# Hands on new Daemon Codex



## Vxx (Feb 7, 2008)

I was able to scan through the new Daemons codex last night for a few minutes before it was yanked out of my hands by an excited friend. I dont play Chaos or know much about their background so Im sorry that I cant name names of specific deamons but I figured to share the few things that I got to read for those of you who are curious. 

-The book is laid out just like the new chaos and orks with unit descriptions and fluff up front and point costs in back. Lots of good pictures and awesome looking painted models. 
-I did not see anything pertaining to the daemons being allies. 
-Every unit is fearless and I think immune to instant death
-Just about every unit I remember seeing has a 5+ invuln save
-Deployment of daemons is crazy. You do not deploy the daemons like other armies. You take your list and split it into two sections. One section will deploy with what I think was deep strike rules on the first turn. The rest of the army comes in later. To make it interesting you have to roll a die to see if the chaos gods allow you to take you choice or army half to deep strike. If you fail it, you deep strike the other half you didnt want to deploy.
-All of the daemons already come with their upgrades, which are the chaos powers represented by which ever daemon god they worship. You cant really add or remove the powers from the daemons. 
-There are a ton of expensive and powerful HQ choices. The most expensive one I remember seeing was 333 points. They all have awesome and colorful abilities like being able to roll rending on a 4+. Or any unit, friend or foe within 24" can re roll failed hits. 
-The HQ choices are tough as nails with high stats like WS10, toughness 8, a S10 AP1 shooting weapon... stuff that will dominate in close combat. Even though they have a 5+ save, which is invulnerable, they will be hard to kill because of high toughnesses and multiple wounds. 
-The smaller troop choice daemons cost about as much as a space marine, give or take 3-8 points. 
-The defiler looking thing has about the same stats as a defiler except some cool daemon abilities and tougher armor. 

Thats all I can remember for now. I will be at the shop later tonight so if I get the chance, I will read through it thoroughly.


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## Apoctis (Feb 14, 2008)

Wow now I know where the overpoweredness of the chaos marines went I think people should look at this army in disgrace and shun it it should not be that powerful : On the flip side let me at them and watch an unstobable army of evil wash the table clean they sound awesome and I better start getting them so I can watch people squirm.


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## Vxx (Feb 7, 2008)

Yeah, they will be a tough one to beat. Almost makes me want to start collecting them. I know a couple local people pre-ordered the big set so Ill be able to play against them.

The cool think is that the daemon hunters special weapons that ignore invuln saves now have a purpose again.


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## Bogg (Mar 2, 2008)

Looking good, Thank you for the brief Info =)

I know I will slow and purposfly start to collect them...making a combat ptrol first, then upgrade slowly.....


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## abaddonthedespoir (Jan 28, 2008)

I got to see sum things too. As far as I can remember, all theit saves on their profile are treated as invls, the greater deamons are HQS. Deamonettes still got rendeng and fleet, bloodletters got power weps, epedimius is freakin' crazy, and deamonic gifts are back. The soul grinder, I think its called has three variations of its attacks. Ones teardrop str and ap?, one shot at str 10 AP1, or a oradance, i think.


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## CATzeentch (Dec 25, 2007)

There are greater daemon special charcters as well.
-the Nurgle has an exploding turd shot that is Ord 1 large plast ap2 and always wounds on a 4+
-The Masque of Slaanesh(special character herald) has a weaker version of Lash of submission but can cast it three times on three seperate units. Also the lash affects walkers...and it doesn't count as a psychic power...
-The tzeentch greater daemon charcter allows every unit within 6" of him to re-roll every failed save...
-Bloodletters have FC and power weapons
-Daemonetts have rending and fleet
-Flamers are jump infantry that have a power identical to winds of chaos and the tzeentch screemers are jetbikes with melta bombs.
-The Tzeentch herald is like the old ahriman in terms of casting psychic powers.
-Karanak rends on a 4+, has a 3+ save and has a 2+ invuknerable against psychic powers and force weapons. This upgrade can be given to just about any unit for +5 points per model.
-And the khorne bloodletters can be given rending as well.....but only one model in the unit.
-Soul Grinder is a mutated hull defiler wich can phlegm(S8 AP3 large blast), vomit(S5 AP3 flamer) or tongue(S7 AP2).
-the Special character greater damon of Khorne *FORCES* all friendly and enemy attacks in close combat to be re-rolled within 24". Definitly a double edged sword.
-Deep striking is similar to deathwing assault with a few tweeks to it.
-Very few psychic powers. Mainly just gifts that need to roll to hit. which is good for non-daemon players as most of the daemons are BS of 3-4.

By the way, i find them incredibly cheesy but after a while you realize that they are much softer than before...i hope i scared/intreged many people.


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## angels of fire (Dec 4, 2007)

It will be fun as everyone will shout cheese but then the nobody will play the daemons except for other daemon players. Therefore we might be seeing a few daemon Vs daemon battles. But it looks cool all the same.


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## Jase (Nov 4, 2007)

i don't think it will work, practically.

i'll explain

From what i can see there's a lot of units that move like cavalry, which is fair enough, there's also a lot of units with nasty CC abilities like rending and str 5 power weapons. However, i don't see much shooting, and the whole army Deepstrikes in (Following all the standard deep strike rules, not the daemon deep strike rules) so effectively, for 1 whole turn your army is sitting ducks, but not just plain sitting ducks, sitting ducks with a invulnerable save of ONLY 5+ (majority). Now correct me if i'm wrong, but invulnerable or not, that save is poo. a whole heap of shooting later and those daemons are dead, then you only have to worry about the rest of the army coming on here and there.

not to mention the fact that the amount of people now who are going to take the induced inquisitor with a shed load of mystics, and then imagine how much grey knights are gunna rock against this with incinerators and psycannons (i know it's what they do best but still)

we'll see how it plays anyway.


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## slaaneshy (Feb 20, 2008)

So am I right in thinking no room in a chaos army as allies?
Also anyone know in relation to the current chaos codex, will the 'generic' demons there still be valid?


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## Salamander Strong (Apr 7, 2008)

No, they cant NOT be mixed at all, EXCEPT in an awsome game called apocalypse! 
People are right with pretty much everything so far. 
The soulgrinder is a mutated hull defiler, with 2 close combat weapons a heavy bolter like thing built in, AND a cannon that starts as a flame template, that can be bought BOTH upgrades so you can pick how to use it. 
1 being a Railgun that is 24" range
2 being a battle cannon. 
The skulltaker(khrones man) does rending on a 4+ and all wounds cause instant death. 
The tzeench stuff has all sorts of diffrent shooting attacks. Most of the main men can have chariots which work like bikes for the most part.


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## CATzeentch (Dec 25, 2007)

In terms of shooting, the daemons still have quite a lot. Especially the nurgle greater daemon charcter who fires an AP2 turd that is a large blast...
And in response to jase, yes the army is fragile on the first turn and so you can't just rush in hoping to survive. Instead it will take actual strategy for players to win...OH MY GOD!


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## Gore Hunter (Nov 5, 2007)

To be honest they look very Powerful And I like powerful
Is there any good Fluff in the new Dex?


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## Green Knight (Feb 25, 2008)

hear, hear, cattzeentch but people might not play them because you need strategy to play them like dark eldar


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## Master Kashnizel (Jan 5, 2008)

Uh I think you guys missed something. Sure they are AMAZING in cc, but unless you have a defiler thingy, you aren't going to be having much luck in the shooting phase. Sure you will be getting some spells but other than that, the opponent is going to rip through a lot of your units in the first few rounds of shooting, especially IG.


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## CATzeentch (Dec 25, 2007)

Again it all comes fown to what DS and when it does... for instance the nurgle daemons with T5 and feel no pain. So only S10 weapons can refuse the FNP as the toughness isn't modified like in bikes or plague marines.
And trust me, the daemons have plenty of shooting...Tzeentch has 3 shots per model from 12 point models.
And once more, it will take a lot of strategy and time to finally nail how to use the new daemons. Because i will be getting nurgle and khorne...and praying that the deepstriking will work and nurgle comes first.


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## the cabbage (Dec 29, 2006)

Apoctis said:


> Wow now I know where the overpoweredness of the chaos marines went I think people should look at this army in disgrace and shun it it should not be that powerful : On the flip side let me at them and watch an unstobable army of evil wash the table clean they sound awesome and I better start getting them so I can watch people squirm.


How can you possibly judge the army as overpowered on the scanty information available? Ludicrous!


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## patrickgamer (Mar 18, 2008)

I looked through the new codex last night when I was at GW. The fluff is apparently (I wasn't playing back then) similar to back in the old days.

Basically, the Chaos Gods had created the deamon spawn as subservient slaves to their cause, but they favor mankind b/c they have proven their devotion to the cause through free will. This has that biblical angelic resentment theme, which is why a Daemon army can't recruit human allies (they hate them and don't want to work with them) while the CSM can summon and force the daemons to work for them (where the summoning process limit's the daemon's powers in order to control them).

I bought my first army set (Dark Eldar battle force) last night, but if the Daemon were available, I think I would have switched over to them. I'm definitely hoping to dig in to the Daemons as my second army.


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## Jase (Nov 4, 2007)

CATzeentch said:


> In terms of shooting, the daemons still have quite a lot. Especially the nurgle greater daemon charcter who fires an AP2 turd that is a large blast...
> And in response to jase, yes the army is fragile on the first turn and so you can't just rush in hoping to survive. Instead it will take actual strategy for players to win...OH MY GOD!


OH MY GOD! USING STRATEGY! i'd never have thought of that, now if only my whole army didn't have to rely on a dodgy way of getting onto the table and actually walked on like anyone else so i didn't have the risk of losing a unit before the game has even started!

deep strike is far too random.


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## NiteRabbit (Apr 12, 2008)

Saw a few test games being played against some of the regulars at the local GW with the Daemon Codex and have talked a bit with the staff about how this Daemonic Assault rule will affect aspiring Daemon players. Here's what we came up with:

The first wave has one purpose and one purpose only: to survive. This can be done in one of two ways - either by enduring enemy shooting and assault for one turn or by destroying nearby enemy units in order to clear the landing zone for a future attack. There are many options for both protecting the first wave and covering the second as they enter play - shooting Horrors and Flamers, incredibly tough units like Bloodcrushers, Plaguebearers, Beasts of Nurgle, and Greater Daemons, or even the most simple tactic of all - taking large units. Given the points costs of Daemons (on par with Space Marines, though with significantly less durability) it may be difficult to pull off the latter but at the same time, every Daemon is a superior combatant - your garden variety Horror squad can probably dish out more firepower than most other dedicated shooty units and you have the Changeling in one squad for those rare cases in which you come up against an army that isn't Ld 10. Bloodletters will clear most kill zones on the charge and are quite easily capable of removing a 20-ork squad of Slugga Boyz from the table. Don't even get me started on Daemonettes. The point being, this rule was probably added for purposes of balance - being able to get second turn charges with the superior power of Daemons with all those rending and power weapon attacks. GEQs will just cry in the face of Tzeentchian shooting (granted they're only BS3. I realise this.) However, if one is going to play Daemons there is only so much that can be done to limit the effect of probability on your army; Deep Striking is indeed very random, almost annoyingly so. In addition, there's always the chance that you don't get to pick the group that you wanted to deep strike in first (a one-in-three chance actually) although you do get to set up the groups on your first turn before you actually roll, giving you the chance to distribute your forces as necessary to defeat your opponent.

Once Daemon players figure out the necessary tactics for mitigating deep striking as much as possible, the rest of the strategy becomes cake as the first wave can carry icons to allow the second wave to deploy with a greater degree of control.


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## Estragon (Feb 25, 2008)

I wonder if people would be adverse to using the rules (and points costs, of course) given in the new codex for daemons summoned by CSMs? Personally I'd happily double the cost of my great unclean one if it meant I could give it the toughness (and ap2 turd?! Whut?) it deserves-I've already got a soulgrinder on order, and I'll just use it as a normal defiler in CSM-only games. As to not being able to ally...Shame, but I'd give my consent to a player who essentially had two smaller armies (HQ two troops each etc). I wouldn't say yes to an allied army that used _one_ force org. chart mind. I recently got raped by a SM/tau army of 1000pts each. And the tau was 1000pts of heavt support...


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

cant wait to get my hands on this codex ! sounds great


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