In a nutshell: Another competitor for place in a Daemon army against Bloodcrushers. They have a better value than say Beasts of Nurgle, for they can do what most Daemon armies struggle with: Beat down vehicles in CC. I don't think much of the models, but you can easily fix that by running something else and have it 'count as'. Despite their looks, these are not an anti-infantry unit! On to the Pros, men! (Ok, and women!)
Pros: What can this unit possibly bring to the table that Bloodcrushers cannot? Outside of the HQ and Heavy slots, you have very few ways on tackling certain armor. Land Raiders, Monoliths, fast movers (6" plus), Ironclad Dreads, Deffdreads, regular Dreads, Defilers, Soul Grinders. All of these trump Bloodcrushers. Even Killa Kans give them a headache. Not so with these girls. Sure, they are not nearly as survivable, but they are much faster and give you an answer to enemy armor of all types. Sure, Bloodcrushers might be able to blow apart vehicles with AV10 on the rear facing. Then there are the 5 dread or 3 LRC armies your Daemons cannot deal with effectively. Throw these beasts in. They have a relatively crappy WS of 4. Against most vehicles, that's meaningless of course. It's how many attacks you have. 6x6=36 attacks. Compare to Bloodcrushers, who have 4 attacks each. Takes 8 at almsot double the points to get this number of attacks. They are the higher strength, but you are rending and can rend ANYTHING in the game. Unlike most units, you have Hit & Run. That means you can run in, beat the crap out of a unit, and run away. Field 3 units of these with Skarbrand and life is looking up. Did I mention these are beasts, and can therefore fleet and charge 12"? Even Eldar, most hated of Foes for Daemons, have a difficult time getting away from these.
Cons: They are only T4, and only have a 5+ save. As there are a max of 6, they are vulnerable to being torrented down. So, stick them in cover when they come down! With 6 that's still only a 66% chance you'll suffer one wound. Having a 4+ cover save makes them quite a bit more hardy.
Tactics: Well, sadly, I hit on many of the tactics in the Pros section. Give them re-rolls to hit with Skarbrand, and they are very nasty indeed. I think when you compare how this unit handles tanks vs other Daemon choices, you'll find yourself hard pressed to say no. 36 attacks against a fast moving vehicle is at least one rending hit. 36 against a non-moving vehicle is 6 rending hits. It's all kinds of good.
Final word: While these can torrent down enemy infantry units in CC, and can do a fine job of it when no vehicles are on the table...you really want these for their anti-tank punch. Crushers are great for mowing down infantry. They suck against mech hordes, and heavy mech just laugh at their one guy with rending attacks. This unit? People won't be laughing long when you hit them with it.
Fiends of Slaanesh
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9 comments:
Regarding Fiends of Slaanesh:
Just a note, I personally plan on using the Dark Elf Cold Ones to sub for this model.
Why? At 20 bucks a pop it's stupid to buy a bunch of these, and they are a horrible model.
Not bad for 1997 but pretty much shit now.
I'm wondering what model, if any, others are using as a substitute for this?
I'm gonna use Spawn for my fiends. Probably end up getting the Tide of Spawn. Back in the old days, that's all a fiend was, a Slaanesh marked spawn.
I do love the new Fiend models though, they're so delightfully absurd.
I have the second edition fiends that I'm using. Mainly cause I already have the models. 10 of those plus 2 of the new fiends.
Just as an aside for unit size, I would never take them in less than 5, almost always at 6. You can take small squads of crushers but definitely not with fiends.
I usually don't take it but the unholy might upgrade always seems like a tempting option, usually run out of points before getting to it.
Excellent observations on the Fiends, Warmaster. I agree 100%.
How can this be more effective at anti-tank than screamers, its definitely better in CC, but tanks?
Here, I want to kill an eldar fire prism (which I generally do), first, screamers are faster (kind of) and will be better at chasing fast skimmers. Now once we are in combat heres what I get for math, using units of equal value (180 points),
Fiends, 6x6 = 36 attacks, for argument they moved at cruising speed, so you have 18 hits, with the only chance of pen being rending, that translates into 3 pen rolls (no more tank)
Screamers 1x12 = 12 attacks, at cruising speed that equals 6 hits, which with meltas = almost 6 pen rolls (35/36 on each roll).
So Screamers chase tanks faster and kill them twice as effectively, what is wrong with my math?
Fiends are faster than Screamers, bud.
12" + D6" + 6" versus 12" + 6".
Fiends don't get CC'ed to death, and are more resilient because they have 2 wounds each.
Screamers do not get double attacks, they are armed with Meltabombs. So they get 1 attack each. That's ONE hit on a fast moving tank per 6 screamers. The only thing they are superior against are Land Raiders.
Hope that helps you understand.
Thanks
But I just realized, 12 attacks is correct, because I'm using equal points value, not an equal number of models, and 12 models at 15 points each, is less than/equal to 6 models time 30/35 points (I can't remember which)
Plus screamers are jetbikes, so if they end up stranded on the opposite side of the field as a tank, they can cross the field faster.
Thanks for the advice though, I definitely see your points about them being better all around, and more survivable.
darios speaking:
well fiends work with you... here in good old germany GW messed them up... in our demondex they list two profiles.... the one you have with ws 4 and 5 attacks... and another one with only ws 3 and 3 attacks... and they did make a statment that: "the ws 3 and 3 attacks are correct, it was considered to uber with the original profile and the german dex is already updated, we will commend this in the errata for the other countries too..." still waiting for that to happen... so in germany fiends suck becaus mounted demonettes do the job better and cheaper...
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