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

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*.

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!.

Unit Analysis

HQ

• Bloodthirster - Your basic big stabby HQ. He has wings to get him into close combat where he will invariably wreck shit before getting taken out. Take unholy might if anything, the other powers are pretty questionable.
  • Skarbrand, the Exiled One - Basically a wingless fleet bloodthirster who allows all units around him 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 - Costs twice 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.
• Great Unclean One - Fifth edition pumped these guys up. Tough as mutated nails and scary in close combat with a variety of decent upgrades you don't need (but might want). Has two downsides: he's ungodly slow, but its not as much of a liability as you'd think. Second he'll attract lots of FnP ignoring heavy weapons fire, which won't take long to bring tubby down. Even if he rolls a bad scatter on his deep strike he can run towards the fight in fifth edition, which is both hilarious and effective.
  • 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 - 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.
• 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). Unfortunately every turn you're using this you aren't fleeting, which is bad. Pair him up with a bloodthirster and go crazy.
  • Zarakynel -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, allowing her to attack first pretty much all the time, and her enormous weapon skill stat will pretty much garauntee a hit. 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 good invulnerable 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.
  • Fateweaver, Oracle of Tzeench - One way or another this guy will turn your game into a circus of hilarity. Either he will let your close combat units rampage across the board or he will die to a single low strength attack. FUN*.
  • Aetaos'Rau'Keres - 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, 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. 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. 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.
  • 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, otherwise his pathetic statline and price make him a pass.
• 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? A 50% chance of 1-3 more attacks and a more reliable 5++ Invuln with statistically the same liklihood as the crusher's armor save. 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. 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, with no armor save. They'll drop like flies to lasguns.
• Flamers of Tzeentch - 35 point flamethrower from hell, but frail as they come. (T4, W1, 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. 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 Termis your Space Marine corpse-worshiper enemy send towards your ass. Grey Knight Termis not included.

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 weapon standard, making MEQ armies piss themselves in horror until they realize you don't have grenades OR an armor save.
• 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, have no ability to directly help your units due to the No Retreat! rule, 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. Also note that if you don't go to ground on objectives then you're doing it wrong.

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 lose. 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.
• Seekers of Slaanesh - More glass cannon-y than any other Slaaneshi daemons, so pray to Slaanesh your enemy doesn't have any guns free.

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 roll you require, is more points effective, and costs less than half as much money. The most popular choice currently is a Tzeentch demon with bolt of Tzeentch. Wings can help them get to where they need to be, but they jack up the price considerably and should only be taken for a clear purpose.
• Soul Grinder - Its going to die like a bitch to meltafire but what are you going to do take one of your other vehicles? 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. (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.)

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.

Tactics

Pray that chaos doesn't abandon you. Realize that this is a shit army, and just have fun with it. Seriously, 1/3 chance of getting turn 1 raped does not make for a competitive army.

Also, when facing 5th 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 while suffering zero casualties into the fucking stratosphere. The one you spent a tonne of money on.

*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.