Chaos Daemons: Part 8, Troops

With a brief review a the troops you can see that some are improved. There are more options (random options) for your characters, everyone has pretty reduced stat-lines and are cheaper. But as in last edition, they blow. They honestly suck against MEQ and FX but at least they're cheaper. Which does make them somewhat good. The problem is that in order to make Plaguebearers and Pink Horrors cheaper they decided to nerf them pretty hard. Why? It's not like we were slaughtering units left and right with absurdly priced troops before. Now they're fairly priced but they get nerfs? That's like going to a dealership and the guy says, "Listen, I'll drop the price on the car by half, but I'll take out the engine and the back wheels." just because it's cheaper doesn't make it a deal. Anywho let's see how they stack up to previous incarnations.

Compared to a Bloodthirster...pretty much accurate

Khorne
Bloodletters. Yeah buddy. Their stat-line actually goes down even though it looks to be better at first glance. Their toughness is reduced and so are their attacks (What.) but their BS is increased to 5? (WHAT.) Even though they have no shooting. (wat.) What the hell were they planning to do with these guys that got canned? Up a unit's BS to 5 and give them literally no access to shooting. Something must have been miscommunicated here. They are 6 points cheaper now but would have lost to themselves in CC sooo victory? Let's see how they fight

vs. MEQ on charge (if you're getting charged just throw away the unit) you have a .88 chance of causing a wound. With Rage (hint, loci, hint) you cause an average of 1.7 wounds per guy. This is what they are for. Alpha strike to totally wipe a unit of MEQ. The problem? I 4 means MEQ gets attacks back. A 10 man unit will kill, on average, 2 back. Meh, not bad. 10 for two is okay. Buuuuuut remember, MEQ can shoot, you cannot and if they are in cover you're kinda boned.

vs. FX it gets bloodier 1.1 wound per and 2.2 wounds per with Rage. They'll kill about 1 back so not bad but again the worry is always the lack of armor (6+ is not armor when you have a 5+ invuln) and thus weakness to shooting.

They're pretty much just as good on the charge. They are waaaaay more of an alpha strike unit than last time due to lack of attacks and lowered toughness. Kill everyone round 1 or expect to watch the unit be locked for the next few turns. The real difference? Loci make you way better. (You don't really need rewards either) but Banner of Blood is pretty much required.

These are your pink horrors after getting into CC

Tzeentch
Pink Horrors are no longer fun little machine gunners. They're a pack of lies! They're half as man points but no longer have warpfire!! Nooooo! They now have the shitty Warpflame rule instead! Ugh! Before we write them off completely let's compare their new power with Warpfire. (By the way, no ability to take 2 powers anymore. Oh and all your shooting is psychic and thus gets Deny The Witch saves. Goddamn)

Warpfire S 4 AP 4 Assault 3. Nice power, a half-range heavy bolter with 1 less strength for every guy in the unit. Sounds good and then you remember the enemy gets no Deny the Witch against it and you can Overwatch with it. Even better! Now compare to the new power. We'll use an example of 10 man Pink Horror units vs. 18 new ones (same price after all).

With the new Primaris power the Pink Horrors get 4d6 shots heavy bolter shots with Soul Blaze and Warpflame (sigh). On average this will net them 14 shots. 7 of which will hit which vs. MEQ will cause ~1.5 wounds. Versus FX you'll get ~5.8 wounds. Not bad. How about old style? 30 shots, guaranteed (no roll), and of those 15 will hit which will cause ~2.5 wounds. Mmm already losing. Versus FX you get 10 wounds average. So yeah, new power blows on average compared to the old one. You'll have to get 23 or higher on the 4d6 to do better than the previous power on average. So 6,6,6,5 or 6,6,6,6. Good luck on that roll.

Oh! Didn't factor into the wounds that 1/6 of the time it'll just get entirely shut down and the fact that you cannot fire this power as Overwatch AND you can't get a second power, just more warp charges. Some people are saying use Blasted Standard to make them good and I get confused. You can use it once per game, it has no AP, lower strength than the normal power, random attacks still which is fun, and if your witchfire power gets denied you can't use it again and have get no effect. So yeah, spend 10 points to make your shooting on average 1 wound better on MEQ (a whopping 2.5 the same as the previous power with half as many units) or 3 more vs. FX (a total of 8.8, 1 less than the previous power's average). You now need a Herald with Prescience to make them good so you're paying 45 points to make your Pink Horrors as good as the previous codex. I'd pay more to have the old power back.

Oh an with Prescience? You go from .5 To Hit to .75 To Hit which brings you up to...2.3 wounds. Still worse on average but you need only 16 or more to be better than the previous power. A ~40% chance. And hey! it only cost you 45 points in addition to minimum 6 extra units. So to do the same as the previous codex you have to pay 45(herald) + 90(base unit) + 72(extra bodies) = 207 points to equal the previous codexes 170 point unit. If you try to match points between the units it becomes just silly how much better the last one is.

So in the end, Pink Horrors now suck, even with a Herald. Grats.

Plaguebearer on an objective

Nurgle
Your shooting is buffed. Again why? No ranged weapons (really, I've got one: Horrid Belch, 24'', Str 4 AP - Poisoned 4+, Assault 1, no modelling required, still fair for the points cost) DE Warriors get a better gun and are just as good in CC for the same points cost. Plaguebearers had their toughness reduced but kept their strength (?) and will remain last in CC. They are INSANE in cover however. Shrouded adds two to whatever your cover save is so in Ruins (4+) you have a 2+ cover save, hell, in pretty much any cover you get a crazy save. I guess that's where Plaguebearers come in: place an objective in ruins, sit this unit on top, do nothing. Great and interesting gameplay eh? Plagueridden can't take any psychic powers and the rewards are not for him. If you have the points maybe take a lesser reward because 1,3 and 5 add to your unit a lot. I don't know though, not please with the creation of a unit that encourages camping and not moving even more. With a Herald who has the Loci of 'grant Feel No Pain' you now have no reason to move ever.

They perform the same function as last time just in a more annoying way now due to Shrouded's switch for Feel No Pain. Worth taking a Nurgle army or just to camp a ruin objective forever. You can't really use them for anything else.

A better codex? Maybe?

Slaanesh
Guess what goes up on this unit? Just guess. Your BS is now 4 for no apparent reason (Another gun idea: Scream of Seduction, 18'', S3, AP -, Assault 1, Pinning) and now your Atks and Init both go down. Great. You still have Rending but with less attacks it matters less. Obviously 1 follows the other. You're more an escort unit for your bad-ass Heralds to strut around with.

I'm not sure what to say. They're worse and have no better survivability or killability but are 5 points cheaper. I wouldn't really pay 5 for each to have 1 more attack but it's making a previously bad unit worse and only slightly reducing the cost. You need Loci to make this unit work and even though you'll get tar-pitted by MEQ units (with no upgrades either). On the charge you cause the same number of average wounds as a space marine unit accepting said charge. Then after that you can expect to kill 1 or 2 a turn. Bad unit made slightly better by Loci but honestly does a unit have to be absolute shit to be cheap? I mean, ork boyz, termagants, hormagants, DE warriors, Tau Firewarriors and Eldar Guardians are all better units for the same points cost (average) and they all have shooting. Invuln doesn't matter too much when it's a bad 5+ save. Frustrating.

Conclusion
All the troops suck more than before, especially so in the case of Pink Horrors and Daemonettes who got their only saving graces nerfed with a negligible cost change. None of them have much upgradability besides icons and instruments that are pretty useless with new reserve rolls. Also with the rewards being kinda expensive (seriously, the lesser rewards are random, why not give one for free?) and not that useful in most cases it's like they didn't even play their codex. (They probably didn't). New troops are cheaper and that's the only benefit you get over the previous codex. Still no shooting, still no ability to get saves better than 5+, still no assault grenades even though they have no shooting (honestly, it's an assault unit, give them something, here's an idea: Hellish ichor - counts as assault grenades, fiery tar taken from the hell of the warp is flung out before the unit assaults burning and disorienting the enemy). None of these units are good without Heralds and Loci so your paying out the ass still just to get the same unit from the last codex. Lame.