Anyone about to start 9th with Daemons?

[Hannibal]

Hi everybody,

 

does anyone here plan to start 9th edition with Daemons? What´s your ideas?

 

If not, why?

 

Let´s talk about 9th with Daemons.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Well, I´m going to start 9th with Daemons. Tzeentch of course, because Tzeentch´s holy number is 9. There must be some hidden plans... :D

 

We´ll start a Crusader Campaign and few of the members are really new to the game that´s the main reason why I like to bring Tzeentch Daemons. Nothing NPE here, no tricks, just some nice painted models to learn the rules and have some fun.

[Amon777]

Start no but keep playing yes. Unfortunately, I think we are near the bottom of the heap until we get a new dex.

 

Our points adjustments weren't terrible and equated to around an average 10-13% increase which is good as far as other dexes go.

 

The main problem comes from the new detachment system as loci only work for mono-god. So you have to either go all in on one god, or lose some CP, or give up the loci and be undivided. Further, as most any list needs a lot of HQs you're almost forced to take another detachment and thus lose initial CP.

 

It's not all doom and gloom of course but this is not a forgiving army for sure.

 

I think in terms of gods Slaanesh is looking the strongest with Nurgle (bar the poor unfortunate GUO) next. Tzeentch has some tricks like the near unkillable LoC. They are also fast which is very valuable in snatching objectives. Khorne looks pretty rough at the moment.

Edited July 25, 2020 by Amon777

[TheNewman]

I'm looking at my Daemonettes because most of my local group is highly salty about how well Marines made out on the points changes and I'd like to actually get to play every once in a while. Maybe soup with some disgruntled Firstborn so that collection doesn't gather too much dust.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

I'll continue playing my mono Khorne. Thus far I'm 1 and 0 in 9th, but I don't expect this streak to last.

[Panzer]

Daemonettes look actually quite nice for 9th so I'm definitely going to continue playing Daemons. They are just not a priority at the moment.

[Hannibal]

Daemonettes look actually quite nice for 9th so I'm definitely going to continue playing Daemons.

Why do you think that Daemonettes look nice for 9th? Because of run and charge (it´s locus dependent, isn´t it?)? Always strike first? Cheap objec secure bodies?

[Panzer]

Because they got barely touched while everything else become a good chunk more expensive. They already hurt in melee and are quite mobile and as Troops they are great for holding capturing and holding objectives, which becomes only better as melee unit this edition since you can push a unit off of an objective before it can score and in the same turn starting to hold it so you can hopefuly score it once its your turn again (you need to hold objectives for a whole turn now since you only score at the beginning of your own turn!).

[WarriorFish]

I've been looking to get my Daemonettes on the table more, once games start returning again that will happen - 9th doesn't change this :P

[MasterDeath]

Summoning got so much better. You still can do it turn one and directly park some bodies on the middle obj. Only problem is having enough characters as Daemons have no Elite Chars, so picking two patrols or Battalion/Patrol instead of one battalion can be worthwhile to get more characters.

 

All the beast profit from cover, mainly dense cover of course

Soulgrinder got way better

Sec Obj like plant the banner is made for daemons.

 

Board Control is where the Daemon game is at.

[Cheex]

I'll 100% be using my Daemons in a Crusade campaign at some point. It'll start as a World Eaters Crusade force, but over time I'll definitely be adding some Daemons for fun.

 

Interesting thought: the Exalted GD stratagem would be considered an "upgrade" stratagem in Crusade, which means you apply it by spending Requisition Points rather than valuable CP. I would definitely consider spending 2+ RP when I add a Bloodthirster if it meant giving it a whole stack of extra bonuses. I love the idea of making it my World Eaters' goal to cause enough carnage (i.e. gain enough RP) to summon a stupidly powerful Exalted Bloodthirster with all the trimmings.

 

It would take a lot of time to do right, though. To add a Bloodthirster, you'd need 17PL (i.e. 4RP), and then also have 5RP in the bank just to give it the Exalted stratagem 5 times when you add it to your list. I don't even care that this would make it be 5 Crusade Points right out the gate.

 

And the thought of being able to upgrade it with relics and battle honours...

 

Edit: no longer possible after the Engine War FAQ, I'm afraid. But still, it's nice not having to worry about spending CP on the strat.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Cheex

[The Neverborn]

Maybe it's just me, but *I* always feel *I* am playing the codex that gets dumped on when new books start rolling around.

 

The Greater Daemons are objectively some of the most iconic units GW make and we get to play with them. Sadly however unless you're very creative and heavily min/max you won't be able to give an opponent a competitive game.

 

Daemons haven't really moved from where they were before 9th and the game has somewhat moved on without them. Daemon Engine, which was unnecessary in 8th is now essentially and even with that overall we Daemons are sub-par.

 

Both in 8th and 9th Nurgle is where it's at. At least if you want to put something competitive and i don't mean tournament by "competitive".

 

 

All this aside you should always play the army you want regardless of Metas and power shifts    

 

So there's only one reason to play teams, because you love Daemons so definitely play Tzeentch. Just go into it with modest expectations. 

[Panzer]

Eh, that's mostly because 40k is a shooty game and Daemons are a almost purely melee army with little fancy tricks up their sleeves. Daemons are really more of a fantasy/AoS army and for 40k more something that's supposed to be taken together with mortal chaos. The core design of 40k just works against the faction. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I'm looking forward to giving my daemonette army a go in 9th - I've really only played 2 games with them in 8th, one of which I won and one which I definitely didn't.  I think I had about 1500 points in 8th.

 

My army definitely isn't optimized for 9th, though... I definitely need a few min troops squads for objectives, and then we'll see what else.

[N1SB]

I, too, will totally be starting with Daemons in 9th ed, because of the Crusade system.  It happens my Chaos-themed armies are much more narrative-inspired.

 

But I totally noticed what you guys are talking about as I was putting together my lists.  We've been talking about matched play points, but even Power Level-wise, we seem a little bit underpar.  I was punching up different types of lists on Battlescribe and I noticed, for the same 25 Power Level, other factions seem much more powerful.

 

One thing Chaos in general has is: more flexibility...don't know how much that's worth, but it's something I've been looking at.

 

For example, following Rules-As-Written, doing a single Patrol for Crusade like it suggests, I can mix Nurgle Daemons with Death Guard, or Tzeentch Daemons with Thousand Sons, as they share the <Nurgle> or <Tzeentch> keywords respectively.  You still lose out on certain things, but for example I was thinking of doing Nurgle Daemons with just a Death Guard Daemon Prince for his better Relics and a squad of Possessed Marines, I believe I can do that.

 

Just ideas I'm brainstorming, and I thank you for yours, I've been looking at Daemonettes and what I can do with maybe Emperor's Children or something.

[MasterDeath]

I, too, will totally be starting with Daemons in 9th ed, because of the Crusade system.  It happens my Chaos-themed armies are much more narrative-inspired.

 

But I totally noticed what you guys are talking about as I was putting together my lists.  We've been talking about matched play points, but even Power Level-wise, we seem a little bit underpar.  I was punching up different types of lists on Battlescribe and I noticed, for the same 25 Power Level, other factions seem much more powerful.

 

One thing Chaos in general has is: more flexibility...don't know how much that's worth, but it's something I've been looking at.

 

For example, following Rules-As-Written, doing a single Patrol for Crusade like it suggests, I can mix Nurgle Daemons with Death Guard, or Tzeentch Daemons with Thousand Sons, as they share the <Nurgle> or <Tzeentch> keywords respectively.  You still lose out on certain things, but for example I was thinking of doing Nurgle Daemons with just a Death Guard Daemon Prince for his better Relics and a squad of Possessed Marines, I believe I can do that.

 

Just ideas I'm brainstorming, and I thank you for yours, I've been looking at Daemonettes and what I can do with maybe Emperor's Children or something.

Summoning is free under Powerpoints, just saying.

[ThePenitentOne]

Awesome to see so much Crusade interest from Daemons.

 

My Crusade starts as a 5 man Kill team that recruits additional citizens by addicting them to warp tainted drugs. They will learn to summon daemons fairly early in the campaign. I'm not sure how they're going to do that- I'm taking a Blackstone Fortress Rogue Psyker, and maybe the first time he rolls Perils, he is destroyed and replaced with a Herald of Slaanesh, who promptly gates in a unit of Daemonettes for backup. Keep enough requisition points to pay for them so that they actually join my army, rather than disappear at the end of the battle.

 

Pretty house-ruley though, so might have to bite the bullet and go with a "Steal the Liber Chaotica from the Stasis Vault" objective; the Shadow Operation Agenda has several objectives that match this narrative. The plus side is I get to keep my Rogue Psyker. In Crusade, I could even make him good (or at least better).

 

The Daemon Force will actually grow faster than the Cult once summoned; they are going to be what carries us to Strike Force size.

[Cheex]

Awesome to see so much Crusade interest from Daemons.

 

My Crusade starts as a 5 man Kill team that recruits additional citizens by addicting them to warp tainted drugs. They will learn to summon daemons fairly early in the campaign. I'm not sure how they're going to do that- I'm taking a Blackstone Fortress Rogue Psyker, and maybe the first time he rolls Perils, he is destroyed and replaced with a Herald of Slaanesh, who promptly gates in a unit of Daemonettes for backup. Keep enough requisition points to pay for them so that they actually join my army, rather than disappear at the end of the battle.

 

Pretty house-ruley though, so might have to bite the bullet and go with a "Steal the Liber Chaotica from the Stasis Vault" objective; the Shadow Operation Agenda has several objectives that match this narrative. The plus side is I get to keep my Rogue Psyker. In Crusade, I could even make him good (or at least better).

 

The Daemon Force will actually grow faster than the Cult once summoned; they are going to be what carries us to Strike Force size.

I love it. You could even run a mix of Servants of the Abyss and CSM in a single CHAOS detachment (the restriction against using CHAOS is an Eternal War thing) to represent a small Cult uprising, and like you say, over time they gain the ability to summon more and more daemons. Eventually, replace all units in your OOB with Daemon units as the warp rift allows a full daemonic incursion.

 

That'd be awesome.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Cheex

[TheNewman]

Because they got barely touched while everything else become a good chunk more expensive. They already hurt in melee and are quite mobile and as Troops they are great for holding capturing and holding objectives, which becomes only better as melee unit this edition since you can push a unit off of an objective before it can score and in the same turn starting to hold it so you can hopefuly score it once its your turn again (you need to hold objectives for a whole turn now since you only score at the beginning of your own turn!).

Full disclosure, this is based on one game playing out of the new GT book: between their own rules, the changes to terrain and overwatch, and the way missions are scored it's fairly easy for a Slanneshi army to wind up in several melee engagements at the same time, and Quicksilver Swiftness is really strong in a mosh pit. It's hard to take an objective away from a 30-man obsec blob.

 

Daemons probably care more about the morale changes than any other army in the game, they easily have the worst morale mitigation of any force that wants to take big blobs of troops.

 

It was a little bit funny that almost none of the changes I'm most excited about in 9th came up in that game though. My opponent was playing Harlequins, so between us we had practically nothing that could benefit from cover, there was difficult terrain on the board but Flip Belts let him ignore it, it's really difficult to get Daemonettes entirely into an area of effect terrain piece and I had almost no guns so the -1 to hit only came up once, Defensible came up a few times but the Daemonettes obliterated everything they touched despite only being able to fight in two ranks, and my opponent conceded before the 5" vertical engagement range would have mattered.

 

I will say I think I underestimated how good the Engine War update was, my KoS would not have survived to turn 3 without the 4++ and the new strats that hand out -1 attack and exploding 6 to-hit auras are really quite good.

Edited August 1, 2020 by TheNewman

[Amon777]

 

Because they got barely touched while everything else become a good chunk more expensive. They already hurt in melee and are quite mobile and as Troops they are great for holding capturing and holding objectives, which becomes only better as melee unit this edition since you can push a unit off of an objective before it can score and in the same turn starting to hold it so you can hopefuly score it once its your turn again (you need to hold objectives for a whole turn now since you only score at the beginning of your own turn!).

Full disclosure, this is based on one game playing out of the new GT book: between their own rules, the changes to terrain and overwatch, and the way missions are scored it's fairly easy for a Slanneshi army to wind up in several melee engagements at the same time, and Quicksilver Swiftness is really strong in a mosh pit. It's hard to take an objective away from a 30-man obsec blob.

 

Daemons probably care more about the morale changes than any other army in the game, they easily have the worst morale mitigation of any force that wants to take big blobs of troops.

 

It was a little bit funny that almost none of the changes I'm most excited about in 9th came up in that game though. My opponent was playing Harlequins, so between us we had practically nothing that could benefit from cover, there was difficult terrain on the board but Flip Belts let him ignore it, it's really difficult to get Daemonettes entirely into an area of effect terrain piece and I had almost no guns so the -1 to hit only came up once, Defensible came up a few times but the Daemonettes obliterated everything they touched despite only being able to fight in two ranks, and my opponent conceded before the 5" vertical engagement range would have mattered.

 

I will say I think I underestimated how good the Engine War update was, my KoS would not have survived to turn 3 without the 4++ and the new strats that hand out -1 attack and exploding 6 to-hit auras are really quite good.

What list did you run?

[TheNewman]

It was a 1200 point game so my opponent wouldn't have to adjust his list. We played it with a 1000 point mission and CP generation.

 

Patrol Detachment:

Exalted Keeper of Secrets for the 4++, The Forbidden Gem, Celerity of Slannesh, Delightful Agonies, Hysterical Frenzy.

 

Syll'Esske, also with Delightful Agonies.

 

Two squads of Daemonettes with Banner and Instruments, one at 29 and one at 30.

 

Three Fiends with the Bliss Bringer.

 

Min Seekers.

 

The small chariot.

 

I'm not super familiar with the Harlequin roster but he had four Troup squads, two three-man bike squads, and six characters; two Death Jesters, their pskyer, and three melee characters, and he took the chapter tactic that gives them an extra attack on the charge. He was mostly rigged for fighting Space Marines. That's his TAC list from last edition and he didn't counter build to me even though I told him what I'd be playing the day before.

 

I took Psychic Interrogation, Assassination, and Thin Their Ranks (bad choice, I know), and he took Line Breaker, Thin Their Ranks, and Teleport Homer (also a bad choice, he thought his bikes could do it). I won't go through the turns in detail, but he ran his bikes up the flanks to get line breaker and only went after one primary objective marker, I claimed the middle of the field, and he didn't spend enough time shooting and kiting me around the table before committing to melee in several places so Quicksilver Swiftness just ruined his day.

Edited August 2, 2020 by TheNewman

[Dr_Ruminahui]

How do you find delightful agonies?  I've never used it for my daemonettes - a 6+ FNP save isn't that impressive, especially when the opponent could just shoot something else (which is exactly what's happened when I've used it for my Emperor's Children, where it is at least a 5+).

[TheNewman]

They have a bad enough save to begin with that a 6+++ is a significant improvement. It doesn't make them tough by any stretch of the imagination, but it does help.

 

Locally FNP saves are something of a bugbear (the local DG player pretty consistently makes over half of his Disgustingly Resilient tests*) so I put it on the unit I most want to not get shot and let psychology do the rest.

[Panzer]

How do you find delightful agonies?  I've never used it for my daemonettes - a 6+ FNP save isn't that impressive, especially when the opponent could just shoot something else (which is exactly what's happened when I've used it for my Emperor's Children, where it is at least a 5+).

 

To be fair, if your opponent decides to shoot another unit instead it's basically a 100% protection aka literally the best protection possible for that one unit. :P 

[WarriorFish]

Delightful Agonies usually fails to me save much on a 5++ but as noted Daemonettes need all they help they can get in survivability. I too find that it is often most useful as a bit of motivation for my opponent to shoot something else, though I'm not sure if that says more about my rolling than anything else

[Panzer]

I honestly wish it would work like that against my opponents too. Usually they just power through the FnP and kill the unit anyway. :sweat: