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Well, I haven't seen the new daemons list, just heard rumors about it, and using these rumors, I came up with this.

Bloodthirster

Bloodthirster

7 Bloodletters

7 Bloodletters

7 Bloodletters

7 Bloodletters

7 Bloodletters

7 Bloodletters

Winged Daemon Prince of Khorne

Winged Daemon Prince of Khorne

Winged Daemon Prince of Khorne

This army is simple, and should be able to put the fear of khorne into just about anything it comes across. The other nice thing is that killing space marines will be its specialty.... and what does everyone play? That's right... space marines..... and with each unit putting out 21 str 5 attacks on the charge.... that's a whole lot of dead space marines. Finally, it's an all khorne army that uses the models and fluff that I like..... an added bonus. There's only one real problem, AT ability. I'll hafta rely on the 5 Mc's to kick some tank butt.

It is scary.

If you lose your 3+ save to heavy weapons fire, the MC die.

Remember the order things work in:

Opponent deploys. He should be castled up.

First turn you deep strike.

You have either 2 or 3 MC and 3 bloodletter units down; or you risked it all and went 5 MC/6 troops.

Either way, you usually put about 50% of your force down.

You get shot. Possibly you get shot and assaulted or tarpitted. Often you'll have vehicles blocking your non-flyers movement, and all of your flyers will be shot dead first turn.

If you are facing a gunline, assuming you survive the barrage which does include bolters/lasguns/all rapid fire weapons) you have to assault and tie up units.

If you have 2 MC, odds are they're dead. If you are facing a gunline, they might be alive and the demon support might all be dead. MC after all can only tie up one unit and if you have a mix of mech and infantry, times aren't that great for you since you have a hard time killing tanks and assaulting infantry. Some rules/units can, but not all.

At any rate, you need to hustle into combat because shooting isn't where it's at for this army. If you can't negate some fire by getting into combat at a key point and blocking lines of fire, you are going to have a hard time of things.

The army has a hard time with alot of current 'tournament' worthy lists primarily because you have to be shot before you can assault. Any mishap essentially denies you a unit when you need it, where you need it. You should always be about 8-12" away from the enemy with flyers, as odds are you can get into combat even with a scatter and you'll avoid mishaps. Unfortunately anything that cannot fleet and cannot shoot, needs to risk mishaps so the enemy cannot move away and avoid you.

Drop in front of most current godzilla lists and you'll be evaporated before you know what hit you. MC die to torrents of fire just like marine squads do.

I hope it works well for you. I haven't experienced this particular army version yet, where everything is Khorne. I don't think it'll do very well, especially against mech armies and mobile SAFH. The Khorne Bloodletters do take it to Orks though.

Hmm self edited for rant....

I'm not impressed with what I have seen of the daemon lists so far....

why not 8 bloodletters? khorne's number is 8, nurgle's is 7

I'm pretty sure there will be points issues

Since you haven't seen the book yet I'll tell you this much, wings on demon princes are pointless. You're already deep striking the whole army and wings on a DP cost something like 30pts. The issue I have with the new DP is that it is only T5, which leaves it incredibly vulnerable to most infantry shooting.

I think wings on the DP's are much more than 30pts, try around 60pts each.

That being said you absolutely need them. Stelek's analysis is spot on, if you intend to drop in the open and in front of the enemy. Wings allow you to drop the 5 MC's first turn all together. Now drop them behind terrain so they can't be shot.

On turn 2 you roll for reserves and if you get 3 or more of your troops, then have the MC's jump 12" from behind terrain and out into the open. ( I am not even assuming you can drop them somewhere your opponent can't see but you can still reach their lines from that spot). Once 5 MC's are in the open and ready to attack next turn, drop the 3+ troop squads close to the enemy. You have saturated the ground with units and quite a few things will find heir way through the next shooting phase relatively unscathed.

If, on turn 2, you don't get enough troops to come in, leave the MC's hidden and wait for another turn. You can always drop far away and scamper out of site depending on the victory conditions. I do know if the enemy is forced to move, like in an objective game, they have to come out of the castle and that's when they are vulnerable.

Remember you do not need to drop in front of the enemy with your MC's. Wings allows them to drop out of site and fly up like a regular flying MC. Try and save your attack gambit, if you want one, for when you get the most troops to come in after the MC's are already placed.

You can't really hide in 5th, though, dig.

If they have range or mobility to get in range, you will still get punked.

To make matters worse, it isn't difficult to shoot 3 or 4 squads of T4 infantry off the board in one turn. If the MC can't get within 12 + run + 12 + assault because of where you had to deep strike versus your opponent backing up...it's just delaying the 'oops, out in the open' moment from turn 1 to a later turn.

The end result is still the same.

I tried a few games like this, with lots of terrain (like 75%) against a static gunline army (IG then Tau). The sad thing is, you don't want to deep strike into terrain (because you lose models and can't move through diff terrain better than anyone else can) except with MC, so all you do to defend is put max firepower (esp anti-infantry) covering the open areas then focus your anti-tank to cover the woods/buildings/etc. Shoot away the little ones, and hit the big ones as hard as you can.
Then tie them up until you are ready to deal with them.

It's sad to see a Canoness move up with a couple IG squads towards a pair of DP, just to lock them in combat for this turn and fail next so you can shoot them dead...while the other MC gets punked and his little friends get annihilated. Little demons are far more dangerous to static gunlines than MC are.

It's a very 'kill the noob' army list. How often will it get played? Not often, it's soooo rock/paper/scissors. It's kind of sad seeing it land and get assaulted. Worse yet, is when a lash army pushes your DP away and shoots/assaults your demons to death and has it's own DP's standing by to countercharge your DP if they move up. Quite sad really.

Playing khorne demons is going to be tough to do because they have absolutely no advantage outside of combat, which is the last place your opponent is going to let you get. At least with tzneetch you have shooting and nurgle has FNP and high toughness. IMO Khorne is the weakest actual list in the book, despite how good it looks on paper. As Stelek has pointed out, the DP has gotten such a big nerf that they are not even as tough as the DP that Chaos Marines can take.

Khorne's "advantage" is the 3+ save.

As every army is built to beat T4 3+, it means you die just like marines--except you don't have anything to make you stand out as a threat.

Running can only do so much, and a properly placed vehicle will prevent it on the turn you could run anyway.

GW is very afraid of rhino rushes, sweeping advances (the 2D6" kind), and anyone moving more than 18" in a given turn. Since deep strike + assault was found to be an auto game winner for the Tyranid mycetic swarm list, I don't think that will ever come into 40K again.

Not until they implement defensive fire and/or overwatch (FOW or AT-43's version, not GW's), at any rate, which could mitigate some of that.

So bloodletters do get the 3+ armor save AND the 5+ invul?

If you think of Codex: Demons as a regurgitation of the old Chaos Codex Demon rules with a lemon-lime twist, you'll be pretty well on.

It's a subset no one asked for, but GW gives it anyway. From what I've been told, it's a running joke in-house.

"Got your turn 1 army ready to lose?"

"Yeah."

"Sweet. We'll play 5 games and call it one in our battle report."

Indeed. I'm disheartened to see what a poor army the 40k demons have turned out to be, given that the fantasy demons are powerful on the level of the new vampire counts. It's unfortunate, but the game of 40k is going to suffer a lot more in the way of dumbing down in order to counter some insane notion of imbalance. I feel sorry for anyone who was looking forward to a seriously competitive demon army.

Fantasy demons always rocked my world in fantasy my first few years playing. I expected more of the same but it seems it's not to be.

Maybe next years summer campaign will have Belakor leading a 'DS+Assault' army that doesn't suck. Who knows.

I'm still playtesting the Chaos Daemon codex, but I'm not sure how it is doing so badly for ya'all. The dex seems to get it done for me.

I've been playing around with this list:

Wave 1:
6 units tarpits (4 nurglings, 2 plaguebearers for Icons)
4 Heralds of Slaanesh (2 chariot, one icon, the Masque)

Wave 2:
3 Daemon Princes
3 units of 3 flamers of tzeentch
3 sets of Seekers of slaanesh

Depending on the enemy any of these sets may switch with the heralds or half the tarpits, I try and be adaptable.

I've played a variety of armies, and this seems to work alright. Round 1, land the tarpits in front of the enemy, gurgle menacingly, pavane them closer with masque and walker herald.

Their turn: They blaze away, usually destroy ~2 targpit units and lock the rest in assault.

My next turn: Assault continues, assaulters (DP's, Seekers) drop, More Pavane. Flamers hit vehicles that are moving away.

The rest of the game: The battle gradually goes my way, as Daemons are excellent in hand to hand. The seekers swarm any particular battle and and utterly own whatever they hit.

If you get the wrong half things get more dicy, but you can just land your assaulters far far from the battle, and play more conventionally, to buy time for the tarpits to fall in. Nurglings really do well, in my experience.

Yeah nuglings do seem to be the hidden gem in the list based on rumors, atleast in 4ed.

However I dunno how well this list will work if 5ed turns out to work as now. You'd have two units that can score and that isn't gonna be nearly enough, especially if your troops are the first wave. Lotsa speculation though.

Huh? Why wouldn't I have 6 units that can score?

Swarms don't score.

You need to playtest both 5th AND the Demon codex together.

It's meaningless how good the Codex does in 4th edition.

It could be king sh*t in 4th. Grats, 3 months of victories then off to nerfland.

exactly 5th is gonna screw all our days up. so are all the punk kids that are gonna go out and buy the daemon codex expecting a powerhouse list and then whine when they lose all the time. new players should sue marines or eldar nothing that needs finesse like an all DS army

But this list could get more powerful in 5th with the new running rules.

mortal888 wrote:But this list could get more powerful in 5th with the new running rules.

You DS, get shot. Running is pretty meaningless if you're dead, sadly.

Bastirous666 wrote:new players should sue marines or eldar

People like you contribute to a lawsuit-happy society!

i dunno what i meant there but i think i was going more for stick to and instead i got sue. wow i need to do less typing late at night

.....submits official 1750 demon army build request to Stelek....

Oh, 5th edition please

Im just so tempted to buy that damn spearhead, haha

Shep wrote:.....submits official 1750 demon army build request to Stelek....

Oh, 5th edition please

Im just so tempted to buy that damn spearhead, haha

Sigh. Really? lol

Stelek wrote: Sigh. Really? lol

Haha i know, there just isn't anything else out right now that i don't have access to through a friend. Hit me up with something basic and simple if you've got time. i can handle the up and downs... i think?!? haha

also, if i spend my 'economic stimulus package' on products from a foreign company, am i destroying america? If I spend my tax relief on GW, have the terrorists already won?

The one that seems the most dangerous after many playtests is the Tzeentch MC with Slaanesh Demonettes backed up by Nurglings and any of the demonairlines units.

Usually 2/3 MC, 4 demonettes, 2 nurglings, and 1 demonairlines unit for a total of 12 with a even split drop.

Usually that's alot of your army points gone, but you can tweak it.

It has serious issues against very heavy mech lists, but there's nothing you can do about it except take Heralds which aren't really that good.

You can take any of the gimmick characters if you want, but if the gimmick fails...you burned a slot on something useless.

Does that help?

Stelek wrote:

Does that help?

Totally, I'll take it from there. gonna go have a look tonight. thanks

Oh yeah, as far as tanks go, do the screamers totally suck?, or with meltabombs actually kicking skimmer ass in 5th will they be helpful? And you didn't include soul grinders, I'll assume that was on purpose...

For me if you're not taking fleet troops then you need the masque. daemon lash is like fleet in reverse. Tottaly nessesary for korne and nurgle troops to have a chance to get into CC.

Soulgrinders eat it from everybody. If they were AV14 on the front, they'd be something useful but as they are now they're not that good.

Screamers are ok, but get dead fast.