Thoughts on New Chaos Releases.

[Dalamar]

Don't forget that Greater Demon is a large target so his Inspiring Presence is 18", meaning him being on his own is not that terrible.

[Daeron]

Personally, I'm not that hot on the randomness of the break tests, and the winds of magic.. (Reign of Chaos). Certainly, dice have always been a factor in a game, and the trick is to devise strategies that gives "the best odds". But some of the randomness is excessive. Loosing a whole unit, or seeing it restored wholly based on a rather random roll is .. odd.
On one hand, I think it's fluffy to have this daemonic instability played out in the rules, but where is the line drawn? It's supposed to be somewhat of an elite army. The models certainly are expensive enough in points. But then all that is thrown in the mixer of randomness based on rolls that supersede any tactic or build you made.

Still.. I have to actually play the army to see if it works out as bad as it looks on paper. I'm used to rolls modeling how well your "orders are carried out", but you're still in control of your army. These Daemon rules impress me that you loose some of that control.

But then, as a counter argument, you don't have many alternative sources of randomness (which is maybe why Daemons were such a competitive army). They are all immune to psychology. They are all "unbreakable". They all have ward saves and most have magic resistance. This gives them such a rock solid core that no tactic can "solve". Any randomness in your own turn when facing daemons is capped in benefit due to the daemon's unmodifiable nature, but the risks remain the same.

As a wild guess, I'm guessing these rules reintroduce some randomness on the daemon side and balance that out a bit.

But I'm not sure if this really changes our way of dealing with Daemons. I think the plague drones, skull cannons and daemon princes mark the real changes in how we are to handle them.

[Cold73]

It migth indeed seem terribly random...it is...but personally i think it all evens out when playing Daemons.

That rolling a double one..and getting models back is in balane with the double 6...and loosing the entire unit...so far...i 3 games with Daemons I have never rolled the double one...but I did loose a unit of 15+ Daemonettes by rolling a double 6 on a break test...and not being allowed to reroll.... (I lost combat by 1)

And all of this is offset against the randomness of the magic phase....rolling double one there all my units must take an instability test..... I can tell you i was glad to ahve a viable BSB within range for that one.

[Sulla]

I've shelved my daemons. It's not because they are less powerful; they look on paper to be perfectly useable army. Just that the synergy is not really there anymore. The core is so expensive and underwhelming (I would have preferred expensive but scary), the heros are so squishy and the power is all in the rare and lord slots. That's a cool concept for an army like elves but I expected a bit more from daemons than for core to simply be a tax.

Basically, with Slaanesh now being a viable mark for Warriors, I'm building a 2500pt warriors army instead. mostly Slaanesh with a little Nurgle. I like having an army where core is not a tax to get to the good stuff...

[Saintofm]

I can see that. In the last edition, the four main ones were all 12 points each so regardless you knew 10 were getting you 120 points.

Now it's Blood letters 140 points for 10, 130 for either Pink Horrors and Plague Bearers, and 110 points for Daemonettes.

I have not seen all their abilities so can't put too much input into that, but the way marks work doesn't give me much hope of seeing a challenge.

Bloodletters get +1 strenght on the turn they charge, and tending to have high strength will hit hard. That said, average I at best, and Blood Letters are the most expensive.

All Nurgle give a -1 to hit in close combat and mark of tzeetch rerole 1's in ward saves and channalings. What can you say there? They had their advantares.

And Mark of Slannesh has armor piercing, so lightly armored troops bewar for this is the cheapest option for the core.

[Cold73]

I agree that the Core choices might be a bit over priced and that their 'marks' but in my opinion now...they are finally an interesting army to play with. Then again..that is for me...and I will gladly admit I like a challange..as well as using tactics to defeat my enemy,

In the previous addition...all you had to do was march you bloodletters to the middle of the board...keep them alive with Lore of Life to prevent shooting from doing much damage..and then simply kill everything that came within range. Be it monsters...cavalry...heroes....they all died with the same ease. Meanwhile a greater Daemon with a 2+ AS; reroll to hit; 5+ ward save was killing everything that didn't want to get close to the Bloodletters. I'm terribly sorry, but for me that is not an interesting way to play.

With the new rules a daemon player has to think about what to do. His Greater Daemon is no longer completely invulnerable to the feeble attacks of mortals....even arrows can hurt it now. Bloodletters are still very deadly...but they will actually have to do what Khorne created them for...CHARGE into battle.

I will admit that so far I have only had 3 battles with my Daemons...and have won all three of them...and all three were a challange.

I will never forget to look of horror on the face of my opponent when i tried to used the "Portal Glyph' to gate a horde of 40 plaguebeared almost on top of his warmachines..... lol nor the look of happiness when it totally scattered and landed just in front of the Greater Daemon that had just used it.

[Omnichron]

IMO both the daemonettes and especially the plague bearers are great core options. The bloodletters are the only ones I wouldn't be taking as they are now. That being said, it's quite clearly the nurgle beasts and plague drones you should put your money on, while the slaanesh magic is the better of the three. Adding a cannon or two to all that and you're set.

[Saintofm]

What about soul grinder? It looks like a walking tank. Does it live up to the expectation?

[Omnichron]

@Saintofm: It's okay, although there's little room left between the plague drones and khorne cannon. I don't think we will see it around very often, especially as their grape shot is more or less useless.

The claw attack is nice against big monsters of course, but you get two cannons for one soul grinder, which means twice the killing power and with range. Although I don't know how the Tzeentch chariot works, I'll place the soul grinder as the third best option of rare choices the daemons have... not sure if it can compete with all the good special choices though.

[Cold73]

Soulgrinder....typically a walking warmachine platform.
Can be good in shooting...if you are lucky with the artillery dice.
But in combat it is not very good....only WS3...and very to few attacks to make it worth it.

Tzeentch Chariot...although i dont have one yet...it can be very interesting.
It can fly and shoot. Meaning it can easily get directly behind enemy units.
It has two types of shooting to choose from... blue fire of tzeentch and pink fire of tzeentsch...dont know which is which...but here is what they do.
- one is kind of a Bolt Thrower...with a Strength of D6+4
- the other is a kind of flame thrower..wiht a Strength of D6

Yes strength is random so it can either be very good or very bad....but considering you roll average...... Try to see the possibilites against hordes of Skaven.....land behind a huge unit...and burn away.

[Saintofm]

So it's a cooler looking Cygore: Mobile warmachine that can move and shoot. CC, it's strickly a support unit at best like the Slaughterbrute.

[Cold73]

Mostly so yes...
although not sure if it is wise to see a Slaughterbrute under a support unit....if i'm not mistaken you can link it to a lord...and then it will use his WS and his LD. Hitting most things ion 3+ and wounding on 2+....seems kinda nasty.
Then again our Hydra can be called a support unit as well....it will kill most everything...but almost all units will remain steadfast for a long time.

[Saintofm]

Mostly so yes...
although not sure if it is wise to see a Slaughterbrute under a support unit....if i'm not mistaken you can link it to a lord...and then it will use his WS and his LD. Hitting most things ion 3+ and wounding on 2+....seems kinda nasty.
Then again our Hydra can be called a support unit as well....it will kill most everything...but almost all units will remain steadfast for a long time.

Why I called it a support unit. It has 5 S7 attacks and a D6 Thunderstomp to it's name naked, and another 2 S5 that can be upgraded to it. So 7 attacks against infantry and beasts (most likely foes) and another 7 attacks making anywhere from 8-13 attacks total. This can still take our a rank of troops, and in the case of horde units, most of a rank, but you'll need alot of attacks for that, and he lacks it (if he had the same basic attacks as a hydra + the other 2, then maybe I'd have him as something more prominent, but not as is now).

[Saintofm]

Well here's an interesting look from 1D4chan (they swear alot, and no naughty pictures to worry about).

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer/Tacti ... s_of_Chaos

Specificly I like some of the stuff from the Harolds Loci loci can be shared with the whole unit not just the charecter (so if my Harold of Khorn has Hatred Loci, so does his unit). However you have to buy them via points now, so this may hinder you in how many points you can spend in different sized games, although the Gifts of Chaos can be separatly

The Heralds are:
Khorn: has loci that do Magic Resistance, Frenzy, or Hatred. Aparently 1D4 chan doesn't like the blood throne, so they suggest make the cannon and get a free character. They also don't like the fact it lost a point to strength. That said, he's still S6 so he;s going to bring on the hurt.

Tzeetch: They sugest Mastery of sorcery and the loci that shares his 4+ ward save with his unit. That and putting him on a chariot seems like a waste of loci.

Slannesh: Just get the ASF one and put her/him in a unit of daemonetts or Seekers and let the fun begin.

Nurgle: Still just as tough as before. His Loci has a bit more bite than the others. Virulence makes it and his plague bearer unit he's in auto wound with poison a 5+. Fecundity is a regen save, so pick the one that's better at any given moment. THe last is for every successful hit with a poison attack of 6, the enemy unit suffers an auto S4 hit, thus getting in a few more hits.