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Fate crusher is pretty darn competitive if you roll pretty well for deep strikes unless you run into dual lash then you just get owned.

Fateweaver gives you rerollable saves which is ridiculous, he also has a nice anti tank shot

Bloodthirster catches those land raiders and russes if they are moving fast they not shooting much.

Bloodcrushers are really tough to kill and very nasty in combat.

Horrors with bolt are decent anti tank and anti infantry also

Plaguebearers give you tough scoring units.

Grinders give you the strength 8 ap 3 fat kill marines template

Here is my current list (2k):

Bloodthirster/Unholy Might, Blessing of the Blood God, Deathstrike
Skulltaker/Juggernaught
Herald/Juggernaught, Unholy Might, Fury of Khorne, Blessing of the Blood God

6x Blood Crusher/Fury, Icon, Instrument

15x Bloodletter/Icon
15x Bloodletter

Soul Grinder/Phleghm, Tongue
Soul Grinder/Phleghm, Tongue
Daemon Prince/Mark of Nurgle, Wings, Iron Hide, Noxious Touch, Cloud of Flies

I have many units that can take out landraiders and Monoliths. Any unit can take out a Tau gunship as you are hitting on rear armor (AV10) with at least S5. The Bloodthirster, Daemon Prince, Herald and both walkers can penetrate AV14 in assault and the walkers can penetrate them with shooting. The Bloodthirster is your best bet and if the landraider has moved 12" it can't shoot much so I can ignore it for a turn. I can always hit a Monolith on at least 4+. The last time I played versus Necrons my walkers took out a pair of Monoliths the same turn in close combat... Soul Grinders are faster than both landraiders and especially Monoliths... If the landraider is moving away then I can shoot it with a railgun (tongue).

Nullzone is no big deal, I can use cover saves and armor saves. If you are in close combat with my daemons then good luck, you're really going to need it. All my units have high WS, high S plus a lot of attacks.

And remember that a landraider cannot outrun the Bloodthirster or daemon prince. It's just a matter of waiting until they opt to move 6" or less and it will happen. If I charge a landraider that has moved 6" or less the greater daemon should land three hits, all of which should penetrate, so it's gone bye bye. The only vehicles that are hard to take out are fast ones that can move over 12".

G

40kenthusiast wrote:What do you mean by "deal with?" Also, Tau tanks and Land Raiders are entirely different beasts.

By "deal with" I mean "destroy or otherwise significantly reduce the game impact of." High AV vehicles that can move 12" and shoot (LR troop transport is an added insult) are my bane. The few times I've fought armies that didn't have one of those, I've done well (or screwed up and been able to point out reasons why I did poorly).

I'm somewhat surprised by the amount you seem to be spreading out your daemons - I would have thought that much spread doesn't give you enough concentrated killing power anywhere - but if it works well for you I'll think about how to apply that.
However, you haven't mentioned how you actually deal with LRs. A librarian in a LR is very difficult to get at. You're not going to keep him pinned because he can simply tank shock you, and most of your units can't touch him.

If you tank shock then it can be charged the next turn.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:If you tank shock then it can be charged the next turn.

G

You will still have moved 12", however, and you can't necessarily even be charged by something that can actually hurt you.

I don't really understand the idea that you can simply ignore a LR if it's going 12". Sure, it can only fire one weapon, but first of all it can fire a fairly good weapon, second it can transport troops to your objectives (or itself contest an objective), and third it can have psykers inside who can use their powers regardless of how fast it's moving. If it lets its troops out on their turn, they can charge yours, and who gets the charge can make an enormous difference. Generally, if a LR has moved only 6" in a game I'm playing, I'm about to lose 2 nearby units because it is shooting all its weapons and unloading its passengers (who will then shoot and assault the stragglers).

As everyone says, playing daemons requires being aggressive. LRs take away the ability to be aggressive, because there's little that we can do to them until they choose to slow down, dump their passengers, and unload their weaponry... they mess around with timing, in a way that is more controllable to the SM player than reserves. (Also, once they're done messing with timing, they're still a pain in the rear).

Did you mean to say to hit a Tau tank with a shooting attack or catch it in CC? If it's shooting, a good Tau player will make it very difficult to hit the back of his tank. It helps that his main gun swivels 360 degrees, so he can face his back to the table edge or simply away from your shooters if all of them have deployed. If CC... well, I've never tried to spread my forces out the way that was described earlier, so if that works it may be the solution to that problem.

I'll certainly agree that grinders are the way to go against a monolith, if you choose to take out the monolith.

@40ke: the problem I'm encountering with daemons against marine lists isn't the ability to get near them, it's the ability to kill their stuff.

Last tournament, I faced an army with something like 3 dreads, 4 speeders (mm/HF), 2/3 dakka preds, and a few tac squads. Given that your only solid choice for killing his tanks outside of CC is the grinders, and they're only hitting 50% of the time, and are easily destroyed by MM fire, now you're left with dreads tying up your crushers, speeders doing fly-by flamer runs on your daemons, and tacs in rhinos tank-shocking past anything they need to get past.

Maybe that's just how my dice roll. Typically, I'll run a daemon prince into a vindicator that needs 4's to hit and won't hurt it. We can't get AP1 attacks in CC, and we often need 6's just to hit. Repeatedly shaking an enemy tank while they're dropping your models doesn't play out well in the end. It's not just Land Raiders that cause problems, it's the whole new damage table.

Fate Crusher did win a Ardboyz Tournament didn't it?

It did, two years ago. Two years ago, there was no new marine codex, there was no new guard codex, and the great mechanization of the game hadn't really happened yet.

Last year, they didn't do nearly so well.

It did indeed. Nobody in their right mind is going to charge a Khornate daemon army unless they have no other option. So hopping out of the lr is probably not the best decision. Maybe I am missing something Dave but when you assault a vehicle you auto hit rear armor (AV 10)... Tinfoil.

To me it's a myth that daemons have problems with mech. You catch them with your assaults and blow them sky high. You can only fire so many shoots... Last week my Crushers took two full rounds from two punishers right in the face for minimal losses then my walkers smashed them with shooting and an assault.

There is a reason why my greater daemon has deathstrike, to shoot down those pesky skimmers like landspeeders. The best thing transports can do is keep moving Away and that in itself does not win games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bill Kim had his daemons there this year but unfortunately his crushers were lost in a mishap the final round.

G

Lemartes wrote:Fate Crusher did win a Ardboyz Tournament didn't it?

And all it had to do was not use Daemonic Assault deployment and put it's Blood Crushers on the next size smaller bases to pull it off.

Lemartes wrote:Fate Crusher did win a Ardboyz Tournament didn't it?

Not necessarily by following the rules...

Oh so this crap again... It's all hearsay what you are inferring and has been discussed ad naseum here.

G

On splitting up your Daemons. It's an obvious judgement call, but the situation described is that the enemy is interested in scoot and shoot, and if you brick up vs. that sort of tactic the only rolls you get to make up all game are saves.

Splitting up risks the enemy rushing one part of the list and overrunning it, and leaving your counterassaulters hitting their screening vehicles, which moved > 6". I've seen this tactic a bunch of times.

General counters are that 1: the portion they are overrunning is typically tougher than they initially presume, it's easy to underestimate Crushers/Heralds, and 2: the counterassault will pop even fast moving vehicles, unless they are LR's, and those are typically used to deliver the troops that are doing the overrun, so they aren't available for screening those same troops.

On popping Land Raiders: If they just keep moving 12" far away from you, you have to ignore them. The one gun they can shoot, typically the assault cannon, will get 4 shots, probably 4 hits, so, figure 1-2 wounds one rend vs. Crushers/Herald? One wound gets through, usually. It's bearable, since in the meantime you are eating up all of their other stuff and getting on the objectives. The LR is a transport, if it wants to pretend to be an MBT that's a lot of points you aren't facing.

On Kairos: With a crusher list I prefer not to bring him, oddly enough. I prefer 4 chariots, or 3 chariots and the Masque (who has to be tried to be believed, it's AMAZING vs. Orks, Nids, anything with guys on the ground).

I'd also like to use this space to plug the GUO w/grenades. I've seen him take Zerker charges and smile, plus he pops walkers, which are a big annoyance to my list.

Daemons are competative. I've played a mono-tzeentch list through I don't know how many inquisitor+mystics, null zone librarians, land raiders, you name it.

On inquisitor+mystics: tzeentch daemons shoot at an 18-24 inch bubble which means that most of the time you can deep strike in such a way the inquisitor won't really see you unless he rolls really good, then you light up said inquisitor with shots, it's not that hard to kill off t3 mystics.

Null-zone: It's called cover, same thing against a psy-cannon, and if you made it into hand to hand, most of my stuff dies there anyways.

Land Raiders: I have 12 melta bomb toting screamers, 9 4+ auto-glances and 11 str8 ap1 shots in my army. Every single unit I have has a chance to hurt a land raider, but mainly flamers to stun or immolbize and then screamers to auto-hit and destroy, or just screamers turbo-boosting in front of land raiders usually does the trick.

Is the army unbeatable, no, and we will see what the new nids do to it, but I've never seen someone walk away from a game with my army say that it was not a competative list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

40kenthusiast wrote:
On Kairos: With a crusher list I prefer not to bring him, oddly enough. I prefer 4 chariots, or 3 chariots and the Masque (who has to be tried to be believed, it's AMAZING vs. Orks, Nids, anything with guys on the ground).

I'd also like to use this space to plug the GUO w/grenades. I've seen him take Zerker charges and smile, plus he pops walkers, which are a big annoyance to my list.

I'll second the amazingness that is the Masque. And the GUO w/ grenades at his low points costs is unbelievable. It makes me really shudder when thinking about a 6 wound trigon with feel no pain, because I know what a hassle a great unclean one is.

I suppose I'm not being entirely fair to the list. I am going largely on the models I have, which have been mostly Tzeentch and built less efficiently than Warmaster's lists.

However, I guarantee that the math I presented is accurate. You have to use a lot of points' worth of models (many of whom aren't likely to survive) or be really lucky in order to deal with one LR before it slows down - and if you manage to, you then have to deal with its cargo. If you can figure out a way to keep that from mattering, good on you; I still have problems with, late in the game by an objective, being shot at with a flamestorm cannon, a TL assault cannon, and a storm bolter, and then being shot at and charged by terminators.
Terminators by themselves I don't have a problem dealing with. Give me thirty to kill, and I'll just flamer them to death, and maybe kill the remaining couple with dakka, or bolts, or a particularly brave CC-capable unit. LRs with termies inside, however, can kill my flamers with ease before I can use them against the termies. (On average, it should take 12 flamers to get an immobilize result. If you're lucky and the opponent hasn't put extra armor on it, you can also stun, lowering that number to only 6. Congratulations! You now have an immobilized LR and 210-420 points of flamers, who are incapable in CC unless they pull very unlikely stunts, sitting in easy assault range of whatever was inside.)

My experience is limited, it's true, and as I said I don't use a truly optimized list. However, math (which I'm reasonably skilled at), common sense, and the experience I do have all tell me that they are very difficult to deal with. Not impossible, but very difficult - requiring significant good luck, an opponent who makes a significant mistake, or the devotion of a disproportionately large and important fraction of your army.

demons can make a really strong list. the biggest problem is that a few bad rolls can give you almost an auto loss.

some people might not like that aspect. it really isn't any different from losing 3 land raiders in turn one, except you are rolling the dice that are killing you

DaveL wrote:I suppose I'm not being entirely fair to the list. I am going largely on the models I have, which have been mostly Tzeentch and built less efficiently than Warmaster's lists.

However, I guarantee that the math I presented is accurate. You have to use a lot of points' worth of models (many of whom aren't likely to survive) or be really lucky in order to deal with one LR before it slows down - and if you manage to, you then have to deal with its cargo. If you can figure out a way to keep that from mattering, good on you; I still have problems with, late in the game by an objective, being shot at with a flamestorm cannon, a TL assault cannon, and a storm bolter, and then being shot at and charged by terminators.
Terminators by themselves I don't have a problem dealing with. Give me thirty to kill, and I'll just flamer them to death, and maybe kill the remaining couple with dakka, or bolts, or a particularly brave CC-capable unit. LRs with termies inside, however, can kill my flamers with ease before I can use them against the termies. (On average, it should take 12 flamers to get an immobilize result. If you're lucky and the opponent hasn't put extra armor on it, you can also stun, lowering that number to only 6. Congratulations! You now have an immobilized LR and 210-420 points of flamers, who are incapable in CC unless they pull very unlikely stunts, sitting in easy assault range of whatever was inside.)

My experience is limited, it's true, and as I said I don't use a truly optimized list. However, math (which I'm reasonably skilled at), common sense, and the experience I do have all tell me that they are very difficult to deal with. Not impossible, but very difficult - requiring significant good luck, an opponent who makes a significant mistake, or the devotion of a disproportionately large and important fraction of your army.

The flamers rarely cause an immobilize/stun, more often than not i get just your average shaken. But it happens occasionally. The nicer part of it is that since the lr can't shoot it makes it harder for them to eliminate the screamers that just boosted in front of them. As far as point's "efficiency" I guess I look at the fact that my 12 screamers cost less than a land raider, so if I can use all of them and get the tank then they've done the job, even if they all die in the process.

DaveL wrote:
I suppose I'm not being entirely fair to the list. I am going largely on the models I have, which have been mostly Tzeentch and built less efficiently than Warmaster's lists.

However, I guarantee that the math I presented is accurate. You have to use a lot of points' worth of models (many of whom aren't likely to survive) or be really lucky in order to deal with one LR before it slows down - and if you manage to, you then have to deal with its cargo. If you can figure out a way to keep that from mattering, good on you; I still have problems with, late in the game by an objective, being shot at with a flamestorm cannon, a TL assault cannon, and a storm bolter, and then being shot at and charged by terminators.
Terminators by themselves I don't have a problem dealing with. Give me thirty to kill, and I'll just flamer them to death, and maybe kill the remaining couple with dakka, or bolts, or a particularly brave CC-capable unit. LRs with termies inside, however, can kill my flamers with ease before I can use them against the termies. (On average, it should take 12 flamers to get an immobilize result. If you're lucky and the opponent hasn't put extra armor on it, you can also stun, lowering that number to only 6. Congratulations! You now have an immobilized LR and 210-420 points of flamers, who are incapable in CC unless they pull very unlikely stunts, sitting in easy assault range of whatever was inside.)

My experience is limited, it's true, and as I said I don't use a truly optimized list. However, math (which I'm reasonably skilled at), common sense, and the experience I do have all tell me that they are very difficult to deal with. Not impossible, but very difficult - requiring significant good luck, an opponent who makes a significant mistake, or the devotion of a disproportionately large and important fraction of your army.

Dave dont take this the wrong way but I dont think you really know what you are talking about. It just seems like such a n00b thing to say "Oh landraider beats that list". We have shown you why it doesnt but you keep bringing it back up. Are you reading anyone elses posts besides your own?

G

mathhammer =/= playing the game. Sorry, but it doesn't because it naturally treats all the numbers in a vacuum. I will not go further, but mathhammer is lame imo.

Green Blow Fly wrote:
Dave dont take this the wrong way but I dont think you really know what you are talking about. It just seems like such a n00b thing to say "Oh landraider beats that list". We have shown you why it doesnt but you keep bringing it back up. Are you reading anyone elses posts besides your own?

I am. If you recall, I have dropped my objections to dealing with Tau tanks, as I've never tried anything along the lines of what was suggested. Your suggestions for dealing with LRs may be valid when you can afford to ignore them, but only Warmaster's have been complete in the sense that he has outlined something to do if the LR is moving 12", other than ignoring it. (My objections to ignoring it are in an earlier post.)

Somnicide wrote:
mathhammer =/= playing the game. Sorry, but it doesn't because it naturally treats all the numbers in a vacuum. I will not go further, but mathhammer is lame imo.

Mathhammer, in the sense of doing math and claiming that it accounts for everything in the game, is lame. Doing basic math and pointing out that, say, a S8 weapon can only do anything to AV14 rarely and that what it does then is a glance, is intelligent. What I'm trying to do is in between. I suppose you can decide how far along the sliding scale what I'm doing is for yourself; to me, it's in the "potentially useful as long as I keep in mind that I'm not keeping track of everything" range.

Warmaster wrote:
The nicer part of it is that since the lr can't shoot it makes it harder for them to eliminate the screamers that just boosted in front of them.

That's a good point. I'll have to try it... if it works, you all have my apologies for dragging the thread out.

You aren't dragging things out, at least in my opinion. I personally hate relying on close combat to pop tanks, which is why for competitive lists I play mono-tzeentch, and when I wasn't running that all of my grinders came equipped with tongue for additional ranged tank punch.

The evaluation of Daemons vs. mech is very important. Remember that's what everyone has been saying is wrong with nids and necrons. Those two codeci inability to deal with massed mech is what is keeping them from being considered "competitive".

I think a good general will find ways to win with their army so I have a hard time saying that any codex is not competitive, I do think some have easier combinations to use.

About the screamers, I wrote this tactic's thread a while back for them. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/268939.page#1171109

It is a commonly perceived misconception that daemons are problematic versus mech. It's not true as daemons can land such that armor cannot move out of their next turn charge arc.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:It is a commonly perceived misconception that daemons are problematic versus mech. It's not true as daemons can land such that armor cannot move out of their next turn charge arc.

G

And Necrons can kill a Land Raider by glancing it to death, therefore mech isn't a problem for that army, right? Just because something can happen doesn't mean it will, or that it's even likely.

I suppose I am must just be very lucky then. Landraiders have never posed a problem for me. Like I said I have at least four units that can shred AV 14 with ease. Sure if the daemon list is not properly designed to handle landraiders it's going to be a long game but there are many deamonic units thAt can shred landraiders with relative ease. A good daemon army should have several of these units.

G

G

Danny Internets wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:It is a commonly perceived misconception that daemons are problematic versus mech. It's not true as daemons can land such that armor cannot move out of their next turn charge arc.

G

And Necrons can kill a Land Raider by glancing it to death, therefore mech isn't a problem for that army, right? Just because something can happen doesn't mean it will, or that it's even likely.

QFT! I used to run a 3 LR and two Dread deathwing army and played against necrons quite often to not so great results.

Back on topic: Soul Grinders do have a S10 24 inch weapon that can deal with high AV. Also breath of chaos comes into it's own when used against vehicles packed closely together as each template can cover multiple vehicles. Works well against castled up armies or orks bunched up inside a KFF.

BoC can only glance, correct? As I recall the Railtongue relies on the Soulgrinder's BS of 3 to hit, so it's hardly reliable. It's possible that the weapon will serve you well but I wouldn't bank on it.

If you have two one is bound to hit.

I don't understand why people have such a hard time realizing that close combat is the best way to destroy mech.

G

Because it's really not Land Raiders that are the issue. I'm willing to trade a bloodthirster to kill a landraider, that's just about an even swap.

What I'm not willing to do is trade that same bloodthirster to kill a 35 point rhino. And the bloodthirster has no significantly better chance of killing a rhino that move 12" than it does of killing a Land Raider than moved 12". It probably scores one hit, probably scores one pen, and is then at the mercy of the vehicle damage table.

I lost a tournament because of that kind of thing. Game three, top table, playing against a DE skimmer army. It's an objective mission, and I've managed to kill most of his transports, while being close enough to the objectives to either hold or contest them. Except one, that's just kinda out of the way. He's got one raider with some dudes in it, and I've got a bloodthirster close enough to attack it, but of course it moved 12" the prior turn to get into that position. Bloodthirster attacks, predictably lands one hit, one pen, and then... '2'. Raider is open-topped, so that's a weapon destroyed. Any other result, I win the game, as it's either dead or stunned and not moving. As it is, he drives off to the last objective, and wins the game, and tournament.

And someone is going say, 'well, that's just luck' - well, yeah, it is. But, he won the tournament, and I didn't. And this is the sort of thing that I run into, consistently, with daemons. Without a reliable AP1 gun, I end up struggling against mech. It's just luck that my daemon prince can land four hits on a vindicator and not even get a 10 to glance it. It's just luck that three fiends can completely miss an opponent's rhino. It's all just luck... BS - at some point, you have to see the trends and acknowledge that there is more to it than just luck. My daemons, regardless of the build, struggle against heavy mech armies. I just cannot reliably kill their tanks.

WoW, read through all of this and no mention of screamers for anti-tank?
Other than redbeard and GBF, does anyone here actually play daemons?


Screamers move as jetbikes and have melta bombs as standard, thats allways a good base for building on when it comes to anti-tank.
2 units of 5 set you back a small 160 points, and can easily be out destroying tanks the turn after they drop.

Just a case of actually learning how to hug cover, rather than staying out in the open with them.


Other than that, soulgrinders with tongue and in combat work against tanks fine.
If your going tank hunting with a thirster then throw might on him, that +1S makes all the difference when against things like LR's.

If your hunting down light vehicles then a herald with might, fury and chariot will do fine.
High enough S + Rending means he can pop transports.
Failing that, give him a jugger and a unit of crushers to run with and they can be popping transports and killing the units inside.

TBH, i dont usually take a prince, they tend to be too points heavy for the job they do.
Also, the upgrades arent bad, but the only decent ones set you back alot! (wings for example)
Just find that theres other units capable of the same job, if not better for less points.



I also agree with GBF about mystics.
If you know how to DS, they wont be a problem.
You dont go dropping in next to them, since thats just stupidity.
Plan your drops, work out how units will go and how they will work together, then think about dropping.

Also, i find bolt on horrors to be a waste.
You have a unit that fires 3 shots per model, and instead your going to attack a tank?

Redbeard I said DE are a tough matchup for daemons in general. A transport with treads is not the same thing as a skimmer tank by any means. Dont mix apples and oranges.

G