DAY 111
0 models to build. 12 models to base. 24 models to prime. Fakking finally.
Local single day tournament coming up on the 27th, however between adventures to the south this week and the beach the week after, I'll really only have enough time to get token models done across the army ... Painting score, I owe you a beer already
Speaking of actually playing with these toys, I did get half a game in the other day! But for the recap we'll have to travel back in time
DAY 109
Finally ranked the horrors I had done (so 50 of them + fillers) to see what the blocks looked like. As it turned out, kind of awesome.
Note the nurglings nestled in the second block. While I like the wink to my other army and the suggestion of infighting / Tzeentchian domination (I may end up building 15 plague bearers to use as a summoned unit
), I'll not be going forward with them after this, using a couple more
OOP horrors instead. Though perhaps it's the lack of basing / prime in the pic that leaves me wanting. (Fun part of traveling: when I get back I might have a couple days of low humidity with which to spray in!)
Anyway the boys were all gingerly put into a series of cardboard boxes, hauled out to the
FLGS and assembled en mass. This was literally the first time I'd seen them all together:
Even impartially primed as the army is, with screamers lilting around on their unglued stands or just flopping on bases, that was pretty gratifying in itself
On the game to come, I knew we wouldn't have time for a full game (had to pick the girl up from work), but really wanted to see how badly I grasped what this new army is about. As it turned out, pretty badly
Also, while future batreps will feature
BC images (+ photos?!), this is mostly going to be text with some initial photos. Sorry Dakka.
DAEMONS OF TIZZ
List was the 2.0 triple heralds list posted above!
HIGH ELVES
Loremaster - sword of might, ultra parry shield, book of hoeth
Noble -
BSB, reaver bow + potion of strength, charmed shield, eagle
Noble - starlance, dragonhelm, golden crown, eagle
18 Archers - musician+
9 Silver Helms - command
5 Reavers - bows
5 Reavers - bows
20 Phoenix Guard - razor standard, command
17 Swordmasters - command
7 Sisters
Bolt Thrower
Frost Phoenix
Eagle
MAGIC
Loremaster had all signatures. Which is still pretty awesome, particularly against my army (as Shem's becomes a more serious threat vs daemons, and Ice Shard can't quite be ignored against all my T4 flying things).
Tizz was more complicated, as is his want: General herald took Searing Doom + Glittering Robes, LT herald took Searing Doom + Enchanted Blades,
BSB herald took Glean Magic + Gateway, and the horrors took Blue Flame and Bolt of Change between them.
Rolling up daemonic gifts, the
BSB rolled Souleater but took Fencer's Blades; the General rolled Unnatural Swiftness but took Wand of Whimsy; and LT rolled Crushing Mass but took Sword of Might. In retrospect if my intent with these is to gain any defensive bonuses possible (spoiler: it pretty much is), then
ASF on both heralds (Sword of Swift Slaying for LT) would actually have been 'good' choices vs HE, at least in combat. As it was, fairly disappointing stuff but meh.
DEPLOYMENT
HE (L2R): reavers, [GAP], sisters, phoenix guard, eagle noble, eagle, bolter, archers, swordmasters,
BSB, reavers, silver helms, phoenix. After the
PG all of that was on the right half of the board, with the cav + frosty just about hugging the far edge.
DOT (L2R): screamers, grinder, screamers, horrors (blue fire), general (behind horrors), chariot, horrors (bolt) +
BSB, chariot, [GAAAAAP], big screamers, LT (behind screamers). Or if you prefer:
Power flank!
BATTLE
Turn 1
The reavers vanguarded, shortly after the body of the grinder was knocked to the ground and broke off some mostly extraneous bits - like his iron claw arm
Hence the spider legs stomping around by themselves ... Anyway, the leftmost screamers opened the game by swooping up 18" to touch their reavers and settle 1" in front, killing two with spiky bits and ensuring I'm not able to do that in future games
And the army moved up in a generally confused manner, assuming that they were largely safe from S3-4 bow fire.
Here we are after the opening magic phase settled itself. Dice were 6-3 (#AUSPICIOUS), which saw Khorne try to hit the great eagle with a brass skull but missed horribly, and then me botch the phase almost as badly. All that got through was Blue Fire onto the sisters, cooking three plus an extra from the warpflame attribute (!!), and generating an extra horror (!!). Which was pretty cool attribute action ... but it for the phase. The chariots both took looooong shots at the sisters with their flame templates but fell short, and well before all of this the
BSB's locus gave his unit S3
The elven retaliation was swift and unaccountably brutal. Magic was strong (9-10) and resulted in a few wounds to the large flight of screamers from a
2D6 Fireball, but little else ... until the arrows started flying! The remaining three reavers on the left killed the general herald with three S3 shots at close range -
WAT - and a combination of sisters + bolter + archers killed the left burning chariot, just before the elf
BSB tagged a wound on the right chariot with his reaver bow. The large screamer squad was brought to four models thanks to shooting from their reavers.
Turn 2
The daemons paused as their
BSB goosed his unit's strength down to 1, then got down to doing ... something? The left screamers charged their reaver remnant and nommed them up, for the loss of one screamer. The grinder + left horrors marched like crazy to try to skirt that obelisk and become relevant, escorted by the other small screamers, while the
BSB's horrors gently sauntered forward, keen to not ever fight the swordies if at all possible but still engage somebody. Oh, and the remaining chariot rotated to face the eagle harassing it, but clipped a tree in the process, taking two wounds from dangerous terrain (of four caused O_O). It then misfired its grapeshot, but blessedly failed to take its last wound. Buguh.
Over on the right flank, the larger screamers overflew their reavers and landed out of the
LOS of silver helms and phoenix, though sadly the slashing attak failed hard, perhaps dropping a single elf from his perfumed saddle. Meanwhile the living(ish) herald zipped across the DOT DZ back towards the bulk of the army, hoping for a strong magic phase to held him do things ... 6-6 was as strong as it could get
While actual magic was floppy (Blue Fire cooked two more sisters, leaving one to gain 6+ regen from warpflame; the chariot got Enchanted Blades, though that misfire made the extra +1 pointless), 11 bloodletters unexpectedly appeared deep in the elf lines, threatening bolter,
BSB and archer behinds!
Elves continued the good play / good dice by blocked the grinder's advance with the remaining sister (
), charging the gimpy chariot with both starlance noble and giant eagle (spoiler: it died to the lance), and dropping the second disc herald with a combination of reaver bow and magic (Shem's (dispelled), Fireball (dispelled), Spirit Leech (allowed) accounting for half of him). The archers swift reformed and shot down a handful of freeletters in the meanwhile.
Turn 3
This would be the last turn of the brief engagement, and felt quite a bit like last gasps anyway. The freeletters charged the
BSB, who fled through the silver helms to safety, and then failed to redirect into the archers. The 'central' screamers charged and gobbled up the bolt thrower for one wound in return, which paniced said archers (thus no overrun situation as hoped for if the 'letters had made it in). The rightmost screamers failed their march block test (due to the -1LD from Ice Shard Blizzard cast on them in the previous turn), so just skirted around the phoenix to no effect. And the grinder pulped the sister and reformed. And in passing, magic blew a 5, the resulting Fire Storm only landing upon the frost phoenix but failing to wound her, and the various Tizz magic directed at the eagle noble dispelled.
The elves finished off their part of the scrim by using magic to try to clean up the screamers who had devoured the bolt thrower (to no avail), but had no arrows available with which to fill squishy daemonic underbellies, as the archers and reaver bow had just rallied.
We called the game a draw since the real combats had yet to happen, but on straight points it was certainly a HE victory, thanks in no small part to those three reavers grabbing 270 points with their first volley
Needless to say I learned a lot for next time, and also confirmed that the army is a total dicefest, which is frankly why I'm playing it
- Salvage
Extremely happy with the big dude, though I should probably have taken some more shots of the build process, just so ya'll could see the bits he comes in (and the uber gaps that abound ...) Anyway, he's primed now and awaiting blue. Hell, everybody is primed, even if sadly about 10 horrors came out a bit rough, because I misjudged the humidity and oversprayed 
As to the army itself, I knew from game one that I had to make some changes. Playing with no level 4 + no scroll is brutal, though there's only so much I can do about that (someday I'll sink the points into a level 4 
Magic defense is even worse than in the last list, and casting is hardly much better, however with less invested in the magic phase I am content to slam IF through the horrors (or not, they do get +4 to cast when at full ranks) and the 
- and certainly loads of style points 
