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How good are these greater daemons of Tzeentch? I want to get one for smaller games since he seems very versatile with speed, survivability, good in CC and some shooting with flickering fire. Only problem is that he seems quite expensive.

So would you take one and if yes then with what setup, ie psychic discipline and gifts?

The best of the greater daemons, but is kinda of eh in 7ed. The inability to charge on the turn you change flight modes was a huge nerf because its durability is super inconsistent with out swooping. Really good in combat because it has beefy stats and can get an easy +2S from its lesser gift and can always take prescience to reroll to hit but only has 5W and a 5++ save for survivability which isn't good for its price tag. You have to get lucky and roll precognition form divination or the good greater gifts to fix that (3+ armor, 4+ FNP, rr Invuls, +1W&IWND) and frankly those last two don't cut it. If you don't get them though you are screwed. Shooting wise its awful as the tzeentch witchfires are just unreliable in 7ed. Flicker Fire takes too many dice to do notable damage and you risk perils, Bolt and Gate need to roll high strength to do anything and you can't use them if you jinked (which you need to do).

Overall very inconsistent but can be devastating.

Not nearly as awesome as it was in 6th. It used to be great in combat but now it's too easy to shoot down when it tries to assault, and its dakka all came from casting psychic powers, which are now significantly less reliable than they were before.

These days I'd just go with a Nurgle DP. With jink you'll have a 2+ cover save, and since it has no ranged weapon you can stay jinking all the time and not care about the snap-fire rules.

Frankly, with a 2++ I wouldn't even put it in gliding mode most of the time. A 2++ is statistically equivalent protection-wise to forcing enemies to hit you on a 6.

Pair it with a Flying Demon Prince of Tzeentch rolling on Telepathy and hope for Shrouding. Put them both in Glide, within 6" of each other and now you have two highly dangerous monstrous creatures with a re-rollable 2+ cover save (as Tzeentch demons re-roll saving throws of 1) when they Jink. Jump them 12" towards whatever you want to kill, and go to town. Obviously give them both the +2S Staff so they are S8 and roll the Lord of Change on Malefic for a chance at Cursed Earth for +2 to Invulnerable Saves.

One thing it is not though, is cheap. That will cost you 660 points for both if you're taking them as ML3, 2 Greater/1 Lesser gift each and 3+ Armour for the Demon Prince.

And if you didn't roll shrouding you're screwed

Yeah, but Telepathy is still a pretty good tree. If you didn't get Shrouding, then that means there's a higher chance that you got Invisibility. And Psychic Shriek is an extremely good offensive power - if worst comes to worst you could always just fly around Shriek'ing things to death.

psychic powers are much less reliable and FMC who want to get into melee (i.e all daemons) were nerfed. The greater daemons were designed around being able to be survivable through flying. And with the nerf to being able to charge in flight modes, they just need an update.

So it is better to take a daemon prince or another HQ, but in case I want to use him i should load him up with as many greater gifts as possible, give him the staff of change and roll all my powers on divination? I'll be using him in a small army only of around 750 points so he should be able to survive a turn of shooting while gliding towards the enemy before assaulting his important stuff.

At 750 points investing in a greater daemon can be risky as you are putting a lot of points in one model.
In 6th edition I would have instantly said yes. Hell, I included them in lists as low as 500 points, because they literally covered all the bases. My favourite and best performing HQ of 6th ed.

In 7th however it is a more difficult choice. Smash nerf and FMC rule changes have severely beaten their damage output and versatility. Also the psychic changes hurt them. Before they were casting 3 powers a turn. Now they are more likely to be using all 3 of their power dice in the hopes of successfully casting one.

If you do take them, then I would recommend getting 2x greater rewards, and 1x lesser reward for the staff. Being str 8 means that the smash nerf is not as crippling to you as it was to the other greater daemons without access to +str weapons. Get them to power level 3 to give you most psychic value for cost.

If you are playing in a more competitive setting, I wouldn't recommend the LoC or daemon princes. Both are no longer worth their allocated points due to the rule changes. (Nurgle Prince is the only viable DP imo as they now receive a 2+ jink save at any time and do not rely on psychic powers as much as the others).

I find myself taking heralds more as HQ choices in 7th ed. Fateweaver is still viable, as he didn't tend to land too much before and the smash nerf barely effected him. Be'lakor gets better cover saves now (2+ anytime), and invisibility 100% of the time can be game changing. I'd recommend these over a LoC now. (Though it pains me to say this, as I did love playing lists with 2x LoC throughout 6th).

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Not nearly as awesome as it was in 6th. It used to be great in combat but now it's too easy to shoot down when it tries to assault, and its dakka all came from casting psychic powers, which are now significantly less reliable than they were before.

These days I'd just go with a Nurgle DP. With jink you'll have a 2+ cover save, and since it has no ranged weapon you can stay jinking all the time and not care about the snap-fire rules.

Frankly, with a 2++ I wouldn't even put it in gliding mode most of the time. A 2++ is statistically equivalent protection-wise to forcing enemies to hit you on a 6.

Two words why this is a bad idea:

Wave.

Serpent.