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.

Hey guys im brand new to this website, not new to 40k though.

Looking to start Daemons after i have had a Tau army for some time.

Can people help me look at what to go with/ start with/ how to save money.

I mean what type of daemons are good, what mark is good, etc..

Just looking for something different then run and shoot and run and shoot.

Idk if this is the write spot to post so please direct it otherwise!

Thanks again everyone!

Screamers are good. GUO is good. Lord of Change is probably the best HQ.

Portalglyph is awesome when summoning Pink Horrors.

Stick to as few gods as you can so the Warp Strom table effects you less.

Best mono-god list is probably Nurgle.

Cheapest way to collect Daemons is through Ebay.

Just a few thoughts.

Actually, the best way to avoid the 'Angry God storm about' results on the Warpstorm table is to build your army around the opposing Gods. (ie: Khorne + Slaanesh or Tzeentch + Nurgle)
This way you can make full use of your Instruments to ensure that you never take any unwanted damage from the likes of Khorne's Wrath/Dark Prince Thirsts, etc...

As for what Gods are tops?
Unlike in Fantasy where Nurgle is the only one worth even looking at, the 40k book is pretty balanced. You can pretty much go with most any unit and it'll preform, even Pinkies with proper Tzherald support now that Runes of Warding aren't so OP anymore.

The only really subpar units per say are the Slaany chariots as they're just so flimsy and prone to bouncing off units if your initial charge doesn't cripple what you're fighting. Everything else is viable if you use it right.

With the new codex there are multiple viable builds. I prefer a FMC focused list, but it's possible to build solid horde oriented assault list if that's more your playstyle.

HQs:
The LoC is a good HQ but I feel it's a bit dependent on random Greater Rewards for the survivability it really needs. If you get 3+ armor and / or the 4+ FNP the LoC is a beast, but if you roll something else, I think he's too fragile with only a 5++, even with toughness 6. When the book first came out, I was disappointed in what they did to Fateweaver, but if you pair him with the Grimoire (on a Prince or hidden on a Herald in a Troop unit) he's almost unkillable, and his ability to reroll on D6 per turn is game changing. You can use it to keep your FMCs in the air after failing a grounding check, you can use it to pass a failed Psychic check or reroll one of the Warp Storm result dice. For example, I was facing Eldar (old codex) and I rolled a 6 and a 1 for Warp Storm which is the 'nothing happens' result. I picked up the 1 rerolled it and got a 5. Eldrad then had to take a Ld check on 3d6 and got turned into a Herald of my choosing. He can really smooth out the randomness that has become a major part of the army.

The Warp Storm:
I've found that is largely ignorable, especially with Fateweaver around to let you reroll the entire result, or use his other ability to reroll just one of the dice. If you don't take him, I still wouldn't worry about the results that might damage your units on a roll of a 6. I'd worry about results 2,3 and 4, which can turn a game against you pretty quickly. So for me, Fateweaver is an auto-include in almost any Daemon list.

Thank you guys for all your help! I'm not to sure if I want to mix and match daemons or just go with one type.

Is this the way to go, and my buddy up at the shop told me that Hordes of daemons aren't good.. no offense just what I've heard.

I would just want to know a breakdown of good and bad, which HQ's, elites,troops, fast, heavy support etc..

Once again I began with Tau and although they have gotten a new update (Finally!!) I still have little to no interest in running the same move shoot move shoot move shoot, just gets old and not much fun. Not to be cocky but I rarely lost with the Tau, it was just seamless ease I want more of a challenge ! I figure it will be more challenging, since i've heard they're arguably the most difficult army to play. I literally played against 1 daemon player (Nurgle) and he literally misshaped almost his entire army, He pretty much beat himself, so it was a nearly an effortless win.

Thanks again guys for the help with Daemons

You have to understand that the warpstorm is more of a gimmick than anything else. Sure you might lose 3 or 4 models per game to it, but so will the opponent. You really shouldn't worry about it.

One of the better units is flesh hounds. Buy boxes of chaos hounds (1/4 the price of flesh hounds, same base) and buy some pink horrors/daemonettes. Those are probably the best troop choices. Daemonettes are fast, and love deepstriking (as they can run re-rolling, and add an extra 3" to it). Then from there the HQ's are up to you. The LoC is good, but only good if you have the grimoire backing it up. And a better use for the grimoire is to put it on the khorne dogs (flesh hounds) IMO.

I would avoid the elites section. Everything in there is over-costed and under performing.
The troop seciton fools people into believing that daemons can do horde. They can't. Not well at least. Stick with small amounts of troops. For a 2k game, 4 or 5 units of 10 troops should do fine. As i suggested earlier, pink horrors or daemonettes. Maybe even plagubearers.
The fast attack shines. Flesh hounds are great with the Hellforged Artefact "the grimoire of true names", as they are cheap and tough as nails. They can also pack a punch. Seekers are relatively cheap, and almost as fast as bikes, but keep in mind they are only T3 models with 1 wound and a 5+ save. Guardsmen equivalent for twice the price. Keep them hidden and charge them in and they will do work.
Plague drones are okay at best. I would invest too many points into them. Screamers are decent or good. They are fast and provide the only reliable anti-tank outside of MCs.

Avoid Chariots I'd say

Soul grinders are pretty good. Mark of Nurgle and Phlegm (battle cannon basically) makes it the toughest vehicle in the game to dig out of cover. That and it is not bad in assault


So yeah in conclusion:
Flesh hounds (with the grimoire)
daemonettes/pink horrors
Any HQ basically (they are all not bad)
Seekers
Soul Grinder

Oh I see, thank you. One more question i've only played about 5 games of 6th, and never played against the new codex, anything else I should look into, be weary of and or any great combination.

I really like Bloodthirster and Fateweaver. They any good? What about the Flying daemon princes? JW and does that nurgle guy still have that stupid chart based on wounds thing, sorry again very rare i see daemons. Just here things about them, sorry if this is a bother just looking for help. And i couldn't thanks enough for all the help!

So there are two popular modes of play so far with demons and that is:

1) Fast Horde, consisting of large units of flesh hounds, seekers, and lots of daemonettes. Point is to overload your enemy with wounds and be in combat without fail by turn two. Looks very viable against most armies/builds but are royal pain to collect.

2) Flying Circus FMC spam. Basically 4-5 Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes, flying if possible. Max out Gifts and Psyker Levels. The Gifts and Psyker levels give a lot of utility and resilience to the MCs. Take 2-3 10 man troop units and depend on the Portal Glyph to provide extra scoring. Its a very strong build (Goatboy placing 7th I believe at the Adepticon Championships) and easy to collect. You can collect the entire thing for about $300 retail and it gives you 1850 worth of models. A lot like herohammer and opponents will be beside themselves on how powerful your MCs are. Downside you depend on random gifts and psyker levels (especially the DPs). Upside it gives you a lot of tactical versatility from game to game.

I have started playing the Flying Circus and its loads of fun. if you do I would invest in Tzeentch and Slaanesh to start. Slaanesh DPs can give you the Skyfire with the Lash of Despair and KoS is great with Telepathy powers. Lord of Change gives you shooting and divination and the chance at the holy grail of 40k resilience: The 2++ rerollable save.

I'd suggest starting buy a couple troops units and a couple of the big uglies and start there. Good Luck!

P.S. Look at Goatboy's blog for some insight to how the army plays.

http://goatboy40k.blogspot.com/

Think of Daemons as being more like Eldar now, as in, you need to build proper synergies between your units & characters to really shine.

For example, a unit of Pink Horrors on their own are very lackluster overall. A psychic shooting attack that at most can generate up to 24 shots w/BS3 is rather mediocre all told. (especially on a low roll for number of shots!) But, slap a Herald w/Prescience for re-rolls to-hit + Exalted Locus to bump their shooting up to S6 and suddenly you have a very scary unit that is mobile and can threaten everything from 3+ save infantry to most transports and even most enemy fliers!

Same deal with things like the Khorne Doggies or any non-chariot Slaaneshii unit... On their own, they look kinda 'meh' overall. Add in Heralds and watch the damage potential go literally through the roof.

Nurgle units tend to be able to hold their own without relying on heralds though. Their Shrouded buff from being a Daemon of Nurgle can typically keep them decently intact during the enemy shooting phase unless they've loaded up on those scary template weapons.
Another cool buff to Plaguebearers & the new Plaguedrones; Plagueswords now work like Necron Gauss weapons in close combat! (ie: any penetration roll of a 6 is an auto-glance!)

Overall I'd rather the various FOC slots as;
HQ's:
Princes are the only real turds here. Taking a Greater luckily makes like-marked Princes into Heavy Support choices however!
Bloodthirster literally doesn't even need any rewards if you're looking to save pts. LoC & GUO are heinously disgusting if you take The Eternal Blade, and both are solid psykers... Actually, the GUO can be downright broken with Biomancy! The Kipper is cheap and fast.
All the Heralds are solid buys. Tzheralds are win-win no matter what you take because Prescience alone is game-winning, while you also can gain things like +1 to your invuln save.
Khorne's Boyz riding Juggers make lovely bullet magnets for Flesh Hound units thanks to T5 and they add ap2 attacks to the unit. Karanak is ridiculous if used in a Bloodcrusher unit.
Slaany Heralds w/Exalted Locus + Greater Etherblade are just outright rude and will wreck face in almost any challenge. (not to mention the other heinous buffs the locus brings)
Nurgle Heralds get Biomancy which alone is awesome. Slap their fat@$$es onto a Palanquin and while a bit costly, they effectively become a mini-MC in terms of their resilience.

Elites:
Nothing bad here honestly!
'Crushers are finally proper cavalry now, so while they have taken a big stat-line hit, they're fast enough now to make reliable turn 2 charges and will still feth-up any MEQ unit rather badly. Just beware of pointy-death-sticks like GK's all tote about!
Fiends are evil things. Add a mounted Slaany Herald w/Exalted locus + ap2 attacks and watch pretty much anything you hit explode. -5I to the enemy on the charge is lovely for an army that typically doesn't have assault grenades, and the -1Ld to nearby psykers is just gravy.
Flamers may not instantly delete everything that's not a flier anymore, but hitting anything with 9 templates is going to hurt... They still murder most Xenos units as well. Just keep them away from T5+ targets.
Beasts are plain fun! Attention Seeker is hilarious to see in action!

Troops:
Everything's cheap, meaning it's plentiful.
Bloodletters & Daemonettes either need to be taken at max size to make it across the board, or else just Deep Strike them in using Icons+Instruments.
Horrors & Plaguebearers are hard to shift if you get them into cover and the enemy has few to no template weapons... min-sized Horror squads are actually a decent backfield objective camper since you simply go-to-ground whenever they're shot at and gain a ridiculous 3++/re-roll 1's!
Nurglings are cute, and now they Infiltrate too! (but sadly no more poisoned attacks)

Fast Attack:
The Hellflayer is generally crap unless you design your entire list around them... (ie: go for a full-on chariot spam, but who wants like 18 of the things?!)
Furies of Slaanesh are super cheap and have rending. Just don't ever a lose a combat with them due to Ld2!!!
Flesh Hounds & Seekers are pure gold. A beast/cav rush army is plain silly as you can have everything in assault range by the top of turn 2.
Screamers are good harassers/annoyance value due to their fly-by slash attacks. Add some Prescience to make their Lamprey's Bite a bit more reliable, but again, like most units keep them the hell away from enemies with lots of S8+ or other instant kill abilities.

Heavy Support:
Soul Grinders are plain awesome. av13 + 4HP's is pretty solid plus they can also be dedicated to a specific Chaos God now. (ie: Nurgle Grinders also gain the Shrouded rule!) Good fire suppot unit and come with an AA gun.
Princes with the same alignment as your Greater Daemon/s are also Heavy choices. This is the ideal way to take them. Tzeentch w/Warp-forged Armour + Biomancy is a combat beast. Sadly no Diviniation on DP's though...
Skullcannon is decent. Has the range to sit further back and launch a S8 pie-plate at things with the added benefit of giving a 'counts as' assault grenade bonus to any of your own units that charge a unit hit by the cannon in the shooting phase.
Slaany Chariots are generally too flimsy to be worthwhile.
Burning Chariot is hilariously in need of FAQ'ing actually, due to its 'guns' being on the Exalted Flamer and thus only able to fire snap shots if the chariot moves... and again, it's rather flimsy with weak armour, meaning it'll die to a stiff sneeze!



Whew! I think that's just about everything?!

keep in mind too that Daemons are also pretty psyker-heavy now with some very decent options... Tzeentch gets Divination, Nurgle has Biomancy and Slaanesh likes Telepathy on top of their respective god-lores. And best of all, unlike CSM's, you're not forced to take any powers from the God-lores! (ie: a Lv3 Tzherald can roll all of his powers on Div)

Daemons are actually very well balanced internally with very few dud/overpowered units. You can whip up a mix of nearly anything and perform reasonably well with it IMO. For a more in-depth look:

Greater Daemons can be 300pts and worth every one. The Bloodthirster is a beatstick without equal and generally brutalises whatever he hits. The LoC is a brilliant toolbox that flings out Divination buffs, Vector-strikes, throws respectable firepower and still slaps things up in combat. The Keeper is the 'budget' Greater, trading in wings for a 33% price cut and a combat profile similar to a Bloodthrister. The Great Unclean One is probably the weakest only because he is so slow, and thus his combat abilities may be wasted. Might work well to simply deny objectives or Deep-Strike a big panic button into the enemy, but then you lose the perks of Biomancy.
Skarbrand is a contender for best assault unit in the game and carries game-changing buffs for both sides. Makes games much more fun and hideously destructive, but the lack of wings means he's probably weaker than a stock 'Thirster (Still bloody good though). Fateweaver is expensive but incredibly powerful. His reroll ability is so easy to waste but can win games when timed properly, and he is essentially immortal with a Grimoire. Ku'Gath is a GUO that can fight at range and thus overcome the biggest problem with them. Expensive, but is basically a GUO that works better.

Heralds are all great and fantastic bargains. Khorne generally likes Juggernauts, Slaanesh likes Steeds and Aetherblades, Tzeentch always gets Mastery 3 and Nurgle can stay cheap. Loci depend on which units you intend to stick them with but generally, a Locus is a good plan and most Heralds should carry one. Psyker levels are not needed for Slaanesh/Nurgle due to Ld problems.
Karanak is a great buy. The Masque would be great, but she uses a whole HQ slot and doesn't offer as much as a Greater, so this is her problem. Epidemius looks decent at first buy if you like your Nurgle. Skulltaker, Changeling and Blue Scribes are regrettably a bit rubbish.

Daemon Princes are silly expensive but very, very violent. Build them to a specific purpose and you'll do ok: Slaanesh makes convinving anti-air, Tzeentch makes nice all-rounders and Nurgle is for when you don't need Sweeping Advances and Khorne is just for breaking faces. Khorne loses out here because they can only break faces, which they do not do as well as a Bloodthirster but cost nearly the same amount. Also, I personally think one of the best things about them is the flexibility in Psychic disciplines so I would strongly consider Mastery 3. Armour and Wings are basically mandatory.

Bloodletters are for sweeping objectives. Daemonettes are for distant objectives and some combat. Plaguebearers sit on objectives in cover and require disproportionate effort to remove. Horrors sit on objectives in cover and toss out the odd fireball, but survivability is still the main purpose. All of them have a role and all are viable. If I were to rank them I'd say Bloodletters are probably the weakest, with the other 3 being even with different areas of expertise. Not to say that 'Letters are bad.
Nurglings are for your minimum Troops requirement if you want to play the 'Flying Circus'.


I'm getting tired now so I'll list a completely opinion-based ranking of units in terms of playability. As I mentioned the list is very well balanced and so even a lower-ranked unit will still be perfectly valid with the right builds.

Epic / Overpowered- Lord of Change, Herald of Tzeentch, Flesh Hounds, Seekers, Soul Grinder
Solid / Competitive- Kairos, Bloodthirster, Keeper, Karanak, Herald of Khorne, Herald of Slaanesh, Pink Horrors, Daemonettes, Plaguebearers, Furies, Skull Cannon, Seeker Chariots
Good- Ku'Gath, Great Unclean One, Daemon Prince, Herald of Nurgle, Masque, Bloodletters, Beasts of Nurgle
Mediocre / Need a plan-Nurglings, Bloodcrushers, Flamers, Fiends, Plague Drones
Bad- Skulltaker, Blue Scribes, Changeling, Hellflayer, Burning Chariot

thisisnotpancho already said pretty much everything I was going to contribute. Everything stated is spot-on.

As a side note, remember to maintain a critical stance with respect to advice solicited on Dakka. There's a lot of bad advice being floated in this thread already.

For the LoC, I tend to give him the lesser reward Staff of Change. S8 AP2 at initiative is too nice to pass up.

Grimoire dogs is an excellent build IMO.

laxrat15 wrote:
Oh I see, thank you. One more question i've only played about 5 games of 6th, and never played against the new codex, anything else I should look into, be weary of and or any great combination.

I really like Bloodthirster and Fateweaver. They any good? What about the Flying daemon princes? JW and does that nurgle guy still have that stupid chart based on wounds thing, sorry again very rare i see daemons. Just here things about them, sorry if this is a bother just looking for help. And i couldn't thanks enough for all the help!

You've never played against the new codex? Judging from the line "does that nurgle guy still have that stupid chart based on wounds thing" you apparently haven't bothered to read the new codex yet either. First step: READ THE BOOK. It will give you all the info you need to create an army that interests you. Reading through this thread and your comments about local info you've gotten show that what is good in the codex is completely subjective. Ask 5 different people and get 5 different "best" armies from the book. So read it, pick out the units you think are interesting and build an army. I never build armies based on what other people prefer. I build them to suit my own playing style. I recommend you do the same.

The big difference is that Daemons are about as opposite from Tau as you can get. You go from mega shooty to mega melee with limited shootiness. Going to take some adaptation to make such a drastic switch, so be prepared for it.

Skriker

Have to second the idea of reading the book first. Having gone from an assault army(orks for a long time) to more of a shooty army (Codex marines), I can say that making a drastic switch to what you are used to is harder than it seems. I built a Daemon army just because I was tired of getting my teeth kicked in with marines that I played far too aggressively.

I still play marines (I'm stubborn), but I like having another, more aggressive, army available.