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Hello all, I am hoping to get some advice on playing against competitive chaos daemon lists. They seem to have become something of a flavor of the month where I play amongst the competitive crowd, and we have gone from 1-2 very fluffy daemon players to 4-5 people running flying monster spam/tetrad, fully decked up screamer star, murderhorde+burning skyhost with 40-odd khorne hounds, and the like.

Pretty much everything is:

-Protected by a 4++ or better
-Or flying (or both)
-Moving more than 12" a turn
-Doing some kind of low Ap/ignores cover/both attack
-Rolling eighteen buckets of psychic dice

And because it seems to be the norm that nearly every daemon upgrade or piece of equipment has a weird name and no 'official' representation on the model, so you either get a scratchbuilt representation of it or nothing at all, it gets hard to keep track of what does what.

I play usually MSU, usually melee focused armies, and I have the capability to play competitively with some of my armies. If I were going up against one of these lists, I would likely be running a gamed-up Freakshow or an Admech War Convocation.

What I already know is:

-If fighting screamerstar, try to shoot the guy with the grimoire (would he be in the unit though? and if so, why would he not have the rerollable 2++...?) or try to shoot Kairos Fateweaver (just shoot a 5 wound FMC with an invuln save that he can reroll! Easy peasy) so that they can't reroll the roll to get the reroll....wtf is the daemon codex....

-If fighting Tetrad, kill the +1 toughness dude, then the psychic ones. Play the mission rather than trying to shoot them up though, because FMCs are interactive and fun.

The list that concerns me the least is probably the puppies and skyhost. You get extreme MSU, but if I'm playing my Harlequins, you need to charge with 2+ full strength units to one unit of Harlequins just to survive to your initiative step. This is more of a melee bully list that's scarier to people who don't like to get chomped on in cc.

So, as a reasonable competitive daemon player, here's my advice.

First, if you play them often, ask for their codex for a few minutes each game and read it. You'll learn a ton very quickly that way. With that being said.

The grimoire is a piece of wargear that adds 2 to the invul of a deamon unit withing 24 inches. The bearer of the grimoires save is unaffected by this. So the unit he is in may have a 3+ or 2+ invul but the user himself will still have the 5+. The caveat is the grimoire only activates on a 3+, if the player rolls a 1 or 2 its actually a -1 save. This is why people include Fateweaver, he can re-roll 1 D6 dice roll a turn and often times this is the dice people re-roll.

The tetrad is 4 daemon princes that get bonuses based on how many of them are ON THE BOARD not ALIVE. So if one flies off the board they don't get the plus 1 toughness. So focus down one prince if you can. If you're playing Ad-Mech this shouldn't be hard to get some grav shots on one of the princes and go to town. DPs hate grav. If you really want to get nasty remember mysterious objectives can grant skyfire. I think War convocation gets you wargear to re-roll as well.

The tzeentch daemon prince usually has a piece of wargear called the impossible robes. Remember the grimoire? It's like a permanent grimoire. The bearer always has a 3+ save. The downside is that if the user takes a wound then they have to take a leadership test or die. If you're playing freakshow then this is a great target. If you debuff the DP like crazy so he's leadership 4 then do a wound to him then he has to pass that leadership test or be REMOVED.

The other weird thing about daemons is the warp storm table. It's a table that the daemon player rolls on at the beginning of the shooting phase. Generally, 4 or lower is pretty bad, 10 or higher is pretty good. 7 does nothing. The rest of them hit your units on a 6 with varying weapon profiles. The daemonic incursion formation (Murderhorde + burning skyhost+Fatewaver) is so powerful because of this. It can add or subtract one to the warp storm table and Fateweavers warlord trait allows them to re-roll the results.

The last thing to understand about daemons is daemonic instability. It's not fearless, they don't ignore morale tests, they just automatically pass. So they'll never run away. However, if you win combat they have to take casualties equal to the difference between 2D6 and their leadership after losing combat. So this is a fantastic way to get around that 2+ invulnerable save. Unskilled daemon players will allow their very strong units to be near weaker units. For instance, your war convocation. If you charge the screamer-star plus a unit of a daemonettes and wipe the daemonettes and take 2 casualties in the combat. Then the screamers will have to take 2D6 wounds.

So that's it. that's how you beat daemons.

 vercingatorix wrote:
So, as a reasonable competitive daemon player, here's my advice.

First, if you play them often, ask for their codex for a few minutes each game and read it. You'll learn a ton very quickly that way. With that being said.

The grimoire is a piece of wargear that adds 2 to the invul of a deamon unit withing 24 inches. The bearer of the grimoires save is unaffected by this. So the unit he is in may have a 3+ or 2+ invul but the user himself will still have the 5+. The caveat is the grimoire only activates on a 3+, if the player rolls a 1 or 2 its actually a -1 save. This is why people include Fateweaver, he can re-roll 1 D6 dice roll a turn and often times this is the dice people re-roll.

The tetrad is 4 daemon princes that get bonuses based on how many of them are ON THE BOARD not ALIVE. So if one flies off the board they don't get the plus 1 toughness. So focus down one prince if you can. If you're playing Ad-Mech this shouldn't be hard to get some grav shots on one of the princes and go to town. DPs hate grav. If you really want to get nasty remember mysterious objectives can grant skyfire. I think War convocation gets you wargear to re-roll as well.

The tzeentch daemon prince usually has a piece of wargear called the impossible robes. Remember the grimoire? It's like a permanent grimoire. The bearer always has a 3+ save. The downside is that if the user takes a wound then they have to take a leadership test or die. If you're playing freakshow then this is a great target. If you debuff the DP like crazy so he's leadership 4 then do a wound to him then he has to pass that leadership test or be REMOVED.

The other weird thing about daemons is the warp storm table. It's a table that the daemon player rolls on at the beginning of the shooting phase. Generally, 4 or lower is pretty bad, 10 or higher is pretty good. 7 does nothing. The rest of them hit your units on a 6 with varying weapon profiles. The daemonic incursion formation (Murderhorde + burning skyhost+Fatewaver) is so powerful because of this. It can add or subtract one to the warp storm table and Fateweavers warlord trait allows them to re-roll the results.

The last thing to understand about daemons is daemonic instability. It's not fearless, they don't ignore morale tests, they just automatically pass. So they'll never run away. However, if you win combat they have to take casualties equal to the difference between 2D6 and their leadership after losing combat. So this is a fantastic way to get around that 2+ invulnerable save. Unskilled daemon players will allow their very strong units to be near weaker units. For instance, your war convocation. If you charge the screamer-star plus a unit of a daemonettes and wipe the daemonettes and take 2 casualties in the combat. Then the screamers will have to take 2D6 wounds.

So that's it. that's how you beat daemons.

A few questions:

1) Why do DPs hate grav? The last time I played against a DP, he seemed to have no armor save, just a 5+ invuln and obviously jink for being an FMC. I do bring a fairly nice skyfire unit with my Convocation (Skiitari Dunecrawler with Icarus Array). And if I ground them, my reasonably high strength shooting will rip them up. But why would grav hurt them at all? It's possible they do actually have a native armor save and my previous opponent just didnt tell me about it because I shot a low-AP weapon and ignored it or something.

2) So essentially the way to stop the screamer star (barring bringing a deathstar far scarier than I actually do or going for a Stomp hail mary) is to kill the thing that gives it a reroll on a 3+ roll, then wait for it to fail a 3+ roll? That seems...unreliable... what if they never fail the roll?

I have read through the daemon codex several times, and I'm familiar with the basic rules, they just have so much bonkers gak which is so commonly totally un-represented on their models that it becomes tough to keep track of.

A few questions:

1) Why do DPs hate grav? The last time I played against a DP, he seemed to have no armor save, just a 5+ invuln and obviously jink for being an FMC. I do bring a fairly nice skyfire unit with my Convocation (Skiitari Dunecrawler with Icarus Array). And if I ground them, my reasonably high strength shooting will rip them up. But why would grav hurt them at all? It's possible they do actually have a native armor save and my previous opponent just didnt tell me about it because I shot a low-AP weapon and ignored it or something.

2) So essentially the way to stop the screamer star (barring bringing a deathstar far scarier than I actually do or going for a Stomp hail mary) is to kill the thing that gives it a reroll on a 3+ roll, then wait for it to fail a 3+ roll? That seems...unreliable... what if they never fail the roll?

I have read through the daemon codex several times, and I'm familiar with the basic rules, they just have so much bonkers gak which is so commonly totally un-represented on their models that it becomes tough to keep track of.

1. They usually buy 3+ armor but I suppose they don't have to. That's why they normally hate grav, maybe your opponent doesn't buy that. The only time I've heard of them not taking armor is with the nurgle one since he has shrouding.

2. Yeah, or use instability against it like I said. Win a multi-assault and make it take a daemonic instability test. Honestly your knight should do alright against them, depending on the size of the screamerstar. I usually run it as two heralds and six screamers and they would never get in combat with a knight unless I was desperate. The knight and the screamerstar are pretty similar prices and your knight has a very good chance of winning. The D-sword ignores invuls on 6s and the stomps have a chance of ruining the grimoire guy. Depending on your format, look out sir isn't allowed on stomps so even without rolling 6s you can kill the grimoire bearer. Didn't you say you ran freakshow as well? Get them to a low leadership and cast dominate on them. Or get them in close combat with something durable. They're really not all that killy just incredibly hard to kill. Often if you ignore them until they're vulnerably you'll do well. Remember the goal of the game is to win, not kill things.

The reason a Tetrad list might hate Grave is because DPs can buy a 3+ Armour. The Khorne one specifically can have an artifact that is -1 to the attackers strength (commonly referred to as the +1T armour) Grav doesn't care about your T, or the strength of the Grav. it only cares about your armour.

Another issue that makes daemons "seem" really competitive is their random wargear. No 2 games will have the same setup, so forming hard tactics like "Kill the one with X", just doesn't work. The only good tactic for fighting the Tetrad is to kill the "weakest" DP as soon as possible. The "weakest" one can be different in each game depending on what was rolled and what you have. If you can kill one of the psychic ones, though, it lowers their available Warp Charge, so don't always go for the "non-psychic one" first.

So if you have lots of Grav, go for the Khorne prince first, and only if he's on the ground. If none of the Princes have armour, kill the Slaanesh Prince first, since it is "usually" the weaker one since it doesn't have special armour like Khorne, Shrouded like Nurgle, or re-rollable invuls like Tzeentch.
But again, that could change if the Slaanessh prince rolls the re-roll invul greater reward, the 4+ FNP reward and gets Shrouging from Telepathy.

You are going to have to change tactics every... single ... game.

If fighting Screamer star, just feed it cheap units and bubble wrap vulnerable targets. It doesn't have Hit & Run, so if you can charge it with something fearless, or something really tough (something with Storm shields would be nice) than you can tie it up.

-

 Galef wrote:


If fighting Screamer star, just feed it cheap units and bubble wrap vulnerable targets. It doesn't have Hit & Run, so if you can charge it with something fearless, or something really tough (something with Storm shields would be nice) than you can tie it up.

-

Just be careful with bubble wrapping as jetbikes can leap over what's in between. So if they move just on the other side of your bubble wrap unit and you have space for them to land then they can still assault.

Yep, that's my issue with daemons usually. To play against them you need to know every rule, every psychic power, every result on every random table, four sets of relics and often the same models have different rules if they're from one of three different codecs.

And the models ain't gonna help you either. This groobly suit of armor is 3+, +1T, but that groobly suit of armor is actually a rerollable 4+, and that identical suit of armor over there is just a 5++.

Lol, yup. I really love the complexity and that's why I picked them. I figured that the amount of variance between each game and psychic powers would leave the largest margin for player skill and so far I've been happy.

the_scotsman wrote:
Yep, that's my issue with daemons usually. To play against them you need to know every rule, every psychic power, every result on every random table, four sets of relics and often the same models have different rules if they're from one of three different codecs.

And the models ain't gonna help you either. This groobly suit of armor is 3+, +1T, but that groobly suit of armor is actually a rerollable 4+, and that identical suit of armor over there is just a 5++.

In the old codex, you could model the wargear WYSIWYG, but now that most of it is randomly generated, it's impossible to know what you need to have modeled.
The best way to know without having to "know every rule and combo of rules" is to ask your opponent constantly:
Which model is easiest to kill? Which model is the most durable (so you can ignore it)? Who has what buffs?
How many Psychic Shrieks do you have? On which models?

It often happens that 1 model has the best rewards and is super durable. This is usually the Tzeetch prince since the Robes (3++) are not random, but can be bought. You may as well ignore him.
Although I once played a game in which my opponent rolled the -1 Invul for the Warp Strom and I one-shotted the Tzeentch prince with a Str 10 shot (he wasn't using Tetrad)
The Nurgle Prince always has Shrouded, so don't bother shooting him unless A) you have ingnores cover or B) you want to force him to snap-fore to prevent any shooting psy-powers he'll have.
That leaves the Khorne or Slaanesh prince, which we discussed already, but one of them will probably the best first target.

Daemons actually do a good thing for this game (in my experience anyway) and that is to force players to communicate more

-

 Galef wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Yep, that's my issue with daemons usually. To play against them you need to know every rule, every psychic power, every result on every random table, four sets of relics and often the same models have different rules if they're from one of three different codecs.

And the models ain't gonna help you either. This groobly suit of armor is 3+, +1T, but that groobly suit of armor is actually a rerollable 4+, and that identical suit of armor over there is just a 5++.

In the old codex, you could model the wargear WYSIWYG, but now that most of it is randomly generated, it's impossible to know what you need to have modeled.
The best way to know without having to "know every rule and combo of rules" is to ask your opponent constantly:
Which model is easiest to kill? Which model is the most durable (so you can ignore it)? Who has what buffs?
How many Psychic Shrieks do you have? On which models?

It often happens that 1 model has the best rewards and is super durable. This is usually the Tzeetch prince since the Robes (3++) are not random, but can be bought. You may as well ignore him.
Although I once played a game in which my opponent rolled the -1 Invul for the Warp Strom and I one-shotted the Tzeentch prince with a Str 10 shot (he wasn't using Tetrad)
The Nurgle Prince always has Shrouded, so don't bother shooting him unless A) you have ingnores cover or B) you want to force him to snap-fore to prevent any shooting psy-powers he'll have.
That leaves the Khorne or Slaanesh prince, which we discussed already, but one of them will probably the best first target.

Daemons actually do a good thing for this game (in my experience anyway) and that is to force players to communicate more

-

I agree with this. Most Daemons players I know are more than happy to explain what each model has and what that does. To be fair AdMech is as alien to me, a daemons player, as daemons are to you because of the gobs of free wargear weather in every war convocation list. Just talk to your opponent before and during the game if you have any questions.

 astro_nomicon wrote:

 Galef wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Yep, that's my issue with daemons usually. To play against them you need to know every rule, every psychic power, every result on every random table, four sets of relics and often the same models have different rules if they're from one of three different codecs.

And the models ain't gonna help you either. This groobly suit of armor is 3+, +1T, but that groobly suit of armor is actually a rerollable 4+, and that identical suit of armor over there is just a 5++.

In the old codex, you could model the wargear WYSIWYG, but now that most of it is randomly generated, it's impossible to know what you need to have modeled.
The best way to know without having to "know every rule and combo of rules" is to ask your opponent constantly:
Which model is easiest to kill? Which model is the most durable (so you can ignore it)? Who has what buffs?
How many Psychic Shrieks do you have? On which models?

It often happens that 1 model has the best rewards and is super durable. This is usually the Tzeetch prince since the Robes (3++) are not random, but can be bought. You may as well ignore him.
Although I once played a game in which my opponent rolled the -1 Invul for the Warp Strom and I one-shotted the Tzeentch prince with a Str 10 shot (he wasn't using Tetrad)
The Nurgle Prince always has Shrouded, so don't bother shooting him unless A) you have ingnores cover or B) you want to force him to snap-fore to prevent any shooting psy-powers he'll have.
That leaves the Khorne or Slaanesh prince, which we discussed already, but one of them will probably the best first target.

Daemons actually do a good thing for this game (in my experience anyway) and that is to force players to communicate more

-

I agree with this. Most Daemons players I know are more than happy to explain what each model has and what that does. To be fair AdMech is as alien to me, a daemons player, as daemons are to you because of the gobs of free wargear weather in every war convocation list. Just talk to your opponent before and during the game if you have any questions.

Didn't think of that. A war convocation player complaining about daemons being confusing? Daemon player against war convo must be kind of funny if neither player knows anything about the other codex.

The other thing that daemon does that's really good is making drop prod grav not the best thing ever and always.

Yeah I really like that in a meta sense they make Marine players think a bit before going absolutely grav bonkers. I tend not to run Prince lists so most of the time I'm more than happy to face a bunch of grav.

But back on topic to beating them: As others have said don't waste your time on super buffed up units and focus on force multipliers and their obsec units. Theres usually not a ton of obsec in a daemons list and what is tends to be the weaker units. Only go after things like Fateweaver or the Grimoire when they are vulnerable (i.e. Fatey fails a grounding check or a star fails a Grimoire roll). Throwing a few pot shots down range at pink horrors in lieu of other targets isn't a bad idea. Most people run the obligatory 11 for the extra warp charge so killing one from each unit to strip them of warp charges can begin to force tougher decisions for the daemons player (also fits in nicely with the kill the obsec strategy).

Most Screamer Stars don't really want to be in combat so tying them down with a tough unit can limit their utility and be a viable strategy though they can be tough to catch since they are jetbikes. Unless you face a screamer star where they really went all out and bought greaters or lessers for all of the Heralds, the only AP2 attacks are one each from the screamers. Not too scary. Most people now use a budget screamer star as a fast and durable utility/harassment unit, not a true death star.

I think playing against princes has been pretty well covered.

If you have a few psychic powers of your own, you might want to think about powers you really want to deny. If I were playing against daemons the top of my list would almost always be Cursed Earth. It's frequently the go to now for bumping Tzeentch daemons into the God like 2++ rerollable and is a deceptively good force multiplier beyond that. For some reason many opponents I face frequently let it slide in order to deny something else. Possibly because there are often multiple instances of it in my army, but I can tell you from experience if you block a fast unit from using it (Fateweaver or Herald in a Star) and force a unit of Horrors to cast it, it severely limits the Daemons players movement options. I'd advise never trying to deny a summon as it's extremely unlikely to deny wc3 powers and they generally have less effect on the game than key blessings to a daemon list.

Yeah, I admit there are is a lot of wargear on my normal convocation, I suppose my gripe is that on my models, "what's different" is really clearly called out.

Looking for the three guys with plasma calivers? Those are the obviously twice as big, green glowing guns. Looking for which daemon prince is the prince of Khorne with the Axe of Bloodmurderslaughter and the Armor of Murderbloodrage (not to be confused with the axe of bloodslaughtermurder and the normal armor of murderrageblood)? Why, he's the one with the armor and the axe. Looking for the prince of nurgle with the Axe of Rotplaguepestilence and the Armor of Diseasepustules? Why, he's the one with the armor and the axe. The same EXACT armor and the axe.

Which I recognize isn't daemon players' fault, because the DP kit only comes with a few weapon options to represent the probably dozens of entries on all the wargear lists and relic lists present throughout the three codexes that you can choose from when you take those models, and not everybody is about the careful painting and modeling to represent stuff.

It doesn't change that it's frustrating as heck to keep track of them when seemingly every model in the army can move more than 12" in a turn and stuff is getting summoned, psychic powers are buffing all over the place, and which guy is grounded getting set to charge you and which guy is flying and which guy jinked is represented absolutely nowhere.

Not even war convocations' shenanigans can compare with that. I have all my wargear picked out very obviously, every sergeant and special weapon modeled with the official model for it, or painted distinctly where a model does not exist in the case of relics. Couple that with 2 cards I can lay out on the board so my opponent can keep track of the doctrina and the canticle in play, and I think my army is fairly transparent. Not to mention that combined, Knights and both Admech probably comtain 1/4 the options you have in just the daemon codex+the new Fenris stuff...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This has been a lot of good info, though, thank you all. I will try to keep it all in mind when I go up against these armies the next time, and hopefully the luck gods will be on my side and I'll get one of those vital slip-ups in a turn where it's early enough for my army to do anything about it.

Is there any key "go button" when it comes to daemons? Am I waiting on a lackluster warp storm result? Fateweaver in range of a few of my units? a failed cursed earth? I have one, possibly two turns a game where I can turn on twin-linked on all my weaponry and have a decent chance of damaging flying units. What do I wait to see, playing defensively and to the mission up to that point?

Indeed any failed Cursed Earth, -1 invul warp storm, failed Grimoire, or other failed important power/ability is your time to strike. If one of those FMCs or the Screamer star have been relying on any of those abilities and they don't work for a turn, you want to focus fire them dead.

With the exception of Kairos (charge him if able), leave the FMC's in the sky. They do a lot of damage if they can get into cc against something smaller, they stay in the sky if there are major threats on the ground though. Plus to do a reasonable amount of damage from the sky they need to be a particular build (with random wargear that is not always possible) or they need to use warp charges, instead of summoning support on the ground.

Target the infantry and fast units. We need those to take objectives, 1000 points of kitted out big daemons can only hold 3 objectives and they have to land to do it.

For Tzeentch, the horrors are warp charge batteries (esp if there are heralds in there), if you kill those you destroy the main summoning component of the army and make it harder to get many of the buffs off.

Yeah, that is another important note. Pink horrors get a number of warp charge for how many there are in the unit. This is why so many lists have 11 in the units.

If you have extra shots, kill 1 horror per unit to lower them to only generate 1 WC. It is better to kill 1-2 per unit this way than to try to wipe 1 unit at a time.

As someone who plays both Daemons and Harlequins, I thought I might be able to pitch in my two cents.

Without volume fire or Skyfire, ignoring the Swooping FMCs is sound advice. Take care of everything on the ground that you can. Harlequins in particular excel at this as you can cleanse corrupted objectives as you clear the board. Focus on Pink Horrors first to cut down Warp Charges. Allow Bloodletters to charge you since you're still going to go first to cull the numbers. Engage in close combat as quickly as possible and, when possible, declare double-charges to ensure you can stay in combat through the duration of your turn into your opponent's so as to avoid Witchfire powers and any other shooting that might be directed your way. If you haven't wiped out both units by the end of your opponent's turn you can then Hit & Run out, remaneuver and repeat.

Phantasmancy actually helps against FMCs, though, as one of the powers you can gain is the 9" nova power. situate yourself within 9" of several Swooping FMCs and you can possibly knock one, possibly two, to the ground and concuss them to boot. 2d6 S4 isn't perfect but it's better than nothing, especially if you target 2-3 non-Nurgle DPs with solid positioning you can secure with Fleet and H&R. As soon as one hits the ground, take it out before it gets a chance to attack back.

The other thing to remember about Daemons is they have average Ld scores. If memory serves, none of the Greater Daemons have Ld higher than 9 while the rest of the army hovers around 7-8 Ld. The Freakshow approach can make quick work of the ground based units, forcing them to pass difficult Ld checks and reduce their numbers all the quicker.

Unless I missed the comment, another primary target should be any Herald on the board. Heralds in Daemonic Incursion lists have a Locus that confers its ability to any units from the same formation within 12" of it. Taking that out with a focused witchfire power or concentrated effort on the unit to which it's attached will cut that bonus out right quick. Examples of Locus powers associated with Murderhordes include Adamantium Will, Rage and Hatred. Ask your opponent what Locus any particular Herald has and if it's with a Formation. That will help you determine target prioritization.

The final thing about Harlequins I'd like to point out is the benefit of neuro disruptors. I personally like to run a unit of 6 neuro disruptors as a specialty force against DPs. Statistically speaking one of them snap shooting will Hit, and with Fleshbane odds are very high you'll force an invul save. In all-comers games this is how you can direct this particular unit against Daemons. Don't know if you're playing against them as part of tournaments, so if you're not this wouldn't be points efficient, but thought I would throw that out there in the event you did.