1850pt Battle Report: Dark Eldar vs. Nurgle Chaos

An interesting battle here.  This really shows how a couple small, seemingly unimportant rolls can amount to a huge impact on the results of the game.  I wanted to get one more lick in with the ol' Dark Eldar before the new book in couple weeks.

Pure (cocaine) Dark Eldar 1850

CAD 1:

HQ: Vect (warlord trait: princeps of deceit)

Elites:
4 Grotesques, 1 liquifier, abbaration w/ poison blade
-Raider w/ night shields, aether sails

Troops:
5 Warriors
-Venom

5 Warriors
-Venom

5 Warriors
-Venom

Fast Attack:
9 Reaver Jetbikes

Heavy:
Ravager w/ dark lances, night shields
Ravager w/ dark lances, night shields
Ravager w/ dark lances, night shields

CAD 2:

HQ: Haemonculus w/ liquifier

Troops:
5 Warriors

9 Wyches w/ haywires
-Raider w/ night shields, aether sails

Heavy:
Razorwing fighter w/ monoscythe missiles

 1850 Nurgle Chaos

CAD: Death Guard

HQ: Daemon Prince w/ mark of nurgle, lvl. 3, wings, armor, gift of mutation (+1 Initiative)
Iron Arm, Endurance, Enfeeble, Nurgles Rot

Elites:
7 Plague Marines w/ 2 meltas
-Rhino

7 Plague Marines w/ 2 meltas
-Rhino

7 Plague Marines w/ 2 plasma
-Rhino

Troops:
11 cultists
11 cultists

Heavy:
3 Nurgle Obliterators

Allied Detachment: Chaos Daemons

HQ: Great Unclean One w/ 2 greater gifts (3+ armor, feel no pain 4+), lesser (plague flail), lvl 3
life leech, warp speed, hemorrhage, stream of corruption

Troops:
10 Plaguebearers

Heavy:
Soulgrider w/ mark of nurgle

 Mission:
Primary: Modified KPs
HQ, LoW, knights worth 3pts
elites, fast, heavy worth 2pts
everything else is 1pt
dedicated count towards the slot it was bought out of.

Secondary: 2 objectives placed in each deployment zone

I won the roll to choose sides and I took the side I was on for simplicity sake.  I then placed my objective on the extreme left hand side of my deployment zone.  Dark Eldar and Eldar should never place their objectives front in center IMO due to their speed in the late game.  I want to make those nasty CSMs walk for it.  My opponent places his directly across from mine.

I then win the roll for first turn and give it to my opponent.  With Vect, I think its best to make the opponent sweat it out and have to consider all the variable involved with the seize.  Also, it increases the chances that they'll make a mistake during deployment, which is great for DE especially.

DEPLOYMENT:

He basically hides most of his forces from the center using the large fort of redemption in the middle.  Obits are in deepstrike and cultists are in natural reserve.  One Plague rhino is way off to my left flank behind some cover.  I deploy all of my venoms on my extreme right in the event I seize and would very likely move up and kill one of the two daemons in the center.  My reavers are in natural reserve and the razorwing is flying on.  The ravagers have been spread out along the left flank and vect and the wyches are in the center.

My opponent opts for the first turn and I fail to seize.

The vect trick didnt payoff really, but it's true power of it is what it CAN do to the opponents deployment choices.

Everything moved up and popped smoke where possible.  The daemon prince cast iron arm and endurance on himself.  He perils of the warped once, took a wound, and passed the grounding test.  The prince jetted up the board directly at me.  Toughness 8, a 2+ jink save and endurance is more than enough to warrant such a bold move.   

I then did the only sensible thing and shot everything I had at the prince.  I first moved the vect and wych boats in such a way that if the prince wanted to vector one of them, he would have to either fly off the board, fly off the board next turn, or be horribly out of position and forced to drop down.  In my shooting phase, I only caused a single wound to the prince and he passed grounding.  Lance shots went into the rhinos but only managed a single shaken result on each.  Not good.  That was my shot at first blood.

The plaguebearers deepstruck behind the building on my left and the obliterators landed close by.  One cultist unit moves on near his objective. The Nurgle prince chose my ravager and knocked it out easily.  The whole army advanced very close to my army.  The oblterators forced my far left ravager to jink and the soul grinder immobilized my center ravager.  Great.  Once again the daemon prince had iron arm and endurance, but also regenerated a wound with endurance.  Double great..

Both my reserves came in.  My reaver move on to strike at the plaguebearers who are out of cover.  The plane comes to fire missiles at the cultists.  Dark Eldar love picking on the weaker ones.  I also positioned the plane so that it would get a cover from the building and not have to jink the soul grinder.  I see an opportunity for some points if I can crack the lead rhino.  Vect and the grotesques jump out and move toward the nearest rhino with plasma plagues in it.  The reavers kill all but two plaguebearers with their blades and then shoot off to the far left corner of the board.  The plane completely decimates that cultists and only used 2 monoscythe missiles to do it!  Kabals gotta make cuts in this economy too!  Shooting takes out the rhino, but takes pretty much my whole army including vects haywire throw.  It was a pretty bad trade for 2 armor 11 hull points, but I had to do it.  On the bright side, all my venoms managed to nearly wipe the obliterator squad, save one single wounded survivor.  Vect attempts a 6 inch charge and rolls a 5!  Damn.  This is a strange battle with many ups and downs.

Nurgle has a good next turn.  His daemon prince comes down to engage vect next turn if need be.  He gets all his crazy powers off.  A plague marine squad and the second cultist squad move to fire into my reavers.  The plague marines all disembark and two squads fire into vect, killing two groteques and leaving 2 with 2 wounds each.  Yikes.  Luckily, the reavers only lose one crazy biker to all the fire power coming at em.  Nice.  That damn crazy soul grinder then fires into my plane and gets a stunned result, locking the controls and forcing me off the table again.  No big deal....  or was it???

My turn, I jet my reavers over the cultists and hide behind the fortress and out of the range of the great unclean ones charge.  The cultists should have either all died or fallen back off the board.  But two survive and pass morale...  not good.  The plane flies off the table.  Vect lines up an awesome soul orb throw and kills 4 plague marines in the open.  I fire all my venoms at the daemon prince and dont cause a single wound!!  wow,  out of 48 shots, I should have forced 18 saves.  Which I did, but my opponents found out where all of his 2+ saves from his obliterators went.  That was very bad.  The raiders both fire into the soul grinder and dont do anything.  I multi charge into the two plague marine squads.  Vect kills 4 and my grotesque leader kills a plague champ in a challenge...  dark gods... pfft.  Im now in combat with 2 plagues in one squad and 1 in the other.  Not bad.  But i really needed to knock some wounds off the daemon prince.  Meanwhile, I force 2 invulns on his obliterator with my ravager and he passes both.

The Daemon Prince gets his powers off and charges into vect.  The empty rhino, realizing its worth 2 kill points runs away.  The obliterator kills my ravager... The plaguebears fail a chargeinto the other immobilized ravager.  The soul grinder immobilizes my wych boat!  Wow!  The boat would have been in range for the wyches to charge the grinder next turn!  What ARE you soul grinder?!  The worst thing that happens this turn is the GUO somehow manages a 5 inch move and a 10 inch charge into my reavers.  With 3" up the fortress walls and 3" down, i never imagined that he'd make it in.  I lose 4 in combat and flee.  Great, except the jackass catches me and cuts them down.  What a crazy game!!   

The plague champion has to challenge and the grotesque leader excepts.  the daemon prince ends up killing the two grotesques via look out sirs from vect.  Vect puts two wounds on the prince, though in hindsight, should have split his attacks and killed both plague marines instead.  

My venoms manage to kill the plaguebearers in my turn and the plane comes on and fires lances and 2 missiles into the obliterator in hopes of picking off the last hp on the rhino next him as well.  Nope to neither.  Not good.  The wyches disembark realizing they wont see combat in this lifetime.  They sneak through the ruins toward the center.  Vect fights the prince and survives.  This time vect is smart and kills the plague marines before they swing.  close one.  

Turn five for Nurgle.  He shoots down my plane with his soul grinder...  he hit all three and I failed two jinks.  The rhino slinks away and hides by his objective.  Vect gets crushed by the daemon prince.  His Initiate +1 mutation paid off waaay more than ever.  Probably saved his life!  ALWAYS take boon of mutation folks!!

My final turn I jet a venom on my objective and zoom the rest of them nearby so i can quickly threaten his objective next turn.  My wyches run out into the middle in order to stop the soul grinder from moving onto my objective.  But.. the game ends on 5.  Chaos wins primary and we tie secondary.

AFTER THOUGHTS

A great (and weird) game.  It would have been a much closer game in the end if a couple odd ball things had rolled out different.  Its one of those times when you really cant put your finger on what exactly did you in.  The reavers were a blunder, but ultimately unforeseeable.  The odd chaos units that take a ton of fire and still have one or two odd men left are really want won out in the end I think.  The soul grinder was the big MVP today.  His hit ratio was off the chain.  I never thought I'd see the day that the ol' +1 initiative boon paid off so big.  Totally worth the game, totally worth seeing.

Ultimately, my opponent and I always have good games because we always play such different armies.  When you get two armies of such polar philosophies pitted against each other, you're always bound for an interesting and fun game.