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Looking for people's experiences with using Slaaneshii Daemons. Daemonettes, Fiends, Keepers, and the Masque, in particular. How are they faring?

I've only run Daemonettes once, a large squad of 18...and I was underwhelmed, to say the least.

The Keepers are beasts.

G

I'm a big fan of fiends. They aren't as killy as blood crushers are, but I think they make up for it in versatility. Their speed combined with hit and run gives them amazing speed around the table. Their only liability really is their lack of grenades and other units that hit before them.

The terrain issue you get around either with the masque or with some seekers in the list. Seekers make a great pairing unit with fiends, mainly used just to suck people out of cover. Also I find that the seekers are usually the first thing targeted by an opponent because they are easier to kill than the fiends which is bad for the seekers but helps the survivability of the fiends.

I really like the masque, her only downside is she's easy kp. If it wasn't for kp I would always take her. I think out of about 15 games using her she's only died twice. The best way to handle that is with target saturation. If you've got fiends, flamers, seekers, keepers, staring down your face already it makes it hard on your opponent.

The keeper is a nice cheaper alternative that the bloodthirster. The bonuses are it's higher initiative, attacks, and GRENADES . I think might is a necessary upgrade all the others are optional. She's not quite as fast as a bloodthirster but can re-direct in the shooting phase with fleet and can assault into cover. With transfixing gaze she removes 2 attacks from models that charge her or one from models she charges, which makes her real nice for popping other monstrous creatures.

Daemonettes suck. Okay maybe not suck but they pale in comparison to everything else in the dang book. I think they just got the points cost wrong. If they were about 11-12pts I think they would have been fine, but 14 is just way too much.

Here's my Slaanesh Daemons army. 30 Daemonettes, 1 fiend, the masque, Daemon Prince, Soul Grinder, and Keeper of Secrets. I just started it about 2 and 1/2 weeks ago. I've played a few smaller battles with them where i couldn't field my whole force. everytime i ran all 30 Daemonettes and the masque. that's 520 pts. and i found that 500 pts is a great pts set for your compulsory choices. I play alot of cities of death, and the daemonettes own serious ass!!!! i deep strike them in about 16"-18" from my opponent but i make sure they are taking advantage of area cover, so when the get shot at the following turn, they can take a 4+ cover save instead of their 5+, then I move, run, and assault. with they're rending claws and 4 attacks each on the charge??? that means each daemonette should land about 1 rending hit, and against an army like space marines?! that's epic, you don't have to worry about their low strength cause if you beef out your daemon squads, the overwhelming amount of rending hits you will land on your enemy will wipe them out before they have a chance to attack back, with any effectiveness at least.

Daemonettes aren't all bad, they give a troop that can assault into cover. Which means they are a bit specialized (which all daemon troops are).

I run my troops as 5 man min squads. I toss two daemonettes in the list to fish out those annoying sniper squads SM, IG, and eldar some times field. High number of attacks, high initiative, grenades, and rending all add up to a fair amount of combat potential for a very low price. Since they aren't the primary scoring unit, that is plague bearers, they can be thrown away as distractions. It is interesting that they can actually pen most vehicles in the game though... S 3+ 6 + d3 = 10+. With their volume of attacks it isn't that much of a crap shoot as it would be with sniper riffles, and people are less likely to even realize that you can do it (and fleet can get you there)

I face Slaaneshi daemons a lot, so here's my take:

Fiends are great for their 24" threat range. They'll get mulched by massed shooting and things that strike first, but a full squad gets so many rending attacks at S5 that you have a good chance of murdering a lot of dudes. With good rolling I've seen fiends tear through half of an opponents army (including vehicles).

They're tough, fast, and dead killy on the charge. They're not invincible though - if your fiends can't close to assault every turn, they're extremely vulnerable to shooting. With only 12 wounds max, with a 5+ save, they can't last long outside of close combat.

Seekers are for people who like more-killy fiends. They are just as fast, hit with more attacks (for the same number of wounds), strike at I6, and have Assault/Defensive grenades. The problem with seekers is that they are T3 S3, which means that the shooting vulnerability is amplified, as it is so much easier to wound them. Also, they lose attacks faster - it takes 4 wounds to drop 10 base attacks off a unit of fiends, but only 3 wounds to drop 12 base attacks off of a unit of seekers.

Just in case you were considering them.

Daemonettes are kind of underwhelming in my experience. I've never really had an issue fighting them. I'd be much more frightened of charging bloodletters than I would be charging daemonettes. My opponent doesn't run them that often though, so YMMV.

The masque can be good, but T3 W2, and cannot join squads makes her a slightly weaker space marine, with regard to survivability. She'll die very fast, so you should do everything you can to make her points back as fast as possible (and put her in assaults).

Keepers I don't have too much experience with.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.