Now I know I said I wouldn't review the whole codex, and I don't for a minute think I will get time to look at everything. However what I will do is have a brief look at certain units and even add some maths to make everything more fun!
Bloodletters
First up, Khornes troop choice. Bloodletters took a battering, losing a point in toughness and attacks. Their leadership, much like every other Daemon unit is the same as basic guardsmen and champions don't add a bonus to it. So far, so bad. Like other daemons they all became much cheaper.
Name one other book where you get a ws5, furious charging, s4 power sword armed troops choice for a very reasonable amount of points?
You can't because they don't exist. This is essentially all you are buying.
Bloodletters have the poorest defensive stats, on par with Daemonettes, with guardsman toughness and the daemon rule providing all the defense of a wet paper towel. They are however dirt cheap. A full unit, with the Banner of blood to help charges, is only 235 for 20 models and all the upgrades. It is probably worth finding a few points for an etherblade for the unit champion, so he can at least hit things at ap2.
10 basic bloodletters vs 10 marines
Charging bloodletters kill 8.978 marines! Not bad for a unit worth just over half the points...
10 basic bloodletters vs 10 terminators
Charging bloodletters kill 1.526 terminators. Not great.
10 basic bloodletters vs 10 guardsmen
Charging bloodletters kill 11.112 guardsmen.
The numbers prove the theory. Bloodletters are very good vs power armour. Elsewhere they are not very cost effective. Just imagine Bloodletters are dirt cheap howling banshees. They are virtually identical in application.
Daemonettes
The only other combat infantry in the troops section are Slaaneshs Daemonettes. These suffered far less of a battering, losing only an attack and an initiative. They are still initaitve 5 and have all the bonuses of being a daemon of slaanesh. Coming in at a point under that of bloodletters, they are faster than them, equally fragile, with less strength.
However they do have rending, so this helps somewhat and they can therefore tackle terminators which Bloodletters will struggle with. As before, you probably want an Etherblade on the champion, ideally paying for a greater one, to improve the models strength. The banner is quite nice, but daemonettes already have better WS and initaitve than anyone they are likely to fight, so I can't see it being used over much. A full command unit of 20 with the banner comes in at a very reasonable 215 points.
Due to rending, this table is somewhat more confusing!
10 basic daemonettes vs 10 marines
Charging daemonettes rend 3.32 marines and kill 1.105 for a total of 3.425 dead marines
10 basic daemonettes vs 10 terminators
Charging daemonettes rend 2.22 terminators and kill 0.553 for a total of 2.773 dead terminators
10 basic daemonettes vs 10 guardsmen
Charging daemonettes rend 3.35 guardsmen and kill 5.561 guardsmen for a total of 8.911 dead guardsmen.
These numbers surprise me quite a lot when compared to Bloodletters, which are miles better at killing marines, as expected, but I thought daemonettes would be better at killing guardsmen. It seems the low strength of daemonettes really hurts them in this respect. They are however nearly twice as good at killing terminators, and with rending they can damage most vehicles.
Pink Horrors
I have to confess, I have read quite a lot of varied reviews on this unit. Some reviewers think this unit is universally terrible, some think it is still quite good. I am in the later camp. For the same price as daemonettes you get more or less a humans profile, with +3 leadership for casting psychic powers. Sure they lost their shooting attacks and their 4+ invulnerable save, but you know what, none of that matters.
Who wouldn't want to get a 10 wound psyker, who scores for less than 100 points? This is what Pink Horrors bring. Forget that they are no longer a shooting unit, that is the past. This is the now. I recommend always taking the Primaris power, and try to get into the 16-20 model range. This will give you an impressive 4d6 s5 shots spell. Attach a Herald with the right locus, and this becomes 4d6 s6 shots, combined with Divination spells and indeed his own Primaris power, the unit can throw out a tremendous amount of shooting. I think the Herald is near mandatory for this unit, which bumps the price up, but it is a very capable unit. You really do want the banner upgrade, as it allows a decent amount of hits on overwatch, something you otherwise can't do.
As before, I will run the numbers for 10 basic horrors, but this time, casting spells. In all cases I will assume they have 7 shots, as this is the statistical average of 2d6. However, as the power improves by 50% for just adding 10% to the cost of the unit, I really can't see many players using just 10 models. The cost of this unit is identical to that of the Daemonettes.
10 basic pink horrors vs 10 marines
Spell casting pink horrors kill 1.87 marines.
10 basic pink horrors vs 10 terminators
Spell casting pink horrors kill 0.940 terminators.
10 basic pink horrors vs 10 guardsmen
Spell casting pink horrors kill 2.905 guardsmen.
Please note a successful deny the witch will negate the horrors ability completely. Certain armies will have better psychic defenses than others, eg Tyranids, Space wolves and Eldar, so be warned. The numbers are not massively impressive here, however they can guard an objective and still shoot. Something the next unit in the list can't do.
Oh and warpflame. This is pretty bad as special rules go. I think it will get an errata at some point to clarify it.
Plaguebearers.
The only non t3 unit in troops, they also have shrouding. No more toughness 5 and feel no pain, although an attached herald can bring feel no pain back if you want. Personally I think this unit functions best running bare bones and guarding objectives while in cover.
You are not going to kill hordes of things with plaguebearers. Please understand this. However they do have the ability to always glance a vehicle on a 6, so they can make reasonable anti dreadnought units if the need arises.
Stick them in a ruin for a 2+ cover save on an objective. This is all this unit should be used for, however here are the combat numbers.
10 basic plaguebearers vs 10 marines
Charging plaguebearers kill 2.25 marines
10 basic plaguebearers vs 10 terminators
Charging plaguebearers kill 1.125 terminators.
10 basic plaguebearers vs 10 guardsmen
Charging plaguebearers kill 5.561 guardsmen.
The numbers really are not that good. But remember, you bought these to survive being shot at, so lets look at some numbers for this.
10 marine boltgun shots vs lesser daemons in the open.
Daemonettes/Bloodletters lose 3.007 wounds
Pink Horrors lose 2.758 wounds
Plaguebearers lose 2.245 wounds
10 marine boltgun shots vs lesser daemons in a ruin/aegis line
Daemonettes/Bloodletters/Pink Horrors lose 2.245 wounds
Plaguebearers lose 0.536 wounds
So the lesson learned here is that you want your Plaguebearers in ruins! That is pretty much all there is to them.
Nurglings
Last, but hopefully not least are Nurglings. With a pile of attacks and wounds, they cost 50% more per base than Bloodletters, but a unit of 3, the minimum size is less than 50 points. Nothing wrong with that. I have scoured the rulebook, and I can't find anything in the rules that prevents swarms from scoring in 6th edition. With a small unit footprint and 4 wounds per base, they could provide an alternative roadblock and cheap scoring unit to plaguebearers. Interestingly they also have the ability to infiltrate, so deploy them in cover for a more than respectable 2 or 3+ cover save!
Running the numbers is a bit more complicated. For the purpose of this, I will assume you bought 6 bases as this makes the unit the same price as 10 daemonettes/horrors/plaguebearers.
6 basic nurglings vs 10 marines
Charging nurglings kill 1.64 marines
10 basic nurglings vs 10 terminators
Charging nurglings kill 0.817 terminators.
10 basic nurglings vs 10 guardsmen
Charging nurglings kill 6.25 guardsmen.
Again, you are buying them for survivability. In the open they take the same number of wounds as daemonettes and bloodletters, so 3.007 wounds lost vs 10 bolters. However in cover they get nearly all the advantages of being a plaguebearer, except the toughness. So in cover they only lose 0.7631 wounds.
Conclusion
Pretty much all these lesser daemons are useful. You just need to pick the right tool for the job. Hopefully these numbers will be of some use to gamers.
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