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:

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.

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?

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.