Okay, I don't recall seeing anyone have this up yet. But I love running my daemons, but the new empire book has stalled me in this case. My friend has found a 1000 pt empire army that can make quick work of my daemons.

He usually takes a gun line with cannons and hellfire volleys (or whatever the one is that can get a lot of hits in). Then he usually backs this up with a huge group of halbadiers with a detachment of more halbs or crossbowmen. He backs the whole army up with a lvl 2/3/4 wizard that has lore of light.

With this, it's almost impossible to go to him without taking very heavy casualties, making it near impossible to come back with a victory. Any ideas to help with this will help greatly, thanks!

Double the game size. At least.

Seriously, different match-ups are differently balanced depending on the parts they are made up of.

In a thousand point game Daemons, by definition, will have to compromise heavily in order to even make a legal list - everything that is good about Daemons (all those nasty synergies) are just gone.

You want a Herald to give your Bloodletters Hatred? Go ahead but then you're stuck with no wizard! You want to bring a unit big enough to saturate any kind of shooting - choice is yours but the enemy will perform dances around your army thanks to your low unit count.

Empire, on the other hand - and just like you say - can essentially bring everything they need scaled into a 1k Army. The difference is not as huge for them.. Nor is it for Goblins, Skaven, and other Lists like that.

Warhammer is supposedly 'balanced' with 2,5k-3k games in mind. I've found that Daemons suffer beneath this level, and they certainly seem to prosper beyond it.

Not much of advice, I know. I'm sure someone with better knowledge of games at this size will be along shortly! :)

Varying the game size should make a difference as DaemonReign says, but that depends if you both have the models to do so.

Would be helpful to know a bit more about your usual army Zalenthor and what other units you have available for changing it up a bit. What units do you have for taking out his war machines, for example? Also, are you using scenarios and enough terrain or the magical terrain rules? These things can make a big difference too.

Even at 1K, you have solid options.

Here's a few of the things that are relatively cheap, and should still be very effective:

- Nurglings. A swarm of 3 bases is just over 100 points, and will force him to redirect shooting at them if he wants to keep his war-machines alive. In the event that he castles up too well to hunt his war-machines, they can screen your infantry blocks
- Furies. flying skirmishers that can give hard cover to your infantry blocks. simply priceless.
- Tzeentch Herald, MoS and Spell Breaker. He doesn't need a bunker unit, being quite comfortable with a 4+ LoS and a 4+ Ward. I recommend one of these at any points level. Choose spell lore depending on the rest of your army (I recommend Beasts if you've got daemonettes + anything, Light if you're going with bloodletters and / or plaguebearers without 'nettes)
- Can be tight to fit in at low points, but if magic is giving you grief the great standard of sundering is a fantastic buy, just remember to not take Light on your Tz Herald if you do.

Also, if you're taking a daemonette unit (I would, but then again I'm a sucker for daemonettes) then you should have a Siren Song on board - you can pretty much force him to charge after your first turn with this unit, it's the bane of gunlines. So ridiculously fast with a 12" march plus siren song, it doesn't give gunlines a chance to breathe.

-und_ed

At the very least, if he's shooting at Furies or Nurglings, then he's not shooting at your Fiends or Bloodletters.

I typically go with a unit of bloodletters with a herald in there, then have a unit of flamers, a herald of tzeentch with MoS and then either another unit of bloodletters or some steeds of slaanesh.

Tournaments around my area typically are only 1000pt, since there isn't much gamers here, they tend to wanna make them fast. I don't get it, but oh well.
I've played with 2000 and 2500 pt daemons, and love what I can get out. It's just the 1000 pt that I struggle with.

Alrighty, I built up a 1000-pointer for you, just to see what the limitations are like. What I came up with was:

HoT, spell breaker, MoS, General.
HoS, Siren Song, Robes, BSB, Great standard of Sundering

28 x Daemonettes, Banner, Muso, Siren Standard
5 x Furies

5 x Flamers

Doesn't give you too much to work with, but the furies can give hard cover to your 'nettes for a turn or two, while your flamers deal with smaller, minor threats. You've essentially got a lvl 4 dispelling between the Tz Herald and the banner of sundering, giving you a lot of defence when you add in the spell breaker.

The clincher is the Siren song, which lets you force the issue on your own terms.

Key to remember is that your flamers are awesome melee troops as well as solid ranged troops. At 1K, you'll find most units are 18-30 strong, usually the lower end. Most anything T3 and 24-strong or less can be shot, stand-and-shot and then killed in combat. 20-strong or less you can handle T4.

Other (very different) configurations could be built with more than one infantry block, but I'd be very nervous with points' considerations. At the very least make the second unit something that can function well without a Herald ('letters are OK, but I'd recommend plaguebearers).

Good luck.

-und_ed

thanks a bunch und_ed, I will definitely give this list a shot, and I will let u know how it goes. Earliest I can use it will be this weekend since the empire friend is out of town. but I'll definitly let ya know how it goes

hey und_ed, planning on using the army u made up today. One question though, aren't u over on the points allowed for heroes? Or does the BSB no longer count towards hero points?
If you could clear this up within the next few hours, that'd be great, thanks!

crap, I am.

Very badly.

Here's an alternate, although to be honest it's a little vulnerable to magic:

Herald of slaanesh, Siren Song, BSB
Herald of Khorne, General

5 x Furies
29 x Daemonettes, Banner, Siren Standard, Muso
11 x Bloodletters, Standard, Champ

5 x Flamers.

-und_ed

mmkay, that sounds a little better, little iffy on it though, i may drop the bsb, and go with the HoT and HoS combo, as before, and keep siren song or MoS

I'd keep the MoS on the HoT and go for LoBeasts so you can buff the nettes and HoS. I did the following for a 1K game vs dwarfs:

HoT w/ MoS - Beasts
HoS
30 Daemonettes w/ FC, Siren Standard (or was it Ecstasy?)
3 Nurglings
4 Flamers
2x1 Fiends

Comes to 1K exactly.

I basically keep the HoT close to the HoS & 'nettes to buff them and deal w/ combat troops. Everything else pretty much deals w/ the rest of the army: small units and warmachines. The nurglings and fiends are GOLDEN when dealing w/ gunlines! :rock:

Also, don't underestimate the ability of the fiends to run in and punch those squishy Empire wizards in the face! :evil: