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 Perfect Organism wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
Keeping the Heralds safe from single shooting attacks is not difficult really. Out of LOS or just run them away.

Which means they will probably never have any purpose other than generating warp charges. It also assumes that there is somewhere that is totally out of LOS.

Hollismason wrote:
If people want to shoot them they can it doesn't give you a negative warp charge.

If you're wasting warp charges (and other resources) on summoning units which don't survive to generate more warp charges, you effectively are losing warp charges.

I'm a bit dubious about the benefits of hiding daemons in bastions too. It only takes a couple of hammerheads, vanquishers or similar anti-tank options to turn a bastion from a safe haven into a death trap.

Absolutely, which is why it's important to look at the other Heralds like Nurgle that add warp charge and are survivable.

There are some other options though. Also, don't forget that those Psykers can cast powers when they are summoned it just cannot be Conjurations, so you could summon a Level 2 Herald, then roll on Divination and take Prescience etc.. or my favorite summon them and then pick Tzeentch, or summon a Herald of Nurgle and pick nurgle to get some good shooting attacks right then and there.

Lots of options, people just think : Oh I have this guy that does nothing.

It's why Sacrifice is such a good spell to lead with as I explained within the psychic phase spell order. It adds immediate utility.

There are some other options that the army has and one that I don't think people have considered at all but I have to write that up tonight i don't have time today, but lets just say you can Deep Strike in with a unit and then immediately summon as well as bring in another unit with a Icon.

If you are absolutely worried about getting Alpha Striked Alpha Strike back. It's actually really awesome.

 Commander_Farsight wrote:
Daemons are what could be called tier 0 now.

Until people get used to them and start planning accordingly.

Whirlwinds and Battlecannons go a long towards putting the hurt on a demon Factory, it's weak against flyers, etc...

Stilll looks like it will be fun to play, but I think the cries of the sky falling are a bit premature

It's a little harder than people think because you have a lot of things to take into consideration.

It's not just "Summon Daemons, put on shades, lean back, win".

It's specifically weak against

Drop Pod Assault
Jetbike / Fast Assault armies
Mass Barrage or Ordance fire
Numerous Monstrous creatures like Riptides.

I think it's going to take a lot of skill to play them well, but in the hands of a good player, they might prove unbeatable.

I'm kind of hoping that they also attract a huge number of low-skill TFG players to slap down masses of money and then still fail to win games.

Wow, reviewing the Eldar codex for the allies section and holy crap are they completely broken Daemon Summoners. It's not even a close contest, I'll have to write up a more in depth review once I review some Eldar armies and look through the book but so far I see 10 Warlocks (Treat as 1 LVL2) that has a Jetbike and can cast conceal then roll on the Daemon Chart. 1000 points of Daemons and 1000 points of Eldar is broken.

Hollismason wrote:
Wow, reviewing the Eldar codex for the allies section and holy crap are they completely broken Daemon Summoners. It's not even a close contest, I'll have to write up a more in depth review once I review some Eldar armies and look through the book but so far I see 10 Warlocks (Treat as 1 LVL2) that has a Jetbike and can cast conceal then roll on the Daemon Chart. 1000 points of Daemons and 1000 points of Eldar is broken.

This made me think about DE with a WWP as allies to summoning list. I haven't gotten a look at a 7th ed. book yet, but I did see the DE FAQ.,Would you be able to drop a WWP then sit back and summon demons through it?

I am not familiar with the DE army, but they compliment Daemons well as an ally because they are super fast and have cheap shooting.

 adamsouza wrote:

 Commander_Farsight wrote:
Daemons are what could be called tier 0 now.

Until people get used to them and start planning accordingly.

Whirlwinds and Battlecannons go a long towards putting the hurt on a demon Factory, it's weak against flyers, etc...

Stilll looks like it will be fun to play, but I think the cries of the sky falling are a bit premature

Thats very true. You could always ally Wolves and then just put a couple of RPs in a DP or 2 and you just drop them into the little psychic bubble and deliver the ultimate screw you to your opponent.

I think I understand what you are talking about but am unsure would you mind elaborating?

Do you mean Rune Priest and Drop Pod, then Drop Podding near Daemons for.... I assume that special ability?

Hollismason wrote:
I think I understand what you are talking about but am unsure would you mind elaborating?

Do you mean Rune Priest and Drop Pod, then Drop Podding near Daemons for.... I assume that special ability?

Rune Priest still posses the absolute most powerful psychic defense around. By Drop Podding them in on your first turn you effectively negate many of their successful powers and can bring a Daemon factory to a grinding halt and its guaranteed to work for at least one turn until they are able to kill off the Rune Priest, which may be very difficult. Adding +1 to DTW rolls and bringing extra WC dice is very helpful. Can bring a turn of ~4 Summoning down to ~2. Not to mention you get whatever offense comes in the Pod which should be aimed at reducing their WC dice pool.

One thing I've been thinking about is taking another look at the other Change psychic powers. With Flickering fire getting a bit of a nerf, if I had the ability to take a few extra powers, such as with spawned horrors, The bolt of change is looking awfully nice actually. Str d6+4, AP2 beam, and now beams don't lose any power for hitting multiple units, and it has a pretty nice 24'' range. Assuming you can line up a good shot, this skill can REALLY ruin someone's day.

 Zagman wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
I think I understand what you are talking about but am unsure would you mind elaborating?

Do you mean Rune Priest and Drop Pod, then Drop Podding near Daemons for.... I assume that special ability?

Rune Priest still posses the absolute most powerful psychic defense around. By Drop Podding them in on your first turn you effectively negate many of their successful powers and can bring a Daemon factory to a grinding halt and its guaranteed to work for at least one turn until they are able to kill off the Rune Priest, which may be very difficult. Adding +1 to DTW rolls and bringing extra WC dice is very helpful. Can bring a turn of ~4 Summoning down to ~2. Not to mention you get whatever offense comes in the Pod which should be aimed at reducing their WC dice pool.

Except that doesn't work that way after the FAQ. Rune Weapons are simply Force Weapons that add +1 to Deny the Witch, but only if the Rune Priest is targeted. The 24" 4+ global Deny is gone.

I like your catchy title.

I do feel that the increase in demons and sumoning is gonna make a lotta people think about grey knight or astra mil. allies. Even if they weren't before.

RedWolf wrote:
... and now beams don't lose any power for hitting multiple units

Nice, I hadn't noticed that yet.

RedWolf wrote:
One thing I've been thinking about is taking another look at the other Change psychic powers. With Flickering fire getting a bit of a nerf, if I had the ability to take a few extra powers, such as with spawned horrors, The bolt of change is looking awfully nice actually. Str d6+4, AP2 beam, and now beams don't lose any power for hitting multiple units, and it has a pretty nice 24'' range. Assuming you can line up a good shot, this skill can REALLY ruin someone's day.

Yes I should add that to the Psychic Section and mention that specific rule. It works well for Deepstriking Heralds and deepstriking units in General.

I'll make mention of it specifically when I get to the Combos and Tactics section.

Worthy of an Exalt for thread title alone. For making the Tzeentchian clown car army actually interesting? I regret I have but one Exalt to give for my country.

Now I'm still pretty anxious about how my beloved Sororitas would fare without serious allies....

Hollismason wrote:
I think I understand what you are talking about but am unsure would you mind elaborating?

Do you mean Rune Priest and Drop Pod, then Drop Podding near Daemons for.... I assume that special ability?

Something like that. It is situational, but if you take 3 Drop pods in an allied detachment, this means that 2 come in on turn 1. You drop in your 2 RP pods and you put them where you need to nullify psychic powers. Then you have JOTWW that will also help. I like this because you can put a RP with one five man team of GH and then I take eight LF in a different pod for support. The DPs for the RPs and GHs are also scoring so if you dont need to drop in that much fire power, you could have a personal preference as to put two RPs in one pod. then the other one is scoring with OS and they need to deal with that too.

IMO this is also why DP spam lists are so much more viable. I feel like the two best are Salamanders and SW, but its great with six or seven (or as many as you can with unbound!!) pods because you fill them with Tac marines and then you drop them onto objectives, making you opponent waste time killing off drop pods, while taking volleys of fire form Marines. If you want to make it even more fun or better, add a flyer or two so your opponent has to deal with them too.

You cant JOTWW anything because you cant use the power anymore.

 Commander_Farsight wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
I think I understand what you are talking about but am unsure would you mind elaborating?

Do you mean Rune Priest and Drop Pod, then Drop Podding near Daemons for.... I assume that special ability?

Something like that. It is situational, but if you take 3 Drop pods in an allied detachment, this means that 2 come in on turn 1. You drop in your 2 RP pods and you put them where you need to nullify psychic powers. Then you have JOTWW that will also help. I like this because you can put a RP with one five man team of GH and then I take eight LF in a different pod for support. The DPs for the RPs and GHs are also scoring so if you dont need to drop in that much fire power, you could have a personal preference as to put two RPs in one pod. then the other one is scoring with OS and they need to deal with that too.

IMO this is also why DP spam lists are so much more viable. I feel like the two best are Salamanders and SW, but its great with six or seven (or as many as you can with unbound!!) pods because you fill them with Tac marines and then you drop them onto objectives, making you opponent waste time killing off drop pods, while taking volleys of fire form Marines. If you want to make it even more fun or better, add a flyer or two so your opponent has to deal with them too.

The runic staff doesn't work like that they faqed it (incorrectly I might add) , but yea it's not army wide dispel. You no longer get JOTW.

Drop podding with two guys into a deployment isn't smart. Dropping 40 guys is. There's some easy counters to DP spam I'll get to that in Tactics or How to Deal with things that kill you.

If you just have two drop pods all the Daemon Player has to do is just move and spread out. They can move 6 , Cast , then Run. It's a pretty fast army actually even the ground troops. They'll straight up murder those two Rune Priest in one round of Psychic Shooting . It can just burn through all of your dispel dice. Even if you have 10 it's going to have 30. The best would be like 2 Rune Priest plus some Grey Hunters or a Dreadnought possibly. Don't know not familiar enough with SW. Assuming they can get like Drop podding Flamers.

Plus the best way to play the army is with allies so you'll probably not be dropping in on Demons but a unit of Plaguemarines with Meltaguns in a Rhino or a squad of Tzeentch guys with AP3 guns or Sonic blasters. It's not smart to take a all Daemon all the time list.

Plus you know Soul Grnders.

So I thought'd I'd update this I have not completely finished with this but I am almost close. One of the big things I've come to the conclusion of after reading battlereports as well as paying attention to games I'm playing is that ultimately you really have to bring less horrors and more Daemon Princes at a lower level.

You lose Warp Charge but maximizing how many you have and not taking wings and going straight Telepathy is the way to go at this point.

Hollismason wrote:
So I thought'd I'd update this I have not completely finished with this but I am almost close. One of the big things I've come to the conclusion of after reading battlereports as well as paying attention to games I'm playing is that ultimately you really have to bring less horrors and more Daemon Princes at a lower level.

You lose Warp Charge but maximizing how many you have and not taking wings and going straight Telepathy is the way to go at this point.

Honestly, the Daemon Factory seems to be a clown army to just "wait and see" rather than be tactical on any level other than endless horde.

What I mean by this is, since Sorcerers and CSM: Daemon Princes with Familiars are the best casters in the game now and because they aren't going to generate as much as Brotherhoods of Sorcerers/Horrors/etc, they have the potential of making it happen when they want it too with what little dice they have in the first place. So for Chaos, you're summoning what you need when you need it at that moment and no more/no less.

Ex: I have an armored column and infantry scooting behind them. We round turn 2 and it's time for me to start getting into assaults but I realize there is a problem: Maybe I've lost too much infantry as it is and Tau overwatch is going to eat all of my charges alive. Then what do you do? Well thankfully you have a summoner in your ranks who just put Bloodletters (w/e) behind the enemy squad you want to overwatch. They charge in, get chewed up, maybe make it and cause some collateral damage, but the troops you've paid for are free to make their charge unhinged.

THIS, I believe, is the true power of the summon. Not the Daemon Factory, but that unfortunate lynch-pin moment that you couldn't fail and needed help to make happen. THAT is what Chaos Summoning, to me, is about. Filling holes in the army you brought to the table at a moments notice.

Yes, I know I wrote about it extensively in this thread.



It's actually when you go "Endless Horde" that it seems to fail instead of " Summon Exactly what serves you best at that moment". Like seriously. It takes a bit more than "sit there and summon".A lot of people are playing and are finding that really going like Maximized Warp charge does nothing. You have to just Maintain that's all. Just Maintain a 30 Warp Charge Level.It's actually a really complicated army to paly because you have a ton to keep track of and have to know what units are good at killing what.

So yeah it's more than just " Summon Horde". That works but against a hard list, it sucks, also you have to protect yourself versus Alpha Strike so taking a ton of T3 models to boost to Warp Charge 3 isn't that great a idea.

It's been two weeks so still a lot of games to play, but your right to a degree about the "lynchpin". Right now though a mix of Telepathy for Psychic Scream and Invisibility and Shrouding plus Summon Daemons and Flickering fire seems to be where it's at.

A Sample list I played the other day:

KoS : 1 Lesser , 1 Greater, Level 2
4 Heralds
3 Heralds of Tzeentch w/ Level 3 , 1 w/ Disc
1 Herald of Slaanesh w/ Chariot Level 2

Troops
3 Pink Horrors @ 17 Model Squads

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince, Greater, Level 3 , Slaanesh
Daemon Prince, Greater, Level 3 Slaanesh

Works waaaay better than taking 3 more 17 model Tzeentch Horror Squads. Like taking more than 50 Pink horrors really really cuts your throat.

After having read some more on the relevant topics, I wanted to elaborate on my statement concerning DE and WWPs:

I play Iyanden w/ DE allies and have for some time now. I've always taken a WWP for flavor. My list in 6th evolved into Farseer w/ support weapons in backfield, Spiritseer(s) with Wraithaxes and Archon w/ WWP deployed as forward as possible, Spiritseer(s) w/ D-scythes in WS. WK as warlord. A large squad of warriors and a squad of DE Harlequins out of the WWP.

Now, with changes to WWP and BB transports, as well as the addition of Daemonology, I'm seeing a whole string of new combos with very little alteration to the list. If I'm not mistaken, and someone please correct me if I am, then conjured demons may arrive via the WWP rather than DSing. This, to my mind, does away with any need to expose the units doing the actual summoning. In addition it allows the bloodthirster to arrive in gliding mode, which is good bc I can't imagine any eldar would feel comfortable summoning a keeper of secrets.

A combo I had considered is going full santic with the farseer and shooting for gate of infinity. Then DS with an archon attached to a tough squad, like wraithaxes, right up to some leafblower list, or even behind their lines, and drop the WWP. Next round you start summoning daemons through it.

The eldar seem to have lost a lot in their psychic supremacy, however, their artifacts - namely Spirit Stones, Runes of Witnessing, and Ghosthelms, have all significantly improved. Obviously, my current list isn't as strong at summoning as it could be, going full daemon (my first iteration only has 14 WC) but, it's also not at all locked in to summoning and has proven effective before 7th ever dropped. I'm sure some of the extras could be dropped to add more WC as necessary to bring this up to factory status.

Any thoughts on the viability of incorporating WWPs into a summoning style list?

Honestly, I am not overtly familiar with Dark Eldar enough, and now that I actually am reading the Webway portal thing, I think you broke something.

I'll have to ask in YMDC , because it allows movement in a phase that normally doesn't allow movement.

I know the following does work though you could keep a Daemon Summoning unit in Reserve move on through the Webway and then Summon. I think Dark Eldar would be a good match for Daemons just because one has no shooting and one has a lot of cheap shooting.

Yeah, this WWP thing is weird. I always though it was like a one time thing, honestly never encountered it. If it works the way I think it does you may have found something that's really really good.

I will say you'll be one phase behind , as you have to kick it off in the shooting phase it seems like.

Fluffwise, I'm dubious about Eldar of any kind letting daemons anywhere NEAR their precious webway -- whose whole point is to avoid the warp.

I believe the rules for summoning placement would override the webway portal unless the webway is within range.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Fluffwise, I'm dubious about Eldar of any kind letting daemons anywhere NEAR their precious webway -- whose whole point is to avoid the warp.

My take on it from a fluff perspective is that the archon has a portal which opens up to a closed off section of the webway that was overrun by daemons. The eldar seers then provide the psychic energy to allow the daemons passage, and voila!

As for this tactic being a turn behind, I don't think it is, bc with a relatively low WC, you're going to want to summon Tzeentch daemons first round and hide them behind cover in your backfield anyways. If you need to put pressure on the enemy right away, the rest of the army has both the mobility and firepower to make that a non-issue

As for the range issue, I had considered that, but I really feel that RAW leans toward this tactic working; I suppose that's a discussion for YMDC, tho.

The summoning Daemons thing is COMPLETELY broken. Grey Knights can summon daemons? Yeah, only if they're going to fight those same daemons they're summoning. XD

Come on games workshop. How can you let Eldar and D'Eldar team up, but then CSM can't team with IG/AM?

Just another example of "GW hates Chaos." lol

That brings me to another point though; Do you have to be Battle Brothers with Daemons for them to be effective? What I mean by this is, if Grey Knights summon Daemons and their Alliance is "Come the Apocalyspe," do Grey Knights and the summoned Daemons still act like Come the Apocalypse or, for all intents and purposes, do they get to be good buds sharing a bear with Draigo? And no, that wasn't a typo. I meant bear. >>

 Leth wrote:
I believe the rules for summoning placement would override the webway portal unless the webway is within range.

You can definitely do it as the summoning states that it follows all rules for reserve and really their coming into reserve from Deep Strike but the spells range isn't a issue. That's a restriction on the spell.

That's really a question for YMDC.

The way I think it works, you summon instead of placing they move out from the webway portal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheRedWingArmada wrote:
The summoning Daemons thing is COMPLETELY broken. Grey Knights can summon daemons? Yeah, only if they're going to fight those same daemons they're summoning. XD

Come on games workshop. How can you let Eldar and D'Eldar team up, but then CSM can't team with IG/AM?

Just another example of "GW hates Chaos." lol

That brings me to another point though; Do you have to be Battle Brothers with Daemons for them to be effective? What I mean by this is, if Grey Knights summon Daemons and their Alliance is "Come the Apocalyspe," do Grey Knights and the summoned Daemons still act like Come the Apocalypse or, for all intents and purposes, do they get to be good buds sharing a bear with Draigo? And no, that wasn't a typo. I meant bear. >>

It's not really that broken, other races get pretty messed up by summoning Daemons due to perils. Eldar have Ghosthelms that prevent the wound.

You don't follow rules for Come the Apocalypse but you would follow the rules for the Desperate Allies.

Grey Knights actually can't summon daemons