New Daemons (no, this is NOT another rant)

[Dvil]

okay, so my friend recently bought the daemons army book, and I'm borrowing it overnight.
We're about to do a story-based campaign in which I'll be playing Vampire Counts.
I suspect he'll use Khorne (he normally does) but occasionally he can surprise us and take something else, and I'm a bit worried about their spell lists.

My question is (predictably): Have you got any pointers for taking down khorne (and possibly other surprises) with vampires? I've played him once before, and it was a messy affair, involving Mannfred being decapitated by a Bloodthirster, but that's elsewhere on this forum so I'll not go into too much detail here.

 

[Grish]

Demons rely on their characters to win. I would fear Nurgle before fearing Khorne (except for Khorne special characters, they are just nasty! Skulltaker FTW).

Against Khorne RnF, always strikes first will do a lot of damage to them. Try not to let them charge. As for a bloodthirster, even a tooled up vampire lord I don't think will take one of these beasts. Your best bet is to use Crown of Stupidity. Remember Khorne only has one attack now. With WS5, S5, zombies will hold them up just as well as skeletons. Take either Ghouls or Grave Guard to deal with their RnF.

I don't know if we have anything to deal with a Bloodthirster. I think grave guard, with great weapons and no champion might do it, although they hit on 5's (take banner of the barrows). Keep your characters safe if you can, which is a difficult prospect against this beast.

Bloodknights may actually be effective here. Demons can't flee, don't have many units, and are limited with fast cav options (which may be lacking in a Khorne army to begin with). They will definitely slaughter blood letters.

I'll be playing them soon enough myself, but I don't know if I'd have anything that could take out a blood thirster. My only thoughts would be blood knights, but how they would get the charge against a flying demon I'm not sure (liberal use of VHD for sure).

A cheap option if you were trying to take out just the blood thirster would be something like: Crown of stupidity, good armour (dread knight or flayed hauberk), -1LD, and a pair of banshees. I believe a blood thirster only has a LD of 9. With your lord and a pair of banshees, they could do enough damage to take him out, but it's a risky affair.

 

[Dvil]

Sorry, just a clarification: what's RnF?

 

[Grish]

Rank and file, infantry that generates static CR.

Things to be worried about is the Sundering banner (-2 to casting all rolls from one lore; remember, IoN does not fall into the Vampire lore) which combined with magic resistance will really shut down offensive spells, making VHD much more reliable.

Do not engage Skulltaker or a blood thirster with a character. They will get eaten. Skull taker is dirt cheap; 200 pts for a 0+ AS, 5+WS, and a better WS and I than your Lord, with just as many attacks, with Hatred and Killing blow on a 5+, and a higher S than your Lord. Ouch.

Konrad may be very effective against this army. If you can just hold up his units and fight a battle of attrition I think you should be OK.

 

[Dvil]

Battle of attrition against Khorne?

On the special characters note, I think special characters will only be available if you go through certain 'historical' games to get them, and I think we'll make them cost like twice as much. Not entirely sure yet.

 

[Nicodemus]

@grishnakh99, are you sure that IoN does not fall into the Vampire lore?

Khorne have only 2 dispell dices so VDM, RD, IoN and RUH are great spells here, the problem will be Sundering banner like grishnakh99 sad.
I think Bound Spell is a good ide, expensive but he can only dispell 1 or 2. So CC is a good choice so you strike first and re-roll to hit in close combat.

 

[Grish]

Fairly certain. The Vampire Lore has 6 spells on it stated clearly, and if you take Forbidden Lore and a separate list, you still keep IoN.

However, the only nagging doubt is the 'lvl 0' on the IoN spell. That hints it is part of the list.

 

[Danceman]

The good old BT/Dragon trap. 7 dire wolves + doom wolf. Issue challenge and keep him in check, he will most likely get maximum overkil so +6 CR vs your +1 for outnumber and so you´ll be down to 1 wolf, you will lose but atleast you´ve keep the BT locked away from combat awhile. Try and get him in an unfavourble position so he cannot get a charge the next turn as well.

Otherwise, as noted Khorne bloodletters are down to 1 attack each which is very good for the undead. The flesh hounds got quite abit more deadly though, so watch out against them... and forget trying to hurt them with magic. Focus on support magic.

A unit of Blood Knights might be fun as well, if not only to show them khorne worshippers how proper fighting is done.

 

[The Dark Lord Mr Fluffy]

Blood crucher do crush things with blood in the name though - like blood knights :(

Their mounts are basically chaos knights already!

 

[Guillius]

The good old BT/Dragon trap. 7 dire wolves + doom wolf. Issue challenge and keep him in check, he will most likely get maximum overkil so +6 CR vs your +1 for outnumber and so you´ll be down to 1 wolf, you will lose but atleast you´ve keep the BT locked away from combat awhile. Try and get him in an unfavourble position so he cannot get a charge the next turn as well.

This is definitely something I do and works very very very well. This or if I wasn't good enough to engage with I pray I can get a nice chunk of zombies on it and that will hold for about the same time.

 

[Dvil]

So challenges will be useful against his BT. I see now. That's where I went wrong before, I let him kill my unit which, added to CR crumble, sapped my army faster than I could summon. If I deny him the kills so I just lose the champion+crumble I may stand a chance. Thanks for that.

 

[illusionarypresence]

if you challange with your chump you should win by 1. he gets 1+5 overkill

you get 3 ranks, banner, outnumber, warbanner = 6

win by musician :D

 

[Dvil]

That requires that the warbanner is in the unit, doesn't it? It doesn't affect all units within 12" like a battle standard? That could require a fair amount of movement with my battle standard bearer that I've never really thought about in-depth before.

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

The cheapest most efficient way to tie up a bloodthirster is a unit of 7 dire wolves with a doomwolf and issue a challenge. He pretty much has to accept and he can only score 5 overkill. That means that by the end of combat you should have 1 wolf left and be able to heal them and begin the combined charges.

 

[illusionarypresence]

if you have good counter charges why heal them?? they've done their job.

remember wolves only get 1 wound back per invocation, so its an expensive process to raise 6 wolves....

also, in order for your tactic to work, your going to have to charge with your puppies. champ dies in you turn, unit crumbles to one. he then smears the wolf in his turn, but cant move anywhere so you should have a clean charge on him in your next turn.

If you dont charge him with the puppies he'll casually fly over you in his turn and smack your lord about....

 

[Reincus]

Fairly certain. The Vampire Lore has 6 spells on it stated clearly, and if you take Forbidden Lore and a separate list, you still keep IoN.

However, the only nagging doubt is the 'lvl 0' on the IoN spell. That hints it is part of the list.

I'm pretty sure you are right. It's clearly NOT on the Lore of Vampires page. Furthermore, on the lore of vampires page, it states: In addition to the Invocation of Nehek, the vampire knows one spell from the Lore of Vampires' It doesn't say 'knows one OTHER spell from the lore of vampires', implying a seperation.

That same distinction is also found in the Forbidden Lore entry.

It's also in the same vein as drain magic for lizardmen and high elves, and I believe that it's safe to say that drain magic is not in the lore of heavens and not in high magic.

I can definately see the arguements that it part of the lore as well, there is a reasonable amount of doubt and it's not explicit either way.
The fact that summon undead horde references IoN on how it works implies it's the same lore. The fact that the other 2 necromancy spells are in the lore of vampires ties IoN into it as well. A third point is that necros can choose to learn it or not, implying it's a not a 'true' 0 level spell in line with Drain Magic, and as such is part of the lore of vampires.

 

[Lord Fear]

As written, there's no reason to think it is part of the Lore. However I've heard from people in contact with the designers that it will count as part of the main Lore when it's FAQed, unfortunately. Probably best to play it as being part of the Lore then.

As for fighting Daemons, especially Khorne... well if you let a Bloodthirster get into combat with your Lord and you have no protection whatsoever, then your opponent will rightfully hammer you. Khorne armies should be no problem at all to redirect and recover from, with only two dispel dice and one scroll usually. You will have to use a few more hard-hitters, however, and you can't rely on units of 10 Wraiths.

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

As for fighting Daemons, especially Khorne... well if you let a Bloodthirster get into combat with your Lord and you have no protection whatsoever, then your opponent will rightfully hammer you. Khorne armies should be no problem at all to redirect and recover from, with only two dispel dice and one scroll usually. You will have to use a few more hard-hitters, however, and you can't rely on units of 10 Wraiths.

I hate to have to break this to you but Khorne isn't frenzied any more. They just hit like the proverbial sledgehammer on a sheet of glass. They are not the most swift of foes but there is a lot more to playing against the daemons now than there was previously. They have made them into the elitest of the elite and quite rightly so. If you do not push your own game plan on the daemons and try to react to them, you're going to lose, its that simple.

 

[Reincus]

Thier biggest downfall is lack of numbers. They don't have many models on the table, and unlike ours, they don't come back. Their biggest threat is the greater demons, we just don't have many options for killing them. We do have lots of options to delaying them. Using a sweeping generalization as demons come in many flavors, I think the best chance against them is what is the best chance against most armies... medium to heavy magic and winning the war of attrition. Feed the greater demons units that are cheaper then they are and kill off the softer parts of the army. The challange trick with direwolves is excellent, that should give you a turn to summon a group of zombies that can charge into him the next turn. 2-3 IoNs a turn after that should keep that nastiness there all game unless he dedicates another unit or two to bail his greater demon out. By then it's already turn 4-6. That should give you time to work over the rest of his army. By turn 5 the greater demon may be free and rampaging, but if you played smart and give him limited targets worth any points, then you will feel bruised at the end of the game, and ahead when you tally up the points.

 

[N1AK]

Voltaire: I think EvC was counting in Khornes now unfrenziedness (going by 2 Dispel dice comment). Khorne armies are still completely combat focused, and now even less able to stop our buffing magic (IoN, VHD, Raise), positioning Zombie units ahead of our lines at obtuse angles forces the general to delay an elite unit taking them out, or have to wheel around them while march blocked to slowly approach your ever growing line.

 

[Talmon]

I have recently started playing demons in a new escalation league. The bloodletters are very nasty and can chop their way thru most anything eventually. In all honesty tho I think a good size block of zombies with the right magic support will easily hold these bad boys up. The BL are very nasty as is the BT. I would fear the demoneetes more with there extra attacks against the zombies. Ghouls I think would do nice against them tho with the poison attacks and higher toughness. The real nasty one to face VC however would be TZ with all of its magic and shooting.

 

[Lord Fear]

I hate to have to break this to you but Khorne isn't frenzied any more. They just hit like the proverbial sledgehammer on a sheet of glass. They are not the most swift of foes but there is a lot more to playing against the daemons now than there was previously. They have made them into the elitest of the elite and quite rightly so. If you do not push your own game plan on the daemons and try to react to them, you're going to lose, its that simple.

Are you sure you meant to reply to me? Cos I have absolutely no idea how that is relevent to what I posted...

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

Khorne armies should be no problem at all to redirect and recover from, with only two dispel dice and one scroll usually.

This was what I was replying to...

 

[marshal torrick]

Just because someone isn't frenzied doesn't mean redirecting is useless :) Summoned zombies are great for forcing a regiment, that does nothing but slash stuff up in combat, to end up either facing a direction it didn't want to after charging or stuck not taking the bait and standing still.

In regards to Tz's magic-o-doom, it can definitely be a problem, but don't worry too much about big blocks of horrors. Here's a situation I faced(and lost to, due to poor deployment and some unwise decisions): 2 36-strong blocks of horrors, GD, Flamers, Furies, Level 2 Herald and 3 Juggernaughts(spelling?). Lots of magic, but I discovered too late that you can effectively control one or two blocks of horrors from destroying anything useful by sending a 10x2 block of zombies careening at them:
For one turn it blocks LOS and absorbs some casualties
Second turn park it in front of the unit. The Horrors can charge and do nothing in the magic phase, or blast away again, wasting it's time.

This tactic frees up your DD to try and stop the GD from obliterating something important. With your Zombie wall and your DD working, you should keep his magic limited and be able to recover from it during your own magic phase.

Keep in mind, where I play we don't use Special charectars, so none of that Blue Scribes nonsense, although it would make a black coach rather interesting......

 

[N.I.B]

I've been successfully tying up those nutcase Bloodthirsters so far, either with Ghouls (pump the unit, challenge, raise the champ back again) or with Dire Wolf dragon traps or flanking Grave Guards.
Actually Vanhelsed Ghouls came close to killing the beast.

Priority no 1 should be the herald BSB.