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I remember some time ago hearing complaints about daemons and yet they seemed to do really well against my skaven. Of course the main ridiculous thing I faced was by far the beasts of nurgle. D6+1 strength 5 attacks per guys and I think they're poisoned. Supposedly they cost 50 something points per model are toughness 5, 4 wounds, have at least a 5+ ward save and armor I think. They hurt to face. The player I faced said that tournaments restricted their use down to 4 models per unit and only 8 total because they are that powerful. I dunno the daemons I faced didn't seem to be that wanting. I mean they would get some power before the magic phase that allowed them to target and kill some of my stuff and I couldn't stop it. I really don't get the complaints from the daemon players yet. Their army seemed more than capable.

Nurgle daemons are pretty nails in the new book... everything else not so much. The daemons book suffers from having horrible internal balance issues where some units are stupid good (beasts) and others are on par or leading the pack with the worst units in the game (flamers). But mono-Nurgle is more than capable and the fairly standard daemon list you'll face is Nurgle goodness + 2 Skullcannons, and this list does very well.

A problem with DoC at the competitive level is that they are very random. You have very limited ability to choose magic items for your heroes/lords, for instance. Not only that but if you roll bad on winds of magic, even if you have no wizards at all, you can not only damage yourself but completely lower your ability to fight and survive.

One reason people think O&G aren't super competitive is because animosity makes your army somewhat random. DoC basically have super duper animosity. Not that they are turning on themselves and fighting, but that gods are smashing their own troops, blinking whole units out of existence, and gods of the same type refuse to give their own soldiers boons/mutations/powers that the owner actually wants--though they are more than happy to give it to humans.

Remember when Flamers ruled the roost and Beasts of Nurgle sucked? Good times...

Well, GW gave Nurgle the boost everywhere they could, meanwhile smacking Khorne in the face. Now, the only Khorne unit you see regularly is the darned cannon... because it's crazy good, along with the beasts.

Nurgle is good, whether it be in the WoC or DoC book, that's why most people are upset. If you don't play Nurgle, you should, they're good, while the other gods suffer.

I remember laughing at a friend's DoC army last edition because he ran Mono Nurgle:

2 blocks of 30 PB's with Herald
3x3 Nurglings
2-3 Beasts
Great Unclean One

and some other things filtered in for utility... The same list nail is pretty hardcore.

Books come and go and what you are left with is people complaining about how good their old book was/ how ridiculously over the top the new one is... Sun rise, Sun set.

Matt1785 wrote:Well, GW gave Nurgle the boost everywhere they could, meanwhile smacking Khorne in the face

This is just as true in 40k as it is apparently in fantasy.

... wait, unless that was your point.

The new book is a dysfunctional mess of lazy & horribly implemented rules.
You can really tell that the author didn't give a damn about what he was doing, and more or less trying to simply 'people please' which is an awful way to try and design something.

The Gift tables & Reign of Comedy tables are god-awful things.
The Gift tables are a complete joke when you compare them their 40k counterparts... There's no organisation at all, (making it impossible to gain decent protection for your very sub-standard Heroes in general), and too much duplication between Rewards & magic weapon options. (ie: 6 on Lesser Gift table = ASF, but you can also default to the ASF sword anyways?!)
Most of the time, RoC screws over the Daemon player more so than their opponent, and with it's ability to outright win you the game on a fluky roll, it really feels like cheating when it happens. Meanwhile, it drives most opponents up the wall because it adds so much additional rolling to the Magic Phase, and The Dark Prince Thirsts result, (roll of 8), is easily capable of wrecking any non-infantry block it hits & is especially harsh on the Daemon player's own Khornate units. (Ld test on 3D6, take a wound w/no armour save for every point you fail by...)

Unit wise, Core is a mess due to general overcosting and/or poorly thought-out designs... Plaguebearers are probably a point too cheap, but the others are pretty much shoehorned into specific unit sizes. Bloodletters are about the worst Core in the game by far, adding nothing that Daemonettes can't achive, while comparing the new Warlocks to Horrors makes Tzeentch simply cry.
Likewise across the rest of the book, the Specials & Rares tend to be either 'really good' or else just plain bad for their pts... Bloodcrushers for example are the worst Monstrous Cav in the game - anything they can do, Nurgle Drones do better, while Flesh Hounds/Seekers/Fiends & even Daemonettes w/+1M Banner are simply much more economical means of flanking.
Flamers are complete garbage, likely the outright worst unit in the entire game.
The Slaany Chariots were crap in the WD update and the book changed nothing about them.

The God of freaking magic now being limited to only 2 lores is a huge smack in the face, compounded by the fact that Metal synergises horribly with Lore of Tzeentch. (which is a pretty 'meh' lore for Daemons as well). On the other hand, both Nurgle & Slaanesh made out like freaking bandits with their lores, which at least saves the magic phase for those armies...
Tzeentch unfortunately simply can't compete in the one phase he should dominate.


Basically, Daemons players now play either 'The List' (25-30 Regen'ing Plaguebears w/Herald BSB, 2x 10 Horrors, 2x solo Beasts, 4-6 Beasts, 5x Furies, 2x Khannons + filler to taste), OR you run a Caco-bomb which is equally stupid, OR you run an Epidemius list of 'uber doom that will leave everyone you face even further cemented in their opinion that DoC players are all filthy, WAAC's donkeycaves.

But trying to run say a Khorne or Tzeentch themed list is about as effective as running a VC army that's just a Master Necro and 100% Zombies. Slaanesh is better off, able to do a good MSU build, but it's a super glass cannon... Even just general MSU Daemons while doable is still just a hugely inferior version of any Elven or WoC versions.
Then add-in the complete junk-shot that High Elves give Daemons...

Tomb Kings might have a book full of over-costed stuff, but at least there's some good synergies buried in there that a good player can exploit.
Daemons on the other hand got the complete shaft and are now pretty much pigeonholed into set lists to compete. (and using said lists only helps to further poke the wider community's Daemon hate in the knee.)

 DukeRustfield wrote:
A problem with DoC at the competitive level is that they are very random. You have very limited ability to choose magic items for your heroes/lords, for instance. Not only that but if you roll bad on winds of magic, even if you have no wizards at all, you can not only damage yourself but completely lower your ability to fight and survive.

One reason people think O&G aren't super competitive is because animosity makes your army somewhat random. DoC basically have super duper animosity. Not that they are turning on themselves and fighting, but that gods are smashing their own troops, blinking whole units out of existence, and gods of the same type refuse to give their own soldiers boons/mutations/powers that the owner actually wants--though they are more than happy to give it to humans.

This is pretty much it. The randomness makes it hard for them to keep it together in a 3 game or 5 game tournament.
Because the feel of how the army plays, people are going to bitch a lot.

-Matt

The tournament scene around here often does a sliding win/loss scale rather than just Win, lose, or draw with bonuses. Daemons seem to really struggle in that environment because they simply don't kill much or win by large margins in the current metagame. Just played an 80-man tournament and the highest-placing daemon player was 14th in battle points with a bunch of not-very-big wins.

Experiment, I think Daemons are still better than Tomb Kings, the antique books (Brets, Woodies) and maybe beasts, but I agree they dropped way down in competitiveness.

Daemons have some good stuff. They just also happen to have some unbelievably bad stuff.

My biggest issue is the special rules tacked on to rolling double 1's/6's for Instability. Talk about disproportionate.
After that, I'd look at their magic phase, then Gifts.

Yeah, I dislike those too. A lot because some of the biggest ways to customize your army is through magic/gifts. And now you don't really get to choose them. That's a huge punch the groin.

And instability is inherently unfair. At the best you can heal all that have DIED at the worst you can kill EVERYONE. That equation is not equal. If you lose 25% and have to take an instability the most you can heal is 25% and the most you can lose is 75%. That's going to almost always be the case.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Yeah, I dislike those too. A lot because some of the biggest ways to customize your army is through magic/gifts. And now you don't really get to choose them. That's a huge punch the groin.

And instability is inherently unfair. At the best you can heal all that have DIED at the worst you can kill EVERYONE. That equation is not equal. If you lose 25% and have to take an instability the most you can heal is 25% and the most you can lose is 75%. That's going to almost always be the case.

Daemons had that stability issue for a very long time. It was only the previous book that removed it.
The army wide +/- 1 to the ward save seems to be the biggest issue to me.

-Matt

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Yeah, I dislike those too. A lot because some of the biggest ways to customize your army is through magic/gifts. And now you don't really get to choose them. That's a huge punch the groin.

And instability is inherently unfair. At the best you can heal all that have DIED at the worst you can kill EVERYONE. That equation is not equal. If you lose 25% and have to take an instability the most you can heal is 25% and the most you can lose is 75%. That's going to almost always be the case.

Daemons had that stability issue for a very long time. It was only the previous book that removed it.
The army wide +/- 1 to the ward save seems to be the biggest issue to me.

-Matt

The -1 ward save is the single worst result imho and it seems to crop up more often than getting the +1 save. Having any type of character who can effectively lose half their ward save on the spot is a massive disadvantage, especially when we're forced to pay through the nose for our Lord options.
The +1 save conversely works out to Daemons effectively being akin to an army-wide 1+ save vs. S6 attacks and bulks our characters up to the same level as most everyone else.
Again, the reward is nowhere near the level of the drawback.


@Duke: Instability now is still miles better than the old 6th ed version. Right now you only auto-lose the entire unit on boxcars. Back in the Hordes of Chaos days, you lost the entire unit if you simply rolled over their unmodified Ld! (ie: if say a unit of 'Letters lost a round of combat, they'd all insta-pop if you rolled a 9+ on their instability test )
So really, while the positive is definitely still outweighed by the negative, it could have always been a helluva lot worse!

Overall the Gifts issue isn't so much that we can't pick specific items, but rather that we have no control of any kind over those Gifts.
Between the disorganisation and the senseless repetition of some Gifts simply being copies of BRB magic weapons, we get double screwed. We can't get reliable protection, and 4 of the 17 results are identicle to BRB magic weapons.
Add to the above that the Sorcerous Lodestone, Souleater & Skill Swallower are 'meh' or really situational overall, while Unholy Sacrifice is 100% useless. (sure, let's kill our 500+ pts character just to get D3+1 Power Dice - seriously, WTF?!!)
If the Gifts weren't so repetitive and/or far less of a situational bonus, they'd be better. Plus slapping all the protective gifts together into the same bracket would at least give us the ability to reliably protect our characters on the same level that everyone else gets!

The -1 ward save is the single worst result imho and it seems to crop up more often than getting the +1 save. Having any type of character who can effectively lose half their ward save on the spot is a massive disadvantage, especially when we're forced to pay through the nose for our Lord options.
The +1 save conversely works out to Daemons effectively being akin to an army-wide 1+ save vs. S6 attacks and bulks our characters up to the same level as most everyone else.
Again, the reward is nowhere near the level of the drawback.

Even though it's -50% and +33% in one case or the other, the result is exactly the same in absolute numbers

You roll 30 saves:
6+ = 5 passed
5+ = 10 passed
4+ = 15 passed
So it's balanced even though it might seem not to be so

TanKoL wrote:

The -1 ward save is the single worst result imho and it seems to crop up more often than getting the +1 save. Having any type of character who can effectively lose half their ward save on the spot is a massive disadvantage, especially when we're forced to pay through the nose for our Lord options.
The +1 save conversely works out to Daemons effectively being akin to an army-wide 1+ save vs. S6 attacks and bulks our characters up to the same level as most everyone else.
Again, the reward is nowhere near the level of the drawback.

Even though it's -50% and +33% in one case or the other, the result is exactly the same in absolute numbers

You roll 30 saves:
6+ = 5 passed
5+ = 10 passed
4+ = 15 passed
So it's balanced even though it might seem not to be so

Except that our Wards are our only real form of protection, including on those 500+ pts large target Greaters. We have almost no armour saves across our entire army, and the few we do have top out at an average 4+ save.
Couple automatically taking double casualties with Daemonic Instability and you can easily end up with combats you should have won turning into a round where a sizable chunk of your unit instead explodes, or your General and only source of a Lv4 wizard is easily blown to bits.

... And other combats where it should have been a loss or a draw turning into a win
the statistics are exactly the same either way, so it doesn't matter
One game you'll rage because you rolled that 5 on a 6++
The next one your opponent will because you rolled a 4 on that 4++

The book is poorly written and internal balance is awful, but it's a very, very strong army

TanKoL wrote:
... And other combats where it should have been a loss or a draw turning into a win
the statistics are exactly the same either way, so it doesn't matter
One game you'll rage because you rolled that 5 on a 6++
The next one your opponent will because you rolled a 4 on that 4++

The book is poorly written and internal balance is awful, but it's a very, very strong army

Having 1 power list and the game's single best spell hardly makes Daemons overall "a very, very strong army". Rather, it's the most pigeonholed army in the game atm because it only really becomes highly competitive IF you run 'The One List' or run a Caco-bomb.

And it honestly is a huge deal between nerfing your save vs. improving it...
Getting a turn of 4++ means our highly overcosted characters for example simply have the same level of ward save that everyone ultimately gives to their critical characters. Dropping to a 6++ on the other hand means our highly overcosted characters are dead with no way to really counter it. (because rolling a 4 for Winds also means you likely don't have the dice to try and force through a helpful Augment or Hex to weather your opponent's counter)

And honestly, if opponents get pissed/rage over a DoC player getting a single turn of having the same level of Ward save that PG for example have, they need to grow-up.

Exp hit on one of the biggest problems with the RoC table.

If you roll low for Winds, then not only do you not have many magic dice, you also have your army whomped. If you roll high on Winds, not only do you have lots of dice, you also whomp your opponent.

The Winds table exacerbates the already existing situation.

To sum it all up:

Daemons, on a competitive level, are forced into only a few (I'd say max three) specific builds, which is no fun for anyone involved. Well, less fun.

And even then, there's a huge element of randomness that can swing a game completely. WHFB, by virtue of its usage of dice, is random but at least in the normal game you, as a General, try to swing those odds in your favour. That's completely impossible for the Reign of Chaos table.

I hate alot of things about the new Daemons book but the worst offender so far for me is the instability roll. Usually will have a BSB to reroll double 6's result so that might as well not even be on the chart, the double 1's will have 2 chances for if the player wants/needs it. The other problem is that if you do miraculously win a combat by huge numbers, there is a maximum to how many models they can lose. Compare that to any other race between needing double 1's to not flee or undead crubling, it just aint fair. If they play a large enough unit, you will need to be curbstomping that unit for most of the game for it to disappear so you have to just avoid the unit if you aren't going to be doing that.

Saldiven wrote:
Exp hit on one of the biggest problems with the RoC table.

If you roll low for Winds, then not only do you not have many magic dice, you also have your army whomped. If you roll high on Winds, not only do you have lots of dice, you also whomp your opponent.

The Winds table exacerbates the already existing situation.

Just move the Reign of Comedy table effects to the shooting phase and you at least:
1. Eliminate the super-duper sodomising of one player over the other. (the bottom results are especially extra harsh on the Daemon player when compared to the higher rolls, which only has 1 real junk-shot towards to the Daemon player's opponent)

2. It speeds the game up since the Daemonic Shooting Phase is non-existent to begin with, and doesn't muck-up/distract from the actual Magic Phase with a bunch of added dice rolling for the most common results.
It also means that Daemons can at least compete fairly in the Magic Phase, which is easily the second most important/critical phase of the game.

polybus wrote:
I hate alot of things about the new Daemons book but the worst offender so far for me is the instability roll. Usually will have a BSB to reroll double 6's result so that might as well not even be on the chart, the double 1's will have 2 chances for if the player wants/needs it. The other problem is that if you do miraculously win a combat by huge numbers, there is a maximum to how many models they can lose. Compare that to any other race between needing double 1's to not flee or undead crubling, it just aint fair. If they play a large enough unit, you will need to be curbstomping that unit for most of the game for it to disappear so you have to just avoid the unit if you aren't going to be doing that.

1. The BSB re-rolls only apply to other units with the same alignment as the BSB itself

2. The boxcars result is much more destructive to the DoC player than a regular army as it's entirely absolute - you lose your entire unit on the spot. Everyone else at least gets the chance to roll a flee movement and can (hopefully) get away and gain a chance to re-group.
The double 1's is also entirely situational. For it to really be amazing, you need to lose a crap tonne of your own guys. If you've honestly lost by so much that re-gaining those casualties is a huge deal, odds are your unit just finished melting away anyways.

Large Daemonic units only really exist in two varients - 25-30 Plaguebearers w/BSB, OR, 40+ Bloodletters w/Herald. Other than that, Daemons at most will offer medium to MSU style units.
While Plaguebearers are solid, especially with Regen, they don't put out much damage. Bloodletters are just crap - if you can't deal with a horde that costs a whopping 590pts, (and that's before you add in the Herald!), yet is only T3/5++ then you have bigger issues.

Honestly Daemonic Instability is a horrible rule.
Even if you lose by one for combat res you could lose your entire unit with a slightly bad roll.

Especially on the monsters, with the low amount of attacks they have already, fighting against anything with ranks + banners is almost guaranteed for you to lose the entire model even without taking any wounds at all.
3 for Ranks + 1 Banner means you fight at a huge disadvantage from the beginning.

I'm not really sure that all of this makes sense.
I don't play tournaments so I ask..
Aren't most tournament lists generally the same for all the armies anyway?
Don't tournament lists typically follow a particular 'Meta' for each army?
Yes you can't buy a better ward for your characters..but your big hitters, i.e greater daemons are all toughness 6 with better than average number of wounds.
Your entire army, minus a few exceptions, has a 5+ ward all the time.
Instability..daemon players are upset because a bad roll will wipe out a unit yet look at it this way..you lose by 2, you roll 8 with your daemonettes and lose 3 more. Same situation for most others they run away and have the odds of getting cut down. This happens EVERY time they run. On 12 you get wiped out, other units still run
It sucks when you lose but it just feels a little worse as a daemon

 Makutsu wrote:
Honestly Daemonic Instability is a horrible rule.
Even if you lose by one for combat res you could lose your entire unit with a slightly bad roll.

Especially on the monsters, with the low amount of attacks they have already, fighting against anything with ranks + banners is almost guaranteed for you to lose the entire model even without taking any wounds at all.
3 for Ranks + 1 Banner means you fight at a huge disadvantage from the beginning.

This is true for most units in the game.
My 294 block of saurus warriors took a flank charge by 5 dark riders. I lost combat by 1, failed my cold blooded steadfast leadership 8 and got run down by the 3 surviving elves.
The dark elf only charged into my flank to force me to pursue him off into nowhere (predatory fighter must pursue). Instead he killed them all.

I don't see why daemons should be immune to the risk of getting wiped out.
The only armies that are immune to that are Vampire and Tomb Kings, and both armies have a mechanic that makes the whole army crumble away on their own (killing the general/heirphant respectively). Also, most undead units (both flavors) are very, very squishy compared to even daemons.

For you to fail coldblood steadfast 8 you needed to be away from your general first off all, second, it was incredibly unlikely to roll, third, you had a chance to get away.

For Doc it's a natural roll where IP/BSB only work if it's the same god in range or not. If you get that 12, it's poof, gone.

And you're comparing 3-6pt skeletons to 13pt daemons.

We can start piling up all the different racial weaknesses but DoC is still going to come out WAY ahead on poopy rules.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
Honestly Daemonic Instability is a horrible rule.
Even if you lose by one for combat res you could lose your entire unit with a slightly bad roll.

Especially on the monsters, with the low amount of attacks they have already, fighting against anything with ranks + banners is almost guaranteed for you to lose the entire model even without taking any wounds at all.
3 for Ranks + 1 Banner means you fight at a huge disadvantage from the beginning.

This is true for most units in the game.
My 294 block of saurus warriors took a flank charge by 5 dark riders. I lost combat by 1, failed my cold blooded steadfast leadership 8 and got run down by the 3 surviving elves.
The dark elf only charged into my flank to force me to pursue him off into nowhere (predatory fighter must pursue). Instead he killed them all.

I don't see why daemons should be immune to the risk of getting wiped out.
The only armies that are immune to that are Vampire and Tomb Kings, and both armies have a mechanic that makes the whole army crumble away on their own (killing the general/heirphant respectively). Also, most undead units (both flavors) are very, very squishy compared to even daemons.

I'd rather my whole army take the chance of being run down rather than taking 4-5 wounds on my WL4 Lord...
Units with that swiftrider? rule at least will out run most of the time which is actually pretty popular in the book like Beasts and Fiends.

 Peasant wrote:
I'm not really sure that all of this makes sense.
I don't play tournaments so I ask..
Aren't most tournament lists generally the same for all the armies anyway?
Don't tournament lists typically follow a particular 'Meta' for each army?
Yes you can't buy a better ward for your characters..but your big hitters, i.e greater daemons are all toughness 6 with better than average number of wounds.
Your entire army, minus a few exceptions, has a 5+ ward all the time.
Instability..daemon players are upset because a bad roll will wipe out a unit yet look at it this way..you lose by 2, you roll 8 with your daemonettes and lose 3 more. Same situation for most others they run away and have the odds of getting cut down. This happens EVERY time they run. On 12 you get wiped out, other units still run
It sucks when you lose but it just feels a little worse as a daemon

1. Depends on the army. Some armies are shoe-horned into kind of specific builds, but that's not the case for most of the 8th edition books.
2. It's not just that other armies can buy a better ward. Those other armies can buy a wide variety of other better protections. Other armies can get protection for their Lords not only from purchasing magic items, but they can also put them in a unit for a Look Out Sir! roll. All DoC Lords are Monsters that cannot joint units, so are easy targets for war machines. Add to the fact that they cannot purchase something like a Charmed Shield or an improved ward save, DoC Lords are all pretty much cannon bait that costs 500+ points. They cannot reliably get any armor save better than the 5+ on a Bloodthirster, and can only get a better ward save than 5+ if they roll a 10 on the Winds of Magic table (and that only lasts for the next turn).
3. The army does have a 5+ ward save for the majority of the time, but the army pays for it. Much of the army is generally overcosted, with the notable exceptions of Skull Cannons and Beasts of Nurgle. The ward save is certainly nice, but the best armor save for a regular unit in the book is the 4+ on Bloodcrushers; models that cost about the same as Skullcrushers, but are significantly less good.
4. Personally, I'm not fashed about Daemonic Instability. I find the double-6 and/or double-1 mechanic to be wonky, and it should just be done away with. It should simply be apply the combat resolution as an addition to the Ld test die roll and remove wounds from unit based on how much over the Ld value it is. Much simpler.

Bigger issues are as follows:

1. Playing mixed god for DoC is penalized while it is not penalized for WoC.
2. There is no access to a Dispel Scroll for the entire army.
3. (As mentioned above) Most units are priced very poorly.
3a: Heroes are priced ridiculously high for their abilities and relative vulnerability (175 min for a HoK w/Hatred on a T4 2W model who's only protection is a 5+ ward)
4. Access to magic Lores is very restricted, and most of the spells in the DoC book Lores are unimpressive.
5. Many of the rolls on the Lesser and Greater Gifts table merely duplicate magic items, and several others are completely not worth taking.

There are more, but I'm at work, and I got to get going

Saldiven wrote:


1. Depends on the army. Some armies are shoe-horned into kind of specific builds, but that's not the case for most of the 8th edition books.
2. It's not just that other armies can buy a better ward. Those other armies can buy a wide variety of other better protections. Other armies can get protection for their Lords not only from purchasing magic items, but they can also put them in a unit for a Look Out Sir! roll. All DoC Lords are Monsters that cannot joint units, so are easy targets for war machines. Add to the fact that they cannot purchase something like a Charmed Shield or an improved ward save, DoC Lords are all pretty much cannon bait that costs 500+ points. They cannot reliably get any armor save better than the 5+ on a Bloodthirster, and can only get a better ward save than 5+ if they roll a 10 on the Winds of Magic table (and that only lasts for the next turn).
3. The army does have a 5+ ward save for the majority of the time, but the army pays for it. Much of the army is generally overcosted, with the notable exceptions of Skull Cannons and Beasts of Nurgle. The ward save is certainly nice, but the best armor save for a regular unit in the book is the 4+ on Bloodcrushers; models that cost about the same as Skullcrushers, but are significantly less good.
4. Personally, I'm not fashed about Daemonic Instability. I find the double-6 and/or double-1 mechanic to be wonky, and it should just be done away with. It should simply be apply the combat resolution as an addition to the Ld test die roll and remove wounds from unit based on how much over the Ld value it is. Much simpler.

Bigger issues are as follows:

1. Playing mixed god for DoC is penalized while it is not penalized for WoC.
2. There is no access to a Dispel Scroll for the entire army.
3. (As mentioned above) Most units are priced very poorly.
3a: Heroes are priced ridiculously high for their abilities and relative vulnerability (175 min for a HoK w/Hatred on a T4 2W model who's only protection is a 5+ ward)
4. Access to magic Lores is very restricted, and most of the spells in the DoC book Lores are unimpressive.
5. Many of the rolls on the Lesser and Greater Gifts table merely duplicate magic items, and several others are completely not worth taking.

There are more, but I'm at work, and I got to get going

Thanks for the response.
1. Don't tournament armies still run pretty much the same though, even though they have plenty of options though?
2. They do get other protections but it's there to counter a significantly lower toughness. Take any hero and to make their stat line close to a greater daemon will cost the same, well it would if you could take enough gear to do it. Every army has it's niche and I disagree that they are hard done by the way they are set. It's like comparing an empire halberdier to a hydra. Not being able to hide your monster of a character just means that you have to think about how to use him rather than just move him down the board.
3. 5+ ward works out better than a 4+ armour save majority of the time. And everything costs. finicking over 1 point is quite minor and I would guess the only reason we notice is using a math program to run said numbers. I know I never would notice the difference between adding 3 models to a block of 36.
4. If you are rolling that many 2' and 12's to make a noticeable difference to your army then that's just bad luck.
But this is just the way I see it.
As for the 'big' issues and my opinion.
1. One is DoC the other is warriors. It's like saying I don't have witch elves in my empire army.
2. Dispel scroll is an unfortunate oversight.
3. Prices are not terrible, a point is not a huge deal IMO
4.Agreed on lores, especially since tzeentch spells are garbage.
5

@Peasant: Tournament performance of DoC armies since the advent of the new book disagrees with pretty much everything you just wrote.

1. No, they don't. Some people net list, some people don't. Some armies have auto-include units, but the rest of the army has a lot more variety. That isn't the case in a competitive DoC list.

2. Firstly, a DoC lord will cost 2-4 times what most other Lords will cost. That DoC Lord, if a caster, will not be as effective a caster because of lack of access to magical items that make their casting better. You can't just hide your GD behind terrain the whole game in order to prevent it from being sniped by a cannon or something. Eventually, it has to come out and contribute to the battle. You really misplay how important not having access to Look Out Sir! is. In most other armies, the opponent won't even bother targetting the General with a Warmachine, but for the DoC, the General is target number one for every Warmachine until he's dead. Yes, the GD stat line in justifies the cost, but DoC do not have an option to take a Lord level character that isn't a Monster with all the vulnerabilities that includes. In fact, it's becoming more and more common that tournament DoC lists (at least Nurgle lists) don't even take a GD because it's a huge points sink (20%+ of the total points) that is depressingly easy to kill.

3. Actually, I disagree with your assertion. The VAST majority of attacks in WHFB are S3 or S4. That means that a 4+ save is as good or better than a 5+ ward against the majority of attacks any unit will see. Additionally, nothing in the army has access to a Parry save to complement an armor save. A 6+ armor and a 6+ parry is only 1/36 worse than a 5+ ward, and that combination of armor/parry is incredibly common in other armies, even against S4 attacks (as in a base 5+/parry combination). The biggest issue with this is for Heralds. The Heralds are all very expensive, with naked Heralds starting at 90 points, I believe. They're incredibly vulnerable, with only the Herald of Nurgle having any decent defense with the negative one to be hit and T5. The rest of them are T3 or T4 models with 2 wounds and no defense beyond the ward save, and they often cost almost as much as the opponent's non-casting Lord.

4. I already stated I don't have a problem with the instability.

Second set:

1. No, it was merely an example of poor rules writing and lack of consistency by the rules writers. It is an unneccesary handicap on the DoC book which limits the ability to effectively play a mixed-god list. I'm sure they made this decision to be "cinematic" and all, but that doesn't change the fact that the rule negatively affects the way that the army plays on the table top. This isn't arguable. Even Goblins get to use an Ork general's Ld if within Inspiring Presence, but not so with DoC.

2. Well, they've had, what 9 months, to correct that "oversight," but the FAQ still only contains the four original questions with no subsequent update.

3. A point is absolutely a huge deal if it's spread out over 80-100 models. And it's not just a point on everything. Bloodletters are probably currently 2 points too much, The rest of the core is probably right on or 1 point too high. Beasts are probably 10-20 to little, and the Skull Cannon should probably be 150-160. Compare that to Bloodcrushers which are still probably at least 10 points too much, and all the Slaanesh chariots that could have 25% taken off their cost and still be too expensive. Honestly, IMO, the only units in the book that are appropriately priced are Flesh Hounds and Seekers.

Ultimately, the biggest issue that I hear from long-time DoC players is that there really wasn't that much stuff that needed to be done to "fix" the previously overpowered army book. Instead, GW took their typically heavy handed approach and swung the DoC book to the opposite end of the WHFB power spectrum. For example, in DoC discussion forums for years leading up to the book, people thought that Bloodletters either needed to have their S reduce to 4 or have their points go up by 1-2. Instead, GW does both, making them universally viewed as overcosted. The second big complaint is the randomness for the sake of randomness through the book; this includes the Reign of Comedy table and the way gifts are "selected."

Anyway, I'm at work again today, and I"ve spent too much time typing as it is. Gotta get to work