FMC Daemons: 1850 Tournament Report

Yes, I have been pretty much off the grid for the start of 2014 (happy new year everyone :D). Unfortunately, I can't really promise a change to that. Finishing my bachelor's degree and all that. This is however, my 200th post.

So, last weekend was another 1850 tournament held by NjT in Espoo. It was a nice venue, the tourney fee included food (which received some critic for being "basic food" but I really liked it) and overall it was pretty well handled in my opinion. I played almost the exact same list I've been playing up until now:

Fatey
LoC, ml3, 2x greater rewards
11 Horrors, 1 extra, champ
10 Daemonettes, champ
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, ml3, wings, armour, greater and exalted rewards
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, ml3, wings, armour, greater and exalted rewards
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, ml3, wings, armour, 2x greater rewards

Game 1

Game one was against one of the ex-captains of the Finnish ETC team, Pekka. He was running pseudo Daemons (csm/dae) with a csm prince, fatey, grimoire prince, 2x cultists, 2x daemonettes, 2x drakes (one hades) and screamers. Oh, he also had a bastion with comms. The missions were all BAO, this was Big Guns, Relic with Hammer and Anvil. 

Pekka made me go first and the start  of the game was pretty uneventful. Pekka got outflank for his warlord and managed to keep him off until t4. That really restricted me and his screamers did a good job of preventing me from getting the relic. I went aggressive with fatey t4 despite not having the grimoire, and got punished. Then I vector struck some helldrakes only to realize that now I couldn't fire 2 witchfires at his grimoire prince (which I was looking to kill). Silly mistakes on my part but Pekka also forgot GtG when I took FB from his nettes t2 and left a gap for my DP to run and contest the last objective t7. I won Big Guns because of killing the grimoire prince and otherwise the secondaries were a draw. 14-6. I caught a huge break.

Game 2

My opponent was playing a DE/ELD list. It wasn't really optimal and the game was pretty much over before it began. He also wanted to go first because he feared I would fly up and smash his bastion holding scourges inside. Not much to comment on in this game. I don't want to sound arrogant but he was playing with a borrowed army that he wasn't as familiar with, which wasn't on the same level as my own. I waited until t4 and secured the missions (purge and scouring). He managed to keep linebreaker, I had all the secondaries. 19-1.

Game 3

I was up against Roni. He had NEC/TAU. D-lord with wraiths, overlord and haywire-tek, 3 scythes with warriors, 2 anhi barges, buff commander, riptide, 15 sniper kroots and 2 broadsides with missile drones. Mission was big guns, relic, vanguard strike. 

I got to go second but Roni put 2 wounds to my grimoire prince with his ion accelerator. T2 the grimoire came back behind some losblocking terrain with his buddies, but the riptide ripplefired with the buff commander scoring 7/8 hits and killing him off. Not a great start. The glyph prince died to one scythe and an anhibarge on t5. Overall I managed to limit what he could shoot and he left one objective with just a barge to hold it. Despite being a scoring unit, it still isn't a denial unit, so my Daemon prince snatched it from him earning me a 13-7 victory.

Game 4

Jukka is a veteran CSM player. He's been around the block for all the ETCs. This time he had CSM/NEC. sorceror with spawns, 3 cultist squads, 2 baledrakes, 3 oblits, d-lord with wraiths, 2 warrior scythes and an anhibarge. Mission was Scouring, Purge, Hammer and Anvil. 

Jukka made me go first and I deployed aggressively. The tourney used the actual rulebook scouring, so ofcourse Jukka got the 4-pointer in the back of his deployment zone :/. He deployed the wraiths and spawn behind a fortress of redemption (it was just as terrain) and his barge on the opposite flank. I pushed 4 MCs up next to his spawns and fatey towards the barge. His spawns and wraiths fell back, realizing slay the warlord and first blood might be right around the corner, but the barge decided to move up and snapshot a prince. I gambled with fatey and moved up to fire rear shots while the other guys flew off. Destroyed the barge and luckily the wraiths failed their 8" charge to fatey after he'd been grounded by cultists coming from reserves.

The crucial moment came my t5 when his last scythe with 1 hp left denied 3 times in a row. The warriors zoomed up to harass my horrors and eventually take their objective, earning Jukka scouring. I won Purge and got slay the warlord off the warpstorm table. Both had linebreaker. 11-9.

Game 5

Last round was against the same guy as in the last tourney report I did here, Allu. He had the exact same Taudar list. Buff commander, 2 riptides (one skyfire burst, one ion), 2x kroots (one big), broadsides with missile drones, farseer on bike, 2x5 avengers in serpents and a wraithknight. Mission was crusade, emperor's will and dawn of war (only dawn of war in the entire tourney).

Allu made me go first. The game started like the last one but this time allu pushed very aggressively towards my deployment zone. The table had a nice row of impassable terrain to jump on top. It kept fatey safe, but it also kept the riptides and wraithknight free with Allu going second. T2 fatey puppet mastered the iontide to shoot at the broadsides with farseer. Result: 1 broadside and 1 drone left. Nice! T5 allu would have snatched a win with crusade (managed to clear one objective) but it went on to t6 where I forced the draw on both missions and snatched all the secondaries. Allu had linebreaker so 12-8 for the Daemons.

End result? Won all my games and came in 3rd. Oh well, gotta love battlepoints. Jukka ended up drawing with Eetu on points so their was a quiz regarding the Winter War (which was the theme of the tournament) to decide the winner. Eetu was off by about a year regarding when the Winter War broke out, whilst Jukka was only 2 weeks. It was actually a pretty funny way to decide the winner, we had a good laugh about it.

Some final thoughts. I was forced to go first 3/5 matches and still won them all. So Daemons aren't dependant on going second. My wins were never big (well if we leave out round 2) which is probably because I hide away for most of the game. The list is really strong and wins all the time, but it can't really smack the other guys head in when given a good matchup. I used the winnings I got to buy a bastion, but I'm also considering revisiting the screamer star. You can use it conservatively (hanging out and shooting stuff) and break it off to 4 contesting units t5, but you can also jam it at the other guy if he can't deal with it. I do loose FMCs in the trade, which means more limited flickering fires (FMCs are more manouverable) and less skyfire. The screamers would just add a threat onto the table, have more manouverability with contesting (not being limited by facings and actually making most of their move in the shooting phase, after you've cleared bubblewrap) and provide that autowin button if you happen to stumble into the right matchup. Dunno if it'll be better. So far I've always returned back to the good old 5 fmc list.

Fatey
Herald with ml3, exalted locus and disc
Herald with ml2, exalted reward and disc
Herald with ml2
10 Horrors
10 Daemonettes
8 Screamers
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with ml3, wings, armour, exalted and greater reward
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with ml3, wings, armour, exalted and greater reward
Bastion, comms

1850 Daemons tournament report

Hey guys,

The past weekend I played at an 18-man local tournament held in Lauttasaari, by NjT. The missions were similar to BAO, just with battlepoints. Primary objective 4 points, secondary 3 and the rulebook secondaries each worth one. The difference between the two players gave each a score between 0 and 20. Here was my list:





Fateweaver
Bloodthirster (2 greater rewards)
10 Daemonettes
10 Plaguebearers (champ, instrument)
Daemon Prince (tzeentch, wings, armour, mastery level 3, exalted and greater rewards)
Daemon Prince (tzeentch, wings, armour, mastery level 3, exalted and greater rewards)
Daemon Prince (tzeentch, wings, armour, mastery level 3, lesser and 2 greater rewards)

Nice and simple. I slept in and missed the first round, rightfully getting 0 points :D.

Round 1

...zzZZZZZzz... (Megan Fox oiling my bumblebee) ...zzZZZZZzzz...

Round 2

I was playing against IG/SW. A 50-man blob (that didn't combine in the matchup), marbo, 3 vendettas, 2 manticores, LRBT, 2 runepriests and pod with hunters. CCS, PCS and veteran squad went into the vendettas. Mission was Relic (4), Big guns (3) with vanguard strike. I went first, blew up both of the manticores with flickering fire side shots, as they had deployed too far forward. Then I flew off with all but fatey, anticipating the vendettas. I came back ensuring the vendettas would overshoot. They in turn flew off. T4 step one, I grimoired fatey and cast invisibility on all the DPs. Next step, clip area terrain. Third step, 4 guys with 2+ rerollables. Like a boss :D. T5 I took the relic with daemonettes, held an objective with plaguebearers and contested his objectives. Didn't get slay the warlord, so 19-1. The guy was new to 40k (although he's played FB) and felt a little lost with all the daemon shenanigans. He would win best painted.

Round 3

Necrons with dual wraiths and d-lords, triarch stalker, immortals and 2 warrior squads (no scythes!!!), 2 annhi barges and a doom scythe. We played crusade (4) and emperor's will (3) with dawn of war deployment. He seized on me and shot the grimoire prince down to 1 wound. Prince would play keep away and since fatey had rolled misfortune, I went to work on the wraiths with the rest. He didn't ground me, I pounded the crap out of him. Epic movie moment: fatey was grounded and caught by the warlord and wraiths. being the fluff bunny I am, i challenged the dlord into a dual of the warlords. Next round the bloodthirster rolled in, allowed fatey to take the MSS and made a heroic intervention, netting me slay the warlord. I lost 1 prince, maybe the thirster can't remember. In the end I had all the points, 20-0.

Round 4

My original opponent was a no show for day 2. The organizer played me instead. Another 3 vendettas (with veterans),  3 plasmavets in chimeras, plasma ccs in chimera, demolisher and manticore. Purge the alien (4), scouring (3), vanguard strike. It was nightfight so i gave him first turn and deployed out of los, over 36" from the manticore. Fatey flew up with iron arm and 2++, the rest flew off waiting for the vendettas. I couldn't pass a grounding test whole game. T2 it didn't really matter, fatey wasn't dying any time soon. T3 mr. thirster almost felt like giving up first blood (luckily didn't). T4 the grimoire prince took a demolisher to the face. T5 the thirster did infact bite the dust. However, by the end of t5 I had destroyed all the vendettas and forced the CCS to flee. I killed 2 of the vendetta vet squads, the last passed their ld5 against nettes in combat keeping linebreaker. I let him have one objective (all were worth 2 points) and contested the rest, earning me all the points. KPs didn't need counting, I had squads and transports plenty with only 7 units in my entire list. His linebreaker meant it ended 19-1.

Round 5

Taudar: buff commander, 1 skyfire bursttide, 1 iontide, 2x kroots, 3 broadsides with missile drones, jetseer, 2x davu in serpents, 6 warpspiders, wraithknight. Big Guns (4), relic (3) with hammer and anvil. Big gunz is a little tricky for me. it gives me great mobile scoring, but it also means I bleed points from my princes. That's why I prefer scouring. Anyway I give my opponent 1st turn in nightfighting and deploy 3 monsters (fatey, grimoire and the non-exalted prince) out of range of all but his single iontide. iontide does a wound on the grimoire. Fatey powers up with 2++, heading down a flank and eyeing the spiders for first blood. The rest fly off. 1 Spider survives fatey. One of his kroots comes on from outflank, right next to fatey. 

My t2 everything comes on. Nettes lose 7ish to intercepting but none of the monsters are aimed at. I focus on the kroots, bringing them down to below 25% and breaking them. Still no first blood. It got super intense when my opponent was pounding my grimoire prince t3 (brought it down to 1 wound) and only had the resources to bring the nettes down to 2 models remaining. The second kroot squad came up on the opposite flank to the last one. 

All FMCs flew off. My premium assault unit, the plague bearers, took invisibility and charged into the kroot. 3+ to hit (and 5+ for the kroot) coupled with poisoned saw the kroots obliterated. First blood!!!! My opponent was just left with lesser daemons to shoot at, killed all but 1 plague bearer. My t4 saw all the FMCs come one. Dropped the portaglyph and spawned 6 nettes. Intercepting forced me to use the fatey reroll to keep the grimoire alive, fatey failed grimoire. I finished off the lone spider. 

T5 my opponent killed off fateweaver and snatched the relic with some avengers. All game I'd been trying to puppet master the wraithknight to kill the burst tide. Unfortunately, no 6s to wound were rolled. I had stripped a couple of wounds with flickering fire but also given him a 5+ fnp (need to do some math and figure out if it's worth using flickering fire to strip wounds off a wraithkinght). Now I grimoired a warpspeed reroll invul prince and went into the wraithknight, assisted by the 6 nettes from the portal last turn. He was sitting on an objective and worth a point. Brought it down to 1 wound (damn you fnp!!!). Thirster was let lose on the bursttide and commander (who had monster hunter, not stubborn). He rolled 3 sixes to wound and instagibbed both of them giving me slay the warlord. Flickering fire killed the avenger holding the relic. 

Game went on to t6. My opponent killed off the thirster but despite his best efforts the grimoire prince wasn't gonna stop partying. he did get grounded and was charged by the jetseer. I finished off the wraithknight, securing big guns and killed off the avenger who'd again picked up the relic. One FMC also flew to get linebreaker. The grimoire prince might have died to the jetseer, it wasn't relevant. I got all the rulebook secondaries and big gunz, neither had relic and he had slay the warlord and linebreaker. 15-5 victory.

I wrote a more in depth report of the last game since it was the most intense, and it was a good test of evasion as a tactic against taudar. Some minor things both of us should have done differently, but overall it was a great game. It came down to those critical 2 shooting phases (t3 and t5) where my opponent just couldn't do quite enough damage.

Almost forgot to mention my final standing. Due to the small amount of players, battle points and sheer awesomeness the daemons flew in 2/18. Closing thoughts? Troops are for pussies, min troops ftw. Playing with 5 models is awesome! Piotr was wrong in saying that herohammer isn't fun. Seriously though, I've come to the conclusion that FMC spam always pisses off either the daemon player or his opponent. Due to the nature of the rolls, the daemon player will only get pissed off 1/3 of the time whilst his opponent will be glowing 2/3 of the game.

Daemons Tournament Report

So last weekend I went to a tournament in Hyvinkää. The weekend had multiple tournaments in different places and with the Finnish scene already being so small, we only had 12 players there. We (the etc players) decided to go to Hyvinkää because they were a new organizer, and it's always good to support new tournaments. Ofcourse, it turned more into a training weekend with a 25e price tag on it. I was rocking my Daemons/CSM:

PRIMARY DETACHMENT: Chaos Daemons

HQ1: WARLORD: Fateweaver (300) = [300pts]

HQ2: Bloodthirster (250), exalted reward (30), greater reward (20) = [300pts]

TROOP1: Plaguebearers of Nurgle (90) = [90pts]

TROOP2: Daemonettes of Slaanesh (90) = [90pts]

HS1: Daemon Prince, daemonic flight (40), warp-forged armour (20), exalted reward (30), greater reward (20), daemon of tzeentch (25), mastery level 3 (75)) = [355pts]

HS2: Daemon Prince, daemonic flight (40), warp-forged armour (20), lesser reward (10), 2 greater rewards (2*20), daemon of tzeentch (25), mastery level 3 (75)) = [355pts]

SECONDARY DETACHMENT: Chaos Space Marines

HQ1: Chaos Sorcerer (60), force axe (0), 2 additional mastery levels (2*25) bike (20) = [130pts]

TROOPS1: Chaos Cultists (50) = [50pts]

FA1: Chaos Spawn (30), 4 additional spawns (4*30), mark of nurgle (5*6) = [180pts]

TOTAL = [1850pts]

Jukka (our CSM player from last year) was also flying high with two csm DPs (all the 350 points worth of trimmings) and IG battlepsykers. We were both pretty horrified to find out that the boards at the venue had pretty much zero losblock. It's great for all those Taudar lists running around but we weren't feeling it.

Game 1: Taudar

Allu's list had a buff commander, 2 riptides (one ion, one skyfire burst), firewarriors, 2x kroots, pathfinders, skyray, broadsides (with markerdrones and target locks), farseer, 2 davu serpents and a wraithknight. We were playing 5 objectives and dawn of war. I stacked 3 objectives on one side and took it. I think I also took first turn. The ruin in the bottom right of the image above might have hid one fmc but I didn't really fancy my chances any way I looked at it. I tried to bum rush the Taudar, but ended up with one plaguebearer alive on t5 when it ended. 0-10 (first round used halfed battlepoints)

Game 2: Space Marines

This was still using the old 'dex. After loosing the 1. round so horribly, I was playing against the ringer, who'd picked his list in something like 15 minutes from whatever he had. Basically 6 tactical squads, 4 rhinos, 8 devastators with no heavy weapons, chaplain and jump pack captain. It was purge the alien and we didn't need to play it until the end. 20-0.

Game 3: Necrons

Lauri was rocking imothek, obyron, 8 warriors with chronotek in a pirate ship, 2x5 warriors in scythes, 2 squads of wraiths, 1 scarab squad, 2 anhibarges and 3 spyders. We were playing emperor's will and relic. Lauri made me go first. I moved up slightly, and Lauri moved his wraiths forward on his t1. I'd rolled 2 enfeebles and quickly started making flickering fire minced meat out of one of the wraith squads. Spawns tied up the second wraith squad. Lauri tried to counter this by tying up my thirster with his scarabs, but as he didn't get grounded, scarabs went into the spawns instead. Obyron veiled towards my troops that had come on (with the spyders) but scattered back. I enfeebled them and charged in with my tzeentch staff + iron arm str10 guy. Killed off 2 spyders but they managed to veil out again.

Rest of my stuff concentrated on shooting down flyers with flickering fire and charging the av13 ground vehicles. My plaguebearers deepstruck towards Lauri's emperor's will objective, but scattered out. One plaguebearer would live untill the end of the game. The spawns were tied up until t6 in the scarabs, but the sorceror hallucinated the spyders a couple of times. Daemonettes finished the squad off as they suffered a 3-4 result from hallucination. T4 I dropped the glyph next to the relic and rolled up 2 plaguebearers to go grab the relic. Decided to use fatey's reroll on it, and ended up with just 1 :D. Eventually my daemonettes would take the relic (one guy left holding it t6 after the last scythe shot his friends), cultists hold my emperor's will (although a dp had to clear out some warriors that would have been contesting t5) and the chronotek passed his protocols to contest the last objective. 19-1 victory for me.

Round 4: Necrons

Eetu was playing a scarab farm list. He had a destroyer lord, overlord on ccb, 2x5 warriors in scythes, 10 immortals and haywiretek in scythe, 10+3 scarabs, 6 wraiths and 3x3 spyders (one prism in each). This was a really harsh matchup as it had lots of smash attacks and mindshackle scarabs. I didn't feel pressured since I'd already lost once and decided to try taking him on nonetheless. We were playing 4 objectives and he won the roll to go second anyway. I moved up t1, and he came at me. Fateweaver failed his grimoire t2. This was huge as I had been hoping to tie the wraiths with him. Instead I flew him and the glyph prince (with flickering fire) in reserve, to hunt his scythes later on. Thirster went into once squad of spyders (leaving 1 with 1 wound), staff of tzeentch + iron arm str10 dude went into a second enfeebled squad and killed them all. Spawns combocharged the wraiths, last squad of spyders and the squad that the str10 prince killed off. Despite the sorceror being out of challenge range first round, I wanted to link up the prince for followup rounds to stop the sorceror from killing himself agains the dlord.

 Linking up is one of the reasons why I like other then just 1-model units in a fmc list. Eetu's scarabs tied up the thrister (and dropped his pants) while the mss went into the big combat and the prince died in 1 round to the overlord. Spawns eventually died aswell and my last chance was to keep the remaining monster alive and kill his scythes. I only dropped one and took 2 hullpoints off the other. Eetu dropped and killed both monsters on t4 and it turned super ugly. 0-20.

Round 5: Necrons

I continued my necron tour, expertly dodging the taudar and eldar lists. Roni had 2 destroyer lords in wraiths, 4 scythes, 2 anhibarges, sorceror in cultists and a heldrake. We were playing killpoints and quarters (extra kp for holding  a quarter, quarters were held like they were objectives). I chose to go second and deployed out of his guns. I rolled 3(!!) enfeebles and roni didn't feel like pushing forward. I stacked my powers on one prince, fatey and the spawns to prevent first blood and flew the other 2 fmc into reserve (I kept 2 enfeebles on the board to discourage any charges from the wraiths). 2 scythes came on and killed 1 or 2 spawns with the barges. I dropped both scythes and started moving out. Roni just couldn't drop my monsters and t3 I double enfeebled one squad of wraiths, tied up the other with spawns. I made a mistake in deepstriking the plaguebearers in this matchup, leaving them vulnerable to the heldrake that came on t4 and flamed all of them (didn't pass a single invul). Despite this slight setback, and the second wraithsquad not dying (my dp managed to kill off the destroyer lord once, but after it stood back up I failed every mss check despite saving fatey's reroll for it) I ended up on top. I won killpoints by 4, neither had a quarter (didn't expect to have any with the way the rules worked) Roni had linebreaker, I had all the secondaries. 16-4 victory.



with so few players and the way things worked out, Daemons snatched 3rd place despite 2 very ugly losses. I guess you have to be satisfied with every trophy you get. Interesting things to note: The DPs rolled biomancy 4/5 games (with a couple of flickering fires thrown in). Against Eetu, even the sorceror rolled biomancy as I initially didn't get enfeebles (the other 2 cron games made up for that by rolling above average enfeebles). If the sorceror rolls well on his telepathy, you don't need any more from the princes in certain matchups. I didn't play for lategame objective grabs in any of my games. With some morelosblocking terrain that would certainly be the way to go in tougher matchups (and the ability to fly into ongoing etc. is one of the reasons why I think fmc spam is so adaptible as a list). against Eetu, I should have done it anyway but we had some laughs with the bloody close combats where everybody exploded. Overall, I like the list, just need to work on the player ;)

1850 Chaos Daemons and Chaos Space Marines

Lots of toying around with combinations at the moment. The playstyle of Daemons is really different, and watching streams on the internet has been good homework, learning how other people play. Atm I'm looking at taking a good mix of flying monstrous creatures and larger ground units. I'm also trying to take units that would work well in the current meta. However, trying to cram so many things into the list might leave the individual elements a little too thin. Maybe a dozen games later I'll start getting the hang of this army.

Fateweaver
Herald of Tzeentch with disc, exalted reward and 3 mastery levels
10 Plaguebearers
10 Daemonettes
8 Screamers
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with wings, 3+, exalted, 3 mastery levels
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with wings, 3+, 3 mastery levels

Sorcerer on bike with 3 mastery levels, meltabombs and familiar
10 Cultists
5 Spawns of Nurgle

Nurgle Daemon Prince Painted

I just felt like taking a couple of hours off to paint something. I went to the store and picked up one of the fine cast versions of the Nurgle Daemon Prince. He can join my Daemons army. Who knows, maybe some day I'll do a new Nurgle Death Guard army with him as the leader. Pretty rough look overall. I just wanted to make it a good tabletop model. I think starting from a dark basecoat (charadon granite) wasn't necessarily the best move. Overall, I'm still pretty pleased. The base doesn't have any static grass or stuff like that on it yet. We nicknamed it Fat-Matt. Feel free to comment.

Daemons: Larger lesser daemon squads?

Although this talks specifically from a Daemons stand point, in my opinion the ideas are relevant to any foot lists. Feel free to ask me, if you want to talk about implementing these ideas in your lists.

Continuing on my voyage into the depths of the thorpe-doed Chaos Daemons codex, I'm here to report back on some things you might want to consider when building your list. As I mentioned earlier, Daemons have very few ways in which to affect their opponent's movement, CC being perhaps the most sure way. Tank Shocks will rip through anything but CC, and anybody locked in combat is restricted from doing anything else.

That's why I think larger lesser daemon squads (over 15) can be a good pick. They are easy to chain up to get potentially large multicombats going (a linker between your other CC units) and can lash out whilst still maintaining their tail within fateweaver's bubble. Ofcourse, a larger squad gives less killpoints (which is a strong point of daemons) and can be used as bubblewrap, stringed to take multiple objectives etc.. There is nothing more sweet than producing a 30" line of models, charging one end into a combat and watching your opponent's tanks wonder why they aren't allowed to run over these zombies queuing infront of them.

I personally am swaying towards daemonettes. There are a couple of reasons. First, they are cheaper. A large squad will cost a lot of points and although that can potentially be awesome in table quarter missions (depending on the format ofcourse) that is a lot of points away from the rest of the list. Second, they have grenades. When making these 30" lines of doom you get to attack first, and then remove casualties from the guys that just swung instead of from the back of the line (thus not shortening the congo line as much). Finally, the daemonettes have fleet. Not only is this another different threat range in the army, it allows you to better prepare your combats.

Against tanks and infantry alike, blood letters are just simply better then daemonettes. However, in the role that I am playing them, the daemonettes should be just fine. They are perfectly capable of taking on non-dedicated cc units. If in fateweaver range, I think they can drag down a lot of things in a prolonged combat. And they aren't the heavy hitter in my army, that's what I got a freaking crusher deathstar for.

I still need a lot more games under my belt, but these are the thoughts that have arisen from my trip into the eye of terror.

How viable are naked princes in fatecrusher builds?

I call him Mr. Muscle. He represents a Daemon Prince in my Lost and the Damned themed fatecrusher list. This idea came to me as I was thinking of ways to patch the weak points of a fatecrusher build: antitank and more importantly something to deal with walkers. Although Fiends are pretty good at charging walkers, doing some damage and then HnR out of there, the fiends might have better things to do. So, I started thinking of cheap ways to deal with dreads. MC attacks are probably one of the most reliable methods.

Taking into account the slots I have available daemon princes seemed like the best option. Their upgrades are just very expensive. That got me thinking, do they really need the upgrades for the role I'm playing them in? I'd just have them dropping down in the second wave (within fateweaver range) to potentially charge walkers that came too close. For 80 points they aren't such a bad buy. Since I'm gonna start with just one prince, I was thinking that I need to get results if I commit this guy, and the 15 points mark of khorne seemed ok. I think barebones is just viable an option, but 6 attacks on the charge means that I should be hitting any vehicle that moved fast in the previous turn.

For 95 points it's a decent bargain. They're nothing to rely on, but add another tool into my list that could potentially help me win games, I don't think that's a bad idea. It needs further playtesting but I think naked princes really have the potential to stay in my lists. There is enough resilience in the army already, so upgrades aren't necessary, and well wings are just too expensive imo.

Fatecrusher... first impressions

Well, I've been busy on my Lost and the Damned army, and I even played a game with them on wednesday. I lost. Played against Space Wolves and didn't destroy his tanks in time, he contested my objectives. It takes a lot of practice to suddenly switch to a practically complete CC army, and I wasn't expecting to do well in the first couple of games. Here are some things I picked up

How do Daemons influence the game:

-Movement - generally they are slow so using the Crusherstar's large footprint efficiently is crucial. At its best, the crushers can really prove a challenge to the opponent. In my first game, they didn't.

-Assault - Fatecrusher has minimal shooty elements (infact my list only had fateweaver) and all the damage is dealt in CC. This has some pros and a lot of cons. You can (and need to) use multiassaults effectively (and I found the 20 man letter unit very good for this role) to deal maximum damage and lock down the enemy.

Not only do you deal damage in assault, but that is the best way in which you can limit your opponent's movement. They literally can't move if they are in an assault. Fiends are very good at this, because they have HnR. They can go into combats that they wouldn't necessarily wanna stay in, and block your opponent's movement through it. Potentially you can do this to tanks aswell. They can't tank shock through combat so good strings are crucial to stopping tanks from moving.

As you can see, Daemons are completely missing shooting. This means that their threat ranges are shorter and they have to commit themselves in order to deal damage. This requires finesse to master, but as I've said before, combat has the POTENTIAL to be a lot more destructive then shooting, it's just getting there that's the hard part.

1850 Fatecrusher Daemons...

During our long talk yesterday on Facebook with Joo-o, we also talked about my upcoming Daemons project. There are some things that you have to look out for when building a fatecrusher list (e.g. dreadnoughts) and I came up with a list that Joo-o was willing to accept. Not sure on the big bloodletter squad yet, we'll have to see how the list evolves during playtesting. The costly squad can however be useful in e.g. tablequarter missions, and a big squad allows more freedom with fateweaver. We'll just have to see.

Fateweaver @ 333pts.

Herald of Khorne with juggernaut, fury of khorne, blessing of the blood god and unholy might @ 135pts.

Herald of Khorne with juggernaut, fury of khorne, blessing of the blood god and unholy might @ 135pts.

8 Bloodcrushers with fury of khorne, chaos icon and instrument of chaos @ 360pts.

6 Fiends of Slaanesh with 1 unholy might @ 190pts.

6 Fiends of Slaanesh with 1 unholy might @ 190pts.

20 Blood Letters with Chaos Icon, fury of khorne @ 355pts.

5 Plaguebearers @ 75pts.

5 Plaguebearers @ 75pts.

Total @ 1848pts.

Strike Marine based gk lists will surely be the bane of this list, but I wouldn't be as afraid of acolyte or purifier lists. Multiple land raiders are also a nasty paper to my rock, but this project will give me ample knowledge regarding the assault phase. At the last tournament (where I took my spac wolves) I placed hideously, and I realised how little skills I had regarding assaults in 40k. What better way to learn, then to play a list that pretty much relies purely on close combat :D. This will also be a nice way to reflect upon the differences in CC armies and shooty armies in 40k that I discussed a while back.

2012: What shall I do?

I hope everybody had a great christmas and new year. I haven't been posting over the holidays, but hopefully I'll be jumping right back in now. A year ago I thought about the possibility of starting daemons as my tournament army for 2011. Well, that plan never materialised (a great responsibility for that falling on the awesome new ravager models :D) but I went ahead and bought the stuff I need for a lost and the damned themed daemon army. What am I planning on making it hobbywise?

It will be an uprising led by word bearers. I'll add some word bearers into some of the lesser daemon squads to act as aspiring champions, kinda like in the old lost and the damned armylist. In addition, I'm using cadian and mantic zombie bits for the lesser daemons, with some west wind miniature heads. Fiends will be a mix of seekers, warhounds and daemonettes and the crushers will be word bearers riding spawns. There was a super sexy apocalypse box at our flgs (with 10 csm and 10 spawns) that should make the right sized models, but with something different and fitting of the theme. Fluff wise it does sound silly to have csm riding spawns, but they're some sort of daemonic mounts. In the pic above you can see some of the first models and I think the spawn riders look pretty good (I'm gonna buy 10 resin bases for the crusher deathstar as atm they are on cardboard bases).

Game wise this list is gonna be a fatecrusher build very similar to the one that made it into the finals at Feast of Blades. I'm buying a used lord of change that I will convert as fateweaver and I'll have one big crusher deathstar with 2 heralds. The herals are probably gonna be the dark apostle and his first acolyte (that's the company chaplain and his future successor for those of you who don't know), so they'll stand out in mainly black power armour.

I'm still working on the details of the list. Fatecrusher is one of those armies that doesn't necessarily do well over the course of an entire tournament (as it has some bad matchups and random factors built into it) but trying out matches against daemons should be a good thing for our etc team, as there are very few daemon players in Finland (as a matter of fact, Joo-o is probably the only one in Finland who plays a decent list at tournaments!).

Veni, Vidi.. Vici?

And hello again! Total flame going on from my part. Anyways, as promised, I'll be reporting from my tournament. It was quite small, as only 12 players managed to crawl/walk to our local gamestore. As mentioned, 3 rounds, and I can tell you, total carnage. I entered the fray with my Demons. My list was:


Fateweaver

Bloodthirster

4 Crushers, full stuff

4 Crushers, Fury and instr.

5 Fiends, Might

3x5 Plaguebearers

2 Princes with MoT, Bolt

1 Prince with MoS, Pavane and Aura of Aquiscience





First game: Dawn of war, Capture & Control, Vs Tyranids

I hated the matchup as soon as I saw my opponents list. 2 tervigons, 2 units of gaunts, prime, 2 trygons, 7 genestealers, 3x2 hive guards, and warriors. Could be worse, for example, stealer horde, but still so many models.. Not at first glance but he really popped the wormcan with those tervigons, and gaunts flooded 1 table quarter. He went first, deployed some units, and divided his army into 2 blocks in the first turn. The objective-flank, flooded with gaunts and tervigons, and the offensive flank, holding everything else. I got the right wave, focused on his offensive flank confirming atleast 10 points to myself and wiped it on his 3rd, giving myself plenty of time to wipe the gaunts with my strong and fast-enough units. 20-0 win, wipeout. Killed over 150 models, and felt really good 'cos Tyranids definately aren't my favourite matchup.





Second game: Pitched Battle, Seize Ground, Vs. CSM

This time the matchup felt great. Gotta love marines, really, as Demons rarely struggle against anything they can offer. This was no exeption. Despite the fact I failed and got my second wave, total rolldown ensured. My opponent had a lashprince, a vindicator, 3 obliterators, a defiler, 3 units of 7 plaguemarines, 2x2 plasma and 1x2 melta, and 5 terminators. Semi-competetive list atleast. The "firepower" combined with some one-sided rolling crushed some of my units, and after that it was just a race against time for wipeout. The pic shows all he had at the end of 5th. And then the game ended. Shame, but objectives ensured me 17-3 win. Khorne was to be pleased next game..





..against Black Templars.
Third game: Spearhead, Annihlation, Vs. Black Templars


And marines. Love it. Always fun, final against marines. My opponent's list was your everyday regular BT gunline, massing on missiles and lascannons. 4 5-man plasma-lascannon squads with razorbacks(tl las), 5 terminators with 2 assault cannons and tank hunter, 5 terminators with 2 cyclones and tank hunter, marshall, EC, 3 lone speeders, the basics. Oh my, how can I handle this.. He castled up, and tried to pick my monsters out with shooting. I rolled the right wave and well.. it was a harvest. The tanks popped to my bolts and multicharges, and terminators were crushed (or should I say Crusher'd). After the 5th turn he had only 1 razorback with 5 initiates inside. The game ended, and kp's were 13-4. Devastating, and 20-0 win for the Demons.

..Vici. Chiching, 50e. So, I was like Banelings, Banelings Banelings oooooo ooo.. (check the previous post) -Toni

Meet the Martian(s)

(Everybody welcome Toni, a new guest writer for my blog. He is a true masochist, playing daemons at a competitive level. -Aleksi)

Hello folks! Greetings from Toni Salenius, nick Joo-o in various forums. As a gw I'm more than glad to do my bit for the blog and add diversity in form of my own views and goings. Thought about a debute article, and what would be better topic for a one than Demons of Chaos and an upcoming tournament!

As I started playing Demons a month back I'm still not so comfy with the as I'd be with some other armies. Still, their playstyle has struck me, and I feel pretty strong about them being my "main" army atleast for a while. I've already faced one bigger tournament with them, and finished right in the middle of the group. Could've done less mistakes, could've rolled the dice better, but that's the spirit of the game. Now, I'm rallying my forces for following Saturday, as there's a smaller tourney in our local gamestore. 3 games, 14 players, 2 objective and 1kp scenario. I have been putting an effort to bring my game up and fix my list, but haven't yet made a breakthrough. If I put this in, I lose that, and I need that too, but how about... Endless circle. Here are 2 final one's, limited by my models (and blindness? Prove me wrong):

Fateweaver
Bloodthirster
4 Crushers: Fury, Icon, Instrument
4 Crushers: Fury, Instrument
5 Fiends: Might
3x5 Plaguebearers
2xDemon Prince: MoT, Bolt
Demon Prince: MoS, Pavane, AoA

or

Fateweaver
3x4 Crushers: (2 units with Fury, Instrument, 1 unit with Fury, Icon)
3x5 Plaguebearers
2x Herald Of Tzeentch: MoS, Chariot, Bolt of Tzeentch
2xDemon Prince: MoT, Bolt, Gaze
Demon Prince: Mos, Pavane, AoA

What do you guys think? Which is better? Or a mixup? Bomb me with ideas. I'll be reporting how the tournament went and write some battlereports later on. Wish me luck! If I prevail I'll be like Banelings, Banelings, Banelings Ooo Ooo Ooooo.. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzMhh8zhTiY -Aleksi)

New army for 2011: Daemons?

Hi guys,
I've been thinking about a new tournament army for 2011. I wanted something that would offer me a different playstyle. Nowadays a lot of competitive armies tend to be mechanised, and although the contents of the transports may differ, they really don't add much variety. I love 5th ed. and have nothing against mech, but I wanted something different.

Brent over at Strictly Average has been playing Daemons for I think the past year on a tournament level. Anybody looking to start competitve Daemons should head over to his site. Daemons seem like a cool army. I did a test model, although the pic of him above is a bit bad, and I think I'm gonna go ahead and buy the rest of my 1750pts. army. Talking of lists, I'll finish this short post with my list. It was made using BattleScribe, a great free list maker, and I suggest you all give it a try. I even got so excited, that I added names for all the units :D . Happy New Year everyone!

1750pt Chaos Daemons 4th Ed (2008) Roster

Sons of the Void (1750pts Total)

Selections:

HQ (440pts)

• Followers of Fate - Daemonic Herald(s) (220pts)
  • Herald of Tzeentch (110pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (30pts), Chariot of Tzeentch (15pts), Master of Sorcery (5pts), We are Legion (10pts)

  • Herald of Tzeentch (110pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (30pts), Chariot of Tzeentch (15pts), Master of Sorcery (5pts), We are Legion (10pts)

• Weavers of Change - Daemonic Herald(s) (220pts)
  • Herald of Tzeentch (110pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (30pts), Chariot of Tzeentch (15pts), Master of Sorcery (5pts), We are Legion (10pts)

  • Herald of Tzeentch (110pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (30pts), Chariot of Tzeentch (15pts), Master of Sorcery (5pts), We are Legion (10pts)

Elites (320pts)

• Beasts of the Void - Fiends of Slaanesh (160pts)

  5x Fiend of Slaanesh (150pts), Unholy Might (10pts)

• Beasts of Destiny - Fiends of Slaanesh (160pts)

  5x Fiend of Slaanesh (150pts), Unholy Might (10pts)

Troops (385pts)

• Changeling's Dissimulation - Horrors of Tzeentch (100pts)

  Bolt of Tzeentch (10pts), Changeling (5pts), 5x Pink Horror (85pts)

• Dark Followers - Horrors of Tzeentch (95pts)

  Bolt of Tzeentch (10pts), 5x Pink Horror (85pts)

• Terror of Vnark - Horrors of Tzeentch (95pts)

  Bolt of Tzeentch (10pts), 5x Pink Horror (85pts)

• Sons of Tzeentch - Horrors of Tzeentch (95pts)

  Bolt of Tzeentch (10pts), 5x Pink Horror (85pts)

Fast Attack (150pts)

• Dark Riders - Flesh Hounds of Khorne (150pts)

  10x Flesh Hound (150pts)

Heavy Support (455pts)

• Doom of Terra - Daemon Prince of Chaos (150pts)
  • Mark of Tzeentch (70pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (35pts)

• Xor the Destroyer - Daemon Prince of Chaos (150pts)
  • Mark of Tzeentch (70pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (35pts)

• Vlad the Terror - Daemon Prince of Chaos (155pts)

  Instrument of Chaos (5pts)

  • Mark of Tzeentch (70pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (35pts)