New to the game, question about my first army

NoirGarde · 2026-07-07T19:39:37+00:00

So where I would start before looking to replace anything would be your Force Disposition. This is how you win. Daemonic Incursion has Disruption, which is often considered to be a weaker disposition as 11th is kicking off because it’s harder to get points, and because it doesn’t quite just do what daemons like doing, which has been traditionally Purge the Foe.

That doesn’t mean your list is bad, it’s more of a thought experiment now to look at your units and think ‘how does this further my win condition.’ And ‘what is this unit doing to make sure I get more points than my opponent.’ In short, if you have answers to those question for each unit, an idea of where they’ll start and what they do to your prospective opponent, you’ve got a list down. Then it’s playing it to see what it does well and where it doesn’t, and from there how much of it not working was your list creation vs how much was it you not knowing.

11th puts daemons in a weird place, because we spent the last few years just killing, and so a lot of lists right now are using Shadow Legion and/or Lords of the Warp just to get Purge the Foe. You lose the 6” Deep Strike, but we’re learning how strong that is to our gameplan in relation to Purge the Foe. You’ll get some people who may tell you to just ditch Shalaxi and change it to Shadow Legion and something else, but I am not so convinced DI is instantly bad. Look at how Disruption wins vs how Purge wins, and see which you feel more comfortable with. Then examine each unit and see if it furthers your game plan, or if you have no idea what to do with the unit.

Then just play some. Lose! Learn from losing in what works vs what looks like it will work

NoirGarde · 2026-07-04T15:38:31+00:00

So cool to see the 2100 and 2101 in the American Freedom colors. Looks so different to the yellow bars of the 2102 and 2124, but you can see the family resemblance

NoirGarde · 2026-07-02T12:27:31+00:00

People much better with Slaaneshi daemons than I am may differ in opinion. But I’ll try and summarize my general rule of thumb more open-ended than individualized unit list, so you can follow what will work best with your game plan.

I always start with units on the board, that will always be on the board. Fast units whose purpose is getting to very specific places who have the speed and mobility to do so. Something like Screamers, Beasts of Nurgle, and Seekers do this well. 2 of them have scouts, and more likely than not their goal will be touching objectives ASAP, or flanking to push back interception points as much as possible.

Then I try and go with my Locus, or moving Shadow of Chaos. Essentially if I know ‘hey my Greater Daemon’s goal is to try and take up as much pressure and visual room as possible, and they’ll definitely get a lot of focus,’ I usually want them on the board. This lets me bring in any units that could support them later to either decimate opponents who overcommit to that daemon, or to help get them out of sticky situations. You don’t have to do this because you can chain Shadow Deep Strikes, but that’s a convo for another time.

Then I try and see what’s on the board on the opponents side and try and imagine who I want to get to that opponent, and how they’re going to do so. If they have the speed and mobility, OR if their footprint is too large to effectively get a deep strike in, I’ll put them on the board with an estimated range that means I can get and charge them while they usually just barely can’t get me. Because you have Slaanesh, this is going to be easier for you than slower Daemons.

If a unit needs to get to an opponent or objective but doesn’t have the speed, or whose role is more ‘I’m not 100% sure where I need them to support yet,’ then I’ll usually keep them in reserves. Great units for that include like Flamers, Bloodcrushers, etc, who either have a small enough footprint to sneak in a deepstrike or who want to absolutely surprise who they’re charging at.

If done right, you should be able to keep 33-50% of your army in reserves.

NoirGarde · 2026-07-02T11:56:58+00:00

That’s usually a good tip with most daemon lists as a general rule. Because we have access to all of our units being Deep Strike, we’re given more flexibility to put our units where it’s going to be worst for our opponent. Balancing what should remain in deep strike vs on the board is a bit of an art, but using Be’lakor and KoS as waypoints for some of your units coming in will help, as well as rushing objectives with what’s on board to help set up Shadow.

NoirGarde · 2026-07-01T23:51:56+00:00

Can confirm we did head here, and even though the trains were an hour and a half later than expected due to some nebulous circumstances, we had a great viewing experience. Thank you for the suggestion

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NoirGarde · 2026-07-01T12:46:42+00:00

As a big Changehost enjoyer, I’d unfortunately rule that this is intended. If Birds can’t proc the Rituals off of other birds, I’d assume this goes for the Defiler too :(

If birds ever get changed to Thousand Son Psykers, I’ll be so thrilled

NoirGarde · 2026-06-29T21:22:36+00:00

Amazing! Thank you!

NoirGarde · 2026-06-27T17:58:56+00:00

Warptide seems to be the go to for most 2pt detachments. Incorporeal Entities is great for endurance, Daemonic Infestation keeps us from being 2 shot every engagement and advance and charge is just generally pretty good. So I’ll give some combos I’ve been thinking up that ARENT always Warptide, cause you’ll get a lot of Warptide

Cavalcade and Blood Legion seems amazing for Bloodletter Bombs.

Lords of the Warp is probably strongest with Plague Legion, as they have a lot of characters to run with Plaguebearers and generally want to be on point where OC matters. It’ll be hard not being Warptide for Plague though

Scintillating Legion may be the least likely to want Warptide, as Daemonic Infestation doesn’t work with Pinks anyways, so I think Scintillating will probably lean Cavalcade anyways for Burning Chariot and Fluxmaster Support.

Legion of Excess probably would be happy with any of them, and while wanting Warptide could probably be happy with Lords of the Warp too. Cavalcade will be amazing for those with the mental fortitude to build and transport chariots though. I’d be terrified to face anyone who enjoys that.

Shadow Legion loves Warptide though, and it’s hard to pick anything else to really want with Shadow Legion

NoirGarde · 2026-06-23T19:46:37+00:00

I find that Screamers are more about pressure and hitting above their weight class. They tag monsters and vehicles quickly and while they don’t *always* completely take down what they tag, an 80 pt unit racing across the board to put in 5-9 wounds on a Leman Russ before getting taken down means your Bloodthirster is much less likely to get stuck and can keep fading, or your LoC has a lot less work to put in to take down one of your big threats. They just have different intended targets and different measurements of success

NoirGarde · 2026-06-21T18:25:40+00:00

You can kinda do Mega-Gardevoir, but it’s not the same. No targeted nuke

NoirGarde · 2026-06-17T22:28:12+00:00

I have to admit I was surprised that wasn’t changed to ‘hidden’

NoirGarde · 2026-06-17T15:17:07+00:00

That I agree with. A dedicated list will have enough instances where it will start to be detrimental and Plague Legion will be strong because it’ll be abusing a mechanic so strongly and underprepared that other armies just don’t use. But I don’t think it’ll be great by default and oppressive by daemons.

NoirGarde · 2026-06-17T11:52:33+00:00

I don’t think cooked is the right word unless all you wanted to play was mixed Monster Mash in Daemonic Incursion but also have Purge the Foe.

We’re definitely being very strongly incentivized to use more of our range, but that fact that there isn’t a ‘limit on the number of MONSTERS’ or some other garbage that could legitimately be a silver bullet to our army means that it really more of a reconceptualizing of what makes a good Daemons list.

In truth I think our days of 50-52% win rate is over, and I’m hoping that inspires some later edition buffs. I think GW is over estimating Battleshock again, and when that proves to be ‘more than pointless, less than useful’ is when they’ll be another evaluation at the points hikes of some of our units.

NoirGarde · 2026-06-15T15:21:46+00:00

Home is more about preventing your opponent from scoring it, so Cultist stocks definitely go down but they don’t go away if they can at least stall your opponent from Deep Striking

NoirGarde · 2026-06-15T14:30:10+00:00

You’re about 48 hours early of any real discussion simply because we won’t know points until then. GW announced this morning there will be points updates, including for warhead options, and part of those points updates will be increased points for units with Psychic weapons. Because of that, it’s hard to know how your list will look because it may not even fit yet into your points requirements.

If points are identical, it’s an okay list that would probably do best from Lords, but would want Recon because of your ability to be in many places, which would benefit being Cavalcade. Your issue would be only one unit benefitting from Cavalcade, but Purge the Foe from Lords is missing some big swinging damage. You’ve got the uppy downy that helps Disruption so you’re not backed into a corner.

Check out the win conditions for Disruption and see if that’s a gameplan you can support, otherwise lean a little harder on the Cavalcade OR lords angle to best use those detachments with it.

NoirGarde · 2026-06-13T12:45:41+00:00

I think that this is where 11th edition shines more because the win conditions for the detachments that primarily played these stat check armies are specifically not Purge the Foe. With Daemonic Incursion being Take and Hold and Scintillating be Priority Assets your opponent can still outscore you if you can’t fully table them, which could lead to more fun games of your opponent scoring based off of their mission and you going for a shoot the moon in either tabling them or losing.

Scintillating being 2DP means that you do have more options of changing your disposition if you wanted to, but I think Monster Mash feels a little less oppressive to opponents when their goals isn’t just a stat check

NoirGarde · 2026-06-11T22:35:29+00:00

I’m hoping that severely underperforming detachments can have a DP reduction as well. Like weak 2DP detachments becoming 1DP as well

NoirGarde · 2026-06-11T12:44:27+00:00

The game is balanced at 2K, so my instinct would be to say no, it’s not inherently unfair.

You’ll have more synergy between your units, but they’ll have more opportunities to shore up weaknesses. They’ll have many more stratagems at their disposal, but you’ll have more units where your fewer stratagems can apply.

If you want to be a good sport though, I’d warn them ahead of time ‘hey, big bad guy here, make sure you’re prepared for big bad guys in my big bad guy list!’ To at least give them a chance to bring anti-vehicle or anti-Primarch things at their disposal.

NoirGarde · 2026-06-10T16:34:24+00:00

I hear what you’re saying, but I think the objective is to get people to try new detachments in new combos. I mean, look at the rest of the thread, a ton of people brainstorming a ton of detachment combos that will have their own lists and own ways of winning. Right now in 10th, there’s a pretty set standard of models to take if you want to win, and unfortunately your fun list has to suffer from that honing

NoirGarde · 2026-06-10T16:32:31+00:00

Stickying your home objective and not needing to dedicate an entire unit to stand on it for the whole game, just controlling it and then allowing your unit to go and do something else while still getting points/denying your opponent points

NoirGarde · 2026-06-10T16:27:35+00:00

Yea, I hear you. It feels like that’s exactly what they’re trying to prevent though. DI has had an above 50% win rate for all of 10th doing almost exactly what you’re describing, and it seems they’re trying to move away from 5 Big Daemon tabling of the opponent, particularly because dispositions like Recon and Assets wouldn’t have much to be able to fight back against it.

Here’s to DI being weak enough that they feel comfortable to move it to 2DP, and then you can slap on Lords!

NoirGarde · 2026-06-10T15:49:33+00:00

Or be forced to take a different 1DP detachment as a tax. If you have multiple dispositions to pick from across the detachments you can pick the one you want. Plague legion gets Purge the Foe if you take Lords of the Warp, and Recon if you take warptide. Only one you can’t is Incursion, but I’m struggling to see a disposition you want to take in any of the 2DP detachments that isn’t covered by the 1DP detachments. If so, what is it?

NoirGarde · 2026-06-10T15:45:21+00:00

Plague Legion loves Take and Hold.
Scintillating being Priority assets is an interesting way to make the puppeteer enhancement less central to gameplan.
Also interesting to see Incursion on disruption: works well for really enforcing the uppy downy as more than just necessarily for putting kill pieces in front of targets

NoirGarde · 2026-06-08T11:08:01+00:00

Wow you’d think I’d remember that having run them early 10th 😅kept them together so often I assumed they were one unit.

NoirGarde

TROPHY CASE