Chaos Daemons: Part 9, Elites

At least it sounds good

This article is about the Daemons Elite section. A very sad amalgamation of old units and Fantasy rules. Apparently Phil Kelly thinks 6+ is the best armor you can get in 40k (It's the highest number after all!). Apparently some of the previous Elites section (coughFlamerscough) were in need of a rewrite because they were 'too strong' because having something, anything, useful in a codex is a big fat no-no and needs to be dealt with. Luckily the two good anti-vehicle units from the last codex, Flamers and Screamers post-update, have been replaced by a BS 3 crap-shoot that sits in your back-lines because he'll get smoked by basic MEQ and a flying cavalcade of bad rules design known as flying monstrous creatures.

At least Bloodcrushers still look bad-ass as hell and they didn't revert to the old model:

Yeesh

Welp, here we go.



Khorne
Bloodcrushers are neat calvary units who used to be able to survive a bit of bolter fire then collide with an enemy, killing many. Now they are a unit that gets shot to death by: Fire Warriors, MEQ, Cabalite Warriors, Ork Boyz, Termagants. Seriously, their new armor makes them insanely vulnerable to shooting meaning they'll never be able to deliver those punishing 4 S6 attacks. That's like an assault cannon with AP 3 per guy. But now, they'll never get there. Shooting will eat these bastards alive as their Toughness has been reduced and their armor save has been deleted (6+ is lower than 5+ and you can always take the 5+ so you effectively have deleted the armor while still wasting ink). You're going to have to take a CSM lord to be able to get a Juggernaut that doesn't die instantly. I like, though, that Wyches, from DE codex, have a 6+ save and are just wearing leather fetish gear, while Juggernauts are covered in armor and are described as 'massive creatures whose flesh is brass, whose sinews are iron and whose blood is fire'. Same armor save.

Your new armor apparently

 Tzeentch
Jump Infantry with slightly better flamer (AP 4 vs. AP 5)? Pass. It has the Warpflame rule attached which auto-magically makes your enemies better (2/3 of the time on MEQ, 1/2 on FX) makes it even worse. Here it is again; taking a good (not broken) unit reducing its abilities to uselessness but making it cheap. It's pretty much getting two FX's with a flamer and a jump pack for 23 points. Why? They have 0 anti-vehicle potential now (unless you somehow manage to jump over said vehicles without being shot, good luck) and its infantry killing potential is abysmal. MEQs now get armor saves against these flamers and MCs can shrug off the paltry strength. If you want to spend a ton of points on some flaming jet pack units a la 1920's Buck Rogers comics then be my guest. I'll just be in my Power Armor, worshiping the Emperor.

Nurgle
These units are weird. Lots of wounds, good toughness and It Will Not Die (easily the best named special rule) but still, no Feel No Pain, his saves suck and if you didn't bring them before you won't now. They're upped in points cost drastically while being pretty much the same unit except for a weird rule. This rule makes them charge during the enemy's turn. It's a free charge (not sure if a roll is needed as it just says 'resolve the charge') but, why would you get them into CC? They have less than 60% chance of causing 1 wound with max rolled attacks against MEQ. So they get a free tarpit charge. This also means they can't camp objectives, which would have been their primary lot, because they must do this move. What a lame-ass rule. It's like 5th ed Rage but only during the enemy's turn. I'm sure someone will find some way to abuse this rule but I can't think of anything. Skip this.

Slaanesh
Fiends have been debuffed and buffed in the new edition. Their stat-line is nerfed and they no longer fit their roll of dangerous CC calvary, they got buffed however when Soporific Musk became broken. A no-save ability that auto-magically makes the enemy unit -5 init (without saying whether or not it goes to 0, good rule writing) so now they always get all of their attacks off no matter what. Too bad you won't be able to do anything with them since you have 2 fewer at a lower strength. Wow. They're also some kinda anti-psyker defense but not much fluff behind that just randomly lowers their LD by 1. They will probably still get it off as other codexes don't have this ones Ld 7 problem. They're not even cheaper now, they just got nerfed an more expensive. What.

Conclusion
All of these are bad choices in a shooting game. No on can survive basic bolter fire (seriously, only Nurgle is T 5 and none have armor saves) and they're all more expensive while giving you less bang for your buck. It's like they moved McDoubles off the dollar menu and removed one of the patties. Sorry, I'm hungry. Regardless it's like you're less units for more. These units are not meant for a game of 40k and aren't even that good once they start doing what they're supposed to. Really they have such limited killing potential on everything that even against their best match-ups they can still expect death if the enemy built properly. Please, for the love of god, do not buy any of these. They are awful.