True Daemon Lord

With the Dataslate now out in the world, I thought it was time to look into the units of each God and talk about their viability and best uses in game competitively. Today we are going to start with the Blood God and all his blood thirsty minions! Skarbrand : 9/10 Good old Skarbrand, he was great pre-dataslate, but now a 40pt drop makes him very interesting. His damage is great, the no fall back ability forcing to enemy units within engagement range of him to pass a leadership test or be stuck in combat, has great potential and then his synergy with non-monster/Vehicle Khorne units giving them +1 attack is amazing! Not to mention being able to get between damage 3-5 sweeps with rendmaster buffs is nuts! Bloodthirsters : 7.5/10 So truthfully, I'm not a huge Bloodthirster fan. Their huge base and wings span makes them quite hard to manoeuvre around the board, their random damage and no real source of re-rolls also means they are very capable of fluffing combats they should be winning...

So, we finally just got the January dataslate and wow did we finally get some very much needed help!! Biggest Winners Bloodcrushers - 110/220 for 3/6 is a great drop for the crushers. Already a decent unit, now at a great price. Top that with the rendmaster buffs now being able to be stacked and they honestly have moved their way to the top of our units! Skarbrand - Oh god did this one feel like it came from now where! I like the Angriest of boys anyway but a 40pt drop to 305 is amazing!! His flat 6 damage and +1 attack for non monster/vehicle khorne units with 6" makes him very viable in a mono khorne or even just a monster mash list! Plaguebearers - I though PBs were already pretty decent as is, but 110 for them now is great! Poxbringers going down to 55 for crit hits on 5 isn't dreadful and the scrivener now 60 for +1 OC and sustained 1 gives us some very interesting fairly inexpensive options. Great Unclean Ones/Rotigus - Both now down to 230, or 260 for a fatboy with endl...

So it's no secret that as a faction we are having abit of a hard time of it currently. Luckily we are a due and dataslate and points update in the next few weeks. Question is, will GW help us out.... Needed Point Drops Bloodletters -40pts So I seriously think Bloodletters need a big drop to be anywhere near decent. They are a severe glasshammer who's 2 attacks that hit on 3's are very capable of bouncing off alot of targets. Both the Bloodmasters and Skulltaker are great additions for Bloodletter squads but for those combos to cost over 200pts is insane! Daemonettes -40pts Again, I seriously think another big drop is needed here. Super super squishy and while they can dish out a nice amount of dev wounds, paying over 100pts for 10 nettes feels bad in my opinion. Fiends -30pts Fiends feel so close to be viable, but the 5+ invul just makes them a fair bit to squishy for 10/20pts more than crushers. Comparing them to a unit like wraiths for Necrons, they just feel sorely overc...

So this last weekend, I attended the Leicester GT and wanted to try something different out. It's a list type I've been chatting to a couple of other Daemon players and with the current state of both the meta and Daemons currently, decided to shirk the monsters (well mostly) and instead just focus on scoring and score denial. The List Be'Lakor  The Bluescribes 5x3 Nurglings  3x10 Plaguebearers 1x6 Bloodcrushers 3x3 Fiends 2x3 Flamers 3x3 Screamers So, I've been running alot of msu recently but dropping both Shalaxi and Skarbrand gave me access to far more utility pieces, though the damage does get tanked as a result. The Crushers did give me the ability to just absolutely smack something with mortals while the Fiends were really dishing out the dev wounds.  Games Eldar 78-69 win Double Avatar, double night spinner, 2x5 hawks, 2x5 spiders with a smattering of characters. This is always a tough match up, but managed to protect one midfield objective while consistently con...

So 10th is well and truly here, and while we may have all been quite Doom and gloom to start with, I think now the dust has settled we are all alot more calm. I have attended 3 events now and honestly feel very confident think Daemons as a faction have some real play into most factions barring those currently overturned exceptions. I've ran the same list for all 3 events and plan to run it for the time being even considering it for LGT in 5 weeks time. list (2000 points) Chaos Daemons Strike Force (2000 points) Daemonic Incursion CHARACTER Be’lakor (325 points) Warlord Bloodthirster (300 points) Lord of Change (255 points) With Rod of sorcery Lord of Change (230 points) With Rod of sorcery Shalaxi Helbane (400 points) The Changeling (75 points) BATTLELINE Nurglings (40 points) Nurglings (40 points) OTHER DATASHEETS Flamers (65 points) Flamers (65 points) Flamers (65 points) Flesh Hounds (70 points)   Flesh Hounds (70 points) So the idea is the chickens sit around Belly giving me a ...

Last weekend I attend the Saffron GT held by the amazing Lewis (Elmo Miniatures) who held yet another fantastic event in the beautiful Saffron Walden. Like the last few events I carried on with the Belly/Thirster list. HQ: Be'lakor  Pall of Despair, Shrouded Step Bloodthirster  Indomitable Onslaught, great axe Warlord: Brazen hide Relic: A'rgath  Fluxmaster Staff of change  Bolt of Change, Infernal Flames  Relic: Endless Grimoire Tranceweaver Delightful Agonies  Troops: 10 Daemonettes  10 Daemonettes  3 Nurglings  10 Pink Horrors  Elites: 4 Fiends 4 Fiends 5 Flamers 5 Flamers 4 Flamers Game 1 vs Guard Secondaries: Rebels-15 Despoilers-12 Warp Ritual-12 Games 1 I got Matt and his interesting guard list on the Scouring. 60 Cadians, 20 Death Korp infantry, 10 mechanised kasrkins, 10 scions, 5 rough riders, 3 sentinels, 2 russes, russ commander, commissar, finial command squad, straken, death korp commander, rogal dorn and a Chimera. No key ...

So, we got our 10th edition preview and while it is not enough to make a real judgement on yet, I have to say overall I really like what  I'm  seeing!!  The biggest thing for me was losing Daemonic saves and returning to invulnerable saves, though it looks like abilities/rules that ignore them are either gone or mostly gone. So our new army rule is The Shadow of Chaos, basicly representing how the Warp engulfs the Battlefield of the course of the game. You're deployment is always considering to be in the shadows, while if you control half of the objectives in no man's land and/or the opponents deployment zone at the beginning of a phase, those areas are also considering to be in the shadows for that phase. So what does being in the shadows mean, well our units within the shadows add 1 to the battleshock tests and heal d3 wounds for a wounded model or return d3 destroyed models if the unit is battleline if you past the test! Your opponent on the other hand minus 1 to any b...

Last Saturday and I attended the fools feast, a 60 man one day event down in Canterbury. Very well run event yet again by the organiser Danny. List Same list as last weekend at Manchester, really loving the resiliency and ludicrous damage output this list has and just having a blast with the mono Tzeentch! Be'lakor  -warlord trait: Shadow Lord, Pall of Despair, Shrouded Step  .Fateskimmer -staff of change, Bolt of Change, Infernal Gateway  .Fluxmaster -staff of change, Gaze of Fate, Endless Grimoire  .10 Pink Horrors .Exalted Flamer  .Exalted Flamer .6 Flamers  .5 Flamers .5 Flamers  .5 Screamers  .5 Screamers .Burning Chariot .Burning Chariot  .Burning Chariot Game 1 vs Iron Warrior Game 1 was against an awesome Iron Warriors list that had the normal G'hollax Prince, chosen brick in a dreadclaw, Cultists, Terminators, a vindicator, hellbrute and a Brass Scorpion!!! Turn 1 I teleported my screamers to each objective in no man's land with a un...

Today let's go over the tips and tricks of running a mono Slaanesh list competitively at events and how you can best serve the dark Prince! The strengths of a pure Slaaneshi force is the shed load of attacks it puts out and the insane speed it moves at!  The strongest element being your super fast obsec that can speed across the board, wrap and tag units and hold up the objectives killing your opponents primary. On the other hand, you're not the toughest army in the game, sporting alot of T3/4 with the usual 5+/4+ Daemon saves. This can be slightly combated with the multiple ways to return models back to your daemonette squads aswell as modifiers to hit and Delightful Agonies. Warpstorm Lightning Speed  +1 to charge for 3 warpstorm points is pretty great! Makes those 8 or 9 inch charges abit more doable whole also making any charges from a warp locus that little bit more reliable. Mesmerising Dance  Fight first for 4 points has huge game changing potential!! Just having t...

We continue on the Tzeentch train, this time making the long trek to the grimdark north. We made a slight change to the list from Southampton, dropping a Fateskimmer in favour of 10 Pink Horrors and adding an extra Flamer to one of the squads. List .Be'lakor  -warlord trait: Shadow Lord, Pall of Despair, Shrouded Step  .Fateskimmer -staff of change, Bolt of Change, Infernal Gateway  .Fluxmaster -staff of change, Gaze of Fate, Endless Grimoire  .10 Pink Horrors .Exalted Flamer  .Exalted Flamer .6 Flamers  .5 Flamers .5 Flamers  .5 Screamers  .5 Screamers .Burning Chariot .Burning Chariot  .Burning Chariot  Game 1 vs Custodes Secondaries: Rebels-15 Warp Ritual-12 Banners-10 So this game had me worried going in, never having beat Custodes in a game at an event. My opponent had 3 units of bikes, the bike captain, Trajan, Banner dude, 3 individual terminators, 3 units of custode guard and 1 unit of Venetari. I went first, deploying on the lin...