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So I am fairly new to Fantasy and just got my ass kicked so hard by Daemons that it was just a joke.

I play Wood Elves and the Daemon player was playing Tzeentch and he just reamed me. All his attacks ignored my ward saves and armor saves, and he ignored LOS with his spells. The area effect spells murdered anyone who made it into HtH and my shooting was useful but not enough to stop him from getting into charge range and wiping me out. He killed me on 2's with all his spells and he had 15 dice at 1500 points to my 4. Even if I mxed out wizards I would still get the uber pwnage as I would only have half his dice.

He assaulted better, was faster, shot better and was better at magic.

I felt helpless. Even if I got my units into position to charge, half the time they just bounced off of even his shooting units, the other time they would get wiped out by his AoE spells.

How in the hell do you beat the Daemons?

You don't

Daemons of Chaos are THE cheesiest army in game, IMHO.

Yeah I'm sorry man, that guy is justan ass. don't play him anymore :(.

Cryonicleech wrote:You don't

Daemons of Chaos are THE cheesiest army in game, IMHO.

That's pretty much dead on You can try to build a list tailored for them, but I don't what WE have to do that.

This is a serious post by me. I have played against chaos demons a total of 4 times now. 3 times it was at tournaments and 1 time was a friendly game (yea right). The closest I came to beating them was with my mortal chaos nurgle army. It still ended up a solid victory for them. My chaos army is magic heavy, I have 12 power dice and 3 dispel scrolls. The demon army I'm talking about had 15 power dice. Lord of change, big block of plaguebearers, big block of bloodletters, skulltaker, fleshhounds (which are better than chaos knights....) and some flamers of tzeentch. I cant remember what else there was. I was able to slow the onslaught early on but by turn 2 I was out of dispel scrolls and just using dice. He just literally dominated me. Any damage I did to him he was able to bounce off with his ward save and don't even start me on the plaguebearer unit with their regenerate and ward saves....It was tough.

I mean, it's just a tough army. IMHO, it's a really overpowered list. Demon players basically get all the benefits of being ITP and Demonic, with now downsides. (When I finally beat him in CC one round, I thought I had a chance of them disappearing, but to no avail. I guess this is an older rule than I imagined) The other games I've played against them were with my Orcs (literally, no contest....I didn't stand a chance and we both knew it), and my Wood Elves. (good shooting on my part but just cant' keep up with Demons in the magic phase)

I've just come to the realization that against some armies I'm going to have to take my lumps. You could make a list that is tailored to Demons but how effective would it be against others? My advice would be to tailor a list that is pretty good against all comers and do your best against demons. It's a powerful list that even the most inexperienced player could do well with. Don't get frustrated and just keep chipping away.

Pick yourself up after a Demon game and keep right on truckin!

My two coppers...

Well, actually, the best way to beat daemons is to play daemons......


but unfortunately, it is a drop dead cheesefilth list. Orkimedes is correct, just pick your self up and keep on rollin'

What a crock of gak, man, the guy that wrote the dex, Mr. Mat Ward, you deserve to get kicked in the balls.

At least in 40K it is only certain builds in a list that dominate, in fantasy its armies.

I played a Lizardman army in a tournament that had the same type of AoF spells on stegadons, same thing, even my treeman was pwnd by them.

I don't get it, why make a power that kills everything around it with no recourse what so ever? It was the least fun I have had playing a wargame in years.



Well, bitching about it doesn't help, but that was not much fun. In my area there are only a few fantasy players too, so I don't have the luxury of choosing who to play.

I will keep trying to come up with something, but crap man. He had two level three wizards and three level 2 and I can't even take a level 3 at 1500 points. What gak came up with that?

I will keep trying, maybe I can come up with something. I am thinking if I take 3 level two wizazrds with 2 dispell scrolls each, all mounted archer units and some wild riders I can just dance around him shooting him and pray for a minor victory. It just is not a fun game at all.

I play Wood Elves and the Daemon player was playing Tzeentch and he just reamed me

The problem is the first part of that statement, not the second.
Wood elves are a hard army to play with for beginers. They dont foll ow any of the normal rules or strategies. They are the ultament reactive army. They are fully capable of pummeling a deamon army if played right but they are tricky. You cannot fight anything of his head on. This is because you pay alot of points for maneuravability and he pays for staying power.
And think, he may have had 5 wizzards but he can take only one shooting unit. Shoot your archers at his units a bit. If you kill 10 they loose a level. Half your army can have magic resistance. The other half outranges him.
One unit of wild riders in the flank will kill that lvl 3 block and costs half the points.

Hey Cypher,

I am still learning the rules too, so I am sure I missed some things.

How do I get magic resistance? Is it a magic item? Unless I am missing something none of my units have it standard.

My wild riders charged his shooting units and were killed. His AoE spell wiped nearly all of my units out on 2's once they made it into combat. The spell hit every unit in 12" D6 times and he had four of them.

He also had screamers and flamers which are fast and the flamers are insanely shooty. They would waste anything they could see. My assault units charged them and died, even after hitting them with HoDA and knocking them down to 2 flamers left.

What do you suggest I take? I am thinking 3 level 2 wizards with 2 dispell scrolls each to let me survive two turns of casting once I get stuck in so that my wardancers can get in there with my wildriders and treeman and actually do some damage.

Good idea or no?

Also, do you think it is more advantageous to go with glade riders or glade guard? My dryads got murdered wholesale as they got no ward save. I am thinking glade riders can dance around shooting and then get a flank charge with the wildriders.

Thanks for the input, buddy. I think I am going to be coming down to the battle bunker soon, we should get in a game. Its been too long.

WE definitly have a problem against deamons. But its like cypher says its a question of how you play. The truth is deamons dont have weaknesses, you just have to fight em, and that is really hard with an army like wood elves. Every time i beat a deamon player, with WoC or DE it is because they get over confident and because they have no hidden maneuvers to make. I can out wit them, and make em fight on my terms but i still have to fight them. When youre using piddly little elves that is hard.
I suggest you keep at it and remember a few key things: deamons dont run away, you are always going to fight a second round of combat; the best way to kill deamons so they dont get a ward is with combat res; all his attacks are magical. Do the research too, learn the lores and what spells hurt the most.

As for magic resistance, a number of your units have it standard, dont remember which, its in the codex.

Flamers are idiotically powerful. Yea, i know, its sucks. The best bet is to hit them with WS5 units as they will hit back on 5s.

Use HODA to knock one of the caster blocks down to nothing. Go for the ones without a hearld of T if possible.

Their main weakness is death by a thousand cuts. Lots of light shooting will knock them down easily. And you have it in spades.

Yeah, those flamers are so lame, they are a shooting unit with strength 5?!?! Wtf?!

The core of his army was two super squads of horrors with heralds. They all had 4+ ward saves. My shooting was very effective but just not enough. I wittled him down but once he got into combat I was screwed. Even my treeman got wasted. One bolt of tzeentch and he was dead. That thing is so stupid. He got 10 strength 7 shots, dead treeman in one go.


I think I am going to try and use my speed and some scroll protection to allow me to get into charge range. Then hopefully I can hit hard enough to collapse one of those big units, but the problem is that next turn when he sets off 4 AoE spells and wipes out all of my units in combat.

Also, I am looking through my army book again, I don't see anything with magic resistance. Am I just missing it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wait I see it now, all units with talismanic tattoos (wild riders and wardancers, etc) have magic resistance 1. That does help quite a bit vs. AoE spells.

Also if you engage any unit with a herald put all available attacks onto it first. It's as easy to kill as 2 horrors and once you do the unit is considerably weaker. Also find out what characters can give you magic resistance and put them in the units that don't have it.

good idea, I will do that next time.

Well I managed to draw vs daemons at 2250 with NGs and it would have been a win but skulltaker killed my giant with killing blow, which we later found out he wasn't able to do as it wasn't a challenge.

Make your opponent respond to you.
Use terrain to funnel troops, don't spread out if psychology is an issue, swarm him with redirectors (for example 6 chaos hound units in WOC will have him exposing flanks everywhere), compulsory mvt troops cannot be stand and shot at by flamers.

There is essentially nothing you can do ves a KOS Ld bomb army or a bloodthirster unless you have a mass of warmachines. Just tell your (friendly games) opponents yu don't wan't to play against them.

Hmmmm.

On a more serious note from me..

What about Wardancers? I hear good things about them.

I'd think skirmishers or any unit that is high on mobility would annoy a Daemon player, though I'm not unfortunate enough to have played against one.

Welfs have one nice thing to combat greater daemons which is annoyance of netlings on a lord preferably. If you manage to tie up gd with annoyance-character and get to rack up some static res (so you don't autobreak due fear), you may destroy the daemon eventually due combat resolution if things go well. If the daemon player has bsb nearby things are more difficult especially if he has the stubborn-banner.

Annoyance of netlings on a Treeman ancient.

The 'usual' WE tournament force should do very well.

3 x10 glade guard
2-3 x8 dryad units
2 wardancer units
Treeman ancient with annoyance of netlings
Great eagle
Big unit Wild riders with warbanner
Lev 2 mage
Branch wraith
Alter lord

Shoot like crazy with your glade guard in the centre and hold it with the treeman and attack the flanks/stay in cover with the rest

My Khorne Warriors have a lot of problems with my friend's Tzeentch daemons. They just AoE my blocks of Warriors to death and kill my knights on turn 1 with BoC spam.

WE can absolutely beat Daemons, certainly they're not the cake walk WE can have over other armies in the game, but it's definitely doable.

Shooting is the key to knocking them down, and WE should be playing the avoidance game until turn 4-5 when they charge in and plink off enough stuff to get a win.

As far as Dealing with Flamers your best bet is an Alter Noble with Great Weapon and the Hail of Doom Arrow.

The flamers will struggle to shoot him, he can put a major hurt on them with shooting and when he charges in he should be able to do decent enough damage to win combats consistently.

Glade Guard are fantastic shooters that can whittle away things while being somewhat mobile. If you can get enough forests on the table, then you should do pretty well.

Treemen will struggle against Daemons, specifically Tzeench and Khorne (since they generally have flaming attacks on the characters, or on everything Tzeench), however they're still golden against things like Flesh Hounds, but you have to be careful with them to make sure they're not exposed to Flamer shots or heavy magic.

For the most part Tzeench spells need LOS to do damage, except the AOE spells, and those only come into play when you're close up.

Also, you need to learn to do Character sniping. Trick is that if he's got a Herald of Tzeench in a unit of Horrors, then you could sacrifice a unit of Dryads into the front of the block, then with the 3 Dryads you'll likely get into base contact with his Herald (you're all on 25mm bases) you can allocate all the Dryad's attacks into the Herald. Put two wounds on him and it doesn't matter if you lose the combat, you've killed part of his magic phase and the Herald costs more points than the Dryads.

If your opponent is taking things you know you can't beat in combat, just don't ever fight it - like that Plague Bearer unit w/ Herald. March block it, redirect it, but never let it see a combat that matters. Kill the stuff that you know you can kill, get as many points as you can, and go for table quarters. You only need 250VP's or more to do a win, less if you're playing under 2000 points.

Allright you had me believing the WE hype untill you said:

however they're still golden against things like Flesh Hounds

From my own personal experience Treemen get absolutely creamed by Flesh Hounds or even a lone Herald on Jugger. Actually, everything in the Wood Elf army gets owned by the Flesh Hounds. Only the Wardancers have a chance on the charge and even then we're talking about a serious coinflip situation.

Anyway, shooting and playing non-pitched battles is the key. If you have some woods on the table and bring your extra wood and just play points denial all game you should be able to squeeze a draw or a victory by a small margin.

Magic resistance does JACK against AoE spells. Errata part 2.

Just hit the horror blocks with as much bow fire as possible: even with a herald they are a T3 4+ save unit. You dont have to kill many to get the levels to drop.

Secondly - you outrange him. The basic spell is 18" range, which is the usual technique (spam this)

In addition make sure he isnt knowing all spells from Tzeentch - this isnt possible on a herald.

You're correct, I was mistaken about the Treemen stat line.

If the Hounds have a Jugger Herald, yes you're screwed, however the combat against Flesh Hounds is going to go against you unless you hit them in the flank, but that's not so easy to do against M8 Cav.

Thanks a ton for the info guys, I am starting to see the light at the end of the Daemon tunnel. I am still a nOOb at fantasy too, so this is all useful info.

I use the Alter lord and normally he rocks but he gets his ass kicked by Flamers. HoDA kills two of them then I charge and they rape him with str 5 attacks. He is dead before he does anything.

Wardancers are bad ass, but again, the AOE spell kills them on 2's with only a 6+ tattoo save, the Dryads don't even get that. Two blasts of that and they are toast. Since WE don't get ward saves against magical attacks, most of my army gets no save vs. all Daemon attacks. Combine that with toughness 3 and expensive models and you get big time fail.

I will try the treeman ancient with annoyance if we play 2,000, that sounds pretty awesome. Last two games my treeman got annihilated with BoC in one shot. That thing is ridonkulous.

We were playing 1500 points so I couldn't take a lord and I couldn't even come close to the amount of magic he had. 15 power dice at 1500 points is captain insano.

My plan is to go all mounted with 3 lv 1 sorcerors with 2 dispell scrolls each. I will flank him with the glade riders and wild riders, charge him in the front wardancers and dryads, try to take out the heralds and then use my scrolls to protect me from the AoE spells for two turns. That should be enough to collapse his two big units of horrors. I hope so anyway. If he rolls irresistible force though on those AoE spells, my army will just melt in combat.

It feels like an uphill battle, but I like a challenge. It just sucks when you get that sick to your stomach feeling when you realize that what you have on the table is just not going to cut the mustard.

Yea, on the hound issue you have to flank them.
But that is the case with everything in the wood elf army vs almost anything out there. You have to flank to win. That's why they are so fast.

Hounds vs treeman ancient and i am fairly certain the treeman wins.
Hearld will own a treeman in two rounds of combat, easy.
A thirster with infinite hatred will kill a treeman with annoyance of netlings in 2 or 3 rounds of combat. You cannot stop him without a lot of shooting and some luck. There is just about nothing the wood elves can do about it.

War dancers are just about the only answer I can see to stopping a herald on a jugg. Charge, killing blow dance, and hope for a failed ward save.

Against everything else, do what wood elves do best. March block some, throw forests at some, and gang up on the rest.

If he want's to be a complete loser and take 15 power dice at 1500 points say you want to use proxy models and then take 3 level 1 mages with 2 dispel scrolls each and the rest of the army is 10 man glade guard units with musos and a great eagle for redirection.

Move back, shoot, move back shoot, move back, shoot etc.

Honestly if a friend tried to pull a lame list like you described more than once he'd be getting a good talking to about enjoyment of the game. Once would be Ok because people like to try different and odd lists but more than once is just laziness.

I have to agree here. 12 Power dice is a lot at 2250. 15 at 1500 is fairly bs 'cause the guy knows that no one can stop that many at that level unless they build a list to do it.

Last RTT at my gaming store daemons didnt do so well. A dwarf army was at the top same with a DE army and empire right behind. Seems to me that shotty has a chance against daemons.. never played against them.

Treeman absolutely loses to Flesh Hounds.

Lets say the Treeman charges in, not likely, but lets go with that.

Before I was mistaken on the treeman Profile, he's got WS5, S6, and 5 Attacks

5 Attacks - 1/2 Hit, so 2.5 Hits. 2/3 Wound, 1.6 Wounds, and the Hounds ward takes care of 1/3 of those, so ~1.11 total wounds through via Math Hammer, so realistically you can expect a Treeman to do a whopping one wound to the Hounds.

4 Hounds are in base to base w/ the Treeman

8 Attacks Back - 1/2 Hit, so 4 Hits, 1/3 Wound, so 1.33 Wounds. Treeman gets a 6+ Armor save and no Ward, so 1.11 wounds go through.

End of the combat the Hounds win by 1 on numbers, but really they're coming out ahead on the total combat and eventually a 175 point unit of hounds will whittle down the 265 point (I think?) Treeman.

Now as far as the Alter Noble goes, how is he being owned by Flamers? HoDA should kill ~2 on a good day, maybe more if you're lucky.

Shooting at him is very hard to do, even for Flamers, and when he charges in - the other guy gets a maximum of 2 Flamers to line up in combat. He goes first and should do enough wounds to kill a Flamer, and then when the other Flamer hits back he's need's 5's to hit, then 2's, and he's only got 2 Attacks coming back, so the Alter Noble should win by 1 on the turn he charges.

In subsequent rounds the Noble should tie them up longer and may win or not depending on rolls, though it's not as good for him over the long haul. Still if you can sacrifice the Alter Noble for the unit of Flamers, you're coming out ahead and can use your shooting and Treeman a bit more aggressively.

Of course, if you're playing 1500 points and your opponent is taking 15 PD, then yeah you're facing a Magic Gunline and there's not even a Lord level character allowed in the game, then yeah you're going to struggle. It's a bs army at that points level.

5 Attacks - 1/2 Hit, so 2.5 Hits. 2/3 Wound, 1.6 Wounds, and the Hounds ward takes care of 1/3 of those, so ~1.11 total wounds through via Math Hammer, so realistically you can expect a Treeman to do a whopping one wound to the Hounds.

5 attacks - 1/2 hit so 2.5 hits
5/6 wound so 2.08 wound
2/3 get through so 1.4 wound

Hounds do .888 (i believe the treeman has a 3+ armor save so 1/3 save).

Charge is irrelevant for both.

hounds win by 1 on average.
Next round treeman does 2 wounds (average over two rounds) hounds do 1 more.
Next round treeman kills off his third hound, hounds do no wounds.
The treeman will walk out alive against 5 hounds after about 5 rounds of combat. Still, he does cost more.