Dual Daemon Princes

[techsoldaten]

Over the weekend, I changed things up a bit and ran a 2000 point dual DP list just for the fun of it. They worked a lot better than I would have thought and I learned some things from the experience.

 

The list looked like this:

 

- DP x2 with MoN, Power Armor, Wings, Combat Familiar

- 10 man CSM x4 with 2x flamers, VoTLW, cc weapons, Rhino

- Defiler

- 3x Obliterators

 

I gave one DP the Black Mace, and the other got the Burning Brand.

 

They faced a MEQ list that included:

 

- 1 FC

- 1 Librarian

- 2x Vindicators

- 6x Tactical Squads, all with Plasma

- Terminator Squad with Autocannons

- Terminator Squad with TH / SS

 

Without trying to turn this into a battle report, the basic things to understand were:

 

- The DPs took about 90% of the shooting rounds 1 - 3. They did not take any wounds while flying.

 

- They did a dual vector strike, which took out a split tactical squad one round.

 

- The two of them piled up boons, getting crystalline skin, instant death and icy aura. The fact they were getting stronger as the game went on turned out to be very important.

 

- The one with the Mace was able to take on a 5 man TH / SS squad by himself, killing the sergeant the first round and taking out 2 TH / SS terminators the second round before the game ended. I was thinking he could have wiped the unit out on his own. It should be noted he had a crystalline body and instant death at this point and was doing around 9 attacks per turn +2 for his combat familiar.

 

- The one with the Brand was the most vulnerable. He was facing a split Tac squad, there were 2 members left, they chose to fail their morale test, consolidated, and came back shooting. The other SM squads around them were able to get a lot of shooting in as well, leaving the DP with just one wound which he lost in cc. He went down the 5th or 6th round, tho, and could have lasted the whole game.

 

- Their role as a fire magnet could not have worked better, it kept my opponent off balance the entire game. When he was shooting at DPs, I was lining up CSMs to attack and Rhinos for tank shocks. The real testament to this was the fact I killed 8 of his units, the only unit he actually killed was one of my DPs. Everyone else still had models left at the end of the game.

 

- The CSMs really benefitted from their presence. They just did not take a lot of shots and had a bunch of guns at all times. They shot up a FC and a Librarian in the same round, and mowed down a number of split squad tacticals. He had about 60 SM models to begin the game, compared to the 40 CSMs I brought, and the DPs more than made up for the difference.

 

So, what this got me thinking is:

 

- a DP with the mace might actually be an answer to TH / SS termies. He hits first, he hits hard, and the number of hits are eventually going to catch up with the terminators. When he did hit one of the Terminators, the one next to it failed his toughness test. This is crucial, you hit one member of the unit and the rest have a 33% chance of just going down.

 

- The SM tactic of running away and gearing up for an assault the next round is something the DPs are especially vulnerable to b/c of all the fire they draw. For the DP that went down, he faced around 40 shots that round and took 3 wounds before being finished off in CC.

 

- Dual DPs can actually break game mechanics quite a bit, partially because of how much people focus on them but also because they are not simple to kill. My opponent was never able to really get together a good attack on my other troops, while my DPs were going around smashing his. He was able to kill one of them, but that was all he was able to kill. When the game ended after turn 7, I had about 8 VPs plus first blood from all the things I blew up, the only VP he got was for the DP he managed to kill. And I was running Rhinos!

[Sception]

Daemon princes aren't Champions of Chaos, are they? I didn't think they rolled on the chart for killing enemy characters. You can buy a gift to start, but other then that they shouldn't be getting more powerful over the course of the game.

[techsoldaten]

Daemon princes aren't Champions of Chaos, are they? I didn't think they rolled on the chart for killing enemy characters. You can buy a gift to start, but other then that they shouldn't be getting more powerful over the course of the game.

Argh! I am going to have to apologize to someone then, my opponent thought DPs were not supposed to get rolls but I convinced him this was the case. It definitely had an impact on the outcome of the game.

[Spacefrisian]

Kind of silly as you can give them a gift that allows you to roll at the table at the start of the game, guess a faq will come out for that.

[Noctus Cornix]

Kind of silly as you can give them a gift that allows you to roll at the table at the start of the game, guess a faq will come out for that.

 

Well it does make some sense seeing as Gift of Mutation cancels out the possibility of turning into a chaos spawn or a Daemon Prince. I mean seriously, who want their Daemon Prince turning into a chaos spawn! :)

[techsoldaten]

Kind of silly as you can give them a gift that allows you to roll at the table at the start of the game, guess a faq will come out for that.

 

Well it does make some sense seeing as Gift of Mutation cancels out the possibility of turning into a chaos spawn or a Daemon Prince. I mean seriously, who want their Daemon Prince turning into a chaos spawn! :)

If it gets you back all your lost wounds, who would not want it?

[zyl-]

Did you run the princes with psyker levels that you perhaps forgot to mention? Personally, if I'm going to run a deathstar like that I like to make it that much meaner, and the Nurgle powers tend to mix well with biomancy imo.

[Shuggnuggath]

I guess you could roll on the boon table if you got Boon of Mutation spell.

[techsoldaten]

Did you run the princes with psyker levels that you perhaps forgot to mention? Personally, if I'm going to run a deathstar like that I like to make it that much meaner, and the Nurgle powers tend to mix well with biomancy imo.

Cute that you called it a deathstar. I think the matchup got it's power based on how my opponent reacted moreso than the raw abilities of the DPs themselves. If he had been shooting up the SM units this would have been a lot more even.

 

I did not buy any psychic powers, although Nurgle's Rot would have been immensely helpful. Perils of the Warp bothers me, I just don't want my units going down on account of their own actions.