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Now, while I don't play either army ( would like to play daemons, they look fairly interesting), I've been seeing a lot of GK... stuff about Warp quake and how well GK are geared against Daemons, even without extra gear. My question is, since Blessing of the Blood God is so obscenely good against GK, why don't more people simply take units that can have/come with this gift? I mean, against Purfiers, Hounds get 2+ saves against everything in CC. Cleansing Flame? 2++ save. Force Weapons? 2++ save. This is fantastic for tarpitting Draigo and making his beloved Deathstar sit out for a few turns as he and his unit are stuck in CC trying ineptly to bash the faces of the Hounds in. 17 + Karanak + FoK is 300p, while maxing it out would be 345. Despite the fact that one one model would have Rending (probably Karanak), they easily get the charge, plus FC, so they also strike before the majority of the Paladin (or Purifier) unit (not counting Cleansing Flames, though I have a feeling both CF and Halberds were designed specifically to counter this).

Am I wrong? Or am I right and just a few years too late? Also, is there anything Daemon players can do about Warp Quake?

Believe it or not deamons are actually quite good against GK. all invulnerable and EW nerfs a good amount of GK cheese. Obviously warp quake is a broken potentially auto win power but not a lot of the competstive builds have a lot of strike squads so it's not too bad.

Short version:
GK reputation for annihilating Daemons comes all from Warp Quake. This is something Daemon player cannot really counter at all. If you go second and he has most of the board covered, you're pretty much done.

Good thing is that most lists don't actually have that many Strike Squads, so Warp Quake isn't nearly as prevalent as people say.
And obviously if you get first turn, you can bring half of your army in before he can even use it.

Biggest GK advantages are lost against Daemons. Power weapons are mostly useless, EW ignores instant death.

What they GK have left:
Preferred enemy.
Grenades will make your daemons I1 if GK get charge. They generally shouldn't though.
Daemonbane still works, but has only 1/12 chance of working.
Dark Excommunication is good, but nobody takes it unless they're tailoring to fight Daemons. Dreadknight has it, but any of your greater daemons should kill it easily.

Basically: If you tailor your Daemon army, you should have very good chances of winning the fight. Unless he brings Warp quake spam, in which case your chances of winning drop around 1/4, max.

The save is nice , but there is a good chance WQ puts you out of a charge next turn or all you will hit is a rhino.

daemons low save takes the biggest hit from mid strength high number of shot guns. So you get a 2++ in CC but getting there when half of you army is facing down a ton of psy-cannon and riflemen shoots can be hard. When you do get there the chance of running into a death cult henchman squad is more probable then something else.

It is winnable but a incredible hard match up.

It can also be negated if their librarian takes Dark Excommunication, or takes a dread knight. It stops the blessing of the blood god thing.

The only real way to win is to tailor against GK, because hounds aren't used normally, though bloodthirsters are nice, they'll just be shot at by the psyflemen.

The units that can take Blessing of the Blood God are:

Flesh Hounds
Daemon Prince (Khorne)
BloodThirster
Herald of Khorne

Flesh Hounds work well against GK in Melee, but they do not have much killing power. Instead, you rely on them to charge in and then hold the line. Against other enemies they lack both killing power and resilience, so tend to fold. They also do not have grenades.

Daemon Prince - Khorne is generally viewed as the weakest DP. He does not fill a role that the other variants do not do just as well (if not better) other than beat GK in Melee. Luckily, you usually beat GK in melee anyway, so there is not really a great reason to take this guy.

Bloodthirster - He is expensive with the necessary kit (Unholy Might and Blessing) but a strong choice. You see him quite often in Fateweaver lists where his rerollable saves let him make it into CC with the enemy.

Herald of Khorne - These guys are often viewed as superfluous in a list featuring crushers (a full unit of crushers does his job just as well in many cases). HQ slots are also pretty valuable in the Daemon Codex (Tzeetch Heralds, Fateweaver, Thirster, Keeper) all bring more to the table in most cases.

In short, the reason you do not see these units is while that 2++ might be great against GK, it does not really solve the problems that Daemons have against GK. These problems are:

-No Psychic defense
-Strong high strength long range shooting
-Strong low/high strength (storm bolters/psycannons) mid ranged shooting
-Preferred Enemy
-Psyk Out Grenades

Also, remember you do see....
-Warp Quake
-Dark Excommunication

in tournaments. Maybe these do not appear at the top tables (although HulkSmashes list features both of these) but there is a good chance you will run into them at other levels and they can be devastating.

Anecdotal Evidence: I was playing a 2k tournament match against an opponent using Coteaz and some Interceptors. I got first turn and Deepstruck relatively close but outside the 12" I've Been Expecting You bubble (it was objectives and two of them ended up in my opponents deployment zone). The GK moved in and started shooting while the Interceptors Shunted behind my guys and Warp Quaked the entire middle section of the board.

I could still deploy but it was either into the heart of his army with a lot of mishap potential or far back in my deployment zone. I chose the latter (mistake), when the only way I had to win was to do the former and risk losing a lot of units to mishaps (and they would be shot by Coteaz). Tactical use of Warp Quake can breakup Daemon armies so they can be destroyed in detail.

BotBG does not help with any of these problems.

The gear of the GKs, while nice in the extreme, isn't what makes them so devastating towards Daemons (although by all means, Paladins and Purifiers are still murder incarnate against them), it's going to be the special rules and psychic powers that will screw you over.

If you even think about letting the GKs shoot at you for any significant number of turns, you are dead, the only weakness the grey knights have with regards to shooting, a lack of LRAT, will not apply to you and you will be slaughtered by psycannons, psyfleman dreadnoughts, and S5 stormbolters. If you see anyone, anyone at all with incinerators in grey knight's list, your cover will avail you nothing as man-portable flame storm cannons fry you with ease. Do not bother with any gifts that offer you armour saves if you expect to be in close combat, they will avail you nothing since practically the entire fething army has power weapons.

Avoid monstrous creatures, a one out of twelve chance of instantly dying in close combat may not sound that bad, but a monstrous creature can easily expect to be hit with enough attacks to cause it anyway through sheer weight of dice. That bloodthirster of yours whom you were counting on to pop that land raider in CC? Yeah forget him, he will evaporate under Psycannon and Psyflemen fire. Khornate is your primary source of anti-psyker defense, but as they cannot assault after deepstriking, they will have a whole turn to be shot to pieces where their CC ability will be absolutely meaningless.

Do not engage draigo in CC unless you really know what you are doing, he goes from "pretty good" to "absolute murdermachine" against daemons and will beat their face in with a inordinate number of S10 attacks and his ridiculously good saves, eternal warrior, and high number of wounds means that your chances of killing him are somewhere between "not likely" and "snowball in hell". Try to ignore him instead if you can and attack his army, though unlike a lot of similarly destructive CC HQ units, he does give buffs to his army so watch out.

Your best bets troopwise are horrors and bloodletters, PAGKs will be devastated by either of these, however, remember that these are MEQ killing units, not TEQ killers, especially not TEQs with an easily accessed 4++ save killers. For HQ, I'd say avoid greater daemons who will be shot to pieces for want of cover saves, go with heralds who can hug cover. Elites, Bloodcrushers all around, spam these, these guys are perhaps your best units so USE them. Fast attack: Seekers are inadvisable, rending is a hail mary and when the odds are this stacked against you, you cannot afford to leave that much to chance, go with screamers and as usual forget furies ever existed.

For Heavy support: neither the Daemon prince nor the Soul grinder are exactly the best thing to have around as either will be butchered at range, but if you had to pick, go with the Daemon Prince, it's going to find getting cover easier than the Soul Grinder which is literally the biggest frakking thing made by Citadel and may as well have a bullseye on it's chest and a giant bullet magnet on it's back and being that big of a model is a very bad thing for a deep striking unit. Like most cases, it's generally advisable to ignore your heavy support slot unless your others don't have any room and you still have points left over.

But if you have access to forgeworld, get blood slaughterers, get aaaaaaaallllllll the blood slaughterers, even if their name is probably the dumbest name for a daemon engine ever they still have AV13 frontal armour, WS5, costs only 130 points, gets d3 attacks on the charge with it's DCCWs, and has a colossal number of attacks while only needing to really worry about henchmen meltas, lascannons, focus fire from psyflemen or psycannons (and with their short models getting cover will be easy), or nemesis force hammers. Yes they only have BS1 but feth it, you're going to be running with these things anyway so you're probably never going to even bother with it's guns.

Honestly the biggest issue I have against gk with my daemons is psycotroke grenades.... Those things are stupidly brutal. I rarely see strikes or intercepters, but I know quake does dirty things to all deep striking armies. If faced with it id still do what I do now: deploy balled up best I can, move as a whole and try to overwhelm with awesome fateweaver goodness.

Tbh, speaking from experience, I don't know how GK can beat Daemons.

I have a Draigowing army, that has an 8/6/2 record.

My 8 wins have come from MEQs, Nids and an IG player, my 2 draws have come from Marines and Eldar and my 6 losses are...

4 from Daemons and 2 from Eldar.

My opponents tailored their Daemon armies to fight GK and they are tearing the opposition apart because, apparently, if you can beat Draigowing or any GK army with Daemons, you can beat nearly anything.

My opponents have been spamming Crushers, DP, Heralds on Juggernauts, lots of Bloodletters and some Daemonettes and Daemonettes on funky horses for other armies.

Sheer weight of numbers with Power Weapons beats me every time, not to mention Bloodcrushers tearing my guys a new one in cc and completely ignoring Draigo.

It's proof you can beat them, but you can't beat them with an untailored list.

@ Puscifer

If you a doing a kill points denial list with Draigo and some thing like two units of paladins with out a lot of storm shields I could see it being some what of a fight if they are spamming crushers.

A more balanced GK list will give even a tailored daemons list a lot of trouble.

I have played:

Hq:
Coteaz and Crowe

troops
4-5 purifier in rhinos with max psycannons
1 unit of henchman mostly death cults a crusaders in transports( with HQ)
HS
2 psyrifleman.

If you don't get 1st turn most of the board is warp quaked and even if you do it is enough shoots to take most of what comes in before it can charge.

@ calypso2ts

I tried the risky drop in method it does not work to well either.

Yeah, that list has Daemons biggest weakness... Vehicle Spam.

Daemons tear through infantry based armies quite easily, but cannot touch mech.

deviant cadaver wrote:

@ calypso2ts

I tried the risky drop in method it does not work to well either.

The question I failed to ask myself in that game was 'Which of these drops gives me a chance to win?'

While I preserved my army by DS'ing so far away, I also guaranteed I could not capture the objectives in time and that while it would look respectable to an errant observer, I had in fact basically conceded the game at that point. Aggressively DS'ing in probably would have also meant a loss, but with a few good rolls it had the potential to win the game - where the other option did not.

Pure Draigo Wing is a pretty easy matchup for Daemons. Daemons excel at tearing through Power/Artificer armor and those 4++ saves on Paladins do not cut it. On top of that, you have to focus your significant amount of firepower on one target, which basically guarantees the Daemon player will get to assault with the majority of their army into Draigo and Company. If they are running Fateweaver with some Crushers or a Bloodthirster with BotBG it can be pretty brutal.

deviant cadaver wrote:@ Puscifer

If you a doing a kill points denial list with Draigo and some thing like two units of paladins with out a lot of storm shields I could see it being some what of a fight if they are spamming crushers.

A more balanced GK list will give even a tailored daemons list a lot of trouble.

I have played:

Hq:
Coteaz and Crowe

troops
4-5 purifier in rhinos with max psycannons
1 unit of henchman mostly death cults a crusaders in transports( with HQ)
HS
2 psyrifleman.

If you don't get 1st turn most of the board is warp quaked and even if you do it is enough shoots to take most of what comes in before it can charge.

None of the units in your proposed army have Warp Quake.

I was thinking the same thing Mr. Internets

In relation to the thread basically if you run into an army with 20 strikes/interceptors and don't go first you're going to have issues. However if you do go first or they don't have a decent number of these models the Daemons can still hang. I'll be testing it next weekend at a local 5 game GT since I'm bringing my Daemons out of my bag for something different

Danny Internets wrote:

None of the units in your proposed army have Warp Quake.

I was cheated! I should have know something was up when he would not shake hands at the start of the game because they were covered in chocolate from the bar he was eating...