Killing Grey Knights with Daemons - Part 3 (d): Fast Attack.

So far we've covered HQ's, Elites and Troops.

Now onto the Fast Attack section,

Flesh Hounds of Khorne.

They're 'Beasts' so they're fast which is just what we want in the Fast Attack section, lol. They have some of the standard Daemonic issues namely a rubbish save (5+) and a lack of anything that has the effect of Assault Grenades but that's not exactly uncommon now is it?
So in addition to the required speed they also are T4 and come with Furious Charge so are both Initiative and Strength five on the charge. At a Weapon Skill of 4 they'll be hitting Grey Knights on 4's so need all the attacks they can get. That combined with 3 attacks a piece on the aforementioned charge makes them a threat through sheer number of attacks rather than the quality of those attacks as they have no Power Weapon or Rending type abilities as standard.
One Flesh Hound can be given the 'Fury of Khorne' upgrade to give that single model Rending but it's unlikely to make any difference. I once 'rended' an arm of a Dreadnought with it but that was it's only success in 30 games.....

They have two additional features of note though,

Firstly they come with the Daemonic Gift 'Blessings of the Blood God' which gives them a 2+ save Vs. Psychic powers and Force Weapons and Secondly a single unit can be upgraded with Karanak.

For 35 points one Flesh Hound gains a point of Weapon skill, a point of Strength, an extra attack, a 4+ inv. save and the 'Fury of Khorne' and 'Instrument of Chaos' gifts. Though these are all useful in their own way the main reason for taking him is that he gives his unit 'Move Through Cover' which widens our deployment options considerably.

As with the majority of our other single wound choices I'd never take Flesh Hounds in less than 10's and would prefer 12's if at all possible, Karanak is also a useful upgrade if you have the points.

A standard unit of 10 with no upgrades charging a 'standard' unit of Grey Knights should work like this,

30 attacks, 15 hit, 10 wound, 3.33 dead Grey Knights after 3+ armour saves.

The majority of the surviving Grey Knights attacks should bounce off our 2+ 'Anti-Force Weapon' save enabling us to finish off a combat squad next round or tar-pit a 10 man unit for quite a while. As usual stay away from anything that has 'Dark Excommunication'...

Furies of Chaos.

For exactly the same points as a Flesh Hound (15) we get Jump Infantry instead of Beasts with one less point of Weapon Skill and Initiative and no Furious Charge. There's a reason nobody uses these and it's not just that the models are awful ;-)

Moving On...

Screamers of Tzeentch.

They're Jetbikes with Meltabombs that suck at everything other than being a flying Meltabomb

Moving On.....Again.....

Seekers of Slaanesh.

They're to all intents and purposes mounted Daemonettes which in game terms makes them cavalry. Unfortunately, unlike pretty much everything else in 40K that's a rider on a mount they don't get any additional Toughness. As expected their Strength is only 3 as well which makes them (like Daemonettes) reliant on Rending to do the actual damage but having 5 attacks each on the charge makes the chance of getting those Rending rolls fairly high. They do however come with 'Aura of Acquiescence' which gives them both assault and Defensive Grenades but are the most expensive of our Fast Attack options at 17 points each.

We'll give them the same test as we gave the Flesh Hounds with a unit of 10,

50 attacks, 25 hit, 8.33 wound, 2.78 dead Grey Knights after 3+ saves, Of those 25 hits we should get 4.2 Rending hits from which the 'standard' Grey Knights will not get a save. However, this increase in damage over the Flesh Hounds must be weighed against their lower Toughness which obviously will result in higher casualties. If these girls were Toughness 4 they'd be perfect.....unfortunately their not.....

In Conclusion.
Flesh Hounds of Khorne seem to be our most effective and efficient choice in a balanced army list. Something like this,


Fast Attack: Flesh Hounds of Khorne (10#, 185 pts)
   9 Flesh Hounds of Khorne @ 185 pts
      1 Karanak, Hound of Vengeance

Or this,

Fast Attack: Flesh Hounds of Khorne (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Flesh Hounds of Khorne @ 150 pts

Though as I mentioned earlier I prefer units of 12 or more myself.

Next I'll cover both of our Heavy Support choices before looking at tying all this information together into something resembling an army list or two

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.