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I'm currently running a DoT prince with armour, wings and mace, who clocks in at 265 points.

I *could* make him a psyker and attempt to get iron arm. Trouble is, that means paying *at least* 50 more points for 2 mastery levels (one power *must* be generated from tzeentch discipline). To up my chance at iron arm with a third mastery level, we're talking 340. That is a *lot* of points just for a not-guaranteed chance of iron arm.

Is it too expensive. What do you reckon? What are your experiences with Daemon Princes.

Hundred percent worth it

It is alwasys funn to roll. p. powers!

What about removing the wings in trade for 3 mastery levels. Does the (potential) extra survivability negate the need for speed?

Keep wings, you want to make it hard to hit and hard to wound.

on the csm version, no.

the daemons version, yes.

Daemon Princes only work if you buy everything you can for them.

 CrownAxe wrote:
Daemon Princes only work if you buy everything you can for them.

Sad But True.

DP from the CSM codex are very much dependent on what god they are dedicated to and the other units in your army. The only upgrades that are absolutely required are wings and one of the good artifacts (brand or black mace).

Keep in mind that biomancy is more than iron arm. Endurance is very useful for the FnP and the ability to make units relentless, warp speed can make tarpits disappear much faster and allow a DP to kill some of the units/characters they would otherwise loose to. Enfeeble can make units that would otherwise be hard to kill a breeze. Imagine ID SM's with S6 instead of S8 and same for Tau battle suits. Life leech can get you back a wound keeping that prince in the fight a bit longer. Even Hemorrhage can be good in the right situation. The real killer is that you have to take a slaanesh power, though there is one decent"ish" power even in that table of fail.

CSM have the luxury of just taking Be'Lakor these days. Expensive? Yes. But worth every point.

 ansacs wrote:
The real killer is that you have to take a slaanesh power, though there is one decent"ish" power even in that table of fail.

The tzeentch table is a lot more fail to me. The primaris power averages out to be about a boltgun. I like the slaanesh powers more but the Daemon of Slaanesh rules are annoying. Rending and running are pretty useless on a FMC.

If you're only taking one DP anyways, just go for Be'Lakor. Both CSM and Daemons can take him.

JubbJubbz wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
The real killer is that you have to take a slaanesh power, though there is one decent"ish" power even in that table of fail.

The tzeentch table is a lot more fail to me. The primaris power averages out to be about a boltgun. I like the slaanesh powers more but the Daemon of Slaanesh rules are annoying. Rending and running are pretty useless on a FMC.

I almost always take the Primaris Tzeentch power. It's a lot better than a boltgun. It's much more like a Heavy Boltgun. Of course there are times when three warp charges will only produce 5-6 shots, but I've also had plenty of instances where a single warp charge gets me 9-10 S5 AP4 shots, and against some armies that is amazing. Or Fateweaver letting loose with 20ish shots.

It just occured to me though, that you might be referring to the CSM Primaris power, which I'm not super familiar with. The Daemon Tzeentch Primaris is solid.

The CD tzeentch powers are amazing. The primaris is actually more comparable to a dakka flyrant than any bolt weapon.

The CSM power table are overall sort of meh to bad. Which is a shame because the concepts for the powers are not bad they are just really badly balanced. In fact the psychic powers in general are terribly balanced.

Depends on the list but can princes are better off ml zero with mot, daemon princes will roll tele a majority of the time, but vs tau, rolling once on bio maybe twice isn't a bad idea.

You're better off taking 2 level 3 non-marked sorcerers for 6 rolls on biomancy/telepathy. My CSM list improved greatly once I ditched the huge point sink that is a demon prince.

 Kirasu wrote:
You're better off taking 2 level 3 non-marked sorcerers for 6 rolls on biomancy/telepathy. My CSM list improved greatly once I ditched the huge point sink that is a demon prince.

Nice two wounds and pitiful CC power you got there.

Well, I played a game last night with the 340(!)pt daemon prince with wings, mace, armour, MoT & 3 mastery levels.

My opponent was using a list with 3 units of 3 centurions, each with grav & buffed by something with prescience. (2 librarians & an inquisitor, if I remember rightly)

The prince was a total flop. He made it into combat twice, each time backed up by big units of spawn, failed to kill anything either time and was eventually killed by the force weapon on a 55pt librarian. I think he cause two wounds on a unit of centurions the entire game.

Powers wise, I had iron arm, leech life and whatever the posion flamer is from the tzeentch discipline. Iron arm was great, T8 really helped, and he wouldn't have made it into combat if he didnt have it.

That said, for 340pts, his damage output was pretty pathetic. Im aware that one game isn't enough data to evaluate a unit's worth in your list, but for that cost you don't really want something that might or might not be any good. I would only usually pay that kind of cost for a unit that was guaranteed to be good, y'know?

 somecallmeJack wrote:
The prince was a total flop. He made it into combat twice, each time backed up by big units of spawn, failed to kill anything either time and was eventually killed by the force weapon on a 55pt librarian. I think he cause two wounds on a unit of centurions the entire game.

Did you use Smash to attack the Centurions? Statistically the Prince should work wonders against such a unit.

5 attacks base makes for 3 Smash attacks
+1 for charging
+3 (even below average) for the Black Mace
Say 7 S10 attack at I8 and WS9
Should do about 4.5 hits and almost 4 instantdeath wounds to the Centurions killing three and maybe a joining IC depending on that characters InvSave.

Thats before the toughness check any wounded model has to make afterwards if anything would be left standing.

On Topic:
If a biomancy Prince is worth it depends on the rest of the list of course. On it's own in a CSM list? Not unless you use it very carefully.
In an MTO list with Daemons or Daemons/CSM with a lot of additional fast threats? Sure!

As said however, Be'Lakor is better and in a Daemons list Fateweaver and LoC are better as well IMO.

Cilithan

Biomancy is for facing vehicles heavy lists and Telepathy for facing anything else (especially Tau) - now this is fo C:CD of course.

 Cilithan wrote:

 somecallmeJack wrote:
The prince was a total flop. He made it into combat twice, each time backed up by big units of spawn, failed to kill anything either time and was eventually killed by the force weapon on a 55pt librarian. I think he cause two wounds on a unit of centurions the entire game.

Did you use Smash to attack the Centurions? Statistically the Prince should work wonders against such a unit.

5 attacks base makes for 3 Smash attacks
+1 for charging
+3 (even below average) for the Black Mace
Say 7 S10 attack at I8 and WS9
Should do about 4.5 hits and almost 4 instantdeath wounds to the Centurions killing three and maybe a joining IC depending on that characters InvSave.

Thats before the toughness check any wounded model has to make afterwards if anything would be left standing.

On Topic:
If a biomancy Prince is worth it depends on the rest of the list of course. On it's own in a CSM list? Not unless you use it very carefully.
In an MTO list with Daemons or Daemons/CSM with a lot of additional fast threats? Sure!

As said however, Be'Lakor is better and in a Daemons list Fateweaver and LoC are better as well IMO.

Cilithan

Well, he had +3 S from iron arm anyway, so he was wounding on 2s, & ignoring saves due to being monstrous, but unfortunately my opponent was rolling especially well for his 4+ invul saves.

My list is basically spawn spam, so there are usually plenty of fast threats to an opponents line. The centurions were just putting out so many wounds with re rolls to hit and wound that all 3 units of spawn, biker lord & DP just melted away. Didnt help that my drake & DSing oblits didnt come in til turn 4 & were shortly dealt with by grav volleys. The drake was blasted out of the sky in one unit's round of shooting... I have a feeling it could do better against lists that didnt have 9 centurions, but for the price I paid for that prince I could have 3 units of 5 spawn and 3 units of 2 oblits...

How is a DP with Iron Arm (grants Eternal Warrior) dying to a Force Weapon?

I haven't used the CSM codex at all, but the Chaos Daemon DPs are amazing. I had a recent game at a tournament where an Iron-Armed Nurgle DP with a Balesword killed three Canoptek Spiders, then held up a 15 base scarab swarm, destroyer lord and praetorian squad up for 2 full turns. Would have been longer but I lost a combat by one (thanks Mindshackle Scarabs) and rolled a 12 for Daemonic Instability.

 undertow wrote:
How is a DP with Iron Arm (grants Eternal Warrior) dying to a Force Weapon?

I haven't used the CSM codex at all, but the Chaos Daemon DPs are amazing. I had a recent game at a tournament where an Iron-Armed Nurgle DP with a Balesword killed three Canoptek Spiders, then held up a 15 base scarab swarm, destroyer lord and praetorian squad up for 2 full turns. Would have been longer but I lost a combat by one (thanks Mindshackle Scarabs) and rolled a 12 for Daemonic Instability.

Oh it wasnt the instant death effect that killed me, he just rolled super well to wound me and I failed all my invul saves like a lemon. His warlord trait was the inquisitor one that reduces daemons invul saves by 1. Just really bad rolling on my part.

 undertow wrote:

JubbJubbz wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
The real killer is that you have to take a slaanesh power, though there is one decent"ish" power even in that table of fail.

The tzeentch table is a lot more fail to me. The primaris power averages out to be about a boltgun. I like the slaanesh powers more but the Daemon of Slaanesh rules are annoying. Rending and running are pretty useless on a FMC.

I almost always take the Primaris Tzeentch power. It's a lot better than a boltgun. It's much more like a Heavy Boltgun. Of course there are times when three warp charges will only produce 5-6 shots, but I've also had plenty of instances where a single warp charge gets me 9-10 S5 AP4 shots, and against some armies that is amazing. Or Fateweaver letting loose with 20ish shots.

It just occured to me though, that you might be referring to the CSM Primaris power, which I'm not super familiar with. The Daemon Tzeentch Primaris is solid.

Oh indeed I was talking about the CSM power. The CD one looks pretty good, I agree. The CSM one on the other hand is a small blast (one shot), variable strength, no ap, and a lame special effect. I ran the probabilities of it killing a marine and its really just abysmal. In fact, if you don't take a spell familiar (you should) it has pretty close to the same chance to hurt the caster through perils as it does to kill a marine. Your other Tz options being a roll on the boon table that probably won't help you any, or the template attack that is very much not worth 2 warp charge. Doombolt is usable but 1 in 3 of getting a usable power is pretty bad.

 somecallmeJack wrote:
Well, I played a game last night with the 340(!)pt daemon prince with wings, mace, armour, MoT & 3 mastery levels.

My opponent was using a list with 3 units of 3 centurions, each with grav & buffed by something with prescience. (2 librarians & an inquisitor, if I remember rightly)

The prince was a total flop. He made it into combat twice, each time backed up by big units of spawn, failed to kill anything either time and was eventually killed by the force weapon on a 55pt librarian. I think he cause two wounds on a unit of centurions the entire game.

Powers wise, I had iron arm, leech life and whatever the posion flamer is from the tzeentch discipline. Iron arm was great, T8 really helped, and he wouldn't have made it into combat if he didnt have it.

That said, for 340pts, his damage output was pretty pathetic. Im aware that one game isn't enough data to evaluate a unit's worth in your list, but for that cost you don't really want something that might or might not be any good. I would only usually pay that kind of cost for a unit that was guaranteed to be good, y'know?

That right there, is why the DP folded like a piece of wet tissue paper. Grav weapons are tailor-made to butcher 2+ and 3+, especially when tagged to an MC. Your high toughness means squat to them.

They were just good against everything. Smashed my drake out of the sky, the spawn (who have no save) didnt present any real problem to them either.

But the DP actually died in combat. He only lost one wound to grav while he was in the sky. I was more disappointed with his damage output than his survivability, although on the survivability front I did have my heart in my mouth for him most of the game, lol.

What do you reckon to Belakor?

Considering grav weapons wound vs armor, how exactly did they gun down spawn when wounding on a 6+?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And how did he wiff so hard in CC? He should go right through Centurions without breaking a sweat. Were the rolls just poor?

Yeah. Out of 5 attacks I was only getting a couple of actual wounds and my opponent was saving them with his 4++

As for the spawn thing, each squad of 3 centurions was doing 15 grav shots, + chest missiles. with re-rolls to hit and wound from prescience.

his 3 cent squads were deployed in a line across the middle of the board, and the rest of army was sitting waaay at the back of the board in transports, so before they could get to one of the centurion squads, the spawn were taking volleys of 45 grav shots with re-rolls to hit & wound, plus wounds from chest missiles. plus the fire his missiledev squad camped in a ruin was putting out. It was a lot to wade through.

Well, prescience doesn't give a re-roll to wound. The 4++ must've been coming from Forewarning, I'm guessing? Which only two of the units could have had, unless you're talking about a 3++ from a Dark Angel PFG - which meant no centurions. Also, vanilla marines don't have access to divination - thus no forewarning. So only the Inquisitors could've gotten it, which also means no prescience, and they only had a 1/6 chance of picking it up.

Something isn't quite making sense here.

Oh right. I questioned re-roll to hit *and* wound & he said it gave him both. & that centurions have a 2+/4++

Have I been deceived? (shame on me as a servant of the ruinous powers, lol)

He was running vanilla primary with DA allies & Inqisition.