just wondering what people's thoughts are on the relative potency of the various daemons available?

having faced 1k sons and tzeentch black legion a LOT, the flamers really stand out to me as a no-brainer choice, they have equally destructive potential with the bloodletters, but with all of the advantages that firefight attacks bring, they also can support fire which only plaguebearers can do of the other daemons, yet the flamers are orders of magnitude better at it... they are marginally less resilient than the other lesser daemons, however in the 1k sons list this can be mitigated by placing them at the back and using the RA of the marines to soak up the hits

I'd suggest they get looked at for a possible reduction, I'd suggest a starting point of making them FF3+ but removing the additional attack.... pretty much all of the recent Black Legion armies that have been successful in the UK tournament scene have used flamers, that in itself should be a strong argument that they are considerably better than the other lesser daemon types

any other points of view, or do I just have a case of the sour grapes?

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I'd agree flamers seem pretty much a no brainier at the mo - they've got great synergy with the TK sons armour marines but then that approach is no different really to Krieg putting gorgons at the front and hitting you with 20+ infantry.

I'm not sure whether black legion and TK sons are tearing up the tournament scene or not at the moment so before we nerf flamers it might be worth thinking about whether we can improve the other daemons? Particularly with Emperors Children who I think could do with a bit of a boost anyway!

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OVERALL 117 - 41% 81 - 29% 86 - 30%

Thats the black legions W/L/D stats on the epicUK site. 41% win rate is pretty good.

I also agree that flamers are very, very good choice and theres no point in using other deamons because of this.

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I would not have brought up the topic myself, but I use flamers as kind of a currency like "How much, wait I get x stands of flamers."

Single FF3+ should be doing the trick.

Ole

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Im new to chaos, so will be following this thread. One though i had : Im surprised one or more of the daemons doesn't offer the option of a MW attack.

Yeah, Flamers are pretty much the default option because they overshadow the other options so much. That it's an FF Extra Attack just makes it that much better.

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Thousand sons are definitely up there in the UK with W-47% L-29% D-24% with 79 games played, there aren't many other lists at the same level with similar numbers of games played.... it's really only Ulthwe that are in the same bracket and they just had a mild nerf

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TS had a nerf too when the Warhound price was increased

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Also, the TK stats are probably slightly skewed by the fact they're in the main played by Consul, Steve54, Mike T and Dan1314 who are all very good players - they're not really an army run by inexperienced players. Of course, as I'm putting together a tk sons army I hope to be dropping that win rate stat in the next few months ;-)

I'd suggest trying to flip the thread slightly and ask - what would make Black Legion players use the other daemons and likewise for the non Tzeentch Chaos lists. Also, does anyone field greater daemons at 3k? They always seem like a lot of points to invest (icon bearer, champion, etc)

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that depends on whether you think the other daemons are fine, and from the few games I've played with/against EC/DG or non-tzeentch black legion, it seems that the plaguebearers and daemonettes are decent, enough to tip an engagement and be of use, I've certainly found daemonettes to be useful when testing the NetEA Emperors Children list, heck even the generic lesser daemons from the Red Corsairs have utility, the only ones I've never faced are bloodletters and given that they hit like a ton of bricks I'd say they're comparable

right now the strength of the flamers is their ability to support fire *really* well, which when you're playing a big 'advancing wall 'o' death' type of black legion/1k sons army is a huge force multiplier, at the oxford tournament this year I had the pleasure of playing MikeT and his black legion, Mike was able to get a retinue into engage range, summon daemons and then add 10 additional 4+ FF attacks to two nearby engagements, no other daemons come close to that level of utility, I've had great gargants taken down by the sheer weight of supporting fire they kick out, being a bit pants in CC and having a lower save does very little to balance them against other lesser daemons IMO

I'm planning on taking them in my GT list this year because frankly it would be kinda stupid not to, not because the other lesser daemons are poor choices, but because flamers are much much better

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Before the last Chaos review (for both EUK and NetEA) plaguebearers were the daemon of choice, we nerfed them slightly and then everybody started using flamers. IIRC pb went from 3-3-5 to 3-4-6.

Without nerfing flamers then bloodletters and daemonettes are probably going to need MW to match them and PB possibly a return to something close to their old stats

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Don't get me wrong Kyuss - I'm definitely not saying flamers aren't ace. With TK sons, who doesn't want terminators who can (essentially) summon dire avengers?!

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I think there are two ways of approaching the issue of making all daemons equally viable as an option.... either reduce the flamers potency to bring them in line with the other daemons, or increase the other lesser daemons in power to compete with the flamers....

given that I think the general viewpoint seems to be that flamers are p.damn good, and I haven't seen anyone complaining that the other options are awful (maybe they are, but it hasn't seemed to bother anyone to date) I think the former option is probably the better starting point.... it's not like the black legion list has a poor record....

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I agree, giving them a single FF 3+ would be better.

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The problem with Daemons in all these Chaos Marine lists I find is that you decrease your activation count significantly.

I struggle to justify including them, when I could have the extra activations. Flamers and Plaguebearers have a feasible role with present stats, but do people really use the Bloodletters and Daemonettes effectively? I find that surprising if so.

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