Daemons! Why run Mono armies.

[chicop76]

This is going to take awhile to cover. I really hate long post and lack the attention span to read a long post after a long post. Instead of going into every daemon army and hitting each element. I will instead give a broad overview. I will latter post mono armies and possible builds.

I would like to say 6th edition really help bring life to the Daemon codex. The last edition and updates forced you to run Tzeentch if you wanted to stay competetive. It wasn't unusual to see Tzeentch mixed with Nurgle and a few mixed elements from the other two armies.

The current 6th edition codex allows you to use most of the books units. Overall most units seen a huge boost. Besides nids this is the only army in the game you can receive several buffs that makes the units harder to kill and hard to deal in combat. You can argue Eldar, but it is all Farseer, while Daemons and Nids have multiple units that have 2-4 psychic powers and can give for example 6 units endurance.

Let's take fast attack for example. You can run hounds of khorne which is a good unit, but you can also run plague drones which in some ways a much better unit. You paying more for the drones, but you are getting 2' threat range of movement, higher toughness, more wounds, poison attacks, and a character with reward acess, also they can take instruments and Icons. I faced both and they are both annoying to deal with. The differance with the drone is you can deep strike off them. Next you have screamers which still function as well as hounds, but more durable due to flat out +4 saves and rerolling ones, also you can do flybys. Screamers is a great unit which can deal with most units. The problem with screamers is they mainly focus on one unit and not a great multi assault unit like the other two mention, but out of the other two it is mujch more offensive. Last and not least you have Seekers. Seekers are very fragile and not a great tie up unit and out of the 3 not very durable. However it's one of your fastest moving unit, with screamer being faster. This unit can wipe out units. If it is on the ground the seekers can kill or destroy most units. Throw on invisibility, prescience, endureance, and +2 invulnerable saves this unit can even take out a paladin squad at double their point value.

Looking at the fast attack example you can find similiar synergy through out the Daemon army. You can run any prince and they are equally good, I adding khorne since not taking powers is still a good option, and reward options are rather nice. The only slot I see that is really differant is the troop slot. The troop slot is where your play style really comes to play. Tzeentch = shooty, Slaanech = quick melee, Khorne = very good melee vs most units, nurgle = objective holders. The interesting part of the troops is you can enhace them with banners, characters, and rewards. You can also run heralds which with loci make the troop units really solid.

I think a strong daemon list will take advantage of the MCs and solid troops. This is where balance comes into play. If you want really good troops you are taking a hit on using MCs since you would want to run heralds. On the flip side since the MCs can easily hit 300-360 points it will limit your troop options. In other words running Flying circus simply takes advatage of an opponents lack of anti-air. Also if the other army is not geared to face 5 flying MCs they will struggle. However the flying circus struggles with objectives due to lack of troops and relying on MCs to contest objectives. It wins, but I think those army builds overall is not a good well rounded army. Not saying not to run mcs, but having more troops on the boardis never. Bad thing.

[Mr.Pickelz]

Khorne is still the weakest and easiest to counter Mono-list out of the book. FMC's and Hounds are your only good units. Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers can get shot off the board easily, and with the shooting bias of 6th Ed., Your units will have to survive two to three rounds of shooting to make combat, not including overwatch. Deepstrike still hamstrings Khorne units, and offers interceptor fire from your opponent. Khorne will not have Psykers, and won't have shooting. These two things are the bread and butter of 6th Ed., going against that is suicide. The most successful Mono-Khorne List i can think of, would be FMC spam, with two or three small units of Bloodletters, but even this is countered without tailoring lists.

[DarkLink]

Tzeentch is the best army for pissing off your opponent so much they never play you again. A million Iron Arms and Invisibilities and all those stupid psychic powers, Fateweaver, and all those ways you can get a 2 or 3++ with reroll 1's on a FMC that can reroll a failed Grounding check thanks to Fateweaver? **** you Phil Kelly.

Not that I've ever lost to Daemons because Draigo. But whatever.

[chicop76]

@Mr. Pickle:

I agree that mono khorne is a bit weaker due to no psychic powers, but they have a lot of tools which they can still use.

1. Bloodthirster: a no brainer here. This is one of the best MCs out there. Wth 2 greaters and a lesser or 1 exhualted and one greater you can possibly see a 16 attack hard to kill flying daemon in your face.

2. Hounds: due to scout they can assault first turn or be in your enemies deployment on turn. If used with the Thirster you can have two units that can possibly assualt in turn 2 really easy. Not a great unit, but excellant tie up unit.

3. Skulltaker is the only eternal character in the book. Also he has really good stats.

4. Karanak: great with bloodcrushers which they now can scout, or you can give scout to 20 bloodletters which help them get acoss the board sooner.

5. Khorne Herald on Juggernaught: this guy either gives hatred or + 2 attacks. Nice add on to any knorne unit.

6. Skullcannon: frag grenades to units and a large strength 8 pie plate that ignores cover. A really great unit for it's cost.

I disagree with noo shooting for mon khorne. You have skullcannons that has a bs of 5 firing large blast at the enemy. Most of khorne units have a really good bs.

I have learned to give my heralds 2 lesser rewards. By doing this it gives me a lot of options. First off it allows you roll twice to get a shooting power. Either a strength 5 ap 5 flame template or a strength 8 ap 4 single shot. You have a 33% chance of getting a range attack and it increases if you have 2 lesser rewards, also but getting 2 lesser you can get an ap 2 axed that caues instant death on a 6 or you can get an extra attack. Out of 6 heralds you should have 4 which have some type of shootig attack.

Mono Khorne will use the hounds and thirster to engage units, while they shoot the skullcannons from a far. They should deep strike letters in to finish off units engaged by either hounds or thirster.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Gonna chime in and say that mono while it is fluffy simply blows. and coming form the khorne and nurgle perspective after havng 5 of 9 berserkers die to overwatch from a unit of tau drones and their broke a*s controller i have to say assault is honestly a last option. and unfortunatly khorne wants to assault and even with a shooting herald its not even close to being enough. Khorne just suffers way to much in this edition their wanting to be in assault is just the opposite of this edition and what the edition is built for. i've tried running khorne in this edition and i've already seen every new codex come out and strongly favor shooting. With all of the buffs to shooting it just doesn't make sense to even attempt to run a mono list or an assault heavy list. tau overwatch and eldar i ignore cover and psychic combos will just wreck most charges. Thats if you have anything left. nurgle suffers from similar issues shrouding just doesn't matter when you have almost every new book in the gaming having some way to ignore cover. mono daemon armies just lack the right tools to succeed in this edition.

[chicop76]

I will disagree. While Mono Khorne may struggle the other armies are much stronger.

For example I fought Mono Nurgle several times and have a really hard time dealing with it.

The problem comes from Nurgle Drones, Nurgle Daemon Prince, and Nurgle beast crossing the board really fast and being in assault range turn 2. What makes it worst is you have multi wound models that have endurance on them that can regenerate wounds back. Also the models can have a +2 invulnerable save.

Believe me when I say +3 invulnerable plague drones with endurance is a royal pain to deal with. For example let's say 48 fire warriors fire 144 times at bs 5. They will hit 120 times and wound 60 times which will cause 20 wounds for 14 unsaved wounds. Now you killed about 4 drones, but you still have prince, and beast to deal with, and possibly 5 more drones. I have found I have to actually assault with Tau to actually do well against mono nurgle. The problem is the enfeebles, endurance ans + 3 invulnerable saves on top of shrouding.

Mono Nurgle can beat Tau. Not to mention that thanks to heralds the nuurgle troops have feel no pain.

Mono Tzeentch is rough as well due to the sheer amount of fire power it can dish out. The great part to tzeentch is they also hve melee units on top of shooting. Just from the Tzeentch units I have used giving out feel no pain is not really an issue if you are wiping out whole units.

Slaanech can struggle with Tau, but they are a rather fast force. Howeverf shooting with 2d6 strength 6 shots isn't something to not underestimate on top of psychic shriek.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

the problem is the book really was meant to have all the other units interacting with each other. so when you go mono you loose out on alot of options. even when taking faster units like crushers and hounds your still loosing some serious firepower by going mono khorne. and for nurgle you just lack the punch in assault as well as in shooting so your relying on a few units to be the work horses for your lists. i know i've been hardcore searching on ebay to snag good deals on deamons o expand my collection and forces but its just rather difficult to try and put together a mono list that isnt struggling in one or more areas. yes slanesh can deal with assault but its shooting is minimal. where as tzen can dis out a ton of shooting but is horendous in close combat. so you almost have to pick your posion when playing a mono list and realize that you will have limitations and work from that.

[The Sovereign]

I played my first game using my mono-Tzeentch army with the new codex over the weekend, and it performed surprisingly well against CSM at 1250 points. Wiped out my opponent's oblit and defiler in the first turn thanks to Flickering Fire from 20 horrors and Warp Gaze from my soulgrinder. My flying daemon prince did very well too, but then I lost him to Punished by the Gods on the warp storm table toward the end of the game. All in all, I was pleased by how well the army came together.

[chicop76]

Tzeentch is the best army for pissing off your opponent so much they never play you again. A million Iron Arms and Invisibilities and all those stupid psychic powers, Fateweaver, and all those ways you can get a 2 or 3++ with reroll 1's on a FMC that can reroll a failed Grounding check thanks to Fateweaver? **** you Phil Kelly.

Not that I've ever lost to Daemons because Draigo. But whatever.

I have yet to face draigo. I would probably dump my two daemonette squads, and my hounds into them. Not sure if that's even the best tactic since instability will mess me up, however I would be able to solo challenge your feel no pain guy and hopefully kill him with 7 strength 5 ap 2 attacks with re rolls on a ws 7.

I would have to smartly buff all 3 units. One with invisibility, one with true names, one with +4 invulnerable saves. If I am lucky hopfully I will get a misfortune off on the unit.

Sticking with just Mono builds. Daemons will have a tough time against GreyKnights. Unlss you running the 5 chicken vecto sandwich. Even so I will say tzeentch may be your best bet vs grey knights. The 1k point worth of cheese however wil still be really hard to deal with. However I have found strength 10 beams are able to fix a lot of problems, kill some orc bikes real good.

[Lord Krungharr]

I've faced GKs with mono Tzeentch and got wiped off the table. Those Dreads w reenforced Aegis are brutal on psyker armies, it was nearly impossible to get my offensive powers off. Psychic shooting can be devastating, but it is very limited against certain armies, Eldar being another one, oh and Tyranids would be pain too. Plus if you use something like the Herald-star (bunch of Disc Heralds w Screamers), 2 Mindstrike missiles take care of that real quick!

But versus many other armies it can work wonders.

Mono Khorne I've had very good luck with, and a few bad luck cases too. I find a Skull Cannon and Soul Grinder to help a bunch, just a Thirster and DP, then Karanak and 2 or 3 Jugger Heralds w a big Hound unit, and 3 Bloodletter units deepstriking behind and away from most of the action. Bloodcrushers certainly aren't the super duper awesomeness they used to be, but can still be very effective in a small unit to exercise board control (utilising cover of course). If they're not taken care of, UH OH!

Mono Slaanesh I tried out yesterday, and that was pretty neat. Fiends, while weak and not super hard hitting, will eat through T3 armies with ease, most especially with a steed Herald w Lash Whip. Keeper is kinda not great, but the 2 FMCs he gives me were awesome.

Mono Nurgle I haven't tried in a while....no Drones for me yet. I agree they will really help out that list a bunch. But I still favor Flesh Hounds on paper. Nurgle Daemons can't Sweeping Advance (slow and purposeful) and I feel that's a big drawback to using them. So with that, I must agree a non-mono-Chaos Daemons list has more competitive potential than most mono-god builds.

I like:

Lord of Change
Jugger Herald(s) w Hounds
Karanak w mass Bloodletters
sprinkling of 'Bearers (plague Herald not actually all that necessary)
Steed Herald w Fiends
Disc Herald w Screamers
Nurgle or Slaanesh Grinder w Phlegm

Then if there are any points left after all that stuff, why not Ally a CSM Nurgle DP w a Burning Brand, cheapo Cultists, and a Heldrake? Still very Daemony :)

[White Tiger88]

Mono army? Well i love the idea of running lots of my boob crazy slaanesh minions it just doesn't sadly work. Like everything in this game each god's choice of "Minions" suffer from one weakness or another so with out a mix of two gods working together (Like my choice of Slaanesh & Nurgle...) things will go just like in the fluff with an epic fail.....

[chicop76]

Mono army? Well i love the idea of running lots of my boob crazy slaanesh minions it just doesn't sadly work. Like everything in this game each god's choice of "Minions" suffer from one weakness or another so with out a mix of two gods working together (Like my choice of Slaanesh & Nurgle...) things will go just like in the fluff with an epic fail.....


How so. You have melee and shooting rending attacks with high ws and I. You have acess to telepathy which can get Tau to stop shooting, shoot themselves, or be immune to over watch to name a few abilities. The rending beam weapon isn't a bad choice or the 2d6 shoot strength weapon.

Also keep in mind you have chariots which can do a lot of damage for little points.

Honestly I can see a mono Slaanech army doing really well.

@ Lord: anti-psyker army that kills daemons vs heavy psyker daemon army. Not to hard to figure out who would win in that fight.

[White Tiger88]

IT can do well but a mix is much more useful against 90% of the armies in the game.