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Question:

I'm not seeing the real weakness of a chaos daemon army. I've paged through the codex, but the thing is so convoluted and all the abilities spread to different areas of the codex it's difficult to get a grasp. The "everyone gets invulnerable saves" and plainly ignoring pretty much every base convention of other armies is perplexing me.

It "seems" that in a non-killpoint game I could negate deepstrike with some WON gaunt screens preventing assaulters while multiple devourer carnies /HT's shred everything, with some additional punch supplied by genestealers or CC carnies.

Thoughts/comments on beating chaos daemons with nids, or other armies to point me in the right direction in what I should be going for?

It's easy. Ignore all the weird stuff they seem to do-that's what throws people and what wins games for daemons at lower level play.

You fire a TON of shots at them as they deep strike in. Only half the army comes in on the first turn then the rest usually slowly trickles in through the remainder of the game. Take out as much as you can quick before the rest arrive. I have only seen the second half of daemons arrive completely arrive on turn two once out of the fifteen or so times i have played them.

Try to get close but behind cover so you can get as many TL devourer shots as possible whilst negating potential charge situations. If they get the charge counter with implant attack stealers, tyrants and fexes.

If you have a healthy smattering of devourers throughout your list his deepstriking units won't be surviving if they assault into your deployment zone. One less thing to worry about.

Like eldar, the daemons are actually pretty fragile (save for bloodcrusher spam). It's all about volume of fire like everyone else is saying. Just make sure that YOU get the charge. If they get the charge, things can go badly very quickly.

Also, hide the big bugs and try and avoid getting them charged. Having invul's makes fexes and tyrants a lot less effective. Even a weak unit like daemonettes can take down a tyrant if there's enough of them... Having a save vs. not having a save is what kills the effectiveness of the big ones. At least with fearless saves.

The Deamons dont have many answers for genestealers either. None of the demon troops stand up to the stealers except the deamonetees, and they usually still lose. Feeder tendrils are key. I have played my brothers nids with my deamons about 7 times now and I have yet to beat him. The nids can generally out shoot the deamons, and are certainly a match for them in melee.

Nids are universally awful in close combat except for Genestealers and Hive Tyrants/Guard because they are all overpriced and fragile. Try to avoid combat unless you can set it up to your absolute advantage, and have plenty of genestealers to charge in. If the guy drops flamers on you, well, there isn't anything you can really do about that. Get shot up badly, suck it up, and take them out. Soulgrinders will probably laugh at venom cannons too.

The OP basically has the right of it. Put a screen of gaunts in front of your devourers and blast the Daemons in threat order. They charge the gaunts, kill them, you back up and shoot them again. They move + run towards you, you give em a third shot and charge with preferred enemy stealers and monsters that get preferred enemy by being near them.

Things that can derail your plan:

#1: Kairos is public enemy #1. With him in the mix it's extremely difficult to kill bloodcrushers and Daemon Princes. He has to go down yesterday.

#2: Soulgrinders don't take devourer fire, so you have to kill them with charges from your monstrous creatures, but the grinders are faster than said creatures. They are difficult to handle, but Zoey's can lend a big hand.

#3: The Masque can thwart your positioning and devourer edge. She's quite possibly more dangerous than Kairos. Another model that needs to go down yesterday. If she's not in his 6" bubble, I'd say shoot her pre-Kairos.

With these particular caveats in mind, it's an easy game. Devourers + gaunt screen are > than crushers + other fighting Daemons. As long as Kairos doesn't go on a saving streak you should be able to kill them easily enough.

In a KP game that'll give it to you.
In a drawfest you're likely to draw, you won't be able to destroy all their guys and cross the board fast enough, unless they were silly enough to put it within outflank range.
In the multi-objective mission you've probably got the win, just spread out your remaining gaunts/stealers.

Twin linked devourers scare daemon players so load up on them. Implant attack is great versus Blood Crushers and genestealers can do a number on them... Either use catalyst or take flesh hooks over feeder tendrils to make sure you get to hit when they charge into cover. I think you can use a Lictor to confer feeder tendril (preferred enemy) for your genestealers. I think the twin linked devourers and barbed strangler are your best bets. A Tyrant should be able to take down Soul Grinders.

G

Why would you need flesh hooks if they charge you in cover? Why would you charge them if they were in cover?

Genestealers should always charge period. Flesh hooks work like frag grenades... I think they aer more valuable than feeder tendrils... Doesn't really matter that much if half or more of the squad gets hacked down when charging into cover.

G