Battle Report : Grey Knights v Dark Eldar (2000)

[Godeskian]

Hey all,

 

Thought I'd pass on this batrep for a game played on the 14th of July, Grey Knights (me) vs Dark Eldar (him)

 

I brought Draigo's Dirty Dozen, aka Draigo, five paladins(hammer, 4 x halberds), in a StormRaven (Assaultcannons and Melta), five paladins(hammer, 4 x halberds), In a Landraider Redeemer, A spare Redeemer and a twin autocannon venerable dread.

 

He brought, five venoms with five man basic dudes, a Talos, a pair of HQ's and CC troops I forget the name of, a raider, a pair of Razorwings and a Voidraven.

 

Game was called at the end of turn 4 with one venom surviving, with my total losses being the Stormraven and 4 out of a squad of paladins with 16-2 VP

 

Turn 1.

 

Opponent didn't seize. Pushed the Stormraven all the way to my opponents board edge, teleported one of the landraiders to claim an objective, and moved the other containing the boys to the center to claim another objective. My main focus was to take out as many dark lances as I could, so I nailed the Raider (which also forced his HQ's and CC troops to walk) and took all bar three wounds from the Voidraven.

 

His turn he made his first targeting mistake that he would repeat over and over again, he split fire content to cripple but not kill vehicles. The Voidraven failed to hurt the Dreadnought, both Razorwings opened up on the Landaider putting 10 wounds on it, and then he decided to fire all the blasters in his venoms at the Stormraven, doing 5 wounds in total.

 

Sidenote: I'm convinced that had he focussed all fire on one landraider or the Raven he could have killed it outright, instead I got to keep using the Redeemer's flamestorm cannons throughout the game. Lesson 1, make sure something is dead before you move on.

 

Turn 2.

 

Dropped Draigo and his boys out of the Raven to go hunt his CC team, dropped the other unit of paladins off to deal with the Talos Pain Engine. The Dreadnought accounted for the remaining wounds on the Voidraven, the Stormraven and healthy landraider took one of the Razorwings down to 3 wounds while the other raider dealt with a deepstriking melta unit that had spectacularly failed to achieve anything meaningful last turn. Charged everything into close combat after casting Hammerhand with both Paladin squads and butchered the Talos, one of his HQ's and his entire CC squad.

 

He blew the Stormraven to pieces with his remaining Dark lances, and his blasters put 11 wounds on my healthy raider. His HQ got munched by Draigo in CC.

 

Turn 3

 

In terms of VP's this turn changed the game, I was able to claim points for holding two specific objectives, two odds and two evens. I think I gained about nine points this turn. Additionally I took out both Razorwings and started hitting the Venom's. At this point I started sending Draigo off to chase down individual units because frankly with both Raiders still alive, and him down to four venom's I figured he had much bigger threats to deal with, especially with the smites from the Paladins and the Dreadnought on top.

 

In his turn he took one of the Landraiders down to2 wounds and nailed four out of the five paladins in squad B with blasterfire. It's nasty y'all

 

Turn 4.

 

Continued the demolition, since I was already 14 VP ahead, I didn't bother chasing objectives and spent my turn killing things instead. By the end of it all bar one Venom was dead, as was much of what was riding inside them.

 

My opponent conceded on his turn.

 

---

 

Takeaways. Need more lascannon. Everything being in vehicles meant it took ages to crack things to make my Paladins really useful. To that end I'll be swapping out one of the Redeemers for a Godhammer and putting a Lascannon arm on the dreadnought to replace one of his Autocanons. Beyond that I don't really have any real concerns about this army.

 

Much of this game pivoted on my opponents desire to, and this was his own words, 'not waste shots' in order to actually finally kill my vehicles. Comparatively I unloaded a full BS2 dreadnoughts worth of twin autocannon fire on a Razorwing with 3 HP left because it was the most effective way to guarantee it would die and I wanted those Dark Lances gone. (it ended up being a massive case of overkill and I did 10 wounds before saves, but there you have it).

 

I also hadn't anticipated how utterly devastating Draigo's reroll's would be, especially in close combat where I was able to manuevre him into range of both other paladin squads who were engaged in separate combats. That reroll ability essentially broke the back of my opponents ability to engage my in CC, and by turn three he was running out of firepower to deal with my heavy vehicles.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Adeptus]

Watch out for Raiders. Those things can scoot around at 14+D6" a turn and still lob three Dark Lances each at full BS. 

[Godeskian]

That's definitely true and you'll note I prioritised killing the one raider he brought in turn one. If he'd had more of them I'd have had serious problems

[Zamtro]

That's a great result! Curious on something though - how did you manage 10 wounds with the twin autocannons before saves? Im guessing you mean after :)

 

The Ravagers have 3 dark lances, and if they moved the extra D6" they would still be at a -1 to hit, still you won't often need more than 14inch move with a gunboat like that, considering Darklanes are 36" range anyway!

[the jeske]

wouldn't storm ravens instead of lascannon land raiders, be better units for anti tank? Comperable points cost, better survivability and they can ingore terrain unlike Land Raiders.

[Soder]

I even think a decked out stormraven costs less than a basic landraider before any upgrades! Edited July 22, 2017 by Soder

[Godeskian]

@Zamtro, sorry, I colloquially call them wounds and unsaved wounds. Old and bad habit I suppose, but you're quite right.

 

Ravagers are terrifying to me, given that something like 1100 points of my army is vehicles

 

@thejeske, the answer is probably, my only concern with the Ravens is maneuvering them on a 4*4 to still be able to drop off their cargo and not have to put them in hover. Once I you hover them, they tend to die quickly compared to landraiders. I will be experimenting with a two raven configuration soon though and I'll let you know.

 

@Soder, it does, and extra points are always valuable