Daemon Prince of Khorne

When GW released the plastic Daemon Prince, I bought two immediately, and got my buddy Norau to build them. I recently got around to painting them, and here's the first one.


It was a treat to paint. The model's got great details and should be in all Chaos Space Marine and Chaos Daemons army.

New Daemon Prince

Awesomesauce! When I saw the new Daemon Prince I knew I had to have two. I asked Norau to build them for me, and this is a sneak peek of the first one.

Some green stuffing remains, but I think the posture of the model is really cool. It's like he's just massacred his way through hordes of lesser foes, but now he is finally facing off against a worthy opponent. Movie moment right there.

I've used the guy on the right as a Daemon Prince until now. He's just a Possessed Chaos Space Marine with wings and a 40 mm base. He's performed well, but really is too small to act as a credible Prince.

Why Greater Daemons and Lesser Daemons are crap in 5th dimension 40k

I played a 1750 point tournament last weekend, and I brought my Chaos Space Marines. My list is by no means competitive or optimized. I have had great success in the local shop, but as we all know, that isn't saying much.

I mostly went because the tournament scene here in Norway can be described as "sporadic" at best. To emphasize this, I can point out that there hasn't been a major 40k tournament in the capital city of Oslo since August 2007 (which I won - with Necrons). (No, I don't count Arcon as a major tournament after you had me playing a Night Fight against Tau with Blacksun Filters on a board with no terrain whatsoever!)

My list:

• Daemon Prince with wings
• Summoned Greater Daemon
• 5 Terminators with Heavy Flamer, Chainfist, Power Fist, Combi-Melta, 2 Champions
• 5 Chosen with Champion, Flamer, Meltagun and Icon of Chaos Glory
  
• 10 Chaos Space Marines with Lascannon, Plasma gun, Champion with Power Fist and Icon of Chaos Glory
• 9 Thousand Sons with Personal Icon and Champion with Bolt of Change in a Rhino with Havoc Launcher
• 8 Khorne Berzerkers with Personal Icon and Champion with Power Fist in a Rhino with Havoc Launcher
• 9 Lesser Daemons
• Predator with Heavy Bolter Sponsons
• Defiler with all DCCWs

The idea behind the list was that the Daemons and Greater Daemon could appear in any of the infantry units on the board. They all had Icons (save for the Termies) and Champions, so at a moments notice, I could bring down some major hurt (27 S4 WS4 attacks and an MC with 6 S6 WS8 attacks is pretty hard in my book) where I needed it. I would infiltrate/outflank Chosen, establish forward beachheads and reinforce where needed.

The major flaw in this plan is the lack of control the Chaos player has on his reserves. Putting over 200 points of killy things in reserve versus a shooty opponent is asking for trouble. You depend on the enemy coming to you and not shooting you up early, because those reinforcements can be denied by killing the Icon/Champion.

In one game, the mission was Kill Points/Table Quarters. Versus Guard! In previous games, I have had great success with placing my entire force in reserve, and playing "smart". Bringing in reserves on the flanks and staying out of the majority of the enemy's guns. Not smart at all with this army! No matter where I went, enough guns could be pointed at my units to smack them around handsomely. I lost my entire 10-man CSM unit in the first round of shooting - cover and all. The reserved Daemons had nowhere to deploy and were destroyed in the warp. Great, another Kill Point for my opponent!

Units in reserve are especially crap when the enemy is playing Guard and has an Officer of the Fleet (-1 to reserve rolls). Yeah, 5+ to arrive in turn 2? Only the units you want to leave in reserve will arrive, you can count on that! Probably those daemons, so they can be shot up good.

But that isn't the whole story. Other units in reserve at least have the option to come onto the board from your table edge or outflank or deep strike. Not Daemons! They need a Champion or an Icon on the board to be able to not die when they become available. All they get in return for this is the ability to launch an assault in the same turn they arrive and no scatter. Nice, but that doesn't make up for the fact that the enemy can destroy them before they even arrive.

This brings me back to the title of this rant. 40k in the 5th dimension is an expression from Fritz over at Way of Saim-Hann. It covers both playing the mission instead of the fluff, and using reserves to win. As opposed to using just guns... Daemons just don't work here, as they're both unpredictable as to when they arrive and need support on the ground in order to not die.

Other random thoughts:
All in all, the tournament was a very pleasant experience. I won three games and lost three. I'll do a proper writeup later, but for now, I'll just lament on the suckiness of the generic Daemons of the Chaos codex and the limitations it forces you your army.

I miss the tournament scene, and we are hosting the first local big 40k tournament in over two years in just a couple of weeks. I'm really looking forward to that. Here's some of our new terrain:

Making a new army from models I already own

Here's a little sneak peek of my latest project: Chaos Daemons!

I realized that I had ten Flamers and five Horrors sitting around, being "lesser daemons" in my Chaos Space Marines army. Then it occurred to me: Why not build a small Daemon force?


All I really needed was some more troops, so I've bought five more Horrors. They are weak, but can dish out the pain at range like few others.


Seeing as my brother bought these Flamers for the previous editions of both Warhammer 40k and the Chaos Space Marines codex, I have no qualms in bringing this unit of pure awesome to the battlefield. If what I've read is correct, they will melt away just about any unit in the game.


This guy will be leading them, a herald of Tzeentch on disc. I originally painted him up for my Tzeentchian Blood Bowl team, but he fits perfectly in this Daemon force too. He can shoot pretty hard, and target multiple units each turn. Not too good in close combat, though.

As of now, I can field just about 500 points of painted minis. All I did was add five new models to my collection, and presto, I have a new army!

On a personal note:
Phew, having a blog can be a lot of work! I have a lot of content that just need to be edited and published, but I just can't seem to find the time. The last few weeks, I've been mostly just painting miniatures and having a good time. Ah, the simple joys in life :)