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On Saturday I took a break from working on my Tau army and went down and played in a Tournament at Valhallas, in Denver, CO with my Tzeentch Daemons.

My list
HQ
Herald of Tzeentch w/ chariot, we are legion, master of sorcery, bolt of tzeentch
Herald of Tzeentch w/ chariot, we are legion, master of sorcery, bolt of tzeentch
Herald of Tzeentch w/ chariot, we are legion, master of sorcery, bolt of tzeentch
The Blue Scribes

Elites
3 Flamers
3 Flamers
3 Flamers

Troops
7 Horrors, bolt of tzeentch
7 Horrors, bolt of tzeentch
7 Horrors, bolt of tzeentch
7 Horrors, bolt of tzeentch, changeling

Fast Attack
5 screamers
5 screamers
4 screamers

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince w/ mark of tzeentch, bolt of tzeentch, daemonic gaze
Daemon Prince w/ mark of tzeentch, bolt of tzeentch, daemonic gaze
Daemon Prince w/ mark of tzeentch, bolt of tzeentch, daemonic gaze


Round #1:
Opponent: Witch hunters, sorta kinda

HQ
1 Walking throne of death (Inquisitor Lord Karamov)
1 Daemon Hunter Inquisitor w/ psycannon, 2 multi-melta's, and a ton of additional wounds

Elite
Callidus Assassin

Troops
Platoon Command Squad w/ 4 sniper rifles
Infantry Squad w/ auto-cannon, grenade launcher
Infantry Squad w/ auto-cannon, grenade launcher
Infantry Squad w/ auto-cannon, grenade launcher
Infantry Squad w/ auto-cannon, grenade launcher
Infantry Squad w/ auto-cannon, grenade launcher

Platoon Command Squad w/ 4 plasma guns, plasma pistol, chimera
Infantry Squad w/ auto-cannon, flamer
Infantry Squad w/ heavy bolter, melta gun

Storm Troopers w/ 2 melta guns, chimera
Storm Troopers w/ 2 melta guns, chimera

Fast Attack
3 Sentinnel's w/ multi-lasers
9 Rough Riders

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Battle Tank w/ 2 plasma cannon, sponsons.

The mission
Deployment: Pitched battle
Primary: Kill Points
Secondary: Victory Points
Tertiary: Kill all of your opponents troop choices.
Primary was worth 20, secondary 15, tertiary 10. You used those to determine the overall winner. And then used the old RT scoring, 15/5 for a win/loss, 9/9 for a draw. And then you had the three tactical bonus points.
+1 for killing all of your opponents fast attack
+1 for killing all of your opponents elite
+1 for killing all of your opponents heavy support

I won the roll and let him go first.
For deployment there was a huge 3-4 story building, in the corner, that he chose and deployed his entired blobbed 50 man squad into. He also deployed the inquistor on the top floor, and the pcs with the sniper rifles. So one large building housed about 65 models. He deployed the rough riders and a storm trooper squad behind the building in the table corner. And then on the other side of the table, on his table edge deployed the leman russ, and then hid the other 2 chimera's behind the russ and the building. The other 2 infantry squads went into some ruins next to the big building with Karamov and the Sentinnel's support them.

Turn #1
I got the wrong wave in. Which was 2 horror squads, 3 flamer squads, and 2 chariots, and a daemon prince. I deploy way back from the inquisitor and try to light up the enemy. First wave only kills 6 guardsmen and 1 sentinnel

Turn #2 Witch Hunters
The callidus shows up charges in and munch's a 3 man flamer squad and then jumps into cover. One of the chariots takes 3 wounds, and one of the horror units is reduced to 1 model. His pcs with plasma moves up gets out but is out of rapid fire range on one of my princes.
KP: WH: 1 Daemons: 0

Turn #2 Daemons
I get in 1 screamer pack, and a unit of horrors with the scribes. Not a whole lot going on. I try to put some shot's into karamov but only do one wound. My daemon prince charges into the sentinnel's and kills one. A flamer unit jumps in next to the callidus and shoots her. I move up a horror squad and kill off the pcs.
KP: WH: 1 Daemons: 2

Turn #3 WH
The rough riders move up to go after a flamer pack, but fail their difficult terrain role to get into hand to hand. He puts 4 wounds from auto-cannon fire on one of the chariots. The other chariot passes all of it's saves. He kills 5 out of 7 of the horrors that just dropped. The daemon prince finish's off the last sentinnel, and with the surviving flamer advance's towards the wall o guard.
KP: WH: 1 Daemons: 3

Turn #3 Daemons
I get in 2 screamer packs a unit of horror's and a chariot. The flamers come out of cover and flame the rough riders, killing all of them.I blow up the pcs chimera, a pack of screamers assault's a 3 man guard squad and only manage to tie the combat. Karamov finish's his appetizer of horror's. The daemon prince moves up and stuns the leman russ.
KP: WH: 2 Daemons: 5

Turn #4 WH
The inquisitor shoots and kills the flamers that killed the rough rider's. Karamov runs over and eat's a unit of screamer's threatening his tanks.
KP: WH: 4 Daemons: 5

Turn #4 Daemons
My daemon prince blows up his leman russ. And his other infantry squad that was down to 2 model's finally breaks and runs. He pop's his mandate and his two guardsmen finish off my screamers that charged them.
KP: WH: 5 Daemons 7

Turn #5 WH
He downs the blue scribes and their accompanying unit of horror's with his massive squad of guard (I got a little too close and they ate about 30 las guns and 5 auto-cannons). Karamov charge's and kills the chariot that only had one wound.
KP: WH: 8 Daemons: 7

Turn #5 Daemons
My daemon prince and his flamer buddy hop over the prince blows up a storm trooper chimera and the lone flamer flames them.
KP: WH: 8 Daemons: 9

At the end of the game, I had 1 horror squad with 1 model left, 1 horror squad with 2 model's left, and 1 flamer squad with one wound left. One of the chariots was down to two wounds. His blobbing reduced his kp significantly but it also made it very hard for him to go after things when they got small and started to hide. I also think that if he had just put everything behind the building and just not shot anything else he probably would have easily won the game or at least made it much tougher for me. As it was he left stuff out that I could actually get shots on without getting into the inquisitors threat bubble. I got the primary by 1 kp, and we tied on vp's so neither of us got the secondary, and neither of us got the tertiary. So I got the full 15 for the win plus all 3 bonus tactical points.

Round #2 Space Wolve's
HQ
1 Wolf Priest

Elites
5 Wolf Guard

Troops
5 Grey Hunters, razorback
5 Grey Hunters, razorback
9 Bloodclaws
9 Grey Hunters, fully kitted out
9 Grey Hunters, fully kitted out

Heavy Support
Land Raider
Land Raider
Land Raider Crusader

Mission: Unexpected Encounter, on the 4th turn you roll to find out what the objective is.
Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary: 1-2 Table quarters, 3-4 hold terrain, 5-6 seize the center of the table.
Secondary: Victory Points
Tertiary: Kill all of your opponents hq choices
Tactical points: Kill all opponent hq choices, Kill the most expensive unit, have more scoring units left.

I won the roll to go first and let my opponent go. There was a single leve building that was smack in the middle of the table around which most of the fighting was to occur. He keeps everything off table and moves everything on in his first turn he castle's with the 3 raiders and the razorbacks inside the castle.

Turn #1 Daemons:
I get my preferred wave in, 3 daemons, 3 screamers, and 2 chariots. The screamer's try to go behind the large building in the center, with 2 of them scattering back but one landing in position. The 3 daemons try to go to the right hand side of the table, one of the mishaps and my opponent places them in my back corner. One chariot each comes down on the sides. I take some long range bolt shot's and actually manage to shake the crusder!

Turn #2 Space Wolves:
He doesn't move and fires all of his shots into daemon princes and chariots, causing 2 wounds.

Turn #2 Daemons:
I get in one flamer pack, which I deep strike next to the closely packed vehicles, but they veer off 8 inch's away. 2 horror squads, who go on each side of the large building, out of assault range of the raiders. One pack of screamers moves up and is in range so they assault the one regular land raider and 1 screamer is able to get into base with the crusader. I immobilize the crusader and blow up the other land raider. I turbo-boost the other unit of screamers in front of his other land raider.

Turn #3 Space Wolves
The squad that just got out moves up and charges and kills exactly one screamer staying locked in hth, thus keeping my flamers from munching them and he mows down the other screamer squad with shooting.

Turn #3 Daemons
I get in my other chariot which joins the chariot on the right and another pack of horrors that I deep strike behind the building. And my other two flamer packs which come down behind the building. My flamers move up and lay flame templates on all his tanks, the heralds get within los of the razorbacks and by the end of the turn the razorbacks have no guns and everything is stunned except for one razorback. My last squad of screamers goes after the crusader but only manages to immobilize it and tear off the assault cannon. His space wolves kill off the screamers they should have killed the last turn and consolidate forwards.

Turn #4 Space Wolves
We roll and the mission comes up as grab the center. Good for me, bad for him. He can't reach the flamer's, and they are within striking distance of anything that gets out of a land raider. In an attempt to save his last mobile land raider he kills off the next squad of screamer's. He also assaults the flamer's that were in the back of his tanks flaming the last round. He unload's his unit of blood claws but then forgets to move them, he realizes this right before assault's, I offer to let him move them, but he refuses and say's it's the best way to remember not to do it again. His one mobile razorback comes around and dumps the squad and he tries to get some more shots on a herald, but doesn't really do much damage.

Turn #4 Daemon
My two flamer squads come out from behind the building and flame his 2 10 man squads, with some horror's to help out I wipe the 2 squads. The blue scribes come in from reserves right next to the razorback squad and the scribes end up breathing twice and wiping the squad. My chariots kill 4 of 6 out of the squad that killed my flamers in the last round. I blow up his land raider with a daemon prince in assault and gun down the wolf lord.

Turn #5 Space Wolves
He takes some shots with the crusader and runs his razorback.

Turn #5 Daemon's
I dump 10 str 8 ap1 shots into the crusader and do nothing to it, I then assault it with 3 daemon princes and blow it up.

I end up with a clean sweep for another full win. I'm still not sure why he didn't move forward with the two mobile raiders on the second turn, that probably would have made the game a lot different. But if he had moved them then I either go for my 6's to hit, or I turbo-boost in front and then either force him to go through the melta bombs, or stop and shoot, or backup and unload, in any case that then stops them for the next wave of screamers, or it unloads the troops so I can shoot them.

Game #3
My opponent for the last round was a dark eldar army.

HQ
Archon with stuff

Elites (he got real nice rolls for his wyche's before the game)
5 Wyches, agonizer, 2 blasters, raider w/ dark lance, 12 inch assault
5 Wyches, agonizer, 2 blasters, raider w/ dark lance, re-roll to hit's
5 Wyches, agonizer, 2 blasters, raider w/ dark lance, +1 attack
Warp Beasts

Troops
19 Warriors, 2 dark lances, web way portal
10 Warriors, 2 dark lances, web way portal
10 Warriors, 2 dark lances, web way portal
5 Warriors, blaster, splinter cannon, raider w/ dark lance
5 Warriors, blaster, splinter cannon, raider w/ dark lance
5 Warriors, blaster, splinter cannon, raider w/ dark lance

Heavy Support
Ravager w/ 3 disinitigrators
Ravager w/ 3 disinitigrators
Ravager w/ 3 disinitigrators

Mission:
Primary: 4 Objectives
Secondary: Victory Points
Tertiary: Have a unit (doesn't need to be scoring) in all 4 quarters at the end of the game.
Tactical Bonuses: Reduce the opponent to 4 or less units, Keep them from holding any objectives, Kill their hq
Deployment: Spreahead

The objectives are almost in a a line across the center of the table, he places his warriors near to two of them but can't actually claim them because it would require him going out of cover.

Dark Eldar Turn #1
He wins the roll and elects to go first, to make sure I can't kill off his warriors before they can deploy the portal's. He moves up into some more terrain and drops the portal from the large squad. He deploys the 3 walking squads, his ravagers are in normal reserves, everything else is coming out of the portal.

Daemons Turn #1
I get my unpreferred wave. 2 horror squads, 3 flamers, 3 screamer packs. Originally I was going to drop back further from his lines and just shoot things as they came out of the portal but since I got the flamers in I decided to see just how much I can destroy on the first turn. 2 squads of flamers land on target the other deviates out of range. The screamers rain down in spots to charge raiders as they move on the table. After flaming and horror shots he has 1 dark lance from one squad, and 2 dark lances from another squad left. All told I downed about 36 warrior's in one round.

Dark Eldar Turn #2
He gets in 2 wych squads, and 1 warrior squad, he definitely was needing some decent reserve rolls here! The warriors shoot and assault some screamers, the screamers actually win the combat and the warriors break and run. One wytch squad assaults 3 of the flamer's and kills all of them. The +1 attack squad assaults a unit of horror's and kills all of them.

Daemons Turn #2
I answer back with my own awesome reserver rolls! I get in a horror pack, who claim a further away objective, and a single chariot. The horror's and a flamer unit mow down the 12" assault unit. Each unit of screamers down's a raider. And the other unit of flamers kills off the other wych squad. One pack of screamers stays in place to escor the falling back warriors off the table.

Dark Eldar Turn #3
A little better this time but not by much, he get's in his 2 ravagers, a wych squad, and another warrior squad. His warriors combi-assault some flamer's and screamers, lose and get run down. The wych's eat a flamer squad and a screamer squad. His warrior squad that lost in combat runs off the table.

Daemons Turn #3
I continue to match his reservre rolls, getting a daemon prince, a chariot, and the scribes and their horror escorts. The scribes fail twice to pavane the witches out of cover, so I only manage to kill two of them. I down 2 more raider's and stun one of the ravager's.

Dark Eldar Turn #4
He gets his last warrior squad and the warp beasts, but no archon. The warp beasts munch some screamers, and his warriors try to combi-assault my daemon prince with the wych's, but the wyches fail to make it into combat, the daemon prince eats two of them but they hold.

Daemons Turn #4
We were basically out of time at this point, I was still holding onto 2 of the objectives, and all of his troops were dead so we didn't really finish out my turn.

I really think you just need to pray to some dice gods and reserve the dark eldar against a daemon army like mine. If I get the alpha strike I just decimate too much stuff too quickly. His horrible roles didn't help, but they were somewhat evened out by my own bad reserve's rolls.

Sorry about the no pics, but I just never seem to have time for it during tournaments. Anyways hope you enjoyed, now back to Tau!

Thank you for the batrep, well done.

Amazing how effective those screamers were, I need to take a look at those again.

Great report man, how did you place?

Somnicide wrote:Great report man, how did you place?

Oops, didn't put that in there. I ended up taking first.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nivoglibina wrote:Thank you for the batrep, well done.

Amazing how effective those screamers were, I need to take a look at those again.

They really don't look like much on paper. But they end up doing something in most games. 200pts well spent in larger games I think.

In defense of DE versus Deamons I will note he was playing a fairly unoptimized list (also we hate Flamers of Tzeentch, and you run a lot of Flamers).

Did he move the large Warrior squad on the same turn he was dropping their Webway portal? That's not a legal move if he did so.

The DE player is a good friend of mine, and he's a convert from being an ultramarines player. So he's struggling a bit. I think he's slowly getting pushed more and more towards the all mounted raider list. But please critique his list in here and I'll have him take a look at it. I have a small dark eldar army but it's not something I play with with any regularity, so all the comments I make on his lists are all theoretical.

No he didn't drop and move the portal. His big unit dropped it and he moved up the smaller unit in the hopes they would survive a turn and would then be able to drop it.

Several local players really advocate the small wych squads I just dont see how they would fare very well against anything with some teeth to it.

Also any idea's for him on how he should have set up for the game would be great.

My thought was that he needed to just normal reserves everything and come on piecemeal. I also think his target priorities and what he charged with which units was a little off.

Warmaster wrote:The DE player is a good friend of mine, and he's a convert from being an ultramarines player. So he's struggling a bit. I think he's slowly getting pushed more and more towards the all mounted raider list. But please critique his list in here and I'll have him take a look at it.

We can probably swing that. I'll also suggest that he may wish to look over the Dark Eldar Tactica I wrote for the site (link is in my sig) it has a whole lot of discussion on DE builds and what can be accomplished with the army. It will include a lot of good general advice for him as well if he's stil 'trying to get his feet under him' so to speak. I'll keep my critique brief and simple for him (partly because I'm lazy but also I don't like to rip into an army list too much unless its creator asks me to...and I'm lazy)

Several local players really advocate the small wych squads I just dont see how they would fare very well against anything with some teeth to it.

It depends what you expect them to do. Wych squads, at their heart, are built to tarpit enemy units. They do most of their damage via the Agoniser and thus it's relatively meaningless how many of them there are. If he wants to kill stuff with them directly and quickly he should probably up the squad numbers, just remember his goal is to kill off the unit in the opponent's shooting phase so he can't be shot at in their shooting phase.

Also any idea's for him on how he should have set up for the game would be great.

My thought was that he needed to just normal reserves everything and come on piecemeal.

With this list against Deamons and against that many Flamers I agree with you. In general it's usually not a bad idea to go reserves against daemons, as I'm sure you're aware.

I also think his target priorities and what he charged with which units was a little off.

I quite agree. Especially his multiple charges with his Warrior squads; if you're charging why not rapid fire? A basic Warrior is just as effective shooting as he is charging, and he's not getting stabbed either. Without seeing the board or knowing what he was thinking I dare not offer any more negativity on that score.

Warmaster wrote:HQ
Archon with stuff

Elites (he got real nice rolls for his wyche's before the game)
5 Wyches, agonizer, 2 blasters, raider w/ dark lance, 12 inch assault
5 Wyches, agonizer, 2 blasters, raider w/ dark lance, re-roll to hit's
5 Wyches, agonizer, 2 blasters, raider w/ dark lance, +1 attack
Warp Beasts

Can't really critique the Archon without knowing what he was packing, in WebWay I hope he had some Incubi with him or was riding a Reaver Jet Bike. He clearly wasn't attached to the Wyches, and having a footsloogin' Archon is not a good strategy (if he had an Incubi Squad Archon it certainly helps explain some of his woes in dealing with your army - this is one of the reasons I dislike WebWay, I'm terrible with reserve rolls and this sort of thing happens to me all the time).

Three Wych squads is a solid core to build from and though I'm not the biggest fan of Warp Beasts in 5th they are pretty solid to have in a WebWay Army build. The Wych builds look very solid and I'm happy to see he took the blasters (it's amazing how many new DE players will opt not to)

Troops
19 Warriors, 2 dark lances, web way portal
10 Warriors, 2 dark lances, web way portal
10 Warriors, 2 dark lances, web way portal

I will note that in 5th edition a WebWay Portal army is not the DE's best option for competitiveness. Also, he's potentially hamstringing himself by using sniper squads (dark lance squads) as WebWay delivery agents. The duty of a unit with the WWP is to move forward and drop the portal in front of the enemy. The purpose of a squad with Dark Lances is to sit back on objectives and shoot vehicles and MCs. The two do not mix optimally. It might behoove him to consider putting his WWP squads into Raiders for extra speed on the first turn so they can definitely drop the portal somewhere deep in enemy territory. If you want a footsloggin squad to carry the portal I'd suggest building them up for assault (splinter cannon, blaster, and maybe a Sybarite with poisoned blades or an Agoniser). Maybe one portal with a sniper squad isn't bad because sometimes you just want to make sure you can deploy a portal - but any other portal carriers should be focused on aggressive forward movement. 19 Warriors with 2 Dark Lances might be a bit of a waste points wise too. For true durability in a WebWay Portal carrier he might want to look into a Hamonculi with Grotesques - few are the units that can kill them easily if they move up in a Raider, disembark, and hustle into cover for a portal drop next turn.

As a general note - his early aggressiveness to claim objectives was probably in error as well (though an honest mistake from someone who has played the hearty Space Marines). DE are *very* good at taking objectives or contesting them. We are not very good at holding them. Wait until the last turn to start fussing around with trying to hop on an objective - otherwise you're committing a squad to a stationary area where they can easily be shot up or assaulted. In any case sweating terrain when dealing with multiple Flamer squads isn't optimal.

5 Warriors, blaster, splinter cannon, raider w/ dark lance
5 Warriors, blaster, splinter cannon, raider w/ dark lance
5 Warriors, blaster, splinter cannon, raider w/ dark lance

I love me my Gunboats. The biggest danger I note here is your urge to disembark with your Warriors and assault. Don't do this unless you're paying for a squad of 10 with a Sybarite with some sort of special CCW. DE can assault out of boats, but this build here is optimized for skirting around the edges of your opponent and shooting the ever loving bejeezus out of him.

Heavy Support
Ravager w/ 3 disinitigrators
Ravager w/ 3 disinitigrators
Ravager w/ 3 disinitigrators

I love me my Ravagers too. However in a WWP Army it is not uncommon for 1-3 Ravagers to be dropped in favor of Talosi (Taloses? I think it must be Talosi). Talos help your close combat ground game which is what WWP is all about. Without a bunch of Talos to come out of the WebWay the only unit he is really optimizing by dropping the Portals is the Warp Beasts - as Gunboats can get around fine without a portal, as can Wyches (though they don't mind not being shot at most assuredly). Also, just at its most basic, WWP vs. Daemons is not a great matchup for WWP as it's basically a more h2h DE build and few are the armies that can fight h2h with daemons and win. Probably his best bet would have been to abandon the WWP plan, reserve everything, and as he trickled in play keep away from your army as he shot you up from range and forced you to try to run down the Raiders. Also, winning the roll at the begining of the game versus daemons always means letting them go first - reserve everything, let them go first, and watch the first wave of daemons DS in and have to shift about awkwardly on the empty board.

Nice report.

Great job with the Tzneetch daemons!

G