Round 3 of the WATC and I am on a win and a draw with Harlequins! Could it be any better? Well yes it could but that’s not the point!
This round sees us play one of teams we were most concerned about facing… and we get the match ups sorted just the way we planned! I face down a force that is very familiar to me – Dark Eldar with Harlequins!
Dark Eldar: (Combined Arms Detachment)
HQ1: Archon, Agoniser, Armour of Misery, Haywire Webway Portal
HQ1: Court of the Archon – 1 Lhameans , Raider, Dark Lance, Enhanced Aethersails, 3x Sslyth
HQ2: Court of the Archon – 1 Lhameans, Venom, 2 Splinter Cannons
El1: 3x Mandrake
Trp1: 5 Kabalite Warriors, 1 Blaster, Venom, 2 Splinter Cannon
Trp2: 5 Kabalite Warriors, Raider, Disintegrator
Trp3: 5 Kabalite Warriors, 1 Blaster, Venom, 2 Splinter Cannon
Fst1: Reaver Jetbikes, Blaster, Cluster catrops, 3x Jetbikes
Fst2: Raider, Disintegrator, Enhanced Aethersails, Nightshield
Fst3: Raider, Disintegrator, Enhanced Aethersails
Hvy1: Ravager, 3 Dark Lance, Nightshield
Hvy2: Voidraven Bomber, Dark Scythe (x2), Void Mine
Harlequins – Codex (Formation Detachment)
Cast of Players
Death Jester, Haywire grenades
Shadowseer, Mastery Level 2, The Mask of Secrets
Troupe, (Warlord) – Troupe Master w Harlequin’s Kiss, 4 Players
An interesting list to be sure! The Cast of Players join up with the Archon in a spare raider for a no deep strike, -4LD bomb of psychic shriek and Mirror of Minds (he got both!) while the rest of the army shoots you like crazy.
Veil of tears would mitigate the shooting somewhat and I snagged first turn for the game so I would get at least 2 turns before the drop of the shriek bomb or the flyer (which I had no real way of dealing with). I again went all phantasm and got pretty much every power between the 3 shadow seers. My warlord got a 4++ save again for his trait.
Callum admitted after the game that he underestimated my firepower and it cost him turn 1. I lurked at the 23” mark with the troupes while the 4 sky weavers moved to drop blasts on a ravager and venom that had deployed to close together. Psychic saw all the troupe covered with veil and its on o shooting! I manage 5 destroyed vehicles this turn – a ravager, the empty raider, the courts raider, the other courts venom and a warrior venom! The haywire blasts account for 2 of those kills while a single prism shot kills a raider. The 3 Death Jesters destroy the remaining vehicles. In a single turn I have effectively shut down is ranged game.
Callums only ray of sunshine turn 1 is a lucky shot from a raider destroying my void weaver despite it having a 4++ with reroll 1’s! Everything else escapes unharmed. He even fails his assault move with the reavers (he rolled so low that they are left exposed and alone!)
My turn 2 and I know reserves are coming. My solitaire moves up to kill the reavers while I spread out as much as I can and lurk at 23 inches again. Veil is cast again on the troupe and the shooting begins in earnest. This turn is almost the opposite of the last with a hull point here and there and that’s it. The solitaire charges the 3 reavers and makes very short work of them while the sky weavers charge the larger court but one unit fails its charge leaving it exposed. I lose a sky weaver on the way in to overwatch and a wound in combat despite killing a sslyth. He does hold though and that’s all I needed.
Turn 2 the void raven arrives while the harlies stay in orbit. Callum manages to fail one of the shortest veil or tears tests with the raven so it can’t fire on the harlequins with its blasts! I lose the bikes outside of combat to a venom and lose the other bike in combat to the court.
Turn 3 I press the attack with the solitaire and one of the troupes. My shooting downs the last venom and veil is up again. My solitaire makes soup from 5 kabalite warriors and my troupe charges and wipes out the large court for no loss.
Turn 3 and the mandrakes walk on to the board on my right (behind my units) while the portal harlequin unit arrives as well. I allow callum to deep strike without scatter but we do have a 2 minute discussion about how the rules are different to the summary and that I could argue it can scatter. I am not that guy here though!
Its here that things get a little muddy and very confusing as we had A LOT of LD shenanigans going on with 2 masks of secrets (one must have been a china cast copy!) within 12” of each other. He drops in and kills 2 harlequins with shriek. The Mirror of minds cast on my Warlord goes off and with us both at a LD penalty (-2 vs -4) the rolling takes a while – I take 1 wound over the course of the rolls but my 4++ rerolling 1’s keeps me alive till I beat him.
Turn 4 I move 2 troupes to surround the raider hoping to glance it to death. Of course in the shooting phase I pen it with a death jester, roll a 6 and the whole lot explodes! The Archon, shadow seer and death jester survive the blast from his unit while both my units are essentially cut in half. I charge in regardless and fail a fear check for one of the troupes! Despite this failure, the combat ends with his unit destroyed save for his shadowseer in a challenge with one of my death jesters. The combat in his turn 4 sees me kill the shadowseer with a flurry of blows.
At this point its mostly clean up though I have been hurt badly. I kill the mandrakes with shuriken fire while the solitaire kills more infantry. I move about claiming objectives and maelstrom points while keeping the void raven at bay with fog of dreams (a new favourite of mine!).
We end up with 6 turns and I win it 18-2.
The first turn really had a huge impact and Callum more than once said had he quite realised how much I could do at 24” he would have just fully denied me during deployment which is what I was expecting him to do.
We win this round as well to see us go into the final round on 3 round wins and me on 2 wins and a draw! Can I go 4 for 4 in the first ever WATC? Find out in the next post!