40k List-Tech: One Daemon List to Roll Them All

The list-tech segment is a series of articles designed to focus on unique, competitive lists crafted by players in the community in order to provide new and experienced players with tactics, tips, and tricks to use in the heat of battle.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

On today’s List-Tech I decided to try out a new format, I also decided to highlight one Daemon list that made the top 8 at Adepticon 2016 instead of my normal two lists per article. Tell me what you guys think! Eric plays with one of the best Daemon players in the world (Nick Nanavati) and his list, and the way he talks about it summarizes everything about the correct way to play Daemons. His list also shows that you don’t need summoning and deathstars to win the faction. You just need mobility and the tactical acumen to use it.

Eric Hoerger’s MSU Daemons

Daemonic Incursion Detachment
Core: Murderhorde
Khrone Herald: Lesser Reward
8 units of 5 Fleshounds

Auxilary Detachment: Burning Skyhost
Tzeentch Herald: Level 1, The Oracular Dias
9 units of 3 Screamers

 Daemon CAD
Fateweaver (Warlord)
2 units of 3 Nurglings

Tell us a little bit about your army, why did you go with certain units? Why did you pick this army list in particular? Is there anything special about your army that you want to highlight?
I ran the Demonic Incursion detachment from the Curse of the Wulfen book at the Adepticon Championship Event. I ended up placing 8th going into the Day 2 seeding, after playing a host of different lists, including Eldar Jetbike/Warp Spider Spam, Necron Decurion with a Lychstar, Khorne Daemonkin with dogs and D Thirsters, and Eldar/IG Artillery Detachment. I chose not to play in the day 2 event so that I could play in the awesome Long War doubles with my buddy Jared Friedman. After Day 1, I was lucky enough to win Best Heretical.

The list was honestly a mashup of two hilarious armies that I had worked on in years past: An all-tzeentch Horror spam list from the beginning of 6th edition, and a KDK army that I had worked on last year as a hobby project.

I chose the list based on a couple concepts: MSU, speed, ability to play objectives, and ability to score/deny the areas of control in the Adepticon missions.

I find the Murderhorde to be the best of the Core detachments. It gives a ridiculous amount of board presence, the units are surprisingly durable for their cost, and between scout, outflank, and deepstrike, they have a ton of deployment options. Between their 12” move, Furious Charge, WS5, and +1 attack within range of another Dog unit, these units were my answer to Gladius rhino walls, and two squads could easily destroy MSU MEQ units. The close combat presence they provided allowed me to be aggressive with my screamers while keeping them screened from assault, and they limited where shooty armies (of which there were many at Adepticon) could hide.

The Skyhost was my answer to Eldar Warp Spiders and jetbikes. Combining their sweep attacks with Warpflame and Soul Blaze with their ability to Deep Strike, I could remove Eldar firepower in a hurry without recourse. Also, with a 36” move between move and turboboost, these were the ultimate objective grabbers.

With the new Tzeentch psychic power table from Curse of the Wulken, Fateweaver is really a Jack of All Trades. I took him really as an answer to Knights and Wraithknights, though he failed to 6 out anything in my 4 games. I did find that he reliably has all the offensive powers he needs between Tzeentch powers and the primaris powers, and rarely used an of the random powers I rolled. I didnt use Fatey to summon, because I didnt have many psychic dice. His Warlord trait, combined with the +1/-1 from the Demonic Incursion, meant that I consistently got +1 invul on most of my army without psychic powers.

The nurglings did 2 things that I needed them to uniquely do, contest zones in the adepticon missions, and sit on objectives corrupted by the Demonic Incursion units so that OBSEC jetbike units could not contest them.

My list differed from most daemon lists in that my heralds are VERY light on upgrades. This was mainly a points issue; once I took the two formations and the minimum units from the CAD, I only had 20 points left to play with. However, I didnt find that this was a huge issue in my games; strength in numbers and speed made up for the lack of Daemon tricks from Psychic powers and Loci, and my list was much more consistent. While I wish I could have fit in an Exalted Reward on the Tzeentch Herald for Grimoire, I didnt have a unit worth buffing outside of Fateweaver.

What expectations did you have for the meta? Were there any armies you were worried about? What match-ups did you feel most comfortable with?
I expected to see a lot of Eldar, because Adepticon is relatively light on terrain and the missions heavily favored OBSEC. Additionally, I expected to see a fair amount of Gladius, because even the killpoint mission was fairly easy for Gladius to get points off of, and all of the other missions heavily favored objective/zone scoring. I felt good about both of these matchups, because I had the OBSEC to contest zones, and my Skyhost and Murderhorde detachments were perfect counters to Eldar and Gladius matchups respectively. I was worried about playing Tau, because I didnt get the chance to playtest that matchup and it has freakish amounts of firepower; however, I was able to avoid that matchup, so I’ll have to reserve judgement on it until another day.

Hindsight is 20-20 and looking back on Adepticon was there anything you would have changed about your list to better accommodate the meta you experienced?
Honestly, I wouldn’t change the list I ran looking forward to other formats. ITC, ATC, and NOVA all are objective-centric mission sets, and the Demonic Incursion is the best army I’ve ever played in terms of ability to control both progressive and end of game objectives. The board presence of the army is monstrous. While deathstars can on the surface present challenges, this army can form a 24” bubble of ‘you control this, I control everything else’, and the army doesn’t care about invisibility.

What are some tips or tricks you have for people who might want to start using your army?
40k is a game won on movement, and with the deployment and movement options, focusing on board control is most important. If you corrupt objectives, then put OBSEC on them, nothing can cleanse your control until they remove the OBSEC. Don’t be afraid to deepstrike aggressively with screamers, as even a mishap doesn’t put units out of the game ? of the time. Use Fateweaver plus the daemonic incursion +1/-1 to fish for what you want on the Warp Storm; +1 invul is incredible on the MSU, and an 11 result on average kills an enemy psyker. If you roll a 5 or 6 on one of your dice for Warp Storm, reroll the other dice to have a solid chance to get one of these results. Summon for heralds if you can, because it allows you to bring in tools that the points won’t allow otherwise. In general, high-toughness, strong armor is tough, so use fleshhounds as a delaying unit to tie them up for a while, event if you can’t kill them; Rerolling instability can often allow you to tie things up for far longer than normal. But most importantly, play the mission and you have all the tools you need to win any matchup.