Tau vs Dark Eldar

Hi all,

I played my first game of 8th edition in my local store. They had all the rulebooks there so we were able to use them rather than flick through images (a life saver)  and boy were they pretty! The indexes weren't just books full of stats but also had large portions or lore and art. Pretty decent value if thats you're thing.

Anyway, the 600 point game took us 2 hours and to turn 5 before i wiped him. This was my army list:

Archon - Agoniser, Blaster, Blast pistol, Phantasm Grenade
9 x warriors - Agoniser, Blaster
Raider - Dark lance, shock prow

5 x trueborn, - Agoniser, 2 x Blaster, 2 x Dark Lance, Phantasm Grenade Launcher
Venom - 2 x Splinter Cannon

6 x hellions - Agoniser (+2 movement)

My opponent brought:
Coldstar Commander
3 stealth suits
5 pathfinders, with a drone that increased their range by 6
2 x 4 gun drones
2 x 5 striketeams
1 x cadre fireblade
1 x devilfish

Deployment:
I set up as centrally as i could and as close to my deployment edge as possible, knowing I had the first turn and that I wanted to both destroy the devilfish turn 1 and get my hellions into close combat.

My opponent split his forces, with the devilfish on one side with some drones and the pathfinder, stealthsuits and final gun drone units on the other side looking to take advantage of some ruins.

Pathfinders and stealth suits then infiltrated into the ruins.

Turn 1: Hellions charged both the stealth suits and the pathfinders in the ruin, i lose 1 to overwatch but manage to get in, i kill off 2 pathfinders - Wasn't great!

My raider and venom shoot off towards the devilfish and i manage to fire off 3 dark lance and 4 blaster shots. Devilfish takes 6 wounds (50%) from a single dark lance and pushes another onto one of the drones - Not ideal. What was great was the splinter cannon removing an entire unit of gun drones! Hurrah!


On Tau turn, he disembarks both fireteams and cadre i front of my raider and venom and we can both smell death. In 7th edition, both vehicles would uls typically blow up but! Even with cadre giving them +1 shots, the raider took 1 wound and the venom took 2! Great result!

Meanwhile, the tau fighting the hellions have fallen back with the stealth suits killing 2 in return fire! His commander also deep striked into cover to fire at thr hellions but missed all shots.

Turn 2
My hellions turned around and headed for the commander, jumping into terrain to try and get a cover save on overwatch.

My trueborn, warriors and archon disembarked from their transports and started to get excited about slicing up some tau! In the shooting phase, both tau squads were left with 2 units, the devilfish lost another 3 wounds and its final drone. Cadre fireblade took it all in his stride!

I charged my raider and took 2 wounds from overwatch but couldn't manage to engage the devilfish and *really* didnt want it to shoot at my warriors so i charged it with the venom, the venom took another 1 wound. Everyone else charged. My archon annihilated cadre whilst my trueborn butchered the remaining 2 fire warriors in 1 squad. The raider finished the other and the venom and warriors finished off the devilfish. The devilfish explodes, putting a mortal wound on my archon, warriors, venomand raider. Result and brutal!

Unfortunately consolidating 3' put my archon and venom in a pretty dire position.

Tau regrouped his remaiming units in the ruins with coldstar running the gamble and moving closer to take out both venom and archon.

Venom died, but to heavy fire. It exploded and gave my archon and the warriors another mortal wound. The enemy then focused the Archon but the 2++ save with reroll from command points meant he took no wounds!

Turn 3
I moved my archon and trueborn back into the raider and moved it within blaster range of the coldstar, my warriors pushed forward but could only get in splinter fire range.

Coldstar died... He took 3 dark lances and 1 blaster but he died! Result! The final two blasters took out two pathfinders.

Tau then tried to destroy the raider but with no ap gave it only a single wound, turn 3 and only 5 wounds!

Turn 4
I disembarked everyone and moved my raider forward to charge (forgot to move my archon and trueborn into charge range...). Shooting phase saw 1 stealth suit die a d the remaining gun drones. Tau only have 2 stealth suits and 2 pathfinders left!

Raider charges, killing no one but takes a wound. Classic.

Turn 5 was mopup duty, tau fell back, noone died. I charged, they all died.

---

Overall, a really fast paced game which saw me jump around the table. The hellions were wasted unfortunately but i wont be giving them +2 movement, instead maybe +1 str or attacks.

The biggest mvps was the raider and the archon. With my raider able to charge and drag units into combat with it, it made overwatch a lot less painful and meant we actually got to kill things!

The archon with his 2++ and reroll from cp was lethal, absolute tank who killed everything.

Granted, the tau player didnt bring any ap save for some missile pods. If he had done, it couldve been a different game but i had a lot of fun and cannot wait to run around the board again.

Unit Reviews:

Hellions - Seemed decent, sent them to their death and they survived long enough. Wasn't as killy as I thought they'd be. No AP weapons save for agoniser really hurt.

Venom - Killed an entire unit in a single turn, mostly due to not rolling a single save. The -1 to hit was brilliant and was a great little transport for my precious trueborn. 5++ was great.

Raider - Amazing! Loved this guy, the dark lance was killy and the 5++ with 10 wounds meant it lasted until the end of the game! Brilliant platform but I can see it dying quickly compared to the venom with it's -1 to hit.

Kabalite Warriors - Fairly decent, standard troops, the agoniser on the sybarite was the only super factor. Didn't expect much so didn't disappoint. One interesting point is that they now feel useful in melee, granted - Against Tau.

Kabalite Trueborn - Brilliant as always, with the 2 attacks, they have only become more powerful in melee now. The dark lances were great, even hitting on a 4+, being able to fire them, move and charge in the same time was brilliant.

Archon - Did my Archon actually survive until the end?! A 2++ with reroll from cp was amazing. 5 wounds and 5 attacks meant I could just run him about with warriors in front. The agoniser was useful but the blast pistol was wasted - No combat he was in lasted long enough!

Nice report. And congratulations!

I'm a bit shocked that it took so long for 600 points though. Any explanation why?

We were initially using some stored pdfs on my friends phone - So finding rules took a while.

The time also takes into consideration setup but not packing away. We're also good friends so random moments of chattin' away.

Also managed to find an image from the guys at my gaming store!

I do believe the shadow field states it cannot be rerolled.

@kiloran wrote:

I do believe the shadow field states it cannot be rerolled.

That is correct.

Which I don't like....

All in all, good game. Sounds like it was an interesting game and the suitability of our vehicles is something I will have to get used to!

@kiloran wrote:

I do believe the shadow field states it cannot be rerolled.

Woops!