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My experience with Daemons has been to experience an early "hump" in difficulty, i.e. getting all your units on the board and in position to do something useful, then getting shot up on Turn 1/2. If you can get over that initial hump and deliver a few units into assault while landing the rest of your force safely, everything tends to evolve steadily in the Daemon player's favor.

This is what makes the army not-that-fun for me. I go from high stress, nail biting drama, to 'got my units in the assault, ride on Easy Mode to my inevitable destination'.

Great army to bust out of the closet every so often, and I do love the units, but I don't think it'll ever be "my army".

As to its overall competitiveness, if the IG codex and static gunline come back in a big way, I could see it losing its overall edge. But even then, all you have to do is thunk down Blood Crushers and you're typically "good to go".

Tortuga932 wrote:the same thing happens if any player with any army rolls bad

This is very true, however Daemons truly feel the pain. The daemon player has to leave many many decisions up to dice rolls (Which half the army coming in, when they are coming in, where they going to be when they arrive). Of course this is the problem with all DSing Lists, but in all cases except daemons DSing is a option not a MUST!!

If you are good thinking on your toes Daemons can be a good army for you, because you really dont know what you are going to get or where you going to be at the beginning of a game. This kind of sorta ties into what sourclams was mentioning. The daemons DS has a huge (and Painful) Learning curve. In many ways I believe that DS is about 30% ~ 40% of a Daemons players Tactics (List making is a large % as well).

Again, DS is a very much a gift and curse with daemons. I feel its more of a curse after playing over 50 games with them, but hey thats my opinion. I moved to another army partially due to this very reason (being random); also, people stopped playing vs my Daemons.. All a sudden when I come in.. I be like "Anyone want to Play?!?" and everyone is like "Ahh.. man I really have to finish painting this unit", soon as I started to play with my filthy puss filled Marines Folks would stop painting to play.. sadly its becoming the same again with my CSM"

Mausama

What is hard to learn with Daemons is dice roll risk mitigation. I've been building my Daemon armies with identical or nearly identical halves. Regardless of the dice roll my deepstrike strategy is the same.

Linkdead wrote:What is hard to learn with Daemons is dice roll risk mitigation. I've been building my Daemon armies with identical or nearly identical halves. Regardless of the dice roll my deepstrike strategy is the same.

I thought of this when i First started daemon.. however, I found you cannot make a 875 list and double it. It does fix of the randomness in what army you are getting, but you will be breaking many things. I hate to say it, but I think other than going crusher spam.. Daemons need options. Just have to make you list to neither half is bad.. rather than making the same list twice.

I would make this longer, but Its time to leave work.

Do some test games.. you will see.

Mausama

Yeah as I said earlier in this very thread, 2 half armies is not competitive. I agree with most of what Mausama said - the way to keep them playing against you is to bring completely different daemon armies each time.

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble... but demons are not only a viable list to run, but I don't think there will be anything out there to stop them. Just played against a guy (who I hope won't take offense but doesn't matter if he does) dropped the "Skittles" bomb on me. I will say this, there is ABSOLUTELY NO LIST out there that should/possibly take it down on a consistent basis. I expect from now on when i show up to any game to concede before deployments (after checking the army list to make sure that it is indeed the "Killer Skittles" list) without a second thought. Take all the LR's you want. They won't do any good. Take all the Nob bike squads you want as well.... they just bounce. Nothing works. Don't believe me? Wait until the next GT comes around.
Short of the "Skittles Bomb" player having crappy drops (which is the only chance in hell you have on winning by the way, and even then its an uphill fight) the only way to even think about taking it out is to kill the blue guy with the 3+ invul with rr. Good luck doing that though as anyone taking this list will already know that he is the weak link and will take precautions on dropping him safe in the basket.

What is the skittles bomb? I haven't heard that term before.

That's where your opponent, knowing he's playing an inferior army, just throws tons of skittles at you until you get so annoyed you forfeit and walk away.

Yeah what is a Skittle's bomb? BloodCrushers? I kind of figured the "blue guy" is Kairos.. but skittles? Interesting.

Mausama

basically its taking something from all four colors that the list has to offer... Khorne (red), slaneesh (pink), nurgle (green), and tzeench (blue) it really sucks too. Apart from bieng really expensive to actually field I have played against it personally as the owner had made a decent modifacation of bloodletters/cold ones for some really cheap bloodcrushers. Call me a noob or whatever, been playing a balanced list for like 3 yrs and getting stomped by that army really doesn't want me to play against it much.

OK, well, what's the list? What's he taking from what color? You mentioned Kairos and Bloodcrushers, but what else? I'm guessing plaguebearers as troops, maybe Grinders, maybe Seekers for pink (the only real worth it from that color in many-god).

I like fiends in the many-god list as well. Their ridiculous charge range, high strength, lost of attacks, and hit and run work pretty darn well for me. I actually take 5 flamers (4 can flame on the drop and normally this number means at least 2 uses), 4-5 bloodcrushers, and 4-6 fiends. It's seems to be the most useful in all situations for me. Just my two cents on the elites slot.

pretty much kairos, bloodcrushers, plague bearers, bloodthirster and "pink" grinders. hate it very much. prolly was cheated though, lotta people told me after game that the person was movin stuff kinda fishy.

Alphus wrote:pretty much kairos, bloodcrushers, plague bearers, bloodthirster and "pink" grinders. hate it very much. prolly was cheated though, lotta people told me after game that the person was movin stuff kinda fishy.

Maybe me being a vet Daemon player I can seen at least 2-3 ways to counter such a drop if running SM or Spike SM. I would read up on his dex to make sure he isnt doing shady things and call him on it.. One common mistake I see with many daemon players is Deep striking a troop w/icon and have everything else come in off that same icon in same turn.. But knowing your opponents dex improves your tactics and rule's lawyering (lol) dramatically.

Most of the time someone will get me once with shady tactics, but never twice.

Mausama

Some more common mistakes Daemon players make:

Not splitting there forces up equally and picking the side they want even if they don't get there 3+ roll.

Bringing in a Unit of 8 Bloodcrushers off an Icon when they can not physically fit within 6' of the icon. The best you can get is 4 otherwise you have to scatter.

There's a YMDC question I was curious about. When dealing with icons, homers and the like - is it all models must be within X distance of the icon (like mrdabba is suggesting), or is it only the first model that forms the center of the circle?

Yeah this is a good question; However, you will be hard pressed to find this answer in the BRB.

In most friendly games, I assume this would not be an issue at all. However, not sure in a tournament settings.

Yeah, it should be the center one, however, you can actually fit more bloodcrushers. You can do the center one, then 5 around it, then another 4-5 on the side away from the iconbearer (usually).

It seems clear to me that only the first model matters since that is the only one that scatters.

If thats the case then we have been playing it wrong at my club. We played it that the entire unit had to be within 6' of the icon.

mrdabba wrote:If thats the case then we have been playing it wrong at my club. We played it that the entire unit had to be within 6' of the icon.

Yeah, we've always played it the first model is the determination for scatter (Is it within 6?) then the other models are placed around it...even if they go outside of the 6. I take it your club doesn't allow players to Icon SoulGrinders either (As they are wider than 6 inches)?

AgeOfEgos wrote: I take it your club doesn't allow players to Icon SoulGrinders either (As they are wider than 6 inches)?

LOL... that was coooooooollld Blooooded.. Age of Egos is cold as ice.. haha.. just kidding.

yeah I have always been playing this way and never once had a problem.. even at the local tournaments at GW shops.. Its all good.

AgeOfEgos wrote: I take it your club doesn't allow players to Icon SoulGrinders either (As they are wider than 6 inches)?

A soul Grinder does fit within 6inches of an Icon. If they converted and it did not fit I would say it had to scatter..even by your standards of the rule...its the model deep striking that has to be within 6 inches correct?

mrdabba wrote:

AgeOfEgos wrote: I take it your club doesn't allow players to Icon SoulGrinders either (As they are wider than 6 inches)?

A soul Grinder does fit within 6inches of an Icon. If they converted and it did not fit I would say it had to scatter..even by your standards of the rule...its the model deep striking that has to be within 6 inches correct?

You kind of hit on my point. The models base/part has to be touching the 6 inch bubble but the entirety of the model does not need to be within 6 inches (Which is what semi-prompted this discussion regarding crushers). Look at the example of transports/embarking within 2" on pg. 66 of the rulebook. Many players believe that the entire base of the model must be within 2 inches to embark/disembark, when only part of their base needs to touch the 2 inch bubble. Same with the icon (Initial model)...it doesn't need to be within 6 inches of the icon, just part of its base needs to touch the 6 inch 'bubble'.

/I got my Grinder(s) off the shelf, each are around 6 1/4-1/2 inch spreads. This may vary to how you pose the legs....