Guide To Fighting Daemons Of Chaos (8th Ed.), Post your anti-Daemon tips and strategy!

Got tips and strategies that work well against the Daemons of Chaos? Share them here with other warlords! Since the release of the new 8th edition, the game has changed a great deal and new tactics must be developed and discussed in order for da greenskins to crump ‘em good!

I don't have much to add but I've just played Daemons with a pure Gobo list and managed to win. The one piece of advice I want to pass on is to watch out for that Daemon Skulltaker who instant kills characters in challenges. I found my Goblin heroes died in large numbers vs. him. My advice would be to not skimp on points and make sure you add in unit champions who can accept the skulltakers challenges. The champion will die horribly but it will save your heroes for a turn or two.

Good luck.

This post has been edited by Snikpik on Oct 8 2010, 08:03 AM

I went up againist Daemons, I didnt do too well. He had a horde of plagbares and horde of daemonettes wiht a banner that reduced my leadership by 2.

I didnt horde, which is a mistake in my part. had 2 x 30 NG spearmen, unit 24 goblins, unit 20 ng bows, 2xdd, 1 chuka, 2 pump wagons.

It was his 5 + ward saves that saved him, and the banner of -2 leadership

Took on 2.4K of mostly Khorne but some screamers and flamers of Tzeentch

Unfortunately no tips as to how to beat, I was trashed, but you may learn from my mistakes.

Maxed out on anti magic, Spirit totum, sneaky stealing and 4 Shamen.
Orc Lvl3, NG Lvl2 x 2 and a NGLvl1 completly stopped their magic but think points spent on more NG units and Fanatics would have been better.

Shot at a Khorne chariot which scared me rather than kill the screamers who ended up running over my war machines.

Did not take out the Flamers which proceded to toast my squig herds, they are really nasty.

Then got locked in combat with a unit of Orcs and Bloodthirster, took it down to 2 wounds but if I had taken better equiped characters then I am sure it would have gone and freed up my unit.

All in all a really unsucessful game, would love to hear how to beat them up.

Wiped out an entire Daemon army two weeks ago,

He was running two large units of BL's, one of Horrors, Heralds in each, one the General the other a BSB. Supported by Flesh Hounds, Screamers, and Fiends.

Taking a large unit of NG bowmen with the Spider Banner on a BSB worked very well, since BL's are pretty magic resistant as well as Horrors with their 4+ ward save. The Fanatics gave him pause as well, that unit snuffed one unit of 5 Hounds, pared down one BL unit to four figs which were then taken out in melee. Nets really freak out Daemon players, they are shocked when lowly Goblins beat them in combat.

Tricksy Trinket on a goblin hero in chariot rocks! Magic goes against the stuff with regular 5+ ward saves, ie Screamers, Fiends, Flamers, Nurglings, and Furies. Taking the Ring of Ruin gives you those flaming attacks which are good versus PB's.

The lobbas also did very well against the large Daemon blocks, veddy well!

have never played deamons with my orcs&goblins but i have played a 2500 game with my dwarfs against them and beat them. agaisnt deamons its essentional to remember that deamons dont break but instead are unstable. and the +5 ward gets really annoying. and watch out for bloodthirsters casue they can be nasty(well in the game i played i shot him with a cannonball in the 1st turn...). its important against deamon infantry(accept horros, they are easy to beat in combat) to outflank or outnumber them cause bloodletters, plaguebearers and deamonettes can be nasty in close combat. so if i were fighting deamons id take some really big anvil goblin units and a bunch of nasty hard hitters like arachnarochs, giants, savage boar boyz big uns, black orcs and the like.

you cant take spider banner with night goblins !!!
read codex

you cant take spider banner with night goblins !!!
read codex

The spider banner was on the BSB dude not the goblin unit.

Arfa da Grate

Just a quick disclaimer, this is based entirely on TheoryHammer although that’s not to say its any less valid, just untested.

As with any tactical analysis the aim is to take advantage of their weaknesses and mitigate against their strengths.
The main strengths of DOC are:
1.The universal 5+ ward save
2.Very potent close combat units
3.A strong magic phase
4.Modifications to our already low Ld

The main weaknesses are:
5.They have are very limited shooting
6.Low T on their core troops
7.Instability
8.Generally low numbers of troops.

So taking this into account what tactics are likely to work well? As a general point I would recommend taking a much more defensive set up with plenty of artillery and shooting and lots of big blocks of troops waiting for when the charges hit. There is little point speeding across the battlefield to engage them as it is close combat where they have most of their advantages.

Troop Selection: The combination of low T and no armour save means that high strength options are going to be wasted against daemons. Black Orcs will be no more effective than vanilla Orcs but cost twice as much. The best way to get past a ward save is volume of attacks so generally speaking take options that give you lots of low strength attacks rather than few high strength, preferably with the ability receive some damage as well. Boyz and Big Uns with AHW will work well, Savages can work but if they take many Slannesh options you could find them failing frenzy tests to be pulled out of position. Squigs can work but will die very quickly and units that can take a banner to get more combat res will work better. NG’s as ever will be excellent at tarpitting their best units although fanatics are likely to be a liability as they have too many units to draw them out. Trolls will just be targeted by their flamers and the same as savages you want to minimise the number of Ld tests in case they take Slannesh options. I would take plenty of big blocks of boyz to get the most from static combat res backed up by lots of chariots and lots of shooting support (see below). If you want the random factor Giants are more feasible against daemons than just about any other army as there are no cannons to bring them down and some of the giants attacks ignore ward saves, I would hesitate to call this a “good” option though. As far as magic items go I would go for anything that provides boosts to combat resolution (War Banner), or Ld (standard of discipline) and the other tricksters shard for getting past ward saves. Other than that boosts to your attacks and protection on your general and BSB are useful.

Deployment: The Ld bubble is going to be very important as you are going to be taking lots of fear tests, break tests and potentially Ld based magical attacks all of which could be with Ld modifications so don’t spread out too much and protect your Warboss and BSB. If you sit your chariots behind the main line and wait for the daemon charge you can then charge into their flanks in your turn providing you with an important boost to combat res and hopefully forcing them to take instability tests. Lastly make sure your war machines are well protected from their flying units.

Shooting: They have no defence against shooting so make the most of it. Rock lobbers will be excellent at targeting units and any greater daemons they have. Doom Divers and Bolt Throwers much less so because they are best against troops with armour saves although there is no reason not to take one to help deal with their cavalry options. Archers will also be good options as the S3 will be able to hurt most of their core troops. They do have plenty of anti war machine units (furies, seekers & screamers) so these should probably be the first thing to take out with the archers, or take some wolf riders to try to charge them before they charge you but this will likely be a sacrificial gesture.

Magic: There is almost no way that you can match a daemon army in the magic phase. Their own lores are quite nasty with Slannesh in particular being of concern to O&G army with plenty of Ld based spells and the Tzeentch deck gives them the long range attacks that they don’t get in the shooting phase. Even worse is that for very few points they can become loremaster of any of the eight lores from the rulebook and if they take shadow you could be in all sorts of trouble. There are also not many spells in either of our decks that will worry them as many of them will get magic resistance against the damage spells and they can probably dispel many of the buffs and hexes. Therefore I would concentrate of damage limitation, making sure you take a few items to dispel / protect and generally disrupt their magic phase. Also, taking a mangler many not be an obvious choice as their high strength attacks may be largely wasted but it could be a very effective distraction from the rest of your boyz as they try to kill it with magic.

Combat: You are unlikely to be able to match many daemon units in their damage output, therefore focus on getting as much combat res, rather than the most casualties, which generally means using as little frontage as possible, flank / rear charges etc. They don’t get a ward save against instability so this is the easiest way to bring down their numbers. The main combat units they have are the ones in their core section, all of the rest are dangerous but don’t generally have ranks and so can be bogged down by big units. The combat units to look out for are;
Bloodletters, in short there is pretty much nothing in our list that can point for point match a unit of these with a herald. If you’re lucky SOBU’s might hold their own as long as they don’t lose frenzy but as discussed already this is not a reliable option. Therefore either shoot them down, bog them down or try to keep your best units away from them.
Plaguebearers are also dangerous as their poison will hurt us and as none of our units get flaming attacks they are difficult to kill. Plaguebearers are an ideal target for the chariot flank charge to use their instability to try to kill them rather than trying to battle through a 4+ regeneration save.
Daemonettes are goblin killers but should not be too much of a problem for the Orc units.
Horrors are not likely to engage in combat unless they have to as they are fairly weak but you may want to go after them as it is likely their main spell caster will be in this unit.

In summary them Daemons can be a very challenging army to face but due to their small numbers they can struggle to take down horde style armies so if you take enough troops, protect your Ld bubble, and make the most of any favourable match ups there are ways to beat them.

i recently slaughtered a daemons army. I think it is the best time to pull out your warboss on wyvern they have no warmachines although they now have acces to the soulgrinder(is this a warmachine??! :S) and only shooting is flaming. My warboss on wyvern really won the game for me i took out his main combat unit of bloodletters early on triple charging him with warboss, boar chariot and a horde of spear gob in the flank and then the warboss was left unchallenged flying in on flanks of already underway combats thunderstomping and maiming the whole way, he or his mount didnt take a single wound!.

I did kit him out defensively with the armour of destiny (4+ward) enchanted shield so he got a good armour save and gold sigil sword(axe ) so he could slaughter quickly.

I dont usually use him as any big mount dies from shooting but daemons... Yea he kicks ass.

Enchanted shield and armour of destiny together is sorta... Not legal?

why not one is magic heavy armour and the other is a magic shield. The whole idea of the enchanted shield is to add to armour is it not? I dont see anything that would make this illegal if it is I may have been equipping incorrectly.

*edit*
Seeing this made me look up online and yea I was wrong only one piece of magical armour, I apologise sir
But my point still stands as if i remember correctly he wouldnt have taken a wound still(with a normal shield) and he kicks ass against daemons

This post has been edited by Gutrot on Aug 11 2012, 07:05 PM

You have!

Both fall under the magic armour section and you can only have one per character.

Because enchanted shield is still listed in the magic armor section, and the rulebook states you can not take more than one option from any of them (ie: 1 magic weapon, 1 magic armour, 1 arcane, 1 enchanted, 1 talisman max per character)/

You cannot have more than 1 magic items of each type per character (So 1 magic weapon, 1 magic armor, 1 talisman, 1 enchanted, etc...)

You cannot have 2 times the same magic item in your army. These rules are explained just before the magic items list in the brb.