Game 81 - Daemons of Chaos - 2013/08/03

Game 6 - Daemons of Chaos - Battle Line

The tournament entered its final stage. I was very happy with my results in general. I wondered if I could get yet another win but at the same time I knew I am going to face another tough opponent.

And I was correct! Current No.3 in Oz, Jamie Payne, with whom we had a few nice chats about MSU in general, was my opponent in the final round. Jamie is no stranger to HE so he knew my army in and out. While he brought MSU version of his daemons. It was a very interesting and potent unholy alliance of all 4 gods:

Daemons of Chaos - Army List

Karanak - Army General
Herald of Tzeentch - Lore of Tzeentch
Herald of Tzeentch - Lore of Metal
Herald of Slaanesh on a Steed

10 Horrors - Lore of Tzeentch
10 Horrors - Lore of Tzeentch
10 Horrors - Lore of Tzeentch
15 Plaguebearers, Full Command
7 Fleshhounds
6 Fiends of Slaanesh
5 Furies
Beast of Nurgle
Beast of Nurgle
Skull Cannon
Skull Cannon

For starters I had to face 5 wizards! It does not matter they are level 1. But 5 channeling attempts each magic phase had to bring profits! And there is always redundancy in numbers. Not to mention that Tzeentch magic can be very dangerous to small regiments (but not only!).

Then 2 fast and hard hitting units with associated characters. Karanak seemed like a proper badass and it was determined to hunt down my loremaster (some kind of special rule). His abilities to give frenzy and hatred to his unit made them even more dangerous! Fiends and their herald, with their M10 and ASF were huge problem too. Extremely fast and hitting hard, they could be on my units in no time, even if I deployed at the very edge.

The rest of the army nicely added to the whole picture. Skull cannons are always great and Jamie had two! :) Beasts are very resilient, are good at hunting down characters and are quite expendable as well, if there is a need. Plaguebearers, deceptively small, could soak up some punishment too and simply cannot be ignored anyway.

I was up for probably the biggest challenge of the tournament :)

Deployment

Armies ready for the fight!

Deployment after vanguard and scout moves

Deployment phase was a very interesting phase on its own. We both have armies with multiple units and both rely on out-deploying the opponent. You can judge by yourself who did better in this phase :) All I can say is that it was tough to gain any advantage. From one point of view I was glad the fast units are not heading down the center. On the other, they were safe from shooting and could easily roll the flank and attack in unison with slower units approaching head on.

I tried to reinforce right flank with fast units so that I could slow the enemy down as I knew they would be on my in no time. Hence diverting reavers and placing shadow warriors there as I knew eagles were slightly out of position and would not be able to be there in turn 1 for me.

At the same time I wanted to use my combat unit on my left flank to approach horrors and hopefully be fast enough to get to them before their magic kills me.

The multiple wizards in daemons army had following spells:

Tzeentch Herald - Blue Fire of Tzeentch
Horrors 1 - Bolt of Change
Horrors 2 - Tzeentch's Firestorm
Horrors 3 - Blue Fire of Tzeentch
Tzeentch Herald - Plague of Rust

Also, Herald of Slaanesh had +S due to gift.

Jamie won the roll off (he had slightly less units than I did) and daemons moved forward screaming!

Daemons of Chaos - Turn 1

Reign of Chaos!

Howling daemons rushed forward to devour flesh and souls of the Elves. On the East fast units of seekers and furies set themselves as a bait for stalwart White Lions and impetus Dragon Princes. Obviously it was a trap so that nearby fiends and flesh hounds led by Karanak could mount a devastating counter charge.

The cannons aimed at great eagles but fortunately for noble birds of pray both shots went short. Then the storm of magic stroke with full might. Chaos reigned over the battlefield and what was not hit by bolts of pure magical energy was affected by the might of dark gods. Their laughter rolled over the battlefield together with thunders and lightnings.

Many elven units were affected and great were the casualties. Archers lost more than half of their numbers in a blink of an eye but they held their ground. Only a bladelord remained from the proud regiment of warriors of Hoeth and on the far West Dragon Princes lost two knights as well. A powerful strike indeed!

Outcasts - Turn 1

Counter charge!

Cascade! Again!

Elves had no time for delay and what is better to defend their own lines if not attacking? White Lions and Dragon Princes charged as one against seekers and destroyed them with easy. The momentum took both regiments into contact with furies. Knowing that it was a trap, light regiments moved around to block a counter to the counter and a game of bait and divert continued.

On the West Dragon Princes and Swordmasters used the passage on the river to move forward without delay the water otherwise would have caused. Loremaster led the unit of Lions towards the enemy and wanted to cast some magic to help his army combat the evil Daemons.

Larry was excited to be in the front line. He had a great view and was admiring agile daemons of slaanesh on their sleek mounts. Such a waste that these arrogant caledorians killed all of them! How can he show his skills in sword fighting when there are no enemies left?

But then he remembered the trick Archie the Archmage thought him. Good old Archie was such a chatter box after a few bottles of wine. If his companions only knew that whatever he said was in fact true and didn't consider it as some made up stories of half mad wizard.

Doing as instructed he concealed a portal opening with some mandatory fireworks. What looked like a powerful explosion due to uncontrolled magical feedback caused by dark gods was in fact a disguise. Larry smiled wildly seeing two feminine creatures inviting him to step in. Yes, there will be definitely some sword fighting here. Hopefully he didn't knock down too many of his warriors in the process. Archie told him he has to be careful or they might get suspicious. Ah well, he will worry about that after the visit in this lovely place of 50 shades of pink!

Daemons of Chaos - Turn 2

Powerful counter charge to the counter charge!

Battle for the East!

Shadow Warriors make a noble sacrifice and slow down the Fiends as well as block them from joining the combat. However, reavers miscalculated. They performed feigned flight maneuver but that spooked nearby eagle and opened a way for flesh hounds to charge. Also the skull cannon joined the fight.

White Lions were lucky, though, as it didn't pick up enough momentum to inflict a lot of impact hits. A brutal combat erupted and furies all died to elven blades. Even the cannon got wounded a few times. Dragon Princes fought well too and a lot of attacks were deflected thanks to their skill and armor. Elves miraculously held the line and the combat broke now into individual fights.

The second cannon aimed at another eagle one more time but something went wrong and a huge internal explosion destroyed infernal engine. The laughter of the dark gods didn't fade away. This time reign of chaos claimed remaining White Lions from the former loremaster bodyguards and half of the second Swordmaster regiment.

Outcasts - Turn 2

Daemons are stopped on the East. For a while.

Elves start striking back

Dragon Princes on the West charge against Horrors but despite destroying a few are stuck in combat. In the center shooting destroys more plague bearers.

On the East the advance of daemons is slowed down for a while. Lions destroy the cannon and a single dragon prince refuse to give ground and keeps the hounds busy. Fiends are again blocked by the eagle and light cavalry surrounds the fighting units.

Daemons of Chaos - Turn 3

Daemons win the battle on the East

And attack in the center

Flesh hounds finally finish off the last elven knight and fiends are free to move as well. Tzeentch herald charges the reavers from the rear and while they try to escape they are unfortunately too slow and are slain in pursuit.

Plague bearers charge sisters who try to fight but are pushed back and that shakes the resolve of the nearby archers too. Finally, the magical energies are once more the source of doom for elves. The regiment of Swordmasters ceases to exist.

Outcasts - Turn 3

Elves regroup

And buy themselves a little bit of time

White Lions and the eagle move to the rear of the enemy formation, avoiding immediate attention of the daemons. Reavers move away too thus making sure that the enemy is not able to charge them now.

The shooters finish off the plague bearers but the Dragon Princes are still locked in combat against daemons in the North-West corner of the battle field.

Daemons of Chaos - Turn 4

Daemons advance again

Chaos reigns one more time!

With passage open on the Easter flank flesh hounds and fiends close in towards the elven shooters. Archers are this time the target of the enemy magical fire and only a standard bearer remains as a sole survivor.

On the bright side Dragon Princes finally got rid of the horrors and were in a good position to attack another enemy.

Outcasts - Turn 4

Cavalry charge for the rescue!

Reavers block the enemy

Dragon Princes charge and their powerful attack this time destroys whole group of horrors. Elven Knights overrun into the beast of nurgle.

Reavers once again blocked the path for the enemy and the shooters took advantage of that destroying half of the unit of horrors with herald of tzeentch hiding among them.

Daemons of Chaos - Turn 5
 

Herald of Tzeentch senses trouble and leaves his minion to their fate

(Edit: I am not sure of beast of nurgle charged here. I think Jamie might in fact moved it away (see map in next turn))

Frenzied flesh hounds destroyed reavers and overrun thus positioning them in the blind spot. Their mission in that battle was accomplished.

Heralds moved to relative safety putting their minions in between. Dragon Princes wounded the beast of nurgle but it kept fighting. White Lions lost a few of their number to foul magic but the survivors proudly held their banner high!

Outcasts - Turn 5

Last of the horrors are banished

High Elves were bloodied badly but kept fighting. Dragon Princes finally finished off the beast of nurgle but only their battle standard bearer remained. Last of the horrors were banished by shooting too.

At this stage dark gods lost interest and called back their minions to the realm of chaos. Elves were relieved but at a huge cost.

Summary

Turn-by-turn summary animation

After-battle thoughts

I would like to thank Jamie for a fantastic game! I had to sweat a lot during all of the battles at ConVic but this one was definitely the most demanding. When we calculated the points we found out that Jamie collected just enough to claim 12-8 victory. Jamie finished 2nd overall too so well done, mate!  

I would also like to apologize for being a little grumpy after my turn 2. I lost a lot of units due to reign of chaos, then lost loremaster due to cascade and then failed panic check ruined my plan to stop the units on the right flank. I do hope I recovered quickly enough not to spoil the game. :)

As I said it was a very demanding game and I am very happy I got some points from it as after turn 2 I thought I will be tabled. Fortunately for me I got a little bit of luck despite my mistakes and I managed to claw back some points later on in the game.

Some more detailed but random observations.

It was the first game where reign of chaos had such a huge impact. I think in each magic phase it was something that could hurt me. Only sometimes the units were not affected because the template might scatter or something similar. And that was big thing because combined with unstoppable magic missiles I was simply losing entire units.

I greatly enjoyed a game of maneuver and charge-counter charge, bait-counter bait moves we had on the left flank. I made some mistakes there unfortunately. I took the bait Jamie offered as I thought I could stop hounds with my own light troops and didn't allow them to charge into the same combat. First, I didn't measure the distance between the eagle and furies and when they contracted there was enough space to move in with hounds even if the eagle didn't fail its panic check. I was very lucky that there was a "1" rolled for impact hits and that dragon princes saved many attacks and held longer than expected.

Then I totally forgot about the herald and exposed reavers to rear charge. To add insult to injury I rolled so badly on flee reaction that the herald had no problems in catching them. What a waste!  #-o

A little bit of bad luck was when last eagle could not pass march test and I had to use more expensive reavers to block the hounds from charging the sea guard.

At the same time I am fully aware I had some luck too. Cannons missing eagles or exploding was one example. Another I have already explained with dragon princes. Good timing with dragon princes winning their combat in daemons urn was lucky as well. In general, the fact that I kept a few units barely alive was also quite lucky as there many points to grab there.

I am glad that I managed to keep fighting and with shooting and a few combats going my way I earned some precious points. In particular, that I once again lost the Loremaster due to cascade! Can you believe that? 4 times in 6 games and 3 times he went down the hole  #-o

But at the same time I had a proper training in playing games not only without a powerful character but without any magical protection. Now I know it is hard but doable, haha!

ConVic 2013 - Summary

First of all, I would like to thank Piers aka rathpex and anybody who helped him or was involved in organizing that tournament for everything! It was great tournament, run very smoothly (I think it was a first big tournament I attended where there were no re-draws :)) and in a very nice venue too! (Gotta love these pints on the spot! :)). Fantastic job and well done! 

The tournament gathered 80 players, many from interstates that shows simply that there are real hardcore fans of Warhammer in Oz!

Next I would like to thank my opponents! Andrew, David, Nick, Chris, Travis and Jamie, you made that tournament very exciting for me and all the games were awesome! I hope we will all meet again as it was a great pleasure rolling dice with you! Thanks, guys!  

I like the scenarios and I am always happy when they are part of the players pack. It is always something to discuss what should be added, should the scenarios be modified and if yes in what way. The only one I am not sure of myself is the Watchtower. 1000 VP bonus is a huge shift of points. It was balanced with the rule that you can garrison the tower with no more than 20 infantry models but I still think smaller amounts of points would do the trick and not make the "losing" player losing big. But, please, take it as an opinion only, a feedback to consider (or not!) in case you are going to organize another event and would want to include that particular scenario.

It was interesting to see yet another way Swedish Comp can be applied. It is not easy thing to do but it seemed to please more players than when the comp was added at the end of the tournament so that people could submarine to better positions. At the same time a lot of players did consider the score one way or another. So some basically took the toughest lists they could and decided to smash the opponents while others softened their lists so that they could benefit a little from the comp train. It seems the hardcore approach worked better as armies in top 10 were mostly "hard" in the frame of the scores allowed for the event. But at the same time there were few exceptions too. :) The bottom line is that everybody seemed to have fun, no matter what the lists were. And that is the most important thing!

The only thing I would like to point out that might be good to improve is amount and variety of terrain. I know it is not that easy to organize so many pieces of terrain but whatever can be done to improve it will be for better!

It was fantastic to catch up with people I met before and make new friends too. Guys, everybody I talked to, even briefly, thanks a lot! It was great meeting you and thanks to all these chats the whole event was so fantastic too!

I would like to congratulate all the winners as well. The competition was fierce in every aspect, the awards were awesome and in the end single points if not fractions of points decided on the overall standings. If you are interested in details here is the link:

ConVic 2013 - Results

Personally, I was very happy with my performance. I won 4 games, lost 2 but only one with a big margin. Apart from the craziest amount of cascades I have ever witnessed all went quite well. I made stupid mistakes sometimes and there is still something to learn but I hope I gave good games to my opponents. Both in terms of skill and in terms of pleasure of dice rolling.

I ended up 7th overall but I can even claim I was 6th together with a current ETC captain of the Australian team as we had the same amount of points! For me it is a great achievement and a sign of progress too! The funny part was that I was 2.6 points away from No. 3 :) If only Larry didn't blow himself up in 3 games, haha!

But the greatest surprise came when best generals of the armies were announced. Guess what I brought home :)



Yeap, I was awarded best High Elves general and I think I can call myself a true Swordmaster now as I have a sword at home! (a short one but still!).

Last but not least I would like to thank all the readers! I hope you enjoyed the reports!

Cheers!