Quick and Dirty Batrep - Nids Versus Chaos Daemons (Plague Flavored!)

So I had the great pleasure of getting an abbreviated game in with my buddy ChappyDBC last night when I arrived. He was already embroiled in a game against Necrons, so I was forced, kicking and screaming, against my will, to go grab a beer with some Warhammer nerds after being at school and work for 12 hours on a Saturday.

Ok, so the beer was actually a really nice break. Heh.

But the unfortunate consequence was that we started our game with about an hour left till the store closed, which didn’t bode well.

I was playing the following, typed up based on the models I had grabbed from the house:

Hive Tyrant, Wings, Devourers x 2
Hive Tyrant, Wings, Devourers x 2

Hive Guard x 3
Hive Guard x 3
Zoanthrope x 2

Tervigon, Catalyst, Onslaught, Adrenals, Toxins, Crushing Claws
Tervigon, Catalyst, Onslaught, Adrenals, Toxins, Crushing Claws
Termagants x 10, Devourers
Termagants x 10, Devourers
Genestealers x 13, Broodlord w/Scything Talons, Toxins for Everybody!

Gargoyles x 15, Adrenals, Toxins

1999 Points

So, just shy of the dreaded “DOUBLE FORCE ORGOMGPANIC!!” lol.

He was playing an Epidemius Plague Daemons army. Let me see if I can recall the general elements:

Epidemius
The big shit Daemon (Kugach or something?)
Herald of Nurgle

A bunch of units of Plaguebearers

3 Spawn of Nurgle

3 Daemon Princes
Everything that could take Breath had it. Icons were sprinkled throughout.
So, my setup took a while, as I have not yet had the chance to make myself lots of sets of Psychic Power cards, so I was reduced to rolling dice and typing up my powers on my laptop. Needless to say, if I take a Nids army to a tournament, I will need to have some system for quickly and easily keeping track of my powers and probably some tokens for keeping track of buffs/debuffs.

So now we have like 45 minutes to go, and we roll into the Daemon player’s drop (skipping me standing around staring).

Princes came in and killed a few Genestealers with templates. Some Plaguebearers run around.

I start my turn, and Enfeeble Kugach I think.

So, since I decided I didn’t want to just swoop around with my Hive Tyrants, I decided to glide with one of them and aim him at Kugach. The Genestealers also moved in towards Kugach.

I shot the Daemon Prince to death after Enfeebling him, and then shot about half of one of the Plaguebearer units away.

The big mistake play on my part was in accepting when Kugach issued a challenge. I should have declined, and allowed him to send my Hive Tyrant to the back. This would have allowed my Broodlord and Genestealers to beat the piss out of him with their Toxin Sacs. I was pretty confident that the Tyrant, which had gotten Warp Speed off for plus two attacks, (7 attacks hitting on 3’s) would take him down. But unfortunately I just totally blew the attack roll, only hitting twice. Even with my ten dudes cheering on the Hive Tyrant (or... something? Hissing in support? Whatever), he only hit three times. A few good saves later, and Kugach stood there chuckling. Now, on the other hand, he hit and wounded me three times, and I my Hive Tyrant was... no more.

Ah well, lessons learned.

So the next turn, Chappy’s reserves arrived (most of them). He flamed some of my Devilgaunts that I have foolishly clustered into a ruin (silly really, no reason to be in cover against his army... ever really).

His Plaguebearers charged my Genestealers, and he got another two Daemon Princes in, and some more Plaguebearers, and two Plague Spawn. I was suddenly nervous as I had not managed to eliminate his first elements and his second wave was almost fully in my face. During the assault phase, I finished killing off Kugach, and several of the Plaguebearers who had charged me. Meanwhile, his tally was steadily climbing as he chewed apart gants and genestealers.

Now, in a tournament, I almost certainly would have backed off, screened, and just shot shot shot until I could assault and wipe him.

But that sounded pretty boring.

So I moved my Tervigons forward, spawned gaunts, and prepared to get “stuck in.”

I shot apart one of his princes, took down a few Plaguebearers, etc.

Charge!!

And then the game ended. Lol.

It would have been a pretty epic combat as we all dumped into each other. Neither of my Tervigons had spawned out yet, but he was also about to get “wounds on 2+” power weapons, so that would have been a bitch.

It would have been hilarious.

In general, it was a stupidly funny matchup. High toughness with poison versus high toughness with poison... Hurrah!

Anyways, it was good to see my buddy, and just getting the models on the table keeps me motivated to keep modeling and painting. Plus he makes fun of my when I have to proxy winged hive tyrants, etc. Harrassment: the best kind of motivation. And it also helped me to get my head around exactly how I want to create my game aids for tournament play