The battle was a tough one. I took the list I had posted here against a 2500pts Chaos Night Lords Army. The missions was 5 objectives, that were pretty spaced across the tabletop with standard 12" deployments. The game took place at Rivals Fantasy Games who was very good about accommodating us.
We started off with my opponent winning deployment and choosing to go first. His army looked something like this, but may be a marine heavy or light + or -.
2x Daemon Princes with Lash
1x Greater Daemon
Elite
2x Chosen Marines (8) with 4xplasma guns, 1x Autocannon, 3x marines with Chaos Glory
1x Chaos Terminators (10) with two Reaper Autocannons
Troops
3x Chaos Space Marines (10) with 2x melta guns with Chaos Glory in a Rhino Transport
1x Chaos Space Marines (10) with Lascannon with Chaos Glory
Heavy Support
2x Havocs (8) wth 4 Autocannons and Chaos Glory
Here is a brief description of the battle.
He deployed into the center of the board for the most part, and did a good job at making sure his heavy weapons were going to be in position to fire most of the game.
Round 1 Assaults failed
With him going first, I had set up defensively with everything hopefully in range of an assault in case I seized my initiative on a 4+. Well I seized on a 5. He had forgotten to deploy his infiltrators, so they got pushed into reserves. That kind of hampered my first round assaults with incubi and wyches (I had a good idea where they were going, but he forgot). Regardless, both failed to be able to assault, the incubi being subject to a 9" lash backwards. (they got back into their transport, but it meant no assault til round 3).
Both squads of trueborn were a bane to my opponent, as they both deployed into area terrain mid-board. Ravagers and Venoms took to each flank and did well in damaging rhinos, and killing terminators, both of which were reduced to almost no one in my first round. I also failed with my wych assault. I needed to roll for assaulting into difficult terrain and needed a 3 in order to assault 2 weakened units and a rhino. Double Snake Eyes. No assault. Dead Wyches.
Autocannon's kill everthing
My trueborn had pulled his Daemon Princes out into the fight, who were tired of hiding. I have to say one thing about autocannons. Especially as many as he fields. THEY KILL EVERYTHING. FNP, all my vehicles, my infantry and both were able to deploy into high second level ruins. That hurt. One unit I pelted with sustained Splinter Cannon fire and was able to clear out in the second round, while the other made incredible saves and survived the game. I'm guessing they made nearly 20 saves losing only 1 marine during the game.
Obviously the daemon princes got beat up with all my splinter cannons. I had two in each of my 20 man warrior units and two venoms.
Archon/incubi Assault
The Best Part of the night were the Incubi and two archons, which finally were able to move forward in their raider, jump out and assault in two different directions. Vect went after a wounded daemon, while my archon went after a beat up terminator unit and a marine troop unit which was at full str. Whatever I assaulted died. Of special note, my archon was able to produce a pain token on initiative 7 by killing the last of the terminators himself. Gaining that Pain Token Immediately on my I7 of close combat caused some serious disbelief on my opponent, but its in writing. Regardless a lot of marines died on that assault.
Shadowfield Failure
The following shooting round was hard. Both Shadow fields failed immediately on their second and third save to heavy autocannon fire. That means Vect died. Archon died. All but the Klaivex died of the Incubi. (the Klaivex charged another marine unit and killed them to a man before he went down under a hail of bolter fire). It was bad shadowfield saves. What they had done though after the aftermath of round 4 was completely clear the entire center of the board. I had lost my forward momentum, however, so did he.
To make short work of the battle, that was the end of close combat. His greater Daemon came out late, round 5, and failed to be in range of anyone. As he approached though the poisoned weapons were about to kill him bad when the game ended on turn 6. I ended up with holding 3 objectives, while he had 1.
Kabalite Warriors with Splinter Cannons Rule the Day
20 man warrior squads with splinter cannons really were the champions of the battle. They pelted everything. They claimed 3 objectives between the two units of them. Between them and the Venoms, I layed down a ton of anti-infantry fire. It did very well. Combine that with all the Blasters, the army did well. Lots of blasters with lots of splintercannon fire = good combo.
The incubi and archons did well, however their shadowfield early failures to super heavy autocannon fire was disheartening. FNP didn't seem to hold its ground when S7 weaponry was so common and heavy. Every dark Eldar vehicle was wrecked, minus an immobilized Ravager.
Overall good win. Couple mistakes on my part or bad charge rolls (double 1's). Not one flickerfield saved under that much autocannon fire which was devastating to vehicles. Even nightshields wouldn't of helped them in that game. I wish I had time for a better report, but it's time to get to work.
