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I think the Astra Militarum and Eldar codexes were already a blow to the nose of Chaos / Daemon lists, but the new Tyranid codex will bring the gut punch. I foresee a ton of Kraken / Kronus armies making life miserable for my Magnarion list, and really anything Daemons I tried to run. We really need the new Daemon codex to do for points and psychic buffs what the Eldar codex did, and for ranged shooting and stratagems and chapter tactics and mobility what the Tyranid codex did.

They should give the Lord of Change/Kairos Magnus's super-smite.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
They should give the Lord of Change/Kairos Magnus's super-smite.

I'd like to see LOC get a beefcaked version of Boon of Change, like maybe depending on roll it could double the stat given, and you could select 1 or get all 3 if you roll a certain #. Maybe then you would see it used.

You wouldn't see it used because almost no Tzeentch units worth damn attack, because all Tzeentch units either cast spells or have ranged attack, where +1 STR and A mean nothing.

Lords of Change and Magnus should ABSOLUTELY have the super smite, like Magnus. Kairos at the very least deserves Primarch level power, for his cost. His lore is Incredible and his model deserves better.

Tzeentch Heralds should buff either casting results or cast range instead of STR.

Screamers should have an ability like in AoS where they invert saves, or something.

If the Lord of Change or other Tzeentch units get anything like what they have in AoS, that would go a long way in making them relevant.

Eg:

- Casting done where the lower roll becomes equal to that of the higher roll.
- infernal Gateway Spell and others comparable in the Disciples book.
- Tzaangor Skyfires as nifty Assassination units.

Etc.

 techsoldaten wrote:
The problem seems to be a little more complex than restrictions around moving. Sure, I would be happy having a character stand still if I knew the summoning would work, 100% of the time.

[...]

I think the best summoning rules I ever saw were those from that wonderful codex that everyone who didn't play Chaos hated in 3rd edition...

For those who are not familiar, daemon summoning was done via the standard reserves rule (4+ Turn 2, 3+ Turn 3, 2+ Turn 4+). Once the unit was available, one placed the large blast down touching a chaos icon of the same god (or an undivided icon) and rolled the scatter dice plus 2D6. The daemons could then move, shoot and charge normally. This made them wonderfully viable. I'm not an ultra competitive player, but I used to enjoy my Death Guard army (yes, I played them before it was "cool" ) with my multiple daemon units. Plauge marines would wander up the table shooting away at whatever took their fancy, and then when the time was right, plaguebearers would spring into life and charge to tie up annoying units.

Something I DON'T think would work in 8th edition is the old Greater Daemon summoning - this required the Greater Daemon to take possession of an Aspiring Champion to come into being. This could remain a secret to the opponent, but I modelled up my terminator aspiring champion as a daemonvessel especially. This enabled my terminators to deep strike in, mess up some stuff in the nearby vicinity and then the Great Unclean One would burst into life and mess stuff up in the opponents backfield.

Definitely limiting a characters ability to participate in the game ruins summoning for me - at least if the unit can deep strike (even if it is "within X inches" of an icon and/or character), then it can tend to turn up where it wants without mucking with the other units in the army.

Azuza001 wrote:
Do you guys think summoning could be fixed by just removing the "if you moved you can't summon" part of the rules? Basically giving deamons deep strike but you need a charecter to pull it off like a homing Beacon? Maybe even add "pass a leadership test on the charecter who is your Beacon, if failed can't be used as a Beacon for remanded of turn"?

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a stratagem that allows a character that has moved to summon. It would make summoning a little more palatable. T1 - Winged Daemon Prince moves 12" + d6" forwards, then summons 30 lesser daemons up to 12" away. That gets you at least d6" into your enemies deployment zone.

JakeSiren wrote:

Azuza001 wrote:
Do you guys think summoning could be fixed by just removing the "if you moved you can't summon" part of the rules? Basically giving deamons deep strike but you need a charecter to pull it off like a homing Beacon? Maybe even add "pass a leadership test on the charecter who is your Beacon, if failed can't be used as a Beacon for remanded of turn"?

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a stratagem that allows a character that has moved to summon. It would make summoning a little more palatable. T1 - Winged Daemon Prince moves 12" + d6" forwards, then summons 30 lesser daemons up to 12" away. That gets you at least d6" into your enemies deployment zone.

Mmm. Question for me is, will mortal/daemon synergies be improved? My Word Bearers are supposed to be leet when it comes to this, and the fast character summoning rushdown was a decent ploy up to 8ed. Now, even if I get a summoner up close, I can’t bring anything down in flamer or easy charge range. Not holding my breath for a CD Stratagem patching that, hopefully summoning in general will be improved from the sub-par DS it is now.

In fact, DS? It’s more like a concealed deployment.

Oddly enough, in an edition of strictly segregated Tyranids, Genecult, and Brood Brothers, we *do* have some fantastic inter-army synergies. Boon of Tzeentch may be weak in a pure CD list, but Changeling, Boon Herald, and thirty Horrors are a fantastic accompaniment to a horde of Possessed.

Really crossing my fingers for an improvement to Horrors in Power Levels play, as things stand they’re pretty terrible.

Yeah, I can see all of that. Even if they change it to summoned deamons can come in outside 1" of an enemy that would make a difference.

Deamon prince charges in and gets swarmed by hormagaunts. It survives both rounds of combat to your turn, so then you can summon additional "help" in that can charge in for help. That would be cool.

Supreme Command Detachment

Magnus
5x Malefic Lord

Daemon Battalion

Changeling
Daemon Prince
- Wings, 2x Claw (Tzeentch)
Herald of Tzeentch

6x 1 Blue 9 Brimstones

6x Exalted Flamer

Chaos Battalion

2x Malefic Lord

3x 1 Blue 9 Brimstones

4x Exalted Flamer

Total units: 90 Horrors, Changeling, Daemon Prince, Herald, 7 Malefic Lords, 10 Exalted Flamers, Magnus


-------------


Have a big RTT (20+ People) and a GT coming up, and this is what I'm working with. Current considerations were to potentially drop Magnus and add a couple blobs of nurglings, and another 1-2 Exalted Flamers, to give me a bit more screening potentially, but I'm pretty happy with the massive amount of firepower this list shoots out.

Any opinions, nerds?

Are exalted flamers strong enough to be the backbone of your army like this? I use a pretty similar list w/ more princes & some nurglings (nurglings are great).

The short range and 4+ to hit if you move concerns me. How valid a concern is it is the question, I'm still pretty new at this. Will you have to move them outside of screen to land shots on important targets? I feel like a great way of dealing with malefic lord spam is positioning outside 18'' when possible. Granted only certain armies can do this, but any army that was prepared to handle lord spam this way will be equally prepared to deal with exalted spam. Maneuverable armies may be an issue?

Lords just move 6" and advance every turn, they have a deceptive threat range.

As far as Exalted Flamers go, yeah, they're incredibly. S5 AP-2 1d d6 Auto hit pistols or 18" S9 AP-4 D3 damage is pretty good, especially with a prince giving them rerolls.

I play very, very aggressively so I'm going to be directly in my opponents face asap.

I think the list will do well, though I think it highlights how Chaos is not as strong as people thing - a small handful of good units (Malefic Lords, Aetos, Brims, Slaanesh Oblits) are used as crutches to power up some otherwise underwhelming factions.

Personally, after a lot of success with my Mortation / Magnus / 3rd LoW list (either Zarakynel or Renegade Knight), I think I will experiment with bringing Scabby as my 3rd LoW. The new ITC missions are harder for my list to win than before, and a Knight sadly gives up Titanslayer too easily despite its advantages (mobility, can shoot without LoS, give another option vs flyers, can blow up heavy weapons past screens, etc.).

I think Scabby was kind of useless before, but with Tyranids getting so much stronger and the possibility of deep striking Eldar assault units, plus all the new +1 cover / - to hit army abilities, I think maybe the game will shift to more melee focus so that Scabby's -1 to hit in melee aura and slow movement are more useful. Hard to say but I want to try.

Can malefic lords summon Khorne deamons if they take covenant of Khorne? It would require a 25 point commander to dedicate the entire detachment to Khorne, but the 25 point commander would have nothing better to do than throw 3 dice at summoning.

My thought is cheap FW characters would solve the bloodletter delivery problem, and if 3 dice can be thrown from an expendable character I could even play around with an 8 PL summoning for a unit of crushers with a +1 to charge out of deep strike.

Right now the army is mostly CSM. Deamons I am thinking of including would be limited to a brigade of 3 by 10 bloodletters, maybe some solo fiends or a unit of crushers, the changing, and a Herald of Tzeentch. Possessed got really good when they got their free 2nd wound so +1 strength and -1 to be hit on top of alpha legion sounds nice.

Ah this is a common misconception, an unalligned character can summon any god no problems. The only restriction is if the character is marked then they can only summon that god, if they are not then it's free fame any god

Anyone got any Nurgle Daemon specific tactics and lists? I've got a huge pile of Nurgle Daemons that I need to put to work.

 Vomikron Noxis wrote:
Anyone got any Nurgle Daemon specific tactics and lists? I've got a huge pile of Nurgle Daemons that I need to put to work.

I take it you’ve got Epidemius? He’s the key to a pure ND army building up momentum from a nasty cough to a pandemic.

Are you going pure Chaos Daemons? Obliterators, a Dinobot or two, and DPs who can Death Hex or Warptime (or Sorcerers on Palanquins) have outstanding synergy with Epi. Also Decimators. Maybe Heldrakes. DG can contribute with Plagueburst Crawlers as well, and if their tricycle drone thing ever gets released it’s a nice little hunter of damaged transports.

I guess ND in general though are about strategic application of tarpitting, and flying DPs going around getting the actual kills. Plague Drones seem moderately competent at grinding down light infantry. Soul grinders are pretty tough but they don’t seem to have the damage output to do all that much.

Once Epidemius is charged up to 4 and then 6, then your tarpit units will become pretty good at winning attrition, but getting him there without relying on CSM Daemonic units looks pretty difficult to achieve - and not all that difficult to thwart.

Even Furies are worse than usual, as finishing off a unit with their gimmick doesn’t count towards Epidemius. They’re not even all that useful to jump towards an objective in no man’s land, as you’ve already covered it in Nurglings. Are they even efficient as a mobile tarpit to troll units with high damage weapons, since the Plague Drone price drop?

Yeh it certainly looks like Epidemius is pretty much an auto include... in terms of everything else, I'm easy really. I'll probably focus on Daemons, but I'm definitely open to including other things if it improves the army.

In terms of what I've got, it's very Daemon focused: GUO, 2x DP, 70 x PBs, 9 x Nurglings, 6 x Plague Drones, and Scabeiathrax. That's just the painted Nurgle stuff, got a bunch more ready to be built. My only problem is deciding where to take it all!

I happen to have a single Nurgle Obliterators unit that was like my first CSM Squad, and a Nurgle Daemon Prince I got for a jetpack monster project.

Their power alone was enough for me to look at my Battalion of two Nurgling objective grabbers and a Plaguebearers screen, and decide that Epidemius should replace Karanak as the second Daemon HQ. Anticipation of a purity bonus for monolatrist Detachments is just a bonus.

I’m a very polytheist Word Bearers collector, and the idea that Nurgle Daemons are easier to infect a machine with is enough for me to rationalise siccing four stinky Dinobots on the unbelievers

Is there any reason to use a Lord of Change? It's a lot of points for very little firepower. Fateweaver especially seems like a waste. For 15 more points I could just bring Magnus.

Sorry if this has been discussed already. I'm just looking for good allies for my Thousand Sons, and I love the LoC model. He just seems worthless right now.

Mr.Pengwinn wrote:
Is there any reason to use a Lord of Change? It's a lot of points for very little firepower. Fateweaver especially seems like a waste. For 15 more points I could just bring Magnus.

Sorry if this has been discussed already. I'm just looking for good allies for my Thousand Sons, and I love the LoC model. He just seems worthless right now.

Give it a couple of months and see what the Codex brings - GDs are in a weak spot right now and need work.

In the meantime, Horrors are a great unit, can’t go wrong with three squads of Brimstones with a Blue. (In fact, I’d expect them to be maybe toned down a bit, or at least reorganised.) Flamers of both type seem to be useable.

Heralds are a bit meh right now, a lot of people take Malefic Lords instead but that’s getting a cheesy reputation. But! If you have any Daemon Princes, Maulerfiends, Heldrakes, or Decimators, then a Herald on Disc or Chariot will give them +1S, and Boon will also become... well, *maybe* worth it. It’s no Diabolic Strength, best used on Possessed, which aren’t available to TS.

Mr.Pengwinn wrote:
Is there any reason to use a Lord of Change? It's a lot of points for very little firepower. Fateweaver especially seems like a waste. For 15 more points I could just bring Magnus.

Sorry if this has been discussed already. I'm just looking for good allies for my Thousand Sons, and I love the LoC model. He just seems worthless right now.

It's worthless.

 lindsay40k wrote:
Give it a couple of months and see what the Codex brings - GDs are in a weak spot right now and need work.

Chiming in to say I'm dumb excited for the codex, especially if it gives me a reason to finally paint my LOC. I played my Tizz gribblies a bunch in the opening of 8E, but stepped away from the game once the first codex (SM?) hit, since there's so much more going on when you've got strats, relics, 'legion rules' and all that other delicious (and free!) stuff to work with. Daemons have some real potential for crazy gak (plus CP are easy to come by with how cheap troops + budget HQs are), and I can only imagine the Tzeentch stuff will swing wildly between woefully random and game-breakingly OP

- Salvage

At the very least, we can expect some sort of deep strike stratagem. I just hope they don't make us do a summoning roll for it...

Although, being able to summon anywhere without a character would be nice as an alternative stratagem.

What I’m curious about is how Faction purity will work. For several editions, the monolatrist list has been somewhat discouraged; psychic powers and the nonspecific alignment of DPs and the big engine thingy made it feasible, but the notion of Chaos being perpetual civil war has diminished in favour of the notion of a halfway competent pantheon.

It would be interesting to see Deity Tactics for the different combinations that can be made without having rivals. A Khorne-Tzeentch host, or a Slaanesh-Nurgle one. Like each god’s units get a minor perk if they’re in a Detachment without any rivals, and a major one if they’re in a pure Detachment. That would give us more variety than the four pure factions alone.

As a mono-god player and demagogue fundamentally opposed to the Skittles style 'take all the good things, damn the gods' list, I'm totally with you. Given the huge variety of "legion" style army buffs in the codexes, I've wondered what Caemons will have for sub-factions - daemon worlds? particular warp breaches? notable outbreaks? - and going the god route seems far easier on the designers / more relevant to existing fluff / previous rules. Aren't there typically six or so "legion" varieties in the new codexes? So four gods + non-rival pairings you list, Linds, gets us there. Or they could do four gods + token lesser gods (Malal, not sure what other ones are psuedo-canon, apart from Horned Rat in AOS).

- Salvage

In my eyes, Daemons always seem to mesh together with their chaos marine counterparts of the same allegiance. I'm hoping the Daemon codex acknowledges and provides some synergies reflecting this - perhaps in the form of keywords or strategems. Would it seem unlikely for GW to provide a foundation in the Daemon codex where building a chaos daemon list is not dependent upon, but provides strong options for incorporating allegiant heretic astartes, perhaps by enhancing <Mark of Chaos> keywords? Being able to have, for example, Khorne Daemon strategems affect Khorne heretic astartes would really give way to some awesome Daemonkin list building options.

I wouldn't mind taking Possessed if the Deamon stratagems interacted with them. Hell at this point I'm just looking for a way to integrate Flesh Hounds back into my army.

I miss the Gore Pack, Hounds and Bikes rushing at the enemy in a wave of death Q_Q

Won my event with the above posted list today.

Almost no contest. Max points every round. We used Atlanta Warzone rules.

Still, excited to see what the codex gives us. I want to use more than 4 total units.