Why do people hate Chaos Daemons? (In fantasy)

[Warsmith]

Reading around the net, I realized a lot of people hated Daemons (and the people who played them).
Reading more of the topic, I read that people hated Daemons, but none of the sites I looked at gave me a reason why. I've got a friend who plays Daemons in 40k, and I've played Daemons a lot of times in 40k too. I don't see how Daemons are bad, but this is the 40k noob talking.
Can anyone explain why the Daemons are generally hated by the Fantasy players?

[Vaul]

Well, when their units lose combat they stand a good chance of continuing to fight over more rounds instead of just running away and losing everything.  They always get their 5+ ward saves, so its easy to block a third of all the enemy damage no matter how strong the attacks are that they send at you. 

But more importantly, their unit and character choices are quite cost efficient.  They are allowed to repeat upgrade selections, which you can't do with magic items.  Their options are some of the best, there's the -2 LD banner which is huge against steadfast and has a synergy with spells and abilities which cause LD checks, they have siren song, completely ruining an enemy movement strategy, forcing them to commit to a terrible combat, this can be everything.  They can use the rulebook magic lores if they want.

They have great access to killing blow, hatred, poison, flaming attacks... indeed their flamer unit is hard to kill and gives them the opportunity to easily score a lot of points by wiping out small units and finishing off large, reduced units.

There's a lot to it and other people will add more points, but those are some general thoughts.

[Glenn P]

Because the Daemons book was written by a complete idiot with no idea about what he was doing.


Basically, the design philosophy was 'take the existing rules. Remove all weaknesses, reduce point costs, add some stuff to make everything better.'.

Like... in 7th, some tournaments gave other armies a free extra 800 points to play with to make up for not being Daemons... and it didn't help enough.

Because
1) That's bow badly undercosted the book was
2) Some of their tricks shouldn't be available at ANY point cost (Siren Song)

[richardbarby]

a bit of its due to the fear auto breaking smaller units if you beat them in combat as one of the biggest reason why people dont like them anymore. things like that ruin best laid plans and all that would of been the 7thed hang up

they still have some of the best toys
but i would pick high elves dark elves and lizzard men over them now

[Warsmith]

and GW never bothered to update the codex? Errata, FAQ?
So are Daemons allowed in tournaments?

[wouster7]

@WarSmith

Daemons are very good choice army and one of the top armies but there is nothing wrong with them if you want to take it to tournaments. The most recent tournament had Tomb kings placing first, Daemons second and High Elves third. Instead of just throwing hate at the Daemon army book it's much more accurate to say that Daemons have very good and easy options to deal with all the other armies.

[Vaul]

... but having said that, a lot of people would not be surprised or upset if a players pack in any future tournament included bans/restrictions or penalties for 2x flamer units, siren song, -2 LD banner, etc.  I would also be inclined to restrict 2x master of sorcery.  That's just me though, i'm very pro-comp while others are not.

[Warsmith]

Right. So they would be handicapped in a competitive comp?

[Rhok]

Such has harshness against poor daemons. Well they definately got neutered in a lot of ways in 8th and they get dealt with quite harshly with most tournament rule restrictions already, so I don't think they need to be any further handicapped in comps.
Plenty of armies have just as many dirty tricks up their sleeves.

[Vaul]

Actually, the rulebook lores of magic became much more powerful and the daemons can have loremaster on any one of them.  Also, you don't get points for partial unit or character kills, so daemons are better because they are an army that has great efficiency when moving across the board to get points decisively and pick off stragglers with flamers.

They have one of the top infantry grinder units in the game now with bloodletters - fantastic for the new scenarios like watchtower, str5 strikebacks at ws5, and they are nice and cheap.  Also, their greater daemons don't suffer the problems that lords mounted on flyers do, while still gaining thunderstomp from 8th. 

They're right up at the top with dark elves thanks to the current edition.  Tournament restrictions only reign in the unfair advantages they have in order to level the playing field in a better direction, but in this posters opinion can never truly arrive at a perfect level of fairness.  But we can ask for a reasonable level of fairness, which is what we usually get.

[Chaoswolf]

I think it's mostly a hangover effect from 7th ed, I don't ever deploy in a tournament and have a nice 'lol' to myself about the army facing me.

I generally assume I'm on the back foot to start with, and although I know that certain aspects of my Dameons are great, it's usually a case of other people wishing they had THOSE units in their armies and imaging how they'd work if THEY had them.

So while some of the Daemon units are powerful, they are also backed up by a sometimes fragile synergy, and if you don't play well you're going to get curbstomped. DE and some of the this new TK stuff has me baffled, it's at the point where I would rather conserve and minimise loss than even engage. Most other builds I think I can pull a 50/50 and it'd down to keeping a cool head and sticking to a plan than where X > Y.

Depends on the Daemon build, mine is more fragile than most, but as to the OP, I again say that there was a large and healthy pool of resentment that occured in 7th, and you're going to wear a lot of undeserved rage just for stirring up old memories in people.

Note, Greater Daemons are big fat juicy parcels of chewy game-loss centre wrapped in cannonball/light magic attracting choc coating.

[Simon]

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Edited by the Mod Team

[Derick]

-Message deleted due to content-

Edited by the Mod Team

Ha! very funny Simon... for those who don't know, Simon probably has more Demons then anyone else I know.

Derick

[Rhok]

Go Simon, I back you on that. Bah too many whiners about Daemons, heck ain't they supposed to be better than average at a lot of things as they aren't mortal beings in warhammer.
Bloodletters may have great movement, WS 5, STR 5, but then they have T3 as well. Nurgle armies got neutered in 8th with the either Regen or ward save know not both like in 7th. Look out sir rule, kiboshed using Juggernauts in blocks of letters or palanquins in blocks of bearers. Terror and fear is no where near as good for daemons now.
As Chaoswolf said GD are just as fragile as they are good and wow thunderstomp bonus now for them, heck what big creatures don't have stomp or thunderstomp.
Moaning about Master of Sorcery and Siren Song, big whoop. Daemons have far less access to magic items, weapons, armour and banners than any army out there.
Ward save don't even go there, being peppered by a big blocks of High, Wood or Dark Elves archers for a couple of turns, try rolling a high number of 5s or 6s consistently.
And Flamers well we do need at least one shooting unit  .
 

[Glenn P]

There's nothing wrong with an elite army; Warriors of Chaos do it right (a Chaos Warrior costs more than pretty much any other armies' elite infantry, because it's better than them - that's fair).


And my go to complaint: I asked WAU to tell me how to reliably kill a GUO (any army, so long as the build was one that would be allowed in a tournament) - and they basically had no idea.

Even with bad luck AND bad tactics, Daemons built for power are difficult to beat and nigh-impossible to table.

[Derick]

<snip>
And my go to complaint: I asked WAU to tell me how to reliably kill a GUO (any army, so long as the build was one that would be allowed in a tournament) - and they basically had no idea.
<snip>

You could do what I did...
use 2 dice and roll a 12 for dwellers.
and then have your oponent roll an 6.
worked for me against Vod ... then his bloodletters took out my whole army...

[Chaoswolf]

Pinch of Shems, dusting of arrows/bolts/archery, repeat and relax. It's a a ranged magical job to be fair, GUO is typically reluctant to leave the mortal plane. If not Shems, get some shadow on the job, drop his T and continue liberal barrage. Throw in cannons and multi-wound bits and pieces.

It's not something you can rofl-lol your way across the board with. The superspells of course work, purple-sun/Pit having the best chance, dwellers and final Transmutation being 6's.

I'm being been caught up in this metargument, and I don't really want to, so I'll let you quibble out what you need too. There's a solution to most things, and it's all conjecture and context with more variables than I can go into in the end.

If you're determined that Daemons are still the OP Cheesefest of powergamer basement dwellers, then I'm not going to change your view. I don't like DE, Casket of Souls or brussel sprouts for ever and ever myself.

[Vaul]

Specific instances of bad luck can destroy any warhammer model, but what this thread is really about is a new player asking for help with regard to understanding why Daemons are percieved as the army with the best potential to win games of warhammer - mission accomplished I think, but he unwittingly triggered our primal lust for opportunities to rage about comp.

I'm no exception

GuO is the optimal lord choice for daemons in 8th.  He's the least likely to concede points compared to the other 3, and his spell accessibility is key.  He's the answer to steadfast & horde units - turning many of them into nurglings, a real game changer.  He can drop any combat opponent to a complete pushover, and this is quite easy to do since he can tank hits until it's his magic phase.  The d6 wounds sword is also a fantastic way to eliminate threats and net big points.

Since daemons have access to lore of life and shadows, they have the same tools as their worst enemies, but those lores synergise with them often much better than their adversaries. Every spell cast on the lore of life will give the GuO a wound back.  Flesh to stone removes the only weakness of the bloodletter - his resilience.  Shadows can easily drop BS on enemy shooting against your unarmoured troops, while enfeebling foe does the same in combat. 

The last year has seen some extremely successful lists, if you look at podium winners, all using the following format;

- Greater Daemon
- Khorne herald on foot with bloodletter block
- Tzeentch herald with loremaster: life or shadows
- Flamers
- Individual fiend(s)

The rest of the list doesn't write itself in the same way that those choices do, but the common stuff;

- Another bloodletter block
- Big block of Horrors
- 1-2 units of Flesh hounds
- Furies

All of the tools required to win in any matchup.

[Rhok]

Fair call, but I'm not sold on all your points, but appreciate your side of the arguement being a more seasoned player than me. To be honest High Elves are more solid across the board, like that of a space marine army. Solid shooting, great at combat, war machines excellent variety, access to great magic items, three choices of dragons, solid with magic phase. Like wise Dark Elves are a solid army.
But I think you should have also included the downsides to Daemons. The Firestorm Blade + 1 and flaming attack, nice yeah, but how many character builds now have protection to flaming attacks and this weapon was a solid a key HOK build (Big D and his dwarves punished me because of this).
Daemons have not access to the parry rule which makes a big difference in combat now.
Greater Daemons are wickedly expensive to field, like that of other armies fielding a dragon, making Daemons easier to out number and contain.
In Tournaments Daemons aren't allowed multiples of the same Daemonic Gift making army lists tight.
Cannot access the magic goodies lists in the core rulebook.
Heavy armoured, steadfast units are Daemons bane now with no auto break.
Lookout sir rule, kind of left a nasty taste in Daemon players mouths.
I can go on but, like you said a new player is asking about the so called Ultimo lists that only Daemons can field. So what army is he fielding ? It would be helpful in this great debate.

[Simon]

The funny thing is, I have 10000 points of daemon. And I have been using it for years.
All my comments were completely commenting on the army book itself. I seriously don't know how they can be offensive to the users who r using it.

And from my point of view and my preivous experience with my daemon army, it requires very little skill to play and to win games and that's another reason why I hardly ever use it anymore. P.s.  (this is completely from my own experience, and I do not meant to offend anyone else who are using it)

And because of that, many players just don't like playing against it.

[Vaul]

I'm glad daemons are in warhammer, the only point at which I take a unique position from anyone else in the scene is my opinion on how to comp restrict them.  This is where the most meaningful debate lies.  So to put myself out there;

* Siren song banned
* 0-1 Spellbreaker
* 0-1 flamers
* Max bloodletter unit size 25
* Master of Sorcery gift 0-1 armywide
* Maximum one solo fiend (units of 2 are ok, they do the same job but they aren't so rudely cost-efficient)

I think that as far as most people stand on the continuum between no restrictions and very heavy restrictions, i'm quite far towards the heavy restrictions side of the scale, as i've always been.  But most tournaments are including at least a few of the above points in players packs anyway.

Also @ Rhok, High elves are not 'more solid' now, because 8th edition introduced strikebacks.  It doesn't matter if 14 swordmasters kill 20 chaos marauders in one turn, because the other 20 that remained in the unit step up, killing about 10 of them.  At the point the marauders hold and go into the next round 20 men to 4.

This sort of principle shifts them away from their old style - they have to really pick their fights a lot differently now that their best fighting units can be out-fought in a war of attrition even by low points cost units.  In the example I just gave, 14 swordmasters with FC and a magic banner actually cost about the same as 40 chaos marauders of khorne with FC and great weapons...

[Simon]

Please note that, u guys are talking about nz warhammer scene, which means there are comp, restrictions and no special characters. Please realize that many other countries don't have that. When u have special daemon characters and no restrictions on anything, a 'hard' daemon army is at another level.

[richardbarby]

i quite like doc position in warhammer there top of the tree something to aim at beating (dont know if there still top but where in 7th) having picked up my first win overthem at ts4 im not scared of them to be honest
a bit of practice vs them and you can slap them about a bit
i went 20-0 15-5 13-7 17-3 L L L W gradually better till i got the win saturday shut down there magic you should be ok

[wouster7]

I have to at this point make it abundantly clear to everyone that the points raised in this thread will in noway influence any tournament pack decisions. I think most of what has been said in this thread in itself proves that many people have personal bias and therefore comp fails miserably again. Comp is a great heated debate over beers and peanuts and thats why I will never include it in any tournaments I run. The coming of 8th has really solidified my belief in a good well thought out hard caps based system.

Also @ Rhok, High elves are not 'more solid' now, because 8th edition introduced strikebacks.  It doesn't matter if 14 swordmasters kill 20 chaos marauders in one turn, because the other 20 that remained in the unit step up, killing about 10 of them.  At the point the marauders hold and go into the next round 20 men to 4.

This is why High Elves are a fairly middle of the road army in 8th. Most High Elf players will say their armies are great to maintain that psych out factor but in reality...

[Vaul]

Please note that, u guys are talking about nz warhammer scene, which means there are comp, restrictions and no special characters. Please realize that many other countries don't have that. When u have special daemon characters and no restrictions on anything, a 'hard' daemon army is at another level.

Quite right, this is a good point and I like it because it actually relates back to the opening post in this thread.  Much of the internet rage against Daemons are due to the potential that can be created with the Daemons book but isn't allowed in NZ tournaments.  Yay comp.

FYI I often use the word 'comp' as a term that is inclusive of 'hard caps'.  Yay language.