40k 8th Edition 2000 Point Battle Report - Dark Angels vs Craftworlds

This was my second practice game in my preparation for running an old school Greenwing force at a tournament in January. This run of games started well with a victory against an all Primaris Raven Guard army the week before.

This game, however, would see me come up against a real Stilton to the Primaris medium Cheddar, an army, who, ever since their codex got released, I've done consistently poorly against: Craftworld Alaitoc.

Index Craftworlds was far preferable to the current situation. Overpriced and easy to kill, back then they were just an army whose elite profiles were vastly over-pointed.

Now that's just Space Marines of all stripes, and Eldar have gone into warp drive.

Anyway, this is meant to be a learning experience: of trying to make a supposedly weak army work and finding ways to win no matter what it comes up against. Let's see if we can manage it in this one!

Armies, Mission and Deployment

These were my boys.

It was virtually the same setup as last time. Five Razorbacks with assault cannons, carrying two Masters, Ezekiel and five Tactical Squads with plasma and combi-plasma. A Scout Squad, three Devastator Squads with four plasma cannons and a Cherub in each, accompanied by a Lieutenant and a Chapter Ancient.

This was Joel's army, photographed in deployment:

Joel's army consisted of an Autarch able to snipe characters, a Warlock, a Farseer, a squad each of Rangers, Dire Avengers and Guardians, five (I think) Fire Dragons, eight Dark Reapers, two Fire Prisms, two Wave Serpents, and two Hemlock Wraithfighters.

And this was our battlefield, set up at the awesome Wargames Emporium in Sheffield:

The mission we played was the Maelstrom mission Cleanse and Control (draw up to and have no more than three Tactical Objectives per turn). The deployment map was Search and Destroy (table quarters).

Joel set up the last objective, so I got to choose who had which deployment zone. I went for the bottom right quarter, as this would give good line of sight for my Devastators on to Joel's deployment zone, in the top left quarter. The objectives were also more prevalent around the quarter I chose.

This was my deployment:

The main force sets up on the line. My solitary squad of scouts also stands near a ruin on the top right, within walking distance of an objective.

The idea was to set up close to the edge of my deployment zone, so I could get my units to within 12” of the Alaitoc units as quickly as possible. I also wanted to be in easy distance of all of the objectives. I felt that if I was to have any chance at all, I'd have to score heavily early on and hope to survive the last two or three turns.

Being Eldar, it doesn't particularly matter where you set up, so Joel just pinged his units onto the battlefield with a tennis racquet (while blindfolded).

This is how they landed:

I jest! Joel placed his force like a normal person, and did so in a way that meant some of his less juicy targets - Guardians, Rangers and Wave Serpents - were first in the firing line.

Having less drops than Joel, I had +1 to my first turn roll, which I duly won. I elected to go first.

Dark Angels - Turn 1

I drew Secure 4, Secure 6 and Overwhelming Firepower. This was an excellent draw. I was in touching distance of the objectives and felt that with enough luck I could use my entire army to get rid of a single unit!

This is how my main force looked following the movement phase:

My Razorbacks on the left were controlling the objectives I needed, and were also within 12” of the Guardians. My two Razorbacks on the right side of my deployment also moved up, but couldn't get within the 12”.

I shuffled my Devastators up so they could all fire on the Rangers on the crates. I knew that Joel would pop the stratagem to have me hit them on sixes anyway, so I didn't see the harm in moving my Devs:

The Devastators line up to take some shots at the Rangers on top of the crates.

In the shooting phase I used all of Devastators to kill the squad of Rangers. Hitting on sixes with no rerolls, they did this by the skin of their teeth.

Having moved, being reduced further by Lightning Fast Reactions or being outside of the 12” meant that my Razorbacks were all hitting the Guardians on fives or sixes, so they only killed three or four of them.

As expected, my turn had been heavy on points and low on kills. I scored Secure 4, Secure 6, Overwhelming Firepower and First Blood, putting me on four points.

Craftworlds - Turn 1

A glint of hope, as Joel had a pretty terrible first turn draw - Defend Objective 5, Defend Objective 6 and Advance (Advance has to be up there with Domination as the most annoying card to draw in the Maelstrom deck). The only one he could possibly achieve sharpish was Defend 5, which his Guardians were near.

In his movement phase Joel's Fire Dragons advanced out of their Wave Serpent, moving the full 13” to get within murderising distance of one of my Razorbacks:

This is how the rest of Joel's force - minus a Hemlock just out of shot to the right - looked at the end of the movement phase:

Joel had a pretty poor psychic phase, but did manage to cast Conceal on the Guardians who were hoping to Defend 5, giving them a further -1 to hit!

In his shooting phase Joel used his multiple heavy hitters to kill three Razorbacks and put one down to one wound. He also took out a squad-and-a-half of Tactical Marines. Ouch. Perhaps most damagingly, Joel's Autarch sniped my Chapter Ancient, who I had foolishly left out in the open.

Looks like I would now have to rely on the famed durability of Marines out in the open to carry me through!

At the end of Joel's turn, he scored nothing. We can do this!

Dark Angels - 4

Craftworlds - 0

Dark Angels - Turn 2

I knew that this would be my last chance to get some decent scoring in before my force would be decimated.

I fast realised that I really didn't have the means to kill the stuff which would do me the most harm, particularly as my army's reach was so poor and Joel could stack so many minuses to hit on his most dangerous, yet furthest away units. Most worrying were the Hemlocks: any other unit in Joel's army could be hidden from for at least a turn or two in the event of my taking a healthy lead. But even with that lead, I could see the Hemlocks rooting out my surviving units, tabling me and making it moot. Annoyingly, to even think about removing one of these I would have to focus fire on it, and if I did that Joel would immediately pop Lightning Fast Reactions to have me hit it on sixes. Bleak!

To have any hope I would need a good draw.

And I got it, with Scour the Skies, Secure 5 and Secure 2.

My plan was to score these, and then to start thinking seriously about hiding!

I moved all of the Marines out of the remaining two transports, and prepared to finish the Guardians on Objective 5. I had Secure 5, and Joel had Defend 5, making this the possibility for a nice points swing. Leaving Defend 5 as another dead card in Joel's hand would also be nice. The removal of the Guardians was pretty essential for my chances.

Elsewhere, I prepared my Devastators, Master and half a Tactical Squad to destroy a Wave Serpent for Scour the Skies, and the Fire Dragons for being scary as hell.

In the shooting phase I did somehow manage to destroy the Wave Serpent. I believe Joel had discharged the Serpent Shield for some easy Marine kills the turn before, so my task was made a little easier. I did do this at the cost of a number of my Devastators though, who I perhaps foolishly decided to overcharge. The Fire Dragons were reduced to just their Exarch. And the Guardians had five or six of their number removed (this would have been more had it not been for a combination of porting wounds on to the Starcannon and the Celestial Shield stratagem).

In the fight phase however I did manage it remove the Guardians:

And for his part the Master easily slew the Fire Dragon exarch.

At the end of my turn I scored all of my objectives, putting me on a healthy seven points.

Craftworlds - Turn 2

Thanks to having dead cards in hand, Joel was only able to draw one card this turn. I failed to record exactly what it was, but it was pleasingly useless!

No matter, Joel could just settle this the old fashioned way.

This is how it looked following the movement phase. The Wave Serpent on the right had moved to clear out the Scouts next to the ruin. He could, in later turns, score a Defend card on the objective that the Scouts were holding, so reasoned that clearing them out now would be expedient.

The Fire Prisms are obscured here, but their guns were trained on my force, as were the Dark Reapers in the far left building.

In the shooting phase my boys took one hell of a beating. I lost the two remaining Razorbacks, most of my Marines and most of my Devastators. However, the Scout squad only lost two members! Yeah!

At this point, after two turns, I had lost around 1500 points of my army. I had four of my characters remaining, the two Masters, Ezekiel and the Lieutenant, a handful of Tacticals, a handful of Devastators, and a few Scouts.

Joel scored nothing!

Dark Angels - 7

Craftworlds - 0

Turns 3, 4 and (amazingly) 5

Yeah, I didn't win this one.

Rather than string you on and make you believe that the plucky boys in green had a chance, I'll come clean.

I don't feel that it's really worth it to write up a full turn-by-turn account, as in turns three and four I did little else other than attempt to hide my handful of characters, and Joel mostly sought them out and whittled them down.

In Turn 3, I did manage to get another victory point for No Prisoners by killing a Warlock and a squad of Dire Avengers:

This took the score on the boards to 8-0 (But 8th Edition cares not for the mission!)

Another highlight came as a Scout Sergeant managed to destroy a damaged Wave Serpent in combat (before the Serpent rudely blew up and and killed him for his troubles).

But aside from these the inevitable happened: Joel's army, largely the Hemlocks, used its mobility to root out the characters and destroy them.

I did pass a silly number of 4++s on some of my characters to make it to Turn 5 with a single Master remaining, however.

This was the last man standing, hiding behind a crate like the superhuman warrior he is:

Hemlock 2, Fire Prisms and Dark Reapers just out of shot.

Post-game Thoughts

First, kudos to Joel for the way he plays his broken bloody army. It was no accident that the models I was able to reliably (ish) kill were not his chief damage dealers. Making sure his less juicy targets were first in the firing line, as well as keeping his Hemlocks at maximum firing distance (and thus making sure that they can stack their multiple to hit debuffs when it came to my turn) were just good pieces of play, and made my task even harder!

But nothing can take away from the fact that Joel's ‘chaff’ was as difficult to finish off as his good stuff!

I would be fine with Eldar if GW fixed a major problem with the way that you can build the army - and that is that they can be made to be  ridiculously durable. It's surely enough that Eldar get some of the best psychic, shooting, and mobility in the game. Why make them so obscenely hard to kill as well?

One of the many things I'll be waiting for in Chapter Approved is some sort of nerf to the stacking of To Hit debuffs. Capping them at -2 would be a start. To be honest I'd like to see the scrapping of all the Chapter Tactics which grant the army -1 to hit, if only so we can see some variety in army builds. Why choose anything else when that is more often than not the best one?

For my part, in this game I could maybe have done a few things differently. It would probably have made little difference to the final result, but you never know.

Firstly, I could perhaps have given Joel the first turn. Madness! you say, but when I consider the lack of damage I managed in my first turn and then the fact that I was completely exposed, to, for example, the Fire Dragons, perhaps it would have been better to pop Prepared Positions and hope to do well with some saves. Perhaps Joel would have strayed too far with his Hemlocks and my Devastators could have opened up on them upon their death.

Secondly, I should have hidden my Chapter Ancient better. This unit gives you some insurance against armies that have excellent shooting, so leaving him to be picked off was a definite mistake. He can also help to redress the balance against minus to hit armies by at least cancelling out one of those minuses (Chapter Ancients allow you to fire back with 2+ BS).

Thirdly, I should be placing my objectives on or near to ruins or other cover pieces which grant +1 to saves. This allows Marines to be in cover and also control objectives. It may also be a good rule of thumb to look for terrain pieces to end my Razorbacks’ moves next to. If they get blown up, the Marines inside can get out immediately into cover, which should help them stick around a bit longer. Placing objectives in cover will give me even more reason to be there.

Fourthly, I should be using the Dark Angels strat to keep my objective cards hidden. The last thing I want is for my opponent to know that my squishy Marines are hoping to Secure Objective X! (this didn't come up in game but I forgot to do it!)

And lastly, I should have made better use of the Tacticals that went in to kill the Guardians on Objective 5. Four squads was too many: two and the Master would have been enough, and I could have kept the other two in their Razorbacks. This may have allowed me to last a little longer, as I wouldn't have had so much of my army out in the open - that many Marines in the open is not a good idea!

These are all little things but I think they are worth remembering - in order to do well with this army I will have to squeeze every little bit of value out of it that I can.

Another thing that would help this army would be the adoption of ITC cover rules, where the first floors of ruins block line of sight. This is another thing that may have helped me a little in this game. I think it's good for a tactical, mission-focused game, anyway, rather than the tabling-obsessed boredom fest we seem to like in the UK. The problem is that unless it becomes widely adopted over here it's always going to look like I want to use this rule not just for my own preferences, but for my own advantage (which I suppose I do!)

Not sure which army I'm playing next, but let's just hope they don't have pointy ears…

Thanks for reading!