Talk:Codex - Chaos Daemons Angry Initiative Edition

Monthly Updates

• Starting from Feburary updates for this page will be monthly, all changes should be made between the last day of the month and the first two days of the next month.

The montly updating is to make it easier to play with the codex, it´s a bother to have to check the codex every time you want to play a game.

Wording updates don´t have to be montly and can and should be updated whenever bad wording/writing is found. Angry Pirate (talk) 20:39, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

June Update

• Black Cleaver AP 3

• Exalted Herald options

• Skarbrand Preferred Enemy removal

Discussions

Title of discussion

Daemon Formations

I have become a rising fan of the decurion detachments. While they remain more of a free choice (as in, each formation leaves options for the players) I feel like they add flavor to the game. As such, here are my suggestion for a decurion type Daemon Detachment:

Chaos Daemons Formations

Core

Blood Legion of Khorne

Formation:

0-1 Exalted Herald of Khorne OR Blood Throne of Khorne OR 1 Greater Daemon of Khorne OR 1 Daemon Prince

2+ Units of Bloodletters

0+ Units of Bloodcrushers

0-2 Skull Cannons of Khorne

Restrictions:

The Formation must include at least 3 units. All models that can take the Mark of Khorne must take the Mark of Khorne. If the formation does not include an Exalted Herald of Khorne, a Greater Daemon of Khorne or a Daemon Prince, one model MUST be upgraded to a Herald of Khorne.

Special Rules:

Eternal Crusade: Models with this special rule may use their Sweeping Advance move to move within 1" of their enemy during your Assault Phase provided at least one model from the unit moves into base contact with an enemy model. Your unit counts as having made a disordered charge and may not strike in the ensuing combat. Overwatch may be performed against the unit as normal.

Fatetwister Legion

Formation:

0-1 Exalted Herald of Tzeentch OR 1 Greater Daemon of Tzeentch OR 1 Daemon Prince

2+ Units of Pink Horrors of Tzeentch

0+ Units of Flamers of Tzeentch

Restrictions:

The Formation must include at least 3 units. All models that can take the Mark of Tzeentch must take the Mark of Tzeentch. If the formation does not include an Exalted Herald of Tzeentch, a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch or a Daemon Prince, one model MUST be upgraded to a Herald of Tzeentch.

Special Rules:

Power Conduits: Whenever a model from this formation sucessfully manifests a Psychic power from the Discipline of Change, choose a unit of Pink Horrors of Tzeentch within 12". This unit gains +1 Attack and may shoot one additional shot with its Pink Fire during its next shooting phase. A unit may only gain this effect once per turn.

Plague Host

Formation:

0-1 Exalted Herald of Nurgle OR 1 Greater Daemon of Nurgle OR 1 Daemon Prince

2+ Units of Plaguebearers

0+ Plague Drones of Nurgle

Restrictions:

The Formation must include at least 3 units. All models that can take the Mark of Nurgle must take the Mark of Nurgle. If the formation does not include an Exalted Herald of Nurgle, a Greater Daemon of Nurgle or a Daemon Prince, one model MUST be upgraded to a Herald of Nurgle.

Special Rules:

A Plague of Flies: All models without the Daemon of Nurgle special rule or Mark of Nurgle within 6" of a model from this formation receives a -1 to hit modifier on both Ranged attacks and Close Combat attacks.

Gathering Orgy

Formation:

• 0-1 Exalted Herald of Slaanesh OR 1 Greater Daemon of Slaanesh OR 1 Daemon Prince

• 2+ Units of Daemonettes

• 0+ Fiends of Slaanesh

Restrictions:

The Formation must include at least 3 units. All models that can take the Mark of Slaanesh must take the Mark of Slaanesh. If the formation does not include an Exalted Herald of Slaanesh, a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh or a Daemon Prince, one model MUST be upgraded to a Herald of Slaanesh.

Special Rules:

Dance of Despair: Enemy Units without the Daemon of Slaanesh special rule or Mark of Slaanesh within 12" of at least one unit of Daemonettes from this formation must roll 3D6 when taking Fear tests and discard the lowest result.

Extra Herald Items

Gifts of Chaos

Messenger of the Gods: The Herald may summon an appropriate unit of lesser daemons at the end of this turns Assault Phase, provided he has done one of the following things during this turn:

- If the Herald is an Exalted Herald of Khorne and has killed 3 enemy models OR killed an enemy character in a challenge
- If the Herald is an Exalted Herald of Tzeentch and has manifested a Psychic Power which killed 5 or more enemy models OR destroyed an enemy Vehicle or killed an enemy Monstrous Creature.
- If the Herald is an Exalted Herald of Nurgle and has taken at least 3 wounds this turn.
- If the Herald is an Exalted Herald of Slaanesh and has inflicted at least 2 wounds with the Rending special rule.

Heralds always summon the Lesser Daemons appropriate to their god, e.g. An Exalted Herald of Slaanesh would summon Daemonettes of Slaanesh - 20pts

Aura of Discord: Friendly units with the Daemon special rule within 12" of the Exalted Herald gain the Stubborn special rule - 15pts

Gifts of Slaughter

May take one of the following:

- Black Cleaver - 25 pts. 

Range	S	AP	Type
-	User	5	Melee, Shred, Fleshbane, Specialist Weapon

- Darkfire Reaper - 35 pts

Range	S	AP	Type
-	User	2	Melee, Haywire, Specialist Weapon

• You must choose one of the following upgrades:

- Locus of Total Rejection - 15 pts. 

Psychic powers cannot be targeted at a model with this upgrade, his unit and any unit which is in combat with this model or his unit.

- Locus of Boundless Fury - 30 pts. 

All Daemons of Khorne in the same unit as the model with this upgrade gain the Rampage special rule.

- Locus of Undying Wrath - 30 pts. 

The model with this upgrade as well as any models in the same unit as the model gain the Feel No Pain special rule.

Purity of Aggression: Whenever the Herald or his unit generates a Blood Tithe, it instead generates two Blood Tithe Points - 10pts

Rage of Khorne: The Herald gains the Hatred (Everything!) Special rule until he has killed an enemy model in close combat - 10pts

Banner of Rage: Unique. All units within 12" of the Banner of Rage during the start of their Movement Phase must take a Leadership test with a -1 penalty or move as far as possible towards the closest visible enemy model during their Movement Phase, and must if possible declare a Charge this turn. The unit may not fire any weapons which would prevent it from assaulting nor run unless declaring a charge is impossible - 45pts

Hand of Khorne: The Herald is granted +1 Strength - 10pts

Talisman of Burning Blood: Choose at the start of your turn: All enemy units within 12" loses the Furious Charge, Zealot, Rage and Hatred special rules if they have them OR the wearer and his unit gains the Zealot special rule - 35pts

Praise of Khorne: The Herald increases the armour save granted by his Blood-Forged Armour to 2+ - 20pts

Blessings of Lust

• You must choose one of the following upgrades:

- Locus of Beguilement - 20 pts. 

Enemy units must re-roll succesful fear tests taken against models with this upgrade. Models with this upgrade can re-roll failed Sweeping Advance rolls.

- Locus of Swiftness - 30 pts.

All Daemons of Slaanesh in a unit with a model with this upgrade gain the Hit and Run and Crusader special rules.

- Locus of Lethality - 50 pts.

All Daemons of Slaanesh in a unit with a model with this upgrade, as well as the model itself, gain the Shred special rule.

Aura of Acquiescence: All enemy models in the same combat as the Herald must roll a D6 and add 4. If the result is higher than the model's leadership that model does not fight in the ensuing sub-fight phase and instead attacks its own unit - 40pts

Piercing Shriek: Once per game, the Herald may use this ability during her Close Combat phase to reduce the initiative of all enemy units within 12" to 1 until the end of the turn - 15pts

Supernatural Beauty: Enemies in a challenge with the Herald gain -1 Attack - 5pts

Nurgle Aligned Options

Cross-Breed: The model increases its toughness to 6, gains the Fleshbane special rule and gains the unit type Beast - 40pts

Corpulent Immensity: The model gains +1 Wound and the It Will Not Die special rule - 10pts

Fly-Host: Models wishing to strike the Herald in Close Combat gains a -1 hit modifier - 10pts

Pandemic Staff: One use only. Instead of firing a weapon, the Herald may use the Pandemic Staff to inflict a wound on target model within 12" and line of sight. "Look Out Sirs" are allowed. If that kills it, place a Large Blast on the model before removing it. All models underneath the marker take a hit with the following profile:

Range	S	AP	Type
-	1	3	Poison (4+)

The Pandemic Staff may also be used as a close combat weapon with the following profile:

Range	S	AP	Type
-	+2	4	Melee, Poison (4+), Unwieldy

-65pts

Plague Banner: At the start of each Close Combat phase sub-phase in which the Herald with the Plague Banner is engaged in Close Combat, all models within 12" must take a Toughness test. Any model that fails takes a single wound with no armour saves allowed. Models with the Daemons of Nurgle Special rule will only fail these tests on rolls of 6 - 50pts

Tzeentch Aligned Options

• You must choose one of the following upgrades:

- Locus of Transmogrification - 30 pts.

All Daemons of Tzeentch in a unit with a model with this upgrade can re-roll failed Invulnerable saves.

- Locus of Change - 40 pts.

Change the AP, of all the Blue Fire and Pink Fire of all Daemons of Tzeentch in the same unit as the model with this upgrade by, to 4 and it´s strength to d6+1.

- Locus of Conjuration - 60 pts. 

The SUMMONING psychic power can summon 8 Horrors and 1 Herald of Tzeentch instead of 10 Horrors as long as the model with this upgrade is alive. Note that this means they gain the Favour of Tzeentch.

Eye of Tzeentch: Once per game, the Herald may re-roll one failed Psychic Test, armour save, invulnerable save or characteristic test - 10pts

Ecstatic Duplication: Once per game, when the Herald loses his final wound, place two pink horror models within 3" of him. They form a separate unit regardless of any previously joined unit. If the herald was locked in combat, the Pink horrors will be placed in the Close Combat. At the start of your next turn, replace the two Pink Horrors with the removed Herald of Tzeentch or Exalted Herald of Tzeentch - 25pts

Flaming Arm: The Herald gains a Shooting Weapon with the following profile:

Name	Range	S	AP	Type
Flaming Arm	Template	D6+1	D6-1	Assault 1

- 15pts

Talisman of Tzeentch: At the start of your psychic phase, choose one effect to last until the end of your next psychic phase. Either gain D3 extra warp charges during this Psychic phase or subtract D3 Warp Charges from your opponents pool during his Psychic phase - 35pts

Massive Intellect: The Herald may generate an extra psychic power at the start of the game - 10pts

HQ

Skarbrand

• Skarbrand giving Preferred Enemy to units within 12" is incredibly problematic and uncharacteristic. It encourages opponents to keep him alive until they feel like killing him (not as if he is easy to kill though, however it feels silly that his own ability is killing him in a phase which isn't close combat). Speaking of which it is a little weird that he is encouraging things which aren't close combat in the first place. Without having read the lore I think what his aura does is make people angry, not give them the necessary knowledge of their enemies to kill them better at range. Should be duly noted that this can also be somewhat abused by non-Khorne units making him almost better in non-Khorne armies just playing him for his body and aura. My suggestion is to reduce his wounds to 7 and change his ability to grant Counter-Attack, Crusader, Rampage or re-roll to wound rolls of 1 during the CC-phase. Just suggestions, but I definitely think the Preferred enemy aura should go.
• I don´t really think you want to keep a monster like Skarbrand alive while he is within 12". You are most likely going to be using every bit of fire power and hope to take him out.

I can find a fluff justification for it, maybe bloodshed just happens around him? Maybe he makes everyone have hemophilia?

You´re are right about him probably being better with other daemons (Tzeentch comes to mind). I won´t ever reduce his wounds though, it´s very, very important that they remain at 8.

Troops

Pink Horrors of Tzeentch

• Our Daemon player is currently expressing distaste for the Pink Horrors. Mainly their offence is not worth it in his opinion. A Daemon player is currently paying 24 points for 2 hits with SD6 and APD6. Their limited range often puts them in a situation where they will only be able to get off a single volley before getting locked into close combat. Despite their enhanced close combat abilities they are still not exactly good at close combat. My suggestions are as follows for changes which to playtest:

- 2+D3 and AP: 3+D3 (or perhaps 2+D3. Not certain yet however). 
- Change BS to 3 and perhaps WS to 2
- Change them back to Brotherhood of Psykers. I am personally against this option as I felt each model had too small an impact when being a Brotherhood of Psykers. 

I must admit I also find their effectiveness is too limited. Despite them being able to Deep Strike, they are too weak and random a unit to compete with the other Troop choices of the current Angry Daemon Codex.

Taking away randomness pains me though, but I must agree that the Pink Horrors are far from a top-tier unit. - The Ravenous Eye

• I disagree in that they are bad, on the other hand there is definitely double fill on the part of Slaanesh and Tzeentch. I think the strength should remain be at 2+D3 and AP at 4+D3 (for that 1/3 chance of AP 5) and then make them AP 3. The thing is that AP 2 can´t come easy and that´s what their entire budget was blown on. This would also make Horrors the go-to for anti-horde, blood letters for medium infantry, slaanesh for anti-heavy infantry.

I don´t think there is anything wrong with the unit being less random, it was at an absurd level before and toning that down is fine. The spells will still be really random, so if you are looking for the random feel you can still find plenty in the Tzeentch discipline.

Bloodletters

• The current Bloodletters struggle more than just a little to maintain any form of role in the Daemon army. Plaguebearers are better defensively and often better than the Bloodletters at offence. Daemonettes are better at taking MEQ's and TEQ's having higher initiative, Rending and maintaining a Jink save. Suggestions:

- Give them Rampage. They would resume their work as Horde Hunters. A role which the Daemons are currently lacking. 
- Give them 2 Attacks and AP3. They would be MEQ hunters like in the original codex. They really needed the buff anyways. 
- Give them AP5 and Preferred enemy (Infantry) + Hatred and 2 Attack/Rampage. Another take on the Horde hunting.

• If Bloodletters were not weak point for point they would be OP. They have 15-30 pts stored in their blood counter, meaning up to three fourths of their points cost. You can field most of a secondary army of Blood Thirsters if your army of Bloodletters die.

On top of that they can get additional points if they manage to kill something. They might be fairly weak if you take 1 unit, but the blood tithe table gets exponentially better the higher you go and the more Khorne units you have.

Bloodletters cannot and should not be fielded as 1-3 elite units which counter some enemy units, they work best as a tide of daemons, which I believe you agreed was the right direction for the Daemon dex to go in? You can field 12*5 at 500 pts, leaving lots for other stuff. I´m aware that big units are bad, but that´s not really a big problem IMO, you can just split your units up.

They might be a little weak, but you are misrepresenting them if you put what can effectively become a 2 pt model against an 8 pt model.

You might think AP 4 is negligible, but it increases dmg output against Guardsmen by 50%! and against Necron Warriors it´s 100% AP 3 is a HUUUGE deal on top of that, it triples dmg against a ton of units and it would increase their value by a ton, so much that they would need to loose the Blood Tithe special rule.

Unit Options

• Is it intentional that all Exalted Heralds MUST take a Locus?

While it is not stated, just to make sure: Is it possible to stack Locus powers now? (Do they all take effect?)

Black Cleavers (TM), seem pretty weak. Giving up AP3 will most of the time be pretty bad. I can still see a point in it, but perhaps it should go down to 15 points?

Locus of Change (Exalted Heralds of Tzeentch) Seems really weak for 40 points. Couldn't it just be -1 AP and +1 Strength? Perhaps that was deemed too strong?

• Yes. I think they´d be boring compared to the regular Heralds if they didn´t.

It doesn´t say you can´t so yes. It wasn´t the explicit intention, but the only combo I could find is Contagion + Virulence so I don´t really think it´s a problem.

Not exactly sure what´s going on with that.

I think I´m going to do something different with it, although you are right it´s quite horrible. Angry Pirate (talk) 05:28, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Anti-Vehicle/Anti-Air Firepower

• Anti-Air options have always been limited for Daemons. It has gotten significantly better in the Angry Edition, now that the Soul Grinders can fire at different targets, and the new Strength D psychic powers can be shot into the air, but anti-air firepower is still lacking.

To explain, psychic powers are unreliable things. While the Greater Daemons of Tzeentch have no problem firing their psychic powers at enemy fliers, the Daemon Codex is already lacking good anti-vehicle fire power and dedicating the few ones you have to fliers is an awkward choice for a daemon player. The way to counter-act it will be a harsh reform though.

Personally I have some suggestions, and while they may seem radical I do believe it will be in the best interests of Daemon players, both balance-wise and feel-wise. Without further ado:

Anti-Air: Screamers should get the ability to Assault Fliers. While Screamers will have a hard time hunting fliers who are actively trying to avoid them, merely having the ability give fliers some incent to keep their distance.

Anti-Vehicle: Beast of Nurglee: The Beast of Nurgle right now seems weird. It is an incredible pain in the opponent's ass, but does not seem tanky enough, nor seem to hit hard enough to justify a 52 points cost. While that is another discussion, Nurgle Themed armies could use some anti-vehicle options. And here I am suggesting that the Beast of Nurgle becomes that option:

• Acidic Touch: Roll a D6 for every time a Beast of Nurgle with this upgrade hits an enemy vehicle with its close combat attacks. For every 3+ rolled, lower the armour value of every facing of the vehicle by 1 - 10pts

While players facing many Knight-models would go for Beasts of Nurgle for their Fleshbane rule (sort of. it only has I2 so probably gets killed. Maybe we should look at that too) players who expect to face a large amount of fliers will grab a couple of Screamers.

Anti-Vehicle: Not as much an anti-vehicle option as a way for Daemons to not get shot to pieces, here is my take on it:

Name	Range	S	AP	Type
Contemptous Spear	18"	6	2	Assault 1, Hunting Spear, Dark Possession, One Use Only

Hunting Spear: A model firing this weapon, and any unit they are attached to may charge a different unit than the one the Hunting Spear was fired on.

Dark Possession: A model hit by a weapon with this special rule must take a Strength test or be unable to take any actions during its next movement and shooting phase. Vehicles hit automatically counts as having suffered a "Crew Stunned" result in addition to any other damage the Contemptous Spear may cause. Successful cover saves against the Contemptous Spear als cancel the "Crew Stunned" result. A cover save may be taken, even if the Contemptous Spear do not cause a penetrating or glancing hit.

Every Herald of Slaanesh would be able to take up to two Contemptous Spears at a cost of 15pts each.

• For you to say anything to the Daemon codex is limited you have to slice it up into the 4 gods, Daemons features the biggest roster of units among all races and as such feature plenty of counters for any one thing. You fail to mention that the Wrathspawn is good against AV 12 and below flyers and the Bloodthirster is good against anything below AV 12. As all other armies you also have access to the Quad Gun, but what sets the Daemons apart is that you can use a melee unit to crew it, which makes them resistant to fast assault units and it also means you aren´t wasting firepower crewing an AA-platform. Sure only 1 of the BTs and then the GDs of Tzeentch are worth anything against AV 12, but on the other hand Necrons only have a single unit which is good against AV 12 and only a single other unit which can harm it. On top of that the fortifications are basically a non-thing for Necrons as they cannot claim cover-saves. Sure, we can agree that both Nurgle and Slaanesh armies are hard-pressed against flyers, but I think it´s a bit much to ask to have a minimum of 4 counters for every unit when all other armies require a minimum of 2 counters for any one unit.

Define few? You can take 2 GDs of Khorne, 2 Soul Grinders and a psychic tzeentch princes in a single detachment. That means you can have 5 anti-flyer units in a detachment, on top of that you can take a Quad Gun. As for

- anti AV 10 (in the rear tanks, meaning most every tank): Daemonettes, Skull Throne, Skullcrushers, Fiends, Furies, Hounds, Seekers, Hellflayers, Daemon Princes, Skull Cannon (in melee).

- anti AV 11 and below tank options: Skarbrand, Wrathspawn, Bloodthirster, Lord of Change, all GDs of Nurgle and Slaanesh, Exalted Herald of Slaanesh, also a lot of the anti AV 10 can do a decent amount of damage to AV 11 and 12 vehicles, that is AV 11 or 12 in the rear, which most vehicles simply don´t have. 

- anti-AV 14 and below tank options: Lord of Insensate Rage, Tzeentch Psykers (provided you get the right one), Master Summoner, Supreme Mutator, Greater Herald of Khorne (w. darkfire reaper), Screamers, Soul Grinder (in CC), Burning Chariot of Tzeentch. 

Assaulting flyers is a no-go, I´ll think about adding back their slash attack, more because of feel than neccesity though, since you most certainly do not lack in anti-flyer options. While your FMCs may be expensive, they are also nigh unkillable for conventional aircraft, you basically have to rely on a 1/3 chance of getting a charge on a FMC to hold it up.

An anti-vehicle option for BoN is a good idea. But again saying they aren´t tanky enough to justify their cost doesn´t make any sense. A Talos has 3 W T 7 (also with FNP) with Sv 3+ vs 2 W Sv 3+/5++. Because most anti MC weapons have AP 3 or better that 5++ basically means your 54 pt model is going to be as tough as a 110 pt Talos in a lot of cases, such as when fired upon by plasma, Angry Lance weaponry and close to its toughness in cases such as with missile launchers. On top of this BoN are immune to krak grenades (meaning they are more durable towards marines than Talos are. The difference is BoN hardly have a dmg output against anything but MCs, but I would say that is reflected in their halved price in comparison with the Dark Eldar Talos Pain Engine.

The only problem with a piece of wargear like this is that it can´t be modelled, fortunately we can say he/she/it has it up his/her/its butt or pulls it out of the warp, even then it is something to consider. How are you going to remember which models have what in a tournament setting, how can your opponent see you´ve got a magical spear? That being said the item is incredibly OP and completely the wrong way to tackle any problems the Daemons may be facing right now. A ranged anti-vehicle weapon for Slaanesh characters is definitely not out of the question, but you can effectively shot down every single tank your opponent has until you engage them and destroy them. What does an IG player do when he is going against DoC? He basically has to focus on an infantry army, because in the case he brings a mechanised army you can effectively negate his shooting turn 1 and 2, if you start that is. Making it basically a coin-flip to see if the mechanised IG player has a chance or if he automatically loses the game. Maybe at 40+ pts they could do what you suggested, but at 15 it becomes a must-include 2 on every Herald and I would go so far as to say I would make sure to include at least 2 Heralds of Slaanesh w. 2 spears in every army I made if they were 15 pts/spear. Angry Pirate (talk) 13:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

• Why is assaulting fliers a no-go? I mean, units like Swooping Hawks are already basically assaulting fliers.

A Soul Grinder will averagely have to pump 9 shots into an enemy armour 10 flier. Averagely 12 shots into an armour 11 and of course 15 in an armour 12 flier. Double that amount if the flier in question is jinking. Admittedly damage will be done along the way preventing the flier from taking action, but as a source of dedicated anti-air fire power that is weak. The problem in question is only partly the lack of ranged ways the Daemons have of taking out vehicles, but also the lack of ways they have of closing with vehicles in general.

To back my point, I am inclined to redirect our conversation to focussing on your anti-vehicle charts. While all of your units are correctly placed to some degree (Hellflayers being an exception in my opinion, with 12 S3 rending attacks) it is very necessary to mention that all of the units happen to be melee, psykers not included. To put it into perspective we look at the turn number in which all of these units will be able to deal with a tank. If we take the optimal turn number most of them will do so in turn 3, while some of them might do it as early as turn 2.

Your average tank, Predator, Vindicator, Venoms, usually have earnt their keep in turn 3. Either through utility as a transport or through raw firepower.

While dealing with an enemy tank in turn 2 might seem good, there are reasons as to why the daemon army won’t do that. Mostly the differing speeds on the varying units.

Screamers as an example could potentially destroy an enemy tank in turn 2 if they had turbo-boosted across the board to come into threat range of said tank. On the other hand, turbo-boosting across the board into charge range of the tank will also see them into threat range of both enemy fire and enemy close combat units while the rest of the army lumbers behind them.

In the case of Fliers and Daemon FMCs: It is a debate which I find hard to complete. While an FMC could take to the air turn 1, and stay there until turn 2 to shoot down an enemy flier, it is a sickeningly amount of wasted points. The Wrathspawn for instance will take 1,5-2 turns to destroy an enemy armour 12 flier and 4 turns if said flier is jinking. However, let’s say that said flier employs a cunning strategy:

- 1.	Flier comes in and destroys stuff
- 2.	Wrathspawn goes into fighter-mode and whips the enemy plane
- 3.	Enemy plane Jinks and survives
- 4.	Enemy plane flies out
- 5.	Wrathspawn now has 2 choices: Stay in the air and do nothing for a turn, or return to planet earth and do nothing for a turn while having to go back into the air the next turn to try and fight the enemy aircraft.

The same problem goes with the Lord of Change and Supreme Mutator. The monstrous creatures cost at least 250 which is largest amount of points any race can spend on single fliers. It must be noted however that the FMCs can fire on ground targets as well as the flier, but it is still a large amount of points to spend for something which is very unreliable and non-cost efficient to destroy enemy fliers.

It is really worth noting that my suggestions are merely brainstorming. As you say, invalidating vehicles for 15 points on a 2+ is ridiculous, but perhaps preventing all movement the next turn for 10 points is not? Not sure how that should work against fliers but that's my idea. Regarding modelling I am inclined to laugh at anyone incapable of gluing an evil looking fantasy spear onto their Slaanesh model's back. Or it could just be manifested out of thin air as you said. I mean Daemons are fucked up. Throwing a spear with no hands can be problematic though. It seemed logical at the time, and I am certain that logic will eventually return. Some day.

But to summarize: Daemons do not lack ways to destroy fliers. They lack units which want to dedicate themselves to the job.

• TL;DR terrain terrain, take more anti-air and Daemons don´t need more dedicated anti-air units.

You can´t assault flyers, that´s in the rules, which is why Swooping Hawks have a special rule which lets them vector strike a flyer, which is what I said I was going to do if I was going to make Screamers an anti-flyer unit.

That is in no way a lot of firepower, while that 170 flyer can do absolutely jack shit in return to the Soul Grinder it is getting destroyed, jinking only prolongs the inevitable. The average of 4,5 hits is also to destroy it through HP, bear in mind you can destroy it through Immobilization/stunning it and then moving a unit 18" ahead of it, any Jink/Shaken/Stunned result will also effectively make the 170-220 pt flyer close to worthless, meanwhile your CC walker is walking towards your opponent. If you are dealing with a massive amount of flyers, you should expect to have to bring a massive amount of anti-air. Now I know for a fact that our Daemon player is not playing against a massive amount of air, if he were to take two naked Grinders and a level 3 flying Tzeentch prince he would have no problem whatsoever taking out a single flyer, if not the turn it arrives, then the turn afterwards.

Some most. How do Daemons even win games if all of this is true?

It depends on the tank´s range, but once a Daemon unit is in melee it becomes immune to ranged attacks. If a Predators have free line of sight from the edge of the board to all your units then you should just place more terrain on the board. If I were playing a melee army I would insist on having enough terrain every game and with enough terrain vehicles effectively lose range and are forced to be in unfavourable positions. If you are playing on a board without terrain you aren´t playing 40k.

Screamers can assault 19", again terrain.

Forcing a jink is going to be enough most of the time though, you are also forgetting vector strikes. There aren´t any reliable ways to destroy flyers, there are few flyers which can reliably down flyers when they are jinking. None of the GDs are dedicated anti flyers, they aren´t meant to hunt flyers, you aren´t spending the points to hunt flyers, they just have that ability in addition to being powerful against Vehicles/TEQs/MEQs.

Even immobilizing a vehicle for a turn can be extremely powerful against walkers. I´m not really sure where to take the idea. As long as it doesn´t have skyfire Flyers wouldn´t be a problem. Even if you do the tricksy crashy manouver it´s a 1/6 chance of hitting it.

Daemons don´t need anti-flyer units because they have a number of units which can do flyer-hunting as a side job. Most other races need dedicated units because snap-shooting is much worse than what the Daemons have.

Heavy Support

Soul Grinder

Ironclad Dreadnought vs Soul Grinder

Ironclad	Soulgrinder
AV 13/13/10	AV 13/13/10
135 pts 3 HP	190 pts 4 HP
45 pts/HP	47,5 pts/HP
135 pts 3 HP	155 pts 4 HP
45 pts/HP	38,75 pts/HP
A 5 S 10 Concussive	A 4 S 10
Meltagun	3 S 7 AP 4 shots with or without skyfire
Extra armour, Searchlight, Smoke launchers, IWND, Move Through Cover	Deep Strike, Daemon, Daemon of Khorne or Daemon of Nurgle