Anyone about to start 9th with Daemons?

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

 

You do need just about every Khorne unit, aside from maybe Skullcannons. I've been testing them as back field objective holders in 9th, and their ability to halve incoming damage helps at lower points but completely falls apart when they take any sort of heavy fire. But in short, the basic breakdown for Khorne is as follows:

 

Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage: purely for style points, the other two are useless unless you want to run the new relic axe.

Daemon Prince: Your primary tank hunter and damage dealer, you'll rely on them a little too heavily.

Skulltaker: Only for style points, he's too fragile.

Karanak: Cheap double deny if you have the free HQ slot but otherwise not worth it. A tech choice against psychic armies.

Heralds: Helps buff bloodletters against Nurgle and so on. Which one you pick is really up to you.

Bloodletters: They're your only really functional unit, they will carry your entire game, but they die to literally anything.

Flesh Hounds: Early objective grabbers, psychic deny, and generally pretty good to stand around soaking fire. Kind of fragile but a unit of 5 with no upgrades used to be a super solid investment, new points are a touch steap but you still need them.

Bloodcrushers: Your only reliable way to dish out mortal wounds through their strat. At higher point games it might be worth trying them just to damage things you might otherwise have trouble with. A touch too expensive now too, but such is life.

Skullcannons: Awful shooting, awful melee, but 7 wounds and T7, with the ability to halve all incoming damage. They're the toughest thing in the army but that isn't saying much.

 

That's about it. The army is so inflexible that you sort of get stuck doing the same hand full of things. Take the Crimson Crown always and then your next relic is up to choice. Maybe take an exulted bloodthirster for fun, but it still won't accomplish much. Not trying to be bleak or anything, there's just, not a lot to say about the army at the moment. Skull Altar is too expensive for what it does, same for Skarbrand. Everything dies too easily, and you'll find yourself getting both out shot and out meleed a lot, which can be sort of rough.

I have a NIB collection of Khorne elite elements with lots of bloodcrushers (and skullcrushers as same), and khornedogs I would love to build into an army along with GD and mono khorne. I held off in 8th because well, Id get shot off the field. I fear with all the wounds being doled out on SM, the disparity to other elite armies will grow further.

 

 

 

My instincts tell me that this edition will be kind to Khorne. Though the marine changes look rough on the surface, I'm willing to accept them as a sign that GW was listening to marine players and gave them what they needed to make their faction function properly. If that's the case, then the same should happen for Khorne Daemons. About the only way I see us coming out of this poorly is if Chaos gets designed to work only as Multi-God, because that means we won't be given self-contained tools to help us function on the table. Though even in that instance I think the offensive output of Khorne is probably going to get tweaked even further up.

 

If all goes well, we'll get 4 bespoke ways to play mono-god, as well as vamped rules for Chaos United for all of the players who enjoy doing so. But at this point it's a game of wait and see.

[Ulfast]

Yes, the last two years GW have done a great work with almost everything they have done so that gives hopes that when the time come for a new codex for daemons, then they will make it both intersting and in balance with other codexes. Big question is how long we have to wait? And until that happends, what can we do with what we have?

[Hannibal]

So I played my first game in 9th this weekend against someone who just started the game, ie a fairly inexperienced person. We played 750 points just to get a feeling for the game and to test things for our upcoming Crusader campaign.

 

My impression is that Daemons are exactly where they were in 8th, something that was already mentioned by some members here. We are still strong when it comes down to board control and Plaguebearers are still rather ressilient in comparison to their points cost. We are still a melee focused army that relies on just a couple really offensive units ie Daemonprinces.

 

I still enjoy my Daemons and I will continue to run them this edition no matter what. Maybe with some support by CSM because they provide things we miss (shooting, good spell casting).

[Closet Skeleton]

I'm probably not going to get any 9th ed games in until mid next year so won't be able to try daemons.

 

For example, following Rules-As-Written, doing a single Patrol for Crusade like it suggests, I can mix Nurgle Daemons with Death Guard, or Tzeentch Daemons with Thousand Sons, as they share the <Nurgle> or <Tzeentch> keywords respectively.  You still lose out on certain things, but for example I was thinking of doing Nurgle Daemons with just a Death Guard Daemon Prince for his better Relics and a squad of Possessed Marines, I believe I can do that.

 

You lose all relics if you take a single mixed nurgle detachment since its having a daemons or deathguard detachment that unlocks relics and stratagems in the first place.

 

 

You do need just about every Khorne unit, aside from maybe Skullcannons. I've been testing them as back field objective holders in 9th, and their ability to halve incoming damage helps at lower points but completely falls apart when they take any sort of heavy fire. But in short, the basic breakdown for Khorne is as follows:

Should be much easier to limit enemy firing archs in 9th.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

It is, but in the case of a Skullcannon it doesn't take all of your enemy's anti tank to kill one, only that anti tank be used. If you pop the strat it might live through one round. If you don't it won't. Spike your dice and it can seem tough, but unfortunately when my dice are lucky it is never with these guys.

 

I'm hoping to see some sweeping buffs to this unit in 9th. Maybe give it a Sigmar style bite attack to up its melee and some rules for being more of a mobile hunter killer unit. Hard to say what might happen if it gets some love.

[Hannibal]

 

 

You lose all relics if you take a single mixed nurgle detachment since its having a daemons or deathguard detachment that unlocks relics and stratagems in the first place.

 

 

I strongly believe that you still get your relic as well as your warlordtrait if you run a mixed NURGLE detachment for example. You only loose the stratagems. But I can´t really proof right now because my codex is in an other place.

[Special Officer Doofy]

 

 

 

 

You lose all relics if you take a single mixed nurgle detachment since its having a daemons or deathguard detachment that unlocks relics and stratagems in the first place.

 

 

I strongly believe that you still get your relic as well as your warlordtrait if you run a mixed NURGLE detachment for example. You only loose the stratagems. But I can´t really proof right now because my codex is in an other place.

Correct.

 

Strats require a Battleforged army.

 

Warlord traits require your Warlord to be from that faction and be a character.

 

Relics require your Warlord to be from that faction and be given to a non named character from that faction.

 

Don't need Battleforged for warlord traits or relics.

[Closet Skeleton]

Correct.

 

Strats require a Battleforged army.

 

Warlord traits require your Warlord to be from that faction and be a character.

 

Relics require your Warlord to be from that faction and be given to a non named character from that faction.

 

Don't need Battleforged for warlord traits or relics.

 

 

Depends if you treat the relics section as its own thing with its own rules (in which you are correct by the letter of the pages) or as part of a broader section that implies otherwise.

[Special Officer Doofy]

 

 

Correct.

 

Strats require a Battleforged army.

 

Warlord traits require your Warlord to be from that faction and be a character.

 

Relics require your Warlord to be from that faction and be given to a non named character from that faction.

 

Don't need Battleforged for warlord traits or relics.

 

Depends if you treat the relics section as its own thing with its own rules (in which you are correct by the letter of the pages) or as part of a broader section that implies otherwise.

Uhhhh they are their own thing, in their own sections and pages as outlined in the index of the codex. Which is why at tournaments they are treated as such.

 

Daemonic Loci is on a page separate from the rest and mentions battle forged, first sentence:

 

"If your army is Battleforged,..."

 

Stratagems page, it's own page and section starts first sentence again:

 

"If your army is Battleforged and includes any chaos Daemon Detatchments (excluding auxiliary support Detatchments),..."

 

Warlord traits, it's own page and section is:

 

"If a CHARACTER with the DAEMON Faction keyword is your Warlord, it can generate a Warlord Trait from one of the following tables instead of the one in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook." No where does it mention Battleforged at all.

 

Next is relics, on it's own page and section as well:

 

"If your army is led by a Warlord with the DAEMON Faction keyword, you may give one of the following Hellforged Artefacts to a CHARACTER with the DAEMON Faction keyword in your army." Also, no where does it have the word Battleforged at all.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

My reading has always matched up with Putrid Choirs, and that is how we do it at my LGS. Maybe things will change with the next series of codecies, and mono god armies will allow us to mix SM and Daemons a little more gracefully in terms of strats and artifacts. Impossible to say.

[DominikB]

Long tine chaos player (Marines/DG), I’m considering mono Tzeentch for a bit of a change and I’ll be intrigued to see what’s coming for them. Heralds, DPs and screamers/flamers seem the way to go in 9th for me. Still don’t see a place for the lord of change sadly

[Ulfast]

with the new rules for exalted Lord of changes i think they can find a spot in many lists. THeya re better now. but as you, DominikB, I´m hoping GW will do mroe for us daemon players in thef uture, specially for Tzeentch that need something extra. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

Long tine chaos player (Marines/DG), I’m considering mono Tzeentch for a bit of a change and I’ll be intrigued to see what’s coming for them. Heralds, DPs and screamers/flamers seem the way to go in 9th for me. Still don’t see a place for the lord of change sadly

If you make a 2000 point tzeentch list you should have a lord of change for the sake of rule of cool! Giant birds that cast magic are awesome haha.

[Panzer]

And if you have one Greater Daemon in a pure Daemon list, you probably should get another 1 or 2 because they aren't exactly Knights levels of durable.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Panzer

[Ulfast]

I´m planing a 2000p Tzeentch list and I´m going to take 2 (only own one right now). I would then take the Changling and in a patrol take a herald of Tzeentch for characters and HQ. 

[DominikB]

I just can’t justify the points for one - especially since only one can take the impossible robe. Even with the 6++ and getting the wounds back. They’re too squishy and too big To hide properly unfortunately compared to daemon princes and heralds.

 

Plus the Leadership aura isn’t that useful and the casting bonus I’m meh about bar flickering fire and gaze or fate which heralds DPs cast fine.

 

Saying that I’d love to be very much proven wrong as the mode is stunning and it does feel only right to have one as warlord in the army :/

[DeStinyFiSh]

... I’m considering mono Tzeentch for a bit of a change ...

I see what you did there

 

I myself wanted to add Tzeentch to my army this year, but hobby time is restricted and there are so many other projects at the moment. For a start I am thinking about 3 SC boxes. I already have the Ogroid Thaumaturg I want to use as a Prince.

[Ulfast]

I think you should look at the new relics for the LoC. Some are very nice, specially the one that can give back wounds for destroyed models. So to have two, one with the robe, the second with the other makes two pretty strong and surviabile character that the opponent can´t ignore. That leaves a opening for the rest of you army to win the game. I would never count on the LoC to win the game but they would be massive and if you opponent see throu your gambit, then they can do pretty much damage if left alone. 

 

I´m also thinking if it´s a good ideea to use three soul grinder with mark of Tzeentch? I only got one but I notice that with a +4 inv save they can survive pretty good and three would be hard. What do you think? I also beleive that three with mark of Nurgle could be nice but I´m planing to build a mono Tzeentch list.

[DominikB]

@Ulfast, thanks for your input - my issue is still that I’m trading offence (no +1MW wound) for the defensive 6+++ and wound regain :/

 

I agree 3 soul grinders would be nice and would actually complement the LoCs quite well as they draw similar type of fire. The claw seems like the better or the two weapons to me?

 

 

 

... I’m considering mono Tzeentch for a bit of a change ...

I see what you did there

If only it had been intended!

[Ulfast]

When it comes to the soul grinder I agree that the claw seems better. I really do hope they buff the soul grinder when we get a new codex. It has to few attacks right now with to littlse WS. Also, three together with one or two LoC would be dangerous. Buff with a daemon prince too and you have a nasty army.

[DeStinyFiSh]

1 Prince with Wings, 3 Grinders, 2 GUOs or LoCs and 3 either Nurglings or Horros is about 1500 points and might cause some head scratching for your opponent.

Not sure whether 5+++ or 4++ is better on the Grinders, but Nurgle gives you options to heal.

 

 

I am also not sure about Sword vs Claw.

If I am correct Sword does 2,60 unsaved wounds to MEQ, Claw 2,77. Difference is not big and the flat 3 damage results in more damage overall which will be good against all these multi wound models.

Against tanks and monsters (T7 3+ save) Sword does 2,08 unsaved wounds, Claw does 2,22. Again, with the flat 3 damage sword does 6,25 damage while claw only does 4,44.

You can now argue there always is the Iron Claw against bigger targets, but thanks to only beeing 5 attacks without rerolls it actually does only 6,08 damge, so less than the Sword.

 

So with the 2 Claw options you are ok against hordes and big targets (S16 against Knights), but the Sword is not much worse against these "extremes" and seems to be better against everything inbetween.

Edited September 2, 2020 by DeStinyFiSh

[Ulfast]

Intersting analys. Thanks for the number. I will propably take one of each

[Are Verlo]

I´ll be taking mono-Slaanesh to a 60 man tournament in a week.

 

The list is balancing between "min-max" and a practical problem like what I can carry to the tournament without too many broken miniatures. I´ve had som accidents/malpratice and did not pack my Keepers the right way during prep-games before list submission. One of my Keepers snapped off a claw and had the sword badly bendt.

 

Therefor the list is packing 2 keepers, instead of 3. I only have 2 custom trays for the KoS.

 

During practice I´ve found the list to score well but it IS glasscannons-galore. A salamanders list tabled me turn 5, but I still had a 8 point lead.

 

2 Patrol detachments

Syll´Eske

Epitome, relic: forbidden gem

2x24 Daemonettes with icon and instrument

2x1 Fiends

1x4 Fiends

1x 20 Seekers with icon and instrument

Keeper with hand, souldrinker relic, warlord: bewitching aura, exalted strat

Keeper with hand and exalted strat

89 reinforcment points for summoning the masque/infernal or more daemonettes.

 

If I remember to take photos I´ll post the battlereports. We play with chessclocks and that stresses me like .

Sidenote: the terrain is really good and many armies can completely hide turn 1.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Good luck!  I'm certain everyone here is interested in how you do... I certainly am, as I'm building my own Slanneshi list.  How many points is that?

[WarriorFish]

Indeed, good luck and don't forget to let us know how it goes :tu: