Single Type Warbands: Daemonhosts

Ok, so I ran my first game with a single type henchman band today; I'll have to test them a bit more, but I ran 5 Daemonhosts

They didn't have the most successful game, therein lies the issue with a unit that has random abilities every turn. You find yourself trying to pre-empt what is going to come up in the following turn or hoping you're going to get X ability and be able to pull off an amazing coup.

However, their random abilities and the fact that, if the dice fall right, they can be utterly devastating, did have another effect. One of the people I was playing against vowed that the unit had to be wiped out at all cost.

He spent 3 turns unloading every weapon he had at them, with them generally shrugging off the majority of hits with their invulnerable saves.

I suffered hits from krak grenades, heavy bolters, lasguns, sniper rifles, burst lasers. Eventually, 4 of them went down across 2 turns and finally, the one that was left broke for sanctuary...he didn't rally, but was still on the table at the end and managed to survive the parting shots fired after him.

So, while I had hoped in one turn to get Unholy Gaze or the Strength 6 effect - or even a Feel No Pain - to take down the trio of War Walkers that Outflanked nearby, the unit did manage to keep the attention of the greater percentage of an Imperial Guard force and their Eldar allies.

I would suspect that part of this was that the only other Grey Knight player at the club runs all Powered Armour and Terminators. The Inquisitorial Warbands are full of units and models that people have never seen before - so people are testing the capacity of the units I'm fielding. Needless to say, the Daemonhosts are on peoples watch lists. and they haven't revealed their full capacity as yet...

Having only used the force once, I'm going to try them out a few more times. In this particular game, while they didn't do much of what I'd intended, they did have an effect on the game, albeit not one I was expecting. One of these days, though, I'll get some shooting attacks out of them and then people will have a more healthy fear of them.

I am going to run a proper test after this forthcoming tourney with 10 man units; but thought I'd share my findings so far

Awesome to hear they had a good affect on your game.

They acted like cannon fodder for you because of their toughness value of 4.

You made the right choice of fielding them as a single type otherwise it would be down to the ratio of toughness 4 models which would determine your toughness value when the enemy rolls to wound.

You could try using them in front of a power amour grey knight unit to provide them a cover save.

Another roll out for the 5-man squad of Daemonhosts today; they proved their value, mainly by becoming bullet magnets again. However, they managed to shrug off most of the incoming fire again and at the end of the game, 3 were still in action.

I tried running them in a Chimera, but it got popped - not sure whether to try it again, or change tactic.

That having been said, I'm utterly loving the Inquisitorial aspect of my force and intend to carry on working on it!

I say stick them in a Psyback, due to it's inherit effectiveness.

If you roll a shooty power, dump them out and shoot, since the shooty profiles are Assault.

If you were to run, for instance, six 5mans in 5 Psyabcks, it will only cost you ~600 points (assuming you're running Coteaz).

Plus, having six squads will ensure at least one squad will get the power you want, and make your army really hard to counter-deploy against.