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I have ventured into daemons recently and i have hit a conundrum among other daemon players. When it comes to the heavy support slot it is a battle to the death between DPs and Soul Grinders. I realize that for the most part they are completely different but they are in competition for the heavy hand role of any daemon list. So i'm going to throw down some knowledge on the two and see what everyone thinks

Daemon Prince: Beautiful adaption to any army. The marks make the daemon prince a real jack of all trades. Whether it be smashing infantry or shooting tanks down, the daemon prince does them all very well. The only real problem with daemon princes is their mobility and cost of upgrades. Since everything can't assault when they land, tanks and other targets get a turn to run away from you. You can give these bad boys some wings but you really have to think whether or not you absolutely need them. Since mech is king in fifth edition mobility is a real issue . Another thing is that daemon princes (aside from bolt of tzeentch) have to rely on close combat for tank killing. Even with this drawback they are still an amazing unit to any daemon army.

Soul Grinders: Aside from being an awesome looking model, IMHO they are the best walker that is possible to get in 40k. They can have an arsenal of deadly weapons and can flatten mobs or pop a tank with the same vehicle. They also can fight decently in close combat ,4 strength 10 attacks and having fleet is nothing to shake a stick at. They look like they're gold but they have their flaws. First of all having WS and BS 3 makes them pretty un reliable. Also being so nasty makes them a prime target very quickly in most games they actually won't do anything due to having all the weapons destroyed with one result. When played right they can be devastating but having to deep strike makes them hard to use.

So Who is king? Who is the most competitive?

It really depends on the rest of your army. I run an all Slaanesh army, so I opted for 2x SG to add some shooting to pry open transports and some high strength. I like the Slaanesh princes, but I got sick of running all over the place chasing Valks.

On the other hand, if you run Tzeetch Princes they are pretty awesome. They are roughly equivalent to a DP in terms of shooting but they have 4 wounds and a 4++. T5 makes them pretty durable as well and they come in pretty cheap.

Right now I use 1 DP and 2x SG, I will probably make another SG out of the extra legs I have from the other two and use them. AV 13 on a walker is much more difficult to deal with than most people realize and they have a lot of weapons to remove so glancing them to death is tough.

It really depends on the point level you play at. Soul Grinders are viable up until about 1750. At that level, the amount of anti-tank weaponry become overwhelming. Below, try to take all three. They become very overwhelming to opponents. But realize, they are there to shoot. we have enough melee units. Keep the grinders in the rear and shell everything.

I take 3 Princes in all my lists, having just started Daemons, they perform exceptionally under many circumstances, however, a few unlucky rolls and well...

Though Soul Grinders are great to shrug off the small arms fire, whereas Princes can't.

Heres the dealio: it depends what your list runs.

Soul Grinders: a great all-around heavy support choice if your army is in need of shooting. These go great in slaneesh, nurgle, or khorne only themed armies as they have no shooting. If your list is going to pack a lot of horrors, I tend to recommend princes over grinders (more bolts = better). The bad part about grinders is its damn near impossible to give them cover, and they can be easily exploded by meltas and things. ALL anti-tank weapons will focus these down so they generally do not last long.

Princes: Awesome models, good stats, lots of ways to go with them. If your doing a fateweaver build these are a must; or monster-mash style lists. These can be set up to clobber vehicles, kill troops, whatever you need them to do. Problem is, they can get very points heavy.

Personally, I run fateweaver with 3 MoT princes and they perform fantastically. Opponents get frustrated trying to kill 4 wound MC's with 4++ rerollable saves lol

/Facepalm.

This post should frankly burn.

EDIT: And not zid's. This, mine, here, thingie, with the reading comprehension of a donkey...

Oscarius wrote:/Facepalm.

This post should frankly burn.

EDIT: And not zid's. This, mine, here, thingie, with the reading comprehension of a donkey...

? I don't understand this, whats wrong with Zids post? He's basically right.

I prefer DP's over SG's because of the reliability thing, but I can see the power of SG's especially at lower pointlevel games.

Cilithan

I would vote DP always is better because you can build them to fill any role your army needs and they are just more durable in the long run!

I'd go all one or all the other. If you have to split I'd say 2 grinders 1 Prince. The problem is you have no other armor available so if you don't saturate targets your opponent goes "Oh look a single piece of armor? My lascannons / Missile Launchers / Generic Ranged AT goes there".

I always take two walkers and a Nurgle Prince. The shooting provided by the Grinders is key.

I was personally thinking that the grinders might be just too big of targets to really do anything. They're always out in the open no matter how much you try to hide them.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:I'd go all one or all the other. If you have to split I'd say 2 grinders 1 Prince. The problem is you have no other armor available so if you don't saturate targets your opponent goes "Oh look a single piece of armor? My lascannons / Missile Launchers / Generic Ranged AT goes there".

That's sort of true, but a lot of the guns you would shoot at grinder are also needed to take out other heavy hitting units in the enemy's face.

Lascannons, plasma guns, meltaguns, missle launchers are the preferred guns against a grinder, but also against bloodcrushers and bloodthisters. Just because you don't have lots of vehicles doesn't mean you can't over saturate the enemies heavy shooting. It all depends on the build.

bigblackzach242 wrote:I was personally thinking that the grinders might be just too big of targets to really do anything. They're always out in the open no matter how much you try to hide them.

Grinders can really wreck things; the fact they come with a battlecannon and are cheap for what they are make them awesome. But, as you said, they can't hide, and if someone really wants one dead, its way easier than a DP.

Either way though, its all in what else you take

They don't come with battlecannons (They can upgrade to one), that's a defiler. . .

I just played a 2k point teams tournament as a Daemon/Daemon pair. My partner brought a Tzeetch list that was heavy on Horrors with bolt (3x Bolt) and had a Lord of Change (4 total Bolts). I brought my Slaanesh Daemons (Fiends, Nettes, Seekers, KoS).

We played 3x Soul Grinders in the game and I have not used them before this much at all. I was amazed at how durable they are. I was also amazed how many opportunities I had to get them into cover and to keep them out of Melta range.

In 3 games we lost 2x Soul Grinders. 1 to a Multi Melta, 1 to a Railgun. Otherwise, they wrecked house more significantly than my DP's have.

Although we have a significant amount of shooting, I have to agree with Zid as a general principle. Soul Grinders are a great addition if you are not playing Tzeetch in your list. For theme purposes I play pure Slaanesh and they enable me to bring in a tough long range shooting unit that, at the least, makes it possible to utilize the shooting phase as more than a run phase.

I think the choice is based on your list. A heavy crusher list needs something to get rid of dreadnoughts and the DP can do that. In lists that son't fear dreadnoughts as much, then Soul Grinders offer more opportunity to do damage on their own.

i personally run a sg and 2 mot princes.use the princes as a duo and the grinder for distraction.