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For some time, I've been thinking of building an army of exclusively Chaos daemons and daemon engines, and was wondering what the best lineup would be (type and amount of daemons and engines, mark, legion/warband, etc.). Obviously they would be in separate detachments unless I made use of a soul grinder. I am open to maybe obliterators and an MOP or two, but probably nothing beyond that. I am leaning towards a Khorne-themed army, but any suggestions are welcome.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
For some time, I've been thinking of building an army of exclusively Chaos daemons and daemon engines, and was wondering what the best lineup would be (type and amount of daemons and engines, mark, legion/warband, etc.). Obviously they would be in separate detachments unless I made use of a soul grinder. I am open to maybe obliterators and an MOP or two, but probably nothing beyond that. I am leaning towards a Khorne-themed army, but any suggestions are welcome.

A Supreme command of CSM with 3 Lord Discord. Another Supreme Command of 3 Greater Daemons. A cheap battalion of whatever god aligned Daemon you like. Done. Exclusively Daemons and Daemon Engine.

Btw, the new Keeper of Secret maybe the best choice of Greater Daemons. But if you like Khorne, take 3 Daemon Prince of Khorne then, they also slaughter anything up to Imperial Knights as well.

Lots of ways to do this. A herald of slaanesh in a pure slaanesh detachment enables slaanesh daemon engines to charge after advancing. A herald of tzeentch gives venomcrawlers S+1. A fluxmaster or changecaster can give tzeentch daemon engines +1 to wound in the shooting phase with flickering flames. The warlord trait daemonspark allows tzeentch daemon engines to reroll wound rolls of 1 in the shooting phase.

Khorne is CP intensive for their Troops so you won't be able to do as much fun stuff with your vehicles if you spend all your CP there. A Slaanesh Supreme Command with a Keeper of Secrets and a Contorted Epitome. Then a Nurgle or Tzeentch Battalion for a bit of CP. Depending on which Locus you want I think you should put a Daemon Prince of Khorne with the axe relic in the Battalion or Supreme Command. You should probably get at least one Helstalker, Warptime for the Helstalker or one of your other Engines would be good good, so you should probably take a Heretic Astartes DP with wings and two claws. Make the Heretic Prince Slaanesh, Nurgle or Tzeentch depending on which locus you end up going with. Obliterators are quite CP intensive so unless you go double Battalion or a mostly-Khorne list using the Daemon crown list then I would urge you to stay away.

I've been using a list with some Defilers a few times because of DOW nostalgia and using a MOP to give them a 4++ has been an utter waste, nobody cares about them because they are waddling around hitting on 5+ or standing still and never getting into melee and then still hitting on 4+. Maybe with the higher priority engines it might be worth it or maybe I should just go for another psychic power to aid my Defilers. I brought a mechanic for the healing on the Defilers as well but nobody attacks them. I've been super aggressive with my one Helstalker which doesn't work out so well for me because I need the +1 for my Defilers to actually hit worth a damn and my mechanic is nowhere near to heal the Helstalker even if it survives.

With Warptime and Delightful Agonies, a Helstalker can make itself into an immediate and tough problem but I've been getting taken out peace-meal as my Defilers did nothing much unless my opponent decided they wanted to try to rush me. Unless you go for the dreaded 3xDisco 3xDP I think you've got a real challenge if you want to play against more competitive lists since you're also putting more restrictions on yourself other than just "use Defilers".

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
For some time, I've been thinking of building an army of exclusively Chaos daemons and daemon engines, and was wondering what the best lineup would be (type and amount of daemons and engines, mark, legion/warband, etc.). Obviously they would be in separate detachments unless I made use of a soul grinder. I am open to maybe obliterators and an MOP or two, but probably nothing beyond that. I am leaning towards a Khorne-themed army, but any suggestions are welcome.

oooff, that is a bit difficult to implement due to the restriction you gave out on support charachters, if you'd said that you'd allow warpsmiths and sorcerers aswell then i might have had a decent idea or two.

From my (rather lackluster ) knowledge about daemons you'd want to bring nurgle battalions for the CP unless you are willing to accept 15 CSM that is.

Will write out a suggestion in abit.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
For some time, I've been thinking of building an army of exclusively Chaos daemons and daemon engines, and was wondering what the best lineup would be (type and amount of daemons and engines, mark, legion/warband, etc.). Obviously they would be in separate detachments unless I made use of a soul grinder. I am open to maybe obliterators and an MOP or two, but probably nothing beyond that. I am leaning towards a Khorne-themed army, but any suggestions are welcome.

A supreme command of Alpha Legion with 3 Lord Discordants, a master of possession, 19 possessed and a lord of skulls. Khorne daemons, 2 winged daemon princes, 40 bloodletters (20 and 2 10s) icon in big blob. 1995 points.

Will pack a massive punch and if you get possessed where they need to be nothing will stand a chance!

 small_gods wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
For some time, I've been thinking of building an army of exclusively Chaos daemons and daemon engines, and was wondering what the best lineup would be (type and amount of daemons and engines, mark, legion/warband, etc.). Obviously they would be in separate detachments unless I made use of a soul grinder. I am open to maybe obliterators and an MOP or two, but probably nothing beyond that. I am leaning towards a Khorne-themed army, but any suggestions are welcome.

A supreme command of Alpha Legion with 3 Lord Discordants, a master of possession, 19 possessed and a lord of skulls. Khorne daemons, 2 winged daemon princes, 40 bloodletters (20 and 2 10s) icon in big blob. 1995 points.

Will pack a massive punch and if you get possessed where they need to be nothing will stand a chance!

Which would turn this into a possesed bomb list.


But yes the 3 lord discordants are indeed necessary.
AL is a wildcard option aswell.

WB and IW have more interaction possibilities with daemons / engines allbeit.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 small_gods wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
For some time, I've been thinking of building an army of exclusively Chaos daemons and daemon engines, and was wondering what the best lineup would be (type and amount of daemons and engines, mark, legion/warband, etc.). Obviously they would be in separate detachments unless I made use of a soul grinder. I am open to maybe obliterators and an MOP or two, but probably nothing beyond that. I am leaning towards a Khorne-themed army, but any suggestions are welcome.

A supreme command of Alpha Legion with 3 Lord Discordants, a master of possession, 19 possessed and a lord of skulls. Khorne daemons, 2 winged daemon princes, 40 bloodletters (20 and 2 10s) icon in big blob. 1995 points.

Will pack a massive punch and if you get possessed where they need to be nothing will stand a chance!

Which would turn this into a possesed bomb list.


But yes the 3 lord discordants are indeed necessary.
AL is a wildcard option aswell.

WB and IW have more interaction possibilities with daemons / engines allbeit.

Well it's not a standard possessed bomb as you have one buffing character and a lot a.daemon engines. Plus AL trait is the most useful for Lord Discordants outside maybe flawless host. Plus they are daemons, albeit in power armour!

I think using a lord of skulls has the added benifit of being able to hide your master of possession from snipers and is a pretty big speed bump to use conceal on your possessed.

Thanks for all of the advice. I especially love the idea of using daemonspark to boost an engine's shooting. I like all of the buffs that Slaanesh gives, but I'm just not a big fan of Slaanesh overall.

A changeling gives all tzeentch daemon engines within 9" a 6+ FNP. You can boost a tzeentch venomcrawler to S12 with a greater possessed, herald of tzeentch, diabolic strength, giving it +2 to hit with prescience and a disco lord nearby, and +1 to wound with flickering flames, re-roll hit rolls of 1s with a chaos lord, or daemon prince.

 p5freak wrote:
A changeling gives all tzeentch daemon engines within 9" a 6+ FNP. You can boost a tzeentch venomcrawler to S12 with a greater possessed, herald of tzeentch, diabolic strength, giving it +2 to hit with prescience and a disco lord nearby, and +1 to wound with flickering flames, re-roll hit rolls of 1s with a chaos lord, or daemon prince.

Seems a bit ineeficent though?

Venomcrawler 115pts
Lord discordant 160
Greater possessed 70(?) i believe not got my book here and use them too rarely.
Lord 74
DP 100+ pts depending on configuration.

That are alone on the CSM side,
3 HQ choices and a elite choice to make a venomcrawler S12?
Further, If you wouldve marked them slaanesh, you could've given them via sorcerer a 5+++ and Prescience for exemple. Or just use the tzeentch spell to improve invulnerables to a 4++ on a daemonengine of your choice.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
That beeing said.

What about a suicide tick? Venomcrawlers blow up on a 5.
Flinging them into the enemy with a warptime sorcerer might just actually net some results.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Seems a bit ineeficent though?

Venomcrawler 115pts
Lord discordant 160
Greater possessed 70(?) i believe not got my book here and use them too rarely.
Lord 74
DP 100+ pts depending on configuration.

That are alone on the CSM side,
3 HQ choices and a elite choice to make a venomcrawler S12?
Further, If you wouldve marked them slaanesh, you could've given them via sorcerer a 5+++ and Prescience for exemple. Or just use the tzeentch spell to improve invulnerables to a 4++ on a daemonengine of your choice.

GP is 60 pts. I said you could, not that you should. Just showing whats possible. Slaanesh 5+++ is only one crawler, same with the tzeentch +1 inv spell. Changeling is a 9" aura, you could easily fit 6 daemon engines in there, because its within, not wholly within. A MoP can give you a 6" aura with +1 inv, regardless of which mark your engines have.

Not Online!!! wrote:

What about a suicide tick? Venomcrawlers blow up on a 5.
Flinging them into the enemy with a warptime sorcerer might just actually net some results.

Seems a bit ineeficent though? One round of shooting on 4s, melee hits on 4s, and only 33.3% chance of blowing up.

Command reroll and alot less resources invested.
Still not efficent though but then again that's the whole schtick of daemonenegines



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I guess you could argue tough that you could get a solid basis with 3 decimators with butcher arms.
130 pts a pop and not needing babysitters beyond some durability help.

Agreed. Daemon engines are cool, but inefficient. Why bother with them, when there are hellforged contemptor dreads ?

 p5freak wrote:
Agreed. Daemon engines are cool, but inefficient. Why bother with them, when there are hellforged contemptor dreads ?

Hmm,

i wouldn't really say ineeficent now.


There are multiple reasons as for why'd you might want to go for them.

-due to the recent pricdrops i'd rate the Venomcrawler and the defieler as actually points efficient, well somewhat. For what they deliver, but suffer from beeing generalists.

-They are one of the most interactable units for synergies. (as are all legion daemons) making them more interesting then "normal" vehicles for CSM. (and actually better in most cases, exception to the vindicator now because it's dirt cheap and the demolishers now actually good but lacks synergy with other soup options.

- Weaponry, Daemonengines offer some of the best weapons in the arsenal off CSM vehicles. Hold back by their balistic skills. Hades Ac is for exemple superior to any variation of the butcher cannon from forgeworld due to it beeing 20% cheaper for the same profile (except without the morale debuff, which is not worth 5 pts more for the butcher.)

- The stacking off buffs and synergising isn't fundamentally diffrent from the builds CSM allready run atm. They are just sky limit but worse base like the rest of the dex thanks to GW's design.


__________________

That said if i had to do one in mono fashion.

Then CSM wise i'd go for

Battalion (IW or AL) Soulforged pack

3 x Lord discordant, obviously. Traits according o preference for it. (480 pts.)

3x Decimator doble butcher cannon ( 420 pts)

3 x 10 Cultists. 120 pts.

2 Venomcrawlers 230 pts.

that would be a total off 1220 pts..

Another battalion:

Sorcerer, warptime, prescience. 88
MoP, Cursed earth, 88.
Lord: Combibolter 76

3x 5 CSM. 165 pts

2 x Defieler, reaper inferno 272pts.

That would be 1909 pts.

that'd be what i'd field or buid around if i'd go full daemonengines.
you could make a case for Forgefiends over Decimators, i feel however that the higher baseline BS off the decimator would prove massively advantagous over the ectoplasma cannon dual hades AC loadout off a forgefiend at the same pricepoint.

Infact, a further advantage could be to add a warpsmith and use another HQ and the three decimators to make a vanguard for another CP and the ability to repair some engines.
the smaller footpring off Decimators over forgefiends also is a nice thing for stacking off auras like cursed earth and of course the Lord reroll 1's.

I have a list that I got around Xmas (after thinking about it for six months) that I really enjoy in casual play. It's not very competitive but it's fun!

Alpha Legion Battalion
Disco Lord (I am Alpharius) (Nurgle)
Disco Lord (We are Alpharius) (Nurgle)
3x10 Cultists
3x Maulerfiends (Nurgle)

Alpha Legion Vanguard
MoP (Cursed Earth, Infernal Power) (Nurgle)
Sorcerer (Miasma, Warptime) (Nurgle)
3x Butcher Decimators (Nurgle)

Nurgle Daemon Battalion
Epidemius
Poxbringer (Fleshy Abundance)
Poxbringer (Virulent Blessing)
2x3 Nurglings
29x Plaguebearers, Icon

=1999

Nearly everything is a Nurgle Daemon, which means that all my kills are counting towards Epidemius's tally. He sits waaaay back behind a ruin, perhaps on an objective. The MoP sits in the middle of three Decimators, giving them his bubble buffs. The PBs slog into middle field. All the creepy crawlies zoom upfield.

Lots of fun to play, not that great on the table, but still capable of some crazy moments. It gives the enemy some difficult target priority choices--do I kill the Maulerfiends that are rushing forward or do I deal with the Decimators that are pounding my lines. Or do I try to kill the -3 Disco Lord (Alpha, Miasma, trait)?