New Daemons Vs Chaos Marines

[Chicop76]

     Hello fellow Second Sphere's. This is my first time playing without my heralds for daemons. Also this is my first time using Fate weaver in a game. I'm very interested on how my 3 daemon flying circus will do with 40 daemonettes on the table.

     I was helping my son model until a Chaos player was looking for a game and I said sure I would love to play. He was playing chaos marines/ daemons while I was running pure Daemons. Again damn Nurgle Marines and Plague bearers. I did awful bad the last time I went against pure Nurgle. This time I learned from the experience and hopefully will do better.

Chicop76 Daemon's

Fate weaver: Smite, Puppet Master, Misfortune, Inferno
Bloodthirsty: +1 wound, it will not die, S 8 AP 1 lance, + 1 attack
Tzeentch Prince: True Names, +1 wound, it will not die, Iron Arm, Endurance, Psychic Shriek
20 Horrors: Instrument
20 Damonettes: Instrument, Icon, Greater Etheralblade
20 Damonettes: Slaneesh Icon, instrument, Str 8 ap 1 lance
Slaneesh Soul Grinder: Phlegm
Skull Cannon
4 flamers 

Vs
Khorne's Nurgle Pact   

Khorne
Chaos Lord
9 Berserkers, land raider
10 plague marines: 2 melt, rhino
10 plague marines: 2 melt, rhino
10 plague marines: 2 melt a, rhino
Bloodthirsty: +d3 attacks if outnumbered, flesh bane, armor bane, + 1 attack
10 plague bearers
Nurgle Soul Grinder: phlegm
   
     I just wanted to say I hate going against nurgle type models. I am worried about the land raider, but his only anti-air was his soul grinder. When he saw 3 winged MC's he said he should had played with his drakes. I told him even if my thirster with his lance shot and my soul grinder in play with 3 vector striking models. With that said he realized the hell drakes may have not really been a good ideal.

Warlords: Kharn and Fate weaver

Eternal War Mission: The relic

Deployment Map: Dawn of War

Fortifications: None

Objectives: Relic

Warlord Traits; khorne with berserkers had hatred, while I got to re roll on the warp storm table

Roll Off: I won the roll to choose deployment zone and to deploy and go first

Seize the Initiative: none

Deployment Daemons:

     I set up my WS lowering Daemonettes in the middle of the field spread out. To its left was the horrors for firing support and the Grinder in the far left corner behind a ruin for a +4 cover save. My Thirst and Fate weaver was to the right side with my prince behind them. Farther to the right was my other squad of daemonettes that can shot inside a ruin, while my skull cannon was right behind them. Also my flamers was out of sight behind my skull cannon.

Chaos Alliance Deployment:

      He deployed a nurgle marine squad in rhino in the middle of the field which he had his thirster to his right. He then had to the right of his thirster the other nurgle filled rhino. To the left of the middle rhino he had his grinder behind a building. His plague bearers right by his grinder on the left. Moving further left was the other nurgle rhino and his berserkers in the land raider.
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Daemons turn 1:

     I cast my spells giving Endurance and +3 Invulnerable saves to my middle squad of daemonettes.

Movement:

     I moved everything up besides my range units. My 3 flyers moved forward 24" in swoop mode.

Shooting:

     My Bloodthirsty fires into the plague marine are rhino with his lance shot glancing the vehicle once and again with his whip. Everything else was out of range or missed. My Dominates run forward and is about 2" away from the relic.

Chaos Alliance turns 1:

Movement:

     The chaos gods was against him since he managed to immobilize all 3 rhinos even with dozer blades. The middle rhino was wrecked and his plague marines hoped out giving me first blood. He tried to vector strike my flyers, but had to settle for stopping 2" in front of my 3 guys.

Shooting:

     He fired everything into my flyers grounding none and removing a wound from my 6 wound thirster thanks to his soul grinder.

Assaults:

     His comment was I'm not assaulting +3 invul dammonettes with FNP with 3 MC's standing right there with another 20 Woman/man damonette squad that can counter charge, so no on assaults.

Daemons Turn 2

      I failed my +3 invulnerable save roll, but fate weaver allowed me to re roll and I was able to get it. I also casted Misfortune on the Thirster.

Movement:

      Daemonettes move up 6" to get the objective. The middle guy in the squad picked it up. My three MC's fly over his Thirster and mine landed next to the soul grinder moving 20" up.
I than tri vector strikes his thirster. Thanks to misfortune he failed any saves he made. I rolled really badly for the additional attacks which I should had killed the thirser. I was able to bring him down to 1 wound though. I also learned no grounding test?.

Shooting:

      Thirster fires into grinder glancing once. Everything else had poor angels and missed. I made the mistake of reminding him that my skull cannon negate invulnerable saves. I forgot to mention he did disembarked his marines on the left. I fired my grinder and my horrors into it killing all but 4 models, and thanks to my horrors the squad now sports a +4 feel no pain.

Assault:

      My buffed Damonettes charges his 10 man squad. Thanks to +3 invul and + 5 fnp I brushed off his overmatch shots. He challenged my Allures which killed his sergeant while both forces failed to hurt each other. I win combat by 2, but he is fearless

     As an afterthought I was thinking it was a bad ideal to assault with the relic. Doing so however kept me from getting shot. Also it takes away any extra attacks he would had had.

Chaos Alliance turns 2

Movement:

      he moves his other squad of marines towards the middle battle. His raider heads toward my horrors, thirster heads toward my cannon.

Shooting:

     He fires everything into my flyers wounding my Thirster again. His berserks fires into my horrors killing 2.

Assault:

     He charges my slaanesh daemons with his 4 man nurgle squad. He also rapes my poor horrors with Khorne and his letters. The battle in the middle with the add ones go his way a bit since I lost combat by one and rolled an 11 which killed 6 daemonettes due to instability. I did killed his upgrade character that challenged again. Allures which are a 34 point model have so far killed two nurgle upgrades.

Turn 3 Daemons:

     I was able to get my +3 invulnerable save and thank to re rolls on the warp storm table all daemons have a +4 invulnerable and my damonnettes had a 2+ invulnerable save. I also was able to get Iron arm again on my prince and my damonettes had fnp as well.

Movement:

     I moved my grinder away from the khorne blob of death. My chariot runs away taking advantage of him forgetting to assault with the thirster. I was nice enough to not shot at it or assault it. My thirster prepares to enter battle with his grinder. My prince enters the Nurgle mess combat.

Shooting;

     My shooting was poor even with high bs. Although I did managed to kill to khorne bersekrs with my battle cannon shot.

Assault:

      I killed a few of the nurgle marines with my prince and lost no damonettes. It looks like I may be able to win the middle fight in a round of two thanks to my prince. My 4 attack Thirster only managed to glance the grinder thanks to the +4 invulnerable save I gave it.

Turn 3 Chaos Alliance:

Movement:

      His lord and marines disembarked last turn and about to join the battle, his thirster heads towards the middle and his 8 remaining plague bearers head towards the middle fight. Omg this guy is throwing his whole army at my poor daemonette squad. He also packs Kharn in his buddies in the raider which heads towards the relic.

Assault:

     He poured his 18 fresh bodies and his thirster into the combat, with Kharn coming in on the next turn for sure. He challenged with his Thirster? Which I accepted with my +2 invulnerable save upgrade character, that can have one re roll thanks to weaver. He put like 5 wounds on my Allures which did nothing. I managed one 6 and wasted my re roll to get another which I failed to hurt the prince. I killed a lot more of his models that turn than he killed mine. He lost his lord due to being the only model that was in base contact with my prince. I won combat by 4, go banner. Thanks to daemonic instability he lost 4 plague bearers and his Thirster. Thirster need 5 or lower to not die with his one wound remaining. My thirster and his grinder did nothing to each other this round.

[Chicop76]

Turn 4 Daemons:

     I rolled double one and gave my daemonettes a + 6 invulnerable save; again I rolled a 10 on the warp storm table giving that unit a +5 invulnerable and everyone else +4.

Movement:

     Fate weaver lands to help kill the grinder that is tying up my thirster. I move my second daemonette squad to assist my combat daemennetes that is about to get assaulted by the khorne models.

Shooting:

     Can't really shoot anything, but rhinos and raiders at this point. I was able to put a hull point on the raider via rending harvester cannon.

Assault:

     My second squad tries to multi assault the rhino and the blob in the middle. I fall short and easily rend/ glance kill the rhino. Upgrades challenge each other and Allures wins again, so that's 3 nurgle sergeants and a bloodthirster that changed her and lost. I wonder if it is helping that I am using the Masque model to represent her.

Weaver and Thirster smash the grinder finally and are free to kill other things.

Turn 4 Chaos Alliance:

Movement:

      he moves his raider towards the middle of the field and spits out kharn and friends.
Shooting:

      taking advantage of Fate weaver on the ground he fires all he has into weaver. He was WtF when I told him it was a +3 thanks to warp storm and his gear giving him +4. He still managed to put two wounds on weaver though. He also decide to engage the fresh damonettes he fired, but thanks to my good rolling all passed.

Assault:
   He assaulted my fresh daemonette squad. He challenged with his busker sergeant vs. my allures which my rending allures without the + 1 str ap 2 was still able to kill him. Khorne hilled about 4 nettes while my squad killed most of his squad. It was tie combat go banner.

   The blob starts to look smaller thanks to me winning combat most of the time at this point I was able to cause to nurgle plague bearers die to instability. Thanks to killing a good portion of models last turn it helped me survive this one and rolling darn well on +5 really helped. Honestly I think out of 8 wounds I passed all, but 2 on a +5.

Daemons Turn 5:

      This was a nice turn for me. My thirster lance death the raider which exploded. I gave the +3 invulnerable save to the fresh squad of daemonettes. At this point I had 8 damonettes; prince to his 8 nurgle marine's total. I figured with the high I attacks and the prince I should be able to wipe them out.

      Kharn fought my 35 point Allures and rolled bad, but still causing 4 wounds to her. I failed one save, but thanks to fate weaver she lived and managed to wound him. The rest of my squad was able to kill off the remaining berserkers.

Chaos Alliance:

   At this point what is there to do but fight? He did take pot shots at my weaver and thirster with his one rhino.

   The center battle that started since turn 2 have my fresh prince, 7 deaconates, and 2 +4 feel no pain marines left.

   The battle with my allures and Kharn went the same way like last time. He inflicted 6 wounds on her, but thanks to being cheered on by my free units I was able to re roll the 2 failed saves I had and give him another wound.

   I rolled to see if the game continued, but he called since if we go another round I could easily clear him from the table.

Victory: Daemons

Daemons: 15 VP vs. Chaos: 1 VP

     For somereason my opponent thought it was a close game. Heck I thought it was a close game. More like a really rough game. Here is the listing of what was destroyed.

Daemon units killed:

1. 10 man nurglemarines unit: killed by Tzeentch Prince and 20 man #1 Slaanesh Squad
2. 10 man nurglemarines unit: killed by Tzeentch Prince and 20 man #1 Slaanesh Squad
3. 10 man nurgledaemons unit: killed by Tzeentch Prince and 20 man #1 Slaanesh Squad
4. BloodThirser: killed by Tzeentch Prince, Bloodthirster, Fateweaver vector strikes and 20 man Slaanesh Squad.
5. Rhino: Bloodthirster lance and failed dangerous terrain check
6. #5 Rhino First Blood
7. Rhino: killed by #2 20 man slaanesh squad
8. 10 man Khorne Berserkers: killed by #2 20 man slaanesh squad
9. Nurgle Grinder: killed by Bloodthirster
10. Landraider: killed by bloodthirster lance shot
11. Line Breaker: My Thirster, #1 Daemonette Squad, and Tzeentch Prince in his deployment zone.
12. Chaos Lord: killed by Tzeentch Prince
15. Control of Relic

vs.

Chaos units killed:

1. Pink Horrors: killed by khorne and his 9 man Khorne buddies.

     

After Thoughts:

   It was a long and taxing game. Here is what I thought on the game.

1.   I need to make cards. With the psychic powers and rewards it is really hard to remember what you have. Also writing it down takes equally long. I think I might go on word or excel and make some cards. This way I can keep track on what I am doing. Most of the game I am trying to remember what powers does what and who has what. In the end I just stopped using powers which didn't matter anymore anyway.

2.   Nurgle, nurgle nurgle: this is a problem I have to deal with. I still won, but I would like to kill nurgle type models a lot faster. The high toughness with FNP was a problem. Thinking about it the Plague bearers was very easy to kill off. Unless they have FNP I think they should avoid combat like the plague itself. I was able to would the bearers on 5s and 6s which really helped me not roll on instability. I wish I realized it sooner and I would had directed more attacks at them. Toughness 4 is not a problem, but 5 or higher is. Especially if it is a multi-wound model. I need ap 3 or 3 wounding models with a str of 4 at least with a decent amount of attacks. I am right now thinking of trying fiends or blood crushers. The prince did help, but at 305 points he was a really good support, but lacked the attacks of a thirster.

3.   MVP is hard to say. Fate weaver did a lot to make this game go my way. Putting my grim ore on a winged prince seemed to work out well; this is the first time someone didn't even bother killing the bearer due to the difficulty of killing it. Than my allures killing about 3 nurgle marines, 3 nurgle sergeants, and surving a thirster. The combo of the three worked really well. Also the master crafter ether blade helped out greatly with re roll 1 hit and the +1 to str. I think it goes to Fate weaver who helped pull out +1 invul saves twice and allowed me to re roll a failed +2 to invulnerable save roll.

4.   I notice the absence of heralds in this game. Loci of beguilement would had been helpful since I would had been able to direct my challenges and also re roll all hits in my squad. If my dameonettes can re roll that would easily mean more wounds. Also with both my salaams heralds I think the combat would had went a bit quicker for me.

5.   I will say unless you run a tenth hearld and use divination you shouldn't play with horrors. This game they did more harm than good. Also due to +5 feel no pain on the board it limited what fateweavr can or cannot due.

6.   +2 invulnerable save with FNP is awesome. A 20 man damonette squad with a prince was able to kill a thirster, 8 plague bearers, and 30 plague marines. That's almost 2 times their number.

7.   Deep striking my flamers may had been a good ideal. The way the game went I couldn't use them due to all the combat and vehicles. Even if I did ds them I probably didn't have a situation in which I could use them this game. The joy of gaining +1 fnp.

8.   Vector Strike is deadly, and when done with 3 mcs over a target is crazy. I can see how flying circus can easily be a problem and dominate games.

9.   I need to deploy my cannons and grinder better. Every game I play so far both models suffered due to poor deployment.

10.           I think banners really helped. The fighting with squad one I tied combat a few times thanks to my banner and won by my banner. The banner really helped against the extra daemons on his side.

11.            Instability hurted him greatly several times. It did cost me 6 models due to rolling badly when I only lost combat by one. When he multi assaulted it made it worst for him, which made it easy for me to kill his Thirster and a few bearers. Leadership 7 is really bad and the 8 from the hearld would had allowed me to have an easier time to pass my checks and lose less models. The banner added on as well is a must take. Looking at what happen to his plaguebearers with no Icon or herald it cost models that he couldn't afford to lose. thiniking about it if I multi assault with 3 units with 3 banners would that give me +3 to the battle result.

12.       I was wondering why he never attacked my invulnerable save giving unit. His rational was to kill the easier to kill unit by dening me extra attacks and have a greater chance of causing instability. The way I killed his Thirster was the way he was trying to kill my 5 wound prince with it shall not die.

13.       Did I say i miss my heralds. It was very noticable. Although the Bloodthirster is very nice I may try to go back with the weaver with heralds. I dread paying 305 points for a prince, but will see how it goes when I use him again.

Opponent's thoughts:

1.   He said I should run flesh hounds, but even than they have the same problem with less attacks.

2.   He didn't realized how good ethereal blades was. He now will run them on his troops.

Game Store Thoughts:

1.   Being proud of berserkers killing horrors is akin to a grown man being proud of killing a 2 year old baby.

2.   Daemons are over powered. I though they was supposed to be nerved.

[BigToof]

Hi Chicop,
Very neat game, surprised it's lain quiet so long!

Would love to see a picture or two of the action, but it sounded like a bloodbath (on both sides?  As if Khorne cared!)

In any case, loved the rep, and it's good to see Daemons evolving nicely.

I have seen some people using note cards with the Daemon powers and such on them, which seems to speed things up.

Also, most people (from what I've seen), don't seem to mind if you roll for powers as you're getting your heralds/Greater Daemons out, which seems to speed things along as well.

Of course you could always go Khorne and take default powers, but where's the fun in that?

Best,
-BT

[Chicop76]

I can vassal the game since it is still fresh in my head. I played on the table top, so no pics at the time. I may start taking pics though. My son was supposed to do that, but it fell through.