Hi again folks, Well, I've been cruising the local gaming scene of late and talking to my local groups, and there seems to be an awful lot of VC's and Daemons floating around with some very hard lists, as VC's have been mentioned a few times recently on this forum Id just like to ask for peoples suggestions for dealing with daemons.... I realise theres probably been specific comments in the past, but since I can't seem to find a handy-dandy generic thread anytime recent I thought Id get a thinktank going. The standard size of lists around my area at the moment seem to be between 2000 and 2500pts and vary greatly, from herald based lists to Greater daemon ones, and most use a variety of gods to maximise their strengths. Can anyone give any advise on how to deal with these insidious opponents or suggestions on ways to deal with the nastiest of their units? If I have to pluck one more Nurgling out of places unmentionable, or catch one more stegadon making eyes at my slann I swear there'll be the Old ones to pay!
When fighting VC or DC don't pick an oldblood. 2 reasons: You get minimal magic defence wich is the key to defeating either of them. As a combat lord he's not a really good choice versus them either. Deamons have things like Blood Thirster or Lord of Change that can both fly and either charge the oldblood and kill him in 1 turn or fly in range for spells and kill him too. And versus VC the oldblood gets either trapped in tarpit units or charged by some vanhell's. Suggesting to send your oldblood with blade of realities on a suicide mission against his general is suggesting you are playing versus a guy that has no sense of playing VC. Most good VC players put their general in a unit of skeletons on second rank with helm of command ect.. Safe from all harm and able to raise everything. So I suggest you take a slann. Be sure to have cognitation to make him drop his 6's Also stops IF Infernal Gate on your TG block... Vs DC better take a slann just for magical defense and don't buff him up to cast spells. You will have trouble getting 1 spell through. Better invest in some more skinks. Skirmishing skinks are a greta think versus DC, just protect them from thinks like Furies or Screamers (skink hunters like I call them) Your skinks have more chance of putting wounds on DC than your saurus actually have. Double shots meaning double the wardsaves. TG are a must. So are the saurus cav to get a charge on his hounds+herald of Khorne. Terries to drop rocks on flamers and jav them to death. Saurus blocks never did much for me. Deamons on the charge are deadly. Hounds run through them and bloodletters kill them. Ancient stegadon on the other hand with giant blowpipes rock. So actually versus DC, you need anti-magic [don't be surprised if he has 20+ Pwdice a turn] and shooting to make him take as many wardsaves a turn. Also completly ignore the unit of plaguebearers with a herald of nurgle. Too hard to kill. Versus VC you can give you slann full lore and free dice together with a lvl2 (3) priest on engine than you can get light spells through. Saurus excell at killing zombie blocks and skeletons. Easily 15 dead zombies a turn, meaning another 15 crumble... Let him raise his zombies, even if they get up to 80, 2 turns in combat with saurus will destroy them. Just get your slann with TG into combat. Then use burning alignment with cleansing flare. You'll see his army go away very very fast. You can try using champions or scar-vets to kill his necro's or wight kings. Each one you kill gives him less dispell dice. And know that terradons can kill necromancers on a corpsecart. That is about all I can think off for the moment.
I am pretty sure that you are right in that there hasn't been a comprehensive daemon thread in here. To be honest, they are a fairly rare army and only really taken by people who just want to win at tournaments. None of my gaming group and in fact no one at my local GW plays daemons, so I have no first hand experience, only what I have seen on forums, which is that they are pretty powerful and some lists lean toward almost unbeatable.
I have been playing against demons a whole lot lately. I just played a 3000 point game against them a few days ago. That was a tough one, since I was making a crazy list to get away from my usual dual EotG army. He had two greater demons, 3 beast of nurgle, dogs with Karnac, nurgle, demonettes, lots of bloodthirsters and flamers, etc. As has been mentioned, shooting the heck out of them works the best. I first saw this weakness at an experimental tournament where each player was handed a random army with a random 2000 point list each round. The only stipluation was that you could not play your 'own' army. Wow did I learn a lot! That was 4 rounds of intense learning curve. When I played the demon army, I noticed that the shooting (especially lots of low ST shooting) was very hazardous. If the demon player spends too many point on expensive goodies, such as greater demons, you could be hitting one of his units with 2 of yours as he does not have many blocks. That was where I got the idea of the Engines running up to do the Burning on the demons and then charge them with the kroxigor/skinks. If I could get that combat rez in my favor, those demonic instability tests could hurt him at unexpected moments. Sorry to ramble on! Hope that helps.
On the subject of Daemons... Q: What is a Bloodthirster's favorite breakfast cereal? A: Khorne Flakes!
Would you like to try some? In a slightly related note, you know what happens when ork killa kans start worshipping chaos? ... You get cans of corn! I'm going now. *Whistles*
Saurus with spears are good. Lots of dispel dice are good. Magic heavy (Slann) are better than combat lords. Temple guard are good, and can legitimately be fielded in large units. You want you infantry (tg, saurus) to have 6 frontage. You want some razordons. Chameleon skinks are good. One unit of 5 without champion is only 60 points. Skink skirmishers are good. take quite a few units and pew pew his flesh hounds or block units. Use them as cannon fodded. No cohorts. Saurus cav are bad, because they are slow in comparision and are likely to get charged by the faster components of a daemon army. Target flesh hounds with shooting, not magic. Target flamers with magic, or block units. Taking fire is probably best, especially if they have plaguebearers (no regeneration saves vs fire). Best check some of the Tzeentch daemons though, some might be immune to fire. TAKE AN EOTG. The aoe blast is awesome. Protect the Eotg with temple guard until it gets close, then unleash the arcane explosions (gogo gadget wow term, im talking about the 2d6 radius d6 str 5 hits thing) Give Slann -focusses rumination -focus of mystery -the other discipline that means that casters re-roll 6's that they cast. -Cupped hands of the old ones. Check the daemon book to see if they have a funky miscast table. Against daemons (pretty much only), take a bsb not on the slann but on a scar-vet. Put him in a large unit of saurus. (most units of saurus should be 18 strong, 6x3 ranked with spears, but mabye give this unit an extra rank) and give him the cause fear banner. If you lose combat you won't auto-break from outnumber from fear causer, and with the TG it will give you 2 units that can tango with blocks of daemons for longer. Read the daemon book. Pay special attention to different gift combinations that can be give to greater daemons. Work out how they get their power dice. (For example, if they had a big unit of horrors and not much more magic, targetting them would be appropriate). Heralds are quite easy to kill. If you give a scar-vet charm of the jaguar warrior and a great weapon, you can probably assasinate them easy enough. Additionally, he's really good against flamers, as they are really good and really expensive and often get close-ish, and can't flee). Hope this advice helps. Additionally, don't worry if you still sometimes just lose against daemons. They are really dumb.