I just played my updated Daemonkin army

[Prot]

So I was looking for something different to play. I tried my updated Daemonkin... man that was a super fun army back in the day

 

Anyway the list was mostly classic Khorne with Skarbrand and another bloodthirtster as the HQs. Had a couple of hounds, skull cannons etc. And I took a second Battalion of Black Legion Khorne marked. A master of possession for incursion (summoning) and a pair of Disco Lords with Cultists and enough points for a Venomcrwaler.

 

I played against GSC, and what a rude awakening.... I was nearly tabled in 2 turns. Just utterly dominated in every phase of the game. I wasn’t surprised, but what did surprise me was how utterly dated and horrible Skarbrand and the other Bloodthirster was. I also forgot the Bloodletters on,y have one attack base unless their furious charge kicks in.

 

I got the bike drive by pulled on me twice. That enoug to drop a knight so my Bloodthirster couldn’t hold with warp surge in play.

 

I couldn’t block all the Psykery so Skarbrand was ‘hypnotized ‘ and then the muscle beach squad got one extra attack and strength from the other Psyker. Then of course Skarbrand gave them another attack... they easily annihilated him.

 

I gotta say it was super rough. My opponent was good about it, but even the mortars were just pounding my board control on so many T3 units.

 

I think if I were doing this again I’d just take Daemon princes But I have my Bloodthirsters fully painted and really wanted to pull them out again. Wow what an eye opener. They are so overcosted and non survivable it kind of took me off Guard.

 

Man if you guys play Khorne Daemons in a competitive meta, you have my respect!

[Azekai]

Sorry to hear that Prot. If you want to still use your gribblies, I would encourage you to play smaller games. 2k in 8th is trash for balance. Anything and everything dies very quickly and shooting is god. If you play smaller games it forces your opponents to make hard decisions, and if key units miss, they don't have the inbuilt redundancy/weight of fire to kill large multiwound models easily.

Sure, a 'thirster is going to be a bigger investment in a smaller game, but you certainly get more bang for your buck.

[Prot]

Sorry to hear that Prot. If you want to still use your gribblies, I would encourage you to play smaller games. 2k in 8th is trash for balance. Anything and everything dies very quickly and shooting is god. If you play smaller games it forces your opponents to make hard decisions, and if key units miss, they don't have the inbuilt redundancy/weight of fire to kill large multiwound models easily.

 

Sure, a 'thirster is going to be a bigger investment in a smaller game, but you certainly get more bang for your buck.

 

Thanks for the advice, but to be honest I play about 2 games a week at 2K. Fairly competitive stuff, and I do enjoy it, and the 2 main groups I play in do not really play under 2K so it's not a realistic option for me.

 

Thanks though. But how this went pretty much lets me know this is a real grind right now as Khorne Daemons (fairly pure).

[Hannibal]

So I was looking for something different to play. I tried my updated Daemonkin... man that was a super fun army back in the day

[...]

I think if I were doing this again I’d just take Daemon princes.

 

Well, first of all, thanks for sharing your experiences!

 

I do not think that 8th edition CSM can be played with 7th edition models to be honest. Rend is the name of the game right now and outdated models do not offer high enough rend as well as high damage characteristics. IMO you need damage2 and above weapons to compete. Single wound infantry dies in droves, leave them at home if you like to run anything that survives 2 rounds of combat. That´s just my experience...

 

If I look at top lists written for tournaments, I look at you, GSC, and you, Drukhari, and I immediately do not know how to beat them with my CSM lists. It´s sad days for CSM right now.

 

Right now I´m toying with Nurgle DAemonkin, though they offer more buffs / synergies than Khorne daemonkin, therefore there is no real comparison here.

 

Some ideas:

- If you want your Thirsters to survive, give the oppoent some distraction carnifexes which can easily be the new shiny toy called Lord Discordant.

- I like to play 2-3 Obliterators with a Terminator Lord nearby (most often in deepstrike reserve). They offer some really good shooting and are no slouches in cambat too.

- a unit or two of 6 Bikes, 2 melta guns, champ with either combi melta or combi bolter, followed by a Daemon Prince is also a pretty good tagteam.

- I do not think that Khorne offers lots of good stratagems, therefore I´m not sure you should invest in Battalion Detachments at all costs.

 

 

Sorry to hear that Prot. If you want to still use your gribblies, I would encourage you to play smaller games. 2k in 8th is trash for balance. Anything and everything dies very quickly and shooting is god. If you play smaller games it forces your opponents to make hard decisions, and if key units miss, they don't have the inbuilt redundancy/weight of fire to kill large multiwound models easily.

 

Sure, a 'thirster is going to be a bigger investment in a smaller game, but you certainly get more bang for your buck.

 

I have to agree here, though in smaller games (I regularly play 1k to 1250 points games, often 2 vs 2) spamming becomes an even bigger problem. If I field 2x 30 Plaguebearers (470 points fully equipped), each and everyone would stop playing against me. I can see almost no chance beating such a list (2 Daemon Princes, Scrivener, 2x 30 Plaguebearers, 3 Nurglings). You need excessive first turn DAKKA to beat it, the list forces the opponent to bring the right weaponry or just loose. And that specialized weaponry is pretty hosed if the next foe brings a mechanized list full of T7 / T8.

 

There should always be a gentlemen´s agreement of NO SPAMMING. Otherwise you bring the balancing problems up to 11. No matter what game size.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Hannibal

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

Having put my Templars on the back shelf for a bit, I've been playing pure Khorne Daemons for about 3 months now. Every shooting army I've faced has torn me apart and left me limping through combats by round 3, barely able to hold my forces together. To make matters worse, there is a pure Nurgle Daemons player that does fairly well, and a pure Slaanesh Daemons player that does alright but whom I can't beat because of how hard their rules work to counter mine. The only army I've had fun facing is Orks.

 

Here's what I've found in my observations.

 

We have no sticky units to put on the board. Everything we can field is squishy, with universally good AP but middling damage. We're slow, CP starved, and have absolutely no defense to speak of. Bloodthirsters melt to any sort of concentrated fire, bloodletters can't get into melee without deep striking, and the couple of really good combos we do have will make people wine and complain even after we've spent the entire damn fight getting shot off the table. I had a Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage use the Crimson Crown to kill 20 grots, then consolidate into a 30 boy squad and fight again to kill 24 of those in 1 turn. It was glorious, but moments like that are super rare and cost tons of CP.

 

The final setup I've settled on for most of my fights now is as follows:

 

 

Battalion 1: 

Bloodmaster

Skullmaster (warlord with Rage Incarnate)

3x10 Bloodletters with no upgrades

5 Bloodcrushers with full upgrades.

 

 

Battalion 2:

Daemon Prince with relic axe

Daemon Prince with twin claws and relic crown

Skulltaker

3x20 bloodletters with all upgrades

 

 

Outrider 1:

Karanak

4x5 fleshhound packs

 

 

Bloodcrushers and Fleshhounds are the 2 stickiest units we have to drop on the table. They'll die, but if they get a turn to move they're also the fastest things we have, and their primary purpose is to make it across the field and charge into things to kill overwatch, or cling to objectives. The 3 squads of 10 bloodletters are a CP battery and another set of boddys to throw on objectives and catch bullets with their faces.

 

The punch of the army comes from the 3 squads of 20, the Daemon Princes, and the Skullmaster. Rushing the leaders into position to give reroll auras to the Bloodletters is their primary goal, followed up by the secondary goal of hopping screens and punching enemy characters in the head. With the Bloodletter squads kept down to 20, it's only 2CP a piece to deep striek them and give them all banners of blood. Assuming you use 1 CP for the 2 relics, that means you've got 7 CP left to play with. That's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but that's 2 fight twice strats and a CP reroll, or 1 fight twice and a couple rounds of 4+ invulns. That's pretty much all you'll ever bother to do with them, but those actions can make or break a game. There will be very little wiggle room, and you'll probably have to win through points like I tend to.

 

Alternative lists are ALL OF THE BLOODLETTERS and some heralds for +1 str, then Skarbrand to deepstrike in the big middle for morale immunity and extra attack, but that's going for one big play where you wipe three quarters of the board in a single turn.

[Aothaine]

 

Alternative lists are ALL OF THE BLOODLETTERS and some heralds for +1 str, then Skarbrand to deepstrike in the big middle for morale immunity and extra attack, but that's going for one big play where you wipe three quarters of the board in a single turn.

 

Great advice here Marshal Valkenhayn! I've been debating for almost two years if I should start a Khorne Daemons army. Really cool thing about them is that the models are the same in 40k and fantasy. So I'd be building two armies for the cost of one. Pretty sweet deal imho. 

 

I've toyed with and proxied some lists in play testing I've done with my board at home a year ago and found it very difficult to find consistency with Khorne Daemons.  However, part of me still wants to... <insert Mr. Burns "Release the Hounds" meme here>

 

 

I've love Karanak even when he had his old model. The new one... is just simply breath taking. My Oblivion Hunters, linked below, actually blend in with Khornate Daemons and I think that is a more reliable way to get the blood letters and princes into combat. I'm running three full chaos bikers squads that rush up the board and pretty much charge everything to tie it up. I run them under Renegade so they can hopefully get their charge off first turn. Move, Advance, Charge. They are thick enough with T5 and 2W to survive until T2 where the 2-3 Daemon Princes with relic weapons drop in to mop up the big stuff. I still think this is a really solid list. Sadly I'm still working on it, but even more worried that I'm going to finish this force and have some of it's core just simply removed from the game.

 

Still, I plan on building it in the next year or two. Waiting for CA2019 before I really decide. Most likely moving and getting a new job in Feb 2020 so even if I decide early I'll need to wait a bit. But this is one of the armies I really want to build. I just don't think mono-dex khorne daemons can pull it off right now. There is some serious firepower out there with the new marine dexes and if you want to be competitive with them you have to prepare for them.

 

Anyway, again, great advice here Marshal Valkenhayn!

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Prot, I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad match up. I started KDK halfway through 7th and had a blast playing them. I had hoped that this new edition would allow me the ability to play all the different units I wanted to in 7th KDK but couldn't because of restrictions. It's sad to know in the current state of Chaos it really doesn't matter.

 

I was playing around on battlescribe today trying to see if a list with WBs and Daemons would turn out decently. Do you think a more chaos undivided Daemonkin force would have done more for you than going mono-Khorne?

[Hannibal]

I was playing around on battlescribe today trying to see if a list with WBs and Daemons would turn out decently. Do you think a more chaos undivided Daemonkin force would have done more for you than going mono-Khorne?

 

It definetely would. Plaguebearers are still the most defensive units in all of Chaos, Pink Horrors and Bloodletters are really good the turn they arrive by deepstrike. And then there are a lot of good CSM units too, like Havocs or Bikes.