Daemons at 750 points

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

Hey, I have a tournament coming up next month and the points limit is 750 points (per player for a doubles tournament) I've never really built small daemon lists and was wondering if anyone had some tips for small sized armies. The tournament has a few restrictions, I can choose any number of Patrol, Vanguard, Spearhead, Outrider or Fortification detachments. Also, no FW units. 

 

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Thanks.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

What flavour would you like? We have magic, disease, blood or excess.

 

I'm a great fan of excess, so of course I am going to advise you to flood the board with Daemonettes and Hellflayers. 

[WarriorFish]

More info would definitely help yes, as many Daemon players have a particular colour ;) For 750pts I will add that numbers is usually key, so a good amount of models/units will be a good start :tu:

[Panzer]

I think I'd go with something like a Slaanesh Outrider Detachment with a DP, 2x20 Daemonettes and 3x Hellflayer or so. Lots of bodies, speed, psi and the DP can hit hard enough. But then again I've basically zero practical experience with a pure Daemon army and feel kinda uncomfortable without a Herald for +1S ... small point lists will always be rather restricted I guess.

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

I have in my daemon collection:

 

Slaanesh: 35 daemonettes, 15 Seekers, Daemon Prince w/wings, KoS

Nurgle: 50 Plaguebearers, Poxbringer, Spoilpox, 6 Plague Drones, Daemon Prince w/wings, GUO

Tzeentch: 45 Horrors, 9 screamers, 6 flamers, Daemon Prince w/wings, Burning Chariot, 3 Fluxmasters

Khorne: 40 Bloodletters, 6 Bloodcrushers, Daemon Prince, Daemon Prince w/wings, Bloodmaster

 

I could possibly get a Bel'akor model if a friend still has it for sale.

 

Thanks

[DeStinyFiSh]

Who will you team up with?

 

I would maybe go for a Khorne Patrol for 30 man Bloodletter Bomb including instrument, icon and a Bloodmaster plus Nurgle Battalion with Poxbringer, Spoilpox, 2x3 Nurglings and 25 Plaguebearers with instrument and icon.

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

I'll be pairing up with an Eldar player. *hangs head in shame*   It's being held in another city so a few of us will be travelling. And there are no restriction on allies so hence teaming up with Eldar rather than just making two armies from the same book.

 

I was thinking of the Khorne daemon bomb. It was my standout unit at another tournament I was at last month. And no Battalions allowed, so I'll be very short on command points. Which puts me in two minds as to take the Khorne bomb or not as it soaks all my command points. I'd have to run another detachment to enable the Bloodmaster to deepstrike in. 

 

Thanks

[WarriorFish]

For shame! I suppose you can always eat their souls afterwards Looks like you've quite the collection of Daemons so don't forget some pictures of the game

 

It's probably best to keep things simple at 750pts, so it may be the Khorne route is simpler. Chances are your puny ally will be doing shooting and the like so concentrating on choppy should be an easy fit, and Khorne will be less squishy? Without Battalions it's probably best to focus less on troops, but I'm not sure how feasible it is because as far as I've known a solid Troop core is essential for numbers. Unfortunately I know less still about Khorne so can't help much there, but I'm sure you can fit a Daemon Prince with wings in to 750pts

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

I'm thinking of a Khorne/Nurgle combination. Nurglings (which I forgot to add in my list of units that I have) for anti deepstrike units, plaguebearers backed up by a poxbringer and a spoilpox and some bloodletters supported by a herald (maybe take one of the bloodcrushers and promote him to mounted herald status) and a Khorne or Nurgle DP and let my ally take care of shooting and psychic shenanigans. 

 

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

Well, that got pricey quick.

 

Bloodmaster as Warlord, 30 Bloodletters with Icon and Instrument, 30 Plaguebearers with Icon and Instrument, 5 Nurglings and a Spoilpox. 15 points left over. Too many daemons in the PB and BL units?

 

Thanks

[Panzer]

I don't think I'd go with a split list at 750p. Focus on one god and go all out there.

[DeStinyFiSh]

Why no split? Loci wont be that important most of the time...

 

But another idea I had: How about throwing in 3 Princes and a few Nurglings? Drop the Nurglings in front of the opponent and he wont be able to shoot your hard hitting Princes.

The the most fun to play I guess but might be worth it on tournament level.

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

3 DP sounds fun. I'm going to discuss army lists with my doubles partner today so will see what he thinks.

 

Thanks

[N1SB]

3 Princes and a few Nurglings

 

I use 2 Daemon Princes and 3 units of Nurglings, some some big guns from Renegades & Heretics.  In your special situation, I reckon your doubles partner will bring even better big guns.  I'm in agreement with Brother Destiny Fish.

 

If I wanted to be tournament ready, I too would likely spam Daemon Princes and Nurglings.  This is especially true with some of the Chapter Approved Missions, where in some of them you score Victory Points every turn you're on an Objective rather than at the end, thus favouring Infiltrators.

 

Good luck in your tournament, Brother!

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

For 750 exactly, I can get 3 Princes (Tzeentch, Khorne and Nurgle) and a total of 13 nurgling bases. (4,4 & 5) Going to test the list out soon. 

 

Thanks for the comments. 

[N1SB]

Thanks, Brother Ryld.  Just 1 additional useful insight, from having used my Death Guard list vs. a Chaos Daemons list recently.

 

Disclaimer - I noticed you listed your miniatures collection, so you probably have your Daemon Princes already painted, and you're probably staying very true to WYSIWYG.  That's what I'd do too, it's the honourable thing to do.  But I should mention this in case you don't already use it, while you're still testing the list.

 

Obviously, there's overlap between the Death Guard and Chaos Daemons codices, so I noted minor yet significant differences, and here's one such.

 

The Death Guard have a Warlord Trait and Relic combination that's particularly powerful.  The Warlord Trait is Revoltingly Resilient, which buffs a Nurgle Daemon Prince's "feel no pain" save from 5+ to 4+.  The Relic is the Suppurating Plate, known in my meta as "the 2+ armour that literally gives cancer" (not making light of cancer, that's just this meme-like name people gave it), which not only buffs the armour save from 3+ to 2+, but also has a 4+ change of dealing mortal wounds in melee when a save...any save...is made (so that can be the actual armour save or against power AP weapons the invuln save, THEN the "feel no pain" save).  This combination dramatically increases a Daemon Prince's resilience as well as deadliness.

 

3 Daemon Princes + 3 Nurglings is basically a Battalion Detachment that qualifies as either Death Guard or Chaos Daemons codices, so this combination may be available to you.  Just letting you know rather than being in a "why didn't anyone tell me about this" situation, especially with the stake of a tournament in mind.

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

Ok, thanks man. I have the DG book, but TBH, haven't looked at it much due to the focus on Daemons. I'll have a read tonight and see if I can make use of it.

 

And a question I have is if I take a DG detachment for said DP and Nurglings, do I still get all the strategems etc for taking the other two detachments from Codex Daemons? And also, by WYSIWYG, you are asking if my DP has armour?

 

Cheers

[N1SB]

Hi Brother Ryld, by WYSIWYG, I just meant the colour scheme you already painted up the Daemon Princes in, because each of the Marks of Chaos is usually associated with a specific colour (i.e. red Daemon Princes are Khorne), although it's never stated explicitly.  That's all I had meant...and it might not even matter here.

 

I mention that only because there are a number of trade-offs in terms of Warlord Traits, Relics, Command Points, and even Chaos Daemons Loci depending on how you "structure the deal" of the Detachments, even if you're taking the exact same units.  And I'm not sure if your tournament only allows 1 Detachment, etc.

 

But let's say if you take a DG Detachment for said DP and Nurglings, then structure a separate Detachment for Codex Chaos Daemons, assuming you did so in a way that everything is Battle-Forged (should be no problem), yes, you get all the Stratagems for Death Guard AND all the Stratagems for Chaos Daemons.  This is noteworthy because usually a faction's Stratagems will say they only work for their faction's units (i.e. Death Guard Stratagems mostly only work for Death Guard Infantry, but Nurglings are Nurgle Swarms, so doesn't affect them.)  Chaos Daemons Stratagems are noteworthy because they only say they work for Daemons of a Mark, not necessary from their own Codex (so they can apply to Nurglings in a Death Guard Detachment or Horrors from a Thousand Sons Detachment, etc.)

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

Oh right, I get what you mean now.

 

Here is a pic of my Nurgle DP. Beside him is a pusscannon (I really don't like the skull cannon model)

 

 

Looking forward to testing the trait and relic combo out soon. 

[N1SB]

Brother that is a freaking awesome conversion! I might have to adopt your idea, here's my Daemon Prince(ss) with the 2+ armour of cancer:

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

Awesome mate, that is a well painted scourge. 

[Bzzark]

 

 

Disgustingly resilient is not a saving throw, its the ability to ignore wounds, so cannot be used with the suppurating plate special rule.

If disgustingly resilient was a saving throw you would not be able to use it in conjunction with either an armour save or daemon save, as only one save can be attempted per wound.

[Brother Chaplain Ryld]

That is a valid point. It's still a good combo though.

[Bzzark]

I agree, the armour can be soul destroying for the opposition, watching their own units die to their own attacks, especially at a low point value game.

I always take the armour but use the arch-contaminator trait, i tend to run drones and plague burst crawlers, and rerolling all failed wound rolls on plague weapons is too good not to use, and now with the new faq the DP can take a plague spewer and finally benefit from his own trait.

 

BC Ryld your Daemon Prince looks really good

[N1SB]

Sorry about my mistake and thanks for pointing it out, I'm going to have to clarify this with my meta.  Somehow we got the impression that's how the Relic rule works.