Apocalypse - turn three and conclusion

Sorry for the delay - been a bit distracted by real life

Night lords turn 3

With the night lords needing to have a good turn it all starts with the final drop pod screaming down and impacting in front of the hellions, the legion champion emerging with his terror squad, in his fist the nanyte blaster - a nasty relic from the age of darkness I was looking forward to trying out.
Curze leapt in to the sky seeking the remaining leaders of the dark eldar host. The fire raptor streaming smoke from the multiple holes in its hull stuck to its purpose and stayed in the battle, my friend expected it to fly off the battlefield since it was snap firing from jinking but I pointed out with the need for damage this turn I could not afford to lose the shooting.
The assault marines in the centre leapt towards the smaller unit of jetbiikes to try and remove the threat.
The primaris medicae and his men moved to threaten another raider and hoped that the void shield would start to function again.
Shooting saw a couple of jetbikes shot down by the contemptor, Curze's throwing stars flashed towards Lileth but she nimbly dodged every one of them. The nanyte blaster hammered a shot in to one of the hellions and in a hideous example of the power of the weapon the cascading nanyte explosions killed nine of the hellions before it finished, the terror squad easily slew the remaining two.
The fire raptor managed to cause some more damage due to twin linked weapons and power of the machine spirit guiding the avenger bolt cannon.
The assault phase saw Curze leap in and challenge Lileth, the fight between them was harsh but while she could not harm the lord of the night he was unable to get his claws in to her (damn 3+ dodge) so that fight went nowhere fast.
The assault marines hammered in to the jetbikes and butchered them all without loss before consolidating on towards the left most objective.
The primaris medicae and his men managed to wreck the raider but could not explode anything and the warriors from within just hunkered down and prepared to return fire.
The end of phase saw the void shield remain down and Curze failed to close his remaining wound.

From here the battle was pretty much over, I was losing units too fast, at the end of the dark eldar turn I did not actually have enough left to capture all of the objectives and by the end of turn 4 I was down to a one armed contemptor, 5 terror marines, a legion champion, 3 drop pods and Curze while my opponent had somewhere between a third and half his army left.
I managed a good tally of kills but the Night lords were simply too elite and the volume of fire from the dark eldar was too much for me to withstand.

Final picture shows the assumed end state of the battle with Curze facing down the whole dark eldar force before he teleported to safety but after 4 turns and time in the day running out we had to stop it there. Decisive win for the dark eldar but at the same time it was exceptionally fun and I for one got to enjoy Curze bucking the new mewly painted model syndrome I normally suffer from where something I have completed the painting of and I am proud of then goes on to get obliterated in the first battle I use it in before it can achieve anything.

Apocalypse - turn two

Night lords turn 2

So we begin turn two with me really needing a good turn, to start with the terminators lock on to the transponder in Sevatar's chainglaive and teleport in to aide their leader, a second later the fire raptor roared in to sight overhead.
Konrad Curze spotted the now disembarked Drazar and calculated that a long charge could get him in on one of the leaders of the xenos host, he split from his bodyguard and moved towards the centre of the battlefield while the assault marines continued on aiming for a couple of raiders full of splinter weapons.
The second assault marine unit dropped out of the building they were in to threaten a supporting charge on Drazar or potentially sweep in to assist Sevatar in the hopes of saving the first company captain.
Sevatar tapped in to his latent psychic powers and typically for the way things were going suffered a perils of the warp which resulted in a wound with no saves, as Sevatar collapsed he was teleported back to the flagship leaving a number of rather bewildered wyches standing around bereft of someone to fight.
The librarian accompanying the terminators reached out with his psychic powers, a psychic shriek killed four of the chymera in the beast pack before terrify spooked the hellions for the time being.
In the shooting phase I was able to wreck a couple of venoms and kill a few bikers but the highlight had to the terminators firing in a nearby venom with their combi meltas, it failed to jink and was blown to pieces, the explosion swept over the terminators and two of them were immolated - I need to talk to some of the eigth legion artificers about they quality of their work it seems.
In my assault phase saw Curze pull off a nine inch charge in to drazar's unit, in avoided throwing in the assault marines since I felt Curzze could deal with this issue himself. The bodyguard tried to assault two of the raiders but failed to move far enough to get in on the second, the crew of the vehicle unloaded with all of their splinter weapons only to see them all bounce off the void shield. My jetbikes assaulted a raider carrying a succubus and her unit having failed to damage it with shooting.
Curze swept in and screamed a challenge to Drazar who accepted but was met with a boot to the face (hammer of wrath wound) before the fight could happen, Curze's lightning claws sliced through the incubi and whole unit was slaughtered in short order. The assault marines had a lot of trouble damaging the raider but finally the power axe managed to get through a killing blow and blow it to pieces. The praetor sliced through the raider he was attacking with his paragon blade and destroyed it with a wych dying in the explosion along with one of the command squad - I really need to speak to that artificer.
So not a bad turn, a fair amount of damage done and one of the main character threats to my army dealt with.

Dark eldar turn 2

The dark eldar had a razorwing and some scourges come in from reserve this turn and they moved everything to try and end the threat from my army.
The razorwing managed to hit the fire raptor twice but both shots were jinked, the rest of the heavy weapons on that flank then shot, snap firing as they laced skyfire, and 6 of the 8 hit, 3 penetrated the armour of the fire raptor but then my luck reasserted itself and they all only stunned the vehicle somehow.
A huge amount of fire power was unleashed on the assault marine bodyguards of Curze, a blaster brought down the void shield and then everything nearby fired and resulted in 5 dead assault marines, considering the 60 odd poisoned shots it was remarkable that I suffered so few casualties. One of the terminators was gunned down by a splinter pistol continuing to prove that the eight legion artificer really need to be slaughtered and replaced with competent recruits.
Massed fire also hit Curze and managed to punch a couple of wounds through his armour although this served to merely enrage the lord of the night.
The larger unit of dark eldar jetbikes blew the rhino of the tactical marines apart with heat lance firepower and then swept in on the assault.
The assault phase saw the succubus charge my jetbike units, fair their fear check- the succubus then managed to get 4 out of 5 attacks to hit and then they all wounded which resulted in the death of my standard bearer and my praetor barely holding on with a couple of iron halo saves passed. I just managed to cause enough damage in return to barely lose the fight but held on regardless - I was cursing the dice at this point as that felt rediculous.
The terminators were utterly butchered by Lilith Hesperax who barely paused in her bounding assault but the librarian did hold on long enough to cause a couple of wounds to her, characters were not faring too well in this battle.
The tactical marines were torn to shreds by all of the impact hits and the massive number of attacks and so another unit of night lords were gone, by this point I was rapidly running out of forces but my opponent and I agreed that if I could have another good turn I could get back in to the fight properly and stand a chance of stealing something - it would have to be an exceptionally good turn though.

Apocalypse - the set up and first turn

So here is the start of the run down of the apocalypse battle. After settling down and getting all of the models unpacked, comparing the size of armies and checking out paint jobs we started with the pre-game stuff. The dark eldar warlord trait was hatred for the unit, the combat drugs gave +1 strength to large chunks of my opponents force.
On my side Konrad Curze rolled up furious charge as his warlord trait to make him even more intimidating, my psyker revealed that he had mastered the psychic shriek, terrify and dominate powers which was not too shabby.
My opponent rolled for choice of table edge and got a 6 which worried me until it became apparent that Curze's precognition powers were kicking in as I too rolled a 6 and then won the roll off. Objective placement put a couple of them in the midfield, a couple in my deployment zone and one in my opponents which was not bad for either of us. The all important dice roll for deployment and first turn saw Curze continue to try and influence the outcome and I rolled another 6.

So there are the photo's of the set up, as you can see my opponent's side of the battlefield was covered in models, the volume of fire from a normal dark eldar army is scary but that was going to be savage. Assuming I did not have the initiative stolen off me I was going to have to really dish out the damage to try and mitigate some of it.

After the scout move of the outriders they were in a pretty advanced position ready to spin out and try to dish out some damage with their plasma guns - if only the model came with flamers in the weapon options....

My opponent did fail to seize the initiative and with that the night lords swung in to action.

Night Lord turn 1
Dropping down from orbit came two drop pods, the first slammed home right in front of the main battle line, the second slightly further to my left. Sevatar emerged from the central pod along with some terror marines and an apothecary hoping to last long enough to serve as a teleport homer for some more support. The other drop pod disgorged my infantry praetor and another terror squad with apothecary.
Curze and his unit jumped forward as fast as possible intending to get in and do some damage as well as supporting my left hand drop pod. Everything else advanced with the intention of doing as much damage as possible to reduce the incoming fire as much as possible.
The psychic phase saw Sevatar attempt to manifest his precognition power and I got one successful warp charge, my opponent only had one dice and promptly denied the witch with it - that was not going to help my plans at all.
The sicaran venator (represented by a land raider) managed to punch through the armour of a venom but I rolled really bad on the damage table and despite the +3 modifier I only immobalised it. The rest of my fire put a wound on a talos, forced a number of vehicles to jink, caused a couple of glancing hits and killed a couple of jet bikers but I completely failed to do the damage I really had needed to - this was really going to hurt.

Dark Eldar turn 1
With his force completely intact my opponent moved aggressively to apply maximum firepower, his jetbikes moved to threaten my backline while everything else got in to position. The shooting phase was sick and saw a contemptor blown to pieces, Sevatar's unit crippled down to 4 guys and Sevatar taking two wounds and facing down three units of 5 wyches about to charge him.
The other drop pod unit took a lot of fire, the praetor lost two wounds and 5 terror marines fell, they failed their break check and fell back 3 inches.
My jetbike praetor was hammered as well and again I could not pass 2+ saves and he also took two wounds and another member of the command squad fell taking fire for him.
The Sicaran's armoured ceramite helped but it still took a penetrating hit which prevented it moving in the next turn as well as forcing snap firing.
Curze was not targetted mainly because the primaris medicae with him had possession of a void shield harness and it was not worth the hassle to try and take it down when there were so many other interesting targets out there.
The assault phase saw all of Sevatar's unit wiped out but he caused some useful damage which was sufficient to allow him to pass his break check - a failed fear check by some of the wyches helped. The outriders were butchered by Drazar and his incubi and that was about it, I was hurting and if the battle was not going to be a complete white wash I was going to have to have a hell of a turn 2 to get back in to the battle. 

Xenos from the shadows

So now to cover off the opposition for this battle, Dark Eldar which was always going to be a problem considering how elite my army is, they will be able to force enough saves to grind down my models even if I am rolling well on my saves but it was very intimidating to see them all laid out and ready for deployment.

There is some weaker units in the army with hellions and the like showing up but with 12 venoms I was certain to be facing a horendous amount of firepower and mobility and since it was due to be an objective based battle I was going to have a lot of an issues with being out maneuvered and my opponent was certain to have the option to objective grab late on with his mobility but hey winning was not my priority - the key for this battle was to try out all of the elements of the night lords and to have some fun and I can honestly was achieved as should be shown in the next couple of posts.