Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Nyarlathoth sat down on an overstuffed down pillow looked at the grimoire before him. It was powerful, there was no mistaking that. There was a way to use it and the Herald of Tzeentch was pondering the best way. He was a fairly lowly creature of his lord's demesne and such power did not come his way often. He would try the direct way once more, against a brutish opponent that in the past had wronged him.

He would use force against force.

First off, let me apologize for the lack of photographic accompaniment - I forgot my camera and Gitsmack took a couple on his iPhone before we got carried away in the moment and forgot to take anymore. If he ever gets around to uploading them I will link them here so you can see the awesome ork terrain at our FLGS (aero hobbies in Santa Monica).

Tzeentch Daemons
HQ
Fateweaver
Nyarlathoth (Chariot, Bolt)
Yellow Horror (Chariot, Bolt)

Troops
7 Horrors (Bolt, Changeling)
7 Horrors (Bolt)
7 Horrors (Bolt)

Elite
3 Flamers (Bolt)
3 Flamers (Bolt)
3 Flamers (Bolt)

Heavy
The Eye (Bolt, Gaze)
The Brain (Bolt, Gaze)
Koko (Bolt, Gaze)

Gitsmack's Speed Freeks
HQ
Warboss with klaw and other stuff (with nobs)
Mekboy (kff? klaw and other stuff (with burnaboyz)

Troops
3 Trukk boyz units (12 with klawnob)
Nobz (in battle wagon, big mix of wound buckets, lots of klaws and other assorted killiness including the Warboss)

Elite
12 Burnaboyz (in battle wagon with mekboy)

Fast
3 single Dethkoptas with buzzsaws (klaws)

Pregame and Early Turns
GitSmack and I rolled up a pitched battle capture and control. The two objectives were across the table from each other in our deployment zones and a bit on the left side. I won the roll and had GitSmack go first. He kept everything in Reserve and the game started. My preferred wave was, again, all the multiwound stuff. I placed Fateweaver first in the center of the table and he got an 11" drift away from the objectives. My lack of recent games bites me at this point as I get a little bit panicky and instead of sticking to my original positioning of everything I want to make sure my daemon princes are in Fateweaver's bubble. Yes, even though GitSmack has nothing on the table. And yes, even though my princes walk and Fateweaver flies. This boneheaded deployment was a big mistake but hopefully I would be able to come back from it. I came to my senses with the heralds and positioned them between the two objectives.

GitSmack has pretty decent reserves rolls and brings in the nobs, one unit of trukk boyz and 2 koptas. The trukk boyz and nobs are on opposite of a ruined ork fort, both move on the max distance. Both koptas come in on on my left flank and shooting takes a wound off of a herald.

Mid Game
I also have pretty decent reserves rolls getting 2 units of horrors and 2 units of flamers (leaving one of each in reserve) I decide some bold action is necessary so bring in both horror units in between the objectives and drop the flamers into the ork fort (causing 1 wound from dangerous terrain which I save). One gets a hit lining up a shot on the trukk, the other drifts from the battlewagon but not too far. The horrors line up their shooting on the koptas killing one and wounding the other (with Fateweaver's help.) The flamers meanwhile destroy the trukk which careens straight at them before blowing up and only shaking the battlewagon. The princes and heralds all shoot bolts into the battlewagon but they are unable to get through armor 14.

The trukk boyz, angered by the loss of their trukk, charge into the flamers and beat them to death and then beat them some more. Warboss GitSmack tells his nobz to keep the motor runnin' and hops off the battlewagon to take care of the others. His skorcha fails to wound (they are FLAMERS after all...) but his klaw is a bit more successful and by the time his next turn comes around he has powered through their invulnerable save.

GitSmack gets the rest of his reserves and the burnawagon comes on and lays the heat down on a herald roasting it to an old school WB cartoon style cinder. The kopta ends up on the opposite side of the action and pops some shots off at a daemon prince. The other trukk boyz show up and zoom across the table to charge a unit of horrors along with the single wound kopta. They obviously blow through them and start to threaten my objective.

End Game
The rest of my reserves arrive - the horrors are in position to shoot the kopta and the flamers try for a side shot on the nobz battewagon - they just stun it but The Eye fires from across the battlefield, through the beams of a water tower and sending it up in a flaming explosion which kills one of the flamers and dumps the nobz out. The daemon princes and fateweaver all pour fire into the nobz. They kill all but 3 of them. Both units of horrors and a herald fire at the wounded kopta and fail to do that last wound (despite the fact that there were 2 str8ap1 bolts and 3 str5ap3 gaze shots and a whole lot of "bolters" (36 shots as a matter of fact!)
The single wound kopta moves over 12" and then charges another 6 to get into combat with Fateweaver. Fateweaver misses with his attacks then suffers a wound but makes the save drawing the combat.

Until Gitsmack's turn. Fateweaver again fails to do anything to the kopta who then wounds the big chicken. I fail my 3+ with the reroll and then roll a 10 for his leadership sending him off the board. Ugh. That combined with my really weak shooting last phase have revealed the writing on the wall. The game is basically over at this point and I am playing for a desperate draw. I will save you the blow by blow and suffice to say I lost horribly - 0 objectives for the daemons and 2 for the orks. The Eye did manage to continue his vehicle hate by destroying both battlewagons and wrecking the burnas in close combat.

After Action Review
My 40k benchwarming for the last couple of months definitely showed here. GitSmack was gracious enough to say repeatedly that it was that one ridiculously bad round of rolling to shoot the trukk boyz and Fateweaver running away that cost me the game, but in actuality I made pretty severe mistakes while playing whereas GitSmack played a really solid game. He capitalized on my errors and didn't really make any I could capitalize on (except, perhaps, in taking his burnas too close to The Eye, but that was really just a pity sacrifice I think, to make me feel like I was doing something good.)

Commendation
Well, the ork of the match was definitely the kopta. And I have to give the dethkopta some love here - looking at the stats and the price I was not really impressed by them for a long time. However, they fill a definite and valuable niche in the ork army.

As for the daemon army, I guess it would be the Eye, he continues to shine above all the other (identically armed) daemon princes. Tzeentch just likes him so I guess he will get painted up first.

Condemnation
Fateweaver. For some reason in this game he couldn't hit with shooting and when he did hit he rolled a one for wounding. Then he failed to kill the dethkopta over 2 turns of close combat and on the second wound of the game he took he failed the save with reroll and then botched the leadership test and vanished.

Further Thoughts
I am going to be trying the same basic list but without Fateweaver for a couple of games to see if he is really essential. I will be using a regular Lord of Change with almost all of the abilities (he comes in at 330 having everything except boon and instrument). If I can find 30 points I might even give him boon since his speed and monstrous creature gives him good ranged CC threat which is something I feel my list is lacking.

Thanks for reading, and if GitSmack uploads those pics I will link them here.

"Damn your eyes, Fateweaver!" Nyarlathoth kicked the pillow and blue-hued feathers floated down like snow. "Twice I have forced your service and twice you have failed me!"

He looked at the grimoire chained within a flaming cage on his chariot. There was just too much power there for him and though he hated to admit it, he didn't know how best to wield it.

He considered locking it up in a vault within his crystalline fortress but that would only invite intruders and usurpers. Already he had heard the mumblings of some of his lesser minions.

Nyarlathoth was just about to give vent to his rage when he stopped. It was the power that was thwarting him. It made him incautious and direct. That was not his way but he knew enough of his own nature to know that so long as he had that level of power he would keep using it foolishly. He needed someone else to have the grimoire. Someone he could coax and direct and use.

He cast his gaze around the 99 Mirrors of the Materium he had arranged around his throne room looking for a suitable tool from those he had been crafting and cackled...

Excellent report.

Fateweaver is awesome, he had a bad match and a crappy deepstrike. I'd still keep him in the list because the benifits will outweigh those weakness' in the majority of games you play.

MHO

Tough deal on fateweaver popping off, but that little chance of it happening is what keeps me from playing him.

Plus most people when they see that normal lord of change freak out enough about a t6 3+ invlu creature.

However I will say, come to the dark side. The blue scribes and another chariot is only 240pts . Just think what you could buy for 90 points!.

@ssevenn - yeah, I know that statistically it should be a while before that happens again, but it is such a huge investment and lynchpin that when it happens it has a huge psychological (if not game) impact.

@Warmaster - it is really tempting, actually. I was going through my bits box and found that I have one of the cool flaming disks from the last WFB chaos armybook and I might just have to shoehorn a couple of horrors on it. As I said in another thread, I really like the flexibility of having every power in the book.

My concern of adding another herald and the bluescribes is that my CC will be almost nonexistent and I like to have options - 3 daemon princes and a LoC is a pretty tough CC threat. Though I guess those extra 90 points would get me 3 power weapons for the heralds and maybe a boon or something...

I love the Tzeench Heralds, obviously they lose some steam against an army held in reserve, but as second wave tank poppers and once in a while, speedbumps they seem almost invaluble.

edit; But yeah, that sucks, with him out you're almost obligated to start playing for a draw. FW's value is so much more than his skills, the effect he has on your enemys target priorty and charge decisions is invaluble. when he collapses, your formations are now usually super vunerable.

Great report.
And there it is: the nightmare scenario. Fateweaver, woven out of the battle. Interesting to follow a battle and witness it happen.
Given how devastating the impact of his loss is (as you point out, not just tactically, but mentally for the daemon player), I'm surprised more opponents don't just pour fire into the big chicken, trying to force wounds and checks.

What seemed equally crippling though, to my eyes, was the fragility of your troops. I'd noticed this in your earlier report as well, and nearly commented on it. I appreciate the need to rely on horrors, given that you're playing mono-god. But I wonder if playing with larger horror packs and/or a 4th pack would make the list more durable.
Where to get points? Perhaps you could start with one of the flamer packs. Take Fateweaver down to LoC status. Shave here and there to work up enough points for 2 large horror packs and 2 smaller ones.
It just seems as though your troops are not durable enough to hang in there if you need to stick them in the thick of things. And here, of course, playing an objective-based mission against a mobile ork army, you had to. You weren't going to be able to keep this foe at range for very long.

Just a few thoughts.

I like the name of the Herald. Tzeentch daemons seem Lovecraftian to me. Props to you sir.

Similar names for the rest would be cool.

Somnicide wrote:
@Warmaster - it is really tempting, actually. I was going through my bits box and found that I have one of the cool flaming disks from the last WFB chaos armybook and I might just have to shoehorn a couple of horrors on it. As I said in another thread, I really like the flexibility of having every power in the book.

My concern of adding another herald and the bluescribes is that my CC will be almost nonexistent and I like to have options - 3 daemon princes and a LoC is a pretty tough CC threat. Though I guess those extra 90 points would get me 3 power weapons for the heralds and maybe a boon or something...

Sometimes the lack of cc can hurt, but you still have the 3 daemon princes, who aren't slouch's in cc. You definitely end up sacrificing units to hold up fast moving assaulters and you do a fair amount of running away .

i am a bit surprised, when reading about orc deffkoptas doing well... that means they are worth at least trying, after all
i just wonder, the Eye, what's its main gun/psychic power? (range, S, Ap?)

Each of the daemon princes, including the eye, have 2 "guns"
Both are range 24"
one is str 8 ap 1 assault 1
the other is str 5 ap3 assault 3

Great fluff (as always) and a nice battle report to boot. Cheers!

Unfortunately, it was my first use of the iPhone camera and all of that extra caffeine before the match made the couple of pics I remembered to take pretty useless. Next time, there will be pics...

I really liked your list and think it has a lot of strengths. I'll chime in again and say that that one particular turn was the unluckiest dice rolling I have ever seen in my life. The kopta/Fateweaver match-up was really a hail-Mary and the best I should have been able to hope for was to live and tie him up for a turn. I wound up with the dice-gods on my team and that was that.

Other than the initial drift/prince-deployment thing, it really just came down to bad dice on turn 4. As soon as you were able to recover from the drift, things started heating up.
When I ran the trukk boyz up the flank and was able to get in the charge on the horrors using my waaagh, I was figuring that was about it... you'd need to deal with them, granted, but that was really all I had to challenge that objective with, so I figured we were in for a draw as long as I could hold the other with my nobz, boss and other trukk boyz (and I felt pretty confident about that).

I like Fateweaver a lot, but that chance to "poof" with every wound is pretty nasty. It seems a pretty insignificant chance, statistically... but dice are dice and luck can be a harsh mistress. That said, the reroll bubble can neuter shooty armies if luck goes the other way. I didn't have a lot of shootiness in my list, but Fateweaver would have certainly made me think twice about how to use it if I had.

I do love my twin-linked rokkit/buzz-saw deffkoptas right now. Yeah, on paper they don't seem that great, but the last two games I've played with them, they've been my MVP's (two of them killing two Devildogs on a first turn charge vs. Shep in the game before this). They're not going to be great for every match-up, but I definitely intend to keep playing them.

Looking forward to the rematch (with pics!)... not looking forward to the luck-backlash.

@ Hippo - what Warmaster said

@ Mad Rabbit - yay! I think you are the first person to catch the Lovecraftian nods with my Tzeentch daemons!

@ GitSmack - oh yes, there will be a reckoning...

@ Warlord (from a different thread) - Daemons are intended to be able to charge when they show up - http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=6000002&pIndex=7&aId=15700002&start=8

hippohroch wrote:i am a bit surprised, when reading about orc deffkoptas doing well... that means they are worth at least trying, after all
i just wonder, the Eye, what's its main gun/psychic power? (range, S, Ap?)

We originally added deffkoptas as anti-lehman russ tech. They are necessary to deal with them since the other fire support options can't hurt AV 14 front armor. Deffkoptas can get around this restriction. That said they are also quite effective against almost every vehicle or monstrous creature in the game short of a monolith or Land Raider. If you can use one to nuke just one vehicle they likely have gotten their points back. If you can take out or harass a squadron or multiple units over a couple turns with one then they're a bargain. As illustrated by the battle report they are more resilient than you might think and even if your opponent shoots at them following your assault you're still wasting their valuable shooting just to remove a measly 70 point deffkopta.

Regardless with the way to current metagame is shaking out I won't currently run a list without them.