First battle report from Saturday's tournament

So I played at a local RTT over in Tampa yesterday. It was 1850 points with 10 people playing. There was a good mix of armies and I had the opportunity to play three enjoyable games. I like sometimes to tell my batreps out of sequence. This batrep was actually the second game and I was playing against a veteran IG player. Here is my list:

Bloodthirster/Unholy Might, Blessing of the Blood God, Death Strike (HQ)
Skulltaker/juggernaught (HQ)
Herald/juggernaught, Unholy Might, Fury of Khorne, Blessing of the Blood God (HQ)

6x Blood Crusher/Icon, Instrument, Fury (Elite)

17x Bloodletter/Icon (Troop)
18x Bloodletter (Troop)

Soul Grinder/Phleghm, Tongue (Heavy Support)
Soul Grinder/Phleghm, Tongue (Heavy Support)

The mission had pitched battle for deployment and you placed six numbered objectives on the table. At the start of each even numbered turn you rolled 1d6 and that numbered objective was removed from the table.

I do not remember my opponent's list exactly but here it is to the best of my memory:

Inquisitor/2x Mystic, gun servitors (HQ)
Command squad/4x meltagun, Astropath - chimera/hull mounted heavy flamer (HQ)

Vendetta (Fast Attack)

Marbo (Elite)

Veteran squad/4x meltagun - chimera/hull mounted heavy flamer (Troop)
Veteran squad/4x plasmagun - chimera/hull mounted heavy flamer

Demolisher (Heavy Support)
Manticore (Heavy Support)
Leman Russ/ hull mounted lascannon (Heavy Support)

Platoon/3x heavy weapon teams/autocannons

So that is what I remember. My opponent won the roll for deployment and opted to go first. I placed my three objectives as close together as possible over in the northwest corner of the table. My opponent placed one of his in a building over in the same corner on the third level of a building, another over on the third level of a building in the northeast corner and the third over in my DZ around the middle of the table. He deployed his army spread out:

Three chimeras (2x Vet & CCS) over in the northwest corner,
Platoon in the building in the northwest corner,
Demolisher, Manticore, & Vendettain the middle with Inquisitor behind them,
Heavy Weapons teams off to the east of the middle,
Leman Russ over in the northeast corner.

My waves were as follows:

Preferred - Greater Daemon, Heralds joined with the Blood Crushers, Soul Grinder
Secondary - Lesser daemons with icon, lesser daemons, Soul Grinder

I rolled for my first wave and unfortunately in came the secondary. I knew right away with only two troops it was going to be a big uphill battle that I probably would lose, especially not knowing which objectives would remain in play. I decided to flank hard into the northwest corner and hope the objectives in that area would remain in play. Both of my Bloodletters came in with minimal scatter; I placed the unit with the icon behind the other so that the icon would have some cover. Both squads used their run moves to spread out and lessen the pain that would be coming from multiple templates the next turn. The first Soul Grinder dropped in front of the building in the northwest cover and fired it's railgun into the Manticore generating a penetration but that tank was behind the Demolisher and it passed it's cover save. What a bad way to have to start a game. It would have really helped a lot if I had got my preferred wave but it's just not going to happen everytime. I would like to point out that by coming in deep on the flank the Inquisitor with his Mystics were never able to target any of my units on their drops. I dropped into that flank to saturate the area with the most objectives and also deny the Inquisitor with his Mystics. I have always said the Inquisitor/Mystics unit is not really that great against daemons; on average they roll 14" which is not a great distance when it comes to spotting. In fact my units would have had to scatter a full 12" directly towards them to have come in range.

2nd Turn - IG
This was pretty much smear the daemons and it was very ugly. A chimera toting veterans rolled up to my Grinder and destroyed it with their meltas. Focused fire eliminated one squad of lesser daemons but the squad with the icon did quite well with their saves and I ended up with over half the second unit left. One great thing about daemons in general is their invulnerable save. While 5+ is not great it is a heck of a lot better than just having to pickup the models and remove them. It's very important to keep all your daemons spread out 2" apart to lessen the impact from templates.

2nd Turn - Daemons
First I rolled a d6 to see which objective would be removed. It was the one my opponent had placed on the third level of a building in the northeast corner which was good for me. I had one troop left and they needed to make some miracles happen... At least they some very small chance of grabbing one objective. I then rolled for my reserves and in came the rest of my army! Wow just wow, I really needed them. My icon was left in place and I brought down everything around the building in the northwest corner focusing on the objective in that building. The second Grinder first hosed down the platoon in the building with his flamer and removed five. Next he hit them with phleghm and killed three more. Finally he hit them with his Harverster and finished off the squad. The objective was now open. The greater daemon fired hid Death Strike into the side of a Chimera and destroyed it. Six of the veterans inside died in the ensuing explosion. Quick death to the Imperial lapdogs of the dead god! My Bloodletters then charged the other two chimeras, wrecked one and immobilized the other. It had gone as well as it could that turn.

Turn Three - IG
In comes Marbo from reserve and drops into the building in the northwest corner. Then again it's smear the daemon but the Crushers can take a pounding and the greater daemon was out of LOS to most of his shooting. My opponent focused fired into the Crushers but I only lost two that turn. Unfortunately the Manticore wrecked my second Grinder. He had little left to shoot at my Bloodletters and they held up very well.

Turn Three - Daemons
It's time for some payback close combat style. The Skulltaker detaches from the Crushers to enter the building and go after the last squad from the platoon. The Bloodthirster lands beside a squad of vets that had disembarked from their wrecked chimera. The other Herald detachs to take put the immobilized chimera and the Crushers spread around it to pick off the vets when they bail out. My Bloodletters then move up behind the building and out of LOS from the rest of the IG gunline. There is the roaring sound of wrecked armor and the screaming of dying guardsmen. The battle starts to slowly swing back in favor of the Blood God... But there are going to be at least two other objectives I will have practically no chance of reaching save the Bloodthirster. Maybe I can hold one and contest another at best depending on which objectives are removed. It's a real long shot and to make a long story short the Imperial lapdogs win this battle. I did clear out the one building but it took my entire army to do it.

Sometimes you lose and with my second wave coming in first it was a very bad matchup but I tried to make the best of it and have a fun game, which it was. I thought about it afterwards... Are two big blocks of Bloodletters better than three medium blocks? Two big blocks means you pretty much have to table your opponent to win at multiple objectives. Other than that I came away thinking two big blocks are much better. First of all typically only one mission will have multiple objectives. Two big blocks of Bloodletters is much better than three medium sized ones in my opinions because they are hammers. Basically every unit in my army is a hammer and I have a low number of total killpoints (8). If the game against IG had been killpoints I'm pretty sure I would have won; IG gives up way too many killpoints.

So I said in a comment to my first post about this tourney that I won and it's true. My soft scores were very high and my other two games I got huge massacres. Going into the final round I was in third place and the two fellas in first and second place tied each other knocking themselves out of contention for best overall. That's the way it goes sometimes... My good luck was stronger than my bad luck for sure. This is my first overall with my KDA and it felt like I finally dislodged King Kong off of my back having narrowly lost first place the last two tournies I played. So it was a great day for the daemons.

G