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.

Yes, i think its hilarious that khorne daemons have 4+ in melee. Its khorne, the god of melee. His minions should have more staying power in close combat.

Being more susceptible to melee attacks is straight from the fluff.
Ranged weapons or all kinds are often ignored by daemons but getting up close and physically interacting with them, using your anger and fear to slash and stab them, tear them apart with your bear hands, feel the blood, the blood.....

The point being that melee attacks have more of an emotional resonance and thus can more easily effect most daemons.
Its a nice fluffy rule that has interesting play to use and get around, I like it :-)

JakeSiren wrote:
Burning Warpfire (max shots vs 11+ model units)

I don't consider Burning Warpfire to be super useful. 11+ model units are an increasing rarity, and where you do encounter them they are generally a wasted turn of shooting for something with a weapon profile like flamers of tzeentch thats also being buffed w/ +1 to wound rolls, re-rolls of 1. Thats a unit that really wants to scorch things like terminators, marines, and equivalents, etc. Not barbecue a blob of tzaangors or cultists.

chaos0xomega wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:
Burning Warpfire (max shots vs 11+ model units)

I don't consider Burning Warpfire to be super useful. 11+ model units a re an increasing rarity, and where you do encounter them they are generally a wasted turn of shooting for something with a weapon profile like flamers of tzeentch thats also being buffed w/ +1 to wound rolls, re-rolls of 1. Thats a unit that really wants to scorch things like terminators, marines, and equivalents, etc. Not barbecue a blob of tzaangors or cultists.

Wanting to & being able to aren't always the same thing. Sometimes you need to settle for lesser victims...
Then there's need.
Sure, I WANT to BBQ those termites. But I NEED to shoot those Tzangors off that objective & prevent them from scoring.

As for cultists? Have you met those possessed cultists from the new CSM book? The ones with the new models & mixed base sizes? Those things pack plenty of punch. They might not be termies, but theyre plenty dangerous. So they need to die if they're in range.

6 flamers with +1 to wound will burn 20 tzaangors without that strat. Its 39 auto hits average, which wound on 2s. That 32 wounds at AP-2, 21 tzaangors average will die (5+ inv).

Same happens to the new cultists. You can save those 2CP for the strat for something actually useful. Ok, i forgot about the 6+ FNP, maybe some will survive.

 p5freak wrote:
6 flamers with +1 to wound will burn 20 tzaangors without that strat. Its 39 auto hits average, which wound on 2s. That 32 wounds at AP-2, 21 tzaangors average will die (5+ inv).

Same happens to the new cultists. You can save those 2CP for the strat for something actually useful. Ok, i forgot about the 6+ FNP, maybe some will survive.

So, not only is the strat not useful against the types of targets that you actually want to obliterate, but its basically a waste of CP even against the targets that the strat works against because average dice rolls are already basically overkill.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Dogshit codex, possibly the worst all edition to be honest. There might be some way to finagle good lists out of it but it's a half-baked barebones beta version codex.

I am going to agree with this...there is plenty in the codex that will be able to compete I am sure but overall it is a garbage codex OR it is the beginning of a trend of depowering books to decrease the lethality of the game. Either way it sucks to be a demon player.

Nurgle just got screwed in this book. GW still seems to think that T5 is somehow relevant when the games wounding mechanics are so basic that it doesn't matter. Their staying power comes from being able to bring models back through multiple abilities which is easily countered by focusing firing down squads so they don't have the option. 10 man plague bearers is such a huge loss, why could it not be set to 20? I am still paying points for the models so why am I stuck at 10? Nurgle armies don't have speed or great offensive abilities, what they gained in this book are a couple of abilities that play with obsec but I am not convinced that is going to matter in the current meta.

Slaanesh is okay but again not very exciting. The chariots are kinda in a weird place now that everything in the army moves so fast, they are not faster than other options and they hit like a wet noodle but they are a steal for their W to point ratio. I am sure there is a list there with just spamming high wound chariots to control the board. Keeper of Secrets are still pretty decent, Fiends are hot garbage, Daemonettes are paper tigers and the herald type units are so bland.

Khorne is actually pretty decent all things considered with this book. Skarbrand and Skulltaker are pretty scary and using the Glorious Decapitation strat makes them even scarier. Bloodcrushers might be decent if not a little pricey, Bloodletters can actually do some decent damage in melee. Flesh Hounds and Skull Cannons are the only weak points IMO. I think that Khorne has the best Warp Storm abilities by far, I particularly enjoy Burning Terror due to it only costing 2 WS points. It isn't exactly the most powerful ability but if you have two points left over it is a nice little bonus.

Tzeentch seems to have gotten out alright too with the exception of Screamers. Flamers are the winners, absolutely but I think that the Burning Chariot might be a good choice. It takes the mediocre stat line of the Screamers melee but puts it on a tougher body with shooting and buff abilities. Kairos and Lords of Change are both nice and can do some serious work in the psychic phase. Decent strats, decent WS abilities, solid part of the codex.

The real winners of this codex are Be'lalkor and Soul Grinders. I am actually amazed how good Soul Grinders are now, only Tzeentch is a bit meh when it comes to Soul Grinders but I am not gonna trash talk a 4+ in melee. Be'lakor is pretty much mandatory in any list I plan on running. He hits hard, has some good defensive abilities, decent buffing and has Warp Locus. Be'lakor's weakest part is probably his psychic powers which are more due to them being decent instead of amazing.

Nurlge can't even regenerate properly-you can bring back d3 W1 models or heal a wounded model for d3 wounds.
Guess how many W1 models Nurgle has.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Nurlge can't even regenerate properly-you can bring back d3 W1 models or heal a wounded model for d3 wounds.
Guess how many W1 models Nurgle has.

That is only the WS undivided ability, you can use the Feculent Gnarlmaw and the Horn of Nurgle's Rot to regenerate Plaguebearers. Now, is that enough to matter? I don't think so.

 p5freak wrote:
6 flamers with +1 to wound will burn 20 tzaangors without that strat. Its 39 auto hits average, which wound on 2s. That 32 wounds at AP-2, 21 tzaangors average will die (5+ inv).

You can get them to S6, possibly S7 with Boon, and +1 to wound, at that point with the strat the number of things they can potentially burn down expands significantly. With Be'lakor in your list, you can teleport the squad and the Exalted Flamer into position for that as well.

It's a lot of setup though.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
6 flamers with +1 to wound will burn 20 tzaangors without that strat. Its 39 auto hits average, which wound on 2s. That 32 wounds at AP-2, 21 tzaangors average will die (5+ inv).

You can get them to S6, possibly S7 with Boon, and +1 to wound, at that point with the strat the number of things they can potentially burn down expands significantly. With Be'lakor in your list, you can teleport the squad and the Exalted Flamer into position for that as well.

It's a lot of setup though.

The strat requires 11+ models. What kind of unit has 11+ models that needs S6/7 and +1 to wound ? Is there a 20 model T6 unit that i dont know ?

 p5freak wrote:
The strat requires 11+ models. What kind of unit has 11+ models that needs S6/7 and +1 to wound ? Is there a 20 model T6 unit that i dont know ?

Probably not much, didn't know it required 11+ models, my codex hasn't arrived yet. Sorry I offended you.

However, you can split fire on the unit however you want. So say a squad of Ork boyz gets the shots from 1-2 flamers, the other 4-5 roast their Battlewagon.

But yes, it's extremely situational, and a lot of setup.

 WisdomLS wrote:
Being more susceptible to melee attacks is straight from the fluff.
Ranged weapons or all kinds are often ignored by daemons but getting up close and physically interacting with them, using your anger and fear to slash and stab them, tear them apart with your bear hands, feel the blood, the blood.....

The point being that melee attacks have more of an emotional resonance and thus can more easily effect most daemons.
Its a nice fluffy rule that has interesting play to use and get around, I like it :-)

Yeah it's very fluffy and interesting that my Slaanesh daemons are so fragile for their points that they fold in melee to anything which can either interrupt them or give them fights last because for some reason they lost fights first just like how every other Daemon lost their special rules.

Very interesting how the Great Unclean One is actually less durable (especially in melee) than he was before while also costing more points.

Even more interesting is how unless you're Tzeentch your psychic powers are unreliable and have Warp Charges that are at minimum a point too high.

Or how Tzeentch Daemons, the manifestations of the god of magic, have a whopping six spells which your psykers all have to share.

Or how pink horrors are fifteen points a model but also capped at ten models a fething squad meaning you have literally zero hope of making use of your splitting mechanic if anything even slightly dangerous in melee attacks you.

Or how we are literally the ONLY ninth edition codex who don't get to have more than one warlord trait.

Or how unlike the Chaos Marine codex we have literally no god-agnostic stratagems for no apparent reason at all.

Or how units like the Contorted Epitome got inexplicably nerfed.

The codex is fething garbage. Daemons are an NPC faction and GW have made that very clear.

Can we stay on tactics here, and leave the hot takes to the Rumours forum? There's a reason people don't go there any more.

 TonyH122 wrote:
Can we stay on tactics here, and leave the hot takes to the Rumours forum?

No.

Guess there's always rude people dragging things off topic...

My initial take, it feels like monster mash is almost the only way to play this codex. Bring at least three or more Greater Daemons/Be'lakor. They will charge up the board, take all the shooting, do all the fighting, do all the dying, and take up all of our opponent's attention.

The rest of the daemon units are there to play the mission, to do some minor disruption and that's about it. Mainly just play the mission.

Ok, so the codex isn't that great, and surely isn't competitive like dark eldar, admech and so one.
But i was planning on starting daemons, something pulls me towards chaos. But i don't want to mingle it with chaos marines of knight.

so i want an honest advise: should i still start with daemons?
it sure is a money drain again so wanted to hear you guys out.
can you still win against competitive list?

i know it is a personal thing and probably everyone has a different opinion, but i thought trow it up and see where it goes.

So for me, i like all 4 gods, no specific preference
i did always thought daemons was psychic heavy, and since i rarely use psychic in my other armies i want some now so Khorne falls a bit behind although i like the idea behind them
my first list idea of 2k point i wanted to work to was something like this:

Pure khorne. How does that look like? Have 2 bloodthirsters, skarbrand, 40 bloodletters, 3 crushers, cannon and soul grinder plus skulltaker but that pushes me above 2k.

How that sounds like? Can it work at all?

tneva82 wrote:
Pure khorne. How does that look like? Have 2 bloodthirsters, skarbrand, 40 bloodletters, 3 crushers, cannon and soul grinder plus skulltaker but that pushes me above 2k.

How that sounds like? Can it work at all?

Yup, the list sounds good. I don't have the models. But Mono Khorne daemons looks like the most viable one to me. The rest of the mono gods just don't seem viable for one reason or another. (Nurgle too slow, yet still fragile, Slanaash has no teeth, Tzeentch just folds in melee with 6++ saves).

If you want to save points, just take two cannons instead of one cannon and one Soul Grinder, or take one less blood letter squad and buff up the number of crushers.

Don't have more cannons and not planning on buying yet(budget has it's limits ). Alas my options are pretty much skulltaker instead of unit of letters or crushers. I MIGHT have 1, maybe 2 more bloodcrushers. Had some spares I think though might be missing parts but as in AOS individual's are irrelevant haven't paid attention.

Saving points isn't needed. With 2 exalted upgrades I end up with about 40-50 pts under anyway. So extra bloodcrusher if I have might be handy...

I know it's not good (like, at all), but I'm wondering how to set up a 'Disciples of Belakor' AoR.

I'm really doing it primarily for the painting project it presents with Belakor being a dark centerpiece and brightly-colored demons surrounding him. I also want to add a patrol detachment of Demonkin CSM (I'm thinking a Master of Possession, CSM Squad, Possessed Squad, and a squad of havocs).

I will only play this army in very casual settings, so raw power isn't a big deal (and the restrictions aren't *quite* as back-breaking)

So what's the best way to do this? It's looking like I'll be taking Belakor (of course), one squad each of Horrors, PBs, Bls, Demonettes, and then Flamers, Skull Cannon, and, I dunno, maybe a BoN and some fast Demonette cav. How does that sound? What heralds should I include?

Thanks in advance!

 godswildcard wrote:
I know it's not good (like, at all), but I'm wondering how to set up a 'Disciples of Belakor' AoR.

I'm really doing it primarily for the painting project it presents with Belakor being a dark centerpiece and brightly-colored demons surrounding him. I also want to add a patrol detachment of Demonkin CSM (I'm thinking a Master of Possession, CSM Squad, Possessed Squad, and a squad of havocs).

I will only play this army in very casual settings, so raw power isn't a big deal (and the restrictions aren't *quite* as back-breaking)

So what's the best way to do this? It's looking like I'll be taking Belakor (of course), one squad each of Horrors, PBs, Bls, Demonettes, and then Flamers, Skull Cannon, and, I dunno, maybe a BoN and some fast Demonette cav. How does that sound? What heralds should I include?

Thanks in advance!

Honestly, the more I think about it I think the best option is a CSM Battalion with Be'lakor in a Supreme Command detachment. Be'lakor gives you access to all the daemon strats, which will only work on him, which is fine, CSM will give you access to durable/flexible infantry options and the non-marked/non-legion CSM strats, as well as the AoR strats for both. This setup at least mitigates the detachment tax in Nephilim and should at least provide an avenue to a functional version of the AoR.

At least that's my theory currently, it's probably horribly wrong in various ways I haven't considered yet.

If belakor is in that 25% detachment the daemonic pact rule has no effect.

One of the few good things about the AoR is that you can work around the detachment tax entirely.

Since you can have a CSM Battalion and put Be'lakor in a Supreme Command detachment. The other thing about Be'lakor is his command re-roll and re-roll 1s aura applies to any DoB unit (excluding Vehicles), which is one of the only ways I can find to give Possessed and Obliterators any kind of re-roll.

Ultimately, one of the army's primary goals is to deliver Be'lakor to melee at his topline profile, so it should probably be tailored to accomplishing that task. Securing at least 1 source of Warp Locus and getting it across the table intact to deliver Be'lakor on turn 2 is the goal, this could be as simple as an MoP that spends two turns advancing behind some faster moving CSM units (Possessed most likely).

Only owning Khorne stuff, i only briefly glanced through other stuff in this Codex.
Can Belakor make use of any factions warp locus?

ccs wrote:
Only owning Khorne stuff, i only briefly glanced through other stuff in this Codex.
Can Belakor make use of any factions warp locus?

Yes, he has all the Legiones Daemonica faction keyword traits. Additionally, he is a Warp Locus himself, for all of them.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

ccs wrote:
Only owning Khorne stuff, i only briefly glanced through other stuff in this Codex.
Can Belakor make use of any factions warp locus?

Yes, he has all the Legiones Daemonica faction keyword traits. Additionally, he is a Warp Locus himself, for all of them.

Cool. He's not really on the shopping list, but now he's moved into the "if I find one cheap enough...." list.

First outing vs blood angels was a win. Basically i got to attack i deleted unit. Exception being 2 bloodletters not killing 4 marines and transhuman saving 1 outrider.

Trio of bloodthirsters soaked up focus and took out units as needed. Decider(apart from poor secondary choice. Blade of sanguinus tricky at best and choosing skulltaker secured him flat 0) was t2 when bloodletters got to use skarbrand to make 6" charge to his home objective.

Did lose all my models barring skulltaker that hid at home game all game scoring 2 vp per action and denying him secondary

Enjoyed it. Blood flew.

Next sunday vs deathwatch

Warpstorm was useful first 2 turns but after that usefulnness dropped a lot. Too close to benefit from -1, not enough to res and i was deleting　units at will so attack not needed.

Cp i had in abundance especially as 1st round was quiet.

Played my first game with the new codex over the weekend. 1500pt game where I took mono Khorne against a CoB list with Abaddon and Termie brick. Tabled my opponent by bottom of turn 3.

My list was:

Bloodthirster: Master of the Blood Tide, Devastating Blow, Ar'gath the King of Blades, warlord. [-2CP]
Bloodthirster: Indomitable Onslaught, Blood-drinker talisman. [-1CP]
Skulltaker
4 x 10 Bloodletters
2 x 5 Flesh Hounds

The murderthirster did just that, murdered almost everything it came into contact with. It deleted the Termie brick in 2 fight phases, though in hindsight I should have been using the sweeping attack profile for the 3 damage ignoring the FNP.

The new Bloodletters are great. With the daemon save and T4 they are surprisingly durable. Also LD debuffs + being able to deepstrike at a units LD is fantastic for dropping on low LD units.