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im starting a daemon bomb army

i have never played this type of list before.

i need some help, i have no idea where to start. i plan on playing in some tournaments with it and want to it to be strong.


looking for some advice on what are some of the "staple" units and strategies that have been used successfully.

i dont care if its fluffy or not i want competative.


thank you so much.

Out of C:CSM or Caemons?

daemons lol

I dont really know the Daemon codex that well, and I dont expect many others to either.

I can tell you Ive played my CSM against daemons a fair amount. I know a few units are good:

Flamers of Tzeentch- deepstrike in in squads of 3, put flamer templates over whatever they want to kill, and whatever is under there pretty much dies. They are VERY annoying, and really force you to spread out.

Plaguebearers - Feel no pain, T5, 5+ invul I believe. Theyre tough to take out, and they have this system where they get benefits for the more they kill. For example, after 13 kills (not exact), they get power weapons. Not sure if theyre competitive but anything with FNP and high T is a pain.

Daemon Princes - Pretty good choice, very dangerous in close combat

Soul Grinder - The other Heavy Support option next to the Daemon Princes, these guys are AV13 front and a pain to take down. Even powerfists have trouble killing it in CC.

i have a little experience played a couple games and got schooled

1) plaguebearers dont get the special things like power weapons without he tally of nurgle (special character)
2)bloodletters (my favorite) are a cleanup unit they'll get vaporized at range but will shred anything up close
3)plaguebeares are a great sitting down unit to ensure a safe objective or landing zone
4)soulgrinders=amazing very good purposes all around

ok soul grinders, plague bearers, flamers

what about bloodcrushers??

and what should i use for HQ? i like skulltaker alot what about the others?

I play Daemons a lot lately but I have only been playing them for about 3 months so take this with a grain of salt. Bloodcrushers are good at killing infantry, but the real advantage to them is putting the icon in their unit. It is a tough unit to kill. You can drop them close (not too close to be risky) and they hold up well to fire power. Soul grinders are good in pairs or taking three. Deamon Princes are good only if you spend the points to deck them out otherwise its like "ehhh" (shrug). HQ Take your pick. Heralds of Tzeentch on chariots are popular now but I have had a lot of success with the Masque. Skulltaker is good but I dont run into a lot of situations where his insta death really comes into play. Granted he has a power weapon, but the rending on inf. on 4+ is really only good for a few charachters and Nob Bikers. Any of the Greater Deamons are good. The only units I have found no real use for are Furies and Beasts of Nurgle. Now that doesnt mean those units suck, I just think that the purpose each of those unts serve can be done by other units better. Most units have strengths and weaknesses so play them as such. Nurgle holds objectives-takes fire well. Khorne Kills. Slaanesh moves quickly and has lots of high I attacks. Tzeencth shoots. It just takes a while to get the "feel" of the army. It is hard to build a bad Deamon list. So just practice and have fun. I have my own personal opinions on what a "killer" build is but lots of people will disagree. Depends on the points and the setting.

im going to make it 1850 and 2k play setting will be local tournaments and competitive play

For HQ, any of the greater deamons work good and I know Bill Kim has made good use of Heralds as well.

Bloodthirsters are monsters in hth
Bloodcrushers will pretty much kill anything except for dreadnaughts in hth.
Flamers are great for wiping infantry with their shooting.
Plaguebearers for survivable troops
Soulgrinders to kill vehicles and power armor.


common builds are:

the classic fate crusher: Fate weaver and 16-24 bloodcrushers with plague bearers and whatever is left on soul grinders

Deamonzilla: 2 greater deamons, 3 deamon princes, plague bearers and a mix of bloodcrushers and flamers

The most popular units i see are:
4 Bloodcrushers with all the trimmings, making each one unique
3 flamers
4-6 fiends
Tzeentch heralds on chariot with bolt and master of sorcery. 3 s5 +1 s8 shots on the run and 5 wounds at 100 points is hard to pass up.
Soul Grinder with phlegm
Bloodletters in groups of not less than 10
There is some debate as to whether large or small units of horrors is best but always take the bol.t I like 10.
Plaguebearers are great, but take a bunch and back them up. They are too easy to pull off objectives or tarpit them through assault.

The demons main weakness is a lack of really good anti vehicle ability. Keep that in mind when you play them.

I would suggest if your just starting out using a bloodthirster as a HQ He is pretty good all the way around and has the reach to also reach out and catch vehicles. He can be really good and really fun HQ for starting out but sometimes he just draws a ton of fire so be careful.

The Great unclean one will survive a ton of fire from things if you are looking for someone that survives or you can just throw at the enemy. He moves slow as dirt though, but if he does catch something he usually kills it. For the points you can't really complain on what you get. I said hes slow as dirt right? lol.

IF you like the idea of the Blloodthirster but feels he's a little pricey for what you get you could run a KOS. In smaller games he really shines and he is almost as good as a thirster in many ways.

I personally like Harolds, they are cheaper and you get more of them to get the job done. It really depends again on what you are shooting for with your army. If your just starting out I would suggest the zinch harolds on chariots they can shoot at vehicles which is something this army lacks.

Also you pretty much need fiends IMHO they are fast and can take out AV14

Plague bearers are the most solid and best troop usually on the table, you can have good luck with horrors or bloodletters, but usually only the PB's always preform pretty much on a solid basis. Put them in cover go to ground and people will have a hard time getting them off a obj.

Bloodcrushers aren't bad but they are slow and don't really hurt armor so I wouldn't rely on them every game to do something.

Flamers are a gamble they either pay off or fizzle , more of a throw away unit. I wouldn't take them to a tourney personally but they can be fun.

Grinders or Demon princes are usually a solid bring however the prince units can be really pricey really fast. Both are MC's so good at tank hunting in hth.

If you run Blood Crushers a great tactic is to run them with a herald on a juggernaught, also upgrade him with Blessing of the Blood God, Unholy Might and Fury. He can take out dreadnaughts easily and also landraiders. Run him with the Blood Crushers and you have a unit that can kill anything including armor.

G

Daemon Prinice's are very customisable and are Monstrous Creatures. Just my 7 cents.

I play Daemons alot
my lists are:
Fateweaver
Skulltaker
masque
20 bloodletters
20 daemonetts
3 soulgrinders with everything
10 - 20 pink horrors with changling (1-2 squads)
flamers

I win alot.

yea fate weaver is pretty nice, but i just have my head wrapped around thirster. i WANT him.

i just dont know what compliments him better as for the other HQ choice....


also when running flamers should i always upgrade one to a bolt?

and im really torn on my heavy choices, i dont know what combination works best; 2 SGs and a prince, 3 princes i just cant decide

zachwho wrote:when running flamers should i always upgrade one to a bolt?

No. If you're spending more than 105 points on a flamer unit...well...I won't say you're doing it wrong...

The best 400 points you'll ever spend gets you two squads of 3 flamers and 6 fiends with the strength upgrade.

are fiends better than crushers? crushers are beast mode! and the fiends Jesus Christ could GW make a dumber looking model?


but aside from looks are fiends better than crushers?

Fiends are fast and hit hard but they have glass jaws. Blood Crushers are relatively slow compared to certain units, hit hard and are very resilient. If you take a large squad of Blood Crushers they occupy a lot of space which makes up for their lack of speed. The Crushers are also very low costed in terms of what you get, as far as an assault unit goes they really don't get much better.

Personally I think a good combination to the Bloodthirster is two heralds on juggernaughts joined with a large squad of Blood Crushers. One herald is Skulltaker who is a beast in close combat and can quickly take out any enemy model that does not have Eternal Warrior. He is also undercosted as well. The second herald should have the gifts I pointed out above... the complex unit he joins is pretty much immune to lash and he easily counters Blood Crushers' inherent weakness to walkers in close combat... When he charges any rending attack is an automatic penetration. Venerable dreadnaughts though should be avoided if possible... that's why you have a Bloodthirster.

Another good combination is a Keeper of Secrets... Together they aer nigh unstoppable. Both have a large number of attacks, the Bloodthirster has instant death attacks, the Keeper of Secrets practically always hits first and they aer both very fast. The Keeper also has hit and run plus can fleet of foot and can be upgraded with Pavane. They will tear through most armies. I prefer the heralds so that I can play a mono army.

G

I've been reading and rereading through the chaos demons codex and thinking of what I want to do.

You can get the most mileage from this codex by mixing units from all of the gods together.

I haven't played any games yet but I'm thinking that two units of 14 plaguebearers are going to form the core of my army. These guys should be able to sit down and hold an objective for as long as needed.

I think that soul grinders are absolutely better than DPs. I would only consider taking DPs if I were using Epidemius and needed them to help bring up the tally.

Fiends are great but the models are about as ugly as it gets. There is a thread in the P&M section on this site where somebody buillt fiends using the plastic spider bodies from the battle for skull pass fantasy set and demonettes. They look like driders if you're familiar with D&D.

As far as I can tell all of the greater demons are ok. I like the Bloodthirster and Keeper of Secrets most of all.

zachwho wrote:are fiends better than crushers? crushers are beast mode! and the fiends Jesus Christ could GW make a dumber looking model?

but aside from looks are fiends better than crushers?

For my money, Fiends are vastly superior to crushers.

For 180 points, you have a unit with a 19-24" assault range, 36 Str 5 rending attacks on the charge, and the ability to hit & run. For 190 points, 6 of those attacks can be Str 6. Even fast skimmers have trouble getting away from these guys.

With the same footprint as 5 termies, deepstriking is rarely dangerous--I've never needed to use an icon for them, certainly. Between fleet & the 12" charge, you can usually put them far enough away from their target that your opponent may not even regard them as the immediate threat that they are. If you have flamers or greater daemons in their face at the same time, this is even more likely to be the case. As an added bonus, that 12" charge makes it ferociously easy to multicharge--my record is three squads and a vehicle with a full squad. Finally, fleet & beast also means that it's relatively easy to turn that 5++ into a 4+ cover save by keeping an intervening unit or terrain between them and any shooter, while still maintaining their assault potential.

Crushers, on the other hand, are tougher and have that 3+ save, and every attack ignores armor. The flipside to that, though, is a 33% increase in both cost and footprint, with fewer attacks.

That footprint is the number one reason 'crushers will likely never show up in any of my lists. A full-size unit takes up a rediculous amount of real estate. Sure, you can bring them in with an icon (which eats up a not-insignificant amount of points in the list)... but that makes their deployment both easier to predict and a two-step process. If you deploy them far enough away from the enemy to drop safely, they have a harder time actually making it into assault range. Deploy 'em aggressively, and you've got pretty good odds of a mishap.

At the end of the day, I really think there's no comparison. Fiends are easier to use, have a much bigger threat, can't be tarpitted, and are damned hard to avoid. If you hate the models, convert your own like I did or use cold ones.

In a themed khorne list, absolutely, take 'crushers. If you like the models, absolutely, take crushers.

i play a small 1500 pts nurgle deamon lits and i find doing the 3 winged deamon princes works very well and use eppidemius and a great unclean 1
also bulk up nurglings and Plauge beaerers and 2 big units with icons to summon smaller 1s

Bloodthirsters
Bloodcrushers
Bloodletters
Nurgle princes/Soulgrinders

Taking large amounts of these units will give you a pretty good CC Daemon Army.

If you decide to field Nurghal daemon princes this is how I would kit them:


Wings
Iron Hide
Noxious Touch
Cloud of Flies

This daemon prince is arguably just as good as a greater daemon, albeit one less wound and a lower WS. T6 makes a huge difference.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:If you decide to field Nurghal daemon princes this is how I would kit them:


Wings
Iron Hide
Noxious Touch
Cloud of Flies

This daemon prince is arguably just as good as a greater daemon, albeit one less wound and a lower WS. T6 makes a huge difference.

G

I could not have said it better myself.