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I decided to see if I could put together a a 2250 daemon list, with a minimum of proxying. I wanted to use as many as possible of the models I already own. Of course, since I am a miniature addict, I have added some new daemon figs to my collection already!
Having done so, I was delighted to find a couple of opponents who wanted to face off against the new daemons.


General: Herald of Tzeench (lvl 2 wizard); power vortex (+1 power dice to the pool)
20 Pink Horrors with full command. (counts as a lvl 2 wizard with flickering fire & gift of chaos spells)
Locus of Tzeench means the unit gets a 4+ ward save

BSB: Herald of Nurgle (lvl 1 wizard); noxious vapors, slime trail; Great Icon of Despair (-2 to Ld of all enemy units w/in 12 inches)
25 Plaguebearers with full command; Standard of Seeping Decay (reroll failed attempts to wound)
Locus of Nurgle means the unit has Regenerate

Herald of Slaanesh (lvl 1 wizard); Allure of Slaanesh, Torment Blade
10 Daemonettes with full command; Siren Standard (charged enemy may only hold)
Locus of Slaanesh means the unit Always Strikes First

10 Bloodletters with full command; Skull Totem ( may march even within 8" of an enemy)

8 Furies (proxied)
3 bases of Nurglings
5 Screamers
3 Fiends of Slaanesh (proxied)
4 Flamers
2246 points total- no Greater Daemons or Deamon Princes, as I didn't have suitable models.

I used this army in 2 games. Feel free to skip the battle reports.
Thursday night, against a Chaos Dwarf list. I was facing 2 units of 15 Blunderbusses, 2 units of 20 & 25 Chaos Dwarf Warriors, 3 hobgoblin spear chuckas, 10 Hobgoblin Wolf Riders, an Earthshaker cannon, a Death Rocket, and a unit of 10 Chaos Bull Centaurs. He had a lvl 2 wizard, a Bull Centaur hero for his general, and a BSB.

He took the first turn. I have to admit, his dice were fickle. He made every armor save he could take, but he failed almost every panic test he had to make- and I was able to force a lot of panic tests! My flyers went in on the left. The furies parked themeslves in front of the Bull Centaurs, while the Screamers aimed for the end of his line, hoping to overfly all his artillery. The Furies got charged, and I had forgotten about Immune to Psychology, so they were wiped out intead of fleeing. My Screamers then fell to his artillery (but at least he wasn't Earthshaking my big units in the center). My Nurglings scouted into a wood in his left deployment zone. On my right, he moved the wolf riders up to shoot, they were charged by the Fiends, and didn't flee far enough. So early in the game I had Nurglings and Fiends, and shortly Daemonettes, on his left flank. Since blunderbusses only do one hit per base, they aren't very good against multi-wound models.
It was all over by the end of turn 4. My Nurgling/Fiend combo, with occasional help from Bloodletters, had rolled up his right flank. I would break a unit, and it would flee through one or two of his other units- who would fail their panic tests and flee as well, and possibly get run down by the Fiends, and certainly charged by the Fiends in the following turn.
He managed to get his big Bull Centaur unit into combat with my Plaguebearers, but the Herald of Nurgle's noxious vapors were pretty good in the challenge, and Regenerate, on top of a 5+ ward save, meant that he had a hard time wounding, while poisoned attacks and rerolling faied wounds made the PBs rather more combat-effective than they should have been. He rolled snake eyes for his first break test, but didn't make it on the second.

Friday afternoon I faced an all-comers Empire army. General on Pegasus, two lvl 2 wizards using Death Magic. Cannon, Helblaster, swordsmen with detach of handgunners, swordsmen with BSB, spearmen with detach of handgunners, and 20 Flagellants. 10 knights, 7 inner Circle knights, 7 pistoliers.

I was not able to Scout my Nurglings this time. He put his cavalry on his left flank, his infantry in the center in front of a hill, and his artillery on the hill. His general was beside the hill, behind the infantry. I put my furies, Daemonettes, and Nurglings on my right, facing off against his cavalry. My big units went in the center, Horror, PBs, Bloodletters. On my left I put the Fiends, Screamers, and Flamers. He gave me first turn, so everything advanced. Not much happened in the magic phase. The flamers rolled 20 shots, but only killed 2 handgunners. He moved his pistoliers up to shoot the daemonettes, and moved his line forward just a bit. His magic and shooting cost me a couple Bloodletters, a Daemonette, and all five Screamers. (I really want to see how Screamers work, but for some reason they are a priority target. Boo.) Both his artillery pieces misfired, resulting in a two-turn jam- but not before the Helblaster had sent 10 shots toward the Bloodletters.

Turn 2, my Daemonettes charged his pistoliers, and they could only hold (thank you, siren standard). Then the Nurglings went in on their flank! The Herald challenged- I figured that between Allure of Slaanesh, Torment Blade, and ASF, I could tear up an Outrider in short order, but... stupid dice. The rest of the army moved up some more, the Fiends made it to his right flank and were staring at his war machines. The furies hopped back behind his lines to threaten his artillery and march-block his knights. My move brought the Icon of Despair into range of most of his infantry, and he was going to pay for that in turn three. He shut down most of the magic phase, but got a little white around the eyes as I described each spell. I guess daemon magic is scary? In shooting, the flamers destroyed the rest of the handgunner detachment with 18 shots. In combat, the Herald of Slaanesh whiffed all WS7, S4, armor-piercing attacks, but ward saved the Outrider's return blows. Then the daemonettes & nurglings shredded the pistoliers. The sole survivor, the Outrider, fled. He stopped just in front of the inner circle knights, and we stopped an inch behind him. That was lucky.
In his turn, his knights failed a fear test to charge the daemonettes, he rallied his Outrider in exactly the wrong spot, and maneuvered a bit to get his flagellents in position to flank my bloodletters. He wanted to charge his general at the furies, but I reminded him that mounted characters have a limited arc of sight. Magic was ineffective, as was shooting.

Turn three, the daemonettes charged the Outrider, who passed his fear test and had to hold. The nurglings moved into a wood, where he'd have a hard time digging them out. The Fiends charged his cannon, the Horrors charged his swordsmen with BSB, the PBs and Bloodletters both charged his spearmen. Fear tests, lots of fear tests, and at a 7 instead of a 9. The swordsmen with BSB failed and, being outnumbered, fled- through his general and the detachment of handgunners- both of whom failed their panic tests. His general left the table, and the detachment wasn't going to give support fire to the spearmen. In the magic phase, Gift of Chaos tore holes in almost all of his infantry, including the units in hand to hand. The Herald of Slaanesh managed to make the big unit of knights stupid with Acquiescence. Then the flamers put 20 shots into the the swordsmen who were waiting to flank the Fiends, after they bounced off the cannon crew (yeah, right). Close combat saw the cannoncrew wiped out, the fiends overrunning into the fleeing swordsmen and running them down, the Helblaster crew panicking, the spearmen breaking and getting away from the PBs & Bloodletters, who pursued out of the flagellant's charge arc, the Outrider champion getting shredded, and the daemonettes overrunning into the Inner Circle knights.
In his turn, he managed to rally everyone, even at a -2 to his Ld. The flagellants turned to get the rear of the bloodletters. The stupid knights weren't, and maneuvered to get the rear of the daemonettes. I shut down his magic. The Herald of Slaanesh challenged, and whiffed again! The daemonettes went snippety-snip, but he lost only a single knight. In return, his horses (horses!) stompped the 'nettes. They had to take a break test at a leadership of, basically, -1. Bye-bye.

Turn four: More charges. Horrors at torn-up swordsmen, PBs at torn-up spearmen, Bloodletters at handgunner detachment, fiends into flank of spearmen. Fear tests on 5's, and they all fled. Those that weren't run down, ran off the table. So at the start of his turn, he was down to 2 units of knights and a unit of flagellants, all relatively unscathed, but horribly out of position. The knights were off on a flank, facing each other, march blocked, and one was subject to stupidity. He conceded the battle.

Analysis.
1) Characters
I was concerned, going in, that the lack of a Lord-level character would handicap me. This did not seem to be the case at all; the three Heralds performed very well, and the buffs locus provide their units are well worth the points.

2) Unit size
All core daemons are 12 points each, not cheap. But small units are very vulnerable. Not so much to shooting or combat, but to the instability 'crumble'. In this way, the daemons are like the undead. I will be bringing my Bloodletters and Daemonettes up to 15 models minimum, and I might add to the Horrors as well.

3) Unit effectiveness, in no particular order.
Screamers- still don't know, but everyone seems worried by them.

Furies- at first, I thought them a total waste of points. I've changed my mind; now I wonder about running 2 units of five or six models. They will never see combat. Their job will be to march block, threaten, and disrupt. And possibly to screen the Screamers from shooting.

Fiends- Man of the Match, both games. I used spawn as proxies, because I hate the Fiend models, but now I am considering buying some fiends sort of as a reward to GW for their usefulness. 20" charge, lots of attacks at decent WS & S.

Flamers- an excellent disruption unit, the daemon equivalent of Salamanders- but US 1 skirmishers, without the misfire possibilities. Good in hand-to-hand, too. I wonder if their shooting counts as magical? If so, Wood Elves & Cairn Wraiths will be in trouble.

Daemonettes- 12" charge and Siren Standard, tasty! S3, armor piercing means they need to hit lightly armored, basic troopers, which they should shred. Anything with a good armor save (heavy cavalry, dwarfs) will probably bounce them.

Bloodletters- I used a small unit with no Herald, and they didn't actually get much combat. 5" move means they are fast, but T3 sort of sucks. I'm ambivalent. Still, they look scary, and both my opponents paid more attention to them than they deserve.

Nurglings- scouting, skirmishing, poisonous swarms- these little guys are incredibly useful. Definitely worth their points.

Horrors- never made it to close combat, but the 4+ ward from locus, and the fact that at 20, the unit is a level 2 wizard with two decent spells, makes me think these guys are pretty good.

Plaguebearers- Oh, my, god. This is the anvil unit. The way I outfitted the Herald, this T4, poison attacks unit had a standard, a battle standard, 5+ ward save, regeneration, 3+ ranks, reroll failed wounds, enemy gets no bonus for flank or rear, and models in BtB with Herald lose ASF and instead always strike last. Okay, compared to the rest of the army, they're a little slow. But I think they are going to be the first unit in my roster from here on out.

3) Performance
I did really well in both games, not because of superior tactics (though I do think I played well, made few mistakes, and exploited opportunities), but because the daemons are a new army. No one knows which units to hit and which to avoid. Also the chaos dwarf player had really bad dice- I have never seen him fail a panic test before, but in this game, he failed every single one he had to take.

The daemonic army is designed to work together. Units complement each other very well. I can see sending really fast units out to disrupt your opponent's flankers, with the faster daemonettes & Bloodletters on the sides, ready to flank the enemy that gets pinned by charging the slow Horrors & Plaguebearers that you sent out first. Locus is great, and Heralds can be customized to make their units even more effective. Really, the daemons give you an opportunity to take a basic unit and really tweak it out, in a way that no other army can.

I don't see a one-power army as being nearly as effective as an Undivided host, but I think Khorne (good mix of fast & hitty units + really fast and hitty units)or Nurgle (an army full of fear-causing, regenerating, tough anvil units!) would be your best bet for such a try.

4) Countering the Daemons
I think the Brettonians, with their lance formation (and grail knights!) will really be able to wreck daemons. A Ld 9 dwarf castle will be tough for the daemons to break. Ogres won't be afraid of them. Neither will Undead, and Undead have the added advantages of good movement spells, and the ability to replace lost models.

On the other hand, Empire, Skaven, all flavors of elves, Lizardmen, Beasts, and Chaos Mortals will need to play carefully. The whole freaking army causes fear. And is immune to psychology. And never breaks from combat. Sound familiar? I'd fight deamons the same way I fight Undead, but with the added problem that killing the general doesn't damage the rest of the army.

Ive played 2 games with mine so far. Though in both games I was on a 2v2 team. Won both games though, once against Undead and the other against Dark Elves. 4+ ward is nice. And Flamers Shooting counts as magical, EVERYTHING counts as magical attacks.

fellblade wrote:Plaguebearers- I think they are going to be the first unit in my roster from here on out.

You and nearly every other demon player You planning on cutting the unit down some though? 25 bearers seems huge, most plague anvils I've seen are 11 + palanquin herald or 14 + foot herald. I can see going a 20-block to hold onto CR, as I think the 15-block is largely to be invincible and hold things either until the end of the game or some bloodletters or something countercharges the poor unit(s) fighting the anvil.

Thanks for the reports though, good to see your firsthand thoughts on the demons.

- Salvage

I had a rematch with the Empire yesterday. I made a few changes to the army, nothing major. I kept the same banners and gifts, but exchanged 10 plaguebearers (giving a unit of 15) for 10 horrors (giving a unit of 30, and making them a level 3 wizard).

The Empire player borrowed my Archlector on a War Altar, and replaced one of his wizards with a mounted warrior priest carrying the Icon of Magnus. He dropped a unit of swordsmen, taking a block of free company instead, and put the handgunners into a unit of 10 instead of using them as detachments. He also dropped his cannon.

I still got a massacre, but it took me six turns this time, instead of four. Neither of us did much during the magic phase, we were pretty evenly matched. I didn't get the Greater Icon of Despair into range until turn four, but it still did a great job.

Highlights of the game:
1) I managed to preserve my Screamers relatively unscathed, and used them to repeatedly overfly his Inner Circle knights and many of his infantry blocks. 4 S5 attacks was good for lots of dead infantry and about 3 knights. I could tell he was getting really frustrated with the Screamers, and was wishing that he had saved his pistoliers to send against them, instead of sending them against the flamers, which pretty much toasted them.

2) My Herald of Slaanesh got into a three-turn challenge with the Archlector. Twice he failed his leadership test (thank you Icon of Despair) and was unable to attack her at all, due to her Allure of Slaanesh gift. Eventually, I got the plaguebearer unit into his flank, and that gave me the static CR needed to beat him- but on that turn I snipped him to pieces, hitting with all attacks and him failing his 4+ ward save.

3) His knights and warrior priest got into combat with the big unit of horrors, and we had three turns of stalemate. He would kill some horrors, but my static CR would keep me in the fight. Finally I got the Icon in range, he lost the combat by one, failed for both attempts at snake-eyes, and fled. I ran him down with furies in the next turn. At the top of turn six, he remembered that that unit had the Icon of Magnus, and so was immune to fear... .

4) He managed to tar-pit the Bloodletters with his flagellants, and it took a good four turns for ten bloodletters to carve through 20 loonies. I had only 3 bloodletters left at the end, but they were in position to charge the flank of another Empire unit, so it worked out alright.

Another great use for units of 5 - 6 furies is to congaline them behind the enemy units in your opponent's main battle line and when they break they get 'crossfired' and wiped out.

Gaah. 2 more games. Thursday night against 2250 VC, and this afternoon against 2250 Empire designed with my army in mind. Two more massacres, the VC at the end of turn 4 (I killed his general during the bottom of 3, in my shooting phase, with five S5 hits from the Screamers. Don't ask me why his general was all on his own, it didn't make sense to me either.) and the Empire in turn three. He had a level 2 Bright Wizard, a warrior priest, and an Archlector, and brought the Orb of Thunder. I had to reserve 2 dispell dice to shut down that little gem. Once again, we pretty much washed each others' magic phases. Let the unimportant stuff go through, and hope like hell you stop the important stuff.

My Herald of Slaanesh rolled Phantasmagoria this game, and that is a really, really mean spell. It was only in play for one turn- after he saw what it could do, he never let it get through again- but in that one turn I had three charges, which meant three fear-tests on three dice, discarding the lowest. Even with re-rolls from the Imperial Banner, that meant two cannon crews fleeing off the table.

I am officially bored with the daemons now. Five games, five massacres. Alas, now everyone else wants to challenge them. I think I will let someone else borrow the army for a while. Still, I'v got a fight lined up next week vs. Lizardmen. That should be interesting.

I have similar feelings. I started to play WHFB because of daemons, and after playing about 8 games with them, and going 7-1 as a total noob, I'm going to pick up a lizardman army. I love WHFB, I want to keep playing, but the daemon codex seems like a bad idea for a novice player as it is very easy to win with in the right combinations (Greater Daemons really) but doesn't show me much about the game other than bloodthirster smash.

I'd take your time before giving up on Daemons. Initially (as mentioned earlier) you've got the advantage of other folk's inexperience taking the list on. Wait as the metagame adjusts. I don't think the Daemons will be any more dominant than, say, Empire.

Props to you both on wanting to give different, more challenging armies a shot though. I can respect that attitude a lot, over the WAAC mentality.

I do wonder if it's the quality of your opponents as well as the OMFG?! natue of the new army ... but as Lemurking says, there's more to fantasy then how the demons play. Like, fleeing for example :S

- Salvage

Man, I hear that. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to flee when playing my Daemons. Definitely the biggest weakness of the army list. Forget the mandatory 3 core 10 man infantry units, no fleeing is the price you pay for the dex's strengths.

Yes, fleeing seems to be pretty damn useful.

As for what Boss Salvage brought up, some of my opponents have been OMFG what the hell is that, but the player I've gone against the most is a very much a veteran who plays daemons himself, so it wasn't so much the surprise of the list, just the fact that a bloodthrister and 10 flesh hounds are not the easiest of things to deal with.

I do plan to use them for fantasy, especially when I need to make myself feel better about them after a game of 40k that doesn't go well, but so far I am liking playing an army that can flee and needs to make morale checks. Plus...lizards riding dinosaurs is just too much for me to overcome.

Had my first loss Thursday night! I was facing a good player, who was using his favorite army, Lizardmen.

IIRC he had

2nd gen Slaan, in unit of temple guard, with diadem to store dice.
2 x lvl 1 skink priests
1x saurus oldblood with running shoes & great weapon
2x 12 skinks with blowpipes
2x 2 salamanders
2x 3 kroxigors
1x 5 cold one riders

He set up with the saurus in the middle of the board, flanked by sallies, flanked by kroxies, flanked by skinks, with the cold one riders on his extreme left flank, and both skink priests on the left (1 in salies, 1 in skinks) and the oldblood with the sallies on the right.

He had the game sewn up by the bottom of turn 5, and just confirmed the massacre in turn six.

I made one major error- I forgot to put out all 30 horror models, so he was able to drop the unit from a level 3 caster to a level 1 caster more quickly than he should have been.

Minor error- I used the Hellfire Banner, which he had plenty of dispell dice to stop. I probably should have taken the banner that makes all daemons stubborn. Especially since I was five models short anyway.

He was able to shut down my magic phase pretty well, and made sure to do so once he found out what the daemon magic could do. I was able to weaken his significantly- I let Second Sign go, and always tried to stop Cleansing Flare, but that meant he was usually able to cast Dazzling Brightness and Portent of Phar.

The main problem was that I was not able to get any front/flank combo charges this game, and I had to get into close combat quickly in order to avoid the sallie shooting. In the head-to-head grindfest that followed, I didn't make enough ward saves to win the combat very often, and after a couple of bad instability rolls I was really hurting.