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Let's not forget about the second half of this threads title - PLAY NICE.


So, what do we have so far?

HQ: Either 2 GDs or 4 Heralds or a combination? Any of the named GDs or Heralds worthwhile for their points cost?

EL: Fiends? Move as beasts with 6 rending attacks on the charge. Flamers? Nice sacrifice unit to dig out entrenched troops. Bloodcrushers? Lots of attacks and decent save but slower. Beasts of Nurgle? S&P but very tough with FNP.

TR: Bloodletters? Hit hard with power weapons, standard moving with a mediocre save. Demonettes? Faster movers but low toughness means alot more 5+ saves. Horrors? The only shooty troop unit in the army but low toughness and strength is a loss in HTH. Plaguebeares? Dead hard with a great save, but very slow and even more unpredictable with S&P. Nurglings? Cheap tarpit swarms that do not suffer from insta-death but don't really hurt anything in HTH.

FA: Seekers? Great move as cavalry with decent rending attacks but low toughness as always. Hounds? Furies?

HV: DPs can be tooled well but wings are too costly. SGs have some nice movement, but suffer from hidden powerfist death and the potential one-shot-penetration = death issue.

I think that about sums up what we have here.


How about some suggestions for tactics and combos that would work well with this army. It appears that the army has to rely on many different tactics to do well. Any ideas?

[edit] Zero_Cool beat me to it [/edit]

I was interested in building a daemon army, and saw this thread.

A few observations that may be so obvious that they are lost to some here in the heat of the arguments.

1) Zero_Cool asked how to build a daemon army
2) Asked for everyone to play nice

I am seeing neither in this thread except references as to how bad "deamons suck" from a couple posters.
This doesn't address Zero_Cool's question nor does it abide by his plea to play nice.

I, for one, am interested in seeing where this thread goes without off-topic trolling. Is it possible to leave the egos and breast beating at the door of this forum long enough to discuss the actual topic of this thread?

In case some of you have forgotten what trolling is, or how it appears to be against this forums rules (which I have just read) I will refer you to one of it's definitions for your consideration.

I most certainly will be derided for trying to operate under a cool temperament by pointing the above out, but please do us all a favor and save your very thinly veiled argumentum ad hominem attacks which the mods here seem to overlook sometimes, for someone who actually cares what you think.

To the topic at hand.

After reading through the codex, I am becoming rather enamoured by the prospect of chariots for heralds.

I particularly enjoy imagining a Slaaneshi herald mounted on a chariot.
Give them unholy might and the hit and run ability, possibly pavane.
5 wounds a piece with 4/5+ saves and 5 attacks @ STR6.
It will be very tricky to use, what with it not having the IC rule for its safety, but I think it 2 or more are going to be highly annoying for a few armies.
Plus, I think they might very well look quite good on the table if someone were creative enough.

Caution: Long slightly rantish opinion.

The army relies on synergy to an extent. There aren't really jack of all trade units where you can get multiple roles out of them. Because of this, unsupported units will suffer if engaged on anything other than their terms.

So far, I've used an all rounded force to some success, including some of everything. When it works, it is because the pieces do their jobs while other pieces do theirs. So when my Plaguebearers are holding down an objective, holding an Icon instead of trying to fight off lots of marines or what not, things go better. When my daemonettes and seekers spend no more than 1 turn not in combat (and Seekers should never be out of combat save for when they first come on), I do well. When my Bloodletters fight Marines and my horrors gun down banshees, it works.

The problem then becomes how do you fit all of that into one army and how do you fit it into an army that is forced to split in half at the beginning of the game.

My approach so far has been designing my armies around 2 aspects: Shooty and Assaulty, (genius I know...)

But in the shooty, I feel you have to decide what kind of shooty you want. 5 man horrors with a bolt of tz are cheap and decent AT, DP's with bolt are much more expensive but are much more likely to hit, Soulgrinders are expensive but can be good anti horde with the ability to move and fire off a str 8 ap 3 large blast and a str 4 ap 5 assault 6 wep. So, from there you have to decide how much of each type of shooty you want, since 1 5 man horror group is not enough for AT, but 3 are, or a 10 horror group is better for massed volleys.

This is the same with assault. Do you want glass hammers or something with more staying power? Bloodletters, Bloodcrushers, Fiends of Nurgle, Greater Daemons, save for Tzeentch, DP's are great at fighting battles where you are not going to wipe the unit on the charge, but daemonettes, seekers, fiends, are going to get there sooner and should (save for a bad scatter) get into combat the next turn, if they survive shooting. Of course, these units will not win any kind of war of attrition. Do you want tarpits? Plaguebearers, nurglings, furies, and fleshhounds are great at wrapping up enemy units until the big hitters get there, but are not going to win against CC specialists most of the time. So with that in mind, you need to focus on how that cohort is going to be built.

I keep Bloodletters and daemonettes together because I try to have my daemonettes hit first to slow down a unit until the Bloodletters get there. I keep Seekers together with shooty elements so that there is less return fire at them so they can survive to do damage the next turn.

Of course, there are other schools of thought.

I can imagine an all horror cohort would be devestating as they can pump out a lot of firepower or an all MC cohort can weather a good deal of storms.

From my angle, as I start to retool and rebuild my armies, focusing on 2 main aspects (tarpit, glass hammer, sledge, horde shooty, high str shooty, etc), 1 for each cohort, and then adding support units is helpful to ensuring my army is balanced and capable of functioning as a whole.

The daemon army is not "point and click". Massed Bloodletters or very very focused forces will win against certain matchups, but in an all comers venue, I think that you have to mix and match units so that you can support the units that are most valuable against the varied opponents a RTT or GT will bring.

I think a daemon army can be tooled to fight specific armies very very well.

Fighting Orks? 3 Soulgrinders with phlegm, lots and lots of horrors, flamers and nurglings.

Fighting assaulty marines? Bloodletters, Seekers, Daemonettes, and Kos or Thrister. Or: 4 heralds of Tz with gaze of chaos, 3 DP's with gaze of chaos, flamers, and horrors, nurglings for tarpit.

Fighting shooty marines? Lots and Lots of seekers, flamers, daemonettes.

Fighting Nidzilla? GUO's, heralds of nurgle, (anything with noxious touch), seekers (notice a theme with seekers, they just rock), flamers (same as seekers).

But even then, as Darrian13 has said, they are a finesse army. Even when you have a list tooled to fight certain enemies, you can still easily blow the game, more so than other armies, but choosing the wrong targets and trying to make square pegs fit circular slots.

Stelek, I believe you've contradicted yourself:

Stelek wrote:Against demons, you do not, in fact, want to castle tightly.

You want to spread out and fill your entire deployment zone, and if you've got infiltrators, fill out from your deployment zone as much as possible.

Stelek wrote:You can't really believe these units are any good against someone castled up properly to stop your deep strike.

So what is the best way to deploy against daemons to limit their effectiveness? Is "proper castling" spreading out to the far reaches of your deployment zone?

You can be 'spread out' and 'castled tightly'.

I guess I need to provide a tactica or something.

That'd be cool, actually!

I don't want to speak for stelek, but his first description of how to deploy against a demon army is a very good strategy for everyone to start with when playing against demons. I think the second time when he used the term 'castle' I think it was just supposed to be referring to a defensive minded deployment.

Stelek, in that game I played against the shooty marine player, he deployed just like you suggested, at my behest. His devs were spread wide and their rhino was behind them. His whole army had filled every point of their deployment zone, with some small holes that just physically couldn't be filled thanks to his model count.

The reason i was able to land flamers and flame on turn 1, is that I play my flamers ultra-aggressively. For 105 points, I just feel like they are best utilized by dropping them at a point on the table where you can land a devastating flame. I had their entry point about 4 inches away from his front lines, at an angle between a tac combat squad and the devs. I scattered towards his lines right underneath the devs who were in the second and third stories of a building. Would have had a mishap if they weren't on higher stories.

The reason I'm so suicidal with them is because hurting the enemy on arrival is vital to the strategy of my current WIP list. Also, since they are jump infantry. If I mishap, I sill have a 50% chance of keeping them on the table. With 12+D6" movement every turn, they can be a threat again after an enemy placement. If they get shot, that's life.

Back to the OP. So far, my list has had a really good time against armies with true heavy weapons. If an army loses too much firepower on the move, then they'll be forced to stay still and hope to cripple you with just a single round of shooting. Demons have really made me want to change my beloved guard army into more of a mechanized force (well 5th ed. running assault armies make me want to do that as well) The more firepower an army can maintain while moving, the more difficult the games get. I have won a close game against a 9 skimmer dark eldar wych army. If you think about how many mobile bs4 lascannons that thing has, I would say that its a good indication of the demons ability to win despite enemy mobility. All of my MCs had died, but the plaguebearers hung tough on the objectives, the DE player had to spend too much time keeping pressure on my big guys, I focused on raiders with demon princes, and as the game drew to a close, the DE scoring units couldn't get to all of the recon objectives.

I'll reinforce what I said before about keeping your scoring units resilient and not relying on them for offense, and keeping your offensive units fast and explosive. There are different ways to accomplish that. I won't say that all MC demon armies are the only way to go. I think that may be the case, but its just way too early for hyperbole.

Just remember at 14 points per troop model, and with the demonic assault rules. You aren't a horde, and you can't make a list with a horde mentality.

I haven't played any games yet with the list so keep that in mind.

The main problem I am having when putting my army list together is the tension between wanting to get shooting on the board ASAP to try and disrupt the enemy shooting so my assault elements don't get shot to pieces upon arrival and actually getting my assault elements on the board so that they can get into close combat and actually do their job. If I bring in all of my shooting in the first wave then it will be turn three before I can launch any assaults at which point supperior enemy firepower has probably crippled my own shooting elements and/or the enemy has assaulted my shooting elements which mostly suck in hand to hand.

This really seems like a tricky list to build and play correctly and I guess trying to solve the puzzle of how to best use everything in combination is what intrigues me so much about the army.

I got the codex this weekend and I got to see part of a game involving Daemons in action, and I have to say it is a very intriguing army, but definitely not for players with a faint heart (or that don't like to lose sometimes).

I've been reading the codex quite a bit in the last few days trying to soak in all the nuances I can without actually playing the army and I've formed a few initial thoughts.

It seems to me that a lot of people advocate going with an approach of Deep Striking either a whole lot of models or really tough models in front of one flank of the opponent's army, taking a round of enemy fire and then attempting to do as much damage as possible with what is left.

While I think this strategy can work in some situations, I don't think its the best idea for the army (at least not if I were playing it).


I believe that speed and terrain is the key to winning with this army and minimizing the luck factor. A Demon army is fairly unique in that it is an assault army that can allow you to get into combat without taking much, if any enemy fire before charging, but to really take advantage of this fact you need to wait until you get more of your army available to charge together on turn 3. And in order to make sure the enemy just doesn't run away from your positions behind cover you need a whole lot of fast units.

With this concept in mind, durability is a secondary consideration behind speed and hitting power. That means the bread-and-butter of the army would be units of Seekers. Even with the rending nerf in 5th edition they should be able to tear through almost any unit in close combat (including vehicles) and their immense charge range means you can safely deploy them behind any cover and have a pretty good chance they'll be in charge range the following turn.

I would also take Fiends of Slaanesh because they are another very fast unit, but you get them out of the Elites section instead of Fast Attack (thus allowing you to take 3 units of Seekes and 3 units of Fiends for a total of six very fast maneuverable (but deadly in CC) units. These would be evenly spread between the two cohorts to guarantee that you get 3 fast units in on turn 1, ready to tie up enemy units on turn 2, should the need present itself.

A couple of units of plaguebearers could be used as your icon bearers with one placed in each cohort. Again, the goal would be to deploy these units out of LOS behind cover in an area where your fast units will be able to charge from behind cover. These Plaguebearers aren't meant to necessarily ever get into combat, they are just there to hold the icons and perhaps capture and hold objectives later in the game.

A couple units of pink horrors give the army some shooty options in case you're facing a horde, but again you'd have to resist the urge to drop them into range to fire immediately. They would be deployed out of LOS if possible, moving into firing range the same turn you move your fast units out of cover to charge.

Even though the horror units can have the Bolt of Tzeentch upgrade, only two shots for anti-vehicle is pretty sparse if you're facing a mech-heavy army. However, the Heralds of Tzeentch are pretty darn cheap and with the Chariot upgrade they move as jetbikes and have 5 wounds with that 4+ invulnerable save. Sure they're still only T3, but with the ability to move 12" and still fire the S10 Bolt of Tzeentch at BS4, they make a pretty good mobile tank hunting unit. They lose their IC status with the chariot upgrade but you really just need to use their mobility to stay out of rapid-fire range of units and their invulnerable save and 5 wounds should allow you to soak a bit of long-range fire unless you're talking about something like a Loota mob.

Finally, it doesn't hurt to have some heavy hitters running around supporting your fast fragile units. These can be a number of different things. If you've used up one HQ slot on two Tzeentch heralds, you could still take a Bloodthirster or two other CC heralds on chariots. Or you can always include some Daemon princes with the winged upgrade. I know this is a really expensive upgrade, but again you're banking on the fact that you'll be able to deploy out of LOS and then use the enhanced speed to get into combat without being shot.



That's about it for my first thoughts about a Daemon army. I think I'll try to bang out an army list using these concepts above and see what I can come up with.

I think this army is gonna get a bad reputation its 1st couple of months. Alot of people are gonna try it using the same old tactics they use with every other cc army and they're gonna get they're get their asses handed to them. I think time will prove Yak right. It'll probably be months before this lst is played enough to know what's the best tactics and units.

yakface wrote:
A couple of units of plaguebearers could be used as your icon bearers with one placed in each cohort. Again, the goal would be to deploy these units out of LOS behind cover in an area where your fast units will be able to charge from behind cover. These Plaguebearers aren't meant to necessarily ever get into combat, they are just there to hold the icons and perhaps capture and hold objectives later in the game.

Don't forget in 5th Edition they will be used as a meat shield to convey a 4+ cover save (if rumors are true) screen. Like to those aforementioned Seekers...

For what it's worth Bell of Lost Souls is confirming's Stelek's statement that Swarms get a new USR stating that they do NOT score. However, there is also something new up stating that ALL units can contest objectives.

I guess that pretty well puts to rest the whole using nurglings to drop onto and capture objectives strategy.

i am currently also making an army list:
Blue Scribes
Skulltaker on chariot
Herald of tzeentch
5 flamers w/ bolt
4 flamers with bolt
6 fiends
10 flesh hounds w/kranak
6 screamers of tzeentch
10 seekers
10 X daemonettes X 2
5 X horrors w/ bolt X 2

I got some points to spend and with some cuts I think I can squeeze in either a GD or 2 DP Tzeentch style. Skulltaker imo seems to wreak havoc against troops with 4+ instant death. I test played it against opponent and we were about even till he had to leave (not running away!). This game I had a bloodthirster in but he got wasted turn 1 against heavy fire. The 2 DPs are looking good right now from people here. Should I go for 2 DPs or have 1 DP and 1 GD and take out a herald of tzeentch (basically "lower" DP tzeentch) or take out skulltaker?
Any suggestions?

I am a Slaneesh guy through and through and I am really concerned that the rending nerf will render a GT level Slanessh specific army impossible.

My old pre crap codex chaos deamon bomb army was devastating and brought me a 32-5 tourney record, even though it was 100% fluffy with all units in sacred numbers, 5 troops and lots of conversions.

I sold that army a few years back and had not played again until december, and I had been eagerly awaiting the new deamon book since I refuse to play slaneesh without deamonettes, its just sacriledge.

Based on Yaks analysis it seems that it could be possibel to go slaneesh, but I worry that without the resillience of the plaguebearers the army will simply vanish before it can do any real damage.

Is a pure slaneesh army viable for serious tourney play or is this just a fun army?

If thats the case I will probably go Fantasy as CSM w/o deamonettes just doesnt work for me.

bigtmac68 wrote:I am a Slaneesh guy through and through and I am really concerned that the rending nerf will render a GT level Slanessh specific army impossible.

My old pre crap codex chaos deamon bomb army was devastating and brought me a 32-5 tourney record, even though it was 100% fluffy with all units in sacred numbers, 5 troops and lots of conversions.

I sold that army a few years back and had not played again until december, and I had been eagerly awaiting the new deamon book since I refuse to play slaneesh without deamonettes, its just sacriledge.

Based on Yaks analysis it seems that it could be possibel to go slaneesh, but I worry that without the resillience of the plaguebearers the army will simply vanish before it can do any real damage.

Is a pure slaneesh army viable for serious tourney play or is this just a fun army?

If thats the case I will probably go Fantasy as CSM w/o deamonettes just doesnt work for me.

Well IMO if you go pure slaanesh you could do 3 units of 6 fiends and 3 units of 10 seekers and then daemonettes. IMO slaanesh units are fragile but give you a really good punch when they are in good numbers. Fiends are somewhat tough and it can totally decimate most troops with its attacks and rending. Seekers are basically daemonettes on steeds with 1 more attack and huge range - again with the sheer number of attacks + rending it will be very nasty. I guess as long as the slaanesh units are in HtH they should be fine especially their high Is make them go first most of the time.

havent got the codex yet but from what I have seen my thought was to try to build a force with 2 equal detachments so that the d/s randomness would have no effect.

Something like 2 equal detachements of Herald,6-Fiends,10-Deamonettes,10-Seekers, DP

Deploy the turn 1 strike very conservatively and then use the speed of the units to manuever for a decisive second wave.

Im sure that could do great if terrain is thick enough but on a wide open board I just see a lot of dead deamonettes.

Am I missing something, thiking of the wrong kind of build, or am I right that a slaneesh list can not be consistently competitive?

I've been experimenting with Codex: Daemons for a while now, tried a Khorne list with an armored and an unarmored wing, and based on the experiences I had when the unarmored side dropped first I'd say mono-Slaanesh won't be highly competitive. Just too vulnerable to enemy shooting if they fall close, and falling far has its own set of issues.

40kenthusiast wrote:I've been experimenting with Codex: Daemons for a while now, tried a Khorne list with an armored and an unarmored wing, and based on the experiences I had when the unarmored side dropped first I'd say mono-Slaanesh won't be highly competitive. Just too vulnerable to enemy shooting if they fall close, and falling far has its own set of issues.

What have you found to be competitive? I am trying a slaanesh/Tzeentch with splash of khorne.

I just played 2 more games this weekend. 1 very convincing win against a tooled black templars army and 1 draw against mech eldar.

That brings my total games with my current list (or close to it) to 8. I haven't lost to marines yet, mech eldar has been a loss and a draw, and I've both beaten and lost to orks.

some quick notes for people that haven't tested yet.

1. Don't build 2 half-sized identical lists. It isn't going to work out. Build a resilient scoring half and an explosive killy half. If you ask for and get the killy half, go to town kill them all and wait for your scoring units to trickle in and grab objectives. if you ask for resilient or get it when you ask for killy, then deploy a bit further back, watch the angles and play it cool. As your killy stuff comes in you'll have access to more than 1 icon. Use the icons to pinpoint accurately drop down your threats. your threats should either be insanely fast, or have good shooting.

2. good units to start with (if you are stuck on list construction)... bloodthirster, keeper of secrets, flamers, plaguebearers, walking demon princes with shooting attacks.

3. land and immediately attack their scoring units if you are playing 5th edition. with multiple units of flamers landing suicidally close to their troop concentration, you can kill 12-20 space marines on turn 1 pretty easily.

4. if you use flamers (and you should) play aggressively. Land them so that if you get a hit on the scatter dice, you can get 2 flamer templates on the unit you aimed for. They'll never get a shot off if you don't shoot on arrival (I mean never) but if you do get them in the right spot it'l be mass carnage. I'm talking about 13+ dead orks kinda carnage.

I hope to put this weekends batreps up, they were pretty illuminating for me.

shep, what units have you had the best outing with? I am split on Daemonettes and Bloodletters, Seekers and Hounds. Should I split them (10 units each) or focus on a particular unit? Also, are you using a fire magnet when you drop? I am thinking of Kugrath since he's got the ordnance spell and it will surely attract fire... Any suggestions on those units?

between bloodletters and demonettes, i would say bloodletters. On paper I like demonettes so much. i was so fired up to use them, and i played 4 games with them. man it was frustrating watching them die. T3 with a 5+ save is just not acceptable. The problem is compunded by the fact that even if they don't kill them all off, 2 or 3 demonettes can simply be ignored. 5th edition rending can just be really underwhelming. Bloodletters are both slightly harder to kill and hit much harder when they get a charge off. ironically enough, I think bloodletters perform very well when you have a nearby pavane of slaanesh.

Between seekers and hounds, I'd have to say seekers. they are both the same speed, and hounds are harder to kill, but with hounds not having power weapons like the bloodletters, the bonus has to go to the seekers. Karanak makes a good case, but i think i slightly like the mass rending attacks. It's like Yak was saying. Demonettes are easy to kill, and fleet doesn't really make them quite fast enough to land in a safe spot. the beasts can land a bit further back, making their fragility less of a concern.

My list currently has 5 MCs, 3 flamer units, and 4 plaguebearer units. i don't really use a "fire magnet" because I don't like the concept. If you have one thing you really want to get shot at, its hard to convince your opponent to shoot at it.

I like my units to come in two varieties. Hard to kill, scoring units. and hard to escape from, killy as hell units.

Someone made mention of kugath just being another source of flamer template and thats pretty spot on. its pretty inefficient. he might be good in an epidemic list, because its flamer wounds that count towards your tally, but pound for pound, the bloodthirster is the king of fast, tough, and lethal. id run 2 in my list but I find both the pavane and the hit and run of the keeper of secrets just slightly more valuable than a second thirster.

if there is a unit that i would demand that you run, its flamers. My gaming group respected them immediately, and now a month later. I'm starting to hear the groans about cheesy. don't take more than 3 to a unit. And plan for them to die immediately after landing. this means land them for an immediate flame, if you mishap, you've got a chance to return them into reserve or maybe have opponent place them somewhere else. here are some actual in-game numbers of a unit of flamers arriving at various times in the game.

7 marine devastators
10 fire dragons (caused 11 wounds)
13 shoota boys
5 wraithguard
numerous entire combat squads

in each case they landed, caused way more than 105 points in damages, and then drew fire in return. They are vital to distract and damage enemy shooting on your first wave, to spread their attentions and reduce their shooting on your big important assault units. Later on, having the added control of an icon can mean putting them in position to kill a dozen models or more in a single shot. My opponents have seen a combination of pavaning a unit after a flamer unit has landed nearby and moving that unit to be the perfect distance and density to get 15-18 hits. It's mean...

Gotta agree with Shep on flamers. They are beautiful creatures.

Seekers are much more killy than Flesh Hounds, but will not last if you don't do a lot of damage on the charge. Flesh Hounds are more survivable in my experience, so if you want something fast to tie up units for the big hitters, Flesh hounds are better. If you want something that can kill just about anything, Seekers.

Bloodthirsters are amazing. I do love KoS, especially for the I:10 and 6 base attacks, good in conjunction with a hammer and anvil type tactic. (Pavane juicy unit closer to bloodletters, bloodcrushers, etc or force people into tight formation for flamers/soulgrinder)

Shep is all kinds of right.

Shep, great info, what are your 5 MCs may I ask? And how is this army?

HQ:
Skulltaker w/chariot
Heral tzeentch w/chariot,master sorc, bolt
bloodthirster w/ deathstrike,blessing,unholy might
Elite:
6 fiends
3 flamers X 2
fast:
8 seekers X 2
Troops:
10 blood letters w/ icon X 2
6 horrors + changeling w/bolt
6 horrors w/ bolt
heavy:
deamon prince tzeentch, bolt, gaze

total 1993

One thing i might not agree with you but since you played the most is 3 flamers per unit. How come you dont want to have 5-6 so they survive enough to go get another blast? And you DS the flamers aggressively next to enemy units right?

Now i got bloodthrister to take down troops,tanks and whatnot and daemon prince to get rid of medium guys while my other troops go ahead.

shaselai wrote:Shep, great info, what are your 5 MCs may I ask?

bloodthirster (usually with unholy might), keeper of secrets with pavane and musk, and 3x tzeentch princes with gaze and bolt

shaselai wrote:And how is this army?

it looks good

shaselai wrote:Skulltaker w/chariot
Heral tzeentch w/chariot,master sorc, bolt
bloodthirster w/ deathstrike,blessing,unholy might

I haven't tried skulltaker yet, but that looks like a khorne marked demon prince for 160 points for half an HQ slot. I like the tzeentch sniper, but I'd rather max out on sniper princes first. they cost 60 more points but there close cmbat ability is night and day better than the heralds, and they have BS5. Bloodthirsters good, sometimes the plasma pistol is overpriced, but its amazing when it pops open a raider or trukk and you get to charge the goodies inside instead of the transport.

shaselai wrote:6 fiends
3 flamers X 2

excellent

shaselai wrote:8 seekers X 2

let me know how these work out, haven't used em yet but i trust yakfaces analysis, even after only a cold look at the codex.

shaselai wrote:10 blood letters w/ icon X 2
6 horrors + changeling w/bolt
6 horrors w/ bolt

Not my personal choice for troops, but its more aggressive, and that might pay out. I can't say your choices are "wrong" You can drop the bolts for points. The Bs3 will kill them and you'll be too tempted to waste the 15 anti-infantry shots by taking hail mary shots at tanks.

shaselai wrote:deamon prince tzeentch, bolt, gaze

delicious

shaselai wrote:One thing i might not agree with you but since you played the most is 3 flamers per unit. How come you dont want to have 5-6 so they survive enough to go get another blast? And you DS the flamers aggressively next to enemy units right?

I think I could convince you. First I gotta make sure that you know that you cannot willfully place a template so that it touches a friendly model. This means that in a deep strike formation one model in 3 is highly likely to not be able to place a template covering enemy models. he'll have to shoot his warpfire instead. The more flamers you add to the unit, the more "wasted" templates you'll have on landing. If you went for 6+ flamers per unit in an effort to survive return fire, then by the very nature of their expensiveness and the size of their deepstrike formation, it becomes unacceptably large and expensive to suicide with as well as more dangerous and prone to mishap. 210 points is too much to go aggressive with. Once you start playing conservatively with flamers, they get shot and lose their devastating shock factor.

and yes, I drop close.. We are talking 5" away from more than one unit. I've had 2 mishaps in 8 games, with 6 of those games containing 2 units of flamers and 2 of those games containing 3. One mishap put them back in reserve, the other one destroyed the unit.

Let me know what happens with those seekers!

Shep wrote:

bloodthirster (usually with unholy might), keeper of secrets with pavane and musk, and 3x tzeentch princes with gaze and bolt

Isn't that like close to 1000 points on 5 models? What armies have you had the most trouble with these guys? Don't want to say point sinks but thats a lot of points for 5 models... Also, aren't the tzeentch princes a bit slow in getting into combat? Even if you rely on bolt/gaze it will take quite a while to get the points back... that's why i decided to use a herald of tzeentch for mobility.

I haven't tried skulltaker yet, but that looks like a khorne marked demon prince for 160 points for half an HQ slot. I like the tzeentch sniper, but I'd rather max out on sniper princes first. they cost 60 more points but there close cmbat ability is night and day better than the heralds, and they have BS5. Bloodthirsters good, sometimes the plasma pistol is overpriced, but its amazing when it pops open a raider or trukk and you get to charge the goodies inside instead of the transport.

Well the driving point for the skulltaker is the 4+ rending instant death. Even with the new rules on rending the WS will be good enough to not matter too much. Is it just too good on paper?


Not my personal choice for troops, but its more aggressive, and that might pay out. I can't say your choices are "wrong" You can drop the bolts for points. The Bs3 will kill them and you'll be too tempted to waste the 15 anti-infantry shots by taking hail mary shots at tanks.

i think you said you have 4 units of plaguebearers. Do they see much combat with their speed?

Another thing, i dont have the rules with me atm, but i believe chariots are treated as jetbikes right? Can they make "turns" or they can only go straight when they charge?
If the chariots can only charge straight or even move straight i think i might ditch skulltaker+herald for another greater daemon - 2nd bloodthirster or a lord of change/kipper

Finally, what do you think the weakness of my army is against certain types of armies (sorry i havent played a while so not sure what "types" there might be). I don't think mine is too shooty and if anything might be too assaulty - should i remove assault unit and get some shooting>?

Shep, you said, "Bloodthirsters good, sometimes the plasma pistol is overpriced, but its amazing when it pops open a raider or trukk and you get to charge the goodies inside instead of the transport."

I was under the impression that in 4th, you have to charge what you shot at. Since you shot at the transport and destroyed it, you would be unable to charge the unit inside, because you didn't shoot at them, just the transport.

I have a bunch of questions about Daemons, and rather then start a half a dozen threads in multiple forums, I'm asking them all here. If anybody can help, I'd appreciate it.

1) Aura of Aquiescence: I know what assault and defense grenades will do in 5th, but what do they do in 4th? Is it nothing?

2) Is it just me, or are chariots absolute no brainers? With Eternal warrior and a 5++, 5 wounds go a long way, even if only T3.

3) How are people modeling chariots, and what size base are they putting them on? I love the idea of chariots for 15 pts, but buying a chariot kit, two steeds of slaanesh and a daemonette is a huge expense. I'm going to proxy it with the Biker Lord that used to be the spearhead for a daemonbomb, does anybody think this is wrong while there is no official model? It's on the sentinel base and pretty neat.

4) Can units fleet after deepstriking in 4th? I don't know if this got FAQ'd or not, but it seems reasonable that they would.

5) Pavane is just a normal move, so you can't move anything into combat, right?

6) How does this look for a 1750 Slaanesh heavy list? I'm not trying to win GTs, just be competitive:
Kos, Pavane
2x Herald in Chariot, Pavane, Icon, Gaze
1 Fiend
4 units of 12 Daemonettes, two with icons
2 units of 6 horrors with icons and bolt of tzeentch
8 Seekers
6 Seekers

The size icons drop in the first wave.

thanks for any help you can provide.

Polonius wrote:
1) Aura of Aquiescence: I know what assault and defense grenades will do in 5th, but what do they do in 4th? Is it nothing?

For the next two months, play it like they have blight grenades and frag grenades.

2) Is it just me, or are chariots absolute no brainers? With Eternal warrior and a 5++, 5 wounds go a long way, even if only T3.

3) How are people modeling chariots, and what size base are they putting them on? I love the idea of chariots for 15 pts, but buying a chariot kit, two steeds of slaanesh and a daemonette is a huge expense. I'm going to proxy it with the Biker Lord that used to be the spearhead for a daemonbomb, does anybody think this is wrong while there is no official model? It's on the sentinel base and pretty neat.

Chariots are good, though they remove IC status. I posted how I built a daemonette chariot here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/211992.page

4) Can units fleet after deepstriking in 4th? I don't know if this got FAQ'd or not, but it seems reasonable that they would.

They cannot in 4th.

5) Pavane is just a normal move, so you can't move anything into combat, right?

Correct

6) How does this look for a 1750 Slaanesh heavy list? I'm not trying to win GTs, just be competitive:
Kos, Pavane
2x Herald in Chariot, Pavane, Icon, Gaze
1 Fiend
4 units of 12 Daemonettes, two with icons
2 units of 6 horrors with icons and bolt of tzeentch
8 Seekers
6 Seekers

I don't like the lone fiend. Rending always seems to work better when there is more of it. Dunno if Gaze is that useful either. For a slaanesh chariot I'd rather have either Might or Musk.

Is there a, I hate to say official, but is there a ruling anywhere on using Aura as frag grenades? I suppose I can simply contact a tournament organizer and ask.

I saw your chariot conversion, I love it! I'm not wild about spending $60+ on a 15pt upgrade, but I think it'll be necessary.

As for the Fiend and Gaze, I was running out of points. I could drop the two gazes and the fiend and plump for double Musk. Something to consider.