Honestly I dislike the switch for HBs on the rets. Their main use case IMO is as firefight support, they double to get within 15cm, shoot to place BMs then support an engagement. With HBs they get 12 AP7+ shots (5+ normal, -1 double, -1 for inevitable cover), so mostly just place a BM. The HFlamers were way better at this and standing off to fire with HBs is not a particularly good use of them in an engage heavy army.
Anyway. Had a game last night, EpicUK, 3k vs. an Executioner based Dark Eldar army piloted by Matt Arnold. The list plays very diferently to most Epic lists, having almost the entire army mounted inside the Executioner, it doubles to move, disembark, mass firepower, remount, retreat, annihilating formations per activation then relying on the crazy concentration of good firefight and CC units and shields to make it really tough to engage. Then a few formations in the webway to create breathing space for it and contest objectives.
Dark Eldar Archon+Incubi+Portable Webway Webway Gate Warrior Kabal Warrior Kabal Mandrakes Vessel of Pain Vessel of Pain Executioner Spaceship Scourges Hellions
I am still trying to make the cathedral actually work.
Mission+SupCommander Mission Rets Rets Doms Doms 6 Penitents Exorcists+Hunter Lightning Lightning Cathedral
Deployment: I place my blitz in a corner, one objective close to his blitz and closer to the opposite corner of the board to force thigs to play wide (as his army is mostly concentrated). The rest of the objectives sit near my blitz in a clump on the half way point. Webway Gate about 20cm into his half, same side as my blitz. I deploy mosty wide across my deployment zone, knowing that a bombardment is on the way. No DE start on the table. Garrissoned the Dominions and the Penitents (Overwatch).
Turn 1: Dark Eldar win init and their spaceship flies over, bombardment hits both Rets, killing a rhino and 2 sisters from one and two sister from another, neither break but both close to it. Pinpoints strip the shields form the Cathedral and take 1DC. The Executioner then lands and DE retain to double, dismount, fire everything at the Cathedral, remount and withdraw to hover in front of one mission about 25cm from my blitz. The shots at the Cathedral (several TK) destroys it giving DE BTS, the barrage places BMs on a mission and the exorcists. At this point the DE can, at most, one activation left if they bring warriors on through the portal. I move the Penitents from their garrison position to surround the portal so if anything comes out it has to engage them in H2H. DE pass, not risking their warriors in a meat grinder with penitents. I have free run of the table and the Exorcists move to fire at the Executioner, stripping all 4 Shadowfields. Both Lightnings swoop in to put on 1DC of damage (and give the Executioner a total of 4BMs). The Dominions move back to firefight range surrounding the Executioner, mission moves up, Rets move toward Executioner but are miles away. Second Rets try to marshal move but fail and break so move double up the opposite flank and toward the objective and DE blitz (these sisters will win the game, scoring 2 objectives by themselves). As my final move I take the opportunity gifted for a fairly high risk engagement with a BM'd Mission who go fearless/invuln and take on the executioner, crowding in as best they can to leave as little room as possible for the mounted troops to dismount. This is a bloody meatgrinder but the Incubi and Hellions and Scourges are crippled, the Executioner reduced to 1DC and broken and my Mission down to 3 stands of broken sisters. This was a huge success and basically sets up the rest of the game. Everything on the table rallies for both sides.
Turn 2: Mandrakes teleport down. Sisters win strategy and have to decide wether to pressure the Executioner or try and tidy up otherwise. If the sisters destroy the 1DC 5+ reinforced armour, unshielded warengine then all the formations carried inside it will get to activate separately, however if they leave it alone then it can only activate once giving free rein of the table again. Sisters opt to smash up the teleporting mandrakes. Rets move up and shoot them for BMs and I think one kill. Dominions retain to engage the Mandrakes and, with FF support from rets, win and wipe them. Executioner activates, moves and dismounts everyone, shoots to cripple and break the Exorcists. They place the mobile webway, retain and warriors come out to engage the Rets who just helped wipe the Mandrakes, with FF support from vessels of pain and the executioner this wipes out the Rets. They retreat to some ruins. The DE decide not to pbring on their last warrior formation (which would entail H2H with the Penitentd sitting on the webway gate). Table is now the sisters with about 7 activations. Penitents go on overwatch (which basically renders that final warrior formation useless as entering the table would cripple them and make their activation a forced engage in a place of my choosing against a formation of my choosing with overwatch fire waiting for them). Lightnings swoop in and destroy the Executioner, giving BTS to the sisters. Lightnings hit the warriors who entered the table, removing their transports. Formations shuffle around a bit, shooting wipes out the few remaining Scourges. Rets on the far opposite side of th eboard move up to contest an objective and will be in reach of the blitz next turn.
Turn 3: DE win strategy, go for one last ditch effort with a vessel of pain moving to take an objective and shoot at the Penitents, killing enough to make a hole in the ring meaning the warriors could enter the table. The warriors already on the table engage some dominions with FF support from the vessel of pain and beat them, leaving the one final sister fleeing...right back onto the webway gate, plugging the gap just made and forcing the H2H engagement again! Mission engages the last unactivated vessel of pain and pulls in the single Incubi+Archon stand into firefight, Mission wins, destroys the VoP, BMs break the unactivated Incubi and DE have only got their warriors in the webway left. They duly come on, surprise win the engagement with the Penitents but are crippled and broken by the BMs they took from overwatch and casualties in the combat. Table is now free for the sisters but basically it's the Rets sneaking up the far side of the table again, advancing to control the blitz and a second objective.
Sisters win T3, 3-1 (blitz, 2 objectives in enemy half, BTS vs BTS).
Thoughts 1. Sisters remain fun to play and feel about right. Drowning your opponent in well armoured, aggressive firefighters. 2. Cathedral is not that tough, anything taken to fight titans will find it a fairly easy target and it's not great at being a threat on its own. Might try it with the Inq Retinue mounted up now that it's faster and take more direct routes through terrain. It's also not really any good at winning engagements. 3. Dominions are great, not really a scouting unit in the traditional sense, more of a 'bring the pain' support unit. 4. The penitent engines are very good too, arguably spammable garrisoned forward sets of 6 for 245pts can carve a bloody, fearless path through a lot of stuff. Will need to try bringing a few of them in that role. 5. Many of the more exotic units (penitents the exception) are not competing for space in my lists. Missions, Retributors, Dominions, Exorcists, Hunters, Penitents, Lightnings is pretty much the only stuff I feel is good to take, those make a strong, consistent army with a playstyle that fits into the way Epic is 'meant' to be played. Some of the upgrades are interesting and worth using too (Immolators). But I suspect in tournament play you'd find a lot of consistency between builds. 6. I'd probably use the Macro-Melta experimental Cathedral rather than the standard one if I used one again because it fills a role that the rest of the army can't fill themselves. 7. The change to Rets is making me consider just swapping them out for Missions instead, the missions now fill the role of firefight support better because of the Heavy Flamers, bigger formation size, etc. for only 25pts more.
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