Vengeance - Salamanders VS Chaos Daemon

[Infidel]

Points: 1850
Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Pitched Battle

This game is against a list that I had always had some problem with, I've made some changes to my regular list and most importantly I dropped a bloodthirster and 2 slaanesh chariots in favour of 4 tzeentch chariot heralds. Trying to make up for all the short-comings of taking BT (expensive singular model, not enough attack against crowds)

Slaanesh/Tzeentch Daemons
HQ
2x Tzeentch Herald
-Chariot, Master of Sorcery, We Are Legion, Breath of Chaos
2x Tzeentch Herald
-Chariot, Master of Sorcery, We Are Legion, Bolt of Tzeentch

Elite
2x 6 Fiends of Slaanesh
1x 4 Bloodcrusher
-Instrument, Fury, Icon

Troops
1x 9 Plaguebearer
-Icon
2x 5 Plaguebearer

Heavy Support
3x Daemon Prince
-Mark of Slaanesh, Ironhide, Unholy Might, Pavane, Aura, Transfixing Gaze


At the heart of this list are some tough icon bearers (PBs and Crushers), supported by fast slaanesh units andnagain reinforced with Tzeentch Chariots.

Salamanders
HQ
Vulkan

Elite
2x 10 Sternguards
-Powerfist, Heavy Flamer, 4x Combi-flamer, 4x Combi-Melta, Drop Pod
1x 5 Assault Terminator
-Thunderhammer/Storm Shield

Troops
1x 10 Tactical Marine
-Powerfist, Multimelta, Melta, Drop Pod
1x 6 Tactical Marine
-Powerfist, Flamer, Razorback

Fast Attack
1x 3 Attack Bikes
-Multimelta

Heavy Support
2x Predator
-Autocannon, Heavy Bolter

Terrain
The board is mirrored on the diagonal with 4 small cluster of 10" by 8" area terrain in each quadrant of the board and a single large area terrain dead centre, about 10" in radius. Nothing that blocks LOS right off.

Deployment
Marines won the roll-off and handed me the first turn. With nothing to deploy, we move the marine deployment. He chose the top table-edge and places the Predators and Razorback in a patch of area terrain to the top-right quadrant, the 3 attack bikes spread out and occupies the space between the space between the terrain and table corner. The assault terminators form a single line in front of this small castle.

Turn 1 – Daemon
Knowing that I'll be hammered by the 2 sternguard pods, I decide to bait him by putting units that’s designed to decimate his 750pt sternguards. The warp powers agree with me and I dropped my Crusher, 2 Fiends and 4 chariots and start about 24” away from him. Everything but the bolt chariots drop into the top-left table quarter. Most things deviate slightly and one chariot lost a wound to the terrain, but scatters are very slight.

Shooting:
Knowing that the predators in cover will be much too difficult to harm, the 2 bolt chariot fire on the bikes in cover, instantly killing one and putting a single wound on another bike. Everything else runs to spread out and move towards eachother

Turn 1 – Salamanders
2 Drop Pods arrives like burning comets, firing their reverse thrusters moments before impact and out comes 20 veteran sternguard marines led by the Forgefather himself. The Vulkan pod arrives without deviation while the second pod lands on top of the fiends and ends up drifting away from his quarter. The razorback drives over, and the 6 tactical marine disembarks, their bolters at the ready.

Shooting
In a maelstrom of flame and corrosive bolts, the bloodcrushers lose 5 wounds and the remainder of the force pours their fire into the crushers, hoping that the other sternguard unit can shoot at one of the fiend unit, but after the dust settles, the single icon crusher remained. Now, having not combat-squadded his 10 men sternguard unit in the fear of giving away additional kill-points, his entire squad was forced to shoot at the surviving icon bearing bloodcrusher. I allowed him to combat-squad his sternguard. With these 2 squads he easily kills the surviving crusher and kills 2 fiends.

Assault
None

Turn 2 – Daemon
Reserve! 2 out of the 3 DPs arrive and the large icon plague bearer squad arrives. The plague bearers appear in the large patch of terrain in the middle and lose one of their number while the DPs manage to appear in the openings in the midst of the pods and my forces, the chariots move slightly to get a shot at the bikes and away from the terminators. The breath chariots move into position in preparation of the devastating pavane-breath combo.

Shooting
The bolt chariot shots are resolved first and to the awe of my opponent, they managed to kill both bikes and kill no less than 2 assault terminators. Near the pods, the pavane-breath combo and the ensuing gaze killed 7 sternguards from the Vulkan pod and 5 from the other 2 combat-squadded marine. Despite the carnage, all of the marines find the nerve to stay and fight.

Assault
The unscathed fiend multi-charges the 2 small squads, dividing their attacks evenly while the wounded fiends smash into the Vulkan squad and in a flurry of claws, Vulkan lost his entourage but puts a wound on a fiend in return. In the other combat, all but a single marine survive the furious onslaught and runs, but the nimble fiends caught the lone marine and he was run-down before he could get anywhere. The victorious fiend consolidate 6” into the woods.

Turn 2 – Salamanders
Desperately fighting to withstand this daemonic carnage, Vulkan called upon the aid of his brethrens and his call was answered by the deafening roar of the last marine pod, who attempted to land away from one of the DP to avoid being assaulted by both, but drifts dead in between the two. The Razorback leaves its cargo and moves away from the bolt heralds and the terminators lumbers towards the melee.

Shooting
The combined marine shooting reduced my unscathed fiend to 2 unwounded model and chipped 3 wounds off one of my breath herald

Assault
The terminators find themselves still out of range and with nothing else being able to assault, we move to the fight between Vulkan and the 4 fiends. The claw of the fiends bounce off the Forgefather’s ancient armour but at the same time, his relic spear fails to penetrate the warp current surrounding the slaanesh monsters. Combat is drawn with neither side able to harm the other. Fiends HnR 11” away towards my opponent’s Predators.

Turn 3 – Daemons
One 5 men PB unit arrives and arrives off the icon without scatter, but loses one of their own when deep striking into cover. Chariot move the position themselves, one to flame the pod squad that had just arrived and the other at the Razorback marines. In the mean time, the fiends poise themselves for attack. In the mean time, the plague bearer ready themselves to assault the 3 strong assault terminator through the woods.

Shooting
Pavane-Breath combo killed 4 of the 10 marines from the pod unit while the second breath saw 2 of the Razorback marine turn into boneless goo. Their gaze took 2 wounds off Vulkan, his ancient artificer armour finally giving away under the relentless daemonic assault. I decided that the Plaguebearers might need a hand even though there are only 3 terminators to deal with and 2 of the lumbering warriors fell, even with the aegis of their storm shield.

Assault
Barely making the distance, the Slaanesh DP smash into the pod marines, killing 4 and leaving just the powerfist sergeant and one unlucky marine, who failed to harm the daemon in return. The marines break but the monstrous creature proved to be too agile for them to escape and both die to the daemon’s claw before they could make their escape. The other daemon prince marked Vulkan as her pray and in a series of elegant strikes, dismembered the venerated Salamander captain.

The plague bearer managed to drag their weight through the difficult terrain and smashed into the assault terminator, in one mighty hammer strike, one plague bearer was reduced to a noxious paste but not before he was pierced by a pair of plagueswords.

Against the vehicles, the fiends exploded one predator and immobilized another while the other pack failed to catch the moving razorback. The fiends HnR off the tanks (there was a debate as to whether we are allowed to do this, but we then decided that it makes logical sense that you should be able to) and hid from the immobilized tank’s heavy bolters.

Turn 3 – Salamanders
It’s already clear at this stage that it’s only a matter of time before he’s tabled, he still wanted to try his luck with taking out the wounded fiend pack and the herald.

Shooting
The razorback fire…kills a fiend! The pods fire… and kill another! Since when are they BS4 anyway? The predator pours fire into the wounded breath herald and manages to inflict 2 wounds and banish the sorcerous monster back to the warp. The only non-vehicle models are the 4 surviving razorback marine who find themselves facing off the fiend that had just killed their Forgefather. Screaming bitter vengeance, they fired their bolt pistol and manages to cause no less than 2 unsaved wound on the heavily armoured daemon

Assault
The fiends claw away at the immobilized predator, managing 4 weapon destroyed and 2 immobolised result, wrecking the tank. The marines engage in a melee against the wounded DP who manages to kill everyone except for the power fist sarge (ain’t that always the case) before they get to strike, and then nimbly dodging the ponderous powerfist. The marines fails morale but didn’t manage to break away. They suffer no additional casualty.

[Infidel]

Turn 4 – Daemon
Everything arrives safely off the icon. The fiends move away from the wreck of the predator and everything else closes in on the surviving razorback.

Shooting
The bolt heralds wrecks the razorback and leaves everything else nothing to shoot at except for the 3 drop pods.

Assault
The daemon prince rips the sergeant apart before he could lift another finger and with his dying scream, the battle reaches its conclusion.

Winner: Daemons! (11-3)

Reflection
I think he knew what he was up against after turn 1, when his entire army’s shooting only manages to knock out about 250 pts of my army but must contend with 2 units of fiends as well as 4 heralds in his face. I think I’ve got the list in a sweet spot with the pavane princes who can fully utilize its BS5 and make-up for his lack of fleet and it synergizes fantastically with Crushers and Breath.

He suffered from not being able to get his terminators where they were needed because of the terrain and from me basically being able to stay away from them all game long and chip away at them from range.

Bloodcrusher make pretty good icon bearer, but to put icons on such a high-priority allows my opponent to simultaneously eliminate a major threat as well as an icon, so in the future I might shift both Icons onto large squads of PBs and I might reduce the number of plague bearers to better bait the opponent into trying to take it out.

I might see what happens if I run 2 crusher/1 fiend instead of the 1/2 that I currently have. I can’t help but wonder tho, whether a full complement of 18 fiends might be even better.

[SevenSins]

A fine battle with quite a vicious demons list.

Drop-pods aren't free KP's, they're immobilized on landing, not destroyed so no kill points.

[talon216]

also when his marines turned and fled, if you swept into them it would just continue combat, they can't be swept cimpletely. they can take additional wounds like a fearless unit might but you didn't specify if this was the case so figured id throw it out there. Not that this would have made much difference just something to know in the future. Also assault terminators walking? why!? they would have been much more effective with a raider, or as plain terminators with a special weapon. and yea you have to destroy the pods to get the kill point for it. But great stuff, gratz on the win sounds like a fun game (for you at least haha)

[fluffymcfluff]

A 6 man tactical squad can't be equipped with a flamer, the squad needs to number ten models before you can upgrade to a flamer and/or heavy weapon.


Like sevensins said, you have to wreck or destroy the drop pod to get a point from them

[Infidel]

Thanks for the reply.

@Talon216
Yeah I know how ATSKNF works, when i say they're caught and stomped, i mean they failed to save those fearless wound.

@Fluffymcfluff
Really? I know they can take a melta and assumed that it's that or flamer, then multimelta and heavy flamer at 10 men. We've been playing it wrong (a bit) then.

@all
in regards to the pods, I can't believe I didn't catch that after all these tourny!

In retrospect, we rarely have pod lists and even less annhilation with pods....I thought they did for some reason and no body corrected me since all this time. Upon consulting the big book it says that they concede half VP, and I guess if you can manage a weapon destroyed on them, then a weaponless immobolised vehicle is technically a wrecked vehicle, that might be what I'm confusing it with.

It was a fun-ish game even for him, because it's usually me on the losing side against thos darn hellfire rounds. I remember once an eldar player was commenting that his entire army's firepower on average inflict as many wounds against my list as a pair of 10 sternguards. (bike council, 4 scatter laser, 2x10 DA, 2x 5 FD and 3 fire prisms)

[Redrivertears]

Nice report! Always good to see the Daemons beat on the glory boys of the Imperium

Looking forward to more.

-Redrivertears-

[TheShadowCow]

Ah, the glory of Pavane/Breath

Nice report, well documented.

[talon216]

I figured you did, everyone does just wanted to clarify what way they died.

[Infidel]

Thanks guys. Once the holiday is over and I get to play more regularily, I can probably get a narrative campaign happening, especially there are a couple of people who strictly play for fun and doesn't care at all about winning.

I feel bad bringing my tournament list against them, but I don't have enough redundant model to take a fun list....gah!

P.S. I asked my opponent, he usually takes a meltagun on the razorback marines and I don't think he ever too them off. He asked me if it could be a count-as flamer, not knowing that he couldnt' do it. Oh well, no big loss.

I asked him why he doesn't take LRs, and he replied that his 2000pt list has a librarian (tigurus?) w/gate and nullzone. Apparently he can gate even in opponent's turn? That's something new, I see null-zone libby all the time and generally start the game by pumping him full of gaze/bolt.

[toonboy78]

nice report. shame to see salamanders getting stomped like that.

as for 6 man tact it can't take any special or heavy weapons unless it is a 10 man. the sarg can take a combi-weapon.

[Infidel]

nice report. shame to see salamanders getting stomped like that.

as for 6 man tact it can't take any special or heavy weapons unless it is a 10 man. the sarg can take a combi-weapon.

That might have been it. Sorry. I know about most codexes and what they can do on a macroscopic scale, but not these little trimmings.

I'm not entirely sure what he could have done other than roll far above average for his shots or far below average for my saves. Little things like a dead bike might have been the difference between 2 dead fiends and 5 because he would have been able to kill that last Icon crusher.

Is there any other SM veterans who might care to jump in and advise him (keeping in line with the list and the general outcome of each respective turn of course) as what he should have done that might have been different? He doesn't post on WarSeer but is most interested in what you guys might have to say.

-Infi