40K: Adventures in Malefic Daemonology
I accidentally painted pink boobs on my deffkoptas. Which led me straight into Malefic Daemonology. Here’s what I learned:
A guest editorial by Stormfizzle
I accidentally painted pink boobs on my deffkoptas.
As the Warboss of a massive mob of snazzgun-wielding Bad Moons, you can imagine my hysterics when I realized my boyz were going to war in the dark millennium armed with rokkits on their deffkoptas that looked like pink breasts. It was a definite case of a spot colour gone wrong. At least my deffkoptas would pump out 4 or 5 Strength 8 hits per shooting phase I rationalized.
What does this have to do with Daemons? I had a lot of pink left over. This led me to Pink Horrors, and to an analysis of the new psychic phase, and…
Malefic Daemonology. Enter two of the best innovations in 40K design in years: unbound armies and conjuration psychic powers. Both, I hope, will appear in the forthcoming edition of Warhammer Fantasy.
Unbound armies finally created the ability to construct psychic-focused army lists, and a whole new phase of the game within which to consider their impact. Conjurations create an array of game-changing possibilities: builds that added points to your total mid-game rather than exclusively focusing on subtracting your opponents points.
And my Chaos Daemons, including my pink boob-inspired collection of Pink Horrors, suddenly became one of the most interesting armies in Warhammer 40K. Thus began my adventures in Malefic Daemonlogy.
A few dark revelations:
Old is New. Conjuring isn’t entirely new, of course. Nor is it unique to Chaos Daemons. Undead players have been able to summon small units of dead for a long time and Necrons have been able to re-animate for years, but the difference is in the scale, the points cost of the conjured unit, and the deployment possibilities. It’s not just getting models back that you already paid for, adding a handful of skeletons to an existing unit, or even birthing some Tyranid Gaunts, we are talking about selecting between 100 to 150 points worth of new models from a range of choices per psychic power cast, potentially multiple times over multiple turns.
Changing your Army List Mid-Game. Conjurations enable a player to summon reserves mid-game that do not appear on your army list, do not count against your points total and that can be chosen to suit the opponent you are playing against. Dealing with charging Space Marines? Conjure a speed bump of Initiative 5 daemons that will strike first in melee. Dealing with troops with worse than 4+ armour saves? Conjure Flamers that negate their armour. The point is; Chaos Daemons are the first army where you can effectively change your army list mid-game to suit your opponent. You can actually look at your collection of models and say, hmmm, what is the best unit to set on the table given the current tactical situation? The recent proliferation of Daemon lists is not just because malefic daemonology is some sort of bad mistake that Games Workshop needs to fix, but because it is fun, innovative and opens new tactical gaming possibilities that didn’t really exist before in 40k.
The design possibilities are awesome. Imagine: Imperial Guard (sorry, Astra Militarum) Naval Officers conjuring flyers; Space Marines conjuring drop pod reserves; Eldar bonesingers conjuring new terrain. You see what I mean.
And wargear too. In addition to conjuring units tailored to your opponent, Daemonic Heralds are able to be conjured with 30 points of wargear. Thus, you can even tailor your characters to suit the roles they will play once they are conjured. For example, instead of paying 30 points for a Grimoire in your army list, you can run a list that assumes a conjured Herald will appear with a Grimoire by turn 3 or turn 4 just in time for the deciding melees of the match. This benefit’s not just from the wargear’s ability, but also from the element of surprise. It is not in your army list, so your opponent doesn’t know what’s coming. The 30 points you save by not including the wargear in your original army list can instead be used to pay for more models in your original army list – perhaps a second Herald to ensure you can conjure more or even that second flying daemon prince.
Again, the design possibilities of this are great. We’ve seen a lot more of this over the years, represented by random effects of Dark Eldar combat drugs or multiple types of ammo for Space Marine Sternguard but one can imagine some of the benefits of the conjuration design mechanic applied to future Codices: using the conjuration mechanic to conjure special ammunition like Tau Seeker Missiles, psychic shields on a tank, or adaptive Tyranid biomorphs mid-game. Very cool.
The Mana Curve. Another malefic revelation: the introduction of a psychic mana curve to 40K. This term is familiar to Magic: the Gathering players, meaning ensuring an ever-increasing resource of mana as the game progresses. In stark contrast to the predictable, flat 2d6 Winds of Magic in Warhammer: Fantasy, Chaos Daemons in 40K are the first army where by conjuring psychic units you can actually grow your own psychic pool capabilities as the game goes on. For example, Pink Horrors can summon Heralds of Tzeentch who can summon Horrors who can summon more Heralds who can transform into Lords of Change…for free. (Just don’t forget about your enemy with this type of a build since he will be busy claiming objectives and killing your units while you are busy….breeding?)
The strategic implications of a mana curve are interesting. It adds a whole new dimension of play, both in terms of managing growth in psychic power to ensure overwhelming advantage as soon as possible or from a defensive stand-point, eliminating models to mitigate the threat posed by an ever-escalating psychic prowess. All armies must now consider the threat of a daemonic psychic mana curve.
Las Vegas Open. In conclusion, I would point to the recent BoLS articles on the Las Vegas Open where top lists wielded malefic daemonology. One list, relying heavily on Tzeentch, contained a pair of expensive Heralds of Nurgle: with no Plaguebearers to accompany them. This is a very smart application of the new 7th edition meta-game outlined above: building a mana curve to conjure new units, planning for the eventual arrival of Plaguebearers mid-game (or other Nurgle daemons as needed), and wargear choices (Daemonic Loci) that were chosen in anticipation of the eventual arrival of a unit that will benefit from the choice. Confusing? Yes. Cool?
Not as cool as pink boobs on my deffkoptas, but yes.
