Eldar Civil War

Well, not really. Civil war implies one nation fighting itself but in this case the Dark Eldar and Craftworld Eldar are separated by more than 10 millennia. Safe to say they are not kissing cousins.

I went to GW Bayshore last night where kind Johanna allowed me and Rob (Darkscythe) to play some 40K even though its Fantasy night. We got lots of dirty looks and I reveled in it.

We played 1000 pts Take and Hold mission. I used the same list I used against James:
Farseer with Fortune
10 Scorps with Exarch in Wave Serpent
10 Guardians with Warlock in Wave Serpent
6 Jetbikes
2 Vypers
Fire Prism

And Rob's list:
Archon + 4 Incubi + 5 Warriors in Raider
10 Warriors in Raider
10 Warriors in Raider
15 Warriors
5 Jetbikes
Ravager with three Disintegrators

Some Pictures!

I deployed almost entirely on one flank with only the Vypers on the other side to distract and give Rob some food for thought. The Dusk and Dawn rule applied and caused the first turn to be in darkness, so when I won the roll off I forced Rob to move first.

He advanced his raiders on the far flank and his jetbikes up the middle. I countered with the vypers blowing up a raider and my Jetbikes shooting up his followed by assault which was ineffective.

Rob chose to act and got his Arhcon and retinue to finish off my jetbikes while raider and warrior firepower shot up my vypers. The Ravager went down and the exposed Archon and retinue faced a Shuriken Storm from the Guardians and Scorpions killing them all including the Archon getting insta-killed by a errant Shuriken Cannon disc. With the Archon gone, the Dark Eldar were slowly pushed back by the advancing Scorpions whose fortuned armour proved too hard to break. The surviving Dark Eldar jetbikes tried to cause some havoc by destroying the guardian wave serpent and damaging the Fire Prism crystal, but ultimately missed exacting revenge on the Farseer for the death of the Archon and then succumbed to Destructor flames from the passing fleeing Warlock.

In the end I had the Fire Prism and Scorpions on the objective to one Dark Eldar Warrior squad. Victory to Craftworld Canathius!

Analysis:
Dark Eldar are a finesse army that requires nerves of steel to pull off. Faced with staying on the Raider for another turn and risking getting pinned by the destruction of the boat from the long-reaching Fire Prism or assaulting and assisting the Jetbikes against the Guardian Jetbikes on turn 2, I understand why Rob chose the latter. Still, I feel it left his unit out in the open exposed to my firepower that was his ultimate undoing. With the Archon and incubi dead and the Ravager destroyed, there was no one thing that could challenge the Scorpions from marching to the objective and cleaning up along the way.

Great game!