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So Eldar have been kicking ass since the new Dex has come out and I couldnt be happier. But what i have noticed is that almost everytime i see a Daemon vs Eldar matchup the Daemons come out on top. i have personally had 3 games against Daemons and all of them losses. Its usually a Slaanesh, or Tzeentch list, or some mashup of the 2. So is this the case in your local meta? What can Eldar do to combat the D bags? Should we start freaking the hell out? Tell me Dakka.

Wraiths... D-scythes, flyers, reapers.. Alas the things that do well against demons don't do too well with others.. So yeah tourneys were stuffed..
6th ed = Rock/scissors/paper...what can you do?


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I still don't see why spiders can't waste them.. But demons is the army I never play against

I agree with the flyer, reaper, Wraith whatever, both in that they are good vs Daemons, and that folks i know dont use them. Spiders do ok, but you never have more than 2 units of them.

Strayan wrote:
Wraiths... D-scythes, flyers, reapers.. Alas the things that do well against demons don't do too well with others.. So yeah tourneys were stuffed..
6th ed = Rock/scissors/paper...what can you do?

I'm curious why you think D-scythes aren't much good against other armies. A T6 unit of AP2 template weapons? Yes please!! Admittedly you need the Wave Serpent to get them up close, but taking that isn't exactly a tax.

More in general... I've seen Daemons built in three ways. MC heavy, troops heavy, or at higher points levels, both. With that in mind you can build towards these two and have firepower to spare if other oddities like Chariots turn up.
For the MCs we can safely assume some will be flying. Scatter lasers should do the trick, to help ground if not wound the MCs themselves. This of course twin-links any other weapons on the model too.
For the troops, D-scythes are a bit *too* close to being assaulted for my liking, where they won't stand up too well. I prefer the idea of Warp Spiders that can get themselves out of trouble. But otherwise, I would say fight fire with fire and take lots of shuriken on Guardians, Dire Avengers, Jetbikes, and possibly Vypers and War Walkers. Drown them in ordinary fire. Any spare scatter lasers can help.

I would think the list could get away with only one or two lance weapons in case of a Soul Grinder. Otherwise excessive anti-tank options will be a waste.

Well, a Serpent spam list supported by Warwalkers should be able to deal with any Daemon list.
In the recent team RTT, I felt a little bit guilty after shooting down a winged DP with a single Serpent - as far as I remember with eleven hits.

Most people refuse to play against cron-air daemons flying circus at my game store at least. Lets pretend for a second were not fighting those types of abusive armies.

Eldar that I've seen have the most trouble dealing with 2 things from the daemons codex.

1. Hounds - 20 2W S5 W5 guys charging on turn one kills all your fragile shooting things and probably your dedicated melee troops also. Solution here is use wraithlords and other such things (vehicles too) that cant be hurt by them.

2. Well nobody likes a Lord of change with lvl 3 psychic and 2++ re-rollable save. It beats entire armies by itself. Nothing you have can beat this guy in CC. Ground him and tarpit or ground him and focus him down. The daemons lists that run expensive FMC lose the moment they are dropped.

3. Lets say youre talking about a tournament setting. the eldar would probably be spamming wave serpents and the daemons are probably spamming FMC. MC just do very well against vehicles especially with psychic shooting.

I don't think any army really counters another its just the way that you build it. I've beat and lost to eldar plenty with my daemons often with the same list against the same list. I have a lot of trouble with firedragons suicide attacking my expensive units and eldar vehicles shooting all my stuff. I like it when an eldar player starts all his troops on the board and brings little armor. I just zoom my monsters over them and shoot and charge after the dogs tie stuff down.

Wraith suck against daemons. The short range on the guns means that my cavalry and beast movement is going to easily get me either out of range or in CC before you can get a full turn of shooting in. Overwatch is danger with these fellas though. The CC wraiths are just as useless as they can just be avoided. The way to beat daemons is shooting. They're probably gonna beat you if they get close. Eldar and move fast and shoot so it almost seems like they counter daemons. Stay out of CC and keep shooting. Daemons troops suck donkey-cave and die like wetpaper towels protected by toilet paper.

Lots of valid statements and ideas here. But What the meat of the whole dilemma is: is mass Slaanesh units Daemonnettes, seekers, fiends, supported by Tzeentch Shenanigans. LOC + screamers, and a gak ton of Heralds with all the trickery make our potent short range weapons ineffective, and our long range stuff just doesn't have enough shots.. By the time we can do significant damage they are already upon us. There are of course builds to counter this, but what we need is a TAC list that is effective against such a threat. I do agree that D Scythes and Spiders are good against this type of thing, but not enough to counter wholly.

Are you a footdar, jetdar, or mechdar player. Each of those army types have different answers and they are effective.

Well fiends dont really hit all that hard and daemonettes melt like butter. Your guardian/DA/regular troop shooting should be aimed at fiends/seekers/daemonettes. Screamers are generally never taken in mass only 6-12 per army. Fiends are also never taken in mass. Huge squads of daemonettes will die to anything template or rapid fire. They are T3 with no armor. All slaanesh units are going to melt like butter to any substantial shooting.

A ton of heralds means up to 4 if he has a LOC and likely less because they are 100+ points each and die pretty easily for HQ choices. I don't know what herald ability makes your short range weapons useless and I know the daemon's codex pretty well.

The key to beating daemons with a shooting army is to bubble wrap and there are various dakka posts about doing it properly. Bubble wrap with guardians using as much shooting as possible and while the daemonettes and stuff that survives is fighting them focus down the other stuff with your heavy guns and then focus back to the rest once your bubble wrap falls.

I don't know all the eldar names well but template weapons against troops and mass shooting against everything else. Wave serpents literally are the bane of a daemons army like this as seekers and fiends have trouble with fast moving armor and die super easy.

Screamers are a pain to deal with but they will fall quickly to shooting and die easily to banshees and other dedicated melee units. They are not elite melee units but they are good at taking out fragile stuff and light tanks. Shoot them before they reach your transports.

Tzeentch stuff can be denied by eldrad and your strong psychic stuff (in terms of shooting) and kill the FMC carrying the book of names to weaken the Loc with the 2++.

It would be easier if you provide a sample list that you have trouble playing against so I could give you a specific list of things to accomplish rather than general advice.

Happy hunting.

I am Mechdar, I have seen footdar have the same problems though.

Against slaanesh specifically?

mech has trouble with the rending attacks but on average the low str of the slaanesh units means they shouldnt be hitting you that hard at all. Big fatties like wraithlords should be able to really lay down the pain on anything big like the keeper of secrets.

Eldrad should help a lot denying psychic powers and daemonettes really should be cut down like butter. fiends and seekers are also super easy to kill but they are pretty fast. Daemonettes wont charge you until T3 maybe T2. Fiends and seekers hope for a T2 charge in general. That means you should have 1-2 full turns of shooting to take out 2 small units of both seekers and fiends. thats around 6-12 fiends and like 20 seekers. That should be easy especially at high points costs. If you are playing at lower points costs like 1000 I doubt your opponent cant afford to bring both fiends seekers FMC and daemonettes in mass enough to withstand shooting.

 oddworx wrote:
I am Mechdar, I have seen footdar have the same problems though.

Well, if you play mechdar, it will be a matter of positioning, movement, and target priority.

good point wuestenfux (that feels so weird to type out?)

Make sure you use guardians to bubble wrap your valuable shooting platforms so that they get hit last. All the daemons stuff lacks armor because GW thinks that bloodcrushers in their lore being "immune" to small arms fire means a 6+ save so anything shooting wise that is S4 or better is gonna hurt them especially daemonettes. Made sure you have an ADL or plenty of cover to make the daemons assault through cover because they dont have assault grenades. If their weakened units lose combat because of that they will be destroyed by demonic instability.

I played a Daemons list recently at a local tournament. I managed to take out Fateweaver, a Bloodthirster and a Soul Grinder on turn 1, before they got flying. After that, it was an easy win.

That said, another Daemons player in my local scene has always beaten me down. I've got a warm-up game against him next week, and i'm sure it's going to be a good one.

The issue i've found against Daemons, is that my Bladestorm and S6-7 spam is largely useless. Ap2 does nothing against ++ saves, and S6-7 doesn't ID those two wound models. Screamers scare my serpent spam list too.

screamers unless someone is running screamstar or spamming them are T4 with either a 4++ or 5++. they cannot charge when they turbo boost so before they charge they will be sporting a 5++ even if thats just for overwatch (if he went first)

Like belly said you can take out a lot of stuff in a turn of shooting. Just make sure you prioritize well. Should you shoot at flying 2++ fateweaver? No. Should you shoot at 20 T3 daemonettes? Yes. Bladestorm useless? Dire avengers with bladestorm can wipe out basically a full squad of daemonettes or seekers/fiends.

Ap2 granted might not be great but it goes through daemon prince/thirster armor so not great but not totally useless.

Its funny to me that this post isnt asking for help with hounds and FMC spam its kinda about slaanesh units which seem to be the easiest to deal with as a shooting army.

 oddworx wrote:
I am Mechdar, I have seen footdar have the same problems though.

This is counter intuitive but have you gotten a wraithknight with 2x wraithcannons yet? Honestly these things are great for a mechdar list and can do some real pain to any MC based lists.

The secret to daemons is you have to get your priority just right. If you fire at fatey while he is grimoired up you will loose and if you let fatey control your movement you will also loose.

I would not say that eldar are particularly weak against daemons it is more that daemons take a different tool set to deal with than the list you use against Tau or SM would bring. DA are pretty good against daemons overall and jetbikes are better. WS are still very decent against daemons but you need something to help slow down the FMC and to help crack the grimoire and portaglyph. This is why having a WK can be a big deal as he helps give you board control (something mechdar lack) and taking some outflanking warwalkers can help get you out of the MTO trap daemons usually put people in (ie they pin you into your deployment zone so you can no longer maneuver).

The interesting thing about daemons is all that AP2 goodies eldar get is meaningless as they all have inv saves. Rather the good old S6 AP-/6 spam from our past is much better against most of the units with some S8 and 10 mixed in the ID the MC.

If you are facing FMC spam aka a flying circus tournament list that is completely different from what the OP is talking about.

The OP was complaining about swarms of slaanesh units and stuff of that sort.

FMC flying circus lists that ansacs is I think focusing on field at most 30 troops.

FMC flying circus list wins major tournaments and either decimates you and makes you feel like a terrible player or falls completely short and makes you feel like a fething god. Less likely the latter. The wraithknight is a great unit as long as a LoC with a pimpstick or a bloodthirster doesnt fly over to him and turn his rear into pudding.

I'm interested in hearing from the OP again before this post is entirely focused on different things. There are plenty of help vs daemons and daemon tactics post that have specific strategies for facing daemon armies. I was hoping that we could assist the OP more in building a list or changing what strategies he has been using against his local meta

Happy hunting. good posts and ideas so far guys!

I will reiterate. Mass Cheap Daemon units with all sorts of psychic buffs. Jakl you have a couple of decent ideas but I think you are jumping the gun on how many Daemons we can kill a turn Especially when there are 10+ psychic abilities being cast from the Daemon army. A lot of time those screamers are shrouded, and killing 20 Daemonettes makes little difference as they are dirt cheap. You can unload a squad of 10 guardians shoot a squad of 10 screamers/Seekers, get a few kills, then get that same squad wrecked by the remaining few Daemons. Or, Flat out to (maybe) safety in you vehicle only to prolong the pain one more turn. And if you aren't in transports your short range weapons will make little difference once they are up your ass


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Pardon my French


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Also I agree with just about everything ansacs said. I just don't think it has much to do with the list we are talking about specifically.

Absolutely odd.

Going by specific units here is the tactics I would use as an eldar player.

Against Screamers: these are taken in units of 3-9 and generally only one or two of these units. They are reasonably costly and as a result you wont be seeing mass screamers or screamers combined with other expensive things. Daemons work by flooding your target priority. Screamers look super nasty but actually are not gonna be hitting all that hard for a dedicated CC unit.

To deal with them: If they have shrouded during night fighting youre gonna be shooting at a 4++ (they wont be more than 24 inches away. If they are lucky you) still worse than a marine save. If they are jinking and using shrouded they cant charge because they turbo boosted. Use template weapons or move your stuff away or charge them with something stronger. Since jink is a cover save they will be sporting a 2++ I think because shrouded stacks with jink? Anyways the point being that these guys are gonna be hunting light vehicles. good thing about light vehicles is you can drive them fast. Yea they're gonna kill your guardians but what wont. Deal with them the same way you deal with bikers or anything else fast. Shoot them when they are close or ignore them and send them gakky stuff to fight. Their CC save is going to be either 4++ or 5++ which again is worse than marines against regular CC weapons. your exarches will destroy a herald of tzeentch in CC who will decline your challanges. These guys really are not that much to worry about. I run at max 9 if any at all. Small suicide squads of 3 wont have herald support and if you run into like 6-9 with a herald youre gonna be looking at like a 350 point unit which is more than a land raider so of course is gonna require a gak ton of shooting to destroy. Best part is this 350 point unit will not hit nearly as hard as other 350 point units.

Mass Daemonettes:
When you say mass you probably mean like 40-50. If someone is taking 40-50 daemonettes they probably arent taking many other troops. If they are they wont have that many points to spend on other nasty things. Daemonettes still have to hold the objectives for the daemons player so if you focus the blobs down then he will have difficulty scoring. The most daemonettes ive seen taken is 3 units of 20. In which case is was basically 1/3 of his points and almost all his troops. Destroy like half and hes gonna be hurting on objectives. They are only T3 and slaanesh heralds are gonna be lacking in defensive psychic powers. These guys should be easy enough to take care of with regular dire avenger shooting. If you get 60 S4 shots off at BS4 you end up with 40 hits and 20 wounds. With only a 5++ that means youll kill around (dont angry face my maths) 13 or so daemonettes. 60 S4 shots should be easy enough to gather. Focus one squad at a time. 2 turns of this will result in basically 2 decimated squads leaving him with almost no troops and not much hitting power from the daemonettes. I'm sure you have more than 60 S4 shots a turn from an entire eldar army to focus on other stuff.

Psychic Powers:
Tzeentch powers are going to be divination buffs. Otherwise shooting which taking eldrady stuff will help you deny

Slaaesh shooting is pretty good but again deny with your runes.

Divination buffs and telepathy shooting is really common and eldar has lots of tools to deal with it.

additionally if you have 10 guardians fighting a 500 point unit of screamers I doubt you're investing correctly here. 9 screamers and a herald is going to be a huge portion of his army. Same with a mass of seekers. they are expensive. Screamers are only worth their points if they hit their specific targets.

A daemons army fielding screamers in mass are going be not fielding much else expensive/tough stuff. If you're playing at 2000 points that means you also have a lot of shooting stuff. if you had a few games where you were frustrated by daemons change your positioning and tactics and try again.

Daemons aim to flood your target priority. They want you to shoot at stuff you shouldnt be shooting at and let other things through. They throw 6 units and you and hope that the correct 2 stick on you. You just gotta be sure you target the right ones. daemonettes are cheap but they work the same way Ork boys do. Cheap and you take a lot. Shoot them enough and they wont be that bad in CC otherwise stand behind cover to make them low initiative on the charge and overwatch the poop out of them. Field larger squads and field them close to each other so that you can focus fire well. Small squads will just get trashed. big squads can tarpit and even win combat with good positioning because daemons dont have assult grenades.

If you want a list of what each daemon unit does and how daemon players want them to work look at my daemon tactics page.

Happy hunting.

Okay, I understand your problem better now. The WK is still nice to deal with screamers but not strictly necessary.

An overall tactical idea is important for these types of lists as they fall under the category of a "horde" list. They control the board and you by swamping area so you cannot bypass them. They then trap and close you in so they kill you. To counteract these types of forces you need to deny a flank and deploy along one side. You focus fire on that flank and then use the area you create with the kills to maneuver. Your will however probably need more serious firepower than WS.

What are you doing with your farseer? Your farseer is a great source of powers to counteract those daemon buffs. A daemon unit gets invisibility so you get perfect timing...etc.

For screamers you shouldn't see huge units as they cost alot and are not great. Serpent shields should be plenty if you need to deal with them. These could be a valid reason to take 2x BL warwalkers, WK, or dark reapers. I would recommend a WK or WW but volume of S6+ fire power should be plenty.

Seekers are pretty good but volume of shots will put them down. Again the wonderful 2x SL WW is a great answer. Another answer to these is a nightspinner as the weapon does good damage and the difficult terrain really messes with cavalry as they treat it as dangerous terrain.

Daemonettes are actually your easiest to answer if they don't get invisibility but the most annoying if they do. Those template weapons really help here and serpent shields should be able to kill enough to keep them from progressing quickly. This is one of the reason I prefer DA in my lists as they can reasonably skirt the daemonettes when you take into account casualties coming off the front. I know you have somewhat dismissed them but wraithscythes really are pretty good against these as they should do ~13 kills in the shooting phase with another ~6 kills in overwatch. Get doom off and this gets even worse. You should realize this very likely will put the demmonettes out of charge range once you fire a serpent shield or two and will be a long range charge if they can even attempt it. A long range charge will just get the demonettes killed in overwatch (do not forget overwatch resolves before you move any models).

It sounds like your real problem is psykers not the units themselves. A good counter to psykers is the age old IG maxim...we have a "perils of the warp" its called a basilisk shell.

Barrage is great against psykers as you can snipe the psyker out of the squad. You should give it some thought to take some barrage weapons in your list.

Another method of removing psykers is to use the incredible movement of the spiders and the accurate DS or the hawks to move so the psykers are near the edge of the unit and kill till they start dying. Not always the simplest way but you can focus fire and use the limited spider weapon range to make only the psyker a valid target for wound allocation.

Hopefully some of that helps.

Some great advice here. +1 for ansacs. Daemons dont preform well as a horde army because their troops are literally the suck. As a person who mains daemons i really dont like that our troops are the suck but alas this is the case. The MC and the FA units are the only thing the worry about and screamers are not the hardest hitting FA unit by far.

I actually kind of like the daemon troops. The pink horrors are actually very shooty when you look at small squads or when you horde them with a herald they get kind of crazy.

Plaguebearers are really great campers and even nurglings are so low on the base you can hide them out of LOS very easily.

Daemonettes as seen from this thread can cause some people trouble and require a shift in tactics to deal with.

I don't like khorne daemons. I have never even read the entry, so can't comment. (so bland)

btw you should both look at Janthkin and his batreps/list etc. he is a very good daemon player who runs stuff somewhat similar to what the op is having trouble with.

jakl277 wrote:
1. Hounds - 20 2W S5 W5 guys charging on turn one kills all your fragile shooting things and probably your dedicated melee troops also. Solution here is use wraithlords and other such things (vehicles too) that cant be hurt by them.

Sorry how are they charging you turn one exactly?

It's not that Daemons counter Eldar. The fact is that the way people are using Eldar maximizes the shooting phase while abandoning combat (minus the occasional wraithknight).

Daemons are prehaps the best close combat army right now because their units are so cheap to compensate for the casualties they are going to take as they get into combat. I forsee other close combat oriented armies getting the same treatment.

I think against Slaanesh armies Eldar are kind of hosed... but that fits the fluff. That and fleshounds. They are just going to be on you too fast to counter and they have the ability to hurt anything you'll have.

Khonedogs scout 12", then move 12", then run d6" rerollable. If they go 2nd, it wouldn't be impossible for them to charge you first game turn. But they will charge you t2 almost every time. Seekers are a little bit faster overall, but that 12" scout move is crazy for early assaults.

Put a book in the list to give the dogs 3++ and they become very, very scarey.

1. Sniper weapons can be great vs. Daemons. They always wound MCs on a 4+ and can sometimes rend for those that have armor. Rangers are great snipers and are scoring units.

2. Precision shots (from either characters or Sniper weapons) are good for sniping Heralds out of units. Daemon LD isn't the greatest for look out sir rolls. Illic and a unit of upgraded rangers are perfect for getting rid of the holder of the grimoire (remember the grimoire bearer cannot target himself).

3. A lot of daemons players base their strategy off of having the Grimoire of True Names and Portalglyph gifts. These characters should be target priority #1 if possible.

4. Use several 3 man jetbike units in reserves. Most daemons hardly deepstrike their heavy hitters any more and will maybe deepstrike 1 or 2 of their troops choices. Being able to grab objectives or contest them with jetbike speed is a major advantage of Eldar. Nothing in the daemon army can move as fast as an Eldar jetbike.

5. Daemons have zero access to intercept. So your Crimson Hunters should be able to alpha strike any flying MCs or Soulgrinders and play keep away with vector dancer and jink.

Not quite true on the interceptor as we can access agis/bastions and there guns plus stick a letter on it and your hitting on 2's. The thing my daemons hate in eldar are masses of shuri shots, hell any volume of basic shooting hurts daemons as ap means jack to us but volume of fire is a killer.

Look Out Sir! doesn't depend on the target's leadership.

Killme304 wrote:
Khonedogs scout 12", then move 12", then run d6" rerollable. If they go 2nd, it wouldn't be impossible for them to charge you first game turn. But they will charge you t2 almost every time. Seekers are a little bit faster overall, but that 12" scout move is crazy for early assaults.

Put a book in the list to give the dogs 3++ and they become very, very scarey.

And how do they Scout 12" when that hasn't been the Scout rule in over a year now?

It's in there. I just checked because I wanted to be sure. Beasts scout 12".

But they can't run and assault, obviously. I don't think that's what the poster meant, though.

So in a 24" deployment, they can scout forward to just outside of 12" from the nearest enemy unit (if anyone deploys that close) then move and be on top of em for the assault phase. They could conceivably get up to 35.999999 inches of total displacement from their deployment position on a turn 1 charge, going second, if the opponent is clueless enough to leave anything in reach.