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Evening,

I've recently (few months) picked up daemons and moved from my Skaven army to focus fully on making my daemons tournament ready. Unfortunately I've been struggling securing big (or even small) wins with my daemons. I'm finding that they are lacking enough punch to really bring big 15-5 or 18-2 wins and most games are ending up 12-8 or 10-10 either in my favor or opponents favor. I'm looking for any suggestions on ways to put out some more damage while still bringing some survivability.

My list looks like this

Lords
---
Unclean One w/ 2 X Greater Gifts & Level 4 of Death (level 4 caster, 2 ETC points as he is only LD 9.)

Heroes
---
Herald of Nurgle BSB w/ Greater Locus (regen) & Razor Standard

Core
10 x Horrors w/ Banner
10 x Horrors w/ Banner (Fortitude amplifies and hoping for Infernal Gateway)
30 x Plaguebearers w/ Full Command & Swiftness Banner (primary combat block)

Special
---
5x Furies
5x Furies
5x Furies (No mark, used as chaff drop and redirectors)
3x Screamers (warmachine hunters and killing chaff)

Rare
---
Soulgrinder w/ Mark of Nurgle and Claw (Low Ini monster killer and LoS blocker for GuO)
Plague Drones w/ Plague Probuscus & Standard w/ Flame Banner (multi purpose unit, though it has yet to really perform)
Skullcannon (For giving out long distance hugs)

I have access to a Lord of Change, Keeper of Secrets, a Bloodthirster, another Soulgrinder, 3 more Screamers, some Nurglings, some Seekers of Slaneesh, 19 Daemonettes, Herald of Slaneesh, and a Daemon Prince. I'm not opposed to buying more models, but I really can't afford a massive overall (going to a Keeper + Fiend + Daemonettes list for example)


I feel like the weakest links in the army are the Soul grinder and the Screamers, but I'm not really sure what I'd replace them with. I could increase the Plague Drone unit to 4 or 5 (which would be fairly expensive as I don't own the models) but most of the other big choices I can't take because I'm out of points. Dropping death is an option but it is a a very powerful lore, and I'd expect to see limited MR due to the comp (opponents expecting Death to be rare).

The following is my most recent bat rep to give an idea of how the army is performing (wall of text incoming, feel free to skip if you'd just like to comment on the list).

--

Up against a dwarf list with 2 grudge throwers, 2 organ guns, a large block of hammerers full of characters (stubborn standard, BSB, general, and runesmith), a block of dwarves with xbows and great weapons with an engineer and runesmith, a block of thunderers with shields and an engineer, and 3 gyrocopters - 2 with vanguard. My soul grinder and flies are across from his warriors, my bearers are across from his hammerers, my screamers and unclean one are across from his thunderers and my 3 furies are dispersed in front of various units to block organ gun LoS and B line it for the war machines. The skull cannon is off to the far side.

Turn 1 Dwarves -
He rolls up hatred against my entire army, so that really helps his CC later in the game. His vanguard gyros fly over my soul grinder and cannon dropping bombs but doing no wounds. His other gyro moves up to the middle of the field and the rest don't move. He fires both grudge throwers and does 4 wounds to the soul grinder. One organ gun fires at the GUO and does nothing, and the flaming organ gun kills 3 plaguebearers.

Turn 1 Daemons -
My soul grinder spins around to face the gyro and I place all my fliers in the middle of the field all facing war machines and sitting at just over 12 inches from every dwarf unit. My greater unclean one moves behind a building and faces his army (death spells requiring front arc but no LoS). The cannon moves up and faces a grudge thrower, and the rest of my army moves up but stays behind the fliers. Magic is a wash with 1 dice being stolen, and one spell being runed and the rest being dispelled via dice. My soul grinder amazingly kills a gyro with his grapeshot and the skullcannon fails to hit the grudge thrower.

Turn 2 Dwarves -
He moves the vanguarded gyro behind my plaguebearers and the other one flies over my plagues and drops bombs but misfires. The rest of his army doesn't move. He fires a grudge thrower at the soul grinder and kills it, and fires his other grudge thrower at my plaguebearers killing a few (flaming) and fires both of his organ guns into my screamers but only manages to kill 2 and wound the last (amazing).

Turn 2 Daemons -
I start declaring war machine charges with all of my flies. One group of furies makes it into a grudge thrower, one group of furies and the last remaining screamer make it into an organ gun, the last fury group fails the charge to his other organ gun. I turn the skullcannon to his remaining grudge thrower, and move up the flies and plaguebearers about 13 inches away from his blocks. I keep the greater unclean one behind the building (likely my biggest mistake). Roll up a 4 on magic so ward saves go down, he steals a dice so magic does nothing. The skull cannon successfully kills the remaining grudge thrower, one fury group pops the other grudge thrower and reforms to face the unit. The screamer and fury combo charge fails to kill the organ gun and it passes its stubborn.

Turn 3 Dwarves -
He charges his engineer out of the thunderers block into my screamer/fury combat. He moves his thunderers and GW crossbows up a bit and moves his gyros to double flame my plaguebearer block. The remaining organ gun shoots down a bunch of plaguebearers, and as it was the flaming gun it removed my regeneration. He then double templates it, and blasts it with his shooting blocks, bringing me down to about 13 plaguebearers. My screamer puts a wound on his organ gun, the furies kill it, and then his engineer kills the screamer and overruns into the now dropped furies.

Turn 3 Daemons -
At this point I have a tough decision to make. The thunderers (a nice juicy target) are 14 inches away, the hammerers are much closer but I'm really low on plaguebearers and I don't want to give up anymore points than I have to. I'm sure that hammerer unit will either win in CC, or absolutely win via attrition. I decide to not charge with the plaguebearers because if they fail, they are an open target and with that 12 inch stubborn banner I would have to kill the thunderers down to the man to not get flanked. I do charge the left fury group into the organ gun though, and I charge the victorious right fury group into the rear of the engineer. I then charge the plague flies into the crossbow group (the flies were behind a wall, so stand and shoot did no wounds). I play 'bounce the gyrocopter' as I charge it with my skullcannon, it flees towards my pink horrors who are aimed towards it due to attempts at magic. They flee bounce it back towards the cannon, who catches and kills it with a completed charge. Magic rolls up a 7, a fire of tzeentch fails to wound his gyrocopter and he dices and uses his second rune for the rest. Engineer dies to furies, organ gun and the other fury group just stare at each other. The plague drones kill about 5 GW dwarfs, but he kills one fly in return and passes stubborn.

Turn 4 Dwarves -
His thunderers charge the furies that killed his engineer. His hammerers move up a bit to approach the now turning and fleeing plaguebearers unit (must save mah points). He kills a few more plaguebearers and horrors with his gyro template. Organ gun kills some furies in CC, who fail to do wounds and crumble to death. Flies kill 3 more dwarves, who put 2 wounds on a fly and they pass stubborn. Thunderers kill furies and over run into the other group of furies.

Turn 4 Daemons-
I finally bring the Great Unclean One out of hiding (this is my biggest mistake, he should have been out and about turn 3). I move a pink horror unit in front of the hammerers unit for chaff and continue to run with the now 10 man unit of plaguebearers and BSB. Magic wise something finally happens as I pink fire the final gyrocopter off the table. The skull cannon blasts his organ gun away as well. One more fly dies but we take 4 dwarves with him (steadfast or stubborn banner make killing GW dwarves down to the last man a struggle). Thunderers kill the last fury group and turn to face the Unclean One.

Turn 5 Dwarves -
Hammerers charge the offered up pink horrors and Thunderers charge Unclean One. Bloat Fly brings the GW xbow unit down to 8 dwarves but they finally kill him and reform towards the middle. Thunderers don't do a single wound to unclean one, and unclean one kills about 5 in return but they pass stubborn. Hammerers annihilate pink horrors and turn to face the unclean one.

Turn 5 Daemons -
I offer up my last pink horror unit as chaff for the hammerers. I swift reform the plaguebearers to try and bring them into the action and start moving the cannon near the action as well. I get off a Doom and Darkness on the thunderers unit that my unclean one is facing which is great. The skullcannon goes for a shot down the line of dwarven characters in the hammerers unit hoping for a failed LoS, but it misfires on the bounce. The thunderers fail fear, unclean one does about 7 wounds, they do nothing in return and fail their rerollable stubborn test. So I have a choice, I can reform to face the hammerers or try to overrun, catch them, and get outside of charge arc. I go for the overrun and come up short with a 4. Damn.

Turn 6 Dwarves -
Hammerers flank charge the unclean one (with the overrun they can complete the charge and get around the chaffing pink horrors), thunderers rally even with D&D, and xbow dwarves move up and shoot some horrors. In close combat the hammerers end up doing 4 wounds to the Unclean One and he does around 5 or so but with charge flank, bsb, banner, ranks, etc etc I lose by a bit, but I roll a flipping 3 and he sticks around.

Turn 6 Daemons -

I go for a long bomb charge with the skull cannon (the chaffing pink horrors are blocking my plaguebearers). The pink horrors get into the rear of the hammerers but the skull cannon fails the charge. He steals a dice and successfully stops my Doom and Darkness. He only puts a single wound on the unclean one, and kills 5 horrors in the rear, and I only end up losing by 1 and pass leadership on both the Unclean One (thank goodness I moved the BSB into range) and the horrors.

----

Game ends and it ends up being 1300 something dwarves to 850 something daemons. I likely should have been more aggressive with my unclean one and plaguebearers once I had one of the grudge throwers locked up, but I'm super scared of losing him to war machines. That hammerer block is incredibly mean as well, and I never put a single wound on it. It would have obliterated that plaguebearer unit, and I'm just not sure what I should tweak or do differently here to handle something like that. The plaguebearers never seeing combat does hurt me, but I don't feel like 10 plaguebearer attacks against the hammerer unit would have really made much of a difference, it would have likely just given him more points in the end. God forbid I have to fight a horde army like my Skaven, I just don't feel like I put out enough wounds to tackle that!

Thanks very much for reading this long winded post, and I appreciate any feedback I can get!

I would drop the grinder and add a second unit of drones.

You also should get another unit of screamers in if possible. Maybe trim the plagues to the minimum core and cut furies to fit?

That's an option, but I would have to drop Lore of Death to do that. A second unit of drones is another ETC point, and I'm already at 5. Lore of Death is one of the strongest things in the army and, when not facing 2 dwarven dispel runes, seems to wreck havoc. Is it worth losing Death for more drones?

I do have another unit of screamers that I could run, are they worth doubling up on? The unit I have rarely gets its points back, but it's very possible I'm playing them wrong. When flying over a unit on average I'm getting 4-5 attacks, hitting on 4s so 2-3 of them hit and S4 so against T3 targets I'm getting 2 wounds at best. Just doesn't seem worth a 120 point unit, and right now I'm just bringing the one unit for war machine hunting. Should I drop plaguebearers or should I drop 2 units of furies which are exactly the cost of one screamer unit?

Lore of Nurgle honestly isn't bad though, might be worth dropping Death for another thing of flies.

But in etc you have to max on 4 dice per spell making lore of death pretty weak. Its easy for an opposing lvl 4 to just out-dice your best spells.

Nurgle is decent. I would rather see a LoC than an unclean one although I understand this changes your list a lot.

Out of curiosity, how would you build a LoC list? I've played with LoC lists and Cacobomb lists but LoC feels like a lot of points that I can't put into combat, and I don't have the fiends and daemonettes for a Keeper list.

I'm trying to get my hands on some plague drones because I like your suggestion, really hoping I can find a painted group because I don't really have time to paint a set before the tournament with the other painting I need to do.

List wise I'm thinking about changing the Unclean One to 1 exalted and 1 lesser. Then dropping 2 furies for a screamer group. If I can find another plague drone group I'll drop the soul grinder and 5 plaguebearers to bring another herald with a greater gift and a 3 unit of drones.

Loc lvl 4. Take 1 exalted reward and 1 lesser. Take the eternal blade for the stats and then the asf sword in the book. Best combat character in your book!

Can't do that as a daemon can't benefit from the stats of 2 weapons as per the FAQ. They only get the stats from the weapon they are currently wielding unfortunately.