Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Chaos Daemons (section)

====Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes====
*'''Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury:''' This guy is your basic "big stabby HQ". He is an unholy rape train, with WS10, I9, 6A, and he comes with an '''Axe of Khorne''' (AP 2 and rolls To Wound of 6 cause ID), a '''Lash of Khorne''' (S6 AP2 shooting attack, albeit with only a 12" range), and '''Warp-Forged Armour''' (a 3+ save a la power armour). He comes standard as a Flying Monstrous Creature, which lets you swoop around the field assaulting whatever you want. Remember that you can Vector Strike (to troll people) and use Smash Attacks (to crush tanks to death). Although he can ''technically'' be seen as an anti-air choice, don't rely on him, since you can't assault flyers and the Lash of Khorne (your only shooting attack) is a.) short-ranged and b.) only S6 (which will have trouble penetrating most flyers). He gets the three levels of Gifts, most of which make him even better, but also make him cost a fair bit more and unlike the other Greater Daemons, he doesn't really ''need'' upgrades to make him a total badass. He is worth every point of his cost.  Just keep the force weapons as far away as possible!
**'''Skarbrand, the Exiled One''' - While he lacks the FMC abilities of other Bloodthirsters, Skarbrand more than makes up for it by combining Fleshbane/Armourbane and Instant Death on a single model. Throw in a better statline than a regular Bloodthirster's already-awesome one (+1 I and A), Rage and Hatred and he's all but guaranteed to curbstomp any non-Apoc HQ or MC in the game on the charge - and all for cheaper than a regular 'Thirster. The problem is that like the Black Mace Daemon Prince he lacks defensive power. While some might say T6 is enough, most CC beasts have S8+ weapons that are AP3 or lower and let's be honest - a 5++ save isn't going to stop him from taking 2-3 wounds. Skarbrand's best-use is as the ultimate [[Distraction Carnifex]] - he'll straight-up demolish even heavy-hitters like Big Papa Smurf or The Swarmload if he gets the charge on them, and as such will attract a shitload of heavy firepower/your opponent's best assault unit to stop that happening. Be sure to grab the Grimoire of True Names to fix this problem, and Deep Strike this beast so he can get to the thick of it! Plus, for what he delivers he is stupidly cheap, and if he is the warlord, he grabs instant death on his melee attacks, which is SO SCARY it will cause him to draw the attention of EVERYTHING 
**'''[[Angron]] (Forge World/Apocalypse)''' - Hell yes! At first glance Angron looks like a slightly buffed (+1 W,I,A) Bloodthirster at literally twice cost. His master-crafted instant-death sword is pretty nice to take out other monstrous creatures, and big 12" bubble of -1 Ld is good too, but the main reason you take him is his retinue of 2-12 Bloodthirsters. And everything they charge would die - even Aetaos, Scabeiathrax and An'ggrath (though, this would never happen, cause Angron and An'ggrath are good fellows). On Armageddon this squad wiped out ONE HUNDRED Grey Knights, and while they'd have trouble pulling it off on the board, it's still a unit that would give even veteran Grey Knight players serious pause to be facing on the table.
*'''Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster:''' Has an Axe of Khorne, Hatred (Characters) and Adamantium will with 2 new items: Hellfury, a Template Weapon which is basically a Soulblaze Heavy Flamer (good for taking out Hordes). The next is the Bloodflail which acts as a shooting weapon with 12", S7 AP2 and Assault D3 (Think of it as a Plasma Pistol, that doesn't get hot and can potentially fire 3 shots) while in melee it's S: User, AP2 and Specialist weapon. Use this one exactly like a Dakka Flyrant. Also 50 points more than the classic one
*'''Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage:''' 25 more points than the classic BT gets you '''[[RAGE]]''' and a Great Axe of Khorne which is [[Rape|S:D AP2]] but is so massive it had to get new rules because Monstrous creatures ignore Unwieldy. For the record, it has the Colossal rule which literally is unwieldy, but for Monstrous Creatures. So, yeah. [[Rape|8 D strength attacks on the charge.]] If what ever attacks it doesn't kill it before it piles in, it's fucking dead. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. If there was ever a reason to abuse grimoire/cursed earth/invisibility, it's staring you in the face right here! This guy will draw ALL the fire your enemy has and will not survive a turn on the ground without at least 2 of those tricks cast on him. This guy wrecks Super heavies for fun but won't get close without buffs to his survivability.

*'''Great Unclean One''' - Being a Greater Daemon of Nurgle, it's no surprise that this little guy can take tons of punishment, being one of the toughest units in the entire game with the ablity to reach T10(!) by having access to Biomancy. Despite his fat and bloated appearance, The Great Unclean One can also bring the pain in close combat by having five S6 attacks with no upgrades. However, the Great Unclean One is terribly slow, being only able to move 6" a turn due to Slow and Purposeful. As a result, Deep Strike is an absolute necessity for him to ever reach any sort of combat. Now here's where it gets tricky. Any 40k player worth a damn is going to ignore shooting this unit because of its sheer bulk and target your other more squishy units instead. You ''need'' to invest in plenty of upgrades for this guy, or he's going to be the world's fattest statue. A good loadout for The Great Unclean One involves two Greater Rewards (the Exalted Rewards table is pretty meh for this kind of unit).  As for psychic powers two points in Biomancy for ridiculous buffs, and one point in Plague to gain access to a shooting attack ''might'' seem like the obvious route, but what tends to be more practical is all three powers on Biomancy for maximum chance at Iron Arm; besides the Great Unclean One doesn't really need a shooting attack (and Psychic Focus means you'll get one anyway). Deep Strike him on an objective or behind your opponent's delicious gunline, and you just made the Great Unclean One something that ''cannot'' be ignored by your opponent. Then giggle manically as they struggle to put down a T7-T10 Monstrous Creature with 6 wounds, all while the rest of your forces come in to help clean up. However, you will always need to watch out for tarpit units, Fleshbane, poison or sniper weapons (Nurgle weak to poison?! HERESY! But seriously they hurt). 
**'''Ku'gath, The Plaguefather''' - A Great Unclean One that's a bit more expensive than a regular Great Unclean One. Don't be fooled by the shiny AP3 Large Blast. Only Psyker Level 1 and no rewards mean this guy is a great deal weaker than a pimped out GUO. But he gets stuff that regular GUO's can't even buy, for example he is even BETTER in melee than a regular Great Unclean One and he gets to throw AP3 Poisoned 4+ Large blasts with BS3 at the enemy every turn! 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 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 (or a Forge World Daemon of Nurgle) and say that he decided to walk today. Nobody will mind. (Also he can have nearby Nurglings gain a wound back every turn.)

*'''Keeper of Secrets''' - Similar to the Bloodthirster except fleet and tricksy instead of flying and beefy. He lost his big bag of tricks and now must rely on random Rewards like anyone else, but again they pumped his stats like crazy (WS9 I10 anyone?). Not to mention at 170 pts base he is a STEAL for a T6 monstrous creature, and with Fleet and an extra 3" Run move he's quite mobile for a footslogging MC. Pair him up with a Bloodthirster and go crazy. That said, he's not a CC killer in the same way that the 'thirster is. Despite an awesome statline, he's more geared towards mowing down the rank and file than taking on anything terribly strong - without the Flyer-related defences of a 'thirster or LoC, or the durability of a GUO, T6, 5 wounds and only a 5++ will not last long against most challenge-geared HQs or heavy shooting, but his high WS and Init will ensure most troops will be hitting him on 5s long after he's torn through them. Greater Rewards will mitigate your survivability issues somewhat, as 4 out of 6 will increase your defenses in some way. As a situational bonus, the Keeper of Secrets now has Preferred Enemy against Eldar and Dark Eldar. Given that both have had new codices that pump their CC ability in a lot of places, this can be very useful.  

*'''Lord of Change''' - What Bloodthirsters are to stabbing LoCs are to magic. If you're going down the shooty path, be sure to bring Pink Horrors with Heralds, just so your opponent doesn't get Feel no Pain (Even if you do grant them FnP, in most cases the unit will only have a few models left by the time they get it, unless you're shooting at MCs or Nurgle bikers, in which case you were stupid for trying anyway). For a melee LoC, take the Psyker (Master Level 3) upgrade with full Divination, The Eternal Blade & a Staff of Change and you have a LoC that's hitting like a Bloodthirster! Do not sleep on these guys! They are the most versatile Greater Daemon in the book; buff, combat, or shooting, take your pick 'cause he does it all. 
**'''Fateweaver, Oracle of Tzeench''' - One of the strongest units in the 'dex and a lynchpin to nearly every list. THE Psyker of 40k (Level 4) with a points decrease and two heads that are always better than one. Each head knowing all the Change powers as well as randomly generating a power from all the standard disciplines except for Telekinesis. No longer flees when things don't go [[just as planned]]. Overall a very deadly flying psyker. Use the Grimoire of True Names on him and watch him become harder to kill than before! Do not take him into CC, he doesn't belong there, doesn't like it there and will turn you into [[Chaos Spawn|something that shan't be named]] if you bring him there. Use his staff to reroll WHATEVER THE HECK YOU WANT!!! A fun little trick with it is manipulating the warpstorm table; say you roll a 6 and a 1? Using Kyros's warlord trait is risky cause one of your die are high already, instead, use his one die ability and reroll the 1, now at worst your result is a 7-12! So yea, be creative, you have an army wide chronometron so enjoy it!  Remember, you can still use your reroll even if Fateweaver has flown off the board as he simply needs to be alive and you get a reroll on both yours and your opponent's turn so don't think you have to save it to use on their turn.   

*'''Daemon Prince''' - Your customizable killing machine, and with WS 9, S6, I8,and 5 attacks it's not to be sneezed at - and that's before the mandatory upgrade to a Daemon of a Chaos God (one of them had to promote the lucky mortal after all). Most of the time these guys won't be your HQ if you like your Greater Daemons, because when you buy a Greater Daemon of your choice God, a Daemon Prince of that God moves to a Heavy Support choice (Similar to the Tyranid Tervigon, except they're taken as Troops). Its strength is that it can be tailored to your liking. CC monster? Spellcaster? Vector-Striking flyer? He can do it all if you're willing to shell out the points - which brings us to the main flaw: it will become more and more costly as you upgrade it and in most cases you should consider investing your points to the more powerful Greater Daemons as they are damningly more cost effective (and sometimes cheaper as with the GUO and KoS) than the Daemon prince, which both says something and is pretty fucking sad. It's better to take this Build-a-Daemon as your Heavy support choice. Just do not, I repeat, '''DO NOT''' go overboard on the gifts and upgrades! Keep in mind that Wings and Armour are damn near mandatory. <br />They do however have a few roles for you to consider, such as the Slaanesh Lash Prince. Consisting of a DP with wings, Lash of Despair and a biomancy psyker, pray to Slaanesh that you roll Iron Arm and fly around all game throwing 2d6 S9 shots (which is absolutely insane!) at enemy flyers. It's unreliable as fuck but if you wanted reliability, you picked the wrong codex. Alternatively, you can build a monstrous creature hunter by taking a Nurgle Prince, give it the Balesword and three points into Biomancy. Buff yourself up with the fantastic Biomancy buffs to make yourself a very tough cookie to take down (watch out for Tau, however. They love their Skyfire and Ignore Cover). Get him into assault with a MC, prepare to drink your opponent's tears: stab 'em with your Balesword for an AP2 Instant Death attack. The big drawback with the Balesword is its lack of AP but because DPs are monstrous creatures they can bypass this drawback.
**'''Uraka the Warfiend (Forge World)''' - One of two named Daemon Princes from Forgeworld. His stat line remains unchanged except for Ld 9 and he costs 200 points now. His axe lost Instant Death proper but gained Fleshbane and Decapicating Blow (ID on a to-wound of a 6) to compensate. Uraka's added goodies include a nice shiny Collar of Khorne, Warp Forged Armor, and Unholy Frenzy. This is cool and all but he is still likely to get shot to death before he does anything productive. Still not enough of a badass to make us believe he beat a Bloodthirster before gaining daemonhood.
**'''Mamon, Daemon Prince of Nurgle (Forge World)''' - The other FW named Daemon Prince. His stats are similar to a Great Unclean One, putting him at WS7, S6, T7, 5 wounds, I4, 4 attacks and Ld 9. Throw in Feel no pain, Poisoned 2+ attacks, Daemon of Nurgle and a poisoned 2+ AP3 template weapon. Not bad at all!
**'''[[Be'lakor]] The Dark Master'''- A returning character from Fantasy, Be'lakor gets Eternal Warrior that regular Daemon Princes lack and is a Level 3 Psyker with all spells from Telepathy Discipline by default. He comes with the unique rules Shadow Form (4+ invulnerable save and Shrouded) and Lord of Torment (gains a bonus D3 Warp Charge points by making enemy units fail morale checks). He also has wings and possesses a unique weapon called the Blade of Shadows (S+1, AP2, Fleshbane, Armorbane, and Master-Crafted). He also doesn't need to be devoted to a chaos god, as he serves all of them. At 350 points, he's an OP steal with access to ALL telepathy powers. Hitting on 6's in shooting and assault phase? Also no blast and templates? Emprah have mercy for those he gets close to. Also his model is arguably the coolest GW has ever made, too. The only mediocre thing about the awesome Be'lakor is that in a battleforged list he takes up an HQ/Daemonlord slot all on his own due to lack of devotion.