It’s Daemonic Incursioning Time: My Experience at the 2025 NOVA Open with Daemons

I’ll be honest: I have not been playing much the last few months. This was a combination of a few things.

First, there were a few situations that took my mind off of 40K. I don’t want to get too personal here, but take care of yourselves people. This especially applies to the men out there. I know there are a lot of guys reading this who have some sort of physical or mental thing that is bugging them that they’re not taking care of. You know what I’m talking about. If that’s you, this is your sign to go close this article right now and go get that taken care of. 40K will be there later, your health is more important.

Secondly, I just really don’t like this mission pack. Challenger Cards are truly an abysmal decision and I’m so ready to be done with them. My enjoyment of 40K will jump way up once they are gone. I can’t even say they have actually flipped any games I’ve played. This isn’t coming from salt after a loss. It’s just simply such an irritating mechanic, and having to think about it every turn just makes me not even want to start games.

That being said, I’m always willing to shake off the rust for NOVA and my friends on the Obliterati. They wanted to play the Teams event at NOVA and I was happy to join them. I’ve seen a lot of teams in 40K, and I can say what the Obliterati have built is special. Every day the vibes were incredible, and there were so many memorable moments over team dinners that won’t translate well into a story here if I try to share them so I won’t even try. If you play with the right people, 40K is always fun.

I came for the one-day Teams event and to see some friends on the east coast, and ended up staying for the 3-day Singles event. That ended up being 4 straight days of 40K. That’s a lot of 40K, but with my favorite army and the right crew, I wouldn’t change a single thing.

My Daemons List

One of the great things about Daemonic Incursion is there is so much list variety possible. Anywhere from the 6 Greater Daemon stat check to 0 or 1-2 Greater Daemons can be completely viable.

I like this list because it has the option to just shove forward and stat check with high toughness and invulns if we get the right matchup or board state, but it can also play very passively. I don’t trust my dice at all to roll invulns so I prefer the second option, but being able to play at whatever tempo the game dictates is definitely a strength of Daemons. No two games are the exact same.

• Be’lakor
• Great Unclean One, extra chunky
• Lord Of Change, extra magic
• Skarbrand
• Rotigus
• The Masque
• 3 Nurglings
• 10 Plaguebearers
• 10 Plaguebearers
• Beast of Nurgle
• Beast Of Nurgle

Everything has a specific role, and they all do their role very well. I really wish the Masque wasn’t 95 points, but I don’t mind overpaying for a unit that really rounds out a list well. Points efficiency is simply one metric to judge a unit by.

Daemonic Incursion is an extremely fun army to play. There are synergies built in that really make this Daemons list feel like a cohesive force. We also have so many different play patterns we can take that each game becomes its own fun puzzle to solve. Here are some of the main synergies I use in my games:

• Rotigus buffing his own melee/Great Unclean One melee/Plaguebearer melee
• Using the 2 Nurgle Greater Daemons and Be’lakor to drop Plaguebearer OC bombs onto objectives
• Be’lakor keeping everyone safe from shooting in early turns
• Be’lakor’s reroll 1’s to hit making Skarbrand and the Lord of Change way more consistent after I swap out of the 18″ bubble later in the game
• The Masque debuffing melee attacking my Greater Daemons
• The Masque using its mobility and spending 1CP for precision to hunt out key Leaders
• Beasts Of Nurgle scouting out early to score points and sticky objectives with Corrupt Realspace
• Plaguebearers/Nurglings/Beasts screening to keep the more expensive Daemons safe

The Beasts Of Nurgle are an MVP unit and I would never leave home without at least 1. Honestly, 2 Beasts is a great start to a scoring package for your own Daemon lists regardless of detachment or playstyle.

How NOT to Play Daemons

I heard a story from someone who played another Daemonic Incursion player. The opponent knew that Daemons could uppy downy but didn’t know about the 6″ deepstrike. He goes to screen 9″ everywhere, shows it’s screened, and the Daemons player agrees that it’s screened 9″ everywhere.

Then the next turn the Daemon player goes and 6″ deepstrikes into the spots the opponent thought they had to screen 9″ and the game ends.

What kind of crusty nerd do you have to be to watch your opponent screen 9″ and not say anything? Come on people. The opponent that told me the story was all class and wasn’t complaining, but I’m bugged for them. 40K can be a competitive game, but it is first and foremost a game. If you play Daemons like this, genuinely please stop playing this army because you’re going to ruin the reputation for everyone else.

Thoughts on NOVA

NOVA is always one of the most fun events of the year. I want to put that out there without any qualifiers. NOVA was the first Major I ever went to 6 years ago and I plan to keep going to as many I can make.

NOVA always brings out a great crowd. I had 12 straight games of great opponents, and some were truly exceptional. Even when we disagreed on some things, it was never difficult and we always had clean games that ended in congrats and handshakes.

I also really like the NOVA crew overall. That doesn’t mean I don’t agree with every decision they make (more on that in a moment). But Sam and Justin in particular are two of my favorite judges in all of 40K and my interactions with the judging team were all top notch.

I do want to talk about one potential issue with NOVA: Clocks and time.

A common refrain from friends I talked to that attended NOVA was “the games were great, but the time situation was frustrating”. Basically, NOVA does not allow you to use a clock at the start of the game. They don’t allow you to use a clock if both players agree to it. The only way you can get a clock is if you fall behind a “milestone”, which is them announcing something like, “At this point, you should be starting turn 2”. At that point, a judge will put a clock on the table and start the time 50/50 for both players from there. The other part of NOVA’s clock policies is that the judges don’t count a clock if both players started it themselves.

The issue with that is that one player can have taken way more of the time and be an entire turn ahead by the time the judges put a clock 50/50 on their table. Let’s say Joe and Jane are playing. Joe plays his turn 1 very slowly, for whatever reason. When judges announce the start of turn 2 milestone, Jane hasn’t even started her turn. The judges realize the game is running behind schedule and start an equal clock. Time is split equally for the rest of the game, but Jane now has to get through 1 more turn than Joe in the same amount of time. It’s rarely that drastic, but hopefully everyone sees the potential for issues.

I do see the upside of not allowing clocks when avoidable. Clocks, for better or worse, can stress out newer players and make the game feel less like 2 friends just rolling dice. I don’t agree with that, but I understand why an event would want to discourage clocks when possible. There is also a small but not negligible percentage of clock bullies/cheaters that will make their opponent’s experience worse if they are on a clock.

The main change I would like is if both players agree to a decision on the clock, then TO’s go with that. For example, if both players want to play with a clock at the start of the game, then their clock is binding. If both players agree that one player should get 5 minutes more when they start the clock because he or she hasn’t had their turn yet, then that’s allowed.

No choice will ever make everyone happy and I’ll still keep coming to NOVA when I can regardless of the clock policy, just wanted to throw this aspect out there.

Congratulations

Before diving into the games, I want to give shoutouts to all of the following people in no particular order:

• Folger Pyles, for winning the NOVA singles event. Man is absolutely locked in.
• PCA Nerfed And Loving It for winning the NOVA teams event
• Anthony Triano, my boy Triz making a top cut run with Starshatter while being a great team leader
• Everyone who helped organize NOVA
• TJ for making a top cut run with an awesome Shadow Legion list
• Jasper for making a nice run with a classic Orks list and playing his Grots better than anyone else
• Andrew who battled for all 9 rounds with Fellhammer Siege Host and won the Wooden Spoon. There is nothing more Iron Warriors than continuing to grind regardless of the score, and I hope you had a great time Andrew!

With that out of the way, let’s get on to the games.

Teams Round 1: Kevin’s Tyranids (W, 19-1)

Invasion Fleet: Bloodlord with Genestealers, Neutotyrant with Zooanthropes, Old One Eye with Carnifexes, Maleceptor, Norn, Tyrannofex, Swarmlord with Tyrant Guard, Von Ryan’s Leapers,

I have to give some major respect to Kevin, and his entire team. He mentioned they were all newer to 40K, but that didn’t stop them from coming out and battling with everyone else!

Kevin was a very relaxed and opponent and we had a fun game. He had a good feel for the game despite being newer and I’m excited to see how his team does next year once they get some more reps under their belts.

Teams Round 2: James’s Death Guard (W, 92-74)

Virulent Vectorium: DP with 5+++, 2×3 Deathshroud, 2x Lords of Contagion, Tallyman, 10 Plague Marines in a Rhino with a BioProf and Plaguecaster, 3x Blightlauncher Drones, 2x Myphitic Blighthaulers, 3×10 Poxwalkers

James was a great opponent and played his Death Guard well. I remember getting some good Secondaries early and getting some momentum going early, and then James got some unlucky rolls when he needed to start pushing and things started spiralling a bit in our favor. James was on a strong team and while I would have been happy if our team won the round, I remember being very happy with a tie too and 5 good games.

Teams Round 3: Jason’s Thousand Sons (W, 82-76)

Grand Coven: Magnus, some Infernal Masters and an Exalted Sorcerer and a Sorcerer, 25 Rubrics, Rhino, 2x Mutalith Vortex Beasts, 2×2 Chaos Spawn, 5 Terminators

Jason was such a great opponent. This round was an Obliterati mirror match and I knew we were in for a good time. This game lived up to the hype.

Jason made one big mistake: Round 3, he said he was going to kill my Lord Of Change. He said this while playing a Tzeentch army shooting a Tzeentch army. You just can not tempt the dice gods with an opportunity to make something funny happen. So of course when Jason’s turn was finished, the Lord Of Change was alive with exactly 1 wound left.

Jason saw a great play to go for an Umbralefic Crystal teleport and charge to take a big Primary swing late in the game, but we held on just enough to get an 11-9 win. After this, it was off to a team dinner together and the good times kept rolling from there.

Our Obliterati team ended up with a 1-0-2 record, going technically undefeated but grabbing a couple ties in there. With the Teams event out of the way, let’s go ahead and start talking about main Singles event at NOVA.

Singles Round 1: Braden’s Custodes (W, 94-60)

Lions of the Emperor: Trajann, Blade Champion, 2x Terminator Captains, 3x Bike Captains, 2×4 Custodian Guard, 5 Wardens, Achillus Dreadnought, Caladius Grav Tank

Braden was a good opponent, and his “Herohammer” style list was really interesting. Going first on Purge The Foe vs Custodes is not where my Daemons wanted to start the NOVA Singles, but I had an ace up my sleeve: a loaded dice a Lord Of Change out for blood.

My Lord Of Change had a Hall Of Fame game. I’m a bit bummed, because I know I’ll never be able to top what the Lord Of Change did this game ever again. Here is his final tally from this game:

• 4 Wardens
• 5 Guard
• Jetbike Captain
• Dreadnought
• 8 wounds off a Caladius tank
• Custodes home objective flipped with a charge

My bird never came close to capturing this magic again, but for one round he was the most OP unit in the game. Thanks, Tzeentch!

Singles Round 2: Tony’s Sisters Of Canis Rex (L, 74-71)

Hallowed Martyrs: Vahlgons, solo Cannonesses, Jump Cannoness with +1/+2 damage enhancement, Junith, Sisters, Immolator, Castigator, 10 Arcos, 2x Mortifiers, Zephyrim, Seraphim, Callidus Assassin, Canis Rex

This list is designed in a lab to personally annoy me. Thankfully Zen Mike prevailed and we had a good game regardless.

I still haven’t been able to find a great answer as Daemons for the Vahlgons being able to potentially kill a Greater Daemon in 4 phases. Adding Canis on top just takes the damage to outrageous levels. Tony played his army very well and I give him credit for the win. Unfortunately when I “won” the first turn rolloff, I had to get a bit more aggressive than I would have liked in this matchup and we got really punished by the damage up close. It’s all good.

This is one of those games where the clock situation was a bit frustrating for both of us. We both realized early on that both of us needed a lot of planning time this game. We both talked and were happy to play on a clock. We grabbed a judge to ask if we can start one, and they told us no even though we both asked for it. Later on, we fell behind a milestone, and had a hard time finding a judge to start a clock for us because we were in a weird corner that was hard to walk to. None of this is my opponent’s fault and I congratulate him on the win regardless.

Singles Round 3: Cullen’s Aeldari

Cullen did one of the classiest things I’ve seen in a tournament game. I’m hesitant to discuss it because I don’t want to mention a mistake he made and have people focus on that, but I’ll just tell the full story and let everyone see what I mean about Cullen being a real gent.

The game on the scoreboard was a close loss for Daemons. Cullen accidentally made a misplay of an important rule. It happens, it was very clearly an honest mistake. I had questioned it during the game but we talked and it made sense. I looked it up after the game and realized it was wrong. Shit happens in 40K.

I brought it up to Cullen after the game and said I don’t want the score changed, I just want to point out that for the future.

Cullen immediately apologizes and says I should have the win. I’m telling him no, it’s not that big a deal. He played well and deserves a win. We go back and forth for a little bit and I say I’ll accept a tie but will not accept a win.

He insists I take the win and puts in the score and starts heading out.

At that point I’m feeling weird. I have a win I don’t feel I deserve. I start talking to my friends, like should I go talk to a judge and get the score changed?

Then my friend Kit makes an important point. The best thing I could do in this situation was to accept it and try to pay it forward. If I was the one on the opposite side and tried to flip the score after a narrow loss because I made a mistake, I would be doing it because it was important for me. If I tried to change the score to a win for my opponent and my opponent tried to stop me or went behind my back to talk to a judge, it would be so obnoxious. Cullen clearly was at peace and ready to go enjoy his evening.

I’ve done something similar when I realized I made a big mistake at an RTT, but have not had this situation come up at a GT. That’s a different level.

We met briefly the next day. We were both having a great time and the vibes were all good. In a hobby where there are so many stories of shitheads because the small amount of shitheads get all the attention, I just make sure we also pay attention to the positive stories and remember what this game is all about.

Singles Round 4: Ronnie’s Leagues Of Votann (W, 75-70)

Index Votann, the greatest hits with the addition of a Thunderkyn brick with Grav

I’m not going to focus on this game too much because NOVA was using the Votann index and everyone else has already moved on to the new Votann codex, but Ronnie played well and was definitely in it the whole time. I’m sure this game could have gone either way with different Secondary draws from either player, because a game this close is much closer to a tie than a win for either player.

Singles Round 5: Marshall’s AdMech (L, 87-79)

Skitarii Hunter Cohort: Cawl, 2x Ranges, 3×10 Skystalkers, 3×2 Balistarii, 3x Disintegrators, 2×5 Infiltrators, 2×5 Ruststalkers

Fun fact: I’ve actually played a few games of AdMech this year after working on a DarkMech hobby project. I’m not an expert with them or anything, but I’m much more familiar with them than most. The second I looked at this list, I thought 2 things:

1. This is a really well designed list
2. This is bad, bad news for my Daemons

This is a truly vicious amount of anti-tank shooting behind layers of very mobile screens. Part of me is glad that Skystalkers aren’t more popular because they are quietly one of the wildest datasheets in 40K. Marshall was clearly a faction expert and played the list very well, so I’m happy to give him credit for that.

I had a gameplan I was happy with and got ready to deliver a solid blow to Marshall’s primary score on turn 2. Unfortunately, I failed all 3 6″ deepstrike charges. On the following turn, in the very first activation, a single Disintegrator did 14 damge to Be’lakor just in case I had any hope left. It just be like that sometimes. In hindsight, I’m pretty happy with my gameplan and think we have a chance to win if a few things break differently. It’s all good, was still a fun game.

Singles Round 6: Frank’s Imperial Knights (W, 81-58)

Canis, Lancer, Castellan, 4x Helverins, 2x Warglaives, Imperial Navigator

This was a ridiculously back and forth game. Frank was a chill opponent as the dice swung wildly.

Let me summarize the first half of the game in one anecdote:

Frank pushes Canis aggressively, and I see a chance to take Canis out on turn 2. I send Skarbrand to charge Canis. I put all of the Lord of Change’s shooting into Canis to soften him up. I only do 4 wounds, but that’s okay. Skarbrand makes the charge, and it’s party time. I have 9 attacks, hitting on a 2, wounding on a 3. I have a CP available to reroll a wound roll. I roll 6 2’s for the wound reroll and fail my wound CP reroll for a total of 9 damage after the Feel No Pain. Canis, who isn’t even bracketed now, one-shots Skarbrand on the swing back. In my mind, the game was immediately over.

Let me summarize the second half of the game in one anecdote:

Frank shoots Be’lakor with his Castellan’s Volcano Lance. He rolls a 3 for the number of d3 shots, and they all hit. It happens. Frank goes to roll the wound rolls. It’s 3 straight 1’s to wound. He rerolls one of the wounds, and of course it is another 1.

Frank was playing well but literally just couldn’t get a single dice roll to go his way in the second half. The real MVPs were Plaguebearers contesting objectives and tying units up and moveblocking. These little guys are our best unit, and I love them dearly.

Singles Round 7: Joe’s Tyranids (W, 96-36)

Joe was a really great opponent. The score should have been way closer given how well and technically sound Joe played. The Daemons made a very lucky 10″ charge on turn 1 to tag the Tyrannofex, the Tyranids dice completely whiffed on their following turn, and things unfortunately really snowballed from there. We traded some dice after the game, and I wish Joe luck in future games – particularly with his other CSM renegades army he talked about.

Joe got really unlucky with the T-fex in particular. It was tagged for basically the entire game, which means it shoots at -1 to Hit. It has Heavy, which means it normally hits on a 2+ when standing still, but the -1 to Hit from being tagged and the +1 to hit from Heavy cancel out. Joe kept rolling exactly 2’s to hit on his T-fex that wouldn’t have been tagged if I hadn’t made a 10″ charge turn 1. When he’s shooting a 6+d6 damage gun, every unlucky hit roll is a potentially huge swing in my favor.

I also got a swing in my favor when I drew Cull The Horde and exactly killed the last model in a big Gant (Gaunt? Can never tell them apart) squad to score Cull and stop them from respawning. Again, I think this game was much closer than it seemed in terms of gameplay.

Singles Round 8: Andreas’s Necrons (L, 71-75)

Awakened Dynasty: 20 Warrior brick with 4++ invuln guy and Royal Warden, 2×6 Wraith bricks with a Technomancer, 3x Doomsday Arks, Ghost Ark, Reanimator, supporting chaff

Andreas was a gem and this was maybe my favorite game of the event. I remember we both went way out of our way to help each other and really make sure it was a friendly game. This can be a very tough matchup for Daemons, but Andreas turned what could be a real slog into a fun game.

Turn 1, I shot and (barely) killed 5 Flayed Ones with my Lord Of Change. At the end of the game, those were literally the only dead Necron models.

I don’t know what the hell the rest of you bloodthirsty maniacs are doing, but I truly understood GW’s desire for a Less Lethal game of 10th Edition 40K. We had a few activations that didn’t go our way (Lord Of Change shooting Wraiths and killing 0 models, Rotigus shooting+charging Wraiths and killing 0 models) but that’s just life when you’re fighting an army with mass 4++ invulns. What kind of jerk would bring an army relying on 4++ invulns to NOVA?

This was one of those games that shows the flaws in the Challenger Card system. We both agreed that Andreas was winning, yet he got to draw Challenger Cards in key moments. That wasn’t responsible for the win or anything, he earned it, it’s just one of those things that makes you stop and roll your eyes a bit at GW game design.

Singles Round 9: John’s Tyranids (W, 100-76)

Tunnelsnakes: Bunch of cool bugs

I’ll be real, this was the 12th straight game and I remember basically none of it. I had to run out afterwards to go pack and get ready for the flight back.

But I definitely remember that John was an absolute gent of an opponent and this was a very relaxed ending to NOVA. I remember he got a bit optimistic with a turn 1 Genestealer charge into a couple Greater Daemons despite me trying to explain the sweep profiles, but he bounced back well and played an excellent game from there.

We had the classic “flip deployment zones, I hold his objective and he holds my objective” type of game that sometimes happens when two teleporting armies play. It’s hilarious every time.

Thanks John for the relaxed game and friendly ending to NOVA!

Final Thoughts

This is as true now as it was then. I’m fired up after 12 fun games with my Daemons. Are you fired up too? Come join the best comp 40K community out there in the Warphammer discord! https://discord.gg/acbzcpcw

As always, have fun, stay safe, and may the Dark Gods bless your rolls!