Chaos Daemons in low-points battles

[Requiem88]

Hi all,

Together with some friends I've started playing a planetary empires campaign. Most of my friends are longtime players, but I started about half a year ago. My first army is the then only just released Grey Knights, which I found awesome and are tons of fun to play with. For my second army I picked Chaos Daemons, mostly because I love the look of Khorne and Tzeentch units. So back to the campaign. We're starting at 500p, escalating to +-1500p. For the 500p battles I made two lists, which i thought would be mildly competitive, and with which I might stand a chance, despite the problems everyone has with daemons with them coming in on different waves etc, and all having to deepstrike. Sadly I had to fight Black Templars twice. 'Ooh I wipe the floor with BTs when playing my GK' I thought, so it should be a fair fight... nothing was less true as I was subsequently wiped from the game twice while having caused only a single wound. I have to admit that the dice gods were against me for a bit, with deepstrike mishaps, bolts of tzeentch constantly rolling 1s to wound but still... I felt that despite my bad luck the daemons just did not stand a chance... This is the third time my daemons have been banished back to the warp, having killed a max of 1 model (first game 0 wounds caused...). The problem I am constantly faced with is that half my units are dead in the turn they deepstrike unless i put them in completely useless areas of the board, and are just shot to pieces by small arms fire and templates. I feel the daemon units are pricey, compared to what a standard space marine gets for the same amount of points, and are just squishy as hell! Is it just me, or are daemons truly a terrible army to play in 40k? I have obviously read a lot about in on the internet, weaknesses etc and have tried to incorporate as many of those as possible into my lists, but still i feel there's just no reliable way to win against MEQ... I won a single game against a space wolf player, but only because of the changelings ability, which caused him to shred his own units and which gave me time to advance my Khorne units into cc... Without something special like this happening they just never seem to get close enough for a cc... Am I doing something completely wrong? Some huge error of judgement? I realise that in larger point games I could bring more greater daemons, more tzeentch heralds etc, but I still feel that daemons lack a reliable 'base' unit
These are the two lists I was playing, both failed just as badly:

List 1:
Tzeentch herald
Chariot + master of sorcery + we are legion + bolt

5 Pink Horrors
Changeling + Bolt

5 Pink Horrors
Bolt + Icon

9 Bloodletters
Icon

List 2:
Tzeentch herald
Chariot + master of sorcery + we are legion + bolt

5 Pink Horrors
Changeling + Bolt + Icon

6 Bloodletters
Icon + Fury of Khorne

Daemon Prince:
Iron Hide, Unholy Might, Mark of Khorne

So what do you think? Are the lists any good for a 500p battle?? Was it just me? I didn't make any tactical errors really, and got as much out of each unit in each situation as i possibly could... But after firing 8 bolts at infantry and a rhino and scoring only 1 crew shaken on the rhino and no wounds caused its become hard to enjoy daemons...

Sorry for ranting a bit, i'm just seriously disappointed in daemons because i was hoping to get a lot of fun out of them, but every single game i've played uptill now was just pure annoyance really

I have to play another 500p battle against eldar soon, and after that 750p in the campaign, but to be hnoust i'm at a loss on how to make this list a challenge for my opponents... Probably gonna add a suicide squad of 3 flamers...

Thanks for bearing with me through a long post

[PyroSikTh]

The first list is actually really solid for 500pts. The only change I'd make is to drop the Icons for more Bloodletters.

Daemons are a hard army to win with and they take a hell of a lot of skill. Daemons are an army you play to win, and not design (as in a list) to win. Tzeentch is the strongest particularly for new players, and at low point games, because they can actually do things the turn they DS down. There really is no trick to it though, and it's not really something you can put your finger on as to the difference between winning and losing.

As to their point costs though, if Daemons had transports and weren't gimped by the Daemonic Assault rule, they'd actually be super broken. 16pts for a Marine statline with more attacks and an invulnerable save, and a Furious Charge Power Weapon is absolutely ridiculous (in a good way). You just have to learn how to DS safely without being too far out of the fight.

[Requiem88]

The first list is actually really solid for 500pts. The only change I'd make is to drop the Icons for more Bloodletters.

Daemons are a hard army to win with and they take a hell of a lot of skill. Daemons are an army you play to win, and not design (as in a list) to win. Tzeentch is the strongest particularly for new players, and at low point games, because they can actually do things the turn they DS down. There really is no trick to it though, and it's not really something you can put your finger on as to the difference between winning and losing.

As to their point costs though, if Daemons had transports and weren't gimped by the Daemonic Assault rule, they'd actually be super broken. 16pts for a Marine statline with more attacks and an invulnerable save, and a Furious Charge Power Weapon is absolutely ridiculous (in a good way). You just have to learn how to DS safely without being too far out of the fight.

I can not deny that the Bloodletter statline is downright amazing for 16p! Only thing keeping them down is a 5+ inv save, no transports, and no shooting at all. If you compare that to lets say a Grey Hunter. For 15points you a regular space marine statline, 2 attacks as well (ccw pistol), and some nice shooting possibilities. Obviously a pack of bloodletters would tear them a new one in cc, but the problem is that you need to get them into cc... The grey hunters can most of the time just walk backwards 6", and keep shooting the hell out of the bloodletters who cannot always stay in cover

The biggest problem with daemons for me is still the daemonic assault rule... You get half your army(assuming there are no mishaps), which can then quickly be shredded by your opponents complete army...

Pyro (i found your tactica, thanks for that! good stuff) where would you deepstrike units like pink horrors and bloodletters? I've opted to deepstrike them around 18" from the enemy so i'm range of bolt + warpfire, and the bloodletters if possible any closer with hopefully some cover. Would it be better deepstriking every1 some safe, and not have them doing anything but also not having them take any hits? I imagine it greatly depends on the situation, but I just can't decide which is better

its just frustrating to not really do anything wrong, but still be wiped completely

[PyroSikTh]

To be fair though, a Grey Hunter is even more of a steal for their points.

Daemonic Assault really is the Daemons weakness. It's what makes up for our lack of transports, but is also what makes those ridiculously cheap point costs balanced. Of course that was back in 4th Edition before everything changed and got cheaper in 5th. It does suck, hugely, which is why I haven't fielded my Daemons since the Grey Knight release, and even then it was a once-in-a-blue-moon thing to prove that Daemons could still take them on (which they did, I must say).

On where to Deep Strike, that's the issue that can't be explained in words. Or at least I can't. It's something that depends entirely on what your opponent's using, where his units currently are on the board, how they're arranged, how much terrain you have, the space between said terrain, whether it's area (like a crater) or LoS blocking (like a building), what other units you have in your army, what other units you have coming in, what turn you're on, objective or Kill Point etc. etc. There's just so many variables involved that I honestly cannot say one way or the other how is best to deep strike. I could spend literally days explaining where and why I would deep strike a particular Daemons unit depending on those variables, and you still couldn't really get an idea. You just have to be intuitive with it.

[edmundblack]

^ they still lost by way.

I think many Daemon players fall into the trap of wanting to DS too near to their opponent. Sure, you could land 6" away from a unit in order to assault them easily next turn, but that unit will just shoot the hell out of them and leave nothing worth worrying about. Unless you can land 3 Daemon Princes near to each other to create a strong point, the only other unit I'd want to get as near as possible would be Flamers (and even then you can afford to hold them back as they're Jump Infantry). Daemons are not a "point and click" army, they're finesse. More finesse than Dark Eldar in fact. When you win, you'll win big. When you don't, you'll have nothing left.

[PyroSikTh]

^ they still lost by way.

Incorrect. They drew. I lost. I conceded, but we went on and the Daemons still managed to eek out a draw. Remember?

[edmundblack]

So I won then. Hey, 1st time I'd even beaten your Daemons, remember?

[PyroSikTh]

You drew my Daemons. You beat me. There's a difference.

[edmundblack]

At least it proves that Daemons aren't the out and out "no hopers" that many thought Vs GKs. Granted, I don't take an anti-Deamon list as I don't agree with them, but Daemons can still put down some hurt in the right places.

[PyroSikTh]

Which was my point.

[Requiem88]

Thanks for the help guys! Guess its gonna take some more practice