Honda and the Dread Pirate Annual Duel

Howdy. So my friend Honda and I got together for our annual 40K game.  We call it our annual game because it usually what we have time for in between our two schedules.

Honda was playing his Black Templars and was seeking to purge planet Copperwood ( our local GW store) of the Xenos scum that were known to scurry about there.

Little did the followers of the Zombie Lord of the Imperium know that these particular xenos are fond of their prey coming to our hunting grounds of their own free will. You can bring a 8 foot tall superman to a knife fight, Dark Eldar bring guns. The Black Halo was up to the challenge.

Honda won the initiative and choose to deploy first. I can't remember the name of the scenario, but we played long table with short table player edges.

Honda elected to deploy in an balanced set up. He had 2 combat squads in the building on the left, one in the top of the bastion on the right, and a big block of terminators behind the bastion. In the middle he had another combat squad behind a stock Landraider, flanked by 2 Land Raider Crusaders and a Vindicator in the back.

I choose to deploy anti infantry venoms to my left side, with the 3 Ravagers using cover and staying as far out of reach to his las cannons as possible. My Succubus HQ and Haemii deployed in a raider with the wyches on on the opposite side of the ravagers.

I failed to seize the initiative and the game began in broad daylight.  Honda moved his LR Crusader behind cover and moved his Land Raider forward to get in range Honda opened up with his las cannons on my closest ravager. I am not sure what kind of ballistic training templars are using these days, but my ravager came away unscathed.

My turn 1.  I shifted my venoms to the right side of the board and my Ravagers moved forward in range of the Land raider. The Wych Raider moved forward. Every lance I had in range  opened up on the land raider. For all my effort I managed to inflict one hull point of damage. Hmmm. The venoms however did a fantastic job of removing both forard combat squads of templars, removing 2 of the las cannons threatening my precious paper mache armored transports.

My Movement.

The Black and Gold dish out some pain!

Top of turn two. Here is where Honda reminded my I had to have his entire forced wiped out or it was a moral victory for him. He moved his terminators up and opened up on one of my ravagers, blowing it to smithereens. One of the terminators with a Cyclone Missle launcher glanced one of my venoms.

For my part on turn two, I redirected my transports back towards the bastion and moving forward to put as many models in range as possible.

The raider and the Ravagers finished off the Land Raider and wiping out all of the Bastion Templars and also killing 2 of the terminators, including one of the 2 cyclone missile launchers.

At this point we began to check possibilites. Honda was down to 2 LR Crusaders and a Vindicator, which could not touch any of my vehicles due to my mobility and nightshields. He had one 5 man unit of marines equipped with a heavy bolter and a flamer. And he had 6 terminators and a Chalpin HQ I think who had taken a wound. I was down 1 Ravager.

At this point it was kind of like this.

At this point he conceded, seeing no possible way to overcome my venoms and ravagers out ranging and out gunning him. He could have pushed the 2 LR Crusaders up, but I had a god sized unit of wyches with haywire grenades and a unit of scourges with heat lances, which could have made quick work of the LRCs.

Victory for the Boys in Gold and Black.

It was a good game, but also a little bit of a foregone conclusion. One of the things I have noticed about Dark Eldar in 6th is the standard meta just does not apply. Conventional thinking is mech is dead, assault is dead heavy foot armies are the wave of the future. I disagree with this mindset. Dark Eldar vehicles have always been fragile, but with the new glancing rules, they have actually become more durable. Also, factor in the sheer amount of firepower a venom can crank out, without regard to toughness, and a lot of armor saves are being made. I typically average about 4.5 wounds for each venom and I run 6 or 7. Inflicting 30 wounds or so is a lot of wounds. Enough to wipe out a full squad of marines, or at least render non-threatening unless a heavy weapon somehow manages to be the only model left and does not run.