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As you can see from my Award-Seeking Retro Reviews I'm a fan of the old chaos fluff, but not so much a fan of the execution.

So I'm wondering if I can come up with some sort of Daemon rules that allow for great variety but still work. here's what I've got.



SUMMARY
Generic lesser deamon stats
Add 1 power at the point cost listed
Add a 2nd power BUT you must also take a daemonic curse

Basically worshiping chaos should have a downside, it ain't all skulls and spikes.



So...

Daemon of Chaos
WS4 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A2 Ld10 Sv5+ (invul)

Fearless, daemon

5-20 per unit 13 points each

DAEMONIC POWERS

You may take one at the points cost listed and a second one at the points listed. If you take a second power you MUST take a Deamonic Curse. All costs are per model.



Generic powers
+1 strength: 2 points
+1 toughness: 2 points
+1 wound: 5 points
+1 intiative: 1 point
+1 attack: 3 points
3+ armor save: 3 points



Shooting powers
Magic bolts (S4, range 12" assault): 2 points
Magic fire (1 model in the squad, any model, may fire a blast of warp flame, S=half the models in the unit, AP-, template): 2 points
Magic fire (1 model in the squad, any model, may fire a blast of warp flame, S=# of models in the unit, AP2, 24"): 2 points



Close combat powers
rending: 3 points
power weapon: 6 points
poison (wound on 4+): 2 points
furious charge: 3 points
Fearsome (enemy at -1 ld when they charge): 3 points

Movement powers
fleet: 2 points
12" charge: 3 points
fly: 3 points
Teleport (may deepstrike rather than move at the start of a turn): 3 points

Crazy powers
Harmless appearance (foes must make a leadership check to shoot or charge): 2 points
Acid/fire/maggot Blood (any unit killing a daemon takes an additional S4 hit): 2 points
Splits (when daemon is killed replace it with a new model: WS2 BS0 S2 T2 W1 I2 A1 Ld10 Sv-): 5 points



DAEMONIC CURSES



Generic curses
-1 Strength
-1 Toughness
-1 WS and Initiative
-1 Attack
Not fearless
No save

Movement Curses
Slow and purposeful (may not take any movement powers)

Insane Curses
Betrayers (on a to hit roll of 1 in assault hits your own unit, max of 2 per assault)
Unstable (roll a die at the start of your turn, on roll of 1 on daemon disappears)
Insane (take a leadership check at the start of each turn, if they fail they move 2d6 in a random direction, use scatter die, hit=go to ground)
Constant mutation (at the start of the game the daemon's stats are: WS-d6 BS-d6 S-d6 T-d6 W1 I-d6 A-d3 Ld10 Sv5+ (invul))

I've been looking everywhere for rules like this. I just can't stand having no daemons in my chaos army. Although I do think that the Acid blood should be a strength 3 hit most of everything looks good here.

) atrophy is funny

Somewhat reminiscent of the Creature Feature rules, I think like them, you should divide the daemons up into three base profiles;
Small (regular sized base)
Medium (Terminator sized base)
Large (Dreadnought sized base)

Perhaps, the bigger the daemon the more abilities/curses it can take, so you can make generic Daemon troops , hard-hitters and Greaters

Beginning Stats and price; good

Generic Powers; good

Shooting Powers; All good but Magic Fire II; should be half the number of models in the unit. Also, both need to be clarified if they are going to round up or down (I'd suggest down).

Close Combat Powers; All good but drop "Fearsome." This isn't Warhammer Fantasy, as fluffy as "Fearsome" seems. There are just too many other situations that deserve Fearsome as much if not more than Deamons that don't get it (also, you're not always going to be going against someone who will be afraid of Deamons, like say Deamon Hunters, regular Space Marines, Inquisitors, Witch hunters, Chaos, other Deamon armies, Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Orks).

Movement Powers; All good except for Teleport, which could just be regular Deepstrike and cheaper (2 ppm?)

Crazy Powers; I actually don't like any of these, they just don't really seem like they would make entire sense. For instance, "Harmless Appearance", doesn't everyone already shoot everything? Harmless, friend, and foe? And what do Orks and Chaos care if it "appears harmless", same goes for Guard and Space Marines, not to mention the more fanatical armies who regularly kill off non-combatants and destroy or defile everything they can come across, and the rule in general will just slow things down and annoy people rather then add fun to the game, in my opinion at least. Acid/Fire/Maggot blood is also too detrimental to assaulting units, just doesn't seem right to me. "Splits" isn't a horrible one, but it just looks like it will bog things down.

Generic Curses; All good except for "No Save." Yeah, you are losing a 5+ invulnerable, but on the other hand you could be gaining something a lot better as a trade off, and you're still only losing a 5+invulnerable.

Movement Curse; Good

Insane Curses; All good excep for the min on "Betrayers" and "Constant Mutation", which, on a lucky set of roles, would be more like a blessing. Just doesn't seem like much of a curse, and how would you model a unit to be both WS-6 BS-6 S-6 T-6 I-6 A3 and WS-1 BS-1 S-1 T-1 I-1 A-1?

In General; Would be neat for friendly and small points games, but would be too complicated for general play. Basically you would just get a lot of "And what does this unit do? And this one? And that one? Are they equipped with power weapons? Those guys don't look very harmless... and those don't look very scary... What do these guys do again? Do you have models for those 'splits'?"

I'm a bit of a stickler for WYSIWYG in non-friendly games, basically because I go through a lot of trouble of buying, building, and painting my models, and most people do too, so it's always annoying for some guy/girl to come in with a barely painted army going "and this is my uber-units, sorry, but they don't have half the wargear I'm saying they do, and they look just like all these other guys, but I think that's okay, but I can tell exactl what your army has because you did an awesome job of modeling and painting them to be as clear and well crafted as you could. I guess I'm just a lazy jerk who doesn't really care much about this game and I just want to play to win." Obviously I'm being a bit of an elitist there, but you get my basic drift. This would be great for small battles where you only have a few units or more for an RPG and friendly games, however for gaming in general there is just WAY too much potential variety. You have 32 potential different things to model, it's just took much of handful for 40k.

I thought this was a modelling thread :-(

I read through your review KK and I love the old stuff.
It reminds me of a old crusty at my gaming club who bemoans of days of old (V2) and how much better it was.

The olden days sure were much more difficult. Goes to show that people these days don't have the patience, or maybe GW just think we don't.

Very interested in this thread. Keep it up.