Daemons...

[shatter]

I played a few games against them some time ago. I found myself back-pedaling my forces the whole game. The front half behind the back half and not shooting while those that stood still fired... in order to stay out of cc and short-medium range fire. I tabled 'em of course. (sigh) After picking off the big shooty nasty.

I was using a tactical (medium range shooty) based army though...

[Taz]

CALL IN THE GREY KNIGHTS WORT WORT WORT.

Jokes aside, I don't have nearly enough experience playing against daemons so thanks for starting this topic up, bad matchups versus marines as they are it's nice to have at least a couple resources of info to draw upon for when I do go up against the unholy mother flubbers.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

My usual tactic versus daemons in general is to start the game with a safe distance between them and my army. This will force them to move towards you with their faster units. You can focus on these faster units which typically tend to be their heavy hitters. Once you have smoked these major threats you can then focus on other units. This is good in theory and sometimes translates well to an actual game but it can breakdown in an objective based game if the daemon player decides to setup shop on the objectives by deepstriking onto them. You'll then have go in up close and personal to root them off the objectives. We do have some good tools versus daemons and can beat them in close combat but you have to be smart about it. Daemons are tough in general due to their invulnerable saves and Eternal Warrior across the board.

 

0b :cuss

[Zid]

Daemons are one of the easiest armies to face honestly.

 

First off, give them the first turn. Spread out and respond to where he drops; if he doesn't go first your entire first turn will be moving around and give him better options where to drop.

 

Secondly, each god has a specific strength and specific weakness; Tzeentch is great at shooting, have great invuns, but are weak in CC. Khorne is strong in CC, but slow and clunky. Nurgle is resiliant, slow, and really hard to kill. Slaneesh has bad saves, but is very fast.

 

Pretty much your target priority should be as follows:

1) Tzeentch GD's or DP's if your playing mech. if your playing heavy infantry, soul grinders, blood crushers, and bloodthirsters

2) Anything really punchy. Crushers and fiends normally

3) Everything else

 

An easy breakdown of each daemon and how to deal with em as BA is as follows:

Bloodthirster - shoot it. DO NOT get into assault, it will kill whatever you have easily

Deamon princes - Shoot the khorne/nurgle ones as they own in CC, assault tzeentch/slaneesh as they're a bit weaker. If they do not buy ironhide focus these down first as they will easily drop.

Fateweaver - Shoot him, assault him, and prey your foe has some bad rolls...

The named nurgle and khorne guy - shoot these. They go down under massed fire easily. The khorne named thirster is weaker than a normal thirster as hes far slower and buffs your army as well.

Bloodcrushers - shoot them and get the charge. If they charge you, your likely to lose quite a bit

Fiends - shoot them

Seekers/Screamers/Flamers/pretty much anything thats not the above or a troop - shoot/assault them

Daemonettes - shoot them, avoid CC if you can (they get 4 attacks each on the charge with rending)

Bloodletters - shoot them, get the charge. If you have FC you will win. If you don't, your going to lose a hefty amount of stuff

Plaguebearers - shoot them/assault them and prey... they're tough to take down

Horrors - assault them, they suck in CC

 

Thats not every unit in the dex, but a fare share. Honestly if you kill the big nastys you'll win the day. Land raiders are daemons worst enemies (only Bloodthirsters and Soulgrinders can reliably pop them), and mech in general they have a rough time with. Fatecrusher builds, however, are ALWAYS hard to beat. An army of rerollable saves is always painful to face!

 

Said like someone who's never played a decent daemon player. If tooled correctly they are actually quite difficult to beat with BA's whos have many combat specialists that we pay high points for but cant beat many daemon units in CC. The biggest problem for most armies are fate crusher lists so I'll stick with them. Also a simple shoot this, assault this really doesnt help anyone but the most basic of player on the forum.

 

An easy breakdown of each daemon and how to deal with em as BA is as follows:

Bloodthirster - shoot it. DO NOT get into assault, it will kill whatever you have easily. Wow huge insight if you have TH//SS termies you can CC it and you'll win

Deamon princes - Shoot the khorne/nurgle ones as they own in CC, assault tzeentch/slaneesh as they're a bit weaker. If they do not buy ironhide focus these down first as they will easily drop. if they have iron hide a fate weaver they will not go down to small arms fire you will need high ap fire, if they have wings you may not get too many turns to be able to shoot them. They are all relatively good in CC the mark actually makes little difference slightly tougher one more attack one more str they will kill anything that isnt a dedicated assault unit.

Fateweaver - Shoot him, assault him, and prey your foe has some bad rolls... Praying for opponents bad luck isnt a tactic. he requires you on average to wound him 27 yes 27 f'ing imes to bring the bastard down! if the rest of his army is slow shoot him as he has to stay with them in order to recieve support and support them, if hes running fiends and princes you are better off trying to kill some of them before they reach you as even if you kill fateweaver its likely all you will have killed by the time they've hit your lines, even if you are mech BA's you can get cornered and locked if they know how to manouver properly.

The named nurgle and khorne guy - shoot these. They go down under massed fire easily. The khorne named thirster is weaker than a normal thirster as hes far slower and buffs your army as well. he is no weaker at all. he does buff your army but is generally used with fiends so that he strikes first with rerolls killing many more of your units so it doesnt matter so much if you have prefered enemy. If he isnt running high Int uits hes an idiot and well you should have an easy run. If he is running high int units he isnt a complete pushover

Bloodcrushers - shoot them and get the charge. If they charge you, your likely to lose quite a bit, even if charging be carefull with what u hit them with as they can be a pain with wound allocation and they might loose less in your initial strike than you think.

Fiends - shoot them. I feel safer already. You can also give them a nice furioso to deal with even with rending it is practically imperveous to them and will slowly eat away at the buggers

Seekers/Screamers/Flamers/pretty much anything thats not the above or a troop - shoot/assault them. You may want to CC these guys if you get the chance unless you are sure your shooting will wipe them out as even 1 when it gets close can cause huge dmg.

Daemonettes - shoot them, avoid CC if you can (they get 4 attacks each on the charge with rending) Again insert dread here. And thank the lord the werent smart enough to just take more fiends. Or they were being nice ;)

Bloodletters - shoot them, get the charge. If you have FC you will win. If you don't, your going to lose a hefty amount of stuff true true, again a dread is magic here also they have no assault grenades so rapid fire if you in cover even if you have fc available

Plaguebearers - shoot them/assault them and prey... they're tough to take down if you can spare the low ap weapons to shoot or cc these guys do so. it drastically decreases their amazing survivability and also helps you win combat by more making them take more fearless saves.

Horrors - assault them, they suck in CC, if you are mech and have an armoured wall just dont worry about them as they unless with a bolt cant hurt you.

 

A few additions to this very black and white way of looking at deamons.

 

Regards

 

Crynn

 

Going off playing daemons for almost a year, its what I suggest and has worked when I face daemons myself. Sure, no win is 100% guarenteed, but daemons are not THAT difficult if you play correctly. And yes, theres an answer for every problem; dreadnaughts pretty well destroy daemon troops choices in CC, yes, TH/SS termis will kill something like a thirster in 1 round with decent rolls. But as you said, any GOOD daemon player will have an answer to any of these anyway. I gave general advice for general games; I could have gotten really in depth and said "well against this list, do this" ad nauseum. But honestly unless you play an army many times, or play as them many times, you won't have a good grip on how to deal with it no matter how much advice anyone gives you.

[bushman101]

Actualy DoA only lets you reroll failed reserve rolls.

 

blarg.....time to re-read the codex

 

...put the rear armor of your vehicles close to the table edge so the Demons don't get access to it.

 

not sure about this one. Maybe if you are facing shooty daemons, against a mostly CC army armor facing does not matter as in CC you always hit the rear armor.

 

I was up against some shooty demons, Pink Horrors sporting Icons of Tzeench