With the 8ed rules more or less out lets get some chatter going for the pure spawn of chaos.
Having gotten a game in with the new rules so far I'm quite impressed with Flamers of Tzeentch. They can do a ton of damage when they get into range they just need to make effective use of the terrain to do it reliably.
I'm looking forward to testing out an Epidemius list as well.
I played two games with my daemons army, here is my thoughts:
Tzeentch ability the ephemeral form gives +1 bpnus to invul save to all Tzeentch units except Kairos which is very odd at the moment. This ability lets us by pass cover saves and be more flexible wtih positioning and moving with all of our units.
Horrors: Horrors are the definition of "pain in the a$$" unit. They are very flexible with different models in the same unit and the ability to cast smite albeit with only one dice. Speaking of horrors, I must mention the Smite power which deals d3 mortal wounds which can not be saved by any means to the nearest unit and the damage from it can spill to other models in the unit. Smite power can be cast to and from closa combat and even when the casting unit advances. The icing on the cake is the "split" ability. Pink horros can split into 2 blue horrors which can split into furher 1 brimstone horror for each blue horror. Split ability requires summoning points but can take the model count beyond the starting value. Split ability is used right after the removal of the slain model so we can endlessly trap enemy units in combat or control the objective by being more than the enemy models. As blue horrors are 5 points and brimstone are 2 points, i think that 5 blue, 5 brimstone horror is the way to go. Pink horrors are a bit expensive by being 10 points for 1 model. Horror spam is definitly a thing in 8th edition.
Heralds: Heralds help with a lot of different things, such as:
-Giving +1 str bonus to nearby units. This helps our fast close combat unit screamers and even lowly horros unit wound more reliably.
-Casting smite power more reliably. I reccomend the staff as it gives extra range to smite power. The heralds with disc can fly where they need to be and safe behind other units and cast smite power to the targeted unit. I smited down a land raider in my first game with massed smite.
-Summoning. As the summoning character can not move in the movement phase the staff of Tzeentch is useful for the unmoving heralds. Summoning is useful as we can summon units for the specific job without overcrowding our deployment phase where the low number of deployment gives an advantage to choose which player goes first.
Make sure that heralds are always behind your front lines not to be targeted by shooting. Be careful to block LOS from snipers.
Flamers Flamers are awesome units that can fly and shoot auto hitting flamers wihch are -1 rend. No one is safe from them. You can not lock them in combat as with the ability to fly a whopping 12" move you can burn what ever you want to burn. I used two units of 7 flamers dealing 7d6 auothitting -1 rend damage to the units. Do not assault with the flamers , leave them in the open being tempting targets for the enemy assault and fry them when they attempt to charge you. The enemy units shall be out of 8" charge range not to be fried by owerwatch. If they managed to assault, retreat in the next turn and go fry something else. I reccomend units of at least 6 flamers as the enemy concentrate their firepower to eliminate them.
Screamers [b] Screamers are very fast and can often be able to charge at the first turn. Make sure at least one herald escort them within 6" to give the strenth bonus. They are a very fast unit to grab objectives or lock enemy tanks in combat to reduce their shooting ability.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Why are daemons so dead. It's like almost no one plays them anymore. The other threads are bursting with activity... =/
Have they been completelly gutted?
The loss of summoning
The loss of deepstrike
The loss of the Psychic phase...
Pretty much.
You can also add:
The loss of any good shooting
The loss of any good units that can take and hold objectives
Summoning requiring a character of the same allegiance, AND forfeiting their movement, AND a dice roll; when other armies can just place their units whenever they feel like it seems unfair when we have no other means of transport.
Chaos dameons are still good. They are not the same army as they were in 7th. Let's be honest. In 7th, they were a summoning army. You did not see people playing Nurgle armies, Khorne Armies, or Slaanesh armies at competitive play.
The summoning army has been removed, and now new armies are in their place. What do we have today? Instead of a deep dive into each unit (which would take pages), I'll brush some basic army concepts.
Faction Focus
Just like Imperial armies, Chaos armies share a faction keyword Chaos. This means that you are not playing a CD army, but instead you should think that you are playing a Chaos army. There is nothing keeping you from grabbing some hellbrutes and adding them to your army. Maulerfiends are pretty cool. You can use them over soulgrinders if you like. Nothing is stopping you.
This is a big mental shift from previous editions -- even when being battle brothers. This is why the KDK army is gone -- because it's built into the rule system.
Auras
Aura's are the key to really getting nasty units. Take a look at these auras.
Skulltaker You can add 1 to hit rolls made for a friendly Bloodletter unit that are within 8" of Skulltaker
Herald of Khorne You add 1 to the STR characteristic of friendly Khorne Daemon units within 6" of this ability
Daemon Prince of Khorne You can re-roll hit rolls of 1 made for friendly Khorne daemon units within 6" of this model.
(If you take the C:SM prince, he cannot be targeted)
Now, we look at some units of bloodletters, and what do they become.
* They are hitting on a 2+
* If they roll a 1, they are rerolling -- so they are hitting 35/36 of the time.
* They have a 6 STR on the charge, with a AP-3 weapon that can do multiple wounds.
Those aura's have made the Khorne Daemons even nastier.
Skulltaker, the Herald, and the Daemon Prince also get the auras from the Herald and the Daemon Prince.
The Herald and Skulltaker also get the aura from Skulltaker.
Shooting vs Assault
Daemons have great assault abilities. If you are playing daemons, you can expect the majority of your battles to be assault.
There are some good shooting units in the daemon army. Flamers of Tzeentch, for example, are off the hook for how much damage they can do for their points cost.
Smite Spam
I learned in my games with daemons that Smite gets to be really effective when you can cast it with multiple psykers per round.
I was playing some games last weekend where I was casting 10 smites a turn, doing ~20 mortal wounds a turn. Entire units were being removed from just smite. My opponent started joking and calling it my 'movement phase'.
Dropping 10 heralds to do this is not impossible. There is a formation that lets you take 5 HQ. You can grab 2 of those formations, then another to fill out the first of your force.
Deck Chair Units
One of the best units in the game for camping on objectives are Plaguebearers. While not as good as a conscript unit with a commissar to back them -- they are a solid way to squat on an objective.
You can also take CSM or chaos cultists for this role. IMHO poxwalkers are a touch pricy for this role.
Instruments
These upgrades are amazing. This adds an effective 1" to the movement for your daemons. Bloodletters will be moving ~10.5 inches on the first round of combat. Their threat range for turn two is 10.5 + 6" move + 9" assault or 25.5" Fast moving units like BloodCrushers or Plague Drones are even better. That +1 to the charge distance is huge, because the 2d6 rolls work off a bell curve.
Renegade Knights
Remember how all Chaos factions are aligned. You can run three renegade knights and bring Daemons in the same army. IMHO daemons can help to fill some of the gaps left by the knights, such as deck chair units. Alternatively you can just bring a bunch of daemon princes to hang out with your knights to overwhelm your opponent with high toughness targets.
I plan on playing with some knight based armies this weekend.
How to use Summoning
The average dice you will get with summoning is 10.5. You can use a command point in a pinch here.
What this means is that you are limited to summoning smaller units, of a 10 power or less. This means dropping 30 plague bearers onto someones' face will likely not happen.
What you can do, however, is drop 20 lesser daemons 9" away from someone. The daemons, with an instrument, have a 41.66% of making that charge. Without an instrument, they would have a 27.77% chance. If this is a critical charge, you can use a command point here....
I also think that daemons are not quite dead, as some of you think.
It's different now and people have to find new ways of playing them.
There are also some good units left, even without psycic powers and summoning.
Plaguedrones, Plaguebearers, Horrors and their variations, Daemonettes, Flamers, Exalted Flamers, Screamers, Daemonprinces and maybe Bloodletters and Crushers to a lesser extend.
But time will tell and we will see how good which units will perform in 8th edition
Damn those 30 blood letters look co- I mean those 15 blood le.. CHARGE 3 blood letters left but they'll do fine right.
How the hell do you get them into combat. Genestealers with move, advance charge are too slow and die on the way there. What hope can bloodletters have?
rvd1ofakind wrote: Damn those 30 blood letters look co- I mean those 15 blood le.. CHARGE 3 blood letters left but they'll do fine right.
How the hell do you get them into combat. Genestealers with move, advance charge are too slow and die on the way there. What hope can bloodletters have?
1) You can't expect to play in a vacuum. Yes, it's easy to kill 30 bloodletters if you have 3 tauox' primes. What about the rest of the army?
2) Have you actually played any games of 8th? I was playing last night and my friend was able to get his bezerkers without a transport into assault multiple times. I was playing my IG army with things like Taurox primes throwing 30 STR 4 shots out a turn. He got around the problem by dropping combi-melta terminators by my taurox' and doing lots of damage to them. He engaged my chimeras with his lord on a jugg and tore them apart.
Most importantly, he used LOS blocking terrain to help his advance up the board. If you are playing on boards with no LOS blocking terrain, I suggest you change the way you play.
3) If Genestealers are to slow in your games, you need to re-evaluate how you are playing your games. Do you guys use terrain? Are you playing with objectives, or just rolling dice to kill? Those two features dramatically change the same.
4) I'm not saying bloodletters are awesome. I was illustrating how my stacking their buffs they become much better.
Seems to me like Daemons are all now "good" and "fair", which is a problem because most other armies got upgraded to "outstanding." Nurgle daemons are...fine. Not great at shooting, assault, or mobility. But there are armies that are brutal at one or more of these things, so it's not really on parity. Lack of good shooting and transports is just lethal to daemons (it was in 7th and 6th too, but was masked by summoning and Tzeentch shenanigans).
I'm going to try an all-Slaanesh list with Belakor. Should be a lot of fun and be different from other armies.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Damn those 30 blood letters look co- I mean those 15 blood le.. CHARGE 3 blood letters left but they'll do fine right.
How the hell do you get them into combat. Genestealers with move, advance charge are too slow and die on the way there. What hope can bloodletters have?
1) You can't expect to play in a vacuum. Yes, it's easy to kill 30 bloodletters if you have 3 tauox' primes. What about the rest of the army?
2) Have you actually played any games of 8th? I was playing last night and my friend was able to get his bezerkers without a transport into assault multiple times. I was playing my IG army with things like Taurox primes throwing 30 STR 4 shots out a turn. He got around the problem by dropping combi-melta terminators by my taurox' and doing lots of damage to them. He engaged my chimeras with his lord on a jugg and tore them apart.
Most importantly, he used LOS blocking terrain to help his advance up the board. If you are playing on boards with no LOS blocking terrain, I suggest you change the way you play.
3) If Genestealers are to slow in your games, you need to re-evaluate how you are playing your games. Do you guys use terrain? Are you playing with objectives, or just rolling dice to kill? Those two features dramatically change the same.
4) I'm not saying bloodletters are awesome. I was illustrating how my stacking their buffs they become much better.
I've played 1 game so far as AdMech vs Nids, who I feel have WAY more tools to get into melee. And they got into melee with like 25% forces remaining. Then I just retreated and shot the rest to bits. That's: 20 genestealers, 30 gargoyles, 30 hermagauts. They did feth all. They all died and killed like 3 troops. What hopes do daemons have then?
We had a lot more terain than we usually do, 3 multifloor ruins, 2 big rocks that block LoS completelly. and a bunch of pipes, barricades and other stuff. But since if you see 1 model - you see them all - they die. Fast.
Virules wrote: Seems to me like Daemons are all now "good" and "fair", which is a problem because most other armies got upgraded to "outstanding." Nurgle daemons are...fine. Not great at shooting, assault, or mobility. But there are armies that are brutal at one or more of these things, so it's not really on parity. Lack of good shooting and transports is just lethal to daemons (it was in 7th and 6th too, but was masked by summoning and Tzeentch shenanigans).
I'm going to try an all-Slaanesh list with Belakor. Should be a lot of fun and be different from other armies.
Try 60 seekers and a bunch of chariots.
Slaanesh heralds are great to spam because of the sheer amount of wound they can deliver in assault and it's a cheap way to get tons of 'smites'.
Hysterical Frenzy is also completely off the hook. Those 20 seekers I mentioned earlier all get to pile in and fight.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rvd1ofakind wrote: I've played 1 game so far as AdMech vs Nids, who I feel have WAY more tools to get into melee. And they got into melee with like 25% forces remaining. Then I just retreated and shot the rest to bits. That's: 20 genestealers, 30 gargoyles, 30 hermagauts. They did feth all. They all died and killed like 3 troops. What hopes do daemons have then?
Honestly it sounds like your opponent was not a very good player. Where there no objectives? Was there no cover?
If my opponent keeps backing up and shooting, I'll hide on the objectives. He should have placed at least 3 into ruins or by LoS blocking terrain. He should have used his gaunt's which are easy to hide out of LoS to just squat on objectives.
The game is not won by killing the most models. It's won by beating the mission. Even if he had 1 model left, but it had the relic, he would have won.
Last weekend I played 3 games where I bought 10 daemon princes. I tabled one of the top US marine players 3 times in a row. It's not a good army because it does not play missions well. I lost many maelstroms because I could not leave a unit back to deckchair for me. In a tournament setting, especially with an ITC formula, it's not that great. It's still strong though. If you want to try it, it's crazy strong.
Virules wrote: Seems to me like Daemons are all now "good" and "fair", which is a problem because most other armies got upgraded to "outstanding." Nurgle daemons are...fine. Not great at shooting, assault, or mobility. But there are armies that are brutal at one or more of these things, so it's not really on parity. Lack of good shooting and transports is just lethal to daemons (it was in 7th and 6th too, but was masked by summoning and Tzeentch shenanigans).
I'm going to try an all-Slaanesh list with Belakor. Should be a lot of fun and be different from other armies.
Try 60 seekers and a bunch of chariots.
Slaanesh heralds are great to spam because of the sheer amount of wound they can deliver in assault and it's a cheap way to get tons of 'smites'.
Hysterical Frenzy is also completely off the hook. Those 20 seekers I mentioned earlier all get to pile in and fight.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rvd1ofakind wrote: I've played 1 game so far as AdMech vs Nids, who I feel have WAY more tools to get into melee. And they got into melee with like 25% forces remaining. Then I just retreated and shot the rest to bits. That's: 20 genestealers, 30 gargoyles, 30 hermagauts. They did feth all. They all died and killed like 3 troops. What hopes do daemons have then?
Honestly it sounds like your opponent was not a very good player. Where there no objectives? Was there no cover?
If my opponent keeps backing up and shooting, I'll hide on the objectives. He should have placed at least 3 into ruins or by LoS blocking terrain. He should have used his gaunt's which are easy to hide out of LoS to just squat on objectives.
The game is not won by killing the most models. It's won by beating the mission. Even if he had 1 model left, but it had the relic, he would have won.
We played the heavy support mission. He has won and placed highly in mutiple tournaments. Don't worry, he can play the game. The problem is when you meet 15 bullets in overwatch alone with twin link. Then 36-108 bullets, twinlinked in the back plus a knight. Yeah. gl with that. 5 Infiltrators detroyed 30 gaunts in one attack.
rvd1ofakind wrote: We played the heavy support mission. He has won and placed highly in mutiple tournaments. Don't worry, he can play the game. The problem is when you meet 15 bullets in overwatch alone with twin link. Then 36-108 bullets, twinlinked in the back plus a knight. Yeah. gl with that. 5 Infiltrators detroyed 30 gaunts in one attack.
Hey, since you think daemon's now suck, I'll be happy to buy your's off you for 10% of retail.
This was the army I ran last weekend with crazy success. 10 smites a turn. 106 wounds. 70 STR 7, AP-2, 2 damage swings per fight phase. Yea...
rvd1ofakind wrote: We played the heavy support mission. He has won and placed highly in mutiple tournaments. Don't worry, he can play the game. The problem is when you meet 15 bullets in overwatch alone with twin link. Then 36-108 bullets, twinlinked in the back plus a knight. Yeah. gl with that. 5 Infiltrators detroyed 30 gaunts in one attack.
Hey, since you think daemon's now suck, I'll be happy to buy your's off you for 10% of retail.
This was the army I ran last weekend with crazy success. 10 smites a turn. 106 wounds. 70 STR 7, AP-2, 2 damage swings per fight phase. Yea...
I hate spam though... I hope a codex will fix it since they look great on the table(or shelf in 8th) plus they're unpainted :p
Automatically Appended Next Post: The problem is that I've only bought daemons recently. I love how they look, I loved the random equipment, the crap ton of psychic BS they can throw arround, the summoning to deal with any situation. And now they are the simplest army to play with almost no special rules. All heralds and all greaters are pretty much the same with different stats...
rvd1ofakind wrote: We played the heavy support mission. He has won and placed highly in mutiple tournaments. Don't worry, he can play the game. The problem is when you meet 15 bullets in overwatch alone with twin link. Then 36-108 bullets, twinlinked in the back plus a knight. Yeah. gl with that. 5 Infiltrators detroyed 30 gaunts in one attack.
Hey, since you think daemon's now suck, I'll be happy to buy your's off you for 10% of retail.
This was the army I ran last weekend with crazy success. 10 smites a turn. 106 wounds. 70 STR 7, AP-2, 2 damage swings per fight phase. Yea...
I hate spam though... I hope a codex will fix it since they look great on the table(or shelf in 8th) plus they're unpainted :p
Automatically Appended Next Post: The problem is that I've only bought daemons recently. I love how they look, I loved the random equipment, the crap ton of psychic BS they can throw arround, the summoning to deal with any situation. And now they are the simplest army to play with almost no special rules. All heralds and all greaters are pretty much the same with different stats...
Have you considered using 4 such DPs to fly up and summon in daemons? Just a thought...
rvd1ofakind wrote: We played the heavy support mission. He has won and placed highly in mutiple tournaments. Don't worry, he can play the game. The problem is when you meet 15 bullets in overwatch alone with twin link. Then 36-108 bullets, twinlinked in the back plus a knight. Yeah. gl with that. 5 Infiltrators detroyed 30 gaunts in one attack.
Hey, since you think daemon's now suck, I'll be happy to buy your's off you for 10% of retail.
This was the army I ran last weekend with crazy success. 10 smites a turn. 106 wounds. 70 STR 7, AP-2, 2 damage swings per fight phase. Yea...
I hate spam though... I hope a codex will fix it since they look great on the table(or shelf in 8th) plus they're unpainted :p
Automatically Appended Next Post: The problem is that I've only bought daemons recently. I love how they look, I loved the random equipment, the crap ton of psychic BS they can throw arround, the summoning to deal with any situation. And now they are the simplest army to play with almost no special rules. All heralds and all greaters are pretty much the same with different stats...
Have you considered using 4 such DPs to fly up and summon in daemons? Just a thought...
What daemons do you own?
Fly up? You can't move if you summon...
I have 1500 pts or so of each god. FWGUO and KoS. Bt and kairos/locGw. Some troops of each. 15 dogs. 2 soul grinders, 3 princes, belakor, 2 heldrakes(they're daemon in my heart) and so on
rvd1ofakind wrote: Fly up? You can't move if you summon...
I have 1500 pts or so of each god. FWGUO and KoS. Bt and kairos/locGw. Some troops of each. 15 dogs. 2 soul grinders, 3 princes, belakor, 2 heldrakes(they're daemon in my heart) and so on
You fly up 13"-18" and on your next turn you summon. On the next turn you assault, or possibly that turn.
Hopefully the summon mechanic will be upgraded with the codex release
Edit : You might be able to use Tzeentch heralds on disks to advance forward and deliver some horrors on objectives. The horrors can easily be placed in spots for shooting.
Honestly though, most of the good tzeentch units (flamers, for example) are fast enough on their own to make summoning less than ideal.
Auras
Aura's are the key to really getting nasty units. Take a look at these auras.
Skulltaker You can add 1 to hit rolls made for a friendly Bloodletter unit that are within 8" of Skulltaker
Herald of Khorne You add 1 to the STR characteristic of friendly Khorne Daemon units within 6" of this ability
Daemon Prince of Khorne You can re-roll hit rolls of 1 made for friendly Khorne daemon units within 6" of this model.
(If you take the C:SM prince, he cannot be targeted)
Now, we look at some units of bloodletters, and what do they become.
* They are hitting on a 2+
* If they roll a 1, they are rerolling -- so they are hitting 35/36 of the time.
* They have a 6 STR on the charge, with a AP-3 weapon that can do multiple wounds.
Those aura's have made the Khorne Daemons even nastier.
Skulltaker, the Herald, and the Daemon Prince also get the auras from the Herald and the Daemon Prince.
The Herald and Skulltaker also get the aura from Skulltaker.
Just for fun I pointed this out with 30 bloodletters plus icon and instrument, walking herald, and a flying CSM deamon prince with axe and bolter. It'll be around 665, higher or lower depending on your Prince and Herald. Basically, in a 200 point game, this blob will be unavoidable and must be targeted or it will begin tearing units apart. Place it just behind Flesh Hounds and the enemy now has to decide if they want to deal with those or your blob. Not only that, the HQs within the blob are untargetable till you start stripping the blob down. As a distraction carnifex, this is pretty amazing, and only gets better the more screen you give it.
Brimstone horrors seem to be a great way to cap objectives. There's just nothing that kills 2pt models with 4+ invulnerable saves efficiently. Even tauroxes will take a while to kill these guys. You can also leave a few blues in the unit to make sure it can't be killed in one turn thanks to split.
DoomMouse wrote: Brimstone horrors seem to be a great way to cap objectives. There's just nothing that kills 2pt models with 4+ invulnerable saves efficiently. Even tauroxes will take a while to kill these guys. You can also leave a few blues in the unit to make sure it can't be killed in one turn thanks to split.
Always a good idea to go 1 Pink horror 9 Brimstone, unless you're going for max cheese on the points cost. Having 1 Pink lets you smite "normally" still.
DoomMouse wrote: Brimstone horrors seem to be a great way to cap objectives. There's just nothing that kills 2pt models with 4+ invulnerable saves efficiently. Even tauroxes will take a while to kill these guys. You can also leave a few blues in the unit to make sure it can't be killed in one turn thanks to split.
Always a good idea to go 1 Pink horror 9 Brimstone, unless you're going for max cheese on the points cost. Having 1 Pink lets you smite "normally" still.
Pretty sure that rule only affects Brimstones and Blues can therefore still cast without dying. Max cheese is 9 brims and 1 blue for 23 points a squad.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Fly up? You can't move if you summon...
I have 1500 pts or so of each god. FWGUO and KoS. Bt and kairos/locGw. Some troops of each. 15 dogs. 2 soul grinders, 3 princes, belakor, 2 heldrakes(they're daemon in my heart) and so on
You fly up 13"-18" and on your next turn you summon. On the next turn you assault, or possibly that turn.
Hopefully the summon mechanic will be upgraded with the codex release
Edit : You might be able to use Tzeentch heralds on disks to advance forward and deliver some horrors on objectives. The horrors can easily be placed in spots for shooting.
Honestly though, most of the good tzeentch units (flamers, for example) are fast enough on their own to make summoning less than ideal.
You can charge on the third turn without relying on luck to roll to summon and have your DP survive and not skipping his 3rd turn... C'mon man :p
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here's my army BTW:
Bloodthirster, karanak, herald on juggernaut, 15 hounds, 20 bloodletters
Great Unclean one, herald/epidemius, 3 drones, 10 bearers, 3 nurglings, 3 beasts of nurgle
Kairos/LoC, herald, 2 heralds on disc, 10 pinks,, 20 blues, 20 brims, 3 flamers, 1 chariot
Keeper of Secrets, masque/herald, 20 daemonettes, 1 exalted/normal chariot, 3 fiends
3 daemon princes, be'lakor, 2 soul grinders, 2 heldrakes, 10 furies
I can buy some stuff if that would mean making a bearable army... Or maybe make a deal with my friends so I could bring +500 pts they do...
I'm curious as to whether wings are mandatory on Daemon Princes or not anymore. I don't think FMC's are a thing anymore, so I'm not sure. I ask because I've got a monopose metal Daemon Prince and I don't know whether to use greenstuff to add some plastic wings to him or not.
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm curious as to whether wings are mandatory on Daemon Princes or not anymore. I don't think FMC's are a thing anymore, so I'm not sure. I ask because I've got a monopose metal Daemon Prince and I don't know whether to use greenstuff to add some plastic wings to him or not.
No matter what, high movement is always important to get as much as you can. It increases both offensive capabilities (get into range quicker, better at engaging ideal targets or from a better position) and defensive capabilities (move out of enemy range, easier to use terrain to reduce damage, avoid enemy units that threaten you).
Pretty much the only time you don't get movement is when it is exorbitantly over costed (such as when 5ed Death company doubled their cost to take jump packs). A mere 24 extra points is a bargain
The CD Prince has 10 wounds so is gonna be targetted. Wings arent as necessary for Movement, since Foot princes still move 8, but Wings help you fall back from combat without penalty which is their big advantage.
With the CSM Prince, his aura of rerolls benefit slower shooting <Legion> units, so wings may not be neccesary for him as a babysitter, and for staying bubble wrapped.
Question, how are people playing Quicksilver Swiftness? Ive seen Batreps where daemons took first rounds always, but it sounds like following the second part of the rule, if its your opponents turn, they can choose one of their charging units first.
Edit after re-reading:
If it is your turn, the daemonettes strike first, but if the enemy is charging you and it is in their turn they can choose the unit to fight with first, then it goes to daemonettes correct?
Anyone wanna do a unit analysis? I'd do it but I've only played daemons once in a joke game. I've played against them a few times. In 8th I haven't touched or seen them. Plus I did the summaries and list builders so you do it
here's a list I found on FB. Actually doesn't look awful
Spoiler:
2000pts Chaos 7CP
Supreme Detachment +1CP
Magnus the red 415pts
Daemon Prince sword and talons wings 212pts
Daemon Prince sword and talons wings 212pts
Daemon prince Wings Talons 180pts
Battalion Detachment +3CP
Keeper of sercrets 223pts
Herald on seeker 82pts
The Masque of slaneesh 78pts
11 Seekers of slaneesh instrument 209pts
20 Daemonettes instrument 190pts
28 Blue horrors 112pts
40 Brimstone horrors 80pts
Wanted to use Magnus and dont own alot of CSM so i filled it up with Daemons, the Princes are CSM for the Thousand sons keyword to get some buffs from magnus. Also if he is flying first, they cant target them, and if the enemy dont kill magnus they will be in a world of hurt.
Horrors to pick backfield objectives, and the Slaneesh Daemons will be the second wave.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Why are daemons so dead. It's like almost no one plays them anymore. The other threads are bursting with activity... =/
Have they been completelly gutted?
The loss of summoning
The loss of deepstrike
The loss of the Psychic phase...
It is unfortunate that daemons relied on things that made 7th bad.
We'll have to play differently in the NEW edition. 8th summoning is our new deepstrike, with built in list flexibility. There are still psychic powers.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Why are daemons so dead. It's like almost no one plays them anymore. The other threads are bursting with activity... =/
Have they been completelly gutted?
The loss of summoning
The loss of deepstrike
The loss of the Psychic phase...
It is unfortunate that daemons relied on things that made 7th bad.
We'll have to play differently in the NEW edition. 8th summoning is our new deepstrike, with built in list flexibility. There are still psychic powers.
How in denial are you? Daemons used to dominate the psychic phase with riddiculous spells. And a silly amount of dice.
Summoning now is a joke: loss of movement, loss of flexibility, still random chance with even more wounds at risk and no free pts. Even with free pts it wasn't that great
rvd1ofakind wrote: Why are daemons so dead. It's like almost no one plays them anymore. The other threads are bursting with activity... =/
Have they been completelly gutted?
The loss of summoning
The loss of deepstrike
The loss of the Psychic phase...
It is unfortunate that daemons relied on things that made 7th bad.
We'll have to play differently in the NEW edition. 8th summoning is our new deepstrike, with built in list flexibility. There are still psychic powers.
How in denial are you? Daemons used to dominate the psychic phase with riddiculous spells. And a silly amount of dice.
Summoning now is a joke: loss of movement, loss of flexibility, still random chance with even more wounds at risk and no free pts. Even with free pts it wasn't that great
Daemons also used to be at the top of the broken armies in 7ed. We were going to get toned down regardless
rvd1ofakind wrote: Why are daemons so dead. It's like almost no one plays them anymore. The other threads are bursting with activity... =/
Have they been completelly gutted?
The loss of summoning
The loss of deepstrike
The loss of the Psychic phase...
It is unfortunate that daemons relied on things that made 7th bad.
We'll have to play differently in the NEW edition. 8th summoning is our new deepstrike, with built in list flexibility. There are still psychic powers.
How in denial are you? Daemons used to dominate the psychic phase with riddiculous spells. And a silly amount of dice.
Summoning now is a joke: loss of movement, loss of flexibility, still random chance with even more wounds at risk and no free pts. Even with free pts it wasn't that great
Ahem:
It is unfortunate that daemons relied on things that made 7th bad.
It's good for the game that we lost the "ridiculous spells". As far as I can tell armies have been put on the same level (to the extent that GW can do so), obviously that involves bringing daemons (and others) down a notch; this does not make us a bad army, just not a "too good" army either.
Sorry, but we're going to actually play the game well to win now. If that upsets you I don't care that you're upset.
I've played and beaten daemons in 7th. The only actually good daemon lists were screamerstar and magnus. Summoning almost never won games.
Now daemons are a joke. What skill is there involved in not getting shot lol. 72'' ignore los shots. GL dude
I've never played daemons. I bought them because they seemed really complicated. Now they're the simplest army in the game with almost 0 utility. Just run to the enemy and hope you roll advance, charge and invulnerable well
Automatically Appended Next Post: If I see a Daemon only army do well that is not pure cheese spam of 3 units - I'll concede that they're good. Until then they belong in the trashcan
Automatically Appended Next Post: Every army got taken down a notch but daemons were taken down an fn mile. They lost every single one of their tools and got 0 compensation for it. The current summoning is completelly useless
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm curious as to whether wings are mandatory on Daemon Princes or not anymore. I don't think FMC's are a thing anymore, so I'm not sure. I ask because I've got a monopose metal Daemon Prince and I don't know whether to use greenstuff to add some plastic wings to him or not.
The difference between a 16" threat range and a 20" threat range is 201.06" vs 314.16" (Area of a circle)
Wings are always worth it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rvd1ofakind wrote: I've played and beaten daemons in 7th. The only actually good daemon lists were screamerstar and magnus. Summoning almost never won games.
I've got a burning skyhost / warpflame host that would disagree with you. I won more than one RT with this list.
rvd1ofakind wrote: I've never played daemons. I bought them because they seemed really complicated. Now they're the simplest army in the game with almost 0 utility. Just run to the enemy and hope you roll advance, charge and invulnerable well
I suggest going to the dakka swap shop and seeing if someone will swap armies with you.
When presented with a challenge, you can either focus on the problem or focus on the solution. Resolution never ends well from the prior. It's far more effective to focus on the latter.
Edit : I see you are looking at other lists. Try the Magnus list and let us know how it works.
Why do you think that it will perform well?
rvd1ofakind wrote: If I see a Daemon only army do well that is not pure cheese spam of 3 units - I'll concede that they're good. Until then they belong in the trashcan
Have you seen the best AM lists?
They are spamming the following units.
* Scions
* Taurox Prime
* Heavy Weapons teams.
Most lists spam a few different kind of units. That might change as 8th goes on, but those 7th edition habits run deep.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dan2026 wrote: I feel like I really don't understand the wording on Quicksilver Swiftness.
I first though it meant Slannesh stuff always goes first.
But not if they get charged?
Very confusing for me.
I read it as "Even if they have been charged"
The idea is that unless fighting an opponent who also has quicksilver swiftness, the slaanesh go first.
It makes for a very sad 'nid player.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nightlord1987 wrote: If it is your turn, the daemonettes strike first, but if the enemy is charging you and it is in their turn they can choose the unit to fight with first, then it goes to daemonettes correct?
"slaanesh Daemon units with this ability always fight first in the Fight phase"
Seems pretty clear cut to me. All the slaanesh units with this (unless fighting someone with a similar ability) always go first.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
DarkBlack wrote: We'll have to play differently in the NEW edition. 8th summoning is our new deepstrike, with built in list flexibility. There are still psychic powers.
I've been putting some thoughts into this, and I've not found a way to make summoning good. It's that phrase "Instead of moving" that really limits it IMHO.
If you have some ideas on how to get good mileage out of it, please let me know.
I think the strength of summoning is in banking a unit you dont want damaged and placing it on the field at an appropriate time.
The unit can then be placed within 12" of the model then pull off a charge or sit on an objective or whatever.
The lack of movement is problematic. I think the key might be using fast units to burn across the field turn 1 or 2. Then summoning the unit start of turn 2 or 3 up in the enemies grill.
It's going to require some finesse to get it right. But I have it sort of straight in my head.
I think the biggest boon this ed is that Deamons can now charge after summoning. Instead of standing around for a turn getting shot like in 7th.
DarkBlack wrote: We'll have to play differently in the NEW edition. 8th summoning is our new deepstrike, with built in list flexibility. There are still psychic powers.
I've been putting some thoughts into this, and I've not found a way to make summoning good. It's that phrase "Instead of moving" that really limits it IMHO.
If you have some ideas on how to get good mileage out of it, please let me know.
This has been argued about for AoS since GHB came out.
You put points, not units, in reserve. This means you can bring the most appropriate tool for the job and deepstrike it. Summoning is 12" from the psyker, so you effectively move 12" (plus how far you can string the unit out while keeping coherency).
This gives some good tactical flexibility.
I disagree with the notion of lost speed that was brought up earlier.
My list uses a large amount of Screamers, Heralds on Discs, Chariots and Exalted Flamers, and all of them move at a pace that I'm happy with.
All in all I'm okay with where I'm at. I'll admit I'm very confused that my Tzeentch list went from casting loads of spells to suddenly being an assault army, but I'm confident I'll make it work.
dan2026 wrote: I feel like I really don't understand the wording on Quicksilver Swiftness.
I first though it meant Slannesh stuff always goes first.
But not if they get charged?
Very confusing for me.
Treat it as if they are counter-charging the unit that charges them. Since both units are charging and are attacking at the same time, it defaults to the player whose turn is taking place. There aren't many cases when you can charge outside your turn, so usually the player who charged will get to go first anyway.
Quicksilver Swiftness is really good in the 2nd round of combat, because you'll get to hit before your opponent no matter what. If you charge and can kill the enemy unit in 2 turns, you've basically halved the damage you receive back. QS is also great if you get charged by multiple units, as usually your opponent hits with both before you can attack, but with QS you can hit the unit they didn't activate to reduce the incoming damage. I think QS really shines with units that are big enough to scare of multi-charges and will destroy anything if they get the charge off.
DarkBlack wrote: We'll have to play differently in the NEW edition. 8th summoning is our new deepstrike, with built in list flexibility. There are still psychic powers.
I've been putting some thoughts into this, and I've not found a way to make summoning good. It's that phrase "Instead of moving" that really limits it IMHO.
If you have some ideas on how to get good mileage out of it, please let me know.
This has been argued about for AoS since GHB came out.
You put points, not units, in reserve. This means you can bring the most appropriate tool for the job and deepstrike it. Summoning is 12" from the psyker, so you effectively move 12" (plus how far you can string the unit out while keeping coherency).
This gives some good tactical flexibility.
Have you read both games' rules? In sigmar its a spell. Here you need to sac the movement phase, may get hurt AND have reduced flexibility in summoning only your god's daemons. And the whole point is summoning any daemon for the situation.
dan2026 wrote: The lack of movement is problematic. I think the key might be using fast units to burn across the field turn 1 or 2. Then summoning the unit start of turn 2 or 3 up in the enemies grill.
Remember in matched play, if a unit does not arrive by the end of turn 3, it counts as destroyed.
dan2026 wrote: I think the biggest boon this ed is that Deamons can now charge after summoning. Instead of standing around for a turn getting shot like in 7th.
Agreed. I think that's the way to get units like bloodletters into assault. Pop down 20 'letters and then charge.
You have a 8" charge to make (since the instrument gives +1) and you can use a command point to reroll a dice.
That gives a pretty good chance of making the charge.
The problem here is "How do you get a khorne/slaanesh/Nurgle character into position to do this"?
Seeker Chariots? Daemon princes?
If a plague drone unit could summon, for example, it would be a lot easier. The problem is that you need something like a GUO to summon, which is a slow moving unit.
Lets take the GUO. It moves up 8"-13" on turn one with an advance. On turn two it summons a unit of plaguebearers 12" away, for a total distance of 20"-23".
The plaguebearers on their own would be able to move 7"-12" on turn 1. On turn two, they could move 12"-18" away before advancing.
The difference is that in the second case, the GUO would be able to keep up.
I think summoning is neat, but I don't think it's really limited to the movement restriction. Edit : See below. I am wondering if C:SM could be used to make this more effective.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Cephalobeard wrote: I disagree with the notion of lost speed that was brought up earlier.
My list uses a large amount of Screamers, Heralds on Discs, Chariots and Exalted Flamers, and all of them move at a pace that I'm happy with.
All in all I'm okay with where I'm at. I'll admit I'm very confused that my Tzeentch list went from casting loads of spells to suddenly being an assault army, but I'm confident I'll make it work.
This is a 2001 point tzeentch list I was toying around with earlier today. I might test it out this weekend. It's using a Vanguard and Outrider Detachment. It might be better to grab a CSMDP to give the screamers the ability to reroll 1s. I need to test screamers on paper. At first they look mediocre, but with a Herald casting Boon of Change on the squad, they can get much better. STR 8 Lamprey Bites get scary quickly.
Spoiler:
HQ Tzeentch Herald on Disk
Tzeentch Herald on Disk
Elites
Exalted Flamer
Exalted Flamer
Exalted Flamer
9 Flamers of Tzeentch
9 Flamers of Tzeentch
9 Flamers of Tzeentch
Fast Attack
9 Screamers
9 Screamers
9 Screamers
Edit : I've been reading this again. It reads as any CHAOS CHARACTER can summon. That includes CSM. Yes, Cypher can summon daemons.
If a Khorne Chaos Lord rides up in a rhino. Can it summon a squad of bloodletters 12" from the rhino? Page 183 of the core rulebook suggest against it.
However, the same lord on a bike is a different story.... Turn one it could turbo boost 20" forward, then on turn 2, it could drop off a squad of 'letters 9" from the enemy models. Bring up a helldrake next to the lord, and you have a decent chance of making it happen. How good it is, I don't know.
dan2026 wrote: The lack of movement is problematic. I think the key might be using fast units to burn across the field turn 1 or 2. Then summoning the unit start of turn 2 or 3 up in the enemies grill.
Remember in matched play, if a unit does not arrive by the end of turn 3, it counts as destroyed.
I don't think the reinforcement points and adding new units to your army are the same as the tactical reserves.
In this case I don't believe the end of turn 3 limit counts.
The units you are summoning aren't actually in reserves.
You don't need to decide what you are summoning until you actually perform the roll.
You just need to make sure you have the points in the bank to cover it.
Edit : I've been reading this again. It reads as any CHAOS CHARACTER can summon. That includes CSM. Yes, Cypher can summon daemons.
If a Khorne Chaos Lord rides up in a rhino. Can it summon a squad of bloodletters 12" from the rhino? Page 183 of the core rulebook suggest against it.
However, the same lord on a bike is a different story.... Turn one it could turbo boost 20" forward, then on turn 2, it could drop off a squad of 'letters 9" from the enemy models. Bring up a helldrake next to the lord, and you have a decent chance of making it happen. How good it is, I don't know.
Daemon models specifically have the rule for summoning listed on their sheets.
Edit: Unless this means they can be summoned? Idk. It's a weird rule. I don't intend to do much summoning.
In regards to fast moving lists, I made this one earlier I'm relatively happy with. Fast, Spams Smite, abuses Characters, feels good.
Spoiler:
Supreme Command: +1 CP
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
Be'Lakor (240)
Elite: Exalted Flamer (70)
Supreme Command: +1 CP
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
That is an interesting thought. Reinforcement points != tactical reserves.
That does make grabbing or holding those turn 6 objectives a bit easier.
Here is another thought. Could you use summoning as a 'variable power pool' depending on the opponent you are facing?
Is it viable to start with 1-2 heralds of a few gods, a group of cultists to hide behind (or maybe a fortification) and then pop out and summon an army based upon your foe.
For example, slaanesh units make for very unhappy 'nids. You might want to bring a ton of flamers, etc...
Edit : I've been reading this again. It reads as any CHAOS CHARACTER can summon. That includes CSM. Yes, Cypher can summon daemons.
If a Khorne Chaos Lord rides up in a rhino. Can it summon a squad of bloodletters 12" from the rhino? Page 183 of the core rulebook suggest against it.
However, the same lord on a bike is a different story.... Turn one it could turbo boost 20" forward, then on turn 2, it could drop off a squad of 'letters 9" from the enemy models. Bring up a helldrake next to the lord, and you have a decent chance of making it happen. How good it is, I don't know.
Daemon models specifically have the rule for summoning listed on their sheets.
Edit: Unless this means they can be summoned? Idk. It's a weird rule. I don't intend to do much summoning.
In regards to fast moving lists, I made this one earlier I'm relatively happy with. Fast, Spams Smite, abuses Characters, feels good.
Spoiler:
Supreme Command: +1 CP
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
Be'Lakor (240)
Elite: Exalted Flamer (70)
Supreme Command: +1 CP
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
Herald on Disc, Staff (104)
Torn between the Burning Chariots or just using other Exalted Flamers, but we'll see as we play.
The rule reads that Any Chaos Character can summon a unit with the rule (daemonic ritual), not "any Chaos Character WITH this rule". So yes, CSM can summon any of the daemon index units. They don't need to have the ritual rule to do it.
As for the movement discussions, there's nothing stopping summoning from happening while a character is in combat. Good news for khorne!
I am also thinking Be'lakor might be a good choice to summon with.
He moves 14" basic and has FLY.
He also isn't locked into any of the 4 Gods, so I believe there is nothing stopping him from summoning whatever he wants.
dan2026 wrote: I am also thinking Be'lakor might be a good choice to summon with.
He moves 14" basic and has FLY.
He also isn't locked into any of the 4 Gods, so I believe there is nothing stopping him from summoning whatever he wants.
Be'Lakor is absolutely amazing. Perfect wounds, amazing rules (Rerolling failed saves?), high damage... I love him.
"If they do so, first choose one of the four Chaos Gods -- Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle or Slaanesh. A character who owes allegiance to one of the Dark Gods can only attempt to summon the units of their patron -- for example, a Khorne Character can only attempt to summon Khorne Daemons"
What is interesting about this, is that you can take unaligned characters in CSM. Page 10 of the index states "You do not have to choose a Mark of Chos for a unit if you do not want to"
This means that you can take an unaligned CSM lord or sorcerer on a bike and use it to summon any of the 4 chaos god troops.
For ~450 points you could lay down 4 units a turn, specifically laid down to counter your opponent. You would have to bring an ass-ton of models with you, but it might be kind of cool.
"Oh, look, you bright a ton of knights, let me start cranking out screamers"
"Oh look, orks. Here are some tzeentch flamers"
"Hey, nids again. Here are some daemonettes"
labmouse42 wrote: "If they do so, first choose one of the four Chaos Gods -- Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle or Slaanesh. A character who owes allegiance to one of the Dark Gods can only attempt to summon the units of their patron -- for example, a Khorne Character can only attempt to summon Khorne Daemons"
What is interesting about this, is that you can take unaligned characters in CSM. Page 10 of the index states "You do not have to choose a Mark of Chos for a unit if you do not want to"
This means that you can take an unaligned CSM lord or sorcerer on a bike and use it to summon any of the 4 chaos god troops.
For ~450 points you could lay down 4 units a turn, specifically laid down to counter your opponent. You would have to bring an ass-ton of models with you, but it might be kind of cool.
"Oh, look, you bright a ton of knights, let me start cranking out screamers"
"Oh look, orks. Here are some tzeentch flamers"
"Hey, nids again. Here are some daemonettes"
How feasible is that?
Seems perfectly feasible to me.
If you have the models of course.
The fact that you don't have to declare what you are going to be summoning beforehand to your opponent means they can't really plan to counter it.
How awful is this: 2k pts
+1
Keeper of Secrets
Masque
Herald on steed
Magnus
+3
daemon prince of chaos wings claws
daemon prince of chaos wings claws
2x 4 blue 10 brimstone horrors
30 Daemonettes with instrument
14 seekers
Heldrake baleflamer
Princes, magnus and heldrake fly in first. Slaanesh comes after. horrors camp
zamerion wrote: Sorry if it was asked, but, how blue horrors work with the burning chariot?
They give 3 wounds? or only gives the -1 to psychic test? also, there isnt points for them?
There is no wargear option. It's PAINFULLY Vague.
For now, it's safe to assume they're a missed wargear option and we should wait for a FAQ.
I've had TOs rule that, without a FAQ, RAW you gain 3 models w/ 3 wounds. It's a foggy area best left for a FAQ.
Man.. if you can add 3 wounds to that model... that's all kinds of awesome.
Yes. It's a very cheap upgrade if it works.
There's just... literally no other existence of anything known as "blue horrors" in the index, and nothing else in any indexes words things as "accompany" when discussing an upgrade. It's a weird choice for the model, especially when the model is listed as **Points WITH Wargear**
Captyn_Bob wrote: So, to get those units, how many reserves points is likely to be wise to hold? I
What you do is put most of your army (1500 pts) as summonables. You then pop out 1500 points of your army depending on your opponent.
Like I said, it might be horrible. IDK. I would have to test it and see.
And then a shooting army kills 250 pts of them the first turn and 250 the second to turn. You've managed to summon 300 pts worth of stuff. 850 vs 2k is what I fear.
I'm not seeing much in there except Nurgling spam maybe? They're squishy, but they're also a lot of wounds for cheap. Take objectives turn 1 with a ton of speed bumps to tie up enemy movement?
I think there is some potential for a Nurgle list focusing on Epidemius. The buffs he gives this edition can be pretty good.
The best bet for getting him going early is probably Warp Talons combined with a deep striking Sorcerer. You can Warptime the Talons into a guaranteed charge. This would be especially potent if the Talons do in fact get a bonus attack from each lightning claw.
Heldrakes can also get the buffs going early. They can move 30", shoot a unit, and charge all in the first turn. They don't have the highest damage output, but with a baleflamer a Heldrake will on average kill a minimum sized unit of jetbikes.
In addition to the alpha striking units, an Epidemius list would likely include units that have a lot to gain from his buffs. The first few buffs are re-rolling hit rolls of 1, +1" movement, and +1 strength. I could see Warp Talons, Plaguebearers, Nurglings, Foetid Bloat-Drones and Great Unclean Ones getting a lot of benefit out of these buffs.
dan2026 wrote: Getting small squads of Nurglings to Mischief Makers in and tie up squads for a turn or two seems like a valid strategy.
Could give you other units a bit of relief from shooting.
That's what I'm expecting, but not just to tie up enemies. I tried to do the math, but I think I need to see this on the table top... you might be able to make a Nurgle "deep strike effect" denial list, where no area outside of the enemy deployment zone is more than 9" away from an enemy, therefore they can't "deep strike" behind your lines. I want to try this out eventually, but I'm guessing I'd have to pump about 600pts into Nurglings to see if it worked.
I was also playing around with Nurge lists, and you can easily take multiple battalions through spamming Nurglings, netting you 9-12 Command Points to start the game.
I don't think they're anything wrong with 4+ Unit Spam.
To me, Brimstone horrors are still the biggest thing. Beng able to spam cheap troops is NOT to be understated, especially when it can still attempt to Smite with a 5-6 and not perils.
Other than that, The Changeling. He's bonkers good.
To me, Brimstone horrors are still the biggest thing. Beng able to spam cheap troops is NOT to be understated, especially when it can still attempt to Smite with a 5-6 and not perils.
Other than that, The Changeling. He's bonkers good.
Yeah but I do
I really don't want more than 4 of the same unit if I can help it. I'd gladly take something points expensive like Magnus to avoid that.
Did you play your tzeench lists, yet?
To me, Brimstone horrors are still the biggest thing. Beng able to spam cheap troops is NOT to be understated, especially when it can still attempt to Smite with a 5-6 and not perils.
Other than that, The Changeling. He's bonkers good.
Yeah but I do
I really don't want more than 4 of the same unit if I can help it. I'd gladly take something points expensive like Magnus to avoid that.
Did you play your tzeench lists, yet?
I have four separate lists made to test on the 24th. Some include Magnus, others include Spamming Troops and Characters.
To me, Brimstone horrors are still the biggest thing. Beng able to spam cheap troops is NOT to be understated, especially when it can still attempt to Smite with a 5-6 and not perils.
Other than that, The Changeling. He's bonkers good.
Yeah but I do
I really don't want more than 4 of the same unit if I can help it. I'd gladly take something points expensive like Magnus to avoid that.
Did you play your tzeench lists, yet?
I have four separate lists made to test on the 24th. Some include Magnus, others include Spamming Troops and Characters.
I tried out the following Tzeentch list in a small 1000pt test game against Harlequins:
Herald, disc, staff of change
Herald, disc, staff of change
3x Blue Horrors, 7x Brims
3x Blue Horrors, 7x Brims
3x Blue Horrors, 7x Brims
5x Flamers
5x Screamers
5x Screamers
4x Screamers
Burning Chariot, 3x Blue Horrors
18 spare points to provide Brims for splits from blues.
Thoughts:
Fast moving units appear to continue to be very useful in 8th, all of mine were moving at least 12" and could fly (apart from the horrors)
All of my units had a 4++ which is very useful compared to an armour save being affected by high AP weapons.
Morale didn't seem to be much of an issue with relatively small units.
Horrors are much better than I expected and are recommended. You can take a full unit of Brims for 20 points which is amazing value when they all have a 4++ and have a chance of Smiting something as well. On my first read through I didn't think much of the new split rules but having a couple of blues in there and leaving some points spare helped maintain the unit size for camping on objectives. It might even be worth having some pinks in there as well which I'm going to experiment with.
Flamers are an excellent unit and are also highly recommended. They were surprisingly resilient with their 2 wounds and a 4++. Even if they get sucked into a combat, if they can survive the first round, they can then put out some serious damage with their pistol flamers in the next round. They also have the option of falling back and flaming as well.
Screamers were decent, again surprisingly resilient and had a good number of attacks in CC. It's good that you can use the Lampreys Bite as well as 2 normal attacks at the same time.
Burning Chariot was ok. The Heavy D3 weapon wasn't so effective with the poor WS and movement penalty.
Yesterday I ran some mathhammering of daemon units. This first pass shows the damage vs GEQ I've made some minor updates since the image below was taken. See the link for the latest.
Flamers
These things have really good damage output. While not on the level of Khorne Bezerkers, they are very solid, can fly and their weapons are pistols. Point for point, they are great values.
Daemonettes
Especially when combined with a herald, a DP, and in groups of larger than 20, the damage on these ladies gets off the charts. Yes, they are fragile, but it's nice to know which of your units will whip the pants off almost every other assault unit in the game -- point for point. This is even more telling because slaanesh always goes first in assault. I need to modify the chart to show their rending -- but with the rending they are extremely good at units of a T6 or greater. Every wound is a rend!
Bloodcrushers
The math is showing Bloodcrushers as being surprisingly good choices. The reason is they have 3 attacks base, plus 3 attacks for their mount -- unlike the Plauge Drone that has just 3 attacks for the base plus 4 for the drone. Given their movement of 8", their 4+ save and 3 wounds, they are a solid choice. I'll be building another unit of 8 of these guys plus a herald.
Seeker Chariots + Exalted Seeker Chariot
Again, these things just really pull ahead in damage output. The exalted Seeker Chariot is really appealing. While it's expensive at 140 points it gives psychic powers in addition to hitting like a fright train and providing buffs. The exalted chariot is even better than printed here because I did not add the lashes of torment in assault. Normal seeker chariots can hide, giving a good reason to take them.
Khorne Bezekers
I mentioned earlier that we should think of Chaos Daemons and Heretic Astartes as two separate armies. You can mix and match them to your hearts content!
Khorne Bezerkers are excellent assault units, with damage ratings in the range of daemonettes with a hearld. Unlike daemonettes, they can ride in a rhino to get to the fight.
Chaos Terminators
These guys are worth a mention. You can slap combi-bolters on them to do 4 ranged shots each. You can add power axes or chainaxes to these guys to give them some serious punch in assault. They are pretty darn good and very durable for their point cost. Unlike their imperial counterparts, they are not forced to buy powerfists for each model.
Khorne Bezerkers in Chaos Rhino
These are such great buys. Their damage output is insane. The Rhino can bring 1 combi-bolter, 1 combi-flamer, and 1 havoc launcher to have good damage output as well, making the rhino's damage good for a transport.
What about the Nurgle
Nurgle does not have high damage output. That's why you don't see them listed above. What nurgle units have is durability. It takes 18 bolter shots to kill a bloodcrusher (durability rating vs bolters of 2.61) compared to needing 30.5 bolters to kill a plague drone (durability of a 1.44). Plague bearers in squads of 20+ need 9 bolters to kill, giving a per-point durability rating close to bare chaos space marines or bare bones chaos terminators. (Once you start gearing up CSM, their durability per point to bolters jumps making plaugbearers an excellent choice)
Scroll over to columns V-AA to see some of these calculations
Yesterday I ran some mathhammering of daemon units. This first pass shows the damage vs GEQ I've made some minor updates since the image below was taken. See the link for the latest.
Flamers
These things have the best damage per point for any unit I've found vs GEQ of the armies I've tested thus far (AM, Cron's, CSM, CD). They are 50% better than even a Taurox Prime. Even against MEQ, they are top notch, just edging out Khorne Bezerkers. Given their movement, 2 wounds per model, and 4++ they are easily the best unit in the Daemon List IMHO.
Daemonettes
Especially when combined with a herald, a DP, and in groups of larger than 20, the damage on these ladies gets off the charts. Yes, they are fragile, but it's nice to know which of your units will whip the pants off almost every other assault unit in the game -- point for point. This is even more telling because slaanesh always goes first in assault. I need to modify the chart to show their rending -- but with the rending they are extremely good at units of a T6 or greater. Every wound is a rend!
Bloodcrushers
The math is showing Bloodcrushers as being surprisingly good choices. The reason is they have 3 attacks base, plus 3 attacks for their mount -- unlike the Plauge Drone that has just 3 attacks for the base plus 4 for the drone. Given their movement of 8", their 4+ save and 3 wounds, they are a solid choice. I'll be building another unit of 8 of these guys plus a herald.
Seeker Chariots + Exalted Seeker Chariot
Again, these things just really pull ahead in damage output. The exalted Seeker Chariot is really appealing. While it's expensive at 140 points it gives psychic powers in addition to hitting like a fright train and providing buffs. The exalted chariot is even better than printed here because I did not add the lashes of torment in assault.
Khorne Bezekers
I mentioned earlier that we should think of Chaos Daemons and Heretic Astartes as two separate armies. You can mix and match them to your hearts content!
Khorne Bezerkers are excellent assault units, with damage ratings in the range of daemonettes with a hearld. Unlike daemonettes, they can ride in a rhino to get to the fight.
Chaos Terminators
These guys are worth a mention. You can slap combi-bolters on them to do 4 ranged shots each. You can add power axes or chainaxes to these guys to give them some serious punch in assault. They are pretty darn good and very durable for their point cost. Unlike their imperial counterparts, they are not forced to buy powerfists for each model.
What about the Nurgle
Nurgle does not have high damage output. That's why you don't see them listed above. What nurgle units have is durability. It takes 18 bolter shots to kill a bloodcrusher (durability rating vs bolters of 2.61) compared to needing 30.5 bolters to kill a plague drone (durability of a 1.44). Plague bearers in squads of 20+ need 9 bolters to kill, giving a per-point durability rating close to bare chaos space marines or bare bones chaos terminators. (Once you start gearing up CSM, their durability per point to bolters jumps making plaugbearers an excellent choice)
Scroll over to columns V-AA to see some of these calculations
I would throw in a Masque in there as great with the Chariots, giving them a -1 to hit them in combat and can for the most part keep up with them as well. Then buffs their to hit by 1 if in the same combat as them.
Swara wrote: I would throw in a Masque in there as great with the Chariots, giving them a -1 to hit them and can for the most part keep up with them as well.
Good call on the Masque. The heralds on chariots are not daemonettes, but the normal chariots are.
I'm very torn between giving Flamers a shot. I can take 5 Flamers, or 2 Exalted Flamers.
Exalted Flamers have the benefit of being characters, and can tie up larger models by virtue of them being the closest available unit compared to other characters, but flamers do appear to dish out quite a lot of wounds against geq models.
Cephalobeard wrote: I'm very torn between giving Flamers a shot. I can take 5 Flamers, or 2 Exalted Flamers.
Exalted Flamers have the benefit of being characters, and can tie up larger models by virtue of them being the closest available unit compared to other characters, but flamers do appear to dish out quite a lot of wounds against geq models.
I'd run them both for different purposes, if you have to choose I'd base it on whether you need anti-horde or anti-heavy more.
I'll be having a 1.5k game vs nids on monday. List so far:
+9 CP Keeper of Secrets
The Masque
Herald on exalted chariot
10 brims
10 brims
3 nurglings
10 daemonettes
10 daemonettes
11 bloodletters (only have 20 daemonettes)
3 flamers
1 Daemon Prince with dual claws and wings
Soul Grinder
Heldrake baleflamer
1499 pts
Any suggestions on what to fix considering I still have:
Would it be worth taking icons and musicians at all seems quite expensive for the effect to be beneficial. I'm kinda happy how the keywords work for Daemons as I can easily take multiple units from the CSM army like maulerfiends, possessed bloat drones and maybe a Chaos Lord on Palanquin to help add some much need heavy hitters for my mini Nurgle army since most of the Nurgle daemons don't really have decent ap. what's going to be even better is once the forge world index for chaos hits we are going to be given even more decent options including two new Nurgle daemon units Plague Toads and Pox Riders ( I wonder what they will be like)
Yeah, they're a tad expensive maybe on squads of 30?
My first impressions. Tell me where I'm wrong:
KHORNE
Karanak - almost no damage, really overpriced, nerfed movement only gives +1s to himself. Seems terrible
Skarbrand: insane damage on high wound models per point but really slow and can get tarpited by a good player. Too big of a weakness for thaylt many pts
Skulltaker: cool aura, solid weapon. Seems OK
Bloodthirsters: only wrath of khorne seems useful. But they're pretty much bullet magnets that die/get injured very easily. So you have to be careful with them... when you also can't hide them... huh... seems like good on paper bad in practice
Heralds all seem underwhelming. I guess take the one on foot with letters or 1 on jugg with crushers for the aura...
Dogs got their speed nerfed and didn't get a health increase. With 2 dmg weapons they seem weaker than before...
Letters: great against Primaris... which aren't that great to begin with. Seem underwhelming
Crushers: really pack a punch. Seem like the best non hq Khorne unit by far.
Cannon: actually seems not awful. This one probably needs the most experimenting.
My first impressions. Tell me where I'm wrong:
KHORNE
Karanak - almost no damage, really overpriced, nerfed movement only gives +1s to himself. Seems terrible
Skarbrand: insane damage on high wound models per point but really slow and can get tarpited by a good player. Too big of a weakness for thaylt many pts
Skulltaker: cool aura, solid weapon. Seems OK
Bloodthirsters: only wrath of khorne seems useful. But they're pretty much bullet magnets that die/get injured very easily. So you have to be careful with them... when you also can't hide them... huh... seems like good on paper bad in practice
Heralds all seem underwhelming. I guess take the one on foot with letters or 1 on jugg with crushers for the aura...
Dogs got their speed nerfed and didn't get a health increase. With 2 dmg weapons they seem weaker than before...
Letters: great against Primaris... which aren't that great to begin with. Seem underwhelming
Crushers: really pack a punch. Seem like the best non hq Khorne unit by far.
Cannon: actually seems not awful. This one probably needs the most experimenting.
I'd say you pretty much nailed it all around. I've only had limited playtesting,but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that khorne daemons are terrible. When you compare the points costs to things like guard or orks is pretty lol. Seriously 9pt letters @t3 with no shooting and a 5++ as your only troops choice is an embarrassment.
This was an army (kdk) that got 1/5 units for free during battle and was still a middle tier at best competitive army.
Now we don't get those free units, but the rest is the same
Burning chariot - seems much better than exalted, just a few pts more and double the wounds.
Automatically Appended Next Post: NURGLE
Epidemius - a must for a nurgle army
GUO - actually seems really good tbh. The only problem - getting there. Maybe the only reason to use summoning?
Herald - aura stacking so a must take?
Plaguebearers - take in armies of 30 for a really really REALLY annoying unit. The banner seems good because of how annoying they are to kill
Nurglings - great unit, cheap, fills troops, does locking up shananigans
Beasts - seem really bad...
Plague drones - need testing but seem at least OK
Automatically Appended Next Post: SLAANESH:
Masque: must have with any <DAEMONETTE> unit
Keeper Of Secrets: seems not amazing. It's missing a rule to make it good or smthn. Like advance and charge?
Heralds - herald on foot seems ridiculously bad compared to on steed. The ones on chariots just seem like worse chariots. Steed seems to be the only viable one... the one that has no model >.<
Daemonettes - apparently great damage. Can be buffed a lot. So as long as you get them in one piece... :p
Fiends: Really fast used to tie up models, which nurglings do faster and are good vs psykers (who aren't that great). Overpriced too. Bad combo
Hellflayer - why in the green hell does this cost more than an exalted chariot when in order to make exalted, you need 2 hellflayer boxes? Rant aside, seems ok.
Chariots - as long as they don't get hurt - exalted are much much better. Seem pretty good either way
Seekers - THIS SPEED. Holy crap. Needs testing but looks good.
Automatically Appended Next Post: NEUTRALS
Be'lakor: great to buff a mix of daemons, can hide. Seems pretty good
Daemon princes: can't hide, but take claws and wings and they're good distraction carnifexes. Can only buff nurgle or tzeench
Furies: expensive... needs testing
Soul Grinder: luck dependant but doesn't seem too bad
Bonus: Heldrakes: easiest turn 1 in the game? Durable. Baleflamer seems overpriced. But considering bad BS... hm...
Magnus: COMPARE THIS TO KAIROS. seriously. For 15 pts, you get THIS
Ps: if I take a nurgle herald and glue him up with nurglings, can I pasd him as Epidemius?
rvd1ofakind wrote: I'll be having a 1.5k game vs nids on monday. List so far:
+9 CP Keeper of Secrets
The Masque
Herald on exalted chariot
10 brims
10 brims
3 nurglings
10 daemonettes
10 daemonettes
11 bloodletters (only have 20 daemonettes)
3 flamers
1 Daemon Prince with dual claws and wings
Soul Grinder
Heldrake baleflamer
1499 pts
Any suggestions on what to fix considering I still have:
I know it's kind of list tailoring, but slaanesh is just hell on heels when it comes to nids.
Being able to strike first means that you can kill those stealers before they get to swing.
* Why run 2 squads of 10 nettes instead of one 20 girl blob? Are you just trying to fit into a brigade for the CP? Personally I've found about 4 CP to be enough.
* Are the brims going to be your screening unit to absorb a charge? That's a great use of cheap models.
* The bloodletters feel out of place.
* Just because your going heavy slaanesh, the fiends seem like they would be a better fit. Disruptive song is pretty bad for nids.
* Daemon princes of slaanesh are money. Point for point they are better than carnifexes or his other big guys.
* Personally I've not been super impressed with the soul grinder. I would drop it and put in another DP. That would free up the points for a fiends.
* Those flamers are going to be bad news for gaunt's. I wish you had 9.
Please let us know how it goes!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
plagueknight wrote: Would it be worth taking icons and musicians at all seems quite expensive for the effect to be beneficial.
Musicians are amazing due to the +1 advance and charge range. Because charge ranges work off a bell curve, anything you can get to get you a +1 is huge
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rvd1ofakind wrote: Heralds all seem underwhelming. I guess take the one on foot with letters or 1 on jugg with crushers for the aura....
I agree with you on all the points, save this one.
A blood throne herald is a nasty opponent, with great ratios and good buffs.
Alternatively, a herald on a jugg buffing other nearly juggs is nasty. That is STR 7, AP-3 weapons on the charge. That will rip a rhino right open.
rvd1ofakind wrote: Yeah, I'll definitelly change the list up a bit after doing the analysis and reading your comments. Are you sure about slaanesh DP? Seems too squish
They are not that squishy....
The chances of a bolter wounding a DP are the following (2/3 * 1/3 * 1/3) or (to hit * to wound * failed save) for a 2/27 (~7.4%) chance to wound.
The prince is hitting 35/36 of the time (it gets to reroll it's own misses as it's a DP), has 7 STR 7 attacks at -2 that do 2 wounds each.
Yes, they are not as tough as nurgle, but point for point they are nastier than soul grinders.
The big reason is that they don't degrade like grinders.
Also check out their psychic powers.
Symphony of Pain stacks very well with the masque. Nothing is as hilarious as watching 4+ opponents start hitting you on a 6+
Hysterical Frenzy is off the hook. Cast it on a squad of daemonettes, an exalted seeker chariot, or even the prince himeself.
I am honest surprised how good Flamers seem to be.
The Changling seems like it might be quite good at protecting some of your Daemons too.
And if you actually get him to charge Abaddon or something, hilarity will ensue.
Also I think people shouldn't forget the CSM Daemon units.
Mainly Warp Talons, Helldrakes and Forgefiends.
Warp Talons are quite choppy, can deep strike and cant be overwatched (on the turn they DS)
Helldrakes have fast firepower and are no slouch in combat.
Forgefiends can even more firepower.
Also both Drake and Fiend regen 1 wound per turn.
Emicrania wrote: Does a plaguebearer unit with herald and virulent spell hit on 2+? Or am I wrong?
No, but a Herald accompanying a Plague Bearer unit with Virulent up would give +1 strength to the unit, +1 wound rolls, and any 7+ (so dice rolls of 6) to wound would do double damage.
The only Nurgle demon units to buff to hit are Epidemius, and near by Daemon Princes.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Speaking of Psychic Powers, I think Virulent Blessing and Stream of Corruption will be gold for Nurgle Daemons, but I wonder how useful Fleshy Abundance will be.
It's similar to a lot of rules for Nurgle Daemons in AoS, and I've found it doesn't do much for them. The problem is D3 recovered wounds doesn't have much impact on their survivability considering they can only cast it after surviving two rounds of combat (your turn and your opponent's turn) in which you can get hurt, and/or a shooting turn.
I'm hoping it plays out differently in 8th than it does in AoS.
new list:
+3
KoS Masque
10 Brim
10 brim 1 blue(with 2 pts to become a brim)
3 nurglings
20 daemonettes
3 fiends
3 flamers
heldrake
+1
herald of slaanesh on chariot
Be'lakor
Nurgle Daemon Prince
What do you think?
Also here's my "to buy list":
It will bring me to: 30 total daemonettes, 40 brimstones and 40 blues, 30 plaguebearers, 30 bloodletters, 6 nurglings, 6 plague drones, 2 nurgle heralds(1 can be epidemius), 12 flamers and everything else is new
Do you think some of these are not "enough"? Like do I need 60 daemononettes, 20 flamers or whatever?
Do you think something is not needed?
SLAANESH:
Masque: must have with any <DAEMONETTE> unit
Keeper Of Secrets: seems not amazing. It's missing a rule to make it good or smthn. Like advance and charge?
Heralds - herald on foot seems ridiculously bad compared to on steed. The ones on chariots just seem like worse chariots. Steed seems to be the only viable one... the one that has no model >.<
Daemonettes - apparently great damage. Can be buffed a lot. So as long as you get them in one piece... :p
Fiends: Really fast used to tie up models, which nurglings do faster and are good vs psykers (who aren't that great). Overpriced too. Bad combo
Hellflayer - why in the green hell does this cost more than an exalted chariot when in order to make exalted, you need 2 hellflayer boxes? Rant aside, seems ok.
Chariots - as long as they don't get hurt - exalted are much much better. Seem pretty good either way
Seekers - THIS SPEED. Holy crap. Needs testing but looks good.
Herald Seeker chariots, cost 46pts more because, they hit on a 2+, are strength 4/5, have 2 extra attacks, are psykers (so they can smite) and they can't be shot unless they are the closest model because they are characters with less than 10 wounds. (referring to the regular herald chariot not the exalted one)
I wonder if a all chariot army would be viable this edition, I own 7 regular seeker chariots and I may get more, I always loved the internal image of bronze age warfare (chariots) overcoming the likes of space marines.
One of my absolute favorite moments ever is when my seeker chariot, took out a knight on a rear charge with the impact hits.
labmouse42 wrote: Proxy some units and test them out before you buy.
Dude but then I wouldn't waste money. :/
Also Magnus looks awesome, so I want him. And everyone has been praising the other units to high heaven and I want to have at least 30 of each troop(eeeeeexcept pink) :>
Well I run Mono slaanesh and what I have found to dumb effective for my play style funny enough is running a CSMDp with wings and claws alongside two maulerfiends with lasher tendrils all marked for slaanesh. The CsmDP of slaanesh benefits my daemons too and can't be targeted because of being under 10 wounds. Also the big part of this combo is taking warp time for the mauler fiends. My list atm looks something like this.
At 2000
Detachments : Spearhead + outrider + LoW
Spearhead
Hq Herald of Slaanesh on Exalted seeker chariot
CsmDP of Slaanesh with wings and claws
Troops
1x 10-man daemonettes w/ instrument
Heavy
2x maulerfiends of slaanesh w/ lasher tendrils
2x seeker chariots
Outrider
HQ Masque of Slaanesh
Troops
2x 10-man daemonettes w/ instrument
Fast attack
4x 5-man seekers
LoW Questor Knight w/ thermal cannon, reaper chainsword, heavy stubber.
Now the issues i've found is more often that not, I do not go first. I can probably change this around and make the daemonettes a singular 30 man blob and the seekers into 2 10-man blobs. (I've tried 20, not a good idea. losing 8 in wounds and losing another 7 in morale fething sucks). But this list I like so far in how it plays, and if it steals intiative, oh boy. Only issues with csm portion is loss of quicksilver speed.
Another thing I I have been debating about is the effectiveness of seeker chariot vs the hellflayer. The ability for mortal wounds on impact vs a large unit can be good as i've seen moments where on the charge 3-5 models being knocked out from some lucky mortal wound rolls. On the other hand the hellflyer can do a good amount of damage in the actual fight phase itself.
My first impressions. Tell me where I'm wrong:
KHORNE
Karanak - almost no damage, really overpriced, nerfed movement only gives +1s to himself. Seems terrible
I'm not sure he's all bad, but then he wasn't really good before was he? Maybe if he is summoned his character-targeting rule can come into play more easily. I'm not sure he's completely worthless though.
Skarbrand: insane damage on high wound models per point but really slow and can get tarpited by a good player. Too big of a weakness for thaylt many pts
He's faster than most infantry and he gives a good aura effect, which is just as much reason to take him as for his massive damage output. I agree that he definitely has his downsides though, as he does cost a huge number of points.
Skulltaker: cool aura, solid weapon. Seems OK
Agreed. He's awesome!
Bloodthirsters: only wrath of khorne seems useful. But they're pretty much bullet magnets that die/get injured very easily. So you have to be careful with them... when you also can't hide them... huh... seems like good on paper bad in practice
Insensate Rage will absolutely wreck anything he touches in melee. Also, with new cover rules they aren't like knights where you have to be more than 50% obscured to get cover, so if you are behind decent cover you will get a 4+ save (assuming I'm right about the cover adding to invulnerable saves as well as armor).
Heralds all seem underwhelming. I guess take the one on foot with letters or 1 on jugg with crushers for the aura...
I don't think Heralds are underwhelming at all. They are a cheap strength boost for nearby Khorne Daemons. Whatsmore, I think it works for things like Possessed and Warp Talons as well! Yes please! The Chariot might be the best way to run one.
Dogs got their speed nerfed and didn't get a health increase. With 2 dmg weapons they seem weaker than before...
Yeah...Flesh Hounds are probably the big losers among Khorne units now. -1AP is just not good enough, and as you pointed out they actually lost some speed and cost more. Maybe GW decided that they were broken before or something.
Letters: great against Primaris... which aren't that great to begin with. Seem underwhelming
125 points for a unit of 10 with instrument and daemonic icon is not too bad. Getting them into combat is the hard part, but then it always was even before. At least if they do make it in even Termies aren't safe!
Crushers: really pack a punch. Seem like the best non hq Khorne unit by far.
Agreed! If Hounds were the big losers, these guys are definitely the big winners. Instant Death was the reason I never liked them before, with that gone they are actually now pretty good.
Cannon: actually seems not awful. This one probably needs the most experimenting.
I think they'll be good against hordes, but meh against other things.
Overall I think Khorne Daemons will be something of a glass cannon army. If played well, they hit extremely hard and will murder anything they can catch. The downside is that if things start to go wrong, they go wrong in a hurry. I think playing a Daemonkin-style list will work well as they can then take some of the CSM units for some added durability. Plus, Kharn is a beast!
What's the point of Disc Heralds now? For less than a 1/3 points increase they can be on a Burning chariot for +2" of move, +2 Toughness, screamer attacks and DOUBLE the wounds.
I'm seriously struggling with even bothering to take Disc Heralds when Burning Chariots look like a bargain by comparison.
Also, I am very sad that DPs cannot hide behind units. The GW Sneak Peak on Characters said that 10 wounds or less could not be targeted, but the leaked rules show that Characters with 10 wounds or more can indeed be targeted. On the bright side, DP got way cheaper for more wounds and T6.
As a mixed Daemon player, Belakor seems mandatory for me (just like he was before). I'm excited that I can take Belakor and my Tetrad and actually have points left over for a decent army.
EDIT: So I just noticed that the CSMDP and Daemons DP have a pretty important difference. Aside from the CSMDPs not getting any special rules for being a "Daemon of ____", the CSMDPs only have 8W, which means they can hide. So what does everone think about taking a Command detachment full of CSMDPs (and possibly Magnus) alongside "true" Daemon detachments?
Galef wrote: What's the point of Disc Heralds now?
It's for the same reason every Gods herald has the exact same passive aura.
Because whoever worked on our codex didn't care about daemons and crapped something out to meet a deadline. If you're going to invest in heralds you might as well take a chariot if available everytime.
Disc Herald's main benefit is the being cheaper. I can spam, easily, 8 Disc Herald's in my list alongside 4-6 Exalted flamers. That many characters is going to be incredibly annoying and difficult for an opponent to deal with.
Cephalobeard wrote: Disc Herald's main benefit is the being cheaper. I can spam, easily, 8 Disc Herald's in my list alongside 4-6 Exalted flamers. That many characters is going to be incredibly annoying and difficult for an opponent to deal with.
But 4 Chariot Heralds are MUCH cheaper than 8 Disc Heralds for about the same number of wounds, better Toughness and screamer attacks. Plus less slots needed.
I just don't see the points, aside from more chances to cast Smite (which is Meh at best)
It's exactly for spamming smite. How many games have you played where you cast smite 10+ times a turn? Genuinely, I'd love to read about your experience doing that.
I have to agree, smite spam is surprisingly potent. The reliability of a bunch of near-guaranteed extra wounds is much better in practice than it is in theory.
There are five chaos players in my group, 3 csm and 2 are daemons being me and this other guy that runs mono tzneetch. He ran squads of horrors like so , 3 pinks + 5 blues+ 5 brimstones. Keeping the brims in the back and pinks in the front in a conga line fashion along with using the changling in the center of it. He dishes out smite spams like no ones business. And he could still do it on a cheaper scale by downscaling to blues and brims purely.
YEsterday I saw him go against guard and he just tore through wounds because of how much smite he was tossing out and not caring really what he was pointing at.
Galef wrote: What's the point of Disc Heralds now? For less than a 1/3 points increase they can be on a Burning chariot for +2" of move, +2 Toughness, screamer attacks and DOUBLE the wounds.
What's the role of the herald? Smite and buffing. Since the herald is a character, the extra durability does not help as much -- as they cannot be picked out easily from combat.
The biggest buffs I see form this are the fact that you can add the blue horrors and the chariot base is huge. This greatly increases the radius of the buffs/debuff.
Edit : If you are trying just to smite spam, then that 1/3 cost can make a difference. If you are taking 10 heralds to smite with, those 300 points add up. Of course, if you are going to run smite spam, you should be taking Slaaneash Exalted chariots for 140 -- which can hit like a ton of bricks in addition to smite spamming...
Galef wrote: , I am very sad that DPs cannot hide behind units. The GW Sneak Peak on Characters said that 10 wounds or less could not be targeted, but the leaked rules show that Characters with 10 wounds or more can indeed be targeted.
On the bright side, DP got way cheaper for more wounds and T6.
I've had nothing but good experiences with DPs. In a 2k game I brought 9 Nurgle DPs with Be'lakor and tabled my opponent 3 games in a row. DPs are sooo gross in large numbers.
Cephalobeard wrote: It's exactly for spamming smite. How many games have you played where you cast smite 10+ times a turn? Genuinely, I'd love to read about your experience doing that.
That sounds really useless, especially since you have to target the closest unit. Using your psychic phase to cast smite instead of the powers that make us harder to hit or able to attack twice in a turn doesn't sound worth it at all.
Galef wrote: What's the point of Disc Heralds now? For less than a 1/3 points increase they can be on a Burning chariot for +2" of move, +2 Toughness, screamer attacks and DOUBLE the wounds.
What's the role of the herald? Smite and buffing. Since the herald is a character, the extra durability does not help as much -- as they cannot be picked out easily from combat.
The biggest buffs I see form this are the fact that you can add the blue horrors and the chariot base is huge. This greatly increases the radius of the buffs/debuff.
Edit : If you are trying just to smite spam, then that 1/3 cost can make a difference. If you are taking 10 heralds to smite with, those 300 points add up. Of course, if you are going to run smite spam, you should be taking Slaaneash Exalted chariots for 140 -- which can hit like a ton of bricks in addition to smite spamming...
Galef wrote: , I am very sad that DPs cannot hide behind units. The GW Sneak Peak on Characters said that 10 wounds or less could not be targeted, but the leaked rules show that Characters with 10 wounds or more can indeed be targeted.
On the bright side, DP got way cheaper for more wounds and T6.
I've had nothing but good experiences with DPs. In a 2k game I brought 9 Nurgle DPs with Be'lakor and tabled my opponent 3 games in a row. DPs are sooo gross in large numbers.
Did you take Chaos Daemon princes or did you take Csm prince. I assume you took three of those HQ detachments and all of them were using wings/ malefic claws with be'lakor using warptime on himself?
Cephalobeard wrote: It's exactly for spamming smite. How many games have you played where you cast smite 10+ times a turn? Genuinely, I'd love to read about your experience doing that.
That sounds really useless, especially since you have to target the closest unit. Using your psychic phase to cast smite instead of the powers that make us harder to hit or able to attack twice in a turn doesn't sound worth it at all.
In matched play you can only attempt a given power one per turn with the exception of smite. If you are going to be taking a lot of psykers most of them have to cast smite anyway
Cephalobeard wrote: It's exactly for spamming smite. How many games have you played where you cast smite 10+ times a turn? Genuinely, I'd love to read about your experience doing that.
I mentioned the 9 DP with Be'Lakor list. That list was throwing out 10 smites a turn plus Be'Lakor adding in Infernal Gaze for fun.
How did it work? Stunningly well. My opponent started hating the psychic phase as much as my previous opponents in 7th edition. Delivering ~20 mortal wounds a round is just crazy.
The amount of damage it can do is just staggering.
The best thing...you can do that while within 1" of enemy models. So my 10 princes were swinging 70 STR 7, AP -2, Dmg 2 attacks per phase, plus dealing 20 mortal wounds a turn on top of that. The reality is that I lost 1-2 princes before getting into claw range with my opponents, but it was still great.
Edit : What this really helped with was cutting trough targets I had a hard time dealing with. When I had to deal with some dreads, 4 princes hitting them with smite and claws took them out really quickly. If someone brought knights, I would do the same. Swarm on them on a cloud of locusts and smite the crap out of the knight before assaulting it.
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zephel wrote: Did you take Chaos Daemon princes or did you take Csm prince. I assume you took three of those HQ detachments and all of them were using wings/ malefic claws with be'lakor using warptime on himself?
Daemon princes. The FNP is far to good. It gives the princes effectively 15 wounds.
Be'Lakor is not a Heretic Astartes unit. He cannot cast warptime on himself.
His role was just to smash everything into bits, and he did that very well.
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That sounds really useless, especially since you have to target the closest unit. Using your psychic phase to cast smite instead of the powers that make us harder to hit or able to attack twice in a turn doesn't sound worth it at all.
What's why I would run DPs or Slaanesh Heralds in Exalted Chariots for my smite spam.
The smite is the extra secret sauce that does more damage to boost the damage of the units proper.
Cephalobeard wrote: It's exactly for spamming smite. How many games have you played where you cast smite 10+ times a turn? Genuinely, I'd love to read about your experience doing that.
That sounds really useless, especially since you have to target the closest unit. Using your psychic phase to cast smite instead of the powers that make us harder to hit or able to attack twice in a turn doesn't sound worth it at all.
I'm sorry you think 10+D3 Mortal wounds from 24" is useless. You're welcome to your opinion on it, I suppose.
Especially when all of my units have a 4++, potentially -1 to hit for the enemy depending on the changeling, and there are multiple characters forcing you to devote entire units to single model squads.
Cephalobeard wrote: It's exactly for spamming smite. How many games have you played where you cast smite 10+ times a turn? Genuinely, I'd love to read about your experience doing that.
I mentioned the 9 DP with Be'Lakor list. That list was throwing out 10 smites a turn plus Be'Lakor adding in Infernal Gaze for fun.
How did it work? Stunningly well. My opponent started hating the psychic phase as much as my previous opponents in 7th edition. Delivering ~20 mortal wounds a round is just crazy.
The amount of damage it can do is just staggering.
The best thing...you can do that while within 1" of enemy models. So my 10 princes were swinging 70 STR 7, AP -2, Dmg 2 attacks per phase, plus dealing 20 mortal wounds a turn on top of that. The reality is that I lost 1-2 princes before getting into claw range with my opponents, but it was still great.
Edit : What this really helped with was cutting trough targets I had a hard time dealing with. When I had to deal with some dreads, 4 princes hitting them with smite and claws took them out really quickly. If someone brought knights, I would do the same. Swarm on them on a cloud of locusts and smite the crap out of the knight before assaulting it.
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zephel wrote: Did you take Chaos Daemon princes or did you take Csm prince. I assume you took three of those HQ detachments and all of them were using wings/ malefic claws with be'lakor using warptime on himself?
Daemon princes. The FNP is far to good. It gives the princes effectively 15 wounds.
Be'Lakor is not a Heretic Astartes unit. He cannot cast warptime on himself.
His role was just to smash everything into bits, and he did that very well.
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Cephalobeard wrote: That sounds really useless, especially since you have to target the closest unit. Using your psychic phase to cast smite instead of the powers that make us harder to hit or able to attack twice in a turn doesn't sound worth it at all.
What's why I would run DPs or Slaanesh Heralds in Exalted Chariots for my smite spam.
The smite is the extra secret sauce that does more damage to boost the damage of the units proper.
I'ma have to try this one out as I have the models to try this out. wonder if it would work at 1500 as well.
So how are you guys getting the most out of Smite? It has to target the closest enemy unit, so it doesn't seem like you'd often get to use it on useful targets (against a competent opponent anyway)
Ah, ok. Well, a Bloodthirster will still get an improved save against small arms, which before would really give him fits since he only had to fail 5 3+ saves to die. Big guns are going to be a problem, but if they are shooting at Big Bad Bloodthirster, they aren't shooting at the rest of the army. Maybe they are best taken in multiples?
Cephalobeard wrote: That sounds really useless, especially since you have to target the closest unit. Using your psychic phase to cast smite instead of the powers that make us harder to hit or able to attack twice in a turn doesn't sound worth it at all.
What's why I would run DPs or Slaanesh Heralds in Exalted Chariots for my smite spam.
The smite is the extra secret sauce that does more damage to boost the damage of the units proper.
Does the superior impact hits rule, make you favor the exalted chariot over the regular one, since I would have figured not having a degrading stat line and being a character under 10 wounds to have been massive boons in favor of a regular chariot herald, over an exalted chariot herald.
Cephalobeard wrote: That sounds really useless, especially since you have to target the closest unit. Using your psychic phase to cast smite instead of the powers that make us harder to hit or able to attack twice in a turn doesn't sound worth it at all.
What's why I would run DPs or Slaanesh Heralds in Exalted Chariots for my smite spam.
The smite is the extra secret sauce that does more damage to boost the damage of the units proper.
Does the superior impact hits rule, make you favor the exalted chariot over the regular one, since I would have figured not having a degrading stat line and being a character under 10 wounds to have been massive boons in favor of a regular chariot herald, over an exalted chariot herald.
That's a good point. Normal seeker chariots can still hide.
Ah, ok. Well, a Bloodthirster will still get an improved save against small arms, which before would really give him fits since he only had to fail 5 3+ saves to die. Big guns are going to be a problem, but if they are shooting at Big Bad Bloodthirster, they aren't shooting at the rest of the army. Maybe they are best taken in multiples?
Well the only reason to take big guns is to shoot big dudes. That's how 8th ed is balanced. The problem is that the daemon big dudes die too fast before they do too much. Other big dudes either can do stuff from range or are faster/more suvivable
Quick question - would the Changelings -1 to hit aura work with Magnus? I'd like to continue to find ways to make him more survivable when I don't have turn 1 go first as he is a giant target. LOS blocking terrain is not always an option in all games. Anything else that could add to his survivability?
Slagmar wrote: Quick question - would the Changelings -1 to hit aura work with Magnus? I'd like to continue to find ways to make him more survivable when I don't have turn 1 go first as he is a giant target. LOS blocking terrain is not always an option in all games. Anything else that could add to his survivability?
Works
Also trimming this down bit by bit. Flamers just see better elites, so I tossed the crushers
Thinking of tossing the khorne start collecting, but it has 3 things I don't have yet: herald, crushers, cannon :thinking:
I would kick the Startcollecting Khorne Daemons Box, so you save 65€.
You can always buy them later or invest the 65€ in something other.
Btw. Made a list with my available Daemonprinces and Belakor.
I only have 7 of them and all equipped with Swords, one with Axe and one with Talons .
So if i take them in two Supreme Command Detachments that would be around 1700 Points.
Command Detachment:
1x Belakor
3x Prince with Wings and Sword/Talon
Command Detachment:
2x Prince with Wings and Sword/Talon
1x Prince with Wings and Axe
1x Prince with Wings and Double Talons
So what should i do with my last 300 Points? Could take 10 Flamers of Tzeentch or a Helldrake. Plaguebearers or Cultists for objective camping or screening.
Or i could try to fit in a Renegade Knight?
Any suggestions, also how do you think will it fare against the other armies out there? (I know double Talons is optimal, but they are modelld this way, so i have to stick with them)
Also what is our cheapest, most durable screen that can keep up with princes?
Furies are cheapest minimum, but not as good W/point.
Seekers are a bit more but better W/point and faster
Fiends are a bit more wounds per point but fancier
I find some point costs confusing. For example the Demon Prince.
If i undestand well one DP costs 170 points with wings but without wargear.
If i buy a hellforged sword and a set of malefic talons i must add 42 point to the cost and the DP makes 5 attacks with S7, AP-2, D2.
But if i buy two sets of malefic talons, it only cost only 10 points. And if i undesrstand well the DP can make 7 attacks with them.
The only way i can think that this make sense is if i am forced to buy the hellforged sword for 42 points and then exchange it for a second set of talons for 10 additionals points, making the DP cost 222 points. But this is not explicity said, so i´m not sure how i am supposed to calculate the points.
Simplifying: a DP with two sets of talons and wings costs 180 points or 222 points?
Tyranids: +++
Necrons: Even
Orks: ++
Imperial Guard: ++
Genestealer Cult: +
Eldar: - - -
Dark Eldar: +
Space Marines: - -
Primaris +++
Grey Knights: -
Blood Angels: even
Space Wolves: even
Dark Angels: - -
Tau: -
Daemons: - - -
Chaos Space Marines: -
This is the prevailing opinion of Chaos Daemons.
There is good reason for this. Summoning has been nurfed and is near useless in it's current form.
A lot of the 'good' units have changed. People are looking at piles of horrors and screamers and saying 'meh'. Now there is a rush to pick up seeker chariots.
+1
be'lakor
DP claws wings
Herald of slaanesh on chariot
Tyranids:
30 shooty gaunts 10 long range
15(?) genestealers
15(?) genestealers
2 genestealer hqs to buff them
2 carnifexes
1 hive crone
3 screechers (I think)
2 biovores
2 biovores
So he got turn 1 despite us using the soon to become tournament rule of roll-off with a +1 to the faster deployed army. And he picked the side. We played relic so nothing matters except the objective in the middle.
Turn 1 he took it with screechers and ran away behind his horde. Then moved towards me while firing. His Hive Crone flew into my base and missed everything then charged and missed again (Masque ^.^)
My Turn 1: I killed the Crone with KoS and smite spam and moved forward a bit. And I did a silly thing of sending my heldrake into the screechers with the objective. Who killed 1 of them but then was surrounded by genestealers.
His turn 2 was the drake dying already, killed 2 deamonettes and reducing power and some brims.
My turn 2 was some bad dice rolls. Daemonettes charged the left over genestealers, as did the chariot. Basicly 18 daemonettes lost to 10 stealers (and continued to lose every battle from then on despite having a pretty sizeable numbers advantage).
Then basicly what happened was they the carnifexes charged the KoS, genestealers flanked me through my nurglings, brimstones, flamers who all did next to nothing. So then the big fight was: genestealers and carnifexes vs brims, chariot, KoS and Mask. And then the str of Slaanesh became apparent - striking first despite the opponent charging. So the survivors of the melee were: masque(on 1 wound), KoS(on 2 wounds), chariot (full hp due to smart possitioning he had to attack brimstones). His 1 carnifex ran away.
Be'lakor tried to kill an HQ, perilsed twice in a row (Re-rolled 1) and then died to stolen innitiative from that one HQ who did like 9 damage after saves??? k. The DP on the other hand won (tied) me the game: he alone killed both squads of biovores, finished of the screechers and got the objective. But his gaunts were in base contact with it after fight. So we're not sure who won: should his gaunts pick up the thing since they're infantry? But DP was covering it with his base so he was closer? So all in we quickly called it a draw.
Thoughts on some units:
Masque (a must for any <DAEMONETTE> army due to the buff, mobility but not rlly damage :p)
KoS (actually insane damage, the aura helped a lot. Worth it tbh since its not THAT expensive. Killed 1 and wounded 1 Carnifex and killed the Hive Crone)
DP(YES. It's INSANE)
Be'lakor(I fudged up)
Heldrake(I fudged up but damage seems bad)
Brimstone(Really good. For 20 points held up a 160 pts unit for like 3 turns? Yes please)
herald chariot (aura is REALLY important with 3 str daemonettes, solid stats too)
Nurglins(bad. You will go 2nd most of the time so their ability is just easy first blood for the opponent and they just ignore 2 damage)
Daemonettes(look bad by comparison to genestealers which is unfortunate)
Fiend(died from full to 2 biovore overwatch. 66 into 65 :x but really fast)
Genestealers - feth that gak
Genestealer HQ - definitelly feth that gak. Ridiculous damage, like 3 auras, just pffftwhydoesitcostsolittle.
Carnifex - bad
Chrone - he fudged up
Biovores - solid-ish
Screechers - fast
gaunts with guns - actually pretty BS. Need shooting against them real bad. Charging into 50 overwatch shots? Nope.
All in all Slaanesh seems bad. And then you get into fights and hit first and you're like "um... it's actually not awful". I got a draw despite making some bad decisions and having a bad list due to the models I have. DP - MVP easily.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh yeah, flamers. Did feth all due to my bad rolls and his insane invul saves. Like 6 out of 8 :/
Automatically Appended Next Post: Thoughts on next lists(2k) and what models to buy:
+9
KoS Herald on Steed
Masque
5x 8 brims 2 blue (4 pts in reserve)
30 daemonettes instrument
2x 5 seekers
8 seekers with instrument
3x 3 flamers
3 chariots (1 exalted)
1 DP
So I did not realize how gnarly effective skabrand is. The ability to not let anything fall back within 8inchs is so powerful. Effectively being able to have skarbrand pile in and consolidate around units to better position himself for the next charge.
Last game I had I jsed 20 seekers in sets of 10 to run up and tie up a unit and that gave time for skarbrand to come in. And seeing skarbrand deal 26 wounds to a landraider was impressive.
Granted I used him in a fun horde list for kicks and plan on tryinf him with 6 DPs of nurgle to give them more attacks as well and have more equal threats to offer. This is at 1500 pts. At 2k it is 9 + skarbrand. Thanks to labmouse btw, I tried his list concept abd wws amazed. Granted will probably only use for tournament play and not casual stuff as it is a bit rough. Again, daemon lists are ethier extreme or lack luster with no real in-between >_>
Cephalobeard wrote: The minor characters like Skarbrand, Changeling and the Masque all appear very powerful.
Well, they were crap in 7E, so that makes sense. GW has to sell all that back stock.
I'm rather glad that Belakor is good.
I had a friend try out Flesh Hounds and he says the AP -1 of their attacks is pretty sweet. And they are pretty much always Str5, whether charging or being charged, or in range of a Herald.
Is Belakor really that good in daemon list? I mean, with his cost, inability to cast adequate psychic powers and no god-specific rules he seems just too shabby.
Yeah he is funny enough. He is able to add on to stacking mortal wounds, pretty durable with a re-roll invul (and if you give em the 6+ fnp warlord trait). And like all the daemon princes, no slouch in close combat. The big thing is also the fact that he can't be targeted because of having 8 wounds.
Vexler wrote: Is Belakor really that good in daemon list? I mean, with his cost, inability to cast adequate psychic powers and no god-specific rules he seems just too shabby.
re-roll 1 to hit for ALL deamons?
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Cephalobeard wrote: The minor characters like Skarbrand, Changeling and the Masque all appear very powerful.
Yeah, I wouldn't call Skarbrand "Minor"
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zephel wrote: So I did not realize how gnarly effective skabrand is. The ability to not let anything fall back within 8inchs is so powerful. Effectively being able to have skarbrand pile in and consolidate around units to better position himself for the next charge.
Last game I had I jsed 20 seekers in sets of 10 to run up and tie up a unit and that gave time for skarbrand to come in. And seeing skarbrand deal 26 wounds to a landraider was impressive.
Granted I used him in a fun horde list for kicks and plan on tryinf him with 6 DPs of nurgle to give them more attacks as well and have more equal threats to offer. This is at 1500 pts. At 2k it is 9 + skarbrand. Thanks to labmouse btw, I tried his list concept abd wws amazed. Granted will probably only use for tournament play and not casual stuff as it is a bit rough. Again, daemon lists are ethier extreme or lack luster with no real in-between >_>
The problem with Skarbrand is that it's the only character that can actually be tarpited. Or just go up against a horde, which he would lose.
That I agree with i that he can easily get bogged down, That's why ideally in the list concept the dp's will help with easing that. Skarbrand in my opinion is more of a force multiplier over jsut a sheer powerhouse.
Vexler wrote: Is Belakor really that good in daemon list? I mean, with his cost, inability to cast adequate psychic powers and no god-specific rules he seems just too shabby.
re-roll 1 to hit for ALL deamons?
Exactly. other DPs only give a bonus to their alignment. Belakor gives the bonus to ALL friendlies. And he cannot be targeted unless he is the closest.
And he can summon any unit, not just units of the same alignment
Belakor is a decent beatstick that isn't hidered by needing to build a certain type of Daemon list.
That's really my biggest complaint about this edition of Daemons. As an Undivided player, it is now really hard to make an "optimized" list that includes at least 20% of each alignment in every list.
I really am better off focusing on 1-2 of the same alignment to maximize all the bonuses given by Heralds, DPs and GDs.
Belakor is (pun-intended) a god-send for my kind of playstyle
An issue I've been noticing with Daemons is that to make a list that seems like it could do some damage, I inevitably have a really high drop count (due to chariots, heralds, monsters, etc), or have units with massive footprints that are going to be totally unwieldy.
I really wish things like seeker chariots came in units of 1-3 and heralds had a rule similar to the carnifex - deployed as one unit, but act separately otherwise.
Goddamn, now I'm really thinking about 10 daemon princes army (either with or w/o Belakor) for 2k, but looking at orks and guard I'm really wondering - how they will perform against swarm armies? One DP costs as much as 25 ork boyz (roughly), and they will mathematically will deal around 15 wounds in a single HtH phase (damn this base 4 str!)
While the "10 Daemon Prince" army, similar to the "10 Commander" army for Tau may be strong for now, I'd be careful before buying 10 of them, as we know we're getting codexes in the future. That said, I definitely have bought, built and am painting 10 Disc Heralds and 10 Exalted flamers, haha
Vexler wrote: Goddamn, now I'm really thinking about 10 daemon princes army (either with or w/o Belakor) for 2k, but looking at orks and guard I'm really wondering - how they will perform against swarm armies? One DP costs as much as 25 ork boyz (roughly), and they will mathematically will deal around 15 wounds in a single HtH phase (damn this base 4 str!)
The princes, before taking wounds will be throwing this per round
70 STR 7, AP-2, Dmg 2 attacks. They are hitting 35/36 of the time, wounding 2/3 of the time, and not giving a save. That's a damage per point ratio to orks of 39.76. It's not the best. A taurox prime has a 10.28 (arguably the best weapon in the game)
On top of that, the DPs are dealing ~20 mortal wounds a round. That's where ratio's get a bit wonky, because mortal wounds are a whole different ball park. They ignore invuln saves, etc. A good estimate is that, with the smite spam, you can expect to have a ratio of 29 vs Orks. It's a little worse than CSM with bolters.
What makes the DPs nasty is they are hard to hurt. Their resilience per point (RPP) values are off the hook. Vs bolters they are a 0.8866995074 where even 4 point guard are a 1.176470588. That, combined with the small footprint and mobility make for a very nice package.
They all can also summon. The big drawback of summoning -- the fact that it keeps you from moving -- in not an issue when you are locked in assault.
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Cephalobeard wrote: While the "10 Daemon Prince" army, similar to the "10 Commander" army for Tau may be strong for now, I'd be careful before buying 10 of them, as we know we're getting codexes in the future. That said, I definitely have bought, built and am painting 10 Disc Heralds and 10 Exalted flamers, haha
Truth!
While you can buy DPs for about 25 bucks a pop through ebay or other sources, unless you already have a bunch (I have 7) it's not worth your investment. It's a safe bet they will be hit hard with the nurf bat.
The army also has some hard issues with objectives. There is a lot to be said about having units to just squat on objectives.
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Raulengrin wrote: An issue I've been noticing with Daemons is that to make a list that seems like it could do some damage, I inevitably have a really high drop count (due to chariots, heralds, monsters, etc), or have units with massive footprints that are going to be totally unwieldy.
I really wish things like seeker chariots came in units of 1-3 and heralds had a rule similar to the carnifex - deployed as one unit, but act separately otherwise.
The lack of transports really hurts in this way.
Summoning is a neat trick -- but it is not a transport mechanism for most of your force. It's best advantage is letting you pop a deck chair unit onto an objective later in the game. Unlike reserves, you can summon more units on turn 5. Lets say you have a character on objective 1, and objective 2 is 12" away, you can have the character stand 2" away from objective 1, then summon all the units within 2" of objective 2 (provided there are no enemy models on it)
It also lets you, while locked in assault, bring in some reinforcements.
That's from every prince on the table. One prince against 25-30 orks (almost point-per-point fight) will kill 4 orks on average - shooting and psychic phase not included as I didn't include orks' shooting in previous post too. So it's 4 wounds against 15, or 15-20% of orks against whole DP. So DPs will be beaten hard by horde armies (nids, orks, guard, etc). Their mobility is superior, yeah, but when you need to get to the point and clear it - well, it'll be kinda sad.
The army also has some hard issues with objectives. There is a lot to be said about having units to just squat on objectives.
That's where the 110 free points from a 2k list on 10 daemon princes comes in - poxwalkers, cultists, and so on will be there. Or the princes will get a round w/o chopping everything in sight and will fly-advance to the point.
That's from every prince on the table. One prince against 25-30 orks (roughlt point-per-point fight) will kill 4 orks on average - shooting and psychic phase not included as I didn't include orks' shooting in previous post too. So it's 4 wounds against 15, or 15-20% of orks against whole DP. So DPs will be beaten hard by horde armies (nids, orks, guard, etc). Their mobility is superior, yeah, but when you need to get to the point and clear it - well, it'll be kinda sad.
I think your math is off.
DP kill roughly 6 orks in CC, whereas the 15 wounds is before armour from the DP. So with armour (and possibly FNP or 4++) you're looking more at like 5-3 wounds. Looks much better for the prince now.
Also, with around 10 DPs, not every one of them will fight a mob on his own. They'll gang up on the orks.
So it's impossible to mathhammer that fight in a vacuum (well, at least in a sensible way).
That's from every prince on the table. One prince against 25-30 orks (roughlt point-per-point fight) will kill 4 orks on average - shooting and psychic phase not included as I didn't include orks' shooting in previous post too. So it's 4 wounds against 15, or 15-20% of orks against whole DP. So DPs will be beaten hard by horde armies (nids, orks, guard, etc). Their mobility is superior, yeah, but when you need to get to the point and clear it - well, it'll be kinda sad.
I think your math is off.
DP kill roughly 6 orks in CC, whereas the 15 wounds is before armour from the DP. So with armour (and possibly FNP or 4++) you're looking more at like 5-3 wounds. Looks much better for the prince now.
Also, with around 10 DPs, not every one of them will fight a mob on his own. They'll gang up on the orks.
So it's impossible to mathhammer that fight in a vacuum (well, at least in a sensible way).
30 orks give 120 attacks (2 base + 1 for choppa + 1 for numbers), of which 2/3, or 80 hits. 1/3 wounds (as 4 str against 6 t now wounds on 5+), so it's 26-27 wounds before saves - that's 9 wounds (yeah, miscalulated a bit). Still alomst whole prince for 5 orks.
And at 2k and 10 princes there can be 10 mobs, also.
All the mathhammer is in vacuum, thou, and sense is for weak.
What makes you think you will be putting once prince vs 30 orks? You should be slamming 2-3 princes into each ork squad.
Ork blobs of 30 boys take up a lot of board space. A player can't concentrate that many blobs in a small area. Princes are on very small bases, so you can. (well, small compared to an ork blob of 30)
Edit : A standard ork swing has a (2/3 (hit) * 1/3 (wound) * 1/3 (failed save) * 2/3 (failed DR)) chance of wounding a nurgle prince. That's a 4/81 chance, or about 1 in 20.
You also will not be able to get all 30 orks attacking at the same time. Again, it's a matter of bases. You might get 20 boys.
That's 80 attacks, or about 2 wounds. The boys rapidly lose that extra attack as their numbers thin.
What happens if 2 princes assault 30 boys + PK nob?
Your princes will likely cast 2 smites on the way in, dealing 4 mortal wounds to the squad. This beans before assaulting, 4 orks are dead.
The princes slam into the squad for a total of 14 attack. They are 35/36 chance to hit * 2/3 chance to wound with no save. 35/54 chance to wound. You can expect 9 orks to be dead from the princes swinging.
That leaves 13 orks dead. The orks will be able to pile around 2 princes so lets say all get their swings.
Of the 17 orks alive, you will have 3 heavy weapons, 1 PK nob and 13 choppas. That's 45 boys attacks going into the princes, doing just over 2 wounds, or 10% of their HP.
The nob swings 3 times with a (1/2 to hit, 2/3 to wound, 2/3 failed save) 2/9 chance to wound. Those 3 swings means that there is a good chance of doing wounds on a prince, which will do 2 wounds - the DR (33%). Lets say another wound is done to the prince.
On the next turn, the orks can activate and do another ~2 wounds to the princes. The princes will then do another 9 to the orks, lowering their numbers down to 8. On the daemon player's turn, he can heal 2 wounds done to a prince, smite another 2 dead, then the clear off the rest of the boys before they can swing.
The next result is 3 wounds done to a prince (since they healed 2 wounds). The squad of 30 boys is dead and the princes lost a total of 15% of their HP.
At this same time, you have another 4 sets of princes doing something similar to other squads.....
labmouse42 wrote: What makes you think you will be putting once prince vs 30 orks?
Mainly because I have 2 ork greentides in my club to face on regular basis.
labmouse42 wrote: Ork blobs of 30 boys take up a lot of board space. A player can't concentrate that many blobs in a small area. Princes are on very small bases, so you can. (well, small compared to an ork blob of 30)
Yeah, completely forgot about the bases, my bad. Being in vacuum is kinda disorienting, I think.
labmouse42 wrote: Edit : A standard ork swing has a (2/3 (hit) * 1/3 (wound) * 1/3 (failed save) * 2/3 (failed DR)) chance of wounding a nurgle prince. That's a 4/81 chance, or about 1 in 20.
You also will not be able to get all 30 orks attacking at the same time. Again, it's a matter of bases. You might get 20 boys.
I'm thinking about what gods and in what numbers to bring for those 10 DPs and I don't plan on going full Nurgle, Nurgle/Slaanesh with odd Tzeentch or two for 4++ and buffing. Thought about dividing to each god, but Khorne seems really lackluster.
All in all, thanks for the input and corrections, I'm still gona test this thing quite a bit.
I think Nurgle DP would be best, not only because of FNP, but also because the ability to heal wounds - I think that psychic power might be even more powerful than FNP in the first place.
It will be really difficult to put down more than a couple of DP for good ...
Mutter wrote: I think Nurgle DP would be best, not only because of FNP, but also because the ability to heal wounds - I think that psychic power might be even more powerful than FNP in the first place.
It will be really difficult to put down more than a couple of DP for good ...
I doubt Fleshy Abundance is going to do much for them.
1-3 wounds healed isn't going to make much of a difference because you can only use it on one DP a turn, but multiple will be taking wounds, and part of the time you're going to peril and lose even more wounds.
Mutter wrote: I think Nurgle DP would be best, not only because of FNP, but also because the ability to heal wounds - I think that psychic power might be even more powerful than FNP in the first place.
It will be really difficult to put down more than a couple of DP for good ...
I doubt Fleshy Abundance is going to do much for them.
1-3 wounds healed isn't going to make much of a difference because you can only use it on one DP a turn, but multiple will be taking wounds, and part of the time you're going to peril and lose even more wounds.
I've found it to be useful. When I have a DP down to 1 or 2 wounds, I can get him back up to 3 or 4.
Mutter wrote: I think Nurgle DP would be best, not only because of FNP, but also because the ability to heal wounds - I think that psychic power might be even more powerful than FNP in the first place.
It will be really difficult to put down more than a couple of DP for good ...
I doubt Fleshy Abundance is going to do much for them.
1-3 wounds healed isn't going to make much of a difference because you can only use it on one DP a turn, but multiple will be taking wounds, and part of the time you're going to peril and lose even more wounds.
I've found it to be useful. When I have a DP down to 1 or 2 wounds, I can get him back up to 3 or 4.
I'm not saying I think it's useless, but I don't think it's going to be much of a factor most of the time, and certainly not worth spamming in preference to the other spells.
You have to survive shooting and a CC phase in order to cast it, to heal back so few wounds. I would have preferred if they made it +1 or +2 to toughness or something.
Well, with 10 or 11 DP there is no reason to not spam it. :-P
You'll have each power 3-4 times, so lot's of redundancy.
And yes, getting to only use it once isn't gonna mean the world, but like labmouse42 said, sometimes it's the difference between a DP dying and getting ready again to join the fray.
Just another obnoxious thing for your opponent to get annoyed about ...
Again guys -- I do NOT recommend rushing out out and buying 9 DPs plus Be'Lakor.
We can bet that this will be brought back in line with the next codex.
GW has made it clear they plan on dropping the codex's pretty quickly.
labmouse42 wrote: Again guys -- I do NOT recommend rushing out out and buying 9 DPs plus Be'Lakor.
We can bet that this will be brought back in line with the next codex.
GW has made it clear they plan on dropping the codex's pretty quickly.
Agree on not going out to buy a bunch. However, I still plan on using my Tetrad + Belakor because
A) I've had the models since before the Tetrad was a thing
B) they are cheaper, so I can actually take a decent army in addition to them
C) it gives me an untargetable <Character> (CSM ones) for each alignment + Belakor, just in case I want to use Daemonic Ritual.
So the digital version of the chaos index is out. Best 19.99 I've spent this week, for sure. A lot of interesting stuff in there. They finally appropriately costed the Daemon Lords, and I think any of them would be fine to take for their intended purpose.
An'ggrath kills literally everything, but isn't great against hordes (RIP stompy feet....like I get that his power is budgeted elsewhere, and typically he doesn't care to swing at Ork boyz, but I could see him getting counter charged and bogged down for a turn or two, especially if Nids have their synapse nearby. Bodies for days.) He's also substantially cheaper than he used to be, but you'll still need to build an army around him.
Big Bird is pretty similar to the last edition (will not die for forever) but they made his staff more targeted against vehicles/monsters based on its stat line....that being said you do get a bonus for hitting infantry and it's not bad vs them but it feels like a bit of a waste. He's not An'ggrath in combat, but he's certainly not a slouch. His reflector shield works a little differently...and it is slightly ambiguous but basically you still don't want to target him with psychic powers....shocking. And he's still a spiteful little dude. He's actually level with An'ggrath in points now.
Zarakynel is a lot cheaper than she used to be, and cheaper than any of the other Daemon lords, but not a lot worse (which is good, because she was previously overcosted). Has a decent shot of ignoring invulnerable saves. Feels kind of like a discount An'ggrath, because she is going to be a melee monster. Is not much more than half of An'ggrath's cost, but obviously isn't as good or as durable (though in melee she could be slightly more durable). Plus she can weave in and out of combat more effectively and has an excellent Ld debut aura, which will make up for her not having a ton of attacks.
Scabby...whoever wrote this book really likes you. Not because he's super broken or anything, but listen to this excerpt from the book (it doesn't cover any actual rules but MODS feel free to remove this if it violates copyright - it just had me dying)
"Scabeithrax the Bloated is a single model. He wields the nightmarish Blade of Decay at whose touch all flesh rots, stone crumbles and metal corrodes to dust, while from his stomach he can project vast sprays of lethally infected which kills those it covers with unimaginable suffering"
And there's more, and that's just how they tell you what he's equipped with. For comparison, Zarakynel they're literally just like "it wields this deadly weapon and also has this other weapon"
Ok but so that does he actually do? He's...well...disgustingly resilient, but that shocks no one. He's a little abnormally resilient in melee, but in a different way than Zarakynel, and that's the aura buff he provides. His buff actually transcends to all daemonic alignments though. Might be the best greater deamon to take in a mixed gods list...although Zarakynel is still cheaper and An'ggrath is still more killy, though more expensive. I think he's probably the best mix of both offense and defense, and probably the best value for the points. He's actually the least resilient of the greater daemons against small arms fire, but still by no means a slouch. For reference, let's math it out. You would need...300 rapid firing boltguns to kill him
luke1705 wrote: So the digital version of the chaos index is out. Best 19.99 I've spent this week, for sure. A lot of interesting stuff in there. They finally appropriately costed the Daemon Lords, and I think any of them would be fine to take for their intended purpose.
An'ggrath kills literally everything, but isn't great against hordes (RIP stompy feet....like I get that his power is budgeted elsewhere, and typically he doesn't care to swing at Ork boyz, but I could see him getting counter charged and bogged down for a turn or two, especially if Nids have their synapse nearby. Bodies for days.) He's also substantially cheaper than he used to be, but you'll still need to build an army around him.
Big Bird is pretty similar to the last edition (will not die for forever) but they made his staff more targeted against vehicles/monsters based on its stat line....that being said you do get a bonus for hitting infantry and it's not bad vs them but it feels like a bit of a waste. He's not An'ggrath in combat, but he's certainly not a slouch. His reflector shield works a little differently...and it is slightly ambiguous but basically you still don't want to target him with psychic powers....shocking. And he's still a spiteful little dude. He's actually level with An'ggrath in points now.
Zarakynel is a lot cheaper than she used to be, and cheaper than any of the other Daemon lords, but not a lot worse (which is good, because she was previously overcosted). Has a decent shot of ignoring invulnerable saves. Feels kind of like a discount An'ggrath, because she is going to be a melee monster. Is not much more than half of An'ggrath's cost, but obviously isn't as good or as durable (though in melee she could be slightly more durable). Plus she can weave in and out of combat more effectively and has an excellent Ld debut aura, which will make up for her not having a ton of attacks.
Scabby...whoever wrote this book really likes you. Not because he's super broken or anything, but listen to this excerpt from the book (it doesn't cover any actual rules but MODS feel free to remove this if it violates copyright - it just had me dying)
"Scabeithrax the Bloated is a single model. He wields the nightmarish Blade of Decay at whose touch all flesh rots, stone crumbles and metal corrodes to dust, while from his stomach he can project vast sprays of lethally infected which kills those it covers with unimaginable suffering"
And there's more, and that's just how they tell you what he's equipped with. For comparison, Zarakynel they're literally just like "it wields this deadly weapon and also has this other weapon"
Ok but so that does he actually do? He's...well...disgustingly resilient, but that shocks no one. He's a little abnormally resilient in melee, but in a different way than Zarakynel, and that's the aura buff he provides. His buff actually transcends to all daemonic alignments though. Might be the best greater deamon to take in a mixed gods list...although Zarakynel is still cheaper and An'ggrath is still more killy, though more expensive. I think he's probably the best mix of both offense and defense, and probably the best value for the points. He's actually the least resilient of the greater daemons against small arms fire, but still by no means a slouch. For reference, let's math it out. You would need...300 rapid firing boltguns to kill him
Zerakynal may actually be more choppy than angrath because she can cast hysterical frenzy upon herself to attack twice in a turn.
Yesterday I tried a mono-nurgle army for giggles. This is roughly what ran
Spoiler:
Greater Unclean One
DP of Nurgle
Herald of Nurgle
Herald of Nurgle
Herald of Nurgle
30 Plaugebearers w/Banner + Music
30 Plaugebearers w/Banner + Music
6 Nurglings
6 Nurglings
7 Nurglings
9 Plauge Drones of Nurgle
I played another chaos army. He brought some seekers, CSM terminators, Magnus, some Horrors, Slaanesh DP, and some daemonettes.
He rushed forward with his seekers and did a turn one assault with 15 seekers on my plague drones. They bounced off, doing only 2 wounds. The drones proceeded to kill all of the seekers. They moved up and assaulted a Slaanesh DP and murdered him. The last time I used plague drones they were lackluster, but this game they really stood up. The drones doing 2 wounds a pop is what took down the prince. He failed 4 saves and lost 8 wounds from just the drones.
Magnus was a beast. He tore through plague drones and single handedly wiped out 8 of them. He is just such a monster. He was throwing out multiple mortal wounds per round, getting 2d6 mortal wounds at once time. Magnus also prevented me from getting most of my powers off.
The plaguebeaers were better than I expected. He dropped his terminators next to magnus on turn one and killed my DP with focused fire from magnus and those termies. Combi-meltas hurt! I slammed into them with 30 plaguebearers, the GUO and a herald. It took 3 combat rounds, but they took him down. One problem with large groups of plaguebearers is that many of them could not get into combat. Overall the blocks performed much better than expected. His various power weapons did nothing significant against the plaugebearers. Over the entire combat he managed to kill ~4 of them, which repawned from the banner. I think 2 blocks is just a bit overkill though, and I can probably run with just 1 block.
The nurglings were great. The 4 wounds per block plus the ability to infiltrate makes them great drops. I was able to just pop them onto an objective and hide out of sight. When I had a herald near a block they were STR 3, which made them much more of a threat. The best thing about them was their ability to tie things up. I can see them really being useful to occupy havocs, etc...
The banner and instruments are musts in large blocks. Through the use of a command point reroll, I got a plague drone back -- which made up the points and kept them occupying Magnus for another round. The banners also procc'ed twice with plaguebringers, which was just hilarious. After killing the 10 terminators the plague bearers were at their original strength.
The GUO is solid. However, I don't think it will make the long term cut for the army. If I am going to keep going mono-nurgle, I'm going to need to add some ranged. I'm currently thinking of some forgefiends of nurgle or a renegade knight.
Three heralds was overkill, and just not effective. I'll probably pull it back to 1 herald and epidemus. Since forgefiends of nurgle are daemons of nurgle, they really benifit from the tallymaster. With just 2 units dead, they are rerolling 1s to hit. In my LFGS I'm noticing a trend for people to try to bring less drops to go first. This lessens the value of the tallymaster but it's still a good idea IMHO.
The biggest takeaway I had was this : I took a random theme army and put it on the table, and expected to get stomped. My buddy is a highly competitive national tournament winner player. He outmaneuvered me and did a great job. However, the nurgle army performed admirably well, and honestly with some tweaking could be viable. That speaks volumes for 7th edition.
So you would only play one Block of 30 Plaguebearers, kick the GUO, maybe some oft the Nurglings and go down 1 Herald and replace the other with Edpidemius.
I think that frees up more than 500 Points. You could also use Belakor or more Nurgleprinces. Maybe keep the rest for summoning?
labmouse42 wrote: What makes you think you will be putting once prince vs 30 orks? You should be slamming 2-3 princes into each ork squad.
Ork blobs of 30 boys take up a lot of board space. A player can't concentrate that many blobs in a small area. Princes are on very small bases, so you can. (well, small compared to an ork blob of 30)
Edit : A standard ork swing has a (2/3 (hit) * 1/3 (wound) * 1/3 (failed save) * 2/3 (failed DR)) chance of wounding a nurgle prince. That's a 4/81 chance, or about 1 in 20.
You also will not be able to get all 30 orks attacking at the same time. Again, it's a matter of bases. You might get 20 boys.
That's 80 attacks, or about 2 wounds. The boys rapidly lose that extra attack as their numbers thin.
What happens if 2 princes assault 30 boys + PK nob?
Your princes will likely cast 2 smites on the way in, dealing 4 mortal wounds to the squad. This beans before assaulting, 4 orks are dead.
The princes slam into the squad for a total of 14 attack. They are 35/36 chance to hit * 2/3 chance to wound with no save. 35/54 chance to wound. You can expect 9 orks to be dead from the princes swinging.
That leaves 13 orks dead. The orks will be able to pile around 2 princes so lets say all get their swings.
Of the 17 orks alive, you will have 3 heavy weapons, 1 PK nob and 13 choppas. That's 45 boys attacks going into the princes, doing just over 2 wounds, or 10% of their HP.
The nob swings 3 times with a (1/2 to hit, 2/3 to wound, 2/3 failed save) 2/9 chance to wound. Those 3 swings means that there is a good chance of doing wounds on a prince, which will do 2 wounds - the DR (33%). Lets say another wound is done to the prince.
On the next turn, the orks can activate and do another ~2 wounds to the princes. The princes will then do another 9 to the orks, lowering their numbers down to 8. On the daemon player's turn, he can heal 2 wounds done to a prince, smite another 2 dead, then the clear off the rest of the boys before they can swing.
The next result is 3 wounds done to a prince (since they healed 2 wounds). The squad of 30 boys is dead and the princes lost a total of 15% of their HP.
At this same time, you have another 4 sets of princes doing something similar to other squads.....
Aside from the Ork issue, how would 10 DP deal with 3 Ravages, Predators or anything else that can throw out a lot of damage per shot?
I'd say tank'n'gank - close in with nurgle/tzeentch DPs and|or Belakor who will summon reserved princes when in range - then smites come in. Laso, maneuvering - if you come from flanks with multiple rinces, that'll thin the overall firepower hitting each DP. That's in theory, thou.
Vexler wrote: I'd say tank'n'gank - close in with nurgle/tzeentch DPs and|or Belakor who will summon reserved princes when in range - then smites come in. Laso, maneuvering - if you come from flanks with multiple rinces, that'll thin the overall firepower hitting each DP. That's in theory, thou.
In a typical 'competitive' dark eldar army you'll likely to face 12 dark lances. That;s 8 hits, 5 wounds, 3+ failed saves, each doing D6 damage. Combined with the splinter cannon fire means a prince or 2 dead on turn one. The closer you get the more shots you'll face.
It has the same issue with a guard army running duel Manticores and Wvyerns. I just don't see their strength in the face of an equally spammy army.
Many people are recommending large squads for things like Daemonettes. I understand that people are trying to get the most value out of instruments and herald bonuses (harder to provide the aura bonuses to multiple smaller squads), but what's the plan for mitigating morale losses?
Asura Varuna wrote: Many people are recommending large squads for things like Daemonettes. I understand that people are trying to get the most value out of instruments and herald bonuses (harder to provide the aura bonuses to multiple smaller squads), but what's the plan for mitigating morale losses?
Why does it matter? its not like small squads are suddenly immune to morale
If it were an actual issue you can just spend 2CP to pass the morale test
CrownAxe wrote: Why does it matter? its not like small squads are suddenly immune to morale
If it were an actual issue you can just spend 2CP to pass the morale test
Small squads actually are less vulnerable to morale damage.
A single 20 man squad takes 10 wounds, it then loses D6+10 - 7 additional models. If 2 10 man squads each take 5 wounds, they will each lose D6+5 - 7 additional models.
So on "average", you're losing 6.5 models in the larger unit and only 1.5 models in each of the smaller units (totalling 3 models).
Obviously this is just an example and the roll is variable, but larger squads definitely suffer morale damage worse. Smaller squads might also cause your opponent to overkill the unit and waste firepower (thus preventing wounds elsewhere).
You can throw CPs to stop the battleshock, but they're finite and is it really worth 2CP to save (for example) 6 wounds? Maybe, though it will depend on the game.
labmouse42 wrote: Yesterday I tried a mono-nurgle army for giggles. This is roughly what ran
Spoiler:
Greater Unclean One
DP of Nurgle
Herald of Nurgle
Herald of Nurgle
Herald of Nurgle
30 Plaugebearers w/Banner + Music
30 Plaugebearers w/Banner + Music
6 Nurglings
6 Nurglings
7 Nurglings
9 Plauge Drones of Nurgle
I played another chaos army. He brought some seekers, CSM terminators, Magnus, some Horrors, Slaanesh DP, and some daemonettes.
He rushed forward with his seekers and did a turn one assault with 15 seekers on my plague drones. They bounced off, doing only 2 wounds. The drones proceeded to kill all of the seekers. They moved up and assaulted a Slaanesh DP and murdered him. The last time I used plague drones they were lackluster, but this game they really stood up. The drones doing 2 wounds a pop is what took down the prince. He failed 4 saves and lost 8 wounds from just the drones.
Magnus was a beast. He tore through plague drones and single handedly wiped out 8 of them. He is just such a monster. He was throwing out multiple mortal wounds per round, getting 2d6 mortal wounds at once time. Magnus also prevented me from getting most of my powers off.
The plaguebeaers were better than I expected. He dropped his terminators next to magnus on turn one and killed my DP with focused fire from magnus and those termies. Combi-meltas hurt! I slammed into them with 30 plaguebearers, the GUO and a herald. It took 3 combat rounds, but they took him down. One problem with large groups of plaguebearers is that many of them could not get into combat. Overall the blocks performed much better than expected. His various power weapons did nothing significant against the plaugebearers. Over the entire combat he managed to kill ~4 of them, which repawned from the banner. I think 2 blocks is just a bit overkill though, and I can probably run with just 1 block.
The nurglings were great. The 4 wounds per block plus the ability to infiltrate makes them great drops. I was able to just pop them onto an objective and hide out of sight. When I had a herald near a block they were STR 3, which made them much more of a threat. The best thing about them was their ability to tie things up. I can see them really being useful to occupy havocs, etc...
The banner and instruments are musts in large blocks. Through the use of a command point reroll, I got a plague drone back -- which made up the points and kept them occupying Magnus for another round. The banners also procc'ed twice with plaguebringers, which was just hilarious. After killing the 10 terminators the plague bearers were at their original strength.
The GUO is solid. However, I don't think it will make the long term cut for the army. If I am going to keep going mono-nurgle, I'm going to need to add some ranged. I'm currently thinking of some forgefiends of nurgle or a renegade knight.
Three heralds was overkill, and just not effective. I'll probably pull it back to 1 herald and epidemus. Since forgefiends of nurgle are daemons of nurgle, they really benifit from the tallymaster. With just 2 units dead, they are rerolling 1s to hit. In my LFGS I'm noticing a trend for people to try to bring less drops to go first. This lessens the value of the tallymaster but it's still a good idea IMHO.
The biggest takeaway I had was this : I took a random theme army and put it on the table, and expected to get stomped. My buddy is a highly competitive national tournament winner player. He outmaneuvered me and did a great job. However, the nurgle army performed admirably well, and honestly with some tweaking could be viable. That speaks volumes for 7th edition.
Nice report.
So what made you decide to go with bigger Nurgling units instead of MSU?
CrownAxe wrote: Why does it matter? its not like small squads are suddenly immune to morale
If it were an actual issue you can just spend 2CP to pass the morale test
Small squads actually are less vulnerable to morale damage.
A single 20 man squad takes 10 wounds, it then loses D6+10 - 7 additional models. If 2 10 man squads each take 5 wounds, they will each lose D6+5 - 7 additional models.
So on "average", you're losing 6.5 models in the larger unit and only 1.5 models in each of the smaller units (totalling 3 models).
Obviously this is just an example and the roll is variable, but larger squads definitely suffer morale damage worse. Smaller squads might also cause your opponent to overkill the unit and waste firepower (thus preventing wounds elsewhere). problem to me. Its essentiall 3 You can throw CPs to stop the battleshock, but they're finite and is it really worth 2CP to save (for example) 6 wounds? Maybe, though it will depend on the game.
Yes you are trading some minor survivability for higher synergy from aura buffs. A minor survivability that can be ignored with CP if needed. Even the old issue of MSU wasting overkill is fairly moot in 8th because of split fire on everything so then can just have some weapons fire at a different unit instead of overkilling
Rydria wrote: So does Zeraknal (the exalted KOS) literally just auto wound on a 4+ regardless of toughness with mortal wounds no less, that seems really good.
That is indeed what she does. Which is good because str 7 was kind of lackluster otherwise, even with Hysterical Frenzy.
EDIT: In fact, unless she's attacking vs T3 or less, the vast majority of her successful wounds (except on a 3+) will just auto do 3 mortal wounds each. Not too shabby for her cost.
Rydria wrote: So does Zeraknal (the exalted KOS) literally just auto wound on a 4+ regardless of toughness with mortal wounds no less, that seems really good.
That is indeed what she does. Which is good because str 7 was kind of lackluster otherwise, even with Hysterical Frenzy.
EDIT: In fact, unless she's attacking vs T3 or less, the vast majority of her successful wounds (except on a 3+) will just auto do 3 mortal wounds each. Not too shabby for her cost.
she is actually strength 8 with the sword if that matters, she seems to be an amazing duelist I can't wait for her to fight against my friends guliman 1 v 1 I think it will be a really cool fight,
Is there any situation where the claw is worth using over the souleater ?
Yes you are trading some minor survivability for higher synergy from aura buffs. A minor survivability that can be ignored with CP if needed. Even the old issue of MSU wasting overkill is fairly moot in 8th because of split fire on everything so then can just have some weapons fire at a different unit instead of overkilling
I keep seeing people say this and that's just wrong. Imagine:
a unit of 10
2 units of 5
multiple attacks that do 10 wounds in total after rolls.
That will ALWAYS kill a squad of 10. However it will rarelly kill 2 squads of 5 because of how dice work. Those 10 wounds, are composed of 50 attacks. If you split them down the middle. Both squads get attacked 25 times. That doesn't mean they'll get 5 wounds each. They can get 8 and 2 wounds. And 3 of one squad would survive
It is looking like big ol Scabby will be making back into my army again. Hes a bit cheaper now (still 610 pts) and packs some nice damage and tankiness, especially in CC
Yes you are trading some minor survivability for higher synergy from aura buffs. A minor survivability that can be ignored with CP if needed. Even the old issue of MSU wasting overkill is fairly moot in 8th because of split fire on everything so then can just have some weapons fire at a different unit instead of overkilling
I keep seeing people say this and that's just wrong. Imagine:
a unit of 10
2 units of 5
multiple attacks that do 10 wounds in total after rolls.
That will ALWAYS kill a squad of 10. However it will rarelly kill 2 squads of 5 because of how dice work. Those 10 wounds, are composed of 50 attacks. If you split them down the middle. Both squads get attacked 25 times. That doesn't mean they'll get 5 wounds each. They can get 8 and 2 wounds. And 3 of one squad would survive
you do realize that we are talking theoretically here right? You talk in averages when you are theory crafting and two equal halfs of range do on average the same damage.
Your might get 2 and 8? Well you might also roll all 1s and do 0 damage. Doesn't mean it's a valid talking point.
Yes you are trading some minor survivability for higher synergy from aura buffs. A minor survivability that can be ignored with CP if needed. Even the old issue of MSU wasting overkill is fairly moot in 8th because of split fire on everything so then can just have some weapons fire at a different unit instead of overkilling
I keep seeing people say this and that's just wrong. Imagine:
a unit of 10
2 units of 5
multiple attacks that do 10 wounds in total after rolls.
That will ALWAYS kill a squad of 10. However it will rarelly kill 2 squads of 5 because of how dice work. Those 10 wounds, are composed of 50 attacks. If you split them down the middle. Both squads get attacked 25 times. That doesn't mean they'll get 5 wounds each. They can get 8 and 2 wounds. And 3 of one squad would survive
you do realize that we are talking theoretically here right? You talk in averages when you are theory crafting and two equal halfs of range do on average the same damage.
Your might get 2 and 8? Well you might also roll all 1s and do 0 damage. Doesn't mean it's a valid talking point.
It is quite the talking point. Because the same roll with the same amount of wounds done will very rarelly do equal amount of wounds when divided by half.
If 50 shots cause 10 wounds, that will very rarelly mean that both 25 shot attacks will cause 5 wounds each
If that along with morale doesn't make you think MSU are more survivable - I don't know what to say.
CrownAxe wrote: I never said MSU wasnt more survivable. My point was that the increase in survivability doesn't outweigh the benefits of large units
I never argued that. I argued the word "minor".
MSU are definitelly better when the units don't have any "have more than x models" abilities. If you think otherwise - do tell
MSU pros:
1. More survivable vs shooting
2. Not nearly as much morale problems
3. Require 2 charges to take down.
4. Can split up if necessary
5. Free "captain" upgrades
Ebolatheripe wrote: So what made you decide to go with bigger Nurgling units instead of MSU?
Drops. My thought was the lower the number of drops to increase the chances of going first.
The reality is that, however, that deamons have a hard time with going first. Daemon armies don't have transports. Where a marine player can drop a razorbak and say "There is a squad, a character in there", so in one drop they put down 3 units -- we are forced to drop all 3 at once.
My idea was to go with bigger drops to increase the rate of success on going first. This does not seem to be a good plan. Unless I can find a way to keep the drops at 8 or less. Going with MSU throws that out the window.
MSU also gives up first blood. There is also a mission where MSU struggles (Purge the Alien). I don't want to be going into a tourney and 1/6 of the missions being an auto-loss.
So I was thinking of how to cut down on drops. That's was my thought process.
If you have any suggestions I'm all ears. Summing is an option for htis, actually.
Ebolatheripe wrote: So what made you decide to go with bigger Nurgling units instead of MSU?
Drops. My thought was the lower the number of drops to increase the chances of going first.
The reality is that, however, that deamons have a hard time with going first. Daemon armies don't have transports. Where a marine player can drop a razorbak and say "There is a squad, a character in there", so in one drop they put down 3 units -- we are forced to drop all 3 at once.
My idea was to go with bigger drops to increase the rate of success on going first. This does not seem to be a good plan. Unless I can find a way to keep the drops at 8 or less. Going with MSU throws that out the window.
MSU also gives up first blood. There is also a mission where MSU struggles (Purge the Alien). I don't want to be going into a tourney and 1/6 of the missions being an auto-loss.
So I was thinking of how to cut down on drops. That's was my thought process.
If you have any suggestions I'm all ears. Summing is an option for htis, actually.
This was just FAQ'ed on the weekend, if you embark upon a transport, you count as a deployed unit.
Also what are your thoughts on a competitive list?
Just want to pop in and say that I faced a Daemon list yesterday that made me question the idea of balance entirely. LoC, 2 CSM Princes, Renegade Knight, 3 Flamer Chariots, Changeling, and then like 10+ units of Brimstones with a Blue in each. All the Smite in the world, all the 4++ in the world. Brims covered like 2/3 of the board and I don't know any army in the game that has enough shots to take them all out. Disgusting, but I'm honestly impressed at how fast it was put out.
iddy00711 wrote: This was just FAQ'ed on the weekend, if you embark upon a transport, you count as a deployed unit.
Also what are your thoughts on a competitive list?
Nice! Were there any other gems you saw there that were relevant to daemon players.
Personally I want to explore the synergy between daemon engines (maulerfiends in particular) and the Tallymaster. The idea of buffing them with nurgle heralds is really appealing. The drawback of nurgle has been the damage output and the speed issues -- both of which the daemon engines can solve.
The same concept would also work with the cult of destruction, such as mutilators. It can also be used on possessed in a rhino -- but possessed are a bit fragile for their cost.
I've also been tossing around the idea of relying more upon nurglings instead of shooting to counter units like havocs. I'm still not sold on the idea.
As far as 'most competitive' from the CD codex, I would just go wtih what FLG has said.
* Exalted Flamers
* Brimstone Horrors
* Nurglings
* Bloodcrushers
To add to that I would say
* Daemon Princes
* Flamers
I think those are the gems in our codex, and I'm sure we will find more as we get more games in.
CrownAxe wrote: I never said MSU wasnt more survivable. My point was that the increase in survivability doesn't outweigh the benefits of large units
I never argued that. I argued the word "minor".
MSU are definitelly better when the units don't have any "have more than x models" abilities. If you think otherwise - do tell
MSU pros:
1. More survivable vs shooting
2. Not nearly as much morale problems
3. Require 2 charges to take down.
4. Can split up if necessary
5. Free "captain" upgrades
I think MSU advantage is much less than it has been in past editions.
1.) The survivability vs shooting is still true especially for use of cover, but splitfire makes this less of an issue, as you no longer need to commit whole squads to finishing off a couple models.
2.) True, unless you can mitigate morale, which most large squads can to some extent.
3.) No, and since disordered charge is not a thing anymore a multi-charge can take out both units. The advantage would be that you can spread out more. Further, the lack of initiative, and how combat works favors larger squads, if you get charged by a unit now it is very possible a small squad won't get to swing at all, but a larger squad might. Also, since you activate one unit at a time, when alternating combat activations having 1 large squad is better than 2 small squads. Similarly if you charge me with 2 small squads I can command point interrupt the second before it swings.
4.) Definitely an advantage
5.)Some armies get free sarge upgrades, but unless you are spending points on upgrades for these models, there is not much difference here.
As for large squad advantages
a.) make better use of buffs and auras. (many psychic powers target single units, many auras allow chaining models to spread out your benefit.)
b.)make better use of command points (if you need to re-roll a run, or charge dice, if you want immunity to morale only one unit can do it each turn.)
c.) fewer drops for deployment = turn 1 advantage
d.)more effective in combat after overwatch. (A 5 man squad losing 2-3 models in overwatch is now pretty useless, a 10 man squad is still pretty good.)
In a Tzeentch Demon Supreme Detachment.... could I also add Magnus to the one LOW slot by virtue of having keyword Tzeentch (or keyword of Demon for that matter)?
Ebolatheripe wrote: So what made you decide to go with bigger Nurgling units instead of MSU?
Drops. My thought was the lower the number of drops to increase the chances of going first.
The reality is that, however, that deamons have a hard time with going first. Daemon armies don't have transports. Where a marine player can drop a razorbak and say "There is a squad, a character in there", so in one drop they put down 3 units -- we are forced to drop all 3 at once.
My idea was to go with bigger drops to increase the rate of success on going first. This does not seem to be a good plan. Unless I can find a way to keep the drops at 8 or less. Going with MSU throws that out the window.
MSU also gives up first blood. There is also a mission where MSU struggles (Purge the Alien). I don't want to be going into a tourney and 1/6 of the missions being an auto-loss.
So I was thinking of how to cut down on drops. That's was my thought process.
If you have any suggestions I'm all ears. Summing is an option for htis, actually.
This was just FAQ'ed on the weekend, if you embark upon a transport, you count as a deployed unit.
Also what are your thoughts on a competitive list?
I'm confused as to what you mean by this. Atm we have to deploy all our units and HQs seperatally. And people with transports can just shove all their HQs into 1 transport and a unit and plonk it down as 1 drop. Proof here:
Spoiler:
For example, two players are deploying their armies for the Only
War mission. The mission instructs them to alternate deploying
their units. Player A starts by setting up a unit of Ork Boyz
on the battlefield. Player B then sets up a unit of Intercessors
on the battlefield. Player A then sets up a Battlewagon on the
battlefield – as it is a transport, Player A declares it will start
the battle with a Warboss and a unit of Tankbustas embarked
inside. Player B then sets up a unit of Terminators, but uses
their Teleport Strike ability to set them up in a teleportarium
chamber instead of on the battlefield. Player A then sets up their
next unit, and so on.
What's a supreme detachment?
A Low detachment is one thing on its own, so take Magnus in that.
Chaos can be your common keyword, but yes Magnus has Tzeentch too
Automatically Appended Next Post: Daemons have an advantage over other reserve armies.
Deploying in reserves Does count towards number of deployments. (Deploying in transports doesnr)
But summoning reserves won't, which helps a bit
In a Tzeentch Demon Supreme Detachment.... could I also add Magnus to the one LOW slot by virtue of having keyword Tzeentch (or keyword of Demon for that matter)?
Yup. All that matters is that all units must have at least one of their keywords in common.
Captyn_Bob wrote: What's a supreme detachment?
A Low detachment is one thing on its own, so take Magnus in that.
Chaos can be your common keyword, but yes Magnus has Tzeentch too
I meant the supreme command detachement, where it's 3-6 HQ, 1 Elite and 1 LOW.
So, let's say I have 3 Tzeentch herald in this detachement... could I stuff Magnus in that LOW slot?
In a Tzeentch Demon Supreme Detachment.... could I also add Magnus to the one LOW slot by virtue of having keyword Tzeentch (or keyword of Demon for that matter)?
Yup. All that matters is that all units must have at least one of their keywords in common.
Captyn_Bob wrote: What's a supreme detachment?
A Low detachment is one thing on its own, so take Magnus in that.
Chaos can be your common keyword, but yes Magnus has Tzeentch too
I meant the supreme command detachement, where it's 3-6 HQ, 1 Elite and 1 LOW.
So, let's say I have 3 Tzeentch herald in this detachement... could I stuff Magnus in that LOW slot?
In a Tzeentch Demon Supreme Detachment.... could I also add Magnus to the one LOW slot by virtue of having keyword Tzeentch (or keyword of Demon for that matter)?
Yup. All that matters is that all units must have at least one of their keywords in common.
Thank you.
Dunno why I'm making this harder...
Yes, Magnus has the Chaos, Daemon, Heretic Astartes, Thousand Sons and Tzeentch keywords (as well as a few more).
iddy00711 wrote: This was just FAQ'ed on the weekend, if you embark upon a transport, you count as a deployed unit.
I just checked out the FAQ
Q: In missions where players alternate deploying units, do units that are set up somewhere other than the battlefield still count as a player’s deployment choice?
What about units that begin the battle embarked within a transport?
A: Units with abilities on their datasheets that allow them to be set up somewhere other than the battlefield must still be ‘set up’ in that locale, and so still count as a deployment choice. When you choose to set up a transport, declare what units (if any) are embarked inside – these are not separate deployment choices.
For example, two players are deploying their armies for the Only War mission. The mission instructs them to alternate deploying their units. Player A starts by setting up a unit of Ork Boyz on the battlefield. Player B then sets up a unit of Intercessors on the battlefield. Player A then sets up a Battlewagon on the battlefield – as it is a transport, Player A declares it will start the battle with a Warboss and a unit of Tankbustas embarked inside. Player B then sets up a unit of Terminators, but uses their Teleport Strike ability to set them up in a teleportarium chamber instead of on the battlefield. Player A then sets up their next unit, and so on
Unless I'm reading this incorrectly, it still shows the same problem.
As player with transports, I can minimize my set of drops by putting my units in transports. Some units, like a stormraven can carry 12 models plus a dread. This means for one 'drop' they can deploy 6 choices. He raven, a dread, two 5 man squads, and 2 ICs. That's a huge advantage in drops, greatly increasing the chances of them going first.
Daemons without any transports cannot easily compete. Our best 'transport' is summoning, which is fairly limited in effect.
Breng77 wrote: I think MSU advantage is much less than it has been in past editions.
1.) The survivability vs shooting is still true especially for use of cover, but splitfire makes this less of an issue, as you no longer need to commit whole squads to finishing off a couple models.
2.) True, unless you can mitigate morale, which most large squads can to some extent.
3.) No, and since disordered charge is not a thing anymore a multi-charge can take out both units. The advantage would be that you can spread out more. Further, the lack of initiative, and how combat works favors larger squads, if you get charged by a unit now it is very possible a small squad won't get to swing at all, but a larger squad might. Also, since you activate one unit at a time, when alternating combat activations having 1 large squad is better than 2 small squads. Similarly if you charge me with 2 small squads I can command point interrupt the second before it swings.
4.) Definitely an advantage
5.)Some armies get free sarge upgrades, but unless you are spending points on upgrades for these models, there is not much difference here.
As for large squad advantages
a.) make better use of buffs and auras. (many psychic powers target single units, many auras allow chaining models to spread out your benefit.)
b.)make better use of command points (if you need to re-roll a run, or charge dice, if you want immunity to morale only one unit can do it each turn.)
c.) fewer drops for deployment = turn 1 advantage
d.)more effective in combat after overwatch. (A 5 man squad losing 2-3 models in overwatch is now pretty useless, a 10 man squad is still pretty good.)
Good call. The biggest benefits I can see are A and C.
Aura's are huge in this game, and being able to easily apply them to units provides some strong advantages.
Being able to go first can be significant, especially since turn one charges are a thing.
In the example above, a BA assault army coming from stormravens could greatly reduce the amount of return fire by shoving 2-3 ravens up into someone's grill and then assaulting out of them on turn two. That means only absorbing one round of incoming fire vs two.
On the daemon princes+ belakor luls build, you should pick up the FW index and bring a grip of Giant Chaos spawn too. They are less than half the cost of a DP, only T5, with a +4/++5, but they generate wounds and get stronger the higher they go. Very fun unit to use, and with the "daemon" keyword he +4WS isn't that bad with be-lakor around.
For summoning, I am hoping R&H characters can be used, as they have always been exceptionally cheap. For the big FW summons it isn't too bad if your 2 power character dies to get Scabriethrax up in the enemies face on turn 1.
You can also summon on any turn in the game -- even turns 5 and 6.
However, summing's big limitation is that the character doing the summoning cannot move. If your character is currently engaged in a 'fight' with another model, it's not such a bad thing. However, if they are not, and are not a shooting unit, then this can be a big drawback.
iddy00711 wrote: This was just FAQ'ed on the weekend, if you embark upon a transport, you count as a deployed unit.
I just checked out the FAQ
Q: In missions where players alternate deploying units, do units that are set up somewhere other than the battlefield still count as a player’s deployment choice?
What about units that begin the battle embarked within a transport?
A: Units with abilities on their datasheets that allow them to be set up somewhere other than the battlefield must still be ‘set up’ in that locale, and so still count as a deployment choice. When you choose to set up a transport, declare what units (if any) are embarked inside – these are not separate deployment choices.
For example, two players are deploying their armies for the Only War mission. The mission instructs them to alternate deploying their units. Player A starts by setting up a unit of Ork Boyz on the battlefield. Player B then sets up a unit of Intercessors on the battlefield. Player A then sets up a Battlewagon on the battlefield – as it is a transport, Player A declares it will start the battle with a Warboss and a unit of Tankbustas embarked inside. Player B then sets up a unit of Terminators, but uses their Teleport Strike ability to set them up in a teleportarium chamber instead of on the battlefield. Player A then sets up their next unit, and so on
Unless I'm reading this incorrectly, it still shows the same problem.
As player with transports, I can minimize my set of drops by putting my units in transports. Some units, like a stormraven can carry 12 models plus a dread. This means for one 'drop' they can deploy 6 choices. He raven, a dread, two 5 man squads, and 2 ICs. That's a huge advantage in drops, greatly increasing the chances of them going first.
Daemons without any transports cannot easily compete. Our best 'transport' is summoning, which is fairly limited in effect.
Breng77 wrote: I think MSU advantage is much less than it has been in past editions.
1.) The survivability vs shooting is still true especially for use of cover, but splitfire makes this less of an issue, as you no longer need to commit whole squads to finishing off a couple models.
2.) True, unless you can mitigate morale, which most large squads can to some extent.
3.) No, and since disordered charge is not a thing anymore a multi-charge can take out both units. The advantage would be that you can spread out more. Further, the lack of initiative, and how combat works favors larger squads, if you get charged by a unit now it is very possible a small squad won't get to swing at all, but a larger squad might. Also, since you activate one unit at a time, when alternating combat activations having 1 large squad is better than 2 small squads. Similarly if you charge me with 2 small squads I can command point interrupt the second before it swings.
4.) Definitely an advantage
5.)Some armies get free sarge upgrades, but unless you are spending points on upgrades for these models, there is not much difference here.
As for large squad advantages
a.) make better use of buffs and auras. (many psychic powers target single units, many auras allow chaining models to spread out your benefit.)
b.)make better use of command points (if you need to re-roll a run, or charge dice, if you want immunity to morale only one unit can do it each turn.)
c.) fewer drops for deployment = turn 1 advantage
d.)more effective in combat after overwatch. (A 5 man squad losing 2-3 models in overwatch is now pretty useless, a 10 man squad is still pretty good.)
Good call. The biggest benefits I can see are A and C.
Aura's are huge in this game, and being able to easily apply them to units provides some strong advantages.
Being able to go first can be significant, especially since turn one charges are a thing.
In the example above, a BA assault army coming from stormravens could greatly reduce the amount of return fire by shoving 2-3 ravens up into someone's grill and then assaulting out of them on turn two. That means only absorbing one round of incoming fire vs two.
Yup, transports are a big deal for drops. Especially for characters. Having large squads can help reduce your drops, but unless you are playing a fairly low CP list you are going to have 2-4 characters at least. Summoning can help a bit, but unless you are keeping a ton of points in an unreliable mode of delivery I would avoid using it much. It seems to me that the best use might be just dropping 1 character for every 2 you buy (especially for heralds). So if you drop a daemon prince, then summon the herald on as most have reasonably low Power levels.
Ebolatheripe wrote: So what made you decide to go with bigger Nurgling units instead of MSU?
Drops. My thought was the lower the number of drops to increase the chances of going first.
The reality is that, however, that deamons have a hard time with going first. Daemon armies don't have transports. Where a marine player can drop a razorbak and say "There is a squad, a character in there", so in one drop they put down 3 units -- we are forced to drop all 3 at once.
My idea was to go with bigger drops to increase the rate of success on going first. This does not seem to be a good plan. Unless I can find a way to keep the drops at 8 or less. Going with MSU throws that out the window.
MSU also gives up first blood. There is also a mission where MSU struggles (Purge the Alien). I don't want to be going into a tourney and 1/6 of the missions being an auto-loss.
So I was thinking of how to cut down on drops. That's was my thought process.
If you have any suggestions I'm all ears. Summing is an option for this, actually.
Your analysis enforces what I suspected.
I kind of gave up on the idea of lower drops because I think you get more out of MSU when using Nurglings, and it seems like a long shot with Daemon armies to beat most other armies in drops. So why try? Go the other direction:
1. It's easy to take multiple Battalions and get the extra Command Points when you spam Nurglings (or Horrors for that matter). I will always have 9-12 Command Points starting if I go Nurgle.
2. Board Control. Reduce where, or eliminate where, enemy units can deepstrike, take objectives on turn 1, and slow enemy board advancement to a crawl.
3. You can still seize the initiative on a 6
There is also a mission where MSU struggles (Purge the Alien). I don't want to be going into a tourney and 1/6 of the missions being an auto-loss."
You mean No Mercy? Yes that would be a problem. The only thing I can think of to mitigate that would be to kind of reverse tactics, and instead of deploying up field to interrupt movement, have the Nurglings camp on objectives and area deny deepstikes in the back field, while the rest of your army moves up. It's not a great plan, but it might give you the best chance of winning that one mission.
At the same time, while you're at a disadvantage for No Mercy, you have a lot more flexibility and a pretty big advantage for The Relic mission because while the Nurglings can't take the Objective, they can block the enemy from getting to it better with more individual units camped out around The Relic until you can get an infantry unit there.
whembly wrote: Also... keep in mind that in a tournament, even if you go full-bore MSU, your opponent may choose to go 2nd anyways due to objective scoring.
Getting 1st turn like that is A-OK by me!
I think that is less important in 8th as objectives are scored by whoever has the most models near the objective. So last turn claim or contest is more difficult. The only real reason I can see for going second is to have better shots on a table full of los blockers.
I'm still not convinced that "big" units of Daemons can work at all. With only a 5++(or 4++ for Tz) and generally T3/4, it doesn't seem that hard to kill about half a units of Lesser Daemons and let Morale take the rest.
Are Greater Daemons and Icons the only way to mitigate this? If so, that sucks as neither are really reliable. The Icon is a 1-n-6 chance and GDs have a limited range.
I wish Daemon hordes were playable, but I get the feeling that this edition will just continue the flying DP spam lists
Yeah it again feels like only the fastest of Daemons are going to cut it and even those seem like they'll struggle mightily against the amount of shots some armies can put down range. Doubly so with the changes to cover and the fact that that we currently have very little in the way of defensive buffs to spread around.
Sure spamming brimstones can probably win a lot of games, but that is an exceptionally boring looking list to me not to mention I don't want to purchase a bazillion of the little buggers. None of the units I have decent amounts of (screamers, Disc Heralds, plague drones, hounds) look that great so I am a little sad.
Looks super expensive and doesn't have a 4++, anyone try him yet? I have yet to play a game after getting the new books but am trying to piece together some playable Daemon lists.
astro_nomicon wrote: I can't fathom a reason to take him when Magnus is only 15 pts more.
That's true, Magnus does look like an absolute beast. Definitely going to build a list around him, Be'Lakor, and several Nurgle princes. Shame Fatey doesn't stack up, I love the new model. The standard Lord of Change doesn't look terrible with the psychic bonuses, but I feel like Daemon Princes are so cheap with wings and a pair of Malefic Talons that it's hard not to just take 2 of them instead of a greater daemon...
astro_nomicon wrote: I can't fathom a reason to take him when Magnus is only 15 pts more.
That's true, Magnus does look like an absolute beast. Definitely going to build a list around him, Be'Lakor, and several Nurgle princes. Shame Fatey doesn't stack up, I love the new model. The standard Lord of Change doesn't look terrible with the psychic bonuses, but I feel like Daemon Princes are so cheap with wings and a pair of Malefic Talons that it's hard not to just take 2 of them instead of a greater daemon...
And if you are taking Magnus, you might as well take 2 CSM Thousand Sons Princes. They only have 8W, instead of 10, so they can hide behind units and benefit from Magnus's abilities/powers
iddy00711 wrote: This was just FAQ'ed on the weekend, if you embark upon a transport, you count as a deployed unit.
I just checked out the FAQ
Q: In missions where players alternate deploying units, do units that are set up somewhere other than the battlefield still count as a player’s deployment choice?
What about units that begin the battle embarked within a transport?
A: Units with abilities on their datasheets that allow them to be set up somewhere other than the battlefield must still be ‘set up’ in that locale, and so still count as a deployment choice. When you choose to set up a transport, declare what units (if any) are embarked inside – these are not separate deployment choices.
For example, two players are deploying their armies for the Only War mission. The mission instructs them to alternate deploying their units. Player A starts by setting up a unit of Ork Boyz on the battlefield. Player B then sets up a unit of Intercessors on the battlefield. Player A then sets up a Battlewagon on the battlefield – as it is a transport, Player A declares it will start the battle with a Warboss and a unit of Tankbustas embarked inside. Player B then sets up a unit of Terminators, but uses their Teleport Strike ability to set them up in a teleportarium chamber instead of on the battlefield. Player A then sets up their next unit, and so on
Unless I'm reading this incorrectly, it still shows the same problem.
As player with transports, I can minimize my set of drops by putting my units in transports. Some units, like a stormraven can carry 12 models plus a dread. This means for one 'drop' they can deploy 6 choices. He raven, a dread, two 5 man squads, and 2 ICs. That's a huge advantage in drops, greatly increasing the chances of them going first.
Daemons without any transports cannot easily compete. Our best 'transport' is summoning, which is fairly limited in effect.
Breng77 wrote: I think MSU advantage is much less than it has been in past editions.
1.) The survivability vs shooting is still true especially for use of cover, but splitfire makes this less of an issue, as you no longer need to commit whole squads to finishing off a couple models.
2.) True, unless you can mitigate morale, which most large squads can to some extent.
3.) No, and since disordered charge is not a thing anymore a multi-charge can take out both units. The advantage would be that you can spread out more. Further, the lack of initiative, and how combat works favors larger squads, if you get charged by a unit now it is very possible a small squad won't get to swing at all, but a larger squad might. Also, since you activate one unit at a time, when alternating combat activations having 1 large squad is better than 2 small squads. Similarly if you charge me with 2 small squads I can command point interrupt the second before it swings.
4.) Definitely an advantage
5.)Some armies get free sarge upgrades, but unless you are spending points on upgrades for these models, there is not much difference here.
As for large squad advantages
a.) make better use of buffs and auras. (many psychic powers target single units, many auras allow chaining models to spread out your benefit.)
b.)make better use of command points (if you need to re-roll a run, or charge dice, if you want immunity to morale only one unit can do it each turn.)
c.) fewer drops for deployment = turn 1 advantage
d.)more effective in combat after overwatch. (A 5 man squad losing 2-3 models in overwatch is now pretty useless, a 10 man squad is still pretty good.)
Good call. The biggest benefits I can see are A and C.
Aura's are huge in this game, and being able to easily apply them to units provides some strong advantages.
Being able to go first can be significant, especially since turn one charges are a thing.
In the example above, a BA assault army coming from stormravens could greatly reduce the amount of return fire by shoving 2-3 ravens up into someone's grill and then assaulting out of them on turn two. That means only absorbing one round of incoming fire vs two.
You are reading it incorrectly, " When you choose to set up a transport, declare what units (if any) are embarked inside – these are not separate deployment choices.". You set up each unit nominally and then a transport 'picks up' that unit before the game starts. Why would a deep striking unit count as deploying while a transported unit doesn't.
Galef wrote: I'm still not convinced that "big" units of Daemons can work at all. With only a 5++(or 4++ for Tz) and generally T3/4, it doesn't seem that hard to kill about half a units of Lesser Daemons and let Morale take the rest.
Are Greater Daemons and Icons the only way to mitigate this? If so, that sucks as neither are really reliable. The Icon is a 1-n-6 chance and GDs have a limited range.
I wish Daemon hordes were playable, but I get the feeling that this edition will just continue the flying DP spam lists
Exactly this. Daemons are pretty shafted right now without resorting to new variations of the janky cheese builds which made them so despised in previous editions.
astro_nomicon wrote: I can't fathom a reason to take him when Magnus is only 15 pts more.
Magnus's aura only works on Thousand Sons units (so no reroll 1's for your tzeentch daemon units and such) and I think the Tzeentch discipline is a little better than Dark Hereticus. The bigger issue is that Kairos seems to mostly be worse than a Lord of Change, with 3+ WS and only the 5++ invuln. I think running Magnus and a Lord of Change is going to be a really enticing option for Tzeentch armies but I don't see much of an argument for Kairos over a LoC.
Has anyone noticed that with Herald support Bloodcrushers (the mount, not the rider) are strength 9 on the charge with 3 attacks each?
They're so fragile that I don't see them achieving much, but if you can actually get them into combat unmolested they seem to wreck heavy targets pretty hard.
astro_nomicon wrote: I can't fathom a reason to take him when Magnus is only 15 pts more.
Truth. The ONLY reason I can see is that Magnus is a LoW, where Fatey is a HQ.
Still, with the way you can bring 3 detachments, that should never be an issue.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BlaxicanX wrote: Has anyone noticed that with Herald support Bloodcrushers (the mount, not the rider) are strength 9 on the charge with 3 attacks each?
They're so fragile that I don't see them achieving much, but if you can actually get them into combat unmolested they seem to wreck heavy targets pretty hard.
How do you get up to STR 9 with them?
Crushers seem fantastic to me. 6 of them would hit like a ton of bricks.
T4, 3 wounds 5++, 4+ is not THAT fragile. If you are considering summing, they are a prime candidate for the summon, being 8 power for 3 of them.
BlaxicanX wrote: Has anyone noticed that with Herald support Bloodcrushers (the mount, not the rider) are strength 9 on the charge with 3 attacks each?
They're so fragile that I don't see them achieving much, but if you can actually get them into combat unmolested they seem to wreck heavy targets pretty hard.
That is not the case unfortunately. The "Bladed Horn" is a weapon profile, meaning it has a flat Strength characteristic of 5 (+2 when charging) that does not benefit from the Heralds +1 Strength aura or Unstoppable Ferocity which both boost the Strength characteristic of the unit's profile. Same goes for things like Plague Drone's mounts and the Lamprey's bite of Burning Chariots.
This man speaks the truth. It's been so long since I've seen a melee weapon with a set weapon strength that I forgot how that worked.
What's interesting then is that it must be set to 5 specifically to AVOID the scenario I just laid out. Why are some factions just never allowed to have fun?
I think that whenever I run my Tzeentch DP, I'll always pick the Treason of Tzeentch power for him.
In the two games I've played so far, that power has been quite handy. I've made a Weirdboy charge into a Morkanaut, and a Company Commander charge and knock out some of his own men.
I may even take the Tzeentch prince just to use this power, as he can also survive a good while, and dish out some useful CC damage.
BlaxicanX wrote: This man speaks the truth. It's been so long since I've seen a melee weapon with a set weapon strength that I forgot how that worked.
What's interesting then is that it must be set to 5 specifically to AVOID the scenario I just laid out. Why are some factions just never allowed to have fun?
I feel you. It took me a good while and many double takes to notice myself. I was initially stoked about the prospect of a big Plague Drone unit + Herald with Virulent Blessing before I realized 4 out of the 5 attacks (and the 4 most meaningful ones) they get wouldnt benefit from the +1 Strength buff of the Herald.
Terminal wrote: I think that whenever I run my Tzeentch DP, I'll always pick the Treason of Tzeentch power for him.
In the two games I've played so far, that power has been quite handy. I've made a Weirdboy charge into a Morkanaut, and a Company Commander charge and knock out some of his own men.
I may even take the Tzeentch prince just to use this power, as he can also survive a good while, and dish out some useful CC damage.
What do you think?
If we can't assassinate them easily, make them work for us!
Terminal wrote: I think that whenever I run my Tzeentch DP, I'll always pick the Treason of Tzeentch power for him.
In the two games I've played so far, that power has been quite handy. I've made a Weirdboy charge into a Morkanaut, and a Company Commander charge and knock out some of his own men.
I may even take the Tzeentch prince just to use this power, as he can also survive a good while, and dish out some useful CC damage.
What do you think?
Glad to hear its worked out for you. I haven't tried it yet but it feels unreliable to me on paper. It takes an 8 to cast which is just on the bad side of 50/50 to begin with and then you have to roll another 2D6 and roll greater than the targets leadership which for most characters means you need a 9 minimum which is even less reliable. Sure its great when it happens but I see it being very situational at best.
You are reading it incorrectly, " When you choose to set up a transport, declare what units (if any) are embarked inside – these are not separate deployment choices.". You set up each unit nominally and then a transport 'picks up' that unit before the game starts. Why would a deep striking unit count as deploying while a transported unit doesn't.
No. YOU are reading it incorrectly. Read the example
Galef wrote: I'm still not convinced that "big" units of Daemons can work at all. With only a 5++(or 4++ for Tz) and generally T3/4, it doesn't seem that hard to kill about half a units of Lesser Daemons and let Morale take the rest.
Are Greater Daemons and Icons the only way to mitigate this? If so, that sucks as neither are really reliable. The Icon is a 1-n-6 chance and GDs have a limited range.
I wish Daemon hordes were playable, but I get the feeling that this edition will just continue the flying DP spam lists
Well you do can auto pass with command points in a clinch. But we really needed some sort of morale phase mitigation like Nids and Orks got. Seriously, why do the more numerous and cheaper Heralds do nothing for morale? Or just a fluffy army wide rule like subtracting the number of souls reaped "models slain" that turn by the testing unit. Call it Soul Devour or something...easy. My guess though is that GW "balanced" Chaos Daemons based on them being taken with Chaos Space Marines.
Galef wrote: I'm still not convinced that "big" units of Daemons can work at all. With only a 5++(or 4++ for Tz) and generally T3/4, it doesn't seem that hard to kill about half a units of Lesser Daemons and let Morale take the rest.
Are Greater Daemons and Icons the only way to mitigate this? If so, that sucks as neither are really reliable. The Icon is a 1-n-6 chance and GDs have a limited range.
I wish Daemon hordes were playable, but I get the feeling that this edition will just continue the flying DP spam lists
Well you do can auto pass with command points in a clinch. But we really needed some sort of morale phase mitigation like Nids and Orks got. Seriously, why do the more numerous and cheaper Heralds do nothing for morale? Or just a fluffy army wide rule like subtracting the number of souls reaped "models slain" that turn by the testing unit. Call it Soul Devour or something...easy. My guess though is that GW "balanced" Chaos Daemons based on them being taken with Chaos Space Marines.
Deamons will have 3 HQ. MSU brimstone horrors are 20 points per troops choice. Deamons can easily fill out 3 battalions and have 12 command points to negate morale checks.
120 bloodletters in 4 squads of 30 plus 5 squads of 10 brimstone=1180 points
Just looking for some advice on the legality of my list, rather than the efficiency of it. I'm pretty much just bundling together a load of models I already have painted so I can try stuff out. I'm just a bit unclear about whether I can include the CSMDPs in the same detachment as Daemons? If I understand correctly, they all share the same faction keyword of "Chaos", so they can all play together.
Supreme command
Belakor
Khorne daemon prince (World Eaters) - wings, axe, warp bolter
Khorne daemon prince (World Eaters) - wings, axe
3 x flamers
Battalion
Nurgle daemon prince (Death Guard) - wings, sword
Nurgle daemon prince (Death Guard) - wings, sword
3 x nurglings
3 x nurglings
3 x nurglings
Battalion
Slaanesh daemon prince (emperor's children) - wings, 2 x talons, warp bolter
Tzeentch daemon prince (thousand sons) - wings, 2 x talons
10 x plaguebearers (banner, instrument)
10 x plaguebearers (banner, instrument)
10 x plaguebearers (banner, instrument)
I've gone for CSMDPs so I can hide them better (8 wounds), although perhaps in a list like this it would be better to use the more powerful CD versions.
One thing to note about the CSM variants is that they don't actually get the Daemons rules associated with their CD counterpart - no Quicksilver Swiftness or Disgustingly Resilient. Also, there seems very little reason to take any of the weapon options over simply a pair of Talons, though that does of course limit your modelling opportunities.
Lovely cheers. Tbh I might just use the CD versions anyway to try out the abilities. It's clearly not an optimised list so I shouldn't really worry! The swords and axes are only there because that's how I have them modelled from previous editions and age of Sigmar. Hopefully future codex releases will give us some more interesting weapon options.
iddy00711 wrote: This was just FAQ'ed on the weekend, if you embark upon a transport, you count as a deployed unit.
I just checked out the FAQ
Q: In missions where players alternate deploying units, do units that are set up somewhere other than the battlefield still count as a player’s deployment choice?
What about units that begin the battle embarked within a transport?
A: Units with abilities on their datasheets that allow them to be set up somewhere other than the battlefield must still be ‘set up’ in that locale, and so still count as a deployment choice. When you choose to set up a transport, declare what units (if any) are embarked inside – these are not separate deployment choices.
For example, two players are deploying their armies for the Only War mission. The mission instructs them to alternate deploying their units. Player A starts by setting up a unit of Ork Boyz on the battlefield. Player B then sets up a unit of Intercessors on the battlefield. Player A then sets up a Battlewagon on the battlefield – as it is a transport, Player A declares it will start the battle with a Warboss and a unit of Tankbustas embarked inside. Player B then sets up a unit of Terminators, but uses their Teleport Strike ability to set them up in a teleportarium chamber instead of on the battlefield. Player A then sets up their next unit, and so on
Unless I'm reading this incorrectly, it still shows the same problem.
As player with transports, I can minimize my set of drops by putting my units in transports. Some units, like a stormraven can carry 12 models plus a dread. This means for one 'drop' they can deploy 6 choices. He raven, a dread, two 5 man squads, and 2 ICs. That's a huge advantage in drops, greatly increasing the chances of them going first.
Daemons without any transports cannot easily compete. Our best 'transport' is summoning, which is fairly limited in effect.
Breng77 wrote: I think MSU advantage is much less than it has been in past editions.
1.) The survivability vs shooting is still true especially for use of cover, but splitfire makes this less of an issue, as you no longer need to commit whole squads to finishing off a couple models.
2.) True, unless you can mitigate morale, which most large squads can to some extent.
3.) No, and since disordered charge is not a thing anymore a multi-charge can take out both units. The advantage would be that you can spread out more. Further, the lack of initiative, and how combat works favors larger squads, if you get charged by a unit now it is very possible a small squad won't get to swing at all, but a larger squad might. Also, since you activate one unit at a time, when alternating combat activations having 1 large squad is better than 2 small squads. Similarly if you charge me with 2 small squads I can command point interrupt the second before it swings.
4.) Definitely an advantage
5.)Some armies get free sarge upgrades, but unless you are spending points on upgrades for these models, there is not much difference here.
As for large squad advantages
a.) make better use of buffs and auras. (many psychic powers target single units, many auras allow chaining models to spread out your benefit.)
b.)make better use of command points (if you need to re-roll a run, or charge dice, if you want immunity to morale only one unit can do it each turn.)
c.) fewer drops for deployment = turn 1 advantage
d.)more effective in combat after overwatch. (A 5 man squad losing 2-3 models in overwatch is now pretty useless, a 10 man squad is still pretty good.)
Good call. The biggest benefits I can see are A and C.
Aura's are huge in this game, and being able to easily apply them to units provides some strong advantages.
Being able to go first can be significant, especially since turn one charges are a thing.
In the example above, a BA assault army coming from stormravens could greatly reduce the amount of return fire by shoving 2-3 ravens up into someone's grill and then assaulting out of them on turn two. That means only absorbing one round of incoming fire vs two.
You are reading it incorrectly, " When you choose to set up a transport, declare what units (if any) are embarked inside – these are not separate deployment choices.". You set up each unit nominally and then a transport 'picks up' that unit before the game starts. Why would a deep striking unit count as deploying while a transported unit doesn't.
No you have it backwards, you set up the transport and all units within it at the same time. Hence the "these are not separate deployment choices". As for why would a deepstriking unit count and not a transported one. The deepstriking unit is not required to deploy in a specific location, the embarked unit must be in the transport.
You are reading it incorrectly, " When you choose to set up a transport, declare what units (if any) are embarked inside – these are not separate deployment choices.". You set up each unit nominally and then a transport 'picks up' that unit before the game starts. Why would a deep striking unit count as deploying while a transported unit doesn't.
No. YOU are reading it incorrectly. Read the example
Yeah, my bad, you're right. I did re-read it several times before commenting. Confirmation bias and dyslexia clearly don't complement each other hah.
The claw Prince just seems to take too long to go through a decent vehicle, not good to wound, they still get a save and only two damage. The other weapon options aren't much better but we're not spoilt for antitank choice :/
Arachnofiend wrote: And if you only pick the daemon engines they'll still benefit from HQ synergies since they have the right keywords.
This is the list of CSM units that can benefit from heralds, etc... This was put together by Wyrlock As you can see, there a lot more options than just daemon engines. Your tzeentch lord on a disk can benefit. Your nurgle mutilators can benefit from Epidemius' tally, etc...
In some of these cases, the +1 STR from a herald is not much, but in others is significant. Warp talons with +1 STR are much better. The forgefiend is not so much.
You can also apply daemon spells to these units. You can have your herald not only boost Magnus' STR to 9, but also hit him with 'boon of change'
I would argue that there is more synergy between daemons and CSM than imperial units.
HQ:
Lord on Chaos God Mount
Sorcerer on Chaos God Mount
Daemon Prince
Elite:
Possessed
Mutilators
Fast Attack:
Warp Talons
Foetid Bloat Drone
Flyer:
Heldrake
Heavy Support:
Obliterators
Forgefiend
Maulerfiend
Defiler
LoW:
Khorne Lord of Skulls
Magnus the Red
Automatically Appended Next Post:
WisdomLS wrote: The claw Prince just seems to take too long to go through a decent vehicle, not good to wound, they still get a save and only two damage. The other weapon options aren't much better but we're not spoilt for antitank choice :/
If 1 game turn is to long, then yes.
First Round :
Smite for 2 wounds on Rhino
(35/36 to hit) * (1/2 to wound) * (2/3 failed save) * 7 attacks * 2 wounds = ~4.5 wounds per round.
At the end of the first round, the rhino is 6.5 wounds down. On the rhino players turn, on average the other 3.5 wounds will be stripped off.
It is possible the rhino will flee combat, but then it cannot assault or shoot, allowing the daemon to charge something else on the next round. A clever use of 2 smites would finish off the rhino allowing the daemon prince(s) to eat the yummie candy inside the crunchy shell of a rhino.
As someone who had purchased, built, and painted around 30 Screamers towards the end of 7th, I can also share disappointment over them currently. Exalted Flamers and Brimstone Horrors are the new hotness.
Cephalobeard wrote: As someone who had purchased, built, and painted around 30 Screamers towards the end of 7th, I can also share disappointment over them currently. Exalted Flamers and Brimstone Horrors are the new hotness.
Regular flamers don't suck either.
Like you though, I'm slighly miffed that screamers have been hit so hard by the nurf bat.
So am I missing something with summoning? Unlike other deep strike esq rules, combined with it happening during movement phase, I can throw out a unit of bloodletters 12 inches as long as it does not come within 9 inches, then move, then assault?
Again, I'm not seeing anything in BRB or the summoning rules that say they cannot move and assault after being summoned?
sfshilo wrote: So am I missing something with summoning? Unlike other deep strike esq rules, combined with it happening during movement phase, I can throw out a unit of bloodletters 12 inches as long as it does not come within 9 inches, then move, then assault?
Again, I'm not seeing anything in BRB or the summoning rules that say they cannot move and assault after being summoned?
You can't move, but they can assault as normal.
Given that an instrument gives a +1 to the charge range, they have a 41.66% of making 8 or more on 2d6.
You can use a command die reroll one dice for this charge, greatly increasing the chance of it being made to 68%.
The problem is getting those units into position to where that summons can be useful. Since they can't move, it's limited in effectiveness.
Summoning a unit with an instrument can be a decent way to add to an existing combat. Say your Character is already in combat and does not want to leave, he won't be movig anyway, so why not Summon? It is likely still be able to place a unit within 12" of them and at least 9" away from the unit they are in melee with. I'd say this is a decent tactic for cheap, slower units (so lesser Daemons mostly) that would have difficulty getting a far up the board as, say, a Daemon Prince. But if a unit is fast enough to keep pace, you're better off just fielding them from the start.
What would be a good army for 1000 point tournament games?
Thought about something like
battalion detachment:
DP of tzeentch with wings sword (know talons are better, but have to do wysiwyg)
DP of tzeentch with wings sword
6 Flamers
6 Flamers
3 Nurglings
3 Nurglings
3 Nurglings
940 Points. 6 Commandpoints
What to do with the last 60 Points? Should i switch the Dps to CSMDPs?
What are your thoughts on Skarbrand's aura? For units like seekers and blood crushers. Does his aura apply to the rider and the mount giving them each an extra attack? Or just the rider. An extra 40 attacks for a unit of 20 seekers seems to be a reasonable reason to bring Skarbrand. Any thoughts?
tbonebakker wrote: What are your thoughts on Skarbrand's aura? For units like seekers and blood crushers. Does his aura apply to the rider and the mount giving them each an extra attack? Or just the rider. An extra 40 attacks for a unit of 20 seekers seems to be a reasonable reason to bring Skarbrand. Any thoughts?
Stat adjustments are on character profile. The mount's weapon is completely detached from the profile. This makes strength bonus from herald of nurgle, nearly useless on plague drones, as most of their damage is on static strength weapons.
Bikes and Hounds don't get good bonuses for just existing anymore, and Hounds are now a lot slower than Bikes. Bikes got another wound and are more shooty thanks to the new shooting rules. Hounds are still tanky and still a good cheapish screening unit but don't expect them to really hurt anything anymore. Maulerfiends are kind of meh since Khorne no like magic to make them stronger so you're better off with a melee Helbrute or Blood Slaughterer. Bloodletter blobs with HQ support is an interesting idea that I haven't tested yet but could yield some great results. Anything can assault out of deep strike and drop pods now so Berzerkers rushing out of drop pods is a neat idea. Kharn is now an HQ choice. Zhufor is now an HQ choice. Samus and Uraka are now HQ choices. There are now several different ways to play the army instead of spamming one unit with a fire raptor gunship for support. While everyone else got whipped by the index, Khorne got some nice boosts.
tbonebakker wrote: What are your thoughts on Skarbrand's aura? For units like seekers and blood crushers. Does his aura apply to the rider and the mount giving them each an extra attack? Or just the rider. An extra 40 attacks for a unit of 20 seekers seems to be a reasonable reason to bring Skarbrand. Any thoughts?
Stat adjustments are on character profile. The mount's weapon is completely detached from the profile. This makes strength bonus from herald of nurgle, nearly useless on plague drones, as most of their damage is on static strength weapons.
I agree that the +1 Str Herald bonus does not affect weapons with their own Str value, but I disagree about the mount's weapon being detached. You still need the WS of the rider, and nearby DPs will give re-roll 1s even to the mount.
But I would say that any affect that applies to a characteristic, would apply to the rider only, since the mount's attack are more of a special ability already granting extra attacks with a specific profile.
So in the case of Seekers and Crushers, Skarband give the "model" +1 atk. Since the mount is just additional attacks made after the rider's attacks, the +1 is added to the rider only.
Arachnofiend wrote: And if you only pick the daemon engines they'll still benefit from HQ synergies since they have the right keywords.
This is the list of CSM units that can benefit from heralds, etc... This was put together by Wyrlock As you can see, there a lot more options than just daemon engines. Your tzeentch lord on a disk can benefit. Your nurgle mutilators can benefit from Epidemius' tally, etc...
In some of these cases, the +1 STR from a herald is not much, but in others is significant. Warp talons with +1 STR are much better. The forgefiend is not so much.
You can also apply daemon spells to these units. You can have your herald not only boost Magnus' STR to 9, but also hit him with 'boon of change'
I would argue that there is more synergy between daemons and CSM than imperial units.
HQ:
Lord on Chaos God Mount
Sorcerer on Chaos God Mount
Daemon Prince
Elite:
Possessed
Mutilators
Fast Attack:
Warp Talons
Foetid Bloat Drone
Flyer:
Heldrake
Heavy Support:
Obliterators
Forgefiend
Maulerfiend
Defiler
LoW:
Khorne Lord of Skulls
Magnus the Red.
Damn, I knew I was underselling the synergy a bit (I was already using Daemon synergy to buff Magnus) but that's a much bigger list than I thought; the God Mounts giving the daemon keyword is an especially interesting idea to me. The Changeling just gets better and better the more I think about it...
labmouse42 wrote: Khorne Maulerfiends can still benefit from a khorne herald or daemon prince.
So can Blood Slaughterers who hit on 3+ and have more attacks and move faster and get into close combat quicker due to their harpoon. If you have the means to do so, you should be running Slaughterers instead of Maulers.
So which Bloodthirster do you all think is the most effective?
Insensate Rage is great against anything T7 and lower with multiple wounds but of the other two, which do you prefer and against what? I am thinking overall, the Unfettered Fury is sorta the 'all-around' while the Wrath of Khorne is the character hunter. Mind you, he already hits on a 2+ and will likely wound on a 2+ as well since most characters aren't T6 or greater, so that leaves its secondary weapons. They are all the same points cost now so I would just like to hear your opinions on them.
As much as I love the enormous axe, I might have to go with one of the others. Although I do have plenty of magnets...
anticitizen013 wrote: So which Bloodthirster do you all think is the most effective?
Insensate Rage is great against anything T7 and lower with multiple wounds but of the other two, which do you prefer and against what? I am thinking overall, the Unfettered Fury is sorta the 'all-around' while the Wrath of Khorne is the character hunter. Mind you, he already hits on a 2+ and will likely wound on a 2+ as well since most characters aren't T6 or greater, so that leaves its secondary weapons. They are all the same points cost now so I would just like to hear your opinions on them.
As much as I love the enormous axe, I might have to go with one of the others. Although I do have plenty of magnets...
I am really puzzled by the 3 Thirsters. They all cost the same, but the Wrath one is clearly the best. There is no difference I can see between the Wrath and Fury BT, besides the Wrath BT having a better Lash AND a heavy Flamer.
Btw, the Daemonettes have been repackadged into a new box. So Slaanesh isn't being ditched? :p
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, I have 2 boxes of slaanesh chariots. I already have 1 exalted chariot, which I can use for any of the 4 versions except for hellflayer.
What should I build? Hellflayer and normal chariot? Or just 2 chariots and f the Hellflayer?
gwarsh41 wrote: Did you give the GUO the +1 to wound wound power? That spell is disgusting with lucky rolls.
The GUO also hits suprisingly hard.
You might initially think, oh, just STR 7, that's not much. Then you realize it's rerolling all to-wounds. This means it's wounding rhinos 75% of the time, and wounding MEQ 8/9 of the time.
They are saving only on a 6, and the D6 wounds really hurts.
The claws and teeth from nurglings are just insult to injury.
I was running a game with the GUO, and it ran into a squad of scarab terminators and tore them to shreds.
Galef wrote: What do you guys think would go well with a list with all 4 GDs?
Well, it's a theme list.
I would spam lots of bodies with the GDs. Bring lots of flamers, plague bearers, daemonettes and bloodletters. Swarm the board in bodies.
This actually brings up an interesting point.
Have you all noticed GDs to be effective?
In my games, when I have brought them they have been great. The KoS and GUO have been money. I've not tried a BT out yet. What do you think.
@people wanting more info. It was a veeery casual game But sure:
Nurgling just feel bad since you never go first. Str 2 = ugh. Too much T4 arround
Plaguebearers are just a nightmare to kill. So they're a huge tarpit.
Beasts never got anywhere
Brims are OP for their cost.
DP never got there because guo killed everything but I know he's great from prev games.
2 drones died fast because of Mawlock but the survivor actually kicked a lot of ass.
Bloodthirsters are pretty fragile in my experience thus far, but they are quite killy. I think they're good for the points. Skarbrand is even more killy and even more fragile (due to being slower, not due to his stats).
The Lord of Change is great. Only two powers but can cast smite at long range and will do d6 damage a lot more often with the casting bonus. I go back and forth between him and fate weaver being better.
luke1705 wrote: Bloodthirsters are pretty fragile in my experience thus far, but they are quite killy. I think they're good for the points. Skarbrand is even more killy and even more fragile (due to being slower, not due to his stats).
The Lord of Change is great. Only two powers but can cast smite at long range and will do d6 damage a lot more often with the casting bonus. I go back and forth between him and fate weaver being better.
Both worth their points I think
What? Fateweaver is the single worst unit in the codex IMO. 15 more points and you get bloody Magnus. Compare them. 5++ vs 4++ with 1s re-rollable. Magnus is stronger in melee, psychic and a lot more durable stats wise.
Or for 60(50) less pts just get Lord of Change who is better in melee and more survivable.
Out of curiosity which of the two new Nurgle Damon princes are better Mamon or Cor'bax thinking of taking one for my deathguard which I can summon when I get close to the enemy so they don't have to advance up the board taking hits. Cor'bax seems more survivable with more rules and a better disgusting resilience when hit with damage 1 weapons whilst Mamon being cheaper has the better strength
Any ideas???
rvd1ofakind wrote: What? Fateweaver is the single worst unit in the codex IMO. 15 more points and you get bloody Magnus. Compare them. 5++ vs 4++ with 1s re-rollable. Magnus is stronger in melee, psychic and a lot more durable stats wise.
Or for 60(50) less pts just get Lord of Change who is better in melee and more survivable.
Agreed. They goofed with fatey.
Magnus is the new psychic master of the chaos army. He's an absolute beast.
rvd1ofakind wrote: What? Fateweaver is the single worst unit in the codex IMO. 15 more points and you get bloody Magnus. Compare them. 5++ vs 4++ with 1s re-rollable. Magnus is stronger in melee, psychic and a lot more durable stats wise.
Or for 60(50) less pts just get Lord of Change who is better in melee and more survivable.
Agreed. They goofed with fatey.
Magnus is the new psychic master of the chaos army. He's an absolute beast.
Played today with 10 Nurgle DPs with Epidemius army againts ravenwing DA twice - and won twice by wiping out my opponent; on 3rd round in 1st game without a single DP killed and on 4th in 2nd game, with only 1 DP killed.
What can I say? I ain't even mad.
My thoughts, thou:
1) Smite isn't as scary as they say - yeah, it's *quite* powerful, but not *that* powerful
2) Warp bolters have disappointed me, really - 2 DMG is good, But only STR 4 and 2 shots - that's too little for too much. Dropping 10 bolters would give me spare 90 points
3) Epidemius was good, but, well, probably good - I didn't even looked at the tally as DP raped everything in sight without it.
Vexler wrote: Played today with 10 Nurgle DPs with Epidemius army againts ravenwing DA twice - and won twice by wiping out my opponent; on 3rd round in 1st game without a single DP killed and on 4th in 2nd game, with only 1 DP killed.
What can I say? I ain't even mad.
My thoughts, thou:
1) Smite isn't as scary as they say - yeah, it's *quite* powerful, but not *that* powerful
2) Warp bolters have disappointed me, really - 2 DMG is good, But only STR 4 and 2 shots - that's too little for too much. Dropping 10 bolters would give me spare 90 points
3) Epidemius was good, but, well, probably good - I didn't even looked at the tally as DP raped everything in sight without it.
What was the rest of the list? I'm strongly considering Nurgle in this edition. Probably not *quite* so many DPs though How are you tackling big stuff (knights and the like)?
It's already 2000 Points with 10 Princes and Epidemius.
Nurgle should be fine, until you want to jump on the brimstone bandwagon. He can cast smite on the big stuff, 10 Princes cast 10 smites a turn, so that should be about 20 Mortal Wounds in a round.
Vexler wrote: Played today with 10 Nurgle DPs with Epidemius army againts ravenwing DA twice - and won twice by wiping out my opponent; on 3rd round in 1st game without a single DP killed and on 4th in 2nd game, with only 1 DP killed.
What can I say? I ain't even mad.
My thoughts, thou:
1) Smite isn't as scary as they say - yeah, it's *quite* powerful, but not *that* powerful
2) Warp bolters have disappointed me, really - 2 DMG is good, But only STR 4 and 2 shots - that's too little for too much. Dropping 10 bolters would give me spare 90 points
3) Epidemius was good, but, well, probably good - I didn't even looked at the tally as DP raped everything in sight without it.
I'm thinking of going with some nurgling support and going with 9 princes.
There are some rough matches. Triple knights will suck -- esp with a chainsword. The biggest thing that has hurt my princes have been multi-wound weapons. A weapon that does a flat 6 wounds is scary. 2 hits and a prince goes down.
TONS of bodies would also be rough. 70 attacks a turn don't really help if you are only killing 20 brimstones a turn. Guard can also spam conscripts to do the same thing.
That's why I don't think it's a GT winning army. You might just have a bad matchup and lose.
But for RTT or local games it's hell on heels.
Smite with Changeling, 8 Disc Heralds and 6 Squads of Horrors adds up. I completely wiped a squad of Devastators with a Smite, rerolling a 2 from an 11 (d6 smite instead of d3) into a 6.
The power of the Changeling is NOT to be understated, giving things -1 to hit is incredibly powerful.
Army wide 4++ is also crazy. AP, Cover, none if it matters. I go where I want and do what I want.
That being said, Screamers are absolutely, 100%, full blown useless. I am immediately removing them from all lists.
That being said, Screamers are absolutely, 100%, full blown useless. I am immediately removing them from all lists.
This makes me very sad. I have 12 coverted to look like flaming "Griff-hounds".
I was going to magnetize 4 of them as mounts onto the bases of 2 home-made Chariots, but if they are that bad, I may as well just glue them down, leaving only 8 Screamers for....reasons