this is going be a review of the codex combined with some tips and general knowledge. Please excuse the format this is my first time making a post like this.
Codex Chaos Daemons Summary/Intro The codex is very random. That means with even the most careful planning you can be thwarted. there is not that much you can do to alleviate this randomness which so many players have come to detest. Taking Fateweaver is currently the best way of mitigating the randomness of the warp storm table and other effects like grimoire failing occasionally. Some people are under the false impression that this makes the codex bad. This codex requires more planning and strategy than most codex's due to the lack of good swiss army knife type units (hunters for example) but that does not make it weak. Daemons have won and placed well at many major tournaments with the two main strategies they have available which will be discussed later. The codex is too random for many players especially new players to stomach well. For that reason i do not recommend daemons to new players. If you are a new player who wants to take on the codex be ready for some frustration in games. Even the most experienced players will find themselves exhausted by the book keeping required. Forgetting to roll on tables or that you have certain wargear and powers happens more often than I'd like to admit. Wargear is almost completely random as well as our main source of force multiplying which is psychic powers. Each greater daemon and prince requires often 3 or more (sometimes 6 or more) rolls just to decide wargear and powers.
The fluff in my opinion is well written and many of the units are extremely strong and fun to paint. To my disappointment the army lacked a centerpiece model like the Tau and the Eldar got but thats ok we still have the bloodthirster. There are many major changes between the 5th and 6th edition Daemons. The loss of eternal warrior, daemonic assault, and the addition of several other rules makes the army play completely differently. As a result the large majority of strategies employed in the 5th edition will no longer work. We need new strategies as Daemon players and I aim to compile and articulate those strategies based off personal experience and articles and tournament battle reports (and constructive comments!) I love the codex and think it is a lot of fun to play. While my games can be ruined by a few devious dice on the warpstorm table or otherwise that makes the game exciting and every game will be different (a good thing for most casual players
id say).
The three most common tournament builds are "dogpile" "flying circus" and "screamerstar" Most players know what these are. Flesh hounds of Khorne spam and
FMC spam. and an invulnerable screamer unit Since these are basically the strongest units in the codex spamming them will get you far. In friendly list strongly consider bringing one or more
FMC's and many flesh hounds ( i dont for fluff armies
). I'm not going to go over the warpstorm table or each daemon type or what each of these basic rules does. Read the codex. Me summarizing the rules will do you less good than just reading them. The benefits of each unit and their daemon type will be discussed in their entry.
With that Short intro out of the way lets go over the units and the strategies that go along with them. I'm not going to list every wargear and points cost. Read the codex. [/size]
Each Unit will receive a rating between 1 and 3. 1 is the model will not appear almost ever in tournaments. It is sometimes used in friendly games and can be effective if not dealt with properly but this unit is weak.
2 the model is usable almost always. A solid unit. Nothing to party about but will be used in tournaments and friendly games with good success.
3 you should probably use this unit. Units with a full rating of 3 are among the best in the codex.
INDEX
Units review
Wargear Review
Tactics
Sample lists HQ The First Unit is
Skarbrand: Rating: 2:
Skarbrand is the super
CC monster of this codex. He's pretty great in
CC but lacking eternal warrior will still lose in
CC if you're not careful. He's essentially a slightly cheaper bloodthirster who loses the ability to take wargear. In return you get 1 (2 on the charge) extra attacks. Extra initiative and some other small stuff. he gives rage and hatred to the units around him (friendly and enemy) and has a flamer (breath attack). His attacks have either arm bane or flesh bane. Look, Skarbrand isnt bad. If you want to take him to go around 1v1 ing other people's commanders for fluff or fun go ahead. The issue with skarbrand is really simple. No wings. The bloodthirster WILL get into
CC because hes so fast. Additionally having wings makes you more survivable because you can swoop and vector strike. Skarbrand is so scary that everyone will get destroy him before he gets into
CC and he'll slowly run towards them from your side of the board. His 3+ armor and T6 isnt going to save him from massed Tau or
IG shooting. Poisoned weapons ruin his day and so do force weapons. Skarbrand isnt taken in tournament armies often as his bloodthirster brethren is better.
Fateweaver : Rating: 3: Where to start...Fateweaver is almost a must take. Most successful flying circus lists take fatey as he can give some pretty support through divination and his ridiculous number of psychic abilities. Fateweaver can be your anti flyer unit. Your support unit. And a huge mitigating factor for the warpstorm randomness. Fateweaver is normally run with a grimoire unit following him to give him a 2++ re-rollable save. He has a 4+ and gains 2 from the book. This makes him unkillable. Perhaps the coolest thing fatey can do is allow the re-rolling of one dice per player turn. That means a failed grounding test or grimoire roll or basically anything else that you just need to work fatey can assist with. He is such a boon in a codex with so much randomness. His warlord trait is what allows the reroll on the warpstorm table. Be careful with fatey as he can just get tarpitted in
CC and be there forever. He's terrible in
CC.
Ku'gath: Rating: 1.5. Okay so he's definitely the worst named
hq. He's tough for sure but with no wings will have trouble getting into
CC where he is pretty solid. He has a pretty cool shooting attack but given his low ballistic skill and the fact that his passive ability to heal nurglings is essentially useless this guy is pretty overpriced. He is actually worse than a regular great unclean one due to the fact that he can only have 1 psychic mastery level. If you want a big badass nurgle
HQ pimp out a
GUO and take that. This guy can be taken for fluff armies and can provide some close range fire support but nowhere near the support that fateweaver can provide and again no wings means papa nurgle is going to be in the mix way too late.
Bloodthrister Rating: 2.5: Now that we're past the named
HQ we get to see the juicy greater daemons. The bloodthirster brings a 3+ armor save wings and the ability to take a good amount of rewards and wargear! Nice! His ranged attack is nice for sniping a terminator or another costly unit that is exposed and his axe allows instant death on rolls of 6. The bloodthirster is a monster in close combat and taking greater gifts really buffs his defense. He can take an extra weapon like the hellblade to gain the rampage rule and gain d3+1 for two weapons attacks when outnumbered. He can put a lot of hurt on anything. Having wings lets him speed up the field and destroy. The only reason he isn't a 3 is because he lacks psychic powers and supporting abilities.
Lord of Change Rating: 3: It seems that Tzeentch rules the greater daemons section. The lord of change is insane. He can take a lesser gift to give himself S8 and because he can cast prescience on himself he can become as effect if not more effective in some cases than the bloodthirster. (crazy!) Additionally he has wings letting him go at nice speeds. Best of all he gets 3 psychic powers and divination. This lets him fly around buffing the army to his pleasure. He can also take a tzeentch power if you want some dakka. He does not have a 3+ armor like the bloodthirster but with divination and things like grimoire he can easily get the 2++ re-rollable just like fateweaver. he's a monster in
CC unlike fateweaver. Lord of change in a great substitute to the Fateweaver when you cant afford him or want more
CC power.
Great unclean one: rating; 2.5:
GUO is pretty awesome. He's super tough and can deep strke in to be a huge fire magnet. Having up to 3 psychic abilities will make him even more shooty and durable while dishing out PAIN in
CC. Use him as a fire magnet and a supporting unit. Since he doesnt have wings you need to be careful with where you place him. Starting him on the board and marching up the middle using his extra cover save from daemon of nurgle isnt the worst idea especially if he is carrying important wargear.
Keeper of Nipples..err Secrets. rating: 2.5: The keeper is sweet in
CC and has some of the best daemon codex given psychic abilities. Unfortunately not divination though which means this guy is going to be mostly offensive. He's very fast considering he is lacking wings but is also like the
GUO pretty cheap. He needs some wargear to make him tanky because he is going to be running fast with his Slaanesh deamon bonus movement and taking a lot of fire. Its worth noting that he has preferred enemy which is a nice bonus. Not much to say here this is guy is pretty straight forward. Wicked in
CC and fast. Good dakka from powers can be anti air too because of that.
Greater Daemon Summary: Greater daemons rock. I always take one or more. I think the tzeentch ones are particularly strong. That fact is reflected by tournaments seeing lords of change and fatey in almost every daemons game...theyre too good not to take. All the greater daemons are strong though and make great units to build an army around. I like that each Chaos God has a unique and viable choice here for fluff reasons. The
GUO and Keeper are the cheapest options and great in any game. The flying monsters are more expensive but wings are often worth it. A few strategic notes. These guys are far from invincible (besides your 2++ rerollable guys). They need to be maneuvered carefully and supported by other units. If you charge these guys in alone with everything else far away or deep strking theyll fall to mass fire with their not so great armor saves and not insane toughness values. These guys are monsters in
CC (not fatey though) and I have seen Lords of Change and keepers destroy 3-4 full sized units in games almost destroying the whole army. Do not underestimate these guys.
HQ Cont..(heralds and prince)
Daemon Prince: Rating: 1: Ok so no daemon princes do not suck. Do not freak out because they have a one. They as
HQ choices. Toughness 5 and no guarantee of iron arm means that they can insta gibbed by S10. Additionally the greater daemons are just better in every single way. These should be taken as heavy support choices and not as
HQ. Same as with greater daemons if you are running them pimp them out to the max. Exalted gifts for defense and max psychic abilities for utility.
Skulltaker: Rating: 2 Skulltaker isnt bad at all if he is on a juggernaught riding with some ghetto khorne units to lay down the hurt. The only issue is that skulltaker and other heralds do not gain scout by going with hounds and would have to run up the board with them. you can use him with crushers if you want but those are so expensive already its better to just take regular heralds with those. Skulltaker is pretty good in challenges although 2+ save models will give him a hard time. He provides a decent amount of support to assault units but less than a pimped out herald with wargear can. Take him as a combatty
hq in lower point games if you cannot afford a second greater daemon.
Karanak: Rating: 3 Karnark is pretty sweet and a great addition to dog pile lists. karnak can lead big groups of hounds and provide a decent amount of additional
CC ability and supportive options making your hounds pretty destructive. Additionally he has good psychic defenses which is useful on occasion. Karnak DOES have scout meaning that he can travel with the hounds and put serious pain down T2 or even T1 if you go second.
Herald of Khorne/Tzeentch/Nurgle/Slaanesh Rating: 2.5: These guys are all great. Tzeentch heralds will support horrors. Khorne heralds will support khorney stuff by providing additional
CC and buffs. Nurgle heralds make their guys tougher and Slaanesh heralds debuff and add
CC ability. Each of these heralds buffs the units associated with their gods well and can turn a trashy unit into something dangerous with psychic powers and loci. Lower point games should have players taking multiple heralds to support their troop units which will be pulling a lot of weight at lower point games where greater daemons cannot be spammed. Even at higher point games its often better to invest in a few heralds to buff expensive/fragile/powerful units into being unstoppable than taking another greater daemon. I'd say the Tzeentch herald and Khorne heralds are MVP's here. Prescience and S6 shooting for horrors is insane. Extra attacks and Ap2 with wargear is insane for khorne fast charging units being able to combat their only weakness in
CC which is heavy armor. Nurgle heralds are cool but often nurgle troops are there to objective camp and wasting a herald on them is kinda dumb since they wont be in combat or shot at that much. Slaanesh heralds are great for supporting any Slaa. unit and pretty powerful
CC machines.
Changling/Blue Scribes: Rating: 1 these guys..well theyre there for fluff. Maybe at a 500 point game I would consider taking scribes but probably not as a regular herald is better anyways. these guys arent really worth the time of writing them up so I wont. If you want to use them go for it otherwise they are nothing special.
Epidemius: Rating: 2 This guy can carry your grimoire/book if you want and buff a nice group of tarpitters. He's not so great considering his buffs only kick in way late into the game and he doesnt have much
CC abilities. He's nothing to party about. Often in these "rating" situations its not that one unit is bad its that others are better. that is the situation we are in. epid. isnt bad but almost everything else is better for the points/
hq slot
The Masque: Rating: ~2: I can't really judge this that much because I don't use this unit and I dont see it that often. It has some pretty cool debuff/buff abilities for your units but T3 and W2 means that plasma will insta gib this guy and with precision shots and other such nonsense rolling around so commonly I would be surprised if this unit survived past turn 2 ever. That being said it can be devastating if it does.
That Ends the
HQ section: you probably didn't learn much here. the best options are generally going to be greater daemons and fateweaver. Heralds are great if you dont have the points for them. Thats pretty much it.
Troops: This will be where you probably learn something useful. Pink Horrors: Rating: 3: You were probably a bit confused. A rating of 3?!? This unit needs psychic tests to shoot and gives
FnP away like candy! They die easily in
CC and don't really do anything useful. Well I'm going to tell you why that is wrong. At the upcoming European championships the daemons players most popular troops choice in ANY list is these link pink daemons. Why? Because stick them with a herald or buff them with prescience and you can end up with a huge amount of S6 prescienced shots. That will kill just so many things. Light vehicles/aircraft. troops. Small amounts of elites. Its just so much dakka for so cheap generally and the army really needs SOME ranged support from not greater daemons and princes. Fact: You have to camp objectives. None of your other troop choices are going to do ANYTHING while camping. They are just a potato. Horrors can shoot so at least its something. Being able to go to ground in 3+ cover to get a 2++ re-rollable thanks to daemon of tzeentch makes these guys better at camping objectives than plaguebearers. Basically troops score objectives and these guys arent useless while doing it. Spend that majority of your points away from troops in the daemon's codex if you want to win. its a sad fact but hey its the truth. I usually take 20 pink horrors and some cultists in a high points circus game and 40 in a dog pile or friendly game.
Bloodletters: Rating: 1.5: Not a single bloodletter unit was taken in the European championship. Not one. They are terrible in general. They are super easy to kill and have no transport to carry them around. you can hope they deepstrike later on but why not just invest the points in the flesh hound or big daddy daemons. These guys rarely make it to
CC and when they do they are good vs
MEQ and almost nothing else. Low amount of attacks (1) and T3 with a 5++ and no fast moving spells disaster. These guys will die to bolter fire or firewarrior overwatching and focus fire easily and just feed kill points. If they try to camp objectives they are squishier than other troops choices and have to charge off the objective to defend themselves a lot of the time. Heralds can help these guys become effective but again if someone else does it better why bother dumping points.
PlagueBearers: Rating: 2.5 These guys give horrors a run for their money with objective camping. They have T4 and heralds can give them defensive buffs. They have shrouded which is sweet for being an objective potato. Downside: they are potatoes. Not so great in
CC and no reliable range strategy for them either. They are often taken in small squads of ten to sit on objectives so your real units can be productive.
Daemonettes: Rating: 2.5 Previously seen as the easily best choice. When the codex first came out these guys were the talk of the town. Daemonettes or bust. Now that flying circus wins so much that is less true although if you want to be offensive with troops these might be your best options. Rending attacks and additional movement are great. Add a herald in for a nasty
CC unit at a relatively low cost! Only problem is they die pretty easily and you still need to take either plagues or horrors to camp your objectives because these guys need to be doing damage.
Nurglings: Rating: 0 I have never seen a nurgling used after the codex. People sold their models for pennies and moved on. They cant score and they are literally the worst unit in the codex. Take them for fluff I guess? Although fluffy armies can easily be achieved without these guys.
Troops: Despite what people have been saying Pink Horrors can put out a lot of dakka and if you focus fire correctly can avoid giving
FnP out like candy. you have to be careful though. Two big units of Horrors with heralds can be DESTRUCTIVE especially at low points levels. You can even do horror deathstar and have it beat a lot of other deathstar lists surprisingly. The 2++ re-rollable that tzeentch units can get is still so sweet especially on a cheap unit camping an objective against tactical marines and firewarriors. Plaguebearers were the second most popular choice at Europeans and were used as potatoes. Bloodletters i take only when they come out of the portalglyph or a warp spawning roll. Daemonettes are a popular choice and also effective although fragile in general. I dont like their models personally and never will field a single Slaanesh unit. In response to the comment regarding mandatory heralds for the horrors I don't think this is the case. Heralds are going to make horrors an offensive tool for sure but simply having another unit cast prescience or even just running horrors in units of 10 to camp objectives can be fine although plaguebearers are better naked than horrors are (naked).
ELITES! Elites are usually when people get excited and make deathstars out of their favorite units. Elites are usually the strong and destructive units in the codex that bring the pain on even the toughest opponents. This isnt the case here! Hurray! Our elites are pretty under whelming for a codex with such pimpin greater daemons and monsterous creatures. Elites in our army are not devastating swiss army knifes like terminators or battlesuits they are niche units tailored for dealing with a specific opponent type that the rest of the army has trouble with.
Bloodcrushers: Rating: 1.5: Ok so I probably gave these guys the benefit of the doubt...a lot. They lost
EW they lost T5 and are less effective in combat than most other elite
CC units. They're faster now though! Ok so bloodcrushers are by a lot of people considered to be the worst unit in the codex but I'm here to vouch for them. Taking a unit of 5 is 15 T4 wounds and if you provide them with support from either grimoire or divination support you can make them decently durable. A 4+ invuln and 3 wounds should help them make it through 1 or maximum 2 turns of shooting which is all they have to endure because they are cavalry now. They are one of the best ways of dealing with
MEQ in mass and because of their speed they can hit a lot of other units as well. Many people see these as a worse version of flesh hounds which is sort of true but these guys do bring AP3 to the table which can be super useful. I think that once the new
MEQ codex's come out like
BT with their "crusade style" army that masses marines these guys will prove useful especially in friendly games. They still get insta-gibbed by strength 8 which is rough because powerfists,
MC, and missles are common and spell doom for you. These guys CAN be used and with great success. I think they are written as an underwhelming unit but if you support them properly and are careful with what you charge and bring herald support you can actually do pretty well. These guys are never used in tournaments and constantly ragged on but the models look so cool and they can be pretty effective in friendly games where people don't know immediately how to counter them or bring a crap ton of S8.
Flamers Rating: 2: These guys are the second underwhelming elite choice. They are only effective against armor 4 or worse and are pretty fragile. They do a lot of damage on their overwatch and can demolish necron warrior hordes and provide some anti-horde to an army which lacks it when taking lots of
FMC. The downside: these guys are terrible against anything better than armor 4. If you use them against terminators of
MEQ's you're just going to give them
FnP and then die. They can be run with a herald but again units NEEDING heralds are somewhat of a crutch because heralds mean less greater daemons which means I'm a sad panda. These guys are a niche pick. If you're facing a lot of warriors or if you're facing a ton of gaunts these guys can help.
Beast of Nurgle: Rating: 2: These guys despite having an equal rating to flamers and crushers are better but not by huge amounts. Beasts have a nifty counter charge ability that I find to be rarely used but they have a lot of wounds and can tarpit really really well. They are an expensive tarpit lacking eternal warrior though so avoid grey we auto win vs your codex knights. Their poison and potentially large number of attacks means that these guys can effectively fight lightly armored things but having
SnP makes them not so quick to the front lines. These arn't a bad pick in small numbers.
Fiends: Rating: 2.5: Okay so these are the best elite unit despite my hatred for slaanesh models. These guys lay down PAIN. They are fast and they hit hard. They are high initiative and relatively cheap for what they do. For the purposes of seeing what is the best elite choice compare these to crushers. They serve the same purpose taking out high armor save models and moving across the board fast. They are both fragile and about equally so. Fiends get to attack before most opponents and crushers will attack the same time. These guys aren't
AS effective at dealing with armor but will still win their fights the majority of the time. And fiends are cheaper. Why not take fiends? The only reason is that the bloodcrushers can add an Ap2 blade with upgrade options and deal with some higher armored targets..probably not worth it. Crushers get pwned by terminators anyways.
As I mentioned before our elites fill niche rolls. Theyre all fast being either beasts cavalry or jump infantry. They are all pretty good at killing 1 type of enemy. Flamers kill armor 4 and worse hordes will fiends and crushers deal with armor. Nurgle beasts tarpit expensive enemy models and can counter charge to save allies.
Fast Attack Our fast attack choices are great. Another rare instance in the codex where the option each god provides is strong and fun. Stupid elites.
Flesh hounds: Rating: 3 Use them. Use 60 of them. I wish we could take more than 60 because I would. These guys own end of story. They are the center for "dogpile" lists. They can use scout movement and get T1/T2 charges with a crapton of attacks and 2W each. Support them with karnak or a herald on a juggernaut if you're dealing with lots of
MEQ. These guys will trash those pesky eldar and tau shooting units hiding out and having T4 and 2W each means they dont just be turned into dust either. Most dogpile lists bring 30+ hounds. Put them in cover as close as possible to enemy units and charge. At the very least you can tie down enemy units and prevent them from shooting at your other larger daemons. Best chase scenario they rampage through enemy lines killing everything. Its a win-win. When I run them in friendly games I usually run 2 units of 15 or 10 as to not be "spammy" and put a herald in each. They will kill basically anything and tau firewarriors poop their pants at the sight of them.
Screamers: Rating: 2.5: These guys lost a lot of their flare in the new codex. They can only make one single armorbane attack now which is disappointing but hey they are some great strong points. The biggest issue with daemons is getting across the board and into
CC. These guys can turbo boost getting a 4+ jink (reroll 1's) and speed across the field. Additionally they have slashing attacks that they can make for passing over enemy units which is really effective against bubblewrap and other weak units that are put out in front of your real targets. Screamers are great against light vehicles which is something only our
MC's and nurgle units can do otherwise. They can take out even landraiders and whatever armor is giving you trouble. They are fast enough and durable enough to speed over to
IG tank lines and wreak havoc. They're effective against weaker units like eldar troops and firewarriors too. They can have 4 attacks on the charge + slashing attacks and tear apart units with low armor saves. They are not great against
MEQ and terminators unless they outnumber them. I run these guys in a single unit as they usually have a purpose. You can give them a herald on a disk if you really want to. But all they need is prescience (WS3 yolo) which can be given by any of your tzeentch
HQ daemons flying around. I use them to turbo over to kroot snipers and
IG and trash them. These guys normally arent taken in mass unless your doing a screamerstar with between 1-4 heralds on disks with max powers and AP2. They buff the squad with forewarning (getting a 4++) then they get grimoired by one of them carrying it (at the center of the unit) to be 2++ rerollable. Take fateweaver to ensure higher success rate.
Plague Drones: Rating: 2.5 Glancing vehicles to death with these guys is easy. They can also and SHOULD also take 3+ poison upgrade and/or instant death (if the other army has multiwound). I use these guys to attack vehicles and enemy models with high toughness values. Their squad leader should be given an etherblade so you can engage
MEQ's if you need to as well. Two smaller units of these guys (3-5) should be fine or a single large unit if you want to absorb fire which they are surprisingly good at being fast and getting shrouded from being nurgle. I use them in a very similar way to screamers because they have the same amount of attacks on the charge but have poison instead of lamprey bite and slashing attacking. (but they have an extra wound)
Furies: Rating: 2: Give them a mark of whatever you see fit and run them around as a cheap harass unit. I dont' use these use as with LD2 instability tests and leadership test requiring things like psychic shriek will make these guys pretty dead pandas. Massing them and charging at other blobs of stuff can be a fun clustermuck. Take them to top off your points because they are so cheap.
Seekers and Hellflayers: Rating: 2.5: I grouped them because theyre slaanesh. Deal with it. Seeker are amazing end of story. Read their profile. They're fragile but hurt really bad and are really fast. High initiative and rending means they kill basically anything they encounter besides heavy walkers and vehicles (but rending does help). If you want something fast and hard hitting and you like nipples these guys are for you. Run them behind a screen unit or cover or they'll get shot to pieces. Hellflayers are interesting.They can do some damage but are kinda spotty due to being vehicles. Getting too close to some marines with meltas will be disaster. Chariots are fun but maybe not the most competitive option. I snuck the hellflayer in here and would give it a 2. Take seekers instead
Our fast attack is another area we shine especially over other armies. Having played
CSM and other armies in my
40k career fast attack is usually an option that is sort of gimped or only used for niche units (not so much in the 6th i guess). Daemons have 4 great fast attack options and another interesting one which is strange. Seekers and hounds are the best options but screamers and drones are strong picks too but you cannot bring 60 screamers and yolo them forwards. Our fast attack units need to speed up the field and tie up enemy shooting units and kill light vehicles shooting at our
FMC. Send them up and flanks and trash the closest thing you can. Don't try to use them against mega
CC units like mega nobs or terminators because theyll probably die.
Heavy Support: Where the flying circus list comes together and where soul grinders made a comeback. Oh yea theres a tzeentch thing here too that needs
FAQ.
Soul Grinder: Rating: 2.5: These guys rock. They provide some
AA (kinda unreliable with BS3) and can be good in
CC also. Front armor 13 makes them durable and now they can benefit a lot from the different marks. I take my tzeentch because I like the colors best but nurgle is a great option here buffing their cover save. Phlegm is some of the best anti-
meq in the army since crushers are not spectacular and gaze can be used against heavy vehicles in a pinch ( i dont take it..too expensive and BS3). The option to skyfire is always nice but these guys are not exactly a replacement for an
ADL and gun. A quick note: the sword wargear is stupid. Its worse than the regular weapon and costs a lot. Phil what were you thinkin! Anyways soul grinders can be effective with any mark because they do not gain all the benefits of each one because they are vehicles and lack psychic powers and such things. Grinders are durable, powerful, and all around great units to provide much needed range support to the army. I take them with phlegm and shoot at grey booty hunters.
Skull Cannon: Rating: 2: It provides assault grenades and ignore cover blast. thats about it. If you're running a huge khorne army at a tau gunline I guess this can be nice but the soulgrinder has a better large blast weapon
imo and is much more durable. The skullcannon will die pretty quick being open topped and only armor 12. It can be useful when assaulting cover but generally our units when assaulting weaker shooting units that are in cover will win regardless. I don't think guardians will be smacking my hounds around anytime soon. Perhaps against
MEQ armies hiding away this can be nice. Not really used in tournaments because our
FMC and screamers dont care about cover. Also hounds can just be thrown into anything in a pile. The cannon has a relatively short range to do its job and because scatter dice are sometimes horrible provides its assault grenade upgrade unreliably.
Burning Chariot of Terrible: Rating:0: Needs and
FAQ. Right now it cannot move and fire its weapon. The flamer is a passenger not part of the vehicle so have fun parking next to marines and dieing to bolter glances. 3HP and armor 10 is about as durable as a wet paper towel wrapped in toilet paper. Anything STR4+ (which is basically everything) can glance this to death. This unit should have been fast attack or elite choice and should have been able to be in squads of 3 and cheaper. Also should be able to move and shoot. Maybe after the
faq itll be an anti
MEQ option.
SEEKER THINGS: Rating: 2 so you can take a bunch of seeker related chariot nonsense here. They hit pretty hard when they charge and are reasonably costed points wise. Pretty squishy though. Armor 11 means s5+ will shave their 2
HP off quickly and the exalted will just get melta popped by anything. I can see this unit being effective in friendly games and against armies like tyranids but I don't think youre going to have any luck against
MEQ or Tau or Dar (which are our biggest enemies these days). Eldar/ Tau will destroy these light vehicles faster than you can put them on the board and marines will just melta them when they are close enough to become threats. A disclaimer I don't use slaanesh things so my advice is a little shortsighted here.
Pimpin Princes: Rating: 3: Greater's let you take these as heavy support and thats what the flying cirus is all about. Grab
CSM allies and you can have 6
FMC running around. Wargear wise pimp these guys out just like your greaters. greater gifts for defense and max psychic abilities. Biomancy is the way to go here. It can provide a small amount of dakka (not to be forgotten) and more importantly give these T5 bozos iron arm and make them killing machines. Always take wings and armor too. Slaanesh princes are the most common due to the anti air abilities with Slaanesh whipping. Nurgle ones are also common due to the shrouded bonus. I take mine Tzeentch for the marginally better psychic casting and the re-rollable invulnerable save which is just amazing when you're in good cover. A trick with spamming these guys. Stack them behind each other. Since even when their swooping
LoS applies you can stack them in a line or in a circle to provide blocking for themselves and other units. I put invinsible fateweaver out front and these guys in cover behind him carrying the book of names and other lovely tricks. I often take flickering fire with them too so I can shoot the rear of light vehicles and fliers and shoot fire warriors too when i fly over them. Always roll for the other powers though as Ap1 beam can be nasty when you have 5 of them in your army. Good luck terminators its been fun. If you can't get iron arm or other defensive powers for some reason (maybe you're terrible at dice) be careful as T5 and no
EW makes a dead panda against hammerheads and other S10 nonsense.
Our
HQ has two "best options" grinders and princes. I won't spam
FMC in a friendly game the same way I wont play aginst 6 flier necron in a friendly game. I usually take a prince or two and a grinder or two to balance it out so everyone can have fun because thats the goal. Grinders should be used as midrange fire support assaulting when they need to and shooting at anything that they can hit without trying to penetrate 2+ cover. If anyone has ANY information regarding when the
FAQ is coming out please post it below. My tzeentch fluff list needs chariots.
Wargear Review. Rewards: There are lesser greater and exalted gifts. Varying costs and varying effectiveness. Sadly what you get is random from a table so reviewing each individual piece doesnt serve much purpose since you cannot choose which to take. I will just go over the default gifts that you can always take (weapons) and the artifacts.
Lesser: These gifts provide a little boost here and there. There are two shooting weapons here and a few mildly offense boosting abilities. The basic weapons that you can and probably are taking from this section are decent. Khorne gets the Axe which the bloodthirster has. Inflicting instant death on wound rolls of 6 and giving Ap2. This isn't bad to take on heralds and squad leaders because its cheap and gives Ap2 which non-
MC units in this codex lack horribly. The nurgle weapons provides +1S and the contagion ability which isnt bad either although models rarely fail toughness tests as the average toughness you encounter is 4 which means on average they will pass. Tzeentch will be getting the staff of change giving +2 strength (great on the lord of change) and AP4. This isnt so great as tzeentch heralds shouldnt be in
CC anyways. This staff basically makes the lord of change a beast. +2 strength and every time he kills a guy they explode doing
d6 str 5 attacks. On average thats like having an extra (almost 2) charging flesh hounds attack for free. Slaanesh gets Witstealer sword which has a similar ability to contagion although working off of initiative. It gives
ap 5 (not so great here) and rending. This sword is kinda nice on the princes and slaanesh
MC. The rending can actually be a nice bonus and inflicting additional wounds occasionally isnt shabby either. Otherwise you can take the unmarked etherblade. This is the easiest way to get AP2 it also is master crafted. Give this to heralds who want to simply gain AP2 in case they need it.
Greater: These are the real goodies in this section. Defensive buffs. Awesome. These are primarily for big fatties as the heralds die too easily to make full use of them (kinda pricey). All of these are good results and I'm generally happy with whatever although 4+
FnP and re-roll failed invuln saves are usually my party rewards. The weapons available here are the greater ether if you want an unmarked giving +1S and Ap2. There isn't really good reason to take this this because the regular either blade is cheaper and the +1S isnt usually nessesary. Tzeentch can take the mutating warpblade which is fluffy and cool. It gives AP3 which again is pointless because heralds wont be in
CC and greaters have AP2 but also gives a special ability that gives you a chaos spawn on a 2+ after slaying enemy characters and
MC. This is fluffy and neat but not that useful. Khorne can take the blade of blood. This gives AP2 and the benefit of +d3 attacks when outnumbered in
CC. Cool on the bloodthirster if you get armor or something useless. Gives him some extra attacks that are nice to have. Heralds probably shouldnt take it as they are rarely outnumbered when in
CC and if they are theyre usually in trouble. Nurgle units get the balesword which is poisoned and instant death inflicting. Sweet! It also gives the ability to glance vehicles to death via touch of rust. This is pretty neat on non character units but otherwise you're better off taking an ether for Ap2. Slaanesh gets the super freakin awesome lash. This thing gives
2d6 s-user attacks. Give this to princes and greaters to make them anti air and shooty machines. Biomancy can make this thing insanely powerful through iron arm and let your prince own the skies.
Exalted: You can take a hellforged artifact or otherwise get strong buffs that are generally not worth their expensive cost. Artifacts are as follows
Eternal Blade - Cool on the bloodthirster or another
MC pretty much for bonus attacks. No
ap on this guy so not intended for non-
MC. Gives extra
str, Initiative, and
WS equal to a d3 when in
CC. Thats kinda neat but not the best option.
Portalglyph - A sweet option. Lets you spawn free troops. Hope your game isnt purge the alien as small
d6 sized squads of daemon troops tend to die from a sneeze.
The Doomstone - This gives a negative leadership debuff on a failed
ld test. So this thing isnt super useful. It HAS a very specific use in an
LD reducing army (idk how effective it is but I've seen it). I guess this could be useful if you were fighting something like 100 furies or low
ld stuff.
Grimoire/Book of names. Winmode unleashed - This gives either +2 invuln on a 3+ or a -1 to an enemy. With fateweaver youll almost never fail the 3+ (just reroll it!) but that aside this thing is crazy. Use it on bloodcrushers to make them super hardy to get into combat. Make some near unkillable hound floods. Make fatey or anything tzeentch invincible. I would say you need this in 90% of games. Take it.
Loci: These are the buff options your herald has.
Lesser: Adam. Will for deny the witch, a pretty useless buff to pink horror
CC, a nice but small bonus to the damaging capabilities of poison attacks, and gives move through cover. These are useful to a "lesser" extent. The tzeentch one probably not atll.
Greater: Rage special rule, Making their profile
d6 strength,
FnP, +5 initiative. Again the tzeentch one is terrible. The khorne one is a great buff to your attacks on the charges while the nurgle one gives
FnP (sweet!). Use
FnP to camp objectives if you brought nurgle heralds. The slaanesh one gives int. which slaanesh units usually dont really need but okay I guess its neat.
Exalted/Mega: Hatred special rule aka more attacks, +1S to shooting attacks, a decent buff to the melee strength of nurgle stuff, and prescience to slaanesh stuff in
CC. These are all super useful and this is a great option for pink horrors. S6 shooting can tear things apart. Hatred means even more attacks for the bloodgod and the nurgle and slaanesh options provide more
CC dakka.
Take the +1S to shooting with large horror groups and take the wrath icon for big khorne units. The slaanesh prescience is great because they don't get access to divination and the nurgle one can be nice too. The exalted gifts are the stars here nothing else really worth looking at.
POWERS! UNLIMITED POWERS! Ok not unlimited but. You know. I will only go over the primaris powers since again you cant choose the powers you get. They are all pretty straight forward powers.
Flickering Flame: The pink horror basic shooting attack. Has soul blaze (almost never mentioned) but its effect is pretty minimal. It has the warpflame rule which either gives
FnP 6+ or d3 additional wounds (no saves) depending on if the enemy passes a toughness test. The key here to to focus fire so that units get 6+
FnP on as few models as possible when they pass their test. This does stack until
FaQ'd but each unit only takes 1 test so can only gain +1 per turn. Probably dont shoot this at plague marines often. Spending more warpcharges on this increases the shooting all the way to
4d6 for 3 charges. In general the tzeentch powers are shooty with some good ap1 and 2 shooting in here for your
MC to destroy things. It might be worth rolling for bolt of change with horror units if you face a lot of terminators.
Steam of Corruption: This is a sweet anti
MEQ destruction tool. Nurgle princes and
GUO's should definitely be rolling at least once on this (if they get iron arm) to pick up a nurgle shooting power. A lot of good anti armor stuff here and gives slow nurgle units some powerful short range shooting.
Lash of Slaanesh. This gives a beam attack at
str 6 and rending. Not so special as the tzeentch beams kick this ones ass.
Khorne..better luck next time! I honestly think that khorne units should have been given "abilities" instead of powers in this section that worked in almost the same way. just make them an extra piece of wargear. Woulda been neat.
ICONS AND MUSIC Icons are neat.
Icon of chaos helps you deepstrike more accurately. Useful if you like deep striking
Blood - gives you more reliable charge distance. I find this generally not worth it because khorne stuff is really fast but if i was running blood letter i would take it.
Blasted- a sweeet additional
2d6 str 4 hits when used. Good to make pink horrors even more dakka-ey.
Plague - Once per game gives 2+ poisoned attacks. If you're facing tyranids or something with big monsters you might wanna sneak this in somewhere as a nurgle player.
Rapture- Use this to make yourself slightly more defensive and offensive in
CC by reducing enemy weapon skill. Worth it on big groups of daemonettes and fragiles.
Musicals
Chaos- Lets you take additional units after successful deep strike rolls. Gives a small reroll on the warpstorm too if you're very worried about it.
So that covers about all the wargear options. Remember when it comes to
MC's the pimper the deadlier.
Tactics This will get bigger with the comments and I'll add what has been said.
Horrors do best with heralds so they can actually kill the things they shoot at.
Crushers are sweet with grimoire to overcome their squishyness. They can also hit extremely hard if used in this manner as they will likely reach their target healthy. Crushers can also be hidden behind dog units for bonus cover and then charge more heavily armored targets althought terminators are still a no no. (Unless you bring 2 heralds with etherblades and wrath loci
Big fatties need to be pimped out with wargear and protected. Daemons are a specialist army that needs to use each tool correctly. Fast units need to tie up fragile shooting things and big fatties need to kill heavy armor and units that your fast stuff cannot deal with. Fatties and heralds are important supporting units as well giving a lot of your fast units the punch they need to win close fights.
Plaguebearers are your cheapest and easiest objective camping potato option. Take these if you're doing minimum troop lists.
Flying Circus tips Fateweaver should be followed by an
FMC holding grimoire. Ally with
CSM to take additional flyers like heldrakes. Use a minimum troop build (20 plaguebear or horrors). Max out every
FMC and hide them until they can charge. Abuse divination and shoot whatever you have while vector striking for additional goodness. This is a spammy list but very effective as almost nothing can deal with greaters in close combat.
Dogpile Tips Scout move your big dog units with karnak leading your best squad. Marching them up the side with jugger heralds is also a good option. Minimize your other costs so you can take as many dogs as possible and support your dogs with soulgrinder shooting to soften up units so they dont take as much overwatch and
FMC. Taking fateweaver and a prince is great here. Give the biomancy prince grimoire and have him follow the hounds up the board or fly over to them. He can buff them to a 3++ if they are in danger and also provide your opponent with target priority confusion. Fateweaver giving prescience out only gets better the bigger the squads get. 20 hounds getting it increase their average hits on a WS4 target from 40 to 53 which is pretty awesome. Hit fragile shooters and tact marines with hounds and blast heavy armor with princes.
Sample Lists: They do not include point values but provide a template that new players can follow.
Circus:
Fateweaver
Another greater
Plaguebearer x 10
Plaguebearer x 10
3 x Daemon Princes (khorne, sla, or tzeen)
option: Ally
CSM lord/cultists/Heldrake and a Prince
Hounds:
Fateweaver (yes hes this good)
3-4 Heralds of khorne with wrath loci
20 hounds
20 hounds
20 hounds
10 x horrors
10 x horrors
SoulGrinder or Princes (preference)
Option: Ally Huron/cultists infiltrate stuff
Fluff lists: These are largely mono god list templates with the exception of khorne. The skull cannon works best with slaanesh and the khorne daemon princes dont get access to biomancy which they really really need. Bloodletters are generally terrible but usable and lacking psychic buffs really really hurts khorne. I mix khorne and Tzeentch because that still obeys the fluff and makes a great army and that is the type of army that i run.
Tzeentch list
Fateweaver and/or Lord of Change
15-20 x horrors option: herald
15-20x horrors option: herald
10x horrors
9x Screamers option: herald
Prince and Soulgrinder
This list runs similar to flying circus with a twist. You have less
FMC but a soulgrinder and screamers to hit vulnerable units.
Khorne and Tzeentch list (not my list) (mono khorne is well..rough)
Thirster/
FMC Heralds Khorne and Tzeentch
6-8x Crushers with some upgrades
15 x hounds
15 x hounds
10 x letters
10 x letters
Soulgrinder or Princes
hounds hit vulnerable shooting units and letters use them for a screen and hit hard.
FMC and heavy support take out armor and badass enemies.
Nurgle List
GUO Heralds of Nurgle and epidimius
15 x plaguebearers
10 x plaguebearers
10 x plaguebearers
5 x riders with upgrades
5 x riders with upgrades
3 x Beasts
Soulgrinders and Princes
GUO marches with biomany and beasts charge all out. Riders hit vehicles and ranged units. Plague bearers get objectives and light troops and vehicles
Slaanesh List
Keeper of Secrets
Heralds of Sla.
15 x Daemonettes
15 x Daemonettes
10 x Daemonettes
6 x Seekers
6 x Seekers
3 x Fiends
3 x Fiends
Princes
Seekers hit their gunline and princes do anti air and amor duty. Daemonettes and fiends kill everything else with the keeper's assistance.
Edit: Screamerstar sample list:
3 x Herald of Tzeentch w/ disk w/ etherblade and shooting loci w/ mastery
lvl 3 w/ grimoire
Fateweaver
8-9 Screamers
You get 3 heralds of flickering fire shooting probably ignring cover and s6 + prescience. With 9 screamers you get like 17 S5
AP 2 attacks prescience on the charge because of the heralds. Thats basically killing a simple termie squad in
CC. You use grimoire on the unit for a 4++ deathstar.
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
), I at least found on use for them, deepstrike 3 of them in a corner of your enemies deployment zone, preferrably out of 
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