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We still don't know if the stratagems have a blank statement beforehand that says they can only apply to Chaos Daemons units, rather than all Chaos units that are Daemons.

Like how Tyranids can't use their stratagems one Genestealer Cults.

tneva82 wrote:Except GW being GW they could have given them price drop and some new fancy beneficitial bespoken rule. Aaaaand of course they could have made them balanced option which means using 60+ brimstones would still be viable option rather than nerfed out of existance.

You DO know balanced means it's worth taking, not that previously broken units have no more place to be fielded? It's not balanced if they are now nerfed to death. Conscripts at the moment are NOT balanced. Apart from valhallans only idiots takes them now outside power level/narrative/open games. This is NOT balanced no matter how some people think it's correct to nerf unit to death because they were too good before. That's not people wanting balance but people wanting REVEEEEENGE! It's kindergarden attitude.

Horrors already have a bespoke rule: they split. GW (as far as I can tell) is interested in making a fluffy game; so GW being GW would be to make horrors play more like the fluff describes.
Which is what making lesser horrors less survivable achieves; rather than having brimstones be a cheaper way of achieving what players actually want pink horrors for (screening, evidently not smite or shooting).

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
We still don't know if the stratagems have a blank statement beforehand that says they can only apply to Chaos Daemons units, rather than all Chaos units that are Daemons.

Like how Tyranids can't use their stratagems one Genestealer Cults.

I find that unlikely. They would have to find a way to make it work through keywords somehow differentiating Codex daemons daemons from other daemons (non-<legion> daemons would work though).

Dudeface wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Neronoxx wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

xxhikaru123 wrote:

Sedraxis wrote:
So much positive changes and all-round goodstuff, yet there's so much focus on 1 or 2 cheese units in this topic. It's depressing, really.

The Nurgle stuff looks great, definetly giving that a go!

Ya that's why I stopped sharing. If I think it was even bad , I wouldn't have been excited to share. lol

Too many people have been over relying on the more unbalanced units, so there are people with dozens of brimstones and exalted flamers who have been used to them being hyper efficient. With them now costing more/being less unbalanced in some cases, they're going to have to reconfigure their lists.

It's no fault of yours people think the way they do and I'm sorry you've been dissuaded from posting the changes. Sometimes people need to realise that the overly good units will be balanced out and plan accordingly.

Ya. In any game, if something sounds to good to be true, don't buy more than you need.
I've got friends with 5 Stormravens who look silly complaining they can't run them.

Then again with GW's random "balancing" you can never be sure what gets nerfed and what gets boosted. They could have even been buffed up rather than overnerfed. And of course silly somebody for hoping that if they get nerfed they get nerfed REASONABLY and not overnerfed ala conscripts that now might just as well be 0-1 unit for valhallans only.

If people are taking 60+ brimstones it's not for fluff or hopes of a balanced entry, it's to game an advantage (which is fine in some circles and I haven't anything against it in concept). So these people need to have reasonable understanding that the meta and balance will shift.

I'm keen to see if the skull cannon has any buffs it's a touch lacklustre atm.

Nobody claimed at any point that brimes were balanced before-but they sure are not balanced now. there is NO reason to ever pick one.

Compare brime to blue, the blue endures x2 the shots, but two brimes cost 6 to a blue 5.
A pink endures x3 the shots a brime does, while also having a demi-decent gun, but the pink costs 7 to the 3 brimes who cost 9.
Three blues endure as much as two pinks, but three blues cost 15 to two pinks 14, and then the pinks also got guns.
Pinks are now strictly better than blues, who aer in turn strictly better than brimes, invalidating both blues and brimes.
In what scenario can you ever justify a brime or blue now? the simple answer is you can't. and that's not balance. you got pinks who are good, and blues and brimes who are unplayable.
So evil of me to hope the models I've got (because evil me, picking 10-20 of brimes and blues each per game to serve as chaff for my rubrics. TS using minor daemons to buffer their numbers is not at all fluffy. and I could not have possibly began collecting them to have the 7th, when the pinks where the cheesy ones.) will actually remain playable.

Not everyone that owns and uses blues and brimes is a WAAC player that spammed them to kingdom come. and treating people who are let down by the very obvious overnerf that shelves some of their models as if they deserve it is not being any more friendly to the hobby than the actually WAACs.

 DarkBlack wrote:

tneva82 wrote:Except GW being GW they could have given them price drop and some new fancy beneficitial bespoken rule. Aaaaand of course they could have made them balanced option which means using 60+ brimstones would still be viable option rather than nerfed out of existance.

You DO know balanced means it's worth taking, not that previously broken units have no more place to be fielded? It's not balanced if they are now nerfed to death. Conscripts at the moment are NOT balanced. Apart from valhallans only idiots takes them now outside power level/narrative/open games. This is NOT balanced no matter how some people think it's correct to nerf unit to death because they were too good before. That's not people wanting balance but people wanting REVEEEEENGE! It's kindergarden attitude.

Horrors already have a bespoke rule: they split. GW (as far as I can tell) is interested in making a fluffy game; so GW being GW would be to make horrors play more like the fluff describes.
Which is what making lesser horrors less survivable achieves; rather than having brimstones be a cheaper way of achieving what players actually want pink horrors for (screening, evidently not smite or shooting).

The split rule, as it currently is (and apparently not changing) might as well not exist at all.
You need to pay reserve points to split, that means that you could have just had these models on the unit before anyway, so why on earth reserve the points to split rather than have more bodies to begin with?
This is doubled by the fact that blues and brimes are now becoming strictly worse than pinks, so its never a good choice to split a pink rather than having more pinks around.

If brimes and blues screen worse than pinks, but pinks also have added value (of shooting), than brimes and blues do not exist as all they do to begin with is screen.
Nobody would ever take a brime or blue with the new codex rules, or ever use the split rule, unless intentionally hurting his list or not having the models to deploy the strictly better pinks.

Messiah wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
We still don't know if the stratagems have a blank statement beforehand that says they can only apply to Chaos Daemons units, rather than all Chaos units that are Daemons.

Like how Tyranids can't use their stratagems one Genestealer Cults.

I find that unlikely. They would have to find a way to make it work through keywords somehow differentiating Codex daemons daemons from other daemons (non-<legion> daemons would work though).

You "find it unlikely" that the new Daemon Codex won't retroactively unlock deep striking Magnus and Mortarion for 2cp?

The Codex itself is an afterthought if this is true, and would be one of the worst balance mistakes GW has made in this edition, which is saying a lot. You'd take one Herald and a unit of Nurglings as a patrol to unlock deep striking primarchs and everything else may as well not exist.

It's not exactly a difficult feat to accomplish rules tying the new rules/strategems strictly to Daemons from the codex, and almost certainly exists. Hell, in two seconds off the top of my head, they could tie it to the Daemonic Ritual special rule. That was easy, problem solved.

Yeah they maybe went slightly too far, but they still have uses, cheap min requirements for detachments, they're short so easy to hide out of Los for objective camping, they still take up a lot of space so do still screen well.

For 3 pts a head your screen shouldn't ignore 50% of the firepower aimed at it.

 BoomWolf wrote:


Compare brime to blue, the blue endures x2 the shots, but two brimes cost 6 to a blue 5.
A pink endures x3 the shots a brime does, while also having a demi-decent gun, but the pink costs 7 to the 3 brimes who cost 9.

Where are you getting this from? A 4+ save is not 3x as durable as a 6+ save. With these new saves and assuming they're all still the same toughness it will take on average 4 wounds to kill 10 points of brimstones. It takes on average 3 wounds to kill 10 points of blues. It takes on average 2.86 wounds to kill 10 points of pinks. So brimstones are still easily the most durable and pinks the least so, while their lethality is the opposite. Fair? I think so.

 BoomWolf wrote:

The split rule, as it currently is (and apparently not changing) might as well not exist at all.
You need to pay reserve points to split, that means that you could have just had these models on the unit before anyway, so why on earth reserve the points to split rather than have more bodies to begin with?

The short answer is flexibility and fluff. Flexibility because I can chose if I want the extra bodies and which unit gets them during the game. Then I can place the models where I like during combat (surround a unit, daisy chain out to an objective or form more screen in the direction I need) or I can chose to summon something else instead.
Also because:
horrors are pink
horrors are blue
where there once was one
there are now two

Horrors are supposed to split into weaker horrors, making them a pain to deal with; that is what the rules are supposed to enable on the tabletop. The current rules do not.

This is doubled by the fact that blues and brimes are now becoming strictly worse than pinks, so its never a good choice to split a pink rather than having more pinks around.

Exactly. It's not supposed to be a choice between different kinds of horrors, it's supposed to be one unit with a weird mechanic.
To take a pink and split it all the way takes 19 points, giving 4 wounds, or 3 for 16 (the price of 2 horrors). So more wounds (that can be allocated to the model you like) and more models (for if you fail morale).

Question for everyone: can wounds from an attack by a unit be allocated to horrors that were added to that unit from that attack? Seeing as attacks are supposed to be resolved one at a time, but we use fast rolling I think so, but it would be cool if overkill is lost before splitting.

The main reason to take yellow ones is to get a cheap battalion detachment for more CP to deepstrike the good stuff.

And regarding overkill, from 1 single attack, overkill damage is lost, but a enemy unit can still take out all pinks/blues/yellow in phase if they roll each attack separate as the rules say you should do it anyway

 matt123456790 wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:


Compare brime to blue, the blue endures x2 the shots, but two brimes cost 6 to a blue 5.
A pink endures x3 the shots a brime does, while also having a demi-decent gun, but the pink costs 7 to the 3 brimes who cost 9.

Where are you getting this from? A 4+ save is not 3x as durable as a 6+ save. With these new saves and assuming they're all still the same toughness it will take on average 4 wounds to kill 10 points of brimstones. It takes on average 3 wounds to kill 10 points of blues. It takes on average 2.86 wounds to kill 10 points of pinks. So brimstones are still easily the most durable and pinks the least so, while their lethality is the opposite. Fair? I think so.

This.

Brimstones are still the best ones for screening.

I saw this posted elsewhere and thought this thread would enjoy it:

Yo if you don't want the T3 and 6++ on your 3pt screen infantry can I have it for my Gretchin?

Reasons to take brims:

-3pt model to fill out a min sized squad of 10
-youre going to take morale casualties and/or mortal wounds
-30pt troop squad to get a battalion/brigade

Just because a unit is strictly less viable in combat in one configuration does not mean there is no reason to ever take them.

xxhikaru123 wrote:

Sedraxis wrote:
So much positive changes and all-round goodstuff, yet there's so much focus on 1 or 2 cheese units in this topic. It's depressing, really.

The Nurgle stuff looks great, definetly giving that a go!

Ya that's why I stopped sharing. If I think it was even bad , I wouldn't have been excited to share. lol

Ehhhh, if your willingness to share your info is predicated on people validating your feelings, then it probably is best that you just keep it to yourself. This isn't your blog, Dakka is not your echo chamber.

The codex comes out in like a week anyway.

- - -

As a Khorne player what we know sounds pretty good, as a Tzeentch player things sound decent and Nurgle seems really strong. Absolutely nothing we've heard thus far makes Slaanesh units sounds appealing on any level though. Do we know anything at all? Is there a single reason for me to take Daemonettes over Bloodletters now (not that there really was one with the index anyway) beyond being forced to if going mono-God?

While I don't think we'll see any revision to split, there might be some reason to reserve a few split points to preserve a unit of Pink horrors within the 20-30 models size to retain assault 3.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Because I have these units, using them to screen for my thousand sons, and I DON'T have pinks?
I'm hoping for a silver lining I'm still unaware of to salvage them. They were too good, true, but now like conscripts they got hit with overnerf.

The flamer buff is awesome and I love it
I don't quite understand what changed with the blue scribes
And the changling nerf is a bit sad, but understandable.

And that sums the daemons I've got.

Its just that I have dozens of small horrors, who currently look like they are becoming nonviable picks,and I'm really hoping I'm missing something, anything, to make them worthwhile.

Let's talk about having lots of daemons that aren't great. I have 3 dozen flesh hounds that don't amount to much this edition. Welcome to 40k where GW changes what is good between codexes so that you have to buy the new fotm. It's what they do unfortunately :(

 knas wrote:
While I don't think we'll see any revision to split, there might be some reason to reserve a few split points to preserve a unit of Pink horrors within the 20-30 models size to retain assault 3.

As we haven't seen the rule, it's entirely possible their Assault 3 bonus requires 20+ Pinks in the unit, not just 20+ Horrors.

DJ3 wrote:

 knas wrote:
While I don't think we'll see any revision to split, there might be some reason to reserve a few split points to preserve a unit of Pink horrors within the 20-30 models size to retain assault 3.

As we haven't seen the rule, it's entirely possible their Assault 3 bonus requires 20+ Pinks in the unit, not just 20+ Horrors.

That's how I assume it works. Still leaves 10 pinks to split into 20 blues into 20 brims

Yeah, from a Tzeentch perspective, it seems like:

Flamers: Big, huge buff. 12" range and the ability to deep strike 3 flamers for 1CP or 9 for 2cp makes these guys wickedly strong. Put these down near some infantry and it doesn't even matter if they charge you, you're causing them some serious hurt. Add in the fact that if it's worth a die shift you can now pop a herald nearby to cause those flamers to be S5 AP-1 and the fact that there is no way to assault them at all without taking full overwatch, then if they live to their turn full shooting AGAIN thanks to Pistol rule...hot damn.

Herald on Chariot: Herald gets a boost two ways. First his attacks become much more potent and focused towards the goal of eating light vehicles/elite infantry, which is nice, and second his aura gets a huge bump from S:user ranged weaponry across the board and the new locus. I expect to see a LOT more of these duders - I think the enormous chunk of melee attacks from the chariot and the added speed make him always worth over a basic herald.

Exalted Flamer: You're going to see him just as much as you do now, not because he got hugely better, but because he's still Tzeentch's sole source of decent anti-tank. A little more expensive, a little more effective, that's kind of a wash. He's 3 mini lascannons with Character protections, which means he also now comes with a Locus. I think 99% of the time if you buy that lovely chariot kit, you're going to want to be building the flamer on foot, herald on the chariot.

Pink Horrors (and mixed horrors in general): S:User ranged attacks helps pinks more than anybody else. Lasguns become Boltguns, enough said. Whether it's going to be worthwhile to try and blob up to get that 20+ bonus attack I'm not sure, but I'd definitely consider a setup of 25x pinks+5x Brims with a banner as a good basic troop unit along with a good chunk of blues waiting in split. Having 2-3 units like that would mean that the first squad that gets charged you can just throw all your splits down on to turn them into the famously obnoxious horror screen, and the rest you can try to preserve their shooting as long as possible. I think you now take pinks if you want a functional combat unit, blues to split, and brims to fill slots whenever they need filling. The bonus attack might be a fool's errand given how easy 30 models is to get into combat in the age of charging tanks and just how much easy access Tzeentch has to clearing and generally making useless light infantry units.

Things I don't see being big Winner Winner Chicken Dinners:

Mega Ultra Chickens of either the classic or named type. Sure, they got some form of points drop. Sure, you can just deep strike 'em now to keep them from dying before they get to act. but they're also paying Land Raider prices for something that just doesn't make its points back meaningfully until they get into melee, and Tzeentch is not slaanesh or khorne and does not have good ways to get units into melee fast/off of deep strike. They've got quite a few psychic powers, but if you're taking a unit for psychic powers you might as well take a Prince or a Herald and get youself some of that sweet hot character protection goodness. You get more offense for the points with Princes and more buffing for the points as chariot heralds, plain and simple. The GD aura is still pretty abysmal, especially now that it pales in comparison to the "All my shooting AND melee is S+1" aura and we're still playing a game where it's fine for Celestine and Guilliman to have a conditional resurrect for free but if you want to thwack someone with your 400pt named character's weapon and make a spawn, you'd better have brought the spawn with you in a little spawn jar and paid points for him.

-Burning Chariot: It's not that hard to get a footy exalt near enough to an enemy unit to hit with the 18" range flazcannon. Hey, its not like they have the most absurdly efficient durability for the points screen standing in front of them tying everything up in melee.

-Screamers (at their current points): You get double the offense for the points as compared to Chariots, but I think the Character rule is just that strong that I would almost always go with the chariot for their role. With a points drop to like 25 I'd take some Screamers now that they're a nice dedicated anti-elite choice, but at 31 I think I'd still pass them up for other choices.

Skull Cannon Heavy D6 48" S8 -2 D3

47 pt drop

Soul Grinder

Phlegm Bombardment D6 instead of D3.

xxhikaru123 wrote:
Skull Cannon Heavy D6 48" S8 -2 D3

47 pt drop

Holy smokes, my World Eaters might be getting some artilery! TO EBAY!

 Klor wrote:


Let's talk about having lots of daemons that aren't great. I have 3 dozen flesh hounds that don't amount to much this edition. Welcome to 40k where GW changes what is good between codexes so that you have to buy the new fotm. It's what they do unfortunately :(

As someone who doesn't run MonoKhorne, can I ask what the problem is. They seem pretty reasonable on paper. They're fast and will hit hard on the charge, plus give you a dtw which is valuable to an army without psykers.
Ok, at 20pts each I can't ever see you running all 36, but beyond that I definitely need the problems with them explained to me.

Play nicely please people !

 andysonic1 wrote:

xxhikaru123 wrote:
Skull Cannon Heavy D6 48" S8 -2 D3

47 pt drop

Holy smokes, my World Eaters might be getting some artilery! TO EBAY!

why? its an average of what 3 krak missiles doing d3 dmg instead of d6

The issue I had with Flesh Hounds from 7th to 8th was that they were a cheaper, faster, and had scout in 7th which made them the perfect screen for your footslogging Khorne deamons. Your opponent had to choose between the Hounds halfway up the board turn one OR your Bloodthirster, which took a lot of pressure off the big boi. The problem now is that without that pressure your Bloodthirster is a fire magnet, and with the points hike from 16 to 20, and with their morale at 7, well, they just kinda lost everything that made them the perfect screen. Yes they are still good but they needed just a little tiny bit more power somewhere to make them compete with Chaos Spawn, who are slightly slower, beefyer Hounds now.

Masque weapon is -2 2 dmg instead of -1 1

Herald of Slaanesh is 2 dmg instead of 1

Seekers' Unholy Speed went from Advance & Charge to reroll charge.

Hellflayer gained 1 Attack.
Seeker Chariot gained 1A

All their points same except exalted seeker up by 8 pt.

Slaanesh appears to have lost all the other heralds on exalted chariots etc

Leggy wrote:

 Klor wrote:


Let's talk about having lots of daemons that aren't great. I have 3 dozen flesh hounds that don't amount to much this edition. Welcome to 40k where GW changes what is good between codexes so that you have to buy the new fotm. It's what they do unfortunately :(

As someone who doesn't run MonoKhorne, can I ask what the problem is. They seem pretty reasonable on paper. They're fast and will hit hard on the charge, plus give you a dtw which is valuable to an army without psykers.
Ok, at 20pts each I can't ever see you running all 36, but beyond that I definitely need the problems with them explained to me.

It's not so much that they are bad, they just aren't as good as they used to be last edition. Keep in mind, last edition they could deep strike, they had infiltrate, they moved 10", and they got hammer of wrath on the charge. This edition they went up in points, lost deep strike (until the codex), lost infiltrate, lost hammer of wrath, and only move 8". It is quite similar to the complaints that people are having about the horrors. Between 7th and 8th they went from a main stay for most khorne armies (especially those of us Daemonkin players) to an over priced model for what it does. Again, they aren't bad. They just lost a lot between editions which is what my point was in the first place. They went from must have units to "OK sure I guess I could run some". It felt the same way between 5th and 6th with dark Eldar. Many of the good units got nerfed and the ones that no one played became the good units. From a business perspective for GW it makes sense. From a consumer perspective, it's frustrating lol

xxhikaru123 wrote:
Masque weapon is -2 2 dmg instead of -1 1

Herald of Slaanesh is 2 dmg instead of 1

Good news!

Without change of points??

Hikaru, what's Skarbrand looking like this edition? Might be worth the points now since he can deep strike rather than foot slog.

xxhikaru123 wrote:
Skull Cannon Heavy D6 48" S8 -2 D3

47 pt drop

Soul Grinder

Phlegm Bombardment D6 instead of D3.

Thanks for ur information! Its very exciting to read this small parts of big picture!
Strategems is the fundamental aspect of gameplay in 8 edition, and i hope non-god strategems will be very intersting and have cool mechanics in new codex!
First fear - get boring codex!

 Latro_ wrote:

 andysonic1 wrote:

xxhikaru123 wrote:
Skull Cannon Heavy D6 48" S8 -2 D3

47 pt drop

Holy smokes, my World Eaters might be getting some artilery! TO EBAY!

why? its an average of what 3 krak missiles doing d3 dmg instead of d6

It's cheaper than 3 Havocs with Missile Launchers by 40 points on a tougher platform with more wounds and a gun that ignores cover saves. Not to mention it hits a lot harder in melee if required and will benefit from the Deamons nearby (it has the Bloodletter keyword so it will get boosted up by Heralds in melee). I've always wanted to run Skullcannons because I love how they look, and now I think I will!