Scout tactics, Part 5: Daemons

[greatcrusade08]

[center; background-image:url(http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/hq2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 8px 2px; padding: 12px 8px 12px 8px; border: 1px solid #DDD; margin-left: 0 auto; text-align: left; color: #fff; text-indent:50px; font-size:130%; width:50%;">Scout tactics: Part 5 Daemons[/center]

This instalment will delve into GW’s newest army release and look at possible ways for scouts to utilise weaknesses in daemon armies. Not this article will deal with daemons chosen from the daemon codex, not those taken from the Chaos codex.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/hq2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 8px 2px; padding: 12px 8px 12px 8px; border: 1px solid #DDD; margin-left: 0 auto; text-align: left; color: #fff; text-indent:50px; font-size:130%; width:50%;">Know your enemy

I always talk about doing the research when taking on your opponents armies, but being quite a new release and a somewhat unknown element, I will discuss some points about daemon armies that are relevant to this article.

Deepstriking: All daemon armies are split in half before the game by the owning player, he/she then decides which half to bring on in the first turn, but there is a one in three chance that the other half may be used (a 1 or 2 on D6)..
Most daemon players use roughly even halves, with equal numbers of MC’s and troops in each half, just in case the switch does happen.
Due to this special rule, the daemon player doesn’t have a set-up phase, which essentially negates one of the scouts biggest strengths, which is the ability to infiltrate and scout move to outmanoeuvre and gain the advantage in the first few turns.
After the first turn the daemon army arrives by normal deepstriking reserve rules, each unit having to roll on the table to see if it arrives, barring some luck either way, the rest of the army comes on in bits and pieces, but if you cant deal with the half that arrive first turn, all these elements do is to support those units already on the table and make your job a lot tougher.

Close combat: Daemons do have a few shooting options, but by far the majority of their units are close combat orientated, and are more than capable of destroying scout units with ease.
The best way to deal with them is with shooting, but in some cases, smaller half units of daemons can be dealt with by specialist scout units in CC as a last resort.

Armour saves: Daemons saving throws are invulnerable, which means they aren’t affected by normal AP weapons and rules. With the smaller daemons this is usually a 5+ save but the larger deamons can have a 4+ ‘ward’ save.
Essentially they easier to destroy with massed firepower than high AP weapons.
The fact that scout armies are usually larger than standard space marine forces, really helps against daemon armies as we can put more weapons on the field.
Note that some daemons have access to Iron hide gift of chaos, which confers a 3+ save it is usually taken by daemon princes, bloodcrushers and heralds. Its important to point out this isnt an INV save and can be beaten by ML or rending snipers (or any AP3 or better) and they revert back to using thier INV save instead.

Fearless: daemon armies don’t have to take break tests, which means we have to destroy them completely, this can be problematic as even a small number of daemons can wreck havoc on our units.

Eternal warrior: All daemons have the eternal warrior USR, meaning you cannot instant kill them with double strength weapons, with the larger daemons this is hardly a concern due to thier high toughness, but with multi-wound elite elements like bloodcrushers and fiends we have to use massed fire to bring them down.

Army selection

Against a superior CC army the more guns you have the better, so I would always recommend filling the 6 available troops choices, I would also suggest taking plenty of rapid fire weapons like bolters and shotguns.
Bolters have the advantage of longer range, but since AP has no effect against daemons and you can charge after firing shotguns they can both be of use in your army.
A daemon army will also include one or two monstrous creatures, by far the easiest way to deal with these is with a large unit of snipers.
Since daemons deepstrike and you cant be sure of where or when they arrive, fast moving reaction units are essential.
I find that a unit of bikes and a couple of land speeder storms fill this role perfectly, if you arm the bikes with grenade launchers they can be effective against both troops and monstrous creatures, whilst the LSS armed with heavy flamers are perfect sweepers, and if equipped with shotgun squads, they can potentially decimate whole units of T4 daemons.
Its also an option to run an LSS with heavy bolter and use its speed to keep it at distance to daemon units and fire pot shots, this is less dangerous to the enemy, but handy when facing units that can bring it down easily.
The LSS can serve a secondary role, which is to adversely affect daemon deepstriking, their 6” range means you can use them to negate a 12” area of the battlefield or at least cause some problems if they try.
LSS also negate chaos icons if within their range, so whilst engaging a unit of daemons you can also stop them from automatically bringing down re-inforcements safely.
The HQ option is always a tricky propostion for a scout army and I usually chosen by personal preference, for more advice read my HQ tactics for scout armies article.
But against deamons certain HQ can help, I will discuss these options in each section.

Heavy and special weapons: As always I advise making use of as many heavy weapons as possible, my suggestion is to take ML with snipers and put HB in with bolter units as these weapons tend to support each other nicely in their given roles.
Also I strongly suggest using combi-weapons on most of your units, I would skip giving them to sniper squads, but flamers on the close up units of shotgunners and ccw scouts would fit well and can be devastating against daemon troops, also combi-plasma or melta on bolter armed scouts can help with greater daemons that have strayed too close to your lines.
Note that I usually don’t advocate combi-plasma on scout sergeants as your more likely to lose them to a gets hot roll than their space marine counterparts, but against a greater daemon you get a second shot (rapid fire) and if used on a bolter squad with no other upgrades you wont actually lose an important model if he does die.
Whereas combi-plasmas on models that have meltabombs and power weapons etc is a bad idea.
Also id rather take the risk of losing the sergeant than have a big monster tear through the unit and I lose the whole squad of scouts.

Tactics

As I have mentioned already scouts wont be able to utilise infiltrate and scout move to their full potential as daemons don’t arrive until turn one, however seeing as how most of your army can infiltrate, the best advice I can give is to find an area of the battlefield and set up a defensive position with clear lines of fire.
Personally I use a corner as it blocks two flanks from attack.
For an example of how to do this, have a look through this batrep.
In most cases Daemons will attempt to attack your forces, if you can successfully beat back the first big wave, then you can essentially destroy the rest of the daemons as they come against you in waves.
Of course in some objective battles you may have to play aggressively to push daemons from scoring postions, but after the first two or three turns, their forces will be largely commited and you can go on about your buisiness without fear of deepstriking daemon units.
In this endeavour your faster mobile units will be golden, especially if you use heavy flamers to destroy units hiding in terrain. All you have to do is hold your own objectives and contest just enough of theirs to count.
Usually though a daemon player will not resort to holding objectives unless he has lost the first wave without doing much damage, if he sees the game turn, it would be quite easy to drop his remaining troops in or near objectives and force you to come to him. In this case all you have to do is contest just enough objectives to win the game.

LSS: By far the most overworked element in my games against daemons has been the LSS, by equipping them with 5 man shotgun squads and heavy flamers, they can do amazing amounts of damage, if charged and destroyed then the shotgunners can disembark and rapid fire into the daemons again inflicting some casualties.
This speedbump tactic is a good way of holding a large unit of daemon troops for a turn or two as they have to first destroy the speeder and then the shotgunners.
Usually though the speeders are best used in conjunction with other units, by using the heavy flamer first you can inflict greater casualties, then by whittling down the survivors with bolter or sniper fire you drastically reduce the number of attacks against your LSS decreasing their ability to bring it down, ultimately your game plan should be to use your LSS as pointing sticks, racing over to an enemy unit marking it with the heavy flamer and the rest of your army shooting the survivors down.

Khorne

Khornate daemon armies are extremely tough close combat fighters who shun warp magicks.

Fighting fire with fire: Most Khorne daemons have furious charge special rule giving them +1 initiative and +1 strength when they charge, however the base stats of their troops (bloodletters) are not unlike space marines, with S4 T4 and I4, but they do come with hellblades which ignore armour. they do however have a greater WS and if allowed to strike back they can cause many casulties to your units.
A hard hitting unit of ccw scouts or bikes combined with Khans furious charge will get the first strike against I4 Khorne daemons aswell as negating their charge bonuses, against smaller units massed attacks of scouts should kill them off without retaliation, but be careful not to bite off more than you can chew.
Khorne named character Skarbrand (greater daemon) has a special rule which allows any unit within range to reroll attacks, if I recall this also includes enemy units, which increases the chances of Khan killing him as he hits first with I6 on furious charge, but this is still quite risky unless Skarbrand has only a single wound or two.

Sweeper team: I have already discussed the uses of an LSS but against I4 khorne units a khan sweeper team would work well, its probably best to have them on bikes for better mobility, this also increases their toughness incase they get caught off guard.
The key to using this unit is to soften up enemy units with shooting, before charging in with the sweeper team for first strike kills, combined with grenade launchers this unit can be extremely effective.
As your taking scout bikes, cluster mines can be quite helpful, in games like this the daemon armies will try to make the best use of cover, by mining an important piece of terrain you can potentially cause a lot of damage to enemy troops, but also you will keep them worrying about where they are (the psychological game).

Nurgle

The biggest advantage to nurgle armies is the higher toughness and FNP saves they get. Their plagueswords do wound on 4+ but against a scout army with all T4 this is of no real benefit (we do get saves).
As for disadvantages they are slow and purposeful and relatively weak in CC, with I2 and very few attacks.
The one thing to beware is the Epidemius (herald) he is quite cheap in points, but the stacking nature of the benefits he gives the daemons is staggering, he should always be the first priority target with your sniper units, if you start taking casualties and he is still alive you will find the enemy units will become far more dangerous.
Despite the irritating FNP saves that often keep them going and one or two special characters, Nurgle armies are relatively easy to beat if you use the correct tactics.
Snipers rending shots will ignore FNP and the high toughness of the enemies units, and heavy flamer/shotgun combo LSS will still be useful although somewhat less successful than against Khornate armies.

Sweepers: sweeping units may not be required against a nurgle army as even a basic unit of ccw scouts can be effective against them, the higher toughness and FNP may keep them around longer but if charged they only have a single attack each, and with massed attacks they will soon start to fall. Its importnat to highlight the point that it takes alot of sustained attacks to kill them off, this is probably best achieved by 'ganging' up with multiple units on larger nurgle squads.

You could use either fists or swords against nurgle as their initiative is low for first strikes to do some of the damage. But more importantly as they do little damage back, the fist armed sergeants should still be alive to do the real damage (they ignore FNP)
I wouldn’t recommend bikes as sweeping units, as although they have mobility, the plagueswords ignore their higher toughness and with less attacks than ccw scouts they could get bogged down quite easily, still if armed with a fist the unit is still capable of taking down a unit of plaguebearers.

The key to beating a nurgle daemon army is to remove the tougher MC’s first, followed by the elite and fast choices, if they do reach your lines with basic plaguebearers your men should be able to hold them off in CC long enough for support to arrive.

Tzeench

Tzeench is the more psychic orientated cast of daemons, a tzeench army will have many psychic shooting attacks and you can find yourself taking casualties early on.
However their basic troops are extremely weak with only S3 T3 A1 W1.
Tzeeench is possibly the only daemon army where I would consider playing aggressively, by tieing his units in cc you can prevent him from using shooting attacks to devastate your units.
The key here is mobility, you have to be able to reach him early on to prevent as many casualties as possible to psychic attacks.
A unit of bikes with fist and grenade launchers would do well even against an MC, with S6 shots rapid firing on the way in and a fist in the unit should be able to fell even the greater deamon, if you combine this with a unit of snipers firing at him then you should be able to kill him in a single turn.
LSS with heavy bolters and flamers will also make pretty good sweeping units, against their basic pink horrors, the flamer template auto hits and wounds on 2+, the shotgunners will also wound the T3 more easily.
Another way to prevent these psychic attacks is to take a librarian for your HQ choice, this would also allow you to throw some nasty attacks back (fighting fire with fire).
A unit to watch out for is the flamers of tzeench, these bad boys are your priority target, if allowed to run free, they will make quick work of your scout units with no armour saves allowed, they each fire an amazing amount of AP3 weaponry and should be avoided at all costs, otherwise your scouts will die in droves. A good way to avoid this is by combat squadding and/or making best use of cover.
This highlights another shooting attack the 'breath of chaos' which can be used by flamers and certain other units (soulgrinder for example), these templatres will ignore both cover and scout armour saves and will tear through your units extremely quickly.

Slaanesh

Slannesh are a combination of psychic ability and cc potential, and in my opinion are the toughest of all the daemon armies to face.
With all units even their basic troops getting multiple attacks with rending they can potentially swamp and destroy your units quickly.
The one slaanesh player I know uses a lot of fiends who have high strength multiple attacks and rending, and uses the psychic power Pavane to move them across the board, this gives them a much greater reach for the turns that they can charge.
The best way to prevent this is to utilise the first turn as much as possible, as I mentioned before only half the army turns up, and most wise players will split evenly, if you can remove his faster units of fiends and seekers as soon as possible you may get a second turn of shooting before you start taking serious casualties.
In the second turn you can either continue to target his faster units or remove his MC’s with sniper fire which will slow his army down (no more Pavane).
Ultimately you will be in CC with this army, but if you combat squad your units you can create speedbumps which will leave his units in rapid fire range of your surviving units to deal with.

Sweepers: With a very high initiative Slaanesh daemons wont fall for the same Khan sweeper tricks as other armies, instead utilise sweeping units like LSS with heavy flamers as mentioned previously. These will be very effective against basic enemy troops who arte T3 and should be able to put wounds on the fiends too.
The best way is not to be as bold with your speeders as they can easily be brought down with massed rending attacks, I would suggest allowing yourself to sacrifice a couple of speedbump units then using your speeders in combination with rapid firing bolter squads and shotguns to do the real damage at close range.

Daemonzilla

Daemonzilla armies are composed mainly of daemon monstrous creatures, with the compulsary 2 troops choices to satisfy FOC.
Scouts have some of the best weapons to fell these creatures in scout snipers, but with deepstriking you only have a single turn to kill them before they tear through your troops.
With them DS'ing within charge range, most of your bolter and shotgun troops will be getting rapid fire shots off, with massed fire you can still bring these creatures down, just not very reliably.
Ultimately with half his units arriving in turn one the first turn is the most important, and as with all daemons the game is often determined in the first turn, if you can get enough wounds to stick you should be fine.
In order to maximise your firing and minimise casulties there are a few things you can do: firstly by combat squading you can keep more scouts firing as he can only charge and kill 5 men at a time and the MC's wont be 'tarpitted' by your larger units preventing you from shooting them in the next turn.
Secondly use your LSS as speedbumps, if he does destroy the LSS, your scouts inside can get another turn of firing before they get charged and killed, and the unit as a whole can tie up a MC for two turns of combat.

Mixed armies

Some daemon players mix their units and have combination armies, like Khorne and Tzeench for example, whilst I find this distasteful and un-fluffy its perfectly within the rules for them to do so.
All you have to so is realise the strengths and weaknesses of each unit as it comes against you, your enemy cant guarantee he will be able to make the best use of his own units supporting each other especially with Daemons being very reliant on luck for their arrival (deepstrike). Use the tips I have given to suit your own battle plan and you should do fine.

Hope this helps

GC08

[greatcrusade08]

Feel free to add constructive comments, let me know if ive missed something.

 

thanks guys

 

GC08

[Captain Malachi]

Just a few facts you need to change. 1) It's a 1 or 2 that means we get the wrong wave, not a 5 or 6. Small point I know but it stops confusion. 2) In the Khorne section you talk about using Khan to kill of greater daemons since they don't have eternal warrior, unfortunately this is wrong. ALL daemons have eternal warrior. 3) Skarbrand does allow enemies to re-roll their attacks, but unfortunately no competent daemon is going to let you have those attacks in the first place ;) 4) It seems in the Tzeentch section you were saying to take a libby to block his psychic attacks right? Sadly you can't do that, they are just shooting attacks, not psychic abilities, so no psychic hood for you. You said something similar about pavane in the Slaanesh section too, again, not a psychic power.

 

I didn't notice any other mistakes, so I'll just comment on it as a whole now. Right, personally I think the key to winning with a scout army against daemons is the land speeder storm and dreads if you want to take them. As a rule, our army has trouble with three things, dreads, speeders and transports. As far as I know you can't take transports for scouts so you'll have to use the other two to your advantage.

 

We have trouble with speeders for the simple reason that we just can't catch the little buggers, as a whole our army is slow so we have trouble getting in to CC with them, and with our limited shooting we can't reliably take them down at range. Unless the army has a strong core of Tzeentch units you should be able to keep the daemons chasing your speeders for the whole game. I'd recommend heavy bolters and staying away generally, you shouldn't be aggressively charging daemon armies anyway (Tzeentch is an exception), so you may as well stay away as long as possible.

 

Dreads are nasty since, other than Slaaneshi units, we have nothing that can really take them down in CC. One of our best units, bloodcrushers, will pretty much murder anyone they can catch in CC, but against dreads they're basically dead. Of course, our MCs can take them down pretty quick, and most daemon players will take a few MCs, so use those sniper scouts well ;)

 

A little note of Nurgle units, while nearly impossible to shoot out of cover, they can be very easily assaulted off it. A simple CC scout squad should be able to take down a unit of plaguebearers in CC, it just might take a few turns.

 

If I think of anything else I'll post later.

[==Me==]

Cap's got it. Dreads and Speeders hurt us bad since we just can't kill the buggers reliably.

 

Another thing Scouts have big over Daemons is infiltrate. An all deep-striking army needs clear terrain to arrive safely, and in a scout army you can field a lot of infiltrating models. Spread your units out in strategic places to deny this area to your opponent and force him to drop further back, in terrain, or run the risk of mishapping.

[I AM THE AWESOME]

Also note, that a Plaguebearer will not wound a scout on a 4+, he will wound a scout on a 4+ with re-rolls.

[greatcrusade08]

Thanks guys ill change the errors... just minor stuff this time thank goodness :P

 

I had no idea those shooting attacks werent psychic, damn :lol:

 

Cap's got it. Dreads and Speeders hurt us bad since we just can't kill the buggers reliably.

This is what i used to think until my 3rd co Ultras took on my mates slaanesh army, i took 2 dreads on both occasions and they were easily destroyed by fiends, against anyhting other than slaanesh i guess they would be good.

 

GC08

[Captain Malachi]

I woke up this morning and realised I hadn't mentioned saturating the board with infiltrating units, but oh well, ==Me== beat me to it :lol:

 

Like I said, with dreads, if it's an all Slaanesh army they aren't so hot. However, if it is an all Slaanesh army you'll be ok anyway, the troops will be daemonettes and frankly those girls are just bolter bait. The problem is when he takes a strong core of plaguebearers and bloodletters, with fiends in the elites slot. Now that's a nastier army for dreads. Fortunately, despite being T4 with 2 wounds, fiends are still not that difficult to kill, just bolter (or shotgun) them to death before the dread gets stuck in with the troops.

[OwlandMoonGuy]

I replied to your post back in the Daemon forum. Most of which was also covered here but you might want to go over that as well.

 

-OMG

[greatcrusade08]

I replied to your post back in the Daemon forum. Most of which was also covered here but you might want to go over that as well.

 

-OMG

 

Will do thanks OMG

 

GC08