So, I got the news a couple of months ago that a project I had worked on was transferring to New York (Beautiful Burnout at
St. Ann's Warehouse - go see it!) and, since we'd all been talking about trying out a US tourney this year, I had a look on unseen lurker and found that the weekend I was in NYC, the SVDM tournament was happening in Media,
PA. One hire car later, and I arrived very very late on Friday night at the Quality Inn Media.
I brought my Slaanesh Daemons with me, mainly because they all fit in one case, and I was having to put this in hold luggage. Surrounded by all my clothes, I was happy to find that nothing at all got broken by Delta! Hurrah! Now, I realise this list isn't the most competitive thing in the world, but since I had to leave after the fourth game anyway, there was no chance of winning. The main thing was to bring something interesting. So I just took the same 1750 list I took to Nottingham last year, with an extra 100pts of Seekers, and some Wings on a Daemon Prince to add a bit of speed. I figured I'd need the extra speed to catch up with the hundreds of identical Space Wolf, Land Raider and Mech Guard armies I'd almost certainly be facing.
* Keeper of Secrets (Soporific Musk)
* Keeper of Secrets (Soporific Musk)
* 6 Fiends of Slaanesh (Unholy Might)
* 3 Fiends of Slaanesh (Unholy Might)
* 18 Daemonettes
* 18 Daemonettes
* 12 Daemonettes
* 6 Seekers of Slaanesh (Transfixing Gaze)
* Daemon Prince (
MoS, Pavane, Iron Hide, Soporific Musk)
* Daemon Prince (
MoS, Wings, Aura of Acquiescence, Soporific Musk)
So, I arrived at the shop on Saturday morning to find, to my shock, that the sample of armies was surprisingly diverse. Only one Space Wolves player, and only one Orks player, but tons of Dark Angels. Yes, there were the obligatory four identical Hydra-and-Vendetta Guard armies, but the tournament was surprisingly diverse.
I started...
GAME 1 - vs Doug's Plague Marines
Primary - Kill Points
Secondary - Victory Points
My first game was against Doug, who was sporting a Mechanicon fez, so I'm pretty sure he must have something to do with Mechanicon. HEY DOUG FROM MECHANICON! WHAT'S YOUR DAKKA NAME?! He was fielding a Plague Marine army with lots of Daemon support. I thought this would be a nice easy start - not only do I regularly play against Plague Marines, but my army-wide rending makes short work of their
FnP. However, it wasn't to be. Doug cunningly landed all his Daemons first, meaning I had to battle through waves of Lesser Daemons, against whom Rending was useless! My atrocious scatter rolls didn't help. On a board with no impassable terrain, even my 'safe' rolls would uniformly scatter 11" onto an enemy model. I had two lost units and all the fiends placed at the wrong corner of the board! Suffice to say, Doug won this won, both on Kill Points and Victory Points..
GAME 2 - vs Lou's Iyanden Eldars
Primary - Objectives
Secondary - Victory Points
Oh well, after a drubbing at the hands of the Plague Marines, I confidently expected to do well against Lou's incredibly modelled and painted Eldar Wraith army - the other sort of army Panic regularly fields, and so an army I have a lot of experience against. And to be fair, this one went much better. After confusing me by putting everything he had in reserve, Lou then castled the Wraiths when they came in. My army arrived very quickly, and suffered a turn or so of shooting before the mass charges began. The biggest problem I had was overkill - with Daemon units doing so well that they were out of combat again in every Eldar turn, and got whittled down by shooting. By turn five, I had a couple of Daemon squads left, facing the big Wraithguard Squad, Farseer and a Wraithlord (one squad of Daemonettes managed to eat through the other two Wraithlords in a single turn). However, the last turn was the Eldar's, and Lou managed to equalise me on objectives, which meant that the game went to Victory Points. We knew it was close, but it turned out that the Eldar had 70pts more than the Daemons - win to Eldar!
GAME 3 - vs Scooter's Chaos Marines
Primary - Objectives
Secondary - Can't remember
So, my final game of the day and I'd amassed a total of ONE battle point. And what was I up against? Khorne Berzerkers (easy) in THREE LAND RAIDERS (OH NOOOO!). Land Raiders are pretty impossible for me to kill, and so the game unfolded kinda how I expected - I turn up, assault everything NOT in a Land Raider, and then stand around for the rest of the game while the Land Raiders park on all the objectives with Berzerker troops inside them. However, I was playing against the fantastic, and very jolly, Scooter, who was 'just there for some fun' and couldn't abide the idea of Berzerkers hiding out in their tanks all game. He disembarked all the Berserkers at once and charged! So, in the name of playing Khorne properly, I finally won a game, and got full marks. Hurrah!
GAME 4 - vs Ginger's Lamenters
Primary - Table Quarters
Secondary - Centre Objective
The next day and returned, without phone camera battery, and played my fourth and last game against Gingers Lameneters. He had a force that seemed to be concentrated against Mech, with three Devastator squads tooled up with Lascannons and Missile Launchers, supported by Land Speeders and Assault Squads. He castled up in the corner, and I deployed entirely on one flank of his castle. The scatter dice were mostly with me this time, and I only lost one model to a mishap, but I underestimated both the damage the Devastators would do to my big guys, and the distance I deployed from, and spent far too much of the game running across the board. When I finally did get into combat, I showed them assault squads a thing or two, but I never made it to the Devastators. In the end, I was denied table quarters by the Land Speeders, and took the Secondary Objective instead.
SOOOO, in conclusion my Daemons didn't do too well at all, but it was a fun weekend down in Media nonetheless. Mike organised the whole thing amazingly well - there was plenty of time to complete the games, plenty of time for breaks, and everyone I played was lovely. If I'm ever in that area of the world again I'll see what's going on in
PA....
