Chaos Daemons/Marines vs Eldar/Dark Eldar 06.10.2015

I lost the last time I stood against this famously OP army, so about time to strike back! And if you thought regular Eldar was cheesy, check out the list below.

Scenario: we used the ETC tournament scenarios. We got a mix of Spoils of War and The Relic.

Lists:

Chaos Daemons: Combined Arms Detachment (primary detachment)

• 3-base Nurglings
• 3-base Nurglings 
• Kairos Fateweaver, warlord
• Daemon Prince of Nurgle, wings, armor, Balesword, Etherblade, Grimoire, Psyker level 2

I rolled Doubly Blessed on the table, that's why.

 Chaos Space Marines: Combined Arms Detachment

•  2x 10-man Cultists
• Be'lakor
• Daemon Prince of Nurgle, wings, armor, Psyker level 3, the Black Mace 

If the list looks familiar, that's because I used last week's list; I just needed to remove some upgrades to compensate for the lack of +10% campaign points. So it's just a 'regular' Flying Circus with 13 warp charges on the table.

I'm going to butcher the names of the units/upgrades, but here goes:

Craftworld Eldar: Combined Arms Detachment (primary detachment)

• Wraithlord, 2 Brightlances, 2 Flamers, warlord
• Spiritseer
• 2x 5-man Dire Avengers
• Wave Serpent
• 5-man Wraithblades 
• 5-man Wraithguard, D-scythes
• 5-man Wraithguard, D-cannons

Dark Eldar: Combined Arms Detachment

• 2x 5-man Cabalite Warriors
• Archon, Webway Portal, 2++ force field
• Haemonculus, Webway Portal, template weapon, -2 Ld aura, all the good stuff
• Raider 

What we have here is D-cannons in deep strike reserve with the Archon (no scatter) and D-scythes with the Haemonculus in the Wave Serpent in deep strike reserve (no scatter, disembark for perfect template coverage). Let the show begin...

Deployment

Dawn of War deployment. On the lower left corner, we got the Raider with the Wraithblades; the Wraithlord and a squad of Cabalites. A squad of Dire Avengers already ran up to the rock in the middle (we were already into turn 1 when I remembered to take a photo), the other is hiding behind the tower. Another squad of Cabalites in the forest.
I got cultists in the ruin in the lower right corner, and Kairos hiding behind a wall. Daemon Prince next to him. Be'lakor with other cultists in the middle. Black Mace Guy on the other end. Nurglings infiltrated the church and the ruined tower.
Relic in the middle.

Eldar, turn 1.

One squad of Dire Avengers moves forward. Raider moves forward, then Flat Out into my deployment zone. That's it.

Daemons, turn 1.

Be'lakor swoops forward and Shrieks the Dire Avengers. They run. Nurglings move forward to take the objective.
Black Mace Guy swoops forward.
Nurgle Prince moves in. The plan was for Kairos to pop the Raider with a psychic barrage, then the Nurgle Prince could charge the contents. The plan failed, with the Raider jinking one power and only getting immobilized by the other.
Cultists move towards the Relic.
Warp Storm, 3. Reroll with Kairos. 2. Tests across the board. 1 wound on the Nurglings, 1 on Kairos, 2 on the Nurgle Prince. Epic.
The Prince then charged the Raider and exploded it on Hammer of Wrath. Stand fast for incoming D.

Eldar, turn 2.

Those are the reserve rolls. Yay.

 The state of the board at the beginning of turn 2.

Shooting all across the board, with 2+ Jink working as expected. The Wraithblades charge the Nurgle Prince, and bring it down to 1 wound. I get one more turn of Grimoire on Kairos!

Daemons, turn 2.

 

I did not dare land with anything due to the still incoming D-weapons. Everybody's swooping.
Warp storm, 2. Reroll that. 3. 2 Characters: Nurgle Prince and Kairos. On 4+, it's Kairos. Roll...

... but I manage to roll exactly 9. Disaster averted.

The Nurgle Prince then butchers the Wraithblades.

Eldar, turn 3.

 Perfect Deep Striking close to each other for Haemonculus shenanigans (he's still in the Wave Serpent).

D-scythes working as expected, no more Nurgle Prince. The D-cannons fired on Kairos, but snapshots/2++ rerollable saved my hide.

Daemons, turn 3.

I charged the Dire Avengers with the Nurglings to take the objective for Supremacy. Failed.
Psychic shenanigans. Nothing spectactular.
Kairos flies off the table.
Be'lakor and Black Mace Guy land at safe distances.
A hero Cultist reaches the Relic.

Eldar, turn 4.

The D-scythes begin to footslog. Good thing I took out the Raider.
The D-cannons embark on the Wave Serpent.
The Haemonculus and Spiritseer team up to kill the cultists.

Daemons, turn 4.

Kairos flies back from Reserves. A combination of Vector Strike and psychics destroy 2 D-scythes.
Be'lakor takes a look at the Wraithlord.

A good run takes Kairos further away. Be'lakor takes a wound due to going last in difficult terrain, then annihilates the Wraithlord. Slay the Warlord!

In the mean time, Black Mace Guy took 2 wounds from 4+ poisoned Kabalite rifles. I wanted to lessen Overwatch with a spell, and they ran off the table. Nurgle units can't run, I don't have anything to assault, so I can't get that objective...

Eldar, turn 5.

 The Eldar dead pile is growing. I'm still not sure I can win this without the Nurgle Prince.

 The Wave Serpent turns towards Kairos and the D-guys disembark. I get away due to snapshots/4++/Staff of Tomorrow.
The D-scythes embark instead.

Daemons, turn 5.

In a do-or-die move, Be'lakor moves in to assault the D-cannons.
Black Mace Guy moves in on the remaining Dire Avengers.

Excellent moments.
Black Mace guy destroys the Dire Avengers and takes the objective.
Kairos kills the remaining Kabalites, summons a Herald using Sacrifice, then passes the Grounding Test. Thus I take the objective in the ruins.
Be'lakor survives the Overwatch. I fully expected to kill them all, but the Archon had the 2++, and resisted all my attacks. I was Invisible, so we're stuck in combat.

Turn 6.

No pictures, so I'm not sure of everything that happened. My other cultist squad finally died to D-scythes (way to go overkill). I used Kairos for a tactical summoning onto the Relic. Black Mace Guy and the other Nurgling squad held objectives.
Be'lakor and the Archon are still in combat.

Eldar, turn 7.

 

 The state of the board. The D-scythes assaulted the Nurgling for Blood and Guts. The Haemonculus assaulted the Daemonettes.

 

 

Daemons, turn 7.

Being the last turn, I landed Kairos behind the D-scythes. A psychic barrage killed enough of them so I got the center objective.
The hero Daemonettes resisted the Haemonculus; I was left alive to contest the Relic.
Be'lakor was still locked in combat, at 1 wound.

All that was left here was to tally up the points. I was worried, but in the end I came through at a whopping 18-10 (which got down to 14-6 according to the tournament rules). Epic handshake for an epic matchup!

Conclusions

• Eldar are cheesy. Period.
• I used the same list which got steamrolled last week. I'll have to rethink this.
• Cultists are awesome.
• Nurglings are awesome.
• Cabalites are awesome.
• Kairos is awesome, with proper support.
• Black Mace Guy did far less than expected for his cost. To be honest, he was far from the serious fighting; but he did rule the other side of the table, and scored lots of points for the objectives.