# Daemons Ignored, and other Gripes



## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

I've hated the split of Daemons in Warhammer. It never made sense other than from a selling point of view, and unfortunately for me, that's how GW is interested.

But Army Book Daemons blows ass.

It adds absolutely nothing of value that couldn't be combined in the Hordes of Chaos. Beasts of Chaos are an utterly seperate army in the sense that they exist without the needs of the winds of magic - but Daemons require a pact of some sort - such as Malekith's and Dear Mother's numerous attempts, or the expansion of the winds of Magic as a whole - such as during the wake of the Chaos invasions - or so the entire previous fluff stated.

But anyway - having looked through the army books, the entire timeline of the Daemon's is ignored by those most recent. Does that say something for the future? 

They may be a competitively powerful army, but I find it hard to see where the army is actually considered a success - not many people want to start any army where one of the main core choices is metal, one is only more effective based on it's size, yet it's limited to small boxes, another shows daemons of war as lithe dancer like creatures, while another one shows the daemons of the god who favours beauty as crab clawed wingless harpies with grey skin.

Throw in the paint palate of a primary school pupil and it doesn't _gel_ as an army appearance. Am I the only one who would prefer Brian Nelson's beautifully muscled Bloodletters?

Look at the expansion of fluff. Now, they can pop up anywhere - while Shaman's have to go through millions of rituals and blood sacrifices, a human warrior simply has to say "I'm the best" to be challenged to a fight by a Daemon, or have a rift open up and an entire castle suddenly become destroyed by a Daemon Invasion. 

Admittedly this was before Storm of Magic invented a bullshit excuse to allow Dwarves to take Chracian War Lions and Hydra's riding on top of a Keeper of Secrets shoulders.

Storm of Magic was a stupid idea as well. Oh yes, these huge great storms of roiling magic pass over the landscape leaving everything changed and near enough destroyed. And they happen all the time, and it just so happens that every time there's a storm of magic, there are millions of men fighting at the precise spot the storm of magic occurs. And that it's only because of this storm the Daemonic Pact occurs. And a Necromantic Pact, or even an Alliance between the living forces and those of Nehekhara. Meanwhile, my Hydra General carrying super magic sword that only works in a magic storm riding his bloodthirster mount only turns up during this great big magic storm... 

Bollocks. OTT example, I know. 

But what was wrong with having Dwarfs being able to capture a dragon egg during the attack on Athel Tamara and then break it like a pony when it hatches?

If the Druchii can capture Cold One's, why can't the capture Stegadon's, Carnosaur's, or Terradons?

Why can't an Ogre tribe capture and use Sabretusks as a unit on their own in one respect, only to have to bind others to them?

Stupidness like this cheapens the game we play, and put damn good money to.

And to finish off this rant, what the hell is wrong with Games Designers inability to read a book about the source material? And vice versa?

And example - 

Liber Necris - Nagash had 3 Druchii presented to him. 1 sorceress and 2 male guards. How did they die? Tortured by Obsidian blades, in an obsidian pyramid, and forced to wear an obsidian bridle to keep her away from the winds of magic, as well as being doped. Most likely by an obsidian poison.

Nagash Trilogy - 1 female and 2 male guards becomes 2 female sorceress and 1 male sorceror, despite Malekith's prophecy about Male Sorcerors. And they killed, how? They have a fucking rock dropped on them. There goes the nastiness, the sheer viciousness and deep seated issues of Nagash that made him an excellent character. Now he's relegated to the simple power hungry wizard who beats his teachers in a duel. Fucking error.

Later on, in the trilogy, Neferata, fearful of Nagash, but eager from his power learns from Nagash's papers how to remake the Immortal Elixir, but it gets corrupted by the manticore venom into that of the Vampire Draught. When? In -1600IC.

TOmb Kings Books - Robin Crudass - Neferata gets taught by Nagash personally to become a vampire. When? -1520 IC.

Silly little continuity errors of no actual point are really terrible. Is it too much to wish for the creators of books storylines to keep to a blood timeline?

/rant.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

I like Daemons as an army but you are right it's really hard to make a cohesive looking army out of them, always looks like a hodgepodge. I have always assumed that if you're fighting a daemonic horde it's because you've gone somewhere to fight them, they don't just cruise up when you least expect them. 

Don't get me started on fluff writing though, it's not just the fine details they get wrong but they just erase or re-write massive sections of known background for a laugh as far as I can see. Just see the differences between Bretonnia in 5th and 6th.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

In my spare time in the States, I occasionally took to reading through the background, and making up a comprehensive timeline of actions which took place.

Not only those in the Army Books, but the fluff itself, and that mentioned in books, and I realised how stupid it is when 4 different dates are given in 5 different army books for a particular action to take place, and then in 3 of the books (including the two in which the date was the same), the actions were described completely different, for example.


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

I don't pay attention to fluff enough to care. 
Agree the SOM was over the top to get us to buy monsters not playable in 8th edition and new terrain features. Fun casual game but not one I would like to play regularly. 

One doesn't have to exactly follow the Heavy metal recommended palettes. Given the predominance of tzeentch (fire) and khorne (blood) in most armies, there are way to paint and make the Daemons army look good and cohesive, except for the plaguebearers and other nurgle units. Slaanesh units can be designed to work with the tzeentch and khorne color schemes. I still kind of like the metal plaguebearers but that does make them more expensive and I assume that they will be replaced once GW's inventory is sold out.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Yep you summed up a lot of my concerns about the schizophrenic appearance of a daemons army very nicely. Hell a lot of the models are aesthetic nightmares, and not of the good kind either (Nurgle). Also I think who ever designed a lot of the Slaanesh range should be castrated so they can't poison future model projects of the chaos variety.


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