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I played in Madison, WI at a store called The Last Square. We had a fairly competetive field with one of the players finishing sixth at last years Ard Boyz in Chicago. 16 players showed up and the armies broke down to
5 Vanilla Marines (2 were Vulcan)
3 Wolves
2 Chaos Marine
1 Mech Guard
1 Tyranid
1 Chaos Daemon
1 Tau
1 D Eldar
1 Blood Angel



My army
HQ
Skulltaker on Jug.
Herald of Tzeentch on chariot
Herald of Tzeentch on chariot
Masque

Elite
5 Crushers
5 Crushers
6 Fiends

Fast
3 x 5 Screamers

Troops
13 deamonettes
12 deamonettes
5 bloodletters
5 bloodletters
5 plaguebearers

Heavy
DP of Tzeen. shooting
DP of Tzeentch shooting
DP of Nurgle wings



First Round I draw

Marines

His List
Pedro
Grey Knight master and retinue

9 sternguard with some meltas
10 sternguard with meltas
Dred with 2 auto cannon arms

Land Raider redeemer
T. Fire cannon

3 Razor backs with 5 marines each all with fist and combi weapons on sarge.
2 las plas, 1 twin linked lascannon

2 x land speeder typhoons w/ missile launchers and multi meltas

2 empty pods from t fire cannon and dred.




Mission 1 Land grab

He deploys and has first turn. Land raider is dead center with shooting units near it. He drops two empty pods near far objectives.

I get first wave and drop skulltaker and his crushers about 16" from the land raider. Fiends a little back to support. DP of Tzeen drops and shot down a land speeder. Deamonettes land near a drop pod.

Turn 2 he gets both stern guard from reserves. One squad drops and wounds up a herald. Another drops and kills 8 deamonettes. His Retinue barrels into the Crushers. I knew it was risky depending on fighting them, but I really wanted Skulltaker to face down that grey knight master. I was trying to drop near that land raider to bait him and it worked. Pedro is with the retinue and he kills 3 Crushers but I kill a couple Grey Knights. It is now tighter than I liked but Skulltaker is unwounded.

Turn 2 bottom I unlock most reserves. Fiends and remnants of deamonettes hit one squad of stern guard and ignore the far away one since it is now about 20-24" from my nearest unit. Melee is continuing and I throw in a blood letter squad. I kill all the grey knights but the master and Pedro has a wound. He kills a bloodletter and Skulltaker has a wound. Shooting does not do much. Fiends and daemonettes kill all but 2 sternguard. Luckily they are stubborn so they dont run and I can "hide" from shooting.

Top 3 He shoots at one of my princes but only does a couple wounds. Grey Knight master and Skulltaker are finally able to swing at each other. He goes first and wounds three times. I roll my saves and .....2,...2,....3. I make all the invul saves. I swing in return and cause three possible insta kills. He fials an invul. save and dies. Pedro is alone against 4 letters and Skulltaker.

Bottom 3 Fiends and deamonettes prance across the board and thanks to consolidation make the next squad of Sternguard. Skulltaker finishes Pedro. Shooting downs another speeder. Screamers hit Land raider and wreck it. Another pack of screamers kill a dred. Shooting opens a razorback and squad is pinned.

Top 4 He shoots and kills a daemon prince. Shoots down some screamers.

Bottom 4 I finish off his sternguard. Nurgle prince kills most of the formerly pinned squad. I wreck his last two razorbacks.

Top 5 He kills more sreamers, drop pod bolters finish off the deamonettes that were with the fiends.

Bottom 5 I wreck the thunderfire cannon with a Crusher charge. Lone screamer kills one pod. Shooting from another prince kills a pod, and fiends finish off a pod.

Top 6 he has two men in each squad.... they charge for glory.

Bottom 6 I have a unit that scores on 4 objectives and his army is gone.


I score 24 and move on to face the Mech Guard player who finished sixth at last years Ard Boyz.

I love that you pitted skulltaker against that GKGM, looking forward to reading the rest of your battle reports. Damonettes are also an interesting choice, I really like them but they are much maligned as well by others.

Round 2 was against a very good Mech IG player. A pure Kill Em type scenerio, except he isnt forced to move anywhere so he can bring maximum firepower. It was going to be a race of his bullets...er flashlights and my invul. saves.

His list

HQ
Command Squad with all the goodies (astropath etc...)
Inq. w/ mystics, psy hood, psycannon.

Psyker battle squad in chimera
Calidus assassin

Company command 4 flamers in chimera
2 squads of vets w/ 3 plasma, 1 lascannon in chimeras

2 squads vets w/ 3 melta in chimeras

3 seperate vendetta gunships

each had a company of guardsmen

Demolisher with plas. sponsons and las cannon

Leman Russ w/ 3 H bolters

Manticore


He castled up in a corner and I had first turn



I get my 2ndary wave so no Fiends. I drop trying to stay away from his mystics withmy units or a Demolisher was poised to drop a lot of templates on whatever unit fell too close. Demon Prince with wings scattered backwards about 10" so it was no threat. Herald of Tzeentch scattered 8" right at him but his rolls were poor to wound and I made my 2 invul saves. I shot and blew up 2 chimeras. One had a melta team and they failed their pin check. One had the command officers. Killed his +1 to reserves and a melta guy.

His turn 1 He unloads his army at me and kills my DP of Tzeen, my herald of Tzeen, wounded a few crushers, killed my bloodletters, killed my screamers. Units up front back up a couple inches, his Inq chimera moves to just below the Demolisher

Top 2. Thanks to the -1 reserves not much comes in but I do get my other two Tzeentch shooters. i also get a squad of Screamers. He did not have quite enough firepower to hit the deamonettes so I fleet and get a good fleet roll and I hit the Russ knocking out its main gun and shaking it. I have one deamonette grab the pinned squad and luckily I stay in melee with the unit to "hide" from his firepower. I shoot but do no damage to his Vendetts with my bolts.

Bottom 2. He unloads on me again and kills off my crushers one turn away from him. He wipes the new scremer unit down to 1. He wounds my deamon prince 3 times.
He wipes out anothr unit of bloodletters. Kills the new Herald of Tzeentch. My deamonettes wipe out his one squad in melee and consolidate in the middle of his army.

Top 3. Deamonettes arive from reserve. So do crushers with Skulltaker and the fiends. I drop way from his mystics again or I would lose most my squad in the drop. Deamonettes hit three chimeras that lived from the start. 2 pens on one chimera yield 2 busted guns. 1 chimera could not shoot and it was immobilized. Russ couldnt shoot with the last pen. I was hoping for more but Ill take it. Demon prince of Tzeentch shoots a nearby chimera, wrecks it and assaults the troops inside. I only have a wound left. I kill 3 and he rols 3 6's to wound me and kill off my prince. My DP of Nurgle flies up and hits the Inquisitors chimera wrecking it.

Bottom 3
His assassin arrives, he lowers ld of Deamonettes and nurel shredders me killing 6 or 7. Shooing from the rest of the army kills my Nurgle DP. Kills 3 fiends, kills a few deamonettes, finishes off the deamonettes in his ranks.

Top 4 nothing arives (just screamers in there) Crushers run forward but are a good 14" away with the frot ranks of tanks now gone. Fiends hit Inquisitor and kill him. Deamonettes hit assassin and kill her. Screamer barrels across the board for a cover save.

Bottom 4 His shooting kills all the crushers except Skulltaker. He kills all but 1 fiend. Kills all but 1 deamonette. Things are looing grim.

Top 5 I hit his out of ammo manticore and immobilize it with a screamer. Deamonette hits a vet suad in the open with the help of the masque and broke them and ran them down. Lone fiend hits a vendetta and blew it up. Last Screamer unit arrives and I drop it in the back to save a few points.

Botom 5. He kills last demonette, last fiend, skulltaker.

Top 6 I turbo boost the screamers to a corner where they wont be bothered. Plaguebearers sit in cover in the back corner holding a table quarter. My last screamer has the option of hitting an immobilized tank or trying to hit a vendetta that moved 6". I think Im getting massacred so I go for the Vendetta and miss.

Bottom 6. He moves flat out with 2 remaining vendettas to grab table quarters. Shoots a feww long range shots at the screamers but kills 1 only. He kills my other lone screamer.

We add up the final tally and I only have 155 points alive. Thats 2345 Vp for him. We add up how much I cause and its.......1535. A difference of just 810. A major loss. Now I am kicking myself a little because if I had stayed to try and finish off the manticore, I could have earned 80 more points making it a minor loss. Oh well, no garauntee I would have wrecked the vehicle.

It was a closer fight than the score would suggest but I certainly knew it would be a loss once the 2nd unit of crushers was gone. If I could have gotten to the demolisher I could have turned the tide but I flt I gave it 100% with no major errors. I could have approached the fight differantly but that is only using hindsight, at the time I felt I was making the right decisions.

Well Im sitting now at 28 points going into the third round. The first mission saw 3 seperate tables draw, and it sounded like there were a lot of close games going on. I was optimistic I would be somewhere in the top 5 or 6 for the last round.

That would be the game I wandered in and saw... and when I asked if all the demons on the table edge were reserves... "No, they're casualties."

Ouch.

But you kept hammering away until the very end. Well done.

Yeah I had no choice but to keep hammering away. Im sorry I didnt have much time to chat as I was getting a royal flogging from Kohl. I was seeing my chances of moving on to the next round slip away, and the girlfriend was not keen on me playing on Sunday so it was all or nothing.

Glad to see you tracked down your mantis warrior I found.

Yep, I appreciate the save. I like him... my two-fisted-bolter guy. When is the third installment coming? Can't wait to hear how you snatched victory from the jaws of defeat!

Game three I knew I had to win big as I was on the third table.

I would be fighting Space Wolves,

His list

Logan
Rune Priest
T. Wolf Lord with T hammer SS.

5 Wolf Guard in Razorback (T.L. Las)
5 Wolf Guard in Razorback (T.L. Las)
10 grey hunters in rhino w/ 2 melta MOW
9 Grey Hunters in Rhino (rune priest went here)

Dred in DP

Land Raider God Hammer (Logan and his termies ride here)

4 Wolf guard in termy armour with lots of hand to hand goodies

5 Long fangs all Missile w/ sarge
5 L fangs 2 las cannon 2 missile

3 T wolf Cav 1 w/ TH SS.

He deployed in center with Raider, fangs, Priest. On one flank he had the rest of his squads and his other fangs. Turn 1 was his so his drop pod fell from the sky.

Bottom 1. I get primary and land my crushers and fiends in front of his flank with vehicles. My shooting drops a razorback.

Top 2. He moves up his Land raider and T wolves but doesnt commit. Shooting doesnt net him much. Saves are good on my Tzeentch shooters.

Bottom 2. Crushers and deamonettes smash two transports on his flank. Fiends wipe a squad out hiding behind the transports that vaporized. Screamers hit his dred and immobilize and break his claw.

Top 3 He jaws my crushers and 2 crushers roll 5's and disappear and skulltaker rolls a 6 and disappears. Logan assaults whats left and he cleans up my crushers. Grey hunters counter my deamonettes and lose a few but kill most my deamonettes. T wolf cav assault and kill one DP of Tzeentch.

Bottom 3. Fiends ignore Logan and hit T wolf Cav. Bloodletters support and the units wipe out 2 cav, and it leaves the lord and SS guy each with a wound remaining. He breaks and flees off the board and I persue. Other crushers land and put pressure on the back side of his army where it is quiet. DP of Tzeentch moves in to relieve the deamonettes.

Top 4 Logan runs towards my bloodletters but cant quite reach. Deamonettes and DP are turning the tide and I have 1 wound left on the DP 2 deamonettes left and he has 6 or so marines in there. He Jaws my next crusher unit and kills 2 more.

Bottom 4 Shooting kills priests ride. Masque walks....dances them over to my crushers. Other deamonette unit hits long fangs and butchers them. Screamers hit the land raider and immobilize it. Bloodletters make a wall around Logan as he is in terrain and will have to assault through it giving me Initiative. Fiends go relieve the DP deamonette melee. I lose the DP but wipe him out due to combat res.

Top 5 Logan assaults bloodletters and loses his entire squad. He kills 3 letters. Melee continues between crushers and grey hunters, I win he falls back, I dont catch him, he runs off the board. 5 Wolf guard assault my screamers and kill 3. Dred finaly dies to the other unit of screamers

Bottom 5 Logan finishes off my bloodletters. Deamonettes relieve screamers and kill him off.

Top 6 Logan assaults a screamer unit and kills it off.

Bottom 6 I have no reason to do anymore damage as I have max points so I dont bother to try tabling him. Dont know if it would have been possible and I didnt want to risk an awesome round of rolling on his behalf to deny me a point.

I score 24 points to his 1.

I watched as the other tables began finishing. The mech guard player stomped my brother's nids for table 1 which really bummed me out. I would have rather my brother earned the ticket than myself. But that took my brother out of the running. Table two had a major victory knocking one player below me. Table 4 had a massacre but I was ahead of both players in points.

This put me with 52 tied for 2nd. They added up total victory points for the tourney and I won by 300 total. The mech IG player won the tourney and footslogging chaos marine took third.

I was extremely happy with my deamons performance. The mech guard fight was tough but its a race of cover saves vs rolling on the pen charts. So far I am 1-1-1 against the mech IG player so we will have to have a rematch here practicing for the semifinals.

Tournament was a lot of fun and I lucked out there were so many draws in the first couple rounds to give me a shot at the top three even with a major loss.

Congrats Norbu! Looks like their'll be more practice games in your immediate future.

Norbu the Destroyer wrote: Top 2. He moves up his Land raider and T wolves but doesnt commit.

Just curious but do you agree with this decision given his army list (assuming you had been playing the wolves)?

The mech guard player stomped my brother's nids for table 1 which really bummed me out.

Sorry to hear that. But heah, he was playing on the top table, he should take a hell of alot of pride in that. What armies did he play against in the first and second round? Were they mech heavy as well?

Tournament was a lot of fun and I lucked out there were so many draws in the first couple rounds to give me a shot at the top three even with a major loss.

That is pretty cool in and of itself. From what I remember, the two times I played Ard Boyz at MM, the winners were those who were able to pull off victories in all 3 rounds. Congrats on the win.

Nice report! Daemons are fun in 40K, quite random. When things go well, they're really good...but when the dice gods frown upon you, life sucks!

@ W. Fox. He didnt commit but it was a damned if you do damned if you dont. If he would have pushed the assault he might have been overexstended and paid the price. As it was, he waited and I rolled well for reserves meaning now what ever he hit was going to have friends to finish off the Cav. and that is what happened.

Hindsight being 20/20 given the mission, I would have ignored the section of the board completely that I was in, and concentrated my forces somewhere else. The problem with that though is he was already down 3 pts to me and a lascannon heavy army means nothing to the deamons.

As for my brother he wiped out a Vulkan list first round to a fairly new player (less than 40 games experience). 2nd round he fought an old Blood Angels veteran and came up 1 VP short of a major victory. He scored exactly 750 more VP than his opponent.

The mech IG he just underestimated how deadly that firepower can be. Also, as much as people were complaining how unfair the missions were on some mech armies well at least the third mission, truth is, Mech IG in the last 2 missions dint have to do a damn thing but castle and shoot. There was no incentive for them to go get objectives or move their tanks. I think that helped the Mech IG armies a lot those last 2 missions.

Our TO ruled Doom could not affect embarked units and that would have been a help to keeping him from castling up. Certainly would not have guaranteed victory by any means but Nids need help when fighting 100+ S6 and higher shots. Especially in a pitched battle setting. Table quarters you can flank march but pitched battle is castle in the center and shoot.

Awesome Reports Norbu, it's nice to be able to see and read more than, "won two of 3, moving on" than you get a lot of times

Good job. Always glad to see daemons doing well, show the naysayers that they are still very viable.

Your second round demonstrates why I'm looking forward to the next grey knight codex. Rumor has it no more allies, meaning Imperial armies will have to deal with things without the aid of the 'dont land close' zone. Without the mystics being there, I get the feeling your battle would have been very different.

As soon as people start dropping the mystic though you'll see a Fleet Officer in every guard army to help with daemons. This can be crippling for daemons anyway. It's just combined with mystics where it becomes insane.

Fleet officer will be a problem, for anyone using reserves, but much less so than having everything get shot before you have a chance to finish touching down and spreading out. I tend to go with 3 sets of flamers in my daemon army, landing them close enough to get the flame templates off, even a couple shakens and stuns help improve survivability against a bunch of demolishers looking angrily at you. The chance to have my 5++ save troops spread out, get nearer to fateweaver or into cover, my tzeentch units to try and pop open some armor, or at least stun it into silence, and maybe have everything to close for the manticore, and dangerously close to my opponents tanks that he thinks twice about dropping the ordnance blasts on me, can really make a difference. I'll gladly take on the fleet officer in that case.