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I already play a fmc list and do pretty well with it. I'm acquiring some soukd grinders, seekers, daemonetts, bloodletters, and pink horrors. I also own 20 plague bearers. I'm wondering if you guys can tell me what some of the most competitive builds for daemons are and what gets the wheels turning. Currently this is my daemons core:

Fateweaver / lord of change
3 tzeentch biomancy daemon princes
20 plaguebearers of nurgle
Blood thirster

I like 20 plaguebearers with a fnp herald behind an ageis line with a quadgun. it's very very hard to shift, relatively cheap and you've got a bs 5 quadgun, whats not to love.
Other than that I've heard of people doing well with daemonetts but I haven't played against them enough to be of help.

For cheapest, plague bearers, best to sit in cover and score objectives can usually get a 2 plus cover save, in combat they are meh but at least they restrict bonus charges and can wound anything in the game.

If you are going to spend the points on them then its horrors, they need a herald or two in there usually one with the grimoire to give it lots of LOS wounds, with 2 ml3 heralds and 16plus horrors they can kick out quite a few shots.

For mobile troops its daemonettes, being able to deepstrike them then run a re rollable d6 +3 inches is good.

Bloodletters. Pass.

psychosheep22 wrote:
I like 20 plaguebearers with a fnp herald behind an ageis line with a quadgun. it's very very hard to shift, relatively cheap and you've got a bs 5 quadgun, whats not to love.
Other than that I've heard of people doing well with daemonetts but I haven't played against them enough to be of help.

Seems like a very solid core. You would also have the option of leaving the Herald at the gun to walk the plague bearers to an objective.

All good advice now my question is, do heralds with horrors, daemonetts, soul grinders with say fate weaver and a lord of change. I'd is that more competitive than a flying circus list? If you were to build a non competitive flying circus list what would it be?

Daemon Princes will be better than Soul Grinders in a Flying Circus simply because of target saturation.

That said, a combination of Khorne Puppies and Greater Daemons supported by Soul Grinders seems like a solid TAC army.

Well my question is... Whats better flying circus or a tac daemon army?

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Well my question is... Whats better flying circus or a tac daemon army?

My vote is always a TAC list as it's less likely to turn into paper rock scissors.
That said, I am not a highly competitive tournament player and I am willing to make tactical concessions due to financial or modeling reasons, so take my advice with full disclosure.

My votes on a TAC list.

I found a combination of Tzeentch and Slaanesh to be a good one.

This is a 1850pt list I used in a local comp recently which ended up netting me first place. It strikes a good balance between infantry and MC's.




Psychic powers and rewards allow you to pick the most useful tools for beating the army your facing. I think its tempting to go for lots of mastery levels and rewards on MC's and heralds but you need to keep in mind that you need pts for other units, putting all your eggs in one basket makes your army less flexible.

Take a look at my daemons tactics post

jakl277 wrote:
Take a look at my daemons tactics post

Dude, are you going to jump in every daemon thread with this?

I get that you're new, and you would like your thread to be popular, but the easiest way to get people talking about your thread is to make your thread worth talking about.

If you're some sort of daemons playing savant, and have a bundle of wins under your belt, then please accept my apologies and my promise I will absorb and implement everything you write, but, as it stands, I disagree with probably 33% of what you've written, but cannot summon the energy to break down such a massive block of text into the salient pieces I would wish to address.

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but yours isn't the first daemon tactica thread, and is by no means exhaustive, so perhaps let people discover the wonders contained within for themselves hey?

Agreed. My point was that the question posed by the OP is covered extensively elsewhere and has been discussed a lot already. The most competitive builds are flying circus with minimum horrors or plagues as troops and dog piles with horror blobs or daemonettes. My 2 cents. Thank you azreal for pointing out that I have jumped into every daemon's thread.

One of my buddies is a long-time Demon player, and after the new codex he always has the following in his competitive lists: PLaguebearers behind an ADL w/ a Lascannon and a Herald, a Tzeentch Herald w/ Psyker lvl 3, someone using a Grimoire, big squad of Daemonettes w/ a Herald, and a big squad of Bloodletters, I believe w/ a Herald.

His HQ choice may change, and he usually fills in with either Fiends or Hounds after that, but that base above is a pain in the tookus.

In my TAC lists I prefer to spread my army around a bit, while maintaining a decent speed. I have been having a lot of fun with the followin glist.

LoC + gifts (2G 1L)
Khorne jugger herlad for hounds
Nurgle herald as a portalglyph carrier
10 flesh hounds
3 units of 12PB
3 beasts of nurgle
2 soul grinders (either torrent/slaanesh or phlegm/nurgle. reduce/add to troops to adjust points)

Beasts could be swapped for 3 drones +PR+etherblade +either piscobs or sting. I prefer my drones in large groups, and my beasts to run around solo. seems like 1 beasts comes off as such a small threat people will ignore it until it gets close enough to assault.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Well my question is... Whats better flying circus or a tac daemon army?

My Flying Circus list IS my TAC list.

I've found the Circus to be strong against every army I've played it against. I think I've faced just about every codex out there with the Exception of Grey Knights, and where I've lost it's been close.

I run:

Fateweaver
Tzeentch Herald, ML3, Grimoire
16 Horrors, no upgrades
10 Bloodletters (to run the Lascannon on the Bastion)
3x Daemon Princes of Tzeentch, all ML3, one with 1x Exalted, 1x Greater, the other two with 2x Greater

That should fit into 1850 points and is a lot of fun to play, but I'm getting hints that it's not so much fun to play against, so I'm looking to possibly remove a Prince and maybe use a squad of Bloodcrushers with a Khorne Herald.

I use a combo of both popular lists and have found it to do well. Fateweaver and a Khorne Herald on juggernaut. Two maxed out tzeentch princes and two units of 15-20 hounds. Then whatever is left at 2k to spend on daemonettes.

I've found 3 FMCs to be the sweet spot. Less makes it too easy for your opponent to shoot them down. More leaves very little army on the board to support. Two large units of hounds are very hard to deal with especially if one is supported by a Herald and the Grimoire. It makes a really difficult choice for your opponent. Do I take on the hounds before they hit me or focus on the very hard to kill flying monsters.

As far as troops is concerned, IMO pink horrors work better than plaguebearers at most roles. They're ranged and can do more than twiddle their thumbs all game, can go to ground for a rerollable 2+ cover save and you can stick a prescience herald in with them.