Night lords against dark elder

Today I took my night lords off to try them out against the new dark elder codex. My opponent had hoped to bring a number of new toys to the fight but he had failed to get everything assembled in time. We had arranged to field 2500 points each which I was hoping would allow me to bring out the strength of the legion list as well as allowing us both chances to try out new things.

My army featured the following…

Praetor – jet bike, paragon blade, iron halo, digital lasers, trophies of judgement

Command squad – jet bikes, 3 x combat shield, 1 x chainglaive, 1 x power fist, 1 x charnabal sabre

Contemptor mortis dreadnought – 2 kheres pattern assault cannons

Contemptor mortis dreadnought – 2 kheres pattern assault cannons

Dreadnought – flamestorm cannon

10 tactical marines – additional chainswords, artificer armour, chainglaive, meltabombs, rhino

10 assault marines – power sword, power axe, artificer armour, thunderhammer

5 tactical support marines – 4 x volkite caliver

5 tactical support marines – 4 x volkite caliver

3 outriders – 1 x twin linked flamer

9 heavy support marines – 9 x volkite culverin, augury scanner

Fire raptor – reaper autocannon batteries

Sicaran battle tank

My opponent had a standard force org plus some guys from the grotesque circus supplement (or whatever the hell it is called).

I did take my camera but I was so focused on trying to avoid making blatant mistakes that I did not actually take any pictures so I am afraid there is no eye candy to support the battle report.

My opponent won choice of table edge, choice of deployment and basically everything in pre-game. We ended up with the battle where there is an objective in each deployment zone and they ended up being in completely opposite corners of the battlefield.

I failed to seize the initiative and off we went with the dark elder swarming forward ensuring that they would get in to a position to charge on turn 2 with Rakath bolstering the centre by ensuring they started the battle with feel no pain 6+, the combat drugs gave the jet bikes +1 toughness and the grotesques got the same from Rakath playing around with them. The dark elder shooting was aimed to cripple my firepower with the heavy bolter of the sicaran being blown off by a ravager (thank god the random weapon was not the accelerator autocannon) while the other opened up on my firestorm dreadnought and scoring three penetrating hits. I got a cover save from the grotesques between them and promptly passed all three saves. Additional splinter weapon fire managed to down one of the assault marines but that was it.

The night lords swung in to action aiming to tear apart as many of the dark elder as possible, the sicaran managed to gun down one of the ravagers while a contemptor managed to down drazor’s venom. The heavy support squad target a beast host and unloaded, with 20 wounds caused prior to deflagrate my opponent simply picked up all of the models. Other shooting saw a grotesque killed panicking his unit, another venom was blown to pieces and the flamestorm dreadnought managed to incinerate three bases of razorwings. I did manage to forget to scout my outriders which reduced them to comparatively moot for the battle but hey I cannot do everything right.

Turn 2 saw all of the dark elder reserves come in, the archon landed his raider through a webway portal behind the heavy support marines who activated their augury scanner and blew the transport to pieces but the archon and his court passed their pinning check spot on. A venom with four blaster wielders inside dropped in aggressively but scattered out of optimal range but remained safe. The mandrakes outflanked just in front of the outriders. The fleeing grotesques managed to rally on their leadership of 4. Shooting saw the outriders butchered to a man by the massed firepower of two troop squads and the mandrakes while the remaining ravager targeted the flamestorm dreadnought again and this time was unlucky and only caused a glancing hit. Three more assault marines were gunned down and they fled but then in what turned out to be a shocking move the beast host charged them, they pass their leadership check and rallied. The archons’ court murdered the heavy support squad with the medusa flamers doing a complete number on them – if only I had taken artificer armour on their sergeant who was the closest model. The jetbikes swept in to obliterate one of the tactical support squads. The blasters only managed to take an arm off the contemptor and aside from them did not achieve much.

Close combat saw the assault marines prove their worth and slaughter the beast host to a model for no losses while the tactical support squad were murdered by the jetbikes.

Night lords turn 2 saw the fire raptor stay off the battlefield, the assault marines moved to target the jetbikes while the flamestorm dreadnought and the jetbikes moved in to a position to support them. The one armed contemptor moved up to challenge for my objective and try and shoot down some of the incubi supporting drazor – I should have held off shooting and charged instead but I got carried away with the idea of shooting the elder to pieces. The second ravager was riddled with holes from the intact contemptor and the rhino began moving up towards the elder objective. The flamestorm incinerated a couple of the jetbikes. The assault marines managed to get in and butcher another 3 jetbikes for no loss before the dark elder did a hit and run leaving them stranded in front of a nasty grouping of dark elder assault specialists. The venom with blaster troops on board somehow managed to avoid being blasted apart by the sicaran with its flicker field.

Turn 3 saw the dark elder pounce on the assault marines, the shooting from splinter weapons managed to get a couple of wounds on to my praetor (2 unsaved after 7 wounds taken). The assault marines were slaughtered before they were actually able to make an attack when they found themselves being mobbed by the archons and his court, the incubi with drazor and rakath and his grotesques but they had definitely earned their before being butchered. The remaining jetbikes swung in on the flaemstorm dreadnought hoping their cluster caltrops would do the damage but failed and watched one of their number incinerated on the charge and another smashed down by the dreadnought close combat weapon. They held and opted to stay in the fight (in fact my opponent rolled for hit and run, failed and then asked why he tried to roll and tying up the dreadnought was essential at that stage with it able to flame half the dark elder army)

The blaster venom swept forward and disembarked its guys to try and remove the one armed contemptor as it was sat on the night lords objective and was not something it was going to be easy for the remaining dark elder forces to shift, 4 shots only hit once and that one rolled a double 1 for the penetration roll and achieved nothing

Night lords turn 3 saw me carefully consider matters and then decide to hold true to the principals of the night lords and run away from that close combat potential. The fire raptor arrived and managed to take a hull point off a venom as well as gunning down a member of the archons’ court.  The one armed contemptor and sicaran combined to slaughter the blaster armed troops to remove that threat. The Praetor and his jetbikes turbo boosted away to completely avoid the enemy forces. The rhino pushed rapidly forward and the contemptor moved up in support. The flamestorm dreadnought managed to crush the remaining two jetbikes but losing the turn of shooting meant they sold their lives well. The remaining tactical support squad unloaded on the two rallied grotesques and killed one routing the survivor again.

Dark elder turn 4 saw the archons’ court charge the flamestorm dreadnought, survive the overwatch fire and managed to get the sufficient amount of glancing hits to wreck the dreadnought. Drazor managed to pull off a long range charge and get on the contemptor, managed to get 5 hits and glance with 3 of them and I managed to fail all of the axiomatic saves and thus lost another venerable walker in the turn. The mandrakes unloaded everything they had on the jetbikes in front of them but I managed to somehow pass all of the saves to keep them intact. The fleeing grotesque rallied again.

Night lord turn 4 saw the fire raptor move in to a central position, kill a few of the dark elder around the objective and put another wound in to the archons’ court. The contemptor dreadnought  and rhino moved hell for leather forward to swamp the elder objective with models and to get away from the pursuing elder. The sicaran tried to down drazor and failed to completely. The praetor and his lads hammered in to the mandrakes and butchered them without loss.

Dark elder turn 5 saw the elder move everything to try and shoot down the jetbikes as they were definitely the most valid threats but even with two venoms and two units of warriors they only managed to put a wound on the standard bearer. The archons’ courts charged as fast as they could across the open ground but were still out of charge range. Drazor charged the sicaran and managed to get two more glances on that to wreck it as well, furious charge paying dividends in his attempts to get something from the battle. Drazor and Rakath firmed up their control of the night lord objective. The last grotesque charged the rhino but failed to do anything to it.

Night lord turn 5 saw the rhino power forward and disgorge 10 tactical marines on the dark elder objective, concentrated firepower removed all of the dark elder warriors, killed the grotesque, killed all but two of the archon’s court and the corpses included the archon himself. The game continued.

Dark elder turn 6 saw the remaining court members charge the contemptor to try and tie it up while the last intact venom moved flat out to get to contest the dark elder objective  - since I was using the age of darkness force organisation chart I did not get objective secured so he had to hope it survived for the turn and the game ended in order to get the win.

Night lord turn 6 saw the tactical marines unloaded with fury of the legion and take down the venom which guaranteed me the win of the battle.

Final score was one objective and linebreaker each, I also had first blood and slay the warlord to get the win.

So overall I managed to eke out first out and out draw with the nights lords, I have won battles with them when I have had allies like the guard or the necrons but this is the first time they have won outright on their own and I was pretty pleased with my play, aside from a couple of minor mistakes like forgetting scout on the outriders I think I played well and the main thing is when it counted I managed to keep sight on the objectives and not do something silly like charging the praetor and his command squad in to the core of the dark elder army in the hopes of killing the opposing general since I would have lost mine as well.

MVP for me was the assault marines, they took a charge and slaughtered the foe without any problems and then butchered half a unit of toughness 5 eldar jet bikes all without loss, yes they lost 4 guys to random splinter fire and they were butchered when they were charged by the opposing warlord and two special characters plus supporting units.  But the fact that my opponent committed so many models to dealing with them and that draw them out of position to have a massive impact on the rest of the battle was amazing and really won the fight for me. It would have never have happened if my opponent had not made the mistake with charging them when they were running but he did and it allowed them to shine in the battle.

The sicaran was pretty solid but nothing exceptional really, it worried my opponent but very quickly his forces were in combat so his transports were not as critical as they could have been. The flamestorm dreadnought is something I really like as it poses some very different questions to my opponent, if he pushes forward to get to grips with my shooting forces they are having to walk in to the face of some exceptionally nasty firepower and it gives me something else which ignores cover.

The heavy support squad did sick levels of fire but they are exceptionally expensive for what they do, I think 5 of them for 185 points might be an option but more than that is over kill and to be honest they are competing with fire raptors, sicaran’s and the like for the heavy support slots and I am not sure they do enough to win that competition.

The tactical support squads were ok but I do not think they do all that much, they are cheap even if they cannot be my compulsory troops – it may be that 5 of them, 4 with flamers in a rhino for 135 points is actually a massive boost for the army especially as it would allow me to deal with enemies in cover a little more effectively.