A series of articles written by guest writer Crownaxe on how to make the most use out of your Daemon summoning. For part 1 click here!
Today Crownaxe continues his review with the rest of the units from the Primaris power, summoning, and the Daemonic Incursion power. As always check the Tactics Corner for more great 40k content!
Summoning Continued…
Flesh Hounds – These hungry hounds are the best up field summon you get from Summoning. They have the most robust defenses (10 T4 wounds only rivaled by Plaguesbearers who’s only extra durability is Shrouded and not prone to Instant Death) while also boosting good mobility and notable damage with plenty of WS5 S5 attacks on the charge (also makes them a threat to rear armor on vehicles). This makes them great for going for objectives further up the table and supplementing your main army’s offense by being another unit to charge in (to eat overwatch or get that extra punch for combat). They don’t excel at anything in particular though; they are just solid all around.
Seekers – Generally their dramatically low durability (only 5 T3 wounds) makes them inferior summons to both Flesh Hounds and Demonettes. Their one shining advantage is that they have the best shooting phase movement out of the Summoning power. They get to run d6+6′ with fleet which makes them great last turn objective grabbers since you don’t have to worry about their extreme fragility since the game is about to end. Getting a last second objective can win the game on its own and Seekers are the best unit to do it (out of Summoning).
Flamers – This is a great summon in the right match up. Flamers of Tzeentch are one of the very few choices that actually have a ranged weapon (a S4 AP4 template weapon) and this can actually deal damage on the turn you summon them. Sometimes you just need an extra little kick or need to get some Scouts off an objective in a hurry, drop in 3 of these hot heads for 3 ap4 flamers and roast the squad with warp flames. Of course being only AP4 means they do bounce off units that have 3+ or better armor and you do run the risk of giving your target FNP from the Warpflame rule (but it’s drawback is over exaggerated, a 6+ FNP is negligible just don’t shoot Warpflame at units that already have FNP) and having only 6 T4 wounds they are very flimsy. But against targets susceptible to AP 4 Flamers are one of the few guarunteed (primaris power) ways to shoot units off of objectives.
Nurglings – Nurglings are unfortunately the only unit that has literally no purpose to being summoned as they are just outclassed by Plaguebearers in every way. In army building Nurglings are great because they are such a great value for how low their point cost is (half the price of a plaguebearer squad, WOW) but when summoning them you get both units for the same price of free. So Nurglings lose T4, Plague Swords’ 4+ poison attacks and Touch of Rust (the one rule that made summoning Plaguebearers worthwhile) and are massively prone to Instant Death and in exchange you get 12 wounds instead of 10 (which is negated by being T3 instead of T4) and the Swarm rule (which also makes them Vulnerable to Blasts and Templates). Short of some special mission rule that gives a real nice perk to Swarms, you are always going to go for the Plaguebearers.
Incursion
Incursion is where some of the best summons are and if you gain access to that power you are generally going to be replacing your options from Summoning because the elite daemons from here will have the same roles but do it better. This makes Incursion the power to hope for when randomly generating
Bloodcrushers – These guys are Bloodletters +1. You get the same AP3 power swords (but at S5 base now) but now at T4 and Calvary speed which means they are capable of fulfilling the objective grabbing role too. But there are still units better at table control amongst Incursion (and Flesh Hounds are slightly better at it too with an extra wound and being less prone to Instant Death) so again you are pulling Bloodcrushers out of your army case specifically for the murdering of power armor units.
Fiends – Strictly speaking Fiends of Slaanesh are just another version of Flesh Hounds. They trade Furious Charge for Rending, WS5 for Soporific Musk and Dirsuptive Song while also gaining I6 and +3” to run moves in exchange for being slightly less durable (one less wound and more prone to Instant Death). This gives you a much more versatile Flesh Hound equivalent unit now that you threaten higher AVs and tougher armor saves and such. But you still have the same drawback of Flesh Hounds in that they don’t excel at any particular role which means Fiends will get overshadowed by the more specialized units that excel in specific situations. Keep those Fiends in mind when you need that S4 Rending to threaten tough units with high AV/T and 2+ armor.
Plague Drones – These rot filled wasps are the star of the Incursion power. They are massively durable being T5 with Shrouded, one of the fastest units you can summon being Jet Pack Calvary, and they even still have Plague Swords so have 4+ poison and Touch of Rust. They are the best board control unit you can summon as they have the mobility to move around the table to grab objectives and, as long as they are getting a cover save, are obnoxiously annoying to just shoot off the board. These guys completely overshadow Flesh Hounds and are the reason Fiends and Bloodcrushers are relegated to just their combat ability as far as choices go.
Screamers – The complete replacement to seekers and are the actual fastest unit you can summon. Being the unit type Jetbike means that they get 24′ turbo boost and they can use it on the turn you summon them making them the best unit for grabbing objectives on the last turn of the game. Just like seekers though they are fragile having only 6 wounds amongst the three T4 lampreys (even with jink and rerolling 1’s to save they die pretty quickly) and why their Lamprey’s Bite lets them trade in their S4 attacks for a single S5 AP2 Armorbane attack means they can hurt vehicles and chomp through armor saves with only three of them you do not get enough attacks to reliably do any damage. Screamers are summoned pretty much just for their mobility which they have in spades (and any damage they end up doing is icing on the cake).
Don’t even mention that screamers attack units they pass over when they turbo boost? That’s one of the best parts.
Agreed! Its actually a decent amount of damage and one of the few units you can conjure and hit with in the same turn.
I’m kind of disappointed on your review of seekers. I think they’re one of the most useful units to summon because they block movement. 5 seekers can make a 22 inch wall anywhere in the board. Fantastic for fighting against death stars and non-jump pack super heavies as you can just block them in. They assault, then consolidate D6. They also have very few wounds which is perfect for that job as they almost certainly won’t survive to give the enemy a chance to hit-and-run through them. It also means if you get your screamer/seeker/drone-star multi assaulted they can only add – 4 to the combat resolution (remember their banner is -1!)
They’re constantly used in this fashion by tournament players to cause issues to non-jetbike units.
Seriously. Blocking is a tactic that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. They aren’t as good at it, but I use the Bikes from my Gorepack in much the same way when needed.
You will hear me talking about move blocking in the traitors hate episode of chapter tactics
I mean, I know for a fact the author knows about screamers being able to attack models they go over. Maybe he felt it was too obvious? Either way I think he mentioned move blocking last article with daemonettes. Which I think are a solid unit for move blocking.
yeah, they are, but kind of the B-team compared to seekers.
On a similar note the fiends are really great against death stars because if you make them durable for a turn they can really mess up a death stars plan by making them -5 iniative. Pretty hard to hit and run when you’re slower than an ork! The -1 to psykers can also be useful if you’re trying to dominate a squad and want another modifier.