Throne of Skulls Daemon games

[isotope99]

I've just finished day 1 of the UK Throne Skulls tournament at Warhammer World (GW HQ).

Its a 1,500 pt standard mission tournament. Working out the final winner is a bit convoluted involving variance from your army's average score and some soft scores but as I'm almost certainly not going to win I don't care all that much.

There's a fair mix of armies here. Lots of space marines, blood angels (stom ravens abound) and space wolves.

A fair number of most other armies.

Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar & Inquisition are all in fairly low numbers (as you'd expect from the older codices).

I haven't spied too many netlists (a lot don't work so well at 1,500 anyway) but there is the odd fatecrusher and the like.

Smelly gamer factor started off at a creditable 3/10 but rose to about 7/10 by the end of the day aqccording to the whiff-o-meter.

My army: "Conjunction of Terror" / Daemons / 1,500pts / exactly 10KPs / Practice games: 0 :eek:
HQ: Skarbrand, Keeper of Secrets
Elites: 3 Bloodcrushers w/ instrument, 3 fiends
Troops: 6 Daemonettes, 7 Plaguebearers, 8 Bloodletters, 9 Horrors with changeling, icon and Bolt
Heavy: Soul Grinder, Daemon Prince of Tzeentch w/ Bolt

Game 1 vs Kantor marines DRAW


Enemy: Kantor, 2 big squads of sternguard, 3 Tactical squads, 5 drop pods (lots of melta weaponry)

Mission: Seize ground w/ 3 objectives, pitched battle, Daemons got second turn but preferred first wave

Turn 1:

I put most of my khorne & slaanesh daemons in the first wave including both greater Ds in the hope of counter charging and dropped them into cover near one of my objectives. The faster slaanesh daemons were further away to threaten both daemons on my side depending where the marine pods landed.

Both sternguard squads (including Kantor) and one tactical squad landed right next to my khorne daemons on the left and gave them a rapid fire pasting thanks to some awful saves on my part. Skarbrand crucially escaped with one wound but both my other khorne squads were reduced to one model.

Turn 2:

Most of my reserves turned up except my daemonettes. My tzeentch daemons deployed in a position to threaten the marines objective on the far left and also to shoot the sternguard. My plaguebearers dropped on the centre objectives and ran into cover.

Skarbrand despatched 10 sternguard with no problem but was subsequently shot up by Kantor's squad. My other remaining 2 khorne daemons charged the squads that has dropped near them but with only one model in each squad left, couldn't make much of a dent before dying. With the enemy committed on the left, my keeper and fiends headed back to take revenge.

The remaining tactical squads turned up to shoot the horrors, killing some but one fluffed their changeling test and chose to shoot at their leader, kantor, instead. Loving the changeling.

Turns 3-4:

Not much happening in turns 3-4, the marines wiped the tzeentch daemons and consolidated close to the left side objectives, I clealy had 1 and he clearly had 1 but the last was up for grabs. The keeper took out the last of the sternguard and also took out the tactical squad which had melta-ed my soul grinde after seeing off my bloodcrushers.

Crucially at the end of turn 4, I made the mistake of charging my fiends out of cover into a tactical squad boosted by Kantor with +1A each. Had they stayed where they were, the last marine tac squad would have had almost no chance of reaching my second objective and this cost me the win.

Turn 5:

At the top of turn 5 I had a handful of daemonettes on the third objective, my keeper in combat with Kantor and a squad of plaguebearers safely holding my other objective. My opponent had a tactical squad in position to assault the third objective and another safeky holding objective 2.

The Keeper squished Kantor satisfyingly but as I had first turn wasn't able to recover and head off the tac squad. Enemy shooting reduced my daemonettes to two models who were then charged and I was in the position of needing to save 4 wounds to stay in the fight and avoid yielding the deciding objective. 4 6's:D meant the objective was contested at the end of 5 when the game ended, resulting in a 1:1 draw. One more turn and the keeper would have seen off the tacticals but you can't have everything.

Man of the match has to be the keeper with a drop pod, a tactical squad, half a sternguard squad and Kantor to his name. although the 4 6's daemonettes come close too.

Lesson learned: Just because you can charge doesn't mean you should If my fiends had been less impetuous, victory could have been mine.

More to follow

[isotope99]

Game 2 vs Chaos Marines WIN

Enemy forces: Huron and terminators in a land raider, 1 squad each of Berserkers, Plague marines and regular guys with plasma guns with 2 rhinos, 2 obliterators and a small squad of anti tank raptors.

Mission: Capture and control (mine on the right, his on the left), pitched battle again, Daemons first turn and second choice wave 1.

Deployment: Chaos forces deployed almost everything opposite his objective on the left except the raptors, with the rhinos, 1 empty, walling off the middle.

Turn 1: I had switched my waves round for this battle so actually ended up with almost the same forces on the board, mostly khorne and slaanesh. My two GDs deployed on the right next to the rhinos with my bloodletters with the fiends and daemonettes opposite his objective and the land raider.

My opponent chose to stay in his corner and in his transports and shoot me, Skarbrand took a couple of wounds and the fiends were more or less destroyed but not too much damage.

Turn 2:

My bloodcrushers took the place of my fiends and my daemon prince went in the middle to try and open up the berserkers rhino (but fluffed his shot despite being BS5). plaguebearers on my right side objective guarded by the soul grinder.

Skarbrand and the bloodletters were forced to assault the Rhinos to clear a path :mad:. The vehicles were duly destroyed but I was left a bit exposed.

The chaos forces counter charged with Huron's terminators and the berserkers wiping out the bloodcrushers and bloodletters fairly easily. Fortunately skarbrand survived a hail of plasma fire with one wound left. ( the land raider deciding to try and shoot the daemon prince instead)

Turns 3&4:

Things at the top of three were not looking good for me with most of my khorne daemons dead or dying (again). Fortunately skarbrand had survived and once again wiped out a 10 man squad by himself (probably why people keep shooting him. My keeper also took revenge on the berserkers in the middle of the table, wiping out all 6 remaining thanks to skarbrand's rerolls. My horrors and daemonettes were also able to shred Huron's bodyguard leaving him all alone, my daemon prince even managed to bullseye an obliterator before dying to plama fire from the plague marines.

The raptors went for my right side objective as expected but fluffed their melta gun shots against the soul grinder, oops.

Turn 5:

I had a rapidly dwindling number of horrors and daemonettes close to the chaos objective but had secured my objective with the plaguebearers (2 objectives, no kills so far). My keeper was some distance from the plaguebearers, my opponents last remaining scoring unit, plus the land raider was still in the corner of the table.

My soul grinder crushed the raptors for their temerity in trying to shhot it guaranteeing me at least a draw.
A lucky fleet roll gave the keeper enough movement to kill the plague marines securing the win. The land raider was able to keep it only at 1:0 by contesting the chaos objective but was the only model left when the game ended.

Man of the match: Once again the keeper, he slaughtered a whole squad of berserkers and a whole squad of plague marines for no damage. one more turn and he might have added a land raider to thye tally too.

Lesson learned: Check your opponent's roster I didn't see the raptors had melta guns and was very lucky not to lose my soul grinder to them.

One more game to follow.

[isotope99]

Game 3 vs Tyranids DRAW

Enemy: 2 venom cannon tyrants, 1 trygon prime, 2 podded zoanthropes, 1 podded DOOM, 2 big squads of genestealers and a squad of gargoyles

Mission: capture and control w/ spearhead deployment, Daemons get second turn and preferred first wave.

Deployment: Tyrant twins deployed fairly centrally with gargoyles to provide cover. Everything else in reserve. My objective mid left, his objective far right near the edge.

Turn 1: Nothing for my opponent to do, I landed my plaguebearers and soul grinder near his right side objective and my horrors and daemon prince near to his tyrant group. my bloodcrushers landed near my objective, scattering back towards the table edge :(.

My horrors wasted all the gargoyles no problem but the rest of my shooting all missed or didn't wound. My daemon prince rolling the first of many ones this battle.

Turn 2: the tyrants charged the horrors and the first squad of stealers hit my bloodcrushers hard, killing them all. The zoanthropes and DOOM landed near his objective on the left but failed to damage the grinder.

I landed my keeper near the tyrants and my daemonettes on the left again scattering back towards the edge :mad:. My plaguebearers charged the zoanthropes and my soul grinder moved up and shot at Doom. My daemon prince fluffed another bolt shot at doom. My horrors continued to die but fearless accounted for the final squad members as I fluffed all my saves, releasing the tyrants and preventing me springing Prince keeper combo attack.

Turn 3:

Another squad of genestealers wiped my daemonettes and went for the objective. the tyrants both charged my keeper but only did one wound. The trygon prime showed up near the tyrant zoanthrope scrum.

My plaguebearers poison was decidedly inneffectual as the zoanthropes could not fail a save and they were dropping thanks to the doom's powers.

I fluffed my reserve rolls badly wiyth only skarbrand showing up who promptly scattered almost off the board in the wrong direction. My keeper struggled ti wound the tyrants but tookj only one more wound in return. My soul grinder insta-killed his doom with S10 hits.

Turn 4:

Nothing much happened on the left, the genestealers moved onto my objective and closer to skarbrand to try and hold him up away from the objective. The keeper finally felled a tyrant and nly took another one wound (1 left). My plaguebearers finally killed something, but needed the grinders help to kill the second zoat.

My bloodletters and fiends tried to lure the gebestealers off their objective but scattered too close (so many terrible scatters.

Turn 5: at the top of 5, skarbrand was unharmed but too far away from my objective to contest it. I had a unit if bloodletters and fiends near the same objective but too close for my liking. My keeper was in combat with a tyrant and a trygon on one round but I had a grinder and plaguebearers on the objective.

The stealers wiped the bloodletters for no losses and consolidated back to the objective, my fiends assaulted them in the last turn but were similarly destroyed (8 5++ saves all failed :mad:) leaving the objective in their hands.

My keeper did some awesomre heroics though wiping out both the tyrant and the trygon over two turns to guarantee me an objective and at least a draw. The game ended on turn 5 again. One more and skarbrand would have been able to contest the other objective and potentially table my opponent but it was not to be.

Man of the match: The keeper made it three for three killing off 2 hive tyrants and a trygon and making a bucketload of saves ( he and the grinder seemed to drain all my luck as most of my other units had universallly terrible dice.

Lesson learned: Stay away from the edges when facing outflanking gebestealer I can blame bad scatter but with almost no tyranid shooting I should have stayed far away from the table edges, this would have prevented the genestealers from charging onto the board and allowed me to bring greater numbers against them

Thoughts so far Overall my army is performing reasonably well (almost tabled my opponents twice with one unit left), although I haven't yet faced any seriously nasty match ups. I have had the usual mix of good and bad luck (especially extreme in game 3) but both the draws could have been victories if I'd been a bit more careful.

About Daemons:
The number of reserves options is frustrating as my daemons have been putting their forces on the board faster than my opponents twice now.

People are scared of khorne daemons and have sought to kill them as fast as possible but this has allowed other elements of the force such as the keeper of secrets and plaguebearers to do really well.

My keeper has now netted approximately 1,350 points over three games and not died once (thanks BOLS for recommending him over the lord of change I was going to bring)

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/photopost/data/581/kos1.jpg

[charliemachina]

Awesome report.....I have an all Tzeentch Deamon army and they can wipe the enemy off the table in short order but they can also leave me sitting there genuinely feeling like all I can do is try and hurt my opponent a little before getting totally tabled. Very different to other army and very....chaotic. Looks like your army is not only stunning to look at but fun to play...I so intend to go to Throne of Skulls one year!

Charlie

[davel]

How are they deciding on missions? rolling randomly or pre decided. Usually they roll apart from the last result which they declare kill points as it produces a clear result ( or least likely to produce draws). But with this new fangled scoring systemthis may be redundant.

dave l

[isotope99]

As far as I know all the match ups and missions are random, although they might do something different for day two.

[Duke]

Great reports, sounds like it could have eaisly been 3 wins. Such is 40k!

Duke

[isotope99]

I'm going to keep these last two reports shorter as I am tired after a hard weekend's gaming.

I picked up my main objective of a best army nomination (top 10 out of about 150), but was beaten by a fantastically painted eldar army.

Game 4 vs Daemonhunters WIN (just about)

Mission: seize, 3 objectives (far left, centre and near right), daemons get second turn but wrong wave

Enemy: 8 grey knights and grand master in LR crusader, 2 storm trooper squads with a chimera, 2 inquisitor squads with three heavy bolters and a mystic each, Plasma dread, eversor assassin

Turns 1, 2 & 3:

With my poor reserve rolls I was left without my heavy hitters that I wanted for two turns. Bad scatter accounted for my useless bloodletters being stranded in the open and killed. My bloodcrushers killed an assassin and then were shot in return but my fiends escaped punishment and killed a storm trooper squad. My horrors were dominated by the dreadnought's incinerator.

By the end of turn three, my opponent had almost everyuthing still alive and was close in to the centre and right objectives. My greater daemons, prince and grinder were all deep in my zone with a squad of plague bearers on an objective that my opponent wasn't going after and a squad of daemonettes not far from the central objective:

Turn 4:

The fiends were killed by mass H bolter fire, the dread killed the grinder and the grey knights killed the daemon prince.

My greater daemons then went on a killing spree killing all of the grey knights and wrecking their land raider.

Turn 5:

With one objective each I moved my daemonettes up to claim the vacant second one, keeping them out of sight of the inquisitor squads.

Skarbrand was shot to death by those squads due to some poor rolling on my part and the keeper killed the dreadnought.

If the game had ended here, it would have been an easy victory and another man of the match award for my keeper, having seen off the grey kinghts and their dread.

Turn 6: Sadly it was not to be and the keeper finally died to the same massed H bolter fire of the inquisitor squads. I had intended to take them out right at the start with my greater daemons but rolled up the wrong wave :(.

Things were looking less certain now but I still had 4 daemonettes on the centre objective.

Turn 7: The final turn was a bit hairy, but one of dameonettes managed to hold on for a very tight 2:1 win with only 8 models left alive.

Androgynous entity of the match: my surviving daemonette cowering in his/her crater

Lesson learned: If you put all your eggs in one basket and get the wrong wave, play defensively

[isotope99]

Game 5 vs Witch hunters WIN (just)

Enemy: 4 14 woman SoB squads, mostly with flamers, 3 exorcists and an immolator with a melta command squad

Mission: Seize w/3 obkectives again (2 in teh centre L&R) one near right where I like it. Daemons get first turn and preferred wave.

Deployment. My opponent deployed fairly conventionally with four evenly spaced squads, mixed in with exorcists and the immolator ready to charge down my right flank.

Turn 1:

I dropped my tzeentch squads and teh grinder deep on the far left to hold up teh two sisters squads there, my plaguebearers went on my R objective (5 objectives from 5 games, these guys were instrumental to my victory) the bloodcrushers went in the middle near the two centre objectives.

Very poor shooting by my tzeentch units and grinder left me struggling on the left and the sisters killed most of the horrors and serously wounded the daemon prince for only a couple of losses. Fortunately, the exorcists had to work hard just to immobilise my grinder as they were givimng me cover saves by being in each other's way as I had deployed so deep.

Turn 2:

I did next to nothing, my daemon prince charging the leftmost sister squad in a stalemate combat.

The sisters were equally ineffectual polishing off the changeling and killing the daemon prince in combat. Fortunately the bloodcrushers made most of their saves and were still strong. The immolator and fourth sister squad on the right charged towards my objective.

Turn 3:

Started out a good turn for me, my immobilised soul grinder made a horrible mess of the sisters still clustered after seeing off the daemon prince, reducing them to just the champion and my bloodcrushers wiped out another sister squad before succumbing to exorcist fire. My greater daemons showed up to protect my right side objective with skarbrand going between the immilator and the 4th sister squad and the keeper deploying more centrally. The fiends and the keeper wiped out the command squad in the immolator.

The sisters retaliated by targeting most of their guns at skarbrand and the bloodcrushers wiping them out.

Turn 4:

The keeper and fiends fresh from their victory killed off sister squad 4 on the right for minimal losses and the keeper consolidated back towards the last scoring unit sister squad 2 on the left. My bloodletters showed up to contest the center right objective

Sister squad two moved down towards the centre left objective, killing most of my daemonettes whilst the last gal in squad 1 moved up too.

Turn 5:

At the top of 5 I had one daemonette gone to ground too far to contest the centre L objective which the sisters were closing on. Centre R objective was close to my bloodletters and keeper but covered by three exorcists, my fiends were far right and my plaguebearers secure on my own objective.

The bloodletters and keeper converged on centre R and the fiends finally killed an exorcist (leaving them unmolested was risky but they are not so scary against daemons and deploying deep has been working for me all tourney). I also killed the last member of sister squad 1 with my harvester.

Sister squad 2 moved down to capture centre L with a lucky run move and the exorcists tank shocked my bloodletters on centre R to contest it (a move I hadn't thought of at all :eek:)

My opponent was desparate for the end of the game but the random game length finally went my way and we got a sixth turn.

Turn 6:

My keeper killed sister squad two netting me the win and my bloodletters damaged but couldn't completely destroy the final exorcists resulting in a 1:0 win.

Man of the match: After the blip last game, the keeper returned to kill 2 sister squads and their command squad.

Leson learned: Don't be afraid to deploy deep, non-rapid fire doesn't do much

Final results and debrief:

3 wins, 2 draws and a best army nomination is about as good as I could have hoped for going in and I'm pretty chuffed (UK slang for pleased) with my army.

The tournament was well run, but it would have been nice to play at least one KP mission.

The ultimate winner was a dark eldar player but as there were only 2 of them the averaging method for final victor doesn't work so good (not sure if they'll keep using that next year).

Using daemons Some of these thoughts are specific to my army


Pair up your greater daemons: I had originally intended to split them but by deploying them together I never lost more than 1 to fire and the other (almost always the keeper) was free to cause havoc.

Take plaguebearers: If you leave home without at least one squad of plaguebearers you'll probably regret it. My guys got 5 objectives in 5 games and meant I didn't lose once all for only 105 points (but a min sized squad works just as well).

Play the mission: Its tempting with daemons to get right in your opponent's face every time but I had much better success deploying deep and counter charging when my opponent came towards the objectives I was going for. Most of my iopponents only started to really think about the mission in about turn 4 when it was already a bit late.

Don't fear long range fire: With the exception of the greater daemons, your opponent just won't be able to do sufficient damage with long range fire, cover, ++ saves and fearless means they have to come to you in any objective based game.

Icons are a waste: I never used my icon once and I never had a deep strike mishap. unless you are taking 8 bloodcrushers in one unit, the points can be better spent.

Go to ground on objectives: Assaulty units suffer hardly any penalty for going to ground if they have higher I, a fact that my daemonettes exploited a few times.


Unit rundown:

Skarbrand: This guy is monster on the charge but your opponent knows it and he will therefore be a serious fire magnet. That's not necessarily a terrible thing as in most games I played my opponent spent at least 1 crucial turn shooting his entire army at skarbrand (I imagine fateweaver would perform the same role and I think I wil try this list with him instead of Skarbrand)

Keeper of Secrets: All hail Slaanesh, in case I haven't stressed this enough, my keeper was awesome and netted approximately 2,000 points by himself over the 5 games. This was mostly because my opponent was distracted brutalising the exiled one but if feels appropriate given their rivalry that the keeper would let the Khorne daemon take all the pain and hog all the credit.

Bloodcrushers: Similar to skarbrand, these guys got a lopt of attention to the point where they rarely got to shine. Best taken in pairs of two units.

Fiends: Not as great as I had hoped but then I did only take a small unit. their huge move helped me on a few occasions though.

Plaguebearers: In case I hadn't mentioned, these guys were essential to all my games and with all the other killy, they generally got ignored.

Daemonettes: A squad of six is too small to do any damage but like the plaguebearers, they were frequently overlooked. Get them in position and then hit the dirt for a 3+ cover save.

Bloodletters: as with my other khorne daemons, these guys got shot up as soon as possible in almost every game and so did no damage.

Horrors: Their shooting was ineffectual but by deploying them right in my opponent's deployment zone, they were able to buy me a couple of turns when my enemy was unable to advance.

Soul Grinder: I took this guy to get the model in my army and he wasn;t very effective. Smilar to the horrors, I preferred to deploy him close in and distract the enemy. Gets extra poimnts for insta-killing DOOM in my vs tyranid game.

Daemon Prince: So rubbish, this guy did not earn his points back and dropped really easily. I'm thinking 2 daemon princes of khorne with iron hide woudl work better in my heavy slot. Official winner of the wooden spoon for most useless unit, the number of 1s I rolled for his bolt was ludicrous.


Thanks for reading.

[isotope99]

Due to some horrible photography on my part, this is the only decent shot I got of my army:

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/photopost/data/581/tos_army.jpg