Goatboy’s 40K: Chaos Daemon Thoughts
Goatboy here again – and today I want to try to figure out how the new Chaos Daemon codex might actually work.
From old rumors, chatter, and other things the overall design has always been a weird thing for the creatures of the warp. We know that in reality the true enemy is Chaos for the 40k universe but the Daemon army has always been kind of formless. Sure you had the Chaos Gods to worship – but the army always felt out of place during most editions.
The current set up really feels kinda of half-finished. You have all the gods separated – but there is no reason to not just mix and match – or just take the best choice for all Daemon armies. But in a lot of way this is how all the Daemon armies have been for a long time. All the way back from the ancient random deep strike nature of the army till the current pain in the buttness that is Flying Circus. Every story and book seems to really showcase that the different gods do work together – but mostly they are separate and even enemies to some of the other Chaotic Jerks of the Warp.
Mono Gods?
This leads me to think we’ll see a major push to create a Mono God style theme, build, etc for the upcoming book. This book seems well suited to really shake up and change how we think Daemons should work. The last Daemon update in the days of 7th edition really started to push the Mono God builds with forced formations and while we know Formations won’t be coming back I do expect each God to have its own “chapter” with powers, rules, and abilities all based on the Creep they side with.
With that – let’s chat a bit about what I could expect if I was designing the book.
Nurgle
Will start with Nurgle as I expect them to get a lot of love with this release and the upcoming AOS campaign. I really think the idea of the Tally could be very interesting with an army designed to slowly grind down your opponent. I don’t think we’ll see something exactly like the Death Guard mortal wound auras but instead a slow build as thing are killed and their souls are brought to the Garden. I think Epidemus’s Tally could easily be reimagined as an all army sort of thing and maybe utilize some specific stratagems to cause all kinds of things. The army’s Auras might do something like slow things down, weaken the enemy, and eventually cause some damage as they get closer. I do expect a lot of Cloud of Flies sort of things with this god having a lot of negatives to hit them all based on the Nurgles sacred number. We’ll see, as I feel Nurgle is probably one of the easier ones to build as we have an army of Chaos Space Marines devoted to this god – as well as a very distinct voice for how their army should work.
Khorne
I think Khorne needs a lot of work. While we have a good grasp on how they should act – getting it to be valid on the table top is a hard thing to do. I think there will be lots of movement tricks that either happen before the game begins or interacts with moments of bloodshed. Sadly things like Soul Burst could be very interesting for Khorne as they are already limited by not casting spells and having much shooting. I do like the old Blood Tithe and I bet that comes back in some form for the army. We know summoning isn’t that good so hopefully not too much of the table is set up to summon in extra units that don’t work so well in Matched Play. That is my big worry with a lot of these gods as within the fluff there is a ton of discussion of bringing in more Daemons as the battle rages on – which doesn’t work to well for Matched Play. I just really want Khorne to be the army that scares the doodoo out of you when you see a wave of Brass, Iron, and Red across the table from you. We’ll see if they have a ton of stratagems that have Blood in the name mixed with a bit of murder and some skulls.
Slaanesh
Slaanesh is always the odd one out. We know they need to go fast, look creepy, and probably mess with Leadership/Weapon Skill/etc. They will probably always attack first, can advance and charge, and maybe turn off overwatch or do some kind of other thing to keep their low toughness safe. This is the one Chaos God that needs a lot of rework as while unit game interaction wise it is fine – it’s just overall theme and connection to the universe itself is lacking. We all know they should be the weird Chaos God that drives some odd desires but as a game company should GW push it in that direction? Its a hard thing as while a lot of the game is populated by older gamers they still need to look at connecting to a younger audience at some point. I think rules wise we could look at a fast, aggressive army like the Dark Eldar should be with many ways to mess with the enemy units. Either leadership debuffs, minus’s to hit, and some mind control thrown in for good measure. It just gets hard as a lot of the game doesn’t really care too much about Leadership so while what could be a powerful mechanic if the rest of the game actually started to care about the stat. Of course I have something like 90+ Daemonettes just waiting to hit the table top at some point. Maybe they will get to kill some Yellow and Black Nids once again.
Tzeentch
Finally we get to Tzeentch who I feel has a pretty good handle on how they should work. I wonder if we’ll see a nerf on the Changling in this book. He hasn’t been nearly as brutal as of late with the dreaded Reapers not carrying for his tricksy ways. They should be the spell casting army – but a massed army full of Smites was obviously too good and had to get nerfed a bit. I wonder if they will get a similar roll changing mechanic like the Disciples of Tzeentch from AOS. I think that could be a very interesting, powerful, and different enough to warrant a dance in the Crystal Caverns. I really do like the ideas of Tally aspect so something that would gain power as they successfully cast more spells could be cool too. It all really depends if we do see a true smite change at some point because in a lot of ways the army is built to smite and if they can’t as well – well then the army will suffer.
Odds and Ends
Speaking of Stratagems – how much do you want to bet the old “Warpstorm” table is replaced with a stratagem of sorts. Maybe it is still random or only once a turn sort of thing. Or it could just be based on the God your army is pledged towards. It gets hard as I feel while the army will have some semblance to the currenty 8th designs, with Daemons they can completely go in a weird direction and build something truly unique.
I have high hopes the Greater Daemons are tweaked because right now the only true big daemon models we see are just the 2 Bash Bros – Morty and Magnus. It would be great to have these awesome models feel like a true centerpiece model we want them to be. Especially if we see a few new ones with the Daemon Codex, the Malign Portents from AOS, and all the rumors/chatter/dreams of the blogosphere. I don’t know how many new “kits” will show up beyond a character or two (the snail dude will get a datasheet I bet) and reworked Greater Daemons. I would love a fully new book but until I get a chance to see it beyond being in glass prison I am just a guy with a fistful of wishes and dreams.
Next week will be Xmas and I hope everyone has a great one. I know I will getting 3 of the Nurgle Dread Dog thingies and at least one of the Terminator boxes. I also will have a cool conversion coming for my next Painting Video stream week depending on how it goes as I throw it all together. I got most of the parts and just need to sit down, play some weird remix stuff, and make pew pew sounds.
~How much do you think GW will change up Codex Chaos Daemons?
