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I'm planning on entering a local tournament. This will be my first tournament and I'm a little unsure on what to take. Unfortunately my armies of choice are Daemons and Chaos Space Marines, neither of which are exactly competitive. So I'm looking for advice about what to take so as to stand the best chance of doing well. Here's what I'm thinking so far.

CSM:
Daemon Prince with Wings, Mark of Slaanesh, Lash of Submission (155)
7 Plague Marines with Champion, Combi-Melta, Power Fist, 2 x Meltaguns, Rhino with Dozer Blade (271)
7 Plague Marines with Champion, Combi-Plasma, Power Fist, 2 x Plasmaguns, Rhino (276)
Obliterator (75)
Obliterator (75)
Chaos Vindicator with Daemonic Possession (145)
997points

Daemons:
1 Herald of Tzeentch with We Are Legion, Master of Sorcery, Bolt (110)
6 Fiends of Slaanesh with Unholy Might (190)
6 Fiends of Slaanesh with Unholy Might (190)
4 Bloodcrushers with Fury, Icon, Instrument (200)
6 Plaguebearers with Instrument (95)
6 Pink Horrors with Changeling, Bolt (117)
5 Pink Horrors with Bolt (95)
997points

I have plenty of models for both armies so change stuff around if necessary. More of my Daemons are painted, so all things being equal I'd use them, but concerns about Grey Knights suggest CSM. Though I don't think Plague Marines & Obliterators will stand up that well to Grey Knights either.

Friendly play here has lots of Tyranids & vanilla Marines with some Orcs, Blood Angels & Guard and the odd Grey Knights, CSM, Dark Eldar & Necron list thrown in for good measure. A few people have Grey Knight lists but don't tend to play them in friendly games, not sure about tournaments here though. I am the only person that plays Daemons.

Any advice would be really appreciated since as I said, this is my first tournament.

You would probably do better with a CSM army, as the codex is designed for 5th ED, while the daemons codex hasn't been updated since 4th. Also, your model count in the CSM list is quite low, and although the plague marines are Ba****ds to kill in low point games, if you face an MEQ army, you have a fair chance of being nerfed in CC by I4 or higher.

i think you might be better with the CSM army for a tournament.

your daemons look good, and you have a strong model count. I'm just worried about how brittle they may be. if you loose your fiends and you wouldn't need to loose all of them then thats your main attacks and heavy hitters out of the picture, and your troops are really only cover support and obj holding so if you have to rely on them late game it may be tough. or you could get a good dice roll and steam roll your opponent.

I just think that you have a more stable chance tournament wise with the CSM list, you have strong troops, good heavys and a powerful HQ making for a well rounded list and one that is not as chancey as your daemons will be because you don't need preferred wave or deep strike.

with regards to the CSM list i would change the combi weapons to combi flamers just for a little horde controll drop the dozer blade (i have never been convinced of it's use)...but then i'm not really sure what you could do with those few extra points, twin linked bolters maybe? i dunno lol.

Thanks for the advice Wrakkar. I've played plenty of friendly games with both armies at higher point values (1500-2000 mostly) and had more success with Daemons than CSM. For that sort of meta, I think Daemons are more competitive then CSM. I've never lost a game with Daemons against CSM, but I've never played a game with CSM against Daemons. They are also a (slightly) newer codex.

However I have zero tournament experience and very few friendly games at the 1000 points level, so really looking for advice on how I'm likely to do here. Grey Knights worry me a lot with both lists. Power weapons will cut through Plague Marines just as easily as Plaguebearers and they still get Preferred Enemy against the Prince, Obliterators and Vindicator. Your point about CSM model count also goes against them, so I'm guessing the CSM list wouldn't be any better against Grey Knights than the Daemons. Do people play Grey Knights at this point level though? They'd be at an even lower model count than my CSM list and I would expect them to struggle against hoard armies.

ChaosDog wrote:Thanks for the advice Wrakkar. I've played plenty of friendly games with both armies at higher point values (1500-2000 mostly) and had more success with Daemons than CSM. For that sort of meta, I think Daemons are more competitive then CSM. I've never lost a game with Daemons against CSM, but I've never played a game with CSM against Daemons. They are also a (slightly) newer codex.

However I have zero tournament experience and very few friendly games at the 1000 points level, so really looking for advice on how I'm likely to do here. Grey Knights worry me a lot with both lists. Power weapons will cut through Plague Marines just as easily as Plaguebearers and they still get Preferred Enemy against the Prince, Obliterators and Vindicator. Your point about CSM model count also goes against them, so I'm guessing the CSM list wouldn't be any better against Grey Knights than the Daemons. Do people play Grey Knights at this point level though? They'd be at an even lower model count than my CSM list and I would expect them to struggle against hoard armies.

Though GK have a low model count, they are often used in tournaments, and I would be suprised if you didn't come across at least one. With GK, the thing to remember is that although they are outnumbered by everything, their OP'dness means that they can nerf most armies.

The thing here really is that daemons rely heavily on a unit or model to do a task, and if it gets destroyed, they are unable to continue. However, CSM's units can do multiple tasks, and compensate for their losses. Furthermore, tournaments will see a lot of vehicles, and any good CSM list has truck loads of anti tank (Powerfists, lascannons, autocannons, melta bombs, plas weapons, krak 'nades etc). And this is something that daemons do not handle so well.

EDIT: admittedly, in 1k points, there'll be less vehicles, but I can guarantee there will be some kind of bolter spam somewhere, that takes huge chunks out of anything with poor saves, or no vehicles...

What you say make sense Rogues Gambit. Once my Daemon Elites are gone, the list sort of crumbles away. However there are 12 Fiends and 4 Crushers and that's a lot of wounds. Even at 1500 points, if I loose these units, I've probably lost the game anyway. I normally plan on loosing the crushers, since I generally shove them in my opponents face and use them to soak up a turn or two of shooting so my fiends can charge in. I think the real problem is the low unit count, so I can't drop anti-tank, crushers & fiends together and still have something good in the other half if I don't get my preferred wave in. I think this list would only work really well if I had unbalanced waves and got the right half in.

On the CSMs, I don't have models with Combi-flamers, but could probably proxy the combi-meltas as combi-flamers if I did it for both units. I've also put one unit with Plasmaguns and one with Meltaguns. Is this the best combination - thinking of objective sitting with the plasmas and being more aggressive with the meltas. Or would I just be better putting 2 Meltaguns in both squads? Swapping the plasmas for meltas and loosing the dozer blade on the first Rhino would give me 18 spare points to play with, but not sure what I could do with this - perhaps a Havoc Launcher on one of the Rhinos. Also I could do this more easily than adding second twin-linked boltguns to both Rhinos since I have a loose Havoc Launcher that I could easily attach, but probably couldn't get second boltguns made up in time. Or perhaps dozer blades on both Rhinos? Couldn't do extra armour on just one Rhino though since both have been modelled with extra armour as it is, so either both need the points spending on it or neither, otherwise it would just be confusing for my opponent (and me).

ChaosDog wrote:What you say make sense Rogues Gambit. Once my Daemon Elites are gone, the list sort of crumbles away. However there are 12 Fiends and 4 Crushers and that's a lot of wounds. Even at 1500 points, if I loose these units, I've probably lost the game anyway. I normally plan on loosing the crushers, since I generally shove them in my opponents face and use them to soak up a turn or two of shooting so my fiends can charge in. I think the real problem is the low unit count, so I can't drop anti-tank, crushers & fiends together and still have something good in the other half if I don't get my preferred wave in. I think this list would only work really well if I had unbalanced waves and got the right half in.

On the CSMs, I don't have models with Combi-flamers, but could probably proxy the combi-meltas as combi-flamers if I did it for both units. I've also put one unit with Plasmaguns and one with Meltaguns. Is this the best combination - thinking of objective sitting with the plasmas and being more aggressive with the meltas. Or would I just be better putting 2 Meltaguns in both squads? Swapping the plasmas for meltas and loosing the dozer blade on the first Rhino would give me 18 spare points to play with, but not sure what I could do with this - perhaps a Havoc Launcher on one of the Rhinos. Also I could do this more easily than adding second twin-linked boltguns to both Rhinos since I have a loose Havoc Launcher that I could easily attach, but probably couldn't get second boltguns made up in time. Or perhaps dozer blades on both Rhinos? Couldn't do extra armour on just one Rhino though since both have been modelled with extra armour as it is, so either both need the points spending on it or neither, otherwise it would just be confusing for my opponent (and me).

You would be better having a unit sitting on your objective with plasmas, as they can take out MEQ's, while the other moves forward.
You could have one plasma and one melta in each, just incase someone does a drive-by in a rhino, or sends termies at you. This would be better for versatility, as you can have both, and neither gets lost entirely by getting killed.
It would be a good idea to take the havoc launcher, as it provides some good anti-armour.
The dozer blade is a bit useless, I only put them on for show, because they look cool. But other than that, you don't really need them.

Cheers. Problem is that I can only afford the Havoc if I swap both plasmas to meltas. If I don't do that, then I only have 8 points left over. Hence the somewhat crappy dozer blade, but what else can I buy for 8 points? Not sure about mixing melta & plasma in the same squad, nice idea, but each unit looses focus. Definitely sold on swapping the combi guns on both squads for combi-flamers though, think that would be useful for hoard control.

You could go a few points over the limit, a difference of 1% either way of the point limit is usually acceptable.

Well, I'd go for the CSM army since its a bit more predictable and has higher damage output.

Wrakkar wrote:You would probably do better with a CSM army, as the codex is designed for 5th ED, while the daemons codex hasn't been updated since 4th. Also, your model count in the CSM list is quite low, and although the plague marines are Ba****ds to kill in low point games, if you face an MEQ army, you have a fair chance of being nerfed in CC by I4 or higher.

I thought the Daemon codex was the last 4th ed codex...

rodgers37 wrote:

Wrakkar wrote:You would probably do better with a CSM army, as the codex is designed for 5th ED, while the daemons codex hasn't been updated since 4th. Also, your model count in the CSM list is quite low, and although the plague marines are Ba****ds to kill in low point games, if you face an MEQ army, you have a fair chance of being nerfed in CC by I4 or higher.

I thought the Daemon codex was the last 4th ed codex...

T'was a crossover.

I have to say - at 1000 points I think your Daemon list will absolutely crush most opponents. The standard Rhino list suffers from a lot of collateral damage - Rhinos are so prevalent everyone packs missiles and meltas.

There is no way an enemy can field enough firepower to eat 2x Fiends and Crushers - and if they do they would have blown you off the board anyway.

calypso2ts wrote:I have to say - at 1000 points I think your Daemon list will absolutely crush most opponents. The standard Rhino list suffers from a lot of collateral damage - Rhinos are so prevalent everyone packs missiles and meltas.

There is no way an enemy can field enough firepower to eat 2x Fiends and Crushers - and if they do they would have blown you off the board anyway.

Good point, well made.

Still, the daemon's army kinda fails at it's job if it looses anything, really..

Thanks for all the advice. Ended up going with a slightly changed version of my Daemon list:

1 Herald of Tzeentch with Chariot, We Are Legion, Master of Sorcery, Bolt (110)
6 Fiends of Slaanesh with Unholy Might (190)
6 Fiends of Slaanesh with Unholy Might (190)
4 Bloodcrushers with Fury, Icon, Instrument (200)
6 Pink Horrors with Changeling, Bolt (117)
5 Pink Horrors with Bolt (95)
5 Pink Horrors with Bolt (95)
997points

Played three games. First game was annihilation vs. Eldar. Lucky dice and the fact he wasn't running a very optimised list meant I'd tabled him by turn three. Second game was 2 objectives vs. Eldar. This list was a lot more nasty and was one of the hardest games I've played in a long time. Not the best start for me, his first turn of shooting (turn 2) got rid of my Bloodcrushers. By the end of the game I had 1 Fiend, a unit of 4 Horrors and a unit of 5 Horrors left. However the unit of 4 Horrors were sitting on my objective and out of line of sight from everything he had. I'd managed to kill all his troops and vehicles and what he had left was castled up near his objective on the other side of the table, so a hard-fought win for me. Third game was also another 2 objective game this time against Guard. Two Leman Russes, three veteran squads and a command squad. I lost a few Horrors and Fiends, but by the end of the game all he had was an immobilised Leman Russ with just it's Heavy Bolter still working and I had both objectives.

As usual the Fiends and Bloodcrushers did most of the work. Not sure how I placed, since I had to leave before they added up the comp & painting scores, but I had a good time and prooved (again) that Daemons are much better than internet wisdom would have you believe.

I saw a good mix of armies, 2 Daemons, 2 Eldar, 2 Guard, 3 Space Marine, 2 CSM, 1 Tyranid and 1 Grey Knight from what I can remember. The other Daemon army was all-Khorne with a Bloodthirster, 6 Bloodcrushers and lots of Bloodletters. I think he was 2 out of 3, only loosing to the Tyranid army.

Well done man, good to see people doing well with Daemons. My 1000 pt list would have looked quite a bit different, so hopefully that's a sign that Daemons can remain competitive with a couple of different builds at lower point levels.