My list for 10th and how it's got on!

So 10th is well and truly here, and while we may have all been quite Doom and gloom to start with, I think now the dust has settled we are all alot more calm.

I have attended 3 events now and honestly feel very confident think Daemons as a faction have some real play into most factions barring those currently overturned exceptions.

I've ran the same list for all 3 events and plan to run it for the time being even considering it for LGT in 5 weeks time.

list (2000 points)

Chaos Daemons

Strike Force (2000 points)

Daemonic Incursion

CHARACTER

Be’lakor (325 points)

Warlord

Bloodthirster (300 points)

Lord of Change (255 points)

With Rod of sorcery

Lord of Change (230 points)

With Rod of sorcery

Shalaxi Helbane (400 points)

The Changeling (75 points)

BATTLELINE

Nurglings (40 points)

Nurglings (40 points)

OTHER DATASHEETS

Flamers (65 points)

Flamers (65 points)

Flamers (65 points)

Flesh Hounds (70 points)

 

Flesh Hounds (70 points)

So the idea is the chickens sit around Belly giving me a good fire base that can't be shot at long range meaning I can clear midfield objectives or threats that run up midfield. The thirster and Shalaxi keep my opponent honest forcing them to screen and letting me kill most single models in the game. Shalaxi is nuts against most things in the game, eating a lot of fire power which Let's me have a those turns where I can move out of my wreathed in Shades bubble.

Rapid ingress has become my favourite strat for shalaxi, letting you stage a charge next turn, or jumping on an empty objective for primary scoring.

The nurglings, flamers and dogs are great for screening and holding objectives while also doing your actions for Secondaries. Combined with the realm of Chaos strat letting you pull on e unit or two units within shadows off the table at the end of your opponents turn (which you can do if you go second letting you deepstrike those units on turn 1) giving great options for Secondaries like deploy teleport homers, engage, investigate signals etc...

One of the best tricks this edition though is using realm of Chaos to bring Belly off at the end of your opponents turn and then bring him back in your turn and bringing units like a thirster and Shalaxi 6" away from your opponent within Bellys personal shadow bubble. Using denizens of the Warp to bring Belly over 3" away rather than 9" let's you fit into alot of gaps punishing any loose screening.

Events

Peterborough Slam 4-1 2nd place

98-52 vs Imp Guard W

95-90 vs Death Guard W

88-93 vs Necrons L

98-72 vs Imp Knights W

100-73 vs Chaos Daemons W

I had a very good run here at Peterborough, I managed to keep the Guard at bay thanks to Bellys lone op 18" bubble and Shalaxi tearing vehicles up for fun. The DG actually is abit of a tough match up due to their contagions meaning our monsters can now be wounded on 4s instead of 5s in a fair few instances, we both had great card draws which kept it very close but Belly had a great performance.

I managed to control the flanks and contest the middle while we both took eachothers  home objectives in turn 5.

I unfortunately lost to Crons, could have got a draw but failed a 6" charge with a re-roll at the end of turn 5 to grab the draw. I just ignored the two lychguard blobs but took assassinate and was able to focus out characters with Shalaxi and the thirster using the heroic challenge stratagem. I Misplayed it abit and know in a rematch I feel I could have it.

Bellys no shoot bubble was huge against the knights, letting Shalaxi rapid ingress in, not be shot and then pick up a big knight. She killed over a 1000pts in this game which has been a common them for her in this match up. She also managed to tank 2 sets of overwatch from a Castellan and gatling knight while also taking a shooting phase and surviving.

My last game was against a fellow denizen of the Warp, he was running double thirster with Shalaxi and Belly which forced him to have to be aggressive.

The chickens let me soften up targets and have an easier time of getting through those 4+ invuls in combat. Having an extra monster and more range put this in my favour and while he had more battleline, I just ignored them killing all the monsters by turn 3 and limiting my opponents presence on the board.

Gothic Games Fireball 2-1 7th place

88-77 vs GSC W

84-38 vs Imp Knights W

75-92 vs CSM L

GSC is a very hard match up, saying that I kept one of the objectives in no man's land safe by making it sticky early and then screening it while keeping the middle clear and contesting the other objective on the flank clear. I whittled squads down but only tried to wipe them when I needed to for points until the last turn where I picked up 4 squads.

Round 2 I had Knights which I've found is a very good match up for us, wreathed in Shades really playing a huge part forcing them to have to come foward and letting my big combat threats jump on there big knights while the chickens gang up on armigers.

I managed to drag down Canis and his gatling knight turn 2/3 and then was able to grab his last big knight turn 4 while picking up armigers and hemming him into his deployment.

In round 3 I found out how nasty Forgefiends are, though a turn of very bad luck failing 9 out of 11 invuls on shalaxi over both our turns and making no fnps while the thirster went into a hellbrute on the centre, missed twice and only wounded it once which let it take 9 wounds off of him in return. This was huge since Abby and his termies moved in next turn and did exactly 11 wounds which meant I had lost both combat threats in one turn and got overwhelmed.

My chickens managed to kill his noise Marines and with Bellys help the Possessed, but I pushed back and couldn't get out meaning my opponent was free to control objectives and score secondaries easily.

Saffron Slam 3-1-1 6th place

85-62 vs Tau W

88-48 vs Imp Knights W

100-41 vs Tau W

64-64 vs Ad Mech D*

67-80 vs Eldar L

Tau had the same issues every shooting army has vs Daemons, being able to manipulate what they can shoot at forcing them to playing the game on my terms in not good for them.

Shalaxi picked up a command and 4 out of 6 battle suits in a round of combat and finishing them off in my opponents turn since he want all his guns he had to take her down. She only took 8 wounds but then died on overwatch to meltas in my next movement Phase. Overall the chickens kept the flanks clear while the other 3 bomb the centre killing my opponents big threats.

So we had some more themed terrain rather than full competitive at Saffron which is cool, this meant though that the knights were at a bigger disadvantage than normal.

I played this the same way I have the other knight games baiting my opponents big knights out and bring them down. Shalaxi killing over a 1000pts yet again.

My second game vs Tau was a similar experience to the first as far as forcing them to play the game how I wanted to.

Shalaxi managed to clear anything near the centre while Belly and thirster wiped the battlesuit unit and pressure the broadsides and tanks.

I had a chicken drop 3 away in his backlines and just clear a skyray and a few battleline squads over 3 turns.

My round 4 came against a very good admech player who screened my out for 3 turns.

I played it slow but turn 3/4 I managed to kill an entire flank of chicken walkers, Vanguard and a breacher brick.

This was abit of a bitter end though as even though we played on a clock and still had about 13 minutes left between us (6 and a half for him and 5 and a half for me) but for some reason the round had ended even though we still had time which was a very strange occurance.

This meant we couldn't play turn 5 which after drawing cards and looking at the state of play with remaining time, we was almost certain it's my game.

Funny enough the other top table drew aswell meaning we had 4 undefeated players into round 5. I got the Eldar and gave it a real go, though my cards betrayed me only scoring max on two cards while scoring partly on 4 other cards and having 5 cards I was unable to score. This paired with my opponent doing  23 mortals over 3 overwatches and me playing abit to passive for too long made meant I couldn't overcome the eldar menace.

So with 13 competitive games under the belt I feel very confident going foward with 10th.

I feel my losses all had chances to go the other way with different circumstances which is great!