I have played about 10 games now with the new daemons and have even experimented with some of the new wargear and units. I have come to a pretty solid conclusion that this army is seriously just too unpredictable to be competitive. Sure that is a bold statement after 10 games but I dont plan on making that statement without posting why.

Some of the positives I have found with the new codex:
Heralds are amazing(force multipliers and can add a serious kick to the army+ they are cheap, running 2 to 3 should be auto for 1500+ list)
Troops are cheap
Chaos Artefacts are top notch (Portalglyph for scoring units in the backfield, Grimoire 33% chance to suck but 66% to make your guys WEQ, Eternal blade works great with Slannesh Herald or even an MC)
Thirsters and GUO are tough to bring down with weight of wounds
Gifts are pretty solid

Now the inevitable negatives:
The army is very slow to play in a competitive environment (A lot of pre-game rolling for all the buffs/powers and on top of that most of your builds will have horde's of troops to deploy and move).
The Warp Storm table is nice sometimes but sucks just as much other times. Needing a 6 to do something random to an enemy isn't that great. Roll a 1,1 and you can have a real bad day
Troops are easy to kill (T3 with a 5++ isnt that tough to bring down, PB are T4 but are slow and lost FnP)
Low leadership throughout the army
The army relies to heavily on dice rolling to go your way both in pre-game and during the game. Your best shooting unit has to pass a psychic test just to shoot and then it can possibly give your opponent FnP
If you can shut down the psychic powers then this army has no real shooting threat. (Eldar, SW, GK, Nids) All of these armies can reliably shut down psykers and they are popular armies in the meta atm.
They are a combat based army that lacks a combat hammer. A unit that can just charge and take a beating.
Army in general is easy to kill.

What are your alls thoughts? Has anyone else been running into these issues?


Quick question: If you all could rate the daemon army in competitiveness from 1 to 10(1 being , 5 being middle of the pack, 8 being top tier etc...) what would you rank them and why? What factors do you think place them there?

Thus far my win-loss ratio has been about equal to my CSM helldrake list.

In regards to the pre-game rolling, it takes only a few minutes to finalize. I am not bringing *that* many greater rewards, psychic powers, and when I do I am often going to the primaris or the magic weapon so I don't even bother rolling. More slow play comes from moving 100+ models every turn than the 2 minutes it takes for me to roll out the powers.

The warp storm is meh. Its yet to produce a significant advantage. The only thing its done is kill a few infantry models. Its not worth writing home about.

Assault armies are more inconsistant than shooty armies. You might fail your charge range, for example. You might get clobbered in overwatch. There are more variables that might go your way/against you than shooting armies. When they work out, assault armies can do well as they get twice the time to kill enemy models (they do assault damage in enemy turns).

Daemons can be fast! Your opponent should never have more than 1 turn to shoot at them. I have not had any real problems getting into assault. Being able to deep strike off icons is very powerful.

As you mentioned, the artificats and heralds are strong force multipliers. A herald of slaanesh being able to pick out the commissar from a blob guard squad is really strong. Being able to give your squad rage/move through cover/etc is awesome.

How will this effect a 6 round tourney? It means your relying upon a little more luck than not. However look at the 'top armies' today.
- Necron Air Force
- Rapid assault (DE/Eldar beast packs, wraithwing, etc)
- Blob Guard/MEQ
- 'Nid psychic choir
- Helldrakes
- GK
hat is your real measuring stick for how they will do in the national event level.

If you can find a way to boost their saves Plague Drones are pretty decent especially when you give them the instant kill attacks. Sure they are expensive but not many armies can handle a unit of cavalry/jet pack guys with 24 T5 wounds. They can just about get a charge off turn 2 every time. The only down side is if you run into a mech army with a lot of dakka to throw at them or grey knights which instant gib them.

I would think a hoard daemon list with slaanesh is a build that could be highly competative.

You hit on turn 2 with a huge amount of high initiative rending attacks. You have the bodies to have great board control to counter fliers. And you can bring elite combat characters in the HQ or heavy slot that can wreck most units that the masses can't handle.

Pony_law wrote:
I would think a hoard daemon list with slaanesh is a build that could be highly competative.

You hit on turn 2 with a huge amount of high initiative rending attacks. You have the bodies to have great board control to counter fliers. And you can bring elite combat characters in the HQ or heavy slot that can wreck most units that the masses can't handle.

Have tried this and have had someone tries this on me. Most occasions where there are a decent amount of terrain they dont hit until turn 3. Especially when any opponent worth his salt backs off some to get more shots at the vulnerable T3 models.

I think it's way, way to early to say anything definitive about the codex.

The synergism between a codex that can both spam Psychic powers and large, powerful units, has a lot of potential. Also, 5 to 6 FMC builds I think have tons of potential. Fast enough to get into the opponents face turn one, and there simply aren't many armies that can handle 5 or 6 at once.

The lower leadership isn't generally an issue as you are effectively fearless in the shooting phase and rarely should be losing combat. I suppose the snake eyes on the Warp Storm table as well, but that should really only occurs in about one in 6 or 7 games. It's actually pretty likely that through the course of an entire tournament that result doesn't come up a single time.

@Tomb King have you tried a little more synergy between the gods? Possibly screening with Plague Drones and Deep Striking Skarbrand the turn you assault and possibly using the Tzneetch Herald to reroll opponents armor saves on squads of Slaneesh Daemons with a herald moving them through cover, then if needed a khorne cannon or a telepathy/excess psyker

Now just a quick question but can loci stack? Because if you can you could gamble and take the Tzneetch herald on a chariot to boost his loci to 6" and take the random str one boosting the damage(1/2 the time) of your daemonettes

I tend to think Daemons have to go MTO.

-Two huge units of Seekers, 1 of Korn Dogs, 2x3 Fiends to lower initiative, and add in some Heralds and other scary stuff to taste.

-Take 4-5 10 strong Plaguebearers and don't worry too much about troops.

-Try to get Invisibility on Slaneesh Heralds and use the Grimnoire to buff another assault unit.

Pushing a bunch of fast, hard hitting CC into your opponent will overwhelm almost all bad-decent players. It just does. Good players who know how to use speed bumps will wreck you. Combat squad-ding and splitting up guard blob wrecks you. Extreme shooty lists played well wreck you. Multi-charging just isn't that good. You face multiple overwatches, lose attacks, and lose bonuses like furious charge. This is a major weakness.

Overall, I think Daemons can be a really fun time. I think they can win lots of games too. However, I don't think there is a way to get enough shooting to make a truly balanced list. Winning a big event with them will be tougher than say, taking MEQ and adding IG or running Crons. That's just the way it goes.

Yes sure they are competitive. Anything is if it is played properly.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Yes sure they are competitive. Anything is if it is played properly.

POTY.

I think they can be a competitive army when you use the abilities of units from all the gods in combo's.

For example, Skarbrand with Slaanesh units, Tzeentch Heralds to prescience units other than horrors, flying princes with biomancy (not really a unit combo but they are good), fiends and skull cannons to support combat units and so on.
The wide variety of psychic powers available increases the potential combos as well.

Point is there are a lot of good combos the book allows for, I think its just a matter of time before people find the most competitive ones.

Daemons will be competitive if the Meta allows it.
They do have hard counters as will any army and I think this is more of a trend that is being set by GW as codices get released.

As stated a rush list is very very hard to deal with for most armies, being in their face and in assault with practically your entire army turn 2 is no laughing matter.

It is a little early still, builds are yet to be defined as the strongest or most competitive.

Fateweaver appears to be pretty important for any army taking daemons as a main attachment to gain control over the warp storm table hopefully in your favour but this can also be a hinderence in terms of point sync.

I havent really play tested enough to understand if fateweavers potential buff abilities outways his cost to the list.

Well, I think Daemons are competitive in the hands of a skilled general. The warp storm table is a bit overrated as are the other effects on random rolls.

I think daemons benefit from a really aggressive playstyle and edgy listbuilding: Playing it safe doesn't use the advantages of each god, you have to go to the extremes (I run nurgle/Tzeentch combo) to get the full benefits of each god. I'm not saying this to be all "Go big or go home!", but it's true: conservative listbuilding and tactics ruins daemons, you're not tough enough to wait a turn to set up a perfect assault. Run forwards, get charged, just for the love of god get in combat!

Is it competitive? Too early to say definitively, but I'd say no. Just too random, you'll do really well some games, but sometimes your dice will just ruin you because there's so many opportunities for the dice to ruin you: which powers you get, which reserves come in, getting off psychic powers, your opponents denying, your opponents getting FNP, you failing too many saves in a row, bad result on the warpstorm table a couple turns in a row, failing charge ranges, getting overwatched too much. It can work, but there's just too much risk.

In 1500 I've been running:

Lord of Change (Staff, ML3, 2 x Greater Gift)
Lord of Change (Staff, ML3, 2 x Greater Gift)
Plaguebearers x 10
Plaguebearers x 10
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch (Staff, ML3, 2 x Greater Gift, Wings, Armour)
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch (Staff, ML3, 2 x Greater Gift, Wings, Armour)

It's been pretty damn rape-tastic. Even Mephiston failed to kill a Daemon Prince (granted I was lucky and had Iron Arm active...but still!).

They aren't necron flyer spam competitive but they are competitive, my daemons haven't lost a game since the new book came out, plaguebearers on objectives can't be touched with 2+++ in ruins, flying daemon princes and bloodthirsters etc are fast, and if they get into a marine block the marines are either killed or held up for the game. I like running plague drones cos i love the models but there are better places to put the points

Played a kill point game last night and rolled a 3 on the first turn nuking one of my heralds and giving my opponent first blood.

 Tomb King wrote:
Played a kill point game last night and rolled a 3 on the first turn nuking one of my heralds and giving my opponent first blood.

ok... that's it?

Let me get out my filling cabinet.......Okay looking at statistics, hummm not very likely to happen......okay gonna file this one under.....

gak happens.

We had similar complaints about Chaos Codex, now look at the triple heldrake and taking advantage of allies to create competive builds.
We will also have to wait for an FAQ which also might change things, for instance, the Fiend -5 to 0 Ini, if you do not get to strike back that is incredibly poweerful not including using the Exalted Slaanesh locus with that also plus a greater etherblade. That would allow you to have a very good chance at killing any character you wish.

I think 5 FMC + Allied 1 FMC + 1 Flier might not be weak at all...

but that probably worths a lot of points...

I think FMC circus is a good army but probably not a GT tourney winning kind of list. I think it has to many hard counters. Hoards have to many bodies for the FMC to deal with, Necorn flying circus can reliably ground them and tie them up with things like wraiths, IG blob could tarpit pretty nids can probably effectively screen to limit the damage out put. I think it's a strong army but would have problems against some other top builds.

 Tomb King wrote:
Have tried this and have had someone tries this on me. Most occasions where there are a decent amount of terrain they dont hit until turn 3. Especially when any opponent worth his salt backs off some to get more shots at the vulnerable T3 models.

If your not hitting until T3, why not deep strike in your assault force?

Deep strike unit A with an icon. Then deep strike all your others off that icon. If you have one more icon, you can use those icons to chain another 6" out so your not overly clumped. This helps you drop your non-similar marked units without worry. If your the same mark, it does not matter
You can either take advantage of instruments to increase your deep strike successes, or you can fork out 20 points for comm-relay. If your taking more than 3 instruments, the comm-relay + aegis wins out IMHO.

There are a few tricks to the deep striking forces. Calvary units have an advantage here, as you can move 12" then assault 8" on average. (with fleet) Infantry have a much smaller threat range -- of only 14" total.
Don't deep strike right next to units that can assault you! If you strike to far from a unit they will just back up and shoot you. This makes deep strikes near shooty squads tricky. They might just assault the heck out of you if your to close, or just back up and shoot you if your to far. Its not easy. On the other hand, it works great vs MEQs or tank lines. You can just rush them all day long.

 Leth wrote:
Let me get out my filling cabinet.......Okay looking at statistics, hummm not very likely to happen......okay gonna file this one under.....

gak happens.

Well put. If you can't deal with randomness, Chaos may be the wrong army for you...

Pony_law wrote:
I think FMC circus is a good army but probably not a GT tourney winning kind of list. I think it has to many hard counters. Hoards have to many bodies for the FMC to deal with, Necorn flying circus can reliably ground them and tie them up with things like wraiths, IG blob could tarpit pretty nids can probably effectively screen to limit the damage out put. I think it's a strong army but would have problems against some other top builds.

I agree with this. One big problem is the lack of troops. Its very easy for your opponent to just shoot up all your troops. Without any troops it becomes very hard to win most objective based games.

We had similar complaints about Chaos Codex, now look at the triple heldrake and taking advantage of allies to create competive builds.

Triple Heldrake builds are not perhaps not the best use of CSM. Of course we will take at least one 'Drake as allies or two as primary. I don't think the comparison to DoC stands up that well. I could be proved wrong. DoC might also find a home as part of an allied list as least it circumvents Warp Storm. But I think CSM overall received more more favorable reception as a competitive codex from the get go.

Recent tournaments results have surprised me though to some extent. A lot of DE/Eldar lists placing top five was unexpected. Who would have thought two codexes that are really not all that good on their own would work so well together. Even Nids are placing top five at events. So there might indeed be some yet to be discovered top tier lists using Daemons.

The flying circus list is a noob killer. But it doubt it will stand up well in any major tournament.

IU think I agree overall with Tomb King's assessment but I'm keeping an open mind. Anyone playing a beastmaster pack list wiith uber grot backup probably should not be offering any advice, lol.

 Tomb King wrote:
Played a kill point game last night and rolled a 3 on the first turn nuking one of my heralds and giving my opponent first blood.

And that's why you spend 5 points to buy character upgrades for your units.

I've only played one game with the dex so far, but I really think the strengths of the new codex lie in running bricks of troops with heralds after reading it and digesting the material a bit more. Throw in a greater demon, and a splash from either elites or fast attack, and you should be able to make use out of the CC oriented troops like daemonettes and bloodletters. Take the 10 man plague bearer squads for objective sitting and the 11 man horror-herald squads for nuking more squishy targets.

20 dudes who can make a mess in close combat for only 180pts is really nice. Copy past that multiple times and you should be able to just overwhelm.

Concerning the heralds I think the troops that really benefit from their presence are the plague bearers, bloodletters, and the pink horrors. The daemonettes don't really seem to suffer as much from the lack of presence of the herald and its loci benefits. This compared to the others who miss out on things they previously had in the last dex (i.e. FNP) or really buff their combat potential (i.e. extra attacks or stronger shooting).

I'm working towards running something like 3 blobs of naked daemonettes, 2 squads of PBs w/heralds, a GUO, and loading up on fast attack with the rest is what I am thinking might work well.

And that is just one of the more simple builds I am thinking, I gotta admit, despite the randomness, this is probably my favorite new dex.

And that is just one of the more simple builds I am thinking, I gotta admit, despite the randomness, this is probably my favorite new dex.

Dito. Its a challenging codex with several builds that seem to be competitive.

Telepathy tree also gives you access to fearless with slannesh.

I'm trying to make Fateweaver work, I think with the Grimoire he can be made obnoxiously durable, and his Warlord ability will help with poor results on the Warp Storm table. Although yesterday I rolled a 3 (random character with DI tests on 3D6), decided to reroll it and got a 2 (all units with DI make a DI test). Hopefully that doesn't happen again in a long time.

The point wasn't hey crap happens. The point of my post it is it is hard to be competitive if you can give up first blood/kp or even slay the warlord before the first shooting phase on 2 and 3. Though any of the main warp storm could hit ur own units to a similar effect. A late game 2 result could kill units off objectives. Sure not likely but a serious risk in a competitive environment.

 Tomb King wrote:
The point wasn't hey crap happens. The point of my post it is it is hard to be competitive if you can give up first blood/kp or even slay the warlord before the first shooting phase on 2 and 3. Though any of the main warp storm could hit ur own units to a similar effect. A late game 2 result could kill units off objectives. Sure not likely but a serious risk in a competitive environment.

I think this is the reason I'll be trying to include Fateweaver in my lists for a bit. Getting a late-game 2 or 3 result could be game ending. The ability to reroll that will help smooth things out.

 Tomb King wrote:
The point wasn't hey crap happens. The point of my post it is it is hard to be competitive if you can give up first blood/kp or even slay the warlord before the first shooting phase on 2 and 3. Though any of the main warp storm could hit ur own units to a similar effect. A late game 2 result could kill units off objectives. Sure not likely but a serious risk in a competitive environment.

But it can swing the other way as well and hit and/or hurt your opponent just as hard. So wouldn't the equal chance of something happening to either hurt or help you out kind of negate the whole warp table in terms of being competitive altogether?

undertow wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:
The point wasn't hey crap happens. The point of my post it is it is hard to be competitive if you can give up first blood/kp or even slay the warlord before the first shooting phase on 2 and 3. Though any of the main warp storm could hit ur own units to a similar effect. A late game 2 result could kill units off objectives. Sure not likely but a serious risk in a competitive environment.

I think this is the reason I'll be trying to include Fateweaver in my lists for a bit. Getting a late-game 2 or 3 result could be game ending. The ability to reroll that will help smooth things out.

I have rolled the daemon table every match and havent gotten that trait yet. Fateweaver is a big point sink to start with. This is only made worse if you face an anti-psyker army and he cant get any of his powers off.

WhiteWolf01 wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:
The point wasn't hey crap happens. The point of my post it is it is hard to be competitive if you can give up first blood/kp or even slay the warlord before the first shooting phase on 2 and 3. Though any of the main warp storm could hit ur own units to a similar effect. A late game 2 result could kill units off objectives. Sure not likely but a serious risk in a competitive environment.

But it can swing the other way as well and hit and/or hurt your opponent just as hard. So wouldn't the equal chance of something happening to either hurt or help you out kind of negate the whole warp table in terms of being competitive altogether?

That isnt competitive that is playing craps and hoping you dont roll craps. One of my games I lost was against Draigo wing Grey Knights. I went first and got an 11 on the chart and Draigo was removed from play and replaced with a herald. So yes it can go both ways but in either case it can really swing the game and its totally random. I prefer to take more reliable options.

Dont get me wrong guys this book is one of the funnest books I have played with in a while but imho it will not win a single GT unless the person rolls lights out a majority of his games.

The best HQ combo I have derived so far is:
Bloodthirster ER; GR (might switch to two GR)

Tzeentch Herald ER(grimiore of true names usually) Level 3 Psyker Conjuration

Tzeentch Herald ER(Portalglyph game dependent) Level 3 Psyker Conjuration

Herald of Slannesh Beguilment and ER(Eternal Blade Usually)

4th herald as you see fit. I run the above with 3 of those troops maxed out.

So far I am 8 and 2 with my daemons and have won a 1k tournament with them despite losing to a guard player who had 2 guardsman left. IMHO daemons are better at lower points due to cheap units.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 L0rdF1end wrote:
We had similar complaints about Chaos Codex, now look at the triple heldrake and taking advantage of allies to create competive builds.
We will also have to wait for an FAQ which also might change things, for instance, the Fiend -5 to 0 Ini, if you do not get to strike back that is incredibly poweerful not including using the Exalted Slaanesh locus with that also plus a greater etherblade. That would allow you to have a very good chance at killing any character you wish.

Also the faq regarding the chariot of tzeentch is needed as the rider is the one that fires. So if you move 12" your doing snap shots.

1K tournaments are really distorting. Nids win regualarly at 1K with multiple MCs and spawning. I rarely win with my DE/Eldar because it is near impossible to create a competitive 1k list with Eldard and Vect and Baron and have enough points for anything useful (beastpack/seercouncil) and troops. So emasculate a good list.

I actually like what they have done with daemons. Granted im only focusing on khorne but Skarbrand got a massive boost (increased initative and instant death CC to name a few) and points decrease. Bloodthirster got a boost (increased initiative attacks and instand death on 6s plus access to rewards) and bloodletters are now 37.5% cheaper! Admittedly bloodcrushers got nerfed but realistically due to their increased speed they just have a new role. If played right a daemons army can put out an insane ammount of turn two pressure on your opponent plus the addition of warp storms that can do damage across the board....run double force and ally in some CSM and you can bring serious turn 2 pressure on your opponent.... I currently run
-Skarbrand
-bloodthister
-4 x 10 bloodletters
-2 x CSM daemon princes with daemon weapons
-2 x helbrutes
-2 x maulerfiends
-2 x 10 cultists
Reserve all the troops to keep them safe from enemy shooting. By the time they arrive the enemy should be engaged with 3 FMCs and 2 maulers with Skarbrand and the helbrutes closing in fast

Herald of slaneesh, beguilement, and eternal blade in a unit of fiends is a beat stick.

A good unit to accompany them would be csm nurgle spawn with prescience or khorne spawn with a juggy riding chaos lord with the deamon axe. Either way the unit gets nasty once prescience is cast on it.

The deamonic bumrush is scary, unless you're going up against GK termies and DK

Deamons will not put an insane amount of turn two pressure on a competent opponent. Turn three maybe. But you are proposing a CSM list with some daemon allies. That might be the way DoC has to go to avoid warp storm nonsense. I again have to agree with Tomb King ...

Two squads of twenty horrors with herald with prescience/2 warp charge pumping out 7D6 shots a turn is probably the most viable setup with two squads of deamonettes as backup. But you take a chance with Horrors. Like all the daemon rules ... you can be denied, you can give away FNP, you have to be within bolter range yourself ... so ...

We take a GD HQ at 1500 and likely a DP heavy (mini BT) at 1750 and at 2000 we add another DP or a few Skull Cannons. Is this competitive? Well, it could be or it could be a disaster.

If we take DoC as allies we can only get one Herald or the GD. We avoid warp storm but neuter the effectiveness of the list. So we go with DoC as prinmary and hope for good rolls and take some cultists and a Drake and an HQ from CSM codex. Hardly a powerhouse list.

I'm going to need some convincing to play Chaos as my primary army.

I think someone else already already said this so I'll just say it again.

CSM was declared DOA when the codex first hit the shelves. Last month 2 of the top 10 at BAO were csm armies, and that was in a heavy foreword heavy saber lots of anti air meta which didn't benefit the csm players.

The deamons codex is not user friendly. It's not noob friendly, it's not even veteran friendly, but it does have potential. It's going to take me a while to build a new deamon list, but I think I can eventually make one work.

 Tomb King wrote:
The point wasn't hey crap happens. The point of my post it is it is hard to be competitive if you can give up first blood/kp or even slay the warlord before the first shooting phase on 2 and 3. Though any of the main warp storm could hit ur own units to a similar effect. A late game 2 result could kill units off objectives. Sure not likely but a serious risk in a competitive environment.

Was the game supposed to be easy? Its always been challenging to run Chaos Daemons. And are you really saying that 1 VP is breaking your game?

Like I said, if you don't like too much randomness, Chaos may not be your army.

Just got done with another game and took my third loss. Tried out a block of plague drones. They can be effective but have to have support because their saves really suck.

Played against an army with an allied Eldrad. Got wrecked. Any sort of Eldar can really nerf daemons pretty good. Even beyond your shooting attacks they can get re-roll to hit and to wound on you as well as re-rolling their own saves.

This army is fun to play but if the dice arent going well for you it can get really dull fast.

This army is fun to play but if the dice arent going well for you it can get really dull fast.

Interesting comment. Is there in army in this game that doesn't apply to?

ShadarLogoth wrote:

This army is fun to play but if the dice arent going well for you it can get really dull fast.

Interesting comment. Is there in army in this game that doesn't apply to?

I think it's better to say that one bad dice roll can basically give away the game or a good roll will likely win you the game.

ShadarLogoth wrote:

This army is fun to play but if the dice arent going well for you it can get really dull fast.

Interesting comment. Is there in army in this game that doesn't apply to?

Maybe Necroms have a specisl rule for that... Otherwise, ummm. No.

ShadarLogoth wrote:

This army is fun to play but if the dice arent going well for you it can get really dull fast.

Interesting comment. Is there in army in this game that doesn't apply to?

Makutsu wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:

This army is fun to play but if the dice arent going well for you it can get really dull fast.

Interesting comment. Is there in army in this game that doesn't apply to?

I think it's better to say that one bad dice roll can basically give away the game or a good roll will likely win you the game.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:

This army is fun to play but if the dice arent going well for you it can get really dull fast.

Interesting comment. Is there in army in this game that doesn't apply to?

Maybe Necroms have a specisl rule for that... Otherwise, ummm. No.

Alright to draw the story board. Some armies can handle a few bad dice rolls coming through. What people sometimes refer to as armies that are a little more forgiving. In addition, the amount of dice that can be game changing are less in other armies. This army has the ability to nullify the skill level of the person playing the army. Big picture is you need decent to above average dice rolls to keep this army competitive. That is not something you can really count on for the duration of more then a few games. If you can roll like the girl who won the BAO you should be good to run this army in GT's. Not saying she needed the dice but hers were hot from what I have seen of the reports.

I don't think I've ever seen a battle report for a best general winner who had consistently crappy rolls. Like ever.

A lot of people do average the dice rolls out when planning their lists, necrons can do this a little better with their re roll cryptek thing.

Lots of high rate of fire with twin linked shooting is good in this hence why I was taking three land raider crusaders with the salvo banner, 72 twin linked bolter shots from those three alone, plus 30 tac marines 10 of which can be twin linked, so thats another 40 twin linked bolter shots and 80 normal bolter shots, plus 12 TL assault cannon shots and 6 twin linked skyfire interceptor krak missiles from hyperios was my overall army, plus I had the resilience of the power field gen and I could afford to lose a land raider before things got serious. So a certain amount of bad dice rolls can be mitgated, eldar also do this a LOT better.

Anyway back on topic, Horrors, how should I run these, my first game I had two groups of 20 both with heralds (only lvl 1 and yes I relised what a waste and they are now lvl 2!), but only two scoring units at 1750 is a big worry for me, I am trying three units tomorrow, one at 17 two at 11 each with blasted standard but only one lvl 2 herald with the bigger squad.

In context the rest of my list is 3 souped up daemon princes and a lord of change, I did want to try fateweaver but just dont have the points at 1750, at 1850 I could squeeze him in but not really sure after reading his profile yesterday, yes he has all the tzeentch powers and one each from divi pryo tele and bio but only one isnt brilliant but I guess it is better then a Lord of change.....

I am not trying a tourny level list with these, more of something different as I have only ran marines before, the general game plan is to deploy the DP's LoC and a unit of horrors, probably the bigger squad and maybe reserve the other horror units depending on the mission, the DP's fly forward with the LoC and draw fire, DP's then land to wreck face, any firepower directed at my troops they will then have to face three tooled up DP's (2 greater rewards armour wings lvl2 on biomancy) and a LoC buffing them or going after armour (he will have portalglpyh deploying that first turn in my deployment and staff of change/lesser reward)

But if they fire on my flying DP's then my troops are fine and they should hopefuly waste lot of firepower to kill one and maybe wound another,

Of course eldar are going to butt feck me and tau will like the look of my toughness 5 DP's with railguns but hey like I said its more of a learning curve then anything.....

ShadarLogoth wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen a battle report for a best general winner who had consistently crappy rolls. Like ever.

Read game 6 of my indy report. Lost my daemon prince that had FnP and re-roll failed saves of 1 to the first 4 wounds that came his way. Then a rhino survived 2 annihilation barge's for two turns. You can roll poorly throughout a game and still win if your army is built well enough.

Another army that cant afford to roll poorly for an extended period of time is Dark Eldar. however, Dark Eldar can counter that with loads of dakka and longe range. Daemons have shorter range less dakka and require psychic test to shoot.




Quick question: If you all could rate the daemon army in competitiveness from 1 to 10(1 being , 5 being middle of the pack, 8 being top tier etc...) what would you rank them and why? What factors do you think place them there?

No idea, dont have enough data points to reach such a conclusion.


Basically until we see a major tournament, or something along those lines that gives us a decent amount of data as well as how all the "randomness" standardizes across the game. We really cant say for sure how competative it is. Also we need to see how GW will FAQ some things, who knows if something as powerful as the heldrake FAQ will come out?

Also what will Tau do to the meta in a month? To many things in flux to really say for sure right now.

Overall however I would say they are on par with the current 6th edition books so far but not anywhere near things like the necrons airforce(which is a good thing IMO)

 Tomb King wrote:



Quick question: If you all could rate the daemon army in competitiveness from 1 to 10(1 being , 5 being middle of the pack, 8 being top tier etc...) what would you rank them and why? What factors do you think place them there?

Too early to say?, saying that personnaly I havent had a chance to go through the rest of the dex, mainly been concentrating on tzeentch units. I do think slaanesh could be good, played against a mixed list and was very suprised at the speed of the slaanesh units

 Tomb King wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen a battle report for a best general winner who had consistently crappy rolls. Like ever.

Read game 6 of my indy report. Lost my daemon prince that had FnP and re-roll failed saves of 1 to the first 4 wounds that came his way. Then a rhino survived 2 annihilation barge's for two turns. You can roll poorly throughout a game and still win if your army is built well enough.

Another army that cant afford to roll poorly for an extended period of time is Dark Eldar. however, Dark Eldar can counter that with loads of dakka and longe range. Daemons have shorter range less dakka and require psychic test to shoot.




Quick question: If you all could rate the daemon army in competitiveness from 1 to 10(1 being , 5 being middle of the pack, 8 being top tier etc...) what would you rank them and why? What factors do you think place them there?

Too early to tell.

Leth wrote:No idea, dont have enough data points to reach such a conclusion.


Basically until we see a major tournament, or something along those lines that gives us a decent amount of data as well as how all the "randomness" standardizes across the game. We really cant say for sure how competative it is. Also we need to see how GW will FAQ some things, who knows if something as powerful as the heldrake FAQ will come out?

Also what will Tau do to the meta in a month? To many things in flux to really say for sure right now.

Overall however I would say they are on par with the current 6th edition books so far but not anywhere near things like the necrons airforce(which is a good thing IMO)

MarkyMark wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:



Quick question: If you all could rate the daemon army in competitiveness from 1 to 10(1 being , 5 being middle of the pack, 8 being top tier etc...) what would you rank them and why? What factors do you think place them there?

Too early to say?, saying that personnaly I havent had a chance to go through the rest of the dex, mainly been concentrating on tzeentch units. I do think slaanesh could be good, played against a mixed list and was very suprised at the speed of the slaanesh units

Sasori wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen a battle report for a best general winner who had consistently crappy rolls. Like ever.

Read game 6 of my indy report. Lost my daemon prince that had FnP and re-roll failed saves of 1 to the first 4 wounds that came his way. Then a rhino survived 2 annihilation barge's for two turns. You can roll poorly throughout a game and still win if your army is built well enough.

Another army that cant afford to roll poorly for an extended period of time is Dark Eldar. however, Dark Eldar can counter that with loads of dakka and longe range. Daemons have shorter range less dakka and require psychic test to shoot.




Quick question: If you all could rate the daemon army in competitiveness from 1 to 10(1 being , 5 being middle of the pack, 8 being top tier etc...) what would you rank them and why? What factors do you think place them there?

Too early to tell.

Alright so the book is been out for 3 weeks. In your opinion based on what you know currently what would you rank the codex. Obviously this can be subject to change if you see something that might improve or decrease your score given. Personally I would rate the book a strong 6. Reason being is the army as it is now lacks consistency and sometimes you find yourself playing against you opponent and the codex itself. No other army in the game currently has the ability to self destruct and beat itself.

Well, I have yet to play guard list but I think that will be a big challenge, they have high str and ignore cover blasts which hurts elites (multi wound models as they have lost EW) the ignore cover will hurt as then we are down to 5 plus invul normally rather then juciy cover saves (looking at your nurgle).

Also eldar will hurt my list A LOT!, as everything I have relies on psyhic powers (LoC DP's and horrors), runes will be horrible.

I would tend to agree with you though, around a 6, troops are cheap and you can knock out a lot of troops if you wanted, I have seen a slaanesh list with a hell of a lot of models, really horde style, they can do orks but better (always have a save, quicker and hit hard in CC). We have half decent FMC's, I will one day get a Bloodthirster as he is a beast on paper, we have some very strong units (GUO and the other GD's I even killed kharn with a lord of change the other day....).

The thing is, as with all the new codex's, you can get strong lists out of them but you have to pay the points, there isnt much thats cheap and a must take (i.e wraiths or AB's) so I think it is a bit more of a challenge to get a balanced list so good scoring resilent troops, heavy hitting units and good shooting units, I am hoping to see a list like that in action soon?,

 schadenfreude wrote:

CSM was declared DOA when the codex first hit the shelves. Last month 2 of the top 10 at BAO were csm armies, and that was in a heavy foreword heavy saber lots of anti air meta which didn't benefit the csm players.

Just curious if anyone can see the trick here. For those who can't: Codex: Chaos Space Marines is 'meh'-ish (at best). Codex: Nurgle and Baledrakes is top-notch though .

In our gaming club, a new terror arose in the horizon: the 5 FMCs CD build. 1 Bloodthirster, 1 LoC or Fateweaver, 2 Tzeentch Princes, 1 Khorne Prince, Rewards and Biomancy everywhere, two minimal-whatever Troops and let the slaughter commence! This combo won the last "pressure weekend" (a huge series of battles where our top players bring their top armies), so I think it is toruney-viable.

Alright so the book is been out for 3 weeks. In your opinion based on what you know currently what would you rank the codex. Obviously this can be subject to change if you see something that might improve or decrease your score given. Personally I would rate the book a strong 6. Reason being is the army as it is now lacks consistency and sometimes you find yourself playing against you opponent and the codex itself. No other army in the game currently has the ability to self destruct and beat itself.

6.5-7, if Necrons and IG are considered 10.

I myself have only lost one game, running:
2 Keeper of secrets (Practically as good as the other GD's, but much much cheaper points wise. Gift's can make them super resillient for their cost, and the extra run and fleet get's them places quick)
1 flying daemon prince of slaanesh w 2 gifts (Substituting the worst for the 2d6 whip) Great against flyers, great against ground units, vector striking and whipping joy.
10 plaguebearers
20 horrors
Aegis line
CSM Daemon prince of nurgle with wings/armour and black mace, for utter nastyness in combat
10 cultists mandatory troops+ extra scoring.

Bunker up my troops in the aegis, plaguebearers at the front get a 2+ for aegis+shrouded, pink horrors 2+ for aegis and being behind the bearers, 2+ on the cultists for being behind the horrors)

Letting loose all the monstrous creatures, really messes many people up, and with greater gifts, they are real tanks.

I can say that as an IG player the lists that focus on FMCs are stressful to play. I can't afford to make a single mistake, and a single round of poor dice rolls on either side can sway the out-come drastically.

I'm definitely considering air-cav more and more with all these FMCs.

Alright so the book is been out for 3 weeks. In your opinion based on what you know currently what would you rank the codex. Obviously this can be subject to change if you see something that might improve or decrease your score given. Personally I would rate the book a strong 6. Reason being is the army as it is now lacks consistency and sometimes you find yourself playing against you opponent and the codex itself. No other army in the game currently has the ability to self destruct and beat itself.

I stated earlier in the thread that I think Daemons have some really bad matchups, but some awesome ones as well. For instance, I see lots of players folding to a heavy threat Daemon list. I also see Daemons getting destroyed against players who know how to speed bump. Finally, I see Nids, Seer Council, and well built GK/IG as almost unwinnable matches.

As for a list at 1850:

Bloodthirster, Exalted Reward (take Portalgyph)
Herald of Slannessh, Steed, ML 2
Herald of Khorne, Juggernaut, Exalted Reward (Grimnoire)

2x 18 Seekers
15 Khorn Dogs

3x10 Plaguebearers

ML3 Sorcerer
20 Cultists
5 Nurgle Spawn

1842

The above list can hypothetically hit very hard and very fast. With the right rolls (Invisibility, Grimnoire), it is also near invincible. However, I could also see the list failing miserably. Lack of grenades, the warpstorm table, and lack of shooting all contributes to massive weaknesses.

 JGrand wrote:

I stated earlier in the thread that I think Daemons have some really bad matchups, but some awesome ones as well. For instance, I see lots of players folding to a heavy threat Daemon list. I also see Daemons getting destroyed against players who know how to speed bump. Finally, I see Nids, Seer Council, and well built GK/IG as almost unwinnable matches.

I agree.

Daemons, like before, are really matchup-dependent. That is just the nature of their codex. The army is just inherently unbalanced by design. It is also this "unbalance" which attracts people to playing their particular play-style. If I want an army with good assault, just as much mobility and better shooting, then I'd just play my wraithwing necrons. Daemons provide a unique experience of speed, hard-hitting units, flying monstrous creatures and a psychic-heavy army. Unfortunately, due to their nature, daemons will kick a$$ against many armies but will just have problems against some of them (like the ones JGrand mentioned above).

On a scale of 1-10 in terms of competitiveness, I'd also rate them a 6.5 - 7. Due to the nature of the codex and the randomness in the army, they lack the consistency and balance to win a long series of games against a wide range of armies. But it is precisely because of the nature of their codex and the randomness of the army why I personally find the army so appealing to play.

In short, play them because you like them, not because you want to consistently win tournaments with them.

I would rate it at an 8 or 9 for potential power, and about a 2 for user friendliness.

Necrons would be a 9 in both categories.

Orks a 6 or 7 in both categories.

IG 9 or 10 in potential power, about a 5 in user friendliness.

I've been finding them as excellent allies for my CSM.

I've been using one squad of plague bearers are deck chairs.
I've been using a GUO as a counter-assault or assault unit (depending on the army I'm facing) Ill either just camp it behind some PM or deep strike it.
You can add a soulgrinder.
You can add some khorne dogs to help protect your land raiders against deep striking melta

Totally agree Jim, I have started daemons last week as I wanted something different to play, I love psykers and wanted to do FMC list so it was either nids or these, I have chose these as I get more powers and 4 FMC's at 1750

 schadenfreude wrote:
I would rate it at an 8 or 9 for potential power, and about a 2 for user friendliness.

IG 9 or 10 in potential power, about a 5 in user friendliness.

IG are so consistently overvalued. People who know how to play guard know just how fragile their infantry and tanks are. Vendettas keep them king of the skies but they have many weakness. The reason you have see Guard shoot up on everyone's power rankings is the addition of allies to cover their weakness. I would rank guard up there in power when you ally in marines.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Though I think when you see people get the models to run full on horde style lists for daemons their full potential will be realized.

On a scale of 1-10 in terms of competitiveness, I'd also rate them a 6.5 - 7. Due to the nature of the codex and the randomness in the army, they lack the consistency and balance to win a long series of games against a wide range of armies. But it is precisely because of the nature of their codex and the randomness of the army why I personally find the army so appealing to play.

In short, play them because you like them, not because you want to consistently win tournaments with them.

Agreed. I could see cleaning up at local events with Daemons. The average player is generally unprepared for the type of blitz that Daemons can put out there. In addition, lots of local events are battle point based and place emphasis on massacres--something Daemons can certainly do when they hit on all cylinders. However, I wouldn't want to take them to a GT. The chances of running into hard counters are just too high. Good players with balanced lists aren't going to roll over just because you have a bunch of fast assault.

I would rate it at an 8 or 9 for potential power, and about a 2 for user friendliness.

Necrons would be a 9 in both categories.

Orks a 6 or 7 in both categories.

I don't necessarily agree with these ratings, but it is true that some armies are more forgiving than others. I think more important than potential power is the likelihood of bad matchups. Bad matchups can be overcome, but it's hard to win if 2/3 games are against lists you don't want to play.

Daemons always have excelled at beating down MEQ. However, we are in an edition which has alot more diversity and played Xenos. In addition, good MEQ players are packing disposable bodies via Guard. Thus, Daemons aren't going to roll MEQ quite as often, yet face even more tough matches now.

Though I think when you see people get the models to run full on horde style lists for daemons their full potential will be realized.

If by "hoard style" you mean spamming troops, I vehemently disagree. Daemon troops are average on a good day. In regard to their troops, I don't think much has changed aside from the fact that players should take min 10 squads of less survivable Plaguebearers instead of the former min 5 squads of more survivable Plaguebearers.

The other troops got cheaper, but that doesn't mean they became competitive. I could see Daemonettes, but at the same time, I'd rather just take Seekers. Use the fast Cav units to tear up and keep the opponent pushed back, take objectives with min objective grabbers. This has been and will continue to be the successful Daemon way.

i just took 4th in a pretty good sized competive tourney, that enough for me to think they are good

nightsorrow wrote:
i just took 4th in a pretty good sized competive tourney, that enough for me to think they are good

Congrats.

What did you run?

What type of armies did you play against? I think this would give us good info on the types of matchups that are good or problematic for the new daemons.

 labmouse42 wrote:
I've been finding them as excellent allies for my CSM.

I've been using one squad of plague bearers are deck chairs.
I've been using a GUO as a counter-assault or assault unit (depending on the army I'm facing) Ill either just camp it behind some PM or deep strike it.
You can add a soulgrinder.
You can add some khorne dogs to help protect your land raiders against deep striking melta

Yea I feel that those two books truly become competitive when you use them together. For example a prescience forge fiend is amazing and very easily done now. I find that more often then not though, I would rather run demons as the primary and chaos SM as the allied detachment. Chaos HQ's and cult troops are so pricy you really don't need a full FOC, on the other hand multiple heralds and demon troops/heavies are great!

Don't think they're match-up dependent. I also don't rate on 1-10 scales as I find that with rare exception that most codexes are pretty much on the same scale. Then again I know a lot of people don't think that way so to each their own.

The Daemon book looks solid to me personally.

I think in some ways the randomness of the upgrades can be an advantage, since you can default into a generally useful weapon (I'm looking at you balesword). It also means your opponent is not 100% certain what he is going up against when you hand over your list. While none of the upgrades are tactics-shattering for your opponent it certainly might give them a bit of pause.

I am in the camp that Eldar are a thorn in the side of Daemons at the moment. Though when they get a new dex I imagine that board-wide psychic defense will at last be dead. But that's not pertinent to the topic.

Exalted versatility is amazing. Just choosing which relic based on mission and opponent.

Also used a unit of horrors with herald and they have some crazy output.

6d6 twin linked str 6 shots. Puts a lot of wounds on a unit. Pretty good chance of going off as well.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Don't think they're match-up dependent. I also don't rate on 1-10 scales as I find that with rare exception that most codexes are pretty much on the same scale. Then again I know a lot of people don't think that way so to each their own.

The Daemon book looks solid to me personally.

Yes I know your of the belief they are all balanced. Agree to disagree with tournament results as my platform for representation.


Also got another game in tonight and I have finalized a unit for my template when building a daemon Daemon list.

Herald of Slanesh (exalted Reward=Eternal Blade; exalted loci of beguilement) 105pts

Can be mounted if you want and thrown with some seekers but I usually put her/him/it in a unit of 20 daemonettes. Giving the whole unit re-rolls to hit being able to pick who accept challenges and averaging 6 attacks at WS and Init 9 all for a bargain 105pts is probably your best all round unit in the book atm. Though you can only have one with that exact load out and some armies can counter it. Look to see this a lot in just about any daemon list built for tournaments.

I beat a CSM list with 2 Heldrakes, a Khorne Jugger Lord in a unit of Chaos Spawn and a unit of Obliterators.

It was a close game but I won with my mono Nurgle Daemons.

XT, where abouts in London are you?, I am quite local to that area

 XT-1984 wrote:
I beat a CSM list with 2 Heldrakes, a Khorne Jugger Lord in a unit of Chaos Spawn and a unit of Obliterators.

It was a close game but I won with my mono Nurgle Daemons.

Was the list you used similar to the one you posted in Army Lists? Just curious as I am building a mono Nurgle force right now.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Yea I feel that those two books truly become competitive when you use them together. For example a prescience forge fiend is amazing and very easily done now. I find that more often then not though, I would rather run demons as the primary and chaos SM as the allied detachment. Chaos HQ's and cult troops are so pricy you really don't need a full FOC, on the other hand multiple heralds and demon troops/heavies are great!

You know, I did not even put thought into that. There are a lot of units in the CSM codex that are 'weak' by default due to a BS3. You can make them a lot 'better' with a prescience.

And I was just thinking that a grimoire on 20 possessed would be pretty cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tomb King wrote:
Can be mounted if you want and thrown with some seekers but I usually put her/him/it in a unit of 20 daemonettes. Giving the whole unit re-rolls to hit being able to pick who accept challenges and averaging 6 attacks at WS and Init 9 all for a bargain 105pts is probably your best all round unit in the book atm. Though you can only have one with that exact load out and some armies can counter it. Look to see this a lot in just about any daemon list built for tournaments.

Don't you need to make dangerous terrain tests for calvary every time your moving through difficult terrain? Would that not be every time you consolidate in a combat? You would be losing 1/9 of seeker unit ever time they have to move through cover.

In those cases would not the loci that lets you move through cover be better?

 Tomb King wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
Don't think they're match-up dependent. I also don't rate on 1-10 scales as I find that with rare exception that most codexes are pretty much on the same scale. Then again I know a lot of people don't think that way so to each their own.

The Daemon book looks solid to me personally.

Yes I know your of the belief they are all balanced. Agree to disagree with tournament results as my platform for representation.


Also got another game in tonight and I have finalized a unit for my template when building a daemon Daemon list.

Herald of Slanesh (exalted Reward=Eternal Blade; exalted loci of beguilement) 105pts

Can be mounted if you want and thrown with some seekers but I usually put her/him/it in a unit of 20 daemonettes. Giving the whole unit re-rolls to hit being able to pick who accept challenges and averaging 6 attacks at WS and Init 9 all for a bargain 105pts is probably your best all round unit in the book atm. Though you can only have one with that exact load out and some armies can counter it. Look to see this a lot in just about any daemon list built for tournaments.

You weren't around much the last time I really got into this but I'll make the same offer I did back then. If someone will pay for it I'll play the codex of their choice (difference is now I'll choose the allies, allies didn't exist in 5th edition the last time I offered this) at two large events(60+). If I don't finish top 10 in the general category in both of them I'll give the money back for the army.

Tournament results aren't a solid indicator. 6th edition is to young and the WD Daemon Update skewed the results pretty heavily. Not to mention that the constant state of flux of the game since 6th dropped what with now 4 codexes since October/November. Basically there is no meta right now. There are no power codexes right now. There are codexes people have been playing longer and had the ability to figure out and settle in with but there aren't codexes which stand head and shoulders above all the rest. It's personal opinion obviously.

The problem with Daemons right now is that there hasn't been enough time to build and play with it. It's been 3 weeks. I realize with Tau coming out people are in a tizzy to get an opinion on this before the next book drops but trust me. By itself or in use with CSM or IG you'll see Daemons start rocking stuff out in the next few months.

 Hulksmash wrote:
The problem with Daemons right now is that there hasn't been enough time to build and play with it. It's been 3 weeks. I realize with Tau coming out people are in a tizzy to get an opinion on this before the next book drops but trust me. By itself or in use with CSM or IG you'll see Daemons start rocking stuff out in the next few months.

Hulk, what have been your thoughts on how Daemons can assist CSM in an ally capacity?

Don't think they're match-up dependent. I also don't rate on 1-10 scales as I find that with rare exception that most codexes are pretty much on the same scale. Then again I know a lot of people don't think that way so to each their own.

The Daemon book looks solid to me personally.

Solid, I can agree with. I'm actually curious as to what you think is a winning GT Daemons build (not a callout, just genuinely interested to see what you have been running). So far, I have struggled to come up with a Daemons build that I felt could handle just about anything. I think of some of the good Nids, shooty IG/GK, and Eldar/DE that either I or people I know run and don't see much of an answer there. Though I will agree that the book is still young and largely untested.

 Hulksmash wrote:


You weren't around much the last time I really got into this but I'll make the same offer I did back then. If someone will pay for it I'll play the codex of their choice (difference is now I'll choose the allies, allies didn't exist in 5th edition the last time I offered this) at two large events(60+). If I don't finish top 10 in the general category in both of them I'll give the money back for the army.
.

So basically you want me to buy you an army to prove a point? Then if you can win 4 out of 6 games then I am wrong? I am saying this army cant win a GT by itself or with allies. It might do okay as an ally though.

 Hulksmash wrote:
You weren't around much the last time I really got into this but I'll make the same offer I did back then. If someone will pay for it I'll play the codex of their choice (difference is now I'll choose the allies, allies didn't exist in 5th edition the last time I offered this) at two large events(60+). If I don't finish top 10 in the general category in both of them I'll give the money back for the army.

Tournament results aren't a solid indicator. 6th edition is to young and the WD Daemon Update skewed the results pretty heavily. Not to mention that the constant state of flux of the game since 6th dropped what with now 4 codexes since October/November. Basically there is no meta right now. There are no power codexes right now. There are codexes people have been playing longer and had the ability to figure out and settle in with but there aren't codexes which stand head and shoulders above all the rest. It's personal opinion obviously.

The problem with Daemons right now is that there hasn't been enough time to build and play with it. It's been 3 weeks. I realize with Tau coming out people are in a tizzy to get an opinion on this before the next book drops but trust me. By itself or in use with CSM or IG you'll see Daemons start rocking stuff out in the next few months.

I also believe that any army can win a tournament (or just make it to the Top10) if the general is skilled enough. However, the trick is to do it consistently and with different generals. What will be telling is to see how consistently the new daemons can make it to the Top 10 of the larger tournaments, and I'm talking about the GT's, not the 3-game smaller tournaments. Although it is still too early to tell, I suspect that it won't be too often. Daemons have some tough builds, but IMO, they just aren't balanced enough to handle a wide range of balanced TAC builds run by skilled generals.

 JGrand wrote:

Don't think they're match-up dependent. I also don't rate on 1-10 scales as I find that with rare exception that most codexes are pretty much on the same scale. Then again I know a lot of people don't think that way so to each their own.

The Daemon book looks solid to me personally.

Solid, I can agree with. I'm actually curious as to what you think is a winning GT Daemons build (not a callout, just genuinely interested to see what you have been running). So far, I have struggled to come up with a Daemons build that I felt could handle just about anything. I think of some of the good Nids, shooty IG/GK, and Eldar/DE that either I or people I know run and don't see much of an answer there. Though I will agree that the book is still young and largely untested.

Hey! Where are necrons in that list?

Hey! Where are necrons in that list?

Honestly, I think Daemons will be pretty good against Crons. Fast assault units that can get into CC quickly and beat Crons by 4+ in combat resolution will generally break and sweep them. Fast Daemon lists can also run to the Cron edge against flyers and ensure that they get one pass tops before having to fly over and off. Plaguebearers in cover won't care too much Tesla Destructors either. Not saying that it's an auto-win/loss either way, but I wouldn't fear Crons too much as Daemons.

 JGrand wrote:

Hey! Where are necrons in that list?

Honestly, I think Daemons will be pretty good against Crons. Fast assault units that can get into CC quickly and beat Crons by 4+ in combat resolution will generally break and sweep them. Fast Daemon lists can also run to the Cron edge against flyers and ensure that they get one pass tops before having to fly over and off. Plaguebearers in cover won't care too much Tesla Destructors either. Not saying that it's an auto-win/loss either way, but I wouldn't fear Crons too much as Daemons.

Not even against a list like this (at 2K)?

Destroyer Lord, - 2+, Mindshackle Scarabs, Res Orb
Destroyer Lord, - 2+, Mindshackle Scarabs, Res Orb

5x Warriors - Night Scythe
5x Warriors - Night Scythe
5x Warriors - Night Scythe
5x Warriors - Night Scythe

6x Wraiths - 2x Whip Coils
6x Wraiths - 2x Whip Coils
6x Wraiths - 2x Whip Coils

Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge


They have all the tesla shooting to take down MC's. D-lords with MSS can potentially mess up daemon assault brutes. Wraiths will take care of business against most daemon units with their volume of S6 attacks. There is nothing on the ground for daemons to assault besides wraiths and AB's.

Wraiths seem pretty tricky for Daemons to handle. Unless you happen to have some Nurgle psykers and roll enfeeble, I don't think that a Daemons army can generate enough wounds to ID out, or to force enough saves, to kill even 2 wraith units.

 jy2 wrote:

 JGrand wrote:

Hey! Where are necrons in that list?

Honestly, I think Daemons will be pretty good against Crons. Fast assault units that can get into CC quickly and beat Crons by 4+ in combat resolution will generally break and sweep them. Fast Daemon lists can also run to the Cron edge against flyers and ensure that they get one pass tops before having to fly over and off. Plaguebearers in cover won't care too much Tesla Destructors either. Not saying that it's an auto-win/loss either way, but I wouldn't fear Crons too much as Daemons.

Not even against a list like this (at 2K)?

Destroyer Lord, - 2+, Mindshackle Scarabs, Res Orb
Destroyer Lord, - 2+, Mindshackle Scarabs, Res Orb

5x Warriors - Night Scythe
5x Warriors - Night Scythe
5x Warriors - Night Scythe
5x Warriors - Night Scythe

6x Wraiths - 2x Whip Coils
6x Wraiths - 2x Whip Coils
6x Wraiths - 2x Whip Coils

Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge


They have all the tesla shooting to take down MC's. D-lords with MSS can potentially mess up daemon assault brutes. Wraiths will take care of business against most daemon units with their volume of S6 attacks. There is nothing on the ground for daemons to assault besides wraiths and AB's.

Not really.. You will have over 600 PTs that don't contribute until turns 2-3. If the Daemon player is going mass cavalry or other fast CC options he will be stuck in with your wraiths. From my few experiences Seekers do very well against wraiths and I also imagine Fleshhounds doing alright. I think the lists that Daemons will excel at beating are the ones that happen to invest large amounts of points into flyers, such as yours. The Daemon ground presence is just going to be much better than yours. Another weakness of Crons is the fact that they don't have cheap and diverse Str. 8 options, Tesla is nice but it isnt particularly good against mass infantry lists (each destructor averages less than 5 wounds I believe) and they cannot double out things such as Bloodcrushers/Fleshhounds/Screamers/Fiends.

I think the worst match-ups for daemons will be GK/IG, Salvo DA, SW/IG and Nids.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jifel wrote:
Wraiths seem pretty tricky for Daemons to handle. Unless you happen to have some Nurgle psykers and roll enfeeble, I don't think that a Daemons army can generate enough wounds to ID out, or to force enough saves, to kill even 2 wraith units.

I don't agree with that at all. 6 Wraiths - 210 points. 16 Seekers are about equivalent. On the charge the Seekers will kill 2-3 Wraiths before they even get to strike back. The Seekers will also get a 5+ against all the wounds Wraiths can cause. Obviously it isn't as good if the Wraiths charge, but I think the Seekers will still do quite well as they will be hitting first (Coils can mitigate that but it will also increase price very quickly). WS5 is pretty nice and you can buff them up very easily with the re-roll locus. Fleshhounds on the charge can also do quite a few wounds. Wraiths are good but I have always found them to be a little weak vs. large blocks of CC-based infantry (i.e Orks).

 jifel wrote:
Wraiths seem pretty tricky for Daemons to handle. Unless you happen to have some Nurgle psykers and roll enfeeble, I don't think that a Daemons army can generate enough wounds to ID out, or to force enough saves, to kill even 2 wraith units.

Yeah, Enfeeble is what would hurt wraiths. Enfeeble combined with Tzeentch Herald+pink horror shooting can really do a number on them. Experienced necron players will definitely know to go after the sources for Enfeeble, which will mainly be the super-expensive DP's and Nurgle psykers. Either that or to get locked in combat.

LValx wrote:
Not really.. You will have over 600 PTs that don't contribute until turns 2-3. If the Daemon player is going mass cavalry or other fast CC options he will be stuck in with your wraiths. From my few experiences Seekers do very well against wraiths and I also imagine Fleshhounds doing alright. I think the lists that Daemons will excel at beating are the ones that happen to invest large amounts of points into flyers, such as yours. The Daemon ground presence is just going to be much better than yours. Another weakness of Crons is the fact that they don't have cheap and diverse Str. 8 options, Tesla is nice but it isnt particularly good against mass infantry lists (each destructor averages less than 5 wounds I believe) and they cannot double out things such as Bloodcrushers/Fleshhounds/Screamers/Fiends.

I think the worst match-ups for daemons will be GK/IG, Salvo DA, SW/IG and Nids.

Daemons are the same way. Most of their army won't really contribute until at least turn 2 as well. Both army builds are a beta-strike army. Turn 1 is just getting into position and getting ready. Turn 2 is where the fireworks start. I've no doubt that seekers can do well against wraiths. However, wraiths can mitigate that somewhat by waiting behind cover or just by having the D-lord in the unit for PE and to suck up normal wounds while LOS-ing rends to the wraiths. As for the investment in flyers, they only take up 660pts out of 2K and is mainly used as protection for the troops. Against daemons, their role - besides to drop off troops at the end - isn't really to go after daemon troops. Rather, it is to surgically strike the more dangerous daemon units like FMC's and such. The volume of tesla they can generate along with the AB's can be very potent.

LValx wrote:
I don't agree with that at all. 6 Wraiths - 210 points. 16 Seekers are about equivalent. On the charge the Seekers will kill 2-3 Wraiths before they even get to strike back. The Seekers will also get a 5+ against all the wounds Wraiths can cause. Obviously it isn't as good if the Wraiths charge, but I think the Seekers will still do quite well as they will be hitting first (Coils can mitigate that but it will also increase price very quickly). WS5 is pretty nice and you can buff them up very easily with the re-roll locus. Fleshhounds on the charge can also do quite a few wounds. Wraiths are good but I have always found them to be a little weak vs. large blocks of CC-based infantry (i.e Orks).

Don't forget the D-lord, who would tank most of the wounds and LOS the rends to the wraiths. Then MSS and whip coils will take away some of the attacks (every bit helps). However, if I felt that your cavalry are going to get the charge off, then I'd just stick my wraiths behind or in cover.

 jy2 wrote:

 jifel wrote:
Wraiths seem pretty tricky for Daemons to handle. Unless you happen to have some Nurgle psykers and roll enfeeble, I don't think that a Daemons army can generate enough wounds to ID out, or to force enough saves, to kill even 2 wraith units.

Yeah, Enfeeble is what would hurt wraiths. Enfeeble combined with Tzeentch Herald+pink horror shooting can really do a number on them. Experienced necron players will definitely know to go after the sources for Enfeeble, which will mainly be the super-expensive DP's and Nurgle psykers. Either that or to get locked in combat.

LValx wrote:
Not really.. You will have over 600 PTs that don't contribute until turns 2-3. If the Daemon player is going mass cavalry or other fast CC options he will be stuck in with your wraiths. From my few experiences Seekers do very well against wraiths and I also imagine Fleshhounds doing alright. I think the lists that Daemons will excel at beating are the ones that happen to invest large amounts of points into flyers, such as yours. The Daemon ground presence is just going to be much better than yours. Another weakness of Crons is the fact that they don't have cheap and diverse Str. 8 options, Tesla is nice but it isnt particularly good against mass infantry lists (each destructor averages less than 5 wounds I believe) and they cannot double out things such as Bloodcrushers/Fleshhounds/Screamers/Fiends.

I think the worst match-ups for daemons will be GK/IG, Salvo DA, SW/IG and Nids.

Daemons are the same way. Most of their army won't really contribute until at least turn 2 as well. Both army builds are a beta-strike army. Turn 1 is just getting into position and getting ready. Turn 2 is where the fireworks start. I've no doubt that seekers can do well against wraiths. However, wraiths can mitigate that somewhat by waiting behind cover or just by having the D-lord in the unit for PE and to suck up normal wounds while LOS-ing rends to the wraiths. As for the investment in flyers, they only take up 660pts out of 2K and is mainly used as protection for the troops. Against daemons, their role - besides to drop off troops at the end - isn't really to go after daemon troops. Rather, it is to surgically strike the more dangerous daemon units like FMC's and such. The volume of tesla they can generate along with the AB's can be very potent.

LValx wrote:
I don't agree with that at all. 6 Wraiths - 210 points. 16 Seekers are about equivalent. On the charge the Seekers will kill 2-3 Wraiths before they even get to strike back. The Seekers will also get a 5+ against all the wounds Wraiths can cause. Obviously it isn't as good if the Wraiths charge, but I think the Seekers will still do quite well as they will be hitting first (Coils can mitigate that but it will also increase price very quickly). WS5 is pretty nice and you can buff them up very easily with the re-roll locus. Fleshhounds on the charge can also do quite a few wounds. Wraiths are good but I have always found them to be a little weak vs. large blocks of CC-based infantry (i.e Orks).

Don't forget the D-lord, who would tank most of the wounds and LOS the rends to the wraiths. Then MSS and whip coils will take away some of the attacks (every bit helps). However, if I felt that your cavalry are going to get the charge off, then I'd just stick my wraiths behind or in cover.

I believe well-built Daemons will have invested almost all of their points into FA/Elites for fast moving cavalry. Which means that by turn two they SHOULD be stuck in. I think the Daemons will out-assault even 18 Wraiths with DLords. I made the mistake of charging a large seeker block with 6 Wraiths + DLord and got absolutely shredded, I tried them out myself a couple of times now and I think they are very, very dangerous. I also belive it will be a good idea to take Skull Cannons/Fiends to mitigate the problem of charging through terrain.

Tesla Destructors aren't super good vs. Daemons. They will do well vs Daemon MC's but I think Daemon MC's are overpriced and that the better lists will gravitate away from them. Destructors won't do a whole lot of damage to big blocks of Seekers or Fleshhounds, especially if the Daemon player invested in an Aegis to keep them behind early.

I'm not saying Necrons will have an auto-lose match-up vs Daemons, but I do think it is a bit unfavorable. I just see Necrons having a tough time dealing with something like 2x 20 Seekers, 20 Fleshhounds, 2x3 Fiends or Skull Cannons and a bunch of Heralds to buff the assault squads.

Really is too early to tell yet.
People still dont have enough time to run through all of the possible combinations of units.
Granted people have picked out key units that can really shine, but single units still need support and can be taken out easily.

Daemons used to be an army that had to support each unit with another one, they still are.
Granted most of the assault has been cut back, which means they are a bit more soft and need to pick targets alot more, but they can still hit pretty damn hard.

Warpstorm is just one of those things.
A bit of randomness isnt a real game changer, and since its pretty much 50/50 on the good/bad scale its no big deal.

I think the new deployment is a nice one though.
No more getting the wrong wave, you can set up a small firebase if you want then DS what you need.



Overall, i dislike it, but thats just because im changing my list yet again haha.
Started out with pure tzeentch when the book was released.
After the update i tamed it down a bit because people disliked 18 flamers.
Now i might change it about again.

 jy2 wrote:
They have all the tesla shooting to take down MC's. D-lords with MSS can potentially mess up daemon assault brutes. Wraiths will take care of business against most daemon units with their volume of S6 attacks. There is nothing on the ground for daemons to assault besides wraiths and AB's.

Do you really think 6 wraiths will be able to do work on 20 seekers?

Assuming you get 15 seekers into assault (which is reasonable) your going to have 4.4444 wounds taken by the wraiths, killing 2 of them. The other 4 wraiths will kill 3.38 seekers. The combat goes downhill from there.

While the necrons can bring a 'scarab lord, the seekers also can bring the banner that lowers WS, causing the wraiths to hit on a 5+ 2/3 of the time for the first round, lowering the dead seekers to 2.25. Don't forget that the scarab lord will be spending his first round killing the seeker herald, so he will not be able to tank.

Wraiths are vulnerable to massive amounts of low STR attacks. Seekers are not what they want to be fighting.

The real question is who goes first. If the 'cron player goes first, their flyers will come on before the seekers assault. (unless the 'cron player moved his wraiths within 20" of the seekers) If the daemon player goes first, then the daemons will be in assault on turn 2, limiting the night scythes targets.

Khorne hounds are great against wraiths, seekers also as mentioned. running a bloodthirster + DP of khorne.

Bloodthirster can have up to 10 attacks on the charge. Hitting on 3's and instant killing wraiths. If a daemon player pics his angle he could effectively stop wraiths from attacking back on the first round of combat. But combo charges with Dp's + X other unit or 15 Khorne hounds alone charging in = 45 attacks WS5, Str5 on the charge.

Not saying that wraiths are gonna get walked on, but imo they are far from having a superior advantage on a lot of units in the 6th ed. daemons.

@Labmouse42

Two ways. One is the super cheap durable scoring units in the form of plaguebearers w/a Slaanesh herald and a huge unit of seekers with other random support. The other role is all offensive and involves large hard hitting units with the Chaos inclusion being minimum outside of it's best/most useful units.

@Jgrand

Honestly it's to early. I'm currently playtesting a couple of builds I think can hang. Leaning heavily on 3-4 heralds, large brick of horrors, smaller units of pb's, with 2 soulgrinders and a full fast attack portion of my force org. But honestly I need to give it a go against a few of the other lists I've built to endure and haven't had the time yet with two GT's in 3 weeks and getting ready for Adepticon.

@Tombking

I don't think any army can consistently win GT's. No one did in 5th and no one is currently doing it in 6th. My point about picking an army book is more to do with my belief the game is actually quite balanced, especially with allies involved. I'm sure you'll see my daemons once their finished at some events later this summer (i.e. Nova or Bugeater) and I'm sure you'll see Daemons pull down some high finishes 6 months after the book is out (how long it takes quite a few people to analyze and build a list they like).

@jy2

I think that if a single person can make any book work then it's balanced. Balanced doesn't mean ease of play. Balanced means books can be won with. Multiple people winning with a codex doesn't make it more balanced than one person winning with it.

And I agree. You won't see a ton of higher finishers with Daemons. The main reason likely being they are an outlier army to start with and have been squeezed between 2 other book releases in 4 months. Not as many people are going to pick them up and run with them as they aren't the new shiny, not because they aren't good. I'd bet though that you'll see a higher percentage of high placement out of the codex than many others though.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
They have all the tesla shooting to take down MC's. D-lords with MSS can potentially mess up daemon assault brutes. Wraiths will take care of business against most daemon units with their volume of S6 attacks. There is nothing on the ground for daemons to assault besides wraiths and AB's.

Do you really think 6 wraiths will be able to do work on 20 seekers?

Assuming you get 15 seekers into assault (which is reasonable) your going to have 4.4444 wounds taken by the wraiths, killing 2 of them. The other 4 wraiths will kill 3.38 seekers. The combat goes downhill from there.

While the necrons can bring a 'scarab lord, the seekers also can bring the banner that lowers WS, causing the wraiths to hit on a 5+ 2/3 of the time for the first round, lowering the dead seekers to 2.25. Don't forget that the scarab lord will be spending his first round killing the seeker herald, so he will not be able to tank.

Wraiths are vulnerable to massive amounts of low STR attacks. Seekers are not what they want to be fighting.

The real question is who goes first. If the 'cron player goes first, their flyers will come on before the seekers assault. (unless the 'cron player moved his wraiths within 20" of the seekers) If the daemon player goes first, then the daemons will be in assault on turn 2, limiting the night scythes targets.

Yeah, I agree with you for the most part. In my experience Wraiths tend to struggle vs large blocks of infantry that can put out a fair amount of attacks. Some of the Loci and Banners can really swing things in favor of the Daemons.

Who goes first is definitely a pretty big deal. But if the Daemon player takes an aegis they can easily place it towards the middle and get a 4+ across their units or 3++ on a specific one with a Grimoire. 5-6 Destructors really wont do that much damage at that point.

I honestly think Daemons will be at their best combating armies that invest too many points in air superiority. For a lot of armies they are simply going to be too fast to fend off and will eventually get stuck in combat and thus avoid a lot of the Flyer shooting. Not to mention that Plaguebearers can easily laugh off Vendettas/SRs/Scythes and even Heldrakes with proper spacing.

LValx wrote:


I'm not saying Necrons will have an auto-lose match-up vs Daemons, but I do think it is a bit unfavorable. .

I seriously lol'd here. Necrons perhaps the strongest army out right now don't exactly have any codex that they have to worry about an auto lose situation against. Let alone a middle-tier daemon codex.

LValx wrote:

I just see Necrons having a tough time dealing with something like 2x 20 Seekers, 20 Fleshhounds, 2x3 Fiends or Skull Cannons and a bunch of Heralds to buff the assault squads.

Alright with my necron/csm army I would say the seekers are probably my target priority on turn 1. 240pts per 20 man seeker squad. I shoot 270pts of annihilation barges and on average dice you take 17+ wounds and lose 11.5 on turn 1. This isnt including the ripple effect of arcing to other units or the possibility of rolling hot for a turn. Ide have to know the rest of your list really but I am not worried about that build in the least. Depending what upgrades or buffs my prince got I would send him into the block of fleshhounds.

Viewing the new daemon codex my 1750 list would not change:

HQ:
1 Destroyer Lord, 160 pts = (Sempiternal Weave + Mindshackle Scarabs)

Troops:
5 Warriors, 65 pts
1 Night Scythe, 100 pts

5 Warriors, 65 pts
1 Night Scythe, 100 pts

5 Warriors, 65 pts
1 Night Scythe, 100 pts

5 Warriors, 65 pts

Fast Attack:
5 Canoptek Wraiths, 175 pts

Heavy Support:
1 Annihilation Barge, Tesla/Tesla 90 pts

1 Annihilation Barge, Tesla/Tesla 90 pts

1 Annihilation Barge, Tesla/Tesla 90 pts

HQ: Daemon Prince
1 Daemon Prince (HQ) [Chaos], 365 pts = (Power Armour + Wings + Increase Mastery Level x3 + Daemon of Tzeentch+ Gift of Mutation+Spell Familiar)
1 The Black Mace [Chaos]

Troops:
9 Chaos Cultists (Troops) [Chaos], 50 pts
1 Cultist Champion

Fast Attack:
Heldrake (170 pts) (baleflamer)

1750pts

LValx wrote:
I honestly think Daemons will be at their best combating armies that invest too many points in air superiority. For a lot of armies they are simply going to be too fast to fend off and will eventually get stuck in combat and thus avoid a lot of the Flyer shooting. Not to mention that Plaguebearers can easily laugh off Vendettas/SRs/Scythes and even Heldrakes with proper spacing.

I completely agree with this statement.

I may (and have been many times) way off base, but I predict that in 3 months daemons will be to flyer heavy lists what helldrakes are to MEQ spam lists today. Facing one may completely knock you out of the running if your running 'cron air and run into a daemon army early.

The question is, "Will daemon armies have what it takes to handle enough of the armies to still make it up to the top, or will they be a 1-2 hit wonder with more bad match ups than good match ups"

 Tomb King wrote:

LValx wrote:


I'm not saying Necrons will have an auto-lose match-up vs Daemons, but I do think it is a bit unfavorable. .

I seriously lol'd here. Necrons perhaps the strongest army out right now don't exactly have any codex that they have to worry about an auto lose situation against. Let alone a middle-tier daemon codex.

LValx wrote:

I just see Necrons having a tough time dealing with something like 2x 20 Seekers, 20 Fleshhounds, 2x3 Fiends or Skull Cannons and a bunch of Heralds to buff the assault squads.

Alright with my necron/csm army I would say the seekers are probably my target priority on turn 1. 240pts per 20 man seeker squad. I shoot 270pts of annihilation barges and on average dice you take 17+ wounds and lose 11.5 on turn 1. This isnt including the ripple effect of arcing to other units or the possibility of rolling hot for a turn. Ide have to know the rest of your list really but I am not worried about that build in the least. Depending what upgrades or buffs my prince got I would send him into the block of fleshhounds.

How does someone take 17+ Wounds to 3 Anni Barges? Each destructor averages 5 hits, so 15 Str7, the bottom gun snapfires and assuming you took Tesla that will net 3 Str5 hits, so 18 total hits for around 15W on T3. If the Daemon player takes an Aegis or there is Nightfight his casualties will be quite low.

A DP certainly helps VS Daemons because they cannot ground him, but DP's aren't a Necron unit. We have been discussing Crons specifically.

I think Necrons are great, I never said it was an auto-loss, maybe you read it wrong? If you deny that Necrons have tough match-ups you are delusional. Necrons have a very tough time against Tyranids. Lack of AP3 and below and STR. 7 isn't particularly good vs MCs. Enfeeble wrecks Wraiths and Flyrants are mobile enough to avoid you tanking with the D Lord.
Necrons also have a tough time vs horde Orks, I've seen this on plenty of occasions. Destructors are good vs Marines and high T models but it isn't great at whittling down large blocks of infantry.

Are Necrons probably the best stand-alone army? Sure. But they do not "dominate" GTs. They tend to to do well, but there are a lot of diverse codices doing well. Just like any other army I think Necrons have favorable and unfavorable match-ups. This is completely unavoidable in 6th edition 40k.

Alright with my necron/csm army I would say the seekers are probably my target priority on turn 1. 240pts per 20 man seeker squad. I shoot 270pts of annihilation barges and on average dice you take 17+ wounds and lose 11.5 on turn 1. This isnt including the ripple effect of arcing to other units or the possibility of rolling hot for a turn. Ide have to know the rest of your list really but I am not worried about that build in the least. Depending what upgrades or buffs my prince got I would send him into the block of fleshhounds.

On planet bowling ball, without night fight, the aegis, ruins, LOS blocking terrain, and the ability to start those three Anni Barges a guaranteed 30" or less away...still probably not.

Come on man, you are a smart guy and play in GTs, you gotta know that there is so much to factor in here. What kind of schlub is going to just give you that? So many GTs use Nova type terrain with the center LOS blocker that this just doesn't happen.

I'd agree that Cron are among the best "stand alone" codices, but I do think that they are susceptible to Daemons. Troops on foot will fold to Daemons. Wraiths are amazing, but Daemons have the dedicated CC to take them out as well. Finally, tesla destructors just don't do well at killing armies with gobs of wounds/bodies. Hence, the reason that so many people started to put gobs of bodies on the table in the first place. I know that my Crons always struggled against Orks and high model count builds because Destructors are only averaging 5 hits and 4-5 wounds. That's still only about 3 wounds on Daemons with a 5++, less if they have the Grimnoire, Aegis, or Invisibility active.

By no means an auto loss, but Crons should be concerned. Daemons, on the other hand, shouldn't particularly fear Crons (at least not more than some of the other things out there).

LValx wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
They have all the tesla shooting to take down MC's. D-lords with MSS can potentially mess up daemon assault brutes. Wraiths will take care of business against most daemon units with their volume of S6 attacks. There is nothing on the ground for daemons to assault besides wraiths and AB's.

Do you really think 6 wraiths will be able to do work on 20 seekers?

Assuming you get 15 seekers into assault (which is reasonable) your going to have 4.4444 wounds taken by the wraiths, killing 2 of them. The other 4 wraiths will kill 3.38 seekers. The combat goes downhill from there.

While the necrons can bring a 'scarab lord, the seekers also can bring the banner that lowers WS, causing the wraiths to hit on a 5+ 2/3 of the time for the first round, lowering the dead seekers to 2.25. Don't forget that the scarab lord will be spending his first round killing the seeker herald, so he will not be able to tank.

Wraiths are vulnerable to massive amounts of low STR attacks. Seekers are not what they want to be fighting.

The real question is who goes first. If the 'cron player goes first, their flyers will come on before the seekers assault. (unless the 'cron player moved his wraiths within 20" of the seekers) If the daemon player goes first, then the daemons will be in assault on turn 2, limiting the night scythes targets.

Yeah, I agree with you for the most part. In my experience Wraiths tend to struggle vs large blocks of infantry that can put out a fair amount of attacks. Some of the Loci and Banners can really swing things in favor of the Daemons.

Who goes first is definitely a pretty big deal. But if the Daemon player takes an aegis they can easily place it towards the middle and get a 4+ across their units or 3++ on a specific one with a Grimoire. 5-6 Destructors really wont do that much damage at that point.

I honestly think Daemons will be at their best combating armies that invest too many points in air superiority. For a lot of armies they are simply going to be too fast to fend off and will eventually get stuck in combat and thus avoid a lot of the Flyer shooting. Not to mention that Plaguebearers can easily laugh off Vendettas/SRs/Scythes and even Heldrakes with proper spacing.

I don't think who goes first has anything to do with it. If the Crons go first the flyers will shoot up the seekers. If the Daemons go first, the the Crons will deploy as far as possible from the seekers which means the flyers will still shoot up the seekers before they reach combat.

Here are the problems with daemons.

1) They take to long to play. To many rolls, to many charts, to long to play. I don't care that you have everything memerized, I don't and I want to see the tables. That takes time.

2) Daemon troops are not resilient. If you have plagues hiding in area terrain, then they can be resilient, just like Blood Angel Marines are resilient (you see they have the same save and the same FnP if the plagues buy the upgrade and the BA buy the priest while in area terrain. Same resilience, yet I don't see a ton of tactical posts on the resiliency of BA tacticals)

3) Null zone is still part of the game

I think Daemons can be fine as an ally force to CSM. In that regard they shine. Otherwise after the new car smell is gone, the army will be in the back ranks playing spoiler.

 JGrand wrote:

Alright with my necron/csm army I would say the seekers are probably my target priority on turn 1. 240pts per 20 man seeker squad. I shoot 270pts of annihilation barges and on average dice you take 17+ wounds and lose 11.5 on turn 1. This isnt including the ripple effect of arcing to other units or the possibility of rolling hot for a turn. Ide have to know the rest of your list really but I am not worried about that build in the least. Depending what upgrades or buffs my prince got I would send him into the block of fleshhounds.

On planet bowling ball, without night fight, the aegis, ruins, LOS blocking terrain, and the ability to start those three Anni Barges a guaranteed 30" or less away...still probably not.

Come on man, you are a smart guy and play in GTs, you gotta know that there is so much to factor in here. What kind of schlub is going to just give you that? So many GTs use Nova type terrain with the center LOS blocker that this just doesn't happen.

I'd agree that Cron are among the best "stand alone" codices, but I do think that they are susceptible to Daemons. Troops on foot will fold to Daemons. Wraiths are amazing, but Daemons have the dedicated CC to take them out as well. Finally, tesla destructors just don't do well at killing armies with gobs of wounds/bodies. Hence, the reason that so many people started to put gobs of bodies on the table in the first place. I know that my Crons always struggled against Orks and high model count builds because Destructors are only averaging 5 hits and 4-5 wounds. That's still only about 3 wounds on Daemons with a 5++, less if they have the Grimnoire, Aegis, or Invisibility active.

By no means an auto loss, but Crons should be concerned. Daemons, on the other hand, shouldn't particularly fear Crons (at least not more than some of the other things out there).

All math hammer is in a vacuum. Either way if you dont know how to avoid giving cover in 6th edition then your probably already having a bad day. As for the aegis. That is a 50pt investment that a daemon player is taking and then deploying in mid field for all to use. I could see some armies using it but it will also slow you down and force you to take dangerous terrain checks. 40 dangerous terrain checks for those horrors and your losing at least 4.

DarthDiggler wrote:

LValx wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
They have all the tesla shooting to take down MC's. D-lords with MSS can potentially mess up daemon assault brutes. Wraiths will take care of business against most daemon units with their volume of S6 attacks. There is nothing on the ground for daemons to assault besides wraiths and AB's.

Do you really think 6 wraiths will be able to do work on 20 seekers?

Assuming you get 15 seekers into assault (which is reasonable) your going to have 4.4444 wounds taken by the wraiths, killing 2 of them. The other 4 wraiths will kill 3.38 seekers. The combat goes downhill from there.

While the necrons can bring a 'scarab lord, the seekers also can bring the banner that lowers WS, causing the wraiths to hit on a 5+ 2/3 of the time for the first round, lowering the dead seekers to 2.25. Don't forget that the scarab lord will be spending his first round killing the seeker herald, so he will not be able to tank.

Wraiths are vulnerable to massive amounts of low STR attacks. Seekers are not what they want to be fighting.

The real question is who goes first. If the 'cron player goes first, their flyers will come on before the seekers assault. (unless the 'cron player moved his wraiths within 20" of the seekers) If the daemon player goes first, then the daemons will be in assault on turn 2, limiting the night scythes targets.

Yeah, I agree with you for the most part. In my experience Wraiths tend to struggle vs large blocks of infantry that can put out a fair amount of attacks. Some of the Loci and Banners can really swing things in favor of the Daemons.

Who goes first is definitely a pretty big deal. But if the Daemon player takes an aegis they can easily place it towards the middle and get a 4+ across their units or 3++ on a specific one with a Grimoire. 5-6 Destructors really wont do that much damage at that point.

I honestly think Daemons will be at their best combating armies that invest too many points in air superiority. For a lot of armies they are simply going to be too fast to fend off and will eventually get stuck in combat and thus avoid a lot of the Flyer shooting. Not to mention that Plaguebearers can easily laugh off Vendettas/SRs/Scythes and even Heldrakes with proper spacing.

I don't think who goes first has anything to do with it. If the Crons go first the flyers will shoot up the seekers. If the Daemons go first, the the Crons will deploy as far as possible from the seekers which means the flyers will still shoot up the seekers before they reach combat.

Here are the problems with daemons.

1) They take to long to play. To many rolls, to many charts, to long to play. I don't care that you have everything memerized, I don't and I want to see the tables. That takes time.

2) Daemon troops are not resilient. If you have plagues hiding in area terrain, then they can be resilient, just like Blood Angel Marines are resilient (you see they have the same save and the same FnP if the plagues buy the upgrade and the BA buy the priest while in area terrain. Same resilience, yet I don't see a ton of tactical posts on the resiliency of BA tacticals)

3) Null zone is still part of the game

I think Daemons can be fine as an ally force to CSM. In that regard they shine. Otherwise after the new car smell is gone, the army will be in the back ranks playing spoiler.

Seekers move 12" + run (Slaanesh bonus), so 2 turns of that puts them on the board edge of the opposing player in both Vanguard and Dawn, so 2/3 of missions they can avoid flyer damage by pushing to board edge, hypothetically of course. They are very tough to stay away from.
Null Zone is really bad. Can't argue anything there, but of course we were speaking of Necrons and they won't have it. I also don't often see C:SM, who have their own troubles (such as average troops and some overpriced units throughout, at least compared to newer SM codices)

@ Tomb King, it is easy to mitigate dangerous terrain on seekers with the MTC Locus. The Aegis seems like an autotake for Daemons, IMO. You may be giving cover to your opponent, but Daemons dont shoot well to begin with. I think the 4+ cover is a huge bonus.

I don't think Daemons are great. I do t hink they will have certain favorable matchups though and I think there are some fun tricks out there (2++ Crushers anyone?)

Skimming through 4 pages I wonder how many people have actually played some practice games using daemons. And how many people here are just that good they can look at a codex and simply go "statistics, charts, rolling averages, daemons are no good".

joking aside... I have played a couple of games with daemons, a lot of useful combinations that come in handy and have a surprising 'wow' factor. There not far fetched, their not "statistically" above or under average. There the same odds of hitting with bs4, wounding with str 4, and making a save at 3+. I guess my point is, you do not need to be over lucky, or have insane rolls to be effective with Daemons.

First 4 games was against a "world" class Necron player. (plenty of victories and well respected in America and all over Europe. ) I have learned a lot from, playing him over the last year and the games played have greatly improved my game. Im not gloating by beating him in no way. But 3 of our 4 games resulted in Victory, only our first game (my first ever with daemons) was a loss.

My point is, Daemons, played well are contenders. They are far from bottom or mid tier. A lot of these codexs, have synergy and plenty of great combinations to unlock. Games will be tough and some matches will take a lot of thinking. But i personally look forward to the challenge, and I especially look forward to the "holy snap what happen?.." from the opponents who under estimate Daemons, and smile, smug, and confident when they see a daemon army across the table.


EDIT*
I played against a good Imperial Guard player also, who i asked to being a heavy mech list, he brought 3 flyers, 4 punishers, and tons of chimeras. I told him ahead what i was gonna play. I had no soul grinders fyi. I wanted to see how the list i came up with could deal with some many high armor vehicles on the tables. Daemons prevailed.

I also played a Great Ork player. My first game was a loss, my second game was a victory. But i had never played Orks before ( or a list like his anyway). And in fairness, im sure he hasnt played new daemons all that much (if at all). So he will tune and adjust accordingly. I look forward to our rubber match.

Tsilber wrote:
Skimming through 4 pages I wonder how many people have actually played some practice games using daemons. And how many people here are just that good they can look at a codex and simply go "statistics, charts, rolling averages, daemons are no good".

joking aside... I have played a couple of games with daemons, a lot of useful combinations that come in handy and have a surprising 'wow' factor. There not far fetched, their not "statistically" above or under average. There the same odds of hitting with bs4, wounding with str 4, and making a save at 3+. I guess my point is, you do not need to be over lucky, or have insane rolls to be effective with Daemons.

First 4 games was against a "world" class Necron player. (plenty of victories and well respected in America and all over Europe. ) I have learned a lot from, playing him over the last year and the games played have greatly improved my game. Im not gloating by beating him in no way. But 3 of our 4 games resulted in Victory, only our first game (my first ever with daemons) was a loss.

My point is, Daemons, played well are contenders. They are far from bottom or mid tier. A lot of these codexs, have synergy and plenty of great combinations to unlock. Games will be tough and some matches will take a lot of thinking. But i personally look forward to the challenge, and I especially look forward to the "holy snap what happen?.." from the opponents who under estimate Daemons, and smile, smug, and confident when they see a daemon army across the table.

I am 10 and 3 with the new daemons. They can be threatening and they can beat any army out there. The issue we are addressing is the ability for them to do this consistently. Like dark eldar they are a glass army. They can hit hard but cant exactly absorb much of a beating.

 Tomb King wrote:

Tsilber wrote:
Skimming through 4 pages I wonder how many people have actually played some practice games using daemons. And how many people here are just that good they can look at a codex and simply go "statistics, charts, rolling averages, daemons are no good".

joking aside... I have played a couple of games with daemons, a lot of useful combinations that come in handy and have a surprising 'wow' factor. There not far fetched, their not "statistically" above or under average. There the same odds of hitting with bs4, wounding with str 4, and making a save at 3+. I guess my point is, you do not need to be over lucky, or have insane rolls to be effective with Daemons.

First 4 games was against a "world" class Necron player. (plenty of victories and well respected in America and all over Europe. ) I have learned a lot from, playing him over the last year and the games played have greatly improved my game. Im not gloating by beating him in no way. But 3 of our 4 games resulted in Victory, only our first game (my first ever with daemons) was a loss.

My point is, Daemons, played well are contenders. They are far from bottom or mid tier. A lot of these codexs, have synergy and plenty of great combinations to unlock. Games will be tough and some matches will take a lot of thinking. But i personally look forward to the challenge, and I especially look forward to the "holy snap what happen?.." from the opponents who under estimate Daemons, and smile, smug, and confident when they see a daemon army across the table.

I am 10 and 3 with the new daemons. They can be threatening and they can beat any army out there. The issue we are addressing is the ability for them to do this consistently. Like dark eldar they are a glass army. They can hit hard but cant exactly absorb much of a beating.

I beg to differ, plagues bearers are good and tough, not to mention can hurt anything on the table.. I run plenty... . I also run either 1 or 2 bloodthirsters. in a few games i ran a 3rd DP. anyway... the Bloodthirsters get 2 rolls on the great table. Each game so far they have either gotten the 4+ FNP, reroll invuls, or +2 wound it will not die.

To me they have lasted. In all the games i have played. Plague drones are extremely tough, i run 6, and they can hurt anything that is put on the table. Of coarse i try to avoid str 10 enemies. In all of my games so far i have gone second. Even if i win the roll i give the opponent first turn. and each game with scout I have had a first turn charge or been charged with my fleshhounds. And thats after taking a bunch of shots to the face, 2 wounds each is certainly not "glass". They were a diversionary tactic, or simply a threat that forces the opponent to deal with them. In all my games they have died, but they did their job by holding a unit up, absorbing fire, or taking a lot of attention.

Now perhaps my opinion might change in time, but as of now i stand behind what i said.

Also using Dark Eldar as comparison kinda only lends support to me saying Daemons can be constantly effective. My main army is DE and i have done extremely well with them last few years. doing very well in many tourneys i have played.

please dont take anything im saying as disrespect, or directed at you personally. I do feel any army has the potential to be great (well except Tau and a few others currently). But on a consistency level, i do think daemons have enough survivability to really pack a punch and be seen often in the upper tiers.

I beg to differ, plagues bearers are good and tough, not to mention can hurt anything on the table.. I run plenty... . I also run either 1 or 2 bloodthirsters. in a few games i ran a 3rd DP. anyway... the Bloodthirsters get 2 rolls on the great table. Each game so far they have either gotten the 4+ FNP, reroll invuls, or +2 wound it will not die.

To me they have lasted. In all the games i have played. Plague drones are extremely tough, i run 6, and they can hurt anything that is put on the table. Of coarse i try to avoid str 10 enemies. In all of my games so far i have gone second. Even if i win the roll i give the opponent first turn. and each game with scout I have had a first turn charge or been charged with my fleshhounds. And thats after taking a bunch of shots to the face, 2 wounds each is certainly not "glass". They were a diversionary tactic, or simply a threat that forces the opponent to deal with them. In all my games they have died, but they did their job by holding a unit up, absorbing fire, or taking a lot of attention.

Now perhaps my opinion might change in time, but as of now i stand behind what i said.

Also using Dark Eldar as comparison kinda only lends support to me saying Daemons can be constantly effective. My main army is DE and i have done extremely well with them last few years. doing very well in many tourneys i have played.

please dont take anything im saying as disrespect, or directed at you personally. I do feel any army has the potential to be great (well except Tau and a few others currently). But on a consistency level, i do think daemons have enough survivability to really pack a punch and be seen often in the upper tiers.

I don't think that people are necessarily disagreeing with what you have said. Daemons have some interesting units and nice combos. They can win. They can beat good players. The real question is whether or not they can do it over the course of 6-8 games, which you have to do to win a GT.

There are cool tricks and combos that make Daemons survivable (invisibility, grimnoire, invulnerable save re-rolls, ect). At the same time, these often come from random charts. The warp storm table is random and can hurt. But most of all, they seem to have some matchups that are hard to overcome. Time will tell whether or not this stuff can be overcome with good list building and play. Right now, I worry about 6-8 games. I have no doubt I could roll local events of 3-4 though.

I guess if your only criteria for good is to win a GT then it would seem a little limiting.

Personally any GT win is a combination of Luck and skill(mostly skill).

I think it definitely has the ability to win but I also think that it might take some risks and you will just have to get a little lucky along the way. Have to play with some units that are powerful but not as reliable and just get lucky.

But I am not much of a GT player, trying to get better at tournament thinking but it takes undoing 10 years of conditioning to do it.

 Leth wrote:
I guess if your only criteria for good is to win a GT then it would seem a little limiting.

Personally any GT win is a combination of Luck and skill(mostly skill).

I think it definitely has the ability to win but I also think that it might take some risks and you will just have to get a little lucky along the way. Have to play with some units that are powerful but not as reliable and just get lucky.

But I am not much of a GT player, trying to get better at tournament thinking but it takes undoing 10 years of conditioning to do it.

No the criteria is for competitiveness. The issue foreseeable is consistency. The area this issue will most likely hurt you the most is in an event with 5+ games. Hence a GT type environment.

The current results for daemons should actually be skewed towards them winning more as long as the person using them has played them in a few games. People haven't adapted to the new daemons yet. Though I anctipate the effect to the meta as a whole to minor. The new tau codex on the other hand might put a serious dent in the meta. The crazy thing is tau can ally with a lot of armies whereas daemons only have a few.



Also for the above suggested army:
40 seekers: $232
20 Flesh Hounds: $198
6 Fiends: $148.50

For a grand total of: $578.50 and this is only 480pts for seekers, 320pts for the hounds, and 210pts for the fiends. So before getting troops or heralds your already spending 1010pts.

Daemons might not have a plethora options when allied but non-the-less I see that as their niche. They are not a stand alone army. But really how many stand alone armies are winning events these days. Nids have done well at a few venues but do they win it all? As good as Necrons, GK, etc., are they still appear with allies. The old codex actually could stand alone with flamers/screamers. Not so now.

I agree with Hulksmash - armies that were overlooked are now winning. Tau/Orks, DE/Eldar and a few otheers have surprised at events. I'm not a fan of daemons but I'm pretty sure a good allied list is out there.

We had a long discussion on the new beastmaster lists in another thread. DE were not faring well in 6ed - no offense intended to Tsilber. i happen to also have DE and I oove them. It took me five games to play the DE/Eldar alliance competently and construct a filist I was comfortable playing with. I expect to see the same with daemons. A good list is out there that is yet to be discovered (I have not seen any yet that impress me). Winning a few games at your LGS is no yardstick for their effectiveness.

I'll wait and see. I still won't be playing them but I'm hoping to see some good lists to lend a little variet to the 6ed scene. Hulksmash pretty much summed it up. Any codex can be used with allies and has a chance to win ( barring Nids of course). All the coomonly refered to 'mid tier' codexes can surprise with allies. So daemons - which are better than mid tier - should make some appearances at top tables eventually. I still do not like their random play style and reliance on psychic powers. Psychic powers can be shut down and dice often desert me (I want to have a chance to win with even mediocre rolls).




- spelling edit -

 Tomb King wrote:

 Leth wrote:
I guess if your only criteria for good is to win a GT then it would seem a little limiting.

Personally any GT win is a combination of Luck and skill(mostly skill).

I think it definitely has the ability to win but I also think that it might take some risks and you will just have to get a little lucky along the way. Have to play with some units that are powerful but not as reliable and just get lucky.

But I am not much of a GT player, trying to get better at tournament thinking but it takes undoing 10 years of conditioning to do it.

No the criteria is for competitiveness. The issue foreseeable is consistency. The area this issue will most likely hurt you the most is in an event with 5+ games. Hence a GT type environment.

The current results for daemons should actually be skewed towards them winning more as long as the person using them has played them in a few games. People haven't adapted to the new daemons yet. Though I anctipate the effect to the meta as a whole to minor. The new tau codex on the other hand might put a serious dent in the meta. The crazy thing is tau can ally with a lot of armies whereas daemons only have a few.



Also for the above suggested army:
40 seekers: $232
20 Flesh Hounds: $198
6 Fiends: $148.50

For a grand total of: $578.50 and this is only 480pts for seekers, 320pts for the hounds, and 210pts for the fiends. So before getting troops or heralds your already spending 1010pts.

I dont play in a lot of GT, infact i guess in my 12 years of playing 40k i never played in a GT. I have done plenty of tournies consisting of 3,4 or even 5 games. So perhaps i lack the experience to comment on a GT level.

As for price, They are expensive as hell. But there is a cheaper way to do it. I used fenrisian wolves and took dark eldar spike bits to put horns and scales on them. So half the price of Flesh hounds of khorne models (which are ugly as fudge imo).. I only have about 20 seekers, and man those fiend models are ugly. If i ran them, i would probably use just about anything else. Now the 6 plague drones were also expensive. So yeah it does get kinda expensive, but i was fortunate enough to rack up store credit at a few gaming stores from placing in tournies to cover almost all of my new daemons stuff.

Tomb King are you going to adepticon this year? I would be interested to hear some on hands feedback on how Daemons performed. I understand you will have games of your own to focus on. But perhaps there will be time to take a glimpse of other games and see if daemons are making a good showing at a GT.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 felixcat wrote:


We had a long discussion on the new beastmaster lists in another thread. DE were not faring well in 6ed - no offense intended to Tsilber. i happen to also have DE and I oove them. It took me five games to play the DE/Eldar alliance competently and construct a filist I was comfortable playing with. I expect to see the same with daemons. A good list is out there that is yet to be discovered (I have not seen any yet that impress me). Winning a few games at your LGS is no yardstick for their effectiveness.

I'll wait and see. I still won't be playing them but I'm hoping to see some good lists to lend a little variet to the 6ed scene. Hulksmash pretty much summed it up. Any codex can be used with allies and has a chance to win ( barring Nids of course). All the coomonly refered to 'mid tier' codexes can surprise with allies. So daemons - which are better than mid tier - should make some appearances at top tables eventually. I still do not like their random play style and reliance on psychic powers. Psychic powers can be shut down and dice often desert me (I want to have a chance to win with even mediocre rolls).

- spelling edit -

No offense taken, and their might not be good list out their because in all honesty most people who can make bang em up list dont post them probably. I tried to keep my DE list a secret as i practiced and gear up for a big invitational tourney last year. It has been my experience reading through threads and discussions that most solid list dont start popping up until someone else has gotten crushed by it. Sadly some times the player who was beaten claims credit for the list. I mean its a free world and gaming forums/community so people can do all the want. But i just hate "internet list" .. or cookie cutter list. After a little bit people adjust and adapt to those kind of list, and then that list starts to fall short. Im willing to bet a lot of people have some solid Daemons list made up, I have a few combos and tricks of my own that i have yet seen mentioned. Im sure they will come to lite soon, but i'd like to play it a couple times in all honesty before is hijacked and molested lol.

As for taking time to find good combos. DE for me were play tested a lot and used a lot of different list in 5th.. but as soon as 6th came out and the new rules and allies, and flyers... It like clicked for me. Right out the gate DE did just fine. If i see a collective group on topic all making the same argument using the same list... well see my cookie cutter reference above i guess..

I didnt run that "beastmaster list" btw...
Mine was a bit different, and it did quite well, here is a link to the tourney i used it in and the list itself.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/495427.page

Most of the tournies i play in are at 3 stores, in 3 states here in New england. Those tournies draw players from about 7-8 states here in the north east. They might not be GT's, but the level of competition is very high, with a lot of solid players. (who play at a lot of GT's). I guess i should try to make it to a GT soon, so i can speak better from experience as far as GT play.

I've seen that Grotstar list. I run a grotstar and a beast pack but I'm also thinking of dropping the beast pack - it is reliant on psychic boosts, is more vulnerable to dakka and really wants first turn. Grots are only vulnerable to Str10 and that is rarely seen. But on topic ... yes ... I agree ... there must be a solid daemon list out there but likely with allies.

It just strikes me as competative means make dice matter as little as possible. Or even with below average should still win. Seems to be the general trend.

Then again i always though that adapting to the situation was part of the tactics involved. But it seems like to be competative it needs to be consistant instead of dealing with the flux across the game.

It seems to me that the flux is worse for your opponent than you. The majority of the warpstorm results effect all of your enemies units but only the units opposed to the result from your friendies. It will only hit those on a six. Take a couple units with instraments to give you rerolls to protect your units and for the most part you will be fine. If you need to take the fateweaver to gaurd against the mass instability check.

The "randomness" of the demonic rewards is not nearly as random as it seems. Simply plan on taking the default weapon. Then when you roll, if the result is better for you than the weapon, keep it, otherwise go with the planned for weapon. Have you looked at them. A measly 10-20 pts for some of those weapons seems cheap to me.

It's deep strike ability is also pretty nice. Combine icons and instraments to pull pretty much everything in reserve out at the same time with very little scatter is not too hard to do. A sudden flood of threats can overwhelm your enemy.

Anyway, thats my two cents. I dont have enough experience with them yet to be rating thier tournament quality.

Sorry not ignoring questions or comments. In field til friday. Only tuesday and already got 35 hours and waking up at 0200. Haha don't worry ill log all my overtime.

As for adepticon I have training scheduled so will most likely miss the event.

Daemons have two major problems aside from thier random nature ... dealing with AV14 and Flyers. So you absolutely need Thirster/LoC in your lists. Heralds are great but cannot do the job on their own.

 felixcat wrote:

Daemons have two major problems aside from thier random nature ... dealing with AV14 and Flyers. So you absolutely need Thirster/LoC in your lists. Heralds are great but cannot do the job on their own.

Consider a 6 man Drone Squad, i use it. i love it. Jump Jet Calvary.. what?.. a Nurgle unit moving 12, and has fleet.... what? Oh and glancing on a 6 in combat. Big bad DA LRC with Venerable ( i run 2 lrc in my DA)... 25 attacks on charge, need 3's to hit. May take 2 turns, but man can those drone soak some damage.

Really any DP, smashing has a chance at av 14. But Thats where allying CSM and having a DP with black mace comes in great.

As for flyers, i just ignore them mostly. Though a Slannesh dp with duel whips sounds good.. specially if you get bio. 4d6 , Str U hits. (normally str6, but up to a 9 with iron arm)

Tsilber wrote:

 felixcat wrote:

Daemons have two major problems aside from thier random nature ... dealing with AV14 and Flyers. So you absolutely need Thirster/LoC in your lists. Heralds are great but cannot do the job on their own.

Consider a 6 man Drone Squad, i use it. i love it. Jump Jet Calvary.. what?.. a Nurgle unit moving 12, and has fleet.... what? Oh and glancing on a 6 in combat. Big bad DA LRC with Venerable ( i run 2 lrc in my DA)... 25 attacks on charge, need 3's to hit. May take 2 turns, but man can those drone soak some damage.

Really any DP, smashing has a chance at av 14. But Thats where allying CSM and having a DP with black mace comes in great.

As for flyers, i just ignore them mostly. Though a Slannesh dp with duel whips sounds good.. specially if you get bio. 4d6 , Str U hits. (normally str6, but up to a 9 with iron arm)

Can only have a single whip of despair, 1 is still good though.

Ahh, i did not know this. Thanks for pointing it out. A single is pretty good as you said, none the less.

Tsilber wrote:
Really any DP, smashing has a chance at av 14. But Thats where allying CSM and having a DP with black mace comes in great.

That does not work as well as advertised.

I was playing in a game just a few weeks ago. I flew a Khorne DP with the axe of blind fury into a DA LRC and smashed a ton of times, getting 4 penetrating results. The DA player passed 2 with invuln saves and the other 2 had no major effect. The DP was shot to bits on the following turn.

DA LRCs with force fields are far tougher than one single DP can take out. You need multiple melta guns to have a decent shot at it -- and even those can whiff.

Agreed with Labmouse, I have had a DP smash my Land raider, he had two pens and saved both with PFG, I love my PFG.....

Dont forgot as well guys, smash attacks can re roll armour pens

I'm not saying there are no solutions for LRs and flyers. I'm saying daemons had better build lists that recognize they need to deal with them. I see posted lists that lack the means all the time

 labmouse42 wrote:

Tsilber wrote:
Really any DP, smashing has a chance at av 14. But Thats where allying CSM and having a DP with black mace comes in great.

That does not work as well as advertised.

I was playing in a game just a few weeks ago. I flew a Khorne DP with the axe of blind fury into a DA LRC and smashed a ton of times, getting 4 penetrating results. The DA player passed 2 with invuln saves and the other 2 had no major effect. The DP was shot to bits on the following turn.

DA LRCs with force fields are far tougher than one single DP can take out. You need multiple melta guns to have a decent shot at it -- and even those can whiff.

Yeah i know, i used 2 DA LRC vs your flying army. I remember you coming in and not doing to well and then shooting you...

It can work in theory, but thats why i said it has a 'chance'. for the DA LRC with the ven and force field. 2 DP's coming in. Or the Black Mace DP ally for extra attacks. Or even 6 drones.

Daemons don't have many options vs land raiders. (A LRBT can be torn asunder).
- MCs. If your bringing 2+ of them, they start to become a big drain on your points. Just bringing one makes target priority for your opponents bolter-banner LRC's simple.
- Fateweaver. Fatey can use 'bolt of change' and 'infernal gateway' on land raiders each turn. If your grimoire fatey, hes going to be nearly immune to enemy fire.
- Allies. You can bring some CSM with meta.

Do you have any other ideas for taking down LR's with daemons?

Tsilber wrote:
Yeah i know, i used 2 DA LRC vs your flying army. I remember you coming in and not doing to well and then shooting you...

It can work in theory, but thats why i said it has a 'chance'. for the DA LRC with the ven and force field. 2 DP's coming in. Or the Black Mace DP ally for extra attacks. Or even 6 drones.

That army you brought was a very good matchup vs daemons. How many TL bolter shots did it throw out every turn? How many times did you lose a single land raider in the entire tourney?

Until GW FAQs the hurricane bolters are not getting the bolter-banner effect (which I doubt they will) the LRC army is an extremely good scissor to someones paper. What made it work really well was all the melta guns you brought, to apply that extra pressure to the land raiders I brought.

LOL so true ^^^



DP only get armorbane when smashing>?

I guess if you run a BT, get 2 rolls on the greater reward and hope for AB/FB. 7-8 attacks charging str 8 2d6 armor penn.

However for most LR a smashing dp can do it. If i saw a DA larc im gonna throw drones and a DP at it. In the 2 games playing against that is what i did and glanced it down. Hounds, chariots, and other Dp took on the bikes. I then deepstruck 3 units of plagues in to terrain all around the other LRC. And joint charged it to following turn (with a dp, what was left of the drons, and 1 unit of plague bearers) to glance it down.

DA LRC is probably the biggest thing to deal with for a daemons army. Flyers are not scary, but i have not played against a necron flyer list yet either.

I really wonder how much of a threat necron air would be.
Tomb king illustrated that 3 annilation barges, one wraith unit, and a lord would cause some problems for one squad of seekers and one squad of khorne dogs. However, what happens when there are 3 seeker/dog squads, 1 squad of fiends, and 2 bloodthirsters?
I think its easy for 'crons to be overwhelmed. I might be totally wrong -- I often am.

I'm more worried of armies with a few flyers than armies with 4+ of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tsilber wrote:
However for most LR a smashing dp can do it

I agree.
Heck, any greater daemon smashing will do it. I played a game this weekend where a GUO smashed a soul grinder, a defiler, a dual PF hellbrute, and a black mace DP. The GUO killed the back mace DP and the hellbrute in one round of combat!
Smashing is awesome. Its even better when you have a weapon like "The Eternal Blade"

Has anyone noticed that Grey Knights are now SUPER effective versus this new Codex? The lack of Eternal Warrior and Daemons needing to use psyker powers, it seems that GK function against the Daemons as intended.
A local Daemon player is heralded as a generally amazing player has run into my buddy (a competative local GK player) in the last three tourneys and left with a pretty severe beating each time. Preferred Enemy plus instant killing monsterous creatures (and even if you fail to power up, have to roll on the Nemesis leadership thing), denying the witch like crazy, having a reenforced aegis, using dreadknights (that turn off gifts),...

I think if Daemons really take off, we'll see a lot more GK hit the table (and we all missed them, I'm sure!).

About the dreadknight denying gifts, is there such a thing in the new daemon codex? never played as GK's or played daemons before the new codex

Personally after playing a few more games there appears to be a few competitive builds available.

Stand out builds include grimoire for a 2++, rerollable on Tzeentch.
Seekers and demonettes seem quite nasty accompanied by Skarbrand.

What seems essential to any primary daemons attachment is Fateweavers abilities for rerolls for grimoire and the warpstorm table.

Will be using fateweaver tonight against a ork horde list, will be interesting to see how he does!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well another tabling for my list, really didnt think it would be that effective but it has!, lost one DP to gazghull and failing my grimoure test twice as I had fateweaver's reroll.

Fateweaver not 100% on, at least my LoC can get into combat and have a 3 plus save with grimoure rather then fateweavers 2 plus which I never want to be in combat with. Overall his powers werent brillant, they werent bad but I didnt really need them, plus perils of the warp three times in a row did not help at all! ha. Re rolling on the warp table didnt do much either but only got 4 turns and forgot to roll on one turn


My issue in this game was remembering the many dice rolls I had, the dice rolling in my army is a LOT, it will not die rolls suffered a lot.

The good thing about the game was 10 horrors taking a charge from gazaghull, warboss and 4 nobz, lost 6 in total the first turn then 1 in the second and none in the last turn before it was called, they did have the grimoure on them that turn though!. 15 saves made..... (re rolled two ones)

I played a game yesterday against Eldar and it went pretty well. Killed Eldrad turn 1 with an 11 on my first Warp Storm roll.

I used Fateweaver, a Nurgle Souldgrinder, a unit of Flamers, Screamers, one Herald of Tzeentch and two squads of troops ( 1 Horrors, 1 Daemonettes ). With Eldrad gone so fast, I really didn't have to worry about his psychic defenses, which was a big help. But I'm hoping that with the ability to reroll one die, I can avoid the worst of it in the future. Fateweavers ability to smooth out various results is going to be very helpful. Especially when he's got a rerollable 2++ from the Grimiore (I didn't miss a 3+ all game, but did have to use the reroll on it once).

Fighting Eldar seems like an entirely luck thing, every army is going to have either Eldrad or a Farseer and with them around casting psychic powers is just not feasible without popping your head...

How did you find the flamers?

Seems like Fateweaver isn't bad at all though~

 Makutsu wrote:
Fighting Eldar seems like an entirely luck thing, every army is going to have either Eldrad or a Farseer and with them around casting psychic powers is just not feasible without popping your head...

Yeah, I was actually a little said that Eldrad died so fast. I wanted to see how my list matched up to a list with good psychic defenses.

How did you find the flamers?

The flamers did well, but I wasn't fighting anything with a 3+ armor save. They're not the powerhouse they used to be, but against the right opponents, they can still be devastating. I keep one squad of them in the list mostly as insurance against my son's infiltrating Genestealers. In this case, they slaughtered more than their points cost in Dire Avengers before acting as a speed bump to a Harlequin Squad.

Seems like Fateweaver isn't bad at all though~

I was initially pretty dismayed by what I saw when I first got the new Codex, but I've been happy with him so far. I'm going to continue using him for a bit. I paid almost $60 for the model dammit.

I don't know about daemons as a primary but I have had great success with them in my CSM. 2 full units of daemonettes and a unit of seekers along with my maulerfiend and chaos spawn make for an awesome and terrifying forward threat for my four 5 man squads of noise marines and the banners allow me put my Obliterators right where I need them. I don't use helldrakes in my local because of all the vendettas and contemptor dreads around my parts. The local DA players hate this list most of all. Deathwing or ravenwing, slannesh troops eat them all. I did have to make my own slannesh themed skull cannon because it is really quite useful.

Sounds good; I want to pick up a couple of Maulerfiends to run a similar list It's just too bad that icons can't help Oblits, since they lack a Daemonic Alignment. All they can get is a Mark, which is a different rule.

I am currently thinking of getting a Soulgrinder, whats your opinions on these?, I am liking the str 10 shot as the str8 is ordanance plus it gives my army some ranged anti armour, plus if I am using the skyfire option a extra snap shot (possibly with prescience) at str 10 will be good when it works!

I will be running tzeentch ones as that is what the rest of my army is, nurgle would be nice but it would be too gamey for this list, the whole reason why I am thinking of dropping a DP for a soulgrinder, that and getting enough pts for another herald and more horrors, or just a lot more horrors

Well, I faced (with my Necrons) a CD army in an RTT (1650 pts) at the last weekend.

The Daemons army had LoC, 2x10 Daemonettes, 2x PBs, 3 Slaanesh Chariots w/ Heralds, 2 slanneshi Soulgrinders, 5 Fiends.
I was impressed by the speed of the army. Daemons deployed first. I've countered this by deploying on one corner in the backfield.
At the end of the game, the CD army fell apart with one Herald left while the Necron army was largely intact.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Sounds good; I want to pick up a couple of Maulerfiends to run a similar list It's just too bad that icons can't help Oblits, since they lack a Daemonic Alignment. All they can get is a Mark, which is a different rule.

Oblits are a demonic alignment of nothing, which is fine just like furies. They will just have to scatter d6

For me, i've only lost one game since the new book came out.


In regards to the pre-game rolling, once you are used to it, it goes very quick. Only difference it's made to me, is that I take a little book, and write in, say

Keeper of secrets:
WL trait:
Psy power:
Gift1:
Gift:

Khorne Herald:
Gift1:

And so on. Then it's just a case of rolling a dice for each thing on the list, takes a minute at most if you have this written out. I'm just going to photocopy a few "Templates" for my little book, so I can just be ready to jot down from the start

Warpstorm can be brilliant, can be crap, but in either case, it's never swung a game for me, even when I lost my daemon prince to it

Deep strike, is the best advantage this book gets. Why? Well, your army can deploy in a whole range of different ways, depending on who you are going to be facing. Longrange shooting army? Deepstrike your horrors, rather than let them get shot up turn one. Deepstrike one assault unit behind, and run one to the front, so they can only deal with one before you sandwich them with both. Loads of crazy stuff you can do with them

Daemons, are really, really good, if you know how to use them, and can adapt with the random element. Even with all the crazy tables, and the random gifts, I still say the game comes down to 80% skill/20% luck with daemons, as opposed to 90% skill/ 10% luck with other armies.

 Evileyes wrote:
For me, i've only lost one game since the new book came out.

I've lost two out of 10 or so. My losses were against my son's dual Flyrant list. All of my other games (against Eldar, Space Marines, Necrons) have been solid wins for me. My losses to my son were my first few games with the new book, so I think I'd do a little better now.

In regards to the pre-game rolling, once you are used to it, it goes very quick. Only difference it's made to me, is that I take a little book, and write in, say

Keeper of secrets:
WL trait:
Psy power:
Gift1:
Gift:

Khorne Herald:
Gift1:

And so on. Then it's just a case of rolling a dice for each thing on the list, takes a minute at most if you have this written out. I'm just going to photocopy a few "Templates" for my little book, so I can just be ready to jot down from the start

I'm writing a list-building app for my phone right now, I think I'm going to add a 'Bookkeeping' feature to it for stuff like this.

Warpstorm can be brilliant, can be crap, but in either case, it's never swung a game for me, even when I lost my daemon prince to it

Daemons, are really, really good, if you know how to use them, and can adapt with the random element. Even with all the crazy tables, and the random gifts, I still say the game comes down to 80% skill/20% luck with daemons, as opposed to 90% skill/ 10% luck with other armies.

I agree with this, but the right list choices can help with this. I played a game last night where Fateweaver's reroll abilities were key. I've avoided rolls of 2 and 3 on the warpstorm table, and last night I turned a 7 (rolled a 6 and a 1) into an 11 by choosing to reroll just the 1. Eldrad got turned into a Herald. Re-rolling grounding tests and one D6 from a 3D6 psychic power check (runes of warding) were so helpful.

I don´t have the codex yet so could someone tell me is it true that you can get 4 heralds per HQ slot.

Srhike wrote:
I don´t have the codex yet so could someone tell me is it true that you can get 4 heralds per HQ slot.

Yes, but only once per forceorg, so you can only have 5 herald's max (4 in one slot, then one in the other slot)

Therefore the best way to do things, is to go one greater daemon, and then up to 4 herald's to help your troops out.

On the topic of soulgrinders, they are fantastic. AV13, with a 5+ invulnerable (And a potential 3+ for a soulgrinder with mark of nurgle, grinder in cover is godly)

The ap3 large blast, in my mind, is a must, because it's devastating against pretty much everything. The strength 10 ap1 shot is tempting, but it's on a ballistic skill of 3, the soulgrinder is too expencive IMO for one shot a turn, missing half the time. There is plenty of good anti tank in this book, no real point of using your grinder purely for that

I hate to say it but the more I look at it fateweaver seems to be the only way to balance this army out some and help swing the dice in your favor as I am still of the belief that you need the dice to go atleast average or above average for this army to win consistently. Most of the games people are posting seem to favor there dice going very well. I have had a few games where the grimiore me on multiple turns taking my save even lower rather then helping me stay alive. It is a high risk, high reward item.

As for the comments about grey knights. Certain builds with this army will be hard countered by the standard grey knight build. Had a Blood Thirster get instant gibbed the other day because it failed one 3++ save. Was painful to remove him.

I would say there are 2 competitive build types.

Either Elitist build that includes Fatewevaer for the consistency control.

Or Horde lists that really don't care about Warpstorm and do not need things like Grimoire.

FW is definitely the big way to mitigate warp storm. That being said, taking large units and champions where you can (5pts to halve the chance of losing your big HQ on a WS result of 3? Sounds pretty good) is the other big way to do it. Large numbers of models throwing large numbers of dice, and never rolling Morale or Pinning, are normally going to perform.

krazykishere wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Sounds good; I want to pick up a couple of Maulerfiends to run a similar list It's just too bad that icons can't help Oblits, since they lack a Daemonic Alignment. All they can get is a Mark, which is a different rule.

Oblits are a demonic alignment of nothing, which is fine just like furies. They will just have to scatter d6

Sadly not so. Daemonic Alignment means you have the Daemon of Khorne, Daemon of Slaanesh, Daemon of Nurgle or Daemon of Tzeentch special rule. If you don't have one of those, you don't have a daemonic alignment at all. The icon rules are clear that if you have the same daemonic alignment as the icon, you don't scatter; and that if you have a different one you only scatter 1d6. But there's no benefit if you don't have a daemonic alignment.

Will have to try Fatey again, in the only game I used him in I had prescience, molten beam is it (str 8 melta weapon) invisability!!!, and enfeeable maybe. Enfeeable it just the nuts, it was about the 3rd time that appeared in my list (3 DP's with 2 powers each!) I hardly used the tzeentch powers on him as I have only really looked at flickring fire.

One bad run I had three perils of the warp in a frigging row on fateweaver!, had to cast endurance on him for it will not die!, invisilbtity, should have been awesome, on horrors in some woods, 5 plus cover save plus shrouded and stealth,2 plus save re rolling 1's..... but they didnt get shot at all game! haha, plus I had more horrors not in cover so any wise opponent would just focus fire on those.

His re roll saved a DP getting grounded (then would have been charged) saved my herald with a failed LOS roll and that was the rolls made in my opponents turn!. The re rolls on the table did nowt though.

Thinking about it, I can really see the benefit for fateweaver in my list, it is just the amount of CC damage kicked out by the LoC in the 3 games before hand was quite impressive, fatey just does not have that though.

I hate to say it but the more I look at it fateweaver seems to be the only way to balance this army out some and help swing the dice in your favor as I am still of the belief that you need the dice to go atleast average or above average for this army to win consistently. Most of the games people are posting seem to favor there dice going very well. I have had a few games where the grimiore me on multiple turns taking my save even lower rather then helping me stay alive. It is a high risk, high reward item.

I'd agree on the Fateweaver. While the Warp Storm is often non-intrusive, some of the results are devastating. In addition, the ability to re-roll the Grimnoire is crucial.

As for the comments about grey knights. Certain builds with this army will be hard countered by the standard grey knight build. Had a Blood Thirster get instant gibbed the other day because it failed one 3++ save. Was painful to remove him.

GK are one of the rough ones for Daemons. I don't know that there is much to do besides choosing targets wisely.

Example of why daemons are competitive but that they will have a hard time winning a prolonged series of games (as in a GT). Keep in mind that this is just anecdotal.

Just had a 2v2 game in which my partner and I both played daemons against Tau + Orks. We brought a fairly fast and aggressive army with 40 seekers, only 3 FMC's, 3 blocks of Tzeentch Heralds + horrors, a large block of daemonettes and bloodletters, some crushers, a skullcannon and 3 grinders. Now we didn't really bring optimized lists and didn't go there with a plan to play 2v2 (it was more impromptu), but our opponents didn't really bring tough tournament lists either. On Turn 2, we were ready to pounce on our opponents and then on the Warp Storm table, we roll a 4....-1 on all daemon Inv saves!!! With that, his nobs actually beat our seekers in combat and on their turn, they shot down a lot of our guys since we were aggressively advancing and for the most part, out in the open. That 1 warpstorm roll hurt our army more than anything as our opponents brought a shooty army and really capitalized on it.

While the Warpstorm table is not all that bad, just one bad roll on it can change the tide of the game. And not everyone wants to bring Fateweaver in their army. Had the roll been anything else, I think we would have won that battle handily.

While the Warpstorm table is not all that bad, just one bad roll on it can change the tide of the game. And not everyone wants to bring Fateweaver in their army. Had the roll been anything else, I think we would have won that battle handily.

The Warpstorm table is definitely the greatest concern. 1,2, and 3 are absolutely brutal. If you take multiple Heralds or a bunch of MCs, you have to worry about losing them to a bad roll and a 3d6 ld test. As you mentioned, -1 to invulnerable saves is devastating.

jy2 wrote:Example of why daemons are competitive but that they will have a hard time winning a prolonged series of games (as in a GT). Keep in mind that this is just anecdotal.

Just had a 2v2 game in which my partner and I both played daemons against Tau + Orks. We brought a fairly fast and aggressive army with 40 seekers, only 3 FMC's, 3 blocks of Tzeentch Heralds + horrors, a large block of daemonettes and bloodletters, some crushers, a skullcannon and 3 grinders. Now we didn't really bring optimized lists and didn't go there with a plan to play 2v2 (it was more impromptu), but our opponents didn't really bring tough tournament lists either. On Turn 2, we were ready to pounce on our opponents and then on the Warp Storm table, we roll a 4....-1 on all daemon Inv saves!!! With that, his nobs actually beat our seekers in combat and on their turn, they shot down a lot of our guys since we were aggressively advancing and for the most part, out in the open. That 1 warpstorm roll hurt our army more than anything as our opponents brought a shooty army and really capitalized on it.

While the Warpstorm table is not all that bad, just one bad roll on it can change the tide of the game. And not everyone wants to bring Fateweaver in their army. Had the roll been anything else, I think we would have won that battle handily.

My point exactly. At that point the dice can really take you out of the game. No other army in the game currently can have one dice roll that can nerf there army every turn of the game. I rolled that result last night and I was playing against eldar. Luckily I had fateweaver and re-rolled it for more of a friendly result. I hate it when characters in a book come down as almost an auto include to stay competitive.

JGrand wrote:

While the Warpstorm table is not all that bad, just one bad roll on it can change the tide of the game. And not everyone wants to bring Fateweaver in their army. Had the roll been anything else, I think we would have won that battle handily.

The Warpstorm table is definitely the greatest concern. 1,2, and 3 are absolutely brutal. If you take multiple Heralds or a bunch of MCs, you have to worry about losing them to a bad roll and a 3d6 ld test. As you mentioned, -1 to invulnerable saves is devastating.

I have also had army wide leadership test and killed off a few units. To get that result late game when your troops are already beat up can be game changing.

< Taken by the void dragon. >

 Che-Vito wrote:

labmouse wrote:
How will this effect a 6 round tourney? It means your relying upon a little more luck than not. However look at the 'top armies' today.
- Necron Air Force
- Rapid assault (DE/Eldar beast packs, wraithwing, etc)
- Blob Guard/MEQ
- 'Nid psychic choir
- Helldrakes
- GK
hat is your real measuring stick for how they will do in the national event level.

I would find a lot of joy in going to a tourney, just to throw things off. Bring a hard counter to one or more of the above lists. In a national tourney, it's very likely that you'll encounter your target opponent. Sure, you'll get clobbered by TAC lists, but part of me would enjoy knocking a net-list out of the running.

9 Hydras for 675 points? Add in 8 Vendettas, a CCS, and two bare-bones Veteran squads, for just shy of 2,000 points.
If I had the money, I'd love being that person.

I have actually seen people try to do this and then hit a hard counter on the first match-up. Can be painful to watch as you traveled and payed for all the expenses of the trip to just get clobbered and out of the running on your first game. When I get to a GT I am the more nervous game 1 then I am for round 2-6. The only time I am more nervous then in game one is when I am in the finals if I made it there. Some tournaments offer awards for bracket winners. Some do not. Either way you have to judge how fun the above list you suggested would be. If you lose round one you might smash a few people but to be such a hard counter to certain armies doesn't make for a fun game. It makes for a one sided affair with both players rolling the dice waiting for it to end. This is in particular is why I never played grey knights in 5th edition. I believed they could sap the fun out of a game really fast.

< Taken by the void dragon. >

I know Daemons are bad at keeping their attention on one thing at a time but this...I mean c'mon

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1140003&prodId=prod1140023a

Barrywise wrote:
I know Daemons are bad at keeping their attention on one thing at a time but this...I mean c'mon

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1140003&prodId=prod1140023a

Not even a Grimoire model for daemons yet but GK have one. LMAO

The games I have played with daemons have mostly been wins, 5/6, and one of those wins was against grey knights... This new codex is soooo much better if used correctly.

 Che-Vito wrote:

labmouse wrote:
How will this effect a 6 round tourney? It means your relying upon a little more luck than not. However look at the 'top armies' today.
- Necron Air Force
- Rapid assault (DE/Eldar beast packs, wraithwing, etc)
- Blob Guard/MEQ
- 'Nid psychic choir
- Helldrakes
- GK
hat is your real measuring stick for how they will do in the national event level.

I would find a lot of joy in going to a tourney, just to throw things off. Bring a hard counter to one or more of the above lists. In a national tourney, it's very likely that you'll encounter your target opponent. Sure, you'll get clobbered by TAC lists, but part of me would enjoy knocking a net-list out of the running.

9 Hydras for 675 points? Add in 8 Vendettas, a CCS, and two bare-bones Veteran squads, for just shy of 2,000 points.
If I had the money, I'd love being that person.

Funny thing... 9 Vendettas. 6 Melta Vet squads. Primaris Psyker. Deathstrike.

2k on the nose.

If you want even more stupid, take out a squadron of Vendettas and stick two more Deathstrikes in there. Roll them sixes... behind an ADL. Six Ven-vets, one with plasma, one with melta/plas, primaris psyker, and three Deathstrikes. I want to play this now.

jy2 wrote:Example of why daemons are competitive but that they will have a hard time winning a prolonged series of games (as in a GT). Keep in mind that this is just anecdotal.
...
While the Warpstorm table is not all that bad, just one bad roll on it can change the tide of the game. And not everyone wants to bring Fateweaver in their army. Had the roll been anything else, I think we would have won that battle handily.

I think you're right about the series of games issue. Chicago just had our annual series championship tournament, sixteen players qualified over a year of tournaments, four round event. There were two all-daemon armies, and two that used daemons as allies. The daemon armies finished 10 and 11th, with the daemon allies to CSM finishing 14th and 16th.

During the games that I happened to observe, the daemon players had at least one '2' result, two '3' results and a '4'. (probably more, but that's what I saw). They rolled a couple of '11's against opponents who had no psykers. And they had at least one matchup against Grey Knights which ended badly.

I don't think "competitive" means can you win a game with the army, I think it means can you win a tournament with the army. Over a 3-round tournament, you've got 18 rolls with a 1-in-6 chance to really mess up your army. Over a 4-round tournament, you're looking at 24. At the large 2-day tournaments, it's even more. Add in the potential for bad matchups, and I simply don't think the odds are in their favour for winning that many successive games. With the shift to win/loss rather than margin-of-victory, where one loss and you're out of the running, I just don't think they can string them together. And, if their best chance is to use the high-pressure all-attack list, how do they beat cron-air?

 Redbeard wrote:

jy2 wrote:Example of why daemons are competitive but that they will have a hard time winning a prolonged series of games (as in a GT). Keep in mind that this is just anecdotal.
...
While the Warpstorm table is not all that bad, just one bad roll on it can change the tide of the game. And not everyone wants to bring Fateweaver in their army. Had the roll been anything else, I think we would have won that battle handily.

I think you're right about the series of games issue. Chicago just had our annual series championship tournament, sixteen players qualified over a year of tournaments, four round event. There were two all-daemon armies, and two that used daemons as allies. The daemon armies finished 10 and 11th, with the daemon allies to CSM finishing 14th and 16th.

During the games that I happened to observe, the daemon players had at least one '2' result, two '3' results and a '4'. (probably more, but that's what I saw). They rolled a couple of '11's against opponents who had no psykers. And they had at least one matchup against Grey Knights which ended badly.

I don't think "competitive" means can you win a game with the army, I think it means can you win a tournament with the army. Over a 3-round tournament, you've got 18 rolls with a 1-in-6 chance to really mess up your army. Over a 4-round tournament, you're looking at 24. At the large 2-day tournaments, it's even more. Add in the potential for bad matchups, and I simply don't think the odds are in their favour for winning that many successive games. With the shift to win/loss rather than margin-of-victory, where one loss and you're out of the running, I just don't think they can string them together. And, if their best chance is to use the high-pressure all-attack list, how do they beat cron-air?

Played a match the other night and one bad warm storm roll all game cost me an entire plague bearer unit and a mounted herald. Rolled #4 and all of them had a 6+ invul save against an ork unit that was able to get the charge off on them. Painful to watch.

Silly question here and I cannot find if it has been spoken about in any other threads. About the warp storm table. Do you have to roll on it if you are taking Chaos Daemons as allies?

 BayneMor wrote:
Silly question here and I cannot find if it has been spoken about in any other threads. About the warp storm table. Do you have to roll on it if you are taking Chaos Daemons as allies?

No, only if Daemons are your Primary detachment.

@ Redbeard. Cron Air doesnt shoot that well. Daemons that go for mass assault are generally majority Cavalry which means they can easily cross the table to avoid being shot at much. Out of all the match-ups out there I really do not see a reason to be concerned about Cron Air. Plaguebearers can simply take their 2+ saves against the destructors and T3 doesn't much care about fancy Str.7.

I'd be much more worried about (in order): GK, Imp Guard with Wolves or vice versa and Tyranids. I think those 3 armies are going to be the biggest puzzles. I've seen the a good GK list take on an optimized Daemon build and it isn't pretty. Psybolt Ammo is brutal since it means that almost all shots hit and almost all shots wound. OUCH!

Nids are also really bad because they can bubblewrap their MCs and Termagants are simply more efficient than any of the Daemon troops (Counter-attack, probably poison/FC and they can shoot).

 Tomb King wrote:

Barrywise wrote:
I know Daemons are bad at keeping their attention on one thing at a time but this...I mean c'mon

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1140003&prodId=prod1140023a

Not even a Grimoire model for daemons yet but GK have one. LMAO

Used to be an anti Daemon weapon in the old GK codex.

Another win for the daemons today, made one opponent concede and beat the other one quite convincingly, quite a few bad rolls on the warpstorm table (minus 1 invu and DI for everyone) used fateweavers warlord trait to re roll and got -1 invul again, twice :(


With fateweavers warlord trait, I read it as I have to re roll both dice not just one? this correct?

His re roll ability is the nuts though

I thought it was just 1... And good to hear its going well for you...
P.s I named my dark apostle after you.... Mark the dark apostle...

I know he can re roll one dice per turn but the warlord trait says I can re roll results, so not 100% sure.

Have yet to lose with the daemons in about 8 games, all of which have been very one sided, 5 tablings as well, I think I will drop a DP and add in a soul grinder and more horrors to mix it up a little, I really didnt think they would do this well when I wrote the list as I have never used a army like this before, have yet to face eldar with runes though!

MarkyMark wrote:
I know he can re roll one dice per turn but the warlord trait says I can re roll results, so not 100% sure.

Have yet to lose with the daemons in about 8 games, all of which have been very one sided, 5 tablings as well, I think I will drop a DP and add in a soul grinder and more horrors to mix it up a little, I really didnt think they would do this well when I wrote the list as I have never used a army like this before, have yet to face eldar with runes though!

I fought Eldar twice last week and won by large margins both times, although each game I managed to get an 11 on the Warp Storm table (once naturally, and once with Fateweaver rerolling one of the dice). Got rid of Eldrad both times. When I rerolled, I used Fateweaver's 'reroll one D6 per turn' ability, not his Warlord Trait.

My whole army is psyhic though, I have 15 psyhic powers I think, horrors are only psyhic and the buffs from fateweaver are psyhic and the buffs to the DP's as well. If and when I face a farseer he is getting 3 DP's coming stright at that! ha

< Taken by the void dragon. >

With Fateweaver do you have to say I am using the re-roll before you roll, or am I misreading it? If that is the case than the re-roll is not as useful.

 CKO wrote:
With Fateweaver do you have to say I am using the re-roll before you roll, or am I misreading it? If that is the case than the re-roll is not as useful.

I think it is just declared after re-rolling. It would defeat the point of saying I am using the re-roll and then not need to re-roll a dice.


I have a question and perhaps it belongs in YMTC forum but figured I would throw it up. Does the Grimoire of True Names effect hq's that leave the unit was affecting? Example: At the time the Grimoire went off skulltaker was with the unit that was affected and then he leaves it. Who retains it?

Marky what are you running with fatey now

 Tomb King wrote:

 CKO wrote:
With Fateweaver do you have to say I am using the re-roll before you roll, or am I misreading it? If that is the case than the re-roll is not as useful.

I think it is just declared after re-rolling. It would defeat the point of saying I am using the re-roll and then not need to re-roll a dice.


I have a question and perhaps it belongs in YMTC forum but figured I would throw it up. Does the Grimoire of True Names effect hq's that leave the unit was affecting? Example: At the time the Grimoire went off skulltaker was with the unit that was affected and then he leaves it. Who retains it?

I don't have my books in front of me, but my first army was Eldar, and I vaguely remember if you cast Fortune or similar on a unit, you have to declare if you're casting it on the unit or any IC that might be attached to the unit. If you hit the unit, the IC doesn't get Fortune if he leaves the unit. If you hit the IC, Fortune goes with him.

As I said, I don't have my books, so that might not be correct.

fubukii wrote:
Marky what are you running with fatey now

1750 list

fateweaver
herald with exalted reward (grimourie) loci conjuration ML2

17 horrors
10 horrors
10 horrors

DP mark of tzeentch, wings armour 2 greater rewards 1 lesser ML2
DP mark of tzeentch, wings armour 2 greater rewards 1 lesser ML2
DP mark of tzeentch, wings armour 1 greater reward, 1 exlated (portalglyph) ML2

The portal glyph did naff all yesterday, dont think I got one model from it but the idea of free troops is good, as I dropped the Lord of change which had the exalted reward/portalglpyh I have had to give it to a DP at the cost of a greater and lesser reward, which is not ideal so I may drop the portalglpyh. The two ten man horror units are cannon fodder objective holders really, the 17 man squad with the herld does do well though, 4d6 of s6 prescienced shots plus 2d6 from the herald isnt bad, helped take down two helldrakes yesterday and two of the dark talons DA flyers. DP's fly into the enemy to smash face, I have lost two of them in one game, one in another and thats it, rest of the time they have survived

MY idea on the rewards is, the greaters are the nuts, luckly I havent rolled any 6's with them in the last few games (already bought armour) and the idea of the lesser rewards is to get one of the shooting attacks, so I can have some overwatch attacks and normal shooting attacks which biomancy only has two of the them

 undertow wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:

 CKO wrote:
With Fateweaver do you have to say I am using the re-roll before you roll, or am I misreading it? If that is the case than the re-roll is not as useful.

I think it is just declared after re-rolling. It would defeat the point of saying I am using the re-roll and then not need to re-roll a dice.


I have a question and perhaps it belongs in YMTC forum but figured I would throw it up. Does the Grimoire of True Names effect hq's that leave the unit was affecting? Example: At the time the Grimoire went off skulltaker was with the unit that was affected and then he leaves it. Who retains it?

I don't have my books in front of me, but my first army was Eldar, and I vaguely remember if you cast Fortune or similar on a unit, you have to declare if you're casting it on the unit or any IC that might be attached to the unit. If you hit the unit, the IC doesn't get Fortune if he leaves the unit. If you hit the IC, Fortune goes with him.

As I said, I don't have my books, so that might not be correct.

It actually notes a time when it wont count for a character. That is only when the character is in the unit he is trying to boost.

Read the IC rules in the USR section. If you use a lasting effect on a unit with a character attached, positive or negative, both the unit and the character retain the effect after splitting.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Read the IC rules in the USR section. If you use a lasting effect on a unit with a character attached, positive or negative, both the unit and the character retain the effect after splitting.

Ahh, I think I still have 5th Edition on the brain.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Read the IC rules in the USR section. If you use a lasting effect on a unit with a character attached, positive or negative, both the unit and the character retain the effect after splitting.

That makes the grimiore and forewarning that much better. I had skulltaker on a juggernaut get buffed by the grimiore and then charged him into skarbrand. Skulltakers eternal warrior combined with his ability to cause instant death is a pretty good combo if he can get a good invul on him. He instant killed a 225pt Named Greater Daemon of Khorne and really swung the battle in my favor. Essentially skulltaker is an IC killer of MEQ armor and above. Though I did have him instant gib typhus my last tournament but my opponent was unlucky rolling a 1 to save. Skulltaker on juggernaut is pretty solid on making my template for daemons. I have templates for various armies for when I start to build a tournament list with that army I insert the template and start from there.

My template for daemons so far is:
Fateweaver (Currently the only way to help with the armies inconsistency.)
Tzeentch Herald with Grimiore; and Loci
Slaanesh Herald with Etrernal Blade; and Loci (have not finalized mounted or not)
Skulltaker on juggernaut (Not finalized as I need a few more games with him. So far nothing but good from him.)
20 Pink horrors of Tzeentch

My avoid list:
Heralds besides tzeentch with psychic powers. They are only leadership 8 and can still be denied by most armies that we need them against.
All chariots ( They are armor 11 and open topped... need i say more?) Only one possibly decent is blood throne
Flamers of Tzeentch at 4 points cheaper then 3 of your average troops they just arent worth it any more. You can do better with cheaper scoring units.
Blood crushers (only T4 means half the known weapons out there can instant kill them and a terrible save of 5+ isnt worth it)
Beast of Nurgle (Still cant comprehend why these guys are as many points as they are... a Chaos spawn is base 30pts and comes with a better stat line)
Changeling... That is all!
Keeper of Secrets (Just too many options that are better in his slot really)

 Tomb King wrote:

Skulltaker on juggernaut (Not finalized as I need a few more games with him. So far nothing but good from him.)

If you're not taking Bloodcrushers, where are you putting Skulltaker? Are you just placing him in a big block of Bloodletters?

Whats your thoughts on daemon princes TK?

undertow wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:

Skulltaker on juggernaut (Not finalized as I need a few more games with him. So far nothing but good from him.)

If you're not taking Bloodcrushers, where are you putting Skulltaker? Are you just placing him in a big block of Bloodletters?

Every time I have run him it has been with a unit of 20 blood letters. They are mainly there as an escort. 18 blood letters = 4 blood crushers. Though I might try him on his own as bloodletters are your weakest troop choice. Even though each troop has a roll they are better at then the others.

Differences whether they be pro's or cons:
4 Bloodcrushers
Move 12" (Cavalry)
S5 T4
12 total wounds have to be inflicted or as little as 4 if S8 or higher
12 attacks base (16 on charge)

They have the same: WS, Init, Save, & Leadership

18 Blood Letters
Move only 6" (infantry)
S4 T3
A scoring unit
18 total wounds have to be inflicted
18 attacks base (36 on charge)


If you boost the entire unit with the Grimiore which I often do when running these guys it can make for a real beat stick. YMMV but I don't see the benefit over taking 4 blood crushers over 18 blood letters. Especially with the amount of armies packing S8+ weapons.

MarkyMark wrote:Whats your thoughts on daemon princes TK?

If you running a caster heavy army these guys can really be the jack of all trades. However, they are not as strong as their chaos spawn marine counterparts in combat. I have tried one and he did great but they can get tar-pitted real easily. If I run one I will most likely ally in my Black mace combo prince from CSM. Unless I want all the various powers the prince has at his disposal.

while it is a huge point sink I personally REALLY like slaanesh DP geared like this

DoS
flight
greater - lash of despair
exalted - eternal blade
mastery level 3

it comes with a risk, 320 points and you want to get iron arm to be immune to insta gib weps. but ML3 has yet to not provide iron arm for me. Lash is 2d6 str 6 shots at bs5 (without iron arm) or 2d6 str 7-9 (with iron arm)

Since it is 12" range you will usually be within charge range and doing 5 +1 (charging) + d3 (eternal blade) = 7-9 attacks. or if your lucky and got both iron arm and warp speed add another D3 attacks so 8-12 attacks on the charge. all at ridiculously high WS. all at +1 str on top of iron arm which will be 8-10 (who needs to smash!! lol), all at ridiculously high init. and thanks to slaanesh daemon all with rending

Add to all that the fact that you will likely have a shooty psykic ability to try and weaken the target further means this guy is a beast.

Again this all mainly depends on getting Iron Arm for EW. Which is not a given. w/o iron arm the prince is still VERY effective just has to be more aware of instant death weps.

 keltikhoa wrote:
while it is a huge point sink I personally REALLY like slaanesh DP geared like this

DoS
flight
greater - lash of despair
exalted - eternal blade
mastery level 3

it comes with a risk, 320 points and you want to get iron arm to be immune to insta gib weps. but ML3 has yet to not provide iron arm for me. Lash is 2d6 str 6 shots at bs5 (without iron arm) or 2d6 str 7-9 (with iron arm)

Since it is 12" range you will usually be within charge range and doing 5 +1 (charging) + d3 (eternal blade) = 7-9 attacks. or if your lucky and got both iron arm and warp speed add another D3 attacks so 8-12 attacks on the charge. all at ridiculously high WS. all at +1 str on top of iron arm which will be 8-10 (who needs to smash!! lol), all at ridiculously high init. and thanks to slaanesh daemon all with rending

Add to all that the fact that you will likely have a shooty psykic ability to try and weaken the target further means this guy is a beast.

Again this all mainly depends on getting Iron Arm for EW. Which is not a given. w/o iron arm the prince is still VERY effective just has to be more aware of instant death weps.

I used a setup like that on a prince, he ended up with iron arm, enfeeble and endurance.

He pretty much won the game for me on his own lol.

I've been having a blast with this list. It's not very forgiving and any bad plays will own you.

The idea is to get Forwarning with your 9 rolls and go to town.
2++ and Prescience is silly sausage land.
Gaze allows you to keep those fragile troops off the table for as long as possible.

HQ
Fateweaver 300

Herald of Tzeentch, Mastery lvl 3, Exalted Reward, Disc 150
Herald of Tzeentch, Mastery lvl 3, Disc 120
Herald of Tzeentch, Mastery lvl 2, Lesser Reward Disc 105

Troops
10 Plague Bearers 90
10 Plague Bearers 90

Fast
9 Screamers 225
8 Screamers 200
8 Screamers 200

Allies-Chaos
HQ
Daemon Prince Mark of Tzeentch, Power Armour, Wings, Black Mace, 265

Troops
10 Cultists 50
10 Cultists 50

1845

I quite like precongition on fatey, re roll saves is good, means you dont have to use the grimoure on him. 2++ re rolling ones is wicked as well.
Your list though, you only have the DP and fatey with wings, all anti air will be focused on them imo and your scoring is weak, I bet you would be worried to you faced a deathwing list!

I have actually been posting all of the list that I have tried out in the army list forum :http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/512351.page

If you take CSM with them that would really help I reckon.....

 TechmarineNic wrote:
If you take CSM with them that would really help I reckon.....

I tend to think IG make for better allies than CSM. Better anti-tank, better AA, and having a Vendetta or two never hurt anyone.

 newbis wrote:

 TechmarineNic wrote:
If you take CSM with them that would really help I reckon.....

I tend to think IG make for better allies than CSM. Better anti-tank, better AA, and having a Vendetta or two never hurt anyone.

CSM have the benefits of being Battle Brothers, so your psykers can hit them with Prescience or other useful spells. CSM are also not hurt by Warp Storm (unless a unit bears an appropriate Mark or 'Daemon of ... ')

newbis wrote:

 TechmarineNic wrote:
If you take CSM with them that would really help I reckon.....

I tend to think IG make for better allies than CSM. Better anti-tank, better AA, and having a Vendetta or two never hurt anyone.

undertow wrote:

 newbis wrote:

 TechmarineNic wrote:
If you take CSM with them that would really help I reckon.....

I tend to think IG make for better allies than CSM. Better anti-tank, better AA, and having a Vendetta or two never hurt anyone.

CSM have the benefits of being Battle Brothers, so your psykers can hit them with Prescience or other useful spells. CSM are also not hurt by Warp Storm (unless a unit bears an appropriate Mark or 'Daemon of ... ')

Both have there arguments for either side. IG have better shooting without a doubt but how does it compliment your main force? As for csm, they have a couple of things they do well but what can they do that your daemon army doesnt already do? Kind of doubling up on roles..

I guess plague marines or a cultist heavy army combined with forewarning and prescience might be a decent build. However, that would be a bunch of points to make cultist viable. Shame CSM cant join Chaos unit still.

Can we still not use cult troops in allied detachments?

If by "cult troops" you mean Plague Marines, Noise Marines, Thousand Sons and Berserkers, you can, but they always count as Elites. The Chaos Lord can only make them Troops in a Primary Detachment.

 Mannahnin wrote:
If by "cult troops" you mean Plague Marines, Noise Marines, Thousand Sons and Berserkers, you can, but they always count as Elites. The Chaos Lord can only make them Troops in a Primary Detachment.

Yup, so if you were looking for that combo it has been nerfed. Really surprised they did that. Kind of kills some of the fluffy builds out there. Now most CSM/Daemon alliance featuring cult troops will have to be CSM primary. It could work still but I think the way to go with CSM currently is to bring them in as a allied detachment adding in the heldrake and possibly a DP.

I was really hoping they would've faq'd it by now to grant us scoring cult troops in allied detachments.

I'm really, really loving Flesh Hounds right now. Supported by a Herald of Khorne with a Grimoire, the Exalted Locus and Fateweaver giving buffs/supporting fire, not many can survive a charge.

Even Thunder Hammer Terminators can just as easily fall to weight of attacks with some luck. MEQ squads fall to the Herald and anything with a lower save usually die from the dogs. And they're fast so they can usually pick where they want to be. I'm thinking of putting all my Fast Attack Units as Flesh Hounds supported by one 1 or even 2 Heralds of Khorne on a Juggernaut.

The main problem now however... is how expensive Flesh Hounds actually are to buy.

Lou_Cypher wrote:
I'm really, really loving Flesh Hounds right now. Supported by a Herald of Khorne with a Grimoire, the Exalted Locus and Fateweaver giving buffs/supporting fire, not many can survive a charge.

Even Thunder Hammer Terminators can just as easily fall to weight of attacks with some luck. MEQ squads fall to the Herald and anything with a lower save usually die from the dogs. And they're fast so they can usually pick where they want to be. I'm thinking of putting all my Fast Attack Units as Flesh Hounds supported by one 1 or even 2 Heralds of Khorne on a Juggernaut.

The main problem now however... is how expensive Flesh Hounds actually are to buy.

That is why you find models suited for the job. http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat720004a&prodId=prod1050050 If you dont like the way they look you can convert them from there.

Lou_Cypher wrote:
I'm really, really loving Flesh Hounds right now. Supported by a Herald of Khorne with a Grimoire, the Exalted Locus and Fateweaver giving buffs/supporting fire, not many can survive a charge.

Even Thunder Hammer Terminators can just as easily fall to weight of attacks with some luck. MEQ squads fall to the Herald and anything with a lower save usually die from the dogs. And they're fast so they can usually pick where they want to be. I'm thinking of putting all my Fast Attack Units as Flesh Hounds supported by one 1 or even 2 Heralds of Khorne on a Juggernaut.

The main problem now however... is how expensive Flesh Hounds actually are to buy.

what sized squads of hounds do you run?

 Tomb King wrote:


That is why you find models suited for the job. http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat720004a&prodId=prod1050050 If you dont like the way they look you can convert them from there.

I do like those... and I'm currently using the Chaos Warhounds. Though I'm getting some complaints that the Hounds aren't on the proper bases. Then again... the Karanak I received didn't even come with a circular base.

 masquerade81 wrote:
what sized squads of hounds do you run?

A full 20 for 40 wounds. I find that the Daemons' fast attack slots are one of the best things to maximize on.

How about using Bastions?
Im thinking a blob of Pinkies with herald in a bastion and fire the full load of flicker fire from a single fire point. It would surely make them more durable. You could even put a Nurgle herald on the battlements manning a quad gun for some longrange BS5 fire from really deep cover (if you care to spend the extra points).

Perhaps its to many points in one place though.

PSVpaladin wrote:Can we still not use cult troops in allied detachments?

Mannahnin wrote:If by "cult troops" you mean Plague Marines, Noise Marines, Thousand Sons and Berserkers, you can, but they always count as Elites. The Chaos Lord can only make them Troops in a Primary Detachment.

Fayric wrote:How about using Bastions?
Im thinking a blob of Pinkies with herald in a bastion and fire the full load of flicker fire from a single fire point. It would surely make them more durable. You could even put a Nurgle herald on the battlements manning a quad gun for some longrange BS5 fire from really deep cover (if you care to spend the extra points).

Perhaps its to many points in one place though.

Could make for a really bad day when 1 melta gun or smash attack wrecks the building. One of the best things about the horrors is you can deploy them in a long line and fire from any horror. Makes it pretty easy to always get the angle of fire you want.

Lou_Cypher wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:


That is why you find models suited for the job. http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat720004a&prodId=prod1050050 If you dont like the way they look you can convert them from there.

I do like those... and I'm currently using the Chaos Warhounds. Though I'm getting some complaints that the Hounds aren't on the proper bases. Then again... the Karanak I received didn't even come with a circular base.

 masquerade81 wrote:
what sized squads of hounds do you run?

A full 20 for 40 wounds. I find that the Daemons' fast attack slots are one of the best things to maximize on.

Hmmm, I have a small army of these guys thanks to my undead armies. Might try them out and see how I like them. Though I am weary of giant blocks with only S4, S5 on the charge.

Re-rolls from the Herald's exalted locus, plus several S6 AP2 attacks from the herald, makes it a pretty hitty unit. I've recently been running a baker's dozen hounds + jugger herald with ex L, Greater, Lesser, and at 363 for the combo it's not cheap, but it's quite hitty and durable, and can Scout (or Outflank, against the becoming-ubiquitous friggin' Servo Skulls).

Iv just picked up a bunch of Flesh hounds this week to go with the Bloodthrone and Crushers I have so Im pretty keen to see how they work out together.

Daemons make a good primary, but do not make for good allies, unless you are literally just trying to get yourself a prescience psyker or greater daemon. I'd say a herald of tzeentch level 3, or a lord of change level 3, with divination powers, and some plaguebearers would do for allies from daemons

Daemons get no benefit from the warpstorm table as allies, and neither can they make use of the 4 herald thing, so it's better to have them as your primary.

But yeah, aside from prescience, I would say guard still make better allies for CSM, and probably for daemons too.

Guard, with daemon allies for prescience, would be a terrifying amount of rerolls xD

Well I use Demons as allies to my Worldeater list.
lord on jugger
2 blocks of Zerks in Landraiders
5 bikes w 2 melta and pwr wepon
Helldrake
as allies i have
bloodthirster
flesh hounds
2 units of plaguebearers

Superfast army that is hard hitting. I guess that a maulerfiend and a herald on jugger would be nice also.
Pondering of scraping the helldrake...

Belsibub wrote:
Well I use Demons as allies to my Worldeater list.
lord on jugger
2 blocks of Zerks in Landraiders
5 bikes w 2 melta and pwr wepon
Helldrake
as allies i have
bloodthirster
flesh hounds
2 units of plaguebearers

Superfast army that is hard hitting. I guess that a maulerfiend and a herald on jugger would be nice also.
Pondering of scraping the helldrake...

I would keep the heldrake it can really help against his back line objective campers or even taking out a pesky long fang squad or any MEQ for that matter.

I proxied out some Daemons with CSM allies against IG/SW yesterday. My bat rep is here if anyone is interested:

http://rhetorical40k.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/battle-report-daemonscsm-vs-igspace-wolves/

I ran:

Fateweaver-300

Bloodthirster with Exalted, Greater Reward-300

3×10 Plaguebearers-270

Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with wings, armor, masterly level 3-305

Soul Grinder of Nurgle with Phlem-180

CSM Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with armor, wings, Black Mace-265

10 Cultists with autoguns

5 Nurgle Chaos Spawn-180

Total: 1850

It was pretty fun and nasty.



However, I still worry about them over the course of a big event. I have no doubts that Daemons can win three-four in a row. Six-eight would be tough. The damn Warpstorm Table is pretty awful, even with Fatey. In addition, I lost some wounds to Perils as well. For a fun army, I like this. For a shot at winning a GT, I just don't know. I'm even more wary now that Broadsides can pack insane missile salvos in.

 Evileyes wrote:
Daemons make a good primary, but do not make for good allies, unless you are literally just trying to get yourself a prescience psyker or greater daemon. I'd say a herald of tzeentch level 3, or a lord of change level 3, with divination powers, and some plaguebearers would do for allies from daemons

Daemons get no benefit from the warpstorm table as allies, and neither can they make use of the 4 herald thing, so it's better to have them as your primary.

But yeah, aside from prescience, I would say guard still make better allies for CSM, and probably for daemons too.

Guard, with daemon allies for prescience, would be a terrifying amount of rerolls xD

Don't you need to be Battle Brothers in order to benefit from allied psychic powers?

They did well at the last throne of skulls. Soul grinders seem amazing!!

Just finished a tournament this weekend where we ran:

Keeper of secrets, greater reward
10 daemonettes
10 daemonettes
Prince of slaanesh, wings, armor, greater reward
Prince of slaanesh, wings, armor, greater reward
Prince of slaanesh, wings, armor, greater reward

Allies CSM
Prince of Slaanesh, wings, gift
10 cultists
Heldrake, bale flamer


It demolished our opponents. Put troops in reserves and things go quite well. All the daemon characters took the lash of despair, so that makes 4 units that can shoot 2d6 S6 shots. The keeper often takes telepathy and goes primaris for another nasty shooting power.

So many lists I see are just some toekn troops with FMC's, I want to see some daemon hordes lol.

 Xeriapt wrote:
So many lists I see are just some toekn troops with FMC's, I want to see some daemon hordes lol.

I got into Daemons in 5th because I liked the MCs. I see no problem with running FMC-based lists, as long as they work.

Well, then make the FMCs easier to kill or daemons more difficult to kill.

A unit with 2x flamers and multiple bolters will mostly wipe out a daemon unit.

It can't touch an FMC.

Xeriapt wrote:So many lists I see are just some toekn troops with FMC's, I want to see some daemon hordes lol.

If you want horde troops your probably wanna look into a slannesh heavy list. They have the hardest hitting troops. Though plaguebearers are the most resilient.

undertow wrote:

 Xeriapt wrote:
So many lists I see are just some toekn troops with FMC's, I want to see some daemon hordes lol.

I got into Daemons in 5th because I liked the MCs. I see no problem with running FMC-based lists, as long as they work.

As long as any list works it can be ran?

Spellbound wrote:Well, then make the FMCs easier to kill or daemons more difficult to kill.

A unit with 2x flamers and multiple bolters will mostly wipe out a daemon unit.

It can't touch an FMC.

Actually the reason I run tzeentch princes is because the leading cause of dead mc's is dakka. Not ap 1-3 weapons but good old bolters, shoota's, tesla, etc... They are only toughness 5 base. At least daemon princes are only T5. In addition, they struggle against horde's. With 5 attacks base a fearless blob can hold them up. Orks in particular are good at this and will most likely kill your average daemon prince.

My mono-nurgle list has to be tweeked....

I use to get by with 20 PB's and 3 nurglings....

1. The nurglings are too juicy of a target since they are slow and purposeful now. Can't run them into cover to cover
2. The PB's are the same, but because Epidemius isn't as good I need more to counteract the deaths they are taking.
3. Heralds are point for point, the nastiest close combat unit (nurgle anyway) in the game. T5, 5 wounds, 5 attacks with FNP, Instant Death, AP 2, and 4+ poison? Yes please for 135 points.

I think you mean 4 Wounds, and you can't use the Instant Death and Poison with the AP 2 if that is what you're implying.

Not bad but I'd rather have 15 Plague Bearers. If you want something tough that can dish out that kind of damage (in a mono Nurlge army especially) there are plenty of better options.

Besides the obvious GUO, DP or Soul Grinder there is also the Plague Drone Champion. Who's stats aren't far off those.

 Tomb King wrote:

Xeriapt wrote:So many lists I see are just some toekn troops with FMC's, I want to see some daemon hordes lol.

If you want horde troops your probably wanna look into a slannesh heavy list. They have the hardest hitting troops. Though plaguebearers are the most resilient.

Slaanesh would probably work out pretty good for a horde army, fast troops with rending is always handy. Im looking at using 3x15 daemonette squads and 2x20 slaanesh fury squads as a basis for my slaanesh daemons.





The only issue I have with heavy monstrous creature lists is that alot of points are being put into such a small number of models. A few unlucky rolls on grounding tests or saves could see you lose a large portion of your army very fast.

 Xeriapt wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:

Xeriapt wrote:So many lists I see are just some toekn troops with FMC's, I want to see some daemon hordes lol.

If you want horde troops your probably wanna look into a slannesh heavy list. They have the hardest hitting troops. Though plaguebearers are the most resilient.

Slaanesh would probably work out pretty good for a horde army, fast troops with rending is always handy. Im looking at using 3x15 daemonette squads and 2x20 slaanesh fury squads as a basis for my slaanesh daemons.





The only issue I have with heavy monstrous creature lists is that alot of points are being put into such a small number of models. A few unlucky rolls on grounding tests or saves could see you lose a large portion of your army very fast.

I have been having pretty good success with 1 daemon prince of tzeentch and fatweaver in a list. The daemon prince has a 3+ with re-rolling 50% of his failed saves. In addition, I give him 3 powers on biomancy and 2 greater rewards. My last game he got 4+ FnP. With that many boost for him it makes it really hard for my opponents to kill him. He is probably one of the toughest mc's in the game to bring down. Though you do pay a premium for him. I havent decided yet whether I like the CSM tzeentch prince better then the CD tzeentch prince. The CSM had gift of mutation but the CD one has 2 greater rewards. The real deciding factor is that the CSM prince can bring the black mace which really helps against hordes. So for survivability the CD prince is better. For raw combat power the CSM prince is better. At least that is my assessment for what it is worth. YMMV. A full FMC list can win but like most of the list spending so heavily in just one area leaves openings in others. For example most FMC list I have seen dont have much less that is threatening in the list and a lot of the time will lack sufficient troops. Something that is required to reliably win 5 out of 6 of the book missions.

Does anyone else feel like they are playing fantasy in 40k with daemons?

Nah, but that is because I play my Daemons the same way as I play nids. FMC as fast over upgrades threats to take fire power off my actual utility combat units.

In all my games with Daemons my FMCs have died horribly to rolls of 3 on the Warp Storm chart, or failed grounding tests. Failing a grounding test early on is a death sentence for most FMCs.

Also, I find the 24" swoop slightly underwhelming. You can't vector anything on the first turn, and if you go forward you run the risk of getting grounded.

Rolling rewards/Biomancy has also been too incredibly random to have any sort of sustained effectiveness. When you're good, you're good..

I think Daemons are ultimately a fun army to play not so seriously, because they have so many hilarious-self-defeating moments.

Daemons also struggle to kill LRs and armour in general. You have to glide the MCs to assault vehicles... and get through the bubble wrap... and if they fail the assault distance or kill the blocking units, they're very quickly boned.

Daemon shooting is also abysmal, with the DTW to even their most basic Flickering Fires attack.

Most importantly, they lack the ability to apply all their points to a certain point in the enemy line; a good portion of the army is generally out of position or not contributing to the battle effectively.

Having 180 points camping objectives with no shooting might possibly tilt close games against you.

The best daemon lists combine horde and FMC, I think, for MTO. And have an allied Helldrake.

 Tomb King wrote:
Does anyone else feel like they are playing fantasy in 40k with daemons?

Yes. To some extent, I feel like I'm playing watered down fantasy* in all of 6th ed, but it's especially notable with Daemons. Units need icons and instruments. I'm surprised they didn't come up with some way of giving a bonus for ranked daemons...



* - Watered down Fantasy. Okay, I'm not a big Fantasy player, so I might be missing some subtleties, but it seems to me like they wanted fantasy-style magic and combat phases, but left out some of the rules that make these things work in Fantasy.

Magic/Psykers - In Fantasy, you get cast dice and dispel dice. There's some interplay between the players. The active player has to decide whether they want to really force through the spell they want, or bait out some dispel dice with less-important spells first (at the risk of not getting the important one at all). Every army gets a minimum number of dispel dice, even if they have no wizard (at least, it was that way the last time I played), and so even if you choose to eschew magic, you can stop some stuff. Plus, there's only one army that doesn't use magic, and they have both increased resistance to magic, and items that make up for some of it.

In 40k, there's no interplay. Every unit gets a 'Deny the Witch' roll. There's no dynamic at work between the players, it either goes off or not. Several armies have no psykers at all. There are no varied casting costs (a nice balancing effect for more-powerful spells), instead, a couple of powers, seemingly selected at random, cost two charge points. As such, Witchfire powers are ridiculously underpowered - using basic a little math, there are only a couple of witchfire powers that are as useful as taking a weapon upgrade of the same point-cost as a mastery level (typically 25). I can count on one hand the number of powers I'd rather have than either a lascannon or assault cannon. As such, you're basically hoping to roll anything except witchfire. Think of all the good powers (Iron Arm, Endurance, Prescience, Precognition, Invisibility) - they're all ones that can't be denied. The 'good' disciplines are those that have fewer crappy witchfire powers, and the ones people rarely take (telekinesis, pyromancy) are loaded full of witchfire. Pretty obvious this isn't a great system.

As for combat, basing the entire win/loss of combat on casualties is just asking for herohammer. One of the nice balancing factors about Fantasy is that a 200 point lord can't just run through a unit. He's got to roll really well just to match up the combat res bonuses that the unit gets from its ranks and outnumbering. In 40k, there are no modifiers. Your one guy can run up to a unit, kill one man, make his saves, and even if outnumbered 40-1, sweeping advance all 40 off the table! What's more, the other balancing factor against such tactics, the 'hidden' weapon was removed, so challenge out the one guy who can hurt you, and go to town. You can't do that in Fantasy. You challenge out one guy, and then you lose combat to ranks, being outnumbered, and so on. It's just poorly designed in 6th ed.

 Redbeard wrote:

 Tomb King wrote:

As for combat, basing the entire win/loss of combat on casualties is just asking for herohammer. One of the nice balancing factors about Fantasy is that a 200 point lord can't just run through a unit.

Unfortunately this is not true, doombulls, tooled up vampire lords and unbreakable near unkillable demon princes can really destroy a lot of infantry units.

Another big difference between fantasy and 40k demons is that fantasy demons are a halfway decent book with some competitive builds whereas 40k demons are near complete GAK.

JWhex wrote:
Another big difference between fantasy and 40k demons is that fantasy demons are a halfway decent book with some competitive builds whereas 40k demons are near complete GAK.

I think daemons can work well with CSM. I play tested a few builds out over the past few weeks with CD/CSM and CSM/CD. I've found a few combos that work fairly well, actually.
If your going to be at adepticon Ill be happy to show you how they work.

I feel like we lack a lot of ways to deal with Termies, and AV13+, even fliers we really have problems with...

I don't honestly think we can even kill any fliers reliably by ourselves...

Unless we spam the MCs then we have a very good way of dealing with all those AV13+ things, but they're pretty pricey and we will lose out on other units.

Also, force weapons are going to murder us, aka Grey Knights, I don't know how people are winning against them, but with their rerollable against us and the force weapons that they have...
I see a very dim future against them...

I think couple of units really shine right now for me.
Bloodthirster, get a semi good roll and you're are golden, the unbreakable hide thing is kinda random though...
Lord of Change <- pretty decent overall I guess for the psykers and stuff
GUO <- depends on how you use him.
Plaguedrones <- just amazing, though no AP2 w/ Poison/ID which might be a problem...
Fleshhounds are really good in big blobs w/ Karanak, on Charge gets 86 attacks due to rage.
Soul Grinders pretty solid for the points.
Pink Horrors are actually pretty good when spawned out of a portalglyph and probably should be the only thing that should ever be spawned. Obviously depends on where it scatters too.
Heralds are good as well but can get expensive if you go insane for them.

I honestly think the best way to deal with grey knights is to deny them the use of their force weapons altogether, which means running mostly hordes of stuff (daemonettes and letters). Maybe take a single MC for psychic buffs like a GUO with biomancy. I think you'll be wasting points on units with multiple wounds if you plan to go up against GKs so in this case seekers are probably better than the flesh hounds. That said, you'll be able to just swarm their smaller units too. As far as 13+ vehicles are concerned I think your best bet is to use the screamers.

Wondering what your thoughts are for vs Nids? Specifically Multi Flyrant + Tervigon spam lists. Soul Grinders can get skyfire yes, but vs Flyrant is not that impressive. if you take 3 you can possibly cause 3 grounding checks per turn. with a 3+ save to not fall out of the sky, 3 hits is pretty lackluster. other options are DP with some form of ranged weps, GD with some sort of range. Heralds with some ranged gift. or psykic shooting.
First- Personally I like Slaanesh DP with lash of despair but the 12" range means I am inside his shadow of the warp thus making my subsequent turn psykic tests a 50/50 fail chance. Also a vector strike if you manage to fly over him.

Second- GD Bloodthirster shines here as he (like the Slaanesh DP) can take a pretty nasty shooting attack and is also flying. Does not care about shadow of the warp. and can vector strike.

Third. Heralds with gifts. not entirely sure how effective this one is because lists I have seen usually go with 1 lesser for the Eatherblade swap out. Heralds with psykic shooting powers also suffer even more from shadow in the warp with their lower LD.

Lastly we have our "shootie" troops Pink Horrors. Most armies do not worry too much about FMC because they can ground it threw weight of fire. Pink horrors are going to be denied their shooting most of the time. and if they DO get to shoot chances are your going to give that flyrant FNP. Bravo...

Personally I run Dual god Slaanesh/ Nurgle builds. These observations came out of a game I played last saturday with my friend using one of my Slaanesh/Nurgle lists while I played for the first time a Nids army that another one of my friends has. I had never played vs nids using the new daemons. my other 2 armies, orks and necrons, do not use psykers.
I (playing a 2 x dual TL dev flyrant build) ended up tableing my CD list by turn 3 with the flyrants killing nearly 2/3 of the army by themselves.

To be honest the player using my daemons did not use them well. But most of my observations were from the perspective of "what would I do" and sadly I did not see many options.

Well, from a Nid perspective, I think we match-up well against Daemons. You have no way to stop our psychic powers. Assuming no Iron Arms, the Daemon Princes will get instagibbed by the Tyranid MCs, which is rough. Bubble-wrapping Termagants is also an issue as it makes it quite tough to actually charge the big monsters. I think Nids/GK are probably the two worst match-ups for Daemons right now.

LValx wrote:
Well, from a Nid perspective, I think we match-up well against Daemons. You have no way to stop our psychic powers. Assuming no Iron Arms, the Daemon Princes will get instagibbed by the Tyranid MCs, which is rough. Bubble-wrapping Termagants is also an issue as it makes it quite tough to actually charge the big monsters. I think Nids/GK are probably the two worst match-ups for Daemons right now.

I've only played 'Nids twice since the new Codex, and both times it ended very poorly for me. Before the new book, I routinely beat 'Nids, or only lost very narrowly.

Two Flyrants with 12 twin-linked devourer shots each just murder my FMCs. Before I don't have to worry about Shadows in the Warp at all, now it interferes with my casting by cause a 3D6 roll to cast if I'm too close, and they get a 4+ or 5+ (depending on master levels) to just outright ignore via Deny the Witch.

Agreed that was another point I forgot to make. Shooting at Flyrants with horrors is even worse than 50/50 because they have a DTW save that can negate the hit BEFORE it takes the hit. at least a gun can knock it out of the sky even if it makes its armor save.

Yeah, I dont really see many options for daemon players. Hope to win the mission.

To caveat my point about 40k becoming fantasy.. Besides all the big monsters for every army which started in fantasy. Tau are not the empire of fantasy with supporting fire. LMAO

 Makutsu wrote:
I feel like we lack a lot of ways to deal with Termies

I do not agree with this. Daemons IMO have really good access to AP2 weapons, for only 10 points and their mastercrafted!!! I have gone through most armor saves easily when i get my matchups correctly, which with our speed isnt too bad.

Heres aquestion. I lobe my Drones to death, and run 3 at 156 ish (most of the time) which is a perfect cost for what they do IMO. However, do you think the poiosn or ID is better with them. Ive used both well. Ive instadeathed Tervigons and the like, but ID doesnt always help. Howver the 2+ poison banner is the only way to get both. So how do you guys run yours?

I'm running rot proboscis, but that's with a unit of 7. I figure that many 3+ poison attacks will mess up multi-wound critters enough and would rather have the reliable wounding on normal models the whole time.

 TheComedian wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
I feel like we lack a lot of ways to deal with Termies

I do not agree with this. Daemons IMO have really good access to AP2 weapons, for only 10 points and their mastercrafted!!! I have gone through most armor saves easily when i get my matchups correctly, which with our speed isnt too bad.

Heres aquestion. I lobe my Drones to death, and run 3 at 156 ish (most of the time) which is a perfect cost for what they do IMO. However, do you think the poiosn or ID is better with them. Ive used both well. Ive instadeathed Tervigons and the like, but ID doesnt always help. Howver the 2+ poison banner is the only way to get both. So how do you guys run yours?

We get 1 AP2 sword per squad, and a challenge can deny that blade from killing the rest of the termies.
Chances are the rest of the squad is going to lose combat and then fail Daemonic Instability and wipes the squad out.

 Makutsu wrote:

 TheComedian wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
I feel like we lack a lot of ways to deal with Termies

I do not agree with this. Daemons IMO have really good access to AP2 weapons, for only 10 points and their mastercrafted!!! I have gone through most armor saves easily when i get my matchups correctly, which with our speed isnt too bad.

Heres aquestion. I lobe my Drones to death, and run 3 at 156 ish (most of the time) which is a perfect cost for what they do IMO. However, do you think the poiosn or ID is better with them. Ive used both well. Ive instadeathed Tervigons and the like, but ID doesnt always help. Howver the 2+ poison banner is the only way to get both. So how do you guys run yours?

We get 1 AP2 sword per squad, and a challenge can deny that blade from killing the rest of the termies.
Chances are the rest of the squad is going to lose combat and then fail Daemonic Instability and wipes the squad out.

I think that's why you would want to take both the herald and the naked squad character upgrade. You throw the squad's character at the challenge and then let the herald go to town with their AP2 blade on the unit.