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Ok, so I personally feel that the fast attack slot is one of the better slots for chaos daemons. I generally include Plague Drones and Flesh hounds in my lists and have a good time with them. I have never used Screamers or Seekers though, and would like to hear a little tactics about them. I have a nice well rounded list I like, and have a gap that I usually just drop drones or beasts in, something fast. So below are some fast attack+herald options, each one costs about the same amount of points.

Khorne herald (Jugger , lesser reward,Wrath) and 10 flesh hounds.

6 blight drones, death heads, plaguebringer + lesser reward.

Tzeentch herald (disk, ML3) and 7 screamers

Slaanesh herald (steed, lesser reward, swiftness) and 14 seekers+heartseeker with lesser gift


The Khorne unit can take a good beating while running straight up the middle, they are fast and durable enough to be an anti infantry blender.
I generally run blight drones in units of 4-5, but I could take 6 for the ~300pt budget. Good tarpit, but a very expensive tarpit. Great for high T low save models, very good with prescience support. Somehow had a unit of 4 take out a black mace DP, dice are strange.

So now I am at the 2 units I have never used. I know screamer star is a big thing, but I don't want to focus my entire army around one unit like that. I assume the unit will TEQ and tank hunt, while "vector striking" units in the way. The herald will also throw buffs to other units.

Seekers are a unit I really want to try. They are insanely cheap, and have almost too many attacks, but at T3 they will fold like wet paper towels to just about all shooting. Out flanking is the main reason they appeal to me though, but then I should hope I can get them into LOS blocking cover quick. The +6" on the run is also very awesome, almost awesome enough to not bother with reserve rolls.

So what kind of advice is there for running a ~300pt unit of screamers or seekers? Is the herald worth it?

The screamer unit probably isn't worth it unless you're taking more Heralds. It's unfortunate, but without the gimmick (2++ rerollable), they're not all that great. Low damage output and only slightly above average survivability.

The Seekers are a fantastic unit and they'll definitely want a Herald. As cheap as they are, losing 1-2 models every time you run through terrain would be painful. However, I would never outflank them. They're moving roughly 22-24" on turn 1, ignoring terrain. Moving 12" and charging with fleet on turn 2...that's more than a 40" threat bubble by turn 2. If you outflank them, you're not assaulting until turn 3 at the earliest.

Plague Drones are cool, but they're just not as good as the other units. Their damage output is low compared to the other units at low initiative. They can't even run units down. They can't fight monstrous creatures, which are in 1/2 of the armies in the game.

I hate seekers. The models are hideous and they die too easily.

Screamers with a herald are great at taking out vehicles. I would run the squad as 4+the herald and hunt wave serpents

Dogs + herald are always a solid squad.

Flesh Hounds are a right pain with a Herald. Just such a big tarpit, but deadly enough.

Though the last time I fought them my solo Wolf Lord was able to survive. Mind you, I had to roll 37 2+ Armor Saves. And I failed 4 of them, but thanks to Endurance cast by a nearby if out of reach Rune Priest giving me Feel No Pain he didn't even get a scratch. That continued, 20 Flesh Hounds, a Herald that refused to accept my Challenge, and 3 Fiends of Slaanesh fighting my Wolf Lord for 7 rounds of combat before, in the last round and the only round without Endurance he finally died.

If only I had managed to trigger Daemonic Instability...


I believe Seekers of Slaanesh are underrated. Cheaper than Flesh Hounds, just as fast but more of a pain in close combat. They are just less durable, which is why Flesh Hounds are better. But when you take both its really annoying. You can't ignore either one, and you are more likely to go for the "sure thing" against the Seekers. So the Flesh Hounds end up not getting focus fired as much.

9 screamers by themselves are actually pretty decent. With psychic support from princes/fateweaver they can be as deadly as hounds, but more survivable with the same defensive buffs.

The point where they become equal resilient per point is a 3+ save, and the equal DPP is when the screamers can get rerolling to hit outside of charge. Hounds work autonomously (not counting herald), but screamers work best with buffs.

The advantage of the screamers is they can't be tarpitted as easily, can get anywhere on the battlefield in 2 turns, can become more resilient, and have a fancy slashing attack.

The problem I have with seekers, is that the only thing they can do that hounds can't is scratch walkers slowly to death, and threaten MCs. But they are around 1/3rd the RPP of hounds. I bring princes/heralds/nettes to do this job.

What do you think would ally best into a CSM list?

I think Seekers are amazing as rends auto-wound, but the dogs are too fast to ignore also.

I just clued on to the Seekers today. Take Daemonettes, add 3pts to the cost, to get;

-bonus attack
-outflank plus acute senses
-a casual double movement speed
-additional 3" run bonus (can move 12", and run 7-12" in one go holy crap)
-no movement penalty in difficult terrain
--lose out on troops status
--dangerous in difficult terrain (easily worth it most of the time IMO)

As mentioned earlier, the models are nasty though. But thats most Slaneesh stuff - dude has weird tastes I'll give him that.

Seekers are horrid. Either 2++rerollnonsense or an ugly unit without much use. Don't even seem fluffy, just random warp monsters that are Tzeench for some reason.

Dogs are also pretty ugly but I use Dire Wolves which are (far) cheaper and better looking IMO

a Herald that refused to accept my Challenge

Can heralds, especially Khorne ones, even do that?

I'm new to the Dogs, what exactly is it with the heralds that makes them better? I know Karanak can give them Hatred vs one unit and Rage which is a serious buff, dunno about the other stuff.

 Dakkamite wrote:

a Herald that refused to accept my Challenge

Can heralds, especially Khorne ones, even do that?

They can, but I don't see why you would since Khorne Heralds can be challenge masters.

I have kind of grown to like the new seekers, as well as the screamer models. I can always paint them nurgle colors for a "themed list mono nurgle" list.

The herald is a nice bonus to the hounds because he can give them either rage or hatred in on the assault. Plus with the lesser reward he can handle TDA without issues. Precision strikes can be nice to take out anyone with a power fist who could double T a hound. Plus, instant death on wound rolls of 6. They are challenge monsters. Only reason I could see one refuse a challenge vs a +2 save wolf lord is that he didn't have an ap2 weapon, and figured the buttload of attacks from the hounds would take him out.

With quite a few people saying that daemonettes are top of the crop for offensive troops. Outside of $ cost, I don't see why I shouldn't pay a few pt more and have them be much better. I just cant seem to find any battle reps with seekers, or screamers that are not a 3-4 herald + fateweaver army.

When I originally started my Daemons Army, I was super excited to run an almost exclusive Khorne regiment of Bloodletters and Crushers, accompanied by Hounds and Both Karanak + Skulltaker... After getting to play a few games, I quickly realized that Hounds will attract fire like cake attracts fat kids, and Skulltaker is about as useful in a challenge as tinfoil is as making bullet proof vests...

I say this because his "Instant Death" Mechanic is completely broken and useless when you figure the only thing in the codex as HQs go that have EW base, you are hoping to roll 6s in your CC, and hope to god your opponent doesnt have a 2+ armor save... Which is terrible to wish for since almost every superior HQ from most Dex's these days (As far as I've seen for CC units) HAVE 2+ armor saves.. Never mind the Invulns most have as well as THEIR EW boosting them to 4W for the most part (Stupid Skully has 2W to start and gets +1 if he takes his jugger...Thats wretched)

I tend to stay away from the hounds now because I simply find other units perform better.. Screamers for instance, make amazing Tank hunters, and I kill TEQ models in droves with them as apposed to my hounds who tend to struggle with MEQ models in CC...

Hounds are very very good - Scout means they can almost play like the old daemons by mving up and daring an opponent to off them with 1 round of shooting - or eat their assault. The Heralds really make them shine with either hatred or rage and an AP 2 weapon.

Seekers are also great - the reason they tend to die is opponents tend to focus on them. I almost always end up giving the Seekers a Grimoire.

Plague Drones are okay, but they are a bit too expensive imo - they just do nto put out enough damage overall. Screamers have some neat gimmicks, but are solid at their cost now too. They are more survivable than they look at first with T4, 2W and a Turbo boosted Jink save. If it is Night Fight they usully sit on a 3+ or better.

I concur that Fast Attack is the best slot in the HQ now - last codex it was Elites.

Seekers are a decent choice, however they forced to be compared to the superior Flesh Hounds, and fall short.

At 4 points less per model, but with -1T, and -1W, they really do not compare well. They are faster however, and better vs High T models due to a higher number of rending attacks.

Seekers are different to hounds, sure, but superior? I don't think you can call that.

They trade durability for speed, are 25% cheaper (give or take) and have completely different utility in game (hounds can't do squat to a Wraithknight for instance, and can labour against any unit with any sort of numbers and some element of durability)

Then you have to consider that they can take a much more versatile herald to lead them than the hounds, if you're lucky enough to grab Invisibility you're going to have some fun!

So, different to hounds, certainly, but inferior? I'm not so sure.

There is a reason there has been much talk about 'dog pile' lists, but very little around the subject of seeker spam.

It all comes down to durability, and price per wound. Sure seekers are different, and can do some things better, however for general use the dogs will see much more gameplay as they are such good value.

12 pts per seeker with T3 and only a 5++ is quite expensive. Yes they are 25% cheaper, but dogs have 100% more wounds and +1T.

If I need a riptide or wraithknight taking down, then certainly I'll use seekers, but outside of this role the dogs will be more of an asset as they are much more difficult to remove.

I'm not saying seekers are bad here, but the dogs are better to build a list around.

I've had a fair bit of success with drones, but maybe i'm just lucky.

I use them as swift-moving (for Nurgle anyway) Icon deliverers that are tough enough to take a round of shooting.

Ideally land them in area terrain or ruins, and let their shrouded buff that up. Then deepstrike stuff in on them.

They can't really do much damage for their points, though a sarge with a Balesword can still make a dent, and if you kit them right they are ok at downing MCs with poisoned shooting, poisoned attacks and instant death attacks.

I see them more as a utility unit than a beatstick.

Fleshhounds are better than seekers. They are about 3 times as resilient per point as seekers, are more dangerous to everything but 2+ armour, and about on par with 3+ armour, can reach combat faster, doesn't take dangerous terrain like crazy, can assault 2nd floor of a ruin. But the final nail in the coffin of seekers, is that fleshhounds can have the jugger herald join them.

I run mine with 1 greater and 1 lesser gifts and the exalted loci. At minimum i get axe of khorne for instant death goodness, but hopefully get fleshbane/armourbane. A herald with the hatred loci makes the hounds 33% more deadly on the first round of combat and is about as deadly as 10 hounds by himself against meq. Against teq it's more like 15.

The only place a seeker is more useful than a hound is verse a MC.

You mentioned resiliency per point, but didn't specify the type of firepower. I'm going to assume you're talking about S4 (anything lower is exceedingly rare, and anything higher is going to make the fleshhounds look bad). So let's look at bolters.

Fleshhounds: 2*[(1/2)*(2/3)]^-1 = 6 S4 hits to kill. At 16 PPM, that's 2.67 dead points per hit.
Seekers: [(1/2)*(2/3)]^-1 = 3 S4 hits to kill. At 12 PPM, that's 4 dead points per hit.

4/2.67 = 1.5. So fleshhounds can absorb 50% more firepower -- not 200% more. I specifically chose a weapon profile that was favorable, and still couldn't replicate your results. (A Thunderfire cannon would completely negate the Fleshhound toughness advantage, for example.)

You also claim that Fleshhounds are better against 3+ armor (almost always present on T4 models). Against MEQ, a charging Fleshhound will deal 0.44 wounds, You need to pay 36 points in Fleshhounds to kill a single marine at matched initiative. On the next turn, Fleshhounds will lose furious charge and 33% of their attacks per model. You're then paying 72 points per dead marine. Meanwhile, a charging Seeker will inflict 0.59 wounds per model against MEQ. And at only 12 PPM, they're killing a marine at only 20.25 points, with better initiative. On the next turn, they also lose an attack, but weren't relying on furious charge. So they still only pay 27 points per dead marine.

Finally, you said that Fleshhounds are "faster." While it's true that normally beasts are fleet while cavalry are not, we're talking about cavalry of Slaanesh. Not only are Seekers fleet, they get an additional 6" movement when running.

Seekers are a bit more fragile than Fleshhounds -- but nowhere near the "3 times" factor you cited. More importantly, they can actually deal with armored targets, high toughness, or both.

You got the numbers for seekers wrong it is 2/3 to wound, not 1/2, but yes it doesn't come to 3x, but 0.66 for instant death, 2.25 for S3, and 2 for S4. When I stated about 3 times I was taking into account the massive amounts of dangerous terrain tests the seekers will take if there is even a decent amount of terrain on the field you will quickly realise how poor their resilience is. 1 in 9 dangerous tests is a dead seeker. Charging into terrain is a death trap between charge moves and pile ins, consolidates and finally moving on again (I have actually had a really bad charge where almost all took 2 tests). This leads to the issue of requiring a babysitting herald with the lesser loci adding 80 points. Against strength 6 and 7 weapons (more common now) the toughness of the hound is no longer useful, unless you are running biomancy princes that can do endurance. Strength 3 is quite common in close combat and is where you usually need a decent amount of resiliency otherwise smallish units or a fluffed round of combat can be a massive instability check. At S8+ seekers perform better! they are more RPP, but most of this heavy firepower will be directed at MCs, and there will be a smaller quantity of the general firepower of the army.

As for killing power, both units will be hitting at i1 on the first turn as they will most likely will be charging through terrain. Against meq, seekers perform better yes, but only if you reach combat with equal points as the hounds, which will reach combat with more alive. I did basic simhammer against even marines getting a turn of shooting and overmatch and the hounds always performed more favourably. If the enemy could kill 10 seekers, they would only get through 2-3 hounds (depending on direction of fire and musical wounds within the unit), this leads to the seekers losing 50% of their hitting power while the hounds lose 20%. If you can get seekers across the board unmolested, they will outperform the hounds, but good luck on that.

For speed, yes the seekers have a higher run move, but the 12inch scout at the start of the game is more useful overall for the first 2 turns, effectively getting 2 turns of the seekers run move without having to run themselves.

The last thing you need to think of is the kind of support and force concentration the unit can have. If I had 320 points to spend I could get the hounds, or a unit of seekers that doesn't concentrate the points as effectively. If I have 240 points I tend to go screamers over hounds, because they are nearly as good as hounds, but receive larger benefits from buffs (invis making the semi invincible and equally hitting, prescience helps them more overall, 3++ rerolling 1s is 96% as RPP as 3++ hounds and if you hit 2+ you are 4x) and don't need something to break walkers for them.

My go to hound unit is 17+ hounds and a herald, clocking the whole squad in at 450-475 points. I could have 40 seekers which would have the same RPP against S6-7, better at 8+, but I can't buff 2 seeker units. And dealing with multiple smaller units is much easier than dealing with 1 unit that has a very limited weakness (walkers, and MC characters).

seekers have Scott too

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
seekers have Scott too

The seekers have Scott??

Lucky guy

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
seekers have Scott too

Seekers have outflank, not scout.