danp164 wrote:
Has anyone thought that a large component of the doom and glooming is that Deamons went from what was really a small elite army, to a horde army with little to no warning?

5th Ed 10 Plaguebearers could stand up to an inordinate amount of firepower.

5th Ed 10 Bloodletters could panhandle anything without fear of loosing combat... ever.

5th Ed 10 Horrors would annihilate a whole unit of 4+ save shmucks.

These units are still good, but now function at a larger size mainly due to GW wanting to sell us more models. Nothing became bad its just the whole army shifted focus from small elite units to large hordes.

But hell that's just my observations....

Well to be air I'm glad daemons have become a horde army, when I imagine the spewing masses churning out of the belly of the warp, I imagine hordes of creatures, not just a hand full.

Eldercaveman wrote:

danp164 wrote:
Has anyone thought that a large component of the doom and glooming is that Deamons went from what was really a small elite army, to a horde army with little to no warning?

5th Ed 10 Plaguebearers could stand up to an inordinate amount of firepower.

5th Ed 10 Bloodletters could panhandle anything without fear of loosing combat... ever.

5th Ed 10 Horrors would annihilate a whole unit of 4+ save shmucks.

These units are still good, but now function at a larger size mainly due to GW wanting to sell us more models. Nothing became bad its just the whole army shifted focus from small elite units to large hordes.

But hell that's just my observations....

Well to be air I'm glad daemons have become a horde army, when I imagine the spewing masses churning out of the belly of the warp, I imagine hordes of creatures, not just a hand full.

True but it doesn't mash well with the fluff making deamons out to be incredibly strong and tough to put down barring exorcism. but the problem isn't so much the fluff as the fact that deamons have always been expensive units fielded in small groups to great effect, this was quite a radical shift in design.

Lovepug13 wrote:
If thats your position then it's cool......I disagree but then thats just an opinion and is off topic here.

As for the new demons I don't think its amazing but it does seem fairly neutral in its power distribution......I just think the random element is not that great and may disappoint some demon regulars.

As has been said, if it means Tzeench hitters and nurgle scorers aren't the way to go army anymore, I'm not complaining.

I mean, tzeench hitters and nurgle scorers is good and it should be allowed and remain effective, but it shouldn't be the ONLY option, like how 'crons wraiths and their flyers are a take to win army.

Edit: I sounded like a twit.
Edit of edit: I still sound like a twit.

danp164 wrote:
Has anyone thought that a large component of the doom and glooming is that Deamons went from what was really a small elite army, to a horde army with little to no warning?

5th Ed 10 Plaguebearers could stand up to an inordinate amount of firepower.

5th Ed 10 Bloodletters could panhandle anything without fear of loosing combat... ever.

5th Ed 10 Horrors would annihilate a whole unit of 4+ save shmucks.

These units are still good, but now function at a larger size mainly due to GW wanting to sell us more models. Nothing became bad its just the whole army shifted focus from small elite units to large hordes.

But hell that's just my observations....

I think that is the biggest change. My first game with new daemons played a similar list to the old book and did terribly, because they're not elite anymore, like you said!

I don't think I'll be leaving home very often without a 20 man squad of troop, before it used to be squads of 8! (for khorne!)

danp164 wrote:
Has anyone thought that a large component of the doom and glooming is that Deamons went from what was really a small elite army, to a horde army with little to no warning?

Exactly. It's about the most radical shift I've seen in any army. For the troop section anyway. The HQ and elite sections seems to have suffered from pendulum syndrome. GW can't say 'hm, this unit was too good before, so we'll make a slight adjustment', and instead nerf units while simultaneously raising the cost for them.

Really do need to pick up the new book now to see how bad things got for me

I run a pure tzeentch army, so wondering how badly this will effect me.

Usuaully:

Fateweaver/LoC
2x heralds (scribes and a chariot herald)

3x9 flamers
2x10 horrors
2x6 horrors

3x5 screamers

In higher points ill throw in a DP aswell or just run LoC + weaver.

Just wondering how badly my list has now been hit

Considering horrors are 10 strong at least your making some changes off the bat.
Heralds on chariots are not that hot. Your better sticking him on a disk in a squad of horrors.

Flamers are nurfed. Their now OK units good at clearing hordes. They are no longer the auto win unit they were.
Mono god lists are weaker. There are strong reasons to go crono-god

 Redbeard wrote:

danp164 wrote:
Has anyone thought that a large component of the doom and glooming is that Deamons went from what was really a small elite army, to a horde army with little to no warning?

Exactly. It's about the most radical shift I've seen in any army. For the troop section anyway. The HQ and elite sections seems to have suffered from pendulum syndrome. GW can't say 'hm, this unit was too good before, so we'll make a slight adjustment', and instead nerf units while simultaneously raising the cost for them.

But were any of surprised at all that things like Flamers, Screamers or Fatey were balanced? (Flamers especially!)

Alot of the other decried 'nerfs' aren't really nerfs to begin with. (ie: Bloodcrushers)
I honestly don't understand the 'Crusher whining by some. Yes, they lost EW, (which never made sense on Daemons since it invalidated what's supposed to be one the best counters that was specifically designed to kill them!), and they lost -1T/3+ armour. But they gained +1W, a unit champ option with instant access to ap2 and Cavalry unit type (which alone makes them miles better than before!)
So really, they've lost a slight bit of resiliance to basic small arms and now fear S8+. But they are also better now vs DE splinter weaponry than before and their newfound speed while no longer being outright crippled by being forced to Deep Strike means turn 2 charges are easily doable. (something that was pretty much impossible in the past because people either danced around outside your assault range or else just fed you a tiny little unit to keep you at arms length...)

Opponents will likely have 1 turn to deal with your 'Crushers before you slam them into something tasty. And that's alongside all the other super fast options that can't be ignored either.

Another part of the problem is people are still trying to evaluate everything in a vacuum using pure mathhammer.
It's fine to use mathhammer to get a general idea of how a unit will likely preform or how action 'X' will likely turn out in a game. But to simply write-off entire units by simply mathhammering them out in a total vacuum, against typical hard-counters is plain silly.

 Jackal wrote:
Really do need to pick up the new book now to see how bad things got for me

I run a pure tzeentch army, so wondering how badly this will effect me.

Usuaully:

Fateweaver/LoC
2x heralds (scribes and a chariot herald)

3x9 flamers
2x10 horrors
2x6 horrors

3x5 screamers

In higher points ill throw in a DP aswell or just run LoC + weaver.

Just wondering how badly my list has now been hit

A basic LoC is far more flexible than Fatey.
Fatey isn't 'awful', but he's no longer a no-brainer who can easily buff almost your entire army and outright double your army's resiliance. His re-roll is still usefull, and he comes with the Warlord ability that let's your re-roll the Warpstorm table results which is pure win! (pretty much eliminates the likelyhood of results 2,3,4 which are rather bad for us!)

Flamers are finally balanced. Alot of hardcore competitive players are obviously upset by the fact that 27 Flamers is no longer an absolute instant-beatstick to everything in the game, but meh. Large units of them will still rape face since even 2+ saves don't like getting hit by 7-9 templates. (and you'll still outright remove anything with 4+ or worse saves)
Just don't expect 3-4 Flamers to be able to still pretty much auto-wipe units like Plaguemarines or Terminators other high toughness/save units.

The Warpflame rule is also not as crippling as some make it out to be. It simply means Tzeentch now needs to focus fire and either wipe-out or cripple units. A 6+ FnP save on 3 MEQ's for example is still pretty much meaningless.
And it's only 1 test per shooting phase, not 1 per unit that fired as some are trying to make it out to be.

Tzeentch will have problems against Eldar Runes, SW's Rune Priests and GK's, (but then ALL Daemons will still struggle against GK's - something that no fault of our book, but rather the GK 'dex being so borked)
Eldar Runes will likely get re-worked later this year, while Rune Priests can be focused on. (and eventually, those Runic weapons will get their overhaul).
Tyranid SitW can again be likewise delt with by simply keeping out of it's rather short 12" range.
Though with Ld10 for all psychic tests, Tzeentch is a bit better off than our other psykers in regards to Eldar Runes/SitW.

Thats not as bad as i had feared then
Priests and farseers can just be picked on by screamers early on.
Just didnt really feel like having to change my list around to the point i have nothing i used before

Also, would be nice to test out some new ideas, but those chariots need a fix before i even think about takin them
Love the model, just the rules make it seem rather pointless to have.

And is it just me, or is the flamer on that chariot 3x the normal size? 0_o

Experiment 626 wrote:

But were any of surprised at all that things like Flamers, Screamers or Fatey were balanced? (Flamers especially!)

I'm not sure they were. They were reduced in power, but I'm not sure the new versions are "balanced" either. Flamers especially, seem underpowered. Whether you like it or not, the majority of models you face in this game have a 3+ save. Losing AP3 on a mediocre toughness, low save model means that the risk vs reward is no longer worth it. Yes, you can roast guardsmen, but big deal, you will usually be playing marines.

I'm not saying that the WD rules were balanced, but I don't think that the original codex rules were that far off. 3 guys, for 105 points, could either drop in, land on target, and dish out some pain, or they could scatter off, and get killed without doing much. And that was a reasonable risk vs reward scenario. People sometimes took them, but they weren't an auto-include, so that means they didn't suck, but they weren't OP either.

The new ones are crap. Sorry, that's just how it is. It's a 3+ save game, and if you're not AP3, you better be making up for it somehow.

Alot of the other decried 'nerfs' aren't really nerfs to begin with. (ie: Bloodcrushers)
I honestly don't understand the 'Crusher whining by some. Yes, they lost EW, (which never made sense on Daemons since it invalidated what's supposed to be one the best counters that was specifically designed to kill them!), and they lost -1T/3+ armour. But they gained +1W, a unit champ option with instant access to ap2 and Cavalry unit type (which alone makes them miles better than before!)

So really, they've lost a slight bit of resiliance to basic small arms and now fear S8+. But they are also better now vs DE splinter weaponry than before and their newfound speed while no longer being outright crippled by being forced to Deep Strike means turn 2 charges are easily doable. (something that was pretty much impossible in the past because people either danced around outside your assault range or else just fed you a tiny little unit to keep you at arms length...)

Perhaps you play in a different meta than the rest of us. I haven't seen splinter cannons in a game since the week after 6e hit and everyone stopped playing Dark Eldar. You know what I have seen a lot of? S8(+) weapons. Missiles, lascannons, psybolt autocannon dreads. You know what happened when I tried crushers in the new codex? I ran into 5 typhoons and the crushers just vanished.

You don't understand the "whining"? Try playing with them.

Clearly some of this is going to come down to local meta. In the Northeast you don't see missile spam as much as before (Typhoons are nearly nonexistant), and DE make regular appearances at top tables, albeit not in huge numbers.

After reading a few more posts, i see crushers went up nearly 50% in price 0_o
So,
gains: +1 W, cav, champ gets an AP2 weapon, 15 points pm.
Lost: +1T, 3+, EW.

Im sorry, but i just dont see the trade off here.
If you want fast and hard hitting, but fragile, slaanesh is the way to go.
Crushers were ment to be hard hitting but slow shock troops, they are now a glass hammer that will get shot to death in the turn or 2 they are not in combat, even with cover.

GW should have learned a lesson from nid warriors.
Losing EW and gaining +1W really isnt a good trade off as sales on warriors dropped through the floor after that one.

This though?
They have changed the role of crushers to a completely new unit.
I rather take seekers instead since they are cheaper and points for damage they can cause, they win easily.

 Jackal wrote:
After reading a few more posts, i see crushers went up nearly 50% in price 0_o
So,
gains: +1 W, cav, champ gets an AP2 weapon, 15 points pm.
Lost: +1T, 3+, EW.

Im sorry, but i just dont see the trade off here.
If you want fast and hard hitting, but fragile, slaanesh is the way to go.
Crushers were ment to be hard hitting but slow shock troops, they are now a glass hammer that will get shot to death in the turn or 2 they are not in combat, even with cover.

GW should have learned a lesson from nid warriors.
Losing EW and gaining +1W really isnt a good trade off as sales on warriors dropped through the floor after that one.

This though?
They have changed the role of crushers to a completely new unit.
I rather take seekers instead since they are cheaper and points for damage they can cause, they win easily.

Crushers went up 5 points.

Someone posted them as 55 0_o
TBH though, i would have kept them at what they were since the chopped and changed.

I think Redbeard is pushing the panic button too quickly. The codex certainly isn't Necrons. But it isn't terrible either. The biggest weakness seems to be the overwhelming amount of units that serve one purpose, assault, in a shooting based meta-game. Lack of grenades is terrible too. All you have to do is sit your blob in terrain, OW the crap out of the first unit that charges and then hit first. For this reason alone I see min-sized Fiends squads as pretty useful. One mistake I think lots of folks are making is the mistake of considering this army to be a horde army. This isn't the case.. 9 pt toughness 3 models aren't even close to as efficient as guardsmen or ork boyz. I'd much rather have a 6 pt t4 model who will almost always have the same save due to cover, plus both those units have the ability to both shoot and assault.

The T4, multi-wound models are a bit of a bummer, but the current meta sees way less STR.8. Redbeard mentioned that his area (Chicago) has a bunch of Str. 8. I'm not sure I buy this. Looking at GT results from all over the country, Str. 8 is down in favor of Str. 7. GK don't often take Psyflemen, much more likely to take Dreadknights. Long Fangs are still pretty popular, but SW in general seem to have taken a hit due to very weak flyer defense and flyers like Heldrakes being devastating to foot MEQ. Necrons are mostly Str. 7. Vendettas are common, but they wont hit the board till turn 2-3 and then they only will cause 2W average, by this time its very possible for the Daemon player to be across the board.

I think the codex has a lot of promise if you build it in a manner that completely overloads your opponent with threats. I think close to 40 Seekers, mostly maxed Hounds, some Crushers and small Fiend units supported by mostly MSU troops would be a good place to start. Daemonettes, Seekers, Hounds, Bearers seem like the best units. Divination and Telepathy heralds could be good in order to do things such as grab invisibility for your blocks of units, or get a 4++ and turn it into a 2++ with Grimoire (a tactic that I think would be quite useful for units such as Crushers).

That being said, I think that GK, IG and Nids are going to eat this codex for lunch. Enfeeble + Devourers is terrible for any of the MW options and Termagants will be a big issue as you don't get the shooting to really clear screening units. GK will do well because of the abundance of T3 and preferred enemy, force weaponing the multi-wounders will be pretty easy too. IG blobs can be hit pretty hard by some of the Slannesh and Khorne units but the real issue is the lack of grenades, between overwatch and hitting first, blobs should be able to do really well vs most Daemon units. Artillery such as Griffons and Manticores are also pretty bad.

I think the Heldrake, though in some ways counter intuitive (you'll be in assault so its harder to find flaming targets) will be a good edition to a lot of Daemon armies, it'll force MEQ players to not huddle up, making it less likely that they can just camp fully in terrain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and one thing i'll agree completely with Redbeard on... the Warp Storm table is bull. Possibly losing an HQ turn 1, slaying your own Warlord. That is ridiculous. Especially since book missions make StW important. I think this mechanic is terrible, even if it's unlikely.

 Redbeard wrote:
Perhaps you play in a different meta than the rest of us. I haven't seen splinter cannons in a game since the week after 6e hit and everyone stopped playing Dark Eldar. You know what I have seen a lot of? S8(+) weapons. Missiles, lascannons, psybolt autocannon dreads. You know what happened when I tried crushers in the new codex? I ran into 5 typhoons and the crushers just vanished.

You don't understand the "whining"? Try playing with them.

I couldn't agree more. The local meta here has a fair amount of S8 weapons, but even without that, there's still a lot of Enfeeble going around, which means that the 45 point, T4 model can now be Instant Deathed by S6. I was playing a test game against my son's Tyranids and he enfeebled a 6 strong unit of crushers, then proceeded to ID them all with this Flyrant's 12 shot, TL Devourers.

From my perspective, I almost don't care if the army is super competitive or not. My problem is that the entire character of the army has been changed so much that I don't really like it anymore. Sure, the models are still good, but really that's only the stuff that's super expensive now. I don't want to play a horde army. I would never get into Orcs, or IG because that playstyle just doesn't appeal to me. My elite, small model count army has become a horde and I'm not happy about it.

 Redbeard wrote:

I'm not sure they were. They were reduced in power, but I'm not sure the new versions are "balanced" either. Flamers especially, seem underpowered. Whether you like it or not, the majority of models you face in this game have a 3+ save. Losing AP3 on a mediocre toughness, low save model means that the risk vs reward is no longer worth it. Yes, you can roast guardsmen, but big deal, you will usually be playing marines.

I'm not saying that the WD rules were balanced, but I don't think that the original codex rules were that far off. 3 guys, for 105 points, could either drop in, land on target, and dish out some pain, or they could scatter off, and get killed without doing much. And that was a reasonable risk vs reward scenario. People sometimes took them, but they weren't an auto-include, so that means they didn't suck, but they weren't OP either.

The new ones are crap. Sorry, that's just how it is. It's a 3+ save game, and if you're not AP3, you better be making up for it somehow.

Flamers are in no way underpowered. Just because you no longer outright ignore MEQ saves does not make a unit crap. And Flamers do make-up for the lack of ap3 - they kept their newer T4/W2 profile and now re-roll failed 1's to save on top of it. (and the Pyrocaster has a 33% chance to gain a non-Warpflame S5 template if you feel inclined to take a chance...)
They also are no longer forced to Deep Strike into play and thus severely limit their first round of shooting. They can now deploy normally and are still Jump Infantry giving them solid mobility and the ability to hug cover/LoS blocking terrain.

Risk vs reward is still heavily in the favour of the Flamers. 3+ saves be damned when you're inflicting 40+ auto-hits against that marine unit! That's an average of 6.6 dead MEQ's. So 3-4 remaining chumps likely get a 6+ FnP and then do what? Take some fairly ineffectual shots back or else try to charge in?! (and take an average of 18 more auto-hits causing another average 2.97 casulties?!)
More models in a unit only makes the Flamers that much deadlier to boot since it ups the likelyhood of models being bunched up tighter due to larger unit footprints.
So yes, risk vs reward on Flamers is fairly good - when you play full sized units of them! If you still expect 3-4 to do just as much damage as they used to, then sure, you're going to think them god-awful and useless piles of terd.

 Redbeard wrote:
Perhaps you play in a different meta than the rest of us. I haven't seen splinter cannons in a game since the week after 6e hit and everyone stopped playing Dark Eldar. You know what I have seen a lot of? S8(+) weapons. Missiles, lascannons, psybolt autocannon dreads. You know what happened when I tried crushers in the new codex? I ran into 5 typhoons and the crushers just vanished.

You don't understand the "whining"? Try playing with them.

Well aparently I do play in a different meta because like Mannahnin I don't see alot of S8 anymore, but I do see a helluva lot more multi-shot S7 for gunning down flyers and mass swaping of melta for plasma due to higher amounts of foot marines. I also see lots more small arms to account for FMC spam since those weapons are the better hard-counters due to how grounding works. (and then saving up the bigger guns once the mass faceplants hit the table)
One single meta doesn't represent the entire community. (just like mathhammer in a vacuum can't claim that X/Y/Z are now completely useless while A/B/C are absolute must-spams to stay competitive)


But then perhaps I also don't feel so negative over the huge sweeping changes because I'm a die-hard Tzeentch player, and change is what we're all about!

I hope people realize that Cavalry isn't slowed by terrain...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I hope people realize that Cavalry isn't slowed by terrain...

I think people for the most part simply underestimate just how fast Cavalry is to begin with.

Cavalry is awesome. It stinks that they still strike at I1 assaulting into terrain, though.

I don't know why they took grenades away from Slaanesh units. I guess GW really wants us to take Skull Cannons in the same army.

danp164 wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

danp164 wrote:
Has anyone thought that a large component of the doom and glooming is that Deamons went from what was really a small elite army, to a horde army with little to no warning?

5th Ed 10 Plaguebearers could stand up to an inordinate amount of firepower.

5th Ed 10 Bloodletters could panhandle anything without fear of loosing combat... ever.

5th Ed 10 Horrors would annihilate a whole unit of 4+ save shmucks.

These units are still good, but now function at a larger size mainly due to GW wanting to sell us more models. Nothing became bad its just the whole army shifted focus from small elite units to large hordes.

But hell that's just my observations....

Well to be air I'm glad daemons have become a horde army, when I imagine the spewing masses churning out of the belly of the warp, I imagine hordes of creatures, not just a hand full.

True but it doesn't mash well with the fluff making deamons out to be incredibly strong and tough to put down barring exorcism. but the problem isn't so much the fluff as the fact that deamons have always been expensive units fielded in small groups to great effect, this was quite a radical shift in design.

Except, that with all the OP 5th Ed. Codicex, it would impossible to keep Daemons like this without making them just as broken as Wolves, Crons, GK, and IG. As I see it (and by all means feel free to disagree since I've had very little experience with Daemons until this new codex) making them semi-hoardy was the only way to make them viable while still somewhat sticking to the fluff and NOT making them broken like the 5th ed codices. GW really seems to want to make 6th codices (somehwhat) balanced with each other, for better or for worse.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Cavalry is awesome. It stinks that they still strike at I1 assaulting into terrain, though.

They don't, though. They treat all difficult terrain as dangerous instead. Your I is only reduced if you charge through difficult terrain, which Cavalry doesn't ever do.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Cavalry is awesome. It stinks that they still strike at I1 assaulting into terrain, though.

I don't know why they took grenades away from Slaanesh units. I guess GW really wants us to take Skull Cannons in the same army.

Except with 'counts as' conversions, this is a very, very horrible idea to give to Slaanesh players...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Cavalry is awesome. It stinks that they still strike at I1 assaulting into terrain, though.

They don't, though. They treat all difficult terrain as dangerous instead. Your I is only reduced if you charge through difficult terrain, which Cavalry doesn't ever do.

Sadly it doesn't matter whether you treat it as something else. Read the main rulebook FAQ.

 Mannahnin wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Cavalry is awesome. It stinks that they still strike at I1 assaulting into terrain, though.

They don't, though. They treat all difficult terrain as dangerous instead. Your I is only reduced if you charge through difficult terrain, which Cavalry doesn't ever do.

Sadly it doesn't matter whether you treat it as something else. Read the main rulebook FAQ.

Oh, right you are. That's pretty silly.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Cavalry is awesome. It stinks that they still strike at I1 assaulting into terrain, though.

They don't, though. They treat all difficult terrain as dangerous instead. Your I is only reduced if you charge through difficult terrain, which Cavalry doesn't ever do.

That's not true. The BRB FAQ says that models that "ignore terrain" when moving (such as Beasts, Cavalry, or Harlequins) still strike at I1 when assaulting through terrain if they don't have grenades.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Cavalry is awesome. It stinks that they still strike at I1 assaulting into terrain, though.

I don't know why they took grenades away from Slaanesh units. I guess GW really wants us to take Skull Cannons in the same army.

Except with 'counts as' conversions, this is a very, very horrible idea to give to Slaanesh players...

Why?

Khorne/Slaanesh is one of the most iconic ways to bring the intra-Chaos rivalry, hostility and in-fighting to the table that pervades and arguably even defines the Chaos background (Nurgle-Tzeentch being the other).

 Zweischneid wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Cavalry is awesome. It stinks that they still strike at I1 assaulting into terrain, though.

I don't know why they took grenades away from Slaanesh units. I guess GW really wants us to take Skull Cannons in the same army.

Except with 'counts as' conversions, this is a very, very horrible idea to give to Slaanesh players...

Why?

Khorne/Slaanesh is one of the most iconic ways to bring the intra-Chaos rivalry, hostility and in-fighting to the table that pervades and arguably even defines the Chaos background (Nurgle-Tzeentch being the other).

Um...I think that he's insinuating that a Slaanesh player who likes to model will turn a Khorne Skullcannon into a counts-as Phallic Chariot instead...

-I realize a MOD probably would have adjusted any other word I'd use in place of "phallic"


Could you imagine all the daemonettes rubbing all over that thing though?

With a quick jerking action the daemonettes launch globules of death, suppressing enemy units it hits.

Tau Marker(black)lights receive a +1 to fire at units that have been hit by these daemonic warmachines.


How quickly can we get this locked?

That's enough guys.

Moving away from the Cannon.

I'm trying to put together a Khorne Hunting Party list. However I cannot think of anything that'll reliably deal with AV14.

Currently it looks like this:


The Heralds each join a hound squad (Holy Number, what?) and the letters are there to fufill the troops choices. This runs at 1280 points.

I had thought of chucking in some Bloodcrushers as well for more turn 2 assaulty goodness however I figure at this points level I'll have to deal with AV14. Any ideas for 1500 or 1850?

 Redbeard wrote:
Yes, you can roast guardsmen, but big deal, you will usually be playing marines.

Maybe in your local meta. Look at the entries for the bay area open. In the top 50 tables 58% of them were not MEQ. The concept that you face mostly MEQ is not true in today's large tournaments.

 Redbeard wrote:
I haven't seen splinter cannons in a game since the week after 6e hit and everyone stopped playing Dark Eldar. You know what I have seen a lot of? S8(+) weapons.

OrdoSean, who won Templecon 2013 ran a dark eldar army. He had eight splinter cannons. Apparently he did not get the memo that everyone stopped playing dark eldar . If you see him at Adepticon this year, perhaps you can tell him that he's playing the wrong army. You can look for him at the top tables.

LValx wrote: The biggest weakness seems to be the overwhelming amount of units that serve one purpose, assault, in a shooting based meta-game.

To be fair, that's a pretty glaring big weakness.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Flamers are in no way underpowered. Just because you no longer outright ignore MEQ saves does not make a unit crap. And Flamers do make-up for the lack of ap3 - they kept their newer T4/W2 profile and now re-roll failed 1's to save on top of it. (and the Pyrocaster has a 33% chance to gain a non-Warpflame S5 template if you feel inclined to take a chance...)

They also are no longer forced to Deep Strike into play and thus severely limit their first round of shooting. They can now deploy normally and are still Jump Infantry giving them solid mobility and the ability to hug cover/LoS blocking terrain.

Risk vs reward is still heavily in the favour of the Flamers. 3+ saves be damned when you're inflicting 40+ auto-hits against that marine unit! ...

Okay, when discussing risk vs reward, it's good to have an idea what you're risking. How many flamers are you running to get 40+ hits on a unit of ten marines? And is the marine player unaware that you have flamers in your army and bunching his guys up for you?

Under the old codex (not the OP WD update), I thought that the 35ppm (105 point 3-man unit) was a reasonable risk for the reward that, if they landed right, they could kill a squad of marines before dying. The reward is a net of about 180 points, the risk is 105, and they'd hit or get close enough maybe half the time. To get 10 kills, you'd need to get about 20 guys under the template, so you'd be looking for about seven hits per flamer.

To kill the same 10 marines now, you need to inflict 30 wounds, which is 60 hits. But there's no way you're getting max hits with each template, so expecting seven hits per guy is unrealistic, and you're probably hoping for an average of 5, with the flamers at the front getting more, and the ones in the back getting less (or none) due to suboptimal angles. So you're looking at a squad size of 12? So that's roughly 280 points to kill the 180 points of marines, and this is now somehow a reasonable risk vs reward? I guess the risk that you lose the whole squad is lessened, but I'm just not seeing the positive payoff in this unit anymore.

(And 5++ re-rolling 1's is worse than a 4++ (It's about 39%).

I have ran several test games with the new codex. All in all, it is balanced against the new 6th edition books.
It is not balanced against Grey Knights. Not buy a long shot.

I tested it in 3 games with various configurations against a Coteaz Henchman + Purifier build. It fails miserably. It simply can't deal
with the firepower; even when using Icons+Instruments and hugging cover. 1 turn of shooting is all an optimized GK build needs to do
enough damage that the daemon player really can't recover.

I haven't tested it against Draigo Wing yet, but I don't think it will fare well. It doesn't have an answer to the Paladins in assault, and can't
do much damage to them with shooting.

The codex is really awesome from a 6th edition perspective. Against Chaos Space Marines or Dark Angels it performs fine. It also performs fine against
Orks, Vanilla Marines, & Eldar. Optimized Grey Knight, Necron, Dark Eldar, & IG builds are really bad matchups. The codex simply doesn't have a good answer.

NoArmorSave wrote:

have ran several test games with the new codex. All in all, it is balanced against the new 6th edition books. The codex is really awesome from a 6th edition perspective. Against Chaos Space Marines or Dark Angels it performs fine. It also performs fine against Orks, Vanilla Marines, & Eldar. Optimized Grey Knight, Necron, Dark Eldar, & IG builds are really bad matchups. The codex simply doesn't have a good answer.

Actually, I think DA and Orks will beat the crap out of the Daemons (the former will use Rad Grenades and Termies, the later does the same as the CD, only cheaper and better). And Biomancy Spam Nids will be also a very bad matchup. But Daemons will eat C:SM and CSM for breakfast, that's granted.

 AtoMaki wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:

have ran several test games with the new codex. All in all, it is balanced against the new 6th edition books. The codex is really awesome from a 6th edition perspective. Against Chaos Space Marines or Dark Angels it performs fine. It also performs fine against Orks, Vanilla Marines, & Eldar. Optimized Grey Knight, Necron, Dark Eldar, & IG builds are really bad matchups. The codex simply doesn't have a good answer.

Actually, I think DA and Orks will beat the crap out of the Daemons (the former will use Rad Grenades and Termies, the later does the same as the CD, only cheaper and better). And Biomancy Spam Nids will be also a very bad matchup. But Daemons will eat C:SM and CSM for breakfast, that's granted.

my humble 1500pt Salamander list managed a win against the new demons last week.....I didn't get eaten for breakfast. I don't even have Vulkan before you ask.

Another subtle nerf on flamers that I didn't notice until today - now they can't wound anything further away than 8 inches.

When the FAQ changed the rule on wounding outside of range, it didn't really bother flamers because they used to have the 18 inch shooting attack. Now they don't, so they can't wound anything the template can't reach.

Truly a useless unit now, comparatively. Though to be fair Redbeard, they didn't have a 4++ after the WD update. It was just a 5++.

 Redbeard wrote:

Okay, when discussing risk vs reward, it's good to have an idea what you're risking. How many flamers are you running to get 40+ hits on a unit of ten marines? And is the marine player unaware that you have flamers in your army and bunching his guys up for you?

Under the old codex (not the OP WD update), I thought that the 35ppm (105 point 3-man unit) was a reasonable risk for the reward that, if they landed right, they could kill a squad of marines before dying. The reward is a net of about 180 points, the risk is 105, and they'd hit or get close enough maybe half the time. To get 10 kills, you'd need to get about 20 guys under the template, so you'd be looking for about seven hits per flamer.

To kill the same 10 marines now, you need to inflict 30 wounds, which is 60 hits. But there's no way you're getting max hits with each template, so expecting seven hits per guy is unrealistic, and you're probably hoping for an average of 5, with the flamers at the front getting more, and the ones in the back getting less (or none) due to suboptimal angles. So you're looking at a squad size of 12? So that's roughly 280 points to kill the 180 points of marines, and this is now somehow a reasonable risk vs reward? I guess the risk that you lose the whole squad is lessened, but I'm just not seeing the positive payoff in this unit anymore.

(And 5++ re-rolling 1's is worse than a 4++ (It's about 39%).

The old 3-man Suicide squads were simply one-shot deals that you used to deal with something nasty without your opponent being able to counter it until they'd alreasy lost an unit/most of a unit.

The new ones are no longer those 'easy-button' suicide solutions. But they are pretty damn good since they're still T4/W2 and have a better save than they did in the WD update. You simply use them differently now. Deep Striking them is no longer a viable way to deploy them because you lose out on templates. But being able to deploy normally and with a 12" movement/turn means you should be able to hug cover/keep out of sight while advancing towards your intended target.

9 Flamers is still only 207pts which is pretty much on-par cost-wise with an average Tactical squad. (10 marines + power toy + plasma/missile launcher) Those 9 Flamers will likely average 5 hits per model between them - that's 45 hits which is an average of 7.425 dead marines.
Those last 3 survivors do what now? Shoot you? They're not garanteed to still have their missile launcher left alive while the plasma gun is riskier than a bolter for no gain. Even 3 rapid-firing bolters is of little concern. Do they assault you? 9 Flamers with their Wall of Death reaction averages 2-3 dead MEQ's so what, the Sergeant deals a couple wounds and then gets gangbeaten in return?!

That's a pretty good trade. You'll still likely take-out at least one entire unit/most of it, and now your opponent is forced to turn attention to your Flamers. (and away from other threats). And unless your opponent is spamming the crap out of S8, it's still going to take some effort to remove 18/T4/5++ re-rolling 1's worth of wounds. Opponent's will almost certainly be spending far more pts to kill off your Flamers than what your Flamers are worth, so again, you come out ahead.

NoArmorSave wrote:
I have ran several test games with the new codex. All in all, it is balanced against the new 6th edition books.
It is not balanced against Grey Knights. Not buy a long shot.

I tested it in 3 games with various configurations against a Coteaz Henchman + Purifier build. It fails miserably. It simply can't deal
with the firepower; even when using Icons+Instruments and hugging cover. 1 turn of shooting is all an optimized GK build needs to do
enough damage that the daemon player really can't recover.

I haven't tested it against Draigo Wing yet, but I don't think it will fare well. It doesn't have an answer to the Paladins in assault, and can't
do much damage to them with shooting.

This is not surprising in the least, and yet should not be seen as a symptom of Daemons being weak, but rather the GK book being far too good vs a specific army to the point it's an instant hard-counter. (which is horrible game design)

Against Knights, I get the feeling that heavy Slaanesh w/minimum sized Plaguebearer units for objective camping is they way to go. High initiative, very fast, rending for TEQ killing and characters who are easy to turn into beatsticks. (Locus of Beguilement + Greater Etherblade will chop apart GK's fairly well)
Back it up with Grinders for ap3 pie-plates and leave all the big expensive monsters at home because htose pointy-death sticks + Daemonbane will eat them for lunch.

NoArmorSave wrote:
The codex is really awesome from a 6th edition perspective. Against Chaos Space Marines or Dark Angels it performs fine. It also performs fine against Orks, Vanilla Marines, & Eldar. Optimized Grey Knight, Necron, Dark Eldar, & IG builds are really bad matchups. The codex simply doesn't have a good answer.

I agree, so far it's probably a slight bit ahead of both CSM's & DA's, but nowhere near the codex creep that ruined 5th.

Necron tesla spam will hurt Daemons big time though due to how brutal it makes their Overwatch, while the Flying French Bakery will simply be an outright rush to see if you can wipe the one or two small on-table squads before the aircraft come into play.
Most of the local IG players either run gunlines/bad leafblower still or else flyer spam. Nurgle with decent amounts of cover will laugh at static gunlines with their 2++ cover saves, while a Horror spam + Nurgle Grinders could prove to be a pain for Vendetta spam due to all the S6/7. Horrors backed-up by divination could concievibly glance those flyers to death while those lascannons do little in return against them.

Interesting times to say the least!

 AtoMaki wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:

have ran several test games with the new codex. All in all, it is balanced against the new 6th edition books. The codex is really awesome from a 6th edition perspective. Against Chaos Space Marines or Dark Angels it performs fine. It also performs fine against Orks, Vanilla Marines, & Eldar. Optimized Grey Knight, Necron, Dark Eldar, & IG builds are really bad matchups. The codex simply doesn't have a good answer.

Actually, I think DA and Orks will beat the crap out of the Daemons (the former will use Rad Grenades and Termies, the later does the same as the CD, only cheaper and better). And Biomancy Spam Nids will be also a very bad matchup. But Daemons will eat C:SM and CSM for breakfast, that's granted.

It destroyed a competitive Ork army in testing. Daemons can out assault Orks. And the Rad Grenades and Termies aren't a big deal against massed T3 rending models.

Biomancy Spam Nids would be bad, especially with a couple of Flyrants.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

Okay, when discussing risk vs reward, it's good to have an idea what you're risking. How many flamers are you running to get 40+ hits on a unit of ten marines? And is the marine player unaware that you have flamers in your army and bunching his guys up for you?

Under the old codex (not the OP WD update), I thought that the 35ppm (105 point 3-man unit) was a reasonable risk for the reward that, if they landed right, they could kill a squad of marines before dying. The reward is a net of about 180 points, the risk is 105, and they'd hit or get close enough maybe half the time. To get 10 kills, you'd need to get about 20 guys under the template, so you'd be looking for about seven hits per flamer.

To kill the same 10 marines now, you need to inflict 30 wounds, which is 60 hits. But there's no way you're getting max hits with each template, so expecting seven hits per guy is unrealistic, and you're probably hoping for an average of 5, with the flamers at the front getting more, and the ones in the back getting less (or none) due to suboptimal angles. So you're looking at a squad size of 12? So that's roughly 280 points to kill the 180 points of marines, and this is now somehow a reasonable risk vs reward? I guess the risk that you lose the whole squad is lessened, but I'm just not seeing the positive payoff in this unit anymore.

(And 5++ re-rolling 1's is worse than a 4++ (It's about 39%).

The old 3-man Suicide squads were simply one-shot deals that you used to deal with something nasty without your opponent being able to counter it until they'd alreasy lost an unit/most of a unit.

The new ones are no longer those 'easy-button' suicide solutions. But they are pretty damn good since they're still T4/W2 and have a better save than they did in the WD update. You simply use them differently now. Deep Striking them is no longer a viable way to deploy them because you lose out on templates. But being able to deploy normally and with a 12" movement/turn means you should be able to hug cover/keep out of sight while advancing towards your intended target.

9 Flamers is still only 207pts which is pretty much on-par cost-wise with an average Tactical squad. (10 marines + power toy + plasma/missile launcher) Those 9 Flamers will likely average 5 hits per model between them - that's 45 hits which is an average of 7.425 dead marines.
Those last 3 survivors do what now? Shoot you? They're not garanteed to still have their missile launcher left alive while the plasma gun is riskier than a bolter for no gain. Even 3 rapid-firing bolters is of little concern. Do they assault you? 9 Flamers with their Wall of Death reaction averages 2-3 dead MEQ's so what, the Sergeant deals a couple wounds and then gets gangbeaten in return?!

That's a pretty good trade. You'll still likely take-out at least one entire unit/most of it, and now your opponent is forced to turn attention to your Flamers. (and away from other threats). And unless your opponent is spamming the crap out of S8, it's still going to take some effort to remove 18/T4/5++ re-rolling 1's worth of wounds. Opponent's will almost certainly be spending far more pts to kill off your Flamers than what your Flamers are worth, so again, you come out ahead.

NoArmorSave wrote:
I have ran several test games with the new codex. All in all, it is balanced against the new 6th edition books.
It is not balanced against Grey Knights. Not buy a long shot.

I tested it in 3 games with various configurations against a Coteaz Henchman + Purifier build. It fails miserably. It simply can't deal
with the firepower; even when using Icons+Instruments and hugging cover. 1 turn of shooting is all an optimized GK build needs to do
enough damage that the daemon player really can't recover.

I haven't tested it against Draigo Wing yet, but I don't think it will fare well. It doesn't have an answer to the Paladins in assault, and can't
do much damage to them with shooting.

This is not surprising in the least, and yet should not be seen as a symptom of Daemons being weak, but rather the GK book being far too good vs a specific army to the point it's an instant hard-counter. (which is horrible game design)

Against Knights, I get the feeling that heavy Slaanesh w/minimum sized Plaguebearer units for objective camping is they way to go. High initiative, very fast, rending for TEQ killing and characters who are easy to turn into beatsticks. (Locus of Beguilement + Greater Etherblade will chop apart GK's fairly well)
Back it up with Grinders for ap3 pie-plates and leave all the big expensive monsters at home because htose pointy-death sticks + Daemonbane will eat them for lunch.

NoArmorSave wrote:
The codex is really awesome from a 6th edition perspective. Against Chaos Space Marines or Dark Angels it performs fine. It also performs fine against Orks, Vanilla Marines, & Eldar. Optimized Grey Knight, Necron, Dark Eldar, & IG builds are really bad matchups. The codex simply doesn't have a good answer.

I agree, so far it's probably a slight bit ahead of both CSM's & DA's, but nowhere near the codex creep that ruined 5th.

Necron tesla spam will hurt Daemons big time though due to how brutal it makes their Overwatch, while the Flying French Bakery will simply be an outright rush to see if you can wipe the one or two small on-table squads before the aircraft come into play.
Most of the local IG players either run gunlines/bad leafblower still or else flyer spam. Nurgle with decent amounts of cover will laugh at static gunlines with their 2++ cover saves, while a Horror spam + Nurgle Grinders could prove to be a pain for Vendetta spam due to all the S6/7. Horrors backed-up by divination could concievibly glance those flyers to death while those lascannons do little in return against them.

Interesting times to say the least!

I tested massed Slaanesh against GK. It fails against an optimized shooty GK build. The amount of damage the daemons usually take in the shooting phase is pure destruction.

All in all, I am dissapointed in the new book from a competitive game play perspective. As a point of reference, I own around 20K of Daemons, and have been playing them since mid 5th.

NoArmorSave wrote:
I tested massed Slaanesh against GK. It fails against an optimized shooty GK build. The amount of damage the daemons usually take in the shooting phase is pure destruction.

All in all, I am dissapointed in the new book from a competitive game play perspective. As a point of reference, I own around 20K of Daemons, and have been playing them since mid 5th.

I think were going to see that a lot. IG/GK shooty armies will cause a lot of problems for daemons, as they can erase entire squads at a time. This is true when you have squads that are extremely tough like paladins. What build did your opponent bring?

I think were going to see some changes to daemons and how they operate. I expect the 'net lists' people are throwing up will have some weaknesses that people will learn and work around. In a game I played this weekend I faced a shooty IG army that could put out over 100 STR 5/6 shots a turn. It should have completely rolled over my daemons, yet I pulled out a win. A big reason for this was fateweaver -- despite how people say he got nurfed to uselessness.

If your really unhappy with your daemons, I suggest ebaying them, or at least shelving them. If you think the grass is greener on the GK side, I am sure you can trade for some GK at bartertown.com. I want to give you a warning though, GK are having a tough time in the world of triple helldrake. Anything not in a land raider/storm raven that does not have a 2+ save will be deep fried vs any CSM player.

 labmouse42 wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:
I tested massed Slaanesh against GK. It fails against an optimized shooty GK build. The amount of damage the daemons usually take in the shooting phase is pure destruction.

All in all, I am dissapointed in the new book from a competitive game play perspective. As a point of reference, I own around 20K of Daemons, and have been playing them since mid 5th.

I think were going to see that a lot. IG/GK shooty armies will cause a lot of problems for daemons, as they can erase entire squads at a time. This is true when you have squads that are extremely tough like paladins. What build did your opponent bring?

I think were going to see some changes to daemons and how they operate. I expect the 'net lists' people are throwing up will have some weaknesses that people will learn and work around. In a game I played this weekend I faced a shooty IG army that could put out over 100 STR 5/6 shots a turn. It should have completely rolled over my daemons, yet I pulled out a win. A big reason for this was fateweaver -- despite how people say he got nurfed to uselessness.

If your really unhappy with your daemons, I suggest ebaying them, or at least shelving them. If you think the grass is greener on the GK side, I am sure you can trade for some GK at bartertown.com. I want to give you a warning though, GK are having a tough time in the world of triple helldrake. Anything not in a land raider/storm raven that does not have a 2+ save will be deep fried vs any CSM player.

I will never sell my Daemons, as I love the models. I have spent too much time painting them, and the rules are still playable. As far as GK, I already have around 10K of them, mostly painted.
I play both armies and understand the matchup well. Triple Helldrake is tough until it meets Draigo Wing.

The playtesting I did against daemons was Coteaz, 3 squads of 10x Purifiers with 4x Psycannons each in Chimeras from Acolytes, 6x Acolytes in Psybacks, 3x Psyrifleman, Aegis+Icarus

Nice battle report BTW.

 labmouse42 wrote:
If you think the grass is greener on the GK side, I am sure you can trade for some GK at bartertown.com. I want to give you a warning though, GK are having a tough time in the world of triple helldrake.

While we have only two GK players in my area, they tend to do well against Helldrakes. S8 Rifleman dreads are not bad at shooting them down, andnthey can get cheap bodies to boost numbers and volume of fire to attack the meat of the enemy army at least as fast as the drake can nuke troops. Though to be fair, I've only seen CSM fielding 2 of them at the same time. I use one, and half the time it blows up the turn it enters the table due to aegis quad-guns.

I think eventually CD will spawn a competitive list...based on an exploit or gimmick, like the Eldrad/Vect/Harliestar build for DE. It's still a far cry from saying the book is well-designed for competitive play ( i.e, offers varied, effective builds).

NoArmorSave wrote:
I will never sell my Daemons, as I love the models. I have spent too much time painting them, and the rules are still playable. As far as GK, I already have around 10K of them, mostly painted.
I play both armies and understand the matchup well. Triple Helldrake is tough until it meets Draigo Wing.

The playtesting I did against daemons was Coteaz, 3 squads of 10x Purifiers with 4x Psycannons each in Chimeras from Acolytes, 6x Acolytes in Psybacks, 3x Psyrifleman, Aegis+Icarus

I understand the love of models. I was just suggesting a way to help keep you from feeling like you need to give up on the hobby.

Look at the list you faced. While that list will tear up a slaanesh assault list, it will be clobbered by any helldrake list. Look at the Bay Area Open results. This was the latest big event, so its the best point of reference we have. 3/10 of the top 10 players had CSM allies or were CSM. Helldrakes are extremely common in tourneys today.

Therefore, would someone bring all those purifiers and Acolytes? Maybe, but odds are they will drop to the bottom tables pretty quickly. Competitive players with GK will be playing draigowing to survive the helldrake spam.

Therefore, your game was a test of worst-matchup for the slaanesh army. Sometimes that can be good so you can learn the weaknesses that you might have! However, you should not be suprised that you were clobbered by it. On the other hand, if your playing in tourneys your probably not going to see that GK army in the hands of a good player. in fact calling the codex 'not competitive' by losing to its worst case matchup thats unlikley does not seem fair, does it?

Either way, it should be food for thought as to what to do. Perhaps all slaanesh is not the way to go. Maybe you need to balance it out with some plaguebearers/horrors to ensure you have some durability to shooting and some shooting of your own. Horrors, for example, will demolish razorbacks every round due to volume of STR 6 shots. Having the invulnerable fateweaver was very strong and would have wrecked havoc on the army you faced (beam attacks across multiple vehicles)

We just don't know yet. The codex has been out for a week!

 labmouse42 wrote:
...
Therefore, your game was a test of worst-matchup for the slaanesh army. Sometimes that can be good so you can learn the weaknesses that you might have! However, you should not be suprised that you were clobbered by it. On the other hand, if your playing in tourneys your probably not going to see that GK army in the hands of a good player. in fact calling the codex 'not competitive' by losing to its worst case matchup thats unlikley does not seem fair, does it?

I dunno, some would argue that in a tournament environment where one loss means you're out of the running, having any auto-loss matchup is the definition of non-competitive.

Your missing the point. Almost competitive player will bring that purifier list.

If your not going to take a list because there is a rock to its scissors your never going to play any army! Every army in 40k now has its counter. 6th edition has turned into rock-scissors-paper-lizard-spock.

The trick is to hedge your bets so you have the least number of unfavorable matchups in any one tourney. Odds are pretty good you will see more paladins/helldrakes today than purifiers.

I played against a mixed-god list last night with my Eldar, and I got crushed. His huge squad of Seekers was on my War Walkers and Rangers turn 2, even after I wiped out half of them (would have been more, but Night Fighting...) and took my lunch money.

Nurgle Soulgrinders hiding behind quad-guns with a 2+ cover save are disgusting, so are huge squads of Plaguebearers behind an Aegis.

If you're playing Xenos, deepstriking three-man Flamer squads are still scary, they wiped out most of a Harlequin squad and most of a Ranger squad (would have been all if the Farseer didn't make a bunch of saves).

He did lose a 20-man squad of Daemonettes after I charged them with Eldrad and one Harlequin, killed one model and tanked their saves, then have 20 Daemonettes roll boxcars on Instability and poof away.

The Lord of Change probably would have been scary, but he got in a sissy slapfight with Eldrad for about 6 rounds of combat.

NoArmorSave wrote:
I have ran several test games with the new codex. All in all, it is balanced against the new 6th edition books.
It is not balanced against Grey Knights. Not buy a long shot.

I tested it in 3 games with various configurations against a Coteaz Henchman + Purifier build. It fails miserably. It simply can't deal
with the firepower; even when using Icons+Instruments and hugging cover. 1 turn of shooting is all an optimized GK build needs to do
enough damage that the daemon player really can't recover.

I haven't tested it against Draigo Wing yet, but I don't think it will fare well. It doesn't have an answer to the Paladins in assault, and can't
do much damage to them with shooting.

The codex is really awesome from a 6th edition perspective. Against Chaos Space Marines or Dark Angels it performs fine. It also performs fine against
Orks, Vanilla Marines, & Eldar. Optimized Grey Knight, Necron, Dark Eldar, & IG builds are really bad matchups. The codex simply doesn't have a good answer.

Ouch! It appears that there are several buiids out there the Daemons may have trouble with. DA with the banner of devastating and triple Land Raiders could also be an uphill battle. The same goes for Nids.

 labmouse42 wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:
I will never sell my Daemons, as I love the models. I have spent too much time painting them, and the rules are still playable. As far as GK, I already have around 10K of them, mostly painted.
I play both armies and understand the matchup well. Triple Helldrake is tough until it meets Draigo Wing.

The playtesting I did against daemons was Coteaz, 3 squads of 10x Purifiers with 4x Psycannons each in Chimeras from Acolytes, 6x Acolytes in Psybacks, 3x Psyrifleman, Aegis+Icarus

I understand the love of models. I was just suggesting a way to help keep you from feeling like you need to give up on the hobby.

Look at the list you faced. While that list will tear up a slaanesh assault list, it will be clobbered by any helldrake list. Look at the Bay Area Open results. This was the latest big event, so its the best point of reference we have. 3/10 of the top 10 players had CSM allies or were CSM. Helldrakes are extremely common in tourneys today.

Therefore, would someone bring all those purifiers and Acolytes? Maybe, but odds are they will drop to the bottom tables pretty quickly. Competitive players with GK will be playing draigowing to survive the helldrake spam.

Therefore, your game was a test of worst-matchup for the slaanesh army. Sometimes that can be good so you can learn the weaknesses that you might have! However, you should not be suprised that you were clobbered by it. On the other hand, if your playing in tourneys your probably not going to see that GK army in the hands of a good player. in fact calling the codex 'not competitive' by losing to its worst case matchup thats unlikley does not seem fair, does it?

Either way, it should be food for thought as to what to do. Perhaps all slaanesh is not the way to go. Maybe you need to balance it out with some plaguebearers/horrors to ensure you have some durability to shooting and some shooting of your own. Horrors, for example, will demolish razorbacks every round due to volume of STR 6 shots. Having the invulnerable fateweaver was very strong and would have wrecked havoc on the army you faced (beam attacks across multiple vehicles)

We just don't know yet. The codex has been out for a week!

Actually, that Purifier list can be very good against Helldrakes. twinlinked Icarus lascannon (thanks to Coteaz Prescience), 16x twinlinked psycannon shots, 32x Psycannon shots, and 12x twinlinked psycannon shots, not to mention the STR6 Psybacks and Multilasers that can glance or
pen on year armour shots. If anything, I think the Purifier list will make a comeback, as Warpquake is not as desperately needed now after the flamer\screamer nerf.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
I played against a mixed-god list last night with my Eldar, and I got crushed. His huge squad of Seekers was on my War Walkers and Rangers turn 2, even after I wiped out half of them (would have been more, but Night Fighting...) and took my lunch money.

Nurgle Soulgrinders hiding behind quad-guns with a 2+ cover save are disgusting, so are huge squads of Plaguebearers behind an Aegis.

If you're playing Xenos, deepstriking three-man Flamer squads are still scary, they wiped out most of a Harlequin squad and most of a Ranger squad (would have been all if the Farseer didn't make a bunch of saves).

He did lose a 20-man squad of Daemonettes after I charged them with Eldrad and one Harlequin, killed one model and tanked their saves, then have 20 Daemonettes roll boxcars on Instability and poof away.

The Lord of Change probably would have been scary, but he got in a sissy slapfight with Eldrad for about 6 rounds of combat.

I think I saw this game. It was on Vassal right?

A previous post said that Daemons should play well against CSM, but what if the CSM army brought Land Raiders?
Triple LR?

I can see there being a problem for Daemons who face any MEQ with an AV 14 vehicle. Especially as the Daemon units who can smash vehicles do that best in melee with the MC's, who all cost a gak ton of points, and can be lascannoned to death.

Selym wrote:
A previous post said that Daemons should play well against CSM, but what if the CSM army brought Land Raiders?
Triple LR?

I can see there being a problem for Daemons who face any MEQ with an AV 14 vehicle. Especially as the Daemon units who can smash vehicles do that best in melee with the MC's, who all cost a gak ton of points, and can be lascannoned to death.

AV14 Counters: Screamers, Soul Grinders, Daemon Princes, Greater Daemons, Bolt of Change, Plague Bearers, Plague Drones, Flaming Chariot

NoArmorSave wrote:

Selym wrote:
A previous post said that Daemons should play well against CSM, but what if the CSM army brought Land Raiders?
Triple LR?

I can see there being a problem for Daemons who face any MEQ with an AV 14 vehicle. Especially as the Daemon units who can smash vehicles do that best in melee with the MC's, who all cost a gak ton of points, and can be lascannoned to death.

AV14 Counters: Screamers, Soul Grinders, Daemon Princes, Greater Daemons, Bolt of Change, Plague Bearers, Plague Drones, Flaming Chariot

Well alrighty then.

Another thing to consider with the new Daemon Codex is terrain on the table.

If there is a lot of terrain on the table (the way I like to play), than they can be quite strong.

I personally like to play Cities of Death, and I think the new Daemons could really shine in that enviornment.

The biggest weakness of the codex is the inability to handle heavy fire power. It just does too much damage to them, and
they don't have good ways to mitigate it. Lot's of terrain on the table helps with that.

I played a game this weekend with friends. 3 way battle for KP. Warlord and FB gave extra points and wipe off did not matter (could win even if you were off the table)

I took the slaanesh build i have posted HERE

My opponents were DA, Belial with command squad, Knights, 2 squads termies, one group of bikes and a Vindicator.
and Necrons Nemesor, Obyron, 2 CC lords, 3 spiders + scarabs, Doomsday, Annihilation barge, Teslamortals + Veiltek, Teslamortals + destrotek In NS.

We rolled to see who deployed on start of game one and 1 person would come in random table edge on turn 2
My daemons and the DA were up first.
2 Nette squads reserved everything else on table. Seekers + starting nettes did pull off a 2nd turn assault seekers ended up plowing into Belial and company while nettes smashed into Knights. Belial died first turn of the combat thanks to beguile, Greater Eitherblade, and Warlord trait ID on my Mounted Herald. The command squad did not fair much better. The seekers did not wipe them out first round but there were only 2 left which would b dispatched next round of CC.

The nettes got buffed by invis prior to smashing into the knights. They took much longer to finish off the unit, thanks in most part to the knights 3++, I think it took 3 or 4 rounds of combat to kill off the 5 knights. but the nettes came out relatively unscathed. I think i lost 3 of my original 18.

I only once lost combat the entire game and had to make a DI test...at a 7... which i amazingly passed It was VS the necron player. He had put obyron + 2 cc lords + Nemesor into one unit and they were particularly hard to get rid of. They were also fighting one group of nettes that were by that time about 14 strong. my rending rolls were supremely underwhelming otherwise I believe they would have wiped the unit faster. eventually I was able to knock down all 3 models and not allow him to get back up.

I eventually won our 3 way game, I had one unit of 14 nettes left on the table end of game turn 4 when we called it. the Necrons had only lost the unit with nemesor oby and 2 lords, and the unit of 3 spiders, everything else was on the table. The DA player had been wiped off and had scored 0 points. I had scored 10 and the necron player had scored 7. Being unable to catch up to me in points we decided to call it.

Observations of this game
Heralds are force multipliers is the understatement of the century. Beguile alone on a group of nettes or seekers is awesome!!! give them ML2 and roll on telepathy, If you get invis GREAT this helps with shooting defence AND melee defence (opponent swings at WS1) if you get Puppet master, GREAT Shoot them with their own damn tank, if you get hallucinate, GREAT good chance to either make them hit themselves or stand there looking stupid while your unit tears them appart.

Our Troops are nothing to laugh at. Nettes alone were able to smash termies and knights into the ground as well as the small CC necron unit AND spiders.
Dont Run MSU, Daemon troops (nettes specifically) have always been glass cannon. but now you can take them in numbers enough to actually deliver the blow.

TEQ is wet toilet paper VS Slaanesh, (obvious)
Gun Line offers bigger problems but speed and Invis (luck) can get you into the fight where you are safe from the rest of the army shooting.
Warp Storm sux but adds character. I had bad storm rolls in the 4 turns we played. Tzeench attacks hit nothing, -1 Inv, Calm, Calm. Not nearly as cool or as bothersome as I had anticipated.

Biggest downside is the low LD on heralds meaning your cool powers are not even going to manifest as often as most other psykers

With Tzeentch we'll most likely be getting our psychic powers off at LD 10 thanks to the mark.

Also should note, I had paid points for and taken the portal, Which I then completely forgot about. This ended up being a good thing as more small units of daemons would be a very bad thing in a KP game. I should have taken the grimoir and used it every turn.

This brings up the point that randomness can help us. Since rewards are rolled up after mission has been chosen you get to slightly tailor you list to fit not only your opponent but also your mission.

Its not a huge factor, but it is another one to consider

NoArmorSave wrote:

I think I saw this game. It was on Vassal right?

Yeah it was.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:

I think I saw this game. It was on Vassal right?

Yeah it was.

I saw that game

Eldercaveman wrote:

 MandalorynOranj wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:

I think I saw this game. It was on Vassal right?

Yeah it was.

I saw that game

I feel like a celebrity now

I did some more playtesting with an optimized MOSTLY all Khorne list.

Khorne Herald, Blood Throne, Exalted Locus of Wrath, Exalted Gift (Grimoire of True Names)
9 Bloodcrushers, Icon, Instrument, Bloodhunter, Axe of Khorne
10 Bloodletters, Instrument
10 Bloodletters, Instrument
Skull Cannon of Khorne
Soul Grinder of Khorne
14 Flesh Hounds
15 Flesh Hounds
10 Plaguebearers
10 Plaguebearers
Soul Grinder of Nurgle, Phlegm Bombardment

Aegis Defense Line, Comms Relay

1999

First game was against an Optimized DE Venom Spam build. I tabled him; it was a slaughter. The venoms couldn't eat thru the Khorne Dogs fast enough (they were in ruins), and everything deep striked perfectly behind his lines.
During one of the shooting phase, I got the Khorne's Wrath warp storm result. It did a fair amount of damage, and was very enjoyable.

Second game was against an Optimized Coteaz-Purifier-Henchman build. They bent the Khorne list over really hard. The Khorne dogs destroyed a couple of Chimeras, but once they got into assault the Purifiers wiped them out.
Shooting destroyed all of the Bloodcrushers and 1 entire Bloodletter squad before they could assault. It was a massacre.

Going forward, I am going to decline to play Grey Knights in most situations with my daemons. The loss of eternal warrior is just too much; they are helpless in assault against Grey Knights. They will likely not make it there in the first
place because of the firepower. If they do make it there, anything beyond hordes of basic troopers or an Iron Armed GUO is just done.

NoArmorSave wrote:
I did some more playtesting with an optimized all Khorne list.

Khorne Herald, Blood Throne, Exalted Locus of Wrath, Exalted Gift (Grimoire of True Names)
9 Bloodcrushers, Icon, Instrument, Bloodhunter, Axe of Khorne
10 Bloodletters, Instrument
10 Bloodletters, Instrument
Skull Cannon of Khorne
Soul Grinder of Khorne
14 Flesh Hounds
15 Flesh Hounds
10 Plaguebearers
10 Plaguebearers
Soul Grinder of Nurgle, Phlegm Bombardment

Aegis Defense Line, Comms Relay

I feel a great disturbance in your force ...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

NoArmorSave wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:
I did some more playtesting with an optimized all Khorne list.

Khorne Herald, Blood Throne, Exalted Locus of Wrath, Exalted Gift (Grimoire of True Names)
9 Bloodcrushers, Icon, Instrument, Bloodhunter, Axe of Khorne
10 Bloodletters, Instrument
10 Bloodletters, Instrument
Skull Cannon of Khorne
Soul Grinder of Khorne
14 Flesh Hounds
15 Flesh Hounds
10 Plaguebearers
10 Plaguebearers
Soul Grinder of Nurgle, Phlegm Bombardment

Aegis Defense Line, Comms Relay

I feel a great disturbance in your force ...

Gotcha. I added the word MOSTLY. Happy now?

I am not happy about this matchup. I don't understand where GW is coming from on this. From a fluff perspective, GK should have some "bonuses" against Daemons. But auto win in most cases? They are sending a message.....

 labmouse42 wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
I don't trust you, because I know damn well what happened in my local area.

Dude.

People are speaking their own experiences on this forum. The world is a vast and broad place. Its quite possible that he played those games he mentioned and they turned out the way they did.

The only time we should question people like that is when they start talking about national events. You can call people out when they are talking about the common lists at Adepticon or NOVA. When people are talking about their own metas, lets give em the benifit of the doubt.

NoArmourSave basically said my experiences were outright wrong, because obviously his local environment didn't start pulling out the available counters. (or deploy them properly)
Hence why I said I didn't trust his self-claimed 'expertise' on the issue of Fatecrusher being 'the solid counter to GK's'.

Fatecrusher was a great list no doubt. Until Warp Quake ended it in my area. If other areas didn't start using Warp Quake to counter the list, then those GK players weren't (ab)using their codex to it's full potential.

The new codex is certainly competitive, even if Flamers and Screamers have been nerfed. The daemons get lots of cheap troops and the heralds are not overly expensive either. Tested a few games today and it managed to beat both SW and SoB (damn Celestine for not getting up with two tries).

Experiment 626 wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
I don't trust you, because I know damn well what happened in my local area.

Dude.

People are speaking their own experiences on this forum. The world is a vast and broad place. Its quite possible that he played those games he mentioned and they turned out the way they did.

The only time we should question people like that is when they start talking about national events. You can call people out when they are talking about the common lists at Adepticon or NOVA. When people are talking about their own metas, lets give em the benifit of the doubt.

NoArmourSave basically said my experiences were outright wrong, because obviously his local environment didn't start pulling out the available counters. (or deploy them properly)
Hence why I said I didn't trust his self-claimed 'expertise' on the issue of Fatecrusher being 'the solid counter to GK's'.

Fatecrusher was a great list no doubt. Until Warp Quake ended it in my area. If other areas didn't start using Warp Quake to counter the list, then those GK players weren't (ab)using their codex to it's full potential.

Actually, warp quake was only effective 50% of the time vs. Fatecrusher. If the GK player wen't first he could win (sometimes). If Fatecrusher wen't first, he would would most likely win.
In 5th, most GK players didn't play Warp Quake spam, because the TAC power builds (Draigo Wing, Purifier Spam) didn't use it, or used it in limited quantities. Sure you could tailor against Daemons, but that is another paradigm. I don't play competitively
against opponents that list tailor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spetulhu wrote:
The new codex is certainly competitive, even if Flamers and Screamers have been nerfed. The daemons get lots of cheap troops and the heralds are not overly expensive either. Tested a few games today and it managed to beat both SW and SoB (damn Celestine for not getting up with two tries).

But it's not competitive against Grey Knights. Which means taking a pure daemon list to a tournament with GK players is not going to go well.

A minimal daemon FOC with CSM allies can do much better against GK, but then what about the people that just want to play daemons. Shouldn't they have a fair chance?

Obviously no. 40K is beer and pretzels as far as GW is concerned.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
I don't trust you, because I know damn well what happened in my local area.

Dude.

People are speaking their own experiences on this forum. The world is a vast and broad place. Its quite possible that he played those games he mentioned and they turned out the way they did.

The only time we should question people like that is when they start talking about national events. You can call people out when they are talking about the common lists at Adepticon or NOVA. When people are talking about their own metas, lets give em the benifit of the doubt.

NoArmourSave basically said my experiences were outright wrong, because obviously his local environment didn't start pulling out the available counters. (or deploy them properly)
Hence why I said I didn't trust his self-claimed 'expertise' on the issue of Fatecrusher being 'the solid counter to GK's'.

Fatecrusher was a great list no doubt. Until Warp Quake ended it in my area. If other areas didn't start using Warp Quake to counter the list, then those GK players weren't (ab)using their codex to it's full potential.

I think your experiences are atypical. I was one of the only people in my area that played Daemons, and never had an issue with people tailoring in casual games. I always used an all-comers list and never had a problem with GK lists (note that I've never played against a full on Warp Quake spam list). I have never lost to a GK list (about 10 games total, about half of those in tournaments).

I realize that my sample size is small, but from what I can see, GK died like any other MEQ army to the old Daemon Codex, before or after the WD update.

NoArmorSave wrote:

Actually, warp quake was only effective 50% of the time vs. Fatecrusher. If the GK player wen't first he could win (sometimes). If Fatecrusher wen't first, he would would most likely win.
In 5th, most GK players didn't play Warp Quake spam, because the TAC power builds (Draigo Wing, Purifier Spam) didn't use it, or used it in limited quantities. Sure you could tailor against Daemons, but that is another paradigm. I don't play competitively
against opponents that list tailor.

Coteaz lists were far worse due to his own rule to re-roll the 'sieze the initiative' dice.
But still, when we knew that the local tourny would be populated by a high number of GK's, that 50/50 chance for Warp Quake to end Fatecrusher ment it wasn't a good list to bring anymore. Even 2 smaller 5-man combat squaded Interceptors created enough of an area that it would be pretty much impossible to bring those huge 'Crusher units + Fatey down within support range of eachother. (and 'Cepters w/Psycannons became quite the thing to tackle SW Missilefang spam as well)

Hence why I just quit the local tourny scene because GK's were everywhere and simply don't make for even a remotely enjoyable game.

NoArmorSave wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spetulhu wrote:
The new codex is certainly competitive, even if Flamers and Screamers have been nerfed. The daemons get lots of cheap troops and the heralds are not overly expensive either. Tested a few games today and it managed to beat both SW and SoB (damn Celestine for not getting up with two tries).

But it's not competitive against Grey Knights. Which means taking a pure daemon list to a tournament with GK players is not going to go well.

A minimal daemon FOC with CSM allies can do much better against GK, but then what about the people that just want to play daemons. Shouldn't they have a fair chance?

Obviously no. 40K is beer and pretzels as far as GW is concerned.

And that's not a problem of our codex. We'll simply have to continue to suck it up and take our lickings until the real problem gets addressed. (ie: Codex: Herp-Derp Knights)
If Kelly had for example given us rules to pick-on GK's, (and likely by extension other psykers), and/or artificially deflated our pts costs in order to make us competitive against GK's then we'd in turn be absolutely broken against everyone else!

Hopefully GW has learned their lesson that introducing an outright hard-counter/beatstick codex that singles out an entire faction is a horrible idea.
So for now, if you expect to see even a few GK armies at a competitive event, then Daemons probably aren't the #1 army to bring.

I always thought the Codex: Deamonhunters rule that let Chaos players indefinitely recycle Daemon units was a great idea for balancing the GKs' obvious advantage and added a cinematic element of 'GKs being deployed because of the overwhelming Deamonic infestation'.

I was surprised that this spot-on cinematic element got dropped whilst various questionable random elements were being added under that remit.

But then, let's just step back a little, here. Remember when the last CSM book came out, and everyone with a traditional hybrid list was left stuck with generic lesser and greater daemons who couldn't use their wings, magic staffs, or tentacles? And then the CD book came out, and proper Daemons suddenly only hung out with CSM in Apocalypse battles?

Coming from a 2ED perspective, when Daemons needed to be summoned by the faithful and GKs were something that, like LotD, generally come in to support beleaguered defenders and were very rarely sighted en mass, I'm finding it very comfortable to accept a game in which Daemons are either auxiliaries to CSM or traitors or even Xenos worshippers, or else appear as a main force that still has some mortal backup.

It's how it's been, historically, and I think it's fair to say that the past few years of 'pure' Daemons entering tournaments has been a transitional period to CSM getting a much bigger range of gribblies to summon without having a preposterously massive Codex, and renegade IG being fieldable without relying on obsolete EoT or FW rules.

CSM & Daemons looks great, has a rich history, and I see no reason to worry if their brief period of independence has ended and now they have to work together again to get results.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I guess what I'm trying to say is 'competitive Daemon army' feels to me kind of like 'competitive SM Scouts army' or 'competitive artillery company' or 'competitive Inquisitorial warband'. To me, there's a Chaos army that spans two codices and sometimes overlaps with others. There's nothing wrong with a 'pure' specialised army, but I'm not fussed if combined arms is the way to play effectively.

I have to admit the daemons dex is balanced, they added a table that has a random effect can be either interesting or humorous, I am not a WAAC kinda guy, in fact i am a khorne fan boy so already i am at a disadvantage when this edition is very good for shooting armies.

 wolfmerc wrote:
I have to admit the daemons dex is balanced, they added a table that has a random effect can be either interesting or humorous, I am not a WAAC kinda guy, in fact i am a khorne fan boy so already i am at a disadvantage when this edition is very good for shooting armies.

Considering Khorne now gets cheap soul grinders and a S8 cannon that ignores cover and basically gives you assault grenades, I wouldn't feel too bummed.

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

 wolfmerc wrote:
I have to admit the daemons dex is balanced, they added a table that has a random effect can be either interesting or humorous, I am not a WAAC kinda guy, in fact i am a khorne fan boy so already i am at a disadvantage when this edition is very good for shooting armies.

Considering Khorne now gets cheap soul grinders and a S8 cannon that ignores cover and basically gives you assault grenades, I wouldn't feel too bummed.

Not to mention that Bloodcrushers got buffed with the change to Cavalry unit type... And Flesh Hounds got amazingly good... Or how Heralds seriously buff those units with their Loci effects on top of gaining a 10pts initiative-order ap2 ccw.

Heck, even Bloodthirsters come pretty well fully loaded at base cost w/3+ armour, Axe of Khorne & a S6/ap2 Lash of Khorne shooting attack!

Experiment 626 wrote:

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

 wolfmerc wrote:
I have to admit the daemons dex is balanced, they added a table that has a random effect can be either interesting or humorous, I am not a WAAC kinda guy, in fact i am a khorne fan boy so already i am at a disadvantage when this edition is very good for shooting armies.

Considering Khorne now gets cheap soul grinders and a S8 cannon that ignores cover and basically gives you assault grenades, I wouldn't feel too bummed.

Not to mention that Bloodcrushers got buffed with the change to Cavalry unit type... And Flesh Hounds got amazingly good... Or how Heralds seriously buff those units with their Loci effects on top of gaining a 10pts initiative-order ap2 ccw.

Heck, even Bloodthirsters come pretty well fully loaded at base cost w/3+ armour, Axe of Khorne & a S6/ap2 Lash of Khorne shooting attack!

Well, seems like a mono-god Khorne is a viable option: Blood Thirster, winged DP, Blood Crushers, Blood Letters, Flesh Hounds, Soul Grinders.

And Heralds, don't forget the Heralds! They are fantastic and you can get four for a HQ slot (and taking the Bloodthirster makes your DP shift to Heavy Support, which is a rule that I adore) and are well worth taking.

Khorne also now have a chariot and a bizarre skullcannon thing, if that takes your fancy.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

 wolfmerc wrote:
I have to admit the daemons dex is balanced, they added a table that has a random effect can be either interesting or humorous, I am not a WAAC kinda guy, in fact i am a khorne fan boy so already i am at a disadvantage when this edition is very good for shooting armies.

Considering Khorne now gets cheap soul grinders and a S8 cannon that ignores cover and basically gives you assault grenades, I wouldn't feel too bummed.

Not to mention that Bloodcrushers got buffed with the change to Cavalry unit type... And Flesh Hounds got amazingly good... Or how Heralds seriously buff those units with their Loci effects on top of gaining a 10pts initiative-order ap2 ccw.

Heck, even Bloodthirsters come pretty well fully loaded at base cost w/3+ armour, Axe of Khorne & a S6/ap2 Lash of Khorne shooting attack!

Well, seems like a mono-god Khorne is a viable option: Blood Thirster, winged DP, Blood Crushers, Blood Letters, Flesh Hounds, Soul Grinders.

All mono-god lists are like this. You just choose between hitting power (Khorne), speed (Slaanesh), durability (Nurgle) and trickery (Tzeentch). Otherwise, all mono-builds work exactly the same: fast heavy hitters (BCs, Fiends, Beasts, Flamers) supported by hordes of Troops, fast flankers (Hounds, Seekers, Drones, Screamers) and some big guy in the back (Grinder or Cannon).

Choosing a mono-god list is like that power distribution triangle in Wing Commander: you can have more oomph on shields/firepower/speed but you will still fly the same fighter craft.

Whether demons are competitive or not depends on where you live and what tournaments you attend.

In general I do not think demons are competitive enough to do well even at the local tournament environment where I live.

Playing them without allies has the following problems.

1) They are a hth combat centric army in a shooting centric game.

2) They do not have any real fliers and the "grounding rule" completely nerfs monst flying creatures

3) The soulgrinder is not sufficient AAA in a meta full of necron flyers, vendettas and heldrakes

4)Demons will struggle with a heavy mechanized opponent

5) the monst critters are way over priced for their durability and utility

6) As mentioned numerous times, the GK, a popular tourney army is a hard counter to demons

I have a huge collection of demons going back to third edition and can pretty much field an all metal army of any faction with the exception of models that were never in metal. The last 40k demon codex was a joke and I only played demons a couple of times just for laughs.

Perhaps the current codex is worse if not at least as bad as the last one. Except for getting rid of the crippling demonic assault rule the new codex did not really address any of the serious flaws the army had before.

I think the demon army is a very difficult one to write rules for in the 40k game. Frankly, it is probably far beyond the skill level of the current GW design team. After all what kind of monumentally incompetent designer would come up with the flamer chariot, an AV10 vehicle with a short range gun that cannot move and shoot?

I suppose the demon army is a good fluff ally for csm, but I wouldnt recommend that combination for a tournament because there are much better choices.

JWhex wrote:
Whether demons are competitive or not depends on where you live and what tournaments you attend.

In general I do not think demons are competitive enough to do well even at the local tournament environment where I live.

Playing them without allies has the following problems.

1) They are a hth combat centric army in a shooting centric game.

2) They do not have any real fliers and the "grounding rule" completely nerfs monst flying creatures

3) The soulgrinder is not sufficient AAA in a meta full of necron flyers, vendettas and heldrakes

4)Demons will struggle with a heavy mechanized opponent

5) the monst critters are way over priced for their durability and utility

6) As mentioned numerous times, the GK, a popular tourney army is a hard counter to demons

I have a huge collection of demons going back to third edition and can pretty much field an all metal army of any faction with the exception of models that were never in metal. The last 40k demon codex was a joke and I only played demons a couple of times just for laughs.

Perhaps the current codex is worse if not at least as bad as the last one. Except for getting rid of the crippling demonic assault rule the new codex did not really address any of the serious flaws the army had before.

I think the demon army is a very difficult one to write rules for in the 40k game. Frankly, it is probably far beyond the skill level of the current GW design team. After all what kind of monumentally incompetent designer would come up with the flamer chariot, an AV10 vehicle with a short range gun that cannot move and shoot?

I suppose the demon army is a good fluff ally for csm, but I wouldnt recommend that combination for a tournament because there are much better choices.

So you haven't played a single game with the new rules but you apparently know they're 100% useless crap?
Not sure if serious...

And the chariot is likely an oversight - at least wait for the FAQ before we declare the games devs complete idiots.

Experiment 626 wrote:

JWhex wrote:
Whether demons are competitive or not depends on where you live and what tournaments you attend.

In general I do not think demons are competitive enough to do well even at the local tournament environment where I live.

Playing them without allies has the following problems.

1) They are a hth combat centric army in a shooting centric game.

2) They do not have any real fliers and the "grounding rule" completely nerfs monst flying creatures

3) The soulgrinder is not sufficient AAA in a meta full of necron flyers, vendettas and heldrakes

4)Demons will struggle with a heavy mechanized opponent

5) the monst critters are way over priced for their durability and utility

6) As mentioned numerous times, the GK, a popular tourney army is a hard counter to demons

I have a huge collection of demons going back to third edition and can pretty much field an all metal army of any faction with the exception of models that were never in metal. The last 40k demon codex was a joke and I only played demons a couple of times just for laughs.

Perhaps the current codex is worse if not at least as bad as the last one. Except for getting rid of the crippling demonic assault rule the new codex did not really address any of the serious flaws the army had before.

I think the demon army is a very difficult one to write rules for in the 40k game. Frankly, it is probably far beyond the skill level of the current GW design team. After all what kind of monumentally incompetent designer would come up with the flamer chariot, an AV10 vehicle with a short range gun that cannot move and shoot?

I suppose the demon army is a good fluff ally for csm, but I wouldnt recommend that combination for a tournament because there are much better choices.

So you haven't played a single game with the new rules but you apparently know they're 100% useless crap?
Not sure if serious...

And the chariot is likely an oversight - at least wait for the FAQ before we declare the games devs complete idiots.

The question be addressed was whether or not the demons were competitive. If you read my post you will note that I gave the caveat that they were not competitive in my local game environment followed by a list of reasons. Like many if not most people that have been wargaming for nearly 20 years and playing GW games for most of that time, I do not need to play games with obviously crappy units in order to conclude that they are crap.

You do not have to be a gaming genius to know ahead of time what kinds of threats other armies bring to the board and what kinds of tools you need to counter those threats and win games. So yes I can identify some things as 100% useless crap without playing 14 games with them. In any event, I didnt say they were 100% crap, I said they were not competitive in my local play environment.

There are other reasons why I do not believe the demons are competitive and this stems from playing a huge number of 40k games of various editions. Now the fact is that demons are especially poorly designed for 6th edition because they dont have any fliers and also do not have much in the way of AAA. Also they have a 5+ save, big whoop-de-do so does practically everything else on a board with a decent amount of terrain.

Broadly speaking the demons are a T3 army with a 5+ save and very minnimal shooting. Also they dont have any vehicles for moving around their troops and their AAA capability sucks. So what are you going to do as a demon player against marines, IG or any other army that has transport vehicles, fliers, decent shooting or heavy armour. Your going to run across the board and get the crap shot out of you in mid-field. Oh yeah, then run toward me some more and not assault me because your running. Maybe deepstrike in front of me and stand around so I can shoot you to pieces, then shoot you some more on overwatch when you assault with a depleted unit. Just maybe if you were T4 and with a better save you would have a reasonable and consistent chance. T3 and 5+? LOL @ that.

Close combat is worse in 6th edition, not better. The demon army just didnt stand a chance. If you live in an area where the good players are not capable of exploiting all these weaknesses of demons then go ahead and enjoy playing them. You do not even have to build a list specific for demons in order to have a huge advantage over them, all you need is a decent "all comers" list and your good to go.

Well if the chariot is an oversight, I guess then they are idiots because only an idiot would publish a hardback book without proof reading it first.

Dont worry dude he gave me the same line after pointing out the same. Its senseless in arguing with someone that cant see logic.

And I watched daemons get owned by guard and necrons with the main problems being everything you noted. If you go back you go back you'll since Billy the kid here say "Our daemons or our army", not to mention he claims that the entire toronto tournament scene was filled with fatecrusher vs warp quake gk lists *glances over at where Im from and my trophies*, odd I dont remember that at all. Ever.

Your best bet is click ignore. It makes life better.

PM me for a competitive daemon build.

EDIT: was response to previous post's list
I'd hardly call that a daemon list though, what with just 24 demon models. roughly 800 points of demons, 1200 CSM.

JWhex wrote:
I have a huge collection of demons going back to third edition and can pretty much field an all metal army of any faction with the exception of models that were never in metal. The last 40k demon codex was a joke and I only played demons a couple of times just for laughs.

As mentioned -- if you have only played daemons a few times since 2008, how are you an expert on if they are good or not. The last codex was not a joke. Daemons won the bay area open.

JWhex wrote:
Close combat is worse in 6th edition, not better. The demon army just didnt stand a chance. If you live in an area where the good players are not capable of exploiting all these weaknesses of demons then go ahead and enjoy playing them. You do not even have to build a list specific for demons in order to have a huge advantage over them, all you need is a decent "all comers" list and your good to go..

Tourney results for large events will show this. If we see chaos damons in the top 10 at major events (64+ players) in the next few months then we will know the codex is competitive. I think after NOVA 2013 we will be able to make a solid answer.
At this point its just speculation.

I see your keep talking about the T3/5++ save as a big limitation. You know that most damon builds people are talking about will give the opponent only 1 turn to shoot at them. Your right, running 20 bloodletters up the board will get shredded by a shooty army. You have far to many turns to get shot.

What you do is use 20 seekers, 20 khorne dogs (or nurgle flies), grimoire the seekers (3++ save). If you have the points, bring either fiends or beasts of nurgle. Your opponet will be crashed by all the units on the following turn. Before you assault, deep strike your GUO/damonettes/etc off your icon. That's the way I think your going to see damon armies work.

Assault based armies can do well in this edition. Look at the templecon results from February. It was a dark eldar/eldar assault list that won the event. These major events are the best indicators for what works and what does not.

I don't like the look of Grimoire per se. I find unreliable things like that work best in a big pile, like loads of Night Goblin Fanatics, Stupid Trolls, etc. That way I can be sure something's going to go right. Sending Seekers to dance in a clearing and hope I don't effectively remove their meagre save feels like a worrying risk, when there's no failsafe. I'd want to have something like Invisibility on hand to cast on them as a backup plan. And that itself relies on a Telepath rolling well; strikes me as something that'll compliment a psychic-heavy force and free up a caster to do something else when it works, but otherwise will hand your opponent an easy unit wipeout in a third of games.

 lindsay40k wrote:
otherwise will hand your opponent an easy unit wipeout in a third of games.

It does not hand your opponent an easy unit. This is due to the rule of resilience -- which states that the resilience of unit, the greater its overall effect. Raising a save from a 3+ to a 2+ doubles it survivability. Lowering it from a 5++ to a 6++ does not half its survivability.

This is how many shots 20 bolters will kill when directed to a squad of seekers
6++ save........7.40
5++ save........5.92
3++ save........2.96

As you can see, when you lower the save to a 3++, you cut the number of failed saves by 50%. When you fail, you increase the number of failed saves by 25%. The price of failure is half of benefit of success.

Sometime when I read you guys, I got the feeling that you only want WS/BS/T of 6, save of 2+ and removed all weakness in the book. I find the codex not bad and logic. The daemons doesn't move across the battlefield, they just warp at your side. They don't have flyers or a lot of shooting, used allies.

hellpato wrote:
Sometime when I read you guys, I got the feeling that you only want WS/BS/T of 6, save of 2+ and removed all weakness in the book. I find the codex not bad and logic. The daemons doesn't move across the battlefield, they just warp at your side. They don't have flyers or a lot of shooting, used allies.

Daemon shooting is still pretty mean, especially against anyone lacking psychic defenses... 7D6/S6 shots with re-rolls to-hit will grind down even 5-6 man Terminator units.
Where I've found Tzeentch shooting in particular to fall apart at the seems is against T5+ units like Nob Bikers or high save/multi-wound units like Pallys. or else anything already rocking a FnP save, at which point you're simply asking for trouble by hitting said unit/s with Warpflame.

The new codex may not be able to topple Necrons or IG or GK's and replace them as the next newest top tier army, but overall the book is capable of giving most armies a real run for their money.
It's almost as if the new book is balanced.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Daemon shooting is still pretty mean, especially against anyone lacking psychic defenses... 7D6/S6 shots with re-rolls to-hit will grind down even 5-6 man Terminator units.

Even without dedicated psychic defenses, you're still looking at a 23% chance that you'll do NOTHING after declaring your attack. (8.3% that you fail your psychic test, and then 1/6 that the witch is denied). That's pretty bad when you think about it.

Where I've found Tzeentch shooting in particular to fall apart at the seems is against T5+ units like Nob Bikers or high save/multi-wound units like Pallys.

Pallys are even worse. Not only does the chance that you fail your psychic test go up (due to aegis, or reinforced aegis), they're getting a +1 on their Deny roll too by virtue of being psykers, so your chance of doing nothing at all increases significantly. If I was playing Grey Knights and had a dread anywhere close, I'd completely ignore horrors, the odds are that bad that they'll do anything.

It's almost as if the new book is balanced.

Yes, based on GWs new concept of balance. Sometimes, you roll well on a random table and win. Sometimes you don't, and lose. One win, one loss = balanced game, right? In my last two games with this codex, I scored First Blood due to the warpstorm table. Hey, that took real skill.

hellpato wrote:
Sometime when I read you guys, I got the feeling that you only want WS/BS/T of 6, save of 2+ and removed all weakness in the book. I find the codex not bad and logic. The daemons doesn't move across the battlefield, they just warp at your side. They don't have flyers or a lot of shooting, used allies.

^^^THIS

You're not allowed to complain about Matt Ward Codices being OP and broken and then complain when new codices aren't. And the Warp Storm is the most overrated new feature since basic overwatch.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:
otherwise will hand your opponent an easy unit wipeout in a third of games.

It does not hand your opponent an easy unit. This is due to the rule of resilience -- which states that the resilience of unit, the greater its overall effect. Raising a save from a 3+ to a 2+ doubles it survivability. Lowering it from a 5++ to a 6++ does not half its survivability.

This is how many shots 20 bolters will kill when directed to a squad of seekers
6++ save........7.40
5++ save........5.92
3++ save........2.96

As you can see, when you lower the save to a 3++, you cut the number of failed saves by 50%. When you fail, you increase the number of failed saves by 25%. The price of failure is half of benefit of success.

I know, but I'm not approaching this from a pure math perspective, I'm approaching this from an 'I want my Seekers to momentarily tank in the open to open up a charge next turn' perspective.

Grimoire alone is not enough, because in a third of games your figures show that their casualties per bolter round will spike from an acceptable 1.5 to a potentially crippling 3.7.

That's not good enough. If I wanted to pull off a 3++ Seekers trick, I'd have to take the Grimoire and two or three good Telepaths so that when the Grimoire carrier decides to troll its companions, I should have an Invisibility safety net. If it's not needed, I cast Invisibility on something else as a nice bonus, or else troll my opponent with Puppet or suchlike.

Even then, the risk of stuff like Runes makes it a worrisome choice to deal with all-comers. It's striking me as something that compliments a particular build that pushes a lot of unreliable win buttons, but on its own is a big risk.

In the end who cares. Look at the scoreboard and then tell me whether they are competitive or not. Thats all that matters in the end.

So THEORY aside, maybe some Daemon players could tell us how its ACTUALLY going?

 Jancoran wrote:
In the end who cares. Look at the scoreboard and then tell me whether they are competitive or not. Thats all that matters in the end.

So THEORY aside, maybe some Daemon players could tell us how its ACTUALLY going?

I'm having a blast with the new codex.

Sure Tzeentch has some horribad match-up right now, namely Runes of Win, Rune Priests & GK's... But using some 'counts as' to play some Beasts & Plaguedrones as Firewyrms & Changebringers has given me some solid counters to tarpit really scary assaulters and absolutely demolish any non-flyer vehicle.
Plaguedrones are actually the outright best anti-tank unit in our codex IMHO. Say all you want about rending or Screamers or MC's or LoC/Prince w/Bang-stick, Drones put 'em all to outright shame. Plagueswords with their Touch of Rust rule make everything cry! (though I'll still leave Dreads to my MC's due to S10 insta-poop'ing the Drones)

The Warpstorm table, contrary to popular net-rage has yet to ruin any games for me. I haven't yet rolled a single snake-eyes or boxcars yet, nor have I pooched any characters. Most of the time, it's been either nothing or God 'X' shows up and maybe steps on a unit, or else I'll get the -1/+1 save results.

And the random gift rolling/recording, it only takes maybe 2-3 minutes tops to get everything recorded.

So far I've mangled Orks and Marines multiple times with few problems. (large Nob Biker units are terrifying however!) I've had a close victory over Ravenwing and gotten pasted by Deathwing. (my buddy litterly only failed 4 saves from turn 3 onwards...)
The new book is hardly going to curbstomp the tourny scene like SW/GK/IG/Newcron have been the past couple of years, but I try my best to avoid cut-throat tourny play because I find the majority of tourny lists boring as feth to play against.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
In the end who cares. Look at the scoreboard and then tell me whether they are competitive or not. Thats all that matters in the end.

So THEORY aside, maybe some Daemon players could tell us how its ACTUALLY going?

I'm having a blast with the new codex.

Sure Tzeentch has some horribad match-up right now, namely Runes of Win, Rune Priests & GK's... But using some 'counts as' to play some Beasts & Plaguedrones as Firewyrms & Changebringers has given me some solid counters to tarpit really scary assaulters and absolutely demolish any non-flyer vehicle.
Plaguedrones are actually the outright best anti-tank unit in our codex IMHO. Say all you want about rending or Screamers or MC's or LoC/Prince w/Bang-stick, Drones put 'em all to outright shame. Plagueswords with their Touch of Rust rule make everything cry! (though I'll still leave Dreads to my MC's due to S10 insta-poop'ing the Drones)

The Warpstorm table, contrary to popular net-rage has yet to ruin any games for me. I haven't yet rolled a single snake-eyes or boxcars yet, nor have I pooched any characters. Most of the time, it's been either nothing or God 'X' shows up and maybe steps on a unit, or else I'll get the -1/+1 save results.

And the random gift rolling/recording, it only takes maybe 2-3 minutes tops to get everything recorded.

So far I've mangled Orks and Marines multiple times with few problems. (large Nob Biker units are terrifying however!) I've had a close victory over Ravenwing and gotten pasted by Deathwing. (my buddy litterly only failed 4 saves from turn 3 onwards...)
The new book is hardly going to curbstomp the tourny scene like SW/GK/IG/Newcron have been the past couple of years, but I try my best to avoid cut-throat tourny play because I find the majority of tourny lists boring as feth to play against.

Thank you for giving an honest approach to having play tested and not just crying doom. It is honestly appreciated to see something that isn't full of venom. I'm looking forward to trying the book out.

I've played against the new book multiple times now, against various different builds, and nothing has stuck out as being over or under powered. The book on a whole has been fun to play against, the book keeping it needs has never been a problem, the warp storm has never done anything silly. The only thing I've had any real problem with is the Soulgrinders gettting cover behind ADL thing, but that's a whole other debate.

O and also something I don't think anything any one has mentioned, the biggest fail in this book, the artwork in the unit entries. Seriously! It's like one of the designers had bring your kid to work day, and let them go run around with some crayons.

 Jancoran wrote:
In the end who cares. Look at the scoreboard and then tell me whether they are competitive or not. Thats all that matters in the end.

So THEORY aside, maybe some Daemon players could tell us how its ACTUALLY going?

Won all the games I have played so far, one, against guard, was surprisingly easy, though the player was no expert, I had trouble with his tank's, but I could mulch his scoring troops so it diddn't matter in the end.

One against Standard marines, monstrous creatures mess up their plans most times.

One against dark angels, which actually was extremely close, the new codex's are well balanced to each other. I won, but only had 5 models left on the table, and my remaining 2 pink horror's held their objective. It could have gone either way, that one.

So overall? The army is perfectly playable, and a buggerload of fun

PS, warpstorm is not all that bad. Only had one truly good result each game (Guard game, spawned an extra scoring unit of plaguebearers , Marine game, got a +1 invulnerable roll, which was handy, Dark angels, got a particularly lucky slaanesh's wrath that killed a few terminators with rending, but in the same vein, my daemon prince of slaanesh got sucked back into the warp. Slaanesh was not feeling happy that day xD)

Eldercaveman wrote:
I've played against the new book multiple times now, against various different builds, and nothing has stuck out as being over or under powered. The book on a whole has been fun to play against, the book keeping it needs has never been a problem, the warp storm has never done anything silly. The only thing I've had any real problem with is the Soulgrinders gettting cover behind ADL thing, but that's a whole other debate.

O and also something I don't think anything any one has mentioned, the biggest fail in this book, the artwork in the unit entries. Seriously! It's like one of the designers had bring your kid to work day, and let them go run around with some crayons.

That's John Blanche for you! While I'll concede it does create an "ancient spellbook" sort of vibe, I've never really liked his style.

 Evileyes wrote:

PS, warpstorm is not all that bad. Only had one truly good result each game (Guard game, spawned an extra scoring unit of plaguebearers , Marine game, got a +1 invulnerable roll, which was handy, Dark angels, got a particularly lucky slaanesh's wrath that killed a few terminators with rending, but in the same vein, my daemon prince of slaanesh got sucked back into the warp. Slaanesh was not feeling happy that day xD)

My best results with the table was my last game against my buddy's Orks;
a) turn 3 Nurgle showed up and farted all over the last 5 Lootas on the table - one lucky greenie made his 6+ FnP save (care of Warpflame) and thus kept my opponent from being tabled, which allowed him to bring his Nob Biker + Warboss deathstar onto the table.
We simply agreed that that last Ork had managed to dive between the Cracks of Doom as Nurgle was dumping on the rest of the unit!

b) the last two turns I rolled up the +1 save which allowed me to survive long enough to bring my HoK and last few 'Letters into the party to kill the annoying as feth Painboy and the Warboss to finally table my opponent.
I swear, that Nob Biker unit made at least 85% of their FnP rolls! My buddy is rediculously lucky with that damn unit - even playing my "Attack of the Kittens" trap card doesn't scratch that damn unit! (though it did take us about 5 minutes one time to chase Loki down and get the Warboss back from her...)

I've played two games, one was a 1-on-1 against Necrons and one was a team game with CSM against Eldar/Tyranids.

First game I dominated but the Chaos gods were still not pleased. Rolled snake eyes on the Warpstorm chart, and then box cars on the instability test on a large group of Daemonettes that were about 3" away from my opponents last scoring unit (5 tesla immortals) and being able to snag the objective (it was turn 5). End result was his immortals and crypteks (the only units left) shot down the smaller remnants of the Pinkies and Bloodletters, and he kept the relic. Lost 4-2, would have won 6-1 had it not been for that warp storm result. But the game was a blast, and I actually laughed when it all fell to crap for me!

Second game was not so good. It was a combination of just horrible rolls, and a hideous match up. Between the Shadows of the Warp and Runes of No Psykers Allowed, I got off about half of my spells. I rolled the long awaited Daemonic Possession but since there were 6 total pykers on the board, the chance of me getting rid of Eldrad were not good. It ended up going on one of three zoanthropes and it managed to pass its test! Having to deal with the typical scatter laser spam and 30 gaunts with devourers (90 St4 shots, seriously) that outflanked right in front of my Seekers, it started off badly for me early. Didn't help that I kept forgetting about the rewards I rolled up (which could have saved my KoS). I rolled 4 or less on the warpstorm table 4 more times, and when I deepstruck my flamers, I scattered into inpassable terrain, mishapped and rolled a 1, unit wiped. On the plus side, I continue to be impressed with Daemonettes, they wiped a unit of gaunts and hive guard in a disorderly charge, and almost wiped a large unit of suped-up hormagaunts that charged them (lost by 1, failed instability by 5).

I have another team game (against the same Eldar and Necron players) coming up on Tuesday. Trying a similar list, but taking more Seekers and using a winged DP instead of a KoS. Also didn't take as many psykic powers.

 Jancoran wrote:
In the end who cares. Look at the scoreboard and then tell me whether they are competitive or not. Thats all that matters in the end.

So THEORY aside, maybe some Daemon players could tell us how its ACTUALLY going?

I'm still winning about the same percentage of games with daemons as I did with my CSM list.

Their a good army, but not OP.
They have their weak points. Your T3 daemons can be shredded by enemy anti-infantry fire. Your going to have a hard time against land raiders.
They have their strong points. Today I had a GUO roll 2 greater rewards and got a 4++ FNP and reroll failed invulns. That alone made him unkillable in my game today.
I think your going to see them end up like CSM and DA. A good army with a few solid builds, but not over the top like GK/SW/IG when they came out.

 Jancoran wrote:

So THEORY aside, maybe some Daemon players could tell us how its ACTUALLY going?

After some ~15 games, I would say they are kinda' fine. Army building is pretty boring if you know the codex (units in the same slot does roughly the same thing so they have almost zero synergy), but otherwise if you have an idea, then you can mostly go with it.

The army lacks durability and hitting power but it is fast and has many-many tricks to mitigate their disadvantages. It is very also very hord-y, even the expensive units are only effective in maxed-out squads. Diversity only comes from the random stuff, daemonic armies work and play the same otherwise.

Overall, it is better than Codex: Nurgle and Baledrakes, but worse than Dark Angels. Plays a lot like a combination of Dark Eldar and Tyrannids, and I would place it somewhere around these armies in terms of power (strong mid-tier).

 Jancoran wrote:
In the end who cares. Look at the scoreboard and then tell me whether they are competitive or not. Thats all that matters in the end.

So THEORY aside, maybe some Daemon players could tell us how its ACTUALLY going?

I've played 5-6 games thus far, and while the codex is fun, and doesn't seem over or under powered, I'm just not a fan of the direction the army took. It's changed so much from what I enjoyed about the last codex that I'm not sure I'm going to stick with it. I've never liked horde armies.

Well, I don't know about you lot, but I like the idea of taking a Bloodthirster as an ally to my CSM, and then chucking it into a tank line

Well, after battling a CD army with 1 GUO, 4 FMCs (3 DPs as HS, 1 DP from CSM codex), PBs and CSM, my impression is that this codex is very viable.

Selym wrote:
Well, I don't know about you lot, but I like the idea of taking a Bloodthirster as an ally to my CSM, and then chucking it into a tank line

I was planning on using a GUO to join my plague marines hanging out behind an ADL.

The GUO has a 2+ cover save, and will slap down anything that gets to close.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, after battling a CD army with 1 GUO, 4 FMCs (3 DPs as HS, 1 DP from CSM codex), PBs and CSM, my impression is that this codex is very viable.

How did that work? I've been afraid of the 5 MC army as it seems very vulnerable to a bad round of shooting.

 labmouse42 wrote:

Selym wrote:
Well, I don't know about you lot, but I like the idea of taking a Bloodthirster as an ally to my CSM, and then chucking it into a tank line

I was planning on using a GUO to join my plague marines hanging out behind an ADL.

The GUO has a 2+ cover save, and will slap down anything that gets to close.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, after battling a CD army with 1 GUO, 4 FMCs (3 DPs as HS, 1 DP from CSM codex), PBs and CSM, my impression is that this codex is very viable.

How did that work? I've been afraid of the 5 MC army as it seems very vulnerable to a bad round of shooting.

Well, they're all multi-wound high-toughness models, first of all. It's ahrd to ID them. Give the DP's power armour and Daemon of Tzeentch to re-roll 1's for saving.
That re-roll halves the number of wounds you take.
Have them fly on turns 1 and/or 2 to make them hard to hit, and then assault on turn 2/3, and stay in assault as much as possible

EDIT: Don't forget about cover, it's pretty useful to hide behind

 Evileyes wrote:
...Oh god, I just realised. That model is poseable. If it turns out it doesnt get cover behind an aegis, people are gonna start ungluing the leg's, and remodelling it so it's squatting on it's butt, just off the ground, so they get the cover save. xD

Nah...just stick all the legs straight out from the body.

Skriker

I'm noticing one problem with Daemons in competitive play, and that's the pre-game.

With all the rolls for psychic powers, warp abilities, etc. and the choice to swap to primaris; it took me a while just to get all the random rolls done.

I'm mostly joking about it affecting competitive play, but it honestly does take a while to even start hitting the table.

 lucasbuffalo wrote:
I'm noticing one problem with Daemons in competitive play, and that's the pre-game.

With all the rolls for psychic powers, warp abilities, etc. and the choice to swap to primaris; it took me a while just to get all the random rolls done.

I'm mostly joking about it affecting competitive play, but it honestly does take a while to even start hitting the table.

I haven't found it to be that bad, I mostly take rewards with the intention of picking the 0 level choice. The only real rolling I've been doing has been for psychic powers.

 Skriker wrote:

 Evileyes wrote:
...Oh god, I just realised. That model is poseable. If it turns out it doesnt get cover behind an aegis, people are gonna start ungluing the leg's, and remodelling it so it's squatting on it's butt, just off the ground, so they get the cover save. xD

Nah...just stick all the legs straight out from the body.

Skriker

One of my roommate's idiot friends broke my Nurgle 'Grinder (and my Slaanesh Grinder's arm!), and all the legs fell off. All. Guess who gets to reposition the legs for AA (Aegis Advantage)...this guy
And Evileyes is right: it is pose-able. No modeling for advantage, just putting the legs on as I want. Hehe...too bad I have to have two Nurgle 'Grinders or two Khorne Grinders and there's no point in the unmarked Grinder being painted in Slaaneshi colors...now I have to repaint him. Grumble. Nurgle or Khorne. Nurgle or Khorne. I have one of each already...blah.

ElderCaveman, that was pretty funny re: Crayons.

I just want to hear some actual playtesting experience like this post. Enough with the theory hammering and the righteous indignation act. I just wanna' know what's ACTUALLY happening. I saw a Necron Lord get zapped into cinders with the Warp Storm but that game was already lost by then and other than that rather jarring moment, everything was fine. But it WAS jarring and it did give pause there. I seriously had to take a step back and see how I felt about that.

In the ened I realize it made no difference and that may well be the case in many game, ultimately.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
And Evileyes is right: it is pose-able. No modeling for advantage, just putting the legs on as I want. Hehe...too bad I have to have two Nurgle 'Grinders or two Khorne Grinders and there's no point in the unmarked Grinder being painted in Slaaneshi colors...now I have to repaint him. Grumble. Nurgle or Khorne. Nurgle or Khorne. I have one of each already...blah.

You could just paint it a neutral color (black or dark grey) and then make a magnetized plate to put on the chest or back or some other spot. Make plates with the various powers' symbol and swap them out based on what mark you want!

 Jancoran wrote:
ElderCaveman, that was pretty funny re: Crayons.

I just want to hear some actual playtesting experience like this post. Enough with the theory hammering and the righteous indignation act. I just wanna' know what's ACTUALLY happening. I saw a Necron Lord get zapped into cinders with the Warp Storm but that game was already lost by then and other than that rather jarring moment, everything was fine. But it WAS jarring and it did give pause there. I seriously had to take a step back and see how I felt about that.

In the ened I realize it made no difference and that may well be the case in many game, ultimately.

Here is a decent battle report on youtube of demons vs tyranids

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQaSKrVaQgk

It does show some of the glaring defeciencies of demons, lol at getting out shot by tyranids

Iv only played 2 games with them so far a 1850 against orks and a 1000pt against tau, won both pretty convincingly mainly due to flying Dp's with biomancy.

In the first game against orks my Dp took out a nob biker+warboss unit on his own while most of my troops either sat in ruins to hold objectives or got shot.
Second game I decided I liked Dps and took 2 with 40 horrors against the Tau. The 2 Dps pretty much wrecked the tau army on their own. I lost 1 Dp and the tau player gave up on turn 3 or 4.

Early days though, these guys hadnt faced the new daemons before so Im sure they would do better against me next time round.
Also the warp storm table has largely not done alot, worst result I had was -1 to invos, best result I got was a kill or 2 from khornes wrath.

Lastly, while the grimoire sounds like omg awesome, the game I used it in managed to see me reduce my invo more often than increase it.

I have to agree, I feel this codex is balanced. I have played 7-8 games and so far have enjoyed each game.

Warpstorm has not been my friend. I have seen tzeench kill my Plaguebearers and not hit the opponent at all. I have seen the -1 inv several times. The one time I rolled psyker to herald result there were no psykers on the board... and resulted in calm. I have yet to snake eyes or box cars though. Honestly the result I hate the most (even with my apparent inability to roll well) is the warp is calm result. I want SOMETHING to happen damn it!.

As for pre game setup I dont find it that time consuming. 4 heralds + DP + "champions" in each unit should take at MOST 5 mins. after playing you should know what you want when you roll. For example Lesser Reward... ok im fighting MC nids, roll the armorbane template, yep lets trade that for a ap2 mastercraft wep. roll the str x 2 on 6's... vs MC nids and the choice becomes a bit tougher.

Yes the daemons feel very hordish now. and yes max units are going to do best. But IMHO daemons should have been hordy from the begining. a daemonic invasion consisting of less models than a space marine army does not feel much like an invasion...