Inaugurial Daemon Hunters game

[Inquisitor Fox]

(edit: Now with pictures! Note, pictures are approximate, and several times the sizing is um.. wrong. Like there wasn't space to put craters between buildings for exploded things. My apologies as we've only the one digital camera and my wife likes to have it at the house :) Likewise I tried to approximate the moves as best I could)

 

So I've had the models for my pure DH army since October or so, but being a father of three and the holiday season meant I was booked solid until about now. Short answer, I won! ;)

 

Long version though is a bit more complicated, as I was testing something that I had suggested in two earlier threads in the OI here started by me: A "Crazy Like A Fox" Daemon Hunter proposal and Re-Examination of Daemon Hunters Tactics. Namely I didn't take a single troops selection of Grey Knights, instead I took two fast attack selections of them and two terminator units. Here is the list I used using the IA2 v1.3 rules and points costs (yes, it could be more tweaked to be "competitive" but with the new Codex on the horizon I was testing a concept, not tweaking units for maximum effect):

 

Inquisitor lord Christoph Roi w/ annointed weapon, bolter, frag and krak grenades, psycannon bolts, psychic hood

1 familiar, 1 hierophant, 2 veteran guardsmen w/ hellguns, 1 sage, 2 mystics

Land Raider "Pallas Athena" w/ HK missile, pintle mounted storm bolter, searchlight, smoke launchers

 

HQ Brother Captain w/ daemon hammer, psycannon, psychic hood, destroy daemon

retinue w/ 2 termies w/ storm bolter, 1 termie w/ incinerator

 

Elites termies w/ BC and psycannon, 1 psycannon, 1 storm bolter termie

 

10 ISTs w/ power weapon, hellpistol, 2 grenade launchers

Chimera "Missy" w/ autocannon, heavy bolter, HK missile, heavy stubber, dozer blade, searchlight, smoke

 

10 ISTs w/ power weapon, hellpistol, 2 melta guns

Chimera "Jean Chastel" w/ autocannon, heavy bolter, HK missile, heavy stubber, dozer blade, searchlight, smoke

 

10 Grey Knights FA w/ 2 incinerators

9 Grey Knights FA w/ 2 psycannons

 

total of 1999 points.

 

My opponent had (which might have been slightly illegal looking back at it)

 

HQ with that Cadian guy whom I cannot remember and a Master of Ordinance

 

3 squads of Storm Troopers

Marbo

 

2 veteran squads w/ various special weapons

 

Vanquisher LR w/ Paesk

Exterminator LR

Punisher LR

 

(I plan on working up some graphs of maps due to the very very heavy cityfight terrain influencing how things went, so they're forthcoming! I want to get the description up before I lose the memory of what my notes were though.)

 

edit: the maps are up. Keep in mind all buildings are at least 3 stories (ground, middle, roof) or higher, so there were a lot of vertical moves going on, and lack of LoS upon occasion.

 

We ended up playing a Seize Ground mission, with Spearhead deployment (in quarters). There were 3 objectives... one in what ended up being each deployment zone and one other in what was to me right hand opponents half of the table. I deployed in my right hand half, he deployed in the left hand opponents side. I chose to take second turn, and did not chose to try and seize the initiative. I wanted to deny his tanks a turn of shooting ;)

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/DH%20Game%20001/initial.jpg

 

I deployed my Inquisitor and both IST squads in vehicles, reserving all my deep striking Grey Knights. One Chimera is on the left of the objective holding building on my deployment zone, the Land Raider and other Chimera are on the right of said building.

 

He had his HQ and one vet squad holding an objective in his deployment zone, a second vet squad midtable, and deployed 3 Storm Trooper squads as infiltrators around the other objective. His tanks were in his quarter. The board had roads in a plus pattern, this becomes slightly important in some of the zaney tank moves going on. (1 objective him, 0 objectives me. 0 - 0 KP)

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/DH%20Game%20001/deployment.jpg

 

His opening move was to advance with the tanks, and then proceeded to immobilize my left Chimera "Jean Chastel" with a Master of Ordinance. I advanced my Land Raider and right hand Chimera "Missy" with no shooting of consequence (My Land Raider fires at the Vanquisher but doesn't dent the front armor) having forgotten to get my ISTs out of the immobile Chimera. (1 objective him, 0 objectives me. 0 - 0 KP)

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/DH%20Game%20001/end1.jpg

 

His second turn sees Marbo poof up behind my right hand mobile Chimera "Missy" and tossing his destructo charge at the rear of it. Note my opponent decides to show up like 2 or 3 inches right behind the Chimera and get caught in his own blast and have Marbo die ;) He succeeds in destroying the Chimera and reducing one IST squad to half strength. His Vanquisher decides to ram my left hand Chimera "Jean Chastel" but succeeds only in rendering it unable to shoot. My turn see's my Incinerator FA squad showing up. They Deep Strike aiming in a plaza behind the objective building in the center of his deployment quarter, however they are off by 8 or 9 inches. This puts them square between both of his scoring Veteran squads (practically everything is in cover really). I unload with 2 incinerators and 8 storm bolters and wipe the daemon infested guardsmen from the table. One of his only two scoring units is obliterated and he is no longer holding any objectives. My Land Raider "Pallas Athena" advances down the road, opening fire on his Exterminator with all guns but not scratching it. I admit, I forgot to disembark my IST's again, which with his Vanquisher right in front of my Chimera due to the failed ram attempt was kind of foolish on my part. (0 objectives him, 0 objectives me. 1 KP him - 2 KP me)

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/DH%20Game%20001/end2.jpg

 

His response to the Grey Knights appearing next to his objective is to reverse advancement of his Punisher and get within about 8 inches of the Grey Knights, firing upon them with all guns. It's fairly brutal, and six Grey Knights go down. His other Veteran squad moves and opens fire as well, eliminating the FA Incinerator Squad. He also takes out my Land Raider with his Exterminator, destroying I believe half of the HQ Retinue inside, leaving them on the road in front of my objective. In addition, the Auto-cannon is lost from my remaining Chimera. My turn sees both my Terminator squads arrive. They again target the point behind his objective and both deviate approximately 9 inches (heh). This puts them each on a corner of the building, with the three Termie squad fitting exactly between the building and his Punisher (oh for the ability to assault after a deep strike!). The small numbers of the GK Termie squad served me well here in being able to still deploy after a bad placement. The Termies opened fire to eliminate his second and last troop choice of Veterans rendering him no longer able to hold objectives. My ISTs with the two meltaguns disembark (ha ha!) and destroy the Vanquisher with their two meltaguns by being within 6 inches. They lose 2 of their number to the resulting explosion but it's totally worth it ;) (0 objectives him, 0 objectives me. 3 KP him - 4 KP me)

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/DH%20Game%20001/end3.jpg

 

Turn 4 for the corrupted evil Guard resulted in my HQ BC and one retinue member dying to fire from the HQ squad in their perch. (edit: I believe the Punisher was involved here again as well) He opened fire on my IST's with his Exterminator and some other various shooting, however neither unit is destroyed yet. In addition my Inquisitor and Retinue is reduced to Inquisitor and single Veteran Guardsmen, and I believe my remaining Chimera is reduced to a single pintle mounted heavy stubber from the Master of Ordinance. My turn was relatively eventful, in that this was the turn that both my IST squads had managed to make it inside the building and be in scoring range. In addition my last squad of GK's show up (albeit again about 9 inches off. Instead of appearing in the very center of the board, they show up between the Exterminator and my ISTs right by my objective). This turn they had fairly uneventful shooting though. My Termies charge the Punisher (both squads) which succeeds in destroying the punisher cannon and rendering the vehicle unable to shoot. The last several turns have seen my Inquisitor with Retinue and both IST squads getting into the building to hold it and keep enemy assaulters at bay. (0 objectives him, 1 objective me. 4 KP him - 4 KP me)

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/DH%20Game%20001/end4.jpg

 

Turn 5 sees a major push by the guard upon my position. Three squads of Storm Troopers are converging upon my position, however only one squad is within rapid fire range. Combined fire from the Exterminator and the Stormies takes out one of my IST squads (which to be fair was down to 3 or 4 models by this point). His Punisher tank shocks through my Termies (who calmly step out of the way and roll their eyes at the poor neutered thing) and drives towards the rear table edge. My turn sees both units of Termies advancing towards the action on my objective, all of them opening fire upon the Exterminator's rear armor. Miraculously enough, they manage to cause an Explosion, destroying the tank. The single PAGK in the radius remains unharmed ;) The PAGK advance towards the incoming Storm Troopers, firing on the move. Between them, the Inquisitor (the IST squads have been going to ground once they were in the building for protection) and the Chimera "Jean Chastel" the Storm Trooper squad is eliminated, buying a buffer between my units and the wave of troops (which is now reduced by 30%). My position is looking a bit better. (0 objectives him, 1 objective me. 5 KP him - 6 KP me)

 

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq70/Myen_Shi/DH%20Game%20001/end5.jpg

 

However, the dice decided that the end had come, and the results show a win by the Daemon Hunters against the Imperial Guard.

 

Now, I acknowledge my list could be fine tuned, and being my first game with this army (heh) it could have gone a little more smoothly. I think he had too many Elites choices looking back after the fact, and his lack of transports and only having two scoring units didn't help him either. For a trial run of the Deep Strike Contesting strategy it worked really well :P I think I might do better by reducing some wargear, downgrading the GK Brother Captain to a regular Elites choice, and working in a third IST squad, possibly a fourth. This will allow better chances of me holding one or two objectives while concentrating on eliminating the opponents objective holding forces. Dispite the heavy city fight terrain I avoided any deep striking mishaps due to small numbers of models making for tight circles (and small bases in the case of the PAGK). First field result seems to indicate that it's a perfectly valid and successful tactic in a regular non-cutthroat game to have NO scoring GK's and go with all deep strikers :)

 

I'll get the pictures up as soon as I have a chance to make some maps. Anyways, please give your thoughts and considerations, as if we still have a lot of deep strikers in the new Codex this could be a very valid way of making our limited numbers count by getting us where we need to be to eliminate their objective holders!

[Magnus Thane]

Looks like a fun game. I'm looking forward to your 'finished' battlerep! :o

[RolandTHTG]

Yea, I can confirm that that is one to many elite choices. Looks like a fun battle otherwise.

[Inquisitor Fox]

Alright, the approximate maps are up which should give a bit better idea of what was going on. I apologize for the inevitable errors in MS Paint and hand written notes and sketches. Many of those alleyways were narrower than depicted (mostly in my deployment quarter) but this should give the rough idea at least. Perhaps one day I'll have a second digital camera that's mine to keep with my gaming stuff!

 

edit: I should also note I added a couple edits, like the fact that all the buildings were 3 stories or more, so there were also vertical moves going on that weren't really well depicted with the MS Paint map

[number6]

Glad you got a game in. And a win at that! Not much more to add as I don't use IA at all -- not generally supported in my play group -- and at this point am just counting down the weeks until NEW CODEX!

 

In general terms (that is, speaking from what I believe to be true no matter what army you run, be it old Daemonhunters or new Grey Knights), I think it's best to eschew upgrades unless they're truly essential. Your I-lord and BC are so massively kitted out that it feels like you could have gotten another whole unit of something! :P And I find that to be more useful. Throwing more dice at the problem always seems to work out well in wargames, 40K included.

 

I also think your army list is criminally short on anti-armour capability. You played a 2000 pts game, but I've seen 1000 pts armies with as much or more anti-vehicle capability. Against a more competitive army, on a more standardly-terrained table, I think you'd have a LOT of trouble getting anything done.

 

Both of these philosophical changes are things I'd look to embrace as you look forward to the NEW CODEX!

[Inquisitor Fox]

I definitely feel ya on the anti-armor... in fact I'm eagerly looking forward to say, a Storm Raven with typhoon launcher, twin linked lascannon, and hurricane bolter sponsons :lol: It seems that at least half the tables at the local GW stores (I've two that are in the area that I play at) seem to have a moderate to heavy amount of city terrain, or junk piles, etc. Most of my games seem to have been in a more city fight style environment.

 

I was actually playing with numbers and organization tricks, and if I drop the HQ BC to an Elites BC I can utilize my free thunderhammer trick, shave off the destroy daemon and psychic hood, drop a single regular termie, buy one more PAGK for one of the FA squads and add a 6 man IST squad with one of my sergeants w/ power weapon and hell pistol (which adds a 3rd scoring unit). Alternatively, if I consolidate it into one terminator squad instead of two I might even be able to squeeze in enough points for a transport for them too! Granted this is all up in the air since April will be so very very tasty... mmm... new Codex...

 

I'll get some more games in as I can before April (I've waited too long to not use these guys after all) and continue to work out some of the quirks of this whole objective contesting deep strike game as I have an inkling that we may maintain much of that capability :lol: Really I'm trying to get used to how power armor, T4 and a storm bolter really seems to play out. The points values and unit options will change, but the experience of having Marines on the table instead of Sisters or ISTs will be very valuable mentally for me in the future. That and playing both branches of the Inquisition is a lot of fun!

[Doomaflatchi]

First off, congratulation on your victory!

 

In terms of the army list, I definitely agree with number6 that many elements of the army feel over-kitted. The Inquisitor, especially, feels like he's been equipped for two different roles - he has the Psycannon bolts for shooting, but also carries the Anointed Weapon for close combat. I'd cut his entire unit down to just one role, and specialize heavily towards that (and with the Daemonhunters list, the shooting role is just better for Inq. Lords, I think). Otherwise, I fear he'll be a constant point sink and under-perform wherever you need him. I was also surprised that the Chimeras had so many upgrades on them, but were lacking Extra Armor. With how low our target saturation is on the board, I'd highly recommend making EA a priority in the future! It can go a long way towards keeping your tanks alive to be more useful, and that means less shots at your precious troops.

 

As far as deployment, it looked generally pretty good. However, I might recommend two things to do differently: first off, your left-hand Chimera "Jean Chastel" was very exposed for a going-second deployment. It was almost asking for a Leman Russ tank to just stroll around the corner and blow it to pieces (which is almost what happened :)). I would have tucked it behind the south side of the building; that way, it could come around the corner and unload fire into the side armor of any tank rolling east down the street towards your Land Raider into their side armor. Alternatively, it might have forced him to split his tanks, in which case you could have just moved around the other side of the building and kept your whole force together and taken him on piecemeal. If he came south in force, you could have moved everyone north and cut his Stormtroopers to pieces. By having an exposed tank like that, you're giving him something to reach out and hit. If you hide everything behind buildings, you force him to make a commitment in terms of movement towards one element or another - then you have the opportunity to outmaneuver him, without leaving any unit of your army overextended or exposed. Then your deep-strikers could have dropped in and carved up his back line (like they did) after he advanced with his heavy-hitters. (Please take it for granted that these are just general thoughts, and that everything would likely have been wildly different by the start of turn three.)

 

Secondly, I would have deployed the Grenade Launcher IST squad outside of their Chimera and on top of your objective. With only two scoring units, it's doubly vital that they be both protected and in position quickly. Deploying them there would have reduced the chance of them getting bogged down if their Chimera got assaulted, and also given them a great field of fire with their longer-range guns against both the attacking tanks and the advancing Stormtroopers. Then, when they come under fire, you can just have them Go To Ground (which I noticed you did later, and that was brilliantly done) to protect their position. The Meltagunners, on the other hand, need to stay with their transport - their range is so short they need something to move them up into the battle quickly - which is why the Grenade Launcher squad would have been better in that position.

 

I'm very glad to see that the deep-strikers worked out well for you. The only real input I have on that front is the observation that had the Incinerator squad and Psycannon squad been deployed oppositely (each in the spot where the other came down), the terrain would have caused the effectiveness of both squads to be greatly reduced. Cover would have blocked many Psycannon shots against the Vets, and the Incinerators would not have been as effective against the Leman Russ's armor. Unfortunately, though, I'm really not sure how to counteract that risk, given how far everyone scattered.

 

All in all, your game was well-played, and I applaud both your skill and victory. Well done, and again, congratulations! :(

[Inquisitor Fox]

I definately agree shooting is the way to go with the IL. Honestly the model has a really nifty sword on his back, and I always tend to give the leader of a squad a power weapon as I hate necrons with a passion (heh), and it was only 5 points more for annointed vs power weapon. I'll see if I can convince myself to take it out *grins*

 

The lack of extra armor is due to the IA 2 rules having it costed at the modern cost, as opposed to the current cost (3x the amount!). Not having the armor gave me another 45 points to play with. The searchlights and smoke are included in the IA2 entry otherwise I wouldn't purchase them. This will be something I'll play around with as things go though that may wait until the new Codex comes out and we see what alterations there were :)

 

Thank you for the ideas on the Chimera placement. I put it in the alley thinking about 6" movement, not 12" due to roads. Having it behind the building entirely would have worked better, I'll definately try to remember that in the future. Also having the ISTs in the building from the beginning may have helped. My concern was they would take more shots for longer that way, but in the end they lost casualties when the transport exploded so that may have evened itself out.

 

I'm considering consolidating the termies into one squad and getting a third IST squad (albeit potentially smaller in number), or trimming a couple Grey Knights from the PAGK squads for extra points for ISTs. Reducing each squad to 8 almost buys a full IST squad itself! This will help with garrison duties without too much of a firepower reduction I think.

 

Thank you for the help on deployment issues... the game really starts when units are being put on the board, and it's good to remember that. The Inquisition must always be wiley and cunning, that's how we even up the numbers after all :huh: I'll keep going on this deep strike tangent and see if I can get another game before the new Codex, otherwise I may test the tactic with the new book ;)