Vs. Chaos Daemons v6.1

[yoritomo]

With a new tyranid codex come a new versus thread for Chaos Daemons. The purpose of this thread is to discuss how our new codex can deal with this army in general. This is not a place to post army lists for review. This is a place to discuss what units work against Chaos Daemons, what units we should watch out for, tactics and army builds we expect to see when playing Chaos Daemons, allies they usually take, and questions you might have before or after fighting a Chaos Daemon opponent.

Fair warning, the versus threads will stay on topic at all times. The moderating staff reserves the right to move or delete any post they deem off topic, incoherent, flat out wrong, or confusing to read (i.e. out of context due to previous posts being removed). This is a serious discussion geared towards people who want to play better against the Chaos Daemons, so let's act like it.

[mightyeinherjar]

Something I brought up in another thread: the Harpy is GREAT against daemons!

First of all, you have the obvious STC blasts doing a number on their gribblies, mixed with dropping spores.

Second, and most exciting, is the charging it in at an oppertune moment, dropping the I of daemonettes, bloodthirsters, whichever, and letting our guys get an upper hand in combat with a superior combat army.

[hannibal]

Shadow in the warp is massively useful against Daemons.

Tzentcth daemons are particularly reliant on psychic powers for buffs and shooting if you can reduce their leadserhisp you can put a massive dent in their battle plans.

Generally they take small scoring units with only a 5++ so they make good targets for biovores and templates and well as multi shots.

Their MCs are dangerous but still only one model so you can tarpit them with gants. Watch out for the portalglyphs which can pump out more troops each turn.

The Grimoire of true names can gi ve a 2++ rerollable saves so sometime it pays to go first against Daemons before they can get all their psychic buffs and killing off even a handful of their army can give you an advantage.

[terrorfromthedeep]

I've got my first game against Chaos Daemons tonight, against a very good player, so looking forward to it! We are using the Vanguard Vanquish tournament rules (http://www.bristolvanguard.co.uk/Bristol_Vanguard/Vanquish_2014.html)

He's running the following:
HQ
Fateweaver
Khorne Herald on Juggernuat
Tzeentch Herald on Disc

Troops
2 Squads of Horrors
Daemonettes

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds
Screamers

Heavy Support
Tooled-up Daemon Prince

And my list is as follows:

Dakka Flyrant with hive commander
Venomthrope
Zoanthrope
Tervigon (troop)
30 x Gaunts
Crone
2 x Dakkafexes
Mawloc
Exocrine (living artillery formation)
3 x Biovores (living artillery formation)
5 x Tyranid Warriors (5 x rending claws, 4 x deathspitters, barbed strangler) (living artillery formation)

My general plan is as follows:

• Snipe the tzeentch herald with the biovores
• Take down his troops (horrors first) with my fliers/mawloc
• Screen with the gaunts and let him come to me so I can fire off at least 1 round of dakka before he gets the charge. If I can’t get the charge then sit in cover – ideally spreading out to avoid any multiassaults on my fexes/exocrine/warriors
• Not too worried about Fatey / the daemon prince but if the chance arises I will try and take them down with my flyrant… if they do land then I will smash to death.

If anyone has any tips to battling Chaos Daemons please share – I will give some feedback tomorrow after I’ve probably been beaten….

[omnipotence]

I think that list is pretty soft against nids. The Tseench herald will join the screamers most likely for a 2++ with a grimior. Get a sitw unit close to them and they will start to melt. Screamers are fast but they fight in close range. To get the 2++ the daemon player will need to use a psychic power that the herald will roll for as well as the grimior. If the grimior fails it has the opposite affect and will hurt their save.

Pink horrors are pretty low tier, if they fail to kill you they give you fnp that's +1 fnp, so if you get catalyst you can get a 4+ or even better fnp as it will increase once each time the horrors fail to kill their target. Try not to assault horrors, they have something like our acid blood in close combat and honestly just aren't worth it. Shoot the units down so their witchfire isn't very scary and then enjoy the free fnp.

Fateweaver is annoying but has low damage output. You can ignore him unless he dives hard on you. In that case use the opportunity to kill him. He gives the Damon player 1 free re-roll a turn and the ability to re-roll on their warpstorm table.

The fast guys here hit hard. Screen your monstrous creatures and get as much shooting in before the melee happens as you can. Nids are in a unique place against daemons, they actually want to get close even more than we do, I suggest you let them rather than move up yourself.

Daemon princes can hold all kinds of scary weapons and probably wear what is essentially space marine armor. I killed one like that in a single round of shooting from 20 devourer gaunts. Lucky rolls but it demonstrates how your little guys can overwhelm him.

That's my experience, good luck.

[wisdomseyes1]

Pink horrors are pretty low tier, if they fail to kill you they give you fnp that's +1 fnp, so if you get catalyst you can get a 4+ or even better fnp as it will increase once each time the horrors fail to kill their target. Try not to assault horrors, they have something like our acid blood in close combat and honestly just aren't worth it. Shoot the units down so their witchfire isn't very scary and then enjoy the free fnp.

The daemons list that took adepticon actually used pink horrors as their troops choice, so I wouldn't quite call them low tier. Consider they are a 90 point unit that gets 2D6 S5 ap4 shots at a unit that has soleblaze. And it isn't automatically they get feel no pain, it is a toughness test. granted, that means a marine unit that survives after taking a wound has a 2/3 chance of gaining feel no pain, but it also means a 1/3 chance to get D3 no saves of any kind wounds. Tyranids makes that a coinflip, since we have T3 (or T6 if the daemon player doesn't know what they are doing).