[Battle Report] If He Paints His Stuff That's It For Me | Ninth Edition | Incursion | Tempest of War | Night Lords vs. Blood Angels

Having learned some lessons from my last Tempest outing on this terrain (maybe don't leave giant open fire lanes across the middle of the table and then castle up in the corner like a goon) and also from my outing to Vadinax, I was keen to give all these new notions a test run against the local Blood Angels, and also bring my Daemon Prince out to play.

The traditional Chaos Stargate Home Objective is in evidence, as is the push of Possessed and their Master up the middle with a Legionary bodyguard in support, but what is new is the whole "Strategic Reserve" concept. I have a lot of Strategic Reserves in this game; the Helbrute seems to achieve more if he doesn't start on the board, the Terminators are lurking in their teleportarium ready to do what Beornwulf did to me, and there's also a lone Obliterator doing what my Raptors normally do, i.e. looking for a small space in which to insert himself and cause trouble.

I've also set up the Daemon Prince and his chaff to push up the other side.
Distraction Daemon! He's Marked by Nurgle and waving Gholl'ax the Decayed.
This will become important later.

I'm not convinced the Eradicators could actually get up there, but whatever,
they're still Public Enemy Number One, Two and Three. Note also the Death Company, tricked out to the gills with inferno pistols and power weapons...

Night Lord Stratagem play allows the Terminators to arrive a turn early. Here they are on the central objective, introducing Nurgle-enhanced firepower to the Eradicators.You will observe that only one Eradicator has died. That is... a lot of Command Points sunk into not a lot of outcome.

Bladeguard arrive to put some hurt on the Terminators, but a well timed Pact of Flesh keeps them in the fight, and the Possessed are on call to back them up.
What ensues can best be described as "a mess."

"Master, everyone who stood in front of the gateway is dead.
Also I see Death Company.
Should we be worried?"

"DO NOT PANIC, SMALL MINIONS. THIS WORKED OUT VERY WELL FOR ME LAST TIME."

"ERADICATOR INFERIOR. OBLITERATOR SUPERIOR."

With the arrival of my Strategic Reserves, the left flank is under full control.
How are things going on the right?

The last Blood Angels are clustering up to make the most of their Captain and
Librarian's assistance, and also prevent me from picking up Assassinate.

In goes the Daemon Prince, and... fails two Daemonic Mastery checks on that
much-discussed, extremely-meta Daemon Weapon of his.
The word "Daemon" is fast losing all meaning to me.

The Outriders encircle, the Prince is banished, some last minute points are scored..

... and we end on a 49-49 tie.

Once again, I think I can pinpoint what went wrong here. Indecisiveness in the early game led me to pull the Daemon Prince back towards the middle, instead of powering forward and covering that ground while he could. If I'd had some more Command Points I might have been able to churn out Secondary Objectives and get some points picked up in my quiet mid turns. Lastly, I overcommitted to killing the Eradicators; there was no need to put quite so much effort into them, and maybe the Obliterator should have come in on the opposite flank to back up the Daemon Prince on his charge.

Small mistakes, though. You live and learn. Let's not think too hard about how the last ten points in this game were earned purely because I spent five years painting this army before any gameplay started...