40K Battle Report: Daemons vs Spacewolves/Raven Guard

Been a busy week, haven't had time to get last weeks Bat Rep up, hopefully I can get it posted over the weekend or something.

Last night's game was a nice change of pace. We had around 20 people show up again, and almost all of the tables were COVERED in Line of Sight blocking terrain. A few of them were laid out like cites, and one was even designed as a freight yard with around 40 large size crates.

However, there were 2-3 tables that were virtual deserts with minimal terrain at all...

As it got close to game time, we were waiting for a few more people to show up and a few of us started talking about how no one wanted to play on those tables...so we just started pairing ourselves up and grabbing tables that we wanted to play on. (Daemons with no terrain is bad...)

Thought about getting paired up with Squoze, but he and Capnmoe had already paired up and grabbed a table.

On a side note, I highly recommend Reddit:Warhammer for those that don't know about it. Great community and source of tons of information.

Anyways, back to the report.

I paired up with a guy at the store who plays Space Wolves.

I have talked to this guy every week for almost a year, and we have never actually played each other, so game on.

He was playing his Space Wolves as usual with some Raven Guard allies. I brought the Daemons out to play this week, as I prepare for the Titan Tournament at coming up next month.

He picked one of the city boards available, so he could use the cover for his Marines. Little did he know that would be his downfall.

My List:
(Warlord) Fateweaver: Flame Breath/Prescience, Shriek/Enfeeble
Keeper of Secrets: Shriek/Invisibility/Cacophonic Choir - Dark Blessing, Daemonic Resilience
10 Daemonettes
10 Pink Horrors
10 PlagueBearers
20 Flesh Hounds
Slaanesh Daemon Prince (Red) - Life Leech/WarpSpeed/Iron Arm, Wings, Armor, Lash, Portaglyph
Slaanesh Daemon Prince (Grey) - Smite/Endurance/Iron Arm, Wings, Armor, Lash, Grimore

Slaanesh Soul Grinder - Baleful Torrent

His List: (Probably missing some stuff in here)
(Warlord) Rune Priest - Terminator Armor, Axe, Jaws of the World Wolf, Fury of the Wolf Spirit
8 Grey Hunters - Melta, Drop Pod
8 Grey Hunters - Melta, Drop Pod
5 Grey Hunters - Flamer, Razorback with TL Lascannons
8 Grey Hunters - Rhino
5 Scouts with Shotguns
Contemptor Dreadnought - 2 Heavy Flamers, Drop Pod
Landspeeder - Multimelta, Heavy Flamer
Landspeeder - Multimelta, Heavy Flamer
Stormraven - TL Assault Cannon, Multimelta

Shrike
10 Assault Marines - Thunderhammer, Plasma Pistol
5 Tactical Marines, Flamer, Razorback - TL Lascannon

Game: Emperor's Will
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil.
Night Fight was in Effect

He won the roll to deploy and chose to go first.

He placed his objective behind a huge ass tower, and I placed mine in the middle of a ruined building on my side.

He spread all his units out, Placing them in cover, putting the 5 Tactical Marines on his objective, and their razorback over near the Assault Marines. Obviously he had the Storm Raven and 3 drop pods in reserve.

I deployed everything on the board, and everything in cover, except for the hounds and Daemonettes which I spread out to prevent his drop pods from landing on that side of my backfield. The Soul Grinder I placed way to close to the building and left far too much room behind him...which I would later regret.

He scout moves up his Razorback into cover.

I roll to steal Initiative and its a 5, so close...

Marines Turn 1
2 Drop Pods come in, one with the Rune Priest, one with the Dreadnought.

He places the Grey Hunters behind the Soul Grinder and the Dreadnought in front of him.

A Melta shot manages to drop the Soul Grinder before he can do anything, which proves my theory that anytime I bring something new to a game, it dies on the first turn before I even get to use it...Oh well.

Tried to Jaws but failed the test.

The Contemptor Dreadnought shoots both flamers at the Daemonettes and only takes out 1 of them.

Land Speeders move up and shot, as well as everything else, but nothing else dropped on my side.

Daemons Turn 1

Rune Priests are ridiculously good, and he manages to negate all of my powers except for Warp Speed.

Grimore is Successful on the hounds.

I move the Flesh Hounds over and head them straight at his Rune Priest. Have to tie that mother down.

The Daemonettes move toward the Contemptor hoping to rend it to death, forgetting that its AV13...

Both Princes swoop up the table with Fateweaver, away from the Rune Priests 24" bubble.

The Keeper runs his happy ass up the table begging to take shots at him.

Red Prince drops the portaglyph behind a building and it scatters a little bit, but spawns 5 Daemonettes.

Warp Storm is box cars and 8 more Plague Bearers drop in behind his lines to cause some havoc.

I really should be dropping in Horrors, but I didn't have any with me...thanks to lack of communication with Capnmoe...

Lashes take down one of the Land Speeders.
Some running here and there by a few units.

The Hounds assault into the grey hunters and make it, tying them up. He causes one wound, and I manage to take out 1 hunter in the process.

The Daemonettes assault into the Dread, and do absolutely nothing...but at least they will tie him up for a turn or two...

Marines Turn 2

The Storm Raven comes in, but not the 3rd Drop Pod.

He deploys the Grey Hunters out of the Razorback and Rhino, and their shooting manages to take out all but 1 Plague Bearer and most of the Daemonettes.

He moves his Assault Marines up and they join into the assault with his Dreadnought, finishing off the few that were left there.

The Storm Raven cranks off some shots at the Red Slaanesh Prince, and he takes 1 wound, but manages to pass the grounding test.

He takes some shots at the Keeper of Secrets but with him having a Re-rollable 5++ and a 4+ Feel No Pain save, he was just shaking it all off.

The Rune Priest's unit ends up losing combat with the hounds, and then they fail the leadership test and fall back a few inches, thereby freeing up the hounds for another assault!

Daemons Turn 2
All powers are successful, thanks to be out of range of the Rune Priest, Iron Arm is +3 on both princes, and Warp Speed is a +3 as well.

Prescience on FW is successful.
Grimore on Hounds is successful.
Portaglyph spawns 5 more Daemonettes.

WarpStorm does nothing of note.

Keeper moves up into the building and Psychic Shriek takes out 3 Grey Hunters from the unit of 5.

The Red Prince swoops over the Storm Raven to the top of the tower and between Vector Strikes and Lashes he manages to take the Raven down to 1 Hull Point, and forces him to Jink, making it only fire snap shots next turn which is fine by me.

The Grey Prince Swoops up on top of the building above the Razorback and Lashes down a few Grey Hunters in the unit of 8 that got out of the Rhino.

Fateweaver swoops behind the wall on the building to hide behind. He casts Flickering Fire on the same unit of 8 Grey Hunters and takes it down to 1 lone guy.

The Pink Horrors pump out 12 shots at his Landspeer but it only manage to take 1 wound off after jink saves.

The lone Plaguebearer assaults into the lone Grey Hunter so they can hang out and talk about Star Wars, and be tied up for the rest of the game.

The Keeper of Secrets assaults in and finishes off the unit of 5 Grey Hunters, and then consolidates over towards my opponents objective.

The Hounds, form an amazing wall of awesome, and mulit-assault his Raven Guard as well as his Rune Priest's Unit. They Take out 5 Assault Marines and 4 Grey Hunters!!

The Raven Guard pass their test, but the Grey Hunters fail again and fall back! He only manages to kill 1 hound.

Marines Turn 3
His final Drop Pod comes in and he places it next to his objective to help protect it, instead of going after mine. Which I was OK with, as it basically guarantees he cant take or contest my objective unless he can clear my Plaguebearers off their objective somehow.

His Storm Raven drops off its cargo of Scouts and goes into hover mode and moves back towards his board edge to get a better angle for shooting.

He moves the rhino out of the way, and moves the remaining Land Speeder up to join the fun.

He brings the Rune Priest unit up around near his Raven Guard to join the assault for some reason.

He shoots almost everything he has left at the Keeper, but only manages to cause 1 one wound on him.

As a last resort he elects to shoot his Storm Raven at the Red Daemon Prince, even though it would be snap firing, and manages to take him down to 1 wound...he then fails the grounding test, rerolls...fails...fails Invulnerable Save and he's dead...

He assaults in the Rune Priest and his buddies to the unit of hounds and combat is a draw with 2 unsaved wounds a piece.

Daemons Turn 3

Power are successful again, Grey Prince gets a +2 on Iron Arm and Endurance is successful as well.

Prescience on Fateweaver and he swoops over the unit of 8 that deployed from the Drop pod and hides behind some terrain.Vector Strikes all fail.

Grimore is successful again on the Hounds.

Grey Prince Swoops to the top of the tower again, to avenge the death of his buddy.

Vector Strikes take out the Rhino. 

He Lashes down the unit of Tactical Marines on the objective.

Portaglyph spawns 5 more Daemonettes who run straight towards the party.

Keeper moves over in front of the unit of 8 and Psychic Shriek kills 4 of them. He tries to cast Cacophonic Choir, but rolls a 4 with does nothing.

The Horrors remove the last hull point from the last Land Speeder and its wrecked.

Fateweaver tries to finish off the unit of Grey Hunters but goes total fail boat and pretty much does nothing this turn.

The Keeper Assaults into his unit of 4 but I roll a Yahtzee on 1's. 

The single Plaguebearer and Grey Hunter debate as to why when Lando flies the Millennium Falcon he wears Han Solo's clothes, but they make no progress.

The unit of 2 Daemonettes attempt to assault the Drop Pod.

If they can blow it up, then they can consolidate and take his objective. But they fail.

The Hounds manage to take out 2 more Raven Guard, which then pass their leadership test.

Grey Prince regenerates a wound.

As we ended turn 3, it was getting late and we called the game. 

It was apparent that if we kept playing I was going to win as he had no answer for the Keeper of Secrets and on the next turn my Daemon Prince was going to land and start causing destruction as well.

It was a fun game, and we each made some mistakes here and there but overall I had fun.

If it was a league game I would have kept playing, but it was a casual game so no biggie.

Thoughts:

1. The Keeper of Secrets is my new favorite, but Flesh Hounds are an EXTREME close second.

2. Speaking of Flesh Hounds...dear god. 20 of them held 2 HQs and 18 Marines in combat for 3 turns, and only lost 2 models. To make it even better, they were slowly eating through the Marines each turn. I can't stress enough how good these things are. Need to tar pit something? This is your unit. Just make sure to avoid Dreadnoughts.
3. The amount of large terrain helped me move up my MCs safely, and by proper placement, it allowed me to minimize the amount of shots he had at my units.

4. Daemonettes can only take hull points on AV12, stay away from anything higher...also make sure to read how Rending works now...

5. Dark Blessing and Daemonic Resilience, if you get these 2 at the same time, it's like using Cheat Codes.

6. Speaking of Rewards and powers, I want to make a point that the order in which you roll for these is VERY important. On the Keeper of Secrets, make sure to roll for Rewards before you roll for powers. There was no point in me taking Invisibility when I can already reroll my Invulnerable Save plus have a 4+ Feel No Pain. In Contrast, Daemon Princes should roll powers first, because you want to make sure to give that Grimore to the one that gets Iron Arm and Endurance.

7. I'm fully expecting Rune Priests to get "Nerfed" just like Runes for Eldar were, but that could be over a year away.

8. I really need to finish my other unit of Daemonettes that are still in the box.
9. I still have no idea how good the Soul Grinder is yet...maybe I should get a 2nd one.
10. The difference between 15 and 20 Flesh Hounds in 1 unit is staggering.

40k: Black Templar & Raven Guard Rumors

With Apocalypse out now, the rumor mill for Space Marines is starting to kick into full gear.

Supplements are here to stay, and like them or not, GW is going to start cranking them out on a monthly basis and they are going to be everywhere.

It has been stated many times that Space Marines will be getting 2 initial supplements, with White Scars all but guaranteed to be the first one...according to the rumors. So the question becomes what  will be the second one? New rumors coming out are saying that it will actually be Black Templar!

via an anonymous source
Now apocalypse is released there are 2 major upcoming armies
-Orks (around October)
-Black Templar (around December)
This is to represent the third war for armageddon
However this is the opposite of everything GW has been saying over the past few months. "All armies that currently have a codex will be given a new codex, NOT a supplement."

 Maybe this rumor is the release date, or preorder date. Maybe this rumor is for a new Codex and not a supplement. If it is a new codex, then it is also in stark contrast to the current release schedule that has been "leaked." Personally I take this rumor with massive grains of salt, because it goes against everything that has been talked about for the past few months. Just seems too much like wishful thinking.

The next rumor about Raven Guard though...

via an anonymous (and solid)
As currently planned, the Ravenguard supplement will be after the 6th edition space marine book (which will be soon) and will coincide with forgeworld's HH Book 3, Massacre pt 2.

The Space Marine chapter supplements will offer a fair amount of divergence (much more than Iyanden), while still staying true to the space marine core book.

In the coming months though we are going to be smothered (pleasantly) in space marine goodies, with every other or every third month releasing a space marine supplement, after the main book comes out.

These releases will be paired with alongside a Xenos they were famous for fighting.
i.e. Tyranids book month A, Ultramarine Supplement month B. Ork codex month C, Crimson Fist supplement month D, etc. (this is not an accurate release schedule, just to illustrate my point)

This will let GW belt out the non SM codexes, without harming their SM backbone.

This adversaries idea will also apply to non SM supplements being released alongside/after Imperial launches as well.

This concept, which is one that is well known inside GW (Xeno followed by SM Supplement), lends a little bit of legitimacy to your rumor about Orks followed by BTs. But with BT not being a Supplement and instead getting their own book, it somewhat breaks the mold.

Another solid source coming in confirming that the 2nd supplement is Ravenguard.

The second part of the rumor makes complete sense to me. Since Blood Angles, Dark Angels, and Space wolves all have their own Codex, that leaves 5 Founding Chapters currently without rule books. White Scars, Ravenguard, Ultramarines, Salamanders, and Iron Fists. So if White Scars and Raven Guard are the first supplements, that leaves Ultramarines (which are all but guaranteed a supplement at some point, which is obvious) Salamanders, and Iron Fists. Due to the back story and rules, Salamanders, in my opinion will definitely be getting their own supplement at some point, most likely 2014. But what about the Iron Fists and Crimson Fists?

Lets remember that the Crimson fists are a second founding of the Iron Fists, and that fluff wise, virtually both armies are all but completely wiped out. Could we be looking at our first supplement with 2 armies in it? I don't see a lot of people play Crimson Fists or Iron Fists, maybe because people hate painting yellow. Or it could be that if you wanted to play a Terminator type C:SM army, the current Dark Angels rule book is more than adequate.

New Rumors in Just this morning:

via an anonymous source 
In so far as Black Templar: They are getting a full book not a supplement. The direction of the book is on "crusades," and differentiating the Black Templar when they persecute Xenos as opposed to when they put the Witch to the sword.

They are seeing a lot of changes from their previous incarnation, and are no longer a shooting army (despite the intention of the previous book, they were received as a shooting army).

The army will have a "knights in space" kind of feel with wargear being a very big importance for the characters, and vows similar to old bretonians. The struggle there is with book keeping, but it is a pretty cool concept.

Crusade squads with their hybrid neophyte and space marine combinations are gone. Which will probably anger a lot of people without pleasing any (since in the past you could just take 0 neophytes so in essence this is just removing choices), but take it for what it's worth.

The whole "move after taking casualties" thing is gone and has been replaced with something more similar to battle trance (but less swift, and more assault oriented).

Templar point costs are down even from those of dark angels, and are designed to be balanced by their point cost, but also deliver the feeling that this is a "crusade army" that has never really felt the yoke of the codex astartes, and thus has huge companies of marines.

Yet another statement that the Templar are getting a full codex.
If true I would be sad to see the neophytes be removed, but it does make complete sense to me with wound allocation 6th edition being different.

Is it just me, or does this sound like a "Horde" Space Marine army?

If the new "Battle Trance" allows them to assault after running, that could be interesting...