Chaos Demons (Tetrad with tzeentch CAD)

[The Great Kazzo]

How does this look I have wanted to try out the infernal tetrad for sometime due to the very powerful rules that are connected to it so I tried my hand at making one. Any advice would be appreciated

Combined Arms Detachment
Herald Of Tzeentch (45 Pts)
Troops: 11x Pink Horrors (99 pts)
Troops: 11x Pink Horrors (99 pts)
Troops: 11x Pink Horrors (99 pts)
Heavy support: Soul Grinder (165 pts)
• Phlegm Bombardment (30 pts)
Heavy Support: Soul Grinder (165 pts)
· Phlegm Bombardment (30 pts)

Infernal Tetrad
Khorne Daemon Prince (280 pts)
· Wings
· Armor of Scorn
· 1x Lesser Reward
· 2x Greater Rewards
Tzeentch Daemon Prince (360 pts)
· Wings
· Impossible Robe
· 1x Lesser Reward
· 2x Greater Rewards
· Mastery Level 3
Slaneesh Daemon Prince (355 pts)
· Wings
· Warp Forged Armor
· 1x Lesser Reward
· 2x Greater Rewards
· Soul Stealer
· Mastery Level 3
Nurgle Daemon Prince (330 pts)
· Wings
· Warp forged Armor
· 2x Greater Reward
· Mastery Level 3

Comes out to about 1,997 pts

The plan is to buy enough time for the tetrad to reach the opponent while taking a minimal amount of casualties. This is where the soul grinders comes in. It will force opponents to make the choice of trying to wound the tetrad or deal with the things that shoot a strength 8 ap3 pie plate at their face and the minions that supply said tetrad with more warp charges. The herald of tzeentch is there for mandatory HQ as well as a quick access to prescience. Horrors will most likely roll and the malefic powers table for access to summoning, and cursed earth (2) they will mostly be summoning nurglings/plague bearers to hold objectives (on rare cases summoning blood letters to deal with units that get too close should the soul grinders fail to destroy them). The other pink horror squad will be rolling on change backed by prescience so their abysmal BS does not get in the way. Grinders will continue to shell opponent positions from cover within a ruin or something similar. Now getting to the demon princes, all will begin the gaming swooping and moving swiftly up the field basically acting like a rape train. For the Khorne demon prince i decided to spend a bit more to get the armor of scorn which lowers enemy strength by 1 making him far more durable against marines or even other HQ's, which means that even plasma will have a hard time getting to him it also comes with adamantium will as a nice bonus. The lesser reward will go to the "Axe of Khorne" for access to instant death on sixes (As you can probably tell this will be the dude challenging other dudes). The two greater rewards unless I open broken such as the 4+ feel no pain, +1 wound/it will not die, or reroll failed invuln saves (1,2, and 3 respectively), I will be taking the blade of blood giving me rampage. This will give me 5+2 (from Furious charge)+D3 attacks which amounts to a maximum of 10 attacks on the charge, it is also a specialist weapon which allows me to negate the harmful effect of the "Ax of Khorne" another specialist weapon. Moving on the to the tzeentch demon prince, I plan to try (dice gods be willing) to give this guy a 2+ invulnerable save (possible ironically with an artifact called the impossible robe) . With the demon of tzeentch trait, this gives this guy a jaw dropping 2+ re-rollable invuln save. Needless to say anything short of the big D will not hurt this guy at all. The lesser reward will be going to the staff of change as that will make my demon prince hit at strength 9 ap2 making him both a MEQ and TEQ killer. The explosive D6 str 5 ap- hits also add to the bonus. Depending on what i open up with with the greater rewards i see myself taking a greater ether blade in tandem, giving him that +1 attack on the charge, arguments could also be made for the mutating warp blade as well as free chaos spawn are nice since i can hold objectives without throwing dice at the pink horrors to cook up some nurglings. As I see it I have a total of 3 chances to make this 2++ re-rollable save possible. First is the warlord traits, rolling on the Tzeentch traits I have a 1/6 chance of getting the one that gets +1 to invuln sealing the deal. The second chance is when I am rolling greater rewards and get a three. And finally the third chance is rolling on malefic and getting the "cursed earth" power. Getting that 2++ invuln is my number one priority as that adds much needed survivability to an otherwise huge target. The Slaanesh demon prince can be changed depending on what my opponent brings. Wings and warp forged armor for obvious reasons, I am conflicted on the lesser reward as the witstealer sword does not add much to the killing power of the prince and it is a specialist weapon, losing that +1 attack, and the ether blade also being a specialist weapon with master crafted (preferred enemy from tetrad formation allows me the re roll anyway. I am very much considering switching the lesser reward to the nurgle demon prince giving him the plague flail instead. For greater rewards i usually stick this guy with whatever he gets unless there is a copious amount of armor in which case lash of slaanesh can be very useful in popping those open. As for his powers, assuming that I got cursed earth or the 2++ invuln on the Tzeench prince I would have to go with Biomancy if there is a lot of heavy armor for the iron arm whip combo, and telepathy for the shriek and potential invisibility. The artifact sword on him the "soulstealer" i find to b very useful as I can see my tzeentch prince taking a lot of fire to offset his defensive capability. It is in this situation I would look out sir the wounds onto by slanesh prince for even if he were to take some wounds that soulstealer should easily take him back up to full. Lastly the nurgle demon prince is there to just add the final cherry on top. His shrouded rules allow him to become very druable in cover which gives me some time to hide before assaulting, he also provides a 2+ jink in the case of tzeentch demon prince loses his invuln save to the warp storm or other powers. His greater rewards would consist of the balesword, giving access to a flurry of 2+ insta-kill hits, his second greater reward will be whatever I roll. This prince is the last to receive his powers and his powers will be determined based on the powers I have. For example I have invisibility and cursed earth, I could take him down the plague route as those are some very potent powers. Overall I believe this to be the best way to arrange demon princes to make them as powerful as they can be.

I would love to hear your guys opinion on the army as this is only the second list I have ever made

Thanks

[andrewbeater]

I've run the Tetrad before and had very limited success with it. It's hard to make work. Issue is the DP's. Nothing really prevents your opponent from targeting them. They will completely ignore other units to kill them. After the first DP dies they all go back to toughness 4 and vulnerable to instant death. Also, DP's typically cannot deal the kind of damage that make them worth their points back. You have over 1300 points in the DP's or a whopping 66% of your points total for 4 models.

Every game is different, but I've run a list like this twice with no real success. Try it for yourself though.

[The Great Kazzo]

Hello and let me start off by saying thanks for the reply it is always nice to get feedback on an army especially this type of risk/reward army. A few points I would like to make in its defense though. Firstly when the first demon prince dies their toughness goes back to 5 which makes them vulnerable to strength 10 weapons for instant death not Toughness 4, not sure if that was a typo or not. Now what has strength 10 in my experience. This would include dreadnought close combat weapons and augmented units with hammers (AKA hammer arm/iron arm with thunder hammer), and other greater demons (keep in mind I know this is not everything but this is the kind of stuff I face at my locals). Even with all that my princes have I8 allowing them to outpace almost all of them and if they don't die to literally at least 23 attacks from str 7-10 respectively then I am having a bad day. As for the ignoring other units to kill the tetrad, you were right about that, I will not say they are the biggest target on the board I will however say that you can play that to your advantage. I played a tau player at my locals 3 times with this list and lost twice and won once because he kept taking down the Slanneshi demon prince with literally everyone in his army firing at it. So I then decided to switch my soul grinders to the slaneeshi variant and try that. I ended up winning the entire match with 2 wins to his 0. This is because he either delt with the 2 13 front armor with bale flamers running at him. or demon princes that were swooping, giving my opponent a very tough time deciding which ball of death he wanted to engage first. As for the princes dying I find it very hard to penetrate a 2+ re-rollable invuln (That I have managed to get every game) without an entire army shooting at them and even then only elder and tau are able to support this much firepower. When I faced space marines they did not even get one wound off on any of the princes. As for making their points back, I have not had a game where they did not make their point back, they do almost all the killing and end up ravaging every one of my opponents units and are often the sole reason that I win any games at all. That all being said I completely understand your skepticism for the tetrad as it only takes a two for three on the warp storm table to completely ravage a tetrad beyond repair, they only get weaker as they fall, and of course the sheer amount of value one gets if they roll a 6 on a D class weapon. But the sheer amount of mind bullets they can throw out ranging from shriek all the way to invisibility to preciseness, sheer amount of attacks, high toughness and wounds and the potential greater rewards you may recive ranging from 4+ feel no pain, to +1 wound and it will not die IMO make them well worth it. (PS I have played a total of 7 games with the slaneshi varient and won 6 and lost 1 the loss being toward eldar, the 6 wins being against tau, IG, Space marines, and other demons respectivly

[Marius the Possessed]

It all depends on your meta of course. If you face a lot of Tau, there is a LOT of S10 weapons to face, and at range. Then there's a lot of D weapons out there now, both in combat and at range, so that's another factor. Also, you can't really count "luck" as a proponent for something. You say you got a re-rollable 2 in every game. That's lucky, not a definite strategic edge. As you say, a 2 or 3 on the Warpstorm table can wreck the unit.

What size games are you playing? If you're fitting a Tetrad + 2 Soul Grinders that's a lot of points right there, so unless you're playing 2250 points or higher you aren't really putting much in your army.

[The Great Kazzo]

hmm I do see your point that the 2 soul grinders and tetrad is a lot of points for not many bodies and therefore pretty easy to isolate and kill off. So far the list has been working pretty well for me. Although I would very much like suggestions for other units that could perhaps bolster my army to make it perhaps a bit stronger, such as replacing the soul grinders with something else, not as many pink horrors? As for the luck thing I added, I started to realize that if I wanted to play "Pure" demons the majority of my tactics and the way I behave is unfortunately determined by luck. What I mean by this is that I often find myself trying to maximize the amount of chances to get lucky rather than looking for "definite" strategy as I just can't find those definite hard pressed advantages that I could find in say tau, space marines, or necrons (warpstorm and greater rewards as proof). That is not to say demons have absolutely no strategy they do, but the army is a lot more random than other armies out there. Yes I could add fate weaver but he does not really fit in with the list because well he is very expensive and is better suited for a warp flame list and I would rather have the warp charges used by the tetrad. But that is just my two cents and I eagerly await some new advice

[andrewbeater]

Going from toughness 5 to toughness 4 is a big deal as far as instant death is concerned. There are much more strength 8 weapons than strength 10 weapons. That was really my point without 5 minutes worth of typing. You will see a big difference at toughness 4 how fast your high priced DP's will die with one shot.

In my opinion the Daemon Prince needs a complete overhaul to keep up with the game as it is played today. Too many points for a model easily killed by one shot in my opinion. I'm the type of person to encourage people to try a tricky list for themselves just so they can see for themselves what the list potential really is.

[The Great Kazzo]

I can understand your concerns with a 350 pts demon prince essentially one shotted for maximum value (also Demon princes base toughness is 5, tetrad adds +1 prince dies it goes back to 5 not 4). However I find that in all the games I play with the formation I simply do not see my princes going down so fast to the point I am disappointed. I guess it is just difference in luck maybe as that is always a factor. Sure I have had my bad games , such as when a storm surge stomped 2 princes to death, or a wraith knight/eldar gunline killing two princes on turn 1 but this is hardly the norm. And while I can completely understand the criticisms of an entire army shooting at the tetrad and killing them turn 1 this is usually a result of the some of the worst rolls imaginable on powers, greater rewards, warpstorm and saves. Furthermore, the way you play tetrad, in IMHO, is not just tetrad with a tallyband like I see most lists. Instead it is to include in the army list other significant threats. The soul grinders of slaanesh with bale flamer are not a threat to be ignored, as 13 front armor makes them incredibly resilient, 4 HP further proving this point. I wil provide an example. I was playing a game with a tau player that ran the whole sha bang, max upgraded commander, and a plethora of crisis battle suits and a few tetra scout speeders (He did not have marker drones but it was still pretty intimidating none the less. I ended up rolling a few pretty good powers such as invisibility, shriek, prescience and decent greater rewards. Turns starts and I go first. First turn I end much making one of my grinders invisible, and use grimiore to increase other grinder to 3++. I shriek 4 suits off the field and wreck a tetra with flickeing fire, run everything else where it needs to go (rolled on warpstorm the one that punishes nurgle units no effect). His turn comes along and he fires everything at the tetrad. He manages to deal 1 wound to tzeentch prince who 4+ feel no pains out of it, and kills a total of 9 pink horrors. Second turn, got bad result on table character taking insatblity on 3D6 which goes on my herald, who dies instantly. I flicking fire the tetras wrecking another one, sheriking the remining battle suits sending two more to their doom, then make tetrad invisible, but grimiore fails reducing grinder to a 6++. I then switch from swooping to gliding, and end with lashing a tetra too death and charge a lone crisis suit with my grinder which kills it. turn 2 for enemy things start getting bad as he offs one of my princes with everyone except one suit firing on the tetrad killing the slaanesh prince, and he gets lucky with a burst cannon and blows up my grinder. Turn 3 it all ends with my remaing princes charging into glorious combat with the nurgle prince instagibbing the commander with a balesword, and shadow sun falling benth the khorne prince and at that point he surrendered because he did not have enough stuff in reserve and on the field to deal with the grinder, princes and the potential summoning i could get off from remaining pink horrors. It was at this point that i considered taking out the 2 units of pink horrors for another grinder so I could use the formation. Thoughts? I always appreciate more advice to make this army the best that it can be

[andrewbeater]

I can understand your concerns with a 350 pts demon prince essentially one shotted for maximum value (also Demon princes base toughness is 5, tetrad adds +1 prince dies it goes back to 5 not 4). However I find that in all the games I play with the formation I simply do not see my princes going down so fast to the point I am disappointed. I guess it is just difference in luck maybe as that is always a factor. Sure I have had my bad games , such as when a storm surge stomped 2 princes to death, or a wraith knight/eldar gunline killing two princes on turn 1 but this is hardly the norm.

It depends on your opponent and their army. Some armies are better suited to face this type of list than others. I still contend that the issue is with the DP build rather than the formation itself.

As for the list; after the Daemon Princes you have a bit under 700 points. What you have is a small Tzeentch unit that can be used to summon and bolster your army. Another idea would be too add some small formations instead. Since there are no small Daemon formations, we can rule them out. What's left are either some CSM formations or Khorne Daemonkin formations. KD formations are ideal as you could add War Engines such as Soul Grinders, Forgefiends, Maulerfiends or Defilers. Also, Crimson Slaughter has some small formations such as "The Disciples of Mannon". It is one Sorcerer and at least 5 Possessed. Cool thing with it is it has a very good chance to summon either 10 Pink Horrors, 3 Flamers or Screamers or a Lord of Chance for free. With Khorne Daemonkin you could add the Gorepack which is bikes and Flesh Hounds.

I will put together some ideas later and give you a few alternatives if you wish.