Itzacon Game 1

The new Dark Eldar: Mr. Bean approves.

So I went off to Itzacon in NUIG with a group of the lads with a somewhat experimental list. I wanted to see if Lone Wolves could be made to work and Njal came along for the ride to see what he could do. I was certain to play some of the better people on the circuit as we all made a mad dash for Ranking points at one of the last events of the season. There were 26 of us signed up in the end.

My first game came up against Alec from the Warheads with his Dark Eldar. I had played him already at Conclave in Limerick but that was with the old army and his new list would no doubt prove to be more deadly.


My list was:
Njal
4 Wolf Guard: 1 with CombiMelta, 1 with Combiplasma, 2 with Fist & Combimelta
7 Grey Hunters with Melta, Wolf Banner
Rhino
6 Grey Hunters with Melta, Wolf Banner
Rhino
5 Grey Hunters with Melta
Lasplas Razor

5 Grey Hunters with Plasma
Lasplas Razor
Speeder with MultiMelta, Heavy Flamer
Speeder with MultiMelta, Heavy Flamer
5 Long Fangs with 4 Rockets
Lasplas Razor
5 Long Fangs with 1 Las, 3 Rockets
5 Long Fangs with 1 Las, 3 Rockets

Alec's list was:
Baron Sillysticks
Haemon with Webway portal
2 x 3 Trueborn with 2 Dark Lances*
3 x 3 Wracks*
15 Wyches
16 Hellions
Beasts with 2 Razorwings, 5 Khymerae
Ravager with 3 Lances
Razorwing with Night Shields, 4 S6 Ap 5 Missiles
Raiders*

*There were a couple of units with Raiders floating about but I can't remember who had what so  I've just made a note of it here.

The mission was Capture and Control/Spearhead with 5 objectives, one in the middle and one in the centre of the board. Alec won the roll to go first and chose to deploy like so while I lined my Fangs along the board edge seeing as I wanted to be far away from his lances and I also wanted cover as I had nothing in my corner of the board to hide in.

Turn 1

Here's a wide shot of turn 1. As you can see I have sweet FA cover in my quarter of the board. Weaksauce. The coins are objectives btw.

The stuff on my edge was all placed in reserve. I was wondering if I should have Deep Struck the Speeders but I hoped they'd show up after the Wyches arrived so I could flame them into oblivion. 

Alec moved piles of his stuff forward including his Hellions and the Razorwings one of which dumped its entire payload into the Fangs on my left and reduced them to two while his Haemon hopped out of his Raider and dumped his Webway portal on my right.

My weakened units fired back but they were either out of range of his bombers thanks to good distance gauging by Alec or they failed to hurt his AV 10 flyers. Very weaksauce.

Turn 2

On the right a giant blob of Hellions deep strike into terrain but don't lose any models thanks to Skilled Rider.

His shooting phase finds him out of range with many of his guns or me passing cover saves so my units are largely unmolested.

Some of my stuff shows up: Njal in his Rhino (good) and both of my Speeders (bad). I wanted those Speeders to stay off until his Wyches had appeared so that I could flame them crispy but with both of them arriving I had to choose what to do with them. One boosted left to drag the Hellions away from me in later turns while the other floated near the Haemon to pop a cap in his ass. He missed. As did most of my other shooting. Actually, I think that I managed to silence one of the bombers. The one that had already dumped its payload.

Turn 3

Here come the Wyches through the gaping hole (insert wizard's sleeve/clown's pocket joke yourself) and they claim an objective while the Haemon joins them and gives them a pain token for FNP. Sigh.

The Speeder on my right is shot down by something while the Voidravens continue to be a problem for me.

As does my own deployment. I was a bit Timmah with the Lone Wolves and I should have put them into reserve too so they could emerge on my right-hand side and rush anything that showed up there. Even 15 Wyches would have a hard time chewing through one of them with 2+/4++ and 3++ from Agonisers etc. Instead they plodded around aimlessly in my deployment zone protecting the Long Fangs from being charged when they should have been getting stuck in and clearing objectives.

My appalling shooting continued as I managed to stun a Voidraven and kill a Hellion. Or something equally pitiful. I was getting annoyed with the fact that I had yet to kill a Dark Eldar unit: almost all AV10-11 vehicles and T3 Troops and I had done little more than scratch them.

Turn 4

Alec's Beasts show up on my left and make straight for the Speeder while his Hellions come running at me on the left too putting more pressure there. He shot away one of the Long Fang squads with the Hellions to get a pain token and killed some more stuff to boot.

The Beasts assaulted my Speeder but didn't do any lasting damage to it so in my turn it boosted away onto an objective. I moved my vehicles to where I could get half-decent fire lanes and cover saves (not much of the latter though) so I had to split my stuff if I wanted to make moves to grab one or two objectives late in the game. One of the Rhinos moved to sacrifice itself, cockblock and get one of my units nearer to the central objective while the Lone wolves, Njal and co moved to defend the one in my table quarter.

I did finally manage to seriously damage something though - the Ravager came up to shoot at me and was immobilised for its troubles while a Voidraven was also immobilised. Not fantastic but it'll do.

Turn 5

The Hellions chased after the Speeder, thankfully doing little damage again, while the Beasts angle toward my objective and more of my stuff is shot including the Rhino near the central objective but at least they aren't pinned. Two Raiders boost to cock-block on my right side and I need to clear them, the Wracks in them, and the Wyches out in order just to contest an objective. Oh my.

The Rhino in the middle that got popped in the middle run through terrain toward the central objective, popping the Voidraven as they go. Score. On my right my Plasma Hunters finally arrive and think about whether to shoot up the Wyches after they bail from their Razor and my army pretty much shoots at the boosted stuff and the Beasts that are bearing down at me. I managed to pop both Raiders and all bar one Wrack on my right while the Beasts are mangled too but they don't run. I roll to run the unit of Plasma Hunters to contest the objective but roll poorly. I need the game to go on and it does.

Turns 6 & 7

The old school Incubi is the Haemonculus.

The Hellions continue to chase the Speeder and finally take it out in combat, securing one objective, while Alec's now limited shooting is aimed at my infantry which it starts to damage including the vital unit on my right. He did manage to Immobilise and destroy a Twin Plasma on the Razor out there before the Wyches charge them in combat while the Beasts rush my Rhino on my left.

The Wolf Guard on the right is the sole survivor and I'm delighted when I roll snake eyes for Morale. I'm then not happy when I remember I can't down the Wyches with Bolters.

Njal's Rhino is popped by a torrent of Rending hits but I'm not too pissed off as they're not pinned and I now get to wail on the units nearby if I want in my turn.

Young man, there's no need to feel down...I hate Njal's pose.

I do. Njal races off and runs into the forest so I can pummel units with his Lord of Tempests thing which mangles a pile of units including the Beasts on the left and Raiders in the centre.

Njal and the Grey Hunters combined manage to clean house and grab the central objective while the left one is secured by the Lone Wolves and Grey Hunters destroying the Beast unit.

Sadly the unit on the right is destroyed by Wyches and they consolidate just enough to cockblock the objective. They don't run into combat in case things go awry and I'm forced to run one of my units to try to contest and forego shooting at the Wyches (3+ cover by sucking dirt with FNP against Bolters? No thanks) but I only roll a 2 for my run and end up 2" short. The game ends with a deserved win for Alec as he has 3 objectives to my two including the one in his deployment zone. He managed to play keep-away with his fragile units using Night shields to full effect and concentrated on grabbing 2 of the free objectives while I faffed about with my deployment and reserves (I should have deep struck the Speeders).

Still, I end up with 5 points for losing which could have been worse seeing as I didn't kill anything for the first 3 turns. Onto game 2.