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A friend of mine recently wanted to play an interesting game mission he had found perusing the Internet. For him it required 3 dreadknights, for myself it was however many points his total three dreadknights cost in any fashion. No force org required, but I ended up running a legal list regardless. Rules were pretty simple: Last man standing wins the game!

Here’s the link to the mission he found:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=15900040a&_requestid=859206
(I suppose we can call it that though I’m not sure if you would consider it official despite it being on GWs website, just something fun and crazy to do really)


The lists!

3x Dreadknights
- Heavy Incinerator
- Heavy Psilencer
- Nemesis Greatsword
- Personal Teleporter

Total: 885pts

Daemons

Bloodthirster
- Might
- Blessing

Herald of Slaanesh
- Musk

3x Flamers of T.
3x Flamers of T.

19 Daemonettes

10 Plaguebearers

Total: 894pts (I’m over by 9 since I asked if he wouldn’t mind me filling out my one squad of plague bearers to 10, which he didn’t mind. Not that this will matter as you’ll see very soon…)



Daemons won the roll to go first but graciously gave it to their Grey Knight enemies.
I apologize for any blurry pics, I was using a camera phone to take all these.

Turn 1:

Dreadknights stand proudly turn 1 and move into the forest, which at first turns out to be nothing, but we decided that was boring so we rolled until we got a razorwing nest, which means absolutely nothing anyway as the game was played out.
Daemons being to drift in from the warp. My primary wave is thankfully chosen by the gods of chaos to come in a reap a slight toll on the dreadknights. Minor scattering pushes a few units off course but nothing too terrible. One squad of flamers deals 2 wounds to the far left dreadknight, while the other squad deals a measly 1 wound . Daemonettes spread out since nobody likes fire, not even daemons.


Turn 2:

Greyknights jump or move and shoot into all three units. Flamers lose two models each, and the daemonettes lose roughly 5 or 6. In overwatch the flamers do some decent damage, bringing one dreadknight down to 1 wound, and the other down to 2. This is where their luck ends as they are quickly smashed into smoldering warp goo. The daemonettes fair slightly better. Having defensive grenades the dreadknight loses out on one attack and they strike back first dealing 1 wound. Hurray for rending and high initiative! The dreadknight sadly only wounds twice, but deamonettes miraculously make their 5+ saves. Slaanesh is cool like that I guess. Sadly, my friend used his dark excommunication so I lost my wonderful musk as that is a gift I believe. No hit and run for them today.
With the flamers out of the way, my friends two dreadknights consolidate towards the action.




My bloodthirster fails to come in, I guess he was busy doing something else. However my nice fat squad of 10 plague bearers shows up and lands on target. I can do nothing else so we move to assault. Daemonettes inflict two more wounds, but the dreadknight takes it in stride and slays a good 4 daemonettes.




Turn 3:

My friend jumps his dreadknight over and has both dreadknights lay into my nicely clumped plague bearer squad. I make saves like a mad man, but alas it is not enough and the entire squad is vaporized…a sad day for nurgle . My daemonettes finally finish off the dreadknight in close combat and move in for the kill on the next one.



My bloodthirster finally decides to show up and scatters dangerously close to the dreadknights (this would have been his 3rd time misshaping on me, but Khorne was merciful this day and he was outside 1in.) I run (fly?) him on top of the brush tray over the head of the dreadknight.
My daemonettes assault the other and kill it with its remaining wound.



Turn 4:

My friend teleports his dreadknight back and blasts my entire squad of daemonettes from the face of the planet. My bloodthirster found this pleasing and turned to face his opponent.






This is it... One-on-one, no-holds-barred thunder dome of death. Two beasts enter, one beast leaves… FIGHT!

My bloodthirster swoops in screaming like the raging bull that he is and strikes out with his axe, hitting twice on the flyby, but doing nothing.


Turn 5:

The dreadknight turns and jumps back unloading into the beast dealing one hit. My bloodthirster takes the hit and plummets to the ground taking 1 wound! He is none too pleased at this and lunges at the dreadknight. The dreadknight fires wildly at the greater deamon, but his unholy armor is too much and no shots go through. My bloodthirster crashes into the dreadknight and cuts him down with two strokes of his axe.




Daemons win! (by the skin of their teeth)

All in all it was a great game: quick, fun, and gave us a good narrative. The daemonettes really showed their worth once they were in close combat. I think my friend will think twice from now on from assaulting them. Sadly, they blow away like a fart on the breeze once you decide to shoot at them, but I think they came into their own if only for a couple of turns this game.

I’d have to say mvp in this game goes to the daemonettes, they really took on a full toughness dreadknight and brought it to its knees. Coolest part of the game though had to be the final boss fight between the dreadknight and my thirster. What an awesome way to end a game!

In retrospect, I should have jumped my non-locked-into-combat with the Daemonettes DKs to the back side of the plague bearers, so that I would have had two left for the the end fight, hahaha. It was a great game though; I can't wait to see what other fun lists get pitted against the GK gauntlet in the future!

Hehe that was a different kind of battle. How was it that the Plague Bearers were wiped out because of the teleporting and not the Dreadknight?

I wish I had 3 DKs :p

Well with the dreadknight it's personal teleporter is just a 30in move wherever. There is no scatter involved. As for my bearers, well they landed where they were supposed to, but due to slow and purposeful I can't run them out so two flamer templates and two psilencers later, the whole squad just couldn't take that volume of fire despite the ridiculous amount of saves I made they still got wiped.

Ah ok, I thought that it was the teleporting itself which killed the Plague Bearers.

I'm very curious when Grey Knights lose to Chaos Daemons as they're a powerful army and against Chaos Daemons they have even more advantages which, in my opinion, makes such battles quite uneven. Was the Grey Knights player unlucky or am I really mistaken when I have this opinion?

Well I think it came down to a number of factors. For one, my flamers did take off some wounds pretty easily. Being able to wound as easily as they do is great against anything. That really helped me take on the greyknights. Honestly the whole preferred enemy (daemons) didn't hurt me too much this game. it really only added a couple of extra wounds every time my friend shot at me. The other factor I think contributed to the GK loss was that my friend hasn't been able to play me as much, especially my daemons. I think assaulting my daemonettes was a bad idea on his part and comes down to him not knowing how nasty they can be in close combat. He would have been a lot better off just shooting at them from afar. As for myself I was unaware that greyknights even had a power called dark excommunication, so the gifts I gave my daemons were completely useless (i.e. the musk, and blessing for my bloodthirster). So it was a learning experience for us all I suppose.
I think next time we'll do a legit battle between grey knights and daemons just to see how it turns out. I'm a fan when battles make sense and grey knights fighting some daemons make for the best kind of battle (fluff-wise). Daemons might have a disadvantage against GKs, but they've got a good amount of powerful units in their own respect.

Yes I agree that Daemons against Grey Knights is exciting fluff-wise but I don't understand how GW could create an army which is so strong against another to a degree where it's very uneven. I want to enjoy playing this game so I can't imagine saying yes (as a Chaos Daemons player) to play against Grey Knights, I would rather play a game which is even. No fuss, just an even game.

Chaospling wrote:
Yes I agree that Daemons against Grey Knights is exciting fluff-wise but I don't understand how GW could create an army which is so strong against another to a degree where it's very uneven. I want to enjoy playing this game so I can't imagine saying yes (as a Chaos Daemons player) to play against Grey Knights, I would rather play a game which is even. No fuss, just an even game.

While it's possible for a GK player to stack the deck against a Daemon player by covering the board in Warp Quake, unless they do that it is far from a guaranteed win for GK against Daemons.

I've played against GK with my Daemons numerous times in 5th and 6th editions and I've had one draw (in my first game against them) and the rest were wins. Some of those were in local tournaments.

 undertow wrote:

Chaospling wrote:
Yes I agree that Daemons against Grey Knights is exciting fluff-wise but I don't understand how GW could create an army which is so strong against another to a degree where it's very uneven. I want to enjoy playing this game so I can't imagine saying yes (as a Chaos Daemons player) to play against Grey Knights, I would rather play a game which is even. No fuss, just an even game.

While it's possible for a GK player to stack the deck against a Daemon player by covering the board in Warp Quake, unless they do that it is far from a guaranteed win for GK against Daemons.

I've played against GK with my Daemons numerous times in 5th and 6th editions and I've had one draw (in my first game against them) and the rest were wins. Some of those were in local tournaments.

That's interesting. What did the lists look like? I've always heard about flying circus, but with what the GKs can bring to bear, I can't always see that as being successful. I like to lean towards the larger blobs of lesser daemons, which I feel won't be hurt as much by massed psicannons. At least this is my own theorizing. As I said before I haven't played my daemons too much, especially against GKs.

 WhiteWolf01 wrote:

 undertow wrote:

Chaospling wrote:
Yes I agree that Daemons against Grey Knights is exciting fluff-wise but I don't understand how GW could create an army which is so strong against another to a degree where it's very uneven. I want to enjoy playing this game so I can't imagine saying yes (as a Chaos Daemons player) to play against Grey Knights, I would rather play a game which is even. No fuss, just an even game.

While it's possible for a GK player to stack the deck against a Daemon player by covering the board in Warp Quake, unless they do that it is far from a guaranteed win for GK against Daemons.

I've played against GK with my Daemons numerous times in 5th and 6th editions and I've had one draw (in my first game against them) and the rest were wins. Some of those were in local tournaments.

That's interesting. What did the lists look like? I've always heard about flying circus, but with what the GKs can bring to bear, I can't always see that as being successful. I like to lean towards the larger blobs of lesser daemons, which I feel won't be hurt as much by massed psicannons. At least this is my own theorizing. As I said before I haven't played my daemons too much, especially against GKs.

In 5th I usually ran Fatecrusher (Fateweaver + BloodCrushers). I always include a Bloodthirster with BotBG. This is the list that got me a draw.

In 6th I generally run Fateweaver, Bloodthirster (BotBG) and Flamers and Screamers. At higher point levels (2000+ I start adding winged Princes of Tzeetch. For troops I like a large squad of Horrors (9-10) a couple small squads of Plaguebearers.

I use a Skyshield at higher points as well, though I'm trying one this weekend at our Battle Bunker's 1500 point tournament.

Nice report, but there was an error. Dark Excommunication removes rending from the Daemonettes as it is a daemonic gift. Your opponent should have targeted the Daemonettes with Dark Excommunication instead of the Herald.

Firstborn wrote:
Nice report, but there was an error. Dark Excommunication removes rending from the Daemonettes as it is a daemonic gift. Your opponent should have targeted the Daemonettes with Dark Excommunication instead of the Herald.

Dang...that's even harsher than I thought. Also I think it would have effected the herald as well since it is part of the unit, no? I'll have to look into what GK units can take that. Definitely something to avoid in the future.

 WhiteWolf01 wrote:

Firstborn wrote:
Nice report, but there was an error. Dark Excommunication removes rending from the Daemonettes as it is a daemonic gift. Your opponent should have targeted the Daemonettes with Dark Excommunication instead of the Herald.

Dang...that's even harsher than I thought. Also I think it would have effected the herald as well since it is part of the unit, no? I'll have to look into what GK units can take that. Definitely something to avoid in the future.

Yes, Dark Excommunication would have removed all rending from the Daemonettes + Herald. The only units that have it are Dreadknights, Librarians, and certain Inquisitors.
The key to defeating it, is to assault with multiple units at the same time. Not really possible\feasible in the scenario you presented here.

 WhiteWolf01 wrote:

Firstborn wrote:
Nice report, but there was an error. Dark Excommunication removes rending from the Daemonettes as it is a daemonic gift. Your opponent should have targeted the Daemonettes with Dark Excommunication instead of the Herald.

Dang...that's even harsher than I thought. Also I think it would have effected the herald as well since it is part of the unit, no? I'll have to look into what GK units can take that. Definitely something to avoid in the future.

Yes, it would have. Dark Excommunication targets whole units. Dreadknight and Coteaz have it off the shelf. Librarian can buy it, but no-one ever does unless they're tooling their army against Daemons.

Firstborn wrote:
Nice report, but there was an error. Dark Excommunication removes rending from the Daemonettes as it is a daemonic gift. Your opponent should have targeted the Daemonettes with Dark Excommunication instead of the Herald.

Dang, wish I had known that while playing in this bout, but now I know for the future!

That Bloodthirster is BADASS!!!

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:
That Bloodthirster is BADASS!!!

Thanks! It's a pretty easy conversion. Just your basic doombull and a set of Vargheist wings. Though I'm affraid he might get down graded to a demon prince assuming rumors about the new greater demons slated for January are true and whether or not their base size changes.