In today’s episode of Trials By Fire, Szafraniec presents a 1000 point FLGS game featuring his Wych-heavy Dark Eldar against an eclectic mix of Grey Knight henchmen. We’ll call this one an example of how not to build henchmen units.
1000 Points
Capture and Control
Pitched Battle Deployment
Terrain: Decent sized hills all over the board, six major ones with three along the South half (mine) and three along the North half (his).
Objectives: Dark Eldar objective was placed in some ruins on top of a hill in the South West corner, the Inquisition placed theirs out of sight behind the cliff face of a hill in the North East.
Army Lists:
Dark Eldar -
Haemonculous w/Liquifier
Haemonculous w/Liquifier
3x Trueborn; 2x Splinter Cannon, Shredder; Venom w/2x Splinter Cannons
9x Wyches; Hydra Gauntlet, Hekatrix w/Agoniser, Haywire Grenades; Raider w/Disintegrator Cannon
9x Wyches; Hydra Gauntlet, Hekatrix w/Agoniser, Haywire Grenades; Raider w/Disintegrator Cannon
5x Warriors; Blaster; Venom w/2x Splinter Cannons
5x Warriors; Shredder; Venom w/2x Splinter Cannons
Ravager w/3x Dark Lances
Inquisition
Coteaz
Vindicare Assassin
Eversor Assassin
4x Crusaders, 8x Death Cult Assassins
11x Warrior Acolytes, 1x Jokaero; 2x Meltaguns, 9x Hot-shot lasgun
11x Warrior Acolytes, 1x Jokaero; 2x Meltaguns, 9x Hot-shot lasgun
3x Servitors w/Plasman Cannons, 9x Warrior Acolytes w/Hot-shot lasgun
Pre-Game Rolls:
Dark Eldar win the roll, choose to go first.
Combat Drugs: Wyches gain 3d6 for running.
Jokaero: One unit gains 12″ inch range increase, the other gains rending.
Deployment:
Dark Eldar – One Venom with troops deploys just south of the objective behind the SW hill. A Raider and the Ravager deploy near the center. The other raider and the remaining Venoms deploy in the SE.
Inquisition – The Death Cult squad and the unit with the rending guns deploys behind a hill in the NW. The extended range unit deployed in a small forest in the NE, just south of the large hill with their objective. Coteaz and the servitors deployed on the hill with the objective in the NE. The Vindicare deployed by Coteaz, while the Eversor deployed with the Death Cult.
Attempt to steal the initiative fails.
Turn 1a. Dark Eldar.
Movement: The SW Venom moves up onto the objective. The Raider and the Ravager move north, with the Raider turbo-boosting towards the NW. The other raider and the venoms all move north toward the enemy objective, again with the Raider turbo-boosting.
Shooting: The SW Venom can just see a single model in the NW and opens fire, killing 1. The Ravager attempts to shoot at the Vindicare, but is just out of range. The Venoms all fire on the extended range squad, and kill 4, who pass leadership.
Assault: None.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 1.
Turn 1b. Inquisition.
Movement: The Rending squad moves up on top of the hill, while the Death Cult and the Eversor wheel along the top of the hill. The Range squad moves south but stays in the forest.
Shooting: The Vindicare explodes the oncoming Raider, killing one Wych, but they pass their pinning test. The extended range melta guns fire on the troop Venom close to them and cause it to explode, killing two of the warriors inside. The Rending squad fires on the Raider near them, wrecking it, with the Wyches piling out toward the hill, who pass their pinning test. The Plasma Cannons fire at the Trueborn Venom, one overheats and kills its owner while the other blasts scatter off. The Warrior squad fails leadership, and falls back.
Assault: None.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 1.
Turn 2a. Dark Eldar.
Movement: The Warriors regroup, and move back into the crater that used to be their Venom. The Wyches in the NW move toward the hill, while in the East the Haemonculi breaks away from his group of Wyches who all sprint north (bringing their pain token), while the Haemonculous moves NW. The Ravager moves East.
Shooting: The Wyches and their Haemonculous in the NW fire at the rending squad, with a strength 6 liquifier doing some serious damage. The SW Venom fires on the same group, and whittles them down to four, who are all behind the hill. In the East, the Wyches run into the southern edge of the forest where the rending warriors are hiding. Meanwhile their attached Haemonculous splits off and runs North as well. The Ravager fires at the Vindicare, but he makes his cover saves. The Trueborn’s Venom only does one wound to the Vindicare, but the Trueborn themselves finish the Vindicare Assassin off.
Assault: None.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 1.
Turn 2b. Inquisition.
Movement: The Eversor climbs the hill overlooking the Wyches, while the four man squad and the Death Cult come out from behind the hill.
Shooting: The squad in the forest moves up and fires at the oncoming wyches, with the Jokaero firing its heavy flamer. All of the Wyches except the Hydra Gauntlet, Hekatrix, and one normal wych die. The Servitors fire at the Ravager, one overheats but survives, the other scatters off.
Assault: The Eversor screams down the hill, gains 6 extra attacks, and shreds 4 of the Wyches. In return, he takes a wound. The Wyches pass leadership.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 1.
Turn 3a. Dark Eldar.
Movement: The Wyches in the East continue through the terrain, spreading around the extended range squad. The Haemonculous continues NE, and is now just east of the extended range squad in the woods. The Warriors in the South start heading West toward their objective.
Shooting: The SW Venom finishes off the four warriors in the NW. The Haemonculous in the East drops a strength four ap5 liquifier into the extended range group, leaving three alive. The Trueborn, their Venom, and the Ravager combine to bring Coteaz’s squad down to him and 3 warriors.
Assault: The Eversor kills 3 more wyches, who again pass leadership. In the East, the Wyches easily wipe out the remaining warriors in the woods, and consolidate to the forest edge towards Coteaz.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 1.
Turn 3b. Inquisition.
Movement: The Death Cult finally moves out toward the Wych vs. Eversor fight. Coteaz leaves his unit and moves forward towards the Wyches. The four warriors consolidate around their objective.
Shooting: Coteaz sends his bird, who hits several times but fails to kill any of the Wyches.
Assault: The Death Cult charges the remaining Wyches, but for naught as the Eversor kills them all before they get a chance to swing back. Both units consolidate south. Coteaz charges the Wyches (with hammerhand…he always passed his powers test for all of the combats), killing the normal Wych and taking a wound in return, tying combat.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 1.
Turn 4a. Dark Eldar.
Movement: The Ravager heads West, as do the Kabalite Warriors on foot. The Trueborn unit moves North to where it can see the Inquisition squad on the objective. The Haemonculous heads toward the Coteaz fight.
Shooting: The Ravager fires at the Eversor, who refuses to die. The SW Venom fires at the Eversor and finally drowns him in wounds. The Trueborn and their Venom wipe out the last troops on their objective.
Assault: Coteaz takes a wound from the Hekatrix, kills the Hydra gauntlet Wych, but the Hekatrix passes her invul. Tie combat.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 0.
Turn 4b. Inquisition.
Movement: The Death Cult sprints south.
Shooting: A run roll of 6 helps the Death cult continue their sprint toward the SW objective.
Assault: The Hekatrix finally brings Coteaz down. She consolidates NE toward the objective.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 0.
Turn 5a. Dark Eldar.
Movement: The Warriors move on to a hill near the center of the board. The Trueborn Venom and the Ravager both move to get in range of the Death Cult. The lone Hekatrix moves NE toward the objective.
Shooting: Both Venoms, the Trueborn, and the Ravager fire on the Death Cult squad, who are whittled down to four, but pass leadership. The Hekatrix gets bailed out by her combat drugs, and is able to run 6″ to be in range of the Inquisition objective.
Assault: None.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 2, Inquisition – 0.
Turn 5b. Inquisition.
Movement: The surviving Death Cult (though at this point it was mainly Crusaders still alive) move up onto the hill.
Shooting: The DCA/Crusaders run forward, contesting the DE objective.
Assault: None.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 0.
Roll for game end: Game ends.
Objectives: Dark Eldar – 1, Inquisition – 0. Dark Eldar win!
Reflections: Capture and Control is a tough, scary scenario. Outside of some early game problems, my army dominated this whole game and almost lost it but for a good run roll for my Hekatrix (thank you combat drugs! And to think, I was pissed when I got the ‘bad’ drug result early on!). Scoring is difficult, contesting is easy, and the match type requires you to split your forces to do anything other than draw. Dark Eldar mobility saved my bacon, because I was able to get multiple contesting units back to my objective should things have went badly. Outside of that, same story. Venoms have crazy firepower and Wyches are extremely resilient.
Dark Eldar MvP: Hekatrix. Made a lot of good saves, killed Coteaz, stole the objective, won the game. All of that after having her transport explode and being subjected to rapid fire and a fire-breathing monkey.
Inquisition MvP: Assassins. Vindicare was only on the board for a turn, but he was priority #1 for me, and absorbed a lot of firepower. Even then, he dropped a transport and those Wyches should have been dead meat out in the open. The Eversor is awesome to see in combat. He devoured my Wyches, and outside two lucky leadership 6 rolls he would have finished them sooner.
Dark Eldar LvP: Ravager. Pointless against an army that doesn’t have mech. With the meta the way it is, you can usually count on a Ravager being good… but against that one person that goes all-infantry, it is wasted points.
Inquisition LvP: Death Cult/Crusader group. They really need a transport, or at least a spearhead deployment to get them somewhere. Here they basically did nothing but run across the board. Granted, that could have won the game if combat had gone differently on the opposite side of the board, but any set of bodies would have done the same. This is just further evidence that footslogging assault troops are practically worthless.
