Renegades and Heretics vs Dark Eldar 1500: Venom strike

A new guy has started coming to the gaming club and was after a 1500 point game of 40k, so I gladly obliged with the renegades as I'm enjoying using them at the moment. He brought out dark eldar and we played a mealstrom of war game. I'm out of practice facing fast forces.

The Armies

Renegades and Heretics: Combined arms detachment

Renegade Command Squad – 80 (warlord: lead by example)

covenant of nurgle, lascannon, krack grenades

Chimera - 70

autocannon, heavy bolter, militia training

40 zombies - 120

20 mutants - 60

shot guns, unnatural senses

Renegade Platoon

Renegade command - 90

20 men, demagogue, 2x flamers, chaos sigil, krack grenades

Infantry squad - 105

20 men, demagogue, 2x plasma gun, chaos sigil, krack grenades

Infantry squad - 50

10 men, 2x melta gun

Chimera - 60

autocannon, heavy flamer

3 Ogryn - 240

mark of nurgle, carapace armour

Devil dog - 125

heavy flamer

2 Leman russ battle tanks – 280

Heavy ordinance battery – 160

2x medusa cannon

2 Heavy mortars – 60

Total: 1500

With this list I decided to not use militia training across the board like I normally use, instead favouring getting more bodies on the table. I don't know if it will work, but that's why we experiment, to find out.

Dark Eldar: Realspace raiders detachment

Lhamaean (warlord: tactical genius)

venom

2x splinter cannon

Lhamaean

venom

2x splinter cannon

5 warriors

blaster

venom

2x splinter cannon

5 warriors

blaster

venom

2x splinter cannon

5 wracks

2x liquifier

venom

2x splinter cannon

Venom

2x splinter cannon

venom

2x splinter cannon

venom

2x splinter cannon

venom

2x splinter cannon

Razorwing Jetfighter

4x necrotoxin missiles, splinter cannon, dark lances

5 Scourges

2x haywire blaster

Ravager

night shields, dark lance, 2x disintegrator

Ravager

night shields, dark lance, 2x disintegrator

Ravager

night shields, dark lance, 2x disintegrator

This list is something that I have only read about, never faced. And its going to be a real nightmare for my infantry to face. If only I had more tanks and I would be loving it. I wasn't really sure what to do looking at this, so lets just see what happens.

The Mission

Rolling on the mealstrom of war table we get tactical escalation with hammer and anvil deployment. As the game progresses we get more tactical objective cards, so it could end in a big score at the end of the game.

I win the roll for deployment zone selecting the one with more objectives close to it. He then wins the roll to deploy first and selects to do so. He deploys his scourges in the centre on the ruin in his deployment zone. He then deploys a ravager on the left supported by three venoms. In the centre a ravager supported by two venoms deploy in the ruin, and on the right a ravager with 4 supporting venoms. In reserve his razorwing jetfighter starts. I think the wracks were in a venom on the right, and the warriors are both on the left. The lhamaeans I think were In the centre.

My deployment has the battle tanks at the back of the left hand side with both of the chimeras in front of them. On the left the infantry squad deploy ready to push forwards and hopefully krack a vehicle. I place the heavy mortars in the middle behind terrain to hopefully keep them alive. The medusas deploy on the right with the zombies and ogryn in front of them. I place the devil dog on the far right and the infantry command deploy behind it. The mutants outflank.

Deployment

Night fight: No

Steal the initiative: No

The Battle

Dark Eldar turn 1

The raid begins, and the dark eldar move towards their pray. First the scourges jump off the ruin towards my lines but one gets its wing caught and plunges to its death thanks to dangerous terrain. On the left the venoms and ravager move forwards while on the right they are a little more cautious. In the centre two venoms move on top of the ruin.

The right flank holds back

4 venoms shoot at the infantry squad on the left, and they just get shredded, ripped apart by all of the splinters flying around but 2 survive. Not happy with this he finished them off with a ravager, first blood to the dark eldar. A single dark lance shot from the ravager on the right shoots at the devil dog and blows a track off, immobilising it before it can even move. Haywire shots from the scourges target the closest chimera to them and take a single hull point off it. The remaining venoms shoot at the ogryn and roll terribly, only taking 2 wounds off a single guy.

Score: First blood, No prisoners

Dark Eldar: 2 – Renegades: 0

Renegades turn 1

All of my infantry moves forwards as I need to charge them and grab objectives. The chimera with infantry in moves forwards out the way of the battle tanks.

Trying to get rid of a ravager, the medusa targets it and can clip a venom next to it. The ravager jinks but both shots scatter off an miss. Both battle tanks targets a venom with warriors inside, and manages to hit it and clip the scourges. The venom explodes killing 3 of the warriors inside, and 3 scourges also die. The command chimera targets at a venom on the ruin, but fails to do anything. However the lascannon shoots from its back hatch, and immobilises the venom. The heavy mortars shoot at the same ravager as the medusa, and manage to glance it, taking off a hull point.

Score: 0

Dark eldar: 2 – Renegades: 0

Dark eldar turn 2

In from reserve comes the razorwing, and it goes after the battle tanks. The ravager in the middle stops on top of difficult terrain and gets immobilised. On the right the ravager and venoms move forwards. Moving ever closer the scourges get very close to the front chimera.

The chimera falls

Haywire shots from the scourges target the front chimera and reduces it to 1 hull point, allowing a ravager to wreck it, and pinning the infantry bailing out. Shots from the razorwing target the battle tanks but fail to do anything to their armour. 2 venoms target the heavy mortars and manage to destroy one of the guys and a crewman. 3 venoms target the ogryn and unfortunately kill them all this turn. And as he had 2 with no real target, 2 venoms kill 4 zombies.

Score: 0

Dark eldar: 2 – Renegades: 0

Renegades turn 2

In from reserve the mutants outflank, on the right next to an objective that I need, taking it. The zombies and infantry still move up and everything else holds its ground.

I forgot to bring a medusa, so i had to improvise

With venoms have come into range of the devil dog which can clip 2 of them, they jink as they are both hit, 1 gets stunned, and the other loses a hull point. Battle tank fire targets the immobilised ravager and again they explode a dark eldar vehicle. But a venom is clipped as well and it takes a glancing hit, doing well so far this game. On the right the medusa target the ravager and immobilise it with a direct hit as well as clipping a venom and blowing off a splinter cannon. Heavy mortar fire targets a weakened venom and wrecks it, forcing his warlord out but he manages to get into cover.

Score: objective 5 and 6.

Dark eldar: 2 – Renegades: 2

Dark eldar turn 3

The razorwing carries on towards the battle tanks while a venom jumps behind them to try and take an objective. He doesn't really move his venoms, but his scourges get into the ruin in front of the mortars and the warriors on the ground go to objective 4.

Just about able to see the chimera, the flyer hits it and explodes it with his dark lances, killing 2 of the command squad as well as 9 of the infantry in the open. Shooting from the back of venoms is enough to kill off my warlord gaining slay the warlord. Flaming off the back of their venom, the wracks burn the mutants, killing off 10 of them with ease. Venom fire shoots at the mutants and brings down 4 more. More zombies die to venom fire and one of them boosts to disrupt the objective held by the battle tanks. End of the phase and the lone guy runs for it.

Score: recon, psychological warfare, slay the warlord

Dark Eldar: 5 – Renegades: 2

Renegades turn 3

The mutants grab their objective, the dark eldar will never take it so long as they live, my most loyal servants never let me down. Shambling forwards, the zombies carry on walking up.

Again the devil dog targets the venoms but the shot falls short. The medusa wreck the ravager on the right while the battle tanks blow a disintegrator off the ravager on the left. I try to take out a damaged venom with the heavy mortar but it fails to do anything.

Score: objective 6

Dark eldar: 5 – Renegades: 3

Dark eldar turn 4

Again the flyer carries on going forwards. The venoms move to bully the remaining mutants while another goes right in front of the medusas.

The suicidal venom

Dark lance fire from the jetfighter shakes a leman russ, but a blaster from the back of a venom targets the russ as well and explodes the tank killing the lone running guy. The venom transporting the warriors shoots at the heavy mortar and kills off a single crewman. Spitting in the face of my medusa crew, the venom right in front of them shoots at them but only kills a single crew member. Again the liquifier targets the mutants and melts every one of them. The venoms have no choice but to shoot at the zombies and kill 3 of them, my reliable wall of corpses never die quickly.

Score: objective 6, objective 4

Dark eldar: 7 – Renegades: 3

Renegades turn 4

With very little left to do, the zombies move into the middle of the table while the infantry left move towards the venoms on the right getting ready to flame them.

The infantry charge

As the venom next to the medusa is in half range of the devil dog, it manages to hit it, penetrate it and explode it with ease. The infantry flame the the venoms in front of them, glance one and kill 2 wracks in the transport, taking out a flamer. Alone, the leman russ is unable to do any damage to the dark eldar vehicles, the heavy mortar scatters off the remaining ravager, and the medusas miss as well.

Assault phase and the infantry multi-charge the two venoms and make it into combat. They manage to wreck 1 forcing out the wracks, but the other gets away with 1 hull point.

Score: Big game hunter

Dark eldar: 7 – Renegades: 4

Dark eldar turn 5

his flyer is forced to change its course and so turns across the board towards my devil dog. The venoms move away from my infantry as do the wracks.

My opponent informs me that his flyer has a 180 line of sight with his missiles, so he fires all 4 of his missiles at the infantry who are bunched up after charging his venoms. He gets 36 hits, and just wipes out the infantry unit with ease. Venom fire again targets the zombies and kill about 6. Again venom fire targets the heavy mortar and deals 1 wound to the gun itself. Blaster fire explodes the remaining russ.

Score: objective 4, objective 1, objective 2 assassinate

Dark Eldar: 11 – Renegades: 4

Renegades turn 5

I have very little left, but I wont go down with out a fight. The zombies move towards his dark eldar warriors as they wont be able to charge his warlord. The medusas blow a venom out the sky, shattering it to pieces. The heavy mortar manages to kill 2 of the 3 remaining wracks, shame 1 lived. Devil dog and it attempts to kill another venom but misses.

Zombies attempt to charge the warriors, they kill the front zombie in over watch which just makes the zombies fail their charge.

Score: Overwhelming fire power

Dark Eldar: 11 – Renegades: 5

We roll to see if the game carries on... it ends.

Line breaker for the dark eldar

Dark Eldar: 12 – Renegades: 5

Victory to the Dark Eldar.

Post-Battle

Well that was a new experience for my renegades, an army that had enough fire power to easily remove my infantry. Thankfully my tanks held up for a little so I could take down a couple of his vehicles which let me stay in the game.

My list was an issue here but I will go into that later. What let me down the most was my target priority. When I targeted something, and he jinked, I should have then left it alone as it drastically reduced his fire power. I could try and kill a venom, or I could just stop several of his venoms from getting more than 1 or 2 hits. With my blasts generally being dangerous he would have to jink before I roll to hit, so even though I will likely miss, he will probably jink. So with 4 different blasts, I could stop 4+ vehicles shooting much each turn. This might have given my infantry a little bit more time to krack his vehicles.

The list was far to slow and unable to grab objectives. The infantry was exposed. So next time I need to either have more infantry or give them transports. Having bs 2 meant I wasted points on plasma guns and melta guns, I should have just had flamers and krack grenades to take out his tanks. If I have units of 10 with 2 flamers in chimeras they might be able to drive by and kill some infantry. I just need to mess around with the list a lot more. The ogryns were disappointing, but such is life.

I need to shake the list up a lot, try something very new. I might start an evolving list for my renegades and see where it goes.

Anyway that will do for now, hope you enjoyed the battle report.