2000pts New Dark Angels Battle Report

[Frater Cornelius]

Today I did my second game with the new DA rules. The Holy Knight Order took the field with my fervor to sanctify the enemy xenos with holy Bolter fire and righteous melee. My list looked this this:

Hidden Content

RWSF
Sammael on Corvex
5 Black Knights
5 Black Knights
Dark Shroud

CAD
Ezekiel
5 Deathwing Knights - Land Raider Crusader, MM, SB
10 Tacs - M, CM, GC, Pod
10 Tacs - M, CM, GC, Pod
Drop Pod
Dark Talon

2000pts

The Eldar was a Footdar with two Farseers, Avatar, a Serpent with 5 WG, Dark Reapers, Scorpions, two Guardian Blobs with Lances and Warlocks, Vaul's Battery with D, Warp Spiders, War Walkers and some cover-camping Rangers.

A quick disclaimer: The Eldar player was very kind to offer himself as target practice, because he usually just plays casually and is not as experienced in terms of efficient play. No one of us doubted the outcome, and we had one hell of a blast and got some good data as well.

He won the roll-off and decided to go first. His Rangers and Scorps infiltrated. I did not scout because I was smelling T1 charges. I failed to steal I initiative.

T1 Eldar:
His Serpent got closer to me, scoring an objective. The rest of his army readjusted a bit and that was his movement. In his psychic phase he got his re-rolls to hit and better cover for the Guardians.
The shooting phase took ages but did very little. Nothing, in fact. The 2+ re-rollable save of the BK and DS held very well and he was not close enough with his Warlocks to strip my cover. Anyway, I weathered the storm and lost nothing. Without the re-rolls I would have lost half my army.

T1 DA:
Sammael turbo boosted across the entire board. He was the Warlord and got good bonuses. The entire time he moved alone and yet he fell just one tiny bit shy of the MVP spot.
All BK jinked, so melee was what I was after. Drop Pods landed in the mid field to score and be annoying. The Land Raider moved up and spat out Ezekiel with the Knights right infront of the Scorps.
The psychic phase was very productive. Ezekiel mananged to snipe the enemy Scorp Exarch with mind worm. Good thing too, because he has the Claw. He also forced to make the D Cannons to fire snap shots, taking them out of the game for a turn. The one BK unit moved towards his Serpent while the other moved towards the Avatar.
The shooting phase was mainly for the Tacs. The Melta and Grav combat squads took out the Avatar with assitance of the Knights. The other Melta unit fired at the War Walkers, but only managed to kill one. The other BK and Grav unit fired at the Serpent, but it saved everything.
The Land Raider tried to kill the War Walkers, but he saved everything once again.
The melee was very solid. The DWK charged the Scorps, Ezekiel lost 1 wound, the DWK held all. The Echo completely obliterated the entire unit. The +1A from Ez is just glorious.
The BK charged the Serpent and wrecked it.

T1 Eldar:
Once again, only a few adjustments in the movement phase. The psychic phase was largely the same, only he tried to scream at my boys, but failed the to hit roll.
Shooting was a bit painful. I somehow assumed that the WG has their usual Wraith Cannons, but they were Scythes... Needless to say I lost the whole BK unit. That mistake will not happen again. His Guardian blob and Walkers shot at the DWK unit. Ez died together with 3 other Knights. Unlucky, but whatcha gonna do. The other one wanted to stop Sammael, but failed to inflict any wounds since he was in DS range.
Reapers killed 2 Tacs and Ranger another one. Warp Spiders failed to come in.
In melee, he tried to charge Sammy with the Blob and made it just barely, that way only a few could hit him and he indeed lost a wound, but killed a few in return but he held his Ld.

T2 DA:
Sammael made his Hit and run last turn and now moved right to the D Cannons. The other BK unit moved to a Guardian blob unit together with the 2 DWK. The Dark Talon came in and prepared to fire on the other Guardian Blob. The Land Raider made his way over there as well.
The DS turbo-toasted over to the other side and prevent overwatch against the BK and DWK.
In the shooting phase, two combat Squads of Tacs took out the WG while the other 2 knocked the Reapers down to 2 members. The Raider and Dark Talon Unleashed their Hurricane Bolters and other weapons and literally decimated the Blob. The Rift Cannon missed though and did no Vortex.
Melee was very productive. Sammael made his charge with ease and killed all but 1 member of the Battery Crew. They did not run away.
The BK and DWK took no losses and the BK caught the Guardians in a sweeping advance.

T3 Eldar:
Warp Spiders failed to come in again. I guess they saw what happened to the rest. He took some shots at my Tacs and killed 3 in total with the remaining Guardiand and Rangers and the Reapers failed to kill the DWK, same as the Walkers.
Sammy killed the Battery.

T3 DA: Sammael moved over to the Rangers and the Dark Shroud boosted to the other side to prevent overwatch against Sammy and the Tacs.
Raider the hovering Talon shot the Guardians again and the Tacs charged them while Sammy charged and swept the Rangers.

At that point the game was ended and we went to grab a bite to eat.

Clear and undisputed MVP: Dark Shroud. Between improving cover and zooming around the board to prevent overwatch on critical charges is what made the entire game.

Sammael was second. I love him. He alone is not really worth shooting but at the same time he takes your backfield units apart one by one. I love running him solo and I will continue with it.

The Knights did their job very well. As suspected, they spend their entire time jinking, but their melee made up for it. But ignoring or reducing cover is their bane, as could be seen with the Scythes. Beware of Tau or Eldar Warlocks with Conceal/Reveal.

The Tacs were great as always. Holding stuff and shooting other stuff. I like to have around 20-30 with me in my games.

Ezekiel did a pretty solid job with his powers and would have done more if not for his untimely visit to the infirmary.
The DWK are absolutely deadly in every sense of the word, but beware of the echo. The LRC also did better than expected. I might consider that combo more often. However, I have seen that you need either Ez or two ML2 Librarians to make Interromancy a solid strategy. If you are just bringing one, do not expect much of an impact.

The Dark Talon disappointed a bit, because it did not have much impact or even time to make an impact. I will try it out a bit more, but my guess is that it will remain an option for casual games only.

Well, now that the Triplewing list did quite well, I will see if my Dualwing one will perform better. But it was a solid start and a BLAST to play due the synergies.

[Liberame]

Nice battle report, I assume when you say the melta squad helped kill the avatar that you mean they bolstered him down, since he's immune to melta. ITa funny imagery of the big guy going down to bolter fire

[Frater Cornelius]

Nice battle report, I assume when you say the melta squad helped kill the avatar that you mean they bolstered him down, since he's immune to melta. ITa funny imagery of the big guy going down to bolter fire

Yeah, my bad. I wanted to say that both combat squads shot him. The Melta guy just threw a Krak Grenade :D