Games Workshop recently announced that we’d be seeing Daemons units in the Codexes for the cult armies of Chaos Space Marines and with the upcoming release of Codex: Emperor’s Children we caught our first glimpse of that, looking at updated (and pared back) datasheets from the Daemons faction. That didn’t exactly fill anyone playing the faction with confidence, but this week’s update restores most of that with a massive update to the Daemons Index, updating datasheets and adding an awesome new detachment. In this article we’ll review the new Index, talk about what changed, what’s going on, and how to play with the faction.
We would like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the Codex.
Army Overview
Chaos Daemons represent the warp-spawned horrors of Chaos, made manifest in the physical world. These creatures are horrifying to see and can materialize in realspace out of nothing. On the table they tend to be a melee-heavy army, though they have some limited and short-range shooting prowess and psychic attacks if you dip heavier into Tzeentch. What makes them so deadly tends to be less their outright melee prowess – though it’s substantial – and more their ability to move around the table with ease, coming off the board and teleporting back on to it, forcing opponents to commit resources to screening them out for the entire game and punishing mistakes.
Army Rule: The Shadow of Chaos
If your army faction is LEGIONES DAEMONICA, then parts of the battlefield are considered to be within your army’s Shadow of Chaos, based on your control of specific objective markers, as follows:
- Your deployment zone is always in your army’s Shadow of Chaos
- At the start of any phase, if you control at least half of the objective markers in No Man’s Land, until the end of the phase, No Man’s Land is in your army’s Shadow of Chaos.
- At the start of any phase, if you control at least half of the objective markers in your opponent’s deployment zone, then until the end of the phase, their deployment zone is in your army’s Shadow of Chaos.
Daemonic Manifestation
While a Daemons unit from your army is in your army’s Shadow of Chaos, you get +1 to Battle-shock tests and, if that test is passed, one model in that unit regains up to D3 lost wounds, or if it’s a battleline unit, D3 destroyed models can be returned to it instead.
Daemonic Terror
While an enemy unit is within your army’s Shadow of Chaos or within 6” of a greater daemon, they get -1 to their Battle-shock tests and when they fail them, that unit takes D3 mortal wounds.
Army Rule: Daemonic Pact
If every model in your army has the CHAOS keyword, you can take Legions Daemonica units in your army as allies. You can have up to 250 points of Daemons in an Incursion game, 500 in Strike Force, and 750 in Onslaught. None of these models can be your WARLORD, and none of them can have Enhancements. On top of that, if your army is World Eaters you can only take Khorne Daemons, Thousand Sons can only take Tzeentch, Death Guard can only take Nurgle, and Emperor’s Children can only take Slaanesh daemons. On top of that, for each god, you cannot have more non-BATTLELINE units than BATTLELINE units in your army, i.e. if you want to include a Bloodthirster you have to include a unit of Bloodletters.
This is one of the more complicated and intricate sets of Army rules – it takes up two whole pages where most fit into a single paragraph – and it has a lot of implications. The shadow of chaos rules are important to track – that ability to heal lost wounds and regenerate dead models is typically more important than the penalty to enemy units – and it plays a major role in the army’s Daemonic Incursion Detachment. It’s worth noting that the -1 effect is only for Battle-shock tests and not all Leadership, which mean sit won’t affect things like an opponent’s Dark Pacts rolls.
The Allies rules are also incredibly important, as Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Knights armies often make use of them to bolster their capabilities. The most common way this is done is with Nurglings, who make wonderful speed bumps as units who can Deep Strike and Infiltrate while being annoyingly difficult to kill if you don’t bring powerful weaponry to bear against them. Plaguebearers and Beasts of Chaos are also solid picks for their ability to hold objectives.
Detachments
With the release of the Shadow Legion Detachment, Chaos Daemons now have access to six different detachments, giving them a full slate. Two of these are god-agnostic options devoted to the entire Pantheon, while each of the other four offers an option for players who want to devote themselves to a single Chaos God.
The original Index Detachment for the faction comes with one Enhancement for each god and gives you a ton of options for pulling units on and off the table, letting you deep strike closer to enemy units within your army’s Shadow of Chaos.
This Detachment represents Be’lakor’s own legions, a mix of daemons and mortals who see power from the dark prince. This Detachment gives daemons of every god a boost and lets you add Chaos Space Marines to your army.
The Khorne-specific Daemons Detachment gives all of your Khorne daemons the ability to make a surge move whenever an enemy unit ends a move near one of yours and gives you the ability to sticky objectives when you destroy an enemy unit on them.
The Tzeentch Detachment is one of the more interesting in the game, giving you Flux Tokens which can be cashed in for re-rolls and added effects on your Stratagems, but each time you’ll use one you give a token to your opponent, who can use them for their own, less powerful re-rolls, at which point you regain them.
The Nurgle Detachment forces enemy units in your Shadow of Chaos to take Battle-shock tests, and features a number of ways to stack buffs to improve your units’ damage output.
The Slaanesh Detachment lets your units gamble their ability to fight first when charging for re-rolls to hit and wound. It also offers a number of nasty tricks, like shunting wounds from one unit to another.
Datasheets
The March update features no new datasheets for the Daemons faction but does feature a number of key changes that will have a major impact on the faction. We’ll go through the list here, segmenting the list by god.
Khorne
Khorne Daemons saw the most changes outside of Slaanesh, losing the named Flesh Hound character Karanak and seeing at least small changes to most of their datasheets.
- Skarbrand got a tremendous glow-up. His armor save went from 4+ to 3+, while his Bellow of Endless Fury became S8 AP-1 and his sweep melee attack went to -2. In addition to that, his +1 Attack aura now also affects Monsters and Daemons and he lost his “no fall back” ability in favor of just always being able to Advance and Charge. It’s a big improvement for one of Khorne’s most powerful warriors and there’s much more reason to include Skarbrand in your lists now.
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- The changes to the Bloodthirster were more of a downgrade, however. The little Axe of Khorne dropped from doing D6 damage to D3+1 on its strike attack, which is more reliable (2-4) but on the whole likely to do less, averaging 3 damage instead of 3.5. This more or less ensures you’ll be running the big axe option from now on.
- Skulltaker now moves 8” instead of 6”. Likewise so does the Bloodmaster.
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- The Skullmaster now has a 3+ save instead of a 4+ to go with his 4+ invlunerable save.
- Similar to their leaders, Bloodletters now move 8” instead of 6”, and their ability has changed. Now instead of re-rolling wound rolls against weakened targets, enemy units attempting to fall back must take a Desperate Escape test, with a -1 penalty if they’re Battle-shocked.
- Bloodcrushers now have a 3+ save to match the Skullmaster, but have had their invulnerable save reduced to a 5+. This is a sidegrade at best and likely a little bit of a debuff given how much [IGNORES COVER] and AP-2 shooting is out there.
- Flesh Hounds got a tremendous boost, changing their ability entirely. Now instead of having free Heroic Intervention, at the end of your opponent’s turn, if their unit is not within Engagement Range of an enemy unit you can pick them up and put them back into Strategic Reserves. That’s massive, and immediately makes these a must-take in daemons lists.
Tzeentch
There were fewer changes to the Tzeentch datasheets, and none of them were removed.
- Kairos Fateweaver had his abilities adjusted a bit. Now his One Head Forward just gives you 1 CP if you pass a Leadership test (6+) for the model at the end of your Command phase. Likewise his One Head look back aura is now explicitly not cumulative with other CP cost increasing abilities.
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- The Screamer Bites on the Fateskimmer have been updated to reflect the new profile for Screamers, gaining ANTI-VEHICLE/ANTI-MONSTER 4+ and moving to WS 3+.
- The Fluxmaster loses the “unmodified” rider from his Altered Reality ability, which seems like an oversight moreso than anything intentional.
Nurgle
A number of changes were made to the Nurgle daemons, making them in many ways even more disgustingly resilient than before. If you were wondering why they got so much more expensive, that’s pretty much why.
- Rotigus gained a 6+ Feel No Pain and his Virulent Blessing’s range increased to 24”. His OC and debuff aura changed as well, going from halving the values to just subtracting 2 from the Move and OC characteristics of enemy models within 6”. Still great, but not nearly as potent.
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- The Great Unclean One also gained a Feel No Pain 6+ ability on his datasheet, replacing his aura with one that gives friendly Nurgle Daemons within 6” +1 to their Toughness instead. This means the Great Unclean One is actually T13, putting him on par with Knight Tyrants.
- Nurglings got cheaper for a reason. Their Mischief Makers aura now only affects enemy units that are within Engagement Range, but it will work on enemy MONSTERS and VEHICLES now (just not TITANIC) ones. This is still very good and with a buff to Toughness or -1 to wound in Shadow Legion (or both!) they become the game’s most effective speed bumps.
- Beasts of Nurgle gained Scouts 6”, making them much better at getting out there to take objectives early. They’re still super annoying to kill and they regenerate all the wounds they’ve taken at the end of each phase.
Slaanesh
The Slaanesh Datasheets have been updated to match the datasheets in Codex: Emperor’s Children. They’ve been culled as well – all of the Chariot options have been removed – but some options that weren’t in the Codex, like the Masque, Infernal Rapturess, Syll’Esske, the Epitome, and Tranceweaver are still here, and Daemonettes are Battleline with OC 2. The other changes are here, with Keepers going to a 3+ save and losing their Feel No Pain options, Fiends losing -1 to be hit, and Daemonettes forcing Battle-shock tests in the fight phase.
Chaos Undivided
There are three datasheets in this category and of them only Be’lakor has changed. The Dark Prince has been beefed up substantially – he now has Toughness 11 and a 3+ Armour save with 20 wounds. On top of that he’s gained Devastating Wounds on his Blade of Shadows strike and Sustained Hits 1 on the sweep while losing Lethal Wounds and going to 7 strike attacks. Finally his aura abilities for Shadow Form have changed a bit. While Wreathed in Shadows hasn’t changed, Pall of Despair now heals him d3 if something fails a Battle-Shock test within 9” and Shadowlord changes from re-rolling Battle-Shock tests to re-rolling hit rolls of 1. Also, they will now affect SHADOW LEGION units in addition to LEGIONES DAEMONICA, ensuring that Heretic Astartes units you take in the Shadow Legion Detachment will benefit from being around Be’lakor.
How They Will Play
With these updates there are likely to be a ton of shifts for Daemons. Pretty much every way to play the faction save Legion of Excess got better (pour one out for monogod Slaanesh players, who ate the kind of triple nerf that puts armies six feet under competitively), and the Shadow Legion detachment is going to immediately see competitive play from both Daemons players and warp-curious Chaos Marines players. Most of the non-Slaanesh Datasheet updates are upgrades, and and Nurgle especially have a lot to celebrate. We expect that Plague Legion, Blood Legion, and Daemonic Incursion lists will see a bump in effectiveness after this update.
Final Thoughts
TheChiurgeon: Given there were rumors swirling a month ago to the effect of Chaos Daemons being removed as a faction from the game entirely, this is great to see. It’s a solid update to the faction with an insanely cool new Detachment and it breathes new life into a number of units and strategies. It’s hard not to be excited about this update if you’re a daemons player (excepting those players who built chariots for their Legion of Excess army), and it’ll be cool to see Be’lakor back on tables.
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