Chaos Daemons!

[Tynskel]

I am not sure what people are complaining about.

They took a book that was random and VERY boring and bad, and made it random and VERY awesome.
You can start on the bored now, and grant icons that automatically draw more of your forces in!

You can take gifts that grant you a special ability, and if you don't like that ability, here, have an awesome weapon instead.

The Primarius Powers are good for each list. So, either you get what you want from the roll, or you get a good power, no matter what.

There's a lot to like about this codex. Eternal Warrior was dumb on Daemons, because they are unstable, and speaking of that, it is great that they brought back Daemonic Instability.

And Chariots. Lots and Lots of Cheap Chariots!

[Eberk]

+1

There is a lot of moaning about new releases instead of trying to appreciate them.

(but then again, I remember the 'bad' years when your army only got a couple of new releases every 3 or 4 years at the most)

[Lexington]

It's...definitely an odd book. I appreciate it as a way to add off-kilter Allies for my CSM, but as a primary force? Hell no. The book seems designed to punish the very idea.

[White Tiger88]

It's...definitely an odd book. I appreciate it as a way to add off-kilter Allies for my CSM, but as a primary force? Hell no. The book seems designed to punish the very idea.

...Really? A well played Daemon army will DESTROY almost anything why would you NOT run it as a main force?

[Eric French]

...Really? A well played Daemon army will DESTROY almost anything why would you NOT run it as a main force?

in a word, warp storm table. or three whatev.
still an assaulty army would be nice as a PD.

[White Tiger88]

in a word, warp storm table. or three whatev.
still an assaulty army would be nice as a PD.

I have seen the table turning a game about to me lost into a murder for the Demons......Well yes it is a fickle table the army its self is more then enough to take out most enemys. (Maybe not necrons mind you)

[Tynskel]

The table is mitigated by taking Instruments of Chaos. That's a good deal, considering the table does damage to your opponents.

[White Tiger88]

The table is mitigated by taking Instruments of Chaos. That's a good deal, considering the table does damage to your opponents.

It also adds lots of fun to your own army!

[Tynskel]

If you assume that you mitigate the damage toward yourself, the only options that really hurt you are on a 4 or less, which is pretty low on the probability distribution. All in all, the warp storm table helps you more than it hurts.

[Learn2Eel]

I am not sure what people are complaining about.

They took a book that was random and VERY boring and bad, and made it random and VERY awesome.
You can start on the bored now, and grant icons that automatically draw more of your forces in!

You can take gifts that grant you a special ability, and if you don't like that ability, here, have an awesome weapon instead.

The Primarius Powers are good for each list. So, either you get what you want from the roll, or you get a good power, no matter what.

There's a lot to like about this codex. Eternal Warrior was dumb on Daemons, because they are unstable, and speaking of that, it is great that they brought back Daemonic Instability.

And Chariots. Lots and Lots of Cheap Chariots!

Over on Warseer of all places (light joke, no offence intended), most are now coming around to the codex - that says something right there. Most opinions say that it is probably potentially stronger as an overall codex compared to either Dark Angels or Chaos Space Marines, and so far there is no single 'crutch' unit ala Heldrakes from Chaos Space Marines. There are a lot of ways to mitigate the potentially irritating parts of the codex - the Warp Storm Table namely - and there are so many incredibly powerful builds available for so cheap that I think people would be hard-pressed to say this isn't a pretty strong army. How strong is up for debate, but I love that Greater Daemons are all insanely powerful for the cost - a Bloodthirster with two greater gifts; a Lord of Change with triple Divination, one lesser gift and two greater gifts; a Great Unclean One with triple Biomancy and two greater gifts - these are some extremely powerful units that no other codex could hope to replicate.

[memnarch_129]

Over on Warseer of all places (light joke, no offence intended), most are now coming around to the codex - that says something right there. Most opinions say that it is probably potentially stronger as an overall codex compared to either Dark Angels or Chaos Space Marines, and so far there is no single 'crutch' unit ala Heldrakes from Chaos Space Marines. There are a lot of ways to mitigate the potentially irritating parts of the codex - the Warp Storm Table namely - and there are so many incredibly powerful builds available for so cheap that I think people would be hard-pressed to say this isn't a pretty strong army. How strong is up for debate, but I love that Greater Daemons are all insanely powerful for the cost - a Bloodthirster with two greater gifts; a Lord of Change with triple Divination, one lesser gift and two greater gifts; a Great Unclean One with triple Biomancy and two greater gifts - these are some extremely powerful units that no other codex could hope to replicate.

I came up with one thats in a similiar category of Power unit. Daemon Prince with Daemon of Slaanesh (or your patron of choice), Warp-forged Armour, Greater and an Exalted Reward, and Mastery Lv.3 (rolled on Biomancy). If you roll right you can end up with a WS9 S9 T8 I10 A8 DP with FnP, It will not Die, Eternal Warrior, and rerolling Invulns (yes thats a LOT of rolls that have to go your way but if they do he becomes a 747 rammed down your oponents throught).

[Tynskel]

Hmmmm...

I have been thinking about a Flying Daemon Prince with 5 Lesser Gifts of Chaos. Instead of Rolling on the chart 5 times, you roll once for the power you do not get. Leaning Toward Slaanesh, simply because Fleet + Flying = awesome.

Although, the Greater Gifts/Exalted Gifts are pretty nice.
Another option is simple to take the default Exalted and Greater Gifts.

[KrewL RaiN]

1500 point lists are so hard to come up with lol... so many things you want to take... My practice list only has 2 max troop blobs but I am not too worried. I am just going to try and beat my opponents face in lol. I really need to add some Slannesh in... I want to do a two pronged Khorne/Slannesh team up. They hate eachother but they work so good together! My lists may end up having a mix of all the gods...

Another thing I was looking at was the primaris Change power, that mass dakka thing. Horrors are a brotherhood, so they all cast their own thing. So a lvl 3 Harald with that would have his own volley of fiery death? So you can have a unit with 6D6 shots with +1 psychic strength locus and add the Blasted Standard on top? Seems like overkill if you roll hot.

[Lord Krungharr]

Wow, I've read some excellent ideas on this thread. Haven't gotten a game in yet with the new Daemons, but this coming Satyrday I am going to try out an 1850 point list of all Nurgle, and then all Tzeentch, just to get a feel for how they work as mono=god armies. All the Biomancy will make the Nurgle list a real pain to erase. I'm totally trying out that Herald with Locus and Blasted Standard thing too in the Tzeentch list now.
Gotta take some instruments too somewhere.

I do see a major potential for trouble with Flyer heavy armies, though with a Bloodthirster, Lord of Change, and flying Daemon Princes bearing the right Rewards, they could have some S8 Skyfire shots (without having to roll psychic tests or get through Deny the Witches). But I guess we can always take a Soul Grinder or 2, and I realized today the Heralds of Nurgle are BS5....WOW, it's like they meant for those to sit behind an Aegis Line manning an Icarus Lascannon :) Against just general mech-heavy armies, I think I'd always be fielding enough fast assault stuff that could crunch armor.

And that's definitely a fun plus about the new Daemons, they are FAST. I'm so happy Beasts of Nurgle are Beasts, and they beefed up Fleshhounds and Karanak big time.
Actually, the Chaos Marines Codex was much faster as well. I can't wait to round out my Troops so I can make uni-god Allied lists, with all those synergistic benefits Battle Brothers get (though not sure if they'll let the new Daemon Icons work for Chaos Marine Daemon models like Obliterators). I am confident that so many people hate the Warpflame rule, Burning Chariot problems, and Masque/Scribes not being Heralds, that GW will FAQ all of that to be more in tune with what we all think it should be.

[SeismicGhost]

So I play Daemons. They're my main army.
I played my first game with the new rules a couple of days ago against Blood Angels, so I may be able to offer some insight in to this.

First off let me state that I had fun, and while it definitely felt at times like my army was playing me instead of me playing my army, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected.

I'm going to let you know that I didn't bring a single Tzeentch or Khorne unit. I don't play Khorne because he's boring as hell, and I didn't use any of my Tzeentch models because they straight up aren't good. (Every attack that they can make will buff an MEQ 2/3 of the time, and you have to roll psychic test, then (depending on the weapon) roll to hit, then roll to wound, then the enemy can roll to deny the witch, then make an armour save, then roll feel no pain, then they might get buffed with more stacking permanent feel no pain bonus PER ATTACKING UNIT in the end . No thanks. That and the new chariots only get the gifts that count as heavy weapons, and the gift goes to the RIDER and not the chariot, so they can't move and shoot in the same turn. Tzeentch you blew it bigtime buddy. Also more types of troops is more chances to be blown up on the warpstorm. BUT ANYWAY)

That being said, I dropped a 1500 list with a Keeper of Secrets, Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, Herald of Slaanesh, Herald of Nurgle, 6 fiends, 20 Daemonettes, 20 Plaguebearers. I made all of my HQ psykers, and bought a mixed bag of rewards for all of them.

The game setup took forever. First because I had to keep reading and re-reading the new rules (as with any new rules) but also because I had to generate, read the rules for, keep record of, and try to memorize 9 different psychic powers about about 9 different Chaos Rewards. This was about the time that I realized that you can only tactic so far with Daemons. While before you could only plan ahead so much because of Daemonic Assault, now you can only plan ahead so much because all of your wargear, abilities and psychic powers are determined randomly slightly before turn 1 begins.
This is where I realise also how futile it is for all of you guys to be talking about "If you took this model and got this gift with this power, their stats would be X Y Z..." Because there is maybe one game out of 90 that you'll get that actual ability set. You can NOT plan out ahead what you'll be getting, so that GD of Slaanesh that you want to have Rage and Rampage for extra attacks might wind up with a once-per-turn chance to gain a wound. In fact 1 out of 6 times you will NOT get the exalted reward you're after, as you can only ever take one 50 point reward. More on the lack of being able to anticipate how good your characters are in a moment.
Regardless, I did get a decent handful of rewards and psychic abilities, however after deployment and my enemy failing to steal the initiative, I got my first roll ever on the Warpstorm chart.
3 - Punished by the Gods. I roll 3d6 and get 12. Subtract the Greater Daemon's LD of 9, and he takes 3 wounds. Presto. I start the game with a Greater Daemon Warlord with 2 wounds. Didn't quite account for that. Thank goodness the gift I rolled was Warp Tether so at least when he dies (in turn 2) he can deepstrike right back in. (which unfortunately he scattered off the table and I got a 1 on the mishap chart. So much for my warlord.)

All that aside, the rest of the game went fairly well. Fiends took too much heavy fire early on to be effective, Daemonettes were the star of the show after they wrecked 2 rhinos, Plaguebearers sat on an objective in cover and no one even tried to remove them so I didn't get to see how well they held on, and the Daemon Prince got to wreck up some assault marines and honour guard that eventually undid him.

By the end of turn 5 I had 1 Primary Objective and Linebreaker, while Blood Angels had Slay the Warlord and First Blood. Blood Angels were set to take another objective and wipe out my daemonettes, but the dice called the end of the game after turn 5 (luckily for me) so the final score was 4-2 Daemons.


In conclusion, I need to play many more games to truly get to know this new army, but I know better than to try to plan ahead or consider any long reaching pre-game tactics to be valid choices. The Rewards are really good! The access to every psychic ability is the game is amazing! the complete inability to prepare is a pain in the ***.
To play the new Daemons, you need to be able to think fast, and you need to spend time memorizing every Lesser Daemonic Reward, Greater Daemonic Reward, Exalted Daemonic Reward, and every psychic ability from the schools of Divination, Biomancy, Telepathy, Telekinesis, Pyromancy, Change, Plague AND Excess.
Firm knowledge of all of those things is going to be essential in the instant planning and strategizing that is mandatory to effectively play this OMGRANDOM army.
The army is good, and with more practice it'll be very dangerous, but there are certain things that will now and forever prevent it from being a reliable force. Be prepared to lose every game that you play and treat victories as an OMGRANDOM bonus and no doubt the New Daemons will be one of the most fun armies out there.