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Obviously Grey Knights have some advantages when facing Daemons as compared to other armies; I don't believe it's an auto-win situation for them by any means but some Daemon lists are probably more effective than others in mitigating the GK advantages. As the title says, is an FMC list a viable option against GK or are other builds a better choice?

I've tried the FMC option once before against GK; it did result in a loss although I probably made some poor tactical choices. I think one of my biggest problems was bad positioning; I would often get grounded too close to Draigo and friends who inevitably charged me in their next turn. It probably didn't help that we were playing Purge the Alien and I didn't have much in the way of longer ranged shootng attacks.

Anyway, if anyone has advice regarding running flying circus lists against GK, or even tactics for Daemons vs GK in general I'd be grateful.

FMC have nothing working for them against grey knights. Its a list of expensive flying multi wound assault pykers. GK are all psykers so DtW you powers or Aegis you at -4 ld for the test. You are more then cappable of shooting you down with Stormravens. And you don't want to get into combat because they have force weapons and will instant death your expensive FMCs

Hmm yes I recall that reinforced aegis being a pain as well although it wasn't so bad for the tzeentch units qiththeir leadership modifier. Stormraven was annoying as well especially with the mindstrike missiles. The nemesis force weapons are a major problem and makes the FMC much less threatening in assault unless they get EW from Iron Arm. Even then it can't help against that rule where you have to take a leadership test with a chance of being removed from play (I've forgotten its name).

You've reminded me of a few things there and overall it seems that FMC spam is a poor choice against GK. Any recommendations for Daemon units that are more effective against GK?

BURY THEM IN DAEMONETTES!

This is honestly your best rout. Daemonettes are super cheap, and fast as hell. Pile in enough and you'll reliably take out a Paladin death-star. Take a couple heralds with the +5 I locus for some trolling of halberd units. Seekers of Slaanesh are always great too, plus they are only 3 points more then a Daemonette.

I've never used them, as they are expensive ugly models, but I hear good things about Fiends of Slaanesh.

Take one Slaaneshi prince with the lash to take out any pesky storm ravens you might see, but for the love of dark gods, keep him away from any force weapons.

All-in-all, Slaaneshi units are probably your best bet against GK lists.

Daemonettes for sure are the way to go.

Soul grinders arent too bad either since phlegm poops on MEQ and they arent really affected that much by force weapons. Hide them in cover and you can survive riflemans well.

2++ fateweaver is still mostly invulnerable. He can prescience people or shoot lazers and aegis doesnt hurt him that badly.

Princes can still be good with iron arm. If they dont get it just vector strike and cast what you can. Take tzeentch princes.

Grey knights are annoying to fight as daemons fo sure.

Belakorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Thanks for the tips; I'm definitely seeing the appeal of Slaanesh units in a number of situations. I still need to get hold of some seekers and maybe some fiends too.

I'm guessing the more the better in term of Daemonettes? I have tried a squad of 20 plus a herald against Draigo and friends before. There were a lot of dice thrown but they were able to tank most of the rending wounds using that stave of warding or whatever it's called. I then lost combat and took even more wounds from Daemonic Instability; they only lasted another turn I think before being wiped out.

Soul Grinders look promising too, and I include Be'lakor in a lot of my lists as he's always effective.

FMCs are fine vs GK, but a lot of this is dependent upon the sort of list your opponent plays. Ravens will be tough, as will Dreadknights. But if your opponent is taking power armor guys i'd not be stressed. Vectors + Shrieks/other powers ought to take them down. Fly off a lot

 LValx wrote:
FMCs are fine vs GK, but a lot of this is dependent upon the sort of list your opponent plays. Ravens will be tough, as will Dreadknights. But if your opponent is taking power armor guys i'd not be stressed. Vectors + Shrieks/other powers ought to take them down. Fly off a lot

 LValx wrote:
Vectors + Shrieks/other powers ought to take them down. Fly off a lot

 LValx wrote:
Fly off a lot

 LValx wrote:
Fly off a lot

This. A lot of people seem to forget that flying DPs, and Fateweaver especially, can REALLY benefit from temporarily leaving combat airspace. Fateweaver's special rules still work when hes not on the table! If Phil Kelly isn't trying to tell us something with that, I don't know what hes doing. With Fatey's better-side-of-mediocre shooting, but phenomenal force multiplication rules, there's very little to lose by having him swoop off table every other turn, especially if you don't get that Iron Arm roll.

I had a recent game against GK with my daemons. I was mono nurgle, had a GUO and flying nurgle prince, some drones (ended up doing nothing at all, never shot at, never a threat, no objectives) some plagubearers and a soul grinder.

I think it was a 1K game, the gist of it was that my daemon prince instant deathed his dread knight because I denied his thingy that eats my gifts. My GUO landed next to his 2 units of 5 troops and cast a nova toughness test, horribly crippling his troops, then smacked his HQ with the power of monstrous creatures.

Light casualties for the daemons, the prince died shortly after it dropped the knight, but that was it.

 LValx wrote:
FMCs are fine vs GK, but a lot of this is dependent upon the sort of list your opponent plays. Ravens will be tough, as will Dreadknights. But if your opponent is taking power armor guys i'd not be stressed. Vectors + Shrieks/other powers ought to take them down. Fly off a lot

Very true. I'd not be so worried about facing mostly power armour GK but my regular opponent tends to favour lists based around terminator armour, typically Draigo, paladins, terminators and also Land Raiders where flying on and off with vector strikes won't be so effective.

 Tonberry7 wrote:
Obviously Grey Knights have some advantages when facing Daemons as compared to other armies; I don't believe it's an auto-win situation for them by any means but some Daemon lists are probably more effective than others in mitigating the GK advantages. As the title says, is an FMC list a viable option against GK or are other builds a better choice?

I've tried the FMC option once before against GK; it did result in a loss although I probably made some poor tactical choices. I think one of my biggest problems was bad positioning; I would often get grounded too close to Draigo and friends who inevitably charged me in their next turn. It probably didn't help that we were playing Purge the Alien and I didn't have much in the way of longer ranged shootng attacks.

Anyway, if anyone has advice regarding running flying circus lists against GK, or even tactics for Daemons vs GK in general I'd be grateful.

The Grey Knights can put a surprising amount of lead down at bolter range. And most of it will be at least S5 or higher and have at least BS4. FMCs are to be sure, extremely awesome but grounding tests are rather annoying. You should play expecting for every FMC you use to get grounded at least once when fighting armies with high amounts of dakka, and if an FMC is grounded then it's usually a sitting duck (usually meaning "any time it's not a ridiculous 2++ save god of war") especially when faced with an army that is essentially born for killing armies like yours and the Tyranids. However, if pressed you can re-enter reserves and hide for a while. Fateweaver in particular is well served by hiding, while a Bloodthirster of course can do nothing while it's hiding in reserves. But of course, hiding in reserves is usually preferable to being dead.

An addendum: If he's mainly using power armor, then you can relax somewhat, but if he's fielding a lot of Termies, then be wary. The Daemon list is a little short on AP2.

 Tonberry7 wrote:

 LValx wrote:
FMCs are fine vs GK, but a lot of this is dependent upon the sort of list your opponent plays. Ravens will be tough, as will Dreadknights. But if your opponent is taking power armor guys i'd not be stressed. Vectors + Shrieks/other powers ought to take them down. Fly off a lot

Very true. I'd not be so worried about facing mostly power armour GK but my regular opponent tends to favour lists based around terminator armour, typically Draigo, paladins, terminators and also Land Raiders where flying on and off with vector strikes won't be so effective.

You should still be able to win. TEQ lists suffer from too few shots, as point for point they put out much less firepower than there power armored brethren. If the terrain is good you should be able to stay out of LOS pretty easily (since DPs are TINY).

Just kill his weakest troops and hunt the targets you are efficient at killing, worst comes to worst go second and contest whatever objective you need with invincible fateweaver.

Don't try to out-elite us...we do it better.

As a longstanding GK player I can tell you that daemonettes are the way to go.

As for the daemon flying. a squad of GKs puts out about 18 S5 shots and 8 s7 rending shots...all which get to reroll 1s to hit and wound you....then we have force weapons and daemonbane.

Swarm us to win.

Don't try to out-elite us...we do it better.

As a longstanding GK player I can tell you that daemonettes are the way to go.

As for the daemon flying. a squad of GKs puts out about 18 S5 shots and 8 s7 rending shots...all which get to reroll 1s to hit and wound you....then we have force weapons and daemonbane.

Swarm us to win.

A 240 point unit of Strikes puts out 16 st 5 shots and 8 st 7 rending shots. Against a FMC that does roughly 3 hits of st 5 and 2 hits of st 7. Of course, well run FMC lists are going to be rocking Invisible MoT FMCs, Shrouded FMCs like Be'lakor and Nurgle DPs, and a good ol' re-rollable 2++ Fatey. Essentially, you cause a grounding check, which requires an average of six to drop a FMC thanks to the Fatey re-roll.

Well built/played FMC obliterate most GK builds. The issue is that most people don't know how to play FMC, and end up coming down from the air to charge units.

Bel'kor , he is eternal warrior, shrouded, can invisible people and knows puppet master too.

bel'kor and fatey and a 30 flesh hound blob is a good start for any daemons list, you can even take another greater daemon if you take him as a chaos HQ (+cultist tax) instead of daemons.

Pretty much Jgrand and Lvalx hit the nail on the head.

GK are very point intensive per-model, with either TEQ or MEQ...vectors, psyshriek, flickfire, are all great ways to kill MEQ, and if they are playing TEQ they will not have enough board presence to threaten you. Yes Daemons are good at CC, but they are kings of mobility. Why sac your mobility and possibly your 355 point DP for one squad of TEQ or MEQ?

Also, not really afraid of the ravens. They can't hit us in the air with missiles, meaning they get either an asscan w/ multi-melta, and a lascan w/ multi. You can fly off the board, you can restrict their angels of approach with movement, hide with LoS blocking terrain, can GTG and pop back up with mental fortitude.

Daemons are finesse.