++THE ART OF WAR++

[valincius]

Daemon hunters are one of the harder armies to play in 40k because they just are not like most other armies. But why play daemon hunters, first off for you veterans of the game, including my humble self, it presents us with a challenge. Sure I could go play my world eaters at tournies and probably do better than I do with my daemon hunters. But I do not get the same satisfaction. And I am not saying that this applies to everyone but I rather have a good game and loose then a bad game that I win. For you new people. What can daemon hunters give to you? Well I really dont suggest them as a first army, as they have a steep learning curve. But if you choose to daemon hunters are a fun army that can give you some fun first battle. And for you painters, daemon hunters is probably one of the best armies to model and paint, a well painted daemon hunters army is just spectacular. In saying that what are the basics of daemon hunters, well as aforementioned we are a very unique army in that it is not Where do I put the points? it is .Where can I save a few points. This is because once you read the codex, play a few games you realize that just filling a the headquarters and Troops slots can be the bulk of your army especially if you play pure Daemon hunters. So it there is a lot more thought needed in what to take. But even then it is a diverse army that can be played in so many ways. And plus they are the 40k version of the catholic church, I for one aint gonna pass up beating on people in the name of god :P.

 

The three main kinds Daemon Hunters

 

Pure Daemon hunters

 

This type of army is probably the hardest kind of daemon hunters to play as there is only a few ways to play it and they are all hard. I find this type of daemon hunters hardest and really suggest anyone new to the game not to play this. The requirements are that you can have no Inquisitors(or lords), and therefore no assassins, orbital strikes, no inquisitorial storm troopers, no allies. Otherwise it is the same. The most competitive way to play this army in my opinion is to take a terminator squad that is about 4 men including the HQ, along with in 1000 points 2 squads of 6 grey knights with 1 psycannon. A teleport attack squad of 6 with at least one psycannon and a dreadnaught with lascannon and extra armour. This is for about 1000 point and comes near 1000. The thing to remember for these guys is to think about every move as you will not get many chances and one slip up can cost you the game. An easy way to beat up on armies is to move you grey knights that set up along about half the board, keep moving them forward, then when you deepstrike, put them I the middle, and box the enemy in and keep shooting them, and if they try to break the line, charge the and destroy them. But there is always other ways to play them.

 

Radical Daemon hunters

This type of army is probably the least type of daemon hunter played. When you play this style it means you cannot have Grey knights of any kind(vehicles included. But you get daemon hosts(not that great if you ask me ^_^). This army has a lot of fluff behind it and is fun to play sometimes, I would always suggest some kind of allies, I prefer guard as it gives you some much needed AT. You must always have a lot of troops. But if you ask me, I would just play guard with radical daemon hunters allies, it almost makes more fluffy sense and gives you a lot more options.

Regular Daemon hunters

 

The regular type of DH allows you to use everything withi the regulation set out in the codex.

 

HeadQuaters

 

Grey knight brother captain

 

My favorite HQ, for a few reasons. First that he is cheap, this is extremely important in a daemon hunters army where you already have sweet hq units and I would contend that a brother captain and 2 terminators(a little more than a grand master) are better then a grand master. Secondly that there is no temptation to make him an 1337 unit, all he needs is a psycannon and he is ready to go. Overall I think that you use him in addition to a terminator squad, as he himself is not that powerful but add 5 gray knight terminators and that squad becomes a hell of a lot better.

 

Grey Knight grand master

 

This guy makes most HQs seem like mere guardsmen, his 4 attacks with a force weapon are extremely useful. Good addons are a psycannon, and a targeter. If you want to go the whole way and I warn you this is a point sink you can give him a holy relic ad icon of the just. Overall he is one of the 10 best HQs. Tactics for him are to give him a squad of 5 to 7 terminators. One with 1-2 thunder hammers for AT power and an additional psycannon that deepstrike onto a teleport homer and do power armour grey knights support them into CC ASAP. But saying all this I only use him in 1500 and sometimes all the way up to 1850, this is for a few reasons. First that in 2000 any large hq is just asking to be swamped by a large number of troops and eaten alive, simply put he can be outdone by numbers, high numbers of power weapons or equivalents, which you will always see at 2000. At 1000 he is a point sink and one that I do not sink my points into as I prefer more terminators

 

Inquisitor lord

 

I

[Legion commander Argonas]

nice article, any more??

[FallenAngel]

This is what i love about this game. You've made a long post about how you find some things work for you and some things don't, yet i have a completely different view on half of that stuff!!

 

Ive only played with Daemohunters for, urm, 7 games so my viewpoint is quite limited, though 6 of them were at a tournament with some quite hard lists at there. Being 2000pts, i had quite a bit to play around with and took a mixed list.

 

First thing on the list was the Grand Master with a psycannon. Wow, how good is a move and shoot psycannon at 36" and BS5!! Fantastic at killing speeders and pretty nifty in combat as well (in one game he killed about 1000pts of eldar on his own).

 

I took a squad of GK terminators as well, with 2 psycannons in there (one on the brother captain). They were ok, though they cost 346pts!! Getting into combat was tricky as they're slow and fear the fist, though they did very well when they got there.

 

Next was an inquisitor. THe only reason i took him was initially to get a callidus in there as i love them. In the end i gave him a plasma pistol and emperors tarot (to complement the word in your ear on the callidus) and a retinue of 3 plasma gun veterans, 2 sages and a mystic, all in a rhino. They fill a nice role in the DHs list, the obvious lack of ap 2 shooting. Psycannons are all good and that but sometimes just cant kill marines. They're one shot wonders (they survived one game) but kill quite a bit nicely (the sages are nice touchs, upping the plasma pistol to BS5 and allowing one re-roll on the squads shooting).

 

The callidus was awesome. I ran into two people who used them in other armies and they didn't work very well for them. Well mine was really lucky, which i guess is half the trick. Word in your ear is amazing, cant say how good, moving speeders out into the open to get psycannoned, moving rhinos back to slow them down, just fantastic!! And then the flamer thing was nice, though chaos marines are very hard to kill with it.

 

Grey Knights were ok for their points. I opted for just one psycannon in squads of 6 as i wanted the S6 attacks in combat, though i think on reflection, the extra psycannon shots would have been worth it.

 

I took two dreads for fire support. They did ok though suffered from rolling one less to penetrate than required quite a lot. I hid them quite a bit til i thought i could definitely take on armoured targets without dying.

 

Oh and finally i took a Crusader. I felt i didn't have a choice not to!! Bar two games were it immobolised itself out of LoS of everything and dying to the first shot fired in the game, it did quite well. The sheer volume of fire up close allowed me to concentrate fire better as i don't have many units!! Assault cannon is great as well as i managed to melt a wraithlord in one round with shooting.

 

Overall i went 3-1-2 so they can't be all that bad, just require a lot more tactical thinking and a lot of belief in the other person to fail armour saves from your shooting!!

[number6]

Heh. Kind of like FallenAngel, I have quite a few different views about what I like and don't like in the DH army list. :P For example, I absolutely love shooty inquisitor units. Give the inquisitor a psycannon, and take a PC servitor, 2 HB servitors, 2 sages and 1-2 msytics and you're good to go! For an ultra-cheap squad, 115 points will get you the inquisitor, psycannon, and PC servitor. Opponents hate wasting a shooting turn trying to take these guys out when there are GKs and dreads and terminators rushing up to him! The shooty inquisitor provides much needed fire support. And if you have a mystic or two, and your opponent is foolish enough to deep strike or drop pod, you will be well on your way to victory!

 

Be that as it may, it's great to see such a comprehensive post on using the DH, as it really is one of the harder, and therefore more rewarding, 40K armies to play. However, there are a couple of rules mistakes that should be cleared up.

Grey Knight Terminators and True Grit

Guys, this is the oldest one in the book, and as of April 9th 2006 games workshop has yet

To produce a document to prohibite using it. However, most games workshops will

say that you cannot use the rule for them. Some rogue trade stores say you can whilesome

say youcant. I think the widely accepted is, ask the organizer or your opponent wether or

not it is allowed. My personal view is since I have had 2 rulez boyz email me saying that

you cannot, then in it being a gamesworkshop game, to go with their ruling.

There is nothing confusing about this issue at all. The codex clearly states that True Grit applies only to Grey Knights in power armour. If your GK is in terminator armour, he doesn't get True Grit. It's just that simple. Your GKTs get as many attacks as their profile states, +1 attack if charging. Simple.

++Inquisitorial Allies++

 

Rules

 

First check the codex, but in simpler terms this is it.

 

1. You may take either Sisters or Guard allies, not both.

Not true. As clearly stated in both the DH and WH codices, inquisitorial forces may always ally with each other, regardless of other allies. You are still restricted to no more than one other allied force beyond inquisitorial allied units, however.

2. You may not have a daemon hunters parent list with SM allies

This is only true if your parent DH force includes grey knights units. If your DH army doesn't include any GKs (e.g., you have a radical DH army), you can take space marine allies as outlined in the DH codex.

[Malleuss]

Hey, guys, I'm new here and I have just started a DH army (I played Wolves long, long ago).

 

This article is supremely helpful and quite appreciated. What I would like to see is additional 'starter' lists.

Perhaps from those of you with differing opinions? Mainly, just to get different takes and see where I

want to start with.

 

Thanks for the great discussion :devil:

[FallenAngel]

Ok heres a starter 1850pts list, well not really a starter list but the list i took to a tournament that worked quite well. 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses says quite well i think.

 

HQ:

 

Grand Master Flash; Psycannon, Grimroire of true names, Hammerhand, Sacred Incense

 

Elites:

 

Inquisitor with plasma pistol, ccw, Emperors Tarot

3 Vets with plasma, 2 Sages, 1 Mystic

Rhino with smokes and armour

 

6 Termies incl 1 psycannon and brother captain with psycannon

 

Callidus Assassin

 

Troops:

 

6 Grey Knights with 1 psycannon

Repeat

Repeat

 

Heavy:

 

Land Raider Crusader with smokes

Dread with twin lascannon/missile launcher and smokes

Dread with twin lascannon, smokes and armour.

 

 

I did bling up the Grand Master (I couldn't not do but that's me). If i was to change anything, i'd get rid of sacred incense and grimroire (definitely grimroire anyway) and get some more psycannons in my GK squads as my shooting lacked a bit of kick sometimes.

[Malleuss]

Awesome list, Fallen. What I'm really learning here is how DH can be legitimately played by their own merits w/out fear of being the laughing stock of the store^^

 

I'll be posting my wips soon! ;)

[valincius]

Be that as it may, it's great to see such a comprehensive post on using the DH, as it really is one of the harder, and therefore more rewarding, 40K armies to play. However, there are a couple of rules mistakes that should be cleared up.

 

Guys, this is the oldest one in the book, and as of April 9th 2006 games workshop has yet

To produce a document to prohibite using it. However, most games workshops will

say that you cannot use the rule for them. Some rogue trade stores say you can whilesome

say youcant. I think the widely accepted is, ask the organizer or your opponent wether or

not it is allowed. My personal view is since I have had 2 rulez boyz email me saying that

you cannot, then in it being a gamesworkshop game, to go with their ruling.

 

There is nothing confusing about this issue at all. The codex clearly states that True Grit applies only to Grey Knights in power armour. If your GK is in terminator armour, he doesn't get True Grit. It's just that simple. Your GKTs get as many attacks as their profile states, +1 attack if charging. Simple.

 

 

While it may be clear now, it was not clear for the longest time with some clubs playing one way and others playing option B, you can search the archive and find many 10+ page debates over it, I really don't wanna rehash that thing as we kinda ended it but you can see for yourself :rolleyes:

 

 

1. You may take either Sisters or Guard allies, not both.

Not true. As clearly stated in both the DH and WH codices, inquisitorial forces may always ally with each other, regardless of other allies. You are still restricted to no more than one other allied force beyond inquisitorial allied units, however.

 

Okay, anyone wanna back him up? I have been gone so long that I have to dig my 40k stuff out for next week so I am without codex, I will go with a confirm though. I have never heard of this though, kind of strange to me.

 

2. You may not have a daemon hunters parent list with SM allies

 

This is only true if your parent DH force includes grey knights units. If your DH army doesn't include any GKs (e.g., you have a radical DH army), you can take space marine allies as outlined in the DH codex.

 

Again an issue of clarity, it shall be fixed but I clearly say as outlined in the DH codex, meaning read the rules there. Thanks though again for the vigilance.

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

++Inquisitorial Allies++

 

Rules

 

First check the codex, but in simpler terms this is it.

 

1. You may take either Sisters or Guard allies, not both.

Not true. As clearly stated in both the DH and WH codices, inquisitorial forces may always ally with each other, regardless of other allies. You are still restricted to no more than one other allied force beyond inquisitorial allied units, however.

 

2. You may not have a daemon hunters parent list with SM allies

This is only true if your parent DH force includes grey knights units. If your DH army doesn't include any GKs (e.g., you have a radical DH army), you can take space marine allies as outlined in the DH codex.

 

 

ok i think its like this. /If/ your "parent" list is DH/WH, then you can only take Marines as allies /IF/ you have NO GK/SoB units in your lists. The GK's and SoB Don't go crying to the Marines for help, they got too much pride, But they will come to the aid of marines when called. So if your Parent list is Marine then you can bring GK and/or SoB allies. I say And /or because you can take WH Allies if you already have DH allies or vice versa.

 

now as for HQ... I pretty much go against every hard suggestion given here. My Lord is CC.... and rides in a Land Raider...... and uses Holocaust this is how i have him for Apoc.

 

[607] ORDO MALLEUS INQUISITOR LORD: Master-crafted, Anointed weapon, Force Weapon, Consecrated scrolls, Grimoire of True Names, Icon of the Just, Sacred incense, Terminator Armour, Unguents of Warding(200)

Retinue: (6) Familiar, Acolyte ( Refractor field), 3x Warrior (2x Melta gun, Flamer), Sage.(94)

Psyker: Holocaust, Scourging. (40)

*****Transport: Land Raider Prometheus, Smoke launcher. (273)

 

also in Land Raider with them is....

 

[81] ORDO MALLEUS INQUISITOR: Incinerator, Frag grenades, Holy Relic.

Psyker: Hamerhand.

 

and

 

[106] ORDO HERETICUS INQUISITOR: Power weapon, Storm botler, Bionics, Frag granades, Inquisitorial Mandate.

Psyker: His Will be done.

 

I call it my Conclave... AKA "eggs in a basket" :devil: