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So I'm looking at a way to play warhammer with a smaller army than my Orcs and Goblins-- because I feel like, ultimately, I often shy away from playing a game when my army is so massive to field. I also have Bretonnia and I also play 40k. I feel like I'm sure they'd be a decent romp in 40k, because of the randomness of their arrival and so on (something I enjoy as a traditional Ork/Orc player) so the fact that they can double-up in game systems for me is a huge plus considering I don't often do well in the hobby aspect of the game. (1 army to paint is better than two, for me )

With liking them in 40,000 though, what I need to be convinced of is the fact that they can be enjoyable in Fantasy as well. If someone can help me answer the following questions about Daemons in fantasy, that would be a tremendous help to me:


Now, my main question is as the title suggests: Are Daemons an enjoyable army to play as and play against in Warhammer Fantasy? Further, What makes or does not make Daemons a fun army to play and play against in fantasy?

Bonus info: As well, what can I expect from them in fantasy when I field them on the table: (playstyle/composition/strats etc)?

I too, am interested in this. But I can at least touch on what I see as the unfun part.

Tzeentchian magic: absolutely disgusting. Their magic lore is nasty and Fateweaver is hands down one of the most BRUTAL casters in the game, to the point of dominating anyone who doesn't have OBSCENE amount of anti-magic/ways to kill him.

Greater Demons: Don't know about all of them, but the Bloodthirster is a NASTY beast and hard to deal with. Unless they have cannons. This may be a pretty moot point with more accurate cannons, but some armies might just crumble to monsters like them, so be prepared to have a few people shy away from you in casual games if you field them.

Overall, daemons in Fantasy seem to lack all the fun parts about their 40k counterparts. They aren't random, not many really crazy chaos powers. Just brutally efficient killers. Kinda that in and of itself sours them for me. :/ Your mileage may vary.

If you go mono-god, people will think it's awesome and enjoy playing you.

If you mix... expect to hear complaints about it being an army book with a huge number of undercosted units...

Daemons probably also still have a bit of the "Those are the guys that broke the last edition! " stigma left over.

I don't remotely think Daemons are broke. I think they can be a bit one-note. That's one problem.

Also they have the most expensive chars in the game. Khairos Facesmusher, 650 pts. Meet new flying Necrosphinx with HKB at 225. Yeah, he's got a good ward, but don't tell me you aren't pissing your pants to see it.

Some of their models are really meh in terms of looks.

The Greater Daemons are a massive risk because of their massive cost. But I do think you'll get people complaining if you have just a bunch of heroes buffing units. Because those are indeed very good.

I like the lore. Every army in Warhammer is at...war. It's life or death. Everyone's pissed. Daemons, it's the Great Game. Meh. If Khorne daemons go rampage and kill a bunch of their "brother" khornites, who cares, it's still death. They're the only true immortals with a real immortal outlook.

I love playing them, and against them with my elves. The biggest problem for me is the lace of plastic nurgle.

The lords are ridiculously expensive in points, I'd not take a lord until over 2200, using a hero only led list is viable at 2000.; My first major tourney with that list got me 11th out of 64, so a respectable showing.

DukeRustfield wrote:I don't remotely think Daemons are broke. I think they can be a bit one-note. That's one problem.

Also they have the most expensive chars in the game. Khairos Facesmusher, 650 pts. Meet new flying Necrosphinx with HKB at 225. Yeah, he's got a good ward, but don't tell me you aren't pissing your pants to see it.

Some of their models are really meh in terms of looks.

The Greater Daemons are a massive risk because of their massive cost. But I do think you'll get people complaining if you have just a bunch of heroes buffing units. Because those are indeed very good.

I like the lore. Every army in Warhammer is at...war. It's life or death. Everyone's pissed. Daemons, it's the Great Game. Meh. If Khorne daemons go rampage and kill a bunch of their "brother" khornites, who cares, it's still death. They're the only true immortals with a real immortal outlook.

Kairos has got a lot of spells that can one hit kill the sphinx. It's not that scary. Plus Karios can move 20 inches and just avoid the necrosphinx as much as it likes. And only 1 of the attacks that the necrosphinx has is HKB. I wouldn't worry. I stopped playing deamons as it got a bit samey after a while that and I use them mainly in 40K so the round bases was pretty messy.

Thats why I've got tomb kings now!

obsidianaura wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:I don't remotely think Daemons are broke. I think they can be a bit one-note. That's one problem.

Also they have the most expensive chars in the game. Khairos Facesmusher, 650 pts. Meet new flying Necrosphinx with HKB at 225. Yeah, he's got a good ward, but don't tell me you aren't pissing your pants to see it.

Some of their models are really meh in terms of looks.

The Greater Daemons are a massive risk because of their massive cost. But I do think you'll get people complaining if you have just a bunch of heroes buffing units. Because those are indeed very good.

I like the lore. Every army in Warhammer is at...war. It's life or death. Everyone's pissed. Daemons, it's the Great Game. Meh. If Khorne daemons go rampage and kill a bunch of their "brother" khornites, who cares, it's still death. They're the only true immortals with a real immortal outlook.

Kairos has got a lot of spells that can one hit kill the sphinx. It's not that scary. Plus Karios can move 20 inches and just avoid the necrosphinx as much as it likes. And only 1 of the attacks that the necrosphinx has is HKB. I wouldn't worry. I stopped playing deamons as it got a bit samey after a while that and I use them mainly in 40K so the round bases was pretty messy.

Thats why I've got tomb kings now!

I magnatize my round bases to square bases to avoid problems.

I do that too its just that the monsterous creatures use bigger base sizes in 40k than they do in warhamer :(

That they do, that's why I have Fateweaver on a square one, and magnets set up for round.

Lol necrosphinx vs kairos... Sure if you get lucky enough to get into combat with him, THEN hit that HKB on him you have the rerollable 3+ ward to deal with...

Daemons are a very strong book this edition, but they are far from broken...

Bloodletters are only T3 with a 5+ ward, they die in DROVES, (course they kill like crazy too).

Greater daemons (with the exception of kairos) are surprisingly easy to kill. Stonethrowers, cannons and the like constantly gib my 500-600 point greater daemons. a 5+ ward is not that great to hide behind (kairos is an exception).

Flamers are disgusting for their cost, if you dont want to be "that guy" limit the number of these that you take.

I feel they as an opponent they are more fun to play against in fantsay than there are in 40K.

Deamons in 40K has got to be the most boring army to play against.

Fantasy is more fun although they lack something to do in every phase (shooting)

VikingScott wrote:Fantasy is more fun although they lack something to do in every phase (shooting)

uhhhhhh..... flamers.....

Quite possibly the most undercosted, and best shooting unit in the game....

30 inch threat range, usually hit on 4's or 5's Str 4 magical flaming... D6 shots per model.... 2 wounds, T4, 5+ ward... 35 points....

Playing with my slaanesh army, I love playing them as they get stuck in VERY Quickly and people really like playing against them as they look so cool!

I also play Slaanesh/Tzeench which is highly effective, but as previous posters have said I get moaned at for all the firepower/magic and CC hitting lol.

good thing about Daemons is you have so many lovely themes you can do. Or if you dont want to follow a theme you can mix/match a wide variety of units/gods.

In terms of ranged/magical power Tzeench is the god to go for.

Close combat power, Khorne every time.

Nurgle, fairly hard hitting, but durability is the advantage here.

Slaanesh, high initiatives, lots of attacks, fast moving and compentant magic.

The thing I find sad about DOC is the units I love the most for 40k are meh in WFB and visa versa.

I love fiends but they are pretty meh in WFB.

I tend to use fiends as distractions and one hitters. Their fast movement makes them great for hitting small units and outflanking especially when combined with seekers. (also lots of attacks etc)

They are pretty bad against larger or strong units though..unless you can afford to field them in blocks of 6 >.<

There are a few things you'll have going for you. You'll never break from combat, you always have a 5+ ward, and your immune to psych. That and the hobby advantage of being able to do a mono-god army which can offer some fun modeling chances.

On the other hand, even though you'll never break from combat, if you lost by enough and roll poorly for your demonic instability test, your could lost a good number of models. Armour is something that seems to be lacking in a deamon army, but a ward that is never modified (you pretty much always have heavy armour) seems fair enough to me. True, you have some wicked expensive lord level characters, but you also have some slightly undercosted and badass heros (skulltaker, the masque).

Almost all the troop choices have ups and downs. Nurgle is slow, but will bog down a unit with ease. Khorne may not have the highest toughness but will smash face with a good weapon skill and strength (and killing blow). Tzeench gives you spells depending on the size of your horror unit, though they aren't very tough. Slaanesh is fast with a good number of strikes but as with tzeentch, they aren't the toughest around.

A common list i've seem is a horde of bloodletters (40) with a horde of horrors (40 for the lvl 4 spell) and a smaller unit of deamonettes (30) with some heralds, a unit of 3 bloodcrushers, and a deamon prince with flying. Probably missing a few things but thats the general idea.

They can be fun to play against, though a little frustrating but that's just how any army is when they have a good general. I haven't played as them, so can't really comment on that part.

I think Horrors are cool looking, but I don't see much use for them if you got a real caster(s). Especially compared with Bloodletters/Daemonettes/Nurgles.

As fast as Khairos can move, the Sphinx moves the same. If you're going to just fly him off the board, you're using 225 pts to scare away 625 pts, which is a good deal. If he's too far from combat, Khairos not going to be able to cast spells on anyone. And the sphinx has one HKB but he's got 4 other attacks on top of that. He'll eventually kill Khairos unless he gets help or lucky with some spells.

good thing about horrors is the LOS can be traced from anywhere in the unit.

You can take a banner and hide a caster within the unit.

Also you may lose some to attrition but they stick around longer than a caster running about alone.

And ontop of that they can fight in combat etc etc..although obviously not very well lol.

DukeRustfield wrote:I think Horrors are cool looking, but I don't see much use for them if you got a real caster(s). Especially compared with Bloodletters/Daemonettes/Nurgles.

As fast as Khairos can move, the Sphinx moves the same. If you're going to just fly him off the board, you're using 225 pts to scare away 625 pts, which is a good deal. If he's too far from combat, Khairos not going to be able to cast spells on anyone. And the sphinx has one HKB but he's got 4 other attacks on top of that. He'll eventually kill Khairos unless he gets help or lucky with some spells.

I did not think the sphinx could march, meaning Kairos has a 20 inch move to the sphinxes 10 inch move...

No No NO, this is partially a left over from getting bent over by my friend's Mono Nurgle and Mono Tzeentch in 7th but I do not think daemons are fun to play with or against, the book is just a powerfest by a terrible games writer (thanks for the wonderful changes in 8th too!)

cheers

Papasmurf

Just got some random daemons in a trade, 1 Herald on a blood crusher, 10 Bloodletters, and 10 daemonettes. Now what should come next for a legal army? I was thinking flamers followed by pink horors.

ShivanAngel wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:I did not think the sphinx could march, meaning Kairos has a 20 inch move to the sphinxes 10 inch move...

Yeah, you're right. Didn't realize the constructs were also Nek Undead. But still, he's going to need to stay somewhat around the enemy or allies to be of use.

Flamers are a really good unit, pwnage. With some of those, you could probably play a 500pt game almost immediately and not be toooo bad.

I think horrors are underrated. I've had insane success using them as an anvil unit.


Herald with master of sorcery is key. I generally take my dispel scroll here as well. Life magic every time makes this unit even more solid.

Gift of Chaos is very strong as you can choose what model is casting for range, so you can hit a bunch of units every turn, and just wittle them down.

Acardia wrote:I think horrors are underrated. I've had insane success using them as an anvil unit.


Herald with master of sorcery is key. I generally take my dispel scroll here as well. Life magic every time makes this unit even more solid.

Gift of Chaos is very strong as you can choose what model is casting for range, so you can hit a bunch of units every turn, and just wittle them down.

I agree. Pink horrors are very good. With the locust of Tzeench you get a 4+ ward too. Life magic is very cool being able to boost the horrors toughness by 4 can make them very sturdy. Deploy them as a horde and you can get alot of attacks against the enemy. I've won combats with them a surprising amount.

As for the Sphinx it can be taken down by purple son or pit of shades very easily.

Is fateweavers ward really re-rollable? Is that not just 40K?

Fateweaver gets one reroll on any dice per player turn...

Anyone with half a brain will save it in case they fail the HKB ward save.

Of course Tzeench's will didn't even think of that :S