Well Matt drew up the lots, and I was paired against 2 really nice guys playing Tyranids, which was pretty exciting for me because I haven't played against some Nids in almost 2 years.
Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission: Crusade
My List:
Fateweaver: (Inferno, Perfect Timing, Invisibility, Iron Arm)
Daemon Prince: Slaanesh, Flight, Armor, (Invisibility, Life Leech, Warp Speed) Grimore, Warp Strider, Lash of Despair
10 Pink Horrors
10 Daemonettes
10 Plaguebearers
15 Flesh Hounds
Daemon Prince: Tzeentch, Flight, Armor, (Puppet Master, Shriek, Dominate) completely forgot my portaglyph at home, so rolled and got "Wind of Chaos." Since the rest of his powers were shooting, I would just use him as a mobile shooting platform.
Daemon Prince: Tzeentch, Flight, Armor (Breath of Chaos, Shriek, Invisibility)
10 Cultists
Helldrake - Baleflamer
Their List: (I don't remember all the upgrades)
Tervigon - Cluster spines, Bonded Exo, Claws and teeth, Dominion
Tyranid Prime - Devourer, Bonded Exo, Scything Talons, Alpha Warrior, SitW
15 Genestealers
15 Genestealers
15 Genestealers
15 Genestealers
9 Hormaguants
Warrior Brood - Barbed Strangler, Scything Talons
Warrior Brood - Barbed Strangler, Scything Talons
Warrior Brood - Devourer, Hardened Carapace, Scything Talons
Warrior Brood - Devourer, Hardened Carapace, Scything Talons
Carnifax - Stranglethorn Cannon, Boneded Exo, Scything Talons
Carnifax - Stranglethorn Cannon, Boneded Exo, Scything Talons
Pyrovore Brood - Flamespurt, Acid Blood, Acid Maw, IB: Feed
Biovore Brood - Spore Mine Launcher, IB: Lurk
3 Hive Guard Brood - Impaler Cannon, IB: Lurk
5 Ravener Brood - 2 x Scything talons, IB: Feed(rage)
Probabaly missing 1-2 things in there...
Board was interesting, a few pieces of LoS blocking terrain, and 5 woods. Pretty equal on both sides.
We roll and place 5 objectives.
I win the roll and decide to deploy and go first.
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| Objectives in Yellow. |
He Keeps all the Genestealers in reserve.
In My reserves I have the Heldrake, Daemonettes, and Cultists.
I deploy the Plagebearers in the closest woods on an objective with the Slaanesh Prince. Pink Horrors in the far woods on the other objective with the Tzeentch prince. And the hounds, Fateweaver and the CSM Slaanesh Prince behind the middle building on my side, out of LoS. That little bitty Green guy on the Termie base? Yea that's the old school prince I borrowed from Capnmoe...still legal according to the rules...
Now, like I said earlier, I haven't played Nids in along time, so I'm probably going to mess up which of his units are which.
He deploys the Tervigon in the middle of the board with the Hiveguard and Biovore behind him. Ravener Brood to the side. On the left side of the board he has 1 Carnifex, and 3 brood of some sort with shooty stuff. On the right side of the board he has the other Carnifex, the gaunts, and 3 more brood with talons.
Best guesses here. If you can tell me what they are, then post it and I'll change it up.
Kill the big stuff first, that's what matters right?
He attempts to steal the Initiative, fails.
No night fighting.
Hounds scout move up and I decide to go for the Carnifex on the right first. Being as he is spread so far Out on his side of the table, and the Genestealers have to come in from the board edge, I decide to spear into the middle of him and divide and conquer. If I can take out that Tervigon quickly, should be ok.
Daemons Turn 1
Grimore is successful on the hounds.
Invisibility is good on 2 princes, and Fateweaver.
Warp Speed good on the Slaanesh prince.
Hounds move up, and make sure to stay far enough away that they cannot be assaulted by anything, just have to make it through one round of shooting. Fateweaver and the CSM Prince fly over to hide behind the building on the right, Tzeentch prince moves up next to them towards the Tervigon. Slaanesh prince flies over to the middle of the board. Setting myself up for a beautiful turn 2...
Warp Storm is Calm.
Pink Horrors and Fateweaver manage to take out the squad of 3 brood on the right, opening up a weak flank, leaving only 9 guants and a carnifex on that side of the board.
Tzeentch prince tries to puppet master the Carnifex and fails, but manages to cast dominate on it, hopefully nullifying it for a turn.
Tyranids Turn 1
Tervigon makes 7 Termaguants.
Ravener brood move up on my left side around the building. He shoots a spore mine that lands directly in front of my hounds, but does not drift. He takes a few shots at my hounds and takes out 3 of them. To be honest, this helped me a lot. I forgot how good stranglethorn cannons were on carnifexes, and helped to solidify which unit to use puppet master on during my turn.
Daemons Turn 2
Everything makes their reserve rolls.
Heldrake comes in on the right side of the board.
Deamonettes deep strike in on the far right side, close to his objective.
Cultists come in on my board edge behind the middle building.
Grimore is successful.
All, psychic blessings are successful.
All 3 Daemons Princes move almost straight up the board.
Horrors move out of cover and up to the middle of the board.
With the amount of stuff covering him, and LoS blocking terrain, fateweaver goes into glide mode behind the building.
Hounds move around the mine, and manage to get into assault range of the Carnifex on the right.
Vector Strikes from 2 princes take the Tervigon down to 1 wound, and the CSM prince vector strikes the Carnifex on the right, taking him down to 1 wound a well.
Plaguebears say they aren't afraid of 15 genestealers, and stay put on the objective.
I roll a 4 on the Warp storm, but re-roll it of course because of Fateweaver.
I get a 5. He only fails on his hive guard, and 2 of them take a wound a piece.
Heldrake's baleflamer takes out all but 1 of the gaunts on the right, so it will now have to test. Just need to kill the Tervigon to remove that fearless bubble.
Horros run closer to middle of the board, away from the edges where the Genestealers will be coming from.
Fateweaver Unloads in the Ravener Brood unit and manages to take out 1 model and wound another a few times.
Tzeentch Prince casts puppet master on the left Carnifex, and uses the cannon to take out the 3 shooting brood near him. He also casts Dominate on it as well, forcing him to take leadership test to do anything.
Slaanesh prince Lashes down the Tervigon, "and the peasants rejoice."
CSM prince casts breath of chaos and Psychic Shriek on the Hive guard in the back and take out one of them.
Hounds try to assault the Carnifex and fail the roll by 2"!
Tyranids Turn 2
3 Units of Genestealers come in, 2 on the right, 1 on the left.
The Carnifex on the right moves up closer to my hounds into assault range.
The 1 Guant fails the LD test and falls back.
The 4 Ravener brood left move into the middle of the board, to come in behind my hounds or be able to assault my horrors.
The one hiveguard left, move closer to the objective.
He shoots another spore mine which lands direclty between my hounds and the Carnifex on the right.
Both Carnifexes then fire everything into my unit of hounds, and I loose quite a few models. Down to 7 models if I remember correctly. He fires a few more shots from the 1 hive guard he has left but doesn't do too much.
He fails the assault on my hounds with the Carnifex.
Daemons Turn 3
Grimore is successful.
All powers are successful again. (Tzeentch ftw!)
All 3 princes turn left and swoop, vector striking as they go.
Tzeentch prince, and CSM Tz Prince vector strike the termaguants in front of the hounds and wipe them out.
Slaanesh Prince Vector Strikes the Carnifex on the left, then lashes it taking it down to 1 wound left.
Heldrake turns 90 degrees as well, and vectorstrikes the Ravener Brood in the middle of the board behind the building, Fatweaver Swoops over as well vector striking them.
Cultists move up the board to claim the middle objective.
Pink Horrors move closer to the middle of the board.
Daemonettes move up towards the carnifex on the right side, within assault range.
Hounds move up within 1" of the carnifex to make the assault on it.
Warp Storm table is a 9, but no one rolls a 6.
Slaanesh prince tries to cast a life leech to finish off the Carnifex but fails.
Tzeentch Prince casts Puppet master on the Carnifex, which is successful and then shoots 2 big pie plates at the Genestealers which just came in from reserves on the left table edge near the Plagebearers.
1 Direct hit and one scatters off the board. 5 models die.
Heldrake hits the unit with the Baleflamer, and kills 6 more.
Fatewaver casts flickering fire and kills the remaining Ravener brood.
Pink Horrors cast some flickering fire into the unit of Genestealers, but only kill one or 2 I think.
The Hounds assault in and lock combat with the Carnifex, but fail miserably on some horrific dice rolling.
The Daemonettes assault in and kill the right Carnifex but lost 5 models in the process.
Plaguebearers ain't scared of no boo, decided to assault the genestealers, ended up wiping out the unit, and consolidated back onto the objective, further from the board edge.
Tyranids Turn 3
Last unit of Genestealers fail reserve again.
The one lone gaunt makes the save and regroups.
Unit in the far right corner move onto the objective into terrain.
Unit at the top move in to assault the Daemonettes (They will lose horribly but they have served their purpose)
Hive guard move ups to support Carnifex on the left.
Few shots taken by the guard, but no wounds.
Hounds kill Last Carnifex in assault and consolidate 1"
Genestealers take out last 5 daemonettes, but lose a few models as well, and consolidate onto the top objective.
Daemons Turn 4
Grimore fails on hounds, but passes it with Fateweavers reroll.
Invisibility is successful again on all 3 models.
Tzeentch Prince pivots 90 degrees and heads toward the unit of big unit of genestealers on the far right.
The Slaanseh prince, and CSM prince follow him.
Heldrake pivots 90 and moves up the board into his deployment zone.
Fateweaver does the same.
Cultists move up as close as possible to the objective.
Warp storm table is a 12, and I get 4 models.
For no reason whatsoever, my brain stops for a second and I pick Plaguebearers, but in the end it wouldn't matter, they deepstriked within 2: of my opponents objective on the left side, just a little bit near my hounds to claim that objective. (I should have taken horrors or daemonettes here, so that in case they scattered, I could still run closer to the objective to claim it)
Heldrake's Baleflamer takes out the last Hive guard.
Fateweaver takes out the last guant.
The Slaanesh prince and Tzeentch prince then cast Psychic Shriek on the Genestealers at the bottom. The Slaanesh princes takes out 2, and the Tzeentch prince rolls a 17 on his 3D6 roll, which totally caught me off guard. Being his luck was on fire, I shot the Wind of Chaos at them and took out another 2 models.
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| Y U So Blurry?! |
It was at this point that they decided to call it.
I had 3 princes moving toward the bottom unit of genestealers, and Fateweaver and the Heldrake moving at the top unit.
He did have another unit coming in, but it was getting late and they decided not to play it out.
They were pretty down about losing, but we both learned a lot about each others armies and they had a great attitude the entire time.
Final Score: Daemons 12 - Tyranids 7
Daemons Record now 2-1.
Things I learned:
1. This isn't 5th edition, Telepathy > Biomancy.
- If you can get Invisibility on your first roll, then going for Iron Arm may be worth it, but against a low leadership army like Tyranids, Guard, Tau, or maybe even Eldar, Psychic Shriek can be brutal.
- Invisibility is worth it for invincible princes. If you roll it on Fateweaver, that's just double bonus.
- Puppet Master can also be amazing if used correctly. You have to know your opponents army, and know what it can and can't do. Imagine being able to use your opponents vindicator to blast his own troops with...
2. Remember to bring all your stuff.
- While Winds of Chaos was fun, I would have much rather had the Portaglyph in this battle.
- Speaking of which, Always remember to roll for your Exalted rewards even you are already going to take the Grimore or Portaglyph. If you roll a 1, you get a free lesser reward, or basically a free Staff of Change depending on how your stuff is geared.
3. Stranglethorn Cannons are pretty amazing stuff.
4. Stay in a formation of sorts.
- by Moving all my stuff up the right side of the board, I was able to pick out his units one by one and take out his biggest threats. With so much coming at them at one time, they were forced to pick what to shoot at, and most of the time it was the Hounds, which is exactly what they are there for. Sure they can dish out the pain if they get into Close Combat, but with the 3++ save on them, I want you shooting at them all day.
In some cases you have to ignore them, but in most cases, you can't ignore them.
5. Don't forget Soul Blaze! (Got me 2 wounds this game)
6. This list fits my play style perfectly, and will almost certainly become my standard tournament list, although I may swap out the 10 Plaguebearers for Horrors or Daemonettes, still undecided on that one.
7. Don't Cheat. One of the guys on the other team, was telling me the entire game about someone they played earlier this season that cheated the entire time. Forget to tell them about Warpflame, didn't take warp storm on his own stuff, was moving his flyers in all directions then moving 36", etc...tons of stuff. This greatly upsets me as a 40k player. When someone cheats, yea they may win, but they aren't learning anything, and neither are their opponent. Actually the cheater is MORE to the effect of robbing their opponent of time and satisfaction of the game. Lets face it, not everyone knows every other armies rules. Can you name off all the things sisters get from their blessings or whatever they are called? Do you know all of the Black Templar Vows? Do you know the Initiative of Pyrocaster? No, no one knows everything, and no one wants to be that guy that asks to see your codex every 5 minutes. So its a trust thing I guess. Personally I would rahter lose horribly to someone and learn how to beat them next time. I just felt bad for the guy, and made sure to let him know everything I was doing, and I even made sure I took time afterwards to tell them how to beat Daemons in case they play him again. Karma always comes back.
Anyways, Rant Over.
Daemons up 2-1!
