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Josh Buchanan 2250pt Chaos Daemons Army

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/93207-.html



I decided around Christmas that I’d paint up a Nurgle Daemon army and play it in the Adepticon Gladiator tournament.

Scabbiethrax
Epidemius
11 Plaguebearers
7 Plaguebearers – Icon
7 Plaguebearers
7 Plaguebearers
7 Nurgling Bases
7 Nurgling Bases
1 Blight Drone
1 Blight Drone
1 Daemon Prince – Nurgle, Iron Hide, Wings, Noxious Touch, Flies
1 Plague Hulk of Nurgle

The obvious shtick is that unlike a typical Nurgle Daemon list, this one is going to use the ability of the Plague Hulk and Blight Drones to project firepower through 5” templates and boost Epidemius’s Tally quickly.

The Tally doesn’t do much for Scabbiethrax (it is nice when his extra Nurgling swings acquire Noxious Touch). The Tally provides a good boost to Plaguebearers and it can make Nurglings exceptionally nasty when they can lay a torrent of swings that wound on 2+ against high value enemies.

The army suffers from some mobility issues (lots of slow-and-purposeful), but the Blight Drones being fast skimmers and the 12 inch moves that the Prince and Scabbiethrax have help fix that.

Generally I figured to put Scabbiethrax and Epidemius in the first wave, along with the Drones (for early firepower) and a couple more units depending on what I thought would help the mission. I’d like to have an icon in each wave. Scabbiethrax counts as an icon so he covers the requirement for wave one, and the Plaguebearers with icon cover wave two. I tend to want to wait on the Nurglings and and Plague Hulk because their large deepstrike footprint makes them prone to mishaps.

In the weeks before the tournament I considered dropping Scabbiethrax because I figured he would be hard pressed to do enough in his phases to earn the 777 points I spent on him. I could have replaced him with a Great Unclean One, Second Daemon Prince, Third Blight Drone, expanded Plaguebearer units, and a unit of Beasts. I decided that I was going to roll with Scabbiethrax in the end. His ability to weather just about any attacks that could possibly be mustered seemed to be worthwhile in this format of tournament.

Game 1 - In the Dead of Night

Deploy 24” off of short table edges

Primary Objective – Control objective at center of the table (within 6 inches, score points at the end of each player turn equal to the turn number, higher total points at the end of the game wins)
Secondary Objective – Control terrain pieces with scoring units
Teritary Objective – Victory points – win by 225pts

Extras:
Night Fight for entire game (no roll to see superheavies or gargantuan critters)
Free Vortex Grenade for each side


Opponent : Evan Bauch 2250pt Deathwing Army

Belial
Interrogator Chaplain in Terminator Armor

Deathwing Command Squad
Deathwing Squad
Deathwing Squad

Land Raider Crusader
Thunderhawk – Turbo-Laser – 6 hellstirke missiles

Commentary:
So right off the bat I’m facing an army with a big flyer that’ll be hard for me to chase down and a really low model count that will marginalize Epidemius’ Tally, but there’s nothing for it.

Evan goes first, deploying his terminator command squad with characters and his crusader. Both of the other Deathwing squads and his vortex grenade are in the Thunderhawk in reserve. He claims the objective in the first turn with his command squad (which eventually wins him the game) and then I deploy.

I get my primary wave of Scabbiethrax, Epidemius + 11, one PB, Both Blight Drones, Daemon Prince (carrying my vortex grenade because he’s got the best BS in the army), and one batch of nurglings. I lose a batch of plaguebearers to a mishap but everyone else comes down fine. Scabbiethrax lands to contest the objective, Epidemius lands someplace safe, the Daemon Prince lands within striking distance of Belial and friends next turn with a nurgling screen to cover him.

In turn two his Thunderhawk arrives as a skimmer and drops down the squad with the vortex grenade to threaten Scabbiethrax. His vortex misses, but his turbo-laser knocks off a couple of Scabbie’s wounds. His crusader moves fast enough to move into contest range of the objective but doesn’t shoot anything.

In my turn two, I get another nurgling squad, a second plaguebearer squad, and my plague hulk. They all use Scabbie as an icon. Scabbiethrax tank shocks the terminators out of the way to try and take a couple swipes at his Thunderhawk (too short to get the ram, but into assault range). In assault I hit and penetrate the Thunderhawk, but only get a weapon destroyed result. He makes a primary weapon save to negate the result. I drop three pie plates on the squad that tried to vortex my daemon lord and the command squad (trying to reduce his scoring unit down) this manages to kill a bunch of my nurglings due to bad scatters / vulnerable to blasts and one deathwing terminator (another was saved by his apothecary). My Prince flies up into vortex / charge range of the Deathwing command squad and hits Belial with the grenade. The Prince and a batch of nurglings charge the deathwing command squad. I wanted to tie it up and not take any chances on a re-rolling miss, +1 attack batch of assault terminators ruining my day. He’s heavy on lightning claws and light on power fists, so the Prince’s toughness gives him problems. He does wounds to my nurglings, but I drag down a couple terminators and pull him away from the objective so I’m good with the results.

In turn three his crusader pops my Hulk with its multi-melta. His Thunderhawk goes to flyer mode and jumps across the board. It lights up Scabbiethrax again with the turbo-laser and las-cannon, but only takes a couple wounds. Its heavy bolters knock down a nurgling base from the unit that appeared this turn. Scabbie’s fine, just a little annoyed. His vortex grenade hops around and gets a couple of the newly arrived plaguebearer squad. The terminators that tried to vortex Scabbie last turn also shoot them up, reducing them down to one model iirc. In the combat between the Deathwing Command squad and my Prince / Nurglings, we grind out another turn. My Prince is immune in actual combat, but loses a wound to combat resolution wounds. His guys are slowly being worn down.

In my turn three I get my remaining Plaguebearers. I’m low on scoring units and behind on the primary objective so they drop on the objective and Epidemius and friends start to wander towards that way. The Thunderhawk is too far off (and a flyer this turn), so Scabbiethrax charges the Crusader and totals it. I fire up the three terminators he has contesting the objective, but they shrug off Scabbie’s vomit and aura, 2 phlegms, and reapers. At the end of that, there’s still two of them keeping me from scoring points.

In his turn four his Thunderhawk skimmers back across towards the objective, getting a wing within 6”. He unloads the turbolaser at Epidemius and his squad, but forgets to call the other shots. Between the scatter and my invulnerable saves, I only lose a few plaguebearers. His Deathwing squad on the objective eliminates the last of one Plaguebearer squad.

In my turn four, Scabbiethrax deals with those annoying terminators. The Thunderhawk shrugged off two phlegms and the reaper shots from the Drones. My prince redeploys towards the action and Epidemius and his Plaguebearers amble towards the objective.

In his turn 5 he finds a place to shoehorn in the Thunderhawk where it’ll still have a wing-tip within 6 inches of the objective, but will have moved 12 inches to reduce my hand-to-hand effectiveness. He picks off a few Plaguebeares, but fails to hurt Scabbiethrax with the turbo-laser.

In my turn five, I continue to have shots bounce off the Thunderhawk, but I do manage to strip off two structure points in hand-to-hand with Scabbiethrax. My Prince hits it a couple times in hand-to-hand but fails to penetrate.

The game goes to turn six, so I still have a chance to win the primary. I’ve given up on the secondary at this point and moved my two remaining scoring units onto the objective (one of those units of plaguebearers was down to a single model at the end and in real danger of being sniped off the objective if he was standing around by himself, so I needed Epidemius and friends if I was going to take it.)

He finds another place to shoehorn in the Thunderhawk so he’s contesting at the end of his player turn 6. His doors are well away from the objective though, so if I can bring it down he’ll unload away from it. In my turn six, shooting glances the Thunderhawk a couple times but doesn’t do the damage I need. In my hand-to-hand phase I think I penetrate it, but only get weapon and drive damage results, not the results I need to destroy it.

I don’t get the roll I need for the game to go into a turn seven, so it ends.

Primary: Evan has the primary (the one point he scored at the bottom of his turn one is the only one scored in the game)
Secondary: We’ve tied the secondary because I pulled my scoring units onto the objective and out of terrain, going for the primary (his only remaining scoring unit is sight-seeing out of the portholes of the Thunderhawk, waving at Scabbiethrax as they jet back and forth.
Tertiary: I’ve got this objective as I’m well ahead on victory points.

Neither of us scored either of the tactical bonuses. We both still had troops remaining and neither of us detonated the vortex grenade in close combat.

Points Earned: 13
Total Points: 13

Recap: This is the type army I thought I’d have trouble with. High-mobility didn’t worry me because the blight drones could project power at a distance, but super-heavy high mobility was a much bigger problem because of the durability. I should have held the vortex grnade on Scabbiethrax and detonated it in close combat with the Thunderhawk, but that didn’t occur to me until after the game started and I had given it to my Prince. Getting Belial with it was nice, but not the game changer that d3 auto structure point damage to the T-Hawk could have been.

I really like the Primary victory condition of this mission (even though I lost it). The auto-point that the player who goes first should earn is a nice balancing factor against the advantage that the second player normally has in an objective mission.

Game 2 - The Shortest Distance Between Two Points

Deployment: Cleanse II

Primary Objective: Pushback – player with model closest to his own long table edge loses
Secondary: Disruption – have units from more force org categories left at the end
Tertiary: Table Quarters

Extras:
Warp Flux – any non-vehicle can re-deploy using deepstrike


Chris Shriner 2250pt Chaos Daemons Army

Scabbiethrax
Epidemius
10 Plaguebearers – Icon, Instrument
10 Plaguebearers – Icon, Instrument
10 Plaguebearers – Instrument
10 Plaguebearers
7 Screamers
Daemon Prince – Nurgle, Iron Hide, Flies, Instrument, Breath of Chaos
Daemon Prince – Nurgle, Iron Hide, Flies, Instrument, Breath of Chaos
Plague Hulk of Nurgle

Commentary:

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but when I’m thinking through strategy and tactics for how I’ll use an army in a tournament I generally will think about what I feel like will be likely challenges from a meta-game perspective. I don’t think I’ve ever thought: “What if I see the exact same army?”, especially if I’m playing something as exotic as this Scabbiethrax/Epidemius/all nurgle army.

I mean really, what are the odds?

I win the roll off for going first/second and make Chris go first. He whiffs the roll for his primary wave, so I’m immediately at an advantage. He also has fewer units than I do (9 vs 11) so his secondary wave is on the small side.

He drops his Hulk, a Prince, and two units of Plaguebearers. He was generally targeting towards the center of the table, but he got at least one horrid scatter that sent a unit of plaguebearers a long way back towards his table edge. His Prince also had an unfortunate scatter that sent him into a river, causing a wound off the difficult terrain check.

In my fist turn, I get my primary wave of Scabbie, Epidemius and friends, 2 Drones, a unit of Nurglings, and a unit of Plaguebearers. I drop my nurglings into a spot to try and tie down the plaguebearers he had deep on my side of the board, but a mishap sees them destroyed. My drones drop in a good spot to shoot up his hulk, Scabbie drops not far from his Daemon Prince, Epidemius and company drop over on his side of the table in a safe spot, and the other plaguebearer unit drops near the mid-line on my left in position for a late-game table quarter grab. My shooting bounces off his Plague Hulk.

In his second turn he pulls in Scabbiethrax, his second Prince, a unit of plaguebearers, and his screamers.

The only icon Chris had on the board was in that unit of his that scattered deep towards his board edge initially, so he had the choice of safe drops in a bad spot or risker drops elsewhere. He went with the safe drops for his Scabbiethrax and Daemon Prince and risker drops with the plaguebearers and screamers. His plaguebearers mishaped and I placed them on his board edge. The screamers came down fine, notably close to my drones. His second Prince came down in a good spot to breathe on Epidemius’ squad and killed a few.

At the start of my turn the tally had moved up almost to Noxious touch range but not quite there yet. I rolled reserves for my Hulk, my remaining Nurglings, and another unit of Plaguebearers. I played it safe with all of them and dropped around Scabbiethrax. I get cute and try to Warp-Jump one of my Plaguebearer squads across the board in charge range of the unit I had placed on his board edge last turn. I wanted to tie them up and Plaguebearer-v-Plaguebearer could go all day. I, of course, mishap and that squad goes back into reserve. My Hulk fired at his Hulkand bounced off, and my Drones slid close enough to vomit and reaper those plaguebearers that I had wanted to tie down.

I made a boneheaded move and detached Epidemius from his squad so that they could charge into his Scabbiethrax to tie him down. Unfortunately, gargantuan critters don’t work that way (obviously I knew that, I just wasn’t thinking). On the bright side, I moved that tally up nicely. Scabbiethrax hunted down his wounded Daemon Prince. But if I recall correctly a couple of good ward saves on his part saved him for a turn.

Turn three started and Chris got the rest of his army on. Dropping his Epidemius near the center, screamers near my drones and another plaguebearer squad deep on my side where it could safely grab a quarter. His Epidemius uses his Aura on a bunch of my troops, but he really should have run. His hulk ambled across some difficult terrain towards my drones, but a really horrid set of difficult terrain and run rolls left him well away from where he wanted to be. The Plaguebearers I vomitted on with my Drones got a multi-charge off on both drones, but could get anything by a couple shaken/stuns that I ignored. His Scabbiethrax charged that squad that had assaulted him last turn and wiped them out.

In my turn three I think I botched reserve rolls for everything I had left, but I still had plenty to work with. My Tally was in 3+ FNP territory. I slid my blight drones over towards his screamers, vomitted on them and got some uninspired results, just killing a couple. My Hulk ambled towards his, shot with his rot cannon and accomplished nothing. Epidemius ran for his life and towards his table edge. My Scabbie killed that Prince and consolidated back towards his Scabbie. My Nurglings moved to tie up his Epidemius and friends.

Chris started his turn four in a bad spot for the Primary mission. He had way to much stuff deep on his side of the table. He started spreading out to safely grab/contest quarters. His Scabbiethrax hunted down my Epidemius and ended my Tally. That set us back to his Tally score which was still down below noxious touch iirc. My Nurglingings benefited a lot more than his plaguebearers from the Tally at this point, so the move made sense. He charged my drones with his Screamers and Hulk, but didn’t manage to kill either one. I think did damage the guns on one though.

In my turn four I got a unit of Plaguebearers to drop into one of the quarters he wanted to claim, but my Daemon Prince stayed in the warp. My nurglings kept grinding on his Epidemius squad and my Scabbiethrax charged his. Even with the charge, he got the better of that fight, but I was pretty sure that it was the type battle that could go on indefinitely.

In Chris’ turn five, his tally was back up to Noxious Touch territory. He concentrated on trying to get the secondary and tertiary objectives. To do it he needed to kill my blight drones and claim a table quarter. His screamers and hulk got one of my drones, but not the other, but he got a good charge off with a unit of his Plaguebearers against a unit of mine in a table quarter that he could feasibly claim. He got about have of my squad in that charge. The Scabbiethrax sumo match yielded a wound or two for both of us.

In my turn five, I tried to kill off his Screamers with my remaining Drone but had no luck. The plaguebearer v plaguebearer fight for quarter control went more my way than his, so he didn’t wipe out my squad. Scabbie-v-Scabbie was a draw iirc.

The roll for a turn 6 came up a one and the game ended.

Primary: I’ve got his Scabbie locked in combat deep on his side of the table, so it’s a clear win for me.
Secondary: With another turn, one or the other of us might have wiped out the other’s fast attack selections, but as it stood we tied up.
Tertiary: We’re tied at zero-zero for quarters controlled. Another turn might have seen him clean me out of a quarter, but only if he had also gotten the last Drone as well so that I couldn’t flat-out over and contest it in the bottom of six.

Tactical Bonuses were available for having more kill points alive a the end and for redeploying via warp flux. I earned both of these. Having two more total kill points than he did to start with was a big help.

Points Earned: 33
Total Points: 46


Recap: definitely a weird game, but one that I’ll remember for a long time because of the uniqueness of Scabbiethrax-v-Scabbiethrax. The victory conditions were interesting and would definitley hamper a gun-line oriented army and favor a mobility based one. I would have split those units of 10 Plaguebearers up if I had been designing a list with those models, but then I also tend to like Nurglings as cheap back-up units.

Game 3 – Pin Them Down

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Primary Objective: Kill Points
Secondary: Recon – scoring units in opponents deployment zone
Tertiary: Elimination – destroy opponents least expensive unit

Extras:
Stasis Missiles – two models have one-shot missiles that auto-pin models hit
Mined Battlefield - area between deployment zones is dangerous for units that run or vehicles / units that move over 12 inches



Shawn Espeseth 2250 Chaos Space Marines Army

Daemon Prince - Slaanesh, Wings, Lash of Submission
Daemon Prince - Slaanesh, Wings, Lash of Submission
5 Chaos Terminators – Khorne, 4 meltas, 1 hvy flamer, 1 champ, 3 chain fists, 1 pwr fist
1 Dreadnought – Twin-Lascannon
8 Chaos Marines – plasma gun, champion (fist, plasma pistol)
10 Chaos Marines – flamer, plasma gun, champion (power weapon, plasma pistol)
10 Berzerkers – 2 plasma pistols, champion (power weapon, plasma pistol), Rhino
1 Defiler – 2 extra close combat weapons
1 Chaos Landraider – extra combi-melta
Brass Scorpion


Commentary:

When the round started I was in the bathroom, making an unplanned ablution to Father Nurgle that wasn’t going to be hurried. I got to the table a few minutes late and my opponent was gone looking for me at the judges table. He got back and I apologized for my tardiness (although I think everyone should be glad thaose particular smells were contained elsewhere). We started a few minutes late, but with a Daemon Armies slow ramp up at the beginning, it wasn’t really a problem.

Either I won the roll off and chose to go second or Shawn chose to go first, either way he set up and just had some minor manuevering to do before I deployed. The only mistake I think he made was that he put both of his Stasis Missiles in the same squad. They had a good line of fire where they were, but they we a point source of failure for that special ability. He kept a Daemon Prince and his terminators in reserve to deep strike.

In my first turn I rolled for my primary wave. I had changed up a little because of the mission. I brought in Scabbie, Epidemius, the Daemon Prince (with a stasis missile), 2 Drones, and a unit of plaguebearers.

Epidemius mishapped and was placed in charge range of his dreadnought. Everyone else landed safely. Scabbiethrax came down right in front of his Scorpion, daring it to come forward and play. The DP and Drones all had good line of sight to the squad with his stasis missiles. I unload two go shots of phlegm and killed a few. Then the DP hit them with his stasis missle and locked them down until my next turn.

In his second turn he moved forward with his Land Raider (loaded with berzerkers), rolling slowly towards my deployment zone and missing a Blight Drone with a lascannon. His Scorpion shot at Scabbie but didn’t take the bait and charge. His terminators had deployed right behind Scabbiethrax. I think he didn’t exactly realize how tough he was when he deployed. After the Scorpion’s guns bounced off of Scabbie he retasked them and had them shoot down a nearby Blight Drone instead. He lashed a squad of my plaguebearers into a clump and hit them with the Defiler’s battle cannon. Between the invulnerable save and FNP I think he got one of them. He shot at Epidemius’ squad and charged with his dreadnought and second squad of Chaos Marines. A few Plaguebearers died, but it wasn’t much.

In my second turn I landed my Hulk, a unit of Nurglings, and two units of Plaguebearers (one with the icon and stasis missile). My Prince flew into his backfield to rescue Epidemius. Scabbiethrax got a terminator in shooting with a lucky vomit attack. I was trying to get a unit of Plaguebearers into range to charge and tie up his unit with the stasis missile, but some crappy slow-and-purposeful rolls ruled that out. My second stasis missile missed his remaining stasis missile, meaning he would be able to fire it this turn. I charged Scabbiethrax into the Scorpion. I rolled extremely mediocre and only managed to destroy a weapon. My Daemon Prince got the better of his Dreadnought, took off its close combat weapon and immobilized it. That turned that combat around.

His third turn had his second Prince showed up. She dropped in not too far from my Plague Hulk. His Landraider stayed stationary and picked off my second Drone. He lashed two units of Plaguebearers up next to a third, battlecannoned them with his Defiler, hit a bunch, and killed an underwhelming number. His stasis missile had decent shot but scattered wildly twice. His Terminators charged my Hulk, got a couple eaten, and bounced off with their attacks. My Prince finished off the dreadnought and his Chaos Marines were dwindling. The tally had climbed into the noxious touch range.

In my fourth turn, I had the rest of my Nurglings arrive iirc. My Plague Hulk finished his terminators. Scabbiethrax did a structure point to the Scorpion but couldn’t get serious with it. Plaguebearers tried stumbling towards the stasis missile squad again, but it wasn’t working for them. My Daemon Prince and Epidemius finished off the Chaos Marines they were fighting. I get a unit of Nurglings in a charge against one of his Daemon Princes. 24 noxious touch attacks later she disappears under the swarm.

In his fifth turn he gives up on lashing people around. His Daemon Princes attacks my Soul Grinder and knocks it out. His Defiler charges a unit of Plaguebearers and takes them down. His Bersekers head towards my deployment zone to cancel me out on the secondary objective. A clever shot at one of my Plaguebearers with a stasis missile clips Scabbiethrax and shuts him down for a turn.


In my fifth turn, I manage to hunt down his second Prince with all my remaining Nurglings. At the end of combat she’s got a single wound and a bunch of Nurglings crawling all over her.

We roll into his turn six with both sides pretty beat up, and both of us clearly tieing on the secondary mission. Scabbiethrax and the Scorpion fight in his turn but nothing conclusive happens. I’m wondering why my Brass Scorpion is never this resilient when I use it. His second Daemon Prince dies to the Nurgling wave, but he finishes off some Plaguebearers with his Defiler.

In my turn six theres not much going on beyond the Scabbiethrax vs Scorpion fight. My rolls come through and I penetrate it four times. I roll well on the super-heavy damage table and strip off 3 structure. That sends us to the superheavy damage table three times with a +2 on each roll. A moment later Scabbiethrax is standing by himself at the center of a giant crater. A 13” radius strength 9, ap 2 Apocalyptic Explosion will do that. The explosion claims at least three more of his units (Chaos Marines, Defiler, Rhino) and several of mine (one or two units of Plaguebearers).

The dust settles and the game is over.

Primary: I don’t recall exactly where we stood immediately prior to the Apocalyptic Explosion, but after it I definitely had won this objective.
Secondary: We both had one scoring unit in the other’s deployment zone, so we tied this objective.
Tertiary: I had gotten his least expensive unit and I’m pretty sure that one of the Nurgling units was down so we tied this objective as well.

The tactical bonuses were for destroying the opponent’s heavy support choices and being within 6 of the table center at the beginning of the game. Neither of us had gotten the other’s heavy support (I hadn’t even tried to kill his Land Raider, it was too far away for the Hulk to catch it and Scabbie was tied up dancing with the Scorpion all game). Shawn might have had the center of the table pre-Apocalyptic Explosion, but post-Explosion nobody was left that close to the center.

It was a good game. I expected a kill points mission and figured I would do well with the combination of tough units I had put in my list.

Epidemius took a hard whack during the game and lost a banner. Thank goodness for the mini-medic station. I have to hand it to someone who volunteers their time to help you repair your models mid-tournament. Thanks again!

Points Earned: 30
Total Points: 76

Game 4 - Spy Versus Spy

Deployment – Dawn of War

Primary Objective: Control Tunnel Marker Objectives (4)
Secondary: Victory Points (win by 225pts)
Tertiary: Elimination – opponents most expensive HQ

Extras:
Infantry may deploy from tunnels as reserves
Force one of opponet’s infantry to deploy from tunnel of your choice as a reserve
Turn 1 Night Fight


Chris Olsen 2250pt Imperial Guard

Company Command Squad – 4 plasma guns, 1 plasma pistol
Chimera
Sly Marbo
Veteran Squad – Demolitions, 2 melta guns, 1 flamer
Chimera
Veteran Squad – Demolitions, 2 melta guns, 1 flamer
Chimera
Veteran Squad – Demolitions, 2 melta guns, 1 flamer
Chimera
Hellhound
2 Basilisks
2 Leman Russes/ 1 Demolisher - (lascannons, heavy bolters, heavy stubbers)
1 Baneblade Command Tank


This game got off to a rocky start most likely because of the restroom incident at the start of last game. When I checked the table assignments, I was missing from the list. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I’m sure now that when Shawn went looking for me at the beginning of game three at the judges table, the assumption must have been made that I had disappeared, and I was dropped from the list.

Some confusion occurred and it looked like the problem would be rectified by me playing the ringer army. We had just begun to set up for the game, when it came to light that someone else was missing an opponent and the ringer army was replaced by Chris Olsen.

We got started a little behind schedule, but it wasn’t a big deal because of the composition and small model count of our armies. We would have plenty of time.

I chose before the game to have one of Chris’s three identical veteran squads deploy through the tunnel of my choice. He chose to have my squad of plaguebearers with icon deploy in the same manner.

I won the roll off to go first and had Chris deploy. He put out a couple units for Dawn of War and had the rest (aside from Marbo and the tunnel squad) deploy at the table edge in turn one.

In my turn one I got my secondary wave, instead of the primary. I had my plague hulk, two units of nurglings, and two units of plaguebearers arrive(one of which scattered poorly and returned to reserve). My hulk shot at something and bounced off but nothing much else happened.

In Chris’s turn two he got no reserves and so he started shooting. He had camped out a command squad and a veteran squad on one of the tunnel objectives. He sent a second veteran squad in a chimera after another objective.

His command squad dismounted and rapid fired plasma into a nearby unit of Nurglings. He didn’t roll badly, but those squads have 21 wounds and at best he would do seven that way.

The Leman Russ squadron unloaded on a plaguebearer squad that would be contesting that particular tunnel. The plaguebearer’s definitely didn’t like that demolisher cannon. I lost about half the squad in a single shot. His basilisks shots deviated poorly and only managed to hurt a couple plaguebearers. The Hellhound got three nurgling bases with its flame shot.

The baneblade opened up on my Plague Hulk. The demolisher was out of range, a lucky scatter saved me from the big gun, and my cover save stopped the one lascannon that got through.

In my second turn, Scabbiethrax, a unit of plaguebearers and both drones arrived. No icons were available, so I had to spread out to minimize danger for my units. I camped Scabbie on a tunnel mouth, hoping to force that veteran squad of his in reserve to come out straight into close combat with him in Chris’s next turn. The Plaguebearers came down in a good spot to hide out in cover, waiting for a late objective grab. The drones came down in a good spots to get his army in a crossfire.

In shooting, my drones and hulk opened up two of his chimeras, dumping out a vet squad and destroying the one his commander had unloaded from.

In assault I locked up his commander with that Nurgling unit. It would take a while, but the Nurglings would drag them down. The other Nurgling unit charges and wipes out the veteran squad who had just lost their ride. They conslidate onto the sun deck of a nearby builing.

His Turn three saw no veteran’s arrive, but Marbo popped out of thin air and unloaded his demo charge on Scabbiethrax (bounced off). Scabbie weathered everything the leman russ squadron, Basilisks, Baneblade, and two Veteran’s could give him. He lost a couple wounds, but nothing that put him in danger. The hellhound gets a few plaguebearers.

In my turn three I pick up a couple units of Plaguebearers, including Epidemius.

I repositioned a Blight Drone to snipe at his Basilisks. Picking one off due to open-topped rules. My Hulk advanced on his Leman Russ Squadron, but the Rot Cannon bounced off (it never worked, but I remain convinced that a Str 6 ordnance, rending, 5” template gun should be good).

Scabbie left the objective and wrecked a loaded chimera. Killing a couple veterans in the process.

Marbo is swarmed by nurglings. He deserved it. The Nurglings take him down and consolidate back onto the sun deck.

In turn four Chris gets his veteran squad. I have them pop out of the tunnel closest to his baneblade. He’s already contesting it with his commander’s slowly dwindling command squad and the nurglings are close so they can attack him.

He shifts fire away from Scabbiethrax, but doesn’t have goog luck with his rolls. The Russ Squadron can’t hurt the Hulk and the remaining basilisk can’t do much more than kill a couple plaguebearers. The Baneblade splits fire between some Plaguebearers and Scabbiethrax, but doesn’t accomplish much.

In my turn four I forget to roll for my reserves. Leaving the Daemon Prince hanging out in the warp.

Scabbiethrax moves to destroy an empty chimera standing between him and the Baneblade. The Plague Hulk moves into charge range of his Leman Russ squadron. The Blight Drone picks off the other Basilisk in shooting.

Scabbie eats another Chimera, but I only knock a couple guns off those Russes with the Hulk. The Nurgling squad that had been chewing on his company commander finishes him off and cpnsolidates towards an objective.

Chris is trying to salvage something in his turn five, but not much works for him. He shifts his Leman Russ squadron back and fires at my unsuccessfully at my Hulk. He’s got a small squad still contesting an objective from the ruins of a Chimera and his Hellhound is trying to do something about one of my scoring units of plaguebearers.

In my turn five, Scabbiethrax charges his Baneblade and knocks off the demolisher cannon. Epidemius, his escort squad, and a Nurgling squad charge that Veteran squad that is contesting an objective and wipe it out. My Daemon Prince auto arrives in a spot to run a little cleanup on his Hellhound.

We roll for a turn six and move forward. Things are moving quickly because Chris has lost most of his army. Scabbiethrax ends up destroying the Baneblade in the bottom of six and my Hulk destroys two out of three of the Leman Russ squadron.

Primary: I’ve got two of the tunnel entrances to his none at the end of the game.
Secondary: I’ve also gotten most of his army, while preserving most of mine so I’m ahead on victory points.
Tertiary: I got his Company Command Squad and Scabbiethrax is still alive, so I win this one as well.

Tactical Bonuses were for killing all enemy fast attack and keeping them out of your deployment zone. I fulfilled these objectives so I’m looking at max points.

Points Earned: 43
Total Points: 119

Recap:
This is the type army I thought I’d see all day, so it’s good I finally saw it by round 4 of the tournament. The Blight Drones and Hulk proved able to open up transports and neutralize his artillery. Scabbiethrax ate a vehicle each turn he was on the table and absorbed firepower, which was pretty much his job all day. Epidemius wasn’t much of a factor, but I don’t really need his abilities pumping my Plaguebearers and Nurglings if all they have to fight are guardsmen.



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2010 Gladiator in Review:

When I looked later at the final standings, it was obvious that the turd debacle I went through between rounds 3 and 4 had somehow affected where I ended up in the rankings because my points total appeared to be missing an entire game’s worth of points.

I wasn’t in contention for the top, so I figure its not that big of a deal. I finished about where I expected, somewhere in the upper half of scores, but not at the top.

I knew going in that there were too many counters to my list and that I hamstrung myself by taking a mono-nurgle theme in a tournament that didn’t reward theme or composition.

I was aided by the fact that while none of the three (non-Scabbiethrax) players I played against were dumb, all of them made the same mistake in at least one of their turns and concentrated firepower on Scabbiethrax. It’s two different things to read those stats on paper and to experience how tough he is first-hand. All three of them would have been better served to ignore him and concentrate on squishier targets in my army.

Having said that, it’s also got to be demoralizing to know that that big blob is going to destroy one of your units when he gets it in his close combat phase. Screening him with cheap troops isn’t an option because he can tank shock through them like I did in my first game when I was trying to get my mitts on his Thunderhawk. So it takes some nerve to ignore him and accept that you’re going to take your lumps.

The Tally was a big deal in games 2 and 3. Game Two was obviously weird when we had two Tally scores going and everyone was benefiting. In game three the Tally neutralized both of his Daemon Princes when Nurgling squads pulled them down for very little loss.

Overall I was satisfied with the performance. I’ve got around 10 more Plaguebearers, a couple Daemon Princes, a couple more Forgeworld pieces (Gibberjaw and Mamon), and a Ku’gaath conversion to add to the army and it’ll be complete and playable up to three or four thousand points as a cohesive Nurgle Daemon force. Then I guess I’ll have to start adding some Death Guard forces to it to expand the sickening love.

What, no pictures of the 4th game? I was looking forward to that.

Do you have to bring a Superheavy to the gladiator tournament? Against several of those lists I'd see more use out of 2250 of solid troops than bringing a superheavy.

Still though, I play CSM and the CRAPPY, FALSE, LAME ruling that the daemon lords can't be brought for CSM armies, only Daemons, means poor Zarakynel has to sit on the shelf, unable to see the field in competitive play.

Spellbound wrote:Do you have to bring a Superheavy to the gladiator tournament? Against several of those lists I'd see more use out of 2250 of solid troops than bringing a superheavy.

It's not required. This year, the top two armies didn't include anything from FW/Apoc, much less a superheavy/gargantuan creature. A lot of people find it amusing to do so, though. Given that the likelihood of winning the event is so slight, it makes for a good excuse to bring out your interesting toys.

(Turns out that the IA:Apoc 2 book takes the Extra-Greater Daemons away from everyone except C: Daemons armies; it wasn't just an arbitrary act of an uncaring INAT council. But I feel your pain!)

That's what I mean. INAT explained their reasoning - that FW said so.

I'm saying that FW ret-conning them to only work for daemons armies is complete and utter crap. "Sorry CSM, we did for a little while allow god-specific daemon-somethings in your armies. We made a mistake, back to generic for you!"

It's a load of crap. FW doesn't know how to make rules. The Tzeentch GD is tougher than An'ggrath and its abilities are really nowhere near his 999 price tag, they ruled Zarakynel basically can't cast Warp Time on herself, so it's pointless to have the power. Now they change their codex, so all of those psychic powers are useless, meaning she'll NEVER reach the potential she needs to for her cost. Replacing them with "similar" powers from the CD codex is really no consolation. Pavane is NOT Lash, nowhere near. Gaze is fairly comparable to Doom Bolt, but she really needs to be able to use both [thus needing the We Are Legion power]. Not to mention her initiative is LESS than a Keeper of Secrets and she doesn't get any grenades, so her mighty I8 becomes I1 if the enemy is in any kind of cover.

If they RE-DID the lords to match the daemons codex, giving them abilities more in line with it, I'd have less issue. Still a huge one in that CSM couldn't take them, but less in that at least CD get decent characters.

Spellbound wrote: Gaze is fairly comparable to Doom Bolt, but she really needs to be able to use both [thus needing the We Are Legion power].

Remember, if they're not psychic powers then there's prohibition on how many a gargantuan creature can use.

You don't need We Are Legion or Master of Sorcery


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Spellbound wrote:What, no pictures of the 4th game? I was looking forward to that.

I was pretty worn out and neglected to take any. That particular army wasn't particularly well painted (not much beyond primed iirc) so they wouldn't have been much to look at.

Spellbound wrote:
It's a load of crap. FW doesn't know how to make rules. The Tzeentch GD is tougher than An'ggrath and its abilities are really nowhere near his 999 price tag

You don't think so? T8 and a 3+ invul, and 9 wounds, means he's not going to die. Aangrath can kill one unit a turn, if he's lucky and they don't have invul saves. The Tzeentch daemon can take on three different units a turn (hit one with a 5" blast bolt, one with a template turn-you-to-spawn, and assault a third. On top of that, he can create new scoring units with a high degree of precision (BS6) anywhere within 48". Given the importance of objectives, that alone is worth points. You can make a list with the tzeentch daemon using only 2 5-man horror squads, and still be confident that you can hold four objectives at the end of the game... That leaves you enough points to do other things with Figure each 5-man horror squad is worth 95 points, and over the course of a game, you're probably looking at an average of 300 points in horrors hidden in his cost. Sure, sometimes, he'll show on turn 5, and you might only get that one turn's worth, but 2/3rds of the time, you've got 5 turns to make horrors. Plus whatever spawn he creates. I'm really pretty shocked that I didn't see it at all at the gladiator, because playtesting it, it was a beast.

...they ruled Zarakynel basically can't cast Warp Time on herself, so it's pointless to have the power. Now they change their codex, so all of those psychic powers are useless, meaning she'll NEVER reach the potential she needs to for her cost. Replacing them with "similar" powers from the CD codex is really no consolation. Pavane is NOT Lash, nowhere near. Gaze is fairly comparable to Doom Bolt, but she really needs to be able to use both [thus needing the We Are Legion power]. Not to mention her initiative is LESS than a Keeper of Secrets and she doesn't get any grenades, so her mighty I8 becomes I1 if the enemy is in any kind of cover.

And yet, her initiative is really not that important when she's running around with fateweaver boosting her saves, a ton of wounds and a solid toughness. She's really the bargain of the bunch, and the only one of the combat ones with game against either TH/SS guys or seer councils.

She only has 6 wounds. Fateweaver boosting her saves is fine and all, but my experience up until now has been with my Emperor's Children army, which of course doesn't include fateweaver (which is easily countered anyway by a couple psycannons. Insert a PBS as well and it's a no-brainer]. I don't mind her toughness. If anything it's a bit high for a Slaanesh daemon. I'd almost have preferred T7 with a 3+ invul. She'd take a lot more wounds, and marines could hurt her in cc, but it would seem more fluffy to me.

And her initiative is quite a factor. Anyone smart would keep anything important she wanted to charge in cover. TH/SS terminators in cover would really put the hurt on her if she charged them, and "just don't charge them" shouldn't be the kind of thing a unit of her caliber should be saying. It wouldn't be that hard to say "yeah, she has off/def just like every other slaanesh daemon in the book".

As for no need for We Are Legion, you're right I forgot about that. I was still thinking of them as psychic powers [wherein she's just as strong as every other psyker in the game. No multiple powers, no reroll, no roll 3 and take 2 lowest, and no ignore perils of the warp, like you'd think she would]. If she could add breath of chaos to her arsenal, it would help a lot. 12" move to get into position and then let that go.

As for her abilities in cc though, a question arises - does she ignore invul saves if she stomps? Does An'ggrath get extra attacks for each 6 he rolls if he stomps?

Spellbound wrote:
And her initiative is quite a factor. Anyone smart would keep anything important she wanted to charge in cover. TH/SS terminators in cover would really put the hurt on her if she charged them, and "just don't charge them" shouldn't be the kind of thing a unit of her caliber should be saying. It wouldn't be that hard to say "yeah, she has off/def just like every other slaanesh daemon in the book".

She's got lash. How hard is it to suck them out of cover?

As for her abilities in cc though, a question arises - does she ignore invul saves if she stomps? Does An'ggrath get extra attacks for each 6 he rolls if he stomps?

Yes. Stomp doesn't change the nature of the attacks, just the number.

Spellbound wrote: Pavane is NOT Lash, nowhere near.

I agree 100%. One power can be stopped by psychic hoods, runic weapons, shadow of the warp and runes of warding, while the other can not.

I fully agree about how awesome the big chicken would be in the Gladiator format.

If at Christmas I had thought "I'll build and paint a mono-tzeentch army around a daemon lord and take it to the gladiator" I would have been better served.
(as far as that goes, I'd have been better served deciding on any army I was going to build from scratch earlier than that)


As it stands now, I'll round out the Nurgle army I have and then move on to another power.

One thing I'm surprised by is that I saw Plague Marine armies in both the Gladiator and Team Tournament that didn't include Blight Drones.

If ever there was a codex that screamed "Give me battle cannon armed landspeeders as fast attack choices!", it's the Chaos Space Marine Codex.

It's not like anyone is doing much productive with those fast attack slots now. Adding in fast skimmers with awesome guns would have to improve things.

Thanks for the reports. I'm of the same mind when you said "what are the odds of getting matched up with the OTHER nurgle daemon list?"

- Blackbone

Blackbone wrote:Thanks for the reports. I'm of the same mind when you said "what are the odds of getting matched up with the OTHER nurgle daemon list?"

- Blackbone

Even better - there were three of Scabbiethrax in the tournament. The third was on an adjacent table when we played this game.

It was a bizarre cluster.