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Your opinions on Daemons of Chaos race? Do you like their design, do you like their fluff? (Just asking)
Thanks for all the answers.

 Colony's wrote:
Your opinions on Daemons of Chaos race? Do you like their design, do you like their fluff? (Just asking)
Thanks for all the answers.

I love the background of Daemons, as they are essentially like a force of nature similar to the weather... while the skies may currently be clear and fair, eventually the pressure builds and the storm rolls in and lays waste to the lands of mortals. While it's possible to foresee the gathering darkness, batten down the hatches & weather the latest storm so-to-speak, it cannot be avoided or stopped, and eventually, the smaller storms will build into an unstoppable hurricane that will one day cover the entire world in madness & a tide of hell-spawned nightmares!



As for the current rules, well...
I really like where they went with the new ideas and concepts, I just feel that the end result on the Fantasy side was entirely half-assed and comes across as being only a 'draft copy' rather than a final, polished book.

There's just far too many little things that were simply handled much better and essentially 'thought through' in the 40k codex version of the army. Notably, things like Reign of Comedy vs Warpstorm Table, the way gifts are entirely unorganised vs organised, and the relative power of Nurgle trumping everything else compared to the relatively solid balance between all 4 Gods. (though the Burning Chariot needs serious fixing in 40k!)


Sure it's possible to build some very brutal power gaming lists with the current DoC, but a lot of themed lists on the other hand get easily destroyed due to the horrific internal balancing.

 Colony's wrote:
Your opinions on Daemons of Chaos race? Do you like their design, do you like their fluff? (Just asking)
Thanks for all the answers.

Fluff wise I don't think Daemons should have ever become a distinct army. I much preferred Daemons to be a rarity, something you'd see in higher points games against the forces of Chaos, where if an army was strongly aligned to one of the four powers then maybe, maybe you'd see it being led by a mighty Greater Daemon with a small unit of lesser Daemons as his retinue.

However, that being said more armies is always a good thing, I'd add another ten in the blink of an eye if I could. I think my like of more forces outweighs my fluff concerns here. However, I would still have added Nippon, Cathay, Ind, or Araby before I made them a distinct army myself.

Currently I like the random aspect they've got going on now and think anybody moaning about it is not embracing the spirit of daemons and is probably more angry that they aren't disgustingly overpowered anymore and, if they really liked daemons and what they represent, they would embrace their inherent instability.... ahem ^

The internal balance of the book is a bit off however.

BooMeRLiNSKi wrote:

 Colony's wrote:
Your opinions on Daemons of Chaos race? Do you like their design, do you like their fluff? (Just asking)
Thanks for all the answers.

Currently I like the random aspect they've got going on now and think anybody moaning about it is not embracing the spirit of daemons and is probably more angry that they aren't disgustingly overpowered anymore and, if they really liked daemons and what they represent, they would embrace their inherent instability.... ahem ^

The internal balance of the book is a bit off however.

I believe I did mention that I think the new direction & inherent randomness is a great idea???

What I dislike is the very apparent lack of consistency/care in it implementation between the two games... Just compare for example the difference between the Rewards Tables vs. Gift Tables for a minute.
40k puts all the protective rewards into the Greater Rewards table. This means that while the lesser Herald characters can still only take 1 roll, they have a 66% chance at becoming harder to kill, thus allowing them to provide their very valuable bonuses more reliably to their unit, AND making them well worth their somewhat high points investment.
In Fantasy though, you have 1 protective Gift that can't even be access by Heralds, (as it's an Exalted Gift), 2 in Greater Gifts and 1 in the Lesser Gift table... This makes it damn-near impossible to protect your characters and makes non-Nurgle Heralds into a joke for the most part.

Would it honestly have been game-breaking to put 3-4 protective rewards into the Greater Gifts table like it is in 40k? Why should Daemon players be unable to take viable protection on their very expensive characters? (remember, we can't buy things like basic armour which everyone else can - nor do we get magic armour or 4+ ward saves.)
Heralds especially, with the exception of Nurgle, are some of the most expensive and yet easiest to kill characters in the game. The inability to viably protect them also means our Core section by extention is the weakest part of the book. (hence the over-popularity of Plaguebearers)


Bad organisation kills a lot of the synergies the book tries to encourage you to use, and is simply a case of the author being lazy/not caring since those same ideas worked out so well in the 40k version.
The added lack of internal balance between units & their point-costing across all sections tends to ensure cookie-cutter builds will rule this version of Daemons.

Experiment 626 wrote:
I believe I did mention that I think the new direction & inherent randomness is a great idea???

What I dislike is the very apparent lack of consistency/care in it implementation between the two games... Just compare for example the difference between the Rewards Tables vs. Gift Tables for a minute.
40k puts all the protective rewards into the Greater Rewards table. This means that while the lesser Herald characters can still only take 1 roll, they have a 66% chance at becoming harder to kill, thus allowing them to provide their very valuable bonuses more reliably to their unit, AND making them well worth their somewhat high points investment.
In Fantasy though, you have 1 protective Gift that can't even be access by Heralds, (as it's an Exalted Gift), 2 in Greater Gifts and 1 in the Lesser Gift table... This makes it damn-near impossible to protect your characters and makes non-Nurgle Heralds into a joke for the most part.

Would it honestly have been game-breaking to put 3-4 protective rewards into the Greater Gifts table like it is in 40k? Why should Daemon players be unable to take viable protection on their very expensive characters? (remember, we can't buy things like basic armour which everyone else can - nor do we get magic armour or 4+ ward saves.)
Heralds especially, with the exception of Nurgle, are some of the most expensive and yet easiest to kill characters in the game. The inability to viably protect them also means our Core section by extention is the weakest part of the book. (hence the over-popularity of Plaguebearers)


Bad organisation kills a lot of the synergies the book tries to encourage you to use, and is simply a case of the author being lazy/not caring since those same ideas worked out so well in the 40k version.
The added lack of internal balance between units & their point-costing across all sections tends to ensure cookie-cutter builds will rule this version of Daemons.

It's not a stellar book. The majority of characters are easy to kill. Most BSB's that have taken a magic banner on foot are easy to kill, drop you a load of points and take away your re-roll when killed. How much protection can you really get for a warrior priest sitting in some infantry? How about Necrotects or Tomb Heralds?

I'm just saying that they were in a worse state to be played and more worth whining about playing them as a player when they were disgustingly OP. I'm just saying that could I go back to that time and you were posting then... would you be making almost daily posts saying "God daemons are so OP because of A ,B and C" and I'm actually somewhat embarrassed to play as them".

Balance wise they are in a better, less risible position now, then they were then.

My personal gripe is the fluff doesn't match the way the army behaves on the table. A mass of chaotic energy spewing hordes of daemonic entitties into the world of the living as they rampage their way around until they dissipate back into the aether doesn't, to me, match the ordered rank after rank of daemons you see on the table.

I realize this is due to the game being based around blocks of infantry, but to me it entirely kills the aesthetic.

BooMeRLiNSKi wrote:

It's not a stellar book. The majority of characters are easy to kill. Most BSB's that have taken a magic banner on foot are easy to kill, drop you a load of points and take away your re-roll when killed. How much protection can you really get for a warrior priest sitting in some infantry? How about Necrotects or Tomb Heralds?

You can still build any other army's Heroes to be fairly resilient... That Warrior Priest can still take a 1+/6++ or 2+ save for example making him stand-up reliably well vs. S4 and lower attacks, while still being 'good' vs. S5.
Necrotects & Tomb Princes likewise can take any of the BRB items like a 2+ save or the 4++ heavy armour or combine a Dragonhelm w/other ward save...

What do Daemons get? Piss-all is what... a 16% random chance at rolling up a 2+ armour save.
If the Gifts had simply been organised properly, Daemon Heroes would still be expensive for a 2 wound model, but similar to Vampire Thralls, they'd be worthwhile investments.

BooMeRLiNSKi wrote:
I'm just saying that they were in a worse state to be played and more worth whining about playing them as a player when they were disgustingly OP. I'm just saying that could I go back to that time and you were posting then... would you be making almost daily posts saying "God daemons are so OP because of A ,B and C" and I'm actually somewhat embarrassed to play as them".

Balance wise they are in a better, less risible position now, then they were then.

They were in a different kind of 'bad state' in their 7th ed book because they were so ungodly OP/OTT.

And yes, it was difficult to get games in with Daemons outside of tournaments because so many opponents simply refused to play against Daemons... Even if you ran a fairly tame list, if people lost to it they'd still scream bloody murder about what a terrible, WAAC donkeycave you were for choosing 'the broken army'. (still trying to understand what was so 'broken' about the Daemon Prince last book, or how using two Master of Sorcery Tzheralds for Fire + Heavens was abusive...)

But being badly OP in their last book is no reason to give Daemon players an equally bad book that under powers and/or shoehorns players into certain builds this time around.
Two wrongs don't make a right as they say.

Just pointing out: I think the intention of this thread is to discuss the merits (or lack thereof) of the Daemons of Chaos aesthetics and background, not to have a bash at the in-game balance of the Daemons book.