Battle Report: A Skirmish with Dark Eldar (6th Edition)

So, after finishing a game against Paul's Space Wolves, back in February, there was enough time to fit in a game against his new Dark Eldar force.

The board ended up with more terrain on it, and we got diagonal deployment. The dice we laid out were an attempt to roughly indicate where the deployment lines are.

Here's the small raiding party - two Kabalite squads in Raiders, and a Ravager to murder tanks.

Here's my deployment, all deployment like. Also, team Dark Eldar lined up abreast, so it was like the Guard had just ambushed them in convoy, which was kind of cool.

There were some sneaky Ratlings discouraging anyone from ambling in this direction.

Early Dark Eldar fire was pretty effective and encouraged much running away.

The Dark Eldar skimmers formed up ready to cause some serious damage.

The Penal Legion, knowing their job was holding objectives, decided not to waste their lives on open ground and headed for cover.

The Chimera was . . . brave. However, the Ravager went down, immobilised.

A slightly Benny Hill - like moment here, as the Penal Legion start running around the back of the bunker to reduce the chance of getting shot.

The Ratlings realised no-one was coming into range of their sniper rifles so started a long hike to a better firing position.

The Dark Eldar started trying to outflank, and also to use the buildings to get away from the pesky Hydra. Then they lost another skimmer to enemy fire, now leaving the remaining Kabalites out on a limb away from the objectives.

Then the second exploded heavily, dropping the Dark Eldar into a hole where it used to be.

They took their vengeance on the newly rallied Guard squad, sending the survivors scurrying for cover a second time.

The Penal Legion advanced a bit further to provide a screen for the Ratlings.

The surviving Dark Eldar took heavy fire, with the squad whose transport had been blown up not making it.

The Ratlings' stumpy little legs weren't bringing them closer to any surviving targets!

The Penal Legion held the objective closest to the Dark Eldar, hoping they didn't notice.

The Dark Eldar turned the corner to try and wreck the Chimera, but were unsuccessful.

The troops in the Chimera then pulled back to another objective, while the Chimera advanced and showed what a hull mounted Heavy Flamer can do to incautious Dark Eldar.

With that, the game was done - the Dark Eldar held one objective, but the Imperial Guard comfortably held two. The ambush on the Dark Eldar convoy was successful, and victory was claimed for the Guard!