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Dark Eldar vs Orks 2k - A Big Tutorial Game (warning lots of pics)

Started by crisis_vyper, August 12, 2012, 10:44:07 AM

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crisis_vyper

Vespera is finally out from the restoration sarcophagus and is now quite literally bloodthirsty. She can not wait to get into the next raid and slaughter as much as she could. To her surprise her Archdracon did not decide on staging a coup to take on her Kabal, and he kept his word. However as she soon discover there is also another reason why the Kabal is not taken over by her Archdracon; Her father.

"Oh hello my dear, finally out of Haemonculi coven? I hoped that you are not bored out of your skull." Her father is sitting in her throne room knitting some kind of clothing from the muscle fiber of a still-living and screaming victim chained onto a rack. As Vespera watches on, she noticed that his handmaidens are slowly flaying the skin and slowly unravelling the muscles in order for the old Archon to use a continuous strand of muscle to knit the clothing. And then her sight shifted and to her chagrin, she noticed her brother looking at himself on a hand-held mirror.

"Why is
he here?" Vespera asked her father. It was then that her father stopped the knitting and looked upon them with glee. Vespera's inner thoughts are now flashing a lot of red flags, but she kept her poise and walked gracefully towards her relatives.

"While you were out cold,I managed to get our hands upon some fascinating creatures mainly in the form of a flock of Ghosthawks. They are fine specimens those creatures.....but they do need to get out from the webway from time to time to have a nice little walk. Apparently there is something about Commorragh that agitates them." Aethandir kept his hand-held mirror and held out his hand. Soon enough an ethereal mist landed upon his hands, and materialized itself into a vaguely avian-like being. Vespera could see why the men wanted to keep these creatures as they are truly marvelous to look at.

"Perhaps it is your face that is the cause of their agitation." But then suddenly several loud primal roars resonate in the air* and Vespera realized that she is now surrounded by five creatures, each almost as tall as she is but significantly large in size. The creatures appear have a generally canid body and similar body structure but each one has a mutation of sorts. Some had horns while others have serpentine-like mouths snapping where horns are located upon the creature. At the very least, each animal have their own unique quirk that allow a person to notice the difference between the creatures. Each of the creatures are now snarling at Vespera and indeed was about to attack Vespera until a sharp whistle from her brother caused the creatures to stop.

"Hush now, quiet now. She means me no harm....at least for now." The creatures then walked slowly towards her brother and lingered around him like kittens. Vespera's mind could not even comprehend how those things snuck up to her like that. Her senses are unnaturally sharp, and those thing just made her feel like a true prey.

"What.... in Commorragh are those?!" Vespera points at the creatures, trying to keep her composure. In return, the creatures snarled at her ferociously*. Vespera is quite intimidated by these creatures.

"Oh these? These are some creatures that I asked the haemonculi to create for me for my personal amusement....that is the way I punish those who tried to assassinate me. I just love to give them a scent and let them hunt down my Hellions by themselves. but perhaps they are doing their job too well for now I am also out of traitors to feed them. So they need to take a walk as well."

"So...you want to join me on my raid so that you could have your animals take a walk?" Vespera looked at her father with disapproval, but he looked at her and smiled.

"Well, there is no harm playing with your brother right?"

*Replicate video 5 times and play them at the same time.


Well, here is another battle report from me (not the short summaries) and this time I am bringing what I call the 'wincest team' on the table. I actually came to the LGS expecting a league match, but instead my opponent is not present for some reason and thus I have to arrange a match for another day. But on the other hand, I managed to play with this kid who wanted to try out his 2000 pts list and wanted to face a tough Dark Eldar list. I figured that since I have nothing to lose I might as well just get into it. But then unfortunately, as we are deploying our stuff I think that I may have to club the seal or that he may be the most cunning kid I ever known (usually the former, rarely the latter).

Here's my list;

HQ
1. Archon (Warlord)
Agoniser
Venom Blade
Haywire Grenade
Combat Drugs
Shadowfield

Total pts: 130 pts

2. Baron Sathonyx
Custom Skyboard
Hellglaive
Splinter Pistol
Phantasm Grenade Launcher
Shadowfield

total pts: 105 pts

Elites
1. Kabalite Trueborn Squad
4 x Kabalite Trueborn with Blaster
Venom with 2 Splinter Cannon

Total pts: 173 pts

2. Kabalite Trueborn Squad
4 x Kabalite Trueborn with Blaster
Venom with 2 Splinter Cannon

Total pts: 173 pts

Troops
1. Kabalite Warriors Squad
4 x Kabalite Warriors
1 x Kabalite with Blaster
Venom with 2 Splinter Cannon

Total pts: 125 pts

2. Kabalite Warriors Squad
4 x Kabalite Warriors
1 x Kabalite with Blaster
Venom with 2 Splinter Cannon

Total pts: 125 pts

3. Kabalite Warriors Squad
4 x Kabalite Warriors
1 x Kabalite with Blaster
Raider with Nighshields

Total pts: 130 pts

4. Kabalite Warriors Squad
4 x Kabalite Warriors
1 x Kabalite with Blaster
Raider with Nighshields

Total pts: 130 pts

5. Wyches
7 x Wyches with Haywire Grenades
1 x Hekatrix with Venom Blade and Haywire grenades
Raider with Nighshields

Total pts: 181 pts

6. Wyches
7 x Wyches with Haywire Grenades
1 x Hekatrix with Venom Blade and Haywire grenades
Raider with Nighshields

Total pts: 181 pts

Fast Attack
1. Beastmaster Pack
2 x Beasmaters
1 x Beastmaster with Venom Blade
5 x Khymeara
4 x Razorwing Flock

Total pts: 161

Heavy Support
1. Ravager
3 x Dark Lances
Nightshields

Total pts: 115 pts

2. Ravager
3 x Dark Lances
Nightshields

Total pts: 115 pts

3. Razorwing Fighter
4 x Monoscythe Missiles
2 x Dark lances
1 x Twin-linked Splinter rifle
Flickerfield

Total pts: 155 pts

As for his list;

Ork Warboss with Mega Armour (warlord)
Big Mek with KFF
4 Biker Nobs
5 Lootas
5 Nobs on foot
3 (I think) Mega Armoured Nobs (troops)
2 squads of Gretchins (Not sure how many of them)
3 Deffkoptas with twinlinked rokkits
10 Boyz in a Trukk
A bunch of Stormboyz**
Boomwagon
Battlewagon with a Killkannon, 4 Rokkits and a big shoota

*The reason why I have no idea about the number of units of some of his elements is because the terrain that he is deploying those elements is quite literally a LOS blocking terrain. I saw him putting models there, but the terrain is an unnaturally good LOS blocker.

**The reason why I do not know how many Stormboyz will be explained by the battle report.

The kid is using that double FOC thing. That's why boys and girls, that one should be careful when you agree to a 2000 pts game these days.

As you can see this is our table;



Lots of ruins, and was designed for the league games. I was supposed to play on this table too apparently. The deployment style that we rolled up is one of the new deployment styles where we deployed at the short table edges instead of the long table edge. The mission is the good o' Capture and Control (one objective each).

We both rolled for our warlord traits and here is what we got

Warboss: His warlord and anything within 12" of his warlord gets +1 to their charging roll. Yikes!
Vespera: Outflanking units have Acute senses while warlord is still alive. Bollocks.....I got nothing of that sort.

I then rolled for my drugs and I got +1 Strength. This would definitely help me against the bikers and the Warboss.

He won the rolls for choosing table sides and objectives, so he deploys first. His Stormboyz are in reserve, while my Razorwing fighter is in reserve.

And..... here is what he did;


And here's what I did;


I will definitely say that this is perhaps my most beautiful deployment ever.  ;D

We then proceed to roll to see if there is nightfighting, and alas there is no nightfighting.

P.S: Btw, the objectives are in the center of the buildings where the majority of our forces are deployed.

I attempt to seize the initiative, but I failed. With that the game begins.

Turn1
As Vespera enters into realspace, she noticed that her brother is being led by his pets to the building and she could only wonder what have they found. But soon enough before she could even ask him about what is going on several large rounds landed around the ground and if it were not for the nightshields her ship would have been vapourized. Oh well, she could focus instead on the battle. Before long, her forces had acquired targets and are now systematically culling them.

"Milady, it appears that the Orks are infesting this place."


Orks


He moved a number of his unit before he went on to the shooting phase. To my opponent's chagrin, his lootas are unable to shoot at my Raider as a result of that final 6" of the loota being severed by the Nightshield upgrade.

Dark Eldar



Without further delay, I spread my forces out and aimed my Venoms at the Biker Nobs and most of my raiders and ravagers moved to get a clear line of sight towards the closest target that they could see; the Looted Wagon.

I decided to let the beastmaster pack and the Baron to stay in the runs and guard it for a while until one of my Kabalites get kicked out of their vehicle. At the meantime, they managed to trigger the mysterious objective , revealing its nature as a Skyfire Nexus.

With relative ease, I managed to kill the Looted Wagon and also kill 3 of the Biker Nobs. Unfortunately for me they held their ground.

Turn 2
"What is it , what is it?" Aethandir voiced out to his pets. The loud booming primal bark continued on and as Aethandir looked on, he could see that it is an intact Imperial Skyfire Nexus. A fine specimen indeed, nonetheless his pets are not the kinds that will be swayed by some shiny object. Then suddenly several of the ghosthawks shriek and swooped down avoiding some of the large canids and flew towards Aethandir carrying a piece of green flesh.

"Ah.....so all of you wanted a piece of Ork huh?" The calmer pur of the hounds and the whistling sounds of the ghosthawks only served to enforce the point on Aethandir. Oh alright, let us move. But not before I put this webway portal to send this artifact back...

********

Meanwhile, Vespera proceed to move on along the lines and was poised to hunt the warboss all the while listening to all the usual explosions whens suddenly that primal roar echoed in her ears again. She turned around and as she watched, the beasts lept and flew from the flaming explosions into the horde of boyz and started ripping them apart. The boyz immediately broke and are escaping but the creatures are merciless. Before long, they are now gnawing on their flesh and bones. Vespera suddenly had a fleeting thought that she was glad that she is not the target of those creatures.


Orks

He rolled for the Stormboyz and then....nothing happened. No Stormies this turn.

Well, he decided to move his Deffkoptas down the long table edge and the battlewagon and the Nobs went ahead and moved down in the trails of the deffkopta as well. The Biker Nob proceed to move closer to the Raider carrying Vespera while his trukk disgorged the boyz.

In the shooting phase, his lootas managed to down one of my Raiders, and his boyz and trukk managed to shoot down one of the Trueborn Venoms. He attempted to assault  Vespera's Raider with his biker Nob and also the Trueborns with his boyz, but he is unable to reach either one of them. Vespera's squad fired an overwatch towards the biker nob and he got a wound.

Dark Eldar




I rolled for my Razorwing but it did not come in.

The Kabalites Warriors who lost the transport immediately ran back to the objective. Everything else? FORWARD! One of my Wych squads decide to disembark with the intent of killing that Biker Nob.

In my shooting phase, Vespera's Raider turboboosted towards the ork "Fortress" while my forces gun down anything that is in sight. The resulting firefest saw that the battlewagon lost a hull point, the Tankbustas and Lootas getting wiped out, and half of the boyz died from the exploding trukk.

My Wyches assaulted the lone Biker Nob while the beastmaster pack charged the Boyz. Thanks to overwatch, one of the wyches got gunned down. The result of both assaults are as clear as night and day and my bunch of assaulters consolidated.







However......just as we are about to start turn 3........his mom came. Apparently he needs to go. D'oh! So with that we ended our game there and then and thanks to the First Blood that I have gotten I won by one VP.


Post-Game and Afterthought
The raid turned out to be success, and many Ork slaves were caught. Indeed, Vespera managed to capture the Warboss alive and the Warboss is now captive in her private gym, for her to spar on a daily basis (with obvious restrictions). But what actually caught her by surprise is how her brother actually is very kind to his beast entourage. It has even gone to the point of him play-wrestling with his big creature-things and singing along with his ghosthawks. They look very very domesticated save for the fact that Vespera have seen it firsthand how these things make Orks run like scared little humans. She then made a mental note to herself; never let those things near her favoured human slaves.

Speaking of which, she will have to give them new dresses and toys and play with them now.......



Okay, I will honestly say this; this definitely feels like seal-clubbing on so many levels. I thought that the kid would be bringing some nasty ork list or something and prepared myself instinctively against the nastiness of Orks, but then as he was deploying I realized that this is a kid we are talking about here. He got not clue about a tough Dark Eldar list, and I did a 'Shock and Awe' to his mind like how the US did the same to Iraq. And from the look of his list it looks like he cobbled it up from a bunch of Black reach stuff and some other random models.

But nonetheless, as we played the game we talked and I taught him some aspects of the game (he is somewhat familiar with 5th which made it easier) and some tricks as well. I also told him that my lances can kill his battlewagon silly as well and advised that he should be more careful about the tank when facing against Dark Eldar. So in the end, at least he is not thinking that I am enjoying clubbing him like a seal but instead as a person who also wants to try and let him win.

In more ways than one, this reminds me of my first time playing 40k during 4th edition, but instead of people curbstomping me without telling me the rules proper I went on ahead and taught the kid a number of things that seal-clubbers will not do. Not sure if I can remove the mental trauma of a Dark Eldar shooting phase out of his mind though, as I am unable to do so even with the veterans of the game.

BigToof

Hi Crisis,
Thanks for the rep!
Always good to see the DE in action if it is only a short rep.
Haven't played vs Orks very much in 6th.
Anything you feel in terms of overall impression?
I didn't think that they had too much of a boost versus the Dark Ones, but a bit more against MEQs?

Best,
-BT
BigToof Points:

Cammerz: 8
Waaaghpower: 1
The Man They Call Jayne: 3
Mabbz: 6
Archon Sharrek: 3

crisis_vyper

Quote from: BigToof on August 14, 2012, 09:57:56 PM
Anything you feel in terms of overall impression?

I have a running impression that a very good Ork list can come out from these few combinations, based upon what I see from the tabletop and also applying my own experiences with playing Orks onto 6th edition;

1) This in general. Never assault unless you are tough enough to take it in the face.

2. The Biker Nobs can be quite a challenge to take out even with Poison and they work very well as a distraction unit especially if they are led by a Biker Warboss and those guys being scoring. Could see why they came back.

3. Trukks and boyz are not as effective as a Battlewagon and boyz combination. But they still can be used as a form of distraction or mobile contester. That and there is no true need for an Ork Nob in a Power Klaw in a squad of boyz due to the new challenge rules. Better off taking a big bunch of boyz without even a single nob in it. You would rather put a Warboss in there instead.

4. They need the numbers. Either that of be extremely tough. Or both.

5. KFF does have its applications, but I feel that it is no longer necessary to have a Big Mek in the list. The return of the Warboss is quite dramatic. In fact I would actually recommend having 2 Warbosses in the army now.

6. They are not as affected by flyers as the other armies, as they don't bother with the slight penalty to begin with. Taking Flyers with Orks however is not so bad of a proposition as a result of 1)

Quote from: BigToof on August 14, 2012, 09:57:56 PM
I didn't think that they had too much of a boost versus the Dark Ones, but a bit more against MEQs?

I would agree that MEQ would find a hard time busting them, but at the same time a TEQ can rip through the Ork army (particularly of the Paladin kind) if it is done properly. In addition, IG would not be worried by an Ork list to begin with.

However, playing against the Orks actually enforces what I believe to be the perceived meta by everyone so far (I am trying to stay outside the meta while also countering the meta see?);

1) Due to the perception that Mech is 'apparently dead'. everyone is getting back to footsloggers. But what they fail to realize is that a metal box is still a metal box. You need to pry them open to get to the passengers inside and interesting it is a very effective anti-flyer defense as of this moment.

2) The way the rules work now for rapid-fire, it is always good to try and take the center of the board and proceed to shoot everything from that distance. While then, everything else will attempt to search and destroy any elements that will prevent that from happening. Gun Platforms and fast units work to achieve that. However at the same time, that table center is also the most difficult to defend from as a person can be besieged from all quarters.

3) If you want to assault things, you have to be fast, hard and/or numerous enough to withstand the overwatches and reach your target. Assault do have a part to play in 6th, as they are the most effective way of killing things off objectives in the most decisive way (hence a high risk, high reward situation).

4) The game now amounts to an interesting improved 4th edition shooting mechanic; Always try to torrent and/or snipe whenever possible. Due to the way the rules are written, the shooting aggressor will always have the main say on what unit they want to kill.

5) The Flyers are really scary right now. But soon enough they will lose their early edition dominance as more and more armies have Skyfire and/or Interceptor units. Nonetheless Flyers are still very much a part of this game now and they do carry a lot of fiepower with them. You are bound to see up to three flyers in any list, but anything more is detrimental to the whole design of the list and be vulnerable due to the way reserves work in 6th.

6) Double FOC is scary if done right. However most of the time the idiom 'Boyz not Toyz' still works and the expense to get the toys will often affect the list in a significantly bad way *

*IG can play the Double FOC game just fine though.

So far the reason my my Dark Eldar is working as of this moment is because I am quite lucky to design my list to be more of a shooting torrent rather than some gimmicky army and also to have a focus of killing MEQ and a secondary function of anti-horde. However that means that I am somewhat required to play with all the variants of the Dark Eldar vehicle to achieve that goal hence the mechanized nature of my army.

Due to the meta, I may want to take flyers for my Dark Eldar as they are the only place where I can get a massive amount of Large Blast templates.