Hi guys, i didn't want to jump in on your mammoth book thread, but just wanted to throw something at you.

I play high elves, and against Daemons often(also dark elves and empire). You guys are tough to beat, very tough to beat well. But here's the thing, i don't mind bloodletters at 12pts(ASF helps granted) and i don't mind Kairos (Teclis) or Kippers or Flamers or fiends or any of that stuff.

The one thing that irritates me is Gifts, as they "break" the format of the game, in the same way that teclis and the book "break" the magic phase. (which i would be happy to lose in the next High Elf book as long as we can generate dice.)

So to my point, how would you react to making gifts work in the same way as Magic items? They can be cancelled by talismans and runeshields (and Vauls unmaking), are all 0-1 including dispel scrolls,(like the rest of us now). As an upside, you should be able to use the main rulebook's magic items, although only Khorne marks/units can take magic armour.

Anyway, that's my sole gripe with daemons and as you guys have put so much thought into your next book i wanted to see your reaction.

Just FYI, i don't complain about daemons or think you're that overpowered these days,

Please don't crucify me!

No worries man. Thanks for the input. I imagine you'll get at least a handfull of responses from the respective Forum members here who's been active in the New DoC Book thread that I started I-don't-know-how-long-ago.

Before I get down to talking about Gifts let me retort to a couple of things in your post:

I'm glad to see you say that you don't think Daemons 'as a whole' are overpowered in 8th Edition. I personally stop taking people seriously very quickly when they go about stuff as though we're still in 7th. So that's a good basis for taking you seriously.

Secondly, nerfing sole items that break the game has partly been a focus-subject of our project. I guess it's the high cost that let Kairos through that process pretty much unscathed (well, every other GD got another wound except him, but his 'magic' is essentially the same). Your post will perhaps prompt us to go back and have another look at Kairos. I don't play with Special Characters personally, so my experience/involvement in them is limited.

But when it comes to virtually every other aspect of Daemons that I have seen people 'whine' about we have indeed dealt with alot:
The Masque (half as good), Skulltaker (50% cost increase), Master of Sorcery (100% cost increase), Despair Icon (half as good), Siren Song (totally *gone* in comparison) and quite alot of other things..

You might be 'ok' with Bloodletters costing 12pts but I've seen quite alot of people argue for them costing much more than the humble 13pts we have suggested raising their cost to. But again, I'm sorta relieved that you arn't telling us they should be 16pts and have their Strength reduced (as some real 'non-daemon-players' would argue I'm sure).

We did decide early on though to build on the current Army Book. This meant keeping some broad stokes concerning Daemons that, admittedly, I have seen people complain about as well: Army Wide Wardsave, Instability, and Daemonic Gifts.

This is essentially no different than us having kept Runes (if it was a Dwarf re-write), or Big Names (had this been an Ogre re-write), or Vampiric Powers (had this been a VC re-write), or Speed of Asyrian (had it been a High Elf re-write).

I've seen this very general statement before; About the duplication of Daemonic Gifts somehow 'breaking' the game. I must say I have never quite understood it, and perhaps you could explain a little further what it is exactly that makes you pinpoint Daemonic Gifts as the 'sole' problem with Daemons. (?)

It's an honest question. I am keen to understand this finally.

Because as I am sure you are aware Daemonic Gifts do represent the background of Daemons. How they do not come from "this world" (which is why it really makes no sense that they'd have access to Magic Items), and add to this the fact that they have no Mundane Equipment:
Take "Armour of Khorne" for example. It's one thing to say that an "item" such as Spellbreaker should be 0-1 for the sake of fairness, but drawing all Gifts across the same line doesn't work.

I am work over here, so I am far from finnished in replying to this topic. But at the moment I gotta run, leaving this half way.
Thanks again for shown interest and feedback!

Thanks for the kind reply DaemonReign, let me explain what my issue is, i haven't given a great deal of thought about how best to fix it and i'm sure you guys will have a better idea than me.

It's not really the duplicate gifts that i mind, it's useful but not "broken". I should clarify, i don't mean broken = unplayable/overpowered as many will assume i do, i mean it doesn't mix with other armies abilities.

What i find irritating from a gameplay point of view is that you can't affect gifts (with the exception of standards, which confuses me) with spells and magic items that affect every other race, so if i'm trying to counter dark elves, empire and daemons, a number of options seem great against the other 2 but wasted points against daemons.

I also dont like the entire army has magic attacks, but that would just be wrong to lose - it's daemons, it's just irritating from a gameplay perpective, especially as forlaiths robes are useless against you (immune to non magic attacks) so i never use them, and i'd like to occasionally.

Sorry if i'm not being constructive or concise, i'm off work ill, only had 4 hours last night and have been bored for days!

Thanks for humouring me, i'll look forward to your response. (Kairos is fine, could you make the ward save 4+ instead of 3+?)

Final note, i like the army wide ward save, works fine with lack of armour, and instability seems pretty good to me too, watching daemons pop after losing a combat is part of the pleasure of playing against them! ;) and daemons shouldn't run away, THAT would be crazy! So it's just the gifts you need to convince me on!

Kairos going to 4+ Wardsave might actually be a very good idea! I will seriously bring that up in the "New DoC Book" thread.

I understand your reservation about Gifts being 'immune' at Magic Items that target other Magic Items. That's actually not something I concider as 'holy' as the concept of Gifts itself - what I mean to say is that I would not throw a fit if GW FAQ'd Daemonic Gifts so that they worked like Magic Items in every way except for that 0-1 restriction.

Another solution I would like even more would be if other army books got some specific Daemon Counters - so to speak. It's wierd, now that you mention it, that there arn't any Magic Items in the BRB that specifically target Daemonic Gifts..

It wouldn't take many of them, and it wouldn't ruin Daemons either, if there was a handfull of Items that worked equally against Gifts and Items.

On the subject of removing Gifts, I don't think it would as simple as to just let Daemons gain access to the same set of Items available to most other races (all except Dwarves). The reason is that you'd trade the possibly 'unfair' advantage of Gifts with the positively 'unfair' Daemons would have with alot of these Magic Items.

You'd get Stubborn Bloodthirsters with 4+ Wardsave in no time. I mean: I imagine you have a Daemon player somewhere in your social circle, just try to "play-test" giving Daemons these "new" restrictions:
1 - All Gifts are 0-1.
2 - All Items that effects Magic Items also effect Daemonic Gifts.
3 - Daemons have full access to BRB Magic Items.

Without even having tried it, I'm pretty sure you'd pretty quickly find yourself having an even harder time against Daemons!

I understand what you mean about Magical Attacks, too. And again you're right: Warhammer is simply a very background-driven Game, and one of the few games where grand hyperboles in the fluff actually are mirrored inside the actual game-mechanics. Dark Elves, Daemons, Warriors of Chaos. They are described as powerfull, and they are powerfull too.

When it comes to Instability alot of us are starting to fear that we'll lose it soon, and instead get the Unstable Rule just like the Undead.
Another 'change' I would personally really dislike. :)

*Damn it.. At work. Like I said. I will continue this though, rest assured.*

I dont think you have justified your premise to begin with. You mention gifts 'breaking' the 'format of the game' in the same way that teclis and book breaks the magic phase, yet admit that gits arent broken...so how is that in the same way at all??? It isnt.

What really bothers you is simply that they dont work like other armies magic items do. So what? Different is good! Its one of the things that really draw me to them. Dwarves dont use magic items in the same way, should we take that away? You mention planning for certain magic items, well I plan to counter casters with my ogre army, which is all useless against a dwarven army...oh well.

Your army breaks the whole initiative step! Shall we do away with that? I could go on, but I hope this is clear...different is good.

And yeah, youd have to do better than giving us magic items....how about great weapons, heavy armour, shields, bows, etc.? How about letting our lords hide in units like other lords? Or making the list of gifts open to all characters (with some exceptions) instead of the very limited list mostly unique to *every* character?

I really think this is something that is a 'mental block' as it were. Daemons are different, learn to love it.

Thanks for taking the time to respond guys,

@DaemonReign, glad you like the ward save idea, but i should mention we currently house rule that uber spells only do 1 wound to characters, so kairos can't be pitted in one turn. I don't mind Kairos, Tzeench should have an awesome spellcaster, ( I actually bought the model and painted it for my Brothers birthday present, awesome model, a nice change from my high elves to paint too.)

Obviously i hadn't thought through any possible fixes, i just thought you might appreciate an outsiders point of view, and i have the time at the moment! I would be over the moon with gifts working like magic items, or specific daemon counters in the brb would work too i guess.

@Talonz

Please don't read this as daemon hate, it's not. My best games, win losses and draws have all been against my brothers daemons in 8th edition. I like the fluff and the special characters, (we like them, i know many don't but he's actually disappointed if i don't bring teclis!)

Regarding Dwarf runes, they work EXACTLY like magic items with the problem i'm talking about, can be nullified by magic items(talisman of saphery, runeshield etc) and can be drained by vauls unmaking. The point about Dwarves having no magic casters is a good one. you've got me there. Although them not having something is not quite the same as everyone else not having something to counter gifts.

I did say that gifts aren't unplayable, i was trying to clarify what i meant by the term "broken". I don't think teclis or the book of hoeth are unplayable either, just break the mechanics of the game. if you want to get into that debate then i can. but i'll leave it there for now.

Regarding ASF, you're right, it's a lazy fix in my opinion, i'm not a fan of that either, i'd rather they remove that for everyone but swordmasters and sort out some of the other balance issues, i.e rubbish core. but you guys don't want to re-write the High elf book(do you?) so i'll stop there too.

As i said, i'm not a daemon hater, i enjoy playing them as they are and will continue to do so, but as you guys have put so much effort into your re-write i thought you might appreciate an outside viewpoint.

Quote
"And yeah, youd have to do better than giving us magic items....how about great weapons, heavy armour, shields, bows, etc.? How about letting our lords hide in units like other lords? Or making the list of gifts open to all characters (with some exceptions) instead of the very limited list mostly unique to *every* character?"

Did you read DaemonReign's comment? i think that covers this, stubborn 4+ ward bloodthirsters for a start. he made a good point, my "fixes were off the top of my head, i'll leave that up to you, and please feel free to ignore this input too i won't mind and i'll still enjoy playing against daemons!

Sorry if you thought (or still think) that i'm having a go at you guys,i'm really not. I wish we'd do something like this at ulthuan.net, a couple have tried but met a lot of hostility(that may be a little strong!)

I've downloaded the latest pdf of your book suggestions and i'll have a proper look at it today. i can give you my thoughts when i have if you're interested?

Yeah in our Campaign the players opted for me to have access to BRB items through character trades etc. and it is really messed up how strong I could make my characters (currently bartering 2 HE Heroes for the Sword of Bloodshed on my Dark Insanity Bloodthirster!) I'm not pushing the issue this just made me think of it!

As a multi-army collector I have to say playing against Daemons is a blast one of the most satisfying victories around (asides from WoC w/my VC)! Glad to see your interest and an un-biased opinion is always welcom in the DoC thread.

It's actually very exciting to get an outsider peaking in on our little project! It's f:ing great you downloaded the latest version of RealVeon's PDF - this sort of feedback from the opposite end of the table - as it were - is exactly the kind of stuff we need. It seems to me you're not making up illusions for youself either; You undertand that we probably arn't gonna satisfy your every opinion. For example: Removing the basic 'premise' of Daemonic Gifts is just not something we're going to do at this point - not to be coy or anything but if you had made your observations maybe 60-70 'pages ago' there'd been another sort of 'freedom'. :)

Being Daemon players ourselves I suppose these things are close to heart for us. I think alot of us feel that now - in 8th Edition - when core mechanics have suddenly removed Daemons from that 'top-of-the-proverbial-pile' status, we just want to enjoy our Daemons for what they are and forget about having this pariah-status in the last edition.

As a breif anectdote, after having collected OnG back in 4th/5th Ed I came back in 7th. Our local group needed an evil race and I found myself really liking the aesthetic of Daemons - so I collected a few thousand points and then one thing led to the other and I went on the internet Forums and started talking to people.. And I tell you, if I hadn't found this Forum (The Daemonic Legion) I'd probably regret these social activities all together - because the first Forum I joined was Warseer and let me tell you that it felt very poor to be written off by such a 'majority' as simply being a poor sportsman, WAAC douche, simply second rate player all together - by definition! - simply for the choice of actually liking Daemons to the same extent that every true Warhammer-muppet is nuts about his/her own little collection.

So here's the world's smallest violin playing for all the poor Daemon players out there.. *lol* Nah.. Don't feel sorry for Daemons (of course). But the way things were in 7th does explain a little bit about where at least I am coming from now, in 8th Edition, in my personal sentiments on how Daemons should be revamped etcetera.

I've always been a big fan of the original Warhammer philosophy. The background driven mechanics. In later years there's risen this movement of ETC balance fanatisism that I personally don't find appealing, or suiting, for Warhammer at all. I'm probably a minority in that regard, even on this Forum.
So of course I want a semblance of balance in the game. It goes without saying that everyone should always have a rather good chance of actually 'winning'. But if associated rules makes that ratio 60-40 rather than a strict 50-50 I must shamefully admit that I prefer that - so help me..
And I definately don't have to be on the 'winning side' either. Been dabbling alot in MonoGod lists lately (you can read some batreps of that if you click on my signature) and that's certainly an uphill struggle at times.

Being a fan of Warhammer in general makes me like all the variety that is 'allowed' to our various races. I am a big supporting of the Dwarf Runic system. When I see people rant and rave about your SoA I get the same allergic reaction as when people whine about the Army Wide hatred of Dark Elves, about cannons doing D6 wounds, about the Purple Sun not allowing LookOutSir-rolls, about Steadfast not being cancelled by disruption (alone), and so on..

I even thought the White Dwarf 'Errata' of the Power Scroll was an unnecessary and rather bleak change - despite not having access to that Item with my Daemons (of course) and despite getting screwed alot of times because of it.

As for the things Talonz added to the discussion; Well I think he makes a lot of good points, and he usually does, all though he rarely expresses himself in a very 'diplomatic' way. ;)

Basically, my sentiment on Daemonic Gifts has a couple of facettes:
1 - As Talonz, I like variety. In my opinion there are far too many races in Warhammer that rely on "the same" shared Magic Items. Dwarves and Daemons stand apart from this and that status should be protected like an endangered animal in my opinion.
2 - Daemonic Gifts are almost perfect in the background-related sense. They are not 'Magic Items' but traits past on down from the Daemonic Masters to their minions, which is why the 0-1 restriction makes a ton of sense really. I also don't believe the 'duplication' in itself is a problem - it's rather a case of certain Gifts being totally 'wrong' (especially in 8th Ed) and we've gone to quite some length to fix such items (i.e. Siren Song, Master of Sorcery, at the top of my head). The 'duplication' business also allows for Daemonic Gifts to cover both "Magic Items" and "Mundane Equipment" as we have noted before - Armour of Khorne comes to mind here as a good example.
3 - I basically don't think Daemons should have Magic Items, or Mundane Equipment. We did analyse the possibility but a while into that it just looked wrong (mundane equipment, that is). And like I said earlier giving Daemons access to Magic Items would most likely create much more flagrant balance-problems than Gifts ever did (yes, the StatLines and Special Rules of Daemons would have synergies with alot of Magic Items that virtually no Mortals have - I mentioned the Stubborn 4++ Bloodthirster and that wasn't an example of something 'good' we'd get out of this, but rather an example of why it should never happen. Such a Bloodthirster would be able to win most games all by his lonesome.

As a reference, we discussed adding a "Stubborn" Gift to Daemons. We eventually found that such a Gift would have to cost at least 75pts, and still we found its contingencies to be so great, the venue of abuse so appearant, the risk of being broken so overwhelming, that we simply dropped the whole idea!

What I take with me from this conversation, however, are your specific thoughts concerning the 'immunity' of Daemonic Gifts. That's the sort of detailed and 'specific' complaint that I personally like and respect - unlike simply stating the obvious like 'they can do this and that, nobody else can, it's unfair!!' (i.e. the duplication).

And like I said earlier I think the optimal solution would have been if there had been items sprinkled in other Army Books that specifically dealt with Daemonic Gifts. But I'll bring up the topic of making Gifts susceptible to Items that nullify Magic Items in the New DoC Book thread. I don't want you to get your hopes up though, just saying that my gut-reaction is that I see some merit in this complaint and that it at least deserves an honest debate.

We are also drafting quite extensive Designer's Notes for this re-write. You can find this draft on my Third Post on the first page of the New DoC Book Thread. At this moment I think one consequence of your initiative will be that we flesh out those Notes concerning the Daemonic Gifts - at least bringing up the issue of this 'immunity'.

On the other hand, I believe alot of races in Warhammer (while not having Items that specifically target Gifts) indeed have alot of gadgets at their disposal that are good in general and doubly nasty against Daemons. There are cheap items that forces you to re-roll successfull wardsaves, there's stuff like the Hellheart (seemingly a very nasty item for crippling expensive Greater Daemons with magic levels), there's the Ld-based "shooting attacks" of the VC, the ability for 'cheap' races to overwhelm Daemons with saturation in terms of wounds.

Looking at High Elves, aside of Teclis (I don't bother much with Special Characters, like I said) the item that comes to mind is The Banner of the World Dragon (I think it's called), The Book of Hoeth, and probably other items too. I have no experience of playing against High Elves in later Editions. On 'paper' I've always concidered them to be a formidable foe against Daemons - the strike first, they strike hard, the match Daemons with the same kind of elite status, and seem to have quite of few 'immune' mechanics of themselves (like the above mentioned army specific magic items).

Bottom line is I believe this is a tricky subject. There's a background related 'beauty' in the way Gifts work but I certainly understand how it can feel quite 'meh' at times to not have those Items that nullify Gifts (like you have for enemy Magic Items). GW has been pretty consistant with that though; For example "Obsidian Armour" doesn't negate Daemonic Gifts either. All though I understand if that is a small consolation.

I would personally appreach this 'issue' by seeing the challange of the siutation - essentially trying to use whatever means I have at my disposal in beating those Daemons, despite their Gifts. I gather from your posts that you do this, of course, and no you don't come off as a hater - on the contrary, I think by-and-large both you and your brother seem to have a very healthy approach to the game (my hat is off to anyone who 'wants' Teclis on the other side of the table! *lol*)

The reason why I'll actually bring up the issue of Kairos's wardsave is simply a certain Augment in the Tzeentch Lore that might have too heavy synergy with his Wardsave already being on 3++. Again, I'm basically just an unofficial moderator in that thread so it's not all up to me (and be glad for that, because I'm really a clown and without the help from the other guys in the New DoC book thread the result wouldn't be worth reading!).

And yes, it would be totally awesome if you and your brother gave that re-write a good a read and returned with some thoughts. We're pretty much at a final stage of crossing t's and dotting i's, and after that we'll start play-testing stuff over the comming months. If you guys would enjoy doing that, feel free!

I feel like I have gone on for long enough now. haha I tend to go on quite a bit I'm afriad. There's alot more I'd perhaps like to dwell on too, but for the sake of time-keeping perhaps we must also at some point agree to disagree on certain issues. Like I said, Talonz has a penchant for expressing himself rather bluntly but he does speak 'straight from the soul' of Daemon-players I think.

That being said, I hope starting this 'commentary-thread' has not been too dissappointing. Given that what you're essentially asking for is the removal of quite fundamental stuff I think perhaps you should put pride in having made enough of an argument/impression to at least get some tidbits into the discussion!

And you're right, too, most Forums pretty much suck and people are incapable of treating each other with respect, living out there pathetic little complexes by bashing each other on the webb. I concider and treat the Daemonic Legion as a sanctuary from all that crap, I know others do as well.

Edit
I missed your post Bonesaw. :)
As I you can see I was typing one of my own... *gah* - Did I just write all that?.. Jesus what's wrong with me...

Hi guys, thanks for taking the time to respond.

Wow, that's an impressive post DaemonReign, i can see how you managed to break the 100 page mark!

After reading your points, i'd like to say i think it really is the immunity issue that i don't like, i've pretty much covered why in previous posts. I agree that Different is good, and i should point out that i have absolutely no issue with how dwarf runes work, as they act like Magic items as opposed to gifts.

I agree with your view on the ETC comp, i think it's a bit over the top, having said that i'd happily give it a try if someone asked me, and i don't judge people for wanting the comp, it's just not my thing.

I hadn't really thought about your lack of mundane equipment(although i notice a sprinkling in your book re-write, but i haven't studied it properly yet!) and i you have a good point, and you want to deal with the least popular gifts, so i have no issue with the duplicate issue. you've convinced me!

As you have mentioned Talonz speaks for many daemon players viewpoint, can i ask, he didn't think i'd justified my premise, now i've refined my premise to just wanting them to act like other magic items, have i justified my premise with regards to this? if not tell me and i'll try to explain where i'm coming from.

Also, just a thought i had when playing against my brother, with your lord choices, Daemon princes seem to be sub-optimal shall we say. I know you're dealing with this in your thread, and i will look at that in detail soon, have you considered increasing their leadership to 10, they may be worse than a greater daemon in combat and magic etc, but would add a ld10 general option. I have not given this great thought, don't get me wrong, but would be interested to hear your views.

Thanks for your responses, i was expecting to be shot down flat! I'll definately have a chat with my brother about a playtest battle when you guys are at that point.

Gotta say i think the amount of effort you have put in is awesome, and i won't mind if you disregard everything i bring up, i'd like to do something like this for High elves, maybe one day!

We're basically at the play-testing stage now. Nothing fundamental is likely to change between the version of the pdf you downloaded and the one we'll be basing our own playtest-run on.

Daemon Prince
We have indeed added a Special Character Daemon Prince [Be'lakor, the Dark Master] and his suggested Leadership is 10.

But that's a Special Character, so a special case.

Daemons used to have access to Leadership 10 back in the "old days". But Instability was different back then: You rolled it just like now, but if you were unlucky enough to roll higher than your unmodified Leadership the entire unit popped (regardless of wounds left).

When Instability became the mechanic we know today the greatest leadership you could have as a Daemon player was reduced to 9 to balance the fact that Daemons are presently "unbreakable" with a better form of "unstable" (i.e. the 'chance' of mitigating losses by rolling low, or even getting the occasional Insane Courage).

So anyway.. Aside of adding a Special Character that happens to be a Daemon Prince that has Ld10 we decided early on to keep in line with the 'current' precedence of not letting Daemons get any "wider" access to Leadership 10. It's one of few weaknesses they have, and this re-write has not been about removing weaknesses. ;)
Or strengths for that matter.. Better "internal balance" has really been the main goal, as well as more variety and more background-related mechanics (such as moving ld-debuffs more toward Slaanesh Daemons, for example!)

I did bring up the issue of Gifts in the actual re-write thread. There's been some responses to that, but like I said: Don't get your hopes up.

What we focused on was to strike down with surgical precision on the Gifts (as well as other items in the current DoC Book) that we have seen 'abused' throughout 7th Ed (and 8th Ed, of course). It has simply been our hope that if we remove the butter-cookie no-brain Gifts the fundamental principle of Daemonic Gifts will be an easier pill to swallow for WHFB-players at large.

So before resigning in dissappointment I really suggest you and your brother try to run a game or two with this re-write as basis. Being a High Elf player you will probably always lament the fact that you have a bunch of (pretty unique) Magic Items that nullifies magic Items (but not Daemonic Gifts) - for most other races that bit isn't a particular issue.

I only found out about that by reading what JonathanC told us all in the New DoC Book thread in his commentary to this subject. Sadly, the guy who collected high elves back in the "old days" sold off his collection and quit hobbying all together. So I am strictly speaking not very well versed with High Elves I'm afriad.

As for what Talonz said about "justifying your premise" .. English is not my first language and sometimes I find it hard to catch the meaning of things myself. Hopefully he'll be around to retort to you in person! :)

No worries notadaemon, I didn't see you as a daemonhater. I just get tired of hearing what seems like the same old arguments against unique daemonic traits just because they are different from other race's rules. The very fact that they are a complete 'race' of outsiders and work so differently from other races (And dont roll psych. tests!) are what drew me to the current daemons in the first place. (being a former 3rd ed. chaos player doesnt hurt either of course)

You have narrowed down your point to gifts not acting like magic items, near as I can tell. This to me is just personal preference, not a balance issue, so I can only say, stop focusing so much on anti-magic item effects perhaps? They are not magic items after all...

Gifts come with so many restrictions, and so do daemons (no basic items, no mundane equipment, and most importantly from my perspective no option to flee!!) Of course this is counterbalanced by many advantages as well, but thats the point...a very different army!

Any attempt to move them back towards the middleground (in homogenous rules, not balance) just muddles the whole beautiful attempt imo.

Hi Guys,

Having read your replies, and looked in on your mammoth thread. I can see why you would want to keep gifts working as they are, especially as you've dealt with the issue in a different way already.

Having listened to your arguments, i find myself not minding gifts as much as i did a week ago, so it's been helpful for me to have the discussion, i hope it was useful to you too.

I would just like to mention, although High elves do have access to a spell and an item that nullifies magic weapons, were not alone in that regard. I really wasn't bringing it up just from a high elf point of view, rather that it is a different game mechanic. However, i also only have experience with a limited number of armies, so i haven't encountered ogres or vampires for example. If i had perhaps i wouldn't mind as much, as others have rules that work in a similar way.

I'll see if i can get my brother to have a look at your pdf, he's crazy busy at work at the moment so may take a while, and if we get a playtest battle in i'll post a report on here for you to look at. Are you going to post any reports of playtests yourselves? i'd be really interested to see how they work out.

Thanks for enlightening me on some of my daemon issues.

I'll keep an eye on your progress, so if you have any questions you'd like to run past a non daemon player, if you reply on this thread i'll see it and give you my opinion, otherwise i'll put some points up in a day or so to let you know my thoughts on your re-write. Then maybe i'll leave you alone!

Thanks for reading.

I think we'd all be very interested to see what you have to say about the project, whether or not you manage to play any test-battles!

Any feedback (from anyone really) is better than no feedback at all.

Your input on Daemonic Gifts have actually yeilded at least the 'thought' of how they interact with 'rest of the game' to be awoken. People are still basically wanting to keep them pretty much as they are, but I saw someone argue for "Vauls unmaking" for example working against Daemonic Gifts (while the standard run-of-mill Magic Items still would not).

Hm yes.. Experience helps of course. :D Just as I had probably understood you a little better if I had indepth knowledge of High Elves, perhaps you're right that you might look differently on this subject if you had more experience of Big Names and Vampiric Powers.

Anyway, that's great if you feel that way: Like we actually gave you some new perspectives and if that makes you feel better about Daemons (playing with/against them) than that's just awesome. And like I said your 'impact' on our project was not nil-and-nothing either, as it at least made us reconcider some things that would normally have been concidered quite 'granted'.

EDIT
An idea that is being concidered right now is to make the spell "Vaul's Unmaking" effect Daemonic Gifts as though they were Magic Items. That would be a unique thing with Vaul's Unmaking actually written into the Daemon Army Book. Any thoughts on that? - And no we have not decided yet, but it was a serious suggestion brought forth!

Some feedback from daemon player (and no, i did not read 100-page thread):

Good job! In general, better balance, better units, better everything.

There is a lot of things i really like - signature spells, hidden Changeling, gifts, N'Kari...

According to fluff in current DoC Armybook from GW, N'Kari had some real big issues with HE. Maybe he should have Hatred(High Elves) rule?

I like how you made book (even base sizes for new units - cool), only minus is that on my computer (not so slow computer) it take some time before pages are fully displayed.

And did you try ideas from book on battlefield? from my little experience TheoryHammer is ok, but checking stuff in fight is really important.

Hi Guys, i've had a good read of your project and wanted to give you some feedback (as promised). I'll need to have another couple of read throughs and try a bit of anti elf list writing to spot everything i'd want to but here's my initial thoughts, in no particular order i'm afraid. Much of what i haven't commented on i liked, so sorry if this reads negatively,(although if i said i liked something then i really liked it!)

Flamers seem to have been boosted, and they are bloody good now, I don’t like the removal of modifers to hit on stand and shoot. I’m not sure about cavalry, but I assume they would then lose the skirmish rule so be unable to march and shoot, so if that’s the case I’m fine with it. If you can still fly march and shoot the I would say that’s just too good. Sorry.

Bloodletters, my gut reaction is I’d rather know what I’m facing, i.e they either have armour or they don’t. one of the few weaknesses of bloodletters is they are killable by strength 3 troops, giving them a 5+ armour saves makes them much more survivable against st 3. Thinking about it, strength 3 shooting will be much less effective too, not sure about it from a gameplay perspective, even taking into account the point cost, MR2 option I like, very Khorne, no complaints.

Khorne gifts, 12 inch sniper shot from a bloodthirster would be nasty. Bye bye mages.

Tzeentch gift scrutionous gaze is situational, but seems too cheap for such a useful ability. I find that trait of Vauls unmaking can be extremely useful, in certain situations. Of course the more you know what to expect, the less useful it becomes. So it may be less of an issue for tournament players, (who tend to do a lot of the complaining!)

I like the changes to siren song and master of sorcery, and adding the option of an extra spell from a further gift is a nice compromise. High Elves get this for 10 points, I don’t think that would be too cheap as you’ve softened master of sorcery.

Banner of Martial Pride, seems too much to me, sorry. I know it’s a bsb only and there are other great options for that, but my immediate reaction is NOOOOOOOOO. Sorry! I will look at it again when i'm not as tired maybe my reaction is a bit strong, but i wasn't a fan, maybe because i wouldn't want to face it. Especially the Wizard taking a strength 6 hit for any spell cast at the unit.

Banner of intoxication, No problem for me but I’m high Elves, I don’t really utilize steadfast. For empire skaven goblins etc, this could be killer. Not sure if you’d help Daemons overpowered image with this standard. By that I mean it may actually look much better to other armies than it does to Daemon generals, (or indeed than it is in practice)

I know you’re still discussing Daemonprince’s. I’d put my vote for Ld9, and I wouldn’t demand a point increase either, I’d like these to be as viable an alternative to greater daemon’s as possible. I also have no problem with him not being a large target or the flying gift. Also, why not start his magic levels from 35 points, then 35 points per level? Would this make him too good in comparison to greater daemons for his cost? just my 2pennies worth.

I like universal Loremaster on the Lord of change.

Like the new units at first glance, will look at them in more detail.

I’m not sure about BSB’s having icon’s and gifts, but otherwise a khorne bsb cant take armour, so I see why you’ve kept it, as gifts represent mundane equipment options also.

Armour on the bloodletters I’m still not sure on, maybe if they counted as special if they take heavy armour? I worry about seeing lots of armoured bloodletters with anti shooting and anti-magic gifts, alongside flying flamers and a Lord of Change (or kairos if it was my brother!) That would be nasty indeed.
Crackling explosions on the horrors concerns me, but I am T3 with 5+ armour so that may be partly race specific.

Love that you’ve added N’kari, very prominent in the high elf fluff, if I can get a play test game in, I’ll get my brother to try him out. Awesome.

Sorry if this seems negative, it’s an impressive piece of work, presented very nicely too. It will take me weeks to look through it properly and work out the combinations I wouldn’t want to face, but I’m off work sick at the moment and this is a wonderful distraction from feeling awful. So if you completely ignore me I don’t mind. (and i'm grateful for the distraction!)

Sorry the order of my comments has no relation to the order you have written the book. My brain is fried and I was scrolling up and down all over the place. Only 2 hours sleep last night has apparently effected my ability to use a mouse.

Sorry about the huge post, I’ve caught it from DaemonReign!

@Regis
N'Kari
Hatred of High Elves is something we'll certainly concider, I think. :)

Really glad you like the general outlines of this re-write!
We about to start playtesting it. Anyone who's interested in helping us with that is more than welcome to contribute! :)

@NotADaemon
Great comments, good feedback, and I'll comment on what I feel needs commenting on:

Flamers
- The 'Immolators' upgrade needs some playtesting I think. That one is my idea and I agree with you I think the tactical utility of 'knowing' that you'll get one "Stand&Shoot" that is likely to really hurt makes it a really good 'upgrade'. Others I discussed this with seemed to approach the Immolators-upgrade more with a shoulder-shrugg:
- Enemy can always elect simply 'not-to-charge', which if course also has tactical utility but there's an element of poker-play in it, s'all I'm saying.
- The fundamental reason why Flamers weren't 'nerfed' (they certainly would have been if we were still in 7th Ed!) are the generally bigger unit sizes of 8th Ed where simple wound-saturation makes Flamers have less impact. At least in my/our experience.
- And they become 40pts/model with the quite situational Immolator upgrade. 240pts for 6 of them. My hope was that the 'awesomeness' of Immolators would be balanced against you basically having to sacrifice those Flamers for the rest of the game in order to use it (unless a foolhardy opponant charges them with a unit that can't saturate the Stand&Shoot, which again is 'poker').
ChangeBringers
Well flying units are Skirmishers by definition I'm afriad. Our two justifications for this upgrade are:
First of all, background (litteral background), Changebringers used to be a unit-choice of its own and lots of old timers still have conversions that are no completely useless. Second of all, 55pts/model for a unit that maxes out at 12 wounds is (again) quite a steep cost.
I'll say though that Changebringers need carefull testing. Perhaps the reason they were removed was that they were deemed too powerfull - you may be right there.

Bloodletters
At 15pts/model (with Battlehardened, without Blessing) that begin to become comparable in cost to some High Elves elites, don't they? Except your dudes have 4++ save and Speed of Asyrian to boot. No?
I agree that they become a whole let more resilient to S3 attacks (of any kind) but as soon as they are being hit with S4-5 those extra points you've laid down on the upgrade are basically wasted. Being generally expensive is a weakness that Daemons share with High Elves actually, and as with all these upgrades the Battlehardened upgrade adds to this:
I like fielding Horde of ~50 Bloodletters. That's ~100pts *gone* from my allowance, added to the basic penalty of ~50pts that comes from us having raised the cost of the basic 'Letter to 13pts.
Well you know all this. And again, as with everything it needs Playtesting (!) but on average there wouldn't be much point to these upgrades if they weren't potentially really good (i.e. not no-brainers, but awesome if deployed with some tact/luck).

Death Strike
A borrowed Gift from 40k. Not my idea. You need to roll to Hit, roll to Wound, and you only cause 1 wound if you do. 12" range and general line-of-sight/sight arc requirements makes it kind of restricted in many ways. Given the likelihood of Wizards to have various kinds of Wardsaves I'd say: Interesting/viable? Absoluely! Too good? I doubt it personally, but as with everything else only indepth playtesting can tell. If your army weren't High Elves I imagine you'd worry alot more about, for example, the Lash of Khorne. (?)

Scrutinous Gaze
We originally had a much higher cost for this Gift. Then it turned out that the equivalent mechanic already existed (Don't remember which Army atm) at the cost we've got listed now. Don't know what else to say about that: Except - just like you - I wouldn't have pinned the cost that low either without clear precedence from elsewhere.

Siren Song and Master of Sorcery
I'm glad you like. The set-up of "magic choosing" Gifts was widely discussed and finally Bonesaw666 joined the discussion and the current set-up of splitting master of Sorcery into two Gifts at 20pts and 30pts is really one of the more elegant things we have implemented in this re-write. I really like the variety and dynamic of all the choices you have here suddenly.
Siren Song is just *nerfed* hard. haha Enough said.

Banner of Martial Pride
Only effects the parent-unit, and in addition let's not forget that any friendly wizard who augments the unit will get bludgeoned by this Icon as well. You also need to align your General with the Mark of the Khorne Herald with this banner - meaning for the vast majority of games the Daemon player effectively foregoes the choice of having a Level 4 wizard in the army.
I'm not sure I would use The Banner of Martial Pride unless I was basically fielding a straight MonoKhorne Army - to be honest. I find that relying on the killing power of Bloodletters (without magic augments) is simply very risk and uncertain - where-as when you cast Birona's Timewarp on them they go through things like a lawnmower. So yeah not dismissing your concerns here (!) just saying we shouldn't exaggerate in either direction.

DaemonPrince
We are going for Ld9, after much discussion. You're right about the magic Levels as well. They are 35pts/level in 8th Edition. Opinions vary on that, but it seems just as universal as Command upgrades almost always being 10pts, for example.

Banner of Intoxication
I've had my concerns about this Icon as well. Quite detrimental to some opponants, for sure. You could view it as compensation going to the "Slaanesh Section" for having lost alot of 'punch' in the Masque/Despair Icon being heavily toned down.

The Gifts.. Again ;)
It's not only the mechanical aspect of Gifts "bridging" the domains of both Magic Weapons and Mundane Equipment, but it's also background-oriented: They arn't Items. They are traits, blessings if you will, bestowed on a Daemonic minion for long service. It seems to me GW is moving toward allowing BSB's at large more choices so it would make little sense to rob Daemons of that. We need to sprinkle more or less buffed up Heralds all across our Armies in order to get the best out of our units (Locus), and our Heralds cost as much as many mortal Lords - and with a Battle Standard Icon and 50pts of Gifts they become true pointsinks in no time.
I basically really don't think it's a balance issue. :)

Quote 'NotADaemon':
I worry about seeing lots of armoured bloodletters with anti shooting and anti-magic gifts, alongside flying flamers and a Lord of Change (or kairos if it was my brother!) That would be nasty indeed.

First of all, you can't build that list with our re-write!
Your General must be Khorne in order to unlock the "Marked BSBs" (Banner of Martial Pride, Intoxication, etcetera).
And we are are also leaning heavily toward restricting the Inspiring Presence of the Daemonic General to only effect Daemons of the same Mark.
So your list featuring Changebringers, Bloodletters with Armour (no nasty BSB though!) and a Lord of Change would come with quite a few restrictions that I am not sure you're taking into account here.
That being said, you may very well be correct that our restrictions here are "too light" and that some synergies will simply over-ride the negative effects of not aligning your Marks, or foregoing Inspiring Presence, but I think it's an open question without playtesting.

Your post has not been negative at all. Stop worrying man. This is all very good. I'll tell the others to read your posts here carefully. Our opinions may vary and we may take different scenarios into account etcetera, but we should be ever humble to an "Outsider" taking the time to go this deep into our project! Thank you very much for that.

DaemonReign pretty well sums up what I was going to say. A lot of the upgrades seem pretty nasty, but they are expensive. At this point, I think we've gone over the concepts enough to feel confident that nothing is truly broken when it comes to the new ideas in the army, but I do feel that the point costs will probably change when it comes to playtesting. So whether the heavy armour or the banner of martial pride is too powerful will come down more to how expensive they are rather than general concept.

Or do you disagree with the ideas behind them in general? If they were more expensive or had more restrictions, would you feel better?

The heavy armour i actually like the idea of, i just wouldn't want to see hordes of armoured bloodletters on the other side of the table, that being said i would be more comfortable if i knew what i would be facing. i.e. they either have armour or they don't but it's not an upgrade choice.

Having said all that they are expensive, the same cost as my elites, so i'm not saying they're crazy good, just something to keep an eye on to see if they need a tweak.

With regards to the banner, it would effectively stop teclis or a book of hoeth mage targetting that unit, as they have no ward save, and the effect on spells seem's severe to me, but i play high elves so that may be partly due to our reliance on magic. The banner i'm not sold on, but it would mean you can't have one of the unmarked battle standards, which are pretty nasty. so again i'm not completely against the idea, just concerned as to how effective it may be.

@DaemonReign, firstly, i'll stop worrying about offending you all now then! Just a quick rebuttal, only Phoenix Guard have a 4+ward, and they're strength 4, 1 attack WS5, so good but not awesome at damage output. Swordmasters and White Lions, are our main killers, and they both have just 5+ armour, no ward. but they either have 2 ws6 st5 attacks, or 1 ws5 st6 attack, so they won't mind the bloodletters armour. My core unit's will though!

But Daemon core is supposed to be better than Elf core, so that doesn't worry me too much. My Core is overpriced, you shouldn't have to overprice yours to make up for it!

Flamers are more of a problem for me as i don't have that many boots on the ground, and they tend to die quickly from shooting, especially strength 4 shooting. That concern may be due to my army of choice but i would keep an eye on how effective they are in playtesting.

I'm having another read through and have a couple of other things i wanted to ask about, i'll be brief and see what your reactions are.

One thing I spotted, dark magister, miscast is also irresistible force, so you can remove the quote “(although the spell still fails.)”.

Power of the warp seems fairly unique, so you can double up un a hex or augment. I’d like something like that for my Elves!

Crackling explosions, I think it’s the strength bit I’m unsure of, cast mindrazor on horrors and for each one that dies you do a strength 7 hit? Seems a bit abusive.

The Skullshrine, I like for the most part, and I fully acknowledge I’m biased on this issue as I’m high elves, but the well of khorne’s rage seems like it could unfairly swing magic in the daemon’s favour. I would say keep a close eye on it in playtesting. I’ll look at a list option or 2 soon and show you the sort of build I’m thinking of.


I don't think i'll pick much else up now, i've read it a couple of times, although i hardly ever face nurgle units so i'll have another look at them at some point.

If i can't sleep tonight i may even run a mock battle against myself using battle chronicler and my dice.

Thanks for listening!

Well when it comes to heavy armour on Bloodletters its just one of those things that could be great against some armies and near useless against others. Also 30 with that upgrade and full command will cost as much as 40 Bloodletters do now. As an aside it would make them vulnerable to lore of metal spells they were previously immune to.

As for the Skullshrine, I did have it as being able to store 2 dice with no risk but dialled it back to 1 dice to reduce the chances of 4+ dice being added to the dispel pool becoming too common. While I can understand some of your concerns here, there were others thinking I was being way too cautious. Its not much better than the Rod of Power in the Empire book or the new Black Periapt in the VC book when it comes dice storing - potentially more but with increased risks of getting nothing. Also, unlike those items, it can only store power dice and convert them to dispel dice. Other magic dice storing items can store power or dispel dice, so they work in defence or attack.

Oh, and the Crackling Explosions thing was intentional, and works the other way if you hex their strength of course. Mindrazor would make it very nasty, but given the high casting cost and the fact your opponent won't want you to cast it anyway its not easy to pull that trick off.

But as mentioned earlier, it need playtesting. So far everytime I've been considering trying it out someone has pitched in wanting a major revision and I've had to wait again.

Also, thanks to Regis for the hatred idea. Given both N'Kari and High Elves have asf this would actually be useful to him. :)

Thanks for your response JonathnanC, Fair points all of them.

To be fair in response, i wouldn't say anything is obviously overpowered or underpriced. As you said it needs playtesting, i've just highlighted the areas that i would look at carefully when i was playtesting.

Obviously my feedback comes from a background of only playing with high elves, i've played for nearly 16 years and never picked up another army so i can't give you balanced feedback as it were, reading my posts back i see i have highlighted the areas that will worry Elf armies and a few others too, mainly t3 armies.

Crackling explosions, fair enough if it was intended, i know horrors don't do alot of damage normally, but it seems a bit much to me, i'd be interested to hear how it goes with testing.

The skullshrine particularly worries me because of the synergy with some of the other strengths of the book, you can make sure you have a strong magic offence phase with other gifts and banners etc, but by adding a skullshrine you can guarantee between 2-7 extra dispel dice per turn, alongside spell destroyer and spellbreaker, with sprinklings of magic resistance and of course the everpresent wardsaves, makes for a fairly epic magic defense, i know it takes a lot of investment which would be wasted against Dwarves, but as a High Elf player it worries me.

Still, i'll try and write a list at some point which shows what i am talking about, and may well prove myself completely wrong in the process, so don't think i've made up my mind already, i haven't at all, these are just my initial obsevations.

It's an Awesome piece of work, I'm very impressed, when i first saw the thread title i expected to see all sorts of overpowered sillyness, and i haven't found any.

Fair play to you guys, i'd love the opportunity to do this for the high elves, maybe if they have a look at what you guys have produced they might be more receptive to the idea!

I'll keep an eye on your progress, and if i can arrange a playtest game, i'll run the daemon list past you guys to make sure it's legal!

Thanks again!

oh and N'kari should definately hate High Elves, it just makes sense! (my gut feel is he should be a level 2 also, but that's mainly because i love the fluff!)

Great feedback 'NotADaemon'.

I was actually one of the people who thought the Dispel-storage of the Behemoth was "too cautious". Then again, and believe me when I say this, if I had been going at this project 'alone' it would most certainly have turned into the sort of childish 'wishlisting' that you thought it would be when you first saw the thread.

As an example I can tell you that my original 'wish' was for Bloodletters to have access to "Armour of Khorne" (i.e. 3+ Armour Save, not 5+) - and while I of course understood it would be more expensive than 2pts, I'm pretty sure you get where I'm going.

Other participants, JonathanC being quite notable I should add, with a wider experience of the game and a better 'sense' of balance have held things back alot at certain times. Hopefully it has allowed us to create better internal balance without any 'creep'.

If you do a test-battle, we're really only discussing some fundamental issues still:
A majority of us are advocating that "Inspiring Presence" will be Mark-specific. So if your General has a Mark he can ony confer his Ld on Daemons of the same Mark.
The Daemon Prince, however, can be fielded as a "universal" General if he is not given a Mark (but only has 12" IP-bubble, of course). So that's one thing you may want to take into account if you do a testbattle as soon as you're saying.
Secondly: The actual stats of the DP are in a flux still. Just a little bit. We are arguing back and forth over whether to reduce his movement to 6 (in order to make him cheaper) or keep the Movement at the current value of 8. This will also effect the cost of his "wings" (cheaper the higher his base movement is, naturally - 40pts if he's Mv6 and ~25pts if he's Mv8)

Other than that, I'm fairly certain at this point there's just "spelling mistakes" to fix. TheRealVeon will have to make one last update to the PDF, then we'll all give it one good proof-read I reckon, and after that we'll ALL start playtesting.

And just like JonathanC, it's a day I've been waiting for.. for a long time!

btw: What did you mean with your remark on "Dark magister"? It looks to me as though you are quoting the FAQ entry (which we have followed!).

I may be completely wrong about dark magister, and it's not really important.

"This Daemon ignores the result its first miscast (although the
spell still fails)."
Quoted from the pdf.

I thought that in 8th edition the text in brackets was obsolete, so it would read

"This Daemon ignores the result its first miscast."

Silly thing, i may be wrong, but that's what i meant!

Been looking at list ideas, and noticed that you have put the behemoth(skullshrine) in the rare section, alongside flamers and fiends. This makes actually building a list more difficult than i expected. I'm already happier than i was initially!

I'll put up a list tomorrow (probably) to see what you think and check it's legal.

You're correct about "Dark Magister". Absolutely correct. And I understand what's happened here:

Since we have not 'changed' Dark Magister from the current book (taking in account the Errata-entry from 8th Ed) it isn't even mentioned on Page 1 of the "New DoC Book" thread. When TheRealVeon made the pdf I imagine he used the current Army Book as reference for every entry that had not been edited (i.e. every entry not dealt with on 'page 1') and he must simply have forgotten about the '8th Ed Mechanic' for Dark Magister.

Excellent that you point this out. It would have been an unnecessary 'spelling-error' to have in the final pdf.

I just didn't understand what you meant at first, because I missed the wording in the pdf as well last time I read through it - and it was so obvious to me how the Dark Magister Gift work I just didn't register the possibility of it being written erroneously in the pdf.

Yes the Behemoth is a Rare Choice. And yes given that its can only store powerdice to be used as Dispel Dice I am still thinking we were a bit too carefull with it. It needs playtesting of course.. But since it doesn't work as the "new Black Coach" (i.e. you actually lose the Power Dice you store with the Behemoth) you definately can't use the Power Dice for casting while being able to use them as Dispel Dice is merely a maybe.

So aside of the fact that the Behemoth actually runs the risk of hurting your own Wizards (as well as the enemy's) it does not really lend itself well to being combined with offensive magic. Which is, of course, the whole point seeing as it's a Khorne contraption (!) but still.. yeah.. We were really 'carefull' when stipulating that you can only store one dice safely.

Looking forward alot to seeing that list you're tinkering with! Meanwhile over in the "New DoC Book" thread things are starting to near completion. We're still arguing ourselves dry-mouthed over details concerning the Daemon Prince, but the rest of the stuff is done. I made some updates to "page 1" of the thread (RealVeon has not yet had time to update the pdf of course) - so the bit about Inspiring Presence being on a Mark-by-Mark basis is in there, as well as N'Kari hating Elves.

Also, if you plan on using PoxRiders in that list of yours we just doubled the cost of the 2 "upgrades" available to them (from 3 to 6 points/model).

Other than that you ought to have what you need - all though the exact wording for the Battle Standard Bearer's access to "Marked Icons" is not in the pdf as far as I can remember. It's also one of those rather late additions.

Cheers!

Thanks for pointing this out. I've made updates to the pdf, but I'm always unsure of when I should post a new one. I want to get some concensus on things like the Daemon Prince and Daemonic Rivalry before I put anything up, but perhaps I'll try later tonight.

Thanks again for pointing this out. When you work on something like the pdf, it all starts to blur together. Sometimes I look at it and wonder when I ever put this or that in. So I'm always worried about missing things and am always grateful when people point out errors. Thanks again.

Hi Guys, I'm back!

Been back at work and busy but i haven't lost interest, and i've been peeping in on your thread from time to time.

I was having trouble with making a list i wouldn't want to face, and i'm no daemon expert, but since you moved fiends to special i was able to put together more or less what i had in mind. On that point, have you given thought to how moving fiends in particular changes the dymanic of the list? Fiends, even in units of 2 minimum, are great at warmachine hunting, redirecting, dealing with support units etc, and moving them to special means they're not competing for points with flamers or some of the new monster type units.

Just a thought, i wasn;t keen when i first read you were moving fiends and it seemed to happen without a great deal of discussion, which is unusual in your project.

Anyhow, i've written a list, tell me if i need to remove any pointscosts etc. can you tell me, is it legal? is it rubbish?

Kairos 625


Herald of Khorne Armour of Khorne,Spellbreaker, Aura of Khorne. BSB, Great Standard of Sundering 250

Bloodletters 40 Battle Hardened, Champion, Standard Bearer, Banner of the Blood God's Blessing. 640

Furies 14 (2x7) 154



Fiends of Slaanesh 4 (2x2) 220

Flamers of Tzeentch 8 (2x4) Immolaters 315
Behemoth of Khorne 1 Skullshrine 290


I think it comes to 2494,

9 deployment drops, good redirection, dominating magic, spellbreaker may be an unecessary luxury as you have the skullshrine.

I've pointed my brother at the pdf, as he said he wished he had a new book! So we may well get a playtest battle in. I'll do my best to take notes and i'm learning battlechronicler, so i'll do a battle report if we manage it.

Hope you're all well!

That's just awesome man. I'm currently at work so I've got only limited time but here are a couple of comments:

Moving Fiends and Bloodcrushers to the Special Section, as I am sure you have read in the main thread, a necessary evil prompted by the Rare Section otherwise becoming too crowded. It's an edit that is 'conditional' on the inclusion of the Behemoth/Phantasm/Eye of Tzeentch. It's an edit necessary for Playtesting to be meaningfull, while we all acknowledge (I think) that the chance of 3 new units entering the Rare Section in an actual "new Book" is pretty slim.

While we did finally settle for setting the unit size of Bloodcrushers to 2+ we've actually set the minimum unit size of Fiends to 3+. As I have not had time to 'proof-read' RealVeon's last PDF-document on page 1 I now suspect that it might say in that PDF that Fiends (as a Special Choice) are 2+. Again: That's actually a mistake (if it is indeed the case) because Fiends are supposed to be 3+ (the last thing actually stated in the Main Thread).

So those (2x2) Fiends in your list are 'not legal' as we have envisioned them.

But you're correct that moving Fiends to Special naturally makes them 'different' as far as point-investments go. We did actually spend about a page of ranting&raving about this edit too *lol* I would hardly call it a rash decision.. All though I can see why it would sit uneasily with you, and indeed: I wouldn't have thought the thought myself had it not been for the "unfortunate" crowding-up that was going on in the Rare Section.

In your list also; This is probably knocking in an open door but those Flamers are 2 different units (4 Flamers with Immolator-upgrade in each unit) and not 1 unit with 2 ranks, right? ;)

Just making sure.. Because we did discuss way back to increase the max unit size of Flamers to 9 but that's something we have long since discarded.

*****************************************************************
Quick analysis of your list, then:

Well it's basically a Bloodletter-deathstar with Kairos pumping out some nasty casting (as he does). Basically, if you can deal with those Bloodletters I don't think you should have too hard a time with the rest of the list. Those Fiends are not legal as I mentioned, but that's no big deal (you can bring another Flamers instead, and just ONE unit of 3 Fiends for basically the same effect/points).

The Flamer units are smallish and rather expensive for what they do against everything except High Elves. ;) But yeah, no worse than they are in the present book of course.

I haven't done the exact math on the percentages here, which I am almost certain you have done though so I won't second guess it. Your Rare Allocation comes down to 605pts *hm* yeah that's fine.

I'm basically just gonna say that I really hope you and your brother gets down to some serious playtesting. And well I'll finnish off with this question: That list you just posted - does your gut tell you it's broken?

I'm a poor judge of that. Because no list I'll ever make will include Kairos. :D

I missed the 3+ size on the fiends, that makes a bit of a difference, it changes their role in the army from where they are now, but furies can cover that role perfectly well. i'd actually be tempted to drop the fiends and add 2 more units of 7 furies, giving me some spare points( i think?)

Flamers would be 2 units of 4.

If i bring any list without Teclis or Book of Hoeth, my magic is pretty limited, and Kairos is able to bring lots of pain, i was going to put in a herald of tzeentch with +1 power dice, but couldn't afford it!

In short, no i don't scream "Broken!!!" when i look at the list, but i wouldn't say the book looks weaker than your current version either, but you have removed the abusable siren song and improved master of sorcery to a balanced level.

Having said that, i'd be interested to see what an experienced daemon general could put together, as it's generally the combinations that can be broken, not the individual units or items, (gifts).

Anyone fancy putting together a list, tailored against high elves and sharing it with me? Have you written any lists yet DaemonReign? i found it harder than i expected, so kudos to you for that!

Edit: @DaemonReign, if you build a list, assume you're not facing teclis, as you won't be taking Kairos!

I have written some lists just on a theorethical basis but they have not been "mixed" and they certainly haven't been focusing on High Elves (as that race, alas, doesn't exist in my gaming-group).

My biggest concern from a balance perspective is actually the ability for Tzeentch Characters and Nurgle Characters to increase their Wardsave and Regen respectively. So I've pretty much set out to put priority to really making "extreme" lists like that when we get down to the business of playtesting (i.e. Nurgle point-denial armies with all units varying between 3+/4+ Regen) or Tzeentch Daemon armies that will not be able to increase their wardsave as much as Nurgle with Regen, but still they will have the 'chance' putting up quite the heavy protection with Wardsave (the new Gift of Chaos Chaos Augment is the "joker" in this respect).

What do you think about Furies as a Special Choice? I have to ask, because if you rate them over taking 3 Fiends from the Special Selection then maybe I am missing something. I get that one or two units would threaten your Warmachines but what would more Furies really accomplish against High Elves of all races??

Eagles ought to eat them for breakfast and laugh about it. Send them into any other unit and they ought to "insta-pop". No?

We're about to really start putting lists together. Things have alas been slightly delayed for various reasons. We basically just need to straighten out the last anal details of the PDF.

Aside of you and me I think there's at least a handfull of people who'll be playtesting this stuff more or less seriously. Hopefully you won't be the only one paying extra attention to High Elves as far as that goes.

The ambition has been all along to let Daemons remain pretty much on the "same" powerlevel as the current book - but with the removal of complete "cheese" and better internal balance instead.

And finally, I agree, if Kairos is "in" then we have to assume that Teclis (in all his Hoeth glory) is "in" as well. And that ought to level things a little because those Irrestables without Miscasting just beats Kairos all to hell.. if you ask me (and again: I've never played with/against either so it's just my uneducated guess over here).

eagles are great, but they don't eat anything for breakfast, only 2 attacks and no saves, but they are awesome redirectors and they can threaten warmachines, furies can stop them from doing their job, but they can also stop my elites from going where they want to, and if i can't combo charge those bloodletters, i'm bang in trouble.

That was my thinking when building the list, place bloodletters last, try to get ranged dominance, flamers are good and good magic, while shutting down opposing magic, use fiends/furies to prevent my bloodletters fighting multiple units. i'd comsider changing the bsb to standard of sundering also, but i'm a big list tinkerer.

Furies as a special choice, no problem whatsoever. makes little difference as core and rare are your strongest sections, unlike High Elves, were all about the special choices!

Edited: furies...

I wouldn't send them into anything, park them at an angle in front of elites, they charge, furies pop, elites either reform moving only 1 inch for a turn, or overrun in the wrong direction, works with 1 fury if the units been whittled down by shooting. I'm sure you know this tactic, it's eagle tactics 101.

Yes I've heard of that tactic. :)
Never actually tried it myself. Sometimes I feel I am at a disadvantage talking about how to make certain units really competative because some things (like forcing the opponant to wheel up at a silly angle like that) are just 'hard to pull' when you're only playing against old childhood friends.
That does not take any merit from your description however. Just trying to explain why I seem a bit daft at times. It's one of these "loop-holes" in the rules (that you always align to the target unit when charging) that is sort of abused here. Or maybe not 'abused' exactly.. but I'm sure you understand what I mean.

Anyway, I'm glad it made a difference that we pinned Fiends as a 3+ min-size unit.

And certainly that tactic about spamming Furies has got to be possible to meet with "something", right? Shooting for example - just blast them all to hell with archers/magic leaving that big horde o'Letters exposed from all sides all of a sudden?

What I am trying to deduce, in theory, is whether it's all still "fair play" as far as the random elements of the game is concerned, or whether Furies being a Special Choice suddenly makes them too easy to "spam" in many more units.. (?)

I know what you mean about it not feeling "right", and i'd rather use them as warmachine hunters, but when i'm playing against daemons that's obviously not happening. it does give them a use against anyone though which is useful. (i know what you mean by abused too, no offense taken, i never take more than 2, 1 almost always gets killed before he does anything, so i can only do it once!)

Also, were a bit too competitive, me and my brother, so we play with any sort of dirty underhanded tactics not only allowed, but encouraged, so i feel i can get away with eagles re-directing and teclis doing his hoeth stuff!

To answer your question, Furies aren't an issue at all for me, they do an eagles job for 5 more points, yes they have 2 more wounds but theyre t3. No worries for me. Shooting, magic missiles, cavalry, support units can sort them out. So no, i'm not worried about fury spam.

Being a High Elf player, they're the tactics i know, so that's why i built that list.


That's why i'm interested to know what a Daemon player would come up with!

I don't have much to add to what D-Reign said, but would point out Heralds of Khorne can't take Spellbreaker so you'd have to swap it for something else.

Also, personally speaking I would prefer Fiends over Furies when facing High Elves, as they have been quite useful against Dragon Princes in the past and their I6 menas many HE units won't get asf re-rolls against them.

*hm...*
I missed the part about the Spellbreaker being given to the HoK in NotADaemon's list.
But it seems quite possible that it is listed under the 'available' Gifts for the HoK because as I am sure you remember we did at least discuss granting Khorne Heralds access to that Gift (after all, quite fluffy) - I just can't remember for the life of me whether or not we went with that idea in the end..

Oh lord we need to get down to business 'proof-reading' that beautifull pdf. I wish I could download it at work because my time at home is so damn limited right now.. :(

Yeah, I feel exactly the same way but will be busy for the next 3 days at least. Shouldn't even be typing this now really! ;)

I did check the pdf before I posted my last reply though and HoK's don't get Spellbreaker in there, which is as it should be imo as it could become a bit of a no-brainer option in a mono-Khorne list otherwise, and would render the Skullshrine somewhat obsolete.