40k Escalation League

On top of all of the madness that I have to do in terms of painting, our local FLGS manager decides to hold a 40k Escalation league. The league will start at 500 points and we will be adding 250 points every 2 or 3 weeks until we get to 2000 points. The real great thing about these types of leagues is the fact that everything needs to be painted and so encourages players to paint their armies. I love this as it will help me with getting another of my armies fully painted that I have laying around as well as allowing me the opportunity to try new options. I was going to do my death company army but saw that 2 or 3 other players are going to do Blood Angels so I decided to pull out my half painted daemon army for this; also, nobody was doing Daemons which made this decision a lot easier for me as I wanted to do an army that nobody was doing. As the points level for this starts at 500, I really couldn't go with my go to guy, Kairos, however I wanted to stay with a tzeentch HQ. For the points, Daemonic heralds are a steal. Going with this idea, I am taking a Herald of Tzeentch on a chariot with Bolt and Master of Sorcery giving me a fire platform that can both move 12 inches and put out 4 shots a turn. As he is considered a jetbike as well, I can turbo boost him to contest objectives if I need to on the last turn and with 5 wounds, should be hard to kill. Accompanying my HQ will be 3 Bloodcrushers to provide my army with a hard as nails unit that can compete with the best assault units in the game. This unit not only serves as my hammer, but due to how scary they are perceived to be it gives you that psychological edge. Running out the 500 points I started with going with 2 units of 8 or 9 horrors and thus re ligating my list as a shooty one as horrors put out a lot of firepower.

After several test games however, the list was being outclassed by armies that had high mobility, great armor saves, or ones that could tie up or kill all of my blood crushers as my horrors hit like wet noodles in combat. To change it up I decided to go with one squad of horrors with the changling upgrade as the ability he has for 5 points can be game changing if it happens and a squad of 10 daemonettes. Having 2 squads that can dice up the enemy in a 500 point army list has paid in spades as the daemonettes helped me win all of my next test games that I played with them. Their high initiative, fleet, and offensive and defense grenades, and boat load of attacks makes them a real threat on the battle field. Of course, they are a glass hammer so if I roll badly or if they get caught out in the open, they fall over like blades of grass. My first weeks opponent was a Space Wolves player that had a wolf guard battle leader in terminator armor, a 10 man grey hunter pack in a drop pod, and a 10 or 12 man blood claws pack. We rolled up kill points with pitched battle and he decided not to bring on his HQ and blood claws pack as he was afraid of my deep striking units.

I believed this cost him the game as it allowed me to overwhelm his unsupported drop pod squad with my blood crushers, horrors, and Herald. He did manage to shoot my horrors on his initial drop reducing me to just 2 horrors however my bloodcrushers got a turn of not getting shot and butchered the squad after my herald shot them up. I won the game 2 to 0 and with it bonus points for having a fully painted army. I have 2 weeks now to add to my list to get it to 750 points so I am thinking of adding another squad of 3 Bloodcrushers and to re-add my other horrors squad to my list. I might go with a budget Deamon prince in order to get some more Anti-tank but we shall see. Pics are of my daemons about a week out before my first league game, I will post more updated pics in my next post. Time to get more painting done...