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Hi everyone.

I haven't played 40k since 4th edition first came out, but I'm looking to get back into it. I wanted to know how the Demons codex holds up against some of the newer codex.

Thanks.

NidMaster40000 wrote:Hi everyone.

I haven't played 40k since 4th edition first came out, but I'm looking to get back into it. I wanted to know how the Demons codex holds up against some of the newer codex.

Thanks.

It has a few good tricks to be fair, however it fairs pretty badly vs most 5th books apart from Nids, which is usually a good fight

It gets its face beaten by GK but thats to be expected

Well I reckon daemons still go ok, gk can be a real pain to play against sometimes because they have quite a few tricks to squash the daemons.

Main problem I have with my daemons is being able to realiably destroy vehicles.

Apart from that they have some pretty effective builds and are fun to play.

That and daemons fall apart a lot, because they rely heavily on a unit to do it's job, and if it doesn't they don't recover well.
This is exacerbated by the fact that almost all other armies are more versatile, and able to compensate for their losses.

Formosa wrote:

NidMaster40000 wrote:Hi everyone.

I haven't played 40k since 4th edition first came out, but I'm looking to get back into it. I wanted to know how the Demons codex holds up against some of the newer codex.

Thanks.

It has a few good tricks to be fair, however it fairs pretty badly vs most 5th books apart from Nids, which is usually a good fight

It gets its face beaten by GK but thats to be expected

Daemons can squash every 5th edition book bar GK's.

The only vehicles that are a real pain are av13/14 spam. Transports can either be bolted by Tzeentch Heralds/Horrors/Princes and/or torn to little ribbons by Fiends/Hounds/Seekers/Screamers.
Flamers are a god-send as they're highly multi-purpose being 'jump infantry' type who come with both a template attacks that wounds anything on a 4+ and ignores armour saves, as well as the basic warpfire attack which is basically a 3-shot/ap4 storm bolter! (makes noise marines rather jealous!)

Nothing bar gimmiky & OTT GK shinanigans will relish fighting assaults with most daemonic units. MEQ's get curbstomped by 'Thirsters/Khorne Heralds/'Crushers/Bloodletters/Princes/etc... GEQ's simply disappear under the ridiculous amount of rending attacks that Fiends/Daemonettes/Seekers can put out.

Nurgle Plaguebearers are one of the best objective campers in the entire game. A scoring unit with base T5/5++ AND FnP. Go to ground with them and now you've likely got yourself a 3++ cover save. Have fun shooting those bastards out of something!

Plus, we have two of the game's most OTT special characters with Skulltaker, ('uber IC killer), and Kairos Fateweaver. (who gives a 're-roll your saves' bubble to nearby units!)
As for movement? Sure we've got no transports to make use of, but our entire army deep strikes into play! Plus, we have even faster horde units than Tyranids which is kinda wrong! ('Thirsters, Keepers, Sleralds on chariots, Fiends, Flamers, Daemonettes, Seekers, Hounds, Screamers & Winged Princes all have threat ranges of at least 13"-18", or more...)



The drawbacks are that the learning curve with Daemons is more hienous than Eldar/Dark Eldar. Not planning your deployment waves properly can be a game ender right off the bat. Horrific dice can really mess up your deployment with terribad scatters. Poor dice rolls can mean that even your S8 +2D6 pen 'Thirsters just can't crack even av12, while your rending can suddenly decide to take a holiday and even av10 is a problem... Your average BS means that your small to moderate amount of ranged anti-tank can sometimes fail and just never hit.

The army is also somewhat fragile as it relies on mainly 5++ invulns & cover to wether the initial storm of enemy firepower. (Fateweaver on the otherhand adds a new level of obnoxiousness to our army!)
And as mentioned, all your units are fairly specialised, so you really need to learn how to use them in tandom like you would Eldar aspect warriors.

Still, the fact that not many people play Daemons means that most opponents will have no clue how to approch the game, and that gives you a decided advantage!
The only army that really makes the game no fun are GK's, simply because they've been made to roflstomp our book without even trying.



Overall though, Daemons are a helluva lot of fun with tonnes of modeling options, especially when it comes to the likes of Heralds!
If you like 'em, then the best thing to do is to pick-up a couple units of the models you really like! There's honestly almost no outright 'bad' choice in a Daemon army... The only units that are agreed upon to be terribad are Beasts of Nurgle (too slow and outdone by half the book!), Heralds of Nurgle (again, they're just outshone by every other HQ option!), LoC (too costly and Fateweaver is only a handfull more pts), and Furies (who just plain suck even more than spawn!)

I dont like daemons because of all that deep striking, with lots of terrain you can easly loose a portion of your army.

Something to keep in mind. While my main Daemon army probably loses more than it wins. My "Tournament" Daemon army does amazingly well whenever I bring it out. Khorne daemons are a HARD counter to every conventional grey knight list out. A pack of khorne hounds will keep grey knight deathstars locked all game. Giving your monstrous creatures 2+ invuln saves against all GK close combat attacks will ruin their day.

The only way for a GK player to counter khorne daemons is to know they are playing against them and tool their list accordingly. However no GK player is thinking about running into Khorne daemons in a tournament. They have much more common threats to worry about from the other much more common armies. What this means is that you can take a Khorne daemon list with slight tooling to murder GK. And army you are extremely likely to run into. But the GK players can not take lists tooled to fight you, an army they will likely never see.

That said I much prefer my Slaanesh army. But that thing stands no chance against GK.

Daemonhammer wrote:I dont like daemons because of all that deep striking, with lots of terrain you can easly loose a portion of your army.

If you're losing more than half a dozen or so models at most to dangerous terrain rolls, then your dice are the problem!

Even accidently scattering into terrain with my 18 strong squad of pinkies, I have yet to lose more than 3 in one go due to the dangerous terrain rolls.

My friend plays Daemons and his army can do very well he got 2nd place(only because of painting, he was undefeated) at a tournament last weekend without fielding fate crusher.

There are some things I have seen that kind of shut him down:

Vs Necron:
Mind shackle scarabs have a 50% chance for a MC to attack itself.
Large volume of shots from tesla wipe out troop squads who generally have a 5++ invuln.
AV14 can be a bit of a pain to kill with shooting.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Daemonhammer wrote:I dont like daemons because of all that deep striking, with lots of terrain you can easly loose a portion of your army.

If you're losing more than half a dozen or so models at most to dangerous terrain rolls, then your dice are the problem!

Even accidently scattering into terrain with my 18 strong squad of pinkies, I have yet to lose more than 3 in one go due to the dangerous terrain rolls.

Mishaps can claim lots.

BlapBlapBlap wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

Daemonhammer wrote:I dont like daemons because of all that deep striking, with lots of terrain you can easly loose a portion of your army.

If you're losing more than half a dozen or so models at most to dangerous terrain rolls, then your dice are the problem!

Even accidently scattering into terrain with my 18 strong squad of pinkies, I have yet to lose more than 3 in one go due to the dangerous terrain rolls.

Mishaps can claim lots.

Yeah I thought he meant mishaps on impassable terrain. Dangerous terrain has killed maybe 5 models of mine in the last 4 or so games.

Contrary to popular opinion, demons can hold their own and win games in the hands of a skilled player.

They can't win against a GK player that tailors to kill you, but against anything else they do just fine.

Demons are not an easy army, and expect to lose your first few games.

Anyone with a brain can deploy their demons in a way were mishaps are effectively impossible.

One final though, if the dice don't like you it's very hard to do well as demons, but the same is true for any other army.

I played Daemons for 2 years and got to the final table of 2 different tournaments. Lost one to Battlewagon spam Orks and the other to the shootiest Space Wolf army I have ever seen that isn't Razorspam.

Against MEQ Crushers, Bloodletters, Bloodthirster and a Nurgle Prince with Wings setup for close combat are pretty much the devil. I will give an example. Playing against a Marine player who uses a flanking "Deathstar" consisting of Cassius, Shrike, and 5 Assault Terminators(2 SH/TH, 3DLC's). They charge in on an 8 man Plaguebearer unit and kill 6 of them. I lose one to fearless saves. Bloodthirster jumps over and charges them. He lost all 5 of the Terminators. In the next turn he killed Cassius and Shrike.

I've had 2 Bloodcrushers do a multi charge on 2 squads of Tau Firewarriors who had disembarked out of Devilfish to rapid fire on the them and killed both squads. They each killed 3 guys, didn't get wounded back and then ran down both squads at the same time.

With that being said...Necrons and Dark Eldar are going to be nightmare matchups especially the Dark Eldar. I played against a guy and I brought 2 Heralds on Chariots, a Thirster, and 3 Daemon Princes. They all died the turn they landed because of all the Poisoned shots. There just isn't an answer for that in the dex.

It is a very fun army to play, my suggestion would be to watch every Battle Report you can find on youtube to let you have an idea of how best to use squads in synergy with each other.

DS issues: Make the most of a safe area then your run move.
That should help keep you out the way.

Make sure a solid unit (crushers, or a large troop unit) has an icon.
Makes dropping units where you need them alot easier and removes the randomness.
Also allows precision flamering when needed.

Armour is a slight issue, but the average bolt prince or grinder takes care of it, but make sure you have a few other forms of anti-armour incase they dont.

GK, well, they are GK, dont expect an easy game.

DE, as said above are a real pain too.
This is the reason ive started running 2 units of screamers to help the fiends hunt transports.
The quicker you get them in combat the better.