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@ Saldiven

You raise some good points but you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone who travels to tournaments that Demons are in a bad place when they see 2 or 3 mono-nurgle lists that hide Epidemius in a portal glyph and rain down S5/T6 hell upon you.

My best friend, who has never played warhammer until this year, got the demon book from me for christmas along with some Khorne stuff. He read the book once and traded everything for Nurgle units. (Point being even a novice can see how strong Nurgle is this edition.)

A books strength isn't judged by it's options, but by what can be abused. People don't just say "Without the World Dragon Banner, Skull Cannons, Hell Heart, Rune Maw Banner, etc etc."

If you get into that kindve back and forth every army has its do's and doh's.

"Your Beasts of Nurgle are OP. 4 wounds + slime trail + challenging + poison + T5 + 5 Ward? Compare that to a 50 point Tomb King Ushabti."
"Ya, but my Bloodletters are terrible."
"Okay, compare that to my 12 point skeletal horseman."
"But dude, my flamers are really bad."
"Have you seen my Tomb Scorpions for 85 points that pop up and then get grapeshot?"

You can do that with any army, as they are defined in strength by what is successful, not what fails. Just because plan b is terrible doesn't mean that Plan A doesn't kick in the teeth of almost everything.

"The List" is great and very difficult to defeat. Because of "The List" Daemons are fine. It sucks, but that's kinda how it rolls in most peoples point of view.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
@ Saldiven

You raise some good points but you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone who travels to tournaments that Demons are in a bad place when they see 2 or 3 mono-nurgle lists that hide Epidemius in a portal glyph and rain down S5/T6 hell upon you.

Sure.

I just went through the results lists of about 15 or so large tournaments that hosted 60+ players, and only found a couple where the new DOC book did particularly well, and those were ones that were using ETC comp. Here's a link to a thread on the subject so you can go through and check the results for yourself. Some DOC players seemed to do quite well in smaller tournaments, but that's often a case of "big fish in small pond syndrome."

http://z7.invisionfree.com/wyrmling_x/index.php?showtopic=10483&st=0

Also, the fact that an army book has a single competitive build in it doesn't make the book good. It is inarguable that the DOC book is rife with internal balance issues, labors under external balance issues, has significant numbers of rules issues that still remain unresolved the better part of a year after its release, and is burdened with handicaps for the sake of fluff that don't exist in any other army book.

I seem to remember DoC doing pretty well at the Crossroads GT this past September in the NE of the USA. IIRC most of the top table builds were Nurgle related,

[link]http://www.alamogt.com/indygt/results.php[/link]

Nurgle Demons took 3rd of 80, he plays out of my local shop. (3rd best general, 11th overall I think)

Saldiven wrote:

 Thunderfrog wrote:
@ Saldiven

You raise some good points but you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone who travels to tournaments that Demons are in a bad place when they see 2 or 3 mono-nurgle lists that hide Epidemius in a portal glyph and rain down S5/T6 hell upon you.

Sure.

I just went through the results lists of about 15 or so large tournaments that hosted 60+ players, and only found a couple where the new DOC book did particularly well, and those were ones that were using ETC comp. Here's a link to a thread on the subject so you can go through and check the results for yourself. Some DOC players seemed to do quite well in smaller tournaments, but that's often a case of "big fish in small pond syndrome."

http://z7.invisionfree.com/wyrmling_x/index.php?showtopic=10483&st=0

Also, the fact that an army book has a single competitive build in it doesn't make the book good. It is inarguable that the DOC book is rife with internal balance issues, labors under external balance issues, has significant numbers of rules issues that still remain unresolved the better part of a year after its release, and is burdened with handicaps for the sake of fluff that don't exist in any other army book.

Demons did pretty well at SCGT this year. And they took out Clash of Swords. Both were 60+ people events. Yes, the book has some internal issues, but it is not a bad book. You can take a mono khorne army and do well. It just requires more skill than a mono nurgle list.

If you read the link above, I believe that the average placing of DoC in SCGT was something like 87 out of 194. I believe there were something like 2 in the top 20 out of 10+ entrants. I'm at work now and can't check to make sure; I'm just going from memory of looking through the thread last night.

I run mono-Khorne, and, as you put it, you can do "ok," assuming you're a good player. An average player will do significantly worse than "ok."

@John Rainbow: Crossroads GT that was just last month was the first major tournament that had a solid representation of DoC armies that performed well since the book came out. For every tournament like Crossroads that had 2-3 DoC books in the top 5 tables, you'll find a major tournament where there wasn't a single DoC player in the top 25% of finalists.

I wish khorne did better all around on both sides of chaos. When I play my vc the magic phase goes full derp but when I play my mono khorne woc the magic phase determines the game.

Saldiven wrote:
If you read the link above, I believe that the average placing of DoC in SCGT was something like 87 out of 194. I believe there were something like 2 in the top 20 out of 10+ entrants. I'm at work now and can't check to make sure; I'm just going from memory of looking through the thread last night.

I run mono-Khorne, and, as you put it, you can do "ok," assuming you're a good player. An average player will do significantly worse than "ok."

@John Rainbow: Crossroads GT that was just last month was the first major tournament that had a solid representation of DoC armies that performed well since the book came out. For every tournament like Crossroads that had 2-3 DoC books in the top 5 tables, you'll find a major tournament where there wasn't a single DoC player in the top 25% of finalists.

Even a 'good' player will get badly stuffed playing mono-Khorne, since you get hit by the worst damage result on the RoC table - Dark Prince Thirsts. It's also one of the most common results, just to make things even more frustrating.
ASF elves running Light magic all over the place are also about the worst possible match-up for Khorne.

And Tzeentch is barely playable beyond running a pseudo gunline/magical artillery style army. It can't even compete that well in the one single phase the army should dominate.

Then there's the god-awful Gift tables which for the most part can simply be ignored as wasted pts outside of a set 'default' set-up you might run.
Hell, I can't really recall the last time I even bothered rolling on the Exalted or Greater tables, they're that poor... At least there's a reason to actually roll on the Lesser table since there's a couple decent abilities there that can be useful for the points investment.

This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

If I would add that this is a horribly translated book from the 40k one, trying to match the 2 books is just stupid.

The Warpstorm/Reign of Chaos, Reign of Chaos has almost no way to manipulate outside of Fateweaver's reroll...
Warpstorm at least has a warlord trait that can reroll it, the Reign of Chaos is just do or die... Silly as heck...

And Scaly Skin for 40k? a 6+ armor save on a model with a 5++? doesn't make sense...

Overall, the book just seems like a poorly translated book between the 2 systems...

Experiment 626 wrote:
This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

I think that is the most surprising thing about it. As allowing multiple viable builds has pretty much been a hallmark of the 8th books released.

Depressing reading. I'm painting some of the new plastics at the moment and it had stirred my curiosity to go and find out how the army played these days. I was hoping for something balanced and interesting, but the book sounds absolutely awful due to all the randomness. Will not pay out for those rules.

 Eldarain wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

I think that is the most surprising thing about it. As allowing multiple viable builds has pretty much been a hallmark of the 8th books released.

Agreed. I've only ever seen two builds that work: Nurgle (obviously) and Tzeentch with the Wand of Whimsy on the Lord.

 John Rainbow wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

I think that is the most surprising thing about it. As allowing multiple viable builds has pretty much been a hallmark of the 8th books released.

Agreed. I've only ever seen two builds that work: Nurgle (obviously) and Tzeentch with the Wand of Whimsy on the Lord.

Caco Bomb seems like a good build.

 Makutsu wrote:
If I would add that this is a horribly translated book from the 40k one, trying to match the 2 books is just stupid.

The Warpstorm/Reign of Chaos, Reign of Chaos has almost no way to manipulate outside of Fateweaver's reroll...
Warpstorm at least has a warlord trait that can reroll it, the Reign of Chaos is just do or die... Silly as heck...

And Scaly Skin for 40k? a 6+ armor save on a model with a 5++? doesn't make sense...

Overall, the book just seems like a poorly translated book between the 2 systems...

I wouldn't call it a 'poorly translated version of the 40k book' honestly, rather it's simply a half-arsed & wholly unfinished version of the 40k book...
1. Reign of Chaos would be fine if: a) Instruments worked exactly the same way as they do in 40k, and b) if the whole thing took place in the shooting phase just like in 40k & thus also put a stop to unfairly sodomising the Daemon player more often than not in the Magic Phase.

2. Gifts simply need to be organised, (ie: put all the defensive Gifts into the Greater table), AND be something beyond just lazy-as-feth duplicates of even more BRB weapons.
Plus, give us something actually usable instead of crap like the bull "kill your own 500+ pts Greater for 1-3 more PD!" stupidity.
Oh, and some Magic Banners of our own wouldn't be amiss either... At the very least a special 'Standard of Chaos Glory' that makes a unit Stubborn (or other effect/whatever) for the BSB to carry about.

3. Inspiring Presence/Hold Your Ground doesn't work for enmity units only! (ie: General/BSB of Khorne can't give IP or 'Hold Your Ground' to Slaany units and vice-versa. Ditto for Tzeentch/Nurgle)
Still good and fluffy, but makes multi-god function properly and is more akin to how Icons work in 40k. (and isn't senselessly hamstringing just us for no damn reason!)

Those three things would go a long way towards fixing some of the more glaring internal issues. (especially fixing the giant clusterf*** those Gift tables are!!!)

 Makutsu wrote:

 John Rainbow wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
This is far from "not a bad book" as thedarkavenger put it... More like the 'most pigeonholed book' of 8th edition.

I think that is the most surprising thing about it. As allowing multiple viable builds has pretty much been a hallmark of the 8th books released.

Agreed. I've only ever seen two builds that work: Nurgle (obviously) and Tzeentch with the Wand of Whimsy on the Lord.

Caco Bomb seems like a good build.

Caco Bomb like the Epi list is also a very good way to lose friends and ensure you're labeled a WAAC/power-gaming so-and-so.

As for the Wand, I find I'm taking it less and less, unless I'm up against an army who will be spamming lots of little spells (like VC's/TK's) AND if I can pair it alongside the +1 free DD gift from the Exalted table. Overall, I'm casting less and less with the LoC, as those Pinkies & Tzheralds tend to hog my casting dices like champs, and Lore of Metal is god-awful alongside Tzeentch.
The E.Blade + ASF on the other hand turn the LoC into a decent enough beatstick, which is something a mono-Tzeentch force especially is begging for.

Outside of a Tzeentch army, the Kipper is a much better Greater Daemon overall as Slaanesh magic is the shizz. Phantasmagoria + Slicing Shards = pasted unit, while Acquiescence + Hysterical Frenzy are fun little Hexes that screw with movement. And that's before we even consider the brokenness of an area-effect Cacophonic Choir!

Yeah the only 2 viable builds that we can create and labeled as WAAC player...

 Makutsu wrote:
Yeah the only 2 viable builds that we can create and labeled as WAAC player...

Well, just saying you play DoC is still enough in a goodly number of circles to earn you that label...

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
Yeah the only 2 viable builds that we can create and labeled as WAAC player...

Well, just saying you play DoC is still enough in a goodly number of circles to earn you that label...

How is playing DoC earn WAAC? I didn't even start playing Fantasy until a month ago lol and 40k for Daemons a year ago.

 Makutsu wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
Yeah the only 2 viable builds that we can create and labeled as WAAC player...

Well, just saying you play DoC is still enough in a goodly number of circles to earn you that label...

How is playing DoC earn WAAC? I didn't even start playing Fantasy until a month ago lol and 40k for Daemons a year ago.

Very few people have gotten over their severe butt-hurt from those 3-4 months in 7th ed where DoC were undeniably one of the most heinously broken armies GW has ever produced... (as in, a blind, armsless, dyslexic, inbred 4-year-old with the IQ of a potato could pilot the army to victory.)
Think about how Grey Knights upset the entire game in 5th edition, then multiply by about 9,000! That's 7th ed DoC until Dark Elves/WoC came out.

The number of non-Daemon players who try to claim that the new book is 'balanced' or 'on-par' with the rest of the 8th armies is frankly shocking. Even a cursory glance tells you how badly eff'ed up our book is.
Sure our couple of power lists are solid. But deviate from that even slightly and well, welcome to the world of Wood Elves!

It's not as bad as some people think in my opinion, it's just that the book didn't follow the trend of power for 8th edition.

Tomb King players have stopped lamenting their book, as have most Orcs and Goblins, and Demons certainly are stronger than both of those options. (Unless a random list from demon books meets the OnG version of "The List... but that's sort of my point. TK's don't even have "The List".)

I don't think the Daemon book is hopeless. But it is, clearly, obviously, not a good book. And by good, I do not mean "I can win with this", but "fun for the player and their opponents".

Don't tell me "a book is measured by it's strengths". People complained about the old Daemon, Warriors, and Dark Elves books, too. Because they were stupidly good. And they were not well-made books.

The ultimate goal of any army book is clear: for every option presented within to be a viable, tactical choice, and to be as close in efficiency as the options in other books.

I'll give the designers a break; Daemons are a tricky army, because it's basically four separate armies. Trying to balance each of the aspects of each of the Gods has got to be difficult.

True, but what's frustrating is that I think they got it right with Warriors.

There's external balance, at least given by the marks of the gods, right there.

To some degree.

I think the new Warriors Book is really spot on, with the sole exception of Chimeras being too cheap and Slaughter-Brutes being dumb. The Book feels like a unit of elite bad-asses, but they can be beat through dedicated attacks or bad rolls.

And a super duper awesome daemon prince of Nurgle
and cheap super efficient chariots
and invincible flying BSB of Tzeench
and expensive marauders
and useless mutalith
...

It's a good book, but there are still some glaring imbalances

The Demon Prince is fine. He's a beast in CC true, but he can be brought down with artillery/shooting/spells easily enough. Deal with it like you would a Greater Demon.

Chariot Core is mean, but doesn't win a lot of games.

Flying BSB's only have 50 points to spend on gear. If they have a 3+ ward save, they spent their whole allotment on defense. They might have poison or a breath weapon but thats going to be about it.

Marauders expensive? They were too cheap at 4 points and now too expensive at 6? Empire Players would kill for a 6 point guy with WS 4 and I 4. I run a lot of marauders and I feel they are perfect, with the exception of GW's costing a point too much.

The Mutalith is silly, but with so many elves around I'm considering giving it play time.

Warpsolution wrote:
I don't think the Daemon book is hopeless. But it is, clearly, obviously, not a good book. And by good, I do not mean "I can win with this", but "fun for the player and their opponents".

Don't tell me "a book is measured by it's strengths". People complained about the old Daemon, Warriors, and Dark Elves books, too. Because they were stupidly good. And they were not well-made books.

The ultimate goal of any army book is clear: for every option presented within to be a viable, tactical choice, and to be as close in efficiency as the options in other books.

I'll give the designers a break; Daemons are a tricky army, because it's basically four separate armies. Trying to balance each of the aspects of each of the Gods has got to be difficult.

I wouldn't give them a break at all. The designers got it right in 40k - even mono Khorne isn't nearly as lamentable as people try to claim it is. (and I'd argue that Epi is still pretty broken!)

There's no excuse at all for this farcical book we've been sadly b****-slapped with, beyond sheer incompetence and outright laziness on the part of the author.
Most players with even a general rudimentary understanding of the game could come up with at least a couple easy 'fixes' to make DoC more balanced along the lines of the rest of the 8th book.

The Gift tables in particular for example are just pure stink. A single read-through shows up how useless the Greater table especially is, while the only real reason to ever actually roll your dice on the Exalted table is to simply go for the '6' result. (otherwise, default to the Tome or E.Blade 99% of the time.)

Experiment 626 wrote:
There's no excuse at all for this farcical book we've been sadly b****-slapped with, beyond sheer incompetence and outright laziness on the part of the author.

I said I'd give them a break, as in, I recognize the possibility and inevitability of mistakes, not that those mistakes are okay.
You're clearly upset by the book. But your colorful language, however entertaining, isn't going to help. Heh. If anything, the design team might just decide to keep Daemons where they are, after all the abuse they've been getting.

My hope: they had a few ideas about 9th edition knocking around when they made this book. Some of the problems with this book are totally independent from the main rules, but maybe some of them will be less awful later on?

Expiriment 626, have you considered working on a Fandex? I'd gladly help in such an endeavor. Even if you never play with it, it might go a ways towards alleviating the pain. Or, you know, make you all the more bitter. But the offer's on the table!

The truth is that the only reason DoC players are as bent out of shape about the state of their book is because it swung so far away from the terror the last incarnation of Daemons brought to the table.

Books that have always been considered less than competitive have sat in the lower-tier of the warhammer community for generations, but those players (while they/we still complain) have learned to live with it.

I agree with warpsolution, you clearly dislike the book, we have all read it in the seemingly infinite pages of rants/ rabbles. Time for you to switch armies or write a fandex/ house rules that help you out with your group.

Pervertdhermit wrote:
The truth is that the only reason DoC players are as bent out of shape about the state of their book is because it swung so far away from the terror the last incarnation of Daemons brought to the table.

Books that have always been considered less than competitive have sat in the lower-tier of the warhammer community for generations, but those players (while they/we still complain) have learned to live with it.

I agree with warpsolution, you clearly dislike the book, we have all read it in the seemingly infinite pages of rants/ rabbles. Time for you to switch armies or write a fandex/ house rules that help you out with your group.

Actually, I haven't even seen the old book (7th edition?) and I still think the new Daemons are horribly balanced internally.

There's a difference between being a low-tier(external balance) book and a book that has no viable options but 5-6 units out of 20+ units(internal balance).

I am pretty sure Daemons still win right now but only with 1-3 cut and paste lists with almost no difference whatsoever.

Not sure if this is OP but OP Jezzails seems like they will destroy beasts.

Eh. A Jezzail does something like 0.2 wounds/turn at short range to a Beast of Nurgle. At 20pts/model, you need an absurd number of them.
I'd prefer Slaves + a Warpfire Thrower or the Warp Lightning Cannon.

Pervertdhermit wrote:
The truth is that the only reason DoC players are as bent out of shape about the state of their book is because it swung so far away from the terror the last incarnation of Daemons brought to the table.

Books that have always been considered less than competitive have sat in the lower-tier of the warhammer community for generations, but those players (while they/we still complain) have learned to live with it.

I'm pretty sure most Daemon players are bent out of shape because the new book is just frustrating as hell to use no matter what type of list you're running...
In a competitive tournament setting, where time is limited, the 'explanation phase' of trying to describe how everything works and rolling up all your spells/gifts gets everything from politely raised eyebrows to outright hate about 'time wasting shenanigans'. Then you still have the Reign of Comedy to deal with, which a solid number of competitive players tend to hate because of how it can really screw-up the game - not to mention the rolling vs. every affected unit and then potentially yet more rolling for damage, etc... (though it tends to be far harsher to the DoC player overall)
Honestly, if you don't know how to run your rolling and the RoC debacle like a well-oiled machine, you'll almost never limp through a complete game within the typical 2 - 2.5 hours time limit per round.

In a friendly pick-up game, especially against someone who you don't really know and isn't familiar at all about all the added rolling, it simply slows the game to an absolute crawl - especially the magic phase!
I've had opponents outright refuse to play against my Tzeentch Daemons because of these issues. They simply don't want to put up with all the added random tables and consider it 'unfair' how I can randomly semi-tailor my characters against their army.

The crap internal balance just makes the army itself boring to use as there's really very little room for actually trying out new ideas/lists, while the Gift tables are so god-awful it makes it difficult to really add character to your characters. (who are almost all overcosted due to their complete lack of reliable protection.)

Pervertdhermit wrote:
I agree with warpsolution, you clearly dislike the book, we have all read it in the seemingly infinite pages of rants/ rabbles. Time for you to switch armies or write a fandex/ house rules that help you out with your group.

Against like-minded opponents who understand the issues of the new DoC book, they just let me stick to the old book because I don't cheese it out...
Not so much of an option outside of a few set games though, since most people seem overjoyed at how DoC have been dealt such a poor hand.