Love LAV-Kitsune-, Wall of text crits u for 999 k dmg

LAV-Kitsune- has single handedly taken me from a 50/50 player to a 90/10 player in about 6 months. Even delfs get theire ass handed to them. (Lore of Metal)

The amount of information and stats are amazing. Came across this post on a Ogre forum the other day. It`s epic...

Dont bother to read it, its just a homage to the amount of **** rolling around in our favourit Finnish dudes brain


I wrote a brief guide on the archieves before the new book was released, but now with the new book around I decided to take a look at it and think if anything has changed. So coming up, tips against daemons from Daemon player =)

Common set ups in daemon army
If one takes a look at tournament lists in any part of the world Daemons of 8th edition will take few options very often and they are as follows, roughly in popularity order:
Bloodletters, horde or 28 depending on comps
Herald of Tzeentch with loremaster in Light/shadow/life
Bloodthirster or Great Unclean one
Fiends of Slaanesh, in single choices or big blocks
Furies, for distraction
Flamers of Tzeentch, shooting
Daemonettes and herald with siren song.
There is ofcourse more to the book, but these are definately the most common sights in the daemonic army, so I will split each of them and talk them to detail.

BLOODLETTERS
Bloodletters are perhaps the most dangerous part of the army and some prefer another horde of them over greater daemon, which really tells how popular they are. They are usually played in horde formation and commonly have herald with them too. Even though Ogres got good amount of buffs in the new book they are still usually beaten by large number of Bloodletters in combat and there is few reasons for this. Bloodletters are fast and can get charge banner which adds +D6 to their charge range. This effectively cancels Ogres thundering charge. They are also fast in combat and will hit your models hard. And not only that, they have smaller bases and hit stronger than average ogre and are more accurate. In game terms this translates as follows:

If your ogres are in ranks of 4 or in horde formation, which are both pretty common sights, whole horde gets to hit your models before you do. 30 Bloodletters with heralds hatred will deal 16,67 wounds to ogres with 6+ parry from the ironfists and 20 wounds without them. This means that before you have chance to strike you have already lost 5-7 ogres! Ogre horde would attack 54 times against bloodletters and without buffs would only deal 12 wounds + 2,22 stomps. Even without hatred letter horde would deal 13,78 wounds to ogres and 4 ogres would die before chance to strike (3 less daemons to kill). For this reson daemon units need to be softened down with shooting and magic before combat or you need strong buffs in melee to beat them, otherwise you are playing a losing battle. Do NOT rely on regeneration spell though, as herald of Khorne will usually wield +1S flaming attacks weapon that would drop the whole regeneration from your ogres.

HERALD OF TZEENTCH
These level 2 wizards are found pretty much in all but non Tzeentch themed armies. Common picks to daemons are Lore of light with khorne oriented armies, shadow for Slaanesh oriented armies and Life with armies with many multiwound models and greater daemon. Lore of light caster usually throws the buffs on Bloodletter hordes to make them even tougher. -1 To hit for example reduces kills from ogre horde by 4 and can be combined with speed of light to give "-2" penalty against Ws10 and phas protection effectively rendering whole unit of yours useless. Third spell that is very common is timewarp that will give ASF and additional attack to whole horde, this would effectively turn into 6 more wounds in combat against ogres. Do not let the buffs stack or you'll be in great trouble fast. Also furies can be given Ld buff, so that even 5 lousy furies can hold unit of your Mournfang cavalry without fear of breaking out, beware that.

Lore of Shadows can give lots of gray hair to ogres thanks to pit of shadows. Lore itself is usually more common sight in list with daemonettes and flamers, since they both benefit much from lore buffs like withering and mindrazor. Daemonette horde with Mindrazor or -3 to T on you, deals massive 25,80 ASF wounds, almost 9 dead ogres in one round! Definately watch out those spells. Luckily daemonettes are the squishiest bunch on the daemon army and without any buffs or herald will only deal 7,41 wounds to ogres, so take down their herald and dispell the buffs to win against them. Also watch out for signature spell that can prevent your bullcharges for good by reducing the movement.

Lore of light is the rarest pick usually and will usually be there only to keep greater daemon and unit of 6-8 fiends/juggers alive while throwing some dwellers on your units. There really isnt anything else than the +2T, regrowth and dwellers to care in this lore.

BLOODTHIRSTER AND GUO
Both are common greater daemon picks, though you might see lore of death Lord of change too, since its great against ogres (purple sun). GuO has 2 horrible weapons against ogres, balesword and his signature spell. Balesword turns each hit into an automatic D6 wound, so he will very likely kill easily 3 ogres per turn without any troubles. He is also 10W beast that is almost impossible to kill. Have some gnoblars or other throw away units to stall him, for he isnt good against massed units. His signature spell reduces your Ws, T, I and A to 1, which means that even your tyrant is a puny maggot before him. With 3+ to cast he can cast this with even one dice, so beware if you see GuO on the table and in melee with important characters or beasts.

Bloodthirster is the hard hitter that can fly and usually deals 5-6 wounds against ogres with fists. Since he has 3+ armour and 5+ ward and sometimes armour that negates your magical weapons he is hard to kill with characters. As with GuO, try to bog him down with throw away units and use Ironguts instead of characters. Those S6 attacks will hurt even thirsters.

FIENDS OF SLAANESH
These are not such a threat against Ogres as they are against many other foes, but they can very easily counter your charges with their M10 and swiftstrider ability. Large block of 6 will deal roughly 9 wounds on ogres and cost only 55pts each. You can expect them to hunt down man eater scouts, ironguts and other usually smaller units that could threaten greater daemons for example. 12 Ogres would deal only 6 wounds to them, so again buffs are in order to beat them, as you are going to take casualities way before you have chance to strike and you really cannot rely on charge impacts. Single fiends might not attack your "war machines" like they normally do, but instead they lurk opportunistik overrun charges. One fiend lurks behind your lines with his 20" march movement while rest of the army advance normally. It will then make a seemingly silly charge against tough foes rear while bloodletter horde attacks your other unit. If Bloodletters win (which they usually do) and overrun to the fiends fight, they will get an extra turn of combat for free since fiend has not fought out yet, nasty surprise.

DAEMONETTES AND SIREN SONG
Siren song is usually the only reason why these girls are taken. They can totally derail your hordes and reveal their flanks. You can counter this a bit by moving single tigers infront of your big units for example, so that the charge through them would be illegal and thus couldnt be done. Tigers will swiftly charge some random foe when the time comes and move out of the way of ogres. I already covered daemonettes magical capabilities earlier so no need to repeat that =)

There is ofcourse many other choices in the book, but these would be the most common.

General tips
So thats quick recap on what you might face with daemons. Few pointers that you migth want to keep on your mind is that:
Do not rely on charge and impacts. Daemons are faster than your models and will more likely get the charge
Usually you need to play bit defensively first and soften the daemons up. Most are tougher than any ogres with their heralds and magics. Do not rush headlong to combat where odds are harshly against you
Beware the furies. 5 of them will cost only 60pts and there can be 2-4 of them in the field. By throwing them infront of you he can keep your main hammer out of combat as long as he wants by derailing and slowing your movement. Be prepared of small nuisances like these.
+1T and S are usually the only spells that you need. Daemons have huge resistance to your magic (good stats and 4++ ward against direct damage) so most of your damage spells wont affect them. They also have tons of fire attacks so regeneration isnt very reliable.
Hellheart can mess up some lists badly. Greater daemons are always level 1 mages (not thirster ofcourse) and army will usually bring herald of tzeentch too. If army has some horrors too, you can force opponent to take 3 miscasts in single turn and add 3 dispel dice to your pool. Very nice.
Man eaters with sniper ability can help you a big time. They can snipe out -2Ld banner and Masque from Ld bombing lists, Slaanesh and Khorne heralds from the horde units that they buff and even Tzeentch heralds that are essential to the daemons. It might cost a lot, but might also save your game.
Many medium sized units instead of hordes. Daemons hit harder and faster than ogres, so 40 bloodletters will kill horde of bulls as easily as 8 of them. Smaller units give your better flanking possibilities and ways to divide fire.


Misbeliefs
And finally some misbeliefs from the daemons that I have seen in this thread and around the net.
DoC hates S5 impacts and S5 hits more than any other army. Not really, actually it is just the other way around since most daemons have no armour but only ward save. There is nothing to lose when strenght of the attacks rise. Instead numerous S2 and 3 hits can bring even greater daemons down, especially if poisoned. This is why daemons fear Skaven that have plenty of these small hits and poisons.
Mournfang will crush through everything! They wont against the daemons. Skillfull player will throw unit after unit of furies and single fiens at them while killing rest of the army or use charge flag with Bloodletters/juggers to attack them before they have chance to charge. Daemonettes might also force them to charge from 18" away and reveal their flank to any horde of good fighters. They are good, but one mournfang will only do 2 wounds to basic core daemons, where even weak core like Daemonettes with herald will deal 2,24 wounds back at them, so you might even lose against static resolutions here if not careful.
Horrors can be ignored for most part. Sure they suck in melee, but when they start blasting your Mournfang with +5 to cast spells like 2D6 S4+D6, 2d6 S5 and D6+1 SD6+1 bolts all in same turn while main caster waits to throw his deadly buff to the horde, they do not seem so puny anymore. Drop their numbers to get rid of the tough spells. Also, they are resilient. With herald alive, even a Bull horde will only deal 9 wounds to them per turn, which isnt usually very likely since you will be facing only 5 per rank, so you get lot less attacks.

Haha, and so it would seem that I posted bit longer topic that I intended again, but I hope there is atleast some good tips for you =)


Not to be disrespectful, your example is not very good Zippy. Ogre and daemon units cost roughly the same amount of points even though the number of models might change as one can get roughly 3 core daemons to one ogre bull. This means that unless daemon player has spent tons of points to useless units, your forces are evenly matched in numbers and you cannot count to outnumbering your foe like in your example. For example, against the models that you mentioned, opponent should have greater daemon, horde of bloodletters and smaller unit of daemons instead of just one unit of Bloodletters.

Softening enemy up before charging on the other hand IS a good idea. As daemons are unstable, it is good to do combined charges on softened foes instead of trying to beat everything on 1vs1 fight. Reason for the second situation I already mentioned, most daemons are better than ogres in 1vs1, but there is also another reason to attack them with big numbers. Even 1 daemon can stick to the fight and keep your horde in place if for example opponent has stubborn banner and even without it, instability can really be annoying. For that reason it is better to go and do a slight overkill than and overrun to safety. Attack units with many units and characters and go for the overkill instead of fighting 1vs1. It works.


Phazel: Like I said earlier, daemons do not care near as much about impacts as other armies due to their ward. As an example you could pick helf or Delf elite (swordmasters / black guard) that cost same amount or more than daemons but do not have ward save. Thanks to their ward daemons take 1/3 less casualities than elves. Stomps and impacts are good in general, but they are not any better against daemons than they are to other armies but daemons resist them better thanks to their wards. On the other hand daemons have many fast units that rather get to charge you and that you cannot stomp, like fiends, juggers and greater daemons, so it could be said that stomps and impacts work less against daemons than against high elves for example that rely much on rank and file units.

I would also like to correct role some stuff about horrors. They are not picked as a bunker to the herald very often. See ~50 lists from daemonic legions if you want and you see that much more often horrors either have wings, disc or sit with flamers or just run behind a big horde. It is most common to see horrors in units of 28+ since then they can get the bolt of change. As a general tip, you should kill some horrors as your first priority so that they lose this dangerous bolt (2D6 S4+D6 hits). They are long ranged support with their bolts but can deal massive damage with gift of chaos spell too (D6 SD6 hits on everyone at 12") which can be devastating to many small units that ogres play since it can be thrown to combat and from combat. Another common role is to pick horrors as a caster and uses them as a dispeller, since many daemon armies only get level 4 wizard as a greater daemon, so horrors can help big time here. If you need to push through some magic, kill horrors to make your castin easier when facing armies like this.

As for damage migitation, Plaguebearers are far superior to horrors in this due to their better toughness, fighting skills, poison and heralds gifts. Sure horrors can be bit tougher with herald, but seriously, even gnoblar fighters can get drawn combats with horrors, after all, they only got human statline. Anything with atleast some fighting power will munch through them, so they are definately not a stalling unit. If on the other hand you see changeling on the unit, try to avoid it, as it could even go and kill tyrant easily. Changeling swaps the stats and horrors make the supporting attacks to the tyrant, resulting to an easy kill for daemons. So, good tips against horrors: Drop their numbers so that they cannot cast bolt. Leadbelchers can work well for this as can scouting man eaters that charge them early. Do not throw a big horde at them though, as you just waste your fighting potential.


Considering the ironblasters and giants: No, just no. Unarmoured T5-6 models are very weak against daemnos and cost really much. They are not resilient and they definately do NOT hold against Bloodletters (or against greaters, fiends, flamers or anything similar). Naked T6 (or even worse T5) means that even 8 unbuffed bloodletters can deal atleast one wound on it and unless you get lucky with thunderstomps and attacks, it is going to lose against the combat resolution. If unit has herald in it, you are getting 2-4 wounds per turn even on the ironblaster, meaning that even if you endure the breaktest, your model will die in 2 rounds anyway. Cannons are nice against greater daemons, but you should not rely on them. Cannon has 1/6 chance of misfiring then 1/6 chance on failing to bounce, 1/6 chance on failing to wound and 2/3 chance to bypass ward. This means that one cannon has ~39% chance on wounding a greater daemon. While this might seem nice, almost all experienced generals will use single fiend as a meatshield to the greater, which means that cannon has only less than 10% chance to cut through the fiend and even wound the greater daemon (only 4% chance to kill it on single shot). Since lore of light is so common choice among daemons, phas protection is common sight too, halving all those percents that I mentioned. Many armies have only one turn time to deal with greater daemons by shooting, since with M20" they can easily charge on turn2.

TLDR: Cannons can be great for softening greater daemons (and they do need softening up), but do not rely on them to kill the daemons. I would much rather fear Ironguts instead of Ironblaster. 6 guts dish out 18S6 hits and that WILL hurt even greater daemons.

No, Daemon player do not fear only one or two cannons that ogre might throw at him. Pretty much all skillfull daemon players use fiend as a meatshield infront of a greater daemon. Odds are really slim for cannons to kill greater like that, so they really do not pose much of a threat. One cannon has around 31% chance on wounding a greater daemon and most likely you got only one turn time to shoot the greater. I will break that percentage to numbers so everyone will understand it better:

Cannon has 1/6 chance to misfire each turn and second shot has same chance to misfire again, but also added chance to roll too much and go over your target. Cannon has 5/6 chance to wound the daemon and daemon has 4/6 chance to fail ward save. So 1/6*1/3*5/6*2/3=31% to wound but if there is single fiend infront of him cannon has to kill that one too and then wound the greater so formula is: 1/6(misfire)*1/3(bounce and another misfire)*5/6(wound)*2/3(fiends save)*1/2(fiend must die or ball will stop)*5/6(wound greater)*2/3(greaters save)=8,6% to wound greater daemon. For cannon ball to kill the daemon on one shot through the fiend is even lower, 3%. If daemon player got Phas protection in effect (from the most commonly used lore) this percent is dropped to 0,07% to kill the daemon on one shot. I do not consider that much of a threat since greater is on melee combat on the very next turn or in worst case you are facing Keeper of secrets that got the first turn and pulls unit to him on your first turn = 0 turns of shooting.

So in short, shooting is nice bonus that can help to take down greaters but you really shouldnt rely on it. Unlike empire and Dwarves you can get realisticly only 1-2 cannons on your army and while cannons are nice, the monster itself is costly and easily killed by almost anything in daemons list (most kill it in one turn if they catch it in melee). I also mentioned Ironguts as a option, so lets see how they would fare:

3 melee daemons are Thirster, GuO and KoS. Thirster deals 3,89 wounds on guts per turn and 5,19 if he has immortal fury. GuO deals only 2,33 wounds but with balesword even massive 10+ can be expected! KoS deals 4,44 and 5,19 with soul hunger. So 1-2 kills before chance to strike is the most common. A unit of 6 would therefore have 4 ogres to strike back. 4 They would dish out 12 attacks and deal 1,33 wounds to a greater per turn and 5 would deal 1,67. For unit that costs over 200pts less than a greater in most cases thats not really bad. Consider throwing some buff and victory is much easier. With regeneration most greaters would deal only 2 wounds leaving full arsenal of 6 ogres to strike = 2 wounds per round, rank bonus and victory from combat. Even S buff will do good since it would increase wounds from 4 ogres to 1,78 and from 5 ogres to 2,22. Since greater has only 5 wounds even one round like this can be a real threat to him and far more dangerous than cannon for example. Now consider what 8 ironguts could do...

Lore of light on DoC really isnt local phenomenon, but the most common choice. Daemonic legions has a poll for that and in there Lore of light has 39% of votes for most common lore, while Life has 21%. On ETC tournament all daemon players combined had 8 shadow wizards, 7 light and only 4 life, so clearly light is one of the most common sights on tournament environment and in casual play. By browsing daemonic legions forums one can also see that light is very common and over half of the armies use light. Reasons for this are the lores great synergies with bloodletters, greaters and fiends, the most common sights on daemon lists. Light also protects greaters just as much as +4T from life but with much cheaper price and can affect all units around the greater. So that is why I also would like to mention that do not expect charging daemons so much. Many will use lore of light, get timewarp and have charge ranges like 20"+3D6 (fiends and greater) and 10"+3D6 (letters with charge banner) and that if anything counters ogres bullcharge better than anything, they dont even get chance to charge! And for common sights of light lore shooting is bad strategy against daemons: War machines wont work on 4+ and shooting gets additional -1 penalty to everyone around 12" from the caster.

Shooting is tricky issue anyhow and I would never suggest relying on it even if opponent didnt play lore of light. Flamers cost almost half the points that leadbelchers but also shoot D6 S4 shots, so daemons will easily outnumber you in shooting. On top of that daemons could field big horror units and blast your ogres with 2D6 S4+D6 bolts and have GuO to lead the list while furies stall and redirect your mournfang and hordes. Daemons can just do shooting oriented melee lists so much better than ogres that if by chance your opponent got similar list you are really in a bad situation. And no, ironblaster absolutely does NOT counter flamers. Flamers shoot 1,17 wounds to it with stand and shoot and strike faster in melee approximately 2 more wounds while ironblaster only deals 2-3 wounds. This means that the ironblaster will die on the very next combat round if the odds go as they should. If flamers have one round of shooting blaster from long range, then they deal 1,75(shooting)+1,17(stand and shoot)+2(melee) before it being able to even strike. Thats far from reliable counter... Also saying that you have spent 2-3 turns on shooting the daemon player only proves that you have played against horrible daemon generals. Any good generals army is in combat on turn 2 meaning that if daemons got the start, you only got one turn to shoot them. Shooting on ogres is expensive and not cost effective, so relying it isnt good idea.

Hehehe. He tries to help them, but they just don't listen...

Small thing, Birona's can't give a unit a 20"+3D6 charge range since a model's characteristic can never be raised to more than 10. This includes movement allotment.

That's been debated quite a bit around here, and the consensus is the models have a Movement characteristic that cannot be increased above 10, but which is different than their movement allotment.

Yeah that one is a real cunundrum..
Great compilation of a (small part of) Kitsune's legacy by the way. It was a nice read!

some one should ask it in
http://z7.invisionfree.com/wyrmling_x/inde...?showtopic=9582

I agree.

pfft you already posted it Dreign

My understanding:

1) A model has a characteristic called "movement allowance" (this is the M in a model's stat line).

2) RAW say a characteristic can never be raised above 10

3) Birona's was specifically errata'd to affect "movement allowance"

Therefore, Birona's can never raise a model's movement allowance higher than 10, because it is a characteristic.

I'll try to look up rulebook page numbers tonight.

I read that thread on the Ogre forum several months ago, some of the other players there just didn't have a clue on how difficult Daemons could make life for them, not matter how much Kitsune tried to warn them.

Oh, I didnt remember that my post was that long. It must have been quiet day in daemonic legions *laughs*. I mainly wrote that little guide to my friend who has been struggling against my daemons and decided to give some tips to the ogre community in general. It was bit amusing how little they actually knew and how one "pro" player got so touchy there.

Anyways of the timewarp issue. FAQ also says:

So it atleast works with flying as it is special rule. With this in mind I would still say that it also works for other units like fiends, though in my case the spell is more commonly used on bloodletters =)