Daemonic Incursion Repulsed

So this Saturday evening I got a game in against Murl's Chaos Daemons.  It was a 1500 point game with it being Emperor's Will and long table edge deployment.  I haven't gotten to play Murl in a while so I was looking forward to this game, as he's always a fun guy to play against.

The Lions gathered for battle

The Lions of Harlech
Captain w/ artificer, relic blade, and storm shield
10 man Tactical Squad w/ meltagun and missile launcher
10 man Tactical Squad w/ missile launcher
5 Thunderhammer Terminators in a Landraider w/ multimelta
10 Sternguard in a Drop Pod
Ironclad w/ heavy flamer and meltagun in a Drop Pod
Thunderfire Cannon

Lions deployed for battle

Daemons gathered from the warp

Chaos Daemons
I'll add his list here when he messages it to me this evening.

Daemons deployed plus flying daemon prince off screen left and plaguebears in building on screen edge

Hellfire rounds for that 2+ to wound really thins out threats

Turn One
Murl failed to seize so I had first turn.  My first move was to drop the Sternguard right in front of the daemonettes to jam up his flank while my landraider advanced toward the middle of the board to be ready to counter the daemon princes in the middle of the board.  The sternguard wounded 11, killing 8 daemonettes.  The thunderfire cannon had a shot on the plaguebearers holding his objective and used the anti-cover shot to inflict 12 wounds killing 8 of those as well.  The landraider shot at the Keeper of Secrets but didn't wound him due to saves made.

Plaguebearers after Thunderfire shots

Murl's turn saw him aim his flying daemon prince after my Thunderfire as he now knew what it could do.  His other big guys advanced toward the middle while the flying bugs followed them.  The daemonettes moved up to charge the sternguard.  He failed to cast enfeeble or hemorrhage on the Sternguard earning a perils wound on his nurgle prince and then put a perils on his flying DP trying to hemorrhage the techmarine on the Thunderfire.  Daemonettes charged and I failed to get any overwatch hits with 20 shots.  His squad leader challenged and killed my sternguard sgt (no surprise there but it limited the damage) while the regulars killed none.  The nine sternguard remaining then beat the 4 daemonettes to a pulp which killed the leader with instability.  Sternguard then consolidated behind the cottage in his deployment zone.

Advancing on his objective (daemons on board edge are awaiting to be summoned still)

Turn 2
My Ironclad arrived this turn and I dropped it in front of his flying bugs to try and further jam up his advance while my Landraider moved up as well with the terminators disembarking.  Sternguard moved across the board to be able to shoot at the 4 plaguebearers on his objective.  Sternguard killed 3 plaguebearers with long range shooting.  A tactical squad, thunderfire, and landraider combined to put 1 wound on the Keeper of Secrets while the Ironclad and drop pods managed to kill a flying bug.  Terminators then charged the Keeper.  Keeper managed to inflict 3 wounds but storm shields proved their worth with no one lost.  The hammers then replied to send to Keeper back to learn more Secrets in the warp.  I then consolidated into the cover in the middle.

Keeper lost his secret but here comes "Big Daddy"

Murl's reserve squad showed up and he was forced to deploy them to cover his objective.  He then moved the flying bugs up and his flying prince went from zooming to swooping to charge my Thunderfire.  His "Big Daddy" Nurgle Prince then advanced on the terminators.  He got off enfeeble, then followed with hemmorage with warp speed on himself.  I lost one terminator to the hemorrhage then made the next save to stop the loss there.  Drones assaulted the landraider but failed to get any 6s for the touch of rust.  Flying prince easily killed the techmarine but in an odd turn of events, took 2 wounds from overwatch on the way in.  Big Daddy charged the terminators and killed one but took 1 wound in return.

The look of those flying bugs is really cool.  And as flying cavalry real maneuverable as well

Got the Thunderfire but just one wound remains

 Turn Three
Sternguard continued to advance on his objective while the landraider moved over and turned to bring fire on the flying bugs.  Ironclad advanced on the bugs as well.  The tactical squad on my objective managed to get the one wound to finish off his flying prince while he was still on the ground.  Landraider, Ironclad, and the other Tactical combined to kill one bug and take a wound off the last one.  Sternguard killed 4 daemons from the newly arrived squad.  Ironclad then charged and killed the last bug while the terminator fight saw another terminator killed but another wound on the prince as well.

Murl's turn three went fairly quick.  His daemon squad moved more into cover and then he got enfeeble off on the terminators again.  The terminators once more got a wound in for a loss of a terminator.

Got there just in time

Turn Four
My sternguard killed the last plaguebearer from the original squad while my landraider killed a pair of daemons from the new squad.  The Ironclad then charged in to assist the terminator.  The DP lost his 5th of 7 wounds to the Ironclad while slaying the last terminator.

Both tacticals and the captain with the home objective well in hand

At this point Murl conceded as I had first blood, line breaker, my objective and had 9 sternguard and a landraider about to pour fire into the 7 or so daemons on his objective.  His last big guy was down to two wounds and was still in combat with an untouched Ironclad.  I think he could have got the Ironclad with smash but that would just have him in a ring of fire from everything else.

My losses of the night

All in all, I think my battle plan went fairly well.  I got him stuck in combat well short of my line and since the techmarine got really lucky with overwatch, got to kill his outflanking flyer before he could threaten my objective as well.  Taking the option to deepstrike his reserve on my half by hurting his plaguebearers so early helped as well.  Between him not having any luck at all on DP saves (Big Daddy made only one save in close combat between invul and Feel No Pain, and didn't make a single it will not die roll) and my upsetting what he planned to do, I kept him off his game a bit.  All in all an enjoyable game and I look forward to playing him again soon.

Interestingly enough, the most amusing part of the whole night came on the ride home back to Morristown.  RTVortil took a bit of a drubbing from Amy/Cheef's Taudar.  Roughly halfway home he had one of those AH HA! moments and realized that he'd forgotten pain tokens the entire game and some of his witches who were gunned down might have survived if he'd taken those Feel No Pain rolls.


On the flip side of things, I picked up a few marines from Cheef which with some random fellows I already owned will be forming the initial core of the 7th Company which will just leave the 8th Company not worked on.  So sometime this year I should be just one company shy of a full chapter.