STARTING A CHAOS DAEMONS ARMY IN 11TH EDITION: PICK A GOD AND LET THE WARP PROVIDE
Chaos Daemons are the strangest army you can start in 11th edition, and that is precisely the appeal: not soldiers at all, but nightmares given shape. No armour, no tanks, no uniforms: just the raw stuff of the Warp, sculpted into four utterly different aesthetics. That's the first and most important thing to know as a new collector: Daemons split across the four Chaos Gods, and each god's models paint completely differently. The single best decision you can make on day one is to pick one god and start there.
Choose your patron, then the first box
Khorne means Bloodletters — red, brass, and rage, one of the fastest satisfying paint jobs in the game. Nurgle means Plaguebearers, where washes and texture do most of the work and every mistake somehow looks intentional. Slaanesh means Daemonettes, all pale flesh and sharp contrast. Tzeentch means Pink Horrors, a riot of colour for painters who find drab uniforms boring. Whichever calls to you, start with the current starter-style box for that god, or simply two squads of its core daemons and a herald-type character. One god, painted, beats four gods in grey.
Feeding the legion
Your second wave should deepen the same god before you flirt with another. More core troops first — daemon armies live and die on their infantry blocks, and a table full of one god's daemons has a visual unity that mixed forces rarely match. Then add your god's cavalry or beast units for speed and silhouette variety. On the practical side, a couple of sentences about the new edition: 11th edition refreshed datasheets and points for the whole pantheon, and starter offerings rotate, so glance at the current points before committing to a list shape.
The Greater Daemon
This is why people collect Daemons. Every god has a monster of a centrepiece kit: the Bloodthirster for Khorne, the Great Unclean One for Nurgle, the Keeper of Secrets for Slaanesh, the Lord of Change for Tzeentch. Each is a genuine painting project and the visual anchor of the whole army. And looming behind all four is Be'lakor, the Dark Master — an undivided prince who works with any of them and is arguably the finest daemon model ever made. Earn your Greater Daemon: paint the rank and file first, then reward yourself.
Purchases to defer
- A second god before your first god has a painted core — the Warp punishes divided devotion.
- Be'lakor AND a Greater Daemon in the same month; one apex predator at a time.
- Endless chariots and oddities; charming, but they won't carry a fledgling army.
- Anything bought because it briefly topped a tournament list — the Warp is fickle, and so are points.
A grimoire of your own
Daemons are famously hard to pin down, so pin yours down properly: record every kit when it arrives and mark it honestly as boxed, built, or finished. There's a particular joy in watching a single god's column fill with finished units — it's the difference between owning some daemons and commanding a legion. When you're ready to browse everything the pantheon can manifest, the full unit catalogue waits on the Chaos Daemons faction page under Data.