# Daemons vs Vampires: why can't I win



## Franko1111 (Jun 25, 2008)

I have a big problem beating my friend who collects Vampires and i thought that people here could lend there knowledge to let me show him that "*Daemons*" are good:angry:

The problem is that I am only 16 and so have little money even with a job and with sacs and exams coming up won't have much time to do work on my armyuke:

I run a list that has two units of blood letter that have to be replaced would you think that plague bearers are worth the money or demonnettes are the hot stuff but also tell me what is the best units for dealing with a lot of skeletons and to stop 

allso he as a zombie dragon that is his general but he also has a flying lord with a frost blade that kills my greater daemons easily so what can I do to sort out those to vampire problems :ireful2:


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## karlhunt (Mar 24, 2009)

I would use daemonettes to take down skeletons, the extra attacks could really help you. I wouldn't bother with a herald as your init will already beat a skeleton's anyway. Do what you have to to shut down his magic phase and try to get the Tzineetchian spell that prevents units from using a character's leadership and causes miscast on any double. That will really screw him up. Finally you need an assassin character. If you can take out his general then the entire army will fall apart. I don't know how much of this you already know...
Daemon lore of Nurgle can ruin his day as most undead are t3 so you can crush them with any spell that requires a t check. Finally, if I remember right there is a gift or magic item that negates magic weapons in base contact. Try that on a flyer and chase down that flier that's jacking you up. Remember as Undead he is ItP which means he can't flee from the charge. Use that to your advantage. Finally, if worse comes to worse load up on HoT with the flying gift and the choose your lore gift (yes I'm really bad with names), choose the lore of light and wipe the floor with him.

Screamers and flamers of Tzineetch can really screw him over as well. All those flaming attacks comming from teh flamers, and only his fling vamps able to deal with the screamers... You get the idea. I love Tzineetch personally. Rocks my opponent's world. I once took out 2k of warriors without a single casualty. 

A final option I will present is to MSU horrors. with 10 models they count as a l1 wizard giving a dispel die to help stop that cursed vampire magic. Every little bit helps and rthe extra spells in your magic phase can draw out his dispel die so you can get off your important spells like pandemonium. (I think you can have that. If not, sorry.)


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## 40rending (Jan 3, 2008)

post your army list and we can help you tweak your army to face vampires


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## Stuntiesrule (Mar 22, 2009)

my friend has soundly beat my vampires twice with his demons and both times he fielded a nurgle lord that whenever I wounded him he did something like one attack vs every unit in base to base, remember vamps don't have high toughness, however they don't run so throw multiple units at each guy and whittle him away, if you can kill his general somehow then his skeles will fade away on their own. may want to try flamers vampires don't have shooting so try and use that to your advantage.


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

I've been running with 5 screamers and 12 flamers, works wonders against all comers..... 42 or so shots on average at S4 and bs4....flamers will tear up skellies even in CC, the S5, 5+ ward and T4 tends to hurt skellies, add to that the two attacks, flamers are actually fairly decent in CC or shooting, lovely unit, very flexible, don't leave home without the maximum!


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## Jester12 (Jun 18, 2009)

NagashKhemmler said:


> I've been running with 5 screamers and 12 flamers, works wonders against all comers..... 42 or so shots on average at S4 and bs4....flamers will tear up skellies even in CC, the S5, 5+ ward and T4 tends to hurt skellies, add to that the two attacks, flamers are actually fairly decent in CC or shooting, lovely unit, very flexible, don't leave home without the maximum!


And everyone says daemons are cheesy. That would work and also do pretty well at ensuring no one ever wants to play a game with you ever again.


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

Jester12 said:


> And everyone says daemons are cheesy. That would work and also do pretty well at ensuring no one ever wants to play a game with you ever again.


"everyone" should learn how to play

Daemons are by far not the most powerful army, there is far worse than daemons (lizardmen anyone?!). I could accuse you of being cheesy by spamming warlocks and rattling guns just the same (which if you are a competitive skaven player is probably very likely...).

As a side note, demons are only powerful when led by a herald, aside from that they're quite weak (plague bearers have a measly T4 and 5+ save, with the herald you gain a 4+ regen, even so, that unit combo will set you back about 400 bloody points...). Take bloodletters, expensive, low toughness, bad save, I would hardly call that cheesy, as for flamers, well those 12 flamers would be nearly 400 points in one unit and susceptible to many other tactics. For me at least, flamers would be my answer to war machines so that I can bring my lord of change out from behind a forest and actually use it constructively.

In terms of cheesiness, I think daemons are quite low on the list compared to many armies. On top of that, all daemon units are highly specialised, they're great at one thing and one thing alone generally, so unless used in perfect unison they fall flat on their faces. If you are getting slammed by them, it may be worthwhile targeting the enemy player's heralds a bit more to help tip things in your favour slightly.

Finally, against skaven daemons aren't as powerful as many, your many attacks and horde styled army provides a huge challenge to the daemon player as you can swarm over them and destroy them SCR, their low save means you will take them down fairly easily and their high cost means you will most likely out attrition them. Their magic phase isn't really particularly devastating either unless they spam the hell out of pink horrors. (requiring a herald of nurgle and khorne to be effective, this leaves them usually with 9 or so powerdice, quite pitiful for the current state of warhammer...)


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## Spot The Grot (Jul 15, 2008)

Get a unit of flesh hounds and herald on juggernaut and pelt them at the enemies general.Have the heral challenge , job done.
Daemons are IMO the best army at the moment when people don't play tacticly with the other army.The cheese in the army is off the scale.

Flesh hounds are the best example.For their price you magic resistance 3! And 2 T4 wounds with a ward and S5 to boot. Against vampire these guys should do brilliantly. Their oly form of ranged damage is magic which you have a MR3 so they won't even get scratched.

Give the herald a juggernaut + armour of khorne + (i can't remeber the name of the sword but it gives you +1 strength).
Your hereald id getting a 0+ armour save an is now S7 which means he busts chriots (black coaches) or simply rips things to shreds.


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## Franko1111 (Jun 25, 2008)

wow forgot about this thread.:grin:

but now we have moved into large point games and playing more, he is now having the same problems i had as i'm shuting down the magic phase. I'll post the winning list in a minute.
edit: this is the list I flogged him with in a 3000pt game I was under but beat him soundly, and in spirt of the topic how could it be improved to smash vampires.
lords-1185
bloodthirster-550
-immortal fury
-obsidian armour
-firestorm blade

lord of change-635
-lvl 4
-twin heads
-flames of tzeench

hero's-835
herald of slannesh-340
-lvl 1
-many armed
-bsb
-banner of eternal chaos glory

herald of tzeench-165
-power vortex
-flying horror

herald of tzeench-165
-power vortex
-flying horror

herald of tzeench-165
-power vortex
-flying horror

core-486
demonettes-210
-15
-banner, musician

bloodletters-138
-10
-banner, musician

bloodletters-138
-10
-banner, musician

special-350

flesh hounds-175
-5

flesh hounds-175
-5

total-2856


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

I can make cheesier High Elf Armies, Cheesier Vampire Armies (by far) and more. Daemons just don't have the ability to cheese it up and are highly vulnerable to many things.

For example, daemons have a war save, but it's only a 5+ which is lower than many troops of equivalent cost. They still get it versus high strength attacks but numerous low strength attacks really hurt their expensive units. They lack ranged weapons, their magic isn't cost effective compared to many, I could go on and on but there are many weaknesses to a daemon army if you wish to search them out.

I.e. their main form of magic comes from using greater daemons, costing in at 550 points or so to get a lord level wizard...


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## Jester12 (Jun 18, 2009)

NagashKhemmler said:


> I could accuse you of being cheesy by spamming warlocks and rattling guns just the same (which if you are a competitive skaven player is probably very likely...).


Bold statement considering you don't know me. Here's my cheesy skaven list http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=42937 Warlocks-1 Ratling guns-0. Anyways I love playing against daemons since I'm not everyone. I don't have problems beating the "BIG 3" nor did I decide who the "BIG 3" were. But, if you were to start a poll right now asking what the cheesiest army was daemons are going to be up there if not #1. I just stated that 12 flamers is indeed a cheesy win at all costs tactic because as you said 42 shots that hit on unmodified 3's with no penalty for multiple shots "works wonders".


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

Jester12 said:


> Bold statement considering you don't know me. Here's my cheesy skaven list http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=42937 Warlocks-1 Ratling guns-0. Anyways I love playing against daemons since I'm not everyone. I don't have problems beating the "BIG 3" nor did I decide who the "BIG 3" were. But, if you were to start a poll right now asking what the cheesiest army was daemons are going to be up there if not #1. I just stated that 12 flamers is indeed a cheesy win at all costs tactic because as you said 42 shots that hit on unmodified 3's with no penalty for multiple shots "works wonders".


I wasn't say you used the warlocks/ratlings sorry, I just meant that most skaven do and one could call that cheesy.

Flamers don't hit on unmodified 3's, they have no penalty for multiple shots, they do however get move and range penalties, so generally they will be hitting on 4/5, wounding on 3/4 (champion has bs5 though). So they aren't massively powerful. And at between 30 and 40 points a model they are quite expensive. I think there are more powerful combinations than 12 flamers but that's just me, personally I just love tzeentch so in my army I have horrors, Lord of Change, flamers and screamers, but that's me. For me it's more that my options for rares are quite limited and not wanting bloodcrushers (too expensive) or the nurgle daemon, it's the only one left. I mostly got them because gunlines, especially dwarven are quite prevalent in my club and taking flamers enables me to neutralise cannons and use my GDOT which otherwise gets cannon sniped...

I think if you use the special characters daemons can be quite nasty, but then again the points cost of that is insane so you would be easily outmaneuvered if you did that. The standard character assortment for daemons is around 1000 points conservatively. I haven't read of or seen many daemon armies in tournaments, in fact they're one of the rare teams, only 1 guy at our club has them and it isn't a finished army...

For the record, I also have a skaven force and love them to bits .

You have intrigued me, why do you feel daemons are overpowered/too powerful? I'm just curious as I haven't heard that argument before.


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## Jester12 (Jun 18, 2009)

Personally I don't think daemons are overpowered myself but if you frequent forums you'll see the term BIG 3 which refers to the 3 most "powerful" armies out there. I think anything can be beaten with any army as I have beasts of chaos that still manage to win over half their games and are clearly the "weakest" army out there. I agree with your posts but in the 40k powered world we live in tactics have gone by the wayside and it's a matter of how cheesy of a list you can make. So most of these players that have trouble beating these big 3 probably deploy their units in a manner that looks ok and then march forward and fight a head to head battle no matter what they're up against. There are a few things that are very powerful for their points. Mathematecally, plague bearers with a herald essentially have a 3+ ward save unless being hit by flaming attacks. Flamers can wreck entire armies especially coupled with screamers march blocking units trying to advance. These don't mean automatic wins though they just need to be dealt with in strategic ways which is what the average person has trouble with. I'm not saying they are cheesy per say but people believe them to be cheesy because they don't know how to deal with these high priced units. Ex. I bait and flank plague bearers with clanrats forcing them to have to do 6 wounds to even win combat. With the plague bearer average stat line even with the herald they are hard pressed to do 3 wounds and they will eventually dwindle down to nothing. As for flamers I have a storm banner making them -2 to hit. 42 shots hitting on 6's are still pretty ineffective and eventually (if all goes well of course) my 2 gutter runners tunneling teams will be out and in combat with flamers before the banner wears off. In summary, the BIG 3 aren't cheesy or overpowered in my opinion, they are just the easiest to win with when playing someone who doesn't know how to tactically run their army like a well oiled machine.

P.S. Good to see another member of the underempire


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

Jester12 said:


> Personally I don't think daemons are overpowered myself but if you frequent forums you'll see the term BIG 3 which refers to the 3 most "powerful" armies out there. I think anything can be beaten with any army as I have beasts of chaos that still manage to win over half their games and are clearly the "weakest" army out there. I agree with your posts but in the 40k powered world we live in tactics have gone by the wayside and it's a matter of how cheesy of a list you can make. So most of these players that have trouble beating these big 3 probably deploy their units in a manner that looks ok and then march forward and fight a head to head battle no matter what they're up against. There are a few things that are very powerful for their points. Mathematecally, plague bearers with a herald essentially have a 3+ ward save unless being hit by flaming attacks. Flamers can wreck entire armies especially coupled with screamers march blocking units trying to advance. These don't mean automatic wins though they just need to be dealt with in strategic ways which is what the average person has trouble with. I'm not saying they are cheesy per say but people believe them to be cheesy because they don't know how to deal with these high priced units. Ex. I bait and flank plague bearers with clanrats forcing them to have to do 6 wounds to even win combat. With the plague bearer average stat line even with the herald they are hard pressed to do 3 wounds and they will eventually dwindle down to nothing. As for flamers I have a storm banner making them -2 to hit. 42 shots hitting on 6's are still pretty ineffective and eventually (if all goes well of course) my 2 gutter runners tunneling teams will be out and in combat with flamers before the banner wears off. In summary, the BIG 3 aren't cheesy or overpowered in my opinion, they are just the easiest to win with when playing someone who doesn't know how to tactically run their army like a well oiled machine.
> 
> P.S. Good to see another member of the underempire


I saw the plague bearers with the herald and saw the potential power, but naturally if you kill the herald they suddenly become quite weak for points compared to previously.

I agree with you on people not knowing how to fight them, they have a lot of weird/unique/interesting abilities which are difficult to deal with. Play an expert TK player and see how hard that is and they're rated as one of the LITTLE three lol.

Flamers surprisingly are quite powerful in combat aside from a crap WS.

2 attacks at S5 with a 5+ ward, T4 and 2 wounds is pretty nasty if you ask me, against many many opponents.


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## Franko1111 (Jun 25, 2008)

on this note the only way I can beat skaven is with banner that makes all units within 12
stubbon or else its a loss from the start. I have seen the skaven as one of the big three as the guy who plays them spams rats and warlock and kill me and the vampire player and we would like to think that we are the best players in town with the BIG 3 armys but thats not the case. and while I'm talking about this what about warriors of chaos with a 16 point model with ws 5 and a 2+ save? and don't get me started about there knights.

P.S. no army is all powerful.


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

Franko1111 said:


> on this note the only way I can beat skaven is with banner that makes all units within 12
> stubbon or else its a loss from the start. I have seen the skaven as one of the big three as the guy who plays them spams rats and warlock and kill me and the vampire player and we would like to think that we are the best players in town with the BIG 3 armys but thats not the case. and while I'm talking about this what about warriors of chaos with a 16 point model with ws 5 and a 2+ save? and don't get me started about there knights.
> 
> P.S. no army is all powerful.


High Elves have the best win rating of them all in terms of just pure victory.....
Followed by Dark Elves.

But I agree with Franko, all armies can be beaten. But I think some of them are more easily beaten than others. We have an ogre player at my club who manages to beat most armies and ogres in general have some serious shortfalls.

At the end of the day, it's worth mentioning that I don't pick an army based upon its power/weakness. I pick armies that I love the look and feel of. Being quite an accomplished painter, quite possibly the best at my club, I'm always seeking a challenge, the bright colours and surreal nature of the daemons to me, was challenging for a painter and this is one of the main reasons I picked them. On top of that I've always had a thing in fantasy games for daemons and the undead, because they are the two primary evil forces in a world usually, the ultimate evils.

Finally, the lord of sorcery and change quite picked my fancy, so instead of following the tried and true method like most people (blood thirster) I chose a lord of change for my lord choice and the maximum amount of tzeentch models available (screamers, pink horrors, flamers..).


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## LongseerEldrad (Aug 23, 2009)

I think there are certain armies which are designed to beat other armies, for example, my friend's W elf army was constantly beaten till I came along with my VCs and he beat me only suffering 1 casualty (he killed my general on the first turn with a spell)
However you say High Elves can win easily, another friend got 500points of HEs then switched to Deamons because (quote: ) they're so GOOD. Then I fought him with a 1500 point VCs and pwned him . And of course then an empire army came and masacred me with his detachments (and he was scared of me?)
By the way, which armies are the BIG 3?


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

LongseerEldrad said:


> I think there are certain armies which are designed to beat other armies, for example, my friend's W elf army was constantly beaten till I came along with my VCs and he beat me only suffering 1 casualty (he killed my general on the first turn with a spell)
> However you say High Elves can win easily, another friend got 500points of HEs then switched to Deamons because (quote: ) they're so GOOD. Then I fought him with a 1500 point VCs and pwned him . And of course then an empire army came and masacred me with his detachments (and he was scared of me?)
> By the way, which armies are the BIG 3?


High Elves
Dark Elves
Daemons

In that order iirc.


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## bob_the_grea (Jul 27, 2009)

nope, close but no cigar the top three armies in tournaments last season was

daemons of chaos
vampire counts
dark elves



funny story is that my friend went to gt heat 3 last season, faced 4 vampire armies, 1 daemon army and one d.elf army, and he was using dark elves.


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

bob_the_grea said:


> nope, close but no cigar the top three armies in tournaments last season was
> 
> daemons of chaos
> vampire counts
> ...


You sure you aren't thinking of your own tournaments and not the worldwide tournament scene...


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## Jester12 (Jun 18, 2009)

NagashKhemmler said:


> You sure you aren't thinking of your own tournaments and not the worldwide tournament scene...


Nope he's right. Hence my argument on why people view Daemons, VC, and Dark Elves as "cheesy".


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