Chaos Daemons vs Imperial Fists, 19.05.2015, 7th ed

Time to restart the battle reports. This here is my first 7th edition battle report. Or 7th edition battle, for that matter. So I obviously tried a list based on summoning. Here goes...

Mission: Spoils of war
Map: Hammer and Anvil
Lists:
Chaos Daemons:

• 3 Nurglings
• 13 Pink Horrors, champion, icon, instrument
• Soul Grinder of Nurgle with Phlegm Bombardment
• Daemon Prince of Nurgle, exalted reward, lvl 3 Psyker, power armor, wings
• Daemon Prince of Nurgle,warlord, lvl 3 Psyker, power armor, wings

Imperial Fists:

• 5-man tactical squad, with flamer and combi melta
• 5-man tactical squad, with flamer and combi melta
• 10-man tactical squad, multimelta and melta, veteran sergeant in a Rhino
• lvl 2 Librarian, terminator armor, force staff
• 3-man centurion devastator squad, grav cannons
• 5-man devastator squad, 4 lascannons
• Thunderfire Cannon

So we're both battleforged...
I put it to good use. I rerolled my warlord trait and got Warp beacon (deep striking Daemons do not scatter within 12"). I have also managed two identical lvl 3 Psykers: both with Smite, Iron Arm, Summoning and Stream of Corruption (Nurgle template primaris). The non Warlord Daemon Prince got the portalglyph.
I won the roll of and was quick to take advantage. We were both eager to get into the battle, so there aren't any pictures of the deployment. However, I put everything on the table in ruins, with the Nurglings infiltrating into a crater on the middle of the table, close to some objectives; my opponent deployed everything within ruins.

This is the Imperial Fist deployment, although you can already see a swooping Daemon Prince coming in:

Devastators on the first floor.

Chaos Daemons, turn 1.
The portalglyph was placed at the beginning of the turn to provide free objective holders. Then both Daemon Princes swooped forward at maximum speed and took psychic shots at the marines, chipping of a wound from the Centurions and killing 3 Devastators.

The home field was pretty quiet, with the Horrors forming an objective-holding konga line.

Portalglyph in the bottom right corner.
I tried to take pictures of the tactical objectives drawn, but they came out unusably illegible.
6 Daemonettes came out of the portalglyph.

Imperial Fists, turn 1.
Everything shot at the swooping Daemon Princes, inflicting 1 wound (thanks, 2+ Jink!).

Chaos Daemons, turn 2.

Time to swing my evil plan into motion. Both Daemon Princes changed into gliding mode. I couldn't charge that turn, so, to avoid getting shot to pieces, I summoned some fodder:

So far, so good. Except that one of the Daemon Princes got Perils of the Warp, rolled a 1, rolled 11 on Leadership, and was removed from play. At that point I actually wanted to give up, but we played on, just to see what happens.

Imperial Fists, turn 2.

This happened. Shot to ribbons:

My opponent drew the Blood and Guts objective, so he's contemplating a charge into the Bloodletters with his Centurions.

For great justice, not only did the Bloodletters survive, thus denying the objective, but they inflicted 2 wounds, killing a Centurion.
The Thunderfire Cannon in the mean time pounded the Nurglings. However, they heroically resisted for a couple of rounds, scoring that objective in the middle multiple times.

Chaos Daemons, turn 3.

Since the Daemon Prince was jinking all the time, there was no use in shooting. So I summoned more reinforcements, and joined the close combat. The Soul Grinder in the mean time took shots, missing completely.

Imperial Fists, turn 3.

The Daemonettes were promptly decimated. The Rhino also stole the objective towards which my konga line was moving.

The tactical squad joined the combat, and challenged, so I had to hit them. They were decimated and routed. The Librarian got off Force, but didn't land any hits.

Turn 4. I summoned more Daemons. Tried to kill the Librarian, which saved every wound on a 5+. Then he hit me with Force and my Daemon Prince vanished. The Soul Grinder finally got in a lucky shot, killing half the squad on the hill. However, at this point, the score was 13-11 for the marines, and all I had were the two units in the backfield. I drew objectives, but they were all going to be stolen (since this was Spoils of War, after all). So I surrendered.

What would have happened if the Daemon Prince with Perils survived? A very different field back here, for sure.
Is summoning useless? Not really. The plan actually worked, with all the firepower of the existing squads going into the summoned fodder, giving my (theoretical) Daemon Princes free reign. Alas, it was not meant to be. And throwing 6-7 dice at a power is a good way to get Perils of the Warp.