Sunday, June 3, 2007

BATTLE REPORT: Chaos Space Marines vs Dark Eldar

I was struggling to build and paint models for our escalating points Warhammer games so Gary and I decided to play some 40k for a while. This would give me some breathing space to finish the last few units in my Warhammer army. When the Nemesis Crown campaign begins we'll switch back to Warhammer with full 2000 point armies.

I played my Exigators Chaos Space Marines quite competitively last year before and during the Grand Tournament, so I wanted to move away from that and use some of the 'nice' but 'not so powerful' models in my collection. Out went the Obliterators, Daemon Prince, las/plas squads and Havocs and in came the Predator, Dreadnought, Great Unclean One, Raptors and Thousand Sons.

Unfortunately for me Gary is on the hunt for his next tournament army and is trying out his most competitive builds. This week he's experimenting with Dark Eldar, but he also has Eldar, Necrons and Khorne forces to play with.

Here is how our game went.

Army 1: Chaos Space Marines
Army 2: Dark Eldar
Mission
: Seek and Destroy
Level: Omega
First turn: Dark Eldar

Chaos Space Marines
  • Great Unclean One
  • Lieutenant on Bike, Lightning Claw
  • 9 Thousand Sons
  • 6 Raptors, two flamers
  • 8 Furies
  • 6 infiltrating Marines, 2 meltaguns
  • 6 infiltrating Marines, 2 plasma guns, Daemonhost
  • Predator, twin lascannon, 2 Heavy Bolters
  • Dreadnought, twin lascannon
Dark Eldar
  • 10 Warriors, 2 Dark Lances
  • 10 Warriors, 2 Dark Lances
  • 8 Wyches, Raider
  • 8 Wyches, Raider
  • 8 Wyches, Raider
  • Ravager, Night Shield
  • Ravager, Night Shield
  • Talos
  • Warp Beasts
  • Archon
  • Drachite
Terrain and Deployment
The table had two distinct types of terrain. On my right flank I had some bunkers and ruined buildings surrounded by low walls and barricades. We classified this as area two terrain. On my left there were two large woods which we called area level three, and lots and lots of scattered rock columns which were impassable.

I began with the two infiltrating squads in the woods nearest the middle of the table and the Thousand Sons behind the wood on the far left. The Dark Eldar had the two Warrior squads near the bunker on my right.

The game
The Dark Eldar won first turn and took it so that they would have a chance to slaughter my infiltrators before the Daemons arrived. It worked, as he got second turn charges on both squads in the central wood. The Wych squad and Archon killed them all, only for the Great Unclean One to emerge to kill them. He was unstable, though, and lost four wounds over the next couple of turns. He was also stranded in the middle of the board as the faster Eldar avoided him.

Meanwhile my Thousand Sons took the other wood and became embroiled in a fight with the other two Wych squads and the Warp Beasts. The Dreadnought steamed in and the Dark Eldar were destroyed.

On the right I was pummelled. A dark lance immobilised my Predator which was eventually destroyed on turn five. My biker Lieutenant assaulted a Warrior squad which held and then the Drachite sliced and diced him. The Raptors arrived on turn four but were blasted off the board by a Ravager. I couldn't summon the Furies because all the icons were lost.

Result: Loss

Commendations
  • Chaos - Thousand Sons
  • Dark Eldar - Ravager
Turning point
The Dark Eldar winning first turn but then getting a large chunk of their reserves late in the game. This gave them the best of both worlds; they had enough to kill my infiltrators and disrupt my daemons but then could deploy against the arrival of my own reserves.

Learning points
  • This list was junk. Especially regarding the icons. I didn't realise that marked units couldn't summon 'Undivided' daemons. That meant the Thousand Sons and Great Unclean One couldn't summon the Furies and I had only three icons on the table. Two of those were killed before I had a chance to summon and the other, on the Raptors, didn't show up until turn four and was then killed in one turn.
  • Escalation helped the Dark Eldar much more than me. Their movement is just so much better.
  • In fact, the Dark Eldar had the beatdown in every department; speed, firepower and assault.

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