Chaos Daemons Armies

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**Footsloggin**

My friend, who started Imperial Guard about a year ago, decided to give me his Chaos Daemons in exchange for the few Guard vehicles I had. Seeing as he had been wanting to play a new army, I gladly accepted. He moved away, and now I have a few boxes of Daemons, and a few unpainted models...

My question now is:

Are Chaos Daemons fun? I've always had a deep love for Papa Nurgle's units, T5 and Slow but Purposeful is fine with me... I have a small amount Nurgle units, a few Tzeentch units, and a miniscule amount of Khornite(Spelling?) units...

Daemons seem fun, unpredicatable, and specialized, I would like to try them out, but would enjoy some 5th. ed. Tips, and some tips for the race in general.

**MrGiggles**

I know a couple of folks who play them and they enjoy them well enough. They're definitely a bit of a gambler's army though. A lot of your success will depend on your luck with the dice. Getting the correct half your army to show up is big as are your reserve rolls in general to get stuff in on time.

They've got some neat units at pretty much every section of the FOC. They often lend themselves better to hand to hand thank shooting, but their shooting can be pretty nasty if you focus on it.

**timetowaste85**

Daemons were my first 40K army coming over from fantasy: I absolutely LOVE playing them, and they're lots of fun. When they play well, they are AMAZING and your opponents will be hard pressed to stop you. On days that the dice hate you, well...there's always another day. My advice is this, if you play: do NOT play cautiously. You have a fast, hard hitting army, and each unit has a strong point: seekers are amazing fast cav, being able to charge huge distances, Bloodcrushers are resilient and strong, plaguebearers are the BEST objective holders in the game, and pavane of Slaanesh is a great item on Daemon Princes. All of the elite choices are great, other than beasts of Nurgle: avoid them at all costs. The other 3 choices are phenomenal. Bloodletters are some of the nastiest troop choices in the game: a 5+ invul, power weapons, and furious charge. It's a lot of fun, and I can go on and on, but play it and enjoy-I love my daemon army, and even though many say they don't belong in 40k, they do and they are great. Give em a run and see for yourself.

**Footsloggin**

I'm used to not playing cautiously, I run nids now, and sending units in suicidally is what I do best...

And I wouldnt mind if you went on and on...

**Pen≥Sword**

I literally just played my first game with Daemons today and I gotta say they're pretty fun.

I took Fateweaver and he was a blast, nigh impossible to kill.

Most of my army was shot to death and my second half came in slowly but surely. All in all it really is all luck in the dice. You gotta play hard to win hard.

**MechaEmperor7000**

everything in your army hits hard, but your bread and butter troops, as well as your fast attack and all but one Elite will be squishy as hell. Doesn't help that your opponent effectively gets a "free" round of shooting on you. But the rewards (and the look on their faces) are priceless.

**Maenus_Rajhana**

I greatly enjoy my Daemons. As has been said before, play aggressively. Anything with Blood in the name will outright murder what it gets in contact with. Use Slaanesh for fast skirmishers and anti-horde, Nurgle as your anvil, and Khorne as the hammer, with Tzeentch providing fire support.

Just always remember, your blood too is welcome.

**timetowaste85**

I highly recommend using Flamers of Tzeentch too, which I didn't mention before. Nids and any units that are not in transports will shake with fear at them-they are one of the most disgusting units in the game. They are exactly as broken as they sound and my friends around here shake with fear when they see them hit the table. Flame templates that cause glancing hits on 4+ against vehicles, and cause wounds on units on a 4+ w/ no armor save are disgusting beyond belief. Don't run a unit of more than 4 though: you really don't need to, as 4 should kill every model they hit: I've run 3 for 105 points and wiped out 260 pts of terminators: the first time I took daemons to a tournament, I thoroughly decimated a friend of mine who was on the top ten tables at a Califorfonia GT: make no mistake, daemons are busted, and there should be at least one unit of flamers. Preferably two.

**Footsloggin**

Thank you, I have seen Flamers of Tzeentch around here... We have a single person at my LGS, and he is a respectable player, with his good and bad days. Though he runs a Tzeentch/Khorn army, with a few Plaugebearers to hold objectives.

I've also heard bloodcrushers are amazing in CC. Any thoughts?

**timetowaste85**

Bloodcrushers are great, but semi expensive and you really have to pay for all of the upgrades so that you can spread wounds around and not lose any until necessary. Throwing a herald in is also a pretty good idea (cough* Skulltaker *cough). They should kill just about any unit they hit, but as they are slow models (counting as infantry) you will want to run at least 1 or 2 Slaanesh daemons that will have the Pavane of Slaanesh: I recommend The Masque since she is cheap, and she can move 3 different units around to get in range for your 'Crushers. My personal preference for character layout would be The Masque, Fateweaver and Skulltaker, but YMMV.

**Footsloggin**

Hmmm... Skulltaker was the thing that wrecked my termies!

Daemon Princes with MoN and flight good?

**MechaEmperor7000**

Princes should come in threes, to leviate any long range weapon problems. Same goes for Soul Grinders. In general though the HS section is one of the best sections in any army, and princes can be tailored to fit whatever your army lacks. If you need a durable assaulter, then go with a Nurgle prince with wings.

**Footsloggin**

Hmm... Looks like it's time again for.

MONEY TO THE GW MONEY EATING GODS!!!

Would a combination of DPs and Soul Grinders work?

**MechaEmperor7000**

Probably not. A single DP would fall to concentrated Heavy Weapons fire. Eternal Warrior is good, but no matter what the DP only has 4 wounds. A Soul Grinder, likewise, only has one "wound" and being hit by a lone lascannon can do it in. Running only one of either will result in it being singled out and killed, meaning the resources would have been better gone to some more crushers or other units.

**Footsloggin**

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:Probably not. A single DP would fall to concentrated Heavy Weapons fire. Eternal Warrior is good, but no matter what the DP only has 4 wounds. A Soul Grinder, likewise, only has one "wound" and being hit by a lone lascannon can do it in. Running only one of either will result in it being singled out and killed, meaning the resources would have been better gone to some more crushers or other units.

So Pairs or more?

**timetowaste85**

Triples. Go triple daemon princes OR triple soul grinders. Both are great, and you can't really go wrong with either choice, but don't mix and match. I prefer Nurgle Princes or Slaanesh Princes for that Pavane AND you can get hit and run for the Slaanesh ones: trust me, it's amazing on the Princes. A lot of people suggest Tzeentch Princes, but I don't really find them too useful and I haven't run one yet. Also, stay away from Khorne Princes completely: the other 3 are far better in every way

**Shas'O Dorian**

Daemons are interesting. However I find that they fall well out of the competitive cirlce amongst upper-level gamers. Against someone who is inexperienced they will destroy him but against a more experienced player who will not freak out at the thought of an entire DS army they are below average.

Yes people will argue and hate me for this but let's look at the facts.
Your army comes in piece-meal. - Now I have less targets on the board to address at any given time.
Without Icons many of your units can fall prey to a bad scatter roll & then a mishap. Or you can be safe & DS far away from me but then I get in more free shooting.
You have the armor save of an imperial guardsman. - Yes it's invulnerable but it's still only a 5+ for your troops.
When you DS in, unless you roll a high run you're nice & bunched up for pie plate goodness.

Am I saying the army is crap? No, it can be run well but it will take some practice. What I'm saying is you will run into a lot of speed bumps while learning this army & don't be discouraged by them. People have given advice about which units to use & for the most part they are correct. Stick with it & it'll be an army you can have a lot of fun with. But unless you're a really good player I'd avoid taking it to tournaments.

**Footsloggin**

Tzeentch Princes seem to be more fire support than anything, and with only two shooting attacks that seem useful...

How would I go about deciding types? Nurgle has Resialiance(Spelling?) whilst Slaanesh has speed... Could I mix and match among them to find which I like best, I.E. Two Slaanesh princes with one Nurgle, or vice versa? I'm going to have play test a lot of my army changes out on the field! Even better!

**timetowaste85**

Absolutely, mix and match. The builds that I find useful are:
Slaanesh
-wings
-Unholy Might
-Iron Hide
-Pavane of Slaanesh
-Aura of Acquiescence
-Soporific Musk

Nurgle
-Iron Hide
-Noxious Touch
-Cloud of Flies

If points are an issue, leave off the wings: the Pavane should get you where you need anyway, it's kind of a reverse fleet and it can benefit a bunch of your units and pull enemies out of cover. The Nurgle prince(s) should tackle units because it wounds ANY non-vehicle on a 2+ from noxious touch, and the Slaanesh prince(s) can handle anything, but if in combat against units they have hit and run and can zip out of combat only to run right back in the next turn

If you go with the 3 soul grinders though, give them ALL the upgrades, not just one. The one game when you NEED that upgrade that you left off...it'll cost you. TRUST me

**Footsloggin**

To the above, Shas'O, I don't play tournaments, so it's fine with me

. AND I'm the only GK/Inq player at my LFGS, so I shouldn't have too much trouble with them...

What about heralds, any advice on taking them? Tzeentch one's seem effective...

**MechaEmperor7000**

Chaos Daemons really is a fluff army more than anything. Take a good look at it. Almost all of the choices are remnants from the Daemons in 3.5 CSM Codex. Only Beast of Nurgle and Fiends are truely "new" units, everything else previously appeared in a book where they were support units (Bloodcrushers are iffy, since they're a combination of two existing units. Soul Grinders, however, are Defilers with Mutated Hulls). Bloodletters could have held their own if they had kept their Iron Hide. Don't expect it to be super powerful, just have fun with it.

As for Princes, Nurgle and Slaanesh are the best. Go with Khorne or Tzeentch only if you're running a mono-god army (The tzeentch one is really useful imo, since it gives an otherwise shooting army some serious CC muscle)

**Footsloggin**

To me, Fluffy=fun, and fun=win. So, thus using the transitive property of equality here, Fluffy=win! Even if it's a loss, when I play, I love the game.

Daemons seem to support the fact that while they are more random than some other races, they have potential to be effective should you want them to be. Besides, I love the mutated grotesque models!

**bobbythes**

soul grinder comes into the battle flicks its tongue and kills a land rider which blows up killing tactical squad!!!!!