Hey, all. Long time, no see. Hopefully, I'll be coming around a little more often. Thought I'd start back with a tournament report for y'all.
First, a little background:
1) This tournament was played about a month ago. I just finally got finished writing the report. I have, since then, played a good 10 or so games with this army. I don't (hopefully) make the same mistakes any more.
2) Prior to this tournament, I hadn't played
40k in a long, LONG time. In fact, truth be told, I have been trash-talking
40k like it stole amoney from me ever since 5th edition came out. I truly believed it was, by far and away, the worst edition of the game EVER. I would have rather played with Vortex Grenades, if you get my drift.
Anyway, for the last two months, a buddy of mine has been trying to convince me that it's not as bad as I think it is, and that, of all things, Chaos Daemons actually remove/deal with a lot of the things that I find stupid and offensive about 5th edition. I didn't believe him, but I decided I'd give him a chance to prove it to me. He invited me to participate in a small tournament, just to try out Daemons and 5th edition. This tournament was being held online, so I didn't even have to buy the models. I could just play out the rules and see if I liked the army and the game any more than I think I do.
So enter the tournament I did. And this is what happened.
First, my list. It's pretty much mono-Nurgle, or Nurglezilla, if you will. To keep it good and Nurgly, I didn't even give my Daemon Princes flight. I did, however, allow myself three suicide squads of Flamers (which I imagine would be represented by something like Warmachine Bile Thralls). The list:
The Invasion of W'at'shem the Putrid
W'at'shem the Putrid (165)
Great Unclean One
Cloud of Flies
Wes'mol, Lord of the Flies (165)
Great Unclean One
Cloud of Flies
Pus-Cannons (105)
3 Flamers
Pus-Cannons (105)
3 Flamers
Pus-Cannons (105)
3 Flamers
11 Plaguebearers (190)
Daemonic Icon
11 Plaguebearers (190)
Daemonic Icon
11 Plaguebearers (165)
11 Plaguebearers (165)
9 Nurglings (117)
Nar'thlo'shem, Prince of Poxes (125)
Daemon Prince
Mark of Nurgle
Cloud of Flies
Noxious Touch
L'heasa'wem, Prince of Decay (125)
Daemon Prince
Mark of Nurgle
Cloud of Flies
Noxious Touch
M'har'cei, Prince of Pestilence (125)
Daemon Prince
Mark of Nurgle
Cloud of Flies
Noxious Touch
Your basic Nurgle infestation. Plaguebearers, Nurglings, and fatasses, plus some puking jump packers, just for the fun of it.
Tournament Round One: vs. Special Character Daemons of Chaos
Fun. I get to rock and roll right out the box in a daemonpalooza vs. Skarbrand, the Changeling, and company. Loverly.
His army was:
Regular Bloodthirster with might and blessing
Skarbrand
20 Bloodletters
20 Daemonettes
14 Horrors with one Bolt and the Changeling
3 showroom-floor Soul Grinders (no upgrades)
The scenario was Annihilation (Kill 'Em All!), and the deployment was Pitched Battle. Before the game, my opponent said, "You need Epidemius in there. Otherwise, nurgle units don't kill anything." To that, I said, "Special characters are crutches, and I'm gonna kill Skarbrand dead." Nothing like talking trash when you've never even used your army before.
The table was pretty nicely laid out: some trees to the west, then a low wall that only blocked
LOS to infantry (with this electric fence at the bottom that did
d6 S3
AP- hits to anything crossing its path). The "outpost" consisted of a lot of impassable
LOS-blocking buildings, a couple of 4+save/BLOS watchtowers, some random 5+save crates, and a 4+save gun pit.
He split his army into two teams and rolled for it. The gods did not favor him, and he got his second wave instead. Down they came, the three Soul Grinders and the Horrors. Without really any idea where I would come, he did exactly what I would have done: put everything in the middle of the table, so he could counter wherever I ended up.
My own army got split into two waves that was basically big stuff and little stuff. I decided I'd try to do a little damage right off the bat, and went for the little stuff wave. Getting it, I started dropping. One unit of Plaguebearers scattered onto a building, and he got to place them way out on the right flank. (Still closer than I would have placed them. Put them way out on the top left corner, and they're basically out of the game...) I ran a bunch of stuff up closer where I could, then unloaded the Flamers on the Horrors. He had them pretty well spread out, so I could only score 12 hits on the unit. 7 wounds yielded only three kills. Not as good as I was hoping for. Maybe being sandwiched there between the Flamers and the Nurglings would distract him enough that he'd leave the Flamers alone. Maybe.
Automatically Appended Next Post: More stuff came in: bloodletters and daemonettes. I got my first taste of 5th edition rules that I don't like:5th Edition lesson #1: They've taken out the rule about deep strikers having to fit on the 5" template. Boo. The Daemonettes scattered badly and I got to place them. I decided to use them to block my Prince from taking an untimely charge from a Soul Grinder.
Thankfully, he took my bait. The horrors (to my surprise) moved over to handle the Nurglings (apparently not remembering what an ugly, ugly thing Flamers can be, or feeling like his 4+ save was hardy enough to survive). 48(!) shots brought 14 wounds, which ended up as 8 after saves. Two bases of Nurglings came up, with one more base seriously wounded. That base got finished off by a Soul Grinder shot.
One of his Soul Grinders took aim at the
GUO Wes'Mol, but the ample cover provided by the other Soul Grinder saved the shot. The other Soul Grinder tried to shoot Prince L'heasa'wem, but couldn't get past the T6. Daemonettes and Bloodletters took off running.
I got another Plaguebearer unit, which I just put within 6" of the icon, and another Flamer unit, which I struck pretty aggressively against the Daemonettes. Fortunately, I scored a direct hit there. Wes'Mol went lumbering off after the Soul Grinder while the Flamers moved up to toward the horrors, the Nurglings moved down to charge range, and the Plaguebearers just shuffled toward the action slowly.
Changeling tried to Glamour my Flamers, but that didn't so much work out for him. The Flamers were able to score 34 hits on the packed-in Daemonettes, scorching 17 of them. Only three saves, so 14 Daemonettes returned to the warp. 5th Edition lesson #2: Flamers. Are. Bomb. Diggety.
To prove my point, the other Flamers got 22 hits on the horrors for 12 wounds, and killed 8 of them. Plaguebearers took off in a shuffling run toward the center to close out the shooting phase.
Both Lord Wes'Mol and Prince L'heasa'wem charged, the former into the Soul Grinder and the latter into the beleagured Daemonettes. Nurglings also went in against the Horrors. The Soul Grinder flailed away at Wes'Mol, doing two wounds, but that 4+ invulnerable save held up (Wes'Mol save count: 2). In return, Wes'Mol rolled shaken and stunned results against the Grinder, so that battle just came up to a draw.
The Horrors put a wound on a Nurgling base before the little guys returned the favor for five wounds, but the saves held up for the horrors, and only one died. The combat ended a draw there as well.
In a display of what I can only term as utterly ridiculous, the Daemonettes (having initiative) did 6 rending wounds to Prince L'heasa'wem, who promptly failed five of the six saves, and collapsed into a heap of goo. A word floated to my mind which rhymed with "full bit."
The Daemonettes and Bloodletters gleefully surrounded the doomed Flamers, while Soul Grinders inched toward the battles at center. The Grinders tried to peel away a model or two from the Flamers in the shooting phase, but those 4+ saves held up, and only one of them died in the firefight. Of course, they made up for it by dying almost instantly to the Daemonettes.
The Horrors did another wound to the Nurglings before the Nurglings went crazy thanks to Skarbrand's battlefield presence and obliterated the rest of them and the Changeling. Thanks, Skarbrand! You're totally not a complete liability or anything!
As if to prove my point, the Soul Grinder put two wounds on Wes'Mol, which he promptly saved (Wes'Mol save count:4). In return, thanks to Skarbrand, he scored 4 penetrating hits, and exploded the living crap out of the Soul Grinder. Mmmm....Skarbrand's free rerolls.
The entire rest of my army came ripping through the warp. Lord W'at'shem came down on the icon to deal with Skarbrand, while the
PBs went on the other icon near the dome and the Flamers scattered badly, my opponent got to place them, and he evilly put them right in the middle of the electric fence. Urg.
The other Flamers jumped happily toward the massed Bloodletters and Daemonettes while Plaguebearers went off to their doom to hold up Skarbrand for Lord W'at'shem. The Nurglings performed a similar death mission, going to hold up the Thirster.
In the shooting phase, the Flamers unloaded on the enemy daemons at center, doing 26 hits on the Bloodletters and 2 on the Daemonettes. The Daemonettes saved, but 13 wounds equalled 9 Bloodletters back into the warp.
Lord Wes'Mol barreled into the second Soul Grinder while Plaguebearers went into Skarbrand and Nurglings went into the Bloodthirster. The Thirster could only do one wound to the Nurglings, and they did only 1 in return, but the difference was, the Bloodthirster saved. However, he was pinned in place...indefinitely.
The Soul Grinder was feeling a lot more ornery than its mate, and did a big 4 wounds to Wes'Mol. This time, two of them actually stuck (Wes'Mol save count: 6 of 8). This, of course, enraged the
GUO, and thanks to Skarbrand, he was able to punch three gigantic holes in the daemonic engine, wrecking it good and proper two times over.
Skarbrand himself killed three Plaguebearers and took no wounds in return. The
PBs lost another two to Fearless wounds, but did their job. Skarbrand was pinned in place.
At halftime, things were looking a little grim for the Khorne-led forces...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Bloodletters and the last Soul Grinder went to try and polish off Lord Wes'Mol while the Daemonettes moved menacingly toward the Flamers.
In they all went. Despite having 18 attacks, the Bloodletters could only put two wounds on Wes'Mol, and he promptly saved both of them (Wes'Mol save count: 8 of 10). The Soul Grinder added in another wound, which Wes'Mol could not save (Wes'Mol save count: 8 of 11). In return, Wes'Mol immobilized the Soul Grinder, and the combat was a draw.
Skarbrand put out five wounds to the Plaguebearers, but only two actually died. In return, the Bearers could do no wounds, and lost another two to Fearless wounds. Poor little guys.
The Bloodthirster continued to hack away at Nurglings, doing two wounds and taking none in return. Another two wounds stuck from Fearless, but that
BT wasn't going anywhere any time soon.
Predictably, the Daemonettes made short work of the Flamers and consolidated toward the big combat.
Lord W'hat'sem moved around to Skarbrand's back for the charge while the Princes split up, with Nar'thlo'shem angling for the Bloodthirster and M'har'cei moving to help out Lord Wes'Mol. Both ended up charging in, while W'hat'sem also charged in against Skarbrand along side a second unit of Plaguebearers. A unit of Plaguebearers had also made it close enough to the Daemonettes to charge, so they did.
Prince Nar'thlo'shem completely missed the Bloodthirster and took a wound for his troubles. The Nurglings, however, took advantage of the distraction and actually did a wound to tie the combat.
The Daemonettes killed four Plaguebearers, but the Plaguebearers met the challenge and killed four Daemonettes, so that combat was also a draw.
5th Edition Lesson #3: Those Daemonettes have been annoyingly effective this game.
Prince M'har'cei savaged two Bloodletters, who turned around and did two wounds back, but the Prince saved both. The Soul Grinder did three wounds to Lord Wes'Mol, but he saved all three of them. (Wes'Mol save count: 11 of 14.) In return, Wes'mol scored a Weapon Destroyed, and took down one of the constructs
DCCWs. 3 more Bloodletters died to Fearless.
Skarbrand went after the new Plaguebearer squad, killing two of them. Why he didn't go after Lord W'hat'sem, I'll never know. He should have; the
GUO did a wound, and the Plaguebearers helped out with another, tying the combat.
Everything of his was stuck in for good now. The Bloodthirster took a wound from Prince Nar'thlo'shem and dealt out two in return. Both Nurgle units saved their respective Fearless wound.
The Daemonettes could not wound the tough Plaguebearers and were cut down. The Bearers consolidated toward the scrum.
Inside that scrum, Prince M'har'cei sliced through another two Bloodletters and took no wounds in return (5th Edition lesson #4: T6 is AWESOME.). The Soul Grinder got one of three wounds to stick (Wes'Mol save count: 13 of 17.) before losing his other
DCCW to a weapon destroyed result. Another Bloodletter went down to Fearless.
Skarbrand finished off the rest of the Plaguebearers from the original unit before Lord W'hat'sem rolled out four wounds on the special character. He saved three of them, but was down to his last wound. The red
PB did the honors, and took that last wound off, sending Skarbrand back to the warp, largely on the strength of the rerolls he provided to my army. Thanks, Skarbrand! 5th edition lesson #5: Skarbrand is an anchor, not a benefit.
Oh, and remember when Nurgle troops can't kill anything?
I didn't even really bother to move that much. Prince M'har'cei killed off two of the remaining three Bloodletters, the Soul Grinder did one wound to Lord Wes'Mol, who saved it (Wes'Mol save count: 14 of 18). Finally, Wes'Mol was able to wreck the last Grinder. The Fearless wounds were enough to wipe out the last Bloodletter.
All he had left on the table was the lone Bloodthirster on his last wound. He clashed with Prince Nar'thlo'shem, doing two wounds and killing the Prince. However, they were swinging simultaneously, and Prince Nar'thlo'shem put two wounds on the Bloodthirster. He failed one save, and Nar'thlo'shem took the big beastie back into the warp with him,
At the end of turn five, the game was over.
I still had both
GUOs, one Prince, 3 units of Plaguebearers, my Nurglings, and a unit of Flamers on the table. He had nothing.
5 Kill Points to him. 8 Kill Points to me. Big win for Nurgle!
With a solid victory (3KP difference) under my belt in round one and a nice sports score hopefully from my opponent, I thought I'd be in the mid-upper tables in round two. So far, I was enjoying the army more than I thought I would, mostly because, as my friend said, it was eliminating a lot of the things I find stupid about 5th edition.
Game two to come...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Round 2: vs. Tau
Hooray! For beating up on other Daemons in the first round, my reward is to get to play totally gunline Tau! The sheer number of S5+ weapons on the other side of the table made me shiver, especially combined with how much terrain there was. Control and capture was the mission, three objectives were the goal: control the road into the outpost, control the ruins of the Comm station, control the center of town. Interesting part of the terrain was that each of the three big ruins had an exterior wall that blocked line of sight to a lot of the table (the thicker walls). The last ruin had a fully in tact building that would block
LOS, but would also provide a nice perch for the enemy. Bleh.
His army looked like this:
Shas'O: missle pod,
tl plasma rifle, iridium armor, multi tracker, stimulant injector, 2 shield drones
6 x 12 fire warrior teams (shas ui + marker light and multi tracker)
3x3 broad side battle suits (1 squad with target lock)
Just guns, guns and more guns. He had utterly plastered some poor Deathwing player in the first round. I was hoping I wouldn't be the next victim to just wander right into four billion pulse rifle shots and get smoked.
The table looked like this:
[
A closer look at his deployment:
Pretty much just grab cover, point your guns, and wait.
I gave him first turn, so he didn't get to do anything but sit there.
My turn, I brought the "secure" wave, bringing down three units of Plaguebearers and three units of Flamers. With one of the objectives behind a wall, I knew I could pretty much have that one for the whole game. I also figured I could just sit in cover until Turn 5 and then rush out and grab the middle objective with Plaguebearers and hope they could weather one turn of shooting. So I dropped both of those squads into the terrain and got fairly lucky on the dangerous terrain rolls. The third squad dropped just outside the upper left ruins, ready to run in. One unit of flamers hit exactly where I wanted it, while the other scattered a bit farther than I would have liked, and the third scattered on top of the Fire Warriors. My opponent got to place them instead, and put them as far into the lower right corner as he could. Bleh.
I used my running to get the Plaguebearers into the upper left ruins and to secure the lower right objective. Then I turned on the Flamers. 34 hits on the Fire Warriors later and 17 wounds, and one entire Fire Warrior squad was vaporized. The other Flamers weren't so lucky and killed nothing. Great. Well, it was nice knowing them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The Tau Commander leapt out of the rock formation, but one of his shield drones got caught in the dangerous terrain and crashed. Everything else pretty much stayed where it was. The commander blasted down two of my Flamers, and the Broadsides annihilated the far north unit of Flamers.
Even with markerlights, the Fire Warriors only managed to kill one Plaguebearer from the lower green squad and three Plaguebearers from the upper left brown squad. Cover + Feel No Pain = evil.
The Tau commander went ahead and assaulted the last Flamer and, as expected, killed him real, real dead.
I was able to bring in both
GUOs, two of my three Princes, the last Plaguebearers, and the Nurglings this turn on a string of 5s and 6s. Wes'Mol and the Plaguebearers both scattered badly and ended up delayed for another turn. The Nurglings went right in the middle, where they could go deal with the Fire Warriors in the terrain, while the big boys all went to the upper left, behind that wall, to deal with the Commander and possibly roll the static gun line. Meanwhile, the Plaguebearers further secured the bottom objective, the upper left Plaguebearers got ready to charge the Fire Warriors, and the Flamers slowly jumped their way back into the battle.
After all the running, the Plaguebearers charged the Fire Warriors. As is normally the case with Tau, the Fire Warriors 13 attacks amounted to zero wounds on the Plaguebearers, who promptly turned around and killed two of them. The Fire Warriors turned to run, but were cut down in their boots by the Plaguebearers. Stepping over the bodies, the
PBs inched through the ruins toward the Broadsides.
The Broadsides tried to cram themselves even further into the corner, and the Fire Warriors on the roof rearranged themselves a little, but everything else stayed put.
The left Broadsides turned their guns on Prince L'heasa'wem, putting a wound on him. The Broadsides kicked in another two wounds, after cover saves, and the commander's missile pods finished the job for the poor fat prince before he could even do anything in the game.
The other Broadsides tried to kill off the Flamers, but cover saved them. The Fire Warriors on the roof took aim at the Nurglings, killing off a base of them and wounding the next. The aqua squad of Fire Warriors added another 8 wounds to the pot, killing off another three bases, The magenta squad's bullets all bounced fairly harmlessly off of Lord W'hat'sem's thick hide. The orange squad of Fire Warriors tried to kill some Flamers, but only managed to get one.
I dropped the Plaguebearers over near the left objective, just to make sure I could secure it, and Lord Wes'mol and Prince Nar'thlo'shem went to the right side of the table to mop up the troops there. I got set up for charges in other areas.
Finally, I had gotten the Flamers in a position to attack. They blew puke all over the Fire Warriros, scoring 15 hits and 9 wounds, completely gutting the unit. A moment later, they charged the remaining Fire Warriors. The Nurglings charged the Broadsides at center, and the Plaguebearers charged the Broadsides cowering in the upper left corner.
The Plaguebearers could not get through the Broadsides' thick armor, and did no wounds, but took two wounds themselves, and another one for Fearless. Getting outfought by Tau in close combat. Sheesh.
The Nurglings didn't do much better, just tying the Broadsides up, and the Flamers only killed one Fire Warrior and also got locked into combat.
We were running out of time, so I stopped taking pictures for the last couple of turns. Basically, here's what happened:
His Commander put a wound on W'hat'sem. The markerlighted Fire Warriors completely failed against the middle Plaguebearers. The rest of the Fire Warriors put two wounds on M'har'cei. The Broadsides on the roof put a wound on Wes'Mol.
The Plaguebearers and the Broadsides continued to slapfight, neither side able to do any wounds. The other Broadsides put one wound on the Nurglings and took none in return, winning again. The Flamers and Fire Warriors also continued to slapfight, both sides killing one of the other.
In the bottom of the 4th, Lord Wes'Mol charged the Broadsides on the roof of the building, and Prince Nar'thlo'shem charged the orange Fire Warriors. The Plaguebearers in the upper left finally put a wound on a Broadside, won the combat, but still were stuck there. The Nurglings took 4 wounds and couldn't do any damage themselves, but hung on anyway. The Flamer finally killed the last Fire Warrior. The Broadsides on the roof were in serious trouble, as Lord Wes'Mol pretty much carved through them like butter, killing two outright and running down the third. Prince Nar'thlo'shem pretty much whiffed, killing only one Fire Warrior, and the squad held its ground.
In Turn 5, my opponent pretty much figured if he was going to stand any chance, he had to get the objectives. His whole army (what was left of it) took off for the center objective, with the Commander moving down hard right to possibly contest the lower right objective. Hm. Hadn't thought about that. The magenta squad of Fire Warriors gunned down two of the green center Plaguebearers, and the aqua squad kicked in another. The Commander tried to shoot Lord W'hat'sem, but the old fatty was too tough. The Plaguebearers and Broadsides kept battling, with the Broadsides taking a wound and losing a model but holding firm. The Broadsides continued to stomp on Nurglings, but only did one wound. Prince Nar'thlo'shem got it together, killed four Fire Warriors, took no wounds in return, and ran down the fleeing Tau.
Bottom of the 5, the lone Flamer got 9 hits on the aqua Fire Warriors, but only killed 4. The green Plaguebearers at center charged in against the rest of the aqua squad. The Plaguebearers and Broadsides kept fighting to a standstill, with neither scoring a wound. The Plaguebearers at center lost one of their squad, killed one in return, and got locked in combat. The Broadsides did 3 wounds to the Nurglings, killing off the last base, before Wes'Mol smashed one of the suits to the ground. Wes'Mol easily saved the Fearless wound.
Top of the 6, he made his last-ditch move. The full Magenta Fire Warrior squad ran hard to the right, just on the other side of the wall from the objective, hoping to not only contest it, but maybe take it if the Commander could do his job well. The Commander slipped around the corner of the wall to open fire on the red Plaguebearer squad. Open up he did, killing two Plaguebearers. In combat, the Plaguebearers did another wound to the Broadsides, but the stubborn suits would not run. The other suits were not so lucky, as Lord Wes'Mol smooshed them into paste. The Fire Warriors at center killed a Plaguebearer, lost two in return, but kept hanging onto that objective.
Bottom of the 6, it all went down. The Flamer lined up the magenta squad, dissolving nine of the twelve of them. Flamers. Are. So. Brutal. The Broadsides and Plaguebearers kept being not good at combat, and neither did any wounds. With Lord W'hat'sem's help, the Plaguebearers at center were able to kill off the rest of the aqua squad, giving me that objective. Prince Nar'thlo'shem was close enough to charge the rest of the magenta squad and killed them off as well. The red Plaguebearers assaulted the Tau Commander, but he was not going down without a fight, and killed one of them for their trouble.
So at the end of the game, I had two objectives, and he had none, but was contesting one. Solid victory for Nurgle. I think he waited WAY too long to come get the objectives, and I think he probably needs to go mech. Mech Tau were always hard to deal with; with 5th ed vehicle rules, they're probably a total pain in the behind. I don't know if I won that one so much as he played pretty poorly. But with two wins (even though I didn't really blow out my second opponent, or my first, since I only had 3KP difference), I figured I was in the top tables for sure in turn 3, and that meant meeting something nasty. I wondered what it would be...
Game 3 to come.
Automatically Appended Next Post: For my two victories in the previous rounds, I earned a trip to (what I now know to be) the #3 table. Joy of joys, it was another visit to the land of guns, guns, and more guns. I guess this is a 5th edition thing? 5th Edition lesson #5: Prepare for people to take six bare-bones Troops units, especially when those Troops have annoying guns? Now, I've heard some people go as far as to call Necron Warriors "the worst Troops choice in 5th edition," which may be true as far as I know, but sounds on the surface to be crazy/stupid talk. Space Marines who get back up and have guns that autowound/glance on 6 regardless of Toughness/
AV? 60 of them? Humbug.
Annihilation again, with Spearhead deployment.
Anyway, my opponent's "list," such as it was, consisted of:
Lord w/Warscythe, Res Orb, Phylactery, Phase Shifter
Nightbringer
8 pariahs
6x10 Warriors
Now, why anyone would want to take Pariahs is beyond me, but I assume that someone who brings Pariahs knows how to use them effectively (especially since he was so far up in the standings after two rounds), so I was kind of afraid. Plus, there's the Nightbringer, who can either be a huge waste of points or an indomitable indestructable a-hole, depending on the game and the terrain. He set up like this:
Basically, he was close to denying me the entire quarter. I couldn't deep strike almost anywhere, because even a 6" scatter would put me on the mishap table. I would have to be precise and lucky. The terrain was helpful, though. Almost all of the trees on the table blocked
LOS, except a couple of the smaller ones. The big area terrain ones blocked
LOS, and that was awesome.
His turn 1, he just kind of stood there. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
As I have decided I'm probably going to normally do in Annihilation, I decided to bring down my "punishment taking squads" first. Keeping them for later is smarter in objective scenarios, but in Kill 'Em All, I'd rather have the Troops on the table. My clever plan was going to be to drop the Nurglings close enough to the Nightbringer to bait him into charging them, then hold him up for the whole game. Of course, my Plaguebearers cocked that one up by scattering a full 12", right in range for him to charge them instead. Thanks, guys. The rest of my Plaguebearers also helped out by scattering way off course as well, so that now I'd have to foot slog an extra 8-11" - instead of the nice 15"-ish halo I had hoped to make around the NB so I could rush through after the Nurglings had him held up, I was a good 20-24" out from the Necrons, and would have a wonderful hail of bullets to look forward to. Only the white
PBs landed where I wanted them to. Fortunately, the Flamers landed EXACTLY where I wanted them to, and 22 hits and 10 wounds later, I lost my chance to ever find out if he had a good plan for using the Pariahs.
The Nightbringer came floating out to do exactly what I didn't want him to do, while the Necron Lord took aim at my Flamers. One blast from his Warscythe took out one of them. Both the Orange and the Green Necron squads took aim at the Red Plaguebearers, but after cover and all, only killed one.
The Necron Lord assaulted the Flamers while the Nightbringer assaulted the Plaguebearers. The Nightbringer easily killed four
PBs, and he saved the return wounds. 2 more
PBs fell to Fearless. As expected, the Flamers died horribly to the Warscythe Lord.
Lord Wes'Mol hit the table, along with two of the three Princes and both sets of Flamers. The Flamers went aggressively to the left, to try and kill off some tin cans, while the Princes and
GUO went right, to deal with the Nightbringer.
Now, this is where I lost my entire damned mind. Instead of continuing to press left with my whole army, weathering the shooting and just getting in the Necrons' faces, I instead decided that the -ONE- Kill Point the Nightbringer gives was worth the moral victory, and my whole army sort of shifted that way after him. It was a mistake that would cost me later. Remember that.
The Flamers, meanwhile cheerfully roasted 5 of the Green Necrons and 7 of the Black Necrons, because again, I had a brain tumor for breakfast, and didn't concentrate on just knocking out one whole unit.
The Nurglings went in to tie up the Nightbringer forever. The C'tan killed three Plaguebearers, but they helped out by returning a wound on him (gotta love poison). The Nurglings took two Fearless wounds, but the
PBs saved.
One of the green Necrons and two of the black stood back up, but most stayed in the scrap heap (thankfully). However, the whole rest of the army sort of shifted to deal with the Flamers and to, presumably, back up from my incoming troops.
In shooting, one unit of Flamers was wiped out, and the other was reduced to only a single model. The Necrons assaulted him and wiped him out pretty handily. Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, the Nightbringer completely whiffed his attacks, and took his second wound in return. He saved the Fearless wound, but was down two wounds with three fatass character killers sitting right there, so that was lovely.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Both Lord W'hat'sem and Prince M'har'cei hit the table this turn, dropping right into cover. Thinking back on it now, I could have struck W'hat'sem more aggressively, since the cover doesn't really help him at all, and he was going to get shot either way.
Eventually, Prince L'heasa'wem charged in against the Nightbringer, while the rest of the army advanced left-ish. I rolled lots of 1s and 2s for moving and running, so that was problematic.
What was -not- problematic was I5 vs. I4, WS7 vs. WS6, and Noxious Touch. 4 wounds, and a save roll of 5,2,2,2 later, and the Nightbringer was dusted. Goodbye, C'tan. Nurgle loves you.
Having crushed what little resistance I had given on the left, the Necrons gathered up in the trees, ensuring maximum rapid fire on my incoming troops and also ensuring pretty much permanent
WBB rolls. Bastardly. Lord W'hat'sem saved the Necron Lord's blast aimed at him, but that was all the shooting there was.
Not much I could do here. If I had planned ahead better, I wouldn't have to swim across the sea of Gauss. But now, I had to lie in the bed I had made. Everything ran left as fast as their fat little legs would carry them, and I'd have to just hope for the best. (Everyone except the last of the Red Plaguebearers, that is. He was told to run away, fulfilling Operation Be Not Kill Points.
We now switch to a closer view, since the rest of the board will be irrelevant for the rest of the game...
All guns turned on Lord W'hat'sem, lumbering across the expanse. I'll summarize: it took 85 shots to bring down Lord W'hat'sem. Eighty. Five.
And the last squad got to put two wounds on Prince M'har'cei, for good measure.
So at the middle of Turn 5, I was down 4 Kill Points to 2. I needed to, in the next two turns, wipe out three enemy squads that get to stand back up when I kill them. Yeah. That should be easy.
Run, fatties! Run! Everything blazed left, except the last red Plaguebearer, who was now so far away from the action, I knew he was safe.
Now, at this point, my plan was to charge Prince M'har'cei and the White
PBs into the middle of the Necron lines, hopefully get tied up, and then force the Necrons to choose between shooting or joining in the fight on the last turn.
Instead, what happened was, the white
PBs rolled 1,1 for Slow and Purposeful, and I got to charge nothing.
"Well, that's probably the game," I told my opponent. But I thought I should play it all the way out, just to be sporting.
Nobody bothered to tell Prince M'har'cei that the gig was up, though, and he plunged right ahead, gleefully slaughtering four Necrons. It was at this point that my opponent reminded me Necrons are not Fearless.
WHAT?
I FORGOT! That'll teach me to not play for almost a year...
I might just stand a chance after all, if my opponent was overconfident enough not to back his entire army up 6" right now...
He was. He didn't.
All but one of the orange Necrons stood back up. Then, the guns opened up. 84 shots poured into the white Plaguebearers. Out of that, only 7 Plaguebearers died. 5th Edition Lesson #6: Nurgle troops are STUPIDLY HARD to kill.
The Necron Lord charged the Plaguebearers, killing two more, but taking a wound in return. Meanwhile, Prince M'har'cei slashed down four Necrons (who would actually get to stay dead, since my opponent had no more turns to stand them back up). No wounds back, the Necrons (down to LD6) broke, and with their craptastic I2 vs. my Prince, they stood no chance. Mowed down on the spot. 4KP vs. 3KP now. The game was actually within reach.
"I should have backed up," my opponent said.
"You think?" I replied.
Charge, charge, charge! Brown and green Plaguebearers mobbed the aqua and green Necron squads. Prince M'har'cei and the Nurglings swarmed the magenta and red Necrons. Prince L'heasa'wem went in to finish off the Necron Lord. For the first time in the game, really, the Plaguebearers got lucky with 5s and 6s on Slow and Purposeful, which was very helpful indeed.
It also looked like Prince Nar'thlo'shem and Lord Wes'Mol would leave the game having done exactly jack rabbit squat.
I needed one of the three combats to go my way to tie the game. I needed two to go my way to win.
Prince M'har'cei killed three Necrons, and the Nurglings added 4 wounds, which were all promptly saved. The Necrons returned three wounds of their own on the Nurglings, tying the combat. Crap.
One combat unhelpful. Two to go.
Prince L'heasa'wem put three wounds on the Necron Lord, but his invulnerable held fast, and he was left with a single wound. The Plaguebearers, however, did two wounds as well, and the Necron Lord failed one of the saves! Necron Lord down! And the game was tied: 4KP to 4KP.
The last combat would be the difference between contending for first place and not so much. The worst I could get was a draw, so that was nice, but I doubted I'd win the tournament on 2 wins and a draw...
The Green
PB hacked down two of the Green Necrons, amd the Brown
PB added three Aqua Necrons to the mix. The Necrons came back, killing one of the brown
PBs, despite having wounded me twelve times. 5th Edition Lesson #7: Feel No Pain will win games for you. How did I learn that lesson? Because down to LD6, both units of Necrons broke and ran. I ran one down, but seeing as the game was over, the other would count as well.
6KP to 4KP, it was a victory for Nurgle!
At the end of the tournament, I had a record of 3-0. When the winners were posted, I found out that I had won "Best Theme," and had taken 3rd place overall. Both players in front of me had been using Orks. One was a Nob Spammer. So I'm not surprised I didn't rack up the margins of victory necessary to compete on battle points.
Overall, I must say, I enjoyed all three games a lot. A lot of the things I hate about 5th edition were minimized by playing Daemons (I don't have to do the stupid wound allocation crap,
TLOS doesn't bug me so much when I can invul/
FNP with almost my whole army, universal run/fleet doesn't bug me when I can deep strike my whole army that wants to get into
CC anyway, etc.). I have a feeling my army may float slightly toward the cheese end of the spectrum; I don't know enough about 5th ed. yet to make that determination. But I had three fun games of
40k, and that's more than I can say for the last eleven months.
Cheers for reading. Even if you don't have any tactical advice or commentary, a simple, "I read it and enjoyed it." would be nice.
See y'all around!
1500 (Work In Progress) 
3000 3-4 League 5-3-1
1500