Game 1 – Andy Parker DE So my first ever game with daemons and it’s versus a bit of a mixed DE list, interesting change with the lvl 4 on peg, who I assume had the pendant, never tried to find out. Cauldron, 2x hydras, chariot, big corsair block, small witch elves, couple of units of shades and some xbow units, a unit of dark riders and harpies (or two). Andy pushed his dark riders forwards slightly turn 1 which offered the plague drones an 11” charge in T1, he swithered fleeing but chose to stand and shoot which basically cost him the game, one 11” charge later the drones were munching away behind his army from then onwards and got a mage and some xbows to add to the dark riders. Other than that we were both a bit cagey the beasts went straight up the middle after whatever they could find killing the chariot and the witch elves. Cannon took 1 hydra out but other one I tried tzeench magic on but the 3+ regen was a mistake as it made it into the PB unit with a few wounds left and I struggled to kill it. Ended 13-7
Game 2 – Bryan O&G Standard netlist but with less trolls and a block of Black Orcs, blood and glory scenario for 500 extra vps. I was more than a touch lucky in this game, Reign of chaos killed 2 rock lobbas and a mangler on the turn I expected them to kill the lord of change (which would have broken my fortitude as T1 I lost my bsb to a miscast), lord of change then lived a charmed life and survived being foot of gorked twice and a doom diver to the head. I tested 5 beasts vs 6 trolls, beasts win only taking a couple of wounds in the process. Nurgle block & khorne chariot smashed the black orcs. Final turn of game 4 screamers charged his general (on 2 wounds) and managed to kill him for the fortitude and a 800pts swing which made it 20-0, could easily have been 1800vps diff if my general died and his survived!
Game 3 – Paul Eacock DoC, Watchtower with a hill for 500vps. Papa, Epidemus, 2x3 flies, 6 beasts, PB block with Bsb, cannon. Basically my list with less of the experimental chaff and a GUO. Papa miscast and went into the warp T1 but despite that I still managed to lose the game! Tried 5 beasts vs 3 flies, beasts take them out in 1-2 rounds for a couple of wounds. But I let the nurgle tally build up and it cost me, also reign of chaos took our ward saves from 4+ to none over a couple of turns for some really weird occurrences! Paul just played the army better than me despite his early setback and cleared stuff up. Chicken died to 3 flies when he had no ward save. We did 3 flies with death heads vs 3 with poison, I lost all 3 and he took 1 wound but poison didn’t really do much was just dice and a bad crumble role. Lost 0-20 and was tabled.
Game 4 – Rob Hall HE Blood and glory for 500vps 2xphoenix, dragon prince bus with prince, phoenix guard, bsb, high arch mage, 2x archers and 3 x reavers. 2 Phoenix in your face T1 are scary! Both 20” forwards and facing the cannon for T2 charge. Double 1’d my first magic phase and lost the harpy screen plus a few wounds elsewhere but the issue was no magic for the phoenix, did bolt 1 for 2 wounds and cannoned off the other but the burning chariot did nothing to the wounded one over 2 turns which cost me a lot of movement. Beasts of nurgle missed a couple of charges and got stuck in a stupid wood and failed the test in a critical turn which meant I didn’t get to his archers. Chicken nearly pulled the game back in the final turn when combo fighting a phoenix guard block in the flank and archers in front. Killed 8 archers to win combat and PG with mage & bsb (sent to back) testing on a 9, passed with a 9 (sqeeky bum time!). Wouldn’t have deserved to get back into the game but again much closer than 1-19 score suggested. DP bus was BoWD and killed most of my stuff, was a bit unfortunate that a fiery convocation took off half my PB block when set up for flank charge into the DPs so I couldn’t commit. But I made some movement errors and cost myself several pts as a result.
Game 5 – Ross DE Pendant Dragon, peg bsb, 2xlvl 2s corsair block, xbows, 2 x hydras (maybe just 1) and cold one bus. We set about smashing each other to bits in this one and was great fun, played it far more aggressively than v sandy G1 and it almost paid off, barring the beasts totally fluffing against the cold ones I’d probably have won big. Beasts did zero wounds and got ground out vs cold ones, ASF banner on unit but still way off averages but don’t think I got a single beast with more than 3 attacks across 3 rounds of combat. Metal magic killed the dragon but pendant guy had 2++ flaming so I couldn’t touch him, bsb also survived due to my not targeting him when I could have as didn’t have any protective kit. Other than that we basically killed most of each others armies. I did combo charge the corsairs with the PBs in the front and the chicken in the flank and killed about 20 guys in a single round for 3 wounds back. PBs then killed the CO bus after breaking from combat they ran them down in the final turn. Final game I played a lot more aggressively and think it helped me a lot.
Overall looking at the list I had about 300pts that did nothing all event, so could easily optimise the list further and it would be much better but less variety. The volume of magic didn’t really achieve much for me, the chicken seldom cast much and rarely more than 2 dice as tried to keep gateway off him. Metal did nothing the first 4 games but was great in the last and death wasn’t worth much as generally need 3 dice to try the snipe and that takes away from the rest of the phase. For the event I went 3-2 but my losses were massive and my wins were small (well 2 of them) so I ended up in 20th.
Playing again I might switch to 3x Blue fire (or 2 & gateway), lvl 1 metal, lvl 1 death (spells too good not to have at least 1 level). So LoC could become a lvl 2-3 and still do fine, spells I want cast on an 8 generally so 2 dice is still cast most of the time. Never got any benefit out of treason and only 1 time glean achieved anything was to take gateway off the paul's horror block as at 18" I was generally not wanting the chicken to be in danger of getting charged so couldn't cast it very often.
The other big failure was the burning chariot, I didn't have great luck with the artillery dice misfiring several times but overall it didn't do enough to justify its points (a second cannon would have been better in every occasion but I'm still assuming that will get comped out). Only moving 10" meant it couldn't get away from threats.
LoC lvl 3 (Tzeentch)
Tzeentch Herald lvl 1 (Metal)
Nurgle BSB, lvl 1 (Death)
11 Horrors
10 horrors
24 PBs - FC, Swiftness
5 beasts
2x3 screamers
5 furies
2x3 drones - Poison
Cannon
Obviously doesn’t work with scenarios as only fortitude 4 and 2 of those in the potentially easy to kill LoC but pretty easy to move some points around for standards on the 2 horror units. Screamers were really helpful chaff and that was with me forgetting about the slashing attack all event too, so 2x3 should do even better and 2x3 drones are also great anti chaff units that can threaten flanks, kill shooters and generally be annoying.
