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This may seem very silly, but please laugh with me and not at me. I was wondering why Chaos Daemons are now considered a top tier army? I have played them before and I know how to play them, yet I was still wondering why people consider them SO good, etc. Let the debating begin!

Chaos demons are considered a competitive army because a smart player can make them do evil things to you army. Pavane of slaneesh is one of them. Moving 3 enemy units d6 inches is going to cripple most peoples defense. Next a lot of the army is going to come in piece meal but, if just a few of the units survive to the next turn they will put the hurt on just about any one. The biggest reason they are competitive is that almost no one knows how to fight a well played demon army.

I've never had an issue with deamons. of course I play mech eldar (non council). its easy for me to avoid the nasty stuff and take out the easy stuff peacemeal.

There are a couple of things which will be a pain for Daemons, Mech Eladar, Mystics and master of the fleet are probably the main ones.

Otherwise there's not much which bothers me, you fight on your own terms, and you generally have the initiative, it's all yours to loose often

What deamons have is a good delivery system that means they dont have to footslog across the field. They can DS close to you and with a run move, get within position for a charge next turn. Army wide Eternal Warrior and Fearless means you are ignoring major weaknesses for multi wound units and never worrying about morale. With Demonic assault, your not subject to dawn of war, or missions that disrupt deployment.

Their troops: try killing 10 plaguebearers in cover. I have had a friend fire 2000 points of tau into 10 of them only to kill 6.
HQ: Fateweaver is still damn annoying unless you got a psyker battle squad, Bloodthirster is also a scary HQ
Heavy suport: I would take soul grinders anyday instead of defilers
Elites: Seekers of Slaneesh and Bloodcrushers are pretty powerful
Fast Attack: not as many good choices

aside from mech forces, Deamons can handle most other forces pretty good and dont underestimate bolt of tzeench.

thehod wrote:What deamons have is a good delivery system that means they dont have to footslog across the field. They can DS close to you and with a run move, get within position for a charge next turn. Army wide Eternal Warrior and Fearless means you are ignoring major weaknesses for multi wound units and never worrying about morale. With Demonic assault, your not subject to dawn of war, or missions that disrupt deployment.

Their troops: try killing 10 plaguebearers in cover. I have had a friend fire 2000 points of tau into 10 of them only to kill 6.
HQ: Fateweaver is still damn annoying unless you got a psyker battle squad, Bloodthirster is also a scary HQ
Heavy suport: I would take soul grinders anyday instead of defilers
Elites: Seekers of Slaneesh and Bloodcrushers are pretty powerful
Fast Attack: not as many good choices

aside from mech forces, Deamons can handle most other forces pretty good and dont underestimate bolt of tzeench.

Eff Bolt of Tzeench. I played a well played chaos demon army last night and he took me apart with his ridiculous deepstriking eternal warriors.

That is to say, they're incredibly stabby and tough. Like chaos space marines, but on crack.

When things go right for a daemon army they can be a tough opponent. When things go wrong they are still dangerous, when things go really really wrong then they can annhilate themselves without help from the opponent. It's a really random army. The nice thing is that things are priced taking the randomness factor into account so the actual troops are pretty damn solid once they hit the ground safely. A lucky round of deep striking spells problems for an enemy, while the daemons' individual awesomeness allow them to fight hard from the back foot when things go wrong.

I see them losing strength honestly as more and more mechanized armies become available.

There are around 3 to 4 units that have a threat range of 12 to 18 inches on charging.


SLaanesh Calvary has a huge charge range of normal movement plus fleet plus charge so do hounds.

It's a very difficult army to deal with but overall I have never had a difficult time with them ever.

Nullzone and Sternguard are usually the bane of the Daemons.

The other problem with facing daemons is that static armies can't redeploy well to face their random nature, and even mech armies can get in trouble if the deep striking goes well. And its random enough that the math hammer guys who set up every approach and take 30 mins to deploy to cover every angle with the precise firing/CC solutions have a headache.

The final thing is that you can tailor a list to smackdown daemons - but most armies I see built to do so suck as an all comers list. And that is what makes them dangerous in tournaments.

mrdabba wrote:I've never had an issue with deamons. of course I play mech eldar (non council). its easy for me to avoid the nasty stuff and take out the easy stuff peacemeal.

Try a fast moving Slaanesh daemon army led by Skarbrand. Those Fiends have a potential 24" charge range. They might need 6's to hit your skimmers but they get to reroll all misses in combat. Add in those fleeting daemonettes and that type of daemon army can catch and down mech eldar. Throw in a unit of screamers just to make sure no vehicles will live. I'm not saying that type of army is unbeatable. It has problems against other types of armies, but not mech eldar.

Yeah Slaanesh daemons can more than keep up with Vehicles. The only benefit is that you are pretty decently protected in combat inside a vehicle versus them.

Sure they may catch you but unless its those Tzeetch things with Meltabombs you are not gonna get torn out of the vehicle.

Hollismason wrote:Yeah Slaanesh daemons can more than keep up with Vehicles. The only benefit is that you are pretty decently protected in combat inside a vehicle versus them.

Sure they may catch you but unless its those Tzeetch things with Meltabombs you are not gonna get torn out of the vehicle.

Any greater daemon or daemon prince, soul grinders, and fiends will all put the beatdown on most vehicles. I run groups of 12-13 daemonettes and even they can handle up to a12 (a11 more realistically) through sheer volume of attacks (rends). Same would be true of seekers, but I don't play them (too expensive and too picky to use substitute models).

I love it when people completely underestimate my pack of 6 fiends. (they can glance a land raider, have mad attacks and range, rend, and have hit and run. i love these guys!).

Daemons are a good codex, just about right in power level, and the army rewards guts and good play...but will fare poorly at lower point games...

I have fought daemons before, and I find them a win big, lose big army..the first game I fought I lost, the second game versus them I won handily....using 4th ed IG....

The 5th ed IG list is better tailored to handle a daemon army...MEQs however have a difficult time since daemons are really built versus MEQs...

Hollismason wrote:I see them losing strength honestly as more and more mechanized armies become available.

There are around 3 to 4 units that have a threat range of 12 to 18 inches on charging.


SLaanesh Calvary has a huge charge range of normal movement plus fleet plus charge so do hounds.

It's a very difficult army to deal with but overall I have never had a difficult time with them ever.

Nullzone and Sternguard are usually the bane of the Daemons.

Null Zone is just stupid. Whoever wrote the SM codex sure as hell didn't consider the implications of the upgrade unless they just thought it would be funny to screw daemons. Kinda the same thing with the imperial guard codex and the master of the fleet. Its a cheap upgrade that completely bones daemons. My best counter to null zone is just conceding as soon as i see someone brought it or refusing to play the game if i know its in someone's list. This isn't an effective tactic in tournaments I'm working on coming up with a null zone resistant list that uses lots of armor saves, soul grinders, and plaguebearers. I can't play daemons without fiends though so...i don't know.

Null zone sucks, to be sure, but geeze, just kill the librarian already...

Difficult to do when he just sits inside a landraider.

Null Zone doesn't work against cover saves.

And the Master of the Fleet can work in your favor in an objective mission, and isn't that big of a deal if you got the right half of your army in. Somebody, Sourclams maybe, did an analysis of how the Master of the Fleet can be good and bad.

EDIT:

Demons have the roughest time against fully mechanized armies, but even that can be mitigated with monstrous creatures and beasts. Mech IG, Chaos and Space Marines probably have the best answer though, since their troops aren't slouches once shot out of their tanks, either with decent CC or special weapons. Having to destroy vehicles in CC guarantees that the enemy will get to shoot you before you get to engage, which can really hurt and is what the mech player is banking on.

Daemons come ito their own in Planetstrike, since units with the Deepstrike ability can assault when they come in Daemons are on your gunline potentially before you hav fired a single shot. that is nasty!!

You may have heard about fantasy where deamons are THE OMG WTF unbeatable army