How do!

Bit of a ramble thread, might be rant. We’ll see what shakes out.

Title is the question. Do we need more Daemons?

See, Chaos Daemons and their archetypes are so old, they pre-date 40K. And since their proper (wonderful) debut in the Realm of Chaos books? They’ve not really had much love.

Each God has the same category. Greater Daemon, Infantry Daemon, Beast Daemon, Cavalry Daemon. And….not a lot more.

A few years back (longer than I appreciate I’m sure) we got some welcome additions. Nurgle got its Flies. Slaanesh got its Chariots. Khorne got its Cannon and Chariot Thing, Tzeentch got its Chariot. We’ve also since been treated to Heralds, different types of the same core Greater Daemons and some named characters. There’s also a decent amount of plastic kits and relatively few Finecast left - so they’ve not been done over on releases.

But the force still lacks variety. And I think that’s a shame. If you go polytheistic there is enough there to get some decent variety going. But if you’re a good little summoner and dedicate yourself to just one of the Gods? Your Army looks visually dull, and has little in the way of tactical variety.

Low hanging fruit of course would be adding in Daemon Engines for each God. But I wouldn’t say no to a second version of Infantry for each God, perhaps something heavier. But my imagination is on the blink and I’m drawing a blank on what they might be, done cool.

What do you reckon, Dakka?

I think the issue is the God's archetypes are pretty niche as they stand, I can't really think of another unit type that wouldn't be encroaching on another God's turf. I think what would be better is tweaking the Codex stats here and there so they aren't so rigid.

Screamers for example. A Tzeench unit which has no shooting, good in melee with S6 Ap-3 D2 attacks...but they hit on 4+...and they only have a 6++ save in combat, but the designers felt they can't make them good in combat otherwise it's not Tzeenchy.

I think yes, and some more out of the box thinking.
There definitely needs to be more demon engines and things the different gods demons put together.
And the mortals that summon and are part of a demon invasion need to be there, without the marines.
And I think new infantry with a proper build option.
There should be a lot of mortals willing to give into chaos for power and favours as well, so I often think they need to expand what demon princes are.
Not everyone will be super powerful, and less powerful servants can still be useful to bring into the demon army’s.
also a good bridge for cultists army’s to have as a tougher but not full powerful unit.

I'd say no, because each gods forces has been portrayed as 1/4 of an army for too long, if you keep expanding the 1/4 of an army it becomes larger than some 4/4 armies.

The reason they're in this hole is the long-neglected mono-god books which seem like such an obvious low hanging fruit.

If to take the Khorne Daemons and WE books and slap them together into "forces of Khorne" it fixes diversity issues with both parts into a greater whole. The same is true theoretically of the other gods.

I'd then propose bringing in some sigmar stuff that's easy additions, so following the previous example, the khorgorath and slaughterbrute are easy wins. After that add in some daemon engines and mutated beasties and you're good to go.

 Valkyrie wrote:
I think the issue is the God's archetypes are pretty niche as they stand, I can't really think of another unit type that wouldn't be encroaching on another God's turf. I think what would be better is tweaking the Codex stats here and there so they aren't so rigid.

Screamers for example. A Tzeench unit which has no shooting, good in melee with S6 Ap-3 D2 attacks...but they hit on 4+...and they only have a 6++ save in combat, but the designers felt they can't make them good in combat otherwise it's not Tzeenchy.

On the first bit (can’t comment on second, due to lack of personal knowledge, not me being rude) I’m not sure that need necessarily be the case.

Khorne could have more Gladiator oriented Bloodletters types. Nurgle could have a ranged unit, spitting vomit at people. Slaanesh could push off the knockers box, and have muscular body builder type heavy infantry. Tzeentch could have dragons of some kind.

And the new units needn’t all be variations of one theme. Each God could have something entirely unique to them (so Nurgle Vomit Thing could be 3 strong Beast type units, acting as light artillery, Tzeentch’s dragon thing could be quite hefty and a single model unit)

Age of Sigmar says YES PLEASE!

Age of Sigmar has already split the 4 demon gods into their own armies and most of them have now got a selection of their own mortal followers with themed models. There is no combined demon army in AoS any more and the closest you can get is taking allies in a Slaves to Darkness force.

Otherwise each god has their own army and that really makes it apparent how the demon variety is really limited. It worked great when they were 1/4 of an army, but now they are 1/1 of an army each force could do with more. I also fully agree on the creative angle - demons are supposed to come in legions of various forms and yet the game has only really ever had 1 or 2 per god (and 1 of them is often a mount). So having more demonic forms that we've been teased about in art for decades - would be fantastic.


In 40K there has been a slow move to give each of the Chaos Legions bound to a specific god their own force. It's not complete yet (Slaanesh certainly still needs to be done); but its slowly happening. Like AoS this has mostly focused on giving more unique mortal/human followers and units and less unique demons.

I could see a time where GW might close down Chaos Demons as a 40K combined army; lean heavily into each god being its own force with a mix of demons and marines and then give the demons more monsters that can cross over the two game.s



Another option would be just to give AoS new demon models and not 40K. There's nothing which says everything in each force has to cross over and AoS already has several leader models that are pretty big and fancy and which are unique to AoS (eg the new slaanesh mage on a huge chariot).

Nah. There should be fewer units, not more.

It's absurd that there are almost as many herald types as Harlequins have units in total. Make them one entry and then when (if) you give it a mark that changes some stats.

The insistence that you should be able to build a reasonable force while limiting yourself to only one quarter of the army's unit options has also led to crazy duplication of unit roles across the list.

GW's double dipping of all of the kits into Fantasy as well as 40k means that there is an obvious limit imposed on the types of options units have. All lesser daemons should be able to swap their weapons for a gun at bare minimum.

But its also crazy that an army like Slaanesh had only got fiends of slaanesh as demonic units.

Outside of leader units and universal ones (soulgrinder); the only unique Slaanesh demon that isn't a mount is the Fiend.

Going by the MFM, there are a couple of easy imports from AOS

Khorne
- Slaughterbrute (probably Heavy Support?)

Tzeentch
- Mutalith Vortex Beast (again, probably Heavy Support, assuming the keywords work)

Slaanesh
- Fane of Slaanesh (Fortification)

That only leaves two Gods with a slot* with no entry - Tzeentch (Fortification) and Nurgle (Heavy Support). I'd lean towards some form of Silver Tower as a Tzeentch Fortification, and an equivalent to the old Contagion of Nurgle as a Nurgle Heavy Support Daemon Engine (with Indirect Fire?).

I don't think there'd be a problem porting those back to AOS if you wanted to.

After that, I think you could look for some new options for each God, but I'm not quite sure what you do for them. Mining Epic for Daemon Engine ideas would be nice, though.

* - OK, I guess Lords of War and Flyers are things no Gods have at present, but at least that means they're all on a level playing field in that regard.

I feel like GW is slow building toward the option of a Demon Engine Chaos army in its own right. They've unleashed a new Chaos Lord who is said to be almost akin to a God in power (or at least none of the 4 will move against him) and they've been adding more warpsmith and demonic engine type models to the core chaos army.

I could see GW potentially doing a few things with Chaos in 40K
1) Retiring Chaos Demons as an army and instead having each god with their own demon and mortal mixed army, with the option to take allies and run mono (all demon, all marine) forces within that.

2) Splitting Chaos Space Marines into Marines and Demonsmith - again this could start out purely as a sub-army and then steadily splinter off as GW adds enough models to make it work on its own.


If GW did that it creates a lot more unit slots for those forces. Demonsmiths would have room to add more infantry style models along with more war engines; whilst Chaos Demon armies would be more free to add more units as they'd stop being 1/4 of an army and being the whole of an army.



I would be a shame to lose things like Chaos Demons and I do miss that force in AoS, but at the same time separating the 4 gods has allowed GW to have so much creative and army composition freedom. It creates tactical slots they can fill with models without having 1 combined force that ends up super bloated and overloaded with choices that trip over each other or just bring nothing new to the table tactically.

I think this works really well for chaos Demons in particular because each god is really unique in how they appear and play. There's a lot of visual and tactical creativity and variety you can play with and separating them creates opportunities.





It's a case of lose-some gain-some but I think the net result overall is a win.

No demon engine in the demon codexes PLEASE.

leave those in the CSM dex until they do like AoS and do god-specific codexes.

I DO want some new units in demon, right now every god has such a limited range that it makes making varied lists pretty hard

More demons like this

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do!

Title is the question. Do we need more Daemons?

Probably. We need more Custodes too. Knights need some ObSec Troops that are virtually useless beyond objective claiming - not scary, not tough, doesn't change the way knights play except giving them an Infantry choice to secure objectives Knights can't get to because of terrain rules etc that don't take Knight rules into account. Harlequinns probably also need more data sheets/choices. There are a few armies that risk Datasheet/Rule of Three issues around 2,000 points even before you run into variety issues which should be the second thing looked at.

 Overread wrote:
More demons like this

yes! now i'm genuinely sad for 40k's roster lol

 Dysartes wrote:
OK, I guess Lords of War and Flyers are things no Gods have at present, but at least that means they're all on a level playing field in that regard.

The Khorne Lord of Skulls exists, but looks to be stuck in the Marine books...

 Dysartes wrote:

* - OK, I guess Lords of War and Flyers are things no Gods have at present, but at least that means they're all on a level playing field in that regard.

theres a LoW version of the greater demons for every god


Automatically Appended Next Post:

beast_gts wrote:
The Khorne Lord of Skulls exists, but looks to be stuck in the Marine books...

yeah, because its a CSM unit, NOT a demon unit

Yes, and specifically ranged ones for 40k.

Bloodletters with bloodbullet guns, hate lasers, throwing spears/axes.

Plaguebearers with maggot/fly guns, death's head grenades.

Daemonettes with outrageously long whips, perfume grenades.

Tzeentch, ironically, needs daemons with swords.

Plenty of room for expanding in 40k.

 Rihgu wrote:
Yes, and specifically ranged ones for 40k.

Bloodletters with bloodbullet guns, hate lasers, throwing spears/axes.

Plaguebearers with maggot/fly guns, death's head grenades.

Daemonettes with outrageously long whips, perfume grenades.

Tzeentch, ironically, needs daemons with swords.

Plenty of room for expanding in 40k.

Isn't that deliberately filling the intentional void in each gods lineup? At that point it'd be 4 armies in 1 book.

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
Yes, and specifically ranged ones for 40k.

Bloodletters with bloodbullet guns, hate lasers, throwing spears/axes.

Plaguebearers with maggot/fly guns, death's head grenades.

Daemonettes with outrageously long whips, perfume grenades.

Tzeentch, ironically, needs daemons with swords.

Plenty of room for expanding in 40k.

Isn't that deliberately filling the intentional void in each gods lineup? At that point it'd be 4 armies in 1 book.

I guess I'm not sure how that's any different than it is now, or has been for a long while. Nor do people who actually play daemons seem to actually want to play them as undivided most of the time.

And since most of the ideas I came up with here are grenades (or whips!) we're not even talking long ranged attacks for them. 18-24" tops (I imagine the hate laser to be equivalent with a multi-melta, and maggot guns/blood guns to be bolters).

I don't know, it doesn't seem to be a problem. If Space Marines get roughly a billion datasheets in one book that fulfill all roles, is it a problem for daemons to have 4 dozen?

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
Yes, and specifically ranged ones for 40k.

Bloodletters with bloodbullet guns, hate lasers, throwing spears/axes.

Plaguebearers with maggot/fly guns, death's head grenades.

Daemonettes with outrageously long whips, perfume grenades.

Tzeentch, ironically, needs daemons with swords.

Plenty of room for expanding in 40k.

Isn't that deliberately filling the intentional void in each gods lineup? At that point it'd be 4 armies in 1 book.

it already is 4 armies in one book. Until we get Emperor's children, we're not gonna see the full-on separation of gods like AoS sadly.

Oh, and since when is having redundant units a problem?

When they aren't marines

I know what he means, each god having a different playstyle on datasheet alone is a cool thing imo but its not really much of a thing anymore for any faction (i know it is.a bit)

tneva82 wrote:
When they aren't marines

thats what i meant yeah.

Why is nurgle getting a slow, short ranged, heavy hitting short range projectile vomit attack suddenly invalidating flamers/skull cannons?

why is tzeentch getting some actually decent close combat unit suddenly invalidating bloodletters?

why is slaanesh getting some whips on daemonettes invalidating anything at all

etc.

Dai wrote:
I know what he means, each god having a different playstyle on datasheet alone is a cool thing imo but its not really much of a thing anymore for any faction (i know it is.a bit)

Having guns != a playstyle.

Otherwise, Space Marines, Drukhari, Votann, Necrons, etc would all have the same playstyle.

Had another think on this and I'm wondering rather than trying to fill the gaps in each God's theme, why not make it easier to take them alltogether? Was chatting to a guy in the FLGS last night about this, overall the Daemon list-building seems rather restrictive if you want the innate bonuses. The ally-Daemons rule is even worse, at a 2k game you only have 500pts to spend which is a bit naff.

With that in mind what about the following changes:
- If you want to ally Daemons with CSM, the 25% limit remains, unless you're WE, TS, DG or EC then you can take up to 50% of your respective God.
- You can mix and match Daemons freely in a Detachment without losing your Warpstorm bonus, instead the bonus is dependent on which God your Warlord belongs to.

Rihgu wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
Yes, and specifically ranged ones for 40k.

Bloodletters with bloodbullet guns, hate lasers, throwing spears/axes.

Plaguebearers with maggot/fly guns, death's head grenades.

Daemonettes with outrageously long whips, perfume grenades.

Tzeentch, ironically, needs daemons with swords.

Plenty of room for expanding in 40k.

Isn't that deliberately filling the intentional void in each gods lineup? At that point it'd be 4 armies in 1 book.

I guess I'm not sure how that's any different than it is now, or has been for a long while. Nor do people who actually play daemons seem to actually want to play them as undivided most of the time.

And since most of the ideas I came up with here are grenades (or whips!) we're not even talking long ranged attacks for them. 18-24" tops (I imagine the hate laser to be equivalent with a multi-melta, and maggot guns/blood guns to be bolters).

I don't know, it doesn't seem to be a problem. If Space Marines get roughly a billion datasheets in one book that fulfill all roles, is it a problem for daemons to have 4 dozen?

Rihgu wrote:

Dai wrote:
I know what he means, each god having a different playstyle on datasheet alone is a cool thing imo but its not really much of a thing anymore for any faction (i know it is.a bit)

Having guns != a playstyle.

Otherwise, Space Marines, Drukhari, Votann, Necrons, etc would all have the same playstyle.

Well, to respond to both at once. They shouldn't be 4 armies in one book, they shouldn't be ham fisted into monogod lists, it just goes to show the daemons codex hasn't worked as a concept for 2 full editions imo. You're also lamenting marines having too many units and options whilst asking for too many units and options that overlap. Further to that and to answer the below:

VladimirHerzog wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
Yes, and specifically ranged ones for 40k.

Bloodletters with bloodbullet guns, hate lasers, throwing spears/axes.

Plaguebearers with maggot/fly guns, death's head grenades.

Daemonettes with outrageously long whips, perfume grenades.

Tzeentch, ironically, needs daemons with swords.

Plenty of room for expanding in 40k.

Isn't that deliberately filling the intentional void in each gods lineup? At that point it'd be 4 armies in 1 book.

it already is 4 armies in one book. Until we get Emperor's children, we're not gonna see the full-on separation of gods like AoS sadly.

Oh, and since when is having redundant units a problem?

Redundancy is fine, literally filling the intentional voids in an army, i.e. khorne is melee with little range/staying power, Tzeentch is ranged/magic and rubbish in melee etc. is bad and waters down identity. So bolter bloodletters or greatsword horrors don't belong imo. If they should exist then it should be as plug-ins from their gods mortal units for the most part.

 Valkyrie wrote:
Had another think on this and I'm wondering rather than trying to fill the gaps in each God's theme, why not make it easier to take them alltogether? Was chatting to a guy in the FLGS last night about this, overall the Daemon list-building seems rather restrictive if you want the innate bonuses. The ally-Daemons rule is even worse, at a 2k game you only have 500pts to spend which is a bit naff.

With that in mind what about the following changes:
- If you want to ally Daemons with CSM, the 25% limit remains, unless you're WE, TS, DG or EC then you can take up to 50% of your respective God.
- You can mix and match Daemons freely in a Detachment without losing your Warpstorm bonus, instead the bonus is dependent on which God your Warlord belongs to.

I don’t think taking the different gods together is that wanted, over being able to do mono gods themes that feel and play well.
If you had cultist units that fill the generic part of the list, you then can use the demons as there specialist units.

Cultist units can have your basic shooting and basic close combat.

Khorne can have a mid range heavy hitting attack.
Slaanesh fill em full of spines, maybe a low mid range.
Nurgle is short range but has debuff, or maybe even a pick a poison like effect at the start of the game.
Sorcery bois already had ideas, so could do a morghing close combat thing.
I like the idea that your unit of ten hits the enemy and pops into a big horde suddenly to lay into em.
Unique to 40k and allready follows the themes.

I've never met a Thousand Sons player who is thrilled to use Tzaangors, which is to say...

making Daemons players seek out non-daemon units seems like a terrible thing.

Just like making a Khorne Daemons player seek out non-Khorne Daemons seems like a terrible thing.

If the faction identity is being 6 datasheets and all of them only doing exactly one thing, I'd say the faction identity is bad and definitely *needs* to be "watered down".

 Rihgu wrote:
I've never met a Thousand Sons player who is thrilled to use Tzaangors, which is to say...

making Daemons players seek out non-daemon units seems like a terrible thing.

Just like making a Khorne Daemons player seek out non-Khorne Daemons seems like a terrible thing.

If the faction identity is being 6 datasheets and all of them only doing exactly one thing, I'd say the faction identity is bad and definitely *needs* to be "watered down".

I think the legions and the demons are a bit different, the cultist units giving the demon codex some much need variety and are a important part of demons as a theme.

One thing I like in Warmachine for the demons there is how your own mortal units are a resource, powerful but rare units. That you have to sacrifice at times to keep your whole army momentum up.
It’s very simple, but is really good at setting the theme and gives little choices that can effect a lot of things.
GW could make it coool.

Auto correct likes demons, so I running with it.

Dudeface wrote:


Redundancy is fine, literally filling the intentional voids in an army, i.e. khorne is melee with little range/staying power, Tzeentch is ranged/magic and rubbish in melee etc. is bad and waters down identity. So bolter bloodletters or greatsword horrors don't belong imo. If they should exist then it should be as plug-ins from their gods mortal units for the most part.

khorne already has the best long-range shooting of all 4 gods...

tzeentch already has melee-only units...

yes, you should be able to have mortal followers (not just CSM) for every god, but that doesnt mean the army wouldnt feel appropriate.

Look at AoS, every god has melee AND shooty options, yet they all play very differently from one another and feel like youre truly playing a Khorne/Nurgle/tzeentch/slaanesh army

 Rihgu wrote:
I've never met a Thousand Sons player who is thrilled to use Tzaangors, which is to say...

making Daemons players seek out non-daemon units seems like a terrible thing.

Just like making a Khorne Daemons player seek out non-Khorne Daemons seems like a terrible thing.

If the faction identity is being 6 datasheets and all of them only doing exactly one thing, I'd say the faction identity is bad and definitely *needs* to be "watered down".

I started back in 3rd and my recollection of daemons is:

3.5 - bundled with same god mortals as a theme or undivided
4th - undivided was promoted
6th - undivided was promoted
8th - monogod or multiple detachments was forced upon people
9th - monogod or multiple detachments forced upon people

There has been a shift in design and in reality if you choose to ignore 3/4 of a codex, maybe you should have restricted options?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Dudeface wrote:


Redundancy is fine, literally filling the intentional voids in an army, i.e. khorne is melee with little range/staying power, Tzeentch is ranged/magic and rubbish in melee etc. is bad and waters down identity. So bolter bloodletters or greatsword horrors don't belong imo. If they should exist then it should be as plug-ins from their gods mortal units for the most part.

khorne already has the best long-range shooting of all 4 gods...

tzeentch already has melee-only units...

yes, you should be able to have mortal followers (not just CSM) for every god, but that doesnt mean the army wouldnt feel appropriate.

Look at AoS, every god has melee AND shooty options, yet they all play very differently from one another and feel like youre truly playing a Khorne/Nurgle/tzeentch/slaanesh army

Tzeentch has screamers for melee but they're also harrying fast units, Khorne has 1 shooting unit in the skull cannon which originally came in as an attempt to gift them frag grenades for charging and had strong melee rules. They have a minimal presence of the other for each god which is fine but doesn't need expanding imo.

Dudeface wrote:

Redundancy is fine, literally filling the intentional voids in an army, i.e. khorne is melee with little range/staying power, Tzeentch is ranged/magic and rubbish in melee etc. is bad and waters down identity. So bolter bloodletters or greatsword horrors don't belong imo. If they should exist then it should be as plug-ins from their gods mortal units for the most part.

Fine.remove all guns from melee marines and melee units from shooty marines then.

And don't you even dare to think about taking non-aspects in biel-tan. Non-wraith in iyanden etc.

And thousand sons should have any non-psychic removed.

 Rihgu wrote:
I've never met a Thousand Sons player who is thrilled to use Tzaangors, which is to say...

making Daemons players seek out non-daemon units seems like a terrible thing.

Just like making a Khorne Daemons player seek out non-Khorne Daemons seems like a terrible thing.

If the faction identity is being 6 datasheets and all of them only doing exactly one thing, I'd say the faction identity is bad and definitely *needs* to be "watered down".

i used to think this until i started playing AoS, a well made "Monogod" codex feels suuuuper fluffy and amazingly fun to play. It's a shame the 40k and AoS teams don't seem to talk to each other at all

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
I've never met a Thousand Sons player who is thrilled to use Tzaangors, which is to say...

making Daemons players seek out non-daemon units seems like a terrible thing.

Just like making a Khorne Daemons player seek out non-Khorne Daemons seems like a terrible thing.

If the faction identity is being 6 datasheets and all of them only doing exactly one thing, I'd say the faction identity is bad and definitely *needs* to be "watered down".

I started back in 3rd and my recollection of daemons is:

3.5 - bundled with same god mortals as a theme or undivided
4th - undivided was promoted
6th - undivided was promoted
8th - monogod or multiple detachments was forced upon people
9th - monogod or multiple detachments forced upon people

There has been a shift in design and in reality if you choose to ignore 3/4 of a codex, maybe you should have restricted options?

If it's being force upon me what choice am I making, and if I'm not making said choice why should my options be restricted? And why is this problem unique to daemons?

Why are Aeldari not forced to play with 1/4th of a codex and then given extremely limited options?

In your mind, if Khorne were given a new unit (are they even allowed to, in this world view?) is that unit supposed to be just... another melee unit? Talk about redundancy... I'm Khorne, so I get 8 types of melee units!

IDK man, seems really boring, one-dimensional and stupid to be a daemons player, especially right now. Especially if they keep this terrible design paradigm. I can't even play my Undivided collection without Be'lakor, and if I take an Undivided army with Be'lakor I don't get the cool Warp Storm effects! Let Bloodletters have a gun, surely the psychic imprint of 40,000 years of *humanity* has left the impression of *guns* in the immaterium, as a weapon of war and bloodletting, that thing Khorne loves.

i used to think this until i started playing AoS, a well made "Monogod" codex feels suuuuper fluffy and amazingly fun to play. It's a shame the 40k and AoS teams don't seem to talk to each other at all

But in AoS you still have the choice of running monogod with mono-type (daemons, mortals), and some subfactions encourage that. There's also a lot of overlap between what mortal and daemon units are, usually.

 Rihgu wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
I've never met a Thousand Sons player who is thrilled to use Tzaangors, which is to say...

making Daemons players seek out non-daemon units seems like a terrible thing.

Just like making a Khorne Daemons player seek out non-Khorne Daemons seems like a terrible thing.

If the faction identity is being 6 datasheets and all of them only doing exactly one thing, I'd say the faction identity is bad and definitely *needs* to be "watered down".

I started back in 3rd and my recollection of daemons is:

3.5 - bundled with same god mortals as a theme or undivided
4th - undivided was promoted
6th - undivided was promoted
8th - monogod or multiple detachments was forced upon people
9th - monogod or multiple detachments forced upon people

There has been a shift in design and in reality if you choose to ignore 3/4 of a codex, maybe you should have restricted options?

If it's being force upon me what choice am I making, and if I'm not making said choice why should my options be restricted? And why is this problem unique to daemons?

Why are Aeldari not forced to play with 1/4th of a codex and then given extremely limited options?

In your mind, if Khorne were given a new unit (are they even allowed to, in this world view?) is that unit supposed to be just... another melee unit? Talk about redundancy... I'm Khorne, so I get 8 types of melee units!

IDK man, seems really boring, one-dimensional and stupid to be a daemons player, especially right now. Especially if they keep this terrible design paradigm. I can't even play my Undivided collection without Be'lakor, and if I take an Undivided army with Be'lakor I don't get the cool Warp Storm effects! Let Bloodletters have a gun, surely the psychic imprint of 40,000 years of *humanity* has left the impression of *guns* in the immaterium, as a weapon of war and bloodletting, that thing Khorne loves.

i used to think this until i started playing AoS, a well made "Monogod" codex feels suuuuper fluffy and amazingly fun to play. It's a shame the 40k and AoS teams don't seem to talk to each other at all

But in AoS you still have the choice of running monogod with mono-type (daemons, mortals), and some subfactions encourage that. There's also a lot of overlap between what mortal and daemon units are, usually.

So which is it? Are you annoyed the 1/4 of the codex you're encouraged to use isn't a full army or are you annoyed the rules don't encourage you to use the full codex? "Make more units up" is not the answer to either of those, re-designing how the faction is handled is. But yes if a new Khorne daemon is introduced it should be melee oriented or supportive of melee units. A buff platform similar to the AoS warshrine might be good, failing that a big heavy hitter that isn't a blood thirster in the heavy slot, or maybe a jump unit. If you really wanted a ranged a unit a low shot high strength 18" elite infantry (which also happens to be handy in melee) that makes Khorne units get +1 to charge units wounded by the guns etc.

For what it's worth Drukhari are forced into 3 mini forces and they also generally dislike it, they just get round it easier. Other armies also exist with similar sized if not smaller rosters to khorne daemons, they jsut also happen to not have 3/4 of a codex they're not using alongside.

Are you annoyed the 1/4 of the codex you're encouraged to use isn't a full army or are you annoyed the rules don't encourage you to use the full codex?

Yes.

I'm advocating for both sides. Both are equally valid options.

 Rihgu wrote:

Are you annoyed the 1/4 of the codex you're encouraged to use isn't a full army or are you annoyed the rules don't encourage you to use the full codex?

Yes.

I'm advocating for both sides. Both are equally valid options.

You don't get or need both being the reality here and if you suggest "codex khorne daemons" needs to be a thing with a set of extra models, what would you introduce and what would the faction identity be given you're not a fan of rolling in WE.

 Rihgu wrote:

But in AoS you still have the choice of running monogod with mono-type (daemons, mortals), and some subfactions encourage that. There's also a lot of overlap between what mortal and daemon units are, usually.

yeah, which is what i meant. you get actual freedom.

Right now if i play Mono-Tzeentch in 40k its :

LoC (because nice centerpiece model thats also good)
Herald variation
DP
*optional extra character since i get like 2 spells to cast anyway

a few squads of horrors (blues because GW kneecapped pinks by not letting them split if the unit gets wiped -.-)

3 squads of flamers

3 squads of screamers

a mix of burning chariot/exalted flamers


and thats it, no more options. Adding TS + regular mortals to the faction would give me more choice (even if i personally would love to get more demonic units)

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:

Are you annoyed the 1/4 of the codex you're encouraged to use isn't a full army or are you annoyed the rules don't encourage you to use the full codex?

Yes.

I'm advocating for both sides. Both are equally valid options.

You don't get or need both being the reality here and if you suggest "codex khorne daemons" needs to be a thing with a set of extra models, what would you introduce and what would the faction identity be given you're not a fan of rolling in WE.

I would roll in WE options and also add a unit that is bloodletters with guns (bolter-like and melta/multi-melta-like). There would be clear options for playing specifically World Eaters, a mortal cult, daemons-only, and any combination there-of. The faction identity would be short-ranged bloody combat, which would not be destroyed by minor options for longer-ranged combat.

 Rihgu wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:

Are you annoyed the 1/4 of the codex you're encouraged to use isn't a full army or are you annoyed the rules don't encourage you to use the full codex?

Yes.

I'm advocating for both sides. Both are equally valid options.

You don't get or need both being the reality here and if you suggest "codex khorne daemons" needs to be a thing with a set of extra models, what would you introduce and what would the faction identity be given you're not a fan of rolling in WE.

I would roll in WE options and also add a unit that is bloodletters with guns (bolter-like and melta/multi-melta-like). There would be clear options for playing specifically World Eaters, a mortal cult, daemons-only, and any combination there-of. The faction identity would be short-ranged bloody combat, which would not be destroyed by minor options for longer-ranged combat.

That's OK if you accept khorne is going to want skulls and you shouldn't be able to make a daemons firebase of ranged units. Of they were primarily elites with a heavy variant for example that could work (in a world where you can't DIY a detachment anyway).

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:

Are you annoyed the 1/4 of the codex you're encouraged to use isn't a full army or are you annoyed the rules don't encourage you to use the full codex?

Yes.

I'm advocating for both sides. Both are equally valid options.

You don't get or need both being the reality here and if you suggest "codex khorne daemons" needs to be a thing with a set of extra models, what would you introduce and what would the faction identity be given you're not a fan of rolling in WE.

I would roll in WE options and also add a unit that is bloodletters with guns (bolter-like and melta/multi-melta-like). There would be clear options for playing specifically World Eaters, a mortal cult, daemons-only, and any combination there-of. The faction identity would be short-ranged bloody combat, which would not be destroyed by minor options for longer-ranged combat.

That's OK if you accept khorne is going to want skulls and you shouldn't be able to make a daemons firebase of ranged units. Of they were primarily elites with a heavy variant for example that could work (in a world where you can't DIY a detachment anyway).

Thank you for agreeing that it's fine and can work. I'm glad that we agree Khorne Daemons can be allowed a little firebase of ranged units, as a treat.

Apple fox wrote:
I think yes, and some more out of the box thinking.
There definitely needs to be more demon engines and things the different gods demons put together.
And the mortals that summon and are part of a demon invasion need to be there, without the marines.
And I think new infantry with a proper build option.
There should be a lot of mortals willing to give into chaos for power and favours as well, so I often think they need to expand what demon princes are.
Not everyone will be super powerful, and less powerful servants can still be useful to bring into the demon army’s.
also a good bridge for cultists army’s to have as a tougher but not full powerful unit.

Reading this reminds me of Chaos 3.5, where daemons had to have an anchor to summon them onto the battlefield. I do like the idea of a sub-faction bonus or... psuedo Rite-of-war where daemons, when summoned by mortals get a buff over regular deployment because they have a mortal anchor to realspace.

Put all of it into one book. CSMs, Daemons, Renegades and Heretics. Allow them all to mish-mash together like the Ruinous Powers intended.

Edit: Oh yeah, throw Beastmen in there too.

I’m really hoping vashtorr is the start of something beautiful with more realises for dark mechanicum coming and that army is a wonderful blend of man, machine and demon.

But yes more demons, it’s should be such a rich vein of creativity for GW and with half the galaxy gone dark there should be thousands of world becoming homes to demons of all sorts.

And while I’m at it more cultists

I'd really like customizable daemon rules. The faction is a converter's dream, so they should get rules to reflect that. Give us the option to create our own lesser/greater/etc Daemons, if they'd break matched play then just make em available for Narrative/Crusade.

Hive Fleet adaptations type of rules are a step in the right direction; just mutate those ideas for Daemons and build from there..

Have you ever seen the Ruinstorm Daemons for 30k? Its pretty much exactly what you are describing.
Units come in pretty generic profiles; 'Lesser', 'Greater', 'Beast' etc that define the stat profile, FOC slot and unit type. Then you can bolt on upgrades like claws, wings, shooting etc. And finally you layer on an army-wide lean for Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Undivided or Malal.

It has yet to be rewritten for v2 but the first edition was great in concept. Not too sure how it was received in terms of balancing options.

Nope. We need fewer demons, not more. Making a WHFB army on round bases into a 40k army was a huge mistake by GW. It sucks for mechanics reasons, it sucks for lore reasons, and demons really need to go back to being a summoning option alongside marine and cultist/traitor forces.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Nope. We need fewer demons, not more. Making a WHFB army on round bases into a 40k army was a huge mistake by GW. It sucks for mechanics reasons, it sucks for lore reasons, and demons really need to go back to being a summoning option alongside marine and cultist/traitor forces.

So CSM, of which there's a pretty limited amount, need their own Codex and massive model line... But Daemons, who can outnumber any Legion with their numbers on a single planet, don't?

If anything, we should make Space Marines and CSM a small supplement, that you can add on like a Knight to Loyalist or Chaos armies.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Nope. We need fewer demons, not more. Making a WHFB army on round bases into a 40k army was a huge mistake by GW. It sucks for mechanics reasons, it sucks for lore reasons, and demons really need to go back to being a summoning option alongside marine and cultist/traitor forces.

So CSM, of which there's a pretty limited amount, need their own Codex and massive model line... But Daemons, who can outnumber any Legion with their numbers on a single planet, don't?

If anything, we should make Space Marines and CSM a small supplement, that you can add on like a Knight to Loyalist or Chaos armies.

CSM have far fewer design issues than demons and lore-wise are far more likely to be found on a conventional battlefield fighting against other conventional armies.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Nope. We need fewer demons, not more. Making a WHFB army on round bases into a 40k army was a huge mistake by GW. It sucks for mechanics reasons, it sucks for lore reasons, and demons really need to go back to being a summoning option alongside marine and cultist/traitor forces.

So CSM, of which there's a pretty limited amount, need their own Codex and massive model line... But Daemons, who can outnumber any Legion with their numbers on a single planet, don't?

If anything, we should make Space Marines and CSM a small supplement, that you can add on like a Knight to Loyalist or Chaos armies.

CSM have far fewer design issues than demons and lore-wise are far more likely to be found on a conventional battlefield fighting against other conventional armies.

40k is about conventional armies now? I thought it was about things like sentient fungus that loves a good scrap, hypno-indoctrinated fanatical super soldiers, space elf clowns, and yes, daemons.

Edit: Also, you say they have design issues. One I can think of is, outside Tzeentch, basically no shooting.
You know what could fix that? Adding shooty daemons to other gods.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Nope. We need fewer demons, not more. Making a WHFB army on round bases into a 40k army was a huge mistake by GW. It sucks for mechanics reasons, it sucks for lore reasons, and demons really need to go back to being a summoning option alongside marine and cultist/traitor forces.

So CSM, of which there's a pretty limited amount, need their own Codex and massive model line... But Daemons, who can outnumber any Legion with their numbers on a single planet, don't?

If anything, we should make Space Marines and CSM a small supplement, that you can add on like a Knight to Loyalist or Chaos armies.

CSM have far fewer design issues than demons and lore-wise are far more likely to be found on a conventional battlefield fighting against other conventional armies.

40k is about conventional armies now? I thought it was about things like sentient fungus that loves a good scrap, hypno-indoctrinated fanatical super soldiers, space elf clowns, and yes, daemons.

Edit: Also, you say they have design issues. One I can think of is, outside Tzeentch, basically no shooting.
You know what could fix that? Adding shooty daemons to other gods.

We circle back to: "they're not supposed to be a shooting army by GW's vision and design" the design issues as above come from the ham-fisted awful implementation of "are we 1 army or 4?" that GW keep leaning on.

 JNAProductions wrote:
40k is about conventional armies now? I thought it was about things like sentient fungus that loves a good scrap, hypno-indoctrinated fanatical super soldiers, space elf clowns, and yes, daemons.

Orks are just an aesthetic re-skin of a conventional army. They have infantry, tanks, heavy weapon units, a conventional chain of command, etc. Same with marines, complete with literal Vietnam-era APCs painted with their chapter colors. Pure clown armies don't fit the theme but it's no coincidence that they have balance and design issues and should go back to being a single unit in the Eldar codex.

Edit: Also, you say they have design issues. One I can think of is, outside Tzeentch, basically no shooting.
You know what could fix that? Adding shooty daemons to other gods.

Or, instead of retconning the lore, just put them back into combined Chaos armies where it's ok if the demons don't have any shooting because they're a support element next to plenty of marines and/or cultists and traitors that can cover the shooting role. It worked fine that way in the past, before GW's sales department decided that "use your WHFB army in 40k too" would be a good selling point.

Having a ranged unit doesn’t mean it has to be particularly shooty.

Some kind of snot/bile/vomit beast for Nurgle fits. Think somewhere between a Biovore and Pyrovore, but grosser. Perhaps it just globs up terrain features, making them hostile or risky to enter. Keep the unit itself a wee bit fighty of course.

Tzeentch could be pinning, but little actual damage - a ranged option to affect enemy units in your favour.

Slaanesh? Not sure.

Khorne has its cannons, and for me those feel about enough. Though I stress I’m not personally talking rules, just cools.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Having a ranged unit doesn’t mean it has to be particularly shooty.

Some kind of snot/bile/vomit beast for Nurgle fits. Think somewhere between a Biovore and Pyrovore, but grosser.

Tzeentch could be pinning, but little actual damage - a ranged option to affect enemy units in your favour.

Slaanesh? Not sure.

Khorne has its cannons, and for me those feel about enough. Though I stress I’m not personally talking rules, just cools.

Yeah-I've suggested Nurgle Daemon units that are ranged, but not super killy. They inflict debuffs on the enemy, more than doing raw damage.

Which would be nice to see across the board, actually. Like with good morale rules.

I've long thought that something like the Slaanesh Chariots should have got some ranged guns ages ago as an upgrade (or just something to replace those insane whips). It's a fantastic model in AoS, but in 40K those chariots just feel so out of place without some kind of ranged or sci-fi feel to them.

I think we need undivided daemons, things that any of the forces can take that may get 'marks' or other god-specific upgrades to align them with that playstyle but otherwise are a little more flexible.

Soul grinders fit this, along with daemon princes, but it'd be nice to also see furies and a couple other things.

Do they need more? Well, honestly, my opinion is no, I think the chaos daemon line is one of the few lines that's mostly 'complete'. Someday I'm sure GW will replace the last resin bits and will update the core troops, and they'll fit in new characters and other models along the way, but 'need' is a strong word.

There could definitely be more daemons - just please, no more hqs or single model units. Make some actual boots on the ground for them. Throw all sorts of tropes in etc.

Say a unit like Ogre Leadbelchers for Khorne, bulky slow moving daemons that advance while showering their foes with a hail of fire. Or some doom-like techno daemons, technology fused with warp entities (I suppose Vastorr is going that angle, but on more than a single model and perhaps better executed). Throw in some biblical type angels as well, or oddly shaped/formed ones.

Allow for some exploration within the niches each god has - just because nurgle doesn't have any ranged elements doesn't mean it *shouldn't*. Plaguebearers already carry swords, so swapping them out for guns can be the most basic thing. You could also go with a living siege engine type thing similar to nids, with some daemonic entity firing plague flies, or noxious bile, etc.

Also I just feel it would be better to break from the tradition of all kits MUST be workable in both AOS and 40k. Let some of them be exclusive to one setting or the other, or at least provide options for both. I suppose that is more an aesthetics thing to me though, as I personally don't find it cool looking to see people charging tanks with chariots. Yes they are daemonic chariots with daemon riders, but the overall look of the interaction is more comical to me than anything to me.

I'd welcome some elite monsters akin to how Fleshhounds or Fiends work - so not the mass numbers of troops but not elite one off models, but I wouldn't be opposed to them.

I fully agree though - no more leaders! GW has loaded up AoS with MASSES of leader models.

I also think GW are breaking the AoS/40K reliance - AoS already has demonic leader models and infantry that don't cross over. There will still be cross overs and then there will be kits like the Prince that don't just cross over but have game specific optional parts.

Daemons shouldn't have bows, catapults, guns, vehicles or human-sized and shaped infantry or cavalry, it's too mundane. Expanding other options and phasing out the formerly mentioned types could take Daemons to a higher level.

 Overread wrote:
It's a fantastic model in AoS, but in 40K those chariots just feel so out of place without some kind of ranged or sci-fi feel to them.

Demons summed up perfectly in a single sentence.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It's a fantastic model in AoS, but in 40K those chariots just feel so out of place without some kind of ranged or sci-fi feel to them.

Demons summed up perfectly in a single sentence.

See I agree that there are specific models that don't feel like they fit; but demons as a concept are totally fine for me. 40K is already a muskets and spears kind of game functionally speaking. Demons aren't even the only close combat heavy army - Orks and Tyranids both thematically can run with heavy close combat and only light ranged support. Marines are often shown in battle in close combat and many famous take downs aren't ranged but one on one with power swords and hammers against demons and xenos.

Demons have a place in 40K, they just need some elements in their armies that make them visually feel it - a few techno demons in each army; more ranged options outside of magical attacks (and heck GW could go to town giving things like Tzeentch demons magical effects on their models to help reinforce that they are spell casting ranged units not just holding their arms in the air and such)

Quick aside but relevant to the discussion at hand as a conceptual example of design.

On Custodes: All the Custodes need for more is to convert forge world resin into plastic, worlds will open. Also remove transport restrictions for SoS and AC because they’re the Talons of the Emperor. More SoS units would also be great. A HS role unit would be great.

On Knights: Giving Knights infantry has the same problem as giving Marines a Basilisk. You ruin what makes each army special by watering down their specialties.

Even a pure ObSec use only unit would be a problem because A) they’ll never keep without a knight babying them and B) a good chunk of the reason War Dogs and Armigers exist is to be native ObSec units.

On units having Bows and Chariots in 40K: When something is made out of magic, whether it be space magic or fantasy magic, lots of things work that don’t otherwise.

Could they use some alternative cosmetics for 40K? I’m not against it, but Beast Snaggas make chariots and beast riders work fine. They just aren’t (completely) space magic so they need a bit of a tech bent.

Same goes for Krieg and Attlian Riders (especially since they don’t have any inherent magic to fall back on).

On Daemons: While Daemons are meant to be only part of an army:

A) an unscientific look at AoS makes them seem more like 1/3 to 1/2 of an army rather than a 1/4.

B) Expanding units is difficult because they have to not only fit in Sci-Fi and Fantasy but not have any heavy overlap between the units that exclusively exist in each.

With that said I think it’s the opposite of impossible to do. Daemons don’t need to stand on their own in larger games, they can already work for 500 point games. Greater Daemons means they can push to 1,000 point games fine as well. It’s past that the lack of options hurts.

Even then, there should be reasons to go mono-god or undivided.

First though, I have my own requirements on what makes a “complete army”.

Bare minimum; 1 option for all 6 basic roles - HQ, Troop, DedTrans, Elite, FA and HS. As well as 1 named character.

I make exceptions if the army works differently, like with Votann and their split FA DedTrans hybrid thing.

But that’s more of the initial launch. From there it needs to have one option in the other slots, LoW, Flyer, Fortification as well as a Supreme Commander.

So based on what they have, Nurgle needs a HS option, Tzeentch needs a Fort. They can forgo transports but all could use a flyer. Getting their LoW options out of Resin would be nice but their Greater Daemons already sort of work like those.

My ideal though, is my Rule of 3 Options - it comes from my personal observations that three is the minimum number for there to be the perception of “plenty of choices”.

All have well more than 3 HQs, but only Slaanesh has three options for FA. Otherwise they mostly have just 1. However, because they are part of other armies simply but carefully pushing to have 2 options for every slot is just fine.

Besides trying to increase to 2 slots, I’d also like to see 1 option in each of the basic slots for unique undivided daemons. For a second HQ, let Daemon Princes be undivided again.

Further, Daemon Engines are used by Daemons, Khorne has whole areas of his realm dedicated to building them. Different ones from Marines? Fine.

But Daemon Engines are literally just war machines possessed by a daemon. They’re a cross unit IMO the same way Princes are.

Ideas for Khorne: Go back to the idea that Khorne just wants his minions to be at risk when fighting. The whole reason that he hated psykers at one point is because they could just sit back without being in danger in battle. That’s why he supposed to be cool with stuff like the Skull Cannon.

His daemons don’t even have to be short ranged or anything only, they just need to not be able to sit back and accomplish anything.

A FA unit that requires Line of Sight and for the target to not have the benefit of cover (by terrain) is one thought. That would, perhaps, force them to be out in the open more.

What a about unique kind it priestly HQ that uses litanies to inspire effects that are, somehow, between typical priest effects and psychic powers.

Or an elite unique that gains powerful “shooting” tokene whenever a model dies within a very short range of them.

Nurgle: Perhaps a greater focus on artillery. Maybe an engine that’s a mini-catapult.

And a new daemon in the same vein as the old Plague Hulk, just not a rip off of the Soul Grinder. A damage soaker sounds nice.

Nurgle also has Plague Toads and Poxriders in his legends section I believe. That’s 4 ideas.

Tzeentch: Rules wise, I’ve always thought that Tzeentch flame weapons should be more about random effects than just being better flame weapons.

Unfortunately, nothings coming to me for daemons. Everything I can think is already done, or should be done, by another Tzeentchian unit. Or it ends being something that would fit better with another god.

I can only offer conceptual ideas for Thousand Sons that I’ve had.

Failed Aspirant: Elite, single model unit. Part psyker but part Rubric, modified by curses and hexes by full sorcerers. A sort of possessed.

Basically, when it dies it changes into another unit based on what killed it. A psychic power? A shooting unit. By a ranged weapon? Melee unit. By a melee attack? Psychic unit. Other, such as a stratagem? Roll a D3.

Terminator bodyguard: Enhanced look out sir and/or heroic intervention. Rather than a good melee unit, it can soak melee damage well (somehow, by some degree) and uses dual pistols instead of melee weapons. Maybe some sort of short range teleport?

Daemon Engine that’s a hybrid of a magic carpet and an Egyptian cultist boat. Serves as a flyer and a transport.

A Tzaangor HQ made from the normal Tzaangor infantry box. That way you can A) take Memegors in a fluffy unit of 9. And B) you can make a small Thousandgor list without an AoR.

EDIT: Of course the moment I’m about to submit I finally come up with an idea or two. Oh well, I leave the rest up.

Elite daemon engine: single model (initially) and about dreadnought sized in my imagination. It’s a melee unit with a “degrading” stat line BUT instead of getting weaker stats it instead splits, from 1 model to 3, and from 3 to 9 (each middle form splits into three if it falls into its lower of two brackets).

The first form is good at being an anti-vehicle unit in general. Second form anti-heavy infantry and light vehicle. Final form, anti-infantry. All forms are pure melee.

The second catch is that it has some amount of worse defensive stats for what it is but a greater amount of natural daemon engine healing. This healing will bring back fallen models if all current models have full wounds. Brought back models will only have however many wounds would be left to heal in total.

If there is still healing left and all models are present and in full health, it restored to the previous version or form.

The final catch is that this healing, IIRC, happens in the Command Phase. And the splitting only happens in this same Phase. So you make a split instead of healing if the wound bracket is lower than the current form.

This prevents the unit from being un-killable.

Also I’m certain there’s a shorter, more concise way of conveying all that. But I’m feeling like I’ve worked on this one comment enough.

Slaanesh: An elite unit that does “gun-fu”. Something alternates between pistols and melee combat but has to do it stylistically somehow. Channeling the Devil May Cry game series here.

An elixir cart that offers choosable buffs but is limited to how much it can doll out per turn.

Maybe a daemon engine that is some sort of stage? It can tie Slaanesh to the Aeldari, specifically Harlequinns, but rather than a play it’s a demented concert. Each instrument has a different kind of ranged attack.

I would like to see Furies get a decent kit again. If they hadn't constantly nerfed Daemonic infantry, I'd also lobby for weaker horde undivided foot-sloggers, but now every foot Daemon is a weak horde of foot-sloggers.

 vict0988 wrote:
Daemons shouldn't have bows, catapults, guns, vehicles or human-sized and shaped infantry or cavalry, it's too mundane. Expanding other options and phasing out the formerly mentioned types could take Daemons to a higher level.

why not? Theyre physical manifestation of the human psyche, makes sense to take from what humans know/use

I have no problem with beastmen wielding magical bows or mundane guns in 40k. But bows and guns are made in the physical realm and are thus not of the warp, by having Daemons wield human weapons and ride chariots and mounts like a human would they become too human-like for my personal taste.

 KidCthulhu wrote:
I would like to see Furies get a decent kit again. If they hadn't constantly nerfed Daemonic infantry, I'd also lobby for weaker horde undivided foot-sloggers, but now every foot Daemon is a weak horde of foot-sloggers.

I am guessing you haven't seen the stat profiles in the most recent codex? They're pretty insane. T5 and a weapon that equates to a power axe is not weak.

 vict0988 wrote:
I have no problem with beastmen wielding magical bows or mundane guns in 40k. But bows and guns are made in the physical realm and are thus not of the warp, by having Daemons wield human weapons and ride chariots and mounts like a human would they become too human-like for my personal taste.

 KidCthulhu wrote:
I would like to see Furies get a decent kit again. If they hadn't constantly nerfed Daemonic infantry, I'd also lobby for weaker horde undivided foot-sloggers, but now every foot Daemon is a weak horde of foot-sloggers.

I am guessing you haven't seen the stat profiles in the most recent codex? They're pretty insane. T5 and a weapon that equates to a power axe is not weak.

Daemons already use weapons and ride mounts, so it’s not really that far departure.
But I think you can daemonafy most things.
Daemonettes could have spine shooting magical crossbow like weapons, with a bonus of each one made from one of that Daemonettes favourite mortal. Nether with enough personal power to rise that mortal up to even a equal.

I just don’t think it’s that hard for GW to do interesting stuff, and I feel that chaos has been so flandarised that they need the expansion. The gods are supposed to be stepping on each other’s toes, and not stuck in there niche themes.
Demons themselves can make there engines of war from flesh and bone molded with souls and the energy of chaos!

I can't help but think that some of the issues with Daemons stretches as far back as the Realms of Chaos books - even back then, I'm pretty sure the generic Daemons for each God were written about, and there have been few new genus of Daemons since then. If the Daemons we've known and... "loved" for 30-40 years had been written about merely as the most common entities serving each God, instead of being the be-all-and-end-all for each God, there might be less resistance to introducing new Daemon types over time.

The other elephant in the room these days is the crossover between AOS and 40k. While I think that most generic Daemons should probably have a place in both worlds, I do like that we're starting to see examples of characters that only exist in one setting - with the Twins in AOS being spawned from a specific event in the recent past of that timeline, it would be very odd for them to then appear in 40k, for example. Equally, a character who ascends/descends to Daemon prince status in the "now" timeline of 40k might not have a place in AOS.

+ + +

Side note on my earlier comment about LOW entries in Daemon armies - I was working off the MFM as a source for that, and there are no entries in the Codex: Chaos Daemons section about LOW Greater Daemons. While I recently picked up the CD Codex, I've not yet had time to sit down and give it a good read. My bad.

 vict0988 wrote:
I have no problem with beastmen wielding magical bows or mundane guns in 40k. But bows and guns are made in the physical realm and are thus not of the warp, by having Daemons wield human weapons and ride chariots and mounts like a human would they become too human-like for my personal taste.

so are bloodletter/plaguebearer's swords too human-like for your taste?

 vict0988 wrote:

I am guessing you haven't seen the stat profiles in the most recent codex? They're pretty insane. T5 and a weapon that equates to a power axe is not weak.

T5 means nothing and their "power axe" (with no strength bonus) tickles anything that isnt chaff

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
I have no problem with beastmen wielding magical bows or mundane guns in 40k. But bows and guns are made in the physical realm and are thus not of the warp, by having Daemons wield human weapons and ride chariots and mounts like a human would they become too human-like for my personal taste.

so are bloodletter/plaguebearer's swords too human-like for your taste?

 vict0988 wrote:

I am guessing you haven't seen the stat profiles in the most recent codex? They're pretty insane. T5 and a weapon that equates to a power axe is not weak.

T5 means nothing and their "power axe" (with no strength bonus) tickles anything that isnt chaff

Yes, you're wrong about PBs.

 vict0988 wrote:

Yes, you're wrong about PBs.

well, if you're having success with them , good for you. I honestly think theyre the weakest of all 4 lesser demons and i think they reaaaaaaally need the -1 damage that was stripped off last minute from them (and all of nurgle really)

Personally, yes, I do think 40k needs more daemons.

Specifically, I second the notion that we need daemons with sci-fi daemon guns; that are distinct to 40k and separate from fantasy.


First off, there is no reason the daemons can't or shouldn't have ranged weapons: they control forges that make armor and weapons, and the Soul Grinder as is has guns on it. As far as I understand, the lack thereof is essentially just because the faction is cross-ported from fantasy and they haven't/don't want to add anything that can't go back across the line.

Second, mechanically, daemons are the only true melee army. Every other CQC army is distinguished by having the option to have good CQC troops, while the Shooting armies are distinguished by their lack thereof. Daemons, uniquely, have a list design paradigm where they can conceivable not have access to shooting at all. Giving them access to ranged troops would help ease the margins of game balance, and also make them more fun in general.

Finally, demons with demon guns are cool. The cyberdemon from Doom is cool. I want that.



I might propose that each god should have a Ranged Troop, a Ranged Elite/Midsize, and a Greater Daemon Gun Upgrade that may not require replacing their basic melee weapon, which should across them cover anti-infantry and anti-tank, and should be characterful for the god.



Like, maybe Khorne could have LMG infantry and maybe a pistolized artillery/battle cannon/demolisher [something that would have been S8+, AP3 or better, Large Blast] or a huge rotary cannon for the Bloodthirster's non-axe hand, to fit the theme of wanton carnage and collateral damage.

Slaanesh could have like maybe like high-tech looking Sniper Seekers and a Hypervelocity Gun like the Vanq or Railcannon to replace the Keeper's Claws, for a theme of precision and skill and grace

Nurgle could have like grenade launchers/knee mortars for the plaguebearers, and maybe a rocket battery or something for the Great Unclean One fitting with a siege/attrition theme and like "simple" weapons that can be made from a rusty piece of metal and some explosives.

Tzeentch already has shooting troops and elites and could use some melee troops and maybe an AT option for the Lord of Change.

Dudeface wrote:

If to take the Khorne Daemons and WE books and slap them together into "forces of Khorne" it fixes diversity issues with both parts into a greater whole. The same is true theoretically of the other gods.

The Mutalith apparently makes a Khorne monster and GW couldn't even bother to add it to the World Eaters codex LMAO

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

If to take the Khorne Daemons and WE books and slap them together into "forces of Khorne" it fixes diversity issues with both parts into a greater whole. The same is true theoretically of the other gods.

The Mutalith apparently makes a Khorne monster and GW couldn't even bother to add it to the World Eaters codex LMAO

Yes, the imaginatively named 'Slaughterbrute'. Would have been a nice change from various Eightbloodeners, Bloodeighters and Blood-blooders.

Back when it was released for 8E Warriors of Chaos, the Slaughterbrute was just a generic Chaos monster and was not explicitly Khornate. Funnily enough, neither was the Mutalith explicitly Tzeentch. Of course it's very easy to imagine something named 'Slaughterbrute' becoming rebranded and shoehorned into the WE Codex in the same manner.

Come to think of it, the Mutalith is the only kit I can think of from a modern multi-build GW kit where 1 build is supported in a game but the other is not. It is essentially the only kit that it is possible to build 'wrong', as far as I know.

I'm not a Daemon player, so this will be an outsider's perspective.

Daemons, at least to me, seem an odd army in general. They seem intended to work as a single force (you know, being in the same book and all), as they generally cover different bases and have different strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, the mechanics seem to discourage this, and the wildly different aesthetics make it very likely that players won't want to play with all the gods. I mean, in order to play all four, I would have to be a fan of:
- Green, bloated, plague-ridden models (Nurgle)
- Blue, warped, bird-like creatures (Tzeentch)
- Red, bloody, horned-devils (Khorne)
- Purple, half-boobed, bondage-fetishists (Slaanesh)

That's quite the range of models and themes.

I suppose, to me, it seems to make more sense how it's done in the AoS books - where all the Tzeentch units (both demon and mortal) are placed in the same book, all the Slaanesh units are placed in the same book etc. Otherwise, if the Daemons are going to all be lumped into the same book, there should probably be more encouragement to use them together as a cohesive force (so that you're not playing 1/4 of a codex).

 Overread wrote:
I fully agree though - no more leaders! GW has loaded up AoS with MASSES of leader models.

Yeah, it's more than a little weird that, say, Slaanesh has 50% more units in its HQ section than in the rest of its sections combined.

 Overread wrote:
I also think GW are breaking the AoS/40K reliance - AoS already has demonic leader models and infantry that don't cross over. There will still be cross overs and then there will be kits like the Prince that don't just cross over but have game specific optional parts.

Given how many kits are used in both games, it seems a shame that almost all of them are clearly made exclusively for AoS (or WHFB before it). Even if they don't get guns in 40k, it seems like they should have different armour or different styles of weapon or some other acknowledgement that the setting is entirely different.

Mozzamanx wrote:
Back when it was released for 8E Warriors of Chaos, the Slaughterbrute was just a generic Chaos monster and was not explicitly Khornate. Funnily enough, neither was the Mutalith explicitly Tzeentch. Of course it's very easy to imagine something named 'Slaughterbrute' becoming rebranded and shoehorned into the WE Codex in the same manner.

How are they treated today in AOS, out of interest?

@Overread - I'm aware of some Daemonic characters that don't cross over from AOS, but what daemonic infantry hasn't crossed over? The only one I can think of might be the Furies, but that could be due to them being Undivided - I can't think of a God-specific unit that doesn't appear in both.

My headcanon is that the warp is multi dimensional and they are the exact same daemons in all the settings and GW will not talk me out of it!

 Dysartes wrote:

How are they treated today in AOS, out of interest?

I don't play AoS but as far as I can tell from 1D4Chan, both units have ended up in the Slaves to Darkness book as Undivided by default. The Slaughterbrute can optionally gain the Khorne keyword, and the Mutalith can be Tzeentch.

So, Question: Were Furies really removed from the 9th edition Daemons Codex? I heard that, but I haven't really followed 40k since the abominable CSM codex.

On the AoS/40K/WHFB thing?

I kind of like it how it is. Good chunk is probably just my comfort zone, as Daemons now are now Daemons have been since I first got wind of Warhammer.

There’s something almost comfortingly archaic about them. They’re the demons Bosch. The trope they’ve always been outside of Warhammer to my eyes.

Them having anthropomorphic qualities has always been explained away by their form being informed by mortal legend and perception, with some crossover to the point it gets a bit Chicken and Egg (do Bloodletters look like Devils because humanity, or do human Devils look like Bloodletters and so on and so forth)

But I also agree the sheer insanity of Warhammer (as a whole!) is such it can easily accommodate Proper Bonkers Old Testament Description Of Angels daemons.

 Dysartes wrote:

Mozzamanx wrote:
Back when it was released for 8E Warriors of Chaos, the Slaughterbrute was just a generic Chaos monster and was not explicitly Khornate. Funnily enough, neither was the Mutalith explicitly Tzeentch. Of course it's very easy to imagine something named 'Slaughterbrute' becoming rebranded and shoehorned into the WE Codex in the same manner.

How are they treated today in AOS, out of interest?

@Overread - I'm aware of some Daemonic characters that don't cross over from AOS, but what daemonic infantry hasn't crossed over? The only one I can think of might be the Furies, but that could be due to them being Undivided - I can't think of a God-specific unit that doesn't appear in both.

When I say demonic units that don't cross over to 40K I'm mostly talking about the mortal infantry which have been added to the AoS demonic armies. Blissbarb Seekers and the like which only appear in an army of Slaanesh. These are models that haven't made the jump. To me they say that GW is happy to have demon based models in AoS that don't jump to 40K. this opens the gates for expanding units in AoS. Perhaps Slaanesh gets a multi-winged flying serpent; perhaps Khorne gets some big bruising beast etc....

Meanwhile I'd hope that 40K might see similar things; a huge techo-raptor of the skies for Slaanesh etc....

Some might be combined kits like the Prince model, but others might just be unique ideas that fit the different sci-fi and fantasy settings.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
First off, there is no reason the daemons can't or shouldn't have ranged weapons

There absolutely is: demons are the incarnation of raw emotion, not a normal civilization. A Khorne demon isn't just a being that happens to have picked up a weapon and decided to fight, it is the purest expression of anger and bloodlust and desire to rip apart the enemy with teeth and claws, devour its flesh, and bathe in its hot blood. A Slaanesh demon doesn't use practical weapons to kill the enemy from miles away, it has a desperate need to flay the enemy alive, turn its enemy's bones into a harp strung with its own entrails, and drive everyone on the battlefield mad with sounds no mortal mind can comprehend. Etc. Demons want to make death personal and any conventional battlefield objective is a distant secondary concern compared to expressing those emotions.

This is why the best representation for demons, if they are to exist in 40k at all instead of being limited to a more appropriate setting in the horror genre, is to be summoned monsters for a conventional army of marines and cultists/traitors. Then all of the design space limitations on demons are fine, there are plenty of non-demon units that can cover all the necessary roles.

Blissbarb are Mortals though?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Blissbarb are Mortals though?

They are, I'm purely counting them as "demonic" because they are only accessible within a demonic army. They are part of the Hedonites of Slaanesh and they are riding huge exalted seeker demon mounts.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
See, Chaos Daemons and their archetypes are so old, they pre-date 40K. And since their proper (wonderful) debut in the Realm of Chaos books? They’ve not really had much love.

Gnolls make good demons, and they pre-date, but not sure if there would be an IP conflict since they were Citadel before Games Workshop with TSR.

http://www.sodemons.com/rhadd/add2monsters/add55gnolls/index.htm
http://www.solegends.com/rsadd/add55/index.htm
http://www.solegends.com/citads1985b/198510/fly198510f-add-01.htm
http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/ADD55_-_Gnolls

Pretty sure this was stated earlier in the thread, but personally I feel like daemons just "fit better" when they're rolled in with chaos marines/mortals. Slaanesh especially has a really organic fit (hehe) with the shooty noise marines complementing the stabby daemonettes. Tzeentch had a similar thing going on with elite, quality of shooting rubricae and objective camping pink/blue/brimstone horrors, although cultists and tzaangor arguably step on the toes of that particular combo. (I still love tzaangor though.)

Daemons as a standalone faction seems tricky to me. And that's speaking as someone with a small little Slaaneshi daemon army. Undivided, the army feels kind of samey and limited; too many unit strying to do the same basic job, and not much variety in how the army plays. So you see the army tend towards monobuild where people just take whatever units are best at a given job, and you see kind of meh army-wide mechanics like the warpstorm table where it's just "lolrandom" because the only thing uniting the army is "chaos."

Monogod armies tend to have a lot of overlap in what the cavalry/beast/troop units do, so again you end up with samey armies.

And both monogod and undivided armies feel weirdly limited in what they can do. I want to build thematic, dark fairy tale characters with flavorful abilities. I want units that represent every nook and cranny of a chaos god's portfolio. I want a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and weapons. But in practice, we don't really get any of that because the powers all boil down to one or two gimmicks of each god, the 'no model no rules" approach to the game means that your units will only ever have the weird anatomoy/powers that are included in the GW kits. Adding more kits would help with some of that, but I feel like I'd still end up wanting more.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
So, Question: Were Furies really removed from the 9th edition Daemons Codex? I heard that, but I haven't really followed 40k since the abominable CSM codex.

yep, only codex to lose options and gain nothing in exchange

New thought occurs.

With Arks of Omen, what if Chaos is about to get a 5th Major God? Or indeed a pantheon of lesser, but growing, Gods?

The suggested flesh metal armed Daemons may have a more “natural” under Vashtorr?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
New thought occurs.

With Arks of Omen, what if Chaos is about to get a 5th Major God? Or indeed a pantheon of lesser, but growing, Gods?

The suggested flesh metal armed Daemons may have a more “natural” under Vashtorr?

Meh, i'd rather they add stuff to existing gods

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
New thought occurs.

With Arks of Omen, what if Chaos is about to get a 5th Major God? Or indeed a pantheon of lesser, but growing, Gods?

The suggested flesh metal armed Daemons may have a more “natural” under Vashtorr?

I can't see GW adding a 5th god.
At least not right now.

But I can see them steadily adding more demonsmith style units and perhaps creating that as a sub-army or even army in its own right. A counterpoint to Mechanicus.

With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

I honestly can not believe that people have a problem with Daemons with guns when we have such awesome examples in the form of Doom. Ritualistic bindings of Daemons to machines in 40k is about as 40k gets. Daemon engines are Daemons possessing machines, why is this such a hard hurdle for some people to cross?

I would love to see a short range shooting unit for Khorne, some kind of 12" range mid power weapon fluffed out to be a flechette cannon or if your imagination is really just so limited how about we go with a man portable skullcannon?

They need to figure out what they really want Daemons to be as an army and I think that expanding each god is the way to go. They have functioned as separate armies for a few editions now with absolutely no synergy between units from different gods. The differences between gods is far more pronounced than separate chapters/craft worlds/etc.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:


Ritualistic bindings of Daemons to machines in 40k is about as 40k gets. Daemon engines are Daemons possessing machines, why is this such a hard hurdle for some people to cross?

Because the act of mortals merging a daemon to a physical machine isn't a daemon per se, that's why they tend to belong in the chaos marine book(s). The only real "machine" as such in the daemons army is the soul grinder, which is where the daemon has burst out of the machine.

They need to figure out what they really want Daemons to be as an army and I think that expanding each god is the way to go. They have functioned as separate armies for a few editions now with absolutely no synergy between units from different gods. The differences between gods is far more pronounced than separate chapters/craft worlds/etc.

I think they know what they want Daemons to be, but I don't think it's a stand alone army any more.

Dudeface wrote:


I think they know what they want Daemons to be, but I don't think it's a stand alone army any more.

I would mostly agree with that. I'd guess they regret making them stand-alone (from a fluff and a marketing/game/rules standpoint) but the genie is out of the bottle now, so they're stuck with it. I think Daemons were moved to stand-alone in a different design paradigm - aimed at more rank and file unit level vs the central larger Primarch/Greater Daemon/Daemon Price/ Big Walking Suit figurehead paradigm - but some people have made a Daemon army and they can't afford to squat too many armies.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

Vashtorr does present that possibility too, even (as I reckon) his ascension to Godhood is thwarted.

Just having an independent “natural” daemon is a welcome change to the status quo.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

Vashtorr does present that possibility too, even (as I reckon) his ascension to Godhood is thwarted.

Just having an independent “natural” daemon is a welcome change to the status quo.

Thwarted yes but I think he will end up with an empire and a very important position in the galaxy like Abbadon has. It’s already confirmed that he makes things like soils grinders and has provided demon engines to heretic armies so, like bile, he will have a negotiated safety as long as he performs a certain role. It would be disappointing to have the head of the dark mech and only have the units in the CSM codex available for its army

mrFickle wrote:


Thwarted yes but I think he will end up with an empire and a very important position in the galaxy like Abbadon has. It’s already confirmed that he makes things like soils grinders and has provided demon engines to heretic armies so, like bile, he will have a negotiated safety as long as he performs a certain role. It would be disappointing to have the head of the dark mech and only have the units in the CSM codex available for its army

He's also a potential gateway to Perturabo.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

i used to think this until i started playing AoS, a well made "Monogod" codex feels suuuuper fluffy and amazingly fun to play. It's a shame the 40k and AoS teams don't seem to talk to each other at all

Alternatively you could go play AoS and stop trying to ruin my favorite army for me?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Put all of it into one book. CSMs, Daemons, Renegades and Heretics. Allow them all to mish-mash together like the Ruinous Powers intended.

Edit: Oh yeah, throw Beastmen in there too.

I wouldn't mind this though.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

i used to think this until i started playing AoS, a well made "Monogod" codex feels suuuuper fluffy and amazingly fun to play. It's a shame the 40k and AoS teams don't seem to talk to each other at all

Alternatively you could go play AoS and stop trying to ruin my favorite army for me?

I'd suggest the best option is nobody runs a false dichotomy here and they could write it like Dark Angels. You can make a mono-"wing" list, you can make a partnered "wing" list, or you can make an all-"wing" list. That way he can run his mono-subfaction, and you can run yours your way? Instead of fighting with each other so that one particular favorite becomes the "approved" way to play, push back at GW until everyone gets several approved ways to play.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Nope. We need fewer demons, not more. Making a WHFB army on round bases into a 40k army was a huge mistake by GW. It sucks for mechanics reasons, it sucks for lore reasons, and demons really need to go back to being a summoning option alongside marine and cultist/traitor forces.

Consider playing a different game then.

Breton wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

i used to think this until i started playing AoS, a well made "Monogod" codex feels suuuuper fluffy and amazingly fun to play. It's a shame the 40k and AoS teams don't seem to talk to each other at all

Alternatively you could go play AoS and stop trying to ruin my favorite army for me?

I'd suggest the best option is nobody runs a false dichotomy here and they could write it like Dark Angels. You can make a mono-"wing" list, you can make a partnered "wing" list, or you can make an all-"wing" list. That way he can run his mono-subfaction, and you can run yours your way? Instead of fighting with each other so that one particular favorite becomes the "approved" way to play, push back at GW until everyone gets several approved ways to play.

That's already an option though, but if Daemons are in 4 books then being a Daemons player becomes a non-option.

As documented elsewhere, I’m not a big fan of Chaos being regimented into separate books. The appeal to me has always been fielding a fairly riotous hodge podge of Chaotic Followers and Daemons.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As documented elsewhere, I’m not a big fan of Chaos being regimented into separate books. The appeal to me has always been fielding a fairly riotous hodge podge of Chaotic Followers and Daemons.

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well. They've got ranged artillery, close combat heavies, tanks, tarpits, glass cannons and more. Perhaps a few more ranged options would be nice ,but otherwise they really do cover all the bases really well. As a combined force its quite varied.
So trying to add more types in there gets tricky without things tripping over each other. Whilst you can do that its not elegant and can lead to situations where there's a few models no one ever takes simply because they are not as good as something else which does the same role, but better.
The other issue is that if you start adding more you can lose the theme of the army as a whole as it becomes more min-max possible.

When you fragment demons into 4 separate armies you gain the bonus that you create gaps. Slaanesh and Nurgle suddenly lose a lot of ranged support from Khorne and Tzeentch is a really clear an easy to see gap. You can also pick and choose, eg Slaanesh might get a ranged option that focuses on being a sniper whilst Nurgle gets one that's focused more on artillery etc...


Of course fragmentation dilutes the concept of the demons acting as a single host. Lore wise this is actually rare outside of super-major conflicts and most often in the lore and stories we see one or two demonic forces acting in alliance with each other. So its interesting that whilst game wise we've had a mish mash for ages; in the lore and stories we often don't see that outside of the utterly major conflicts (and even then it can fall into in-fighting very easily)


Personally I think the best approach would be giving each god their own army with demons and mortals (which GW has done for AoS and is slowly doing for 40K). Then dissolve the Demon book itself and roll that concept into a core chaos army with some special modifications for an allied force. So basically the old concept of a demonic hodgepodge becomes a sub-army option with some limits; whilst each god goes from being a sub-army within the demons book, into being its own full fledged army

 Overread wrote:

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well.

That can usually be solved with animosity - Khorne-Tzeentch and Nurgle-Slaanesh

Breton wrote:

 Overread wrote:

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well.

That can usually be solved with animosity - Khorne-Tzeentch and Nurgle-Slaanesh

Modern gamers cant deal with rules that have drawbacks or *gasp* are entirely negative.

Dai wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Overread wrote:

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well.

That can usually be solved with animosity - Khorne-Tzeentch and Nurgle-Slaanesh

Modern gamers cant deal with rules that have drawbacks or *gasp* are entirely negative.

While I do think it deserves ridicule it's not too hard to work around it. Make Wraith constructs WS/BS 4+ and give them an ability that gives them +1 to hit while near a psyker instead of base 3+ with -1 while outside range of a psyker. The problem is when players start saying that anything other than BS 3+ is trash, there's really no saving them at that point, which is what we saw with Daemon Engines and what we are now seeing with Plague Bearers. Plague Bearers would get a negligible boost in killiness from an extra WS, but it really matters to some players that all their units are at least WS 3+, if that became a thing then I'm sure we'd see much more clamour for BS 2+ unit.

A Tzeentch-Khorne combo could be called an Ensorceled Blade Host, Tzeentch-Slaanesh Forbidden Sorcery Host, Khorne-Nurgle Tainted Blood Host, Nurgle-Slaanesh Venereal Disease Host, make a chapter tactic for each one. Alternatively, allow some character buffs or psychic powers to apply to Daemons that don't have animosity towards the character or seek to create organic benefits to fluffy armies and downsides to unfluffy armies, I don't think that'd be possible without starting Daemons from scratch, because having a tanky frontline to combo with your shooting units is pretty nice.

 vict0988 wrote:

Dai wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Overread wrote:

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well.

That can usually be solved with animosity - Khorne-Tzeentch and Nurgle-Slaanesh

Modern gamers cant deal with rules that have drawbacks or *gasp* are entirely negative.

While I do think it deserves ridicule it's not too hard to work around it. Make Wraith constructs WS/BS 4+ and give them an ability that gives them +1 to hit while near a psyker instead of base 3+ with -1 while outside range of a psyker. The problem is when players start saying that anything other than BS 3+ is trash, there's really no saving them at that point, which is what we saw with Daemon Engines and what we are now seeing with Plague Bearers. Plague Bearers would get a negligible boost in killiness from an extra WS, but it really matters to some players that all their units are at least WS 3+, if that became a thing then I'm sure we'd see much more clamour for BS 2+ unit.

A Tzeentch-Khorne combo could be called an Ensorceled Blade Host, Tzeentch-Slaanesh Forbidden Sorcery Host, Khorne-Nurgle Tainted Blood Host, Nurgle-Slaanesh Venereal Disease Host, make a chapter tactic for each one. Alternatively, allow some character buffs or psychic powers to apply to Daemons that don't have animosity towards the character or seek to create organic benefits to fluffy armies and downsides to unfluffy armies, I don't think that'd be possible without starting Daemons from scratch, because having a tanky frontline to combo with your shooting units is pretty nice.

I was actually referring to the old rule where Khorne couldn't be taken with Tzeentch etc. Not the Ork animosity rule

When could Khorne not be fielded alongside Tzeentch?

As far back as I can remember, the pairings of God's who wouldn't work alongside each other (generally) were Khorne/Slaanesh and Nurgle/Tzeentch.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

yeah but those would all not be demons (except the furies).
If its a mortal with some mutations, its not a demon IMO.

i want new purely demonic units

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

yeah but those would all not be demons (except the furies).
If its a mortal with some mutations, its not a demon IMO.

i want new purely demonic units

Not even if its a daemon wearing bits of a person, like a Flayed One? Like the flesh of the mortal has been taken apart and put back together to make a form that suits the daemons needs, clothing and weapons included.

And I would argue that the Accursed Cultists should be a daemon unit. These guys are little more than a daemon with a human face (sometimes) arbitrarily placed somewhere on it. How it isn't daemon enough to be a daemon is beyond me.

 Afrodactyl wrote:


Not even if its a daemon wearing bits of a person, like a Flayed One? Like the flesh of the mortal has been taken apart and put back together to make a form that suits the daemons needs, clothing and weapons included.

And I would argue that the Accursed Cultists should be a daemon unit. These guys are little more than a daemon with a human face (sometimes) arbitrarily placed somewhere on it. How it isn't daemon enough to be a daemon is beyond me.

nope, to me theyre still mortals (tho they 100% should have the demon keyword)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As documented elsewhere, I’m not a big fan of Chaos being regimented into separate books. The appeal to me has always been fielding a fairly riotous hodge podge of Chaotic Followers and Daemons.

Yeah, I'd rather see Chaos put into a single book and how you build your force is done kind of with a chart, with the four gods+undivided along one axis and the type of forces you can take along the other (Chaos Champions/Space marines, Chaos Mortals (traitor guard, cultists, and Dark Mech), and Chaos Daemons), and wherever your forces fit into the chart grants certain bonuses, based on how loose or strict you've made your army. So you'd get stronger bonuses for a single force in a mono-god faction than you would for a force of, say, Khorne CSMs with Nurgle and Tzeentch daemons.

Indeed.

I accept it may not be a commonly shared opinion, but for me, if any army needn’t follow established FOC, it’s Chaos!

And Nids to a certain degree, as I really like their ‘tree’ system from 2nd Ed Epic.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

I accept it may not be a commonly shared opinion, but for me, if any army needn’t follow established FOC, it’s Chaos!

And Nids to a certain degree, as I really like their ‘tree’ system from 2nd Ed Epic.

id say the whole game could do with no FOC honestly

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

I accept it may not be a commonly shared opinion, but for me, if any army needn’t follow established FOC, it’s Chaos!

And Nids to a certain degree, as I really like their ‘tree’ system from 2nd Ed Epic.

id say the whole game could do with no FOC honestly

It could, but then the BRB itself would have to even more so reward diverse armies.

Breton wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

I accept it may not be a commonly shared opinion, but for me, if any army needn’t follow established FOC, it’s Chaos!

And Nids to a certain degree, as I really like their ‘tree’ system from 2nd Ed Epic.

id say the whole game could do with no FOC honestly

It could, but then the BRB itself would have to even more so reward diverse armies.

no FoC doesn't mean there couldnt be an anti-spam system

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Breton wrote:

It could, but then the BRB itself would have to even more so reward diverse armies.

no FoC doesn't mean there couldnt be an anti-spam system

Right, I didn't say there couldn't, I even suggested one.

There’s always been some kind of balancing limitations in army design. Except for AoS at launch of course.

Overall I like the FOC. But I just don’t feel One Size Fits All. Some forces in the Galaxy are just….different.

Chaos and Orks for instance, background wise, are groups of Warbands, rather than formal militaries. Rogue Trader reflected this, as did at least 2nd Ed Epic.

But 40K, ever since 3rd Ed has tried to hammer every army around the same shape. And I’m not convinced it’s worked.

There have been the odd exception, such as Knights and Dark Eldar. But those are just minor tweaks to established FOC standards.

I think as armies got more divers a generic FOC did start to fail. I recall Tyranids having issues because all their specialists were crammed into Elite slots and with the limits on that it meant you really had a hard time taking enough specialists for multi-roles.

I think that's the main issue with the old FOC - the game outgrew it and GW didn't really know how best to adapt it. We went through the phase where we shifted from 1 FOC being standard to taking multiples, which kind of worked until subfactions got thrown into the mix and we have crazy situations of min-max setups with each army having multiple subfactions in at the same time.

I do agree that the concept of a FOC or other system for enforcing a level of management and restriction alongside points, can be used to great effect both for balance and to create armies that "feel" like armies. To have variety and options on the table and such.

Whilst I’ve no relevant in-game experience, I feel the shift in 8th Ed to “everything can now harm everything” is good reason to loosen up FOC stuff.

In 7th for instance, Imperial Knights were, aha, a nightmare, because they were immune to the majority of small arms fire, and once stuck into combat it only made things worse.

Granted into 8th and 9th the chances of massed Lasguns dropping an intact Knight are really low - but I think most of us would do a Cain and take little chance over no chance, every single time.

Likewise multiple wound weapons returning have taken the sting out of facing Nidzilla type stuff. It’s still a seemingly pokey list, but now the Nid player can’t be sure that pair of Lascannon over there simply can’t kill the untouched Carnifex. I mean the chances are reasonable, sure, but it’s just not the Certain Thing it once was.

Yes there will be not necessarily unjustified concerns that army specific FOC will be open to abuse. But I’d argue all it’s doing is changing what an FOC abusing list looks like.

But as I said, I’ve no modern, relevant experience. Please keep that in mind in responding, as I’m fully aware I may be talking utter mince! It’s proper, honest, ignorance. Not wilful ignorance.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Whilst I’ve no relevant in-game experience, I feel the shift in 8th Ed to “everything can now harm everything” is good reason to loosen up FOC stuff.

In 7th for instance, Imperial Knights were, aha, a nightmare, because they were immune to the majority of small arms fire, and once stuck into combat it only made things worse.

Granted into 8th and 9th the chances of massed Lasguns dropping an intact Knight are really low - but I think most of us would do a Cain and take little chance over no chance, every single time.

Likewise multiple wound weapons returning have taken the sting out of facing Nidzilla type stuff. It’s still a seemingly pokey list, but now the Nid player can’t be sure that pair of Lascannon over there simply can’t kill the untouched Carnifex. I mean the chances are reasonable, sure, but it’s just not the Certain Thing it once was.

Yes there will be not necessarily unjustified concerns that army specific FOC will be open to abuse. But I’d argue all it’s doing is changing what an FOC abusing list looks like.

But as I said, I’ve no modern, relevant experience. Please keep that in mind in responding, as I’m fully aware I may be talking utter mince! It’s proper, honest, ignorance. Not wilful ignorance.

Some of that is also Datasheet design problems. Not everything in the Nid list needed to be an Elite, as opposed to a Fast Attack or something. I'm not opposed to keeping the BRB FOC - and I'm not opposed to adding one or two (sub)Faction specific FOCs for just that army - similar to what they were doing in what? 5th? 6th? 7th? They all tend to meld together. The one that had a Ravenwing Patrol Unit of 6 bikes, an Attack Bike, and a Landspeeder. That also turned Ravenwing into troops for Ravenwing Dets and Terminators into troops for Deathwing Dets. (Sub)Faction FOC/Dets allows them to provide for the non-standard fluffy lists with bonuses and drawbacks specific to that list - they're trying to do it with Armies of Reknown but it's been pretty hit and miss - plus they rarely work for the (Sub)Faction. For example, the all phobos one SORT OF worked for Ravenguard but didn't let you take the Assault Marine type bodies that were the other half of their flavor. The AOO Det is trying to fix it while keeping all the problems of the generic approach.

Every edition I try and make a few of the same "Black Library" armies - the ones that are in the fluff (either an actual black library book, or in the fluff in the codex etc) but are wildly out of phase with the BRB FOC: The Spear of Macragge, a Double Wing DA army with the bikers as Homers for the Terminators, maybe some Wild Riders, and some Iyanden Wraith hordes. If I were doing it, I'd take that as an Army of Reknown thing - put them in the Codex and add the special rules that make it work into that AOR. You can only take Units A, B, C, D, W, X, Y, And Z. These X, Y, and Z, units count as Troops instead of Elite/FA/HS. These units can be taken as Elite AND/OR HS (Think Space Wolves Dreads).

I think every Faction should have at least two distinctly different viable lists - by distinctly different I don't mean swapping a Chap for a Cap. I mean 50 baseline Infantry models or 30 Tougher than Baseline models (changing the numbers for average PPM) - Iyanden can do Pirate Guardians, or they can do Wraithguard Guardians. Goffs could do an anvil of choppa boys, or a hammer of MANZ - or a smaller hammer and anvil of both. The point is, there should be more than one way to skin a Termagant and the AOR's either breaking or supporting/rewarding a couple fluffy lists in the codex/supplements would be a great way to do it. We've already seen they are not a way to make Reivers good.

Honestly, I think a more diverse version of the 30k Rites of War system could work. Want to do nid Monster mash? Make it so you can take multiple Tyrants, for every tyrant you can take a unit of hive-guard of troops, some of the big monsters can be made into elites or FA, etc Want armored fist? Make Vets troops when in a chimera, make Russ's fast Attack, etc.

As long as it doesn't just hand out free crap like 7th ed formations I think it can work.

7th Ed Formations biggest sin was Not Being Equally Dished Out.

Space Marines of course could take set stuff, and get all their upgrades for free. That in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing - until you compare it to other Factions, some of whom it felt “if you take all this stuff, your general can wear this rather fetching Ostrich feather, but only at a jaunty angle”.

Rites of War seem solid, and indeed they all have drawbacks to speccing in so heavily. But remember Heresy is predominantly Marine vs Marine, where barring a mere handful of units unique to a given Legion, everyone is pulling from a common pool of units. And again, most of the Rites of War are universal options.

Applying it to 40K is a different story, because you already have quite diverse forces.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
7th Ed Formations biggest sin was Not Being Equally Dished Out.

And/Or Not APPEARING to be equally dished out. Taking the double Demi Company was extremely rigid and funneled a lot of points into substandard or duplicative stuff.

Space Marines of course could take set stuff, and get all their upgrades for free. That in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing - until you compare it to other Factions, some of whom it felt “if you take all this stuff, your general can wear this rather fetching Ostrich feather, but only at a jaunty angle”.

Rites of War seem solid, and indeed they all have drawbacks to speccing in so heavily. But remember Heresy is predominantly Marine vs Marine, where barring a mere handful of units unique to a given Legion, everyone is pulling from a common pool of units. And again, most of the Rites of War are universal options.

Applying it to 40K is a different story, because you already have quite diverse forces.

No, the biggest problem with formations was that while most of them were hot garbage, a few were insanely OP, which meant that a lot of units became either effectively compulsory because they were required for the good formations (Tomb Blades), or were unjustifiable because they were restricted to trash formations (Annihilation Barges, for example).

Also, formations were an extra level of bloat which added nothing but MoAr RulEz to the game.