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I packed up my Khorne Daemons for another tournament this Sat. (Dicehead games, same tourney as Gardeath Batrep'd about guy I played in first round is same guy he played in last round).

The Venue:

Dicehead games. Their new location has a lot of room, really nice place. Rather small selection of product, but they are happy to order whatever you want. Prizes are also really really generous here, and you get to buy for 20% off if you play in the tournament. Good staff, located in a mall for convenience. My only real complaint is that there were a lot more participants than the store had prepared for, so the first game got off about an hour late due to all the new tables getting set up. That's a pretty good problem to have though.

The Field:

There was a club from Murfreesboro here, and the Blade and Bolter boyz. We had also brough about 4 guys from Atlanta, so there were like 30 folks here total. The primary theme of the day was Space Marines. There were a LOT of space marines. Seems like a good day to be playing Khorne Daemons.

The scoring: Modified RTT, 15 points for a win, 10 for a tie, 15 for a win, 5 for a loss, with 3 bonus points and 2 penalties in each mission.

My List:

Herald of Khorne on chariot w/unholy strength + fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne on chariot w/unholy strength + fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne on chariot w/unholy strength + Icon
Herald of Khorne on chariot w/unholy strength + Icon + Fury of Khorne (General)
4 Bloodcrushers, 1 has Fury of Khorne
4 Bloodcrushers, 1 has Fury of Khorne
4 Bloodcrushers, 1 has Fury of Khorne
1 Soulgrinder w/Tongue
1 Soulgrinder w/Tongue
1 Soulgrinder w/Tongue
5 Pink Horrors w/Bolt
5 Pink Horrors w/Bolt
5 Pink Horrors w/Bolt, Changling
5 Bloodletters
5 Bloodletters
5 Bloodletters

This is pretty much my finished list. I'm satisfied with its performance. Front wave is the 2 rending Heralds, the crushers and the grinders. Second wave has the Icons and the troops.

Game #1:

Annihilation, Pitched Battle:

Enemy list:

Chaos Space Marines

Lash Prince
Lash Prince
10 Noise Marines w/sonic blasters, doom siren, power sword, Icon
10 Noise Marines w/sonic blasters, doom siren, power sword, Icon
10 Noise Marines w/sonic blasters, doom siren, power sword, Icon
20 Lesser Daemons
Chaos Dreadnaught
Defiler
Defiler
2 Oblits

My assessment: I think its worse in general than the Mech CSM lists I usually see, but better for this specific mission, in particular better vs. me. All those shots will let him concentrate his fire and drag down my units one at a time, and he can kill the 5 man troop choices by move + shoot if I try and hide them. The Chaos Dread will be a problem if he survives my railguns, as he can beat up a grinder without much trouble. Getting the wrong side of the army will be almost instant defeat vs. this enemy, as he'll just gun down 3 troop choices and back up. I need to get right in his face with a blitz, and then have things go my way. I'd be confident in any kind of objective mission, but this is a tough foe in Kill Points. No Rhinos to whack, 10 man squads, etc. Still, they've got power armor, so I figure I can win.

The Game:

He goes first:

CSM turn 1:
He moves south, got his army in the center, with 2 defilers on left and one dread on right. Lash Princes are in the back.

CD turn 1:
I successfully get the good wing in. I drop 2 grinders on left, one on right, and put the 2 Heralds way out left. The crushers get in the middle. Only one mishap, as one of my Heralds gets sent to my corner. Also, one of my grinders (the central one) immobilizes itself on a piece of terrain. [A mistake I made was putting my crushers in front center, rather than my Heralds. I should have stuck to my usual plan of holding the enemy up with the Heralds and then charging with the crushers)

My shooting is good, with most units running closer to him and the grinders blowing up one defiler and immobilizing another.

CSM turn 2:
His dread behaves, and his daemons stay in the warp.

He moves a Noise Marine squad up to each of my bloodcrusher units, and moves his oblits forward to try and multi-melta my grinders. His Dread moves forward to tango with the grinder, which is cursing its missed tongue shot.

He shoots down the mobile grinder on the left with his melta weapons, shoots/charges both bloodcrusher units and pushes them down to one or two surviviors each in the ensueing combats (after lashing them for maximum template with the sirens). His last unit stayed still and shot one of the crusher units some more. His Dread trashes the Soul Grinder in combat (1 hit, pen, explode).

CD turn 2:

Ok, so I've got 2 combats between 7-8 Noise Marines and 1-2 Crushers, which ought to ultimately shake out in his favor, as well as being down 2 Grinders. Yikes. I get to work fixing things.

I bring in my Icon Herald over on the right by the Dread, mostly just want to stop it from moving over and getting at my immobilized Grinder. I get some troops in, and decide to use them to distract his princes, etc. rather than hiding them for their KP. My reading is that I'm down 2-1 already, with most everything going his way at present. I need more boots on the ground to turn the tide, and if they fail it won't matter if I lose by 10 instead of 1, its a binary game. In retrospect I'm not sure about this decision. It might have been better to hide them.

Anyway, I get a Pink Horror unit in behind his army, and some bloodletters in over on the left and right. I move up my intact Bloodcrusher unit to obliterate one of the combating Noise Marine squads, and send in the rending herald at the immobilized defiler. Both of these fights go as I expect, with the Crushers running over the NM, while the Herald and the Defiler slap each other. The other crusher/NM combat finishes up, as he kills the last crusher, which is a blow to me, I wanted one more phase out of that.

CSM turn #3: The Daemons stay out and the Dread behaves.

He puts his Oblits into the healthy bloodcrusher unit, after some rapid fire, and his mostly undamaged (lost like 2 to incidental fire) Noise Marine unit into the one wound left bloodcrusher. He also puts his lash princes into the Noise Marine squad in the back and the Bloodletter squad in the left.

His mostly Noise marines lose 4 and inflict no damage on the crusher (??). His Oblits and the big crusher unit do some damage to each other. His Princes kill some infantry, and his dread + squad obliterate a unit of bloodletters.

CD turn #3 The rest of my army arrives, sans the general.

I put them down all over, shooting and fighting my hardest.

My recollection of the rest of the game isn't exact enough to really get any good info out of, basically I fought back to even VP wise, but he was up on KP when the game ended in the bottom of round 5. I'd had a really good 4th round, but the tide swung back his way in the fifth. I might have pulled it out if it went 7, but that's kind of optimistic. I needed to table him, and while I was winning in terms of things left alive on that table. I'm not sure i was winning that hard.

Lessons to learn for me are to focus more on the KP (probably should have hidden troops), and to use the Heralds as speedbumps to get the crushers in intact. Game had a lot of odd luck on both sides though.

I got 2 bonus points and he got 1, so it went 16-7, him. That takes me out of contention for the tournament. He's the second Blade and Bolter boy I've lost to. Tough club.

Game #2: Secure and Control, Dawn of War:

The enemy:

Tyranids,
Broodlord w/10 stealers
Flying tyrant w/double devourers, warp field, etc.
2 Sniperfexes
1 Elite combatfex
3 units of stealers
Ripper swarm

All the stealers have preferred enemy and 4+ saves

My assessment:

This army is actually the only reason I still have pink horrors in my army. I can't outfight it, but I'll just shoot it to death. Between the grinders and the pink horrors i can take away the advantage of fleet. The mission is also my very best one (lost a grand total of one time on this mission), so I'm pretty confident.

The game:

It pretty much goes down like I figured. I get the right half of the army in, so I just dump grinders on his objective with crushers behind them and say "What?". He sends some guys for my objective, but I'm able to stop them with Heralds + sacrificial troops, while a bloodletter unit sits quietly on my objective. On the other side the Grinders and genestealers fight w/out much drama, I gradually wear him down. Ultimately he's left with a ripper swarm with 2 wounds and a Sniperfex, while I've got both objectives. It was a fun game, as he's a good guy, but in this mission it was never really in doubt. My vomit and warpfire attacks force him to charge ASAP, which sets him up for counter charges, and he can never cross the long diagonal to get near my objective.

I get 2 bonus points, so I get 17 for this one.

Game #3: Seize Ground, Spearhead.

The enemy:

Space Marines:

Chaplain w/terminator armor
10 tac marines w/las/plas/ + champ w/plasma pistol, power weapon
10 tac marines w/melta/plas + champ w/plasma pistol, power weapon
10 tac marines w/las/plas + champ w/plasma pistol, power weapon
10 tac marines w/melta/plas + champ w/plasma pistol, power weapon
7 assault terminators w/thunder hammer, storm shield
2 Vindicators
1 Land Raider crusader

My assessment: Non-mounted marines are my easiest opponent. I'll just run them over. Nothing in this list really worries me. His Assault terminators might beat up a bloodcrusher unit or grinder, but they aren't going to beat the counter charge, and the tac marines don't have any way at all to get their value back. With no rhinos, they can't keep me off them. I plan to charge all over these guys.

The game:

There are 3 objectives, 1 in the quarter he ends up in, 2 in adjacent quarters.

I get the first turn (primarily to place him in the objective quarter, I want him staying put), and then get the wrong half of my army (Doh, but it had to happen).

I drop the Pink Horrors on one objective and the bloodletters on another, one letter unit mishaps and he places it in his back field. I put the 2 Heralds right up in his face. One of my pink horror units shoots the cannon of a vindicator on a side shot, the others run to get out of pie plate formation.

He shoots at the Heralds and the letters (the letters go to ground), and charges out his assault terminators at one of the Heralds (the general), running him over effortlessly. The other survives the rapid fire with one wound left.

I get in 2 Soul Grinders and one other HErald they all come in off the icon into his face. The living Herald charges a unit and kills a few, but gets killed in return. The Pink Horrors shoot down 4 of the assault terminators (ouch).

He does some shooting, killing several of the letter units, and charges his assault terminators into the grinder, to much mutual nondamage. He charges the remaining Herald with 2 units, and doesn't get much done.

On my next turn my army comes in, and we commence charging him off the table. His last body falls on the bottom of 6.

I get 17 points for the win, come out 7th total in the tournament. It was a great time.

I've noticed in a lot of your bat reps that you always do well at seize ground and can run into issues in kp.

Have you fooled around with the smaller kill point list to see if it helps. If you did was the loss of effectiveness that great?

I usually try to keep my daemon lists between 11-14 with the majority of the units difficult to kill, except for my pure tzeentch list. That one is just kill point happy and I haven't taken it to a tournament yet because of that fact.

Also has there been any comp in any of the tournaments you go to? Basically unless i'm playing all one god it seems i get a bit of a hit even when spreading the love around a bit.

nice report, always learn something new from your batreps

Warmaster wrote:I've noticed in a lot of your bat reps that you always do well at seize ground and can run into issues in kp.

Have you fooled around with the smaller kill point list to see if it helps. If you did was the loss of effectiveness that great?

I usually try to keep my daemon lists between 11-14 with the majority of the units difficult to kill, except for my pure tzeentch list. That one is just kill point happy and I haven't taken it to a tournament yet because of that fact.

Also has there been any comp in any of the tournaments you go to? Basically unless i'm playing all one god it seems i get a bit of a hit even when spreading the love around a bit.

In terms of KP, I've found something similar, in many aspects. I'm currently shooting for 9-11 KP at 1750 right now, in my army builds, and doing quite well in a variety of missions/matchups, including KP missions (which were challenging, initially, when I was going for a MSU-type build.

In terms of comp...well, lets just say that I've developed a theory of my opponent's reactions to Daemons. It breaks down into stages. Not all players hit all three stages (or even any of them), but it seems to be somewhat common among many players.

Stage 1 - "Daemons suck, man. They're too random. You don't know what you're going to bring to the table, you can't really control where they come down. And aren't they supposed to be good in assault? What good is that if they can't assault when they first arrive? You're tripply screwed- you can only bring in half your army, your army has to scatter, and you can't even really attack me when you arrive!"

Stage 2 - "Daemons don't suck, but they're not that good. They're just too random. You may have won, but you just got lucky at a key moment."

Stage 3 - "Daemons a broken, man. They drop in and you can't do anything to stop them. If you don't kill them all, they slaughter you, then their reinforcements arrive to finish the job. It's just not fair...I do the same thing that I do to all my other opponents, and I can't stop them, or even slow them down."

@Warmaster:

It's essentially a tradeoff, for me, in terms of trouble with KP vs. trouble with lash. If I consolidate troup choices together to make less KP available, it leaves less heavy hitters arriving in the opening wave, which means that they are more easily controlled by a pair of lashes. 6 heavy squads, 4 chariots and 6 objective takers seems to work decently. There's no denying, however, that KP is my weakest mission.

I haven't run into comp, per se, but I'd do alright with most of the old rules. I've got more points in troops than anywhere else, no units > 200 points, etc. Around here soft scores typically are the "check which of the following apply to your opponent" type, and everyone gets max unless they are eggregiously bad to play.

@enmitee:

Thanks!

@Centurian99:

It reminds me a lot of Necrons in 4th, actually. Everyone thinks they are terrible, till they lose to them, and then they are the most broken thing on this or any other world. It's also like Necrons in that frequently a buddy of the guy you are playing will wander by the table and dispense awful advice. (Ignore the Monoliths, go for phaseout!) I do think that there's a 4th stage for good players though, when they start figuring the list out and developing effective counter-measures.

40kenthusiast wrote:It's also like Necrons in that frequently a buddy of the guy you are playing will wander by the table and dispense awful advice. (Ignore the Monoliths, go for phaseout!) I do think that there's a 4th stage for good players though, when they start figuring the list out and developing effective counter-measures.

Hey I play Dark Eldar what else can I do . Great Batrep and thats twice now that we have been at the same tourney and haven't gotten to fight (tho to be fair in the first one my dice decided that numbers greater then 3 where immoral). I have yet to fight demon's and I look forward to it with both excitment and a little trepidation. On another note, was it just me, or was the Slaaneshi CSM player's anatomically correct dreadnaught, more then a little disturbing.....

I've been sitting at 11 with my tournament builds, and I actively had to reduce to get down to it. I also removed units that I normally like to use but that I consider too fragile. Like the masque and flamers.

When I was talking comp I was talking more about mixing up the pantheon, as soon as I stray away from a mono-list I get, oh you are just building for cheese, etc. The skittles daemon approach seems to net some animosity in that aspect.

Warmaster wrote:I've been sitting at 11 with my tournament builds, and I actively had to reduce to get down to it. I also removed units that I normally like to use but that I consider too fragile. Like the masque and flamers.

When I was talking comp I was talking more about mixing up the pantheon, as soon as I stray away from a mono-list I get, oh you are just building for cheese, etc. The skittles daemon approach seems to net some animosity in that aspect.

Yeah, I see that too...

Too many "old skool" players who have this"daemons don't get along" thing from too many years of Emperor's Children, Thousand Sons, World Eaters, and Death Guard rules that prevented them from taking any dissimilar Daemons.

I just counter this silly, outdated argument with a silly, up-to-date argument:

them: "That Keeper of Secrets would never lead those bloodcrushers! I'm giving you a zero for comp, your army is cheesy."
me: "WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION THE ACTS OF DAEMONS, REASONLESS BEASTS OF THE WARP!!!!"
I then proceed to vomit blood all over everything, fly around the room, and spin my head around on my neck.


works every time

"I then proceed to vomit blood all over everything, fly around the room, and spin my head around on my neck."

i would like to see THAT on a youtube video!

nice batraps 40kenthusiast and gardeth.
how about a grudge match with extra coverage (like pictures) between both of you?

greetings Badger

I am curious what army won overall with lists like this demon and DE? 0rks is my guess.

Sabote - from the Blade and Bolter - running Eldar won overall. Another guy from BNB took third with Black Templars.

Badger wrote:
nice batraps 40kenthusiast and gardeth.
how about a grudge match with extra coverage (like pictures) between both of you?

greetings Badger

I would love that, as I have yet to play demons. But we have some serious geographical distance between us. Cleveland, TN is a happy halfway point (I say happy because its way closer to me then him.) Though there is a chance that we may match up in Feb at the Battle for Stones River in my home town of Murfreesboro. Not much of one tho as there will be 76 people there.