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Because I keep getting annihilated by all the shooting.

Also I love the way the army looks and is made to play too much to switch armies so my on stubbornness is getting the best of me and I refuse to build a second/start a new army til I get this one good.

Tricks are for kids.

Tricks are for Cryx.

In all seriousness, with me not knowing a whole lot about Daemons and have never played or played against them, i'd say you need to have some things that shoot when they come down to pop some tanks or wittle down a couple squads. Otherwise i'd say you just need to consolidate your forces as much as you can when they come down, and try to come down in a way where they'd ahve to work at it to get any serious firepower directed at any one unit.

I hear good things about horrors from reading the codex. A decent sized squad with S4 AP4 Assault 3 can thin the horde and draw some attention away from your assaulty bits.

Aim to deepstrike around 14" away as infantry, and around 20" away as cavalry and flying things (exceptions for shooty fliers) and just in range with flyers (don't risk breath unless they're flamers.
If you do this when you scatter forwards the you shouldn't care, back it delays you a turn and to the side then f it's far enough it might delay you but it's unlikely to. Run after the drop if you don't shoot to guarantee charges within the next two turns.

If DSing modles a few inches from enemy squads the as a tip deepstrike on a corner the 270 degrees are safe scattering rather than 180.

Flamers work really well. What I'd do would be to put more shooty and durable things in the first wave (tzeentch, nurgle) and all out assault in the 2nd (khorne, slaanesh) but don't put all of your shooty and durable things in the first wave and vice versa. I'ts hard to get the balance right but when you do you will do much better.

Also tell us what you have so we can work with something.

I don't have any tricks but ideas backed up by them working numerouse times I have. I use 2 daemon princes one nurlge on khorne, bloodletters, plaguebearers,horrors, flamers and crushers. Bloodthirster is awesome as well, but send plagubeaers in then bloodletters behind drop in a prince and some crushers nd your bloodthirster give the enemy big things to worry anout and let the letters go to town. Hope it helps

I've been playing small games 1100 or so lately and here is what I run

13 horrors
10 daemonetts
Tzeench Chariot
soulgrinder
3 screamers


10 horrors
3 flamers
Skulltaker
1 Blood Crusher


This gives a shooty base to DS first, put the CC doods behind it. This sets up good cover. Horrors can take a beating, I've held abbadon up for many turns with their refusal to die.

Chariot, Screamers, Soul Grinder go after vehicles asap.

This should give a turn for the 2nd batches to come and and get all killy.

I suggest deepstriking something that he has to kill but won't do so easily. Like 3 squads of bloodcrushers with wound allocation. Not all armies can kill a squad of them in a turn much less two, this takes away the pressure from some of your units. Being Chaos daemons should also mean you're probably used to taking chances with all the deepstriking and all so I would suggest taking bold risks. Deepstrike to within striking distance but not too close. You can still run after deepstriking so if your opponent sees you are within striking distance next turn then you turn the pressure on him. point is to give him as few turns as possible to shoot.

Ummm not to sure if you wanna stick with 40k but if you open to fantasy then find a way to base them buy a kairos fateweaver model and well...win.

It's funny when people give advice but have not experience with an army. It is good that people contribute to a conversation but why offer advice when you have none to give? Seems strange to me.

Anyway, here are some tips for you. Daemons are a tough army but once mastered, will obliterate most opponents.

You need to focus on your elites choices as that is where your kill power is.

I personally favor this combo, although there are different equally valid build ideas:

1 unit of Crushers
1 unit of Fiends
1 unit of Flamers

All max size (apart from the flamers, where a 3 man unit is sufficient). This gives you three units that cover your bases fairly well. The fiends are amazing, they can be dropped far away form a target unit but still get a charge off. Plus they have a massive amount of attacks, high In and can hit and run, making them amazing for crowd control.

Crushers, well, they need little explanation. They murder things they touch. Their only drawback is their slow speed and weakness to tarpitting units such as Wriathlords or Dreads.

Flamers are ridiculous for their points. They will potentially wipe out a squad much more valuable than themselves in a single strike.

The combo of the three gives you flexibility.

For troops choices, go with small units of plague bearers for objective holding and a largish unit of Bloodletters or Deamonettes for additional assault power. I have also seen small units of horrors with Bolt of Teentch used well.

I feel that a unit of Screamers is mandatory given the prevalence of mechanized armies.

HQ and Heavy you fill to meet your needs.

I feel that it is best to play the odds and stack all your heavy hitters in the first wave, holding your troops back to come in later and score. Play very aggressively as this favors Daemons strengths.

Are there any armies in particular that you are having trouble with?

Daemons can be a ridiculously strong army. I regularly use them to take down leafblowers, Loganwing, Thunderwolf-heavy Wolves, and all the other "power" builds. The trick, really is the same as with any other army. Know your strengths and weaknesses, and know your opponent's strengths and weaknesses.

What are your strengths as a Daemon player?
1) Focused superiority. Almost every daemon unit has something that it does superlatively well. Know what this is, and figure out how to put them into play.
2) Resiliency. Nearly every Daemon unit has some means of gaining significant resiliency, either because its inherently tough, or because you can have enough bodies available to soak casualties.
3) Chaos. The very nature of CD deployment makes it difficult for your opponent to deploy and execute their battleplan. In other words, your opponent will often be reacting to you. Keep them off balance long enough, and stay focused on your own objectives.

Weaknesses are pretty simple too.
1) Deliberate inferiority. The flip side of Strength #1 - All Daemon units have a key weakness. Thankfully, many of them can be minimized through combined-arms. This is why Skittles lists are inherently stronger than mono-God lists.
2) Numeric Inferiority. Almost certainly, you're going to be outnumbered, at least at first, because of how Daemons deploy.
3) Chaos. It works both ways. Scatter, uncertainty about which half comes in...it hurts as much as it helps.

There's no one way to maximize your strengths while minimizing your weaknesses. I've played and seen multiple ways of doing so. Just like everything else, its a balancing act.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And yes, I'm not giving specific advice, because if you really want to get good with your army, you have to figure out that stuff yourself. Daemons are very situationally-specific. Depending on the terrain, your opponent, and the mission, maneuvers that would otherwise be totally suicidal can suddenly become extremely worthwhile.

Always expect the Inquisition.

Acardia wrote:I've been playing small games 1100 or so lately and here is what I run

13 horrors
10 daemonetts
Tzeench Chariot
soulgrinder
3 screamers


10 horrors
3 flamers
Skulltaker
1 Blood Crusher


.

Ok firstly looking at your list, there's not much 'meat' in my opinion you're main troops are T3, and daemonettes are ridiculously weak in my opinion. Also a random selection of skulltake and a crusher just scream kill me quick.

As for what I find works, well, look at what is deployed against you really, really look! You can change what's in your waves, so don't always put XY and Z together sometimes N will be more usefull. The seond thing by this is look where they're deployed, can you overwhelm them in an area, and thus negate your usual numerical inferiority.

Also I find flooding a certain area with similar things is usefull, so frequestly (not always) my thirster and two SG's will come in the same wave, it reduces the effectiveness of their low S weapons, and divides the High S weapons 3 ways.

And finally make sure you have the right tools, dameons run like eldar, right tool right job. You have an objective, get plague bearers, you need to engage the enemy in combat untill something big and nasty apepars, take fiends/hounds/seekers.

And never ever rely on the dice too much for luck, the chaos god's only help those who can help themselves by crushing their enemies mercilessly

Need a good tactic? throw a unit of 8 crushers fully upgraded with a herald on jugg and skulltaker on juggs; then bring in fateweaver and leave the unit 6" close to him getting that 4++ it would be like the fateweave/skarbrand tactic...but scarier

IronfrontAlex wrote:Need a good tactic? throw a unit of 8 crushers fully upgraded with a herald on jugg and skulltaker on juggs; then bring in fateweaver and leave the unit 6" close to him getting that 4++ it would be like the fateweave/skarbrand tactic...but scarier

I believe they call that one Fatecrusher.

I've used 3 DPs, with 2 Blood thirsters (LR breakers), 2 squads of Bloodcrushers, and plague bearers as troops (i've always used them as objective campers). Not overly scientific, and has trouble with Eldar but it will go through most armies. This is of course, a convenient-to-carry list which I don't take too seriously but it could vary and of course has the same point: CD has the toughest units around and most of the time it can withstand a turn of shooting. I actually don't know why some people insist that the codex sucks. It can actually be very cheesy if you want it to be.

Thanks for all the replies. To answer some of your questions.

I usually play against orks, though sometimes it's Tau.

I do play against other armies but not as much.

Currently the models I have are

Skulltaker

Juggernaut Herald

40 Bloodletters

1 Bloodthirster (I run it as Skarbrand)

1 Daemon Prince

No Skarbrand. He lets the enemy re-roll against you in CC, bad for anything with only a 5+ Invul...like your Khorne...
Use Skulltaker on a Jugger in a Bloodcrusher squad, it works wonders with a DP of any mark.
You are going to be stomped by the Tau and Orks. Add in Horrors for shooting first turn, but wait until new release of models.

TheBlackVanguard wrote:Thanks for all the replies. To answer some of your questions.

I usually play against orks, though sometimes it's Tau.

I do play against other armies but not as much.

Currently the models I have are

Skulltaker

Juggernaut Herald

40 Bloodletters

1 Bloodthirster (I run it as Skarbrand)

1 Daemon Prince

Might want to consider going skittles. At this point you have the CC pretty much taken care of. Your lacking somewhat though in resiliency, range/mobility, and the ability to do something immediately.

Resiliency - most of your army is T4 with a 5++, nice, but your in for a world of hurt from incoming shooting. Since you don't have range, your either going to drop into, or drop and run into, cover to get a 4+, or your going to take a bunch of losses on the half that comes down. Being in cover means that your charge range is going to get significantly reduced, so while you might have a chance to survive longer, your opponent is going to get a chance to run away. If you bring your heavies down, while the DP and thirster might be tough, you have too few units there, allowing your opponent to focus fire. And since max T is 6, lasguns will whittle you down quickly enough. If your going to go all khorne, drop 2 squads of letters, add in 8 crushers (you can do it cheaper if you convert, I used cold one riders from fantasy with bloodletter heads and arms for mine, plus the bases I spent about $70 on 10, and almost no greenstuff required). T5, 16 wounds, large enough area that when they drop and spread out they'll provide cover to whats behind them easily enough, and can pop armor on non-walkers, or AV14 without too much difficulty. Plus they'll help box things in. If your willing to go skittles, fateweaver gives you a reroll on him and anyone nearby. This can help keep your letters around long enough to do something, same for your DP and Bloodthirster.

Range/mobility - If you have sufficient range, your need for mobility goes down a bit, and vice versa. Way's to help. First is to box your opponent in. Whereever they start, surround them if they're tightly packed. If they're not, choose a side, so he has less to shoot you with while you start working your way along. Putting units about 14 out when they drop (before scatter) means that they really aren't getting past you to flee, and they should normally be near their table edge anyhow. A 24" moving vehicle will only be 10" past you, meaning they're in charge range, and they aren't shooting. Since you've spread out, you don't have as much to fear from blasts/templates. And have expanded your area of control, while narrowing theirs. Adding in some range units will help as well, as it decreases their safe zone, and helps to increase the area you threaten. For khorne, your mobility comes in the bloodthirster, and the daemon prince. The puppies are neat if your going for a fluff game and dont care, but if your looking to do well, they aren't much help unless your looking for a tarpit till your hellblades can get a charge off. Slaanesh will help you chase things down, and make sure that you get charges off, Tzeentch will help you with keeping from losing the range game, and soften up your opponent for the charge. Maybe even cracking a can so you can get the guys inside. For mobility you might also want to consider screamers, jetbike movement, and your opponent is going to want to get his vehicles moving so you can't easily eat them. If he's moving that much, he isn't shooting much. If he does shoot at them, he's not shooting at your other units.

Doing something on the landing - This is pretty much all tzeentch. Flamers, imho, are the best to take from elites, hands down. They're cheap, very effective in units of 3, and that's good because no opponent in their right mind is going to let them live to fire a second round. Drop them danger close, and you can wipe out squads that aren't in vehicles, and quite often I manage to get two vehicles under their flame templates if the foe clumps his vehicles up. Horrors to do lots of shooting at troops, a few bolts to open up chimera's and rhino's, or anything else that isn't av14 (and maybe a few of them), or at least, hopefully, silence the shooting from a tank for a round. Soulgrinders do it if you upgrade them, but thats a lot of points for a unit that can die easily from a single shot. DP's can do it, and it's not a bad idea to put a bolt and/or a breath of chaos on a dp so it can light up a tank, hopefully get they guys inside to pile out of the wreckage, and assault them, but that gets pricey. Fateweaver (again) not only increases your resiliency, but has 4 shooting attacks, that he can use 3 of each round at up to 3 different targets. Have him land, and your squad or two of horrors nearby, gives you a firing base that can't really be ignored, and is going to be hard to silence.

Remember, only half of your stuff is coming down round 1, randomly placed. If you can't do anything when they come down, either removing units, silencing vehicles, and basically making it known you have an alpha strike that will repeat itself if they don't deal with it, your opponent is going to use twice the points you have on the table to whittle you down. So you either have to be really ridiculously tough, and box him in so you can get stuck in, or you have to shoot him enough on the drop to make it easier to survive. I reccomend a combination of the two. For 1500, I bring 11 units, over 60 models. And my opponent knows right after I land that everything is a threat, so know I've made him have to choose what to have to deal with, knowing that anything that he doesn't get, is going to hurt him more. Immediately, during turn 1, your throwing the pressure on, which helps to cause your opponent to start making bad choices.

5th edition is nasty and mechanized; having an answer to mechanized lists is important. Hulksmash has run this list with success.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HQ
Herald of Tzeentch Chariotx2 Bolt of Tzeentchx2 190
Herald of Tzeentch Chariotx2 Bolt of Tzeentchx2 190

Troops
Horrors, 5 Bolt of Tzeentch 95
Horrors, 5 Bolt of Tzeentch 95
Horrors, 5 Bolt of Tzeentch 95
Horrors, 5 Bolt of Tzeentch 95
Bloodletters, 10 160
, 0

Elites
Fiends of Slaanesh, 6 180
Fiends of Slaanesh, 6 180
Flamer of Tzeentch, 4 140

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds , 10 150
Flesh Hounds, 10 150
, 0

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince, 1 Bolt of Tzeentch Mark of Tzeentch 140
Daemon Prince, 1 Bolt of Tzeentch Mark of Tzeentch 140
, 0

Points Summary:
HQ: 380
Troops: 540
Elites: 500
Fast Attack: 300
Heavy Support: 280
Total: 2000