So after much thought, I decided to make room to have the Great Unclean One venture through the warp to aid my daemons.

I just have a few questions.

#1 Is he even worth it?

#2 Any good tactics to use with him/her/it?

#3 What is a good loadout for dealing with light/heavy infantry?

#4 What should you NOT do with him/her/it?

#5 If you said “No” or any other varient of the word to #1, please explain why.

Although this is a VERY old thread, I’d like to finish what I started and answer my own questions with the experiences I have had with the Great Unclean One. This is so that anyone who stumbles onto this thread will get a good answer.

Q: #1 Is he even worth it?

A: The Great Unclean One costs 160 points naked being the cheapest greater daemon in the codex, its a monstrous creature with the highest toughness in the Daemons Codex, comes with feel no pain, and has above average strength with poisonous attacks….yes…it is worth it.

Q: #2 Any good tactics to use with him/her/it?

A: The Great Unclean One (GUO) is very different from the other Greater Daemons. The Bloodthirster is your assault master allowing you to bowling ball into units and hack them apart, The Keeper of Secrets isn’t as good as in full out assault but is good to dive in and out of several units keeping them occupied, the Lord of Change is of course the flying death daemon unleashing several ranged attacks as it zips about, this brings us to the Great Unclean One. The GUO doesn’t zip about, its as slow as plaguebearers, however due to its high toughness and feel no pain, it becomes a walking plague of death destroying anyone that is dumb enough to get caught in assault with it.

In short, the Great Unclean One should always try to run at the enemy. Send him against assault specialists and other pesky shooting units and try to either assault them or scare them into targeting him or moving. The idea is to use him to scare enemies into the path of your other daemons or into the firing range of a Soul Grinder for example. In assault, he is slow and will go last, but all of his attacks are brutal to say the least. Just remember, he is a monstrous creature whose very tough to kill. Out of 8 games, he’s only died 1x and has always made up his points.

Q: #3 What is a good loadout for dealing with light/heavy infantry?

A: A good loadout is taking Cloud of Flies. That’s it! It’s all you need. The point is that the GUO is a cheap greater daemon and should be used to scare opponents around the board and to tie up units that could put the hurt on your lesser daemons as they run across the board. The other upgrades are very scenario specific. Strength for example isn’t great, it does help kill things a tad faster but you already have a great wound on all foes since your posionous! That means its useful only for vehicles..but being the slowest thing on the board, chances are you wont catch one. Breath of Chaos can be very handy but again, its situational, you WANT this guy in close combat, the only time this might be handy is if your about to be hit by a 30+ mob of gretchin so he wont be bogged down as long or a 5+ unit of thunderhammer weilding terminators who will be very annoying. Aura of Decay is dumb…there I said it….its awsome if you want to wound gretchin on a 4+ though! Don’t do this unless you have extra points and want a good chuckle.

Q: #4 What should you NOT do with him/her/it?

A: Although it is rather funny to assault gretchin since they can’t DO anything to the GUO, literally, its a waste of time and energy. Always send your GUO in the front of your army and use him as a giant shield. Think of him as a groteskly large and very bloated plaguebearer and treat him as such. This means you should try to run as much as you can and try to scare units into either moving away, or forcing them into assault with him.

#5 If you said “No” or any other varient of the word to #1, please explain why.

I have only found one situation where the GUO is pointless and that’s against mechanized armies simply for the fact that he can’t catch anyone. If put up against an army like this, try to deepstrike close to the enemy, or on its flanks and for it to make a choice either to engage your army or engage the GUO that’s closing in on them.