Chaos Daemon Troops--Has Anything Actually Changed?

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**vanadium322**

I mainly play CSM, but with the new daemon codex I'll be taking large squads of daemonettes and seekers, to fill the role that berserkers used to do. Still not sure what to do for the HQ, but I'm really tempted to put a herald of Khorne behind an icarun lascannon....

**Che-Vito**

< Taken by the void dragon. >

**Nenya97**

I think the best kinds of lists are going to have three soul grinders, and if at 2k, having 3 GUO's as they are just so dang unstopable. Filling in the army with cheap plaguebearer units with fecundity maybe, and plopped on objectives.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
3 GUO psykers, 3 soul grinders, and 7 units of minimum plagues is 2k. That is 13 units of unstopable power. You can even manipulate points in this list to come with icons to deep strike in things against opponents if you would like.

No, they are not OP and they will not be that way in any list as their troops still have not had their justice done. I think that there are rainbow builds out there that don't require skullcannons, as there are some pretty disgusting tricks you can pull out. Especially is the case of portaglyphs, grimoires, -5I abilities, and soul grinders being cheap powerhouses.

There are tons of options. I have been toying with a khorne-less list with max units, and having 80 daemons on the board, even with being expensive is still a huge threat. Soul Grinders are making the codex for me, though. That, coupled with some lists I have been toying with that add in heldrakes is just icing on the cake.

Something I plan on toying with on Friday is a heavy nurgle psyker list. GUO's, heralds, and nurgle sorcerors are making me curious, and I will be playing against an eldar player.

Generally, I think we are underestimating what we are paying for when we look at daemon troops. First, there are cheap herald options that place them at 100 or less points, and still retain viability. Second, you are really paying for that 5++, most other armies have that only on HQ's and Elites, you have them on your troops; look at all the guns you can basically just think of as AP-. Third, Troops are still rather cheap, and fantastic for what you are paying. Rending initiative 6 for 9 points? T4 with a 5++, and 6's glancing for 9 points? Brotherhood of psykers that can potentially obliterate entire units without proper anti-psyker support for how many? (leaving letters out because imho they just plain suck).

Don't forget to see what you are paying for in these units. Yeah, other options are more versatile, but my rending troops can tear open paladins in a single round. My troops can melee your land raider after said paladins get out. My troops can really cleave into a unit of 4+ armor.

Daemons are not as competetive as we would like to see, but none of the codices out in 6th really are. And as a last note: Daemons are all about randomness. When randomness doesn't go their way, they are a mediocre army, but if it does, if only for a little, they are a force to be reckoned with.

**AtoMaki**

vanadium322 wrote:
I mainly play CSM, but with the new daemon codex I'll be taking large squads of daemonettes and seekers, to fill the role that berserkers used to do. Still not sure what to do for the HQ, but I'm really tempted to put a herald of Khorne behind an icarun lascannon....

A Slaanesh Herald with the exalted loci, lesser and greater rewards and steed is a must have for the Seekers. Re-rolling your to-hits is always awesome.

**JimbobBar**

labmouse42 wrote:
LValx wrote:
Daemon troops aren't even close to being capable of a true horde. Ork Boyz and Guardsmen outclass them in every way because they are more resilient for their costs and can shoot.
I think your math is off. First of all, your IG blob does not cost 5 points per model. If you run 50 naked guardsmen they will be driven right off the table. To make a reasonable 50 man blob will cost you 400 points, which is 8 points per model. That gives you 5 autocannons, 2 MGs, and 3 flamers, and 1 commissar. Remember your also buying the PCS squad tax. This does not even include the overhead tax for a MEQ IC.
Daemons are force multipled by heralds, but can work fine without upgrades. Orks also require little or no upgrades to function successfully.

So what are the RPP values for those units?
Letter.................33.74994938
Daemonette........37.49994375
Horror.................37.49994375
PlagueBearer....199.99986
Guardsman........28.12497188
Ork.....................49.999975
Here the plague bearers stand out, but that's because their main role is to just squat on objectives.
For units with offensive capabilities, the orks stand ahead of the pack. Naked IG are at a 44 RPP, but as mentioned you will never run 50 naked guard.

When you turn a heavy bolter on them, the numbers change.
Letter.................26.99997408
Daemonette.......29.9999712
Horror................29.9999712
PlagueBearer.....119.9999208
Guardsman........22.4999999
Ork.....................37.500002
As before, the plague bearer is stupidly good. You will see though the other numbers get much closer. The bare ork is not all that much better. When your looking at lascannons, all the numbers are identical, save for the ork whose RPP drops to 29.99999. That's acceptable as your not often shot with tons of plasma/melta/LCs. You can, however, expect to see lots of heavy bolters in a build where an IG player brings 3 lemun russ punishers, or someone brings lots of strike squads with psybolt ammo.

These are the numbers when your shot at by cron' air.
When you turn a heavy bolter on them, the numbers change.
Letter.................26.99997408
Daemonette.......29.9999712
Horror................29.9999712
PlagueBearer.....119.9999208
Guardsman........33.74997
Ork.....................35.9999998
The guard pull slightly ahead of the daemons because they get their 5+ save from tesla destructors.

Now your might ask, why would you ever bring any of those (except plague bearers) when you can bring grey hunters who are sporting an RPP value of 60 to bolters. The answer can be summed up in one word -- helldrakes. Helldrakes have crippled the 3+ save armies. A GH's RPP value against a helldrake breath is 8! The daemonette is still at a 19.999. An orks RPP to helldrakes is 20.
So in today's meta, your going to see armies that are more vulnerable to bolters to make up for resistance to helldrakes.

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pepe5454 wrote:
Don't forget the skull cannon it will really help your blood letters and deamonettes lack of grenades. If you want your troops assaulting stuff I imagine these will be key. Just have to keep em alive or have them arrive the same turn you plan to charge.
This. Your can expect to see 1-2 skull cannons in every list. Given how the models are fairly small, they will be easy to hide until your in assault. You might also want to just keep them in reserve so they come in turn 2.

Please oh please round your numbers in future, I don't think we're gonna be playing the few million games needed to notice that many decimal places in our lifetime!

**Dundas**

Surely you're getting some other useful special rules for the relatively cheap points you're paying? Troops that can deep strike, cause fear and ignore most morale checks (other than the instability one) are all pretty good for the points you're paying. They may be a bit situational, but they're still worth having.

Also, I can't think of many situations where I'd rather have 10 vanilla marines rather than 20 plaguebearers for the same cost.

**labmouse42**

Dundas wrote:
Also, I can't think of many situations where I'd rather have 10 vanilla marines rather than 20 plaguebearers for the same cost.

Well, 10 marines are pretty bad troops. I know that some people are going to stand up and say "No way, C:SM TAC squads are awesome!" But the reality is they have moderate shooting, weak assault, and moderate durability.

I've been putting a lot of thoughts into daemon troops. The only ones you can start on the board are horrors and plague bearers, and expect any result. The rest you need to deep strike off your fast moving icons on seekers/juggers. That limits them to only one round before they can join the mosh pit of an assault.

JimbobBar wrote:
Please oh please round your numbers in future, I don't think we're gonna be playing the few million games needed to notice that many decimal places in our lifetime!

Ill set my excel sheet to round next time

tgf wrote:
The new demon codex is disappointing. All the troops are still junk as the OP has pointed out. Tzeentch shooting is horrible. Basically when making a demon list now, start with 3 soul grinders of nurgle and work from there.

I've had good luck with horrors. The trick is to focus their shooting on the targets they excel against. You also don't want to spam them. One or two squads is all you need.

An AGL does not cover 25% of the soul grinder model. Unless your playing in a lot of ruins, you might find it hard to give 3 soul grinders a 3+/2+ cover save.
Even if you do, the soul grinders shooting is average at best. Sure they can throw out one battle cannon shot, but one battle cannon shot won't kill that many models -- and they are forced to snap fire their other weapons. Their skyfire shot is rather weak -- STR 7 has a hard time killing AV12, and your only throwing three shots at BS3.

**schadenfreude**

Bloodletters eat marines, but the meta is less meq intensive now.

Deamonettes are downright lethal if they are supporting another unit's charge. -1d3 to ws for a turn is bad news.

Horrors can murder light vehicles and targets that don't have power armor. Against meq they have good dakka, but t4 and warpflames can be a bad news combination. As backfield objective campers they cannot be shot off with conventional dakka if they go to ground. In an assault they die like overpriced guardsmen.

Plaguebearers are good at objective camping just not as good as horrors at objective camping, but are good in cc. The only problem they have now is any really good cc unit will tear them a new bunghole thanks to deamonic instability.

**jy2**

Just as heldrakes have changed the meta, so have the new daemons. You are going to see the return of the S8 firepower - psyflemans, missile launchers, etc. That is what will keep the daemon elites/fast attacks in check and that is why balanced daemon armies will have to have a good balance of troops and big guys (including soulgrinders) in addition to their multi-wound T4 fast guys.

So, yes, the first instinct is to go for the fast guys, but that will get reigned in to more troops as people start to break out their S8 guns again.

Welcome back, psyfleman dread. We missed you.

**LValx**

I dont expect to see a return of str. 8. Seekers will be the most common assault unit I think and high str doesnt help. Devs get torn to crap by drakes and psyflemen arent as good as DKs. I think the best daemon players can do is 60 seekers which costs a pretty penny. Fill out with skull cannons and small fiend squads and a few heralds + min. Plaguebearer squads. We will see though.

**felixcat**

Funny you are not mentioning Nurglings. Yes I know that they do not score but they infiltrate, they are troops, they tarpit and they have a 3.5 pt cost per wound which is better than any other troop choice .... They can front your advancing troops, go aftyer havocs or devastators and for 98 points we get seven bases. I think that is pretty good.

**labmouse42**

Unless I'm mistake, swarms can't score

**Mannahnin**

labmouse42 wrote:
gorgon wrote:
[This is off-topic, but is this what you're referring to?

"No objective can be placed within 6” of any battlefield edge, within 12” of another objective marker or in/on impassible terrain, buildings or fortifications."

I took that to mean:

-No objective can be placed within 6” of any battlefield edge
-No objective can be placed within 12” of another objective marker
-No objective can be placed in/on impassible terrain, buildings or fortifications

Or in other words, status quo from page 121 of the rulebook.
Look at the adepticon primer packet. Look at how objectives are placed.
"Place Primary Objective Markers: Starting with the player who chose table halves, players alternate placing objective markers as described in the mission (see Pre-deployment Addendumfor each mission). No objective can be placed within 6” of any battlefield edge, within 12” of another objective marker or in/on impassible terrain, buildings or fortifications."
If by chance your going to be playing at adepticion its a pretty important item. Don't expect to show up and put your objectives behind your aegis. It also really bones people who show up with a skyshield or a fortress of redemption. The footprint of the fortification will force the objectives into small areas.

No, yiou're misreading it. Gorgon has it right. Go ahead and email the organizers if you doubt it; I'll bet you a beer.

**McNinja**

felixcat wrote:
Funny you are not mentioning Nurglings. Yes I know that they do not score but they infiltrate, they are troops, they tarpit and they have a 3.5 pt cost per wound which is better than any other troop choice .... They can front your advancing troops, go aftyer havocs or devastators and for 98 points we get seven bases. I think that is pretty good.

Why do they not score? I'm looking at the codex and there's nothing that says they can't score.

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labmouse42 wrote:
Unless I'm mistake, swarms can't score

Nah, swarms can score. There's nothing in the USR that prevents scoring.

**Razerous**

McNinja wrote:
felixcat wrote:
Funny you are not mentioning Nurglings. Yes I know that they do not score but they infiltrate, they are troops, they tarpit and they have a 3.5 pt cost per wound which is better than any other troop choice .... They can front your advancing troops, go aftyer havocs or devastators and for 98 points we get seven bases. I think that is pretty good.
Why do they not score? I'm looking at the codex and there's nothing that says they can't score.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

labmouse42 wrote:
Unless I'm mistake, swarms can't score
Nah, swarms can score. There's nothing in the USR that prevents scoring.

Swarm Rule See the 6ed rulebook...

**McNinja**

Razerous wrote:
McNinja wrote:
felixcat wrote:
Funny you are not mentioning Nurglings. Yes I know that they do not score but they infiltrate, they are troops, they tarpit and they have a 3.5 pt cost per wound which is better than any other troop choice .... They can front your advancing troops, go aftyer havocs or devastators and for 98 points we get seven bases. I think that is pretty good.
Why do they not score? I'm looking at the codex and there's nothing that says they can't score.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

labmouse42 wrote:
Unless I'm mistake, swarms can't score
Nah, swarms can score. There's nothing in the USR that prevents scoring.
Swarm Rule See the 6ed rulebook...

The USR on page 43 says nothing about Swarms being able to score or not. The section on what can score, right before the missions, however, does.

**felixcat**

Labmouse2 - I said they can't score. I was just mentioning that they were being ignored on this thread as a viable troop option. They have their uses. And it is not to sit behind an Aegis - where did that piece of net wisdom come from? There are better uses for them. I look at cost efficiency - points per wound, effect on game play, deployment options, etc. No that cannot score but they can prevent another more expensive unit from scoring, shooting, advancing. I think a 98 point unit with 28 wounds is pretty good.

**JGrand**

I don't really see the purpose in sinking points into Nurglings. They can't score, and aren't particularly scary. Now that they aren't eternal warriors, they die very easily.

**felixcat**

They are shrouded, are not slowed by terrain can infiltrate and have poison. What do you want for the cost. They can hold up a unit for a good few turns. They are cheap for what they do. They have poison. They will not always get their points back but they will always be a big nuisance. A friend uses them with the GUO and tries to get warp speed and any other power that buffs them or diminishes their target. Not my taste in tactics but it works for him. Among the troops they are the most durable cost to wound and most survivable cost to damage (bolter/S6+).

I'm just saying that it is too easy to dismiss them. Nurgle as a whole is quite durable. Plague Drones are the second most durable unit to cost in the codex, btw. They don't score either. Does not make them useless though.

I'll put in perspective this way

Nurglings - 3.5 points/wound
Daemonettes - 9 points/wound
Horrors - 9 points/wound
Plaguebearers - 9 points/wound

Now we consider resilience. The number of S4, S7, and S8 shots required to kill a single model are listed. I'm not even considering shrouding on the nurgle troops.

Nurglings - 9 / 1.8 / 1.8
Plaguebearers - 3 / 1.8 / 1.8
Horrors - 2.45 / 1.96 / 1.96
Bloodletters - 2.25 / 1.8 / 1.8
Daemonettes - 2.25 / 1.8 / 1.8

Nurglings look better now don't they. Yes a template or blast will take out double the models. They can be IDed. Still - a 2+ save in cover until they assault is pretty good.

**schadenfreude**

Nurglings will get into cc if you want them to. The big flaw with nurglings is once they get into cc they can die in droves to deamonic instability, especially to s6+. They are useful in some situations, useless in others.

IG & Tau=good. They will tarpit useful units until reinforcements eat them.

Same for pure eldar, not dark. They probably have a beast pack that will tear apart the nurglings in a round or 2.

Nids=light snack.

Necrons=wraiths=kersplat

Deamons=kersplat

Space marines=moderately useful. Powerfists will get rid of them quick, otherwise tarpitted.

CSM spawn or typhus will probably eat them in cc before the hell turkeys arrive.

GK=NFW & deamonhammers=kersplat

Orks=? Depends how they are played and who gets the charge. Even with nurglings getting the charge & wounding orcs on a 4+& orks only being s3 the nob's pclaw is going to deal lots of combat resolution. Only really useful if the orks get sloppy with deployment of lootas & artillery.

I'm not going to call them useless, but they are highly questionable in an all comers list.

**Dundas**

I think the swarms not scoring rule is under the section in the BRB about which units can claim/ deny objectives rather than the USR section.

I think nurglings have their uses, especially as they're pretty cheap. The fact they can infiltrate and get shrouded makes them a major annoyance as shooting with anything but template weapons will take ages to clear them out.

**MarkyMark**

As above, it is in the scoring units section, it says swarms cannot score, think they can still denial though.

**Dundas**

If that's true, then infiltrating nurglings could be more useful, as it really does force people to deal with them rather than ignore them.

**Breng77**

From someone who loved Nuglings in the old book, they are garbage now.

Swarms cannot score or deny.

Loss of eternal warrior is a big deal for tarpit, they used to be able to Jump on MCs and never let go, or even Grey knights now, they die in droves.

Instability kills them also in the tarpit role, you used to be able to consistenly lose combat, now that is unlikely going to work.

As does slow and purposeful, as should they win combat they cannot chase the enemy down, and they are slow.

In a land of heldrakes they get doubled out in shooting, (with each wound counting as 2.)

**labmouse42**

Mannahnin wrote:
No, yiou're misreading it. Gorgon has it right. Go ahead and email the organizers if you doubt it; I'll bet you a beer.

Gorgon and I talked about it in PMs. After re-reading it, you are correct, I misread the packet.
Though if you want to go hang and get a beer at Adepticon, I'm all down! Neil Gilstrap owes me one, and I told RedBeard that I would buy him one.

felixcat wrote:
Labmouse2 - I said they can't score.

Missed that, sorry.

**Dundas**

I actually wonder if the intention with nurglings in the new codex is for them to have Epidemius hang out nearby - not sure if IC can join swarms? The first two buffs he gives of +1st and +1t is arguably a bigger bonus to Nurglings than things like plaguebearers. Once they're up at St4 T4 they're more of a threat, and if they get as far as the poison 2+ buff they become downright nasty.

**Qui-Gon Jinn**

The ultimate problem is their use: they still don't do anything that other units can do better.
Nurglings Infiltrate? Flesh Hounds Scount, Seekers Outflank. Their specialness has ceased to exist on this point.

Multi wound model without EW? Swarm? Useless as Hellhounds/Helldrakes will just toast a squad soon as look at it.

They can't score, so even IF you were to put Epidemius near them, they won't do anything. The ONE and ONLY time that it would be worth a laugh is if you decided to take no greater Daemons, have Epidemius as your warlord, and then roll on Personal traits and get the "warlord is scoring" and stick him and the nurglings in cover and pray the enemy doesn't toast you...assuming you even get the T4 bonus, but you still have not solved the issue that the unit has a major case of identity crisis and can't do jack gak now for all the above stated reason.

I hate that nurglings are now so goddamn useless aside from quad gun manning. I have 49 of the fethers! Now they just take up room on my shelf because they are that fething useless. (feth you Kelly/Cruddace for destroying a fun unit and making it worthless and overpriced)

**felixcat**

Well - I use Nurglings in my list bit they are part of an allied detachment so they do not have to roll for instability. It makes a difference.

I use mine in a Typhus/Zombie list with two Heldrakes. My allied detachment is ...
GUO - 7 Nurglings - 3 Plague Drones w/Icon

They usually fare quite well. But I'm not a conventional player.
My list relies on just outnumbering and confusing my opponent. It has 112 ground troops ( squad of plague marines too) Typhus/GUO at 1750. So agreed they are situational. But they can be effective in the right list.

That said i can see the reluctance of many players with the loss of EW. But they would be a little too strong infiltrating, poison, shrouding and EW methinks.

And you cannot compare them to Seekers and Hounds which are double and triple their cost and less durable. I was asked why I used Plague Drones as well by a guy at the LGS. I played him and showed him why. Sure they are small in number but they are durable as all get out. Only Beasts and Crushers are more so - Labmouse2 knows how Crushers are played. People are dismissing them as well because they are AP3. These are expensive core units.

Some units are not part of the the core of your list. They are designed to distract, hinder and tie up key units giving you that critical extra turn of movement unhindered for the rest of your list. To expect more is unrealistic.

-----

**Dundas**

I guess their uniqueness is infiltrate+ shrouded+ a lot of cheap wounds+ no morale checks from shooting. In cover you pretty much need to assault them, use flamers or waste high strength guns on them that are better shooting at other threats; anything less than S5 is going to take all game shooting to clear them out. However, if you just ignore the nurglings then there’s a danger they’ll move out of cover and tie up/ damage things like basic troops or heavy weapon squads.

Saying they die to Helldrakes isn’t exactly a big mark against them; Helldrakes fry units that are far better than nurglings. Maybe it’s just the local meta but I don’t see hellhounds and their ilk a huge amount either.

felixcat wrote:

Some units are not part of the the core of your list. They are designed to distract, hinder and tie up key units giving you that critical extra turn of movement unhindered for the rest of your list. To expect more is unrealistic.
-----

I think this is the best summary of why to take a squad of Nurglings – although yeah, you’re not going to be basing an army around them now for anything other than comedy value.

**Breng77**

felixcat wrote:
Well - I use Nurglings in my list bit they are part of an allied detachment so they do not have to roll for instability. It makes a difference.

I use mine in a Typhus/Zombie list with two Heldrakes. My allied detachment is ...
GUO - 7 Nurglings - 3 Plague Drones w/Icon

They usually fare quite well. But I'm not a conventional player.
My list relies on just outnumbering and confusing my opponent. It has 112 ground troops ( squad of plague marines too) Typhus/GUO at 1750. So agreed they are situational. But they can be effective in the right list.

That said i can see the reluctance of many players with the loss of EW. But they would be a little too strong infiltrating, poison, shrouding and EW methinks.

And you cannot compare them to Seekers and Hounds which are double and triple their cost and less durable. I was asked why I used Plague Drones as well by a guy at the LGS. I played him and showed him why. Sure they are small in number but they are durable as all get out. Only Beasts and Crushers are more so - Labmouse2 knows how Crushers are played. People are dismissing them as well because they are AP3. These are expensive core units.

Some units are not part of the the core of your list. They are designed to distract, hinder and tie up key units giving you that critical extra turn of movement unhindered for the rest of your list. To expect more is unrealistic.

-----

Why would they not roll for instability as an ally? I know you don't roll for warpstorm but I thought you still rolled instability. I also could be a meta thing, I see lots of templates, (Dreadknights, Heldrakes etc.), they are horrible vs Grey knights, and Slow and purposeful just kills them for me.