A small Daemons Tactica, I hope this is of some help:
Unit selection
(The units worth taking IMO)
HQ
Fateweaver – brilliant. Worth his points cost even without the Oracle of Eternity power. With it: it’s absolutely imbalanced. It changes the way you play your Daemons. Your big disadvantage: ‘dropping in half of your army against the opponents and hoping something survives his shooting before the second wave comes’ is suddenly a whole lot less frightening.
When taking Fateweaver don’t take Soulgrinders, they gain nothing. Fateweaver has great synergy with Tzeentch Princes, Bloodcrushers and other Greater Daemons. Use it.
Skarbrand – nice! Although, unlike using Fateweaver you have to make sure the rest of your list is very well tuned to his Rage Embodied special rule. Use Skarbrand with Keeper of Secrets, Fiends, Daemonettes and Bloodletters, Hounds and Seekers to get the best results.
Keeper of Secrets – great option. Naked or with Musk. The rest is often not worth the points. For Pavene you want a Daemon Prince for its BS5. Keep it cheep as possible.
Great Unclean One – the poor mans Monster. Only 165 points (it comes with CoF standard) for T6 W5 4++ FNP. And to boot it wounds on 2+ (often rerolled) and has a decent amount of attacks and WS. S6 + 2d6 may well open tanks. The Slowness is not too bad. As an MC it has move through cover doesn’t it? Use your run moves!
Bloodthirster – Yeah, bring it! Nothing stands against this in CC. Give it Blessing for 5 pnts. Some give it Might as well. To me that’s a luxury only used in 2k+ battles, and even then...
Epidemius – only in Tally lists (see below)
The Blue Scribes – cool. It’s an IC (and can thus hide in a squad). Moves like jump infantry. Has a variety of special powers and can use two a turn. It’s offers flexibility. As such it can be a valuable tool.
Skulltaker – meh. Yes it’s great and very killy. But it costs an arm and a leg! It has the same problem as all Khorne Heralds: when you have a Bloodcrusher at 40 points, why on earth do you need to spend that much on a model that’s hardly that much more killy. IMO don’t take it. Just take more Crushers if you think you’re not packing enough heat already.
Herald of Tzeentch – Yep. Costs 100 – 110 points. Has Chariot, Bolt and MoS. Maybe 10 points more for Legion. Kills tanks, moves fast, is sturdy. Whats not to like.
Herald of Slaanesh – UberFiend. Give it a Chariot and Might for a whooping 75 points. 7 S5 attacks on the charge @ I8 and Rending. 5 wounds with T4 4+/5++ and moves as a beast. This thing should be easy to use LoS blocking terrain and still get a charge next turn.
Elites
Fiends – The best choice in the Codex. Use 5-6, give Might if you have the points. Use range on deepstrike to give them cover / LoS blockers. Then use their incredible range to put pressure on either flank.
Bloodcrushers – Yes, great. Typical squad costs 200 points for 4 diversified Crushers that also provide the 1 or 2 Icons in your list. They offer killingpower and sturdyness. Sure they are slow, but with their big bases they do have a rather large threatrange.
Flamers – Used them, but now I don’t anymore. Just too fragile for their points for me. I’ve still included them because YMMV.
Troops
Bloodletters – relatively cheap powerweapons on Furious Charge Marines. Gieb! They will get shot though, so either use the MSU idea of bringing 4-6 units of 5-8 each or use a larger unit (10+). If the rest of your list has enough threats they may get through because of their relatively low spot on the prioritylist. They will do damage in that case!
Daemonettes – Speedy! Speed is one of the most important abilities on Daemons. They mitigate the impact of a bad scatter, tie up enemies so the slower stuff can approach and generally make sure you put on enough pressure. Daemonettes will die if sneezed at though. Either take 6 for a cheap scoring unit that still has possibilities and flexibility or take 12+. Daemonettes work well in an MSU list IMO.
Horrors - because of the Changeling. I always use 1 unit of Horrors with Bolt and Changeling for 100 points. I however never use more than this. This is just preference. They are usefull, I just prefer getting my stuff locked in combat where Horrors don’t have a place. However, when you are using more than 3 troopschoices, please take these over Plaguebearers.
Plaguebearers – necessity? I see Plaguebearers spammed a lot in lists on Dakka. I wonder why. I use them too, but for only one reason: I want to get away with using 3 minimumsized troopschoices. When you take 4-6 troops, don’t take Plaguebearers. They do nothing. The only thing they do is sit on objectives and not die. You want to use all of your units to deal damage. Plaguebearers are not good at this. However, as I said: when you’re making a 1500 – 1850 points list and you want to spend as much points as possible on the superb HQ, Elites and Heavy sections: take 2x5 Plaguebearers and the Horror squad I mentioned before, and you have enough troops choices when you play it well… That’s what Plaguebearers are for. (Oh, and for Tally-lists)
Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds – Underrated! 8-10 for 120-150 points. They’re great. In the time of MSU Rhino/Razorback/Venom spam, Hounds can be your expandible canopeners with a high threatrange. Cheap enough to use for a coversave, sturdy enough to tie something up, fast enough to get there. What are armies will you struggle against as a Daemons player? Grey Knights of course, as well as Dark/Light Eldar. Against these lists Hounds of Khorne can be great while not being too measly against other armies either. Try them out.
Seekers – Almost as good. I use them because an easy to hide, low on prioritylists, still pretty killy unit of 6 costs 102 points. Otherwise I prefer Hounds. There are lists in which (and against which) they shine though.
Screamers – well… I like a unit of 3. Maybe 4. Small, may do something, but will contest that objective on turn5 with a turboboost move. That alone makes them usefull.
Heavy Support
Prince – Yeah. I take 3 every time. There are 2 – 3 flavors IMO:
160 Prince, MoT, Bolt, Gaze
215 Prince, MoN, IH, Flight, CoF, NT
145/155 Prince, MoS, IH, Musk/Pavane, AoA
Don’t let them get too expensive!
Soulgrinder – it has an AV… The only one in the codex. That makes for a very chancy selection IMO. Still AV13 does have its moments and it can kill bigtime.
Typically I really like thinking outside of the box and using weird units/mixing up a variation of different units. However, the units not listed above have some difficulty getting decent results from (given the pointscost) or are less optimised. YMMV and if you use different selections that the ones mentioned to great success, please share your thoughts.
Typical types of lists
Fateweaver+
a Greater Daemon/Heralds of Tzeentch, Bloodcrushers/Fiends, minimal troops, 3 Princes.
Most allround, tried and tested. Very valid tournament-list.
Tzeentch-heavy:
3-4 Heralds of Tzeentc, Fiends/Crushers (/Flamers), 5-6 squads of minimal Horrors w Bolt, Screamers, 3 Princes.
Moar Dakka… Some on these boards have done very well with lists like this.
Khorne Heavy:
Bloodthirsters, Crushers, Letters, HOUNDS!, Soulgrinders.
IMO you need Hounds in a list like this because you lack speed. Fiends fit well too. Soulgrinders may actually be better than Princes here because you need some shooting vs AV-targets.
Slaanesh Heavy:
Potentially high modelcount. Fast, Killy! At 2500 points I like the idea of something like this:
2KoS, 18 Fiends, 72 Daemonettes, 30 Seekers. Skarbrand is best used in a list like this strange enough…
Nurgle Heavy:
Tally list. Bonestructure: GUO, Epidemius, 1x14+3x7 Plaguebearers, 3 Nurgle Princes (as above). This list could use Herald of Tzeentch, Screamers, Horrors w. Bolt, Fiends at higher points levels.
MSU-Daemons:
3-4 Heralds (of Tzeentch mostly, Slaanesh will work as well), 3-6Fiends/3-4Crushers, 6 squads of Horrors/Bloodletters/Daemonettes, 3 squads of Fast units, 1-2 Princes to engange the heavier targets.
Keep the squads relatively cheap and small, make sure you have as many units as possible. This is a list where I'd value having 2 Icons higher than in other lists.
Typically when building Daemon lists:
- Ask yourself if you want 4-5 MC’s or more models in the form of Heralds and bigger troopschoices.
- Don’t spent points on more than 2 Icons. 1 is often enough. You don’t NEED Icons.
- Watch units with a huge footprint (8 Crushers, 20+troops/fastattack). A mishap is much more likely and dangerous with something like that.
- Make sure you have enough speed and flexibility in your list.
- Also, make sure you have a lot of Big threats or an MSU-theme to saturate incoming fire. Because Daemons have to come on board with 50% of the list, this is even more important than with other armies. This is exactly why Fateweaver lists are popular.
- When you do have speed and flexibility, don’t spend 60 points on flight for Princes. They are fast enough considering you’ll drop them relatively close ideally and considering you can box in the opponent/back him up against a table-edge or into a corner.
Deployment
Deploy aggressively. You’ll beat the opposing army in combat 90% of the time. So unless you face one of the lists in that 10% (Some GK’s, DoA BA, some Tyranid, some Orks) don’t worry about receiving the charge. Do worry about having to weather more than one turn of the enemies fire.
Use the fact that your army uses DS and run units after deploying. Use cover, deploy heavy on one flank, minimize lanes of fire that your opponent can use against you, etc.
An MSU mounted list is popular these days. These types of lists can suffer from the parking-lot syndrome. Use this to your advantage. Example:
______XX_XX
______XXX_XX
X=Rhino/Razoback
When this is your opponents deployment, don’t deploy in front of him but always to one side:
_______XX_XX____DD
__(D)__XXX_XX___DDD
______________DD
X=Rhino/Razoback
D=Daemon
This way you ideally take the 4 most left vehicles out of the fight for a turn. You could deploy one unit (Screamers, Horrors or a Herald of Tzeentch) on the left flank as a distraction. This may further help avoid having to weather a whole armies worth of fire on units that are more important to you.
Targetpriority
Easy: kill transports at range if at all possible, so you can charge the juicy bits inside and stay locked in combat.
Stuff that can actually hurt you in combat has to be dealt with on your terms. Only charge a Dreadknight, HiveTyrant/Swarmlord, Thunderwolf-unit etc. with so many units at once that you’ll definitely kill it and only have to take casualties that turn and not for 3 turns on end. Either that or try to lock units like that in combat with a relatively disposable unit.
Fear stuff like large blocks of Genestealers and use cover to abuse the fact that they don’t have grenades. Dito with units of 30 Ork Boys. Using 5 Fiends against them may not be the best use of those Fiends. Either charge a squad like that with multiple units at once or trie to avoid it while chewing on smaller morsels like that squad of 5 Lootas/3 Koptas / 7 Commando’s.
Only experience can teach you what to fear from the enemy and what not. Likewise you’ll learn to recognize what needs to live in your list to remain a threat. You’ll learn how to protect those units and how to use them best.
Scaling
A lot of talk these days about 'Ard boys and Daemon lists in those on Dakka. I strongly advocate the validity of Daemons as a tournament-list. However, I do doubt the way Daemons scale in higher point value tournaments. Example: take this Fateweaver list (it's my 1700 points tournament list)
333 Kairos Fateweaver
165 Great Unclean One, Cloud of Flies
200 4 Bloodcrushers of Khorne, everything
180 6 Fiends of Slaanesh
100 5 Pink Horrors, Bolt, Changeling
75 5 Plaguebearers
75 5 Plaguebearers
102 6 Seekers of Slaanesh
160 Daemon Prince, MoT, Bolt, Gaze
160 Daemon Prince, MoT, Bolt, Gaze
150 Daemon Prince, MoS, Iron Hide, Pavane
at 2500 points I would do this:
333 Kairos Fateweaver
255 Bloodthirster, BotBG, Might
200 4 Bloodcrushers of Khorne, everything
190 6 Fiends of Slaanesh, Might
190 6 Fiends of Slaanesh, Might
100 5 Pink Horrors, Bolt, Changeling
128 8 Bloodletters
128 8 Bloodletters
168 12 Daemonettes
150 10 Hounds of Khorne
102 6 Seekers of Slaanesh
160 Daemon Prince, MoT, Bolt, Gaze
160 Daemon Prince, MoT, Bolt, Gaze
215 Daemon Prince, MoN, Iron Hide, Flight, CoF, NT
2499
What has happened? Two of my MC have become a bigger threat, I've gained a unit of Fiends and a unit of Flesh Hounds and my Troops are more and more killy. The core of the list however, 5 MC's/Fiends/Crushers still has the same survivability against at 2500 as it did at 1700, the opposing list has a lot more firepower however. At 1700/1750 Daemons peek I think. They fit everything they need and have the density to overload opponents. At 2500 the density drops, mostly due to the fact that your opponent probably has 50% more guns compared to his 1700 points list, while you don't suddenly have 7 MC's for instance.
Anyway: a lot of this stuff is obvious of course and may seem like I preach like a Kindergarden-teacher. Well this is true of course because I’m an annoying person like that. But on the other hand, it can really be this simple. Daemons may require some getting used to, but I’ve seldom felt like I had no chance at all with my Daemons. This contrary to previous armies I’ve played with. (Although Null Zone does suck…)
Cilithan
