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 BertBert wrote:
Way to derail a thread and make a good impression on a new member. Good job, Dakka!

Let's get back to topic, shall we?

@GenChicken

Does it have to be all 4 gods? Does it have to be Daemons only or would you consider Chaos Space Marines with Daemon summons?

It's not off topic. If you want to use all 4 gods in one army you can either mix a detachment and lose buffs or run 4 detachments to retain those buffs, but Dakka being Dakka will trot out the "on 3 detachments per army" stuff even though its an optional rule that Dakka likes to act is a universally accepted one.

So a new player coming in and being told in no uncertain terms that he can't make a 4 god army without losing buffs is incorrect.

I think the big flaw in a mono Chaos Daemons list is the Troops role units.

Pink Horrors, Bloodletters, Daemonettes and Plaguebearers all give bonuses if the unit has 20 or more models in it. This suggests that they are correctly costed for being 20 or more models per unit and that the general idea is you take 90+ troops models like many an Ork or Tyranid army.

However, they have a very weak anti morale mechanic, which makes taking mulitple units of 20 or more models bad. Starting at leadership 7 and then having a 1/6 chance to become morale immune is a great way to lose as many models to morale as to fighting.

Consider the other (newer codex) horde armies. Tyranids/GSC - immune to morale near an HQ, Orks - multiple morale mitigation methods, Necrons - bit meh, but they at least start with leadership 10 and do have a single morale immunity warlord trait, CSM - two morale immune warlord choices, DG - Poxwalkers are morale immune.

Orks and CSM also have a nice strategem that punishes your opponent for killing most but not all of a unit, which you then bring back at full strength. Necrons and Tyranids also have respawn mechanics. Again the Daemon version is a just a chance for only 1d6 models returning.

Nurgle at least gets to roll two dice rather than one for morale immunity and respawning, which does improve the odds to 11/36 (which is the same odds if you CP re-roll one of the other gods). Nurgle with a CP re-roll pushes that to 91/216, which is still worse than a coin flip.

 Sim-Life wrote:


So a new player coming in and being told in no uncertain terms that he can't make a 4 god army without losing buffs is incorrect.

Which was all that needed to be said in the matter.

Should one point out that the OP is in America, and many, if not most, of the locales in America tend to be very tournament-oriented? This would affect the question on the Rule of 3 in their builds.

 Charistoph wrote:
Should one point out that the OP is in America, and many, if not most, of the locales in America tend to be very tournament-oriented? This would affect the question on the Rule of 3 in their builds.

You don't have proof of that and even if you did you don't know if that is how OPs meta plays. Dakka really needs to stop assuming that how Dakka plays is how everyone plays and spreading misinformation based on that.

It's important to mention the 3 Detachments rule to new players, though.

Imagine if he'd bought all 4 detachments, and then found out he can only play 3 most places anyways. :/

It's one thing to mention this to new players and another to start a completely futile discussion about data collection and which percentile of the playerbase actually plays according to this recommendation, completely highjacking the thread in the process just to make a point.

Really think it comes down to how deep you build.

Slaanesh and Khorne locuses are essential for units that want to get up the table - and works on characters alone. By contrast I think both Tzeentch and Nurgle can however take or leave their locus depending on how you take them. Its a good bonus if you are going deep into either faction, but otherwise its fairly marginal. Depth is necessary because you need characters to scatter the ability around on the table onto your god aligned units.

So - ignoring whether this is remotely sensible/tournament optimal - a detachment with some nurglings for board control and some skull cannons and idk, flamers to shoot stuff with a tzeentch and slaanesh herald as HQ slots probably doesn't care that much that its missing out on a locus. But if you decided to slot in a few keeper of secrets, you are going to really regret not having advance and charge on them.

 BertBert wrote:


Let's get back to topic, shall we?

yes please

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It's important to mention the 3 Detachments rule to new players, though.

Imagine if he'd bought all 4 detachments, and then found out he can only play 3 most places anyways. :/

I would hope if a NEW player turned up with 4 detachment/4 god daemon list the veteran players would be accommodating to his desire to play that list rather than just demanding he change his list to suit them.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It's important to mention the 3 Detachments rule to new players, though.

Imagine if he'd bought all 4 detachments, and then found out he can only play 3 most places anyways. :/

I would hope if a NEW player turned up with 4 detachment/4 god daemon list the veteran players would be accommodating to his desire to play that list rather than just demanding he change his list to suit them.

Sure, for his first game.

Then he talks to his friends, and they say "well, if you're building to 3 detachments, buy this, if you're building to 4, buy this other thing." Then he has a hard think, wondering why anyone would care.

Then he shows up to his first event and gets kicked out (or alternatively does his research beforehand and has to drop to 3 detachments unexpectedly). I think it's worth mentioning before people spend money.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It's important to mention the 3 Detachments rule to new players, though.

Imagine if he'd bought all 4 detachments, and then found out he can only play 3 most places anyways. :/

I would hope if a NEW player turned up with 4 detachment/4 god daemon list the veteran players would be accommodating to his desire to play that list rather than just demanding he change his list to suit them.

Sure, for his first game.

Then he talks to his friends, and they say "well, if you're building to 3 detachments, buy this, if you're building to 4, buy this other thing." Then he has a hard think, wondering why anyone would care.

Then he shows up to his first event and gets kicked out (or alternatively does his research beforehand and has to drop to 3 detachments unexpectedly). I think it's worth mentioning before people spend money.

And again you're assuming he plans to attend "events" at all.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It's important to mention the 3 Detachments rule to new players, though.

Imagine if he'd bought all 4 detachments, and then found out he can only play 3 most places anyways. :/

I would hope if a NEW player turned up with 4 detachment/4 god daemon list the veteran players would be accommodating to his desire to play that list rather than just demanding he change his list to suit them.

Sure, for his first game.

Then he talks to his friends, and they say "well, if you're building to 3 detachments, buy this, if you're building to 4, buy this other thing." Then he has a hard think, wondering why anyone would care.

Then he shows up to his first event and gets kicked out (or alternatively does his research beforehand and has to drop to 3 detachments unexpectedly). I think it's worth mentioning before people spend money.

And again you're assuming he plans to attend "events" at all.

I believe it is more common for a player to attend at least one event in their 40k career than it is not. For example, my first event after I started playing was a narrative campaign.

Only to learn that my Armored Company army list had been banned. If someone had mentioned that to me ahead of time... well, it would've been nice to know.

I like how none of you geniuses ever suggested to the new guy that he should find out how the people he intends to game with play concerning Rule of 3 & tourney rules, etc.

@ GenChicken: Find out how things get played where ever you intend to play.

 Sim-Life wrote:
And again you're assuming he plans to attend "events" at all.

In my experience, whether you choose to go to events or not is irrelevant depending on how invested the local group is to the tournament scene. There have been times where I literally could not get a game in because no one would play anything but a tournament setup, and I didn't have enough to deploy a tournament level scene.

Ironically, a store in the area started running tournaments that didn't follow the standard tournament mold, such as Troops not being required, but 3 Elites are, 1000 point games, 2000 point partner games where you decide with your partner how much of that 2000 points you're both bringing, etc. It did help make it easier for the new, not-tournament-ready people like myself to start catching up.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
And again you're assuming he plans to attend "events" at all.

In my experience, whether you choose to go to events or not is irrelevant depending on how invested the local group is to the tournament scene. There have been times where I literally could not get a game in because no one would play anything but a tournament setup, and I didn't have enough to deploy a tournament level scene.

Ironically, a store in the area started running tournaments that didn't follow the standard tournament mold, such as Troops not being required, but 3 Elites are, 1000 point games, 2000 point partner games where you decide with your partner how much of that 2000 points you're both bringing, etc. It did help make it easier for the new, not-tournament-ready people like myself to start catching up.

If he wants to drop in for a PUG at his FLGS it's likely that the default assumption will be the full suite of matched play rules. If they run special events or some oddball custom scenarios, the OP will need to check that out and base their purchases around that.

In general practice, it's safest to assume the rule of three to avoid overbuying things you may not be able to use. If it turns out you can run more, then buy those units then.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
And again you're assuming he plans to attend "events" at all.

In my experience, whether you choose to go to events or not is irrelevant depending on how invested the local group is to the tournament scene. There have been times where I literally could not get a game in because no one would play anything but a tournament setup, and I didn't have enough to deploy a tournament level scene.

Ironically, a store in the area started running tournaments that didn't follow the standard tournament mold, such as Troops not being required, but 3 Elites are, 1000 point games, 2000 point partner games where you decide with your partner how much of that 2000 points you're both bringing, etc. It did help make it easier for the new, not-tournament-ready people like myself to start catching up.

If he wants to drop in for a PUG at his FLGS it's likely that the default assumption will be the full suite of matched play rules. If they run special events or some oddball custom scenarios, the OP will need to check that out and base their purchases around that.

In general practice, it's safest to assume the rule of three to avoid overbuying things you may not be able to use. If it turns out you can run more, then buy those units then.

This. The chance of him having to keep his army to 3 detachments is extremely high. Telling him to field all four gods in separate detachment is malicious advice, just like telling new players to buy bad units or non-functional army because you can get away with fielding such things in your own super-casual meta.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
And again you're assuming he plans to attend "events" at all.

In my experience, whether you choose to go to events or not is irrelevant depending on how invested the local group is to the tournament scene. There have been times where I literally could not get a game in because no one would play anything but a tournament setup, and I didn't have enough to deploy a tournament level scene.

Ironically, a store in the area started running tournaments that didn't follow the standard tournament mold, such as Troops not being required, but 3 Elites are, 1000 point games, 2000 point partner games where you decide with your partner how much of that 2000 points you're both bringing, etc. It did help make it easier for the new, not-tournament-ready people like myself to start catching up.

If he wants to drop in for a PUG at his FLGS it's likely that the default assumption will be the full suite of matched play rules. If they run special events or some oddball custom scenarios, the OP will need to check that out and base their purchases around that.

In general practice, it's safest to assume the rule of three to avoid overbuying things you may not be able to use. If it turns out you can run more, then buy those units then.

This. The chance of him having to keep his army to 3 detachments is extremely high. Telling him to field all four gods in separate detachment is malicious advice, just like telling new players to buy bad units or non-functional army because you can get away with fielding such things in your own super-casual meta.

Yes. Choosing not to use a somewhat obscure outside of the tournament scene detachment rule is "super-casual".

Addressing the OP:
You absolutely can make an army with daemons from all 4 Chaos gods. It depends what kind of game you are playing, and what you expect to get out of it.

In tournament/ organised play there’s a limit on detachments based on the number of points for the game. If you mix gods in a single detachment you lose some perks but there is nothing to stop you doing this. If you want 4 detachments, one for each god using the organised play detachment limits the game would need to be over 2000pts to allow 4 detachments. I’m not aware of any tournaments with more than 2000pts though.

If you’re playing matched play, the organised play limits are usually used in my experience.

In Narrative play, the only limits are those set up in the narrative scenario in question, so you absolutely can use all 4 Chaos gods.

If you use the Open Play rules, there are no restrictions on army formation, so again you can use all 4 gods. You could even have some eldar, necron and Custodes in the same army as your Chaos Daemons if that’s what you fancy. Totally up to you and your opponent.

TLDR: yes you can use all 4 gods’ daemons. The army list restriction depend on which type of game you decide to play.

If the OP is still here ...

 Sim-Life wrote:
Yes. Choosing not to use a somewhat obscure outside of the tournament scene detachment rule is "super-casual".

It's not obscure. It's less obscure than the FAQs, honestly.

And it's common enough even in non-tournament stores that, at a minimum, it's something that you should ask about when starting out.

Moriarty wrote:
If the OP is still here ...

If he had any sense he'd be fleeing Dakka for a more positive forums

Maybe I am just old and tainted by early Eve Online but I find Dakka positively warm and fuzzy compared to the IRC and BBS days of yore.

I'm more used to rpg.net, and by their mod standards, I would imagine quite a few of the 'characters' here would have been banned for repeated thread crapping.

@BertBert Didnt know you could do that, summon demons with CSM


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's been nice to read these. I'm new to putting together a bigger army and this has been a learning experience.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Yes. Choosing not to use a somewhat obscure outside of the tournament scene detachment rule is "super-casual".

You missed the point. I said that claiming that this rule is only used in tournament is malicious advice.

GenChicken wrote:
@BertBert Didnt know you could do that, summon demons with CSM

I write this from the perspective of someone who started playing in 3rd edition, took a break, came back just before the great Chaos Separation when CSM got generic summoned daemons and the Chaos Daemons become its own codex (6th edition?), took another break, and it's suddenly 8th edition.

Daemon summoning for CSM ain't what it used to be. I remember the glory days of 3rd edition in which the goal of the CSM player was to rush forward, get a lucky reserve roll, have a unit of daemons land in the right spot, and have that unit of daemons charge and massacre the enemy. It's not 3rd edition any more.

What you have instead is a bit of room for contingencies.

If you're going to use Horrors in matched play, to have the option of using their splitting ability you have to keep some unspent army points. The possible advantage here is that if it looks like a unit of horrors is just going to get wiped out, you aren't committed to using the splitting ability and you can just let the horrors die and use those reserved points summon a new unit.

If you summon things in, they're probably not going to do any close combat the turn they arrive, and the dilemma is going to be "Would it have been more effective to have that unit on the table at the start of the game?"

Now, if you're not playing with the matched play rules, then summoning is a different matter. You'll probably need to work out some narrative way of balancing out summoning. Because without a points cap, there really isn't a reason not to just summon more units each turn.

 Jidmah wrote:

You missed the point. I said that claiming that this rule is only used in tournament is malicious advice.

No one said that. What is malicious advice is to claim that this 3 detachment rule is used by the majority of players. You still havent proved that, btw.

 p5freak wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

You missed the point. I said that claiming that this rule is only used in tournament is malicious advice.

No one said that. What is malicious advice is to claim that this 3 detachment rule is used by the majority of players. You still havent proved that, btw.

I have provided data and arguments. You have provided nothing.

As you have failed to provide any proof, there is no reason to believe that your opinion is true.

 p5freak wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

You missed the point. I said that claiming that this rule is only used in tournament is malicious advice.

No one said that. What is malicious advice is to claim that this 3 detachment rule is used by the majority of players. You still havent proved that, btw.

The best advice is to check with the people you intend to play with, the second-best advice is plan to play full matched play rules, any other advice aside from those two bits is malicious as it's likely to cause feel bad moments.