This week's game sees my World Eaters take on Laurence's Chaos Daemons in a UKTC tournament mission. 

Laurence has been a regular attendee at the tournaments we run at Didcot Wargames Club, and he wanted to test his Daemons against the World Eaters for an upcoming tournament. We were playing the Burden of Trust mission with Search and Destroy deployment. 

My list consisted of:
Angron
Lord Invocatus
Master of Execution- Berzerker Glaive
Juggernaught Lord- Favoured of Khorne
10 Berzerkers
10 Jakhals
10 Jakhals
Rhino
6 Exalted Eightbound
3 Exalted Eightbound
3 Eightbound
Chaos Spawn
Forgefiend

I took a modified list for something I have been trying out. I wanted to try the Forgefiend to add some firepower for clearing screening units or destroying vehicles. I also took the Juggernaught Lord for an extra unit for doing actions or for trading. 

Laurence's army consisted of:
Belakor
Bloodthirster- Agrath, king of Blades
Great Unclean One- Endless Gift
Shalaxi Hellbane
The Changeling
The Masque of Slaanesh
3 Nurglings
3 Nurglings
10 Plaguebearers
3 Fiends
3 Flamers
5 Seekers

A lot of big Daemons to have to deal with and some smaller units for playing the mission. I hadn't faced Daemons with my World Eaters yet, so would be interested to see how they faired. The lethal hits on the blessings would be very useful to get past the toughness of the big ones. 

We deployed as shown below. 





I put most of my army in the ruins to the front of my deployment, with the Jakhals holding a back objective and the Spawn ready to move on another objective. 

Laurence put his big Daemons to the left of his deployment zone, and kept the Bloodthirster, a unit of Nurglings, the Flamers, Masque and Changeling in reserve. 

Laurence won the roll for first turn. I used my Scout moves to hide the Jackals and Lord Invocatus into cover. 

TURN 1- CHAOS DAEMONS
In the first turn, Laurence drew Establish Locus and Area Denial. For my blessings, I took +2 move and Feel No Pain. 

The bigger Daemons moved up the left flank, the Great Unclean One and Shalaxi moving up onto the objective. The Nurglings moved up to block the World Eaters, while the Seekers moved up into the centre objective to establish locus. 



The turn ended there, as there was no line of sight to my units. Laurence scored Locus and Area Denial for 7 points. 

In my turn, I drew Bring it Down and Overwhelming Force. I decided not to go after Bring It Down, as it would expose most of my forces to much of the Daemon army. 

Angron and the Lord Invocatus moved up on the Seekers, while the Jakhals broke cover to deal with the Nurglings. The Spawn advanced onto the top objective. 

In the shooting phase, the Forgefiend fired at the Seekers, killing three. The Rhino fired, killing one and taking the last one down to a single wound. 

The Lord Invocatus charged the last seeker, while the Jakhals went into the Nurglings. Both units were slain by the World Eaters. I scored 3 pts for Overwhelming Force and discarded Bring it Down. Laurence spent a CP to pick up the Changeling and Plaguebearers. 




VICTORY POINTS:
Daemons- 7
World Eaters- 3

TURN 2
In his turn, Laurence drew Behind Enemy Lines and Bring it Down. For my blessings, I got FNP and lethal hits. He got 4 on the primary. 

The Great Unclean one moved up on the Jakhals, while Shalaxi and Belakor moved towards the bottom objective. The Fiends moved up to the cover beside them. The reserves then came in, the Flamers landing behind the Jakhals on my objective with the 3" deep strike strat. The Changling and Plaguebearers landed near the Spawn on the objective, while the Nurglings landed on the Daemons' home objective. 




I then used Rapid Ingress to bring in the Exalted Eightbound to threaten the Daemons' home objective.


In the shooting phase, the Flamers fired at the Jakhals, killing three. The Changeling fired at the Spawn, but only did one damage. The Great Unclean One fired at the central Jakhal unit, killing 5, while Belakor only killed one more.  Annoyingly, it would have been better for me if they had died so that I could sticky the objective with my strat. As it was, the Great Unclean one was able to charge in and finish off the Jakhals to steal the objective. 

At the end of his turn, Laurence scored Behind for 3 points and discarded Bring It Down. 

In my turn, I drew Defend Stronghold and Engage on all Fronts. I also got 4 on the primary. 

The Master of Executions moved up with the Berzerkers on the GUO, followed by Angron. Lord Invocatus moved up on the Plaguebearers, while the Jackals and Rhino moved to engage the Flamers. I moved the Juggernaught Lord to get engage, while the Exalted moved up on the Nurglings. The Changeling overwatched Lord Invocatus, but failed to do any damage. 




Laurence used rapid ingress to bring the Masque in near the GUO. In the shooting phase, the Forgefiend killed 5 of the Plaguebearers. The Rhino and Jakhals did one wound on the Flamer. 

In the charge phase, Angron and the Berzerkers charged the Great Unclean one. The Masque used heroic to engage the Berzerkers and gave Angron -1 to wound. The Jakhals charged the Flamers, the Exalted charged the Nurglings, while Lord Invocatus charged the Plaguebearers. 




In the fight phase, the Masque failed to kill a Berzerker. The Exalted killed the Nurglings. I used a CP to do a blessings roll and took Sustained to go with Lethal hits. Angron and the Berzerkers (with +1 to wound) killed the Masque and took the Great Unclean One down to 2 wounds. 

I used Angron's re-rolls on the Berzerkers to re-roll all hits to fish for 6's to give me lethals and sustained. I managed to put about 23 wound through, which took 8 from the GUO (Angron taking the other 10). 

The Lord Invocatus killed the Plaguebearers and consolidated into the Changeling, while one Flamer and one Jakhal were slain. 

At the end of my turn, I scored Engage for 4. 

VICTORY POINTS:
Daemons- 14
World Eaters- 11

TURN 3
Laurence drew Storm Hostile Objective and Defend Stronghold. I got Lethal hits and FNP on my blessings. Laurence used a CP to sticky the bottom objective that Shalaxi was on. He scored 4 on the primary. 

The flamers and Changeling fell back from combat. Shalaxi moved up on the Exalted Eightbound in my deployment zone, while the Fiends moved up on the other unit of Exalted. I had left the Exalted exposed by moving the Juggernaught Lord up for Engage in a previous turn. 

Belakor moved up on the centre, bringing in the Bloodthirster closer thanks to his Shadows of Chaos aura. 




In the shooting phase, the Flamers fired at the Jakhals, killing three. Belakor managed to put a wound on Angron. 

In the charge phase, the Bloodthirster charged Angron, while Belakor charged the Berzerkers. The Fiends charged the Exalted Eightbound. Shalaxi failed the short charge on the Exalted and Laurence had no CP to re-roll it. 



The MOE and Berzerkers struck first, killing the Great Unclean One. The Bloodthirster then managed to kill Angron. I used my 2 CP to interrupt with the Exalted Eightbound and killed the Fiends to keep them safe and continue to hold the objective. Belakor managed to kill a few of the Berzerkers, while the Bloodthirster killed two more with his mortal wound ability at the end of the phase. 

Laurence scored 5 for Storm Hostile and I scored 3 for Defend Stronghold. He ditched Defend Stronghold. 

In my turn, I scored 8 on the primary. I drew Assassinate and Storm Hostile Objective. 

The Exalted Eightbound and Eightbound moved up on Belakor, while the Juggernaught Lord moved to grab the bottom objective.



In the shooting phase, the Forgefiend fired at Belakor, taking 3 wounds from him. 

The Eightbound and Exalted Eightbound charged Belakor, while the Jakhals charged the Flamers and the Lord Invocatus charged the Changeling. The Maulerfiend charged the Bloodthirster. I doubted that he would be able to kill both it and the Berzerkers and wanted to reduce his moves in the following turn. 

The Eightbound struck, taking 7 wounds from Belakor. I then used +1 to wound on the Exalted and they finished him off. Lord Invocatus failed his test and could not attack the Changeling! The Flamers were finished off by the Jackals and Rhino. The MOE and Berzerkers struck, taking 9 wounds from the Bloodthirster, while the Maulerfiend took one more. 




The Bloodthirster killed the Berzerkers, and took 6 wound from the Maulerfiend with his mortal wounds ability. 

At the end of my turn, I scored Assassinate and Storm Hostile. 


VICTORY POINTS:
Daemons- 23
World Eaters- 31

TURN 4
In his turn, Laurence got Containment and Overwhelming Force. He discarded Containment and got Cleanse. 

The Changeling fell back, while Shalaxi moved up on the Exalted. He fired at the Juggernaught Lord, killing him. I used a stratagem to sticky the objective. 

Shalaxi then charged the Exalted Eightbound, killing two and taking a couple of wounds in reply. The Bloodshirster then killed the Forgefiend and consolidated into the Eightbound. The Eightbound struck. Thanks to the re-rolls to wound from being below half strength, the Eightbound managed to kill the Bloodthirster. 





Laurence decided to call the game there. He had very few assets left, and I was already ahead on the points. 

VICTORY POINTS:
Daemons- 37
World Eaters- 49

A win for the World Eaters. 

AFTER-BATTLE THOUGHTS
Thanks to Laurence for a fun game, a bit brutal for the Daemons. 

The new UKTC deployments work really well for combat armies. They were a little bit open before, but the addition of the two new ruins and the L-type consisting of two ruins. This provided a lot of staging for my World Eaters army, as well as blocking the routes for the bigger Daemons to get through to my units. 

I'm still not sold on the Forgefiend. It's nice having something to potentially clear enemy screens, but the low volume of shots and the variability of BS 3+ means it hasn't been that effective for me. I might try it with some of the autocannons for the higher number of shots, as this might be a bit more reliable. 

The blessings were a big boost against the daemons. Being able to stack Lethal Hits with Angron's re-rolls meant that the Berzerkers were able to put quite a lot of damage into the Daemons. The little daemons proved to be quite tough as well, but the volume of attacks on the world eaters was eventually able to deal with them. 

Overall, a fun game, and good practice for upcoming events.