1250 pts for competitive Battle Brother along Daemons

[NonnoSte]

Hi everyone,

Next month I'm taking part to a Battle Brother event along one of my club mates, who runs Daemons.
This tournament is worth the qualification for the regional summer event so I know the level of competition will be pretty high, especially since it will be uncomped.

My mate is bringing a classic MSU army with:
L2 tzeentch
L1 Metal
3x10 Horrors
2x Nurgle Beast
2x3 Screamers
2x Skullcannons

So I figured out that the combined army should need some shooting and some muscle in combat.
My initial thought was to bring the following:

Dreadlord on Black Dragon 1+, lance, CoT, dawnstone, spellshield.
BSB on steed 1+/4++, great weapon.

15 Dark Riders, fcg.
3x RBT.

Now we're arguing whether or not the Dragon will be a wise choice in an uncomped tournament with the chance to face multiple cannons more often than not.
He is saying that we will perform better switching the Dragon Lord for 3 Peg Master (BSB included) and splitting Dark Riders in 3x5, also saving points for 5 warlocks.

What I fear with this setup is the lack of punch to go taking the points to push for a big win.

I don't have much experience with DE (I'm a WE player mostly), so I could be completely wrong.
Can you help me decide what to start building and playtest?
By now we tried both solutions against infantry based WoC and O&G, where the Dragon really shone, but it could be completely matchup dependant. Probably ogres or MSU elves/lizard could pose serious problems.

[Koller]

Im almost sure, your black dragon will die fast, when the two skull cannons aim at it.
I would put him on a pegasus, and get some warlocks

[Coop]

Interesting situation. I actually think your friend is giving some pretty good advice. I don't think 15 dark riders are really going to be that killer in combat if they face up against any sort of horde or things like chaos warriors. Splitting them up gives you some good redirecting options and allows you to double flee. Also, the dragon is probably going to be target #1 every game. There really isn't anything else for an opponent to shoot at except for maybe the skull cannons. I think switching him for 3 peg masters is probably a solid idea. They're relatively durable and they can really do some damage in combat when you get 2+ of them in together.

Skull cannons are very hard hitting when they charge (D6+1 S6 impact hits and then 3 WS5 S6 hits from the chariot are serious), so combined with peg masters, you should do fine. If they bring a horde or something, just run around it with your MSU style list and shoot at it until it's dead. 3 RBT shooting into a horde a turn + magic will bring almost anything down no problem. That and you have 2 skull cannons for any large threats like monsters or cannons.

If you really are set on having some hard hitting thing, put in a unit of 10 warlocks. They will murder almost anything with that many rerollable poison attacks at S4, ignoring 50% of wounds received with their ward save.

[NonnoSte]

We tried some serious game with 3 Peg masters in the last few days and they are pretty effective in combat.
There's stil the issue of the low wound count and the fact that each 3 wounds we are giving away 200 VPs. I'm finding myself more and more reluctant to commit them once they're wounded if not for clearing chaffs/war machines (a bit wasted you could say).

Problem is that with the 20-0 scoring system, we're finding hard to get big victories, especially against Deathstars approach.
We played a High Elves + Wood Elves team this weekend with a BotWD Helmbus carrying fighters and a mini-Sisterbus carrying casters, which were a pure nightmare.
2++ against spells on the two blocks made Horrors and Warlocks pretty useless and their speed didn't let us to really out-manouver them.
Eventually we cannon-sniped the WE L4 and took the Helms to a managable size for the 3 Masters to charge in, but I still lost 2 of them before I could take down the Highelf Prince.
Still, we lost badly, being left with close to nothing (basically just a Skullcannon and a Pegmaster)

[NonnoSte]

Quick update:

In the end we opted to change things completely.
My mate army took a Nurgle twist and is currently like this:

Herald of Nurgle, Greater Gifts (mainly for Fencer's Blades, bud Obsidian Blades is sensible too, according to the opponent), Locus of Fecundity (4+ Regen to the unit)
28 Plaguebearers, banner
6 Nurgle Beasts
1 Nurgle Beast
2 x Skullcannon

Thus leaving to me the magic department, which I took this way:

Supreme Sorceress L4 (Beast), dark steed, Power Stone
Peg Master, 1+, Cloak of Twilight
10 Dark Riders, champ, banner
5 Dark Riders, mus, banner
3 x RBT
2 x 5 Doomfire Warlocks

The change is due to timing reasons.
The TO released the infopack and we discovered that each game will be of just 2 hours.
This setup allows for a quicker start (spell generation, spell selection and deployment) and for quicker gaming situations (Tzeentch magic is very time-wasting with the random strength and the Warpfire rule).

The Magic Lore is still under debate.
Beast is by now my favourite, being the less obvious.
It has great synergies with the Master, the Herald and all the Nurgle Troops, while also giving great tools like Curse, Amber Spear and Flock.
What's more, spell selection is almost automatic: Transformation must always be swapped for Wyssan, if I don't roll it, then I'll swap Pelt or Flock if I'm not playing against shoooty Empire, Bretonnia or Elves (in this case I prefer Flock over Wyssan. It's incredible how easily you can kill unarmoured war machine crews and archers with this spell).
The other options could be Death and Dark for obvious reasons or even Metal to complement Warlocks spells and to have 2+ Dark Riders or AP Nurgle Beasts.

[Marchosias]

Hi, just a quick note: if you are not using some kind of house rule, any alliance including Dark Elves is fragile. This means that while you start as trusted allies you will quickly drift towards the desperate alliance. This would force you to split your power dice evenly, prohibit you from augmenting the forces of your ally and so on.
Therefore, I think you should not invest in magic too much. Warlocks are powerful even if they never cast anything but swapping the supreme sorceress for something fighty might be good. And the daemons should have at least one spell to spend their dice on.

On the other hand, if there is a house rule that allows you to stay trusted allies... bring a big unit of beasts and augment them with lore of light or life. Just for the lolz.

[NonnoSte]

Wow. It looks like I missed that part.
It's quite a bad news.

Probably it's worth to get back to the initial idea then.
If he goes Tzeentch we'll have magic in both armies and I could simply downgrade the Sorc for a L1 on M'è to tal and take a single Warlock unit. This should net me a Peg BSB or a couple of Steed Masters to run a mini fast cav bus.

[Marchosias]

Might be good.

I am worried if his initial army is not too magic-heavy as well, with lvl2 tzeentch, lvl1 metal and three units of horrors. He gets some 3-6 dice per magic phase most of the time, channels including. I know Tzeentch magic can be very strong but is it strong enough even if your opponents are trusted allies and can direct all their dispel dice to his spells? Then your spells go through but I am not sure if one soulblight or one doombolt is really that strong universally. It is in some cases no doubt but being stuck with it might suck.

Therefore, I would be inclined to swap either his mages or his horrors for something fighty. Something like:

Lvl2 death (or simply some kind of a cheap mage)
block of plaguebearers
screamers
skullcannons
either a big unit of beasts if points allow or 3x1 beast if not

pegasus dreadlord with CoT and ogre blade
pegasus BSB with talisman of preservation and charmed shield, lance
pegasus hero with, dunno, dawnstone, TOTS, dragonhelm, GW

3x 5 dark riders
5 warlocks
4 RBTs should fit

In this army, you stay back initially, shooting and casting some magic if possible; at the same time, you hunt down smaller but important elements of their army such as terrorgheists, chariots, skirmishers or warmachines. If there is some nasty fighting unit you slow it down with dark riders.

When you hit a hard unit with plaguebearers and three pegmasters (and possibly the warlocks and a skullcannon as well) it should perish. There will be enemies you will be unable to fight but not that many. Sometimes it might be actually better to attack just with the pegmasters. No need to bleed combat resolution because of dying plaguebearers.

[NonnoSte]

Damn, my mate changed his mind once again.

Now he decided to run Warriors. (list submission ends tomorrow)

At this moment we're running

L4 Metal (2+/3++ reroll) with MR3 and Power Stone.
17 warriors of Tzeentch w/ Blasted Standard
3x5 Chosens of Khorne
Tzeentch Warshrine

Peg Lord with 4++, Charmed Shield PoF and Ogre Blade
Peg Master with Cloak of Twilight
3x5 Dark Riders
3 RBTs
8 Warlocks

I'm not sure about the Lord kit, but it does work.
Do you think I should swap ToP and CoT between the two characters?

I also feel the lack of cannons posed some problems in test, but the magic phase is more reliable this way.
The trick with Shrine and Chosens is not bad and often is underrated by opponents. Last game I faced it, I found myself shooting at 3 Daemon Princes in the same game. What's more, it doesn't give away points if the units are alive.
The shrine itself, although of little use, is hard to take down and can help in point scoring.

[NonnoSte]

Here's my army for the event.

[NonnoSte]

The Tournament was last week end.
We placed well and I'm now posting battle reports of the whole event, as promised.