So, I've been trying to dial-in my Daemons list, and I have to admit that I got all befuddled after reading the new GK codex at War Pig. This befuddlement caused me to tweak a few things with keeping my multi-wound MCs away from fricking Nemesis Force Weapons as the main reason. I played a few games with the Seekers I mentioned in my post two weeks ago with moderate success. They were dead-killy, but my god did assaulting into cover ruin them.
That being said, yesterday afternoon I played Wildeyedjester, who was fielding a henchmen-heavy GK army, some variant of which I feel will become ubiquitous. First off, let's establish that this particular GK build, if deployed correctly, makes playing Daemons a pain in the neck due to the presence of Coteaz and his plasma-wielding lackeys in their Chimera. (Man, do I hate Chimeras? Yes, I'm jealous.) On the first turn, due to scatter, I lost an entire unit of Seekers and my Herald of Tzeentch found himself down two wounds. Our deployment, more accurately his deployment, was Spearhead, and I tried to overload one side of his army. In retrospect I realize that I chose the wrong side, the one along the short board edge, which limited the space I had to effectively deep strike. If I'd chosen the longer board edge I would have had more space, and I would have avoided the eventual spreading out that scatter causes, which allowed the half of his army I had hoped to avoid to reach out and touch me. Let's just say that the remainder of the game saw me getting blasted off the board not due to poor deployment, though there was some of that, but due to an utter inability to crack tanks.
My full list is similar to several floating around, lots of fiends and the like, but I've tried to avoid simply copying successful lists and to develop other elements that play to my relatively aggressive playstyle. The variation has come in my HQs and my Heavies. I've been running a Keeper of Secrets,the Masque, and a Herald of Tzeentch on a chariot. This has worked well as the Masque and the Keeper can Pavane things into my Fiends and Daemon Prince. However, playing a heavily mechanized list showed me that I couldn't pop tanks quickly enough to make my assaults effective, especially as protection from being shot to death. The Herald and 3 units of Horrors I had were simply not getting it done. So, I've decided to do some tweaking. Here's what I'm going to do and why:
1. Dropping the Masque and adding the Blue Scribes: The Masque only has one purpose and can be shot off the board fairly easily. The Scribes can throw Pavane and Bolt of Tzeentch. Admittedly, it adds an element of uncertainty into an already uncertain army, but as long as you throw whichever of the two you need first the second power can either be more of the same or the other one. Two bolts is rarely a bad thing, and two Pavanes can be useful, though occasionally the second power will be wasted. Either way, I feel like the Scribes can fill 2 roles. Time and playtesting will tell.
2. By dropping the Seekers I've been toying with and moving around some other points, I'm going to add 2 Tzeentch Daemon Princes with Bolt. They hit on 2s, have a 4+ Inv, and are solid in close combat. I think there will be a learning curve with regards to how to use these well, but I think I may need them.
Hopefully, these changes will give me the ability to crack a tank or two so that my assault units can get stuck in and jump from close combat to close combat effectively.
Later,
Monkey