Thursday, September 10, 2009

Battle Summary: Mixed Daemons vs. Blood Angels (1000 points)

This is a short battle summary from a friendly game of Chaos Daemons versus Blood Angels (1000 points). Let's have a look at the respective army lists first.

My daemons:
HQ: Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut with Unholy Might (120 points)
Troops: 10 bloodletters (160 points; deployed with the Herald)
Troops: 9 plaguebearers, icon, instrument (165 points)
Troops: 9 plaguebearers, icon, instrument (165 points)
Heavy Support: Daemon Prince, iron hide, daemonic gaze (130 points)
Heavy Support: Daemon Prince, iron hide, daemonic gaze (130 points)
Heavy Support: Daemon Prince, iron hide, daemonic gaze (130 points)

My opponent's list looks like this:
Lemartes (100 points)
Dreadnought with assault cannon (125 points)
Assault squad with 10 members, 2 plasma pistols, 1 powerfist (305 points)
Tactical squad with 10 members, 1 missile launcher, 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, Rhino transport (275 points)
Vindicator (125 points)
Land Speeder with Multi-Melta (65 points)
2 Death Company Marines (free!)

The game is being played over three objectives and the set-up is table quarters. The game board is almost entirely featureless apart from one large hill in the centre of the board that has some spooky looking ruins on top of it. The ruins provide a 4+ cover save and the hill is considered "easy up and easy down" but it does block line of sight from one side to the other.

One of the objectives is in the dead centre of the ruins, another is near to my opponents corner of the board and the third is in what would be my quarter of the board (if daemons set up like other normal armies that is!).

At the start of the game, my opponent gains first turn and proceeds to set up in his quarter of the board. The vindicator and the land speeder are toward the corner of the board, whereas the rest of his army are as close to the centre as possible. He elects to split his assault and tactical squads in to two (using the combat squads special rule).

Early Turns.
Unsurprisingly, very little happens on my opponents first turn. With no targets to pick from, he advances forward some of his troops to claim the central objective. His chaplain commander attached himself to half of the tactical squad, whilst the other half remains in their rhino. The assault element spreads itself out whilst the rest of the army remains fairly static.

When my daemons finally show up, I get lucky and my primary wave gets chosen to come on first (as per the daemonic assault rules). My primary wave consists of one group of plaguebearers and two of the daemon princes.

I drop one of the daemon princes near to the rear of his army and get lucky with the scatter die - he gets placed even closer to the vindicator. Within charge range in fact - that's how close the scatter die take me! I place the second daemon prince facing down the assault marines -- I want to take out his scoring units! The prince scatters a LONG way to the opposite side of the hill where he has no line of sight to my opponent's men. I lodge my plaguebearers next to the ruins and, for once, the scatter die keeps them there. I run the plagebearers into the ruins, claiming the objective for the moment. My first daemon prince takes out 3 assault marines with daemonic gaze. The second prince moves up the slope a little bit, but stays out of line of sight.

The vindicator shoots at the daemon prince next to it. He misses and scatters in to the death company! Splat! Two dead marines. The daemon prince then loses two wounds from a combination of the land speeder and the tactical squad.

The assault squads shoot at my plaguebearers, resulting in only one death and then charge them. We cause 1 death each, which would ordinarily mean a tied combat. However, the instrument turns the tie into a win for me. But nothing further happens.

In my turn, my daemon prince near to the vindicator charges it. The vindicator gets wrecked as a result. My plaguebearers don't suffer any further wounds, but kill another marine. Its a slow attrition going in my favour here!

The prince who scattered over the hill comes jogging around the corner, takes out a pair of tactical marines and charges them. He wipes out the rest of the 5 man squad.


Middle Turns.
The dreadnought shoots at the prince who slew the tactical squad, scoring one wound before charging in to him. Another wound results on the prince, but the prince destroys the dreadnought's close combat weapon in exhange. On top of the hill in the ruins, no further plaguebearers perish, but they slaughter the rest of the (originally 5 strong) assault marines thanks to some fortuitous die rolling (and poor saving throws).

My other plaguebearers come in to play and deep strike on top of the objective in my home table quarter. That's two objectives to me and the third one is being contested. The bloodletters and herald use the icon off the first squad of plaguebearers to come in to play near to them. Little of further consequence happens.

The land speeder finishes off my daemon prince in my opponents home quarter and then lemartres and the other assualt marines shoot (without effect) and charge the plaguebearers in the ruins. The charge leaves only two plaguebearers left alive. Having lost the combat, they then promptly flee back to the warp. The rhino with the remaining half of the marines inside moves up the hill to help Lemartes claim the objective. The dreadnought miraculously kills his opposing daemon prince.

Late Turns.
I move the bloodletters and herald close to the rhino and charge the thing - with a rear armour of 10 and a bucket load of attacks, my bloodletters explode the rhino's fuel tank in no time whatsoever. Boom!

The marines engage my bloodletters as a consequence and they're left fighting in the middle of the board with casualties being taken on both sides.

My final daemon prince comes in to play in turn 5 and I attempt to land him near to my opponents objective (in his corner of the board), but I scatter a little too much and have a teleport mis-hap. He goes back into reserve.

On top of the hill, my herald pretty much single-handedly finishes off the chaplain whilst the rest of the bloodletters take care of the remaining marines.
The dread walks over to contest the central objective in my opponents turn and every bloodletter apart from the herald gets torn asunder by incoming fire.

In my turn (turn 6), I try again with my last daemon prince and he comes in on target this time -- near his home objective that the landspeeder has swooped to be nearby. I run him to within contesting distance of the objective.

The game ends at the end of turn 6. I control the objective in my own corner. The central objective is contested between my herald, his dread and the remnants of the tactical squad (another turn, and I'm sure the herald would have been back in the warp!). In the other corner, my last daemon prince contests the objective. Victory to daemons by 1 objective.

Random thoughts.
The herald of Khorne is amazing for the points cost - protected in a mob of bloodletters, he's a force to be reckoned with. But maybe I need more than 2 icons in this army? I'm not sure. To be honest, I was very surprised by the result. The marines looked like they'd easily win in the middle of the game.

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