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 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

Reavas wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
@Reavas: You aren't stacking Cursed Earth though, the preferred multiples of it is to make sure you can cover every model.

Cursed Earth gives +1.
Warp Surge gives +1.
Warp Tether gives +1.

That combination is nearly literally impossible to get off, warp surge being a 1/6 chance on perils per unit (have fun getting that off on all your pink horrors) warp tether and cursed earth are both very hard to roll for, the warlord trait being another 1/6 chance. Look if someone manages to peril on all psyker units AND roll 6's on every one, as well as roll the warlord trait and roll for cursed earth and manifest it then you might want to be careful because your probably playing against a Lord of Change

As I said, it requires extreme luck to pull off.

I never said it was an easy or assured thing, just that it is possible.


Also Warp Surge a result on the Warp Storm Chart.. not sure what you're thinking of.

Warp surge is also a result from perils of the warp, my bad, but yeah both are hard to get off and you are right that it is possible and when it does happen tzeench have mercy on your soul

It is important to note though that a lot of players unfamiliar with how cursed earth works and attempt to stack it. Just letting OP know, as 3+'s are rough enough without another +1

 Xenomancers wrote:


I was playing a very strong gladius list. I was tabled in 3 turns because I couldn't kill or tie up anything. 3000 points.

He had a tetred
fateweaver
A flying tzeench daemon
A max screamer star with 2 heralds
3 squads of pink horrors with a herald and 2 exalted flamers in each
and an exalted flamer chariot

Stop complaining. You are clearly playing in the maxed out OP list league That game type is about crushing your opponent expect no mercy and enjoy the risk to be tabled, but don't cry if it isn't "balanced" we all know that it isn't for ages now . You brought the predictable marine thing and the daemon player brought the predictable daemon thing nothing surprising there.

How is it that Daemons fly under the radar?

It didn't we all know that a screamer start + fatewaever is nasty for years now so we don't bring it in casual games..
Hell it was already getting old the last time I played a tournament. Whats next suddenly realizing that eldar jetbikes are too fast and shooty for their points ?

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:


I was playing a very strong gladius list. I was tabled in 3 turns because I couldn't kill or tie up anything. 3000 points.

He had a tetred
fateweaver
A flying tzeench daemon
A max screamer star with 2 heralds
3 squads of pink horrors with a herald and 2 exalted flamers in each
and an exalted flamer chariot

Stop complaining. You are clearly playing in the maxed out OP list league That game type is about crushing your opponent expect no mercy and enjoy the risk to be tabled, but don't cry if it isn't "balanced" we all know that it isn't for ages now . You brought the predictable marine thing and the daemon player brought the predictable daemon thing nothing surprising there.

How is it that Daemons fly under the radar?

It didn't we all know that a screamer start + fatewaever is nasty for years now so we don't bring it in casual games..
Hell it was already getting old the last time I played a tournament. Whats next suddenly realizing that eldar jetbikes are too fast and shooty for their points ?

The shade has been flung

But the real question is whats better, fatey or Lord of Change :O

And on another note back to the original question, daemons arent considered one of the big 4 (Tau, SM, Eldar and Necrons) due to the fact at the start of any shooting phase you can roll double 1 and half your army explodes, as well as a number of other detrimental aspects that outweigh rolling a 12 or 11 (unless you are up against someone with a psyker warlord then its an auto win with a roll of 11)

Deamons don't get the hate because of 2 reasons IMHO;

1) You have to try and build a broken list and abuse certain mechanics
2) Even if you do 1), there's no assurance that it'll work because so much relies on gifts, powers and dicerolls that as soon as one little bit fails, it all goes downhill spectacularly.

Something as simple as a thunderfire cannon can easily snipe out the grimoure bearer in a screamerstar, removing the main source of most peoples frustration. Nothing you can do about warlord traits, but if you've got a conclave, and I suspect that the OP was running one, then denying a crucial power is definately an option. If those DP's don't get good powers and/or gifts, then you can steamroll them quite easily.

Having the unstoppable murder machine game as daemons does happen where everything goes right, but so does the game of fail where you don't roll any good powers, the grimoure fails every turn and you consistantly roll like crap for warpstorm. As most top level players will tell you, removing chance is key to success and daemons are the opposite of that. It's one of the reasons why Fateweaver and the incursion is so good, they provide a measure of control over the large amount of random variables.

Reavas wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:


I was playing a very strong gladius list. I was tabled in 3 turns because I couldn't kill or tie up anything. 3000 points.

He had a tetred
fateweaver
A flying tzeench daemon
A max screamer star with 2 heralds
3 squads of pink horrors with a herald and 2 exalted flamers in each
and an exalted flamer chariot

Stop complaining. You are clearly playing in the maxed out OP list league That game type is about crushing your opponent expect no mercy and enjoy the risk to be tabled, but don't cry if it isn't "balanced" we all know that it isn't for ages now . You brought the predictable marine thing and the daemon player brought the predictable daemon thing nothing surprising there.

How is it that Daemons fly under the radar?

It didn't we all know that a screamer start + fatewaever is nasty for years now so we don't bring it in casual games..
Hell it was already getting old the last time I played a tournament. Whats next suddenly realizing that eldar jetbikes are too fast and shooty for their points ?

The shade has been flung

But the real question is whats better, fatey or Lord of Change :O

And on another note back to the original question, daemons arent considered one of the big 4 (Tau, SM, Eldar and Necrons) due to the fact at the start of any shooting phase you can roll double 1 and half your army explodes, as well as a number of other detrimental aspects that outweigh rolling a 12 or 11 (unless you are up against someone with a psyker warlord then its an auto win with a roll of 11)

That can't actually happen with demonic incursion. The get +1 or -1 to their warp-storm result. Which basically means nothing but good warp-storm results unless you roll a double 1.

Would that be the Incursion with the incredibly big core requirements?

pm713 wrote:
Would that be the Incursion with the incredibly big core requirements?

I didn't see it at first either, but the way he posted the list, it does seem to have the Core Tzeentch formation
"3 squads of pink horrors with a herald and 2 exalted flamers in each"
That's 3 Horror units and 6 Exalted Flamers, the 9 units required for the Core formation.

But I still don't see how the list is "Battle-forged". There is no "Auxiliary" choice (usually a min Furies unit). So the list couldn't be an Incursion, unless Xenomancers forgot to list them.
There also cannot be a CAD for the extra Heralds, unit of Screamers and Flamer Chariot, since the only Troops in the list are from the Core Formation.
It is possible that the Flamer chariot was summoned, but that still leaves the others.

Xenomancer, either you left out some units, or you were cheated. If there was no Auxiliary choice, no +1/-1, no re-roll Instability checks, etc. If there was no CAD, the Incursion break apart as well. He'd still get each individual Formations bonuses, but the Incursion only works if the whole army is Battle-Forged.

-

He did mention a "max screamer star with 2 heralds", which indicated a bunch of Screamers and 2 Heralds in there. 9 units of Screamers + 1 Herald can make up a single Burning Skyhost formation, which is an Auxillary Choice. The Second Herald must be from the Core Choice.

 Galef wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Would that be the Incursion with the incredibly big core requirements?

I didn't see it at first either, but the way he posted the list, it does seem to have the Core Tzeentch formation
"3 squads of pink horrors with a herald and 2 exalted flamers in each"
That's 3 Horror units and 6 Exalted Flamers, the 9 units required for the Core formation.

But I still don't see how the list is "Battle-forged". There is no "Auxiliary" choice (usually a min Furies unit). So the list couldn't be an Incursion, unless Xenomancers forgot to list them.
There also cannot be a CAD for the extra Heralds, unit of Screamers and Flamer Chariot, since the only Troops in the list are from the Core Formation.
It is possible that the Flamer chariot was summoned, but that still leaves the others.

Xenomancer, either you left out some units, or you were cheated. If there was no Auxiliary choice, no +1/-1, no re-roll Instability checks, etc. If there was no CAD, the Incursion break apart as well. He'd still get each individual Formations bonuses, but the Incursion only works if the whole army is Battle-Forged.

-

He had a squad of furries as well. They were held in reserve so I never saw them.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
He did mention a "max screamer star with 2 heralds", which indicated a bunch of Screamers and 2 Heralds in there. 9 units of Screamers + 1 Herald can make up a single Burning Skyhost formation, which is an Auxillary Choice. The Second Herald must be from the Core Choice.

There are 5 Heralds in the list he posted. 2 in the Screamer Star (which is only 1 unit BTW) and 1 in each Horror unit (3 total)
It's possible that he misunderstood what was in what unit (or that Screamer Star describes a single unit, not 8-9 units clustered together), but that just further reinforces why Daemons are underestimated.
When you don't know what you are facing, you make mistakes and get tabled, even if the army isn't top tier.

 Xenomancers wrote:

He had a squad of furries as well. They were held in reserve so I never saw them.

Ok, so that solves the Incursion problem, but he still didn't have the Troops required to field the CAD in order to get 4 extra Heralds and the Screamer unit.
Are you sure he only have 3 units of Horrors? Were there maybe 2 units of Nurglings somewhere to satisfy the CAD?

Otherwise his list would have become Unbound and he would lose the Incursion bonuses (but still kept the Formation bonuses)

-

 cosmicsoybean wrote:
Marines can roll 2++ rerollable, have weapons to absolutely melt any unit in the entire game, can have loads of FREE transports, obj.sec. deepstriking vehicles and the most broken phy phase in the game, paired with their battlebrothers to cover their weaknesses eldar and tau are 100% NOT more "op" than marines. Marines can stomp tau and are very close to eldar (beating eldar easily unless eldar player takes scattbikes,knights or spiders)

And eldar stomps marines without breaking sweat if marines abstain from gladius, gravs and librarians...

You don't judge how broken codex is by removing best stuff from it out of whim to make them seem less broken.

You compare SM to eldars with WK, scatbikes and spiders by the bucketload.

 Galef wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
He did mention a "max screamer star with 2 heralds", which indicated a bunch of Screamers and 2 Heralds in there. 9 units of Screamers + 1 Herald can make up a single Burning Skyhost formation, which is an Auxillary Choice. The Second Herald must be from the Core Choice.

There are 5 Heralds in the list he posted. 2 in the Screamer Star (which is only 1 unit BTW) and 1 in each Horror unit (3 total)
It's possible that he misunderstood what was in what unit (or that Screamer Star describes a single unit, not 8-9 units clustered together), but that just further reinforces why Daemons are underestimated.
When you don't know what you are facing, you make mistakes and get tabled, even if the army isn't top tier.

 Xenomancers wrote:

He had a squad of furries as well. They were held in reserve so I never saw them.

Ok, so that solves the Incursion problem, but he still didn't have the Troops required to field the CAD in order to get 4 extra Heralds and the Screamer unit.
Are you sure he only have 3 units of Horrors? Where there maybe 2 units of Nurglings somewhere?

-

I don't think I made any real mistakes - I probably could have deployed better but I had something like 22 vehicals to deploy - there isn't a lot of decision making there. Winning the roll to go first would have made a big difference but that's about it. My Supression force did great and wiped out about 30 horors and I destroyed the exalted chariot but the 2 MC I chose to focus down (fate and his korne deamon prince each ona different flank - just laughed at my firepower. Fatey lived by his reroll twice to allow him to reroll a failed save of a 2 - which is the only way I could really hurt him. The Korne DP had an item that allowed him to regerneate wounds by getting kills in CC (easily done vs gladius) and fatey regenerated 2 wounds on turn 2 because of life leaches. I was utterly stomped and never had a chance. Simple math proves why.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
He did mention a "max screamer star with 2 heralds", which indicated a bunch of Screamers and 2 Heralds in there. 9 units of Screamers + 1 Herald can make up a single Burning Skyhost formation, which is an Auxillary Choice. The Second Herald must be from the Core Choice.

There are 5 Heralds in the list he posted. 2 in the Screamer Star (which is only 1 unit BTW) and 1 in each Horror unit (3 total)
It's possible that he misunderstood what was in what unit (or that Screamer Star describes a single unit, not 8-9 units clustered together), but that just further reinforces why Daemons are underestimated.
When you don't know what you are facing, you make mistakes and get tabled, even if the army isn't top tier.

 Xenomancers wrote:

He had a squad of furries as well. They were held in reserve so I never saw them.

Ok, so that solves the Incursion problem, but he still didn't have the Troops required to field the CAD in order to get 4 extra Heralds and the Screamer unit.
Are you sure he only have 3 units of Horrors? Were there maybe 2 units of Nurglings somewhere to satisfy the CAD?

Otherwise his list would have become Unbound and he would lose the Incursion bonuses (but still kept the Formation bonuses)

-

Yep - he did have nurgling. 2 units of 3.

Daemons are all about luck of the dice if it is bad you lose
Seen a warlord roll 1 twice and get vaporized

I won't discount strategy and army bulding entirely, but yes, Chaos Daemons are subject to the wims of the dice Gods more than other armies.

I had one game where a Salamanders Player expertly drop podded right into the middle of vulnerable summoning units of Pink Horrors and Fateweaver and unleashed the maximum amount of Melta Gun fire legally possible, only to have Fateweaver walk away with only 2 wounds, after making a ludicrous amount of 4+ saves. The same game the Warp Storm table gifted me 2 units of daemons, in consecutive rounds, allowing me to wipe out his culexus assassin that would have been worrisome otherwise.

Oldmike wrote:
Daemons are all about luck of the dice if it is bad you lose
Seen a warlord roll 1 twice and get vaporized

he failed a 2++ reroll and failed a leadership of 10?

Heres the odds of that
1/36 (odds of failing a 2++ reroll) * 4/36 (odds of failing a leadership roll with LD 10) = 4/1296 = 1/324. That is the odds of a single wound 1 shooting the deamon with impossible robes. Sorry man you have it backwards you need exceptionally bad luck for that to happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In case anyone is wondering here was my list.

Gladius strike force.

Demi 1
Captain
3x Las/plas Razor - Tacs w/ plas/combi plas
1x Las/plas Razor - AS w/ 2x flammer
1x Las/plas Razor - 3x LC devs
1x TLHB Razor - Command Squad w/apoth
1x Drop pod - Dread AC/HF

Demi 2
Chaplain
3x TL/AC Razor - Tacs w/ 3x Grav Cannon
1x TL/AC Razor - AS w/ 2x flammer
1x TL/AC Razor - 4x HB devs
1x TLHB Razor - Command Squad w/apoth


Supression Force
3x WW
1x LS w/ TML/HB

Raptor wing
2x Storm Talon - Skyhammer/ AC
LS - HB/TML

CAD
Space Marine Command Tanks
5x Scout Sniper Rifle
5x Scout LSS

3x Predator Auto/heavybolters

 Xenomancers wrote:

Oldmike wrote:
Daemons are all about luck of the dice if it is bad you lose
Seen a warlord roll 1 twice and get vaporized

he failed a 2++ reroll and failed a leadership of 10?

What? No, double 1's on Warp Storm forces an Instability check on a character. 3D6 Leadership test, no saves except FNP. I've had it kill my warlord too. Stop spreading gak.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Oldmike wrote:
Daemons are all about luck of the dice if it is bad you lose
Seen a warlord roll 1 twice and get vaporized

he failed a 2++ reroll and failed a leadership of 10?

What? No, double 1's on Warp Storm forces an Instability check on a character. 3D6 Leadership test, no saves except FNP. I've had it kill my warlord too. Stop spreading gak.

That doesn't happen anymore...double 1's on warpstorm is impossible with demonic incursion - the worst you can do is a result of a 2 - which I honestly don't know what it is - but it's not that bad PLUS - if it happend you would just reroll the result with fate-weaver for a more pleasant result. Sure I guess it's possible they could roll another 1 with the re-roll but it's very unlikely.

I figured he was talking about impossible robes since I already have made it abundantly clear that double 1's on warp-storm table can not happen with daemonic incursion.

I had a 3.5 Ed Daemon Prince get killed by TWO guardsmen in close combat while he had a 4+ FnP and a 2+ armor save in one round.

Extremely bad luck can happen, as can extremely good luck. The Warlord trait is 1/6 chance of happening per game and to have army-wide cursed earth is even less (as each psyker has a 1/6 chance to get it, so while getting one model with Cursed Earth is more statistically likely with more psykers, having enough to blanket your entire army is much, much rarer).

Also the result of that 1/324 would outright KILL the Daemon Prince with Impossible Robes. Failing the Leadership essentially turns the wound into an instant death hit. the 1 in 36 chance will cause a wound to the Daemon Prince, and a DP only has 4 wounds to begin with. And each of those wounds has that same leadership chance of killing the DP outright, and that's also assuming you're not using an Instant Kill Weapon (which just flat out turns it to a 1/36 chance of killing the DP).

This does make me wanna ask, Did you bring a lot of Grav Weapons? It sounds like your main problem with the army was that you couldn't force saves (which is the main way of dealing with the rerollable 2++). If that is the case you've basically faced the hard counter to your army.

 Xenomancers wrote:

That doesn't happen anymore...double 1's on warpstorm is impossible with demonic incursion ....
I figured he was talking about impossible robes since I already have made it abundantly clear that double 1's on warp-storm table can not happen with daemonic incursion.

You do realise people are giving example of general play experiences that have happened to them, and may not all be aware of, or using Demonic Incursion ?

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I had a 3.5 Ed Daemon Prince get killed by TWO guardsmen in close combat while he had a 4+ FnP and a 2+ armor save in one round.

Extremely bad luck can happen, as can extremely good luck. The Warlord trait is 1/6 chance of happening per game and to have army-wide cursed earth is even less (as each psyker has a 1/6 chance to get it, so while getting one model with Cursed Earth is more statistically likely with more psykers, having enough to blanket your entire army is much, much rarer).

Also the result of that 1/324 would outright KILL the Daemon Prince with Impossible Robes. Failing the Leadership essentially turns the wound into an instant death hit. the 1 in 36 chance will cause a wound to the Daemon Prince, and a DP only has 4 wounds to begin with. And each of those wounds has that same leadership chance of killing the DP outright, and that's also assuming you're not using an Instant Kill Weapon (which just flat out turns it to a 1/36 chance of killing the DP).

This does make me wanna ask, Did you bring a lot of Grav Weapons? It sounds like your main problem with the army was that you couldn't force saves (which is the main way of dealing with the rerollable 2++). If that is the case you've basically faced the hard counter to your army.

I posted my list right above - I had only 3 grav cannons in my list. The rest was just wound forcing dakka. Correction I had a 4th grav cannon on the LR primarus.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 adamsouza wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

That doesn't happen anymore...double 1's on warpstorm is impossible with demonic incursion ....
I figured he was talking about impossible robes since I already have made it abundantly clear that double 1's on warp-storm table can not happen with daemonic incursion.

You do realise people are giving example of general play experiences that have happened to them, and may not all be aware of, or using Demonic Incursion ?

Incursion was mentioned in my original post. It's my belief that incursion has broken daemons - never had trouble with daemons like this before - they were always strong but these new items and warp storm changes put them over the edge IMO. What was once random is now consistent unstoppable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I had a 3.5 Ed Daemon Prince get killed by TWO guardsmen in close combat while he had a 4+ FnP and a 2+ armor save in one round.

Extremely bad luck can happen, as can extremely good luck. The Warlord trait is 1/6 chance of happening per game and to have army-wide cursed earth is even less (as each psyker has a 1/6 chance to get it, so while getting one model with Cursed Earth is more statistically likely with more psykers, having enough to blanket your entire army is much, much rarer).

Also the result of that 1/324 would outright KILL the Daemon Prince with Impossible Robes. Failing the Leadership essentially turns the wound into an instant death hit. the 1 in 36 chance will cause a wound to the Daemon Prince, and a DP only has 4 wounds to begin with. And each of those wounds has that same leadership chance of killing the DP outright, and that's also assuming you're not using an Instant Kill Weapon (which just flat out turns it to a 1/36 chance of killing the DP).

This does make me wanna ask, Did you bring a lot of Grav Weapons? It sounds like your main problem with the army was that you couldn't force saves (which is the main way of dealing with the rerollable 2++). If that is the case you've basically faced the hard counter to your army.

My point is also that forcing wounds on a 2++ reroll is actually not an effective way to deal with it. Basically nothing can deal with that except 6 results on d weapons.

I think a major point might not have been touched on here. Most of us keep saying how Daemons rely on luck, blah, blah, but at 3000pts, luck becomes more statistic.

I think what Xenomancers experienced was due to the larger points value, which was almost double that of "most" experiences with Daemons. It could be that with so many points available, Daemons are better able to mitigate some of their bad rolls and a good player can use the better rolls to their advantage.
I think at 1850, Incursion vs Gladius is a much more even fight, with Gladius potentially having an edge and being able to exploit weaknesses.

Just a theory

-

 Galef wrote:
I think a major point might not have been touched on here. Most of us keep saying how Daemons rely on luck, blah, blah, but at 3000pts, luck becomes more statistic.

I think what Xenomancers experienced was due to the larger points value, which was almost double that of "most" experiences with Daemons. It could be that with so many points available, Daemons are better able to mitigate some of their bad rolls and a good player can use the better rolls to their advantage.
I think at 1850, Incursion vs Gladius is a much more even fight, with Gladius potentially having an edge and being able to exploit weaknesses.

Just a theory

-

I think you are right on this point for sure. Gladius is much more efficient at about 2000 points and daemons have a lot less rolls to make to get powers at that level So it's possible they don't have everything they need. However - they still have a much better chance of getting the powers they need than a conclave does with say...3-4 lvl 3 daemons/belakor/fatey - not to mention the additional magic dice coming from horrors and heralds.

In any case I'm not bringing marines vs daemons ever again if I have a choice in the matter.

I feel like the biggest reason daemons "fly under the radar" is because so few people play them.

You don't need to poll the forums to know that daemons have a bad rep of an army for being too random. Its also pretty obvious that a lot of people don't like the minis. Lastly, the army can be pretty confusing and complicated. You have a lot of stuff to keep track of, and not many people want to do their daemon taxes before playing a game.
Daemons can scale really really well with points due to their shenanigans, as OP experienced. The new formations all are honestly really nice, but VERY expensive, which is a huge detriment to them. At a high point level, being able to bring multiple of them, in an incursion has very high potential for strength. Especially to someone who doesn't know what daemons have in their arsenal.

As a daemon player, I have played against a good lot of people who have never played against daemons. The most common response is, "wow your army is broken", followed by, "My army sucks!" and lastly, something like, "Your army is strange, I don't like it". When The Tetrad came out, I got to experience those all over again.

So to me it sounds mostly like someone who didn't know what daemons could do, found out what daemons can do. Faced a very competitive Tzeentch list, and lost, which is something they were very not used to.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
So to me it sounds mostly like someone who didn't know what daemons could do, found out what daemons can do. Faced a very competitive Tzeentch list, and lost, which is something they were very not used to.

You sir summed it up better than most of us did.

Also I would like to point out that 40k is ideally played at 1500-2000 points range. Anything larger and whoever gets first turn can disproportionately destroy so much of the enemy force that it results in a curbstomp no matter what they're playing. The only Apocalypse game I ever played ended up having Titans, which literally deleted a quarter of the opposing army (the team I was on) before the first turn was even over (Quite literally, by the time he fired off everything he still had the assault phase to resolve. My army was gone by that point.)

Deamons are made of psychic stuff, so it make sense they are better are getting and using powers. Looking are both lists (and being a Daemon player) I think the Gladius should have won, but I can see a few scenarios that could go in the Daemons favor, causing them to table you. Daemons build momentum very, VERY well.

I few tips from a Deamon player: I want you to shoot at my 2++ re-rollable units. Don't start there. I assume the Tetrad Tz DP had the robes, and the other had Grimoire to cast onto Fate weaver, and one of the Herald was casting Cursed Earth.
The first target you need to be shooting at are the Horrors. Wittle down the WC available and now you can deny certain spells. Exploit a weak turn if Grimoire doesn't go off.

I played a game recently against a guy with 5 Cabal Sorcerors, 2 DPs and some Heralds in Horror units. He had over 30+D6 WC to start with. By turn 3 he had less than a dozen+D6 WC because I targeted his easy to kill psykers and ignored the 2++ guys. Until he failed a Cursed Earth and was on the ground, then I focused that DP dead.
Admittedly, I was playing Eldar, but my point is that Daemons do have weaknesses and enough players know them that Daemons cannot truly be top tier. They are just shy of that. If anything, Daemons traded spots with Necrons in terms of power, but the other 3 powerhouse armies are still well ahead.

--

 gwarsh41 wrote:
I feel like the biggest reason daemons "fly under the radar" is because so few people play them.

You don't need to poll the forums to know that daemons have a bad rep of an army for being too random. Its also pretty obvious that a lot of people don't like the minis. Lastly, the army can be pretty confusing and complicated. You have a lot of stuff to keep track of, and not many people want to do their daemon taxes before playing a game.
Daemons can scale really really well with points due to their shenanigans, as OP experienced. The new formations all are honestly really nice, but VERY expensive, which is a huge detriment to them. At a high point level, being able to bring multiple of them, in an incursion has very high potential for strength. Especially to someone who doesn't know what daemons have in their arsenal.

As a daemon player, I have played against a good lot of people who have never played against daemons. The most common response is, "wow your army is broken", followed by, "My army sucks!" and lastly, something like, "Your army is strange, I don't like it". When The Tetrad came out, I got to experience those all over again.

So to me it sounds mostly like someone who didn't know what daemons could do, found out what daemons can do. Faced a very competitive Tzeentch list, and lost, which is something they were very not used to.

Not disagreeing with anything you said. It's a pretty fair description of what happend to me. Not used to getting butt stomped and I don't play against daemons a lot. When you say their formations are expensive though - you make it sound like they don't get what they pay for - plus the requirements for these formations are things you were going to take anyways...pink horrors and heralds. These aren't drawbacks at all IMO.

It's the amount of units you have to take that's the issue.

 Galef wrote:
Deamons are made of psychic stuff, so it make sense they are better are getting and using powers. Looking are both lists (and being a Daemon player) I think the Gladius should have won, but I can see a few scenarios that could go in the Daemons favor, causing them to table you. Daemons build momentum very, VERY well.

I few tips from a Deamon player: I want you to shoot at my 2++ re-rollable units. Don't start there. I assume the Tetrad Tz DP had the robes, and the other had Grimoire to cast onto Fate weaver, and one of the Herald was casting Cursed Earth.
The first target you need to be shooting at are the Horrors. Wittle down the WC available and now you can deny certain spells. Exploit a weak turn if Grimoire doesn't go off.

I played a game recently against a guy with 5 Cabal Sorcerors, 2 DPs and some Heralds in Horror units. He had over 30+D6 WC to start with. By turn 3 he had less than a dozen+D6 WC because I targeted his easy to kill psykers and ignored the 2++ guys. Until he failed a Cursed Earth and was on the ground, then I focused that DP dead.
Admittedly, I was playing Eldar, but my point is that Daemons do have weaknesses and enough players know them that Daemons cannot truly be top tier. They are just shy of that. If anything, Daemons traded spots with Necrons in terms of power, but the other 3 powerhouse armies are still well ahead.

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I really only had 2 turns and minus my HB devs and dakka pred unit shooting skyfire at fatey with command tanks buffs. Everything else shot at the horrors. Because of terrain features he still had 3-5 horrors a peice in each unit and only lost 1 exalted flamer at the end of turn 1. 3 Grav cannon tacticals on my left flank engaged a Korne DP that had endurance cast on him I did an amazing 2 wounds (the nurgle with no spells on him had a 2+ cover save at the time) Fatey lived through the phase with 1 wound due to his reroll. turn 2 I was charged by 4 Daemon princes and a screamer star. Invis DP charged my Ironclad. Invis screamer charged my whole front line of razors. Pretty much over at that point. What really would have helped would have been a cluexus but that is so easy to counter now I don't think it's viable.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 gwarsh41 wrote:
I feel like the biggest reason daemons "fly under the radar" is because so few people play them.

You don't need to poll the forums to know that daemons have a bad rep of an army for being too random. Its also pretty obvious that a lot of people don't like the minis. Lastly, the army can be pretty confusing and complicated. You have a lot of stuff to keep track of, and not many people want to do their daemon taxes before playing a game.
Daemons can scale really really well with points due to their shenanigans, as OP experienced. The new formations all are honestly really nice, but VERY expensive, which is a huge detriment to them. At a high point level, being able to bring multiple of them, in an incursion has very high potential for strength. Especially to someone who doesn't know what daemons have in their arsenal.

As a daemon player, I have played against a good lot of people who have never played against daemons. The most common response is, "wow your army is broken", followed by, "My army sucks!" and lastly, something like, "Your army is strange, I don't like it". When The Tetrad came out, I got to experience those all over again.

So to me it sounds mostly like someone who didn't know what daemons could do, found out what daemons can do. Faced a very competitive Tzeentch list, and lost, which is something they were very not used to.

Not disagreeing with anything you said. It's a pretty fair description of what happend to me. Not used to getting butt stomped and I don't play against daemons a lot. When you say their formations are expensive though - you make it sound like they don't get what they pay for - plus the requirements for these formations are things you were going to take anyways...pink horrors and heralds. These aren't drawbacks at all IMO.

Most of these formations are obtuse for the average player, both in points, and in money. As pm713 said, its that you need 9 units for the Tzeentch one, 8 for khorne, 7 for nurgle and 6 for slaanesh. Your looking at a point cost that is very expensive for these troop formations, and in comparison to say, necrons or space marines, the bonuses are not that hot for an average 1850 game.
Now when you combine them, say, a tetrad+tallyband, you can get something nasty going, but that tallyband is bare minimum, almost all nurglings. It's nearly impossible to fit some of those core formations into a standard game, and then something that can throw some weight around. At 3000pt though, you can bring all the toys! I mean, a skyhost is +700pt for 9 units of MSU screamers! That isn't very friendly on the wallet! The bonus for the MSU skyhost? soul blaze and warp flame on your slashing attacks. Hardly worth the investment. You need to put some chariots in for it to become OK. I mean, Look at the Destroyer cult, now THAT is a good formation! That is how a spam formation is done.

Point is, these formations only shine in games as large as the one you played, and for players who have a collection as massive as the one you faced. Yes, I almost always bring pink horrors in my daemon games. No, I never bring 9 units of them. I only own like 30. Yes, I always bring plaguebearers, but I never bring 7 units, I don't own 70... only 50 or so. The only 2 of these core formations I can pull off, as a 5 year long daemon player are the tallyband and rotswarm, plus I used to run mono nurgle, so that helps a lot!

Tallyband, because you can make like 6 nurgling bases out of one kit, and I got a bunch of old nurglings on the cheap. So I have 6 MSU nurglings and 1 PB unit.
Rotswarm because I have spawn I can use as beasts of nurgle, and a big unit of plague drones.

Honestly, these formations are like they looked at the old Apoc formations and decided to put them in standard games.

I do have to concede though that the Tetrad is fairly powerful, even as a standalone formation. There's a whole thread about it in the tactics section about fielding it as a standalone army, which is rare for any of these "Decurion" formations to be.