Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos

This is the general tactics page on how to play Daemons of Chaos in Total War: WARHAMMER.

Why Play Daemons of Chaos?

• Because why choose between flavors of Daemons when you can have all of them?
• Why would the denizens of damnation require mortal assistance to destroy the world?
• It's not everyday we get a bad guy faction that is actually reasonably flexible so this is a nice change of pace.
• Hey, what other factions lets you wreck the world with your perfect OC?
• You're really loyal to the 8th edition army book
• You really like playing dress up with your lord
• When you want to play as "Chaos" you want your army to look like multicolored vomit from beyond the ken of man
• You're still hoping Bel'akor is playable

Pros

• Flexibility: Easily the biggest advantage this faction has over the Monogods. Since you have the Daemons from every god, you can actually pick and choose what kind of tactics you want to go for instead of going all out in one department. So if you want to rep Daemons but not get immediately counter picked because you picked Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle or Slaanesh this is the faction for you.
• Unbreakable: What the fuck is going to scare you when you're literally a Daemon? All your units crumple instead of run away so they will fight to the bitter end.
• Terror: Fear and terror are going to be very common across your roster because, you know, literally crawled out of the pits of hell. Factions like Skaven or Beastmen who have leadership problems will find their forces running a ton.
• Quality: Your units are all very good at what they do, and as such you have some very strong elite options that can fill out numerous holes in your roster. There really isn't a department that anyone can say you're weak in.
• Resistances: Ward saves, physical resistance and magic resistance abound in this army. You can't throw a rock without hitting something that's resistant to some type of damage.
• Everyone is here!: You are the only non DLC race that released with your entire 8th edition army book ready to go at launch. Your roster is MASSIVE, especially compared to your other game 3 counterparts and you have so many options to butcher your enemies with. Plus, no DLCS to worry about pay to win bullshit in multiplayer.

Cons

• Lack of Specialization: The downside to trying to appease all the gods at once is you don't get quite as good in any one department as going Monogod. Khorne will out fight you, Tzeentch will out magic you, Nurgle will out last you and Slaanesh will out run you. Add on to the fact that you don't get any of the Exalted Greater Daemons or Mortals in multiplayer (and must specially recruit them in single player) and you can feel how much they outweigh you in certain ways. If you only want to play one playstyle, you'd be better off with Monogods.
• Lack of Armor: Evidently armor is hard to come by in the Realm of Chaos. Aside from a few options (mainly from Khorne) armor values are pretty low so missiles might be a bit of a problem if you can't shut them down.
• Expensive: As is the trend with factions that have a ton of high quality stuff, price points might be a bit high. While you do have some chaff in the form of Nurglings and Blue Horrors, expect to go into most fights outnumbered.
• Lack of Range: While having access to the full daemon roster gives you some ranged options none of them are very long ranged, aside from Skull Cannons. Like a lot of Chaos factions you're first and foremost a melee rush army.
• Lack of Updates You know how most factions get major updates alongside DLC? And you know how you have your entire roster? Yeah... While some balances changes are inevitable, don't expect big additions to your roster in the form of DLC. Though we may get some of the DLC units of the Monogod factions, if we're lucky that is.
• Hard as FUCK: You are a demon, every single mortal hates you. You are a demon trying to take the power of the dying god for yourself rather than any of the Big Four: everyone hates your guts. Your only respite is with the Norscan tribes and beastmen you can talk with. You start the game not too far from both Kislev and the Empire, so you'll be invaded over and over.

Universal Traits

• Daemonic: Undead with extra steps, really. Once your daemonic units lose enough leadership, they'll begin to lose health and fade back into the Warp in the same vein that undead units crumble away. The good news is that even if your daemons are doomed to evaporate, they'll at least stick in and fight to the last model.

• Reign of Chaos: As your lord deals damage a meter on the right hand side of the screen fills up, unlocking three different abilities at three tiers. This meter can fill up more than once, meaning that as long as you keep dealing damage you can unlock these abilities pretty much endlessly. Unlike the other Chaos God factions, who have three set tiers of abilities, your army abilities randomly select from the army abilities of the other four Chaos Gods. You never know exactly what you'll get, only that it will be one of the four abilities for that tier.

Lords

Legendary Lords

• God-Slayer: Your very own Original-Character-DO-NOT-STEAL Daemon Prince in name and form. You can customize not just the look, but the playstyle of him depending on which Chaos God (or Gods) you decide to worship. Looks alone aren't everything though. Each item you can customize also impacts the God-Slayer's stats and abilities. Should you take the Chaos Undivided route, you effectively get access to each Chaos God's (incomplete, but still quite vast) roster to form the rank and file of your armies. You do lack the Exalted versions as well as any mono-god faction effects, but what you lack in specialization you more than make up for in versatility.

Units

Infantry

• Bloodletters: Your mid tier Khornate unit, meaning that unlike Furies these guy might actually kill what they're fighting. They wield great swords with fire, magical, AP damage and anti-infantry, so they're really good at busting through armored infantry. As Daemons they're also unbreakable and contain nice defensive buffs, which is good because 30 armour isn't great. They will likely be your cheapest source of AP in the infantry fight, which will make them highly desirable when fighting heavy armor.

• Exalted Bloodletters: Bloodletters plus. They're a very similar unit only just much better at the job but also much more expensive. These guys will let you carve through more elite options than your standard Bloodletters can.

Cavalry

• Plague Drone: Same as Nurgle, your armor piercing flying cavalry. Comes in two variants, standard melee (essentially an upgrade of rot flies) and a ranged version that tosses Death’s Heads at their foes.

War Beasts

• Chaos Furies (Undivided): Basically Chaos Furies who incorporate aspects from all the chaotic factions, with a preference depending on which side you are currently favoring.

• Chaos Hounds: Serves as your cheap routing unit.

• Flesh Hounds: They share the same speed as normal Warhounds (95) but have a much smaller model count per unit but are much stronger and tougher. They also have magic resistance of 50% like Furies do. They seem to inhabit that space of smaller war hound units from Drycha and the Norscans, and act as light cavalry.

Monsters

• Soul Grinder of Tzeentch: This thing channels the power of Zeus to chuck lightning bolts from its hands that do AP and Anti Large damage. It seems to be a very versatile unit as it can deal with large units from afar and still deal some good damage up close. It also has magic attacks, so it will also be hitting for most of its damage. Still pretty decent in melee, but it's the Anti Large range attacks you want this thing for.

• Soul Grinder of Khorne: Based on what has been revealed it is a tanky cannon platform that can fire while moving. It also comes with a scattergun that does 800 damage with 120 range. The Khorne soul grinder can chop up the Tzeentch + Nurgle variants in melee, but gets it's ass handed to it by the Slaanesh version who traded the cannon away for anti-large choppy power.

• Soul Grinder of Nurgle: Looks and acts like a 40K Plague Hulk, only replace the sword with a claw. Essentially the only other artillery the faction has aside from Ku’gath, and definitely the only long-ranged unit you can get more than one of.

• Soul Grinder of Slaanesh: A purely melee version of the Soul Grinder with 75 speed, anti-large, and lots of armour piercing damage.

• Flamers of Tzeentch: A mobile flamethrower unit that can pump out ludicrous damage to unarmored targets. Apparently still ok in melee, though don't expect them to last long against most dedicated melee units. They require good positioning to use effectively, especially since they only have 10 ammo. Notably it's the first flamethrower unit that has AP damage, which might signal some hope for things like Irondrakes or Warp Fire Throwers.

• Exalted Flamer: A single entity purple version that has one of the most devastating ranged attacks in the game, able to deal heavy damage to both infantry and large units. Downside is that it has very limited ammo, so every shot has to count. It also applies Fire weakness in both melee and ranged, allowing it to set up your other unit to do more damage to the enemy.

• Lord of Change A flying bird that is said to be a full spellcaster. In campaign there are technologies that can unlock more spells for them, but game footage so far shows that in multiplayer they're limited to the Blue Fire of Tzeentch and the Pink Fire of Tzeentch. Both of these spells have a low Winds of Magic cost, meaning LoCs will be useful for spamming cheap spells to fill your Eye of Tzeentch meter. It is a decent monster in melee, though don't expect it to go toe to toe with a Bloodthirster any time soon.

• Bloodthirster: The smaller, more accessible version of its Exalted cousin. It trades a lot of the scary combat stats in return for Anti Large, making it more of a dedicated monster fighter. Aside from that, it functions as a cheaper version of the Exalted lord version.

• Rotflies: Riderless Rotflies. They appear to be melee only, using their flight speed and armour piercing to harass enemy back lines.

• Great Unclean One: Nurgle's big bulbous boys of mass and rot capable of withstanding the blast from a hell cannon and shrug it off. These jolly green giants are casters of the lore of Nurgle and the massive swords they wield can shear through armour.

• Keeper of Secrets: Slaanesh's Greater Daemon unit is fast, has lots of weapon strength and armor piercing, as well as Blissful Rapture, Devastating Flanker, and Strider. Can cast two spells from the Lore of Slaanesh: Lash of Slaanesh and Acquiescence. Will likely be a powerful duelist character but will struggle with dealing with hordes compared to the other Greater Daemons.

Multiplayer Strategies

Total War: Warhammer Tactics Articles
General Tactics	Tactics Magic Banner Immortal Empires
Total War: Warhammer	The Empire Dwarfs Greenskins Vampire Counts Bretonnia Warriors of Chaos Beastmen Wood Elves Norsca
Total War: Warhammer 2	High Elves Dark Elves Lizardmen Skaven Tomb Kings Vampire Coast
Total War: Warhammer 3	Kislev Khorne Tzeentch Nurgle Slaanesh Grand Cathay Ogre Kingdoms Daemons of Chaos Chaos Dwarfs