So after all the overlord chat on the squat forums I couldn't not have a crack with 5 overlords.

Lists
I took the nearest Epic UK version of the 5 overlord list at Cancon. Mark played as Dark Eldar (for the first time) we pulled Steve54s list from Wrath of the Tyrant last year to provide something all round but competitive. Also, I've only played against dark eldar once so a learning curve there.

Squats
3 x Bezerkers
5 x Overlords
Thunderfires
Bikes & SC
Goliaths
Land Train with Bomb & Bez car & Living Ancestor

Dark Eldar
Kabal Coterie +2 Incubi+3 Raiders
Kabal Syndicate+ Dracon+3 Raiders
Kabal Synidicate+Dracon+3 Raiders
Mandrakes
Scourge
Scourge
Webway Portal
Portable Webway
Vessel Of Pain
Vessel Of Pain

Titan/Air Third
Razorwings
Voidravens
Slavebringer
Torture

Plan was pretty simple. Try to keep tight and under the aa umbrella, use overwatch to ward off the potential horrible dark elder assaults, for the first 2 turns while advancing onto the T&H objectives. Mark’s aircraft meant it would probably need to be a late game dash for the blitz so I aimed to keep at least the bikes in decent shape and in range to do this. My left flank was something of a decoy intending to march back into the centre on turn 1. I figured BTS was more likely than the Blitz (especially if I could keep my goliaths alive). My main aim was to try to minimise my exposure to assaults and try to bring my heaps of shooting to bear on the fragile dark eldar.

Objectives
Mark place his T&H against either flank with his blitz in the top left corner (from the angle the pics are taken). I placed my blitz centrally behind a building with the T&H objectives pretty much dead ahead in a building and woods (to make life difficult for the webway gate).

Deployment.

In order to avoid a potential catastrophic barraging by the spaceship (if I took a lot of bm, then the aircraft and elder assault units could pick me apart in no time), I deployed most of my army on the right of the board (ie in the worst position to defend but least likely barrage spot). There was a token presence on the left and some bezerkers in cover by my blitz. Mark put very little down, some Mandrakes across the centre of the board on OW, and a couple of vessels of pain behind cover

Turn 1
Dark Eldar go first

Spaceship hits the Bezerker unit on the Blitz with the barrage, cover modifier does nowt as they’re cut in half and broken. The pinpoint does less well, hitting a goliath but not killing it leaving the unit with 2 bm
Squats put an overlord on over(lord)watch
Voidravens come in on the left flank and break the Bezerkers
Overlord fails to activate and advances
Vessel of pain doubles and takes a shot at the overlord on the left (which misses)
Overlord comes back against the vessel (the loss of both bezerker units meant redeploying would still leave me out in the open) and strips its shadowfields
The Slavebringer loaded with scourges ground attacks and destroys the left flank overlord

There then follows a bit of general jockeying for position and a few failed activations. I put the thunderfires and remaining Bezerkers on overwatch. Mark strafes my broken bezerkers. The goliaths break the scourges, the Mandrakes lose a stand. The second vessel of pain puts a wound on an overlord which is then broken by a kabal emerging from the gate. The land train then breaks the kabal.

At the end of the turn, I’ve crept forward and Mark’s cleaned out my left flank. Thankfully I get some good rally rolls bringing back an overlord and the Bezerker co on my blitz. Mark rallies the kabal.



Turn 2
Squats win the initiative!



Between them, 2 overlords destroy the vessel of pain on my right flank (some crazy dice here – the first overlord, needing 5s and 7s, scores 5 hits the vessel loses its shields then saves everything else – the 2nd overlord scores 4 hits and the vessel dies)
The Dark Eldar counter attack bringing 2 kabals out of the webway (one using the portable gate) easily assault off the overlords which killed the vessel and jump back into the raiders and hide behind the central hill.
I then fail to activate the thunderfires who advance to bring as many units as possible under the aa umbrella
Razorwings plink something
The central bezerkers martial move clearing bms and getting into cover, the voidravens promptly rebreak them.
There’s more general jockeying for position; vessel on my left wounds the overlord nearest my blitz, the bezerkers double into the ruins in the centre. The slavebringer picks up the broken scourges on my left. One overlord sneaks a shot onto the right flank kabal and picks off a raider. The land train manages to get an angle on the bts but the macros all miss (needed 6s but the infantry were in the raiders so worth a punt). The bikes move into position to either march on the DE blitz or assault the vessel of pain.

The scourges rally off board
The left bezerkers fail to rally
The broken overlord rallies



Turn 3
Scourges teleport in on my blitz for no blast markers.





My left flank is looking very vulnerable but not to worry as:
Squats win the initiative again!

The goliaths break the scourges
The bikes (SC used) retain, assault the vessel and destroy it
A cabal marches onto my vacant left objective
The furthest left overlord martials and moves to cover my blitz
Voidravens break the thunderfires (losing a unit in the process)
Razorwings strip a shield and put a 2nd bm on the land train
The land train fails to activate so martials (meaning it can’t get into position to contest the T&H objectives)
In comes the slavebringer, the scourges (even with bms) clean out the blitz overlord in assault
The bezerkers counter assault destroying the scourges and breaking the slavebringer
Some more general jockeying for position, but neither of us are able to push on for the win.

The game ends a 0-0 draw.



Thoughts
So the epic UK list does have some difference from the Net EA list, fewer activations being a biggie and also not being able to garrison thunderfires means I couldn’t start with anything on overwatch meaning I had to hang back with one overlord. Furthermore, my dice were AMAZING, going first on turn 2 and 3 was pretty huge. Especially 3 as that allowed me to clear Mark off my blitz. Not having spotter makes a difference too, otherwise I'd have sat the land train on my blitz and sustained on stuff.

That said, the strengths of this list were clear, overlords shooting at infantry or LVs are grand. However, they are serious assault bait, losing every assault they fought (and being destroyed) and this was despite some seriously good armour and to hit dice on my part. As a result the whole army ends up deep as you're trying to get into a sweet spot out of assault range (about 50cm in this game) but in shooting distance. This then makes getting into a strong position on the objectives a big ask.

The list is basically made up of a lot of small fragile units and very vulnerable to being broken or assaulted. This means you have to come forward fairly carefully. Mark going after my bezerkers was a great move as it stripped or my few units with any real staying power forcing me to cluster around my remaining bezerkers. This makes it difficult to push on for the blitz. I only initiated 2 assaults all game and couldn’t push onto the objectives as I would have liked.

The SC in the bikes is, for me a huge vulnerability, as you then can’t really maximise the mobility of the bikes for fear of losing him. Again, I wouldn’t read much into just 1 game but I would say against a mobile, high activation, assault army with decent shooting (and the fragility of the small Dark Eldar units should have made them perfect fodder for my shooting) the list wasn’t all that, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t brilliant. I also think the little land train as a BTS is vulnerable (you’re essentially starting 1-0 down against anyone with deathstrikes) to being destroyed or just broken.

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Thanks for the report!!

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"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
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Hi!

Interesting battle!

Primarch

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Primarch


The Primarchload
Magnetized Titans Tutorial
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Thanks for posting the report Steve, and for making the effort to do a playtest game

Just so I understand how close a comparison it is, were you using this Epic UK list? http://epic-uk.co.uk/lists/CodexSquats.pdf (ie Overlords with built in AA but no spotter, movement 0 thunderfires that can garrison, Berserkers with termite tunnelers etc).

Thanks.

Nice battle report

As Steve said, I think a more balanced list(with Eagles/cyclops/more infantry) would have given me more problems. 5 overlords does one thing very well(shooting) but is light on 2 things an all comers army needs - winning assaults and grabbing objectives!

If I'd managed to win either initiative roll turns 2 + 3 you'd probably have seen all the overlords go down to an assault. Not having fearless makes the blimps far more vulnerable than many equivalent war engines.

5 blimps lining up in formation did look very cool on the battlefield though

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Hi Matt

You're spot on. It's the UK list so no spotter, stubborn, or 1+ rally. Thunderfires come in units of 3 and can be towed by rhinos for 175pts. Overlords still have aa. Bezerkers are always 8 models + rhinos at 200 points. Land train is a bit pricier with bezerker cars at 75pts.

Aim of the report was to test how overlords perform with slightly different list options and in a different meta.

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Thanks for the report.

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

I think you can garrison thunderfires as they have 0cm move.

Nice report. Like the trees

You can only garrison the thunderfires if you don't take rhinos which would be a terrible decision (static 3 model aa unit or mobile 6 model is a no brainer).

Ps, i'm not sure the trees are all that ;-)

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No, Thunderfires with Rhinos can garrison, the move 0cm from the Thunderfires allows this.

The problem that I found was you ended up committing more points to defending the Thunderfires than was worth placing them up the table on Overwatch. On the Blitz is a different matter, but then you have the worry of orbital bombardments as noted at the start of the report.

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Thanks for clarifying Tim. For some reason I had totally forgotten the zero speed rule. As you point out wouldn't have made much difference in this game.

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Great bat rep stevekcole!
Just a small point to note the euk and netea OL versions also differ in that the netea version gets a small bolter array ea+1. Not much but i know we have all been in that position where we had just one more hit in an assault. Hah!

The other point i would like noted for the record is that i think that is an absolute brilliant DE list!

Cheers
Jim

Cheers Jim. Glad you enjoyed. Tbh the way I was rolling for my overlords in assaults the extra ff attack in the net ea list was probably accounted for (I was acing my armour saves and rolling 2/3 hits on my opponent every time). The issue for the overlords in this game was that they started 3/5 down on combat res (bms, double outnumber, and inspiring). So even if they roll brilliantly they still get destroyed.

Aye, it is a tasty dark eldar list (as you'd expect from Steve54) but definitely balanced by the fact Mark had never played as them before. Also it finished 3rd in 16 player tournament last year rather than top in a 30 player tournament so they should be roughly equivalent.

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