Tactica: Daemonic Incursion – Dogpile Deathstar!
By now we’ve all seen the rules for the new Daemonic Incursion, look how this new detachment can be used to devastating effect on the battlefield!
Inroduction
First, for those who do not know what in the warp I am talking about, lets do a quick re-cap and get you up to speed, a Daemonic Incursion detachment is one of the new “umbrella” or “decurion style” detachments that we have come to know and love, it is from the Curse of The Wulfen Campaign Supplement and it provides updated rules for using your Chaos Daemons. I have played Khorne Daemons for almost 10 years now so when I saw these rules I immediately started putting together and trying out lists.
This new Datachment has some very strong formations available within, I did a summary on the Murderhorde here that we will be using in my list below. using the Murderhorde as our Core choice we only need one Auxilliary choice to complete the Daemonic Incursion, for this I chose the Hunter Of Khorne, The Karanak and have added the support of two Daemon Lords, A Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage and Mr Be’Lakor. So lets have a look at the list and then we will discuss the tactics below…
Daemonic Incursion Detachment.
Murderhorde formation (core)
Herald of Khorne
– Lesser Reward (Axe of Khorne)
– Greater reward (D6 roll)
– Crimson Crown
– Juggernaut
– Exalted Loci of wrath
20 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
Hunter of Khorne (auxiliary)
Karanak
Daemon Lord (command)
Be’Lakor
Daemon Lord (command)
Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage
– Exalted Reward (grimour)
Total points
1850
Tactics
The Deathstar
Start with the unit of 20 Flesh hounds, anyone who has seen them on the table knows that they are fast, hard hitting and quite tough, especially when considering their (relatively) low points cost and the sheer number of them you can get in a single unit.
Then add The Karanak, for 120 points you get a Beast who not only contributes 7 attacks at Strength 6, Initaitive 6 but he also give the entire unit Rage, which is an additional 20 attacks on the charge if the hounds are still at full strength, he also has a unique collar that causes any psyker attempting to cast a power within 12″ to perils on any roll that contains any double! which in 7th edition is a major risk as players can often throw 4 or more dice at a single power.
Now add The Herald to the 20 Flesh Hounds, he contributes a further 7 attacks at Strength 6, Initiative 6, Ap 2, he also has a Crimson Crown that gives his every Khorne Daemon within 8″ a further +1 Attack! On top of this his Loci gives any Khorne Daemon unit within 12″ Hatred and this stacks on top of Karanak’s Loci of Rage! This is a lot of stacking benefits so lets look at a breakdown of potential attacks:
- Flesh Hounds have 2 attacks base, +2 for charging (Karanak’s Loci), +1 for the Crimson Crown, +1 for Escalating Bloodlust (Murderhorde Formation)
- = TOTAL 6 attacks each at Weapon Skill 5, Strength 5, Ap – , Initiative 4
- Karanak has 4 attacks base, +2 for charging (Karanak’s Loci), +1 for the Crimson Crown
- = TOTAL 7 Attacks at Weapon Skill 7, Strength 6, Ap – , Initiative 6
- Herald has 3 attacks base, +2 for charging (Karanak’s Loci), +1 for the Crimson Crown (debatable), +1 for Escalating Bloodlust (Murderhorde Formation) + 1 for the Juggernaut mount
- = TOTAL 8 attacks at Weapon Skill 7, Strength 6, Ap 2 , Initiative 6,
For an indication of the deathstar’s strength, not including the Herald and Karanak this death star charges with 120 attacks, to put that in perspective this would average 108 hits on anything WS 4 or lower, then a further 72ish wounds on anything Toughness 4. So even if the enemy had a 2+ invulnerable they would still take over 20 unsaved wounds…. While this is not Thunderwolf, Superfriends or Necron deathstar it is still a very strong and relatively inexpensive option that a lot of armies will struggle to deal with. Coming in at only 635 points.
The Support
The Bloodthirster uses his Grimour of true names to on the flesh hound deathstar so we now have a unit with 40+ wounds, a 3+ invulnerable save. The Bloodthirster then targets the hard armour in the enemy force, first priority is enemy walkers.
Be’Lakor casts Invisibility on the Bloodthirster, this will keep him alive a lot longer and will allow the Bloodthirster to continue to support the hounds with his Grimour, Be’Lakor is also very good at taking down vehicles with his Armourbane attacks, use his 2+ Jink save to keep him safe.
This is further supported by 7 units of 5 hounds who can corrupt and objective and then move on to the next and also tie up enemy units keeping your main killing force on course. These 7 units of hounds are very important as they will serve as “blockers”. The one thing that can really hurt that deathstar is an enemy walker, since the unit can not reliably hurt Av12 or higher. Normal vehicles will be no issue as they cannot lock you in combat and you will generally be strinking weaker rear armour, but walkers can give you headaches. So use your blocker hounds to scout ahead of the deathstar and block the bath any enemy walkers would need to make a charge, even if this means charging the walker themselves.
The other rules to remember
Do not forget units from this detachment do not need to remain sitting on an objective to claim it, they simply need to move within 3″ of it at any point in their movement, so use your Fleshhound units for this while the deathstar and FMCs attract attention and mess up the place! This is somewhat debatable as to at which point a unit actually controls an objective, from what I have seen the majority of players agree that you need to be within 3″ to control it, this formation is unique in that they do not need to end their move within 3″, they can “Drive-By Corrupt” objectives and still hold them at the end of the turn.
There is also potential with the Warp storm to boost the Deathstar to a 2+ invulnerable save if you roll a warp surge, which thanks to the Detachments ability to add or subtract 1 from your roll all you need as a 9, 10 or 11 on a 2D6 Roll which is surprisingly achievable.
Watch out!
Weaknesses
All lists have them, this list struggles against walkers and flyers, for walkers try to tie them up with your 5 man hound units or hit them with one of your FMCs, with flyers either wait for them to enter hover mode or simply ignore them, a zooming flyer cannot contest any of the objectives so they will not impact you too heavily unless you get the scour the skies objective card, in which case discard it ASAP.
Conclusion
So that is my take on how to make the Daemonic Incursion detachment as powerful as possible, It is still early days so I am sure more ideas will come to light. Let me know what you think of this list? is it too vulnerable to walkers? is it too powerful for friendly games? any feedback is good feedback guys 🙂
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Thanks for tuning in, Stay Bloody everyone!
