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timetowaste - if you're getting a first turn charge after using Vanguard, you're cheating. You may NOT declare charges in your first turn if you VG, and war machines cannot charge you....

nosferatu1001 wrote:timetowaste - if you're getting a first turn charge after using Vanguard, you're cheating. You may NOT declare charges in your first turn if you VG, and war machines cannot charge you....

That only applies if you're going first.

Right. So long as the other player takes first turn, your own Vanguard/Scout first turn charge is totally legit.

I just got the book and I'm pretty amazed with all the stuff they can do. And it's often massively cheaper than similar abilities in other books.

Daemonic Robes
Tzeentch's Will
Allure of Slaanesh
Trappings of Nurgle

Mastery of Sorcery - give yourself lore of life.

Most of the greater daemons have T6. It's pretty crazy how strong they can make themselves. Are the heroes cheaper? Heckz yah. But they're also not nearly as spiffy.

I mean, Fateweaver has access to what, 14(!) spells, 10 at one time. A 3+ ward save he can reroll once a round and even if a cannon gets past that, the best it can do is wound on 3+. And you can just heal yourself. Yeah, it costs as much as a Slaan and Guards, but it's awful spiffy. You want the enemy attacking it.

Some of the other guys can get similar invulnerability. Though not sure about Bloodthirsters. They're awful killy, but war machines will hurt.

I think they are more than doable. Like a lot of people said here, they target them first because it's a monster worth a ton of points. If you kit the rest of your army to dish dmg and your Greater Targets to sponge it, you could come out with a lot of wins--until people wised up.

But I'm really liking the army now that I have the book. Only had the 40K before, and those weren't that great IMHO. These guys are extremely customizeable, which is fun, because you can change your whole army around without getting new models. Just say, "yup, he's got these daemonic powers now."

That idea- building a Greater Daemon to absorb damage and the rest of your army to dole it out- is actually pretty solid. And kind of a cool concept.

But for one thing: Fateweaver is a special character. And a caster. And a giant monster. So he's going to be pretty insane.

Compare any of the greater daemons to their points in heralds, though, and I think you'll see that the Heroes just do more than their Lord variants.

I mean, a ton of Heralds of Tzeentch won't be that great, considering the rarity of powerdice (but a few with Power Vortex...), but a block or two (that are wizards) with a 4+ Ward is going to be a lot more durable than the daemon. And a smattering of Flamers is better on the offensive.

Nurgle is another weird one, but Noxious Vapors (or whatever. The one that makes everyone in base contact is WS, S, I1...I think?) with a palanquin and so on, two or three of these are going to do more than a Great Unclean One.

Slannesh and Khorne are no question; a mess a' heralds will do more than a Keeper/Thirster.

The big guys have their place, but they're a gamble, and they're generally not going to fair as well when your points could be spent elsewhere.

Most of the little guys are...little. They got 2 wounds. HALF the toughness. Piddly attacks. And are very low spell level. They are just force multiplier additions to units. But if the same war machines exist that were going to target your GD, they'll be shooting through that unit they are now in and will fair worse than the GD and they're going to take the unit they're in with them.

Cuz realistically you're not going to have a Herald trotting along by himself.

This is very true, unless you are running a chariot or maybe a herald on disc or winged horror. I have done that just to get purple sun off down a battle line, with varing successes.

Wait...you think a unit will fair worse against cannons than greater daemons?

If a cannon ball fails to kill a model, it stops. Daemons have a 5+ Ward. Cannon needs a 2+ to wound. It'll kill two 12pt guys/(properly bouncing) cannon ball, versus half of your 500pt+ Greater Daemons...

2 wounds, 100ish points. 5-10 wounds, 500+ points. Lower T? And multiple targets. "Piddly" attacks? Observe:

God: G.D.: Heralds:
Slaanesh 6 S6 20 S4
Khorne 7 S6 15 S6
Nurgle 4 S6 15 S4
Tzeentch 6 S6 10 S3

...I think. But Heralds also make your core units better. GD's are better casters, by a margin. You want tons of attacks? Go with Heralds of Slaanesh, or Nurgle with palanquins. You wanna crack armour? Heralds of Khorne are the same strength as Bloodthirsters.

...really, Heralds of Khorne are up there for the most efficient character in the whole game.

First off, you're cherry-picking situations. Stone throwers, templates, grapeshot, all do much better against heralds in units than GD. Second, you need to be MI or MC or some other sort of monster for the cannon to stop if it fails to kill. Herald units are merely infantry, as are Heralds. Just cuz I manage to duck when a cannonball zings past, doesn't mean the cannonball becomes so despondant it stops.

And yes, they are piddly attacks. When compared to a GD. You're really skewing things. I'm no math wiz, but I see a bare bones Bloodthirster doing 2.5 wounds to a Herald of Khorne a round and the same Herald doing about .5 wounds back (assuming he wasn't dead and such). In some wacky pie-in-the-sky scenario of 5 Heralds vs. a Blood, the Blood would kill 1. Take 2 wounds. Kill another, take 1.5 wounds. Kill another. Take 1 wound. Kil the last 2. And be left with .5 wounds. I ignored Hatred but Heralds also started with 50 more points.

In any case...they obviously aren't that far apart. At least mathematically. I think there's certainly room for both and it's not a no-brainer to include or exclude one.

edited for appearance

Hmm, I'm not sure War Machines are overpowered to be honest... And I don;t even have one!

Just a P.S. Is it just me or are Deamon princes for WoC absolutely rubbish for the points?

abdulaapocolyps wrote:Hmm, I'm not sure War Machines are overpowered to be honest... And I don;t even have one!

Just a P.S. Is it just me or are Deamon princes for WoC absolutely rubbish for the points?

It's not rubbish, it just isn't focused on a single task.
The level 4 Tzeench prince is about 130 points more expensive than a level 4 tzeench wizard lord on disk.
For those points, you get +3 WS, +1S +1T +1W, +2A +3Init, thunder stomp, and should you losing flying, +4M. You also get stubborn.
You lose a 3+ armor save.

If all you want is to fly around blasting, take the sorcerer.
If you want the option to crush smaller units all on your own, take the prince.

Once you consider the stat increases and the tactical flexibility, the prince seems pretty fairly priced.

-Matt

In Daemons, Princes are the middle tier between Heralds and true Greater Daemons. They are 150 cheaper than GD and 200 more expensive than Heralds.

The problem is they aren't all that great without extra bonuses, which are expensive. GW seems to put an innate premium on being a monster. In some ways you can understand this, they get Tstomp, are immune to killing blow and such, and if an enemy wants to target them, it has to do so with an entire unit.

But even still, a DP seems pricier than it should be. I think it's far too expensive to be made a caster, you should get a GD, character, or Herald for that. A DP can be a scary...monster. Statwise it comes pretty close to the biggest Rare monsters in Beastmen book, which are the biggest monsters in the game, and it has a ward save.

Oddly, all the Special/Rares in Daemons are farily "low" point creatures. At least compared to most armies which have multi-hundred solo units. So a DP can fit the bill as a big smashy monster IMHO. But I don't know about as a commander.

Between 4 wounds and a 4+ regen cannonballs only have a 21% chance of blowing through a screening beast of nurgle, or a 39% for a fiend.

Yeah, Those Beasts of Nurgle are excellent screens for anything that can hide behind them
I still think a tooled up Lord of chaos, who will not be able to cast, I'll grant you, but is able to join units and take magic items and is a lot cheaper, is the only option for a WoC. The Princes for DoC are a whole different story, you can tool them to be pretty devastating, or at least durable.
Does anyone run a Daemon Prince in a WoC army? If so how do they get on?

@Dukerustfield: there are situations where GWs are better than Heralds and vise versa, but it's pretty straightforward that Heralds are better in more situations.

A Bloodthirster may be able to kill more Heralds than the Heralds kill the 'Thirster (and that is a big maybe, depending on gifts), but that's not the point I'm making. Against anything other than a singular powerful and expensive character, Heralds do better.

They throw out more attacks at the same Strength and have Hatred, and have more collective wounds.
They're better at taking out rank-and-file, at surviving magic and shooting (one target versus many, not to mention randomization), etc.

They're not as good with monsters (though a 125pt Herald of Khorne with the Firestorm Blade will, with his unit, reduce an A-bomb or Hydra to ash), but since monsters aren't as good as they used to be (since they can't break ranks and are always grinding up Steadfast troops and tend to eat a lot of cannon balls), that and the small handful of other situations where GWs are better do not make up for the power of multiple Heralds.

Khorne is the easiest example. Slaanesh is less so, but still generally the case. Nurgle and Tzeentch are more a mixed bag.

...but this is all strictly competitive-mindedness talking. If you really wanted "the best", you'd go with Heralds of Khorne and Tzeentch, I believe.

No, it's not. Mathematically they are almost identical. Throw in TStmp and you can have Hatred all day long. If Str and Wounds were the only thing that mattered we wouldn't need WS and I and Movement and LD. But they do matter. And GD have lots more. So those same attacks are connecting and killing more, and their wounds are lasting longer and they're getting into combat sooner and having less instability.

Heralds are worse taking out rank and file assuming said targets have attributes that aren't 1. They are about the same at surviving magic. GDs will shrug off all the attack spells easier. The big puddle magics don't do much to either of them, but do worse if a Herald is going to be in a unit of Khornites, which is more beneficial to target, because said unit won't survive as well. They resist most shooting better because they have better stats.

When it suits you you keep trying to compare GDs to Heralds + Khorne units and when it doesn't, you just say it's the equivalent point of Heralds.

Believe it or not, GW has access to six sided dice. And FAQs. And calculators. While it might seem that some units are crazy, especially in the older books, there's quite a few that make perfect sense in terms of complimentary balance.

Whoa there, fella.

WS10 versus 7 ain't that big of a deal. You hit more stuff on 3's. WS4 and lower need 5s to hit you. Initiative is okay, but not that big a deal; its an important stat when going second limits your returning attacks. So it's great when dealing with characters, and when you're unit's seen a lot of battle and casualties.

I'm just not seeing how a 'Thirster is better against RnF. He goes first (Heralds usually do too). He hits on 3's (as do Heralds against anything less than a Lord). He wounds on 2's (same strength). He has a Stomp against most things for 8-13 attacks. Heralds have 3 each.

Heralds are also multiple models. One shadow hex can make a 'Thirster less scary. Two can make two Heralds less scary. That's all I'm saying.

And by "shooting" I mean artillery. Since bows and guns are generally considered okay at best. A Herald's unit takes a cannon ball, some 'letters die. A Thirster takes one and you have to hope for a 5+, or at least not a good roll on the multiple wounds. Same with stone throwers (better at killing 'letters, but still less likely to hurt a Herald than a 'Thirster).

All I'm saying is that whether you have a greater daemon or a herald, you also have Core units. Your heralds can join those units. The big guy can't. So when I say that a pair of cannons won't blow up a herald, I don't feel like it's too big a claim to assume your herald is in a unit. Whereas I assume the daemon has to take it on the chin. 'Cause he has to.

For 100pts, you get 2W and 3 WS7 S6 attacks at I6 with Killing Blow. It's considered a better buy by a mess of people. I'm not the only one here, I assure you.

...and...I'm not sure what you mean by your last statement. Again, I'm not saying that the big guys don't have a place. It's just a smaller place than the Hero counterparts. In a face-off, the 'Thirster generally wins. But Heralds do as good as and better against more match-ups.

That's all I'm sayin'.

I've had good luck running a pair of princes. It can get pricey, but if you are modest with upgrades they often come out about the same as a tooled up GD. Also, your opponent has to split his shots to get both or else let one run free and unmolested. Throw in a few units of furies or seekers that can move quickly and hunt the war machines. Not a fool-proof method by any means, but if you can threaten his artillery on turn two and attack by turn three you can have the run of the board for about half the game.

-Jim

Cannon shots and other artillery aren't distributed as per shooting. They hit what they hit. If they are shooting the unit with the Herald, they'll likely do their best to target him and he's going to die a lot easier to most war machines. A pair of cannons will lay waste to your Heralds AND at least some chunk of the unit they are in, making the core units all that much weaker. Or said cannons have to both attack the thirster and leave your core alone.

It's not always a bad thing he can't join units. Well, it's bad he CAN'T join, but not necessarily bad he isn't joined. Because the entire enemy unit has to waste its attacks on him and in a lot of cases that's not a very efficient attack.

As for rank and file, they still get attacked. They still get challenged. They still face Daemonic Instability. Still lower Toughness. Again, if no one is attacking back, Heralds do way better. But that's not going to happen.

I saw what you wrote before, I just don't think it's true. Regardless of your messes of people. GW doesn't seem to agree.

...Look Out, Sir!...?

I also understand the point about "if they shoot this, they're not shooting that", but I'd much rather have them shoot my unit of 40 Horror than have them shoot my Greater Daemon. Less than 500pts with 40 wounds, or 500pts+ with 6.

Heralds do die easier. But they start off better point-for-point, and even after they've taken a lot of punishment, they can still dish it out.

And Games Workshop doesn't agree? What are we even talking about at this point? Don't tell me what the designers intended or what they tried to do. I'll just stick to the numbers.

So...yeah.

A 2+ LoS! Is generally considered a "pretty good chance to not get wounded" Duke. Given ST are S3, and if theyre trying to "snipe" the Herald half the template isnt hitting (ok, slightly less, but yo uget the idea) the unit, I'm not too worried about the unit surviving.

Cannon are the same. If you have 5 ranks a cannon can kill 5 models, max, and only on a 2+ is that going to be your Herald (assuming 5Rnf+)