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I've been playing 40k for a couple of months now with a small ork warband army list and have been able to be a player who is actually decent to play. Anyways I was thinking of doing another army because as awesome as orks are I want to change it up and go with Chaos Daemons in the end. The only resons I got Orks was because of a really old black reach set I got stuck with and it has held its own in small point games when I'm not wondering whats going on half the time. However I have been looking into daemons before any purchases and was wondering how they are as an army? What are strengths and weaknesses? I only ask because no one plays them at my gaming club nor does any of them invest in spawing them. Any advice would be awesome!

How much do you like rolling on a table? I believe you replace shooting with rolls on a table.

Daemons are a strong army but they can be complicated to use because they have a lot of tables they need to roll on and rely a lot on psychic powers, which adds a strong randomness element to their abilities. They're also predominantly a close-combat army. The Soul-Grinder is the only decent ranged unit that doesn't rely on psychic powers for its dakka.

Daemons are nominally a horde army; most of their troops and fast-attack units come in large squad sizes (usually 20), and are cheap and predominantly toughness 3 or 4. However they're also surprisingly tough. Every daemon unit has at the least a 5+ invulnerable save, and they have a special rule that makes them automatically pass fear, morale and pinning tests. That makes them very durable, especially to attacks that rely on high-toughness or low-AP to do damage.

Many of their units also pack a wallop in CC. A ten-man unit of Daemonettes or a 10-man unit of Bloodletters will quite handily beat a 10-man tactical squad in melee combat despite costing 40+ points less than the marines, for example, and Daemon monstrous creatures are some of the hardest hitting in the game (though very expensive). So, despite them being a "horde army" their units are in fact very elite in some respects.

Daemons also excel at having map control. Every daemon can deep-strike, and quite a lot of them have a 12'' move (and all Slaanesh daemons even have either a D6+3'' or D6+6'' move on top of fleet). It's very easy to rush daemons up the field and be in charge range within turn 2 or early turn 3, and to overwhelm opponents.

So, they're a very solid army. But what I said in the beginning about them being a bit complicated is true. There is a lot of "randomness" to Daemons, and even just a couple bad rolls on some of their tables can cripple your army. Also, they're very susceptible to ranged-heavy armies. While their invulnerable save and horde numbers makes them very durable against burst damage (low rate-of-fire, high-strength attacks like blasts and anti-tank weapons), armies that can put out a lot of shots, like Tau, Imperial Guard, Dark Eldar and Tyranids can be problematic for Daemons. You have to really utilize cover, speed and your psychic powers to protect your daemons long enough for them to get to grips with these types of armies.

That's more or less all the most important aspects of the army, imo, but feel free to ask if you have any specific questions.

Wow yeah that brings a lot of useful information about them. I didnt have as much of an insight on them as you just described. A lot of people have indeed said that they suck do to their warp storm table and other tables as you've explained. Thanks for the advice!

Don't let the warp storm table shy you away...I have no idea why people think that it is such a crutch...it usually HELPS me but even at its worst it's manageable. Turn one playing my friends tyranids I killed his big psyker thing (Tervigon?) by rolling an 11 it was pretty rad lol... enough about that, then one thing with playing daemons is that you have a huge diverse set of units to choose from, and they All do something well, but their strengths aren't as apparent as it is when r3ading through other Codex's, sorry I am having a hard time putting it into words. The other thing with daemons is that you want to have a really good understanding of how your opponents army works so you know how to put your units into effect as they are much less forgiving of tactical errors. That's my 2 cents, though I am a casual player and don't ever compete seriously. I love my daemons, they are a ton of fun! Just know what you are getting into ha ha