Life is tough = less stuff on blog

Heya all.

Sorry about the lack of input these days, but life is getting a big piece of my time and I am unable to even do anything much save for some very minuscule painting on my part.

I have a battle report just sitting there incomplete, and I will try to get back to it ASAP. That and also playing more games.

The Longing for the Sea - Dark Eldar vs Space Marines 1750 pts

Heya all, and welcome back!

This is a battle report that I did of the battle yesterday at Knightfall Games with Mr. Pac. and without further ado, here's the battle report.

Ranisold learned of the wounding of Vespera and indeed, in his role as the ArchDracon of the Kabal of Raturous Venom, it is his duty to take over the realspace raids of the Kabal. But nonetheless, this means that he will have to leave the sanctity of voidspace to enter planetspace. This time the Kabal needs to get its slaves from a world where massive populations lived underground to weather the heat of this unforgiving world. And a might of almost a company of Space Marines only served to make this harder on Ranisold.

Killing Space Marines is nothing to Ranisold, but putting him upon this world served as a direct insult to him. Ranisold loved space, for it reminds him of the vast, cold oceans from which he grew up. He never loved being on terra firma, for he felt that it is artificial and lifeless and the barren hot deserts of this world only served to make him miss the cold, living voidspace.  But nonetheless he will need to get over it somehow, for the Kabal is now faced with the Space Marine chapter known as the Exorcist.

Before long, the Kabal began its attack run.

Pregame

Army lists

Dark Eldar

Duke Sliscus

Haemonculus with Liquifier Gun

Haemonculus with Liquifier Gun and Venom Blade

2 squads of 3 Trueborns with Blasters on Venom with 2 splinter cannons

1 squad of 9 Kabalite Warriors with a Blaster on a Raider with Flickerfield

2 squads of 8 Wyches with Haywire Grenades and Hekatrix with Agoniser on a Raider with Shock Prow, Torment Grenade Launchers, Flickerfield and Enhanced Aethersail

2 squads of 5 warriors with a Blaster on Venom with 2 splinter cannons

3 Ravagers with Dark Lances and Flickerfields

This is essentially my second time using Sliscus (the first being in a small tournament for the Japanese Tsunami victims) and this time I decided to design the list around Sliscus. The abilities that I would use in its priority are Drugs, Deepstriking, and Enhanced Poisoning. Nonetheless I am flexible with my deployment and could just deploy as normal

Space Marines

Librarian with powers I forgotten about (never understood psychic powers)

2 squads of 10Tactical Marines with heavy bolters and flamer with sergeant with power weapon

2 squads of 10 Tactical Marines with Missile Launchers and  with Sergeant with Powerfists

1 squad of 10 Tactical Marines with Multi Melta and plasmagun

1 squad of 10 Assault Marines with Flamers

1 squad of 10 Devastators with 4 lascannons

1 Thunderfire Cannon

That is a whole lot of marines. And a whole lot of different weaponry too. I am essentially outnumbered by Marines.

Mission and Deployment

The mission is Annihilation (curses) and the deployment is Spearhead (hurray!). We roll off to see who gets the highest rolls and thank the die, I managed to get to pick who gets to be first. With that I decided to take first turn and take the bottom left part of the table. The reason being is because the sheer amount of rock pillars would be quite instrumental in my plans to survive and give my forces a fighting chance against the myriads of lascannons, missile launchers and heavy bolters. 

To further protect my forces against any setbacks, I deployed in my standard deployment style when I want more flexibility in my movement phase. I then rolled for my drugs, and the results I have gotten thanks to Sliscus' rules are 1+ WS and gaining an additional pain token. Seeing that by taking the second pain token I do not have to do as much killing to become a greater threat, I took the pain token roll.

 My opponent on the other hand is making lots of bubbles of infantry that is taking advantage of the cover I gave him. His Thunderfire is tucked way behind a sea of men, and his forces are deployed to force me to cross his infantry while he guns me down.

With our deployment done, he attempted to seize the initiative but failed to do so. With that, the game begins.

Turn 1

Ranisold rarely conducts a realspace raid upon a planet, and to be honest he had not done so in over an age. However the terrain is such that it reminded him of the asteroid fields that he is all to familiar with. To his chagrin his vessel is engulfed in flame, but no one (especially himself) is not wounded in the process. 


Ranisold is truly insulted by this act of wanton violence. No one inflicts the violence on him. His hatred for this world and everything living upon it becomes greater with every moment.

The first turn for me is quite simple. Anything that will not stand a chance to even shoot at something important will turboboost. So with that I turboboosted two of my ravagers so that nothing could see them, and the Raiders will act as shields for the others. The Venoms just move 12" to take advantage of the closest target to them and likewise with the leftmost ravager.

In the shooting phase, the combined firepower of the venoms and the leftmost ravager managed to whittle down the frontmost squad of marines down to 6 men, but fortunately for my opponent, they stay put.

 During his turn, he moved his Assault Marines forward, and nothing else moved. He proceed to use the Assault Marines to flame the Raider with the Duke in it, but only managing to stun it. He fired his Thunderfire cannons at the frontmost Wych Raider and managed to immobilized it. He then fired quite a number of shots at the Wych Raiders, causing the frontmost Raider to be immobilized and the other one to be shaken. Lucky me. But then he proceed to throw enough firepower at it (damn you lascannons) to destroy the leftmost Ravager.

He also managed to shoot one of the Trueborn Venoms with one of the Missile Launchers, shaking in in the process.

Turn 2

Royally pissed as any noble should be, Ranisold decides that this is enough and before the rest of his Kabalites could do anything he leap forth from his craft and went on running across the field under heavy fire towards the wyches who are getting out from their immobilized craft. As he met them, he noticed that the Wyches have located a weakness in the barricades of the Marines. He joined them at their tail.

The wyches looked at him and despite his unneeded presence, the Wyches took him in. Maybe he could prove something to them or maybe not. Vespera is a much more lenient employer who let them do what they want. This one? They are not sure until he fell pon his opponent like a monster possessed.

"This one is a keeper. He fights with his glaive very well." One of the Wych said to the other as he stabs the eye out of one of the Marines. 

Indeed, Ranisold fought like a Clawed Fiend and with every swipe he managed to slaughter ever more. Those that his blade grazed twitched upon the floor in excruciating agony, while those whom his blade touches with the certainty of a mortal wound would glow from within before the light exited their bodies and turned them to a puddle of muck. 

Before long, a humming voice from the ArchDracon signalled that the ArchDracon is ready for another fight and  the ArchDracon charged forward. The Wyches are uncertain about this character but they followed him nonetheless. 

Now that it is my turn, I decided that this is the make or break turn and went ahead and do a few things:

1) Deploy the duke out and move him towards the immobilized wych transport.I then deployed the wyches, and via auto-attachment the Duke attaches itself to the squad and they moved together with three pain tokens. Moving the other squad of wyches closer to the enemy second layer of men is the next natural step for me.                                                                                   

2) Deploy the 9-men kabalites out to get their sights on the Assault Marines (thank my opponent for pointing out that I can not shoot within stunned vehicles. Learned something new today). Move Venoms to their vaulted positions, and the trueborns getting themselves out of their transports. Ravagers moved to get LoS on that Thunderfire cannons.

During my shooting phase, via the combined efforts of a venom, the 9-men Kabalites, and the Trueborn squad I managed to wipe out the Assault Marines and allow the Trueborns to gain a pain token. The other Venoms (except the one that can't shoot) proceed to fire upon the left most squad and managed to kill 3 more marines. The Rightmost Ravager fired at the Thunderfire cannon, and he was about to remove the model where I reminded him that he has a cover save. It is a way to thank him for telling me of the stunned vehicle thing, and he attempted to take his cover saves. But alas, the Thunderfire and the Techmarine went poof. A few more sporadic shooting and I killed off one marine from the Devastator squad, and two more marines from the first column. 

With that, I multicharge the first and second lines of the Space Marines and thanks to the Furious Charge, I managed to take a score of 8 Marines down with me for 4 of my own. The squad in the middle broke and ran off the table.

With nothing much to fire upon, he moved one of his squads back to give his last bunch of men another human shield.

During the shooting phase, The devastators tried to shoot down the closest raider and to their credit, managed to wreck it. The Haemonculus within comes out and passed his pinning test. He also fired  a heavy bolter at my Ravager, but my ravager managed to shrug everything off using its flickerfield.

With that we returned back to combat, and the squad with the Duke managed to wipe out the Marine squad and consolidated 5" towards the enemy lines. The other Wych squad also managed to win their battle, but the Marine squad courageously stood their ground.

I was about to start my 3rd turn when my opponent asked me; do I want to continue on? He then said that essentially I drove him to the corner and there is nothing much he could do especially when the bulk of my forces are out there and will shoot him as the wyches come forth and do their 'thing'. I told him that it is his choice to see if he wants to continue on. But then he deferred back to me, and seeing that this battle is indeed turning into a massacre rather than a game I call it good and accepted his surrender. With that the game ended.

The results
Ranisold stopped, and the Wyches stopped as well. What is wrong with this person? He is crazy to stop in the middle of the battle at the sight of those weaponry. Suddenly, the ArchDracon began to speak in the tongue of the Mon-Keigh;

"The Moon silently tells, 
in a voice unheard by all,
of the ever repeating rise of the tide.
whose sight I remember from my fading memories.


The stars secretly tells 
with letters known by none,
of infinite swirling worlds 
that birth life beyond count.


The sky is too vast for one such as me, 
and the pace of time is far too swift.
Forever lost, the worlds gathered for naught
Simply rot away inside the earth.


Even so I will shout out, 
I will raise my voice not knowing why
At least it echo will reach out ,
and before long the light will rise


The Sea calls us home, 
to rest upon the waves. 

But, out of the Great Sea to worlds I come.
inflicting the endings of worlds."

The screaming jets of several Razorwings passed by them and the crescendo of monoscythe missiles accompanied the singing, and before long the shockwaves sliced the Marines into several pieces, and the Wyches could only watch as this Dracon speak his proses. The booming of the missiles and the shrill screaming of the Space Marines compliments his singing in a symphony of madness. As the battlefield turns silent. A small whisper escapes Ranisold's mouth, unheard by the rest of the Kabal.


"The seas of the void is my home, and no one will say otherwise."

Dark Eldar: 4 KP (as it stands without the surrender)

Space Marines: 2 KP

Dark Eldar Victory!

Overall, I guess my plans worked out the way it did, and the sacrifice of shooting for the 2 Ravagers and the Raiders for the sake of getting a better, decisive shot in the game paid off and I managed to do what I want. Add that with superior terrain cover (my forces are mostly having lots of 4+ cover saves) and LOS-blocking terrain and it turned nasty pretty quickly with the right application of order of movement and target prioritization. My army is never designed to truly engage with infantry, so this in itself is a nice thing.

As for my opponent, despite the LOS-blocking terrain, he managed to make the best out of it and used the terrain to funnel me in. The only thing that I would have to say as to why it turned so ugly for him is the idea that he deployed his forces too closely to mine. If he woould lump them back even more, I would have to move more and the terrain would actually funnel my forces and proceed to make things a living hell for me. His Assault Marines should be held back until he could see the opportunity to burn things (Wyches come to mind) and charge them to get a decisive win.