Tournament Report - Kill It With Fire (1750pts) - Dark Eldar in 6th

Having threatened to take my Dark Eldar to several Blog Wars and only managing it once I thought it was time to give them another tournament outing. I haven't actually used my DE in a tournament since 6th edition hit. The reason for this was the death of the webway as none of my vehicles were painted enough to take to the usual three colour minimum events. However, as I mentioned the other day, the Outpost don't require any paint on the models so it seemed a good way to end the year. My very simple list was covered here.

Game One - DE vs. Eldar
Having looked around the room and seen the usual plethora of big things, I wasn't surprised when I was paired up with Dan Eatch and a duo of wraithknights. However, considering nearly everything in my army wounds them on 4+ I can't say I was worried about them. The three wave serpents on the other hand....

We'd be playing what was essentially Relic (although for some reason the central objective was only worth 2 VPs) and Vanguard Strike deployment. The tournament also uses Blood Points in every round. Luckily for me I won both the deployment zone and first turn roll offs and also managed to get Night Fighting. However, with so few points up for grabs I'd need to get First Blood or I'd be on the back foot for the whole game.

I focused all four venoms and one of the ravagers on one of the wraithknights whilst the other ravager targeted a wave serpent. I assumed that four venoms would be more than enough to get the job done. That was of course assuming that Dan rolled a reasonable number of 1s and 2s on his armour saves. The first three venoms reduced the wraithknight to 2 wounds. When the fourth caused 6 wounds I felt confident that I'd not only downed one of the monsters but also secured First Blood. Sadly, the dice gods didn't favour me and Dan passed all six 3+ saves. All was not lost however, if the Ravager got lucky I'd still kill the thing. Unfortunately I only took one more wound leaving the wraithknight standing. The other ravager could only take a hull point from the wave serpent. Meanwhile my two raiders had blasted up the board so that I could make the most of the haywire grenades. With so many AV10 vehicles I was now almost guaranteed to give away First Blood.

Sure enough Dan easily took out the two raiders with the Hornets and Wraitknights. The wave serpents were underwhelming with low rolls on the serpent shields. Still they claimed hull points on the venoms. Fortunately for me one wraithknight failed his charge against Duke. The other wraithknight, with one wound remaining, attempted to charge the wyches. The wyches had other ideas though and caused two wounds with their splinter pistols which was enough to kill the mighty creature!! Lucky break for sure.

Duke and his squad attempted to finish off one of the wave serpents with their blasters but could only take a single hull point despite being in the rear arc. This forced them to go in with haywire grenades to finish the job. With the rear hatch blocked the dire avengers were forced to many an emergency disembarkation and were therefore pinned. The wyches pulled a similar number on Eldrad's wave serpent but without the pinning. The venoms lined up to gun down the second wraithknight but could only strip four wounds. The reavers had lined up to sweep across the dire avengers that I hoped would be out if I blew up a wave serpent. Instead they fired their splinter rifles at the wraithknight and yet again it survived on a single bloody wound.

However, with two of the serpents down and not much hope for the remaining wraithknight I felt pretty good about the game. What should've been the easiest vehicles to kill on the board, the hornets, proved to be near invincible and I didn't manage to stop them forcing enough 2+ saves for him to succumb to instant death. I was now a First Blood and Slay the Warlord down. When the warp spiders arrived in my back corner I was pretty much certain to give up Linebreaker too! My only hope then was to claim the objective. Luckily I still had all four kabalite units (the wyches had been gunned down by Eldrad's unit). I surrounded the objective so that it couldn't be contested so now I just needed to get Linebreaker and Slay the Warlord to claim a narrow victory. The reavers would almost certainly give me linebreaker but I'd need to shift Eldrad. Bladevanes had dealt with his dire avengers but he'd moved behind a building so only a single venom could see him. Luckily for me this was enough to gun him down and give me the 4-3 win with 1,560 BPs.

Game Two - DE vs. Space Marines (Minotaurs)

The event allowed Forge World so I was facing Minotaurs led by their funky character dude (Moloch or something?). Anyway, the list was essentially centurions, tac squads in rhinos, stormtalons, scouts and a thunderfire. I was jammy again and took the First Turn and Night Fighting.

We were playing Purge the Alien on Dawn of War which is pretty much the last thing I should be playing with a paper army like Dark Eldar. Once again then I'd need to get the secondaries if I could. I started the game well with the venoms and Duke's squad conspiring to give me Moloch as First Blood. Sadly my opponent, Mark, had made the librarian his warlord but two VPs was a good start. The rhinos had stayed off the board so I focused my efforts on the remainder of the army hoping I'd have freed up the ravagers to kill the rhinos when they arrived. Once again the wyches blasted forward, lost their transport but were able to charge the scouts and stayed locked for most of the game. This allowed me to slowly chip away at the centurions, eventually killing them and the librarian over my first few turns.

The stormtalons arrived and tried to gun down some of my vehicles. One of the venoms died off but my raider held on with a single HP. The rhinos arrived one at a time but as ever the ravagers (even with help from the voidraven) struggled to destroy them. One of the tac squads disembarked though which allowed me to kill them off for another point with massed fire from Duke. A ravager was able to focus fire on the techmarine and kill him off to get rid of both him and the thunderfire.

With the other rhino far from the action and the rest of the army pretty much wiped out the battle essentially boiled down to me trying to chip away a few more VPs whilst trying to keep my vehicles safe. When the dust settled at the end of turn 6 I'd scored 12 VPs (incl. 3 secondaries) to Mark's 5 giving me an unexpected second win with my Dark Eldar. The last game was guaranteed to be tough though!

Game Three - DE vs. Space Marines (Imperial Fists)

After I recovered from the shock of being on table one with my Dark Eldar, I discovered I'd be playing even more Space Marines but this time of the Imperial Fists variety (although sadly not yellow). Kev Cochrane was equally surprised to be on table one but clearly he must know what he was doing to have got there. The mission we'd be playing involved dividing the board into six 2'x2' zones which any unit could control or contest. The exception being ICs who could contest but not control. The three zones in my table half would be worth four points to Kev but only two to me.

This time around I wasn't so lucky and, despite getting to pick deployment for the third time in a row, I wouldn't be going first this time. I did, however, manage to get the Night Attacker warlord trait I'd been trying to get all day. Kev had some centurions, a thunderfire, three rhinos with tac squads, some bikes with a captain, a stalker and a stormtalon. The bikes and centurions were likely to make mincemeat of my vehicles so it was always going to be an uphill struggle. I had a brief glimmer of hope when I successfully rolled to Seize only to be reminded that it wasn't in play in the final mission. Gutted.

Sure enough two of my venoms went down to the centurions straight away thanks to Split Fire. One kabalite unit was pinned whilst the other was reduced in number. The bikes turbo-boosted forward to be in range of my other venoms in turn two. Luckily the thunderfire could only cause a single hull point on one of the ravagers and the stalker was scuppered by Night Fighting. Two of the rhinos advanced on my right flank whilst the third hit the left. Kev had infiltrated some scouts which put them in range of a turn 1 charge by my wyches. The remaining venoms targeted the bikes but thanks to some great rolling from Kev they only suffered a single casualty. One ravager dealt with the stalker whilst the other attempted to take out the rhino on my left. As ever it failed to do so and I was feeling very pressed in.

The bikes charged into my venoms destroying one whilst the other made its flickerfield saves and survived. One tactical squad disembarked on the right and gunned down some kabalites. The scouts were wiped out by the wyches which left them free to charge the tactical squad. Despite having two pain tokens, and hence Furious Charge, the wyches failed to kill a single marine and would stay locked for a couple of turns. Eventually they lost the combat and fled only to be gunned down in the next enemy turn.

For some reason the bikes seemed invincible. Despite wounding them on 4s like everything else I couldn't seem to make Kev fail any armour saves. To look at the board at this point you'd think it was obvious that I'd lost. At the back of my mind though I was thinking about the mission which stated that if you controlled all three of your enemy's zones at the end of any turn then you won automatically with full VPs. To do that I'd need to shift the thunderfire, crippled stalker and centurions. One of the ravagers easily dealt with the thunderfire (thanks to jammy rolling). The centurions were another matter though. With Kev easily making 3+ saves on his bikes I didn't fancy my chances against the 2+ save centurions.

The mistake I made was to fire the flyer at the bikes instead of the centurions but at the time they seemed like a priority target. Indeed I was in danger of giving up my zones and an automatic win too. The captain had split from the bikes and was working his way through my back line. The tactical squads had dealt with the kabalites and wyches. I'd kept my two squads of reavers in reserve and was trying to make the most of their bladevanes by sweeping back and forth across the board.

At the end of Kev's turn 5, I had to assess my options. I'd need to contest some of my own zones whilst still going for some of my opponent's. With Kev having scored all three secondaries I needed at least 4 more points than him from the zones. There was still a chance I could pull a win from this game. My ravager controlled the left hand enemy zone, the centurions would control the centre and my voidraven (flyers could score) swept into the right hand zone giving me a 6 VP lead in his half. In my own half I had tactical squads claiming two zones and a bike contesting the third with my kabalites. I swept the reavers back into my central zone to contest it but that still left me a point behind. My only hope was that the three remaining kabalites could finally gun down the last biker. In a final bit of luck they did the job giving me two points for the zones and a 10-9 victory.

Conclusion

I'd managed to win all three games with my Dark Eldar and hoped that winning on the top table would give me a tournament win too. Sadly, Matt had other ideas and he took maximum points from his game on table two to win and push me into second place. I can't complain at that though as my target for the day was to win at least one of my games!

Could I have won the event outright though? Obviously luck plays a major factor at tournaments. If I'd done better in my opening game then I'd have probably ended up with stiffer competition in the second and probably been smacked back down. The only way I could've won would've been to claim maximum points from the final game and that never really felt possible.

In the first game I really should've focused on First Blood though and concentrated all of my fire on a single wraithknight. There was nothing stopping me from doing it and to leave it on a single wound was hugely frustrating.

There's no denying I was lucky to go first in 2 out of 3 games and certainly lucky to get Night Fighthing throughout. Both of those things are HUGE for Dark Eldar. You really need to cripple your opponent early on to minimise the damage you'll receive in return. I gambled by not taking Baron to give me a better chance of going first but I always struggle with what to do with him. Duke did well (despite me forgetting my actual Duke model and borrowing a Farseer to replace him). He died in two of the games but not before doing his job. Having all those 3+ poisoned shots in a game dominated by big creatures is excellent.

In fact, poisoned shooting is excellent right now. Having four venoms causing on average 16 wounds per turn no matter what they target is difficult for any big thing to deal with. I'm not sure how effective they've be against tons of Tyranid MCs but at least they don't care about Iron Arm.

The biggest thing I'll take away from today is to not give up. In the final game I was very much on the back foot and the blood point totals of 738 to 1,320 attest to that. I've been in Kev's position before, feeling like you've got your opponent on the ropes only to lose in the last throw of the dice. It's why objective games exist I suppose but I know how frustrating it can be from the other side. They key thing though is to keep up the pretense that you've got no hope. If you've always got a wry smile on your face despite heavy losses then your opponent is going to get paranoid and realise they haven't got it all sewn up.

Right, that's more than enough rambling. This will almost certainly be my last tournament of the year and I'm glad I've ended on a high. Clearly people have forgotten how to play Dark Eldar so it's time they got some love even if GW doesn't seem to have a codex on the horizon for them.

Building A Better Blog Wars - Lessons from BW6

I've already talked about the bad (the tabling problem) and the ugly (me winning) so it's about time I looked at what was good about Blog Wars 6 and what it means for BW7. From the feedback I've had from various people it seems that despite my perception the event actually went quite well. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think it was a total disaster but I'd certainly say from my perspective the organisation was poor in comparison to previous events. Anyway, this was meant to be positive...

Custom Scenarios
Whilst I enjoy tournaments where the scenarios are completely unique, what often happens is that players write their lists to exploit some unforeseen loophole. It's how 40K is played I suppose but I was keen not to stray too far from the rulebook missions when creating the Blog Wars scenarios in the hopes of having a fairly level playing field (if such a thing is possible).

I think the Purge the Alien variant that I ran actually worked for the most part. I decided to make it the first mission of the day as, although people were probably half awake, the round would be followed by lunch so there'd be time to crunch those numbers without delaying the next game. This would've worked had I not messed up the scores for the stand-ins. Having an old school VP (let's call them Blood Points/BP to avoid confusion) based first mission meant the scores were more varied and people were less likely to end up with identical scores and/or duplicate matches. I recorded the raw number of BP in the spreadsheet so that if all else failed I could use it as a tie-breaker. I was tempted to make people record BP in every game but no-one likes adding all the numbers up and I think once in a day is enough. I know they're a ballache to calculate but hopefully people can see the need for it.

The "Emperor's Relic" mission seemed to achieve it's aim of making people push for the central objective and/or opponent's objective rather than sit back and play for First Blood like the Emperor's Will encourages. Perhaps that's just my perception though, how did everyone else find it? There's very little to say about Crusade as it was essentially the same as the rulebook mission but with 5 VP per objective but I think it was a good way to end the day. Having a mission with a large number of objectives encourages people to tailor their lists accordingly and hopefully not just rely on cheap scoring units to do their objective grabbing.

Generally speaking the scenarios seemed to work well. There was the tabling issue of course but I've explained why I believe it works despite it's many detractors. I think the missions were pretty straightforward and with the exception of a few exceptions (see below) I don't think there was anything to cause problems.

Scoring System
The idea this time around was to have all of the rounds be worth 25 VP each. In practice this didn't totally work thanks to the wonder that is 40K. The first mission in particular had a number of units which caused problems. Tau Ethereals give an extra VP when they die, Lone Wolves give up points when they survive, Bjorn gives up multiple VP if he dies, Tervigons and Portalglyphs create extra points, etc. etc. Some of these also affected the objective games but they were more of a problem in the Purge the Alien mission.

There'll always be exceptions to the rules, it's the way 40K is made. The difficulty is in deciding how to incorporate these into the scoring without making things too unfair. Despite the theoretical 25pt limit there were a couple of games where more points were scored. I'm not really sure why people were spawning termagants in a game based on Blood Points but each to their own. Before the next event I need to go through all of the books and try to identify any possible bonus points that could be scored so that I can list them in the rules pack to clarify everything before the event. It's difficult to know if people were adding the 150 bonus points on for killing the special character but next time I'll probably alter the score sheet so it's easier to see.

I think in round one I ought to consider giving the scores with a decimal place. This will help differentiate better between the scores and should clear up why someone seems to have an identical score but actually places above someone else.

Other Stuff
I've changed my mind a few times about whether to allow Forge World or not. For now at least, I'm going to keep things as they are and not permit it at Blog Wars 7. Despite the "official announcement" that people seem to think is necessary for it to be legal in 40K, I actually believe it is perfectly legal to use it in regular games of 40K.  I'm not the only TO to stop people bringing FW units and I hope people can understand the reasoning. I may have to review this when the new expansion comes next month but I can't see me changing my mind.

I'm having difficulty deciding about the Inquisition codex and supplements at the moment. On the one hand I love them from a fluff perspective but they make the game even more complicated than it already is. I think BW7 may be the last time I allow supplements depending on how well they work and what new ones are released between now and then. In the same way as FW models, you don't want to stop people bringing something fun and fluffy but I want to minimise the amount of dirty combinations that are possible without specific comps.

Conclusion
Despite a couple of notable failures on my part, I know what went wrong and I know what I can do to stop it happening at Blog Wars 7. I've already put work into improving the scorecards and spreadsheet to make the scoring smoother and more reliable.

The main thing I need right now are comments from you guys. What worked, what didn't and what should I be doing that I'm not or vice versa? If you don't want to comment here then by all means email me. I'll be announcing BW7 shortly so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Tau Army After Action Thoughts - Blog Wars 6

Blog Wars 6 may have been quite a while ago but sadly I've been too busy to get much content up since then. I've already decided that I'm giving Tau a break for a while but, before I put them to bed, I'd like to run through what worked and what didn't in my most recent Tau list. Head over here for my list.

Ethereal

When testing my list prior to the event I really noticed the difference when I didn't include an Ethereal. They're disgustingly cheap for what they offer but their drawback is that they cost you an HQ slot. Still for the leadership bubble alone I think they're worth it. Perhaps I was doing something wrong but I kept my Ethereal in his Devilfish the whole time and measured from the vehicle which obviously increased his range. I can't find anything to say you can't do this but maybe someone will enlighten me.

Nevertheless the Ethereal really makes the fish of fury tactic effective. It wasn't difficult to get all three squads of fire warriors to disembark in range of the Ethereal and make full use of Storm of Fire.

Fire Warriors
These guys certainly have their detractors across in the internet. In fact, it's rare to see any in a list. Most people look to Kroot or Allies for their Troops. I really think mechanised Fire Warriors can work though. Basically you keep pile them all out to put a ton of S5 shots onto something and then mount the surviving warriors back up if they take some serious fire. There are going to be times when you lose some of them but hopefully they've done their job before that happens.

They really rely on the Ethereal though. They're not useless without him but they aren't stellar either. Your opponent will be pretty disgusted by the number of dice you pick up when you fire with them at full strength and that's always a nice feeling.

Shadowsun and Bodyguard

My problem with Shadowsun was that I simply forgot her rules most of the time. There were a few occasions where she was out in the open and I forgot that her unit got a 4+ cover save thanks to Stealth & Shrouded. The bodyguard are pretty much essential I'd say to allow her to pass off S6+ wounds onto them. Her Warlord Trait allows her to cover ground quickly which means you can make the most of her fusion blasters and keep out of harm's way too.

There were times when I missed my usual commander though and I still think in non-BW games I'd take my fusion/plasma commander over Shadowsun. You're always paranoid about her getting hit by something and you have to steer well clear of combat at all costs. Her drones are excellent though as they make her unit pretty sturdy and devastatingly accurate if you get a markerlight or two.

Kroot
It frustrates me that they lost their S4 and extra attack but this firmly puts them into the shooting category in my mind. There's rarely a need to charge them in. They were disgustingly lucky in my first game but the rest of the time they either got ignored or were easily dealt with. They're there to grab objectives for cheap so you don't have to expect much else from them and you won't be disappointed.

I couldn't find 10pts to give my two units a hound each but I have to say I didn't really miss them. This is probably mostly due to my fire warriors having some mobility but also you have to think carefully about objective placement.

Crisis Team (Missile Pods)

I spent 10pts to the two shas'ui suits a flamer each but I don't remember using them once. Obviously, there are times when they might come in handy but generally you're trying to keep the missile suits around 36" away from their targets.

These guys did what was asked of them providing ranged anti-vehicle fire. They do, of course, struggle against AV12+ but that's where the fusion weapons in the list come into play. The PENchip makes a massive difference for anti-tank and is great when fighthing the many MCs that are around these days.

Pathfinders

As you might expect these guys are a bit hit and miss. You have to accept that anyone who knows about Tau will take them out ASAP and deploy them as far forwards as you can to make the most of them whilst they're alive. Having them for the first couple of turns is worth the points in my opinion. Being able to decimate enemy infantry and vehicles alike with the rest of your army in turn one or two is vital.

Marker drones with a buff commander are definitely better at marking targets whilst staying alive but for the same points I'm lighting up three different targets with three marker hits pretty reliably. I'm keen to stick to three units as invariably at least one makes it past turn two and can make the difference between victory and defeat. There's something satisfying (dirty as it is) in firing an S8 AP2 pie-plate and killing everything under the template. Speaking of which....

Riptides

Undoubtedly the most dirty part of the list. There's no question that using a pair of them won't make you many friends. With the benefit of hindsight I shouldn't have taken them to an event like Blog Wars but they were definitely made to look better by the armies I faced.

I've sung their praises plenty of times before. Some people are saying SMS is the way to go for dealing with Eldar jetbikes but that opportunity to fusion a flyer is just too tempted I'm afraid!

The List in General 
I'm much happier playing this Tau list instead of my static gunline version. Seeing the confused look on my opponents' faces when I advanced my army towards them was priceless. I love using Tau but simply don't enjoy sitting back and shooting. It's a shame that's what 40K has become but I'd much rather be getting stuck in and taking the fight to my opponent.

The list works well together with every part of it being a crucial cog in the machine. There's no doubt that the new codex is powerful and I don't think it takes much to come up with a strong list but I'm glad I can at least do something a little different from the norm and still do well. I promise that should I end up playing at BW7 I'll be bringing something A LOT friendlier.

What I'd like to try is running the list without any riptides and replacing them with more crisis suits and perhaps even more fire warriors! Anyway, the Tau are going back on the shelf for a little while whilst I dust off my Dark Eldar. I've loved playing a top flight army for a change but it's time to move on I think.