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tokugawa wrote:

Stelek wrote:Ummm wow.


5) Shut down by a 32 point unit that any Imperial army can field (except I believe Black Templars)? There's nothing stupid about deep striking near a mystic unit and getting shot for free, it's...Very Very Bad.

Well,in fact Templars can also field them...Allies with psychic powers are prohibited."Nake" psyker is not(!)

The new FAQ says all Inquisitors are psykers, so they can't.

Reaver83 wrote:Ok I'll agree that as a demon player there are many ways for them to fail, I'd go as far to say they're a win big or loose bigger type of army.

But you've mentioned how guard/SM/INQ can beat them easily, what about all the other armies?

You also mentioned that marines will some have the psychic power to end all demons, again true.

But if you're taking these things then you're wasting points on other things that could be used against more general opponents. Are Mystics really going to be usefull against Orks? Will the ability to force your opponent to reroll sucessful invulnerable saves be all that great against Tau?

What I'm getting at is that there are many ways to stop army X in it's tracks, but doing too much of that means army Y is going to trample you.

32 points for autowins against drop pods and demons.

I think every imperial army can afford 32 points.

If that makes you lose...well, I had 50 points spent in Hammer of the Witches, and only faced one army with Psykers.

I guess I should ask, is taking a psychic hood also a bad thing in your book?

The WHFB results are fairly depressing.

Lets take a look at the results sorted by battle score and see if we can notice a trend:

1 High Elves
2 Dark Elves
3 Daemons
4 Dark Elves
5 Daemons
6 Daemons
7 Daemons
8 Daemons
9 Daemons
10 Vampire
11 Vampire
12 Vampire
13 Daemons
14 Bretonnians
15 Daemons
16 Bretonnian
17 Daemons
18 Empire
19 Daemons
20 High Elves
21 Dark Elves
22 High Elves
23 Vampire
24 Daemons
25 Wood Elves

The WHFB results are fairly depressing.

So much for WHFB being the balanced more enlightened brother to 40k.

I don't play Fantasy and it is kinda depressing to me just the same. I guess cause I expect to see the same thing in 40k as 5ed progresses.

Don't ya know WHFB takes longer to settle down than 40k does?

That's all it is really.

winterman wrote:

The WHFB results are fairly depressing.

So much for WHFB being the balanced more enlightened brother to 40k.

I don't play Fantasy and it is kinda depressing to me just the same. I guess cause I expect to see the same thing in 40k as 5ed progresses.

Dunno if 40k will follow that, I guess it depends on how the 5th Ed Dex's turn out.

IMO, WHFB was the balanced more enlightened brother to 40k, until they released the HE, VC, and Daemon army books.

Stelek wrote:Don't ya know WHFB takes longer to settle down than 40k does?

That's all it is really.

Sorry, I don't quite follow what you're trying to say.

Mind elaborating?

Stelek wrote:

tokugawa wrote:

Stelek wrote:Ummm wow.


5) Shut down by a 32 point unit that any Imperial army can field (except I believe Black Templars)? There's nothing stupid about deep striking near a mystic unit and getting shot for free, it's...Very Very Bad.

Well,in fact Templars can also field them...Allies with psychic powers are prohibited."Nake" psyker is not(!)

The new FAQ says all Inquisitors are psykers, so they can't.

Sure they can. (Other than the Grey Knights bit) BT codex says it cannot take allies with psychic powers. It does not say that they cannot take allies who are psykers. An Inquisitor with no powers is a psyker but does not ahve powers, argo BT can take him as an ally.

I am a born again noob to WHFB and deamons make people really mad at the shop, especially nurgle lists.

Really really good player sort of crumple as I watch them play, knowing that the best they can do is hope for the deamon player to screw up, or for a draw.

Just what I have observed.

Hellfury wrote:I am a born again noob to WHFB and deamons make people really mad at the shop, especially nurgle lists.

Really really good player sort of crumple as I watch them play, knowing that the best they can do is hope for the deamon player to screw up, or for a draw.

Just what I have observed.

It's sort of becoming similar to what made me want to get out of 40k in the first place. Only specific kinds of lists compete.

If you're going to be competitive, you absolutely have to build an army that can:

Deal with 10+ Power Dice Vamps
Kill a Bloodthirster/Greater Daemon/Dragon Lord
Deal with an entire army that is ItP and causes Fear

I thought the Comp scoring in US tournaments was supposed to prevent power lists.

While I'm not crazy about how the WHFB standings look, I wonder how many people took HE, Daemons, and VC? It wouldn't surprise me if there were an inordinate amount of those armies there, so of course the final standings would be skewed. But, I was not there, so I'm just guessing. For those who were there, any rough estimates on percentages?

Oh, and I find it funny that Daemon's completely own in WHFB, but get thrashed in 40k. Guess they couldn't keep up with the times. Who knew Papa Nurgle was so old fashioned?

Kilkrazy wrote:I thought the Comp scoring in US tournaments was supposed to prevent power lists.

There is no comp scoring in the US; hasn't been for a couple years now. The closest it gets is a 1-pt checkbox on the sportsmanship score, along the lines of "It's an army you'd expect to see in the universe."

Kilkrazy wrote:I thought the Comp scoring in US tournaments was supposed to prevent power lists.

There hasn't been comp for a while in the US. They had people using "Sports" as a proxy for "Comp" somewhat, but this year it's a rigid checklist that basically means you're going to get good sports scores if you work towards being a nice guy.

Rated G wrote:While I'm not crazy about how the WHFB standings look, I wonder how many people took HE, Daemons, and VC? It wouldn't surprise me if there were an inordinate amount of those armies there, so of course the final standings would be skewed. But, I was not there, so I'm just guessing. For those who were there, any rough estimates on percentages?

Here's the breakdown:

Army
Beasts 2 2.17%
Brettonians 6 6.52%
Daemons 15 16.30%
Dark Elves 10 10.87%
Dwarfs 2 2.17%
Empire 7 7.61%
High Elves 13 14.13%
Lizardmen 3 3.26%
Ogres 3 3.26%
Orcs 4 4.35%
Skaven 2 2.17%
Tomb Kings 4 4.35%
Vampire 15 16.30%
Warriors 2 2.17%
Wood Elves 4 4.35%


Daemons & Vamps were the highest number in attendance, but checkout the breakdown of placment vs. the percentage entered into the tournament.

Out of 15 Daemon Players, 11 were in the top 25 ranked by battle. And the DoC player who was really low in the standings supposedly left on Sunday morning.

WHFB didn't really get messed up imo, until Daemons were released. I think the GT results clearly show that the Daemon codex is an unholy mistake.

No doubt!

A Nurgle Daemon list is nigh unstoppable!

Nah, if it wasn't Daemons then you'd see VC run rampant up there.

So, 57.6% of armies came from the last four released, and they took 84% of the top 25. I guess the numbers would look even worse if we took DE out of the equation.

In all honesty right now people are still trying to figure out how to take on Daemons. No list is unstoppable and in the long run it comes down to who is the better General. For example if you take a look at the top 25 players and compare them to their results last year and what army they had you could possibly find a correlation stating that Good players play hard armies.

I don't think the assumption that the last 4 books are so out of balance but rather they change the fundamental mechanics of the game and people just need to adjust to those changes. Once those adjustments are made WHFB will be back to a more well balanced format.

Negativemoney wrote:In all honesty right now people are still trying to figure out how to take on Daemons. No list is unstoppable and in the long run it comes down to who is the better General. For example if you take a look at the top 25 players and compare them to their results last year and what army they had you could possibly find a correlation stating that Good players play hard armies.

I don't think the assumption that the last 4 books are so out of balance but rather they change the fundamental mechanics of the game and people just need to adjust to those changes. Once those adjustments are made WHFB will be back to a more well balanced format.

this argument gets floated every time the discussion turns this way, and while the analysis is solid, it doesn't go far enough. I think, for example, that it fails to keep in mind that top tournament players naturally gravitate to the hardest, toughest lists. It's a difficult thing to test, because to prove that generals are more important than armies it would require a top player to field a subpar army, and few are willing to do so. It's a self fulfilling prophecy, but that doesn't mean the hypothesis is still true.

I guess I just get confused every time the nature of army tiers is discussed, as many people want to ignore the theoryhammer analysis of armybooks/codexes as too abstract, they want to ignore the empirical evidence people see in the clubs and shops as being too dependent on variables, and they want to ignore tournament results as simply being the product of other factors like player skill. Both Systems have roughly 15 different books, ranging in age from a decade for 40k to eight years for WFB, all designed for differing rules sets, by different designers under different philosophies, and yet we're really supposed to ignore every bit of evidence that, shockingly, some books might be stronger than another? Add in GW's self interest in generating enthusiasm for each new release, and why wouldn't new books be stronger, or if not stronger, more capable of handling the current metagame?

Personally, I think that the all Fear/Terror causing ItP armies out there have a leg up on the others. VC & DoC especially. That's just my opinion.

I think Polonius has it right in that good players take hard armies. Some good players try to take a very soft or medium strength army and do well with that, except as you can read around on various discussions on this GT, those players got stomped on - because this was effectively a "no comp" event.

I think the fact that since everyone who cared to do well at this knew the GT Rules from the get go (ie. they knew it was No Comp), and the army representation reflects that almost more than the actual results do.

The fact that there were only 2 Beast armies, 2 Dwarfs, 2 Warriors of Chaos, and 2 Skaven show that most people decided to bring the hard stuff rather than even bother with the non-competitive stuff.*

*The only caveat to this is that I'm surprised by the lower Skaven representation. Skaven, if built properly, can pretty much handle DoC, though is probably screwed by the generic "VC Bunker Army".

The only army out there there that can't reliably handle Daemons or VC are Ogres. They are the only army that does not have the tools to seriously do damage to those two lists. Every single other army if built properly (mind you there are still different ways to do it) and played enough will go far and even win.

The biggest issue I see is that people still have an issue dealing with the fact that this is a no comp tournament environment and that they need to step up to the plate.

How do you beat a Daemon List with Empire? 2 Stanks Pope on a Pope Mobile. 4 Cannons and Knights.
How do you beat a Vampire army with O&G? 3 Units of night goblins w/ Fanatics 3 units of 30+ Boyz 2 Doom Divas and 4 Bolt Throwers.

There are answers to every list out there with every list (With the exception of Ogres) and its up to the player to decide to combat the medigame. Possibly play a list that no one will expect and then you will have the advantage.

Hey now, my Ogres can stand up to VC just fine!*

And lets be honest the steam tank army is probably one of the few answers that Empire actually has vs. VC & DoC.

I still don't think that those O&G's can stand up to VC that way, though they probably can stand up to your average Daemon army thanks to all that shooting being a good way to take down the greater daemon.

*as long as you count forcing a draw to be just fine

Ah good catch Don Mondo. So even Templar get inquisitor lovin. lol

Stelek wrote:Chaos Demons did well because people aren't used to them or 5th edition.

They will quickly get pushed down to the 40 and under tables in the next year.

They are that bad.

New marines will put the nail in their coffin anyway.

Yeah, you are right. The fact that there were at least 3 of us on the top 5 tables for game 5 is no indication of how good they are.

Stelek wrote:

tokugawa wrote:

Stelek wrote:Ummm wow.


5) Shut down by a 32 point unit that any Imperial army can field (except I believe Black Templars)? There's nothing stupid about deep striking near a mystic unit and getting shot for free, it's...Very Very Bad.

Well,in fact Templars can also field them...Allies with psychic powers are prohibited."Nake" psyker is not(!)

The new FAQ says all Inquisitors are psykers, so they can't.

Read the black templars rules. They aren't allowed to team up with a model with psychic powers, not psykers. There is a difference. And All inquisitors have always been psykers whether they have powers or not. Nothing new here.

I M WHFB newb. What does ItP mean?

Immune to Psychology

What do you usually fire at the daemons that drop when you have the mystics? I assume heavy bolter guardsmen for the lessers, maybe missile launchers or lascannons at the greaters, autocannons at Princes/medium stuff? Three IG heavy bolters can do some damage to most of the lesser daemons, but shouldn't be wiping out whole squads.

Somnicide wrote:

Stelek wrote:Chaos Demons did well because people aren't used to them or 5th edition.

They will quickly get pushed down to the 40 and under tables in the next year.

They are that bad.

New marines will put the nail in their coffin anyway.

Yeah, you are right. The fact that there were at least 3 of us on the top 5 tables for game 5 is no indication of how good they are.

Just like Tau, Necrons, and Eldar.

Welcome to 40k, glad you could make it.

:S :S :S

Couple of points, though:

Stelek wrote:1) Randomly receive what you want to. Bad.

True, and this is one of the biggest weaknesses of the army. Probably a sign that GW intended daemons to be more of a fun army than anything tournament competitive. Can be mitigated with unit duplication.

Stelek wrote:2) Randomly receive reinforcements and no way to control it (unlike say Eldar or Tau or IG, who can). Also Bad.

Well, Drop Pod marines can't either. I don't know of many IG players who bother with positional relays - maybe just none in my area. Usually same with Tau. Perhaps they're needed in 5th and we really can't tell yet?

Stelek wrote:3) Randomly scatter units across the tabletop and no way to control that either (unlike say Tau or Marines, who can). Also Bad.

That's what Icons are for. You did take Icons, right? Preferably on Plaguebearers? They're not as prevalent or cheap as in Marines, though, that's for sure.

Stelek wrote:4) Complete inability to fire effectively at the enemy. Totally reliant on close combat to win. Really Bad.

There are those all-tzeentch builds, or others that use horrors as troops. Probably not as effective as PBs, but good in many circumstances (though blasts/templates hurt). Probably a bit overcosted, but if they can concentrate fire they can be effective. Flamers are also the exception to this rule, as are other units with Breath of Chaos, or Soulgrinders. As for being totally reliant on cc to win, well, that describes several armies out there. Jump pack BA spring to mind, and in fact tend to get hosed when facing daemon armies. That is one good thing about being very cc oriented - if they get there, they'll do well, and they'll beat other armies that are mostly designed for cc but aren't quite as good at it.

Stelek wrote:5) Shut down by a 32 point unit that any Imperial army can field (except I believe Black Templars)? There's nothing stupid about deep striking near a mystic unit and getting shot for free, it's...Very Very Bad.

I hesitate to agree with "shut down," not having played against it, but I can see how it can be devastating, particularly to the more fragile units. But it also depends on what you have to shoot them with. 3 guard heavy bolters, kills about 3 lessers. 4 devs with plasma cannons, and good luck on scatters - bye bye squad. Still, most daemon units should be able to survive a single squad shooting at them as they come in, particularly if there's cover in the way. And that 4D6 is still random - average 14" away, which is about as far as most daemon units should be trying to drop in anyway if not a little farther. Great deal for the points that can put a hurt on daemon armies? Sure. But they alone do not kill the army.

Stelek wrote:So my big plan to beat Demons is...to play against them with just about any army that is either mobile or can shoot.
How many armies IS that?

Well, a lot. It's true, if you have massive amounts of firepower, and dual mystics (meaning you play Imperial, and aren't using all your HQ/Elite slots), then yes, daemons are in trouble. Same as with playing a mech list. If your list is mostly based around cc, like BA, Khorne, assaulty Nids or Orks, then you might be in some trouble. Daemons have their problems, same with every other list. It's just that metagame wise, their problems are more prevalent.

Negativemoney wrote:No list is unstoppable and in the long run it comes down to who is the better General.

Not that I disagree with what you are trying to say, but isn't choosing a good list part of being a good general?