Tzeentch was strong before the FAQ - is there a reason it is now considered hot garbage? Even the furthest deployment is 24 inches which is pink horror range - now with more CP you can make em 3++ fairly easily / routine and also make them the only thing the opponent can shoot - with some splitting will be a tough nut to crack (can do this for like 3-4 turns instead of 1-2 before). I know the lack of DS is annoying to optimally position them but is there a reason they are now considered unplayable?
LoC with a permanent 2++ now seems possible which can be a hot damage sink... Likely not competitive but maybe peeking in?
Dactylartha wrote: Can someone help me understand how the Unstoppable Ferocity affects Skarbrand weapons? Does it add +1 after the multiplier now instead of before?
Page 85
– Unstoppable Ferocity
Change the rules text to read:
‘If this unit makes a charge move, is charged, or
performs a Heroic Intervention, then until the end of
the turn add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of all its
models and add 1 to the Strength characteristic of all
the melee weapons the unit is armed with.
orkswubwub wrote: Tzeentch was strong before the FAQ - is there a reason it is now considered hot garbage? Even the furthest deployment is 24 inches which is pink horror range - now with more CP you can make em 3++ fairly easily / routine and also make them the only thing the opponent can shoot - with some splitting will be a tough nut to crack (can do this for like 3-4 turns instead of 1-2 before). I know the lack of DS is annoying to optimally position them but is there a reason they are now considered unplayable?
LoC with a permanent 2++ now seems possible which can be a hot damage sink... Likely not competitive but maybe peeking in?
I've been wrong before, so enlighten me on how you get a 2++ LoC. As most LoC buffs limit you to 3++
orkswubwub wrote: Tzeentch was strong before the FAQ - is there a reason it is now considered hot garbage? Even the furthest deployment is 24 inches which is pink horror range - now with more CP you can make em 3++ fairly easily / routine and also make them the only thing the opponent can shoot - with some splitting will be a tough nut to crack (can do this for like 3-4 turns instead of 1-2 before). I know the lack of DS is annoying to optimally position them but is there a reason they are now considered unplayable?
LoC with a permanent 2++ now seems possible which can be a hot damage sink... Likely not competitive but maybe peeking in?
I've been wrong before, so enlighten me on how you get a 2++ LoC. As most LoC buffs limit you to 3++
base is 5++ -> 4++ Impossible Robe -> 3++ Warp Surge -> 2++ Ephemeral Form ---- Please note this is actually a +1 role to the invul so the invul is STILL 3++ but you get a +1 =)
orkswubwub wrote: Tzeentch was strong before the FAQ - is there a reason it is now considered hot garbage? Even the furthest deployment is 24 inches which is pink horror range - now with more CP you can make em 3++ fairly easily / routine and also make them the only thing the opponent can shoot - with some splitting will be a tough nut to crack (can do this for like 3-4 turns instead of 1-2 before). I know the lack of DS is annoying to optimally position them but is there a reason they are now considered unplayable?
LoC with a permanent 2++ now seems possible which can be a hot damage sink... Likely not competitive but maybe peeking in?
I've been wrong before, so enlighten me on how you get a 2++ LoC. As most LoC buffs limit you to 3++
base is 5++ -> 4++ Impossible Robe -> 3++ Warp Surge -> 2++ Ephemeral Form ---- Please note this is actually a +1 role to the invul so the invul is STILL 3++ but you get a +1 =)
Doesn't the robe state is has a maximum of 3+? I guess if Harald Deathwolf gets a 2+ why not the LOC though.
orkswubwub wrote: Tzeentch was strong before the FAQ - is there a reason it is now considered hot garbage? Even the furthest deployment is 24 inches which is pink horror range - now with more CP you can make em 3++ fairly easily / routine and also make them the only thing the opponent can shoot - with some splitting will be a tough nut to crack (can do this for like 3-4 turns instead of 1-2 before). I know the lack of DS is annoying to optimally position them but is there a reason they are now considered unplayable?
LoC with a permanent 2++ now seems possible which can be a hot damage sink... Likely not competitive but maybe peeking in?
I've been wrong before, so enlighten me on how you get a 2++ LoC. As most LoC buffs limit you to 3++
base is 5++ -> 4++ Impossible Robe -> 3++ Warp Surge -> 2++ Ephemeral Form ---- Please note this is actually a +1 role to the invul so the invul is STILL 3++ but you get a +1 =)
i thought warp surge/impossible robe ensured that they could not provide you a save higher then 3+
orkswubwub wrote: Tzeentch was strong before the FAQ - is there a reason it is now considered hot garbage? Even the furthest deployment is 24 inches which is pink horror range - now with more CP you can make em 3++ fairly easily / routine and also make them the only thing the opponent can shoot - with some splitting will be a tough nut to crack (can do this for like 3-4 turns instead of 1-2 before). I know the lack of DS is annoying to optimally position them but is there a reason they are now considered unplayable?
LoC with a permanent 2++ now seems possible which can be a hot damage sink... Likely not competitive but maybe peeking in?
I've been wrong before, so enlighten me on how you get a 2++ LoC. As most LoC buffs limit you to 3++
base is 5++ -> 4++ Impossible Robe -> 3++ Warp Surge -> 2++ Ephemeral Form ---- Please note this is actually a +1 role to the invul so the invul is STILL 3++ but you get a +1 =)
i thought warp surge/impossible robe ensured that they could not provide you a save higher then 3+
That's true, but ephemereal form add +1 to the saving throw, so a throw of 2 becomes a 3, and thus fulfill the condition of being Not Better than 3++.
Fun thing : it also mean you will never die using the reroll from impossible robe, as a roll of 1 becomes a 2 (like prescience + plasma).
In that case it would say : Improve the save characteristic by one (so a 4+ becomes a 3+). I can't remember which unit entry has something like that, but I think it's Renegade Marauder.
Just embrace is my deamon brethren... we are too busy talking how we aren't competitive we should be abusing this I've always seen one of the limitations being the CP but now with more at disposal....
Honestly, like i said this makes LoC borderline. Still very low on damage out for the CP and even with Smite / Infernal gateway being practically guaranteed likely doesn't have the damage. But add the 2++ with incorporeal form for warlord trait... Maybe in the right list could do something competitively....
Bloodletters kill a guard unit. They are looking at their commander next. Commander jumps on a 1''+ barrel. Bloodletters go home because he's immune to charges.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Bloodletters kill a guard unit. They are looking at their commander next. Commander jumps on a 1''+ barrel. Bloodletters go home because he's immune to charges.
You seem on the warpath, and by your passive aggressive comments I guess brokering for a fight regarding this ruling? In the example of the barrel - can you clarify how wobbly model helps here? My understanding of wobbly model is it doesn't actually let you shrink the base, only put a placeholder if the base is tilted. The ruling in the FAQ is targeted at bases that can't fit? I guess this is what you are referencing?
Q: If a unit declares a charge against an enemy unit that is
entirely on the upper level of a terrain feature such as a ruin,
Sector Mechanicus structure, etc., but it cannot physically end
its charge move within 1" of any models from that unit (either
because there is not enough room to place the charging unit, or
because the charging unit is unable to end its move on the upper
levels of that terrain feature because of the expanded terrain
rules for it – as with ruins, for example), does that charge fail?
A: Yes.
It seems the most sensible way to accomodate this if the rule bothers you is to set-up terrain in a way that makes sense to you and allows charge units to move up a level. Not ideal but some type of final determination regarding how to judge charge distance and unit placement needs to be made. I could see the other side of the argument that if a lip is 0.000001mm and you charge and put your model there claiming wobbly model that this could also be seen as ridiculous... Probably best to solve with sensible terrain placement while the rule gets refined....
I mean what else can I say? FLG just streamed the FAQ where they explained more things. No more wobbly model for this. So if the enemy character has a terrain piece that's 1'' off the ground - he's unchargeable by anything in the game. Vehicles, fly, infantry - anything.
Same with ruins. Oh, the bloodletters have a big base, let's just see that the base doesn't fit anywhere. 3 models in a floor should do it...
rvd1ofakind wrote: I mean what else can I say? FLG just streamed the FAQ where they explained more things. No more wobbly model for this. So if the enemy character has a terrain piece that's 1'' off the ground - he's unchargeable by anything in the game. Vehicles, fly, infantry - anything.
Same with ruins. Oh, the bloodletters have a big base, let's just see that the base doesn't fit anywhere. 3 models in a floor should do it...
Can you just set the terrain up in a way that makes sense to you? Not ideal I suppose but its better then panicking...
rvd1ofakind wrote: What are you talking about? So throw out every multifloor ruin and every barrel?
So take a deep breath. I really won't reply again to stop this thread from being derailed completely - as this can go better in a rules forum.
I don't understand the implication of this in the barrel scenario (assuming FLY):
Q: When a unit that can Fly declares a charge move against a unit that is on the upper levels of a ruin, do I need to include the vertical distance when making the subsequent charge move for the unit?
A: No. A unit that can Fly effectively ignores vertical distances when making a charge move. Note though that the charging unit must still be within 12" (measured directly ‘base-to-base’, i.e. diagonally) to be able to declare the charge in the first place.
For what its worth - I agree with you - the rule is not great and prone to abuse. However, when taking extremes its also easy to use cases to show almost any situation is ridiculous. Take a ranger standing on a spire - significantly off the ground and you charge noting that 0.01 mm is available - your opponent looks at you asking how you are doing this and you beam back and beat your breast claiming wobbly model and that his model is surrounded - meanwhile none of your models can even finish on that level etc. While the rule IS abusable and NOT ideal just use common sense when setting up terrain - any unit that is over one model in your example is chargeable. FLY units may(? I'm not sure from the FAQ) be able to charge up a floor - and or use larger second story floors so that charge units can get up with multiple ways up. Take some shooting (not an entire melee army) to help with some scenarios... If you are a super rules critic measure all your barrels and ensure they are 3/4" off the ground... There will still be problems but it doesn't HAVE to be game breaking, put another barrel or two next to that one when setting up and most cases will probably be accounted unless the opponent has now a three man squad who will sit on all three barrels etc....
Who cares about fly. If you can't physically place a model on something - you can't charge. Done and dusted. My TO ruled against this, so I don't care. Hope yours does the same.
Plague drones gained the Plague Bearers keyword which is a strong improvement for me as they will now profit from the scrivener. Would be funny if they could profit from the horn of nurgle's rot, but the plaguebearer in that rule is not bolded .
rvd1ofakind wrote: Who cares about fly. If you can't physically place a model on something - you can't charge. Done and dusted. My TO ruled against this, so I don't care. Hope yours does the same.
It seems to be to be a simple fix to have the old style ruling of ruins and such. You can fight a unit that is on the same level as you or one level above you. Same with other pieces of terrain. Or if a monster is as tall as the level, they can fight that unit, etc.
Except all three of this letters are well within 1" of the dude?
You forget the lettes body is not flat on the ground, but has some height. you need to stand on something at least 1" over the heads of whatever you want to hide from in order to be safe.
BoomWolf wrote: Except all three of this letters are well within 1" of the dude?
You forget the lettes body is not flat on the ground, but has some height. you need to stand on something at least 1" over the heads of whatever you want to hide from in order to be safe.
No, it's 1" from base to base not from any point on the model.
Why is a Cybernetica Datasmith commanding a Guard unit anyway? It's not like he can repair them or change their doctrinal wafers (he could try though... )
Also, that's no barel, he appears to have jumped onto a giant pencil sharpener!
It is a massively, massively stupid rule with some very obvious fixes. I don't understand how GW can blunder about with a sledgehammer trying to fix some issues, but leave obvious ones like this...
Automatically Appended Next Post: PS. Also regarding the new FAQ: Horrors. Why do thousand sons and grey knights get exemption from the Smite nerf, but horrors, who really need it because they will fail to cast most of the time anyway, do not?
Can we PLEASE put spoiler tags around HD images and only use them in preference to scaled to fit ones where detail is necessary, this page is now borderline unreadable on a mobile device
So in light of the FAQ changes, what do we see as effective moving forward? I haven’t even played a game of the new 40k yet and I already need to rethink what I want to build and paint.
Vomikron Noxis wrote: ... and I already need to rethink what I want to build and paint.
I'm just putting paint to my skull cannon-happy khorne artillery army, and all I can say is I'll be asking permission to ignore the anti-spam protocols (and only play casual games, though that was the plan anyway). I'm struggling to see how they don't invalidate mono-god style armies - including Haemonculus Covens or Wych Cults - that aren't just hordes of the same 1 troop choice over and over.
Come to think of it, all of my 40k builds apart from Daemons of Tzeentch are now illegal, and the blue boys aren't only because I haven't built that third chariot yet ...
Vomikron Noxis wrote: ... and I already need to rethink what I want to build and paint.
I'm just putting paint to my skull cannon-happy khorne artillery army, and all I can say is I'll be asking permission to ignore the anti-spam protocols (and only play casual games, though that was the plan anyway). I'm struggling to see how they don't invalidate mono-god style armies - including Haemonculus Covens or Wych Cults - that aren't just hordes of the same 1 troop choice over and over.
Come to think of it, all of my 40k builds apart from Daemons of Tzeentch are now illegal, and the blue boys aren't only because I haven't built that third chariot yet ...
- Salvage
You can have 3 of something, so the third chariot should be fine.
While I think mono-God daemons (except Tzeentch) will struggle with the post FAQ world, mixed daemons should have enough tools to adapt. More command points will help us more than others, since we have some great but high cost stratagems.
I wonder is summoning becomes more appealing, now we don't need the CPs as much and your DS units aren't charging first turn anyway. I'm thinking Tzeentch Horrors/Brimies protecting some heralds and Exalted flamers, turn two summon 6+ units that counter the other army. 4+ units of flamers would kill against a dedicated assault list or 100+ horrors against a list that has over loaded on anti-tank weapons. Although come to think of it, a supreme command of un-marked chaos marines might be a better call, so you can summon from all four gods. Would require a large collection of daemons but would be a complete headache to play against.
To everyone who says "bah, deepstrike turn 2 isn't a big deal" - try going second.
You have to last through 2 whole turns without deepstrike and by that point, your opponent has taken about 75% of the board
Yup totally agreed. If you don't need to deep strike turn 1, you are playing bad players / lists. Even going turn 1 it was rough sometimes with screens and scouts and infiltrators and stratagems and overwatch and etc.
I was so annoyed at having to shelve my daemons for the season I made a salty meme about it:
rvd1ofakind wrote: To everyone who says "bah, deepstrike turn 2 isn't a big deal" - try going second.
You have to last through 2 whole turns without deep-strike and by that point, your opponent has taken about 75% of the board
If you recon your opponent is going to claim 75% of the board, deep striking into your own deployment zone shouldn't be much of a problem
But seriously, If your relying that much on deep strike surely the 50% power limit is just as much of an issue?
And he claims 75% in 2 turns. Before I could deepstrike to push him away. Turn 1 he can just get into position but not out of position. Turn 2 he moves up and zones out the deepstrikes from 75% of the map (he can deepstrike first)
And he claims 75% in 2 turns. Before I could deepstrike to push him away. Turn 1 he can just get into position but not out of position. Turn 2 he moves up and zones out the deepstrikes from 75% of the map (he can deepstrike first)
Then you need to rethink how your playing and your listbuilding. I have already seen quite a few Daemon lists proposed that, in my opinion, look great on paper. Taking minimum units of things like Letters isn't a bad idea now, because you need just a few to get there against things like Gunlines or Marines.
Also, if your opponents taking 75% of the field before T2, you aren't prioritizing mobility. Bloodthirsters, LoC's, chariots, flying DP's, slaneesh stuff, we have stuff that can move, and move quick. This is where the FAQ changed listbuilding fundamentally; its not all about killing power now.
You do realise that my mobility does not matter at all. A flier can fly in and have a 9'' zone around him of no deepstrike. Also talking about taking greater daemons Best way to prove you have no idea what you're talking about
rvd1ofakind wrote: You do realise that my mobility does not matter at all.
Apparently so, since you're fine with your opponent taking 75% of the board in two turns while you do nothing.
Zid is correct: everything we have available needs to be looked at again with fresh eyes. These FAQs have changed the game. You can choose to bitch and moan about it, or you can try to figure out how to play again.
Nice of you to cut out a bit of my quote... I'm talking about fast moving units that can just move into my zone so I can't deepstrike anything useful. There is LITERALLY NOTHING I can do to stop that because he will go in his movement phase and the only place where I can interract with the board is past my movement phase - meaning past my deepstrike. This wasn't a problem before. You could only move once and the only things that could reach the other side easily were fliers. Right now the opponent gets 2 turns of movement. So even 6'' moving dudes can get far.
Anyway, whatever. I'm ditching the army for now (except maybe nurgle daemons, will have to try that). I have 4 armies to play with. I'll go play those until the rules are fixed.
I used to lick handfuls of salt off my hand as a kid and the level of salt in these threads are even making me gag.
As mentioned above, it looks like my initial prediction of people looking at Slaanesh again have somewhat come true. Seekers and Fiends moving up the board very quickly are now a high priority unit for me, whereas before I was thinking of shelving my seekers. I play mono-Slaanesh so... I suppose my perspective is different.
Though to be fair, I was not deep striking anything before this FAQ came out. I design my Slaanesh lists to have a lot of targets and we play with a decent amount of terrain, mitigating 1st turn shooting against me. My seekers have normally gotten 1st turn charges or are close enough and out of LOS where I force my opponent to move/react.
With the extra CP we will have I won't be afraid to put warp surge or whatever the +1 to save is on my units anymore that I believe are a high priority target as well.
So I'm building up my demon army now (8th is my first edition of warhammer), and I'm setting myself to a minimum of units of 20 bloodletters and Pink Horrors. My question is, do i need to make these out to 30 or save points for other things? We play a lot more casual games than it seems people here do, and even our tournaments consist of everyone playing models they like as oppose to cutthroat list, and we don't use the Beta Rules (since they are untested and usually poor)
Given how many more CP you should have now, 30 bloodletters are worth the 2CP it takes to deepstrike them. Putting down 20 with the 3d6 banner to multi assault everything in range means they are going to lose a few models to overwatch and lose their 2+ to hit. If you have the models to do it, and still have enough troop models for 2 more units, then go for it.
Nick Nanavati's opinion: chaos deamons are really bad without CSM allies now. The only one that's ok is Nurgle daemons but again that's a lot better with Death Guard.
Full on deepstrike assault armies are DEAD. That should only be used as a tool of an army.
UncleJetMints wrote: So I'm building up my demon army now (8th is my first edition of warhammer), and I'm setting myself to a minimum of units of 20 bloodletters and Pink Horrors. My question is, do i need to make these out to 30 or save points for other things? We play a lot more casual games than it seems people here do, and even our tournaments consist of everyone playing models they like as oppose to cutthroat list, and we don't use the Beta Rules (since they are untested and usually poor)
I'd definitely get them both up to 30, the +1 to hit/+1 shooting makes a massive difference and the bigger unit benefits more from any buffs you have (aura, psychic powers etc).
So does anyone have thoughts on what Units will shine in a post FAQ world? As a mainly Tzeetch player I'm looking forward to big (deployed) units of horrors racing across the board without being worried about as many first turn chargers tying them up in combat. Once they get in 18", few units can out shoot them.
Screamers also feel a bit better now that there are less first turn charges (which they are more than capable of pulling off), but still feel over costed for a 2 wound model.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Full on deepstrike assault armies are DEAD. That should only be used as a tool of an army.
So basically, you're saying that silly gimmick lists are dead, and that we should bring balanced and flexible lists now ? Seems like everything is working as intended to me...
BTW rvd1ofakind, could you please put spoiler tags on your big image of previous page, it makes the thread unreadable on smartphones.
Um.. please tell me what else do Nurgle/Slaanesh/Khorne daemons have if not full on assault and deepstrike. They have (next to) no shooting. That's the problem.
Pure chaos daemons are now, in my opinion, borderline unplayable in tournaments. They are still really good as allies. But alone - NOPE. Maybe tzeentch, but the results would still always be worse than Daemons + CSM
Pure chaos daemons are now, in my opinion, borderline unplayable in tournaments. They are still really good as allies. But alone - NOPE. Maybe tzeentch, but the results would still always be worse than Daemons + CSM
Please do not be a crybaby, man. I'm playing 40k since 5th and can build a personal magic tower from all that salt cried by players whose codex become less powerful or just started to play another way: "OMG, I quit! I've spent my money for nothing! GW is evil!" and so on.
Everything changes. Just find a new way to play or go to Infinity/ Warmachine/ AoS/ etc what you like.
I for myself played with mono-Tzinch army that was hit hard (no, HARD!!!) by new rules for smite. And have you seen me here crying? Nope, I just look through the codex thinking and planning. May be I'll ally some Khorne daemons, may be some TS golems, may be even take some FW stuff after playtests. But there is literally no reason to cry. It will change nothing, it will help nobody, it will solve no problems at all.
And considering tournaments -- hell with them. If you want to win big events you should have never played mono-daemons in the first place.
Well that's YOUR point of view. I care a lot about tournaments. Hell, I've yet to be beat in the 3 local tournaments I went to. I just have 4 armies. And now I consider daemons to be the worst of the 4. Which means I will NOT bring them to a tournament. Simple.
Pure chaos daemons are now, in my opinion, borderline unplayable in tournaments. They are still really good as allies. But alone - NOPE. Maybe tzeentch, but the results would still always be worse than Daemons + CSM
Please do not be a crybaby, man. I'm playing 40k since 5th and can build a personal magic tower from all that salt cried by players whose codex become less powerful or just started to play another way: "OMG, I quit! I've spent my money for nothing! GW is evil!" and so on.
Everything changes. Just find a new way to play or go to Infinity/ Warmachine/ AoS/ etc what you like.
I for myself played with mono-Tzinch army that was hit hard (no, HARD!!!) by new rules for smite. And have you seen me here crying? Nope, I just look through the codex thinking and planning. May be I'll ally some Khorne daemons, may be some TS golems, may be even take some FW stuff after playtests. But there is literally no reason to cry. It will change nothing, it will help nobody, it will solve no problems at all.
And considering tournaments -- hell with them. If you want to win big events you should have never played mono-daemons in the first place.
You are perfect example of WHY GW doesn't care about balance and just shuffles meta around. Army got screwed? Let's buy more models to replace previous ones!
And thus we get into stage where balance of 40k doesn't improve and indeed with newest FAQ took downhill to worse.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Um.. please tell me what else do Nurgle/Slaanesh/Khorne daemons have if not full on assault and deepstrike. They have (next to) no shooting. That's the problem.
Pure chaos daemons are now, in my opinion, borderline unplayable in tournaments. They are still really good as allies. But alone - NOPE. Maybe tzeentch, but the results would still always be worse than Daemons + CSM
I don't care about tournaments, but my Nurgle Daemons have the scrivener, Drones and prince to go in rather fast (for Nurgle at least ). And I can simply DS in the second turn. Before that I bring in Nurglings, who are now even better due to the DS restriction. There's also the tree, but I didn't try it out yet.
lindsay40k wrote: When exactly do we activate our Banner Stratagems, and is there any limit on the number of units that can use them?
I believe it says at the start of the game. Or just before deployment. You have to read it. It's pretty specific anyway you can use it as many times as you want because its not during a turn.
tneva82 wrote: You are perfect example of WHY GW doesn't care about balance and just shuffles meta around. Army got screwed? Let's buy more models to replace previous ones!
I have more then one army because I like to change playstile regularly. To play 5-6 month shooting everything from the table with IG then switch to non-shooting Daemons for a bit of fresh warp dust or take TS to give myself a challenge. And a lot of players around me do the same. If you play the game for years you will possibly start looking for something new anyways.
Yes changes can hit newcomers very hard: they do not have another army to play or even enough variety in their own army to adopt, but I must say that for most part in 8-th it is not so bad as it was in previous editions. I remember how my Blood Angels became totally useless in 6-th and how Dark Angels become a bikers army overnight. That was hard. But current FAQ is just a shift in meta, not kick in the balls.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
lindsay40k wrote: When exactly do we activate our Banner Stratagems, and is there any limit on the number of units that can use them?
It says "Before the Battle" so you can use it as many times as you want (or as many Icons you have).
Right now there is almost no way for (non-nurgle) Chaos Daemons to compete as they rely on deepstrike. If you go second, you have to last through 2 whole turns. Turn 1 your opponent moves up without getting out of position. Turn 2 your opponent gets out of position but makes the board deepstrike proof. You cannot interract with the board until AFTER the first turn you can deepstrike. Meaning turn 2 you can't REALLY deepstrike as you won't get your bloodletters anywhere meaningful. Meaning that before turn 3 you have to clear enough AND your opponent has to not block you again. Because if you fail any of those - guess what: you won't deepstrike more than half way across the map, so why are you deepstriking to begin with?
Also it is next to impossible to reliably get First Blood equivalents due to very limited ranged options.
Nick Nanavati has also said that armies that rely on deepstrike assault are almost unplayable. They should only be used as a tool to support another army. Also that daemons are now forced into CSM and pals.
But he's only the objectively best player in the world who plays daemons as one of his main armies so what does he know
rvd1ofakind wrote: Right now there is almost no way for (non-nurgle) Chaos Daemons to compete as they rely on deepstrike...
I'm doing ok with mono tzeentch flamer spame/summoning. Start out with 3x6 flamers on the board a few exalted, Daemon prince (with Daemonspark), herald and some horrors to taste. I can keep most of the flamers our of sight at deployment. Move up burn chaff and re-summon flamers that die. Control the center of the board. If you opponent pushes up for objectives shut down summoning they are left exposed to your flamers. Flamers are also crazy mobile so you can use terrain pretty well and allows you to keep your army together (herald is on disk, Daemon prince has wings). It works well enough.
Edit: I almost always choose to go second as it encourages my opponent to move up. It also negates a turn of my opponents shooting against any summons (as they come in after my opponent's turn), so say a unit summoned turn 2, will get to shoot turns 2-3-4-5-6, but only be able to be shot turns 3-4-5-6.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Right now there is almost no way for (non-nurgle) Chaos Daemons to compete as they rely on deepstrike.
Daemon Princes can move 12+D6'' and be protected from shooting by chaff (even a single model behind LOS-block denies ALL shooting against characters behind), Screamers can move 16'', Pink Horrors can drop 18 inch away from enemy's screen and shoot the hell out of it, Flamers can do the same even better from 12'', Heralds still have long-range Smite and LoCh can cast Gateway with +2 and possible re-rolls. And so on.
I personally never played Tzeench daemons as a DS-dependent army and sometimes even dropped in my own deployment zone using DS just as a way to protect Flamers or LoCh from alpha strike. You can play daemons even with beta rules. And you can still do a lot of damage and board control. You just need to adopt.
Of course you will nor win any major events with them, but nothing have changed here, it was the same for years.
Same for years??? Screamerstar? Tzeentch wrecking AoS? ok
No thanks, I'll probably just switch to necrons/orks until this dumb rule is fixed somehow. Good luck playing this empty shell of an army until then. You guys are all smarter and better than Nick Nanavati. It's fine he just doesn't see what you see in the army.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Same for years??? Screamerstar? Tzeentch wrecking AoS?
I do not play AoS and that "rerollable 2++" abomination ruled tables for a relatively short period of time. And it was so boring I never played it (as well as Draigo-bomb or other game-breaking combos).
If you want to play Deamons as DS-based army AND your local community wants to use beta rules then you are screwed of course. But it is not the only way and that is what we are trying to say. I think I'll quit this line of discussion anyways, we are going circles. Have a good luck.
Yup, lets leave it as rvd has given up on daemons for now and their is a tournament player who agrees with him.
So anyhoooooooo, what are people's thoughts on a solid turn one board presence for a pure daemon list?
Plague Bears, Nurglings and Horrors seem like obvious choice (and support characters). Have many people tried a blood letter swarm? Before the dex dropped I saw a 90 Bloodletter list get top 3 in a Grant Tournament heat, but not sure if that was a fluke and he just got the right opponents?
"a tournament player" - the best player in the entire world objectively judging by consistent tournament results
And I still haven't REALLY given up on deamons. Nurgle might have a shot.
I tried letter spam yesterday. And as I've said the board was almost completelly covered by the time I got to my turn 2. Not being able to quickly move out with durable units (deepstriking pinks) is a big problem. I'll try with 12 plaguedrones next time. Maybe that'll work. They're durable and take up a ton of space.
So here seems to be the consensus from what I'm reading:
Khorne - hit the hardest because their one gimmick was to deep strike in and charge; now this has been nerfed to turn 2. We may see this used as a second-wave tactic backing up things like Nurgle or a CSM army thats mostly shooting (Havoc's, Defilers, Soulgrinders, Obliterators, etc.)
Nurgle - relatively unscathed as they didn't rely too heavily on deep striking prior to the faq due to their resilience. Because of things like the Tree and Scrivener, they can still operate more or less the same. As well, they synergize well with Death Guard, so yay!
Tzeentch - While positioning your horror bombs to hit the "soft targets" isn't feasible now, they weren't hit too badly. They have a 24" range for the horrors, brims are still fantastic and cheap OS units, and Lord of Change is hard as hell to kill if hes your warlord. Plus other options, like the chariots and flamers, are fast and hit hard in shooting. Will we see a resurgence?
Slaneesh - These guys got a MASSIVE buff with the FAQ. They're fast and can get to the other side of the table T1 without an issue. Their biggest issue is they're squishy, which sucks if you go second. However, the bastard son of the chaos gods I have a feeling will see more tabletime. Evaluating their units, things like Fiends, and Emporers Children CSM detachments really look like they will mesh well together; EC is a shooting army, Slan demons is all about CC.
This is what I can gather. I really do feel that Chaos Daemons is a great allied force, I don't think they can work as a wholely primary force without mixing several of the gods together. However, when you think about mixing World Eaters with Khorne, DG with Nurgle, TS with Tzeentch, EC with Slaneesh... there are some interesting and varied army compositions you can build that combine shooting and CC, while staying fluffy. Thoughts?
Zid wrote: Slaneesh - These guys got a MASSIVE buff with the FAQ. They're fast and can get to the other side of the table T1 without an issue. Their biggest issue is they're squishy, which sucks if you go second. However, the bastard son of the chaos gods I have a feeling will see more tabletime. Evaluating their units, things like Fiends, and Emporers Children CSM detachments really look like they will mesh well together; EC is a shooting army, Slan demons is all about CC.
People really need to learn the difference between an army being buffed and all of the equivalent armies being brought down to their crappiness.
This is what I can gather. I really do feel that Chaos Daemons is a great allied force, I don't think they can work as a wholely primary force without mixing several of the gods together. However, when you think about mixing World Eaters with Khorne, DG with Nurgle, TS with Tzeentch, EC with Slaneesh... there are some interesting and varied army compositions you can build that combine shooting and CC, while staying fluffy. Thoughts?
My Fluffy WE are purely combat focused with the only shooting coming from CC units that just happen to have a gun. I said it before and I'll say it again: Khorne Daemons were great for WE armies, giving some distraction so that the mortal Khorne units could actually make it into combat rather than be blown off the board, but now pure CC Khorne will be close to unplayable against shooting armies for anything other than very friendly games.
SPEAKING of summoning: Does it get around the Rule of Three thing? Could I, say, summon in a fourth burning chariot if I already have three in my list?
The way I see it (and it's just my opinion, so take the salt as you will) is this.
Mono deamon army's were hit pretty hard if your taking just deamons. If they were mono allies then your semi-ok, tactics are still valid.
However pure mono deamon lists were always harder to play than mixed deamon lists. Thankfully I play a mixed deamon list.
Use nurglings to gain turn 1 board control. They are small, they can be placed wherever you want, they are cheap, and they are hard to shift in numbers. This allows turn 2 areas to drop in with bloodletters or pink horrors. Also flamers (as mentioned above) are fast and can give support to said nurglings during first turn to help keep the control of your opponent makes a hole in your control line.
Khorne skull cannons, soul grinders, anything with long range becomes more valuable because we will need some long range support, and if we are sticking to just deamons we don't have a large amount of options. Put mark of nurgle or tzeench on the soul grinder and it becomes more durable and a fire magnet as it moves up the field.
I have always found deamons as a pure force hard to play as, but we can still get the job done. But if your trying to play competitive and pure mono force your really making it harder on yourself.
Not sure if it's intentional or not in addition to me potentially misreading but it looks to me like summoning does not follow this FAQ rule. Because your picking the units from a point pool and not setting up as deployment i'd reason that they ignore the whole units deploying via deepstrike must be within your zone. You could potentially put a herald near the edge of your deployment zone (9-12 inches), use daemonic ritual, put the summoned unit 12 inches in front of the herald turn 1, Also, since the ritual does not as written occur at the end of the movement but rather during it as an alternative to a character moving during the phase it would it be possible to move said unit. Even if not you would still be able to relatively effectively drop horror bombs. and as for the dice gods, well theres finally a reason to use the 2cp summoning strategem, especially since we're probably not using denizens of the warp as often.
Also if you wanted to footslog pink horrors you could spend about 80 points to give 20 ablative wounds via splitting with reasonable saves, especially if you use warp surge.
operkoi wrote: Even if not you would still be able to relatively effectively drop horror bombs. and as for the dice gods, well theres finally a reason to use the 2cp summoning strategem, especially since we're probably not using denizens of the warp as often.
I had no idea Soul Sacrifice let the summoned unit reroll 1's as well within 6" that turn. No doubt because I never read that strat
operkoi wrote: Even if not you would still be able to relatively effectively drop horror bombs. and as for the dice gods, well theres finally a reason to use the 2cp summoning strategem, especially since we're probably not using denizens of the warp as often.
I had no idea Soul Sacrifice let the summoned unit reroll 1's as well within 6" that turn. No doubt because I never read that strat
- Salvage
wait it does that? lol i stopped reading after 4 dice summon roll
Eh, my little ploy wouldn't allow for that aura. Plan is to summon the unit around midfield (~12 deployment +12), move it appropriately (+6), then pull off a turn 1 charge or lots of dakka from horror bomb. Assuming the enemy gets first turn and doesn't cower in the corner, and without standard deepstrike they will probably be a bit more aggressive, and give you the objectives you should be able to charge/shoot something.
operkoi wrote: Eh, my little ploy wouldn't allow for that aura. Plan is to summon the unit around midfield (~12 deployment +12), move it appropriately (+6), then pull off a turn 1 charge or lots of dakka from horror bomb. Assuming the enemy gets first turn and doesn't cower in the corner, and without standard deepstrike they will probably be a bit more aggressive, and give you the objectives you should be able to charge/shoot something.
I'm sorry to break up your dreams, but:
1. Daemonic Ritual is performed "at the end of the Movement phase", so no more movement for a summoned unit.
2. Summoned unit "is treated as reinforcements" so no summoning beyond your deployment zone turn 1.
operkoi wrote: Eh, my little ploy wouldn't allow for that aura. Plan is to summon the unit around midfield (~12 deployment +12), move it appropriately (+6), then pull off a turn 1 charge or lots of dakka from horror bomb. Assuming the enemy gets first turn and doesn't cower in the corner, and without standard deepstrike they will probably be a bit more aggressive, and give you the objectives you should be able to charge/shoot something.
I'm sorry to break up your dreams, but:
1. Daemonic Ritual is performed "at the end of the Movement phase", so no more movement for a summoned unit.
2. Summoned unit "is treated as reinforcements" so no summoning beyond your deployment zone turn 1.
Tzeentch - While positioning your horror bombs to hit the "soft targets" isn't feasible now, they weren't hit too badly. They have a 24" range for the horrors, brims are still fantastic and cheap OS units, and Lord of Change is hard as hell to kill if hes your warlord. Plus other options, like the chariots and flamers, are fast and hit hard in shooting. Will we see a resurgence?
Don't forget those horrors can also advance (+1" is they have an instrument) and still shoot if needed. 5+ to hit but with 90 shots you'll still get to roast something.
As pointed out summoning, while still hurt by the deep-strike rule, does let us get around the rule of 3, so no need to put those 9 exalted flamers on ebay
If I can face painting it all up, 120 pink horrors, heralds and E. Flamers could be a relatively solid list, especially if the meta moves further away from combat. No deep striking so with 2 units of brimies you could get 2 batallions and sit of 13+ command point to boost the save on whichever unit is facing the most damage.
"Use nurglings to gain turn 1 board control. They are small, they can be placed wherever you want, they are cheap, and they are hard to shift in numbers. This allows turn 2 areas to drop in with bloodletters or pink horrors. Also flamers (as mentioned above) are fast and can give support to said nurglings during first turn to help keep the control of your opponent makes a hole in your control line. "
The problem is that nurglings do not create areas. The fact that you have them on the table means nothing unless they are physically blocking the path for the enemy (which most fast units can FLY over)
Daemons do seem to be a support army for Chaos Marines now. Which works for me anyway. I like how all the soup nerfs didn’t do a thing to chaos anyway, when you can just put the same mark on everybody and throw everything in one soup pot.
Supreme Command Detachment with an Iron Warriors Lord of Skulls, Skullmaster with Crimson Crown, Alpha Legion CSM Khorne Daemon Prince and Renegade Khorne Warpsmith is a go! I’ll take turn 2 deepstrikers, they’ll come in the same time as summons from a jump pack Sorcerer and still get rerolled charges with a patrol detachment of Khorne stuff. The FAQ has changed almost nothing except adding a bunch of command points so everything gets blood banners.
I think I'll try to add some long range shooting to my Tzeench army either in the form of 3 Chaos Predators or 3+ Khorne Scull Cannons. I will proxy-test them at the weekend and look for results.
rvd1ofakind wrote: "Use nurglings to gain turn 1 board control. They are small, they can be placed wherever you want, they are cheap, and they are hard to shift in numbers. This allows turn 2 areas to drop in with bloodletters or pink horrors. Also flamers (as mentioned above) are fast and can give support to said nurglings during first turn to help keep the control of your opponent makes a hole in your control line. "
The problem is that nurglings do not create areas. The fact that you have them on the table means nothing unless they are physically blocking the path for the enemy (which most fast units can FLY over)
yeah the 1" area around models in 40k makes models taking space matter very little. In AoS for instance you can't get within 3" which makes model matter. SO nurglings unless you literally bring just about enough models to cover all the table space they don't realy stop anything.
The only way i can see nurglings really being a good solution for keeping an area clear is if you bring a bunch of nurglings and use them to do turn one charges on lots of your opponent stuff so they can't really move out as many units. If your opponent flys that doesn't matter at all.
Boss Salvage wrote: I'm guessing some of the nurgling thinking is a pre-FAQ holdover, where 9" drop zone buffering was a top tip. Somewhat less so now.
- Salvage
You can use them to clog up movement of your opponent; such as between two buildings, or what have you. Of course, this doesn't help against fliers and stuff.... but they have their uses lol.
So because armies have some units that can fly suddenly that means nurglings will never work as a way to keep a drop zone clear for turn 2 drop in on an entire 4x6 table? Come on, obviously there isn't a single "tactic" that will fix all issues, but nurglings as a drop zone protection will work against quite a few armies out there. And if the enemy does focus on killing those nurglings then they are not dealing with the slaanesh units running into then at full speed.
They do NOT keep a dropzone clear for you. They keep the deepstriking opponent from deepstriking there. They do not have a 9'' aura in which YOU can deepstrike despite and opposing unit standing next to nurglings. There's no point in killing them except for easy-ish kill points.
They were must take with turn 1 deepstrike. But now... meh.
So just for the hilarity of it I made a new list for my Slaanesh based off all this no DSing turn 1 shenanigans. It is not meant to be hyper-competitive but I think it will be fun and at least will give some people a run for their money. Even though my group is getting used to the speed of my army somewhat, i haven't brought a ton of Seekers at any point. Normally 1 squad max. This list changes my focus from being on Daemonettes to being on Seekers and a KOS that will roll up with them... hopefully on turn 1. LOL I'll probably get shot to bits if I go second but I suppose with my speed I can try to deploy defensively and still be able to roll out quickly if I go first. ANYWAY... here it is. (my psychic powers for my KOS is based on my group, I know it isn't the best combo).
People are saying that Slaanesh has a role now as she* specialises in fast attack. She has more different types of fast unit (which helps with the new Rule of Three), but Screamers are still faster, more durable per point and better at attacking things than anything Slaanesh has (and can be supported by fast heralds), so they should also be considered for this role...
Mark.
*Well I prefer to think of Slaanesh as a she, and it was cannon at one point, just like Khorne being honourable)
Has anybody tried stacking Ld debuffs alongside Treason of Tzeentch? I don’t think I’d build a list around it, but if I were fielding Tzeentch Daemonkin I’d keep it in mind. Probably best on a TSons/NLords list with Nurgle Raptors and Ahriman?
Cheeslord wrote: People are saying that Slaanesh has a role now as she* specialises in fast attack. She has more different types of fast unit (which helps with the new Rule of Three), but Screamers are still faster, more durable per point and better at attacking things than anything Slaanesh has (and can be supported by fast heralds), so they should also be considered for this role...
Mark.
*Well I prefer to think of Slaanesh as a she, and it was cannon at one point, just like Khorne being honourable)
Screamers are faster in their exact 16" movement and have a slightly better melee profile. Seekers for Slaanesh can get -4 AP potential bonus. However... a unit of maxed 9 Screamers is 279 points. 12 Seekers, base, is 228. You can add more seekers as well, if you so choose up to 20 I believe. They can be a more reliable blob. They can also take a Musician, a banner and can advance and charge if a character follows them, get a +1 str with that as well and they can reroll their charges if they fail.
It isn't just that one unit is fast as well, it's the entire army. Seekers will scream up the board at 14+D6+1" and then have a 2D6+1" charge. Screamers will only go the 16". They have the same amount of wounds but less models more than likely. However our Daemonette blobs move 7"+D6+1" and also then get a 2D6+1" charge. Screaming right up the board after them. The warlord trait celerity of Slaanesh didn't seem so great before but now, units like the KOS or a DP with wings is moving 15" base, not including the advance roll + ability to charge.
It's a weight of force (squishy force, I'll give you that) moving up super quick, not just a single unit. Max threat range is 34" with the Seekers. I also tend to not put all my eggs in one basket. I know it's tempting to make one giant blob but I try to spread it out so if a unit is shot off the board it doesn't hurt as much. If you can manage to keep them alive, I also enjoy bringing a fiend or two. They move just as fast as the Seekers and can lock a unit in combat with them permanently unless the unit can fly. They are super squishy and overcosted though.
Also.. side note. You can still call Slaanesh a she, Slaanesh is both a male and female. best of both worlds! Haha. Or does he/she/it just appear androgynous now?
lindsay40k wrote: Has anybody tried stacking Ld debuffs alongside Treason of Tzeentch? I don’t think I’d build a list around it, but if I were fielding Tzeentch Daemonkin I’d keep it in mind. Probably best on a TSons/NLords list with Nurgle Raptors and Ahriman?
I have not tried that... but I did try Zarak with Phantasmagoria + cacophonic choir. Leadership debuff stuff is surprisingly effective, though Zarak has a built in -2 already. I think I got 8 mortal wounds into a blob of pinks or something. I don't see why the treason of tzeentch thing wouldn't work out.
Boss Salvage wrote: I'm guessing some of the nurgling thinking is a pre-FAQ holdover, where 9" drop zone buffering was a top tip. Somewhat less so now.
- Salvage
Nah you you don't need em as much for zone buffer. Though i do think they could make a decent first turn charging unit. They have decent damage, and durability, and they can get jammed into melee turn 1. A big unit could even pull 1 or 2 models back to grab that sloppity bile piper buff to advance and charge. Really letting them run deep into enemy lines. With a bell GUO and the nurglings chained back to him, he could also heal the units (but i still think healing that way is dumb and not good enough).
I'm not super sure where my head is at with daemons at the moment. I think potentially the idea is just screw killing power, and go for max staying power. BRing horrors that you pump up iwht +1 invuln and support with ignore morale and spliting. Then big nurglings units that threaten to tie up units like dark reapers, or get surrounds on thier wave serpents. 1 unit might not last a dark reaper storm, but dark reapers would actualy be pretty hard pressed to take out several ~7 man nurglings unit.
Then i guess along with the horde you can jam in 3 daemon princes. As the horde would keep them rather safe. Out side of that the LoC seem decent enough as well as he's just durable with nice spells.
I think this style horde army would follow along with alot of what nick nonvadie has been doing with some of his list. Just straight up durability for durability sake and just winning on objectives and not being tablable.
Screamers are faster in their exact 16" movement and have a slightly better melee profile. Seekers for Slaanesh can get -4 AP potential bonus. However... a unit of maxed 9 Screamers is 279 points. 12 Seekers, base, is 228. You can add more seekers as well, if you so choose up to 20 I believe. They can be a more reliable blob. They can also take a Musician, a banner and can advance and charge if a character follows them, get a +1 str with that as well and they can reroll their charges if they fail.
It isn't just that one unit is fast as well, it's the entire army. Seekers will scream up the board at 14+D6+1" and then have a 2D6+1" charge. Screamers will only go the 16". They have the same amount of wounds but less models more than likely. However our Daemonette blobs move 7"+D6+1" and also then get a 2D6+1" charge. Screaming right up the board after them. The warlord trait celerity of Slaanesh didn't seem so great before but now, units like the KOS or a DP with wings is moving 15" base, not including the advance roll + ability to charge.
It's a weight of force (squishy force, I'll give you that) moving up super quick, not just a single unit. Max threat range is 34" with the Seekers. I also tend to not put all my eggs in one basket. I know it's tempting to make one giant blob but I try to spread it out so if a unit is shot off the board it doesn't hurt as much. If you can manage to keep them alive, I also enjoy bringing a fiend or two. They move just as fast as the Seekers and can lock a unit in combat with them permanently unless the unit can fly. They are super squishy and overcosted though.
Also.. side note. You can still call Slaanesh a she, Slaanesh is both a male and female. best of both worlds! Haha. Or does he/she/it just appear androgynous now?
lindsay40k wrote: Has anybody tried stacking Ld debuffs alongside Treason of Tzeentch? I don’t think I’d build a list around it, but if I were fielding Tzeentch Daemonkin I’d keep it in mind. Probably best on a TSons/NLords list with Nurgle Raptors and Ahriman?
I have not tried that... but I did try Zarak with Phantasmagoria + cacophonic choir. Leadership debuff stuff is surprisingly effective, though Zarak has a built in -2 already. I think I got 8 mortal wounds into a blob of pinks or something. I don't see why the treason of tzeentch thing wouldn't work out.
ON the being fast thing. I think nurgles do it better than seekers or screamers. They are pretty much parented to make it all the way up the table and get there attacks in. If you get a character up there with them they can increase the damage of the nurgles, and with virulence blessing they could threaten vehicles or big monsters doing 3 damage a piece on 5's, and getting reroll 1's from daemon prince as well.
Then aside from that if you look at the damage chart rvd1ofakind posted a while back nurglings even take a las cannon shot better than seekers and screamers do. SO between seekers and screamers... my money is on the nurgling.
Out side of the rest of that i do think the deep strike thing does make summoning better. While i think it doesn't let you summon out side of your deploym,ent zone turn 1. Turn 2 all your characters are close enough to summon flamers and horrors directly into range.
So I've been looking through my BRB and FAQs, and I cannot find anything to suggest that summoning is reinforcements. Is it in Chapter Approved or am I just no correctly interpreting the placement of a comma somewhere? I'm very hopeful that this turn1 summon idea will actually work, so that I can take more than 1 greater daemon in my mono-khorne army.
:edit: Nevermind found it. In the actual summmoning rules in the daemons codex. Derp.
:edit 2: So having read the Daemonic Ritual rule again... I think summoning got hit super hard by this beta FAQ. Not only can we not summon outside our deployment zone t1, but we might still need to account for the PL of things we summon. "This unit is treated as reinforcements for your army and can be placed anywhere on the battlefield.." Double whammy making an already lackluster mechanic worse somehow. Is there a bad idea tier past Hot Garbage? Has summoning finally hit 5e>7e Pyrovore tier bad???
StarHunter25 wrote: So I've been looking through my BRB and FAQs, and I cannot find anything to suggest that summoning is reinforcements. Is it in Chapter Approved or am I just no correctly interpreting the placement of a comma somewhere? I'm very hopeful that this turn1 summon idea will actually work, so that I can take more than 1 greater daemon in my mono-khorne army.
You can't move and then summon, nor can you move after being summoned, I think.
StarHunter25 wrote: So I've been looking through my BRB and FAQs, and I cannot find anything to suggest that summoning is reinforcements. Is it in Chapter Approved or am I just no correctly interpreting the placement of a comma somewhere? I'm very hopeful that this turn1 summon idea will actually work, so that I can take more than 1 greater daemon in my mono-khorne army.
:edit: Nevermind found it. In the actual summmoning rules in the daemons codex. Derp.
:edit 2: So having read the Daemonic Ritual rule again... I think summoning got hit super hard by this beta FAQ. Not only can we not summon outside our deployment zone t1, but we might still need to account for the PL of things we summon. "This unit is treated as reinforcements for your army and can be placed anywhere on the battlefield.." Double whammy making an already lackluster mechanic worse somehow. Is there a bad idea tier past Hot Garbage? Has summoning finally hit 5e>7e Pyrovore tier bad???
it actually doesn't require any more PL stuff then it already had. The unit isn't set up at the start and as such it doesn't count as reinforcements regarding PL until it's on the table as long as you roll it.
But summoning is still (and always was) almost useless. The only it's use I've ever been able to find is to summon something that is not in your codex so that you do not break mono-detachement and get all bonuses. Or circumvent detachment restrictions (summon 4-thHQ in a Battalion for example). Outside of that it's a crap.
Now that I'm actually planning on using the mechanic (to circumvent detachment restrictions), there are a frustrating number of limitations on it, aren't there. Costing both the movement of the summoner and the summoned is feeling particularly redundant right now
Being relatively new to daemons (started in february). I might be derping pretty hard here, but what is the point of all of the +to hit bonuses bloodletters get? Units of 20+ gets +1, near skulltaker gets +1. Yeah I get that Skulltaker also effects cannons, thrones, heralds and juggs, but he can't take a throne or jugg, so he just walks between a few big blobs and does nothing, or deepstrikes in to give crushers +1 to hit maybe. I feel like they were supposed to get something like DttFE but it got cut at the last minute
Maybe if skulltaker got a +1 to hit always he'd be a bit better to buff skullcannons, but as it stands, he just looks like a more expensive bloodmaster but worse. Ohyeah, does his +1 just effect the rider of the crusher/bloodletters on the cannon, or all of its attacks because the whole model has the Bloodletter keyword?
ON the being fast thing. I think nurgles do it better than seekers or screamers. They are pretty much parented to make it all the way up the table and get there attacks in. If you get a character up there with them they can increase the damage of the nurgles, and with virulence blessing they could threaten vehicles or big monsters doing 3 damage a piece on 5's, and getting reroll 1's from daemon prince as well.
Then aside from that if you look at the damage chart rvd1ofakind posted a while back nurglings even take a las cannon shot better than seekers and screamers do. SO between seekers and screamers... my money is on the nurgling.
Out side of the rest of that i do think the deep strike thing does make summoning better. While i think it doesn't let you summon out side of your deploym,ent zone turn 1. Turn 2 all your characters are close enough to summon flamers and horrors directly into range.
Well Nurgle will be more resilient, that is their thing, but speed wise it isn't comparable. Just like when Khorne finally get there they will hit harder than Nurgle or Slaanesh on paper, but they have an in the middle kind of speed. Plaguebearers only move 5" and can only charge after advancing with a Gnarlmaw in the list as far as I am aware? Even Plaguedrones are slower, moving only 10". It's a slow, resilient charge. They don't have the turn 1 27" threat range of Daemonettes (that 27" is assuming the best rolls ever). Let alone the 34" max threat range of Seekers.
StarHunter25 wrote: Being relatively new to daemons (started in february). I might be derping pretty hard here, but what is the point of all of the +to hit bonuses bloodletters get? Units of 20+ gets +1, near skulltaker gets +1. Yeah I get that Skulltaker also effects cannons, thrones, heralds and juggs, but he can't take a throne or jugg, so he just walks between a few big blobs and does nothing, or deepstrikes in to give crushers +1 to hit maybe. I feel like they were supposed to get something like DttFE but it got cut at the last minute
Maybe if skulltaker got a +1 to hit always he'd be a bit better to buff skullcannons, but as it stands, he just looks like a more expensive bloodmaster but worse. Ohyeah, does his +1 just effect the rider of the crusher/bloodletters on the cannon, or all of its attacks because the whole model has the Bloodletter keyword?
Any model with BLOODLETTER gets the bonus on all its attacks. If your bonuses to hit add up to better than 2+, then 1’s do still fail - but if you incur a -1 to hit pentalty, it’ll be offset. Also, +2 to hit rolls means hitting a Culexus Assassin on a 4+.
A bit niche, but if you’re facing a debuff army or an Execution Force and have Skulltaker and a horde of letters, you’ll have a trick up your sleeve.
Skulltaker himself also obliterates characters. That d3+3 damage sword is no joke. For under a buck, he's a pretty good deal for a duelist. The +1 to hit is mostly icing, and can benefit smaller units of letters.
ON the being fast thing. I think nurgles do it better than seekers or screamers. They are pretty much parented to make it all the way up the table and get there attacks in. If you get a character up there with them they can increase the damage of the nurgles, and with virulence blessing they could threaten vehicles or big monsters doing 3 damage a piece on 5's, and getting reroll 1's from daemon prince as well.
Then aside from that if you look at the damage chart rvd1ofakind posted a while back nurglings even take a las cannon shot better than seekers and screamers do. SO between seekers and screamers... my money is on the nurgling.
Out side of the rest of that i do think the deep strike thing does make summoning better. While i think it doesn't let you summon out side of your deploym,ent zone turn 1. Turn 2 all your characters are close enough to summon flamers and horrors directly into range.
Well Nurgle will be more resilient, that is their thing, but speed wise it isn't comparable. Just like when Khorne finally get there they will hit harder than Nurgle or Slaanesh on paper, but they have an in the middle kind of speed. Plaguebearers only move 5" and can only charge after advancing with a Gnarlmaw in the list as far as I am aware? Even Plaguedrones are slower, moving only 10". It's a slow, resilient charge. They don't have the turn 1 27" threat range of Daemonettes (that 27" is assuming the best rolls ever). Let alone the 34" max threat range of Seekers.
Ytour missing nurgling's "speed" it is comparible because nurglings start 9" away from your enemy's deployment zone. Even on some of the closest deployment maps that's a 14" move or on the normal distance ones like a 20" move up the table. Stringing back just a hair to catch a high five from a sloppy bile piper also lets you advance and charge adding an average of 3.5" to your move, and with a charge that's an average 30.5" threat range. with a max threat range of 38" inches.
It's not obviously nessarily speed, but more the fact that the unit can span half way accross the board (by only holding 2 or 3 models back to tag a sloppity bile piper for advance and charge. Then from there they start more than half way accross the table. SO not faster per say, but they get a head start. Thier damage is quite lower, but you can get some good milage with virulence blessing.
Please re-read nurgle character names and rules for the tree
Anyway, Nurgle is really fast. +2'' move from scrivener and charge from the tree makes plaguebearers exactly as fast as daemonettes. Except they are so much more durable than daemonettes that it's not even funny.
Turn 2 charges are a common sight: (7+4.5)x2 +8 = 31'' threat range from turn 2 with plaguebearers. With plague drones, it's 37''. Not bad eh?
Really easy:
2-3 blobs of 30 bearers icon instrument
Poxherald, bilepiper, scrivener
Plague drones
Epidemius
Tree(s)
DG ranged fire power to get buffs fast
Don’t forget Oblits. 700pts gets you a CSM detachment with nine of them and a Jump Pack character to either give them re-roll 1’s, or cast Warptime and Prescience on a Sprayer drone and load of Blight-haulers.
870pts makes it a Daemon Prince to throw down re-rolls before Epidemius warms up, and also cast Prescience.
Last game, I had a Familiar swap out Prescience for Warptime so said DP could get a cheeky charge and contribute to a Maelstrom goal.
Access to Warptime is also really helpful. I wouldn’t rule out taking a Jump Sorcered *and* CSMDP in some Epidemius lists. Moving twice, 2+BS multi-Meltas, and disabling Storm Shields and the like is just too good.
The trouble I’m having is fitting it all into three detachments... I want a poxbringer, Epidemius, and scrivener, plus either a fortification network (boo), or probably slimux for a tree. Plus some Death Guard firepower and/or obliterators... I could do it comfortably with four, but to meet the three limit I have to miss out on something.
Vomikron Noxis wrote: The trouble I’m having is fitting it all into three detachments... I want a poxbringer, Epidemius, and scrivener, plus either a fortification network (boo), or probably slimux for a tree. Plus some Death Guard firepower and/or obliterators... I could do it comfortably with four, but to meet the three limit I have to miss out on something.
If your taking Nurgle and running Epidemus, I would recommend Obliterators; mainly because they can benefit from everything the tree gives them (0+ save woo!), they hit really hard, and have a lot of tactical options. Plus, CSM has a LOT of options to play with that can help you secure kills for epidemus buffs. Death Guard, while I adore them and run them personally, only have two units: PBC's and Bloat Drones (or Defilers...). Both of which benefit from Epidemus, but the only benefit is the fall back and shoot and thats only for PBC's.
StarHunter25 wrote: Being relatively new to daemons (started in february). I might be derping pretty hard here, but what is the point of all of the +to hit bonuses bloodletters get? Units of 20+ gets +1, near skulltaker gets +1. Yeah I get that Skulltaker also effects cannons, thrones, heralds and juggs, but he can't take a throne or jugg, so he just walks between a few big blobs and does nothing, or deepstrikes in to give crushers +1 to hit maybe. I feel like they were supposed to get something like DttFE but it got cut at the last minute
Maybe if skulltaker got a +1 to hit always he'd be a bit better to buff skullcannons, but as it stands, he just looks like a more expensive bloodmaster but worse. Ohyeah, does his +1 just effect the rider of the crusher/bloodletters on the cannon, or all of its attacks because the whole model has the Bloodletter keyword?
Any model with BLOODLETTER gets the bonus on all its attacks. If your bonuses to hit add up to better than 2+, then 1’s do still fail - but if you incur a -1 to hit pentalty, it’ll be offset. Also, +2 to hit rolls means hitting a Culexus Assassin on a 4+.
A bit niche, but if you’re facing a debuff army or an Execution Force and have Skulltaker and a horde of letters, you’ll have a trick up your sleeve.
So your right that skulltaker does indeed grant his bonus to a skullcannon, but his bonus is +1 to hit in the fight phase only, so it's not going to matter much. If your skullcannon is in close combat your already in trouble.
It does suck that deamons are mostly a melee army that has been hit hard vs the beta update, and our shooting is very limited to begin with, but I just don't see a way forward without using chaos marines as allies in a competitive environment. Not and stick to a single God.
Same thing with any full God CSM force + the same Daemons god force. I don't think it's worth losing traits over, though, since it's pretty trivial to make Battalions now and they give 5CP per, soooooooooo.
Death Guard Outrider
Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Wings 180
Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Wings 180
Foetid Bloat-Drone 158
Foetid Bloat-Drone 158
Plagueburst Crawler 140
Plagueburst Crawler 140
Plagueburst Crawler 140
1,990 points
Power Rating 108
Command Points 9
Do I really need that tree at all? The plan is to DS it on turn two to get the plaguebearers in the fight, and give the PBCs somewhere safe to fall back to if they get tied up.
It's always good to have the tree. If your PBCs get charged, you can retreat and shoot. You get better cover, you can advance and charge with all nurgle things. It's great. Even for 85 pts. You might want 2 even.I'd add a bilepiper too. DG doesn't really care about having a pure detachment I don't think
Death Guard Outrider
Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Wings 180
Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Wings 180
Foetid Bloat-Drone 158
Foetid Bloat-Drone 158
Plagueburst Crawler 140
Plagueburst Crawler 140
Plagueburst Crawler 140
1,990 points
Power Rating 108
Command Points 9
Do I really need that tree at all? The plan is to DS it on turn two to get the plaguebearers in the fight, and give the PBCs somewhere safe to fall back to if they get tied up.
I was thinking of a similar list honestly but I had concerns regarding the ranged support - even with the bloat drones insane move and the PBC skirting up the board with the help of the tree (and the 7 inch move on the plaguebearers) at the end it seems very close range and for example tau commanders that mvoe 40 inches and can fall back after shooting - kiting troops - gave me worries. I don't have the models for this list (need more plaugebearers and the maw) so i have 0 experience with this type of list - i do favor foetid bloat drones and PBC with epidemius as it seems to tank up the toughness and mirror one of chaos' stronger prior lists (10 PBC).
Hmm. If you want to juggle Oblits, PBC/MBH, and Epidemius, is it worth taking Horticulous to plant your tree, say, when Detachments are limited? What about taking a HERETIC ASTARTES Detachment that combines DG with CSM?
What do people think of fateskimmers? Now with deepstrike being slower for and alpha strike being less effective in general, are they worth taking to try and lock down gun lines asap?
14 inch movement + advance is pretty solid and you can move them up with some screamers to screen so they cant be targetted. They could potentially dish out some serious damage. Im just not sure if they are too expensive.
fishwaffle2232 wrote: What do people think of fateskimmers? Now with deepstrike being slower for and alpha strike being less effective in general, are they worth taking to try and lock down gun lines asap?
14 inch movement + advance is pretty solid and you can move them up with some screamers to screen so they cant be targetted. They could potentially dish out some serious damage. Im just not sure if they are too expensive.
Slaanesh is a bit better at this. 14 inch movement still on Seekers, plus advance, plus charge with a re-roll - and you can run them up with Fiends as well, whose rule prevents the enemy from falling back. If you're willing to soup gods (I'm not; I play mono-Slaanesh ), Fiends + Seekers + Heralds on Seekers are fine additions to Turn 1 tie up units all across the enemy DZ.
This is why I was happy about the DS nerf. Slaanesh can actually participate in the game, instead of just sucking because everyone else was generally faster for anything that mattered.
I think we should try. The only bright side of not being competitive is that you can freely try anything you want without thinking about efficiency: you will loose against any tier-1 army anyways so why bother.
But my opinion is that Fateskimmers are not so good. For about the same points as TS Daemon Prince with wings and Malefic Talons (my basic load-out) we get 2 more attacks and 2 inches of movement but loose 2+ WS, rerolls of 1-s, get T5 instead of 6 and loose a lot in strength (S4 for the Herald itself and S6 for screamers vs S7 for DP). I personally do not think it is a good trade-off, but if you have a model (mine is glued as Exalted Flamer on Chariot) you can always try and see for yourself.
I think we should try. The only bright side of not being competitive is that you can freely try anything you want without thinking about efficiency: you will loose against any tier-1 army anyways so why bother.
But my opinion is that Fateskimmers are not so good. For about the same points as TS Daemon Prince with wings and Malefic Talons (my basic load-out) we get 2 more attacks and 2 inches of movement but loose 2+ WS, rerolls of 1-s, get T5 instead of 6 and loose a lot in strength (S4 for the Herald itself and S6 for screamers vs S7 for DP). I personally do not think it is a good trade-off, but if you have a model (mine is glued as Exalted Flamer on Chariot) you can always try and see for yourself.
Well its 25 points cheaper, which is quite a bit. The lamprey bites are actually 6 x strength 7 attacks (with the aura) which is nice. The 4+ ws is a big difference but I plan on having a daemon prince nearby to make use of +1 strength aura and to provide reroll 1s. The -1 to enemy casting is also really useful.
I havent bought the model yet and Im on the fence about it. I already run 1 DP and im not sure if more than 1 is particularly fluffy or fun for an opponent.
Im trying to fill a cheapish tzeentch battalion to go along with an alpha legion army, I was just interested to hear if anyone else had tried them this edition, because to me they dont look terrible on paper.
fishwaffle2232 wrote: What do people think of fateskimmers? Now with deepstrike being slower for and alpha strike being less effective in general, are they worth taking to try and lock down gun lines asap?
14 inch movement + advance is pretty solid and you can move them up with some screamers to screen so they cant be targetted. They could potentially dish out some serious damage. Im just not sure if they are too expensive.
Slaanesh is a bit better at this. 14 inch movement still on Seekers, plus advance, plus charge with a re-roll - and you can run them up with Fiends as well, whose rule prevents the enemy from falling back. If you're willing to soup gods (I'm not; I play mono-Slaanesh ), Fiends + Seekers + Heralds on Seekers are fine additions to Turn 1 tie up units all across the enemy DZ.
This is why I was happy about the DS nerf. Slaanesh can actually participate in the game, instead of just sucking because everyone else was generally faster for anything that mattered.
I hear you, unfortunately im trying to stick to tzeentch for fluff reason. I agree though I think slaanesh are going to enjoy the changes to DS.
@fishwaffle2232 - Herald Locus increases the strength characteristic of models, Fateskimmer’s Lamprey Bite has a set strength that is unaffected by that of the model.
Also, Fateskimmer knows two spells, which gives it a bit more versatility than a DP.
Main purpose I can see for it is as part of a fast Tzeentch contingent that also includes a DP and tries to pick targets it can eat in melee. Or maybe deals with units that reach a Horror gunline.
Also, Fateskimmer knows two spells, which gives it a bit more versatility than a DP.
You can always take a Supreme Command or Patrol detachment of Thousand Sons and have their excellent Daemon Princes for the same price. You'll get 2 casts per turn, +6 inches to the range of all powers, stable Smite (Thousand Sons were given an exception from the Psychic Focus changes) and access to CSM and TS powers as well as the Discipline of Change. It is is THE way to take Daemon Princes into any Tzeench army now.
lindsay40k wrote: @fishwaffle2232 - Herald Locus increases the strength characteristic of models, Fateskimmer’s Lamprey Bite has a set strength that is unaffected by that of the model.
Also, Fateskimmer knows two spells, which gives it a bit more versatility than a DP.
Main purpose I can see for it is as part of a fast Tzeentch contingent that also includes a DP and tries to pick targets it can eat in melee. Or maybe deals with units that reach a Horror gunline.
Horrors [12 PL, 220pts]: Instrument of Chaos, 30x Pink Horror
Horrors [4 PL, 30pts]: 10x Pair of Brimstone Horrors
Horrors [4 PL, 30pts]: 10x Pair of Brimstone Horrors
++ Total: [103 PL, 1828pts] ++
This is the list i was thinking of fitting it into. So basically a fast moving gunline that can shoot on the go and then hit hard with the DP and fateskimmer.
In the list posted I have the changeling instead because im starting to think it might be a better fill for the battalion with the 6++.
Basically the strategy would be to forward operatives the plasma chosen, oblits, the lord and potentially the havocs for some nasty alpha strike shooting with reroll 1. The rest of the army can move up behind with horrors which will gain +1 strength, reroll 1s to hit. The cultists and brims will serve as t2 DS blockers and objective holders ( their main role was to fill battalion slots) and the DP will sit back and wait to get off a safe turn two charge from behind the horrors.
I have also set aside points for summoning and/or splitting.
I guess im not sure if thw changeling is a better fit than the fateskimmer which would also sit behind the horrors and charge with the DP.
I have 14 CP to play with in this list giving me plenty of room for strats.
I guess im not sure if thw changeling is a better fit than the fateskimmer which would also sit behind the horrors and charge with the DP.
Please note that Changeling:
1. Can not FLY.
2. Has small movement.
3. Gives 6+++ to a MODELS, not UNITS in 9'' radius.
4. VERY fragile outside of Melee.
Basically he is useless (though can be fun if you manage to charge something powerful... that happens not so often).
I guess im not sure if thw changeling is a better fit than the fateskimmer which would also sit behind the horrors and charge with the DP.
Please note that Changeling:
1. Can not FLY.
2. Has small movement.
3. Gives 6+++ to a MODELS, not UNITS in 9'' radius.
4. VERY fragile outside of Melee.
Basically he is useless (though can be fun if you manage to charge something powerful... that happens not so often).
1. Never said he can fly... if you mean can charge from behind, its not hard to position horrors to ensure a charge. I actually meant the fateskimmer charging with the DP, may not have made that clear though sorry.
2. Small movement but can advance, realistically not going to fall too far behind the horrors. Also horrors shouldnt have to move too far to get into range with 18inch shooting.
3. If the unit is targetted cant you choose to have shots allocated to models within the 9 inchesand therefore make use of the 6+++.
4. Yes very fragile but he would be a cheap filler unit for the battalion that can cast and offers a buff to the horrors. This last point is perhaps the most important becauae im not sure how often he will see combat and how often he will make back his points. There is however little point in taking another herald in my mind as its a wasted aura when I have one already. The blue scribes are another cheap option but I have found very little information on how effective they are this edition.
The fateskimmer does feel overpriced (especially compared to 1KSons Daemon Prince) but what your paying for is the "massive" +1 Str Aura (the size of the base makes a big difference) on a character this is very tricky to get rid. If the aura is going to make a substantial difference to lots of your units, it's worth the steep price-tag (e.g. I use Mauler Fiends, Talon Princes and Horrors, all love that Aura).
Also don't forget the little extras:
-Large Locus of Tzeetch Aura: basically -1 to be hit in combat about half the time (against 3+ WS). Not as good as other Gods, but I've had it swing games.
-Great place for a Daemon Spark warlord- Big Aura and relatively easy to protect.
-Can regenerate wounds (occasionally).
I tend to use one if I've not got many Heralds in an army (1-2), to make sure I have the Aura when and where I need it.
kaptin_Blacksquigg wrote: The fateskimmer does feel overpriced (especially compared to 1KSons Daemon Prince) but what your paying for is the "massive" +1 Str Aura (the size of the base makes a big difference) on a character this is very tricky to get rid. If the aura is going to make a substantial difference to lots of your units, it's worth the steep price-tag (e.g. I use Mauler Fiends, Talon Princes and Horrors, all love that Aura).
Also don't forget the little extras:
-Large Locus of Tzeetch Aura: basically -1 to be hit in combat about half the time (against 3+ WS). Not as good as other Gods, but I've had it swing games.
-Great place for a Daemon Spark warlord- Big Aura and relatively easy to protect.
-Can regenerate wounds (occasionally).
I tend to use one if I've not got many Heralds in an army (1-2), to make sure I have the Aura when and where I need it.
Nice points good to hear someone is using one effectively. I guess my problem is that my army is CSM/daemon so not a huge amount of units that are going to make much use of the aura, only the DP and the horrors really. Thats the reason I have started to consider changeling or scribes.
fishwaffle2232 wrote: I guess my problem is that my army is CSM/daemon so not a huge amount of units that are going to make much use of the aura, only the DP and the horrors really. Thats the reason I have started to consider changeling or scribes.
In that case changling isn't going to be a lot of use (it's Aura is for Daemons), so I'd go for cheap and cheerful: foot herald or Blue scribes.
Yup, 8 wound character with solid toughness, good invulnerable, and good psychic protection. Few armies will be able to snipe or psychic it out, and Brimstones mean you should have plenty of chaff to prevent targeting and control combat.
Most of this can also be said of a Deamon Prince, but I tend to play them more aggressively (and often get them killed).
demontalons wrote: Can seekers be made to work as a counter charge unit in a mostly space marine force?
Seekers are not great counter-charge units; their greatest strength is their speed, but a countercharge unit tends to lurk in its own DZ for a time and let the enemy come to them. Fiends are very expensive but could work, depending on what you're worried about counter-charging, but if you want a really good counter-charge unit that's Slaaneshi, Keepers of Secrets aren't bad, are fairly cheap, and can be summoned with more reliability than any other Greater Daemon (PL12 isn't awful).
demontalons wrote: Can seekers be made to work as a counter charge unit in a mostly space marine force?
Seekers are not great counter-charge units; their greatest strength is their speed, but a countercharge unit tends to lurk in its own DZ for a time and let the enemy come to them. Fiends are very expensive but could work, depending on what you're worried about counter-charging, but if you want a really good counter-charge unit that's Slaaneshi, Keepers of Secrets aren't bad, are fairly cheap, and can be summoned with more reliability than any other Greater Daemon (PL12 isn't awful).
have you tried running daemonettes with The Masque and Delightful Agonies? was wondering how effective it would be as bubblewrap
Death Guard Outrider
Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Wings 180
Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Wings 180
Foetid Bloat-Drone 158
Foetid Bloat-Drone 158
Plagueburst Crawler 140
Plagueburst Crawler 140
Plagueburst Crawler 140
1,990 points
Power Rating 108
Command Points 9
Do I really need that tree at all? The plan is to DS it on turn two to get the plaguebearers in the fight, and give the PBCs somewhere safe to fall back to if they get tied up.
Have you tried the list already?
I’m running on Tuesday a very similar one, though instead of the second plaguebesrer unit I have some o Kira and instead of the second daemon Prince I have more oblits.
demontalons wrote: Can seekers be made to work as a counter charge unit in a mostly space marine force?
Seekers are not great counter-charge units; their greatest strength is their speed, but a countercharge unit tends to lurk in its own DZ for a time and let the enemy come to them. Fiends are very expensive but could work, depending on what you're worried about counter-charging, but if you want a really good counter-charge unit that's Slaaneshi, Keepers of Secrets aren't bad, are fairly cheap, and can be summoned with more reliability than any other Greater Daemon (PL12 isn't awful).
have you tried running daemonettes with The Masque and Delightful Agonies? was wondering how effective it would be as bubblewrap
I have, but the Masque's -1 only works in the Fight phase, so I essentially treat her like a non-psychic Herald. Delightful Agonies is arguably the worst power in the Slaanesh deck unfortunately. If it was a 5+ FNP like the literally identical power in the Chaos Space Marine book, it would be much much much better.
Vomikron Noxis wrote: Nah I won’t be trying it for a while, at least until the hobby funds pick up and I can get those PBCs! Interested to hear how yours fares though!
I'm 10 PB away from being able to try that list, and it looks pretty interesting! I'll let you know when I get a chance to use it!
Vomikron Noxis wrote: Nah I won’t be trying it for a while, at least until the hobby funds pick up and I can get those PBCs! Interested to hear how yours fares though!
I'm 10 PB away from being able to try that list, and it looks pretty interesting! I'll let you know when I get a chance to use it!
Ooh please do! On a semi related note: any recommendations on which artefact(s) to take? I could take the helm on one of the DPs, and maybe spend the CPs to take the plate on the other? One could hang with the PBCs and one with the drones perhaps.
with two heralds of khorne and 30-man bloodletter squads in deepstrike there will be 10 CP left.
I think I will advace forward with LoC and drones, activating 2++ from Warp Surge to tank the shots from Plague Drones.
Turn 2 comes first bloodletter bomb. Drones, LoC and bloodletters need to clear the screen.
Turn 3 come second wave of bloodletters to kill the core of the enemy. LoC tries to possition himself to snipe heroes with spells.
I am considering taking Born of Sorcery trait to LoC instead of Rage Incarnate on the HoK. Then I will be able to nuke gunlines with Infernal Gateway on 9+.
with two heralds of khorne and 30-man bloodletter squads in deepstrike there will be 10 CP left.
I think I will advace forward with LoC and drones, activating 2++ from Warp Surge to tank the shots from Plague Drones.
Turn 2 comes first bloodletter bomb. Drones, LoC and bloodletters need to clear the screen.
Turn 3 come second wave of bloodletters to kill the core of the enemy. LoC tries to possition himself to snipe heroes with spells.
I am considering taking Born of Sorcery trait to LoC instead of Rage Incarnate on the HoK. Then I will be able to nuke gunlines with Infernal Gateway on 9+.
Nice plan. Curious how the 2++ LoC and the 7 drones fare T1. Good luck!
There is an argument (not one I agree with) that the wording on the Tzeentch invulnerable save ability is actually +1 to the roll rather than the save itself, so combining with the impossible robe and warp surge gives you a 3++ but with +1 on the roll (so you only fail on a 1). I'd be amazed in many TO allow this hey, even then the Lord of Change is hardly broken.
lindsay40k wrote: If it helps y’all to accept that we do seem to have a 2++, near enough identical wording on Harald Deathwolf’s wargear gives him an effective 2++.
Harald Deathwolf doesn't have a "maximum of 3+" and it is limited to shooting attacks though.
fishwaffle2232 wrote: Warp surge specifically says increases "to a maximum of +3" seems pretty cut and dried to me. But as a tzeentch player im keen to hear the argument.
Just got a chance to pull out the codex and you are right it is +1 to roll. Thats nuts
Kaptain basically spelt out the argument.
Lord of change has a 5+ invuln.
Impossible robes gives you a 4+ invuln.
Warp surge improves the invuln by 1 to a 3+.
Empherial form adds 1 to your invuln save rolls. So a 1 becomes a 2, a 2 becomes a 3, etc.
This means if you roll a 2 it becomes a 3 and becomes a pass for the 3+ invuln.
fishwaffle2232 wrote: Warp surge specifically says increases "to a maximum of +3" seems pretty cut and dried to me. But as a tzeentch player im keen to hear the argument.
Just got a chance to pull out the codex and you are right it is +1 to roll. Thats nuts
Kaptain basically spelt out the argument.
Lord of change has a 5+ invuln.
Impossible robes gives you a 4+ invuln.
Warp surge improves the invuln by 1 to a 3+.
Empherial form adds 1 to your invuln save rolls. So a 1 becomes a 2, a 2 becomes a 3, etc.
This means if you roll a 2 it becomes a 3 and becomes a pass for the 3+ invuln.
Yes I get it as, per my post above...
I didn't realise the wording on the tzeentch ability was +1 to the roll, also as per my post above.
Didn't have access to my book when I first replied.
So I've been doing alot of thinking about how to make Daemons work, because frankly, I don't want to be another codex or start up another army. I dove pretty deep into this dex and I have a few thoughts I'd like to discuss.
Greater Daemons- I think these guys aren't used properly and should actually be a bigger part of daemons game plan. yes I know their point costs are high, but if just 1 of them hits your opponents lines it'll do quite a bit of damage. Im proposing that the army be built around toughness 5-7 models. With that in mind, I think running 2-3 greater Daemons might actually be good as they can all be pretty hard to kill. LoC can be made to have a 3++ with a robe, bloodthirster with an armor of scorn + warp surge can have a 3++, and a GUO with his psychic powers is also hard to take down. I think this style of play will actually make some units in the dex stronger.
Such as...
Burning chariot- These seem quite good to me. I think people were too enamored by the fact that the exalted flamer is a character. I think 30 pts for an added +1t, +4w, +4" move, and +6 s6 attacks seems like a steal. I also think it's quite versatile. A turn 1 with this can be pretty good I feel. You have a 32" threat range against high toughness, or a 26" threat range against infantry. On almost all the deployment zones, you'll be hitting something. So you can run these up the board, shoot a tank, and then charge their screen. The t5 to me is huge as it makes it resilient to anti infantry fire. If you have a couple of these next to a couple of greater daemons, your opponent has to decide where they want their high str weapons to go.
Skull cannons- another high toughness model that is cheap and again, versatile. Daemons are lacking in long range shooting and I feel these are close to auto includes in a mono daemon list. Again, your opponent will basically be forced to deal with your greater Daemons before even looking at these. They hold objectives great also.
Soul Grinders - I hated these guys on paper so much since the release of 8th, but I think there could be a home for them now. Like I said earlier, we need shooting in this army. this provides us with that. While also being another t7 model your opponent has to deal with. mark of tzeentch it you got a 4+ save too.
plague drones - more t5 hard to kill units that are speedy enough to help control the board.
Now I've also been thinking about how to properly field troops. I can't stand big blobs of 30 (unless you're using a bloodletter bomb). with the way the morale rules are, it seems like a gigantic waste of points. I feel MSU is the way to go for infantry. especially if they're going to be around greater Daemons giving them ld 10.
so yeah, idk just a couple thoughts that I'd figured I'd share so we can all discuss.
greater demons in a high competitive enviroment are close to useless, maybe now they got bit better cause they cant be alpha striked 1st turn, but they cant do it as well...
blackmage wrote: greater demons in a high competitive enviroment are close to useless, maybe now they got bit better cause they cant be alpha striked 1st turn, but they cant do it as well...
Have you tried playing a list with the tactics I'm proposing? Just saying "greater daemons are bad" doesn't really add to the discussion.
WindxMill wrote: So I've been doing alot of thinking about how to make Daemons work, because frankly, I don't want to be another codex or start up another army. I dove pretty deep into this dex and I have a few thoughts I'd like to discuss.
Greater Daemons- I think these guys aren't used properly and should actually be a bigger part of daemons game plan. yes I know their point costs are high, but if just 1 of them hits your opponents lines it'll do quite a bit of damage. Im proposing that the army be built around toughness 5-7 models. With that in mind, I think running 2-3 greater Daemons might actually be good as they can all be pretty hard to kill. LoC can be made to have a 3++ with a robe, bloodthirster with an armor of scorn + warp surge can have a 3++, and a GUO with his psychic powers is also hard to take down. I think this style of play will actually make some units in the dex stronger.
Such as...
Burning chariot- These seem quite good to me. I think people were too enamored by the fact that the exalted flamer is a character. I think 30 pts for an added +1t, +4w, +4" move, and +6 s6 attacks seems like a steal. I also think it's quite versatile. A turn 1 with this can be pretty good I feel. You have a 32" threat range against high toughness, or a 26" threat range against infantry. On almost all the deployment zones, you'll be hitting something. So you can run these up the board, shoot a tank, and then charge their screen. The t5 to me is huge as it makes it resilient to anti infantry fire. If you have a couple of these next to a couple of greater daemons, your opponent has to decide where they want their high str weapons to go.
Skull cannons- another high toughness model that is cheap and again, versatile. Daemons are lacking in long range shooting and I feel these are close to auto includes in a mono daemon list. Again, your opponent will basically be forced to deal with your greater Daemons before even looking at these. They hold objectives great also.
Soul Grinders - I hated these guys on paper so much since the release of 8th, but I think there could be a home for them now. Like I said earlier, we need shooting in this army. this provides us with that. While also being another t7 model your opponent has to deal with. mark of tzeentch it you got a 4+ save too.
plague drones - more t5 hard to kill units that are speedy enough to help control the board.
Now I've also been thinking about how to properly field troops. I can't stand big blobs of 30 (unless you're using a bloodletter bomb). with the way the morale rules are, it seems like a gigantic waste of points. I feel MSU is the way to go for infantry. especially if they're going to be around greater Daemons giving them ld 10.
so yeah, idk just a couple thoughts that I'd figured I'd share so we can all discuss.
I feel like I keep coming back to the thread and inserting my side of the force that everyone ignores... lol. Anyway, your proposed idea for Greater Daemons is something I have thought about as well and I find it a more feasible option since I play Mono-Slaanesh. Out of the Greater Daemons the KOS is the least tough and least likely to make it to enemy lines... but it's also the cheapest and gives some breathing room to take multiple KOS. My only issue with this is aesthetics, as I only want one FWKOS and I can't stand the current model. Hopefully a plastic one comes out ASAP.
Chariots was/is something I am already spamming and it's worked out fairly well. Lots of Hellflayers and the Seeker Chariot is fairly cheap. It wasn't the best decision from my opponent but I had an exalted chariot that soaked up a ton of fire and survived since my daemonettes were in combat/out of LOS. It was worth the 100 points it cost as it soaked up way more in firepower that only brought it down to half health. My other chariots that are more useful, like my hellflayers, were ignored for the exalted one.
As for MSU. I've actually had a lot of success with medium sized squads. 24 to be exact. Though to be fair I chose 24 not for some optimization number but because it's divisible by 6. Slaanesh's number. They've done some real work though. If they aren't bothered with because of all the chariots, it's a crap ton of attacks/damage. If they are dealt with, you have to kill a decent amount to get their numbers down but it isn't a big deal because I have 3+ more medium sized squads. And the chariots are then ignored. I consider medium to be from 18-26 btw.
All in all, I've been having a ton of fun and success with my Daemonettes. I had a game a couple weeks ago against my Tzeentch buddy. I beat him on points in a list I was testing a lot of stuff with, with one Herald left lol. My KOS was annihilated by Magnus but I suppose that's to be expected.
As for the other armies, I think you're on the right track. I just don't know them as well since I stick with Mono-Slaanesh.
blackmage wrote: greater demons in a high competitive enviroment are close to useless, maybe now they got bit better cause they cant be alpha striked 1st turn, but they cant do it as well...
Have you tried playing a list with the tactics I'm proposing? Just saying "greater daemons are bad" doesn't really add to the discussion.
You know what? I will take that challenge. I have a friendly game this Thursday vs a good buddy of mine who either takes a tau or a primaris marine army, this is what I have and what I will take.
Lord of Change: Gaze of Fate, Infernal Gateway, Rod of Sorcery, The Impossible Robe
+ Troops +
Horrors: 20x Pink Horror
+ Elites +
Exalted Flamer
Flamers: 2x Flamer, Pyrocaster
Flamers: 2x Flamer, Pyrocaster
++ Unbound Army (Faction) (Chaos - Daemons) ++
+ No Force Org Slot +
Chaos Allegiance: Slaanesh
+ HQ +
Keeper of Secrets: Pavane of Slaanesh, Symphony of Pain
The Masque of Slaanesh: Warlord
+ Troops +
Daemonettes: Alluress, 9x Daemonette
Daemonettes: Alluress, 9x Daemonette
Daemonettes: Alluress, 9x Daemonette
+ Fast Attack +
Seekers: Heartseeker, Instrument of Chaos, 4x Seeker
That's 14 command points (holy cow), 3 getting used for artifacts. 3 greater deamons (I know keeper of secrets is not the best greater deamon but I like slaanesh and really, shoot it, ignore the bloodthirster and lord of change flying into your face, I am cool with that), 30 bloodletters, 30 deamonettes, 20 pink horrors, some flamers, some seekers, and my favorite warlord, the Masque of Slaanesh. It's a lot of close combat and some shooting, but it should get the job done as long as I can get there. Turn 1 slaanesh should have no issue getting into the enemy's front line asap, tzeentch will be right there with fire Support, and khorne can be bringing up the rear for a second turn mop up.
blackmage wrote: greater demons in a high competitive enviroment are close to useless, maybe now they got bit better cause they cant be alpha striked 1st turn, but they cant do it as well...
Have you tried playing a list with the tactics I'm proposing? Just saying "greater daemons are bad" doesn't really add to the discussion.
You know what? I will take that challenge. I have a friendly game this Thursday vs a good buddy of mine who either takes a tau or a primaris marine army, this is what I have and what I will take.
Lord of Change: Gaze of Fate, Infernal Gateway, Rod of Sorcery, The Impossible Robe
+ Troops +
Horrors: 20x Pink Horror
+ Elites +
Exalted Flamer
Flamers: 2x Flamer, Pyrocaster
Flamers: 2x Flamer, Pyrocaster
++ Unbound Army (Faction) (Chaos - Daemons) ++
+ No Force Org Slot +
Chaos Allegiance: Slaanesh
+ HQ +
Keeper of Secrets: Pavane of Slaanesh, Symphony of Pain
The Masque of Slaanesh: Warlord
+ Troops +
Daemonettes: Alluress, 9x Daemonette
Daemonettes: Alluress, 9x Daemonette
Daemonettes: Alluress, 9x Daemonette
+ Fast Attack +
Seekers: Heartseeker, Instrument of Chaos, 4x Seeker
That's 14 command points (holy cow), 3 getting used for artifacts. 3 greater deamons (I know keeper of secrets is not the best greater deamon but I like slaanesh and really, shoot it, ignore the bloodthirster and lord of change flying into your face, I am cool with that), 30 bloodletters, 30 deamonettes, 20 pink horrors, some flamers, some seekers, and my favorite warlord, the Masque of Slaanesh. It's a lot of close combat and some shooting, but it should get the job done as long as I can get there. Turn 1 slaanesh should have no issue getting into the enemy's front line asap, tzeentch will be right there with fire Support, and khorne can be bringing up the rear for a second turn mop up.
Either that or everything dies very quickly lol.
Awesome! The only thing I'd like to see in your list some more higher toughness models like chariots or cannons, but I'm definitely curious how it's gonna work out for you.
WindxMill wrote: So I've been doing alot of thinking about how to make Daemons work, because frankly, I don't want to be another codex or start up another army. I dove pretty deep into this dex and I have a few thoughts I'd like to discuss.
Greater Daemons- I think these guys aren't used properly and should actually be a bigger part of daemons game plan. yes I know their point costs are high, but if just 1 of them hits your opponents lines it'll do quite a bit of damage. Im proposing that the army be built around toughness 5-7 models. With that in mind, I think running 2-3 greater Daemons might actually be good as they can all be pretty hard to kill. LoC can be made to have a 3++ with a robe, bloodthirster with an armor of scorn + warp surge can have a 3++, and a GUO with his psychic powers is also hard to take down. I think this style of play will actually make some units in the dex stronger.
Such as...
Burning chariot- These seem quite good to me. I think people were too enamored by the fact that the exalted flamer is a character. I think 30 pts for an added +1t, +4w, +4" move, and +6 s6 attacks seems like a steal. I also think it's quite versatile. A turn 1 with this can be pretty good I feel. You have a 32" threat range against high toughness, or a 26" threat range against infantry. On almost all the deployment zones, you'll be hitting something. So you can run these up the board, shoot a tank, and then charge their screen. The t5 to me is huge as it makes it resilient to anti infantry fire. If you have a couple of these next to a couple of greater daemons, your opponent has to decide where they want their high str weapons to go.
Skull cannons- another high toughness model that is cheap and again, versatile. Daemons are lacking in long range shooting and I feel these are close to auto includes in a mono daemon list. Again, your opponent will basically be forced to deal with your greater Daemons before even looking at these. They hold objectives great also.
Soul Grinders - I hated these guys on paper so much since the release of 8th, but I think there could be a home for them now. Like I said earlier, we need shooting in this army. this provides us with that. While also being another t7 model your opponent has to deal with. mark of tzeentch it you got a 4+ save too.
plague drones - more t5 hard to kill units that are speedy enough to help control the board.
Now I've also been thinking about how to properly field troops. I can't stand big blobs of 30 (unless you're using a bloodletter bomb). with the way the morale rules are, it seems like a gigantic waste of points. I feel MSU is the way to go for infantry. especially if they're going to be around greater Daemons giving them ld 10.
so yeah, idk just a couple thoughts that I'd figured I'd share so we can all discuss.
I feel like I keep coming back to the thread and inserting my side of the force that everyone ignores... lol. Anyway, your proposed idea for Greater Daemons is something I have thought about as well and I find it a more feasible option since I play Mono-Slaanesh. Out of the Greater Daemons the KOS is the least tough and least likely to make it to enemy lines... but it's also the cheapest and gives some breathing room to take multiple KOS. My only issue with this is aesthetics, as I only want one FWKOS and I can't stand the current model. Hopefully a plastic one comes out ASAP.
Chariots was/is something I am already spamming and it's worked out fairly well. Lots of Hellflayers and the Seeker Chariot is fairly cheap. It wasn't the best decision from my opponent but I had an exalted chariot that soaked up a ton of fire and survived since my daemonettes were in combat/out of LOS. It was worth the 100 points it cost as it soaked up way more in firepower that only brought it down to half health. My other chariots that are more useful, like my hellflayers, were ignored for the exalted one.
As for MSU. I've actually had a lot of success with medium sized squads. 24 to be exact. Though to be fair I chose 24 not for some optimization number but because it's divisible by 6. Slaanesh's number. They've done some real work though. If they aren't bothered with because of all the chariots, it's a crap ton of attacks/damage. If they are dealt with, you have to kill a decent amount to get their numbers down but it isn't a big deal because I have 3+ more medium sized squads. And the chariots are then ignored. I consider medium to be from 18-26 btw.
All in all, I've been having a ton of fun and success with my Daemonettes. I had a game a couple weeks ago against my Tzeentch buddy. I beat him on points in a list I was testing a lot of stuff with, with one Herald left lol. My KOS was annihilated by Magnus but I suppose that's to be expected.
As for the other armies, I think you're on the right track. I just don't know them as well since I stick with Mono-Slaanesh.
It's awesome to see slaanesh get some love lol. I've been considering trying some of their chariots and some friends. With no 1st turn ds, I feel like things that move fast are definitely much needed for this army. I hear you so hard on that KoS model, it's so ugly lol how have you been sitting out the one you use?
blackmage wrote: greater demons in a high competitive enviroment are close to useless, maybe now they got bit better cause they cant be alpha striked 1st turn, but they cant do it as well...
Have you tried playing a list with the tactics I'm proposing? Just saying "greater daemons are bad" doesn't really add to the discussion.
You know what? I will take that challenge. I have a friendly game this Thursday vs a good buddy of mine who either takes a tau or a primaris marine army, this is what I have and what I will take.
Lord of Change: Gaze of Fate, Infernal Gateway, Rod of Sorcery, The Impossible Robe
+ Troops +
Horrors: 20x Pink Horror
+ Elites +
Exalted Flamer
Flamers: 2x Flamer, Pyrocaster
Flamers: 2x Flamer, Pyrocaster
++ Unbound Army (Faction) (Chaos - Daemons) ++
+ No Force Org Slot +
Chaos Allegiance: Slaanesh
+ HQ +
Keeper of Secrets: Pavane of Slaanesh, Symphony of Pain
The Masque of Slaanesh: Warlord
+ Troops +
Daemonettes: Alluress, 9x Daemonette
Daemonettes: Alluress, 9x Daemonette
Daemonettes: Alluress, 9x Daemonette
+ Fast Attack +
Seekers: Heartseeker, Instrument of Chaos, 4x Seeker
That's 14 command points (holy cow), 3 getting used for artifacts. 3 greater deamons (I know keeper of secrets is not the best greater deamon but I like slaanesh and really, shoot it, ignore the bloodthirster and lord of change flying into your face, I am cool with that), 30 bloodletters, 30 deamonettes, 20 pink horrors, some flamers, some seekers, and my favorite warlord, the Masque of Slaanesh. It's a lot of close combat and some shooting, but it should get the job done as long as I can get there. Turn 1 slaanesh should have no issue getting into the enemy's front line asap, tzeentch will be right there with fire Support, and khorne can be bringing up the rear for a second turn mop up.
Either that or everything dies very quickly lol.
Awesome! The only thing I'd like to see in your list some more higher toughness models like chariots or cannons, but I'm definitely curious how it's gonna work out for you.
Unfortunately I don't own many of those. I want to get 3 skull cannons, but the last one I built turned into a demonic motorcycle which I use as my blood throne. I have a soulgrinder but I don't see a way to fit it in without losing something that I think the list will need to work, like cp. I suppose if I am willing to lose my "mono deamon bonuses" it could be done, but I think I need the slaanesh one for the alpha strike to work and the other ones could be useful. Only other high toughness options I have are deamon princes.
I'm kinda new to 40k and started a Khorne/Tzeentch daemon army last year. Haven't won a game with pure daemons since the brimstone nerf. To be fair, the local meta is only mega-optimized tier 1 and tier 2 lists and compromised of super experienced players that compete at Adepticon and LVO and stuff. The overriding consensus among my group is that daemons are trash tier right now, with mono Khorne/mono Tzeentch at the very bottom. I have a fairly sizeable Khorne/Tzeentch collection (maybe 300 models) but it looks like unless I start introducing a lot of Death Guard, there is absolutely no way for me to win against competitive lists with just Khorne or Tzeentch daemons. I've tried summoning heavy lists, multiple greater daemons, multiple winged daemon princes, deep striking a whole Khorne battalion T1, and more variations. Nothing seems to work against any competitive list that's been deployed correctly. I do perform a lot better once I start mixing in obliterators, Abaddon/cultists, Tzeentch sorcerers, and more CSM. And I can imagine that performance improving even more with the addition of some competitive DG units to soak up fire like plagueburst crawlers or maybe a DG leviathan. But at that point I'm playing Chaos soup and daemons become a really sub-optimal supporting army that doesn't syngerize well with a lot of CSM.
I've just about given up on pure daemons at this point and will probably go back to working on my old eldar army unless someone figures out how to make this army work in a really brutal meta. Losing 10+ games in a row gets really old.
Pure deamons can be hard to win with right now, that's true, but I don't know if death guard are the answer. Personally I love tsons and if you want to add some heretic marines in that's where I would start looking.
barboggo wrote: The overriding consensus among my group is that daemons are trash tier right now, with mono Khorne/mono Tzeentch at the very bottom. [...] I do perform a lot better once I start mixing in obliterators, Abaddon/cultists, Tzeentch sorcerers, and more CSM.
That's funny, because I play TS, and I've found that without Tzeentch Daemons my army is not competitive. What are you running in your mono-Tzeentch list ?
You need target saturation to succeed with this kind of armies. For example, I run a Lord of Change with Impossible Robe and -1 damage Warlord trait combined with several Daemon engines (Defilers, Maulerfiends and even Heldrakes when I play purely for fun). The LoC soaks all the anti-tank fire that would have wrecked my Daemon Engines, allowing them to do their job.
If you run primarily Pink horrors and a single LoC, all the anti-tank firepower will go to the LoC and he'll die serving no purpose. If you run multiple Pink horror units with Exalted Flamers, Daemon Princes and other characters with less than 10 wounds, suddenly there's no good target for the ennemy anti-tank weapons. Combine that with Warp Surge and the army is a pain to deal with.
ArmchairArbiter wrote:As for MSU. I've actually had a lot of success with medium sized squads. 24 to be exact. Though to be fair I chose 24 not for some optimization number but because it's divisible by 6. Slaanesh's number.
You mean divisible by 8, Khorne's number Been defaulting to 24 for my Bloodletters too, has worked pretty well for me.
Azuza001 wrote:Blood Throne: The Crimson Crown
I keep wanting to have a Throne work but just don't see the appeal and haven't been able to find something secretly good about it. The Crown combined with the large base is smart though
I've had an amazing success with plague drones lately. With the scriviner buffing them, their dmg got a healthy boost. I've been running a unit of 9 with scriviner and poxbringer support. Toss miasma on them for survivability, and if they encounter any vehicles, Vilurent Blessing will make quick work of it. When you start throwing out 5dmg swings, they get brutal.
I tried a soul grinder of khorne with warp claw a while ago. Having like 12 attacks was really appealing. Compared to a Fleshmower Bloat drone, it was a little lackluster. At the end of the day, a nurgle grinder will have 1 more attack, 4 more wounds, and some bad shooting. While the drone gets speed, smaller footprint, and most importantly, FLY.
The grinder was a pretty awesome distraction carnifex. 14 T7 wounds on a daemon is pretty baller, and the model is still awesome. It ended up just harassing tanks. A recent deterrent for using it has been how you measure about models with no base. It can be weird with the soul grinder.
I've also been thinking about a small drop list where most of the points are in a single plague toad unit. 9 pox riders will run you almost 600pt. You get 45 wounds across 9 large bases that are -1 to hit and put out 27 heavy bolter shots in CC with a built in scriviner buff for more hits, as well as 18 plaguesword attacks.
Like drones, they also fly, making them really useful for anti air and getting on ruins.
The tough call is whether toads are worth their points when compared to drones. For about 600pt, you can get 2 units of 8 drones. They lack AP, and the built in miasma, but 16 drones is 64 wounds with 64 proboscis attacks and 18 sword attacks.
If poxriders gained the Plaguebearer keyword, I think they would become much better. Rolls of 5 would be 1 extra attack, rolls of 6 would be 2. Right now I don't think they can compare much to drones though. Wont stop me from putting 16 drones and 9 toads on the table!!!!
Azuza001 wrote: Pure deamons can be hard to win with right now, that's true, but I don't know if death guard are the answer. Personally I love tsons and if you want to add some heretic marines in that's where I would start looking.
What kind of lists are you playing against?
I've played against lots of dark eldar lately, mostly vehicle spam with raiders, ravagers, and venoms full of wyches/warriors. I've also gone against wrack/talos spam as mono Khorne (that was BRUTAL). Other recent-ish opponents include Death Guard/Alpha Legion soup, imperial guard with Baneblade/mortar teams/plasma scions, craftworld eldar with reapers/wave serpents/Saim-Hann shining spears/scatterbikes, and hive fleet Kraken with flyrants/devilgants. It all tends to be very "on-meta" stuff which I find pure daemons or mono god daemons just don't have the tools to deal with. Would love to be wrong here. Without transports or T1 deepstrike I have a really hard time protecting my units, especially compared to playing my eldar army. Definitely have started looking into tsons though and painted up a 30k Ahriman recently to see how he does.
barboggo wrote: The overriding consensus among my group is that daemons are trash tier right now, with mono Khorne/mono Tzeentch at the very bottom. [...] I do perform a lot better once I start mixing in obliterators, Abaddon/cultists, Tzeentch sorcerers, and more CSM.
That's funny, because I play TS, and I've found that without Tzeentch Daemons my army is not competitive. What are you running in your mono-Tzeentch list ?
You need target saturation to succeed with this kind of armies. For example, I run a Lord of Change with Impossible Robe and -1 damage Warlord trait combined with several Daemon engines (Defilers, Maulerfiends and even Heldrakes when I play purely for fun). The LoC soaks all the anti-tank fire that would have wrecked my Daemon Engines, allowing them to do their job.
If you run primarily Pink horrors and a single LoC, all the anti-tank firepower will go to the LoC and he'll die serving no purpose. If you run multiple Pink horror units with Exalted Flamers, Daemon Princes and other characters with less than 10 wounds, suddenly there's no good target for the ennemy anti-tank weapons. Combine that with Warp Surge and the army is a pain to deal with.
Hey thanks for the tips. I agree with all of this and have tried multiple daemon engines (3x decimators) + greater daemon as well as multiple winged daemon princes/heralds/exalted flamers without much luck. Warp Surge + Impossible Robe is something I have yet to try though, and it seems like it has potential.
To be perfectly honest most of my opponents are much stronger players than me so having an off-meta army isn't the only thing that's hurting me in these games. It's both of these things compounded that's really screwing me when trying to run pure daemons
Exactly what is it making Daemons so “trash” now? The T1 deep strike restriction is obviously a blow, but how do they suddenly go from a pretty good army to complete rubbish?
rvd1ofakind wrote: 9th ITC player (in top 10) is taking PURE NURGLE DAEMONS to the London GT:
27 Plague drones
80+ plaguebearers + triherald combo
epidemius
tree
I was using a similar list before the Codex dropped (princes instead of heralds and tree) and it worked quite well. haven't really tried it out with the new stuff we have as I have never really been a fan of nurgle. The only problem I found with it was the lack of damage the drones do to anything with 2+ saves, but their speed and base size allowed them to grapple entire armies quickly.
My idea for the list is to have a fast moving gunline with havocs and plasma chosen and potentially oblits (id rather them benefit from daemon aura) being able to forward operatives into a strategic shooting position in cover to take out key targets quickly. The daemon princes and exalted flamer can move up with the chaff and avoid being targeted, with the DPs charging when they are in range (DP with robe can tank overwatch with 2++).
With auras and flickering flames the horrors have some good firepower especially whilst over 20 models to get assault 3. But is it worth it taking them in a unit much over 20, as I know that even with a potential 3++ save im this unit will draw a lot of fire and will likely suffer from leadership tests. I have been playing with the idea of 25 or 30 with points in reserve for splitting or summoning a unit of flamers which is an idea I have been floating.
Another option is to drop the predator and take some more exalted flamers. This means my opponent will only be able to shoot at chaff or be forced into shooting units that are hopefully in covet and at -1 to hit with alpha legion rule. This would free up more points for extra horrors, splits and summoning.
TL;DR what is a good amount of pinks to run and how many points should be set aside for splits. And does this list look like it will play as planned?
rvd1ofakind wrote: 9th ITC player (in top 10) is taking PURE NURGLE DAEMONS to the London GT:
27 Plague drones
80+ plaguebearers + triherald combo
epidemius
tree
Huh, I am currently building a similar list. I still have 10 plague drones to build. Drones+tree+scriviner is a very awesome combo with the restrictions to deep strike. I've had fantastic results with a single unit of 9, as well as 2 units of 8.
I feel that the key to drones working is to get vilurent blessing on them and a character within 6". Stack it up so each wound of 6 is 5dmg. A single failed +2 save will put a big dent into a land raider, nearly kill any +2 save character, and with +40 attacks, you'll likely be making them take 30 or so saves.
London GT doesn't use ITC missions, right? Because it sounds like that list would do terrible with ITC missions. Daemons in general have a hard time with how ITC is set up (need big infantry blobs that give up Reaper, Plague Drones give up Gangbusters, Greater Daemons give up multiple secondaries, extremely hard to get a kill first turn post-faq, etc. etc. etc.).
Virules wrote: London GT doesn't use ITC missions, right? Because it sounds like that list would do terrible with ITC missions. Daemons in general have a hard time with how ITC is set up (need big infantry blobs that give up Reaper, Plague Drones give up Gangbusters, Greater Daemons give up multiple secondaries, extremely hard to get a kill first turn post-faq, etc. etc. etc.).
London GT uses ETC and not ITC. So you're right that the nurgle list will give up a ton of points in ITC
Virules wrote: extremely hard to get a kill first turn post-faq, etc. etc. etc.).
The worst was when I deep struck a max unit of bloodletters pre-FAQ T1 and then proceeded to fail my 3D6 Banner of Blood charge. Getting first blood post-FAQ with pure daemons is a dream of mine...
Virules wrote: extremely hard to get a kill first turn post-faq, etc. etc. etc.).
The worst was when I deep struck a max unit of bloodletters pre-FAQ T1 and then proceeded to fail my 3D6 Banner of Blood charge. Getting first blood post-FAQ with pure daemons is a dream of mine...
It's doable with slaanesh, did it today. But that's about it, khorne isn't going to be getting that.
OK so I had 2 games today with my pure deamons, first vs Primaris Salamanders and 2nd vs Alaitoc Eldar. I won both games, here are the rundowns
Spoiler:
First game vs Primaris. I took
Battalion
Blood throne w/ crimson crown
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster w/ armor of scorne
3 x 10 man Bloodletter squads
Patrol
Lord of change w/ impossible robe and incoporeal form (warlord)
19 pink horrors
Soul grinder
Batallion
Keeper of secrets
Keeper of secrets
3 x 10 woman deamonettes
My opponent took
2 repulser tanks
3 x 5 man intesessor (spelling?) Squads (basic primaris troop one)
1 x 5 man hellblasters
1 leutinant
3 of the huge dreadnoughts
2 of the bigger dreadnoughts (bigger than normal but not the huge ones)
We played a malestorm mission which I won by a lot of points, but when he called it he had almost tabled me. I killed the 2 medium dreadnoughts and 3 of the 5 hellblasters vs me only having my lord of change, one 10 man Bloodletter squad, and the soulgrinder with 5 wounds left. However the issue was the mission we were playing, he kept drawing defend cards and I was always able to "push" him off an objective or I had it covered and he could not get to it. It felt like a hollow victory, but it was what it was by turn 4.
Things I learned!: Keepers of secrets are super fast BUT die to easily. He targeted them first and had it down to 1 wound before it got a turn, 2nd turn he killed the other one and finished the 1st with just one of the repulsers. Greater deamon of Khorne was a fire magnet for good reason but would have been highly successful if he had not rolled 3 5++ saves when I hit his dreadnought, then he used a stratagem to fight again to finish it off. Need to remember I have that ability too and should have done it first. Lord of change is a monster in cc, but keep it away from t7 enemies, it becomes a much harder fight if you do, I got into cc vs one of the huge dreadnoughts and was not able to wound it, locking us both into a hard to win combat (me wounding him on 5's, him trying to get past the 2++ save). All of my deamon squads were pretty worthless vs his mass armor but I was able to hold multiple objectives a turn thanks to my shear numbers and the troop objective holders special rule, so their value was still there. The blood throne does hit like a mach truck in cc but is too slow to matter really. It crushed a dreadnought, the one that killed the bloodthirster but then just got blown away. Did not care for it. Soulgrinder shooting sucks when you have to move and sucks after it takes wounds. So it looks good but not so much in the effectiveness colum. However it was holding a key objective that my opponent could not get at the end so maybe?
2nd game.
Spoiler:
My list.
Batallion
Deamon prince of Khorne w/ crimson crown and talons
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster w/ armor of scorne
3x 10 man Bloodletter squads
Patrol
Lord of change w/ impossible robe & incoporeal form
18 pink horrors
Soulgrinder
Batallion
Deamon prince of Slaanesh
Deamon prince of Slaanesh with wings
Herald of slaanesh
3 x 10 woman deamonettes
My opponent took
2 hemlock jet fighters
2 fire prisims
2 squads of Rangers, 1 five man and 1 10 man
1 x 10 man guardian squad with a bright lance
2 farseers
A 2 man warlock conclave
A single warlock
2 x Dark Reaper squads, 7 men each, + exarch w/ tempest launcher
Again we played malestorm, with the mission that you get 1 card + a card for every objective you hold. I somehow got first turn getting 3 cards at first. I ran the entire army forward (pink horrors in deep strike) and got one of the Deamon Princes of slaanesh into charge range hitting my opponents guardian squad and wiping them out. I then consolidated into the warlocks which put me on one of his objectives (the one the guardians started on but the warlocks were 4" away from), + I was on 2 in the midfield that I had moved the entire army onto, + 2 that I started on keeping a single bloodletter squad and the soulgrinder on them. His 1st Turn he drew 2 cards, but was only able to actually get one (master the warp one, the other was defend obj 4 which my soul grinder was sitting on in my deployment zone). He unleashed an ungodly amount of psycic enemy and firepower, but I was able to deny the important spells (that's a no to jinx...) and then when he fired I popped the stratagem on my lord of change giving it a 2++ save vs the first volley of dark reapers, which ended up doing 1 wound. After that he focused on other monsters (I would have too , why target the 2++ guy?) Dropping the flying deamon prince to 1 wound, killing the greater deamon of khorn, and wounding the soul grinder to 5 wounds. But he didn't target the little deamons on the objectives. I drew 5 additional cards (heck yes) and took a commanding lead on points. I pushed forward, killed the Rangers in cc, killed one of the farseers, did some wounds to a fire prism, killed an exarch and one of the dark reapers from one squad, and was up 8 to 2. His 2nd turn he tried to fight back, killing the deamon prince of Khorne, putting wounds onto the Lord of change (dropped it to 8), and killed 9 deamonettes in one of the forward squads. But it only got him 1 vp and was no where near enough. My 3rd turn I drew 4 more card's and was going to get another 6 vp easy so we called it. I had 10 deamonettes, 10 Bloodletters, 14 pink horrors, and a deamon prince of slaneesh about to charge one of his reapers and warlock / farseer, my lord of change was slapping a fire prism around like a cat toy, and still had trips hanging out on objectives holding them (Herald on one, soulgrinder on one, 10 bloodletters on one, 10 deamonettes on one, and the pinks were on one in his deployment area).
Things I learned : Sometimes killing the stuff that can kill you isn't the answer. If he would have worked on killing the smaller deamons I would not have been able to control the board like I did. Going Alaitoc did him very very little good since I wasn't shooting anything seriously anyways, and ignoring the hemlocks was important. They are scary, but really they can't grab objectives and If I kill all the ground units they go away, so it worked out perfectly. Same with reapers, those guys seem very scarry but this was the first time I played vs them and really, while they were doing damage, it wasn't all that impressive. Again target priority would have helped him I think, and he did kill the bloodthirster of wrath with them and a fire prism, but I rolled horrible for my 4++ saves on it so what can you do.
Lord of change with incoporeal form and impossible robe is so awesome. I loved how it would not die. Greater deamon of khorn, I think I will keep trying him. Not his fault he got shot, I would shoot him too lol. Deamon princes are definitely better than keepers of secrets. Keepers are slightly tougher but are also easier to kill due to targeting rules. So yeah, keepers are out. Same with soulgrinder. It's too expensive for its job, which I am not sure what that is. I ended up using it both times as an objective camper and it did its job but it also was down to 5 wounds both games and killed nothing. For 235 pts there are much better options.
So over all -
I desperately wanted seekers in both games, but was trying the big deamons army type. Seekers would have been terrific, same as a large squad of friends of slaanesh, the high movement + advance and charge now with the faq changes, slaanesh feels super fast vs khorne which feels stronger in cc, the way it should be.
I normally take large blobs of deamons and not small, 10 man teams, but I liked how that worked out for them. That was an eye opener, will have to keep it that way in the future.
Overall first game I felt I won on a technicality, but second game I felt I won by playing smarter. Are pure deamons trash? I say not from what I saw, but I do think they would really really really benifit from teaming up with space marines. They are like Grey knights. They can be taken by them selves but really you want to either be supporting a different army or getting support from a different army. Each game with the soul grinder all I could keep thinking is "My defiler would do that better and be much cheaper" for example.
I will try to run seekers in 5 man units and fiends in groups of 3, the idea is for the seekers to hit something with the flying deamon princes for support, or hit a different flank to give pressure. The fiends are going for whatever big bad tank is open, lock it down in cc so it can't get away and worry about it later, it's not getting away from the fiends. But only one will probably die to a pot shot.
Again this is just what I want to try, without actual tabletop experience there isn't a way to call it whether it's a good idea or not.
Azuza001 wrote: I will try to run seekers in 5 man units and fiends in groups of 3, the idea is for the seekers to hit something with the flying deamon princes for support, or hit a different flank to give pressure. The fiends are going for whatever big bad tank is open, lock it down in cc so it can't get away and worry about it later, it's not getting away from the fiends. But only one will probably die to a pot shot.
Again this is just what I want to try, without actual tabletop experience there isn't a way to call it whether it's a good idea or not.
Personally I find Fiend units of 3 to be a liability, I much prefer units of 1.
I ran a Vanguard the other day with 3 Fiends and a DP and it performed beyond my expectations. My opponents focused on other threats T1, and the Fiends were able to quickly reach the other side of the board and tie up some tanks T1. I even had a Fiend solo a Predator! It took 3 battle rounds, but was still impressive to see it take down the tank.
Virules wrote: extremely hard to get a kill first turn post-faq, etc. etc. etc.).
The worst was when I deep struck a max unit of bloodletters pre-FAQ T1 and then proceeded to fail my 3D6 Banner of Blood charge. Getting first blood post-FAQ with pure daemons is a dream of mine...
It's doable with slaanesh, did it today. But that's about it, khorne isn't going to be getting that.
OK so I had 2 games today with my pure deamons, first vs Primaris Salamanders and 2nd vs Alaitoc Eldar. I won both games, here are the rundowns
Spoiler:
First game vs Primaris. I took
Battalion
Blood throne w/ crimson crown
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster w/ armor of scorne
3 x 10 man Bloodletter squads
Patrol
Lord of change w/ impossible robe and incoporeal form (warlord)
19 pink horrors
Soul grinder
Batallion
Keeper of secrets
Keeper of secrets
3 x 10 woman deamonettes
My opponent took
2 repulser tanks
3 x 5 man intesessor (spelling?) Squads (basic primaris troop one)
1 x 5 man hellblasters
1 leutinant
3 of the huge dreadnoughts
2 of the bigger dreadnoughts (bigger than normal but not the huge ones)
We played a malestorm mission which I won by a lot of points, but when he called it he had almost tabled me. I killed the 2 medium dreadnoughts and 3 of the 5 hellblasters vs me only having my lord of change, one 10 man Bloodletter squad, and the soulgrinder with 5 wounds left. However the issue was the mission we were playing, he kept drawing defend cards and I was always able to "push" him off an objective or I had it covered and he could not get to it. It felt like a hollow victory, but it was what it was by turn 4.
Things I learned!: Keepers of secrets are super fast BUT die to easily. He targeted them first and had it down to 1 wound before it got a turn, 2nd turn he killed the other one and finished the 1st with just one of the repulsers. Greater deamon of Khorne was a fire magnet for good reason but would have been highly successful if he had not rolled 3 5++ saves when I hit his dreadnought, then he used a stratagem to fight again to finish it off. Need to remember I have that ability too and should have done it first. Lord of change is a monster in cc, but keep it away from t7 enemies, it becomes a much harder fight if you do, I got into cc vs one of the huge dreadnoughts and was not able to wound it, locking us both into a hard to win combat (me wounding him on 5's, him trying to get past the 2++ save). All of my deamon squads were pretty worthless vs his mass armor but I was able to hold multiple objectives a turn thanks to my shear numbers and the troop objective holders special rule, so their value was still there. The blood throne does hit like a mach truck in cc but is too slow to matter really. It crushed a dreadnought, the one that killed the bloodthirster but then just got blown away. Did not care for it. Soulgrinder shooting sucks when you have to move and sucks after it takes wounds. So it looks good but not so much in the effectiveness colum. However it was holding a key objective that my opponent could not get at the end so maybe?
2nd game.
Spoiler:
My list.
Batallion
Deamon prince of Khorne w/ crimson crown and talons
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster w/ armor of scorne
3x 10 man Bloodletter squads
Patrol
Lord of change w/ impossible robe & incoporeal form
18 pink horrors
Soulgrinder
Batallion
Deamon prince of Slaanesh
Deamon prince of Slaanesh with wings
Herald of slaanesh
3 x 10 woman deamonettes
My opponent took
2 hemlock jet fighters
2 fire prisims
2 squads of Rangers, 1 five man and 1 10 man
1 x 10 man guardian squad with a bright lance
2 farseers
A 2 man warlock conclave
A single warlock
2 x Dark Reaper squads, 7 men each, + exarch w/ tempest launcher
Again we played malestorm, with the mission that you get 1 card + a card for every objective you hold. I somehow got first turn getting 3 cards at first. I ran the entire army forward (pink horrors in deep strike) and got one of the Deamon Princes of slaanesh into charge range hitting my opponents guardian squad and wiping them out. I then consolidated into the warlocks which put me on one of his objectives (the one the guardians started on but the warlocks were 4" away from), + I was on 2 in the midfield that I had moved the entire army onto, + 2 that I started on keeping a single bloodletter squad and the soulgrinder on them. His 1st Turn he drew 2 cards, but was only able to actually get one (master the warp one, the other was defend obj 4 which my soul grinder was sitting on in my deployment zone). He unleashed an ungodly amount of psycic enemy and firepower, but I was able to deny the important spells (that's a no to jinx...) and then when he fired I popped the stratagem on my lord of change giving it a 2++ save vs the first volley of dark reapers, which ended up doing 1 wound. After that he focused on other monsters (I would have too , why target the 2++ guy?) Dropping the flying deamon prince to 1 wound, killing the greater deamon of khorn, and wounding the soul grinder to 5 wounds. But he didn't target the little deamons on the objectives. I drew 5 additional cards (heck yes) and took a commanding lead on points. I pushed forward, killed the Rangers in cc, killed one of the farseers, did some wounds to a fire prism, killed an exarch and one of the dark reapers from one squad, and was up 8 to 2. His 2nd turn he tried to fight back, killing the deamon prince of Khorne, putting wounds onto the Lord of change (dropped it to 8), and killed 9 deamonettes in one of the forward squads. But it only got him 1 vp and was no where near enough. My 3rd turn I drew 4 more card's and was going to get another 6 vp easy so we called it. I had 10 deamonettes, 10 Bloodletters, 14 pink horrors, and a deamon prince of slaneesh about to charge one of his reapers and warlock / farseer, my lord of change was slapping a fire prism around like a cat toy, and still had trips hanging out on objectives holding them (Herald on one, soulgrinder on one, 10 bloodletters on one, 10 deamonettes on one, and the pinks were on one in his deployment area).
Things I learned : Sometimes killing the stuff that can kill you isn't the answer. If he would have worked on killing the smaller deamons I would not have been able to control the board like I did. Going Alaitoc did him very very little good since I wasn't shooting anything seriously anyways, and ignoring the hemlocks was important. They are scary, but really they can't grab objectives and If I kill all the ground units they go away, so it worked out perfectly. Same with reapers, those guys seem very scarry but this was the first time I played vs them and really, while they were doing damage, it wasn't all that impressive. Again target priority would have helped him I think, and he did kill the bloodthirster of wrath with them and a fire prism, but I rolled horrible for my 4++ saves on it so what can you do.
Lord of change with incoporeal form and impossible robe is so awesome. I loved how it would not die. Greater deamon of khorn, I think I will keep trying him. Not his fault he got shot, I would shoot him too lol. Deamon princes are definitely better than keepers of secrets. Keepers are slightly tougher but are also easier to kill due to targeting rules. So yeah, keepers are out. Same with soulgrinder. It's too expensive for its job, which I am not sure what that is. I ended up using it both times as an objective camper and it did its job but it also was down to 5 wounds both games and killed nothing. For 235 pts there are much better options.
So over all -
I desperately wanted seekers in both games, but was trying the big deamons army type. Seekers would have been terrific, same as a large squad of friends of slaanesh, the high movement + advance and charge now with the faq changes, slaanesh feels super fast vs khorne which feels stronger in cc, the way it should be.
I normally take large blobs of deamons and not small, 10 man teams, but I liked how that worked out for them. That was an eye opener, will have to keep it that way in the future.
Overall first game I felt I won on a technicality, but second game I felt I won by playing smarter. Are pure deamons trash? I say not from what I saw, but I do think they would really really really benifit from teaming up with space marines. They are like Grey knights. They can be taken by them selves but really you want to either be supporting a different army or getting support from a different army. Each game with the soul grinder all I could keep thinking is "My defiler would do that better and be much cheaper" for example.
But yeah, they were fun games.
Great writeup glad to see some success. I am not sure what happened in game but the way it is written - remember warp surge has to be used at the beginning of the phase not when he declares what he is shooting (i.e. Lightning Fast Reflexes). So the dark reaps know before they even fire who has the ++ bonus. If you used it after he declared shooting this might of changed the way the game played out significantly.
Ah, I misread that. I don't think it mattered though, I told him I was popping it either way, I wanted to prevent it from even being targeted. He shot anyways, saw it really wasn't worth the effort, then moved on to killing the bloodthirster.
Something I just realized trying to find a way to put a small detachment of tsons into my list.... Vortex beast does boost tzeench deamons... the wording is target a tzeentch unit, not a tsons unit. That means vortex beasts could really help lords of change in cc become a beast. It's an interesting idea.
Azuza001 wrote: Ah, I misread that. I don't think it mattered though, I told him I was popping it either way, I wanted to prevent it from even being targeted. He shot anyways, saw it really wasn't worth the effort, then moved on to killing the bloodthirster.
Something I just realized trying to find a way to put a small detachment of tsons into my list.... Vortex beast does boost tzeench deamons... the wording is target a tzeentch unit, not a tsons unit. That means vortex beasts could really help lords of change in cc become a beast. It's an interesting idea.
Yeah, I was thinking about that too. Str 5 with Flickering flames on a squad of 20..... Goodbye anything T4, I mean guardsmen, Marines, dark reapers, with a 4++ save for protection. Good lord, that's a lot of firepower. 60 shots from a squad of 20?
Heck even t5 stuff needs to worry as they don't normally get numbers at that point like bikers, they rely on that t5 and medium numbers to live.
Virules wrote: extremely hard to get a kill first turn post-faq, etc. etc. etc.).
The worst was when I deep struck a max unit of bloodletters pre-FAQ T1 and then proceeded to fail my 3D6 Banner of Blood charge. Getting first blood post-FAQ with pure daemons is a dream of mine...
It's doable with slaanesh, did it today. But that's about it, khorne isn't going to be getting that.
OK so I had 2 games today with my pure deamons, first vs Primaris Salamanders and 2nd vs Alaitoc Eldar. I won both games, here are the rundowns
Spoiler:
First game vs Primaris. I took
Battalion
Blood throne w/ crimson crown
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster w/ armor of scorne
3 x 10 man Bloodletter squads
Patrol
Lord of change w/ impossible robe and incoporeal form (warlord)
19 pink horrors
Soul grinder
Batallion
Keeper of secrets
Keeper of secrets
3 x 10 woman deamonettes
My opponent took
2 repulser tanks
3 x 5 man intesessor (spelling?) Squads (basic primaris troop one)
1 x 5 man hellblasters
1 leutinant
3 of the huge dreadnoughts
2 of the bigger dreadnoughts (bigger than normal but not the huge ones)
We played a malestorm mission which I won by a lot of points, but when he called it he had almost tabled me. I killed the 2 medium dreadnoughts and 3 of the 5 hellblasters vs me only having my lord of change, one 10 man Bloodletter squad, and the soulgrinder with 5 wounds left. However the issue was the mission we were playing, he kept drawing defend cards and I was always able to "push" him off an objective or I had it covered and he could not get to it. It felt like a hollow victory, but it was what it was by turn 4.
Things I learned!: Keepers of secrets are super fast BUT die to easily. He targeted them first and had it down to 1 wound before it got a turn, 2nd turn he killed the other one and finished the 1st with just one of the repulsers. Greater deamon of Khorne was a fire magnet for good reason but would have been highly successful if he had not rolled 3 5++ saves when I hit his dreadnought, then he used a stratagem to fight again to finish it off. Need to remember I have that ability too and should have done it first. Lord of change is a monster in cc, but keep it away from t7 enemies, it becomes a much harder fight if you do, I got into cc vs one of the huge dreadnoughts and was not able to wound it, locking us both into a hard to win combat (me wounding him on 5's, him trying to get past the 2++ save). All of my deamon squads were pretty worthless vs his mass armor but I was able to hold multiple objectives a turn thanks to my shear numbers and the troop objective holders special rule, so their value was still there. The blood throne does hit like a mach truck in cc but is too slow to matter really. It crushed a dreadnought, the one that killed the bloodthirster but then just got blown away. Did not care for it. Soulgrinder shooting sucks when you have to move and sucks after it takes wounds. So it looks good but not so much in the effectiveness colum. However it was holding a key objective that my opponent could not get at the end so maybe?
2nd game.
Spoiler:
My list.
Batallion
Deamon prince of Khorne w/ crimson crown and talons
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster w/ armor of scorne
3x 10 man Bloodletter squads
Patrol
Lord of change w/ impossible robe & incoporeal form
18 pink horrors
Soulgrinder
Batallion
Deamon prince of Slaanesh
Deamon prince of Slaanesh with wings
Herald of slaanesh
3 x 10 woman deamonettes
My opponent took
2 hemlock jet fighters
2 fire prisims
2 squads of Rangers, 1 five man and 1 10 man
1 x 10 man guardian squad with a bright lance
2 farseers
A 2 man warlock conclave
A single warlock
2 x Dark Reaper squads, 7 men each, + exarch w/ tempest launcher
Again we played malestorm, with the mission that you get 1 card + a card for every objective you hold. I somehow got first turn getting 3 cards at first. I ran the entire army forward (pink horrors in deep strike) and got one of the Deamon Princes of slaanesh into charge range hitting my opponents guardian squad and wiping them out. I then consolidated into the warlocks which put me on one of his objectives (the one the guardians started on but the warlocks were 4" away from), + I was on 2 in the midfield that I had moved the entire army onto, + 2 that I started on keeping a single bloodletter squad and the soulgrinder on them. His 1st Turn he drew 2 cards, but was only able to actually get one (master the warp one, the other was defend obj 4 which my soul grinder was sitting on in my deployment zone). He unleashed an ungodly amount of psycic enemy and firepower, but I was able to deny the important spells (that's a no to jinx...) and then when he fired I popped the stratagem on my lord of change giving it a 2++ save vs the first volley of dark reapers, which ended up doing 1 wound. After that he focused on other monsters (I would have too , why target the 2++ guy?) Dropping the flying deamon prince to 1 wound, killing the greater deamon of khorn, and wounding the soul grinder to 5 wounds. But he didn't target the little deamons on the objectives. I drew 5 additional cards (heck yes) and took a commanding lead on points. I pushed forward, killed the Rangers in cc, killed one of the farseers, did some wounds to a fire prism, killed an exarch and one of the dark reapers from one squad, and was up 8 to 2. His 2nd turn he tried to fight back, killing the deamon prince of Khorne, putting wounds onto the Lord of change (dropped it to 8), and killed 9 deamonettes in one of the forward squads. But it only got him 1 vp and was no where near enough. My 3rd turn I drew 4 more card's and was going to get another 6 vp easy so we called it. I had 10 deamonettes, 10 Bloodletters, 14 pink horrors, and a deamon prince of slaneesh about to charge one of his reapers and warlock / farseer, my lord of change was slapping a fire prism around like a cat toy, and still had trips hanging out on objectives holding them (Herald on one, soulgrinder on one, 10 bloodletters on one, 10 deamonettes on one, and the pinks were on one in his deployment area).
Things I learned : Sometimes killing the stuff that can kill you isn't the answer. If he would have worked on killing the smaller deamons I would not have been able to control the board like I did. Going Alaitoc did him very very little good since I wasn't shooting anything seriously anyways, and ignoring the hemlocks was important. They are scary, but really they can't grab objectives and If I kill all the ground units they go away, so it worked out perfectly. Same with reapers, those guys seem very scarry but this was the first time I played vs them and really, while they were doing damage, it wasn't all that impressive. Again target priority would have helped him I think, and he did kill the bloodthirster of wrath with them and a fire prism, but I rolled horrible for my 4++ saves on it so what can you do.
Lord of change with incoporeal form and impossible robe is so awesome. I loved how it would not die. Greater deamon of khorn, I think I will keep trying him. Not his fault he got shot, I would shoot him too lol. Deamon princes are definitely better than keepers of secrets. Keepers are slightly tougher but are also easier to kill due to targeting rules. So yeah, keepers are out. Same with soulgrinder. It's too expensive for its job, which I am not sure what that is. I ended up using it both times as an objective camper and it did its job but it also was down to 5 wounds both games and killed nothing. For 235 pts there are much better options.
So over all -
I desperately wanted seekers in both games, but was trying the big deamons army type. Seekers would have been terrific, same as a large squad of friends of slaanesh, the high movement + advance and charge now with the faq changes, slaanesh feels super fast vs khorne which feels stronger in cc, the way it should be.
I normally take large blobs of deamons and not small, 10 man teams, but I liked how that worked out for them. That was an eye opener, will have to keep it that way in the future.
Overall first game I felt I won on a technicality, but second game I felt I won by playing smarter. Are pure deamons trash? I say not from what I saw, but I do think they would really really really benifit from teaming up with space marines. They are like Grey knights. They can be taken by them selves but really you want to either be supporting a different army or getting support from a different army. Each game with the soul grinder all I could keep thinking is "My defiler would do that better and be much cheaper" for example.
But yeah, they were fun games.
Man, awesome write-ups. I look forward to trying out some of your strats. You've given me hope for my Lord of Change. How do you feel about the Bloodthirster? Would you take him again?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rvd1ofakind wrote: BTW, only 1 greater daemon in a real list in London GT - Skarbrand xD
Curious about how he functioned in that list. If I had to pick up one more Khorne model to try and make mono Khorne daemons work, it'd be Skarbrand. Abaddon with 40 cultists has been pretty fun so far I imagine Skarbrand could be used in a similar way? I wonder which units could benefit most from his fearless bubble. Would definitely make max size bloodletter units survive a few more rounds of shooting.
WindxMill wrote: So I've been doing alot of thinking about how to make Daemons work, because frankly, I don't want to be another codex or start up another army. I dove pretty deep into this dex and I have a few thoughts I'd like to discuss.
Greater Daemons- I think these guys aren't used properly and should actually be a bigger part of daemons game plan. yes I know their point costs are high, but if just 1 of them hits your opponents lines it'll do quite a bit of damage. Im proposing that the army be built around toughness 5-7 models. With that in mind, I think running 2-3 greater Daemons might actually be good as they can all be pretty hard to kill. LoC can be made to have a 3++ with a robe, bloodthirster with an armor of scorn + warp surge can have a 3++, and a GUO with his psychic powers is also hard to take down. I think this style of play will actually make some units in the dex stronger.
Such as...
Burning chariot- These seem quite good to me. I think people were too enamored by the fact that the exalted flamer is a character. I think 30 pts for an added +1t, +4w, +4" move, and +6 s6 attacks seems like a steal. I also think it's quite versatile. A turn 1 with this can be pretty good I feel. You have a 32" threat range against high toughness, or a 26" threat range against infantry. On almost all the deployment zones, you'll be hitting something. So you can run these up the board, shoot a tank, and then charge their screen. The t5 to me is huge as it makes it resilient to anti infantry fire. If you have a couple of these next to a couple of greater daemons, your opponent has to decide where they want their high str weapons to go.
Skull cannons- another high toughness model that is cheap and again, versatile. Daemons are lacking in long range shooting and I feel these are close to auto includes in a mono daemon list. Again, your opponent will basically be forced to deal with your greater Daemons before even looking at these. They hold objectives great also.
Soul Grinders - I hated these guys on paper so much since the release of 8th, but I think there could be a home for them now. Like I said earlier, we need shooting in this army. this provides us with that. While also being another t7 model your opponent has to deal with. mark of tzeentch it you got a 4+ save too.
plague drones - more t5 hard to kill units that are speedy enough to help control the board.
Now I've also been thinking about how to properly field troops. I can't stand big blobs of 30 (unless you're using a bloodletter bomb). with the way the morale rules are, it seems like a gigantic waste of points. I feel MSU is the way to go for infantry. especially if they're going to be around greater Daemons giving them ld 10.
so yeah, idk just a couple thoughts that I'd figured I'd share so we can all discuss.
I feel like I keep coming back to the thread and inserting my side of the force that everyone ignores... lol. Anyway, your proposed idea for Greater Daemons is something I have thought about as well and I find it a more feasible option since I play Mono-Slaanesh. Out of the Greater Daemons the KOS is the least tough and least likely to make it to enemy lines... but it's also the cheapest and gives some breathing room to take multiple KOS. My only issue with this is aesthetics, as I only want one FWKOS and I can't stand the current model. Hopefully a plastic one comes out ASAP.
Chariots was/is something I am already spamming and it's worked out fairly well. Lots of Hellflayers and the Seeker Chariot is fairly cheap. It wasn't the best decision from my opponent but I had an exalted chariot that soaked up a ton of fire and survived since my daemonettes were in combat/out of LOS. It was worth the 100 points it cost as it soaked up way more in firepower that only brought it down to half health. My other chariots that are more useful, like my hellflayers, were ignored for the exalted one.
As for MSU. I've actually had a lot of success with medium sized squads. 24 to be exact. Though to be fair I chose 24 not for some optimization number but because it's divisible by 6. Slaanesh's number. They've done some real work though. If they aren't bothered with because of all the chariots, it's a crap ton of attacks/damage. If they are dealt with, you have to kill a decent amount to get their numbers down but it isn't a big deal because I have 3+ more medium sized squads. And the chariots are then ignored. I consider medium to be from 18-26 btw.
All in all, I've been having a ton of fun and success with my Daemonettes. I had a game a couple weeks ago against my Tzeentch buddy. I beat him on points in a list I was testing a lot of stuff with, with one Herald left lol. My KOS was annihilated by Magnus but I suppose that's to be expected.
As for the other armies, I think you're on the right track. I just don't know them as well since I stick with Mono-Slaanesh.
It's awesome to see slaanesh get some love lol. I've been considering trying some of their chariots and some friends. With no 1st turn ds, I feel like things that move fast are definitely much needed for this army. I hear you so hard on that KoS model, it's so ugly lol how have you been sitting out the one you use?
I assume you're asking how I've been using my KOS? I've tried running her as both Zarak and a regular KOS. Quite frankly the regular KOS is really squishy and unreliable but... the model I have is so cool I can't help but use it. Zarak has been awesome though. I did have success in giving my KOS the title of Warlord and giving her the Celerity trait. My opponent did not expect my KOS to scream up the board at 15" base without advancing. With an advance and a charge she got into combat really quickly along with the Seekers and it worked quite well.
The main issue I have been having is flamers. I seem to roll really lucky when it comes to getting shot at by lascannons and stuff but multiple flamers have been bane and for some reason done a ton of damage to me. I think I've been running the wrong units in first, the DP or KOS would be a better option to eat the flamers.
So yeah basically assume the KOS will drop ASAP and rush her/him/it into combat as fast as you can really. I will say the one advantage to the old model is you can hide the KOS very easily if you have any LOS blocking terrain (which you should). It shouldn't be hard to keep the original model from getting shot if you use the terrain fairly well, IMO.
Virules wrote: extremely hard to get a kill first turn post-faq, etc. etc. etc.).
The worst was when I deep struck a max unit of bloodletters pre-FAQ T1 and then proceeded to fail my 3D6 Banner of Blood charge. Getting first blood post-FAQ with pure daemons is a dream of mine...
It's doable with slaanesh, did it today. But that's about it, khorne isn't going to be getting that.
OK so I had 2 games today with my pure deamons, first vs Primaris Salamanders and 2nd vs Alaitoc Eldar. I won both games, here are the rundowns
Spoiler:
First game vs Primaris. I took
Battalion
Blood throne w/ crimson crown
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster w/ armor of scorne
3 x 10 man Bloodletter squads
Patrol
Lord of change w/ impossible robe and incoporeal form (warlord)
19 pink horrors
Soul grinder
Batallion
Keeper of secrets
Keeper of secrets
3 x 10 woman deamonettes
My opponent took
2 repulser tanks
3 x 5 man intesessor (spelling?) Squads (basic primaris troop one)
1 x 5 man hellblasters
1 leutinant
3 of the huge dreadnoughts
2 of the bigger dreadnoughts (bigger than normal but not the huge ones)
We played a malestorm mission which I won by a lot of points, but when he called it he had almost tabled me. I killed the 2 medium dreadnoughts and 3 of the 5 hellblasters vs me only having my lord of change, one 10 man Bloodletter squad, and the soulgrinder with 5 wounds left. However the issue was the mission we were playing, he kept drawing defend cards and I was always able to "push" him off an objective or I had it covered and he could not get to it. It felt like a hollow victory, but it was what it was by turn 4.
Things I learned!: Keepers of secrets are super fast BUT die to easily. He targeted them first and had it down to 1 wound before it got a turn, 2nd turn he killed the other one and finished the 1st with just one of the repulsers. Greater deamon of Khorne was a fire magnet for good reason but would have been highly successful if he had not rolled 3 5++ saves when I hit his dreadnought, then he used a stratagem to fight again to finish it off. Need to remember I have that ability too and should have done it first. Lord of change is a monster in cc, but keep it away from t7 enemies, it becomes a much harder fight if you do, I got into cc vs one of the huge dreadnoughts and was not able to wound it, locking us both into a hard to win combat (me wounding him on 5's, him trying to get past the 2++ save). All of my deamon squads were pretty worthless vs his mass armor but I was able to hold multiple objectives a turn thanks to my shear numbers and the troop objective holders special rule, so their value was still there. The blood throne does hit like a mach truck in cc but is too slow to matter really. It crushed a dreadnought, the one that killed the bloodthirster but then just got blown away. Did not care for it. Soulgrinder shooting sucks when you have to move and sucks after it takes wounds. So it looks good but not so much in the effectiveness colum. However it was holding a key objective that my opponent could not get at the end so maybe?
2nd game.
Spoiler:
My list.
Batallion
Deamon prince of Khorne w/ crimson crown and talons
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster w/ armor of scorne
3x 10 man Bloodletter squads
Patrol
Lord of change w/ impossible robe & incoporeal form
18 pink horrors
Soulgrinder
Batallion
Deamon prince of Slaanesh
Deamon prince of Slaanesh with wings
Herald of slaanesh
3 x 10 woman deamonettes
My opponent took
2 hemlock jet fighters
2 fire prisims
2 squads of Rangers, 1 five man and 1 10 man
1 x 10 man guardian squad with a bright lance
2 farseers
A 2 man warlock conclave
A single warlock
2 x Dark Reaper squads, 7 men each, + exarch w/ tempest launcher
Again we played malestorm, with the mission that you get 1 card + a card for every objective you hold. I somehow got first turn getting 3 cards at first. I ran the entire army forward (pink horrors in deep strike) and got one of the Deamon Princes of slaanesh into charge range hitting my opponents guardian squad and wiping them out. I then consolidated into the warlocks which put me on one of his objectives (the one the guardians started on but the warlocks were 4" away from), + I was on 2 in the midfield that I had moved the entire army onto, + 2 that I started on keeping a single bloodletter squad and the soulgrinder on them. His 1st Turn he drew 2 cards, but was only able to actually get one (master the warp one, the other was defend obj 4 which my soul grinder was sitting on in my deployment zone). He unleashed an ungodly amount of psycic enemy and firepower, but I was able to deny the important spells (that's a no to jinx...) and then when he fired I popped the stratagem on my lord of change giving it a 2++ save vs the first volley of dark reapers, which ended up doing 1 wound. After that he focused on other monsters (I would have too , why target the 2++ guy?) Dropping the flying deamon prince to 1 wound, killing the greater deamon of khorn, and wounding the soul grinder to 5 wounds. But he didn't target the little deamons on the objectives. I drew 5 additional cards (heck yes) and took a commanding lead on points. I pushed forward, killed the Rangers in cc, killed one of the farseers, did some wounds to a fire prism, killed an exarch and one of the dark reapers from one squad, and was up 8 to 2. His 2nd turn he tried to fight back, killing the deamon prince of Khorne, putting wounds onto the Lord of change (dropped it to 8), and killed 9 deamonettes in one of the forward squads. But it only got him 1 vp and was no where near enough. My 3rd turn I drew 4 more card's and was going to get another 6 vp easy so we called it. I had 10 deamonettes, 10 Bloodletters, 14 pink horrors, and a deamon prince of slaneesh about to charge one of his reapers and warlock / farseer, my lord of change was slapping a fire prism around like a cat toy, and still had trips hanging out on objectives holding them (Herald on one, soulgrinder on one, 10 bloodletters on one, 10 deamonettes on one, and the pinks were on one in his deployment area).
Things I learned : Sometimes killing the stuff that can kill you isn't the answer. If he would have worked on killing the smaller deamons I would not have been able to control the board like I did. Going Alaitoc did him very very little good since I wasn't shooting anything seriously anyways, and ignoring the hemlocks was important. They are scary, but really they can't grab objectives and If I kill all the ground units they go away, so it worked out perfectly. Same with reapers, those guys seem very scarry but this was the first time I played vs them and really, while they were doing damage, it wasn't all that impressive. Again target priority would have helped him I think, and he did kill the bloodthirster of wrath with them and a fire prism, but I rolled horrible for my 4++ saves on it so what can you do.
Lord of change with incoporeal form and impossible robe is so awesome. I loved how it would not die. Greater deamon of khorn, I think I will keep trying him. Not his fault he got shot, I would shoot him too lol. Deamon princes are definitely better than keepers of secrets. Keepers are slightly tougher but are also easier to kill due to targeting rules. So yeah, keepers are out. Same with soulgrinder. It's too expensive for its job, which I am not sure what that is. I ended up using it both times as an objective camper and it did its job but it also was down to 5 wounds both games and killed nothing. For 235 pts there are much better options.
So over all -
I desperately wanted seekers in both games, but was trying the big deamons army type. Seekers would have been terrific, same as a large squad of friends of slaanesh, the high movement + advance and charge now with the faq changes, slaanesh feels super fast vs khorne which feels stronger in cc, the way it should be.
I normally take large blobs of deamons and not small, 10 man teams, but I liked how that worked out for them. That was an eye opener, will have to keep it that way in the future.
Overall first game I felt I won on a technicality, but second game I felt I won by playing smarter. Are pure deamons trash? I say not from what I saw, but I do think they would really really really benifit from teaming up with space marines. They are like Grey knights. They can be taken by them selves but really you want to either be supporting a different army or getting support from a different army. Each game with the soul grinder all I could keep thinking is "My defiler would do that better and be much cheaper" for example.
But yeah, they were fun games.
Man, awesome write-ups. I look forward to trying out some of your strats. You've given me hope for my Lord of Change. How do you feel about the Bloodthirster? Would you take him again?
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rvd1ofakind wrote: BTW, only 1 greater daemon in a real list in London GT - Skarbrand xD
Curious about how he functioned in that list. If I had to pick up one more Khorne model to try and make mono Khorne daemons work, it'd be Skarbrand. Abaddon with 40 cultists has been pretty fun so far I imagine Skarbrand could be used in a similar way? I wonder which units could benefit most from his fearless bubble. Would definitely make max size bloodletter units survive a few more rounds of shooting.
Yeah I will take him again. It's not his fault he didn't make it into combat. First game my opponent made 3 of his 4 5++ saves. Second game I failed 6 of 8 4++ saves, it happens. It's an interesting thought too, what would your opponent prefer to shoot at? Pop the ++ stratagem on the bloodthirster and give them the choice of 3++ bloodthirster or 3++ Lord of change with -1 to damage taken?
What I would love to try is fateweaver, but I don't have the model so eh...
But yeah, if your looking at tzeentch deamons I have an all new appreciation for tzeentch deaomons and tsons. Mutalith vortex beast really can boost almost anything from the tzeentch deamon army and make it silly awesome.
Flamers with strength 5 auto hits? Str 7 ap-3 attacks from screamers? Not to mention the pink horrors + flickering flames next to a Herald, oh that's wounding marines on a 2. I mean.... damn...
All this talk of tzeentch daemons is pretty nice to see. I pulled my tzeentch stuff out to get pics for selling, honestly I haven't used them in 8th yet. Shouldnt sell before I even put them on the table!
gwarsh41 wrote: All this talk of tzeentch daemons is pretty nice to see. I pulled my tzeentch stuff out to get pics for selling, honestly I haven't used them in 8th yet. Shouldnt sell before I even put them on the table!
Agreed! Tzeentch this edition is an unexpected treat. Nurgle has gotten a lot of love and khorne is just as strong as ever, but tzeentch has such a tricky design that when you start seeing the synergy you really can see it coming together.
I have been having limited success with slaanesh as well, but that could be because no one plays them do when they see them they don't know what to expect and with the turn one nerf to ds their speed really comes into it's own.
My issue is i want slaanesh in one detachment, tzeentch deamons as warlord, and tsons as a 3rd for range support (arhiman, 2 defilers, and a vortex beast) so there is no place for my khorne deamons.
Yes, Tzeetch demons have lots of trick, especially when combined with 1K sons. Boosting a big unit of Horrors to Str5 is great for shooting and also makes them a thread in combat, expailly if you manage to get +1 A from Boon. Made a great time the other day, a max unit of pinkies shooting down 3 units of cultists (40 models) then charging a pair of dreadnoughts and tearing them down over 3 rounds of combat . I was only expecting to ty them up, but 60+ (splitting) attacks takes it's toll.
I also love lasher fiends with a Tzeetch herald, make them absolutely decimate armour.
Yeah Tzeentch Daemons are good I think. Have limited playtime so can’t say much. But! All at my club have been underestimated 2 units of 30 pinks buffed up by herald and reroll 1 to hit DP + Daemonspark reroll 1 to W. If you cast +1 to W you will kill a lot of stuff. And making one unit 3++ and use a little bit of points to the other for splitting then they will survive.
Adding some CSM obliterators in the bubble of reroll makes it even worse for the opponent.
1DP
1 Herald
60 pinks
20 brims
CSM 1Sorc or 1 DP 3x3 obliterators
Then still something like 500 points for something.
It’s crazy good and I recommend using it.
TSons Supreme Command
Prince Crystal
Prince Helm
Prince
Ahriman on Disc
Rhino havoc melta
Rhino havoc melta
A few points for splits on the larger unit.
The Rhinos will screen the characters T1. The LoC will Surge in enemy shooting to survive. The Pinks and Tzerald will drop T2.
I’m still getting used to how to use DPs. Incredibly killy...but also fairly fragile if they are positioned poorly.
I could drop the meltas on Rhinos and get a few mode Blues or Pinks...
Elric Greywolf wrote: TSons Supreme Command
Prince Crystal
Prince Helm
Prince
Ahriman on Disc
Rhino havoc melta
Rhino havoc melta
I would drop the Helm. You're paying 2CP for it, it's a huge tax and probably not worth it unless your opponent has tons of CP and uses them 1 by 1.
Havoc launcher is also pointless on Rhinos. They will move or be destroyed quickly, don't bother. Meltas might be useful, but I'd recommend taking 2 Stormbolters instead (4pts for 4-8 S4 shots is a steal).
The Helm actually only costs 1pt. DP with Crystal is WL, for a 3++, so 1CP for an extra TSons relic, and then 1CP for the Robes. It’s nearly guaranteed to make back 1CP, and everything after the first one is pure profit!
The Rhinos help clear screens so that the Horrors can have a good position, so yeah I think 2 combibolts rather than the melta is a good idea. But the havoc launchers also help in clearing screens, so I like them.
@Elric Greywolf - I’d definitely downgrade the Rhino armament, and second the quad boltgun loadout. I’d actually consider using the difference to put that Herald on a Disc - LoC with Robes is hella tough, but if it’s your only mobile Tzeentch Daemon Character, then taking it out will deny the opportunity to use the re-roll casting strat on the TSons contingent. Also makes it easier to evacuate it away from an enemy incursion aiming to get ‘kill characters’ VPs. A decent 21pt safety net.
I’d also consider trying to afford an Icon for the other Pinks unit. When it works, it’s a great psychological blow, and if your unit weathers three turns of shooting then it usually makes its points back.
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devk88 wrote: Out of curiosity does epidemius and poxbringer buff the rot fly attacks of plague drones to have +1 strength making them strength 5?
Sadly not, it’s a weapon with fixed strength on its profile
I heard that Warp Talons are now Raptors with LCs since their ability is now infinitely USELESS and they now have an 100% chance they'll get shot down completely cuz of NO WARPTIME AFTER DEPLOYMENT!
Ways to use Warp Talons:
- Warptime up the board, perhaps as a niche Epidemius opener, perhaps as a niche Fury of Khorne decapitation strike against support characters or tagging of heavy gunners without FLY, both doing it best as Renegades for 2D6 more reach (though World Eaters are pretty good at the latter)
- MSU arrival on turn two around a Locus of Rage; each unit has nearly a 50-50 chance of executing a charge, more if you use a command re-roll on a 6-1. Again, niche counter to things like aggressors when you’re going banzai charge (which you don’t need to do, because your bloodletter bomb doesn’t care about 8” anti-charge weapons)
Played a casual game vs 2 new-ish players. GUO died turn 1 after they shot half their weapons and I rolled really well on invults. /clap
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casdark wrote: Hi, i would start a daemons army, but i'm confused. Can someone suggest me some generic competitive army list?
Post FAQ daemons are now in a place where as a main army they can't win highly competitive games, period. Daemons are now supporting cast for CSM and the like.
The only exception is Nurgle daemons, that can run the tri-herald combo + 2-3 blobs of 30 plaguebearers, plague drones, epidemius, tree.
The best ranked player (21st) bringing pure daemons is bringing this:
rvd1ofakind wrote: Played a casual game vs 2 new-ish players. GUO died turn 1 after they shot half their weapons and I rolled really well on invults. /clap
Automatically Appended Next Post:
casdark wrote: Hi, i would start a daemons army, but i'm confused. Can someone suggest me some generic competitive army list?
Post FAQ daemons are now in a place where as a main army they can't win highly competitive games, period. Daemons are now supporting cast for CSM and the like.
The only exception is Nurgle daemons, that can run the tri-herald combo + 2-3 blobs of 30 plaguebearers, plague drones, epidemius, tree.
The best ranked player (21st) bringing pure daemons is bringing this:
Played with Zarakynel yesterday. Dead turn 1. /clap
Double shooting obliterators alone did 17 damage. And yes I used the strat for +1 invul. RIP 666 pts
Every big thing is a basket and the bigger the basket the more Lascannons it’s going to face.
I’m starting to think that big stuff is good only, and only, if it’s specialised in endurance (even then, Mortarian is a bit of a gamble), or can be protected by putting it in reserve and has the range to make a difference after it hurriedly arrives on turn one with some toilet paper hanging off its belt
Automatically Appended Next Post: I’m starting to have thoughts about big stuff...
...it’s only really worth bothering with if it’s specialised in endurance. Anything that can throw a mean punch or whatever is going to be marked for Lascannon spam on turn one. If it takes a few turns to get into attacking range, then the purpose of its infinity gauntlet or whatever is to encourage your opponent to prioritise killing it over the stuff you’ve taken and actually expect to get into the fight.
Alternatively, if it can be protected by gunline alpha, say with a reserves rule, and it can actually do something at range, then it has a place. If the mission allows for walk-on reserves, then go ahead and bring a gunner Knight.
(Hahaha, I’ve just realised that Mortarion can’t even swoop forwards on turn one and rendezvous with teleporting Deathshroud any more)
Regarding Spartans, Warptime puts us in a fairly unique position. It’s already a pretty tough beast, and we can have it get right up in the enemy’s face and demand to be shot at. There’d be arguments to Advance and pop smoke, were we able to strip it of those expensive and glorious Lascannons. I definitely like Heavy Flamers on it; 28” threat range is tasty, and it totally wants to try to charge seomthing as long as you’ve got countermeasures to keep an exit space open.
It’s a shame mine’s going to be heavily dedicated to Khorne, as it’s a perfect candidate for the deity spells. Especially DA.
One thing that comes to mind... flank Sparty with two Heldrakes. Warptime it forwards, and the drakes behind the unit opposite. Charge the lot in, and aim to envelop the unit to prevent it falling back. If you’ve got those three units in the enemy DZ on turn one, and they can’t be shot at, then you are seriously sorted. Consider throwing a re-roll at the last of the three to attack, to make sure you don’t overkill the target unit.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Played with Zarakynel yesterday. Dead turn 1. /clap
Double shooting obliterators alone did 17 damage. And yes I used the strat for +1 invul. RIP 666 pts
happened me the same also if in reduced scale with Mortarion vs 7 grim reapers, guide and doom and Mortarion down to 8 wounds in 1 single turn, ok i was unlucky with saves... but....
rvd1ofakind wrote: Played with Zarakynel yesterday. Dead turn 1. /clap
Double shooting obliterators alone did 17 damage. And yes I used the strat for +1 invul. RIP 666 pts
That seems unlucky or she was against an ungodly amount of lascannons?
I would suggest paying the CP to deep strike her if you're up against a gunline like that.
I’m going to try running Skarbrand alongside a World Eaters Detachment, so tons of fearless cultists and bloodletters. My plan to keep him alive mostly involves bringing a Lord of Skulls as well, so they have something else to shoot at for a turn. Bringing a Crimson Crown herald and Khorne Prince as well, so if anything manages to make it into melee they should blend pretty well.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Played with Zarakynel yesterday. Dead turn 1. /clap
Double shooting obliterators alone did 17 damage. And yes I used the strat for +1 invul. RIP 666 pts
That seems unlucky or she was against an ungodly amount of lascannons?
I would suggest paying the CP to deep strike her if you're up against a gunline like that.
Literally 3 obliterators got her down to 3 wounds alone. Average-ish rolls.
Uh... so what's the difference with the deepstrike? She comes down within 9'', fails the charge and dies anyway. Even if she makes it - she hits the screen, it retreats and she dies anyway.
Only daemon lord unit worth is the lord of change cause of the 2++. Aangrath is kinda good to with the 16" but his points are..... odd to say
unless your daemon lord can take a big hit, then it's best to deep strike it. But other than that it's a pretty much uphill battle.
It's kinda the reason why Skarbrand is really strong atm, cause of his rage aura that makes things unable to run from ur units. Making them very effective
Lord of change is only 3++. Read the rules. It's almost a BRB rule "you can't have 2++" at this point.
And there is 1 LoCs in the entire London GT (400 people) and it's in a pure psyker list which will be destroyed by any kraken nids or heck, just lascannon spam?
rvd1ofakind wrote: Played with Zarakynel yesterday. Dead turn 1. /clap
Double shooting obliterators alone did 17 damage. And yes I used the strat for +1 invul. RIP 666 pts
Deep sadness. I've been having decent results with a Lord of Change warlord. I have been using the 2++ though.
I didn't take the stratagem into consideration. Using it on the LoC is a waste IMO. The opponent can just shoot something else as the LoC isn't a must kill.
rvd1ofakind wrote: I didn't take the stratagem into consideration. Using it on the LoC is a waste IMO. The opponent can just shoot something else as the LoC isn't a must kill.
Kind of true. Despite being very hard to kill, for the most part it doesn't seem to matter unless they leave me an opening with which to infernal gate a bunch of characters. Not likely.
Don't underestimate the psychological impact of a very tough to kill and very mobile Greater Daemon that imparts significant buffs to a psyker squadron and strong DTW coverage.
rvd1ofakind wrote: I didn't take the stratagem into consideration. Using it on the LoC is a waste IMO. The opponent can just shoot something else as the LoC isn't a must kill.
Sometimes he can, but let's not forget that LoC with its "more than 10 wounds" can screen lesser characters (DPs, Heralds or allied CSM/ TS/ DG guys) from enemy fire. So we can make him the only target on the battlefield worth shooting with heavy weapons -- and let enemy waste a ton of shots at his 2++ save.
Badablack wrote: Characters can’t screen other characters unfortunately.
not 100% true. The full wording is ignore other enemy characters with a wound characteristic of less than 10 when determining if the target is the closest. So a Lord of change does screen for deamon princes for example.
I have found that the best option is
Lord of change with impossible robe and warlord trait for -1 damage
Greater deamon of khorne with armor of scorne and warp surge
Deamon prince of slaanesh with wings in its own slaanesh detachment
So that gives 2 stupid tough 3++ crazy deamons to get through with a slaanesh one flying over them and charging because it's So damn fast it should get there turn 1, if it fails the charge it's protected by the big guys and will get there t2. So my question is, what are you going to shoot first? The thing that will eat your face or the thing that will dish out mortal wounds with little issue? Hold 20 pink horrors off the field for deep strike t2 and your opponent knows that the loc will make them deadly with flickering flames. Make a channeling the warlord and give him the deamonspark straight instead of the loc with the -1 to damage and move that up as well, what's the treat potential here now? A Lord of change totally buffing your force and making things die with little chance to protect from it, a greater deamon of khorne which is pretty much throw it forward and watch the hair fly, with a dp of slaanesh wanting to eat your face and a 2nd turn drop in of units you know will need to make sure doesn't get it's chance to start rolling on the buff and blast train.
I have also been using arhiman, 2 defilers, and a vortex beast as a support to this force and it's scary good. Vortex beast buffs any tzeentch model (potential str 5 pink horrors? Hehehe. Or maybe a better ap on that Lord of changes attacks to make sure it can kill that redemptor dread that charged it to tie it up?) With defilers dropping much needed long range fire support. Finish the list with small deamonettes squads for objective taking and support, they won't get targeted normally because there are so many more pressing matters to attend to.
Now, I'll preface this by saying I haven't tried this, but the idea came to me when someone was presenting the differences between summoning and deep striking.
Has anyone thought about the possibilities of keeping a few points back for summoning a unit of daemons late game to dump onto an objective that needs holding/denying, or to keep them in "reserves" for post turn 3, if needed?
Wondered how this'd work in practice, if it'd even be worth it
I try and keep 100 pts free for whatever I want / need late game. Actually I do it to threaten my opponents with turning an enemy character into a chaos spawn with my Lord of change (funny how just that threat makes people want to kill the loc quicker) and for if I want to split some pinks. But yea, if the points haven't been used by t3 summoning is another option.
Kzraahk wrote: Is a Nurgle Prince with Corruption worth it over double talons? I'm already running a DG Prince with double talons and Suppurating Plate
I feel like it's much better for can-opening. Being able to reroll wounds is a big deal, especially with the extra damage effect on 6's from loci, with the +2Str and extra point of AP it puts it over the +2A from talons.
Given Nurgle struggles with those sorts of units outside of VB Flies or Banner Plagues it makes sense to me.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Played with Zarakynel yesterday. Dead turn 1. /clap
Double shooting obliterators alone did 17 damage. And yes I used the strat for +1 invul. RIP 666 pts
That seems unlucky or she was against an ungodly amount of lascannons?
I would suggest paying the CP to deep strike her if you're up against a gunline like that.
Literally 3 obliterators got her down to 3 wounds alone. Average-ish rolls.
Uh... so what's the difference with the deepstrike? She comes down within 9'', fails the charge and dies anyway. Even if she makes it - she hits the screen, it retreats and she dies anyway.
My suggestion for DSing her was mainly to protect her from an oblit drop or something like that from a gunline getting first turn. The new rules kind of change that dynamic I suppose though. With their 24" range how were they in range on the first turn? Or did you go first and move her up and then get shot to ribbons?
Anyone tried the 3 giant blobs of plague drones? I'm still assembling and buying mine. I've only ran a single blob of 9 in the past, but had awesome results with it. I'm running 2 blobs of 7 tonight, and will soon have enough to run 3 blobs of 7.
Seeing the 27 drone list place 9th(?) in a tournament pushed me over the edge of doubt. I figured investing that many points into big blobs of drones would be terrible. I freaking love the plague drone models though... except for transporting them.
On paper they look like hot trash, but the FAQ gave them the PLAGUEBEARER keyword, so now they get the +1 to hit and additional hits from the scriviner. Toss that and the locus on them, with re-rolling all wounds and you have a very large amount of saves you are going to force. If you toss Vilurent blessing on them, they really shine, now they can deal up to 5dmg per swing with their proboscis.
Icon+Feculent gnarlmaw gives you an OK chance at a turn 1 charge, and at 4 wounds each, they are fairly durable.
In short, you get a fast, large, durable unit that can put lots of CC pressure on through weight of high dmg attacks with no ap. Lack of AP is a bit liberating, as you no longer care what you toss them at. They can even take a chunk out of a land raider!
I've found 4 wounds to be a sweet spot for lascannon bait, thanks to DG, we have a decent chance that it will take 2 lascannon wounds to kill a single drone, for their points, that is a sweet deal.
I can't seriously invest in an extra 18 Plague Drones (I have 9) before the inevitable nerfing.
The boost to Plague Bearer status opening up combination with the Scrivener is too much.
One unit can take Virulent Blessing, Miasma of Pestilence, +1 to Invuls as well, so the rest are just for redundancy, plus the footprint is freaking massive on one unit alone.
I can respect the list with 27, 90 Plagues, Triherald and Epi getting 9th, but I won't be playing in that style of tournament so it won't be a purchasing decision - I'll just stick with adding Daemon Princes and Nurglings which are still also useful here.
Yeh they’re awesome in AoS (although v2 is out soon so we’ll see how that changes things). I’m basically trying to port my AoS army over to 40k for the time being due to limited hobby time, so the notion that a bunch of plaguebearers, drones, and supporting characters is good is pretty encouraging.
The 2 units of 7 worked pretty well. Didn't go first, and failed one of my turn 1 charges, played with beta rules so my PB were not on the field either. I had morty on the table, so all the scary stuff shot him, killing him on turn 2 (yay hellblaster spam) Both drone blobs were able to get some big beefy multi charges off. Start of turn 3 my opponents entire army was in CC, mostly with the 2 drones.
As for morty, I completely understand why he is not competitive. For his points I could have had another 7 drones and a ton of nurgling. Possibly even another battalion. The games I play are not super competitive, and as pickup games are, the opponent is hit or miss, but I think drones are in a good spot.
And when 8th dropped I was thinking, "unit size of 9? why the hell would you ever want a blob that big?" Then rule of 3 happened. Honestly I would rather run a ton of blobs of 4 or 5 drones, just easier to manage.
I use my Plague drones as escorts for Daemon princes. 2 units of bare 3 usually get the Princes where they need to be.
Back in 7th edition, it would have been Spawn, but Drones are just better right now. Small arms fire is their downfall, but better them than the Daemon princes.
And yea, transporting just 6 of them so far is a PITA. Already filed down their claws to prevent breakage and sacrificed cool poses for practicality on half of them
Had a great game last night with my mostly Daemon Tzeentch force against a balanced Nid force. I won mostly due to a maxed out unit of Pink horrors with ~100 points of reserves for splitting. They acted as a nearly indestructible screen protecting my characters and some Mutiliths from getting first turn charged by Stealers, Guants and a Brood lord. Much to my surprise they survived mostly intact (25 pinks left and a handful of Brimestones). Next turn they left combat (I deployed them in a solid block to make it nearly impossible to surround and trap any models) and my shooting and counter-charge took care of the threat. They only got to fire once in the game (mowing down some Dev guants) but kept screen and absorbing charges all game long. I even forgot to use the Locus of Tzeetch which would have (probably) make them even hardier in combat.
This makes me think that in a post-FAQ world with plenty of Command points and limited first turn charges, Pink horrors running across the board are really very good. Tying them up with high toughness units seems like the only reasonable counter to them, but Tzeetch has plenty of supporting units that can deal effectively with those threats (Screamers, Deamon Princes, LoC, exalted flamers and burning chariots).
kaptin_Blacksquigg wrote: Had a great game last night with my mostly Daemon Tzeentch force against a balanced Nid force. I won mostly due to a maxed out unit of Pink horrors with ~100 points of reserves for splitting. They acted as a nearly indestructible screen protecting my characters and some Mutiliths from getting first turn charged by Stealers, Guants and a Brood lord. Much to my surprise they survived mostly intact (25 pinks left and a handful of Brimestones). Next turn they left combat (I deployed them in a solid block to make it nearly impossible to surround and trap any models) and my shooting and counter-charge took care of the threat. They only got to fire once in the game (mowing down some Dev guants) but kept screen and absorbing charges all game long. I even forgot to use the Locus of Tzeetch which would have (probably) make them even hardier in combat.
This makes me think that in a post-FAQ world with plenty of Command points and limited first turn charges, Pink horrors running across the board are really very good. Tying them up with high toughness units seems like the only reasonable counter to them, but Tzeetch has plenty of supporting units that can deal effectively with those threats (Screamers, Deamon Princes, LoC, exalted flamers and burning chariots).
Thats awesome to hear as my alpha legion list is running 25-30 pinks in a battalion with 2 x10 brims and 150 points in reserve for splits and/or flamer summons.
The plan is to use forward operstives to seize objectives and to set up havocs and oblits in cover whilst positioning everything else behind the pinks as they move and advance.
I need to get at least 1 more E flamer, but the idea is that my opponent will only be able to shoot at the pinks or at units in cover and at -1 to hit (Alpha legion).
Ive got a game on the weekend so hopefully the list performs how i want it to.
And yea, transporting just 6 of them so far is a PITA. Already filed down their claws to prevent breakage and sacrificed cool poses for practicality on half of them
I've magnetized their wings and hope it solves the biggest problems, but so far I didn't have to transport them to try it out really .
kaptin_Blacksquigg wrote: Had a great game last night with my mostly Daemon Tzeentch force against a balanced Nid force.
This is amusing bc I was coming on to post about my game last night against Nids! Played against a top-tier ITC Tyranid player, Matt Evans.
Did better than I expected: we tied 26-26. So I'm pleased with what I did, and I see a targetting error that, had I fixed, would've gained me a few more points. Should've plopped the bigger Pink blob and Tzerald to nuke the two Stealer blobs, rather than protect my backfield objective.
However, I'm considering changing it substantially.
Here's what I have:
PURE TZEENTCH BATTALION
Tzerald
LoC with Robes
20 Pinks Icon
25 Pinks Icon
10 Brims
PURE DAEMON BATTALION
Slerald on Steed
Poxbringer
3x3 Nurglings
PURE TSONS SUPREME
Winged Prince with Crystal
Winged Prince with Helm
Winged Prince
Ahirman on Disc
2x Rhino with 2 bolters and havoc
25 pts for splits
(Tzerald and Pinks in DS; LoC soaks firepower; Rhinos and LoC screen the characters; Slerald kills scouts; Nurglings deny Infiltrate)
Here's what I'm considering:
PURE TZEENTCH BATTALION
Tzerald
LoC with Robes
22 Pinks
2x10 Brims
PURE ALPHA LEGION BATTALION
Lord, Fist, Claw
Jump Lord, Fist, Claw
30 Cultists
2x5 Marines
2x3 Oblits
PURE TSONS SUPREME
Winged Prince with Crystal
Winged Prince with Helm
Winged Prince
(Tzerald and Pinks in DS; LoC has 2++; Jump Lord and Oblits in DS; Cultists screen and come back)
kaptin_Blacksquigg wrote: Had a great game last night with my mostly Daemon Tzeentch force against a balanced Nid force.
This is amusing bc I was coming on to post about my game last night against Nids! Played against a top-tier ITC Tyranid player, Matt Evans.
Did better than I expected: we tied 26-26. So I'm pleased with what I did, and I see a targetting error that, had I fixed, would've gained me a few more points. Should've plopped the bigger Pink blob and Tzerald to nuke the two Stealer blobs, rather than protect my backfield objective.
However, I'm considering changing it substantially.
Here's what I have:
PURE TZEENTCH BATTALION
Tzerald
LoC with Robes
20 Pinks Icon
25 Pinks Icon
10 Brims
PURE DAEMON BATTALION
Slerald on Steed
Poxbringer
3x3 Nurglings
PURE TSONS SUPREME
Winged Prince with Crystal
Winged Prince with Helm
Winged Prince
Ahirman on Disc
2x Rhino with 2 bolters and havoc
25 pts for splits
(Tzerald and Pinks in DS; LoC soaks firepower; Rhinos and LoC screen the characters; Slerald kills scouts; Nurglings deny Infiltrate)
Here's what I'm considering:
PURE TZEENTCH BATTALION
Tzerald
LoC with Robes
22 Pinks
2x10 Brims
PURE ALPHA LEGION BATTALION
Lord, Fist, Claw
Jump Lord, Fist, Claw
30 Cultists
2x5 Marines
2x3 Oblits
PURE TSONS SUPREME
Winged Prince with Crystal
Winged Prince with Helm
Winged Prince
(Tzerald and Pinks in DS; LoC has 2++; Jump Lord and Oblits in DS; Cultists screen and come back)
Thoughts?
I like the second list lots of CP and screens. The only thing im not sure about is the inclusion of the 2x5 marines. Why not just take 2x10 cultist to fill battalion spots and use the other points elsewhere (horror splits?)
Rather than deep strikeing your jump lords you could always forward operatives them and get a T1 charge to tag somwthing that you dont want shooting and force your oppeonent to turn to deal with the threat in the backline. You could always drop him in with the cultist blob to get some shooting off with reroll 1s and then try and charge them all into something. You have the CP spare to do this.
What mark are you going to give the oblits? This is something I have been debating lately, slaanesh or tzeentch.
Slaanesh you get the double shoot strat, tzeentch you can make use of the herald and DP auras.
My list which is also tzeentch and alpha legion below:
I forgot to add the chainswords to the chosen. But i will give them to them in case someone tries to lock them up. They will be forward opratives forward to try and delete something turn 1 possibly with the sorcerer for prescience for safe overcharge.
Well my stance is obvious. Not taking the best unit tzeentch has (pink blobs) = bad list. Also Burning chariots are real bad. Changeling is not worth it. I've yet to see one post FAQ in a comp list. I've played a similar list against Dakkafex nids and just got blown off the table. Flamers always died turn after deepstrike and didn't even do much when they flamed.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Well my stance is obvious. Not taking the best unit tzeentch has (pink blobs) = bad list. Also Burning chariots are real bad. Changeling is not worth it. I've yet to see one post FAQ in a comp list. I've played a similar list against Dakkafex nids and just got blown off the table. Flamers always died turn after deepstrike and didn't even do much when they flamed.
I've personally found Burning Chariots to be quite good. They basically want to be in combat, and tend to be fast enough to do so.
Changling can be OK, mainly when you have 600+ points protected by it. Anything less and you are better off bringing more guys.
I will echo Rvd's sentiments about Pinks though. They are such a strong unit for dealing with all manner of threats that you are at a significant disadvantage by not taking them. That said, if you feel you don't need them in your meta then all the more power to you!
Changling can be OK, mainly when you have 600+ points protected by it.
And it's quite difficult to cram 600+ points of models (not units) into his 9'' aura range. Especially later in the game when said models want to be in combat everywhere on the table.
Changling can be OK, mainly when you have 600+ points protected by it.
And it's quite difficult to cram 600+ points of models (not units) into his 9'' aura range. Especially later in the game when said models want to be in combat everywhere on the table.
Prior to the FAQ I would get 9 chariots, a DP, and some Heralds under it. But yes, it can be. It is more useful for resisting the alpha strike.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Well my stance is obvious. Not taking the best unit tzeentch has (pink blobs) = bad list. Also Burning chariots are real bad. Changeling is not worth it. I've yet to see one post FAQ in a comp list. I've played a similar list against Dakkafex nids and just got blown off the table. Flamers always died turn after deepstrike and didn't even do much when they flamed.
I have to say im with you on this. With the survivability of pink blobs, tzeentch lists would do better to make use of the durable screen by putting stuff behind them that will be protected by them. E.g. exalted flamers, daemon princes, fateskimmers. By doing this you really limit your opponents options for shooting and may even force them to shoot horrors, which can be split and can potentially have 3++ save.
Flamers and chariots will fall quickly to a shooting line. Im more inclined to use flamers as a summoning option if you have spare reserve points or you need to counter something.
i ll bring to a tournament a 30 man pink horror unit, during play test it was really good, durable, heavy hitter and a troop with OS, i dont see Tz having lot of viable options right now, Gd are almost crap, brimstone are decent but nothing great, screamers, chariots are again crap, Dp are good like usual, changeling no comment why i should need a model just giving a 6++ FNP....a joke, with smite semi nerf is also pointless rely on smite spam cause it wont work
In my recent playtests i found Nurgle be the best God , very durable, fast enough, good hitter, at next tournament i ll play a whole Nurgle battalion, and just keep oblys for fire support.
Tzeentch comes into it's own when allied with thousand sons. Mono deamon nurgle is defiantly the best. Slaanesh works great as a support force and khorne is khorne.
blackmage wrote: i ll bring to a tournament a 30 man pink horror unit, during play test it was really good, durable, heavy hitter and a troop with OS, i dont see Tz having lot of viable options right now, Gd are almost crap, brimstone are decent but nothing great, screamers, chariots are again crap, Dp are good like usual, changeling no comment why i should need a model just giving a 6++ FNP....a joke, with smite semi nerf is also pointless rely on smite spam cause it wont work
In my recent playtests i found Nurgle be the best God , very durable, fast enough, good hitter, at next tournament i ll play a whole Nurgle battalion, and just keep oblys for fire support.
You did a good job at listing the crap units but I think it makes up for this with its good units. Exalted flamers, heralds on chariot, DPs, blue scribes. These units aren't spectacular by themsmelves but with a blob of pinks, other cheap chaff and paired with some heavier csm units i think they are really strong. Forcing people to shoot what you want them too is pretty handy and it will fristrate the gak out of them when they need to shoot through your chaff to get shots at your exalted flamers and DPs + fateskimmers which are moving into threat range for a charge.
I cant find value in taking tzeentch units other than those I listes everything else is too fragile and will get picked off not only because they can be threats but because who is going to want to shoot a 3++ splitting blob.
I've had much better luck with Abaddon + 40 Slaanesh cultists with Delightful Agonies/VOTLW than blobs of 30 pinks. What's stopping your pinks from taking horrific morale casualties? I find that even with splitting, my opponent only has to inflict 12-15 wounds on the blob to neuter the effectiveness of my unit. Whereas with cultists, A) they're much cheaper B) they have a way more viable spread of buffs/psychic powers to do damage rather than relying on just 1 or 2 key psychic rolls (1CP for VOTLW to wound anything on 4s or at worst 5s, 2CP to doubleshoot, compared to say, flickering flames +1S, GG if you fail that psychic test) C) 40 fearless wounds with 5+ FNP. Cultists seem much more cost effective while doing comparable amounts of damage. You can even diabolic strength/prescience a 40 man blob and it becomes pretty scary in close combat/shooting. Oh yeah, and 2CP to regenerate the unit COMPLETELY. Have I been playing pinks completely wrong or am I missing something here? Once I started using Abaddon I have no idea why I even bothered with pinks.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rvd1ofakind wrote: Ok guys, I'm here with the secretest of the secret sauces. So there's a Nurgle Daemons list that is 3:0 so far in the London GT.
That list is.................... 1440 pts of nurlings in squads of 9 xD (+heralds,piper,epidemius,DP)
barboggo wrote: I've had much better luck with Abaddon + 40 Slaanesh cultists with Delightful Agonies/VOTLW than blobs of 30 pinks. What's stopping your pinks from taking horrific morale casualties? I find that even with splitting, my opponent only has to inflict 12-15 wounds on the blob to neuter the effectiveness of my unit, even with splitting. Whereas with cultists, A) they're much cheaper B) they have a way more viable spread of buffs/psychic powers to do damage rather than relying on just 1 or 2 key psychic rolls (1CP for VOTLW to wound anything on 4s or at worst 5s, 2CP to doubleshoot, compared to say, flickering flames +1S, GG if you fail that psychic test) C) 40 fearless wounds with 5+ FNP. Cultists seem much more cost effective while doing comparable amounts of damage. You can even diabolic strength/prescience a 40 man blob and it becomes pretty scary in close combat/shooting. Oh yeah, and 2CP to regenerate the unit COMPLETELY. Have I been playing pinks completely wrong or am I missing something here? Once I started using Abaddon I have no idea why I even bothered with pinks.
Sure if you are taking abby 40 man cultist blobs are great but i think whilst they are cheaper they are more CP hungry. To do the double shot and VotLW that is 3 CP per turn and another 2 CP wwhen you bring them back. Whilst that is not huge if you are taking 13+ CP (2x battalions) it still is quite a bit.
I would love to see the mathhammer for it comparing the two, but pinks with 4++ or 3++ for 2 CP, are going to weather a lot of fire. For damage output strength 4(with herald buff) and +1 to wound (flickering flames) and reroll hits of 1 and wounds of 1 (daemonspark and DP). At full strength that is 90 shots with a unit that can also move and advance up the field alot faster than cultists. Against most infantry they will be wounding on 2s or 3s, unfortunately no AP, but with sheer weight of dice these guys are gonna clear a lot and will put wounds on tougher things.
I dont play black legion,I play alpha legion. So if I am running cultist blobs and i dont go first they just get shot appart turn 1, meaning if i want to keep them up its going to cost me 2 CP to pass morale and another 2 to bring them back. Even more CP to use the offensive stratagems mentioned above. Id rather use that CP on my other units like my oblits or havocs which are more efficient uses of those strats IMO.
Pink are MUCH harder to shift (especially if you have command points to spare buff them/ignore moral). 30 Pinks fully split means a total 150 models to shift, including invulnerable saves that means 222 wounding hits, or 300 with warp surge active.
Pink horror moral isn't a massive issue if you split intelligently, leaving a chunk of Brimstone to take the battleshock hit. 12-14 casutallies is nothing when you have to get through 50 bodies before you drop them below the magic 20 mark. Say 5 pinks and 10 blues go down in shooting, you still have 10 brims to eat the battle shock (and 25 Pinks left to cause mayhem).
The cultists are hardly cheaper when you add in the cost of Abbadon. Sure you can tide of traitors them, but only if there are some left. In the current horde heavy meta, killing 40 T3 (with virtually no save) bodies isn't that hard, 30 fully buffed Horrors can almost do it on their own.
I'm not saying Cultist are useless, far from it. But Pinks are just as strong.
Lots of factors involved I suppose. I forgot about daemonspark which certainly helps a lot. 90 shots is solid but I am really not a fan of how pinks lose so much firepower after losing just 10 T3 models, which is extremely easy to achieve thanks to insane morale casualties on giant blobs. Kill 7 pinks, roll a 3-4 average on morale, 3-4 models flee, now you're down to Assault 2 S3 with no real way of getting that extra 30% firepower back on top of the 30% casualties you already took. Realistically VOTLW is the only 1 CP you need to spend to get relevant damage out of 40 cultists, especially once in rapid fire range (80 shots, re-rolling misses, wounding T3 on 3s, T5 on 4s, T9 on 5s without buffs or dependencies). Black Legion cultists can also advance and shoot at Assault 1 24" thanks to the legion trait so I think the extra range and durability easily make up for the pseudo-"degrading" damage profile that pinks have. I also run Alpha Legion and have found that it works great in conjunction with a Abby/cultist detachment. At this point I'm even considering Black Legion oblits for the full hit re-rolls so I can save prescience for something else.
How many points would you typically leave for splitting? A max unit of pinks is 210 points, with 20 blues and 20 brims of splits that's another 160 points bringing it up to 370. Abaddon is 240 while 40 cultists is 160. The points cost is comparable but one seems to output a lot more damage than the other, especially after taking a few turns of fire. Furthermore, Abaddon's re-roll all misses bubble and the 1CP VOTLW seems like a much more reliable way to keep a fearless chaff blob buffed without being so dependent on a herald (add 70pts) + flickering flames + daemonspark. Abaddon himself also hits like a truck in both shooting/melee which is way better than any Tzeentch herald or even a DP.
100-200 points of splits seems like a waste to me since those points don't buy you any more guns. At that point you could buy another unit of 40 fearless cultists.
barboggo wrote: Lots of factors involved I suppose. I forgot about daemonspark which certainly helps a lot. 90 shots is solid but I am really not a fan of how pinks lose so much firepower after losing just 10 T3 models, which is extremely easy to achieve thanks to insane morale casualties on giant blobs. Kill 7 pinks, roll a 3-4 average on morale, 3-4 models flee, now you're down to Assault 2 S3 with no real way of getting that extra 30% firepower back on top of the 30% casualties you already took. Realistically VOTLW is the only 1 CP you need to spend to get relevant damage out of 40 cultists, especially once in rapid fire range (80 shots, re-rolling misses, wounding T3 on 3s, T5 on 4s, T9 on 5s without buffs or dependencies). Black Legion cultists can also advance and shoot at Assault 1 24" thanks to the legion trait so I think the extra range and durability easily make up for the pseudo-"degrading" damage profile that pinks have. I also run Alpha Legion and have found that it works great in conjunction with a Abby/cultist detachment. At this point I'm even considering Black Legion oblits for the full hit re-rolls so I can save prescience for something else.
How many points would you typically leave for splitting? A max unit of pinks is 210 points, with 20 blues and 20 brims of splits that's another 160 points bringing it up to 370. Abaddon is 240 while 40 cultists is 160. The points cost is comparable but one seems to output a lot more damage than the other, especially after taking a few turns of fire. Furthermore, Abaddon's re-roll all misses bubble and the 1CP VOTLW seems like a much more reliable way to keep a fearless chaff blob buffed without being so dependent on a herald (add 70pts) + flickering flames + daemonspark. Abaddon himself also hits like a truck in both shooting/melee which is way better than any Tzeentch herald or even a DP.
100-200 points of splits seems like a waste to me since those points don't buy you any more guns. At that point you could buy another unit of 40 cultists.
As already pointed out above, smart splitting can make it very hard to take a unit of 30 pinks down to below 20, plus if you are feeling lucky and you take the icon, there is a chance you can actually bring back some pinks.
Those 100-200 reserve points (i take 100-150) dont have to be spent on splitting, they can also be used to summon something else if your pinks are being ignored. Therefore those points are always being used on something useful whether it be keeping pinks above 20 or summoning a counter unit.
What it comes down to is cultists are simply easy to remove in the current meta with most armies having options for dealing with chaff. This includes plenty of rending weapon options, meaning your cultists are likely to get no save from a lot of units.
Also the point about relying on a heralds buff: The herald cannot be targetted whilst the pinks are up and will travel with them anyway, the two are paired, you wouldnt take the pinks without one and it is a very reliable source of buffs without wasting CP.
Sorry I just don't think cultists are a better choice and I think we are likely to see more competitive lists running horror blobs and nurglings over cultists.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also horros can small smite and even when they drop below 20 are still assult 2 so are still putting out equivalent or slightly better damage than cultists
Let's say we do damage with the goal of staying above 20 pinks as long as possible and minimizing morale loss as much as possible (which means saving for blues before brims).
With pinks:
Inflict 10w @ 4++ to get through 10 pinks.
Inflict 15w @ 5++ to get through 15 blues.
21.5 models flee. (15 brims, 6 pinks)
Net loss = 218pts, with severe damage reduction from being under 20 pinks.
Remaining firepower = 28 S4 18" shots
We are down to 14 pinks and all we had to do was get past 10 4++ saves and 15 5++ saves. Not difficult. Turns out the extra 30w of splits that we paid for really only got us about 10 extra wounds @ 5++ due to morale. That's paying roughly 10 points per 5++ wound which is awful.
After shooting away just 25 models (out of 60), we've reduced the firepower of the unit from 90 S4 18" shots down to 28 S4 18" shots. We've also annihilated 218 of the 408 points of invested into this blob.
With cultists:
Inflict 25w @ 6+.
0 models flee.
Net loss = 100pts, no damage reduction except for models lost
Remaining firepower = 15 shots @ 24" or 30 shots @ 12", re-rolling ALL misses, and comparable (actually slightly better) wounding ability for 1CP VOTLW
And Abaddon still has max health and eats the changecaster for breakfast
You've only lost 100pts in this scenario and still have 240pts of badass chaos warmaster who will be very hard to kill even after losing the whole blob (2+/4++, halves all damage, T5, 7w)
There is a reason why tactical marines are terrible chaff and that’s because spending extra points for a slightly better save does not help against the kind of massed, negligible-AP firepower that will be shooting at it. Killing 10 T3 4++ and 15 T3 5++ models is ridiculously easy and once those are down the remaining pinks/splits have no way of getting their firepower back. I mean if your opponent is firing lascannons at your pinks then sure they are great. Splitting is a cool concept but in practice I find it just exacerbates the already-severe morale issues that come with large blobs. It doesn't help that the more you split, the weaker the invuln, which makes it even easier to inflict massive morale damage.
1. Pinks split as soon as they are killed so if a unit shoots at them they better kill 10 straight up otherwise each model they killed will be splitting before their next unit targets them creating more chaff to get through with the next unit. With a 4++ save a unit needs to inflict on average 20 wounds to kill off 10 pinks. Very doable yes but that requires a lot of dedicated fire to get that off. Even harder to achieve this if you give them the stratagem to make them 3++.
If you manage to lose 10 from one units shooting and pay all splits the unit now has 20 pinks and 20 blues(100pts for those splits) so the unit has gone from 20 to 40. From those 20 each of them can be split for 3 pts a peice (60pts). Expensive points wise buts thats why you have the points in reserve. As the pinks die and split more firepower is needed to get to the others.
2. If your pinks copped it and are gonna suffer from ld test, such as in the above scenario, spend 2 cp and auto pass, if its not so bad burn your blues and brims that were created when you split.
3. The whole purpose of the pinks is to stay alive and screen whilst the rest of your army positions or prepares to charge. They are a hardy quick screening unit that can still dishout a lot of firepower and requires significant dedicated firepower to remove. They are there to put out damage and allow the heavy hitters behind them to charge forward once they are in range and potentially tarpit some units in the process (dont forget the tzeentch loci can be quite effective for keeping them alive in CC). If they lose their ability to shoot 3 times each its not the end of the world at all they arent the core of my offensive output they are actually a small part of it.
I run other units of chaff including 2x 10 man brims and 3x 10 man cultists, i have found that people are put off shooting a unit that has a high invul and will split when other easier options are on the table. This means that people often underestimate the required firepower it takes to remove 10 in 1 go as in the scenario mentioned above.
With a 6+ save light to medium gunfire in a medium sized gunline is going to destroy those cultists quickly and as people know about the ToT strat i think people will be happy to commit their firepower to wipe the unit out completely so that they dont come back. Their reach for effective shooting is also significantly less (6inches less) than pinks, their effectiveness essentially drops by 50% over 12 inches.
Running the numbers it is much harder to erase horrors from the board in 1 turn, they may not put out as much firepower, but they will need to be targetted again the next turn and there may even be more bodies to shoot through. More expensive sure but more durable definitely.
1. Pinks split as soon as they are killed so if a unit shoots at them they better kill 10 straight up otherwise each model they killed will be splitting before their next unit targets them creating more chaff to get through with the next unit. With a 4++ save a unit needs to inflict on average 20 wounds to kill off 10 pinks. Very doable yes but that requires a lot of dedicated fire to get that off. Even harder to achieve this if you give them the stratagem to make them 3++.
If you manage to lose 10 from one units shooting and pay all splits the unit now has 20 pinks and 20 blues(100pts for those splits) so the unit has gone from 20 to 40. From those 20 each of them can be split for 3 pts a peice (60pts). Expensive points wise buts thats why you have the points in reserve. As the pinks die and split more firepower is needed to get to the others.
2. If your pinks copped it and are gonna suffer from ld test, such as in the above scenario, spend 2 cp and auto pass, if its not so bad burn your blues and brims that were created when you split.
3. The whole purpose of the pinks is to stay alive and screen whilst the rest of your army positions or prepares to charge. They are a hardy quick screening unit that can still dishout a lot of firepower and requires significant dedicated firepower to remove. They are there to put out damage and allow the heavy hitters behind them to charge forward once they are in range and potentially tarpit some units in the process (dont forget the tzeentch loci can be quite effective for keeping them alive in CC). If they lose their ability to shoot 3 times each its not the end of the world at all they arent the core of my offensive output they are actually a small part of it.
I run other units of chaff including 2x 10 man brims and 3x 10 man cultists, i have found that people are put off shooting a unit that has a high invul and will split when other easier options are on the table. This means that people often underestimate the required firepower it takes to remove 10 in 1 go as in the scenario mentioned above.
With a 6+ save light to medium gunfire in a medium sized gunline is going to destroy those cultists quickly and as people know about the ToT strat i think people will be happy to commit their firepower to wipe the unit out completely so that they dont come back. Their reach for effective shooting is also significantly less (6inches less) than pinks, their effectiveness essentially drops by 50% over 12 inches.
Running the numbers it is much harder to erase horrors from the board in 1 turn, they may not put out as much firepower, but they will need to be targetted again the next turn and there may even be more bodies to shoot through. More expensive sure but more durable definitely.
Yes I made the example in a vacuum because that's the most reasonable way to make an apples to apples comparison. Furthermore, I don't see anything in your rebuttals where the context of the rest of your army makes a significant difference? We are talking about a blob of screening units that can weather fire and also deal some damage in return.
1. I don't see how the order of splitting is relevant as I've already accounted for the best case splitting scenario in which higher saves get thrown before weaker saves. I mean if you want to throw weaker saves first (say, rolling a 5++ save on a blue when you still have 25 pinks left) then you're going to suffer even crazier losses when the morale phase comes around. More pinks will be fleeing instead of getting to use their expensive 4++. Best case scenario is rolling all of your best saves for the actual wounds inflicted on your unit, then saving your weakest units for morale losses. In my example I've already accounted for 15 blues of splits and 15 brims of splits. Increasing the number of splits is just going to make it more and more worth it for your opponent to continue firing at your blob because your invulns go from 4+ to 5+ and finally to 6+, with each failed invuln creating another "no save allowed" casualty due to morale. As it stands, splitting is garbage because you're paying 3-5 points for 1w models that don't contribute to the shooting phase.
2. Spending 2CP to auto-pass morale on pinks is absolutely worth it when you stand to lose 21 models from morale (LOL). But how about not losing those 21 models in the first place? Your opponent basically gets more value per shot fired when you take twice as many losses due to morale scaling on large blobs and forces you to spend 2CP to compensate. This seems really bad.
3. I agree with you on this this, and for the record I don't think pinks are the worst screening unit. Fearless cultists just perform the same role better and cheaper, with less variance and conditional requirements.
My take on it is that pinks w/ splits are way too expensive, insanely weak to morale, suffer tremendous damage degradation, and are not even really much more durable to massed small arms fire despite what the splitting mechanic may lead you to believe.
Finally, if you really want to make the difference apparent, consider 80 fearless cultists vs 60 pinks + 200-300 points for splitting. It's not even a contest at that point. Nick Nanavati's top 10 Adepticon pox walker farm list was 120 cultists and Abaddon, not 90 pinks and a changecaster.
Automatically Appended Next Post: EDIT: Just calculated the points. Abaddon + 120 fearless cultists is 720 points. A Changecaster and 2 units of 30 pinks (with enough splits for 15 blues/15 brims per unit) is 738pts. Unless you're running pure daemons for fluff reasons, there is no contest. Morale immunity beats a 4++/5++ any day of the week when it comes to large blobs.
1. Pinks split as soon as they are killed so if a unit shoots at them they better kill 10 straight up otherwise each model they killed will be splitting before their next unit targets them creating more chaff to get through with the next unit. With a 4++ save a unit needs to inflict on average 20 wounds to kill off 10 pinks. Very doable yes but that requires a lot of dedicated fire to get that off. Even harder to achieve this if you give them the stratagem to make them 3++.
If you manage to lose 10 from one units shooting and pay all splits the unit now has 20 pinks and 20 blues(100pts for those splits) so the unit has gone from 20 to 40. From those 20 each of them can be split for 3 pts a peice (60pts). Expensive points wise buts thats why you have the points in reserve. As the pinks die and split more firepower is needed to get to the others.
2. If your pinks copped it and are gonna suffer from ld test, such as in the above scenario, spend 2 cp and auto pass, if its not so bad burn your blues and brims that were created when you split.
3. The whole purpose of the pinks is to stay alive and screen whilst the rest of your army positions or prepares to charge. They are a hardy quick screening unit that can still dishout a lot of firepower and requires significant dedicated firepower to remove. They are there to put out damage and allow the heavy hitters behind them to charge forward once they are in range and potentially tarpit some units in the process (dont forget the tzeentch loci can be quite effective for keeping them alive in CC). If they lose their ability to shoot 3 times each its not the end of the world at all they arent the core of my offensive output they are actually a small part of it.
I run other units of chaff including 2x 10 man brims and 3x 10 man cultists, i have found that people are put off shooting a unit that has a high invul and will split when other easier options are on the table. This means that people often underestimate the required firepower it takes to remove 10 in 1 go as in the scenario mentioned above.
With a 6+ save light to medium gunfire in a medium sized gunline is going to destroy those cultists quickly and as people know about the ToT strat i think people will be happy to commit their firepower to wipe the unit out completely so that they dont come back. Their reach for effective shooting is also significantly less (6inches less) than pinks, their effectiveness essentially drops by 50% over 12 inches.
Running the numbers it is much harder to erase horrors from the board in 1 turn, they may not put out as much firepower, but they will need to be targetted again the next turn and there may even be more bodies to shoot through. More expensive sure but more durable definitely.
Yes I made the example in a vacuum because that's the most reasonable way to make an apples to apples comparison. Furthermore, I don't see anything in your rebuttals where the context of the rest of your army makes a significant difference? We are talking about a blob of screening units that can weather fire and also deal some damage in return.
1. I don't see how the order of splitting is relevant as I've already accounted for the best case splitting scenario in which higher saves get thrown before weaker saves. I mean if you want to throw weaker saves first (say, rolling a 5++ save on a blue when you still have 25 pinks left) then you're going to suffer even crazier losses when the morale phase comes around. More pinks will be fleeing instead of getting to use their expensive 4++. Best case scenario is rolling all of your best saves for the actual wounds inflicted on your unit, then saving your weakest units for morale losses. In my example I've already accounted for 15 blues of splits and 15 brims of splits. Increasing the number of splits is just going to make it more and more worth it for your opponent to continue firing at your blob because your invulns go from 4+ to 5+ and finally to 6+, with each failed invuln creating another "no save allowed" casualty due to morale. As it stands, splitting is garbage because you're paying 3-5 points for 1w models that don't contribute to the shooting phase.
2. Spending 2CP to auto-pass morale on pinks is absolutely worth it when you stand to lose 21 models from morale (LOL). But how about not losing those 21 models in the first place? Your opponent basically gets more value per shot fired when you take twice as many losses due to morale scaling on large blobs and forces you to spend 2CP to compensate. This seems really bad.
3. I agree with you on this this, and for the record I don't think pinks are the worst screening unit. Fearless cultists just perform the same role better and cheaper, with less variance and conditional requirements.
My take on it is that pinks w/ splits are way too expensive, insanely weak to morale, suffer tremendous damage degradation, and are not even really much more durable to massed small arms fire despite what the splitting mechanic may lead you to believe.
Finally, if you really want to make the difference apparent, consider 80 fearless cultists vs 60 pinks + 200-300 points for splitting. It's not even a contest at that point. Nick Nanavati's top 10 Adepticon pox walker farm list was 120 cultists and Abaddon, not 90 pinks and a changecaster.
Automatically Appended Next Post: EDIT: Just calculated the points. Abaddon + 120 fearless cultists is 720 points. A Changecaster and 2 units of 30 pinks (with enough splits for 15 blues/15 brims per unit) is 738pts. Unless you're running pure daemons for fluff reasons, there is no contest. Morale immunity beats a 4++/5++ any day of the week when it comes to large blobs.
Wasn't Nicks list pre Tide of Traitors FAQ, and also before PoxWalker nerf? So this is really apples and oranges TBH. Yes cultists work better when you are poxfarming with no cap, want to objective sit and can tide of traitors as many times as you want. P.S. the irony is also that at LVO Joshua death nearly was top 8 with a pink / pox list... so if we look back further than one tournament / player....
That said, I agree with most of what you said for cultists - probably a better cheap screen. I've played with both a considerable amount, each have their strengths. I actually prefer the pinks as I feel they are more versatile, you really only need 1 unit with a changecaster to be effective. For abaddon / the cultists to make back most value you (may) feel obligated to take more than 1 blob of cultist - even though one blob may be the optimal number. The range on the horrors is also nice as you can put in 90 shots from 24 inches out whereas autoguns need to be within 12 - even with the mobility from tide. If you are using warptime, prescience, VOTLW and Tide on the culstists there is an opportunity cost here where maybe obliterators want the VOTLW + Prec with slaneesh etc.
Also in my meta everyone uses -2 to hit on everything (-1 base and lightning fast or flier etc. etc.) so the rerolls to hit feel good but not a huge crushing difference for me on damage out - when hitting on 6's even rerolling half of all initial rolls still hurts (true of pinks and cultists, but really referencing the benefit of abaddon's aura).
If you only want cheap bodies I would agree cultists are generally better - although for actually playing on the table I have found myself to prefer pinks - just not necessarily 3x30 or whatever, they can run pretty well in 1 group of 30. Lastly, it bears noting that almost every top chaos list is running cultists and not pinks - and nick's latest friendly tourny list ran 1 group of about 38 cultists with Slan - per his website.
With your point about smart splitting and taking the better saves I think you are incorrect here. The smarter option is to risk it with the blues especially if it keeps your pink above the magic 20. Blues offer nothing except being a body to shoot through same with brims. There is no point risking more pinks on a 50%chance because they have the superior save.
Going back your point above. Say your cultists are facing 20 saves from bolter fire. No ap modifiers just straight saves. You on average keep 3-4 guys. Pinks however will keep roughly 10.
If cultist unit survives the turn you get them back which is great, but you still need to survive the turn.
Those 10 losses for the pinks however generate 20 extra bodies for the rest of that turn which can be split again! And any that survive can get plus 1 to invul for two CP on the next turn making them even harder to kill.
But im covering old ground here.
What it comes down to is that pinks need 2cp investment per turn when taking ld losses to keep them up but no cp investment for offenaive output like the cultists do. As pointed out by orkswubwub you also get to keep votlwEC and prescience for better targets, which there are plenty of.
I have considered running both cultists and pink blobs and still might if i can fit them in my list somewhere. But I just feel like pinks do that screening job better and with more versatility.
Not sure if I'm communicating clearly with splitting btw, but all of my examples mentioned throwing saves for pinks only when the unit was above 20 pinks. We are not disagreeing here, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Maybe my examples are confusing?
Anyway I think we've had a solid discussion on this and I'm looking forward to hearing about your results with pinks! I'll also report back if I end up running large blobs of pinks for whatever reason. Sounds like we could use some more data on this
All good, sorry I may have misunderstood, I did reply in a rush before work this morning, which probably isnt the best when having a critical discussion.
Yea ill be sure to post my results, as still relatively new inclusion in my list. Im also keen to try forward operatives with a large cultist blob as well as cultists so ill be sure to post when I get a chance to try that.
Inflict 10w @ 4++ to get through 5 pinks.
Inflict 15w @ 5++ to get through 10 blues.
11.5 models flee (Brimstones).
So you are only loosing 119.5 point of models and still return fire with 75 shots and will take another round of similar casualties without dropping below 20 pinks.
Those same shots kill 20.8 cultists and half the returning fire (assuming no AP).
If your planning on taking lots of units and happy to keep them clustered around Abby, cultists become better value but obviously the stratagems become watered down about the units.
If you want more independent units, Pinks do better but you'll need multiple heralds and the defensive stratagems have to be applied more carefully.
Personally I'm planning to use 2 units of 30 Pinks and leave about 100 points for splitting, only splitting when a unit is staying above the magic 20 pinks. A third unit (at 2k) is tempting, but I don't know if that leaves enough points for anti-tank duty.
So I'm thinking of starting a second demons detachment to go with mu Nurgle detachment; Tzeentch or Khorne? With Tzeentch it'll be Pinks, Brims, and changecasters (maybe a couple ranged chariot things), with Khorne I'm thinking 3x Skullcannons (3x Skullcannons and 3x PBC's!)
rvd1ofakind wrote: Ok guys, I'm here with the secretest of the secret sauces. So there's a Nurgle Daemons list that is 3:0 so far in the London GT.
That list is.................... 1440 pts of nurlings in squads of 9 xD (+heralds,piper,epidemius,DP)
What in the world do they do damage with? That is about 81 nurglings, so you would definitely have table control from 9" away from opponent deployment all the way back to your table edge. 324 wounds is pretty rough to get through, I doubt many tournament armies can even put out that many shots. Sounds incredibly boring though.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Ok guys, I'm here with the secretest of the secret sauces. So there's a Nurgle Daemons list that is 3:0 so far in the London GT.
That list is.................... 1440 pts of nurlings in squads of 9 xD (+heralds,piper,epidemius,DP)
What in the world do they do damage with? That is about 81 nurglings, so you would definitely have table control from 9" away from opponent deployment all the way back to your table edge. 324 wounds is pretty rough to get through, I doubt many tournament armies can even put out that many shots. Sounds incredibly boring though.
No one is surprised honestly - this is playing to the ruleset (which should be done competitively) but also why the GW ruleset is lackluster - people just sit large troop blobs on objectives - this is why orks also won this event. This nurgle list will be garbage in almost any other ruleset (NOVA, ETC, ITC, etc.).
Chances a pure deamon slaanesh army would work non completive? Doing a escalation campaign. July-October. Part of me wants to hedge my bets for new stuff shortly after the rush of AoS 2.0 in June but not sure. It feels pretty limited for now.
Zid wrote: So I'm thinking of starting a second demons detachment to go with mu Nurgle detachment; Tzeentch or Khorne? With Tzeentch it'll be Pinks, Brims, and changecasters (maybe a couple ranged chariot things), with Khorne I'm thinking 3x Skullcannons (3x Skullcannons and 3x PBC's!)
It's a matter of personal preference and your current army. What do you find it lacking in? If you need more magic and some CC utility -- go for Tzeench (though it would be better to take Thousand Sons now 'cause they can cast Smite without increasing its cost AND can do it from 24 inches away). If you are for more long-range shooting then Scull Cannons are the way to go. You can also take a bloodletter-bomb in the Khorne detachment for some 2-nd turn charges.
How do people use their Pinks? (playing mono-tzeench) I must be doing something wrong as I'm having a hard time pulling out wins with them at 1500pts from my local meta.
My list usually looks something like the following:
I usually keep the 30 pink blob in deepstrike, bring them turn 2. I then cast Flickering Flames (from LoC, to avoid it being denied by opponent) on it to bring their threat up. My firt target is usually any large screen that the enemy may have (poxwalkers, guard blobs, scarabs/warriors) so that I can clear up the path for my smites and following charges.
By this point the first 26x pinks have most likely been pummeled to death and I advance the fluxmaster and demon prince to support the Pinks and Flamers that drop in. Exalteds and flamers aim at anything scary, but usually only hurt it slighlty but don't straight up clear the enemy.
Usually around Turn 3-4 all my pinks are engaged in combat and its time to fly my LoC and Demon Prince to charge and mop up any remaining enemies.
My problem has been that once engaged, my pinks damage outputs drop to crap. I feel like they really need their Assault 3 to use their weight of fire to kill properly. I feel like I am pretty decent at pulling off good charges and positioning my guys as to pile-in/consolidade towards the enemy backline, usually engaging more than my opponents would like.
You can see a sample game I recently played against Death Guard on this link. The list is slightly different, but the core issue remaings.
Should I drop flamers in order to have more pinks (and in turn have more units free from being locked in combat). Should I keep some points spare for summoning and splits?
Great looking army, that squid-surfing DP is awesome
arhurt wrote: Should I drop flamers in order to have more pinks (and in turn have more units free from being locked in combat). Should I keep some points spare for summoning and splits?
I'm in a similar boat in thinking about dumping my flamers. I love the models (OG beaky fungus) but haven't really felt like they're very good. Easy to get an initial round of pops off ... but then what do? Get punched, survivors fly deeper and tickle something else (now at lower strength thanks to leaving herald friend)? Or hang around and pistol into combat, then get punched again.
Related to swapping things out, is the mutalith worth taking a CP hit to stuff into my Tizz Daemons? Lots of nifty rando buffs / mortal wounds, but not totally convinced. I guess if the same points were being spent on mediocre flamers, a mediocre monster that potentially boosts my more functional units is a net plus?
I use 2 x 30 blobs of pinks. A Fluxmaster and a DP with Daemonspark for reroll 1 to hit and 1 to Wound.
Deepstrike 3 units of Oblits in range for reroll T2 so my pinks can charge as many things as possible while still taking up all the space around DP, Flux and Oblits so they are free shooting.
Yeah i do see that my oblits are doing alot of work here but pinks are a big footprint too clear with a 4++ possible 3++.
Last game i hade all that and 2 LoC.. The LoC did like nothing but tank alot of fire for 2 turns while my pinks and Oblits killed 75% of a Necron army.
Edit: And the Flamers, Never used them as i can only see me DS them T2 and then they will die..
arhurt wrote: How do people use their Pinks? (playing mono-tzeench) I must be doing something wrong as I'm having a hard time pulling out wins with them at 1500pts from my local meta.
My list usually looks something like the following:
I usually keep the 30 pink blob in deepstrike, bring them turn 2. I then cast Flickering Flames (from LoC, to avoid it being denied by opponent) on it to bring their threat up. My firt target is usually any large screen that the enemy may have (poxwalkers, guard blobs, scarabs/warriors) so that I can clear up the path for my smites and following charges.
By this point the first 26x pinks have most likely been pummeled to death and I advance the fluxmaster and demon prince to support the Pinks and Flamers that drop in. Exalteds and flamers aim at anything scary, but usually only hurt it slighlty but don't straight up clear the enemy.
Usually around Turn 3-4 all my pinks are engaged in combat and its time to fly my LoC and Demon Prince to charge and mop up any remaining enemies.
My problem has been that once engaged, my pinks damage outputs drop to crap. I feel like they really need their Assault 3 to use their weight of fire to kill properly. I feel like I am pretty decent at pulling off good charges and positioning my guys as to pile-in/consolidade towards the enemy backline, usually engaging more than my opponents would like.
You can see a sample game I recently played against Death Guard on this link. The list is slightly different, but the core issue remaings.
Should I drop flamers in order to have more pinks (and in turn have more units free from being locked in combat). Should I keep some points spare for summoning and splits?
I'd set aside around 80 points for splitting one pink horror blob starting on the table and deepstrike the second blob turn 2 Pink blobs with splitting are very tough. Also always give the banner. A lucky role of 1 restoring lost models has more then once let me make a good comeback in both 40k and aos with daemons. and with the good save pinks get you may get more mileage out of it. I've had 0-1 lost model morale rolls allow me to bring back 6 models to the unit.
Also i'd drop the Changeling for another Herald. Tzeentch daemons are already pretty tough with their 4+ invulnerable save and tzeentch locus (makes hit rolls fizzle out) and I personally find a 6+ fnp inferior to +1 str aura on a unit with such a good save. Maybe add a foot herald instead to accompany the pink horror blobs while the disk herald follows the flamers and prince. this also saves you 22 points meaning that for the splitting points you have to drop fewer pink horrors or flamers.
Yeah, Pinks are the backbone of any Tzeentch force at this point. The one weird thing I find about the Deamon Codex is they wrote the rules with the idea of pushing the Loci's to be a big deal, but individually there isn't enough to make it work unless you play it exactly like they want you to. Don't like Pinks? Good luck with Tzeentch. Same with Slaanesh and Khorne, if you don't like bloodletters a Khorne army filled with Skull Cannons and Hounds won't get you far. And if you don't like Deamonettes..... well, there are fiends and a deamon prince.....
Yeah, not playing one of the most powerful units in an already very restricted list (Tzeetch Deamons) is just asking for losses. Considering most players pick from 3+ codices when making lists restricting yourself to 1/4 of a codex then self imposing more restricting isn't going to end with a competitive force.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
arhurt wrote: How do people use their Pinks? (playing mono-tzeench) I must be doing something wrong as I'm having a hard time pulling out wins with them at 1500pts from my local meta.
Some thoughts:
-As others have mentioned flamers aren't great. If you drop them for reserve points, you can either split the horrors to keep them above 20 models or summon in the best unit for the situations- which will rarely be flamers, except against some dedicated assault armies (e.g. Stealer hordes).
Personally I've started putting all my horrors on the table turn one. As one of the most durable units in the game (with splitting) you want your opponent to shoot at them and with 18" range assult weapons they generally don't need to deep strike to get where they want to go. One on the table and one in reserves is the worst of both world as your opponent has one unit to focus on for the first turn or two, and can then shift fire onto the deep strike unit.
In case you're not doing it already, don't forget to split fire with your Pinks, a fully buffed unit averages over 50 wounds on T3 models(4+ to hit RR on 1, 2+ to wound RR on 1), so instead of over killing one unit, spread the love around.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Don't worry. You'd lose with pinks too. Doesn't that make you feel better? ^.^
(At least if his list is any good. Nurgle Daemons are top tier now. Especially against no armor tzeentch)
Not really, no. I knew it was going to happen, I just didn't expect it to just be so much worse than my other armies compared to how it was during the fall.
Can somebody tell me what the points cost of the Gnarlmaw is now?
In the book its 50. But I've a also seen that its gone up to 85.
Problem is I can't work out in which book or faqs it happened.
nurgle atm is the strongest of all Gods, at least in competitive, durable, hit hard enough, tons of cheap and efficient bodies, Pb+drones are a must 2-3 Dp and lot of nurglings with spoilpox and bilepiper and you ready to kick some asses, actually im playing a list with a nurgle battalion and a Ts outrider+Magnus with bow enlighted but i might switch them for 18 nurglings and more drones, tons of hard to remove and fast wounds.
a thing like that
Daemon Prince of Chaos [9 PL, 180pts]: Malefic talon, Wings
. Nurgle: Stream of Corruption
Daemon Prince of Chaos [9 PL, 180pts]: Hellforged sword, Wings
. Nurgle: Miasma of Pestilence
Epidemius [5 PL, 100pts]
++ Total: [114 PL, 1995pts] ++
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dan2026 wrote: Can somebody tell me what the points cost of the Gnarlmaw is now?
In the book its 50. But I've a also seen that its gone up to 85.
Problem is I can't work out in which book or faqs it happened.
Zid wrote: So I'm thinking of starting a second demons detachment to go with mu Nurgle detachment; Tzeentch or Khorne? With Tzeentch it'll be Pinks, Brims, and changecasters (maybe a couple ranged chariot things), with Khorne I'm thinking 3x Skullcannons (3x Skullcannons and 3x PBC's!)
It's a matter of personal preference and your current army. What do you find it lacking in? If you need more magic and some CC utility -- go for Tzeench (though it would be better to take Thousand Sons now 'cause they can cast Smite without increasing its cost AND can do it from 24 inches away). If you are for more long-range shooting then Scull Cannons are the way to go. You can also take a bloodletter-bomb in the Khorne detachment for some 2-nd turn charges.
1k Sons is great, but sadly the only new thing they bring to the table is the awesome smites, and great HQ's; everything else in the dex is pretty lackluster, cept Tzangors. Ahrimans amazing, but worth buying a codex for a single dude...?
Tzeentch demons just seem to be extremely flexible comparatively; brims are way cheaper than even cultists, pinks are strong as hell, LoC has his uses, and some of the firepower the army brings is great. I love Khorne and Tzeentch, and fluff be damned, I wanna run one to supplement my Nurgle!
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