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 Red Corsair wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 krootman. wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Wow, I've never seen a daemon FMC-player play so passively. That could have been a tabling by the daemons.

The issue with playing that army aggressively is a lot of times you will end up on the wrong end of a tabling. With such a low model count it is very easy to loose a prince or 2 due to a failed charge, not getting the powers you need (looking at you iron arm), a failed grim roll, or a bad warpstorm table result. Plus his command squad will eat a prince a turn for breakfest.

That's true. However, you can play both aggressively and smartly as well.

The way Matt was playing - by spreading out his army to avoid the multiple assaults and to claim table quarters - John could have easily did a refused flank maneuver (or in this case, a refused "corner" maneuver) to pick off his troops 1 corner at a time with vector strikes and shooting (and possibly even assault as well). Matt's forces, at least the majority of them, would have been too far away to react in time....not to mention they had to deal with the blasted helturkey as well. Iron Arm is good, but daemons can still win even without it.

Trouble is he can only pivot 90% and bikes can easily avoid their arc and 24" move to vector, and with two priests attached to such a large bike unit they pretty much shut down the demon shooting which isn't that strong vs Bikes IMO.

This game as many in 6th was all about the initiative.

He could've and should've hit the upper-right units with all of his FMC's. Instead, he only sent 1 after them and flew the other 2 off the table on T3. I understand that he was playing rather defensively, but IMO the offense would have been better in this case. While the bikers were still far away, pick them apart piecemeal rather than to give them time to react and get close to support each other. Moreover, the RP's were in the center. There's no way there psychic defense will affect the daemons if they were to attack the troops in the corners.

Even if he doesn't vector-strike them, the presence of 3 FMC's + heldrake puts a huge amount of pressure on the opponent.

1 last thing to consider - daemon psychic powers. He's got a lost of nasty powers - Misfortune, 2x Hallucinates and 2 Psychic Shrieks. Can't use them if the DP's aren't on the table.

The initiative is important, but John played daemons well enough with his deployment to mitigate the White Scars alpha-strike. Sure he lost all his troops initially, but he was still in the game with a good chance of winning.

GoatboyBBMA wrote:First of all - friggin awesome report. Excellent camera and very good commentary. I would play more aggressive - but hey that is just me. Leaving the chances to lose on turn 2 just doens't sit well with me. But hey I failed to roll forewarning in two games on 9 and then 13 dice rolls - so I don't trust my dice haha.

I've liked MOS princes due to just the whip being useful to remove models. Not having to worry about Deny the Witch is excellent.

Be'lakor would be a great CSM DP for this list as he survives grav and other guns fairly well - and is kind of a pain in the butt with all those spells and abilities.

But hey - thanks again for the report - I didn't fast forward or anything!

Thank you so much for the great review, have been a big fan of you're blog for a long time. Actually in the 1850 list I run mos princes, I love not having to worry about deny the witch, but on the flip side not having flicker fire really sucks and I cry so hard when I roll a ten when casting powers on a mos prince :(

jy2 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 krootman. wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Wow, I've never seen a daemon FMC-player play so passively. That could have been a tabling by the daemons.

The issue with playing that army aggressively is a lot of times you will end up on the wrong end of a tabling. With such a low model count it is very easy to loose a prince or 2 due to a failed charge, not getting the powers you need (looking at you iron arm), a failed grim roll, or a bad warpstorm table result. Plus his command squad will eat a prince a turn for breakfest.

That's true. However, you can play both aggressively and smartly as well.

The way Matt was playing - by spreading out his army to avoid the multiple assaults and to claim table quarters - John could have easily did a refused flank maneuver (or in this case, a refused "corner" maneuver) to pick off his troops 1 corner at a time with vector strikes and shooting (and possibly even assault as well). Matt's forces, at least the majority of them, would have been too far away to react in time....not to mention they had to deal with the blasted helturkey as well. Iron Arm is good, but daemons can still win even without it.

Trouble is he can only pivot 90% and bikes can easily avoid their arc and 24" move to vector, and with two priests attached to such a large bike unit they pretty much shut down the demon shooting which isn't that strong vs Bikes IMO.

This game as many in 6th was all about the initiative.

He could've and should've hit the upper-right units with all of his FMC's. Instead, he only sent 1 after them and flew the other 2 off the table on T3. I understand that he was playing rather defensively, but IMO the offense would have been better in this case. While the bikers were still far away, pick them apart piecemeal rather than to give them time to react and get close to support each other. Moreover, the RP's were in the center. There's no way there psychic defense will affect the daemons if they were to attack the troops in the corners.

Even if he doesn't vector-strike them, the presence of 3 FMC's + heldrake puts a huge amount of pressure on the opponent.

1 last thing to consider - daemon psychic powers. He's got a lost of nasty powers - Misfortune, 2x Hallucinates and 2 Psychic Shrieks. Can't use them if the DP's aren't on the table.

The initiative is important, but John played daemons well enough with his deployment to mitigate the White Scars alpha-strike. Sure he lost all his troops initially, but he was still in the game with a good chance of winning.

After reading all the feed back, and talking to others who watched the battle report, the general consensus is that I was not aggressive enough on turn 4 (which after watching again I fully agree with) after turn 3 I was at a point where I could afford to loose a prince or 2 and I should have played much more aggressive on turn 4 and turn 5 as well ( however turn 5 I feel based on the board state I was presented with I had a great chance to win the game had it gone on to 6 and 7 based on my positioning on turn 5).

I really really appreciate all the constrictive criticism and all your feedback, it will no doubt help me improve as a player. It has been a blast talking tactics and list ideas with everyone.

Goatboy brought up a great point, Be'lakor . After toying with some lists I think I will be replacing the Lord of change with a keeper, lvl 2 and 2 greater gifts, and replacing the black mace prince with Be'lakor in 2k. I will test him for a few games, and maybe post another battle report in the coming weeks about it if there is interest!

For my next battle, I'm thinking of running FMC daemons with Be'lakor as well. He's a pretty intriguing character. I don't think he's broken at all, but I think he is a very good addition to any daemon army.