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Hey guys! So my local GW is starting an escalation league this friday. I was going to use my ogre army but I literally just decided like 10 minutes ago I was going to throw together my box of pink horrors and bloodletters and buy 500 more points worth of daemons for the league. I currently own 10 horrors and 10 letters and I figured I'd buy a box of flamers and skulltaker to use as my herald of khorne.

My list will look like this
Herald of Khorne with Firestorm Blade -125
10x Bloodletters full command -150
10x Horrors - 120
3x Flamers - 105

I've never actually played daemons before. I'm rather impulsive about this but I'll think it'll be fun to start this league using an army I never have right off the bat (I actually started warhammer a few months ago and have a 2000 points of Ogres I've been playing since)

Now any advice on how to use this army effectively would be appreciated as well as general tips for daemons. The league will consist of 3 Ogre players, empire, high elf, tomb kings, vampire, warriors, and dwarfs. Possibly a wood elf player.

Now because I'm doing this so suddenly I probably won't deviate from this list much intially because I won't be able to spend the money. Though any advice on alterations for the list would be very welcome due to the fact that it IS an escalation league so my list will be changing over time.

Thanks for reading guys and thanks for any responses!

I like the idea. for escalation you have the basis of 3 good units. Bloodletters are probably point for point one the the best troop you can get anywhere. Horrors are great as the unit itself is a wizard. the more of them the higher level wizard you are. And flamers of tzeentch are just flat out amazing or disgusting, depending on which side of the fence you sit.

the one change i think i would make would be to swap the herald of khorne for a herald of tzeentch, give him master of sorcery (lore master to non daemon players) and take lore of life to combat the daemon armys main weakness, low Toughness.

If you want to keep the herald of khorne, thats cool. i would recomend swapping the firestorm blade oput (your str 6 with killing blow anyway) and give him the collar of khorne instead for a 3+ armour save.

Other than that its a nice start.

I cannot support flamers. With the White Dwarf Army Book Update 1-2 months ago they went from the best unit in the army to possibly the worst. While their shooting is D6 shots they now suffer penalties for multiple shots, and at 18inch range you are likely going to be moving and then shooting. So....at BS4 you are hitting on 3s, modify for multiple shots now 4s, and for moving (the nice thing is since they are skirmishers you can march then shoot so effectively a 12inch movement and a 18inch range is pretty cool) now you are hitting on 5s, if they are more then 9 inches away you are now hitting on 6s. Then they increased the point cost by 5, and there is a small chance per wound that you can either do an additional D3 wounds or give your target regen for the rest of the game and it's stackable, so you can shoot a large unit, get really unlucky and give them a regen save then when you get in combat with your bloodletters they save more wounds.

As for the lone horrors I am not a fan of that little, 10 gives you access to 1 spell and treats them as a level 1, the problem with 1 spell is your opponent will throw all his dispel dice at it, so you have to throw all your power dice at it which increases is a chance of a miscast for what is a mediocre spell with Flickering Fire.

Mixer has a good suggestion but at 500 it cannot be done, it's 140pts which is above the 25% max hero allowance which is 125.

So...
HoK -Armor of Khorne 115
19 Bloodletters Musician, Standard, Icon of Endless War 271
Fiend 55
Fiend 55
496

Fiends are great for warmachine hunting, character slaying and with T4, W3 and a 5+ ward can maybe even hold up a combat block for a turn while your 6 wide bloodletters unleash hell, divide and conquer, and the Icon of Endless War is going to more reliably get you in combat when you need to. Save the horrors for when you bring a herald.

At 750 you could probably run
HoT -Master of Sorcery 140
20 Bloodletters Musician, Standard, Icon of Endless War 283
17x Horrors -Musician - 210
Fiend 55
Fiend 55
743

Not until 1k can you bring the 2 heralds and that will mean no armor or gift for the HoK, Once you do 1250 I would add the spellbreaking gift to the HoT as well. If you want to save some money you could convert some seeker steeds to fiends, google around and you'll find some stuff

Hargus also makes very good points. but you said the list wasn't really gonna change due to money which is absolutely fine.

armour for the herald is better IMHO than the weapon.

completely forgot about the update to flamers. i only play my daemons in 40k these days, over looked the nerfing they took.

if you are going to spend a little i would tend to agree with hargus that 2 fiends would be far better then the flamers.

however flamers are still useful despite the nerf.

I really appreciate all the replies! The herald of tzeentch is definitely on my purchase list. I don't have a copy of the daemons update nor do I know anyone else that does so I'm clueless to the changes on it.

Fiends of Slaanesh look like fantastic units but they're direct order only at GW so I won't be able to pick some up for awhile. Also, I think their models are pretty goofy so I'll be looking for conversion opportunities.

Thanks for the input on what gifts to give my herald. I think I'll be taking that armor save over the sword.

Now I still haven't bought any flamers and I'll buy something else within the 20 to 30 dollar range this thursday if it would be a major help for my initial matches. That would include units like screamers, seekers, or just something else for core. Everything else is direct order so I won't be able to get the unit in time.

in that case i would plump for either:

more bloodletters

or

possibly flesh hounds of khorne.

flesh hounds are another excellent unit to look into.

Instead of buying the fiend models do you think you can get away with a pair of Chaos Spawns with more Slaanesh bits then not in the kit? Depends on your gaming store and players but they are bound to have a box in stock, it would be cheaper and 2 is really all you need as you can only have 2 singles through 2999pts.

I can't support the flamers either. Get a bloodcrusher. At that point level he is a real pain. And ranged units in that small a game need to be dual-purpose, which Flamers are not because they are suxy in CC for their cost.

I would swap the herald of khorne with a herald of Tz. You give the Horrors all a 4+ ward and can get master of sorcery and all of a sudden have a channel and loremaster. The Bloodcrusher does pretty much what the herald of khorne does. And at that low point lvl, he will be a good caster. The horrors have Flaming so it's a bit redundant to get a flaming sword, even if they aren't super hammery.

Because it's escalation, I think bloodletters, bunkered horrors, and bloodcrusher are perfectly valid. As you add more models they will become more viable. The horrors to start aren't the greatest, but a 4+ flaming ward block is still nice. You could swap the bloodcrusher for fiends.

Hey guys! Again I appreciate all the input! I ended up switching my herald of Khorne to a herald of tzeentch and it was very effective. My magic phase was absolutely brutal and I loved your idea of a horror bunker with a 4+ ward. I wasn't too impressed with my flamers with their new rules so I should have heeded that advice as well.

Now I won my first game but I'm already planning my list for once it jumps to 600. I was thinking something like this

Herald of Tzeentch with Master of Sorcery
10 bloodletters full command
10 horrors
1 bloodcrusher

Now to fill in the points I want to expand on my two main core. Should I buy a box of bloodletters and add ranks? or have 2 units of 10? Or should I add more meat to my pink horror unit? I also thought buying bloodcrushers would be good as well. Can I get good mileage out of just one? What's the best way to use him?

Also I figured I'd take the lore of life for my herald as advised but I was wondering about other ideas of effective lores to use.