Mortis Daemonicus

Creating a Daemonhunters army for Warhammer 40,000

Mike Adams
10/4/03

Introduction

I haven’t played enough competitive games of Warhammer 40,000 to claim to be any kind of an expert, let alone actually won any. But, for what it’s worth, these are my musings on creating a Daemonhunters army for the Conflict Games Workshop Regional Tournament. I love reading this kind of stuff on the web written by other players, so this is just my attempt to give something back.

Models in my Collection

First off, I always approach a new army on the basis of what models I have in my collection, what models I would like to add and what theme I would like the army to have.

In terms of Imperials, I have two Space Marine armies (Blood Angels and Dark Angels), Imperial Guard and miscellaneous other Imperial forces, including Battle Sisters, preachers, Deathwatch Kill-Team, Grey Knights and a Xenos Inquisitor.

Space Hulk and Grey Knights

I came into the hobby through Space Hulk and I have all of the supplements. For those who don’t go back that far, there have been two versions of Space Hulk. The first version had two supplements. “Deathwing” expanded the types of marines you could have with things like Captains, assault terminators with lightning claws and miscellaneous other stuff. “Genestealer” added human-stealer hybrids, Librarians and psychic combat.

To be honest, the psychic combat rules went OTT. However, I loved the hybrids and Librarians and the latter were billed as the elite of the elite. Right at the back of the book, a couple of pages were devoted to the Grey Knights. These were the elite of the elite of the elite, the top of the chain as far as Space Marines (and the Imperium of Man) were concerned.

A squad of these baroque behemoths have been sitting in my collection waiting for their day to come. A little too long, to be honest, but they’re very patient.

Codex Daemonhunters

So, when Codex Daemonhunters was released I snapped it up with joy and dusted off the old models. My painting standard has improved over the years, so I was happy to start with bare metal. The original models are still cool today, with one weakness which they always had. The Nemesis Force Weapon has a built-in storm bolter, but it doesn’t look very convincing – more like a bolt pistol than a storm bolter. This is true for the sword and the traditional halberd. Now, Games Workshop in their new range have corrected this and transferred the storm bolter to be gauntlet-mounted. What I decided to do was live with the inferior storm bolter on the halberds, but on the sword (wielded by my Brother-Captain) I modelled a storm bolter on his gauntlet using two plastic bolters. With large, round bases, heraldic shields and purity seals everywhere I think they look quite good.

The idea was this: I already have too many armies, but if I can put together elements of my current Imperial armies and add just a few new elements to have a new Daemonhunters force, then great. Of course, as usual, things get a little out of hand.

So, the army shaping up in my mind was something like this:

Inquisitor-General
Retinue of henchmen (new and old models)
Grey Knight Terminators
Possibly Grey Knights in power armour (new models)
Troops borrowed from Imperial Guard and/or Space Marines
Possibly an Assassin
Possibly a Grey Knights dreadnought (this would be fun to build)

Now, this is before really looking at the list in any detail or seeing what would be competitive.

After careful analysis

After looking more carefully at the Codex and also making some observations from Phil Kelly’s army choice in the battle report in White Dwarf 280, I came to the following conclusions:

Grey Knights are expensive!
The army tends to have a lot of Elites choices and few Fast Attack or Heavy Support options
In a 1000 points army you will not be able to have all the cool things you want

My army construction logic goes like this:

You have two HQ choices: an Inquisitor Lord or a Grey Knight hero. The latter is a real killer but much too expensive for a 1000 points army, so you have to take the Inquisitor.

I insist on having a squad of Grey Knights Terminators. I would also like a squad of Grey Knights in power armour. In fact I think you really need this muscle in the army. I agree with Phil Kelly that you need some really cheap bulk troops to offset these very expensive marines and the only choice for that is an Imperial Guard infantry platoon.

Now, what about stormtroopers? These are essential, because the only allowable Troops choices are stormtroopers and Grey Knights, and you can’t afford to have two squads of Grey Knights if you’re having Terminators as well. Not only that, but they can have a relatively cheap Rhino transport, which adds some much needed mobility.

So, my first draft list looked something like this:

Inquisitor Lord, with various wargear
Retinue of various henchmen
Grey Knights Terminators
Grey Knights in power armour, inc. Incinerator
Stormtroopers, in a Rhino, with flamers
Imperial Guard infantry platoon

I struggled to pack this into 1000 points.

The Second Iteration

Now I sat back and thought about the new list. What was its strengths and weaknesses and what would happen if I played it in a tournament? I think the answer was that I would probably get annihilated. It was well balanced and well themed, but not very competitive.

The problems were:

Inquisitor Lord mixed close assault capability with ranged capability – what was his battlefield role?
Very little mobility or fast attack options
I didn’t think it maximised on the advantages of Daemonhunters enough (which it needs to do to make up for the obvious weaknesses)

I listed the advantages of Daemonhunters as follows:

Extra tough marines
Great wargear for Inquisitors
Incinerators
Psycannons
Deep striking
Small squads of stormtroopers

My conclusion was that I should have two squads of 5 stormtroopers for my mandatory Troops choices, freeing up the Grey Knights to be able to Deep Strike for no additional cost. One of these stormtroopers squads would be mounted in the Rhino and have two special weapons. Initially this was to be two flamers, but then I decided to change this to two melta guns and leave the flaming to my Grey Knights, who I gave two Incinerators.

The stormtroopers squad would also have a Veteran Sergeant with Teleport Homer. I don’t want my super expensive Grey Knights being lost in the warp!

This left the question of psycannons and the Inquisitor’s wargear. Now, one of the great benefits an Inquisitor can have is to upgrade his BS to 5 (with a Sage) and get a re-roll for him or a henchman (with a second Sage). I imagined the Grey Knights doing most of the assaulting, so I favoured the idea of building my Inquisitor and his retinue for more of a shooting role.

Hmmm…why not give the Inquisitor a psycannon? This is the best way to maximise on his BS of 5 if he has a Sage. I also wanted to give some beefy weapon to a Warrior henchman, so I chose a Gun-Servitor with multi-melta. In combination with a second Sage, this would be a potent combination.

There are lots of tempting upgrades for an Inquisitor, but I decided to stay focussed on his shooting role and not to waste points. The Conflict tournament battles will all be Pitched Battle scenarios using Deep Strike rules, so one cheap upgrade I added was a Mystic henchman. The Mystic enables the Inquisitor and his retinue to get a free shot on any enemy which Deep Strike within 4D6”.

I limited the retinue to 4 henchmen, after the realisation that the Inquisitor and his retinue could join the stormtrooper squad of five and all ride in the Rhino together. This may not always be desirable to do, but there may be times when it’s useful.

Assassins never made it into the list, they’re just too expensive and too elite for this army, especially at 1000 points. Nor did the dreadnought (although it’s still a tempting modelling project).

After a little fine tuning the list is finished. I’m sure it’s not perfect, but I hope it will give me the tools I need to do my job as army general.

Model Availability

The list has been chosen partly from the standpoint of model availability as well. For example, my stormtroopers are from the previous model range with berets. I like them and don’t want to change them. My choice of melta guns was influenced by the fact that these models can be acquired through mail order while models with flamers are not available. I also spent 2 points to give my stormtrooper sergeant a bolt pistol and close combat weapon, in line with the available model, but this seems appropriate in any case because he is a Veteran Sergeant.

I already have a multi-purpose black-painted Rhino. Normally this is used for my Blood Angels Death Company, but it is designed in such a way that I can replace the upper doors and upper hatches to convert it to my purposes. Hence I have just modelled up a set of doors with the Inquisitor icon and a new set of hatches with storm bolter and searchlight.

Oh yes, that reminds me. The searchlight is only one point and there is a chance that night fighting rules will be used in the tournament for selected turns (statistically rare but certainly worth spending one point).

The choice of six Grey Knights with two Incinerators was influenced by the fact that I can buy the boxed set of five and an additional blister pack of one Grey Knight with Incinerator to get what I want (the model with psycannon is not available till May, leaving it a bit late for the tournament in June).

The Imperial Guard was influenced by my model collection, although I have added a couple of new models with plain lasgun to replace special weapon troopers and Veteran Sergeants which I don’t need and can’t pay the points for in any case. So I have two squads with autocannon only, and one command section with missile launcher and plasma gun.

Inquisitor Conversion

Where I definitely was NOT influenced by model availability was my choice of Inquisitor. In any case, I feel that every Inquisitor should be a special conversion, because he is such an individual character.

The most obvious choice would be to use the body of a Grey Knight with psycannon and use a different head and backpack, etc. However, I couldn’t wait for the release of this model. The nearest other weapon to a psycannon is a heavy bolter, so I used a Space Marine heavy bolter with purity seals added and the heavy ammo feed underneath cut away to make it look a little slicker and closer in appearance to the psycannon used by Grey Knights.

My choice of body was partly influenced by impatient motivation to start building the Inquisitor conversion. The only spare character model I had was…the superb new Emperor’s Champion. I had a vague idea he would find a home with my Dark Angels army, and it seemed like sacrilege to chop up such a beautiful model. But, there couldn’t be a nobler conversion than for an Inquisitor, so he got chopped up.

My retinue of henchmen are straight out of the box, but look perfect alongside my converted Inquisitor, because they are all of slight build and he is especially tall.

Tactical Roles

Tactically, the roles are something like this:

Deployment depends on terrain and opposing army. Roughly, my Grey Knights should teleport into the thick of the action and also in a position to capture table quarters. Ideally they will home in on either of the Teleport Homers carried by the stormtroopers and the Inquisitor. They should try to land in a position where they are shielded from enemy fire but able to assault on their turn.

The role of the stormtroopers in Rhino is firstly anti-armour, where they should charge up in their Rhino, disembark and use their meltaguns, and possibly follow up with krak grenades. Secondly they should manoeuvre into a position suitable for the Grey Knights to home onto. Thirdly they should use their mobility to get to enemy-held table quarters.

The role of the Imperial Guard (and second stormtroopers squad) is firstly to shield the other troops from enemy fire, especially the Grey Knights. Secondly they are to concentrate their massed firepower on appropriate enemy targets.

The role of the Inquisitor and retinue is to concentrate their fire on tough targets, inc. monstrous creatures, dreadnoughts, vehicles, Terminators, daemons, etc. They can attach to the stormtroopers in the Rhino to move into a better position, but only if this doesn’t put them in too much danger. They need the protection of the Guard, and the Inquisitor is also useful for bolstering the staying power of the Guards units.

In general the philosophy for targetting enemy units is this: Shoot up the close assault specialists, assault the shooting specialists, concentrate on the key enemy units and use the appropriate weapons for each type of target.

Off to Battle

Well, all I have to do now is paint up the rest of the troops and get some practise games in. May the Emperor guide my dice.