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Instead of a whine thread, maybe some tactics to try and help DoC players vs. new HE. With the caveat of no more than 1 nurgle unit, as I don't think they have any problems. Tzeentch have most issues, then Khorne / Slaanesh.

-Hero Killer Slaanesh.
Unit of Daemonettes with Herald of Slaanesh with Locus of Beguilement and Whitstealer. Anyone touching them is -3I and can't refuse challenges and you get to choose who fights. This is a counter attempt to the really good HE heroes/lords who can buff units and will likely hide. Will kill Teclis and most caster easily. However without ASF, will have a harder time with combat heroes. BUT, Slaanesh #1 spell gives ASL, but you need a KoS to reliably get it. But you can make the hero lvl 1 shadow and Miasma drops M/WS/BS/I by another D3. Masque nearby can also drop the S/I/LD by 1.

-Blue Horror Spam
Still fuzzy on this one, but if you notice the Fires of Change lore attribute of Tz (or any) it doesn't specify that you have to cause wounds to the enemy. Get Khairos or a LoC and a buttload of horror units with champs and heralds with Lesser Locus of Trasmogrification. Have the mage drop Firestorms. If it hits your guys, fine, you just make more blue horrors and you resurrect them back with the lore attribute. If not, you add more with hitting the enemy. They will only be taking S2 hits from blue horrors, but they will be steadfast and can hold. If you have enough casters, they might be able to hold forever as they splode into blues.

-RAGE
Get Skarbrand. Have him go kill stuff. While he's alive, everyone has hatred. HE often get a reroll already cuz of ASF and high I. But they can't reroll a reroll. So what you want is someone who can take advantage of perma Hatred. Slow units who are heavy hitters. Like Screamers, Beasts of Nurgle, nurglings, Flesh Hounds, etc.

-Wind Fu
Use the winds of magic table to try and pwn. Get either the chroma thing or Kairos. Kairos is better at it, but he's also more expensive and has to use a roll. Basically, try and hit them with the attacks OR raise your ward, lower their LD via spells/Masque and go for Daemonic possession, or keep summoning new units. You can't really rely on any one of them, but having it not <7 is very helpful nice.

-Go for Broke
Take a Loc or KoS lvl 4 and roll on exalted gifts. roll 1 and you will pwn HE casting. Roll 2 and you will be hard to kill. 3 fury spam. 4/5 I would take Eternal Blade or Chroma and do Wind Fu above.

I'm pretty sure the Reign of Chaos table is magical attacks, but that is a great Idea to make them take more saves.

I generally will still take a LOC and exalted/lesser combo using tzeentch magic. Treason is useful, as well as glean, that can smote teclis well, especially if he has to take the t test.

I will generally always have 2 lvl 2 of metal, because there is great synergy with many tzeentch units, amd khorne cannons. The Scaly Skin buff keeps the cannons to 1+ and soul grinders to a 2+, so they are solid tanks. That will give me final trans.

If I take fateweaver, I'd expect teclis to take purple sun, and pit. however fateweaver would be taking dwellers, and final trans. Using wings to keep final trans in range, but out of eveything else he would stand a decent chance.

I like the blue horror spam. S2 actually does kill elves.
I also like the idea of the power that makes furies.
Being able to generate free roadblocks that don't give up VP is pretty good.

Since it looks like most elf armies so far are Ld9 (arch mage, and no banner of discipline), mask + doom and darkness and terror test has a shot. It would be pretty funny is the super daemon killing death star is run off by terror.

-Matt

 Acardia wrote:
Iglean, that can smote teclis well, especially if he has to take the t test.

Teclis wins Glean. You add your mage level. He is 5. Kairos might have a chance cuz he could choose to reroll it. But I wouldn't risk it either way.

Yeah, mass blue horrors could be interesting. Especially because you can keep feeding them back in. If you firestormed your own guys and killed 10(!), you would add 5 back and do 15 S2 hits to the enemy on avg. So horrors become a hanvil. They do (lots) more dmg they more of them you kill.

Ld bombing the unit and hitting it with a BCoT or Soulgrinder flame cannon shot. If the unit fails even one save, it has to make a panic test. Won't help if they've got that character in the unit that makes them ItP, though.

Saldiven wrote:
Ld bombing the unit and hitting it with a BCoT or Soulgrinder flame cannon shot. If the unit fails even one save, it has to make a panic test. Won't help if they've got that character in the unit that makes them ItP, though.

Characters don't make units ItP. ItP has a majority rule.
-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
Ld bombing the unit and hitting it with a BCoT or Soulgrinder flame cannon shot. If the unit fails even one save, it has to make a panic test. Won't help if they've got that character in the unit that makes them ItP, though.

Characters don't make units ItP. ItP has a majority rule.
-Matt

As a general rule yes.
But the High Elves now have both Alarielle and the Anointed of Asyran who both specifically give ItP to the entire unit. (because they're d*cks!)

If we do start going back to our old Terror-Bombing ways, then I'd expect HE players to at least start packing the Anointed into a key unit... Plus, he's dirt cheap as far as Elf Lords go, since he comes with a built-in 4++ as standard, (since he's a Phoenix Guard lord), meaning he can save his magic item allotment for things like re-roll saves and a killy weapon. Plus he gives a 6++ to his entire unit as well as the ever-hand ItP buff.

Alarielle in a BotWD bunker vs Daemons is about as fair as Durp Quake spam was in 40k to be honest...

If your not going going heavy nurgle you are just gimping yourself. Kind of makes this thread just ideas on how to make a second rate demon list.

Experiment 626 wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
Ld bombing the unit and hitting it with a BCoT or Soulgrinder flame cannon shot. If the unit fails even one save, it has to make a panic test. Won't help if they've got that character in the unit that makes them ItP, though.

Characters don't make units ItP. ItP has a majority rule.
-Matt

As a general rule yes.
But the High Elves now have both Alarielle and the Anointed of Asyran who both specifically give ItP to the entire unit. (because they're d*cks!)

If we do start going back to our old Terror-Bombing ways, then I'd expect HE players to at least start packing the Anointed into a key unit... Plus, he's dirt cheap as far as Elf Lords go, since he comes with a built-in 4++ as standard, (since he's a Phoenix Guard lord), meaning he can save his magic item allotment for things like re-roll saves and a killy weapon. Plus he gives a 6++ to his entire unit as well as the ever-hand ItP buff.

Alarielle in a BotWD bunker vs Daemons is about as fair as Durp Quake spam was in 40k to be honest...

I missed that on the Anointed, but Alarielle doesn't give ItP, just fear and terror. Her unit can still panic.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

I missed that on the Anointed, but Alarielle doesn't give ItP, just fear and terror. Her unit can still panic.

Gah! My bad.
but still, she makes her unit immune to Terror-bombing, so that's pretty much all the HE player needs in the end. It's not going to be easy to force a panic check in the first place, unless the Elf player is a complete dumb***

Really the best thing you can do is just make the game a miserable experience for the high elf player. I would just take two units of PB and two big units of beasts. Put one each on the back line on opposite corners of the board. Then put on your headphones and chill out.

or

Use the portaglyph to hide a huge portion of your army for as many turns as possible. Take a big unit of ambushing hounds and hope they dont come on until the end. Take other units that are really fast and just run around the board avoiding combat. Maybe put your entire core of PB into one unit and put it in the portaglyph. If you can keep it in there say for three turns good luck killing it off.

or

just dont play high elves in pick up games unless they agree not to take the banner. If they want to take the banner and you have time to kill then there is no reason not to be a complete dick as long as you are not cheating.

Now if your local tournament organizers are going to allow the crutch banner then you could screw around with the tournament by taking these ridiculous denial tactics to a tournament. You shouldnt be a dick player but if you take this kind of army BECAUSE the banner might be there then people will tire of this crap and pressure the TO to ban the stupid banner.

Your not going to win any tournaments this way but neither is anyone who plays you because often a tie game or even a close win knocks you off the top spot.

I'm interested to know if anyone has had many chances to try out some of these strategies against HE and/or just play games against the banner. How did it turn out?

DukeRustfield wrote:
Instead of a whine thread, maybe some tactics to try and help DoC players vs. new HE. With the caveat of no more than 1 nurgle unit, as I don't think they have any problems. Tzeentch have most issues, then Khorne / Slaanesh.

-Hero Killer Slaanesh.
Unit of Daemonettes with Herald of Slaanesh with Locus of Beguilement and Whitstealer. Anyone touching them is -3I and can't refuse challenges and you get to choose who fights. This is a counter attempt to the really good HE heroes/lords who can buff units and will likely hide. Will kill Teclis and most caster easily. However without ASF, will have a harder time with combat heroes. BUT, Slaanesh #1 spell gives ASL, but you need a KoS to reliably get it. But you can make the hero lvl 1 shadow and Miasma drops M/WS/BS/I by another D3. Masque nearby can also drop the S/I/LD by 1.

Will still bounce off any character in a BotWD unit however, and she won't last long against any kind of fighty character thanks to simply being a 2W/T3 character. (you know, that same argument that all HE players use to defend their hitty stuff as being mediocre or sub-par?!)

Sure, she'll tarpit a mage almost indefinitely, but it'll take her forever to actually kill him. (odds are her unit will pop from Instability around her before she downs the mage unless your opponent suffers an acute outbreak of rolling 1's!)
That's the problem of Daemons trying to combat a BotWD army. All those characters are almost certainly going to be bunkered behind the banner because it's instant near-perfect protection.

DukeRustfield wrote:
-Blue Horror Spam
Still fuzzy on this one, but if you notice the Fires of Change lore attribute of Tz (or any) it doesn't specify that you have to cause wounds to the enemy. Get Khairos or a LoC and a buttload of horror units with champs and heralds with Lesser Locus of Trasmogrification. Have the mage drop Firestorms. If it hits your guys, fine, you just make more blue horrors and you resurrect them back with the lore attribute. If not, you add more with hitting the enemy. They will only be taking S2 hits from blue horrors, but they will be steadfast and can hold. If you have enough casters, they might be able to hold forever as they splode into blues.

I highly suggest you re-read the rules for Blue Horrors... Suffice to say, this is not at all how it works.

Those Blue Horrors are only generated in close combat, meaning killing your own guys in your magic phase does not spawn Blue Horror counters. (and if people start trying this, I'll wager we get an FAQ putting an end to such 'tactics'.)

DukeRustfield wrote:
-RAGE
Get Skarbrand. Have him go kill stuff. While he's alive, everyone has hatred. HE often get a reroll already cuz of ASF and high I. But they can't reroll a reroll. So what you want is someone who can take advantage of perma Hatred. Slow units who are heavy hitters. Like Screamers, Beasts of Nurgle, nurglings, Flesh Hounds, etc.

Skarbrand is only 610pts of course, meaning he's completely useless until you hit the 2500pts level...

And are you seriously ever going to go into a game against one of the best magic armies without a Lv4 of your own?! There's a reason you never see Bloodthirsters in general in Fantasy anymore - magic is too powerful and it's suicide to go into most match-ups without a Lord level caster of your own, or at the very least, a pair of Lv2's who are tooled up with defensive items.
This even more problematic for Daemons, since we don't even have any kind of access to things like a basic Dispel Scroll and similar items! The best we've got is a 75pts ability, (so unavailable to Heralds), that is randomly rolled for and only really begins to shine when you have a Lv4 of your own.

Sure, Skarbrand can help cause a lot of damage. He also gives the Elf player free reign to go absolutely nuts in their magic phase meaning you'll now be fighting buffed elves or your own units will be hex'ed into the ground or else just eating good 'ol fashioned big damage spells.

DukeRustfield wrote:
-Wind Fu
Use the winds of magic table to try and pwn. Get either the chroma thing or Kairos. Kairos is better at it, but he's also more expensive and has to use a roll. Basically, try and hit them with the attacks OR raise your ward, lower their LD via spells/Masque and go for Daemonic possession, or keep summoning new units. You can't really rely on any one of them, but having it not <7 is very helpful nice.

Again, Kairos requires a game of at least 2300pts to field...

The Chromatic Tome is 75pts, (meaning you need a Prince or Greater to field it), and it also allows your opponent to re-roll the winds dice in their as well when you use it to re-roll yours. (so, nice fat potential to backfire completely in your face!)
You also have to re-roll both Winds of Magic dice, so again, there's a nice fat risk of landing an even worse result with it. (ie: it will happen where you roll a 5 and have Tzeentch dance across your Nurgle units, re-roll the result and land a 2-4 result.)

DukeRustfield wrote:
-Go for Broke
Take a Loc or KoS lvl 4 and roll on exalted gifts. roll 1 and you will pwn HE casting. Roll 2 and you will be hard to kill. 3 fury spam. 4/5 I would take Eternal Blade or Chroma and do Wind Fu above.

This is pretty much what will happen in most cases... Hope for Aura of Disruption on your Lv4 and if you don't land it, then you'll likely take the Portalglyph and play some pts-denial of your own.

Sorcerous Loadstone will never be taken except by a suicidal idiot actually! You only gain back wounds on a 5+, but you actually suffer wounds on a 4+ whenever any Wizard on the table miscasts! (and miscasts will typically happen every game)

So... what are Daemons good at? What is the "general" strategy that Daemons players use to win most games?

Like, Vampire Counts tie up important stuff so their characters can go to town. Lizardmen shoot with skinks and buff their troops while bullying their way around the magic phase, then win combat with buffs. What do Daemons do?

 Tangent wrote:
So... what are Daemons good at? What is the "general" strategy that Daemons players use to win most games?

Like, Vampire Counts tie up important stuff so their characters can go to town. Lizardmen shoot with skinks and buff their troops while bullying their way around the magic phase, then win combat with buffs. What do Daemons do?

General strategy seems to be:

GuO
Epidemus

load up on PB and BoN and add some spicy skullcannons. This is pretty much the general thing that works against most stuff it seems. The combination of PBs, BoNs and Epidemus is just ugly! Tried it to just see how it is and well, it´s just not funny.
But I am set on Tzeentch for the next 43 games so no Nurgle for me.

 Gorbad wrote:

 Tangent wrote:
So... what are Daemons good at? What is the "general" strategy that Daemons players use to win most games?

Like, Vampire Counts tie up important stuff so their characters can go to town. Lizardmen shoot with skinks and buff their troops while bullying their way around the magic phase, then win combat with buffs. What do Daemons do?

General strategy seems to be:

GuO
Epidemus

load up on PB and BoN and add some spicy skullcannons. This is pretty much the general thing that works against most stuff it seems. The combination of PBs, BoNs and Epidemus is just ugly! Tried it to just see how it is and well, it´s just not funny.
But I am set on Tzeentch for the next 43 games so no Nurgle for me.

This.
If you really want to simply win games with Daemons, then you go Nurgle heavy in general with your units. (ie: Nurgle BSB + Plaguebearers + Beasts + 2x Skullcannons) Your Lord choice on the other hand can easily be juggled between a Daemon Prince, (not the best, but he at least gets armour!), or a GUO for Inspiring Presence, or a LoC for access to Lore of Metal + Wand of Win.
Fill it out with some Furies or MSU Seekers for speedy re-directors/war machine hunters and maybe some ambushing Khorne Dogs and/ora Burning Chariot if you feel really adventurous.

That's the main Daemon face-wrecker build.

Unfortunately, even it tends to fall flat against the new High Elf Skill Banner because at the very least, you're looking at what is likely a 400-500pts unit carrying the banner, plus all the important characters simply joining said unit and thus likely pushing the total of nearly unkillable pts into the 900-1000pts or so range.
Thus the problem for Daemons is, how to kill the half you can get pts for, without yourself giving up more than what the banner is locking away.

Even the above competitive Daemons build will struggle in such a game, because the High Elves are overall much faster, overall fight better, have better magic and can pick and choose their fights far more effectively since the Daemons will instead be actively trying to avoid the 30-50% or so they can't physically kill.

Experiment 626 wrote:

I highly suggest you re-read the rules for Blue Horrors... Suffice to say, this is not at all how it works.

Those Blue Horrors are only generated in close combat, meaning killing your own guys in your magic phase does not spawn Blue Horror counters. (and if people start trying this, I'll wager we get an FAQ putting an end to such 'tactics'.)

Arguable. They are in close combat. They are slain. Thus they are slain in close combat. The CC isn't the source of the slaying, but it's at least one interpretation. Slain BY close combat and IN close combat are different at least in RAW. Though I doubt it's what they meant in RAI.

And are you seriously ever going to go into a game against one of the best magic armies without a Lv4 of your own?!

You can't dispel scroll. Unless you take Kairos, and other backup, you WILL lose the magic phase. You have to jack up a GD with another 120+ pts to even get a lvl 4 and then you have to take your super combat monster and hide him because he is going to cost at least 500ish pts and have nothing but 5+ ward and T. And then he's just going to lose. So why do that? You can get cheapo dispellers with Horrors.

There's a reason you never see Bloodthirsters in general in Fantasy anymore - magic is too powerful and it's suicide to go into most match-ups without a Lord level caster of your own

If you don't go all-in with magic vs. stuff like Lizardmen or super magic HE, it's worse than suicide, you're just wasting points. People didn't use Bloodthirsters (much) cuz they were too expensive. They got 50pts cheaper.

He also gives the Elf player free reign to go absolutely nuts in their magic phase

You know the difference between +4 dispel and +2? 2. If they were going to go ZOMG NUTZ0 at +4 they will at +2. Except you can use your GD for the only thing they are truly good at and that's wrecking faces.

Again, Kairos requires a game of at least 2300pts to field...

Which is 90% of the games played.

The Chromatic Tome is 75pts, (meaning you need a Prince or Greater to field it), and it also allows your opponent to re-roll the winds dice in their as well when you use it to re-roll yours. (so, nice fat potential to backfire completely in your face!) You also have to re-roll both Winds of Magic dice, so again, there's a nice fat risk of landing an even worse result with it. (ie: it will happen where you roll a 5 and have Tzeentch dance across your Nurgle units, re-roll the result and land a 2-4 result.)

Not if you understand math (hint: don't reroll good numbers). Here are the armies that absolutely need to reroll winds of magic because their army can take lots of dmg, lose wards, gain wards, gain entire units, take unmodified LD tests: DoC, DoC, DoC and DoC. If the enemy rerolls, that's life. It matters to DoC 500% more than it does to any other army. Giving both sides Hatred will matter more to some armies more than others. Just like rerolling winds will never matter as much to any other army as DoC.

Sorcerous Loadstone will never be taken except by a suicidal idiot actually! You only gain back wounds on a 5+, but you actually suffer wounds on a 4+ whenever any Wizard on the table miscasts! (and miscasts will typically happen every game)

Again, I don't think you understand the math. When any wizard successfully casts you heal on a 5+. When a wizard something horrible, which happens about 1/3rd or less the time as the former, you take a wound on a 4+ which you can still ward save. If you get one of the easier ways to heal your GD, that's fine. But the overwhelming odds (esp vs a casty HE army) are that this will be healing your GD regularly and if it's not, it's because their casters are blowing themselves up.

Seems I am the "suicidal just want to lose" mono Tzeentch player

So far my 7 games with mono Tzeentch werent bad - won 3 had 2 draws and 2 losses. But no where near the "tabled" thing. I really like the Tome but haven´t thought about the Sorceress Loadstone yet. I will try it next game for sure. I mean, it´s not that I have just one wound on my GD so even if I lose one wound because of misscast and failed save it´s no disaster.
Rerolling the winds kinda won me 2 games so far so I will go with Tome or with Kairos again that´s for sure.

 Gorbad wrote:
Seems I am the "suicidal just want to lose" mono Tzeentch player

So far my 7 games with mono Tzeentch werent bad - won 3 had 2 draws and 2 losses. But no where near the "tabled" thing. I really like the Tome but haven´t thought about the Sorceress Loadstone yet. I will try it next game for sure. I mean, it´s not that I have just one wound on my GD so even if I lose one wound because of misscast and failed save it´s no disaster.
Rerolling the winds kinda won me 2 games so far so I will go with Tome or with Kairos again that´s for sure.

Hey, I play mono-Tzeentch too! (albeit very badly due to miscasting like a champ all the time )

Hence why I'd never ever take the Loadstone reward... I would be garenteed to nuke my Greater or Prince on turn 1 if I ever kept that item...

I think of my army as being 'Tzeentch's Amazing Fireworks Factory' - it's bright, colourful and provides an explosive show which goes well with popcorn!

I think Kairos is one of the only soft counters to HE. He can have one head with Final Transmute, Dwellers, Throne of Vines + something else + all of TZ. And Glean Magic is super nasty when you also have a reroll (did you REALLY win?).

DukeRustfield wrote:
I think Kairos is one of the only soft counters to HE. He can have one head with Final Transmute, Dwellers, Throne of Vines + something else + all of TZ. And Glean Magic is super nasty when you also have a reroll (did you REALLY win?).

You've got to keep him bunkered behind some Beasts though, since with T5 he's just asking to be turned into bolt thrower bait...

I'd honestly keep his re-roll saved up though for re-rolling either the Reign of Comedy table result, or else to prevent him from exploding horribly to a miscast. (like you almost certainly will when you're 6-dicing Dwellers at a HE Ward Dragon Banner unit of doom!)

Yeah, it's most common to save a reroll for defensive purposes. Still, you can go balls out and use it offensively.

Read Pg. 44 of the brb. I might be interpreting the little box marked "instant kills" incorrectly, but there is some suggestive language that might help with this conundrum.

Or you could read it and maybe give an idea what you're talking about. It's okay to talk about what's in the books, just not repost them all.

"Some special attacks don't inflict wounds but require models to be removed as casualties (after failing a LD or T test, for example.) Where this is the case, not only are no saves of any kind allowed (unless specified otherwise), but the number of wounds on the victim's profile is completely irrelevant - just remove the model from play, and hope for better luck next time!"

Now I might be reading this wrong and if I am that is fine. I've had a long day.

When I read this it suggests that anything that forces a characteristics test is not save-able.

How exactly do the Nurgle Spells read? Has anything been FAQ'd in regard to them?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think this is interesting too.

This is from the FAQ.

Q: What are ‘magical attacks’? (p68)

A: All attacks made by spells and magic items are considered to be magical attacks,as are all attacks that are specifically noted as being magical attacks. Shots fired from magical items are also considered to be magical attacks, unless their description specifically states otherwise. Hits inflicted by rolls on the Miscast table are treated as magical attacks


When I read that, I think the Nurgle Spells should work as well.

The Spell causes a toughness test - It does not inflict magical hits.

Everything damaging in nurgle causes hits or wounds. Those get saves.

I don't think that is true.

Spells that cause characteristics tests are not defined as magical attacks in the brb FAQ.

The spell causes a characteristics test - not a wound. The wound is a result of failing the characteristics test. It would be like taking a 2+ against wounds caused by Dangerous Terrain tests brought about by Curse of Anraheir.

You can take ward saves against failed dangerous terrain tests, but I think it would be a stretch to take the 2+ in that situation.

I don't see anywhere in the book that you can take saves against failed characteristics tests.

That's silly. Most spells don't cause wounds, they cause hits, or tests, which lead to wounds. It's a spell, it's pretty simple. It's not even a spell that makes you take a dangerous terrain test, which might have more leeway.

You're not taking a characteristic test for the hell of it. You're taking it because of a spell. All spells are magic. You're going to have a really hard time saying a DD spell, no matter what wording is in there, is not magic. It's pretty much the definition of magic. Because by implication, MR wouldn't work on it, and that's just not going to happen.

Unfortunately the fact that it is silly makes me believe it probably is the way it works.

They seem to be very direct and literal with how they define some of this stuff.

 Atlantic wrote:
I don't think that is true.

Spells that cause characteristics tests are not defined as magical attacks in the brb FAQ.

The spell causes a characteristics test - not a wound. The wound is a result of failing the characteristics test. It would be like taking a 2+ against wounds caused by Dangerous Terrain tests brought about by Curse of Anraheir.

You can take ward saves against failed dangerous terrain tests, but I think it would be a stretch to take the 2+ in that situation.

I don't see anywhere in the book that you can take saves against failed characteristics tests.

Please... Go read the bit about all those Nurgle spells being either Direct Damage or Magic Missile or Magical Vortex type spells.
They simply inflict auto-wounds upon a failed toughness test with no armour saves allowed. They most certainly allow Ward Saves to be taken, which if cast against a unit carrying the Ward Dragon banner means the target unit gets it's shiny 2++ save.

The only spells that work against a BotWD unit are;
- Augments
- Hexes
- Spells which allow no saves of any kind (ie: Purple Sun, Pit of Shades, Dwellers, Final Trans, Dreaded 13th, Wither)