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After reading much of the why CSM codex isnt all that great thread. I got the itch to drag out all my CSM models as well as the codex. flipping threw i came across the 1k sons. Putting back in my mind how much i always liked them and so in short am going to put forth the effort to make a 1k son army. Which brought me to lesser deamons.

I never see them used really nor do they ever pop up in any CSM list. But looking at them. They dont really seem horrible for there points. As well as they being able to assualt after they deep strike in. Although they need to be near an icon to come in. So somewhat limiting were they can come in. You will always know they wont scatter at the least.

It seemed to me that they would be useful in adding some bunch to a squad that is at the frontline in the thick of things or giving some back up to a more ranged squad that has gotten into some trouble and needs help.

So why is it that people really never bring them to the field?

I've used them a few times.

They've generally done well. Against an army with poor close combat capability they're excellent. Against an army with good close combat ability they can be a bit of a liability though, usually dying twice as fast as chaos marines (although being able to get them in the right place is always nice).

They aren't very good against other MEQs. That seems to be why they are considered bad.

Plus their save sucks. The plethora of cover in 5ed mitigates that somewhat. But they are fragile.

There is also a lot of carry over bitterness from those who liked the god specific demons.

I think they have a lot of conversion potential now, including creating cultist models to be demons.

But they really should have had the option to be unmarked in addition to Marks, but you just know GW had the plans for Codex Daemons in place.

Lesser Daemons hit just as hard as CSM, with BS4 S4 attacks, and their arrival is generally good, being able to DS & Charge. However, their poor save means that Daemons are slightly overcosted.

I take this as intentional, to keep the focus on the Chaos Marines in the CSM book, rather than letting Daemons overshadow the CSM as in the previous book.

I have tons of experience with them. You're paying for their ability to assault the turn they enter, pretty much. I've sometimes taken a min-sized squad to hide on an objective, but they're kinda bad at this still. Where they have excelled for me:

-Tarpitting things with Power Weapons, setting up your real heavy hitters or at the very worst slowing down something that's going to eat you up.

-Bodyguards for expensive squads with no Invuln. Try to get that IC only in contact with them if possible.

-Bonus bodies on assault. With no power weapons themselves, don't count on them to kill a damn thing in assault on their own. They're not a bad supplement when trying to sweep an enemy. Otherwise they make you lose combat and become a liability.

What they don't do well:

-Babysit objectives.

-Kill things by themselves in assault.

Just ask yourself if for 2 points more a CSM could do the job better with guns and a 3+ armor save.

My 1.75 cents.

Thanks for everyones input.

Dug around the net quite abit to hear what everyone said about em.

I have yet to try em yet but there gunna make it to my main list as i see them as being very useful. They will fill the spot i need them to fill at the least.

To avoid making another thread after looking threw some other things. Deamon codex and the last CSM codex.
Why dindt GW at the least give you the option to give them marks like you can everything else? I understand they are what they are now to make room for the demon codex but still. They could of done that at the least and I think that alone would make them a million times more useful. T5/+1 attack/+1 in/+4 invu. Hopefully we will see "something" like this whenever the next csm codex shows up.(As to when happoens who knows. Maybe if we all QQ enuff it will show up faster which I am all for.)
If they had done that alone i think they would have shown up alot more and in turn sold even more demon models on top of the demon army.

I've recently added a 20 man Lesser daemons coming from 3 icons on 3 squads of Mech Plague marines.

I've only had a handful of games against: Tau, Orks, Dark Eldar and daemons.

Against Orks, they have consistently robbed the orks of their charge and chew through them like crazy.

Against Tau they've wrecked devilfishes by cause countless weapon destroyed results, very humorous. Other times they get into their lines and combo charge, it's aweful.

Against dark eldar Web Way portal, they show up and cluster charge everything.
It seems like an even trade for 2 wych elves charging them and not the plague marines.

Against daemons, they are great when they get the charge, but so so when taking a charge as one would expect, but the sheer weight of attacks at a pretty cheap cost of 260 is well worth the investment IMO.

This is just using infantry based models, not even counting nurgling bases, flesh hound bases and stuff like that… makes the charge range crazy far.

My 7 Cents.

The only reason that I can come up with for not putting marks on the summoned daemons is to avoid dealing with icon compatibility. Given a choice between anticipating people complaining about "How come a khornate daemon is deep striking off of a slaaneshi icon?" and hearing people complain about yet another rule which got scrapped, I guess the momentum won out.

Now that is something I could totally understand and makes sense. But since you can have as many diffrent "cult" troops working together in an army that argument kinda gets thrown out.

Hounds wouldnt Deepstrike in off a slaanesh icon but at the same time Thousand sons would be working with plague marines ether but yet that is totally exceptable. Even though we all know that wouldnt ever really happen.

I guess they could have intended for them to just be "lesser demons" They are not really any one gods demons. They are just the general run of the mill demons running about the warp. Still if even that is the case that just waters down the SCM codex even more then it already is so I dont really want to see it that way. Though thats prolly what they were shooting for.

Good point Eos!

I definatley think that all CSM marine players should have lesser daemons, not for use but for the awesome look. I can tell you now that no one should listen to those complainers, because how can Nids team up with IG in battles if that actually mattered? Even funnier is when Daemonhunters team up with Daemons. So you can see why I LOL'd at this thread, in a nice way.

They are Fearless, they Deep Strike from Icons and they are a decent close combat choice in an army built around Close combat and assault weapons.

Their only real weakness, they are easier to kill, giving your opponent a couple extra kills in close combat.

But they are definately useful in an army that includes Deep Striking and Assaulting Terminators.

I never thought of just taking a bit squad of 20, that seems pretty useful tbh. I usually think of them as being smaller squads to bring Fearless to close combats.

Because for 2 points more, you can get the most point efficient troop choice in the game? (well, now SWs have that, but still)

Ah, but Night Lords it isn't just 2 points more. They are laiden down with extra weapons, champion upgrades, a transport. They are also vulnerable to fire for much longer than the Lesser Daemons. On top of that, Lesser Daemons are never out of position because you dictate where they are after your opponent's plan is revealed, and they never scatter.

The only thing daemons have over CSM is the element of surprise...somewhat.

Buying meltas and champions is optional. You dont have to do it. A transport is hardly a bad thing. However, these upgrades are far, far better than daemons.

You'll also have less guys on the field, which means it's more likely they get destroyed and it just slows down your army. Replacing a CSM squad with a rhino for lesser daemons really doesnt help your goal of getting into CC. Many armies can take down rhinos pretty easily, and only having a few means youre stuck on your side of the board when they get blown up turn 1 or 2 (which, funny enough, also means the daemons come in on your side of the board).

Daemons will be out of position when they come in early. Its a 50% chance they come in turn two when youre only halfway up the board.

So for 2 points more you can (potentially) get a 24" gun, special weapons, a fist, a rhino, an equal number of attacks, and a 3+ save. Daemons have no advantage over them other than being somewhat of a surprise...one that really isnt all that effective anyways.

Well, this is a little like comparing apples to oranges. Lesser Daemons have a much lower buy in when you are designing a list and, for me, their numbers depend on what is left over. However CSM serve a different role, and require all their gear to be effective. They hold objectives and generally fight better, at range and in close combat (sometimes). For example, you'll atleast want your CSM equiped like this:
10 CSM, 2 Meltaguns, Aspiring Champion, Icon of Chaos Glory, Rhino 230
Cool, but that is a 230 point buy in. It is much easier to make room for an 8 man squad of Lessers (104 points) at the end of the list building process. They are a cheap way of getting more scoring units and bodies in.

You also have to consider their save is invulnerable (not just bad). What do invulnerable saves help protect you from? Power Weapons. What will absolutely shred regular MEQs? Power Weapon squads (Banshees, Terminators, etc). If Lessers deploy early, you have to learn to deal with that. Deploy them where the extra bodies will be needed the most, or where it is most likely the Powerweapon squad will hit.

As for target saturation, you shouldn't have a problem with 350 points (Oblits, Greaters, Termicide, etc) down in 1500. If your army doesn't have enough target saturation, quite simply, you are doing something with or without Lesser Daemons.

There should never be a few points left over. 105 points should be bought on termicide, fleshing out units or other heavy support.

The point is, daemons are near worthless and even in the one thing they can do, regular CSM do just as good. Youre paying for them purely for their "surprise" attack (which has just as many drawbacks). Even if youve filled up you Elite and HS options, you can still buy 5 CSM for 75 points, or 110 with a rhino. They would still be better. Just because meltas, icons, etc. are ideal, it doesnt mean that a naked CSM unit still wouldnt be better than daemons.

One minor change which would have made a huge difference in how summoned daemons are used would be if they struck the sentence about daemons existing outside the force organization chart.

Would it be so much nicer if a player could focus on paying for the expensive fast attack and elite units to complement cheap daemon units?

If Daemons took a Troops FOC slot, as opposed to being bonus Troops outside the FOC, they be played much less.

As it is, you can DS a Scoring unit into Assault on an enemy Objective. Not horrible.

A guy I know is playing this army in an 1850 pt tournament... wonder how he'll do?

HQ- Daemon prince w/ wings + doombolt
HQ- Summoned Greater Daemon

Troops- 4x 10 man squads of summoned daemons
Troops- 5x 10 man squads of CSM, 2 meltas each, in rhinos

all rhinos have combi-meltas, 1 squad has a champion (for the summoned greater daemon)

thats an assload of bodies and melta... its crazy.

I hope he has Icons on those CSM units, or he's going to be crying...

Horst wrote:A guy I know is playing this army in an 1850 pt tournament... wonder how he'll do?

HQ- Daemon prince w/ wings + doombolt
HQ- Summoned Greater Daemon

Troops- 4x 10 man squads of summoned daemons
Troops- 5x 10 man squads of CSM, 2 meltas each, in rhinos

all rhinos have combi-meltas, 1 squad has a champion (for the summoned greater daemon)

thats an assload of bodies and melta... its crazy.

He better hope he doesnt play Eldar, or he might as well just pick up his models and find something else to do for the next few hours.

JohnHwangDD wrote:If Daemons took a Troops FOC slot, as opposed to being bonus Troops outside the FOC, they be played much less.

As it is, you can DS a Scoring unit into Assault on an enemy Objective. Not horrible.

What I meant is that I would have liked if they were in that same half state like the Emperor's Champion where they would be able to count as the mandatory choices without filling the choice.

Oh, well, maybe someday Chaos will be able to field biker armies.

Something that's cool about Summoned Daemons is that there are no official models for them so you can use any model. I use Wood Elf Dryads for mine, and I've seen other ideas like Dark Elf Harpies, Tomb Kings Skeletons, Vampire Zombies, and Chaos Marauders.

Throw them at Terminators. They're really, really annoying for Terminators to deal with, since they don't get any bonuses for their sundry power fists and thunder hammers.

Nurglitch wrote:Something that's cool about Summoned Daemons is that there are no official models for them so you can use any model.

I use Wood Elf Dryads for mine, and I've seen other ideas like Dark Elf Harpies, Tomb Kings Skeletons, Vampire Zombies, and Chaos Marauders.

Yup, tho it's nice to avoid the known marked models.

I think Dryads make great Daemons, and am curious how yours are painted - I have a set of Dryads to convert & paint, so more comparisons are always a great help.

Following the Ghouls = WFB Daemons, I'm sure they'd translate nicely as conversions for 40k generic Daemons, too.

Lessers work whonders against 30+ squads of IG and termagaunts. Why? becasue you've created a meat-grinder.
And the look on your opponents face is hillarius...

Aaaand I'm back.

Night Lords wrote:There should never be a few points left over. 105 points should be bought on termicide, fleshing out units or other heavy support.

Termicide doesn't score. If your Troops are so full that you need those last 105 points in Heavy Support/specialists, then you do. Generally, I find it to be the other way around.

Night Lords wrote:The point is, daemons are near worthless and even in the one thing they can do, regular CSM do just as good. Youre paying for them purely for their "surprise" attack (which has just as many drawbacks). Even if youve filled up you Elite and HS options, you can still buy 5 CSM for 75 points, or 110 with a rhino. They would still be better. Just because meltas, icons, etc. are ideal, it doesnt mean that a naked CSM unit still wouldnt be better than daemons.

Naked CSM, 5 man, in a Rhino? Alright, so 5 CSM or 8 Daemons. The CSM are 2 KPs and too small to do any real fighting. They do give target saturation, but since they can't fight your opponent is safe to ignore them. In an objective game, those Rhinos are not a very durable and the CSM will start taking morale checks almost immediately. The Lessers on the other hand have more bodies and are Fearless. They'll hold the objective for longer, and fight better than that CSM squad.

Now are 18 Lessers still better than a real squad of CSM? No. Once the CSM squad is equipped properly it is much more effective than the sum of its parts. The smaller you get, though, the better the Lessers are, which is why they are great for filling in those last few points, while adding another scoring unit.

IMO, DH & NL, you guys have different playstyles / environments / metagames, so what works for one doesn't work as well for the other.

Regardless of the metagame, they have one advantage as I listed. They are not cheap enough or strong enough for what they can do/their points. While I agree that certain options that are generally looked down upon (ex Chaos dreadnoughts) can play a specific role no one else can and can be useful, Daemons are just Marines with no special weapons, transports (crucial) and a worse save.

They bring nothing unique to the field except for a "surprise" assault where they only get a few basic S4 attacks. That's the point.