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This is a 2000 point daemon army I plan to run at an RTT next week. It is mostly what I can run, I don't have much more than what I have in this list, but I could probably shift stuff around. I have a 5 strong squad of Seekers of Slaanesh, 5 screamers of Tz, a spare Flamer, and a few spare daemonettes, plaguebearers, that's it really. I used a variant of this list this past tuesday against two different armies, Plasmaknife/Ion head tau and an assault space marine army. The tau got a solid win, unable to put away my squads, but also keeping my guys under scoring and not able to do any significant damage. The assault space marine army got torn to utter shreds (I'd post batreps but I took no pictures and don't entirely remember my enemy's lists, so I figured people would be annoyed but such a thing).

HQ:
Keeper Of Secrets – 225
Pavane of Slaanesh

Greater Unclean One – 180
Aura of Decay

Troops:
8 x Plaguebearers – 145
Icon
8 x Bloodletters – 153
Icon
8 x Bloodletters – 153
Icon
15 x Daemonettes – 235
Icon
5 x Horrors – 95
Bolt of Tz
5 x Horrors – 95
Bolt of Tz

Elites:
4 x Fiends of Slaanesh – 120
3 x Flamers of Tz - 105

FAST: 185
10 x Hounds – 185
Karanak

HEAVY: 300
Soulgrinder – 160
Phlegm
Daemon Prince – 140
Wings

Tactics:
Group A is going to be the Two Greater Daemons, the Prince, Plaguebearers, 1 squad of Bloodletters, Hounds, and Fiends. Group B is the 2nd squad of Bloodletters, the daemonettes, both sets of horrors, the soulgrinder, and the flamers. While I want A to land, I figure with either side I have a viable tactic. A floods an area with 3 MC's, 1 tough ass icon squad, 1 tough assault squad, and then overload another flank, a bit farther back with the faster hounds and fiends. Then my shooting elements come in my piecemeal to isolate vehicles or vulnerable areas. If B drops first, I have all my shooting to try and draw first blood and hopefully weaken my opponent enough so that when the rest comes down, they are not in a position to effectively counter.

So thoughts and comments are appreciated. Perhaps tongue instead of phlegm? Maybe cut the hounds for more daemonettes/bloodletters/plaguebearers? Thanks.

Honestly, I dont know how cc effective any of the new deamons are, but Im going to guess very, and postulate from there.

It looks like your list is robust, can take a pounding and still give one back. The only criticism is your list lacks mobility. Unless Im mistaken your Deamon Prince and Hounds are the only truly mobile elements of your army, and if your opponent can isolate or destroy them early, he has a chance at shooting you down before you engage him in combat. Really only an issue against Tau, or IG, but if you can hit their lines youre golden.

Being an ork player by trade, Id probibally just rush you in waves, hope to get the charge, and pray my numbers proved sufficient. Honestly it looks like you have a solid tac list

How does this army perform against a mech army, e.g., mech Marines, Tau or Eldar?

It loses against mech armies.

Sorry, was that a rhetorical?

Against Mech Tau, a variant of this list didn't do too hot. But then I deployed my assault portion down first when I wanted my shooting since I had first turn. Such are the breaks with a deepstriking army with a random chance of what you get first turn.


As for speed, I find it very quick. The fact I deepstrike in makes it easier for me to be where I need to be but I do have some speed in the distance covered per turn department.
Hounds/Fiends have the highest move with a possible 24" range, but daemonettes/KoS/Soulgrinder have a possible of 18" with fleet, DP has an 18" with fly, Flamers have a 12" move.

Stelek wrote:It loses against mech armies.

Sorry, was that a rhetorical?

Not really.
At a GT heat, its potential may be 2:3 or 3:2.
So it will be hard to reach the final.

I agree with you on that, Wuestenfux. What the hells that mean anyway>

hehe, what DOES that mean?

To OP, you don't have to 'choose' the makeup of your demonic assault until the start of your first turn. You can just bring your army list and a pencil and eraser. See what he has in his army and see how he deploys before you build your wishlist.

I'm starting to advocate smaller points costed units and more of them for the obvious reserves/scatter dangers reason. With the rumored kill points losing a bit of its bite, i think making sure that no one bad 12" scatter can break your back is important. The 15x demonettes are what made me say that...

So far, soporific musk has been pro. Keeper and the fiends are going to be really fast and really good at tying up units as you crash flanks. Flamers also cause a ridiculous amount of carnage. you may find plaguebearers and the GUO too slow against the quicker armies. Can you find 45 points for strength for the DP and tongue for the soulgrinder? Those two upgrades help your game against mech.

I'm going to try hounds with karanak this weekend. they look like crap on paper but the games i've played so far have shown me how valuable speed is for the demons. I'd say cut them for anti-tank, but I wanna test em out before i say that.

Shep:
My two experiences with Hounds have been very positive. They took down two land speeders, a min/max squad, and tied up a dreadnought in one game and absorbed about 9 crisis suits of worth of fire, leaving my two icons intact in another. The downside is their scatter and placement can be pretty annoying with the calvary bases.

Plaguebearers are there to be an Icon monkey, maybe I can drop down to just of 5 of them (which opens up 45 points) to beef up the DP and soulgrinder. So far, 7 plaguebearers did not weather the storm as I hoped, but maybe it was just horrible rolls.

GUO is there to draw fire, lots of fire. Also, with aura of decay, it is a small amount of anti-horde as I can put big papa into a crowd of orks or gaunts and watch the hilarity. Perhaps to save points, just a normal nurgle herald with palaquin and aura of decay and add some more units/upgrades, but I do just enjoy having 3 MC's on the table.

With the daemonettes, they are too fragile in my experience to have any less than 12 in a squad. It is a risk to lose so many points on a bad scatter, but the army is sort of like that to begin with.

I know I can alter my waves or detachments or whatever you want to call them, but the general idea is MC/Assault in one wave, shooty/icon in the other. Depending on the enemy, it would change.

Thanks for the comments, hopefully I can test it out with some tweaks before the RTT.

After studying the Codex, I would take three Soulgrinders, as they are too good to be true, and fast moving packs.

After playing several more games with my daemons, I think this is the list I am going to take to the RTT on saturday.

HQ:
Keeper of Secrets - 240
Pavane of Slaanesh
Gaze of Chaos

Greater Unclean One - 185
Aura of Decay
Cloud of Flies

Troops:
7 x Plaguebearers - 130
Icon

12 x Bloodletters - 217
Icon

14 x Daemonettes - 221
Icon

5 x Pink Horrors - 95
Bolt of Tz

5 x Pink Horrors - 95
Bolt of Tz

Elite:
3 x Flamers - 105

1 x Bloodcrusher - 40

1 x Bloodcrusher - 40

Fast:
8 x Seekers of Slaanesh -161
Icon

8 x Seekers of Slaanesh - 161
Icon

Heavy:
Soulgrinder - 160
Phlegm

Demon Prince - 150
Mark of Tz
Bolt of Tz
Soul Devourer

So basically, a winged DP isn't really that stellar unless you get a Mark of Khorne and up its strength. For only ten points more, I get a str 8 AP 1 shot that lands on a +2, same CC ability, a +4 inv save, and a chance to insta-kill multi-wound models with Soul Devourer than just a normal DP with wings.

Instead of Fiends, who work well when rending and are fast, I figure 2 single bloodcrushers will make my opponent have to split fire more, have a +3 armor save, a higher T, higher strength on the charge, higher WS, and a powerwep. If they get into CC, I think they'll do more than Fiends.

Took out hounds and added two units of mounted daemonettes which so far are one of the stand out units from my experience. Having two units of 8 makes it easier for more to get into combat and more rends. Also, adds 2 more Icons to the army.

Lost 1 Icon and 4 bloodletters by merging the two bloodletters squads into 1. 12 gives that squad the chance to get more bloodletters into combat after taking shots, although I am worried that only having one squad will focus more fire on them as opposed to two smaller squads. Also slightly trimmed daemonettes and Plaguebearers.

Gave the Keeper of Secrets a ranged weapon for more pop.
Gave the GUO offensive and defensive grenades.

So I pretty much added 1 Icon to the list, same number of wounds in the list, (4 of which are higher T and better save than in the previous), added another str 8 AP 1 shot, added a slight bit more ranged firepower, made the GUO slightly better in combat, slowed down the DP, lost some rending.

The list will still probably not fare well against Mech lists, but if nothing else, looking forward to trying this refined version out.