Double Dread Weekender - Saturday Doubles

Jamie, Matt, Dave and I all headed down to WHW (it was going to be Maelstrom til we remembered the indy GT!) this Saturday so Matt and I could try out some ideas for the GW 40K Doubles in June. We all took 875pt lists and paired them up randomly to see what worked well. You can see my lists here.


Game 1 - Dark Eldar (x2) vs BA & GK
Matt fielded his GK in partnership with Dave's BA. Jamie and I both took fairly similar Dark Eldar lists. Mine differed slightly in that I'd got wyches instead of Jamie's kabalites and had a ravager where Jamie had a razorwing. Matt and Dave had lots of rhinos and razorbacks with 2 squads of purifiers 2 tactical squads, Tycho, Coteaz and 2 rifleman dreads (BA ones).

A promising turn 1 saw Jamie and I wrecking two GK rhinos. We pelted the occupants with fire from the razorwing, venoms and kabalites before charging Coteaz's squad with the wyches. Unfortunately Matt rolled 6 hits with his Cleansing Flame and we lost over half the squad. This left the wyches locked in combat (thanks to Stubborn from the Brothers In Arms bonus). The other purifier squad had taken heavy casualties. Elsewhere we could only immobilise one of the razorbacks.

We lost the razorwing straight away making us wish we'd launched all of it's missiles in the first turn at the purifiers. One of the venoms went down as did one squad of trueborn. Coteaz's squad easily dealt with the remaining wyches but were severely reduced in number. The following turn was disastrous for us with none of our dark lances even hitting the target. The only thing we got rid of was one of the razorbacks with a squad of trueborn. This left both squads of wracks clinging onto cover with nothing to assault.

Matt and Dave killed off a ton of vehicles in their turn and we'd now be struggling. We popped one of the BA rhinos and the haemonculus used it's shattershard to kill the priest and a few other marines. This allowed a combination of poisoned fire from the kabalites and venoms to bring down the squad. Coteaz's squad was finished off in a similar poisonous fashion. Unfortunately one purifier with a psycannon held on and stood firmly to fire 4 S7 shots a turn. He eventually succumbed to a wych charge but not before killing their raider and 6 wyches in the explosion!

The centre of the board saw a protracted combat between Tycho and his tactical squad and a combination of wracks and 2 squads of kabalites. The Dark Eldar were really hampered by their S3/T3 but in the final turn the wracks killed off a lonely Tycho but not before a whole squad of kabalites had died. Elsewhere we lost all but 2 of our vehicles and once the ravager and all the trueborn were gone we had little hope of killing any more razorbacks. The match ended 13 all on KPs. DRAW


Game 2 - Tau & BA vs GK & BA

Matt had the same GK but the BA were Jamie's this time. Dave had a jumpy BA list this time which would act as a meatshield for my Tau. The theory was simple, I open up the transports and the BA kill off the occupants. The problem would be two squads of purifiers! We were playing objectives with the special rule (from the doubles pack) that some objectives might be worth 2 points on a D6 roll of 6 when captured.


Our BA jumpers advanced towards their army trying to keep out of range for any GK charge. The Tau let rip on the vehicles blowing up one rhino, wrecking another and ripping the weapon from a razorback. Careful deployment from Matt saw one squad of purifiers in possible charge range of the BA so we decided to run them back a little, just a shame we rolled a 2! Sure enough the purifiers killed the BA without breaking a sweat. Over on the left a couple of protracted combats saw Dave's 2 assault squads battling another BA tactical squad, honour guard with Tycho and 5 jump packers. Tycho and co. ran away and Dave eventually won the combat thanks to some appauling power fist rolls from Jamie. The shooting game was left to GK and Tau. One squad of broadsides and a crisis team were killed by Jamie's devastators though who were never really touched.

The Tau torrented Coteaz's squad to death but couldn't kill the GK razorbacks quickly enough. This left the inquistorial troops hugging objectives. The fire warriors also held one and Dave brought some jumpers back to hold another. Sadly the remaining purifier squad had holed up in the centre of the board and peppered them with fire. Sure enough, without a priest they were easily finished off and with the fire warriors forced to disembark we only had one shot to win it. The broadsides needed to blow up one of the razorbacks and hope the explosion killed one of the 3 occupants forcing them to run off the objective. It was a long shot but the explosion did wound one warrior acolyte. Sadly Matt passed the 5+ save and it was game over from then.



Game 3 - Tau & Orks (Torks) vs BA & Crimson Fists (SM)
Matt joined me with his 3 mobs of 30 boyz and Ghazghkull. The theory was again pretty simple again. Tau kill the vehicles, orks smash the occupants. Some early promise was there with the Crimson fists drop podding in near the orks, only killing a few and then the rest of the 30 boyz came their way!

Sadly the next Crimson fists drop pod had sternguard in which spelled doom for one of the other 30 boyz (with help from outflanking scouts and BA). This left the Tau exposed. The remaining orks were locked in combat with the scouts and despite winning the combat they were down to a boy and a nob. We caught a lucky break when Pedro Kantor charged the nob and they killed each other! One squad of crisis suits then peppered one combat squad of sternguard before charging in (!) to hold them in combat.

Meanwhile Ghaz saved one of the boyz mobs that had been charged by BA. The mob he'd left then headed back towards our lines to save the Tau. They arrived just in time to kill off the sternguard but a charge from the remaining assault marines finished them off. Ghaz killed off one of the dreads after it reduced him to 1 wound (triple 1 from Matt!) and the other took a railgun to the face.

The remaining Tau managed to kill off the BA that'd killed the Orks and by the end of turn 5 we'd all but tabled them.

Conclusion
All 3 games ended up being really closely fought. Neither side had a significant advantage and despite good and bad luck on both sides no-one got totally whitewashed. Sadly this probably means that none of these combinations are all that effective.


The problem with Tau being the shooters supported by something assaulty is that if the assault wing breaks then the enemy army spills through and wreaks havoc on the Tau. With the Tau totally focussed on anti-tank and hoping the assaulters deal with the troops they struggle to strop troops getting to them. Granted in both games they played they killed off a good pile of space marines but I can't pretend there wasn't a lot of luck involved.

 

We'd love to take something other than power armour but it certainly looks like we'll have to resort to it if we'd like to actually be in with a chance of winning most of our games.