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Just got back from the monthly AWC tournament event.

This month, the organizer decided to mix it up a bit and run a 1650 point event, to make everyone step away from the lists they always run. That was pretty cool.

I decided to bring a mixed-god Daemon list. After the two previous outings I decided that the mono-god theme thing just wasn't strong enough to compete overall. I knew I needed more anti-tank, and the best way to get that is with bolts of tzeentch, so I ended up putting more of that into the list.

I debated, up until the morning of the event, running a Lord of Change, but decided to swap him out at the last minute for a Nurgle prince and a Khorne Chariot. My final list was:

HQ: Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Bolt of Tzeentch, Master of Sorcery, We Are Legion
HQ: Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Bolt of Tzeentch, Master of Sorcery, We Are Legion
HQ: Herald of Khorne, Chariot, Unholy Strength, Fury of Khorne
Elite: 6 Bloodcrushers, all upgrades
Elite: 6 Fiends of Slaanesh, no upgrades
Troops: 5 horrors, bolt of Tzeentch
Troops: 5 horrors, bolt of Tzeentch
Troops: 5 horrors, bolt of Tzeentch
Troops: 5 horrors, bolt of Tzeentch, Changeling upgrade
Heavy: Soul Grinder w/ Phlegm
Heavy: Soul Grinder w/ Phlegm
Heavy: Daemon Prince of Nurgle w/ Iron Hide, Noxious Touch, Plague Goo (the grenades upgrade I can't remember the name of)

Round 1

Round one's primary objective is a modified Dawn of War deployment, Annihilation mission. Secondary objective is to score more victory points, and tertiary is to get more units in their deployment zone that they have in yours.

My opponent is running a mech marine army. He's running:
Null Zone Librarian
2 Dreads w/ Multimeltas, Extra Armour & Heavy Flamers
10-man Tac Squad w/ meltagun, missile launcher, sgt w/ powerfist & combi-melta, in rhino
10-man Tac Squad w/ meltagun, plasma cannon, sgt w/ powerfist & combi-melta, in rhino
5-man Scout squad w/ camo cloaks, 3 sniper rifles, missile launcher, sgt w/ bolter & Meltabomb
Land Speeder w/ Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer
Land Speeder w/ Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer
Land Speeder w/ Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer
Vindicator
Vindicator
8-Man devastator squad, w/ 4 Missile Launchers

Not a bad list, and a lot of tanks...

He wins the roll for first turn, and makes me go first. I get my preferred wave, and drop in the crushers, fiends, grinders, daemon prince and khorne chariot, figuring that in a kill point mission, I need to get them moving. I scatter somewhat, putting my crushers too close to his deployment zone, which will let his dreads charge them. My Daemon Prince and Chariot scatter away from this and won't be able to extricate them in a hurry either.

He rolls on and puts most of his shooting on the crushers. This allows me to take out the two models that would be chargeable by the dreads, and leaves me an icon right up in his face. Not too bad really.

Turn 2, I get a chariot and all four horror units. I get them all in positions to shoot at speeders. My shooting that phase, between the grinders, the horrors, and the chariot, nets me three pens on various vehicles, and 8 glances. The best I do, though, is two stunned speeders. The vindicators are thankfully shaken too, as is the third speeder, but no permanent results. Assault sees my crushers rip the CC arm off one dread and they'll stall for time there. I think my daemon prince assaults one of the speeders this turn too, killing it.

The lack of solid results, however, will come back to bite me, and be a theme in this game. He pulls up one of the rhino units and meltas a soul-grinder to death. He did this, however, in charge range of my fiends. I figure I'd trade two KP for one (rhino and squad for grinder). Other shooting kills some horrors but nothing amazing. And the dreadnought/crusher fight continues.

Back to the fiends. Turn three, my last stuff comes in. My shooting is ineffectual, but assaults see the daemon prince beat up the second dread, and the chariot kill one of the stunned speeders from last turn. Back to them fiends - so I charge the five marines and the rhino. I figure to put three fiends on the rhino, which had moved 12", and three on the marines, which will hopefully leave some alive and let me finish them on his turn. Ha. The eighteen attacks on the rhino all miss. I kill 2 marines, take a wound in return, and then he chooses to auto-fail. That's okay, I still have a +2 edge to stop him getting away (I5 to 4, and I win ties). And the dice gods show their fickle nature, as I roll a '1', and his guys get away. This leaves the fiends to get shot by dev missiles, a speeder, and a rhino.

Turn four sees more of the same. His vindicators are back online and I'm down to three fiends when he's done shooting. He's killed off two whole, and one partial horror squad. He's also got a few wounds on one of the tzeentch chariots. He assaults it with his scouts to finish it off. The crushers finally finish off the dreadnought though, so at this point, he's up by a couple of points. I figure I can make them back on my turn. Except that I fail to do anything useful, at all. Daemon Prince assaults a vindicator, gets three hits, and doesn't score a single glance. Soul grinder assaults the librarian's rhino, gets a pen, and knocks off its storm bolter. Khorne Chariot kills one whole scout, and the crushers fail to scratch the other vindicator (that's 16 S6 attacks, needing 4 to hit, 4 to glance, and not a single result).

Out of position, Null Zone in effect, and he clears out the crushers, fiends, and daemon prince, as well as the soul grinder who had stopped to eat a storm bolter. I thought that, at the very least, the vidicators would be unable to fire, nope, and they absolutely wrecked me that turn.

Game ends, I've actually got a tzeentch chariot in his deployment zone for the tertiary objective, but he's got the other two.

Score 11/48.


Round Two

Versus Les Westmoreland's Black (Orange) Templar.

Round two is the weird mission. This time we're playing for objectives, but with a catch. There are six on the table to begin with, but at the end of each player turn, we roll a die for each. On a '6' is disappears. If it was controlled at the time, the unit that controlled it leaves the table with it, you count it as yours, and the unit returns to play the next turn via deep strike. The secondary is to score more than 750 victory points, and the tertiary is to kill all the opponent's troops.

We're also playing on a Mordheim table, of all things. Lots of medieval buildings that all block line-of-sight, and are impassable. There are only two safe landing spots of any size, so all my landing will be difficult.

Les has:
Emperor's Champion (Accept Any Challenge)
10 Templars (Power Weapon and Flamer) and 4 Neophytes in a Land Raider Crusader
8 Templars (Power Fist, Flamer) and 2 Neophytes, in a Rhino
8 Templars (Power Fist, Melta) and 2 Neophytes, in a Rhino
Venerable Dreadnought w/ Lascannon, Tank Hunter
Dreadnought w/ Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer
Predator Annihilator w/ HB Sponsons
Predator Annihilator w/ HB Sponsons

He wins the roll to go first, and takes it. He immediately drives one rhino up to sit on one of the objectives, and the land raider to sit on another of them. At the end of his turn, one of the unclaimed objectives leaves the table.

My turn, I ask the chaos gods for the Changeling's unit, Fiends, Crushers, Grinders and Khorne Chariot. The Chaos Gods have other plans, however, and send me three units of horrors, two tzeentch chariots and the nurgle prince. I figure the prince can take some heat, and go for the raider, but he scatters away from it. I put one chariot in a position to shoot a rhino that's going for an objective (in one of the larger open spaces), and risk landing the other one for a rear-armour shot on his lascannon dreadnought. The horrors aim for unclaimed objectives, and two of them stick their landings, another scatters into a fairly useless place.

The Chariot fails to hurt the dread, so it's pretty much a goner. Nurgle prince tries to run, but trips on his own shoelaces. But then Tzeentch reveals his master plan as we roll for objective disappearances. One of Les's rhinos is taken up, getting it out of the landing zone, and two of my horror units score their objectives. This is huge, as I've got a 2-1 edge with only two left on the table (both under his tanks at the moment), and those horrors aren't on the table to get shot up either. This means he has to be really cautious with his units, as if he leaves one of these objectives and then the objective disappears, he can't win, so this really pins both his Land Raider unit and one Rhino unit in place.

On his turn, he shoots and then assaults the chariot that failed. It dies; such is the price of failure. Other than that, he unloads the LR-Crusader on the Nurgle Prince and fails to hurt it. None of the objectives leave.

I get the two units of horrors who had claimed objectives, as well as the crushers, one soul grinder, and the changeling's unit. I drop the crushers on the left flank, the grinder so that it can chase the land raider, and the changeling's squad to try and contest the objective that his rhino is sitting on. They scatter off the table, and he places them in a far corner. Shooting sees a Bolt of Tzeentch glance the LRC and stop it shooting next turn, but nothing else of consequence.

Les makes his first real mistake, as he dismounts his last troop unit and has them assault the bloodcrushers. (He also shot them some). They devour the templars, taking maybe a couple of wounds in the process. With his other troops pinned in position, and large LOS terrain stopping the preds from being useful, I've got a good shot at this if I can get the objectives contested before they leave with his guys. That doesn't happen this turn.

Turn three, I get to bring in the Fiends and Khorne Chariot. I put the fiends down near the crushers icon, so that when he charges the dread into the crushers, I can counter with the fiends. I have the crushers move up, and a lucky bolt of tzeentch kills the rhino with troops in it, leaving them exposed for the crushers to charge. Meanwhile, the grinder and prince charge the Land Raider and immobilize it. They're now contesting that objective. The crushers charge the templar troops and one of the predators for good measure, and pretty much ruin it. His last hope is to have his tank-hunter dread run into my soul grinder, to get it off the land raider, but while it gets a couple of pens, they're just shakes, and I can ignore it. The grinder takes the dreads CC arm off, and it's pretty much mop-up at that point. The objectives are all contested (or have horrors on them), with things he cannot kill, and his mobility is gone. A few assaults later, the game ends, and I've got the full 48/48 points for the round.

The mission really hurt Les in this game, as it kept him from advancing because of the risk that the objectives could vanish. That, plus a couple of poor charge results really decided the game.


Game Three

Game three is A Spearhead deployment on a Capture&Control for the primary objective, with 'score 1000 more Victory Points' as a secondary (in a 1650 game, this is essentially requiring you to table them), and 'control the table' for tertiary (this means have any unit, not just a scoring unit, in each quarter).

My opponent has a concentrated eldar army;

Eldrad
10-man seer council with loads of powerz
Waveserpent with brightlances and other upgrades

10 Dire Avengers w/ Bladestorm/defend/shimmershield Exarch
10 Dire Avengers w/ Bladestorm/defend/shimmershield Exarch
10 Wraithguard w/ Conceal Warlock, and another Farseer joined to the unit.

Two notes; One - this was probably the most frustrating game I've played, not because of the game itself, but because of my opponent. TFG. He was convinced that the warlocks with Eldrad constituted a retinue (preventing him from being singled out), and had the judges rule that way in an earlier round, so they stuck with that ruling. His warlock council was not well defined, so oddly enough, he never lost any of the models with the upgrades. I had to correct any number of rules mistakes that he was making and felt like I had to watch everything he did so he wasn't pulling a fast one (moving models in combat when they shouldn't, incorrectly piling in (ignoring requirements to move to guys without someone in base-to-base), the list goes on.)

The other note was, as soon as I saw the mission, the deployment, and his list, I knew he had no way of winning. The best he could realistically hope for would be a draw, and that would mean holding everything to defend his deployment zone and letting me have my own. He didn't have a hope of getting his footsloggers to my objective, and without the seer council to defend his own, I could eat all his other units without batting an eyelid.

Which is pretty much what happened. He star-engined eldrad and his boys towards my objective - and I ignore it. I got my preferred wave, this time fiends, crushers, grinders, daemon prince and the changeling's unit. I pretty much made a ring around his firebase, killed a few models with phlegm shots, and waited. He goes 'oh, you're just ignoring your own objective' and turns his serpent around and rams my soul grinder. Okay... I think he took out the maw cannon. Shooting nets him three fiends. And then all hell breaks lose.

My horrors have AP4 warpfire. They kill one unit of Dire Avengers. Soul Grinder vomits on some others and proceeds to lock them into an assault they'll never get out of. And the crushers eat wraithguard like it's going out of style. While the combat will drag out a few more rounds due to the fortuned farseer that was in the unit, he's out of troops on turn two. The soul grinder attacks and kills the wave serpent, and that's the mobility of the council.

I begin the process of slowly feeding his council units, while I make sure my three chariots are in all the deployment zones, and I've got horrors on both objectives. By the end of the game, he's killed all of the fiends and crushers, and the nurgle prince, and eldrad and one warlock remain alive. I don't score the secondary (killing a seer council when you cannot force attacks onto the farseer is ridiculously hard and without killing the council, I cannot kill 1000 points more of his stuff.), but pick up the other points, scoring 38/48 for the round.

Finale & Thoughts
I end up second in overall points (Not battle points though), and winning the Best Appearance award. The event was won by a mech Dark Eldar list. Next month's tournament drops to 1500 points.

I really liked the tzeentch chariots. I hadn't really considered We Are Legion before, and it was quite useful, allowing me to get dual utility out of them. So they're a plus.

I'm not sure about the nurgle prince. While noxious touch doth verily rock versus troops, being S5 meant he was less useful against vehicles, and that seems to be the name of the game lately. Likewise, I'm not sure I need the Khorne chariot - for the same reason. I don't know that a Lord of Change (for the same points) is any better, but I don't think the Prince or Chariot were what I needed. Not to mention, in two games, the Khorne chariot ended up being a throw-away, coming in late, and essentially being tossed onto the table. Perhaps a third soul-grinder (with tongue instead of vomit) would be a better choice here. Three AV13 vehicles are harder to kill than two.

Troops: I like the horrors. I have consistently been able to put enough pressure on my opponents with my non-troops that the horrors aren't a focus of much attention and they end up surviving and doing their job. The Bolts are good when they hit, but I don't feel bad dropping a small unit of five guys far from the main battle and letting them sit all game either.

The fiends and crushers play well off each other, with the fiends picking up the slack where the crushers have problems (Walkers, mainly) Crushers with the ability to split wounds up remain a seriously tough unit, definitely undercosted for what they do.

Metagame - I think all the Marine players present were running Null Zone. Most were meched up. The one guard player this month had the allied inquisitor/mystics. There is a lot of anti-daemon hate out there, and they're not that common an army, it's just that it's so easy to tack on one of those powers. I'm unsure if I want to keep fighting against this, or run one of my other armies that doesn't have the easy button antidote.


My first round opponent did take pics, so if he posts them, I will add them into this post later.

You just had really bad dice the first game. Other than that you did very well. I like your list.

G

Did the Khorne Chariot just have bad placement and timing or did it not fare well in combat either? I understand the dice rolls went bad for it in game 1, but on paper I keep looking at the Khorne Chaoriot and drool.

I'm glad to see the Tzeentch Chariots worked out well. I'm running them the same way. In the heavy slot I've got Tzeentch Daemon Princes with bolt of change for 140pts. I figure a Bolt that hits on 2's is worth it vs. mech. That and the duel purpose of an MC running around to clear away dreadnoughts and not get killed back in one meltagun attack is better than Soul Grinders. I also like the small footprint the Tzeentch DP gives me over the Soul Grinder.

Null Zone and Mystics are dirt cheap to take and also protection against more than just daemons. Mystics help againt Drop Pod attacks, Deep Striking Oblits or 3-man Termies with combi-meltas. Guard should take the Mystics. Null Zone is a great power that works well on Daemons, but also Seer Councils, Nobz with Cybork bodies, Assault Terminators (somethimes this is the difference in winning or losing a combat with your assault termies against the enemy assault termies), Oblits, and the occasional Legion of the Damned unit (that last one was a joke, but I want to try them).

In the end the anti-daemon powers are here to stay because of their cheap cost and versatility in use.

DarthDiggler wrote:
Did the Khorne Chariot just have bad placement and timing or did it not fare well in combat either? I understand the dice rolls went bad for it in game 1, but on paper I keep looking at the Khorne Chaoriot and drool.

Neither A or B, really. It's more like a lack of good targets in the current environment. Not even so much a lack of targets entirely, but a lack of need for that many assault units.

Game one, it killed a stunned land speeder on one turn, and was then able to take out a scout squad, without breaking a sweat (although it took three rounds because of dice rolls, I expected that to go two rounds, which would have then freed it up to do a bit more as well). And it survived the battle, so that's not horrible.

Game two, it was in the preferred wave that didn't show up on time. By the time it had landed, the soul grinders had the land raider and squad well in-hand, and the crushers had the other troops taken care of. But, even if I had landed, where does the chariot go? He's not an MC, so he doesn't add anything against the LR, and only gives the squad inside something they can hurt. He's okay against dreads, but I wouldn't bet on that too heavily, and if the charge doesn't get a good result that's likely to be a prolonged fight, as you have to hope for the sixes. Or he can try to chase down rhinos and preds - but isn't as good as the fiends or tzeentch chariots at either task.

Game three - it's hard to say much there. I took him out of the preferred wave, and by the time his reserve came up, all my opponent's stuff was either dead or a seer council, and he had more value in dropping into the last table quarter to win the tertiary objective than as one more guy trying to break a seer council.

But even looking back at the other two events... Last month, he'd have bounced off the mech marines, done no better than the iron-hide nurgle prince against the necron wraiths&deceiver, and would have done okay against the Crimson Fist army.

At the first tournament, the chariot would have been chewed up by ork boyz, though it would do some damage on the way (played this out vs. Jeff Chua at the Adepticon Invitational last year. He had a nob biker unit that would have killed the chariot easily enough too. Second game was against mech guard. I'd be stuck trying to assault chimeras, and not fast enough to reposition easily. Third game was against foot marines, and it would have done okay.

So, out of the nine matches I've played in this tournament series, the Khorne chariot has had six less-than-favourable matchups (three mech marines, one mech guard, necrons and orks), one meh (the eldar), and two where it would have been a good threat (the two foot marines). It's not that it's bad, it's that the environment is marginalizing its utility.

I'm glad to see the Tzeentch Chariots worked out well. I'm running them the same way. In the heavy slot I've got Tzeentch Daemon Princes with bolt of change for 140pts. I figure a Bolt that hits on 2's is worth it vs. mech. That and the duel purpose of an MC running around to clear away dreadnoughts and not get killed back in one meltagun attack is better than Soul Grinders. I also like the small footprint the Tzeentch DP gives me over the Soul Grinder.

The soul grinders do a couple of things that the MCs don't do though. Phlegm has the longest range of any weapon in the daemon arsenal, and it allows you to drop the grinders further back while still creating a threat. At S8, it's not great, but not horrible versus vehicles either. And the threat of the pie plates do have an impact on your opponent's deployment. For every game I've played where they've died horribly to a melta shot, I've had another where they have stood their ground, or taken out an opponent's unit for the whole game. Plus, they are the walker threat that you need to go against an opponent's crushers in the daemon mirror game. I was happy with their performance yesterday. I lost two in the first game, but that's bound to happen to whatever you bring if you bounce off your opponent's stuff. Game two, they killed a land raider, emperor's champion, whole unit of templars and a dreadnought, for no loss, and in game three, one traded for a wave serpent and one wiped a kitted-out dire avenger unit, and survived.

Null Zone and Mystics are dirt cheap to take and also protection against more than just daemons. Mystics help againt Drop Pod attacks, Deep Striking Oblits or 3-man Termies with combi-meltas. Guard should take the Mystics. Null Zone is a great power that works well on Daemons, but also Seer Councils, Nobz with Cybork bodies, Assault Terminators (somethimes this is the difference in winning or losing a combat with your assault termies against the enemy assault termies), Oblits, and the occasional Legion of the Damned unit (that last one was a joke, but I want to try them).

In the end the anti-daemon powers are here to stay because of their cheap cost and versatility in use.

Of course. The question is whether daemons are here to stay in the environment with cheap, versatile powers that really hurt them. But I guess as long as I can keep picking up appearance awards with them, I don't need to change anything yet

Thanks for sharing. Just a couple of comments on your list.

Your list while definitely very different than mine share's a few of the same problems.

I really prefer the daemon prince over the grinder for my setup and I would probably say the same thing about yours. Here's the reason, against anyone with dreadnaughts the only thing you have that can stop them in hth is the fiends, or if they get lucky, and a hail mary from a bloodcrusher with the rending. The daemon princes trump dreadnaughts, ironclads, grinders, etc.

But if you are going to stick with grinders, definitely upgrade to three, and if you are doing it, double up on the tongue's so you can reliably get one hit a turn out of them .

A different suggestion for your current quandry about the khorne chariot. Why not drop it and replace it with a suicide flamer squad? They will actually work pretty well in conjunction with your other elites. I've noticed that a lot of the mech players phalanx up or conga line which means one unit of 3 flamers is sometimes hitting 2-3 sometimes even 4 vehicles. And once you get some immobilized and stun's in there it makes it a lot easier for crushers and fiends to pop them.

Warmaster wrote:
I really prefer the daemon prince over the grinder for my setup and I would probably say the same thing about yours. Here's the reason, against anyone with dreadnaughts the only thing you have that can stop them in hth is the fiends, or if they get lucky, and a hail mary from a bloodcrusher with the rending. The daemon princes trump dreadnaughts, ironclads, grinders, etc.

But how many things do you need to kill dreads with? It's not like six dreadnought armies are all over the place, and with six bolts of tzeentch, you can soften them up before you even see HTH too. I'm okay with letting the fiends and one prince take the risk against walkers, because the grinders cause that same matchup problem for other people.

A different suggestion for your current quandry about the khorne chariot. Why not drop it and replace it with a suicide flamer squad? They will actually work pretty well in conjunction with your other elites. I've noticed that a lot of the mech players phalanx up or conga line which means one unit of 3 flamers is sometimes hitting 2-3 sometimes even 4 vehicles. And once you get some immobilized and stun's in there it makes it a lot easier for crushers and fiends to pop them.

I've run them before. But all they do against mech is glances, and it's impossible to count on glances to do anything to vehicles in 5th. With most troops hiding in tanks, flamers are just less useful.

Yeah Warmaster, Redbeard has his bases well covered. A lot of people act like walkers trump daemons but it is not the case.

G

Redbeard wrote:

Warmaster wrote:
I've run them before. But all they do against mech is glances, and it's impossible to count on glances to do anything to vehicles in 5th. With most troops hiding in tanks, flamers are just less useful.

I guess the way I see it is if I can drop in 3 flamers and get immobilized or stunned against a 2 transports it's worth it. It's also worth it to shake vehicle squadron's so they can't shoot. It gives your opponent an immediate threat and lets the rest of your army move in. Plus stunning or immobilizing is gold for fiends to go clean up afterwards. I also actually use them in conjunction with screamers. But screamers suck I know .

I guess I seem to see a lot of 3 dread naught lists. And especially for the type of list I play they are a seriouis consideration.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Green Blow Fly wrote:Yeah Warmaster, Redbeard has his bases well covered. A lot of people act like walkers trump daemons but it is not the case.

G

Walkers don't trump daemons, never said that, I did say they could give you a hard time if you aren't prepared for them. I typically see 3 dreadnaughts in lists around here.

Warmaster wrote:
I guess the way I see it is if I can drop in 3 flamers and get immobilized or stunned against a 2 transports it's worth it. It's also worth it to shake vehicle squadron's so they can't shoot. It gives your opponent an immediate threat and lets the rest of your army move in. Plus stunning or immobilizing is gold for fiends to go clean up afterwards. I also actually use them in conjunction with screamers. But screamers suck I know .

I guess I seem to see a lot of 3 dread naught lists. And especially for the type of list I play they are a seriouis consideration.

I agree with your "IF" but point out that it's really not that likely. You need too many things to go your way. First, you need to land your scatter close enough to the transport, without going into it. Then, you have to hope your opponent didn't foresee this, and spread their vehicles out in such a way that you're only able to hit one. Then, you need to get your glances, which is only a 50/50 consideration. And, after all that, you're hoping for a '6' to immobilize the enemy vehicle. And, at the end of all that, you've traded your 105 point unit for a 35 point transport.

Let's assume that you have a 66% chance of landing close enough to hit the vehicle target. And, because we're playing in competitive tournaments, let's assume that our opponent is smart enough to spread their tanks when they see flamers. Your expected return on the move ends up being .66 * (3*.5) * 1/6 * 35 points (considering an immobilized transport as useless) - your expected points-return is about 5 points. And, with your flamers that close to a transport, they're going to get out, rapid-fire, and no more flamers, so you lose 105 points. Not a good trade.

Flamers have their place. A unit of flamers that can hit a marine squad in the open has about a 50% chance of sticking a landing close enough to do something. Figure a total of about 20 models under the templates, and a .5 chance to drop them means that the average return on that sort of attack is roughly 100 points - a fair trade. If you can hit a more valuable unit, like plague marines in the open, or a dev. squad, your return improves. The problem is that you're not seeing those units in the open lately. Everyone is meched out, and you cannot trade your 100 point unit for a 35 point transport, let alone a 1/6 chance of immobilizing it.

Okay a couple of responses back. I agree an immobilized is very unlikely. However I'm justa s happy with a stun for a transport so that will double my chances . I'm also okay with shaken when it's a pricier transport like a devilfish, chimera, or wave serpent.

But back to the 35 point rhino. So if I force my opponent to spread out instead of clumping that's good for me. It let's me tease around the edges of his army with less localized retaliation. Also the flamers are a psychological weapon. So if I have 1 or 2 units of flamers in reserves, are the marines going to get out to shoot at me? If not I win because you just can't take down chariot's and daemon princes and stuff with just two shots coming out of the top. And if they are alll mech'd up and spread out and you have to drop the flamer's, theres nothing that says you can't keep them back for a counter strike for when you do pop the vehicle.

I just think that those 3 flamers are infinitely more usefull than a Khorne Herald on a chariot .

Don't get me wrong, I think they're a good unit, but not in the current competitive environment. I've used them before (see my other daemon battle reports), and know where they're strong, but I'm also willing to acknowledge their weaknesses.

They might be better than the chariot, but there are better tools than flamers to force your opponent to spread out. A soul grinder with phlegm, for example, has a large template, but can also kill a transport, rather than just hoping to stun it.

Which comes to the other problem. At some point, you have to destroy enemy vehicles. Shaking/stunning them forever isn't enough. It's why AP1 shots are important in 5th ed, because they give you that extra shot to actually get rid of the threat, not just delay it.

True, but I'm looking at the fact that you've already max'd out your heavy support . I guess I see your open elite slot, and your open hq slots and wonder what's going on . Those slots are full in almost every daemon army I've ever used!

Well, you know my perspective on things, or if not a quick search on topics I've started will show it quick enough.

One thing I've found recently is that the Masque is appallingly sweet. Give him a chance!

I thought it was a her? Anyways I would back this up, the masque is amazing at 100pts.

She is pretty cool, but, again, in a meched-out environment, her utility is lessened.

Yeah, Mech's a problem, but, just as an example, in each of your games there was something to profitably move (All you dreads out there, do the 180!). The last game would have been what I call a target rich environment. A Seer Council, 3 footslogging troop squads? Wraithguard? Thing of beauty.

Very few "Mech" lists also have no walkers. Guard, I guess, but that's about all, and Guard are prey to Fatecrusher, so it's not really 100 points you need.

The Masque is wireless.

G

here's a question for you masque advocates (sorry for the derail) - do you tend to fire all three at different units or just stack up to make sure you get a hit even though you might be wasting the multiple hits?

edit: also, have you thought about swapping out the khorne chariot for a slaanesh one with musk? That basically makes it almost a 2 strong fiend unit without touching the elite slot.

If the Slaneesh herald on a chariot is T4 and counts as calvary I think it's a much better choice than a Khorne herald. To me the major strength of a Khorne herald is that you can mount it on a juggernaught and join the herald to a squad of Crushers... This is great synergy as it makes the unit more complex (i.e., more resilient) and more potent in offense. People often say the major weakness of Crushers is if they get locked in combat with a dreadnaught. Sure you want to avoid close combat with the walker but on the other hand the herald can be configured to destroy dreadnaughts... It is dependent on rending so it might take a couple of rounds of close combat but that is much better than being stuck and slowly whittled down. A Khorne herald on a chariot can't join the Crushers so moving as infantry hurts a lot more. One of the big advantages of a large squad of Crushers is they take up a lot of space and have a huge footprint... They don't necessarily have to be fast if they anchor your army and this is a big advantage in objective based games.

G

yeah the chariot gives you the cavalry special rule and and extra attacks, toughness and 3 whole wounds! for less than the price of 3 fiends you can also give it pavane, unholy strength boosting it to space marine levels and hit and run in addition to the chariot

I've found the slaanesh chariot to be weaker. Sure, it's fast, but even with unholy strength, it's only hitting at S4 (unlike the fiends), and sure its gots 6 attacks, but that's sure not two fiends.

I don't like Pavane on it either. In terms of getting the chariot into combat, it's worse than simply fleeting because you have to roll to hit. Sure, you can help get another unit in range, but is that worth it?

As for the masque, I dunno. Sure, she can spin a dread, but I'm not sure she has enough overall value. I'd rather bring the Blue Scribes if I'm going that route. They can pavane if they must, but can do all sorts of other stuff too (such as spawn a blob-squad's commissar or fire a bolt at a tank)

I was liking pavane for later game, actually. I noticed that once you get stuck in, especially with it and run, you seldom need to run int he shooting phase it could help set up a nice double charge or something. I guess since it can't take legion it isn't as good as the scribes.

Nice report.

Two notes; One - this was probably the most frustrating game I've played, not because of the game itself, but because of my opponent. TFG. He was convinced that the warlocks with Eldrad constituted a retinue (preventing him from being singled out), and had the judges rule that way in an earlier round, so they stuck with that ruling. His warlock council was not well defined, so oddly enough, he never lost any of the models with the upgrades. I had to correct any number of rules mistakes that he was making and felt like I had to watch everything he did so he wasn't pulling a fast one (moving models in combat when they shouldn't, incorrectly piling in (ignoring requirements to move to guys without someone in base-to-base), the list goes on.)

Lol. Those guys do exist.

I was Redbeard's opponent first round, and I honestly thought I was going to lose during the first two turns. My attention was drawn so much to the bloodcrushers that I decided to try and take them out right away. I also have to admit the fickle die rolls for the first three turns allowed me to recover from my initial mistakes and turn the tide of the game. I was shocked that my vehicles were surviving your assaults (vindicators especially from your daemon prince and bloodcrushers.)

wuestenfux wrote:

Two notes; One - this was probably the most frustrating game I've played, not because of the game itself, but because of my opponent. TFG. He was convinced that the warlocks with Eldrad constituted a retinue (preventing him from being singled out), and had the judges rule that way in an earlier round, so they stuck with that ruling. His warlock council was not well defined, so oddly enough, he never lost any of the models with the upgrades. I had to correct any number of rules mistakes that he was making and felt like I had to watch everything he did so he wasn't pulling a fast one (moving models in combat when they shouldn't, incorrectly piling in (ignoring requirements to move to guys without someone in base-to-base), the list goes on.)

Lol. Those guys do exist.

I played this same eldar guy in the 2nd round of that tournament and I'd have to say he quite a frustrating person to play with. He was repeatedly arguing basic parts of the rules, like what a crew shaken result was, etc. I had problems with the defining of models in his warlock unit as well. I got robbed on a secondary objective because I was 70 victory points short of scoring that secondary objective. I killed the full warlock unit, but eldrad was still alive. He contended that Eldrad himself was a part of the retinue, so I didn't get full victory points...We had a judge come over and he convinced the judge to side with him. I had no room to argue that myself so I just had no choice but to accept it.

Overall I had fun at the tournament because of the game against Redbeard (Also thanks for the advice you gave me in my battle report) and my third round opponent, but the opponent in the 2nd round just detracted from it. I'll be at the next tournament, hopefully I won't have to play him again.

From what I heard, the judges spoke to him about his attitude too. He was the only player to be voted least-favourite opponent by everyone he played too.

When are you posting your other two games?

I'm going to post at least the 2nd game tonight when I get home from work and if I have time, get the 3rd round report in as well.

I had a problem with my camera and I lost most of the pics I took of the 2nd game (only have a couple of pictures from near the end of the game.

I got all the pics from the 3rd game.

K. I'm a bit confused. Don't like flamers or screamers. Those are what I run, and I've been doing quite well, including against mech. I don't run any heavies, and the only MC I run is Fateweaver. So the statements that flamers aren't a good choice and that screamers "suck" is a might confusing, and I'd appreciate a bit more to go on as to why you believe it so.

In an all-comers environment, like a tournament, flamers aren't currently a good idea, because there are an awful lot of mechanized armies out there. Flamers are great if your opponent has a squad of expensive troops out in the open - you can risk the suicide drop to kill them all before they shoot at you.

But against a mech force, what do they do? Put some glancing hits on a vehicle that can't possibly kill it? With only 3 wounds, they don't survive long after they drop, and if you haven't got your opponent's guys out of his tanks by then, then they're often wasted points.


Screamers are even worse. Again, you have the problem where they don't have a lot of wounds for their price, nor the best save. The things that they're designed to go after, vehicles, can simply move, which makes it very hard for you to hit them, or, as is more often the case, treat them as a high-priority target and shoot them. It doesn't take a lot of firepower to kill screamers.

Against armies without any vehicles, they're largely a wasted choice, being neither particularly good at combat, nor scoring.

I have to agree with the assessment of the screamers. I have tried really hard to get them to work - Warmaster does it somehow, but the fact that they count as armed with melta grenades means you only get a single attack with them against mech and their huge footprint makes them difficult to place. Top that off with the fact that they can't run to spread out since they are jet bikes, mine rarely last long enough to even count as a distraction.

Hmm. Guess things are different up here. Like I said, I do very well with them.

My 1500 list is fateweaver, 2*10 bloodletters, 2*10 horrors, 3*3 flamers, and 3*4 screamers. I very rarely lose the screamers to shooting, as they're usually well out of range, in CC, the vehicles are unable to shoot (which includes the passengers), or I've offered easier targets. Being near fateweaver means that it's actually pretty hard to drop them, what with the SM toughness and rerolling the invulnerable save..

The flamers do well. One glancing hit is sufficient. If all it does is keep any non walker from shooting, it was worth it, as now they have to decide if they're going to run for it (and they can't outrun the flamers and screamers), or going to dump and shoot. And if they dump out, then I can shoot them with the horrors, fateweaver, or charge with the bloodletters. Additionally, I can often get multiple vehicles in on a flame template if my opponent puts everything close togethor, and if he strings things out, I can usually hide my screamers and flamers behind his stunned tanks. And stunned is good enough for the screamers to autohit the next round, it doesn't need to be immobilized, only not have moved.

In addition, most transports seem to have Armor 10 on the back, which means that only the horrors can't hurt them in CC, possible stunning or shaking them at least, and the horrors can do well enough on that in shooting. Anything else, well stunned is enough to keep it from firing, that's good enough.

I'll have to ask someone to bring a list as meched out as possible to give it some more work, but again, so far I haven't had a problem.