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In various versions of the chaos codex, Daemon Prince's rules have alway had few options. Replacing melee weapons by sword or axe,get a chaos artefact, choose a mark of gods, and get some levels of socerry spells,take power armor and/or jump pack.and this is all that's left. They still do even not have range weapons even up to 9E.

Yes,a Daemon Prince who holds a huge bolter,this one seems to only exist in a old art and some conversion work.


According to the nature of chaos, as a powerful HQ unit, Daemon Prince would have a lot of weapon and special rules options, and you can freely decide their combat style according to your preferences.however, this is not the case. In terms of rules, Daemon Prince's weapons and equipment options are still very few, far less varied than Chaos Lords.

It's strange, isn't it?

*Obligatory reminiscence for the 3.5 Codex*

The 9th Ed CSM Codex was a joke of an attempt. The rules team had clearly given up at that point probably because they were working on 10th as well.

A way to make a Daemon Prince rules-flexible is to model them with custom weapons, that way you can play them with any weapons rules you want.

 Gert wrote:
The 9th Ed CSM Codex was a joke of an attempt. The rules team had clearly given up at that point probably because they were working on 10th as well.

Seconded!

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Gert wrote:
The 9th Ed CSM Codex was a joke of an attempt. The rules team had clearly given up at that point probably because they were working on 10th as well.

Seconded!

Thirded

WWW-STL wrote:
It's strange, isn't it?

No model no rules, it's the reason why many weapons and wargear options have vanished from the game since the oldhammer editions.

Daemon princes originally leaned heavily on daemon weapons and chaos weapons (and yes, those were different things, with their own random attribute tables). In form they were, well, anything.

Over time random tables faded to almost nothing (which to be fair, is largely better game design, as who wants to pay points for a randomly rolled drawback or flaw?), and giving each weapon type its own especially special rules has fallen in and out of fashion.

Really DPs need a role based set of datasheets (brute, stalker, sniper, wizard, whatever) and not get tied up with overly specific weapons.

In 3.5 a daemon prince didn't have a profile on its own, it was a Chaos lord where you slapped a certain amount of upgrades on and therefor they could have quite different forms.

With the 4th edition codex they split the two, since then the Daemon Prince is a (usually flying) melee monster with a little psychic stuff. Sometimes he got a bolter or a flamer (DG 8th edition), sometimes his armour was optional, usually cou could decide wether he got psychic and give him an appropriate mark.
In the Daemons Codex (5th/6th) edition he had some more options than in the CSM counterparts, but they didn't change his role that much either.
I don't know his status in 9th because I didn't care about the mess that was the CSM codex.
Either way, what would do you miss? Options to bring them closer to their patron god's units?

I would love it if GW dropped different models for each main line God aligned Daemon Prince and then perhaps a few "minor god" Daemon Prince. Particularly with new fluff coming out, imagine if one of the consequences of the Great Rift was that Bel'lakor could raise up his own Daemon Princes, though they are not quite on the level of one raised by the big four, same deal for Vashtorr, perhaps even requiring some buy in from one of the big Four which is then used to get another on board to prevent say Khorne from acquiring too much influence on Vashtorr, Tzeentch lets him grab a bit of power to raise a Vashtorr aligned, Tzeentch flavored prince to contrast with the Vashtorr aligned Khrone flavored prince.

I figure there's plenty of room for more Daemon Prince models as opposed to yet another Primaris LT.

The short answer is that customization for units is generally down across the board in 40k, replaced in large part by greatly increased unit diveristy.

There are a lot of reasons for that, but the largest influence is probably the desire from GW to only provide rules to match options that exist in model form, and that is now pretty much official policy: no model, no rule. Even now, of course, there is wiggle room. Space Marines have first born options that require more than one box to build, particularly certain heavy weapons which are only in the devestator box, and generally not in huge numbers. (Sisters are the same). IG have very specific weapon options based on what is available in the various infantry kits GW makes, with hilarious consquences like Catachans literally only having flamers and no sargeant upgrades.

As others have stated, in the past "Daemon prices" had a wide range of builds, although they all tended toward fast moving close combat killers. While at times there were options for a "demon gun," the role of the Daemon prince was pretty hardened. Since they are fieldable for four different armies (Demons, CSM, 1k sons, and Deathguard) and can thus interact in a lot of weird ways, I think they kind of smoothed out the options. It's tough balancing them.

WWW-STL wrote:
In various versions of the chaos codex, Daemon Prince's rules have alway had few options. Replacing melee weapons by sword or axe,get a chaos artefact, choose a mark of gods, and get some levels of socerry spells,take power armor and/or jump pack.and this is all that's left. They still do even not have range weapons even up to 9E.

Yes,a Daemon Prince who holds a huge bolter,this one seems to only exist in a old art and some conversion work.


According to the nature of chaos, as a powerful HQ unit, Daemon Prince would have a lot of weapon and special rules options, and you can freely decide their combat style according to your preferences.however, this is not the case. In terms of rules, Daemon Prince's weapons and equipment options are still very few, far less varied than Chaos Lords.

It's strange, isn't it?

See much guns in dp kit?

No model, no rule.

There's literally a gun on his arm, tneva. It's why the World Eater Daemon Prince has a gun on his profile.

tneva82 wrote:


See much guns in dp kit?

No model, no rule.

Doesn't the world eaters version or some version have the gun, but not the "regular" one since it hasn't been updated yet? Becaue god forbid GW update a datasheet across all factions when that same is added to a new one. They should have updated that datasheet immediately with the new version.

A lot of the customisation options from 3.5 (the ones anybody ever took, anyway) are now rolled into the basic Prince profile (Daemonic Stature, Strength, Toughness, Aura, Resilience, Flight).

Wayniac wrote:
Doesn't the world eaters version or some version have the gun, but not the "regular" one since it hasn't been updated yet? Becaue god forbid GW update a datasheet across all factions when that same is added to a new one. They should have updated that datasheet immediately with the new version.

yeah lol,

Demon prince
Chaos land raiders
Chaos predators

TWO FUCKIGN WOUNDS ON CHAOS SPACE MARINES

GW is good at keeping the most recent datasheet up to date /s

Voss wrote:

Really DPs need a role based set of datasheets (brute, stalker, sniper, wizard, whatever) and not get tied up with overly specific weapons.

This. And a similar approach would probably help other units that are supposed to have a lot of variety despite using a single datasheet. Pain engines, daemon engines, and tyranid MCs all come to mind. Give them enough datasheets and/or options that let them behave differently rather than getting lost in the minutia of "axe vs sword".

Part of the appeal of those units is that the fluff says they're radically different/unique and dripping with personality. But then they all use the same one or two datasheets with little difference beyond somewhat similar weapon options.