On Thursday, I had a couple of 1,000 points games. I played a game each of Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. In both cases I used Daemons, but the lists were quite different. I’m not used to playing with these armies yet, and I’m definitely not used to play 40K at all.
How did the games go, then?
Age of Sigmar
I discussed the Legion of the First Prince list I intended to use in a post that I published last week. This was a chance to practice with my tournament list against a friend who is also going to the event this weekend.
Actually, at the time of publishing, we should be starting our first tournament game!
Back to the practice game, my list consisted of the following:
Allegiance: Legion of the First Prince
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders
Be’Lakor, the Dark Master (360)
Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280)
– General
– Command Trait: Ruinous Aura
– Artefact: Armour of the Pact
Battleline
5 x Flesh Hounds (105)*
10 x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (250)*
Core Battalions
*Expert Conquerors
Total: 995 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 48
Drops: 4
My opponent’s list had a smattering of characters and then a ton of ghouls. On top of the multiple units of ghouls already in the army, my opponent also had the capacity to summon a further unit of 10 ghouls, and one of 20 ghouls.
If that were not enough, my opponent was able to roll a die once per phase when a unit of ghouls was destroyed. On a 4+ he was able to summon an identical ghoul unit to replace the dead one.
Now, the reason that I want to emphasise just how many ghouls were on the table (80? I think that’s right) is that we then rolled up the scenario, The Lurkers Below. This was the perfect scenario for my opponent. Let me explain why:
With three objectives splayed out along the table, this seems pretty straightforward. In a more typical game, I could have worn him down with my own units. The thing is, things aren’t that simple. To control the middle objective, you must control the one on the edge of your own deployment zone. To control the enemy objective, you must control your objective and the middle one. When you control all three objectives, you’ve won the game.
By flooding the board with ghouls, some of whom counted as 3 models each for taking an objective, my opponent was able to just utterly control the board. My own summoning was pretty good, with my summoning a unit of Plaguebearers in each turn. They just couldn’t hold points against those numbers, and one unit of Plaguebearers just disintegrated under a unit of 20 ghouls that were buffed to deliver 121 attacks and, thanks to Feeding Frenzy, were able to fight twice in the combat phase. Ouch!
Turn 3 was the first turn that the instant win for controlling objective is possible, so that’s when my opponent won.
So, mission aside, how did the Daemons do? Not too bad, all in all. One could argue that my Plaguebearers were destroyed pretty quickly by the ghouls, but they were summoned in to screen Be’Lakor from the self-same ghouls. In that regard, I suppose they did their job.
Be’lakor didn’t see much action himself, but that’s good as I don’t particularly want him to face off against 242 attacks from a unit of ghouls. He did manage to shut down some charges from the unit at least. I think I could have possibly done better in a different scenario, which didn’t have that instant win condition. At 1K, you just have fewer options at your disposal, y’know?
Warhammer 40,000
As I mentioned the other day, I’ve not played 40K in some time, and I was looking to give it another go. With this in mind, I grabbed a caseful of Daemons, and off I went to club. The list I ended up with was this one:
TZEN Army Faction: Chaos - Game Mode: Grand Tournament - Army Size: Incursion PATROL DETACHMENT - Faction: Legiones Daemonica HQ Lord of Change (345) - Warlord - Baleful sword - Exalted Lords of Change upgrade: Architect of Deception - Traits: Born of Sorcery - Psychic Powers: Infernal Gateway, Bolt of Change, Gaze of Fate - Relics: The Impossible Robe - Stratagems: Warlord Trait, Relic Changecaster (85) - Staff of change - Psychic Powers: Infernal Gateway, Treason of Tzeentch Troops Pink Horrors (150) - 1x Iridescent Horror - 1x Pink Horror: Instrument of Chaos - 1x Pink Horror: Daemonic Icon - 7x Pink Horror Blue Horrors (70) - 10x Blue Horror Elites Flamers (75) - 1x Pyrocaster - 2x Flamer Flamers (75) - 1x Pyrocaster - 2x Flamer Heavy Support Soul Grinder (190) - Allegiance: Tzeentch Stratagems - Warlord Trait (1CP) - Relic (1CP) Total Command Points: 4/5 Reinforcement Points: 10 Total Points: 990/1000
We decided to keep it simple for my intro game, only using basic, objective-holding points rather than secondaries and whatnot. I was just trying to get my head back around the core rules and the core of how the army worked.
That said, the game went rather well for me. I really enjoyed the Tzeentch Daemons. My favourite thing was the Warpstorm effects. They were so much fun to use, and they helped me a lot. The Daemon saves were also really good, especially given how good the Tzeentch saves are against shooting attacks. 3+ is solid, likes! The fact that they ignore AP (it’s so hard not to call it ‘rend’) is also pretty huge.
The psychic phase was amazing. I did so much damage in this phase, and it’s easy to see how a Tzeentch Daemon army would completely dominate in this aspect of the game.
In the end, I won by a rather large margin, but I do recognise that this was without many of the scoring rules that might have given my opponent more of a chance to gain some points. I’ll definitely be giving this another go with the same army and expanding out to play with a fuller version of the scoring rules.
No Rerolls 
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