Chaos Daemons Review: Chaos Furies

Chaos furies have been in the daemons pantheon for a long while. Even back in the old realms of chaos, there were independent daemons who owed no allegiance to the big powers. In the new daemons codex, the furies can be bought unaligned, or bought corrupted by one of the big four. The option to upgrade with to a daemon of the big four is what makes them really shine in my opinion:  shrouded Nurglesque furies; red Khornate furies with hatred; rending Slaaneshi furies -- there's little not to like. Perhaps Tzeentch is the only one that is not so wonderful since they are not spellcasters, but re-rolling a save of a 1 is just about okay. So themed armies only for Tzeentch furies.

The final point is their cost. They are cheap. Darn cheap. The fast attack choices in daemons armies has gone from "yeah Screamers of Tzeentch of flesh hounds are okay" to "what to choose ... hmmmm...". And that can only be a good thing. I could see the potential for fury hordes here -- in the same way that Tyranids can field gargoyle hordes.

Here's a few potential builds.

20 Chaos Furies (125 points)
Cheap jump infantry. A smoke screen and flesh shield. A late game contesting squad. Expendable. Fun!

14 Chaos Furies, Daemons of Nurgle (117 points)
More expensive than the above, but they get shrouded, at the expense of slow and purposeful.

16 Chaos Furies, Daemons of Khorne (133 points)
Slaughter and skulls for the skull throne!  The boost from Khorne is powerful: might as well take a reasonable sized unit to take advantage of that fact (and 16 is a multiple of Khorne's sacred number).

18 Chaos Furies, Daemons of Slaanesh (149 points)
Go and rend things!  Move with fleet otherwise.  A fast and quite hard hitting unit thanks to rending.  They could be a real danger.  And you can do everything that basic furies can as well.  Very worth while for this unit I think -- lots of potential!

(Image: WFB Strigoi collectors miniature -- I know its not a fury, but I think it looks like a good approximation to one and I think a unit of these as furies would look very cool).

Chaos Daemons Review: Plague Drones of Nurgle

New for this codex is Nurgle's entry in the fast attack section: plague drones.  Sadly they share a name with the forge world concept, but that is about my only criticism.

What are they good for then?  Well, they move fast.  And if you're a long time Nurgle fan, then you will know what a huge boon this is.  Seriously: a Nurgle unit that moves fast breaks the Nurgle rule of being slow and purposeful (literally).  With shrouded and a toughness of 5, these guys are going to be quite mean to take down.

But therein, there's a conundrum.  On their own, they don't have a particularly great role.  The only way that they are going to take enemies down is through their sheer numbers (and sheer number of poisoned attacks).  And as such, the way to play them is either (1) as a tar pit or (2) as a final turn swooper to claim or contest objectives (depending on which of the standard games is being played).  They are simply not geared to take down armour, and not particularly great at taking down terminators and their ilk.  But they might be able to tar pit for long enough that it won't be an issue.  An etherblade or greater etherblade would be a nice way to cause a threat to 2+ save models though and is a serious contender for spending points on.

Death heads give a 12" ranged attack which is also poisoned.  This could actually be good on this unit since they're about the only one that might benefit from it (i.e. being able to position themselves quick and accurately for their use).  Venom sting inflicts instant death and could be a useful idea for character hunting (but is expensive).  Rot Proboscis give a 3+ poisoned rule which is nice, but again: also expensive.  And as with many units, icons and instruments can be added to taste.

Here's a few ideas on builds.

5 Plague drones of Nurgle, Venom Stings, Plaguebringer with Greater Etherblade (260 points)
This is a pricey unit (in comparison to say, thunder hammer terminators), but is fundamentally a character hunter and killer.  Seek out enemy characters and try to instant death them.  You only need to score that one wound and it could be pulled off by this unit effectively (with some good die rolling).

3 Plague drones of Nurgle, Plaguebringer with Greater Etherblade, Icon of Chaos, Instrument of chaos (176 points)
A fairly bland set up, but potentially very useful with the instrument inside it.  Use it as a tar pit to stop pesky fire warriors shooting everything else out the the sky?

3 Plaguedrones of Nurgle, Plaguebringer with Etherblade, Death Heads (156 points)
A slightly cheaper tar pit unit.  If it survive (or if you hide it), use it to swoop on an objective in the late game.

Wargames Gallery: Dark Eldar Iconography

One of group's free-hand painting work (not my own!) that I thought was really, really cool when I saw it up close.  Enjoy!

Chaos Daemons Review: Screamers of Tzeentch

It had to happen: the screamers of Tzeentch foresaw the battering that they'd get by asking Kairos.  Instead of all their attacks being at AP2, they may now swap all available attacks for a singular AP2 attack in close combat.  But you know: that really isn't so bad.  Such an attack in a reasonably sized shoal of screamers will still cause headaches for terminators.

They are more readily shot down and generally dealt with by enemy armies as well now -- a S8 hit will kill them outright due instant death.  A bit more like what they were when daemons came our really (with armourbane).  Since I have been using them before they got good, this sits well with me.  But the real strength comes from the fly-overs that they can do.  Their slashing attack can cause certain armies quite a headache for little effort.  Combine with other flying units and the screamers will still, no doubt, have a strong place in daemon armies.

Fundamentally, they're still jetbikes as well.  Two wound jetbikes as well.  And they're a reasonable price.  Expect to see them execute late game swoops on to objectives to contest them (or claim them if playing that mission!).  I'd be tempted to field them in squads of about 5 or so -- enough to prevent them all dropping dead in one turn (unless they get really concentrated and sustained incoming firepower - in which case they've probably soaked enough wounds to allow other army elements to move in to place) and significant to cause headaches where required.