(New) Daemons Review with Archnomad and Chumbalaya

*Note, don't know why but pics are being weird just now, so you're going to have to live with 2 and a wall of text effect*


Blue: Archnomad
Red: Chumbalaya

Hey people, 3 and a half games in now (well, it was at true at time of writing, now it’s 6) with the new White Dwarf release of Daemons (DoC from now on), and I'm going to share some of the stuff I've learned.  I’m just here for the free food.  You promised finger sandwiches. I’ll email you a pizza roll. This is gonna be part of a (hopefully) series of articles that I'm going to be co-writing with Chumbalaya , hi internet, covering (also hopefully) the whole book and the options available to you in 6th edition.


So, today’s topics; new units, updated units and flyers. Not DoC flyers (turns out yes DoC flyers, Chumby did a quick overview of them) (fuck tha police!) but that kinda comes into it, more how I feel DoC should combat flyers. But, we'll start at the beginning.  

New units! This is a link to the new units for those of you who live under a rock . So the new units we have are The Hellflayer of Slaanesh, Seeker Chariots of Slaanesh and Exalted Seeker Chariots of Slaanesh.  Honest opinion of these is they're pretty underwhelming, but have been making it into my lists because they're better than daemon princes (for their cost). Everybody loves Slaaneshi lawn mowers at bargain bin prices. (You’re obviously not talking about the model >_<). Or at least I think so. In terms of survivability these guys are basically Venoms, but with AV11 front and sides. That's kind of a big deal. The Exalted seeker chariot has 4 HPs instead of 2 on the regular, but costs more than double. Quite why you would take it when DoC lists are tight on points anyway these days is beyond me, but hey. The Hellflayer is poop. Sewage. Some Slaaneshis are into that.  It's an offal model and should never be taken. Why? Well it has a special rule that lets the chick on top (who is S3 and rending) make an extra attack for every unsaved wound the Hammer of Wrath hits cause. The problem there is this model doesn't have the Fleshshredder special rule the heavy support chariots do that give the chariots D6 HoW hits per hull point the chariot has remaining. Essentially, they can potentially put out a ton of attacks, but an open-topped AV11 vehicle won’t usually be arriving intact, if at all, and even then, it’s a bunch of S3 rending attacks, so spending extra just isn’t worth it.  Keep ‘em cheap and disposable.  Also, landing them safely can be a problem with those huge bases, so you’re usually best dropping them in an off wave to avoid crowding the board.  One more thing, new chariots can move in the shooting phase after arriving, so you can mitigate the downsides of deploying in a safe spot that may not be in the best neighborhood.  So, now that that's into the garbage bin, lets talk about the good units (which is the rest of them). Oh, another footnote to add here is it turns out they do have fleshshredder (wasn’t aware at ToW) it’s in the Bestiary but not in the list section. Which is marginally better. Don’t get me wrong though, still garbage.  

Ok, the Seeker Chariots of Slaanesh. I like em.  Me too.  I don't like them as much as Screamers, Fiends or Flamers, but I like them a lot more than Daemon Princes or Exalted Chariots. One of the bigger upsides to the Seeker chariot is how weak our Heavy Support choices are.  Princes are just too expensive to make marginally effective and Grinders are tough but don’t bring much to the table beyond a poor man’s Battle Cannon.  Daemons love multiple cheap units that can flood the board and generate lots of wounds and chariots are perfect in that role.  In my current build I run 6 (sucker for sacred numbers, shoot me). They're cheap and can tank shock.  They do an absolute number on low toughness infantry and take up a lot of board space, which makes them fairly effective if shoved in the opponent's face (the same way daemons are used to having rhinos used against them, actually). The interesting synergy there which I haven't tested yet is if you drop versus an army that has elements that want to assault you, you could potentially use the 12" move on the drop to block those assault elements.

Holy Tangent batman. He’s the symbol this city needs. Now is not the time for references Chumby. That comes later. Basically, I think for 80pts for 2 they're a lot better than Daemon Princes and now that DoC lists should be taking maxed out elites and fast attack (and have reason to) so you don't have to splurge on crappy daemon princes anymore. The Exalted Seeker Chariot kind of sucks, because for 50pts (10pts more than taking another chariot) you gain 2HP on your chariot. Yeah, I don't know either. More HPs sure don’t help when most weapons can penetrate and make you go boom.  The problem with taking them is that they tend to eat all the anti tank fire the enemy has, but so did Daemon Princes. If I could take Flamers in Heavy Support, Fiends as Elites and Screamers as Fast Attack, hell yeah I would. Now? I skimp to add padding units.

So, lets get into the really good bit. Screamers. Holy shit. New Screamers are all kinds of phenomenal. Lets start with the basic changes. They're W2 now, 25pts each. They lost their 4++ -

-Tangent- I quite like that they're phasing out the Tzeentchi 4+ and giving them W2 instead. Having 5++ across the whole army is just one of those little things in the WHFB DoC I really liked. Is it a Daemon? It has a 5++. -Tangent-

-Secant- I would love Horrors with 2 wounds and 5++.  Daemons really need quality Troops and I think that would help considerably. -Secant-

- and went down to a 5++. They gained a point of initiative and 2 attacks. They lost their Melta Bomb jaws and gained. Oh man, their new melee weapon is called "Lamprey Bite". It's S5, AP2 and Armourbane. This means there's very little in the game that's not afraid of Screamers these days (in melee). You better have rear AV13/14. I'm of the opinion that 27 Screamers is the new 18 Fiends, which are, oddly enough, the new black.  Another sweet thing that they can do is move 24" when they deep strike, which nets them a 4+ cover. And y'know, a 24" move after they Deep Strike. That's huuuuuge.  Deploy in clear terrain, zoom zoom to set up charges, yay.  It’s a great way to make your first wave that much scarier.  Drop Fiends like normally, then drop Screamers further back so they can zoom up and prepare - I find with the big footprint of screamers I drop them wherever’s big and open, cause I know they can go wherever I need them with the 24” redeploy.  And I guess if you want you can do Slashing Attacks but you don't usually wanna be forced into those positions. But the option is there.

And last but not least, we have Flamers. These funky dudes are actually pretty solid now. The most important chance is they moved them to W2 and 23pts. Otherwise they still just use Breath of Chaos to murder stuff, and Warpfire when they're not within range.  Please note that they lost the option for Bolt of Change, but it’s a small price to pay for viability.  Also, they get a random champion upgrade (because lolFantasy) which can be useful for something maybe, like LOS! shenanigans.  Still jump infantry. Also went to a 5++. So, lets talk about the uses of flamers. Burning things.  Just like the voices in my head.  There's pretty much nothing in the game that won’t drop to a full salvo of flamers.  I guess a 4HP Vehicle with the 4++ power from Divination or something. But generally Flamers are very scary. What're they afraid of? Same things all daemons are afraid of. Massed small arms. When this update dropped I didn't really like the idea of flamers, because I would have Fiends and Screamers, which are fine to run around the enemy lines because they don't really mind being charged. Especially fiends. Whereas, I thought to myself, flamers kind of suck in melee, getting them bogged down would kind of blow. Then I had it pointed out to me that their overwatch would just obliterate most units. XD3 (where X is equal to the number of flamers) hits that wound on a 4+ ignoring everything but invulns is all kinds of hilarious. So yeah, flamers are good. I probably wouldn't run more than one unit though. I could maybe see two. Needs testing.  Flamers are definitely worth it now, especially because you now have 4-6 super scary assault units instead of 3 like before.  Even taking 1 unit of Flamers leave you plenty of FOC slots to fill with Fiends and Screamers.  

Ok, so lets talk about something else that gets brought up a lot when I talk daemons. Flyers. Flying Monstrous Creatures too. In 6th edition flyers have a few rules distinguishing them for regular Vee-hickles (too racist?).  Not racist enough.  The most important one is that they’re hit on 6s by anything other than skyfire weaponry or other flyers (or certain weapons that could honestly give a fuck about your flyers). The other are the huge movement constraints put on flyers. Honestly, I’m not going to preach to you about Flyers here, I’m sure Kirby or Abuse or some consistent author will do an in depth on flyers, but for now, all you need to know is Chaos Daemons can’t effectively deal with them.  Flyers are typically handled by weapons with medium strength (6-8), twin-linking and/or a high rate of fire.  Daemons don’t have any of that, just expensive single shot Bolts and Tongues.  Don’t bring your Bloodthirster shit here, son. You can pay 550pts for semi effective anti flyer if you want, but thats 8 wounds with a 3+ save. Sure it’s hit on 6s. Until it falls down. Because for some reason GW didn’t want Flying Monstrous Creatures getting out of hand. So, the only effective solution in DoC is vector striking. The only high strength Vector Strike is on a BT (S5-6 vector strikes don’t work, sorry). A BT is 275pts and gets one rounded by 3 night scythes. Uhhh, pass. I think at this juncture it’s far more effective for DoC to focus on just tabling everything that’s on the ground, and looking to win thataway. Also, new DoC are insanely mobile. When push comes to shove you can quite often mitigate or circumnavigate flyers with their limited movement.  Also allies, but that’s a topic for another day.

HQs are a lot more interesting in Daemon armies now.  In 5th you’d just load up on Tzeentch chariots and enjoy your armada of flying gunboats.  With the new rules (both 6th and the WD add-on) a lot more options have opened up.  Bloodthirsters, while expensive, are marginally more effective at swatting airplanes out of the sky than most FMCs as well as the usual stomping on dudes.  The Lord of Change isn’t amazing at vector striking and is still too pricey, but it’s fairly durable and brings some decent shooting to the table.  The other two are about the same, relatively cheap and killy monster dudes.  Slaanesh Heralds get the new chariots, but for the price I’m not a huge fan.  They’ll drop too quickly and you end up paying a lot more than you would for a Heavy Support chariot.  Sheralds can now confer Hit & Run to units they join, which turns Daemonettes and Seekers from fairly effective to mini-Fiends.  Tzeentch Heralds are still cheap and shooty on their chariots, but they do run the risk of getting focused and having you lose your Warlord early.  My preferred set up is a disk rider Tzerald joined to a big unit of Flamers, using Look Out, Sir! to spread wounds around.  Tzeentch is a dick. A quick note here, I’ve got 2 games in now with using the Tzerald on a disk, and so far it’s been pretty awesome. However, I’ve found that he tends to be far more effective on the drop turn than on any other turn, because flamers fire well, flamers. And they don’t like having some poncy dude with a stick stand in their way limiting their shots. Just something to watch out for (oh and don’t ever drop him in with screamers, cause then they can’t move 24” in the shooting phase).  Yes, that’s a limitation to consider, but I think just the protection in the drop turn is worth it, and afterward you just hide him to save VPs.  Khorne and Nurgle Heralds are still the black sheep, AP3 and no combat ability respectively combined with overall slowness just hurts.  As far as special characters go, Fateweaver is still gimmicky and expensive, Skarbrand doesn’t fly, Ku’Gath is hella tough with a 4+ poison pie plate and a crazy price tag, Masque is still a 2 wound solo model, Epidemius is even more gimmicky, Skulltaker is AP3 and Blue Scribes are lolsorandumbXD.  So, I guess we are still sticking with Tzeralds and Sheralds after all.  Weird.

Overall, Daemons got a lot of benefits from 6th.  Changes to Deep Strike, reserves, vehicle damage, assault and the new WD rules have turned them from a joke army with one good build (watch your mouth about my fatecrusher, son) (Fatecrusher is bad and so is your face) to a joke army with a much better build. (While Grey Knights still exist we can never be free - While preferred enemy applies to shooting, that matchup can never be fair).  The core Daemon rules (random waves, forced Deep Strike, over reliance on assault) are still dumb, but the new rules take big strides towards downplaying those weaknesses and turn Daemons into the premier assault army in 6th. I’d say that’s a fair statement, there’s very little in 6th edition that isn’t afraid of the new Daemons in melee.  

Postscript. Fear is all kinds of random, and doesn’t work against most of the armies in the game. But know this. It will randomly win you games.

You’re welcome, internet.