I remember some time ago hearing complaints about daemons and yet they seemed to do really well against my skaven. Of course the main ridiculous thing I faced was by far the beasts of nurgle. D6+1 strength 5 attacks per guys and I think they're poisoned. Supposedly they cost 50 something points per model are toughness 5, 4 wounds, have at least a 5+ ward save and armor I think. They hurt to face. The player I faced said that tournaments restricted their use down to 4 models per unit and only 8 total because they are that powerful. I dunno the daemons I faced didn't seem to be that wanting. I mean they would get some power before the magic phase that allowed them to target and kill some of my stuff and I couldn't stop it. I really don't get the complaints from the daemon players yet. Their army seemed more than capable.

Nurgle daemons are pretty nails in the new book... everything else not so much. The daemons book suffers from having horrible internal balance issues where some units are stupid good (beasts) and others are on par or leading the pack with the worst units in the game (flamers). But mono-Nurgle is more than capable and the fairly standard daemon list you'll face is Nurgle goodness + 2 Skullcannons, and this list does very well.

A problem with DoC at the competitive level is that they are very random. You have very limited ability to choose magic items for your heroes/lords, for instance. Not only that but if you roll bad on winds of magic, even if you have no wizards at all, you can not only damage yourself but completely lower your ability to fight and survive.

One reason people think O&G aren't super competitive is because animosity makes your army somewhat random. DoC basically have super duper animosity. Not that they are turning on themselves and fighting, but that gods are smashing their own troops, blinking whole units out of existence, and gods of the same type refuse to give their own soldiers boons/mutations/powers that the owner actually wants--though they are more than happy to give it to humans.

Remember when Flamers ruled the roost and Beasts of Nurgle sucked? Good times...

Well, GW gave Nurgle the boost everywhere they could, meanwhile smacking Khorne in the face. Now, the only Khorne unit you see regularly is the darned cannon... because it's crazy good, along with the beasts.

Nurgle is good, whether it be in the WoC or DoC book, that's why most people are upset. If you don't play Nurgle, you should, they're good, while the other gods suffer.

I remember laughing at a friend's DoC army last edition because he ran Mono Nurgle:

2 blocks of 30 PB's with Herald
3x3 Nurglings
2-3 Beasts
Great Unclean One

and some other things filtered in for utility... The same list nail is pretty hardcore.

Books come and go and what you are left with is people complaining about how good their old book was/ how ridiculously over the top the new one is... Sun rise, Sun set.

Matt1785 wrote:Well, GW gave Nurgle the boost everywhere they could, meanwhile smacking Khorne in the face

This is just as true in 40k as it is apparently in fantasy.

... wait, unless that was your point.

The new book is a dysfunctional mess of lazy & horribly implemented rules.
You can really tell that the author didn't give a damn about what he was doing, and more or less trying to simply 'people please' which is an awful way to try and design something.

The Gift tables & Reign of Comedy tables are god-awful things.
The Gift tables are a complete joke when you compare them their 40k counterparts... There's no organisation at all, (making it impossible to gain decent protection for your very sub-standard Heroes in general), and too much duplication between Rewards & magic weapon options. (ie: 6 on Lesser Gift table = ASF, but you can also default to the ASF sword anyways?!)
Most of the time, RoC screws over the Daemon player more so than their opponent, and with it's ability to outright win you the game on a fluky roll, it really feels like cheating when it happens. Meanwhile, it drives most opponents up the wall because it adds so much additional rolling to the Magic Phase, and The Dark Prince Thirsts result, (roll of 8), is easily capable of wrecking any non-infantry block it hits & is especially harsh on the Daemon player's own Khornate units. (Ld test on 3D6, take a wound w/no armour save for every point you fail by...)

Unit wise, Core is a mess due to general overcosting and/or poorly thought-out designs... Plaguebearers are probably a point too cheap, but the others are pretty much shoehorned into specific unit sizes. Bloodletters are about the worst Core in the game by far, adding nothing that Daemonettes can't achive, while comparing the new Warlocks to Horrors makes Tzeentch simply cry.
Likewise across the rest of the book, the Specials & Rares tend to be either 'really good' or else just plain bad for their pts... Bloodcrushers for example are the worst Monstrous Cav in the game - anything they can do, Nurgle Drones do better, while Flesh Hounds/Seekers/Fiends & even Daemonettes w/+1M Banner are simply much more economical means of flanking.
Flamers are complete garbage, likely the outright worst unit in the entire game.
The Slaany Chariots were crap in the WD update and the book changed nothing about them.

The God of freaking magic now being limited to only 2 lores is a huge smack in the face, compounded by the fact that Metal synergises horribly with Lore of Tzeentch. (which is a pretty 'meh' lore for Daemons as well). On the other hand, both Nurgle & Slaanesh made out like freaking bandits with their lores, which at least saves the magic phase for those armies...
Tzeentch unfortunately simply can't compete in the one phase he should dominate.


Basically, Daemons players now play either 'The List' (25-30 Regen'ing Plaguebears w/Herald BSB, 2x 10 Horrors, 2x solo Beasts, 4-6 Beasts, 5x Furies, 2x Khannons + filler to taste), OR you run a Caco-bomb which is equally stupid, OR you run an Epidemius list of 'uber doom that will leave everyone you face even further cemented in their opinion that DoC players are all filthy, WAAC's donkeycaves.

But trying to run say a Khorne or Tzeentch themed list is about as effective as running a VC army that's just a Master Necro and 100% Zombies. Slaanesh is better off, able to do a good MSU build, but it's a super glass cannon... Even just general MSU Daemons while doable is still just a hugely inferior version of any Elven or WoC versions.
Then add-in the complete junk-shot that High Elves give Daemons...

Tomb Kings might have a book full of over-costed stuff, but at least there's some good synergies buried in there that a good player can exploit.
Daemons on the other hand got the complete shaft and are now pretty much pigeonholed into set lists to compete. (and using said lists only helps to further poke the wider community's Daemon hate in the knee.)

 DukeRustfield wrote:
A problem with DoC at the competitive level is that they are very random. You have very limited ability to choose magic items for your heroes/lords, for instance. Not only that but if you roll bad on winds of magic, even if you have no wizards at all, you can not only damage yourself but completely lower your ability to fight and survive.

One reason people think O&G aren't super competitive is because animosity makes your army somewhat random. DoC basically have super duper animosity. Not that they are turning on themselves and fighting, but that gods are smashing their own troops, blinking whole units out of existence, and gods of the same type refuse to give their own soldiers boons/mutations/powers that the owner actually wants--though they are more than happy to give it to humans.

This is pretty much it. The randomness makes it hard for them to keep it together in a 3 game or 5 game tournament.
Because the feel of how the army plays, people are going to bitch a lot.

-Matt

The tournament scene around here often does a sliding win/loss scale rather than just Win, lose, or draw with bonuses. Daemons seem to really struggle in that environment because they simply don't kill much or win by large margins in the current metagame. Just played an 80-man tournament and the highest-placing daemon player was 14th in battle points with a bunch of not-very-big wins.

Experiment, I think Daemons are still better than Tomb Kings, the antique books (Brets, Woodies) and maybe beasts, but I agree they dropped way down in competitiveness.

Daemons have some good stuff. They just also happen to have some unbelievably bad stuff.

My biggest issue is the special rules tacked on to rolling double 1's/6's for Instability. Talk about disproportionate.
After that, I'd look at their magic phase, then Gifts.

Yeah, I dislike those too. A lot because some of the biggest ways to customize your army is through magic/gifts. And now you don't really get to choose them. That's a huge punch the groin.

And instability is inherently unfair. At the best you can heal all that have DIED at the worst you can kill EVERYONE. That equation is not equal. If you lose 25% and have to take an instability the most you can heal is 25% and the most you can lose is 75%. That's going to almost always be the case.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Yeah, I dislike those too. A lot because some of the biggest ways to customize your army is through magic/gifts. And now you don't really get to choose them. That's a huge punch the groin.

And instability is inherently unfair. At the best you can heal all that have DIED at the worst you can kill EVERYONE. That equation is not equal. If you lose 25% and have to take an instability the most you can heal is 25% and the most you can lose is 75%. That's going to almost always be the case.

Daemons had that stability issue for a very long time. It was only the previous book that removed it.
The army wide +/- 1 to the ward save seems to be the biggest issue to me.

-Matt

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Yeah, I dislike those too. A lot because some of the biggest ways to customize your army is through magic/gifts. And now you don't really get to choose them. That's a huge punch the groin.

And instability is inherently unfair. At the best you can heal all that have DIED at the worst you can kill EVERYONE. That equation is not equal. If you lose 25% and have to take an instability the most you can heal is 25% and the most you can lose is 75%. That's going to almost always be the case.

Daemons had that stability issue for a very long time. It was only the previous book that removed it.
The army wide +/- 1 to the ward save seems to be the biggest issue to me.

-Matt

The -1 ward save is the single worst result imho and it seems to crop up more often than getting the +1 save. Having any type of character who can effectively lose half their ward save on the spot is a massive disadvantage, especially when we're forced to pay through the nose for our Lord options.
The +1 save conversely works out to Daemons effectively being akin to an army-wide 1+ save vs. S6 attacks and bulks our characters up to the same level as most everyone else.
Again, the reward is nowhere near the level of the drawback.


@Duke: Instability now is still miles better than the old 6th ed version. Right now you only auto-lose the entire unit on boxcars. Back in the Hordes of Chaos days, you lost the entire unit if you simply rolled over their unmodified Ld! (ie: if say a unit of 'Letters lost a round of combat, they'd all insta-pop if you rolled a 9+ on their instability test )
So really, while the positive is definitely still outweighed by the negative, it could have always been a helluva lot worse!

Overall the Gifts issue isn't so much that we can't pick specific items, but rather that we have no control of any kind over those Gifts.
Between the disorganisation and the senseless repetition of some Gifts simply being copies of BRB magic weapons, we get double screwed. We can't get reliable protection, and 4 of the 17 results are identicle to BRB magic weapons.
Add to the above that the Sorcerous Lodestone, Souleater & Skill Swallower are 'meh' or really situational overall, while Unholy Sacrifice is 100% useless. (sure, let's kill our 500+ pts character just to get D3+1 Power Dice - seriously, WTF?!!)
If the Gifts weren't so repetitive and/or far less of a situational bonus, they'd be better. Plus slapping all the protective gifts together into the same bracket would at least give us the ability to reliably protect our characters on the same level that everyone else gets!

The -1 ward save is the single worst result imho and it seems to crop up more often than getting the +1 save. Having any type of character who can effectively lose half their ward save on the spot is a massive disadvantage, especially when we're forced to pay through the nose for our Lord options.
The +1 save conversely works out to Daemons effectively being akin to an army-wide 1+ save vs. S6 attacks and bulks our characters up to the same level as most everyone else.
Again, the reward is nowhere near the level of the drawback.

Even though it's -50% and +33% in one case or the other, the result is exactly the same in absolute numbers

You roll 30 saves:
6+ = 5 passed
5+ = 10 passed
4+ = 15 passed
So it's balanced even though it might seem not to be so

TanKoL wrote:

The -1 ward save is the single worst result imho and it seems to crop up more often than getting the +1 save. Having any type of character who can effectively lose half their ward save on the spot is a massive disadvantage, especially when we're forced to pay through the nose for our Lord options.
The +1 save conversely works out to Daemons effectively being akin to an army-wide 1+ save vs. S6 attacks and bulks our characters up to the same level as most everyone else.
Again, the reward is nowhere near the level of the drawback.

Even though it's -50% and +33% in one case or the other, the result is exactly the same in absolute numbers

You roll 30 saves:
6+ = 5 passed
5+ = 10 passed
4+ = 15 passed
So it's balanced even though it might seem not to be so

Except that our Wards are our only real form of protection, including on those 500+ pts large target Greaters. We have almost no armour saves across our entire army, and the few we do have top out at an average 4+ save.
Couple automatically taking double casualties with Daemonic Instability and you can easily end up with combats you should have won turning into a round where a sizable chunk of your unit instead explodes, or your General and only source of a Lv4 wizard is easily blown to bits.

... And other combats where it should have been a loss or a draw turning into a win
the statistics are exactly the same either way, so it doesn't matter
One game you'll rage because you rolled that 5 on a 6++
The next one your opponent will because you rolled a 4 on that 4++

The book is poorly written and internal balance is awful, but it's a very, very strong army

TanKoL wrote:
... And other combats where it should have been a loss or a draw turning into a win
the statistics are exactly the same either way, so it doesn't matter
One game you'll rage because you rolled that 5 on a 6++
The next one your opponent will because you rolled a 4 on that 4++

The book is poorly written and internal balance is awful, but it's a very, very strong army

Having 1 power list and the game's single best spell hardly makes Daemons overall "a very, very strong army". Rather, it's the most pigeonholed army in the game atm because it only really becomes highly competitive IF you run 'The One List' or run a Caco-bomb.

And it honestly is a huge deal between nerfing your save vs. improving it...
Getting a turn of 4++ means our highly overcosted characters for example simply have the same level of ward save that everyone ultimately gives to their critical characters. Dropping to a 6++ on the other hand means our highly overcosted characters are dead with no way to really counter it. (because rolling a 4 for Winds also means you likely don't have the dice to try and force through a helpful Augment or Hex to weather your opponent's counter)

And honestly, if opponents get pissed/rage over a DoC player getting a single turn of having the same level of Ward save that PG for example have, they need to grow-up.

Exp hit on one of the biggest problems with the RoC table.

If you roll low for Winds, then not only do you not have many magic dice, you also have your army whomped. If you roll high on Winds, not only do you have lots of dice, you also whomp your opponent.

The Winds table exacerbates the already existing situation.

To sum it all up:

Daemons, on a competitive level, are forced into only a few (I'd say max three) specific builds, which is no fun for anyone involved. Well, less fun.

And even then, there's a huge element of randomness that can swing a game completely. WHFB, by virtue of its usage of dice, is random but at least in the normal game you, as a General, try to swing those odds in your favour. That's completely impossible for the Reign of Chaos table.

I hate alot of things about the new Daemons book but the worst offender so far for me is the instability roll. Usually will have a BSB to reroll double 6's result so that might as well not even be on the chart, the double 1's will have 2 chances for if the player wants/needs it. The other problem is that if you do miraculously win a combat by huge numbers, there is a maximum to how many models they can lose. Compare that to any other race between needing double 1's to not flee or undead crubling, it just aint fair. If they play a large enough unit, you will need to be curbstomping that unit for most of the game for it to disappear so you have to just avoid the unit if you aren't going to be doing that.

Saldiven wrote:
Exp hit on one of the biggest problems with the RoC table.

If you roll low for Winds, then not only do you not have many magic dice, you also have your army whomped. If you roll high on Winds, not only do you have lots of dice, you also whomp your opponent.

The Winds table exacerbates the already existing situation.

Just move the Reign of Comedy table effects to the shooting phase and you at least:
1. Eliminate the super-duper sodomising of one player over the other. (the bottom results are especially extra harsh on the Daemon player when compared to the higher rolls, which only has 1 real junk-shot towards to the Daemon player's opponent)

2. It speeds the game up since the Daemonic Shooting Phase is non-existent to begin with, and doesn't muck-up/distract from the actual Magic Phase with a bunch of added dice rolling for the most common results.
It also means that Daemons can at least compete fairly in the Magic Phase, which is easily the second most important/critical phase of the game.

polybus wrote:
I hate alot of things about the new Daemons book but the worst offender so far for me is the instability roll. Usually will have a BSB to reroll double 6's result so that might as well not even be on the chart, the double 1's will have 2 chances for if the player wants/needs it. The other problem is that if you do miraculously win a combat by huge numbers, there is a maximum to how many models they can lose. Compare that to any other race between needing double 1's to not flee or undead crubling, it just aint fair. If they play a large enough unit, you will need to be curbstomping that unit for most of the game for it to disappear so you have to just avoid the unit if you aren't going to be doing that.

1. The BSB re-rolls only apply to other units with the same alignment as the BSB itself

2. The boxcars result is much more destructive to the DoC player than a regular army as it's entirely absolute - you lose your entire unit on the spot. Everyone else at least gets the chance to roll a flee movement and can (hopefully) get away and gain a chance to re-group.
The double 1's is also entirely situational. For it to really be amazing, you need to lose a crap tonne of your own guys. If you've honestly lost by so much that re-gaining those casualties is a huge deal, odds are your unit just finished melting away anyways.

Large Daemonic units only really exist in two varients - 25-30 Plaguebearers w/BSB, OR, 40+ Bloodletters w/Herald. Other than that, Daemons at most will offer medium to MSU style units.
While Plaguebearers are solid, especially with Regen, they don't put out much damage. Bloodletters are just crap - if you can't deal with a horde that costs a whopping 590pts, (and that's before you add in the Herald!), yet is only T3/5++ then you have bigger issues.

Honestly Daemonic Instability is a horrible rule.
Even if you lose by one for combat res you could lose your entire unit with a slightly bad roll.

Especially on the monsters, with the low amount of attacks they have already, fighting against anything with ranks + banners is almost guaranteed for you to lose the entire model even without taking any wounds at all.
3 for Ranks + 1 Banner means you fight at a huge disadvantage from the beginning.

I'm not really sure that all of this makes sense.
I don't play tournaments so I ask..
Aren't most tournament lists generally the same for all the armies anyway?
Don't tournament lists typically follow a particular 'Meta' for each army?
Yes you can't buy a better ward for your characters..but your big hitters, i.e greater daemons are all toughness 6 with better than average number of wounds.
Your entire army, minus a few exceptions, has a 5+ ward all the time.
Instability..daemon players are upset because a bad roll will wipe out a unit yet look at it this way..you lose by 2, you roll 8 with your daemonettes and lose 3 more. Same situation for most others they run away and have the odds of getting cut down. This happens EVERY time they run. On 12 you get wiped out, other units still run
It sucks when you lose but it just feels a little worse as a daemon

 Makutsu wrote:
Honestly Daemonic Instability is a horrible rule.
Even if you lose by one for combat res you could lose your entire unit with a slightly bad roll.

Especially on the monsters, with the low amount of attacks they have already, fighting against anything with ranks + banners is almost guaranteed for you to lose the entire model even without taking any wounds at all.
3 for Ranks + 1 Banner means you fight at a huge disadvantage from the beginning.

This is true for most units in the game.
My 294 block of saurus warriors took a flank charge by 5 dark riders. I lost combat by 1, failed my cold blooded steadfast leadership 8 and got run down by the 3 surviving elves.
The dark elf only charged into my flank to force me to pursue him off into nowhere (predatory fighter must pursue). Instead he killed them all.

I don't see why daemons should be immune to the risk of getting wiped out.
The only armies that are immune to that are Vampire and Tomb Kings, and both armies have a mechanic that makes the whole army crumble away on their own (killing the general/heirphant respectively). Also, most undead units (both flavors) are very, very squishy compared to even daemons.

For you to fail coldblood steadfast 8 you needed to be away from your general first off all, second, it was incredibly unlikely to roll, third, you had a chance to get away.

For Doc it's a natural roll where IP/BSB only work if it's the same god in range or not. If you get that 12, it's poof, gone.

And you're comparing 3-6pt skeletons to 13pt daemons.

We can start piling up all the different racial weaknesses but DoC is still going to come out WAY ahead on poopy rules.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
Honestly Daemonic Instability is a horrible rule.
Even if you lose by one for combat res you could lose your entire unit with a slightly bad roll.

Especially on the monsters, with the low amount of attacks they have already, fighting against anything with ranks + banners is almost guaranteed for you to lose the entire model even without taking any wounds at all.
3 for Ranks + 1 Banner means you fight at a huge disadvantage from the beginning.

This is true for most units in the game.
My 294 block of saurus warriors took a flank charge by 5 dark riders. I lost combat by 1, failed my cold blooded steadfast leadership 8 and got run down by the 3 surviving elves.
The dark elf only charged into my flank to force me to pursue him off into nowhere (predatory fighter must pursue). Instead he killed them all.

I don't see why daemons should be immune to the risk of getting wiped out.
The only armies that are immune to that are Vampire and Tomb Kings, and both armies have a mechanic that makes the whole army crumble away on their own (killing the general/heirphant respectively). Also, most undead units (both flavors) are very, very squishy compared to even daemons.

I'd rather my whole army take the chance of being run down rather than taking 4-5 wounds on my WL4 Lord...
Units with that swiftrider? rule at least will out run most of the time which is actually pretty popular in the book like Beasts and Fiends.

 Peasant wrote:
I'm not really sure that all of this makes sense.
I don't play tournaments so I ask..
Aren't most tournament lists generally the same for all the armies anyway?
Don't tournament lists typically follow a particular 'Meta' for each army?
Yes you can't buy a better ward for your characters..but your big hitters, i.e greater daemons are all toughness 6 with better than average number of wounds.
Your entire army, minus a few exceptions, has a 5+ ward all the time.
Instability..daemon players are upset because a bad roll will wipe out a unit yet look at it this way..you lose by 2, you roll 8 with your daemonettes and lose 3 more. Same situation for most others they run away and have the odds of getting cut down. This happens EVERY time they run. On 12 you get wiped out, other units still run
It sucks when you lose but it just feels a little worse as a daemon

1. Depends on the army. Some armies are shoe-horned into kind of specific builds, but that's not the case for most of the 8th edition books.
2. It's not just that other armies can buy a better ward. Those other armies can buy a wide variety of other better protections. Other armies can get protection for their Lords not only from purchasing magic items, but they can also put them in a unit for a Look Out Sir! roll. All DoC Lords are Monsters that cannot joint units, so are easy targets for war machines. Add to the fact that they cannot purchase something like a Charmed Shield or an improved ward save, DoC Lords are all pretty much cannon bait that costs 500+ points. They cannot reliably get any armor save better than the 5+ on a Bloodthirster, and can only get a better ward save than 5+ if they roll a 10 on the Winds of Magic table (and that only lasts for the next turn).
3. The army does have a 5+ ward save for the majority of the time, but the army pays for it. Much of the army is generally overcosted, with the notable exceptions of Skull Cannons and Beasts of Nurgle. The ward save is certainly nice, but the best armor save for a regular unit in the book is the 4+ on Bloodcrushers; models that cost about the same as Skullcrushers, but are significantly less good.
4. Personally, I'm not fashed about Daemonic Instability. I find the double-6 and/or double-1 mechanic to be wonky, and it should just be done away with. It should simply be apply the combat resolution as an addition to the Ld test die roll and remove wounds from unit based on how much over the Ld value it is. Much simpler.

Bigger issues are as follows:

1. Playing mixed god for DoC is penalized while it is not penalized for WoC.
2. There is no access to a Dispel Scroll for the entire army.
3. (As mentioned above) Most units are priced very poorly.
3a: Heroes are priced ridiculously high for their abilities and relative vulnerability (175 min for a HoK w/Hatred on a T4 2W model who's only protection is a 5+ ward)
4. Access to magic Lores is very restricted, and most of the spells in the DoC book Lores are unimpressive.
5. Many of the rolls on the Lesser and Greater Gifts table merely duplicate magic items, and several others are completely not worth taking.

There are more, but I'm at work, and I got to get going

Saldiven wrote:


1. Depends on the army. Some armies are shoe-horned into kind of specific builds, but that's not the case for most of the 8th edition books.
2. It's not just that other armies can buy a better ward. Those other armies can buy a wide variety of other better protections. Other armies can get protection for their Lords not only from purchasing magic items, but they can also put them in a unit for a Look Out Sir! roll. All DoC Lords are Monsters that cannot joint units, so are easy targets for war machines. Add to the fact that they cannot purchase something like a Charmed Shield or an improved ward save, DoC Lords are all pretty much cannon bait that costs 500+ points. They cannot reliably get any armor save better than the 5+ on a Bloodthirster, and can only get a better ward save than 5+ if they roll a 10 on the Winds of Magic table (and that only lasts for the next turn).
3. The army does have a 5+ ward save for the majority of the time, but the army pays for it. Much of the army is generally overcosted, with the notable exceptions of Skull Cannons and Beasts of Nurgle. The ward save is certainly nice, but the best armor save for a regular unit in the book is the 4+ on Bloodcrushers; models that cost about the same as Skullcrushers, but are significantly less good.
4. Personally, I'm not fashed about Daemonic Instability. I find the double-6 and/or double-1 mechanic to be wonky, and it should just be done away with. It should simply be apply the combat resolution as an addition to the Ld test die roll and remove wounds from unit based on how much over the Ld value it is. Much simpler.

Bigger issues are as follows:

1. Playing mixed god for DoC is penalized while it is not penalized for WoC.
2. There is no access to a Dispel Scroll for the entire army.
3. (As mentioned above) Most units are priced very poorly.
3a: Heroes are priced ridiculously high for their abilities and relative vulnerability (175 min for a HoK w/Hatred on a T4 2W model who's only protection is a 5+ ward)
4. Access to magic Lores is very restricted, and most of the spells in the DoC book Lores are unimpressive.
5. Many of the rolls on the Lesser and Greater Gifts table merely duplicate magic items, and several others are completely not worth taking.

There are more, but I'm at work, and I got to get going

Thanks for the response.
1. Don't tournament armies still run pretty much the same though, even though they have plenty of options though?
2. They do get other protections but it's there to counter a significantly lower toughness. Take any hero and to make their stat line close to a greater daemon will cost the same, well it would if you could take enough gear to do it. Every army has it's niche and I disagree that they are hard done by the way they are set. It's like comparing an empire halberdier to a hydra. Not being able to hide your monster of a character just means that you have to think about how to use him rather than just move him down the board.
3. 5+ ward works out better than a 4+ armour save majority of the time. And everything costs. finicking over 1 point is quite minor and I would guess the only reason we notice is using a math program to run said numbers. I know I never would notice the difference between adding 3 models to a block of 36.
4. If you are rolling that many 2' and 12's to make a noticeable difference to your army then that's just bad luck.
But this is just the way I see it.
As for the 'big' issues and my opinion.
1. One is DoC the other is warriors. It's like saying I don't have witch elves in my empire army.
2. Dispel scroll is an unfortunate oversight.
3. Prices are not terrible, a point is not a huge deal IMO
4.Agreed on lores, especially since tzeentch spells are garbage.
5

@Peasant: Tournament performance of DoC armies since the advent of the new book disagrees with pretty much everything you just wrote.

1. No, they don't. Some people net list, some people don't. Some armies have auto-include units, but the rest of the army has a lot more variety. That isn't the case in a competitive DoC list.

2. Firstly, a DoC lord will cost 2-4 times what most other Lords will cost. That DoC Lord, if a caster, will not be as effective a caster because of lack of access to magical items that make their casting better. You can't just hide your GD behind terrain the whole game in order to prevent it from being sniped by a cannon or something. Eventually, it has to come out and contribute to the battle. You really misplay how important not having access to Look Out Sir! is. In most other armies, the opponent won't even bother targetting the General with a Warmachine, but for the DoC, the General is target number one for every Warmachine until he's dead. Yes, the GD stat line in justifies the cost, but DoC do not have an option to take a Lord level character that isn't a Monster with all the vulnerabilities that includes. In fact, it's becoming more and more common that tournament DoC lists (at least Nurgle lists) don't even take a GD because it's a huge points sink (20%+ of the total points) that is depressingly easy to kill.

3. Actually, I disagree with your assertion. The VAST majority of attacks in WHFB are S3 or S4. That means that a 4+ save is as good or better than a 5+ ward against the majority of attacks any unit will see. Additionally, nothing in the army has access to a Parry save to complement an armor save. A 6+ armor and a 6+ parry is only 1/36 worse than a 5+ ward, and that combination of armor/parry is incredibly common in other armies, even against S4 attacks (as in a base 5+/parry combination). The biggest issue with this is for Heralds. The Heralds are all very expensive, with naked Heralds starting at 90 points, I believe. They're incredibly vulnerable, with only the Herald of Nurgle having any decent defense with the negative one to be hit and T5. The rest of them are T3 or T4 models with 2 wounds and no defense beyond the ward save, and they often cost almost as much as the opponent's non-casting Lord.

4. I already stated I don't have a problem with the instability.

Second set:

1. No, it was merely an example of poor rules writing and lack of consistency by the rules writers. It is an unneccesary handicap on the DoC book which limits the ability to effectively play a mixed-god list. I'm sure they made this decision to be "cinematic" and all, but that doesn't change the fact that the rule negatively affects the way that the army plays on the table top. This isn't arguable. Even Goblins get to use an Ork general's Ld if within Inspiring Presence, but not so with DoC.

2. Well, they've had, what 9 months, to correct that "oversight," but the FAQ still only contains the four original questions with no subsequent update.

3. A point is absolutely a huge deal if it's spread out over 80-100 models. And it's not just a point on everything. Bloodletters are probably currently 2 points too much, The rest of the core is probably right on or 1 point too high. Beasts are probably 10-20 to little, and the Skull Cannon should probably be 150-160. Compare that to Bloodcrushers which are still probably at least 10 points too much, and all the Slaanesh chariots that could have 25% taken off their cost and still be too expensive. Honestly, IMO, the only units in the book that are appropriately priced are Flesh Hounds and Seekers.

Ultimately, the biggest issue that I hear from long-time DoC players is that there really wasn't that much stuff that needed to be done to "fix" the previously overpowered army book. Instead, GW took their typically heavy handed approach and swung the DoC book to the opposite end of the WHFB power spectrum. For example, in DoC discussion forums for years leading up to the book, people thought that Bloodletters either needed to have their S reduce to 4 or have their points go up by 1-2. Instead, GW does both, making them universally viewed as overcosted. The second big complaint is the randomness for the sake of randomness through the book; this includes the Reign of Comedy table and the way gifts are "selected."

Anyway, I'm at work again today, and I"ve spent too much time typing as it is. Gotta get to work

@ Saldiven

You raise some good points but you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone who travels to tournaments that Demons are in a bad place when they see 2 or 3 mono-nurgle lists that hide Epidemius in a portal glyph and rain down S5/T6 hell upon you.

My best friend, who has never played warhammer until this year, got the demon book from me for christmas along with some Khorne stuff. He read the book once and traded everything for Nurgle units. (Point being even a novice can see how strong Nurgle is this edition.)

A books strength isn't judged by it's options, but by what can be abused. People don't just say "Without the World Dragon Banner, Skull Cannons, Hell Heart, Rune Maw Banner, etc etc."

If you get into that kindve back and forth every army has its do's and doh's.

"Your Beasts of Nurgle are OP. 4 wounds + slime trail + challenging + poison + T5 + 5 Ward? Compare that to a 50 point Tomb King Ushabti."
"Ya, but my Bloodletters are terrible."
"Okay, compare that to my 12 point skeletal horseman."
"But dude, my flamers are really bad."
"Have you seen my Tomb Scorpions for 85 points that pop up and then get grapeshot?"

You can do that with any army, as they are defined in strength by what is successful, not what fails. Just because plan b is terrible doesn't mean that Plan A doesn't kick in the teeth of almost everything.

"The List" is great and very difficult to defeat. Because of "The List" Daemons are fine. It sucks, but that's kinda how it rolls in most peoples point of view.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
@ Saldiven

You raise some good points but you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone who travels to tournaments that Demons are in a bad place when they see 2 or 3 mono-nurgle lists that hide Epidemius in a portal glyph and rain down S5/T6 hell upon you.

Sure.

I just went through the results lists of about 15 or so large tournaments that hosted 60+ players, and only found a couple where the new DOC book did particularly well, and those were ones that were using ETC comp. Here's a link to a thread on the subject so you can go through and check the results for yourself. Some DOC players seemed to do quite well in smaller tournaments, but that's often a case of "big fish in small pond syndrome."

http://z7.invisionfree.com/wyrmling_x/index.php?showtopic=10483&st=0

Also, the fact that an army book has a single competitive build in it doesn't make the book good. It is inarguable that the DOC book is rife with internal balance issues, labors under external balance issues, has significant numbers of rules issues that still remain unresolved the better part of a year after its release, and is burdened with handicaps for the sake of fluff that don't exist in any other army book.

I seem to remember DoC doing pretty well at the Crossroads GT this past September in the NE of the USA. IIRC most of the top table builds were Nurgle related,

[link]http://www.alamogt.com/indygt/results.php[/link]

Nurgle Demons took 3rd of 80, he plays out of my local shop. (3rd best general, 11th overall I think)

Saldiven wrote:

 Thunderfrog wrote:
@ Saldiven

You raise some good points but you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone who travels to tournaments that Demons are in a bad place when they see 2 or 3 mono-nurgle lists that hide Epidemius in a portal glyph and rain down S5/T6 hell upon you.

Sure.

I just went through the results lists of about 15 or so large tournaments that hosted 60+ players, and only found a couple where the new DOC book did particularly well, and those were ones that were using ETC comp. Here's a link to a thread on the subject so you can go through and check the results for yourself. Some DOC players seemed to do quite well in smaller tournaments, but that's often a case of "big fish in small pond syndrome."

http://z7.invisionfree.com/wyrmling_x/index.php?showtopic=10483&st=0

Also, the fact that an army book has a single competitive build in it doesn't make the book good. It is inarguable that the DOC book is rife with internal balance issues, labors under external balance issues, has significant numbers of rules issues that still remain unresolved the better part of a year after its release, and is burdened with handicaps for the sake of fluff that don't exist in any other army book.

Demons did pretty well at SCGT this year. And they took out Clash of Swords. Both were 60+ people events. Yes, the book has some internal issues, but it is not a bad book. You can take a mono khorne army and do well. It just requires more skill than a mono nurgle list.

If you read the link above, I believe that the average placing of DoC in SCGT was something like 87 out of 194. I believe there were something like 2 in the top 20 out of 10+ entrants. I'm at work now and can't check to make sure; I'm just going from memory of looking through the thread last night.

I run mono-Khorne, and, as you put it, you can do "ok," assuming you're a good player. An average player will do significantly worse than "ok."

@John Rainbow: Crossroads GT that was just last month was the first major tournament that had a solid representation of DoC armies that performed well since the book came out. For every tournament like Crossroads that had 2-3 DoC books in the top 5 tables, you'll find a major tournament where there wasn't a single DoC player in the top 25% of finalists.

I wish khorne did better all around on both sides of chaos. When I play my vc the magic phase goes full derp but when I play my mono khorne woc the magic phase determines the game.

Saldiven wrote:
If you read the link above, I believe that the average placing of DoC in SCGT was something like 87 out of 194. I believe there were something like 2 in the top 20 out of 10+ entrants. I'm at work now and can't check to make sure; I'm just going from memory of looking through the thread last night.

I run mono-Khorne, and, as you put it, you can do "ok," assuming you're a good player. An average player will do significantly worse than "ok."

@John Rainbow: Crossroads GT that was just last month was the first major tournament that had a solid representation of DoC armies that performed well since the book came out. For every tournament like Crossroads that had 2-3 DoC books in the top 5 tables, you'll find a major tournament where there wasn't a single DoC player in the top 25% of finalists.

Even a 'good' player will get badly stuffed playing mono-Khorne, since you get hit by the worst damage result on the RoC table - Dark Prince Thirsts. It's also one of the most common results, just to make things even more frustrating.
ASF elves running Light magic all over the place are also about the worst possible match-up for Khorne.

And Tzeentch is barely playable beyond running a pseudo gunline/magical artillery style army. It can't even compete that well in the one single phase the army should dominate.

Then there's the god-awful Gift tables which for the most part can simply be ignored as wasted pts outside of a set 'default' set-up you might run.
Hell, I can't really recall the last time I even bothered rolling on the Exalted or Greater tables, they're that poor... At least there's a reason to actually roll on the Lesser table since there's a couple decent abilities there that can be useful for the points investment.

This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

If I would add that this is a horribly translated book from the 40k one, trying to match the 2 books is just stupid.

The Warpstorm/Reign of Chaos, Reign of Chaos has almost no way to manipulate outside of Fateweaver's reroll...
Warpstorm at least has a warlord trait that can reroll it, the Reign of Chaos is just do or die... Silly as heck...

And Scaly Skin for 40k? a 6+ armor save on a model with a 5++? doesn't make sense...

Overall, the book just seems like a poorly translated book between the 2 systems...

Experiment 626 wrote:
This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

I think that is the most surprising thing about it. As allowing multiple viable builds has pretty much been a hallmark of the 8th books released.

Depressing reading. I'm painting some of the new plastics at the moment and it had stirred my curiosity to go and find out how the army played these days. I was hoping for something balanced and interesting, but the book sounds absolutely awful due to all the randomness. Will not pay out for those rules.

 Eldarain wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

I think that is the most surprising thing about it. As allowing multiple viable builds has pretty much been a hallmark of the 8th books released.

Agreed. I've only ever seen two builds that work: Nurgle (obviously) and Tzeentch with the Wand of Whimsy on the Lord.

 John Rainbow wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

I think that is the most surprising thing about it. As allowing multiple viable builds has pretty much been a hallmark of the 8th books released.

Agreed. I've only ever seen two builds that work: Nurgle (obviously) and Tzeentch with the Wand of Whimsy on the Lord.

Caco Bomb seems like a good build.

 Makutsu wrote:
If I would add that this is a horribly translated book from the 40k one, trying to match the 2 books is just stupid.

The Warpstorm/Reign of Chaos, Reign of Chaos has almost no way to manipulate outside of Fateweaver's reroll...
Warpstorm at least has a warlord trait that can reroll it, the Reign of Chaos is just do or die... Silly as heck...

And Scaly Skin for 40k? a 6+ armor save on a model with a 5++? doesn't make sense...

Overall, the book just seems like a poorly translated book between the 2 systems...

I wouldn't call it a 'poorly translated version of the 40k book' honestly, rather it's simply a half-arsed & wholly unfinished version of the 40k book...
1. Reign of Chaos would be fine if: a) Instruments worked exactly the same way as they do in 40k, and b) if the whole thing took place in the shooting phase just like in 40k & thus also put a stop to unfairly sodomising the Daemon player more often than not in the Magic Phase.

2. Gifts simply need to be organised, (ie: put all the defensive Gifts into the Greater table), AND be something beyond just lazy-as-feth duplicates of even more BRB weapons.
Plus, give us something actually usable instead of crap like the bull "kill your own 500+ pts Greater for 1-3 more PD!" stupidity.
Oh, and some Magic Banners of our own wouldn't be amiss either... At the very least a special 'Standard of Chaos Glory' that makes a unit Stubborn (or other effect/whatever) for the BSB to carry about.

3. Inspiring Presence/Hold Your Ground doesn't work for enmity units only! (ie: General/BSB of Khorne can't give IP or 'Hold Your Ground' to Slaany units and vice-versa. Ditto for Tzeentch/Nurgle)
Still good and fluffy, but makes multi-god function properly and is more akin to how Icons work in 40k. (and isn't senselessly hamstringing just us for no damn reason!)

Those three things would go a long way towards fixing some of the more glaring internal issues. (especially fixing the giant clusterf*** those Gift tables are!!!)

 Makutsu wrote:

 John Rainbow wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

I think that is the most surprising thing about it. As allowing multiple viable builds has pretty much been a hallmark of the 8th books released.

Agreed. I've only ever seen two builds that work: Nurgle (obviously) and Tzeentch with the Wand of Whimsy on the Lord.

Caco Bomb seems like a good build.

Caco Bomb like the Epi list is also a very good way to lose friends and ensure you're labeled a WAAC/power-gaming so-and-so.

As for the Wand, I find I'm taking it less and less, unless I'm up against an army who will be spamming lots of little spells (like VC's/TK's) AND if I can pair it alongside the +1 free DD gift from the Exalted table. Overall, I'm casting less and less with the LoC, as those Pinkies & Tzheralds tend to hog my casting dices like champs, and Lore of Metal is god-awful alongside Tzeentch.
The E.Blade + ASF on the other hand turn the LoC into a decent enough beatstick, which is something a mono-Tzeentch force especially is begging for.

Outside of a Tzeentch army, the Kipper is a much better Greater Daemon overall as Slaanesh magic is the shizz. Phantasmagoria + Slicing Shards = pasted unit, while Acquiescence + Hysterical Frenzy are fun little Hexes that screw with movement. And that's before we even consider the brokenness of an area-effect Cacophonic Choir!

Yeah the only 2 viable builds that we can create and labeled as WAAC player...

 Makutsu wrote:
Yeah the only 2 viable builds that we can create and labeled as WAAC player...

Well, just saying you play DoC is still enough in a goodly number of circles to earn you that label...

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
Yeah the only 2 viable builds that we can create and labeled as WAAC player...

Well, just saying you play DoC is still enough in a goodly number of circles to earn you that label...

How is playing DoC earn WAAC? I didn't even start playing Fantasy until a month ago lol and 40k for Daemons a year ago.

 Makutsu wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
Yeah the only 2 viable builds that we can create and labeled as WAAC player...

Well, just saying you play DoC is still enough in a goodly number of circles to earn you that label...

How is playing DoC earn WAAC? I didn't even start playing Fantasy until a month ago lol and 40k for Daemons a year ago.

Very few people have gotten over their severe butt-hurt from those 3-4 months in 7th ed where DoC were undeniably one of the most heinously broken armies GW has ever produced... (as in, a blind, armsless, dyslexic, inbred 4-year-old with the IQ of a potato could pilot the army to victory.)
Think about how Grey Knights upset the entire game in 5th edition, then multiply by about 9,000! That's 7th ed DoC until Dark Elves/WoC came out.

The number of non-Daemon players who try to claim that the new book is 'balanced' or 'on-par' with the rest of the 8th armies is frankly shocking. Even a cursory glance tells you how badly eff'ed up our book is.
Sure our couple of power lists are solid. But deviate from that even slightly and well, welcome to the world of Wood Elves!

It's not as bad as some people think in my opinion, it's just that the book didn't follow the trend of power for 8th edition.

Tomb King players have stopped lamenting their book, as have most Orcs and Goblins, and Demons certainly are stronger than both of those options. (Unless a random list from demon books meets the OnG version of "The List... but that's sort of my point. TK's don't even have "The List".)

I don't think the Daemon book is hopeless. But it is, clearly, obviously, not a good book. And by good, I do not mean "I can win with this", but "fun for the player and their opponents".

Don't tell me "a book is measured by it's strengths". People complained about the old Daemon, Warriors, and Dark Elves books, too. Because they were stupidly good. And they were not well-made books.

The ultimate goal of any army book is clear: for every option presented within to be a viable, tactical choice, and to be as close in efficiency as the options in other books.

I'll give the designers a break; Daemons are a tricky army, because it's basically four separate armies. Trying to balance each of the aspects of each of the Gods has got to be difficult.

True, but what's frustrating is that I think they got it right with Warriors.

There's external balance, at least given by the marks of the gods, right there.

To some degree.

I think the new Warriors Book is really spot on, with the sole exception of Chimeras being too cheap and Slaughter-Brutes being dumb. The Book feels like a unit of elite bad-asses, but they can be beat through dedicated attacks or bad rolls.

And a super duper awesome daemon prince of Nurgle
and cheap super efficient chariots
and invincible flying BSB of Tzeench
and expensive marauders
and useless mutalith
...

It's a good book, but there are still some glaring imbalances

The Demon Prince is fine. He's a beast in CC true, but he can be brought down with artillery/shooting/spells easily enough. Deal with it like you would a Greater Demon.

Chariot Core is mean, but doesn't win a lot of games.

Flying BSB's only have 50 points to spend on gear. If they have a 3+ ward save, they spent their whole allotment on defense. They might have poison or a breath weapon but thats going to be about it.

Marauders expensive? They were too cheap at 4 points and now too expensive at 6? Empire Players would kill for a 6 point guy with WS 4 and I 4. I run a lot of marauders and I feel they are perfect, with the exception of GW's costing a point too much.

The Mutalith is silly, but with so many elves around I'm considering giving it play time.

Warpsolution wrote:
I don't think the Daemon book is hopeless. But it is, clearly, obviously, not a good book. And by good, I do not mean "I can win with this", but "fun for the player and their opponents".

Don't tell me "a book is measured by it's strengths". People complained about the old Daemon, Warriors, and Dark Elves books, too. Because they were stupidly good. And they were not well-made books.

The ultimate goal of any army book is clear: for every option presented within to be a viable, tactical choice, and to be as close in efficiency as the options in other books.

I'll give the designers a break; Daemons are a tricky army, because it's basically four separate armies. Trying to balance each of the aspects of each of the Gods has got to be difficult.

I wouldn't give them a break at all. The designers got it right in 40k - even mono Khorne isn't nearly as lamentable as people try to claim it is. (and I'd argue that Epi is still pretty broken!)

There's no excuse at all for this farcical book we've been sadly b****-slapped with, beyond sheer incompetence and outright laziness on the part of the author.
Most players with even a general rudimentary understanding of the game could come up with at least a couple easy 'fixes' to make DoC more balanced along the lines of the rest of the 8th book.

The Gift tables in particular for example are just pure stink. A single read-through shows up how useless the Greater table especially is, while the only real reason to ever actually roll your dice on the Exalted table is to simply go for the '6' result. (otherwise, default to the Tome or E.Blade 99% of the time.)

Experiment 626 wrote:
There's no excuse at all for this farcical book we've been sadly b****-slapped with, beyond sheer incompetence and outright laziness on the part of the author.

I said I'd give them a break, as in, I recognize the possibility and inevitability of mistakes, not that those mistakes are okay.
You're clearly upset by the book. But your colorful language, however entertaining, isn't going to help. Heh. If anything, the design team might just decide to keep Daemons where they are, after all the abuse they've been getting.

My hope: they had a few ideas about 9th edition knocking around when they made this book. Some of the problems with this book are totally independent from the main rules, but maybe some of them will be less awful later on?

Expiriment 626, have you considered working on a Fandex? I'd gladly help in such an endeavor. Even if you never play with it, it might go a ways towards alleviating the pain. Or, you know, make you all the more bitter. But the offer's on the table!

The truth is that the only reason DoC players are as bent out of shape about the state of their book is because it swung so far away from the terror the last incarnation of Daemons brought to the table.

Books that have always been considered less than competitive have sat in the lower-tier of the warhammer community for generations, but those players (while they/we still complain) have learned to live with it.

I agree with warpsolution, you clearly dislike the book, we have all read it in the seemingly infinite pages of rants/ rabbles. Time for you to switch armies or write a fandex/ house rules that help you out with your group.

Pervertdhermit wrote:
The truth is that the only reason DoC players are as bent out of shape about the state of their book is because it swung so far away from the terror the last incarnation of Daemons brought to the table.

Books that have always been considered less than competitive have sat in the lower-tier of the warhammer community for generations, but those players (while they/we still complain) have learned to live with it.

I agree with warpsolution, you clearly dislike the book, we have all read it in the seemingly infinite pages of rants/ rabbles. Time for you to switch armies or write a fandex/ house rules that help you out with your group.

Actually, I haven't even seen the old book (7th edition?) and I still think the new Daemons are horribly balanced internally.

There's a difference between being a low-tier(external balance) book and a book that has no viable options but 5-6 units out of 20+ units(internal balance).

I am pretty sure Daemons still win right now but only with 1-3 cut and paste lists with almost no difference whatsoever.

Not sure if this is OP but OP Jezzails seems like they will destroy beasts.

Eh. A Jezzail does something like 0.2 wounds/turn at short range to a Beast of Nurgle. At 20pts/model, you need an absurd number of them.
I'd prefer Slaves + a Warpfire Thrower or the Warp Lightning Cannon.

Pervertdhermit wrote:
The truth is that the only reason DoC players are as bent out of shape about the state of their book is because it swung so far away from the terror the last incarnation of Daemons brought to the table.

Books that have always been considered less than competitive have sat in the lower-tier of the warhammer community for generations, but those players (while they/we still complain) have learned to live with it.

I'm pretty sure most Daemon players are bent out of shape because the new book is just frustrating as hell to use no matter what type of list you're running...
In a competitive tournament setting, where time is limited, the 'explanation phase' of trying to describe how everything works and rolling up all your spells/gifts gets everything from politely raised eyebrows to outright hate about 'time wasting shenanigans'. Then you still have the Reign of Comedy to deal with, which a solid number of competitive players tend to hate because of how it can really screw-up the game - not to mention the rolling vs. every affected unit and then potentially yet more rolling for damage, etc... (though it tends to be far harsher to the DoC player overall)
Honestly, if you don't know how to run your rolling and the RoC debacle like a well-oiled machine, you'll almost never limp through a complete game within the typical 2 - 2.5 hours time limit per round.

In a friendly pick-up game, especially against someone who you don't really know and isn't familiar at all about all the added rolling, it simply slows the game to an absolute crawl - especially the magic phase!
I've had opponents outright refuse to play against my Tzeentch Daemons because of these issues. They simply don't want to put up with all the added random tables and consider it 'unfair' how I can randomly semi-tailor my characters against their army.

The crap internal balance just makes the army itself boring to use as there's really very little room for actually trying out new ideas/lists, while the Gift tables are so god-awful it makes it difficult to really add character to your characters. (who are almost all overcosted due to their complete lack of reliable protection.)

Pervertdhermit wrote:
I agree with warpsolution, you clearly dislike the book, we have all read it in the seemingly infinite pages of rants/ rabbles. Time for you to switch armies or write a fandex/ house rules that help you out with your group.

Against like-minded opponents who understand the issues of the new DoC book, they just let me stick to the old book because I don't cheese it out...
Not so much of an option outside of a few set games though, since most people seem overjoyed at how DoC have been dealt such a poor hand.

I think it's only about 50% as bad as you make it out. If someone told me that for 25 points I could either have the ASF sword OR a double wound sword (my choice) I'd take it. Your items might be random, but that doesn't make them bad.

Some are wonderful. Some are average. At worst, you're getting an item from the BRB of equal cost. At Best you get something wonderful for your situation. Hardly worth a river of tears.

Second, I don't see how RoC is worse for you than for me. Every turn, unless you roll on the bottom (2?) results, you MIGHT have a unit of yours affected. Every single on of mine gets hit. Unless you are unlucky enough to roll "Tizz hates mah nurgles", I take it worse than you every time.

This completely ignores murdering my wizard and gaining one, you getting +1 to your wards, and spawning new units.

And I feel you, being limited on lists, but at least you have a "winner list". My TK's don't even have that, and we have a lore a million times worse than Tzeentch that we HAVE to take, unless we take a special character who gives us only 1 choice to the contrary.

And as far as internal balance goes, while your book is wonky, seems like everyone has SOMETHING that works in a mono list with core being the lamest part admittedly (If Slaanesh.) If you want to run a mash of gods (and not bother with a bsb.. you have great stuff in every comp slot.)

 Thunderfrog wrote:
I think it's only about 50% as bad as you make it out. If someone told me that for 25 points I could either have the ASF sword OR a double wound sword (my choice) I'd take it. Your items might be random, but that doesn't make them bad.

Some are wonderful. Some are average. At worst, you're getting an item from the BRB of equal cost. At Best you get something wonderful for your situation. Hardly worth a river of tears.

Clearly you haven't really sat down and gone through the Gift tables...
The Exalted results overall aren't really worth the 75pts investment unless you get the '6' result, (roll again + Lesser roll), or else default to the E.Blade or Tome (which are worth every freaking point - especially the E.Blade!)

The Greater table has only 5 'actual' results, (one of them is basically 50pts to simply do damage to your character for good reason at all!), and of those 5 results, 2 of them are just copies of BRB magic weapons.
Heralds especially get very little from the Greater table since it's and all-in random roll as it takes their full points allotment. There's very little reason to blow 50pts for a 16% chance at a 2+ armour save for example... (basically, the only 'good' result on the whole table!)

The Less table is the only one really worth considering, as only the one-use 2++ ward save & Skill Swallower ability are sub-par results.

And no, we cannot just "get a BRB item of equal cost"... We're limited first off to simply defaulting to a Magic Weapon, AND, most of them come at a premium cost. (ie: Fencer's Blades cost a Herald of Nurgle 50pts, a +15pts 'tax' as compared to everyone else!)
Our Gifts are awful overall. Most of the time, you just roll to see if you get one specific result and if not, then you're defaulting to a weapon/Hellforged.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
Second, I don't see how RoC is worse for you than for me. Every turn, unless you roll on the bottom (2?) results, you MIGHT have a unit of yours affected. Every single on of mine gets hit. Unless you are unlucky enough to roll "Tizz hates mah nurgles", I take it worse than you every time.

This completely ignores murdering my wizard and gaining one, you getting +1 to your wards, and spawning new units.

RoC is worse for the Daemon player because it's *always* a double-whammy. A low roll is not only effectively a 'lost' magic phase due to lack of Power Dice, but it's ALWAYS bringing an additional catastrophic effect with it;
a) Army-wide Daemonic Instability tests, taken on each unit's unmodified Ld!!! (so no IP, even in mono-armies! )
This on an army with average Ld7, while those Fury screen are Ld2 and instantly fried almost every single time.

b) Random wizard w/DI can auto-pop. So this can be your 500+ pts Greater Daemon... who's also your only Lv4... and your General to boot.

c) Army-wide -1 Ward Save.
Honestly, this is the worst possible result. When this comes up, it's pretty much instant death for our super expensive Lords because they typically only have that 5++ for protection. About the only unit that really weathers this result are Beasts due to their Regen.

Meanwhile, Khorne gets the added junk-shot of getting nailed by The Dark Prince Thirsts result, which is a 3D6 Ld-test. It tends to nuke those so-called Skillcannons quite well and is great at crippling the likes of Hounds & Bloodcrushers to boot when it connects on them.

Conversely, opponents only *really* fear the 11 result - random wizard on your side probably turns into a naked, un-upgraded Herald. The only shooting result really worth sweating over is again, the DPT's result. The Nurgle & Tzeentch shots are pretty situational, while the Khorne stone thrower shot likes to scatter.
So yeah, Riegn of Comedy is much worse for the Daemon player since the negatives we take are far harsher than any bonuses from the table.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
And I feel you, being limited on lists, but at least you have a "winner list". My TK's don't even have that, and we have a lore a million times worse than Tzeentch that we HAVE to take, unless we take a special character who gives us only 1 choice to the contrary.

And as far as internal balance goes, while your book is wonky, seems like everyone has SOMETHING that works in a mono list with core being the lamest part admittedly (If Slaanesh.) If you want to run a mash of gods (and not bother with a bsb.. you have great stuff in every comp slot.)

I don't see why a..


Kos = Lord
(He's probably the 'best' Lord choice honestly... E.Blade + Lesser roll & Lv4 on Slaany Lore if you like making people cry. AoE Cacophonic is broken levels of good actually)

Herald = Your most important core/lord/or favorite special
(These guys outside of the Nurgle one are all overcosted honestly. Outside of a couple cookie-cutter set-ups, they're among the game's worst characters as you can't protect them!!! (even S3 rips them apart because they're naked)

Bloodletters/P'Bearers = Core
(Bloodletters are overcosted. Go 40 or go home.
Plaguies w/Regen Herald are solid but boring, Daemonettes feel like inferior elves now and Horrors are becoming the clear-cut winners)

Fiends/Beasts = Special
(Beasts single-handedly save the entire book because they're that good. Fiends have little place outside of a Caco-spam. 3x 5 strong Furies are mandatory for chaffing)

Skill Cannons = Rare
(These are noob traps plain and simple... RoC wrecks them. Soul Grinders, one or more 3-4 strong Plaguedrones w/poisoned attack upgrade and double Burny Chariots are the real winners in Rare)

has no chance of winning.

Tomb Kings may also be in an equal yet slightly different place, but I highly doubt you also get the added junk-shot on an entire book that auto-hard counters you! (looking at you Light Coven HE's!!! )

If there wasn't a chance they died to RoC, Skill Cannons would have to be banned.

Take an Empire Cannon.

Make it a Chariot.

Give it Str4/T5.

Give it a chance to regen wounds.

Why not killing blow?

Then let it move and shoot.

For 20 extra points?

Skillcannons are the best thing in that book. And actually, Demons auto hard counter kings.

Kings Strengths - Unbreakable, Cause Fear, Easy Access to Killing Blow, High T Monsters.

Demons are - Better Unbreakable, Immune to Fear, Ignore Killing Blow, easy access to poison.


Also, I wouldn't say High Elves auto-counter you.

Banner of the World Dragon is pretty damn good against most armies, but its the only thing you would regularly see. The Lady is sub-optimal in most cases, except demons. So if you and a HE player throw down and he has both, he tailored really hard. I doubt youll see it in a tourney unless your meta is full of demon players.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
If there wasn't a chance they died to RoC, Skill Cannons would have to be banned.

Take an Empire Cannon.
Make it a Chariot.
Give it Str4/T5.
Give it a chance to regen wounds.
Why not killing blow?
Then let it move and shoot.
For 20 extra points?
Skillcannons are the best thing in that book. And actually, Demons auto hard counter kings.

Please go and smack your local Daemon player(s) with their books if they're playing the whole thing as Killing Blow, because only the 2 measly Bloodletter attacks actually have it!

The Gorefeast ability which is the regaining wounds is only on the Impact Hits. If you have the thing in range of something more than basic chaff, charge it and watch it fall apart to Daemonic Instability.

The Ogre version is head and shoulders better than ours. It's much sturdier, it isn't dealing with Daemonic Instanbility & the almost certain lack of Inspiring Presence AND doesn't have to put up with a chart that loves to insta-fry the things. (and don't forget ours misfires just like a normal cannon too!)

Khannons are undercosted by 30-40pts for sure, but Beasts of Nurgle are miles better in every single way except shooting. ('cause they have none)
T5/W4, 5++ & Regen and 2-7 poisoned attacks per front rank model plus up to 3 per dude from the rear ranks is ridiculously good on its own. Then you add-on Attention Seeker for Challenging AND get Slime Trail to negate any flank/rear charge bonuses.
Khannons don't hold a candle to Beasts. Beasts are the game's best anvil unit, but are also super killy themselves, AND work brilliantly as chaff & chaff killers. Khannons are only scary to big monsters and can move and shoot.

 Zagman wrote:
Kings Strengths - Unbreakable, Cause Fear, Easy Access to Killing Blow, High T Monsters.

Demons are - Better Unbreakable, Immune to Fear, Ignore Killing Blow, easy access to poison.

No, just no. Daemonic Instability is not 'better unbreakable'. For large units - yes because our foot troops don't auto-explode when they get massacred, but it's worse than Unstable on our big guys by a longshot. (oh look, boxcars, well there goes my 500+ pts General just because he lost combat by 1 freaking point!)

We do not ignore Killing Blow. Our Heralds are actually more vulnerable to it than most combat characters who likely run a 4++ (or sometimes even better!) save.
Honestly, Khorne players could cry about TK's ignoring their KB because your Core Chariots, Necro Knights, Ushabti, Giants et all are just as immune as our monstrous units.
Only Nurgle gets poison. You only see so much of it because Nurgle units overall are so much better than the other Gods outside of the Greater slot!

You still have Khalida though, and facing a massive unit of 5+ to-hit poisoned arrows isn't fun for us, especially our Greaters who are fairly fragile for their cost. (again, we have only a 16% chance at gaining a 2+ save, and it's on the table that only Papa Nurgle ever likes rolling on - the others are better off with the 75/25 set-up)
Plus, you have entire units of Core Chariots, T8 monsters (our Greaters can only dream of such), much better synergy from your characters who can also buy multiple levels of protection and thus don't fall over to a stiff breeze!!!
You also have easy access to Death magic, (Nurgle folds to P.Sun), and Light magic. Sure maybe not on a Lv4, but Lv2's can go to town with it and Light magic does horrible things to Daemons. (and Undead too) Not to mention Lore of Light is the perfect answer to your naturally abysmal WS/I and can even help counter ASF units.

 Zagman wrote:
Also, I wouldn't say High Elves auto-counter you.

Banner of the World Dragon is pretty damn good against most armies, but its the only thing you would regularly see. The Lady is sub-optimal in most cases, except demons. So if you and a HE player throw down and he has both, he tailored really hard. I doubt youll see it in a tourney unless your meta is full of demon players.

Lol! I'm sorry, but Alarielle Light Councils are pretty much THE strongest build for High Elves! Bubble-casting all those buffs at +8 off of her White Lion unit, while the Banishment wizard can happily 6-dice away when needed and not care too much about the side-effects...
On top of them being able to stack better Ward saves than we can, while also enjoying all the other bonuses of being elves. Even our power builds get stuffed by this. (nurgle especially hard - Cacobomb can play for a draw or minor victory if it gets lucky enough)

Clearly you haven't seen what a proper Alarielle list looks like... It gets even nastier if Alith is allowed to join to party.

You still have Khalida though, and facing a massive unit of 5+ to-hit poisoned arrows isn't fun for us, especially our Greaters who are fairly fragile for their cost. (again, we have only a 16% chance at gaining a 2+ save, and it's on the table that only Papa Nurgle ever likes rolling on - the others are better off with the 75/25 set-up)

You are right. In fairness, Khalida + 40-60 archers is the closest thing we have to a "the list", but it is sooo easily countered. Since undead can't stand and shoot, just keep charging with chaff until your big block of kill shows up.

Plus, you have entire units of Core Chariots

Demons whomp this. Yea, we show up with a lot of impact hits but they can't negate your ward save and chariots are dead points if the unit they hit doesn't break... which your unit doesn't do!

,T8 monsters (our Greaters can only dream of such), much better synergy from your characters who can also buy multiple levels of protection and thus don't fall over to a stiff breeze!!!

We CAN access book-based armor and wards, that is in the TK's favor for sure. They also have 1 higher toughness and wound in comparison to the average human hero. We do get flammable in return. =(

You also have easy access to Death magic, (Nurgle folds to P.Sun), and Light magic. Sure maybe not on a Lv4, but Lv2's can go to town with it and Light magic does horrible things to Daemons. (and Undead too) Not to mention Lore of Light is the perfect answer to your naturally abysmal WS/I and can even help counter ASF units.

The problem there is those spells have high cast values, which level 2's struggle to meet unless you have huge magic phases (which TK's get help with from caskets and heirotitans.)

I really wasn't trying to get into a which is worse, I'm just saying that in my meta, Daemons do well...to the point they win more often than not. (Granted, they all use THE LIST.) There are a few that go against the grain with Cacobomb, Tzeentch (With Flamers! and Screamers!), and a successful Undivided lists, but the majority are Gang Green.

As far as Allarielle goes, I've yet to see her run in reality. I see a lot of net-lists and such, but it seems (At least at New World, The Alamo, Shiloh, and a few small tourneys in Texas) not much of an all comers list.

 Thunderfrog wrote:


I really wasn't trying to get into a which is worse, I'm just saying that in my meta, Daemons do well...to the point they win more often than not. (Granted, they all use THE LIST.) There are a few that go against the grain with Cacobomb, Tzeentch (With Flamers! and Screamers!), and a successful Undivided lists, but the majority are Gang Green.

I play in an uncomped environment, and currently, there aren't any players who bother bringing DoC to tournaments anymore, not even "the list."

We had a local tournament just yesterday with 24 entrants, and not one DoC entrant. One was planning on bringing his Nurgle list, but opted to bring DE instead, and I believe he won.

Saldiven wrote:

 Thunderfrog wrote:


I really wasn't trying to get into a which is worse, I'm just saying that in my meta, Daemons do well...to the point they win more often than not. (Granted, they all use THE LIST.) There are a few that go against the grain with Cacobomb, Tzeentch (With Flamers! and Screamers!), and a successful Undivided lists, but the majority are Gang Green.

I play in an uncomped environment, and currently, there aren't any players who bother bringing DoC to tournaments anymore, not even "the list."

We had a local tournament just yesterday with 24 entrants, and not one DoC entrant. One was planning on bringing his Nurgle list, but opted to bring DE instead, and I believe he won.

The big problems with Nurgle Wall is that it get hosed by P.Sun, (and Death is still quite popular, so it's not like it's a special case of taking it makes your army worse), and it's an incredibly boring army to play with.

Caco-bomb is too all-or-nothing for most players, as if your super spell doesn't get through, you really have to understand and know your army to get the most out of Slaanesh since you're really just 'inferior elves' atm.
Slaanesh is basically Fantasy's version of Dark Eldar.

In an uncomped area, DoC aren't worth wasting your breath if there's plenty of Elves, (both High & Dark), Empire or WoC about unless you love a challenge. All of those are pretty awful match-ups.

In uncomped areas, I do see the DoC doing very very well
The combination of dual Khannons (that are way better than the Ogres, as they are still dangerous when flanked and bc they have that 5++), cheap channels from Horrors&Heralds plus beasts and/or drones
Sprinkle some Plaguebearers as one of the toughest infantry in the game, and it becomes really awful to face (I know, it is "the list", but there's a reason to that)

In the last tournament I went to DOC came in 2nd place with the list plus Eppi and Kairos.

That said I can see why the problems especially for Mono-Tzeentch and Mono-Khorne, even in Mono-Slaanesh.

But Reign of Chaos and a 5++ ward are usually a net benefit not a net cost.


.

 captain collius wrote:
In the last tournament I went to DOC came in 2nd place with the list plus Eppi and Kairos.

That said I can see why the problems especially for Mono-Tzeentch and Mono-Khorne, even in Mono-Slaanesh.

But Reign of Chaos and a 5++ ward are usually a net benefit not a net cost.


.

Agree.

Our local meta has gotten Dark Elf heavy (I think there were six DE players in that 24 man tournament).

DE do a number on pretty much anything that DoC can bring to the table. Even Nurgle builds.

Just for comparison, a unit of 30 Witch Elves against a unit of 30 Plaguebearers (Core vs Core) should end with about 16-17 Witches left and no Plagubearers without any outside interference from either side. Should only take three combat phases, too, not counting any losses (or potential gains) from the Instability Test.

The preponderance of DE, HE and WoC in our local area make playing DoC something you do for funsies.

 Thunderfrog wrote:

 captain collius wrote:
In the last tournament I went to DOC came in 2nd place with the list plus Eppi and Kairos.

That said I can see why the problems especially for Mono-Tzeentch and Mono-Khorne, even in Mono-Slaanesh.

But Reign of Chaos and a 5++ ward are usually a net benefit not a net cost.

Agree.

Try being on the receiving end of it... One bad roll and you lose your Magic Phase for a turn, plus maybe all your chaff/a key character/half of your save.

The 5++ isn't being combined anymore with additional layers of protection, unless you're insanely lucky. The best armour save we can get is now a 4+ on 'Crushers or 3+ on Khannons. Our Heroes outside of Nurgle are the game's easiest to kill, and our Lords have the game's worst protection.
But sure, we can make a 5++ vs. S5/6 on our basic dudes! Still makes me cry when my LoC eats a face-full of Bolters/cannonballs and unlike every other Lord in the game, get's no 'Look out Sir!' and only a 5++ instead of the game-standard 4++ or sometimes even better...

Reign of Comedy has nuked me far more than it's ever helped, as it has done to pretty much most other DoC players. For every game its supposedly 'won it for me', I can easily point out at least a half-dozen more it's either done nothing, or else screwed me over entirely.

Saldiven wrote:
Our local meta has gotten Dark Elf heavy (I think there were six DE players in that 24 man tournament).

DE do a number on pretty much anything that DoC can bring to the table. Even Nurgle builds.

Just for comparison, a unit of 30 Witch Elves against a unit of 30 Plaguebearers (Core vs Core) should end with about 16-17 Witches left and no Plagubearers without any outside interference from either side. Should only take three combat phases, too, not counting any losses (or potential gains) from the Instability Test.

The preponderance of DE, HE and WoC in our local area make playing DoC something you do for funsies.

Dark Elves are basically what Slaanesh Daemons only wish they could be! (ASF should NEVER! have been stripped from their base special rules) Daemonettes vs. any DE unit is a complete joke now.

I feel your pain, I see far too many HE's, DE's, WoC as well, with a few Empire and the odd VC, Skaven & Lizzie lists. But HE's & WoC are the most popular near me... everyone and their mother seems to have suddenly found an old High Elf army hiding in the back of their hobby closet!

I'm telling you, Reign isn't that bad. I don't own Daemons, but
I play them nearly every week.

I cannot, as a rule, bring 5 man units of anything. My Kings have undead leadership. My Reavers, Silver Helms, Archers, and Swordmasters get no saves vs the RoC.

I get hurt by it unless you roll abysmally low. I know you say this is a double whammy for you, but it's no different than me watching you have max magic dice and spawn a new unit to rear charge or flank something mired in combat with Plaguebearers.

As Thunderfrog says, Reign is tilted in favour of the Daemons, simply because you can mitigate it by not taking a four-gods army
The other player simply doesn't have that possibility (I know my Skavens hate it, my chaff disappearing in droves) and while the table as a whole is a terrible idea (lots of rolling for not that much effect usually), it's not a weakness for the daemon army

Guys, no one said Reign isn't a net beneficial, it's just that when it swings bad it swings realllllly bad for the Daemon player that it pretty much decides the game then.

When comparing the lowest 3 results to the highest 3, the highest 3 in all honesty don't do much...
But the lowest 3 will cost you half of your army or at least swing the game heavily in the opponent's favor.

a 5++ on your 500-600 points Lord is NOT a NORM.
a 6++ is pretty much a guaranteed death for him
a 4++ is pretty much standard on most Lords.
on top of that there's LoS which our Lord don't have access to and that's huge when meeting a cannonball.

TanKoL wrote:
As Thunderfrog says, Reign is tilted in favour of the Daemons, simply because you can mitigate it by not taking a four-gods army
The other player simply doesn't have that possibility (I know my Skavens hate it, my chaff disappearing in droves) and while the table as a whole is a terrible idea (lots of rolling for not that much effect usually), it's not a weakness for the daemon army

My experience in playing doesn't support this, at all.

Taking damage on virtually every unit in your army is not balanced out by getting a 10 (average) man unit of Core troops.

I have never had an opponent's wizard fail the Ld test for the roll of 11, though I have lost a Herald to a roll of 3.

The ward save modification was addressed above.

As for the damage-dealing rolls, in the 8 or so months that the DoC book has been out, I can count on my two hands the number of times that I have done any wounds to my opponent with the RoC table. I had played the new book for almost two months before I did my first wound with it (to anyone, friend or foe).

Seriously, the odds of doing any damage to anyone with the RoC table is really low. First, you have to roll the 5, 6, 8, or 9 results. That's only a 50% chance. Then, you have to roll a "6" for each potential unit, ignoring units in combat. Then, if the roll is the Tzeentch or Khorne, you have to scatter. Then you start rolling to see if any wounds are done.

I have never, not even once, rolled a "hit" with the Khorne RoC effect. The strongest effect is the Slaanesh effect, but it only has a 13.8% chance of occurring in any given phase, then has to roll to hit each unit. I play mono-Khorne, so that result is just as likely to wreck me as it is my opponent.

Additionally, I'd suggest you go over to the DoC forums; you can find a link to them on Warseer's tactics page. The math was done there. Playing mono-god doesn't actually lessen the impact of the RoC table. Instead of having a chance to have a couple of units hit at any given time by the RoC table if you play multi-god, playing mono-god means that if you make that bad roll, your potential for being hit is dramatically higher. Statistically, playing mono-god is identical in potential self-damage from the RoC table to playing poly-god. All the RoC table does is create a bunch of extra rolling for no net benefit to the army that has the rule. It exists merely for fluffiness. There are so many things wrong with the table (such as the fact the rolls compound the situation; a low roll not only gives you few casting dice, but it whacks your army, while a high roll not only gives you lots of casting dice, but it whacks the opponent).

The mono-god lists can mitigate the big bad negative effects in 2 ways. Fateweaver and the reroll winds gift. I've ran some Fateweaver lists and really like them, but I play a lot of 2k events due to my local area, so I run a LOC.

I don't mind the ROC table at all. I would like other ways to manipulate it however.

I'd love Fateweaver if he weren't even easier to kill than a regular lord. Sure, he can get one re-roll per player turn and re-roll one's on his ward save, but he's only T-5 with a single low WS attack.

I gave him a try for about a half dozen games back in the summer because I really liked playing him in the last book. I gave him up after he was killed by a charging unit of five mounted marauders; lost combat by 3 (took two wounds, inflicted none, got charged) and popped on Instability. He's just too darn expensive to be that fragile.

626-

I understand that you can't stack protection on your T 6 Flying Deamon general. Generally you don't need to much else. Yes you've been nuked by Reign of Chaos my experiences with it are that it hits me harder than it hits my opponent. So it depends on the meta you play-in apparently.

Also if you keep rolling poorly get new dice. Then set one on fire in front of the others. this usually convices them to behave.

 captain collius wrote:
626-

I understand that you can't stack protection on your T 6 Flying Deamon general. Generally you don't need to much else.

I'd trade T6 and Thunderstomp any day of the week in order to get access to the BRB magic items and a LoS.

 captain collius wrote:
626-

I understand that you can't stack protection on your T 6 Flying Deamon general. Generally you don't need to much else. Yes you've been nuked by Reign of Chaos my experiences with it are that it hits me harder than it hits my opponent. So it depends on the meta you play-in apparently.

T6 isn't amazing protection anymore since 6's always wound nowadays. Also, there's a lot more things like poisoned attacks, more cannonballs and 'oodles of new monsters & monstrous units that make T6/5++ far less noteworthy than it was even just a few years ago.

Flying can help mitigate some, but still, our Greaters are fairly 'meh' overall when compared to the game's other Lord options.
Outside of the staple E.Blade + Lesser roll, it's very hit-and-miss for a Greater to tackle say an enemy general on a big beastie of their own while tackling a monstrous unit is pure suicide. Thunderstomp on average just barely keeps us from popping to DI vs. the hordes of little guys. And they run like scared little girls from any unit with S6 now.

Sure a Greater looks and maybe feels super threatening, but honestly, T6/5++ isn't nearly enough vs. an opponent who can keep their head about them and treat it just like you would any big 500-550+ pts sinkhole.
The fact that our Lv'4 are tied into those Greaters makes them even less desirable to use in their supposedly staple role of being a combat beast, especially when RoC can and will help them bleed wounds they don't have to spare.

In a world of Blender Lord Vampires, unkillable DP's/Chaos Lords, Star Dragon Lords, ASF S6/1+ save Dreadlords, ASF Ogre Tyrants/Oldbloods, etc... all of whom tend to also sport a 4++ or better save, our Greaters just don't seem so Great anymore.
Not to mention the complete lack of LoS as already pointed out, thus forcing us to babysit those big targets with Beasts/Fiends, etc... to simply act as bullet/cannonball catchers.

 captain collius wrote:
Also if you keep rolling poorly get new dice. Then set one on fire in front of the others. this usually convices them to behave.

It's not so much that I need new dice or that I need to threaten them into behaving, so much as it is that my entire family is simply cursed due a slight 'misunderstanding' we once had with the Pope... and then later the Di Medici's... (apparently God really does get pissed when you try to kill the Pope.)

Experiment 626 wrote:

 captain collius wrote:
Also if you keep rolling poorly get new dice. Then set one on fire in front of the others. this usually convices them to behave.

It's not so much that I need new dice or that I need to threaten them into behaving, so much as it is that my entire family is simply cursed due a slight 'misunderstanding' we once had with the Pope... and then later the Di Medici's... (apparently God really does get pissed when you try to kill the Pope.)

Yeah we had one with English royalty. It tends to create issues.


I admit a 5++ is not reliable. Also keep in mind That we have seen the abuses of the 1++ flying demon prince. If you had a KOS with armor of silvered steel and dawnstone that would be t 6 with 5 W and a 2++ rerolling 5++ Thats a bit nuts. So should they have give you choices rather than tables? Probably. But the book is not as bad as people think., nor is it as broken. That said Nurgle is a donkey.

 captain collius wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 captain collius wrote:
Also if you keep rolling poorly get new dice. Then set one on fire in front of the others. this usually convices them to behave.

It's not so much that I need new dice or that I need to threaten them into behaving, so much as it is that my entire family is simply cursed due a slight 'misunderstanding' we once had with the Pope... and then later the Di Medici's... (apparently God really does get pissed when you try to kill the Pope.)

Yeah we had one with English royalty. It tends to create issues.

And who says history is boring!

 captain collius wrote:
I admit a 5++ is not reliable. Also keep in mind That we have seen the abuses of the 1++ flying demon prince. If you had a KOS with armor of silvered steel and dawnstone that would be t 6 with 5 W and a 2++ rerolling 5++ Thats a bit nuts. So should they have give you choices rather than tables? Probably. But the book is not as bad as people think., nor is it as broken. That said Nurgle is a donkey.

I honestly love the concept of rolling for Gifts, but Ward simply botched things big time when he implemented it... Why couldn't we have simply had our 4 'protective' Gifts all under the same level, as it is in 40k for example?
I don't expect or even want to see us get the level of stupidity that WoC DP's get, but considering how important our Greaters/Princes are, it sucks that we're basically always heading into battle effectively naked compared to every other Lord choice in the entire game! (hell, even freaking Wood Elves can give their combat Lords a 2+/4++ save if they so choose!)

I'd still argue that our book is fundamentally broken, as it's such a god-awful mess and is just dysfunctional in practice. Sure we can build a kickarse list, but then, every book has at least one killer/gimmick list that wrecks face.
But unlike the rest of the 8th ed books, we don't even come close to the sheer variety of viable lists/options that everyone else, (yes, even Tomb Kings!), got... I'm not wanting my mono-Tzeentch to turn into the ultimate, 'easy button' tournament-crushing list of all time, but I do expect something beyond a boring-arse magical gunline that tends to explode in my face more often than my opponent's.

but considering how important our Greaters/Princes are, it sucks that we're basically always heading into battle effectively naked compared to every other Lord choice in the entire game

I guess that would be fair if you were willing to give up 6 wounds (down to 3), Str 6+, T6+, 5++, Terror, Unbreakable, Magical Attacks, Demonic Boons and Thunderstomps?

I don't think I would ever play a game against a demon army that had everything you seem to want in it.

Lo! Here comes the 500pt Greater Demon with a 2+/5++ with 6 wounds, S6/T6, and 5 attacks who can get LoS's, can adjust Winds of Magic rolls by up to d6, has the Tzeentch Lore (old book), can take any magic lore, has heralds who can buy Chaos Armor and Shields, (whom are also wizards), leading AP ASF Demonettes, 11 point WS5, S5, T4 Heralds, Plaguebearers with 4+ armor saves. Fiends with Str4 shots that are (not)Multiple Shots and QTF.... it just... man.. if you got everything this thread has asked for Demons would be more broke than last edition.

 Thunderfrog wrote:

but considering how important our Greaters/Princes are, it sucks that we're basically always heading into battle effectively naked compared to every other Lord choice in the entire game

I guess that would be fair if you were willing to give up 6 wounds (down to 3), Str 6+, T6+, 5++, Terror, Unbreakable, Magical Attacks, Demonic Boons and Thunderstomps?

We're not Unbreakable, our Greaters are a worse version of Unstable. Stop comparing the WoC DP as being on the same level as DoC Lords.
The only way we can get beyond S6 is through magic weapons/random Gift, while it costs a laughable 75pts for a chance at +2T - which is still meaningless for non GUO's vs. cannonballs/stone thrower direct hits. (and keeping +2T means no E.Blade awesomesauce or Tome to somewhat control RoC).

Our Lords are really just middle of the road, while our DP's are a joke compared to their WoC cousins.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
I don't think I would ever play a game against a demon army that had everything you seem to want in it.

Lo! Here comes the 500pt Greater Demon with a 2+/5++ with 6 wounds, S6/T6, and 5 attacks who can get LoS's, can adjust Winds of Magic rolls by up to d6, has the Tzeentch Lore (old book), can take any magic lore, has heralds who can buy Chaos Armor and Shields, (whom are also wizards), leading AP ASF Demonettes, 11 point WS5, S5, T4 Heralds, Plaguebearers with 4+ armor saves. Fiends with Str4 shots that are (not)Multiple Shots and QTF.... it just... man.. if you got everything this thread has asked for Demons would be more broke than last edition.

Seriously? Hyperbole aside because half that whine-fest is just made-up gak, you really need to get over your Daemon hate.

Yes, for one summer DoC were 5th edition Herohammer levels of stupidly OP fanboy gak. Once DE's & WoC came out, they took the spotlight, followed by Lizzies & Skaven.
8th nerfed a good portion of our book, (hello Nurgle!), and like the really moronic stuff from all the power creep era books, we kept our really moronic stuff like cheap Master of Sorcery, Siren Song & seriously undercosted Bloodletters.

I don't want a broken book. I just want a book that isn't a dysfunctional gak-storm of recycled monkey feces that reads as though Ward shoved his pen up his backside and convulsed all over the page & called it done.

 Thunderfrog wrote:

Lo! Here comes the 500pt Greater Demon with a 2+/5++ with 6 wounds, S6/T6, and 5 attacks who can get LoS's, can adjust Winds of Magic rolls by up to d6, has the Tzeentch Lore (old book), can take any magic lore, has heralds who can buy Chaos Armor and Shields, (whom are also wizards), leading AP ASF Demonettes, 11 point WS5, S5, T4 Heralds, Plaguebearers with 4+ armor saves. Fiends with Str4 shots that are (not)Multiple Shots and QTF.... it just... man.. if you got everything this thread has asked for Demons would be more broke than last edition.

Well, considering nobody in this thread has asked for any of that....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Thunderfrog wrote:

Skillcannons are the best thing in that book. And actually, Demons auto hard counter kings.

Kings Strengths - Unbreakable, Cause Fear, Easy Access to Killing Blow, High T Monsters.

Demons are - Better Unbreakable, Immune to Fear, Ignore Killing Blow, easy access to poison.


Also, I wouldn't say High Elves auto-counter you.

Banner of the World Dragon is pretty damn good against most armies, but its the only thing you would regularly see. The Lady is sub-optimal in most cases, except demons. So if you and a HE player throw down and he has both, he tailored really hard. I doubt youll see it in a tourney unless your meta is full of demon players.

The Skullcannon and the Beasts of Nurgle are the only under-costed units in the book. 'Cannon should probably be 150-160, and the Beasts should probably be 80 or so.

Pretty much everything else in the book is overcosted to one degree or another, with the possible exception of a few that are probably right where they need to be.

High Elves aren't an "auto counter," but a tooled tournament HE list has a big advantage over a tooled DoC tournament list. Dark Elves, on the other hand, are just plain a bad day all the way around for a DoC opponent.

I'm only new to warhammer, but my 2c anyway:

1: Lords.
Firstly, I don't think these guys are mandatory, at all. If you do take one, I think you have to roll on the 75 pt table.
If you don't get what you like on the table, use one of the choices. I think I'd be more likely to take any of the options but the E blade personally.

2: Ward saves.
army-wide 5++ is no joke. Focus on lots of troops over characters to maximise the benefits of the ward save.

3. RoC.
mono or dual-god seems the obvious choice to minimise the number of results which can hurt your army. Tome seems the obvious choice if you have both a Lord and mono.

4. Inefficient core troops.
Loci + big unitls improves their efficiency hugely. The chaff/chaff clearers (hounds etc) are already good from what I've seen on these forums.

5. BotWD
This thing is stupid. One of the dumbest design choices I've ever seen, especially since it's never been errata'd.

5. Banner of the WotWD is really hit or miss. Some armies don't care about it at all and some hate on it with every breath.

The one thing I think is wrong with it is that it doesn't cost 55 points, so it has to go on a BSB. Being able to take it on any magic standard is crazy good.

That said, non-demons can either use shooting (especially war machines vs t3 elves) to eliminate the unit instead.

I still waffle on whether or not its better than the old one. You were outright unaffected by magic and it cost 100 points.

626 has made it really clear that he will never say anything about the new DoC book is not horrible. Every single time someone comes up with any suggestion he will state the existence of some theoretical counter. Well no shiz, this is a game of rock scissors paper, every build/unit/meta has a counter(s). If it doesn't, it's broken and needs to be removed. But it's pretty rare you're going to fight someone with an exact counter to your exact strategy unless you tell them beforehand or you run the same thing every time at a local.

New Daemons have done consistently well in tournaments. I just did a rescan and saw them placed top 5 most times.

Again, I think there are tons of annoyances which have turned me off to DoC. But they are still highly competitive. YOUR dice and YOUR results may be horrible, but the collected stats from across the gaming world don't seem to jive with them.

Throwback wrote:
I'm only new to warhammer, but my 2c anyway:

1: Lords.
Firstly, I don't think these guys are mandatory, at all. If you do take one, I think you have to roll on the 75 pt table.
If you don't get what you like on the table, use one of the choices. I think I'd be more likely to take any of the options but the E blade personally.

They're not mandatory because they're woefully inefficient for the most part due to a combination of the overall awful Gift tables, lack of viable protection and screwed-up Inspiring Presence rules.

The GUO will love going for the 50/50 or 50/25/25 set-up because Fencer's Blades or Balesword on him are amazing. The rest will almost always spend for the 75/25 set-up simply because a 16% chance at a 'free' Lesser Gift is leagues ahead of a 16% chance for the 2+ armour. (the Greater table is pure garbage overall)
The Exalted table for the most part is either entirely situational, or else the results really aren't worth 75pts. The E.Blade on the other hand is worth every damn penny, turning your close combat monster into an even better close combat monster. (I'd still take it at 100pts as it's really that good!) The Tome is really there to prevent the Reign of Comedy from nuking you, and also to give Khorne a leg-up in the magic phase.

The fact that outside of the Lesser table you're usually defaulting to magic weapon is telling. I'd rather be forced to make hard decisions over what option to take, rather than literally always hoping for only 'X' or default.

Throwback wrote:
2: Ward saves.
army-wide 5++ is no joke. Focus on lots of troops over characters to maximise the benefits of the ward save.

Our Core is generally over-costed and readily requires Heralds to work as intended. We get the most millage out of our Special and Rare sections and these are typically the units that have to do all the heavy lifting.

Army-wide 5++ is something of a win-lose. Vs. the majority of S3/S4 attacks that rule the game, it becomes marginally better than the standard 5+ save most other Core units get and is slightly worse than anyone capable of running lots of 4+ save units.
Where it really shine is vs. S5/6 where it is typically hands-down better than everything bar a 1+ save.
A 5++ max on our characters however is a huge disadvantage as it makes them inferior to everyone else's. Outside of Tzheralds, ALL of our characters want to be in combat. Combat characters in general almost universally sport a 4++ and/or a re-rollable 1+/2+ save. We get a very expensive & random shot at layered protection, while also lacking key protections like LoS on our very expensive Lords.

Throwback wrote:
3. RoC.
mono or dual-god seems the obvious choice to minimise the number of results which can hurt your army. Tome seems the obvious choice if you have both a Lord and mono.

Mono-god being 'safer' is somewhat of a myth, especially for mono-Khorne & mono-Tzeentch who are actually more likely to get hit than mono-Nurgle or Slaanesh. (The Slaany & Nurgle results have 5 possible rolls vs. only 4 possible rolls for the Khorne/Tzeentch storms)
The Tome is really only a no-brainer in a mono-Khorne list. That GUO almost never wants to roll on the Exalted table, while both the LoC & Kipper much prefer the E.Blade. (though the LoC might want the Wand when landing the +1DD per attempt gift, depending on who you're up against.)

All we really needed was this thing to go off in the Shooting Phase AND to have Instruments provide re-rolls just like the 40k versions do.

Throwback wrote:
4. Inefficient core troops.
Loci + big unitls improves their efficiency hugely. The chaff/chaff clearers (hounds etc) are already good from what I've seen on these forums.

This is true only for Khorne & Nurgle really, and even then, only Bloodletters will ever run in big units. Regen 'Bearers are fine at 30, while the problem with running big units of Daemonettes is that your Herald is too squishy. (T3/W2/5++ falls to a stiff breeze - even Elven combat characters are more resilient than this!)
Horrors on the other hand NEVER! want to be used in big units because their Lore is generally terrible on them. 10-18 strong at the most, (and even then, taking 18 is because you're being fluffy since Tzeentch's sacred number is 9), because you're looking at ensuring they get a specific spell and then letting their Lore Attribute build the unit for you.
Tzheralds fulfill the super important role of 'using up' spells the Pinkies don't want, and then providing the +1S to their spells.

Our real chaff/chaff cleaners would be Furies, solo/double Beasts, Seekers and occasionally Nurglings. Hounds are prone to getting spanked by RoC and when ambushing, they're cleaning up the backfield rather than chaffing/removing chaff.

Throwback wrote:
5. BotWD
This thing is stupid. One of the dumbest design choices I've ever seen, especially since it's never been errata'd.

Add to this Alarielle the Ever***** and her special banner. (on top of HE's just being really annoying to fight in general)

Even the Nurgle Wall of Death gets laughed at by a HE player running Banner of Averlorn Light Coven, due to their buffs being bubble cast at +8, while the Lv1/2 holding Banishment happily 6-dices it when needed for what's typically a bunch of S7/8 hits.
It's even more annoying because Alarielle Light Coven is the HE's best infantry-based build. (ie: I see it a lot!)



@Duke: I don't care about how many tournaments DoC win/place in. Simply winning tournaments is not the end-all-be-all of whether or not a book is good/bad.
It would also be interesting to see the specific lists that are placing. Odds are almost every single list is pretty much a 70%+ carbon copy of each other. Tournaments only tend to tell us what the hardest units/build(s) in each book are, not if that book is internally well balanced with plenty of options which can compete in a non-'uber competitive setting.

I'd rather have a middle of the pack or even lower-middle book that isn't basically forcing me into specific units/builds just to even put up a fight! Sure, Nurgle is absolute boss in this book, to the point you can't even really build a 'friendly' list that won't earn a boatload of hate from opponents, and Slaanesh has some tricks.
Tzeentch & Khorne are crap who struggle to do much outside of sticking to very one-dimentional set-ups.

It's a sad, sad day when a mono-Tzeentch list is forced to leave one of it's two staple units on the shelf because including them actually makes your list substantially weaker. (okay, Flamers work fine if everyone agrees to only ever play 1000pts or under and never bring WoC or Ogres or 1+ save Empire armies!)


Overall though, you could probably just all our book 'Warhammer: Beasts of Nurgle' because those b******* are just plain obnoxious for only 50pts.
Truth be told, they're almost on the same level of shenanigans as BotWD.

I must be the unluckiest guy in the world vs Demons.

I played my afore-mentioned friends mono-khorne today. 3 turns in a row he rolled an 8 for magic dice. 1st time my WoC Slaanesh DP used his charmed shield. The second time he took 5 wounds from a Khorne fart.

I think I'm just going to flip out next time someone tells me that RoC is a net loss for demons.

In both games (1 vs my high elves and 1 vs my warriors) he rolled up hits on 10 times. (In game 1 he got a +1 ward save and in game 2 he got a 7.)

I don't know why the portalglyph wouldn't be a common option against cannon armies. Surely it's better than losing your 500 point lord. Furthermore, logic says don't take the point sink unless there is something equally/more important for your opponent to take out. Personally I take the fact that it costs ~400 points as basic as a strong indication that it's not meant to be used in every game.

IIRC, HoK are exactly as killable as HoS, execpt with lower iniative (T4 maybe?). Realistically though you want your champion to accept the challenge while you try to win through your RnF. 5++, fear and a locus help alot there.

I know horror units are better small, I guess I was really referring to slaanesh & khorne. Not sure about nurgle. I like big daemonette units conceptually, because they put out lots of ASF hits. I haven't done the maths though.

Skull cannons do flaming hits, right?

I don't think demonettes are ASF anymore, just AP.

yeah I meant with the locus

Throwback wrote:
I don't know why the portalglyph wouldn't be a common option against cannon armies. Surely it's better than losing your 500 point lord.

Because only a 500pt lord can take it and only a 500pt lord can carry it. It's 75pts. So you would need 2 giant lords and one is just a piggy back ride for another lord and the first one is gimped because he lost 75 of his points buying an item for the 2nd lord and is thus less powerful. That's a pretty horrible option. At least with 2 lords out and about, you have 2 cannon/spell targets and they have full points to spend on being offensive/defensive.

Edit: just putting a new question in YMTC

Ah I missed that, for some reason I thought any unit could carry it, thus giving your lord a safe way to move close to the enemy.

Throwback wrote:
I don't know why the portalglyph wouldn't be a common option against cannon armies. Surely it's better than losing your 500 point lord. Furthermore, logic says don't take the point sink unless there is something equally/more important for your opponent to take out. Personally I take the fact that it costs ~400 points as basic as a strong indication that it's not meant to be used in every game.

Vampire Lord routinely clock in at 380-400+ pts. WoC have insane options on the DP's. Ogre Tyrants ain't too cheap wither, while Slaan are also typically 'uber expensve. At least they're worth every single penny you pay.

Our DP's? Were sub-par in the last book, and actually got even worse in our new book!
Our Greaters? Sure they came down in pts which was bloody well needed, but they lost stats in certain cases AND their Gift options are gak outside of two staple set-ups.

Why does everyone else get their toys and we don't again? Oh right, cause there's no hate like Daemon hate and our book is a half-arsed clusterfeth.

Throwback wrote:
IIRC, HoK are exactly as killable as HoS, execpt with lower iniative (T4 maybe?). Realistically though you want your champion to accept the challenge while you try to win through your RnF. 5++, fear and a locus help alot there.

1. Any opponent with more than a couple brain cells to rub together will just use their rank-and-file to focus down the naked T3/5++ Herald. Even 6-9/S3 attacks are deadly to Slaany & Tzheralds! (though if a Tzherald is in combat, either you f'ed up, or you've already lost anyways)

2. The Khorne Locii are laughably overcosted, on a platform you can't reliably protect.

3. Fear is nowadays just an occasional perk. Yes it tests every round, but half the time it's dealing with IP and/or BSB re-rolls, while most armies have fear causers of their own now, making it much less special as an army-wide thing.

Throwback wrote:
I know horror units are better small, I guess I was really referring to slaanesh & khorne. Not sure about nurgle. I like big daemonette units conceptually, because they put out lots of ASF hits. I haven't done the maths though.

Nurgle w/Regen Herald is best kept 25-30, otherwise the unit becomes too unwieldy plus the fact that 'Bearers aren't meant to kill lots of stuff, but rather play 'unmovable anvil of doom'

Khorne is typically 'go big or go home' because everything about them is overcosted, while they die like flies. They also have the worst "God of..." rule, while Killing Blow is situational and far less spectacular in the new game of 'monsters everywhere!'

Slaanesh is better kept MMU at about 20'ish or so in order to make better use of that M6 to slip around to the flanks of opponents. (25-40+ is too big to do that)
Honestly, their trade-mark Locus is actually the Lesser Locus because well, it's simply a steal for it's paltry cost and lets them laugh at Dwellers & any of the 'hex stat + cast instant kill spell = profit' tactics.
ASF may seem the shizz, but you're still just S3 and have no way of buffing your strength outside of Mindrazor.

Horrors NEVER need to be bigger than 10-15 depending on how big the game is, (15 is slightly safer at 3k), or 18 if you're being fluffy and faithful to Lord Tzeentch. And the only Locus you'll ever consider is the Exalted one, the others force you to be in combat... which is some place Pinkies never want to be!

 DukeRustfield wrote:
626 has made it really clear that he will never say anything about the new DoC book is not horrible. Every single time someone comes up with any suggestion he will state the existence of some theoretical counter. Well no shiz, this is a game of rock scissors paper, every build/unit/meta has a counter(s). If it doesn't, it's broken and needs to be removed. But it's pretty rare you're going to fight someone with an exact counter to your exact strategy unless you tell them beforehand or you run the same thing every time at a local.

^^^ I agree with this guy.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
626 has made it really clear that he will never say anything about the new DoC book is not horrible. Every single time someone comes up with any suggestion he will state the existence of some theoretical counter. Well no shiz, this is a game of rock scissors paper, every build/unit/meta has a counter(s). If it doesn't, it's broken and needs to be removed. But it's pretty rare you're going to fight someone with an exact counter to your exact strategy unless you tell them beforehand or you run the same thing every time at a local.

^^^ I agree with this guy.

If you actually read through his posts, I believe his stance is this:

The DoC book basically writes its own list. The internal balance is horrible, because some of the choices are nearly broken they're so good, while everything else is well below the power curve for what they cost or are capable of. I would much rather have options by toning down the stupidly good stuff and bumping up the rest.

...and while he may bleed this into other threads sometimes, this is a pretty legitimate thing to state for this thread in particular. Don't put words in his mouth.

A similar, if not identical, argument has been made about the DoC book post after post and not just in this thread.

E626 has been waving the Daemons boo-hoo flag for months. The fact is that nothing is going to get changed/ errata'd any time soon so he needs to get over it and either take the net list or build armies to his taste while accepting that they will probably lose more often than not (see: Beastmen, Tomb Kings, most OnG, Bretonnians, and Wood Elves).

He has the right to heir his grievances, especially in a thread related to the matter, but enough is enough.

Perhaps he can ask his local group to let him substitute his daemons for another army if buying one is not an option.

Pervertdhermit wrote:
A similar, if not identical, argument has been made about the DoC book post after post and not just in this thread.

E626 has been waving the Daemons boo-hoo flag for months. The fact is that nothing is going to get changed/ errata'd any time soon so he needs to get over it and either take the net list or build armies to his taste while accepting that they will probably lose more often than not (see: Beastmen, Tomb Kings, most OnG, Bretonnians, and Wood Elves).

He has the right to heir his grievances, especially in a thread related to the matter, but enough is enough.

Perhaps he can ask his local group to let him substitute his daemons for another army if buying one is not an option.

Nono, I get it. As I said, it definitely bleeds into other threads, and I've told him to stop before. But this is a thread asking about the state of DoC balance. Maybe I'm playing devil's advocate a bit here, but I get what he's saying and a lot of people are glossing over the fact that he does, in fact, think the book isn't entirely trash... it's just that the internal balance is trash. Just trying to keep everyone in perspective.

 Evertras wrote:
The DoC book basically writes its own list. The internal balance is horrible, because some of the choices are nearly broken they're so good, while everything else is well below the power curve for what they cost or are capable of. I would much rather have options by toning down the stupidly good stuff and bumping up the rest.

And if you've read my posts in the past, I've pointed out how he's wrong. How the entire WHFB gaming world has proven him wrong by winning tournaments using units, in quantities, that he considers useless or detrimental.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 Evertras wrote:
The DoC book basically writes its own list. The internal balance is horrible, because some of the choices are nearly broken they're so good, while everything else is well below the power curve for what they cost or are capable of. I would much rather have options by toning down the stupidly good stuff and bumping up the rest.

And if you've read my posts in the past, I've pointed out how he's wrong. How the entire WHFB gaming world has proven him wrong by winning tournaments using units, in quantities, that he considers useless or detrimental.

I won't argue that! Just making sure the argument is clear for both sides. I'll stop playing pretend mod now, apologies for intruding.

Can someone explain to me the value of plague drones? I'm still struggling to see how they're a decent unit. Do people upgrade them? How many in a unit?

thelordcal wrote:
Can someone explain to me the value of plague drones? I'm still struggling to see how they're a decent unit. Do people upgrade them? How many in a unit?

They're a T5 combat unit with a permanent -1 to hit penalty. That also applies to range as they're skirmishers. They also have poisoned attacks. Yes, beasts can fight, but drones can bring the hurt more reliably. And they're MC. As for the upgrades and number, the standard is 5 with plague Proboscidea(no idea if that's right, blame autocorrect) and a standard and musician.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

thelordcal wrote:
Can someone explain to me the value of plague drones? I'm still struggling to see how they're a decent unit. Do people upgrade them? How many in a unit?

They're a T5 combat unit with a permanent -1 to hit penalty. That also applies to range as they're skirmishers. They also have poisoned attacks. Yes, beasts can fight, but drones can bring the hurt more reliably. And they're MC. As for the upgrades and number, the standard is 5 with plague Proboscidea(no idea if that's right, blame autocorrect) and a standard and musician.

3-4 is more manageable to move about, because they only have Hover which limits their movement quite a bit, and their bases are also a bit larger since they use the slightly elongated Monstrous Cav base.

Buying the Plague Proboscis is a no-brainer as it gives Poisoned Attacks to the Rot Flies, but Death's Heads & Venom Stings are 'meh'. (Death's Heads especially as it's a short-ranged, one-shot attack using BS3)
They're also one of the few units who get really good millage out of the Banner of E.Flame, which can make them really scary monster hunters, (flaming poison!), but makes them far worse vs. the likes of characters who can potentially get a 2++ vs. burny attacks.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 Evertras wrote:
The DoC book basically writes its own list. The internal balance is horrible, because some of the choices are nearly broken they're so good, while everything else is well below the power curve for what they cost or are capable of. I would much rather have options by toning down the stupidly good stuff and bumping up the rest.

And if you've read my posts in the past, I've pointed out how she's wrong. How the entire WHFB gaming world has proven her wrong by winning tournaments using units, in quantities, that she considers useless or detrimental.

First of all, I fixed that for you.

Secondly, show me the 40-50+ player tournaments DoC have won using a Khorne or Tzeentzh heavy army. Show me the tournament where at least 50% of the total DoC armies are placing in the top 15.
Just because we have Khurgle & Caco bomb (which will earn you a punch in the throat) doesn't make our book all sunshine & roses. Overall Daemons have been showing pretty much average to poor in major events, especially non-comped ones.

By the sole argument of "it wins tournaments so shut up & L2P!lolz", you could then state that the new HE's suck and are under-powered because they're not winning tournaments. Yet overall, HE's are seen to place quite well, maybe not winning top spot, but you do see HE's a fair bit on or near the top tables.

This is why tournaments are a poor measuring stick, because they're only a small sample size, with typically wildly different controls. (is the event comp/non-comp, what type of comp is used, how much terrain & what type of terrain is used, etc...)
Compared in quality & ability to build different types of lists to the other 8th ed books, DoC got handed a polished turd.

It's also highly infuriating how the majority of the community seems overly gleeful at Daemons getting a sub-standard book with few options and horrid internal balance, all because of that one summer when every TFG jumped on the bandwagon... (and then left once DE's came out)

I played in a 40 player uncomped event this past weekend. Top 4 Armies:

Arkhan Chariot list took first
Double Stank Empire
Some other nasty Empire
Mono Nurgle daemons

All 4 of these had max battle points and Painting, and sportsmanship points settled the rest.

I took 6th overall with my TK.

50%(3/6) of Daemons were in the top 15 including one mono Khorne.

I played against 2 of the guys who were not in the top 15. one was a really hodge podged list with not a lot of focus. The other was an amazingly converted and painted Mononurgle army lacking a displayboard keeping him from the top 15. Mono Nurgle makes Arkhan real happy.

I see a lot of the same talk. People saying that Daemons are lack luster since their new Armybook.

My entire community was a 40k Community, but we started Escalation leagues to get into Fantasy, so we are all primarily new players. but so far out of 2 Escalation leagues I finished 2nd place in both, and won the Tournament in both.

The first league I did a very fluffy all Khorne Army. granted this was against all newbies to fantasy.

My second however included everyone from the first legaue and a few veteran players who joined our club....I played Primarily Tzeentch with a pinch of Khorne to fill in missing points.

I will say they are not for the Faint of Heart. my final 2 games in the last tournament each went to turn 6 and were not decided until the very last second. And the tides turned every turn back and forth.

And what I have noticed is that at certain point value games Daemons are almost impossible to win with. at 900 pts i could barely win, at 1200 I could not win at all. but at 1500 I could win again though in close games, but as our points get higher, the games become less close.

I originally picked up the Daemons as a time killer, as I wanted to get into Fantasy but couldnt bring myself to buy the god awful wood elf models. I planned on just having Khorne for some scenes i wanted in my display case, and now i find myself expanding to Nurgle in our T&T Campaign next month. Hands down picking up a Herald of Khorne to paint for a painting competition was the best Warhammer decision I made. I enjoy every aspect of my Daemons....Modeling, Painting, Games(however unpredictable they may be)........and most of all seeing the look on my opponents face when I roll and 11-12 on the Reign of Chaos Table!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:
The new book is a dysfunctional mess of lazy & horribly implemented rules.
You can really tell that the author didn't give a damn about what he was doing, and more or less trying to simply 'people please' which is an awful way to try and design something.

The Gift tables & Reign of Comedy tables are god-awful things.
The Gift tables are a complete joke when you compare them their 40k counterparts... There's no organisation at all, (making it impossible to gain decent protection for your very sub-standard Heroes in general), and too much duplication between Rewards & magic weapon options. (ie: 6 on Lesser Gift table = ASF, but you can also default to the ASF sword anyways?!)
Most of the time, RoC screws over the Daemon player more so than their opponent, and with it's ability to outright win you the game on a fluky roll, it really feels like cheating when it happens. Meanwhile, it drives most opponents up the wall because it adds so much additional rolling to the Magic Phase, and The Dark Prince Thirsts result, (roll of 8), is easily capable of wrecking any non-infantry block it hits & is especially harsh on the Daemon player's own Khornate units. (Ld test on 3D6, take a wound w/no armour save for every point you fail by...)

Unit wise, Core is a mess due to general overcosting and/or poorly thought-out designs... Plaguebearers are probably a point too cheap, but the others are pretty much shoehorned into specific unit sizes. Bloodletters are about the worst Core in the game by far, adding nothing that Daemonettes can't achive, while comparing the new Warlocks to Horrors makes Tzeentch simply cry.
Likewise across the rest of the book, the Specials & Rares tend to be either 'really good' or else just plain bad for their pts... Bloodcrushers for example are the worst Monstrous Cav in the game - anything they can do, Nurgle Drones do better, while Flesh Hounds/Seekers/Fiends & even Daemonettes w/+1M Banner are simply much more economical means of flanking.
Flamers are complete garbage, likely the outright worst unit in the entire game.
The Slaany Chariots were crap in the WD update and the book changed nothing about them.

The God of freaking magic now being limited to only 2 lores is a huge smack in the face, compounded by the fact that Metal synergises horribly with Lore of Tzeentch. (which is a pretty 'meh' lore for Daemons as well). On the other hand, both Nurgle & Slaanesh made out like freaking bandits with their lores, which at least saves the magic phase for those armies...
Tzeentch unfortunately simply can't compete in the one phase he should dominate.


Basically, Daemons players now play either 'The List' (25-30 Regen'ing Plaguebears w/Herald BSB, 2x 10 Horrors, 2x solo Beasts, 4-6 Beasts, 5x Furies, 2x Khannons + filler to taste), OR you run a Caco-bomb which is equally stupid, OR you run an Epidemius list of 'uber doom that will leave everyone you face even further cemented in their opinion that DoC players are all filthy, WAAC's donkeycaves.

But trying to run say a Khorne or Tzeentch themed list is about as effective as running a VC army that's just a Master Necro and 100% Zombies. Slaanesh is better off, able to do a good MSU build, but it's a super glass cannon... Even just general MSU Daemons while doable is still just a hugely inferior version of any Elven or WoC versions.
Then add-in the complete junk-shot that High Elves give Daemons...

Tomb Kings might have a book full of over-costed stuff, but at least there's some good synergies buried in there that a good player can exploit.
Daemons on the other hand got the complete shaft and are now pretty much pigeonholed into set lists to compete. (and using said lists only helps to further poke the wider community's Daemon hate in the knee.)

I can't disagree more, not only do I have good results with everything you say is bad and poor, but you forget the best part about this game.....its all about the dice rolls, you can mathlete all you want. but it will always be down to luck and chance.

Though I will agree that the heroes are substandard for their price, and I only run them to give a locus which in my opinion should be slightly cheaper since the hero himself is so weak.

And Nurgle may have gotten a little bit more love, but its due to a long term neglect that they had before.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Show me the tournament where at least 50% of the total DoC armies are placing in the top 15.

If any army in the game did this it would be indicative of a broken army. Within 50%, HALF, of the people at a tournament, there will be those who have never played at a tourney in their lives. Are brand new. Are ten years old. Are cracked out on ritalin and Red Bull. If you are practically guaranteed a spot in the top by fielding an army, that army needs to be curbstomped really bad.

 Vladamyr wrote:
I see a lot of the same talk. People saying that Daemons are lack luster since their new Armybook.

My entire community was a 40k Community, but we started Escalation leagues to get into Fantasy, so we are all primarily new players. but so far out of 2 Escalation leagues I finished 2nd place in both, and won the Tournament in both.

The first league I did a very fluffy all Khorne Army. granted this was against all newbies to fantasy.

My second however included everyone from the first legaue and a few veteran players who joined our club....I played Primarily Tzeentch with a pinch of Khorne to fill in missing points.

I will say they are not for the Faint of Heart. my final 2 games in the last tournament each went to turn 6 and were not decided until the very last second. And the tides turned every turn back and forth.

And what I have noticed is that at certain point value games Daemons are almost impossible to win with. at 900 pts i could barely win, at 1200 I could not win at all. but at 1500 I could win again though in close games, but as our points get higher, the games become less close.

I originally picked up the Daemons as a time killer, as I wanted to get into Fantasy but couldnt bring myself to buy the god awful wood elf models. I planned on just having Khorne for some scenes i wanted in my display case, and now i find myself expanding to Nurgle in our T&T Campaign next month. Hands down picking up a Herald of Khorne to paint for a painting competition was the best Warhammer decision I made. I enjoy every aspect of my Daemons....Modeling, Painting, Games(however unpredictable they may be)........and most of all seeing the look on my opponents face when I roll and 11-12 on the Reign of Chaos Table!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:
The new book is a dysfunctional mess of lazy & horribly implemented rules.
You can really tell that the author didn't give a damn about what he was doing, and more or less trying to simply 'people please' which is an awful way to try and design something.

The Gift tables & Reign of Comedy tables are god-awful things.
The Gift tables are a complete joke when you compare them their 40k counterparts... There's no organisation at all, (making it impossible to gain decent protection for your very sub-standard Heroes in general), and too much duplication between Rewards & magic weapon options. (ie: 6 on Lesser Gift table = ASF, but you can also default to the ASF sword anyways?!)
Most of the time, RoC screws over the Daemon player more so than their opponent, and with it's ability to outright win you the game on a fluky roll, it really feels like cheating when it happens. Meanwhile, it drives most opponents up the wall because it adds so much additional rolling to the Magic Phase, and The Dark Prince Thirsts result, (roll of 8), is easily capable of wrecking any non-infantry block it hits & is especially harsh on the Daemon player's own Khornate units. (Ld test on 3D6, take a wound w/no armour save for every point you fail by...)

Unit wise, Core is a mess due to general overcosting and/or poorly thought-out designs... Plaguebearers are probably a point too cheap, but the others are pretty much shoehorned into specific unit sizes. Bloodletters are about the worst Core in the game by far, adding nothing that Daemonettes can't achive, while comparing the new Warlocks to Horrors makes Tzeentch simply cry.
Likewise across the rest of the book, the Specials & Rares tend to be either 'really good' or else just plain bad for their pts... Bloodcrushers for example are the worst Monstrous Cav in the game - anything they can do, Nurgle Drones do better, while Flesh Hounds/Seekers/Fiends & even Daemonettes w/+1M Banner are simply much more economical means of flanking.
Flamers are complete garbage, likely the outright worst unit in the entire game.
The Slaany Chariots were crap in the WD update and the book changed nothing about them.

The God of freaking magic now being limited to only 2 lores is a huge smack in the face, compounded by the fact that Metal synergises horribly with Lore of Tzeentch. (which is a pretty 'meh' lore for Daemons as well). On the other hand, both Nurgle & Slaanesh made out like freaking bandits with their lores, which at least saves the magic phase for those armies...
Tzeentch unfortunately simply can't compete in the one phase he should dominate.


Basically, Daemons players now play either 'The List' (25-30 Regen'ing Plaguebears w/Herald BSB, 2x 10 Horrors, 2x solo Beasts, 4-6 Beasts, 5x Furies, 2x Khannons + filler to taste), OR you run a Caco-bomb which is equally stupid, OR you run an Epidemius list of 'uber doom that will leave everyone you face even further cemented in their opinion that DoC players are all filthy, WAAC's donkeycaves.

But trying to run say a Khorne or Tzeentch themed list is about as effective as running a VC army that's just a Master Necro and 100% Zombies. Slaanesh is better off, able to do a good MSU build, but it's a super glass cannon... Even just general MSU Daemons while doable is still just a hugely inferior version of any Elven or WoC versions.
Then add-in the complete junk-shot that High Elves give Daemons...

Tomb Kings might have a book full of over-costed stuff, but at least there's some good synergies buried in there that a good player can exploit.
Daemons on the other hand got the complete shaft and are now pretty much pigeonholed into set lists to compete. (and using said lists only helps to further poke the wider community's Daemon hate in the knee.)

I can't disagree more, not only do I have good results with everything you say is bad and poor, but you forget the best part about this game.....its all about the dice rolls, you can mathlete all you want. but it will always be down to luck and chance.

Though I will agree that the heroes are substandard for their price, and I only run them to give a locus which in my opinion should be slightly cheaper since the hero himself is so weak.

And Nurgle may have gotten a little bit more love, but its due to a long term neglect that they had before.

+1 Vlad, especially on "it's about the dice rolls" not playing Mathhammer.

"The List" might be the "best" demon list, but they have a full book of units to use and people are winning, losing, and having fun with them. It sucks to have a good book radically changed (I miss my last edition TK's), but your book is plenty viable.

 Vladamyr wrote:
its all about the dice rolls, you can mathlete all you want. but it will always be down to luck and chance.

Graaaah, no.

I need to vehemently disagree with this mindset. But before I do, let me clarify something: I don't necessarily agree with 626 or that the DoC is okay. I'm pretty ambivalent on that. I'm just picking out this one bit, and I apologize if I"m misconstruing, but this is a poisonous sort of mindset to have if you take this quote at face value.

I also want to clarify that I'm completely throwing out fluff and fun for the moment. This is purely about winning.

The game is not about luck and chance. Not directly, at least. The game is about dealing with luck and chance. You want to maximize your odds at every turn, and the right decision is always the one with the best odds for victory. You want to minimize risks and have contingency plans in place.

Why do you take a BSB in most armies? You want leadership rerolls. Why? Because you have a much better chance of a positive outcome. If it were all simply 'up to luck', why bother taking a BSB? Yes, you may still end up failing a roll, but the odds are MUCH less. The BSB minimizes risk and offers a contingency if your dice fail the first time.

Why would I bother taking halberds on my WoC warriors for +1 strength instead of a shield? The shield gives +1 armor, the halberds give +1 to wound and -1 to enemy armor (where applicable). I am playing the odds, even if in a fluke game that shield might have won me a battle.

If I'm faced with a charge where I need a 6 on the dice to make it, I will generally charge. If I roll a 5, does that mean I shouldn't have charged?

If I'm faced with a charge where I need a 12 on the dice to make it, I will generally not charge. If I roll a 12, does that mean I should have charged?

Just because something went wrong doesn't mean it wasn't the right decision, and just because something went well doesn't mean it was the correct choice.

Of course, there are situations where you do want to make that hail mary charge. I had a game where the only way I could win was by making a charge against a unit of chariots that was about to obliterate me, and I needed an 11. I made it. It was the correct choice at the time, because otherwise I was 100% dead instead of 90% dead, and I got very lucky. Yes, that happens. But the probability of that happening was very low, and I can't possibly go around relying on that. I'm sure we all have stories like that, but those are the exception, not the rule... and you should be looking at the rule if you want to talk about balance and correct choices both in list building and in games.

That came out a little convoluted. I need caffeine. Hopefully it made some sense, though. x.x

There's a big difference between making calculated odds-based decisions during the game and loudly proclaiming you cannot win with a unit because it costs 2 points more than you think it should or because it only has T6 6 wounds without access to an armor save.

Vlad is simply pointing out that you are not destined to lose because you are playing mono-tzeentch or with tomb kings. You still have generalship and putting your models on the table.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
There's a big difference between making calculated odds-based decisions during the game and loudly proclaiming you cannot win with a unit because it costs 2 points more than you think it should or because it only has T6 6 wounds without access to an armor save.

Vlad is simply pointing out that you are not destined to lose because you are playing mono-tzeentch or with tomb kings. You still have generalship and putting your models on the table.

If that's the intent, then I agree. There's always a chance, and list building is only one of the factors. But that's not 'dice deciding things', that's your decision making at work.

Going to agree with Evertras.
Obviously, the dice have the final say. But Warhammer is not "all about the dice rolls". It's all about how successfully your list and tactics stack the odds of those dice in your favor.

I think it's safe to say that the Daemon book has a bunch of problems.

I also think it's safe to say that it's not a completely lost cause, even without considering the select Awesome bits.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that things like Daemonic Instability, the Reign of Chaos, and Warpflame are obviously not what they are supposed to be. And that the presence of Epidemius and Beasts of Nurgle does not mean that the rest of the book doesn't have problems.

The effects of randomness are greater the more opportunities and range of you are required to implement them.

DoC has more dice rolls than pretty much any other army doing the same things. That means they are inherently subject to more randomness than other armies.

Take that one Horror Herald ability where you roll at the beginning of the turn to determine their strength. Imagine if you had to do that with every unit for every attribute. THEN you could say the game was very much about dice rolls because your entire army would be shifty diametrically in power every single turn.

As it is, every unit has base attributes and rolls against a base table. So the effects of randomness overall are significantly diminished.

Warpsolution wrote:
Going to agree with Evertras.
Obviously, the dice have the final say. But Warhammer is not "all about the dice rolls". It's all about how successfully your list and tactics stack the odds of those dice in your favor.

I think it's safe to say that the Daemon book has a bunch of problems.

I also think it's safe to say that it's not a completely lost cause, even without considering the select Awesome bits.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that things like Daemonic Instability, the Reign of Chaos, and Warpflame are obviously not what they are supposed to be. And that the presence of Epidemius and Beasts of Nurgle does not mean that the rest of the book doesn't have problems.

Ok let me correct my statement.....Not all about the dice rolls. HOWEVER!
-The best List can be undone by poor tactics or dice rolls.
-The best tactics can be undone by dice roll.
-The best dice rolls cannot make up for poor tactics or just lack of knowing how to use your own units.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
I must be the unluckiest guy in the world vs Demons.

I played my afore-mentioned friends mono-khorne today. 3 turns in a row he rolled an 8 for magic dice. 1st time my WoC Slaanesh DP used his charmed shield. The second time he took 5 wounds from a Khorne fart.

I think I'm just going to flip out next time someone tells me that RoC is a net loss for demons.

In both games (1 vs my high elves and 1 vs my warriors) he rolled up hits on 10 times. (In game 1 he got a +1 ward save and in game 2 he got a 7.)

Realm of chaos killed off my warpfire throwers quite a bit. Nice to know something so terrible can just randomly attack my single units and wipe them out while I don't even get to dispel it. Meh so what it hurts some of your units but you know that you'll face it every game. It's not like I have much ability to defend against it. To be fair I don't know how it totally works but it did kill off some of my lone weapons teams no problem and I couldn't do sh*t about it.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Thunderfrog wrote:
I must be the unluckiest guy in the world vs Demons.

I played my afore-mentioned friends mono-khorne today. 3 turns in a row he rolled an 8 for magic dice. 1st time my WoC Slaanesh DP used his charmed shield. The second time he took 5 wounds from a Khorne fart.

I think I'm just going to flip out next time someone tells me that RoC is a net loss for demons.

In both games (1 vs my high elves and 1 vs my warriors) he rolled up hits on 10 times. (In game 1 he got a +1 ward save and in game 2 he got a 7.)

Realm of chaos killed off my warpfire throwers quite a bit. Nice to know something so terrible can just randomly attack my single units and wipe them out while I don't even get to dispel it. Meh so what it hurts some of your units but you know that you'll face it every game. It's not like I have much ability to defend against it. To be fair I don't know how it totally works but it did kill off some of my lone weapons teams no problem and I couldn't do sh*t about it.

Here's the thing about the Reign of Comedy table. It was meant to supplement the DoC's non-existent Shooting phase and as a way to represent that a Daemonic incursion brings all kinds of crazy, insane warp-fueled madness with it.

The results for those who don't know are;
2. Daemon player takes army-wide Daemonic Instability tests on each units' base Leadership. (so no General's IP bonus)
- The second worst result for the DoC player honestly. No magic phase at all, and you can happily watch your majority Ld7 army explode. If it happens within the first turn or so, it can be game ending because it instantly obliterate your critical chaff units. (Furies are Ld2, solo Beasts likely take a couple of instant wounds, things like Khannons or Burning Chariots get gimped, etc...)

3. Random character w/Daemonic Instability rule take an instant Ld test and lose a wound with no saves allowed for every point failed.
- This is always horrific, as you're likely losing a critical Herald (and their Locus!), or else running the risk of nuking your 500+ pts General who's probably also your Lv4 wizard. Oh, and no Magic phase again.

4. All units/characters w/Daemonic Instability rule suffer -1 ward save.
- The outright worst result for the DoC player. Again, your Magic phase is poop'tastic, and you suddenly lose half your save! This is instant death for any Greater/Prince(s), while even normally solid units begin to melt away with frightening ease. About the only things that stay safe are Plaguies w/Regen Locus & Beasts who come with Regen.

5. Tzeentch Storm hits all enemy & Nurgle units not in combat on a 6.
- Small template that scatters D6", causes S4 Flaming Attacks hits. Meh for the most part. T3/5+ may not like it much, but overall the damage is fairly mediocre at best and Nurgle tends to laugh at it.

6. Nurgle Storm hits all enemy & Tzeentch units not in combat on a 6.
- D6+3/S3 hits, no armour saves allowed. Nasty to armoured units, especially Tzeentchian WoC units! This is great at zapping Burning Chariots & Tzeentch units in general due to them having only T3/4.

7. Nothing happens

8. Slaanesh storm hits all enemy & Khorne units not in combat on a 6.
- 3D6Ld test, take a wound with no armour save for each point failed. The harshest God storm for sure as even Ld10 isn't safe, and the no armour saves is just plain mean. It also quite funny how often this will cripple or outright kill Khannons, or nuke Hounds & 'Crushers units too.

9. Khorne storm hits all enemy & Slaanesh units not in combat on a 6.
- small template, scatters 3D6", worked out as a stone throw shot w/S9 + multiple wounds(D6) for the center hole/S3 otherwise. If this even hits anything it's a cause for mass celebration! Most useless God storm result there is, but at least the DoC player's Magic phase is a good one.

10. All models with Daemonic Instability gain +1 ward save.
- The outright best result. It even makes our over costed characters in general get the same level of ward save that everyone else can take!

11. Random wizard without Daemonic Instability rule takes a 3D6 Ld test, if failed turn into a naked Herald.
- Yes, this one sucks for the opponent. But outside of VC's/TK's, losing even your Lv4 to this isn't nearly the groin shot that the DoC player takes when the opposite result happens to them.
Hell, DoC themselves prove you don't need a Lv4 wizard to compete, so while the potential 300-350pts on average hit is nasty, it's not game ending. (or unit crippling like suddenly losing your Locus ability typically is)

12. Gain a unit of 2D6+3 Bloodletters/Horrors/Plaguebearers/Daemonettes.
- A fun result, but requires you to carry the extra models. Note too that units come with no upgrades, meaning there's a grey area surrounding weather or not Horrors can generate a spell or not. Not giving away VP's is a bit silly however, they should have at least given away 50 as a base.


Overall, the really bad results hurt the DoC worse because they're all catastrophic and remove the Magic phase. The top 3 results are all really good, but there's only the 10 your really ever hope for.
The God storms are annoying, but the worst result punches Khorne even further while the Tzeentch & Khorne especially tend to hit little to nothing. (or scatter insanely into combat and nail everyone!)

The idea of the chart is awesome, the execution however is lamentable as it tends to decide games all by itself.
At the very least, moving the thing to the Shooting phase would put a stop the unfair sodomising of one player in the Magic phase...

Your expectations of the chart are too high, I think.

You should hope or anything 5+, because it IS going to swing at all your opponents units and is great vs MSU. If might go off, it might not, but it is always going to roll on their units (5+) and MIGHT hit one of yours, based on your army comp.

Experiment 626 wrote:

11. Random wizard without Daemonic Instability rule takes a 3D6 Ld test, if failed turn into a naked Herald.
- Yes, this one sucks for the opponent. But outside of VC's/TK's, losing even your Lv4 to this isn't nearly the groin shot that the DoC player takes when the opposite result happens to them.
Hell, DoC themselves prove you don't need a Lv4 wizard to compete, so while the potential 300-350pts on average hit is nasty, it's not game ending. (or unit crippling like suddenly losing your Locus ability typically is)

Was this Errata'd cuz in Fantasy it only states a Leadership test, while in 40k it states a 3D6 Leadership Test.

i know in the FAQ they pointed out that they worded the God Storms poorly and specified that they hit all enemy units regardless.

to be completely honest i havent seen it change the outcome of many games. While rolling poorly for winds of magic is now more depressing.
-Rolling a 12 has helped me out a few times in extremely close games.
-Rolling an 11 is a Random wizard, and I have only successfully done this 2 a single lvl 1 wizard. (now if this is 3D6 leadership this may be different)

I do wish they would have made the God Storms a bit more similar i have never had a tzeentch or khorne result actually do any damage to me or an enemy as they always scatter off......nurgle and slannesh, however have caused decimation to either side.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Throwback wrote:

I know horror units are better small, I guess I was really referring to slaanesh & khorne. Not sure about nurgle. I like big daemonette units conceptually, because they put out lots of ASF hits. I haven't done the maths though.

I always enjoy games where I can put enough bloodletters on the field to put them 10 wide, as I find against certain armies a single attack from 2 ranks isnt enough to win combat enough of the time.

Pink Horrors though, I start with a unit of 20 to get my +4 to casting with them. if you keep you tzeentch wizards nearby this unit, those horrors can turn into a nightmare for your opponent. I have played games where it ended and i had more than 40 horrors on the table. and with the right loci, if you attempt to kill that big of a unit of horrors you may well cripple yourself in the process. (friendly games where people allow me to use dice at the end of pink horrors to add mroe ranks, as I am still building up the army)

I will get back to you on the Plague Bearers, using them for the first time later this week. starting with a unit of 10 +a herald, and a nearby GUO.

as to Daemonetes, they do get the ASF special rule, as long as your not stupid, you will always take this Locus. but their extra attacks alone put them on par with bloodletters, with always strikes first IMHO i think they are better.

 Vladamyr wrote:

Warpsolution wrote:
Going to agree with Evertras.
Obviously, the dice have the final say. But Warhammer is not "all about the dice rolls". It's all about how successfully your list and tactics stack the odds of those dice in your favor.

I think it's safe to say that the Daemon book has a bunch of problems.

I also think it's safe to say that it's not a completely lost cause, even without considering the select Awesome bits.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that things like Daemonic Instability, the Reign of Chaos, and Warpflame are obviously not what they are supposed to be. And that the presence of Epidemius and Beasts of Nurgle does not mean that the rest of the book doesn't have problems.

Ok let me correct my statement.....Not all about the dice rolls. HOWEVER!
-The best List can be undone by poor tactics or dice rolls.
-The best tactics can be undone by dice roll.
-The best dice rolls cannot make up for poor tactics or just lack of knowing how to use your own units.

Agreed.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
626 has made it really clear that he will never say anything about the new DoC book is not horrible. Every single time someone comes up with any suggestion he will state the existence of some theoretical counter. Well no shiz, this is a game of rock scissors paper, every build/unit/meta has a counter(s). If it doesn't, it's broken and needs to be removed. But it's pretty rare you're going to fight someone with an exact counter to your exact strategy unless you tell them beforehand or you run the same thing every time at a local.

^^^ I agree with this guy.

Me too.

I have to agree with flamingkillamajig. I do often hear complaints from Daemon players of too many random factora which can hurt the army too much, however overall, the army is incredibly well rounded. Magic and combat are more than solid, ans there is no reason to complain about a lack of variety or strong bases. If anything, I would say that Daemons are (still) relatively broken.

Yeah today I fought like a nurgle only list with epidemius in a small unit with 10 plaguebearers or so and another unit with 20 plaguebearers. These guys had like 4+ regeneration, were t5 and were str 5.

He also had a daemon prince, a soul grinder and 3 separate beasts of nurgle with each one being in a separate unit.

Keep in mind we were fighting straight up 1,500 pts lists and I managed to kill all of his plaguebearers (30 models total split into 2 units) and 2 out of his 3 beasts of nurgle (with the last with only one of its 4 wounds left).

I mostly just killed everything with magic that game and my abomination. My luck was pretty freaking good and his was pretty bad and he almost didn't get off any magic all game besides one spell but he didn't need it.

I got off the 13th spell with my grey seer (lvl 4 wizard spells of ruin) and kept using cracks call and somewhat scorch on him. I don't think he let scorch off but I did manage to 13th spell 16 of his 20 model unit of plaguebearers so that only 4 were left. Cracks call was also significant but even with all the cracks call, major 13th spell and good luck with his bad luck on most of the board that couldn't stop him from winning.

So supposedly the list he used is in a sort of league and he has supposedly never lost once in the league with his daemons (at best the GW manager said people could only tie him). That does not make daemons a sh*t army by any means. If anything it makes them stupid strong.

Anyway I tried to eliminate a bunch of his plaguebearers in one unit and then cracks call'ing it so he didn't have enough guys to 'look out sir' but epidemius just wouldn't go down.

I don't know how I would've combat my opponent's army. He just had plenty of monsters and hard hitting infantry. Sadly his monsters were high initiative so 'cracks call' wasn't very helpful.

----------------

So anyway I dunno why people think skaven are so OP and daemons or other factions (warriors of chaos, lizardmen, etc.) aren't. I can understand the 13th spell is really powerful but it's very specific. I have to use it against normal infantry so it's completely or almost completely useless against armies like ogres and it's not really effective unless an enemy is a super elite death star anyway. Not only that but I usually would have to 6 dice that sh*t to cast it successfully.

The skaven core may be decently priced but in a combat where casualties matters most unless you flank and considering skaven have fairly poor movement it isn't always easy to flank unless you have a wall of skaven approaching the enemy on multiple fronts in which case your general and BSB will be out of range to help most of them (though if they're slaves it won't matter so much).

So yeah everything I faced in that daemon army was pretty much a kill unit. Even the beasts of nurgle in one model units as re-directors and disruptors could kill a decent amount. Unless I take super huge units I'm screwed. So yeah maybe my limit against how stupidly large my units are hurts me.

Imagine if he had built it right.

Demon Princes aren't very good. Neither are his tiny blocks of plaguebearers.

Nor did he have drones. Or a large unit of beasts.

A guy at my FLGS runs two 30 blocks of plaguebearers w regen heralds, GUO lvl4, and around 10 beasts of nurgle in a 2500pt game. I've gotta say that is the most boring army to ever play against because it's march, march, charge with nothing else.
The issue is nurgle got buffed alot in the new book, and the other gods either stayed similar or got nerfed. That said, I still enjoy my Slaanesh/Tzeentch daemons as a fun thing to run

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
So supposedly the list he used is in a sort of league and he has supposedly never lost once in the league with his daemons (at best the GW manager said people could only tie him). That does not make daemons a sh*t army by any means. If anything it makes them stupid strong.

That does not make daemons anything... Because this is anecdotal evidence and really doesn't say anything about the strength of the army at all. As has been pointed out repetitively, mono-Nurgle is really strong, however the speed at which other choices start to fall away and become less competitive in tournament settings and against other power builds is pretty steep. This isn't unique to Daemons, although on the whole they probably have less ways to build tournament-winning compositions. 626 cops flack for repetitive rants about how bad the army book is and using several adjectives that are unnecessary and untrue. I will grant that some do have some truth and that there are several elements of the book that are kind of puzzling.

Still, it's so far from being a bad army.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Yeah today I fought like a nurgle only list with epidemius in a small unit with 10 plaguebearers or so and another unit with 20 plaguebearers. These guys had like 4+ regeneration, were t5 and were str 5.

He also had a daemon prince, a soul grinder and 3 separate beasts of nurgle with each one being in a separate unit.

Keep in mind we were fighting straight up 1,500 pts lists and I managed to kill all of his plaguebearers (30 models total split into 2 units) and 2 out of his 3 beasts of nurgle (with the last with only one of its 4 wounds left).

I mostly just killed everything with magic that game and my abomination. My luck was pretty freaking good and his was pretty bad and he almost didn't get off any magic all game besides one spell but he didn't need it.

I got off the 13th spell with my grey seer (lvl 4 wizard spells of ruin) and kept using cracks call and somewhat scorch on him. I don't think he let scorch off but I did manage to 13th spell 16 of his 20 model unit of plaguebearers so that only 4 were left. Cracks call was also significant but even with all the cracks call, major 13th spell and good luck with his bad luck on most of the board that couldn't stop him from winning.

So supposedly the list he used is in a sort of league and he has supposedly never lost once in the league with his daemons (at best the GW manager said people could only tie him). That does not make daemons a sh*t army by any means. If anything it makes them stupid strong.

Anyway I tried to eliminate a bunch of his plaguebearers in one unit and then cracks call'ing it so he didn't have enough guys to 'look out sir' but epidemius just wouldn't go down.

I don't know how I would've combat my opponent's army. He just had plenty of monsters and hard hitting infantry. Sadly his monsters were high initiative so 'cracks call' wasn't very helpful.

Did 13th go off with IF? Because if it didn't, you've discovered a huge weakness in Daemons; no way to access a Dispel Scroll. It's easier to force through that one game changing spell you really need against Daemons than anyone else because they only get their dispel pool and can't auto-stop a spell that's about to wreck them.
Anytime you roll up a double result for dice generation, you have a serious leg-up unless there's a boatload of Tzeentch casters about who do well with their channeling.

As for Epi, he never gets a 'Look out Sir!' - ever! There is only a single Nurgle aligned Monstrous Cav unit in the book (Plaguedrones) and no one will ever put Epi there as he'd nuke the unit's movement to the point they'd simply be 'expensive & much slower not-quite-Beasts'.
So aim everything that can pick him out at him and he'll drop. Hell, if someone's dumb enough to slap him into a 10 strong unit, aim all your Magic Missiles/Direct Damage at it and after a few kills some of those hits will start wrapping onto Epi himself.

Oh, and either your opponent was simply trying to psyche you out by lying, or was cheating because Nurgle units have terrible Initiative. (hence why P.Sun is the ultimate hard-counter to Nurgle armies!)
Sure the Prince is initiative silly-good, but the Grinder is only I3, Plaguebearers & Beasts are a whopping I2 and Epi himself is I4.
Cracks Call should have been having a field day unless your opponent's book has some magical special new initiative values that no other DoC player's book has...



And as noted above, Nurgle being miles ahead of most everything else doesn't make our book 'amazingly ZOMG! OP!!!', especially when Khorne & Tzeentch fall to point of being generally below average.

Daemons have absolutely horrible internal balance, AND, generally lackluster external balance.
Our stand out units really stand out, while our crap units are absolute stinkers. Some armies can barely compete against us even when the Daemon player is using a below average list, and then against certain armies, it's damn near impossible for Daemons to actively compete!
On top of all the little things like the Reign of Comedy tables, overkilled General/BSB rules, too random Gift tables, the disparity between the available magic lores, no Dispel Scroll or equivalent, etc...

In short, DoC quality wise are gak when compared to every other 8th edition book.

Well I think he used his magical vortex incorrectly but he was getting upset with me so I just allowed it rather than to get all super p*ssy about it.

He also took a 'look out sir' on epidemius vs cracks call which shouldn't happen since he's a different troop type. I'm kind of surprised I forgot about that. I think he said soul grinder was i4 but I could be wrong. I know that most nurgle units are low initiative which is why I kept cracks call.

I'm always unsure about initiative tests because sometimes they're balls to the walls awesome and sometimes you end up fighting high elves or dark elves and have nothing to use it on effectively. At least monstrous infantry, monsters, war machines and chariots seem to get owned by cracks call pretty well. Sadly I would not want to endanger a grey seer just for a sweet shot at a line of ogres. I might do it anyway but that hurts me a lot more than them and they can just dispel cracks call only to have you sitting out in the open like an idiot which is pretty common. I used to get pretty greedy sometimes.

Well played 8 tourney games over the weekend with TZ with Khannons. Few Notes.

I treated the firday tourney really as practice games and hoping to win the appearance bar tab. So I went 1-1-1. With the big win vs chaos Dwarves, loss vs DoC with Slaneesh and nurgle Doc.(I deployed way too agressively) and draw in a game I couldn't remember well due to beer. All I remember is the game hinged on him having one shot at LD 6 breaktest, with 3 swift stride units on his big block of ogres.

So what I learned was this: horrors supported with Glittering Robe and enchanted blades can win vs equal numbers of witch elves.

Gateway and Flame storm being Direct Damage is HUGE

Glean Magic eats dispel dice/ scrolls.

Skull Cannons do rather well in combat being T5 3+/5++

Mobility is more important than huge numbers of ranks.

6 channels does typically give you more dispel dice than your opponent power pool once per game.

Taking the LVL 4 on the LOC with Tzeentch worked out well, I could only afford a lesser gift. I chose between wand and Asf sword depending on what I think would work best. I did when playing a heavy nurgle take the +1 to hit sword with enchanted blades, the mark of nurgle is pretty meh.

Lore of metal has some good tools, but leaves me yearning for some additional tools. I think as a scale up for 2400 I'll add blood crushers, exalted gift on the loc and try to squeeze in the blue scribes.

Army wide 5+ ward, immune to psychology, 12 in winds summons unit, 2 in break tests restores all wounds. Enough said.

KeyserSoze wrote:
Army wide 5+ ward, immune to psychology, 12 in winds summons unit, 2 in break tests restores all wounds. Enough said.

500+ pt monsters with only a 5+ ward as a save. No guaranteed decent gifts, lack of ability to take rulebook items, Boxcars removes entire unit. Warp table 2, 3, 4 devastate your own army instant they're rolled. Armybook filled with useless units, nurgle is the main competitive build. Don't start


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Rolling double ones may bring back thw unit to full capacity, wait till a greater daemon rolls boxcars for instability after losing cpmbat by 1 and is removed from play. Wait till army wide instability test kills your own units for no sensible reason at all. Gift tables poorly designed to be filled with useless/narrowly useful gifts.

It's the most random army out there, and half the rolls are damaging to yourself. It's disappointing, unless you play the list a guy at my club plays, then you don't care because nurgle

^Yeah i have to agree I don't mind having elements of the army that are random like in the Warriors book (and for the record i play both Warriors and DoC), but to have so much of the army and it's capability be based on random dice rolls is just stupid.

I'm hopeful though that when 9th hits the shelf, the rules for that edition will alleviate some of our problems.

Check out Shiloh Slaughter?

80 participants..


1 demons player (placed 40th) but went 5-0 and lost due to tanked paint scored. (lazy sob). He was running a KoS, Pink Horrors, Furies, and some other things that everyone says you cant win with.

2nd overall best general was demons (nurgle spam.)

 Thunderfrog wrote:
Check out Shiloh Slaughter?

80 participants..


1 demons player (placed 40th) but went 5-0 and lost due to tanked paint scored. (lazy sob). He was running a KoS, Pink Horrors, Furies, and some other things that everyone says you cant win with.

2nd overall best general was demons (nurgle spam.)

I played at WaaaghPaca last weekend. Playing DoC TZ with Khannons, took 12th of 100, I think the only Doc player higher than me took best general beating me, in round 4 with an Exalted/lesser gift LoC vs my Lvl 4 lesser gift LoC. very close game overall. He was TZ, Khonre cannons, but core and bsb nurgle.

Anyway to get some of these lists gents?

Here's what I ran:

LOC lvl4, lesser gift
LVL2 Metal + BSB
LVL2 MEtal+ Loci of conjuration
10 horrors
10 horrors
15 horrors flaming banner
3x3 units of screamers
2 khannons, mine were converted tz chariots.