Wednesday 13 April 2011

Killing Grey Knights with Daemons - Part 3 (b): Elites.

Part 3 (a) covering HQ's can be found here.

Onto Elites then,

Beasts of Nurgle.




Slow and with no ranged weaponry at all. With 2, T5 wounds and a 5+ invulnerable save these will be dead to any Grey Knight unit that assaults them and as they're slow and purposeful the Grey Knights will be the ones choosing where that happens.....next......

Bloodcrushers of Khorne.


If these could move quickly they'd be ideal but unfortunately they move like standard infantry. They come with a 3+ armour save in addition to their 5+ invulnerable which combined with T5 means they have a slightly better chance of surviving small arms fire than other daemonic units. Should they reach combat with sufficient numbers then their (on the charge) 4, S 6, I 5, Power Weapon attacks each will cause major suffering for their chosen target. Keep them away from Dreadknights or Librarians as Dark Excommunication is going to fuck you up by taking away your Power Weapons (Hellblades) as they are classed as a Daemonic Gift.

A cautionary tale.
Stay away from Dreadnoughts as well.
I once played against a gentlemen with a 24 Blood crusher list together with Heralds of Khorne on Bloodcrushers attached to them and managed to neutralise close to 1400 points of his 1750 pint army with 3 of my 105 point standard Marine Dreadnoughts. Leaving the rest of my army to deal with his 3 units of Bloodletters.....Neither of us really enjoyed that game.....

Fiends of Slaanesh.


I hate the models which is why I use Chaos Spawn to represent them instead but love how they perform on the tabletop. Their 'Beasts' so have a 12" charge as well as 'Fleet' which gives them a formidable threat range and have a pleasing 6, S 5, I 5 rending attacks each when charging. This combined with 'Hit and Run' gives you a hard hitting unit that can run away tactically withdraw if necessary. Being only T4 with a 5+ invulnerable save makes them vulnerable to torrents of fire but if being shot to death before you get a chance to do anything bothers you then your using the wrong army...I prefer to take them in maximum sized units of six which gives you 12 wounds with which to absorb damage. Smaller units of 4 or 5 are still viable but personally I'd always spend the 190 points and have the full six with an upgraded model with 'Unholy Might'.

One model in the unit can be given Unholy Might for 10 points which makes him/her/it S6. This is often more useful for wound allocation purposes in order to save a standard model reduced to a single wound than for the extra strength but if your forced to charge a Land Raider you'll be glad of that extra point.

Flamers of Tzeentch.


They have speed at least, due to being Jump Infantry and to be honest their going to need it as their most effective weapon uses a Flamer template. Their single T4 wound and a 4+ invulnerable save means their survivability is unfortunately atrocious.
Breath of Chaos (the aforementioned Flamer weapon) causes a wound on a 4+ with no Armour or Cover saves allowed. If you can get the unit into range there's little that it can't put a dent in. Good luck getting to use it though...

The inevitable conclusion.
Take three units of six Fiends of Slaanesh with the 'Unholy Might' upgrade on the one model your allowed to give it to in each unit. I've seen two units of Fiends and a single unit of Bloodcrushers used fairly effectively as well but it's not my preference.
Flamers need 2 wounds each before I'd consider them. If your brave enough to 'suicide drop' them right next to an enemy unit then you might get some utility out of them, but more likely you'll just lose a unit of Flamers.....

Next Time : Troops ;-)

Thoughts and Comments are (as usual) most welcome.

3 comments:

  1. Bloodcrushers of Khorne losts both power weapon and armour save vs Dark Excommunication, not only power weapon, but, aganist Grey Knights in cc armour saves are irelevant.

    I have used the flamers, but the results were unstable, now plays three units of 6 Fiends and results are more consitent (top ranks in country tournaments).

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  2. @ Jiri - I didn't mention the loss of 'Iron Hide' for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

    I'm glad to hear that there's still people doing well with Daemons in the tournament scene despite their inherent problems.

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  3. GMort: Iron Hide, I said that someone did not think it remains in this case. But everything explained and understood.

    In Czech the daemons are doing well in tournaments. True, many players like to play more fluff armies and competitive armies are hated by many players. In contrast to foreign, Blood Angels or Space Wolves armies are not so expanded in the tournament. The last major tournament (27 players, 5 rounds), only 3 were Space Wolves, one Blood Angels. Daemons won the tournament and I was seventh (my last game was against winning daemons).
    Daemons are still competitive, I think :)

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