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The Daemons,
For this campaign game I ended up with an extra 50 points for my army. I just used it to put the aura of decay on my great unclean ones. I'm really starting to like it for when you are facing large horde armies and it will probably make it into my next 1850 tournament list.

This was my opponents first time playing against daemons. So as I go through the battle report I'm going to list out things (in my opinion, which of course is just my opinion), what I think he did wrong. I typically don't give out pre-game advice because i find that people just ignore it. But after the game when you can point things out people seem to be a bit more receptive, just something I've noticed over the years, of course I always give out advice if asked, but I don't just start offering it up..

HQ
Great Unclean One w/ cloud of flies, aura of decay
Great Unclean One w/ cloud of flies, aura of decay

Elite
3 Flamers
3 Flamers

Troops
7 Plaguebearers
7 Plaguebearers
7 Plaguebearers

Fast Attack
Blight Drone
Blight Drone

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince w/ mark of nurgle, iron hide, wings, cloud of flies, noxious touch
Daemon Prince w/ mark of nurgle, iron hide, wings, cloud of flies, noxious touch
Daemon Prince w/ mark of nurgle, iron hide, wings, cloud of flies, noxious touch

The Tau
HQ
Commander w/ cyclic ionic blaster, airbursting fragmentation projector, hw multi-tracker, stimulant injectors, irridium armor, shield generator, drone controller
2 shield drones

Troops
12 Firewarriors w/ pulse rifles
12 Firewarriors w/ pulse rifles
12 Firewarriors w/ pulse rifles
12 Firewarriors w/ pulse rifles
12 Firewarriors w/ pulse rifles
12 Firewarriors w/ pulse rifles, shas'ui w/ drone controller, 2 gun drones

Fast Attack
2 Piranha w/ fusion blasters, target lock

Heavy Support
3 Broadsides w/ sms, railgun, multi-tracker
3 Broadsides w/ sms, railgun, multi-tracker
3 Broadsides w/ sms, railgun, multi-tracker

Mission: Objectives (3)
Deployment: Dawn of War

Tau Deployment:
I win the roll off for first turn and give it to the Tau. He sets up one unit of fire warriors on his table edge in the center, and then another one in the corner. His commander is placed forward of the first Tau unit in the center.

Tau Turn #1
The rest of his forces come onto the table, he fills up his table edge.

This is the end of turn pic after I've deployed. But I don't have any shooting in my first wave. The objectives are on the 2 white square bases the third is in the upper left corner of the picture in the grey building.



So as you can see from this deployment he is spread across the table. This is just really not a good idea when playing against a daemon army, or any real heavy deep striking army. Plus all 3 objectives were on one side of the table, 2 of them actually in his zone for dawn of war.

What I liked about the deployment: He has a solid line of fire warriors surrounding all the broadsides so you cannot assault broadsides until you kill off the fire warriors.

What I didn't like about the deployment: He's very spreadout, not focused on the objectives, and he only has a single line of defense. This is an okay set up against a mechanized army that starts on the table but not a deep striker. If I had been playing this army against me I would have attempted to create a box. So the first 2 fire warrior squads would have went out to the 24 inch line across the center and then the other squad would have started to come down from the center towards the Tau Table edge. Then on my first turn as the Tau player I move and run fire warriors until I have a zone where deep striking isn't an option, then in the very corner at the back edge of the table I put all 9 broadsides with the commander near them. Basically something like this
f=fire warrior, b= broadside
f f f f f f
f f f f f f
f f f f f f
f f f f b b

This means on turn 1 I hold 2 objectives. And my opponent is going to have to go through all 72 fire warriors before he can touch a broadside. 72 fire warriors is a lot of table top real estate you can grab.

Daemons Turn #1
I choose as my first wave both great unclean ones, all 3 daemon princes, and one squad of plague bearers. I deep strike right in front of 2 of his broadside teams and a ton of fire warriors. A little bit of deviating but nothing too bad, everything shuffle's around.

Close up of the Daemon drop.


Tau Turn #2
The only thing that moves is the piranha's everything else shoots. When the dust settle's one great unclean one is dead, the other has taken 4 wounds.

What I liked: He concentrated fire until the monstrous creature went down, instead of dividing his shots. The only thing that didn't fire at a great unclean one was the suit command with the cyclic and the airburst.

What I didn't like: His target priority was off, The daemon princes are more vulnerable to rail-rifle's and they have less wounds, plus they are more maneuverable. He should have ignored the great unclean ones and focused on shooting down the daemon princes. He would have killed at least 2 of them, and put wounds on the third. This may have also saved his suit commander because I would have ignored it with my last remaining daemon prince who would have gone after the more threatening broadsides.

Daemons Turn #2
I get in one blight drone, one plague bearer squad, and both flamer squads. One flamer squad deviates 11, mishaps and goes poof. The other squad deviates back 11 next to a daemon prince. The surviving great unclean one moves up and sets off his aura of decay. All told inside his six inch bubble I have about 30 fire warriors. He loses 5, 3, and 2. I then shoot with the flamers and the blight drone. I end up causing break checks on all 4 tau units, 2 of which fail, one runs off the table, the other is falling back. This opens up a hole for me to get a daemon prince into a broadside squad, I combo charge the plague bearers into a unit of fire warriors and the uncovered broadsides, one daemon prince goes into the fire warriors, the other daemon prince goes into the broadsides, the last daemon prince charges the suit command and the great unclean one charges a fire warrior squad. The broadsides and both fire warrior squads are run down, run off the table or are destroyed the daemon princes get behind some cover. The commander and daemon prince remain locked in combat with the commander taking a wound.

Close up of the daemons for turn 2



Full Table for turn 2




Tau Turn #3
The great unclean one loses his last wound to the piranha's. His broadsides shoot into the daemon princes and he gets two wounds (I now had a 4+ cover from one squad, and the other just, unfortunately, didn't roll too well). There were no fire warriors left in raid fire range of the daemon princes.

Daemons Turn #3
The other blight drone comes in, as does the last squad of plague bearers. The plague bearers drop on the far objective. The blight drone drops across from his fire base on the other side of the table, it lights up a fire warrior squad in the open killing 8. The other drone shoots down one of the piranha (after the flamers failed to get a single glance). The plague bearers assault the commander, but their help isn't needed as the daemon prince kills him off. One daemon prince goes after the last piranha but fails to glance it. The third daemon prince and his plague bearer escort assault the broadsides killing one and locking in combat.




Tau Turn #4
The broadsides down the blight drone that shot up the warriors, he takes some strength 5 shots at the wounded daemon prince, but is unable to get the last wound on him.

Daemons Turn #4
I blow the melta off of the piranha, assault both fire warrior squads that are left and route them both. All he has left is a unit of broadsides and a piranha with no weapons. We call the game here.




So this was a case of a bad deployment making the game un-recoverable. Deploying in depth and castling in the corner would have meant more rapid fire shots which means that both great unclean ones would have gone down on turn one. Or if he had switched his target priority there's a chance he could have gotten all 3 daemon princes. The table was fairly spare with terrain in the middle, and nothing I dropped got a cover save on the first turn.

I did some quick math on the odds. 4 rapid firing squads of 12 fire warriors, 2 non-rapid fire, and 6 sms's is 144 strength 5 shots, 9 rail guns, and 2 fusion guns nets you about 9.3 wounds. So that first turn of firing was about average. Adding in the extra 24 rapid fire shots, another 12 sms shots puts it up to 10.5 wounds. Now if we take those same numbers and apply them to the daemon prince's we get 14.5 wounds, or with his deployment 12.4 wounds (assuming I had no cover). So by deploying in depth that means he should have been able to kill off all 3 daemon princes the turn they dropped. His commander I would have charged into a unit of plague bearers to just lock them down. On the daemon turn I would then have assaulted 2 units of fire warriors (with 2 great unclean ones). Then depending on what got locked in combat he would have his targets for the next round. I'm not saying that would have won him the game but it would have made it a lot closer. Because then it's my 2 great unclean ones plus whatever I managed to get in on my reserves vs. his 48 fire warriors and 9 broadsides.

Anyways thanks for reading!

First of all a great read and very interesting. I don't know if you could help on this but anything would be great. At my club there is a undefeated daemon player I have played him once but I got screwed over playing dow and special night fight rules where i have to role each turn to continue night fight and as a IG player it was a slaughter fest. He runs a mixed list from every single god. My main problem is his bloodletters riding the giant hounds or whatever the hell they are with the special character for them I can't remember his name off the top of my head but he has the cape of skulls if that helps. I lasted the first half of his turns and then everything gets wiped off the table I try to keeps everything together and use my chimeras with the troops inside as a buffer but his army lands so close that I can't hold him off. And he got a icon down and i couldnt destroy it until the second turn it came down but it was to late he had already brought down his main clump of units with no chance of them mishaping.

I agree that 72 shots, while powerful, need to be set up properly to be useful. Just because it's pretty to line up all your fire warriors across the table doesn't make it a sound strategy.

I don't necessarily agree with the box deployment you laid out, but it would certainly have been better than the firing line. The key to beating Daemons with Tau is sacrificial squads in the front protecting squads in the back. A staggering pattern of Fire Warriors preventing any unit from making a clean break in to the Crisis Suits is key to shooting down Daemon Princes before they can cause real damage.

Good report! I enjoyed reading it!

You forgot to list two daemon princes and the piranhas in your army list summaries. That said, I might also have considered using the piranhas to block off lines of assault, which it looks like he didn't do.

Where did you get the rules for Blight Drones? I didn't know Rob was allowing FW in the campaign, if that's where they're from.

@ tzeetnchling: edited and fixed thanks! I orderd the Vraks book which has the rules in it. I asked Rob about it ahead of time and since it's just a for fun league we figured it was okay. I've still been asking each of my opponents if they are okay with them before we play. He had such a wide line that there was no way he was going to block an assault with them. But if he was deploying in depth it might have helped a bit.

@Alamoth: Maybe I should have done f1, f2, to differentiate different fire warrior squads. But that was basically what I was trying to get across. You need to layer the fire warriors in waves so that they basically get at most 2 fire warrior squads in a turn, before they can assault the next set of two, and so on until you get to the broadsides.

@WingsofCadia: If you can give me a better idea of his army I can help you out a bit. Also just go ahead and post in here what you typically run as an army list. Mainly what I'm looking for is how mechanized your list is and what you are running for weapons, fast attack, and heavy support. The other question is how mobile is the daemon players army. If he's playing a mixed list then it's likely that he's using grinders, crusher's, etc, which means that his stuff isn't that fast moving, is that a correct statement?

Great batrep as usual. To me the game was over following your first assault phase. I definitely agree the Tau should have focused fire on the daemon princes... They really tore him a new one to put it politely.

G

This is my 1850 List approximately and it has worked against every army I have ever played against except for this daemon army. I know someone will say to use a ccs but my primaris pysker and my pbs work fine. The only thing i might change about this list is the pbs just because daemons are fearless and even if i drop their leadership it doesn't matter they don't have to take moral checks.
HQ
Primaris Pysker 70points
(with the veteran melta squad)

Elites
Pysker Battle Squad (8) 125points
Chimera w/heavy flamer

Troops
Veteran Squad 140points
3xGL, Chimera w/heavy flamer

Veteran Squads(2) 290points
3xmelts, Chimera, w/heavy flamer

Veteran Squad (2) 260points
Demo, 3 meltaguns, shotguns

Fast Attack
Squadron
Valkyrie 100points
Valkyrie 100points


Bane Wolf 150points
Multi Melta, Smoke Launchers
Hell Hound 135points
Heavy Flamer, Smoke Launchers

Heavy Weapons
(2) Leman Russ Demolishers 165 points
Colossus155points
Enclosed Compartment

In his list he usually runs 2 DPs with a soul grinder alot of bloodcrushers the slaneesh infantry a couple nurgle squads the skull taker mounted on a bloodcrusher and a couple of the flamers that he deep struck on my men. There are also the slaneesh fiends and a squad or two of the bloodletters which have the icons. That pretty much completes his list. Thanks in advance for the help.

Is one of the dp's a bloodthirster? It just seems odd that he would only have skulltaker as his only hq.

Are the dp's winged or not? I'm going to assume that they are. And the other question would be do you remember his wave setup? Thats a very important part of what he's trying to do. I counted it up at around 11 units which means he can front load 6. The 6 probably being 2 dps, grinder, crusher's (with skulltaker attatched) and fiends and something else.

So I would think that the priority targets for your list are the fiends, soul grinder, 2 dp's, crushers probably in that order. Fiends are first because they are extremly mobile, and put out a lot of attacks for glancing and penning your tanks.


Depending on how close the fiends land to you I would probably try and use the banewolf, hellhound, colossus, and then if needed the 2 demolishers to try to wipe them out. You need to get one of the melta squads near the grinder (preferrable the chimera mounted ones with the melta guns, and if he deployed the crushers near the grinder, you can use the same chimera to block off the crushers advance). Then unload all of your multi-laser's, and squads sitting back into the daemon prince's. This should hopefully neuter the grinder, and the fiends, and maybe one daemon prince on the first turn. Once his other stuff starts coming in you focus on the flamers, whenever they do drop, and then make sure you kill his mobile stuff. You can keep the crushers just eating chimera's for their first 2-3 actions and still come out on top. Use the rest of your units from range, and do not give the crusher's multi-charges on your vehicles. Just sit back and take 24" lasgun shots at the daemon princes, basically once the fiends are gone, and you've taken your pot shot at the grinder, just dump all the other fire into the daemon princes, completely ignore the crusher's for the first turn as you decimate his mobile elements.

For deploying against this army I would go with a center deployment. This allows you to break out away from whichever side the crushers come down on, it also puts you in a good position to get to his troop squads if he gets the wrong wave in. When in double move 12" and get away from his slower moving stuff. Force him to roll six's to get you, and make sure the big squads of crushers or letters can only assault one tank.

On your list, this may also help against some of the new nid stuff you will be seeing. I would switch one of your 3 melta squads to 3 plasma. I really like running the bane wolf with the heavy flamer, only because it means it can move 12 and fire both weapons. I'm assuming you are using the hull heavy flamer on the demolishers? And if you can find the points for it I would either upgrade the valkryies to vendetta's, or put rocket pods on them and leave them as valkryies. If you really are just using them to deliver the veterans with the democharges, then maybe think about just giving them the heavy bolters, for use after they have delivered their cargo.

Where were the markerlights? That would have made all the difference, especially in rapidfire range!

Aftersong wrote:Where were the markerlights? That would have made all the difference, especially in rapidfire range!

You would need tons of markerlights for that many squads to hit well.

ssREV wrote:

Aftersong wrote:Where were the markerlights? That would have made all the difference, especially in rapidfire range!

You would need tons of markerlights for that many squads to hit well.

Yeah but with a foot list of that size you NEED markerlights to do effectively.

Yeah my rule of thumb is 1 markerlight for every 3 Firewarriors in the army.

Very unusual Tau list, immobile gun line. I do fairly well against daemons with a suit heavy hybrid list that can flow away from the deep striking units while still laying down heavy fire, with some outflanking kroot that can make a big difference coming in and tying up heavy hitters like DP for a round or two (I've even killed off a DP or two with Kroot, although it's the exception rather than the rule.)

That was an interesting read, thanks for posting.

WingsofCadia wrote:This is my 1850 List approximately and it has worked against every army I have ever played against except for this daemon army. I know someone will say to use a ccs but my primaris pysker and my pbs work fine. The only thing i might change about this list is the pbs just because daemons are fearless and even if i drop their leadership it doesn't matter they don't have to take moral checks.
HQ
Primaris Pysker 70points
(with the veteran melta squad)

Elites
Pysker Battle Squad (8) 125points
Chimera w/heavy flamer

Troops
Veteran Squad 140points
3xGL, Chimera w/heavy flamer

Veteran Squads(2) 290points
3xmelts, Chimera, w/heavy flamer

Veteran Squad (2) 260points
Demo, 3 meltaguns, shotguns

Fast Attack
Squadron
Valkyrie 100points
Valkyrie 100points


Bane Wolf 150points
Multi Melta, Smoke Launchers
Hell Hound 135points
Heavy Flamer, Smoke Launchers

Heavy Weapons
(2) Leman Russ Demolishers 165 points
Colossus155points
Enclosed Compartment

In his list he usually runs 2 DPs with a soul grinder alot of bloodcrushers the slaneesh infantry a couple nurgle squads the skull taker mounted on a bloodcrusher and a couple of the flamers that he deep struck on my men. There are also the slaneesh fiends and a squad or two of the bloodletters which have the icons. That pretty much completes his list. Thanks in advance for the help.

What you need is just...to put one cheap unit in a valk, then you will win every single game against deamons.