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Skwawk scurried through the burrow-like domain he had created for himself out of the stuff of the warp.

"Damn-damn that Brain. He thinks he is so smart-smart and can boss Skwawk around" he mumbled to himself. A rat the size of a large dog ran looked up from eating the soft belly of a corpse. It hissed at Skwawk and then, recognizing its master, returned to eating.

So the Brain could follow more of the threads of possibility. It was Skwawk who had been gifted with the Great Schemer's likeness. That alone showed he was favored. Besides, it was more often a single thread that came to pass anyway and then it didn't matter who was smart-smart. Only who was strong-strong - like Skwawk.

He knew, he would take some of the contacts that the triumverate had made and show who should be boss-boss. Skwawk walked over to a stack of trash he had been gathering since his mortal days amongst the Hrud when he had first learned to scheme as a ratling. He sifted through it before finally finding a mirror he had stolen from his greatest mortal rival. The one that had allowed him to ascend to the Great Warren with his own burrow. Faces pressed against the silvered glass from the inside. Eyes filled with torment and silent screams of anguish from the trapped souls caused Skwawk to titter with pleasure. He reached in and plucked out a soul which he held in his hand for a moment before offering it up to the Beaked Rat, asking for a battlefield recently won. The victors would be tired and bloodied. Easy-easy pickings and there would be twice as many bodies to scavenge afterwards - another lesson he had learn-learned well in his previous existance.


Army Lists
I took my evolving daemon list which looks like this now:
Skwawk's Kill-Killers
HQ
Bulemius (Great Unclean One - Breath, Flies)
Vom't (Great Unclean One - Breath, Flies)
Troops
2x12 Plaguebearers (Icon)
5 Horrors (Changeling)
Elite
5 Bloodcrushers (rending)
4 Bloodcrushers (rending)
Heavy
2x Soulgrinders (phlegm)
Skwawk (Tzeentch Prince, Bolt, Gaze)

Gryft's Strike Force
2x Librarians (null zone, gate of infinity)
2x10 sniper scouts (cloaks, 1 missile launcher each)
1x10 tac squad (missile launcher, flamer, drop pod, vet power fist)
2x10 sternguard (4xcombimelta)
3x whirlwinds

The game
We ended up having 5 objectives which were mostly placed around the center of the table similar to the 5 on a die (I am sure you can all picture it.) Shep tried to drop pod assault his sternguard with libbies on 3 of the objectives but luckily for me he had some drifts - not much mind you, just enough that none of the pods were within 3" of any objectives. Oh, as an aside - this will hopefully be my last pictureless battle report - Shep finally has his stuff built to the point where he doesn't have to be ashamed of some of his proxies ;-)

This report is actually pretty short - he had built his list with a heavy anti-ork theme because one of our group was getting a bit cocky with his greenskins. Suffice to say that the list did quite a number on them. However, as it turned out it was not that good against my daemons.

I asked for my 2 soul grinders, 2 great unclean ones and a unit of plaguebearers. I didn't get my preferred wave so instead both of my bloodcrushers, the horrors, the daemon prince and a unit of plaguebearers showed up. I have been a bit more thoughtful in placing my first icon since most everything else will be coming in off of that so the plaguebearers went down to the left between 2 objectives. They drifted 10"directly away but it was okay. I brought the bloodcrushers in on either side of a building, the daemon prince in his deployment zone and the horrors near the daemon prince.

His shooting ended up wiping out my daemon prince a unit of bloodcrushers, the librarians teleporting their respective sternguard escorts into rapid fire range thanks to locator beacons. The following turn I got both of my soulgrinders and one of the great unclean ones.

The sternguard were still bunched up - the great unclean one ended up about 5" in front of my icon and the two soulgrinders behind it between 4" and 6". The Great Unclean One breathed on one of the units and killed half and a "hit" accounted for almost all of the rest. The librarian suffered 1 wound and all that was left was a combimelta. He fired in the following turn at the nearest soulgrinder and succeeded in destroying the mawcannon but the giant walker then charged him and ripped him in half leaving the top half of the marine on one objective and the bottom on another (sadly, 1/2 of a marine is neither enough to claim nor contest an objective). The other soulgrinder ended up with a drift that ended up killing almost half of the other sternguard and a couple of the tac squad. The Great Unclean One charged in and cleaned up the tac squad on the following turn (though it actually took two rounds of fighting for him to finish them.)

The surviving bloodcrushers meanwhile used the immobile drop pod to get some extra movement in the form of a charge that actually wrecked it thanks to the rending guy. The dual charge also wiped out a unit of scouts in the building and they consolidated up one floor. In the following turn they charged the other squad and wiped it out as well eliminating any chance of contesting two of the ojectives. The plaguebearers formed an inhuman chain connecting the two objectives.

The horrors meanwhile advanced on the objective in his deployment zone shooting and then charging a combat squad of scouts. They somehow managed to win and the last scout rolled an 11 and broke from combat. The horrors moved to within 6" to keep him from regrouping. The librarian meanwhile pulled the surviving sternguard over to exact some vengeance on the horrors cutting them down thanks to nullzone (the changeling actually made 6 out of 6 invulnerable saves! The reoll saw the law of averages come into force.)

At this point it was obvious that the Space Marines had no hope of winning or even drawing so we called the game.

After action review
Another fun and fast paced game against the new Space Marines list! Null zone is a pain, my daemon prince would have lived at least one more turn were it not for having to reroll the successfull invulnerable saves. Nullzone + hellfire rounds will be the bane of many a daemon list, mark my words. Shep was a trooper on this one - my time was extremely limited - I had about a half hour total, so he set up the table before I got there and took first turn automatically so when I showed up it was bottom of the first and I just went straight into it. He was curious to see how well a list made to table orks would do against daemons and the answer was "not that great."

Eternal Praise
The Great Unclean One actually did really well this game. I should mention that I built my second one so it was a different model this game. Shep laughs at my superstitions, but I really think that some models just do better. The soulgrinders were also really good.

Eternal Damnation
Me for completely forgetting to make Shep take any leadership tests from the changeling - and after he did so well last time, too!

The Space Marines fell back in good order leaving the battlefield - and the fallen to Skwawk. He found a survivor and called over the Great Unclean One. He lowered his beaked head and said "Look-look mighty giver of plagues. This one still lives. It is a gift-gift for you. Not from the Triumverate, but from Skwawk."

The bloated giant let out a great bellowing guffaw that caused his flesh to jiggle obscenely. "I am not so easily swayed nor as foolish as you think, half-breed." He licked his bleeding lips with a swolen bluish tongue. "But I will accept your gift and remember who gave it to me."

The Marine scout regained consciousness just a tidal wave of tiny clawed monsters began to crawl over his body. The putrid smell made him gag but he found he was helpless to resist. His armor was stripped off him leaving his chest bare. He could feel a fever washing over him and he coughed, tasting blood.

A huge corpulent figure loomed above him. "Oh what fun we will have, little man." He reached forward and began to carve symbols into the chest of the scout with a ragged fingernail. The scout tried not to scream.

Skwawk clapped his hands. Oh he may not be smart-smart, but he was clever and cruel. His mouth watered at the thought of what the soft tissue filling the Brain's oversized head would taste like.

Hmm, to be fair, I'm not sure that one game is enough to answer about how Shep's list will do against Daemons.

1 - with Pie-plates incoming, there is no way he should have left the proximity of the cover-providing Drop Pods.

2 - with an objective based mission, at least a couple squads should have combat-squaded out of their pods... leaving only the squads desired for Eternity Gate at full strength.

3 - Gating into rapid-fire range is probably a very bad idea. It leaves his units bunched up - and within charge range if said rapid-firing is not definitive. Better to stay back and use 24" shooting ... and have another round of shooting next turn, than to bet it all in one swoop.

It's something I've had a hard time doing... know when you've played wrong or when the dice-gods have been against you. Don't automatically assume something is wrong with the list just yet.

Of course, I'm not saying it's right either - just to give it some more shots.

Oh we definitely will give it more shots. The "gimmick" of the list he was going for was using the locator beacon around the pods to gate the sternguard and shoot something to bits then take a charge if necessary and teleport 1" away and shoot more. This leaves those units in a bad position for pie plate - he gambled that I would only have 1 soulgrinder show up and I had both as well as a breath of chaos that was in range.

Plus we were playing speed style so that didn't help him out much. The problem with his list against mine is that it doesn't really have anything that can stand up to any kind of assault. I think once he figures out the balance needed between shooting orks and hitting in assault that it will be a really solid list.

I am in absolute agreement with you that he should have combat squaded the tac squad at the very least, and I probably would have been a bit more cautious with them.

It was a testament to how poor they performed that Somnicide didn't even remember that the list had 3 whirlwinds in it.

No fists in the sternguard and 4x combi-meltas.

I think marines built like this can do better than i did against demons with some tighter play. Drop pods versus demons is really heavily weighted on the 'win first' roll. I don't think marines can make an ork beating/demon beating army. So you gotta make a choice there.

I think it's better to focus on beating orks, since its a more natural list. That list will do well against nids, it will do well against guard, and it does just fine against really anything that isn't rocking 3+ armor across the board.

And let me tell you. That list does magical things to orks.

2 hours before this battle took place, that marine list killed 8 out of 9 kannons (pinned the remaining kannon) and 12 lootas from one unit and 6 from the other.... during the top of turn 1. There were other greenskin casualties caught in the raining incendiary/deathwind bombardment, I just don't remember what they were.