Let's chat : Blades of Khorne!

[Jaehaerys]

1 hour ago, Killax said:

Odd. I havn't found them to ever be easy to shot off, by large because I present more dangerous models (Bloodletters and/or Bloodsecrators and/or Bloodthirsters) and positionning them correctly is actually extremely easy the moment you run 30 man squads.
As before they are there to react the opponent, they are not the frontrunners. If SC now focusses on them, all fine, this means your deathstars arrive, versus Fyreslayers in particular I do expect to see a rise in Runeblokes on Magmadroth. All I can say is that they are the type of unit you will have to learn to play. When used correctly however you use your opponents strongest weapon against them.

As before Ive seen multiple TO's and tournaments allowing it, largely because there is no RAI to reconsider the RAW as it's as clear as ice that it doesn't refer to itself as a weapon that only shows up in 10 man units. Likewise RAI could be that the Champion doesn't carry the Goreglaive while it's accepted now that they can have it.
AoS still very much runs on the "it works exactly as stated unless stated otherwise" which is why now the Bloodsecrator (per latest FAQ) cannot stack anymore, however in the year(s) before it most certainly did. 

I've put one unit of wrath mongers into my list now with expected increase of bigger behemoths. What's best way to use ? Keep them back behind skull reaper or other mortal units waiting to pounce on the big general?

[Killax]

56 minutes ago, Jaehaerys said:

I've put one unit of wrath mongers into my list now with expected increase of bigger behemoths. What's best way to use ? Keep them back behind skull reaper or other mortal units waiting to pounce on the big general?

What I personally love is have them protect a flank/rear for Bloodletter bombs. Keep them close, have the Bloodletters shatter opponents under the buff of Bloodsecrator and Wrathmongers. There is no reason to not apply the exact same strategy with any of the mortal larger units offcourse. 

If indeed big monsters want to go into the bombs the Wrathmongers come out. If you also play a Bloodthirster then offcourse you can counter their bomb with Wrathmongers aswell while even buffing the Bloodthirster in certain cases.

I believe the key importance of playing them in general is to have them act as closeby regular Heroes while again presenting the opponent with a massive slew of other 'big issue units' with this I mean that opponents will want to hunt down the Bloodsecrator (and his loss is much less of an issue due to Wrathmongers), the Bloodthirster, the 'bombs' be it Bloodletters, Bloodreavers or Blood Warriors and then the one or two units of Wrathmongers simply become a bad target to focus too much upon, which in turn allows you to push through with their support and offense.

As before Im suprised they are largely ignored still  They have a 5+ save but in reality this is their only technical weakness because the new edition basicaly gave everyone a massive insentive to run either a couple of maxed units and/or Monster. Which allows you to have Wrathmongers dodge or interact with these masses very quick. They are very much a scalpel but with cheap Bloodletter bombs there is nothing that stops us from using them. Lastly they are relevant till the last Wrathmonger is killed.

I'll try to follow up with some pictures and tactica as soon as Ive finished my study (which should be this month).

Cheers,

[Infernalslayer]

4 hours ago, Fireymonkeyboy said:

Has anyone tried a Manticore Lord with Mark of the Destroyer?  Sounds choppy, but the prospect of turning a 250 point model into a 50 point one has me edgy.

FMB

 

Mark of the Destroyer can only be given to a Khorne Bloodbound hero so the Lord on Manticore will have to pick an artefact from the Murderous Artefatcs table instead that can be given to Khorne Mortals.

Imho though, even if you could equip him with it, Mark of the Destroyer  would not double the attacks of the Manticore as it is considered a mount, so you are stuck with the attacks of the Chaos Lord that possess no rend and would not worth the risk.

 

[Killax]

5 hours ago, Fireymonkeyboy said:

Has anyone tried a Manticore Lord with Mark of the Destroyer?  Sounds choppy, but the prospect of turning a 250 point model into a 50 point one has me edgy.

FMB

Nope, that in theory would be choppy indeed but it's also not possible (though imagne if it will be with that Forge World Khorne Dragon... damn! It likely won't though).

If we're talking 250 point characters though I'd again like to note that I think we'd all pretty much agree that the WoK Bloodthirster is a savage but make no mistake, the other two at 260 are EASILY as good if not better as a Chaos Lord on Manticore. It will indeed lack the invunerable save but have 2 additional wounds and easily cleaves enemies on that level apart. 

The beauty of it is that it makes the Bloodletter bombs better, who allready where very good. To me their discount feels like the Bloodthirster in itself gets another discount aswell because the two are peanutbutter and jelly. For the Ragethirster we can add additional attacks (and more), for the Furythirster we can do the exact same so however you kit him up, with these kits I'd be pressed to anyone at this moment willing to play Blades of Khorne is to have a darn good look at our Bloodthirsters.

Cheers,

[Fireymonkeyboy]

Fine, both of you just go ahead and crush my hopes and dreams with your sensible referencing of the actual rules . . . .

Don't have a BT, do have a lord on a Manticore - with sword and lance, as it happens.   Maybe Gorecleaver on the lance?  -2 rend on the charge, and 3 mortal wounds on a 6.  Not as efficient as the Juggerlord with the same weapond, but still good.

FMB

[Killax]

I agree Gorecleaver is always a solid pick. Plus either Slaughterborn and Violent Urgency are always solid picks on such a model, depending how aggressive you want to be with it

Have fun!

[Fireymonkeyboy]

3 minutes ago, Killax said:

 depending how aggressive you want to be with it
 

Oh I always want to be aggressive.  Now I'm looking for how to fit him in . . . 

[Fireymonkeyboy]

As an aside - are spawn still only marked Tzeentch?  Can we take one as Khorne-marked?  GH2017 shows it under Slaves to Darkness, not Tzeentch.

FMB

[Killax]

31 minutes ago, Fireymonkeyboy said:

Oh I always want to be aggressive.  Now I'm looking for how to fit him in . . . 

Thake some Wrathmonger/Skullreaper/Skullcrusher bits and your set for a big old bad ass.

3 minutes ago, Fireymonkeyboy said:

As an aside - are spawn still only marked Tzeentch?  Can we take one as Khorne-marked?

FMB

Yeah good one, really dont know, both entries apply? IDK

[ledha]

Refering to the goreglaive in bloodwarriors unit : It's obvious it's per unit and not per bloodwarrior/liberator/whatever in your army. It's in the freaking description of the unit itself (a unit have 5 or more models... 1 in every 10 models can take a goreglaive)

As the bloodforged bataillon : if you are fighting a full melee army, it's ridiculously good, with the rend-1 immunity (it's hard to find lot of rend-2 ) and the special ability, as well as it will be hard to shoot of wrathmonger if the ennemy don't have shooting unit to begin with

[Arkiham]

30 minutes ago, ledha said:

Refering to the goreglaive in bloodwarriors unit : It's obvious it's per unit and not per bloodwarrior/liberator/whatever in your army. It's in the freaking description of the unit itself (a unit have 5 or more models... 1 in every 10 models can take a goreglaive)

As the bloodforged bataillon : if you are fighting a full melee army, it's ridiculously good, with the rend-1 immunity (it's hard to find lot of rend-2 ) and the special ability, as well as it will be hard to shoot of wrathmonger if the ennemy don't have shooting unit to begin with

It's not clear.

 

And yeah 2 rend is hard to find, but when your army is rocking 4+ it's  it too greater issue for me tbh, might  try it out,

[ledha]

A unit description describe the unit itself. The 10 models are the models of the unit, not the models scattered in the whole army

[Killax]

18 minutes ago, ledha said:

A unit description describe the unit itself. The 10 models are the models of the unit, not the models scattered in the whole army

Its not called unit description but description for a reason, it goes beyond the unit, it always has applied for your whole army and because of that Khul for example recieved a change to his description within two weeks.

- a unit has 5 or more models (but can still be understrength)

- 1 in every 10 models may have a goreglaive (no reference to unit or size)

[misthv]

I think the give away for RAI is the word "instead", since it refers to replacement of the equipment that is eligible for the unit. BUT I agree the RAW is unclear (or actually pretty "clear"), and I don't feel this is a big problem!

[J.J]

53 minutes ago, misthv said:

I think the give away for RAI is the word "instead"

I agree, 1 in 10 models in your entire army can't be armed with a Goreglaive, only the Blood Warriors can.

As I'm finding out though, a lot of rules aren't completely clean-cut and are open to interpretation.

[Killax]

1 hour ago, J.J said:

I agree, 1 in 10 models in your entire army can't be armed with a Goreglaive, only the Blood Warriors can.

 

This much is obvious, it is the Blood Warriors description. However as before it applies to the whole army the way it is written.

1 in every 10 Blood Warriors can be armed with a Goreglaive instead of it's regular weaponry.
- It does not denote that it has to be 1 in every unit of 10 Blood Warriors. 
- It does not denote that other Warscrolls would have acces to it because they have their own description.

There isn't much vague about the way it is worded. Likewise we have Bloodletters who can have infinite Icon Bearers, meaning you will often use both in any unit, which in turn makes them so great.

What we do have is House Rules sometimes specifically stating otherwise. However there is nothing on the Warscroll or GH2017 that states Descriptions apply on a unit basis, they sometimes do and if they do it's specifically mentioned. Such as the Blood Warrior unit being armed with either X or Y weapon. 

[RuneBrush]

Wrathmongers are a really interesting discussion.  It was the first unit I picked up outside the Starter Set and I've run them in every army I've played.  I've found they either perform amazingly well - throw them into that combat Behemoth and watch it melt, or awfully and get tarpitted or shot off the table.  They do fall into the "almost mandatory" pot for me, but they really do hinge on good deployment, if you opponent protects their monster with a gunline, you're going to struggle.  One thing I would also say is that they have a fearsome reputation and as such you can use them as a psychological weapon too.  Put them on a flank and watch some opponents put everything they have on that flank to counter them.  (and yes they really need some mechanic that makes them less vulnerable to shooting - ignore ranged damage on a 5+ or similar)

Regarding the Blood Warriors description.  Think we're going vastly off track here, you need to read the warscroll description in it's entirety, not extracting sentences out of context.  It's one continuous paragraph.  If we did this for every warscroll, running three units of Skullreapers would allow you to cram three Spinecleavers into a single unit!  You need to look at the options in the box set too - remember what they did to Thunderers the other week?  Well that's clearly a line drawn in the sand with how they intend us to read the warscroll - "the box has one Goreglaive in, thus I can only have one Goreglaive" (yes I know there are a few exceptions to this, but it's a good rule of thumb).

GW have also said in the past that you cannot compare Warscrolls as they're not the same - you certainly can't compare the Unique character of Khul which has already had his warscroll changed three times!

[Praecautus]

So has anyone any experience with the slaughterbrute? I am looking at center piece options for my mortal khorne army (approx 2k) and considering this thing With the MLoK as its handler.   Whipping it would make it pretty scary with the reroll 1, plus it has the MW effect if handler killed which is a bit nasty.

but also interested in other center piece options too ?

[Killax]

3 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Wrathmongers are a really interesting discussion.  It was the first unit I picked up outside the Starter Set and I've run them in every army I've played.  I've found they either perform amazingly well - throw them into that combat Behemoth and watch it melt, or awfully and get tarpitted or shot off the table.  They do fall into the "almost mandatory" pot for me, but they really do hinge on good deployment, if you opponent protects their monster with a gunline, you're going to struggle.  One thing I would also say is that they have a fearsome reputation and as such you can use them as a psychological weapon too.  Put them on a flank and watch some opponents put everything they have on that flank to counter them.  (and yes they really need some mechanic that makes them less vulnerable to shooting - ignore ranged damage on a 5+ or similar)

Regarding the Blood Warriors description.  Think we're going vastly off track here, you need to read the warscroll description in it's entirety, not extracting sentences out of context.  It's one continuous paragraph.  If we did this for every warscroll, running three units of Skullreapers would allow you to cram three Spinecleavers into a single unit!  You need to look at the options in the box set too - remember what they did to Thunderers the other week?  Well that's clearly a line drawn in the sand with how they intend us to read the warscroll - "the box has one Goreglaive in, thus I can only have one Goreglaive" (yes I know there are a few exceptions to this, but it's a good rule of thumb).

To me Wrathmongers most certainly still are a mandatory competative piece for 2k  Especially now Bloodsecrators are less of a point filler for our armies, as the Wrathmongers can also do that job partially. A lot of player seem to miss out what happens if they actually die. A lot of lists Ive seen floating around on the forums include some incredible Monster Heroes now, my lists included  

Last note on the Warscroll, if you read the description you see 1 in 10 Blood Warriors gets one. There is no note to that being required in one unit. If you buy the box you also have the option to run two units, which in turn would still allow you to run 1 unit of 5 with a Goreglaive, while the other doesn't have it.

2 hours ago, Praecautus said:

So has anyone any experience with the slaughterbrute? I am looking at center piece options for my mortal khorne army (approx 2k) and considering this thing With the MLoK as its handler.   Whipping it would make it pretty scary with the reroll 1, plus it has the MW effect if handler killed which is a bit nasty.

but also interested in other center piece options too ?

Have tested it and it's a certain cool centerpiece, but as above, Wrathmongers generally are more supportive and what I'd call the more flexible choice. If you do want to have a big Khornate centerpiece you really cannot go wrong with any of the Bloodthirsters now. While I'd certainly say that they still should be your general any Bloodthirster general is a piece to be feared.

[RuneBrush]

5 minutes ago, Killax said:

To me Wrathmongers most certainly still are a mandatory competative piece for 2k  Especially now Bloodsecrators are less of a point filler for our armies, as the Wrathmongers can also do that job partially. A lot of player seem to miss out what happens if they actually die. A lot of lists Ive seen floating around on the forums include some incredible Monster Heroes now, my lists included  

Like I said, I've run them in pretty much every game I've ever played so they're pretty much mandatory for me too.  What I would say is that today's "must have" isn't always going to be the case.  With the tasty discount in horde units, we're seeing an increase in chaff being brought to the battlefield and if they get bogged down with chaff, Wrathmongers can quite easily be kept away from where they're meant to be - plus most chaff is on a 25mm base, that's a lot of bonus attacks you grant your opponent

---

6 minutes ago, Killax said:

Last note on the Warscroll, if you read the description you see 1 in 10 Blood Warriors gets one. There is no note to that being required in one unit. If you buy the box you also have the option to run two units, which in turn would still allow you to run 1 unit of 5 with a Goreglaive, while the other doesn't have it.

You're taking that one sentence out of context (and only part of it).  You need to read from the beginning of the paragraph which is talking about this unit, not other ones in the army.

Quote

1 in every 10 models may instead be armed with a Goreglaive.

That doesn't make sense on it's own.  Instead of what? You need at least the preceding sentence.

Quote

Some units of Blood Warriors take to the battlefield with a Goreaxe in each hand, while others prefer to use a single Goreaxe so that they can also carry a Gorefist. 1 in every 10 models may instead be armed with a Goreglaive.

The instead relates to replacing either a Goreaxe in each hand or a single Goreaxe and Gorefist.  Those options relate to a unit being equipped which means the 1 in 10 has to apply to that unit - otherwise "instead of" just simply doesn't make sense.  Could you read it in the way that would allow you to spread Goreglaives around however you fancy?  Of course you can, but you could equally read into many rules like that.  In order to do what you want to the rule would say "1 in every 10 models in your army may instead be armed with a Goreglaive".  Completely get where you're coming from but just don't think that what you're thinking is the way it's currently written.

[RuneBrush]

On an unrelated note, I've just read through the FAQs for Chaos and noticed the Bloodsecrator banner has changed quite a bit on the battleshock front!

Quote

Rage of Khorne: Add 1 to the Attacks characteristic for melee weapons used by friendly Khorne units while they are within 18" of any models with this ability. In addition, do not take battleshock tests for friendly Khorne units while they are within 18" of any models with this ability.’

So this means

- we cannot opt to take a battleshock test for Bloodletters within range on the off-chance we roll a 1 for extra Bloodletters 
- it only affects friendly Khorne units, we don't get a benefit from our enemies banner!

[Killax]

Bloodsecrator certainly changed on many levels, only for the better though, along with Sayl, Skyfires and a bunch of other units that where indeed extremely good and not only a single mandatory pick but almost certain a multiple mandatory pick if you had that option.

I believe that the Bloodsecrator is indeed designed this way with Bloodletters in mind also. In addition Bloodletters offcourse also got more expensive as minimum unit, which is another reason to run 30 or none at all (basically). The old wording allready had us covered in terms of mirror matched though... As per old variant of the Warscroll:

Quote

This ability affects all KHORNE units in your army... etc.

However there are also some things I don't get yet.
1. I would like to know why Bloodcrushers are now more expensive as Skullcrushers and worse in practice on all fronts.
2. I would like to know why Skullreapers went up to 180 as opposed for example 160. As they are now in direct competition with Wrathmongers and really the latter wins out due to utility.
3. I would like to know why the Aspiring Deathbringer with Goreaxe and Skullhammer went up 100. It might be somehwat better as the regular variant but not so much? If at all?

Please don't see the above three questions as complaints, as I do fully like this set up with viable Bloodthirsters more as the previous one where Bloodthirster use was a whole lot more sketchy. It's just that I don't understand certain very particular changes all to well.

In that same vein I do believe that the design team indeed saw that Valkia was a very good Hero hunter and that ability likely wasn't planned for BoK as such I understand that increase and on the other side Skarr is very much claiming skulls for Khorne with his ability so in that narrative sence I also very much agree with his cost decrease.
 

[misthv]

I now officially love wrathmongers, effectively countered a Lord-Celestant on Dracoth and two Concussors yesterday. Because of this, and because I love BT model I made some changes to my Bloodband Warband. I now made the MLoK general to make use of the charge ability early game. Threat saturation is kind of nasty in this list. Haven't really made up my mind re what BT to use, or what Artifact (for now I protect the secrator, but I could easily give the BT an Artifact/Power...). 

 

 

 

[Louzi]

Would you plz explain how it is possible not breaking allegiance by taking the bloodmarked warband?

Gh2, page 116: an army can have a specific allegiance if all starting units AND warscroll battalions in the army have the keyword for the allegiance.

Gh2, page 117: all units in a warscroll battalion are considered tohave the allegiance noted above the title on the warscroll.

The title on the warscroll of the bloodmarked warband is everchosen, not khorne...

[misthv]

12 minutes ago, Louzi said:

Would you plz explain how it is possible not breaking allegiance by taking the bloodmarked warband?

Gh2, page 116: an army can have a specific allegiance if all starting units AND warscroll battalions in the army have the keyword for the allegiance.

Gh2, page 117: all units in a warscroll battalion are considered tohave the allegiance noted above the title on the warscroll.

The title on the warscroll of the bloodmarked warband is everchosen, not khorne...

Last sentence! This is from BoK book, but similar can be found in all new books from GW.