Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I don't have the daemons codex nor have I ever read it, but I am playing my buddy next week and he just got a daemons army, consisting of all types of khornate and tzeentch daemons. So why are they the strongest? What should I be doing in preparation to counter?

The question is what he's using as his Hero/Lord and his core and what army you have. Countering Horror spam is different from Bloodletters. Same with Bloodthirster or LoC.

Expect Flamers (oh god flamers) and Khorne dogs.

ok he has flamers and khorne hounds, I know that hounds have 2 wounds but know nothing of flamers. If anyone could brief me on flamers it would be appreciated. He field s them as his rare choice and will use them. Thanks

If he is going hounds/flamers combo take 1000 points more than the agreed limit and you MIGHT scrape a victory.

Problem with daemons in long and sordid.

1: Ability to take multiples of each item through the army.
2: 5+ ward save army.
3: Ridiculously overpowered units... Hounds, flamers
4: Heralds making units way too good (nurgle is the worst IMHO)
5: Undercosting of most items and units and characters by at least 15%
6: Able to smash most armies with a simple generic list whereas to beat daemons everyone else needs to tailor their list for that specific battle... so they hammer in tournies.

What army are you using?

First it depends what army you are using.But here is a tip try to get out of close combat.Daemons cant shoot(if I remember correctly)so this can be an advantage you can exploit.

I play dark elves. But all in all my list is very balanced

sorceress with 24 power dice... I mean warriors
5 tooled cold one knights
master in squad of 15 black guard
10 rxb.
wargear includes sacrificial dagger on the sorceress and ring of hotek on the tower master, I hope that ring will save me from daemon magic.

thats basically my 1000 point list. So do I have a chance? And don't all daemons cause fear?

Stuff an assassin in that unit of black guard and you should do alright at that point level.

Daemons do cause fear.

Three Nullstones would be better than the Ring of Hotek, since they'll protect against the low level spells Tzeentch likes to use.

He'll probably go after the Black Guards with the Flamers, so watch out for that.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:If he is going hounds/flamers combo take 1000 points more than the agreed limit and you MIGHT scrape a victory.

Problem with daemons in long and sordid.

1: Ability to take multiples of each item through the army.
2: 5+ ward save army.
3: Ridiculously overpowered units... Hounds, flamers
4: Heralds making units way too good (nurgle is the worst IMHO)
5: Undercosting of most items and units and characters by at least 15%
6: Able to smash most armies with a simple generic list whereas to beat daemons everyone else needs to tailor their list for that specific battle... so they hammer in tournies.

What army are you using?

Yes, somebody tried No. 4 with Nurgle on me. Fortunately, my Blood Knights had elected to take the banner which keeps your unit nice and cosy with flaming attacks. "No regeneration for you today, Mr Herald of Nurgle."

Warhammer = one big game of rock, paper, scissors (except sometimes you have to face a load of rocks without any paper).

good analogy. I'd still prefer to visit every game with knowledge that I have a chance, I just bought an assasin and made a mounted master on cold one with caledors bane. That should at least give me a fighting chance.

What if he'd said he played Beasts?

then I would play orks and goblins, with my all ork list lol. It's so ineffective.

If he is playing Flamers and Puppies, the best bet is to run a all cav DE list. Giving him a slow unit to assault or shoot at will plays to his advantage. Flamers are weak in combat, flesh hounds are nasty when they charge. Use dark riders to bait and shoot the hounds, and charge his flamers with CoKs. Harpies are a good screen to protect from the shooting, and can block march well. Another big problem with playing vs daemon, is they have very good magic defense. If they bring horrors, you will get blasted by them, and they have quite a few cheap dispel dice. Magic resistance on the Flesh hounds makes it even harder to do anything.

Just remember. 25 spear men will maul a unit of hounds.
And will hurt prety much everything else in the book.

Nobody ever takes the lowely spear men.

Deamons are considered the strongest faction because they beat the most common strengths
they are immune to fear (vampries)
they have a ward save (good vs high str attacks, overpriced vs low str attacks)
they have a heavy hitting stubbornish unit of cav, the dogs (who go down to every 20-25 man spearmen unit in the game dam near every time)

In reality deamons are ballanced with the exception of a couple things. Multiple hearlds of khorn, multiple regenerating blocks of nurgle, siren, and the leadership bomb armies are the main offenders.
Get rid of these and deamons are fine.

As for dark elves vs deamons,
20 crossbow men work wonders
some spearmen to take on the more mundain guys.
Bolt throwers for the big guy.
and finally some cav to kill the flamers
possibly a killing blow assassian for the hearld of khorn (but not nurgle).

How do spear men maul flesh hounds? You get charged by 6, 12 attacks at you hitting on 3s. So 8 hits. Wounding on 2s. So lets say 7 wounds. If you are using spears, you get no armor. So that is 7 dead. You attack back with your 3-4 attacks (with hatred), hitting 2-3 times wounding on 5s. So 1 wound. Save is on 5s. So you maybe do a single wound on average. Your static resolution is 3 ranks, out number, and a banner. So 5-6 res for you. Vs 7 kills, you lose by 1-2. Luckily you don't auto break. The bad news is next time you don't have hatred, the good news you go first. Which means 10 attacks, 5 hits, about 2 wounds, save on a 5. Since you might have killed one at this point, you get hit buy 10 attacks, just under 7 hits, about 6 wounds with no saves. The bad news is you only had 2 ranks this time, so your static res is 4. You lose by about the same. Next turn is more of the same, but you will auto break due to fear this time. If these are human spear men, it becomes a joke. A T4 block is a little bit better, but a typical block will still not get a real save against the may wounds inflicted.

Static resolution isn't what it used to be. Vs a very lethal fear causing enemy the most you can hope for is a tar pit. If those flesh hounds get the flank, and they should, you won't last a turn. DE spearmen are better than most, with hatred and an elfs stat line, but they are still T3 crappy save guys who move slow and get charged by what the enemy thinks can break it. Leave block hammer to armies that can hold a line. Other than black guard, DE can't. They are a superb raiding/skirmish army though. The key for DE beating deamons is being where the enemy isn't. Taking slow blocks or firing line units that beg to be turn 2 charged isn't the greatest game plan. Taking units that bait charges, outflank, and shoot on the move is much better. I will maintain that you often see spearmen in DE lists. They are 6-7 point one use power dice!

As for your assertion that daemons are balanced other than the cheese options, please look at the point costs even for the normal guys vs what most other armies get for that piont value. for 12 points a wound you can get a wizard as core. For 12 points you get a T4 unit with poison. For 12 points you get 2 attacks on a WS 5 model with armor piercing, that moves 6. For 12 points a model you get S5 at WS5 MR1 killing blow. Then you take in to consideration just how good the daemon rules are. Always having your save, your opponent pretty much having to kill every model in a unit, and fear. There is nothing balanced in that book at all. I personally don't have a problem with certain things being really good and undercosted, but when its the whole book it's just not balanced. Add in the herald abilities and its just dumb what you get for your basic blocks. Well at least they don't have shooting right? I guess having core wizards and flamers means that you actually can have more ranged punch than most elves, dwarves, empire lists have.

Or those spearmen could pull out their handweapon shield and say 4+ save
Odds are the dogs do 5 wounds, spearmen win due to musician.
Next round they might get lucky and put a wound on the dogs, or not. Either way they win again. At this point the dogs are going to have lost guys. Two leadership tests at a 6 say something is dying.

Khorn dogs cannot roll a fully ranked unit with a 4+ save. Not without some luck. And most of those units cost less than the 210 points the dogs cost.

If the hounds get the flank then...most flanking units win, dogs are no exception. If the dogs get flanked then woe to them as well. Thats tactics for you, and why I think fiends of slanesh are actually one of the best units in the book.

And all those mighty infantry are T3 with a 5+ save. Not to impressive and not good at holding against a charge. Sure T4 on the nurgle but it doesnt help. Not without the hearld. 12 point infantry rarely get full ranks. Its to expensive. Without that they arent gonna take on other units well as 1 attack (admitidly 1 good attack) or 2 at str3 just don't make it a all powerful under-costed unit.
And dont think of horrors as wizzards. Think of them as a shooting unit with 18in range and a random number of hits that can be stopped cold. Makes them look much less impressive that way.
Its a good book. But not all that. Drop a couple things and people will not do that well with them.

So what your saying, cypher is that 25 HW/SH/LA warriors kick khornepuppies in the newts?

Which is even cheaper than that same unit of spearmen?

Meaning that the block unit is OP because it beats khorne? HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST THAT SIR!

Actually. Daemons are considered OP because most poeple blindly push their units forward into a headbutting contest with no thought to tactics or strategy beyond how they set up during the deployment phase. Same reason that most people are willing to decry Warhammer a RPS game.

a balanced army is like the stick of dymanite that beats everything because it out-deploys/maneuverers the rocks (facemelting gunlines), it outnumbers the scissors (high cost elite troops) and it's better in combat than the paper (low ld masses of troops)

When you think in terms of Gunline over elite, elite over low cost troops, and troops over gunline, and generalship only typically matter when the two, like armies meet eachother... you're trapping yourself into a thought pattern that is absolutely ruinous.

Using the 7 wounds I had given as an example, you probably will save 1 (a 4+ save is still junk vs S5) So you lose 6 models If you have a champ that lived, it is unlikely to do anything. So your static res of 5 loses to the active resolution of 6. You run except on snake eyes. Lets say that the close numbers came out your side (I round down from 6 and 2/3 for some reason) That is 5 dead, vs 5 static resolution. A tie that your musician wins. The dogs now have to make a test to see if anything dies. If the general is not near, its at leadership 6. On average that is one wound. If the general is near, that is most likely no wounds. Since the more likely result is you fleeing, lets see what happens if you were to win. DE go first, 6 attacks (if the champ is there) 3 hits, 1 wound. On average that is a failed save, so one dog is probably dead if the luck isn't theirs. (rounding down for every fraction to give the elves a chance) Dogs attack back, 10 attacks, 6 hits 5 wounds one saved. 4 dead. (that is round down for hits, and up for saved) Since this last turn the elves got lucky and kept their 3+ rank bonus, this means they win by 1. Another test, another wound on average. Still 5 dogs remain. Elves manage to do a wound, so a dog dies. 8 attacks 5 hits, 4 wounds. If you get lucky you might save one, but once again I round down on the dogs, and up on the elves. So 3 dead. This turn the elves have 5 total resolution, vs the dogs 3. Another dog dies. 3 left. So yes a full spear block of 25 warriors using the 4+ save can maul a unit of hounds, if the hounds roll slightly below average the first two rounds. If they just do average, or slightly above (rounding up on the ones that were above the .5) they will win. When the elves win, nothing really bad happens to the dogs. When the dogs win, the elves will most likely break. When things are this close, I'll side with the unit that has slightly higher odds of winning, and a much bigger payoff when it wins. It probably isn't wise to run a unit of hounds into a full 25 spearmen, it is too close for a sure thing. Kill a single model with shooting or magic, and things are much different.

A full block of 25 DE warriors with command cost 190 points. (and DE warriors are pretty cheap for what you get,) 6 flesh hounds cost just 20 points more.

As for the other units being just T3-4 with a 5+ save: Unlike most units that have a 5+, deamons actually get to use theirs. (a 5 plus armor save might as well not even be there, too much S 4 and up.) You don't need full ranks with deamons, a 1-2 rank bonus is enough most of the time. (so static of only 2-3 unless you manage to outnumber). Pink horrors aren't meant for combat. Daemonettes are faster than most ranked units, so can choose who to bring their attacks to. Bloodletters are S5, so do a good job with generating kills. Plague bearers are tough, and are meant to be a full, or nearly full anvil block. With their S4 and poison, they can kill some. With their T4, they can take some punishment. When you start adding in heralds the units get a huge boost not really reflected in the cost of the herald.

Pink horrors are wizards. They generate dispel dice, and they generate magic dice. You can take just a few for the dispel dice, or you can spam a large number of them and overwhelm almost all normal levels of magic defense. Just like any other wizard in the game. Most wizards are just an extra powerful concentrated shooting unit. Their limiting factor is that you can't take very many of them. In daemons the only limit is the points level.

Yes it would only take a few things to bring daemon into line. Most of these are points changes. Nothing is wrong with any of the abilities, just they are priced too cheaply. Some of the banners might need looking at, and the siren song is probably too cheap as well. It is possible to bring a fair daemon army to the table. Personally I think it is harder to make a fair list than a WAAC list with the book. I do own a fluffy mono slaanesh army (leadership bomb is very fluffy for them after all), it still slaughters anything short of VC, lizards, HE, or DEs.

In the hands of good general, with a balanced list (which deamons can build) they are nearly unstoppable. Only a handful of armies played by equal level of general, can compete with them. In the game of scrub vs scrub, the advantage is with the daemons. Give the daemons to a bad player, and pitch him against a decent player (with an army that has a chance), its a pretty close game. Now personally I don't mind playing a game where the odds are against me, and I play vs most people with daemons in a fun game. When a guy walks in with a tourney level army, and I know he isn't a terrible player, then its not a fun game. To even compete against that, I personally need to get into not a friendly game mode, and bring the nastiest list possible. So my choices become: accept the slaughter = not fun for me. Or be a jerk, and have a chance of winning = Nobody has fun.

If you want to throw out numbers use the right ones
hounds attacking spears
12 attacks - 8 hits - 6.666 wounds - 5.5 fail armor (you cant round up in the daemon's favor twice and call it good).
50/50 odds of winning against a fully ranked unit. Clanrats cost 125 for 25 of em with a 4+as...
dam near 2 for one cost.
And even if you kill 6, you still dont outnumber so they wont auto break, just slowly die (26 guys will get two turns with full ranks though).

taking a leadership test on a 6 gets you 1.5 wounds on average.

Not trying to say that the ranked units are uber but that the hounds are not as uber as people think they are.

The strength of deamons is that they have all sorts of advantages against elite units. Their wardsaves are great against high str attacks. Against such things as empire swordsmen they are crap (overpriced against str3, underpriced against str6).



Try this. Grab one of your scrub friends and have them play any army. Take your deamons and drop all the chars (fill the points with more core troops). See how well you will fare. My guess is you get pummled, badly. Most lists will lose something without chars but deamons lose more than most (vamps lose the greatest).

I have a high elf army, a scaven army, and a combat dwarf army. The elves cant pass a fear check to save their lives so they always lose to deamons. The other two will destroy any deamon player out there. Usually with minimal effort simply because deamons lose out against armies that don't rely on high str damage. Ranks can still win combats.

Deamons are considered so good because in a game between two scrubs the daemons win. Thats because if you dont know the strategies of the game flanking, baiting, and so forth (the ones that kill daemons) don't figure into your battle plan. Pushing models forward and the daemons usually win (the chars do half the damage). They also ignore most of the random problems that assail everyone else, panic, fear, etc...

Yea Deamons may lose more than most by losing characters, but when in any sort of competitive setting will you see daemons taking only 1 character.

Also you say daemons are considered good because if you put 2 scrubs together and daemons win, but what were the stats at the last GT The top 2 and 6 out of the top 10 were daemons. And this is a GT not some store tourney where you get alot of scrubs.

Daemons are considered good because, along with all the reasons that have already been stated in this thread, they just simply are good.

A real test would be throwing the guy who placed 1 with daemons against every other army that played, the second army would be played by the person who placed highest with the army. Id be willing to bet that daemons come out on top far more often than not.

notabot187 wrote: So your static res of 5 loses to the active resolution of 6. You run except on snake eyes.

What? You may want to reread the rules about this.

Agreed!

Losing by 1 should be only a -1 on the Break test.

oops I was thinking about when you out number. Which doesn't happen for a few turns.

amenzer wrote:Y

Also you say daemons are considered good because if you put 2 scrubs together and daemons win, but what were the stats at the last GT The top 2 and 6 out of the top 10 were daemons. And this is a GT not some store tourney where you get alot of scrubs.

I played at the Seattle GT 2 years in a row, and I was amazed at the number of scrubs present.

I played I think 1 or 2 games with my Daemons, 3 months ago, before the tourney I went to this weekend.

I won 3 out of 5 games, because the army is slowed. I lost to another DoC player and our game was like playing Yhatzee; it was all about who was rolling better.

DoC are stupid because:

1.) You get Magic from Core
2.) You have awesome Cav, Awesome Shooting, Awesome Magic, and the Best Characters in the Game.
3.) You are ItP and cause all the psych problems in others. Playing with Dwarfs, Ogres, and DE before using DoC, the fact that I don't have to take panic or fear/terror tests completely changes the entire game in my favor from the start.

4.) DoC make the game so much more about dice. You can do EVERYTHING right as an opponent and one good round of rolling for Ward Saves or on the Instability test will cost you the game and give it to the DoC player.

The DoC on DoC game was stupid in this regard:

My Bloodthirster spent 4 rounds of combat fighting his Flesh Hounds.

His Bloodthirster spent 3 rounds (and took two wounds in CC) with my Flamers.

I charged TWO units of 5 hounds into one unit of his 5 hounds, at the end of that combat I had 3 hounds left and he had 4.

It makes the game too much about dice I think.

1.) You get Magic from Core
2.) You have awesome Cav, Awesome Shooting, Awesome Magic, and the Best Characters in the Game.
3.) You are ItP and cause all the psych problems in others. Playing with Dwarfs, Ogres, and DE before using DoC, the fact that I don't have to take panic or fear/terror tests completely changes the entire game in my favor from the start.

4.) DoC make the game so much more about dice. You can do EVERYTHING right as an opponent and one good round of rolling for Ward Saves or on the Instability test will cost you the game and give it to the DoC player.

1) man, people fixate on that. O well, ill let it go for now.
2) Awesome cav...For killing potential I would take chaos knights, dragon princes, or cold ones with the cauldron. All three can and will kill the dogs point for point.
Shooting, well 1 choice does not a shooting army make. Do you think those 12 flamers will cause more damage from shooting than 4 bolt throwers? 4 cannons? how about two hell cannons? What about the 80 shots that 40 dark elf crossbow men put out every turn? The only reason people think flamers are good is that they can hold their own in combat (str is a bit much i think but o well).
The best char in the game is a huge debate. I would actually go with the tendrels prince. Fly, Terror, Stubborn, 4+ ward save, and can kill anything in magic with a little luck.

4) oddly enough, the three armies you mentioned don't really mind fear that much. Ogres are immune, dwarfs are immune where it counts, and DE rely on cold ones and black guard who are...immune.
And warriors of chaos, dark elves, highelves, and lizards are all better in magic than deamons if they want to be.

5) That is always the case in warhammer.
One good roll can easily turn the game. You could pass all your wardsaves and kill me. Or your dogs could fail all their attacks, lose by 6 and die to boxcars.
The last time i played dark elves I charged his blackguard W/char in the flank with a 100pt core unit to bait them out of my way. They lost combat, failed their rerollable ld9 test, and ran away.

Do you think they even played a single playetest game with this army?

The overpowering/undercosting elements were painfully obvious upon first reading of the leaked army list PDF several months prior to the book release.

The ones that really jumped out were:
Flamers way too good.
Bloodthirsters way undercosted, especially when items added.
Magic items that aren't items and are allowed to be taken in multiples.
Nurgle herald... specifically slime trail and the adding of regen to plaguebearer units, making a block of 20 almost unkillable unless you have high strength flaming attacks (not really all that available to most armies)
Ld bomb slaanesh lists.

Fix the above and suddenly the army becomes much more balanced within the metagame.

Note the tzeentch magic dice spam wasn't listed as in Oz tourneys an organiser would ask the player to submit another list.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The winner of a 1500pt turney a couple of months ago, who played daemons acctually apologised for taking the army to the tourney...

The answer to your first question: No.