Battle Report: 1500pt BA vs Chaos Daemons - Purgatus

I managed to fit in a 1500pt game vs my friend and fraternity brother Darrin and his Chaos Daemons. He's mostly still learning the game but has a ton of models. He's more of a Magic/D&D guy, but will play just about any game with people. As per usual, I took some pictures and added some captions for you all to see, plus it's easier for me to go back to and go over my strategy that way. I can take video with my phone, but I hate my voice on recordings, so that's out for now, lol. Anyway my list was a tweaked version of the Mech list I just posted yesterday. Also note, this list has 0 invul saves and is basically like a horde marine list. Didn't set out to be that way, but what I'm doing is avoiding point sinks and going with a more is more approach. Too many awesome models die from a hail of bolter fire to suck up like 250 or more points. Running a lot of cheap, redundant models just seems smart in a game of dice. Plus, it breaks that psychological hold of an HQ. When my old PDF Dante would get murdered by a single Melta, it would throw me off as a general, as I dwelled on the loss. If I lose my 100pt HQ, I shrug it off and have another to take his place.

• 2x (10-man ASM: PF, 2-MG in a Rhino with Extra Armor) 530
• 2x (5-man ASM: PW/MB; 1-MG in a Rhino with extra Storm Bolter) 310
• 2x Priest 100
• 2x Librarian (S10 Sword, Preferred Enemy, Epistolary) 300
• 1x 10-man Sternguard 250

This got me to 1490 points. I believe Darrin's list was also 1490pts so we were even in points,  but not even in codexes as the battle will reveal. His list was approximately the below. They had a number of weapon upgrades but I don't remember them all like Phlegm and Breath of Chaos.

• Blood Thirster
• Skulltaker
• 2x Soul Grinders
• 2x Plague Bearers with Icon
• 2x 3-unit Flamer with Bolt of Tzeentch
• Nurgle Prince

(Click for larger pic)

So there you have it, another BA victory before turn 5. I guess I'm only friends with people playing old codexes and the books show their age. I'd say the single biggest let down seeing these Daemons in action is they mostly have 5+ saves. Sure, they're invul so they always get it against my shooting, but 5+ still fails a lot, as evident by the Nurgle Prince suffering a wound from 2 successful storm bolter shots. Also looking at their stat lines, nothing is really impressive save the Blood-Thirster, which he fielded, but failed to DS in. His best looking unit is actually the Flamer, since I guess each model gets a template over your units, and this can lead to a ton of wounds. You still have to roll a 4+ to wound with their weapon, but you're looking at a lot more than 1-2 wounds like a normal weapon at close range, plus each one auto-glances armor and the unit is Jump Infantry with a 4+ invul save. He was definitely let down by his first Soul Grinder as well, one of which he nicknamed "Lucky" for consistently dying on the first turn of his games. I chalk it up to it being such a threat that people throw whatever they can at it first. In this case, I zoomed up 2 Meltas and got a rear arc shot to take it down. I gave him some tips and we had a good after-battle talk to hopefully get him to think more about his army. Hope we get to play again soon!