2k Daemons of Chaos

[blackarmchair]

So, I've been looking for a fun summer project and was looking to do something a bit...different.

Daemons have really caught my eye lately; and why not? Daemons are:

1) Versitile
2) Cool-looking models
3) Random as hell (no pun intended)
4) Some of the BEST close-combat troops in this game

Plus I can get my butt kicked by the new Grey Knights book when it comes out! :D

So after going over the codex and turning it around in my head here's what I've come up with:

[HQ]
+ Skarbrand [300]
+ Keeper of Secrets [210]
- Transfixing Gaze

[Elite]
+ Fiends of Slaanesh [160]
- 5x Fiends; 1x Unholy Might
+ Fiends of Slaanesh [160]
- 5x Fiends; 1x Unholy Might
+ Bloodcrushers of Khorne [240]
- 5x Bloodcrushers; 1x Fury of Khorne, 1x Chaos Icon, Instrument of Chaos

[Troop]
+ Bloodletters of Khorne [80]
- 5x Bloodletters
+ Bloodletters of Khorne [80]
- 5x Bloodletters
+ Bloodletters of Khorne [80]
- 5x Bloodletters
+ Bloodletters of Khorne [80]
- 5x Bloodletters
+ Bloodletters of Khorne [80]
- 5x Bloodletters

[Heavy Support]
+ Daemon Prince of Nurgle [215]
- Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Nurgle, Cloud of Flies, Noxious Touch
+ Soul Grinder [160]
- Phlegm, Tounge
+ Soul Grinder [160]
- Phlegm, Tounge

Total: 2000

I guess I should explain my reasoning behind certain things. For HQs, I toyed around with heralds of Tzeentch on chariots but they just don't seem to be reliable tank hunters. I landed on Skarbrand and a Keeper to give my opponent a few more targets to get confused with. Skarbrand is a nice force multiplier in a list that's almost all I5 or more on the charge and the keeper is nice and speedy.

The elites are pretty self-explanatory...I don't think anyone will take any issue with fiends and crushers.

In the troops I went with Bloodletters in 5-man squads because people seem to understand very well what the Bloodletters are capable of and large squads of them tend to get focused on and bite it fast. With multiple 5-man squads I can still do a lot of damage to MEQ (8.89 kills on the charge) plus it - again - gives my opponent too many squads to shoot at.

Finally, for heavies I went with Grinders. It pains my heart to do it as I think DPs are too friggin cool but - unfortunately - in this book they're very cost prohibitive and have only a few effective builds (bolt princes ftl). The grinders can bust tanks and fight infantry and taking them in a pair will give me a little redundancy.

I did break down and take 1 decked out Nurgle Prince. But given Skarbrand's buff coupled with noxious touch he'll usually hit on 3's (re-roll) and wound on 2's (also re-roll) so he's nasty.

Waves would vary based on opponent.

C&C anyone? I'm a prospective daemons player (but an experienced player in general) so all my opinions here are simply conjecture. If someone thinks I'm dead wrong about Tzeentch please correct me.

Thanks!

[Connjurus]

I preach this all the time, in both the Chaos Space Marine codex and the Chaos Daemons codex - Tzeentch is the most survivable mark for your Daemon Princes. I'm not saying this because LOLBOLTPRINCE, although that is a nice little perk. I'm saying that because in the days of Meltagun and Missile Launcher spam, Toughness 6 is no better than Toughness 5 - but Toughness 5 with a 4++ is much better than Toughness 6 with a 5++. See what I mean?



I'd also consider mixing up a few Bloodletter squads for Daemonettes - they benefit more from Skarbrand's rerolls, as they both have more attacks, and attack before a whole other initiative level worth of opponents. Plus, Rending!

I love Soul Grinders. They win me games. Keep them. They are awesome.


The Keeper of Secrets is a great addition to this build, but I'm wondering if you could find the points to give it Unholy Might? Or at least Aura of Acquiescence? I say this because the look on people's faces when you charge that Monstrous Creature into cover, and they start rolling their dice, and you smile, shake your head, and tell them this MC has offensive grenades...ahh, it never gets old.

[Tynskel]

I agree with that first assessment.

No transport = morz mans! As someone who plays Tyranids, I cannot stress enough that squads of little guys. If they get pie-plated, who cares! I would consider swarm sized units of cheap dudes, if possible. You want the blood letters to be the icing on the cake. What ends up happening is the swarm disappears to mass amounts of firepower, then your squad of Blood Letters waltzes up and hacks away (sounds like slannesh-maybe they don't waltz up...) If they swarm isn't destroyed (due to shooting your big tough units), the swarms tie up the enemy, and the blood letters join in and do their thing!

25 Blood Letters do not take very long to get rid of. Example: Blood Angels Assault Squad with a pair of flamers will make a squad of Blood Letters disappear before they get a chance to swing! A 5 man combat squad with bolters n' flamer can kill a 5 man blood letter unit pretty quickly.

[eagleboy7259]

Bloodletters are possibly the worst out of the demon troop choices. Sure they have power weapons and the typical demon 5++ save, but they are slow and inv or not 5++ means ur troops are dying almost the minute they start shooting. Demonette's are T3, but they are faster which means what that you can deepstrike further away (ie outside of rapid fire range) and still get into assault the next turn. And of course plaguebearers are like 15 pt plague marines once you go to ground and horros are one of the best ways to get shooting into any demon army. Rending w/ re-rolls means that demonettes would be the way to go, although plaguebearers and horrors aren't out of the relam of possibility if you remember to keep them out of skarbrand's circle of death.

Keeper of Secrets are wonderful - and sometimes evne more killy than Bloodthirsters!! Transfixing Gaze is worthless. -1 attack for one guy? nope. Just about every other upgrade you can give him is awesome. GET PAVENE. Sure the KoS is fast enough, but having pavene can go a long way to getting your line troops and bloodcrushers into assaults when they might otherwise fall short.

Good units you're not taking currently - bloodhounds & seekers! Better to take troops that only have one goal (scoring) and take units that you can use specifically on killing. The massive charge range of both units means that you can for sure deepstrike outside of doubletap range and then get into assault in the next turn. Since you have Skarbrand it might be more worthwhile to take the Seekers (isn't it funny how the unqiue Khrone GD benefits the Slaanesh demons the most?) since they are rending, although the S5 of the Blood Hounds on the charge is something that goes wonderfully with the Fiends.

With Skarbrand you don't need a God Prince. Think about Tzeentch Princes or Slaanesh Princes as an alternative. A second Pavene with a high I or Bolt & Gaze can really help out the other units in the army. You have enough close combat killers, take something that will either open up the transports for them or move units closer to them so you get your units into assult with other units quicker.

And finally on the Soul Grinders... Phlegm!! Tongue is a worthless pile of.... well it's let me down more times than I care to count before I got smart. Although I did have a Soul Grinder who accidently blew himself up when trying to shoot a Raider before charging it....

[blackarmchair]

@ Connjurus
Yeah I can see your point about Tzeentch. I decided to take the nurgle prince just because 9 times out of 10 when I see a prince die it's not to a lascannon...it's to bolters so T6 v T5 is relevant but I think you're most likely right,

&Tynskel & eagleboy

My idea with the bloodletters was just to create more targets. I agree, bloodletters can be pretty poor but people are scared of them and a 5-man squad can mess up a MEQ squad. If my opponent wants to dedicate 5 squads to kill the troops that seems like a win to me as they're not firing at everything else.

I really don't see the draw in Daemonettes or Pink Horrors. Bloodletters dish out 1.78 MEQ deaths per model whereas Daemonettes take out about 0.81 so the letters do more than double the damage. I know the fleet and assault grenades are part of the draw with daemonettes but when you consider that a 10-woman squad will kill about 6 marines on average and the remaining Grey Hunters will kill half the squad right back it makes me wonder (T3 ftl).

Horrors are horr-able (pun so intended) a 10 man squad will on average kill 2 marines. So in the best anti-infantry army in the game I can pay 170 points to kill 2 marines? Doesn't sound great to me.

Is there some strategy that I'm missing that makes these units more viable?

[eagleboy7259]

When applying math-hammer to 40k it is important to understand that you are working with the assumption that the unit will get into assault @ full strength. Demonettes aren't wonderful on their own, Skarbrand makes them decent. Basically with either unit, the higher I value is the saving grace. You kill with re-rolls before the enemy gets the chance to hit you back. Fleet helps you get into assault while deepstriking outside of rapid fire range.

Horrors do a number of things for the army - scoring, torrenting S4 AP4 shots, one of the only ways to get ranged anti-tank weaponry into the army, and fearless is wonderful for a shooting unit. Then theres the changling power which is great when it goes off. They are best used in small squads (usually 5-7) which allow you to maximize the number of bolts that you can get into the army and the number of scoring units. I'd never take them in a full sized squad, because the minute they get into assault with anything they die because of fearless. Personally I run my horrors with the Fateweaver - 4++ w/ re-rolls is pretty dang tough to get through.

Creating more targets (well more scoring units) is always a great idea with demons. If I can wipe out your 5 scoring units before the end of the game I can force a draw if you're wooping on me. Plaguebearers are harder to wipe away because they aren't trying to get into assault, they're just trying to sit there on the objective. Horrors are somewhat of the same, but they help the army out in an area they struggle with most - popping tanks. Currently I run 3x5 horrors and 2x5 plaguebearers, its not the most wonderful set up in the world but it works with what I have currently. If you're marching bloodletters at me then I know what I'm shooting.

The ideal number for bloodcrushers is 4. One with fury, one with an icon, one with an instrument, and one w/o opitions. This makes them a fully diversifed unt. The way wound allocation works means that those four bloodcrushers last longer than normal.

[Tynskel]

the strategy is that the cheaper guys keep the bigger guys alive. morz manz!!!

[blackarmchair]

Hrm, point taken.

I still don't think I'll get any horrors but daemonettes are a bit cheaper. Maybe if I drop the prince down to a tzeentch or slaanesh prince I'll have more to throw into daemonettes.

So like 10-girl squads good? Or should bump that up to 15 or so?

[Connjurus]

My fiancee runs them in three squads of ten. Pretty devastating.

[blackarmchair]

You got your girl to play this game? Damn dude, good job (mine paints she's iffy on actually playing).

3x ten girl squads should be easy, and the fleet will be real nice

[eagleboy7259]

Hrm, point taken.

I still don't think I'll get any horrors but daemonettes are a bit cheaper. Maybe if I drop the prince down to a tzeentch or slaanesh prince I'll have more to throw into daemonettes.

So like 10-girl squads good? Or should bump that up to 15 or so?

That kind of depends, are you running mono-demonettes as troops or will you be using plaguebearers as well? w/o plaguebearers I would say that you should take them in units of 15 so they don't get blown away when you try to hold objectives.

[Connjurus]

You got your girl to play this game? Damn dude, good job (mine paints she's iffy on actually playing).


Hah, yeah. She plays 40k every now and then, but she's really into Dark Heresy.

Her 40k Army is a Keeper of Secrets, the Masque, a Herald on a Seeker, 5x Seekers, like 3 fiends, thirty daemonettes, 3 soul grinders, and a Daemon Prince.

She would love to have an AdMech army, though. Really into the steampunk thing.

[blackarmchair]

That kind of depends, are you running mono-demonettes as troops or will you be using plaguebearers as well? w/o plaguebearers I would say that you should take them in units of 15 so they don't get blown away when you try to hold objectives.

Meh, I don't really see Daemons as a "holding objectives" kind of army. Plaguebearers aside - 5++ saves don't really give you a lot of staying power.

Maybe it's just my personal style, but with truly unbalanced heavy-handed armies I usually win objective games 1- 0 not 3-2. Put simply, I just kill everything and make sure to leave one troop on one objective.

I'm not really opposed to larger squads of Daemonettes though. I'd have to mess around with them until I found a good number.

[eagleboy7259]

Meh, I don't really see Daemons as a "holding objectives" kind of army. Plaguebearers aside - 5++ saves don't really give you a lot of staying power.

Maybe it's just my personal style, but with truly unbalanced heavy-handed armies I usually win objective games 1- 0 not 3-2. Put simply, I just kill everything and make sure to leave one troop on one objective.

I'm not really opposed to larger squads of Daemonettes though. I'd have to mess around with them until I found a good number.

With this kind of an army, I'd do just the same thing. The problem is that on turn 5 or so, you want to heading towards the objective and positioning your demonettes on them. Casualties will have generally whittled down the squads that are still on the board. With random game length & turns that go top / bottom you don't want to try and put a squad on the objective to win the game only to have it blown off in the bottom of 5 or at the start of 6 and put you out of contention to win the game. So if you're intention is to score with units that have been in the thick of the action then bigger is definitely better, and scoring still matters.

[blackarmchair]

Yeah 15-girl squads could work well for that.

I could do two 15-gal squads instead of three sets of 10.

Might work.

[Reivax26]

The way I run mine is a little different. I like to play an army that hits people in a bunch of places at the same time, making it difficult for them to bring the center of their army to support the flanks. I play 3 Tz heralds on chariots, the skulltaker on a jugger, 3 flamers, 4 crushers setup for wound allocation, 9 bloodletters, 8 horrors plus the changeling, 8 plaguebearers, 2 squads of 5 nurglings, 2 squads of 3 screamers, and a couple of DP's. Usually do one Nurgle with wings and one Tz on foot blasting stuff. Thats my 2k list and its unbeaten so far although I haven't ran into the Dark Eldar yet, kind of worried about them. Its crushed several Marine armies into the dirt, including the Skulltaker taking several skulls back to the throne room. The most hilarious thing yet was when a squad of Nurglings tied up a pack of Long Fangs in cc, and then beat them to death LOL:eek:

[DarkLink]

She would love to have an AdMech army, though. Really into the steampunk thing.

Start warmachine.

[Connjurus]

We tried. Didn't care for it too much...we both like having larger battles, and our friends who play Warmahordes admitted (a little grudgingly in some cases) that the rules can get bogged down when you try playing the Warmachine equivalent of a 4,000 point game.

[blackarmchair]

Thread necromancy! I call thread necromancy!

:P