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Necron2.0
06-07-2011, 03:55 PM
I'm wondering if my army is too cheesy. The reason why I'm wondering this is because I recently played an experienced Blood Angel player, and darn near walked all over him. This guy has been playing since the late 80's. I, in contrast, have probably less than 20 games total to my credit.

The disposition of my army (1998 pts.) is as follows:

1x Succubus with Agoniser, Blast Pistol & Haywire Grenades
8x Wyches with Haywire Grenades
1x Hekatrix with Agoniser, Blast Pistol & Haywire Grenades

9x Wyches with Haywire Grenades
1x Hekatrix with Agoniser, Blast Pistol & Haywire Grenades

2x Raiders with Enhanced Aethersails, Night Shields & Flickerfields

1x Baron Sathonyx
10x Hellions

9x Reavers, 3 with Heat Lances & Cluster Caltrops

9x Reavers, 3 with Heat Lances & Cluster Caltrops

9x Reavers, 3 with Heat Lances & Cluster Caltrops

3x Kabalite Trueborn, 2 with Dark Lances

3x Kabalite Trueborn, 2 with Dark Lances

3x Kabalite Trueborn, 2 with Dark Lances

The first group of witches were in one Raider, and the second group were in the other. The Reavers were positioned to provide cover for the Raiders. All of the Kabalites were positioned in ruins with good visibility to all approaches. The Hellions and the Baron were parked on top of the objective, in behind cover. For my combat drugs roll I got "serpentine," which increased the weapon skill of my wyches and hellions by one.

The campaign scenario we rolled up was for a pitched battle command and control game. My opponent started with the majority of his units in reserve. The only thing on the board were a Baal Preditor and a Razorback. The Razorback was parked on his objective.

On turn one, the Baal came forward and toasted two bikes and one of my Trueborn. I moved my bikes and Raiders to a position to maximize their firepower, while the return fire from my trueborn destroyed his flamestorm cannon and immobilized the Baal.

On turn two, the Baal toasted one more bike and two trueborn. In the return fire from Heat Lances, Dark Lances and Blast Pistols, I turned the Baal into a huge crater.

On turn three all of his reserve units deep struck into the battle. None of his units drifted. I do not remember the details of what all he had, but one five man unit of Vanguard Veterans did Heroic intervention into the Hellions. A ten man unit hit one unit of my bikes, a second unit hit another unit of my bikes while his command squad with librarian went after my last unit of bikes. By the end of his shooting phase, I had lost 14 more bikes - I was left with three units of bikes comprised of those equipped with the Heat Lances and Cluster Caltrops, with one unit having one remaining "meat shield" bike to spare. In the Blood Angels' assault phase, I lost two hellions and the Baron's shadow field burnt out (typical), while the Blood Angels lost two vanguard veterans. I made my leadership test.

In my movement phase of turn three, I bladevaned one of his ten man squads with one unit of bikes while the other two bike units both bladevaned his command squad. Meanwhile I deployed my Wyches, sending the unit with the Succubus toward an unscathed ten man squad, while sending the second group of wyches at the ten man squad that had just been raked by cluster caltrops. In my shooting phase the wyches fired their splinter pistols and blaster pistols, and then charged into the assault. In my assault phase, my Hellions finished off the vanguard veterans without taking any losses, the succubus lead wyches reduced the tactical squad they were on down to two, while the other group of wyches annihilated their opponents.

In the Blood Angels' movement phase of turn 4 the remaining three members of the command squad moved into assault range of the Succubus lead wyches, and assaulted into them. He killed half my remaining wyches while I reduced him to his Librarian and a Sanguinary Priest. I managed to make my morale check. In my turn I managed to move my other squad of wyches into assault range and with my combined wyches overwhelmed the remaining Blood Angels in my deployment zone. By the end of turn 4 his only remaining unit was the Razorback and its five man squad parked on his objective.

In turn 5 I loaded my troops onto the raiders and moved toward his objective, but I wasn't close enough to contest it (actually, I forgot that Eldar bikes can move 6" in the assault phase, or else I would have been in range).

The game ended at the end of turn 5. Technically it was a draw, but if I had remembered what my bikes could do, or if the game had lasted one more turn, I would have won (and possibly by complete annihilation). Given that I'm not nearly as experienced as this other player, that struck me as a bit out of whack - I actually felt a little bad about it.

thecactusman17
06-07-2011, 04:32 PM
Sounds like a very exciting game! I am hesitant to say that you have a cheer list though. Your experience with the wych and hellion units sounds very atypical. which druids did you roll for?

Necron2.0
06-07-2011, 06:47 PM
Sounds like a very exciting game! I am hesitant to say that you have a cheer list though. Your experience with the wych and hellion units sounds very atypical. which drugs did you roll for?

Corrected that for you? Maybe? I'm assuming this is what you meant. Anyway, I rolled a 2 for combat drugs, which gave me a +1 weapon skill. In this case it didn't help me.

And I've had my wyches and hellions slaughtered to a man before, trust me. The reason I think it worked here is because my opponent was far more worried by my bikes, and rightly so. My bikes did hellish amounts of damage to his units, even after his job pruning them. The wyches merely mopped up what remained. Additionally, I never gave him the opportunity to fire on my wyches. I kept them in the Raiders, and they assaulted directly from there (with a brief pause for shooting). Of course, he could have concentrated fire on the raiders and killed them easily, but if had done that, there would have been a lot more bikes left, and the net result would have been the same - dead marines.

BuFFo
06-07-2011, 06:57 PM
No Dark Eldar list is cheesy, at all. It just isn't possible.

Your list is just fine :)

thecactusman17
06-07-2011, 08:15 PM
LOL Yeah, I was typing that on my phone with less than impressive results.

I see your point about the Reaver Bikes, though.

there is one thing: I would take the Archon instead of the Succubus, with the same loadout plus possibly any spare points into a shadow field. One way you could manage this would be to downgrade one Trueborn back to a splinter rifle, instantly giving you 30 points. The reasons for this are threefold: The minor bump in weapon skill will only help you against folks like Vect or lelith. Combat drugs will only be a downside if you roll the speed-run drug, and most importantly you get that critical Ld. 10 for those instances where you get blasted out of your transport and have to take pinning and morale checks.