Shaa-dom: Dark Eldar & Chaos Daemon Allies?

As a Chaos Daemon player I have often considered how Chaos Daemons could be used to enhance my Dark Eldar.

At a closer look desperate allies are not as bard as they first seem. At the end of the day all it means is you need to use your allies for killing or distracting your opponent. That or they need to be the sort of units that will be used so aggressively that they won't be alive to score/contest anyway. The question is how do you do this effectively with daemons?

Well most DE players know how a Talos can do a great job at drawing fire away from the rest of your army. Well what about a tougher talos that can deepstrike on your first turn? Enter the Great Unclean One, cheap with a pseudo 3++ save (4++ and FNP ) T6 and 5W. He is about as fast as a talos this edition thanks to the changes to slow and purposeful and random charges, with the advantage of a deployment gimmick. He is also a HQ choice so no need to pay the "HQ tax".

Next onto troops, If you want to field troops that can't score they better be cheap. Now Daemons have never been know for their troop choices, however they do have one outstanding choice. The Nurgling, cheap, tough and annoying. The best part is that because they are swarms they can't score anyway! Desperate allies means the one reason not to take them (they can't score) is moot.

A GUO and three nurgling bases comes to a grand total of 199pts for a distracting monster gribbly that can't be ignored, hell even if he is manoeuvred around he is still fantastic area denial and some small gribblies that are perfect for tying up some long fangs/havocs. The best part is you mitigate all the problems of desperate allies, apart from the one eye open rule, that is easy to get around with DE movement, the fact that the daemons are fearless also means they are not suddenly going to fall back next to three of your squads and force a bunch of one eye open tests.

The only downside is that you are still at the mercy of the chaos gods for your demonic assault waves, this could always be mitigated by bumping the nurgling squad up to 6 or more bases.

The daemons are a threat your opponent that can't be ignored and help draw fire away from the rest of your army.

Thoughts? How would you run daemons as allies?

I think we have better allies to turn to but daemons arn't half as bad as they used to be. If you are using them for another MC in the GUO thats fine (although avatar does the same but is more killy...) and nurglins are the needed troop-for-less option although my question is why stop there. Chaos have something that i thought would really appeal to you in Screamers. 2 wound ap 2 armourbane w/ 3 attacks and invon is really good. The problems daemons have with screamers is that due to daemonic assult there just isn't enough target saturation but with your talos's (Talosi?) advancing and reavers doing there thing screamers should fit right in, not to mention MOAR bladevanes .

A unit of 3 isnt expensive if you want to try out and is easily ignored, but if they get into the back armour of anything laugth. Daemons have no heavey surrport we NEED but screamers fit right in.

P.S After reading path of the renegade isn't Shaa-Dom infested with Slanneshi Daemons if your going strictly by fluff but i surspect its just an idea to get daemons into your army.

P.S.S: Woot Woot, third poster in this section!

Your right Shaa'dom was Slaanesh daemons, but I was trying to get at running daemons in general. They have lots of units that could be useful to us and I was curious what people would use.

I would never run Nurgle daemons in my daemon army, but they seem to work well with Dark Edar, at least in theory (we will see once I get a few game in with them). As for why I'm not using screamer or other units? I play at 1500 points so points are pretty tight already, so I wanted something cheep, cheerful and very smelly!

I've had a bit of fun with daemons as allies. The way they operate generally gets round the one eye open test as you can deepstrike them right on top of the enemy.

I run a soulgrinder with phlegm, a unit of 5 horrors and a Tzeentch herald.
Generally trying to get the soulgrinder right in the face of the enemy meaning it has to be dealt with. This distracts a fair amount of AT fire from our fragile skimmers until it is downed. The horrors and herald provide an immediate shooting threat onto light armoured infantry.

All of these provide a bit of toughness with a 4++ or 5++ save and the 4 HP of the grinder, which our army severely lacks.

A part of me is tempted to jump on the internet bandwagon and take Fateweaver, some Horrors, 9 Flamers and 9 Screamers. Comes to about 850 points but dear god it's nasty!!

Then I come to my senses and realise I don't actually want to win that badly.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Then I come to my senses and realise I don't actually want to win that badly.

But think of the POWER!

I wouldn't actually take Fateweaver for that kind of list. He costs a ton of points, all for making two units' 5++ saves into slightly better than 4++ saves, but only if you bunch them up within 6'' of him (which limits what you can do with them; can't break off to attack a vulnerable target without losing the benefit). In a Daemon list I'd rather take more Screamers and Flamers than Fateweaver (unless I already had enough Screamers and Flamers, in which case migth as well take him; at that point you ahve enough units to really beenfit from his ability as well). In an allied detachment, I'd spend tho points on the primarily detachment. A sinlge Flamer/Screamer unit isn't that deadlly on their own, anyway (5+ save, even if invulnerable, means concentrated firepower removes them quickly). They really become good when they're supported by multiple other nasty units.