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So as a guard player I've been struggling against tzeentch daemons.

My opponent uses some thousand Suns marines and forms a Death Star.

The amount of psychic dice he has going is insane.

I have enough guard to basically play anything

My biggest struggle is just trying to beat them.

What works against these daemons???

Any insight on fighting daemons???

Allied Culexus Assassins, as many as you possible can, or sisters of silence, Tzeentch Daemons will tends to get 2++ rerollable saves, and Flying Daemon Prince WILL tear Guardsman a new hole. They can StrD you, control your weapons to shoot your own guys, charge you chop you to ribbons, as well as double their numbers throughout the game. Without proper counters Astra Militarum stands absolutely no chance against all these OP-ness. Fortunately, their offensive power are mostly come from the psychic, So Culexus and SoS may help you a bit.

Also remember, trying to shoot those pink horrors to take off their Warp charges do not work anymore, Because of the new OP split rule, you will just offer them more Warp charges for every kill you made. Only way to stop it is to charge them and inflict enough casaulty on them then they fail instability test with appropriate roll and ALL the rest models are removed. So now, maybe better to Concentrate Shoots on those disc Heralds first? Especially those doesn't have been Grimored. They usually are not tough enough once their psychic buff are nullified.

The biggest obsec, fearless horde you can possibly run backed up by a few wyverns and allied culexus/sisters of silence if you want to ally.

Something like this (a CAD with three platoons)

CCS with master of ordnance 80pts

3 platoon command squads with autocannons 120pts
2 combined infantry squads with attached commissar and autocannons) 145pts
2 combined infantry squads with attached commissar and autocannons) 145pts
2 combined infantry squads with attached commissar and autocannons) 145pts
50 conscripts with priest 175pts
50 conscripts with priest 175pts
50 conscripts with priest 175pts

Wyvern 65pts
Wyvern 65pts
Wyvern 65pts

That's a solid core of an army for only 1355pts and should probably beat a tzeentch daemon list. Wyverns are good for sniping out sorcerors and heralds from bigger units. If you really want to stop psykers, add a couple of sisters-of-silence units or a culexus (or two or three) to shut down his shenanigans.

A psychic daemon list just won't be able to kill this many bodies, so you should be able to just march up the table and claim any objective you want.

I will certainly take note of all these tips!

Where can I find these rules for the sisters of silence? Are they better with the bolt guns or swords?

I usually ally in a culexus as is so I will have to keep him in.

I've started to ignore the horrors until they actually become a threat as I've learned that I just have to kill them all in one go or in combat.

I also like the idea of the infantry heavy army! Not sure I would use 50man conscript blobs but I would at least do 30-40man units.

With the flying monstrous creatures are hydras a good choice or do I just ignore them? Would the artillery formation be a good choice so I could do a squad of hydras and a squad of wyverns and then a manticore to stack templates?

I usually try to incorporate russes into my list but I'm not sure I will be doing that as they tend to be too slow to react to the faster moving monstrous creatures.

I've found that against melee heavy armies like orks and nids it's better to bunch my guard up and castle to one side and then push out for objectives at the last moment. Would this still be used daemons?

I believe the new rules are in the 'talons of the emperor' box - you might be able to find them online or on eBay though. I think it's pretty equivocal how you'd prefer to equip them - all of their weapon options are fairly poor but similarly priced for what you get - so it'd be whatever weapon suited your playstyle. I'd strongly consider their rhinos though - as they also get the psychic exclusion zone thing.

Personally I find that once you've committed to conscripts, it costs very little extra to max-size the unit. The rest of the platoon is a little overpriced, but the conscripts are quite underpriced. I can't say I've ever run three 50-man units though to be fair - I usually just run two platoons with 50-man squads.

I'd largely ignore the FMCs - and entirely so if they have something that gives them a 2++ or a re-rollable 2++. Giving them no room to manouevre with massed infantry can help. If they land, don't be afraid to charge a large guardsman unit into them to tarpit for the rest of the game. Once my backfield autocannon blob (like in the list above) charged a lord of change and killed it outright which was funny.

I think hydras are underrated, and certainly have their niche against daemons, but you wouldn't be at much of a disadvantage if you just choose to ignore the air and spend points on more bodies. Snapfiring conscripts can also reliably put a wound or two on an FMC, particularly with FRFSRF or 'bring it down' (provided no re-rolling trickery anyway)

Russes are not going to pull their weight here - you pay a premium for high armour. Daemons have little shooting to defend against, and if they catch it in CC it's as dead as a wyvern or hydra. I'd really load up on wyverns - they are one of the best units in the game, and more so against daemons.

Manticores I kind of feel the same about with russes - I guess they could be useful if you're fighting a few soul grinders or chariots, but outside this I can't think of anything in the daemon dex that an equal points-cost of wyverns wouldn't have killed better quicker. Having more tanks is also an advantage - it's quiet a bit harder to kill two wyverns than a manticore.

If going down the infantry route, you don't really have room on the board to castle. My conscripts have alway just charged up to tie up the midfield and there are very few armies that have ever killed them all. Artillery needs to be kept safe, but also within effective range. With enough bodies, bubble-wrapping them should be no problem.

Certainly some great points and some great considerations that I will have to look into!

I will have to amp up my infantry to manage so many but it seems like a valid strategy and a play style that I would like!

Another option is the castellans of the imperium detachment. I would need 2 hq and 4 troops but I will also have 6 heavy slots and per the detachment I could run multiple culexus assassins.

I will absolutely look into these sister of silcense. Having some rhinos and then their squads with that rule seems like it would Ben a huge area denial for psykers and then with large blobs I could control the board.

An option I considered running and have looked into getting is a grey knights strike force. Using a lvl 3 librarian with liber dominica, a termie squad and and 2 dread knights. Would this be a decent option against daemons or not?

I have 3 wyverns so they certainly will be put to good use! And the hydras I will consider as I feel a squad of 2 could put out some decent wounds on fmc to make them fail some saves. But I will stick with the 3 wyverns to start and see where it goes.

Yeah - I play horde guard, and competitive games go very well against anything that a lasgun can put a wound on, but fairly badly against wraithknights, imperial knights and riptide wing. I really like the playstyle, and find it fun. Most opponents seem to be quite happy playing against guard, as they're not seen as much as they were these days. Cadians are pretty cheap and easy to ebay which was helps too haha.

The castellans detachment certainly looks interesting and could probably work well. I'm not sure I like the 5+ respawn is worth the lack of obsec, but it certainly gives you some decent flexibility with the 6x heavy support choices (though I guess you could just run two CADs with the two HQs and four troops, and still unlock 6x heavy support). I'm not sure how it interacts with priests/commissars though - priests with conscripts are just awesome. I guess you could try and see!

I've never used grey knights, so can't comment on them much. Dreadknights are solid (with the teleporters and incinerators). The termis are a bit of a tax though, and I'd be surprised if them and the libby could do enough damage to earn their points investment.

 tankboy145 wrote:
Certainly some great points and some great considerations that I will have to look into!

I will have to amp up my infantry to manage so many but it seems like a valid strategy and a play style that I would like!

Another option is the castellans of the imperium detachment. I would need 2 hq and 4 troops but I will also have 6 heavy slots and per the detachment I could run multiple culexus assassins.

I will absolutely look into these sister of silcense. Having some rhinos and then their squads with that rule seems like it would Ben a huge area denial for psykers and then with large blobs I could control the board.

An option I considered running and have looked into getting is a grey knights strike force. Using a lvl 3 librarian with liber dominica, a termie squad and and 2 dread knights. Would this be a decent option against daemons or not?

I have 3 wyverns so they certainly will be put to good use! And the hydras I will consider as I feel a squad of 2 could put out some decent wounds on fmc to make them fail some saves. But I will stick with the 3 wyverns to start and see where it goes.

Grey Knight will loss against any competitive built Daemon army most of the time, they are only good against one type of Daemon: MCs On the ground AND WITHOUT invisiblity / inv save buff, because if you can get Force and Hammerhand up (though doubtful due to Daemons will always have enough psychic dice to deny you), any GK units will just need one wound through to destroy that MC, and probably those slow Daemons rely on cover save (like Plague Bearers / Bloodletters). Facing most other units, well, Emperor protects, FMC can just fly around and shoot them to death, Tzeentch can overwhelm them with psychic dices and laugh at them with their 2++ rerollable, Nurgle DP with Balesword WILL destroy Dreadknight most of the time in combat. Flesh Hounds will tear any GK that is not Dreadknight to shreds with thousands upon thousands of attacks where on average you will fail 2+ save while your units have pity amount of attack back to do anything significant. Daemonettes / Seekers will tear any and all GK units to shreds with thousands upon thousands of rending attacks before any of your units gets to attack.

Damn I was really hoping the grey knights would have been a pretty solid choice. I tried to use the minimum I could just to grab some dreadknights to hop around.

But I will certainly stick with the massed bodies of guard with wyverns as the core for my army. Then I will try to play around with multiple culexus assassins or sisters of silence.

Ia there any other tips or strategies to fighting against daemons?

Look forward to hearing how it goes

Generally don't try to kill anything with a 2++ re-rollable save unless there's nothing else to shoot at - just work around the unit or tarpit it with conscripts.

Also, try and snipe out important heralds with the wyverns - particularly if they're expensive psykers or holding a useful relic such as the paradox or the grimoire of true names. They typically only have low daemon saves, so if they fail a few 2+ look out sirs, then it's bye-bye expensive herald very quickly Same applies for thousand sons sorcerors - paricularly try to target any that can only look-out-sir onto another sorceror!

Alright so I played a 2k game the other day. It was more of a casual list against casual lists. So he wasn't able to get off much daemon summoning.

But here was my list:

CAD1:
CCS-creed,kell, carapace for vets.
Celestine

x2 PCS-autocannon, vox
x2 infantry squads, x2 autocannons, vox, commissar
x2 infantry squads, x2 autocannons, vox, commissar
x30 conscripts-priest
x30 conscripts-priest

CAD2
Tank commander-vanquisher, hull lascannon, sponson MMs
Eradicator-hull heavy bolter, sponson heavy bolters

Vets-chimera, x3 melta guns
Vets-chimera, x3 melta guns
Vets-lascannon, forward sentries doctrine

Wyvern
Wyvern
Hydra

The list performed very well. He was mainly tzeentch marines. I had both conscript units tie up a terminator death ball that he had. I eventually had to throw both the 20 man units at it as well. So needless to say almost all my infantry was killed off in the end. But I dominated in points as this is part of the planetary onslaught campaign and we are in cities of death. I feel like I would have won by a greater margin if I had the anti psyker units

Is there any other suggestion for playing in dense city terrain with guard?

Once I get more infantry I will make the conscript units 40 guys each.

I will also try to squeeze some anti psyker dudes into the list. I ran creed and kell out of pure fluff but I will stick with a normal command squad to save points.

Looks like a nice list. Was celestine running with conscripts? I've found nothing aggravates opponents more than a hit and run conscript blob haha

Honestly I didn't even think to throw her in with conscripts, but that's an awesome idea! And hit and run would be amazing!

I just had her jumping around my opponents back field killing any support units he had or anything that would normally grab him an objective.

She didn't exactly kill her points back but the amount of fire power she soaked up certainly made her well worth it. She didn't even die!

But I will say I enjoyed the more infantry heavy type of list. Although creed and kell can both be dropped to save points.

I'm overall pretty happy with the results of the infantry heavy list and will certainly keep using 2 units of conscripts with autocannon blobs in the rear.

I honestly think I might give the battle group hammer blow a try in our next game as I'm intrigued to see how that formation would fare up.

Sounds good - glad it went well then!