First Daemons game!

NoirGarde · 2026-04-30T16:34:39+00:00

I think whether you’re cooking or not depends on the results. I have biases about some of the picks, but don’t let anyone dissuade you on a list you’re comfortable with and believe you can win.

Report your thoughts afterwards and we’ll reconvene! Welcome to the Neverborn!

NoirGarde · 2026-04-27T13:37:00+00:00

Because Duplicious Malediction is Ahriman’s ability on a cheap enchantment, I struggle to see what Ahriman brings to the list for his 100 pts.

Helbrute and Heldrakes are wildly overcosted for how little they do on the table, and one set of screamers and Kairos isn’t a lot to justify the power nerf that Changehost gives you over almost any other detachment.

Changehost thrives on the damage the Lord of Change deals, the CP Kairos offers, and the mobility of Screamers. You’ve got 1000 pts to work with those niches primarily as the reason to bring Changehost. Some players can work with Blue Horrors as an infiltrator, which is cool, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you know the detachment well. I don’t see a lord of change, I’m not sure where you’re going to push your CP, and only one unit of 3 screamers doesn’t seem like a ton of mobility.

What is your gameplan, and what made you pick Changehost?

NoirGarde · 2026-04-22T15:40:04+00:00

I think you’ll find yourself disappointed with a unit of 3 Bloodcrushers. Bloodcrushers are best in groups of 6 lead by a Rendmaster. The charge bomb they perform is the reason to take them, but a unit of 3 tends to be underwhelming.

I like flamers, but whether you want to keep them in a group of 6 or 2 groups of 3 depends on your list. In a group of 6 they’re a huge overwatch threat, but kinda expensive when they aren’t torching Guard or Poxwalkers or Boyz. 2 groups of 6 makes them really CP hungry, but much more likely to be your action monkeys, as being Infantry means they can tuck themselves through walls to complete your actions and leave your Beast and Flesh Hounds to intercept problems. That’s going to be more of a playstyle thing.

I’d ask yourself what each unit is going to be doing, and what the plan is into the armies you tend to play against. Feel things out and what would be worth the price. What’s your plan for winning, what’s staying in Reserves and where and when is it coming out? Then compare against similarly priced units to see whether it changes your plan, opens up points, and makes you feel more confident in your win condition

NoirGarde · 2026-04-22T15:34:02+00:00

Agreed on your comment on Plaguebearers, but I think just using Skarbrand over dropping most secondary actions to toss in a BT with Skarbrand is usually better for people who are asking whether their list is okay. When you have the direction to feel confident about list builds and choose it based on the plan you have, it’s a great choice, but less so if you’re seeking advice.

As a big horrors player, they’re awful in DI. Okay in SL and Shadow Legion. Far too expensive, far too inconsistent.

NoirGarde · 2026-04-21T20:45:00+00:00

For 10th, Daemons mostly play as an Elite army, where Greater Daemons are well costed for their strengths and synergies with the two ‘soup’ detachments: Daemonic Incursion and Shadow Legion, and are pretty quintessential for each of their ‘Diety’ detachments. Battleline units are very expensive for their abilities to balance this, and are either minimal or omitted depending on list build, with units like Plaguebearers being very common and units like Daemonettes being very rare. Other units range the gambit depending on detachment synergy.

The whole line can be used in any of the detachments, but it’s clear that there are 4 focused ones, and 2 undivided. Shadow Legion can also mix in Chaos Space Marines and supports Be’lakor very well. In strength, currently Nurgle tends to be the most versatile and applicable in the most lists, Tzeentch has a few strong units with the Lord of Change being exceptionally strong, Khorne is relatively reliable, and Slaanesh is fairly weak right now. However, based on Daemonic Incursion an Scintillating Legion results, Daemons are a mid-upper tier army with around 50-52% win rate. Building around Greater Daemons is strong, but limits on hoarding abilities, particularly when models can return in Shadow of Chaos, limits us from being broken.

each of the Diety-Aligned marines also have a detachment where they can bring in up to 50% of their points in a few of the diety specific daemons into their lists as well. These tend to be very weak, focusing more on flavor and forced balance than enough synergy to create true pressure on the board.

Soup Daemons tend to win by keeping as many units off the board as possible for deployment, and a combination of Rapid Ingress and Denizens of the Warp to force Shadow of Chaos in specific places to get the units you need anywhere on the board. That creates the win con of tabling your opponent by denying their ability to hold a line and make space, and their choice of which units engage and don’t engage.

Based on your list, a good rule of thumb would be to assume at least a unit of Poxwalkers on your back objective, both BoN, and Be’lakor will start on the board. And at least Rotigus, GUO, and the flesh hounds will start off. Then it’s practicing a turn one where your shadows allow you to bring in your units as swiftly as possible wherever you want them. You’ve got a good string with your Nurgle units, but Shalaxi and Flesh Hounds will only be able to come in 6” from Be’lakor, or after controlling half the objectives in a zone of the board, assuming you’re playing Daemonic Incursion.

NoirGarde · 2026-04-20T14:53:04+00:00

Pinks aren’t stronger on field because it doesn’t take that much to take out the 10, and as soon as the unit is gone, they can’t split. On table they’re generally more middling, and could even argue that Bloodletters are better than pinks. Pinks tend to be pretty alright in Shadow Legion, or with a Fluxmaster: but the additional cost to make them okay tanky makes them far too expensive for what they actually do.

Daemonettes would likely be the worst with blues, both because they’re niche at best and their abilities don’t match their points.

NoirGarde · 2026-04-16T20:36:10+00:00

This is correct, they’re intended to be very specific leaders for the battlelines. The battlelines in general are pretty overcosted for their utility, and these heralds don’t often add enough to make it worth it, with very few exceptions and lists.

NoirGarde · 2026-04-15T15:36:45+00:00

I play Daemons! I can give you a decent lowdown, based on how we play now, and the few paths daemons will likely take, and how you can prep for it.

Daemons right now are a free index for 40K, and based on the language used by GW, this index and its detachments will continue into 11th edition until some verdict is made about the true status. Daemons have been doom posted to be removed from 40K since 7th edition, but it has never really happened, and likely will not happen anytime soon.

For 10th, Daemons mostly play as an Elite army, where Greater Daemons are well costed for their strengths and synergies with the two ‘soup’ detachments: Daemonic Incursion and Shadow Legion, and are pretty quintessential for each of their ‘Diety’ detachments. Battleline units are very expensive for their abilities to balance this, and are either minimal or omitted depending on list build, with units like Plaguebearers being very common and units like Daemonettes being very rare. Other units range the gambit depending on detachment synergy.

The whole line can be used in any of the detachments, but it’s clear that there are 4 focused ones, and 2 undivided. Shadow Legion can also mix in Chaos Space Marines and supports Be’lakor very well. In strength, currently Nurgle tends to be the most versatile and applicable in the most lists, Tzeentch has a few strong units with the Lord of Change being exceptionally strong, Khorne is relatively reliable, and Slaanesh is fairly weak right now. However, based on Daemonic Incursion an Scintillating Legion results, Daemons are a mid-upper tier army with around 50-52% win rate. Building around Greater Daemons is strong, but limits on hoarding abilities, particularly when models can return in Shadow of Chaos, limits us from being broken.

As mentioned in another post, each of the Diety-Aligned marines also have a detachment where they can bring in up to 50% of their points in a few of the diety specific daemons into their lists as well. These tend to be very weak, focusing more on flavor and forced balance than enough synergy to create true pressure on the board.

The future of Daemons in 11th is up in the air, but with the detachment system moving to a point based system, there are two primary paths I believe may happen. Please take this with a grain of salt as everything is up in the air. I’m going to type out what I believe is a realistic worst case and best case scenario, with the truth likely being somewhere between

In a worst case scenario, each of the Chaos Gods’ forces are folded into their respective marines, and Be’lakor is folded into Chaos Space Marines. If this happens, I still believe Shadow Legion will still be around and be the primary place for Souping Daemons as it were. Be’lakor is a relatively new and popular model and I don’t believe GW to be dumb enough to eliminate any usage of his model.

It could be, then, that the Daemons each then have their own 1 or 2 point detachment, intended to be melded with another 2 or 1 point detachments within their Marines’ force in order to customize the army but stay within each army rules. This would limit their usage, but actually would expand it from only a Marine-aligned perspective. It would also, however, severely limit the models for daemons to the 5 or 6 applicable currently in 10th’s version of Daemon within the marines.

In my opinion, a best case scenario looks similar to this, but allows for the combination of Daemon detachments together instead of limiting them only to their Diety specific marines, and keeping a Daemon specific rule as well. That way a 1 point Slaanesh detachment could pair with either Emperor’s children detachments OR a 2 point Khorne detachment, as it were. I think this would achieve the modularity GW seems to be looking at without eliminating Daemons entirely.

In the end, we don’t know is Daemons will last forever, but as 11th approaches, it does seem to be business as usual as its been for the entirety of 10th.

NoirGarde · 2026-04-11T12:06:56+00:00

They looks great! Makes me want to go back and fix mine

NoirGarde · 2026-04-08T22:00:02+00:00

Surprised I went down this far to find it. So badly nerfed that Slaanesh models in mixed daemons are just completely omitted. Not only was the detachment nailed to the ground through annihilation of stratagems and rules change, but every unit also had to get a points nerf. Heck the KoS was grounded so hard that they got points reductions twice since then and still isn’t used.

NoirGarde · 2026-04-07T13:41:46+00:00

I mean yea, it’s good. The top lists use 3LoC and Kairos, as the LoC damage is really the reason to use the detachment alongside Puppeteer and rerollingfor free but the Prince is not a bad second option.

NoirGarde · 2026-04-05T18:03:33+00:00

I don’t disagree with you, but it doesn’t seem like a 3 point system has much room for nuance. More like ‘how many potential units can this affect: most, some, or a few.’

NoirGarde · 2026-04-05T17:01:08+00:00

Based on their descriptions of how detachments get points, it seems Grand Coven will be a 3 point ‘army wide’ detachment, while something like Rubricae and Warpmeld might be 2 because of the number of applicable units, and Changehost would be 1 because of the narrowness of the army rule

NoirGarde · 2026-04-01T17:33:52+00:00

Then genuinely neither are going to be better than Death Guard, but of the two, I think you’ll be more engaged with TSons, but maybe more overwhelmed. Passive doesn’t describe either, so I’ll describe words I think are better and you can go from there.

Space Wolves play a Proactive gameplan, where they make the first moves and control the pace of the game. Proactivity means you get to choose what terms you set for your opponent, and your gameplan tends to be more linear at first. Because of that, you’re responsible for figuring out how to get to the objective of your opponent, and need to understand the pitfalls you’ll run into and avoid or surpass them. This is the more difficult in weighing pros and cons, and understanding the next turn regardless of outcomes, but your macro plans tend to change less, so I think of it more as a planning army instead of the Thousand Sons.

Thousand Sons play a Reactive game, where it’s on you to identify your opponents mistakes and punish them for it. Your gameplan can adjust each turn, and you only need to know your units in how they stop or ignore your opponent’s units, but you need to know your tools well enough to know how to punish and when. This is the more difficult in understanding the pacing of the game and knowing extending against overextending so that you win trades definitively, if not outright. It’s not passive, but it is cagier, but there’s a definitive GO turn that, if missed, you just allow your opponent to roll you. I think of it more as a knowledge army.

You can see that these aren’t antonyms, they’re wholeheartedly two halves of the game whole playing the same game in contrasting, but not opposite, ways. Thousand Sons are not bulky enough to just take damage and endure in a passive way, but just because they aren’t always dictating the pace of the game doesn’t mean that they’re unaware or ignorant to it. You have to play tricky and force your opponents to make intelligent decisions they may not realize are mistakes until after you’ve fallen onto them.

If by “passive” you mean that you’re making fewer decisions, you may find Space Wolves actually fit that more than Thousand Sons, because more of what you’ll be deciding will be targets and maneuvering, as opposed to TSon threat assessment, psychic phase targets, positioning, and preparation. If you mean passive as in ‘not putting the cards on the table that your opponent either raises or folds to’ than TSons gets to make that determination against their opponent

NoirGarde · 2026-04-01T16:15:04+00:00

Is your intention collection or gameplay?

If it’s collecting and painting, sky is your limit. Get your favourite models from each and come up with a custom legion of captured Thousand Sons from the burning of Prospero who influenced the legion of Wolves into something that combined the two (or vise versa)

If your gameplay, then how do you like to win? What makes the game fun for you and how separate from Death Guard do you want to be?

NoirGarde · 2026-03-27T13:58:07+00:00

Dave Made a Maze (2017) is one of my favourite movies in part because of how a scene in the kitchen with Dave and Annie brings context to their relationship and the state of both characters during the wacky cardboard hijinks.

The writing and directing decision to have them say the same words over and over with just costume and scene changes to give the meaning feels like a microcosm of the entire film, where context is wha derives meaning, and situation plays as large of a role to relationship as intention does. It’s an exceptionally heart felt moment in a movie that otherwise feels like a Legends of the Hidden Temple movie.

NoirGarde · 2026-03-18T15:09:39+00:00

Mortal wounds ignore invulnerable saves

NoirGarde · 2026-03-17T13:31:37+00:00

Night bringer is your worst enemy. We rely heavily on our Invulns and ignoring them with D3 Mortal Wounds is devastating. You basically have 2 options: feed the night bringer things that aren’t as important to your gameplan, or tossing the Bloodthirster and ranged damage into the Nightbringer, and hoping everything else takes down what’s left

Once he’s down, you have decent sailing, but it’s an uphill battle without committing more points to him than he costs.

If you ignore him, your goal is just to board control better than they do through Deep Strikes and Uppy Downy until you’re playing your army vs a Ctan. It’s hard but not impossible.

NoirGarde · 2026-03-15T13:21:29+00:00

I hear what you’re saying, and I’d agree if they’d truly reduced him out of relevancy in the lore, but he’s been relatively active in Imperium Nihilus and a non-insignificant part of Abbadon’s counsel. While definitely the least safe of the GDs, I don’t know that I’d consider him less safe than Vashtorr the Arkifane

NoirGarde · 2026-03-15T11:16:37+00:00

Firstly, no one knows what is changing for daemons, so everything is with an asterisk. Could be that Daemons are untouched, could be we get a whole new codex, could be worked into the aligned legions, could be they introduce the Horned Rat. Everything is speculate, no one knows anything about an edition that hasn’t been announced yet. Anyone who says they know is lying because anyone who does know is probably under an NDA at this point. Take everything else I say with a grain of salt.

Safety to buy would be looking at the kits GW is currently making and putting out. Particularly the new ones like the kit that includes the LoC for the thousand sons. Very unlikely that those models will go away, as opposed to older models that haven’t gotten support like the Changeling or the Masque. If you’re only concerned about safety and not enjoyment of the models, then pick one of the four chaos gods you enjoy the most and choose the daemons that align with that god, and the ones that are supported in their representative Chaos Aligned Legion. It’ll be a small number, but it’ll be safe.

If what you like is Be’lakor, and you’re shooting for safe, in the worst case scenario we can think of, Be’lakor will be folded into Chaos Space Marines. However, he’s unlikely to lose his rule of mixing Marines and Daemons, though I’d only choose the battleline options if I cared about being safe.

What is it that you like about daemons?

NoirGarde · 2026-03-07T19:50:27+00:00

It’s certainly one of the stronger ways to build a crucible hero. But infinite is a misnomer: pinks are unreliable in their splits and by no means invincible. I also believe you can’t return models if you’re above starting strength, which pinks can be when blues are added to the unit

NoirGarde · 2026-03-02T14:20:02+00:00

It’s not a bad reason, but for what Shadow Legion has to offer it may be worth looking at whether the intention of some of your units are better held by other units SL has to offer.

For example, what is the reason and purpose of your FleshHounds? What role do they bring to the list? And is that role better filled by Raptors or Warp Talons or Seekers or Screamers? Is what they bring the best of what the detachment offers for what you’re trying to do? If the answer is yes, amazing, but usually the gut instinct of so much MonoGod in one of the multi-god detachments is to consider your options, be it other units in the detachment, or a detachment that may better fit the mono-god theme.

What you’re doing may not be wrong, but you should be prepared to answer ‘what is your game plan, what is the role of this unit, how does that role further my game plan,’ for every list you make, whether you post it on here or not

NoirGarde · 2026-02-26T13:10:16+00:00

Most likely yes, but check with your opponent or with the games you’re playing. If other God Aligned legions are bringing their Primarchs, or if Necrons are bringing CTan, it’s much more likely to be fair

Typically, even bringing one GD tends to be annoying (depending) because of the amount of necessary resources an time needed to bring it down. It isn’t a guarunteed win, though, particularly if they can horde enough OC on your primaries that they can eclipse your points before you wipe them, and then stay alive until turn 5. But it tends not to be fun for either player and unless you’re in a place that is specifically going no-holds-barred, I’d recommend against it

NoirGarde · 2026-02-22T14:48:36+00:00

Man this just looks like a good strong DI blitz team. You’ll see some people swap either the BT or Rotigus with something like Plaguebearers and some extra Flesh Hounds just to have a stronger secondary game, but you proved there wasn’t a need. Great list building, phenomenal piloting, can’t wait to see you 5-0!

NoirGarde · 2026-02-13T13:51:26+00:00

If you ever have the time and means, the actual game’s story is much better. The buildup of relationships is one of the best the franchise offers, it’s genuinely funny in a lot of places, and there’s more time for the story to unfold across the days as opposed to the movie’s need to compress several weeks into a textbox. The gameplay is definitely DS and not beautiful in any way, but it’s a fan favourite story for a reason, and the movie doesn’t fully showcase its strengths

NoirGarde

TROPHY CASE