Justifying a Daemon Prince

[minigun762]

Ok I think its pretty clear that in general, Daemon Princes are the best HQ unit we can field. Thats fine from a competitive aspect, but how do you justify this in the background (or do you even worry about that?)

 

It seems like becoming a Daemon Prince is a fairly rare occurence and in many times once a Marine ascends to a Daemon Prince, they often leave their original warband to pursue other goals (thats not always the case but we see references to that in the Codex and Storm of Iron).

So the question remains, how do you decide that its ok to use 1, sometimes 2 of these units?

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

So the question remains, how do you decide that its ok to use 1, sometimes 2 of these units?

 

Because the Codex says I can!! ;)

 

But seriously, here's my logic train for DPs in my lists:

 

1. Is it a tournament of 1750 points or above? If yes, field Prince. If no, field Termie Lord.

2. Is it a pick-up game of 1000 points or above? If yes, field Prince. If no, field PA Lord.

3. Is it a campaign setting? If yes, field Termie or PA Lord. If no, see 1 or 2.

 

Only when fluff comes into play do I negate the possibility of fielding a DP, because in "my" timeline, the character of Lord Captain Khestra hasn't ascended to daemonhood yet, so obviously he can't be a DP. I have a PA and a Termie version of him to cover that, and I'll usually have a winged or Disc'ed Sorc in the mix to boost the HQ's potency (and draw fire). For competitive events, like tournaments or challenges, I go with the DP, for the obvious reasons.

[Zealot Of Chaos]

you could have one daemon prince having enslaved the other in a daemonic curse, or just sheer power, they could have risen together through the ranks and achieved daemonhood at similar times whilst leading seperate warbands and reformed to crush all before them

[CelestialSon]

Because there is a big difference between daemon princes within daemon armies, differences between CSM daemon princes and daemon army daemon princes, and no difference between CSM daemon princes...

[chillin]

Ok I think its pretty clear that in general, Daemon Princes are the best HQ unit we can field. Thats fine from a competitive aspect, but how do you justify this in the background (or do you even worry about that?)

So the question remains, how do you decide that its ok to use 1, sometimes 2 of these units

 

- In the day of the uber, gamewinning, DP's of C:csm'd 3.5, I had a 125 pt undivided chaos lord. I had the same character since the very early days of 3.5 chaos dex (my 3.0 khorne chaos lord got killed fighting orks). I used him for years, back when we used to play all the time. That same character has led an army through scores of battles (including wiping out a BA's army during the 13th black crusade).

I didn't play 40k for several years, I got back into the game just b4 C:csm 4.0 came out. When that dex came out I saw that I could not represent my chaos lord which had be blessed by all of the chaos gods (I had used a few deamonic gifts and dark blade to make my own "mark of chaos ascendant"). It had taken years and MANY games to get him the things he had. I didn't just pay the points for darkblade, my chaos lord (the character) had lightning claws, I had to win a LARGE game in which I took an objective, in order to obtain a daemon weop. The other few D. gifts he had were won in games (gifts of the chaos gods for a job well done, fluffwize).

- So when the 4.0 dex came out and said "your lord is generic and can only have a D. weop", that just didn't represent MY undivided chaos lord (with his "mark of chaos ascendant" to my satifaction.

I decided that my lord had done enough in the name of chaos undivided to become an undivided DP w/ WT (his "mark of chaos ascendant", the blessing of any one of the chaos gods at any given time).

His (my) missing time from the game now conveiniently explained by his ascendtion to DP.

 

BTW, DP's should be 0-1 per army, this is one of MANY examples that the writer(s) of C:csm 4.0 couldn't have cared less about what should have be in the dex.

2 DP's leading the same army is absurd fluffwize.

[Sons of Horus]

seriously? :tu: i mean, yeah sure i field fluffy armies but not fielding a DP is just weird ;)

 

the codex says i can field 2 therefore it is beneficial to field 2 because they are strong and they are LEGAL!

[#13]

Going by fluff there are a lot of options in the book that are somewhat hard to justify picking in an armylist or picking them in numbers. (Obliterators, Defilers, terminators to a degree)

Personally I think that looking at putting together an armylist like that, takes a lot of fun out of it and leads to weaker builds.

I am a fluff nut, so I do tend to stick to certain things like sacred numbers or not mixing marks other the undivided. But things like how rare a unit is, is never a consideration. You can always make up stuff why it would be so and so.

 

What I do when making an army list is I think of a theme for the army and try to do something with that. So a certain mark, or all meq or daemons or something like that. It's your army, you paid for it, so have fun with it.

 

Just my two Imperial credits. :lol:

[Brother Vader]

I don't think it's unfluffy having 1 or even 2 Daemon Princes, it just depends how you do it. I see the daemon prince's rules as just that, rules. Your daemon prince doesn't have to ba a 'prince' at all, it could be just a large bestial daemon. Look at the example of the Varghulf from the Vampire Counts army. Yes, he is a vampire, but he's a devolved bestial one and he's definitely not the one leading the army. In the same way you could have a bestial daemon in your CSM army, bound to the will of whoever is leading the army, but you don't need to summon him during the game. He's just a monster you buy from your HQ section. I reckon a Varghulf would make a cool DP for a Night Lords army, with all that bat wing iconography. How about using the Daemon Prince rules to represent a possessed Dreadnought, or a Dreadnought who's been elevated to daemonhood. That would be cool in an Iron Warriors army.

@ #13. don't worry about justifying obliterators, all the traitor legions had techmarines. Who knows what pacts they make with various warbands, somebody has to be repairing all the CSM's kit between battles anyway!

[minigun762]

Your daemon prince doesn't have to ba a 'prince' at all, it could be just a large bestial daemon. Look at the example of the Varghulf from the Vampire Counts army. Yes, he is a vampire, but he's a devolved bestial one and he's definitely not the one leading the army. In the same way you could have a bestial daemon in your CSM army, bound to the will of whoever is leading the army, but you don't need to summon him during the game. He's just a monster you buy from your HQ section.

 

Terrific idea! That is a very cool and refreshing way to look at it (sounds like a beer commerical :D )

 

Instead of Daemon Princes simply being promoted Chaos Lords/Sorcerers, you could build it like a Defiler or Possessed, binding a daemon (or multiple daemons) into a physical shell (to explain why you aren't summoning him).

Oh I like this, I like it alot. ;)

[MuGGzy]

Or you can just be a cheezy bastard and fully take advantage of the retarded codex and beat the snot out of the other guys so they continue to post all over the net how OP the new CSM dex is.

2 DP..Check

 

Mixing Slaaneshi and Khornate troops (which would never work as they would kill each other before getting any work done) Check. PM and 1K Sons trotting happily hand in hand ... check

why not a couple Defilers, some Obliterators,and anything else that you can pack in that makes no sense but is LEGAL so it's OK....

 

Sorry, still bitter about my EC army being nerfed... EC Lord with no Doom Siren?? greaaaaat.

[iandanger]

Honestly, they've worked so hard to bland-ify the codex that its nigh impossible to have a decent army and make it really fuffy. I like the idea of thinking of a DP as a placeholder for some kind of daemonic monstrosity that may not necessarily be a DP at all. Still...this is making me think about decking out a lord or sorcerer to lead my army...but then I read their codex entries and sigh because they both seem kinda lame...imo anyway

[davidren2401]

Your daemon prince doesn't have to ba a 'prince' at all,

 

Well said. My Prince is an Iron Warriors Warsmith who preformed a number of insane experiments on himself using necron technology (a suit of armour made from Monollith metal, a cloak of shadows and a phylactery. All infused with daemon essences)

[Jarulek]

I've seen it done before. Especially Defiler legs for IW daemon princes bodies seem popular converting methods.

[Brother Vader]

why not a couple Defilers, some Obliterators,and anything else that you can pack in that makes no sense but is LEGAL so it's OK....

 

Since when has chaos needed to make sense, clearly all these odd occurences must be part of Tzeentch's master plan. :lol:

I have some sympathy though, I'd find it hard to reconcile Rubrics in any other cult army, for example. But Berzerkers, Noise Marines

and Plague marines could be the result of different types of combat drugs. Look at Fabius bile, you pay a price per model and you

get special rules and a stat bonus. Cult troopers...you pay extra per model and you get special rules and stat bonuses.

 

I love fluff, but you don't need to stick rigidly to "I can only use these models" type of thinking to be fluffy. Especially now the 'dex has

been made more generalised. If I played someone who had a Slaanesh army with one squad of Berzerkers, but those models had no

khornate icons and a nice Slaanesh paint job, and the guy said "these guys are basically off their faces on 'slaught, stimm, cheap

booze and bad attitude, they count as berzerkers" then I'd be quite happy.

 

As for defilers, I really don't understand how anyone could think they're not fluffy with any army. It's a big, gribbly daemon infused killing

machine. That's very chaos. And obliterators, I'll say once again, Traitor Techmarines. All traitor legions had them, all subsequent renegade

chapters had them, long enough in the eye of terror messing around with machinery and that's what happens to you. Got a Slaanesh

army, model sonic weapons on them so they fit in. Tzeentch army....convert them with sorcerous bits, they are now techno-magi blasting

people with terrible magiks (conveniently using obliterator rules). Even Khorne doesn't mind a bit of shooting, Khârn's plasma pistol isn't

just for show!

 

Instead of Daemon Princes simply being promoted Chaos Lords/Sorcerers, you could build it like a Defiler or Possessed, binding a daemon (or multiple daemons) into a physical shell (to explain why you aren't summoning him).

 

My Prince is an Iron Warriors Warsmith who preformed a number of insane experiments on himself using necron technology (a suit of armour made from Monollith metal, a cloak of shadows and a phylactery. All infused with daemon essences)

 

This is exactly what I'm getting at, these are cool ideas. If you use a bit of imagination you can have a cohesive and fluffy backstory for your army and an army that looks good on the tabletop.

[the jeske]

Your daemon prince doesn't have to ba a 'prince' at all,

yeah he could be an overgrown mutan squig . <_<

 

 

I see it thist way . either you go with the working army [and then you ignore all fluff or go BL] or you build a "fluffy" list . And if your doing fluff and at some moment start thinking "man this looks strange , I have to justify this" then your probablly not doing fluffy things , but try to hide a tournament army with "counts as".

[Brother Vader]

I think you undermine your fluff argument there. The Black legion use all types of troops and the Red corsairs will happily take renegades from anywhere. If you make your own renegade warband you can put whatever you like in it. The leader is a charismatic pragmatist who can command all sorts of Chaos troops, just like Abbadon. If you're doing a pure cult army then putting troops with other marks in may look odd and be unfluffy, so just don't do a pure cult warband. GW have always encouraged people to come up with their own backstories, characters etc and sticking rigidly to what is perceived as 'correct and fluffy' limits your imagination and modelling possibilities.

 

I played a guy recently who had a fully cheesed tournament army, 2 lash DPs, plague marines, 2 oblits, vindi and landraider. I lost (but it could have been very different, that sort of army wins big but loses big too). He didn't try to justify it, actually apologising for being a bit cheesey (he was practicing for a tournament), but it didn't matter because he was a nice guy and a good person to play against. His army was sort of black legionish in colour and he'd spent some time greenstuffing fleshy bits all over his tanks and a big organic-looking vindicator cannon, so I didn't feel fluff was offended by his army.

 

Seriously, this vindicator looked faintly obscene, like a tender part of your anatomy that had been a bit distended and damaged. If that sort of thing turns up in a Slaanesh-ish army you have no right to complain it's unfluffy.

[Excarnificator]

Love the idea about that Vindi :lol:

 

Regarding the fluff justification of “not one but TWO daemon princes (lash, as it just accidentally happened to be) leading the raid on the ammo dump”, I really have none. This is what the Codex allows and as such it is anyone’s personal choice. Coming up with fluff justification is a purely personal restraint (and one I adhere to (No more than 1 in my army), but do not expect anyone else to).

 

The idea of calling it a really monstrous bad-@ss chaos spawn/daemon slave creature (and model it as such) is a really nice idea though. I like that approach. “Counts as” is what saves this codex.

 

/Cheers

[Democratus]

Rarity isn't really a good argument against playing a unit. Strictly speaking Space Marines are incredibly rare, seeing that there are only about a million of them in a galaxy containing countless imperial subjects. The odds that any given battle would involve Space Marines are astronomical.

 

Also, if Daemon Princes are rare how much rarer then would entire armies of Daemons be? Daemonic armies with princes and even unique daemon lords and heralds. No player should be allowed to play this army because it is such an unlikely occurance outside of a warp rift!

 

Or...you can just relax and realize that the battles you play on the table top represent those rare special battles where such unlikely events occur. That's why they are worth playing out!

[the jeske]

“Counts as” is what saves this codex.

no counts as is what makes all sm and csm armies use 3 maybe 4 army builds between them and leads to boring games , 0 different armies and its fluff butchering . For me the moment when a ultramarines , alfa legion and generic sm renagades army look the same [i mean the unit choices] , I really start to struggle why shouldnt I take WM or Horde . lists looks the same only game play is faster and rules are better FAQed.

[CelestialSon]

Or you can just be a cheezy bastard and fully take advantage of the retarded codex and beat the snot out of the other guys so they continue to post all over the net how OP the new CSM dex is.

2 DP..Check

 

Mixing Slaaneshi and Khornate troops (which would never work as they would kill each other before getting any work done) Check. PM and 1K Sons trotting happily hand in hand ... check

why not a couple Defilers, some Obliterators,and anything else that you can pack in that makes no sense but is LEGAL so it's OK....

 

Sorry, still bitter about my EC army being nerfed... EC Lord with no Doom Siren?? greaaaaat.

 

Don't forget noie terminators, noise preds or noise dreds. Hope you didn't convert any of those

[Cale]

Not to go entirely off-topic, but:

 

I really start to struggle why shouldnt I take WM or Horde . lists looks the same only game play is faster and rules are better FAQed.

 

deserves to be met with the assertion that Warmachine and Hordes both have more than enough critical rules-failures of their own.

[Brother Vader]

Don't forget noie terminators, noise preds or noise dreds. Hope you didn't convert any of those

 

Don't forget the bikers, you could swap the TL bolters for Sonic Blasters. I've been wanting to convert an all sonic

army for years. Now I'm so glad I didn't.

If I had though I'd just use it as 'counts as' TL bolters or whatever and at least they'd look fluffy.

 

QUOTE

“Counts as” is what saves this codex.

no counts as is what makes all sm and csm armies use 3 maybe 4 army builds between them and leads to boring games , 0 different armies and its fluff butchering .

 

'counts as' allows people to use their converting and modelling skills to come up with stuff that fits their army, looks good and they can legally use it in their games. If I want the Thunderfire Cannon in my Black Templars I'm going to take the turret, stick it on a rhino like a big badass Razorback and say 'counts as' a Vindicator. My Techmarine is clearly a fan of Pimp My Rhino.

Rather than being fluff butchering it allows you to field all the other mad, crazy stuff from the 40K (and warhammer) background without compromising your army's legality. There's so much cool stuff they haven't put in the rules.

How do you think anyone is going to field an Adeptus Mechanicus army without 'counts as'? Or a Squat Army. I had one in 2nd ed and I haven't used it for a decade. I could use 'counts as' to use them as Imperial Guard, or maybe armour them up, use some norse/dwarf iconography and use them as Space Wolves. Beards, Beer, Bikes (with cool heavy weapon trike conversions), Exo Armour (cut down termis), Troll Slayers as Blood Claws, landspeeders with big hover-fans. It would rock.

'counts as' done properly allows you to be more fluffy.

[the jeske]

If I want the Thunderfire Cannon in my Black Templars I'm going to take the turret, stick it on a rhino like a big badass Razorback and say 'counts as' a Vindicator

yes and each time i check LoS to it , we have to remove the model and put the vindicator in place . Nice move to make me lose time and have less time for my turn . you have to take it out of the bag , it can get "lost" , then we have to check how the "vindicator" was facing [probablly have to call a judge for it] and the clock it ticking ...on my turn .

Very , very nice trick and all legal.

 

Rather than being fluff butchering it allows you to field all the other mad, crazy stuff from the 40K (and warhammer) background without compromising your army's legality.

a yes .. because playing with 2 lash princes and 2 pms and zerkers in a WB army , is crazy and radical and sooooooo needed to show you conversion skills . <_<

How do you think anyone is going to field an Adeptus Mechanicus army without 'counts as'? Or a Squat Army.

Yeah I have seen more then a few master converted Ad mecha armies [and helped to build/scultp 2 for sale] and the ones I actually saw used were all the best tournament army builds . I know it is fun to get 3 prizes instead of one [best painted , best army , best general] , but those are master class conversions [or stuff bought from people that sell ready to make sculpts] , how many armies like that are in the world ? while on the other hand "counts as" armies made out of 0 converted WFB models , but with proper bases were so common we had to bann all WFB models from w40k tournaments [the opposit what happened to WFB way way way back in the best ] .

 

I had one in 2nd ed and I haven't used it for a decade.

I have a SW army from 2ed with 20 terminators , 20 BC with jumppacks [fist/chainsword and I was a crazy who didnt make his own fists] and 30 grey hunters . most of them illegal havent played it since 2ed . Thats the life with w40k some units/models become illegal and you never play with them again .

 

counts as' done properly allows you to be more fluffy.

and looking at the number of proper made counts as armies and the number of the ones that aint . and the number of the aint is much larger . This makes "counts as" bad in my eyes.

 

If I had though I'd just use it as 'counts as' TL bolters or whatever and at least they'd look fluffy.

yeah unless you would use rhinos . those have TL bolters too and all models of the same class have to look the same . Or even better NM , if you use those with sonics all models that look the same have to be the same class . God I love the new dex.

[Excarnificator]

“Counts as” is what saves this codex.

no counts as is what makes all sm and csm armies use 3 maybe 4 army builds between them and leads to boring games , 0 different armies and its fluff butchering . For me the moment when a ultramarines , alfa legion and generic sm renagades army look the same [i mean the unit choices] , I really start to struggle why shouldnt I take WM or Horde . lists looks the same only game play is faster and rules are better FAQed.

 

I'd say this is pretty much a matter of perspective; the glass is either half full or half empty, depending on your POV. The basic principle is that "counts as" is perhaps now even more needed to tailor your force to be what you want it to be. Good or bad? You decide. However, the current internet trend to find the most optimized army build ASAP and then digitally rule out everything else as more or less “unplayable” does not really further diversity in lists either, methinks.

 

Still, fielding a monstrous daemon spawn counting as a DP is a very good show of creativity anyway. Anyone who does this deserves praise. IMHO.

 

/Cheers

[Brother Vader]

Jeske, thinking that using a 'counts as' vidicator to deny you time in a tournament is bordering on paranoia, and converting up models to use is nothing to do with wanting to use 2 lash princes with Plague Marines and Berzerkers. I've played against that army and a clown bomb army and while they're optimised for winning it's the players that make the game, not the army. I've had a good time playing against people with sick armies because they were good chaps and played competitively to win, but importantly with good sportsmanship. I'm a hobbyist, not a tournament player so if someone insisted that I replace a model with the 'correct' one for LOS purposes I'd consider it very bad sportsmanship.

 

There was a very good example in White Dwarf a couple of months back, just before 5th ed came out. Christan Byrne (I think that's his name), who is a competitive tournament player, showed his army. He had a winged Nurgle DP made from The Nightbringer. It was a really nice conversion and paint job. It fits really well with the image of Mortarion (if, like me, you're old enough to remember the old epic model from the '90s). Would you seriously be unhappy if that was on the table at a tournament, just beacause the LOS is different?

 

@Excarnificator, I have an old Beast of Nurgle from way back, they're pretty big, much bigger than the mid/late '90s ones. He'd make a rocking DP with Wind of Chaos (no wings though) slithering around on a nice scenic base, vomiting nurgly badness on people.