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I haven't had much time to play lately between college classes, getting ready for a new addition, and my full time job but Shep and I managed to shoehorn in a game Friday evening.

Warmaster and I have been bouncing PMs back over the last week - I had some questions about his list and how Baltimore went for him - he finished 3rd without a few of the "must have" units. He helped me work up something a bit different to take against Shep and since it had been a while since playing, I was really just looking for something fun and a little bit different. I knew Shep would bring Eldar but no idea what type - I expected a mech style list or maybe bike heavy - but that didn't really play into the list I brought. Good thing, too, because he had zero skimmers and zero bikes.

There are no pictures because I was on a very tight time table - sorry about that.

Nyarlathoth wandered through his lord Tzeentch's maze of mirrors. He had already won the riddle contest (well, after the accident that removed Mii-go from the competition, anyway) and had proven his mastery of the changing flames. All that remained was the navigation of the mirrors and he would recieve his Gift from Tzeentch himself becoming one of the change lord's heralds.

He wasn't sure how long he had been within the labyrinth. Time was irrelevant both in the warp and to a creature made of its stuff. He did know that he had long since become bored by this challenge.

He sighed.

He summoned up a couple of tiny flame imps to keep himself company. He noticed the flames flickering and dancing erratically on the one to his left. It was not much but, somehow, the air here was stirring! It was coming from beneath the mirror.

Nyarlathoth did a little dance and removed his third dimension. He slipped easily under the microscopic gap and reformed himself fully. Tzeentch was there, looking into a great crystal orb. Though it's head did not move Nyarlathoth knew his presence was noted.

Tzeentch turned toward him, his body shifting through a thousand forms with each step.

"Well done, child." Tzeentch reached out with a pair of wizened clawed hands and took the pair of pseudopods that Nyarlathoth had come to think of as his arms. There was a loud ripping sound as Tzeentch tore him apart. Nyarlathoth screamed as agony flared throughout his essence.

Tzeentch was holding an arm in each of his hands. They swiftly began to flow and mutate, one becoming a bright yellow, the other a deep crimson. Nyarlathoth experienced a moment of disorientation as he realized he was looking at himself through the eyes of both of the other dopplegangers.

"This is my gift, this is my reward. That which was one is three. Now bring the spirits of those dead who yet walk, I would have parlay with the Younger and his tastes are known to us."

Nyarlathoth knew he had been dismissed and began the words which would return him to his own little domain. When he appeared, he appeared in three parts, each on a magical chariot - another gift from his lord.

Awaiting him were two horrors known to all of his kind. They floated, bickering on a disk. After a moment the noticed his presence.

They spoke at the same time "we will accompany you for this while."

Nyarlathoth shrugged, six pairs of shoulders rising and falling in unison.


Army Lists
The list I ended up bringing was (the 1s at the end are preferred wave):

HQ
1 Nyarlathoth (Herald of Tz on Chariot, Bolt, Legion, Master of Sorc) 1
1 The Yellow Horror (Herald of Tz on Chariot, Bolt, Legion, Master of Sorc) 1
1 The Crimson Terror (Herald of Tz on Chariot, Bolt, Legion, Master of Sorc)
The Blue Scribes

Elites
6 Fiends 1
6 Fiends
3 Flamers 1

Troops
9 Horrors (bolt of change, Icon) 1
8 Horrors (bolt of change, Icon)
8 Horror (bolt of change)
8 Horrors (Changeling) 1

Fast Attack
10 Seekers


Shep surprised me with this list:

HQ
Eldrad

Troops
6 Pathfinders
10 Dire Avengers (John Woo exarch, Bladestorm)
10 Dire Avengers (John Woo exarch, Bladestorm)
10 Wraithguard (Warlock with Enhance)

Elites
10 Harlequins (Shadow Seer, Troupe Master w/power weapons, everyone had kisses)

Heavy
3 Wraithlords (Missile Luncher, Bright Lance, double flamers)

Setup and early game:

I was working on a map and gonna do a play by play but screwed so you just have this overall map and legend of the units (not actually where they were!) The rest I had to copy and paste from that rather than them being vectored objects because of me saving it as a .png before I shoulda - sorry! Also note that the red eldar circles are the harlies. The red arrows are shooting and the blue are movement.

We randomly determined the mission and came up with a Pitched Battle Annihilation.

Shep won the roll and decided to make me go first. I chose the side on the bottom, he took the top. He set most of his stuff in the center of the table behind a line of Wraithguard. The sole exception were the pathfinders which infiltrated the building in my deployment zone and they deployed on the top (third) foor. I think that they would have been better off in one of his buildings, to be honest.

My preferred wave was: Nyarlathoth, The Yellow Horror, 6 Fiends, 3 Flamers, 9 strong horror unit and the changeling unit. I got a one and ended up with the rest.

I ended up mostly as shown - I was a knucklehead with the Blue Scribe and brought him in separately. I made a risky deepstrike (within 2" of the unit) so I could join the unit and have a measure of safety, fortunately I got a hit. Unfortunately all three other units drifted directly towards the eldar. The horrors with the Blue Scribe fired at the pathfinders and got a lot around 20 hits (12 or 13 wounds). The pathfinders went to ground and only suffered one loss. The Blue Scribe, the other unit and the chariot all fired at the closest wraithlord and only did a wound. The seekers and fiend both moved towards the eldar army.



In response, Eldrad doomed the nearest horrors and the chariot. Everything advanced a little bit and the entire unit and chariot were both wiped out in a flurry of shuriken and wraithlord death giving the eldar an early 2-0 kp lead.



Mid game and end game:
I was fortunate in my reserves rolls - I got everything either in turn 2 except one of the chariots (the map is a lie - there should only be 1) and the other seekers. I pulled everything in except the chariot off of the icon on the table. The blue scribe shifted to get closer to the harlequins as the seekers and fiends set up a dual charge on the harlies. I knew that it would hurt, but I also knew that if I didn't wipe them out in one glorious charge that they would hit and run their way into my lines and the game would effectively be over. Unfortunately I would have to charge through cover the way they were set up now, so the blue scribe declared both shots at the harlies. He saw through the veil of shadows and hit with the pavane. The other shot was going to be Boon of Chaos which was well out of range - I didn't want to accidentally pull one of the units out of range. Turned out that the other scribe rolled a "Watch this!" but it did nothing. The chariot and other shooting killed a wraithlord. Both slaaneshi assault units were able to charge the harlequins. The seekers and harlies fought simultaneously and I lost 1 fiend and 9 seekers. In return the seekers took down only 4 harlequins. I was worried. Fortunately, the fiends did their job and wiped out the dancing eldar. They consolidated away and I knew that I had effectively traded two kill points to get just one, but the harlies could easily clear my horrors from the table. Combined with the wraithlord, KPs were now tied at 2 apiece.



At this point, the maps are taking longer than it is worth, sorry. From here, the flamers jumped into the building and cooked one of the pathfinders and then charged in and finished him off. They spent the rest of the game in the building hiding. The wraithguard charged a unit of horrors and the two units spent the rest of the game locked in close combat.

Shooting managed to take out another Wraithlord and tied up the game for us at 4-4. The last turn of the game saw me taking out the last Wraithlord putting me ahead. I had set up the fiends to charge in and take the last wound off the Wraithlord if necessary (he had survived a typically ridiculous amount of shooting) but the blue scribes managed to finish him. Unfortunately, this also put them in range of the dire avengers who had now reloaded. They shot the fiends causing 20 some odd wounds to the unit of 6. The shooting was crossing area terrain so I had a 4+ cover. I took 11 wounds pulling the unit out of range of the 4 dire avengers from the other unit. The game ended on turn 5 with a 5-4 win over the eldar! It was a super fun and close game, as they tend to be with Shep (it's not for nothing he has a best sportsmanship award.)

After Action Review
I was trying out a number of new units in this game and really didn't have much expecation at all. That being said, I think that the reason I won was more a combination of a lucky set of dice rolls and Shep not shooting the flamers so he could charge the horrors instead. I think that maybe he thought that he would be able to take them out but a low number of attacks against a 4+ invulnerable makes for a long drawn out fight.

I did have a couple of tricksy moments that helped - I don't think he was expecting the pavane to pull the harlies into charge range. Also, tzeentch heralds are chariots are really good, at least in this match. They move fast, have good shooting and are not easy to take out. I will definitely be giving chariots of all the gods a bit more play time.

The changeling did absolutely nothing, as usual, but he is so cheap it is hard not to take him.

It was odd to be backing away as a daemon player rather than trying to get in his face asap.

Nyarlathoth gathered in the spirit stones he had collected and prepared the Flame of Offering. He had been both surprised and annoyed by the yellow version of himself fleeing the battlefield and he had been greatly disoriented seeing his demesne as well as the battlefield. Apparently his dopplegangers had a bit more free will than he would have liked. He should have expected there to be some catch, his lord was, after all, known for his capriciousness.

He stopped what he was doing. If they could think on their own, would one seek to kill him and replace him becoming the prime version? Could the others see through his eyes in the way he could through theirs? Nyarlathoth had assumed that they were just extensions of his own will, but that obviously wasn't the case. What if they had their own thoughts, he just couldn't hear them, only see through their eyes?

This thought did not sit well with him. Not at all.

I hope you don't mind me chiming in and making a few comments .

My main comments are about your initial drop. It seems like Shep gave you a nice opening on the first turn. I would have dropped both horror's on either side of his formation and gone right after the dire avengers (tzeentch is great for dropping in terrain). Because of how he placed them they wouldn't have gotten any cover. On average an 8 man unit of horrors will kill 8 out of 10 dire avengers, 7 if he allocates a wound on the exarch. That makes the avengers combat ineffective and easy mop up for a chariot or combi-assault in later rounds.

The other thing it would have done is force his assault units to separate if he wanted to kill them off. He would need to hit them with the flamers from the wraithlords or assault them, no other way he could kill off the units.

Also is there a reason you didn't just pavane the pathfinders out of cover? Either that or just flame em .

Please do chime in!

I didn't want to show up too close to the eldar because of the 10 harlies, however, yeah, you are right, either side would have been awesome. I will have to remember to be more aggressive with them in the future. I had only used horrors in fairly small numbers before this game and I seriously underestimated the amount of shots that they could put out. I consistently just teased the underside of odds (getting 11 hits out of 24 shots then just getting 4-5 wounds despite the lower toughness.)

I considered using pavane on the pathfinders, but they were on the third floor so would have needed a 3 each time to bring them down a level or two. They were too high to flame from the bottom.

I do really like the idea of splitting them off - typically with daemons I try and keep them all together since I don't usually have a lot of shooting. It was really fun to play a shooty daemon army and I will definitely be playing more games with them. I was also surprised to see that the tzeentch chariots have furious charge.

I am really hoping for plastic horrors in the next wave - I have 24 of the current metal ones and am holding off to see what wave 2 brings.

Nice report, pitting a fascinating pair of lists against each other.

I like Warmaster's suggestion about the horrors. Particulalry in an annihilation mission, using horrors in mutually supporting pairs, each dropping close by the other (though not within star assault range) and targetting the same unit, sounds like a very effective tactic.

Your daemon fluff is always fun to read, I always look forward to seeing what they will do next!
it's so hard to find BatReps wuth fluff in them.

More please!

nice report very informative

One odd question from me did the first tzeentch chariot go down to just 3 wraithlords shooting at him? It looks like from the map , that the 2 dire avenger squads shot the horrors, and the 3 wraithlords shot the chariot.

If so that would have been some impressive rolling he would have needed to hit with almost everthing and you would have to fail all of your 4+'s?

I'm surprised you never did a round of pot shots at the harlies with at least one unit of horrors. That is usually a shooting match made in heaven . I actually probably would have dumped all of my str5 ap3 shots into the harlies also just to whittle them down a bit more before charging in.

It's a shame you never got off a fiend charge or a seeker charge on a wraithlord, that I don't think shep would forget .

@sexiest_hero - thanks, that is actually one of my favorite parts of writing them. We will definitely see more from the Nyarlathoth.

@enmitee - thanks

@warmaster - the ds drift also took me in range of the wraithguard so it was all three wraithlords plus the wraithguard.

I am really gun shy about that stupid veil of tears. As you saw, I even moved the blue scribes dangerously close just to make sure I could see the stupid harlies.

I was impressed that the seekers almost managed to kill the harlies on their own - he had a good flurry of saves. I so wanted to get a nice rending charge off on the wraithlords! Next time though, for sure (even if it costs me the game - I just wanna see it!)

Shep don't read this .

The other really funny one to do is to take all 3 chariots and actually charge a unit of dire avengers. They end up with a ton of strength 4 attacks and after you whittle them down with the gaze's you can actually kill off a unit that way.

All of this is making me want to go back and play my mono-tzeentch list for some fun.

HA! My chariots are so furious charging someone next game :-p

I have to say, I had a lot more fun with the Tzeentch stuff than I was expecting. They totally changed the game plan and play style of the daemons.

What does your monotzeentch list look like?

I'll post something up in a separate thread so that it doesn't take away from the battle report.

Also looking at the list with the 1's next to it. When are you choosing your first wave? I always wait until right before my first turn so that I can change things up depending on my opponents deployment and unit set up.

Nice job again Somnicide, thanks for the write-up.

As far as dropping on and getting to shoot at cover free dire avengers. If my memory serves me, there was a large piece of area terrain anchoring both sides of my box. One of them was inescapable, I was getting cover on my left flank. The other one I was probably not getting cover if he was able to land within 6" of the long table edge on my right flank without mishapping. Can't really remember exactly what it looked like, but I recall being concerned about the AP4 warpfire, and deployed with that matchup in mind. Maybe I can clarify my deployment with ascii

G___G___G___G___G___G
__A_G_A_G___G_A_G_A
E_A___A_______A___A__W
__A____A_______A___A___WL
__A____A_______A____A__WL
___A___A_______A____A

God thats terrible. Haha, G is wraithguard, A is dire avengers, E is eldrad, W is warlock and the two WL represent a single wraithlord. The way the dire avengers were tucked inside the wraith guard unit, coupled with the wraithlord screening some LOS meant that he probably wasn't getting a cover free shot, unless he went for a landing spot closer to my long board edge than the wraithlord. Wraithlord was about 8" out. So it was available to him, I'm just wondering if he saw it and didn't want to take it.

First tzeentch chariot drifted into wraithcannon range. All of the ghosts shot at him. The dire avengers bladestormed the horrors.

My army list is a little fat by Somnicides estimation. 8 harlies, and the pathfinders were obviously rangers (they went to ground)

I was trying to kill those chariots, removing their threat to the wraithlords... They are good... much respect to them.

I was actually hoping to draw the slaanesh stuff onto my wraithlords. I'll trade one in for a harlie charge. Somnicide knew that if he charged anything but the harlies, he was going to lose those models. Having an injured 2 shot wraithlord die against horde demons versus getting 36 WS5 initiative 7 strength 4 attacks into a slaanesh unit would ahve been good money for me. If i would have been given that, then i could have wiped out the seekers fro probably 1 or no casualties, and then bounced to the fiends and finished them off too. After thats done, if the game goes long, the T3 horrors would have to deal with a mostly intact harlie unit. I gave him the wraithguard and wraithlord to charge with his slaanesh stuff if he wanted. But he was too smart.

the rangers getting pavaned and being too close and what-not... I have this terrain piece that is a 3 story building. It is notoriously difficult to assault people who are on the top. Jetbikes can't go up floors, cavalry can't go up floors (no slaanesh) and i would not have lost the unit if he hadn't had that 3xflamer unit. I shot at it, managed to only kill 1 out of 3 wounds caused. And then it was able to clear to the 3rd floor with just the 12" move. Then my guys were done for They'll be upgraded to pathfinders in the future, that way I can still shoot even when I "go to ground" I could have used their lasers

About him shooting into the harlies... i agree Warmaster. Had he known he was going to be able to land that pavane on them, he should have moved another horror unit up, or at least skip "we are legion" pavaning, and put the horrors in to the harlies as well. I think he might have been able to keep 1 or 2 seekers if he had done that. 1 or 2 seekers isn't all that exciting, even against dire avengers. But as it stood, charging two fearless units with crap saves into a blender like harlies can go WAY bad. And I would have shot at the harlies. Somnicide is definitely over-cautious about veil of tears. It has caused him too many tears already

Well, all in all. The strength of my list notwithstanding.... that was a tough list to fight. Nothing over T4. No armor saves, eternal warriors means quality shooting like bright lance/wraithcannon was just crap. The list has enough AP3 to haunt wraithlords, and the slaanesh rapid response units were a nice support structure. Blood crushers would not have worked there. They give me a place to put my good guns into, and they aren't support... they run the show... they GET supported. Plus they wouldn't hav the speed to support a wide spread of units like somnicide had.

A totally synergistic list, well supported and equipped with the right number of scorers and enough shooting to out-annihilate a 9kp ghost army.

Thanks for the fun game Som...

and if anyone has any criticisms or questions about my list. Please hit me. I'm a total scrub when it comes to eldar and I'm trying to figure something out that isn't seer council or mechanized. Did I make any glaring mistakes in deployment? Is my list missing something?

Thanks

EDIT: oh yeah, just to emphasize... Somnicide won that game by a single 4+ cover save. He mentioned t but I want to mention it for effect as well. He was up by 1 KP at the start of the bottom of turn 5. I doomed his unit of 6 fiends. I guided a full dire avenger unit and let rip... I recall inflicting 24 wounds on the unit... he passed 13 cover saves.... After I had shot that, my other unit of 5 dire avengers pulled out their tape and were about 20" away after moving. Then I rolled a '2'. Good game....

We totalled up the VP to see what would have happened and it would have been a tie. But I'm glad to lose one like that every once in a while. Makes the game really fun when the result of an annihilation is in flux even right until the end.

Yeah, it was a nail biter that could easily have gone either way - if you had shot the small dire avengers first it would have been a draw. I also still think you should have fired the wraithguard at the two flamers in the building instead of shooting and then charging the horrors. It would have been easier to pull that one kp off. I was afraid to move them for fear of completely blowing the dangerous terrain checks.

You will definitely be seeing similar lists. I am considering options with the blue scribes, but that is just because of my bizarre special character psychosis. Maybe a slaanesh herald in chariot.

@Shep

By inescapable did you mean impassable? If so I get in now, because otherwise I would have just deep struck the horror unit into the cover and taken the risky drop on the other side

Oh I agree the harlies are the highest threat target. But the two flamers off of just one wraithlord are deadly to horrors .

Warmaster wrote:@Shep

By inescapable did you mean impassable? If so I get in now, because otherwise I would have just deep struck the horror unit into the cover and taken the risky drop on the other side

Oh I agree the harlies are the highest threat target. But the two flamers off of just one wraithlord are deadly to horrors .

By inescapable I meant that if he landed within 18" of my dire avengers on that side, he'd be shooting through the windows of a ruin. Or through wraithguard. The other side was open for an aggressive move I will concede, but I think it might have been too aggressive for Som's taste, or he didn't see it. He could have just gone for it and laid down both horror units on either side of me, and shot into 4+ cover dire avengers. He easily could have done that. And I'd love to see how that choice would have played out. He chose to go shockingly conservative, (not typical somnicide) and I think both he and I would have loved to see how it goes with him getting really aggressive with me. if he locks up the wraithguard, then eldrad loses a psychic power and can't double up on fortune. If I lose a full dire avenger unit and Eldrad gets locked into combat, then I get pretty handcuffed. If I counter-charge to jailbreak the wraithguard, then the slaanesh stuff could counter-counter charge. i think it would have been close, but rather than 5 to 4, it would have been more like 8-7 haha. I'd love to do that again just to see it though.

Again, I have to tip my hat to Som's generalship. Wraithlords were never within flamer range of horrors. Never really got the flamers in the game. He had finished off my last wraithlord on the top of 5. He worked on them from closest to furthest. The furthest got almost close enough on 4. It tried to unleash flamer, netting 2 total hits from the two templates.

He managed my threats really well. He put good shots in on wraithlords, eventually getting them all before turn 5 ended. He got rid of the harlies. It cost him a lot, but harlies are just pain for demon armies. He got the isolated rangers at his leisure. He rightly ignored the wraithguard, and made a valiant attempt to kill a dire avenger unit, without risking too much to do it. It didn't pan out for him, but he didn't hang anything out in order to try it.

I should have castled more with my rangers, and more importantly they should have been pathfinders... and I should have killed his flamers. We're setting up a rematch now

I'm glad you two are collaberating on demon ideas. That was a fun list to face, and I think Som had lost confidence in fiends prior to the game. You guys managed to put them in the right context to excel.

There is not usually much that is too aggressive for me ;-) I had planned on putting the flamers right next to the wraithlords and just seeing if I could win the game right there with 3 brutal templates but then when I got the other group I think I kinda panicked. I had already been giggling maniacally in my head at the thought of all the cooked eldar.

I could have - indeed - should have come in on the side of the wraithlords with at least one unit. The building would have just been meh, I think, not because I would lose some models (though I once did lose 4 out of 7 horrors!) but because he would have gotten the 4+ save then the harlies would have walked through it like open cover and wiped that unit out and I would have lost the other unit to bladestorm and so lost my icon.

But yeah, I am definitely thinking more aggressively now with horrors since I have seen the kind of hurt that they can lay out.

edit: and yeah, I have had a rough run of games for fiends so they were on my "list"

Really? For me fiends always have a good game. I always take them in pairs because I find that one gets blown away rather quickly but the other usually weaves a path of destruction.

My problem is building lists without them. It seems like I always start with, 2 units of 6 fiends, check. It's funny cause I've tried the crushers and I hate how slow they are, but I know everyone else loves them. I still firmly believe equal points of fiends beats equal points of crushers.

The other thing that greatly increases their survivability is having the seekers on the table. The two units are somewhat comparable. But 12 seekers just looks impressive and with their toughness of 3 people tend to ignore the fiends and shoot the seekers first because they are easier to kill.

Well, to be fair, many of my test games were against Shep's mecheldar flying str-6 circus of doom (literally) ;-) and since they were a fast threat they ended up being a high priority target. Also, the one time I did get the charge off I couldn't get any hits if I were paying for them.

Bloodcrushers are the stars of the show... like I was saying here (or was it in another thread) they need to be supported. Every game I've ever lost to the cookie cutter demon builds goes the same way.

Crushers come down in your face and run even farther into your face. You escape laterally across your back table edge, but the soul grinders have come down on the flanks that you've moved to. At some point your forward movement gets totally stymied by the charge ranges of the crushers and the grinders, you've been shooting at them while you've been trying to slip away, and you've almost worn them out, and then they get your key units into combat. The things that survive are out of position to score and can't dislodge plague bearers. You don't get tabled, but your tools get smashed and you get bullied off of objectives.

When fiends are used aggressively, while I'm playing eldar or IG or Orks, I just shoot them. If fiends are used as your heavy lifters, you'll have to use them aggressively, used that way, against a good list, fiends will either A) die before they declare a charge. B) Die after declaring 1 charge, before they can account for a full unit or C) Die to rapid fire after consolidating into the open.

Your success with fiends probably stems from you doing heavy lifting with other units. If you have offensive tools like lots of gazes, lots of bolts and lots of warpfire, then the fiends can feel more free to react and have less pressure to score big kills. If you build a list around phlegm and plague bearers, and then drop 12 fiends in your list to kill troops, i think you might have a tough time. When Som and I were playing demons versus 9 skimmer mech eldar, the fiends were just as hopeless as the bloodcrushers. Fast armies tend to be able to handle T4 5+ save. Fast armies are generally less equipped to handle brickhouses like blood crushers. Sure they can slip away. Until you corral them into a corner, or sweep their legs with tongues/bolts.

I dunno.... I'm glad fiends work in this context, but my love affair with blood crushers knows no bounds. Fiends will always be the girl on the side.