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I made the drive up to Minneapolis to participate in Ard Boyz this weekend. The store was Source comics and games and the store was huge. The owner tells me they are one of the top 4 comic selling stores in the country. The store had plenty of gaming miniatures and supplies. The back of the store had several gaming tables and it was a great store to visit.

My list

HQ
Skulltaker on Jugg.
Herald of Tzeen (chariot, bolt, master of Sorc.)
Herald of Tzeen (same)
Herald of Tzeen. (same)

Elite
6 Fiends
5 Crushers
6 Crushers

Fast
7 Screamers
7 Screamers

Heavy
Soul Grinder, Tounge
DP of Tzeentch that shoots
DP of Nurgle with wings that melees

Troops
12 deamonettes
12 deamonettes
5 p. bearers
5 p. bearers
5 Bloodletters

My opponent is a friend of mine who also plays in Madison. His list

Vulkan
Lysander
10 Sternguard all w/ combi meltas in pod
10 sternguard (same)
LRC
7 Termies TH SS in the LRC w/ vulkan
10 Tac marines in pod
whirlwind
2 vindis
5 scouts
5 more scouts in LSS.

He deploys his 2 vindis, whirlwind, and LRC with all the termies and Vulkan

I have first turn and get my secondary wave. I blow up a vindi with my DP of Tzeentch and wait for the pod storm to begin.

He drops both stern pods and unloads everything into my Tzeen prince and my 6 crushers. DP is killed and I lose 2 Crushers along with some having wounds. His termies unload and wipe out my bloodletters on one objective.

Top 2. A few squads trickle in, but Skulltaker waits. I assault one 5 man Sternguard unit with the DP of Nurgle. Another accompanied by Lysander are hit with the Crushers. DP kills all but one, crushers kill all but Lysander. My deamonettes hit the other 10 Stern guard and drive them off the field. P bearers hit a scout squad and drive them off as well. Screamers hit the Land Raider and immobilize it. Shotting stuns his vindi.

Bottom 2 His termies assault and kill my DP of Nurgle, he hasnt lost a termy yet. Tac squad comes down on an onjective. He shoots all but 2 Screamers dead to save the LRC but with 2 remaining it looks grim for the tank.

Top 3 Crushers arrive. Heralds shoot and destroy a few pods. SG knocks off Vindi cannon with shooting. Fiends hit his termies and he rolls 4 "1's" out of 10 saves and fails 3 out of the 6 invul saves. The termies are gone and this fight is pretty much over. Screamers blow up LRC

Bottom 3 Vulkan and a tac squad kill all but one fiend. Lysander dies.

Top 4 I send a deamonette unit into Vulkan and his squad and kill most of the squad, Skulltaker and his crew ruin the vindi.

Bottom 4 He shreds some more deamonettes but only Vulkan is alive. LSS arrives.

Top 5 I blow up storm with heralds. Crushers hit vulkan and kill him.

Bottom 5 He assaults a herald with his scouts and is actually defeated, (he had some bad dice for some key melees and cover saves most of the game).

Top 6 SG runs down the squad, Screamers eat the whirlwind. P bearers or deamonettes on all objectives.

I score a massacre with 24 points and on to the second round.

Vulcan and lysander, wow thats a ton of points, sounds like a good game, well done

Well played! Nice to hear about Daemons winning for once..

Lysander + Vulcan? WTF

Round two the tourney organizer decided to switch things around and had us play the third scenerio. It didnt bother me much even though it would be the weakest of the missions for my army. My opponent showed up and unfortunately for me it was an extrmely low KP ork army.

His list

HQ
Warboss on foot with Klaw
Warboss on Bike with Klaw
9 kitted out Nobs on Bikes (6 had Klaws) 1 was painboy
30 shoota boyz (3 big shootas Nob with Klaw)
30 Shoota Boyz (same)
30 Shoota Boyz (same)
30 Ard Boyz (Choppas, Nob w/ Klaw)
30 Gretchin
12 Lootas
14 Kommandos with Snikky and burnas

10 KP total, lots of bullets, not what my deamons wanted to see.

He deploys one boyz mob in the center and spreads it out. He also has the Nob bikers in the center spread out.

Top 1. He holds Snikrot, 1 boyz squad, and the gretchin in reserve. The rest of his army pours on from the short edge and the long edge taking up the majority of the table.

Bottom 1. I get primary wave. He has no vehicles so my shoting does nothing. My crushers land in the corner away from the bikers because I cant afford to lose the icon or my army will have no where to land. Now I just sit and wait for his move.

Top 2 Bikers shoot/assault one of my heralds and kill it. One boyz mob closes on my deamonettes, shoots and destroys the entire unit to shooting. No reserves arrive. Hes up 2-0

Bottom 2 The fiends could charge a shoota boyz squad or his bikers, I chicken out and hit the boyz. I kill all but 11 due to combat res. My crushers along with a screamer pack hits the boyz who downed my deamonettes and wipe them out wholesale. Soulgrinder fleets well and hits the lootas, breaks em and catches them wiping out the squad. 2-2

Top 3, a few reserves of his arrive. Snikrot comes in and hits a herald, he kills it. Nobz hit my fiends and I swing on the boyz to wipe out the squad and whiff killing 4 or 5. Bikers wipe them out. He waagghhs to hit my crushers with the Ard Boyz but he rolls a "2" so he is about 2" shy. Gretchin come in and shoot up a screamer squad. 4-2 him

Bottom 3, my other crushers arrive along with most my reserves. DP of Tzeentch assaults snikrots group and wins the melee breaking the unit. Screamer pack that is fresh flies over to hit the large gretchin unit. The gretchins lose 9 and kill 2. He fails morale and falls off the table. Crushers and more deamonettes hit the ard boyz and after combat res he is left with 5 or 6 orks.

Top 4 Bikers come and Kill my Tzeentch deamon prince. Boyz mob with Warboss arrive and kill my other screamer pack. His unit the fiends ripped up shot up a lone P bearer and wipe out the squad. Crushers and deamonettes finish off ard boyz.

Bottom 4 Soul grinder hits small ork squad and wipes it out. Crushers and deamonettes hit the last shoota boy unit and hurt it but I am down a couple crushers at this point. I move the rest of my army towards the Nob bikers as they are the only unit left and the have two wounds on 2 seperate bikers.

Top 5 It is 6-8 (his favor, but he is about to lose 2 more) and he decides to go after my 6 man crusher unit. I wound a few bikers, he cuts me down to two crushers, one of whom is wounded. I wipe out his Warboss and Boyz. I lucked out that I kept him locked or it would have given him the advantage in KP and he could have driven away from me.

Bottom 5. I want to hold the objective with my deamonettes but Ill need everything in my army to wipe out those bikers. Everything on the table is running and moving as fast as it can to pile on the Nob bikers. My DP of Nurgle and 5 bloodletters crash into the melee and wound all but two of the nobs. One of the Nobs took a second wound so it was removed, not a PK ork though. He puts most of his attacks on the crushers and wipes them out. The DP takes a wound after making an invul. and I lost 2 bloodletters.

Top 6 He continues to chomp on me but I am able to put the DP on the warboss and kill it. He kills all my bloodletters and I have 1 wound left on my prince. I dropped another 2 bikers and all of them have wounds now. The DP survives so he stays in place.

Bottom of 6. He is up 10-9 and about to kill my DP. If I dont wipe out the bikers I lose. My deamonettes (six of them) pile into the melee. My soulgrinder is able to make the melee. Skulltaker and his 3 crushers make it in, but not Skulltaker. I roll and after all my attacks, he has one Nob biker remaining with a wound. He swings and kills my DP. He rolls morale and fails, the deamonettes roll to catch him and succeed.

It was a Massacre, but barely. My opponent tells me this is his 50th game of 40k ever and he has been playing for several editions. I was very impressed with how well he played. I thought he made the right move in almost every situation. He was caught with his Nob bikers though, if he just ran away it would have been a draw, and if he engaged he risked losing the unit. He went for the win and I respect that. A few lucky rolls in my favor made it a game for me. If he had won a combat and gotten away, I would have lost.

I had 2 massaacres going into the last round and I was going to play............Mech guard...........great I hate this army more than anything but I figured I would fight it at least once this weekend so why not the sink or swim situation for table 1.

Looking forward to seeing the last Bat Rep here. I liek tht you are using Daemonettes and they seem to be pretty effective for you. Do they escape a lot of shooting because of the threats you lay on the table ahead of them?

Also, do you have 5 Bloodletters or 15. 5 seems like too few!

The deamonettes escape shooting due to other threats, and that they can sit away from the shooting and fleet up to what they need to hit.

5 bloodletter is what I run. I like the p bearers for guarding objectives but if it is sit on the objective and go to ground from long range las cannons, a bloodletter is just as good as a p bearer. The bloodletters can deter the enemy from meleeing me off the objective, and if someone drives a tank on to an objective at S5 at least I can hurt the thing.

Also in KP missions pb's are all but useless. Bloodletters have some teeth.

Norbu the Destroyer wrote:I made the drive up to Minneapolis to participate in Ard Boyz this weekend. The store was Source comics and games and the store was huge. The owner tells me they are one of the top 4 comic selling stores in the country. The store had plenty of gaming miniatures and supplies. The back of the store had several gaming tables and it was a great store to visit.

Yep been there myself when I visited my buddy Lars up in the cities last year. It is pretty intense. Hmmm...Hans....Lars, man I know some guys with funky names

Well funky names asside, although one of the employees there was also named Hans, I figured the mech Guard fight would be the toughest and .....it was.

Luckily it was the dropping objectives so I would have a chance.

His list
HQ
Command squad with master of Ord., officer of the fleet, astropath, some more goodies.

3 squads of 30 some troops all with command squads and special weapons.

3 seperate Vendettas (does anyone even have Vlakyries anymore)

3 Basilisks as a squadron

1 Squadron of Russes with 2 standard Russes and one executioner

1 squadron of Russ' with 2 punishers and a standard Russ

He deployed the 6 Russ in the center with the Vendettas on one flank. The other flank had a giant immpassible wall with the 3 basilisks behind. He had his infnatry in thre seperate areas split into squads.

He takes turn one and drops both objectives in his deployment zone.

I am weary of the punishers as they are bad news for the deamons. I get primary wave and land the crushers front and center. My deamonettes on his flank to threaten a squad of troops. My fiends and screamers behind my crushers to hopefully get to him and start knocking out vehicles. Heralds shoot at vendettas and do nothing. I drop one objective in my deployment zone and one dead center that scatters a few inches towards me.

Top 2 He unloads everything into my army, killing all but one crusher and Skulltaker. I have no icon in my crusher squad anymore. Each have a wound. Fiends are shot down to four remaining. All screamers are dead. One chariot is detroyed.

Bottom 2 I get some p bearers and bloodletters, nothing else. Crushers hit a 25 man squad and actually wipe them out due to combat res. My soulgrinder fleets well and grabs another 25 man squad and he passes morale keeping us locked. Fiends fleet and assault the three russ' killing the standards and knocking the turret out on the executioner. Deamonettes break another 25 man squad.

Top 3 He commands his retreating unit back into the fight. His shooting drops my remaining fiends and finishes off my crushers. Also he has me down to about 6 demaonettes.

Bottom 3 Screamers DP of nurgle and Crushers arrive. I land the crushers in a corner so they arent as threatening hopping to land the deamonettes off the icon the following turn to knock out the basilisks. I shoot up some guardsmen in the open and knock a gun off a vendetta. Deamonettes kill his re-rallied squad as well as their command squad. Soul grinder busts loose after killing off his men and grabs another scoring unit, he passes morale on this unit and we stay locked again.

Top 4 His shooting Kills my herald and 3 of my crushers. He wounds my deamon prince 2 times and knocks out 4 of the screamers.

Bottom 4. DP of Nurgle jumps into melee with a 5 man squad and destroys it. S Grinder finishes off a squad but now is sitting in the open. My herlad shoots a small platoon dead. He now has only 2 scoring units left. Deamonettes arrive and land off the icon.

Top 5 He wounds up my crushers some more but decides to start clearing my objectives. He kills all but 1 p bearer sitting on one of my objectives, he shoots my DP of Nurgle dead before it wreack more havoc. He finishes off my screamers. He guns down a few of the newly arrived deamonettes. Melta gun kills the soul grinder

Bottom 5 Crushers hit bassilisks and kill all three causing explosions. DP of Tzeentch and my herald kill a squad in the open givng him just one scoring unit. Deamonettes move 12" away from an objective. I have P bearers by another (the 2 pointer) and 1 p bearer holding another.

Top 6 He kills all of my deamonettes with the punishers. His vendettas zap my lone p bearer. His command squad actually finishes off the crushers.

Bottom 6. I have a wounded herald, a DP of Tzeentch, 3 p bearers on the 2 point objective and a squad of bloodletters nearby for charging in case tanks rolled up. I do nothing but thank my lucky stars that a few units are alive and holding the 2 point objective. He still has 3 vendettas, a Russ with just a h bolter on the hull, the punisher squad completely in tact, his command squad, and a five man scoring unit. Clearly his army held the field but I had the objectives.


Minor win with 2 bonus points putting me in 1st overall.

I cant say I outplayed the Mech IG, I just survived the hail of bullets and when the game was over he hadnt killed ALL of my uits. My strategy of killing off his troops paid off, but it sure felt like the wrong thing to do while he was shooting me up with all those Russ'. In the end, when I had no offensive threat he had only the one scoring unit. He couldnt just go contes, because he needed the fire power to kill all of my units on the far away objectives. I was lucky.


Overall it was a fun tournament with three good opponents. I never played TFG and my brother was there making for an enjoyable day. Unfortunately my brother finished 5th and will not be joining me at the bunker. I really only felt prepared because I get to play so many quality opponents in the Madison area. Without the help of everyone that I game with coming up with tough lists to smash my deamons I would have not been able to come with anything to get through the 2 rounds of ard boyz.

Also, I like to make the trip down to the AWC series when I can and those guys are just awesome to game with. I have learned a lot from them as well. A friend of mine who won our local Ard Boyz took 1st in the Green Bay, WI regional so it will be good to see him at Chicago as well.

Dont know what I will be taking to finals but I would like to stick with deamons. I think too many people will be playing Mech Guard and that is one army the deamons do not do well against at 2500. I guess Ill see how I feel come July.

On a side note I am toying with the idea of taking the army I recieve as a prize, paint the army, and hold a tournament here at my local store and give the army away as the top prize. I would like to make it about a $50 entry fee with proceeds going to the store for a few more prizes as well. The invite to play would go out to anyone in the country who would like to pay for the chance to win a 2500 point painted army, curious what people think.

I'm in.

Congratts on the win.

So for your home brew tournie, I suppose you wouldn't allow my bikes "count as" TWC -- even if I did mount them on the 60mm bases .

Cool story, bro!

I was going to wait until Thursday to hear it in person but I couldn't resist. Great job!

It would be nice to have a little more detail. Which models were in your first wave?

Doing MadTown and The Last Square proud...good to know those practice massacres, major, and minor, helped ya out

Thanks for the kind words guys.


As far as details on waves

I believe in the theory for the deamon army that overloading a half can work, except in three games, one of those games you will get the unweighted half. If you have bad reserve rolls that game it is nearly impossible to win.

What I do is weight the halves equally to take some of the randomness out of the army.

Waves were

PRIMARY SECONDARY
5 P bearers 5 P bearers
12 deamonettes 12 deamonettes
7 Screamers 7 Screamers
5 Crushers + Skull Taker 6 Crushers
1 Herald of Tzeen 1 Herald of Tzeen
1 Herald of Tzeen 5 Bloodletters
6 Fiends 1 DP of Nurgle
1 SG 1 DP of Tzeen


The waves are nearly identical as far as the units task with the exception of the herald to 5 bloodletters. Odds are I will get my primary so it is a touch better (skulltaker, 2 heralds) but if I get 2ndry not a big deal, the army plays the same. Its a strategy that has served me well with the deamons.

Dont get me wrong, overloading your primary can also work wonders. I was talking to Redbeard at Adepticon and he was explaining that a front loaded deamon army can match nearly every army in the game, the problem comes when you get 2ndry. I try to minimize the risk of having the wrong wave.

Norbu the Destroyer wrote:

My opponent tells me this is his 50th game of 40k ever and he has been playing for several editions. I was very impressed with how well he played. I thought he made the right move in almost every situation. He was caught with his Nob bikers though, if he just ran away it would have been a draw, and if he engaged he risked losing the unit. He went for the win and I respect that. A few lucky rolls in my favor made it a game for me. If he had won a combat and gotten away, I would have lost.

Thanks for the props, but actually I've played less than 25 games. Looking back at the whole tournament that was the funnest game I played that day. So thanks again and congrats on the victory.

What army are you going to score with the credit?

Rick

Norbu the Destroyer wrote:As far as details on waves

I believe in the theory for the deamon army that overloading a half can work, except in three games, one of those games you will get the unweighted half. If you have bad reserve rolls that game it is nearly impossible to win.

What I do is weight the halves equally to take some of the randomness out of the army.

Sounds unusually reasonable. Thanks for the extra info, and congrats!

Wow, great battle report man! Congrats on the win!!

Im hoping to snag Blood Angels then hold a tournament for people to win the army after I paint it.

Thanks for the battle report!

Great report Norbu, you dun us proud...

nice going

Very good report. I am glad to see a Daemon army win.

I've never heard of anybody using a Daemons army in a competitions like 'Ard Boys before though.

Most people tell me they're not good for tournaments and such.

grayspark wrote:I've never heard of anybody using a Daemons army in a competitions like 'Ard Boys before though.

Most people tell me they're not good for tournaments and such.

Daemons can be used competitively its just rather hard to do due to their random nature. Daemons really require a lot of planning as opposed to other armies. Having everything enter via deepstrike can mean you get your preferred wave and everything comes turn 2, in this aspect daemons can really bring the pain, but sometimes you dont get your preferred wave and all your deepstrikes come turn 4, then its a rough uphill battle.

Really just more random than competitive players prefer.

Ah yes, but if you read Norbu's post, he doesn't have a preferred wave, they are both equal... so no matter which wave he gets it's a known quantity.

Gitsplitta wrote:Ah yes, but if you read Norbu's post, he doesn't have a preferred wave, they are both equal... so no matter which wave he gets it's a known quantity.

Which is a good tactic to use to counter daemons and make an overall balanced list.