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Friday night I got a game in with Andrew Gonyo, (target) in a match at open gaming. As much as it pains me to say this he is a great player who won conflict last month and won overall at this event as well. He's been invited to both Vegas and the nova invitational as I have and we had a great chill game.

The list I brought

HQ
3 Heralds of tzeenth in charriots- bolt breath gaze master of sorcery

Elites
3 units of 6 fiends

Troops
5 units of 7 bloodletters- 2 squads had icons
5 horrors- bolt changeling

Fast
3 units of 5 screamers

The list I would have liked to bring had another squad of bloodletters instead of the horrors, but I didn't feel like buying and building and paint another box of bloodletters.

His list from memory

HQ
CCS- 4 meltas astropath
chimera

Elites
Marbo... lol (he added this guy and demo charges to a unit to bring his GT winning 1750 IG to 1850)

Troops
3 Vet Squads- 3 meltas each, 1 squad had demos, all in chimeras
PCS- 4 meltas, al raheim
chimera
2 infantry squads with meltas
chimeras

Fast
3 Vendettas

Heavy
2 hydras (seperate squads)
1 manticore

Just a note! I had taken pictures of my first tournament game, but found it very distracting to my play as the games grew more close and intense and eventually forgot about taking pictures entirely. I do apologize.

We played the 1st mission of the tournament in our warm up game.

Mission- DoW KP's

I win the roll for first and I think I took it, it's beneficial for me to take it in dawn of war. He opts to have his whole army come in turn 1 except for al raheim who will outflank.

My Turn 1
I want 2 fiend squads, 2 bloodletter squads 1 bloodletter squad with the icon 1 screamer squad and 1 herald and I get it! There is a large piece of area terrain in the center of the table and I deep struck 1 fiend squad on each side of it and the ran the both into it to get cover. The bloodletters came up in front of the fiends to tempt him to come on near them and heavy flamer them. I had the screamers deep strike back, planning to turbo boost them based on where I needed them most. I had 1 squad of bloodletters mishap and die as well as my herald mis hap and die. Not a great start but I'm in a good position.

His Turn 1
Everything rolls on. He realizes he has too many tanks and he need to boost his vendettas 24" up the flanks to kepp his parking lot from getting too full and to try and force me to turn around to catch them. The manticore and hydra come on in a corner with 2 vet squads and the CCS. The other hydra and vet squad come in the opposite corner. I think with all his shooting and night fight he killed a bloodletter and wounded a fiend.

My Turn 2
I got 2 more bloodletters and but again 1 squad mishapped and died.... The other landed safely in front of the 2 vet squads and CCS. The horrors came in the corner as I knew it would be best to try and shoot the vendettas. A screamer squad also came in, in front of his main fire base threatening the hydra and manticore.. On to movement, my feinds each headed for their respective target corners, 1 headed for the hydra ad vet squad along with a squad of bloodletters the other headed towards the CCS and 2 vet squads with a squad of blood letters, the support of the bloodletters and screamers that deep struck in and the sceramers which boosted. Horrors missed with their bolt at the venddetta. My fiends and letters charge. In the left I wrecked the chimera and was prepared to be lit up by a vet sqyad and a hydra, but I knew that wouldnt be rnough to stop my fiend and bloodletters. On the right I multi charged 2 chimeras with the fiends and hit the CCS chimera with the bloodletters. I exploded the CCS chimera and immobilized a vet chimera and shook the other.

His Turn 2
Al raheim comes on the right side since more stuff is going on over there. He deploys along the half way point of the board and and tries to get rid of my screamers but fails. Marbo comes in on the other side hoping to sway the battle over with the hydra and vet squad vs fiends and letters in his favor. I think he took out 2 fiends with his demon charge, and another one with the hydra and 1 more with the vet squad. Leaving me with 2. Back to the right, he uses a manticore on the buched up screamer squad the deep struck and removes them all with just 1 missile. His shooting is ineffective killing a fiend or 2 and reduce the bloodletters to 4.

My Turn 3
I get a charriot to show up off the icon in a place where it can bolt a vendetta and breath of chaos it and the chimera near by. Another charriot comes up in the middle of the table. And the last screamer squad shows up, in a position where they can charge the platoon chimeras next turn My 3rd fiend squad came in off the icon near my charriot just for insurance. My fiends re charge the 2 chimeras but whiff and only weapon thestroy and stun and shake them a lot. The bloodletters charge the CCS kill 3 or 4 and get hurt. My screamers fly over the chimeras screening his manticore and hydra from my fiends and charge them both. I wreck the hydra and stun the manticore. I bolt down a vendetta with the horrors. And, a squad of 7 bloodletters multicharge al raheims chimera and an infantry chimera and wreck both of them. The fiends on the left kill marbo and the blooldetters finish the Vets and hydra.

His Turn 3
He's in a lot of trouble. His birds fly around. His ;ast mobile chimera runs 12" but cant escape my screamers that came down last turn. And alll his infantry get out. He usues his stunned tanks to screen them and they kill my screamers that flew into the manticore and hydra. He kills a few more fiends with las cannons from the vendettas. And his infantry quad and al raheims squad shoot up my bloodletters.

My Turn 4
I charge my screamers into his chimera that ran away ad wrecked it. My last squad of bloodletters charge al raheim and PCS and the infantry squd and rape them. My fiends that came in last turn jumped around and charged a vendetta and wrecked it. The fiends that were knocking on the chimeras doors finished them finally. And my bloodletters finished his CCS in combat,

Hist Turn 4
He does what he can and shoots what he can not much. He is able to screen his last infantry squad from the fiends by hiding them between a combat and impassable terrain. The manticore shoots my bloodletter squad of 3 for the KP but fails to kill it so he wastes his vendettas on it.

My Turn 5
I finish the manticore and position around.

His Turn 5
He shoots what he can, and finishes another squad for the KP.

We call it here since we want to get some food the score was 14-10 in my favor I think.

A great fun game, he made some mistakes though, but he did pretty well considering my army has never lost to mech guard and it was his worst mission. And more impressively he hasnt played since the conflict GT which was the second week of January.

I'll get to round one soon.

Well done sir

Demons killing Guard!! Heck YAH!!!

Great report. I love hearing people having success with bloodletters and screamers, they aren't seen enough between Fatecrusher and Fiend-a-geddon

Nice report Nick!

(I'm the guard player)

Nick's an excellent player and this game also really displays the difference between someone who practices and knows his army inside and out, and someone who only gets to play infrequently.

The finish of the game was indeed 14-10 with Nick winning. My key mistake in this game was reserving everything. I didn't think enough about the decision and went to it as my "standard tactic versus daemons".

The correct play was to deploy my 1HQ and 2 Troops at half board, then move towards the other side. Outflank everything I could (Vendettas and Al'Rahem) and then let the rest roll on. This way I would have been spread out all over the board.

As it was I rolled on and was immediately hemmed in. I tried to pull a few screens and managed to keep Nick at least partially on his toes, but it was too little too late. It's amazing how much of the game is played before it even starts through choices about reserving and deployment.

Edit: Also, for all you daemon players who want to beat guard. Fatecrusher isn't the build, this is. It's just too many wounds, and it's too fast to stop from charging. It's honestly the matchup I fear the most out of all of em, maybe with the exception of fast, in your face blood angels with scout bikers.

Round 1

I found myself against a good friend of mine running vulkan marines. His list was something like

HQ
Vulkan
Master of the forge

Elites
3 dreads- MM DCCW heavy flamer

Troops
2 10 man tac squad in rhinos- a bunch of meltas and combi meltas
2 5 man tac squads in rhinos- combi meltas

Fast
2 Speeders- MM HF

Heavy
3 more dreads identical to elite dreads.

Same mission as before. KP DoW

I won the roll for first but this time I gave it to him. Truth be told I should have taken it like I did previously against Andrew. But, I was out lateish Friday night, and me being the biggest light weight in the world was still a little hung over from the night before. I was in fine shape to play, but didn't give things as much thought as I should have. It did manage to possibly cost me the game in round 2 as you will see soon enough.

His Turn 1
He came in all castled up in the corner. Combat squaded the marines. Rhinos in front dreads in back. He popped smoke on his rhinos.

My Turn 1
Well I wanted my standard wave, 2 fiends 1 screamer, 1 charriot, 3 letters, 1 with icon, but I didn't get it. So I deepstruck everything fairly centrally, a squad of letters mishapped but went back into reserve and the horrors scattered 11" way too close and were pretty much doomed.

In hind sight I should have seep struck further back and waited for more fiends to arrive, and while the thought did cross my mind, I dismissed it as I wanted to play a good game rather than not.

His Turn 2
He moves around. Sets up fire pockets and slaughters my horrors. He pokes at the rest of my stuff and burns up a squad of bloodletters. He let 1 speeder move 12 into the middle of my army, commiting suicide.

My Turn 2
I get 1 charriot, 1 fiend squad, and a bloodletter squad, and 1 scremer squad. They all come off the icon which is about 10" from his front lines. I plan on having support next turn as my counter charge to his countercharge. Afet that I charge, my fiends hit 2 rhinos on the far right of the board. My bloodletters and screamers hit another 2 rhinos and a speeder on the left. This effectively bottled him into the corner. I immobilized 1 rhino with my fiends and shook vulkans rhino. I also exploded a rhino with the screamers immobilized and shook the speeder and wrecked the rhino with my letters.

His Tun 3
He drives vulkans rhino 12" forward into the heart of my army. He hits my fiends pretty hard with heavy flamers and kills 3, this pulled him out of charge range ith his dreads. He blocks his marines that combat squaded and weren't in transports and the marines that bailed out last turn with dreads. He shoots flamers and bolters and kills my screamers and some bloodletters.

My Turn 3
I get everything else but 1 bloodletter squad and 1 charriot. My fiends come off the icon again and add mroe pressure. I realize for KP sake i need to go for his demeched marines. I have my fiends use their ridiculous maneuvrability to bypass his wall and multi charge his marines. While I don't kil any squad I kill a lot of marines accross a lot of squads and stay locked up. My bloodletters wreck some more rhinos. And my bolt converge and stop vulkans ride dead in its tracks.

His Turn 4
1 Dread moves up to tie up my charriot another kills my screamers. 1 dread charges 1 squad of fiends hoping to tie them up and another charges another. This should have worked despite rending, because 5 out of 6 models were in base with marines and only 1 fiend could swing on the dread. 3 Dreads move up and support vulkan but burning a squad of bloodletters and fiends and charging in and doing a number. Vulkan also charged a chiarriot but it stayed with 1 wound left.

In combat I put all my fiends attacks on the mariens again killing them all, (3 squads total) and then hitting and running away from the dreads.

My Turn 4
I used the hit and run move to reposition my fieds to a point where they could charge vulkan his combat squad and the dreads with the support of the bloodletters. I pull it off and kill that combat squad, vulkan and weapon destry a dread as well as keep all 3 engaged.

His Turn 5
He moves his dread and stuff around and fights combat. In combat he does a number on my bloodletters. After that I hit and run away again.

My Turn 5
I charged my fiends into his mariens killing most of them. And he finishes my bloodletters and charriot. My last reserves came in way back field.

The game ended here. He killed 3 bloodletter squads 2 charriots, 1 fiend squad and 3 screamer squads. So 9 KP's. I killed Vulkan, the master of the forge (who was with one of the combat squads the fiends wrecked), 4 rhinos, 6 combat squads, and 2 speeders. So, 14 KP's.

With that I got a 24 as I got all the bonus points and secondary and tertiary objectives. And sadly he got a 0. He was by far my favorite opponent from the tournament and played a great game. His army also looked great too.

Very interesting!

I have to say that I really like your list. It struck me as very strange at first, but I think I see what you are trying to do with it. Multiple small units that all really pack a punch unless they are wiped out can be a huge problem for a a lot of armies, and I am glad to see that this list is working for you.

I am glad to see that you like using bloodletters. They are my favorite troop choice in the book, and it is fun to see them uses effectively.

My only question to you is this: Has terrain been a big factor in your games? I don't have experience with your style of list, like but it seems like focused fire could prove really problematic for you.

Just wondering.

Nice list and nice BatReps Yermom! Cool to see that this type of list works. I'm a monstrous creature fan myself and thus play different kinds of lists, but I must say you did at least warm me up to the thought of using Bloodletters...

Hopefully anticipating more batreps from this tournament. :-)

Cilithan

Not to nitpick (and I know virtually nothing about Daemons except not to charge bloodletters with Boyz), but isn't this list 1865?

I come up with the same point total too.

Good to see you doing well Yermon. Made me start demons .

Well the list I told you I was running is actually 1880, I was just to lazy to write t properly lol. I actually ran the same army except one charriot did not have breath of chaos. Sorry for the confusion but good to get that cleared early. I don't want to look like a cheater.

Moving onto round 2

Tyranids!

Mission Spearhead 5 objectives. 1 ovjective in the center of each quarter and the center of the table. Also the secondary objective was VP's. As well as the tie breaker fot the primary objective.

His list

HQ
Swarmlord
2 Guard
Tyrant- 2 devourers hive commander
1 Guard

Elites
5 Ymgarls
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard

Troops
10 gaunts
Tervigon
3 units of 8 stealers with brood lords (I think 1 unit had 6)

I believe that was everything.

I won the roll for first and decided to give it to him. The correct choice this time.

He Deployed centrally with a squad of gants in cover on his objective. He deployed the ymgarls behind his lines. And infiltrated the stealers 1 squad in each other quarter to try and make deep striking hell.

His Turn 1
He moved his swarmlord and tyrant left and moved all his infiltrated stealers right. This gave me a spot to deppstrike but right in front of his deathstars. His tervigon poops out 9 gaunts.

My Turn 1
I want 1 charriot, 2 fiends, 2 bloodletters 1 with icon, 1 horror (since they mess with hive guard well), and 1 screamer squad. And I dont get it... I deep strike in the only place thats mishap safe which is right in front of his tyrant and swarmlord. I still manage to mis hap a unit of bloodletters which he places right in front of 1 of his stealer squads. I put my screamers in the far corners to try and force him to go after them early splitting up his army. If he ignored them they would boost late game to contest objectives.

His Turn 2
He moves his ymgarls out and charges a bloodletter squad, I positioned so that a normal charge would have him going through cover, but was unable to guarantee him going through cover. He positioned well in order to fall short on his charge and avoid cover. He had his hvie guard and tyrant shoot up my fiend killing 3. And his swarm lord chage a squad of bloodletters in cover. I put a wound on swarmy and a wound on a guard. I stayed in combat with 2 letters left. His tervie poops out 11 gaunts and no doubles and his stealers finish everything that I put on the other side of the board as a distraction.

My Turn 2
Well I'm in toruble. I get a charriot and the screamer squad. The charriot comes off an icon right next to some hive guard and the tyrant and guard. I move all my charrriots to the position of the charriot that deep struck and get some nasty breaths and a bunch of bolts off and kill off the hive guard and bring a full tyrant and guard unit to just 1 wound on the tyrant. My squad of 3 fiends charged the guard of his swarm lord who was still in base with some letters. They got 4 rends and only managed 2 wounds on the guard. The bloodletters in comebat with the ymgarls died but they took 3 ymgarls with them.

His Turn 3
He moved his genestealers closer to the fights. The tyrant anhilated and hive guard multi charged 2 charriots and got 1 down to 2 wounds and the other to 4. Swarmlord finished my fiends that charged him last turn. His tervie poops out like 7 gaunts but still no doubles.

My Turn 3
I get 1 more fiend squad and the horrors. The horrors show up in the corner away from everyone and blow away the ymgarls. My fiends come in the back field. My Bloodletters charge his hive guard and tyrant. I kill the tyrant and do 1 wound to the hive guard. The charriot flies around.

His Turn 4
He has time so he uses it. Instead of running his stealers ad gaunt farm over to deal with my units he fortifies his defences and camps on 3 objectives. A wise move. His tervie poops out 12 with no doubles.... Swarmlord decided to not spnd the rest of the game playing chase the horrors and turns around towards center field. His hive guard and my letters stay locked up.

My turn 4
My reserves show up! 2 more letter squads and the fiends come in. Everything come in out of charge range of his stealers. My Fiends go to town killing gaunts. My charriot moves to the gaunts in cover and breathes on them whiffing and killing 2 not causing a morale check.

His Turn 5
15 gaunts with no doubles! Why cant my tervigons do this!? He multi charges all my letters with gaunts and the swarmlord but loses all his gaunts and he loses combat by 2 and swarmlord take a wound. I did however lose most of my bloodletters. His gaunts run to within an inch of my charriot ready to charge, but I inform him that gaunts no longer have fleet. A truely fatal mistake. He plants his tervigon on the center objective and surrounds half of it with gaunts so I cant charge it with fiends.

My Turn 5
Horrors move to hold an objective. And my charriot moves to contest an objective. 1 squad of fiends charges into a squad of stealers and kills them to contest 1 of his objectives. And 1 squad of fiends charges the gaunts. The way he had it I could have actually multicharged into the tervigon also. If I had positioned it so that moving closest to closest meant that my first fiend would be 3 gautns away from the edge of his line I could have had the fiends leap from into a multi charge. This was pointed out to me after the game however. I only charged the gaunts and then contested the objective.

The game ended here. 3 objecitives contested 1 for me and 1 for him. The tie breaker for the primary was VP's and had me by 180. This gave him the primary. The secondary was also VP's so he got the secondary. With this he achieved a masacre despite us drawing the primary. Bonus points made it so that the game ended 22-1, for what is more or less a draw won on tie breakers.

Also if I had played smarter I could have possibly killed the tervigon between 2 fiends and the over kill wounds from combat res. That would have had me win on VP's, meaning the score would have been reversed. I felt pretty crappy about this loss, but there wasn't much I could do.

Wow, that's a harsh break on the tiebreaker and secondary! Really illustrates the point Yakface always makes about having contradictory objectives between the primary and secondary; in this case they theoretically did that, but by having VPs be a tiebreaker as well as secondary, they inadvertently undercut the purpose there.

It's a tough loss, but at least you know what you could have done better. Games where you know the mistake you made are games where you know your opponent earned it, and games you can learn from.

Thanks for the reports! I know it's tougher to get/keep up the momentum and enthusiasm to do them when you eat a rough loss like that at an event. They're good reads, and I appreciate them.

Well played, Yermon! I like your list a lot, I was thinking of one similar.

Too bad on that last game, that does seem a bit harsh on the scoring.

Thanks Ragnar! It means a lot to know people actually take the time to read my reports and enjoy them.

And thank you Reece. I'm glad you like my list and think I played it well.

I don't want to put a bad impression on the event out there though. It was a great event and Mike is always welcome to taking advice. For example last year he had comp and this year he didn't due to popular demand, And truth be told this mission system was the only complaint I had about the whole thing.

I dont see from your verbal illustration how you could have multicharged his tervigon. If the tervigon is completely surrounded by gaunts, you cant "jump" over them. And you cant "pull" units when you charge either. All assault moves are made simultaneously, so if there was no gap between his gaunts giving you more than 3" (which would make him out of coherency) you couldnt multicharge......

Nice reports.

I hate when Tervigons won't roll doubles. They are just cranking out free gants, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Also the fear of big tough creatures that are around little fragile critters is the multi-charge. Whether it is the Avatar with guardians or TMCs with gants, it is an easy way to take them down.

Thanks for the reps, Yermom.

Daemons are a fascinating army to prepare against - I don't think I could ever play them with the vagaries of reserves, but soooooomething has been calling to me about them... maybe I'll play them in Fantasy or something :p


Anyway, thanks for the reps. Despite not having pics you do a great job of narrating what's going on.

Really interesting game, as I play both Daemons & Tyranids a lot - makes for some neat mental games, as I try to piece together the strategies in both players' minds. Thanks for sharing!

Always enjoy your batreps yermom, just wish you were still running your nids!

Mafty wrote:I dont see from your verbal illustration how you could have multicharged his tervigon. If the tervigon is completely surrounded by gaunts, you cant "jump" over them. And you cant "pull" units when you charge either. All assault moves are made simultaneously, so if there was no gap between his gaunts giving you more than 3" (which would make him out of coherency) you couldnt multicharge......

I think the point was it was not completely surrounded and had he positioned himself a bit better he could have chained around the gants and multi assaulted the tervigon. That was my read on it anyways.

Also not sure why you think there needs to be a 3" gap. 1" rule is ignored in an assault and fiends bases are only 40mm/1.57". Just gotta follow the rules for assault moves (2" coherency with a model already moved and must be contacting a model not already contacted if possible). Fiends have 12" charge so it can be very tricky to keep them from multi-assaulting (know from experience).

Thanks guys I really aprreciate it! I do apologize for my lack of pics and my infrequent updates but life's getting pretty hectic right now. My spring break starts next week so all of my teachers have been piling on the work. I should have round 3 up by Saturday morning and the rest by the end of the weekend.

Mafty hopefully this will be a bit of a better explanation. He tried to surround his tervigon with gants when there were only 7. Now his tervigon was on a trygon base, so he was able to cover one of the long sides of it and the 2 short sides with gants. Then he faced the covered long side at me. If I had made it so that closest to closest would have put me on one of the short sides of his base I could have wrapped around. But I just didn't think of it. Hopefully that cleared things up.

Blackmoor that was actually my plan from the start since I knew i couldnt out fight the swarmlord. But getting the wrong wave and not getting the fiends in on time shot that plan down.

Thanks Russ when people tell me things like that it really encourages me to write more reports!

Janthkin as a tyranid player I've never lost a game to demons. I don't even really have to think about it honestly. With my style I jjust surround my whole army with gaunts and walk to the objectives. I put shoot them since demons blow at shooting and I out assualt them since I will always get the charge since they have to go through a screen.

With demons it's a much tougher match where I drain myself out thinking. And truth be told my record against nids with demons is 0 1 1 so far.

Winterman I'm really thinking about taking bugs to the colonial GT in April so you might get lucky.

Round 3
Space Marines!

His list

HQ
Vulkan
Master of the forge on bike

Elites
3 iron clads in drop pods

Troops
2 10 man tactical squads in drop pods

Fast
2 speeders multi melta heavy flamer

Heavy
2 whirlwinds
1 regular dread multi melta heavy flamer

Mission was 5 objectives primary kill points secondary i think. And pitched battle deployment.

He won the roll for first and gave it to me. I took the side with more objectives.

He deployed a 10 man tactical squad with the master of the forge in a piece of area terrain. Then everything with drop pods was podding and the whirl winds speeders and regular dread were in reserves.

My Turn 1
Again I want my preffered wave 1 charriot, 2 fiends, 2 letters, 1 horror, and 1 screamer, and again I dont get it. I plop the fiends down right in front of his tactical squad with 2 squads of bloodletters close by for support. 1 bloodletter squad came in my back field and the screamers came in mid field. The charriots came in on the flank of my force to try and force the drop pods on the outside of my army as opposed to inside it. Everyone ran around.

His Turn 1
He brings in 3 iron clads. 1 comes in his deployment zone near my blooldetters. 1 comes in my deployment zone near the bloodletters in my back field. 1 come in the center near my screamers. They fire heavy flamerrs not doing too much damage. His tac squad moves up shoots pistols at my fiends and charge and wipe my fiends while I only take 2 marines with me...

My Turn 2
I get a squad of fiends which comes in off the icon in my back field and blocks my bloodletters from one of the iron clads. I think I get aother squad of letters which come up in my front lines for support. I move up the 2 squads of letters that were put up front to support the fiends. 1 unit charges and 1 unit rolls double ones and fails their charge/ I gold with 2 bloodletters. Meaning he killed 5 before I struck then I killed 4, lost by one and tied them up. My charriots flew around for rear shots at the dreads but missed. My screamers multi charged all the drop pods and 2 iron clads and killed all the drop pods and held up the iron clads.

His Turn 2
He gets both whirl winds, the empty pod, the regular dread and 1 speeder. The sppeder zooms up 12 and flames the squad of bloodletters that deep struck last turn and killed 4. The whilr winds come in touching each other and fire at my bloodletters in my back field killing like 2. The empty pod comes in the middle of nowhere contesting an objective. In combat his free iron clad charges my fiend blockaded and dies beore he swings. The screamer squad that was now just fighting a dread actually wrecked it. And the last screamer squad held up there dread. The bloodletters in combat killed 2 more marines and then died.

My turn 3
Most of my reserves come in and just chill in random places using their spped to relocate to where needed. Troops go on objectives. My screamers that are no unengaged fly 12 and wreck both whirlwinds that he left touching each other. And my fiends who are unengaged shoot upp accross the field and kill the speeder and regular dread. Another squad of letters charge the mariens and finish them. His iron clad finishes the screamers which were fighting it.

His turn 3
Vulkan comes in my backfield and rapid fires at my backfield squad of letters and kills them. The unengaged ironclad tries to get to my bloodletters but cant because his movement is blocked by my charriots. His speeder cam in and boosted.

My Turn 4
2 squads of fiends charge vulkan and his squad and after combat his squad is gone and I have lost a fiend. I move away from the ironclad with the letters. My last squad of screamers flies over and blows open the empty drop pod. And my 2 unengaged charriots shoot his sppeder and immobilize it, which means it's wrecked.

His Turn 4
He beat up my charriot and vulkan died to the fiends.

We called it here, as I was holding 4 objectives to his none and all he had left was an ironclad that would be fighting charriot all game until the fiends caught up to him.

jeez in all your reps your fiends just merk everything. if i ever expand my CSM into the CD realm, i'll be sure to include a few units.

Brutal! Fiends are the win. I thought the Ironclads would stand up better against them.

Round 4
Opponent Chaos

His list
HQ
Sorcerer- lash familliar warptime
Greater demon

Troops
2 units of 7 plauge marines- 2 meltas fist in rhino
14 Plauge marines on foot- 2 meltas fist
1 unit of regular marines with melta and champion
2 units of 14 lesser demons (plauge bearers!)

Heavy
2 Obliteraters

Every squad had personal icon I believe

A very fluffly list (except for that sorcerer! But this looks like it should be an easy game so I try to have fun with it. And my opponent did say afterwards that he expected a loss, but it was much more enjoyable than he expected

Mission was 5 objectives Spearhead

I won the roll for first and gave it to him. He chose to deep strike the oblits. Sorcerer was with the small mrin squad and all rhinos were deployed 12" from the center with the large plauge unit in the corner on an objective in cover.

His Turn 1
He moved a little and smoked everything.

My Turn 1
I want 1 charriot 2 fiends 3 letters and 1 screamer and for the first time all tournament I got it! The letters came on a flank really threatening a rhino, the fiends cam in back but having everything in their ridiculous threat range, and the screamers came in the right threatening another rhino. The charriot scattered over his rhinos right in fron of his marines in the back.

His Turn 2
All he gets is one squad of lesser demons. The come off an icon and charge a squad of letters and kill them. His rhinos all drive 6 back and he lashes a squad of letters 6 inches back. The large plauge squad shoots and charges my charriot and kills him.

Moving back 6 is about the worst thing you can do against me. And I punish him for it.

My Turn 2
I get another fiend squad and a charriot. The charriot come in behind a rhino and wrecks it. The fiends come in on the side with the screamers for support. 1 squad of bloodletters moves up and charges the plauge squad that was forced to get out because of my charriot and kills 4 or 5. 1 squad of fiends charge his lesser demons and kills them. The other moves up close behind. The screamers multicharge 2 rhinos and wreck them both. He is now de meched.

His Turn 3
He gets his obliteraters who come off an icon and burn some bloodletters. His large plauge squad charges the bloodletters that charged a small plauge squad and kills them. His last plauge squad kills the screamers that blew up their ride.

My Turn 3
I get some more stuff which comes in and chills on objectives. 12 fiends slam into the large plauge squad and kill all but 3 and hit and run away from the rest of his army. The other fiend squad charged the squad of 7 plauges that killed the screamers and killed 4.

His Turn 4
He got his lesser demons in which charge the isolated fiends squad that was engaged and killed 4 of them. My fiends finished of those plauge marines. His 5 man marine squad and sorcerer charge a charriot.

My Turn 4
The end is hear. I have a bloodletter squad charge the oblits. Then I have a unit of 6 fiends multi charge, 1 model hits the oblits, 1 hits the unit of regular mrines, 1 hit the 3 man plauge squad, and 3 hit the lesser demons. Then 6 fiends his the lesser demons also. 1 enourmous combat later I had killed all the lesser demons, done 4 wounds to the oblits, killing them, and 1 wound on the plauge mariens. And had taken 3 on my charriot. He lost combat and his marines and sorcerer run away. And his 2 plauges die.

His Turn 5
Before they run off the board he summons a greater demon which replaces his champion. Then that unit falls off the table. The greater demon charges into some fiends which were in cover, I go first and kill it.

Game ends with me getting a masacre.

After 24, 1, 24, 24 I'm tied for fourth going into round 5. Let's do some work!

Good report. Nasty, nasty stuff. Do you think that list of his could have taken your army if you (or someone else who understood your list) were piloting those CSM?

It seems like with a more aggressive shoot & assault strategy in the first turn or two he might have been able to do good damage. Or would you say he'd be better off driving 12" and trying to take your units on piecemeal? I suppose it would depend on the positions of the units, which I can't see. How close your units were supporting each other, whether a 12" drive could have gotten out of charge range of at least one unit of Fiends, etc.

Obviously moving 6" was a terrible move, splitting the difference. But I'm curious what you would see as the right move.

Thanks Ragnar! It would be good talking tactics with you on this matter.

I would have probably deployed in the same manner he did, but I would have also deployed the oblits behind the rhinos to block los instead of deepstriking.

After my first turn he had fiends deployed in the corner opposite him, bloodletters on one side, and scremers on the other.

Next it was his turn 2 he had one unit of lesser demons come in. He should have placed them as he did in a place where they could charge my bloodletters. But what I would have also done was drive 2 rhinos 12 inches and unload their contents rapid firing at 2 bloodletter squads. And using their rhinos as a shield from my fiends. Not fool proof since I could still probably muster a charge on the plauge marines, but only with a few fiends, and then he would have a nasty countercharge waiting. After the rapid firing I would have had the lesser demons multi charge and kill all the letters of course.

On the other side of the table I would have lashed a unit of fiends back and out of cover, but with 1 model still touching cover, then clumped them and hi them with 2 plasma cannons from extreme range. Hopefully this would take the fiends out of assault range and it should have killed between 2-4.

From there he would probably be in a position to win, as my retaliation would be weak, and the rest of my army would come in peacemeal, and he could dictate who he fights when even further with lash. So yes I think he could have won, but it would have taken a very god player to have pulled it off.

Thanks for the detailed response!

Yeah, that sounds like what I was kind-of picturing. Always tricky to pull off against the speed of Fiends, but possible.

I completely agree about the Oblits, too. IME I always want to start about as much on the table as possible against Daemons, so I have the numerical advantage on turns 1 and 2. I can see how he could be tempted into DS-ing the Oblits, maybe thinking that with Icons & Lash he could drop them pin-point and maximize hits with a pair of TL flamers on one of your infantry squads, likely wiping a squad of BLs or crippling a squad of Fiends if he was able to maximize hits. But this thinking is a trap in practice, because you need those guns on the table T1, and the 50/50 risk of not even getting them on T2 sucks as well.

I played against Daemons with my webway-based DE twice in my local league which just ended, and both games I put nothing or almost nothing in the webway, because I knew I was much better off having everything available for immediate use on turn 1.

Yeah reserving is a common misconception most players have about demons. It's better to cripple the army as it comes, rather than let half of our force take half of yours. We will win that fight. I'm glad I could help

Right. Daemons are point-costed to be able to function with half their army off the table. Other armies not so much.

I could see Reserving against a slow-moving Daemon army, particularly in a KP mission, particularly if your army has good move & fire capabilities and special rules which make your own Reserves more reliable. In that case you can force the daemon player to lose assault phases or spread out, in which case you gain a range advantage/are able to take him piecemeal.

But in the vast majority of cases you're just better off starting on the table and getting numeric superiority automatically on turn 1, as well as increasing the daemon player's risk of mishaps unless he wants to drop well back from you.

Yeah I completely agree. The only army that cn go full reserve on a demon army effectively is probably a biker based space marine army, or mech blood angels/eldar being that theyre so fast. Everything else is usually better off deploying.