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I was thinking one day that it makes more sense for say Thousand Sons to fight alongside Tzeentch Demons than it does for them to fight along World Eaters. And with both the Tzeentch Demons and Thousand Sons in the same army & codex, you can specialize design around their psychic capabilities and not have to worry about unintended synergies with other factions. That would also serve to make the Chaos Armies more distinct as opposed to them just being human forces with spiky bits.

So instead of having Chaos -> Chaos God -> Demons/Heretic Astartes/Knights

The faction keywords would be Chaos God (Khorne/Nurgle/Slaanesh/Tzeentch). And the Khorne codex for index would have both World Eaters and Khorne Demons in their list.

There are only 4 units that are truly Chaos Undivided (Abaddon, Fabius, Huron, & Haarken) and they could be implemented by simply having all Chaos God keywords. Chaos Knights & Titans will be unchanged and just be their own thing.

What do Dakkaheads here think?

If the rumour mill is to be believed you're going to get your wish. The rumours are that the Chaos Daemons codex is being discontinued and the units within it are all moving to other codices. This isn't 100% confirmed of course (as it's a rumour).

So it seems that GW at least like your idea.

As far as I know Chaos Knights will still have their own codex, there's no rumour saying they won't.

This is basically how AoS is now and there's strong hints its how 40K is going to be as well fairly soon once GW gets the Slaanesh versions out the door.

It's a bit of a shame to lose the Chaos demon united force; but honestly I've really liked the change in AoS. It creates more chances for GW to make models that fill roles that fit each unique style of demon; rather than having a motley of them all in one force.

Plus you can still do allied forces so you can still mix things up a bit.

Could be great.
Could suck.

Depends how well it's done, really.

This is how I'd prefer for chaos daemons to be handled, honestly.

Slaanesh would have cheap, fast melee daemons backed up by noise marine shooting. Give them bonuses against units below starting/half strength. So your melee wave is enticed forward by the delicious agony of those suffering but not yet dead.

Khorne would similarly have marine tanks to lay down fire support while stuff charges in. Give some of his vehicles fire support rules to prevent overwatch from a unit that they target or to provide charge bonuses the way the skull cannon does (did?). Give them a blood tithe mechanic, and let mortal units generate tithe points more easily while daemons spend them more efficiently. So ideally you want to field both to get the most out of your engine.

And similar to both, Death Guard bring the tanks and the tank busting while their nurgling and plaguebearer friends spill out in droves to corrupt objectives. Maybe make the mortal units harder to kill while standing on sticky objectives.

And then Tzeentch has elite, durable, rubricae backed up by hordes of splitting horrors for board control and screamers for a non-psychic form of anti-tank and melee support.

Everybody gets cultists, and they all have access to a special rule that leans into their faction's gimmick in some way.

Also lets also note that Chaos Demons was actually abnormal for chaos. In the Lore we typically see them acting on their own. Alliances are rare and having 3 or even 4 in the same army is almost unheard of outside of the iconic Mortal Chosen from each game, for whom part of their whole thing was being able to unite the demon forces under one banner - for a time.


Splitting them into separate armies is honestly the best thing. It fits with the actual lore; it creates more opportunities for themed models for each of the 4 Chaos gods

Overread wrote:Also lets also note that Chaos Demons was actually abnormal for chaos. In the Lore we typically see them acting on their own. Alliances are rare and having 3 or even 4 in the same army is almost unheard of outside of the iconic Mortal Chosen from each game, for whom part of their whole thing was being able to unite the demon forces under one banner - for a time.


Splitting them into separate armies is honestly the best thing. It fits with the actual lore; it creates more opportunities for themed models for each of the 4 Chaos gods

I don't 100% agree, but I'm not in opposition either.

Wyldhunt wrote:This is how I'd prefer for chaos daemons to be handled, honestly.

Slaanesh would have cheap, fast melee daemons backed up by noise marine shooting. Give them bonuses against units below starting/half strength. So your melee wave is enticed forward by the delicious agony of those suffering but not yet dead.

Khorne would similarly have marine tanks to lay down fire support while stuff charges in. Give some of his vehicles fire support rules to prevent overwatch from a unit that they target or to provide charge bonuses the way the skull cannon does (did?). Give them a blood tithe mechanic, and let mortal units generate tithe points more easily while daemons spend them more efficiently. So ideally you want to field both to get the most out of your engine.

And similar to both, Death Guard bring the tanks and the tank busting while their nurgling and plaguebearer friends spill out in droves to corrupt objectives. Maybe make the mortal units harder to kill while standing on sticky objectives.

And then Tzeentch has elite, durable, rubricae backed up by hordes of splitting horrors for board control and screamers for a non-psychic form of anti-tank and melee support.

Everybody gets cultists, and they all have access to a special rule that leans into their faction's gimmick in some way.

And this post just shows how cool it could be.

But, as always, I'm worried for how well it'd actually be implemented.

I think each marked legion should have a detachment that encourages the use of Daemons of their own persuasion. But I think there should be a Daemons codex with all four of them and I think you should be able to call upon multiple of them. I should release 5 detachments for the World Eaters, 3 for Thousand Sons and 7 for Death Guard by the start of next year (I am not making 8 WE and 9 TS detachments because that's too much )

The World Eaters Bloodhost allows the use of Blessings of Khorne on Khorne Daemons.

The Thousand Sons Devoted of Fate gives random boons each turn affecting your Tzeentch Daemons as well as your Thousand Sons.

The Wretched Deathguard weakens nearby enemies making them unable to punch through your Nurgle Daemon allies.

 Overread wrote:
Also lets also note that Chaos Demons was actually abnormal for chaos. In the Lore we typically see them acting on their own. Alliances are rare and having 3 or even 4 in the same army is almost unheard of outside of the iconic Mortal Chosen from each game, for whom part of their whole thing was being able to unite the demon forces under one banner - for a time.


Splitting them into separate armies is honestly the best thing. It fits with the actual lore; it creates more opportunities for themed models for each of the 4 Chaos gods

Largely agree with this. Daemons of multiple stripes showing up together is typically the result of a random warp storm/warp breach or a very specific scenario like the wager between the Masque and Skarbrand we see in the Fracture of Biel-Tan. So while I like the idea of letting people field multi-god all-daemon armies, I do feel like it should be treated as the exception rather than the norm.

And to that end, I feel like you could probably just have a whacky "warp incursion" detachment included in each book that contains rules for fielding nothing but daemons of various stripes. Or, to avoid having to buy 4 books to play one army, maybe that's the sort of thing that ought to be rolled out for free as a Grotmas detachment/minidex.

I'd like that. Be'lakor would probably end up in the CSM Codex. The cult legions all lost stuff due to flanderization, daemons can up their choices a little bit. Only problem I see with World Eaters/ Khorne Daemons because in GW's eternal wisdom every World eater unit and every khorne daemon unit but the skull cannon does the same thing .
Chaos Knights should either appear as single freeblades with god Mark in each of the four codizes, or just make one United knights codex for imperials and chaos. Those two being on their own is a joke these days I feel.
Or just put them into CSM Codex as well.

So long as the codexes have detachement rules for pure daemon armies then sure.

But it runs the risk that people perceive daemons only appearing when space marines are there to support them.


I'm also sad at the idea that chaos undivided is basically dead.

Do we think they will release a belakor datasheet for the chaos marine codex that lets them take some daemon units or something?

With the possibility of GW making more specific demon models for each force I'm sure that a demon only army will be present in each god focused book. The AoS versions certainly can go all out demons only

Sgt. Cortez wrote:Only problem I see with World Eaters/ Khorne Daemons because in GW's eternal wisdom every World eater unit and every khorne daemon unit but the skull cannon does the same thing .

Yeah. Khorne is kind of boring that way. That's why I suggested treating mortals and daemons differents for blood tithe purposes to at least distinguish them from eachother a little bit.

Chaos Knights should either appear as single freeblades with god Mark in each of the four codizes, or just make one United knights codex for imperials and chaos. Those two being on their own is a joke these days I feel.
Or just put them into CSM Codex as well.

Given that they've yet to work as an army without just being a miserable skew list that warps the meta around them, I'd be okay with just giving them the Agents treatment so that they can only be taken as a limited ally to other armies. Give them a non-matched-play detachment for fielding them as their own army, maybe. But failing that, mixing them into a single codex would be an improvement.

Hellebore wrote:So long as the codexes have detachement rules for pure daemon armies then sure.

But it runs the risk that people perceive daemons only appearing when space marines are there to support them.


I'm also sad at the idea that chaos undivided is basically dead.

Do we think they will release a belakor datasheet for the chaos marine codex that lets them take some daemon units or something?

Sincere question: have daemons, even mixed daemons, ever really been a satisfying army since they split off from CSM? I started playing in 5th when they were considered extremely gimmicky and bad with their wonky forced deepstrike rules. 6th (and 7th?) had the million pregame rolls that prevented you from actually customizing your units because lolrandom. As far as I can tell, they've pretty much always been forced to lean into monster mash lists to the point that we saw extreme combos like the flying circus for a few of the more recent editions. And currently, my understanding is that they're kind of light on options for killing tanks.

Regardless, a mixed daemon army seems like the sort of thing that could be done easily enough with a white dwarf or a free community download or whatever.

My fondest memory of daemons is the daemon world army list from the 2nd ed codex chaos, which included chaos warriors (ie fullpate not marine, although they could be armed with 40k weapons), beastmen, trolls and minotaurs alongside daemons.

Where you chose 1 special character daemon prince (because all daemon princes were unique and powerful, no two the same - as the trusted lieutenants of the chaos gods, not their GDs) to dominate a force from a daemon world, bringing together all different daemons and creatures under their control.

The current limitations on daemons is due to GW's no model no rules decree.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Regardless, a mixed daemon army seems like the sort of thing that could be done easily enough with a white dwarf or a free community download or whatever.

hope so, would be a shame to lose that aspect.