Heya all and welcome back!
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| Venom Pringles anyone? |
I decided to test out a list that I know I will enjoy using for the sheer shenanigans on Saturday and managed to get a Deathwing player to play against.
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Rhazal looks upon his fellow Reavers as he waits for his turn to race in the death circuit known as 'Ice Cage'. There are many circuits around Commorragh, but the 'Ice Cage' is perhaps the one that Rhazal is truly fond of. Meant to simulate an Ice World, the ring is as cold as his blood and death could come at any moment, either from the blizzards, the monsters within the ring, and especially the other Reavers. One by one, the Reavers leave the maintenance pit to race in the 'Ice Cage', their jet engines roaring and screaming as they passed him.
It was then that Rhazal noticed chorus of sounds in the maintenance pit.
Sharp whistles and hooting howls are heard whenever Vespera passes the Reavers, but none of them dared to make a move as Vespera brough her own entourage of Incubi with her. The Incubi walked with a confident swagger alongside their Archite, their Klaives glowing with a cold fury ready to smite those foolish enough to come within a Klaive's length around Vespera.
Vespera could not believe what she is doing as of this moment, for it is not like her to ask for favours from anyone. Due to the complicated nature of this particular raid, she is forced to enter into the lair of the Reavers. Every once in a while she will have to come to this place to find pilots worthy for her Razorwing jetfighters and Voidraven Bombers, as her own Kabalites are too sluggish for aerial and space combat.
But this time she will need the services of these imbeciles for a special task at hand. Sending any ordinary Kabalite Warrior or Trueborns to offer the deal to the Reavers would not be sufficient, as the information could be leaked to other rival Kabals. The Reavers stopped their hooting and whistling as soon as the Archite and her entourage stopped.
"I will make my deal simple. Help me and I will give those that survive the ordeal their own choice of attack craft." Suddenly the entire maintenance pit is filled with murmurs, and true to their Dark Eldar nature, none of them trusted her deal. Vespera knew that for a Reaver, being offered their own aircraft is a prestige all of their own and in essence granting those she chose an escape from the death races of Commorragh.
"So....you are the reason for the commotion."
A rather rough, boyish voice cuts through the murmur and Vespera turns around to see a young Dark Eldar with dark denim blue hair with bright, venomous lime green highlights walking towards her. The Incubi immediately burst into action and soon enough all the Incubi are gone.
"Stop." Vespera said, and the Incubi are once more visible, with their powered blades barely an inch away from his body. The murmurs increases in volume as the other Reavers watches on.
" Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy there Milady." The Reaver jokes, and Vespera is surprised by the apparent lack of fear within the Reaver, and if he proved interesting enough, she might let him go. Not to mention that he is a rather dashing one, even if he does not realize it. She might give this Reaver an exception just for his looks, but there is something else that is bugging her about this Reaver.
"Your name." Vespera asked the Reaver.
"Rhazal, Arena Champion." The youthful Reaver answered the Archite without any hesitation, which is a feat in itself considering that four Incubi are pointing their blades at him and facing against an Archite no less.
"Khaine's Shadow." Vespera utters a word which made the Reaver smiled.
"You heard of me? I am honoured, Milady." The way in which he answers her is rather rude, and if this is any other Dark Eldar, he would be dead in a thousand pieces. Alas, she have her reasons for sparing the Reaver.
"Your voice is what saved you Reaver. You sounded familiar to me, and I now have the rare pleasure of seeing you without your visor. I did not expect that you are but a mere youngling......interesting." Vespera gives the Reaver a rather feline-like smile, and the Reaver could not help but to join in with the Archite as well, albeit this time with a little more nervousness in it.
Vespera puts a hololith in his palm, and her fingers are now caressing his chin. Soon enough her lips are now within nanometers of his ears, her voice now as soft and beguiling as the finest and most sensual of silk.
"I expect you to bring several of your Reavers along for the job."
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Well, I decided to bring out all the Reavers that I have painted so far and decided to play around with a splashing of my Archon and as many Incubi as I could bring;
1 Archon with venom blade, combat drugs, phantasm grenade launcher, shadowfield
4 Incubi in a raider
5 squads of 5 warriors with a blaster in a Venom with second splinter cannons
2 squads of 9 Reavers with 3 heatlances and a champion with a venom blade
3 Ravagers
As for my opponent, his list consist of the following;
Belial
Librarian in Terminator armour
1 squad of 5 Terminators with an Assault cannon and two Thunder hammers and Stormshields with a Land Raider Crusader
3 squads of 5 Terminators with a Cyclone Missile Launcher and two Thunderhammers and Stormshields
Both of us are bringing in our fun list, as we both are bringing in things that we have just recently painted (Reavers in my case, Deathwing terminators for his case) as we both gotten a little tired of bringing more hardcore lists to our games for the past few weeks (He plays pure Ravenwing, while my list have a lot more dakka) and also wanted to have a more tactically challenging play.
Our mission for the day is Crusade, with 5 objectives and the deployment is Hammer and Anvil. As for warlord traits, his warlord trait is set at the hunt which is the Outflannking one.
I rolled for drugs and I got the Painbringer (a.k.a Rerolls to wound) while for my opponent's Librarian, he rolled in the divination discipline and decided to take Prescience.
There is no nightfighting and he won the roll to deploy and with that he sets his Land Raider with Terminators behind a small ruin while the rest of his forces are in reserve for his Deathwing Assault rule.
As for me, I am unsure if he is daring enough to deepstrike his guys in front of my entire army for just some potshots and thus I deployed to the side where there is the largest ruin and go about an anti-deepstrike formation.
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| This deployment took me a while as putting all these models on the table is just arduous, especially the Reavers |
I decided to not seize the initiative and with that the game begins.
Turn 1
Rhazal managed to get several of his fellow Reaver allies to come with him to the raid, and for the first time in his life he was able to participate in a realspace raid alongside a Kabal. As they race through the webway portal, he could see that Kabals are truly organizations that have powers beyond compare.
Immediately as he entered into realspace he could see that the buildings around him are rather crude and broken, and the world dusty and foul-smelling. However before he could even formulate his opinions about realspace a loud explosion erupted right before him, and the Venom in front of him just barelly survived due to the illusions of the Flickerfield. Suddenly several of the Reavers went down as well, as a missile exploded into several fragments piercing their armour.
As the crescendo of gunfire and explosion filled his hears, he could only keep calm and move on less he too fall in this battlefield. Alas his senses are now even sharper than they were in the arena and the sensation of pain and suffering invigorates him.
The Deathwing player decided to play a more conservative play, and using the teleporter homer on his Belial, he deepstruck around the vicinity of the target and soon enough opened fire upon my forces with his missiles, killing two Reavers and reducing one hull point off a Venom.
My first turn was spend moving and Turboboosting a lot of things and getting lots of cover saves for myself, thus leaving me with two Venoms left to shoot at a Deathwing squad with the Librarian with it. This shooting phase is utterly hopeless, but I expected it to happen anyway.
Turn 2
Before Rhazal could even contemplate what is going on, his reflexes caused him to swerve his bike and barely avoiding several shots flying towards him and his unit. Several of the Reavers did not react in time and several more went down in flames. His heart started racing and his reflexes dulled down a little due to the myriads of emotion within his mind as he saw the bone white giants walking towards him, their eyes glowing red. For once in his life, Rhazal felt fear.
He immediately swerved his bike to move in another direction, but then noticed that another group of these giants are now upon the Archite and her retinue. For some odd reason, he decided that he must kill those giants coming towards the Archite and he revved up his engine and with unrivalled speed he used his bike as a weapon and sliced one of the giants down, and several of his Reaver brethrens also sliced down some of the giants.
My opponent disembarked Belial and his terminators while his other units moved on closer to the objectives near his side. During his shooting phase, he managed to gun down quite a number of reavers (both squads) down using his Land Raider Crusader and also his terminators. The Reaver squad at his deployment zone (designated Reaver A)and the one within mine (designated Reaver B) did not fail their leadership.
His missiles failed to do much this turn once more, but his Belial squad managed to bring down two Venoms, and thus earning First Blood. His Belial squad then charged into one of the Kabalite warriors squad and wiped it out.
As for my turn,I maneuvered a number of my units towards Belial and hope that I could kill them off and earn Slay the Warlord. My Raider moved itself to the space between the Land Raider and my own forces while my Venoms decided to move forward to put the Librarian squad within its sights. During the shooting phase, I managed to reduce the hull point of the Land raider down by one and stunning it, while my Venoms and their passengers managed to kill off three terminators.
My Ravagers combined with the bladevaning from Reaver A and shooting from Reaver B managed to kill off a number of Belial's retinue off and reducing it down to one dude with Thunder Hammer and Belial himself. Reaver B failed to try and jump back (damn you double 1s) after they shot, and I soon learned that I can never rely on that 2D6s roll to roll an average.
My Archon and the Incubi decided to charge in to try and finish the job. I did not offer the challenge, but my opponent did, and with that we are locked in combat. I managed to kill off the remaining Deathwing dude, but since Belial is fearless we are locked in combat.
Turn 3
Sensing that the Archite is in good hands, Rhazal and his Reavers moved ahead and soon come face to face with a large brutish vehicle, armed to the teeth with a myriad of weapons. The vehicle opened fire and suddenly the other Reaver squad was mowed down by the firepower. Rhazal could see that the survivors are now making a run for it, and Rhazal knew that if he were to survive he would have to kill that thing.
One of the other Reavers fired its Heatlance and managed to penetrate the vehicle, but failing to kill it. Before long, several shots from the passsengers in the Venoms grazed its armour but the hulking vehicle did not want to go down. The gun of the hulking thing soo swivelled and Rhazal knew that death is coming soon. However a trio of darklight came from behind him and destroyed the vehicle in a spectacular explosion, bringing down several of the Reavers accompanying him as well.
My opponent's third turn is rather uneventful as he understood that he had lost the game of maneuver with my forces and could only hope to try and make my life difficult with the attempts to reduce my forces. He casted his prescience within a problem upon one of the Deathwing squad and soon enough he fall back to a more defensible location. With that done, he fired upon my forces.
His Land Raider managed to reduce Reaver B down to two dudes, and Reaver B failed their leadership check and ran away. He also shot some of the dudes in Reaver A down as well, reducing them to three dudes. Luckily for me Reaver A passed their leadership once more. He also managed to bring down another Venom down during his shooting phase, but he failed to kill any of my Ravagers. During the combat phase, my Archon managed to bring Belial down to a single wound, but since he is fearless we are both stuck in combat.
In my turn I managed to regroup Reaver B and with my forces I pushed on ahead, with the Kabalite warriors running towards the objectives due to their dismal range. The Land Raider Crusader is the primary target for this round, and with the combined firepower of one Ravagers, one blaster and a Heatlance from Reaver A, I managed to kill it. My shooting towards the Deathwing squads that was near the objective is quite successful as I managed to kill off three Deathwing on each squad.
In the assault phase, Reaver A jumped far enough to hide behind a terrain in my deployment zone while the combat with Belial ends in a stalemate.
Turn 4
Rhazal is now filled with the euphoria of battle and could not contain his excitement, however it did not last. He suddenly hears a bone-chilling scream and turns around to see the Archite being struck down by bone-white giant's weapon. Believing her dead, he wanted to avenge the Archite but then noticed that the Incubi are now violently hacking at the brute with all their might. However the brute did not seem bothered by the weapons and with a single swing, struck two of them down. Realizing that they are outmatched, the Incubi dropped their weapons and began pulling the Archite away from the beast.
Realizing that I was also going for the objectives, he rushed his Terminators towards the objectives, he managed to move them all closer to the objectives. He tried to shoot down my Ravagers, but he failed to kill any one of them. In In the assault phase, my Archon finally failed her invulnerable save and bit the dust. My Incubi managed to pass their leadership and stayed in the fight.
Seeing that the only way I could win this is to play to the mission, I went ahead and managed to move my two Kabalite warrior squads to the two objectives. Another good thing that happened during this turn is that I managed to regroup Raver B, which also opens even more avenue for contesting objectives for me.
This allowed me to at least have options when I play for the subsequent turns. With that I decided to unleash even more firepower upon the Terminators, but unfortunately I was not that lucky and only killed one off the Librarian squad. My Incubi went on ahead and try to kill Belial, but they utterly failed to penetrate that Storm Shield of his and he bahses two of them to oblivion. I failed my leadership and ran away.
Turn 5
As Rhazal speeds towards the beast, ready to kill him with his own hands the beast soon turned his attention towards a ravager speeding past him, and with one throw of his hammer he downed the vehicle. Rhazal could not even comprehend the skill of the brute in bringing down a Ravager as the vehicle is among the fastest in the universe and the monster brought it down
Rhazal suddenly realized that this beast is a great warrior, and the Dark Eldar within him is telling him that if he dares to go ahead and challenge the beast, he would be dead. However, a darkligght beam came out of the blue and brought down the beast before he could do even more harm.
"You...." Rahzal could hear the Archite's voice calling for him and he realized that the Archite and her retinue are now below him.
"Milady....you are alive!!!" Rhazal exclaimed with surprise.
"That would not kill me. Remember your just reward ....you fool." Before he could even reply, the Archite once again fell limp.
"Fear not Reaver, Lady Vespera is just unconscious. We will take care of her." The Incubi said to him. Recalling that the Incubi are the only trustworthy Dark Eldar, Rhazal left her to the care of her Incubi. As he races throughout the entire burning battlefield, he could see the dead and the dying everywhere and wondered where could that thing that she seek be.
"Rhazal, look up ahead. Something's going on there." One of the Reavers pointed out, and Rhazal's eyes noticed that the Dark Eldar forces are now concentrating their fire on that particular location. Without even a second's hesitation, he revs his jetbike and zooms towards the war zone. As he draws closer he sees a bone white giant holding his ground shooting his weapons at the Dark Eldar forces. Rhazal decided to ascend through the heavens to the point where the bike started stalling.
With a death-defying dive, Rhazal dived down spinning his entire jetbike towards the bone white giant. As he descends faster and fast, Rhazal could feel the exhilaration of speed coursing through his body and he could only smile behind his visor. He powers back his jetbike and drifts his jetbike in a scything arch while barrel-rolling towards the bone giant..
The bone giant was caught by surprise and the jetbike manages to slice the throat of the bone giant off but without decapitating him. As Rhazal regains control of his bike and stops, the Dark Eldar forces cheered him on. The bone giant twitches before collapsing on its knees.
The Reaver walks towards the fallen brute and notices something under its feet. Rhazal soon realize that it is what he was looking for.
My opponent moves his forces towards the objectives, and tried to gun down my ravagers, and managing to strip two hull points off one of the Ravagers and killed off the Raider. In the assault phase, Belial made short work of the Ravager with the single hull point.
Since this could potentially be the last turn, I really need to kill Belial for that extra VP and also to protect the kabalites that were sitting on my objectives. For that I decided to use Reaver A to do something about it along with the Kabalites on the objectives, while the rest of my forces concentrate on the two man Deathwing squad to take it off the objective.
In my shooting phase, one of the Kabalite squad managed to kill Belial off, thus earning me the Slay the Warlord point as well.
The two man Deathwing squad suffered the wrath of the remainder of my army and even with that one Deathwing still survives and will let him win the game by a big margin. I was actually thinking a little harder than I shouldd have, when I realized that Reaver A is still alive. With nothing else to lose, I decided to turboboost the squad and bladevane the lone Terminator and really hope that I could pull it off.
To my amazement, the Deathwing terminator died, and man was I happy as hell. However, I was expecting a loss, as I thought that the Deathwing squad with the Librarian was also holding an objective.
Since this is the end of turn 5, we rolled to see if the game goes on and with a roll of one, the game ends.
Post-Game and Afterthoughts
Rhazal is now in the heart of the Kabal of the Rapturous Venom along with the other four Reavers that survived the raid, and he could not believe that he and a few others would be granted the riches needed to get out of the ring forever. As he stands uncomfortably in the throne room, he also remember that a Dark Eldar is by nature treacherous, and he was wondering if the Kabal called him all the way here to make him 'disappear'. Indeed that is something not unusual in the dark city, and Rhazal's mind is literally going to places where even he is not sure of.
"Reavers...." the soft, sultry and silky voice enters his ear and the Reavers turn around to see that the Archite is no longer in her armour like those she clads herself in during her visit to the racing circuit and also the battlefield. Instead he is now looking at a being of impossible beauty, matching those of Leiltih Hesperax herself, her gown almost translucent, revealing her naked amourous form and her long, velvety dark turquoise hair running down her back. As she stared at him with her bright azure eyes, Rhazal could only looked at her and her......assets. As she walks towards her throne, the dark reflective surface of the floor only serves to inflame their masculine nature.
"Well done all of you, for surviving. My Kabalites shall lead you to your prize. Rhazal, you shall remain here." Before long, the Kabalite warriors led the other Reavers out of the throne room, leaving Rhazal alone with the Archite.
"They will not leave this place alive won't they?" Rhazal finally opens his mouth, and in response the Archite could only smile devilishly.
"Indeed. But you will. Come closer till I ask you to stop."
The Reaver walks closer to the Archite, not sure of her actions. Before long, he is already standing right before her. He hesitated as soon as he is in front of the throne.
"Reaver...did I ask you to stop?" Before long, he is now leaning towards the throne and he could feel her breath on his neck, and the sensation of her smooth flesh wrapping around him in an embrace. He could feel her soft bosom on his chest, and before long he could feel her body heat upon his own. He tried to keep his arousal down, however it all broke down when he heard Vespera's words
"I have always been a big admirer of yours, and indeed I was looking for you.....I am yours for tonight.' Vespera's lips meets the Rhazal's own, and she gives the young Reaver a rather sensual kiss that ignites the passion within the young Dark Eldar.
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Well, the game result in the end of the day;
Deathwing: 6 VP
Dark Eldar: 8 VP
Dark Eldar Victory!
I was honestly surprised when it turned out that the Librarian-led Deathwing were 5" away from the objectives, short of capturing it.
As for the tactics in this game, I find that my opponent's target priority was a little off due to the presence of the Reavers messing with a lot of things in his army. In addition, his forces were outmaneuvered and outgunned by my own which caused a lot of problems for him.
My mistake would be that I moved Reaver A too aggressively during the first turn which allowed my opponent to shoot at them. I should have waited a little more patiently before I commit them. I really need to learn to use my Reavers patiently, less I killed them off for nothing. Target priority-wise, I should have shot a little earlier at the Crusader instead of trying to murder off the Belial squad, and I almost paid the price for my hubris.
Nonetheless, I was pleased with my performance in this game as some daring play on my part worked out for me.
Edit: Turns out that Belial is the one with the teleporter homer. Editted.