Beating the Chaos Daemon Flying Circus

On Monday I posted a video battle report in which my Nidzilla army was torn apart by a Daemon Flying Circus. Because of the growing popularity and success of lists that include many flying monstrous creatures, often including Fateweaver for rerollable saves, I though it would be helpful to both myself and the rest of the community to write some of my thoughts on how to take down this style list. If the NOVA last weekend was any indication, the performance of Nick and Pat’s Daemons near the top tables could greatly increase the amount of Daemon circus lists at the tournaments.

1. Play the mission. Unless the mission is big guns never tire (and to a lesser extent the scouring), the flying circus is going to be low on scoring units, and unless allies are taken will be relatively fragile. This is a byproduct of all of their expensive monsters. With most missions requiring a player to have scoring models in some sort of key position, killing their troops is key to victory. This is common sense and has been said plenty by 6^th edition theorists in general. When facing a durable list with very few troops though this is going to be crucial. Unless you have lots of fliers to counter their big Daemons I would assert this is your best chance of winning. If you can destroy their fragile troops while having even a single one of yours alive, then victory is more than possible.

2. Flock together! Another popular statement by 40K pundits is that the movement phase is the most important part of the game. I agree fully. Seeing how Daemons use vector strikes and movement as part of their offense, counter movement of your own can easily foil their plans. The winning strategy? Keep all your models close together. Now this works better for smaller model count armies such as my Nidzilla, but because the FMC can not land on your models and can only turn 90 degrees at the start of each move you can easily only allow your opponent vector strikes every other turn if there are keeping their force together (to benefit from Fateweaver). In the video report I got hit every turn by his daemons because I spread out. Instead I should have placed both the objectives and my models very close to each other. The downside to this is that it makes breath of chaos more effective, so you need to judge this tradeoff before you move in this way (this is a place where multi-wound Tyranids are useful). Along with this, don’t extend too far forward. In the video report I pushed unnecessarily forward when I knew the Daemons would come toward me. Don’t be afraid the move back if it will prevent them from vectoring you a turn.

3. It’s simple, we kill the Fateweaver. Actually, killing him isn’t so important. What is important is tying him in an assault. If you have either high Ld or fearless troops, charge them into that Tzeentchian menace! Fateweaver is far scarier to big multi-wound models (like my Trygon) than he is to foot troops. Now that marines can use grenades in combat, even they can hold a candle to this 333 point terror. Shoot him until he is grounded, and then put him on your own personal do not fly list with whatever you choose. If Fateweaver can’t fly, then there is no mobile 6” bubble to keep the rest of your opponent’s daemon princes extra safe.

4. Create restricted airspace. A daemon needs to land somewhere when swooping and can only move 24”. By placing more units behind your front units you can create ‘no landing’ zones and completely prevent vector strikes. You still have to worry about breath of chaos, but preventing 5d3 AP3 hits each turn is a great start to beating the daemons, just spread your models out as you would against regular templates.

 

5. Don’t lose your head. When facing a tough list it is easy to get tied up in nonsense, tactics, and strategies that will just mess you up and prevent your list from winning the way it was meant to. If you look at my flyrant movement in the game against Jeff’s daemons, I took one of them out of the battle with my first turn of movement. Play your way. If you have a practiced strategy, test it out against these builds before you try to reinvent the wheel.

What other tactics do you use against the flying daemon circus?