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I went up against a Daemons player today. He ran Tzeentch daemons, and had a crazy Herald + Screamer deathstar.

Every turn, prescience + grimoir of true names + tzeentch daemon-ness = a 2+ invulnerable save with re-rolls, meaning an average 36 wounds to just wound one of them (they have 2 wounds) so even 180 Ork Boyz firing at the unit would be lucky to kill two of the damn things

I literally tarpitted it with Biker Nobs (my entire army was Biker Nobs, aside from 10 grots =P), tens of them, to nearly pull a win, but they took the best CC unit Orks have and chewed up many times their own points worth of them. They survived 1960pts of my 2000pt army being thrown entirely at them without a scratch.

How the hell do I go about killing that? The only thing that comes to mind is thousands and thousands of Gretchin

You don't, at least while the Grimoir is in effect. Unless he has fateweaver (Then your screwed...) then the roll will fail 1/3 of the time and his save will be reduced to a 6+ that will be 5+ (With Foreboding for a 4+) and you can rip through the unit. If he has Fatey giving him a re-roll on the Grimoir then he has a 95% chance to pass I've heard of a daemon player, so what you do there is to try take down Fatey, which with all the Dakka Orks have it wont be hard to shoot him outta the Sky.

Yeah he had Fateweaver. I killed it turn 3 but the only time he ever failed the Grimoir was before he died.

You need to not shoot the daemon unit that was grimoired. I know it is tempting but it is definitely a trap and will cause you to loos the game.

That deathstar plus kairos fairly pricey (515 pts) so he shouldn't have been able to afford alot of extras. It also can either turboboost causing d3 S4 hits per model which you get cover saves (keep in mind the screamer model actually has to pass over the unit to cause the hits). This means that you need to ignore it and kill everything else. Chuck a cheapo tarpit at him as it should take him a while to whittle down a unit of boyz or biker nobs. If he fails the grimoire kill him then and there (should happen 1/3 the time without fateweaver).

There are other options, but they're only available to certain armies and may not see the light of day in take all comer's lists. Basically, anything that removes models without allowing invul saves. So....

Space wolves have one of the best options in Jaws of the World wolf, and it's useful against most armies.

Necrons have transdimensional beamers and Monoliths that suck units into the negative zone on failed strength checks, but these aren't common/competitive choices in normal metas.

Orks have Old Zogwort who can turn the grimoire holding HQ into a squig. Also, the shock attack gun may have something in it's result list that would work as well, though i'm not 100% sure, it's random at best, and most likely not the best option for this type of thing.

Blood Angels have Fear the Darkness, which force units to fall back on a Ld test (with a -2 modifier). Sounds great against low leadership daemons, but it doesn't work against units that would not otherwise fall back in normal circumstances. I can't recall the state of the new daemon codex and fearlessness/falling back, so this method may not work. If it does, it may be THE way to deal with the screamers, as they're base Ld 7? (guess)

I'm sure there are other options I'm not thinking about, but getting around a unit's strength by forcing characteristic checks is pretty awesome when you pull it off. Sometimes it worth it to put such measures, if they're available, in your lists.

Somebody has got to point out the irony of a player fielding a Biker Nobs army complaining about "cheese"........

Guess it is me.

Steelmage99 wrote:
Somebody has got to point out the irony of a player fielding a Biker Nobs army complaining about "cheese"........

Guess it is me.

5th edition ended more than a year ago mate.

You don't.

If he fails the Grimoire, hammer the Unit. If not, Kill Fateweaver. Then Hammer the unit once he fails the Grimoire.

If his Grimior is successful, hit him with a tarpit unit until he fails it, alternatively you can avoid it.

Pretty much under any other circumstance avoid targeting the unit, unless you've already killed the rest of his army.

 Kain wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
Somebody has got to point out the irony of a player fielding a Biker Nobs army complaining about "cheese"........

Guess it is me.

5th edition ended more than a year ago mate.

So I guess you are working off of the assumption that the player in question did not own and play said Biker Nob list in 5th, but made it after 6th came out then.....

Steelmage99 wrote:

 Kain wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
Somebody has got to point out the irony of a player fielding a Biker Nobs army complaining about "cheese"........

Guess it is me.

5th edition ended more than a year ago mate.

So I guess you are working off of the assumption that the player in question did not own and play said Biker Nob list in 5th, but made it after 6th came out then.....

Even in 5th the new imperial guard book's ability to spam S8+ pieplates started making things difficult for Nob Bikers.

Then the Grey Knights came and everyone was pining for the days of nob bikers.

Steelmage99 wrote:

 Kain wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
Somebody has got to point out the irony of a player fielding a Biker Nobs army complaining about "cheese"........

Guess it is me.

5th edition ended more than a year ago mate.

So I guess you are working off of the assumption that the player in question did not own and play said Biker Nob list in 5th, but made it after 6th came out then.....

Or stop making assumptions...

For instance I was accused to netlisting a Driagowing/Dreadknight list. Fact was I preordered an entire 2500pt army because I thought it would be cool. To my knowledge I was the first fielding it, back when people though Paladins sucked. I ended up placing at ArdBoyz Finals with it.

Fact is Nob Bikers aren't and were never that crazy and cheese, and nowhere near the 2++ Rerollable Daemon Build. They were hard, and tough to counter, but they weren't immune to 35/36 wounds you put on them.

It was a Troll comment.

Cheers for the advice everyone.

@Steelmage

I've only been playing since a month or so before my join date. This was the third or forth time I've used Nob Bikers and the first time to use more than five. I took 24 of the things because I went in expecting 1k friendlies and ended up with 2k competitive - so I thought "why the feth not" and gave it a try

Given how they performed and what they cost, they're solid but far from cheesy. Some wound allocation BS like from earlier editions would have gone a long way to getting them across the table though

 Dakkamite wrote:
I went up against a Daemons player today. He ran Tzeentch daemons, and had a crazy Herald + Screamer deathstar.

Every turn, prescience + grimoir of true names + tzeentch daemon-ness = a 2+ invulnerable save with re-rolls, meaning an average 36 wounds to just wound one of them (they have 2 wounds) so even 180 Ork Boyz firing at the unit would be lucky to kill two of the damn things

I literally tarpitted it with Biker Nobs (my entire army was Biker Nobs, aside from 10 grots =P), tens of them, to nearly pull a win, but they took the best CC unit Orks have and chewed up many times their own points worth of them. They survived 1960pts of my 2000pt army being thrown entirely at them without a scratch.

How the hell do I go about killing that? The only thing that comes to mind is thousands and thousands of Gretchin

Three open topped battlewagons full of lootas is the answer...of course that's a good answer for a lot of things...on a good round of shooting it will be 2 demons dead

Don't play with the cheese build player, that simple. Or use your own cheese, there've been plenty of topics on that in the past.

This tactic is called the 'screamer council'

Kill fateweaver asap, he is the one that makes the list viable, and without the grimoire on him this is relatively easy to do.
Keep in mind that with lvl 3 heralds this is a 750 pt sink minimum so the rest of the army will be meagre at best so ranged support like lootas would not be threatened unduly.

Unless he keeps fatey in a corner and utilizes nothing but his reroll you should have little problem killing him in 1-2 turns with lootas.

Note that the screamer council has very poor damage output for its points so 30 boyz should tarpit it for 2 turns, enough time to remove fatey.

Once the grimoire fails shoot/ assault the blob to hell, it is just 18 T4 5+ save wounds at most.

Another way to remove it is to first note that the grimoire is not the only thing powering the council, but forewarning as well.

If he does not generate it, or it fails for a turn, pounce on that. A 3++ rerolling ones is relatively easy to torrent down with orks.

Good Luck.

Precision shots on the grimour holder could work. the grimour doesn't effect them at all so they are at their normal save + re-roll.

Or you could 'zogwort' the grimoire bearer lol.

DOOMONYOU wrote:
Precision shots on the grimour holder could work. the grimour doesn't effect them at all so they are at their normal save + re-roll.

O RLY? Not according to my opponent it doesn't.

As for Zogwart, do they get a Deny the Witch against that?

 Dakkamite wrote:

DOOMONYOU wrote:
Precision shots on the grimour holder could work. the grimour doesn't effect them at all so they are at their normal save + re-roll.

O RLY? Not according to my opponent it doesn't.

As for Zogwart, do they get a Deny the Witch against that?

DOOMONYOU is correct, it does apply to the user of the grimoire.

Yes, they would get a 4+ DTW vs zoggy.

It is a long shot anyway, see my earlier post for my opinion on more concrete tactics.

4+ deny the witch?

Nah, Zogwart isn't an option as I imagine he'll be in the trash bin long before then.

IT will be a 3+ Deny if he is running lesser rewards on one herald and gets AW, plus he can use his re roll for the Deny.

The best way to beat this list (coming from someone that plays it competitively), without mass prescision shots (sniper teams) or barrage you wont be able to kill the grimoire bearer to be honest, so just ignore the screamers, tarpit them with 30 fearless orks then kill the rest of his army, including fateweaver, throw another squad in there a few turns later and the screamers are stuck all game killing fearless orks.

Kill his troops, kill fatey, you win.

against screamer star you have a few options.

1. Spam S8-this will instant death anything on a failed invuln save. Precision shots can insta gib the herald with the grimoire since the book doesnt buff his invuln save.

2. As mentioned precision shot the herald since the book only gives the buff to others.

3. jaws of the world and psychic stuff isnt gonna work with 2 mastery 3 heralds around and fatey.

4. Vindi/blast weapons.

5. Tarpitt them with a horde unit of like 35 boyz. Focus the other stuff in the army then kill screamerstar.

P.S the best part is that screamerstar isnt even the most cheese daemon build.

As to prescision shooting the herald, what is str8 and prescision?, add to the fact he has a 2plus (poss re rolling 1 failed) look out sir then a 4++ invul re rolling 1's and two wounds at toughness 4, it isnt exactly easy to kill him

@jakl277. The Screamer star probably is the strongest Daemon build imo, assuming it has some Hounds and other support elements then its literally impossible for some armies to deal with in any reliable way. Its insanely fast and doesn't have the major weakness that the FMC list has, that it can easily be taken apart piece by piece (against FMC lists, its just a case of killing whoever has the Grimore, then killing Fate, and the list becomes fairly easy to deal with). That's not to say the other builds aren't good, its just the Screamer star is probably the least random of the top Daemon builds, which in a competitive setting over 6+ games is what will win you tournaments (rather than just win you games).

The main trick with the Screamer star is to not even attempt to kill Screamers while they have the 2+ up. The key to beating it is removing the support element that make it both good and reliably good. If you can take out Fateweaver then he loses both the re-roll for the Grimore and the Warp Storm protection (which can really hurt him). The strength of this build over the FMC spam lists is that they can hide the Grimore in the unit, but you can still do stuff like fire Barrage or use Precision to force wounds on to the Herald that has the Grimore - note that he doesn't get the benefit of the Grimore himself, so would be taking it on a 4++ (after the LOS of course, but worth a shot). From a matchup standpoint the list usually loses to Nids and can have issues against Wolves as well because they still have psychic defense, countering one of the support elements straight away. Having Hit and Run is also very helpful if you have a unit tough enough to engage the Screamers, since you can bounce in and out (or bounce past them to get to the troops etc behind them).

Realistically though Orks should be one of the worst matchups for this list, its just that the OP is running an equally gimmicky build with his entire army in two units. Probably the biggest weakness of the Screamer star build is that it can't put out that much damage - it wins basically every combat it ends up in eventually but oddly enough struggles against anything that isn't a Marine. They eat through Marines with the S5 AP2 (with a re-roll of course) but they can't mow hordes fast enough with the 3 S4 with re-rolls, and anything with a invulnerable or high T they struggle with. Usually this match up would see the Screamers trying to zoom around and chip away at the hordes with slash attacks or trying to chip of backfield units (or just assaulting the entire Ork army to tie it up), because once they get caught by 30 Orks you can keep them in combat for ages.

I still disagree with you about the fmc vs steamers because fmc is still taken more often at major tournaments (see daemons40kblogspot) and thr FMC build when played correctly can be disgusting.

Kill book keeper or kill other stuff. Screamer damage output is tarpitable with large groups of orks since they'll be fearless. Take objectives and make his 700 point Squad spend the whole game killing 200 points of boys and gg. It's a single unit without hit and run. The shokk gun while random might come up big for you too.


Sending expensive nob bikers that can't kill them wont work.
Screamer star can have some nice shooting but if your boyz are in cover and move well you should have a chance.


Powerguy laid out your options pretty well I just wanted to reiterate the tarpit thing