Trying To Make Competitive Pure Daemons List

[Kousei]

Hello  

So I was able to get out of town this weekend and play some AOS for the first time in over 6 months, with some of my long time buddies.  I talked about the game in my Nurgle daemon thread. Long story short, I was destroyed the first game before I had a 2nd turn  and lost the 2nd game by 1 point but felt like I was out classed the whole game and never head or doing well. In all honest I didn't really enjoy the games at all and left feeling very discouraged about my Daemons and AOS in general. 

I really like my daemons and I am wondering if its possible to make a semi competitive pure daemons. I understand it wont be T1, but is mid to high T2 possible??

My buddy gave me a decent check list for making a list: 
2-3 Characters (For scenario where characters are needed to claim objectives)
2-3 Objective holders 
2-3 Damage sold output with lots of rend 1 attacks or decent rend 2
1+ ways to move around or answer armies that move or drop deploy 

So this is the list I am thinking: 

Leaders
Kairos Fateweaver (300) - Damage output / mortal wounds and faster moving 

Keeper Of Secrets (280) - Damage output , very fast moving and I like the idea of the spell
- General
- Trait: Lord of War
- Artefact: Chaos Talisman - Hoping will be better then +1W ??

Be'Lakor, Chaos Daemon Prince (240) - Damage output , fast moving and great spell. 

Battle line
10 x Pink Horrors Of Tzeentch (140) -  can sit on a home objective , shoots and doesn't require 30 models to be ok and can dispel.  
30 x Bloodletters (300) - Damage output and object taker 
30 x Plaguebearers Of Nurgle (300) - Sitting on home object most likely. 

Units
1 x Skull Cannons (180)  - Early game damage output , good rend and do to their long range will help against armies that move around or drop. 
1 x Skull Cannons (180) - Same as above. 

Summoning 
3 x Nurglings (80) ( to claim an objective further up the board) 

Total: 2000/2000


This is the major issue I am having, if I can't make Pure Daemons work. I am pretty all or nothing king of person. I like picking a faction and going all out in it. However, now that Daemons are part of a grand alliance and it seems like the game is meant to mix the whole alliance together more. Chaos is far to large of a faction for me to collect all of it financially and I simply don't want to play or collect the majority of it. I am also not a fan of a mixing pot of "just good things"  A natural logical step would be to play only 1 God  and go all out in it including the rest of chaos. However, since I played all of the daemons, I have all a fair amount of models for all 4 Gods.

My core group basically has a view that the older models are mostly ****** rules wise compared to the new stuff ( meaning most of my daemons are ******) and factions without their own book are generally behind the ball. So I either 1. Wait and hope that a pure Daemon book comes out someday and keep trying to make them work,  2. Pick 1-2 of the gods ( tzeentch is generally my  favourite) and go all out in them, including the rest of chaos (selling the other 2 gods) or 3. Say F*ck Chaos ( sell all my stuff)  and switch to Undead lol ?? 

Any thoughts or advice on the list or the faction debate would be appropriated. 

[Goodwin]

The Grand Alliances do allow you to take a pretty awesome breadth of stuff, however, mechanics and competitive wise, its much better to narrow those down to an Allegiance or two.

What were your friends running?  Did you notice a theme, did they stick with all of one kind of Allegiance?  If they are all over the place too and that's how you guys are going to play, that's awesome, and looks really neat.  If they are sticking to one to two Allegiances then they are synergizing things way easier then you will be if you're running something from each God.

I'd suggest taking a look at your collection and seeing if you can narrow your list down to like two gods, at most.  I don't have much experience with Daemons, but I play a Chaos Lord on TV.  If Tzeentch is your favorite then you've pretty well just hit the jackpot since the Disciples of Tzeentch is coming out next week.  See the other threads around here.  That should increase your Big Blue Birds a good deal.  If you go pure Tzeentch then now you can take advantage of those Allegiance abilities.  If you don't have the ability to go pure Tzeentch due to collection/monies, then I'd maybe suggest going half Tzeentch and half whatever else (Khorne to theoretically kill things in close combat, or Nurgle to stall things), both, while your Tzeentchy shooty wizardy things hide behind and blast stuff.  This way your Khorne/Nurgle heroes can stick with your Khorne/Nurgle units to buff them, while your Tzeentch heroes can stick behind with your Tzeentch units.

I hope that helps some.  In Open games where you can and will do whatever, a big Chaos horde of every flavor looks really fun and awesome.  If you're trying to be a little more competitive though, certainly try limiting your Allegiances to boost the synergy amongst your army and eventually unlock the trinkets and do-dads that more recent books are getting.

Goodluck!

 

P.S.

Seroiusly, check out the Discples of Tzeentch threads if you are a fan of Tzeentch and wanna magic the ****** outa someone!

[Bowlzee]

If you're a narrative player, then you should start looking at God specific lists. In the Fluff all the Chaos Gods are not working together, all are trying to get one up on their brothers. 

Although Order did win the previous campaign, the Realms are still predominately Chaos with pockets of Order strongholds.  

I'm pretty sure there will be no Daemon specific book in the future. They will be mono God specific books like the new Disciples of Tzeentch.

That being said, you can still build a list. I prefer the new Lord of Change over Kairos, I'm also not a big fan of the Keeper of Secrets, to me it's over costed and very squishy. A Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster would be pretty handy as General to give it's ability to those Bloodletters.

[Kousei]

Thank you very much for the thorough replies. 

My group tends to make competitive lists in all the games they play. The rest of my core group is playing armies out of the Sub Allegiance books, besides me.  We are playing "match play".

I currently have more Nurgle then any another God,  Khorne being second most.  I use to play High Elves and Tomb Kings so I started Nurgle as my first God, because I wanted to play something tough and durable for once.  I have a far amount of Khorne because there is just soo much of it running around used.   I think Nurgle and Tzeentch would make a good pair as well. Nurgle for the CC fighting, to hold the line and sit on objectives and then Tzeentch for the damage output and fast moving and well simply cool rules.  I think I would rather play Pure lists if they would work well, but its also nice to have the option to mix as well.  Khorne seems in a much better place then Nurgle right now and might make a better stand alone army though.

The funny ish part is I just ordered a couple of things  to finish the first Khorne Daemon list I designed . I still need the buy the blood thirster (which is $140 CN) , but it's the last thing I need for the list.  So I need to deiced to finish off the list or sell it off to help pay for the Tzeentch stuff . Part of my is thinking about keeping it around and slowly build the Tzeentch up buying and painting a unit at a time. Switching to Undead is very tempting as well , but that means starting over, would be very $$ and a lot of work.

What do you guys think of the list I posted? We are having our local "Store Championship" in less then a much and was thinking about bring it.

I agree the Keeper of Secrets is pretty pricy and not very tough. I was also planning on giving Belly the Mystic shield. I like it because how fast it is and it has strong damage output.  I like the idea of the Blood Thirster as well , but the Keeper is cheaper and I currently own it. 

[Goodwin]

Despite my name, I'm not actually very "good."

Especially when it comes to telling what's good or not.

I don't think in a Khorne army I'd load up that heavily on big characters and cannons.  I'd probably drop either one of the characters or most of the cannons (probably one character and 2 cannons) to get more things running and trying to stab stuff. But that's just me.

Its always tempting to just scrap your current projects and get another army.  I've been doing it for years, and none of those 'new' armies have ever actually been completed.  My only complete army is my sweet sweet Beastmen.  All the others are PRETENDERS.

I'd suggest picking whichever you like the most AND are closest to having a playable list for.  If you guys regularly play 2k, make sure its a God and army that is as close as possible to that.  This way you can play your Khorne army on game nights, and build your Tzeentch army when you're not gaming.  Its advice that I wish I stuck to but never do either.

If you already have Skarbrand then run him for now, saves you buying another Bloodthirster.  If he's sucking, see if your friends will let you proxy him for a bit just to see if its worth buying the bloodthirster.  If its not, then you have $140 more you can put towards Blue Daemons.

 

You mentioned CDN pricing, where is this Store Championship happening?  I'm assuming its not in MB.

[Arkiham]

I'd drop the two skullcannons, 1 shot is too unreliable, pick up a soul grinder, more likely to hit and due to this a similar damage output, hes better in combat and brutal if you combine him with the keeper of secrets.

I'd drop karios also, hes not bring utilised too much due to lack of wizards small such. 

[Goodwin]

Arkiham is who you want helping you.  He knows what he's talking about!

[HERO]

10 hours ago, Arkiham said:

I'd drop the two skullcannons, 1 shot is too unreliable, pick up a soul grinder, more likely to hit and due to this a similar damage output, hes better in combat and brutal if you combine him with the keeper of secrets.

I'd drop karios also, hes not bring utilised too much due to lack of wizards small such. 

Do you find Kairos not being worth the points?  In the new book he has 14 wounds and costs 340.

[Arkiham]

1 hour ago, HERO said:

Do you find Kairos not being worth the points?  In the new book he has 14 wounds and costs 340.

He's good in a tzeentch army. But when he's just the only wizard guy, his ability to know all spells is a bit wasted, the dice altering thing is handy, but now it's not for turn rolls it's less valuable as it's only once. 

But I've not used the new guy or spells so I could be wrong.

[Kousei]

15 hours ago, Arkiham said:

I'd drop the two skullcannons, 1 shot is too unreliable, pick up a soul grinder, more likely to hit and due to this a similar damage output, hes better in combat and brutal if you combine him with the keeper of secrets.

I'd drop karios also, hes not bring utilised too much due to lack of wizards small such. 

Why do you think the Soul Grinder would be soo good with keeper of secrets ?  If I did drop karios what would you put in instead ? I have a skarbrand and if I did the Soul Grinder / Skull cannon change I would have enough points for him and a unit of furies or a beast of Nurgle. 

Do you guys think it's actually possible to make High T2 pure Daemons list ?  I wanted to finish my Daemon collection ,  but not if  I am just wasting my time and future money?  If thats the case, i will need to cut my loses soon and getting rid of two GODs.  I don't really like having armies lying around that I don't play on using , because it can be used to save money on the new things I want and well less clutter. 
 

16 hours ago, Goodwin said:

You mentioned CDN pricing, where is this Store Championship happening?  I'm assuming its not in MB.

The Tournament is in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada  

[Arkiham]

20 minutes ago, Kousei said:

Why do you think the Soul Grinder would be soo good with keeper of secrets ?  If I did drop karios what would you put in instead ? I have a skarbrand and if I did the Soul Grinder / Skull cannon change I would have enough points for him and a unit of furies or a beast of Nurgle. 

Do you guys think it's actually possible to make High T2 pure Daemons list ?  I wanted to finish my Daemon collection ,  but not if  I am just wasting my time and future money?  If thats the case, i will need to cut my loses soon and getting rid of two GODs.  I don't really like having armies lying around that I don't play on using , because it can be used to save money on the new things I want and well less clutter. 
 

The Tournament is in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada  

 The combat from the soul grinder. Is great, then doing it again. Good chance you'll get 6 mortal wounds off it

[Kousei]

you would rather pick the Soul grinder to fight again over the Keeper or are you more thinking keep the keeper back more?  Do you think the Skarbrand is a good idea or?