Going into round 2 against QLD, spirits were good within the team but cautious none the less. In my humble opinion, QLD had perhaps the best lists in the event and I knew most of the names in the team list as players who knew their stuff. The match ups went well for the most part and surprisingly I was given the option to counter their Dark Eldar list with one of our own. Dark Eldar are one of my preferred armies to play but despite this, I felt the options they presented just did not outweigh the risk they carried by running them with no allies. This meant mine stayed on the shelf at home this year. QLD apparently disagreed – and because I am captain – I decided I would be the one to show them the error of their ways!
PLAYER 5: Hayden “Manskie” Manskie
LARGE DETACHEMENT: Dark eldar Combined arms detachement
HQ1: Lhamaean(warlord)(10) / venom(70)(2xsplinter cannon, enhanced aethersails) – 80pts
HQ2: Lhamaean(10) / venom(65)2xsplinter cannon) -75pts
Troops1: 5x warrior(1xblaster)(55) / venom(2x splinter cannon)(65) – 120pts
Troops2: 5x warrior(1xblaster)(55) / venom(2x splinter cannon)(65) – 120pts
Troops3: 5x warrior(1xblaster)(55) / venom(2x splinter cannon)(65) – 120pts
Troops4: 5x warrior(1xblaster)(55) / venom(2x splinter cannon)(65) – 120pts
Troops5: 5x warrior(40) / venom(2x splinter cannon)(65) – 105pts
Troops6: 5x warrior(40) / venom(2x splinter cannon)(65) – 105pts
Elites1: 5x Trueborn (2x dark lance(95)) / raider(1x dark lance)(60) – 155pts
Elites2: 5x Trueborn (2x dark lance(95)) / raider(1x dark lance)(60) – 155pts
Elites3: 5x Trueborn (2x dark lance(95)) / raider(1x dark lance)(60) – 155pts
Fast1: 1x raider – 55pts
Fast2: 1x raider – 55pts
Fast3: 1x raider – 55pts
Heavy1: 1x Ravager (3x dark lance) – 125pts
Heavy2: 1x Ravager (3x dark lance) – 125pts
Heavy3: 1x Ravager (3x dark lance) – 125pts
ARMY TOTAL=1850pts
This is the classic venom/boat spam turned up to 11. It packs 8 venoms, 6 raiders and 3 ravagers for a whopping 17 vehicles as well as 47 infantry. The list carries 18 dark lances, 4 blasters and well over 100 poison shots a turn. Its the kid of dark eldar list I like to play. Its main weakness is kill points but it makes up for it in this environment by scoring maelstrom points very easily. Hayden would most likely be expecting to give up first blood but he should get line breaker. He deploys and goes first, spreading the raiders and ravagers across the table and leaving the venoms in reserve to deep strike. I deploy with the knights at the front and the crawlers and dragoons behind them. The game would be decided like most dark eldar games – how well their lances worked. If rubber lance syndrome (RLS in my gaming circle!) struck, it was all over. If the lances were hot, it was going to be bad.
The game goes pretty much as I expected. I dropped 3 or 4 vehicles in the opening turn with the goal to whittle down his lance weapons that were an option to deal with the knights. I lost a couple of dragoons in the process as well as the vanguard to massed poison when they arrived turn 3 but the knights were essentially immune to most of the fire they faced. I took a hull point here and there but nothing I was worried about.
As the game progressed I was able to back the DE into the top left of the table and punish them with the large blasts at my disposal. The dune crawlers also showed why they are a force to fear against skimmers by simply deleting a vehicle every turn with ease. The problem I faced as I cut my way through the tissue box vehicles and paper armour warriors was that despite me racking up many kill points, the tournament capped the score from that at 8 points while the maelstrom he scored was uncapped – a score he was able to double during the game (about 11-22 in his favour).
The game continued into turn 6 and more dark eldar died. In fact, at the bottom of 6, only his warlord Lhamaean and a single venom were still on the table. We both had line breaker, neither of us had warlord (with my skitarii ranger alpha reduced to 1 wound from a late game rush of venoms) and I had first blood. If the game went to turn 7, Hayden agreed I would table him. The game ended turn 6 and left me a 14-6 win. Hayden was a nice guy and gracious throughout the game despite his obvious ‘thrown under the bus’ status as part of the match ups.
This was a game I never felt out of control with and one I knew I could win. I will admit I was disappointed not to get the 20-0 win I knew I could have gotten but mostly put that down to a glitch in the scoring mechanic as I had all but tabled Hayden while only losing the Dragoon unit and the Vanguard. I controlled almost all the objectives as well.
Them’s the breaks I guess!
The team would go on to claim 4 wins, a draw and 3 losses for a score of 79 (WA) to 81(QLD) after some fantastic games all round to net us a draw for the second time in 2 years against the queenslanders. This would turn out to be a high point as we were the only team to hold QLD to a draw for the event. Its perhaps one of the things I am most proud of for the event.
A couple of table shots for round 2 for you as well
