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This isn't a list I'd seriously consider assembling or playing, but I'm at a loss for what would defeat it. The list is extremely simple:

11 Daemon Princes of Chaos (Nurgle) with wings and 2x talons. Two of them have Warp Bolters to fill out the points to 1998.

Between Smite and 7 strong melee attacks they can do impressive damage to anything. Adding up all their attacks in the best case (everyone reaching melee) they can take out a total of 84 GEQ or 54 MEQ, and they're still solid against the toughest targets -- they'd deal a total of 44 wounds to a Land Raider stat line.

Of course they'll take some time to reach melee (though not too much with 12" move + advance) and take damage as they close, but it seems like even very shooty armies would have trouble taking many down before they reach melee. For the 10-wound daemon version with Disgustingly Resilient, it takes an average of 15 BS3+ lascannon shots to take one down (or over 200 BS3+ bolter shots) and they don't lose any effectiveness with partial wounds. I'm thinking a shooty army would get one round of free shots (hopefully limited by LOS and/or cover), another round as the DPs are tied up with the screen, and then the DPs are through to the back line.

However, I haven't read through all of the new indexes yet so there are probably some hard counters to this list that I've missed. What are they?

problem starts at obj, you must table the opponent to win i guess.

Having a model count of 11 at a 2000 pt game will leave you severely disadvantaged at any eternal war game as objectives are held by whomever has the most models. T6 and ten wounds isn't very tough in this edition given the changes to the wound chart and weapon damage. And your armour will be regularly reduced to the point where you're relying on the 33% invuln and fnp to save you. Most gunline armies could drop several princes a turn with massed s5/s6 shots (quad rapiers, fire raptors etc), you won't have effective anti horde (D3 mortal wounds from smite against a 20-30 blob is nothing, and nor is the 7 attacks that'll just overkill 1 wound fodder).

This list doesn't have much longevity either. As soon as you start taking losses, you'll notice marked decreases in damage output, whereas a list with more single wound models can take far more damage before it declines.

In terms of hard counters: any horde, anything fast (e.g DE can outmaneuver you), any eternal war game, massed multiple damage shots....the list goes on.

Yeah I'm not trying to pile on here but Daemon Princes are pretty awful in 8th. Without rewards (read: decent weapons) and decent psychic powers they don't really offer anything to your army and (as the above poster indicates in detail) they don't play to most missions (in fact they can't even pick up the relic, so that's likely just a forfeit...lol). They die to pretty much anything. I wouldn't even take one this edition, let alone 11. Sorry to say.

CSM DP's are fine.... if you can screen them properly, demoms DP's aren't so good for me.

I hadn't looked at the ForgeWorld stuff yet -- you're right that there are some ugly options there. It looks to me, though, like Fire Raptors and Quad-heavy-bolter Rapiers don't deal damage to DPs any more efficiently than something like minimum-sized Havoc squads with lascannon. Wounds/point for Fire Raptors is 0.016, Quad-Rapiers are 0.011, Havocs with lascannon are 0.017. An army that's all Havocs with lascannon plus Lords for rerolls (11 squads, 44 lascannon) would take out 3.5 DPs per turn on an open field (everyone in range and LOS) but of course they'd fold as soon as the DPs reached melee.

However, Fire Raptors would be pretty ugly in terms of being able to run away from melee while also dealing great shooting damage and not going down too quickly when they get caught.

Against hordes, though, I'm not seeing the big problem. As I mentioned, their full set of attacks would take out 84 GEQ, and that doesn't even get into morale losses which could almost double the total at times. It's true that the DPs will be wasting half their damage because almost all of their attacks are for two damage each, but the 84 is after accounting for that. It seems like they'd go through a horde army fast enough that it wouldn't be a problem. Maybe I just haven't faced a proper horde army .

Objectives are definitely an issue. I feel like the speed and damage are enough that it would work, though. If you're not tabling your opponent, you can at least clear out holes around the objectives. But maybe not. (Edit: Yes, a Relic mission would be pretty bad. Hahaha)

You're listing your damage output at the best possible amount, which is a bad habit to get into in a game where effectiveness is based on averages. Not all daemon princes will make it into combat, not all will charge first (so may die before attacking), not all attacks will wound (you'll need 3's for most things, 2's against weak blobs which you wont be able to wipe out, 4's and even 5's for other things that may be present (then factor in armour and invulns and fnp's). So, your 84 GEQ's killed each turn is a very misleading statistic.

With your best-case-scenario logic, a single fire raptor could kill five of your princes each turn if equipped with lascannons.

You won't be able to clear out holes around an objective. A 20 man unit of guards or poxwalkers (60+ of these guys and you can forget winning) would take you three turns of combat (assuming each hit kills, which it won't). Now, let's say you charged that unit with 3 princes and killed them all in a turn (still, unlikely), you've used 33% of your army to kill one weak unit that's probably around 5% of your opponents army.

Don't overestimate 12" movements either, they really aren't very rare in this edition.

The fact is, you seem to be expecting these daemon princes to delete entire units left, right and center when they get into melee, which won't happen. There's so much more in the chaos codex that can do far more melee damage (see khorne berserkers), that there's no reason to rely on princes.

The numbers I'm giving are for average results assuming all the DPs get to attack. So you're right that it's a favorable number, but it's not best-case results like your example of a Fire Raptor killing five DPs.

The math I'm using against GEQ (T3 Sv5+ W1) is:

Smite: 20/36 chance of D3 wounds + 6/36 chance of D6 wounds = 1.69 wounds
Stream of Corruption: 26/36 chance of D6 wounds = 2.53 wounds (assuming at least one target of 10+ models)
Warp Bolter: 2 attacks at 35/36 to hit, 2/3 to wound, 5/6 to fail save = 1.08 wounds
Dual Talons: 7 attacks at 35/36 to hit, 5/6 to wound, no save = 5.67 wounds

10 Smite + 1 Stream of Corruption + 2 Warp Bolter + 11 Dual Talons = 84.02 wounds

That's not to say these guys are particularly efficient at killing hordes -- almost all of the attacks are massive overkill. But they're fast enough at it that hordes in general don't seem like a hard counter.

Poxwalkers in particular, though, are probably a worst case for these guys with DR and no morale checks. Against them the numbers are basically the GEQ numbers cut to 2/3 by DR for 56.3 wounds. So if they all got to attack they wouldn't quite take out those 3 units of Poxwalkers, but it's close. So yes, I think Poxwalkers backed up by lots of tailored shooty units (e.g. lascannon Havocs) would deal with these guys pretty handily, assuming the DPs can't find a way to break through or maneuver around the Poxwalkers without chewing through all of them, and that the terrain lets them get shot in the meantime.

I also agree that for any particular target you can always find something better in the codex than a DP to deal with it. In the case of Poxwalkers, Khorne Berserkers will chew through them at an incredible rate. The reason I'm wondering about this list is because it seems like it would do pretty well against almost anything while completely rolling over many balanced armies.

But everyone commenting seems to think it wouldn't be effective and I don't expect to actually playtest it. Does anyone have a complete list that this list might realistically run into (e.g. a link to some list in this forum) that would be a particularly bad matchup? Maybe I could work through how that would go to understand how this list would fall down.

That's not to say these guys are particularly efficient at killing hordes -- almost all of the attacks are massive overkill. But they're fast enough at it that hordes in general don't seem like a hard counter.

remember hordes like tyrs and orks wont care of battle shock so they can hold you longer, others hordes like brimstones has a 4++ save that half the amount of damage you will deal, guards have commisars, so expect to do massige damage with battleshock is a mistake. Btw 8th edition isn't fit for super elite army lists with few big pieces, if you find a horde of efficient infantry, like genoraptors+hormagaunts you get big troubles, 40 genoraptors will chew up most of your army