Dark Eldar Victorious!
Firstly a report from Steve about his game with Paul. History is written by the victor… but in this case, Paul has contacted me saying this is what happened
"The game was 5 objectives with the normal set up. Paul won the dice role and chose to go first and deploy of the side with 3 objectives nearest to Deployment. He deployed between his centre and his right flank. I chose to deploy all my force in the opposite corner and not seek to steal the initiative.
Paul’s first move was to move his forces to 3 of the objectives. I unit of 5 Grey Knights took control of the furthest away from my forces, everyone else stayed inside the vehicles. He opened fire with his two auto-cannon dreadnoughts, the first target a raider exploded in the usual spectacular style, and my men lost 3 of the force through explosion wounds, and then failed pinning test, and then failed the morale test, and then ran straight of the table. Oops the signs were ominous. He then targeted my ravager with the other dreadnought, this got two hits, but I saved with the flickerfield. Thanks Goodness.
In my turn the vehicles moved out of the corner to engage Paul’s forces, and got out some units that were in transports near the base edge, and headed of towards the two objectives furthest from Paul, and one unit in the direction of one of Paul’s objectives, some raiders moved fast to Paul’s side of the table so could not fire. My firing was as usual fairly poor, I got a couple of stunned results (not much good against Grey Knights), and then with nearly my last shot I destroyed one of the dreadnoughts. I cheered very loudly and then apologized to Paul, because I had promised him I would not cheer.
On the second turn, Paul did not move except to hide his vehicles as much as he could, except for one rhino that moved towards my one unit of girls heading towards the objective near him. They had thrown bad dice so were in the open, lucky he could only see two so they got a cover save, and they went to ground but still lost 2. He fired his Dreadnought that got two hits but rolled two one’s to penetrate. My response was to get all my vehicles in position to fire, but avoiding close range except for one vehicle that could not find any space. I hit more and immobilized the land raider, and the remaining dreadnought, but failed to damage any rhino’
On the third turn Paul’s moves were limited but he did turn his immobilized walker and talk out my raider that had got to close, and reduced my girl’s squad by another one also forcing them to go to ground again. It was immobilized and had its weapon destroyed. On my third turn I had everything in range and at last I destroyed his rhino next to Paul’s controlled objective nearest to me, but did not explode it and Paul’s forces got out and used it for cover. Managed to get some of my hoovers to shoot them and killed about 4 of the Grey Knights, I also shot his multi melta of his land raider and one of the auto cannons off the Dreadnought.
On turn 4 Paul finished off my girls on one flank and moved his squad from the destroyed Rhino and the Champion into the cover at the objective. His firing destroyed one of my venom’s that had irritated him with its hoovers. I thought this was my moment for success, I moved as much as I could to shoot the Champion’s unit and sent two units in to finish them off, my shooting was good leaving him with only 3 including the Champion and then charged in expecting to finish him off. Paul used Cleansing flame on the assault which was horrible, and then although losing the rest of the unit leaving the Champion on his own, my units still lost the fight, but survived morale to continue.
On turn 5 Paul unleashed his assasins on this fight, which was horrible 4 attacks for each, I had to make 7 invulnerable saves for each of my troops, of course they died. It was horrible. I destroyed one more of Paul’s Rhino’s and most of his 5 men holding the rear objective, and concentrated the rest of my firepower on the assassins. They may fight well but the do not like being shot.
Paul rolled for end of game, but it continued to Turn 6. Paul moved his rhino with a 5 man squad inside to support the remaining man at the rear objective, he had a full squad on the other objective, so was holding 2. He also contested the third objective but as his unit were elites and an HQ. I held 2 objectives, and raced my vehicles to contest all three of his objective, one even went into difficult terrain but survived. I rolled for end of game, and it ended on turn 6."
The Dark Eldar won the game 3 to nil. I controlled 2 objectives to Paul’s none, as the other 3 were all contested.
The points were very close as it was a very even game. I scored 880 points, and Paul scored 815 points.
Thanks for the write up.