As a change of tempo I decided I'd dust off the Daemons and give them a run out. I've not used them for ages (possibly since 7th edition) and certainly not since they got a new army book. They were quite tightly pointed around the 2k mark for 7th edition, so I had to go a bit End Times and add some Chaos Warriors to the list to get to 2.5K points
Stephen was using his Bretonnians, who were relatively archer heavy and had bought two (gulp!) Trebuchets along with them.
We played Dawn Attack which saw me with a bunch of flying things on my left (hoping to deal with the Bretonnian flying things) and a few Daemonettes and Seekers stuck behind a river on my right.
The perfidious fans of the Lady inevitably prayed, so I got the first turn.
Ladies, start your engines!
"So, mes braves, we charge down zis, ow you say 'ill, and 'and it out, non?"
Crackle, zap, bounce!
"I ope zese stakes are sharp and pointy!"
I pushed forward across all fronts, and settled down to start pounding the Bretonnians with magic. I duly rolled a double one for Winds of Magic, which has dire consequences for Daemons, with all of them having to take unmodified instability tests. When the magical vortex had subsided my entire left flank had been reduced to a solitary Fury. Bugger.
Come on then, I'll have ya!
Nevertheless I pressed on and was able to burnify some knights with warpfire, only for them to then gain regeneration as a result. Such is the fickle nature of Chaos.
In return the Bretonnians galloped forward on my now exposed left, before peppering my daemonettes with arrows and landing a rock on my Greater Daemon's head.
In my turn I turned the warriors to the left in a desperate attempt to sure up my flank, whilst the Keeper and his accompanying Daemons pushed a little further forward. On the right the fiends and second unit of Daemonnetes piled into a unit of knights errant.
This time the winds of magic tried to suck a Bretonnian wizard into the warp, but she shrugged it off.
Slice, slit, snip!
The fighting went well and the Fiends and Daeonettes pursued the fleeing knights and piled into a unit of archers.
Now it was the Bretonnians turn to charge, with knights crashing into chaos warriors, the Keeper of Secrets and the rear of the recently successful Daemonettes. Shooting and magic saw a Flamer bite the dust and the remaining seekers be shot from their mounts. Somehow, despite 20 shots being launched at him, the last remaining Fury (lets call him Billy) remained unscathed.
Thump!
Crump!
Bumpity-bump!
Ooooh, taken from the rear! How very, very dare you!
In the fighting the knights and Chaos Warriors fought to a standstill, but numbers were on my side. Over on the right, despite the rear charge of the knights and the death of my Herald the forces of Slaanesh were again triumphant. The fiends duly ran the fleeing archers down, though the knights just escaped.
In the centre the Keeper killed the champion, but lost the combat, but only took a single wound. Phew.
In my turn the second unit of daemonettes launched themselves in support of the Greater Daemon. Meanwhile their sisters ploughed into the rear of another unit of archers, whilst the remaining flamers took the opportunity to burn a few more archers (and give them regeneration in the process). The winds of magic once more blew in my favour, granting me an extra +1 on all my ward saves for the next turn.
The Daemonettes made short work of the archers and then hit the knights, causing them to flee the board - the right flank was mine.
Over on the left the combat ground on, but with the numbers of Chaos starting to tell.
In the centre the Keeper slaughtered several knights and the herald added to the tally. In return the knights couldn't hurt the Greater daemon and only killed a single lesser deamon. Inevitably they broke and fled and were cut down, casing the spearmen nearby to flee.
The Bretonnians had one final turn, but when their shooting failed to make any impact on the forces of Chaos Stephen was forced to concede the field.
Spikez vous les rock lobbeurz! Allez!
This was a good fun game. The Daemons have definitely been toned down a bit since their previous book (or at least the choices I have are), but they're still pretty frisky. Given that I lost 300 points and an entire flank in the first magic phase they're clearly quite resilient. While the Bretonnians were shooting at me I was a bit scared, but once the combat started the power of Chaos was all too apparent. I think (and he agrees) that Stephen needs more knights in his army
