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I'm playing against a dude tomorrow that uses Chaos Demons.

I am not too sure about his list but I think he has two units of plaguebearers, 1 big unit of bloodletters, 1 big unit of Daemonettes, two maxed out units of fiends of slaanesh which are notorious for being f---ing horrible and one Great unclean one and a DP.

I am playing 4th ed. SM with two LRs, one LRC, an elite inquisitor with two mystics and a sage and armed with psycannon.

I also have two tricked out librarians and four 6 man tactical squads - two have two CCWs and flamer, the other two have lascannons.

What tactics do I have against the foe?

Thanks all.

Try 5th ed and null zone on a libby, if that and your inquisitor and two mystics are still failing to beat the demon player you've just got to think are you even playing the right game?

But how would I deploy my Inq in a land raider? I mean 4d6 is an average of 15 inches.

Any more detailed advice?

Thanks.

Oh yeah, I am playing 4th edition because we have agreed that this will be the army I will be using - so no 5th ed. SM comments please.

you have 2 land raiders. He has 2 monsterous creatures, both slow and strength 6 or under. Let your lascannon land raider and tac squad lascannons eat his monsterous creatures, the bloodletters and daemonettes will both explode instantly under flamer fire. If he gets into CC with you, that squad's hooped. Don't even try to engage any of his units in CC, they'll mess you up something fierce no matter what. Even if you're not normally, EVERYone plays a shooty army against daemons

That psycannon is a free wound on pretty much anything if you hit, every turn. Careful though, the GUO has feel no pain, and the prince likely has an armour save (fill the DP with lascannons, his 5+ invuln won't last forever). I'm not familiar with the old Librarian's psychic powers, but that force weapon is going to do you no good, as everything is immune to instant death, and almost everything has no armour save to ignore.

The great unclean one is pretty easy to outrun, as are the plaguebearers. Unless they make it into charge range, they can be essentially ignored until you've dealt with the faster problems.

Just abuse that AV14 armour, use it to block off his squads from your shooty units. move that LRC between your guys and those bloodletters, fiends, or daemonettes, then rapid fire with both hurricane bolters (S4, defensive) and whatever else you put on there, they'll melt like cheap plastic. The Hurricanes will put 4-5 wounds on anything but the plaguebearers and MCs, and lascannons will mess up the rest.


Remember, with daemons volume of fire is your best asset, so your bolters are actually a very effective tool, like against orks. It's a shame you have no template weapons (like a demolisher, or a whirlwind, etc.), but it's not terrible. double land raiders will be a serious problem for him.


Anyway, good luck! You should post a battle report when you're finished

For the sake of world peace, work out before the game starts which of his daemon units are daemons according to your codex and which of those units get the sustained attack rules according to the Daemonhunter codex. How you guys rule that is going to have a HUGE impact on your game.

Personally, if I was a daemon player and I was expecting Daemonhunters, I'd be bringing more horrors and flamers than usual to put holes in those land raiders of yours. How sure are you about his model collection?

the local daemonhunters player (he plays all grey knights, no inquisitor, and does well, so I have huge respect for him ) and I have come to an agreement that anything bought as a troop choice applies for the sustained attack rule, though as the codex states they no longer count as scoring. It's a fairly reasonable middle ground, and we always have super-fun matches. Granted, I never have to deal with the demolisher+mystics hijinks, though 6+ psycannons always make me

take sanctuary with your inquisitors and cast it inside your landraiders and then the Demon Player will tell you where you should stick that army.

thehod wrote:take sanctuary with your inquisitors and cast it inside your landraiders and then the Demon Player will tell you where you should stick that army.

Anyone tries that, I will then point out that only Greater Daemons and nurglings are listed as Daemons in the Daemonhunter Codex. It so seriously unbalancing and twisted that if they want to insist on RAW for that I will insist on full RAW.

solkan wrote:For the sake of world peace, work out before the game starts which of his daemon units are daemons according to your codex and which of those units get the sustained attack rules according to the Daemonhunter codex. How you guys rule that is going to have a HUGE impact on your game.

Personally, if I was a daemon player and I was expecting Daemonhunters, I'd be bringing more horrors and flamers than usual to put holes in those land raiders of yours. How sure are you about his model collection?

I thought that you had to specifically take grey knights for the sustained attack to happen. And I didn't think they put that scenario special rule in 5th ed, so its a dead rule from what i understand. Seems ok to me, since almost all of the daemon specific benefits for grey knights are also gone.

As a Daemon player, I really despise people tooling out armies specifically to beat me. If you have an army, field your army. Not a Daemonhunter army made under the pretense of a SM army.

I played in an escalation league right after the Daemon codex came out where we had preset pairings each week. The guy I drew week 2 was playing Dark Angels yet he fielded more Daemonhunter models in his army than Dark Angels (by a long shot). I beat him anyway (completely wiped his army off of the board due to him 4th ed Perils of the Warping his 2 sanctuaries off of the table). As it stands now, only one person I know plays a dedicated GK army and I take losing to him well in stride because it is always a fun match and even though he is a powergamer he is fun to play. Anyone else that tries that kind of game rigging, I'll be more than happy to point out that the only things that count as Daemons vs. Daemonhunters are Greater Daemons, Nurglings, and if I'm feeling nice a Soulgrinder.

Quick note on Daemon Hunters. Against a Chaos Daemons list, the sustained assault rule is not viable. That rule only applies to Chaos Space Marines. This is covered on the updated FAQ

necronid wrote:Quick note on Daemon Hunters. Against a Chaos Daemons list, the sustained assault rule is not viable. That rule only applies to Chaos Space Marines. This is covered on the updated FAQ

looking through the faq i don't see a single reference to sustained assault, could be wrong but don't think so.

Centurian99 wrote:
Anyone tries that, I will then point out that only Greater Daemons and nurglings are listed as Daemons in the Daemonhunter Codex. It so seriously unbalancing and twisted that if they want to insist on RAW for that I will insist on full RAW.

God forbid Deamonhunters do their job and actually combat Deamons.

Sanctuary still requires a turn where the inquisitor cant move and can leave for a very static unit. Not to mention you can still bolt the unit.

thehod wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:
Anyone tries that, I will then point out that only Greater Daemons and nurglings are listed as Daemons in the Daemonhunter Codex. It so seriously unbalancing and twisted that if they want to insist on RAW for that I will insist on full RAW.

God forbid Deamonhunters do their job and actually combat Deamons.

Sanctuary still requires a turn where the inquisitor cant move and can leave for a very static unit. Not to mention you can still bolt the unit.

Not quite. Start by sticking the Inquisitor in a land raider. Then just for giggles take 2 (or 3). How much of the table can you block off if you line up the land raiders 6" apart. Now you've got 18" of space for the =][= player to shoot through, along with the firepower from the 6 TL-Las and 3 TL-HB.

You can still shoot the LR with a Bolt of change and also remember that there is a somewhat decent chance that the elite inquisitors fail their sanctuary and combined with 3 inquisitors trying to pull off sanctuary will mean a few will fail during the game and that leaves the LR easy pickings for the deamons.

As for capture and control missions his army is going to basically castle up while you take your objective and force a tie. If he wants to go after your stuff, he has to break sanctuary that once again makes it possible for your MCs to tear that LR apart.

Seize ground missions once again forces LR to be vulnerable for a few turns trying to cover objectives and enough time to crack 1-2 open not to mention that the troops used to claim the objective cant ride in the LR if its the usual suspects of Inquisitor and 2 mystics. That there leaves the troops susceptible to your attacks while they cower nearby the LR.

As for KP missions, thats one of the few missions that the army will have an advantage over you unless its Dawn of War and he will only have 1 on the table at best leaving you to freely kill his army for 2 turns at best before he can make the castle.


Sanctuary is a powerful tactic against deamons but not 100% effective and has its counters. Ar these tactics easy to counter? No. But granted the only army that is the rock to your scissors is one of the more fringe armies and even taken as allies that is at most 2 LR and that cannot effectively cover the rest of the army and even if they do bunch up around the sanctuary, thank your patron god and wind of chaos them (if you got it). These are a few tactics that expose the weaknesses of Sanctuary.


My Ard Boyz game was a good showing on the weaknesses of Sanctuary and how poor of a tactic it is to rely on that power on a massive scale. At best it can be used for objective denial but once again its hoping that you can make it to your destination intact and if you can continuously cast the power on Ld 9 or 10 and from experience with the army, it will fail.

thehod wrote:You can still shoot the LR with a Bolt of change and also remember that there is a somewhat decent chance that the elite inquisitors fail their sanctuary and combined with 3 inquisitors trying to pull off sanctuary will mean a few will fail during the game and that leaves the LR easy pickings for the deamons.

Sanctuary also blocks LOS for Daemons. They may not shoot into or through a sanctuary zone. No bolts. So you've got a 3" bubble around each land raider that Daemons may not enter or shoot through.
Inquisitors /w Heirophants are LD 9. 5/6 chance.

thehod wrote:
As for capture and control missions his army is going to basically castle up while you take your objective and force a tie. If he wants to go after your stuff, he has to break sanctuary that once again makes it possible for your MCs to tear that LR apart.

Four turns of shooting at your troops, and preserving superior mobility? With the right build, and unless there's significant amounts of unfavorable LOS-Blocking Terrain, its almost an auto-lose for the Daemons.

thehod wrote: My Ard Boyz game was a good showing on the weaknesses of Sanctuary and how poor of a tactic it is to rely on that power on a massive scale. At best it can be used for objective denial but once again its hoping that you can make it to your destination intact and if you can continuously cast the power on Ld 9 or 10 and from experience with the army, it will fail.

Essentialy, you're saying that the Siren Prince Daemonbomb wasn't an error.

If you are playing by 4th edition then make sure that he doesn't run after deep striking, find a template weapon, and nuke away.

Or, pile in the Land Raiders and only kill what can hurt them. In 5th, that would only be the DP and the GUO. If you are letting him rend up 1D6 instead of 1D3, and you are using the old 4th damage tables, you are being very generous...

But the Sanctuary bubble only lasts until the psycher moves or shoots, and passengers on a moving transport count as moving (explicitly for shooting, implicitly for everything else). So, they can either hide in the bubble or move out, right?

The brokenness of Sanctuary vs. Daemons.

It lasts until the psyker moves or shoots. His unit can shoot and he can elect to not fire a weapon. Pop him in a LR and use the bubble. It measures 3inches out from the LR and the LR doesn't move. Daemons can't draw LOS through the area of Sanctuary so you can't fire at the LR or any of the units under it's umbrella. Also, you can't flamer him because you still need LOS to drop a flamer template. Line up your 4 LR with inquisitors in them within 6 inches of each other and you have a wall that's 3 feet long and about a foot deep that a Daemon can't move through or shoot into or past. For a deep striking army, the ability to deny that much table space with impassable terrain is severely unbalancing. Furthermore, the Sanctuary power trumps the current deep striking rules because it states that if a Daemon enters play in the area of sanctuary it is destroyed. Rules as written overrule the BRB. If this is wrong, please feel free to speak up. I would love for nothing more than for someone to tell me that my army doesn't auto lose vs. Daemonhunters.

If they errata the rules to say that the bubble doesn't extend from a LR or that it can't be used while embarked, it would dampen the blow, but not by alot.

I remember when the Demonhunter book first came out. Everyone was all gaga over sanctuary and its possibilities. Fact is, no one does it.

As Hod said, god forbid demonhunters do their job. An army that is built with that set up is so specialized that it realy is only going to beat demons. Every army has a foil, nd fact is DH dont beat demons, unless they rely on LD8 inquisitors.

Sanctuary is not the end of the world for demons. Either your going to face them in the first round or not at all.

Darkness wrote:I remember when the Demonhunter book first came out. Everyone was all gaga over sanctuary and its possibilities. Fact is, no one does it.

As Hod said, god forbid demonhunters do their job. An army that is built with that set up is so specialized that it realy is only going to beat demons. Every army has a foil, nd fact is DH dont beat demons, unless they rely on LD8 inquisitors.

Sanctuary is not the end of the world for demons. Either your going to face them in the first round or not at all.

A four-LR DH army as described is actually quite capable of beating nearly anything. Land Raider FTW.

Just to re-iterate, but sustained attack is only applicable if you bring Grey Knights. An Inquisitor ally does not trigger the sustained attack rule.

Seriously, but the Inq in the center, flanked by landraiders. Caste up and shoot the bejeezus out of everything that shows up. Game Over.

If he deepstrikes within range of the Mystics, shoot the gak out of him. If he drops out of range of the mystics, shoot the close ones first and then shoot the farther stuff.

The 7 LR spam army that was being talked about for the 'Ardboys tournament was a DH army with Mystics in it. Already geared well enough vs Daemons and with a decent showing by Chaos Daemon armies in the tournaments, we may see Sanctuary spam as well as LR spam. Who knows? Even if you have sustained assault, the models that come back aren't able to count as scoring units and you give up crazy amounts of kill points... and the 7 LR army was designed to go against Ork spam. Daemons didn't even figure into the equation. It's an army list that was designed with the intention (whether or not it worked) to go against most standard lists (MEQ, horde, ork spam, Nids, whatever) and it just happens to have the ability to autowin vs. Daemons. Little bit imbalanced.

And the fluff of Daemonhunters hunting Daemons. That's like playing Marines versus Tyranids and getting tabled while someone tells you "It's fluff that Space Marines don't really stop Tyranids that often. Usually they just virus bomb the planet. You should have stayed on your ship."

I think I've contributed to the derailment of this topic enough. I'll stop now. Sorry.

Thanks for all your help guys, much appreciated!

Shaggoth wrote:The brokenness of Sanctuary vs. Daemons.

It lasts until the psyker moves or shoots. His unit can shoot and he can elect to not fire a weapon. Pop him in a LR and use the bubble. It measures 3inches out from the LR and the LR doesn't move. Daemons can't draw LOS through the area of Sanctuary so you can't fire at the LR or any of the units under it's umbrella. Also, you can't flamer him because you still need LOS to drop a flamer template. Line up your 4 LR with inquisitors in them within 6 inches of each other and you have a wall that's 3 feet long and about a foot deep that a Daemon can't move through or shoot into or past. For a deep striking army, the ability to deny that much table space with impassable terrain is severely unbalancing. Furthermore, the Sanctuary power trumps the current deep striking rules because it states that if a Daemon enters play in the area of sanctuary it is destroyed. Rules as written overrule the BRB. If this is wrong, please feel free to speak up. I would love for nothing more than for someone to tell me that my army doesn't auto lose vs. Daemonhunters.

If they errata the rules to say that the bubble doesn't extend from a LR or that it can't be used while embarked, it would dampen the blow, but not by alot.

Huh, that's somewhat interesting. The rules for Sanctuary state that you can't draw line of sight through the area of effect but say nothing about drawing line of sight into the area of effect. I bring this up because both 3rd and 4th edition were consistent about drawing that distinction for area terrain. That would still make it annoying, but not quite as ultra powerful.

Shaggoth wrote:And the fluff of Daemonhunters hunting Daemons. That's like playing Marines versus Tyranids and getting tabled while someone tells you "It's fluff that Space Marines don't really stop Tyranids that often. Usually they just virus bomb the planet. You should have stayed on your ship."

I play DH, and we are highly overcosted against any foe but daemons. I dont feel bad because I have the tools to beat daemons because I pay for it on every GK, Inquisitor and the like.
The good thing is that we are talking about a single build of DH; I have never bought Sanctuary for my inquisitors because my army desperatelly needs any point I can find to put more bodys on the table.

solkan wrote:
Huh, that's somewhat interesting. The rules for Sanctuary state that you can't draw line of sight through the area of effect but say nothing about drawing line of sight into the area of effect. I bring this up because both 3rd and 4th edition were consistent about drawing that distinction for area terrain. That would still make it annoying, but not quite as ultra powerful.

Exactly is where the chaos Deamon player can still use bolt on the landraider and have a decent chance of killing it. Not to mention a Deamon shooting army can still shoot the troops, it just makes for an army that is unable to be assaulted. Still in objective missions, it requires mobility and a moving landraider means a landraider without sanctuary since it the user immediately stops using the power as soon as he moves. Right there the landraider is now at the mercy of the deamons. Once again 1/3 of the missions (dawn of war) will only have 1 Inquisitor out there to cast sanctuary and that is one turn of vulnerability for the troops and landraiders.

thehod wrote:

solkan wrote:
Huh, that's somewhat interesting. The rules for Sanctuary state that you can't draw line of sight through the area of effect but say nothing about drawing line of sight into the area of effect. I bring this up because both 3rd and 4th edition were consistent about drawing that distinction for area terrain. That would still make it annoying, but not quite as ultra powerful.

Exactly is where the chaos Deamon player can still use bolt on the landraider and have a decent chance of killing it. Not to mention a Deamon shooting army can still shoot the troops, it just makes for an army that is unable to be assaulted. Still in objective missions, it requires mobility and a moving landraider means a landraider without sanctuary since it the user immediately stops using the power as soon as he moves. Right there the landraider is now at the mercy of the deamons. Once again 1/3 of the missions (dawn of war) will only have 1 Inquisitor out there to cast sanctuary and that is one turn of vulnerability for the troops and landraiders.

Trying to argue that shooting into is not the same as shooting through seems like the kind of rules argument that starts fistfights. Not that my trump card of simply declaring that the units in Chaos Daemons aren't listed in the Daemonhunter Codex isn't, but in a tourney situation, its quite like bringing a Siren Prince was.

Sanctuary: not a big deal, I tend to ignore land raiders and just waste all his other units first anyway, while he throws lascannons at my poor plaguebearers :( When a vehicle's greatest threat is a couple hurricane bolters (which you can just mosey out of rapid fire range of), I'm not gonna lose much sleep

Mystics: Lets talk worst case scenario here (someone let me know if I miss a more deadly combo I haven't thought up). First off, 4d6 will average in the area of what, 12"? Any of those big nasty vehicles like demolishers or basilisks, you can just drop out of that 45 degree firing arc, and yee-haw you're free and clear. Devastators with a big pile of plasma cannons? Psycannons out the wazoo? a Leman Russ, with his big fancy turret? They're ugly, I'll give you that. Just make him shoot through the inquisitor, or if he's hiding in a land raider, use it to block LOS from his shootiest squads. Remember, the more his units are bunched up to get the greatest variety of shooty units to use the Mystics, the more he'll be giving away cover saves. And if you get really desperate? go to ground. Sure, you give up your spreading out run, but unless he's already packing mean templatey weapons of doom, it may still be worth it.


Frankly, Null Zone upsets me easily as much as these two, and we'll likely see as much of that as we will Daemonhunter allies. A lone Librarian cruising around in a land raider with Null Zone makes me a sad panda

Centurian99 wrote:[Trying to argue that shooting into is not the same as shooting through seems like the kind of rules argument that starts fistfights. Not that my trump card of simply declaring that the units in Chaos Daemons aren't listed in the Daemonhunter Codex isn't, but in a tourney situation, its quite like bringing a Siren Prince was.

Nah, the easiest way to start a fight with a Daemonhunter player is asking them why they're even trying to play using a codex which still references 3rd edition deep strike rules. Did they get tired of playing their Kroot Mercenaries and Squats? :S