Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Building a Daemon Prince for a 55 PL event today. Want to build it thematically but also efficiently. Dual claws? Or should I take an axe or sword?

dual claws always. Same overall damage to sword but cheaper and gives you the change to kill more infantry

Cost on the sword and axe definitely needs to come down, they can't possibly compete with the claws.

Well, I had my first ever 8th edition game last night vs Grey Knights. 55 PL (he had 56 but was new to the game in general). Def took some time to learn the new system so the game took about an hour and a half. So some backstory:

I talked to the organizer (one of them, this was for a new store opening in town) and he mentioned this was for new people to learn 8th edition and I should probably leave Magnus at home (I mentioned I probably didn't have 55 PL of models for my 1k Sons as I just sold 4k points in Necrons and about 3.5k points in Eldar) so I bought some Rubrics and a Daemon Prince and assembled them before the event. I get in to play and the guy across from me has a quad lascannon Landraider. I'm already thinking Im going to lose. Well then we roll for mission and it's 2 objectives apiece. But then we roll and it gets knocked down to one objective, but it's worth 6 VP. Of course it happens to be on his side of the board.... I'm thinking there's no way I can win.

Well I learned my first lesson. Anything can be killed quickly enough. Including my own.

So we setup, I have:
- 9 Rubrics + Sorc with 2x Warp Flamer and Soulreaper
- 4 Rubrics + Sorc with flame pistol and warp flamer
- DP with wings and dual claws
- Scarab Occult with Reaper in deep strike
- Exalted Sorc on Disc

He has some commander in termi armor, looking all badass. 2 squads of 5 infantry, a squad of purifiers in the raider, a raider, and 2 deep striking squads.

My first turn, I move around some, shoot up some Knights (we still do that quite well thank you), and I learn the value of Smite. Even Smite-Light is brutal when you get that d3 and learn it actually hits the unit so it gets spread around. I of course immediately perils round 1 on the DP.

His turn, he shoots some and kills a Rubric. He moves his raider on top of the objective.

Round 2 I warp time the DP up. Smite more, shoot a lot more. DP assaults his HQ and just....well, making a mess of things would not do it justice. I hit all 7 times, 3 of which grant me bonus attacks and those hit. I wound 9 of them, he fails 7 for 14 wounds to his HQ.

He gets justice though. He withdraws the last guy in that squad (the HQ was an IC) and opens up with the raider. Hits 3 times with the cannons, I save 2. He rolls a 6 for damage..... ouch. Needless to say I lost the DP with the rest of the raiders shooting.

Rest of the game is pretty much me advancing and shooting and here I learn the effectiveness of having Warpflamers in the squads. He tried to assault me once. Once. He promptly lost 4 members of his 5 member squad and didn't feel like assaulting with the other one.

Eventually I bring down the raider with a combination of smite, smite, more smite, and finally smite. For the win. After peril'ing again.

So just thinking aloud on what aura buffs TS have access to , to see what optimisation is there. (No lords, phfah)

All psykers (one per turn per army :-/ )
Buff Heretic Astartes
Warptime - speed (3")
Prescience +1 to hit (The 18")

Magnus
Buff Thousand Sons (8")
Reroll 1s to hit &
Reroll invulnerable saves of 1

Ahriman (and Exalte d Sorcerors, who are blatantly inferior)
Buff Thousand Sons Infantry
Reroll invulnerable saves of 1(6")

So already Magnus buffs outperform ahriman and exalted a
Sorcerors. (Sorcerors give no unique buffs, but are at least cheaper. No lords)

Other related unit buffs

All tzeentch daemon psykers
Boon of change
Buff Tzeentch Daemon (18")
Random stat boost.

The Changling
Buff Tzeentch Daemon (9")
-1 to hit.

Herald of tzeentch
Buff Tzeentch Daemon (6")
+ 1 Strength.

Deredeo hellfire veil
Buff Legion chaos (6" wholly within)
5+ invulnerable


Some thoughts

Magnus is good for all legion units for a variety of reasons. Seeing him used with just daemons is wasteful lol.

Deredeo could improve the spread of invulnerable saves, which can get reroll 1s.

Good overlap with the changling. A lot of daemon and tzeentch units, can also benefit from heretic astartes and thousand sons buffs.

Deredei doesn't actually buff anything-as everything already has 5++ in our army, or better.
Except tazzangors geIss, but I aint gonna invest in giving an invul to these.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Deredei doesn't actually buff anything-as everything already has 5++ in our army, or better.
Except tazzangors geIss, but I aint gonna invest in giving an invul to these.

Well I was thinking Vindicator/ predator / land raider / FW tanks and fire raptor .
Units that can benefit for the bonuses to hit from presience or Magnus And benefit from enhanced durability from refillable invuns.

 nintura wrote:


Eventually I bring down the raider with a combination of smite, smite, more smite, and finally smite. For the win. After peril'ing again.

Been there. Done that.

Smite is the only anti-vehicles weapon my Tzeentch army can rely on. Still need to try the Scarab Occult once they are properly converted, those combi-inferno bolter can perform well on light vehicles.

 ochobits wrote:

 nintura wrote:


Eventually I bring down the raider with a combination of smite, smite, more smite, and finally smite. For the win. After peril'ing again.

Been there. Done that.

Smite is the only anti-vehicles weapon my Tzeentch army can rely on. Still need to try the Scarab Occult once they are properly converted, those combi-inferno bolter can perform well on light vehicles.

They do? Why's that? I mean, I guess 4 shots apiece right?

 nintura wrote:

 ochobits wrote:

 nintura wrote:


Eventually I bring down the raider with a combination of smite, smite, more smite, and finally smite. For the win. After peril'ing again.

Been there. Done that.

Smite is the only anti-vehicles weapon my Tzeentch army can rely on. Still need to try the Scarab Occult once they are properly converted, those combi-inferno bolter can perform well on light vehicles.

They do? Why's that? I mean, I guess 4 shots apiece right?

I have yet to try my scarabs, but I'd assume it's because at 4 shots math hammer says you'd probably wound T5-7 once on average per guy. So a squad of 5 would do 5 rend -2 wounds to a vehicle. Charging would also be nice against smaller vehicles as well because -3 negates most saves and only T8+ makes it not worth their time. You only have 2 attacks in melee but if your opponent doesn't move out of combat (eg. to try to stop you from being able to shoot), you get another 2 attacks so averages say 5 wounds at -3 after charging in addition to the 5 at -2 for shooting.

What are your thoughts on the Forgefiend?

Rhinos for Rubricae Squads, yay or nay?
Used to be a solid "yay" in 7th, but now in 8th I'm unsure. What are your thoughts?

Gibs55 wrote:
What are your thoughts on the Forgefiend?

Depends on the loadout.
I'd never run it with Ectoplasma (not like we need more -AP), but it's pretty decent Anti-Tank/MC with 2x Hades Autocannons.
It's also tankier than a Predator and better in close combat - altough it also costs more.

I'd say a definite yes for rubric rhinos. Even as tanky as they are being 24" rapid fire shooting doesn't really work footslogging, you need a good way to move up the board unless you're running with assault weapons (aka noise marines).

Are you guys having success with Magnus?

I was looking into getting one myself, but not too sure.

While I know he is a beast with magic and melé, what worries me is getting shoot off the tsble before doing anything

I've had both tremendous success and horrible failure with him; you're right that getting shot off the table is a huge problem. If you want to run him I'd take a Heldrake as well, since we're otherwise lacking in other ways to support him in melee.

So, finally I had my first games of 8th this weekend. Played 2 games (1500 pts) against Imperial guard. Damn they can bring alot of bodies to the table. But Rubrics can be really duriable agianst the small fire. Sadly it was not enough.

But my lessons from the games were, ditch the tanks and bring more smite to the table. So now I´m toying around with a 1500 pts list with 4 exalted sorcerers and Ahriman.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Deredei doesn't actually buff anything-as everything already has 5++ in our army, or better.
Except tazzangors geIss, but I aint gonna invest in giving an invul to these.

As of the FAQ, the hellfire veil is not a mandatory option so it gets rid of a useless rule and makes the dread 35 points cheaper.
Definitely worth looking into now.

 nintura wrote:
Well, I had my first ever 8th edition game last night vs Grey Knights. 55 PL (he had 56 but was new to the game in general). Def took some time to learn the new system so the game took about an hour and a half. So some backstory:

I talked to the organizer (one of them, this was for a new store opening in town) and he mentioned this was for new people to learn 8th edition and I should probably leave Magnus at home (I mentioned I probably didn't have 55 PL of models for my 1k Sons as I just sold 4k points in Necrons and about 3.5k points in Eldar) so I bought some Rubrics and a Daemon Prince and assembled them before the event. I get in to play and the guy across from me has a quad lascannon Landraider. I'm already thinking Im going to lose. Well then we roll for mission and it's 2 objectives apiece. But then we roll and it gets knocked down to one objective, but it's worth 6 VP. Of course it happens to be on his side of the board.... I'm thinking there's no way I can win.

Well I learned my first lesson. Anything can be killed quickly enough. Including my own.

So we setup, I have:
- 9 Rubrics + Sorc with 2x Warp Flamer and Soulreaper
- 4 Rubrics + Sorc with flame pistol and warp flamer
- DP with wings and dual claws
- Scarab Occult with Reaper in deep strike
- Exalted Sorc on Disc

He has some commander in termi armor, looking all badass. 2 squads of 5 infantry, a squad of purifiers in the raider, a raider, and 2 deep striking squads.

My first turn, I move around some, shoot up some Knights (we still do that quite well thank you), and I learn the value of Smite. Even Smite-Light is brutal when you get that d3 and learn it actually hits the unit so it gets spread around. I of course immediately perils round 1 on the DP.

His turn, he shoots some and kills a Rubric. He moves his raider on top of the objective.

Round 2 I warp time the DP up. Smite more, shoot a lot more. DP assaults his HQ and just....well, making a mess of things would not do it justice. I hit all 7 times, 3 of which grant me bonus attacks and those hit. I wound 9 of them, he fails 7 for 14 wounds to his HQ.

He gets justice though. He withdraws the last guy in that squad (the HQ was an IC) and opens up with the raider. Hits 3 times with the cannons, I save 2. He rolls a 6 for damage..... ouch. Needless to say I lost the DP with the rest of the raiders shooting.

Rest of the game is pretty much me advancing and shooting and here I learn the effectiveness of having Warpflamers in the squads. He tried to assault me once. Once. He promptly lost 4 members of his 5 member squad and didn't feel like assaulting with the other one.

Eventually I bring down the raider with a combination of smite, smite, more smite, and finally smite. For the win. After peril'ing again.

As far as I can tell, there's two huge weaknesses in your list: your DP isn't protected and your rubrics are on foot. Rhinos are mandatory for rubrics. You can't take objectives nor capitalize on warpflamers if your Rubrics are on foot. Second of all, the best thing about a DP is that it's a very lethal character considering it has less than 10 wounds which means people can't shoot at it unless it's the closest unit. Rushing it in, opening it up to lascannon fire, is a surefire way to get it killed. You need a unit that can run in front of it. Warp speed some spawn up the board or have the earlier mentioned Rhino close to the DP.

That would have been fine, had I had the points available This was a small game.

I'm having a very hard time fielding an army that feels as effective as it would be if I included some Tzeentch daemons; Exalted Flamers and Heralds of Tzeentch are honestly just too good to pass up.

On a side note how do you guys load out tzangors? Pistols and chainsword or otherwise?

Building my 1k Sons up and purchasing a Hellbrute today. I like the shooting our army already has, but our melee needs some help I think? What would you recommend for the hellbrute? I'm thinking both Scourge and Hammer? Using Warptime to get in an early charge to wreck something valuable sounds like a good idea. Or would it be better to go double scourge? Or Scourge/fist? High toughness seems to be our weakness. Ideas?

I planned to take a hellbrute for much the same reason as you but I am opting for just the basic load-out. My reasoning is I don't believe there's much reason to decking him out for melee. They are pretty decent as is and the point sink doesn't seem worth it. I just really want to make combat units less confident at charging straight in at my rubrics.

I much prefer to hybrid the brute, one melee weapon and one gun.

Not having a proper gun is just wasting a chance to get extra shots by crazed.

Yes. Me too. The basic is a melta/fist. I think it's really solid because most of your army is a mid-range army meaning you are going to want to at the very least get within 24 inch.

 BoomWolf wrote:
I much prefer to hybrid the brute, one melee weapon and one gun.

Not having a proper gun is just wasting a chance to get extra shots by crazed.

Maybe. But then when you're in melee you can't shoot, and when you're shooting, you're not melee'ing anyway. It can also have dual heavy flamers as well already. That'll keep things from charging you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Widied wrote:
I planned to take a hellbrute for much the same reason as you but I am opting for just the basic load-out. My reasoning is I don't believe there's much reason to decking him out for melee. They are pretty decent as is and the point sink doesn't seem worth it. I just really want to make combat units less confident at charging straight in at my rubrics.

Ive found putting 1 or 2 warpflamers in your rubrics keeps people from charging. It's gross.

I did that too!!! Haha! Seems really fun!

I had a game yesterday where I tried two squads of rubrics with 3 warpflamer/1 boltgun setup. It ruined the genestealers I was up against, I think the ability to take multiple warpflamers is the primary reason to take Rubrics instead of (well, in addition to) SOT's.

Only problem is that the range is "only" 8" so charges 9" means no overwatch

I keep my Rubrics in a rhino so that they're not the first ones getting charged. Tzaangors (or something else equally expendable depending on positioning) eat the initial charge, fall back, and Rubrics pile out with their flamers.

I'm intending to take them without Rhino using the same mentality as another mentioned -- using tzangors. I see it as you either take Rhino's or a screen/bubble wrap. I'm opting for a screen of tzangors and horrors to move up ahead of the Rubrics. One, to bubble wrap them and the rest of the army and cover more ground from deepstrike so the rest of my army won't get surprised and if they hit into these units big deal. In theory it seems better as these units can fight back with a little more punch than rhino's as well. The changeling gives a minus 1 to shoot at these units, with all is dust, everything should be pretty resilient and able to make it mid field. In theory....