Topic: How Do You Stop the Daemon Wave?

[Wyddr]

I run an army list with 64 bloodletters in 4 teams of 16. This is pretty damned cheap to build, and if I wanted to *really* spam, I could take plenty more in a 1500 point list. As it stands, I take a whole series of other units (Bloodcrushers, Bloodthirster, Skull Cannon, Blood Throne, etc.)to shake things up and, primarily, draw firepower from the 'letters.

It works like a Yhwh-condemneded charm. All the fast stuff shoots ahead and the enemy, freaking out (because, you know, giant monsters and what-not) spends their first 2-3 turns trying to knock down the imminent threats. By that point my Bloodletters, often more-or-less unmolested, have either crossed the field or deepstruck into position. At that point, I drown whatever my enemies have left in a sea of hellblades. There isn't a hell of a lot of units that can survive a charge by 32 bloodletters (who sometimes have Rage and sometimes have the Grimoire helping them out).

You can do pretty much the exact same thing with Slaanesh--seas of Daemonettes, some fast stuff, some tough stuff. They are even *better* at this strategy, since there are more of them and they are *all* fast.

Now this list strategy has a couple weak points: Khorne hates Terminators and Khorne and Slaanesh hate Land Raiders, but comparatively few all-comers lists these days are packing a lot of terminators or Land Raiders. Also, the list has almost no recourse against Flyers, but then again: who cares? There are almost no flyers that really bother a massive legion of invulnerable-save toting daemons. You can take plenty of casualties to Heldrakes and what-not and still have plenty left over to kill whatever units are holding objectives.

So, here's my question: How do you combat this list? I've run it against most kinds of armies--marines of all stripes, Eldar and Dark Eldar, Imperial Guard, Chaos Marines--and I usually walk away with plenty of heads for the Skull Throne. When I lose, it is typically because of really bad dice or luck (Warp Ebb is a *killer* and I seem to roll it all the time).

Now, it should be noted that I don't always steamroll my opponents and I don't think the list isn't fun to play against (it looks really cool in action), but outside of dumb luck, I've never felt like playing against anybody was much of an uphill battle.

Thoughts?

[Wyldhunt]

With most of my "usual" lists, facing your daemonic horde would pretty much boil down to luck.  I'd have enough dakka and speed to reasonably be able to thin your ranks before they hit me, but it would basically come down to a bit of luck to decide whether or not I could win. 

Now, if we're playing in maelstrom, you're likely to be forced to decide between comitting some of your units as heavily to the rush or having them break off to nab an objective.  So in a situation like this (or in the EW mission where the value of objectives is randomized), I might be able to win by dividing you up slightly and gunning you down piecemeal. 

I mostly run various flavors of space elf, for the record, and a few other tricks that come to mind include...

* Hawks.  I land them reasonably far away from your squads, take advantage of their large numbers by dropping a grenade pack plate on them, shoot them up with lasblasters, run away with battle focus, and then fly into reserves on my following turn if you've taken too much of an interest in them. 

*Scary gas bombs from the darkeldar.  Terrofex and its vehicle-mounted sibling both work against daemons (as they technically aren't fearless), and your large squad size makes it relatively easy to hit you.  Consider using a suicide character with a portal and armor of misery to land near multiple units and debuff their leadership. The character is dead the following turn, but it gives me at least one round to throw ALL THE SCARY at you.

*Farseers have access to sanctic and ghost helms (to avoid as frequent of perils), and harlequins are shaping up to be almost as good at sanctic as Grey Knights.  Simply debuffing the invulnerable saves of the army you've proposed would actually make them pretty susceptible to dakka.

*Send in a dreadnaught or a wraith knight. Slaaneshi units still have a shot against these, but blood letters are kind of out of luck. Sure, I'm comitting to a no-win tarpit, but that's what I'd be taking it for.  Granted, this isn't terribly cost effective with wraith knights, but I don't happen to own a wraithknight anyway!

[Wyddr]

Thanks for the reply! Some interesting ideas!

My take:

Hawks: I can say with confidence that Hawks make no difference to me whatsoever. Bomb away. Played against them plenty of times and it has yet to make a substantive difference to a game.

Dreadnaughts/Wraithknights: Actually, getting these stuck-in with a pack of Bloodletters is actually *my* solution to *them*. Much easier than killing them with a Bloodthirster and a good way to give a pack of cheap infantry something to do all game.

As for the scary gas and the Farseers and the de-buffing invul saves--all good plans, and they would kill a bunch of bloodletters. The problem, though, isn't killing bloodletters, it is killing *more* bloodletters than kill *you,* and that's the problem. I think that's the central issue of tackling this list, honestly. My bloodletters are able to soak a huge quantity of casualties before it starts to matter. The fancy tricks that kill a unit at a time (like most of the stuff you mentioned) depend both on luck AND only really tackle units individually. So, unless you kit out your force with exclusively those things, you can't really address the army as a whole.

And that's even before we realize that you're kitting your army to kill 700 points of infantry in a 1750 point list. Pre-7th Ed, when only 'letters scored, that was a clever tactic. Now, it doesn't really help, and the other weapons I bring still work.

As for Maelstrom, that's a good point--I don't usually play maelstrom (the games are really random and this annoys most of us in our group). Of course, the thing with maelstrom is that, as much as I *might* be forced into a situation where it would hurt me, I am almost equally likely to find myself in a situation where I'm earning VPs ass-over-teakettle without even trying.  Hence why Maelstrom isn't too popular around here.

Final note: Certain Eldar units (Wyches, Dire Avengers, Storm Guardians) count among the few units in the game that give the Bloodletters pause. The combination of cheap cost, high Initiative, and many attacks make bloodletter assaults inefficient. Doesn't help you with Daemonettes, of course (and, seriously, the Slaanesh wave is WAAAY worse than the Khornate one).

I think it's pretty clear that, if one tailors a list to kill this, it can be done. All-comers or even tourney-metagame-lists are going to struggle, though, since this list does all the things that most lists don't.

I've been trying to figure out an all-comers list myself that would work reliably, and it's really tough. And this list of mine includes a grand total of one gun (ONE!). People say "assault is dead", but for the Daemons is certainly is not.   

[Wyldhunt]

Yeah, this list seems pretty tricky to stack the odds against without tailoring.  This is actually pretty much how I saw daemons working when I first looked through the book.  Not psychically-shielded chicken gods.  Not daemon factories (mostly 'cause daemonology didn't exist yet).  Just lots and lots of cheap-but-effective troops who will shut down 1/3 of your shooting.  Possibly sprinkling in a little beast/cavalry action for variety. 

Although if we're talking competitive play, you'll have no answer to 5 flyrants who will do something like...

60 shots, 40 hits, reroll 20 misses with TL for about 13 more hits for a total of 53 hits on average.
That's bout 9 failed wounds for a total of 44 successful wounds each turn.  You'll ignore about a third of that (about 14.5 wounds) for a total of ~30 dead blood letters a turn.  It takes most of his army to do that, but flyrants are really the only thing the 'nid player cares about in his army, and he might have an exocrine or something hanging around to help out as well. 

So in two turns, he should have killed off (pretty much) all of your blood letters leaving him at least 3 turns to clean up the rest of your army. 

Such a list is very competitive, but not exactly tailoring. It's pretty much what my buddy is running at LVO.  Granted, that's an 1850 list (iirc), so you'll have a few more points to beef yourself up with.

P.S. At least a few of those flyrants will be packing psychic shriek or whatever the 'nid version is called.

[Grand Master Lomandalis]

Have you tried this list against a Ravenwing army built around the Standard of Devastation?

3 squads of 6 bikers + a command squad with the standard in a Crusader = 96 twin linked bolter shots a turn with an effective range of 36" and the speed to stay away from your units.  Granted, that is around 1000pts (if bikers are loaded with Plasma), but that still leaves plenty of points to bring in the heavy hitting stuff in the list.

I'm also curious about how this list fares against a mechanized Eldar list.  Wave Serpent spam seems like it would be an ideal way to tear the daemons apart at long range, and have enough high strength / AP weapons to also deal with any monstrous creatures you have flying around.

[Wyddr]

Have you tried this list against a Ravenwing army built around the Standard of Devastation?

3 squads of 6 bikers + a command squad with the standard in a Crusader = 96 twin linked bolter shots a turn with an effective range of 36" and the speed to stay away from your units.  Granted, that is around 1000pts (if bikers are loaded with Plasma), but that still leaves plenty of points to bring in the heavy hitting stuff in the list.

Played against almost this exact list (no Land Raider--command squad on bikes with Librarian and then some devastators, if memory serves). Tabled it in 4. Thing is, sooner or later, you run out of places to run. My units basically canvas the board, so flanking it isn't really feasible. 96 bolter shots might kill bloodletters, yeah, but it takes *all* of them to do something about a Bloodthirster and Daemon Prince. He did what a lot of people do--he expends a lot of energy killing off the first wave (Thirster, Prince, Bloodcrusher, etc.) and then he finds no place on the board he can be that is more than 18" away from bloodletters. Assault, smash, dead.

Granted, he killed a lot of stuff, but I won that game on full points with two units of Bloodletters left and pretty much nothing of his alive. 

I'm also curious about how this list fares against a mechanized Eldar list.  Wave Serpent spam seems like it would be an ideal way to tear the daemons apart at long range, and have enough high strength / AP weapons to also deal with any monstrous creatures you have flying around.

Did that too. Very close game, but the same result--massive energy expended trying to kill my fast stuff, then the bloodletters mopped up. Granted, he only took 3 Wave Serpents, so there's that. It's also worth noting that some of these games were in 6th Edition, where my FMCs could get into combat a lot easier. From what I've seen in 7th Ed, however, the difference isn't *that* extreme--the Thirster takes +1 turn to get into range (if that) and he's still soaking just as much firepower as before. He just doesn't *always* take a unit with him.

EDIT: It should be noted that some of this is dice. The fact that everything gets a save against pretty much everything is a much larger advantage than it appears. In the Mech Eldar game, he kept trying to kill off my Blood Throne (which is GREAT at killing vehicles) and it just kept rolling enough 5++ invuls to keep going. If I have significantly below average dice, I'll lose. But that's more luck than tactics, and there's no accounting for luck.

[Spectral Arbor]

I'd guess that a boyz heavy list could probably do the business. While it isn't a hard counter by any means, the boyz are similar to 'Letters, at half the points. The advantage of the 'Letters Hellblades is lost on Orkish t-shirts, and I think that a 2:1 numbers advantage would go a long way.

They also have quick moving units that would normally crumple to a stiff breeze that won't have to endure much shooting, so they'll be able to hit home in ways that they'd normally be denied due to bolters wrecking them.

While I don't think Orks would do as well as Khorne-wave against other opponents, I think the Orks would usually take the Daemons. The Daemonic benefits don't work as well against hordeish assault armies. Additionally, the flimsy armour of Orkish vehicles means a lot less when you aren't facing off against much firepower, and the ability for truck boyz to reliably initiate an assault is good, especially if a big Mob is right behind them to do a follow up assault.

To that end, I'd guess that Nid-hordes would also do well. Again, no armour to speak of, and generally faster units, combined with similar "Monsters" could result in a similar situation.


White Scars scare me these days. They shoot, assault, run away, shoot and assault again. Not as useful when charging into massed power swords, but the ability to break off and shoot again could be quite useful, especially if they pulled the old Eldar trick of a flank-shift. Castle on the right, shoot the stuff on the left... 3rd turn move / boost to left side, stranding foot sloggers on the right hand side to be shot at some more. Not a hard counter, of course, but if they neuter your mobility, then slide to the left, the walking 'Letters will have a hard time making combat, I'd think.


Knights could literally stomp you to death, given a decent d3 roll for stomp numbers. MC's with effective strength less than 7 must sub their attacks for a single smash to try to hurt them. Even then, at S 8 AP 2 you'd need a LOT of attacks [2/3 hit, 1/3 cause damage gives you a 22% chance per attack to cause an HP... that means jack unless you get the top 2% to inflict an "explode" for a few HP's] to try and drag it down over multiple turns... except you won't get multiple turns because you'll die at Init 1 from being stomped to death.

4 Knights double tapping Battle Cannons are going to inflict the right kind of HUGE CASUALTIES so that you're bound to fail the Invul saves, so you probably aren't going to make it to combat with anything except the MC's anyway. Again, those MC's will be stomped to death.

[Wyldhunt]

Good points, Spectral Arbor, but I'd point out that this list might actually be able to tarpit a knight reasonably well.  They won't do anything to it, but barring bad luck with daemonic instability, they ought to remain stuck in with fewer points than the knight costs, thus preventing it from shooting or charging the majority of the daemon army. Specifically, this isn't a bad way to keep a knight out of a prince or greater daemon's hair. Or tendrils. or spikes.  Whatever head-growths they happen to have.

[Wyddr]

Yeah, good point about the Orks/Nids (two armies I hardly *ever* see anymore). This list would only fare middling-well against them, especially given that many of their chief advantages wouldn't matter too much. You could make a game of it either way, yeah, for sure.

White Scars are far, far less worrisome. They just don't pack in enough wounds to make them dangerous to an army packed to the gills with AP3 and seas of bodies. I've found bike lists to be a walk in the park, honestly--takes a while to box them in, but it's usually over by turn 4 at the latest. Even just a handful of 'letters being charged or getting a charge can put a big dent in any bike unit. That's not even talking about the horrible slaughter that can be wreaked by a unit of Bloodcrushers that isn't paid sufficient attention to. Wow, can those guys wreck bike units.

As for Imperial Knights, yeah that would be a weird battle. I've never actually played against them, honestly. If there's one thing this army doesn't account for it's massed walkers or superheavies. That said, if you've only got four units, bogging them down long enough so they can't actually achieve much isn't beyond the pale. It would be an interesting game, though.

[Spectral Arbor]

In defence of Knights, bogging them down is damned near impossible. They move faster than typical walkers, and any large unit that might bog them down is being double-tapped by the rapid-fire Battle Cannon. You won't get there with numbers.

It isn't their attacks at initiative, it's the Stomps at Init 1 that prevent hordes from tar pitting them. The operative issue being that you've already piled in by that point. So if you're all clustered up, and you're being hit with small blasts that wound on a 2+, and he hits you with 2 of those, chances are good that you'll be making a good 6-8 more saves, on top of a couple of guys you lost to the standard CC attacks.

THAT SAID! I was quite wrong about how stomps work! They're not that scary against MEQ or better, most of the time. I thought they were much more powerful than they are, but I just re-read the rules. [40k RB, pg 96] Turns out they're really only VERY good against vehicles, and Carapace Armour or less. I've been throwing Dreads at them. I've taken a recent turn with Blood Angels, going Dread heavy. Not very effective... but I needed the high strength attacks.

Of course, the multiple D-Class attacks at regular initiative will see off an MC long before it does real damage to the knight, so again, not a good matchup.

[Wyddr]

To be fair to the MCs, they have a much higher initiative than the knight does and *can* have a very healthy Invul, a crazy high WS, etc.. The Knight probably wins, but it isn't quite as cut and dry. If the Daemon happens to have Touch of Uncreation, I'd wind up betting on a Bloodthirster, actually.

But yeah, Imperial Knights are likely the hard-counter to this list (or at least the Khornate version).

Total side point, but I've always felt whole armies of nothing but 4 Imperial Knights to be rather unpleasant things to field, anyhow. That's a whole different topic, though, but perhaps in a similar category of "all-comers lists will necessarily struggle with this build." At least the Daemon horde has clear and obvious weaknesses (no shooting whatsoever, no AA capability, specific exploitable weaknesses). I feel like 4 Knights can do anything they please and have no natural predators, if you will.

But I digress...

[Grand Master Lomandalis]

I have run an army of 4 Imperial Knights, and it is very underwhelming.  You just can not do enough damage throughout the game, nor do you have enough units for scoring / contesting objectives.

Now, three knights backed up by an army, that is a different story.  Especially if they are using the Spearhead formation, what ever it's called, that makes them an even tougher nut to crack.

[Skyleap]

I'm guessing another Daemon wave is automatically excluded from the discussion? As you pointed out, A Slaaneshi wave of Daemonettes would have a one-up on the Khorne wave by virtue of higher initiative and cheaper costs for greater numbers. I personally run a Slaanesh only list comprised of two 20-man Daemonette Squads, 1 20-man Seeker squad, a Lvl 3 Keeper, a Lvl 3 flying Daemon Prince, three Lvl 2 Heralds (1 mounted) and a Soul Grinder with the ordnance shot (sorry, forget what it's called). I usually dedicate most everything to the Discipline of Excess in order to get as many instances of Acquiescence as possible and the rest of the levels to either Telepathy or Biomancy (DP).

That's my 1750pt all-comers list, nothing tailored to target you. To be honest, tailoring for your list would lead to more Daemonettes, but like you I enjoy variety and I thoroughly enjoy playing with this list as is. I think a match between your list and mine would be quite enjoyable and very even.

Extrapolating this out to other armies, lists that would give you a good run are those with lots of invul saves. Space Wolves with lots of mounted Storm Shields and Runic Armor could be problematic, but the thing about them that you've pointed out is the sheer numbers you can bring to bear against this elite a list. Another high invul save list was just released in the form of Harlequins. They could so some damage between improved saves, high attack volume and Hit & Run to constantly garner the charge bonus on each of their turns. I've looked at the statistical potential for them as I'm building one of these armies myself, but without hands-on experience it's all theoretical. And it's also quite elite in number. My sample lists have roughly 40 models in them, hardly equivalent to your body count.

Swarming Tyranids could be the closest non-Daemons army to challenge. Synapse bubbles to tarpit units, FNP cast on critical combats and spawning to keep the numbers up. Poisoned attacks to deal with MCs also help.

[Wyddr]

Yeah, I'm kinda wondering about how *other* armies do it. I would readily admit that the Slaanesh Daemon Wave is much nastier than the Khornate one, on average. That *would* be a cool (and very fluffy!) game.

The trick with invul-saves, as you point out, is how much you have to pay for them. Harlies don't have an *amazing* invul and they have to pay a lot per model, so I'm not sure how well that would work for them. They would surely decimate a unit on the charge, but when they were countercharged it could get ugly. They'd get swamped. Then again, I haven't seen how many Harlies you can squeeze into a list, so that would make a big difference, too. 

Yeah, Swarming Tyranids would probably do it, too. You don't see that very often, of course, but the cost-effectiveness of their units against the Daemon units is comparable. Another interesting game for sure.

[Wyldhunt]

From what we've seen in White dwarf, I don't think harlies could stand up to this list all that well.  They'd hit hard for a couple of turns, but they're unlikely to survive the sheer  number of (potentially strength 4) attacks that would be coming at them.  Their best bet would be to soften the enemy up with sanctic, blast and kite them with their vehicles, then chare in as late in the game as possible to mop up as many units as they can.  Assuming good sanctic rolls, they can probably clear out whatever unit they charge, but they'll then be charged in return. If them somehow manage to survive a round of combat, they can hit and run out before going in for another charge of their own, but I see them getting overwhelmedby sheer numbers.

[Skyleap]

Sorry about the late reply. I lost track of where the thread was. 

Having played Harlies recently, I think Harlies have something going for them that the others don't: extreme foot mobility. It would take extreme coordination among multiple units to pull it off, but they could do it if they used Psychic Powers and mass charges into one unit well enough to either severely hamper a unit or eliminate it entirely in one go, then Hit & Run on their turn to extend the distance between them and the next nearest full strength unit of Bloodletters. It would be admittedly harder to do this against Slaanesh as they're the same initiative, but it's potentially possible against Khorne.

Unlikely, but possible.

[Wyldhunt]

Sorry about the late reply. I lost track of where the thread was. 

Having played Harlies recently, I think Harlies have something going for them that the others don't: extreme foot mobility. It would take extreme coordination among multiple units to pull it off, but they could do it if they used Psychic Powers and mass charges into one unit well enough to either severely hamper a unit or eliminate it entirely in one go, then Hit & Run on their turn to extend the distance between them and the next nearest full strength unit of Bloodletters. It would be admittedly harder to do this against Slaanesh as they're the same initiative, but it's potentially possible against Khorne.

Unlikely, but possible.

Average hit & run is about 11 or 12 inches though, and the maximum is 18.  That makes it pretty easy to catch back up with the harlies, especially since they get a consolidation move after you hit & run.  That said, I think shadowseers and jesters could potentially give harlies a fighting chance against such armies.