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With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

I honestly can not believe that people have a problem with Daemons with guns when we have such awesome examples in the form of Doom. Ritualistic bindings of Daemons to machines in 40k is about as 40k gets. Daemon engines are Daemons possessing machines, why is this such a hard hurdle for some people to cross?

I would love to see a short range shooting unit for Khorne, some kind of 12" range mid power weapon fluffed out to be a flechette cannon or if your imagination is really just so limited how about we go with a man portable skullcannon?

They need to figure out what they really want Daemons to be as an army and I think that expanding each god is the way to go. They have functioned as separate armies for a few editions now with absolutely no synergy between units from different gods. The differences between gods is far more pronounced than separate chapters/craft worlds/etc.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:


Ritualistic bindings of Daemons to machines in 40k is about as 40k gets. Daemon engines are Daemons possessing machines, why is this such a hard hurdle for some people to cross?

Because the act of mortals merging a daemon to a physical machine isn't a daemon per se, that's why they tend to belong in the chaos marine book(s). The only real "machine" as such in the daemons army is the soul grinder, which is where the daemon has burst out of the machine.

They need to figure out what they really want Daemons to be as an army and I think that expanding each god is the way to go. They have functioned as separate armies for a few editions now with absolutely no synergy between units from different gods. The differences between gods is far more pronounced than separate chapters/craft worlds/etc.

I think they know what they want Daemons to be, but I don't think it's a stand alone army any more.

Dudeface wrote:


I think they know what they want Daemons to be, but I don't think it's a stand alone army any more.

I would mostly agree with that. I'd guess they regret making them stand-alone (from a fluff and a marketing/game/rules standpoint) but the genie is out of the bottle now, so they're stuck with it. I think Daemons were moved to stand-alone in a different design paradigm - aimed at more rank and file unit level vs the central larger Primarch/Greater Daemon/Daemon Price/ Big Walking Suit figurehead paradigm - but some people have made a Daemon army and they can't afford to squat too many armies.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

Vashtorr does present that possibility too, even (as I reckon) his ascension to Godhood is thwarted.

Just having an independent “natural” daemon is a welcome change to the status quo.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

Vashtorr does present that possibility too, even (as I reckon) his ascension to Godhood is thwarted.

Just having an independent “natural” daemon is a welcome change to the status quo.

Thwarted yes but I think he will end up with an empire and a very important position in the galaxy like Abbadon has. It’s already confirmed that he makes things like soils grinders and has provided demon engines to heretic armies so, like bile, he will have a negotiated safety as long as he performs a certain role. It would be disappointing to have the head of the dark mech and only have the units in the CSM codex available for its army

mrFickle wrote:


Thwarted yes but I think he will end up with an empire and a very important position in the galaxy like Abbadon has. It’s already confirmed that he makes things like soils grinders and has provided demon engines to heretic armies so, like bile, he will have a negotiated safety as long as he performs a certain role. It would be disappointing to have the head of the dark mech and only have the units in the CSM codex available for its army

He's also a potential gateway to Perturabo.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

i used to think this until i started playing AoS, a well made "Monogod" codex feels suuuuper fluffy and amazingly fun to play. It's a shame the 40k and AoS teams don't seem to talk to each other at all

Alternatively you could go play AoS and stop trying to ruin my favorite army for me?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Put all of it into one book. CSMs, Daemons, Renegades and Heretics. Allow them all to mish-mash together like the Ruinous Powers intended.

Edit: Oh yeah, throw Beastmen in there too.

I wouldn't mind this though.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

i used to think this until i started playing AoS, a well made "Monogod" codex feels suuuuper fluffy and amazingly fun to play. It's a shame the 40k and AoS teams don't seem to talk to each other at all

Alternatively you could go play AoS and stop trying to ruin my favorite army for me?

I'd suggest the best option is nobody runs a false dichotomy here and they could write it like Dark Angels. You can make a mono-"wing" list, you can make a partnered "wing" list, or you can make an all-"wing" list. That way he can run his mono-subfaction, and you can run yours your way? Instead of fighting with each other so that one particular favorite becomes the "approved" way to play, push back at GW until everyone gets several approved ways to play.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Nope. We need fewer demons, not more. Making a WHFB army on round bases into a 40k army was a huge mistake by GW. It sucks for mechanics reasons, it sucks for lore reasons, and demons really need to go back to being a summoning option alongside marine and cultist/traitor forces.

Consider playing a different game then.

Breton wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

i used to think this until i started playing AoS, a well made "Monogod" codex feels suuuuper fluffy and amazingly fun to play. It's a shame the 40k and AoS teams don't seem to talk to each other at all

Alternatively you could go play AoS and stop trying to ruin my favorite army for me?

I'd suggest the best option is nobody runs a false dichotomy here and they could write it like Dark Angels. You can make a mono-"wing" list, you can make a partnered "wing" list, or you can make an all-"wing" list. That way he can run his mono-subfaction, and you can run yours your way? Instead of fighting with each other so that one particular favorite becomes the "approved" way to play, push back at GW until everyone gets several approved ways to play.

That's already an option though, but if Daemons are in 4 books then being a Daemons player becomes a non-option.

As documented elsewhere, I’m not a big fan of Chaos being regimented into separate books. The appeal to me has always been fielding a fairly riotous hodge podge of Chaotic Followers and Daemons.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As documented elsewhere, I’m not a big fan of Chaos being regimented into separate books. The appeal to me has always been fielding a fairly riotous hodge podge of Chaotic Followers and Daemons.

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well. They've got ranged artillery, close combat heavies, tanks, tarpits, glass cannons and more. Perhaps a few more ranged options would be nice ,but otherwise they really do cover all the bases really well. As a combined force its quite varied.
So trying to add more types in there gets tricky without things tripping over each other. Whilst you can do that its not elegant and can lead to situations where there's a few models no one ever takes simply because they are not as good as something else which does the same role, but better.
The other issue is that if you start adding more you can lose the theme of the army as a whole as it becomes more min-max possible.

When you fragment demons into 4 separate armies you gain the bonus that you create gaps. Slaanesh and Nurgle suddenly lose a lot of ranged support from Khorne and Tzeentch is a really clear an easy to see gap. You can also pick and choose, eg Slaanesh might get a ranged option that focuses on being a sniper whilst Nurgle gets one that's focused more on artillery etc...


Of course fragmentation dilutes the concept of the demons acting as a single host. Lore wise this is actually rare outside of super-major conflicts and most often in the lore and stories we see one or two demonic forces acting in alliance with each other. So its interesting that whilst game wise we've had a mish mash for ages; in the lore and stories we often don't see that outside of the utterly major conflicts (and even then it can fall into in-fighting very easily)


Personally I think the best approach would be giving each god their own army with demons and mortals (which GW has done for AoS and is slowly doing for 40K). Then dissolve the Demon book itself and roll that concept into a core chaos army with some special modifications for an allied force. So basically the old concept of a demonic hodgepodge becomes a sub-army option with some limits; whilst each god goes from being a sub-army within the demons book, into being its own full fledged army

 Overread wrote:

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well.

That can usually be solved with animosity - Khorne-Tzeentch and Nurgle-Slaanesh

Breton wrote:

 Overread wrote:

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well.

That can usually be solved with animosity - Khorne-Tzeentch and Nurgle-Slaanesh

Modern gamers cant deal with rules that have drawbacks or *gasp* are entirely negative.

Dai wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Overread wrote:

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well.

That can usually be solved with animosity - Khorne-Tzeentch and Nurgle-Slaanesh

Modern gamers cant deal with rules that have drawbacks or *gasp* are entirely negative.

While I do think it deserves ridicule it's not too hard to work around it. Make Wraith constructs WS/BS 4+ and give them an ability that gives them +1 to hit while near a psyker instead of base 3+ with -1 while outside range of a psyker. The problem is when players start saying that anything other than BS 3+ is trash, there's really no saving them at that point, which is what we saw with Daemon Engines and what we are now seeing with Plague Bearers. Plague Bearers would get a negligible boost in killiness from an extra WS, but it really matters to some players that all their units are at least WS 3+, if that became a thing then I'm sure we'd see much more clamour for BS 2+ unit.

A Tzeentch-Khorne combo could be called an Ensorceled Blade Host, Tzeentch-Slaanesh Forbidden Sorcery Host, Khorne-Nurgle Tainted Blood Host, Nurgle-Slaanesh Venereal Disease Host, make a chapter tactic for each one. Alternatively, allow some character buffs or psychic powers to apply to Daemons that don't have animosity towards the character or seek to create organic benefits to fluffy armies and downsides to unfluffy armies, I don't think that'd be possible without starting Daemons from scratch, because having a tanky frontline to combo with your shooting units is pretty nice.

 vict0988 wrote:

Dai wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Overread wrote:

It's a bit of a catch though

When all demons are in one force they cover a lot of bases really well.

That can usually be solved with animosity - Khorne-Tzeentch and Nurgle-Slaanesh

Modern gamers cant deal with rules that have drawbacks or *gasp* are entirely negative.

While I do think it deserves ridicule it's not too hard to work around it. Make Wraith constructs WS/BS 4+ and give them an ability that gives them +1 to hit while near a psyker instead of base 3+ with -1 while outside range of a psyker. The problem is when players start saying that anything other than BS 3+ is trash, there's really no saving them at that point, which is what we saw with Daemon Engines and what we are now seeing with Plague Bearers. Plague Bearers would get a negligible boost in killiness from an extra WS, but it really matters to some players that all their units are at least WS 3+, if that became a thing then I'm sure we'd see much more clamour for BS 2+ unit.

A Tzeentch-Khorne combo could be called an Ensorceled Blade Host, Tzeentch-Slaanesh Forbidden Sorcery Host, Khorne-Nurgle Tainted Blood Host, Nurgle-Slaanesh Venereal Disease Host, make a chapter tactic for each one. Alternatively, allow some character buffs or psychic powers to apply to Daemons that don't have animosity towards the character or seek to create organic benefits to fluffy armies and downsides to unfluffy armies, I don't think that'd be possible without starting Daemons from scratch, because having a tanky frontline to combo with your shooting units is pretty nice.

I was actually referring to the old rule where Khorne couldn't be taken with Tzeentch etc. Not the Ork animosity rule

When could Khorne not be fielded alongside Tzeentch?

As far back as I can remember, the pairings of God's who wouldn't work alongside each other (generally) were Khorne/Slaanesh and Nurgle/Tzeentch.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

yeah but those would all not be demons (except the furies).
If its a mortal with some mutations, its not a demon IMO.

i want new purely demonic units

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
With Vashtor coming, you could easily add some 40k-only undivided daemon units that play off of the cultist aspect that should probably be present.

- Troops unit that's a shooty version of Accursed Cultists
- port over Accursed Cultists from the CSM book
- a "lesser Obliterators" unit for Elites, has two melee and two ranged profiles
- something like Furies but not garbage for FA, or winged mutant cultists or something.
- a "greater Obliterator" for HS, or a Cyberdemon or something, or literally any of the daemon engines that already exist
- you've already got DPs, Belakor and Vashtor for HQ choices.

That's a few unit ideas that doesn't step on the toes of the identity of the current gods, could be used with each god as they're undivided, and works off of ideas that are anyway being used by the design team but aren't being looked at all that much.

yeah but those would all not be demons (except the furies).
If its a mortal with some mutations, its not a demon IMO.

i want new purely demonic units

Not even if its a daemon wearing bits of a person, like a Flayed One? Like the flesh of the mortal has been taken apart and put back together to make a form that suits the daemons needs, clothing and weapons included.

And I would argue that the Accursed Cultists should be a daemon unit. These guys are little more than a daemon with a human face (sometimes) arbitrarily placed somewhere on it. How it isn't daemon enough to be a daemon is beyond me.

 Afrodactyl wrote:


Not even if its a daemon wearing bits of a person, like a Flayed One? Like the flesh of the mortal has been taken apart and put back together to make a form that suits the daemons needs, clothing and weapons included.

And I would argue that the Accursed Cultists should be a daemon unit. These guys are little more than a daemon with a human face (sometimes) arbitrarily placed somewhere on it. How it isn't daemon enough to be a daemon is beyond me.

nope, to me theyre still mortals (tho they 100% should have the demon keyword)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As documented elsewhere, I’m not a big fan of Chaos being regimented into separate books. The appeal to me has always been fielding a fairly riotous hodge podge of Chaotic Followers and Daemons.

Yeah, I'd rather see Chaos put into a single book and how you build your force is done kind of with a chart, with the four gods+undivided along one axis and the type of forces you can take along the other (Chaos Champions/Space marines, Chaos Mortals (traitor guard, cultists, and Dark Mech), and Chaos Daemons), and wherever your forces fit into the chart grants certain bonuses, based on how loose or strict you've made your army. So you'd get stronger bonuses for a single force in a mono-god faction than you would for a force of, say, Khorne CSMs with Nurgle and Tzeentch daemons.

Indeed.

I accept it may not be a commonly shared opinion, but for me, if any army needn’t follow established FOC, it’s Chaos!

And Nids to a certain degree, as I really like their ‘tree’ system from 2nd Ed Epic.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

I accept it may not be a commonly shared opinion, but for me, if any army needn’t follow established FOC, it’s Chaos!

And Nids to a certain degree, as I really like their ‘tree’ system from 2nd Ed Epic.

id say the whole game could do with no FOC honestly

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

I accept it may not be a commonly shared opinion, but for me, if any army needn’t follow established FOC, it’s Chaos!

And Nids to a certain degree, as I really like their ‘tree’ system from 2nd Ed Epic.

id say the whole game could do with no FOC honestly

It could, but then the BRB itself would have to even more so reward diverse armies.

Breton wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Indeed.

I accept it may not be a commonly shared opinion, but for me, if any army needn’t follow established FOC, it’s Chaos!

And Nids to a certain degree, as I really like their ‘tree’ system from 2nd Ed Epic.

id say the whole game could do with no FOC honestly

It could, but then the BRB itself would have to even more so reward diverse armies.

no FoC doesn't mean there couldnt be an anti-spam system

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Breton wrote:

It could, but then the BRB itself would have to even more so reward diverse armies.

no FoC doesn't mean there couldnt be an anti-spam system

Right, I didn't say there couldn't, I even suggested one.

There’s always been some kind of balancing limitations in army design. Except for AoS at launch of course.

Overall I like the FOC. But I just don’t feel One Size Fits All. Some forces in the Galaxy are just….different.

Chaos and Orks for instance, background wise, are groups of Warbands, rather than formal militaries. Rogue Trader reflected this, as did at least 2nd Ed Epic.

But 40K, ever since 3rd Ed has tried to hammer every army around the same shape. And I’m not convinced it’s worked.

There have been the odd exception, such as Knights and Dark Eldar. But those are just minor tweaks to established FOC standards.

I think as armies got more divers a generic FOC did start to fail. I recall Tyranids having issues because all their specialists were crammed into Elite slots and with the limits on that it meant you really had a hard time taking enough specialists for multi-roles.

I think that's the main issue with the old FOC - the game outgrew it and GW didn't really know how best to adapt it. We went through the phase where we shifted from 1 FOC being standard to taking multiples, which kind of worked until subfactions got thrown into the mix and we have crazy situations of min-max setups with each army having multiple subfactions in at the same time.

I do agree that the concept of a FOC or other system for enforcing a level of management and restriction alongside points, can be used to great effect both for balance and to create armies that "feel" like armies. To have variety and options on the table and such.

Whilst I’ve no relevant in-game experience, I feel the shift in 8th Ed to “everything can now harm everything” is good reason to loosen up FOC stuff.

In 7th for instance, Imperial Knights were, aha, a nightmare, because they were immune to the majority of small arms fire, and once stuck into combat it only made things worse.

Granted into 8th and 9th the chances of massed Lasguns dropping an intact Knight are really low - but I think most of us would do a Cain and take little chance over no chance, every single time.

Likewise multiple wound weapons returning have taken the sting out of facing Nidzilla type stuff. It’s still a seemingly pokey list, but now the Nid player can’t be sure that pair of Lascannon over there simply can’t kill the untouched Carnifex. I mean the chances are reasonable, sure, but it’s just not the Certain Thing it once was.

Yes there will be not necessarily unjustified concerns that army specific FOC will be open to abuse. But I’d argue all it’s doing is changing what an FOC abusing list looks like.

But as I said, I’ve no modern, relevant experience. Please keep that in mind in responding, as I’m fully aware I may be talking utter mince! It’s proper, honest, ignorance. Not wilful ignorance.