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LOS is not required, he just has to be within 6" of the target.

Are you kididng me? 6"?

Well that's one player I'm going to avoid now. He was saying 18". While it is still possible to target something within the first turn by DSing within 6" that adds a little more difficulty given he risks mishapping from doing so. Tripling the allowed range got rid of that, yay for cheaters.

Now I know, and I will not forget.

Edit: What's the range on the Blue Scribe's ability to mimic the powers of another unit? He was mimicing the boon of change from his unit of horrors that was about 12 inches to the side of that guy.

One of the armies I've had to play against the most is the Chaos Daemons. I won't sugarcoat it, they're a tough army to beat, especially with any brand of marines. Daemons deny marines their biggest advantage, and that is their armor saves.

The daemons army I play against looks like this...

Skulltaker on juggernaut
20 bloodletters
5 horrors w/bolt and changeling
5 horrors
5 bloodcrushers
3 flamers
3 flamers
1 soul grinder
1 bloodthirster

The flamers are tough customers. In our group of players, we refer to them as the "a-bomb of 40K." They drop in, do a mess of damage and then die. The easiest ways around them are to hide in transports, hide in terrain or hide in reserve. Though they do die under a hail of bolter fire, I am still of the opinion that they're the most over-powered unit in the game. They're cheap, devestating and you'd be hard-pressed to find a unit in any other list that can do as much damage.

My answer to the bloodletters is a couple of vinidcators. Make the daemon player pay for deep striking so close to your army. Roll with two vinidcators and even if you're opponent manages to take one out, you'll still get a few shots off with the second (especially if you keep them near one another).

Horrors are the easiest unit to wipe in that army. Even with the changeling forcing my marines to roll Ld tests to shoot, I can usually wipe 'em out the turn they DS if my opponent puts 'em close enough. Flame templates from rhinos work wonders on them too.

The soul grinder isn't too tough. The best way to avoid him is make him roll on the mishap table. He's a big, bulky model that has a habit of touching terrain to force dangerous terrain tests or mishaps. I like to use bikes with melta weapons on him. He's not that tough, and if you can hit a few times he's bound to go down (or lose a weapon or two).

StormHalo wrote:Horrors are the easiest unit to wipe in that army. Even with the changeling forcing my marines to roll Ld tests to shoot, I can usually wipe 'em out the turn they DS if my opponent puts 'em close enough. Flame templates from rhinos work wonders on them too.

<Nitpick> You can't fire Flamers from Rhinos</nitpick> But otherwise sound advice.

Ya can't run the rhino open topped and fire the flame from the fire point?

Tyras wrote:Ya can't run the rhino open topped and fire the flame from the fire point?

<(^-^)>

Flamer templates may NEVER be placed so it touches a Friendly Model, if you cannot place it without touching a friendly model, it may not fire. Look at the hatch on the rhino, it is slightly "in", as such, you can never place the template touching the fire point and NOT touching the hull of the rhino.

Thanks for the clarification.

Tyras wrote:He was surrounded. He wasn't in terrain but he had an assault squad between him and them as well as the squad he was attached to. He was in range, but as he explained the power he could choose any model within range and did not require LOS. What is the rule so I can inform him of any mistake he might have made and look out for future issues with the power.

Boon of mutation is a ranged weapon, but he may be in close combat when he uses it as may the target. He picks an enemy model with in 6", LOS not required. He rolls to hit. If he hits you take a toughness test, if you fail the test congrats on your new writhing mass of muscle and tentacles.

Tyras wrote:His list was Six flamers with the Blue Scribe (?)
A big unit of horrors with two special guys that did the boon of mutation
A big unit of demonettes
Two wierd Slaneesh horse scorpian looking things
A decent sized unit of khorne dogs
A big unit of Bloodletters with the Skulltaker
A smallish unit of Plaguebearers
and a Soulgrinder.

From what it seems everything was upgraded to the max.

So wait... you're complaining when he actually took flesh hounds and only ONE soul grinder? Things could have been a whole lot worse... How about just learn to deal with daemons?

Tyras wrote:When that can target HQ choices that give a unit or an army a special rule like Rites of Battle for an example or a standard bearer and turn them into a spawn to run amok in your deployment zone with no save, invuln or regard to the number of wounds they have it's kinda cheesy. The short range is hardly worth mentioning when he can deploy as close as a few inches away from your army on their first turn.

The Army might not have been a strong build, but that kinda emphasises my points. A poor player can go a long way with a broken army.

I'll have to get clarification on the outflanking. I get a scout move with the bikers, but I didn't see a mention of outflanking in the unit or Ravenwing special rules.

Don't get me wrong, I could have played better by coming in from reserves rather than have the army on the board and at the mercy of the demons DSing. But the strength of the demon units with their abilities and upgrades allow alot of forgiveness in using bad tactics or poor army builds while very little forgiveness for their opponents.

Did the flamers drop and flame? remember under V5 you can't flame friendly units, including models in your own squad.

Frazzled wrote:Did the flamers drop and flame? remember under V5 you can't flame friendly units, including models in your own squad.

The flamers should be able to at most get 3 flamers off, which coincidently is the unit size i see most people run them in.

Wouldnt a squad of 5 be able to manage 4 shots?

Drop mister lead guy, who cant fire, put #2 to one side, put #3 in front of number one, touching #2's base, rinse for #4, then #5 comes down directly opposite #2 accross #1's base.

Sort of...

5 1 2
4 3

Enemy

Unless flamers are on non-round bases, they'll fit like that...

that is paying 2 flamers' points for 1 flamers shot, when they're probably dead next turn, mind.

Yes, all six flamers shot, and the blue scribe mimiced their power and flamed as well for a total of seven.

Yes I know it was a crap list, the compliants were partially bases on how he cheated, as he ran the BoM as 18" instead of the 6" that the rules allow and he turned one of my HQ choices inside out. That he dropped seven flamer templates doing a huge amount of wounds with 4+ rolls not allowing saves and a pie plate of str 8 ap3 happiness on me on turn one because they can all DS in range, all in all over a thrid of the army was subjected to death by cheese, and other portions were tied up in CC inside of my deployment zone by the former chaplain and former assault sergeant gone all spawn like.

The fact that so much could be taken out in one turn by what people are saying is a crap list and crap tactics is what I'm bothered by. Like I said earlier the power of the units and the abilities compared to units from other armies really gives a demon player an advantage because they can get away with a crap list or making bad tactical decisions where as another army would pay dearly.

I just tried it with 5 bases. The enemy squad would have to deploy at least 8 inches wide for that to work. So they could get 4 templates in if they were shooting Gaunts or Orks. However the effectiveness of the 2 side templates would be pretty questionable.

The Blue Scribes don't mimic shooting attacks, they have all the shooting attacks.

Here's the thing about daemons - they are really brutal the first couple of times you play against them. They play so differently from every other army that it feels like you are constantly on your back foot.

Then you start to know how the daemons work and make your adjustments and then the games get really tight.

There is a link to a pretty complete breakdown of the codex in my sig - that might help you a bit.

As other players have mentioned, the spawn ability only has a range of 6" plus, you he has to roll to hit with it. All of the powers in the daemon codex are like shooting attacks rather than psychic abilities. The heralds (of which the blue scribes is one) only have a bs of 4 which means that they are going to miss 2/3 of the time.

I should probably point out here that the nurgle ability just autohits anything in 6" but that is fairly clearly stated.

Starting with everything off the table isn't necessarily a great idea because you will be outnumbered for the rest of the game (pretty much).

Daemons individually are really good, but they can't assault on the turn they show up so they are fragile - I think GW took that into account with them, so the daemon player will typically lose 60% of their army before they do anything at all other than a few random shots. So that remaining 40% has to be good or they will just auto lose.

Uh, what else, oh yeah, like someone else said, you can't use icons on the turn you show up and the soul grinder is such a big freaking model, that it will not usually be too close (though remember that one of the mawcannon upgrades is basically a 36" battlecannon).

One other thing about the flamer's positioning is that you guys are all recommending the 4th edition deepstrike rules where you put the first model and then do each model around in clockwise or whatever. The rule now simply stated to put them in a circle around the first one. That means you can leave gaps in the placement for additional flamer templates. I still can't ever get more than 4 unless firing at a strung out unit.

Flamers die in droves in close combat. Yeah they are T4 with a 4+ save but marines hit them on 3s. Plus the flamers are 35 points per model.

Its more cheat than cheese, to be honest.

18" BoM, cheat.
7 flamers, cheat.
DSing that grinder in on a icon that DSed with it, cheat.

On with the complaints of cheese from there, but would it really have done much to you if those hadnt worked?

(also, yush, I know it may not work based on squad size (although, other squads are fine if you clip one model in the target squad, IIRC) but the 5 flamers is sub-optimal anyway, so...

Must. Prove. Gwar!. Wrong. More. Even. If. By. Silly. Things.... *dies*

EDIT: woah, had not spotted that it didnt require base contact on the circle part. Bah!

Thanks for all of the clarifications and feed back.

I'll be avoiding the player, I'll have a different lis at the ready for any further demon player I might battle, and I will deploy from reserves with HQ guys in transports.

Tyras wrote:
Next time I will, and while the army I brought this time was assault based (Ravenwing with bikes for troops and three assualt squads) I'll have to have a shooty list to swap out to in the event that I'm facing demons. Being able to template his DS'd unites would have been nice, but the Army that I brought had none of that

While you're welcome to do this - it is your own game of course - tailoring your list after knowing what you are facing isn't exactly good sportsmanship. Especially against Daemons, who are the easiest army in the world to beat, if you know that you're facing them and make an army specifically to beat them.

See, the daemonhunter codex allows you to take daemonhunter units as allies, and some of their abilities can be as close to an automatic win as you're likely to see in 40k. If all that matters to you is winning, and not having fun during the game, I suggest you look into those units. (Mystics allow you to shoot at anything deepstriking near them, while psycannons and incinerators both ignore inv. saves altogether, and some psychic powers do nasty things to daemons).

Rather than rely on this method, though, simply learning how to play against daemons will benefit you more, both in your enjoyment of the games that you play against them, as well as in your understanding of the game in general.

You're playing ravenwing, which means that your entire army has guns with a 24" range (minimum), and the ability to either move 12" and shoot, or 24" if you're turboboosting.

The daemon army has exactly one weapon with range over 24 inches. Their greatest possible assault range is 24 inches too. Why are your men close enough for him to flame, or turn to spawn? You're better off running circles around him, and taking potshots when possible. Simply refusing to deploy means that half his army is on the table and you know how to avoid it (or defeat it in detail).

Tyras wrote:
The fact that so much could be taken out in one turn by what people are saying is a crap list and crap tactics is what I'm bothered by. Like I said earlier the power of the units and the abilities compared to units from other armies really gives a demon player an advantage because they can get away with a crap list or making bad tactical decisions where as another army would pay dearly.

Daemons have some powerful units, but they also depend a lot on the ability of the player to improvise based on the results of all the random aspects that go into the army. No other army is forced to face your entire force with only half of theirs for a couple of turns. No other army is unable to hold their whole force in reserve when they want. No other army is unable to pick which units it wants in reserve. These are the weaknesses of the daemon army, and to beat daemons, you need to learn how to exploit those weaknesses. Relying on crutch tactics like bringing daemonhunters, or having a special anti-daemon list will not make you a better player.

6" isnt that far....

I'd go with deploying in a corner with screening trash (well, okay, assault marines are expensive trash, but hey) and rhinos/LRs

He DSes near you, kills the trash, bounces off the armour, your turn, splat, at least half his stuff is dead, the rest will be the stuff that is low-threat to your elite dudes, who're all still alive and fine.


Also, play that person again, and enforce the rules from his codex, "reminding" him of the ones he "got wrong" before in front of people. Might stop him doing it again. Then avoid him.

EDIT: Bah, stop posting while i'm typing

But yes, points above me are all good.

the other thing about that other daemon player is maybe he is also new to 40k got so excited about the book that he missed some of the rules. It happens all the time from people with new armies, new codexes, new systems, whatever. I firmly believe that most people don't actually WANT to cheat, they just get caught up in the moment and aren't thinking.

Redbeard wrote:

Tyras wrote:
Next time I will, and while the army I brought this time was assault based (Ravenwing with bikes for troops and three assualt squads) I'll have to have a shooty list to swap out to in the event that I'm facing demons. Being able to template his DS'd unites would have been nice, but the Army that I brought had none of that

While you're welcome to do this - it is your own game of course - tailoring your list after knowing what you are facing isn't exactly good sportsmanship. Especially against Daemons, who are the easiest army in the world to beat, if you know that you're facing them and make an army specifically to beat them.

See, the daemonhunter codex allows you to take daemonhunter units as allies, and some of their abilities can be as close to an automatic win as you're likely to see in 40k. If all that matters to you is winning, and not having fun during the game, I suggest you look into those units. (Mystics allow you to shoot at anything deepstriking near them, while psycannons and incinerators both ignore inv. saves altogether, and some psychic powers do nasty things to daemons).

Rather than rely on this method, though, simply learning how to play against daemons will benefit you more, both in your enjoyment of the games that you play against them, as well as in your understanding of the game in general.

You're playing ravenwing, which means that your entire army has guns with a 24" range (minimum), and the ability to either move 12" and shoot, or 24" if you're turboboosting.

The daemon army has exactly one weapon with range over 24 inches. Their greatest possible assault range is 24 inches too. Why are your men close enough for him to flame, or turn to spawn? You're better off running circles around him, and taking potshots when possible. Simply refusing to deploy means that half his army is on the table and you know how to avoid it (or defeat it in detail).

Tyras wrote:
The fact that so much could be taken out in one turn by what people are saying is a crap list and crap tactics is what I'm bothered by. Like I said earlier the power of the units and the abilities compared to units from other armies really gives a demon player an advantage because they can get away with a crap list or making bad tactical decisions where as another army would pay dearly.

Daemons have some powerful units, but they also depend a lot on the ability of the player to improvise based on the results of all the random aspects that go into the army. No other army is forced to face your entire force with only half of theirs for a couple of turns. No other army is unable to hold their whole force in reserve when they want. No other army is unable to pick which units it wants in reserve. These are the weaknesses of the daemon army, and to beat daemons, you need to learn how to exploit those weaknesses. Relying on crutch tactics like bringing daemonhunters, or having a special anti-daemon list will not make you a better player.

I look at it this way. I have one army, and everybody in the store knows that it's DA. So if everybody can cater an army to beat mine, knowing it's the only one I can bring to the board, why is it bad sportamanship to have a demons list in the event that one of them brings their demons out? My men were in their deployment zone waiting for my first movement phase. He plopped his flamers down right next to my foward edge units and lit them up. As I've come to learn I should have deployed from reserves to avoid that.

I was in a bad deployment penned up in a a board quarter with a few large sets of ruins I was avoiding with my bikes so my options were a little limited, and made it easy to target bunched up units with template weapons. Other than holding the army in reserve how else could I play? When the game ended on turn five all he had left was the unit of Bloodletters with the Skull taker. I had to speeder upgrade from the Ravenwing Bike Squad and the three bike squad left for troop choices, I just couldn't get them to objectives in time after having them help shoot the Demonettes off of the objective they were holding. Had the game gone into turn six I could have moved them both to objectives and won, but losing the game is not what I was complaining about. It was the cheesyness of the army, which much of that turned out to be outright cheating.

Gwar! wrote:

StormHalo wrote:Horrors are the easiest unit to wipe in that army. Even with the changeling forcing my marines to roll Ld tests to shoot, I can usually wipe 'em out the turn they DS if my opponent puts 'em close enough. Flame templates from rhinos work wonders on them too.

<Nitpick> You can't fire Flamers from Rhinos</nitpick> But otherwise sound advice.

Ah yes...my bad. Thanks for the correction.

As to the flamers - I think that it was discussed in another thread about how the models had to be in base to base contact...or something of the sort...when they deepstruck. You had to do your best to complete a circle...curses! I wish I could find the thread. My cousin (who plays Daemons) debate this all the time.

Sure, the flamers might get totally smeared in assault, however, a unit of ten space marines aren't going to survive the initial attack by the flamers. Not many units are - save orks. in mobs of 30.

Concerning the points made about playing daemons...

...I think keeping bike armies in reserve against daemons is a sound counter to the daemons' deepstriking. I don't think it's tailoring or unfair, but rather exploiting the weaknesses of the daemon army. Zipping onto the board and going where you need to go quickly while hiding those preciously expensive units for a few turns doesn't make anybody a bad player, but rather a smart one.

I use bikes differently in my SM list...I use them as bait. My cousin knows they're likely speeding towards his bloodcrushers or his soul grinder, so tries desperately to get them off the board. I use that time to pick off his scoring units (of which the daemons have several choices, but they're all very expensive). which can almost assure a victory in an objective based mission.

StormHalo wrote:You had to do your best to complete a circle...curses! I wish I could find the thread. My cousin (who plays Daemons) debate this all the time.

That's also wrong You must complete a circle before staring a new one, but other than that the only requirement is that they be in BTB contact. So a Unit of 3 Can Deploy in a Line if they wanted to, or a V shape.

Daemons are harder to beat with marines, but really it's just a matter of being mechanized and taking advantage of what you do have: bolters. There are very few things the codex that can't be wounded by a bolter. Power weapons are a waste vs. Daemons so don't even try to compete in assault with regular marines, only charge to steal their charge. Bolters and flamers do AMAZING things against them.

Gwar! wrote:

StormHalo wrote:You had to do your best to complete a circle...curses! I wish I could find the thread. My cousin (who plays Daemons) debate this all the time.

That's also wrong You must complete a circle before staring a new one, but other than that the only requirement is that they be in BTB contact. So a Unit of 3 Can Deploy in a Line if they wanted to, or a V shape.

Something seems...odd...about that...I wish I had my book in front of me. I am almost positive in a previous thread that it was proven (by those more knowledgable than me) that the flamers (or any unit of three) had to deploy in a triangular shape. Oh well...if they don't have to...it's another tick in the column for my argument that they're the most over-powered unit in the game.

Granted, I am not whining, persay, just stating my opinion. I have and will continue to both die to and deal with flamers.

D'ya know what Daemons really hate?

Incinerators, Psycannons, Grey Knight Force Weapons Inquisitors, etc.

No Invulnerables from both Inc. and Psy. Outright kills models, Mystics can shoot at DS'ing units.

Tyras wrote:
I look at it this way. I have one army, and everybody in the store knows that it's DA. So if everybody can cater an army to beat mine, knowing it's the only one I can bring to the board, why is it bad sportamanship to have a demons list in the event that one of them brings their demons out?

Sportsmanship isn't about what other people can do, it's about the standards you hold yourself to. Again, I don't know the environment that you play in, or the gaming culture in your store. If everyone in the store regularly makes lists just to beat specific people, then you're well within your rights to do the same thing.

But, the point about not doing so making you a better player still stands. If you make a list and it has a weakness against a specific opponent, you can either tweak the base list, and learn to play it in different circumstances, or you can scrap it and make a list to fight the difficult opponent. Which makes you the better player in the long-run?

When you go into a league that requires you to run the same list for a number of weeks, you won't be able to make those changes. If you go to a tournament, you won't be able to make changes for specific opponents. In either of these cases, the only thing you'll be able to change is your tactics - so it's best to learn how to do this, how to be flexible with the force you have already, rather than the force you wish for.

My men were in their deployment zone waiting for my first movement phase. He plopped his flamers down right next to my foward edge units and lit them up. As I've come to learn I should have deployed from reserves to avoid that.

I was in a bad deployment penned up in a a board quarter with a few large sets of ruins I was avoiding with my bikes so my options were a little limited, and made it easy to target bunched up units with template weapons. Other than holding the army in reserve how else could I play?

Not knowing all the details of the game, I honestly cannot tell you what you could have done differently, except for the basic deployment issue. Not trying to be insulting, just honest.

It was the cheesyness of the army, which much of that turned out to be outright cheating.

Well, that's another issue entirely isn't it. Try playing a few games against a non-cheating daemon opponent before declaring anything cheesy. For all their strengths, daemons have a number of weaknesses as well, and it isn't too hard to exploit them.

StormHalo wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

StormHalo wrote:You had to do your best to complete a circle...curses! I wish I could find the thread. My cousin (who plays Daemons) debate this all the time.

That's also wrong You must complete a circle before staring a new one, but other than that the only requirement is that they be in BTB contact. So a Unit of 3 Can Deploy in a Line if they wanted to, or a V shape.

Something seems...odd...about that...I wish I had my book in front of me. I am almost positive in a previous thread that it was proven (by those more knowledgable than me) that the flamers (or any unit of three) had to deploy in a triangular shape. Oh well...if they don't have to...it's another tick in the column for my argument that they're the most over-powered unit in the game.

Granted, I am not whining, persay, just stating my opinion. I have and will continue to both die to and deal with flamers.

Just to make sure, here, they did only wound on a 4+ right? From your terror of them it sounds almost as if he laid down the templates and just had you pic up the models (granted, there were 7 of them, I suppose - which cost about the same as a land raider redeemer which would have had the exact same effect).

@Redbeard - I absolutely love this "Sportsmanship isn't about what other people can do, it's about the standards you hold yourself to. " and totally agree with you 100%.

After he calculated how many hits he got with the seven flamer templates he then rolled to wound. On a 4+ he claimed wounds with no saves. The unit on the wrong end of the templates were assault marines, so a 3+ save under normal conditions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On Sportsmanship it is my view that all players should do their best to facilitate an enjoyable game for all parties. They should be honest, and good natured at all times, winning or losing.

Do I play to win? Yes. Do I play to win at the expense of a good time? Nope. The people at my local tend to build armies to beat other people at the local. The army I had brought was not tuned to fight anybody in paticular, as I didn't have a game scheduled with anybody, although I do have various lists in the notebook to battle various players based on their armies and playstyles. The Demon player was an unknown so, I used the latest army list I wanted to test out.

I never accused the player of being a cheater (during the game, Only after I learned in this thread have I made that call), and while I asked a few times out of shock "They can do that?" I gave him the benefit of the doubt, as I was there to play and try to have a good time, not interrogate another player or pour over their codex for five hours. I'm one of the more easy going gamers at my local. I ended up leaving the game frustrated.

Sure, and I didn't mean to call you out in any way - other than your ott daemon hate ;-) - like I said, the first couple of times you play against daemons, you will just get trashed - happened to me too when flamers roasted my 20 man BT horde to black and white cinders - but once you get a handle on how to play daemons the win/loss ratio will equalize, I guarantee it - and especially with Dark Angels (that is one of my most common opponents.) A list like your opponent brought can't really do much against armor 14 spam except with the flamers (they glance on a 4+) and with ravenwing especially you can totally dictate the game and win fairly easily.

Numerous people were jumping on the "he's a cheater" bandwagon and I guess that I just like to give people the benefit of the doubt.