The Great Hunt - Dark Eldar Vs Tyranids 1850 pts

Hello and welcome back to the webway. Today I am going to do a battle report on what is essentially the fastest battle I have ever played. This battle only took me 2 turns to win, but there's a reason why it happened the way it did, and I actually felt sorry for my opponent. This battle was done in the US about 1 week before my first battle report for the Dark Eldar (Chaos Space Marines vs Dark Eldar) which could be found in the blog.

Without further ado here's my list;

Archon
Agoniser
Haywire Grenade
Soul-trap
Combat Drugs
Djinn Blade
Shadowfield

total : 155 pts

Haemonculi x 3

total: 150 pts

Trueborn x 3
Blaster x 3
Venom with two splinter cannon

Total: 146 pts

Trueborn x 4

Blaster x 4

Venom with two splinter cannon

Total: 173 pts

Incubi x 5

Klaivex with Onslaught x 1

Raider with Flickerfield

Total: 227 pts

Wyches x 8

Hekatrii with Agoniser x 1

Haywire grenades x 8

Raider with Flickerfield

total: 196 pts

Wyches x 9

Hekatrii with Agoniser x 1

Haywire grenades x 9

Raider with Flickerfield

total: 208

Warriors x 5

Blaster x 1

Venom with two splinter cannon

toal: 125 pts

Warriors x 5

Blaster x 1

Venom with two splinter cannon

toal: 125 pts

Ravager

Dark Lance x 3

Flickerfield

total: 115 pts

Ravager

Dark Lance x 3

Flickerfield

total: 115 pts

Ravager

Dark Lance x 3

Flickerfield

My list is somewhat an upgraded version of the list I have put forth before. My Incubi are more survivable now, but otherwise the list is still the same more or less.

My opponent's list is a Nidzilla list, and despite knowing the fact that I can defeat this list, I should not underestimate the ability of the list.

Swarmlord with 2 tyrand guards

Zoantropes x 2 in Mycetic Spore

Doom of Malantai x 1 in mycetic spore

Genestealers x 10

Termagants x 10

Termagants x 10

Tervigon x 1

Tervigon x1

Trygon

Trygon

Trygon

His list is somewhat scary if I were playing any other list (exception would be my Orks and Sisters, as they love these bastards). Hopefully with the abundance of darklight weaponry and poisoned weapons I will be able to do something.

Vespera could see the ruined Imperial city burning from the invasion of the fleshed horrors, and although she could savour the agony of the world's population, but today she is here with a quest; to hunt out a monstrous being that the humans called the Swarmlord. From the sound of it, it would be a worthy slave-monster to be sent to the Wych arenas. Nonetheless from what she discovered from the fleshed horror's exploits in the past few days, they made a mockery of even the strongest of the human warriors, the Space Marines. If they can not survive their onslaught what chance does that give her fragile forces?

But alas, this is why the thrill of the hunt is so exquisite....

Terrain Deployment and Mission

The terrain is interesting for fully half of the terrain is urban (the right side of the table), and the other half is mostly hills and trees (the left side). A large building is located in the center, providing what is essentially a vital cover for both our forces. 

The deployment that we rolled is Spearhead a.k.a quarters, and the mission we rolled is Annihilation (I do not mind this mission, but I still am not a big fan of it). As for my Combat Drugs, I rolled what s arguably the best drug result ; reroll to wounds. Nice.

We both rolled, and he took first turn. He deployed his forces at the upper right side of the table, where there are a lot more terrain than the rest of the table. He puts the Malantai, Zoantropes, genestealers and trygons into reserve.

This unfortunately places me at the most barren side of the table, with only that huge terrain to save my vehicles. With that, I decided to place everything as forward as possible, in preparation of a reduced alpha strike. The usual deployment of Venoms in front, the Raiders in the second layer and Ravagers in the third layer would suffice.

I tried to seize the initiative, but I rolled a 5 (so close yet so far). With that our match begin.

Turn 1

Vespera could only see the scuttling horrors breaking through the ruins, with the larger ones surrounded by a sea of little ones. But alas, her predictions are right. The Swarmlord, a magnificent specimen of its kind leads forward with  its hulking bodyguards, bellowing. The other creatures brayed and screech as they marched forth. The path they took is a straight one, which could only mean two things, either they do not know that her forces are there, or they are goading her to go forward to her death. Vespera could only chuckle as she commanded her Ravagers and Venoms to take out the largest of the creatures.

As the splinters and darklight hit their mark, countless death shrieks echoes through the air, and Vespera could see that her warriors are enjoying every moment of this.

Tyranids

The Tyranid player decided to march forth carefully and his tervigons bred even more termagants. From a total of 20 on the table, the termagants now number around 30+. So far none of his things are in range and the huge terrain in the middle blocks his line of sight towards my own forces.

Dark Eldar

I decided to use a pincer movement, and I moved a number of my forces to the right and a small number to the upper left of the table. With careful maneuvering, I managed to see and target all the Tervigons and the Swarmlord. With the opening salvo of splinter cannons, I managed to kill both the Tervigons despite the fact that they are in cover (Splinter cannons care not if they are in cover) , and the chain reaction from the killing of the Tervigons slaughtered all the termagants with them,. The lances from both the ravagers and raiders killed off all of the tyrant guards, and left the Swarmlord with but a single wound.

Turn 2

So, even the Swarmlord can be ambushed. Seeing that the large monster mortally wounded, Vespera decided that she should capture this thing with her own hands. The creature attempts to escape, but nonetheless her raider is faster, and accompanied by another raider, Vespera and her consorts leap towards the Swarmlord and like little razorwings, they took on the Swarmlord. Despite its injury, it is a formidable opponent. Standing fully three times the height of an Eldar, and with four sabres which were as much of a weapon as its own body, it swings the sabre with the agility and poise totally at odds with its own size. As the sabres swept the earth around them causing her consorts to be pinned, Vespera with sense honed through millenia of conflict surges forward and with a single lash towards the leg of the beast, she maimed the creature and the Swarmlord fell down towards the earth with a thundering slam. The crystal skull-shaped soul-trap attempts to suck away the soul of the Swarmlord, but nonetheless to Vespera's surprise it failed. It seems that this monster's will is much stronger than she expected.

Tyranid

 The Nid player, reeling from the monstrous salvo from my forces rolled his reserves, and almost all his reserves came in, all save the Trygons. His genestealers managed to arrive behind my force and thus he drops his pods around the vicinity to take advantage of this. His Swarmlord reels back into cover to prevent an untimely death from my forces.

The Malantai is all but useless against my Mech force, and his Zoantropes failed their psychic tests to use theri Warp Lance ability. In the assault phase, his genestealers charged into my raider and two venoms but failing to do anything to the vehicles.

Dark Eldar

Seeing that his forces are all out like that, I moved my Wych raiders towards the Swarmlord and disembark all my Wyches and Archon, while the rest of the force went ahead and put the Nid counterattack in their sights. And just for safe measures, I decided to also deploy the Incubi out to slaughter the survivors.

With a great salvo of Dark Lances and Poisoned weapons the Doom of Malantai, the Mycetic Spores and genestealers are dead, and only the two Zoantropes are alive (amazing saves in their part). The archon and two squads of wyches charged the Swarmlord and the Incubi charged the Zoantropes. Suffice to say, both of the Zoantropes are slaughtered, and despite the death of a single Wych, I managed to bring down the Swarmlord with my Archon but unfortunately I failed to suck the soul of the Swarmlord.

With the overwhelming table superiority that I have on the table, and the futility that one often feels when a reserve is going to kill you more than it would help you, my opponent realized that the battle is already lost. With that he conceded.

Results and Afterthought

The fell creature breathed laboriously as its wounds gets the better of it, and Vespera could only watch as the thing expires. Despite her objective of catching this monster for her own profit, but the irony that she had denied herself of her own price is something of a blow to her pride. Despite that, she reasoned that she could always take the body of this creature and embalmed it to be put into her hall of trophies so that she can boast to people about how she took down a monster like that by her own. 

"Take the body of this monster and bring it back with us." Vespera commands. She was about to walk forth into her own raider when one of her trueborns came forth.

"Milady, we manage to capture three hulking monsters with us." The Trueborn then takes out a holographic device and showed the Archite the monsters. Three different screens popped out and to Vespera's delight, she see that these things are significantly larger than the Swarmlord itself, each bound to the ground by electrocorrosive nets and sedated. Behind the faceless helm, Vespera could only smile.....

Tyranid: 0 kp

Dark Eldar: 17 kp

Dark Eldar Victory!

From what I can see I realize that my opponent underestimated the firepower and maneuverability of my force, and he reserved everything to take advantage of any gaps in my line. But the underestimation, combined with very bad rolls on his part caused him the game. Personally if I were the Nid player, I would deploy myself way back in order to force me to move to his forced much later. Fro the way he moved his Tyrant, I actually could go about a first turn charge. But the only thing that is holding me back at the time is the idea that the Doom could take advantage of the situation and make things worse for me. Alas, I did not take the bait until the Malantai is out and dead.

As for how I think this list works, it worked like clockwork. But alas, I believe that if I did not murder those tervigons early, I could have a horde problem on my hand, and thus would actually lose out to the little things. Add that with the other elements, and I could potentially suffer a catastrophic defeat if I did one thing out of turn or out of sequence.