What’s My Must-Take Chaos Daemon Unit?
Bloodcrushers.
I NEVER leave home without 3+ of them. For a mere 40 points each, you get a Power-Weapon wielding, 3+ Armour Saving, Furious Charging, model with a WS that means you'll nearly always hit on 3s and wound on 3s (often on 2s). On the charge, these bad boys have a better Initiative that SMurfs, and get 4 attacks each that hit on 3s, wound on 2s, and deny armour saves.
Yeah, you probably won't always be fighting marines, but I think they're a good standard to compare killing power. I mean, if you can rip through SMurfs like butter, what odds does a guardsman (or Gaunt or Tau or Ork) have? You even deny Plague Marine's their ever so evil Feel No Pain save.
When I run my Daemons, you can be sure that I make sure to save at least 120 points for these guys to come along. Their only drawback is that they are a fire-magnet the turn the Deep Strike, so you have to be careful to protect them (you did take Chaos Icons to avoid scattering disasters, right?). Once they touch down though, the can mow through pretty much any other unit on the table.
Mnly complaint with Bloodcrushers is their models. Yeah, there's awesome; but it's hard to vary them enough to make them look distinct from each other. I've found that I can use some of the Fantasy Warriors of Chaos models as a stand-ins, and they've been great looking so far.
Here's one of my Fantasy models used as a Bloodcrusher (I still need to finish the head and base, but he's more finished than most of my work):
Upcoming Apocalypse Game
Recently, I was in a small leage att my FLGS. That league is over, and while I didn't place high enough for the championship playoff game (I was 3rd and only the top 2 go), I did get the Fellowship Award to play as a "chaplain" in the playoff game. The playoff is an Apocalyse game with the two leaders fielding 4000 pts. and the chaplains fielding 1500 pts. plus a 500 pt. Super Heavy (either a Baneblade or Ork Stompa). The other chaplain gets 1st pick, so I'm not sure which I'll be getting. As I was running Daemonhunters, the Baneblade makes the most sense. But, the other chaplain ran a Space Marine army, so the Stompa makes no sense for either of us. Oh yeah, my team leader is Tyranids, so the whole alliance thing is out the window... he battle is consisting of 2 Space Marine armies, 1 Tyranid army, and my Daemonhunters... It wasn't destined to be fluffy.
1500 pts. for an Apoc. game isn't much, so I'm a bit torn on what to do about it. At 70 pts. each, I'm having a hard time not squeezing in a few of the Lance Orbital Strikes. That may be too cheezy though. Regardless, I'm almost certain I'm going to bring at least one.
Aside from that, I'm not sure what to field. For most of the league I used almost exclusively Grey Knights, but with only 1500 pts. to work with, I'm leaning towards using more Inquisitional forces and maybe an Inducted Imperial Guard Platoon. With all the Space Marines that will be on the board, I don't want my high points cost to hurt my army, and with all fluff gone out the window, maybe this would be a fun time to be as cheesy as I want.
My concern is that my playing is going to impact the winner here, so if I try to build a reasonable 'bring-back-the-fluff' army, then we might et wiped out costing him a prize. If I go Uber-Cheese, then we might win, but would we really have earned it? I'm not sure if having an Apoc. game for the playoff makes sense when all the prior games were normal rulebook missions. I play very differently in a league than in a for-fun game... and I've never played an Apocalypse game that wasn't for-fun.
What to do?
Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
Over the course of my blog-reading, I came across this little gem on NockerGeek.net about keeping your eyes on the prize and playing the game at hand instead of just trying to slaughter your opponent. I know I've definitely fallen to the 'Pride' problem described, but for a reason not covered by the original post. I'm not overly confident about my units abilities... Rather, I'm usually on the pessimistic side about what I can and can't do. However, nothing makes me happier in the game than unleashing a reign of fire upon my foe and forcing him to remove models from the table.
It's not that I want revenge against a particular unit or that I think the target might be a threat to the objective. It's that I just like to run aggressive armies. Imperial Guard is usually one of the less aggressive armies in 40k (although the new codex and 5th edition has changed that a bit), and how do I kit out my troops? I gear them for assault or to be in the opponents face, knee-deep in the action. Admittedly, this doesn't typically work out to well, but it is a blast to play (and when it does work out, it is AMAZING!).
I can readily think of several games that I won on turn 4 or 5 and then subsequently lost because I abandoned an objective to go kill an enemy that didn't matter. Even in kill-point style games, I've done this. In a recent Warhammer Fantasy game, I charged a full unit of Dark Elves (I forget the type) in the 6th tun and lost my 600+ point model to a single failed Instability test. If I hadn't charged, I would have had a solid victory. Even if I had won, it would have still been a solid victory. But, since I lost, the game ended up as a draw.
I think subconsciously I know that I'm doing something stupid. The problem is that my inner child that wants to Crush-Kill-Destroy drowns out the voice of reason telling me to win the war, not the battle.
This is definitely something I'm working on, and I think I'm slowly getting better in part because I'm doing a few more league games over friendly games. Since losing has penalties unlike a friendly game, I'm remembering more often to go for the win instead of go for the slaughter.
Edit: Over the course of writing this post, I have also learned that I have been mis-spelling "Aggressive" all my life (I'd been spelling "Agressive")... Where the hell did that second "g" come from?
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