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I started daemons as my second 40k army. Got me thinking that now I also technically have a fantasy daemons army. What are the best units for daemons and are daemons a competitive fantasy army? I don't have thr fantasy codex or rulebook but I'm looking to broaden my horizons

Daemons is sadly a badly written army book with a ridiculously random Winds of Crap table

Some units are bad (Bloodletters for instance) while some are too good (Plaguebearers, Beasts of Nurgle, Skullcannon)

It's not a bad army but the internal balance is really bad, they have some serious weaknesses (no dispell scroll, all eggs in same basket with big lvl4 General) and some seriously good strengths (5+ ward overall, unbreakable/unstable)

To be honest, I personnally really don't like them but that's because they don't look like a Warhammer army at all, it's just bits and pieces thrown together that don't seem to even want to fit together

So it's a playable army, but it's clearly not the best 8th armybook out there (maybe the worst) - note that I'm not speaking about overall balance here, just book writing in general

There are plenty of neat tricks and combinations though.
What units do you have?
What kind of play style do you have?

I have Fateweaver, 3 daemon princes, a keeper of secrets, 20 plague bearers, 20 daemonettes, 10 seekersof slaanesh

With what you listed you will have about 450pts in core (plague bearers and daemonettes). 200pts in special and more than enough lords.
So that will put you around 1000pts.

Fateweaver, the daemon princes and the keeper of secrets all come out of the lord section so you'll most likely only ever use 1 until you start playing higher points.

What is important for you?
Looks, theme, Fluff, gaming strength?
Number of models?
Financial cost?.

Deff the top category. Another problem is they're all glued in the circle bases. I have the square bases though. Is there a way around this?

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Deff the top category. Another problem is they're all glued in the circle bases. I have the square bases though. Is there a way around this?

The GW modular movement trays have the outlines of the square base dimentions on them. Works fine for ranking things up as you can still see the proper corners for lining things up.


As for what works?
Nurgle and Slaanesh are good, with Nurgle being much easier to use, while Slaanesh is generally seen as being like a surgen's scalpel.

Tzeentch can be useful for providing min-sized Horror units and the Lord of Change w/Wand of Whimsy filth.
Screamers are okay, but anything they can do, Beasts of Nurgle for example do much better. The Burning Chariot is pretty solid for it's cost, though it is rather fragile and can be prone to exploding horribly should you misfire with it.
Flamers however are 100% useless.

Khorne is pretty bad outside of Skull Cannons & ambushing Hounds.
Bloodletters are complete trash... If you're not taking 40+ of them, then don't bother as Daemonettes or Plaguebearers will actually do something! You also really need a Frenzy Locus Herald with them, which also increases the cost of an already badly over-costed unit.
Bloodcrushers are again pretty abysmal... Whatever they can do, Beasts do way better.

Daemon Princes should only ever be taken if you make them Nurgle, otherwise they're the single worst monster in the game. (once you see what the WoC Prince can get/do on the table, you'll cry over how laughably bad ours is!)

Soul Grinders are decent, but don't get sucked into thinking he belongs in combat without support. Daemonbone Claw is pretty much an auto-take upgrade, though in a Tzeentch or Epidemius list, either the fire thrower or stone thrower upgrades are worthwhile.

The Realm of Comedy table as it's been dubbed will infuriate you to no end!

The round bases are the same width as the square and like experiment said the movement trays square things up.

Strength I'm not the best at. If I come up with a strong list it's purely by chance as the majority of time I just come up with a theme for the game and write a list accordingly.

For looks, mono god lists look best IMO.

I haven't had or seen much bad luck with the daemon table so it bothers me very little.

Out of interest, why are flamers useless?

Niteware wrote:
Out of interest, why are flamers useless?

One of the big differences in Fantasy shooting is that you have 'To-Hit Modifiers' instead of things like AP/set cover saves. So for example, while a BS4 model still normally hits on a 3+, if his target is over half the range of his weapon's range he suffers a -1 to-hit. (3+ thus becomes a 4+ to-hit).
You also get to-hit penalties for things like moving before you shoot, and/or firing a multi-shot weapon, and/or aiming at a target in cover, etc...

Flamers are bad because;
a) they can't shoot worth a damn anymore.
A short-ranged weapon that now suffers from the 'multiple shots' rule means they typically need 6's to-hit anything. Add to this the random number of shots (D6 per Flamer), lack of 'Quick to Fire' rule (meaning you won't always be able to 'Stand and Shoot' as a charge reaction), and the horrible Warpflame rule. A full unit of 6 struggles to remove 5 T3 'chaff' units within a single shooting phase.

b) they can't fight in combat.
While they may have S4/T4 and 2 wounds apiece, their WS2 and unit cap of only 6 models kills any chance of them being useful beyond charging those throw-away chaff units like Chaos Hounds. Most things, even other chaff will likely hold them up while anything semi-decent will likely send them packing with added Daemonic Instability wounds.

And you get all of this lackluster ability for the same cost as a Space Marine Terminator!

It's really the warpflame rule that is the downer for flamers.
If they weren't granting regeneration they can be used to good effect.
Even though they don't getr all the same rules like infiltrate they generally do the same as pistoliers, or gutter runners or other skirmishing units.
Once you push them behind the opponent you can do quite a bit...
but for that damn regeneration.

Peasant wrote:
It's really the warpflame rule that is the downer for flamers.
If they weren't granting regeneration they can be used to good effect.
Even though they don't getr all the same rules like infiltrate they generally do the same as pistoliers, or gutter runners or other skirmishing units.
Once you push them behind the opponent you can do quite a bit...
but for that damn regeneration.

Warpflame is bad, but even without it Flamers are garbage. 40pts a pop for the most dyslexic unit in the game makes them laughable.

Anything Flamers can do, another unit does much better while costing far less to boot:
- Furies do the skirmish screen & redirecting for a bare pittance of the cost of Flamers. (and that's with Mark included!)

- Burning Chariots, Soul Grinders, Prince/Kipper with Lash, Skill Cannon all shoot better than Flamers.
Meanwhile, Horrors pay the 'Core Tax' and can use Gateway to kill things like heavy cav or smaller elite units that Flamers would otherwise bounce off of.

- Seekers & Screamers are faster & better at chaffing things up, as well actually being able to hit things in combat instead of whiffling horribly due to crap WS.
Screamers also have the added bonus of being able to kill enemy chaff with their slashing attacks while aiming for the enemy's war machines.

- Beasts are the end-all be-all when it comes to multi-tasking.


Even if Flamers had their cost cut in half few people would use them - they're really just that bad!

Played against them the other day, my opponent claimed they hit on 3s, hence my confusion.

Well, BS 4 usually does hit on 3's, as pointed out. However, multi-shot already brings a long a -1 to hit modifier, turning that into a 4+, and that's at short range and without having moved, over a clear field of fire and with no spell effects in place.

Niteware wrote:
Played against them the other day, my opponent claimed they hit on 3s, hence my confusion.

The only way they can ever hit on 3's in Fantasy is if;
- Their target is within 9" of them (otherwise -1 to-hit for over half range)
- They didn't move in the movement phase (otherwise -1 to-hit for moving)
- A nearby Tzeentch Wizard cast the spell Enchanted Blades of Abian on them (+1 to-hit removes the unavoidable -1 to-hit for multi-shot weapon)