FoB Tournament Winning List - Chaos Daemons

[Bigred]

This list destroyed all comers at Feast of Blades.

Even more telling is the staff's telling us that 5-6 Chaos Daemons players all brought almost identical lists, only separated by various choices for the single HQ slot - all else being identical.

Also, while three different CD players cycled in and out of table 1 during the seven round event, Chaos Daemons were on the top table for 6 out of 7 rounds, and played CD vs CD for 2 of the rounds!

I'm unsure how I feel about this.

3158

[OverwatchCNC]

Clearly it won because of the totally OP nightscythe which has been dominating everything in 6th.

Oops. I mean screamers are the new nightscythe?

In all seriousness though daemons are anti-infantry and anti-horde monsters. In a new and shifting meta which is leaning towards more foot slogging armies a daemon army like this, or really most decent 6th Ed builds will be dominating. Couple that with most players natural instinct to look down on daemons and not take them seriously since they were really very lack luster in 5th and you have a perfect storm for dominance early on in 6th.

Confusion over, and lack of access to, the correct rules could be another factor.

[Bigred]

It was a fascinating tournament to observe, with a large player sample size.

Basically, the Necron Airforce lists were routinely tabling everything they met, almost regardless of opposing player skill, until at some point they would encounter a player with an alpha strike ability to kill the tiny Necron ground force and achieve a turn 1 tabling against them before the flyers arrived. So the Necron air force games almost always ended in a tableing - either the opponent or themselves.

The Chaos Daemon lists has more of a game with back and forth, but in general also achieved massacres against their opponents by late game. But they didn't suffer from the turn-1 tabling Achilles heel problem that the Necron air force lists did. They would often rack up a big advantage early with their flamer drop, and them take several turns to mop up.

From a fun point of view, the Necron lists were still less fun to play against as players knew after turn one what was going to happen. With the Chaos Daemons, they still won reliably, but it took a couple more turns for the game to develop.

[Hokiecow]

What is an alpha strike ability?

[Ethan Connor Ireland]

I dunno. I usually find that tourney lists frequently border on the beardy; the one in the photo is a surprise to me in how similar it appears to the list I've been playing since 2009. It is as follows:

HQ - 230
--The Blue Scribes & The Masque

Elites - 393
--Fiends of Slaanesh (x4), unholy might
--Flamers of Tzeentch (x6), pyrocaster
--Flamers of Tzeentch (x5), pyrocaster

Troops - 951
--Daemonettes of Slaanesh (x13), icon, instrument, transfixing gaze
--Daemonettes of Slaanesh (x13), icon, instrument, transfixing gaze
--Horrors of Tzeentch (x13), icon, bolt of Tzeentch, the Changeling
--Horrors of Tzeentch (x13), icon, bolt of Tzeentch

Fast Attack 125
--Screamers of Tzeentch (x5)

Heavy Support 200
--Daemon Prince, daemonic flight, mark of Tzeentch, master of sorcery, daemonic gaze, boon of mutation

Total: 1,999 points.
Occasionally I'll swap out the two heralds for a Keeper of Secrets, but usually I enjoy the dual boon action.

Reactions? Feedback?

[Coyote81]

Seems pretty simple. CD have the ultimate alpha strike unit, in that it has no opposing units that it cannot shoot down on it's alpha strike, while also being able to charge on the turn it DS. Back up by tough and mobile troops. Seems, that flamers of tzeentch (obviously imo) need to be tweaked, as of right now they are too good. They probably need to lose their ability to ignore armor and become a anti-vehicle unit. Something like S2 AP6 flame template that always glances vehicles. They'd still be good, just not overly so (I would say make them an anti troop unit, but CD lacks anti-vehicle as is)

The screemers and other non shooty CD got buffed a lot by the increased charge range possibility imo. Also DS chargers did. (Other then CD they are few and far between.) But also the ability to hit vehicles so easy and being one of the few cost effective units in the game that can all take meltabombs is huge.

Almost no other army in the game right now can perform effective 2nd turn charges. And with the reduction in transport effectiveness, more infantry start on the ground, and make it even easier to charge them on turn two. The really good CD players even manage to make the combats last two turns, and avoid being shot at. (I find the combat effectiveness of CD to be in that perfect median against your average troop unit)

Lastly, most armies can't bring a cheap HQ that is as nearly survivable as a Hearld.

[Xenith]

What is an alpha strike ability?

The ability to seriously damage/cripple the opposing army/unit in turn one/before it has a chance to react.

[inquisitorsog]

So the meta hasn't changed at all? Spam still wins?

[rcm2216]

It is beatable by Grey Knights with Ease..........if you remember that Grey Knights in 6th edition have perferred enemy against Chaos Daemons, meaning you reroll all 1's to hit and wound, plus the Psyk out grenades bring them to initiative 1 in assault when charged.
The Chaos Daemon plan is to play a game of attrition no one can win against him accept another daemon player because it is resilient, fast and hard hitting.

Tactic- Just castle up with a warp quake bubble in side of vehicles are behind them to prevent alpha strike and flamers from hosing down your troops. In this list transports are purely blockers and expendable. After the screamer zoom to your front lines, shoot them up and charge them in combat. With flamers shoot them up, but do charge them within 8 inches unless you have an expendable unit near by that can take the template overwatch hits or serve as overwatch bait (small henman squad would do), they will fold in a person can get into combat with them with dedicated combat units or marines. After initial turn break out of the castle bubble wrap and spread out in fashion to nuetralized the flamers templates as much as possible. Just one thing I believe can work.....

[jifel]

I think my army would handle that list fairly well... this isn't just me piping myself up, I have plenty of weaknesses. But Basically, I'd consolidat all my models in a bunch, then spread out my 50 ish gants so noting could Deepstrike in flamer range. Then, If the flamers each killed one of three squads (possible but unlikely) I would then spawn out three more to assault. Any small survivor squads would assault first to take the overwatch, then I'd hit them with big blob tarpits that they would spend the rest of the game stuck in, while I could throw in a extra gants or a Tervigon if needed. Screamers same thing, hit em with spawned gants if they get close, otherwise ignore sweep attacks. Now, in a KP game I'd lose hands down. But this army has 0 way of dealing with flyers... My Tyrants would go aound blasting and assaulting choice targets (say, the Pink Horrors) and in an objective game I think I could take a majority...

[jamesdean13]

Seems pretty simple. CD have the ultimate alpha strike unit, in that it has no opposing units that it cannot shoot down on it's alpha strike, while also being able to charge on the turn it DS.


Almost no other army in the game right now can perform effective 2nd turn charges.

not sure what you meant by while also being able to charge on the turn it DS as that's not allowed anywhere except for VV IIRC.

Any army with Drop pods can DS Safer and AlphaStrike just as hard if not harder.

It's about time Daemons got some love, they've been hard up for a while.

[RGilbert26]

If i wanted to use this list for one of next year's 40k Throne of Skulls at Warhammer World, how would you change it to fit 1500pts?

[rocdocta]

i just dont get it. how does the super list deal with flyers? No AA means theres a couple hundred safe points for the enemy. Much more if its the necron airforce.

[DarkLink]

It is beatable by Grey Knights with Ease..........if you remember that Grey Knights in 6th edition have perferred enemy against Chaos Daemons, meaning you reroll all 1's to hit and wound, plus the Psyk out grenades bring them to initiative 1 in assault when charged.


Irrelevant. Most anything will win combat against flamers and the majority of this army, preferred enemy or not. Tzeentch sucks in assault, though screamers are nasty. When you get hit with 9D3 wound on a 4+ ignore armor from overwatch, you generally don't successfully reach assault. This is a shooting game until you kill the flamers.



Tactic- Just castle up with a warp quake bubble in side of vehicles are behind them to prevent alpha strike and flamers from hosing down your troops. In this list transports are purely blockers and expendable. After the screamer zoom to your front lines, shoot them up and charge them in combat.

You can't use Warp Quake if the Daemon player gets first turn. They also have Warp Fire, so even if they can't hit you with the templates they can still hurt you at range.



With flamers shoot them up, but do charge them within 8 inches unless you have an expendable unit near by that can take the template overwatch hits or serve as overwatch bait

Nice list tailoring there. In practice, most people aren't going to have multiple super-cheap throwaway unit to do this with that are conveniently in exactly the right place to make this happen. They're probably going to have to sacrifice a combat squad of Marines or something, which is still better than a full unit but certainly not cheap.



Just one thing I believe can work.....

Can work. Just because a list can be beaten doesn't mean it isn't powerful, and all those non-GK players are still in trouble.


i just dont get it. how does the super list deal with flyers? No AA means theres a couple hundred safe points for the enemy. Much more if its the necron airforce.

It ignores flyers. It has an aegis line that might kill one or even two enemy flyers if you're lucky, but otherwise, you have so many multi-wound, eternal warrior models with invulnerable saves that you can literally just ignore the enemy flyers because they don't have enough guns to kill you generally.

[Learn2Eel]

Flamers and Screamers are seen by many as the two best units in the game right now, funny how a simple White Dwarf update can turn a decent 6th edition army into a near unstoppable wall of death....