8th Ed. Help with daemon princes

Hello everyone.

I'm still very new to the game and was wondering how lizardmen deal with a fully kitted out flying daemon prince? Are there good spells to use, units that can handle/slow him down?

Cheers

Sam918

 

Nope. Full kitted out flying Daemon Princes are broken.

Are we talking this guy?

Daemon Prince 530 points
Daemonic Flight
Chaos Armour
Mark of Nurgle
Lv 4 Death
Soulfeeder
Scaled Skin
Flaming Breath
Charmed Shield
Dragonbane Gem
Sword of Striking

If you can set up a charge with Sharpened Horn Ancient Stegs, good job, your opponent is an idiot! Otherwise I don't think winning the game is possible. Maybe try to get lucky and death magic him first (but once again, he is flying, he will always get the first shot)? Mass poison shots is another threat, but once again he has to be pretty daft to expose himself.

In all honesty the Daemon Prince is a horribly written model from a game balance perspective.

Ask your opponent to skimp on some trimming and make a game of it.

 

this is a demon prince X

now this is how your line looks ---------

Now he can fly with lvl 4 death.

---------- X

Wanna bet he didn't roll purple sun?

 

Oldblood 268pts
CO
GW
Armor of Destiny
Dawnstone
Other Trickster's Shard

beats said DP in CC. Problem is getting him there.

There is a very good thread about how to kill a DP somewhere, just search it. Another option was 6 Kroxigors with Hand of Glory I believe..

 

Remember that he is only T5 and 4 wounds. If you manage to get a couple wounds on the DP before it gets into combat, then it has to find a low risk combat to fight and hope soul feeder luck allows it to recover some wounds before it takes enough wounds to die. Even with charmed shield, he can be vulnerable to being plinked by regular shooting or a magic missile followed by a hit by a cannon, stone thrower, or by multiple massed rbt fire in single shot roles (by dark elves and high elves). I've found that the 5+ ward save is not quite good enough for greater daemons and DPs. He is very vulnerable to lore of death spells and, if he does not have dragonbane gem or loses it, he can be vulnerable to lore of metal spells. That is one of the reasons we see the daemon prince led WoC army do well in tournaments but always seems to lose at least one game and usually two in a competitive five round tournament. (White lions, not surprisingly, can take him on quite effectively and do enoungh wounds with S6 and 4 ranks of attacks in a horde to kill him off, especially with their BOTWD giving them a 2+ ward save to daemonic attacks. He similarly struggles against skullcrushers. A lucky terrogheist can scream him down as well.) That is the problem when once invests over 500 points in a single 4 wound character. A DP can get tied up indefinitely in combat with high AS and larger cav units, monstrous infantry or monstrous cav units and can die with bad luck or some magic helping the opposing unit win. For example, I once cast mindrazor on a unit of dark riders and miasma on the DP. The unit of six dark riders they held up and then almost killed off the DP that way; a mindrazor on the spearmen finished him off after the dark riders broke and the DP overran into that unit with the combat starting in my turn allowing me to recast mindrazor. Also, doubling as a lore of death caster, he sometimes blows himself up or takes wounds from miscasts and he will sometimes miscast in order to get purple sun off against a TG unit with a slann and skink priest with scroll or cube providing good magic defense to overcome. Always remember that if he takes enough wounds fast enough in combat he dies before soul feeder kicks in and saves him, especially if in combat with something that is not vulnerable to thunder stomp or if he rolls poorly on thunderstomp.

For LM: High Magic can be very effective and is under-rated. Arcane unforging does a lot if successful. If you take the dragonbane gem off, then roll ia High magic spell you just cast into the signature lore of metal spell and hit him with the lore of metal spell. Even peeling off the charmed shield puts him at 2+ As instead of 1+ and gives him a wound almost 2/3's of the time. Take a lore of death spell if he still has the gem up. (The lore attibute is you get to choose to forget the spell and roll for a common magic spell at the end on the magic phase, so you know what arcane unforging did.) Both the lore of death and lore of metal direct damage spells and arcane unforging can be cast out of combat at something not in combat, especially with a skink priest used for the slann, and are good against many of the high AS (but often lower LD8 or less) WoC units and characters (skullcrushers being the nastiest). It is not clear whether some of the chaos mutations and powers he takes are magic items that can be taken (some chaos mutations are magic items but others are just abilities given to the model), so that may mean you either get the dargonbane gem or the charmed shield off the DP.

A well-kitted oldblood or scar vet, especially on a cold one, with a great weapon is a big threat, especially with TG. It is his high WS combined with Daemon of Nurgle giving him -1 to be hit that makes him so nasty (often being hit on only 6's on rolls to hit) combined with having thunderstomp and being unbreakable and having a 1+ AS and 5+ ward save. Remember also that, unless supported by another unit, the DP must accept a challenge and you can hold him off and limit the damage accordingly. Also, LM armies have to deal with the DP's ability to cast purple sun and the other death spells while in combat (target units not in combat with direct damage spells. The key is to prevent the DP from recovering wounds with soul feeder at the end of each combat phase by rolling a D6 for each unsaved wound he caused in combat and recovering a wound on a 6. The DP needs to rack up a lot of wounds to get enough 6's to save him if in prolonged combat with something S5 or greater that can hit it on 5"s or better.

Hand of glory to get the WS up to 5 on TG or saurus and boost the I to reduce the potential damage from a purplse sun can be the difference in combat with a bit of luck. Also, rolling a High Magic spell into miama to cut down a bit the WS of the DP to hit it on 5's instead of 6's in combat is very important. Rolling into earthblood for the lore of life attribute and 5+ regen helps the unit stay alive longer and limits the damage and can restore a wound on a character in a challenge with the DP. If he gets into a fight with an oldblood or scar vet on cold one, apotheosis can be a pain to deal with for him as well as long as the DP does not kill the character before you get to recover wounds. The cold one mount makes the character immune to being stomped and limits the DP to its base 5 attacks. The DP will hit on 3's and wound on 3's but you get a 4+ AS and a 4+ ward save and/or a re-rollable 4+ AS to avoid wounds from the S6 attacks. That means you will often only suffer just under a wound per round of combat with a scar vet or oldblood on a cold one in combat with the DP (assuming the breath weapon has been used or spent). A great weapon, since you will be striking second anyway, at S7 really cuts through his armour and wounds him on 2's with only a 5+ AS and a 5+ ward save.

Math: T5 oldblood with 1+ AS and 4+ ward and great weapon on cold one. DP with flaming breath weapon used will cause on average 0.19 wounds one time with the breath. 5 S6 attacks hitting on 3's and wounding on 3's will cause only 0.55 unsaved wounds (with 1+ AS re-rollable or 1+ As and 4+ ward save). If on foot, the DP thunderstomp on the character will do another 0.583 wounds on average in the challenge. That means, as worst, the character takes 1.33 unsaved wounds in the first round of combat with the DP in a challenge if on foot. The oldblood with 5 attacks hits back on 5"s but wounds on 2's. with the DP having a modified 5+ As and 5+ ward save, which produces only 0.617 unsaved wounds on the DP. A cold one hits on 6's and wounds on 5's, so it does very little (0.12 average wounds per round of combat) to help out other than making the oldblood immune to terrorr and stomps. Note that an oldblood on cold one after the breath weapon is spent takes on average only 0.556 wounds while the DP takes on average 0.617 wounds per round of combat. However, with wildform on the oldblood the oldblood takes only 0.41 wounds from the DP from regular attacks and, if on foot, 0.4375 wounds from thunderstomp on average and does on average 0.77 wounds to the DP. Similarly, OTS on the oldblood raises the wound rate from 0.617 up to 0.82 per turn on the DP. If you somehow get off hand of glory on the oldblood and miasma on the DP, you will most of the time flip the WS advantage a lot to hitting on 4's instead of 5's and being hit of 4's instead of 3's, then the oldblood on cold one suffers only 0.333 wounds per round from the DP and does in response 0.926 wounds on the DP. A scar vet on cold one gets one less attack, so you need to cut the rate of wounds on the DP to 80% of above, but a scar vet on cold one with a charge on a DP and in range of the BSB can in theory hold off a DP for an averae three to four rounds of combat and puts one or two wounds on the DP and can win out with a bit of magic help to recover wounds or tip the scales a bit (by increasing S or T; it is a bit harder to tip the WS advantage enough to favor the scar vet). If that pins, the DP to a fixed position, allowing a TG charge into the flank to finish him off in a couple of turns or to keep purple sun from hitting the saurus and TG, then it is ofen worthwhile with the WoC having a lower model count. Little things like taking off charmed shield with arcane unforging or having put a couple of wounds on the DP already are just enough to turn the odds to the scar vet on cold one.

Don't underestimate the value of a lvl 2 skink priest with cube or scroll to stop purple sun one time and add to the equation. A lvl 2 beasts skink priest with amber spear can six dice the boosted version and one boosted amber spear can end the DP or so seriously wound it that it is far less scary if you have picked off the charmed shield benefit with a prior hit first. A wildform to boost of +1S and +1T of on character in challenge (and on TG or saurus) reduces the wounds the character will take and increases the ability to cut through the high AS, or better yet a savage beast of horrors (+3 A with +3 S will allow a scar vet or oldblood to cut through the AS and wound on 2+) or pann's pelt on the character (+3T ) means that the DP could be wounding a scar vet or oldblood only on a 6's will really alter the challenge combat with the DP. So a simple lvl 2 skink priest with beasts gives you a lot of potential for getting something off to help deal with the DP and the other high AS units in the WoC army. Plus amber spear is -1 to cast due to the DP being a monster\, so with a good winds of magic phase, you may force through something on the DP with arcane unforging and amber spear in your spell options.

 

The following are the only real solutions to a properly kitted nurgle demon prince we possess:

- Oldblood w/dawnstone, great weapon, armor of destiny, on cold one
- Character bus
- Large tarpit
- Scarvet with Gambler's Armor, Dawnstone, great weapon, lots of magic healing and a little luck
- Double charge with 2 sharpened ancient stegadons (averages 4 wounds, only about a 66% chance of actually killing him)
- Lucky roll with magic (death magic sniping, final transmutation, etc.)
- 8+ kroxigor with heavy magic support

Arcane unforging isn't great, best case scenario he takes a wound and then is in combat. You'll only rarely live the dream of unforging the dragonbane gem so you can searing doom him.

 

If you get off unforging you either get the charmed shield (now 2+ AS which makes the DP a lot more vulnerable to a great weapon character) or the gem (which exposes him to your swapping into the signature lore of metal spell and forces the DP to try to get stuck in combat), 5/6th of the time and a wound aboutt half the time. I don't think they count the chaos mutations as magic items unless it says they are magic items (like magic weapoj, talismen, etc.). Thus, you should have almost a 42% chance of removing the gem and almost 42% chance of taking the charmed shield. The DP has only 4 wounds to start with. so losing one wound can inhibit the courage to go after somet hings in your army.

If he pitches into combat, you should have enough chaff to redirect and play with him and leaving him vulnerable again when he kills the chaff unit and or the chaff unit breaks. I find that a lot of times, the DP ends up either flying around going after and threatening stuff or picking off cheap units and going after salamanders and such and and not getting stuck in comba. Some people are just trying to get off a purple sun and are not willing to take on a saurus or TG unit and get tied up for a while unless supported by something else because he may get caught in a challenge with a scar vet on cold one or oldblood where his prospects are more limited and with magic augments and such you could potentially hurt him a lot without an ability to recover wounds as quickly with soul feeder. In that role, the DP is there half to distract and try to pick off characters with magic to force a unit to be exposed to getting charged by stuff like chariots and skullcrushers.

Sometimes, esp. if the DP loses the gem and with you rolling into lore of metal sig spell, a DP will try to get stuck in on a saurus unit, maybe a TG unit, to hold it up and pin it in place for chariots to charge in or something else and to avoid getting exposed to a lore of metal spell, but with High Magic options and rolling into signature spells like wildform and maisma and such, it can be risky to do so when the DP might recover on average only one wound per round of combat with soul feeder and if you get enough attacks with pf on it with some S. This can be especially true if you've taken the charmed shield and have cut down the armour save a bit, he's vulnerable to dying. This is where that skink priest allows the slann to get off the direct damage spells needed.

 

I will support the importance of Dispel Scrolls/Cube of Darkness and the use of Arcane Vassal to deliver death attacks, but honestly, tell your opponent to snap out of it and play a fair army.

 

First Step:

Charge or get charged with 14 + skinks cohorts w/ champion. (For being able to hold 2 rounds)

Second Step:

Move your Demon Hunter. Whatever is it.

Third Step:

Challenge him with your skink champion. You lose 1 model. Keeping the unit Steadfast.

Fourth step:

In Chaos turn your Skinks may be obliterated or even remain steadfast. But the DP was unable to move.

Fifth step:

Charge with your Demon Hunter.

Now you have to set up your demon hunter. There are plenty ways of dealing with him, once he is stuck.

 

Man0waR if someone is running a 500 point Daemon Prince they will very quickly learn the ins and outs of such a situation.

The Daemon isn't going to charge any such unit without additional support if there is seriously something that can threaten him nearby.

Killing the Daemon's support units (ie - other fast units like Chimeras, Flying Characters, Knights, Marauder Horsemen) would be a good first step to limiting what is safe for him.

 

Sivejir's Hex Scroll

 

Hilariously, he still has flying, -1 to be hit in combat, 5+ armour, 5+ ward, soulfeeder and a breath weapon while a frog.

 

Skink shooting to remove the Charmed Shield, followed by a boosted Amber Spear. He gets no armor save and there's a 50/50 chance you'll roll enough wounds to kill him. This is also how I kill those guys with my Wood Elves.

Alternatively, lots and lots of shooting over several rounds. This is easier to do when you don't have slow moving units (e.g. your core is all Skinks, you've no Temple Guard). Keep out of his frontal arc for as long as possible while peppering him with blowpipes. Every 27 skinks with blowpipes nets you 1 wound (assuming hitting on 6s, auto-wound, 2+ AS, 5++ ward). Someone else said that any Warriors player who gets into range of your Skirmishers is a bit of an idiot, but at the same time it can be hard to avoid depending on how you deploy and set up your army, and not every Warriors player is a veteran.

I've also done a bunch of calculations with Oldblood kits ... Cold One, GW with Armor of Destiny, Dawnstone and Other Trickster's Shard will take on average 0.35 wounds from the DP but deal on average 0.84 wounds (including the Cold One's attacks). Amusingly, this is almost identical to the amount of wounds you'd do if equipped with the Blade of Realities (0.85), but in that scenario you'd take on average 1.39 wounds per combat. If you're lucky enough to get a Wyssan's Wildform on him (or make him Armor Piercing, or remove the Charmed Shield as discussed earlier) you'll get over that 1W on average per combat (and at T6, he's only taking 0.26 W per combat, assuming the GW combo I mentioned above).

Hope this helps,
~gwh

 

There are some really interesting ideas in this thread. Some I think I can get behind, others (like counting on magic to do the job for you - never a good idea, and even the BRB itself says something to that effect) not as much, but even those ones I understand.

There is one suggestion that has come up in one way or another a few times here, though, that I am really against: Asking your opponent to change his list to make it easier on you.

There are several reasons why I believe this is absolutely the worst solution. It's nothing personal against those who suggested it, and it's not limited to Demon Princes alone. Sky-pasta knows, I have had my struggles with the K'Wtf Destroyer with my Tomb Kings, and plenty of people suggested to me that I ask my opponent to not bring that beast.

In no particular order, and far from an exhaustive list, here are some reasons why asking your opponent to change his list for you might be a bad idea:

1) If it's in the book, it's fair game. Asking them to drop stuff from their options is like asking for any other house rule/change to the game. The unit is legal and part of the rules. Rather than adapting the game to you, it's more sporting to adapt to the game.

2) What if your opponent has spent a lot of time working on a beautiful model, complete with converted parts to reflect his upgrades, only to be told he shouldn't use it? That hardly seems like it's embracing the hobby!

3) By never having to confront the toughest stuff out there, you do yourself a dis-service by denying yourself a chance to up your game/skills. Maybe you've heard that some people like to play with certain armies (or even certain lists) because they are underpowered and by playing with them they become better players overall. Same idea here. If you play against the best your opponent can offer you, it makes sense that you will learn and grow as a player. Lessons are best learned in defeat. Our mistakes and our losses give us chances to rise up from failure and become better. Victory against easy opponents and armies may be fun, but they don't teach us much of anything.

4) It's a matter of opinion as to how powerful anything is. You (the general "you") may feel that a particular unit is too powerful, but others may not. It's not really fair to your opponent to ask him to change what he enjoys just because, in your opinion, what he enjoys is too good.

5) Where does it end? If you ask him to stop playing that model and then you start winning, why shouldn't he ask you to stop using whatever it was that helped you win? It's a bit of a tricky path to start eliminating units from armies.

6) If you go to tournaments, you will not be able to ask your opponent to not bring his Demon Prince (or whatever). It's best to learn to deal with the options that are out there so you can handle them when they show up. Practice makes...better.

 

My math is slightly off as I forgot about Predatory Fighter. It's actually 0.98W per turn, or 1.22W per turn with Wyssan's.

 

I think this all depends on what your gaming community is like, and how the majority of the players would like it to be.

The phrase that people started to use around here is: "If both players get to roll dice, then your list is fun". With that mantra, I don't think there is a problem telling someone that their list isn't any fun to play against and if they don't bring a different list then they won't get a game.

However, if your community is all about playing the biggest and best tournament-quality lists, then you probably don't want to ask someone to bring a weaker list. You'll just come off as a whiner.

I don't think the idea is to ask someone to bring a weaker list, but it's closer to: "We both know the list you have will win the game. Why waste 2 hours just to see how much you win by. Try bringing a different list and see if you can win just as well with that! Otherwise, I'll go play someone else and you'll only get games from other people playing kitted out demon princes that nobody else will play against."

 

If the game of chess were officially changed so that black queens, in addition to moving like rooks and bishops, could jump like a knight then no one would play the game competitively. The competitive interest would be gone. Black would always win if the player was half competent.

Even if both white and black were changed in some way (ie - "balance") there are rules that would make the game uncompetative. For example, if all the pawns were allowed to move and capture like rooks. There would be no high skill in such a game. Another example, noughts and crosses.

Similarly if asked to play warhammer straight out of the book and attempt to win no-holds-barred (which is another example of how limiting rules can make for competition, there are competitive wrestling competitions with some holds barred) I wouldn't play it. It just isn't interesting. Playing against an army such as a WoC flyer army is a test of the opponents competence only. There is no way you can get a minor win without him making a calamitous error (unless you happen to list tailor against him, by for instance changing to a dwarf army with 3 cannons).

So, if my opponent wants to play a competitive game, I will ask him to take an army that allows it to be.

 

I just don't think the DP WoC army is unfair unless they run a mix of max skullcrushers, trolls, a lot of charots in core and chimeras and such. We've just gone through some math to show how a cowboy scar vet or oldblood that is not even maxed out can hold up and do serious damage to a DP over a few rounds of combat. It may be a hard match up for some LM armies and the DP player needs to make some movement mistakes or else the LM army needs a bit of luck in winds of magic and dice rolls to get the spells through in sequence over a couple of turns to take the DP down enough to eventually kill it and reduce its threat, but it is not like you cannot win against that army. The thing is that in an all-comers tournament, the DP army becomes really vulnerable to some armies like a high elf army with lots of bolt throwers and some archers and white lions with BOTWD , even a dragon prince unit with BOTWD will charge and hold off the DP indefinitly and have a good chance of killing it over time with a lord in that unit. The DP is vulnerable to armies with cannons and stone throwers because the DP only has a 5+ ward save. and can be vlunerable to death mage sniping and units with a lot of S5 or S6 attacks.

Half of the game is psychology. If you don't panic and then put out enoug of the right threats, there is a good chance the DP will jump around and play around half the game and risk miscasting or get stuck in combat somewhere it doesn't want to be to avoid you hitting it with the spells that can kill it over time. If he runs a DP lvl 4 death, you take the cube and scroll and make him miscast if he gets purple sun and wants to try to get it off and use hand of glory on the TG to boost the I to cut down the potential damage.

 

Well if the DP is not going to allow your skink to charge him, he wont be also well placed for a flank Purple Sun Casting.

Whatever the best chance to win against Chaos Warrior is to fast kill the killable things and hold their immortal things with chaff. This is why I wrote about Skinks cohorts + champion.

Hex Scroll is a nice item to just pop out. But isn't your best chance.

-Oldblood is the best answer to do on his own the job.

-Another way is to Wyssan's Charge with Sharpened horns Ancient Stegadon. More likely to be avoided or dispelled.

- Lore of Beast Battle plan: This consist in a fairly cheap Slann with Lore of Beast and 2 Skinks lvl2 Lore of Beast. And you need 1 Scarvet and 1 Oldblood.
On magic you roll your first Skink Priest. Your goal here is to roll the spell #1 #2 or #6 So the Slann gets the #3 #4 #5 #0.
If in the first skink priest #6 is rolled, trade the other for #0. And roll in the order you want with the rest of your sorcerers.
If you had not rolled #6. Then you roll your 4 spells with the slann, if with the slann you have rolled #6 you trade it for #0.
Then will only be 2 spells available for your last Skink priest. #6 warranted.
So in the end you will always have Amber Spear, Savage Beast and Transformation of Kadon. All this 3 Spells threat the WoC army.

- Amber Spear push the DP into combat or risk to face an Amber "Cannonball" Spear. (So you can tarpit him with skinks)
- Transformation of Kadon with full power makes your skink priest able to kill whatever he faces and you dont have to worry about miscast, only 2-4 on miscast table is painfull.
- Savage Beast empowers up one or many of our heros, so the ScarVet or Oldblood can deal with all their nasties that aren't immortal. Making all those tought units just like butter.

In this list is when you want to enter the Engine of the Gods. To give a overall -1 to cast value to all Lore Of Beast Spell. Also aiming a Cavalry, Monster Cavalry, Monster or Beast of War lower the value by another -1. So you can Wildform your Stegadon/Rippers/Bastiladon/Cold One Riders on value of 8. Savage Beast your Cowboy on value of 8. Amber "Cannonball" Spear Skullcrushers/Charriot or DP/Chimera on 13.

This makes your opponent to make hard choices, because even the most weak Skink priest could become a powerhouse killing machine.