My Daemons had another tournament outing last weekend at my local game store. This was a 1500 point, 4 round event with 90 minutes per round. This was a little short for some people, but I had little trouble finishing my games. That's always an advantage to playing Daemons, plenty of time to chat with friends between rounds. No pictures once again, cause I can't seem to remember to take them. I even had my camera with me.
My list:
2 Great Unclean Ones, cloud of Flies
3 Squads of 6 Fiends of Slaanesh, unholy strength
3 Squads of 5 plaguebearers
2 Daemons Princes, mark of Nurgle, iron hide, cloud of flies, breath of chaos, and noxious touch
Game 1:
I was up against a Codex Marine list containing a librarian, 2 dreadnoughts with plasma cannons, 2 dakka predators, 2 squads of sniper scouts, 1 squad of scouts in a speeder, 2 typhoons, and 2 assault cannon razorback tactical squads. The mission was one objective each and pitched battle deployment.
My opponent gave me the first turn and placed his force in two groups, one around his objective and one facing mine. My preferred wave was the fiends, one GUO and a squad of plaguebearers. I was hoping to drop my fiends in the first wave and deal with the force around my objective since that's where all his anti-monstrous creature weapons were placed, then my Fiends would be able to maneuver to support the big guys when they came in later. I ended up with the wrong wave, so I chose to place my GUO and Princes down near the force guarding his objective. And both squads of bearers landed between my objective and my opponents force thanks to some crappy scatter rolls. His turn one consisted of him unloading everything he could into a prince and the GUO doing a couple of wounds. He managed to wipe out a squad of bearers with the other half of his force. He then assaulted the GUO with both dreadnoughts much to my surprise. I passed my invul and then killed both on the return swing. On my turn 2 I wiped out both predators and ran my remaining plaguebearers back into cover. Two squads of fiends landed near my objective. During my opponent's round two he threw some sniper fire into my monstrous creatures and advanced up the field toward my objective. Round 3, my last GUO landed and scatter 12" from where I wanted him, he was in for long walk, the last plaguebearers landed next top his objective and some more fiends arrived. I ate some scouts with my fiends and took out the librarians razorback. He rapid-fired a bit on his turn throwing some more wounds around. Most of the rest of the game was just wrap up. Me trying to kill enough stuff to prevent him from contesting. At the end of turn 5 he had just a typhoon, and the 5 scouts in a speeder left alive. I had enough guys around his objective to prevent him from getting within 3", but not enough around mine. At the end of 5 he wasn't close enough to contest. We rolled and went on to turn 6, he managed to assault the Plaguebearers around my objective with his scout to contest that one after I failed to blow up the speeder with my squad of fiends.
Result: Victory
My biggest mistake was over concentrating on the area around his objective. Two Daemon Princes and a Great Unclean one were overkill for what he had guarding the area. I should have dropped one of those monsters with the plaguebearers near my objective to draw fire away from the plaguebearers and buy me time to set up the fiends.
Game 2:
My opponent was play Dark Eldar..... Crap. I figured I was screwed as soon as I saw his list. He was running 5 venoms backed up by 3 ravagers and 2 squads of wyches in raiders. The sheer number of poison shots he can throw out make my monstrous creatures pretty useless, and the initiative 6 on the wyches means they swing before even my fiends. Also the maneuverability of his force makes my total lack of shooting rather costly. The mission didn't help much either. The goal was to have more models in the opposing deployment zone than they did. And just to add insult to injury, the board had almost no good terrain for me to hide in.
My opponent fully reserved his army and gave me the first turn. I chose my fiends for the first wave hoping that I could unmech a few units with them to rob him of some maneuverability. Sadly they ended up scattering quite a bit, and I lost one unit to mishap. Not a good start. He rolled on and wiped out the plaguebearers who came down with the fiends, shot up both squads of fiends and then charged them with the wyches. I'm going to summarize the next few turn by just saying I got clobbered. By the end of turn 5 I had 1 Daemon Prince hiding in his deployment zone and a squad of plaguebearers hiding in mine. He still had about 75% of his army. He maneuvered and killed a couple plaguebearers, and put a wound on my Prince. If it ends now, we'll have a draw. No luck. Turn 6 sees him knock me down to one plaguebearer. Woot, still hanging in there, still a draw if it ends now. Again no luck. Turn 7 he finishes off the last plaguebearer with lots of concentrated fire. The prince survives the game, but the result is a Massacre.
Result: Massacred
I'm really not sure how my army can possibly beat that sort of Dark Eldar army. They just seem to be the perfect counter to my force. Still thinking about it, but I've come up with no solutions so far.
Game 3:
This round I was up against foot guard. His list consisted of a command squad with meltaguns and astropath, deepstriking stormtroopers with meltaguns, a 40 man blob with autocannons, priest and commissar, autocannon squad, mortar squad, melta veteran in a vendetta, and Al'Rahem outflanking with 20 guardsmen. The mission was 5 objectives, but a massacre couldn't be obtained without controlling at least 4 of them. Kinda tough with my 3 5-man squads. My opponent was a cool guy and decided that wasn't how he wanted this game to play out and so placed his share as near to mine as possible. I was rather pleasantly surprised, but certainly wasn't going to complain.
My opponent chose the first turn to take advantage of the objective placement. I think he was also aiming for his outflankers to come in early, while I had less on the board so they could make a bigger difference. My preferred wave of 3 squads of fiends and 2 GUOs landed and spread out to avoid as much fire as possible. His turn two saw just stormtroopers arrive, and him put some wounds on the fiends with lots of fire. Not enough to cripple their assault capability however. His vendetta darted around and missed a lot. My turn two saw me wade into the blob with a bunch of fiends and wipe out his command squad with a GUO. My last fiends and 1 squad of bearers arrived. The other monsters advanced on his heavy weapon teams in the backfield. His turn 3 saw Al'Rahem once again fail to arrive. His vendetta darted around and missed again. He caused a few wounds to my newly arrived fiends with his heavy weapons and the combat in the center continued. My 3 saw another squad of bearers arrive. My fiends finished off the blob in the center, and my last squad of them assaulted the vendetta knocking it out of the sky. My princes finally made it to the heavy weapon teams and killed them all. On his turn 4, Al'Rahem and friends arrived on the correct flank and shot/charged into the fiends killing some. On my turn some more bearers arrived and they all ran to spread out and tag as many objectives as possible. I killed Al'Rahem's ride and a bunch more guardsmen. Turn 5 saw the last of his army get eaten by the rampaging fiends.
Result: Massacre
This was a horrible matchup for my opponent. My massive number of attacks make the blobs much less useful, and the force isn't maneuverable enough to get away from my big monsters. In the end, it was a fun game, and my opponent was a great sport. Looking forward to the next game I get in against him.
Game 4:
I was up against one of the better players in the area who was piloting his Nids. Our games are always good, so I was looking forward to this matchup. His army consisted of a flying tyrant, 3 squads of genestealers, 2 squads of termagants in pods, and 2 dakka fexes in pods. The mission was one objective each and pitched battle.
I gave him the first turn and he set up his objective on the top floor of a building and put his tyrant nearby. I placed my objective roughly opposite his and he infiltrated his genestealers to fairly thoroughly cover the area in between to limit my drop locations. During his first turn he moved his tyrant up and lost a wound by landing in terrain. My preferred drop was my 4 monstrous creatures and a squad of bearers. Once again I got the wrong half. I placed my fiends a good distance from his force to make sure I wouldn't get charged by the stealers. My 2 squads of plaguebearers I landed as close to his objective as possible and ran them into cover. His turn two saw the dakka fexes land and cripple one squad of fiends. His Tyrant and one squad of stealers advanced towards the fiends closest to his objective and the other two squads advanced to counter charge after I engaged the fexes. On my turn, my last squad of bearers arrive near my objective and one of each big monster arrived and were placed near his objective. I killed off one dakka fex and a pod with assaults and killed a couple stealers with another squad of fiends. His gaunts arrived on turn 3, one near each objective, and fired into my plaguebearers doing minimal damage. His stealers assaulted my plaguebearers doing some damage but I held. His Tyrant wounded itself again and joined the assault between the stealers and the fiends. He wiped out a squad of fiends in the midfield with combined fire from a fex and a charge from the stealers. On my turn the remaining monsters arrived, one near his objective and one near the tyrant. I killed off the stealers near the tyrant and the stealers in midfield with my remaining fiends. I also charged his tyrant with a squad of bearers to keep it where it was for the GUO to deal with, and my bearers ran up to the top floor to hunker on his objective> His gaunts next to my objective were out of synapse on his turn and moved away from my objective. The other gaunts ran towards the building his objective was in, but didn't get far enough to prevent a charge from a daemon prince next turn. His last 2 stealers moved to control my objective. Combat between the plaguebearers and the tyrant continued. On my turn I assaulted the gaunts near his objective and killed off the Tyrant with my GUO. I moved all the monsters I could towards my objective to try to kill off the last 2 stealers. I made it during turn 6, with the game ending with a victory 1-0.
Result: Victory
A rather fun game. I think my opponent underestimated how much of his force would be needed to protect his objective, and the two squads of plaguebearers were ignored for too long. As for me, I should have risked the closer drops and just tried to land my fiends in cover. I'm more than happy to get charged as long as I'm striking first. Instead I delayed my entry into the battle and allowed him to wipe out the plaguebearers on my objective without even a challenge.
Final Overview: A fun tournament, but they really need to handle missions and terrain in a better manner. Most of the tables were good, but a couple were either over or under covered. A more consistent approach would be a benefit I think. Also the missions were rather weak. 3 of the 4 battled were pitched battle deployment and having two capture and control missions is less than fun. I rather missed the inclusion of a kill point mission anywhere in the event as well. The bonus points also seemed rather poorly designed. I'll be missing the 1750 event next month but I'm looking forward to the 2k event in March. I'll probably bring out the guard for that battle.
0 comments:
Post a Comment