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I would really like to run a Daemon Prince in my CSM lists, but in every match I've taken a Prince, he's been nothing but a waste of points.

I've been running him as a Khornate Prince with Wings, Axe of Blind Fury and Power Armor, which caps him out at a bulky 255 points. In each match, however, he just gets focus fired and dropped by turn 3 at the latest, often without killing a single model. This happens no matter how I try to play him; if I zoom him forward, he gets whittled down by snapshots and the occasional Flakk missile. If I try to keep him in cover and move him up with my footsloggers, it's the same story, and if my opponent gets the first turn he might not even make it that far. If I Deep Strike him, he gets blown away before he can assault on the next turn.

I suppose I could try making him a Psyker, but that still runs the points up fast, and it seems like wings and armor are practically required to keep him alive even as long as I've been keeping him. So is there any way to make this guy worth his points? 255 seems way too pricey for a fancy bullet magnet.

Firstly I'd swap the AoBF with the BM, as an MC he is AP2 anyway and the drop from WS9 to WS8 is actually one of the biggest drops on the WS table.

Other than that keep him out of LOS as much as you can, or add other priorities for your enemy to deal with instead of him. If he's flying upfield by himself then the fundamental problem is with your list, not with the DP himself. What is the rest of your army doing while the DP is busy getting wrecked?

I generally run a pair of either Plague Marine squads or CSM with marks/icons of Slaanesh as my troops. I try to keep him with them as they move up, swooping from cover to cover to avoid LOS and get the advantages of flying, as well as to provide a big, scary target for my opponent to worry about other than my scoring units. I used this tactic in my most recent match, but since my opponent (playing Eldar) got the first turn, he was able to knock two wounds off him before he could even swoop, and then Deep Struck some Warp Spiders in LOS of him after I swooped him behind a hill. I managed to survive with one wound left and vector strike the spiders, but he got picked off next turn before he could switch to gliding and assault.

I'll definitely take your advice about swapping the AoBF for the BM. As for having something else to keep him company as he moves up, the only things coming to mind are either a second Prince or some Raptors/Warp Talons. Ideally I'd have transports for my troops, but sadly that's not an option right now.

Toughness above 5 makes the difference. biomancy makes the difference. Black mace is the best choice. Or spineshiver if you go BL. DS is bad choice for a DP. Best way is swoop first turn. Get into cover or hide the DP completely. I personally dislike the khorne builds, as I find psychic powers a MUST have.

Never, ever, ever go Khorne. A juggerlord is better for you if you want blood for the blood god. Rather, go with a winged Psyker prince. Biomancy is a must have for you, Iron Arm in particular is of critical importance, wings are also a need to buy, and the black mace is by far the best weapon for your prince.

the only real way to protect him is target saturation. You have to put your opponent in the position where if he shoots the prince, something equally nasty will hit his lines instead.

Be'Lakor?..
Anywayz, daemon princes are nice psykers. Khorne daemon princes are no good, unfortunately.

I'll try a Psyker Prince in my next match. Is it worth it to bump him up to Mastery 3, or should I stick to 2 for Biomancy and a Chaos discipline?

I believe CSM psykers always have to take at least 1 power from their deity of choice.I would recommend a lvl 3 tzeentch dp, rolling 2 powers on biomancy, and taking the black mace. This is the best a CSM DP could do.

Maphysto wrote:
I'll try a Psyker Prince in my next match. Is it worth it to bump him up to Mastery 3, or should I stick to 2 for Biomancy and a Chaos discipline?

ML 3 is always worth it.

Sad as it is Khorne princes are just useless, they do the same job as a bloodthirster but are much worse at it and cost a similar amount.

Nurgle or tzeentch princes are the way to go as each actually adds to their survivability even before you add psychic powers.
Tzeentch princes with power armour are very resilient to small arms fire whilst Nurgle princes that are careful and stay in cover can mitigate most high power weapons.

What about a Tzentch Daemon Prince with Armor and Wings, but nothing else?

 kronk wrote:
What about a Tzentch Daemon Prince with Armor and Wings, but nothing else?

Cheapish and sort of tough, but lacking in versatility and killing ability.

Could be used as a vehicle popper though thanks to smash.

Make him a psyker and roll twice on Biomancy. It nearly always helps.

Unfortunately DPs from the daemon codex outclass a CSM DP in pretty much every way.

Ally in Fateweaver, and get a Tzeentch DP with LVL3, greater rewards, a lesser reward (to get the staff that makes him S8), and you get an extra roll on biomancy. Plus you can (and should) take the primaris Tzeentch power Flickering Fire which is actually good, and you have an amazing gunboat.

The Black Mace is really the only thing the CSM DP has but I usually find that landing a DP to assault usually ends in it getting shot up next turn.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Make him a psyker and roll twice on Biomancy. It nearly always helps.

I'd have to take 3 ML to do that, though. I'd like to keep him cheap.

With Daemons Daemon Princes of Tzeentch, I wouldn't always take Flickering Fire. You roll randomly first, and if you're fighting for example an all Terminator Deathwing army, you'd more likely want the AP2 Beam or AP1 blast. So roll randomly and keep the power if bad for the enemy, or take Flickering fire if it's something more hordey or with AV10 fliers.

But the overall consensus is true, CSM Princes just aren't all that great.....unless there are several Daemons psykers granting Endurance, Forewarning, and Invisibility all at the same time! In that case, a Tzeentch Prince with 2 CSM powers could be very very good. The Beam and Breath from that book are super nice powers on a Swooper. Very slim odds of having all that together however, and still all the eggs in one flimsy basket.

Personally, I'd just run him as Bel'Akor in pretty much any game. True, he is expensive as hell, but he is actually worth the points, what with eternal warrior and Shadow form increasing his survivability so dramatically, as well as having all the Telepathy powers. What's more, if you ARE making a CSM DP with ML3 and the Black Mace, you are propably going to end up with similar cost.... just go Bel'Akor.

Alternatively, for a cheaper option, I think you kinda need to go Black Legion for that Eternal Warrior artifact, which turns him from a really high risk beat-stick that cannot risk attacking MCs to an all around powerhouse. Either or.

 kronk wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Make him a psyker and roll twice on Biomancy. It nearly always helps.

I'd have to take 3 ML to do that, though. I'd like to keep him cheap.

As much as I'd love to not have to take a Chaos God power, cheap and Daemon Prince are two words that do not go together. Unless they are with the term 'are not'.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Make him a psyker and roll twice on Biomancy. It nearly always helps.

I'd have to take 3 ML to do that, though. I'd like to keep him cheap.

As much as I'd love to not have to take a Chaos God power, cheap and Daemon Prince are two words that do not go together. Unless they are with the term 'are not'.

Yeah, I second this. The best 'cheap' flying daemon, with wings, armour and at least ML1 for a shooting power is in the 250 points region.

For the price you might as well just take a LoC as an ally instead, he would give you far more value for your points.

As a previous poster said, the codex daemons are most of the time better than the CSM counter parts (although CSM ones are fearless, and do not check for instability if I remember right). This is important if your DP loses in cc.....But how often does that happen?

Daemons DPs get either lash, ID balesword, or flickering fire. They also do not have to take a power from their god's psychic powers and have access to the grimoire and portal glyph.

From my experience running one daemon prince (or MC in general) is a bad idea. Running two can be a great idea.

When you only bring one it gets focused too quickly.

 ThatEdGuy wrote:
From my experience running one daemon prince (or MC in general) is a bad idea. Running two can be a great idea.

When you only bring one it gets focused too quickly.

That's why I always bring one along with a Lord of Change and 2 Heldrakes. Most people seem to split the fire between the four of them and nearly always fail to do anything against them.

Yeah, what I'm taking away from this is that CSM DP's just aren't worth their points. I'll still give the Tzeentch Psyker Prince a try in friendly games, but I don't see him performing that much better. That's also an HQ slot I could be using for something much cheaper and more effective.

Really to be honest the only reason CSM DP would even be worth it is if you saturate your army with fast moving creatures, fliers, and/or you ally in chaos daemons for a LoC and another DP. If not, a single FMC is just too much of a KILL IT KILL IT option that people love to shoot down from the skies and slaughter. If you go casual, you will want it to be a winged mace ml3 of Tzeentch (maybe nurgle). Other decent choices are the flamer that anybody can take but almost implies it is Tzeentchian in origin. It's pretty much the baledrakes flamer in hands. Power Armor can also help it survive a bit more against small arms fire.

But yeah, it's rewally not all that worth it.

1. Take more target saturation

2. Use allies and take a "real" daemon prince. (It's a free HQ, just requires 1 trp frm the ally unit)

Maphysto wrote:
I would really like to run a Daemon Prince in my CSM lists, but in every match I've taken a Prince, he's been nothing but a waste of points.

I've been running him as a Khornate Prince with Wings, Axe of Blind Fury and Power Armor, which caps him out at a bulky 255 points. In each match, however, he just gets focus fired and dropped by turn 3 at the latest, often without killing a single model. This happens no matter how I try to play him; if I zoom him forward, he gets whittled down by snapshots and the occasional Flakk missile. If I try to keep him in cover and move him up with my footsloggers, it's the same story, and if my opponent gets the first turn he might not even make it that far. If I Deep Strike him, he gets blown away before he can assault on the next turn.

I suppose I could try making him a Psyker, but that still runs the points up fast, and it seems like wings and armor are practically required to keep him alive even as long as I've been keeping him. So is there any way to make this guy worth his points? 255 seems way too pricey for a fancy bullet magnet.

How can you use DPs effectively? Take at least 2. Its just that simple, you need multiple. The same goes for rhinos, people will attest they're terrible and they just die, but if you take 5 squads of CSM and put each one in a rhino then they start to do work.

CSM IN A NUTSHELL: REDUNDANCY REDUNDANCY REDUNDANCY

so many units in the dex are aggressive, you need to take multiple of something if you want to make up for one or two of them dying because of their aggressive playstyle

tzeentch with the black mace

I play CSM without daemon allies all the time, and often use DPs. Sure, it took a couple of test matches to learn how to play the DP but after that I rarely lose them. Just picked up the Be'lakor model, played Be'lakor and a Black Legion DP with psyker 3 (tzeentch, 2x biomancy), EW skull and the Spineshiver Blade against Imperial Guard @1500pts last night. Those two were easily the MVPs of my army.
The DP kept Iron Arm going and finished the 7 turn match with only 1 wound taken. Sure he was pricy, but he accounted for two tanks, a 50-man stubborn guard squad and a melta vet unit. With Be'lakor to buff him with invisibility he had no trouble vs the 3 sources of AA the guard player brought.

My secret was having four other aggressive units moving up with him; Be'lakor and 3 maulerfiends, with DSing combi-melta terminators coming in hot on their tails. The guard player got distracted, split his fire, and the DP survived to do his thing.

It sounds like you're letting your DP move up alone, 'cause foot slogging marines definitely can't keep up. Have you tried putting your plague marines / Slaanesh marked marines in Rhinos? Keeps them a little safer and lets them move 12" first turn, getting the fancy guns in the squad within range. If you put some of the objectives midfield then it'll be an even easier decision for you to make.
You admit you use the Prince as a scary distraction to help your troops survive; it seems to be working as intended, so where is the problem? If you don't want your ONLY distraction to die, you need to have more distractions. Saturation is key, simple as that.

I Use my Daemon princes in pairs when i use them two DP's with Daemon of Nurgle get shrouded this is huge! as long as you hide 25% behind a 4+ cover ruin you actually get 2+ which makes him super tough to kill. One with Black mace and one with burning brand with powers if you have points.

I run a Tzeentch prince with wings, armor, black mace, spell familiar, gift of mutation and ML3, and he's always a superstar. The reroll of one's on saving throws is huge. I roll my Tzeentch power and see what I get and use the other two chances on biomancy. If I get iron arm on my first roll, I roll on telepathy for my last roll. You still have to know how to play without Iron arm and use the other powers effectively. Spell familiar is huge as it almost assures that you get your powers off every time. Gift of mutation may give you a 2+ reroll able armor save or quite a few other awesome gift before the game starts.
Last game I added Be'Lakor and his performance went crazy. Be'Lakor cast invisibility on my Tzeentch prince and they moved up together while my rhinos charged forward with loads of insane CSM. Turn two my two Heldrakes came in, and it was just too much for my opponent to deal with.
Allying daemons in works, but I find that daemons work best as a primary with Be'Lakor or a Tzeentch prince, a unit of cultists, and a Heldrake as my allied contingent. If I'm one hundred percent set on daemons as allies a Lord of Change is a better allied HQ than Fateweaver. Fatey is one hundred percent a support character and should never be in combat. His role is to mitigate the warpstorm table and daemon randomness with his reroll as well as provide some psyker support. If you're taking them as allies to you don't have to worry about the warpstorm table and probably want a beat stick. THAT is where the LOC comes in to play.