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So we have been playing small 1000 point games in my local, and I have been trying out the new daemons.

A regular opponent takes tyranids, and consistently takes a swarmlord with 3 (hive guard?) big tough tyranid, and a doom of malantai in a spore. The rest of the army fills out differently, but this is the core of my troubles.

Should I just avoid the swarmlord? how should I deal with Doom? soul grinders have a half decent chance at instgibbing the doom, but there is also a large chance that the Doom kills in first in CC. The low LD of daemons means that the Doom is almost always on 10W after it arrives, during that shooting phase.

Nothing I try against swarmlord does the trick. He often takes biomancy and tends to get iron arm which stops any hope of instant death.

I was thinking of putting karanak in a unit of 20 bloodletters and goin for it. I can't remember the swarmlords armour, but he gets a 4++ in CC.

Ideally i would shoot the sunvabitch to pieces from afar, but with Chaos Daemons it is far more likely I give the unit 6+ FNP.

I thought daemonettes would do well with their rending since they need 6's anyway, but even a whole mob of 20 WITH the charge only inflicted a single wound on the swarmlords unit. Bad luck maybe, but i not too far off average, pardon me if I am wrong.

CC with the doom seems to be suicide unless it is immune to the shooting phase thing. Hence soul grinder. Its 3++ kicks you in the teeth every time though.

Maybe my luck is just awful, it sure seems to be, but suggestions would be good!

My friend uses a similar army but I use marines :/ I tend to focus down the the doom first then take down the swarmlord. I don't know much about daemons but I'm looking in investing in them.

Here's some ideas not 100% on them

Hounds for the doom 2+ deny the witch? Not sure if you get to roll deny against it

Bloodthirster and great unclean one to take the swarmy and his group maybe hopefully you will roll the Nasty anti psyker thing on warp storm table.

Hounds can deny for +2 themselves, but not when he is buffing himself, which is the main problem. Karanak makes enemy psykers within 12 -1 LD on tests and makes them perils on a double, but if i was him, i would take that chance for the sake of having EW.

Bloodthirster would have killed Swarmlord but for the iron arm again (axe of khorne gives ID on 6's). I also suspect that the swarmlord has an instant death thing going too, which means if I do not kill him right out, then bye bye ~300 points!

I meant deny the dooms nasty power


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Urmmm the swarmlord is a tricky one try and avoid it might be the best bet it is slow moving after all kite it about while you deal with the rest of his army


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The great unclean one can also have biomancy iron arm on him would be awesome also has poison if he doesn't get but is rather vulnerable to instant death

Muahahaha Nothing can stop the sheer brutality of the Sawrmlord!!!!

But seriously, if he is taking Swarmy, with 3 guard we're talking 460 points, add DoM in a spore to that and you're at 600.

What are his troops like? Seems like a TAC list should be able to paste his scoring units early and then just win on mission objectives 5/6 times.

I agree with the above you will have to play smart out manoeuvre he can't get round the whole board with that


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The only way I kill him is to take 10 sternguard with Lysander and wound the gak out of it

Big unit of plague bearers with Grimore of True Names buff on them will put out some pain on him. Prescience would help as well.

Kelewan, you need to be keeping thirsters away from the swarmlord at all costs.
He causes instant death on 3D6 LD tests and is a monster in combat.
Chances are he will kill the thirster off in the 1st turn of combat.

They are slow though.
Simply keep moving away from them and ignore them for aslong as you can.
Tarpitting them is pointless with daemons as they will cut through the unit too quickly.
If he gets iron arm on swarmy, just keep running away and dont think about going near him.

Seekers work well against doom.
Sheer weight of attacks should see him dead on the charge.
I also find seekers are pretty damn solid against most things in the nids list as rending gives a nice crunch with that many attacks.

Also, keep in mind that shadow in the warp will be going on, so if your using any powers, watch out when you decide to use them. (low LD daemons with more dice = very bad)

Don't feel bad about not being able to kill him, pretty much nothing can in CC, short of Horus from the Forge World book. As a Nid player, I fear low AP shooting, and hordes of poison. 20 Plaguebearers would be better than Daemonettes. Also, you can avoid him unless it's the Relic.

Doom? Some of the Tzeentch shooting is Strength 8+ right? Otherwise, a Soul grinder should work, just shoot him a bit first so he's not Strength 10.

EDIT: And Jackal, the Swarmlord causes instant Death. No Leadership roll, nothing, he just kills.

It seems that avoiding swarmlord is the best thing. I will take a soul grinder for doom as his placement of doom is very predictable.

His troops tend to be small enough with all that going on, last game all he had was 20 gaunts, which were taken care of easily enough.

I will try use fast things to overtake him and aim at objectives! I think i was too focused on wanting him to die! (I still want him to die a horrible horrible death though!)

Pretty much concur with everyone else...

Swarmlord - Ignor and give the run around, better to target other things, you'll miss out on slay the warlord but he is very much a fire sink.

Doom - STR 8 weapon for ID

ally in DE and laugh?

does nurgle have lots of posion this edition?

Swarmlord dies to nurgle. 4+ poison ignores IA and his 3+ save doesnt last long vs quantity of wounds.

Skulltaker is also a decent solution. A unit of flesh hounds+ Karanak+ Skulltaker should be able to beat out the swarmlord. Skulltaker can ID the swarmlord unless he has EW, but then hes casting and taking perils a lot and you can kill him with just wounds. If the skulltaker fails, Karanak should do a decent job of finishing with all those rerolls. If you get the charge, the flesh hounds should be able to wipe the Tyrant Guard given a few rounds. (also the unit, amusingly, has a 1+ DTW though still fails on 1s)

He uses 50% of his points on his HQ? It is slow, has very little shooting and no fleet. Why do you not out manouver him. Let him come to him. What are his troops? If you can kill his troops the swarmlord is no threat. Also, can you dance that swarmlord? He is really slow and dumb.Shoot him at a distance.

A thoughnes 8+ greta unclean one would probably not be abel to get harmed by him can he? He is S6, of course he can give himself furius charge. Or a flying shooting MC could also do it.

But best advice, fight what little is left of the rets of his army instead of the swarm lord.

Nurgle demon prince with a Balesword should do it. Initiative 8, 5 attacks with poison 4+ instant death, AP2.

Unfortunately, if he doesn't kill swarmy first, he's almost certainly dead.



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For Doom, could try taking an aegis with Lascannon on it? Gives you a chance of insta-gibbing the doom as soon as it arrives via interceptor - should at least make him think twice about positioning it.

Dundas wrote:

Nurgle demon prince with a Balesword should do it. Initiative 8, 5 attacks with poison 4+ instant death, AP2.

Unfortunately, if he doesn't kill swarmy first, he's almost certainly dead.



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For Doom, could try taking an aegis with Lascannon on it? Gives you a chance of insta-gibbing the doom as soon as it arrives via interceptor - should at least make him think twice about positioning it.

Problem is, that with the Swarmlord, he'll generally have 1-2 Lashguards, and with four rolls on the Biomancy chart, it's a pretty good chance he's going to have Iron Arm, to EW himself. If you throw anything at him, it should be a mob of plaguebearers, as those can keep him tied up for at least a little while. You are pretty much throwing away the points of any GD you send at him.

Hounds can deny for +2 themselves, but not when he is buffing himself, which is the main problem.

You can't deny the Dooms Spirit leech either, as it is not a psychic power.

He causes instant death on 3D6 LD tests and is a monster in combat.

The Swarmlords Bonesabres do not require a lD for Instant death, Boneswords require the LD test.

Swarm lord dies to lots of fire... With my orks a few rounds of lootas and cannons can kill him. Hugh str and ap3 are the key

I'm not familiar with new Daemons but what about allying a Daemon Prince with Axe of Blind Fury or Black Mace? Failing that, hurl something suitably big and Khorne at it and you might have a shot.

Skulltaker might actually stand a chance in CC, but generally you just want to avoid the Swarmlord because CC's its environment.

The Swarmlord is biologically and rulewise designed to kill your HQ. Not to mention the Guard.

Failig my early suggestion of CSM Prinxe, try a large unit of Bloodcrushers led by Chariot or Juggernaut Skulltaker.

walk the other way?

Swarm Lord is slooooooow so just avoid him. From what you have described he's wasted 460-475 (depending on whether he got lash whips) on swarmy and another 130 on doom which leaves 400ish points on troops assuming he has not taken any other FoC slots. Means he's either running 1 Tervigon or no Tervigons... Should be an easy victory if you hunt the Tervigon down with a Blood Thirster because once it dies all the gants near it are going to pop as well and if he's not running a Tervigon then it just got a whole lot easier.

As for doom, err.. Spread your troops out mabye? Not too sure how to deal with him with daemons as you have really low leadership, but if you spread your troops out enough he's going to be too slow to chase down the others once he's arrived at the first one.

chase him down with skarbrand. skarbrand will kill him almost everytime. charging into cover would be your only down fall unless you hit him first with a skull cannon.

on the charge you have 8 attacks hitting on 3's with rr's and wounding on 2's ap2 causing ID.
if he is charged he gets 6 attacks with rr's wounding on 2+ causing ID.

With the new Daemons codex you have the advantage of cheap troops en masse. Use this to take BIG mobs to tie him down, and use the rest of your forces to overwhelm the 500~ points he has left.
I suggest a mix of Daemonettes and Plaguebearers, attempting to attack with the latter first - this means attacks on the turn the Daemonettes charge will have to be allocated to the more survivable Plaguebearers, allowing the Daemonettes to unleash all their attacks for that first turn.

Other than that, I'll echo the thoughts on concentrating on his troops.

 Sasori wrote:

Dundas wrote:

Nurgle demon prince with a Balesword should do it. Initiative 8, 5 attacks with poison 4+ instant death, AP2.

Unfortunately, if he doesn't kill swarmy first, he's almost certainly dead.



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For Doom, could try taking an aegis with Lascannon on it? Gives you a chance of insta-gibbing the doom as soon as it arrives via interceptor - should at least make him think twice about positioning it.

Problem is, that with the Swarmlord, he'll generally have 1-2 Lashguards, and with four rolls on the Biomancy chart, it's a pretty good chance he's going to have Iron Arm, to EW himself. If you throw anything at him, it should be a mob of plaguebearers, as those can keep him tied up for at least a little while. You are pretty much throwing away the points of any GD you send at him.

Not hugely familiar with the SL, I take it he isn't he a character you can challenge?

How about nurgle demon prince, wings, 1 exalted and 1 greater reward, level 3 psyker. That's about 285 points, so then take two of them and fill in the rest of the points with an aegis with lascannon and 2 big blobs of plaguebearers. The princes should also be pretty good at instakilling the Doom if the lascannon doesn't, and likewise the lascannon can strip a few wounds from the SL unit.

I agree it sounds like avoiding or tarpitting him is probably a better idea, but I’m curious as to how you could reliably take him down in CC with demons, as it seems like they should have a better chance than most codexes.

Dundas wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

Dundas wrote:

Nurgle demon prince with a Balesword should do it. Initiative 8, 5 attacks with poison 4+ instant death, AP2.

Unfortunately, if he doesn't kill swarmy first, he's almost certainly dead.



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For Doom, could try taking an aegis with Lascannon on it? Gives you a chance of insta-gibbing the doom as soon as it arrives via interceptor - should at least make him think twice about positioning it.

Problem is, that with the Swarmlord, he'll generally have 1-2 Lashguards, and with four rolls on the Biomancy chart, it's a pretty good chance he's going to have Iron Arm, to EW himself. If you throw anything at him, it should be a mob of plaguebearers, as those can keep him tied up for at least a little while. You are pretty much throwing away the points of any GD you send at him.

How about nurgle demon prince, wings, 1 exalted and 1 greater reward, level 3 psyker. That's about 285 points, so then take two of them and fill in the rest of the points with an aegis with lascannon and 2 big blobs of plaguebearers. The princes should also be pretty good at instakilling the Doom if the lascannon doesn't, and likewise the lascannon can strip a few wounds from the SL unit.

I agree it sounds like avoiding or tarpitting him is probably a better idea, but I’m curious as to how you could reliably take him down in CC with demons, as it seems like they should have a better chance than most codexes.

You really don't want to CC him though, he is probably the best CC beast in the game. His Bonesabres make You reroll successful Invul saves, and they cause instant death. Without EW on daemons anymore, and the heavy reliance on their 5++ this is jut a recipe for trouble. The other big problem, is a lot of the ways to take him out so far discussed, rely on instant death. Banking on that is not a good Idea, as I said he has 4 rolls on Biomancy, which gives him around 80% chance to get Iron arm.


Plaguebearers are decent, because they can cause a fair amount of Poisoned attacks, and are only 1W, so the Instant death from the Swarmlord isn't as big a deal.

 Sasori wrote:

Dundas wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

Dundas wrote:

Nurgle demon prince with a Balesword should do it. Initiative 8, 5 attacks with poison 4+ instant death, AP2.

Unfortunately, if he doesn't kill swarmy first, he's almost certainly dead.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

For Doom, could try taking an aegis with Lascannon on it? Gives you a chance of insta-gibbing the doom as soon as it arrives via interceptor - should at least make him think twice about positioning it.

Problem is, that with the Swarmlord, he'll generally have 1-2 Lashguards, and with four rolls on the Biomancy chart, it's a pretty good chance he's going to have Iron Arm, to EW himself. If you throw anything at him, it should be a mob of plaguebearers, as those can keep him tied up for at least a little while. You are pretty much throwing away the points of any GD you send at him.

How about nurgle demon prince, wings, 1 exalted and 1 greater reward, level 3 psyker. That's about 285 points, so then take two of them and fill in the rest of the points with an aegis with lascannon and 2 big blobs of plaguebearers. The princes should also be pretty good at instakilling the Doom if the lascannon doesn't, and likewise the lascannon can strip a few wounds from the SL unit.

I agree it sounds like avoiding or tarpitting him is probably a better idea, but I’m curious as to how you could reliably take him down in CC with demons, as it seems like they should have a better chance than most codexes.

You really don't want to CC him though, he is probably the best CC beast in the game. His Bonesabres make You reroll successful Invul saves, and they cause instant death. Without EW on daemons anymore, and the heavy reliance on their 5++ this is jut a recipe for trouble. The other big problem, is a lot of the ways to take him out so far discussed, rely on instant death. Banking on that is not a good Idea, as I said he has 4 rolls on Biomancy, which gives him around 80% chance to get Iron arm.


Plaguebearers are decent, because they can cause a fair amount of Poisoned attacks, and are only 1W, so the Instant death from the Swarmlord isn't as big a deal.

This. Just ignore him, he is slow. Use your super special winged Princes/Thirsters or Skarbarnarandarded on his Tervigon and it's game over.

Plaguebearers? Wouldn't daemonettes be WAY better?

Plaguebearers might wound on 4+, but they're hitting on 5's and have to go through a 3+ armor save with just one attack. Daemonettes have twice as many attacks per model, hit on 4's, and while they only wound on 6's, all of those wounds will rend.

Plaguebearer: 1*(1/3)*(1/2)*(1/3) = 0.056 wounds/model
Daemonette: 2*(1/2)*(1/6)*(1/2) = 0.083 wounds/model.

Am I missing something?

EDIT: If we were talking about something without an invuln, or with a 2+ armor save, the comparison would be even more lopsided...

Corollax wrote:
Plaguebearers? Wouldn't daemonettes be WAY better?

Plaguebearers might wound on 4+, but they're hitting on 5's and have to go through a 3+ armor save with just one attack. Daemonettes have twice as many attacks per model, hit on 4's, and while they only wound on 6's, all of those wounds will rend.

Plaguebearer: 1*(1/3)*(1/2)*(1/3) = 0.056 wounds/model
Daemonette: 2*(1/2)*(1/6)*(1/2) = 0.083 wounds/model.

Am I missing something?

You're right, Daemonettes would probably better. I wouldn't send either in close combat against him though.

Admittedly true. The best solution is probably a Basilisk Artillery Carriage barrage to eliminate the Tyrant Guard escort, with Vendettas to take out the Swarmlord, himself.

But I think we were talking about Daemons, and CC is kinda their thing!