…

Now I’d say it was the relic and how I deployed but frankly it didn’t matter.

In my turn 1 I shot all my poisoned and ravager's shots and killed 7 of the 9 hyperios. Effectively removing Mikes ranged shooting. His Space wolves came down did very little as he shot the infantry sitting behind the aegis. The beast pack then killed one units and I removed all his other models from the board (rune priest 5 grey hunters and the 2 remaining hyperios and the new grey hunter unit)

Mikes turn 2 he got his final squad and an empty drop pod. This squad had my entire army to fight…. And well it died.

My army is very good against Space Wolves and artillery and this was a mix of the two and I ended up with full points and a meeting on table 1 the next morning.

Game 4: Tau: Scourging: Alex Harrison

A good opponent with a good army. Alex had 6 broadsides 3 crisis suits plenty of drones 2 riptides. You know THAT tau army. His army was featured by Rich’s ones to watch for the weekend so have a look at his post here.

It was Hammer and Anvil and one deployment zone had 5 objectives close to it. I went first and it was night fight… clearly a running theme to this tournament! I chose deployment zone so luckily I had 5 of the objectives but Alex had plenty of Kroot to outflank to these objectives.

I deployed aggressively sticking my tanks onto his front line while sticking my beast pack out of range and putting a few of my troops into reserve (jetbikes and warriors).

Alex deployed out of my range so (over 48 inches). So I simply boosted out of range. This threw him, he had to advance to win I had all the objectives. If anything came into range I jumped forward, shot it and it died. I was winning this game with room to spare. Alex had destroyed a venom and I had killed a riptide and a couple of broadsides, but I had the objectives.

Then I made a mistake….

I jumped my beast pack forward turn 4….. Into range of tau guns. They got completely savaged, there was no reason for me to do this, they were in range of the objective so I coulda waited a turn. But I didn’t and they got destroyed. As a result I didn’t take the 4 objective I was hugging and lost I had the 1 and 3 objective and he had 2 2 objectives but he’d killed my beast pack so he’d won 5-4. I was bitterly disappointed, it had ended turn 5 and potentially I coulda wiped his troops out turn 6.

But this is why I love Dark Eldar. One mistake. One Mistake lost me this game; Dark Eldar has such a small room for mistakes and error that this one mistake was enough to cost me. To Alex’s credit he ruthlessly took advantage.

So a loss that only took me down to table 2 and a game against…

Game 5: Space Wolves: Base Swap: Mike Terry

Yes our newest contributor. He came with his space wolves and guard as well as quad gun launchers the same I had played in game 1 as well and 9 hyperious and lots of units of 5 men in razorbacks. And ofc a blob and a Vendetta.

It was night fight and I went first… yah yeah im a lucky git… Farseer got fortune I was rubbing my hands together I was playing artillery; it was night fight I had fortune. The ultimate combo. So obviously Mike Seized

Mike had the foresight to add plenty of searchlights on his razorbacks and he gunned down several of my vehicles and half my beast unit. This scattered and killed my trueborn unit as well meaning I had no way to fire the quad gun really.

I started witling away the hyperious and take these down after a few turns and Mikes Razorbacks weren’t really causing too much hassle to the vehicles.

My Plan B worked perfectly, with Wych’s blowing up razorbacks… well one unit did taking down 2 on its own. I also got lucky with the vendetta, which after coming on and doing nothing got killed by 3 jetbikes firing the quad gun.

Unfortunately the battering the Beast pack took turn 1 meant they were struggling to survive the constant assault of the ignore cover quad gun and in the turn they were needed most turn 5 there were severely reduced this meant the baron needed to start taking wounds.

Now taking a good 30/40 wounds on a 2+ reroll on the final wound he lost his shadowfield but survived on on a wound. With an immobilised chimera and razorback and a few slightly scared wolf units left the baron needed to charge the quad gun and survive to win the game. He took 1 wound from over watch and failed his 5+ with a reroll and so the game ended as a draw.

Frustrating but it coulda been a lot worse, if that vendetta had survived its troops coulda taken my own objective. It was a very close game and a draw was a fair result. Mikes second tournament? This man is one to watch that’s for sure!

Game 6: Sisters/Imperial Guard: Kill Points: Steve Attoe

Now this was a team tournament and team members aren’t meant to play… Grumble Grumble…

I played Steve and his sisters. Steve’s List is posted in his blog. Now I’ve played Steve 3 times at tournaments and each time he has stolen the initiative. So this was clearly 4 from 4.

To be honest neither of us took this game seriously. 1 of us had to win so we charged at each other wildly. A brutal combat including the beast pack and his almost unkillable blob ended with the beast pack less the baron victorious. And a lot of dead sisters vehicles (dark lances worked very well this game!)

I’d wiped him out and thus achieved victory number 4.

Conclusion

So 4 wins, a draw and a loss? Not bad! A 5th place and another successful tournament for the Baron. The fact here is that Dark Eldar has the capacity to beat nearly every list. But a mistake or an unlucky roll and the game is up. It’s exciting and it’s Fun to use.

At Brighton I had covered up the main weakness I had in Aldershot and finally had that plan b with 15 Wych’s and they helped out in several instances. I’d like to try out a wraithknight and use this in conjunction with the beast pack

I’m happy with my army’s performance. That’s 2 5th places in a row and frankly I’m very pleased!

Till next time!