CSM w/ daemon allies

[gigasnail]

this is my first stab at CSM with daemon allies. i'm still reading over the daemons codex to get more familiar with it. i need help with itemization on the daemons more than anything.

1408/1500 points
CSM
lord, mark of khorne, sigil, axe of blind fury, juggernaut
chaos spawn X5, mark of khorne

chaos cultist X15
chaos cultist X15

heldrake
heldrake

daemons
GUO
plaguebearers X20
daemon prince, nurgle, warpforged armor, flight

what mastery level, gifts, and psychic powers do i need to look at? this list is very bare bones. atm, i'm still looking at options.

[gigasnail]

playing around tonight i moved it to this:
1497/1500
CSM
lord, mark of khorne, sigil, axe of blind fury, juggernaut, gift of mutation
chaos spawn X5, mark of khorne

chaos cultist X11
chaos cultist X11

heldrake
heldrake

daemons
daemon prince, nurgle, armor, flight, lvl 3 psyker
plaguebearers X13
plaguebearers X13
soulgrinder, nurgle, claw, harvester, phlegm

the GUO, while a really nasty foul (please do not swear), i dunno what to do with him. it's a big tough walking distraction. can give him a portalglyph i guess, but all he's got is plague (bad) and biomancy (good). i also don't have a model for one, but i do have two soulgrinders so that was kind of an influence on the decision as well.

thinking about moving some troops around, giving portalglyph (exalted gift) to the daemon prince.

[gigasnail]

puttering around. the DP or greater daemons need X2 greater gifts, that (please do not swear) is really killy. plague as a psyker disc. isn't so bad, it's kind of decent. so i went with mastery level 2, though 3 is probably safer and smarter.
1498/1500
CSM
can opener khorne lord: juggy, sigil, gift of mutation, MoK, axe of blind fury
X5 chaos spawn, MoK
X12 cultists
X11 cultists
flamerdrake
flamerdrake
daemons
prince, armor/flight, X2 greater gift, lvl 2 mastery, nurgle
X12 plaguebearers
X12 plaguebearers
soulgrinder, phlegm/harvester, nurgle

will probably drop some scrubs and make the DP lvl 3. i mean, he's already 310 points let's shoot the moon.

[gigasnail]

tweaking again, moved some troops around. the cultists are the weak point, they're there to score and i keep them in reserves to not die. dropped the PB down to 10 each, bumped the cultist squads to 16 each, and gave one champ a shotgun. 1500 on the nose. 16 in a squad can take a few more hits before they go running off screaming 'THEY ARE TOO STRONG FOR US, MASTER. THE GODDDDSSSS HAVE FORSAKEN MEEEEE'

cultists. not worth the flesh they're printed on.

[Jabberwocky]

I think that'll be pretty solid. The cultists won't need to do a lot other than go to ground, assuming you can get those PBs onto the enemy objectives and stay there.

[gigasnail]

i'm playing this list tomorrow, i'll let you guys know how it goes.

[gigasnail]

played tonight vs. DA. worked pretty well, and my usual superderp friend didn't superderp, just regular derp and got somewhat unlucky with two bad deep strike scatters. my daemon prince failed every psychic test in rounds 1-3. annoying, but these things happen.

lessons learned:
khorne lord w/ axe and unit of spawn is beatstick. you absolutely have to have 5 spawn; they have no armor save and even 3 wounds each goes quick. 9-10 attacks on the charge is gross. 13 is just excessive. add in the surviving spawn and it's simply grotesque.

on the daemon prince, take 3 powers. plague is a lot better than i thought it was at first glance, but the prince is only T5, you need iron arm/endurance. even smite is good because you don't have an auto-include shooting attack. two rolls on the greater gifts table is a must; it's too good not to do.

i hate cultists, but they do the job.

plague bearers are hilarious when your heldrakes have scoured clean the enemy's aegis line, and they take it over and sit on a pair of objectives. deep striking, durable objective grabbers are gold.

soulgrinder is good, AV13 means they really don't care about a lot of things that mess walkers up. i'm running mine with nurgle, claw, harvester and phlegm. i think this is the way to go with them.

dragons gonna dragon.

dunno what else to say; i couldn't fit all the toys in as the lord's unit is $$$. i don't think it's the best choice, but it's the fun choice. i'll think about the list some more and make a serious stab at it. portal glyph probably a must; may go GUO/DP instead of DP/SG. don't like relying on cultists to score; they're so fragile, but when you just butcher all the other guy's scoring units and can still score easy with PB, it really doesn't matter much i guess.

[Jabberwocky]

Maybe look into an ADL yourself for the cultists? Personally though, hiding seems enough as you'll be really in their face by the time your cultists wander onto the field.

[gigasnail]

thought about it, but there are too many points tied up in the daemon prince. i like to just reserve them. wish there was a way to force them to stay in reserves to turn 3, but it is what it is.

i actually thought the game was going to be close on turn 2 when he deepstruck belial and his HQ squad, two units of termies and a unit of deathknights into my backfield by my two little cultist squads. then he placed them stupidly and mishaped the DK and a termie squad so i graciously placed them at opposite ends of the board allowing me to entirely ignore the DK and just kill the seperated termies by vector strikes, baleflamers, and lance shots from the DP. good times, good times.