NEW High Elves pics!

Pics removed

Resurrecting a dead army

This should be fun.

Yup, bringing back the dead.  I have no idea why the sudden interest in Vampire Counts, but I have a crap ton of them sitting the garage waiting to get updated.  Warhammer Fantasy has died down a lot in my area, but I think I'm going to get back into it in a big way.  It's a solid game system and 8th Ed. has really made it more fun contrary to what other people believe.  By the way the current books are rolling out, I'm sure we'll see a more balanced game once the 7th Ed. power armies get rotated out (DE, Lizzies, Skaven).

Here's what I'm currently building towards at 2500:

2496
12 deploys

LORDS:
Lv.4 Vampire Lord = 548
Lore of Vampires
Quickblood, Red Fury, Beguile
Heavy Armor, Shield, Barded Nightmare
Dragonhelm, ToPreservation, Ogre Blade

HEROES:
Lv.2 Vampire = 233
Lore of Death
Aura of Dark Majesty
Heavy Armor, Lance, Barded Nightmare
Enchanted Shield, Cursed Book

Lv.1 Necro = 90
Lore of Vampires
Scroll

CORE:
40x Zombies (Standard) = 125
20x Zombies (Standard) = 65
35x Ghouls (Ghast) = 360
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40

SPECIAL:
10x Black Knights (FC, BoSwiftness) = 305
5x Hexwraiths = 150
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45

RARE:
Terrorgheist = 225
Terrorgheist = 225

++++++++++++++++++++++

The main thing to note here is that I'm going for a pretty balanced approach.  There's a mini-cav bus, less screams than a scream list, and a good amount of magic as well.  The Vamp Lord and Lv.2 Vamp will ride in the Black Knights, 6x2 formation and they'll fly shotgun next to 2x Terrorgheists.  With 12 drops total in the list, I'm looking to match if not beat most deployment.  I won't have enough to out-deploy MSU armies, but this is a pretty good start.

Lv.1 Necro functions as a caddy and sits in the smaller zombie unit.  Ghouls will be a hitting force that'll benefit greatly from Van Hels, but it's the Lord and the Terrorgheists that'll do the heavy lifting.  Spirit Hosts are great units to have and Hexwraiths are severely underrated.  They're one of the best chaff removal units in the game and being able to scare off/kill Eagles/Sabretusks/Ratdarts are a huge bonus.

Anyways, this is what I got for now.  Construction of the army will probably take place now and into April, with enough time to get some games in before my primary army, High Elves enter the fray in May.  Tau comes out next and I'll probably get my hands on the book just to write an review.  Otherwise, I try to stay away from the blue goat fishmen as much as possible.

My Dark Eldar's scaling/power

Takin' dem slaves!

Here's an exercise everyone can do, regardless of what army you play.  Make 3 lists, no double force org, one at 1500, one at 1750 and one at 2000.  Analyze what you add/take form your lists and write down the major changes.  Check it out:

1495
16 KP

HQ:
Succubus (Agonizer/BP, Haywire) = 105

TROOP:
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
10x Warriors (Raider NS/SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB, Haywires) = 195
10x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB, Haywires) = 205

HEAVY:
Ravager (NS) = 115
Ravager (NS) = 115
Voidraven (FF, 2x SF) = 175

++++++++++

1746
18 KP

HQ:
Succubus (Agonizer/BP, Haywire) = 105

TROOP:
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
10x Warriors (Raider NS/SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
10x Warriors (Raider NS/SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB/BP, Haywires) = 210
10x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB/BP, Haywires) = 220

ELITE:
3x Trueborn (Venom NS/SC, 3x Blaster) = 156

HEAVY:
Ravager (NS) = 115
Ravager (NS) = 115
Voidraven (FF, 2x SF) = 175

++++++++++

1997
21 KP

HQ:
Succubus (Agonizer/BP, Haywire) = 105
Succubus (Agonizer/BP, Haywire) = 105

TROOP:
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
10x Warriors (Raider NS/SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
10x Warriors (Raider NS/SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB/BP, Haywires) = 210
9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB/BP, Haywires) = 210

ELITE:
3x Trueborn (Venom NS/SC, 3x Blaster) = 156
3x Trueborn (Venom NS/SC, 3x Blaster) = 156

HEAVY:
Ravager (NS) = 115
Ravager (NS) = 115
Voidraven (FF, 2x SF) = 175

++++++++++

From 1500 to 1750, you'll see the following things:

• The same amount of Raiders, Ravagers and Voidravens.  That means that the amount of opening Dark Lances stay the same.  No change there in power level.
• However, the second round of darklight weaponry increases noticeably with the addition of the Blasterborn.
• There's also 2x poison gunships over just one, and both squads of Wyches received Blast Pistols for their Hekatrix.
• The biggest addition there is definitely the added Venom; not only does it give me more second turn lances, but also gives me long-range poison shooting platform.

From 1750 to 2000, there'll even more changes:

• In the first round of shooting, the amount of darklight remains the same as the 1750 and even the 1500 list.  This is important to keep in mind:  The amount of anti-tank doesn't change as the list reaches its maximum potential in the opening volley.
• However, the second round of shooting has 6 more lances in the form of Blasterborn than the 1500 list.
• Compared to the 1500 list, there's also 2x Venoms to add to long-range poison firepower, which is +1 from the 1750 list.
• Upgrade wise, nothing changes except for the addition of one more Succubus.  Now I have 2x of them to join the Wyches that adds significantly to their CC potential, but doesn't change unit numbers at all.
• I am still playing with the same ~50 scoring bodies that I am at 1750, which is only 5 more than the 1500 list.
• What does this tell me?  My scoring potential at 1500 is substantial, while it decreases at larger games due to the increased firepower of my enemies, but I'm able to bring more destructive weapons of my own.  If I were to go from 1750 to 1850, I would probably just add another Succubus to a Wych squad.

So which one of these lists has the best balance of firepower, scoring units and first/second turn potential?  I would think it's my 1750 list.  This is when the true power of my Dark Eldar is unleashed because I'm able to kite out my squad with upgrades, take 5 more warriors to complete another gunboat, but also take a Blasterborn unit in a Venom.  This in turn, increases the number of second turn lances while providing me with additional long-range firepower.

It's a fun exercise, you should try it.  I do it every now and then when rebalancing/optimizing my army lists against changes in the meta.

Voidraven over Razorwing

Damn man.. going hard.

For a couple of games now, I've been including my Voidraven in almost every game over the Razorwing.  Don't get me wrong, the Razorwing is still a fantastic aircraft, but I think the way I've built my Voidraven has him beat.  The setup I'm talking about is a Voidraven with Flickerfields and 2x Shatterfield Missiles.  That's it.  Keep him as cheap as possible and the kit comes in at 175 points.

The primary objective of the bomber is to come in and do its damage.  It literally blows his load on the first turn and then runs away like a little girl.  If there's ground targets to be had, it gets to eat 2 Void Lances and both of the Shatterfield Missiles.  Next round, my VR zooms over another target (or the same) and delivers the mine.  Depending on what happens around me on the battlefield, the VR might go 36" just to get his ass off the board after delivering the mine, especially if there's other aircraft that plans to intercept.

Believe it or not, the AV11 really does help.  It makes the aircraft immune to bolters looking for lucky glances, and puts the plane in a sweet spot to eat glances over pens from a Quad-gun.  I like to take the Flickerfield over the Night Shields for my DE aircraft simply because I want to benefit from my 5+ invul save without having to Jink my aircraft.  Preserving those 2 BS4 S9 AP2 Lance shots are key at utilizing the VR's strengths.

It still kinda offends me how the void mine is only small blast, considering, you know, it's supposedly a triumph of Dark Eldar weapons technology.  If it was large blast, I would be all over this thing every time!  I guess when it comes down to it, most of the games I've had with fliers is all about the alpha strike anyway.  The plane comes in, does its damage and then dies, or flies away.  The ADL + Quad-gun is still especially hard on Dark Eldar aircraft, but that's just expected from something like that.  On the other hand, those S9 Void Lances really do a noticeable amount of damage over the normal lances.

Here's what the current list looks like with the Voidraven Bomber:

1746

18 VP

HQ:

Succubus (Agonizer/BP, Haywire) = 105

TROOP:

5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130

5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130

10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195

10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195

9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB/BP, Haywires) = 210

10x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB/BP, Haywires) = 220

ELITE:

3x Trueborn (Venom NS/SC, 3x Blaster) = 156

HEAVY:

Ravager (NS) = 115

Ravager (NS) = 115

Voidraven (FF, 2x SF) = 175

40K Allies and WHFB

Lookin' good man.

So what are the chances that WHFB will see Allies as a permanent thing 9th Edition?

It's been a while now since 6th Ed. 40K has been released.  What are your thoughts on having allies in general?  For me, it always feels like Imperials get a lot of their bases covered while Xenos gets kinda screwed.  Eldar being BB with Dark Eldar really does help, but what about Tyranids?

How do all of you feel about allies in 40K and maybe in WHFB?  Do you see any super imbalance in WHFB?

My WHFB Daemons list

"It granted me all that I desired; but took from me all that I valued.
I would give anything to look upon its beauty once again."
- Liber Malefic

What?  Just because you think I hate the army book means I'm going to stop playing the army?  No way!  It's true, I don't like the new book.  I think it forces you into fairly specific choices and it doesn't have the army diversity as the last book.  Gone are the days of mono-Tz and Khorne and welcome your new overlords Nurgle and Slaanesh!

Anyways, here's my list at 2500:

2494
10 deploys

LORDS:
Lv.4 Keeper of Secrets = 580
Lore of Slaanesh
Greater Gift, 2 Lessers

HEROES:
Lv.1 Herald of Slaanesh = 130
Lesser Locus of Grace
Lore of Slaanesh

Herald of Slaanesh = 120
Lesser Locus of Grace
BSB

CORE:
30x Daemonettes (FC, BoSwiftness) = 375
29x Daemonettes (FC) = 349

SPECIAL:
5x Seekers of Slaanesh = 100
5x Seekers of Slaanesh = 100
4x Fiends of Slaanesh = 260
5x Furies of Slaanesh = 60

RARE:
Skull Cannon of Khorne = 135
Skull Cannon of Khorne = 135
Burning Chariot of Tz = 150

Looks like GW is again making us multi-god.  The Skull Cannons of Khorne are just too good not to take and makes up for the fact that Flamers are weaker.  I like the 1-of Burning Chariot because even though it's random, it's a flying chariot that can potentially do a lot of damage.  It's probably a good thing that my opponents ignore it.

Lastly, two solid blocks of Daemonettes with Seekers to hunt warmachines, Fiends to hunt Vanguard units/flank charge + add combat res, and Furies purely for deployment fodder.  Both of my Heralds make the Daemonette units immune to Dwellers, and the Lv.4/1 will be carrying Lore of Slaanesh.  ASL is almost as good as ASF, not really, but it'll allow me to get in my shots before my girls get chopped up.

What do you guys think of the list?

WHFB Review: Daemons of Chaos

Oh how the mighty have fallen..

In this review, I'm going to dissect the army book down into three key sections.  We're going to talk about the Overall Design, Internal Balance and External Balance.  I'm not going to beat around the bush here, just get down to the nitty gritty.  This is going to be one serious review, prepare yourself.

Overall Design

The entire design philosophy of Daemons have changed since the last book.  Just like the 40K rendition, it looks like GW is going back to its roots to be more chaotic and random.  At first glance, the random elements looks quite manageable.  Unfortunately, once you go deeper into the practical game mechanics, you'll find a lot of inconsistencies and poor design choices.  The one thing that really stands out is the "3" and the "11" on the Reign of Chaos chart that's rolled in the magic phase.  You're looking at some really frustrating game mechanics right here.  No one wants to lose his Bloodthirster before he even gets to do anything, and likewise, no one wants to lose their Lv.4 Wizard due to Daemonic Possession.  Fortunately, Daemonic Possession is a lot easier to avoid than it is in 40K.  Punished by the Gods is a little harder to avoid simply because there's less spammable champions in Fantasy.

Throughout the Reign of Chaos table, you'll see a lot of inconsistencies in both damage and frequency.  The one thing that stood out to me was how harsh the Slaanesh and Khorne punishments were in comparison to Tzeentch and Nurgle.  These trigger if you roll a "6" on conflicting god units (Khorne hates Slaanesh units for exmaple), and on enemy units.  Khorne throws out a stonethrower shot S3(9) with D6 wounds while Tzeentch only scatters D6 but hits for S4 flaming under a small template.  Some say that the damage of these are equally as devastating, but the chances for a direct hit roll are exactly the same.  That's when Khorne takes a significant lead as a S9 D6 wounds hit can wreck anything from an enemy Ironblaster to your own Greater Daemon.  Since Khorne is on the "9" on the chart and Tzeentch is the "5", the chances of these occurring are the same.  Slaanesh, however, sits comfortably at the "8" and Nurgle on the "6".  Strictly talking average here, these happen the most outside the otherwise harmless "7".  What doesn't sit comfortably with me is that Slaanesh requires a 3D6 leadership or take that many wounds with no armor save.  Compare this to Nurgle which is a mere D6+3 S3 hits with no armor saves and you can clearly see which is better.  The pain is truly felt on lower leadership armies as entire units of heavy cav disappear and your own units poof.  This is significantly worse for the Daemon player due to their limitations on leadership.  I'll talk about that later.

Even though some have said the effects of these are relatively the same as their 40K equivalents, I strongly disagree.  Centering a template attack on a unit in fantasy as opposed to a single model in 40K is completely different.  A S4 round template or a Stonethrower hit is a serious thing to consider as the effects of such attacks can equate to half a unit lost.  These are player-paid points, models and work that's being thrown out the window from otherwise random effects.  To make matters even worse, this happens whenever you roll for the Winds of Magic.  Most of the seriously detrimental effects hover around the lower end of the 2D6 chart, so not are you plagued with a pitiful magic turn, you're also penalized with possible army-wide Instability tests, -1 to all your units' ward saves, or killing yourself because you're Punished by the Gods.  These effects all weigh in tremendously to the outcome of the battle much more than it is in 40K.

Moving on to the Daemonic Gifts, I can't say I'm too pleased.  Everyone knows that 40K and Fantasy are completely different animals, and I would certainly hope the designers know as well.  Unfortunately, the need for daemon players to take anything other than magic weapons is out of the question.  Why does every army book out there have access to the full range of BRB items and not Daemons?  You know how in every 8th Ed. book they provided each army with "special" magic items, maybe 8-10 of them and allowed them to fill in the holes with BRB items?  Well, not Daemons.  You don't have access to magical armors, talismans, enchanted items, nor arcane items.  That's right, Daemons of Chaos don't even have access to dispel scrolls.  Don't even get me started that this was done because of game balance:  That a Bloodthirster with Armor of Destiny (heavy armor with 4+ ward) or a 2+ armor would be too much to handle.  Really?  Because you know, magic, cannons and other godly characters don't exist in this game.  You're paying 500+ points for a Greater Daemon, who is also your general, and most of the time your primary spellcaster.  Why shouldn't you be able to protect them from your opponent?  Pray you roll that 2+ armor on the Greater Gift table because that's the last time you'll ever see it.

Lastly, you have the General and the BSB and how the different god affiliations have changed the Daemons book.  So you already know that Daemonic characters from one god can't join units of another god.  Now check this:  Daemons receive no benefit from the Inspiring Presence or Hold Your Ground! special rules unless they're of the same god allegiance.  Want a Lord of Change to lead your army?  That's fine, but you're rolling for average Ld.7 on your Plaguebearers with no BSB bonus.  In fact, just don't get into combat with anything you don't on decisively beating, because who knows?  Maybe you'll roll an 2 and everything is awesome, or you'll lose combat, roll an 12 and the entire unit is destroyed.  I can see the need to keep units of the same allegiance, but you're literally pushing for ineffective, mono-god play and most importantly, limiting player options.  No one wants to roll with Ld.7 average army-wide with Instability.

I can see where Mat Ward was going with this, but I think the execution was just poor and unrefined.  Maybe he ran out of time?  Or put on a choke leash by GW?  Or maybe he just didn't care since this would be round 2 for him anyway and he was over it.  Whatever the reason, it looks like a mistranslation of the 40K version that was hastily pushed by shareholders and adopted into the WHFB environment.  Would it be too much to ask for the ability to take Arcane and Magic Armors as gifts?  Or a decent leadership system?  At least a dispel scroll somewhere man.

Internal Balance

Oh man, where do I start?  Let's start with pricing.  For one, everything has gone up in price.  If it didn't, it got worse.  Most of the time, you'll see both more expensive and worse.

Whenever I do balance, I like to approach it with a scalpel, finely-tuning my fixes piece by piece before settling on a delicate compromise.  What happened here was a facelift done with a sledgehammer.  All the Heralds in the army are paper thin now because of the complete lack of armor options.  Nurgle is obviously the most superior choice stats-wise because he's WS5/S5/T5 and has -1 to hit in close combat.  Everyone else is pretty much naked.  To make matters worse, the Locus abilities are just not consistent with the pricing.  Now that you actually have to buy the bonuses to your squad, one could expect better prices right? Wrong.  On top of already expensive Heralds, the prices for most of the Locus are way too expensive.  The Hatred upgrade for the Herald of Khorne is almost as expensive as he is.  Essentially, you're looking at least double the cost for all Heralds just so they can behave as normal in the last book.  Why pay that when you can just buy 13 or so more Bloodletters?  Oh, and check the pricing for Slaanshi Heralds:  Locus of Grace gives your entire the ability to auto-pass characteristic tests for the price of a meltabomb, while the locus that gives ASF costs 10x that.  I haven't seen cost-benefit analysis this bad in a long time, especially when you factor in the Daemonettes primary kill targets.

Needless to say, the biggest disappointment was the Heralds.  Not only can you take none of what made them awesome last book, but they're now ruthlessly more expensive, with significantly less protection.  With Heralds being this bad, players like myself will see the core units as a "tax" more so than the mainstay force.  So that means the rest of the units must be good right?  No.  Bloodcrushers are mediocre, Flamers got more expensive and worse at shooting, Fiends are no longer 1+, and Slaaneshi chariots are still trash.  The semi-underused units from last book such as Seekers, Beasts of Nurgle and Screamers got better though.  Some got cheaper, some saw different stat changes, and some have been redesigned all together (Beasts).  I can't help but wonder if this is one big joke or not.  Cheaper heralds with beneficial abilities, forming the backbone of your army with loads and loads of core units would drastically increase sales.  But yet, these models are the least of their concern both balance wise and money wise.  Huh?

I'll tell you what I'm damn sure about though, and that's GW's really looking to push sales for the Skull Cannon.  Is there a reason such a thing exists for 135 points?  It really puts something like the Ironblaster to shame, and most of the WHFB community would agree with me in saying such a statement is outrageous.  I mean, the Ironblaster is already considered largely underpriced, and you're saying that GW released something cheaper AND better in the form of the Skull Cannon?  Yes, absolutely.  Folks, for a laughable 15 points more than an Empire Cannon, you can get a Daemon of Khorne chariot that has T5 with 3+/5++, moves 7", fires a flaming, magical cannon, has the combat stats that makes even combat units weep, and has S6 Impact hits that regains wounds.  You don't like the ugly model?  I guess you need to pick one up anyway because it's so damn good you'd be crazy not to take one.  Conveniently, the Soul Grinder and Burning Chariot are both pretty decent, so maybe you should pick up some of those as well.

Lastly, I'll briefly mention the magic phase.  As most of you know, the Daemons of Chaos have the same exact spells as Warriors of Chaos.  I guess they consider this consistent because now it's just "chaos magic". Sure, the Demons get different bonuses for getting their spells cast, but nothing bothers me more than the fact  that Tzeentch didn't any of his Lords of Change anything outside Metal and Tzeentch.  Nurgle is now matched with Death and Slaanesh with Shadow, but why is the god of magic himself as limiting?  It kills me a little inside, really.  Consistency is fine and dandy, but not at the expense of key lore.  In fact, just get rid of Warpflame because that rule is backwards stupid.  There's just no reason for it.

External Balance

Judging from the rest of the 8th Ed. books, I wouldn't say Daemons are unplayable.  They're definitely a "tame" book, probably worse than Tomb Kings.  The reason why this is so is because the new Daemons are so limited to begin with, both in overall design, magic items and units, but now they're forced to deal with random elements as well.

Due to their redesign, they are no longer the same army that you saw dominate in 7th in any stretch of the imagination.  This is good in the sense that they were way too powerful before, but bad (and much worse) in a sense that they retained nothing of their previous book.  Despite the over the top power level of 7th Ed. Daemons, it was one of the best designed and internally balanced books that I have ever seen.  Now, I've been in the hobby for 12 some years now, and I can outright say that that particular book is my favorite of all time.  The fluff was great, the writing was fantastic, the internal balance design was made from your heart's desire:  You could literally freestyle and take whatever you want and be happy.  It pleased Tzeentch players, Slaanesh, Khorne, Nurgle, and mixed god fans.  It even pleased players who saw a different build every time they were across the table from them, and internet forums everywhere talking about which build was the most powerful, or how they got their asses handed to them by a different list every time.  Player options were limitless and that is key in the longevity of any army book.

Now?  A book built upon the utter ruin of the previous rendition, with little to no compassion to the previous writer.  Oh wait a minute, Mat Ward wrote this one as well, and this is where I think there might be a conspiracy.  There is no way Mat can fail this hard at writing books given his track record.  His internal balance is normally superb, a little on the powerful side, but rock solid.  Could this be the first time the world sees what happens when upper management/sales takes a GW designer by the reigns and says do this or else?

There is nothing in this book that reminds me of the old book, and this includes all the player options.  I literally cannot justify taking any of the Heralds except maybe the Slaanesh one.  Nurgle is definitely a safer bet 99/100.  You know what?  This is exactly the problem.  There's so many no-brainer options and WTFWHYs that not only limits the player options, but also sabotages their involvement, planning and love of the hobby.  You will see mostly the same lists from a competitive point of view, and if you don't , you're probably just playing for fun anyways because you love the lore behind it (which personally, I liked the last book's more).

I see this as the most literal, collective failure in an army book that GW has put out in 12 years.  Something that makes Cruddace's 5th Ed. Tyranids look like a work of genius and earned Gav Thrope's CSM a spot in the Louvre.

1/5 Overall Design
2/5 Internal Balance
2/5 External Balance

No army, nevermind army, no player should ever have to suffer through this for the next X years.  Really.

1750 Daemonic Evolution

If only the god damn KoS had Beast..

Yup, I keep posting lists because I love it.  No, really, what it is is me playing an ass ton of games and figuring out what works and what doesn't.  Here's what the list looks like now:

1745

HQ:
Lv.3 Lord of Change = 305
Divination, 2x Greater Gifts, 1x Lesser Gift

Herald of Slaanesh = 85
Beguilement, 1x Lesser Gift

Herald of Slaanesh = 80
Seeker, Grace, 1x Lesser Gift

TROOP:
20x Daemonettes (Champ, Instrument) = 195
10x Plaguebearers (Champ) = 95
10x Plaguebearers (Champ) = 95

FAST ATTACK:
20x Seekers (Champ, Icon) = 255
9x Screamers of Tz = 225

HEAVY:
Seeker Cavalcade (2/1 Exalted) = 155
Seeker Cavalcade (2/1 Exalted) = 155
Burning Chariot of Tz = 100

• Lord of Change is still there with Divination.
• Heralds of Slaanesh are still there; one to lead the Seekers and one for the Daemonettes.
• Only 2 MSU units of PBs to hold points, they DS on later or start on the map depending on many VPs there are.
• New units here:  Double Seeker Cavalcades and 9x Screamers of Tz.  Why?  Because they are freaking fast, adds as a force multiplier, and can't be ignored.  When 20 Seekers, 9 Scramers, a total of 16 AV11 Hull Points, a Burning Chariot, and a Lord of Change is running straight into your lines, there's just too much to shoot everything.  The AV11 gives me immunity to bolters, answers MEQ in cover and provides something the daemon army desperately needs:  meat.
• Again, I'm going for the offensive take on things, needing the Plaguebearers to score and that's it.  If I wanted to play D, I would play Nurgle.  You guys should know by now that that isn't my cup of tea.  I like it fast, really fast.

Remember, the name of the game is speed!

Update:

Last night I played against a SW/IG list
He had a Griffon, 2 units of scoring autocannons + guardsman, led by a Runepriest behind an ADL with 2 Longfang squads w/ missiles. 3 units of Greys in drop pods, Wolf Lord + 2 thunderwolves riding shotgun. And a Vendetta with Plasma Gun Vets and a CCS.

A pretty good list, but not over the top or hardcore competitive.

The mission was 1 VP each, long ways deployment, PLUS he seized on me. My LoC rolled re-roll invuls, had the Staff and S8 AP1 Lance 18". Rest of my guys took Etherblades. Although the seize was kinda bad, the remaining Chariots charged and killed one GH squad by themselves. LoC + Screamers killed the other squad that came down. Rest of the army ran up, with the Seekers taking the brunt of the damage.

The thing to take away from this was: I was able to relocate my entire army to his southern and exposed flank. Literally, in a blink of an eye, everything turbo-boosted, flew, and ran half way across the map and into one concentrated area, true Blitzkrieg style. I continued to do a sweeping advance upwards and forced a major victory, snatched from the jaws of an early seize.

I love how fast the army is and this is the one I'm probably going to stick with. The obvious weakness is heavy air, but with all those points spent on units that come in on reserve, I'm more than happy killing everything else and making my way across the field unopposed.

Skull Cannons of LOL

Game balance is a myth.

You know, not a lot of things bother me in WHFB and 40K, but some things are just unacceptable.

Most players consider the Ogre Kingdom's Iron Blaster to be overpowered already.  Here, you have the Skull Cannon for 135 points [talking about WHFB here].  It's a Daemon of Khorne, has T5 with 3+/5++, moves 7", fires a flaming, magic cannon, has the combat stats that makes even combat units weep, has S6 Impact hits that regains wounds.

We have a problem here folks, 3 problems in fact:

1. The designers there have no idea what game balance is, both internally and externally.  At this point, we're assuming they're just doing random shit, and any sense of game balance is just pure luck.
2. The playtesters they hire don't know what they're doing, or how to playtest, or recognize potentially abusive, undercosted, or overcosted units.  Either way, I don't know what's going on in this department.  Anyone with half a brain would immediately recognize the problem with a unit like this.  It's really that obvious.
3. Lastly, and possibly the worst thing of all:  GW is just trying to sell models that aren't selling well, or they know aren't going to sell well, with purposely abusive rules.  The thought of them making poor rules just to models is horrifying.  You know what, it might not even be the designer's call at this point.  If your boss comes up to you and says "make this model sell or gtfo", what would you do?

What do you guys think?  How does something like the Skull Cannon make it past the design studio?

Multi-god is the way to go

Everyone but Khorne.

New list:

1849

HQ:

Lv.3 Lord of Change = 305

Divination, 2x Greater Gifts, 1x Lesser Gift

Herald of Slaanesh = 85

Beguilement, 1x Lesser Gift

Herald of Slaanesh = 80

Seeker, Grace, 1x Lesser Gift

Herald of Nurgle = 80

Fecundity, 1x Lesser Gift

TROOP:

20x Daemonettes (Champ, Instrument) = 195

11x Plaguebearers (Champ, Icon) = 114

10x Plaguebearers (Champ) = 95

10x Plaguebearers (Champ) = 95

FAST ATTACK:

20x Seekers (Champ, Icon) = 255

HEAVY:

Seeker Cavalcade (2/1 Exalted) = 155

Soul Grinder (Nurgle, Phlegm) = 180

Burning Chariot (Horrors) = 110

FORT:

Aegis + Quad-Gun = 100

After several games, I've decided to change my Slaanesh/Tz force into a more diverse multi-god force minus Khorne. As awesome as the dogs, Crushers + Karanak is, I want the majority of my fighting force to be Tzeentch and Slaanesh. Nurgle are there simply because I need objective drivers. Their T4 and natural Shrouded gives them unmatched resilience when compared to the other gods. Especially since the Herald is T5, gives the squad FNP and they hide behind the ADL (thus getting a 2++ cover), hopefully by an objective. For some wild reason, the Nurgle Herald has BS5, so he mans the Quad-Gun and all is well.

The rest of the units here are pretty self-explanatory. The Seeker Cavalcade pushes up with the Seekers, Burning Chariot (if needed) and the Lord of Change, while the rest of the army sits back. I will hold 1-2 units of PBs in reserve, just in case they need to grab separate points around the map, or if they need to backup the primary objective holders on the ADL. The Icon will guide them there.  Lord of Change picks up Divination and spellslings his way to victory, buffing and nerfing units as he please.

Once the Seekers move into a good position, the 20-man unit of Daemonettes will enter, hopefully get a good D3+6" Run roll, and join the upcoming slaughter. The Soul Grinder will sit behind the ADL to support the scoring PB unit.  Since he is behind the Quad-Gun itself, he will benefit from a cover save.

Icon hopping, Instruments and more

To change or not to change..

The one thing that I really like about the new book is how the Icons and Instruments were designed.

Say you have two units in reserve, the layout is exactly the same and both have Icons and Instruments.  Let's just pretend its a 20-man unit of Daemonettes, led by a Herald of Slaanesh each.  Then let's say you have a unit of Seekers with an Icon that's already somewhere in mid-field.  Turn 2 comes and you start itching to roll your reserves.  You point at the first unit that has an Icon and you roll the die.  The result is a 3 and you glee with joy!  That unit will not only DS without error within 6" of your Icon from the Seekers, but will also drag in the other unit of Daemonettes as well.

But wait, there's a catch.  Since your unit of 20 Daemonettes also has a Icon, the second unit that comes in from the Instrument can now home in directly on top of the fresh Icon.  This gives you precision-based DS assaults with a 2-1 bonus.  Unfortunately, this only happens once, or else you'll be rippling the entire army into your enemies face on T2.  If the first roll to reserve doesn't hit the 3+, you still have another chance to 2 for 1 if you have say 3 units that have the Instrument.  With a 6" Icon to DS in, a 2-1 reserve roll can have you hopping 12" across the map provided you have 2 Icons.  This can drastically increase the range of your Horrors if they need to deliver some shots.

The one thing to remember here is that you don't always have to buy the Icon, and you don't always have to buy the Instrument.  Icons should be on units that you want your other units to home in on.  These are fast delivery type units such as Plague Riders, Seekers or Bloodcrushers, or back-field heavy blocks that might need support; such as a 20-man unit of Plaguebearers with FNP Herald behind an ADL.  Instruments, on the other hand, should only be taken on units that you need to come in with urgency.  These include frontline units such as Herald-led Daemonettes or Bloodletters.

You know what has been aching me these last couple of days?  Horrors.  I love fact that a Lv.3 Herald with 20 Horrors generates a total of 8d6 S6 shots.  What I absolutely hate about them is that they first have to pass a psychic test, two of them in fact.  Then your opponent gets to Deny them, twice (provided the Herald is there, which he should), then you have to roll to see how many shots you get, with both, then you have to hit, one at BS4 and the other at BS3, and then you have to wound.  Why on earth is this so clunky?  As stupid as the tally keeping is, I just don't think any type of basic attack should ever get denied.  I had a game the other day where in one game, my Horror unit failed to cast once, and got denied another.  Towards the end of the game, they only got off a few shots (literally, I rolled a low # of shots) before being gunned down.  That's ~300 some points not being able to do any damage before the dice even start rolling.

Having played some games with Daemons, I'm seriously considering dropping the Slaanesh and Tzeentch theme and going with a mixed-god approach.  I'm talking about some PBs to hold points, Seekers and Daemonettes for attacking, a Lord of Change for buffs/beats, and some Nurgle Soul Grinders to hold down the fort.  Who knows, I might even add some Karnak and Flesh Hounds to really seal the deal.  Maybe this is what the designers (Cruddace and Kelly) wanted.  If this is so, then why is Nurgle so good!

Some thoughts on Daemons

You have chosen poorly.

After playing a few games with the new Daemons for 40K, I must say that random is the least of your worries.

In all the games I've played so far, the Warpstorm table has been quite useless.  Its purely luck based, so what did you expect?  A few examples would be me not having any Khorne units on the battlefield so nothing effected me.  I rolled for all his units and didn't get a single 6.  On the turn I did hit a unit, I didn't wound.  In one game, I even rolled an 11 and he had 2 Librarians on the field.  He crossed his fingers and rolled a 7 on 3 dice, OK.

Daemons die in droves.  There's not a single unit in my army that's not vulnerable to the mass shooting that 40K brings to the table.  It's to a point where I'm thinking about replacing all my Daemonettes with Horrors because it's just getting ridiculous.  Imagine you're running around a war-torn sci-fi universe and you were wearing nothing but a bikini.  Yup, that's what T3 5++ is in a nutshell.  Fast or not, my Daemons get shot to shit whenever they're on the battlefield.  Frag missiles especially are painful, but the most common battlefield weapon, the Bolter, is the worst offender of all.  Even getting my 20-man units into battle seems like a challenge.

Even something like a Lord of Change, which is a Flying MC, takes a serious beating with so much firepower present on the battlefield.  Last night, I rolled re-roll invuls and 4+ FNP and he still took 3 wounds from pure weight of fire.  In a previous game, he just got hunted down and killed by 2 Dakka Flyrants.  With their ability to Enfeeble and ID most of your multi-wound Elites and hunt down any of your Greater Daemons, I feel that's quite a bad matchup.  I feel so bad for the Keeper of Secrets because he actually has to run across the field to do anything.  Deep striking him is the only way to get him closer.

I love the mechanics behind Icons and Instruments.  When I come on with one unit, that unit brings the other one in right on top of the banner he's holding.  Now that's what I call synergy.  The only real letdown of that is that now I more accurate ways to DS in, I can't hold everything back in reserve.  This means no matter what, half of your army will be vulnerable to the predations of long-range weaponry.  The Greater/Lesser gifts and stuff isn't bad either.  Last night, I had my Lord of Change roll Instant Death for his Warlord Trait while sporting a S8 AP2 Concussive Warpdoom weapon.  That just screams amazing.  The game before saw me roll the S8 AP1 Lance and +1W, those are great as well.  Even my Herald + 20 Daemonettes in reserve love seeing the +1 reserve roll for that unit from the Lesser Gift table.

Although Fantasy has a worse book imo, 40K is truly a shooting man's game.  At least 6th Ed. is at least.  Expect your units to die, a lot, and that doesn't feel good at all.  Everyone knows that T3 is a huge liability and that's why I think Nurgle is going to be so strong.  They're literally the only God that doesn't suffer from 40K's array of mass shooting to victory.  High Toughness, plentiful FNP, multiple wounds, and Shrouded gives you a ton more staying power than the other gods.  Aside from taking Nurgle units, I literally feel that you're playing a different game than everyone else.

A quick winners and losers table?  Well, you guys have seen my 1750.  Honestly, the losers are everything that's not the Lord of Change and Seekers.  Everyone else just hits combat too slowly or dies in droves.  I'm seriously thinking about just taking Tz Heralds with Horrors and form a gunline, with Seekers and Daemonettes in counter-charge range or reserved for DS.  The Tz Chariots are decent, and that's only because I'm playing them as Fast Skimmers atm.  I need the Masque to be a Herald so I can 4:1 her, simply because she can add a ton of flexibility to any list.  Definitely more testing is needed, but these are my observations right now.

My Daemons at 1750

Change is good.

Alright, so here's the list.  Keep in mind that it's a themed army with a focus on Slaanesh and Tzeentch.  It's really speedy, but definitely has a fair amount of trouble with anti-air.  In fact, it doesn't have any!  I played a game yesterday where the LoC just got gunned down by dual Dakka Flyrants.  In fact, I think that particular match up would be a very tough for Daemons in general.

Here's what the list looks like:

1690

HQ:

Lv.3 Lord of Change = 305

Divination, 2 Greater Gifts, 1 Lesser Gift

Herald of Slaanesh = 85

1 Lesser Gift, Exalted Locus

Herald of Slaanesh = 85

1 Lesser Gift, Exalted Locus

Herald of Slaanesh = 80

1 Lesser Gift, Lesser Locus, Seeker

TROOP:

20x Daemonettes (Champ, Instrument) = 195

20x Daemonettes (Champ, Instrument) = 195

10x Daemonettes (Champ) = 95

10x Daemonettes (Champ) = 95

FAST ATTACK:

20x Seekers (Champ, Icon) = 255

HEAVY:

Burning Chariot = 100

Burning Chariot = 100

Burning Chariot = 100

It's 60 points short of 1750 due to a number of things.  The first one is that I'm waiting on GW's ruling for Masque being a Herald because I would love to include her in my army.  The second would be the Burning Chariots shooting like Fast Skimmers.  If the Burning Chariots are not ruled that way, I might just weep tears of sorrow because those models are fantastic and no one will buy them, including me.

To explain the drop of the Keeper and the replacement of the Lord of Change, two reasons.  The first would be to have Divination in the army.  The second would be to have a Greater Daemon that can do work.  With S8 AP2 Concussive Warpdoom, I'm very pleased with the weapon that the Lord of Change can take.  Seekers act as a moving beacon that can drop in both 20-packs of Daemonettes onto the front lines while Big Bird flies in the skies to assist.

The lack of anti-air frightens me a lot because Helldrakes, Dakka Flyrants, or Razorwings would tear this army a new one.  Sadly, the AA options for Daemons is a bit lackluster.  Even the Soul Grinder delivering 3 shots at BS3 S7 isn't going to have much of an impact.  What's going to stop the air units in the game from strafing and killing everything you have in a predominately ground-based, melee army?  Vector Striking DPs don't do enough damage to the likes of a Stormraven, and most of the air units are able to deliver their payload and zoom away before you can catch them.

Just food for thought.

Who says Daemons can't be competitive?

Har har har..

It might not be fluffy, or fun to play, or enjoyable for either party, but Chaos Daemons have quite a bit of flexibility.  Just by looking at the codex, I can see some craziness arise.

Mainly these combinations:

• A Lord of Change with Divination is probably the strongest of the GD choices.  Divination in general is just really strong.  The GUO with Lv.3 Biomancy is also a fair contender.
• Taking Heralds of Nurgle with FNP, with AP2 weapons.
• Troops should all be PBs with the Heralds, to sit in cover and take points, as well as being the most resilient of all the choices.
• Take 3 Nurgle Soulgrinders with Phlegm to sit in Ruins and crap on everyone with 2+ cover and 36" S8 AP3 Ord Large Blasts.
• Fill in the rest with Plague Riders, Beasts, Seekers or Screamers.  Honestly, you can pretty much freestyle at this point.

So what does this mean?  It means it's a really good time to be Nurgle.

The Plague Riders are great units, so are the Beasts.  With access to some kind of Divination in the army, the power level of just magnified to ridiculous amounts.  Unfortunately, you will not see me making any of these lists!

Here's a sample of what an optimized, competitive army could look like:

1999

HQ:
Lv.3 Lord of Change = 305
Divination, 2 Greater Gifts, 1 Lesser

Herald of Nurgle = 75
Greater Locus, Lesser Gift

Herald of Nurgle = 75
Greater Locus, Lesser Gift

TROOP:
20x Plaguebearers = 225
Champ/Lesser Gift, Plague Banner, Instrument

20x Plaguebearers = 225
Champ/Lesser Gift, Plague Banner, Instrument

10x Plaguebearers = 105
Champ, Instrument

10x Plaguebearers = 95
Champ

FAST ATTACK:
7x Plague Drones = 354
Champ/Lesser Gift, Rot Proboscis, Instrument

HEAVY:
Soul Grinder = 180
Daemon of Nurgle, Phlegm Bombardment

Soul Grinder = 180
Daemon of Nurgle, Phlegm Bombardment

Soul Grinder = 180
Daemon of Nurgle, Phlegm Bombardment

+++++

Relatively static/reactionary army that hugs cover and shoots until the opportunity arises.
The Chicken helps buff the rest of the army with Divination spells, providing Prescience, Misfortune, Precognition...etc, as well as wacking people with his S8 Concussive Staff of explosions!

You know what's great? You can switch out the chicken, plop in a Lv.3 GUO with Biomancy, 2 Greater Gifts/1 Lesser for 290 and make the entire force pure Nurgle.
Change some unit sizes around for 14x (7x Nurgle #s) and you have yourself a "fluffy" list as well.

This list just brings the pain.

Good job GW, nice FAQ

Good job guys, really.

From the German site, because they always get stuff faster than us:
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m3080052a_GER_Chaosdaemonen_v1.0a_Maerz13.pdf

Google translate:

Errata
Page 26 - demon of Tzeentch
replace the last sentence with the following: "In addition
Tzeentch demons repeat all protection drafts
of 1 "
Page 49, 100, Sections - disease drones device-type,
change the device-type to "cavalry with schwebemo
Module "or cavalry with floating module (Charaktermo
dell) ".
Page 66 - powerful rewards, Obesity
change the sentence as follows: "the demon has +1 life
point and the special rule it does not die. "
Page 104 - demon of Tzeentch
Change the last half sentence as follows: "protect drafts of 1
be "repeated.
Summary - Icon of Chaos
replace the first paragraph with the following: "If
you the melee bestimmst result, you add one
Results point to your website, in particular if the
melee at least one friendly unit with an
Bound icon of chaos. "

Do they not realize they didn't answer a single thing people are looking for?

NOTHING about the Tzeentch Chariot.
NOTHING about Masque and Blue Scribes not being Heralds.
NOTHING about Fiends reducing I to 0.
NOTHING about Heralds being Primary detachment only.
...etc

Amazing.

I'm so sorry WHFB Daemon players

RIP Great Book

Some of the things in here just doesn't make sense.

• There's no magic armor in the entire book, only some makeshift gift, which is also inconsistent with design fluff.
• You cannot swap any of the gifts for armor, only subpar weapons.
• The gifts are horribly overpriced compared to 40K.
• The Bloodthirster is only wearing Heavy Armor, but are wearing 3+ in 40K.
• Flying units are not the same as 40K, where you need Skyfire to shoot.  A cannon can bring about the ruin of your expensive Greater Daemon with ease.
• There is no dispel scroll in the book.
• The prices for some of these Locus just doesn't make ANY sense.  Some are 5 points, some are the price of the Herald itself and are nowhere near as good as the cheaper ones.
• The prices for everything players own has increased, the prices for everything they might not decreased.  In the case of the Skull Cannon, the thing is overpowered and undercosted at the same time, probably trying to sell the damn model.
• The design seems to be all over the place; incredibly inconsistent with its pricing:power and inconsistent with the fluff as well.

The only redeeming quality is the magic, and the funny/sad/pitiful part of it is that the magic is EXACTLY the same as the Warriors of Chaos magic that came out a month ago.  There is literally nothing different except for the Boon.

I feel truly sad for all WHFB Daemon players for this disgraceful attempt at an army book.  Although the power level of the 7th Ed. book was way up there, it was well-written and had the tons of viable options/army builds, enough so players both casual and competitive can enjoy. This new book does not.

I'm at a loss of words, I can't even say that the other designers kept Mat Ward on a leash because of the power of the previous book.  I feel that all the creative process was stripped and this book was the red-headed step child of the 40K book.  In fact, that's exactly what it feels like:  They took the 40k book, gutted it and made a hastily and poorly-made translation to the Fantasy engine.

Some quick demon tips

Hot, hot, hot.

Alright, now that the book is out, let's see what kind of silly stuff you can do with it.

Off the top of my head (in list format!).

General

• Make sure to take unit champions for all your units that can.  This does a few good things:  Gives you a cheap challenger that has an Master-Crafted AP2 weapon that strikes at I, decreases the chance the "3" roll on the Warpstorm table will hit one of your characters that matter, and further increases the amount of attacks the unit can have for half the price.
• The faction-specific banners aren't always a must-buy, but all of them are very good.  It completely depends what you need the unit to do:  Bloodcrushers will always buy it to reach combat quickly, but Slaanesh might not need it because he thinks he can just kill the unit in one go, or that believes WS5 is good enough.  Save whatever points you can.  Normal banners should only be on the units that you plan on deploying first.
• Instruments, on the other hand, are a must-have on units that have critical battlefield roles.  All big units should have Instruments, all important fighting units that can carry them should.  A prime example of this would be my 20-man unit of Daemonettes with re-roll Herald.  An example of an unit that you shouldn't have it on would be a 10-man unit of backfield-capping Plaguebearers who you want coming in later in the game anyway.  It goes without saying that Instruments also prevent your units from being smited by your rival god.
• Don't forget that Greater Demons (including the named ones) make your Daemon Princes Heavy.  If you want a flying circus, now's the time to let it loose.  Just remember that you're T5 and are subject to ID now.

Nurgle

• The GUO is basically unkillable if he takes Biomancy.  If he Iron Arms himself, you're looking at a T10 model before gifts.  Like most Greater Daemons, he's looking at Lv.3 as mandatory, 2 Greater Gifts and a Lesser one.  Take a look at the Balesword Greater Gift weapon and tell me you don't love the free ID on an AP2 MC.
• Nurgle units are the king of hugging cover and benefiting from it.  Their base troops with a Herald with FNP sitting in Ruins gives you a 2++ cover.  Those Nurgle flies and Beasts you have there can also provide cover for your GUO.  Put flies in front, Beasts behind and the GUO behind that.  There you have it, a wall of moving ridiculous cover.
• Speaking of which, the Soul Grinder can also benefit from the Ruins + Shrouded save as long 25% of him is covered.  Just have him sit somewhere and Phlegm all day.
• Beasts of Nurgle and the Plague Drones are both fantastic.  Make sure you take them if you want your units to push up in an endless tied of high toughness, high wound wall of cascading cover saves.  Just like Tyranids, cascading cover will be your best friend when advancing up the field.
• Keep in mind that despite all these ridiculous cover tricks, you have to understand that sometimes taking unkillable units does bad things for you.  Mainly the fact that your opponent will not bother shooting at them and shoot at easier targets.  That's why you have to go pure Nurgle!  I really think out of all the armies, Nurgle is the best mono-god build right now.  If everything is hard to kill, what choice do your opponents have?

Slaanesh

• The Keeper of Secrets is probably the best priced GD in my opinion.  He's ridiculously fast for a non-flyer and his stats are just out of control.  Make sure you take him with Telepathy as even the Primaris Psychic Shriek is very good for him to have.  I personally take him as a Lv.3 with 2 Greater Gifts and a Lesser.  The chance to roll the double S on 6s to hit lesser is just amazing (essentially acts as ID vs. most things).  Plus, you can always switch out for a Master-Crafted weapon if you don't like what you get.  Always hope for defensive Greater Gifts as the KoS needs all he can to get across the field.  Personally, I would cover hop until you have a good enough target saturation.
• Speaking of target saturation, I think Slaanesh daemons got some new toys.  I really like the Seekers right now with Cavalry, Outflank and Acute Senses.  The special rules gives you flexibility, but the Daemon of Slaanesh rule that gives you +6" to your run should be used until it hurts.  Take a full unit, led by a Herald with Move Through Cover, give the unit a Banner and Instrument, and run towards your opponents as fast as you can while claiming cover.  Next turn, if you roll one successful DS with say... 20 Daemonettes led by another Herald, you come on directly next to the Seekers, both units practically on top of your opponent.
• To make matters even more interesting, make sure to take Instruments on all your units that matter.  Why?  Because once that unit of 20 Daemonettes drop, another Instrument can activate and come in at the same time as the unit that just deepstruck in.  You're basically looking at a 2-for-1 deal every time.  So now picture this:  20 Seekers with Herald, 2 units of 20 Daemonettes with a Herald, a Keeper of Secrets, Screamers led by a Tz Divination Herald, and Chariots racing towards your face, all in your face on Turn 2.  Talk about target saturation.
• Min units of Daemonettes make for cheap reserve scoring units.  90 points is a pretty throwaway number, especially since they can come down and run D6 + 3" to capture a point.  That basically translates to 6" of DT-free movement the turn they come down.
• You might think Fiends suck, but they don't.  105 points makes for a great MSU choice that can disrupt the flow of battle.  They can make mess with Psykers within 12" and stacks with the Burning Chariot of Tz, and can assault an unit that typically goes faster than your I5 Daemonettes and render that advantage useless.

Tzeentch

• My Lord of Change is always Lv.3 with all 3 Divination, or Tz Primaris and 2 Divination.  Either way, you're mainly looking for Misfortune and Prescience.  Always, always take the Lesser Gift so you get the Staff of Change +2S Concussive while keeping your MC's AP2.  The next set of gifts are always defensive Greater Gifts.  There's no reason to skimp out on this guy, always go big or go home.  You should be at 305 when you finish.
• When people say Horrors suck, I can't help but laugh just like the Horrors would.  If you take a giant unit of 20 Horrors and give them a Lv.3 Herald with +1S to psychic attacks, you're looking at a force to be reckoned with.  Follow me here:  Lord of Change gives the unit Prescience.  Herald and Horrors test for Flickering Fire and throws all their Warp Charges into it.  Herald gets 4d6 S6 AP4 shots at BS4, Horrors get 4d6 S6 AP4 shots at BS3.  All of this re-rolls to hit due to Prescience.  Add in the Blasted Standard and you're getting an additional 2d6 S4 auto-hits.  With fickle damage like this (8d6 nets you 8-48 shots), you better hope your opponents roll poorly and you roll well on your Deny.
• Flamers might have taken a hit, but I don't know why people would think they're useless.  They were obviously overpowered before, but now S4 AP4 templates give them a defined purpose:  The mass killing of horde units, cover or not.  S4 is a lot better vs. T3 and under, but it's the AP4 that really offends people because everything in the damn game is MEQ.  Sure, the Flamers might not the greatest thing to kill MEQ, but they can still force enough wounds to do massive damage on a unit of 10 marines.  Don't be spoiled people, just do things the old fashion way:  Forced wounds.
• Screamers are still good, just not over the top like they were before.  Give them an Divination Herald to fly Disc with and you're just as lethal, if not more, than before.  Plus, I love the fact the the Herald can just bearhug the unit and give them Greater Locus of Change.  On a 4+, nothing exciting happens, but 5 for S5 or 6 for S6 turns the unit into something much deadlier than before.  The same applies to Flamers I guess.

Khorne

• The Bloodthirster is one hell of a brute.  You're paying good money for someone who can utterly wreck entire units by himself, and pose a serious threat to any IC in the game due to ID weapons.  The fact that he flies is just icing on the cake.  Despite all this, keep an eye on Skarbrand.  He's much cheaper than your kited out BT and he brings crazy to another level when he's on the battlefield.  I shit you not when I say he'll kill anything in close combat because he absolutely will, no challenge.  In an army that's built for close combat and wants to be in combat ASAP, I can see something utterly crazy here.  Remember what I said about units coming in 2-for-1 with Instruments and let blood rain from the skies.
• Heralds of Khorne should either be given Rage or Hatred.  Personally, I like Rage because when you already have S5 on the charge, more attacks will benefit you more vs. MEQ.  You're basically looking for 3s and 3s anyway, so you might as well bring your total attacks from 2 on the charge to 3 on your basic Bloodletter.  The Heralds themselves enjoy a fantastic 10-point upgrade that gives them AP2 and ID on 6s Axe of Khorne, and that's pretty much all they need.
• Always go big on Bloodletter units, there's no reason not to.  You're looking to maximize the amount of damage you can inflict and the only way you can do that is with the amount of bodies on the battlefield.  Daemons are paper-thin now, so you want as many of them as you can.  Your superior weapon stats will mow through most MEQ once you have the numbers to make it into combat.  Always take the Banner of Blood and use it to get into combat ASAP.
• With Bloodcrushers gaining the Cavalry rules, they should really use this to their advantage by moving up the field ASAP and finding some cover.  If you take Karnak, he can give them all Scout!  Who cares if they go through DT, just protect yourself long enough to drop massive blobs of Bloodletters onto your enemies.  Advance together with your entire army of bloodthirsty crazies and use your Skullcannons to give them all pseudo frag grenades for the kill.  The name of the game is target saturation and if you're not doing that, you're probably going to lose.

40K Review: Chaos Daemons

Just throwin' it out there.

Truth be told, this is probably one of the most controversial books ever written.  Did you see just how much internet hype there was?  I'm talking about negative energy, the world is ending, and that the army is unplayable kind of hype.  Don't worry guys, hopefully this review will clear some stuff up.

Before I go any deeper, I want to give brief overview of how I'm going to do this review and how things will be slightly different.  I will touch upon three major categories:  Overall Design, Internal Balance and External Balance.  You can find out what these terms mean here.

I will not go through each and every unit, instead, I will give you an more design-driven analysis of how the book turned out.  Let's begin shall we?


Overall Design

Most of the doom and gloom surrounding this book are the random elements.  I can see where the designers were going with this (Cruddace and Kelly wrote the book), and Chaos is supposed to be fickle, but sometimes you need to control the amount of random elements.  This will come back and bite them in the butt on more than one occasion.

Which occasions are these?  Well, for one is the Warp Storm table.  The major thing to note here is that it happens at the start of each of your shooting phase, and some of the results are just unwanted and overdone.  The ones that really stand out is the 11, which basically picks an enemy psyker and makes him test 3D6 for leadership.  If he fails, he's killed outright and you get a free Herald of your choice.  Now, I don't know about you guys, but I've never found anything that just does something to you, without any player control, for free, to be good game design.  Things like Dante's mask and this just makes you start off the game angry, and frustrates the other player who has no protection against pure luck and zero skill.  As you make your way through the table, you'll find that almost every roll has a consequence for a particular god, so if you have a heavily chromatic-god army, you'll be rolling a D6 every turn just in case you get hate on by a rival god.  Sure, you need a 6 for something to happen, and it can very well effect your enemy more than you, but this is completely out of the player's control.  Sometimes you you gain +1 to your invulnerable save army-wide, sometimes you -1 to your invulnerable.  And sometimes, like the enemy psyker, you just blow up.  You literally blow your up own Greater Demon before the game even starts.

Another thing is that there's no concrete way to customize your warriors the same way as other books.  Most of abilities have to be rolled for on a D6 "Gifts" table (Lesser, Greater, Exalted), and the points you pay to goes to buying X amount of these gifts.  Hope is not all lost though, there are default weapon choices for all your important guys (just like Primaris powers) just in case you don't like your roll.  Some of these weapons are also quite good!  As an army builder hobbyist myself, a major part of the game is sitting around and figuring out different army lists. It brings joy to my hobby and I think randomness kills a little bit of that.  Thankfully, Locus abilities for your Heralds can be configured and bought normally.  It would absolutely suck if you had to D3 for FNP or get something else for your Nurgle Herald.

Lastly, there's a thing that Tzeentch units have called Warpflame.  Whenever you inflict some unsaved wounds, your opponent takes a Toughness test.  If he fails, you get D3 more wounds with no armor/cover saves.  This sounds great right?  Sure, but if he passes, he gets +1 to his FNP for the rest of the game.  If he comes stock with none, he gains a 6+.  If he's a Plague Marine, have fun with his 4+ FNP.  This is the same thing that happened to Warriors of Chaos, and it's a change I do not like at all.  Rest of the game abilities should just be removed from all of Warhammer.  Most of it is tied to frustrating design elements.

Through all this, the one thing that bothers me the most is how much record-keeping there is.  In a game that already has a ton of randomness, why add more randomness that you have to keep tabs for?  You have to mark which units have Warpflame FNP for the rest of the game, what gifts did your Greater Demons/Heralds/unit Champions rolled, what you rolled on Warp Storm table every turn, who transformed what guy into who, so on, so forth.  The Warp Storm table itself takes forever because it not only effects your Khorne units for example (if you rolled the result that causes Slaanesh to emo-rage), but you also have to roll a D6 for every unengaged enemy unit.  There is just so much stuff you have to keep of, because you know, victory points, warlord traits, and who got first blood isn't enough already.

Design wise, I give this book a 2.5/5.  Good effort, but it failed on multiple levels.  The major failures of design was; the overwhelming amount of randomness (just too much), the sheer number of record-keeping elements and the insanely frustrating elements that no one can control.  No one wants to lose their Eldrad to freak luck, and no Demon player wants to lose their Warlord Bloodthirster before they get to do anything.  It's a loss/loss for both players that such a silly mechanic even exists.  The only thing that prevented me from ripping the score even lower is that this is a complete redesign of the Demon army.  At first you don't succeed.. well.. don't fail us again.

Internal Balance

Here is the funny part.  Despite all the randomness that the book exhibits, it does a pretty decent job in terms of internal balance.  A lot of you are probably scratching your heads why, and I'll tell you why.  The book is balanced in terms that everything is playable and at the right price.  I say this with confidence because even if you are looking at that T4 Bloodcrusher that only has a 5+ Invulnerable save and you're screaming curses to Khorne, you have to look at all the other thing it gets.  It gains the ability to take a god-specific banner that allows a cool once-a-game ability, can now take a champ for a cheap attack, have different champion upgrades, +1 wound, and most importantly, now count as Cavalry.  Things change in a redesign, it's time to accept that.

Change is something that scares a lot of people and skews their perception at what works what doesn't.  Internally, I can say that the book is well-balanced.  I guarantee you that you will see every one of these units on the battlefield some time or another.  All the Greater Demons have a use:  Tzeentch gains Divination and better combat stats, the Great Unclean One is T7 and can Mastery Level 3 Biomancy, Keeper of Secrets are incredibly fast, powerful and cheap, while the vaulted Bloodthirster remains a beast to be feared.  Not to mention taking a Greater Demon unlocks Daemon Princes as Heavy Support, so the army-list remains flexible and scary if you take all flying MCs.

Heralds can be taken in 4 for 1, and all the Locus abilities have their use.  A few oddities stand out like Masque and Blue Scribes not being a herald, but they can still offer themselves as cheap HQ choice if you wanted that.  Troop-wise, you're looking at the next horde army.  Everything is dirt cheap and you'll be flooding the board with an near-endless amount of demons should you choose to go that route.  With so many different herald options, you can kite our your Plaguebearers to be killy with 2+ poison or hold points with FNP.  Beasts, Fiends,  Epidemius, Masque, and a few others have been redesigned to work differently.  I can say that all of the ones I named and many more will find their way into lists because of the army composition.  Fiends are no longer the no-brainer unit they were before, and now fills a role that disrupts enemy psykers or lowers an enemy units' Initiative by 5 just by charging.  Now that the Warpstorm table exists, many people will be thinking about mono-god armies to reduce the amount of randomness that can be rolled as well.

The biggest welcomed change to balance has to be the nerf to some units.  Remember the WD Flamers and Screamers?  Well, they have been toned down.  They are no longer the cheesy option that every powergamer will take, but the units that tinker gamers will ponder over.  There are now plenty of other interesting options in the book to explore that WAAC players can look elsewhere.  Besides, if anything, I doubt any super min-maxers will be looking at Daemons anyway!  In that sense, the book's randomness is one of its redeeming qualities.

In terms of Internal Balance, I give this book a solid 4/5.  It would be higher, but I don't like some things.  Besides, the fact that Masque, Blue Scribes and some others don't count as Heralds so you can't take them in 4-1 limits my HQ options quite a bit.  Furies have Ld.2 would be another and I wish some things like the Slaanesh chariots were a little better.  Not to mention the current state of Tzeentch Burning Chariot obviously needs an FAQ.  Overall, I can't complain too much.

External Balance

Now that that's done, how will this book fare against the other armies out there?  I think it will do quite well for a 6th Ed. book.  Notice that I said 6th Ed. book?  That's because the armies written for 5th Ed. were questionably more powerful.  Even so, I think this book can give it a run for its money as long as the gods are with you.  That's the funny part, because in some ways, this book feels like the new Orks.  There's a certain amount of "chaos" that you just can't predict, and if things go your way, it really goes your way.  Of course when things go badly, it just spirals into a black abyss while you pull models off the table.

Internally, the codex has all the right tools for the job.  It has meaningful anti-air, with access to Divination and Shrouded Skyfire Soulginders.  Despite the Flamer nerf, you can now compete with T3 and horde units better with their S4 AP4 flames.  Screamers are not as deadly as before, but now you have access to Tzeentch Heralds with Prescience that can "guide" your units for more accurate damage.  I don't see a lack of anti-tank as well, as a melee-centric army with flying MCs tend to tear up anything that it gets its hands on.  Anti-MEQ is also not an issue either with Hellblades, torrent S5 AP3 flamer chariots, Rending, and other craziness.  Some people will complain that the army doesn't have any form of assault grenades anymore, but with cavalry and beast types running rampant, I think it will be just fine.  Not to mention the new Khorne cannon that gives your assaulters pseudo frag grenades when you charge in for the kill, as well as providing a S8 large blast shot at BS5.

Is this army going to topple Aircrons, Grey Knights or Space Wolves?  I don't think so.  It will be a lot of fun to play and that should be enough for some people.  The army certainly has all the tools for the job, it's just really up to the chaos gods of randomness to determine whether you pull through or not.  Now, more than ever.

Externally, I give this book a 4/5.  This number should constantly flux due to the randomness associated with it, but overall, it's really a nice book with nothing over the top at all.  If anything, it's underwhelming until you roll hot.

Conclusion

It's amazing to me how a book that's so utterly crazy and scatter-brained can be so well-balanced.  Honestly, it blows my mind.  There's obviously some bad mechanics in the book, but I love all the units and how much they cost.  Competitively, I think the book has its place, but only if the player who pilots them understands that randomness is blessing and a vice.  This is one of those rare circumstances that I can't see the future for this book.  It's literally too chaotic to accurately predict.

Tz Flamer Chariot WTF?!

I CAN'T SHOOT!

The exalted flamer is the rider of the chariot.
All the shots come from him.
He does not have relentless.
His two firing modes are both Heavy.

The chariot is fast, skimmer, open top, chariot.

Does this seriously mean the chariot can't move to fire its weapons?!

How terrible is that?!

What happened to Daemons in WHFB?

Looks like 40K only..

Here is what I hear in the WHFB side of things:

I hear Nurgle units are the only ones worth taking.
Beasts are a must have and Fiends are crap.
Gifts can only be exchanged for magic weapons.
Heralds limited to Lv.1 Wizards, except for Tz at Lv.2.
Khorne locus that gives Hatred costs almost as much as he does.
No armor options and decreased ward saves on the GDs.
And there's no dispel scroll.
The Skull Cannon is ridiculously underpriced while the new Tz Chariot is terrible.
Even the lores are exactly the same as the WoC ones.. aside from the lore attribute being different.

How did one of the best designed books (aside from power level) turn into a disaster.

Anyone got some info out there?  Written by Mat Ward.