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Game is Nids vs Daemons (mine) at 1850.
Pretty basic game type, 12 inch deployment, 5 objectives.

Here is the crux of my list:
Fateweaver None
Bloodthirster Unholy Might, botbg
5 x Bloodletters None
5 x Bloodletters None
6 x Pink Horrors Changeling, Bot
5 x Pink Horrors Bot
4 x Bloodcrushers Icon, Music, Fury
4 x Bloodcrushers Icon, Music, Fury
4 x Bloodcrushers Icon, Music, Fury
Daemon Prince Mos, Pavane, Aura, Sporific Musk
Daemon Prince Mos, Pavane, Aura

Here is the Nid List if I so remember:

CC Hive Tyrant with Guard
Dakka Hive Tyrant
2 Venomthropes
2 Groups of Hive Guard
8 Genestealers
4 Raveners
Tons of Gaunts + Many more spawning from the Tervigons
2 Tervigons
(And some other things I have probably forgotten)

I win the roll and defer to go second. Objectives are basically 3 on one edge 12” away and 2 on the other edge of the table.

Turn 1 Nids:
Nothing happens. Nids move up and run because there’s nothing to shoot at. 17 Guants spawned by one Tervigon (doubles) and 12 by the other (no doubles)

Turn 1 Daemons:
Preferred wave = Fateweaver, Bloodthirster, 3 units of Crushers, Changeling Horrors
Other wave = DPs, Bloodletters, unit of Horrors.
I roll a 2 and deploy defensively in a corner making him come to me. Both Pavanes fail and horrors manage to take out 1 Hive Guard.

Turn 2 Nids:
Tervigon spawns 14 Gaunts and rolls doubles. Genestealers outflank right where my forces are huddled. One DP shot down to 1 wound, 4 bloodletters die from Gaunt shooting, Wounded DP and other bloodletters are multi assaulted by stealers and are promplty annihilated.

Turn 2 Daemons:
Only 2 units of Bloodcrushers come in from reserve. No help here… Both DS and run. Other DP charges stealers kills 2 and takes 3 wounds. Rolls a 7 on 3D6 for hit and run. The 1 Bloodletter remaining suicide charges 14 Gaunts, kills 2.

Turn 3 Nids:
Nids marching up the table shooting at Crushers and horrors. 1 Horror survives and bloodcrushers take about 6 wounds combined. DP and stealers engage in mutually ensure destruction.

Turn 3 Daemons:
Roll for reserves; only Changeling and Bloodthirster come in……… I proclaim that I will punt Kairos across the room if he fails to come in next turn. Horrors shoot up Raveners, Crushers smack down 2 units of Gaunts.

Turn 4 Nids:
CC Tyrant obliterates Crushers by weakening them psychicly. I don’t have much on the board left at this point. Changeling’s unit assaulted. Dakka Tyrant (or Carnifex can’t remember which) falls for Changeling’s illusions and lights up his own Tervigon.

Turn 4 Daemons:
Two 1’s are promplty rolled for Fateweaver and the other Bloodcrusher unit. Ugh. Bloodthirster assaults Tervigon, 5 missed hits and 1 wound. Bloodcrushers multi-assault Gaunts, Venomthropes and Hive Guard with moderate success. Not a whole lot to do.

Turn 5 Nids:
Bloodthirster again whiffs. CC Tyrant mows down remaining bloodcrushers. Only 1 pink horror remains.

Turn 5 Daemons:
Fateweaver drops down and shoots some Gaunts. Tervigon makes Gift check. Last unit of Bloodcrushers comes in and looks pretty. Bloodthirster finally beats a Tervigon and rallies out of CC.

Roll for game end……. And it’s a 2. I lose objectives by about 4 to 1. Game went smoothly with a great opponent, no qualms at all.

I am starting to regret my choice to play Daemons. My overall record in 1v1 with them is some sort of abyssmal 3-10. I deploy aggresively, maximize fateweaver synergy (if he comes in at all) and yet I still get smacked down by basically anything other than footslogging marines (that aren’t GKs) or Necrons. I wasn’t expecting to beat Leafblower, Long Fang Spam or Mech BA but I thought I could at least beat most armies out there. This is the first time I’ve tried Pavane, I’ve always taken Bot princes before this. I’ll probably switch back after how poorly they performed this game or I might just switch back to CSM all-together.

Any criticisms or comments are greatly appreciated!

To bad

I keep hearing Daemons are not that competitive. I lost to them once with combat-heavy orks. They do that well. So many attacks at high initiative.

Tyranids may not be your best opponent.

Here in particular you got a little boned over. Fateweaver not being on the board the whole time is a tragedy when you do take him as that re-roll of failed saves is very nice. I would suggest, assuming you aren't following god-specific practices such as myself, to try and throw some Plaguebearers in there. Perhaps swap out a group of Horrors for them. The Plagues are tough to small infantry fire, and with FNP will lose only a miniscual amount with even a whole mess of shots going into them. So for this reason are good objective holders.
To further their effectiveness though, they can be especially great against 'Nids as they have poisoned weapons which will do wonders against those high T models that they can field. Giving one model a cheap +2 wounding ability rocks aswell. I can't comment on Khrone/Slaneesh models personally, but I know a buddy of mine tries to run a bunch of Khrone Daemon Princes as a way to just smash through anything. If you don't wanna try that though, Soulgrinders are a nasty machines that really only needs to fear being made immobile.

Your playing deamons. You have to acceptthe fact you are, more then any other army outthere, at the complete whim of dice rolls. Somedays its great.

Other days like today......yeah. I hada game where I couldnt get a simgle direct hit on DS out of 15-17 rolls.

DakkaDakka wrote:

Currently, the Daemon player is winning an Escalation league, and needs to play off for first or second place, but he's admitted that's its been lucky.

I will say that he knows what he's doing.

Look up Warmaster's battle reports with his deamons. He is very successful with them. When I compare your lists to his I do notices a couple of things:

1. Your troop units are too small in my oppinion, especially for assualt type troops. Deamon's hitting power does not seem to be in its troops take either the support from the horrors for the extra bolt or the durable plague bearers and I think you will do better.
2. I don;t think you have enough tank punch at range. You might want to try a couple of tzeentch heralds.
3. Flamers. The biggest force multipier in the game in my oppinion. Take at least one unit of 3.

I think a few Soul Grinders would have had great effect, I think.

Thanks for the report!

Tyranids are always a tough opponent for demons. With so little shooting and overall bad luck with the reserves rolls realistically there was little you could have done to change the outcome of this game.

Don't get down on demons, really most games with them come down to aggressiveness and luck. I think if you altered your list a bit you could be seeing much better results. Fateweaver is wonderful, but due to the randomness of the army he can't be the crutch holding the whole thing together. I run something somewhat similar to yours (with ALOT more shooting) and theres been very few games that I've ever lost with them by a significant margin -mostly when Fateweaver and the Bloodthirster don't show up till turn 4 or later...

BrPrometheus wrote:Look up Warmaster's battle reports with his deamons. He is very successful with them. When I compare your lists to his I do notices a couple of things:

1. Your troop units are too small in my oppinion, especially for assualt type troops. Deamon's hitting power does not seem to be in its troops take either the support from the horrors for the extra bolt or the durable plague bearers and I think you will do better.
2. I don;t think you have enough tank punch at range. You might want to try a couple of tzeentch heralds.
3. Flamers. The biggest force multipier in the game in my oppinion. Take at least one unit of 3.

Is he on Dakka? Could you post a link to one of his threads?

If you click on my name to the left. And then click on the link under topics started you can see all the battle report's I've done.

The last tournament I went to, with daemons, would be these ones:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/331510.page

I have quite a few stretching back a year or two.