Daemons.... a shift in the GK paradigm (?)

[Gentlemanloser]

Indeed.

 

I used ot fear them in thier last incarnation (esecially escorting Skulltaker).

 

Now?

 

Laughable.

 

Pathetic.  T4, 5++ Save. (lol 6+ Armour save, oh how you have fallen...)

 

Thier 3W don't redeem them, when they cost *more* than a Terminator, and are torrented by Bolters...

 

 

We already know that some units will never take the board considering how bad they are.

 

And this is the design some prerfer.  Over a Codex were every unit is a desirable choice to take.

 

Here's an example of a 'balanced' unit from the 'dex.

 

Nurgle Soulgrinder (150 Points)

 

AV13 (Front/Side), HP4.

 

Difficult vehicle to take down, right.

 

He also has;

 

5++ Save.  And ignores Shaken/Stunned on 2+.

 

But.  Stick him behind an ADL for a 2+ Cover Save.  And really, he cares little for Bale Flamers/Incinerators that cannot hurt his AV13.

 

2++ Save, AV13, 4HP.

 

Balanced?

 

But there's more!!

 

He has S7, 3 shot Skyfire (the stuff Dark Angles pay thorugh the nose for) for free.

 

And can purchase a S10/AP1 weapon, or a S8, AP3, Ordanance Large Blast.

 

Why not take 3!!!  All the time!  In *every* list!!!

 

Balanced.  Yeah.

[Aethernitas]

I'm on the pro daemon side here too. I studied the Daemon codex for the last 3 days and DAMN is it fluffy! There are so so many different path to go when writing a daemon list that I doubt anyone can say anything definite about the new meta or the versatility of the new dex.

I love that they represent 'little' things like the rivalry between the chaos gods ruleswise. The many random elements I don't really dig but for Orcs and Chaos I kinda accept them as part of their nature. They also give you some tools to compensate the worse results of the random tables by using rerolls.

 

All of the chaos gods seem to have the potential to field quite nasty lists but I'm especially wary of Slaanesh and Tzeentch. Slaanesh is easily one of the if not THE fastest list in 40k (only DE can compete) and Tzeentch can field a metric :cusston of psykers, brotherhoods of sorcerers and other warp-shenanigans that I'm not sure even our aegis and other anti-psy equip can stand up to that :D

[Captain Idaho]

Juggernaughts are pretty fast and aren't that easy to kill considering you will have other things to worry about in a list. How many bolter shots are needed to kill 1 Juggernaught? Around 15? And just how many will you able to bring to bear before a 2nd turn charge?

 

40K pessimism is built on math hammer, which in turn is reliant on ignoring variables that aren't quantified by the math and vacuums.

[Morollan]

Juggernaughts are pretty fast and aren't that easy to kill considering you will have other things to worry about in a list. How many bolter shots are needed to kill 1 Juggernaught? Around 15? And just how many will you able to bring to bear before a 2nd turn charge?

 

40K pessimism is built on math hammer, which in turn is reliant on ignoring variables that aren't quantified by the math and vacuums.

 

More to the point though, without EW, how many Krak Missile shots does it take to kill 1 Bloodcrusher? At 45 points/model who in their right mind is going to take something that will never benefit from having 3 wounds as it will be ID's every single time.

[Gentlemanloser]

1 Bolter Shot = 0.667 Hit, 0.334 Wound, 0.223 inflicted after Save.

 

14 Bolter Shots to kill a Bloodcrusher.

 

Can get a Bolter Marines for 15 points now, so 3 Marines to a Bloodcrusher. At rapid Fire Range, that's 2.3 rounds of shooting required.

 

Oh but they suffer the same 'weakness' as the maligned Paladin, and are IDed to a single Krak Missile wound.

 

Now EW for them any more.

 

Edit: Zing! Ninja'd on the Krak Missile! :P

[Inquisitor Fox]

Remember boys and girls, Target Priority.

 

Charge them with a Bloodthirster with wings, two units of Blood Crushers, and a horde or two of Bloodletters and maybe a unit of blood puppies, all at the same time.
 

Which one are you gonna shoot, me boyo?

[Gentlemanloser]

Shoot the Crushers with Kraks+. Melee the Thirster with syk-outs and Force Weapons.

Easy.

Tie up the 'letters with Terminators or NDKs.

[Aethernitas]

Remember boys and girls, Target Priority.

 

Charge them with a Bloodthirster with wings, two units of Blood Crushers, and a horde or two of Bloodletters and maybe a unit of blood puppies, all at the same time.

 

Which one are you gonna shoot, me boyo?

 

Or you know... charge them with Seekers 1st turn and stomp them with Khorne the next turn :D

 

Why even bother pitting unit against unit in a vacuum (that will never reflect an actual game) with a codex a few days old? I would be much more interested about actual battle reports against the new daemons. My first game gainst them will be on Sunday. Let's see how it goes =)

 

[thade]

Yep. In a vacuum things are nice and clean. But given a poor round of shooting, or a single failed charge, or any other vagary of fate, your tactical decisions need to change on the fly....and all of that completely eschews what are otherwise fundamental details, like intervening terrain and barriers, the state of your transports, relative positioning, and, you know, other things that are completely eschewed by vacuum analysis.

 

If Demons are going the way of guard blobs, that could be a great deal of fun on both sides of the table. It's a rare treat that I get to engage a guard blob with my marines; so many legs it borders on ridiculous, but I have to charge them because the volume of shots I'll soak otherwise is a surreal descent into madness. Just gotta get there. Is my Land Raider still mobile? I bet this codex will prove interesting.

[Captain Idaho]

GK probably have the best counter to Bloodcrushers (fitting I suppose) but just how many Krak missiles do people think other armies are sporting? It goes back to the vacuum thing again; being bombarded by those Khorne Cannons or Soul Grinders, and with a Bloodthirster bearing down on you along with hordes of cheaper Daemons, can you always just say "Krak missiles to the rescue!" and remove Blood Crushers? I wish I had that much firepower in my Ultramarines!

[thade]

Seriously, the last game my ML devs were in, their krak missiles killed precisely ZERO marines. Sometimes it's just not their game. (I was told to buy new dice. I refuse.)

[Morollan]

GK probably have the best counter to Bloodcrushers (fitting I suppose) but just how many Krak missiles do people think other armies are sporting? It goes back to the vacuum thing again; being bombarded by those Khorne Cannons or Soul Grinders, and with a Bloodthirster bearing down on you along with hordes of cheaper Daemons, can you always just say "Krak missiles to the rescue!" and remove Blood Crushers? I wish I had that much firepower in my Ultramarines!

 

I'd be extremely surprised not to see a unit of Devs in most SM armies, and of course there's always the old faithful Long Fang spam. True, many are choosing lascannons these days but they have the same effect on Bloodcrushers.

[Inquisitor Fox]

Honestly, I don't think Daemon players need to be as worried as it seems.  Some may decry me as a "filthy Grey Knight player" but many remember I played Witch Hunters/Sisters with an emphasis on the Inquisition, and the four Grey Knight units I own are all old pewters ;)  I saw my perfectly legit very happy army turn into two half armies neither of which was legal, then get shafted again with a PDF Codex.

 

Life goes on.  Pick your army based on fluff and being drawn to it's style.  Then if you just play, the army will flow naturally for you.

 

Daemons are different now, but are they really?  They still rely on Invulnerable saves instead of Armor Saves.  They still appear by deep strike then break your face.  They still don't have a lot of shooting.  They still have a lot of ugly things, then some slightly faster ugly things, then a few really big ugly things.  They now have a table of randomosity that is favored towards injuring the non-daemon opponent more than the daemon player.  They got new fast units and long range units to help break your face.

 

So in all honesty, has the fundamental style of the army really changed?  It's no worse than an edition or rules change making a few tactics not work as well, but other tactics work better.  For that matter you can screen units with a few really fast cavalry units to give the advancing daemon horde behind a 4+ cover save... and we're complaining because one unit lost it's actual armor save?  Really?  It's still going to break things in hand to hand, it's fast enough to get there, and with the points savings in other models cost going down you can probably even afford a few more Bloodcrushers.

 

I think when all is said and done a daemon army will still play like a daemon army.  Just embrace what is, make an army that appeals to the player, and run with it.

 

What does it mean for us?  Potentially painful.  Yes, we have preferred enemy (thank goodness), but the daemons now can appear unified, with control.  No more deep strike auto-win random deployment.  They are larger in number due to reduced points cost and could be outnumbering us 2:1 or 3:1 depending upon the list.  We have wargear to help, but I think given the tools at the daemons player disposal they can utilize target priority decisions and terrain to give us some tough calls.  We end up with what, 5 or 6 real "tactical units" in an army list since everything costs 200 to 300 points really?  The only thing we have as a general rule that can insta-gib their units at range is a Psyflemen.  So that's what, 2 or 3 models tops per shooting phase per psyflemen?  And we get one, maybe two phases before hand to hand?  Their invulnerable save counters our powerweapon, yes we can potentially force weapon a greater daemon should we get lucky, but really...

 

I think things aren't as bleak as they appear for the daemon players.  Granted time will tell and there's a lot of knee jerk reactions going on.  Personally I look forward to daemonic hordes of foot soldiers backed by really neat looking models.  It'll be fun :)

[Gentlemanloser]

Yes. the style has changed fundamentally.

 

One of my main opponents for years were Chaos Daemons.  IIRC, Crushers had an Armour Save.  They didn't rely on thier Invulnerable (which we ignored anyway).

 

It was a lottery.  The good Dameon player DSed agressively, didn't scatter and got his preferred half in.  That was durable Nurgle DPs, and Crushers.  They lived, to allow the other units to come in exactly where needed, off of thier icons, and by turn 3, your marines were dead to Power Weailding 'letters, while the Skulltaker on a Jugger, surrounded by nigh invulnerable Crushers ate any ICs you had.  Your transports had been popped, and Flamers roasted entire Squads as the Deep Struck.

 

You had a turn to shoot, more or less, then it was game over.  (Unless the rolls went bad, and you might just as well pack up, and start the match again...)

 

Now, they have no transports, and run at you.  LoL.  Servo Skulls keep them pinned in their DZ.  Their durability has been neutered, and they no longer bypass *every* Psychic defense in the game, which is massive.  The loss of EW makes thier MCs more vulnerable than 'nids (who at least have SofW to mess with Force Weapons), and we know how vulnerable they are.  All these are *significant* nerfs.

 

Oh and Flamers are worthless now.  Good.  Broken pieces of :cuss.

 

As for ML, of course they're still in use.  If only for Flakk.  But it's not just ML.  Metla's and Lascannons do the same. 

 

And what Fliers do they have?

[Morollan]

I think it's fair to say that Grey Knights have been returned to their role of Daemon Hunters with the new Daemon codex. I don't have a problem with that fluffwise but it's pretty crappy from a design perspective. No army should have a 'nemesis' that they essentially cannot beat. It makes for very poor gameplay.

[Gentlemanloser]

But again, we're not really anti Daemon by design.

 

All we have is PE and Daemonbane.

 

Everyone seems to get access to PE (sometimes global as well) now days, and Dameonbane is surpassed by Instability.

 

No one uses Dark Excommunication or the Psilencer, real anti-daemon stuff.  And they still won't.

[Morollan]

But again, we're not really anti Daemon by design.

 

All we have is PE and Daemonbane.

 

Everyone seems to get access to PE (sometimes global as well) now days, and Dameonbane is surpassed by Instability.

 

No one uses Dark Excommunication or the Psilencer, real anti-daemon stuff.  And they still won't.

 

You're forgetting that an entire army of force weapons is pretty nifty against daemons now with the loss of EW. Especially as many of them want/need to assault you and have no grenades. And "only" having PE and Daemonbane is still more specific anti-daemon than most (any) other codex gets. I don't have my codex with me so not sure how daemonbane interacts with instability.

[Gentlemanloser]

Pretty nifty versus 'nids as well, but we're not Xeno's Hunters. ;)

 

A lot of folk have access to PE now, like Dark Angels and PE: Chaos Marines.  Chaos Daemons also get PE (IIRC) to opposed Gods Daemons as well.  PE seems to have been handed out as a generic buff to most people.  Blood Angels versus Abbadon.  Destroyer Lords versus Everyone (And Logan), etc.

 

Especially as PE only needs a single mini in the unit to have it.  So you could attach Logan to a 50 man Guard Blob, and they could all have PE: Daemons. ;)

[Morollan]

Yes, there are specific combinations of primary and allied units that can get some of the same benefits that GKs have naturally but other armies having some form of preferred enemy (usually not Daemons) doesn't make them better at hunting daemons and they still don't have daemonbane and force weapons galore.

 

To put it another way, if the fluff is to be represented in the rules and there are to be armies that are designed as a hard counter to other armies then this needs to be done across the whole system, not just in the single case of Chaos Daemons vs Grey Knights. Why aren't Eldar similarly equipped to neuter Necrons (or vice versa depending on your view of the outcome of the War in Heaven)?

[Gentlemanloser]

Thing is, we're not really designed to neuter Daemons.

We neuter armies designed to;

Deep Strike

Non EW Multi wound units

Psykers

There's a lot of armies that fit that bill. Space Marines, 'Nids, Necrons, etc.

Daemons just fit the bill for all three.

Edit: And more 'hard counters' would suck. There's enough Rock - Paper - Scissors in 40k as it is.

[Morollan]

Thing is, we're not really designed to neuter Daemons.

We neuter armies designed to;

Deep Strike

Non EW Multi wound units

Psykers

There's a lot of armies that fit that bill. Space Marines, 'Nids, Necrons, etc.

Daemons just fit the bill for all three.

Edit: And more 'hard counters' would suck. There's enough Rock - Paper - Scissors in 40k as it is.

I don't think 'more' hard counters would suck. I think 'any' hard counters suck. Which is why I don't like GKs having an autowin against Daemons*

*This may be a slight exaggeration

[Aethernitas]

Thing is, we're not really designed to neuter Daemons.

We neuter armies designed to;

Deep Strike

Non EW Multi wound units

Psykers

There's a lot of armies that fit that bill. Space Marines, 'Nids, Necrons, etc.

Daemons just fit the bill for all three.

Edit: And more 'hard counters' would suck. There's enough Rock - Paper - Scissors in 40k as it is.

Have you actually played a game in 6th edition yet, GL?

Sure the new daemons dex contains facettes of all those three aspects but to say we NEUTER those aspects is totally over-the-top. Let's take a closer look:

deep strike - daemons nowadays don't have any more potential deep strikers than other armys as you still can only deepstrike half of them and therefore our "anti deep strike" capabilities aren't especially useful against them. On the other hand they are more flexible in which units they wanna deepstrike AND have a lot of tools to coordinate their deep striking units really well. Imo that makes them less vulnerable to our "anti deep strike" abilities than many other armies.

no EW multi wound units - no army sports any significant amount of EW multi wound units (actually none at all - at least none that come to mind) and 6th edition will get rid of most of the remaining EW units. EW is meant to be something REALLY special. If you pit a Bloodthirster versus 5 Paladins in a vacuum the paladins will probably wipe the floor with the Bloodthirster (especially when getting the charge) but a daemon player that is any good will never ever charge a serious gk cc unit head on with his big guys alone. Most great daemons can wipe the floor with small squads (5 wounds or less) without any perceivable risk of beeing force weaponed to death.

psykers - again - we don't "counter" daemon psykers anymore than any others races psykers. Tzeentch actually laughs in your face if you would try to tell him that WE neuter HIS psykers. Aegis gives -1 to leadership for psychic powers? Well that still makes it a +2 for Tzeentch on any psyker test. The fact that Tzeentch can field potentially more psyker/sorcerer and brotherhood of psykers/sorcerers units and pretty much any Herald, Great Daemon and Daemon Prince has a 4+ deny the witch and even troops sport a 5+ dtw is also not very helpful.

tl:dr: I don't think we counter the new daemons any more than most other armys. Please stop using oocvc "out of context vacuum comparisons".

edit: typos

[Gentlemanloser]

Oh totally agreed.

 

I think the R-P-S design is ruining 40k.

 

One of our guys was gonna pick Daemons back up again.  But there's no point when I will steam roll him every match, while he in turn steam rolls our Nilla player (who won't be able to stop Soulgrinders with 2+ cover saves and Greater Daemons with those statlines).

 

There's just no point.

 

I would be forced to stop playing the army I like, just to give him a decent match.  Why bother.

 

 

Sure the new daemons dex contains facettes of all those three aspects but to say we NEUTER those aspects is totally over-the-top. Let's take a closer look:

 

Exactly...

 

Seriuosly, that's my whole point.

 

We counter *all* Psykers.  We counter *all* non EW multi wound minis (Scarabs, TWC, Nids, etc)

 

And now Daemons DS like *every other army* (without the protection of Pods/Spores/Skulls/Decent of Angels/No Scatter/etc).

 

Edit: Left Icons/TH off that list on purpose. ;)

 

 

 I don't think we counter the new daemons any more than most other armys.

 

That's what I've been saying for the last page.

 

But we will steam roll over them.

[Vesper]

I think it's fair to say that Grey Knights have been returned to their role of Daemon Hunters with the new Daemon codex. I don't have a problem with that fluffwise but it's pretty crappy from a design perspective. No army should have a 'nemesis' that they essentially cannot beat. It makes for very poor gameplay.

Basically, every hobo with a list is a seasoned damon hunter with the new daemon codex.

This game used to be fun.

[Captain Idaho]

This is the opposite of Stuart Little syndrome and a little disconcerting. I don't think GK are that auto win against anyone, though they have some hard counters to Daemons. Have you seen the Codex? The stuff the Greater Daemons can get makes them horrific to face, for example.

 

It's a fallacy they are all random, because there are options to swap out your random gifts for guaranteed weapons which are pretty good. Even the supposed poor Tzeentch powers are actually frightening to be hit with. Warpflame isn't so bad as it nets free kills or an opposing unit gets +1 FNP - not a problem when you consider there won't be many models left to take advantage of it, if any at all.