I need advice for fighting daemons

[BigMoosey]

I'm playing a Daemons army with my Raven Guard for the first time this weekend for a campaign. I have no idea how to field or how to go about this battle. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

[Volandum]

Well, what's your list?

EDIT: I mean, if you're running a bike list my advice is going to be different from dual raider/LSS/speeders, as it is if you run Rhinos - and it will be different again if you have Razorbacks.

[BrotherErekose]

Originally Posted by BigMoosey

I'm playing a Daemons army with my Raven Guard for the first time this weekend for a campaign. I have no idea how to field or how to go about this battle. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

A couple basics: You do know that half his army will DeepStrike turn one, correct? The rest coming in Reserve as normal.

Deploy accordingly, in transports at best or your entire army in Reserves at worst.

One tactic/OneTrickPony he'll use is to DS the Horrors of T, and they use their Breath of Chaos (template, no Armor or Cover Saves) to wipe out anyone in Cover, like your pricey HQ (Skrike). Only his Invuln can save him and the others will be toast.

What to take:
1. Volume fire. Most of the critters have Invulnerable Saves only, so spending points on PowerWeps is ... pointless.
2. TH/SS termies and Pfists for the larger MC daemons, except ...

Shoot da killy t'ings, Kill da shooty t'ings. - I forget which wise ork said that.

This is not the exhaustive list, as some daemons don't get used by any player.

Shoot:
1. Khorne Daemons (the Gene Simmons inspired ones with long Claymore swords), Daemonettes
2. Any MC HQ (you'll need high STR weps, most of their Toughness is 6) and the Masque

Assault:
1. Horrors & Flamers of Tzeentch

And others less popular. I'll not list the whole book. How's that?

[primarch16]

I'd advise multiple transports and a land raider.

[BigMoosey]

My list normally consists of Shrike and a squad of either 5 or 10 termies normally all with hammers and shields.. outflanking them causes havoc but since I am in a campaign I run the risk of killing Shrike very early. That would be devastating to my style of play. Besides that my list varies from what I play against but I do tend to go assault heavy i.e jump packs and terminators... I know the basic rules of daemons like deep striking and all invulnerables and that the guy uses epidemis and the skulltaker all the time. I'm just not really sure what I should go after first and what isn't going to be a primary threat.

[Volandum]

Killing Shrike? That just happens once every so often, it's not hard for him to get fisted, and you keep the combat tactics so it's not a big deal.

Do you have plenty of transports to shield your guys? Do you have LSS for disruption?

[BigMoosey]

Everyone that I play against knows that I outflank Shrike and his "Death Team" so when I get into cc with people they allocate every attack they can into Shrike. I use Rhinos to move my tactical squads throughout the game and I use a Crusader almost every game for it's anti-infantry weaponry. I have a tendency to assault first turn with the majority of my squads and that's one thing that this battle will ruin since nothing will be on the table. And I never use Land Speeders, bikes, or scouts. It's just not my style

[Volandum]

You assault the first turn with the majority of your squads? How on Earth do you do that if you don't have infiltrators (since you're not infiltrating Shrike) and your Tacticals are in Rhinos?

[BigMoosey]

We play big point battles and I field alot of jump troops and termies in raiders. With fleet I can get a max of a 24 inch assault with my jump guys and the termies get 6 from the raider with a 2 inch bubble when disembarking then a possible 6 inch run. I'm there quick. I only field 2 tactical squads most of the time too. Then Shrike comes in on turn 2 or 3 and hits a high priority target and then kills anything I put his squad into. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I put a terminator chaplain with shrikes crew too. nothin' like rerollin' thunder hammers.

[Volandum]

Well, I would recommend, in that case, that you outflank Shrike if you want to and leave him with an Assault Squad otherwise, and then castle on an objective with your mechanised forces, and when he comes down isolate part of his force and assault it in force.

[BigMoosey]

Is there anything that I should aim for first? like a special character or a particular unit?

[Volandum]

Well if you can keep the LRC alive (preferably with a scoring unit inside) it will cause nightmares in scoring missions. So keeping it alive is a good idea.

[BigMoosey]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll let you know how the battle goes this weekend.

[newbee]

Originally Posted by BigMoosey

I'm playing a Daemons army with my Raven Guard for the first time this weekend for a campaign. I have no idea how to field or how to go about this battle. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

deamons can't do much about armor... i would take land raiders........ if you don't have any land raiders have grey knights as ally's with incinerators, incinerators ignore invulnerable saves... i rather take incinerators than psycannons cause they can still take cover from psycannon fire...

[BigMoosey]

so guys i've got my army list for this battle. it's roughly 2000 points.

2 Librarians- terminator armour, storm shield, null field, force dome.

3 Land Speeder Storms with assault cannons

3 Tactical squads with heavy bolters and stormbolters(sargeant)

1 Thunderfire Cannon

1 Devastator Squad with 4 heavy bolters and a stormbolter(sgt again)

1 LRC with storm bolter and multi melta

1 Terminator Squad with a cyclone missle launcher.

That is about 2010 points and my opponent and I are giving each other a few points here and there. Tell me what you think.

[Znail]

Why Landspeeder Storms without any Scouts?

No Rhino's? That will cost ya against Daemons I think.

Null Field is a bit cheezy, but thats what happens when you play games likes this with tailored lists. I would expect your opponent to be aware of this and if he has them then you should expect a fair number of Bloodcrushers as they have good normal saves to counter Null Field. DP's and Heralds of Khorne are also good for this.

Infact, I think your list will have serious trouble with any lists featuring mostly Crushers, Plague Bearers, DPs, GD's and Khorne Heralds. You dont have the shooty power to take it out at range and cant handle any of that in assault.

[Volandum]

LSS are deep strike disruption. But the assault cannon is inaccurate and not really worth it - HFs would have been better.

Rhinos would have been good, plus taking the free flamers.

No Assault Termies to counter heavy assault elements is a problem.

[Cheeslord]

If you can take them (I don't know what codex Raven guard uses), Sternguard will frighten the Greater Daemons (they frighten me when I play chaos). Just be aware your opponent will do anything to prevent them rapid firing their poison ammo at the GD. You can use that to your advantage by making them either hold back their GD or throw away units to try and distract the Sternguard.

Mark.

[BigMoosey]

Volandum: I took the assault cannon for its 4 shots and high strength, also the heavy bolters in the tactical squads are free as well and they have a much longer range than a flame template. I'm staying as far away from his models as possible. As for the terminators, well i just didn't have enough points. if we decide on a higher point value then I will definately add them in.
Cheeslord: I thought about sternguard and I have been thinking about using them but I just don't have room. Raven Guard goes by the standard Marine codex by the way.

[Lochaber]

This is an... interesting list. As marines fighting daemons, your best bet is going to be to mech everything (that means tac squads in rhinos) Three footslogging tac squads, particularly three tac squads with heavy weapons, does not a competitive daemonfighting force make. Against daemons, you need armor and mobility. Put your tac squads in rhinos, I don't care what you have to dump to do that.

Swapping out all the HB/stormbolters for flamers/heavy flamers is also highly recommended, as even with their short range, daemons are a choppy army (mostly) and will want to get close to pop your armor.

Shooty termies? Against Daemons? Go ahead and swap them out for 5 TH/SS assault terminators at the very least.

Again, I don't think HB spam is the way to go against daemons. Everything has an invulnerable save or a 3+ armor save, and to make matters worse, any competent daemon player will be lurking his more fragile units in cover, which hurts your firing efficiency with HB's and bolter fire. Flamers are going to be more beneficial for you, since they ignore cover and you can stack templates for extra wounds. I'd maybe go with ML's over HB's on your devastators, since that allows them to threaten both larger daemons and packs of lesser daemons.