Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok ive been having serious problems with my new Codex, i mean its all kinds of fun but i won more with my old one.

The army is as follows
1 daemon prince (lvl 3 psyker, daemon wings and 50 points of gifts)
3 heralds (1 on a disc and 2 walking all lvl 3 psykers and 30 pts of gifts)

20 pink horrors
20 pink horrors

3 screamers

1 Soulgrinder

and i have 12 Flamers which i use occasionally

i fight Crons, Tau, and Space Marines, and i will be fighting Eldar soon
I need help as i've lost every fight ive been in since using the new Dex and not by a little, unlike with my old one where i won or only lost by a little.
Honestly i just want to beat my head against the wall as i cant seem to counter anything they throw at me

I don't think mono god army works well for the new Daemon codex. You need to look at the whole codex irrespective of gods and see what best fits.

Take mono Tzeentch, which looks like what you are playing now. It seems like a primarily shooty army, until you realise that there's a lot of armies out there that can outshoot a mono Tzeentch shooty army.

If you really want to use mono Tzeentch. Then abuse the grimoire.

Turn your Daemon Prince into a Lord of Change. Have your heralds all take divination and the grimoire. Pray that you get forewarning (shouldn't be difficult since you have so many).

Cast forewarning on your Lord of change, use the Grimoire on your Lord of Change. Now you have a flying monstrous creature with a 2+ invulnerable save, and he rerolls his 1 because he is Tzeentch.

Now let your invincible Lord of Change go and kill off his entire army.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
If you really want to use mono Tzeentch. Then abuse the grimoire.

Turn your Daemon Prince into a Lord of Change. Have your heralds all take divination and the grimoire. Pray that you get forewarning (shouldn't be difficult since you have so many).

Cast forewarning on your Lord of change, use the Grimoire on your Lord of Change. Now you have a flying monstrous creature with a 2+ invulnerable save, and he rerolls his 1 because he is Tzeentch.

Now let your invincible Lord of Change go and kill off his entire army.

QFT. If you give it 50 points worth of rewards, the level 3 psyker LoC is 30 points cheaper than your prince. And if you look at the stat line, you're not giving up anything that really matters (WS drops from 9 to 6 which is still hitting on 3+ most of the time; and I drops from 8 to 6 which is still hitting first most of the time), and you get improvements that are actually good (1 more T and 1 more W, 1 more BS).

All you're really giving up is biomancy, and you're gaining divination. Given the higher base toughness and wounds, the LoC is more survivable than a biomancy Prince if you have the grimoire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I don't think mono god army works well for the new Daemon codex. You need to look at the whole codex irrespective of gods and see what best fits.
Take mono Tzeentch, which looks like what you are playing now. It seems like a primarily shooty army, until you realise that there's a lot of armies out there that can outshoot a mono Tzeentch shooty army.

Tzeentch can pump out the shots:

If you have:

2 units of 20 horrors

each with a Lvl 3 herald with a locus of conjuration

Herald casts prescience on the unit

Horrors cast Flickering Flames of Tzeentch with 3 warp charge

Herald cast Flickering Flames of Tzeentch with 2 warp charge

Then you will pump out two groups of:

4D6 twin-linked BS3, S6 shots from the horrors

3D6 twin-linked BS4, S6 shots from the Heralds

That's a lot of psychic tests, and a lot of deny the witch... but it's also a lot of dakka.

Are you fighting MEQ s? If so your shooting is probably giving them feel no pain for free, which sucks, but you can't really do anything about it.

 Kain wrote:
Are you fighting MEQ s? If so your shooting is probably giving them feel no pain for free, which sucks, but you can't really do anything about it.

A 2/3 chance of gaining 6+ FNP, and a 1/3 chance of suffering an additional D3 casualties with no armour saves...

 DexKivuli wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Are you fighting MEQ s? If so your shooting is probably giving them feel no pain for free, which sucks, but you can't really do anything about it.

A 2/3 chance of gaining 6+ FNP, and a 1/3 chance of suffering an additional D3 casualties with no armour saves...

Stackable FNP. I've seen marine squads turn literally invincible with 1+ FNP due to bad rolling.

 Kain wrote:

 DexKivuli wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Are you fighting MEQ s? If so your shooting is probably giving them feel no pain for free, which sucks, but you can't really do anything about it.

A 2/3 chance of gaining 6+ FNP, and a 1/3 chance of suffering an additional D3 casualties with no armour saves...

Stackable FNP. I've seen marine squads turn literally invincible with 1+ FNP due to bad rolling.

Yeah, it's a risk. But all depends on the entire list. If you can throw in an enfeeble, S6 is instant death.

 DexKivuli wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
If you really want to use mono Tzeentch. Then abuse the grimoire.

Turn your Daemon Prince into a Lord of Change. Have your heralds all take divination and the grimoire. Pray that you get forewarning (shouldn't be difficult since you have so many).

Cast forewarning on your Lord of change, use the Grimoire on your Lord of Change. Now you have a flying monstrous creature with a 2+ invulnerable save, and he rerolls his 1 because he is Tzeentch.

Now let your invincible Lord of Change go and kill off his entire army.

QFT. If you give it 50 points worth of rewards, the level 3 psyker LoC is 30 points cheaper than your prince. And if you look at the stat line, you're not giving up anything that really matters (WS drops from 9 to 6 which is still hitting on 3+ most of the time; and I drops from 8 to 6 which is still hitting first most of the time), and you get improvements that are actually good (1 more T and 1 more W, 1 more BS).

All you're really giving up is biomancy, and you're gaining divination. Given the higher base toughness and wounds, the LoC is more survivable than a biomancy Prince if you have the grimoire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I don't think mono god army works well for the new Daemon codex. You need to look at the whole codex irrespective of gods and see what best fits.
Take mono Tzeentch, which looks like what you are playing now. It seems like a primarily shooty army, until you realise that there's a lot of armies out there that can outshoot a mono Tzeentch shooty army.

Tzeentch can pump out the shots:

If you have:

2 units of 20 horrors

each with a Lvl 3 herald with a locus of conjuration

Herald casts prescience on the unit

Horrors cast Flickering Flames of Tzeentch with 3 warp charge

Herald cast Flickering Flames of Tzeentch with 2 warp charge

Then you will pump out two groups of:

4D6 twin-linked BS3, S6 shots from the horrors

3D6 twin-linked BS4, S6 shots from the Heralds

That's a lot of psychic tests, and a lot of deny the witch... but it's also a lot of dakka.

4d6 sounds like a lot, until you realise it only averages out to 12 shots. Even if I give you twin linked, a 10 man marine squad rapid firing their bolters will likely give you the same or even more hits. Plus, all those S6 wounds allows armor save, especially by MEQ with their 3+. You could do 10 wounds, and end up killing only 2 or 3 marines. That is hardly a devastating salvo. And you spent over 300 points on a herald with loci in a squad of 20 horrors to achieve this. For the same cost, you can have 20 marines, which can rapid fire their bolters for 40 shots. Or it could be 16 bolters, and 4 plasma guns. So, 32 bolter shots and 8 str 7 AP2 plasma shots rapid fired.

And this is just marines we are talking about. They are hardly the most shooty thing out there. The really shooty armies could probably do better. I am not really seeing the shootiness of pink horrors, even if they are backed by a lv 3 herald.

Take Tau for example. A cheap Fireblade cadre or Etheral in a 12 man unit of fire warriors won't even cost 200 points. But with the etheral or the cadre adding to their shots, the amount of shots of such a unit is very high. Within rapid fire range (which is 15 inches), the unit can do 39 shots (of Str 5)! And they don't have to pass a psychic test to shoot, and the opponent doesn't get deny the witch, nor does the opponent get the possibility of getting FNP.

The really shooty armies out there will have not just volume of fire, they will have high strength, AP1 or AP2 weapons as well to handle armor. Like IG. Mono Tzeentch shooting doesn't seem to be versatile enough, nor have enough volume of shots to match such armies.

we used to, my old Dex had each horror firing 3 Str 4 AP 4 shots at 18 inches and then 1 Str8 AP1 Bolt of Tzeentch, i lost a ton of fire power for little to no benefit

Eldenfirefly wrote:


4d6 sounds like a lot, until you realise it only averages out to 12 shots. Even if I give you twin linked, a 10 man marine squad rapid firing their bolters will likely give you the same or even more hits. Plus, all those S6 wounds allows armor save, especially by MEQ with their 3+. You could do 10 wounds, and end up killing only 2 or 3 marines. That is hardly a devastating salvo. And you spent over 300 points on a herald with loci in a squad of 20 horrors to achieve this. For the same cost, you can have 20 marines, which can rapid fire their bolters for 40 shots. Or it could be 16 bolters, and 4 plasma guns. So, 32 bolter shots and 8 str 7 AP2 plasma shots rapid fired.

I'm not saying they're the most shooty army in the world, I'm just saying they can pump out some damage. 20 horrors + level 3 herald with locus is 300 points exactly... assault shots, so fully effective at 24" range (don't need to be at 12").

Horrors 4D6 is 14 shots on average, Herald 3D6 is 10.5

Twin-linked BS 3 reduces 14 to 10.5 hits, and twin-linked BS4 reduces 10.5 to 9.3 - 19.8 hits in total on average

Wounding on a 2+ leaves 16.5 wounds

After MEQ saves, that's 5.5 wounds

Two shots, each with warpflame, will on average kill 1.3 more MEQ - total 6.8 dead marines on average

Soul blaze will - on average - kill another 0.16 marines - total 7.0 dead marines on average

300 points will buy 18.75 (say 19) tac marines. At 24":

12.7 hits

8.4 wounds

5.16 dead horrors on average

I'm not saying Pink Horrors are the most dakka unit in the world, just that they can do some damage. This is obviously taken in isolation... but there are too many nuances to consider in a broader context. For example, against Tau, Flickering Flames of Tzeentch are AP4...

And mono-Tzeentch still has other threats, that operate in different ways. The LoC can't be ignored, and if it's packing a rerollable 2++ it's very scary. Throw in a few soul grinders of tzeentch. Plus, you might have misfortune on your psykers too (which would mean that the 5.5 dead marines post-saves would instead be 9.2 dead marines).

I'm not saying mono-Tzeentch is unbeatable. Or that it's the best shooting army. I'm just saying that it's potentially viable.

That said, I play Necrons.

You are DEFINITELY going to need something else for when you fight Eldar. If your opponent so much as brings Runes of Warding, every unit you have has its effectiveness cut in half from not being able to reliably fire off psychic powers.

 Super Ready wrote:
You are DEFINITELY going to need something else for when you fight Eldar. If your opponent so much as brings Runes of Warding, every unit you have has its effectiveness cut in half from not being able to reliably fire off psychic powers.

I run a mono tzeentch list and rely on psyhic powers to buff my small amount of models, I have yet to face eldar but been actively seeking out a good eldar player to pratice against. My only hope would be sending 3 daemon princes and a lord of change against the farseer!

I don't think mono-daemons are dead, then again it could just be because I play mono slaanesh.

Lvl 3 seems too high on heralds, try maxing at lvl 2, psychic levels cost a lot of point for little added benefit (again, could just be because I'm a slaanesh player)

Unless you are taking artifacts on your heralds, try to limit yourself in the number of rewards you take. With your tzeentch heralds, seeming you don't want to go into combat, take 1 single lesser reward for the chance to roll a shooting power that your opponents can't deny.


Are your heralds taking any loci? if not give them an exalted loci for +1 str Psy-power goodness.

I'm guessing the disk herald is riding with the sreamers? if so don't give him any loci. In fact, I don't really see how he benefits the screamers, as the screamers want to be in combat (or flying really fast (i.e. most likely turbo-boosting)) so the herald will be going into combat (his weakness) or flying superfast and not being able to shoot.


Could you expain what you main tactics are at the moment, just so we can see how your using units and to give you advice. Who knows, maybe you have a kick-ass list that you aren't using effectively!

+1 to the LoC. A lord of change is an absolute beast. They are much tougher than daemon princes.

Where are you having problems?
- Are you getting assaulted to death?
- Are you trying to play a shooting game and getting outshot?
- Are you unable to hold objectives?
- What kind of armies are you facing?

Some of these can be addressed. You know a squad of horrors going to ground behind an ADL have a 35/36 chance of making a cover save right? They cannot be shifted at all! Even going to ground in area terrain makes them extremely durable.

well my herald on a disc follows the screamers and hits them with a buff before they crash into something, then he shoots something nearby to try and keep it off their back, my other two hearalds have all three Locis and run with my horros, one has the Grimmoire and the other has the Blade of Eternal Battle (at minimum roll he is on par with a MEQ) my Soul Grinder i use mostly as artillery and just spam Phlegm at large clusters of troops, and Agandaur (the name of my Daemon Prince) i have fly around and Psychic Shriek things, (he also usually has one power from Telekinesis and one other from Telepathy i've been lucky recently and its been Hallucination) and then i have him rip apart any flyers nearby and if there aren't any flyers i crash him into the biggest thing i can find, IE usually a C'tan Shard. Which he kills, usually.

My Horrors usually sit in a piece of area terrain and shoot anything that moves.

your problem is tzentch is the trash of the demon codex. Everything about them was nerfed. They are total crap. The only thing you should take tzeentch is heralds and a single block of pink horrors as allies to csm to get them divination cheaply.

tgf wrote:
your problem is tzentch is the trash of the demon codex. Everything about them was nerfed. They are total crap. The only thing you should take tzeentch is heralds and a single block of pink horrors as allies to csm to get them divination cheaply.

Darn, how comes I have only lost one game with mono tzeentch army?!

MarkyMark wrote:

tgf wrote:
your problem is tzentch is the trash of the demon codex. Everything about them was nerfed. They are total crap. The only thing you should take tzeentch is heralds and a single block of pink horrors as allies to csm to get them divination cheaply.

Darn, how comes I have only lost one game with mono tzeentch army?!

You cheat?
You play lack wit opponents?
You lie on the interwebs?

Lots of possibilities.

tgf wrote:

MarkyMark wrote:

tgf wrote:
your problem is tzentch is the trash of the demon codex. Everything about them was nerfed. They are total crap. The only thing you should take tzeentch is heralds and a single block of pink horrors as allies to csm to get them divination cheaply.

Darn, how comes I have only lost one game with mono tzeentch army?!

You cheat?
You play lack wit opponents?
You lie on the interwebs?

Lots of possibilities.

And with that I believe the rest of your input in this thread can be safely ignored.

I've had great results with a mono-Tzeentch list. It's MC heavy, with Fateweaver and a Grimioire. It's been fun.

Try splitting your troops into smaller squads to increase the volume of fire. Focus on squads to finish them off quick so they gain little to no benefit from the fnp.

Ally in a squad of thousand suns with a csm sorc.

LoC is awesome.

Soulgrinders are cheap and awesome.

I was thinking of grabbing a squad of Thousand Sons and bringin Ahriman along mainly cause i think they look cool, but their rather points intensive, but if i brought them along id just drop the screamers

tgf wrote:

MarkyMark wrote:

tgf wrote:
your problem is tzentch is the trash of the demon codex. Everything about them was nerfed. They are total crap. The only thing you should take tzeentch is heralds and a single block of pink horrors as allies to csm to get them divination cheaply.

Darn, how comes I have only lost one game with mono tzeentch army?!

You cheat?
You play lack wit opponents?
You lie on the interwebs?

Lots of possibilities.

Some dakka members have seen me play, they will probably laugh at me following your comments :(

As for cheating, I am sure the two tourny organisers would have picked up on that!, or the two guys that made it to the UK GT finals that I beat.

By the way, kudos to living up to your name, TFG. Oops, always thought it was TFG? maybe it secretly is

I see its lying on the internet, that was going to be my first guess. Live and learn.

I've had decent luck running tzeentch daemons with csm allies. 3 soulgrinders, a forgefiend, heldrake, and a warpsmith for the reduced cover save and repairing broken hellbots. Heralds and fateweaver for the fifty rerolls. The nice thing about tzeentch is it's all shooty, then you get the warpstorm table which generally adds a little more shooty.

tgf wrote:
I see its lying on the internet, that was going to be my first guess. Live and learn.

Wow. Embarrassing.

In my experience Tzeentch is one of the stronger factions in the daemon dex, but personally I've had most success with a two-god approach, Tzeentch for firesupport and buffing (through divination) and Khorne for the in-your-face assault element.

I think there are some optimizations you can do to your list to make it work better, but I think part of the problem might be you are playing a shooty list against other shooty armies that frankly shoot better than you. Adding some fast assaulting troops like flesh hounds to support your screamers might be a good idea to protect your shooters.

Anyway, to start with I think your list might be a bit "top heavy" in that you have a LOT of points invested in rather fragile HQ models. The heralds are good but I would tone them down and maybe settle for two ML2 ones on foot, giving them one divination and one change spell. For the horrors I've had much more success with cheap and cheerful 10-man units without herald support. Depending on the opponent I try to get a mix of Flickering Fire (against 4+ save infantry armies) and Bolt (against light mech and 3+ save infantry).

I would advise against using the daemon prince in general, unless you're going for a very FMC heavy list. The Lord of Change does practically everything a tzeentch prince can do but wibetter stats and usually at a lower cost. I kit mine out with two greater gifts and one lesser defaulting to the staff of change, with two MLs and one spell each from Change and Divination. This configuration makes him quite durable while being an absolute beatstick in combat.

So, don't give up on the daemons just yet! It's a super fun army to play and with the right list can be very competitive. Good luck!

The LoC is cool, but i use the Daemon prince because when i have to fight the C'tan shard, and he is the only i have that can take it in a straight up fight. On top of that he works really well in challenges because of his crazy high Init and WS, making it really hard for him to get hit, on top of that i think he looks cool

I'm not too well versed in demons but if the LoC can get a 2++ with rerollable ones shouldn't he easily be able to take the shard? He is practically unkillable.

2x210 wrote:
I'm not too well versed in demons but if the LoC can get a 2++ with rerollable ones shouldn't he easily be able to take the shard? He is practically unkillable.

Well as far as MCs go, the LoC is pretty unspectacular in melee, whereas Shards are...well ask anyone who tried to pit a Trygon or Wraithseer against a shard...

Those of you who plays Tzeentch succesfully (Thousand Sons players are also welcome), could you post your army lists and tell how you play them or just tell us what works for you?

I would like to combine Thousand Sons with Daemons of Tzeentch, I'm just worried about giving the enemy Feel no pain and Thousand Sons cult units not being effective enough and I could imagine such an army wouldn't have a chance against Eldar.