Editing Daemon Prince (section)

== Crunch ==
[[File:Deamon Prince 5th ED.jpg|450px|thumbnail|right|What's that Loyalist? Had enough already?]]
===Warhammer Fantasy===
Since [[Games Workshop]] made its "brilliant" decision to break up the [[Hordes of Chaos]] into [[Warriors of Chaos]] and [[Daemons]] of Chaos, the Daemon Prince has been duplicated, each in a subtly different method. As a result, they need to be looked at differently depending on which army you're looking to play out.

====Warriors of Chaos====
In a mortal army, Daemon Princes use up Lord slots, competing with Chaos Lords and Sorcerer Lords, plus the various special characters. A Daemon Prince costs 25 points more than a Chaos Lord, but has higher Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Wounds and Initiatives (+1 for all save BS, which is +2) - cheap, until you consider they have to also take their special equivalent of a Chaos Mark (+10 points for Khorne or Nurgle, +15 for Tzeentch, +5 for Slaanesh). Non-Khorne Daemon Princes can be Wizards (+35 points per level, max level 4), can take Chaos Armor for +20 points, can Fly for +40 points, can take 25 points of magical items, and up to 100 points of Chaos Mutations/Powers. All in all, these characters can be real point-sinks.

The big problem with Daemon Princes is that they're so expensive, but so fragile; all they get is a lousy 5+ Ward Save, and a 4+ armor save if they spend 20 points on it. Their ability to spend 25 points of a suit of magic armor can make them a little more survivable, but all in all, they're glass cannons.

====Daemons of Chaos====
Daemon Princes in a Daemons army get pretty unfairly gimped; they cost more than in a Warriors of Chaos army (250 vs. 235), only get 75 points of Daemonic Gifts vs their 100 Chaos Powers + 25 Magic Items, and they have to roll randomly on their Gifts instead of choosing. The only plus side is that their Marks are much cheaper (-5 points compared to their Warriors versions - yes, that means Daemon Princes of Slaanesh only cost their default 250 points).
====Beastmen====
[[Squatted]], despite how awesome it would be to have a minotaur Daemon Prince.

===Warhammer 40k===
The Daemon Prince is considered to be an HQ in both of the Chaos Codices (Although they can also be a Heavy Support choice instead if a Greater Daemon with the same alignment is an HQ in the Daemon codex. More on that later). They both also cost the same at 145 points without upgrades, and when one looks at their stats, they will be amazed and wonder why are they so cheap? Well, here's the catch: they MUST choose a Mark (or a Daemon) of a Dark God, which will increase the point cost (with the exception of Be'lakor, who is the only Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided). Then you see it has a crappy save, albeit an invulnerable one - so you also have to spend 20pts to give it a 3+ armour. Wings aren't needed unless you're facing foes that ignore cover and/or can instant gib the Prince (again, will explain that later on), or don't want to deep strike the Prince and want to get into combat fast. To top it off, you don't have any weapons to start with. Again, not required, but you'll be missing out on the awesome toys it can take (The Black Mace, Staff of Change, Blade of Blood, etc.). Now that cheap Monstrous Creature became expensive, and sometimes close to the same cost of a Land Raider.

There's something else one must consider when taking a Daemon Prince, which is that they no longer have Eternal Warrior. This can be fixed by taking powers from the Biomancy table, but again, it increases the already expensive price tag, and the powers are random, so even if you go all out, you may end up wasting 75 points and still not get Iron Arm. A Khorne Prince can't even take psychic powers, not that you want to anyway if you worship the Blood God. This means the Toughness value is docked to 5, and there's no other way to increase it (except by buying Greater Gifts and trying to roll a one on the table, but obviously you should know the drawback to this). Some even argue that the Daemon Prince is overpriced for this reason, not just because of the needed upgrades, but the fact the damn thing can still be instant killed by Force Weapons, Railguns, and things of that nature. And given that you can take a Greater Daemon in the Chaos Daemons codex that are either equal cost or are much cheaper, why would you bother taking the Prince over their stronger counterpart?

But they do have some saving graces, and they move to Heavy Support (in the Daemon Codex) when a Greater Daemon of the same god is taken as an HQ, so this means you can take a Keeper of Secrets (cheapest MC out of the four), and then take the Daemon Prince with Wings, Warp Forged Armour, Lash of Despair, and one or two Biomancy powers. The Prince suddenly becomes an awesome anti-air MC, albeit an expensive one, that can fight against Flyers, Transports, and even horde units if you roll well. You can also run an army list around these if you want to run multiple Daemon Princes just for shits and giggles.

As for Chaos Space Marines, their Prince can wield the Black Mace. The weapon is AP4, but when a Daemon Prince takes it with him, he can dish out armour-ignoring wounds that can fuck up almost anything it comes across (thank you Monstrous Creature USR), so it makes their points cost worth it in the long run. It also comes with the extra Curse rule, which can completely remove ANYTHING that fails a toughness test in a 3" radius of the Prince (chances are low for more juicy targets, but somewhere in the grimdark future, the dice gods are laughing at your next victim)! <s>Plus the fact that you can get lucky and turn one of your HQs/Champions into a Daemon Prince if they roll for it when they take Gift of Mutation.</s> Gift of Mutation re-rolls both Daemonhood and Spawnhood results although a Champion of Chaos has a chance to become one when they kill a character in combat.

So in short, the Daemon Prince is considered to be an expensive (sometimes overpriced) rape train. Despite how it can get instant killed in a bad situation, and the bitching about the points cost when taking them to battle, the Daemon Prince is overall still a good choice, IF you can protect it and use them wisely.

====Warhammer 40k 8th edition====
He no longer has access to the Black Mace or pretty much any of the weapon relics. Sorry, everyone who modeled one with cool weapons. He CAN take the non-relic weapons. He also MUST swear allegiance to a god; for Khorne this gives him +1 attack for a deadly and fluffy 8 attacks, while the other three make him a psyker. Yay for Smite spam! Lastly he gains the trademark 8th edition 6-inch aura of reroll 1's to hit - while initially this only affected models sworn to the same god, it was later FAQ'd to apply to any models with the same legion and any daemon models sworn to the same god, giving him much greater utility. Also interesting to note about DPs: unlike other monsters, they don't have a damage table that mars their statline as they take more wounds throughout the battle. Certainly advantageous considering they're gonna take wounds throughout the course of a battle - if anyone tells you differently, they're lying and you're dumb.

Daemon Princes can have different loadouts and options depending on in which army they're fielded. Obviously, there's going to be different access to relics and psychic powers. Overall though, CSM princes hands down win comparing wargear selection as they have far more relics to choose from albeit with variable utility. On top of that, CSM princes get a bonus piece of wargear not found in Chaos Daemons armies - the warp bolter. It's basically a boltgun but with a higher AP and damage and it gives the prince a ranged attack so it would be very confusing indeed if a CSM prince didn't take one.

===Age of Sigmar===
Daemon princes in Age of Sigmar are hard-hitting hero/monsters, though not so much as their greater daemon counterparts. Each daemon prince can choose between Daemonic Axe (average hit/wound with 2 rend) and Hellforged Sword (slightly better to-hit with 1 less rend), in addition to Malefic Talons, with all attacks potentially doing multiple wounds each. Their other stats are 12" move (default 8" with 12" if it can fly, and there's no reason to not give it flight as of yet), 8 wounds, 3+ save, and 10 bravery. Good but not great, until your alignment choices are taken into account.

Daemon princes in AoS ''cannot'' be unaligned, but they get different command abilities depending on their other alignments.

*Khorne DPs can half run and charge rolls of enemy units within 18" of them until their next hero phase, once per turn.

*Nurgle DPs can allow a friendly SLAVES TO DARKNESS NURGLE unit within 12" of them to cause d3 mortal wounds each time an enemy unit rolls at least one 6 to hit them with melee attacks.

*Tzeentch DPs can allow a friendly SLAVES TO DARKNESS WIZARD within 12" of them to add +1 to their casting rolls until the end of their hero phase.

*Slaanesh DPs can allow a friendly SLAVES TO DARKNESS SLAANESH unit within 12" of them that had a model slain by an enemy unit's melee attacks to add +1 to hit rolls against that enemy unit until their next hero phase, once per turn.


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