7th Ed. Daemon Wars Continue: Leadership Bomb Incoming...

[Gor-rok]

After my spectacular and unexpected massacre against the Tzeench Daemons in our last league battle, I had hoped to breath easy for a bit and fight some elves or something. Inevitably, the Daemon player got to challenge first, and he's not going to pull any punches this time in our third battle. I strongly suspect a mixed list, but with a bunch of Slaanesh anti-leadership stuff as the focus.

His Lord of Change rolled bad on the defeat chart and permanently died after being pelted with skink darts last game. That's actually a bad thing for me, however, since he can create a new General character now and surprise me. I am fairly certain of the following making an appearance:

1) -2 to my leadership within 12" banner
2) The Masque
3) Heralds with a "force you to try and charge them" ability
4) Probably a Secret Keeper big demon with all the usual nastiness
5) Flamers

My character is a Slann who has becalming, mystery, rumination, cupped hands, bane head, and a plain battle standard.

The battle is 3000 points, with various bonuses earned throughout the campaign. One unit of my choice has free "hatred", I get an extra 100 victory points at the end of the game, and I have 240 gold (extra points) to spend on my list. He on the other hand has "scouts", which means that I have to set up all my units on the table before he ever places one of his.

If I can win this battle, I'll be in the top three contenders for taking the final territory. If I lose, I'm cut off again and might as well hang up my salamander flame template until 8th edition. I need to be prepared for the worst, and I'm not above going full-on cheese whiz if it means the hated and alarmingly cheap points costing Daemons are held at bay yet again.

I've never faced a Slaanesh Daemon before, but I have it on reasonably good authority that it's coming and I'd like to know what tricks to expect. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of foe?

 

[Eagleblaze]

Leadership bombs don't work against Stubborn units, and Slann cannot charge out of Temple Guard, so, Guard up, EOTG's are stubborn, Chiefs w/ Steg spears being forced to charge - don't need to finish that line of thought...

Masque has a 3+ ward, real pain in the ass, havn't yet killed one...

 

[Wolf]

Leadership bombs don't work against Stubborn units

Why would that be? I don't seem to remember any rule whatsoever stating that, could be I missed it though...

 

[Nakai]

maybe because they are immune to psychology because there stubborn? i dont remember if being stubborn makes you immune to psychology or not, but the temple guard are immune anyway with the slann in there and i dont think that the leadership bomb works on units that are ItP

 

[Caneghem]

Leadership bombs don't work against Stubborn units

Why would that be? I don't seem to remember any rule whatsoever stating that, could be I missed it though...

Stubborn always tests on unmodified leadership, and banners and spells are modifications. For the same reason, you can't cast doom and darkness on an Ld 10 character and then hit him with blade of realities to ensure you instant kill them. BoR also works off of unmodified leadership.

 

[Wolf]

Damn, that's good :-D never thought of it like that. I know it's so obvious and yet I was thinking way to much about it making it, well, not so obvious thanks

Well this being the case, definitely go for a Slann in a large TG block, Slann with Lore of Light and Bane Head the Keeper. I'd once again go for the dual Engines and keep them close to your Slann, 2D6 S5 hits is pretty painful combined with either the Burning Gaze or the Cleansing Flare ;-) This is usable if he uses the Siren Song anywhere near your TG block, otherwise hit him with massed poison like in your last battle

 

[Gor-rok]

The "siren song" ability has a range of 20", so it's easy for him to make you fail a charge and then counterattack. Of course, with a herald in his Slaanesh units they always strike first anyway, so it may not be a huge disadvantage unless I'm losing impact hits out of it.

I wonder if some ranked skinks are in order here for some cheap screening units. Even if they panic from the terror causers or flee charges through the units behind them, the temple guard and stegadons aren't going anywhere.

As for stubborn and ITP, I'm going to have to snag a copy of the Daemons book to see if those rules will help me at all. My interpretation of stubborn has been that you ignore break test modifiers (ranks, outnumbered), but not necessarily leadership modifiers from special rules, etc. ITP will nullify fear/ terror and panic, but unless his special rules say the minus leadership stuff and forced charge ability doesn't work on ITP I won't be able to avoid it.

Man, I can't wait for 8th edition to clarify all these rules.

Hmmm... 3000 points, two lord choices; and I do have a Lord Kroak model lying around...

 

[Eagleblaze]

maybe because they are immune to psychology because there stubborn? i dont remember if being stubborn makes you immune to psychology or not, but the temple guard are immune anyway with the slann in there and i dont think that the leadership bomb works on units that are ItP

TG are both ITP and Stubborn when with a Slann, when joined with Kroak they also become unbreakable.

Unmodified means UNMODIFIED and as far as I can remember there is NOTHING in the DoC army book that will circumvent the stubborn rule, so, Kroak + TG, Slann Lore of Light/Bane head/Cupped Hands/etc + TG, Dual EOTG, Mass Skinks (FTW). Simple...(we hope)

Also note that siren song cannot be dispelled, it cannot really be prevented however normal charging restrictions still apply. If you cannot see the target it cannot be charged, if there is a unit happening to block the unit, it cannot charge, so, if it so happens that a unit of skinks manages to find itself between this siren and your EOTG then no charge will take place, instead you'll be forced to just manouver and then use that horrible 360% 2D6 range, S5 Burning Alignment that we all hate so very much

If you do run two TG units, Kroak and a slann I suggest you just march up the table and Itza everything in sight. Kroak's power dice go into the pool I think so it would be fairly easy for your slann or EOTG's with UT or FL to knock out his flamers fairly early thus reducing casulties from shooting. Also note that Kroak's shooting modifier only works if he is targetted directly.

Finally, Impact Hits are worked out before normal combat so you will never lose these (Once again, this is as far as I can remember so double check the BRB).

Hope this helps.

-Eagle

 

[The Hunted]

I don't have the rulebook on me at this time (yeah I know, shame on me...), but my interpretation of the rules:

Stubborn let's you test on your unmodified leadership in break tests.
That doesn't mean you cannot modify it! When you need to panic, fear or terror; you have your Ld modified.*
When rolling for a break test however....I think you test on your own trusty Ld.

problem with that is;
lex specialis derogat lex generalis**, that's Latin for: The special rule exceeds the general rule. Meaning, that the army books override the rulebook. Meaning that you do modify your stubborn Ld.

The Hunted

*: Yes, I know a Stegadon doesn't test for all of these, nor do TG+Slann.
**: I study Law, and this is one of the (very) few things I can 'do' in latin. And I'm still not quite sure if that's correct I know it's close!

 

[Gor-rok]

Ok, that went well for the most part. Once again I was mislead by false recon reports and faced a Khorne/ Tzeench/ Nurgle army; my gullibility is getting pretty embarrassing here. Took Slann, Kroak, 2x EotG and skirmishers against Khorne Dogs, Fiends, Horrors, 2x Bloodthirsters and the @&%)! screw up the magic phase banner in a Nurgle block.

I scored a massacre, with one major point of contention. An EoTG priest in a challenge with a Bloddthirster took his stubborn break test and probably should have fled, but used the general's leadership for the test. I had the whole "unmodified leadership" concept stuck in my head, but used the Slann's as a matter of course without giving it a second thought.

Neither I nor my opponent thought anything of it at the time; he said "Don't worry, the Slann's within 12"" and we went about our merry way. After it was over I was looking at the Unbreakable rule to see if there's any way to put a Scar Veteran in Kroak's unit (can't) and my stomach did a flip as I glanced over the Stubborn section again. It would have made a pretty big difference, with one less round of burning alignment and one more round of Kroak's unit in combat (but I'd like to think the Bloodthirster would have fallen to massed skink shots shortly thereafter anyway).

He's a heck of a good guy and said he'd write it off as an honest mistake, but it sort of sours the accomplishment. Since this is a league match, I think I should try and find the time for a rematch game.

Big highlight: Tzeench herald miscasts on his last three dice and rolls a 5 on the chart... 24" Deliverance of Itza wasn't far behind.

 

[Gor-rok]

Final Update:

Rematched, this time with all rules mutually agreed upon and closely adhered to, and same lists as the last game. Massacred him again, and probably worse than before. The power of Lord Kroak cannot be denied, even by two Bloodthirsters (though the skinks got one of them).

Highlight was some skink stragglers baiting the big Plaguebearer unit into a failed charge, then double charging it with Kroak's in the flank and the Slann's unit head on. One saurus hero took the unit champ's challenge, the other killed the herald with BBoC. Carnage ensued...

I'm not going to even attempt to anticipate his next list as I'll just look like an idiot again. I'll post results after the next game, and maybe a few battle reports if I ever find time.

Cheers, all, and thanks for the support.

 

[The Hunted]

Heh, now you make it sound that beating daemons is a cakewalk.



Guess you found a way to beat your daemon opponent on a more structural basis.

The Hunted