Relic tourney Game 1 vs Dark Eldar

Game one versus Dark eldar.
I had known that there would be a dark eldar army at the tournament but unfortunately I was unable to avoid it in the first round I knew that this would be a serious problem for my army, but hope springs eternal!

First the table. similar to a table i had played on before, this setup means no line of site blockers. Even with all of those ruins there is no LOS blocking happening here. The objectives were all the same points value. there were 5, middle and table quarters.



However, at first things were looking up, i stole the iniative! i was nearly in big trouble because after deep striking i learned that all his viehicles had night shields! yikes. this reduces the range of your weapons.

After turn 1 the board looked like this. i had destroyed three vehicles and caused him to lose 50 poison shots would it be enough?

Turn 1 deathwing assault kills one ravager, and two venoms.  Not bad.

 T1 DE - killed most of squad on top of middle building, and most of second squad in the open.

T2 DA - LRC moves forward. LR moves into the ruins combined killed another venom. lascanon fire from the second land raider hits but a successful jink by the ravager, and it avoids damage. DWK in LRC multi assault the Trueborn and raider, but fail to pen or glance the raider. I had decided not to activate maces in order to attempt to stay locked in combat.

T2 DE - Combined fire kills the second terminator squad in the open and destroys a lascannon on the LR and immobilizes it. Having not played for a while i did not realize you could disembark a squad and embark another squad, otherwise i might have protected the second squad of exposed termies in the LRC, after charging the previous turn.

T3 DA - Still 3 venoms 2 raiders and 3 ravagers left. Yikes.  In an attempt to protect the LR i reposition the librarian. No more dark eldar vehicles go down and the combat continues with the true born and deathwing knights.

Deathwing knights fight a desperate battle. Our hero's fall to the elvish onslaught!

 T3 DE - The lance weapons converge on the LRC and destroy it. the trueborn lose the fight versu the death wing knights. Belial emerges from the wrecked LRC.

things are looking bleak for our heroes.

T4 DA - With only one troop remaining in the LR it is time for desperate measures. The termies in the LR emerge and hope to charge the venom to the left, then use that to spring board onto the objective near the corner.  The LR fires at the at vemon, and so do the termies but it avoids explosions. the termies are forced to charge it. Meanwhile the deathwing knights charge the nearby trueborn, and lose one termie to overwatch. the combat is won by the terminators and the trueborn flee. belial charges  tries to pen the nearby raider but cant wreck it.

T4 DE - the eldar clean house and destroy all but one deathwing knight.

T5 DA - the last deathwing knight tries a 9" charge to destroy vects venom but dies to overwatch.

T5 DE - NO need i was tabled.

Analysis - I was hoping to face anyone but dark eldar but sadly the matchup was random and... SURPRISE dark eldar. 

There were a few things that made this a tough game

3 ravagers, 3 raiders, 5 venoms.

1.) This was a min/maxed D.Eldar list which means opposing AV 14 doesn't matter, tons of highly mobile troops, and withering firepower that defies statistical anomallies (unlike elite lists which rely on them).

2.) In spite of playing on the city board, there was no line of sight blocking terrain. this makes it tough for terminators especially in the conditions and opponent exhibited here. 

3.) It felt like my saves were below average. Granted hes throwing a bucket of dice at me every turn. (25 shot for each venom). I needed to be a little luckier with the 2+ save to have a chance here.

4.) After the tournamant was over there was some investigation and it was determined that the list that was generated for this tournament was actually over by 8 points. i dont really think that matters as it would have meant that one warrior would have been dropped but still... the guy had forgotten his codex and had written out his list prior to the tournament.

That said there were some things that went well this game but after a closer analysis, there are a few things i might have done differently. I was set up to attempt to take the second turn. I was very fortunate to steal the initiative.

1.) Should I have deep struck on turn 2? i think i actually made the right decision in going for turn one since there were so many weapons he was packing. I had to try to take a few out to protect my transports. But i probably should have deep struck closer to his units. they were all packed together and this would mean they had a limited number of places they could go after the movement phase. Had i dropped closer i might have been able to get a few more power fists swinging at troops/transports. reducing his chances of fireing at me.

2.) when you have nothing else to prescience, prescience the multimelta vehicles.

3.) even though a unit cant disembark then remark on another transport, a transport can disembark one unit and embark another unit. I could have utilized this to protect my termies on turn 2. 

theres not too much else to say about this one. not sure how else to deal with dark eldar. maybe take a differnt psychic power for the libby? I never really had line of sight to any troops due to trying to hide behind the LRC. Just going off of the primaris powers, perhaps the telekenesis one, "assail," would have been better. its a tough matchup to be sure.