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Creating daemon lists recently, it struck me that the army lacks a generic HQ unit, like the equivalent of a captain, lieutenant, lord or champion. Daemon Princes exist but they are high cost and need to have a Chaos mark, while Be'lakor is a unique character. One idea could be to take the Daemon Regent unit from 30k and port it over to 40k for the CD army. Maybe this unit could be given a Chaos mark if you wanted to give it one, but could also go Undivided, being able to buff any god's daemons and to join troop units as commanders. What do you all think?

There shouldn't be Undivided Daemons though.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Creating daemon lists recently, it struck me that the army lacks a generic HQ unit, like the equivalent of a captain, lieutenant, lord or champion. Daemon Princes exist but they are high cost and need to have a Chaos mark, while Be'lakor is a unique character. One idea could be to take the Daemon Regent unit from 30k and port it over to 40k for the CD army. Maybe this unit could be given a Chaos mark if you wanted to give it one, but could also go Undivided, being able to buff any god's daemons and to join troop units as commanders. What do you all think?

I can't imagine my Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers listening to some generic undivided guy when Khorne provides Bloodmasters & Skullmasters.

I guess it really depends on whether you perceive the chaos demons as 1 cohesive army, or 4 sub-factions rolled into a single faction. Most people tend to lean towards the latter, they tend to see the chaos purely through the lens of the big four.


I honestly agree we should see more "undivided" or non-godly demons, as the warp is supposed to be full of them, and the big four are just the most powerful.

however, if could be done, it would just have to be done carefully. The best approach i can think of is something like a servant of vashtorr, a "mercenary daemon" whos been brought in to provide specific buffs in return for souls, etc. maybe one that grants [anti-vehicle 5+] to the unit hes leading, allowing lesser demons to mob tanks?

ccs wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Creating daemon lists recently, it struck me that the army lacks a generic HQ unit, like the equivalent of a captain, lieutenant, lord or champion. Daemon Princes exist but they are high cost and need to have a Chaos mark, while Be'lakor is a unique character. One idea could be to take the Daemon Regent unit from 30k and port it over to 40k for the CD army. Maybe this unit could be given a Chaos mark if you wanted to give it one, but could also go Undivided, being able to buff any god's daemons and to join troop units as commanders. What do you all think?

I can't imagine my Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers listening to some generic undivided guy when Khorne provides Bloodmasters & Skullmasters.

Yeah Daemons should work like the Chaos Marines - to join a squad you have to match Marks.

I'm not sure what functionality this would serve that is not already served by the existing Heralds? Daemons have plenty of choices for small HQ's.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Creating daemon lists recently, it struck me that the army lacks a generic HQ unit, like the equivalent of a captain, lieutenant, lord or champion. Daemon Princes exist but they are high cost and need to have a Chaos mark, while Be'lakor is a unique character. One idea could be to take the Daemon Regent unit from 30k and port it over to 40k for the CD army. Maybe this unit could be given a Chaos mark if you wanted to give it one, but could also go Undivided, being able to buff any god's daemons and to join troop units as commanders. What do you all think?

Haven't you noticed all those heralds? Khorne has foot, cavalry and chariot variety. Slaanesh has their own ones, so do nurgle & tzeentch.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There shouldn't be Undivided Daemons though.

Why? They are in lore - minor Chaos powers etc

 Mr Morden wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There shouldn't be Undivided Daemons though.

Why? They are in lore - minor Chaos powers etc

Because the Daemon factions they already have don't have enough datasheets. Nor do Custodes. Before we add yet another new (sub)faction, maybe fill out the ones they've already got.

Breton wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There shouldn't be Undivided Daemons though.

Why? They are in lore - minor Chaos powers etc

Because the Daemon factions they already have don't have enough datasheets. Nor do Custodes. Before we add yet another new (sub)faction, maybe fill out the ones they've already got.

Depends if you view codex daemons as containing 4 armies or 1 really doesn't it?

Dudeface wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There shouldn't be Undivided Daemons though.

Why? They are in lore - minor Chaos powers etc

Because the Daemon factions they already have don't have enough datasheets. Nor do Custodes. Before we add yet another new (sub)faction, maybe fill out the ones they've already got.

Depends if you view codex daemons as containing 4 armies or 1 really doesn't it?

Or 5. Mono-God x4, + Mixed. Custodes, GSC, and Votann all probably need some more sheets

Breton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There shouldn't be Undivided Daemons though.

Why? They are in lore - minor Chaos powers etc

Because the Daemon factions they already have don't have enough datasheets. Nor do Custodes. Before we add yet another new (sub)faction, maybe fill out the ones they've already got.

Depends if you view codex daemons as containing 4 armies or 1 really doesn't it?

Or 5. Mono-God x4, + Mixed. Custodes, GSC, and Votann all probably need some more sheets

And Harlies while we're at it.

Yeah... I admit that I'm not up to date on where they've taken demon backgrounds but aren't undivided demons with any real power like, a significant exception? What would a demon lieutenant with no alignment fit in the background enough to demand a battlefield representation, and if this is just a template like demon princes, then what does this offer that the herald rank doesn't?

Yes. They should.

At the moment, it’s Aspiring Champ for your squad, rough equivalent to Tech/Medic/Chaplain, or Lord.

There absolutely is an argument for a mid-tier bog standard fighty dude.

And I’d go even further than that. Though I guess in 10th I’ve kind of got this wish.

What’s the further? Chaos Marines should have a wider choice of who is leading a Squad. You want your army to reflect a number of powerful but low number warbands? Let each squad have a Chaos Lord equivalent leading them.

We’re squeaking closer to this, inch by inch, with in-squad specialist fighters. And as noted above, 10th Ed (unit caps aside) have kind of brought that about.

But for me, Chaos should be able to reflect that in the background, a chunk of your leadership potential is Cult Of Personality.

And there’s no reason for a given squad to mirror its nearest Loyalist comparison in terms of weapon upgrade options.

Not “therefore everyone am has plasma gun”. Just….not a strict “only ever one special, only ever one heavy” type stuff.

This could be reflected by different “levels” of squad. Reavers/Pirates are fairly bog standard. Aspiring Champs, bog standard weapon options. To represent recent converts just starting along the Eight Fold Path. Veterans of the Long War. More options, including Leader Options. This represents those who are somewhat progressed, but haven’t quite hit the big time fully. Chosen - we can take what we want, because we murdered to death the previous owners, and we’ve got the stats and leader to prove it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wait…the thread asked about Daemons.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Yeah... I admit that I'm not up to date on where they've taken demon backgrounds but aren't undivided demons with any real power like, a significant exception? What would a demon lieutenant with no alignment fit in the background enough to demand a battlefield representation, and if this is just a template like demon princes, then what does this offer that the herald rank doesn't?

Pretty much this. Multi-god armies are perfectly valid, but the fluff behind them tends to be that they're either:

A.) An organized effort by the gods in which case each god present typically has a herald or prince or whatever leading their respective forces. Or...

B.) A disorganized case of chaos sort of vomitting itself all over reality as in the case of some warp storms, warp reactor incidents, webway disjunctions, etc. In which case there might not be any heralds or other leader types present.

A herald-tier generic-brand leader demon who personally leads both plague bearers and pink horrors isn't really a thing to my knowledge. Or at least, not an established thing that happens often enough to warrant a datasheet. Getting the gods to cooperate enough to hand over the reigns of their daemons to a neutral party would probably take way more effort than just sending a few heralds and letting them squabble.

Unalligned gods of chaos are a thing, but I'm not sure it makes sense to have them lead the troops of other gods. Like, a hypothetical god of fear would presumably have his own daemons or just hang out with khymarae or something rather than having authority to boss around plaguebearers.

Dudeface wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There shouldn't be Undivided Daemons though.

Why? They are in lore - minor Chaos powers etc

Because the Daemon factions they already have don't have enough datasheets. Nor do Custodes. Before we add yet another new (sub)faction, maybe fill out the ones they've already got.

Depends if you view codex daemons as containing 4 armies or 1 really doesn't it?

Not looked in-depth but it seems to me that you can soup up all 4 factions. Same with applying marks of chaos to your CSM

mrFickle wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There shouldn't be Undivided Daemons though.

Why? They are in lore - minor Chaos powers etc

Because the Daemon factions they already have don't have enough datasheets. Nor do Custodes. Before we add yet another new (sub)faction, maybe fill out the ones they've already got.

Depends if you view codex daemons as containing 4 armies or 1 really doesn't it?

Not looked in-depth but it seems to me that you can soup up all 4 factions. Same with applying marks of chaos to your CSM

They're not individual factions though, contrary to how people chose to run them or the fluff represents them. GW has hamfisted this back and forth so many times now though it is hard to track.

A marine equivalent would be saying you're fine to soup MkX, phobos, firstborn and gravis for example.

Daemons of different alignments are vastly more different than different marks of Marine armor.

You should be able to run mixed god armies, but you should also be able to run mono god.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Daemons of different alignments are vastly more different than different marks of Marine armor.

You should be able to run mixed god armies, but you should also be able to run mono god.

Oh I know but the comparison stands, if you take the holistic view of daemons as an army, the same way dark eldar are an army the same applies, it doesn't take much to extrapolate it down to other forces via other less tangible definitions.

As long as they're designed to be 1 army and people are opting to play with 1/4 of the book for a niche playstyle then yes, fewer options are understandable. That applies to all armies, the big difference for Daemons, DE and to a lesser degree chaos marines are that they've historically had rules for segregation of the whole.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Why? They are in lore - minor Chaos powers etc

Minor warp entities are often represented as such: Minor. We're talking Gibbering Hordes, Ebon Geists, Astral Spectors, Charnel Daemons, Dispayres and at the higher end, Furies. These are the "wild animals" of the Warp. Not exactly leadership material.

I doubt there would be a Herald of Chaos Undivided leading an army.

If….and only if…..Daemon Princes were renamed Exalted Daemon Princes, bog standard, non-giant-Boi Daemon Princes could fit in that role?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If….and only if…..Daemon Princes were renamed Exalted Daemon Princes, bog standard, non-giant-Boi Daemon Princes could fit in that role?

That wouldn't really fit the OP's criteria of being "small" and joining units as leaders though, right It would just be an unalligned hq with, presumably, a daemon prince's stats and price.

And there certainly shouldn't be Undivided Daemon Princes.

The Chaos Gods (I almost wrote "GW" there... ) made that mistake exactly once - Be'lakor - and never again.

xerxeskingofking wrote:
I guess it really depends on whether you perceive the chaos demons as 1 cohesive army, or 4 sub-factions rolled into a single faction. Most people tend to lean towards the latter, they tend to see the chaos purely through the lens of the big four.

I honestly agree we should see more "undivided" or non-godly demons, as the warp is supposed to be full of them, and the big four are just the most powerful.

They used to exist, in game. However, Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh (and Belakor and Vashtorr) can all have copyright and intellectual property tags affixed to them. Generic daemon cannot.

If they really want people to run mono-god, they're going to have to add more units to every subfaction. Going by design of the first detachment (and several daemon codexes past), they really want multi-god. Its cheaper for them not to do all those units. The other way to do it is the AoS route, but that would mean radically redesigning the god-slaved legions

Voss wrote:

xerxeskingofking wrote:
I guess it really depends on whether you perceive the chaos demons as 1 cohesive army, or 4 sub-factions rolled into a single faction. Most people tend to lean towards the latter, they tend to see the chaos purely through the lens of the big four.

I honestly agree we should see more "undivided" or non-godly demons, as the warp is supposed to be full of them, and the big four are just the most powerful.

They used to exist, in game. However, Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh (and Belakor and Vashtorr) can all have copyright and intellectual property tags affixed to them. Generic daemon cannot.

If they really want people to run mono-god, they're going to have to add more units to every subfaction. Going by design of the first detachment (and several daemon codexes past), they really want multi-god. Its cheaper for them not to do all those units. The other way to do it is the AoS route, but that would mean radically redesigning the god-slaved legions

*Winds up the ol' victrola to put on his broken record*

This is a big reason why daemons work better when lumped in with CSM.

Fast, squishy, stabby daemonettes paired with chonky, shooty noise marines.
Elite, sluggish, killy squads of rubricae paired with speed screamers and numerous, objective-camping horrors.
Blood letters backed up by tanks and marines with special weapons to crack open enemy transports and pop enemy artillery.
Hordes of nurglings and plague bearers supported by marine big guns to expose the foe to grandpappy's gifts.

Last thing demons need is yet another fething Character lol. Give us actual options instead of herald #991621

Yeah, right now Daemons work as a combined army, yet people want to field them as God-specific armies.

And that's fine, from a player choice standpoint, and the rules should 100% cater to that (can't wait for the Daemon Codex to have exactly 1 detachment type per Chaos God!), but the problem comes with the fact that by cutting out 3/4ths of your options when taking a mono-God army, you're not left with a whole hell of a lot.

Grotsnik, I think, did a thread a while back about whether we need more Daemons. And if "Merge them back with CSMs" isn't a valid answer, then I think that GW does need to greatly (and by that I mean double) the amount of Daemonic options per Chaos God.

I mean I look to Total Warhammer III. It added Chaos Daemons, and boy oh boy did it have to stretch out what was there to make a (still quite tiny) roster.

So you have Exalted Greater Daemons and Heralds as your Lords, and daemon unit leaders became Heroes because they had to be, and then there were "Exalted" versions of regular units because they couldn't just get by with one infantry type each. Some even got exalted cavalry as well just to make up the numbers. God-specific Spawn and Furies got added. Chaos Hounds, as well, IIRC. I'm reminded of that "butter scraped across too much bread" line from LOTR. Too little trying to achieve too much. It's not AoS Fyrslyrs levels of bad (2 and a half kits plus a half dozen character models pretending to be a full faction), but it's still pretty anaemic*.

Chaos Daemons are one army stretched out far too thin, and they need a big expansion. I'm not sure that "Undivided Daemons" is the answer though.


*And is anyone shocked? They were part of CSMs. Ripping them out of that army in 4th Ed was like cutting off a limb.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah, right now Daemons work as a combined army, yet people want to field them as God-specific armies.

And that's fine, from a player choice standpoint, and the rules should 100% cater to that (can't wait for the Daemon Codex to have exactly 1 detachment type per Chaos God!), but the problem comes with the fact that by cutting out 3/4ths of your options when taking a mono-God army, you're not left with a whole hell of a lot.

Grotsnik, I think, did a thread a while back about whether we need more Daemons. And if "Merge them back with CSMs" isn't a valid answer, then I think that GW does need to greatly (and by that I mean double) the amount of Daemonic options per Chaos God.

I mean I look to Total Warhammer III. It added Chaos Daemons, and boy oh boy did it have to stretch out what was there to make a (still quite tiny) roster.

So you have Exalted Greater Daemons and Heralds as your Lords, and daemon unit leaders became Heroes because they had to be, and then there were "Exalted" versions of regular units because they couldn't just get by with one infantry type each. Some even got exalted cavalry as well just to make up the numbers.

Chaos Daemons are one army stretched out far too thin, and they need a big expansion. I'm not sure that "Undivided Daemons" is the answer though.

Some Undivided would make sense, and/or Markable units.
Like Furies-they could be unmarked scavengers, hunting for scraps where other Daemons go, or claimed by a god and used as mobile harassing units.

Voss wrote:
Going by design of the first detachment (and several daemon codexes past), they really want multi-god. Its cheaper for them not to do all those units. The other way to do it is the AoS route, but that would mean radically redesigning the god-slaved legions

I imagine the chaos deamons codex will have a detachment based around mono god forces for each god.

it makes sense to me

BrianDavion wrote:

Voss wrote:
Going by design of the first detachment (and several daemon codexes past), they really want multi-god. Its cheaper for them not to do all those units. The other way to do it is the AoS route, but that would mean radically redesigning the god-slaved legions

I imagine the chaos deamons codex will have a detachment based around mono god forces for each god.

it makes sense to me

They'll be garbage, since the mono-gods can't play large chunks of the game.
Plus, based on what they've said, that shouldn't be how they design the detachments. And since we're expecting 4-6 detachments in a codex, the one they've got plus one for each god would be real rough and limiting.