8th Ed. To Kill a Daemon Prince

[Boothy Baby]

Hello all, my first post here so i though I would start with something topical.

1st up, I am a tournament player so I'll be looking for reliable solutions to the problem rather than "possibly maybe x or y could work". As a bit of background Im based in Western Australia these days where the vast majority of our tournaments are no comp, but the majority of builds are balanced (but tough) e.g. double ironblaster double mournefang would be pretty normal for ogres, but deathstars and gunlines are uncommon.

When when writing my army list I have a list of "things my army must be able to deal with" e.g. deathstars, avoidance, all cav, multiple massive hords, etc etc. A recent addition to this list is the warriors of chaos daemon prince.

Some key characteristics that most princes seem to have are:
- mark of nurgle (-1 to hit in combat)
- 1+ armour save
- 5++ vs everything
- 2++ vs flaming

After those key features, the builds seem to vary a bit.

So far I have come up with two options that seem viable. The 1st is charging the prince with a pair of ancient stegs with the sharpened horns upgrade....2d6+2 hits at S6 doing D3 wounds is not something it is going to want to face. Even one of these is bad news but a single D6+1 hits is not reliable enough for my taste. Now the obvious problem is that the prince is a hell of a lot more mobile than a pair of stegs so if the chaos player takes their time to position the prince the lizards are in trouble. So we need some solutions:
- pin it in combat
- threaten it from range so its not safe for the prince to be out of combat

Now we have to adress those two statements. To pin it in combat we will need big blocks, that does not seem a very points effective approach, and it faces all the problems of catching the blasted thing. As far as I can see the best way to bog a prince down is with an oldblood on a cold one with a 1+ re-rollable armour and a 4+ ward......the prince will kill him in a few rounds of combat, but hopefully it will hold the prince long enough to get those stegs in there.

Blast if from range. I think arcane unforging and searing doom are the keys to making this happen. The longer the prince holds back (while the chaos player tries to counter those stegs) the more likley it is wounds will slip through or the dragon bane gem/helm gets broken. To really put the pressure on we could add tetto echo to the mix. His ability for all wizards to re-roll casting dice of 1's should ensure plenty of big casting values making it rather hard for the defending chaos player to block the searing doom, arcane unforging, chain lightning, and thunderbolt onslought directed at the prince.

Any other ideas? Basically Im not a huge fan of stegs as they bleed points at a depressing rate in a bad matchup so would love to hear some alternatives.

 

[skillfull_dan]

Daemon prince is the best bang for your buck in all of warhammer right now, besides cannonballs and teamed banishment there is no good way of dealing with it.

I agree, stegadons are not a great answer because the prince has an average 19 inch charge and stegadons have a 13 inch average. You should be able to reach him if you gamble on a couple long charges, but two stegadon charges will be highly unlikely and I wouldnt make a plan around it.

I think the Arcane Unforging + Searing doom combo is the best answer we have for him if you take high magic.

The other option that we still have is our old standby. Cold one cowboy with either dawnstone or 4++, and a greatweapon. He has a long enough charge range to either force the DP into a risky charge, or give us a good chance of charging him. High enough strength to penetrate his armor, immune to stomps, and can survive a round against him, for half the price of a DP.

Additionally if you dont like stegadons I would look closely at kroxigors. The prince will kill one or more of them per turn, but they can use ranks to remain stubborn, hit back hard, immune to stomp, aren't reliant on getting the charge to succeed, and move at stegadon speed. I like them a lot in the new book

 

[Ethylparaben]

I think, that 'metal' spell from High magic may help here. It wont wound him, thanks to 2++ against flaming, but you may be able to drop his item. If armor -> then he will be vulnerable to standard attacks from our infantry blocks, if gem -> spells from lore of metal (gained from lore attribute) will hurt him badly, with +1 AS and only 5+ ward.

 

[Reddogfish]

Not sure if you have thought of this. But what about hand of glory giant bow?

Ignores armour. S6 and could hit fairly easily. D3 wounds and poison are bonuses.

 

[Stonecutter]

I think Skillful Dan has a solution that is very likely to succeed - kroxigor. Relying entirely on magic is never a good idea as it will either inevitably fail you or your opponent will do the smart thing and either a) stop the key spell or, b) once the dragonbane gem is gone, get the DP into combat where searing doom is useless. The biggest challenge, as usual, will be getting the DP locked in combat since his mobility as a flier makes him very hard to track down and force into a fight that is not of his choosing. If/when he is engaged by kroxigor however, a good size unit should be able to grind him down. I have been playing with a unit of 6 and for the same points as a typical block of saurus (i.e. ~25 + FC) they are proving extremely versatile. The unit moves quickly, causes fear, is easily manoeuvered and hits really hard (18 x S7 + 3 x S5 stomps) while having pretty decent defence (T4 and 4+ save). The lore of high magic also helps significantly improve their overall effectiveness along with the ability to spam multiple wyssan's. A single HoG boosting WS to 5 makes a big difference as it doubles the hits against a DP (on a 5 vice 6) while a HoG and wyssan's combo would likely spell the end of the DP within 2 rounds (18 x S8 attacks hitting on 5's will ruin even a DP's day!).

 

[Boothy Baby]

Hand of glory on a baby steg is actually a fair idea, good catch on that one. I did think of it as one of the 1st options, but dismissed it as the combo works relying on a single spell. However it does help build up the ranged pressure with hand of glory + giant bow, arcane unforging, searing doom. Three spells the warriors player has to dispel is better than two!

With any kind of ranged solution I feel we need a way to create a “no go zone” for the prince which will be the easy charge range of a unit that can reliably kill it in cc. Without this the prince is going to fang it across the board at 20” per turn heading straight for the slaan……not good if the chaos player wins the 1st turn! I don’t think we can rely on catching the prince with a unit that is slower than it.

Im a bit more concerned about the krox option. Doing the maths on a unit of 6, as long as we can get the krox to hitting on 5+ they will in the fight in 2-3 rounds of combat. However if hitting on 6’s it gets very dicey (and if the prince has soul feeder they really are stuffed). I think the krox option has some legs to it, so let’s explore spell combos that will get them winning this fight reliably! There are a few rules though

1 – you must have 2+ spells in your combo
2 – you can only rely on one spell actually being cast
3 – you must be able to reliably cast your full combo on 7 dice
4 – you must be able to guarantee having the spells i.e. no “Im going to use the high magic attribute and swap a spell for speed of light”!!

Combo 1: Hand of glory + wildform – assuming the chaos player dispels hand of glory, wild form should just about keep the krox in the fight with the extra point of toughness (prince wounding on 3+ rather than 2+), and cut the princes armour to 6+ rather than 5+ hopefully ending the fight a round of combat sooner.

Combo 2: Hand of glory + miasma – assuming hand of glory is dispelled this isn’t a good combo as to bring the prince to WS6 (and thus getting hit on a 5+) we would need to decrease its WS the full 3 points possible with miasma – 2/3 chance of failure = thumbs down.

Combo 3: nope, I’m out of ideas

 

[Lizardmatt]

Krox are going to be hitting on a 6 (WS9 prince, -1 to be hit from nurgle).
You can:
Go the magic route with unforging,
Tank him with an Old Blood: 1+ re-rollable armor and 4+ ward and great weapon.
Throw lots of 5 point skink cohorts and him and still while you deal with the rest of his army.
Egg of Quango and hope for the 2D6 S5 automatic hits and some luck.

My plan is Spirit Leech. My Ld10 vs his 9 gives me a point up, a decent roll could take him out with 1 shot. If I can unforge his ward vs fire, I'll be blasting him with the Solar engines as well. The final desperate move will be the chief jumping in with the Egg. In pinch, a Bastiladon can tie him up. T5 2+ armor means he's hitting hit on 3's, wounded on 3's, and saving on 5's. Vs 5 attacks, he's taking 1 to 2 wounds a turn, and should be able to hold.

 

[n810]

I s this a case where a unit of HoG enhanced Riperdactals might be good...
(assuming he's marked with the toad.)

Ps. not sure if KB works on him though..?

 

[Clarkarias]

I s this a case where a unit of HoG enhanced Riperdactals might be good...
(assuming he's marked with the toad.)

Ps. not sure if KB works on him though..?

Nope, he's a Monster.

 

[n810]

Oh well, it still negates a lot of his armor and they do a ton of attacks.

 

[Lizardmatt]

Oh well, it still negates a lot of his armor and they do a ton of attacks.

Only 3 will touch, and the 2nd rank's mount won't fight.
If you roll a 3 on the D3, it's 6 attacks each; 6+ to hit, with re-rolls, 5+ to wound, and then he saves on 3+/5++.
Average is 5.5 hits, 1.83 wounds, after saves 0.47 wounds taken.

What's worse, he'll swing first hitting on 3+ and wound on 2+ without armor save (S6). If he has the sword of striking (+1 to hit) which is what I normally see; it's 3.47 wounds on the rippers before they swing.
Which means, you need a unit of 5 to reliably do 0.47 wounds to hit. If he's really worried, he can pop the breathe.
The best bet is to mark him with the bloat, and hope that your opponent makes a mistake by holding back, being worried about the bloat.

5 Terradons have about the same chance with rocks, 10 hits at S4, followed by Javelins for another an average of 0.49 wounds.

So really, both are very bad choices. I'd rather throw 30 skinks at him and steadfast him. With parries against the 5 attacks, the skinks are going to lose a little less than 6 skinks a turn; with 1 turn the prince just fighting the unit champ. The 6th round of combat would see the prince breaks free. I'd give up 160 points for tying him down for Half the game... If of course I can pass the 5 steadfast break tests.

-Matt

 

[n810]

Oh well, it still negates a lot of his armor and they do a ton of attacks.

Only 3 will touch, and the 2nd rank's mount won't fight.
If you roll a 3 on the D3, it's 6 attacks each; 6+ to hit, with re-rolls, 5+ to wound, and then he saves on 3+/5++.
Average is 5.5 hits, 1.83 wounds, after saves 0.47 wounds taken.

What's worse, he'll swing first hitting on 3+ and wound on 2+ without armor save (S6). If he has the sword of striking (+1 to hit) which is what I normally see; it's 3.47 wounds on the rippers before they swing.
Which means, you need a unit of 5 to reliably do 0.47 wounds to hit. If he's really worried, he can pop the breathe.
The best bet is to mark him with the bloat, and hope that your opponent makes a mistake by holding back, being worried about the bloat.

5 Terradons have about the same chance with rocks, 10 hits at S4, followed by Javelins for another an average of 0.49 wounds.

So really, both are very bad choices. I'd rather throw 30 skinks at him and steadfast him. With parries against the 5 attacks, the skinks are going to lose a little less than 6 skinks a turn; with 1 turn the prince just fighting the unit champ. The 6th round of combat would see the prince breaks free. I'd give up 160 points for tying him down for Half the game... If of course I can pass the 5 steadfast break tests.

-Matt

As per my earlier post I'm assuming you have buffed their WS with High magic. or at least the default spells from heavens an beast have been cast.

Hadn't counted on him haveing higher initiave as well though....

 

[datalink7]

Oh well, it still negates a lot of his armor and they do a ton of attacks.

Only 3 will touch, and the 2nd rank's mount won't fight.
If you roll a 3 on the D3, it's 6 attacks each; 6+ to hit, with re-rolls, 5+ to wound, and then he saves on 3+/5++.
Average is 5.5 hits, 1.83 wounds, after saves 0.47 wounds taken.

What's worse, he'll swing first hitting on 3+ and wound on 2+ without armor save (S6). If he has the sword of striking (+1 to hit) which is what I normally see; it's 3.47 wounds on the rippers before they swing.
Which means, you need a unit of 5 to reliably do 0.47 wounds to hit. If he's really worried, he can pop the breathe.
The best bet is to mark him with the bloat, and hope that your opponent makes a mistake by holding back, being worried about the bloat.

5 Terradons have about the same chance with rocks, 10 hits at S4, followed by Javelins for another an average of 0.49 wounds.

So really, both are very bad choices. I'd rather throw 30 skinks at him and steadfast him. With parries against the 5 attacks, the skinks are going to lose a little less than 6 skinks a turn; with 1 turn the prince just fighting the unit champ. The 6th round of combat would see the prince breaks free. I'd give up 160 points for tying him down for Half the game... If of course I can pass the 5 steadfast break tests.

-Matt

As per my earlier post I'm assuming you have buffed their WS with High magic. or at least the default spells from heavens an beast have been cast.

Hadn't counted on him haveing higher initiave as well though....

Even hitting on 5+ you aren't going to kill him.

And, even worse, he'll have Soul Feeder. Which means he'll be gaining back any wounds that you manage to get through.

I play Warriors of Chaos and there are very few things that worry me. In a Lizardmen list, it would be

1) Ancient Stegadons with D3 Wound Impact Hits.
2) Massive amounts of high strength poison attacks. I've had my Daemon Prince die to both Plaguebearers (at Strength 5) and Poison Maneaters (at Strength 5/7). So either Kroxigors with Swarms, Templeguard with Swarms, or Sarus with Swarms and Wildform
3) Death Snipes, though these aren't too bad because I can quickly get into combat.

Most everything else I probably wouldn't be worried about. Even a Carnosaur wouldn't worry me as it needs 6's to hit.

 

[Boothy Baby]

For those that don’t know the prince is WS9, S6, T5, A5, I8-9 (can’t remember off the top of my head…either way its far faster than us!) Common items to round it out are sword of striking, other tricksters shard, sould feeder (every wound it inflects in combat it rolls a dice for, on a 6 it gets a wound back), S4 breath weapon, 1-4 levels of death or Nurgle magic

- Pretty safe to write off rippers and terras

- I really don’t like the bastiladon option. We will have to charge the prince, who will be quite capable of inflicting 1.5 wounds on the dino per turn, thus we lock it down for 1 chaos turn, and deny ourselves a chance to zap the prince in our following turn! To be hones our best case scenario here is that the prince has the sword of striking and kills the bastiladon in two rounds of combat.

- I don’t like the tank scar vet option either as without a 1+ re-rollable armour and a 4++ he simply isn’t tough enough. He charges, prince strikes 1st and does a wound, then the vet takes a swing and probably inflicts a single wound. Then in the chaos turn the scar vet will probably die before getting to swing, even if he survives to the next lizard turn the odds are well against him surviving to the next chaos turn. So we give up about 150 points of scar vet to delay the prince for one turn and inflict a wound……don’t like it.

I like the skink idea, even a cohort of 10 with a champ can delay the prince for 1 chaos turn (charge + challenge then hold on steadfast, then die in the chaos turn). If we can work out some more ways to actually kill the wretched creature in combat this could be a good way to pin it long enough to catch it.

In summary so far:

Ranged options:
- spirit leach
- searing doom (even with a flaming ward there is about a 50:50 chance of sneaking a wound through on the unboosted version)
- arcane unforging
- hand of glory + giant bow
- thunderbolt
- chain lightening
- solar engine laser beam (not reliable but could be useful once flaming ward is broken)
- burning gaze (not reliable but could be useful once flaming ward is broken)

Combat options
- double charge from pair of ancient stegs with sharpened horns– statistically kills the prince in one round, but relys on average dice with impact hits (9 hits, 6 wounds, 3 wounds through armour, 2 wounds through ward = dead)
- 6 krox – can manage the task as long as the prince does not have soul feeder
- 6 krox + hand of glory – can kill a soul feeder prince, but must have hand of glory
- 30 skinks with champion – will hold the prince for 2-3 chaos turns (2 if the prince has sword of striking)
- 10 skinks with champ – will hold the prince for 1 chaos turn regardless of equipment

Things that help a little bit in combat
- harmonic convergence (krox/stegs)
- ice shard blizzard (krox/skinks)
- curse of the midnight wind (all)
- wildform (krox/stegs)
None of these will allow 6 krox to reliably kill a prince with sword of striking and soul feeder, but they help buy more time.

 

[Reddogfish]

What initiative is the prince?

 

[datalink7]

What initiative is the prince?

9

 

[Caneghem]

MINDRAZOR!!11!!

 

[Andrinor]

With Gor-Rok and Savage Beasts of Horros I killed a Daemon Prince of Nurgle in a challenge. Was hitting on 5's, but getting those re-rolls and then Predatory Fighter attacks on 5's and 6's (that also get to re-roll with Gor-rok). I think I hit him with 7 S8 attacks or so, I know I wounded with 6.

I had poison also cause of swarms being in that combat but I forgot about it and still rolled to wound with my 6's.

I would think a kitted out scar-vet or Oldblood with Savage Beast of Horros could do just about as well, but those re-rolls to hit are really what made it happen for me.

 

[Lizardmatt]

- I don’t like the tank scar vet option either...
Combat options

Old blood.
1+ re-roll 4+ ward, 5 S7 attacks.

Prince goes first (assume +1 to hit sword) 5 attacks, 5/6 hit, 2/3 wound, 4+ armor, re-rolled, followed by 4+ ward.
0.34 wounds get through on average.
Then cold one swings 1/6th hits, 1/3rd wound, 2+ armor, 5+ ward. .012 wounds from the mount.
Then Old Blood Swings: 5 with predatory fighter, 5+ hit, 2+ wound, 5+ armor, 5+ ward. 0.72 wounds.
Prince can't stomp on the old blood, because he's cav.
Prince can breathe, 2D6 S4 hits, 5+ to wound, 2+ to save, re-rolled, then ward = 1 use 0.03 wounds.

On average:
Oldblood does .73 wounds.
Daemon Prince does .34
Daemon Prince regains 0.05 wounds from soulfeeder
Old blood will die on the 9th round of combat.
Daemon Prince will die 6th round of combat.

Another option is the hex scroll. If he's not a level 4, you have a very good shot at having any lizard unit take him out. One round worth of WS1 T1 Init 1 is all it should take. He'll still have -1 to be hit, 5+ scaly skin and 5+ ward, but that's quite a bit easier to kill.

 

[Tetengo]

The Old Blood is a good option, but it's 260 points, which really limits the ability to take a Slann. Could be a good in one off games, but not much use in a tournament setting if it takes too much away from the rest of the list.