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I am starting a Chaos Space Marines army. I am taking a Daemon Prince as my HQ, and I am unsure of which mark to give him. I have narrowed it down to Tzeentch or Nurgle. My two main opponents, and likely the most frequent, are Imperial Guard and Tau. Now, the Tau have high strength weapons. Barring a railgun, Nurgle will really help out against those sorts of weapons. The only issue I see is with AP3 or better weapons, a 5+ invuln is pretty crap for a Daemon Prince, let's be honest. For this reason, I am leaning towards the Mark of Tzeentch, as the Imperial Guard seem to have a lot of AP3 or better, as well as really high strength weapons, battle cannons, vanquisher cannons, lascannons etc, and when faced with that, really I want the best invulnerable save I can get my hands on. Keeping this in mind, my Tau friend recently bought himself a Hammerhead, which worries me greatly.

What do you guys think?

(Can I not make a single post without finding a typo, and being compelled to edit it?!)

Daemon princes really find their niche as fire magnets of the "damned if you do/dont" variety. If you shoot the DP, the rhino's full of cult troops make it to your doorstep. If you try to slow the rush of rhino's, the DP will fly up and start belting your face.
Will a MoN help vs Tau? MoN is best against small arms fire, and tau small arms fire is str5 with a pulse rifle (IIRC), stronger than other races small arms. So a normal DP is wounded on 4+, and a nurgle DP on a 5+. Realistically though, that MoN DP is asking for a couple of railguns to the face which will drop him like a sack of - 2+ to wound, 5++ invul? You'll die quick smart. I'm not familiar with too much other Tau weaponry, but plasma rifles will swat that nurgle DP down real quick. Of course, if you go with the MoT, you're asking for a bunch of Fire warriors to pulse rifle your face into the dirt, as your being wounded on a 4+ and your improved invul doesn't count for It might help you against the plasma/railguns, but lets face it, once your close enough, a rapid firing squad or two of FW and a couple of the suits with plasmarifles will drop you. Quickly.

The same thing applies to IG- a MoN will make you practically invincible vs the guards lasguns and close combat attacks, wounding you on a 6+ with your 3+ armour save. But, if there is one thing the guard are able to do its pack in ridiculous amounts of special and heavy weapons. One plasma vet squad has a good chance of knocking you down. But if you go MoT, you will have a much higher survival rate vs that plasmavet squad, leman russ tanks, lascannons etc. But they all still wound you generally on a 2+, and a 4++ does not last forever- especially in the such a shower of high str low AP weaponry. And guardsmen wound you on a 5+. Watching your DP die to a powerblob certainly does suck.

My solution? save points, and go with a Spartan prince Wings, Warptime and thats all she wrote. All you will ever need get two of them too

MoN is fun if you like to laugh at small arms fire. Its really good in cc w/ MEQs, baring PF. However, if the only thing your opponent is shooting at him with is small arms, then you're probably gonna win anyways.

I'd go with MoT, just because it adds better protection (since they get targeted by anti-tanks all day), and opens more doors as far as taking psychic powers goes. Warptime+Wind of Chaos=Fun.

MoS with wings, warptime and lash, worked me over pretty hard

BronzeJon wrote:MoS with wings, warptime and lash, worked me over pretty hard

How can you get warptime AND lash? The codex says only DP with mark of slaanesh can take the lash, but DP is also limited to one power unless he has mark of T.

Of the two, Nurgle is almost always better. You can get a 4+ save vs. shooting by using terrain and your own Rhinos for cover on your way to the enemy. Even in the open, T6 makes you substantially tougher vs. anything S5-S7 which doesn't ignore your armor save, and just as tough against S5-S7 attacks which do (like tau plasma), and means you take HALF as many wounds vs S4 attacks, which are incredibly common in this game.