# Which is the best Greater Daemon?



## NoPoet

As per thread title, it seems lots of people go for the Bloodthirster and Lord of Change, with the Great Unclean One in distant third and Keeper of Secrets out in the wilderness somewhere.

I just wanted people to point out their thoughts about the strength and weakness of each Daemon.
*
Great Unclean One of Nurgle*

My total favourite, this monster gave me nightmares as a child, although they're considerably less scary after reading loads of 40K novels where Marines simply don't contract disease even after fighting Nurgle daemons. 

*Advantages:* Almost impossible to kill esp. with Trappings of Nurgle; only Greater Daemon to possess anything other than a hand weapon; strongest Greater Daemon in the game for the first round of combat; formidable spell selection; provides a wide range of tactical options.

*Disadvantages:* Vastly expensive if fully upgraded, and probably _should_ be upgraded; not combat effective against hordes, even compared to the Lord of Change for some reason; poor WS for a Lord-level entity; unable to take dispel abilities; limited Movement capability (Shanks' Pony for a model whose base cost is 450 points).

*Bloodthirster of Khorne
*
Apparently the archetypal daemon which requires no subtlety or finesse; the mere mention of a Bloodthirster could cause entire armies not to turn up. It's the iPhone of the daemon world, 'cos everyone's got one, even if they could do better with something else... anything else.

*Advantages: *Hugely potent in combat; good equipment; only Greater Daemon to get an armour save (unless you upgrade a GUO); no skill or tactical thinking required to use it effectively; inspires dread in opponents; now that the Tomb Kings have got monstrous reinforcements, there is a point to spending 75 points on getting S10, so the Bloodthirster can truly kill anything; resistant to magic; flies.

*Disadvantages:* Unable to use magic; some rules/items work against flying units; no ranged attacks; some upgrades are highly expensive; will be turned into a pincushion by any opponent with a brain (and a large number of loaded guns).

*Tzeentchian Lord of Change
*
Another hugely popular option, with some incredible models available and the ability to get Loremaster for any one Battle Magic lore, replacing the crap ("all my spells are random hits, random strength missile attacks") and rather unpopular Tzeentch lore. When you check its basic stat line, it's not hard to see why the LoC is so popular.

*Advantages:* Loremaster (Tzeentch); can use a Battle Magic lore instead (yaay!); extremely potent sorceror when upgraded; very good all round stat line, so could take out most Monsters in close combat, which is perhaps not what you'd expect from a wizard. (Case in point: Lammasu.) Even gets a potent hand to hand weapon if you can spare the points, which would probably be better spent on boosting magical abilities.

*Disadvantages:* Starts as a lvl 2 wizard for some reason; requires expensive upgrades to be the consummate wizard.

* Slaaneshi Keeper of Secrets:
*
Aww, bless! No-one seems to take this beast into battle any more! But with a very impressive stat line and some useful spells, plus a beautiful model, the Keeper is a keeper.

*Advantages: *Tremendously dangerous in combat; useful against heavily armoured opponents; some genuinely potent magic, particularly against low to average LD armies; genuinely impressive even without upgrades.

*Disadvantages:* Magic is quite good, but might not be the best choice against high-Ld armies unless you also take the Masque and use her in a tag team; upgrade options have caused worldwide confusion (see the rules for Siren Song); Spirit Swallower is ridiculously expensive and doesn't allow other upgrades since it uses the total allowance, so take a Great Unclean One instead if you're so concerned about keeping your Lord alive; Torment Sword is only 5 points, compared to other Daemons' weapons ranging between 25pts (Khorne) to 75pts (Nurgle), which tells you something about their comparable effectiveness.
Slaanesh abilities aren't quite as, I don't know, awesome or even interesting as the other Gods'.

*Cyberdemon
*
Wait, how did he get in here?


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## Tim/Steve

LoC is blatantly the styrongest for the current edition and a thirster is awesome.... but I had to vote for a GUO. I have one in my 2k tally list and they're just funny. Love the nurgle magic, love the gifts and the 10W thing is nice too


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## NoPoet

The Great Unclean one is walking it at 3 votes to 0/0/0. Come on GW, make some plastic Plaguebearers, I promise I'll leg it to the shops and buy 2 boxes, or maybe 3 if the models aren't crap.

EDIT: A lot of stuff I've read suggests Nurgle units are the most fun. Even the artists said in WD UK that Nurgle daemons are the ones they prefer to draw for the elements of horror and (they claimed) humour. 

EDIT 2: I'm going to start a Nurgle revolution.


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## Konrad_von_Carstein

I want to say Bloodthirster but I have very limited experience with fighting demons and this is the only one I have fought so take it with a grain of salt.

that being said...

Konrad thinks that Konrad is the greatest of all greater demons


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## NoPoet

Lol who voted for the Cyberdemon? I think we should give him a write-up.

*Cyberdemon of Satan
*
Described as "a rocket-launching skyscraper with goat legs", the Cyberdemon is the great grandfather of our nightmares. Armed with sufficient firepower to annihilate an army of Skaven slave spam and almost impervious to wounds, Satan's strongest warrior is a psychotic tower of destruction.

*Advantages:* Insane blend of technology and mystical power, rendering the daemon practically immune to damage; ignores blast damage; devastating firepower; immune to psychology; inspired more genuine terror than other boss-type monsters can ever come close to.

*Disadvantages:* Significant target; subject to Stupidity; no close combat attack; unable to field the Cyberdemon in a Warhammer army.


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## DeathKlokk

Bob, Bob is the best Greater Demon.


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## LukeValantine

Your making me want to make a cyber daemon as a gargantuan creature for apocalypse.


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## NoPoet

Someone wrote a terrific Doom Codex, but I can't find it, and like an idiot I didn't bookmark it in Firefox. There are quite a few different Doom army lists out there but this one (featuring all the pre-Doom 3 monsters) was awesome. The Pain Elemental summoned D3 Lost Souls per turn who formed a unit until the Lost Souls flew off to attack a target. The basic ranged attacks of demons were sorted into 3 categories: plasmic burst, plasmic shot and plasmic blast (IIRC) which accurately interpreted each enemy's attacks without having to create 23 different ranged abilities for each specific species of demon. A huge amount of thought had gone into it.

There is one not so good Doom codex worth mentioning for the Arch-Vile's inability to resurrect powerful monsters. Those monsters (Cyberdemon, Spider Demon and Arch-Vile) all have the "When it's dead, it's dead" rule. Quite a cool name for a special rule.


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## Tim/Steve

I'm a little surprised few people have voted for the KoS: march 20" intot he enemy's face and then use siren song next turn... very nasty combination. Then again Ld based magic has been nerfed, but I still love the Kos anyway.

Ah, WTH... I love all the GDs


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## olderplayer

The greater daemons have really taken a hit in effective in 8th editions, with the prevalence of cannons, new shooting rules (no guess range), TLOS (can now see and shot through forests), and with many tournaments still not having 8th edition appropriate terrain (hills not high enough, lack of impassible terrain with height and width to provide cover, and lack of buildings to provide effective cover from line of sight. Consider a LoC that is withered (skaven or lore of shadown RIP spell) down to T4 or even T3 and then getting shot up by a combination of BS and war machine shooting with only a 5+ ward save. It can die in a single turn against a good shooting army. At least Kairos can survive with a 3+ ward save most of the time. 

I voted for the GUO due to his greater number of wounds allowing him to survive initial cannon shooting and synergy with a Tallyman army. I also think his magic is under-estimated and his save options are slightly better than for all but the BT. He needs to be paired with at least a HoTz with say lore of life (restore wounds) and spell breaker. I see him still being played even when DoC special characters are banned (as they are in most tourneys and games in our area).

I voted second for the BT. He is fierce in combat. However, I found that it was a mistake to charge him solo into certain units, especially with banners and ranks. A very tough to kill and strong (with magic weapons or GWs) character with a good ward save and decent armour save can limit the wounds caused by BT and, in turn, wound BT and tie him up in a challenge. Then, if BT losing combat, he can pop with a bad daemonic instabiilty roll. I've seen it happen twice in battles. 

Lord of Change is excellent as a castor and would be up higher in the ranking if he could get a better ward save or decent armour save. (I think that the daemon lore of tzeentch is under-rated but not the optimal choice. The glean magic is one of the all-time cheap spell stealers in the game, and boon of tzeentch is better than a dark elf's power of darkness spell. Also, the three magic missile spells are really overpowerd for their casting costs but make the LoC vulnerable to being shot or targetted with magic in order to cast them. Gifts of chaos are under-rated due to the ability to affect units in combat.) LoC can fight in support in a combat but is best used as a dedicated lore of life castor (successful cast restores a wound, throne of vines reduces threat of miscast damage, flesh to stone is huge for daemons units like bloodletters). I just find with the new direct damage spells and new shooting rules, a LoC is just too vulnerable. 

Kairos, a the special lord of change, is one of the best special character in the game and better than a LoC because having his ward save is 3+ and ability to choose spells from a variety of lores. For that reason, however, Kairos is often banned.


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## NoPoet

The Keeper of Secrets does seem to be underrated. Useful magic against low-Ld races, or high-Ld races when paired with the Masque or the banner that reduces Ld by 2. Huge stat line, a mincing machine for well-armoured hordes.

The Nurgle spell deck IMO is the best of the bunch. Rancid Visitation is potentially catastrophic, you can also take a magic item which allows you to cast it at very low cost (theoretically allowing wizards who roll the spell to cast it twice, once as a spell, once as a bound spell). Even the basic Nurgle spell will destroy an enemy character or monster in combat by rendering him totally ineffective. 

The GUO also gets Trappings of Nurgle: 4+ armour save, 5+ ward save, oh and 4+ Regen save. Try killing that son of a bitch when you've got five daemon regiments also closing in.

EDIT: I should point out that I'm into the White Dwarf gaming ethos of having fun rather than being "gamey" or ultra-competitive, and I intensely dislike opponents who pick armies that are purely designed to win at the expense of tactics (Slave spam, assault cannon spam etc), or fun (ultra-shooty Marine armies who simply sit in their deployment zone behind cover).


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## aboytervigon

Regen and ward can't both be taken.


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## TheSpore

Ive never run daemons in WFB, but in 40k I just love the KoS, he is fast as hell and can jump from combat to combat and nother ever gets to strike before him.

Anyway on the CyberDemon I have been considering making a Cyberdemon conversion for a long freaking time, I just love doom and it would make a good lookin DP model.


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