Daemon Army List Building Thread

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**Tomb King**

zamnath wrote:Cool idea for a thread. I like the idea of sharing all our ideas for lists.

I currently run two lists at 2k (shaving stuff down as necessary to get down to 1850/1750):

MTO (Multiple Threat Overload) List w/ CSM Allies
Fateweaver: 300pts
Lord of Change w/ Exalted Reward, Greater Reward: 280pts
CSM Daemon Prince w/ Daemon of Tzeentch, Wings, Armor, Black Mace: 265pts
5 Chaos Space Marines w/ Melta Gun, 3 regs have CCW replacing boltgun: 85pts
w/ Chaos Rhino: 35pts
2*10 Pink Horrors: 180pts
Helldrake w/ Baleflamer: 170pts
3* Soul Grinders w/ Tzeentch, Phlegm Bombardment: 510pts
Forgefiend: 175pts
1999+1pts

I'm not sure how competitive this list is, but it's a ton of fun and always seems to have a good game. I've played against Dark Angels, Gunline Guard, a vehicle heavy Chaos Space Marines list, and termi spam Grey Knights with this list. I beat the Guard, Chaos Space Marines, and Dark Angels fairly convincingly (though the Dark Angels player is new, so I don't really consider it a fair test), and fought the Grey Knights to a draw after giving up first blood. I tend to go for the Portalglyph rather than the Grimoire in all of my games because this list is really troops light. In Big Guns and KP missions, though, I'd probably go Grimoire. Haven't had either yet.

'Ard List
Fateweaver: 300pts
Herald of Slaanesh w/ Exalted Reward, Steed, Lesser Reward: 100pts
5*15 Daemonettes, 2 w/ Instruments and Icons, 1 has 14 Daemonettes instead: 706pts
15 Seekers of Slaanesh w/ Icon, Heartseeker: 195pts
15 Seekers of Slaanesh w/ Icon & Heartseeker w/ Greater Reward: 215pts
3* Soul Grinders w/ Tzeentch, Torrent: 480pts
1996pts

The above list is what, IMHO, most closely approximates what a competitive Daemons army will eventually look like. Soul Grinders/Fateweaver provide token anti-air, the Herald makes Fateweaver pretty close to unkillable until she's dead, and you have two beefy units of seekers and 5 units of deepstriking Daemonettes to provide a nightmarish turn 2/3 threat that's 105 bodies strong. I'm still not completely sold on the Soul Grinders in this list, to be honest, but I want some heavy guns and extra S10 close combat and I don't see Tzeentch Daemon Princes being all that hot for that. Soul Grinders have torrent because I'd rather grab some anti-horde in this list to give me a leg up against the hordes that will out-compete my Daemonettes like Nids/Orks (or any hordes, really, I just can't imagine this list surviving against a horde that isn't gunline guard w/o some dedicated anti horde firepower). While I have fun with my MTO list, my 'Ard list has won the games I've played with it significantly more convincingly. I've played Dark Angels (a couple different players), drop pod salamanders, drop pod space wolves, and Chaos Space Marines with this list and the only army I haven't tabled or near-tabled was the Space Wolves due to a very poor play decision I made to hold my daemonettes in reserve rather than using them as bubblewrap. Even then the space wolves were in a poor spot when we had to call the game at the end of turn 4. The only thing I don't like about my 'Ard List is the fact that my Grinders and my regular troops attract the exact opposite sorts of Fire Power, making my enemy's target priority easier than I'd like. I tend to give up first blood a lot because of this. Replacing the Grinders w/ a dedicated anti-air/heavy fire power allied contingent behind a comms Aegis would probably make this list stronger in competitive play, but I'd rather keep it Daemons only for myself.

I'm also thinking about trying a Daemons/Dark Eldar skimmer build for fun, but can't seem to find my Dark Eldar codex. I'll be sure to post it up here when I make it.

The 2k list is definitely too reliant on the portalglyph. Your army has 2 units of 10 horrors which are toughness 3 with a 5++ save. With my 1850 necron list I could probably kill off your troops by the end of turn 2.

Your 2nd list is much stronger. I could see if being a serious threat to a majority of the armies in the game. However, with all 5 troops going into reserve that might make it easy for your opponent to target the other threats in your list as you stated. In addition, you run the risk of the army coming in piecemeal. Obviously you wont be deep striking against grey knights otherwise that would be another issue. Why dont you find points for phlegm? Will give you the range anti-armor threat that the list needs. As stated your biggest threats will be horde armies or mech spam with decent AV such as Necrons and IG.

masquerade81 wrote:Had a new idea for an army. The idea is to have a herald of tzeentch flying around with some screamers and casting prescience on ny flesh hounds. Could be devastating here is the whole list. Please give feedback if i should change something in the list.

HQ:
Bloodthirster
2xgreater rewards 290pts.

Karanak 120 (joins flesh hounds)

Herald of tzeentch
Disc, exalted reward 100pts. (usually grimoire or a portaglyph depending on the scenario. Will boost the flesh hounds with presciense and grimoire. Joins screamers)

Herald os slaanesh
Exalted loci, lesser reward 95pts. (joins daemonettes, who will deepstrike in. Takes etherblade to deal with 2+ armor in challenges)

Troops:
20 daemonettes
Alluress 185pts.

10 plaguebearers 90pts.

10 horrors 90pts.
10 horrors 90pts.

fast attack:
20 flesh hounds 320pts.
8 screamers 200

heavy:
Soul grinder
Daemon of nurgle, phlegm bombardment 180pts.

Total 1750pts.

So the plan is to deploy the grinder, hounds with karanak, screamers with herald and the thirster. All of the troops will come down from reserves. Plagues will just walk in and take a backfield objective. Daemonettes will DS to support the flesh hounds and thirster is there to draw loads of fire and wreck high AV. How does this look?

For starters karanak his 120pts (Mind you he is S5 and T5 and gives his unit rage)
YMMV but I would probably replace him with
Skulltaker on juggernaut 145pts (he is S5, T5, I9, A5 base and a 3+ AS. He also has anti-psyker loci, and cant instant death models. Also he is the only model in the dex with eternal warrior)

The slannesh herald... you are taking the etherblade for ap2. I think every time you are running against armor 2+ the model your fighting will be T4 or higher. Netting you on average 1.778 wounds, or 2.222 on the charge. If you can find a way to get the eternal blade it gives you D3 extra attacks, initiative and weapons skill while also adding +1 strength. This helps with more net wounds against all opponents and you can still rend to get ap2. You can get up to 8 attacks on charge netting you 1.778 unsaved wounds or 1.111 if you get charged and get minimum boost to 5 total attacks. This is all ran against t4 models. If the model was higher in toughness then the eternal blade becomes more and more point efficient. Again YMMV and this will come down to personal preference. If you target is terminators without storm shields then your etherblade is probably better.

Also you do realize that your list only has 1 unit that shoots normally and two units that need psychic test do shoot a measly 2d6 shots at S5. Your running the exalted reward on your tzeentch herald but arent taking full advantage of it. He has no psychic levels added on, the unit he can boost is only 10 strong. You might consider combining the unit to make it 20 strong pink horrors. This would make all their shooting S6 and 4d6 shots from one unit. The the herald will still only be able to do 2d6.

**masquerade81**

does a weapon without rend gain rend if the wielder has rend?

**TheComedian**

I won a 750 tournament with this list:

LoC: greater and lesser gift = 260
Nurgle herald: Loci of FnP, lesser gift = 80

18 plaguebearers = 162
10 horrors = 90

3 Drones: venom, Plaguebringer w/ lesser gift = 156

TOTAL = 748

Its very hard to kill, has fast/tough/killy people who kill.....hehe... The PB's tanked so much, the lowest they got was to 2 guys left with the herald against shooty DE. Love the Drones, Love LoC, Horrors are alright at 10 guys, managed to kill a tank with some good rolls.

**zamnath**

Tombking: I generally agree with your points on my lists, but I'm not sure about Necron shooting being all that threatening to Horrors. Have you tried dislodging a Horrors unit in a ruin with regular shooting? I don't recall Necron having much shooting that ignores cover (forgive me if they do). If my enemy's relying on normal shooting I'd be willing to wager a 10 man Horrors unit in a ruin surviving most of the game given their 35/36 chance to save every wound they receive. If you don't have a decent chance of killing them all off you can't afford to direct your attention against the troops with your shooting. There's too many threats that have to be dealt with ASAP in that list. Against enemies with a decent amount of shooting that can ignore cover at range I agree with you, though. A smart opponent can just annihilate the troops and force me to play for the draw. The list is my "fun" list and the second one is my "competitive" one, but I do think with some tweaking the first list could be pretty hard to beat (removing a Grinder or the Forgefiend for some more Horrors, probably).

In my second list I have actually been thinking of replacing my Soul Grinders with the following CSM allied detachment:

Chaos Lord: 65pts
19 Chaos Cultists: 106pts
3* Obliterators w/ Mark of Nurgle: 228pts
Aegis w/ Icarus: 85pts

It'll give me a backfield scoring unit, four good heavy weapons platforms, an excellent place to drop a Portalglyph (when I feel I'd rather have that than the Grimoire), and some cover for my units if I go second. Everything in that allied contingent wants to be targeted by the same type of firepower (generally) that the rest of my army wants to be targeted by, as well, as opposed to my Soul Grinders being an easy target for all the anti-tank weaponry at my enemy's disposal. What do you think?

**Tomb King**

masquerade81 wrote:does a weapon without rend gain rend if the wielder has rend?

Yes regardless of what weapon being used if a model has rend it has rend. Same for MC that have ap2 attacks regardless of weapon being wielded.

zamnath wrote:Tombking: I generally agree with your points on my lists, but I'm not sure about Necron shooting being all that threatening to Horrors. Have you tried dislodging a Horrors unit in a ruin with regular shooting? I don't recall Necron having much shooting that ignores cover (forgive me if they do). If my enemy's relying on normal shooting I'd be willing to wager a 10 man Horrors unit in a ruin surviving most of the game given their 35/36 chance to save every wound they receive. If you don't have a decent chance of killing them all off you can't afford to direct your attention against the troops with your shooting. There's too many threats that have to be dealt with ASAP in that list. Against enemies with a decent amount of shooting that can ignore cover at range I agree with you, though. A smart opponent can just annihilate the troops and force me to play for the draw. The list is my "fun" list and the second one is my "competitive" one, but I do think with some tweaking the first list could be pretty hard to beat (removing a Grinder or the Forgefiend for some more Horrors, probably).

In my second list I have actually been thinking of replacing my Soul Grinders with the following CSM allied detachment:

Chaos Lord: 65pts
19 Chaos Cultists: 106pts
3* Obliterators w/ Mark of Nurgle: 228pts
Aegis w/ Icarus: 85pts

It'll give me a backfield scoring unit, four good heavy weapons platforms, an excellent place to drop a Portalglyph (when I feel I'd rather have that than the Grimoire), and some cover for my units if I go second. Everything in that allied contingent wants to be targeted by the same type of firepower (generally) that the rest of my army wants to be targeted by, as well, as opposed to my Soul Grinders being an easy target for all the anti-tank weaponry at my enemy's disposal. What do you think?

I generally like the adjustment. An aegis line is looking more and more like a good option to keep the backfield troops alive as well as keeping them alive if you go second. The aegis can even be placed up some in games where you have more assault units. If the cultist are going to just sit back and watch the fight why pay for more of them? BTW why are they 106pts? Do they have a mark that isnt listed as they come out to 86 points by my count. Either way I would drop all those extra points and my the chaos lord better.

**zamnath**

Tomb King wrote:
masquerade81 wrote:does a weapon without rend gain rend if the wielder has rend?

Yes regardless of what weapon being used if a model has rend it has rend. Same for MC that have ap2 attacks regardless of weapon being wielded.

zamnath wrote:Tombking: I generally agree with your points on my lists, but I'm not sure about Necron shooting being all that threatening to Horrors. Have you tried dislodging a Horrors unit in a ruin with regular shooting? I don't recall Necron having much shooting that ignores cover (forgive me if they do). If my enemy's relying on normal shooting I'd be willing to wager a 10 man Horrors unit in a ruin surviving most of the game given their 35/36 chance to save every wound they receive. If you don't have a decent chance of killing them all off you can't afford to direct your attention against the troops with your shooting. There's too many threats that have to be dealt with ASAP in that list. Against enemies with a decent amount of shooting that can ignore cover at range I agree with you, though. A smart opponent can just annihilate the troops and force me to play for the draw. The list is my "fun" list and the second one is my "competitive" one, but I do think with some tweaking the first list could be pretty hard to beat (removing a Grinder or the Forgefiend for some more Horrors, probably).

In my second list I have actually been thinking of replacing my Soul Grinders with the following CSM allied detachment:

Chaos Lord: 65pts
19 Chaos Cultists: 106pts
3* Obliterators w/ Mark of Nurgle: 228pts
Aegis w/ Icarus: 85pts

It'll give me a backfield scoring unit, four good heavy weapons platforms, an excellent place to drop a Portalglyph (when I feel I'd rather have that than the Grimoire), and some cover for my units if I go second. Everything in that allied contingent wants to be targeted by the same type of firepower (generally) that the rest of my army wants to be targeted by, as well, as opposed to my Soul Grinders being an easy target for all the anti-tank weaponry at my enemy's disposal. What do you think?

I generally like the adjustment. An aegis line is looking more and more like a good option to keep the backfield troops alive as well as keeping them alive if you go second. The aegis can even be placed up some in games where you have more assault units. If the cultist are going to just sit back and watch the fight why pay for more of them? BTW why are they 106pts? Do they have a mark that isnt listed as they come out to 86 points by my count. Either way I would drop all those extra points and my the chaos lord better.

I don't feel comfortable running 10 cultists, tbh. They can get to a 2+ behind the Aegis by going to ground, but they're still really easy to kill. Grabbing 20 of them gives me a better chance of seeing them survive until the end of the game, and makes it so that I can choose not to go to ground against the enemy's shooting if I want to be able to use the Lascannon. It's a 40ish point investment, but worth it.

You're right about the cultists. I completely messed up the math on them somehow. I must have given them the upgraded guns at some point and forgotten to fix the points total. It's fixed now. The list now looks like this:

'Ard List
Fateweaver: 300pts
Herald of Slaanesh w/ Exalted Reward, Steed, Locus of Grace: 100pts
5*15 Daemonettes, 2 w/ Instruments and Icons: 715pts
15 Seekers of Slaanesh w/ Icon, Heartseeker: 195pts
15 Seekers of Slaanesh w/ Icon & Heartseeker w/ Greater Reward: 215pts
Chaos Lord w/ Gift of Mutation: 75pts
19 Chaos Cultists: 86pts
3* Obliterators w/ Mark of Nurgle: 228pts
Aegis w/ Icarus: 85pts
1999pts

**mercer**

I have been tweaking my own list and come up with this:

Bloodthirster 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
2 x Herald of Slaanesh lesser reward, mastery level 2, exalted locus of beguilment & steed of slaanesh

Troops

10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors

Fast Attack

15 x Seekers
15 x Seekers

Total: 2,000 points

I am not a fan of Seekers, but everyone keeps telling me they are awesome. So I am going to give them a try.

List has three flying monstrous creatures; Princes give anti air support while Bloodthirster is my warlord.

Heralds go with the Seekers, they unit can re-roll to hit and the Heralds challenges must be accepted. The Heralds will take the lesser etherblade, this is due to points, plus 20 points for a greater is too expensive. Heralds hopefully get invisibility and use on the Seekers

Horrors will plink away at smaller units and armour. I know they are not brilliant but Daemons need some shooting. Also using MSU because I don't want a big fat unit of Horrors failing to do anything because of deny the witch.

Thoughts?

**undertow**

mercer wrote:
Thoughts?

My only thought is that I'd like to have more shooting on the Princes. I'd try to find enough points to give them mastery level 1 and take Psychic Scream. The only thing I don't like about it is that it's just as short range as the Lash.

**mercer**

If they are all the same range I guess that's not too bad. There also isn't anyway to get those points on the Princes either.

**Valhallan42nd**

Re: 10 cultists and a ADL.

Let's not forget that cover saves can be negated by FTM Ally's marker lights and the Flying Nightmare Turkey. And then they're SOL.

**Tomb King**

Modified my list and I am gonna try a slannesh and nurgle herald with 2 ML each. I think Biomancy and Telepathy could really strengthen the army as a whole. Whatya guys think?

1750pt build
Fateweaver 300pts

Herald of Tzeentch 150pts
Exalted Locus of Conjuration; Exalted rewards; mastery level 3 (grimiore of true names)

Herald of Tzeentch 125pts
Exalted rewards; mastery level 3 (portalglyph)

Herald of Slannesh (Exalted Reward; Great loci of Beguilment; ML 2) 155pts

Herald of Nurgle (greater locus of Fecundity, greater reward, ML2, Palaquin of Nurgle)180pts

Troops:
18 horrors 162pts
19 Plague bearers 171pts
18 Daemonettes of Slannesh 162pts

Heavy:
1 daemon prince (tzeentch, Warp Forged Armor, Greater Reward x 2, daemonic Flight, Mastery Level 3) 345pts

Total: 1700pts

Automatically Appended Next Post:

mercer wrote:
I have been tweaking my own list and come up with this:

Bloodthirster 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
2 x Herald of Slaanesh lesser reward, mastery level 2, exalted locus of beguilment & steed of slaanesh

Troops

10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors

Fast Attack

15 x Seekers
15 x Seekers

Total: 2,000 points

I am not a fan of Seekers, but everyone keeps telling me they are awesome. So I am going to give them a try.

List has three flying monstrous creatures; Princes give anti air support while Bloodthirster is my warlord.

Heralds go with the Seekers, they unit can re-roll to hit and the Heralds challenges must be accepted. The Heralds will take the lesser etherblade, this is due to points, plus 20 points for a greater is too expensive. Heralds hopefully get invisibility and use on the Seekers

Horrors will plink away at smaller units and armour. I know they are not brilliant but Daemons need some shooting. Also using MSU because I don't want a big fat unit of Horrors failing to do anything because of deny the witch.

Thoughts?

You might be better off converting some of the horror units into plague bearers for camping the objectives on your side of the board. Basically your army consist of 3 FMC and 2 units of seekers at 2000pts. Might have issues against nids and horde's obviously. Also the new tau might give your FMC fits. Though the seekers will roll most tau armies that I see coming up. IMO Daemons are actually more competitive then TAU on a codex to codex basis. Though tau work better as allies.

**zamnath**

mercer wrote:
I have been tweaking my own list and come up with this:

Bloodthirster 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
2 x Herald of Slaanesh lesser reward, mastery level 2, exalted locus of beguilment & steed of slaanesh

Troops

10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors

Fast Attack

15 x Seekers
15 x Seekers

Total: 2,000 points

I am not a fan of Seekers, but everyone keeps telling me they are awesome. So I am going to give them a try.

List has three flying monstrous creatures; Princes give anti air support while Bloodthirster is my warlord.

Heralds go with the Seekers, they unit can re-roll to hit and the Heralds challenges must be accepted. The Heralds will take the lesser etherblade, this is due to points, plus 20 points for a greater is too expensive. Heralds hopefully get invisibility and use on the Seekers

Horrors will plink away at smaller units and armour. I know they are not brilliant but Daemons need some shooting. Also using MSU because I don't want a big fat unit of Horrors failing to do anything because of deny the witch.

Thoughts?

Have you considered switching the Slaanesh Heralds for Khorne Jugger heralds and grabbing hounds instead of Seekers, Mercer? Shooting Bolt of Change through a Hound and into an enemy's lined up stuck-in unit is cheesy fun (denying deny the witch, the enemy is lined up for maximum number of shots, and Flesh Hounds have a good chance of benefiting from the stacking FNP that Warpfire can give them. Totally worth the chance of IDing a single Flesh Hound.)

**Tomb King**

zamnath wrote:
mercer wrote:
I have been tweaking my own list and come up with this:

Bloodthirster 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
2 x Herald of Slaanesh lesser reward, mastery level 2, exalted locus of beguilment & steed of slaanesh

Troops

10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors

Fast Attack

15 x Seekers
15 x Seekers

Total: 2,000 points

I am not a fan of Seekers, but everyone keeps telling me they are awesome. So I am going to give them a try.

List has three flying monstrous creatures; Princes give anti air support while Bloodthirster is my warlord.

Heralds go with the Seekers, they unit can re-roll to hit and the Heralds challenges must be accepted. The Heralds will take the lesser etherblade, this is due to points, plus 20 points for a greater is too expensive. Heralds hopefully get invisibility and use on the Seekers

Horrors will plink away at smaller units and armour. I know they are not brilliant but Daemons need some shooting. Also using MSU because I don't want a big fat unit of Horrors failing to do anything because of deny the witch.

Thoughts?

Have you considered switching the Slaanesh Heralds for Khorne Jugger heralds and grabbing hounds instead of Seekers, Mercer? Shooting Bolt of Change through a Hound and into an enemy's lined up stuck-in unit is cheesy fun (denying deny the witch, the enemy is lined up for maximum number of shots, and Flesh Hounds have a good chance of benefiting from the stacking FNP that Warpfire can give them. Totally worth the chance of IDing a single Flesh Hound.)

Pretty sure you cant deliberately target your units... even with a beam attack.

**zamnath**

Tomb King wrote:
zamnath wrote:
mercer wrote:
I have been tweaking my own list and come up with this:

Bloodthirster 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
Daemon Prince daemon of slaanesh, daemonic flight, warp forged armour & 2 x greater rewards
2 x Herald of Slaanesh lesser reward, mastery level 2, exalted locus of beguilment & steed of slaanesh

Troops

10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors
10 x Pink Horrors

Fast Attack

15 x Seekers
15 x Seekers

Total: 2,000 points

I am not a fan of Seekers, but everyone keeps telling me they are awesome. So I am going to give them a try.

List has three flying monstrous creatures; Princes give anti air support while Bloodthirster is my warlord.

Heralds go with the Seekers, they unit can re-roll to hit and the Heralds challenges must be accepted. The Heralds will take the lesser etherblade, this is due to points, plus 20 points for a greater is too expensive. Heralds hopefully get invisibility and use on the Seekers

Horrors will plink away at smaller units and armour. I know they are not brilliant but Daemons need some shooting. Also using MSU because I don't want a big fat unit of Horrors failing to do anything because of deny the witch.

Thoughts?

Have you considered switching the Slaanesh Heralds for Khorne Jugger heralds and grabbing hounds instead of Seekers, Mercer? Shooting Bolt of Change through a Hound and into an enemy's lined up stuck-in unit is cheesy fun (denying deny the witch, the enemy is lined up for maximum number of shots, and Flesh Hounds have a good chance of benefiting from the stacking FNP that Warpfire can give them. Totally worth the chance of IDing a single Flesh Hound.)

Pretty sure you cant deliberately target your units... even with a beam attack.

Beams target a point, not a unit. I actually did some major questioning on Dakka a couple weeks ago to figure out how it works. Essentially a 10 man unit of Pink Horrors with Bolt of Change will have only Bolt of Change as a shooting attack, which is important because beams have a stipulation that the first unit they hit must be the same one that the rest of the unit is targeting. As the Horrors only have Bolt of Change there is no other shooting in the unit, so they default to the targetting restrictions of the beam itself: pick a point within the range of the beam and line of sight. All models under the line (friend and foe) are then hit in order from the models closest to the firing model to the models farthest.

It gets even better when you read the way that Deny the Witch is worded for beams. If not for an FAQ Beams would actually be completely immune to Deny the Witch due to the fact that a unit has to be targeted to be able to Deny the Witch. To fix this problem GW put out an FAQ stating the following: "The first unit affected by the psychic power [the Beam] can attempt to deny the witch, but if that test is failed, every enemy unit is affected as normal." The FAQ does not stipulate that the "first unit affected" that can deny the witch be an enemy unit. As such, if you hit your Flesh Hounds before hitting anything else with Bolt of Change the Flesh Hounds unit is the first unit affected and the one that is able to Deny the Witch. As the controller of that unit you can then decline to Deny the Witch and the power will go off.

It's beardy, but I have yet to hear a decent argument as to why it doesn't work. The closest argument I've heard against this rules interpretation was a RAI argument pointing to the question part of the FAQ as "providing context" and changing the meaning of the answer part of the FAQ. I'm not going to rehash the back-and-forth, but that argument fails primarily because the semantics of the FAQ is "'Is x right?' 'No. y is right.'" I.E., replacing an incorrect statement with a correct statement. Arguing that the incorrect statement is able to change the explicit meaning of the correct statement via an implicit context is fallacious because the only explicit relationship between the two statements is that one is wrong and being replaced by the other. If a part of the replacing statement does not explicitly reference a part of the statement it is replacing (as with "the psychic power" [in this case referring to "beams"]) then you cannot use the one to alter the other. You have to take the replacing statement as is.

**Makutsu**

HQ:
Bloodthirster w/ Greater, Greater - 290
Karanak - 120
Herald of Tzeentch w/ Exalted - 75

Troops:
10 Daemonettes w/ Alluress, Instrument - 105
10 Daemonettes w/ Alluress, Instrument - 105

Fast:
17 Flesh hounds - 128

Heavy:
Tzeentch Soul Grinder w/ Phelgm Bombarment - 170
Skull Cannon - 125

Allies:
Warpsmith w/ Nurgle Mark, Burning Brand 140

Troops:
10 Cultists w/ Shotgun -50

Fast:
Heldrake - 170

Heavy:
Obliterators w/ Nurgle Marks - 228

The Khorne side focuses on getting close to the enemy so that they'll be worried on getting about them since once the blood thirster gets in CC all is lost for the enemy.
Karanak will charge with the blob of Flesh hounds to try to kill something and stop psykers.

Daemonettes have instruments and Alluress to prevent the Slaanesh thing on the Warpstorm from killing my important characters and Khorne units.

The Herald of Tzeentch will stay with Obliterators to give them rerolls for shooting.

Soul Grinder will shoot and move forward.

Skull Cannon stays in the back and shoots at whatever the blob of fleshhounds need to charge or Daemonettes.

Warpsmith goes with the Cultist Blob and stay right beside the soul grinder so that if he suffers an Immobilize he can get back up on 2+ for every result besides explode.

Heldrake does its thing and burns stuff to crisp

Going to try this list out what do you guys think?

**zamnath**

Makutsu wrote:
HQ:
Bloodthirster w/ Greater, Greater - 290
Karanak - 120
Herald of Tzeentch w/ Exalted - 75

Troops:
10 Daemonettes w/ Alluress, Instrument - 105
10 Daemonettes w/ Alluress, Instrument - 105

Fast:
17 Flesh hounds - 128

Heavy:
Tzeentch Soul Grinder w/ Phelgm Bombarment - 170
Skull Cannon - 125

Allies:
Warpsmith w/ Nurgle Mark, Burning Brand 140

Troops:
10 Cultists w/ Shotgun -50

Fast:
Heldrake - 170

Heavy:
Obliterators w/ Nurgle Marks - 228

The Khorne side focuses on getting close to the enemy so that they'll be worried on getting about them since once the blood thirster gets in CC all is lost for the enemy.
Karanak will charge with the blob of Flesh hounds to try to kill something and stop psykers.

Daemonettes have instruments and Alluress to prevent the Slaanesh thing on the Warpstorm from killing my important characters and Khorne units.

The Herald of Tzeentch will stay with Obliterators to give them rerolls for shooting.

Soul Grinder will shoot and move forward.

Skull Cannon stays in the back and shoots at whatever the blob of fleshhounds need to charge or Daemonettes.

Warpsmith goes with the Cultist Blob and stay right beside the soul grinder so that if he suffers an Immobilize he can get back up on 2+ for every result besides explode.

Heldrake does its thing and burns stuff to crisp

Going to try this list out what do you guys think?

I like your allied contingent, but I'm not sure about your primary. It feels a bit unfocused. Your army will have the Skullcannon and the Soul Grinder as the only vehicles on the table 1st turn, and there's a great chance that your enemy will have exactly enough AA to deal with them in one turn. I'd either drop them or find points to fit in another Soul Grinder for armor saturation. The Flesh hounds are great, but the rest of your assault element--the Daemonettes--is anemic. 10 Daemonettes will die very quickly to pretty much anything. If you want to bring Daemonettes, I recommend bringing them in units that are at least 15 models strong. More than two is important, as well, if, as is the case with this list, they are important as scoring units in addition to their role as assault units. Your Herald of Tzeentch is a great compliment to the oblits, but it has no unit to go into (it can only join other Tzeentch Daemons) and, as such, is a ready kill point for your enemy. If you were to switch your Bloodthirster for a Lord of Change and drop your herald you could still have the prescience going onto your oblits early game while maintaining great Close Combat presence (with the proper upgrades).

**mercer**

Tomb King wrote:

You might be better off converting some of the horror units into plague bearers for camping the objectives on your side of the board. Basically your army consist of 3 FMC and 2 units of seekers at 2000pts. Might have issues against nids and horde's obviously. Also the new tau might give your FMC fits. Though the seekers will roll most tau armies that I see coming up. IMO Daemons are actually more competitive then TAU on a codex to codex basis. Though tau work better as allies.

Someone made a very good point that Horrors hold objectives just as well as Plaguebearers. The Horrors can snipe at enemy units and can also to to ground for a 2+ cover save when in area terrain. I know Plaguebearers are slightly tougher and get shrouding, though they cannot do a fat lot other than that. At least Horrors can contribute with ranged fire power.

The only answer I can see to hordes is Soul Grinders.

zamnath wrote:

Have you considered switching the Slaanesh Heralds for Khorne Jugger heralds and grabbing hounds instead of Seekers, Mercer? Shooting Bolt of Change through a Hound and into an enemy's lined up stuck-in unit is cheesy fun (denying deny the witch, the enemy is lined up for maximum number of shots, and Flesh Hounds have a good chance of benefiting from the stacking FNP that Warpfire can give them. Totally worth the chance of IDing a single Flesh Hound.)

My previous list had Flesh Hounds in, I really do like them, though the internet loves Seekers so I thought I would give them a try.

I did read your post about beams, however I do not think you can target your own unit as the initial target.

**Makutsu**

zamnath wrote:

I like your allied contingent, but I'm not sure about your primary. It feels a bit unfocused. Your army will have the Skullcannon and the Soul Grinder as the only vehicles on the table 1st turn, and there's a great chance that your enemy will have exactly enough AA to deal with them in one turn. I'd either drop them or find points to fit in another Soul Grinder for armor saturation. The Flesh hounds are great, but the rest of your assault element--the Daemonettes--is anemic. 10 Daemonettes will die very quickly to pretty much anything. If you want to bring Daemonettes, I recommend bringing them in units that are at least 15 models strong. More than two is important, as well, if, as is the case with this list, they are important as scoring units in addition to their role as assault units. Your Herald of Tzeentch is a great compliment to the oblits, but it has no unit to go into (it can only join other Tzeentch Daemons) and, as such, is a ready kill point for your enemy. If you were to switch your Bloodthirster for a Lord of Change and drop your herald you could still have the prescience going onto your oblits early game while maintaining great Close Combat presence (with the proper upgrades).

Hopefully though I can put them behind terrain and stuff to hope for the best if I get second turn.
The Skull Cannon is kinda important for the fleshhounds though since then they can assault with out the initiative penalty same goes for the Bloodthirster.

I didn't really know what else to take for troop choices, Daemonettes can protect my Khorne units from getting killed and can absorb some firepower.

The Tzeentch Herald is in the back to throw down the portalglyph and hopefully will be hiding around, that's why I can have 2 Daemonette units to just sort of throw away or act as bullet magnets.

I have thought of deepstriking them so that my opponent would be surrounded by 2 fronts to deal with the fleshhounds or them.

I don't know if the Tzeentch Herald can join them or not though, since it says different Daemon Alignments taking a mark is not a different Daemon alignment though since it's never stated.
So that comes down to the FAQ to see what happens.

**undertow**

Is anyone playing any games with these lists? I'd love to hear how they're working.

No need for a full on battle report, just a quick paragraph about what worked and what didn't.

**Makutsu**

Last week I played with a list like the following:
HQ:
Fateweaver
2 Heralds w/ Portalglyph

Troops:
2 x 11 Horrors w/ Instrument

Heavy Soul Grinder
Daemon Prince Tzeentch

Defence Line Aegis Quad gun

Allies
Daemon Prince w/ Black Mace

Troops:
5 Marines with Nurgle mark

Fast Heldrake

//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

for 1850 against Eldar

Won the first game, my opponent charged my fateweaver and accepted the challenge and the challenge went on for the entire game after the turn 2 charge from bikes.
Funny thing is my fateweaver popped his head so much due to runes of warding the head from the actual model fell off.

Daemon Princes are really good fire magnets, ate up so much fire from the enemy due to flying and made so many saves, one with 2+ cover and the other with 3+ and rerollable 1s.

Tzeentch Daemons were really good due to the reroll 1 save thing.

But Daemon Princes got slaughtered by Wraithlords.
The T5 really hurts a lot.

Pink Horrors one with beam one with flickerfire.
It was a nightmare with psychic powers because of runes of warding, what a stupid broken power.
My faterweaver casted 4 times and only once went off.

Pink Horrors went off from time to time but started dying here and there due to perils.
The heralds both just peril'd to death.

The Heldrake really helps a lot though, basically forcing them out of their position to kill it and it was guaranteed a squad kill per turn, not bad at all.

Really lacked heavy guns to kill high T stuff though, S8 Large Blast simply couldn't hurt the wraith lords
And in CC there was nothing to stop them...
Wraith Lords were kinda insane...

Portalglyph didn't spawn for 4 turns and on the 5th spawned the unit to sit on an objective, so there's the points back I guess.
Put it towards the back of your field seems to be the best idea.

Grimore + reroll went off everyturn.
Warpstorm didn't do anything and got 7s with the rerolls for the entire game. Maybe once was Khorne's wrath or something, scattered and missed.

Won the game with the Daemon Prince contesting and me sitting with two objectives in the back, one unit was from the portalglyph.

//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2nd game, changed out Fateweaver for bloodthirster, Khorne Daemon Prince instead due to the slot change thing.

Bloodthirster took the entire army to shoot at it to put it down to one wound.
My soulgrinder got immobilized first turn and was only throwing pieplates around after that for the entire game.

Nurgle Daemon Prince with Black mace failed 3 saves in one shooting phase with 2+ cover save lol.
And then died to small arms fire overwatch

Other Daemon Prince killed a good amount of bikes.

Psychic powers went off 50/50 but the powers simply aren't really worth their time, pretty useless.
Maybe I should take Pinkies in bigger squads for full fire.

Lacked a lot of range weapons and heavy as again and couldn't deal with the wraith lords.

Almost won though, was on top of the relic by the end of the game.
But since you could only pick it up during movement phase, I lost to secondary objectives.

First blood is such a bs thing. Goes first = very likely win for the entire game.

**mercer**

undertow wrote:
Is anyone playing any games with these lists? I'd love to hear how they're working.

No need for a full on battle report, just a quick paragraph about what worked and what didn't.

I've only tried mine with Flesh Hounds, not tried Seekers yet. Flesh Hounds did ok, I like them a lot. Monsters are cool as well.

**zamnath**

mercer wrote:
Tomb King wrote:

You might be better off converting some of the horror units into plague bearers for camping the objectives on your side of the board. Basically your army consist of 3 FMC and 2 units of seekers at 2000pts. Might have issues against nids and horde's obviously. Also the new tau might give your FMC fits. Though the seekers will roll most tau armies that I see coming up. IMO Daemons are actually more competitive then TAU on a codex to codex basis. Though tau work better as allies.

Someone made a very good point that Horrors hold objectives just as well as Plaguebearers. The Horrors can snipe at enemy units and can also to to ground for a 2+ cover save when in area terrain. I know Plaguebearers are slightly tougher and get shrouding, though they cannot do a fat lot other than that. At least Horrors can contribute with ranged fire power.

The only answer I can see to hordes is Soul Grinders.

zamnath wrote:

Have you considered switching the Slaanesh Heralds for Khorne Jugger heralds and grabbing hounds instead of Seekers, Mercer? Shooting Bolt of Change through a Hound and into an enemy's lined up stuck-in unit is cheesy fun (denying deny the witch, the enemy is lined up for maximum number of shots, and Flesh Hounds have a good chance of benefiting from the stacking FNP that Warpfire can give them. Totally worth the chance of IDing a single Flesh Hound.)

My previous list had Flesh Hounds in, I really do like them, though the internet loves Seekers so I thought I would give them a try.

I did read your post about beams, however I do not think you can target your own unit as the initial target.

There are no rules that I know of which prevent you from hitting your own unit first with a beam, as long as that beam is coming from a unit with no other possible shooting. Remember that beams don't "target" units, they "affect" them. Beams target a point and hit everything in a line from that point to the model using the beam. If there is a rule I'm not aware of please mention it so that I can correct my play in the future. (If it involves a rules interpretation rather than a very clearly explicit statement in the Rulebook we should probably move this conversation to a YMDC thread so that we don't derail this excellent list thread.)

The incarnations of my Daemonette spam list that I've used before didn't include seekers, I just attached a herald on mount to a Daemonettes unit to give them outflanking so that I could position my assault, and I'll be trying them out for the first time tonight. I'll be interested to hear what other peoples' experiences with them are and I'll post up a quick summary of what happen to mine tonight (my prediction: dakkadakkdakka and then no more seekers, but we'll see). That said, I really do think that Flesh Hounds are the way to go if you're running Fast Attack/Pink Horror spam.

Edit: To Makutsu: Unfortunately, units with the Daemonic Instability special rule cannot join units without it (see pg. 26). Well, the actual rule says units with the special rule can't be joined and doesn't say that units with the special rule can't join units without it, so you're technically okay right now, but I'd expect that to be FAQ'd and play accordingly. No mix and matching Daemon and Chaos Space Marine independent characters/units.

**undertow**

zamnath wrote:
Edit: To Makutsu: Unfortunately, units with the Daemonic Instability special rule cannot join units without it (see pg. 26). Well, the actual rule says units with the special rule can't be joined and doesn't say that units with the special rule can't join units without it, so you're technically okay right now, but I'd expect that to be FAQ'd and play accordingly. No mix and matching Daemon and Chaos Space Marine independent characters/units.

I'm using the digital codex, and it explicitly states that model with DI cannot join or be joined by models without DI. No need for a FAQ.

**Makutsu**

I don't know what it says in the digital one you have but it says in my book:
"A unit with this special rule cannot be joined by a model without this special rule"
An IC joins a unit not the unit joining the IC, hence for now the Herald can join a CSM unit, but a CSM IC can not join a Daemon unit

**Tomb King**

For those that have it. Army builder just got the daemons update.

**masquerade81**

Tomb King wrote:
For those that have it. Army builder just got the daemons update.

fuuuu.... And of course my comp is out of order the second they release it :(

**mercer**

zamnath wrote:

There are no rules that I know of which prevent you from hitting your own unit first with a beam, as long as that beam is coming from a unit with no other possible shooting. Remember that beams don't "target" units, they "affect" them. Beams target a point and hit everything in a line from that point to the model using the beam. If there is a rule I'm not aware of please mention it so that I can correct my play in the future. (If it involves a rules interpretation rather than a very clearly explicit statement in the Rulebook we should probably move this conversation to a YMDC thread so that we don't derail this excellent list thread.)

The incarnations of my Daemonette spam list that I've used before didn't include seekers, I just attached a herald on mount to a Daemonettes unit to give them outflanking so that I could position my assault, and I'll be trying them out for the first time tonight. I'll be interested to hear what other peoples' experiences with them are and I'll post up a quick summary of what happen to mine tonight (my prediction: dakkadakkdakka and then no more seekers, but we'll see). That said, I really do think that Flesh Hounds are the way to go if you're running Fast Attack/Pink Horror spam.

You know what, dude? I think you're right. I cannot see anything which says you cannot shoot your own models. It does seem a little sneaky, but I like it

My prediction with any Seeker use is dakka dakka

I need to put them to the test.

**Redbeard**

Here's what I've been playing around with for the Adepticon Friendly event (FW allowed, 1500 points). It's a nurgle theme, so don't tell me to add fateweaver or seekers. ;p

Options 1:
HQ: Great Unclean One
2x Major Gifts
Psyker Level 2

Troop: 3 nurglings
Troop: 14 plague bearers w/ Instrument

Fast attack: 7 plague drones, plaguebringer w/ minor gift, rot proboscis, icon
Fast Attack: FW Blight Drone (125 points, does not count as daemon of nurgle)

Heavy: Prince w/ 2x greater gift, psychic 2, wings, mark of nurgle
Heavy: Prince w/ 2x greater gift, psychic 2, wings, mark of nurgle

I haven't played a huge number of test games, but I've not lost one yet, and have beat ravenwing, and shooty GK though never by large margins. It's very light on scoring units though. I typically deploy the plaguedrone unit with princes behind them, and they can get in the opponent's face turn 2, as well as getting the GUO off the drone icon (2 rolls to get him in on turn 2, because I roll for the instrument bearers first). The drones can soak a huge amount of fire and still deliver the champion and icon where I want them.

But, there's a lot that can go wrong. If the big daemons don't roll the good gifts and powers they're not that hard to kill, and there's just the one scoring unit.

In order to shore up some of these problems, I'd cut the blight drone for an extra unit of plague bearers. It deprives me of most of my shooting, including the large template, but means i'm not totally dependent on having that one scoring unit survive everything. That leaves a few points leftover, which will probably go to buying more mastery levels for the big guys, increasing the chances to get iron arm. Also, picking up a minor gift for some of the guys which will probably be a weapon. (and definitely if I roll Hellfire Gaze as a major)

GUO (2x major gift, 1 lesser, level 3 psyker)
11 plague bearers (99)
10 plague bearers w/ instrument (100)
7 Drones (as above) (359)
2 daemon princes (flight, 2 major, 1 minor gift, level 3 psyker)

Not sure if those changes are worth it though, having the blight drone is kinda fun.

**mercer**

Needs more Seekers

How are the Princes doing for you? I have been thinking of ditching some Horrors in my list and giving them biomancy for a lol.

**Makutsu**

Redbeard wrote:
Here's what I've been playing around with for the Adepticon Friendly event (FW allowed, 1500 points). It's a nurgle theme, so don't tell me to add fateweaver or seekers. ;p

Options 1:
HQ: Great Unclean One
2x Major Gifts
Psyker Level 2

Troop: 3 nurglings
Troop: 14 plague bearers w/ Instrument

Fast attack: 7 plague drones, plaguebringer w/ minor gift, rot proboscis, icon
Fast Attack: FW Blight Drone (125 points, does not count as daemon of nurgle)

Heavy: Prince w/ 2x greater gift, psychic 2, wings, mark of nurgle
Heavy: Prince w/ 2x greater gift, psychic 2, wings, mark of nurgle

I haven't played a huge number of test games, but I've not lost one yet, and have beat ravenwing, and shooty GK though never by large margins. It's very light on scoring units though. I typically deploy the plaguedrone unit with princes behind them, and they can get in the opponent's face turn 2, as well as getting the GUO off the drone icon (2 rolls to get him in on turn 2, because I roll for the instrument bearers first). The drones can soak a huge amount of fire and still deliver the champion and icon where I want them.

But, there's a lot that can go wrong. If the big daemons don't roll the good gifts and powers they're not that hard to kill, and there's just the one scoring unit.

In order to shore up some of these problems, I'd cut the blight drone for an extra unit of plague bearers. It deprives me of most of my shooting, including the large template, but means i'm not totally dependent on having that one scoring unit survive everything. That leaves a few points leftover, which will probably go to buying more mastery levels for the big guys, increasing the chances to get iron arm. Also, picking up a minor gift for some of the guys which will probably be a weapon. (and definitely if I roll Hellfire Gaze as a major)

GUO (2x major gift, 1 lesser, level 3 psyker)
11 plague bearers (99)
10 plague bearers w/ instrument (100)
7 Drones (as above) (359)
2 daemon princes (flight, 2 major, 1 minor gift, level 3 psyker)

Not sure if those changes are worth it though, having the blight drone is kinda fun.

Nurlgings can't take objectives due to swarm rule so you'd only have 1 scoring unit...
Take the Portaglyph always especially in low point game where you then can chip off points for troops, and use the spawned ones as scoring instead.

I'd presonally just deepstrike a unit of plaguebearers into enemy lines and then use the icon to guide the GUO to deekstrike without scattering.
Not sure how good drones are as I don't have the models yet...

Daemon Princes haven't been very good for me so far.
They do soak a lot of fire but don't really do much besides that because mine barely got into CC, and they can be instagibbed by any MC.