Daemons of Chaos - Still breaking the game?

[brother_maynard]

I think 3-4 points underpriced qualifies as 'outrageously' underpriced

what armies do you play? i guarantee i can find something underpriced by the same margin in any book

[HalfBlood]

All I know is I'm getting statistical BS whenever I fight daemons, so I'm biased, but there are certain things I find I'm still justified in thinking it to be utter filth, most notably bloodletters.



1 attack at I4 is not a lack of attacks and I. Not everybody has the stats of a chaos warrior. If T3 were that simple, dark elves would be a cakewalk.. who generally don't have a wardsave either.

For their cost, bloodletters are still outrageously underpriced. Compare them to other units in that pricerange.



In that case it is not required to repeat several times that a greater daemon can die turn 1 to a cannonball (my HPA can do so too, but is still broken as hell), because by 'playing the game' you can shelter him/it/her behind terrain. 3 out of 4 greater daemons can move 20" per turn, so can hop to shelter untill furies have incapacitaded the omnipresent cannon, and the 4th has 10 wounds, regeneration and a wardsave, and wounds can of course be restored to him using the lore of life attribute.

I wish it was as easy as you say it is.

Remember every turn a Greater Daemon is not in combat is a waste of its points. So if I hide a Greater Daemon so my furies can go take out a warmachine thats essentially wasting 2-3 turns of not being in combat. When I state I can lose a Greater Daemon turn 1 is not an understatement. I have lost them several times. But even if I dont lose them turn one its still several wounds that eventually add up to 5..... 5+ward save looks a lot better on paper then it does in actual gameplay.

Bloodletters are way underpowered compared to other units, now realize I compare my book to top tier books. So Skaven,DE,HE,WoC,Beastman. If you actually play daemons you will find that its not a cake walk with bloodletters. Its actually pretty rough. 3/5 armies I just stated will destroy Bloodletters in Shooting then whent I get to combat they strike before me with rerolls. Or I run into endless hordes that the letters get completely overwhelmed. Im not saying daemons are bad its just they are not OP.

When I say "Learn to Play" It stands as learn to counter the army instead of complaining. You obviously play Skaven, so whats to complain? You play the best army in the game, and you can counter Daemons? Try Dreaded 13th. Endless hordes of Slaves, Shooting from weapons teams.

[Sexiest_hero]

I think everything in the Beastmen book is priced ok, what do you think is underpriced?

[vcassano]

Bloodletters are way underpowered compared to other units, now realize I compare my book to top tier books. So Skaven,DE,HE,WoC,Beastman. If you actually play daemons you will find that its not a cake walk with bloodletters. Its actually pretty rough. 3/5 armies I just stated will destroy Bloodletters in Shooting then whent I get to combat they strike before me with rerolls. Or I run into endless hordes that the letters get completely overwhelmed. Im not saying daemons are bad its just they are not OP.

Really?! Really?

[Sexiest_hero]

I can readily smite hordes of bloodletters with gor hordes it's just a matter of stopping flesh to stone.

[DaemonReign]

I think 3-4 points underpriced qualifies as 'outrageously' underpriced

Yeah you're in luck then 'cause Bloodletter's are no where near that undercosted.
We shan't compare them to some Lizardmen infantry... and let's not compare them to Ogres either..
Let's compare them to Graveguard (from the New Book).
I'll save you the suspense, but what it comes down to is Bloodletters are undercosted by about a point. That's right. 1 point. Maybe 2 (if we want to mean to them - and yes don't say it, I know you do). Raising their cost beyond that without giving them something (like T4, like Armour) is just making them really bad.
And I think you know it.

[Rosstifer]

Bloodletters at 13 points are as high as I would go. They do only have one attack and they are fragile as hell (Slightly less so now Mortars have been ruined).

[Morkash]

I think Bloodletters are roughly ok, 13 points is maximum, I say that as well.

What annoys me is the attitude some Daemon players, like the example on the last page, developed with 8th edition. Playing an army so ridiciously overpowered for a few years they tend to get immediately defensive should someone dare to call them overpowered in this edition. It reminds me of this tournament where I played against restricted Daemons, where he played 3 x 30 hordes of Bloodletters (yes, these restrictions were a bit strange, but they had no Heralds i them) with a LoC with Master of Sorcery: Light plus a Herald with MoS: Light right behind them. I played meele focused O&G and even my savage star didn't dare to go into them, because I knew he'd buff them with Birona's immediately.

I lost because of the flamers and a unit of beasts of Slaanesh panicking some units and after the game he talked to his mateys about how nooby I am to make such grave tactical mistakes and actually lose to the nerfed Daemons. He was 3rd in this tournament and didn't lose a single game, expect one draw.

[DaemonReign]

I got immediately defensive about terms like 'so ridiculously overpowered' back in 7th Ed already.
Now (in 8th) I honestly just smile condescendingly at equivalents.

Daemons were amongst the Top 3 strongest races of Warhammer in 7th Ed. Don't misunderstand me here. I'm not denying this. It's just (thanks to DE and VC) calling them 'ridiculously overpowered' is going to far (in any Edition).
Now, in 8th, Daemons are not amongst the Top 3 (I honestly don't believe there is a Top 3 anymore) but (as demonstrated by Jerry earlier) somewhere in the Top 10 (which, as we all gather I'm sure, doesn't mean much).
So 'no' I don't mean to defend players abusing Daemons in 7th (or in 8th!) and I don't mean to say that 'all the whining' was completely uncalled for - but that also warrants some measure of moderation on your end. Right?

And that guy you played against sounds like a real immature douche. Gloating like that is just bad taste. And hell if all Daemon-players you've met were like that then I certainly understand why you'd hold a grudge.
This post might not go a long way of proving it, I realize that, but I sincerely believe that if you had gotten a few games in against me instead, you're perspective might have been a bit different.

[Rosstifer]

There is going to be a hangover for a long time though. Demons WERE broken in 7th. most of the book was very undercosted for what it could do in Warhammer: Math-hammer Edition. I personally think Shooty/Magic Dark Elves were THE number one most competitive army back then, and way worse than Daemons to fight against.

At least Daemons did you the courtesy of getting into combat with you!

Now, they are just a strong army, particularly in uncomped, as Europe in particular goes CRAZY with the Daemon comp (Flat out banning Master of Sorcery? Seriously?!).

The hangover is going to take a while to go away. Though, if anybody complains about playing your Daemons, send them off to play against double Grey Seer Skaven a few times, and soon they'll be begging to play against Daemons again

[Snake1311]

what armies do you play? i guarantee i can find something underpriced by the same margin in any book

The under/over pricedness should be calculated by % and not by hard points. Pricing the abomb at 3 pts higher won't make it any less of a nobrainer :P


Deamons are still amazingly strong, which is why they get comped. Master of sorcery is banned because its embarassingly underpriced for what it does. In uncomped, considering how awesome flamers are, DoC don't really have a weak phase in the game.

[Sexiest_hero]

Yeah I'd fight bloodletters all day over slaves/warpfire.I swear even skaven farts do d3 wounds.....

[The bearded one]

Remember every turn a Greater Daemon is not in combat is a waste of its points. So if I hide a Greater Daemon so my furies can go take out a warmachine thats essentially wasting 2-3 turns of not being in combat. When I state I can lose a Greater Daemon turn 1 is not an understatement. I have lost them several times. But even if I dont lose them turn one its still several wounds that eventually add up to 5..... 5+ward save looks a lot better on paper then it does in actual gameplay.

If they are getting killed in turn 1, that sounds like deployment error, or a needlessly empty battlefields where they can't be placed out of line of sight.

Bloodletters are way underpowered compared to other units, now realize I compare my book to top tier books. So Skaven,DE,HE,WoC,Beastman. If you actually play daemons you will find that its not a cake walk with bloodletters. Its actually pretty rough. 3/5 armies I just stated will destroy Bloodletters in Shooting then whent I get to combat they strike before me with rerolls. Or I run into endless hordes that the letters get completely overwhelmed. Im not saying daemons are bad its just they are not OP.

When I say "Learn to Play" It stands as learn to counter the army instead of complaining. You obviously play Skaven, so whats to complain? You play the best army in the game, and you can counter Daemons? Try Dreaded 13th. Endless hordes of Slaves, Shooting from weapons teams.

I have had skaven on the battlefield a grand total of one time. I play dwarfs and lizardmen. Any time I faced bloodletters I have attempted to shoot the bejeezus out of them (and that 5+ wardsave actually makes them more resistant to a lot of shooting than many other armies, as it cannot be negated.) but they proceed to kill anything regardless, but, as I said, I am biased in that regard, because all I get is complete and utterly ridiculous dicerolls, causing ~18 bloodletters with heralds (out of the original 35 or so, before I started shooting them) to kill 28 templeguard. The very next week they proceeded to do the exact same thing.

[Jerry]

Good lord, I am surprised you can still walk with the weight of that chip on your shoulder!

You mention things that are supposedly broken about Daemons, yet most of them other armies can do too. KB with high strength, 5+ Ward - Dark Elves, +6 to cast on life lore - Bretonnians... Are they "broken" too?

No other army can do ALL of those things. Bretonnians don't get +6 to cast life they get +1 unless they take the fay enchantress which is a SC and if you want to go there don't even get me started on fait weaver. Dark elves definitely have some great things but you claim most other armies can do too but you've only listed 2 which have been very ambiguous to say the least. Does any other army have core KB S5 troops who are unbreakable I4 WS 5????? For 6 slaves! Grossly underpriced.

You list 5 tounaments, from a very particular meta, only one of which Daemons actually one - hardly OMG broken! No one in the thread was arguing that Daemons were no longer a powerful army, but that they were no longer as over-powered as they were in 7th. Something which is borne out by the very tournament results you provided!

How is the largest tournament in Australia (Cancon) with people from all over the country a very particular meta. They don't have to win each of the tournaments have few daemons players and yet rank obnoxiously often.
Saying they aren't as over-powered as seventh means nothing. They were auto-win in seventh due to out-number+Fear now they aren't but are still absolutely unchanged in other aspects. They also benefited a lot from 8th even though they lost the most game-breaking advantage ever.

You then whinge and whine about a particular selection of armies not winning tournaments - a selection that includes a host of very old and very weak books - before comfirming what seems obvious. It is you that has a problem with daemons, probably because you play two elderly books, and no-one else.

It is this exact, out-dated, attitude that puts people off starting Daemons. I hope you are happy for ruining the hobby of those around you.

Right so Daemons are rightly powered and all the armies I mentioned are underpowered? Daemons are the outliers not the bar-setters. You can't point to one army book and say all the others should be like this army book it should be much the opposite.
No it is the armies gross over-powered nature that puts people off starting Daemons and I'm reacting to the army not to the people playing it. I'm not against people maximising with their respective books I'm against books being so broken that when you maximise you create a ridiculous army filled with points-denial.
Also sorry but how do you know what and what isn't putting people off starting Daemons. Do you have a collective intellectual of all the people who have wanted to start daemons but haven't due to forum whining?
If complaining about an army being over powered in a discussion ruins the hobby then you're following the same mindset as the world's dictators. The whole point of being on a forum is to discuss opinions but somehow doing this ruins the hobby. Right.
And yes I do have a problem with daemons and yes it probably is because of the two armies that I play but does that mean that I'm not entitled to express my opinion on them?

[Athlan na Dyr]

If they are getting killed in turn 1, that sounds like deployment error, or a needlessly empty battlefields where they can't be placed out of line of sight.

^this. Play with some of the random terrain generation or insist that you play with a decent amount of terrain. Be prepared to not have your expensive Greater Demon in combat by turn 3. They are still very useful as points denial should they be played with a caution and hence survive, even if they don't kill their points cost (however, with magic I'm wondering how you aren't...)

I have had skaven on the battlefield a grand total of one time. I play dwarfs and lizardmen. Any time I faced bloodletters I have attempted to shoot the bejeezus out of them (and that 5+ wardsave actually makes them more resistant to a lot of shooting than many other armies, as it cannot be negated.) but they proceed to kill anything regardless, but, as I said, I am biased in that regard, because all I get is complete and utterly ridiculous dicerolls, causing ~18 bloodletters with heralds (out of the original 35 or so) to kill 28 templeguard.

This does sound like a run of horrendous luck more than the OP -ness of bloodletters (you do have my sympathies though).

Speaking of bloodletters, when compared with Tomb Guard (with Halberds), they have +1 M, +1WS, -1T, +1 I, -1 ld and a 5+ ward as opposed to LA and Shield, can march, have a better break system and are Core for a point less. Now, TG are a little overpriced (by ~1 point I think) but I'd put Bloodletters at 13 to 14 points. Especially when considering the higher cost of reasonably fighty core units in the 8th books.

To be honest, the main problem with bloodletters is their easy access to hatred and resistance to magic. The big spells (Dwellers and Purple Sun) do jack all to a bloodletter horde (1/6 die and 1/3 of the models hit die respectively) compared to every other elite choice in the game, barring Warriors. This means that the daemon player can ensure that a large number get into combat barring an ungodly amount of shooting merely by increasing the size of his unit. They are also faster than the vast majority of units, so running away is difficult to do... meaning the only options are to feed it something sacrificial or beat it.

Assuming the (all but inevitable) Master of Sorcery herald Dwellering the elite units that could fight them... and you're left with a right pain in the ****.
Are they game breakingly bad? No, but 'letters are very good for their cost and the slot they're in.

[Snake1311]

Army Rankings for DoC from Rankings HQ for the three biggest regions:

US: 5th
UK: 1st
Aus: 4th

So basically DoC are always in the top third, where the OP armies are (if you think about it - 15 armies, 5 OP, 5 UP, 5 in the middle).

This is basically /thread, because statistics >morethan> personal opinion.

[Novrain]

Army Rankings for DoC from Rankings HQ for the three biggest regions:

US: 5th
UK: 1st
Aus: 4th

So basically DoC are always in the top third, where the OP armies are (if you think about it - 15 armies, 5 OP, 5 UP, 5 in the middle).

This is basically /thread, because statistics >morethan> personal opinion.

So fully a third of armies "break the game"? No one is denying DoC are a top-tier army, what is being pointed out again and again is that they are no longer as broken as they were in 7th. Your own statistics bear that out! Daemons come top in the UK, but trail in the USA and AUS - hardly breaking the entire game of warhammer.

As you said statistics>morethan>personal opinion.

[Snake1311]

So fully a third of armies "break the game"? No one is denying DoC are a top-tier army, what is being pointed out again and again is that they are no longer as broken as they were in 7th. Your own statistics bear that out! Daemons come top in the UK, but trail in the USA and AUS - hardly breaking the entire game of warhammer.

As you said statistics>morethan>personal opinion.

I was under the impression that the DoC players were coming out and trying to justify bloodletters as a poor core choice

Of course DoC are nowhere near as strong as in 7th. Even if they are 1st still (which is questionable), the gap isn't as big. Don't put words in my mouth and I don't think anyone has said that, its too obviously not true.

I generally agree with your conclusion. DoC are definitely top tier (and therefore warrant a variety of nerfs), but they don't break the game any more so than the other top-tierers do.

[Novrain]

I generally agree with your conclusion. DoC are definitely top tier (and therefore warrant a variety of nerfs), but they don't break the game any more so than the other top-tierers do.

Yeah the thread has drifted a little from the OP's question!

Surely that also means that the bottom tier books also "break the game", by being so poor? They just "break the game" in a different way.

[The bearded one]

More that bottom tiers get broken "by" the game.. it breaks their backs.