Daemons on board! Masters Batrep Part 1

First of a series of Batreps from the players at the NZ Masters 2011, enjoy.

I theory hammered my way through all the lists going to masters, and had a plan for most. Some of whom I knew I'd need to use my infamous daemon speed to run away as far and as demonically as possible from. Every game presents you with opportunities to lose and win in multiple places. First of which is deployment, then where you move too, what targets you pick and at what time. Get those right, and you generally win if you are able (unless the dice hate you, and they're more powerful an enemy than any opponent).You'll be familiar with my list, as it is available for viewing with the other lists on the Elven Glades blog.

Driving up I foolishly declared that I would be fine on day one if I didn't fight Mal or Pete, the former for reasons of precedent, the later for just being an all round miserable matchup for me. So, of course, I played them both.

Game One vs: Mal's Lizardmen

I purged my old daemons (yes, Daemons have daemons) with this one, I'm not really sure what happened, but I deployed well, don't think I siren'd, but my things were in bad places for Mal across the board. I stayed clear of his rockdropping airforce, and got a cunning charge on a Stegadon who was relaxing in the shade of some furies. Shortly before Mals block received daemons on all sides, he kindly dimensionally cascaded, didn't lose the frog, but thinned his own unit considerably, the following brawl was not kind to the cold blooded fellows who abandoned all hope.

Result: Victory 20 -0

Game Two vs Thom's Dorfs

This had all the makings of more delicious points to fill the Daemon coffers (Dwarves struggle against Daemons a bit in this environment), however Thom was having none of it. With my Bloodthirster deployed outside of the 48" max range of the only thing on the board that could dent him, he smugly thought hateful thoughts. Thom promptly got the first turn, fired his cannon cheerfully outside of the 48" with a nice 12" bounce, hit him smack in the head did 6 wounds. Right... what?... right... farq! It got a bit hazy after that but I dug my way out of a 650 point hole and managed to haul it back to a draw, Thom made a late double 6's charge to take what was going to be my victory and turned it back into a draw, he didn't feel that it was ok to reward my persistent devotion to killing dwarves by rolling between 2 and 11.

Result:Draw 10-10

Game Three vs Pete's Skaven

Yech, I didn't play well here, and by that I lost the game in the deployment phase. This was a red flag match for me, and I would have been cheerful with a 9-11 loss, but due to a brainfart... in my head, I would march confidently into a nearby building with my flamers and herald, his HPA would be too scared to move, his WLC would misfire and kill his grey seer, and I would then Pit of Shades his Furnace till it was gone. However, what actually happened was this. My herald would die to a hail of poisoned slingshots, my flamers turned into rats courtesy of the Dreaded 13th, and the HPA gleefully turned some fiends I had over that way into mush. The rest of my army deployed off to the far side, dug a trench and opted for trying to stop the haemorrhage, Pete looked over at that end, decided he'd done more than enough and sat his boys down for some well earned Cheesy bites. We agreed that neither was going anywhere, called the game early, and wandered off to check out other peoples battles.

Result:Loss 6-14

Evening Interlude

Headed back to the Hotel, showered, transformed into Evening Dan (put shoes on) and then Tim, Jim and myself headed to find the dinner location. Nice venue, and the food was great (When I got it, which was roughly 2 hours after everyone else had finished) and the Tronhammer and LOEN boys engaged in serious amounts of theorizing, moaning, wishlisting and all varieties of good stuff that beer can only make better.

Game Four vs: Daryl's Dorfs

Well, this game went how I was imaging the one against Thom to go, however, newly wizened to cannons at all ranges, my Bloodthirster cowered fiercely behind something impenetrable and waited for the nasty dwarf cannon to stop hurling death around the table. At first it seemed Daryl would destroy his own army before I got there, and by turn 3 I think he'd removed 2/3 of his artillery, courtesy of himself. In the end, things went miserably for Daryl, and just kinda Daemoned forward. Not a good matchup for him, no sir, but earning best sports from me, he stoically accepted each failure and wrote calmly in his book of grudges.

Result: Victory 20 -0

Game Five vs: Henry's Orcs and Goblins

This was a case of the score not reflecting the game until about turn 5, we each set and counter set diverters, tactically wheeled and measured and achieved very little for quite some time. It tipped in my favour in the end, starting a cascade of misery for Henry, who took it all very well. I don't think he had the quota of luck he deserved, starting with his Orc Lord on Wyvern with 50 attacks only landing 2 wounds on a full daemonette block, who promptly did two wounds to the wyvern, he failed two LD tests, and they ran him down sexily. His Doom Divers had obviously been at the Patriot the night before, and were utterly unable to hit my Herald who eventually didn't even bother with staying in cover and just wandered around secure in the knowledge that the Doom Divers were no threat.

The Bloodthirster gleefully went from one end of the battleline to the other, starting with blorcs, through some warmachines, and finishing by shooing some chariots off the board.

Result: Victory 20 -0

Game Six vs: Joe's Warriors of Chaos

Right, so I'm at the top of the table, with 76 points in hand, and one game to play... Hello world, meet conservative Daemon! I'd thought about Joe's list, and it wasn't one that I felt I needed to run from (He had more tricks up his Dixon sleeves than I really gave credit too) but I was not about to throw my gains away in a blood red haze of Daemon hate... so I proceeded to play like a dwarf, built my castle. However, I had still positioned well, and the way tings had gone, Joes troops were not positioned well and in response to engineering an awesome situation for myself I mucked up my one chance of bagging a sh!tton of points, left his lord on 1 wound, his wizard lord on one wound, and lost by about 170 points, enough to take it from drawland, to lossland.... population me :( I'd like to play Joe more, and without silly game 6/top table considerations, nice guy, unorthodox and you'd never have a dull game.

Result: Loss 9-11

Wrap-up

Not sure what Ant finished on, but I still had 85 points by this stage, little did I know that on the table across from me, Pete Dunn was working to sabotage my podium chances. Skaven... gawd! When you need them at their jaw-dropping crazy best, they slink away and give the other guy 20 points :( However, it's not so bad, as a specialist 2nd placer, this has taken my grand total of the last 6 tournaments to 4/6 second placings, I like to mix up who beats me on the podium, but I honestly don't feel comfortable unless I'm taking silverware. Great tournament, great bunch of players. Thanks to all involved, and who knows what I'll turn up to the next one with.

Dan - Chaoswolf