Warhammer 40,000/5th Edition Tactics/Chaos Daemons

This is an old Edition's tactics. 6th Edition Tactics are here.

Why Play Chaos Daemons

Do you like bitchin awesome huge models? Want an army that entirely deep strikes? Are you totally unconcerned with the fact that you very well may never win again? Chaos Daemons might just be the army for you. In all seriousness, these guys are pretty awful and the only reason to play them is a fluff army. So go nuts, take the most questionable upgrades and field the most expensive units. One way or another things are going to be FUN*. Well unless you're playing against the Grey Knights since they have abilities that can render your entire army utterly useless (as in unable to move or attack useless). Then things won't be WILL BE SUPER FUN*.

You might try taking Chaos Space Marine allies to stop you losing a bit, but that's no fun*.

Note that a popular choice with this army is to magnet the round 40k base to square Fantasy base (or figure out some other way to do the same) so that you can build both a 40k and a Fantasy army at the same time). This has two advantages: The first is getting to play two separate games with the same army and models and the second is, while you'll spend a lot of time losing with Daemons in 40k, with Daemons in fantasy you will NEVER FUCKING LOSE!. Strangely, while they suck ass in normal 40k, they get some of the best apocalypse units such as Aetaeos"Blow up an entire army in one turn with mind bullet spam"'Rau'Keres.

• Also, some people seem to be confused by the Daemon rule, which is listed in both the Warhammer 40,000 rule book and the Daemon codex, but both rules are separate, and Chaos Daemons from the codex are affected by the rule listed in the Daemon codex, not the Warhammer 40,000 rule book. They retain their immunity to instant death. Note: They also gain fear from the rulebook rule

Pros:

• The whole army gets Eternal Warrior. You get to keep it because the Codex overwrites main rulebook.
• The whole army Deep Strikes.
• Good and relatively cheap troops.
• Powerful anti-infantry and close-combat.
• Awesome Greater Daemons and cheap, effective Heralds.
• Wide array of models, most you can use both for Fantasy and 40k.
• You army is entirely made of extradimensional incarnations of evil and negative emotions.
• FUN*.

Cons:

• You know how GW charge an arm and a leg for their models? For a Daemons army you can say goodbye to an eye and a testicle too.
• The most luck-based army around. Between the judgement of the gods, Deep Strikes and reserves there are just too many occasions for a bad roll to completely screw you over.
• A hard time dealing with anything with AV 12 or more, so you're automatically out of the competitive scene.
• If you turn up against Grey Knights, just turn around, bend over and pray your opponent is a gentle, tender lover. Did we mention that nowadays Grey Knights make up more than 50% of tournament lists? And you know how you used to not be all that worried about force weapons because you had armywide eternal warrior? Well now you don't have eternal warrior at all! They have EW back, thanks to the latest FAQ. And the small nerfs to the grey knights (force weapons now only being AP3 save for things like the hammer), don't apply to you. And they can still defeat you in one turn by covering the map with warp quakes.
• Ar-mor save? What is ar-mor? Jokes apart, a 5++ alone is not all that good, even if it's army-wide.
• Crappy saves and the fact most of army has no ranged weapons means it's going to die like a bunch red shirts in the shooting phase.
• Oh, the Imperial Guard are to also have a field day with you thanks to the Officer of the Fleet subtracting 1 from your reserve rolls, so look forward to not getting half your army while the other half gets shot to pieces.

Unit Analysis

HQ

• Bloodthirster - Your basic big stabby HQ. He has wings to get him into close combat where he will invariably wreck shit (he will tear apart most HQs and special characters) before getting taken out. Take unholy might if anything, which lets him instant kill most HQs, the other powers are pretty questionable. Also a flying monstrous creature now, which is very nice, especially since this is one of your three, count them, three anti-air options.
  • Skarbrand, the Exiled One - Basically a wingless fleet bloodthirster who allows all units around him (all as in, Friend and foe) to reroll attacks in close combat. Why you would want to give rerolls in close combat when its the only place you have an edge is beyond me, but if you have to, use it with high initiative Slaanesh units to run the board. Although if you're bold/stupid enough to take on the Grey Knights, he can be helpful since Grey Knights can already re-roll missed attacks against daemons, so in that case there's no downside to him (not that it will be enough for you to win), unless the Grey Knight player uses Coteaz.
    • An'ggrath (Apocalypse) - Costs thrice as much as a normal bloodthirster pointswise at a whopping 888 points(you don't want to know how many dollars his model costs) but is an unholy monster in close combat, anything within range of his axe is pretty much dead but is just too stupid to realize it. His melee capability is pretty much unmatched, if it's in base contact with him, it's going to be dead within the turn. But again, he costs A LOT and is a massive firemagnet. On the plus side, he eats titans and superheavies like Abaddon eats people, hell he could eat Abaddons for breakfast. As a flying monstrous creature he is now insanely durable, and can rip apart enemy fliers.
• Uraka the Warfiend (Forgeworld) - A Daemon Prince HQ choice, has 2 more strength and 1 initiative over an ordinary prince, plus he comes with a 3+ save and blessing of the blood god. All his attacks also cause Instant Death, so if you were thinking of using Skull taker for any reason, just forget about it. Still not enough of a badass to make us believe he beat a bloodthirster before gaining daemonhood.
• Great Unclean One - Sixth edition reworked how these guys roll. Tough as mutated nails and scary in close combat with a variety of decent upgrades you don't need (but might want). Only problem is, he's slower than a snail, can't run in the shooting phase or after he deep strikes, but fuck that. Your toughness 6 and have feel no pain, so unless your opponent can take off five wounds, you'll be just fine. In close combat, beware off tar pits, you only get 4 attacks, and may be stuck in a fight for the rest of your game.
  • Ku'gath, The Plaguefather - A Great Unclean One that's almost twice the cost as a regular Great Unclean One, and easily twice as powerful. And then some. Seriously, he gets shit that regular GUO's can't even buy, like for example he is even BETTER in melee than a regular Great Unclean One but he gets to throw AP 2 Poisoned blast templates at the enemy every turn! Like if 2 Great Unclean Ones decided one day to congeal into 1, it'd be something like this, but not as awesome. So think of him as the Super Ultra Magnus Prime of Nurgle daemons. Oh, and one last thing. He has no model, and apparently he travels around on a pontoon-like palanquin filled with laboratory instruments carried by an entire fucking battalion of Nurglings. So before you go spending hundreds of dollars (and hours! Jesus!) on converting this model, just use a regular Great Unclean One model and say that he decided to walk today. Nobody will mind. (Also he spawns a base of Nurglings every turn.)
    • Scabeiathrax (Apocalypse) - Will never, ever, ever, ever die. He is to Great Unclean ones as An'ggrath is to bloodthirsters. Though he costs 777 points, with 10 wounds, feel no pain, invulnerable saves, armor saves, and toughness 9 (which means that heavy bolters and down can't do shit to him and he has a pretty good chance of just laughing off lascannons on toughness alone) there is practically nothing in the game that will kill him. He has a bunch of nurgling attacks, though not that many of his own, though any wounds he inflict become 2 wounds. He's kind of like Typhus if Typhus were mutated by nuclear waste. He's a big firemagnet, but given the amount of effort it takes to kill him; that won't do shit to him and in fact will be very good for the rest of your army. And God help you if he can find some cover saves, because then he'll never go down, ever. Use him in Big apocalypse games.
• Mamon, Daemon Prince of Nurgle (Forgeworld) - Though he is a daemon prince, he has more in common with a Great Unclean One. First, his stat combines Daemon Prince and Great Unclean One, giving him a WS7, S6, T7, 5 wounds, I5 and 4 attacks. Throw in feel no pain, Noxious Touch, Slow and Purposeful (rolling 3D6) and a poisoned 2+ AP3 template weapon. Not bad at all!
• Keeper of Secrets - Similar to the bloodthirster except fleet and tricksy instead of flying and beefy. Unlike the bloodthirster he's more geared towards mowing down the rank and file than taking on anything terribly strong. Has a host of very interesting abilities including one that allows you to move units (say, right in front of a bloodthirster for example). Now that fleet doesn't work like it used to, you can use these abilities instead of running. Pair him up with a bloodthirster and go crazy.
  • Zarakynel (Apocalypse) -Essentially the An'ggrath of Keeper of Secrets, while she is the weakest of the Uber Greater Daemons at 666 points, she is no slouch and will bring massive levels of oh so literal assrape to everything in her long reach. She has an incredibly high initiative (though oddly lower than a normal Keeper of Secrets), allowing her to attack first pretty much all the time, and her enormous weapon skill stat will pretty much guarantee a hit, and ignores invul saves (currently the only thing that does in close combat) and inflicts instant death. Add that to a very high speed and she will pretty much always get where she's needed to bring about pincer clawed butt rape. So essentially, like Lucius the eternal turned up to eleven.
• Lord of Change - What bloodthisters are to stabbing LoCs are to shooting. Up to three ranged attacks per round if you upgrade him to. The ability to fly, decent melee, and a 3++ save are just more frosting. Unfortunately he's also one of the most expensive cakes around, and can (will) go down to light weapons. Handle with care. But now that it's a flying monstrous creature it's a good deal more survivable, and one of your other options for anti-air.
  • Fateweaver, Oracle of Tzeench - Kairos is generally considered one of competitive choices in Daemons, due to his ability which allows all units within six inches to re-roll all Invulnerable,Armour and cover saves, which for an army of low saves is amazing however, Karios has some major weaknesses. He's 333 points, if he fails a save, he must take a LD test which if failed will led to him leaving the battle-field and a poor stat line compared to the other Greater Daemons. Kairos only has 3 wounds, the lowest of all Greater Daemons, toughness 5, again the lowest of all Greater Daemons and 1 attack. Kairos is a flying monstrous creature, which means he can be immune to most fire, but must move constantly around the board, which means his power is useless or invective.
    • Aetaos'Rau'Keres (Apocalypse) - 999 points of pain. Ironically for the oldest LoC in existence his shooting attacks aren't that great. On the other hand he gets lots of them along with the ability to call down apocalyptic barrages and bounce psychic abilities. Whats really going to have you rocking a permanent troll face though is that he gets a flamer template boon of mutation and a 20" move and flying monstrous creature rules, allowing you to reduce entire squads, ICs and all, to piles of spawn allowing you to increase the size of your army at the cost of theirs, giving you an excuse to have lots of chaos spawn models at very long last, all while laughing at incoming ground fire with his high toughness, large number of wounds, 3++ invulnerable save, and flyer rules. Pretty much, he's like Ahriman on steroids, lots and lots of steroids. When he shows up, shit will blow up in copious quantities and you will lay down so much firepower you'll make touhou look conservative by comparison. Any army that's tightly packed will pretty much cease to exist the moment he's in range, leaving only spawn and ashes in his wake. To add to that, he's pretty damned fucking durable too and can whack enemy fliers with his magic stick/shoot them with mind bullets. If you see this guy leading a tetragon of darkness you're getting screwed. The only winning move is to find the tournament organizer and punch them in the throat.
• Herald of Khorne - Give him a chariot to turn him into a finely tuned murder machine. Sure chariot makes him lose his independent character status, but who the hell cares when your whole army is fearless anyways? Besides, he'll be tough enough to go it alone, if the Chaos Gods smile upon your dice, or else you'll be giving away a free Victory point. Joining him with a pack of Bloodcrushers would be a better idea, although they'll be much slower.
  • Skulltaker - 4+ rending and instakill are nice, but at this point level you may as well take a bloodthirster.
• Herald of Nurgle - Don't stack up well despite their good set of upgrades (unholy might excluded). Passable in every sense of the word.
  • Epidemius - In high point all nurgle army (lolwut?) he could quickly pump your units to absurd levels, Nurgle marine allies that get better and better as they kill? SIGN ME UP! Oh, 3+ FNP, only way in the game to get this now! One thing to do is bring Typhus inside a blob of unaligned cultists as allies. Once you get into assault, let Typhus shit out his Destroyer hive, raping everything around him in a S4 AP2 large blast and laugh evilly while watching the tally go up... (Keep in mind that you'll have less plague marines if you bring this sacrificial blob)
• Herald of Slaanesh - A decently balanced faster unit. Still suffers from pavane's inherent problems.
  • The Masque - The ability to basically puppeteer the opposing army is tempting, but since she isn't an IC you'll have to make an extraordinary effort to keep this expensive choice alive. Another FUN* unit.
• Herald of Tzeentch - A lot of dakka in a small package. Upgrade and put them on a chariot and they'll be both shooty and survivable. A solid choice.
  • The Blue Scribes - Expensive multi-purpose character who should be kept out of melee at all costs. Having every spell is fun but not nearly as cost effective as buying its herald version. Unless you plan on never using the same spell twice. Which can be hard to do with their "Watch This!" special rule, where you basically flip a coin to see whether they use the same attack consecutively or not.

Elite

• Beasts of Nurgle - It's a pile of Puss. Know those "Spawn" that are in the Chaos marine codex, that everyone laughs at? Yep, That's what a Beast of Nurgle is... They're T5, with FNP,and eternal warrior, and since they're classified as Infantry it means that these beasts can climb ruins! But they're slow (Infantry, with slow and purposeless) not really that durable (only a 5++) and you can't count on them to *do* anything (1d6 S4 attacks, lol) One of them can be given Noxious Touch, but with random attacks, that might never make any real difference. As only FIVE more points gets you a freakin' Bloodcrusher, why would you ever (seriously) take these? Easily the worst elite option. But if you like bags of puss, fuck it, you're playing Chaos Daemons!
• Bloodcrushers of Khorne - Faster and more lethal than the Beasts of Nurgle, yet just as hard to kill. What do the Beasts of Nurgle have over this unit, again? Poison 4+, so they re-roll wounds against Marines, but they stil ignore 2/3s of your hits. That's it. Here's what Bloodcrushers have over the Beasts of Nurgle. +2 Weapon Skill, +1 Strength, +2 Initiative, Furious Charge, a faster movement speed, and a 3+ armour save. Every other stat is exactly the same as the Beasts of Nurgle, (even the Infantry classification!) and Bloodcrushers are even $5 cheaper per model since they came out in plastic. All that for just 5 points more? Eat your heart out, Changeling!
• Fiends of Slaanesh - These guys look *weird*. They're the cheapest of the elite options, and adequately killy. they're pretty fast (Hit and run, beasts) with an impressive 5 S5 rending attacks at a good initiative (5). The downside? T4 and a 5+ save - watch out for Krak sniping boltguns.
• Flamers of Tzeentch - 23 point flamethrower from hell, but tougher than most Daemon infantry as they come. (T4, W2, with only a 4++) Absolutely pathetic in hand-to-hand (WS2, with 2 S4 attacks) and they'll get charged if they don't wipe out their target in the first volley. Off cause, charging enemy won't must survive mega-flametrower-overwatch first. Typically, the best way to keep these alive are to deploy them beside an imminent combat, so that their victims are either finished off or don't get a chance to retaliate. This actually works wonders until the enemy's Fast Attack charges them, which is usually guaranteed if all his guns haven't shot your flamers to death first. Play two troops of at least 6 each (if you can point-wise), pray to Tzeentch the deep strike is successful and roast those Termies your Space Marine corpse-worshiper enemy send towards your ass. Grey Knight Termies not included. Now a rather useful choice with the new updates and plastic models.
• Decimator Daemon Engine (Forgeworld) - A healthy alternative to the Soul Grinder. Costs a LOT more, not as well armoured (13/12/11) but potentially more durable. Like other daemon vehicles it's immune to shaken/stunned because of possession and gets a 5+ invulnerable save, but unlike other vehicles it has "Unholy Vigour" which means it can regrow weapons and legs on 5+ AND can revive itself from a Wrecked result on a 6+ ON ANY TURN! This thing also gets access to smoke launchers for 3 pts., so fucking buy them! The Decimator can additionally mount the following weapons:
  • Decimator Siege Claws: your decimator comes stock with two of these, providing a total of 4 S8 AP2 lightning-claw attacks plus they have built-in heavy flamers. These claws can also perform a smash attack that if it penetrates a transport or building, you get to make D6 heavy flamer attacks against anyone inside - Falcon PUNCH!
  • Butcher Cannon: The butcher cannon will help against things like dreadnoughts, medium armour and when bought as a pair, can lay down an eye-watering 8 S8 AP4 shots at 36". Prepare to glance vehicles to death and pop those non-MEQ/TEQ infantry out of existence!
  • Storm Laser: 36" S6 AP3 Heavy D3+2. Like the butcher cannon, the laser is best bought as a pair and is a cost effective alternative to them. Storm Lasers are best at chewing up MEQ infantry: Necron Lynchguard/Destroyers/Praetorians/Tomb Spyders, Blood Angels in power armour, PAGK's, the occasional Tyranid monstrous creature - however, the best prey for laser decimators are Tau battlesuits (all of them), which can be ambushed by a good deep strike and melted in a turn of shooting!
  • Soul Burner Petard: S5 AP5 rending pie plates for smashing Orks/Bugs/Guard and all other manner of tarpits. You only need to buy one of these (Ordnance weapon), retaining a siege claw for the fighty bastards that get too close.
  • Heavy Conversion Beamer: pretty useless in a daemons army. You're better off grabbing a soul burner if you want to pie plate and you're going to be deep-striking, so yeah...

The Decimator can be marked by the Gods (requires another daemon in the army with the same dedication) for +15 pts. as follows:

• • Khorne: Gains Rampage. Great for tearing apart lots of things in hand to hand and goes well with the double claw or claw plus petard.
  • Nurgle: Gains It Will Not Die. Arguably the best making an already hard to kill unit even harder to kill!
  • Slaanesh: Counts as armed with assault and defensive grenades. Useful against Orks, maybe nids, and camping guardsmen. It's okay if you're on a very terrain-heavy board.
  • Tzeentch: Re-roll to-hits of 1's for shooting attacks and heavy flamers (if any) get Soul Blaze. A good gun/claw mark which will do terrible things to light mech armies.

Troop

• Bloodletters of Khorne - Strong, costly models who are hampered by their lack of grenades, the Bloodletters are a force to be reckoned with. Every member of the squad comes with a power sword standard, making MEQ armies piss themselves in horror until they realize you don't have grenades OR an armor save, so good luck actually getting them into close combat without them getting shot to pieces because they're not much more survivable than Ork Boyz and cost considerably more while coming in smaller groups. Note under the current rules, keep these guys away from any squads with 2+ armor saves, their hellblades don't ignore those anymore. Thus meaning one of your former trump cards against Draigowings has just disappeared, and TEQ armies will rip through these guys like they're paper. Sucks to be you but they sure are FUN when you charge 20 into any Space Marine unit.
• Daemonettes of Slaanesh - Cheapest troop choice next to Nurglings (which isn't saying much), they have fleet and rending. Like every other force organization slot, the Slaanesh unit is faster and more fragile than the Khorne unit just like the Nurgle unit is slower but more durable. They would be designed to tie up the enemy before they have a chance to use their ranged weapons, but being forced to deep strike makes their whole strategy for the most part useless. As probably the best single representation of this army, they're very colorful, unique, and not necessarily bad in their own right, but if you want to play them, you have no choice but to cross your fingers and hope the enemy didn't bring a lot of guns.
• Nurglings - They're nonscoring troops that can't shoot, can't assault, and don't even tarpit as well as you'd like them to. Their sole redeeming value is as dirt cheap less expensive additions to an Epedimius list. It rarely works but watching your opponent's eyes glisten with shame and rage as your Nurglings wound on a 2+ and ignore armor is priceless.
• Pink Horrors of Tzeentch - Being the most expensive Troops choice (and the only troops choice with ANY ranged fire) they shoot 3 Assault Weapon shots per model. Being able to fire from wherever they successfully deep strike from before taking any damage actually makes them worth their high points cost, granted of course they survive long enough to fire another shot. (which being as good in combat as the Flamers are is guaranteed to never happen again the moment they get assaulted in combat. Mark them up as the FUN* Troops choice of the army.
  • The Changeling - You'd think this would be an independent character, since, you know, it has its own model. But no. A $15 $16.50 $18.25 Finecast model for a 5 pt. upgrade to a Pink Horror squad that grants a very mediocre chance for 1 shooting enemy unit to have its fire misdirected to another enemy unit. It's based on a failed leadership test so odds are it won't happen but then again it's 5 freaking points. (And don't waste your money on the model when they gave you a perfectly good musician's arm to use in its place).
• Plaguebearers of Nurgle - Objective holders unparalleled, there's always room for at least one squad of Plaguebearers in any army. Drop them down on an objective and watch T5 FnP do its work, but Plaguebearers suffer due to slowness unparalleled, and can't move upon Deep striking as they can't run so you'll be sure to take casualties on the first turn.

Fast Attack

• Flesh Hounds of Khorne - Good points: They're fast, so can both get to grips with as well as pretty much steamroll over any non-melee unit that isn't wearing power-armor. That and they're virtually immune to Psychic attacks & Force Weapons (i.e. THE GREY MOTHERFUCKING KNIGHTS). Bad points: Their attacks don't ignore armor saves so anything that's as tough as a Space Marine will laugh them off, the Grey Knights are totally boned as every single motherfucker has a Force Weapon (and NO you can't choose not to use it, what you gonna do, hit them with your Storm Bolter?), but they're too expensive for what they do. (Seriously. What dedicated melee units CAN'T beat a ranged squad in melee?)
  • Karanak - A hound with a slightly bumped up statline and rending. He also gives his squad move through cover which helps their survivability a little. Still he fails to solve the Flesh Hound's identity crisis and makes them considerably more expensive in the process. Also makes them Elites choices when you'd want them to stay as Fast Attack.
• Furies of Chaos - Statline like a marine except they fight like guardsmen. Wings gives them the mobility needed to run around putting out fires, but its about all they have going for them. They're a tarpit. A speedy, ridiculously overpriced tarpit. You can cry now.

• Screamers of Tzeentch - Tzeentch got sick of people bitching about Chaos' lack of anti-tank so he stuck wings on some meltabombs and let them loose. They will get mowed down if properly targeted/assaulted, so be sure you're using them tactically to herd enemies or as a small suicide squad, although they have 2 wounds now. Note that they have ONE THREE attack each, meaning their chances of hitting a moving vehicle are somewhere in the neighborhood of "never."much better than before. Now they have a new "Slashing Attack" Special Rule, allowing D3 S4 AP- autohits on unengaged enemy models by turbo boosting over them. Watch blobs and light vehicles get ripped to little shreds by your 25pt models, even Terminators weep when they realise how many AP2 attacks six Screamers can dish out.

• Seekers of Slaanesh - More glass cannon-y than any other Slaaneshi daemons, so pray to Slaanesh your enemy doesn't have any guns free.
• Blight Drone (Forgeworld) - A fast skimmer FLYER with a reaper autocannon and a mawcannon (Phlegm and Vomit only). At 120 pts., it's a nifty fast attack vehicle. The downside? It's BS2. Still, probably your best bet for a fast attack choice since it's a good load of dakka on a flyer, which many armies lack effective counters. Beware that these explode when destroyed (wrecked/explode) so keep them away from squishy friendlies.

Heavy Support

• Daemon Prince - The GOOD heavy support choice. This army only has 2 choices, and one is better than the other in every single way. It's kind of silly FUN*, really. The Daemon Prince takes up less space, takes less effort to assemble and paint, can take more damage, can deal more damage, can be made to fit whatever role you require, is more points effective, and costs less than half as much money. With Chaos Space Marines currently having a poor excuse for a Daemon Prince in their army (which is more expensive than our Daemon Prince, WHAT A TWEEST) you now have even more reason to take this as an ally, or in your main force! With the most options in the army, the Daemon Prince can go from being the good 'ole fashion Lash Prince to the flying Tzeentch bolt prince of death. Kit him out with some Choppa and Dakka, give him wings and lol as you fly across the battle field, vector strike and them cut the enemy down with ease, but beware the points cost.
• Soul Grinder - Its going to die like a bitch to meltafire but what are you going to do, take one of your other vehicles? Well, you could take one of the Forgeworld models but - NEVERMIND! Take Phlegm and melt some space marines with his template. Tongue isn't awful but it relies on the Soul Grinder's dodgy BS and you're just as well off using fleet to mix it up in close combat, but in all honesty, Horrors do a better hob of one shooting vehicles. (By the way, remember that this thing is no exception to the deep strike rule. He comes with the biggest base in the game without going into apocalypse, and you're expected to deep strike him with that base. Depending upon the terrain, he is the most likely to die unit in your entire army. Which isn't good for such a choicy unit.)
  • As per the 10/31/12 FAQ, Soul Grinders now cause Fear and have a 5++ save. Woo hoo?
• Plague Hulk (Forgeworld) - Essentially a Soul Grinder of Nurgle with a poisoned 3+ S5 AP3 flamer and a rending, half-range battle cannon with 2 fewer strength. It also gets a 5+ cover save, but it does cost 205 pts. and has huge guts like the regular 'Grinder.
• Blood Slaughterer (Forgeworld) - Silly FUN* name notwithstanding, taking three will make your opponent shit bricks when they deep strike within charge range. Your opponent will then lol as he meltas them to death or immobilization and your 390 pt. heavy support vehicle squad becomes useless. Alternatively, he'll lol when they scatter into impassable terrain or his own guys. Regardless, if you can get these guys in, they will tear shit up. Front armour 13, WS5, a pair of dread close combat weapons, +D3 attacks on the charge spell death for anything it touches. Avoid swapping its dread claws for an impaler (a Blood Angels magna grapple with shittier AP and longer range) because they only have BS1 it always hits on a 4+ so it could be a nasty surprise for some asshole skimmer trying to kite them around.
• Spined Chaos Beast (Forgeworld) - Just like the one available to the CSM but with deep strike, a daemonic construct made from flesh instead of metal. It's a monstrous creature with WS5, S7, T6, 4 wounds and a 5+ invulnerable save. Can be aligned with one of the dark gods for even more goodies!
  • Khorne: +15 pts., rage and furious charge. It's alright, but for 15 points, there are better.
  • Slaanesh: +10 pts., +1 initiative (for a total of 5). The cheapest and worst of them all; man the fuck up and get the Mark of Khorne already.
  • Nurgle: +20 pts., feel no pain! One of the two better choices for this guy.
  • Tzeentch: +15 pts, 5++ gets buffed to 4++. The other better choice.

Building your Army

• Mount your army on round bases and make properly sized regiment bases for them (or get the Lord of the Rings movement trays) so you can easily swap them into a Fantasy army, where they're actually good. And by good, we mean absolutely broken.
• Open an account with Forgeworld and get a second job or move to the UK (unless you live there already), because some of the better units available to this army are Forgeworld models. Either that or start getting REALLY GOOD at converting miniatures. Regardless you're going to want Bloodslaughterers, Decimators, Plague Hulks, Blight Drones and Spined Chaos Beasts, not to mention the special characters like Mamon, Uraka and ALL the Daemon Lords.
• Play planetstrike games as the attacker and watch as your opponents go from jeering your shitty army to rage-quitting as you deep strike and assault in the same turn!
• Otherwise, start with plague bearers and horrors because they are the troops that don't suck. Then grab a greater daemon for HQ and maybe some heralds (of Khorne and Tzeentch, preferably). Then buy the things that are good and avoid the shit that sucks. Good luck with that!
• Want to troll your local daemon-bashing GK players? Here's what you do: Field Fateweaver, a Lord of Change and 3 Tzeenchian daemon princes, all with Bolt of Tzeentch/Breath of Chaos. Watch your opponent have a rage-aneurysm when he has to snap-fire at 5 swooping MCs all covered by a rerollable 4++ save (3++ for the LoCs). Even Hydras will be laughably inadequate. Meanwhile you get to hammer out your ranged attacks and Vector Strike fliers into the ground.

Tactics

Pray that chaos doesn't abandon you. Realize that this is a shit FUN* army, and just have fun with it. Seriously, 1/3 chance of getting turn 1 raped does not make for a competitive army. 6th edition may have changed this with the MC buffs and CSM allies.....

Also, when facing 6th Edition Grey Knights, unless your army is somehow comprised entirely of Flesh Hounds and Khorne HQ choices, ragequit immediately. Nobody will blame you. GW buffed the Army that already could fuck you hard up the ass into the fucking stratosphere, while suffering zero casualties from your army. The one you spent a ton or two of money on. If the rather idiotic rule that makes all the units Deep Strike was fixed, then they wouldn't be so shitty, but alas the rule is still there as it's stated, so you can only weep tears of blood as half of your armies army dies on turn one.

*The Chaos Gods do not guarantee fun. Fun subject to early termination at Tzeentch's discretion. Fun is to be taken in context of Dwarf Fortress.