The Dark Journey, 20 Games to Kabal Greatness.

[Skari]

Fellow journeymen. Part of the recipie for Kabal grendeur is the evolution of ones list. I would like to verse you all in the dynamics behind list tweaking and its importance. One of the most important parts of the 20 game journey is this; to tune ones list in the hope that no matter the opponent it will perform well and provide results on the tabletop.
I wanted to give you all an idea by providing the general evolution of the list that I have been using for the 20 game journey. We will start with the original list where I will also give a few notes on the reasoning behind the creation of the list. They I will note the stages of list development and will also note as to the reasoning behind each change made. Now, its important to note that there are no drastic changes for a reason. One of the mistakes that I find people make regularly is scrap a concept because of one bad game or bad showing. I see why someone would do thos, especially when you can't have very frequent games to test ideas out. I fins that making drastic changes hampers the general knowledge of use of an army as it does not accurately reflect the nature or use of all units when facing the enemy, it also drastically changes the dynamics within said list and the its overall homogeny.
And on that note we shall begin with my basic list:

Archon (PGL, Agon, splint pistol, shadowfield, combat drugs)
2 Heamies with Liquifiers

4 Incubi
Venom Dual Cannon

9 wyches, hex w/agon, 1 wych weapon, HWG
Raider FF
9 wyches, hex w/agon, 1 wych weapon, HWG
Raider FF
10 Warriors, syb, SC, bl
Raider FF
5 warriors Bl
Venom dual cannon
3 wracks
Venom Dual cannon

6 RJB 2 heatlances, champ

Ravager FF, NS
RavagerFF, NS
Razorwing, SC, dissies, FF

Total 1850

Ok, so basic notes:
The army was a basis to work on, mostly using models that I had available. The biggest driver in creating this new list was to make a switch from the baron and his hellions. I had run that list for over a year and now it wa time for a switch.
The units are geared to certain purpose and the heamies are there to of course give FNP fo the wyches. The wracks offer a cheap venom and pain token for the archon + incubi as well as deckchair potential for the army. The larger warrior unit provides some muscle and abalative wounds and the incubi + archon provide another psychological aspect of fear and have the capacity to wipe out entire marine equivalent units with ease. Which in a marine lover environment is amazing to have.

So, with these basics I set off on my journey. Dragging you all along with me. But I was quick to realize certain flaws in the list that I did not feel comfortable with. So, what was the main change going to be? Would I overcome these downfalls?
Stay tuned for the next installment(as well as more tactical reports)

Cheers!

[Skari]

So, after a bit of a break from all this writing here is game 6.2:
Same table, same armies.

The game played almost the same at the last one. I also took the wraiths out pretty quickly, but this time he was in a better position to do damage to my army.
As multiple objectives, primary was a down right draw, with all objectives contested. There was one move that cost me the game, I moved up a warrior squad to the center of the table and then they got eaten by the lyche guard. Instead I should have just kept them on an objective on my bottom right and blocked with all my tanks. Because the second game went so fast I only took one pic:


Ok. So, on to game 6.3, same lists. This time It was a pitched battle and I decided to deploy everything(except the razorwing of course) rather than just reserve. My opponent then proceeded to steal the initiative! But luckily only did minimal damage to my army. I was very aggressive this game and went on an all out offensive. Turn 3 there was a major mistake on my opponents behalf, he kept his destroyer lord with his wraiths, and when they attempted to charge my wyches in the centre of the table they failed to reach them with the terrain test. Had the destroyer lord left the squad, they would have made it, because wraiths ignore terrain.


So, in the end I won this third game rather easily once the wraiths were out of the picture. Other things of note include his main character bunker failing a key moral test.

Tactical notes:
- The more I play with the same list, the more confident I am in the various abilities of the units in my army. In my previous post I talked about the changes that I will be doing to my list, but in these three games (and two more after that) I remained using the same exact army.
- When playing against crons, wraiths must die. And scarabs must be tied up, FNP wyches work great! Especially if they have WS 5 (scarabs are WS2 so they hit them on 5's)
- Lyche Guard need poison shots dumped into them... a lot of poison. In combat they usually kill more than the wraiths!
- There might not be a phase out any more, but still remain agressive. In a war of attrition the crons will win, so you have to get in there and knock them out quickly.

Cheers!

- Stay tuned! Next two games, 7.1 and 7.2 against the deadly Tyrannid Swarms!

[Skari]

Game Series 7.1 and 7.2. Dark Eldar against the nasty nids!
His list, he has been trying out this new list:
HQ/
Swarmlord
Hive Tyrant with Heavy V-Cannon, Lashwip and Bonesword.

Elites/
Deathleaper
3 Zoans in pod
1 Venomthrope

Troop/
10 Deathgaunts in pod
5 warriors? With assortment of weapons
Tervigon
10 Steelers with Broodlord

Carnifex in pod

This list is basically a reserve denial army... they have +2 to reserve rolls and a lot of things in pods.

DE should give this type of this a good thrashing. For one poison will eat large creatures alive and second we can counter reserve and not deploy, waiting for his stuff to show and then counter it effectively.

First game dawn of war Multiple objectives... I did exactly that. The bladevanes took out the deathleaper in one fell swoop. I did take some heavy casualties, and the brood lord took out the archon after he almost killed the carnifex:


Anyway. I held the objectives that I needed to hold.
Tactical Notes:
- Swarmlord is nasty! Shoot him, although if he has FNP this is hard to do with poison, so try soak lances into him.
- Tervigons must die, as well as venomthropes... they can really sting if we don't deal with them early.

Overall, Dark eldar a well suited to fight nids.

As for 7.2 the mission was about the same, This time I placed a 10 man warrior unit in a raider as bait, they ended up being a lot more than bait surviving volley after volley of enemy fire until at last they fell to a carnifex in combat... turn 3 .


But the same tactical notes take precedence. I was able to win this game as well making sure my overwhelming firepower and good cc ability was felt.

In my next post I shall talk about the switch to my list as well as the two games that I have had so far with it!

Stay Tuned.

Cheers!

[Skari]

Thanks for the comments and rep! That really helps the thread out and keeps me motivated.

Anyway. I thought this would be a good time to get started on the first major tweak that I made to the list that I have been playing. Go back to the previous posts to look for my original list.

So, from the games that I have played there are a few things that I noticed.
- Need more lances.
- Heatlances on the jetbikes... I don't really like them.
- Wanted to include the infamous "blasterborn"
- 9 man wych units are too big (I find that 6-8 wyches are usually good enough for any task, they either live or die no matter how many) Because of the investment of the Heamies I went with the larger squads to make up for FNP.

Note: It is important when testing a particular army and list to NOT make the changes to a list too drastic, it is important to become comfortable with a list to the point where playing it is like clock work. This is key! If you make too many changes then each time is like starting over from the start. So something to keep in mind.

So, this is the list that I came up with with the new tactical knowledge that I have acquired:

HQ/
Archon (145pts) Shadow Field, Agonizer, Combat Drugs, Phantasm GrenadeLauncher, Splinter Pistol.
2 Heamies with Liquigiers (120pts)

Elites/
4 Incubi in Venom with dual cannon
3 Trueborn with 3 blasters in Venom with dual cannon

Troops/
8 Wyches, 1 wweapon, Hex with agon, HW grenades in Raider with FF.
8 Wyches, 1 wwepon, Hex with agon, HW grenades in Raider with FF.
5 Warriors Blaster in Venom dual Cannon
5 Warriors Blaster in Raider with FF
3 Wracks

Fast Attack/
6 Reaver Jetbikes, 2 Blasters, Champion - 172pts

Heavy Support/
Ravager 3 lances, FF & Night Shield

Ravager 3 lances, FF & Night Shield

Razorwing, 2 dissies, splinter cannon, 4 mono missiles, flicker field

Total is 1848pts (out of 1850)

We can see that there are only a few changes to the army itself... I lost 5 warriors a syb and the cannon from the raider unit... but what did I gain? I upgraded the heatlances to blasters on the jetbikes, and added the 3 trueborn with 3 more blasters (all I had to do was transfer the venom from the wracks to the trueborn). So all in all I got 5 more AT weapons and only really lost 4 model count. IMO a great addition to the army as this increases my mid ranged AT capability.
There is only one thing that I dislike from the list... 2 points under. Arg... so I will see what I do to make that less of an issue... I like it when my lists are on the nose.

Anyway. Thanks for reading through. My next game the first game with this list was against space marines and ill post the rep up soon.

Cheers! Comments and rep appreciated .

[Skari]

Also, you can follow the journey as well on my channel : [URL="http://www.youtube.com/user/SkaredCast"]http://www.youtube.com/user/SkaredCast[/URL] 2 more batreps are up.

But not before you have read the debut batrep for the new and improved list:

Game 8:
Vs Space Marines! (for an elite army they sure are all over the place) .

Sadly, there are no pictures for this endeavour... but I shall attemp to be as brief but as informative as possible.

My list:
See above post for my revamped list.

His list:
Forgefather with servitors (a few HB's)

2 x 10 man tac squads with ML, Fl and sarges had no upgrades.

Ironclad Dread in pod.

Dread with Tl LC, ML
Dread with Tl LC, ML

7 Assault Terminators (assortment)
Land Raider crusader

Terminator Chaplain

6 Sternguard in a HB razorback.

Total - 1850pts

-------------------------------------------------------
Mission Was Dawn of War and Mission was multiple objectives.

He deployed the Techmarine and HB servitors up in mid field to prevent me taking the mid field, I had given him turn 1. I deployed the wracks with the archon out of LOS to keep their pain token.
The objectives were concentrated centrally. My opponent did spread out and put one tac squad on either corner of the field (mistake).

He moved on turn 1. The Ironclad dropped close to the wracks and the archon... near an objective and ran get begind cover.

On my turn 1 I got both ravagers to spot the LRC that was speeding up the field, and blew it up... I had kept the razorwin and jetbikes in reserve to help deal with enemy movements later on. I played the wyches agressively and moved them up mid field and left flank to overload that flank. This would take my infantry away from the dreads (that could bog me down) and head on to the terminators that I would have to deal with at some point. The archon hopped into the incubi venom.
On another note... on their first showing the trueborn moved up to spot the ironclad... and then failed to spot... twice! they were like 9" away... dang.

His turn 2 saw both wych raiders down. Also the trueborn venom and the trueborn got plastered. (what a first showing! :P) Far right wych squad was pinned.

Then I began to pounce on my turn 2, the center wych unit walked into the techmarine... failed to kill him but stuck arround to prevent retaliation from enemy shooting (yay, this is key as keeping them alive in the centre makes them a threat as he tries to move up to support the other flank).

Shooting was not as great as I would have hoped... the razorwing showed up and then blasted the terminators but only killed 2 of them. Shooting was not as effective as I would have hoped and the wyches finished off the techmarine (now becoming fearless!)

Turn 3 Space marines saw the sterguard get out and fire cover ignoring rounds onto the wyches killing a few but below average rolls and FNP saw most of them survive. The dreads continued to move up, and the Ironclad (that had been drawn to the far left to deal with the trueborn) Began to treck towards the middle. The tac squad on the far right fired into the wyches and the terminators moved up further to assault a venom that I had used as bait the turn before. The razorwing is stunned from shooting.

My turn 3 saw the archon + incubi boosting up the field behind a LOS blocking terrain. The unpinned wyches now charge the bunker that the tac squad was in, wrecking it... they become pinned! With the incubi venom too close for comfort (this was another key moment in the game, as this meant that no one could tackle the incubi venom! and they would annihilate that tac squad). The Bikes had arrived and boosted over the disembarked sternguard killing 2. The fearless wyches move up to charge the remnants and win combat, they actually get away... the wyches then consolidate to prevent their regrouping.

Turn4: The terminators double back and try to charge the wyches they fail their terrain test. The chaplain breaks off and charges the heamy that was off to the flank with his scary liquifier then consolidates near the termies.
The ironclad charges a smaller squad and murders it keeping close to an objective on that side of the table, so far my blasters have done nothing against him.

My turn 4: The incubi and archon murder the tac squad. The wych squad that only had a few members left in the centre charge an advancing dread to tie it in place, that combat continued until the end of the game.

The wyches charge the terminators while shooting takes out the vulnerable chaplain. The wyches hold and I think take out another terminator... after shooting and combat they are at 4 strong or so (he has been making good saves). The incubi venom flies over to stay within 6" of the sternguard... and escort them off the table (those no-cover bolter rounds can really hurt if I am not carefull). I also finally imobilize the ironclad.

Turn 5 sees the termies continue to fight the wyches... I hold with a few left. Other than that the sternguard continue to flee. Shooting sees a few venoms fall.

My turn 5 the incubi and archon assault the termies (now that they have FC as well! this makes quick work of the termies...) Freeing up the wyches to take another objective.

The game ends here, with the Dark Eldar winning the game!

Tactical Notes:
- Take advantage of your opponents mistakes. In this case he spread out and I took full advantage.

And that was the debut of the list, I did not mind the loss of bodies for the additional firepower.

check out the channel for batreps 9 and 10! Vs space marines and space wolves respectively.

Cheers.
And stay tuned.

Skari, out.

[Skari]

Small life update. Moved. Now in Barrie Ontario! The baby is due any day now so thats really exciting. Stay tuned and I will be back with content as soon as I am able!

Cheers.

[TheSustainableCenter]

Very inspiring what your doing bro...keep it up!

[Skari]

Thanks, appreciate it!

[Charybdis]

These are awesome - the tactical insight is really great for novice DE players such as myself

[Skari]

I am glad you are liking it. I shall be posting more as I can, waiting for a baby that should be here any day, so thats exciting.