Hunt with the Hounds, Howl with the Wolves

I find that the best cure for a prolonged absence of blog posting is a battle report.  Today's offering is a 1500 point bash between my Dark Eldar and Chris's Space Wolves.

The Arena of Death

Filled blocks are impassible towers.  Open blocks are ruins.  Circles are craters.  Lines are Aegis Defence Lines.

Our scenario was The Relic, and we deployed along the short table edges.  Observant readers will notice that this is the exact same set up as my last battle, so I chose to believe that this would be an advantage for me.
My army was my usual dark eldar army.

HQ

Archon with djin blades, clonefield, phantasm grenade launcher, soul trap, haywire grenades, combat drugs           

Haemonculus with liquefier gun 

                                                                                                                                             

Elites

Incubi: 4 incubi                                                                                                              

            Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons                                                                 

Troops

Wytches: 9 wytches with 1 hydra gauntlets and hekatrix with agoniser, haywire       

            Raider with dark lance, nightshield                                                    

Warriors: 10 warriors with shredder and splintercannon                                  

            Raider with dark lance, nightshield                                                      

Warriors: 10 warriors with shredder and splintercannon                                        

            Raider with dark lance, nightshield                                                          

Wracks: 4 wracks                                                                                                

Fast Attack

6 Reaver Jetbikes with two heat lances                                                                         

Heavy Support

Razorwing Fighter with monoscythe, Dlances                                                              

Ravager with dark lances and night shield                                                                    

Ravager with dark lances and night shield                                                                                  

Picture from TheDarkCity

Chris was using his 5th edition space wolf list, as this was his first game of 6th edition.

Rune Priest with living lightning and divination primaris power (the warlord)

Rune Priest with living lightning and murderous hurricane

Lone wolf in terminator armour with chainfist and two dogs

4 thunder wolf calvary, 1 with stormshield, 1 with thunderhammer and storm shield

10 grey hunters with wolf standard, mark of the wulfen, two melta guns

  Rhino

10 grey hunters with wolf standard, mark of the wulfen, two melta guns

  Rhino

9 grey hunters with wolf standard, mark of the wulfen, melta gun, 

  +wolf guard with mark of the wulfen

  Rhino 

 5 long fangs with 4 missile launchers

  +wolf guard

 5 long fangs with 4 missile launchers

  +wolf guard

Picture from Warseer

I got first turn and the pain token combat drug result.  My warlord trait was getting a victory point for every character killed in a challenge.  My opponent was was disappointed to get acute senses on all his outflankers.  He had no outflanking units, and all space wolves have acute senses anyway!

I deployed aggressively on the left side of the table, with my ravagers below the two central towers shadowed by the venom.  My witch raider and wracks were on the opposite side of the towers, and the rest was closer to the top of the board.  Chris responded by putting his long fangs on the top half of the board in the ruins and crater, guarded by the thunderwolves.  The grey hunter rhinos stayed behind terrain on the bottom of the table, and the lone wolf was put up front to distract me from shooting important targets.

Turn by Turn Recap

DE1: I shot up the lone wolf unit with all my dark lances to get first blood.  My incubi+archon venom rushed forward to sit in front of his rhinos with the 4+ cover save, and on the opposite edge of the board the reavers flew over the long fangs in the ruin and the thunderwolves.  They managed to take out the wolf guard and one missile launcher, and I hoped Chris would charge them with the thunderwolves so I could wait until later to deal with them.  Also, one of my ravagers was immobilized in a crater.

SW1: The thunderwolves crashed into my jetbikes and killed them all, taking one wound in the process.  All of Chris's anti-tank power was focused on my venom, and it exploded and killed one of the incubi.  Things were looking good for me so far.

DE2: I continued moving up my raiders and disembarked the wytches to try for a charge.  My wracks had a terrible difficult terrain roll, and didn't get much closer to the objective.  I blew up two of Chris's rhinos, pinning one of the squads.  My archon and incubi brought one of  the units down two four models in the ensuing combat, but they actually managed to flee so I consolidated into cover.  My wytches were not in range for a charge, so they just sat there.

SW2: Chris fired a lot of frag missiles into my wytch squad, killing all of them except for the leader and one trooper.  His grey hunters blasted my archon's squad, giving him a victory point for killing my warlord.  His thunderwolves attempted a charge on both of my raider warriors.  He failed this charge, even with his re-roll, and I took off another wound with overwatch.

DE3: Everything shot the tunderwolves, killing three of them leaving one with a single wound.  The wracks made it to the objective with their run roll.  My warrior raiders also moved up so they could block the long fangs in the ruins from shooting my wracks.  My razorwing flew off the board.

SW3: Chris's shooting immobilized and took the weapon off one of my warrior raiders and removed the dark lance from the other ones.  His disembarked grey hunters charged my two surviving wytches to finish them off and get some extra distance.  His surviving rhino full of grey hunters also moved up and used smoke.  The last thunderwolf charged my wytch raider and killed it, which pinned the Haemonculus that was inside.

DE4: I managed to finish off the thunderwolf with shooting and killed off one of the missile launchers in the ruins too.  Unfortunately, the shredder shot scattered out of the ruins and finished off my other warrior raider, pinning the squad that was inside it.  My ravagers killed the last rhino and pinned the squad that was inside it.  My razorwing flew back on the board.  I was starting to run out of units, and my wracks were fleeing for their lives.

SW4: The grey hunter squad that wasn't pinned charged my Haemonculus and one of my ravagers.  They did one wound to the haemonculus and finished off the tank, but I passed my morale check.  My pinned warrior squad took about six krak missiles and some psychic assaults, but I passed my cover saves like crazy and only lost about half the unit.  They promptly failed their morale check and fled.

DE5:  Things weren't looking good for me.  My wracks continued to run with the objective, and I finished off the long fang squad in the ruins.  My fleeing unit of warriors continued to flee.  My haemonculus only took one wound in the combat, but apparently his heart wasn't in it as he failed his feel no pain roll and died.

SW5:  Chris's shooting killed a wrack and caused the squad to drop their objective and flee in terror.  He moved up with his run roll and took it for himself.  My warrior squads were relatively unharmed by his shooting though.

The dice decided we should play another turn.

DE6: My wracks did not regroup, but my fleeing warriors did.  I poured all my shooting into his squad of six that was holding the objective, but I only killed one so the game was his.

SW6: Chris shot me a bit and moved into my deployment zone for linebreaker.

Final Score: a 5:1 victory for the Space Wolves!

Picture from Bolter and Chainsword

The Breakdown:
What an intense game!  Things appeared to be going very well for me early on, as I was killing a lot of enemy units without taking much damage to my important pieces.  I was very lucky with the insane amount of 5+ cover saves and feel no pain saves I made, which I attribute to all my practice rolling armour saves for my guardsmen.  I also did not expect to shoot down my own raider... I wonder if I could get pain tokens in that way.
I'm sure there are a couple of tactical decisions I could have improved, but I think this one mainly came down to the dice.  There were several points where the game could have swung back in my favour, which was nice because it kept me invested right until the end.  If we had went on to turn seven there was still a chance I could have got a tie by making his objective holding squad flee with my surviving warriors.  Dark Eldar are such a fun army to play, and I'm looking forward to getting games in more often as the year goes on.

The Future!
I'm hoping to attend my first Warmachine tournament at the end of November.  It's a battlebox style tournament, so I'll only have to paint up Rahn, a Chimera, and a Phoenix.  I plan on getting in a bunch of practice games in the upcoming month, so you should see some battle reports shortly.