Detachment Focus – Daemon 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 Daemon 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 Daemon Hunters Detachment ostensibly gives us the rules for running an army of the Ordo Malleus, dedicated to eradicating the daemonic threats plaguing humanity.

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

Detachment Overview

The Ordo Malleus Daemon Hunters detachment is all about killing Daemons. This Detachment gives you benefits when attacking Daemons, and gives you access to Stratagems which benefit Grey Knights Terminator Squads; however unlike the Ordo Xenos Alien Hunters Detachment, this one does not appear to be intended to replace the Grey Knights faction Detachment, and offers more support for Inquisitors and other Ordo Malleus units.

Detachment Rule: Destroy the Daemonic

Each time an INQUISITOR, INQUISITORIAL AGENTS, or ORDO MALLEUS model from your army makes an attack, re-roll a hit roll of 1 and, if the target of that is a DAEMON, re-roll a wound roll of 1 as well.

Being able to flat re-roll hit rolls of 1 is decent, but it’s not an amazing ability for a Detachment to give you. The ability to re-roll wound rolls of 1 as well is fine, but as you only get that against DAEMON targets, your actual uses of that ability are going to be very limited – basically to fighting Daemons, some Chaos Space Marines (and even there it won’t be all of their units), and the occasional Yncarne or Avatar of Khaine.

Enhancements

There are four enhancements here and they can only go on INQUISITOR models, which makes sense as there aren’t any Grey Knights characters in the book.

• Formidable Resolve – INQUISITOR model only. Improve the bearer’s Ld and Wounds by 1. Once per battle, at the start of any phase, you can pick a friendly Battle-shocked unit within 12” of the bearer and that unit is no longer Battle-shocked. This is fine.
• Daemon Slayer – INQUISITOR model only. Add 1 to the attacks characteristics of the model’s melee weapons and those gain [ANTI-DAEMON 3+]. This is also just OK. It’s going to be +1 attack most of the time. When you do go up against daemons it’s solid, but even with [ANTI-DAEMON 3+] you aren’t taking down any greater daemons in melee.
• Grimoire of True Names – INQUISITOR model only. While an enemy unit is within 9” of the bearer, that unit gets -1 Ld. If that unit is a DAEMON unit, it gets -1 to its hit and wound rolls each time it makes an attack. This is solid, and probably the strongest effect you can get against enemy daemon units from the Detachment enhancements.
• Gift of the Prescient – INQUISITOR model only. Once per game, you can use Rapid Ingress for 0 CP if the bearer is on the battlefield. This has to target a Grey Knights Terminator unit and when you set it up it can be set up more than 3” from all enemy units. This is insanely good, and it’s a must-take if you’re taking these armies. Yeah, you have to Ingress to get the 3” deep strike, but that gives you a ton of flexibility when it comes to placing your unit on the board.

If these seem underwhelming, well, they are. I think you take Gift of the Prescient 100% of the time and leave the rest by the wayside unless you happen to have the points to include one, in which case I’d start with the Grimoire.

Stratagems

All six of these Stratagems affect Grey Knights Terminator squads, but some only affect those units. Several of them go a bit further, letting you affect Coteaz as well. Only one of these – Truesilver Armour – is taken from the Grey Knights Index.

• Ritual of Warding (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Use at the start of a Command phase to turn an objective marker controlled by one of your Inquisitor/Inquisitorial Agents/Ordo Malleus units sticky. On top of that, while it’s sticky Daemon units can’t be set up within 6” of that objective.
• Rites of Exorcism (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in the Shooting or Fight phase to make a visible Daemon unit within 12” take a Battle-shock test. If they fail that test, then until the end of the phase, each time an AGENTS OF THE IMPERIUM unit makes an attack against that Daemon unit, that attack gains [DEVASTATING WOUNDS]. This is just complete garbage. Even if you’re playing daemons, this is just terrible. I will remind you that if the Daemon unit passes their test and is in the Shadow of Chaos (and every Greater Daemon is all the time), then they actually get to heal and bring back dead units. It’s not worth it.
• Steel Heart (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Use in your Movement phase after a Grey Knights Terminator Squad falls back – that unit can shoot and declare a charge this turn. This is great utility, and something you want to have in your pocket.
• Truesilver Armour (Wargear, 1 CP) – Use in the Shooting or Fight phase on a unit of Grey Knight Terminators to worsen the AP of incoming attacks by 1 for the phase. Always useful, and great for keeping your Terminators around.
• Hexagrammic Wards (Wargear, 1 CP) – Use in the Shooting or Fight phase after an opponent picks one of your Ordo Malleus units as a target. Until the end of the phase, Psychic weapons attacking that unit gain the [HAZARDOUS] ability. This one’s just whatever – there are some very specific enemy units you’ll want to use this on. Ironically it’s great against Grey Knights, but it can put a real hurt on Zoanthropes, Flamers, and Horrors.
• Psybolt Ammunition (Wargear, 1 CP) – Used in your Shooting phase on a Grey Knights Terminator Squad which hasn’t shot yet. Until the end of the phase their ranged weapons gain the [LETHAL HITS] and [PSYCHIC] abilities. This one’s OK, and gives you a solid way to punch up against tougher Daemons.

Playing This Detachment

This one’s tough – there just aren’t enough ORDO MALLEUS units in the Imperial Agents book to make this one feel like a real army. Sure, you can take three units of Grey Knight Terminators – and you’ll definitely want to do that – and Coteaz is a must-take, but then after that you’ve got a lot of question marks. I think your core is probably going to be Sisters of Battle Squads, as they give you some solid mid-table scrapping ability and anti-vehicle firepower.

When building your Grey Knight Terminators, you want to give them a Psycannon, a Narthecium, and an Ancient’s Banner. This makes them very nasty mid-table scrappers who can hold objectives with 15 OC and can bring back one dead model per turn.

A Sample List

If you’re building a list with this army, I think you start with three units of Grey Knight Terminators and Coteaz, then add a trio of Sisters of Battle and a trio of Immolators. From there… well, you have options but I don’t love any of them. Ironically, I think Deathwatch Kill Teams might be the play after that, plus a few Vigilant Squads – one led by an Inquisitor with Gift of the Prescient – just so you have some BATTLELINE units to do actions with.

The Terminators here act as your hammer and mid-table objective holder; I could see supporting them with a 10-man Deathwatch unit in a Rhino taking four Thunder Hammers with a Watch Master as additional melee support. On the whole, I’m not sure how playable this is going to be, even against Daemons. But it can certainly be very annoying. Add a couple of Assassins on top of that – an Eversor and a Vindicare make sense here.

That said, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just run Grey Knights instead and bring Coteaz and an Assassin to that, plus an extra unit or two of Arbites as needed. That’s a stronger, more cohesive army that seems more in-line with what this is trying to do.

Final Thoughts

The Daemon Hunters Detachment feels like it needs more units associated with it – there are only two ORDO MALLEUS units in the entire Imperial Agents Codex: Grey Knights Terminator Squad and Coteaz – and as a result, building an army with it feels really rough. This is also where the inability to give your generic Inquisitor a specific Ordo designation really shows, and where I think they could have benefit from having one more Grey Knights unit in the book to work with, or at least including a land raider.

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