Goatboy’s 40K – Daemon Monsters for Victory!
Goatboy here again – and today I’m talking how to smash face with hugenormous Daemons – lets talk monstrous creatures!
I know Tau are out – but in two months you will stop caring about those no nosed fish jerks and start talking about Eldar and I don’t really plan on playing either of those armies so you will have to deal with Daemon nonsense. So there XENOS!
Truthfully I have had a lot of people ask me how I got my Daemons to work and some of the in’s and out’s of running a very top heavy list. The MC Smash list has a lot of weight behind it and while it is powerful at times it can seriously get knocked down quickly if you are not careful with it. It is a lot of fun to play and the smallish size of the army makes it extremely attractive to the traveling player who needs a fast army to survive flights, slow opponents, and extreme missions.
You saw the list I played for Adepticon this last week and while I did well with it I felt it wasn’t nearly as optimized as I needed it to be. There are a lot of different options that you can go to with the army and I felt I needed to better utilize my choices to create a stronger army. I think it would have helped me in the game versus Allan that took me out of the top tables.
MONSTER MASH – RUN for the hills!
HQ: Bloodthirster, Exalted Gift (Roll for the 1 or take the Portal), Greater Gift
HQ: Keeper of Secrets, Greater Gift X 2, Lvl 3 Psyker
Troops: Plague Bearers X 10
Troops: Plague Bearers X 10
FA: Plague Drones X 5, Plague Bringer, Lesser Gift (Will go into what needs to be changed down below)
Heavy: Daemon Prince, MoS, Wings, Armor, Greater Gift X 2 (one for Lash of Despair), Lvl 2 Psyker
Heavy: Daemon Prince, MoS, Wings, Armor, Greater Gift X 2 (Get that Whip!), Lvl 2 Psyker
Heavy: Daemon Prince, MoS, Greater Gift X 2, Lvl 3 Psyker (Second Telepathy bomb)
Army Strengths
1. Low on VP/KP/Etc. This army does not give up very many VP’s. You are usually running 7-8 units and if the main mission requires you to not die as much as your opponent this list does that very very well.
2. The list is extremely fast. This many flying monsters allows you to be just about anywhere on the board and always threaten your opponent. When you play a mission where your heavy options score you all of a sudden have 3 very angry fat butts running around.
3. The list did very well versus flyers. You have the chance to blow up two a turn with each flying MC. You can vectore strike and then throw your 2d6 Lash of Despair. You also have 360 degrees of shooting power which helps you tackle those pesky French Bread Snacks.
4. You have very annoying troop choices that take more then just shooting to remove. The addition of the Portal plus Plague Bearers means your opponent has to commit to remove you from objectives. This gets hard when a bunch of MC’s are bearing down on you.
5. You have a large amount of psychic potential that you can easily over power your opponent by mind bullets. Hallucination has won me many games and Invisibility has sealed the deal. Dominate is great versus other Daemon players and even Terrify will allow you to remove those pesky Zombies and Wraiths.
6. The Greater Gifts are so good that they will frustrate your opponent to no end when they try to shoot down your rerolling Inv Save Daemon Prince who still has a 4+ FNP.
7. Dropping Pink Horrors out of the portal is powerful. You roll for the spell when they pop out and try to get the beam. If not you get the Warp Fire. Random 2d6 shots out of one Horror is pretty fun.
8. The Warp Storm table can just win you games outright at times – while the bad options are not nearly as devastating as you think.
Army Watch-outs!
So yeah there are a lot of benefits from this but there are some extreme issues with the list as well. You have to play around them to ensure you do well and this isn’t just a push forward, roll dice, and profit style of list.
1. A few bad rolls and all your MC’s can go poof pretty quickly. If you are rolling low for your knock down rolls it can be a short game.
2. It needs good psychic powers to work well. I played a game where I didn’t get the rolls I needed and it was extremely difficult to pull back from that.
3. Getting -1 to the inv save on the Warp Storm table is a brutal kick to the bad place. It is probably the worst roll on the table as most of the others has an out for them (rolling low on leadership and just getting a reroll with some kind of bone flute.).
4. Sparse terrain can be very hurtful versus your army. You have to use everything to your advantage with this small of a list.
5. Anti Psychic powers are also brutal. Lucky for you that most of your powers are built into making your MC better – so you won’t have to worry about Deny the Witch nearly as often. Eldar will be a pain until June when their runes get nerfed a bit.
6. Rolling all these powers and abilities can be rather time consuming. I have a way that uses cards to help keep track of all of these things. It is like I am playing Warmachine at times but it helps make things easier and keeps control of all these spells, abilities, and wounds.
Hugenormous Options
Each MC option gives different abilities to the army and creates a unique play style. I am very fond of the Slaanesh options as it allows me some Anti Flyer hate as well as reroll charge ability and the option to get a very important spell to help deal with the overwatch menance. I want to go into each of them to see what they can give to your army as well as show how each one creates a different play style. I won’t go into the SC options as those are much different then the normal choices you will see. I think it has to do with the idea that they haven’t made models for them that leaves me less likely to take them.
Bloodthirster
Pros – Str 10 doesn’t outright kill him, built in protection (3+ arm inc), special weapons included, shooting attack, and difficult to remove from combat when stuck in.
Cons – Cost is high, included armor means greater gifts could be not worth it as khorne greater weapon isn’t nearly as good as others, no psychic ability or counter ability, his activation of Daemon Princes of Khorne is not nearly as good as others, and not a force multiplier just a donkey puncher.
I used the Thirster as I had a really nice model and thought his martial prowess would do me good. I don’t think making him my warlord was a correct choice as he died too many times. He did get his points back most of the time and the sheer terror of players trying to remove him was fun. I do wish the Daemon of Khorne gave hatred as there were too many games where I missed over half the time. Would I take him again? Right now I am looking at adding some Herald bombs to my build so he is going to sit on the shelf for awhile.
Basic Build
Bloodthirster, Greater Gift, Exalted Gift
Great Unclean One
Pros – Tough as hell, Caster with abilities that make him tougher, a good target, his Daemon Prince friend is ok as they can still cast, and he benefits greatly from Greater Gifts
Cons – Slow as hell, needs to deep strike to work well, fast opponents will move away as his abilities are all short ranged, and his assault ability isn’t nearly as good as the others.
I am waiting on the rumored new Greater Daemons before I jump into using this fat jerk. I do like some of the other models and if I get ahold of one I might just start using this guy. His Daemon Princes still have great casting and a bit of survival due to the Shrouding and Defensive grenades.
Basic Build
Great Unclean One, Greater Gifts X 2, Lesser gift, Lvl 2 Caster
Lord of Change
Pros – Flies, force multiple caster, decent anti troop shooting, decent close combat ability, and his Daemon Prince can be very snooty
Cons – Anti Psychics will cripple him, very dependent on the Greater Gifts roll, and very expensive when compared to the other force multiple GD.
The Lord of Change is the next GD I want to add to the list. Lately the combos of reroll 2+ from two different directions is too hard to pass up – thus making me look at heralds for sealing the Forewarning and Invisibility combos. (Screamers can get a reroll 2+ two ways – Forewarning + The Grim Book and Invisibility + turbo boosting). Will see what I end up with as Tau present some unique problems that the army has to consider.
Basic build out
Lord of Change, Greater Gifts X 2, Lvl 3 Caster
Keeper of Secrets
Pros – Cheap, access to extremely annoying psychic power, benefits from all Greater Gift Rolls, the best Daemon Prince for the meta right now, plus fleet/rending, and no slouch in combat.
Cons – Doesn’t fly, creepy FW model or crap GW model, slow (wish she was a beast), and no access to survival psychic powers (Biomancy).
I feel this is the best GD for the cost and bonuses it gives to you army. In fact she is a mainstay in all my lists as flies are not going away and you need your DP whip friend. I made my own out of spare parts to give a creepy biomechnical vibe that I want to try and repeat throughout the army. Her mix of offensive and defensive powers by making her a level 3 is too good to not add to your list. I have won games by her mind bullets and think everyone should look at her for any Daemon Army you plan on building. Plus she could kick the crap out of a Bloodthirster with her speed and large amount of attacks.
Basic build out
Keeper of Secrets, 2 Greater Gifts, Lvl 3 Caster
Daemon Prince
Pros – Multiple avenues of psychic powers, can get flight, can get protection powers, access to decent weapons at all the gift levels, and has the ability to be purchased in another force org slot.
Cons – Greater Daemon choice affects your abilities so you have to be careful what you pick to fill in the gap the Daemon army needs, tough 5 means marker lit Hammerhead shots will suck a lot, less wounds means the greater gift 1 is very important, expensive, and you will end up losing one of the Greater Gifts to get a default weapon if you are going for an anti flyer option.
These models are your jack of all trades. I use them to cover the holes of my army – ie more psychic batteries, anti flying, wave 2-3 of the MC smash, and on some missions an extremely annoying scoring unit. As I stated earlier the Keeper of Secrets activates the best Daemon Prince in my opinion so you will already be looking at 800+ points down on your list with a Keeper and 2 Flying DP’s. This is why I ran the portal glyph in my list as I was so down on Troop choices I need someway to keep myself in the game if my stinky jerks got shot to pieces.
My Favorite Builds
Anti Flyer – Keeper of Secrets GD choice
DP, Wings, Armor, Slaanesh, Greater Gift X 2 (one is for Lash of Despair), Lvl 2 Caster (Biomancy – you want Iron arm to kill flyers and Endurance)
Caster Bomb/Force Multiplier – Keeper of Secrets GD Choice
DP, Slaanesh, Greater Gift X 2 (You want survive powers, do not swap for weapon), Lvl 3 Caster (Telepathy first, see if you get Hallucination/Invisibility and then roll Biomancy)
Anti Troop – Lord of Change GD choice
DP, Tzeentch, Wings, Greater Gift X 2, Lvl 3 Caster (Divination then get default Tzeentch power)
So there you have a basic break down of the MC choices and how they can help your fledgling Daemon Army. These monsters are extremely powerful and can help make or break the game as you play it. The fact that they constantly can change per game makes them extremely difficult to prepare for. This uncertainty is one of the reasons why I like to play it. Plus painting big models with crazy conversions is way too fun. Next time I will go into the support roles the Daemon army have and how to best utilize them. The MC smash needs help and picking the right FA choice will determine how well you can pester your opponent.
Who’s with me? Who thinks big monsters are the secret sauce of the Daemon codex?
