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On thinking about monsters, I thought about the current state of Daemon Lords in 8th. They are vastly over-costed and generally not worth their points. All Heroes/Lords have a tax on them, meaning they are more expensive than rank and file because they have higher LD, can lead units (or armies), get LoS, can get magic items, etc. But the GD start out so high as to make them prohibitive. And their 8th counterparts are way cheaper on both the Monster side and Lord side. Only some of the most expensive SCs in 8th cost as much as the base model GD and you generally need to buy more gifts to make them competitive.

So I suggest a blanket -75 point cost to all of them. Making their base cost 375 instead of 450.

While it seems cheap, look at some of the 8th SCs who are more expensive such as Settra, Greasus, Vlad. They all have better natural defenses (ward 4+ usually) and all get a LoS, which protects immensely against being simply picked-off. And again, this is simply the base cost. They are still only Greater Daemons who are lvl 0,1 or 2 casters. A slaughtermaster with Talisman of Endurance 30, Sword of Striking 15, Flying Carpet 50, costs 345 and is pretty darn close to a Lord of Change. Weaker base stats but +1 spell level. So I think this point value is not completely off the mark, though obviously not perfect. I just wanted to suggest something simple.

That said, the LoC can still add 100 points of abilities (if he pays for them). Though he's only got a handful of combinations.


I haven't thought about modifying the costs of Daemon SCs. The heroes are certainly fine and/or undercosted. Of the 3 lords, 2 are pretty junk at nearly any reasonable cost and 1 is great at nearly any cost. So not many options.

Almost no one takes Settra, Greasus or Vlad because they're all overcosted.

Which it was I brilliantly used them to show why no one would take similarly costed Lords.

DukeRustfield wrote:Which it was I brilliantly used them to show why no one would take similarly costed Lords.

I imagine Greater Daemons will get their cost reduced or be buffed when they get a new book.

Zombie Dragon, Imperial Dragon, Gryphon etc all got better and/or got their points cost lowered.

A Bloodthirster brings a lot more to the table than Vlad, Greasus or Settra though.

DukeRustfield wrote: A slaughtermaster with Talisman of Endurance 30, Sword of Striking 15, Flying Carpet 50, costs 345 and is pretty darn close to a Lord of Change. Weaker base stats but +1 spell level. So I think this point value is not completely off the mark, though obviously not perfect. I just wanted to suggest something simple.

Which greater daemon is vastly worse than the slaughtermaster?
Great Unclean One keeps on fighting quite a long time with his 10 wounds. With the bale sword, he tears apart ogres like no other can.
Keeper of secreats with spirit swallower is brutal. You just can't drop that guy.
Lore of Change is a pretty solid caster, with better combat survivability than most flying wizards, ability to re-roll miscasts, and be lore master or any lore.
I'd rank blood thirster as least useful, he's filling a role that rank and file can do.

Want to knock 50-75 points off a daemons of chaos daemon prince, I'll back that.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Which greater daemon is vastly worse than the slaughtermaster?
Great Unclean One keeps on fighting quite a long time with his 10 wounds. With the bale sword, he tears apart ogres like no other can.
Keeper of secreats with spirit swallower is brutal. You just can't drop that guy.
Lore of Change is a pretty solid caster, with better combat survivability than most flying wizards, ability to re-roll miscasts, and be lore master or any lore.

Those aren't greater daemons. They are greater daemons with 100 points (or more with spell levels) of buffs. As nice as their stats are, that's 550 points which can only fit in a 2200 pt game. A naked GD costs 450 which can only fit in a 1800pt game. Nekkid GD's are pretty lousy except for maybe a BT.

I just played in a 77 person tourney took 4th using a GUO. my first tourney with ole fatty. at 585 points he is pricey, for what he has, I think that at current cost something needs to change 4 up wards for the lot of them?

my biggest fear is cannon fire. Maybe large targets should get a dodge of a 5+ before even rolling to wounds as they see it coming and a 4+ for Large targets that are characters or riders.

Fatty at 585 only once made back his points, he was avoided and tarpitted, by slaves, zombies and marauders.

Acardia wrote:my biggest fear is cannon fire. Maybe large targets should get a dodge of a 5+ before even rolling to wounds as they see it coming and a 4+ for Large targets that are characters or riders.

How exactly is a Great Unclean One supposed to be dodging a cannon ball?

And to what extent are big monsters supposed to have weakness to cannons?

I suppose the issue is they aren't just monsters. They are your generals and lords. The bonus of a big inspiring pressence vs. zero look out sir and everyone and their mother having line of sight isn't a good trade-off.

People curtailed taking monsters because of the 8th edition rule changes which made monsters overpriced. GD are the most expensive of all monsters and your generals in an Unstable army.

I think cost is the key issue because I think they should be viable in non-zillion point games. Even if they had LoS I don't think people would take them. As stated above, they are like a ____star unit with significantly less wounds, attacks, models, etc.

DukeRustfield wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Which greater daemon is vastly worse than the slaughtermaster?
Great Unclean One keeps on fighting quite a long time with his 10 wounds. With the bale sword, he tears apart ogres like no other can.
Keeper of secreats with spirit swallower is brutal. You just can't drop that guy.
Lore of Change is a pretty solid caster, with better combat survivability than most flying wizards, ability to re-roll miscasts, and be lore master or any lore.

Those aren't greater daemons. They are greater daemons with 100 points (or more with spell levels) of buffs. As nice as their stats are, that's 550 points which can only fit in a 2200 pt game. A naked GD costs 450 which can only fit in a 1800pt game. Nekkid GD's are pretty lousy except for maybe a BT.

Ok, so you're comparing one armies lord choice with full allotment of gear against another armies naked lord choice and complaining that they aren't equal?
I love vampire lords on dragons, but they cost 465 base, fully upgraded is 789 points. The 50mm base is very small by current monster standards. You want a cheaper greater daemon, slap him on a 100mm by 150mm base and get back to me.

I'm perfectly fine with Greater daemons not showing up until ~2000 point games (with 50 points of upgrades) or 2200 to 2400 point games with good gear and a few extra magic levels.
Magic levels isn't as critical since daemons get lore master hero choices and can take level 4 core choices for dispelling. Neither cuts into lord points.
As for cannons, beasts of nurgle makes incredible shields with 4 wounds each and regen. If you don't kill the beast, the ball stops bouncing.

The real problem with the daemon book is some of the heroes are a little too cheap (looking at you lore master tzeench), and the "cheap" lord choice, the daemon prince, is garbage. Fix the daemon prince (say, knock 100 points off, and make marks free, make Ld9), and then you've got some options at all point values.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:Ok, so you're comparing one armies lord choice with full allotment of gear against another armies naked lord choice and complaining that they aren't equal?

Uh. A lvl 4 LoC costs 685 with full gear. Two lvl 4 slaughtermasters with full gear cost 770 about 12% more (or 2 lvl 3's with 100magic items for 700). A LoC is cool and all but he's not 2 kitted Slaughtermasters.

Magic levels isn't as critical since daemons get lore master hero choices and can take level 4 core choices for dispelling. Neither cuts into lord points.
As for cannons, beasts of nurgle makes incredible shields with 4 wounds each and regen. If you don't kill the beast, the ball stops bouncing.

You can't get access to daemon spells with mastery. And saying your most expensive Lord in the game has to also get supporting spell casters is a bit of a slap. Beasts suck ass. But as to your logic, sure, you can also line up fully kitted mournfang cavalry in front of your units to absorb cannon blows and have them be horrendously overcosted shields. Except Mourns actually rape face and beasts don't.

That's like a double tax there. GD are fine as long as you line up sucky, expensive rares in front of them and get heroes who can actually cast. Why don't you just say they aren't remotely worth their points? Which is the whole idea of the thread.

sebster wrote:

Acardia wrote:my biggest fear is cannon fire. Maybe large targets should get a dodge of a 5+ before even rolling to wounds as they see it coming and a 4+ for Large targets that are characters or riders.

How exactly is a Great Unclean One supposed to be dodging a cannon ball?

And to what extent are big monsters supposed to have weakness to cannons?

They can see it coming or know it's coming through daemonic intution. Not because of agility.

Acardia wrote:They can see it coming or know it's coming through daemonic intution. Not because of agility.

Daemons thrust into the material world are more intuitive and understand it better than the creatures who actually live here?

Even if that worked as a fluff explanation, aren't big monsters supposed to be vulnerable to cannons? It feels a lot like you're asking for a special rule to make rock less vulnerable to paper.

DukeRustfield wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:Ok, so you're comparing one armies lord choice with full allotment of gear against another armies naked lord choice and complaining that they aren't equal?

Uh. A lvl 4 LoC costs 685 with full gear. Two lvl 4 slaughtermasters with full gear cost 770 about 12% more (or 2 lvl 3's with 100magic items for 700). A LoC is cool and all but he's not 2 kitted Slaughtermasters.

Magic levels isn't as critical since daemons get lore master hero choices and can take level 4 core choices for dispelling. Neither cuts into lord points.
As for cannons, beasts of nurgle makes incredible shields with 4 wounds each and regen. If you don't kill the beast, the ball stops bouncing.

You can't get access to daemon spells with mastery. And saying your most expensive Lord in the game has to also get supporting spell casters is a bit of a slap. Beasts suck ass. But as to your logic, sure, you can also line up fully kitted mournfang cavalry in front of your units to absorb cannon blows and have them be horrendously overcosted shields. Except Mourns actually rape face and beasts don't.

That's like a double tax there. GD are fine as long as you line up sucky, expensive rares in front of them and get heroes who can actually cast. Why don't you just say they aren't remotely worth their points? Which is the whole idea of the thread.

You're math seems off on slaughter masters, full kit is 395 for one.
Lord of change, level 4, with full gear is 635.

Maybe your daemons suck cause you and your opponent are using the wrong points?


-Matt

I did type it wrong, my bad.

But can you seriously say a lvl 4 LoC with 100 in gifts is worth 635 (with him being the cheapest)? Really?

Weren't you the guy who runs mass gnoblars and/or sabertusks as redirectors/tarpits which would make said GD absolutely useless? Maybe it was someone else, but you don't need a cannon. You need a couple fast throwaway units.

300+pt monsters aren't used because they aren't worth their points. But somehow 600+ monster lords are? Maybe I'm off indeed, but I don't see how they are useful in 8th.

They might be useful if they're named Kairos Fateweaver and have a re-rollable 3+ ward and 14 spells.

DukeRustfield wrote:I did type it wrong, my bad.

But can you seriously say a lvl 4 LoC with 100 in gifts is worth 635 (with him being the cheapest)? Really?

Weren't you the guy who runs mass gnoblars and/or sabertusks as redirectors/tarpits which would make said GD absolutely useless? Maybe it was someone else, but you don't need a cannon. You need a couple fast throwaway units.

300+pt monsters aren't used because they aren't worth their points. But somehow 600+ monster lords are? Maybe I'm off indeed, but I don't see how they are useful in 8th.

Actually, a flying terror causer who casts purple sun at +6 is exactly what you need to hose that army. Gnoblars do not like terror test, or initiative tests for that matter.
But daemons get 4 greater daemons, not 1.
A lord of change lore master 475 isn't horrible.
No, you don't get the daemon lore as loremaster. But you know what, it doesn't matter. If I could choose loremaster tzeench, I never would. The basic lores are much better.
If you don't like the 100 point cannon stoppers, you can use the 55 point ones. Typically you only need 1 round of cannnon stopping, then you're safe in combat with 3 of the 4 daemons; with the 4 being nurgle with 10 wounds. I've fought against 8th editions greater daemons often, and it's rare to drop one before combat, and if the opponent is clever, it's not all that uncommon for the daemon to survive the battle.

I would still like to see a daemon prince be viable.


-Matt

Nitros14 wrote:They might be useful if they're named Kairos Fateweaver and have a re-rollable 3+ ward and 14 spells.

He's an SC, not the generic Lord. And you'll never hear me say he's overpriced. He's damn spiffy. But I pointed out in another thread that you can't even buy the stuff he has on a generic LoC without spending more points and you're still MUCH worse off (admittedly, you're much much better in combat though).

A lord of change lore master 475 isn't horrible.

High praise :p

I've fought against 8th editions greater daemons often, and it's rare to drop one before combat, and if the opponent is clever, it's not all that uncommon for the daemon to survive the battle. I would still like to see a daemon prince be viable.

It's not just cannons. But all war machines. Normal plinky shooters (poison!). They can't get a look out sir at all. You're going to have to roll a lot of 6's to hurt them, but 1 wound is worth like 100 points. And you can still redirect. The point is, do they ever make their points back? They have to kill, and/or facilitate killing, and/or point-denial (which they are good at) enough to be worth that huge amount of points. I just can't see it. Having their big aura front and center is worth something, granted. And theoretically, "wasting" 4 wounds on a GD that don't kill it aren't worth 400 pts, it's worth nothing and probably took a lot of effort. But there's no way they are going to kill 100 rank-and-file troops, which is about their break-even.

And yes, I want DP to be viable too. Esp since the models look so cool and it is the figure that is the center of every single damn WoC or DoC storyline in all of WHFB. Looking at the WoC version just makes me aggro. And even it isn't terribly good. For the same reasons. It's easier/better to get a buff CL and/or Sorc with all the protections.