Daemon Codex - Initial Impressions

I have to be honest, the new Daemon release was making me nervous.  The last army I played to get 'updated' and I use that term in the loosest way possible, was Sisters of Battle.  I am now looking to sell all my Sisters after finding the new army not fun to play at all.

When it comes to Daemons, I am looking at the army in two distinct - and important - ways.  The first - "Is it fun to play?" the second "How strong is the army."  So it was with great trepidation that I opened the new, limited Slaanesh codex that had arrived in the mail and started to read.  This post will be my first impressions on the army as a whole.



I have seen a number of tacticas pop up across the web, I want to differentiate my write up by being thorough, taking a holistic look at the interplay of units in an army and by combining some mathematics with the evaluation of individual units and army builds.  This article will address the Warp Storm table, and Daemonic Instability.

Warp Storm Table
When the concept of a cinematic battle space comes to mind, I cannot think of a better way to represent a Daemonic Infestation than the ebb and flow of the warp storm created by the presence of one or more warp rifts.  For those who do not know - the Warp Storm table contains 12 potential results.  Four of them involve hits inflicted on a unit on a roll of a 6 - similar to Imotekh the Stormlord.  The others improve/reduce your invulnerable save, possess enemy psyker (or punish your characters) and can spawn new units/reduce the number of your units on the table.

Initially, this table is going to slow players down a bit - remembering to roll, getting better at speed rolling for units and memorizing the results.  Even the most ponderous results - the fury of the various Chaos Gods striking down enemies on a roll of 6 is no worse than Imotekh's storm.  I am going to have to say that I really like the Warp Storm table concept - I think it is exciting and fun.

A lot has been made about the potential negative effects of the storm - I am going to start by noting that it is entirely not worth building an army dedicated to a single or two chaos gods to avoid the possibility of being hit by Khorne's Wrath, The Dark Prince Thirsts, et cetera.  In fact, doing so only guarantees that when your luck turns sour - it is going to turn very very sour across the entire army.  It is far better to lose a few models over the course of four or five games than have three or four units decimated by some large blasts.

Other effects are worth mitigating through list construction and through appropriate planning over the course of the game.

• Snake eyes result forces a Daemonic Instability test across the whole army - this result punishes MSU builds and top heavy Greater Daemons - interestingly, these same constructs are generally punished by Daemonic Instability.  I would recommend taking at most two Greater Daemon/Daemon Prince in games under 2000 points.  I would also steer clear of small units - most Daemon units need to be larger to avoid losing combat and to make it into combat with enough models remaining.
• A roll of 3 forces a friendly characters to take Daemonic Instability on 3d6 - this result can be mitigated by purchasing a character for every unit that can take it.  At 5 points for most - and with access to an AP 2 weapon - it is usually worth it anyway.
• A roll of 4 reduces invulnerable saves by 1 - which means units need to deploy carefully and hug cover as much as possible in spite of having a 5++ across the board.

The other results are simply positive - or not worth worrying about.  For example, Khorne's Wrath is a small blast placed over a model of your choice in a unit on a d6 roll of 6 - only affecting the Daemon players Slaanesh units.  Since the Daemon player places the marker - it should only hit 1 model in an appropriately positioned unit.  1/3 of the time it will hit and not scatter, 2/3 of the time it will scatter and if the arc of friendly models in the unit forms a 90 degree angle the - this represents a 1/6 chance to actually hit one or more friendly models.  In the worst case, Khorne's Wrath might strike three models (occurring roughly 1/9 of the time) with two of those saved with the standard Daemon Invulnerable save.  Expect some diagrams mapping out these probabilities in a future article.

Daemonic Instability

Under the 5th edition fearless rules, one of my favorite activities was to setup a multicharge against a rock hard unit and a swarm of weak models to force terrible combat resolution scores across multiple units.  With the elimination of fearless wounds in 6th edition - this tactic became obsolete.  That is until Daemonic Instability came along - and made Daemons potential victims of multicharges.

The natural inclination for Daemonic Instability is to relate it to combat resolution wounds - but that analogy is not quite accurate.  When Daemons lose an assault, they must take a leadership test - as normal - and then lose a wound with no save for each point they fail the test.  In all other cases, Daemons automatically pass fear, pinning and leadership tests.  They also have a bonus of being able to Go To Ground for an added cover save.  The natural dichotomy here is that for an army that generally wants to be in combat - it is most vulnerable when in combat.

The added risk for Daemons in combat is that boxcars on their leadership vaporizes a whole unite, while snake eyes returns all the lost models.  This makes losing combat something a Daemon player does not want to do - more so than most other armies.  I am going to go on the record for this one as saying while I think it will make for some epic gaming moments - from a competitive standpoint it is a tough rule to deal with.  The jury is still out for me on whether I think this rule will be fun or not.  I am leaning towards yes - but I would hate to lose a unit to the 'Banished' result in the last round of a GT after losing combat by 1...

The mitigation here is to carefully choose combats and outfit units to win - and win big.  Also, when losing small units will disappear while monstrous creatures can be annihilated after losing by a single wound.  Similar to the Warp Storm table - mitigation of Daemonic Instability comes through larger units and avoiding extremely expensive single models that cannot absorb some losses.

Another aspect of Instability is that traditionally thought of tarpit units are not as effective as in the past.  Simply sticking around is not good enough, tarpit units need to be capable of some killing whether through an independent character, or another more aggressive unit combining with an assist.  One such unit, Beasts of Nurgle, comes to mind as an extremely durable unit that is asking to be victimized by instability.  Beasts of Nurgle are required to charge units that successfully assault friendly units within 12" - if that friendly units happens to be a squad of Horrors or Plaguebearers, both units will likely see wounds dropping fast.

Closing Thoughts

This is a lot of text and I have not even begun to touch on the units, additional special rules, tactics or meaningful mathhammer.  It is a testament to the overall codex design that these aspects make Daemons unique and strongly differentiate them from other armies.  The uncertainty inherent to playing Daemons will need to be managed - in the same way not getting a preferred wave was manageable.  I like this aspect of their 6th edition codex.  I like the challenge, the potential excitement and that I can play the exact same army several times and it will play very differently based on the Warp Storm Table, Daemonic Instability, rolled psychic powers, Warlord traits and the Daemonic rewards system.

The book overall has a feel - so far - of strong internal balance between the options and players have a lot of options.  It is easy to overdo it on characters - or to overspend on HQ units.  There are a number of force multipliers in the form of heralds and some interesting new units - even old units that now play completely differently.  As I begin working through a 1500 point list for development, I will continue to share my thoughts on the codex.  Here is a starting point for those interested - this is a 1500 points list built to the specification of Da Boyz comp (no repeats).

HQ

Tzeetch Herald - Mastery 2

Keeper of Secrets - Mastery 2

Elite

6x Fiends of Slaanesh

3x Bloodcrushers of Khorne w/ Blood Rider, Lesser Gift

Troops

18x Daemonettes w/ Aluress

18x Pink Horrors w/ Iridescent Horror

Fast Attack

18x Seekers w/ Heartseeker

Heavy Support

Skull Cannon of Khorne

Allied:

CSM Sorcerer w/ Spell Familiar, Mastery 3

18x Chaos Cultists

This list packs a lot of killing into 1500 points.  The Fiends, Seekers, Crushers and Daemonettes are all strong CC units - moreso with Divination buffs from the Tzeetch Herald or Invisibility from my 5 potential rolls on that table. The cultists provide backfield objective camping - while the Cannon does the shooting.  I think there are two choices from the start I am hesitant on - the Keeper is more expensive than I usually drop in an HQ and the Bloodcrushers may be overpriced for what they do too.  They are fast though and should demolish MEQ - especially if I can organize a charge with the Fiends providing -5 I and the crushers/Seekers simultaneously hitting other units to obliterate a flank.

The key here is really exploiting invisibility - so the Sorcerer and Keeper will be key.  I would love to fit in an Aegis with Comms relay here somehow, but points are already tight and there are a lot of force multipliers present already.  I might be able to spare 20 points for some instruments to allow more consistent Deep Striking - I plan to test this list soon and make some adjustments.  One possible swap is the Skull Cannon for a pair of Seeker Chariots.

A warning though to Daemon players - Grey Knights are now appropriately a nightmare for Daemons  Previously if you were not Warp Quaked off the table, the Grey Knight players was in for an uphill struggle.  Now Daemonbane is hitting models with ld 7-9, Force Weapons are wrecking multi-wound models, they can Deny the Witch at twice the rate of most enemies and their Preferred Enemy shooting with psybolt is going to prove even more effective now that the whole army cannot Deep Strike in Turn 1.