Flying Circus Chaos Daemons

Hello all! This is my first post on this forums! I am actually relatively new to the game of Warhammer 40k. Been playing for a little under a month now, but I believe myself to be a fast learner. At the moment I only have roughly 1500 points of Dark Eldar, and I believe it is a relatively balanced list. No spamming of venoms or dark lances, but still I have a fair amount of each. As of now I am definitely in favor of a more shooty Dark Eldar army, but I do have plans of getting a beast pack (3 masters, 6 Khymera, 5 Razorwing and baron....is this a good configuration?) and putting a small squad of incubi in my eventual 1850 to 2000 point list. My question to you guys is how exactly do you go about dealing with those pesky Chaos Daemons and their flying shenanigans. I have a few theories, but I am still extremely new to this game. I have made myself very aware of what my army can do (and one million chapters of space marines thanks to my friends), however I have no idea what those silly daemons are capable of. All I know is they have psychic abilities that make their daemon princes nearly invincible. My paper mache transport crumble at presence of strong winds....so you could imagine what flying daemon is actually capable of. Now I don't want to completely change my army for the sake of beating daemons, but I would like some pointers. I was thinking about taking my blasterborn out for splinterborn and just deep on splinter cannons. My anti-tank feels pretty solid already (ravengers, reaver jetbikes, haywire wyches, razorwing, and soon to be beastpack), so I think I simply cannot lose against any infantry based squad with the amount of shot I am able to saturate them with, this also helps me against the daemons as well I believe. So yeah, any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Hello xeno! Welcome

First off the beast squad wont work that way, 5 khymera per master 2 flocks per master so try 10 kymera 2 flocks or 5 kymera 4 flocks.

the way i kill FMC would be raider boats and splinter wracks. you will be firing snap shots anyways so might as well just move 12 get in rapid fire and poor out 24 poison shots 9x2 rapid 6 from the cannon (have to snap fire anyways so use the heavy profile) and the 18 shots are TL

In my meta 1/2 the demon players i know would rather put their 13 attack demon prince on the ground than try to vector strike and kill my vehicles. . .their choice I guess. Once they hit the ground POUND them with poison. the demon princes will come in around 200+ points so sacrificing a 70 point transport to down him and then kill him is a god send.

Look into using your lances LAST the reason for that is if they have iron arm up you may need 3s to wound if they dont have iron arm up then by all means pop them to pieces. so heres the way i'd suggest doing it:

-target down the support fmc first with poison make them fall. Tzeench i'm looking at you. Look for the demon that has fortune or the GoTN (fancy 2+ to invuln book) These guys if you get first turn because they can buff the other FMC

-second the other flying princes, start with the ones that got shooting attacks and go from there- poison them with splinter boats. Lance them when they are down. If they have iron army lances are still fine but try poison first. Avoid shooting lances at the 3+ invuln boosted ones.

-The moment a prince touches down let him have it. I often feed a 5 man wrack squad to a prince just to make him come down to play.

-last but not least I have used a torment grenade launcher crucible combo before to kill a couple. this is a corner case though.

-husk blades eat demons.

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t7841-1750-dark-eldar-vs-chaos-daemons

That's the only game I've managed to get with my DE against Flying Circus daemons; should contain all the advice I can offer! Daemon princes are ridiculously expensive, so bring one down and you're well ahead. Focus fire and take one out at a time - it's better to kill a daemon prince outright and leave 2 untouched than it is to take 2 wounds off of 2, and 1 off of a third. Especially if one of them has biomancy and rolls It Will Not Die.

I would also suggest that if you can get into rapid fire range with a 6" move instead of 12 then do so - just in case you knock the thing down and then can fire at perfect efficiency.

Most often something will carry a portalglyph to spawn more troops as that's a big weakness of Flying Circus armies - as soon as it appears, kill the thing in any objective game.

Be prepared to win or lose via the warpstorm table - that thing can either be neutral, or utterly shaft you or your opponent.

My two main armies are daemons and DE, so ive played both sides. If they are doing a flying list it will depend on what god they are. Nurgle, Slaanesh will be the easier two. The trick with nurgle is staying outside of 8 inches or they will get a 2+ cover save (also if they are behind reuins they will be tough). I run venom spam and deal with this by having my quad gun and guys in the venoms try to down a prince, once he is down 2-3 venoms will finish him off. If the player is dumb enough to assault your venoms you win the game, he has to vector strike them. Tzeench can be a real pain with thei 3+ armor reroll 1's, and depending on powers can get a 2+ rerollable invuln and cover save. If they get the 2+ rerollable invuln, kill the grimiore guy, if they get both and the grimiore guy has the cover save, gg, you lose, not much you can do about it.

In my experience baring the 2+ cover on the grimiore guy this isnt too bad of a match up. Just make srue to focus fire the princes and the second one hits the ground focus him till he is out. The really bad daemon matchup is if he does what I do and spam plague bearers. 60+ 2+ cover 9pt models backed up by princes and soulgrinders is very tough to deal with as DE.

I just played 2 1500 point games against a flying circus.

Won both..barely.

It's actually a good match up for us,the trick is to keep moving around and away from the flying daemons.
Concentrate your poison shots on 1 at a time and hope to ground them..once they hit the ground pound them until dead.
Wait for your opponent to throw out the porta glyph,then destroy it right away!
The flying circus usually has a 2 troop choices..they're depending on the gyph to reinforce them.
So when you're not shooting flying daemons,shoot at his troop choices if it's a control objectives type of game.
If he uses plague bearers get the before they hit cover!
I had to send a squad of wyches in to hammer them out,which they did rather well.

I used a razorwing and it was outstanding..1st game it came on in turn 2,2nd game in turn 3.
It blasted 2 Flyers down..where the ravagers(dissies) punished them.

Move and shoot,he'll catch some of your units with vector strikes but if you're smart you can weather the tide.