Chaos Daemons: Part 11, Heavy Support

Here are the 'good' units of Chaos. This is what you need to compete against flyers and semi-mech now so expect to bring some of these or get boned. I'm including Daemon Princes here because the Flying Circus build (5 flying MCs) is really the only good way to take DPs.

Note: Since the current Burning Chariot of Tzeentch is completely broken (if it moves it's BS 1 and can't fire one of it's weapons) I'm not going to review it. It's completely un-takeable without an FAQ or houserule. It most literally does not work as written. (Also sidenote: why can't Flamers get an Exalted Flamer? That'd be awesome. Instead you get a Pyrocaster who gets? Random Rewards. Grand.)


Khorne
Skull Cannon
Silliness abounds. If Daemons are gonna use equipment from Medieval Europe the least they could do is enchant it so it isn't just balls. Skull Cannon's Skull Cannon is terrible versus MEQ but is the only thing that gives Bloodletters assault through cover so you'd almost (almost) take it in a Khorne army, til you realize it can't shoot down Flyers. If this thing hits 6 MEQ with its large blast you can expect to do 1.66 wounds. Like, holy cow. A massive cannon with S 8 that even Fire Warriors get a save against. It has S7 Hammer of Wrath attacks, d6 S7 Hammer of Wrath Attack (which gives you .83 wounds vs. MEQ). Blah! Gorefeast might work once, too bad you'll be wiped by any MEQ unit in CC. And the Cannon is only 36'' range! This means you'll easily be within range of any artillery that the enemy brings (which means you'll die). Man, disappointing. Also, since the vehicle doesn't have a rider does that mean it doesn't get any CC attacks after Hammer of Wrath? Why doesn't it just count as Artillery. I'm fucking done.

Khorne Daemon Prince
Costs as much as an HQ (200 points, unless you go without wings which would be a good way to lose 200 points). You might want a greater reward, if you get armor keep it. Not much to say here, you vector strike, stay in range of charging in case you see the opportunity and keep killing troops and light vehicles. Pretty expensive for 3 wounds per turn, hopefully he'll make up his points by the end.

Tzeentch
Burning Chariot
Doesn't work. Needs an FAQ.

Tzeentch Daemon Prince
Gonna want wings and a psyker level. Even though the powers suck, having extra shooting is nice. Some would say take 3 Psyker levels to get the full round-up of powers but they'll end up costing more and being less effective than a Land Raider.

Slaanesh
Seeker Cavalcades
They can now take rewards all of sudden? (Hopefully changed in FAQ so that Seekers in Fast Attack can as well) They're just as effective as before, causing probably 2 wounds in CC but now you have excessive amounts of them. I'd recommend splurging on an Etherblade to ignore armor saves so you can up your chances of a second kill (and let's be honest, if you're blowing points on these guys already a 50 point chariot isn't bad). Putting an Exalted Chariot in there doesn't do much for you except you now have twice as many Hammer of Wrath attacks (so 3.88 wound average) and thus do 9 attacks on the charge, giving you 2 more wounds on the charge (if you have an Etherblade, if not it's .67). Having 4 HP on the chariot is pretty slick too because you can now survive a lot of special weapons. If I were to take these I'd want to take as many as possible. 185 points for 2 Seekers and 1 Exalted all with Etherblades. On average you'll do 28 Hammer of Wrath attacks which will kill ~8 MEQ and ~11 FX. Then you get your CC attacks which will kill ~6 MEQ and ~9 FX. So if they get in close they can kill most normal sized units. Against light vehicles it's pretty devastating (~7 glances/pens per the group per turn or 2.3 Rhinos) so Seeker Cavalcades actually get my seal of approval. Taking 9 of them is ruinous against Semi-mech and somewhat harsh against mob armies. I like. Just wish their Strength was 4 or they had Furious Charge. That would make them excellent wrecking balls. (Also note: You can take these guys as an upgrade to Heralds. It's pretty sick if you're running 11 of these face-rollers.

Slaanesh Daemon Prince
I guess you took a Keeper of Secrets. If you take this Prince get him a Psyker level or two and roll for the power. Also wings. It's going be hilarious when a blob just detonates when you nova over it. Still more expensive than a Land Raider but you might be able to get your points back.

Nurgle
No specific heavy support for you (Vomit frog artillery? Nurgling cannoneers? Poisonous Katyusha? Giant T7 W7 plague turtles? One can dream) but your Prince is the Prince of choice in CSM, how is he here?

Nurgle Daemon Prince
Comparable. I'll do a general review all Daemon princes below but for now with Nurgle you might want a psyker level or two because Plague powers are pretty nice. Obviously you need flying again so Land Raider priced dude. I'll talk about the rewards below but for this guy you're gonna be spending probably 245 points. To be fair.

Unaligned
Soul Grinder
BS 3 means half your shots won't hit. Your Harvester gun has been upgraded but you only get half as many shots. vs. MEQ you'll get ~.41 wounds vs. FX you'll get 1.25. With the old cannon you got .5 wounds v. MEQ and 2 vs. FX. So downgrade vs. troops. The huge part however is that you get Skyfire. What does that do vs. Vehicles

AV 10 1 glance/pen (3*1/2*2/3), if evading .67
AV 11 .75 glance/pen (3*1/2*1/2), if evading .5
AV 12 .5 glance/pen  (3*1/2*1/3), if evading .33

aka not much. You'll never shoot a flyer down in one turn with this beast which is unfortunate because you have nothing else with Skyfire. Warp Gaze has a .41-.50 chance of glancing/penning but since it's only 1 shot it's almost not worth it. The torrent and large blast are both big and scary and effective against MEQ and FX. I'd probably go with one or the other or even both since they're pretty effective. It'll make your Soul Grinder more expensive but hey, you don't have a choice for shooting really. Soul Grinder sucks in CC now. His Iron Claw is a shit version of Dreadnought CC Weapon (he retains the last codexes bonus attack from having two though. don't know why). Actually, other than the CC change and the Harvester Cannon change he's pretty much exactly the same model. Giving them Daemon of Nurgle is nice because they get a slick cover save. If you don't want to buy a template for them just take Khorne for free. Gives you Furious charge for nothing. Not really amazing but it's free so who cares. Overall as your only shooting platform the lack of doubling weapons to get twin-linked and the BS 3 really hurts your poor gunless army.

Daemon Daemon Prince vs. Space Marines Daemon Prince
I think what this choice comes down to is the randomness. With CSM you get to pink from a variety of upgrades: Ichor Blood, Spell Familiar, Gift of Mutation and the arguably better Artifacts. In my mind it's much better than Rewards because you choose. But overall you're not going to be equipping them with much in the Daemons codex because a lot of the lesser Rewards are not that good and pretty much all the Exalted ones are not worth the points so you're stuck with Greater. While I'd say pretty much all the Greater rewards are great on Princes the problem is getting to choose. Honestly if you could choose a lot of those would be great for 20 points. (Although it sucks that they cost so much when most of the CSM stuff is 15 or less) The real lack will be felt in the crumminess of Daemon Weapons compared to CSM Daemon Weapons. Black Mace and Axe of Blind Fury are apocalyptic on DPs. And Burning Brand is great on a Flyer. Ruinous torrents for everyone.

Side Rant: Wondering why we can't just have one of the random status Daemonblades from Grey Knights and switch out the 7 effect for Hatred (Non-Daemons) or Shred (By the way check out Grey Knights version of Warpflame. Now rage.). I like that Grey Knights get a randomized-template Daemon weapon but neither CSM or Daemons get their own. Is it that hard to think up multiple effects for a weapon to have? I mean, you have the whole Chaos Boon table and 10 CC only named rules. Not that hard.

So yeah it really boils down to survivability versus killability. CSM DPs have good both, but much better second with proper equipment (or even without) while Daemons have better survivability if you roll well. If you don't enjoy your sword of suck.

Conclusion
Hellflayers are pretty sweet, DPs are nice as long as you go for a flying circus. You'll still get shot down and die though. Soul Grinders are your only shooting and therefore good compared to the rest of the codex even though they themselves are waaaaay worse than Tau Broadsides or Devastators but cost a bit more. Pooh. Burning Chariot might be nice, eventually.