WHFB Battle Report: Dark Elves vs Daemons of Chaos @ 2,200

Sup all.  As promised, here is my bat rep from this weekend.  More Adepticon playtesting.  I played the local Daemons player, who is quite skilled.  I don't think he had a super great list, mostly because this is the first game of 8th he played below 2,500.  That, and he was experimenting with some new stuff.  The list has some battle-forcey elements, but the core elements I would expect to see in any good Daemons list I face.

As usual, I played my Adepticon list that you've all seen before.  He played the following (near as I can recall) list...

Herald of Tzeentch Lvl 3 Master of Sorcery (Life)

Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut BSB with the -2 leadership Icon

Herald of Khorne on foot

Keeper of Secrets level 2 (!!!)

[The KoS was his big experiment in this one.  It has good synergy with his BSB.  I don't think it was hugely effective, or a good use of his points.  I would have ditched it and beefed up the units he did bring more.  Or bring a few noticeable absences.]

20-30 Bloodletters

30ish Pink Horrors

[Typical core choices for Daemons.  If he didn't have the KoS he could have beefed the 'Letters into a horde, which I think they benefit from.]

5 Bloodcrushers with the banner that adds a d6 to it's first charge distance

4 Fiends of Slaanesh

[These were odd choices.  With the Herald on Jugger he was trying to create a mini-deathstar that would pretty much always get the charge off.  Except, I don't think Juggers were the right unit to use, I would have used Flesh Hounds.  Fiends are puzzling.  They charge a loooong distance, but they do nothing in combat and die easy.  Flamers of Tzeentch would have been tougher, especially for my army.]

So we rolled pitched battle, and set up like so...

Typical deployment.  Dark Riders on the far right.  Xbowmen in the center.  Beefy stuff on the left.  Supreme Sorceress safely out of LoS behind stuff.

He had Fiends on the right, next to his 'Letters.  Crushers in the middle and Horrors on the left.  After that, I deployed my Shades in his right deployment zone 12" away from the Fiends.  I vanguarded one of my DR to the center and one further up the flank.  Daemons got the first turn...

Daemons Turn One

His army lurched forward.  The Fiends turned to face my Shades.  In the magic phase, he only had 5 dice and threw them all at Throne of Vines, and failed to get IF.  I managed to dispell it.  Turn over.

Mo

End Daemons turn 1

Dark Elves Turn One

Movement phase I move the motor pool forward.  In the magic phase, I failed to Miasma his Juggers.  I dropped a Pit of Shades on them but it scattered far and only clipped one, he made his initiative test.  I cast Ockham's on the Xbowmen he was likely to charge the next turn as a deterrent.  That plan worked.

Shooting phase I put a lot of bolts into his Juggers, and did a wound.  My Shades' shooting did a wound or two to his Fiends.  End turn.

End Dark Elves turn 1

Daemons Turn 2

His mini-star was deterred by the Ockhams, so he charged a Hydra.  His Fiends charged my Shades.  In the magic phase, his KoS cast a spell giving ASF to the Bloodcrushers.  That... is going to be a problem.

In combat, my Shades lowered the boom and killed a few Fiends.  See, lots of attacks on my end, plus Fiends having low toughness and crap save means they suck.  I did 6 wounds, he killed 4 Shades.  I won, but he made his leadership to avoid more wounds.  The Crushers did 3 wounds to my Hydra, nasty.  My Hydra was manly though, and did a bunch of wounds back.  I only lost the combat due to the fact he flank charged AND had a banner and BSB.  Due to the -2 leadership, I bitched out, even with the BSB nearby.  Hydra ran, taking another wound as it moved through chariots.  Luckily, he rolled very low on his overrun and didn't charge into combat.

End Daemons turn 2

Dark Elves Turn 2

I charged his Crushers with my master, but my BSB who also wanted the charge didn't have the room to wheel to get to them due to intervening units.  Hrm.  So now I figured my Master was toast.  I marched my Hydra right up to his Letters.  My 3 normal chariots were all Stupid, thanks to his -2 Leadership icon.  Bad.  I brough my far unit of DR around to shoot at his KoS.  My fleeing Hydra rallied.

Magic phase, I lowered the strength of his Crushers, super key.  I dropped a Pit of Shades on his 'Letters, killing 4 or 5 of them. 

Shooting phase, my 2 DR and 2 units of Xbowment opened up on his KoS in short range.  Killed it. It took 76 bolts shot at him to do it, but he went down.  That was huge.  My Hydra breathed on 11 of his 'Letters, killing 5 or 6 of them.

In combat, I my Shades did a wound or two to his Fiends but he killed 3 or 4 of them, and they fled off the table.  He went off the table while pursuing.  My master's impact hits did 2 wounds, killing a Crusher.  My chariot's regular attacks did nothing.  Thanks to his Enfeebled strength, he didn't do any wounds to my Master.  We drew combat.

End DE turn 2

Daemons turn 3

His Fiends walked back on.  His Letter didn't charge my Hydra for some reason I can't recall.  He was too good of a player to make a mistake like that, so I'm not sure what happened, I only know he didn't charge for some reason.  He reformed his Horrors to have a view of the center of the field.

In the magic phase he rolled 4 dice maybe.  Now I remembered.  He was going to magic the Hydra to death.  The plan was to draw out my dispell dice with Throne/Flesh to Stone, then cast Flickering Fire on my Hydra, to kill regen, and then kill it with Bolt of Tzeentch.  Didn't work with only 4 dice.  Lesson to you Fantasy players out there: Don't come up with a plan that fails if the magic phase fails.  Make a plan that can win, but wins easier with a good magic phase.

In close combat, his Herald did a wound to my Master thanks to 3 successful 4+ armor saves, but the master kill his last Crusher.  He won combat, but I miraculously held.

End Daemons turn 3

Dark Elves Turn 3

My Hydra charged his Letters.  No surprise there.  The big surprise was my BSB being Stupid, thanks to the -2 leadership Icon.  Had my BSB charged into his Herald, he would have killed him with ease.  Oh well.  My Dark Riders moved around to the flank of the Horrors to take some pot shots.  Some of my other chariots were stupid and the whole motor pool was really slow.  Story of the game for me. 

In Magic, I Enfeebled his Bloodletters to help my Hydra.  Ockham's, however, failed to cast on my Master's chariot, so chances are he wouldn't be able to kill the Herald through 1+/5++.  Oh well.

Shooting I did some good casualties to his Horrors.  In total I killed 5 or 6 of them.

In combat, my Hydra weathered the storm from the Letters relatively easily, and in total killed about 9 of the Letters.  Instability took care of the rest of the unit.  I reformed to face the oncoming Fiends.  Somehow my Master managed to not die, since the Herald only managed to hit him once and failed to wound. 

 End DE turn 3. 

Daemons Turn 4

His Fiends charge my Hydra.  His Horrors moved backwards to cast and not get attacked.

In Magic, his horrors did some Tzeentch spell that hits everything within 12".  Wiped out a unit of DR, and killed 2 of the other causing them to flee.  He got Throne off, and cast Regrowth on the Horrors, bringing back 6 of them.

In combat, against all odds my Hydra didn't do much, but neither did his Fiends.  I think we drew.  His Herald finally killed my Master, but his chariot crewman held on valiantly!

End Daemons Turn 4

Dark Elves Turn 4

One of my chariots flank charged his Fiends who were locked in with Hydra.  Unbelievably, my BSB was AGAIN Stupid thanks to rolling a 10 and 11.  The -2 leadership didn't even matter.  The rest of the motor pool moved forward.  My fleeing DR rallied.

In the Magic phase I failed to cast Ockhams on my master-less chariot, and the phase was over for me, despite having 6 power dice left.  Lesson learned, just rolled the 5th dice for Ockham's and be safe.

In combat, my chariot killed his fiends with impact hits and overran a few inches to get me closer to his Horrors.  My Hydra reformed to face the Horrors.  But amazingly, my Master-less chariot took 3 wounds from the Herald, surviving, and did 2 wounds back, killing the Herald.  Woo!  Finally dead.  Now that all he had left was the Horrors and I had virtually my whole army, the game was over, but we played on for the fun of it.

End DE turn 4.  His Horrors are a bit outnumbered, no?

Daemons Turn 5

His Horrors pulled backwards and cast some magic, doing some wounds to my Hydra, but that's all they could manage.

End DoC turn 5

Dark Elves turn 5

Everyone moved forward towards the Horrors.  My furthest chariot charged them.  My Hydra was 2" short on the charge.  I figured my chariot was in big troubles.  In magic, I Miasma'ed the Horrors and lowered their strength. 

My impact hits killed a few.  The crew and the cold ones killed his Herald of Tzeentch.  Thanks to his banner and rank bonus I think I only won by 1 or 2 and he managed to hold his ground.

End DE turn 5

Daemons Turn 6

Despite all odds, thanks to his rank bonuses he managed to win combat against my chariot and caused it to flee, but it outran him.  He reformed to brace for impact from the Hydra.

End Daemons Turn 6

Dark Elves Turn 6.

For fun, I mind razored my Hydra and charged.  My fleeing chariot rallied.  My Hydra won combat with the Fiends by a lot, and they instabilitied out.  So it took 6 full turns, but I did table him.

End Game.

Well, I whipped him pretty bad there.  The VP score was something insane like 2500-250.  There was a lot of luck on my side, to make it that lopsided.  After his Crushers broke my Hydra, he only rolled 3" on pursuit which wasn't enough to carry him into combat with the Master.  So the Master charged him next turn.  That 2 point swing in combat resolution no doubt saved the Master, but also saved the BSB would the Crushers would have overrun into next.  There is a good chance it would have collapsed that whole flank.

But it didn't.  Despite the vicissitudes of fortune, even had luck not been on my side there, I would have won anyway.  My list is fairly well tuned and his wasn't perfectly optimized and had questionable unit choices, so I was a heavy favorite going in just based on lists, and the results bore that out.  

Go Naggarond!