Killing Grey Knights with Daemons - Part 4 : The All Important List.

So taking all that we've learned in previous posts let's see if we can make ourselves a balanced list that can kill Grey Knights without becoming useless against everything else.

I'm going to aim for a 2000 point list and people can scale it back if they feel so inclined.

Lets start with HQ's

As discussed we need Bolt of Tzeentch in order to de-mech our opponents. Most 5th edition armies with the exception of Tyranids (and Daemons obviously) are going to have a lot of vehicles that we need to pop. A Grey Knight Razorback Spam list will more than likely have disembarked a lot of their units in order to get maximum benefit from their unit fire-power but in a Kill Point game we'll still want those transports dead.

Though a Slaaneshi Herald is useful for it's speed and high initiative we can get similar benefits in other slots. What we don't get much of in other slots is anti-vehicle shooting so we'll be taking some of these guys,

HQ: Herald of Tzeentch (1#, 95 pts)
   1 Herald of Tzeentch @ 95 pts (Bolt of Tzeentch; Chariot of Tzeentch)

There isn't a picture of a Herald of Tzeentch so I used this instead.

For our 95 points we get a moderately survivable BoT platform. Due to Heralds only taking up half a HQ slot we can take for of these and are going to.

So that's 380 points spent,

Now we need to kill things quickly and for that our best options in the elite slot are Fiends of Slaanesh. We'll take full units of six and give one of them in each unit Unholy Might.

Elite: Fiends of Slaanesh (6#, 190 pts)
   6 Fiends of Slaanesh @ 190 pts (Unholy Might x1)


Three of those sets us back another 570 points bringing our running total to 950. Time for some troops methinks,

My personal preference is two objective holding units with at least another two moving forward. The best choice for defensive are Plaguebearers and our best choice for offensive is Bloodletters. We'll take a pair of minimum sized Plaguebearer units and a couple of mid sized Bloodletter units.

Troops: Plaguebearers of Nurgle (5#, 75 pts)
   5 Plaguebearers of Nurgle @ 75 pts

Troops: Plaguebearers of Nurgle (5#, 75 pts)
   5 Plaguebearers of Nurgle @ 75 pts


Troops: Bloodletters of Khorne (10#, 160 pts)
   10 Bloodletters of Khorne @ 160 pts

Troops: Bloodletters of Khorne (10#, 160 pts)
   10 Bloodletters of Khorne @ 160 pts


That's another 470 points spent bringing our current total to 1420.

We'll skip Fast attack for now and jump to Heavy Support as our four Bolts of Tzeentch aren't really enough. As discussed previously a Tzeentch Daemon Princes BS of 5 makes him a reliable gun platform and the increased invulnerable save helps their survivability. We'll take three of those then...

Heavy Support: Daemon Prince of Chaos (1#, 140 pts)
   1 Daemon Prince of Chaos @ 140 pts (Mark of Tzeentch; Bolt of Tzeentch)

That's another 420 more points gone, leaving us with 160 left to spend. Back to Fast Attack then ;-)


We decided that Flesh Hounds of Khorne were our best option but we unfortunately can't afford three lots. Lets settle for the one then. A unit of 10 will set us back 150 points,

Fast Attack: Flesh Hounds of Khorne (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Flesh Hounds of Khorne @ 150 pts


Bringing our total to 1990 points.

However, I'd really like Karanak in this unit and he'll put us 25 points over our 2000 point limit.

Fast Attack: Flesh Hounds of Khorne (10#, 185 pts)
   9 Flesh Hounds of Khorne @ 185 pts
      1 Karanak, Hound of Vengeance


Total 2025 points.

Time for a slight re-think. Unfortunately due to my awesome powers of optimisation there aren't really many points to spare without reducing unit sizes and that's a bad idea, especially at 2000 points.

The only place I can think of to get those points is from the Fiends 'Unholy Might'. So would losing that upgrade cause us many problems?

Well the only things in the Grey Knight Codex that are higher than Toughness four are Draigo and Karamazov (T5) and the Dreadknight (T6). We'll still be wounding the first two on 4's and the Dreadknight on 5's but as it's very likely that Dark Excommunication will remove that extra strength as well as our rending claws should we attack a Dreadknight then the difference between Strength 5 and 6 on one model isn't that much really.In addition our stupidly low chance of penetrating armour 14 via rending becomes a stupidly low chance of glancing armour 14 via rending. The Daemon Prince will just have to deal with those...

Okay so we can have Karanak now which makes our final list look like this,

2000 Pts - Chaos Daemons Roster

HQ: Herald of Tzeentch (1#, 95 pts)
   1 Herald of Tzeentch @ 95 pts (Bolt of Tzeentch; Chariot of Tzeentch)

HQ: Herald of Tzeentch (1#, 95 pts)
   1 Herald of Tzeentch @ 95 pts (Bolt of Tzeentch; Chariot of Tzeentch)

HQ: Herald of Tzeentch (1#, 95 pts)
   1 Herald of Tzeentch @ 95 pts (Bolt of Tzeentch; Chariot of Tzeentch)

HQ: Herald of Tzeentch (1#, 95 pts)
   1 Herald of Tzeentch @ 95 pts (Bolt of Tzeentch; Chariot of Tzeentch)

Elite: Fiends of Slaanesh (6#, 180 pts)
   6 Fiends of Slaanesh @ 180 pts

Elite: Fiends of Slaanesh (6#, 180 pts)
   6 Fiends of Slaanesh @ 180 pts

Elite: Fiends of Slaanesh (6#, 180 pts)
   6 Fiends of Slaanesh @ 180 pts

Troops: Bloodletters of Khorne (10#, 160 pts)
   10 Bloodletters of Khorne @ 160 pts

Troops: Bloodletters of Khorne (10#, 160 pts)
   10 Bloodletters of Khorne @ 160 pts

Troops: Plaguebearers of Nurgle (5#, 75 pts)
   5 Plaguebearers of Nurgle @ 75 pts

Troops: Plaguebearers of Nurgle (5#, 75 pts)
   5 Plaguebearers of Nurgle @ 75 pts

Fast Attack: Flesh Hounds of Khorne (10#, 185 pts)
   9 Flesh Hounds of Khorne @ 185 pts
      1 Karanak, Hound of Vengeance

Heavy Support: Daemon Prince of Chaos (1#, 140 pts)
   1 Daemon Prince of Chaos @ 140 pts (Mark of Tzeentch; Bolt of Tzeentch)

Heavy Support: Daemon Prince of Chaos (1#, 140 pts)
   1 Daemon Prince of Chaos @ 140 pts (Mark of Tzeentch; Bolt of Tzeentch)

Heavy Support: Daemon Prince of Chaos (1#, 140 pts)
   1 Daemon Prince of Chaos @ 140 pts (Mark of Tzeentch; Bolt of Tzeentch)

Total Roster Cost: 1995

As for 'Waves' I'd drop the four Heralds, two lots of Bloodletters and one of the Daemon Princes first. The second wave would then be 2 Daemon Princes, 3 lots of Fiends and the Flesh Hounds. That way we should be able to pop a few transports while giving our opponent the worry about choosing between neutralising the shooting or stopping the Bloodletters before they get a chance to assault something, with the Daemon Prince being a worry in both areas. Then our 2nd wave should consist of our dangerous close combat units ready to assault the (hopefully by now) disembarked units on turns three and onwards and our objective holding units to.....well....hold objectives.

Should we be unfortunate enough to get our non preferred wave then at least we have two shooty units and 48, T4 wounds worth of assault units for our opponent to deal with before they get in his face on (hopefully) turn two.

Well that (imo) is a balanced Daemon list that can handle Grey Knights (with a bit of luck and good planning) and everything else with a fair chance of success.

Of course if anybody has any better ideas then I'm open to suggestions ;-)
You have read this article Army Lists / Chaos Daemons / Tactica with the title Killing Grey Knights with Daemons - Part 4 : The All Important List.. You can bookmark this page URL https://llourenzzo-putta.blogspot.com/2011/04/killing-grey-knights-with-daemons-part.html. Thanks!
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