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This thread is meant to help out players with army choice tips and tactics for running Chaos Daemons competitively. I'm aware that Chaos Daemons aren't the absolute best army for competitive play, but I still think they can be run in a competitive setting.

I am well acquainted with the Daemon army, however I am in no way an expert. That is why I am calling on you, the Dakka community, for advice on running Daemons competitively.

So Dakka, what do you have to say about running Chaos Daemons competitively?

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 impossible to kill.

The same thing basically what I said in another thread. Almost every army I see that plays competitively uses fateweaver. You wont make any friends with 24 bloodcrushers but the 600-700 dollars in product will make them not scowl as much at you.

Redundant units in both waves make it so that, if the Chaos Gods are fickle, you're covered. For instance, a unit of 14 Plaguebearers with Chaos Icon in both Waves.

An obvious tip - the best defended units (Plaguebearers, Juggernauts, etc) are the best place for Chaos Icons.

Soul Grinders are an amazing unit in any army, providing some of the only powerful long-distance attacks in the entire army. One or more should be seen in every Daemons army.

Winged units are awful - they are already Deep Striking, but they pay through the nose for mobility. The points are much better spent elsewhere.

Agree with the above. Look at the points for a Bloodcrusher and the points for a tanked up DP. Now look at the wounds and how many shots it takes to bring them down. The Crushers are such a bargain.

Wings are way overpriced for me. Great to have, but for their points, not so great. For speed I love Fiends. Hounds aren't bad either. Furies stay on the shelf.

Demonettes, Seekers, and even Bloodletters are auto-targets for your opponents and they won't live long after just minimal attention. The rending nerf puts the Demonettes even further away from the checkout counter.

Most things Nurgle are amazing at taking shots and delivering a decent attack back. They don't have many attacks, but Poison/Nox Touch make what does hit work. Heralds are the only weak Nurgle for me.

All Proxy Tzeentch is what I'm trying now. Nice to get a good punch off as soon as you land, but that also means no running, so no spreading out, so begging for all template weapons to fire back at you. Tzeentch can pretty much pack it up against Necrons. And those troop models are just horrible... the only real thing holding me back from buying them in mass.

All the Greater Demons look good in theory, but the Great Unclean One has the most potential in the game, and is such a bargain for its points.

Anyone know if the Daemons can do anything on the turn they ds into the game? I've heard they can still run but can't seem to find the rule for it.

daemonix wrote:Anyone know if the Daemons can do anything on the turn they ds into the game? I've heard they can still run but can't seem to find the rule for it.

Depends on the codex.
Real demons from the Daemons codex can only run or shoot. The daemons in the CSM codex have their own rules and problems.

daemonix, it isn't just demons, but any foot troops that deep strike can now run instead of shooting. Pretty sure it is in the Deep Strike rules but don't have the book in reach.

So it seems that the general consensus is that you need to take tougher units that can survive the drop such as Nurgle things, Bloodcrushers, Fateweaver, and Soulgrinders. Taking the same stuff in both waves is an absolute necessity in competitive play.

People appear to have good experiences with Fateweaver based lists. I have faced them myself and they are really annoying.

How about Epidemius based lists? You may be in trouble if Epi is killed or you don't get him in the first drop. Even if that happens though, you still have a lot of survivable units to capture objectives and tie up units in combat.

What are your experiences with Epi lists?

Epi lists are absolutely sick. Since Epi is an IC, it's virtually impossible to slog through 20+ plaguebearers to actually kill him. Throw in nurgle princes to get that tally up fast, and it can be brutal what Epi lists can do.

nurglings and more nurglings. 3 wounds eternal warrior. In an Epi list thats also a gak load of attacks that are possibly wound on 2+ power weapons

It seems they can... Have to forgive me, I'm a noob when it comes to this game and the "experienced" players weren't exactly telling me anything to help me out lol.

I admit to having difficulties with Daemons. I've only had opportunity to play a few games with them (less than 10), but only once did the chaos gods agree with my choice as to which half to bring on, so I'm getting a bit concerned with army selection, and deciding how to divide them up. The CC units I've been trying out (mostly going with troops, cost wise it's going to be easier to get those built up than it will a bunch of bloodcrushers) tend to get shot up a lot before I have a chance to do much with them. The flamers have been paying for themselves, typically, but they're pretty much suicide squads right now. Any suggestions for mitigating the deathdrop, keeping in mind that I'd like to stay away from nurgle, I don't like the way they look.

fateweaver increases and daemon's survivability immensely.

My buddy plays Daemons and I have been play testing diff builds. (seems like a fun army to play and paint.) It appears to me that PB's or Crushers with a Icon are a must have. One, the other, or both.

How do you recommend dealing with IG gunlines, lots of heavy weapons? Don't want to drop so far away that they get multiple rounds of shooting you as you come rushing in, don't want to land in rapid fire range, risking mishaps as well as lots of shooting. Not much of a middle ground, and with only being able to have half my army show up, randomly, I'm having problems with these guys.

dancingcricket wrote:How do you recommend dealing with IG gunlines, lots of heavy weapons? Don't want to drop so far away that they get multiple rounds of shooting you as you come rushing in, don't want to land in rapid fire range, risking mishaps as well as lots of shooting. Not much of a middle ground, and with only being able to have half my army show up, randomly, I'm having problems with these guys.

All beasts and calvary have fleet, giving you a charge distance of 18+D6" (6" move, D6" run, 12" charge) so you'll have a better chance of crossing his firing range without stopping within the 12" if you don't have cover. The choice between seekers, fiends and fleshhounds depending on how much you want to spend and which of the abilities you prefer.

Other options: Using pavane of slaanesh to pull segments of the gun line into positions more favorable to you; using a plaguebearer group with icon as your beachhead with a optional herald of nurgle with aura of decay in case he's trying to do an infantry gunline; trying to set up multiple units to assault so that if he does have overwhelming firepower more of that will be wasted as overkill.

If it's a tank gun line, throw some points into screamers and keep chanting "meltabombs on jetbikes, meltabombs on jetbikes" (remember to turboboost if you're not in assault range). Hopefully, they'll either be a great distraction and he'll kill them while your other stuff gets into assault range, or he'll kill some of your other stuff and let you get the screamers in range and kill some tanks.

That's my theory anyway.

playing my Tau against a Daemon list with a changling was no fun! My hammerhead failed a leadership check trying to pie plate the changling's squad and shot the big gun and destroyed my other hammerhead.

I still have nightmares.....

Well since running a competitive list means running a pretty balanced list to take on most army’s your going to run into. I think your Tactics especially for fighting IG is going to largely depend on the build you go with.


In general the always solid choices seem to be

Crushers, Flamers, PB’s.

In general I would say anything beyond any of those choices is going to be your personal preference or play style. There are several other valid choices but these three units can compliment any play style I think. (Running at least one of these unit might be a must have)

I mean everyone can always offer basic tactics.. like hit the flank so his own units offer you cover as he fires at you.

Play aggressive and give him several valid targets to worry about. (Dropping two flamer squads and a squad of crushers will keep his focus until they are gone.)

I could say that if 8 crushers hit his line it will prob eat through close to half of it before he kills them all depending on how he is spaced when deployed. (This is my opinion don’t math hammer me to death and call me names please IE I could be wrong)

The key is as a demon player you are usually weak against shooting and really weak against vehicles in general.