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Well I had my first three games of 40k with the new chaos daemons. I was wondering whether to bother with the icons out of fear of scatter or not.

I played against an armoured company DA army and a mixed Eldar army.

The army I took revolved around 2 HTH Greater Daemons (Thirster and Keeper), 3 Tzeentch DP's with bolt, 2 units of 5 Bloodcrushers. These were part A of my daemonic assault. Troops revolved around 1 unit of bloodletters and 4 or 5 minimum units of horrors. I also took a disposable unit of 3 flamers of tzeentch in my force. That was part B.

I have to clarify that I rolled 3+ for all the games so I got my monstrous drop each time. I had first turn in 2 the 3 games I played.

I found that by having a lot of small single based units in the army I didn't feel scared Deepstriking my whole A drop into a board quarter (refused flank). I did hit terrain twice with the Bloodcrushers (we play reasonably terrain heavy on our boards) but I wasn't worried and it didn't do anything.

The problems that my opponents faced in the game were;
Bringing enough firepower to bear in the single turn to take down units.
Combined with above was the ability to combine high toughness and invulnerable saves against the majority of the shooting.
Having important units (aka vehicles) destroyed in the turn of my drop against them.
The units that have "gotten away" from the scrum of the castle to only die to the combined fire of 3 or so units of horrors dropping near them.

Really the gaming experiences they had were exasperated...as they pumped shot after shot into a MC only to have it ignore at least half.

I have to admit that my dice started to heat up after the first game and my Keeper of Secrets saved 9 wounds before finally taking one from the avatar.

The bloodcrushers were really reliable on the battlefield, taking enormous punishment and being a great unit to spread out after they dropped and become like a "net". Which meant that units struggled to get away from them or got pinned into a corner and humped into submission.

My experience in the games was that if the daemons get first turn against skimmers (true for both 4th edition no SMF, and 5th edition no cover save for moving) you have a great chance at bringing them down. Took down uber falcon both games, once in 1st turn on the drop with bolt of change and once with charging Bloodthirster needing a 6 to hit...one hit was all it took to immobilise, next turn it died. Took down a landraider with the thirster against the DA too.

Every game I managed to kill every vehicle as I had so many options open to me. The fact that I could concentrate fire on priority targets and the opponent had no chance to react meant landslide victories every game.

Now this got me thinking about when the dice go bad...are the icons merely a mitigation system for the bad dice factor? Can you win when you don't get the right drop or is really GW's version of "Roll a 3+ to see if you don't lose"? Or are there any decent strategies revolving around the icons other than the bad dice factor?

The new demons are extremly dependant on certain rolls, the 3+ beeing by far the most important one(if you make the heavy side and light side) and the first round DS scatter a close second. If you fail the 3+ you can still make a comback if you roll really good for your reserves on round 2 but after that you will be fighting up the slopes of Mt. Everest.

Since you cant use icons on the turn they land, they are quite useless in my expirience. If you already rolled bad and gotten the wrong stuff on the table they arent gonna help since it will all be about reserve rolls.

I've tried with the icons and without. I like having them on the table, but the cost is prohibitive. Compared to teleport homers (free on Dark Angel bikes, 5 points in other armies) or Icons in a chaos list (10 points, which includes a Ld re-roll), they're horribly overpriced.

I'd like to include one in each of my troop squads, but that's 100 points. But, given that the troops are so similar otherwise, and how obvious the icons are, buying just one seems to just be making your opponent's target priority easier for them.

I cannot figure why they're so expensive. I think the only reason to include them is if you painted it really well, in order to score painting points.

When we were hearing rumors about demons I had hoped that their deep striking would work like modified CSM summoning: a squad can strike anywhere as usual, with scatter and then only being able to shoot, OR they can summon within 6" of an icon already present on the table and assault that turn as well (as the CSM lesser demons). Would have made for a meaner "wave assault" effect instead of the current mode, where secondary waves of strikes just sit and get shot like the first wave. And would also have justified the points for the troop icons.

As that isn't the case, I can't see why icons are so expensive. 15 would have been extravagant and 10 more reasonable, given that 1/2 of the army would be able to take advantage of that icon as opposed to a squad or two in most armies.

- Salvage

EDIT -- My khorne demons have 2 icons in 1500 and less, because I have 2 bloodletter standard bearer models (:S) and because the insurance from scatter is comforting. Generally 1 survives first round fire if I drop all 48 bloodletters in the first wave, which comes in handy when dropping breath of chaos princes to line up that templace nicely. In 2000 I also slap an icon on a herald, again mostly to make sure 1 survives to port in the big flamer dudes.

I always bring Icons. Chaos Daemon units are cheap enough that you can afford the points for a set of Icons.

Consider for a second 80 points of Khornate Daemons.

That's either 5 Bloodletters (15 bolter hits to kill, inflict 7 or 8 Space Marine casualties on the charge) or 2 Bloodcrushers (36 bolter hits to kill the pair, inflict 5 Space Marine casualties on the charge), or a Herald of Khorne (36 bolter hits to kill it, inflicts maybe 3 Space Marine casualties on the charge).

My opponent would do well to fire on the Bloodletters. The same holds true throughout the codex, that the most fragile units do more damage, while the more durable units do less damage.

Consequently, your enemies target priority queue is most likely going to go from your most fragile, deadly units to your least deadly units. Icons permit you to take advantage of this tendency.

If the enemy has a choice between letters and a chariot Herald, the letters are getting lit up, but what if it's between letters and a Chariot Herald with Icon? What if there are flamers or a Grinder in reserve? The prospect of one of those being placed in perfect position to use its flame attack/vomit attack is fairly dreadful.

Kallbrand, i think you are missing the point of Icons if you put them only in one half of your force. I usually try and put at least one in each half of my army, always on a Khornate or Tzeentchian Herald in Chariot. If the enemy blasts them I save at least those 25 points in terms of units I could have lost for that amount of firepower. If they do not I get the benefit of the Icon in terms of dropping my units close to the conflict in perfect position. easily worth 25 points.

So you are admitting that taking the icons on the troops is pretty much pointless as it makes them a higher priority, costs a lot and doesn't bring much in the fact that the unit is going to be destroyed anyway.

The fact that 3/4 or more of the icons you'd consider taking in your army are pointless makes me wonder why you'd even bother with the last 1/4...except in the case you've stated where it *may* be useful to prioritize a daemonic herald or two.

Those 50 points go a decent way into making bigger units or buying upgrades to units that can actually do more on the table than just make the enemy think about shooting them.

I think another problem would be the co-ordination of the example listed above. How many times have you found that the Herald AND a unit of troops are on the table at the same time AND threatened by the same unit/s AND the enemy only has the potential to take out one of them?

I know in the games I've played so far, the stress of the big drop was the pressure on the opponent...not the units dropping later. I'd liken them more to being the straw that breaks the camels back. All the pressure has already been applied on the big drop.

All of this makes me think that GW has really screwed with this army in design terms. Sure you've got options but really the big punch of the army comes down to a few key dice rolls with the end result strongly influenced by these outcomes. It makes people who like a tactical challenge cry.

"So you are admitting that taking the icons on the troops is pretty much pointless as it makes them a higher priority, costs a lot and doesn't bring much in the fact that the unit is going to be destroyed anyway. "

Yes, bloodletters and Daemonettes are already at the top of the enemy's kill queue, in most cases. They'll die if the enemy can kill anything. They shouldn't have Icons.

By contrast, Heralds in chariots should. No one is going to kill both your Tzeentchian or Khornate chariots in one round unless they are ignoring your more important stuff, or one of them died via scatter. Having one Icon on the field vs. having none is night and day, particularly if it's on a Khornate chariot that ran closer to the enemy after landing.

I'll Put it this way. I run a 19 unit list, typically in the first round (when 9 or 10 drop) I have to roll on the deep strike chart once or twice. For the other 9 or 10, I don't even have to roll the scatter dice, because they are coming in on my Icons.

As to Daemons causing those who like a tactical challenge to cry...I'm not sure what you mean. Daemons have more random factors than any other army. Consequently the player's choices are more difficult (though still not appreciably so) than an ordinary 40k list's play entails. Those who like a tactical challenge don't play tabletop wargames, where there is one or two choices in any given game that have meaning, and that meaning may be derailed by a poor dice roll.

[quote=40kenthusiast
I'll Put it this way. I run a 19 unit list, typically in the first round (when 9 or 10 drop) I have to roll on the deep strike chart once or twice. For the other 9 or 10, I don't even have to roll the scatter dice, because they are coming in on my Icons.

As to Daemons causing those who like a tactical challenge to cry...I'm not sure what you mean. Daemons have more random factors than any other army. Consequently the player's choices are more difficult (though still not appreciably so) than an ordinary 40k list's play entails. Those who like a tactical challenge don't play tabletop wargames, where there is one or two choices in any given game that have meaning, and that meaning may be derailed by a poor dice roll.