Ongoing (I hope) Vassal Game: 1850 Seer Council vs Chaos Daemons

Had about 1/3 of a game the other night and I'm dying to finish it. I hope I see the guy again. It was getting crazy late here and he must have had something going on because it was taking him 10 minutes to roll one save. A half hour later (at 1:15AM) he said he needed to go afk for 20 mins, so I took some notes, saved the map and told him I hoped to finish another day. Still I learned a lot from what I did get to do.

Here are the lists.

Mine: DEldar Council 1850
Farseer - Jetbike, Singing Spear 120 Fortune/Guide/PsyShriek
Farseer - Jetbike, Singing Spear 120 Guide/Foreboding/ Prescience
7 Warlocks - Jetbike. 1 with spear 355 Empower, Enhance, Conceal, Conceal, Destructor, Quicken, Embolden

Troops
5 Dire Avengers - Wave Serpent (Holos, Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon) 210
5 Dire Avengers - Wave Serpent (Holos, Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon) 210
3 Windrider Jetbikers - 1 Shuriken Cannon 61
3 Windrider Jetbikers - 1 Shuriken Cannon 61
3 Windrider Jetbikers - 1 Shuriken Cannon 61

Heavy Support
1 War Walker - BL, Scatter Laser 70
1 War Walker - BL, Scatter Laser 70
1 War Walker - BL, Scatter Laser 70

Dark Eldar
HQ
Baron 105

Troops
5 Kabalite Warriors - Raider (Torment Grenade Launcher, Grisly Trophies)
5 Kabalite Warriors - Raider (Torment Grenade Launcher, Grisly Trophies)

Heavy Support
Ravager 105

Total 1848


His
Great Unclean One,
+ Greater Reward (x2),
+ Mastery level 2,
Cost: 255 points.

Herald of Tzeentch,
+ Locus of Conjuration,
+ Mastery level 2,
+ Exalted Reward,
Cost: 125 points.

Herald of Nurgle,
+ Locus of Fecundity,
+ Mastery Level 1,
+ Exalted Reward,
Cost: 125 points.

12 Plaguebearers,
+ Plagueridden
- Lesser Reward,
+ Instrument
Cost: 125 points.

12 Plaguebearers,
+ Plaguebanner,
+ Instrument,
+ Plagueridden
- Greater Reward,
Cost: 150 points.

12 Pink Horrors,
+ Blasted Standard,
+ Iridescent Horror
- Greater Reward,
Cost: 140 points.

12 Pink Horrors,
+ Blasted Standard,
+ Iridescent Horror
- Greater Reward,
Cost: 140 points.

4 Rot Flies,
Cost: 168 points.

5 Flesh Hounds of Khorne,
Cost: 90 points.

Skull Cannon of Khorne,
Cost: 125 points.


Soul Grinder,
+ Daemon of Nurgle,
+ Phlegm Bombardment,
Cost: 180 points.

Daemon Prince,
+ Daemon of Nurgle,
+ Daemonic Flight,
+ Mastery level 2,
Cost: 250 points.



While I haven't gotten to finish this whole battle, a few things really stand out in this match up.

1) A Fortuned Council is hilariously resilient against shooting from units of Horrors. You get a 4+ chance to Deny and you can reroll that. Then the enemy has to roll to hit and then you've got excellent rerollable saves to keep you alive. Any psyker with less than three mastery levels is going to have a hard time shooting witchfire powers at you.

2) Reveal I have found to be incredibly good against Nurgle units. They really rely on shrouded to keep them alive againts guns that can blast through their toughness. Especially the ones without Feel No Pain. It's tough when you have to choose between your 2+ cover and negating the enemy's cover, but there are situations where I think that is worth doing. In my game I gave up Conceal to Reaveal a Nurgle Daemon Prince. Getting himout of the sky would have put him into 4+ cover ruins and Shrouded would put him at a 2+. My chances of shooting him down after that would be slim. I didn't get to finish my shooting in this phase where I'm trying to kill him, but i have a lot more guns left and he only has 2 more wounds. Removing Shrouding should help me put him down so I can get my Council into assault where I won't need a cover save.

3) Witchblades are brutally good against Nurgle daemons. It's funny that they wound an Iron Arm GUO on a 2+. But it's great against basically any of the Greater Daemons, the Princes and the Grinder. If I can shoot a Bloodthirster to death rather than assault it I'll definitely go that route, but wounding so easily is really fantastic against guys who pay so much for good toughness.

4) Ghost helms are for suckers!...sometimes. I rolled double 1s once on a Farseer. I had the Warp Charge to protect myself, but I really wanted to cast Guide too. Enter Renewer. I took the wound on my Farseer and immediately cast Renewer on him to restore the wound. This way I get to cast what I need anyway and I just had to risk the psychic test with a guy I wouldn't have cast with otherwise. Not a bad trade in my opinion...although I might feel differently if the Warlock killed himself on Perils lol.

Current status of the game:

General thoughts:
I need to be careful with putting vehicles anywhere near Horrors. He managed to mutate one of my Warlocks into a Tzeentch Herald with an 11 result on the Warp Storm table. That one Herald proceeded to nuke one of my Walkers who died in a hurry. I see the potential Horrors have though and I'm trying to put him in a position where he has to engage my Council instead. So far his forces are split in two and it looks like I'll focus down the right flank and then pick off the deep strikers when they arrive before moving on his left flank. I just have to keep him away from the two objectives and have enough firepower on both to kill the two Plaguebearer squads when they arrive.

Getting into Vassal and a Pseudo-BatRep vs Space Marines at 600pts

I don't know why I never did this before. Here I am in the middle of nowhere with no way to play 40k unless I travel four hours and spend over 100 USD in train fares, and I wasn't using the only means to play games on the internet. Well for whatever reason, I've finally come around and started using Vassal. If you don't already know, it is a board game simulation engine that uses modules full of sprites and menu options to help people play games over the net. There is a 40k module, among many more others, so if you want to get into this all you will need to do is download both of those from the links I put in above.

At first I had misunderstood what Vassal even is. I thought it made a video game out of 40k, so I was looking around for rules updates for Eldar and wondering how they keep up with the releases. But it turns out that it really is a board game simulator. All it provides is a random number generator, a scale map and sprites to put on it. It gives you a way to measure and move pieces. That's it. It feels delightfully old skool to play on, like PC games 25 years ago that needed manuals and maps to be played.

I've had a chance to sit down and play two games so far. One at 550pts and one at 600. The app took a little getting used to, but once I got the hang of it I found it's not hard to play with at all. It does seem to take much longer to play the game and some guys over at DakkaDakka said the same, so I suppose there's no helping that. I feel using Skype or something to talk while playing instead of typing might go a long way to speed things up.

The games I played were really fun. Using Vassal allows me to play with models I don't own so I'm loving that I can test stuff out that I want to buy (not so sure my wife will like that when I order a bunch of stuff to kitbash decent Jetbike from though lol). The first game I played I tried out a small mech force and found myself facing off against IG with something like 10 autocannons and 3 Chimeras. I knew it'd be rough when I saw how much high-strengh dakka he had, but things went downhill a little faster than I expected due having the initiative stolen and rolling a pair of unlucky turns. Still it was a great learning experience for both the program and for fighting Chimeras, which I'd had little experience with.

The second game I played I actually got a few pictures from, though I did forget the early turns. I ran some fun stuff that I'd wanted to try out. I had a Loltarch (Jetbike, Mantle of the Lauging God, Banshee Mask, Laser Lance, Fusion Gun), 2x3 WRJ with a ShuCan each, 4 Shining Spears (Exarch w/ Star Lance and H&R) and 2x5 Warp Spiders. My enemy played SM and had a Librarian, a Techmarine w/ Thunder Fire Cannon, 5 Scouts with sniper rifles and a heavy bolter, a stock Predator, a stock Razorback and a Tactical Squad with a flamer, a plasma cannon and melta bombs. Unfortunately I could tell he would struggle against my list when I saw what he had. I have tons of stuff to kill MEQs with and more than enough anti-tank to kill two vehicles that didn't really have the firepower to scare me much. The only things that really worried me was the plasma cannon nuking my Spiders and the TFC being able to wound my Loltarch through his cover save.

 

Hm, it seems I don't know how to take photos correctly yet. I just have this one. You can see from this how the game went though. He deployed everything in the top left and had his Tac Squad in a single unit of 10. I played very aggressively, turbo-boosting to assault from turn two. My Shining Spears ate a lot of fire and I lost everyone but the Exarch in turn one, but the Exarch did me proud. He shot and assaulted the Razorback turn two. Between him and the WRJs they brought it down to 1HP and destroyed the heavy bolter. Unlucky, but it wasn't a problem because my opponent tankshocked him and he lanced the last HP away with a Death or Glory attack! Very exciting moment because I rarely try my luck at that.

In the top left you can see where my Loltarch massacred the Techmarine in combat. Using his warlord trait he also helped me deep strike 5 Spiders who failed miserably at nuking the predator with side armor shots. Even though they didn't do what I wanted them to that turn, I did see the huge potential battle focus has for improving DS options.

On the next turn I shot his Scouts with everything I had. It took everything too, because the Techmarine had given them 3+ cover in those ruins. At the end of it there was only the Libby alive and my Loltarch assaulted with my SS Exarch. The Exarch accepted the challenge and lanced the Libby with his S8 Star Lance to cause instant death.

My opponent was a good sport about the game and kept playing even though things looked pretty hopeless at this point. I blew up the Predator with melta from my Loltarch, shot up the Tacticals and lost connection when they were running away. 

I don't know if I'll meet him again, but he was a nice guy and I'd love to play him again. I'd like to help him fine tune his small-game list because I feel like he's spending a lot on some options and not getting enough firepower out of them. It's unfortunate that my army was perfect for killing the targets he presented me too. On my side, I think the only thing I'd really have done differently is back off with my Autarch and use his full movement before assaulting. On the first turn I put him way too close to the Techmarine. My opponent didn't think to assault, but if he had I might have died instantly to a powerfist attack. Might have killed the Techie first too; can't really tell. But I'd rather not play so sloppy that I put myself in a position to find out. With a likely assault range of 17+ inches, I should have played at my speed advantage and positioned better. Oh well, glad to learn a lesson from not getting pummeled. That's always nice.