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.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 WinterLantern wrote:
Goddam the ranting about doom demons has pissed me off when daemon engines, possessed, obliterators etc have really strong synergy with daemons. ~If you want shooting, build daemonkin style. Heck, Slaanesh Daemons actually provide a pretty strong buff with move/advance/charge for daemon engines which would require a specialist detatchment otherwise, and in general mixing in daemonkin units to an army can fill in a lot of gaps whilst still being mono god.

Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses, so being mad that you built a list in a specific style, and it having weaknesses, is kind of bizarre. I played heavy kdk in 7th, so i see nothing wrong with merging god factions into a warpy mortal/daemon mess

The problem with the Daemons Codex is that it's a n00b trap. You can't play it standalone, you have to pick a quarter of it and then soup in a subset of the CSM book to play a Daemons army, so why is it a standalone Codex?

The Daemons Codex should be playable without CSM. Otherwise it's like saying that Space Marines should only be playable if you take Guard (remember how the loyal 32 was a must take?). How that looks is different to each person, but WinterLanter has the gist of it. Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses. It's just that 3/4's of Daemons is close combat, which is (IMO) weak for everyone this edition.

TBH I remember when the daemon codex came for fantasy and 40k. In the white dwarfs all the armies they showed were at minimun 2-god armies. And in the battle reports most were 3-4 god armies.


As others have said , comparing Sa'cea sept armies with Khorne demon armies is wrong. I don't lose anything but a couple of special characters if I take a Tau subfaction.

The best comparison would be, for example, an Dark Eldar player using just Kabalites ,or Homunculus or Wytch Cults. (And I have played with full Wytch Cult armies, it was fun, I won some games, lost many more) And as you can see most competitive dark eldar players use a mix of units from all the subfactions of their codex.

 Galas wrote:
TBH I remember when the daemon codex came for fantasy and 40k. In the white dwarfs all the armies they showed were at minimun 2-god armies. And in the battle reports most were 3-4 god armies.


As others have said , comparing Sa'cea sept armies with Khorne demon armies is wrong. I don't lose anything but a couple of special characters if I take a Tau subfaction.

The best comparison would be, for example, an Dark Eldar player using just Kabalites ,or Homunculus or Wytch Cults. (And I have played with full Wytch Cult armies, it was fun, I won some games, lost many more) And as you can see most competitive dark eldar players use a mix of units from all the subfactions of their codex.

To reiterate the question:

Why is it a good thing the game is designed this way for Daemons?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
TBH I remember when the daemon codex came for fantasy and 40k. In the white dwarfs all the armies they showed were at minimun 2-god armies. And in the battle reports most were 3-4 god armies.


As others have said , comparing Sa'cea sept armies with Khorne demon armies is wrong. I don't lose anything but a couple of special characters if I take a Tau subfaction.

The best comparison would be, for example, an Dark Eldar player using just Kabalites ,or Homunculus or Wytch Cults. (And I have played with full Wytch Cult armies, it was fun, I won some games, lost many more) And as you can see most competitive dark eldar players use a mix of units from all the subfactions of their codex.

To reiterate the question:

Why is it a good thing the game is designed this way for Daemons?

I mean. It is not? But at the same time, it is how GW has done it since the inception of demons: You play them in a chaos soup (How they were originally made), you play them with their mortal counterpats (How it is on AoS and how it was done with Khorne Daemonkin in 7th) or you play them as multy god demon armies (How they were presented when their codex/army book were made).

You can go mono god, no mortals, final destination, but is clear GW doesnt want or doesnt know how to do it properly in 40k.

 Galas wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
TBH I remember when the daemon codex came for fantasy and 40k. In the white dwarfs all the armies they showed were at minimun 2-god armies. And in the battle reports most were 3-4 god armies.


As others have said , comparing Sa'cea sept armies with Khorne demon armies is wrong. I don't lose anything but a couple of special characters if I take a Tau subfaction.

The best comparison would be, for example, an Dark Eldar player using just Kabalites ,or Homunculus or Wytch Cults. (And I have played with full Wytch Cult armies, it was fun, I won some games, lost many more) And as you can see most competitive dark eldar players use a mix of units from all the subfactions of their codex.

To reiterate the question:

Why is it a good thing the game is designed this way for Daemons?

I mean. It is not? But at the same time, it is how GW has done it since the inception of demons: You play them in a chaos soup (How they were originally made), you play them with their mortal counterpats (How it is on AoS and how it was done with Khorne Daemonkin in 7th) or you play them as multy god demon armies (How they were presented when their codex/army book were made).

You can go mono god, no mortals, final destination, but is clear GW doesnt want or doesnt know how to do it properly in 40k.

So, to summarize

"Man, this thing stinks."

"that's how it is!"

"Yeah, and it stinks, I wish they'd change it."

"THATS HOW IT IS THOUGH!!"

I'm not really getting the point here. Is your only purpose to restate something that is assumed in the presence of the thread?

Also, it's very odd to me that you claim that GW clearly wants people to run their armies in a particular way because there are pictures of those armies in the daemons codex of mixed daemon forces....when mixed daemon forces have no rules synergy with one another like pure daemon forces and mixed daemon/CSM forces, daemons are sold in separate Start Collecting boxes for each god, and there are plenty of photos in the daemons codex with only one gods' forces depicted.

 Galas wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
TBH I remember when the daemon codex came for fantasy and 40k. In the white dwarfs all the armies they showed were at minimun 2-god armies. And in the battle reports most were 3-4 god armies.


As others have said , comparing Sa'cea sept armies with Khorne demon armies is wrong. I don't lose anything but a couple of special characters if I take a Tau subfaction.

The best comparison would be, for example, an Dark Eldar player using just Kabalites ,or Homunculus or Wytch Cults. (And I have played with full Wytch Cult armies, it was fun, I won some games, lost many more) And as you can see most competitive dark eldar players use a mix of units from all the subfactions of their codex.

To reiterate the question:

Why is it a good thing the game is designed this way for Daemons?

I mean. It is not? But at the same time, it is how GW has done it since the inception of demons: You play them in a chaos soup (How they were originally made), you play them with their mortal counterpats (How it is on AoS and how it was done with Khorne Daemonkin in 7th) or you play them as multy god demon armies (How they were presented when their codex/army book were made).

You can go mono god, no mortals, final destination, but is clear GW doesnt want or doesnt know how to do it properly in 40k.

Right, so all this thread is saying is that GW should want to do it properly in 40k, including learning how if that is the first step. Other people apparently think that's a terrible thing.

The_Scostman please stop doing reductio ad absurdum with what I say. Is hard enough to make myself clear when english is not my first lenguage.


What I'm trying to say is: I emphatize and I believe GW should make mono-god armies viable. At the same time I don't think thats their intention, and that theres many other ways to play demons right now.

 Galas wrote:
What I'm trying to say is: I emphatize and I believe GW should make mono-god armies viable. At the same time I don't think thats their intention, and that theres many other ways to play demons right now.

Do you think that is sufficient? I'm trying to get what your point is for commenting in the thread. I don't disagree that you could play daemons one other way (soup), and one way only, and I don't really care if its GW's intention (because it's wrong). And it sounds like you don't disagree with me that it's wrong.

 Galas wrote:
The_Scostman please stop doing reductio ad absurdum with what I say. Is hard enough to make myself clear when english is not my first lenguage.


What I'm trying to say is: I emphatize and I believe GW should make mono-god armies viable. At the same time I don't think thats their intention, and that theres many other ways to play demons right now.

Sorry - I didn't mean to offend.

I guess my core disagreement with you is with your statement of GW's intention. If it's their intention that Daemon armies be played with units from all 4 gods, and that's what they want people to do, then why

1) Does mixing gods within a detachment kill your detachment bonuses

2) Does having 1 detachment of one god and 1 detachment of another not give you any kind of cross-faction synergy in the way that taking 1 detachment of Nurgle Daemons and 1 detachment of Death Guard gives you

3) Are daemons' start collecting boxes sold separated by god (and boy howdy are they among some of the best SC boxes out there, you can get basically everything from Tzeentch at a massive discount just by spamming SC boxes except for Lords of Change)

To me, from a gameplay standpoint, GW is encouraging you to bring detachments unified with the CHAOS DAEMONS keyword exactly as much as they are encouraging you to bring detachments unified with the ADEPTUS ASTARTES keyword.

Yes, you can do it.

No, it doesn't give you any gameplay benefit to do so.

A couple of pictures in the daemons codex of bloodthirsters next to horrors does not really provide me sufficient counter-evidence that proves GW wants Chaos Undivided daemon armies to be the default. To me, it feels like the intended, fluffy playstyle is "pick a god, use units from that god, whether those are CSM or daemon units." That's what they support within the rules with stratagem and psychic power and aura synergies, and that's exactly how Chaos is structured in the more recent AOS books.

The more likely, and simpler IMO, explanation is just: The daemons codex isn't very good. Most of the units in it aren't very good compared to other units in other codexes that do similar things. The god traits are bad by the standards of army traits that existed at the time when it was released, and now are massively outpaced by the traits in new codexes, and they are uniquely limited by the 12" aura around characters mechanic. There are a large number of extremely similar defensive and offensive profiles across units, and large gaps in other areas such as ranged anti-tank, mirroring the problems with other low-tier codexes throughout the edition.

This isn't a problem with players structuring their armies wrong and not using the codex to its "full potential", a pure slaanesh army is not meaningfully improved by the addition of Khorne daemon units, or Nurgle daemon units, and the shooting units that are available through Tzeentch are not going to do what is likely the biggest hole in a Slaanesh list. It's no different from where GK or DW were earlier in the edition.

Don't forget the number one reason that you can't do a 4 god army is the 3 detachment limit, lol. Best you could ever do is a 3 god army.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Don't forget the number one reason that you can't do a 4 god army is the 3 detachment limit, lol. Best you could ever do is a 3 god army.

Eh. The Slaanesh Locus is pretty much required to run a good Slaanesh army, and the Khorne Locus is super useful.

The Tzeentch Locus just plain sucks, and the Nurgle Locus, while nice, isn't vital.

You could do a Slaanesh Detachment, a Khorne Detachment, and a mixed Tzeetnch/Nurgle one and not lose too much.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Don't forget the number one reason that you can't do a 4 god army is the 3 detachment limit, lol. Best you could ever do is a 3 god army.

Eh. The Slaanesh Locus is pretty much required to run a good Slaanesh army, and the Khorne Locus is super useful.

The Tzeentch Locus just plain sucks, and the Nurgle Locus, while nice, isn't vital.

You could do a Slaanesh Detachment, a Khorne Detachment, and a mixed Tzeetnch/Nurgle one and not lose too much.

Sure, but if we're talking about purposefully limiting yourself for the sake of theme...

...that's that. Having a 4-god army leaves you with almost no synergy, buying the exact same buff HQs and mandatory troops units 4 separate times just to collect 'em all.

The fact that certain rules are so bad that you might as well just not take them and your army will work just as well doesn't really feel like increased freedom.

the_scotsman wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Don't forget the number one reason that you can't do a 4 god army is the 3 detachment limit, lol. Best you could ever do is a 3 god army.

Eh. The Slaanesh Locus is pretty much required to run a good Slaanesh army, and the Khorne Locus is super useful.

The Tzeentch Locus just plain sucks, and the Nurgle Locus, while nice, isn't vital.

You could do a Slaanesh Detachment, a Khorne Detachment, and a mixed Tzeetnch/Nurgle one and not lose too much.

Sure, but if we're talking about purposefully limiting yourself for the sake of theme...

...that's that. Having a 4-god army leaves you with almost no synergy, buying the exact same buff HQs and mandatory troops units 4 separate times just to collect 'em all.

The fact that certain rules are so bad that you might as well just not take them and your army will work just as well doesn't really feel like increased freedom.

True. But Unit was (kinda) incorrect, so the record should be made clear.

So how many gods are you "intended by GW" to run, then; if not 4, and not 1, then 3? Or 2?

What has good synergies together? Let's try to divine this "what's intended by GW" that everyone seems to think isn't 1 god, nor can be 4.

the_scotsman wrote:
If it's their intention that Daemon armies be played with units from all 4 gods, and that's what they want people to do, then why

[a number of valid points]

I think you can begin to understand the broader frustration/surrender of would-be daemon players; there is no right way just a bunch of wrong ones. GW markets daemons as an army but then puts roadblocks into fielding them as such.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So how many gods are you "intended by GW" to run, then; if not 4, and not 1, then 3? Or 2?

What has good synergies together? Let's try to divine this "what's intended by GW" that everyone seems to think isn't 1 god, nor can be 4.

When it comes to GW intent and result are two different languages with some very spotty translation.

Daemons have basically the same problem as Grey Knights - they were separated from a previous codex that had a wider set of options and were given little to fill in the gaps they lost. I just looked through the list of datasheets Daemons have and it is heavily lilted to HQs, and Nurgle is the only god with more than one troop choice. And wow, there are very few ranged units there - looks like a Khorne cannon and then psykers, unless I am missing something.

I'm with the people who think its a missed opportunity not having Doom type Daemons with a mix of warp flesh and machine, or ranged weapons made from bound lessor Daemons. If GW gave each god a couple more units based around their aesthetic/roles, it would help them be able to be standalone (even if allies would still probably be more effective since it usually is in 40k). Give Khorne more Daemon powered artillery to lay the hammer of the blood god down. Maybe a unit of minor Daemons of Slaanesh that wields short ranged assault guns that slightly reduce the effectiveness of the units they fire at.

Just 1-2 kits (or multikits) per god could see new play styles evolve and give both mono-god, multi-god, and daemon/chaos armies new options to play with.

Sadly (to me), GW seems to want to have almost every Daemon unit be usable in both AOS and 40k, which does limit the aesthetics a bit. Even with that limitation though there is plenty they could do.

JakeSiren wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 WinterLantern wrote:
Goddam the ranting about doom demons has pissed me off when daemon engines, possessed, obliterators etc have really strong synergy with daemons. ~If you want shooting, build daemonkin style. Heck, Slaanesh Daemons actually provide a pretty strong buff with move/advance/charge for daemon engines which would require a specialist detatchment otherwise, and in general mixing in daemonkin units to an army can fill in a lot of gaps whilst still being mono god.

Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses, so being mad that you built a list in a specific style, and it having weaknesses, is kind of bizarre. I played heavy kdk in 7th, so i see nothing wrong with merging god factions into a warpy mortal/daemon mess

The problem with the Daemons Codex is that it's a n00b trap. You can't play it standalone, you have to pick a quarter of it and then soup in a subset of the CSM book to play a Daemons army, so why is it a standalone Codex?

The Daemons Codex should be playable without CSM. Otherwise it's like saying that Space Marines should only be playable if you take Guard (remember how the loyal 32 was a must take?). How that looks is different to each person, but WinterLanter has the gist of it. Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses. It's just that 3/4's of Daemons is close combat, which is (IMO) weak for everyone this edition.

If it needs to be a standalone Codex then it shouldn't be four sub-Codexes that don't talk to each other.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 WinterLantern wrote:
Goddam the ranting about doom demons has pissed me off when daemon engines, possessed, obliterators etc have really strong synergy with daemons. ~If you want shooting, build daemonkin style. Heck, Slaanesh Daemons actually provide a pretty strong buff with move/advance/charge for daemon engines which would require a specialist detatchment otherwise, and in general mixing in daemonkin units to an army can fill in a lot of gaps whilst still being mono god.

Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses, so being mad that you built a list in a specific style, and it having weaknesses, is kind of bizarre. I played heavy kdk in 7th, so i see nothing wrong with merging god factions into a warpy mortal/daemon mess

The problem with the Daemons Codex is that it's a n00b trap. You can't play it standalone, you have to pick a quarter of it and then soup in a subset of the CSM book to play a Daemons army, so why is it a standalone Codex?

The Daemons Codex should be playable without CSM. Otherwise it's like saying that Space Marines should only be playable if you take Guard (remember how the loyal 32 was a must take?). How that looks is different to each person, but WinterLanter has the gist of it. Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses. It's just that 3/4's of Daemons is close combat, which is (IMO) weak for everyone this edition.

If it needs to be a standalone Codex then it shouldn't be four sub-Codexes that don't talk to each other.

But they kind of already "talk to each other". Different gods are able to compensate for the others weaknesses. Sure, a Poxbringer isn't going to buff Khorne daemons, but combining a Nurgle and Khorne force can really complement each other. Nurgle is deadly resilient, and so can hold onto objectives, absorb overwatch, and tie up enemy units, while the Khorne daemons bring a large amount of kill power that Nurgle lacks. Slaanesh has shenanigans to debuff and restrict your opponents actions, and Tzeentch has shooting to obliterate targets at range or backfield units. There is plenty of synergy that you can take with multiple gods to shore up the others weaknesses.

There are a few problems for Chaos Daemons this edition however. The biggest being 1) Close combat is not as effective as it was last edition, and has more risk than reward, and 2) The ideal shooting load out to deal with 99% of armies is lots of shots with ap - or ap -1. This means our 5++ isn't much better than a 5+, but we pay a higher price for it. Overall, between morale, changes to cover, and and the shooting meta, Chaos Daemons are less durable than their 7th edition counterparts.

JakeSiren wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 WinterLantern wrote:
Goddam the ranting about doom demons has pissed me off when daemon engines, possessed, obliterators etc have really strong synergy with daemons. ~If you want shooting, build daemonkin style. Heck, Slaanesh Daemons actually provide a pretty strong buff with move/advance/charge for daemon engines which would require a specialist detatchment otherwise, and in general mixing in daemonkin units to an army can fill in a lot of gaps whilst still being mono god.

Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses, so being mad that you built a list in a specific style, and it having weaknesses, is kind of bizarre. I played heavy kdk in 7th, so i see nothing wrong with merging god factions into a warpy mortal/daemon mess

The problem with the Daemons Codex is that it's a n00b trap. You can't play it standalone, you have to pick a quarter of it and then soup in a subset of the CSM book to play a Daemons army, so why is it a standalone Codex?

The Daemons Codex should be playable without CSM. Otherwise it's like saying that Space Marines should only be playable if you take Guard (remember how the loyal 32 was a must take?). How that looks is different to each person, but WinterLanter has the gist of it. Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses. It's just that 3/4's of Daemons is close combat, which is (IMO) weak for everyone this edition.

If it needs to be a standalone Codex then it shouldn't be four sub-Codexes that don't talk to each other.

But they kind of already "talk to each other". Different gods are able to compensate for the others weaknesses. Sure, a Poxbringer isn't going to buff Khorne daemons, but combining a Nurgle and Khorne force can really complement each other. Nurgle is deadly resilient, and so can hold onto objectives, absorb overwatch, and tie up enemy units, while the Khorne daemons bring a large amount of kill power that Nurgle lacks. Slaanesh has shenanigans to debuff and restrict your opponents actions, and Tzeentch has shooting to obliterate targets at range or backfield units. There is plenty of synergy that you can take with multiple gods to shore up the others weaknesses.

There are a few problems for Chaos Daemons this edition however. The biggest being 1) Close combat is not as effective as it was last edition, and has more risk than reward, and 2) The ideal shooting load out to deal with 99% of armies is lots of shots with ap - or ap -1. This means our 5++ isn't much better than a 5+, but we pay a higher price for it. Overall, between morale, changes to cover, and and the shooting meta, Chaos Daemons are less durable than their 7th edition counterparts.

You're right that the gods fill a niche for each other, but when your nurgle chunk is far slower and harder to get into combat than your fragile khorne blobs, it just results in your combat units getting shot off the board while waiting for the back up, playing like the nurgle half doesn't exist or sitting in deepstrike while the nurgle half gets shot up.

I understand that's the way for a lot of armies as well, but the difference is (for example) kraken genestealers can exist within a kraken army with no negatives and are buffed by all the units in that army, those bloodletters actively remove the bonuses of the nurgle part unless in their own detachment with their own HQ's who don't interact with the other half the army.

By contrast, put them in with some chaos marines and suddenly those daemonic shock troops are now buffing the mortal allies who provide the durable bodies and ranged firepower. I feel like the daemonkin books were the way forwards and 8th stopped them seeing it through.

GW need to find a way of allowing me to run Greater Daemons without them instantly being blasted off the table.

JakeSiren wrote:
But they kind of already "talk to each other". Different gods are able to compensate for the others weaknesses. Sure, a Poxbringer isn't going to buff Khorne daemons, but combining a Nurgle and Khorne force can really complement each other. Nurgle is deadly resilient, and so can hold onto objectives, absorb overwatch, and tie up enemy units, while the Khorne daemons bring a large amount of kill power that Nurgle lacks. Slaanesh has shenanigans to debuff and restrict your opponents actions, and Tzeentch has shooting to obliterate targets at range or backfield units. There is plenty of synergy that you can take with multiple gods to shore up the others weaknesses.

While that might have been the intention, but three out of gods are just horde melee troops + large melee monsters sprinkled with support characters. Tzeench daemons have the most synergy with other gods, but their shooting is mediocre at best and lack the power to win with a pure shooting list, let alone one watered down with pure melee units. Not to mention that even a pure tzeench list would still have to rely heavily on melee.

So let's play a round of "how would this break the game?" for a second. Hear me out.

We know that daemons are getting PA content soon. What if we lived in a world where non-imperial armies got "pure army bonus" rules?

Here's my thought: If everything in your army has the NURLGE, KHORNE, TZEENTCH or SLAANESH rule, you get some kind of mechanical bonus. Some kind of extra chapter tactic style thing that's not as powerful as all the crazy crap SMs get because it's a little less restrictive but good enough to offset the fact that nothing in Chaos has the new style "double chapter tactics" that newer codexes have.

But if everything in your army has the DAEMON keyword, you get the "Undivided Incursion" rule.

"Undivided Incursion: On the occasions when warp storms and rifts let the warp bleed into realspace in force, the gods set aside their squabbling to revel in shared slaughter!

On all datasheet abilities and psychic powers, replace the KHORNE, KHORNE DAEMON, NURGLE, NURGLE DAEMON, SLAANESH, SLAANESH DAEMON, TZEENTCH and TZEENTCH DAEMON keywords with the DAEMON keyword.

This does not affect instances of the keyword elsewhere on datasheets (e.g, NURGLE DAEMONS still retain that keyword) nor does it affect Stratagems, Warlord traits, or Relics."

So basically, if you take a full army that's nothing but daemons, your auras now interact, your psychic powers now interact, and you can, for example, have a bloodthirster giving his LD buff to a squad of horrors or use Fleshy Abundance to heal a Lord of Change.

the_scotsman wrote:
So let's play a round of "how would this break the game?" for a second. Hear me out.

We know that daemons are getting PA content soon. What if we lived in a world where non-imperial armies got "pure army bonus" rules?

Here's my thought: If everything in your army has the NURLGE, KHORNE, TZEENTCH or SLAANESH rule, you get some kind of mechanical bonus. Some kind of extra chapter tactic style thing that's not as powerful as all the crazy crap SMs get because it's a little less restrictive but good enough to offset the fact that nothing in Chaos has the new style "double chapter tactics" that newer codexes have.

But if everything in your army has the DAEMON keyword, you get the "Undivided Incursion" rule.

"Undivided Incursion: On the occasions when warp storms and rifts let the warp bleed into realspace in force, the gods set aside their squabbling to revel in shared slaughter!

On all datasheet abilities and psychic powers, replace the KHORNE, KHORNE DAEMON, NURGLE, NURGLE DAEMON, SLAANESH, SLAANESH DAEMON, TZEENTCH and TZEENTCH DAEMON keywords with the DAEMON keyword.

This does not affect instances of the keyword elsewhere on datasheets (e.g, NURGLE DAEMONS still retain that keyword) nor does it affect Stratagems, Warlord traits, or Relics."

So basically, if you take a full army that's nothing but daemons, your auras now interact, your psychic powers now interact, and you can, for example, have a bloodthirster giving his LD buff to a squad of horrors or use Fleshy Abundance to heal a Lord of Change.

That would cause big problems but I don't think it'd break the game on its own. I'd rather see them create some form of scaling detachment bonus for undivided detachments based on which gods are in it, give some buffs/auras that affect daemons rather than <god> daemon like you suggest, but just lock them behind a specific detachment tax.As a loose concept how about "graceful bloodshed" if your detachment consists of slaanesh and khorne models only, the HQ's gain an aura of reroll 1's to wound as the daemons revel in their precise blows for maximum bloodshed. You could then tag that onto a slaanesh detachment so the Hq's in that detachment grant slaaneshi deamons their advance & charge.

Dudeface wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
So let's play a round of "how would this break the game?" for a second. Hear me out.

We know that daemons are getting PA content soon. What if we lived in a world where non-imperial armies got "pure army bonus" rules?

Here's my thought: If everything in your army has the NURLGE, KHORNE, TZEENTCH or SLAANESH rule, you get some kind of mechanical bonus. Some kind of extra chapter tactic style thing that's not as powerful as all the crazy crap SMs get because it's a little less restrictive but good enough to offset the fact that nothing in Chaos has the new style "double chapter tactics" that newer codexes have.

But if everything in your army has the DAEMON keyword, you get the "Undivided Incursion" rule.

"Undivided Incursion: On the occasions when warp storms and rifts let the warp bleed into realspace in force, the gods set aside their squabbling to revel in shared slaughter!

On all datasheet abilities and psychic powers, replace the KHORNE, KHORNE DAEMON, NURGLE, NURGLE DAEMON, SLAANESH, SLAANESH DAEMON, TZEENTCH and TZEENTCH DAEMON keywords with the DAEMON keyword.

This does not affect instances of the keyword elsewhere on datasheets (e.g, NURGLE DAEMONS still retain that keyword) nor does it affect Stratagems, Warlord traits, or Relics."

So basically, if you take a full army that's nothing but daemons, your auras now interact, your psychic powers now interact, and you can, for example, have a bloodthirster giving his LD buff to a squad of horrors or use Fleshy Abundance to heal a Lord of Change.

That would cause big problems but I don't think it'd break the game on its own. I'd rather see them create some form of scaling detachment bonus for undivided detachments based on which gods are in it, give some buffs/auras that affect daemons rather than <god> daemon like you suggest, but just lock them behind a specific detachment tax.As a loose concept how about "graceful bloodshed" if your detachment consists of slaanesh and khorne models only, the HQ's gain an aura of reroll 1's to wound as the daemons revel in their precise blows for maximum bloodshed. You could then tag that onto a slaanesh detachment so the Hq's in that detachment grant slaaneshi deamons their advance & charge.

Oh, that'd also be really neat. I like that idea too.

Dudeface wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 WinterLantern wrote:
Goddam the ranting about doom demons has pissed me off when daemon engines, possessed, obliterators etc have really strong synergy with daemons. ~If you want shooting, build daemonkin style. Heck, Slaanesh Daemons actually provide a pretty strong buff with move/advance/charge for daemon engines which would require a specialist detatchment otherwise, and in general mixing in daemonkin units to an army can fill in a lot of gaps whilst still being mono god.

Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses, so being mad that you built a list in a specific style, and it having weaknesses, is kind of bizarre. I played heavy kdk in 7th, so i see nothing wrong with merging god factions into a warpy mortal/daemon mess

The problem with the Daemons Codex is that it's a n00b trap. You can't play it standalone, you have to pick a quarter of it and then soup in a subset of the CSM book to play a Daemons army, so why is it a standalone Codex?

The Daemons Codex should be playable without CSM. Otherwise it's like saying that Space Marines should only be playable if you take Guard (remember how the loyal 32 was a must take?). How that looks is different to each person, but WinterLanter has the gist of it. Different styles of lists are going to have different strengths and weaknesses. It's just that 3/4's of Daemons is close combat, which is (IMO) weak for everyone this edition.

If it needs to be a standalone Codex then it shouldn't be four sub-Codexes that don't talk to each other.

But they kind of already "talk to each other". Different gods are able to compensate for the others weaknesses. Sure, a Poxbringer isn't going to buff Khorne daemons, but combining a Nurgle and Khorne force can really complement each other. Nurgle is deadly resilient, and so can hold onto objectives, absorb overwatch, and tie up enemy units, while the Khorne daemons bring a large amount of kill power that Nurgle lacks. Slaanesh has shenanigans to debuff and restrict your opponents actions, and Tzeentch has shooting to obliterate targets at range or backfield units. There is plenty of synergy that you can take with multiple gods to shore up the others weaknesses.

There are a few problems for Chaos Daemons this edition however. The biggest being 1) Close combat is not as effective as it was last edition, and has more risk than reward, and 2) The ideal shooting load out to deal with 99% of armies is lots of shots with ap - or ap -1. This means our 5++ isn't much better than a 5+, but we pay a higher price for it. Overall, between morale, changes to cover, and and the shooting meta, Chaos Daemons are less durable than their 7th edition counterparts.

You're right that the gods fill a niche for each other, but when your nurgle chunk is far slower and harder to get into combat than your fragile khorne blobs, it just results in your combat units getting shot off the board while waiting for the back up, playing like the nurgle half doesn't exist or sitting in deepstrike while the nurgle half gets shot up.

I understand that's the way for a lot of armies as well, but the difference is (for example) kraken genestealers can exist within a kraken army with no negatives and are buffed by all the units in that army, those bloodletters actively remove the bonuses of the nurgle part unless in their own detachment with their own HQ's who don't interact with the other half the army.

By contrast, put them in with some chaos marines and suddenly those daemonic shock troops are now buffing the mortal allies who provide the durable bodies and ranged firepower. I feel like the daemonkin books were the way forwards and 8th stopped them seeing it through.

Actually, properly buffed, Nurgle is faster than Khorne on foot. Plague Bearers with Spoilpox are faster than Bloodletters. Plague Drones move faster than Blood Crushers. I particularly like infiltrating 3 x 9 man squads of Nurglings and using Sloppity to advance and charge them. This can buy you plenty of time while your beat sticks move up field.

 Jidmah wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:
But they kind of already "talk to each other". Different gods are able to compensate for the others weaknesses. Sure, a Poxbringer isn't going to buff Khorne daemons, but combining a Nurgle and Khorne force can really complement each other. Nurgle is deadly resilient, and so can hold onto objectives, absorb overwatch, and tie up enemy units, while the Khorne daemons bring a large amount of kill power that Nurgle lacks. Slaanesh has shenanigans to debuff and restrict your opponents actions, and Tzeentch has shooting to obliterate targets at range or backfield units. There is plenty of synergy that you can take with multiple gods to shore up the others weaknesses.

While that might have been the intention, but three out of gods are just horde melee troops + large melee monsters sprinkled with support characters. Tzeench daemons have the most synergy with other gods, but their shooting is mediocre at best and lack the power to win with a pure shooting list, let alone one watered down with pure melee units. Not to mention that even a pure tzeench list would still have to rely heavily on melee.

Sure, Daemons have lots of issues, and the level of synergy between gods doesn't overcome many of them. But my response to AnomanderRake was aimed at the claim that said synergy *doesn't* exist.

I mean, as you just pointed out here...it kind of doesn't.

Adding khorne troops to your daemons to give them "punch" in melee or adding Slaanesh to add speed is objectively less effective than adding more NURGLE keyword buffing units to add punch or speed to your nurgle stuff.

There is also no shooting unit that exists in the Tzeentch arsenal that is more effective as an ally to the 3 melee daemon factions than just plopping down a few chaos knights, because there's no cross-faction synergy. There's more synergy between Chaos Knights and Daemons than Daemons and Daemons, because if I bring Chaos Knights instead of, I don't know, a tzeentch-marked Soul Grinder for fire support then I have two different stratagems to improve their defenses instead of one that forces me to pick between protecting my firebase and protecting my melee troops.

If I have a double gatling chaos knight for fire support I can use Rotate Ion Shields to protect him, and use the daemon stratagem on my...bloodletters or whatever.

"synergy" most often has to be something more than just "you can bring two different factions and they do two different things" to be competitive or good.

JakeSiren wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:
But they kind of already "talk to each other". Different gods are able to compensate for the others weaknesses. Sure, a Poxbringer isn't going to buff Khorne daemons, but combining a Nurgle and Khorne force can really complement each other. Nurgle is deadly resilient, and so can hold onto objectives, absorb overwatch, and tie up enemy units, while the Khorne daemons bring a large amount of kill power that Nurgle lacks. Slaanesh has shenanigans to debuff and restrict your opponents actions, and Tzeentch has shooting to obliterate targets at range or backfield units. There is plenty of synergy that you can take with multiple gods to shore up the others weaknesses.

While that might have been the intention, but three out of gods are just horde melee troops + large melee monsters sprinkled with support characters. Tzeench daemons have the most synergy with other gods, but their shooting is mediocre at best and lack the power to win with a pure shooting list, let alone one watered down with pure melee units. Not to mention that even a pure tzeench list would still have to rely heavily on melee.

Sure, Daemons have lots of issues, and the level of synergy between gods doesn't overcome many of them. But my response to AnomanderRake was aimed at the claim that said synergy *doesn't* exist.

That's what I said as well. There is zero synergy between khorne, nurgle and slanesh. Not because of balance issues, but because all three do *exactly* the same thing with varying success.
Tzeench daemons also gain absolutely nothing from adding one of the other gods, as they can do everything the other gods can do.

The only "synergy" here at all is that tzeench daemons can add shooting to the other god's armies. And that even that small bit is entirely based on replacing a non-functional strategy (melee) with a functional strategy (shooting).

So, even if properly balanced against other codices, the best daemon army would always consist of tzeench shooting plus cherry-picking the most powerful combination of units from the other god's realms, with absolutely no synergy between the separate gods.

What makes the Chaos factions so good is how they mix, imo.

Not necessarily daemons from different Gods, but Daemons alongside Chaos Marines aligned to the same God.

I don't feel that it's thematic for daemons to have many ranged weapons, but I also don't really feel it's thematic for daemons to engage in open war in the 40k setting. They do so alongside their mortal servants, or tend to corrupt a population rather than choosing to battle them.

 Orange Knight wrote:
I don't feel that it's thematic for daemons to have many ranged weapons...

But why? Why wouldn't Nurgle have daemons launching putrid filth which brings down those struck in a gurgling mass of boils and pus, for example?

Seems pretty thematic for me.

It's a philosophy of the faction.

Why can't Tau build some amazing, automated close combat fighting system?
These things keep the factions distinctive.

The day close combat Tau become as viable as ranged Tau I will be on the front lines campaigning for Daemons with ranged weapons.