MSU at Leicester

So this last weekend, I attended the Leicester GT and wanted to try something different out. It's a list type I've been chatting to a couple of other Daemon players and with the current state of both the meta and Daemons currently, decided to shirk the monsters (well mostly) and instead just focus on scoring and score denial.

The List

Be'Lakor 

The Bluescribes

5x3 Nurglings 

3x10 Plaguebearers

1x6 Bloodcrushers

3x3 Fiends

2x3 Flamers

3x3 Screamers

So, I've been running alot of msu recently but dropping both Shalaxi and Skarbrand gave me access to far more utility pieces, though the damage does get tanked as a result. The Crushers did give me the ability to just absolutely smack something with mortals while the Fiends were really dishing out the dev wounds. 

Games

Eldar 78-69 win

Double Avatar, double night spinner, 2x5 hawks, 2x5 spiders with a smattering of characters. This is always a tough match up, but managed to protect one midfield objective while consistently contesting the others to tank my opponents primary. I did manage to take advantage of my opponent leaving a 3" gap on his home field objective and managed to nick it with plaguebearers. I was thankful my opponent was over aggressive with the Yncarne turn 1 and I was able to kill it with a joint effort from Belly, Fiends and the crushers. It was a very close game that I needed to just keep ahead on primary while scoring my secondaries consistently.

Deploy homers-18
Engage on all fronts-20

Custodes 90-66 win

So this match worried me since we were playing purge the foe! I played it super cagey, going second here helped hugely. Again I used Plaguebearers to drop on my opponents back field messing about with a Caladius and some sisters of silence while. This allowed me to slow down the rest of his to grab hold more constantly. I also managed to restrict my opponents movement making secondaries harder for him. In the end scoring max on my secondaries and consistent on primary while keeping him in one area of the board with constant distractions meant I was able to grab the win in a hard match up.

Deploy homers-20
Engage on all fronts-20 

Eldar 50-99 loss

So, in round 3 I drew Ben Jones who is one of the best Eldar players in the UK. I knew this was going to be a hard game. Running a very msu style with spectres, hawks, spiders, troupes  in weavers and fire dragons. Plus a smattering of small characters. I went with cleanse over Engage due to the 4 objectives in the middle but probably should have stuck to Engage due to the efficiency at killing my units this list had. He went first and set him himself up to counter me coming foward. This literally was a story of me doing secondaries and dieing. While I gummed up one side with plaguebearers and used Fiends to surge foward, I just died in droves with the efficency of the list and the way Ben played it amazingly. 

Deploy homers-15
Cleanse-10

Marines 91-98 loss

Another good player this time on a copy of John Lennons world championship list. I made should have gone cleanse rather than Engage here as the threat if Belly and crushers kept my opponent really away from the centre. This combined with very good screening and overwatch threat from the aggressor brick meant I failed to really touch the 4th quarter. I did deploy too defensive aswell which meant I couldn't use my speed to it's advantage. A very close game decided on decent card draws for him and a poor secondary game from me.

Deploy homers-19
Engage on all fronts-12

Votann 98-42 win

In my last game I came up against votann with double fortress, sagitaur, 20 Terminator with characters, 15 beserkers and some warriors and solo Karl. My opponent had just had a sore experience with the cards so wanted to go fixed. He went storm hostile which was a strange choice but he insisted I'd have to go out on objectives anyway. His other choice was Engage since he was able to zoom up the board in other games. I went second and deployed my nurglings to not just deny his bikes scout move but to also prevent them landing anywhere for Engage without a big advance. I used screamers to block his fortresses from moving out and held my closest midfield objective while screening it out after using corrupt on it. I kept contesting the objectives he was on to stop primary but also preventing storm aswell. I was quite happy with the fact a unit of plgauebearers went toe to toe with 5 beserkers and came out on top during this match up, though the Fiends did bounce of Terminators, I was just able to completely deny scoring while grabbing my points.

Deploy homers-18
Engage on all fronts-20

I was pretty happy with how the list performed, the Crushers while nice with the mortal output, felt quite restricted. My next event is an RTT this weekend where I'll be dropping them and 3 Nurglings for 2x5 Hounds and 10 Pinks to focus even more on the scoring.