Why I never take Daemon Weapons

[Artemis360]

These days I only run DPs or Sorcerers with warptime as my close combat heroes. Why? Simply because I have an incredible tendency to roll 1s for my daemon weapon. Is this rare? Am I the only player who, against all the odds (pun unintended) rolls a disproportionate number of 1s? Far from it, if you're not one of these people, you at least know someone who is. The daemon weapon is the most unique piece of wargear in the codex and GW have messed it up for a lot of us because lets face it, if you go into a crucial combat and you desperately need to roll anything but a one, its pretty much guaranteed you will get a one.

 

So it's bad luck but on top of that, we have to ask why the daemon weapon does this? Yes, its fluffy because daemons and chaos gods are fickle, selfish beings that think nothing of taking life, soul and limb from their followers to increase their power. BUT, how does it help a chaos god for one of his champion chaos lords to plow into 12 tau firewarriors who he should be able to butcher and then lose all his attacks and his final remaining wound to his own weapon? It makes no sense. Daemons are made when a chaos god splits off a little of his own power and gives it consciousness and the god can just as easily dissolve that consciousness and re-possess the power. In other words, the daemon pretty much has to do the god's will 24/7 or face oblivion. So why would a daemon weapon kill its' bearer during a crucial fight instead of sometime after victory was won? You might think its because GW didn't want the DW to be too OP but losing all your attacks and a wound (most likely causing you to lose the combat and so take another armour save) seems a bit too harsh and illogical to me.

[Zeller]

Think of it this way. The demon bound weapon is a viscous blood thirsty entity in itself. When the leader charges into combat with the blade held high there is perhaps a chance, just a chance that the demon inside momentarily loses its limited self control. The commander cannot have his weapon defying his will when it most counts so he attempts to coerce it back into his grips. These few seconds of coersion are what dooms the brave warrior of chaos. He is left vulnerable in the combat as the enemy swarms about him and with any luck as it would seem one of those mongrel tirds manages to jab a knife through a weakness in the armor causing a wound.

 

Food for thought.

[Artemis360]

Hmm, yeah, thats a good way of looking at it and makes it seem a little less ridiculous... But it still wouldn't make me take one on the most important model in my army.

[minigun762]

I tend to feel that the Daemon Weapon is the only reason to field a Chaos Lord vs other HQ units.

It is very powerful, lets face it but with that power comes a risk.

I liken it to using a Plasma Weapon or Ordnance, big risk but big potential to be very damaging.

 

I think its both flavorful and dangerous (for the opponent) to use them. I've ran the numbers, mostly comparing the Undivided one against Twin Lightning Claws, its closest competion and the Daemon Weapon always comes out on top on average even with the 1/6 chance of failure.

[40kChrista]

i like them actually, i run 2 in my army, and i roll better for Demon Weapons than i do for scatter on blasts. i've only had a Lord cut his head off once so far. :(

 

Grim

[Drudge Dreadnought]

I have a Bloodfeeder in almost every list i make, and i love them. I roll about average, so he does miss out a fair deal. But while you can certainly look at it as him having a 30% chance of doing nothing, you can also look at it as him having a 70% chance of obliterating the enemy. Part of the reason he is so succeful is that i don't expect him to do anything. I run him with wings and have him go wherever i need some more power weapon attacks. He is great for tipping the balance, preventing tarpitting, lopping down elites, or just speeding up a fight.

[Artemis360]

I've ran the numbers, mostly comparing the Undivided one against Twin Lightning Claws, its closest competion and the Daemon Weapon always comes out on top on average even with the 1/6 chance of failure.

 

Have you tried it against a sorcerer with warptime? Personally I think its the absolute bomb, except for DP with warptime but thats a whole other story.

 

The Lord with DW has a chance of backfiring and a chance of doing a lot of damage. The sorcerer with warptime however is pretty much guaranteed to do somewhat above average damage every time. I know which one I'd want in my regular list.

[angels of death]

i love the DW it has sliced through the toughest units and come out on top and iv played 11 games with 1 and i have only had it killed himself once :lol:

[Rain]

Daemon Weapon causes an average of ~2.6 wounds against marines (this is counting times when it backfires) while twin l. claws cause ~2 wounds per turn when not charging. At least if I did the quick mathhammer right. In any case, it's close but the daemon weapon does come out better, especially as it has the potential to clear your HQ out of body swamps, and if you assume that you roll anything but a one, your average amount of wounds would easily outstrip l. claws or anything else.

[jamjar]

I think daemonweapons are personnel taste, they are very stressfull weapons with the capability to disapoint which is probably there main fault. Though they are the most fun in my opinion :).

 

If you have one there is also some good stories. My best was dieing to 6 firewarriors, 3 1's in a row ftw

 

lol

[Ju'kosian]

well in the old 'dex you had to take LD tests to see if you could master the weapon.. now it's on a roll of 1 that the lord fails to control his weapon..

I don't have chaos lords in my lists at the moment, I was used to have a DP with daemon weapon.. but with the new dex that's no longer possible and I still have to try out the new dex (lord +daemon weapon that is)..

 

But since the dice gods mostly don't favour me.... I don't trust that daemon weapon.. I have never had a model with plasma surviving any battle and most of the time they kill themselves in turn 1 or 2.. So I can see where my luck will go with that daemon weapon :)

 

I think it fits in the fluff nicely, daemon weapons are weapons where there's a daemon bound inside (hence the name ;) ) but I don't think that all those daemons like to be trapped in a weapon so when they get the chance they will rebel against their master..

[Zealot Of Chaos]

my daemon weapon (blissgiver) gives me hugely varied results, unfortunately it has a huge tendency to eat my face more often than not, I'm now considering dropping my lord for another HQ choice

[Lazarus Vespers]

I feel your pain brother I also roll an unusual amount of one's. But I still go with the daemon weapon everytime.

[Freakiq]

I take the bloodfeeder everytime just for the small chance that he'll kill an entire unit on his own.

 

Though he tends to be outclassed by Khârn fighting at the other side of the table, tearing through half the opposing army. :)

[Brother Scythe]

I must say that on average of say 6 combats a game. 6 or so turns, with the first two turns on average not seeing combat and the chance of two combats in a single turn, you will roll only one (1).

 

This always holds fairly true for me, most games my HQ hits himself once. Never has he hit himself more than twice, but many times he has never hit himself.

 

Going by statistics alone the Deamon Weapon is a solid choice, however if you used dice that aren't perfect squares you roll more 1's on average anyways so that won't change.

[Artemis360]

Mmm, I think we're getting to the heart of the daemon weapon problem; that not only does it backfire, but that it sometimes backfires and causes you to lose combat where your lord wound have normally won even using nothing but his bare hands. For instance, 1 game I had vs Tau. My lord on bike charged 5 kroot, DW backfires, he takes a wound from the weapon. Next turn he kills 3 of them but they hold (no charge bonus since this is turn 2), turn after he finishes them off, then he races across the table, loses one more wound to shooting despite cover and T6 (theyre tau), and finally plows into 12 fire warriors but lo and behold, DW backfires again and kills him.

 

Now lord+DW+MoN+DW is expensive and should by rights slaughter everything but in this game he killed a tiny fraction of his own points worth of kroot and fire warriors because of the daemon weapon. Its not just that it backfires and kills you sometimes, its also that sometimes it turns a big investment into a banana skin when a lord 40 points cheaper would have done twice as well. There's no way those kroot or fire warriors would have survived combat with me if my guy had just had a simple bolt pistol and chainsword, but instead I paid 40 points to be sqrewed over.

[Nurgle71]

I run a lord with Mark of nurgle and DW and it work perfectly well when you attack say, terminators but for some weird reason, i charged a 5 man gretchin team thing and with just one wound left and if the gretchin goes down i win the game, amazingly i roll a one and now the gretchins are bragging about killing a big, bad chaos lord.

[sexiest_hero]

Remember DW give you more than just +d6 attacks, you get a choice of Insta-kill, +1Str, wound anything on a 4+ or rerolls, +2d6 attacks or shooty goodness. And the only drawback is if your lord is too weak to handle the power, it consumes him. Fortune favors the brave, and Chaos lords face Spawndon if they fail. I'll list 4 reasons why you should take a DW on a lord.

 

1 If you don't all the other Chaos lords with DW will tease him for being weak

 

2 All the other Chaos lords will pick on him for being afraid he might get beat down by his own Sword

 

3 Being forced to wear a "I joined Chaos and all I got was these stupid TW LC."

 

4 Being assassinated by a member of his warband because "If he can't control one Daemon bouned in a sword how can he control me."

 

So come on you don't want your Lord to be teased, picked on, made to wear a crappy shirt and then assassinated do you?

[Tchort]

It seems to me the dillweeds Gav and Alessio did their best to gimp this weapon. Expensive, incredibly risky and available only to easily the worst of our HQs. I only ever take one when I use Abaddon, who's tough enough to absorb a roll of 1 for a turn.

[Brother Nihm]

It seems to me the dillweeds Gav and Alessio did their best to gimp this weapon. Expensive, incredibly risky and available only to easily the worst of our HQs. I only ever take one when I use Abaddon, who's tough enough to absorb a roll of 1 for a turn.

You should try a Tzeentchian Lord then.

[Maladon]

I've had decent luck with the undivided weapon, below average luck with bloodfeeder, and above average luck with deathscreamer....

 

Not sure Tzeentch himself is trying to tell me something! :D

[Fire Harte]

Never rolled a one with a daemon weapon! ;)

 

But I always end up in the path of the dreadnaught/defiler.

[Dammeron]

I like the randomness and capriciousness of daemon weapons. Like most elements, I feel that their incarnation in the current codex requires some serious revision, most notably I'd like to see a greater variety of Daemon Weapon for each of the Chaos Gods and for Chaos Undivided. The manner in which they turn on their wielder could also be tightened up somewhat. Maybe making it the FIRST one rolled in any round of combat inflicting a wound on the wielder, or for every one rolled to hit a leadership test being taken to determine whether the wielder's will wins out against the bound daemon's.

 

Whatever the case, they are currently the most characterful piece of equipment in the Chaos Space Marine army list, and the ONLY thing barring Marks of Chaos that differentiate Chaos Lords from filthy loyalist marine captains and commanders.

[Leethal]

The History of my Bloodfeeder

 

-Slaughters 3 Carnifexes

-Runs amok Tau gunlines.

-Runs amok Space Marines

-Runs amok Necrons

-Runs amok everywhere

-Tries to kill a Imperial conscript. He dies. :)

[chillin]

I think the +1 str and D6 attacks is worth it, but those 1's do always seem to come at the worst possible time :)