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How do they rank with the top armies?

From what I've understood and had to experience, great daemon players can beat anyone in the game.

They are one of the top armies still, and fun with lots of different play styles.

They have the ability to contend with and beat the best armies and be fluffy doing it!

Like any of the older codices, Daemons become hugely limited when trying to take on the power lists from the newest Decurion/Warhost/Gladius styled forces.

What Daemons do have going in their favour however, is that we're absolutely unmatched in the Psychic phase, and can access the three best lores in the game, (Telepathy, Malefic & Divination), in spades.
Add in options such as flying Nurgle or Tzeentch Princes, a large unit of Plaguedrones w/FnP Locus Herald, Screamerstar, Hounds, Fateweaver, Grimoire...

The codex is old - only Chaos Marines are older, but Daemons have aged amazingly well.

Demon's are actually one of the better armies competitively. While their competitive builds are a bit limited, the army has aged rather well, and is a strong match for all of the top armies on the tabletop

I've seen a lot of different demon builds, all that look very different, but they all seemed very competitive as long as you could formulate a plan that worked for their style of play and stick with it.

Do you like 2++ rerollable saves

Thanks for the responses so far! I'm going to be rocking bel'akor, 2 nurgle daemon princes,a great unclean one, 40 daemonettes, and 20 invisible seekers.

daemon strengths lie in having the strongest assault lists in the game and summoning. You aren't going to win shoot-outs with the top ranged armies like necrons and tau but you can outlast them and command map control with psychic buffs and summons. we're very powerful.

Even the warp storm table of unending randomness has virtually won games for me either by killing a vital unit or letting my summon loads of daemons, lots of small intricate rules and regulations but powerful and hella fun

In terms of our psychic dominance & close combat capabilities, Daemons are pretty much everything Tyranid players wish their book could be!

The "lolz!Randumb!11!" that gets tossed out by elitists as some kind of major hurdle that makes Daemons unplayable competitively is just plain nonsense... Sure our character Wargear is randomly generated, but for 10pts, at the absolute worst you can get an at-initiative ap2 ccw! The Greater Gifts table is comprised almost entirely of high powered protective buffs, such as "re-roll all invuln saves" to "+1W & IWND", etc...

The Grimoire of True Names and the Portalglyph are among the outright best relics in the entire game to boot, and are if anything, perhaps slightly under costed for what they can do.

The only thing I feel the daemons codex is really lacking is formations, maybe a few actual shooting units, and the ability to strip hull points without sticking your neck on a chopping block. The only time I've had trouble winning with mine is when there is a super heavy that is unignorable on the opposing team. I feel like we really only have one answer that was given to us just recently in the form of a dthirster and invisibility.

Doing that makes me felt like a one trick pony however, and feels kinda wrong. Invisibility is a bit too broken but almost necessary to make assault armies truly viable.

In short, I feel we do need an update, but not very badly. Some points adjustments would be nice as well as a rules change for the named greater daemons. Synergy with our battle brothers would also be nice but that almost has to wait until the csm book is worth a feth.

I feel we're a very strong, very fun army to play, unless you purposefully build weak lists. You can build a very very weak list with daemons if you want to.

The randomness is great. Gives you a bit of a chance to tailor against your opponent pregame with rewards.

@portaglyph:
I never understood the hype for this Relic after 7th edition hit. It costs quite a bit for something a herald psyker could do fairly easily as is. Just taking a single malefic power for Summoning on any psyker saves you the cost of the exalted gift and also allows you a useful HQ.

And I can say daemons is as strong as you are willing to make them. You HAVE to accept psykers as your main force. Go full cheese, forcing in your base troops into a squad of 12+ herald psykers. Take as many flying daemon princes as you can afford. Take a soul grinder, even if you hate the model since there is a lot of conversion possibilities for a base so large. I highly recommend the Plague Hulk myself.
Only negative? Our model line is kinda trash. There are countless old models that deserve to be redone (like beasts of Nurgle and blue scribes) or are simple disgusting in general (new daemonettes, the remaining greater daemons). This army is certainly a great place to get good at buying third party and/or learning to sculpt yourself xD

Daemons are still incredibly strong, and have several good lists that don't involve Tzeentch Daemon summoning everywhere, however that is a great list.

One of the biggest points of contention I'd argue is that Fateweaver is quite almost an autotake. Rolling poorly on the Warp Storm table has cost me several games, being able to reroll that is amazing.

autumnlotus wrote:
@portaglyph:
I never understood the hype for this Relic after 7th edition hit. It costs quite a bit for something a herald psyker could do fairly easily as is. Just taking a single malefic power for Summoning on any psyker saves you the cost of the exalted gift and also allows you a useful HQ.

a big power in the portalglyph is the chance to generate an extra warp charge each turn by bringing in horrors that you didn't have to spend warp charge dice on.
each mastery level costs you 25 points in codex, and here you can throw this in you backfield during your first turn (it quite often gets completely left alone in my games), and if it generates two units, you paid for it. plus the units could give you useful powers themselves.

slamma wrote:

autumnlotus wrote:
@portaglyph:
I never understood the hype for this Relic after 7th edition hit. It costs quite a bit for something a herald psyker could do fairly easily as is. Just taking a single malefic power for Summoning on any psyker saves you the cost of the exalted gift and also allows you a useful HQ.

a big power in the portalglyph is the chance to generate an extra warp charge each turn by bringing in horrors that you didn't have to spend warp charge dice on.
each mastery level costs you 25 points in codex, and here you can throw this in you backfield during your first turn (it quite often gets completely left alone in my games), and if it generates two units, you paid for it. plus the units could give you useful powers themselves.

Exactly... For 5pts more than a Mastery Lv., you get a strait-up 50/50 shot at gaining +1WC/turn from T2 onwards. No risk involved, yet equal reward to summoning a basic unit of Pinkies.
Plus those 5-6 WC's I'd have to spend for 10 Horrors can now typically be spread across 2 different powers.
Being that overall we still rely very heavily on our psychic augments/hexes, I never really like to spend the massive amounts of dice generally needed to gain favourable odds for successfully summoning in more WC's... If I'm going to spend the dice for a new unit, then it's going to be a unit that can play a critical role, such as bringing in a pack of 'Nettes if I need Rending, or perhaps the likes of Hounds or Flamers or whatever.

Actually, it's gotten to the point that I feel a bit dirty bringing the 'Glyph nowadays, because it is such a good buy! Lately, unless I'm up against someone running a Decurion/Gladius or other really filthy list, I've been leaving it at home.