IF I were to start a Chaos Daemons army...?

Dark Eldar is my primary army, and big enough for good sized games, but I do want to switch to another as well.

Before I even bought my Dark Eldar, I had a small handful of Chaos Space Marines, but one of the biggest things I liked about CSM was the Daemons they had, looking at the codex and such, I see that the only Daemon they have is the Daemon Prince, now, for the most part, I do like CSM a lot, but, It was daemons fighting by their side that gave me the love, and the daemon I really love, the Bloodthirster, I have a small enough amount of Chaos, that, it wouldn't be a huge drastic expensive change to go to Daemons, I just had some questions about them for anyone who may know.

This is coming from one of the cheating Ork players at my store, so I don't really trust it, especially since he's even more novice than me, but, he was saying that, Chaos Daemons must take a morale check on every single squad in a game at each turn, he also claimed that their codex is completely awful, blah, blah, blah. Although I personally think that he may just be saying this, as maybe Daemons are a perfect counter for his unpainted ork horde, I mostly would just love to start painting a Khorne Daemon army and if they are effective in play, maybe try them out for small scale games, anyone have some insight for me?

If you like Khorne and the idea of Chaos Meringues fighting side by side with demonds, you could do a lot worse than to start a Khorne Demondkin army? You'll be summoning Bloodthirsters left and right.

If I was using a Chaos Daemons codex though couldn't I use Bloodthirsters normally though? or do Greater demons need to be summoned in general?

On the Ld test thing, its not true.
THe only rule close Daemon have is Daemonic Instability, which replaces usual Leadership tests when they lose combat. Basically if they lose combat they may be utterly destroyed, or just lose a few wounds if they fail the test. In all other respects they're basically Fearless.

The Chaos Daemons book isn;t terrible by any margin, but it is a 6th edition Codex with no special Detachments, Formations, etc. It still stands up quite well though.

On Barking Agatha's points, both Chaos Daemons and Khorne Daemonkin can use Bloodthirsters normally, deploying them normally etc.
But Daemonkin have the added benefit of Blood Tithe. They earn points as they kill things (or die themselves) which can be used to summon new units. ANd to be clear, this means summoning units, including Bloodthirsters, which are NOT part of your army list. They are brand new units ADDED to your army.
Chaos Daemons can in theory do something similar, if they have Psykers around using Daemonology/Malefic powers.

If you want to add Chaos Space Marines, and are primairly interested in Khorne Daemons (and happy not using any other god's daemons) then I say Khorne Daemonkin is the way.

I forgot all about Khorne Daemonkin.. So in that list, I basically get some basic CSM troop choices, PLUS Khorne Daemons?

Effective chaos armies do not contain CSM.

The Fume Knight wrote:

I forgot all about Khorne Daemonkin.. So in that list, I basically get some basic CSM troop choices, PLUS Khorne Daemons?

Yeah. You don't get ALL of the Chaos Space Marines options, only the ones which fit with Khorne. You mainly lose outof Death Guard, THousand SOns and Noise Marines, and a few vehicles options I think. And there is NO hope of Psychic Powers. But you get Blood Tithe instead.
And ALL the Khorne Daemons, plus a few special ones.

I would also note that, for the most part, KDK works better with just sticking to the daemons. I guess maybe some possessed to activate that Thithe boost detachment, but that would be about it.

Well I figure I'd use some CSM for ranged weapons, as I'm not sure too many demons do have ranged capabilities

With ranged Khorne Daemonkin, sticking with the Daemons, you've got Helldrakes, Forgefiends, Defilers, Skullcannons and the Lord of Skulls (yes, they're all Daemons).

Sort of off topic but:

I've been toying with running nurgle demons alongside my dark kin to take a couple units of durable objective camper troops.  The catch is they are themed as Hrud, a skaven-analogue TOTALLY UNIQUE xenos race which is latently psychic, stealthy, and quickly degrades everything near them until it collapses and they move on.

The major advantages these guys would bring include - psykers, space marine level durability, and flexible melee damage which is both poisoned and can glance any AV to death.  Besides troops and HQ, most the rest of the nurgle list is pretty redundant to our book, which is fine for an allied detachment.  I'd like to fit a soul grinder in too but haven't figured out a way to theme that yet.

Fluff wise, the hrud and dark eldar share an affinity for darkness, poison/addictive drugs, and ruining imperial worlds.  GW has even hinted that the hrud share ancestry with the eldar and were likely changed (by isha and nurgle) to avoid the attentions of slaneesh.  Hrud religion involves the worship of a group that translates to the "old ones" including their war god, khaine...

If the Hrud actually are an eldar cousin though, they'd be the cousin so embarrassing you'd never want anyone to know you were related. The true kin would not treat them well.

That's a nice information. Where do you got those from?

The Hrud have no official models, although a lot of concept art has been released or leaked over the years.  Their design and fluff goes back to rogue trader, when they were basically skaven, so most people begin with a plastic skaven and give them guard or really whatever weapons they want.  Since mine are counts-as plague bearers I used the rusted knives from the fantasy zombie kits.

GW revamped them in xenology to make them more alien, and only vaguely humanoid as they are composed mostly of tentacles.  In both cases they cover them selves in rags and gas masks so it's pretty easy to model them any way you want.  Their latent psychic ability makes them difficult to see in the first place (which is why shrouded makes sense) and their bodies rot almost immediately upon their death due to the field they exude (entropic field = touch of rust).

They have such a huge fan base that there has basically been a fan dex for every edition of 40k, but the 6th edition nurgle demons rules fit them quite well.

The Fume Knight wrote:

Well I figure I'd use some CSM for ranged weapons, as I'm not sure too many demons do have ranged capabilities

You really dont need. Bloodthirsters, Maulerfiends and Flesh Hounds do take care of most things.

If you want to include more shooty stuff there are Heldrakes and Soul Grinder that are doing a good job at shredding things from afar.

The main detachment is a matter of taste. I tend to stay away from it as the 1 Bloodtithe point is not gonna compensate for the lack of Heldrakes, the Posessed tax and the inability to take moe than one D-Thirster
So basically i run CAD with 2 thirsters, 2x8 Daemons, 2 Heldrakes, 2 Maulerfiends and a Gorepack, sometimes i replace the fiends and a drake with 3 soulgrinders.