[darklove]

• Bloodthirster + Blessing of the Blood God + Unholy Might
• Skulltaker
• 20* Bloodletters of Khorne + Chaos Icon + Instrument of Chaos
• 10* Daemonettes of Slaanesh
• 9* Daemonettes of Slaanesh + Chaos Icon
• Soul Grinder of Chaos + Phlegm + Tongue
• Daemon Prince of Chaos + Daemonic Flight + Iron Hide + Unholy Might + Mark of Nyrgle (+1T) + Cloud of Flies + Noxious Touch + Aura of Decay

= 1,496

I'll put the Skulltaker with the Bloodletters and have an Icon in each deployment half, just in case. I wanted to have a large unit of the Bloodletters so that there would be a lot of bodies between the Skulltaker and any shooting damage, and to be able to drag lots of units into combat at once by spreading the assault.
Soul Grinder will squat at the back and provide covering shooting, avoiding most contact so that he can focus on this role.
DP and Bloodthirster are fast and deadly and will get busy asap until everything else can reach the assault.

Thoughts?

 

[yamnosaj]

Bloodthirster is always a popular choice by me...I love mine. Unholy might is a must have as well to help with anti-tanking. Blessing of the Blood God is only 5 points but its rarely used (at least in all the fights ive had) I've never ever had a need to use it.

Skulltaker again a good choice especially putting him in with a group of bloodletters. helps with his survivability.

Bloodletters, for a start drop the instrument. You should never ever end up drawing in combat with letters. So the points invested in that to me are a waste. secondly id consider dropping their number down to 15. Only reason why i say this is because if you deep strike them in, a group of 20 PLUS skulltaker is going to take up a HUGE area and you will most likely end up on the mishap table. You don't want that when you have invested so many points into one unit.

daemonettes....i've never had a good experience with my daemonettes. Despite all their attacks and high initiative, because of their low weapon skill and strength they rarely get any attacks through to anyone. If you want the nettes go for it but I'd suggest losing the group of 9 (only go for a minimum of 10, survivability is what counts) and instead with the 5 letters you took from the other group make another group of bloodletters (they are much better i have learned).

As everyone else will no doubt say only bring grinders in groups of two. While this is on the whole true I have found a great tactic for keeping one single one alive. And that is engaging it in combat with the biggest unit of troops you can find ASAP. Most of the time the dont even have a power weapon, they can't hurt you and you have taken out a HUGE proportion of firepower out of the game. That does mean however that phlegm and tongue are pointless so you can save yourself some points there. But it is better to just take two grinders or none.

The prince (i love my princes) i would drop Noxious touch, most units he will be wounding on a 2+ anyway so no need for that (i never put it in) and i'd lose aura of decay and replace it with daemonic gaze or breath of chaos (much more effective).

If it were me I would try and get more shooting in there and where are your elites?

Dropping the blessing on the thirster, 5 letters + instrument, 9 nettes, soul grinder, and prince upgrades will give you 421 points to play with. That is plenty of points to buy some shooty with.

 

[hijynx]

I agree with yamnosaj on most points, except I think Mawcannon - Phlegm is a great weapon. Being a large blast, it makes the soul grinders BS3 matter a little less. I'd definitely run two if you're going to run any.

I've never been impressed with daemonettes, switch to pink horrors.

The daemon prince doesn't need unholy might and noxious touch. Pick one or the other. I'd do noxious touch since it gives you a 2+ to wound that's re-rollable. Great against other MCs (like Tyranids). Drop aura of decay, it's unnecessary. Breath of chaos can be devastating if used properly, just make sure you'll still be in assault range when they start pulling casualties.

 

[yamnosaj]

oh don't get me wrong i love phlegm too. its great against swarmers. But I've found with my single grinder when i rush him into combat I never use it.

also....i didnt realise noxious touch allowed the wound to be re-rollable...where does it say that??? I may be picking it up if thats the case

 

[hijynx]

oh don't get me wrong i love phlegm too. its great against swarmers. But I've found with my single grinder when i rush him into combat I never use it.

also....i didnt realise noxious touch allowed the wound to be re-rollable...where does it say that??? I may be picking it up if thats the case

Look at the rules for poisoned weapons. As long as your strength is equal to or higher than their toughness, you get to re-roll failed to wound rolls, or something to that effect.

 

[yamnosaj]

no-one ever told me that!! I was advised to take out noxious touch for the reasons i gave. Damn it!!!

 

[darklove]

The plan with nox touch was to re-roll wounds, trying to maximise damage from the high point unit.

The reason I had a unit of 9 Daemonettes was so that I would have the points to add an Icon. But I can drop the Instrument from the Bloodletters instead.

I have a single Soul Grinder. Why are pairs so required?

 

[Le Sinistre]

Grinders are the only vehicles in the holy army. So, if you take one, all heavy/spec waepons with vehicle destorying capabilities will try to take out this one.

If you take a pair, than he must split the vehicle hunting ability, and you have a bigger chance that your grinders will live more than one turn (since in this edition there are many vehicles, so every army takes many vehicle hunter weapons).

 

[yamnosaj]

the problem with 9 nettes is their survivability. As I said I'd just drop them all together put something more shooty in there and drop an icon on them instead. or even transfer the icon to the group with 10 in.

 

[darklove]

What if the Soul Grinder comes down with the second wave? That way there are already other units putting pressure on the enemy and it can drop into a better situation - especially if there is already an icon in play.
I like to use a lot of troops with Daemons because I like the idea - swarming daemon hordes - and the units all have some cool abilities
I'm worried about the troops getting killed too early though, so maybe larger units would be better...

 

[yamnosaj]

the problem with the troops is their survivability. and if you like the idea of 'swarming daemon hordes' then you really really don't have enough troops out. You will be out numbered by most armies in a 1500 game with what you have there. thus again the suggestion would be to have no soul grinder and spend the points on troops.

You hit the nail on the head when you said larger units would be better. hell yeah they are. Thats how they survive into combat. The only problem is however at least in my experience daemonettes seem the least use of any of the combat units once they get into combat. Plaguebearers have unbelievable survivability (and also roll to rewound on most troops which I have just learned thanks to this thread). And bloodletters are armed with power weapons with high strength and weapon skill. I've had 4 bloodletters wipe out an entire squad of space marines, and had my daemonettes murdered by the same.

But we all play differently.

 

[darklove]

Well Daemonettes almost always strike first, even through cover, and I have killed Dreadnoughts with them before. Unlike Bloodletters, Daemonettes can kill Wraithlords and other high T MCs, so I brought them in for that reason.

What if I deploy all of the Daemonettes with the Icon and the DP in the first wave? Then everything else has a good chance of arriving without a scatter and hopefully get in close quite fast. Probably try to land as much as possible into terrain as well, so that there are cover saves from the start.

 

[red baron]

The way I slve the daemonic assault problem is I use small squads of 5 plaguebearers and/or horrors with icons in the first wave. The land deep within enemy lines and if they die, I'm not losing anything really important. Icon horrors guiding in monstrous creatures, multiple grinders, and squads of 20 power sword daemons will mess up your opponents day for sure. Thats not an if.

 

[darklove]

Ok - following all the feedback - I have redone the whole list and come up with:

• HQ
• Bloodthirster + Blessing of the Blood God + Unholy Might
• Skulltaker
  
• Troops
• Bloodletters of Khorne x20 + Chaos Icon
• Bloodletters of Khorne x20 + Chaos Icon
  
• Heavy Support
• Daemon Prince of Chaos + Daemonic Flight + Iron Hide + Unholy Might + Mark of Nurgle (+1T) + Noxious Touch + Boon of Mutation
  
• Soul Grinder

=1,500

Does that look better?

 

[red baron]

this list only lets you have 5 units total. You really should add a second grinder or replace the first with a prince. Also squads of 15 letters work just as well so you can use the extra points to get one of the above.