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Not sure if this should go in tactics or discussion.

I've recently started playing mono-Slaanesh Chaos Daemons, had a few games with them and... are they really a viable army? I'm talking about Chaos Daemons in general.

I know I'm playing the most fragile god, but unless I went pure Nurgle, it seems to me that most games would go like this:

First wave comes down... sits there while getting the snot shot out of it. DS scatter puts paid to any effort to get out of LOS. Nearly entire first wave wiped out.

Second wave comes down... same as above. In the best case scenario. What usually happens is my forces come down piecemeal, and THEN get shot to pieces one units at a time. The crippled remnants of my force then finally gets into CC and kills a couple of units/contests objectives if I'm lucky.

My thoughts:
- Everything seems overpriced? Sure, just about everything rips it up in CC, but for example, 14pts for T3 5+ Sv? Orks are awesome in CC, are bad at shooting (at least they HAVE a shooting attack), but THEY don't cost 14pts. Yes, I know, you can't really compare units from different lists, but they do seem overpriced for what they do (I mean the majority of CD units). 280pts will get me a unit of 20 Daemonettes, or a I could get 18 marines with great stats, great save, great weapon. I'd choose the marines every time.

Greater Daemons... why do they cost so much? Stats are quite good, and they start reasonably priced, but after a couple of upgrades... I'd rather have an Eldar Avatar for 155pts. Honestly, for the price, they should come with all upgrades as standard.

Daemon Princes: Same as above. Wings are ridiculously expensive, because why?

- Low save: linked to the above, why does everything cost so much, yet have a crap save? Invulnerable is supposed to make it acceptable, but all it does is mitigate high AP weapons somewhat. So instead of my guard opponent having the regular slew of heavy weapons, all he needs now is more basic lasguns and dirt cheap heavy bolters.

- Daemonic Assault: In my mind, it seems like I'm paying for the fact that everyone shows up by DS when I shouldn't be. Yes, a few DSing units is useful, but not the whole bloody army. Half my stuff mishaps, scatters into the open etc. that I consider it a huge liability rather than an advantage. Honestly, I'd rather deploy normally. Shouldn't all daemon units be a little bit CHEAPER to make up for it?

- Shooting units: My flamers and horrors come down. Best case scenario, I wipe out an equivalent number of units. Next turn, they get wiped in CC by Guardsmen. 35pts for a model with a flamer weapon, 1 wound and WS2? They've gotta get close to flame, yet they suck in CC... seems counter-productive to me.

- CC troops: Good at cc... but hardly ever make it there. Expensive, low save units (nurgle excepted) that will die in droves because of the randomness of Daemonic assault. Orks are low save, will die in droves... but at least they have the means to make it into CC, whether it be by massive numbers, or cheap transports. DS is supposed to be the means, but because evertyhing costs so much and has low T and Sv, it inevitably gets shot to death.

I realise that CD are somewhat of a specialist army taken to extremes, and they should be quite good because of this, but it seems like the stars have to align for me to pull off a win. Yes, I know you can run a maxed out Bloodcrusher list and do quite well, but I don't think an army should have to concentrate on one or two builds to be effective. I just get the feeling that there's something fundamentally wrong with them, whether they be overpriced, badly designed etc.

I've played vanilla marines, black templars, Guard, and sisters of battle, and I've read most other armies codicies, and they all seem to be able to put together a comfortable, balanced list that can give any army a run for it's money. Guard feel safe with their massed infantry and tanks, marines of any flavour are good all round, orks have their hordes etc. What do Daemons have? Unreliability and uber-specialised units? High priced, low save troops?

It seems like a shooty build will get out-shot by shooty armies, and a CC build will get out-CCed by other CC armies. No wonder the untold legions of Chaos are being held in the EoT by one planet of Guardsmen. What the hell can I do? I would be satisfied if they just chose one section of the army list, and reduced the cost by 25%, preferably the Troops section, since I always thought of Daemons as a horde army.

I really, really want to love Chaos Daemons, but as they are, they just seem like an overpriced, brightly coloured shooting gallery, a shooting gallery in which I pay $1000 to watch for 2 hours as brightly painted clowns descend from the carnival tent roof, who then slowly drop their pants to reveal a target painted on their arses, under which is written "Shoot here for the win". And they remain in said bent over position, until their rumps are duly shot by everyone in the audience. And my daemons are those clowns. And I realise I am those daemons. And then I wake up in a cold sweat...

I hope someone can help me see the light, and restore my faith in the Chaos Gods.

I have the same dream...

My Daemons do just fine. I run a Khornezilla list with two Bloodthirsters, three Daemon Princes, and lots of Bloodcrushers.

Assuming I get to CC, nothing survives.

A Chaos Demon list won last year's 'Ard Boys tournaments, I believe.

Fateweaver + 12+ bloodcrushers is one of the most durable lists in the game, and thats still only half an army. Add a thirster, some horrors with changeling, and a soul grinder or two and you have an awesome army.

I'm a 40k newbie, I've played 4-5 games in total (500 and 100 points) with Chaos Demons as my 1st army. I have the same impression as the OP. Whatever drops get shot to pieces one by one, especially if you don't get your preferred wave.
Right now I'm hoping it's the lack of skill on my part that makes this happen but I don't see a way out yet. All models are expensive so it's hard to make a massed swarm, making your opponents have to choose targets. The thougher units are more expensive and slow, hard to get into CC.
My opponents are newbies too fwiw.

I have a chaos daemon opponent who has mentioned that daemons really shine at larger games...which for me is correct.....the synergies are possible in larger games (like fateweaver + whatever khorne daemons, etc..)...that could explain why you are having such a tough time....

He is quite successful at large games (2000 pts).....Am looking forward to the challenge of playing him at 1850 points, hopefully next week....using my IG army, which as you have noticed is really geared versus daemons (daemons, on the other hand, seem to be geared very well vs MEQ armies)...

If you want to run mono-slaanesh daemons you'll still need one non-slaanesh unit to make it work... Skarbrand.

Take Skarbrand, 2-3 max units of Fiends, 17-18 man units of daemonettes. If you've got more points, then grab some Screamers or flying DP's. The Fiends have a 19-24" assault range which allows you to drop far enough away and still be a threat. Skarbrand allows you to reroll hits in close combat. This applies to both players, but your slaanesh daemons have a much higher initiative and a tremendous number of attacks. 6 fiends have 36 attacks on the charge, str 5 and rending. With rerolls you'll drop even Eldar skimmers in combat.

Probably the best Daemon lists, however, are a mix of many different daemon units.

Mono colors with maybe the exception of Nurgle just don't have enough juice. Fateweaver, bloodcrushers, Thirster and soulgrinders are very hard to handle. You can still do crushers, Fate Weaver, Thirster, and min units of plaguebearers at 1500 and still be very competetive.

I've just started daemons as my 3rd army and I see it as a finesse army it requires both solid list building good solid tactics (and a bit of luck) to be effective. Seeing as my first army was orks (No finesse to speak of run forward hit em in the face) and my second army vanilla SM (more tactics required but forgiving of mistakes) I am looking at daemons to really challenge me (not that I win all the times with the others) as a player.

Ive only played them at 2k, but theyre easily one of the tougher opponents Ive had to deal with.

Bloodcrushers especially 3 unique ones in a squad of 5-8 is very annoying to kill even without the fateweaver.

The Fatecrusher list is one of the tougher daemon builds to take on effectively. Fiends of slaneesh are absurdly fast and can toss plenty of attacks.

Slaanesh troops are very fragile. Are you using Fiends? They are the real killers.

To play CD you really shouldn't be mono god. It helps to take tough Nurgle Troops or Khornes PW troops then the fast Fiends or Crushers, then Heralds of Tzeentch on Chariots for a little bit of tank bustin or Khorne Heralds on Chariots for mini-mc fun. DP of Nurgle for a tough unit then DP of tzeentch for again a shooting anti-tank weapon.

I'm hearing bloodcrushers come up a lot, and I know why. T5, 3+ Sv, 2 wounds, power weapons, furious charge for 40pts. Most other elites/troops are made of paper/expensive compared to them. It seems like one of the few units that are actually good value. It looks like people max out on them because of this. They can actually survive the drop, and make it into combat where they belong.

See, here's part of what I mean. Isn't it considered cheesy to take maxed out bloodcrushers and soul grinders/DPs? Part of the point I was trying to make was, you shouldn't have to max out on one unit for an army to play properly, and I can't believe the army was designed so that you had to take maxed BCs to even have a chance at winning. And by chance, I mean to offset the possible game crushing disadvantage of having to drop all you units in, half of which might not show up til the game is over.

You can have a balanced army of any other race, and they'll fair well, but with Daemons, the half of your force that isn't bloodcrushers or DPs/SGs are almost guaranteed to vaporise on the first turn.

But... maybe that's the point. I'm starting to think that it was designed that way. Big daemons and little daemons come down. All the little ones die, leaving the big ones to rampage, or vice versa. Unless everything scatters into rocks/off the table/get placed by your opponent etc. then your oppenent gets to kill the few bits that actually made it onto the board.

I still think Daemonettes are too expensive, especially after the nerf to rending. Also, why can't you give non-Khorne heralds some sort of power weapon! It's ridiculous. And a 50pt IC with S3 T3, 5+? I sigh in frustration. I know most people use Plaguebearers for troops simply because they won't die when you fart in their general direction, but isn't Slow and Purposeful prohibitive? I'd take them, except Nurgle is my mortal enemy, and I hate that they're Slow. It just doesn't fit with my Slaanesh theme.

I do agree that synergy would scale better at higher points, but I believe that armies should play at least reasonably well at any points level. As for me, I'm stuck playing at the 1-1.5k level due to my gaming group.

Nivoglibina: I don't think it's lack of skill, it's having all your units scatter up to 12". It's so random, you can't really use skill to make up for it. I've considered just dropping my units so far away from the enemy to avoid getting shot, but then I'd have walk all the way back, getting shot all the while.

Ah well, whining will get me nowhere, since we all know GW does whatever the hell it wants, and doesn't listen to the actual gamers. I'm resigned to working with what I have.

I've ordered a unit of fiends to try them out, but really, T4 and 5+ save again, I don't expect them to survive any longer than my other units. Would it be acceptable to use them as bloodcrushers instead? Are they roughly the same size? I really want to keep with the Slaanesh theme, and am also looking for alternative models to represent the other Gods in Slaanesh form.

On soul grinders v DPs, what do most people use? I've seen people go either all one or the other. My dilemma is, I often face Guard tanks I want a reliable anti-tank unit, and SGs seem better in this role but probably aren't as durable as DPs (plus they're massive, bad for dropping and getting shot). I like the idea of DPs, as they seem a lot more in character, but with the cost of upgrades, they seem prohibitively expensive. Especially wings.

On the topic of Soul Grinders... WHYYYYYY. So the only big, shooty unit we've got and... it's WS3 BS3. Facepalm repeatedly. Is it meant to be shooty, or stabby? BS3 doesn't cut it for shooting, and WS3 might be ok for CC, but no, let's give him Initiative 3 so we can REALLY mess with Daemon players' heads. You should be able to give you SG a mark so that he at least does something well. Also, massive half-daemon half-machine monstrosity is fleet, and a daemon prince, favoured of the gods, beloved of minions, the penultimate apogee of chaos possession... isn't. Mark of slaanesh should make the DP fleet at least.

P.S. Personal anecdote: in my first game, I went against IG, and my KoS got killed on the first turn. I thought the tanks would roll right over me, but I managed to kill both of them with a unit of 6 daemonettes that survived til the end of the game. I lost horribly, but still enjoyed the game.

You seem to have picked an army that punishes you for taking too many troop choices. Then you have taken the most fragile of the ones available to you. Thats not a recipie for success.

Demonettes are very overpriced. So much so it makes them terrible. T3 with a 5+ inv save isnt good. Your army should not be mostly composed of these because they are too vulnerable to shooting. If it is you will lose. The choices you make for your first wave also matter a lot. If you chose to mix your big creatures in with your demonettes in wave 1 they will get shot to pieces and die. Drop your demonettes down after your big things so they dont get shot so much.

You need to focus on your non-troop choices to make the army good. Flamers are a suicide choice. Run them in groups of 3 and dont expect them to live. They also can use warpfire if they scatter out of range of breath of chaos. Fiends are ok. They can cover a lot of distance but dont really hit that hard due to the rending nerf. Bloodcrushers are better.

Punishing you for taking troops (there shouldn't be such a thing as too many troops), I certainly agree with you, but I think it's totally wrong for an army to be designed that way. I've always been a fan of troops over uber-mosters/characters, and 5th edition was supposed to reward such people.

So what, should I max out on HQ, Elites and Heavy Support? On the one hand, you'll have a tough time winning games based on objectives, and on the other you'll be called cheese for maxing out on cheddar. As I first thought, it seems like this is the way to go with Daemons. You can play a balanced list, and lose most of the time, or you can play a maxed out cheese list, and have a reasonable chance of winning.

I really don't want to go down this route, as I like characterful lists with an even amount of all unit choices, if not mostly troops.

Anyway, here are my one-dimensional lists with minimum troops:

KoS - Unholy Might, Soporific Musk
4xFiends
4xFiends
4xFiends
5xDaemonettes
5xDaemonettes
3xDPs with Mark of Slaanesh

1250pts:
+ KoS
+ Aura for DPs

1500pts:
+ 6 Fiends
+ Unholy Might for DPs

Will it work? Would Soul Grinders be better?

Questions from my last post still stand, and I'd love some feedback.

Signal wrote:A Chaos Demon list won last year's 'Ard Boys tournaments, I believe.

There's some debate about the validity of that win, however.

I've had enormous success with my Daemons, and they're probably the most fun army I've ever used. They do take some getting used to, but once you've got the playing style dialed in you should be able to eliminate a lot of your frustration.

In no particular order, here are some things I've learned along the way:

1) In most cases, two is one and one is none. By this I mean that redundancy is a huge key to success with daemons (or any army in 40k, for that matter). One soul grinder/bloodthirster/soul grinder? Absolutely not a threat. I can either ignore or eliminate one of *anything*. Two of them, on the other hand, are typically more than twice as effective as one.

2) If there's a part of a unit that you don't like, you may be able to compensate for it or remove that weakness entirely. As an example, yes, BS3/I3 on soulgrinders sucks monkeybutt. The easy answers to this are to always use Phlegm and stay the hell away from dreadnoughts. By using a large blast and avoiding the one unit type that really tears the 'grinder to pieces, it's almost as if those flaws don't exist.

3) Unless they're plaguebearers, buy troops in units of 10+. I rarely lose an entire 10-model unit of horrors. I lose my 10-model unit of 'letters about half the time. My 20-model unit of 'letters has never been killed. The horrors in particular--with that 4+ invulnerable save--can be a spectacular tarpit unit.

4) If that greater daemon has 4 wounds, he will die to small arms fire. There is very little you can do about this, so suck it up and move on. That tactical squad doesn't care how much time and effort you put into painting that keeper of secrets... they just hope to get lucky and kill it with one round of rapid fire. Daemon Princes suffer the same weakness, and usually cost a hell of a lot more points than a soulgrinder. If you're going to run monstrous creatures, run several or not at all.

5) Bloodcrushers are expensive (both in points and $), unwieldy, and somewhat easy for your opponent to avoid. Fiends are smaller, cheaper, faster, and will happily chase down a fast-moving eldar skimmer. If flamers of tzeentch weren't so damned effective, I'd run three squads of fiends.

6) For flamers, three is the magic number. Tiny footprint for deepstrike, horrifically dangerous, and if they mishap on deployment you're only out 105 points. I'll drop a squad of flamers into a 6" gap without hesitation. My record for 1st turn effectiveness with one squad is one stunned vindicator, one weapon-destroyed vindicator, and an immobilized/stunned rhino full of marines.

7) The Changeling is the best 5 points you will ever spend.

8) Whatever you do, don't split your army into two equal halves on your waves. If you do this, you are just guaranteeing that you'll be fighting your opponent's army with one that's exactly half as effective. Put all your shock troops in the first wave, all your troops in the second. This way you'll usually be fighting your opponent's army with 70%+ of your army (both in points and effectiveness). One icon in a squad of plaguebearers is enough to compensate for those times when you get the secondary wave.

9) Deepstriking is actually pretty easy to do safely. If you can place that unit 7" away from anything that would generate a mishap, you should be fine. Between the 1-in-3 'hit' result and average distance for scatter, this should be more than enough buffer.... and if your dice decide to screw you, it doesn't matter what you do--just close your eyes and try to find your happy place.

10) Place the most important model FIRST. If a soulgrinder scatters onto Ku'Gath, that sucks. If that 300 point character scatters onto the soulgrinder, you just found an adam's apple on your prom date.

I run 5 fiends, 4 crushers and 3 flamers in my 1.75 list. All of them are awesome.

You need to use them properly though.

Crushers I find are excellent at taking out any infantry left in the open, but excell at being a fire magnet. Due to wound allocation they can sit and take it all, one game against a SM player they took, 1200 points of shooting in one turn before dying, leaving everything else able to move in and kill!

Fiends are our antidote to fast vehicles, you will pump out enough hits to do something, and normally enough to severely hurt it, love my fiends, want more!

Flamers, well, whats not to like, they will die, but they cause pain on the way out!

Wow, top notch tips there CatPeeler. Definitely take that all on board. I definitely agree on redundancy as a necessity, it certainly seems that way. My list only has a single MC, and so far he's done a lot of damage, but always ends up getting killed.

Based on that point, I feel that one should either go all DPs or all SGs for maximum effectiveness (tell me if I'm wrong), but going all DPs costs more points (to be effective) and they get killed by small arms, SGs are immune to small arms, but get killed by heavy weapons (which will all be targeting them, since they're the only vehicles). Dilemma. I'm going to search the forums for an answer, but feel free to comment here.

P.S. As a side note, I just realised, why would anyone even take DPs when you can get a couple of bloodcrushers for the same points. I know they can be tooled out to be more versatile, but then they cost as much as a GD.

Helmann wrote:Based on that point, I feel that one should either go all DPs or all SGs for maximum effectiveness (tell me if I'm wrong), but going all DPs costs more points (to be effective) and they get killed by small arms, SGs are immune to small arms, but get killed by heavy weapons (which will all be targeting them, since they're the only vehicles).

In my experience, soul grinders are a "2+ or not at all" option. What you'll usually see in competitive builds are 3 grinders, 3 princes, or 2 grinders/1 prince. They're actually surprisingly durable against everything but melta and railguns. Since they ignore stunned/shaken, my opponents don't even bother shooting mine with lascannons unless all the MC's are already dead.

I prefer 3 grinders, myself, but I have been experimenting with 2 grinders and a winged melee prince for dreadnaught hunting.

Daemons just take practice. You can't just deep strike into rapid fire range, especially with Slaanesh. Stay out of rapid fire and fleet your way to assault. I use mostly slaaneshi units and am probably out even on wins and losses. I started adding some other units which has helped. Mono lists suffer some pretty hefty weaknesses, you gotta get over that to be truly competitive. Plague Bearers are great for holding objectives. Fiends are the best unit in the codex, i run with 12, they scare the poop out of any opponent, for both anti infantry and anti tank. The KoS is my favorite HQ but he is fragile, best for second wave, like the daemonettes. A GUO in someone's grill will draw a ton of fire and protect the rest of your army. Daemonettes are fast enough you should be able to stay in cover and then hit assault. Soul Grinders are awesome for thining out units with battlecannons and fleeting in to assault whatever you want aside from dreadnoughts and monstrous creatures. Icons are useful, but keep them off the fragile guys. Against gunlines try to focus on one flank to avoid overwelming fire. Flamers make an entertaining suicide unit, when it works it can significantly reduce incoming fire. I don't like horrors, they seem to underperform for me. Never used blood letters due to their lack of grenades. When the dice gods are unkind you will find yourself on the back foot. Part of the skill is just minimizing the chance of a misshap. Remember, difficult terrain is just a dangerous test so stay farther than 7 inches from other units and impassible terrain you you deep strike in. I love the daemon army and do not find it to be weak at all. Just requires some practice.

When it works, it is an absolutely brutal army. When it fails, it can defeat itself as easily as the opponent... hehe

You do need to consider the strengths and weaknesses of units. Daemonettes really don't make the cut unless you're going mono-slaanesh, and in that case, I'd recommend taking four units of six and hiding them or saving them for objectives.

You need your elites to do your heavy lifting, whether it be flamers, fiends or crushers, each of those units will smash stuff. In a slaanesh list, seekers are nearly as good as fiends too.

You need to work at it to find the key between expensive stuff and a workable list. Go ahead and min-max

jsullivanlaw wrote:I don't like horrors, they seem to underperform for me.

How have you been running them? I run them in squads of 10 with bolt That's 27 warpfire dice plus the bolt, which absolutely chews through anything with AV10 or armor 4+. They're a great tag-team unit against bikes, too. The Changeling is just gravy...

Redbeard: I agree, you've got a large chance to kill yourself, and skill doesn't help you mitigate this. I feel that everything should be cheaper to make up for tha random chance, but instead it seems like most units are overpriced. I mean c'mon, half our army might not show up til turn 5? Shouldn't there be a discount for that?

Hmm, 2 or not at all. I've gotta choose soon, because I feel that the grinders/princes will be the backbone of my army. I figure I'll either run 3 princes or 2 grinders, since they're roughly the same points. There's also RL cost to consider, since 3 princes will be considerably cheaper than 2 grinders.

EDIT: I don't like the idea of any Tzeentch units, since they don't seem to be able to do their job. Horrors are supposed to be our (only) ranged troops choice, yet have the same BS as a guardsman for triple the cost? So pretty much, you NEED an assault 3 weapon to hit reliably at all.

Flamers are good in certain situations. If you've got a chance to wipe out a squad of MEQ, or a wraithlord or something, they're great. In a KP match, however, it can backfire, since you'll almost certainly be giving up a KP in the hopes of getting at least one back yourself. They can't stand up in CC against anyone, yet their strength is in a template ranged weapon, so they get one chance to flame, then get wiped. I think 105pts for a suicide flame unit is too much in most cases. Also, always wounding on a 4+ is a disadvantage half the time.

CatPeeler wrote:
8) Whatever you do, don't split your army into two equal halves on your waves. If you do this, you are just guaranteeing that you'll be fighting your opponent's army with one that's exactly half as effective. Put all your shock troops in the first wave, all your troops in the second. This way you'll usually be fighting your opponent's army with 70%+ of your army (both in points and effectiveness). One icon in a squad of plaguebearers is enough to compensate for those times when you get the secondary wave.

This is important. For some reason, the standard reaction to splitting your army up became "make 2 equal halves". All this does is give your opponent targets in an easy to prioritize and kill fashion, while diluting your army's capabilities. It's a lose lose situation. Pick 2 things you want to be good at, and make the 2 waves adhere to that. Don't take 2 soulgrinders, a DP and a Greater Demon, just to take one grinder and a demon in one half and the other grinder and DP in the other. It just prevents your enemy's high strength shooting from being overwhelmed.

Helmann wrote:Redbeard: I agree, you've got a large chance to kill yourself, and skill doesn't help you mitigate this. I feel that everything should be cheaper to make up for tha random chance, but instead it seems like most units are overpriced. I mean c'mon, half our army might not show up til turn 5? Shouldn't there be a discount for that?

Perhaps it is cheaper. And, with most of the army being assault oriented, you're paying a lot of points for the right to deep strike, ensuring that your opponent gets only one shooting phase before you get stuck in.

Hmm, 2 or not at all. I've gotta choose soon, because I feel that the grinders/princes will be the backbone of my army. I figure I'll either run 3 princes or 2 grinders, since they're roughly the same points. There's also RL cost to consider, since 3 princes will be considerably cheaper than 2 grinders.

Naked princes (no upgrades) cost about that. The upgrades are useful though. I've used 200 point princes quite successfully.

EDIT: I don't like the idea of any Tzeentch units, since they don't seem to be able to do their job. Horrors are supposed to be our (only) ranged troops choice, yet have the same BS as a guardsman for triple the cost? So pretty much, you NEED an assault 3 weapon to hit reliably at all.

Horrors are one of the better troop choices in the codex. So they're only BS3, they have a lot of shots, with decent strength and AP, and a 4+ invul save. Plus, they're able to sit on an objective and shoot stuff, instead of daemonettes or bloodletters, who have to either camp or kill.

Flamers are good in certain situations. If you've got a chance to wipe out a squad of MEQ, or a wraithlord or something, they're great. In a KP match, however, it can backfire, since you'll almost certainly be giving up a KP in the hopes of getting at least one back yourself. They can't stand up in CC against anyone, yet their strength is in a template ranged weapon, so they get one chance to flame, then get wiped. I think 105pts for a suicide flame unit is too much in most cases. Also, always wounding on a 4+ is a disadvantage half the time.

Flamers are great. Be aggressive with them, understand that you'll lose them sometimes, and go to town. Yes, in a KP game, you'll probably get an even trade for one enemy unit. What you're missing is that you get to pick the unit you're trading for. What bothers the rest of your army the most? Devs w/ h-bolters? No problem, trade the flamers for them. Bikes that will run from your assault units and shoot you at range? Destroyers? Just make sure the trade is in your favour and you're good to go.

Redbeard wrote:Flamers are great. Be aggressive with them, understand that you'll lose them sometimes, and go to town. Yes, in a KP game, you'll probably get an even trade for one enemy unit. What you're missing is that you get to pick the unit you're trading for. What bothers the rest of your army the most? Devs w/ h-bolters? No problem, trade the flamers for them. Bikes that will run from your assault units and shoot you at range? Destroyers? Just make sure the trade is in your favour and you're good to go.

Exactly. I actually send my flamers after vehicles more often than not. If they're hitting infantry, it's usually because they're between the flamers and their target. Yes, the glance-only against vehicles isn't likely to blow anything up (unless they're open-topped, that is), but even shaking a couple of heavy support choices can be a big deal--especially in the first couple turns of the game.

I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but it seems like in every game, one unit of flamers will evaporate after their suicide run, and the other just will...not...die... I've had a squad survive 500-1000 points of incoming fire, a charge from a full squad of banshees, and even had one squad tie up a dakkafex for three full turns! This really emphasizes one of the best things about flamers: the enemy *knows* how nasty they can be, and will probably devote a rediculous amount of attention to ensure that they are destroyed as quickly as possible. With a little luck on the saves, this can mean the rest of your army can advance unmolested for a turn. More than anything else, that is why I run two squads of flamers and one squad of fiends, instead of the other way around.

Agreed. It's not a no-brainer. The army plays differently, and is vulnerable to some bad dice on scatters. But it's not a bad army, by any means.

Not crushing everyone when you start with a brand new army, which plays differently than anything you've used before != bad army.

CatPeeler wrote:I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but it seems like in every game, one unit of flamers will evaporate after their suicide run, and the other just will...not...die... I've had a squad survive 500-1000 points of incoming fire, a charge from a full squad of banshees, and even had one squad tie up a dakkafex for three full turns!

I had a squad of flamers survive a turn of rapid fire shooting from 25ish marines, two missle launchers, and three turns of close combat with two dreadnaughts. Needless to say my opponent was about ready to throw his dice across the room.