Daemons of Chaos army build

[Netherpongo]

I'm in the early stages of a Daemons of Chaos run through Realms of Chaos and we're hitting the point in the early campaign where I'm wanting to figure out my direction for the future, specifically for the Demon Prince's army. The help guides I've been finding are recommending army builds along the lines of 17 bloodthirsters and while I'm sure that's powerful that isn't what I want to do. The only signature feature of the Daemons of Chaos is that they can use all the daemon types, and I'm intending to do so at least with the Demon Prince army (it may be harder with his backup band lords). The Demon Prince's dedication will be Undivided when I get that far.

The ideal is probably an army using elements from all four gods, but I'm skeptical that the Demon Prince's skill points will stretch far enough to cover that far. My current plan is to go with a Nurge/Slaanesh force (I'm already more invested in Nurgle than I should have been, but I'm not upset at that choice). I'm kind of interested to see how a fast/slow force like this would work.

Current Army Plan:
Demon Prince
Plagueridden Hero (rot fly - Lore of Nurgle)
Alluress (either lore)
4 Exalted Plaguebringers
2 Exalted Daemonettes
3 Chaos Warriors of Nurgle (great weapons)
4 Fiends of Slaanesh
2 Heartseekers
2 Plague Drones (death's head)

I'm fairly comfortable with the army list down through the fiends of slaanesh inclusive. The general idea is the plaguebringers & chaos warriors forming the core of the defensive line with the daemonettes on the infantry flanks and the fiends either helping to punch through the front lines or moving around to the enemy rear. I could see changing up the front line to put the daemonettes in the interior lines if the enemy force is going to outflank mine so the more durable parts of the force take the heaviest fighting. The Alluress's core job is to help stack Slaanesh debuffs with Nurgle debuffs in the hottest frontline fights or to hunt down enemy single entities. I'm much less certain of the heartseekers and plague drones. The current idea is to use the plague drones as support for the demon prince and plagueridden hero on their aerial expeditions and the heartseekers for more mobility. Plague drones have a bad reputation in my online searches, but they've been serving in the role described pretty well so far (they do need more mass). Slaanesh chariots are possibly an obvious option to pursue, but I think the army will be pretty solid at killing infantry. I think I'd be happy with the current heartseeker/plague drone build, but I have questions:

1. Do the skill points in the demon prince's skill tree generally stretch out far enough to cover more than two god trees, including their upkeep reduction and unit stat boosting elements (for units being used)?
2. If I stay with a two-god nurgle/slaanesh force, do you have any recommendations to take the heartseeker & plague drone spots?
3. Any obvious mistakes?

[Man of Culture]

At the end of the day you can play however you want, so keep that in mind, but I will give this a look.

Demon Prince is very mid in both his faction power and his own personal legendary lord power. He is not as strong as the other lords even if you devote him to a single deity. You will see a power spike early on and then it will gradually die off and you will learn quickly which of your armies are built well and which ones aren't. That being said lets review the build.

Current Army Plan:
Demon Prince
Plagueridden Hero (rot fly - Lore of Nurgle)
Alluress (either lore)
4 Exalted Plaguebringers
2 Exalted Daemonettes
3 Chaos Warriors of Nurgle (great weapons)
4 Fiends of Slaanesh
2 Heartseekers
2 Plague Drones (death's head)

Demon Prince - As stated he's very MEH. He isn't super strong in any one area even if you devote him to a single chaos god but he is fine.

Plagueridden is fine because you will need the AOE heals and the offensive nurgle magic isn't bad.

Alluress - She will be fine as well but I would probably opt for Lore of Slaanesh simply because of how much that magic will fill the gaps of your frontline. You're going to need to rely on magic buffs to keep up with late-game armies since you lack any proper passive buffs of other LL's. I'd also opt to get either locus of grace or beguilement instead of swiftness. You'll benefit more from being tanky IMO but if you feel like you want to be better offensively take beguilement.

So you have 2 Exalted Daemonettes... That's fine but if you're only using them for flanking I'd say you would have better use with 2 more Fiends of Slaanesh instead. They are the same just better because they're a lot faster and you can flank with them easier because they aren't a high number infantry unit.

Having exalted plagbearers as your infantry core isn't great. They aren't exactly great at holding a front line. You can tell because they don't have high melee defense or armor. You cannot rely on phys resist to carry your frontline. So I hate to say it but swap out all of these with chaos warriors of nurgle with great weapons. Those are going to hold much better and do more damage. That armor really means something because it's like a 75% damage reduction as opposed to a 25% you'd get with the plaguebearers.

Plague Drones are dogwater. They are not worth it whatsoever. Instead you will want to bring something with more oomf. Like Soul Grinders. They will benefit you more in melee and have an absolutely devastating artillery attack that wrecks infantry.

You have no artillery and not enough healing also. So any faction using excessive ranged units with artillery like the high elves or kislev are going to take a giant ♥♥♥♥ on you. You won't be able to fight them without having to go way out of your way to make every fight happen in your favor.

So here is my revision.

Demon Prince x1
Alluress (Slaanesh) x1
Plagueridden (Nurgle/Shadow) x1 each

Chaos Warrior of Nurgle x5
Fiend of Slaanesh x4
Heartseeker x3
Chaos Warshrine of Nurgle/Slaanesh x1 each
Soul Grinder of Nurgle x 2

My take on this is you have a good solid core of fighters for your frontline that can handle armored enemies with a lot of quick heavy hitting monster infantry to chase down units or flank or chase down ranged units and kill them quickly. You can't really rely on just 2 cav units. You will need more so having 3 heartseekers will give you more options and help keep your cav alive if they're forced to fight other cav. The soul grinders will give you the long range you lacked and the option to delete troublesome infantry or ranged units you're against and can help in the fight if need be later.

The reason I went with two plagueridden is because you will need the extra spot healing. They can both get the AOE fecundity healing skill and having one of each means you have really good pools of magic to use for any situation.

And the reason I went with chaos warshrines for your last two slots is simply for utility. You're going to outlast your opponent but you also kind of want to grind them down. So the fun thing is the nurgle shrine gives you constant passive healing which is always good and the slaanesh warshrine turns into a mortis engine. If you have them both comfortably sitting in your main core you will be racking up kills very quickly and keeping your own guys alive with ease and with minimal micro.

Just my opinion but there it is.

[Man of Culture]

Originally posted by Tunguska:

Originally posted by Man of Culture:

Just my opinion but there it is.

Can Daemon Prince even recruit Warshrines? Those are a Warriors of Chaos/Monogod unit. I wouldn't be surprised if he can get them, just not sure.
Plagueridden doesn't get Lore of Shadows, right? Only Nurgle or Death.
I'd say get lore of Nurgle for Plagueridden, and Lore of Shadows for Alluress.
Who cares about some mediocre, short lived buffs? Just cast Pit of Shades and delete all infantry in radius.

For daemon Prince LL, I think you should just go for passive AoE damage (colloquially know as Mortis Engine effects). You can get a couple of those early and they delete blobs fairly effectively, and it's fairly useful all the way through the game. Also passive effects use any winds and last as long as you stay in combat.

It's been a while since I played his campaign so you're probably right. If we can't then I guess just yeah make the Prince as much a mortis engine as you can and instead of warshrines literally do either two more soul grinders or throw in your exalted plaguebearers for flavor

[Greldinart]

hit 3k+ in all god, then you can monogod, when you monogod, you got insane reduce cost for hire thoses demons, and you can have a lot a lot of daemon tier5...but its sad to monogod as daemonprince right?
so lets go multiple gods, limit you to two gods for have enough technology. the weakness of daemon is often the range, so lets choose in 1/tzeench for ranged and 2/ nurgle or khorn for infantry monster cav.

[Netherpongo]

I'm not sure that exalted plaguebearers will really be as squishy in comparison to chaos warriors of nurgle. By sticker price alone, the exalted plaguebearers have three more melee defense (40 vs chaos warrior 37). The demon prince's Plague Troopers skill gives +6 melee attack to both unit types, but gives the corresponding +6 melee defense to nurgle daemon units (including exalted plaguebearers), but not to mortal ones. Plaguebearers also get another +6 melee defense from Nurgle's Gifts IV. They get a further +9 melee defense bonus from Cloud of Flies, but how much that matters depends on whether we're looking at a long grinding fight vs tanking a heavy cavalry charge. So once the daemon prince advances far enough, I'm seeing the exalted plaguebearers with 40 +6 plague troopers +6 nurgle's gifts IV +0-9 cloud of flies for a total of 52-61 melee defense, or 15-24 more melee defense than the chaos warriors of nurgle. They also have a limited ranged attack, so we're looking at a comparison of armor and armor piercing vs melee defense and limited range. (I believe that exalted plaguebearers also have more hit points but I'm not in a spot to confirm it right now) That looks like a list I'd want some of one and some of the other, especially in Realms of Chaos where armor is hardly ubiquitous among all armies encountered.

Note: I thought there was another +4 melee defense bonus for exalted plaguebearers over nurgle warriors of chaos from somewhere, but I can't find the source at the moment. Also, Plague Troopers was modified in patch 1.3 to give melee defense, so no fault if someone is working off an old memory of Plague Troopers.

Since my last post, I've observed the Alluress being SUPER squishy (at least when acting alone), so I'm no longer as sure about that unit as I was earlier. I'm sticking with it in my plan, but it reinforces the idea of using some heartseekers alongside them. Broadly speaking, I'm imagining a heavy (but slow) nurgle frontline that's apply poison ubiquitously and at least sometimes benefiting from enthralling or musk debuffs from the slaanesh part of the army.

------------

I also did some work figuring out the daemon prince's skill tree and I think it can support one more god's forces with some difficulty. This is what I end up with for the nurgle/slaanesh army build without a third god:

Undivided: Glorious Warfare (1), Growing Chaos (1), Respect of the North (3), Route Marcher (1), Lightning Strike (3), Friends of Decay (3), Intimiate Allies (3) - total 15 points
Nurgle: Impure Prayer (1), Rotting Nourishment (3), Plague Troopers (3), Toxic Resolve (1) - total 8 points
Slaanesh: Unholy Worship (1), Grace & Guile (3), Temptation's Troopers (3), Battle Delight (1), Devious Plotting (3), Enticing Colossi (3) - total 14 points

That gives us passive unit buffs for nurgle infantry, slaanesh infantry & fiends of slaanesh (with some other units).

There's probably some push and shove here, but that leaves about 12 points remaining to either include a third god or delve more deeply into the two gods. If I was going to use a third god we'd need:

Undivided (3 points into the upkeep reduction skill for whichever third god we include - this could be skipped if the third god only gets a small number of units)

That leaves 9 points which is just barely enough to get 1-4-1-3 skills from whichever third god is being picked. That sort of build would foreclose the possibility of getting passive unit bonuses for top-end units from one of the two primary army gods (slaanesh or nurgle)

Points could be jittered around somewhat. If I had chosen to make use of Khorne infantry with non-infantry units for nurgle and slaanesh, for instance, I could get away without as many (maybe zero) points in Plauge Troopers and Temptation's Troopers. To an extent I've already determined my own fate somewhat with the skills I've previously invested.

With all that considered, I'll probably stick with a Daemon Prince force just using Nurgle & Slaanesh, but I think I could have included a third god if I'd planned things out from the beginning.

[Human bean]

A major plus with Demons of chaos is that you CAN change the makeup of your armies AND your legendary lord to better suit your enemy du jour. Easier the higher lvl he is and how many settlements you controll ofc

[Man of Culture]

I ran a test fight between Chaos Warriors of Nurgle with great weapons vs Exalted Plaguebearers 10 times. It was 8/2 with Chaos Warriors winning out. What happens is the plaguebearers throw their weapons, do damage, the chaos warriors charge, do damage, it's about equal. They fight for a while, Chaos Warriors get more losses towards the end but then crumbling kicks in and then the Chaos Warriors win.

On paper exalted plaguebearers look like they should be tanky but they just aren't. Plus for frontline units you want something you don't have to replace after each fight or particularly bad fights. If those things get stuck or hit real hard they just stand there and die. If chaos warriors take too much they at least run away and you still have them.

And the reason I bring this up is there are things out there far more dangerous than chaos warriors with great weapons. Things that will absolutely tear their ass out sideways and if your frontline is made up of demons then you're gonna be babysitting them constantly making sure you rotate them out if they take too much damage or are about to go into crumble mode.

[Netherpongo]

Originally posted by Man of Culture:

I ran a test fight between Chaos Warriors of Nurgle with great weapons vs Exalted Plaguebearers 10 times. It was 8/2 with Chaos Warriors winning out. What happens is the plaguebearers throw their weapons, do damage, the chaos warriors charge, do damage, it's about equal. They fight for a while, Chaos Warriors get more losses towards the end but then crumbling kicks in and then the Chaos Warriors win.

On paper exalted plaguebearers look like they should be tanky but they just aren't. Plus for frontline units you want something you don't have to replace after each fight or particularly bad fights. If those things get stuck or hit real hard they just stand there and die. If chaos warriors take too much they at least run away and you still have them.

And the reason I bring this up is there are things out there far more dangerous than chaos warriors with great weapons. Things that will absolutely tear their ass out sideways and if your frontline is made up of demons then you're gonna be babysitting them constantly making sure you rotate them out if they take too much damage or are about to go into crumble mode.

Fully agreed on the crumbling point. I don't think that is fully escapable in the context of a Daemons of Chaos campaign, but it is a constant concern though I tend to have that problem most often with my mobility units. That's part of the reason I included some mortal warriors in my initial build.

To confirm, did your Chaos Warriors of Nurgle vs Exalted Plaguebringers test take into account the campaign buffs? Both sides would be getting +6 melee attack (which probably washes out mostly) but the exalted plaguebringers would be getting +12 melee defense that the chaos warriors wouldn't have any answer for. If that wasn't edited in, it would certainly impact the results. (I do not argue that the plaguebearers would win - too many unknowns)

[Man of Culture]

Originally posted by Netherpongo:

Originally posted by Man of Culture:

I ran a test fight between Chaos Warriors of Nurgle with great weapons vs Exalted Plaguebearers 10 times. It was 8/2 with Chaos Warriors winning out. What happens is the plaguebearers throw their weapons, do damage, the chaos warriors charge, do damage, it's about equal. They fight for a while, Chaos Warriors get more losses towards the end but then crumbling kicks in and then the Chaos Warriors win.

On paper exalted plaguebearers look like they should be tanky but they just aren't. Plus for frontline units you want something you don't have to replace after each fight or particularly bad fights. If those things get stuck or hit real hard they just stand there and die. If chaos warriors take too much they at least run away and you still have them.

And the reason I bring this up is there are things out there far more dangerous than chaos warriors with great weapons. Things that will absolutely tear their ass out sideways and if your frontline is made up of demons then you're gonna be babysitting them constantly making sure you rotate them out if they take too much damage or are about to go into crumble mode.

Fully agreed on the crumbling point. I don't think that is fully escapable in the context of a Daemons of Chaos campaign, but it is a constant concern though I tend to have that problem most often with my mobility units. That's part of the reason I included some mortal warriors in my initial build.

To confirm, did your Chaos Warriors of Nurgle vs Exalted Plaguebringers test take into account the campaign buffs? Both sides would be getting +6 melee attack (which probably washes out mostly) but the exalted plaguebringers would be getting +12 melee defense that the chaos warriors wouldn't have any answer for. If that wasn't edited in, it would certainly impact the results. (I do not argue that the plaguebearers would win - too many unknowns)

Sure. Your campaign buffed Tier 3 unit just finally managed to MAYBE beat a Tier 2 unit with that +12 melee defense.

That's not what I want to hear about my front line.

If you use demons for a front line soldier you need to make sure they have plenty of leadership boosts and as much armor as you can get for them and as much ward save because that phys resist, thrown weapon and melee defense aren't going to carry them into the mid/late game very well.

All the things you propped up on podiums as major boons to the plaguebearer are some of the most common things to overcome. Melee defense is still just a chance to avoid a hit and +12 is not going to help you when things commonly have attacks in the upper 70's. Phys resist will not work against magical attacks which a lot of armies will have to some degree. The boons and skills and talents don't boost your units enough either with demon prince.

Demonic units are just not good tanks. They are built for damage or utility.