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[spoiler]Comments welcome

This is just the first draft of this list made at three in the morning. I know that I'm going to have trouble with tanks but I'm heisitant to use my Soul Grinder. Anyway I figured 88 models might make up for the lack of anti-tank stuff. If you could please comment on what aspects I'm missing from my overall stratagy and so on and so forth. Thanks!

HQ-
Masque - 100
Skulltaker - 140
Herald of Tz on Chariot w/ Boon of Mutation, Daemonic Gaze, Soul Devourer, and Master of Sorcery - 120 (2x)

Elites -
3x Fiends of Slaanesh
3x Flamers (2x)

Troops-
10x Daemonettes x/ Icon - 165 (Masque will accompany this one)
10x Daemonettes - 140 (2x)
10x Bloodletters w/ Icon - 185 (Skulltaker with this squad)
10x Bloodletters - 160 (2x)

Fast Attack-
5x Seekers of Slaanesh w/ Musician - 90 (2x)
5x Screamers

Hmmm. Like so many others I still don't know how to land with only 1/2 the army and not have it get shot off the board.

To answer Russell, deep strike on a flank to cut down on the shooting. And come into play shooting.

Couple notes for you Billie

first. Masque is great but she isn't an IC, she doesn't need and can't have a unit to join. Shes got hit and run and a 3+ invulnerable and 3 pavanes for a reason. Slaanesh threw her out, he probably doesn't let his other girls hang with her for a reason.

I think the bluescribes might be better than 2 heralds, really just because I'm in love with BS4 pavanes.

Skulltaker may or may not be necessary. If your local meta-game includes a lot of marines with a lot of marine ICs then go for it, other wise he may just be more overkill to an already devastatingly killy unit.

fiends and flamers... best 2 elite units in the list. they look like they are going to be important parts in non "big guy" lists.

Fiends are nasty anti-tank, with hit and run, the 12" charge and str 5 rending, they'll help where you are lacking.

demonettes and bloodletters are both excellent, but I don't think either of them are good "icon" units. both of those units thrive on getting the charge off. I'm a big fan of small units of bloodletters and demonettes with 2 big units of either horrors or plaguebearers.

plaguebearers make for good icon anchors for obvious reasons. Horrors make excellent "big units" too. A large unit of horrors can come into play and defned themselves with devastating shooting, changeling gimmicks and possibly a lash or two from the blue scribes. Their 4+ invulnerable helps too. I prefer them to the 'reactive' nature of the nurgle stuff, but both could be considered valid.

Screamers are good. People talk about how they are "only good at tank hunting" thats a fallacy. They are an excellent tank hunting unit. But they are also strength and t4, 4+ invulenrable save jetbikes. Against anything but marines or dedicated assault troops they are intimidating. Tell a unit of fire warriors or sniper drones or a 10 man IG infantry squad that screamers aren't a "cc" unit. When you encounter vehicles, they really shine. I don't really see the seekers. the fiends are just as fast and are so much more flexible, that I'd prefer another unit of them over fiends.

High model count demon armies look to be pretty good. With no grinders or MCs to point tank killing guns at, you are really stretching peoples firepower, and if you make correct deep strike decisions, even with a little bit of bad luck, you are going to be placing, fast, deadly units into play. Use LOS/range/4+ cover saves/your own shooting to restrict the amount of shooting you take on arrival. Use fast hit and run units to tie up expensive enemy units while your assault units get in position, use pavane to restrict enemy rapid fire on turn 1 (example: land with horrors and masque with demonic assault. Shoot with horrors first, then pavane target unit out of rapid fire range, next turn suck unit in with pavane and charge with masque, hit and run after thier combat is over) these are the combos that you'll need to really stretch in order to get some wins, but a bet good demon players are going to be tough nuts, especially to armies with limited maneuverability.

Hope I was helpful, please come and post batreps asap!

Shep wrote:
Screamers are good. People talk about how they are "only good at tank hunting" thats a fallacy. They are an excellent tank hunting unit. But they are also strength and t4, 4+ invulenrable save jetbikes. Against anything but marines or dedicated assault troops they are intimidating. Tell a unit of fire warriors or sniper drones or a 10 man IG infantry squad that screamers aren't a "cc" unit. When you encounter vehicles, they really shine. I don't really see the seekers. the fiends are just as fast and are so much more flexible, that I'd prefer another unit of them over fiends.

Screamers are only good for tank hunting because they really suck at assault. Strength 4 and T4 is ok, but then I3 and A1 is where they really blow. For their price that stat line is terrible.

I was very dissapointed at there profile since I was looking for some good counter assault for a Tzeentch army.

Doesn't exist.

There also aren't flavor armies anymore.

It's all one big happy family of sucktitude.

My army is one big happy family with only one flava.

Blackmoor wrote:Screamers are only good for tank hunting because they really suck at assault. Strength 4 and T4 is ok, but then I3 and A1 is where they really blow. For their price that stat line is terrible.

my codex says A2... the codex out of a spearhead. What i said before and I stand by is this. Screamers are good enough in an assault to assault things that aren't good at assault. 3 attacks a piece on the charge at strength 4. 6 of them put out 18 attacks for 96 points. They are also T4 with a 4+ invulnerable save. Will they lose an assault with guardsmen? With firewarriors? With dark reapers? Even with lootas?

Understand that they make my lists and other peoples lists because of their melta-bombs, but my point is that a jetbike unit with their statline isn't "useless" outside of their meltabombs.

I can't really imagine how anyone would think that a 16 point 4+ invulnerable jetbike with strength and toughness 4 with 2 attacks base and meltabombs standard is "overcosted" but ok...

Using black and white statements in the description of a unit really encapsulates the fallacies of theory-hammer. phrases like "only good at" and "really suck at assault" fail to cover the full uses of screamers.

If they really are A2 (can anyone else confirm?) and Blackmoor is under the impression that they are A1, you probably ought to let him reconsider his position before attacking his opinion further. You guys are effectively talking about two different units.

I looked at a preview codex and I though it had them listed as A1. If I am wrong (and if you have the codex, there is a good chance of it), A2 makes them a little bit better.

They are still not a counter assault or really an assault unit. Most of the units that they can kill will out number then 2-to-1 for the same points.

The two attacks do make them more useful though, so I might use them in 3 squads of 3 for tank hunting, and maybe to finish off or tie up units. That I3 is brutal though. Why did they not make them just a bit faster, or give them furious charge like they did last edition.

I personally think it depends on the playing style of whoever is using the unit.

Shep would use them for a all purpose unit. Tie up small squads, tanks, and make use of their mobility.

Blackmoor would use them only for tank hunting.

If you are a good enough player, and not 100% slowed, you'll be able to assault with them also. It depends on the placement, if you get the charge, and the unit you are charging. Would we run a full squad of Screamers into a horde of Gaunts? No. They would mob you down. A six man squad of Marines? Hec yea.. The marines get 6 attacks, hitting on 4's, and wounding on 4's.. that's a 0dds of 2 wounds on the Screamers, with a 50% chance of both saves... then the screamers strike back with 3x the same number of attacks as the marines... odds are you'll win the fight, marines will either stand and fight, or try and fall back.

It's all "this way, or that way" type of thing. It's warhammer... anything can happen on any given day. I've seen an IG squad kill 7 terminators in a single round of shooting due to failed saves..

just got home... I owe Blackmoor an apology. Looks like screamers indeed have 1 attack.

That doesn't take them out of my lists, as they are the best anti-tank the demons can ask for (once skimmers can be penetrated of course) but it adds weight to his comments about their CC ability.

Back to OP. I'm going to try and play 4-6 games this weekend with a list very similar in model count and its lack of MCs and vehicles as yours. I'll come back here and link batreps on monday. Hopefully you'll get a chance to get some games in with that list as well. Until then most other comments I've got about your list aren't really tested theories.

I'll be back with data

Shep when you say best....how do screamers work better against skimmers? Need 6's to hit?

They do virtually nothing against Liths...

Just curious.

Stelek wrote:Doesn't exist.

There also aren't flavor armies anymore.

It's all one big happy family of sucktitude.

I'm thankful for the encouraging attitude.

As far as skimmers go flamers inflict a glancing on a 4+, then the screamers can take them out once they're either immobile or what ever.

My only question is does anyone think that an all Slaanesh army would work? That was my original idea but idk anymore. I enjoy the debate you guys but can anyone give me some sound advice on how to play this army, or what to truely take into consideration when building it? Like Shep originally did (thank you Shep).

Sure an all slaanesh army could work. Take 2 keepers, 3 DP's, and a bunch of daemonettes. Throw in whatever else you like and you got a list.

All Slaanesh is, to my mind, the most effective of the "pure" Daemon armies, as its basically a huge herd of swift renders. In 4th you can rend down enemy vehicles, so you don't need as much anti-vehicle as certain other lists.

Basically, here's how I see the new Dex.

HQ: All Gods have decent choices, Slaanesh's are the best (chariots incredible, pavane awesome, Masque super awesome) Nurgle has best GD, but not as good as heralds

Troops: Nurgle has best choice, Khorne + Slaanesh are alright

Elites: Tzeentch has the best, slaanesh + Khorne alright

HS: Obviously not God specific, Nurgle is best mark for DP

FA: Slaanesh has best FA

According to the 'dex tactics section the way the army is supposed to work is like this:

1. Drop Tzeentch/Nurgly troops, Tzeentch shoots at best enemies
2. Enemy's retaliate, imp invul saves/FNP helps you survive
3. Slaanesh/Khorne guys fall on the Icons, surviving Tzeentch/nurgly guys lock up the enemy
4. Enemy fights with first wave survivors
5. Slaanesh/Khorne guys charge in, more fall

So, obviously the area that Slaanesh will be doing worst at is the first wave. They've got no nurglings to land and threat a tie up on everyone, and no flamers to land zap enemy's. Instead, they've just got wave upon wave of rending troops, with all waves roughly identical.

I suggest you adopt a "ONE-two approach, that is, a thunderous first strike and a second you don't care about. Split your army so that the units that fall on the first round are your best, (big seeker units, etc.), and drop the cheap pavaners in the second wave to keep the enemy from fleeing your first wave.

Screamers can't hit skimmers. 1 attack + hitting on 6's + unit size 5 + vehicle resilience in 5th = screamer ineffectiveness.

Even getting multiple attacks against Tau skimmers in the Tau players turn...against everyone else, screamers get shot up.

After all, why shoot CC troops that can't hurt you when there are units around that can?

Kill the little ones that hurt, then finish off the rest when you want.

Let's look at the numbers on 5 screamers vs. a skimmer (AV 12, presumably moved > 6".

3125/7776 that all 5 miss, so a bit more than half the time you get at least one hit. (I'll round .598 to 3/5 for the rest of this analysis)

Average melta pen will be 15, and we just need a 13 to pen on a typical skimmer. That means at least a 5 on 2d6? So, what, 8/9 we pen?

On the 5th ed chart you've got a +1 for AP 1 weapon, and skimmer still take immobilize as destroyed? So you destroy the skimmer on a 3+?

3/5 * 8/9 * 2/3 gives us, what, a 48 out of 135 of destroying the vehicle on a charge?

By contrast a lascannon vs. a skimmer has 2/3 of hitting, 1/2 of penning, 2/3 of bypassing the cover save and a 1/2 of destroying it? so 4/36, or 1/9?

So a charge from a 5 man unit of screamers is between a volley from a 3 lascannon dev squad and a volley from a 4 lascannon dev squad in terms of odds of bringing down a devilfish.

You assume 5 screamers will actually survive.

You also assume 5 screamers will be able to assault.

Unlike lascannon devs, who will be able to fire for multiple turns without being degrated.

So all that said, it's been my experience screamers are more like special weapon squads in terms of effectiveness.

Might do the job, odds are they won't do much.

Stelek wrote:Shep when you say best....how do screamers work better against skimmers? Need 6's to hit?

They do virtually nothing against Liths...

Just curious.

Its a fair question.. What I like about screamers versus skimmers is that one hit can be very devastating. Whereas in 4th edition, against a falcon with a holofield you'd need to spam an ungodly amount of glancing hits to kill one, now in 5th, they are still difficult to kill, but much less so.

What I'm really getting at is that the new superfalcon takes fortune, and re-rolls a 5+ or 4+ cover save to survive. If I get to CC with one (that is a big 'if') then i go right past their cover save, negating their fortune as I go. If i do get a hit, i will surely penetrate with a meltabomb. If I penetrate with an ap 1 weapon, and you moved fast enough to get a 5+ save, then a roll of 3+ destroys the vehicle. Rolling two of two 3+'s is not an unlikely occurance.

I don't need 6 or more screamers to get a 6 to hit. If I have 3 screamers lined up for a charge with a harlequin filled falcon, you HAVE to respect them. I don't care what the "expected result" is on 3 screamers charging a holo-falcon. It is far too likely that this 48 point unit is about to take out 350 points. So you shoot them, they die, something else didn't.

When i said "best" i meant best, not "good". A bs3 24" range railgun doesn't beat their performance on a fortuned holo-fielded falcon does it? I don't think mech eldar has much to fear from demons at all other than maybe an unholy number of flying MCs and a lot of good luck from the demon player. Or being outplayed in an objective game.

As far as monoliths go, I'm not even talking about completely unusable 3rd edition codexes in my game-testing. If i don't pull the necron player on game 1, i won't see him all weekend. You can agree with that right?

I got a chance to play 2 test games last night against dark angels. I'll bump this post with a link to the batreps... It might be useful info for the OP...

I don't need 6 or more screamers to get a 6 to hit. If I have 3 screamers lined up for a charge with a harlequin filled falcon, you HAVE to respect them. I don't care what the "expected result" is on 3 screamers charging a holo-falcon. It is far too likely that this 48 point unit is about to take out 350 points. So you shoot them, they die, something else didn't.

I agree with your assessment, but here's my question: did you gain anything by my shooting them instead of whatever it is that didn't die? It's all very well to say that Screamers are useful for drawing fire, but if they don't take that fire any better than whatever the alternative was (and they don't), what's the point? The only time you make a gain is when the smallest unit of firepower your opponent has is overkill for the Screamers. This isn't the case in any of my Eldar lists. With skimmers getting less shooty on the move, this is even less likely to be the case in 5th.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:I agree with your assessment, but here's my question: did you gain anything by my shooting them instead of whatever it is that didn't die? It's all very well to say that Screamers are useful for drawing fire, but if they don't take that fire any better than whatever the alternative was (and they don't), what's the point? The only time you make a gain is when the smallest unit of firepower your opponent has is overkill for the Screamers. This isn't the case in any of my Eldar lists. With skimmers getting less shooty on the move, this is even less likely to be the case in 5th.

Well said... that is exactly where the challenge is in demon list designing. unlike a stand and shoot or vp denial list, this codex is going to need dozens of actual real world games before I know what to include. If I need to win games against mech eldar (looks like i will) then i'm going to need to include alternative threats beyond 9 screamers.

In 5th edition there is a push for larger units (kill points, the rise of orks) I'm hoping with larger units comes more overkill. mechanized lists won't have this problem because they'll always have the guns on their transports to fire separate, small bursts of fire.

the onus is definitely upon the demon player for making a list that challenges your opponent by forcing tough decisions. its a brand new army, never before existing, so its really a challenge to figure out what those units are going to be. A challenge I've been having a fun time meeting. Unfortunately, eldar are an ever popular army, and i don't think mech eldar is going anywhere. No one is really talking about the demon matchup against orks and the demon matchup against marines, which hasn't seemed too bad so far, because as of now, no one has really come up with a solution to falcons and wave serpents in an army that has trouble killing even rudimentary tanks. i can and i will try every trick in the codex before i give up.

Shep:

Demon match up against Orks can be absolute sh*t for the demon player.

Ork horde overwhelms you in CC. Demons just can't kill 180 fearless orks in CC, and a shooty demon list is just so much fail fail fail against so many armies that I don't think many players will run it.

Mech Ork puts the mech transports into the middle of your army, shoots up some and assaults what's been split.

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

Demons do fine against most marines, but drop pod marines destroy demons as they can drop on you or away from you--and you have a hard time moving demons once they drop.

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

As far as solutions to falcons and wave serpents, well, to be honest if you play 4th and don't have a problem then it should not be a problem in 5th...so I'd assume it's simply where you play not forcing you to have enough anti-tank firepower, so it's really a list design issue.

Stelek wrote:Ork horde overwhelms you in CC. Demons just can't kill 180 fearless orks in CC, and a shooty demon list is just so much fail fail fail against so many armies that I don't think many players will run it.

I can write up a demon list that can tear up groundpounder orks. The same list will do well against anything not in power armor or fully mechanized. Sounds like you can too, and it sounds like you and i are thinking of the same one. If the second part of your statement is true, I'm going to be pretty unhappy.

Who does shooty demons suck against? templars/space wolves? Shooty marines? I'm sure I'll figure it out this weekend. If i can't get a balanced enough list to split games against marines (not that they are good, just that I am going to face them.) Zilla and mech eldar, then I'll keep trying till I can. I just might try less often then i am right now.