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Been checking out Skarbrand's rules as I've only glanced over them before. 9, ws10, I10, st7, ap2, rerolling to hit, fleshbane/armourbane, Instant Death attacks on the charge is quite an eye opener. Quite a nice counter to IKs and Wraithknights for the points.
But his Rage Embodied special rule really got me thinking. Yes it grants hatred and rage to every unit within 12" not just your own, but imagine Deamonettes with rage and hatred. Against WS4 or worse opponents you are looking at Deamonettes causing 0.6 rending wounds each on the charge (not counting other wounds caused), or 0.5 against ws5 or higher. And you can take quite a few for 9ppm. He can easily grant this to 3 or 4 Deamonette units with his 24" diameter (+ a few " due to his base size).
Now with the Masque of Slaanesh in one of these units, not only does it grant the unit H&R so that they can benefit from the rage and hatred again and again, but the certain dances stop overwatch and lower bs by 5 - excellent to make sure the Demonettes get into combat, reduce all move and runs to 3" (and reduce ws by 5) - so Skarbrand has no problem catching that wraithknight, or causes a st1 ignores cover rending hit for every model in a unit... which basically means a 1/6 of any unit that doesnt have multiple wounds or invulns dies a turn.

The problem is that Deamonettes are pretty vulnerable with only t3 5++, so the solution would be to put them behind an Unending Host renegade screen to give them a 3+ cover save when in the open, same with Skarbrand. This would admittedly mean that Skarbrand loses his ID as he would no longer be the warlord.
The other solution would be to take Horde Deamonettes with lots of Slaaneshi Soulgrinders, or allied Maulerfiends, Dreadclaw and a Typhon so the opponent can't spare the early firepower to focus down Skarbrand.

You think Skarbrand could be a good leader for a horde army?


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Another solution would be invis from Be'lakor. Or DS in Skarbrand T2/3.

footslogging skarbrand seems like a recipe for disaster..

Unless he's shielded by unending host/invis/greater threat priorities.

You could always go bomb style with a comms relay. drop him and all of the ladies somewhere and let them go to work.
it might work well? i dunno… they don't have any shooting really.

The Masque isn't an independent character so she can't join any units unfortunately.

Skarbrand is kind of cool but really needs some defensive support as he's too slow. If you're pitting him against a wraithknight, Skarbrand will nearly always be dead by the WK's second shooting. This essentially means Be'lakor is needed for Invisibility (as even with Grimoire + Cursed Earth for a 2++ save, Skarbrand still gets instagibbed 1 in 5 shots from the WK.)

1 in 9 shots, but I see your point. And to think - many people atm are claiming D isn't that much better than st10, tsk! Good catch on the Masque.
Could DS, give the deamonettes instruments of chaos so Skarbrands almost certain of appearing turn 2. A few units of seekers with icons pushed up from T1 for scatterless DS.

Instrument and icons for reliable deep striking is a better way to go. If Your slannesh daemons can be in position for assault turn 2, then you can place skarbrand to get the bonuses. Then hopefully you can lock down the enemy so SB can catch them.

The thing is, the stuff you want SB to kill,is all faster than him,so getting the assault is hard. I think the rage thirster is probably more practical.

The main reason for taking skarbrand wouldn't be his awesome stats, but his rage and hatred bubble. That's just crazy for an assault based army.

Poly Ranger wrote:
The main reason for taking skarbrand wouldn't be his awesome stats, but his rage and hatred bubble. That's just crazy for an assault based army.

what about not using him as the primary threat? give the opponent another option or three that hits just as hard.

In a way, that's what I've gone for with this list build http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/649229.page. The Soul grinders being the other hard hitting threats. Whilst the main focus for SB is his bubble, he would definitely be wading into the melee too with those stats. He would have an issue catching gargantuans or IKs as Captyn_Bob pointed out.
Only problem is that I didn't envisage GW writers being stupid enough not to give a 75pt t3 2wound 5++ model the ability to join squads so didn't realise the Masque didn't have IC.
Will have to re-write it somewhat.

Poly Ranger wrote:

Only problem is that I didn't envisage GW writers being stupid enough not to give a 75pt t3 2wound 5++ model the ability to join squads so didn't realise the Masque didn't have IC.

The masque has never had IC because of her fluff. She is even specifically disallowed from joining unit in WHFB too.

Now, I may be wrong on this, but my impression for skarbrand with his slow speed has always been to tie up what he wants to fight in close combat with a cheap unit (Blootletters, Flesh-hounds) then have him clean it up when he arrives.

Silly idea?
put him alongside a beefy screamer star.
he turns them into combat monsters, they add protections to him.
add another detachment of daemons for fatey or be'lakor, maybe throw some hounds w/ a jugg herald in.

you could probably work it to keep the grinders in too

The only issue with the screamers is that Lampreys bite will waste the extra rage attacks SB gives.
I agree with the idea that fast cheap units are needed to lock things in combat.
I also agree that Be'lakor is sounding pretty important for the invis in case of WKs.
So this list has gone completely away from Deamonettes:

Deamons
Skarbrand

Be'lakor

3 nurgling bases

3 nurgling bases

3 nurgling bases

Soul Grinder of Slaanesh

Soul Grinder of Slaanesh

Soul Grinder of Slaanesh

CSM allies
Deamon Prince of Khorne
Power armour, Wings, AoBF

10 cultists

The Purge Renegades
Arch Demagougue
4 Disciples with autocannon

3 spawn x6

1850pts

Be'lakor casts invis on SB and shrouding so the DP can get a 2+ cover.
DP gets 8 + d6 st9 attacks on the charge with rerolls to hit if within 12" of SB.
SB has the stats mentioned above.
Be'lakor also has armourbane and fleshbane.
That is 3 IK and WK butchers right there!

18 spawn tie up opponents units. 3 quick Soulgrinders put pressure on opponent to take fire away from the Deamon MCs.
Nurglings and Cultists to score objectives.

Scarbrands rage and hatred bubble on such damaging units should be very beneficial.

I would be tempted to replace 12 spawn, 3 nurglings and the autocannon with 3 Giant Spawn and a griffon. This would give even more MC goodness and even less units remotely subceptible to small arms. But this would take the first pinning wave down from an impressive 18 spawn to a paltry 6.

just remember that you can do hatred/furious charge/ rage buffs a lot cheaper using daemonkin.

Heralds, of chariots with locus of wrath, easier to kill, but cheaper and faster.

And you can still take lots of spawn and hounds for the rush,

Thing is though that you get either the hatred or rage buff with heralds, and SB will be effecting multiple units (inc ones heralds cannot join). If you want to effect 3 Bloodletter units with Locus of wrath, you are talking 240pts worth of Heralds, without any gifts. And these Heralds don't have anywhere near the theat level of skarbrand. And SB will be effecting even more than just these 3 units.
I haven't looked at the deamonkin rules since they came out. Don't you have to make sure you have the required bloodpoints to use them? And they only effect units in the formation?

If you put the heralds on a chariots, it has an aura just like SB.

To get furious charge/rage, you only need two blood points, which is pretty easy to get, and it effects all daemonkin units.

Also, don't forget SB effects enemy units too.

Just thought of another one:

Skarbrand

Be'lakor

3 nurglings

3 nurglings

Soulgrinder of slaanesh

Soulgrinder of slaanesh

Soulgrinder of khorne

Deamonprince of Khorne with wings, power armour and AoBF

Deamonprince of Khorne with wings, power armour and BlackMace

10 cultists

10 cultists

Bloodslaughterer of Khorne
1850pts.

So who wants to shoot at an invis Skarbrand when you have 2 Slaaneshi Soulgrinders, 2 shrouded (from Be'lakor) deamon weapon DPs and Be'lakor about to charge you turn 2, with SB, a bloodslaughterer and another soulgrinder ariving into your lines on turn 3?
Skarbrand should have got far enough forward by turn 2 to be giving the majority rage and hatred too.


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Captyn_Bob wrote:
If you put the heralds on a chariots, it has an aura just like SB.

To get furious charge/rage, you only need two blood points, which is pretty easy to get, and it effects all daemonkin units.

Also, don't forget SB effects enemy units too.

Hmmmm. That maybe an option. I was just very disappointed with Deamonkin when I saw the rules - kinda put me off them so haven't given them a chance with list building.

how you manage to make this stuff fit in lists I will never know.

Pretty cool Idea. I was thinking of running a Daemonette bomb-style list in the near future, mostly as a fun list, but also t see if it has some teeth. This is what I was thinking:

Fateweaver

Herald of Slaanesh: ML2, Greater Reward, Exalted Locus
Herald of Slaanesh: ML2, Greater Reward
Herald of Tzeentch: ML3, Exalted, Disc
Herald of Tzeentch: ML3, Disc

20x Daemonettes
10x Daemonettes: Icon, Musician

8x Screamers

Be'lakor

10x Daemonettes: Icon, Musician

Two chances to get one of the small daemonette squads on the board turn 2 allowing the big bomb of 20 plus the 2 Heralds to pinpoint DS. Be'lakor Invis's the girls or they do it themselves if one rolls it up. 5 additional shots for another Invis between the heralds and Fatey. Could remove the ScreamerStar and add Skabrand and some more support units.

Ok here's a similar skarbrand bomb list using daemonkin
+++ Skarbrand (1850pts) +++

++ Chaos Daemons: Codex (2013) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++

+ HQ +

Be'lakor,
Skarbrand Warlord ]

Nurglings [3x Nurglings]

Pink Horrors of Tzeentch [11x Pink Horrors]

[Blood Slaughterers of Khorne [Blood Slaughterer of Khorne]

Khorne Daemonkin (Combined Arms Detachment) ++

+ HQ +

Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage

Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage


Bloodletters [Banner of Blood]
····8x Unit size [8x Hellblade]

Chaos Cultists
····Cultist Champion [Close Combat Weapon, Improvised Armour]
····7x Cultists in Unit [7x Close Combat Weapon, 7x Improvised Armour]

+ Fast Attack +

Chaos Spawn [2x Spawn count]

Chaos Spawn [2x Spawn count]

+ Heavy Support +

Soul Grinder [Harvester Cannon, Iron Claw, Phlegm Bombardment]

Captyn_Bob wrote:
how you manage to make this stuff fit in lists I will never know.

Lol -it's actually quite sad really - I spend far too long looking over codexes and tweaking lists, pulling things out and fitting them in to get it just right. For example, when taking out the 12 spawn, 3 nurglings and autocannon for the 275pts to get the 3 Giant Spawn and Griffon, I knew off the top of my head that a DPoK with wings, pa and BM cost 10pts less instead, but would need an extra 10 cultists to unlock it. To be able to take the 10 cultists I would need to drop the renegades completely leaving me with 115pts. Not quite enough to get a tough MC or fast tough walker for the CSM detachment. But knowing that a BS is 130pts I needed to find 15pts from somewhere. The exact amount I would save by downgrading a Slaaneshi SG to Khorne.


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 astro_nomicon wrote:
Pretty cool Idea. I was thinking of running a Daemonette bomb-style list in the near future, mostly as a fun list, but also t see if it has some teeth. This is what I was thinking:

Fateweaver

Herald of Slaanesh: ML2, Greater Reward, Exalted Locus
Herald of Slaanesh: ML2, Greater Reward
Herald of Tzeentch: ML3, Exalted, Disc
Herald of Tzeentch: ML3, Disc

20x Daemonettes
10x Daemonettes: Icon, Musician

8x Screamers

Be'lakor

10x Daemonettes: Icon, Musician

Two chances to get one of the small daemonette squads on the board turn 2 allowing the big bomb of 20 plus the 2 Heralds to pinpoint DS. Be'lakor Invis's the girls or they do it themselves if one rolls it up. 5 additional shots for another Invis between the heralds and Fatey. Could remove the ScreamerStar and add Skabrand and some more support units.

I think this would work very well without Skarbrand, as the screamer star is just so good. Invising the Demonettes is a great idea, once they get into assault they will wreck face and it is their fragility which always lets them down (when I've played against them that is - I don't actually own a deamon army).
I really don't like fatey. His extra reroll is game changing and essential for screamer star, so I can't fault him. There's just something I can't put my finger on, maybe it's his excessive points cost to make screamer star work.


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Captyn_Bob wrote:
Ok here's a similar skarbrand bomb list using daemonkin
+++ Skarbrand (1850pts) +++

++ Chaos Daemons: Codex (2013) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++

+ HQ +

Be'lakor,
Skarbrand Warlord ]

Nurglings [3x Nurglings]

Pink Horrors of Tzeentch [11x Pink Horrors]

[Blood Slaughterers of Khorne [Blood Slaughterer of Khorne]

Khorne Daemonkin (Combined Arms Detachment) ++

+ HQ +

Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage

Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage


Bloodletters [Banner of Blood]
····8x Unit size [8x Hellblade]

Chaos Cultists
····Cultist Champion [Close Combat Weapon, Improvised Armour]
····7x Cultists in Unit [7x Close Combat Weapon, 7x Improvised Armour]

+ Fast Attack +

Chaos Spawn [2x Spawn count]

Chaos Spawn [2x Spawn count]

+ Heavy Support +

Soul Grinder [Harvester Cannon, Iron Claw, Phlegm Bombardment]

Lots of awesome lovely threats. You've told me the rules for the rage thirsters before and I remember being very impressed, can't for the life of me remember them now though. How easy is it to build up BPs have you found?

8 attacks on the charge , strength D. Initiative1, so helps to be invisible.

Most of the batreps I've seen, blood points aren't a problem, especially when 3 (fnp) is the best result.

That was it - 8 stD attacks... just brilliant, even if at I1. Yeh Invis will defo help out there no end.

Poly Ranger wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
how you manage to make this stuff fit in lists I will never know.

Lol -it's actually quite sad really - I spend far too long looking over codexes and tweaking lists, pulling things out and fitting them in to get it just right. For example, when taking out the 12 spawn, 3 nurglings and autocannon for the 275pts to get the 3 Giant Spawn and Griffon, I knew off the top of my head that a DPoK with wings, pa and BM cost 10pts less instead, but would need an extra 10 cultists to unlock it. To be able to take the 10 cultists I would need to drop the renegades completely leaving me with 115pts. Not quite enough to get a tough MC or fast tough walker for the CSM detachment. But knowing that a BS is 130pts I needed to find 15pts from somewhere. The exact amount I would save by downgrading a Slaaneshi SG to Khorne.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 astro_nomicon wrote:
Pretty cool Idea. I was thinking of running a Daemonette bomb-style list in the near future, mostly as a fun list, but also t see if it has some teeth. This is what I was thinking:

Fateweaver

Herald of Slaanesh: ML2, Greater Reward, Exalted Locus
Herald of Slaanesh: ML2, Greater Reward
Herald of Tzeentch: ML3, Exalted, Disc
Herald of Tzeentch: ML3, Disc

20x Daemonettes
10x Daemonettes: Icon, Musician

8x Screamers

Be'lakor

10x Daemonettes: Icon, Musician

Two chances to get one of the small daemonette squads on the board turn 2 allowing the big bomb of 20 plus the 2 Heralds to pinpoint DS. Be'lakor Invis's the girls or they do it themselves if one rolls it up. 5 additional shots for another Invis between the heralds and Fatey. Could remove the ScreamerStar and add Skabrand and some more support units.

I think this would work very well without Skarbrand, as the screamer star is just so good. Invising the Demonettes is a great idea, once they get into assault they will wreck face and it is their fragility which always lets them down (when I've played against them that is - I don't actually own a deamon army).
I really don't like fatey. His extra reroll is game changing and essential for screamer star, so I can't fault him. There's just something I can't put my finger on, maybe it's his excessive points cost to make screamer star work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Ok here's a similar skarbrand bomb list using daemonkin
+++ Skarbrand (1850pts) +++

++ Chaos Daemons: Codex (2013) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++

+ HQ +

Be'lakor,
Skarbrand Warlord ]

Nurglings [3x Nurglings]

Pink Horrors of Tzeentch [11x Pink Horrors]

[Blood Slaughterers of Khorne [Blood Slaughterer of Khorne]

Khorne Daemonkin (Combined Arms Detachment) ++

+ HQ +

Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage

Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage


Bloodletters [Banner of Blood]
····8x Unit size [8x Hellblade]

Chaos Cultists
····Cultist Champion [Close Combat Weapon, Improvised Armour]
····7x Cultists in Unit [7x Close Combat Weapon, 7x Improvised Armour]

+ Fast Attack +

Chaos Spawn [2x Spawn count]

Chaos Spawn [2x Spawn count]

+ Heavy Support +

Soul Grinder [Harvester Cannon, Iron Claw, Phlegm Bombardment]

Lots of awesome lovely threats. You've told me the rules for the rage thirsters before and I remember being very impressed, can't for the life of me remember them now though. How easy is it to build up BPs have you found?

Oh by the way Poly, if you're not aware, the Exalted Locus of Beguilement on a Slaanesh Herald grants rerolls to hit in close combat every round of combat for the whole unit. It also lets you choose what enemy character accepts your challenge, and they must accept which is pretty cool. That being said, it somewhat mitigates what Skarbrand brings to big units of Daemonettes. Rage is nice, but it is somewhat mitigated by the fact that I'd almost always want to multi charge with large units of Daemonettes. Still though, some cool ideas in this thread, and he could be a good force multiplier for a more MSU approach to assaulty Daemons since his force multiplier is a bubble effect. MSU daemons is hard though, since we rely so heavily on unit wide buffs to up our offensive and defensive capabilities.

You know renegades and heretics better than most so it would be interesting to see what you could come up with that might have a little more long range punch than Daemons can muster while still retaining a strong daemonic assault presence.

Hmmm perhaps this as a core:

CAD:
Fatey
skarbarand
tz DP in heavy (w/ grimoire)

allies:
daemonkin hounds x lots
chaos lord on jugg

-and/or-
ally in second detachment of daemons for be'lakor and/or khorne herald

then some way to reliably drop them all turn 2. (maybe lots of 'nettes for troops)

My issue is I REALLY like both fatey and skarbrands warlord traits. picking between them is hard. haha

Yeh the Locus of Beguilement looks like an excellent upgrade, and makes the herald into a proper sargeant/weak character assassin!
Thanks for the vote of confidence on the renegade side :-). Still don't have Vraks yet though, so only have IA:13 and what I've read off reviews for Vraks to work off, plus info and suggestions about Vraks that ansacs has gone into. Here's a list I think could work for the renegade firepower and deamon assault you mentioned (using Purge renegades):

Skarbrand (DS)

15 Daemonettes (DS)
Instrument

15 Daemonettes (DS)
Instrument

15 Seekers
Icon

Soulgrinder of Slaanesh

Soulgrinder of Slaanesh

Soulgrinder of Slaanesh

Arch demagogue
4 Disciples

3 spawn x 6

2 Earthshakers

3 Rapiers with Militia training

3 Rapiers with Militia training

2 Griffons

1850pts

The Seekers are to provide scatterless deepstrike for the Daemonettes. Due to the instruments, Skarbrand has a 28/29 chance of appearing T2.
18 spawns, 3 grinders and 15 seekers in the opponents face from the offset.


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slamma wrote:
Hmmm perhaps this as a core:

CAD:
Fatey
skarbarand
tz DP in heavy (w/ grimoire)

allies:
daemonkin hounds x lots
chaos lord on jugg

-and/or-
ally in second detachment of daemons for be'lakor and/or khorne herald

then some way to reliably drop them all turn 2. (maybe lots of 'nettes for troops)

Looks nasty. I wish I had Deamonkin dex to be able to try out writing lists from it.

I completely went the wrong way about this... it's not Soulgrinders that will benefit the most from Skarbrand - it's Maulerfiends. 2 Maulerfiends charge an IK. 1 with lasher tendrils, one with magma cutters. As long as the IKs 1 remaining attack doesn't instagib a maulerfiend, between them they will cause average 6.7 hps of damage with rage, hatred and deamonforge all activated. And that's before any magma cutter attacks hit (with rerolls on armour bane).
Hatred really benefits the chance on 2 magma cutter hits on top of the extra hits from the powerfists.


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Also not counting any explodes results.