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Fateweaver, Belakor, Tzeentch Prince with Grimoire should, IMO, be the backbone of your list.

I think the Portalglyph is damn good. Definitely take a Bastion or Skyshield. FMC lists are scalpels, not hammers. You should spend most of your time in the air, assault should be a last resort.

I think 2 minimum Daemon troops and the 10 Cultists are good enough to get by but you'll want the Portal.

Slaanesh Princes are good due to Lash but i'm also not totally convinced by the KoS. I'd probably run something similar to JGrand, the extra psychic rolls are always nice to have and Screamers are fast enough to keep up with the FMCs (they also harass troops extremely well).

LOC is ok but I prefer having a guaranteed 3+ save and I think Telepathy and Bio are more versatile than Divination for a FMC. Shriek is an amazing tool and the benefits of Endurance/Iron Arm are obvious.

Hey bud!

Warning Wall of Text

A lot of solid advice in this thread. When it comes to Daemons a lot of things are needed to be taken in consideration. Its actually a fairly complicated army, as you are playing the game in all three phases, not just 1 or 2. Your units have weight behind them, and if not used properly you will lose games really fast haha. Then you have those random times where your Daemons hate you and want to explode their own heads off, that being said they are one of the most fun armies I have ever played!

I have played and tested many different Daemon builds and I have found Tzeentch Princes to be the best bang for their buck. They survive the longest against a variety of threat, can deal damage in the form of flickering fire, are still able to access great cover saves via Telepathy (Which you should be rolling on 99% of the time). I would choose them over a LoC for the simple reason that they are guaranteed an armor save. If you do feel the inclenation to run a LoC please run it with the 2x Greater, and points to spare the lesser for the staff.

Now the argument most people have for taking the Sleneesh Princes is Lash. It is nice that it is guaranteed, but the limited range of 12" comes into play more then you think. Also, people tend to want it for enemy fliers etc. I ask why? As stated before you are going to be playing in all three phases of the game. Knowing when to fly off the board, when to deploy, when to reserve your princes, the angle of vector strikes and future movement, how to land behind fliers or in spots where they will not be able to shoot you are all things that you will eventually take into consideration. Also, rules knowledge is a big thing. Flyers and FMC's must declare if they are using the skyfire ability at the beginning of their shooting phase. That means if they ground a prince, and you still have the re-roll, should you use it? Also, Flyers that enter hover mode lose the ability to skyfire (again your movement with FMC's is key to get in blind spots.) Essentially, with a limited number of models that is the FMC list you want to maximize your turn output. Focus on the right units (Typically opponents troops) and ignore the ones that have no true threat to you. This will also help with limited troops that you are bringing to the board.

Now another thing that I feel very strongly on is do not take 10 horrors. Take 10 Plagues, 10 or a larger squad of Daemonettes, or either 11 or 16 Horrors...not 10 haha. If you spawn 1 horror out of the portal-glyph it shoots just as much as 10 horrors. The functionality of the unit remains the same essentially with 1 through 10. Now, 10 plagues or 10 Daemonettes they have a mission! Either fast running to obj via deepstrike, or cover saves like a boss. You even have the ability to threaten wraithknights with both units.

Also a side note with horrors, taking the Iridescent is most of the time a great idea. Deepstriking horrors is a great way to play them. The Iridescent helps mitigate possible deep-strike scatter. As if you scatter the average 7 inches in any given direction, you can place the Iridescent on the side of the circle you form that was closest to target. The shots that count typically from coming from the unit in general, now count as coming from 1 model. This comes especially in handy when you are trying to shoot rear armor on tanks. (Hello Waveserpents.)

Hopefully I have given some insight as to why some of the units are chosen, and a bit of useful advice lol.

One thing about FMC is that with Be'Lakor you really don't need to waste points on armor saves for your DPs (because guaranteed invisibility). However, without having access to him you will probably have to throw points for them on all your DPs.

As stated above Flying Circus isn't really about landing and attacking your enemy unless you can clearly table him by doing so. It's very tempting to land your DP and wipe a unit but your opponent would probably gladly lose that unit to kill your DP.
Without Be'Lakor it's a lot trickier because you are more reliant on rolling good powers. Be'Lakor is your Telepathy utility so it allows you to roll on Biomancy for everybody else. Without him you're probably better off rolling on Telepathy.

It's pretty foolish they are not allowing you to use him because him and Cypher should definitely not be lumped together with dataslate formations. Be'Lakor is really good but he is also by far the most expensive character in the game. Almost every dex can't even get a character as expensive as him if they tried to dump all the points they possibly could into an IC.

I mean that's pretty much true of most Daemon HQ choices. My standard build for a Tzeentch Prince is 5 pts more than him even.

But yeah it does suck not to have Be'Lakor. Kinda takes a little hope out of Daemons being able to compete with Taudar.

Wow guys, this is alot of feedback and every single bit of it is really informative. I am pulled towards a Daemon army because of its elegance and difficulty to master. I feel like if I can learn to play this army the right way that it will greatly improve my overal game.

Now I play mostly Eldar with some Tau allies. Almost every game is the same. Meaning that I unload my serpents on my opponent and try to stay away from my opponent where possible. This gets repititve. But with a Daemon army you're constantly looking at the battlefield from every single angle and trying to find that one spot that will be most advantageous for you.


As far as using Be'lakor goes, I still have hope that the big guy will be allowed at the tournament. The rules aren't yet posted for the tournament but last year they didn't allowed dataslates. So there is still a chance.

I think I have enough information to start an iterative testing process in which I will try out, the following types of lists:

Full FMC's

FMC's backed up by doys

FMC's backed up by screamers

Every list should be tested as both pure Daemons and with allies Chaos.

I can savely purchace the following units as they will be featered in every list to some degree:

Fateweaver

30 Pink Horrors
20 Daemonettes
10 Plagebearers

I already have the following units:

DP of Random Armor Wings
20 Catachans to be used as cultists
Helldrake
Bastion


So I already have the allied part. Purchasing the actual Be'lakor isn't really needed unit I now for sure if I can field him. So running my current DP as him would just be fine.

 Barnie25 wrote:
I am looking to build a competitive FMC army for a GT that will be held this fall, as I need to learn to play the army and paint it up I want to slowly get started.

I am having a hard time to find the right build. First off there is the question whether to include Chaos allies. Second off Be'lakor is pretty rad and I would like to field him but if been told that the GT I want to attend doesn't allow dataslates, escalation or stronghold assault, so he's out as well.


The builds I'm contemplating are the following:

Pure Daemons

Fatey

LoC ML3 Exalted Reward Greater Reward


10 Pink Horrors
10 Pink Horrors

DP of Tzeentch Wings, Armor ML3 Exalted Reward Greater Reward
DP of Tzeentch Wings , Armor ML3 2x Greater Reward Lesser Reward
DP of Tzeentch Wings , Armor ML3 2x Greater Reward Lesser Reward

1850 points

or Allied

Fatey

LoC ML3 Exalted Reward Greater Reward

10 Pink Horrors
10 Pink Horrors
10 Pink Horrors

DP of Tzeentch Wings, Armor ML3 Exalted Reward Greater Reward


CSM Allies

DP of Tzeentch Wings, Armor ML3 Black Mace

11 Cultists

Helldrake

Bastion

1849 points



The first list is much more in your face where as the second list has more defensive capabilities. Could anyone help me out and give me some direction?

I would dump the LoC for a GUO so the dp can be nurgle with baleswords.

For gifts I would go exalted + lesser instead of 2 greater. The extra exalted are fishing for riftbringer in order to bring in more troops.

I don't see the value of the bastion, but a comms relay would be nice to delay your own troops.

I would grab a 2nd unit of 10 cultists and reserve them both. I would also stick with deep striking deamonettes for troops for the mobility in avoiding danger, but I can also see the merits of diversifying with some tzeentch troops especially if you have an aegis + comms relay for horrors to man.

there are lots of ways to make flying circus work and no 1 right answer.

I imagine that the bastion is to provide LOS blocking terrain for the book holder. Depending on your meta you might be able to get away without it e.g. if you already have a decent amount of LOS blocking terrain.

wtnind wrote:
I imagine that the bastion is to provide LOS blocking terrain for the book holder. Depending on your meta you might be able to get away without it e.g. if you already have a decent amount of LOS blocking terrain.

This. If you know from experience that the tournament will be light on LoS blocking terrain, making room for the Bastion is a good idea.

it is always good to build your lists as TAC, for that reason i'd ALWAYS include a Bastion or Skyshield (Bastion is probably best for pure FMC).