Rambling Daemons

There's probably not much here...

So now that the Daemon book has been out for a few days, and I’ve had time to fully digest it myself, I thought I’d take a quick look at some of the things I find interesting and then post a couple of the lists I’ve been tossing about in my head.


The Inspiring Presence, Hold Your Ground Nerf.

This is probably the biggest change of the book, and seriously impacts on list design. Combined with the possibility of army wide Instability tests from a bad roll on the Winds of Magic, players will seriously have to consider if its worth taking the 7th Ed Liquorice Allsorts list anymore (I suspect not, other than a couple side units like Cannons...). You’ll definitely have to make sure that the majority of your important points can use the BSB to avoid tragedy.

Random Gifts charts

While the internet is crying about randomness being terrible and making it impossible to play Daemons anymore. This randomness is a huge benefit to the Daemon players. Being able to effectively tune your characters abilities to your opposition army is a huge upside. Playing hordes? take extra attack weapons. Playing Armour? take +S or no armour save weapons. Seems like a massive win to me!

No Scrolls

What you must see is that there is no scroll...

No Dispel Scroll, combined with the fact the only source of high level casters are cannonball vulnerable monsters, is going to be interesting. Light spam will be horrible to face, but I guess it just means you need to get stuck in ASAP to avoid it. Killing the opposition wizard is a pretty damn effective scroll.

Lack of Armour

There is no reliable way to get decent armour saves on anyone in the book, other than one roll on the Greater gifts table. This one’s gonna be tricky, as particularly on the Heralds, you need them in the action providing Locii, but that leaves them horribly vulnerable as a stiff breeze kills them. Not new to most of them but the Khorne BSB which always had a 3+ save now has nothing... Nurgle for Regen will be the most seen BSB I imagine.

Locus Options

This is a change I very much like! All the old abilities are there, but now you can also tune your heralds for a specific purpose in game. Particularly of note: Tzeentch combat heralds giving Horrors Sd6, do you engage that unit and roll the dice? (see randomness can be useful!), mounted Slaanesh assassins hunting out characters (mages), Slaanesh heralds making units immune to Dwellers :-) or funnier yet, standing by units and being immune to Chariots through LOS! abuse.


And finally for today.....

Warpflame!

                               

It's not actually Flaming....

This is probably the one thats stuck in the claw of most gamers. Kinda of a silly rule, and why its a T test is beyond me (it should’ve been kept as the  1 or 6 roll in the White Dwarf), as nearly everything has a T4 or better in the game these days, but hey, we work with what we’ve got.

The thing thats really annoying me though, is that everyone has written off anything Tzeentch instantaneously because of it... Frankly I really don’t see it this way. First off its one test a phase, cast 3 spells or shoot 3 units and its one test to possibly give a 6+ Regen. (don’t give me any of that “but Aboms get a 3+” nonsense, don’t F**king shoot them then!!!). Just make sure you smash the damn unit when you target it! Don’t cast Flickering Fire at a unit of Slaves and cry when you kill 2 of them and they get Regen. Aim for chaff where a Magic Missile will kill most if not all of them. Aim the Template Weapons at horde units and kill half or more of them in one magic/shooting phase. Who the hell cares if the 5 remaining guys of 30 get a 6+ regen!  Aim the Bolt/Gateway/Blue Fire at small cavalry units/monsters and either take them off or seriously make them worried

Is it perfect? No, its not, but it can definitely still do something... As an opponent, I’m seriously not gonna let an utterly random spell through because it could do one wound and give me some pointless regen. I’m gonna think “Jebus, that cheapo magic missile could do 6S6 hits and kill that unit” or “that Bolt could take off my Dragon in a turn!”


Anyway, in conclusion to this ramble, I really like the new book, and think it has plenty of options for fun and power. IMO the old book was dull to the point just short of suicide, so the new randomness can only provide some excitement as the army takes you on a seat of the pants ride through crazy-ville every game, and frankly that’s only a good thing to me, as I firmly believe the best players are those who can save, or turn around a game, when the unforeseen happens. At the very least, at long last all the power gamers will fuck off and leave me to my daemons and us Daemon players will finally be appreciated for taking something “soft and fluffy”


And with that I'll attach a couple copies of possible Daemon lists for your perusal:

Mindrazor spam list

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh
Chaos Armour, Flight
Level 4 - Shadow, Greater Gifts (Lash time), Lesser Gifts (ASF?)

Herald of Slaanesh
BSB, Greater Locus of Swiftness
Greater Gift (wound or armour would be nice)

Herald of Slaanesh on Steed
Exalted Locus
Lesser Gifts (anything is good)

35 Nettes
Full Command - Banner of Swiftness

14 Nettes
Muso

6 Seekers
Seeker chariot
Seeker Chariot
5 Furies of Slaaneshh

Soulgrinder - Phlegm
Skullcannon (because I can!)


Double Prince smash!:


Daemon Prince of Slaanesh - Greater Gifts
Daemon Prince of Khorne
Chaos Armour, Lesser Gift

Herald of Slaanesh
Greater Locus (ASF), lesser Gifts

Herald of Khorne - BSB
Greater locus of Frenzy, Greater Gift


27 Nettes - Full Command, Banner of Swiftness
27 Letters - FC

5 Seekers
2 Seeker Chariots
3 Crushers

Skullcannon



Any thoughts appreciated!

Laters all