Chaos Daemons: Part 10, Fast Attack

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Never a strong point for Daemons, until the White Dwarf update made Screamers great anti-vehicle units, fast attack has not been change in any good ways. They now have a fast unit for Nurgle...but the units rules are not described anywhere in the book (Jet Pack Calvary) so are we to assume they can function like either whenever it suits the unit best? Another thing that needs an FAQ. Furies are now somewhat choosable and their fluff has been entirely rewritten to their benefit. They now have Ld 2 though which to me seems insane but there you have it. Let's get into it.

Khorne
Hounds are still really good against Psykers (though differently as they can deny maledictions now instead of just shooting but they are worse at denying shooting 4+ vs. 2+). They're pretty much the same stats and price but now get scout which is neat. They don't get Karanak as an upgrade anymore but it's not like that makes them worse as you probably didn't take that before. They have no armor, their 5+ means they'll get slaughtered in CC, they have no power weapons so they're not that good in CC which is all you've paid for. You're paying MEQ prices for CC units that cannot be upgraded and aren't good in CC. I'd save my points.

vs. MEQ on the charge they cause a paltry .44 wounds. On the charge. On. The. Charge. A full unit of 20 can expect to cause about 9 wounds. Silliness. 60 freaking attacks and a 320 point unit and you can't even kill 1 MEQ squad on the charge. If you put 5 jump infantry with bolt pistol and chainsword against hounds they have a better chance of causing a wound than 5 Hounds (1.67 wounds vs. 1.48 wounds). This unit sucks at what it's good for.

Tzeentch
Screamers have gone through a lot of changes recently. Unfortunately in their growth they are now stuck at the awkward gangly phase of puberty. The White Dwarf Update can be considered their finest hour, becoming a cheap, useful unit that serves a niche missing in Daemons; cheap anti-vehicle. Before the update you needed to spend heavy on Flamers or Daemon Princes or other MCs just to get up close and punch vehicles to death. Unfortunately they've been slightly nerfed now and their Lamprey attack has been reduced from being their CC weapon to being a special 1 off attack they can make. Yikes. With the new Daemon of Tzeentch rule they lose a bit of survivability (.5 save rate vs. .38). They cost the same and their stats are the same but the new Daemon rules hurt them, like all units and so it's hard to tell if you still want them. They are mostly unchanged but the big difference is Lamprey's Bite being 1 attack instead of 3. That hurts a lot. Might want to pass on these guys (but then again if you took that advice from me you'd have 4 Heralds and nothing else in your army)

Nurgle
Plague Drones used to be a Forge World unit flying gun turret thingy. They were a one-off and looked stupid. Now they are giant bloatflies with weird rules and no FAQ to tell us how they behave. Hmm. What are they supposed to do though? They can't CC (even though they have more attacks that Flesh Hounds -_-) they have poor saves, and it costs an arm and a leg to get just one (pretty much the price of Herald each). What are you to bring them for? Tar-pitting? Fun times. 10 man MEQ units cause 1.5 wounds per round of combat, with CC MEQ it's one dead per round so you can tar-part for a turn and a half for 126 points. Oh! You can pay an extra 5 points per to get 3+ to wound, that's something right? Not really, you go from .25 average wounds to .33 average wounds. Amazing. You can also blow 40 points to get a 1 turn 2+ poisoned.  This 40 point upgrade nets you on average .41 wounds in the turn it's used. So for 40 points you still can't even get better than 50/50 chance of causing a single wound. This unit is doomed in CC and you can't make any of them Psykers so they have 0 shooting. I'd buy the model to make cool looking other units, never for the unit itself. On the Tabletop they're just there to be new not to be played.

Slaanesh
Seekers
Are actually good. They have slightly improved stats and are much cheaper (30%). If you liked them before I'd take them now honestly. They're slightly more killy than Plague Drones but have only 1 wound so they are really a denial unit. They're more gonna be a 'soft underbelly' type unit that goes for the heavy weapons squad in back and ties them up while your army deals with slaughtering mere mortals. They aren't gonna be able to kill many guys (.22 wounds vs. MEQ, .67 vs. FX) but for 12 points each you can easily afford to weigh down a squad with these guys. They're like super fast scouts.

Hellflayer
Pretty cool name I guess. Your paying 60 points for sheer weight of attacks in CC. Having only 2 hull points and Front Armor of 11 means that a single Plasma gun has a 25% chance of blowing this up in one round of shooting though. And a Melta gun has an even better chance: +2 on the vehicle damage table from AP and Open-Topped means minimum weapon destroyed, and with no weapons it means immobilized (unless Fleshshredder counts as a weapon? Not sure if it does since it's only an effect). While charging into CC you get bonus attacks like usual but Fleshshredder bases the bonus off your HP remaining. Let's see if that's better:

vs. MEQ you have 2d6 S 4 AP - attacks. Average 7 so we have 1.16 wounds average. With the normal chariots d6 S 6 AP - you have 3 attacks and thus .83 wounds average. Thus, better. Now they have a second ability that grants them bonus attacks per Hammer of Wrath wounds so on average you'll get 1 bonus attack. Whoopee.

So on the charge you have 6 attacks (1 extra for charging and 1 for Hammer), You'll cause, on average, .44 wounds. So, this bad-ass unit, that gets on average 13 attacks on the charge, can expect two wounds. Versus MEQ you then die because of grenades. Though it is based off my idea that Chariots are Weapon Skill 1 for the purposes of being attacked back. The only exception to vehicles having Weapon skill 1 in CC are Walkers so I'm assuming that this Chariot counts the same? I'm not sure though, the chariot rules are poorly written (and don't belong in 40k, they're goddamn chariots). Regardless, not sure what kind of list these would fit in, versus MEQ you're gonna be slaughtered. Maybe versus FX you can chop through some FX units before 'exploding' (how does a chariot explode?).

Unaligned
Chaos Furies are a little bit stupid if you ask me. They're so cheap as to be ridiculous and were formerly unaligned but now can be Daemons of any flavor for 1 or 2 points. Now, since their stat-line is almost the same as Bloodletters and they count as jump infantry you must think, "How can they be OP" and the answer is: making them Slaaneshi. For 8 points you get a rending, jump infantry unit with S4. Okay, I'm pretty sold. I'm not sure you'd want to get a Khorne jumper to get a Furious Charge jump infantry for 8 points but to each their own. Kinda confusing how they can have pretty much the same stats as a 'better' unit and be half the price. It's almost as if they didn't edit or playtest the codex (*hint*).

Conclusion
Nothing's really worth it but Furies. Seekers are nice too and since you're going to have Slaaneshi furies it'll be 'fluffy'. Also since Slaanesh and Nurgle seem to be the only units worth taking so far it makes sense that the trend would continue. Hellflayers and Hounds are gonna be shot to death or lose in CC so why bother taking them for the paltry wounds they cause. Plague Drones are ungodly expensive for doing what amounts to nothing, they're primarily campers but can't really do anything else. Worse campers than freaking 10-man MEQ units and much more expensive. What a waste.

So yeah, Slaaneshi Furies and Seekers are great distraction units or suicide units that tie-up and hurt the back-line to prevent long-range shooters from blowing apart your army. Pretty nice but requiring a lot of finesse.