Thursday 27 January 2011

Hard lessons

Well, I got schooled last night in deep striking by Alan and his Daemons. We played Annihilation with a Pitched Battle deployment. I did enjoy the game mind, and learnt a few lessons from it such as don't get first turn against Daemons when you too are mainly deep striking your army!



The scouts didn't redeem themselves, I think only the Heavy Bolter Hellfire rounds did anything, and even that wasn't really worthwhile! These boys get two more chances, then they are gone, and they only get that because the Assault Squad isn't ready yet!

Highpoint of the game was when the last remaining Ironclad took the last wound from the Daemon Prince... by exploding! I'll take the small victories where they crop up!



Another mistake was that I inexplicably combat squaded my Tacticals again, but cannot for the life of me understand why!

I'm convinced that the loss was done to me, not the list (though facing Alan didn't help matters!) so I'll persevere! I'm hoping to squeeze in a game against Nick and/or Ben with these guys soon, so we shall see how things go!

So, onwards! Blood Bowl starts this week, and at the time of writing I have no idea whether I can get to the club to take part. Although I'd love to take part, Mart's campaign looks to be starting soon, so we shall see.

Not much progress on the modelling front as I was in the Big Smoke at the weekend. Another Drop Pod has been assembled and I'm now trying to decide what shall be next. Really it ought to be the Assault Marines, but for some reason known only to my subconscious, I keep putting these off!

9 comments:

  1. Hi Drax,

    It seems to be a common theme, if you play against Alan you learn the hard way, but at least your learning 8) Just playing Mart and his Steel wall orks has helped me loads with the DE Army. Anytime you want a game let me know.

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  2. ugh, i'm dying to give your Dark Eldar a game!

    I don't think that I've got anything planned for next wednesday - how are you fixed?

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  3. Hi Drax,
    I cant wednesday as Im night shift, how about tuesday instead?

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  4. I shall check.

    I've worked out what I should have done here. I ought to have Deployed everything on the table except the empty Drop Pods and used the first turn to get in to position. Dropping in just meant that i was allowing him to swarm around me rather than taking up a defensible poistion and denying him the ability to come at me from all angles. I could have then dropped in the pods away from my lines to try and deny Kill Points or at least ease the oncoming Daemons as some were distracted by the easier kills of the pods. If I had kept anything in reserve at all, then it ought to have been just the Ironclads as they are meaty enough to cope with a bit of attrition.

    Not sure that this is the definitive way to beat those Daemons, but it seems to have more merit than the strategy that I did employ. I wonder if this would work against Tyranids?

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  5. These are tactic's that will come with time and experience plus knowing what your armies strengths and weaknesses are in the mission/ objectives. Killpoints wise its hard with drop pods as like you say they are easy killpoints, but that doesnt stop you from deploying them close together with the rest of your army.
    With Killpoints its easier to Castle up your forces so that each unit can support the other, use the Drop pods as cover, even if they get destroyed its only on a roll of a 6 that they are removed from play, so even when wrecked they should give your models a cover save. Use them as a mobile terrain and deploy them to give your forces cover or block a weakness in your deployment or an easy route for the enemy to take.

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  6. The last time I played CD and the first, I got tabled also (he iwas a very seasoned tourny player). Sure there are things I should have done but its hard playing a strange army like this. They come in quick and fast, and they do rely on an element of luck also. Next time I play them Im going to use my fast army tactic, make them come to me. You have a completely different army so that doesent help your plight!

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  7. Heh, I can't help noticing I come out of these posts looking like a complete ogre :-D.

    Another point for Daemons is that the majority of the list is CC only so dropping the Pods between terrain to block advance until they're destroyed is workable (works on Bugs too)

    But yeah, deploying most or all of the army normally would have worked better you came close to neutering my Icons anyway and the extra firepower might have been enough.

    Also hitting the Icon units if you think you can kill them will tend to throw CD players off their stride - they're unreliable enough without having to scatter and risk mishaps. You might find dropping Pods where you don't want Daemons arriving could distract them if there is no icon around.

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  8. sorry bud, not the intention - you are a good opponent - i was just trying to get accross that your a little *too* good for me ;) I also don't want people to go easy on me else there isn't any point. Its worth noting though that you are the one to beat - if only you finished the paint job, you'd do well at a GT!!!

    basically i've never played CDs before so i'm just going over ideas of how to counter them. Marines i understand, guard i've faced. i've even had experience against dark eldar, but Daemons, no. they work so differently to the others that i can't easily just adopt the tactics from vs other armies.

    sorry if offence caused, none intended.

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  9. No offence taken at all mate, I was winding you up, you don't seem the sort to go 'keyboard warrior' anyway ;-)

    Yeah the CD are a weird list and since very few people use them they tend to surprise people, if you want to have another game against them just give me a shout.

    As for painting I'm going to give finishing them a shot in time for the Khaleraaq campaign, who knows, I might even finish another unit.

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