Prot Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 I had a game vs this DE army against my Dark Angels and was almost tabled by turn 2. Basically I'm getting hit by over 52 poison shots a turn, and about 6 lances and some blaster shots. This Dark Eldar army reminds a bit of a new movie that just came out callled.... 50 Shades of Grey: ++Basically this army is always hoping for first turn nightfight since he ignores it, but can use it for his stuff. The army is deceptively resilient as it is cheap ,and plentiful but it all has wargear and jinks, giving most of the boats 3+ or 4+ jink. And of course Poison is.... poisonous! Lances ignore armour... it's a deceiving list. It throws a lot of crud at the wall and just some of it has to stick to be potent. But enough of this grey pile of crud. Here's what 1K of Crimson Slaughter looks like: +++ 50 Shades of Grey is pretty dirty, but I have a confession to make. The rules for Warp Talons were, in my opinion, so bad that I never ever used them. Always defaulting to bikers/baledrakes/etc for fast attack instead. But I had these models since day one and I was determined to see just how poopy things could get. My other unit that I almost never use was a enlightened group of Chaos Space Marines with: Beatstick (power maul), Plasma gun (what was I thinking?) and aside from a rhino, no marks, upgrades and of course as CS I cannot take Vets of the long war because apparently at best I have: "Amateurs of the Short War". The other troops are: My trusty Possessed in a Rhino. The rest is pretty obvious from the picture, but the lord is a WIP with magnetized back pack so I can use him as the Champion from the DV box, or slap a jumppack on him and he can be middle management for the day in my 1K list as a "lord" with Kranon's sword, and a 4+ save. No marks. My "forced" elite for the week is my trusty old Termicide squad: 2 Melta's, a mix of cc weapons and dirt cheap and suicidal, just like I like 'em. I realize now that you can only see the base of my Bale-drake. That's right I took one at 1K. Would it be a waste of points at 1K? Or would it shine like a beacon of hope in the eternal misery that is the Chaos player's codex? The Game: - We are playing a little Maelstrom, and at 1K we are on 4x4 tables. 50 Shades of Grey wins the roll off to go first. As usual my ability to seize the initiative is a lethargic roll of 1. - He has the ability to shoot over 52 poison shots at me a turn (I lost count after 50 because I got too discouraged)... and a good 6 lance shots... AND blasters in a few squads including some little grey squad with some kind of weird shot that spreads to other models if I fail a save.... whatever, junky xenos technology is no match for WARP TALONS! Am I right? - Very early on, the Dark Eldar of cult of 50 Shades of Grey gets a good couple of cards, but does not get nightfight! One card he gets requires him to actually advance to about the mid point to an objective marker. I relish the thought of crushing the fool while the other 49 shades of grey watch in terror. - He shoots a lot, my guys are mostly hiding in a corner behind a radar station, I can't remember but if I took casualties, there were few as I wanted to give him nothing in turn 1. He does advance, and takes the midpoint Objective Marker. He is winning by a few Points already! +++ Warp Talons: Don't even sneak a peak past this bunker or you'll get shot by a billion poison rifles. The Maulerfiend munches on a crispy Dark Eldar boat and poops out some grey plastic dude. + My turn: The crimson slaughter advance. Both rhino's go onlyl 12, but I wanted to use smoke launchers so I did not turbo. +The Maulerfiend punishes the grey skimmer for grabbing the objective by gobbling him up in close combat. + I can't really do anything else... but bide my time and hope I can advance more. Turn 2: - 50 Shades of grey gets more points, and has good cards, like kill stuff cards. I have stuff like: Destroy a Gun Emplacement, Make a Peanut Butter Sandwich with Warp Talons on, Teach a Flyrant how to Tie His Shoes. You know, impossible stuff like always..... - One or two Warp Talons gets the itch to look around the corner and take a bazillion shots in the face. I lose a few that he can see... nothing I could do about it. - The Maulerfiend is hit by Lances. I fail my invulnerable, and with a lance shot it's easy to get an explodes result. The Maulerfiend blows sky high. + My turn: The Heldrake comes on, this causes confusion amongst the Dark Eldar. It's a weird situation. I don't really have a truly valid target with the Baleflamer. I come in hot, do a side hit on a boat with vector strike which does nothing.... continue to find that there is a good flamer shot... sort of! His smaller boats have a bunch of little dudes stuffed in them like circus cars. I get a Baleflame across two of them, roasting a few guys inside. We randomly allocate the wounds, and some blaster wielding peons die! Good news for me. This buys me some time for... + The Warptalons jump over to grab a point, the Rhinos advance full out. The Possessed have a 3+ invuln and are rending... while sitting in a Rhino! Great. +On my right flank the CSM advance and get of their rhino. They take shots with the plasmagun and he is forced to jink his Lance boat. Turn 3-4-5: - Turns 3,4 and 5 are just like Warp Talons- pretty fast, but useless. He shoots a lot. I'm losing a lot of possessed and he's afraid of Warp Talons. I have to kill something in close combat... but I can't crack open his boats. - As a desperate target, the Lord and his Warp Talons actually assault another LanceBoat. I realize... OF COURSE! Warp Talons don't have frag nor krack grenades! Wow. This is a round of fail. The Lord has no use of his sword, and the Warp Talons simply couldn't even glance. The Lord's single krak grenade fails to do anything... - The Baleflamer Vector Strikes again, doing nothing, but fire is good... fire burns the Xenos in his little plastic boats. + Warp Talons without grenades?! Who needs grenades when you have claws! - The Warptalons advance with the Lord. And I have to back up a bit here because at this point I've finally broken his front lines, and the most potent part of my list turns out to be my Warlord Trait: + I always roll on the CS trait table and hope for Shroud for the WL and his unit and in big game I stick him in a Landraider for 5+ cover, and 3+ cover with smoke.... it's good enough. But even with my re-roll I ended up with the Warlord trait that causes (I think it was something like this but I might be off:) D3 Strength 4 no AP hits to all models in base contact with my Warlord. My Kranon sword did nothing this game, as I never got the opportunity to ramp it up with kills BUT his Warlord trait probably killed 4-5 guys. Rules Question: The Sword ability does not state kills must come from the sword. Just close combat kills. Does the Warlord Trait count towards that sword ability? I said 'no' because if it did count I would have had St6 AP2 in no time, and I didn't want to cheese out if I was incorrect about this ruling so I took the conservative route. END GAME: +Filthy Xenos boat vs Heldrake fight for a very crucial objective. Who will win? + I am catching up in points. He is losing the ability to hold points. The possessed are down to 2 models, killing as they go, but getting very shot up.... until finally the Lord, 1 Living Warp Talon, and the last Possessed are on the second floor of the factory that the DE are hiding in.... + The Lord, staying in character, orders the last possessed into close combat first. He refuses, saying he is not a cultist. Too bad, retorts the Lord, and kicks the possessed in the butt with his boot, and the Possessed is overwatched with a billion poison shots in the groin until he dies. + Lord rushes in, forced to challenge... does nothing in the challenge, but the Warlord Trait kills 3 guys! The Warp Talon dude he is with..... I reminded my opponent, does not believe in frag grenades, and he paid the price dying a painful death 50 Shades of Grey style. + The CSM below blow up a boat, climb the wall and try to bail out the Lord. The Power Maul CSM guy is wrecking face, but he has 5+ FnP saves (how come all the xenos get FnP so easily?) + The Lord Dies, while dishing out 2-3 more wounds via the Warlord Trait! The CSM squad hangs tough. + We are tied at: 11 points each! + I pull up my last Objective X cards. I cannot get the objective because I only have the Heldrake left mobile, and in Hover mode I'm still 6" above the objective, and cannot claim it. + My opponent (in this mission) can steal Objective X. I hope the game ends.... he rolls and we continue for one more turn: He moves his last boat over Objective X, steals my card , and wins the game by a point! NOooooo I howl, and I straight armed all of his figures off the table and stepped on them while I laughed in his face..... Well, not really, but that's what I wanted to do. Final Thoughts: - I was pleasantly surprised at a few things: 1. The vanilla CSM in a rhino (should have had a meltagun instead) were much better than I thought they were going to be. Thanks to my hatred of Cultists lately, and my last fail game, at 1K I was forced to use them and in rhino's I could see using multiple tiny squads with a melta to some decent success. 2. Rhino's. To add to point 1, the Rhino's I kind of avoid, but when you have stuff like a Maulerfiend running around, people hate shooting at them. 3. Maulerfiends. I still love these guys. I think going back to 2 in larger games is something I would like to get back to doing again.... it's not super strong, but it is fun and dynamic... and draws a ton of firepower. - Some things were bad: 1. Lord with Kranon's sword with Soul Siphon. Here's the thing, I love the concept of the sword, but it works on deaths not wounds. 90% of the time I find my lord is locked in drawn out, tougher challenges, so his kill count never really racks up. I still think Khârn is just flat out better aside from a cruddy invuln, I like him better in almost every way. Still I've used Kranon a lot, and he is 'fun'. 2. Warp Talons. I started by confessing I have never used them in a game. I will share another confession: I will never them in another game! Other items of note: + The list did better than I thought. It was fun, and nice to see some marginal success without using space hippies. + For a note of interest: I played this same 50 Shades of Grey guy with my Dark Angels and I was almost tabled in turn 2. + I forgot to report something.... probably no one noticed but I never mentioned the big Elite choice and this COULD have been a game changer. I deep struck them in turn2. There was only one direction they could not go over 8" and it was off the table edge. Naturally, they were drawn to that edge about 12 inches.... and perished on the misshap table. That would have been two melta shots and a couple of 2+ save dudes threatening his horse shoe shape of boats from two directions.... I think that was big. Thanks for reading! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Skull Mask Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Nicely written report, thanks for sharing it, Prot! I'm inclined to say, "you asked for it, fielding Warptalons," but I won't - oh, I just did I suppose. Anyways, but why can't the Heldrake hold objectives when in hover mode? Is this stated somewhere in the rules? I thought when hovering it can hold objectives not claimed by "objective secured"-troops and score linebreaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonlover Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Yeah, the Heldrake can claim when hovering - you measure to the base, not the model. Dragonlover Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prot Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 Nicely written report, thanks for sharing it, Prot! I'm inclined to say, "you asked for it, fielding Warptalons," but I won't - oh, I just did I suppose. Thanks for taking the time to read it... You're right, and I deserve it. One of my biggest weaknesses with Chaos is not that the codex is so weak, but I am always a sucker for playing models I want to paint/enjoy the appearance of. It is my undoing as much as any other factor in the codex. That being said... I never foresaw how horrible they would be. Anyways, but why can't the Heldrake hold objectives when in hover mode? Is this stated somewhere in the rules? I thought when hovering it can hold objectives not claimed by "objective secured"-troops and score linebreaker. This is something that was brought up to me by another player a long time ago so I can't give you a page number or anything that accurate. But if I recall flyers in hover mode are said to be 6" off the ground and you have to be within 3" of an objective to hold it. So I could not contest it... Some people put objectives on the second floor of a building for this reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Skull Mask Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Hey Prot, of course I didn't really mean it when I said "you deserve it for bringing Warptalons." Just joking, as the game was so close. I think you should absolutely bring the stuff you want and enjoy it. From looking at the rule book I believe that flyers in hover mode are in fact able to score objectives on ground level. It says that if in hover mode they are treated like fast skimmers. That section doesn't state anything about skimmers being 6" up in the air. Maybe a rule from an older edition that sticked and became a houserule? But from what I see, you should have scored that point which most likely would have won you the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prot Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 Yeah, the Heldrake can claim when hovering - you measure to the base, not the model. Dragonlover Actually I'm pretty sure you ignore the base in just about every situation except for embarking / disembarking. Otherwise every rule I can think of off the top of my head says 'meaure from hull'... rarely is the base actually used for a flyer. Someone else may have to confirm this though, as I'm at work... no where near a rulebook. Hey Prot, of course I didn't really mean it when I said "you deserve it for bringing Warptalons." Just joking, as the game was so close. I think you should absolutely bring the stuff you want and enjoy it. :) No problem! I was pretty sure that you were joking, but I call it like I see it... Warptalons are about as useful as a White Crayon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Skull Mask Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Yeah, the Heldrake can claim when hovering - you measure to the base, not the model. Dragonlover Actually I'm pretty sure you ignore the base in just about every situation except for embarking / disembarking. Otherwise every rule I can think of off the top of my head says 'meaure from hull'... rarely is the base actually used for a flyer. Someone else may have to confirm this though, as I'm at work... no where near a rulebook. Well, but since the wings are part of the hull for flyers, it still shouldn't be a problem since your Drake is built the standard way. Wing tip should be well within 3" to bottom. Ok after another look at the pics I see that your drake is a custom build. ...and hey, white crayon is extremely useful. It's an essential tool in my line of work, which I use every day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhukov Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Thanks for the report! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThatOneMarshal Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 As always great report! Nice to see you using the... Lesser used choices in the book. How are you finding the possessed? Also nice to see the warp Talons being used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheesh Mode Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Woah, that's an awful match up my friend. It appears you played against an Archon who knows what he is doing. A terrifying foe indeed. Before I comment; some questions: How is the Dark Eldar getting a Feel No Pain save against a powermaul? S6 wrecks Eldar face with instant death, did he manage to boost his toughness? Also, have you considered Havoc Launchers for your rhinos so you can shine searchlights into peoples faces? While they wouldn't be as effective for this army because of its shortrange, having the option to reach out and touch someone is certainly a bonus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlo Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I'm not too familiar with them but I'm curious as to why the negative opinions of talons? Otherwise awesome report :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThatOneMarshal Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I'm not too familiar with them but I'm curious as to why the negative opinions of talons? Otherwise awesome report :) The main problem that raptors hve are: 1: expensive 2: melee marine killers in a codex with multiplie ways of killing marines from afar easily. 3: no freaking grenades meaning as shown by prot means they are largely inflexible as they cannot go after say a tank and if they decide to go after a squad in cover it's initiative 1. 4: expensive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prot Posted March 22, 2015 Author Share Posted March 22, 2015 Woah, that's an awful match up my friend. It appears you played against an Archon who knows what he is doing. A terrifying foe indeed. Before I comment; some questions: How is the Dark Eldar getting a Feel No Pain save against a powermaul? S6 wrecks Eldar face with instant death, did he manage to boost his toughness? Also, have you considered Havoc Launchers for your rhinos so you can shine searchlights into peoples faces? While they wouldn't be as effective for this army because of its shortrange, having the option to reach out and touch someone is certainly a bonus. Sorry I didn't mean to imply the FnP saves were against the Maul. They weren't, he used FnP legally. Havoc launchers are something I used a ton of when they became blasts.... Always with my Iron Warriors, but I find my Rhinos are always moving 12". In this game, if I think back, I don't believe I ever would have been able to shoot one... not that I can recall. (even snap firing they won't either.) In truth I did have them in the list originally but needed to ditch them desperately for bodies. I'm not too familiar with them but I'm curious as to why the negative opinions of talons? Otherwise awesome report The main problem that raptors hve are: 1: expensive 2: melee marine killers in a codex with multiplie ways of killing marines from afar easily. 3: no freaking grenades meaning as shown by prot means they are largely inflexible as they cannot go after say a tank and if they decide to go after a squad in cover it's initiative 1. 4: expensive 5. Too expensive 6. Super-duper over priced 7. Goto 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheesh Mode Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Woah, that's an awful match up my friend. It appears you played against an Archon who knows what he is doing. A terrifying foe indeed. Before I comment; some questions: How is the Dark Eldar getting a Feel No Pain save against a powermaul? S6 wrecks Eldar face with instant death, did he manage to boost his toughness? Also, have you considered Havoc Launchers for your rhinos so you can shine searchlights into peoples faces? While they wouldn't be as effective for this army because of its shortrange, having the option to reach out and touch someone is certainly a bonus. Sorry I didn't mean to imply the FnP saves were against the Maul. They weren't, he used FnP legally. Havoc launchers are something I used a ton of when they became blasts.... Always with my Iron Warriors, but I find my Rhinos are always moving 12". In this game, if I think back, I don't believe I ever would have been able to shoot one... not that I can recall. (even snap firing they won't either.) In truth I did have them in the list originally but needed to ditch them desperately for bodies. I'm not too familiar with them but I'm curious as to why the negative opinions of talons? Otherwise awesome report The main problem that raptors hve are: 1: expensive 2: melee marine killers in a codex with multiplie ways of killing marines from afar easily. 3: no freaking grenades meaning as shown by prot means they are largely inflexible as they cannot go after say a tank and if they decide to go after a squad in cover it's initiative 1. 4: expensive 5. Too expensive 6. Super-duper over priced 7. Goto 4 It appears you had the wrong list for this game, my friend. While against an Imperial Army you may have succeeded, against these xenos range is more vital. That is incredibly frustrating, I empathize. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prot Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 I agree entirely. The problem is the locals are changing. Marines are more and more rare. The only xenos army I have is Necrons so I *could* play their game too, but it's just so much funner to be eternally frustrated. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheesh Mode Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 I agree. However, I would rather have a close game and lose than to be crushed after chasing my opponent around the field. Hence my second army of counts-as noise marines. I feel... strangely satisfied... when people call my noisemarines cheesy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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