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So here is my 1850 list I was planning on trying.
After not playing for a long time I wanted to play a entertaining army. I figured well I will go with the Daemons.
So I was just looking for some help with tatics.

The list below is what I'll be playing.
Should I put both the Herold of Nurgles with the 8 Drones in a conga style line?

Should I get my screamers in close combate asap?
I will have a disc Harold in each unit.
Should I worry about summoning or just buff the cap out of things and maybe get a possible possession off to maybe bring a thirster in?

Also is this still competitive?
HQ

Fateweaver

1x Herald of Nurgle- Greater Locus of fecundity, Psyker level 2, Greater Reward.
1x Herald of Nurgle- Psyker level 2, lesser Reward

1x Herald of Tzeentch - Psyker level 3- Disc Exalted Reward
1x Herald of Tzeentch - Psyker level 3- Disc Greater Reward

Troops
11x Pink Horrors
11x Pink Horrors

Fast Attack
8xPlague Drones- PlagueBringer- Venom Sting
8X Screamers
8x Screamers

The problem of this list can be summed up in one word (well almost):
Knights (either Wraith or Imperial)

Kidding aside, it is an older deathstar-type list that doesn't fare as well as it did.

You need to roll well on your psychic powers and even then you can get stomped to death.

The list does not really work. You can only make one real deathstar with Grimoire and you still need luck with the psychic powers for 4+FnP or +1 on Saving Throws.

Shooting Armies can easily defeat you if they get the first turn and otherwise also can kill 2 of 3 units.
Melee armies will just slaughter 2 of your 3 units...
Knights or D-weapons will also ruin your day.

I would decide for one Deathstar (Drones or full Screamer with 3 Tzeentch Herolds) and then something else with hitting power:

- Khorne Hounds with Herold are great
- Belakor is a nice addition and can make an other Deathstar unit while also having a 2+ Saving Throw against shooting...
- 3 Soul Grinder with Slannesh (sprint)
- If you ally with Chaos you can take Belakor, 10 Cultists, Helldrake and a Maulerfind as addition to 1-2 Soul Grinders from daemons...also a lot of fun.

This list is almost exactly the list that won the 2013 and 2014 Adepticon, and placed in the top 8 of the 2015...BAO? LVO? I forget which is which. It lost to the eventual winner of that event in no small part because the player gave himself a nerf out of a gentleman's agreement with the opponent to right a previous tournament misplay. True, it was piloted by Nick Nanavati and he's pretty good at 40k but the point is that it's one of the most well-rounded lists that daemons can bring. He took out some rewards and got an inquisitorial detachment for the servo skulls (it's really good against scouting and infiltrating armies, but also crazy unfluffy haha)

So anyone who says it can't work - no offense but you are just straight up wrong. I run a very similar list and it works great. You can't argue with 2 GT wins and another top 8 finish all under the same codex. 2 of those were 7th edition GTs as well. The list is extremely versatile and can deal with Knights. Oh can it deal with Knights. The last time I played it against a 5 knight list, I tabled him on turn 5. Touch of rust plus prescience with that Grimoire and cursed earth....2++ invuln means you either get 6'd on the D table or you just don't care.

As for how to run it, try it out. What you want to do will vary from match to match. Some of the greatest strengths of the list are its ability to nearly null-deploy (just put the drones and heralds in some ruins and enjoy 2+ cover, followed by 5+ FNP). You can hang back turn one because you wouldn't likely get a charge off anyway, so you can deploy ultra-conservatively with no worries if you need to. Just turbo-boost up and get into charge range for turn 2.

You will conga-line the Nurgle heralds. It works fine and they get slingshot into combat with the pile-in moves. How you run the tzeentch heralds depends on the powers that you get. I've onto really run them in separate screamer units when they both get cursed earth or there's a lot of cover since you want to make sure that both your drones and screamers are ok, and typically it's tough to do that for 3 units unless Fatey gets shrouding on telepathy and the opponent can't ignore cover well (or if it's night fight turn 1) - 3+ cover re-rolling ones is silly.

What you use your psychic powers for is probably the toughest thing to learn and why I still feel like I could do things better, even after playing dozens of games with a very similar list. Prescience is excellent, and invis and shrouding are of course golden if Fatey rolls them. You're going for endurance on the nurgle heralds. Once you get that, I typically will go for more cursed earth unless you did the tzeentch heralda' powers already and got it (although you really can't have too much of it). Forewarning is also a great way of getting to a 2++, which is why divination is good on one of the heralds (at least get them prescience). I try to have the ability to prescience both the drones and the Screamerstar in the same turn, as that turns out to be a lot more helpful than you would think.

Sounds like a lot of "luck" with psychic powers for me here. With 2 level 2 Psionikers I never got endurance, so I went back to only 1 Herald for the 5 FnP. In the first turn this is actually great, since it gives something we do not have normally: staying power without Psi.

The Conga Line offers a lot of drawbacks (if the opponent is able to charge the middle / back of the line you will see what I mean...3 turns melee without much happening for example).

But the real reason the drones no longer work for me are Dark Angels. Because of Dark Angels now everyone is planning on ignoring cover (Psi, melee, just ignore cover on the weapons...) and this meta change also hits the drones.

I would do the rewards differently, you are sinking a lot of points into your heralds, isn't a herald in a unit survivable enough (therefore does not need a greater reward) or is a lone herald survivable enough to risk more points?

Also I would arrange it so that I can have more exalted rewards (for this list drop one of your greater rewards for a lesser reward and up the other to exalted) that gives you another artifact, portalglyph or eternal blade in a nurgle blob.

Sounds like a lot of "luck" with psychic powers for me here.

You're quite right.
Any daemons army tends to depend on lucky rolls for gifts, psychic powers, and warlord traits, and you often find yourself trying to evolve a plan on the fly. At the same time, they're utterly badass when they work.

Blight drones make for a good 'skirmish screen' but at the same time... daemons are probably the army that needs a skirmish screen least (aside from other nurgle units, who get a 3+ cover save out of it!). If you want an opponent to be busy going "aargh! aargh! aaargh!" to focus on killing important stuff, flesh hounds are generally good.


Fateweaver is always a good starting point. He has a good mix of psychic powers and with horrors in tow you have a decent stock of warp charge. He's actually not a bad knight-hunter if you get lucky with powers - the fact that witchfire attacks are made before ion shields move gives you the chance to drop some pyromantic shenanigans on a vulnerable armour facing.

I'd not put heralds in the drones. Conga Lines are fine in theory, but you're slowing them up a lot by towing the heralds along with you. I'd try to get a greater reward on the plaguebringer, by the way - poison combined with a greater aetherblade makes for much impressive stabbyness. They can't turboboost - Cavalry, not bikes - can't run, and with attached non-jet heralds I'm not sure they can make their boost move either.

Screamers do indeed need to hit fast because they don't take much killing, but you can't afford to waste them when there are vehicles to destroy. Touch of rust is good - better than a lot of people give it credit for.


Greater Rewards aren't necessarily for toughness - the Greater Aetherblade is an amazing melee weapon compared to....well...anything in other codices. The Eternal Blade, by comparison, is damn nasty in the hands of a monstrous creature but fairly shoddy in the hands of a mere herald (unless he has Smash for some reason).

The nurgle Heralds are so good, that you just want to give them an AP 2 weapon, so lesser or greater rewards are useful for them.

Drones without Herald lack the important FnP and have just the 5+ Save and hopefully Cover. What I do is the following:

Screamerstar with 3 Tzeentch Heralds (2++ and you can rerolls 1s....)
6-8 Drones with 1 Herald for FnP
Depending on points 3 more screamers to harass tanks....or just run for objectives.

The Screamers turboboost first turn to give the Drones cover, (if I can't make good use of terrain).
The Herald leaves the drones if nescessary, but 2 movement phases the Conga line is ok (in the first turn you can't really call it line...1 Drone is enough between unit and Herald).

So I know what I am talking about with the Drones. They kill walkers, instant kill monsters and normally they charge in turn 3 latest. The Herald has an AP 2 weapon, just like the champion.

A big problem are pow 10 (from cybots for example) or just stuff with many attacks and / or ignore cover. The drones normally die during the game, while the screamerstar summons stuff for me to win the game.


But if you check the other choices instead of drones, you realise, that they are not bad...but not a real deathstar to rely on:

- You can take many Khorne dogs + Herald. This unit deals more damage, is faster, but also dies during the game
- You can take 3 Grinder...not bad and gives shooting power or can run fast (Slannesh), but also will die
- You can try to fit in Belakor with a chaos ally...but this leaves normally not enough points

Thanks for All the help.
I Have been reading and reading, This list still holds strong as the latest tournament of 2016 it placed twice in the top 10 and 5

Your list will do fine outside some other nasty lists. If you run into a knight, you grimoire your screamers, hope for cursed earth, and charge the bugger with them. Sure it isn't optimal, but it should work.

In a non hyper competitive environment, that list should work great.

There are multiple solutions to knights in this list. Screamers are an okay option but the Drones also can Touch of Rust it out too.

On top of that, a Nurgle Herald with Iron Arm hits in with S8 or 9 if you give them a Greater Aetherblade.

Another option is just use the Heralds to Summon in Seeker screens - they have a huge run and can just block the knights movement.

This is one of the most, raw power, Daemon lists I have played. The challenge with it is that is play so differently based on the powers you roll. I almost always shoot for Cursed Earth on the Heralds of Tzeentch first. Then I go for Biomancy on the Nurgle Heralds for Iron Arm or Endurance. However, Warp Speed is really good too.

Your weapon choice also depends on the opponent. No multiwound models? Take a Greater Ether on the Nurgle Heralds. A big baddie that needs to go down, shoot for a Balesword.

Also, give the Plaguebringer a Greater Etherblade - that puts 3 Ap2 weapons in the unit and lets you reroll the Venom Sting for Mastercrafted.

Overall, with the number of powers being rolled and how good the Daemonology and Biomancy tables are - it is uncommon not to get at least 1 Cursed Earth/Endurance/Iron Arm. Even if you do not get any, you have a 4+ Jink on the Screamers, a Gimoire, Shroud on the Nurgle units and a ton of speed to stay out of Line of sight. The mobility alone lets you concentrate power where it is needed.

The Herald Shooting is actually strong, as is Fateweaver and the 16d3 slashing attacks is no joke. It is the rough equivalent of 48 bolter shots with the bonus that you can put a lot of distance between yourself and the target.

can you use jet packs during assault phase to move 2d6 also if heralds have not? and what about try fit a PD or Be'lakor in the list to give access to invisibility and improve match against Tau?

blackmage wrote:
can you use jet packs during assault phase to move 2d6 also if heralds have not? and what about try fit a PD or Be'lakor in the list to give access to invisibility and improve match against Tau?

You can still use the jet pack, yes.