Chaos Daemons Review Part X: General Tactics, lists, and closing notes.

Chaos Daemons Review Part X: General Tactics, a list, and closing notes.

So, we’ve gone through all the units: some are awesome, some are painful to look at, but throughout the whole book we see some weaknesses and some strengths.

 this will be updated later.

Strengths:
A fantastic ability to destroy any and all non-vehicles
Incredibly durable scoring
Great Melee units
always get the first shooting phase


Weaknesses:
Have to scrape and pay through the nose for Anti-tank
almost total inability to handle AV13-14
No transports
Have to stand around without moving or assaulting for a turn
relying on unmodifiable reserve rolls
might get unpreferred wave

In today’s competitive environment, that is to say mech saturation, these are very profound weaknesses indeed. To overcome this, I cram Bolt everywhere I can. Do you want to see one of my lists? You won’t tell, will you? promise? ok good. here you go.
but remember, you promised.

2000 pts
HQ
Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Bolt, MoS, WaL 110
Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Bolt, MoS, WaL 110
Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Bolt, MoS, WaL 110
Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Bolt, MoS, WaL 110

Elites
5 Flamers, Bolt of Tzeentch 205
4 Flamers, Bolt of Tzeentch 170
6 Bloodcrushers, Fury of Khorne 250

Troops
5 pink horrors, Bolt of Tzeentch, Changeling 100
5 pink horrors, Bolt of Tzeentch 95
5 Plaguebearers 75
5 plaguebearers 75

Fast Attack
5 Screamers 80

Heavy Support
Soul Grinder, Phelgm, Tongue 185
Soul Grinder, Phelgm, Tongue 185
Daemon Prince, Mark of Tzeentch, Bolt of Tzeentch 140

My waves are split like so:
Team 1:
Herald of Tzeentch
Herald of Tzeentch
5 Plaguebearers
5 Screamers
Tz Daemon Prince, bolt
5 Horrors (bolt and changeling)
6 Bloodcrushers, Fury
4 Flamers, bolt

Team 2:
Herald of Tzeentch
Herald of Tzeentch
5 Plaguebearers
Soul Grinder
Soul Grinder
5 horrors(bolt)
5 flamers, bolt

The Pink Horrors are my aggressive, midfield scoring, while my plaguebearers go to ground on their own objective. The Heralds fly around shooting people out of transports for the Pink horrors, bloodcrushers, flamers and soul Grinders to mutilate. The Heralds also use Gaze to down some infantry as well. The soul Grinders hang back and kill heavy tanks or disembarked infantry, and counter-assault anything that assaults the pink horrors, while staying out of melta range. The Tzeentch Daemon Prince gives supporting anti-tank or assault where needed.

You’ll see that the whole thing is kind of light on close combat, and that’s ok- most of the time, staying back and shooting is a good idea, but you always need something to beat stuff up.


Non-Suicide Flamers?
NOW I heard tell that some people use flamers as suicide units. This is not the best use of them, as they are just too expensive to be used as that.


First, we need to look at a flamer's threat range. They can move 12", and shoot anything. If we want to use Bolt, that gives us a 36" threat range. If we want to use Warpfire, it gives us a 30" threat range. If we want to use Breath, however, we only have a 12-16" threat range.


Yes, the flamer template is 8" long, so it could be 20", but each flamer would only hit one model at that range. There needs to be at least 4" of template (half it's length) over the unit for it to be anything near a threat, and preferably all 7" (you have to stay 1" away from enemy models).


So we want the flamers to use any of their weapons, as they have a pretty awesome variety. We want to keep them out of assault range, and within their shortest threat range: so that's around 13"-16" from enemies. At this distance, they can kill tanks, shoot light infantry from afar, or get in close and burninate elite infantry: this versatility is their greatest strength.


However, this is only a tiny fraction of their potential: they can be combo'd with other units to devastating effect. Try, say, bloodcrushers. This effectively removes the flamers' need to stay out of 12", as the bloodcrushers can take the charge.


If they are out of assault range, the flamers can screen them, giving both a 4++ against shooting until they can close: simply move and run the bloodcrushers, then let the flamers jump in front, and shoot too!


Once they get close enough for the bloodcrushers to assault, let the flamers jump forward and burn the unit first, then the bloodcrushers can assault the same unit. And if the unit is in a transport, the flamers have a non-ignorable chance of opening it (between Bolt and Breath) for the bloodcrushers.


The bloodcrushers can probably kill the unit entirely (they are charging, remember?) and use their consolidation to protect the flamers from counter-assault. Rinse and repeat- with careful positioning, this can work again and again.


Bloodletters don't work as well, they aren't tough enough. Nurgle could work, but you need to roll well for S&P.
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So, this is the end of the review. Any requests for what's next? I got some ideas lined up, but I'd like to hear yours.