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Background info, for anyone unfamiliar with the new Chaos Daemons codex:

1. All units Deep Strike
2. Split army into 2 halves pre-game, choose one half. Roll a dice. If the dice is 3+ you deep strike the half you chose on the first turn and the rest trickle in, otherwise you deep strike the other half first turn and the half you wanted trickles in as normal.

My question, directed to those who intend to play a Chaos Daemons army, if there are any out there:

Will you:

A. Build two groups of units that basically do the same thing, so the dice roll is irrelevant.

Or:

B. Build a group you prefer to have drop first and a group you prefer to have drop second, and hope the dice rolls give you the one you want.

Or.

AB. some answer intended to be the best of both worlds.

In Hobby tournaments and campaign play, I'll go with option B. When playing in 'Ard Tournaments I will attempt to split my army so that either side will be equally effective at the start.

I am not sure, to be honest. Here's an interesting supplementary question (which is what makes it difficult for me to make up my mind): when playing against a Daemon army, which option, A or B, would you rather your opponent chose? Does it make sense if you'd choose the same option regardless of whether you're playing with or against the Daemons?

I lost my first few tries to a demon army, then I got ties, and now I hand it it's ass.

You pretty much always run the army in duality, even in 'friendly' play.

I'd say probably A but it depends on whether these daemons can assault after they deepstrike like their generic step-children in the CSM codex.

On a side note, if deepstrike is handled as rumored in 5ed then how many people will drop their daemon armies like red headed step children. Way too easy to loose a good portion of that half-army first turn, then be forced to trickle in the remaining game.

Wait ... that's how the army works? Can you deep strike anywhere but only assault off of an icon?

Cause that's how I originally hoped it would be then heard I was wrong. DS-ing everything is nutty in the extreme.

- Salvage

EDIT

To answer my own redundant question, yes that's apparently how it works. And no assaulting after any kind of DS. Blerg.

A truly chaotic player (or one who would rather win big or have a very cinematic loss) would chose option B. A might be smarter, but probably more boring after playing it out a few times.

They can't assault off deep-strike, at all.

It goes:

Half on round one
Members of the other half which roll 4+ on round 2
Those still out which roll 3+ on round 3
etc...according to normal reserve rules.

The army is, generically, very killy but very shootable, with very limited shooting of its own and few ways to handle vehicles. I should emphasize "very killy" though, rending and power weapons are everywhere.

I have yet to play or see played a 40k demon army, but my theory is as follows:

attempt to put your large units with icons down first. Since icons are so expensive you can't afford to invest for every unit, but should have at least 2. Basically make sure each half has a decent chance of surviving a shooting phase, either through sheer numbers or toughness+wounds/armor. Another option is to have one icon in each half, to ensure you have one on the table come turn 2.

This is why I think nurgle and tzneetch will be the strongest armies. Nurgle has the toughness to survive a turn doing nothing while tzneetch has the shooting to minimize it. However, if you can get deamonettes down and moving they are going to wreck everything.

Demonettes are rumored to be pretty cheap, so spamming them and getting as much lash toting models will probably be one common build until 5ed (eg pretty much A).

Plague bearers might work too depending on how cheap they are and if the upgrades for the champ make him more killy. Might even be the best choice under the circumstances, considering they can take a ton of abuse.

I don't know about this army. Up til now, I've been very excited about the prospects -- partly from a modeling point of view, and partly out of the hope of recapturing some of the chaos fluffiness I lost when GW axed my LatD army, then bled my CSM army of much of its essence. A demon army, I had hoped, would give me something new, flavorful, and reasonably competitive to sink my teeth into.

But can an army with (predominantly) 5+ saves, limited shooting power, and limited mobility really be consistently and flexibly competitive? I was assuming that the army's deepstriking capability would provide some mobility. But if I have to deepstrike in frozen clumps, weather shooting for a turn with 5+ armor saves, then walk toward my enemy in the hope of doing some damage .... not a formula for success. And the rumored revised rules for deepstriking coming out in September make this army even less tactically promising.

I'll try things out on the table. The whole army concept is so strategically different that it's hard to predict how it will play with much certainty.
But I'm getting worried.

The army has 19 slots, with the double Herald thing, so I'm thinking a first round wave of 10 units and a weak side of 9 is the way to go. I'm planning on putting 2 Icons in the strong side and one in the weak side.

My personal pick for Icons is a Herald of Khorne, in a chariot. He's t5 with a 3+/5+ save and 4 wounds, and is immune to death. This isn't as good as a nurglish Icon bearer, but this guy can actually do something if he gets to charge, and the amount of fire necessary to drop him could probably eliminate 2 Bloodletter/Daemonette units.

The weak side icon will be carried by an IC, probably a Herald of Slaanesh on a steed, just to avoid the possibility of no Herald at all surviving on a weak side game.

I think, from remembering what I've read of the codex at my FLGS, that the daemon army will be competitive if you can A.) Deepstrike smart and B.) Have a certain amount of luck. Because of B, I do have my doubts about the army just because luck is something that cannot be relied upon.

Daemonettes are the most fragile units but the cheapest, and they are also the fastest, if you can deepstrike them behind cover or some place out of sight of most of your opponents shooting, you still have a reasonable chance to get a charge off the next turn with fleet. Plaguebearer's are T5 with a +5 inv and FNP, they aren't all that more expensive than daemonettes if I remember right (but I can always be wrong), so having a good block of them with an Icon means you can probably survive a turn of shooting to get a scatter free unit or two in next turn.

I think it'd be more fun to do option B, and much more tactically rewarding. I just wonder about what builds will be most common, like the plaguebearer/icon block spam or Tzneetch flamer spam to try and get close and riddle enemies with str 4 ap 4 assault 3 weps.

This is what I recall, I will edit if necessary when I get to the store tonight.

Daemonette=12pts each
All have fleet and rending. WS4 with 3's across the board and 2 attacks each. One can be upgraded with allure of slaneesh which is a shooting attack that allows you to move an enemy unit hit with it up to d6" in a chosen direction

Plaguebearers= 15pts each
All have plagueswords (poisoned attacks wounding on a 4+)and FNP. Marine stats with T5 One can be upgraded to have noxious touch (all hits are poisoned that wound on a 2+)

Bloodletters=15pts each
All have power weapons and Furious Charge (they have marine stats with 2 attacks)


All troop units have an option to carry a 25pt icon functioning the same as icons do now for summoning and a 5pt musician that is exactly the same as a fantasy musician (if you draw a combat, you win by one).

I think you've made a few errors there.

Daemonettes have 3 attacks each (yikes!), and their upgrade is just a lash whip. They are 14 points, I think.

Bloodletters are also WS 5, and one more point.

Heres what i would do:

Half the army will be brute force assault / other half is mobile shooty. Depending on opponent and terrain you chose which one you want first 2/3rd of the time. So with an opponent thats handicapped at range by either armylist or heavy terrain you would try to get the shooty parts first and have counterassault drop in later. Against a shooty opponent on a more open board you might take the odds of dropping assault units first turn, hoping that some will make it into combat to support them with second turn shooting reinforcements.

The demon army does not have mobile shooty.

It has very little shooty.

It's an assault army.

In reality, it's a fantasy army marching into 40k.

If you can shoot 'em dead, they're no real threat.

If you have just enough troops for them to get tied up in CC, but not enough shooting to cripple them from the get go...you lose.

Other than that, you win.

It's a war of nerves army is all it is.

Either you have steely nerves, and you pick your targets wisely, or you don't and you choose poorly--and they get to assault you without being reduced in strength.

Imagine a horde-style army that shows up on your doorstep, with a few MC backing them up. And it's half your points. Can you cripple half an army with ALL of your firepower, including rapid fire weapons?

I can. You should be able to as well.

"I hope they playtested this stupid thing."

Playtesting? What's that?

Yes, I am not sure how interesting this list will be after a few games. It has all the rendomness of a drop troop list, without the ability to actually do anything the turn it drops (except the defilers of course). Its my understanding the defilers are A13 defilers so they are not the most surviable things, but drop them in front, mayhaps with some nruglings as a screen while you drop the remainder of your troops behind so they can survive and hit the following turn.

is there any restriction on how you divide your army? putting the entire list into one "half" seems like a decent idea to me. 50% chance of landing everything turn one, and if not you'll average half the army landing together turn two anyway.

You must divide your army so that it has the same number of units in each half - or as close as possible.

Stelek wrote:The demon army does not have mobile shooty.

It has very little shooty.

It's an assault army.

I disagree. If you play a tzeentch army you have nothing but shooting, and some very good shooting at that. Let's not overlook the ability for this army to get 5 MC on the board in a game as well. And if people are dropping their demons in your rapid fire range and they're not nurgle then something is probably wrong.

I've been wanting to ask about Tzeentch shooting, actually. Just how good is it, really? Can anyone shed some light on this?

That's one facet of the army, actually.

It still isn't "good". It's "better than nothing" is what it really is.

I've enjoyed watching the Tzeentch demon horde come down against my mech eldar list.

Oh right, still no shooting.

It's like that against every mech force.

So let's put it against something like horde orks or horde nids.

Gee, they pummel one or two big units down in size, and then get assaulted and die.

I've overlooked the ability of the army to get 5 MC on the board because it's really quite weak. To get all 5, you spend about 800 points. Then you need to have at least 5 other units in your army so you can 'split' them if you wish. Problem is, if you don't make your roll...the 5 MC come in one at a time--and you lose, badly.

If you split your MC, the most you can put down is 3 IF you get your roll. 2 if you don't.

Now, everyone has put anti-MC firepower into their list. Can you kill 2 MC a turn? I can. 3? Yeah, especially the nerfed MC the demon army gets. No super fexes for them.

So, if you have the heavy weapons to kill the big stuff, and enough firepower to cripple the squads that can assault you next turn...you'll win anyway.

Oh and if you wanna put down 5 MC, where are those defilers (your only real anti-tank) gonna come from?

At any rate, if you fail at getting in your 'crushing blow', your 5 MC can end up coming in piecemeal. That's not a good thing, after all.

Mobile armies, horde armies, and shooty armies will crush the demons before they get to do anything as GW has once again assigned too much value to Deep Striking troops.

Most can't shoot, none can assault. So you get to take an entire turn picking them apart.

With the high costs in the army and the 'urge' to field 5 MC, it's not like there are going to be 200 demons coming down. 5+50 is about all you get. Half of that is the average, and half again the next turn. It's amusing killing half, then half again, then the concession. Setting up a vehicle wall totally kills the 5 MC army, since they have a hell of a time killing vehicles. Setup behind the vehicles with a gunline, then move the vehicles to block movement but open up LOS and blow 'em away.

Anyways, it doesn't impress me. I hope I get lucky and get to play all 5 games at LV versus demon armies. At least my battle score will be higher than normal.

Thanks for that, but I ask again, what kind of shooting are we talking about here? Exactly how bad is it going to be translated to bolter/lascannon terms?

18" S4 AP4 Assault 3 is the standard gift on horrors. Flamers get that and a 4+ wound no armor save template. There are a few units with a S8 AP2 assault 1 shot. That's about all I remember off the top of my head. The soul grinder has a S4 AP4 template, a S9 AP1 assault 1 and basically a battlecannon (nor ordinance though). The two latter are 25pt upgrades each. It's not terribly impressive shooting but done right it will mess an army up. I still believe that you won't be seriously competitive without mixing gods in the lists (which i personally don't completely agree with) but I also have yet to actually see anyone play the army. My personal favorite shooting attack has to be the special character great unclean one. He's got a 24" large template that wounds on a 4+ at AP2.

The three main weapons on the Soulgrinder are better than described above.

1) Heavy Flamer
2) Battle Cannon (Large Blast instead of Ordinance)
3) Railgun (24" range)

All the above are Assault 1. The first is default, the next two can each be purchased for 25 points. In addition it has a bolter-equivalent weapon that is Assault 6! The one downside is that it has the BS of a guardsman.

Still, this is a very shooty unit with good armor (1 better than a Defiler on all sides) and 4 DCCW attacks.

Problem is, if you bring anti-tank...you lose MC.

You can't seriously put your hope in a 180 point vehicle with 1 BS3 shot bringing down a mech army.

Re-rolls. You need those in CC. All of that stuff has been nerfed by the studio. So you better hit in CC against those skimmers, or they are going to fly away from you and laugh.

So whatcha gonna use to kill tanks? Sorceror powers? Come on, that's unreliable. Yes, I use it in my Chaos army but it's for killing rhinos...and I have 2 reliable anti-rhino units and 3 very good units for killing heavy tanks with.

Anyway, the problem is the same as drop pod armies.

Do you fear those? You need just know how to play against them and you've got the demon army down pat.
It's shooting in comparison to the drop pod armies is a joke. It's an assault oriented army in a shooty game.
Yes, if you blow your shooting phase (you only get one usually) they'll be on you like nobody's business, and you'll be playing on their terms.

Here's a good example of how silly this army gets.

You are running Orks, he's got Demons.

You put 30 Orks on each side, with 6" behind them and to the sides.

You put 30 Orks in the middle, with 6" behind them.

You put the rest of your army in between (the mobile bits), with 6" behind.

If he wants to deep strike behind you or to the sides, he has to do it with alot of stuff or there's no point and there's alot of stuff that will scatter and die. If he wants to 'focus' by landing at the top of one of your sides, all he can kill is 30 orks--if he has any shooting. Then you move your other slow troops away, and engage his slow ass with the mobile elements.

If he deep strikes in the middle of your army, you can shoot/assault him to death.

It's all about using the proper tactics in your setup to nullify his entire deep strike advantage. Then you defeat him in detail.

It looks scary coming down. Then you notice there are alot of assault troops, and very limited shooting. Then you kill his assault troops, and stay out of assault range of his shooting troops. More guys land, you kill the new assault troops, and eventually you get around to killing his shooty troops.

Gee, 30 BS3 S4 shots? 15 hit, 7.5 wound, I lose 2-3 marines? I shoot back, and I cripple the squad? Why yes, I want to play.

Funny thing is, my move-and-fire chaos army just absolutely crushes the demon army. They can't hide, and they can't out assault me.

Oh you landed 2 GD 12" from me? Ok, I'll move away, but shoot you...then I'll lash you away so you can't assault me for 2 turns. Next the DP land? Rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, I'll punk all of the landed troops with my S8 blasts and my S7 blasts (I have 2 and 6) and riddle your little guys with sonic blaster and TS bolter fire.
How many 5+ saves you gonna make? I wipe marines off the board in 3 turns, demons? LOL!

I can only assume this army was designed with some new form of screening in mind. the army looks a little better if you can throw down Plagubearers and hide deamonettes or bloodletters behind them. I doubt it's still top teir (armies with random components can get lucky in 3 straight games, but generally not 5), but it might be fun.