Detachment Focus – Alien Hunters

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the Alien Hunters Detachment for the Imperial Agents.

Codex: Imperial Agents introduced four Detachments, with three of those modeled after the forces an Inquisitor of a particular Ordo might call to heel, replete with the specialized Imperial Forces dedicated to taking down that type of threat. The Alien Hunters Detachment ostensibly gives us the rules for running an army of the Ordo Xenos, dedicated to eradicating alien threats to humanity.

Thanks to Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the Imperial Agents Codex.

Detachment Overview

While the idea behind the Detachment is “forces of the Ordo Xenos,” in practice Alien Hunters is just a revised version of the Black Spear Task Force Detachment from Index: Deathwatch. The Detachment’s rule is lifted straight from the Black Spear Task Force, as are most of its Stratagems and Enhancements. The big difference of course is that the new, revised version of Deathwatch from Codex: Imperial Agents do not have access to their plethora of Kill Teams any more, and feel much more like an unfinished army as a result. While you can certainly make some nasty Veteran units with Deathwatch, this Detachment generally feels like something more for narrative play than something you’d field seriously in a competitive environment.

Detachment Rule: Deathwatch Mission Tactics

At the start of your Command phase, you can pick one of the following Mission Tactics to apply to your DEATHWATCH units until the start of your next Command phase. You can only select each one once per battle.

• Furor Tactics: Deathwatch units gain the [SUSTAINED HITS 1] ability.
• Malleus Tactics: Deathwatch units gain the [LETHAL HITS] ability.
• Purgatus Tactics: Deathwatch units gain the [PRECISION] ability.

These are… fine. They’re the same abilities the faction already had, and Deathwatch were among the game’s worst factions… and that was when they also had Oaths of Moment as an army ability. Losing that ability makes these collective abilities much worse, particularly since you can no longer use the combination to fish for Sustained or Lethal Hits. The only added value you can get out of this rule in an Imperial Agents army is by pairing a Veterans Squad with an Inquisitor – and it’s worth noting that Coteaz and Greyfax can join them as they’re IMPERIUM BATTLELINE units. This allows you to do fun things like get Sustained Hits on Coteaz or Draxus for added output.

Enhancements

The enhancements here are different from the ones in the Black Spear Task Force, though the Beacon Angelis returns here, while the Osseus Key has become the Amulet of Auto-Chastisement. Note that the only Deathwatch character you have who can take these is a Watch Master, but Inquisitors are fair game for the Anathema and Blackweave Shroud.

• Universal Anathema – AGENTS OF THE IMPERIUM model only. Melee weapons equipped by the bearer get [ANTI-INFANTRY 2+] and ANTI-MONSTER 4+]. If any of the characters you could give this to had DEVASTATING WOUNDS on their melee attacks, this would be solid. As-is, it’s hard to justify this; it’s okay on a vigil spear and kind of okay on a Force Weapon.
• Blackweave Shroud – AGENTS OF THE IMPERIUM model only. The bearer gains Feel No Pain 4+. I can’t imagine taking this, but if the cost is low enough I could see some value in it.
• Beacon Angelis – WATCH MASTER only. Models in the bearer’s unit have the Deep Strike ability and can use Rapid Ingress for 0 CP. This is great. You want this 100% of the time – the only catch is having to take a Watch Master, which is not so great.
• Amulet of Auto-Chastisement – WATCH MASTER only. At the start of your opponent’s Shooting phase, pick a non-TITANIC enemy vehicle within 12” of the bearer they can see. That unit has to take a Leadership test. Fail, and they can’t shoot this phase. Pass, and they get -1 to hit for the rest of the phase. This is decent. -1 to hit isn’t amazing but it can matter quite a bit on big units with a small number of shots on a bigger gun and turning off shooting entirely is great.

Stratagems

The Stratagems here are mostly taken whole cloth from the Black Spear Detachment, though Teleportarium has been renamed and reworked into Rapid Tactical Relocation, and now only works on a single unit. The only buff here is that the Rounds stratagems are no longer limited to Bolt Weapons.

• Armour of Contempt (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Shooting or Fight phase on a Deathwatch unit to reduce the AP of incoming attacks by 1 for the phase. This is great, always useful.
• Adaptive Tactics (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Command phase on a DEATHWATCH unit in your army to activate one Mission Tactic for that unit until the start of your next Command phase, even if you’ve already used that one. This is solid, since it means giving your unit Sustained hits or Precision in a key turn. That said, it’s not a ton of extra value on 5-model units, making this pretty situational.
• Hellfire Rounds (Wargear, 1 CP) – Used on a DEATHWATCH INFANTRY unit in your Shooting phase to give their ranged weapons (except for those with Devastating Wounds) [ANTI-INFANTRY 2+] and [ANTI-MONSTER 5+].
• Dragonfire Rounds (Wargear, 1 CP) – Used on a DEATHWATCH INFANTRY unit in your Shooting phase to give their ranged weapons [ASSAULT] and [IGNORES COVER]. This is solid for keeping a unit on the move and getting around Veterans’ otherwise poor AP.
• Kraken Rounds (Wargear, 1 CP) – Used on a DEATHWATCH INFANTRY unit in your Shooting phase to give their ranged weapons +1 to their AP and +6” to their range. This is by far the most useful of the three Stratagems for buffing your shots, where having AP-2 is huge on weapons like the Infernus Heavy Bolter for pushing through damage.
• Rapid Tactical Relocation (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used at the end of your opponent’s Fight phase. You can pick an INQUISITOR or DEATHWATCH INFANTRY unit in your army that isn’t within Engagement Range of an enemy unit and pull them from the battlefield. In the Reinforcements step of your next Movement phase, drop them back on the battlefield anywhere more than 9” from enemy models. This is another incredibly useful Stratagem, and even at a 1 CP cost, being able to go up and down with a unit every turn is tremendously useful for completing secondary missions.

Playing This Detachment

Here’s the thing: Deathwatch Veterans are alright, but they’re not amazing. You can come up with some solid variations of them running Thunder Hammers, but without the ability to consistently re-roll hits or wounds, there’s a real limit to what they can actually do. After poring over the book, I think there are basically two ways to run Deathwatch Veterans:

• 5-man units running 2-damage shooting weapons. These units run an Infernus Bolter, Frag Cannon, two Deathwatch shotguns, and a Combi-weapon. Pair them with Artemis for some additional shooting punch and to give them [LETHAL HITS] or with Draxus for a ton more 2-damage shooting.
• 5-man melee units running thunder hammers. A five-model unit running 2 Deathwatch Thunder Hammers, one Black Shield Blades, one power weapon and shield, and one xenophase blade and shield on the Sergeant. Pair these with a Watch Master for some extra melee punch and the ability to Advance and Charge, or with Coteaz for more raw Thunder Hammer power.

You could theoretically run your melee unit as a 10-model group with 4 thunder hammers, one blackshield, four power weapon + shield and a xenophase blade, and that’s not terrible, but it’s a big investment into a unit that probably does better work in small, surgical doses. That said, a unit of ten coming out of a Rhino is a solid play, and if you’re running 4-6 units, having one or two big units of melee hitters isn’t a bad shout.

If you’re building a list around this Detachment it’s going to be around Deathwatch Veterans, as they’re the only units in the army which really benefit from this Deatchment’s rules and Stratagems. There’s some power in the units – you can use their options to get some interesting melee or shooting builds – but not nearly enough to rival say, Plague Marines or Rubrics, and their build options have been nerfed in this book, removing the option for two frag cannons or two inferno heavy bolters in a five-model unit. That’s a shame because having four heavy weapons in a five model unit would really have made this all more palatable.

It’s worth noting that your whole army doesn’t have to be Deathwatch veterans by any means; in fact you should probably look at Sisters of Battle Squads as objective-holding support and Assassins to give the army some extra punch. Your biggest challenge here is going to be how you handle bigger units like vehicles and knights, and in that regard I’m not sure this Detachment has an answer for something like Chaos Space Marines running triple Vindicators.

A Sample List

Here’s a sample list I came up with as we were talking about different ways to run Veterans. It splits the difference with three melee units and three shooting units, and gives you some nasty little squads capable of scrapping over objectives.

The list - Click to expand

This more or less fits into 2,000 points with the current points for all this stuff, so I’m not sure how it’ll change when final points drop. The plan here is to put Coteaz with the big unit of Veterans and dump them in a Rhino, then in the other two Rhinos put one each of the five-man squads with melee weapons (these get the Watch Master so they can advance and charge), and one each of the five-man shooting units, and these have Artemis and Draxus with them. The Battle sisters split into two units each – the meltas go in the Immolators, while the two remaining bolter units sit back and hold/sticky the home objective.

This list may struggle with bigger targets but there are a lot of melta shots and hunter-killer missiles to provide support, and when it comes to scrapping over the middle of the table, those Deathwatch Kill Teams can put in some work. The list probably wants a few more tweaks and testing but I wouldn’t be upset about trying this out on the table for a game or two. At the very least I think it’ll do some hilarious things to Xenos opponents.

Realistically you can round this list out nicely by adding Canis Rex, and I think that’s a better use of your points than taking those last two units of shooty Deathwatch Veterans and a unit of sisters and their Immolator.

Final Thoughts

If you really want to create a Deathwatch army, there are probably better ways – I’d personally recommend running a standard Space Marines army painted as Deathwatch and just bringing along a few units of Veterans using the Agents rules. That said, the rules here aren’t terrible, they’re just not what you want if you’re a Deathwatch player. And that’s the part that stinks about all this – I’m OK with Deathwatch not having a full army and every unit in the marine codex, and I’m OK with the workaround of adding Deathwatch units to a marine army to get the illusion I need. But I could have done without losing the Terminators and bikers – the cool stuff we got in Kill Team Cassius. Also I would have really liked to see the Corvus Blackstar get any love. But enough ranting – the point is, I think there’s an OK Deathwatch list here that will work just fine if you’re trying to keep the spirit alive, but isn’t going to win any big events.

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