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So, I'm finally getting though the final stage of mourning over my now-deceased Word Bearers army and need a plan.
What I have that would carry forward to the new Daemon's Codex is 40 Daemonettes and a Bloodthirster.

The problem is, the 'nettes seem to be the worst of the basic troops choices. Do I have to let go of them and accept that Nurgle is the king of Take and Hold while Bloodletters and Pink Horrors are the offense of choice nowadays? T3 5+ save just doesn't last long after landing...

Either way, I need a new plan. Epididimus armies are pretty obvious and only seem to have a real weakness against small model count armies. I'm just not enthusiastic about them.

There is also the Masque/Soulgrinder combo. Pavane + battlecannon is brutal and actually means you are doing something on your first turn...

I'd like to plan for 1000 and 2000 points. So, waddya'll think?

Daemonettes have a couple of redeeming features. 5 I and rending attacks. Not to mention fleet of foot.

If you are trying to theme with the bloodthirster and the daemonettes, why not go for daemonettes and bloodletters. Lead it with the masque and the thirster. Throw in 3 units of the slaanesh beasts and you will have an army that just might work. I would also agree with perhaps adding a few of the daemon walkers it gives you some firepower to soften them up.

Make the daemonette units bigger than the letters as they are your fast attackers. (6" move, fleet, assault) Teamed up with a unit of bloodletters you should be able to clean the clocks of most troops. Using the masque to pull them in closer should help too since you are going to be sorely lacking on any ranged combats with this.

I am a tad old school in that I like the perfect number stuff from 4th edition so how about 12 or 18 daemonettes to a unit teamed with 8 bloodletters. Add 1 slaanesh beastie and I think you have a good supporting set.

So like 3 units of 12 or 18 daemonettes and 3 units of 8 bloodletters. Then get at least 3 of the slaanesh beasties and I think you can dominate hand to hand. Add two of the war machines to cut the hoard armies down to size and you should be good to go.

Go against the grain and try to avoid the tallyman and plaguebearers... if it doesn't exite you too much, why buy, paint and play them?

A couple of us at our local store are trying to get a decent Demon army, but Bloodletters and Demonettes are the first thing we dropped. Both are very easy to kill at range and that is the main problem. If you do get to assault something, you can't consolidate so they get chewed up by just about anything.

The big problem with the Masque is that she isn't an IC so really gets one shot with Pavane×3 and then dies a horrible death. I've never seen it work myself.

Greater Demons and Princes are just so expensive for their wounds. At higher points if you don't have TLOS blocking terrain they will get sniped. Even if you do get an assault off, no consolidating mean easy targetting next turn.

We are only having luck with Tzeentch. I never thought I would play Horrors, but being able to pound a squad the turn they come in is about the only thing we can get to consistently work.

Consistent Chaos... LOL!

Other really usefull thing about demonettes and KOS/DP with MOS is grenades so you get yo use that high I. I find that dropping them and Bloodletter in wave one and try to get cover then drop the masque in turn two to drag stuff into assault range is the plan.

But in the end I'm more moving to the elite choices being the key to a demon army, flamers and crushers specifically

We all acknowedge that FNP makes the nurgle hoard best as far as the 3 assault armies. Survivability is the downside of daemonettes and bloodletters. What you are trying to do is trade off the staying power for quick kills.

Fiends of slaanesh get you speed - 6" move, fleet, 12" assault. Daemonettes next best speed and then the bloodletters the true killing power.

I have played against tzeench and the problem with them is ranged attack and saves are awesome but you are talking stuff that tau fire warriors can go toe-to-toe with in melee.

Pure to any one chaos lord has real problems so the mix is important and probably something you are just going to have to play with.

If you use your deep strikes to isolate a section of your opponent's army you should be able to overwhelm it. Fight in a built up area and you should have the upper hand. Fight on a wide open plain and slaanesh/khorne will be shot to shreds.

You do need some firepower in this army so my proposal was to get the soulgrinders but you could easily make it a 3 out of 4 army and throw in some tzeench daemons to harass/destroy your enemies and let the daemonettes and bloodletters finish off the remnants.

The power builds I have seen often involve fateweaver, blood crushers, and basic troops to take objectives.

Granted if you can afford 600-700 dollars of blood crushers, you now got a powerful army that few things can stop.

Nurgle demons in cover with their FNP plus a coversave going to ground on the objective are next to impossiable to kill.

Wildstorm wrote:
The big problem with the Masque is that she isn't an IC so really gets one shot with Pavane×3 and then dies a horrible death. I've never seen it work myself.

Since the Masque isn't an independent character, that makes her a unit of 1, right? So you should be able to use another one of the 1/2 slot HQ slot heralds as her body guard. I would think that a generic herald on palanquin would be sufficiently tough and cheap to get her to live longer especially since that'll raise the group toughness to a 4 or 5 for rolling to wound. And after double checking the deployment rules, you can declare that independent characters are joining units before doing deployment, so there's no worries about leaving the bodyguard herald behind.

solkan wrote:

Wildstorm wrote:
The big problem with the Masque is that she isn't an IC so really gets one shot with Pavane×3 and then dies a horrible death. I've never seen it work myself.

Since the Masque isn't an independent character, that makes her a unit of 1, right? So you should be able to use another one of the 1/2 slot HQ slot heralds as her body guard. I would think that a generic herald on palanquin would be sufficiently tough and cheap to get her to live longer especially since that'll raise the group toughness to a 4 or 5 for rolling to wound. And after double checking the deployment rules, you can declare that independent characters are joining units before doing deployment, so there's no worries about leaving the bodyguard herald behind.

Ah, but there's a problem with this. The only Herald that could be the Masque's bodyguard would be a Herald of Slaanesh, because Heralds cannot join units dedicated to one of the Gods that is not their own. For instance, the Skulltaker (Khorne) could not join the Masque (Slaanesh) because they worship different Gods.

And we all know that a Herald of Slaanesh isn't exactly survivable. Add to this the fact that the Masque's 'bodyguard' couldn't take a Chariot (as they wouldn't be an Independent Character anymore), and your plan looks sunk.

It's worse for the Masque than I thought. I didn't notice the line in the IC rules that IC's can't join units of single models. So no bodyguards for the Masque at all.

And I did forget about demonic rivalry, too.