AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[Xasz]

I don't really care for Khorne in this edition but the new scenarios scream big blob of infantry even more than the last ones to me. Due to the downfall of Fatesworn, Khorne should be one of the best factions (within chaos) for this now. I prefer Blood Warriors over Chaos Warriors because they are more synergistic than their undivided counterpart, but there is an argument for the MW protection. Although they are a lot less killy in return.

Summoning will only be used to drop small units on objectives late in the game or not at all. I highly doubt that it's worth it, to plan the list around summoning. At least not in its current form

Quote

Allegiance: Khorne

Leaders
Bloodsecrator (140)
Slaughterpriest (100)
- Blood Blessing: Bronzed Flesh
Slaughterpriest (100)
- Blood Blessing: Bronzed Flesh
Slaughterpriest (100)
- Blood Blessing: Bronzed Flesh
Lord Of Khorne On Juggernaut (140)
- General
- Trait: Violent Urgency 
- Artefact: Gorecleaver 
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (160)
- Runestaff
- Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
- Allies

Battleline
30 x Blood Warriors (520)
- Goreaxe & Gorefist
- 3x Goreglaives
10 x Bloodreavers (70)
- Meatripper Axes
10 x Bloodreavers (70)
- Meatripper Axes

Units
1 x Chaos Warshrine (160)
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
- Blood Blessing: Resanguination
5 x Chaos Knights (160)
- Chaos Glaives
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne

Battalions
Gore Pilgrims (200)

Fancy Spells
Balewind (40), Soulsnare Shackles (20)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Allies: 160 / 400
Wounds: 143
 

I believe that the predatory spells are a trap and the utility spells are the ones it's really about. The former provide the opponent with way too much counterplay and interaction.

I wish I could fit in the palisade as well but besides the lack of points, 3 spells might be too much of an investment for a single wizard

Second artifact will be Brazen Rune or the the Lens from the realm artifacts, if the latter will be a thing in matched play.

[Rumblefish]

I like every part of that except painting 30 Blood Warriors.

If you did Chaos Warriors they would just be sword and board?

[TheAdequateWargamer]

Depends on the build, but id probably go with halberds to spam out attacks from two ranks deep, or the great/double handed weapons for the rend.

[Scrags]

Has anyone run the mega battalions? I wish the core units were better. Just getting into Khorne so I don't really have enough experience with Skullreapers to say if they're worth their points. 

I'm temped by the Skullfiend Tribe one but I don't think a Skulltake is worth the points even minned out. Not sure though. 

[Xasz]

6 hours ago, Scrags said:

Has anyone run the mega battalions? I wish the core units were better. Just getting into Khorne so I don't really have enough experience with Skullreapers to say if they're worth their points. 

I'm temped by the Skullfiend Tribe one but I don't think a Skulltake is worth the points even minned out. Not sure though. 

The Goretide was played before GHB 2017, before the battalion costs just skyrocketed.

There might be a resurgence, due to Khorne now lacking options and a small point decrease.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Xasz

[kozokus]

On 6/29/2018 at 4:12 PM, Killax said:

Fun times at GW. Fun times indeed. Is this how Death felt when GH2017 curbed them into nothingness? Is this how Destruction feels since end of GH2016?

Shame on you. I don't recognize your spirit here. This new thread is a shadow of the old one. I saw a ton of theorycraftshit and absolutely zero battle report and game analysis. 

I do have a vastly different opinion, based on a few real testing : the summoning table is a thing and the aspiring deathbringer is a very cool new toy.

[Scrags]

10 hours ago, Xasz said:

The Goretide was played before GHB 2017, before the battalion costs just skyrocketed.

There might be a resurgence, due to Khorne now lacking options and a small point decrease.

Interesting, what options are we lacking now? Sorry probably a dumb question but I though that 2E just helped us with summoning. To be fair I'm coming from a Khorne Mortals perspective. Maybe Bloodletter balls were the meta before. 

I know Gore Pilgrims went up and was really popular, is it unplayable now?

[Xasz]

12 minutes ago, Scrags said:

Interesting, what options are we lacking now? Sorry probably a dumb question but I though that 2E just helped us with summoning. To be fair I'm coming from a Khorne Mortals perspective. Maybe Bloodletter balls were the meta before. 

I know Gore Pilgrims went up and was really popular, is it unplayable now?

I think Gore Pilgrims is still the go-to battalion for Khorne.

It counteracts some of the bigger issues of Khorne (Bloodsecrator range, inconsistency of priests, ranged combat), at least to some degree. It has not wasted/tax units and the point increase is manageable as the other battalions are pretty much strictly worse. (but I wouldn't be too surprised if someone figures a Goretide or Archaon/Khorne list out)

That being said, Khorne has some major issues with the new edition. A lot of the new fancy stuff cannot be easily integrated into our armies and our summoning is rather constrained and more a small gimmick than a full fledged feature.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Xasz

[Scrags]

10 hours ago, Xasz said:

I think Gore Pilgrims is still the go-to battalion for Khorne.

It counteracts some of the bigger issues of Khorne (Bloodsecrator range, inconsistency of priests, ranged combat), at least to some degree. It has not wasted/tax units and the point increase is manageable as the other battalions are pretty much strictly worse. (but I wouldn't be too surprised if someone figures a Goretide or Archaon/Khorne list out)

That being said, Khorne has some major issues with the new edition. A lot of the new fancy stuff cannot be easily integrated into our armies and our summoning is rather constrained and more a small gimmick than a full fledged feature.

That makes sense, I figured Gore Pilgrims would still be a staple  

I'm surprised to hear that Khorne is having issues in the new edition. I thought our summoning mechanic was pretty solid. Granted we can't do full blood factory anymore but even just with a few instances of Blood Sacrifice I figured we'd at least be able to crank out a few units. 

I've been thinking about running a reaver heavy list with dark feast. It's a bit of a gimmick but I think I'm onto something mirroring Skaven Pestilens with my Chaos Warshrines. 

Has anyone tried it before? How does it perform? 

[Agent of Chaos]

I wouldn't say Khorne is having issues in AOS2 as few of us have played many/any games yet, however based on what we know so far...

Gorepilgrims has got to be the main battalion. 4+ to cast prayers is just too unreliable so that reroll is gold and obviously extending the banner range is invaluable. The Battalion and the Bloodsecrator increased 20 points each however since the battalion also grants a command point, worth 50 points, I think we can live with this. 

As I see it our allegiance ability is thematic and has loads of potential however is being poorly executed by GW. We already know from AOS1 that generating substantial blood tithe points isnt easy, often requiring a list specifically written for generating it which comes at the expense of melee power such as priests with Blood Sacrifice instead of Killing Frenzy or small units of Blood Reavers taken for no other purpose than to die. Straight away this takes us away from the essence of Khorne, a blood thirsty melee army. I acknowledge that Blood Letters being called to the battlefield via the sheer amounts of carnage is thematic but it shouldnt come at the expense of that carnage. We shouldnt have to choose between being a melee army or a summoning army. 

Although in principal summoning is great, at low tithe levels it is weak (5 Blood Letters aint gonna do much) and units arrive in the movement phase so no buffs to hit, charge, etc which most Khorne units need to be truly effective. Certainly you could save up tithe so you can summon 20 Blood Letters or a Blood Thirster but that will take you 3-4 turns, meaning the allegiance ability has provided zero benefit to the army for 2-3 turns of the game. Plus if the summoned units dont make the charge on the turn they arrive and aren't marking an objective thats another turn with essentially no benefit from the allegiance ability. 

As another kick in the guts, our summoning is at the expense of the regular blood tithe abilities which is not the case for other summoning armies who can summon while still benefiting from their allegiance abilities (Tzeentch's fate dice being unaffected by their summoning as one example, Slaanesh Host rules unaffected by Depravity Points being another). Again we are forced to choose between the tithe abilities which can be incredibly effective and game clinching, or the summoning, which has the potential to be critical to success however also pretty useless if charges are failed and units are too small to survive getting charged next turn. But why is this so? Why do we have to choose when other summoning armies get the best of both?

Finally, once an endless spell is successfully cast, only a Wizard can use it or dispel it, forcing us to take an un-thematic wizard in our list taking up a valuable hero slot (and no doubt incurring Khorne's wraith) or basically hoping our unbinding is enough to stop endless spells in the first place. No doubt we have a ton of unbinding options however only a few of those options get a bonus to the roll, many casting armies will use the spell portal to stay out of the 30" range anyway and anyone who has attempted to unbind against Tzeentch (fate dice + casting bonuses) or Nagash (+5 to cast) will know this isn't the best of strategies to rely on... 

[Scrags]

Yeah I think I'm with you, thanks for the breakdown  

dispelling is for sure an issue, I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that. I play a potentially strange list that features lots of priests. (Often two Chaos Warshrines in addition to Gore Pilgrim or Dark Feast priests) so I feel like Blood Sacrifice might be a decent way to generate points.

I like flesh hounds as a summon personally. 3 points for 10 wounds and 10 attacks with decent movement seems pretty good to me. I understand and agree that I wish our summoning and buffs used different resources  

 

[Xasz]

3 hours ago, Scrags said:

That makes sense, I figured Gore Pilgrims would still be a staple  

I'm surprised to hear that Khorne is having issues in the new edition. I thought our summoning mechanic was pretty solid. Granted we can't do full blood factory anymore but even just with a few instances of Blood Sacrifice I figured we'd at least be able to crank out a few units. 

I've been thinking about running a reaver heavy list with dark feast. It's a bit of a gimmick but I think I'm onto something mirroring Skaven Pestilens with my Chaos Warshrines. 

Has anyone tried it before? How does it perform? 

The problem is that Blood Tithe is a flawed system to the core (I made a longer post a couple pages ago why that is the case). With a couple small tweaks it could have been a lot more flexible and enjoyable to play with but GW decided to just nerf factions that received summoning (except Nurgle) and let the game run its course until GHB2019.

It doesn't help that Khorne was declining before 2.0 and except the general rule changes, which everyone benefits from, there is not much going Khorne's way.

Maybe somewhere between all this there is the one and only meta breaker Khorne list, but I don't see it. 

[Roark]

9 hours ago, Scrags said:

I like flesh hounds as a summon personally. 3 points for 10 wounds and 10 attacks with decent movement seems pretty good to me. I understand and agree that I wish our summoning and buffs used different resources  

I really like them too for 3pts. And free, from Karanak. I hope you'll also be pleased to know that they have 20 attacks.

[Sehryth7]

I haven't seen the realm artifacts yet but are there any powerfull ones we could potentially base a list around? 

[Praecautus]

Fellow skull collectors, I intend not to give up on khorne in this edition. However, I am at a loss as to how to build my list for this edition.  So seeking advice on what list to build. Would rather not buy new units yet as I have enough on my plate to paint (well maybe a box, certainly no more than 2 or so...)

I have the following

Daemons

WoK blood thirster

Daemon prince

Herald of khorne on foot

10 blood letters

Skull cannon

Mortals

Mighty lord of khorne

Lord of khorne on juggernaut 

3 priests

Blood secrator

Blood stoker

aspiring death bringer

2 exalted death bringers

skull grinder 

Valkia the bloody

Skarr bloodwrath

40 reavers

20 blood warriors

5 skull reapers

5 wrath mongers

2 gore chariots

chaos warshrine

3 khorgorath

3 skull crushers

Allies

Gaunt summoner

Chaos sorceror

 5 blight kings

Balewind

 

Help me TGA you are my only hope!

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by Praecautus

[NemoVonUtopia]

38 minutes ago, Praecautus said:

Fellow skull collectors, I intend not to give up on khorne in this edition. However, I am at a loss as to how to build my list for this edition.  So seeking advice on what list to build. Would rather not buy new units yet as I have enough on my plate to paint (well maybe a box, certainly no more than 2 or so...)

I have the following

Daemons

WoK blood thirster

Daemon prince

Herald of khorne on foot

10 blood letters

Skull cannon

Mortals

Mighty lord of khorne

Lord of khorne on juggernaut 

3 priests

Blood secrator

Blood stoker

aspiring death bringer

2 exalted death bringers

skull grinder 

Valkia the bloody

Skarr bloodwrath

40 reavers

20 blood warriors

5 skull reapers

5 wrath mongers

2 gore chariots

chaos warshrine

3 khorgorath

3 skull crushers

Allies

Gaunt summoner

Chaos sorceror

 5 blight kings

Balewind

 

Help me TGA you are my only hope!

 

You could start with the gore pilgrims battalion and add the aspiring deathbringer, one of the lords of khorne, wrathmongers, additional bloodwarriors (from memory the gore pilgrims requires 2 blood ravers and 1 bloodwarrior) to have 2 units of 10 and you should have enough points to add in some of your other units 

I also reccomend trying out some of the lesser battalions like red headman that you already have models for to add some variety.

 

[Praecautus]

38 minutes ago, NemoVonUtopia said:

You could start with the gore pilgrims battalion and add the aspiring deathbringer, one of the lords of khorne, wrathmongers, additional bloodwarriors (from memory the gore pilgrims requires 2 blood ravers and 1 bloodwarrior) to have 2 units of 10 and you should have enough points to add in some of your other units 

I also reccomend trying out some of the lesser battalions like red headman that you already have models for to add some variety.

 

Thanks gore pilgrims seems like an obvious choice, maybe with a wizard ally and then summon daemons in.

I think I have too many heroes and i can no longer see wood for the trees ?

[ledha]

I played a Goretide list against Fyreslayer. Was nearly tabled in two turn. The movement speed bonus is good but not enough bodies nor attack to go trough those stupid vulkites and this army-wide reroll wound.

Played a gore pilgrim against a LON army. Won, but mostly because of the inexperience of my opponent.  3 slaughterpriest, one MLOK on juggernaut, 10 bloodwarriors, 10 chaos knights, 3x5 skullreapers, 2x10 bloodreavers, 3 slaughterpriest and a chaos warshrine. Good board presence, impact (no one like chaos knights with 2+/2+/-1/2), but i'm still cursed by bad dice roll (i think i failed 6-7 prayers each turn, even with rerolls). Seems still efficient.

I'm considering maybe dropping the MLOK for a bloodstocker and karanak, but having a ultra tanky, magnificent and efficient general is very cool (and he never disappointed me)

I'm considering taking a Skulltake too,, but in chaos grand alliance. I don't think slaughterpriest are good outside gore pilgrim (too unreliable),and while the bloodtithe is good, when you have so many skullreapers, the +1 to hit on a 5+ could possibly make them hilarious. Still need to test it.

Edited July 3, 2018 by ledha

[TheOtherJosh]

@Praecautus A Flying Daemon Prince Of Khorne with one of the either Daemon or Realm Artefacts has potential.

They’re not summonable and the +1 to hit on either the sword or axe is pretty nice. 7 attacks total ... and a possibility up to ~24 wounds with really lucky dice...

[Pathies]

Anyone had a chance to try verdant mantle?? I know it’s not as exciting as the other realm artifacts but I like the fact that it allows you to at least interact with endless spells beyond trying to unbind them when cast

[Keith]

I cant fit the Gore Pilgrims in anymore so I'm just gonna kill stuff.

Well hopefully kill stuff and then bring some new stuff on.

 

Allegiance: Khorne

Leaders
Wrath Of Khorne Bloodthirster (320)
- General
- Trait: Immense Power
- Artefact: The Crimson Crown
Bloodsecrator (140)
Slaughterpriest (100)
- Blood Blessing: Blood Sacrifice
Slaughterpriest with Hackblade and Wrathhammer (100)
- Blood Blessing: Killing Frenzy
Slaughterpriest (100)
- Blood Blessing: Killing Frenzy

Battleline
30 x Bloodletters (320)
5 x Flesh Hounds (100)
30 x Bloodletters (320)

Units
3 x Skull Cannons (450)

Total: 1950 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 128

[Praecautus]

8 hours ago, TheOtherJosh said:

@Praecautus A Flying Daemon Prince Of Khorne with one of the either Daemon or Realm Artefacts has potential.

They’re not summonable and the +1 to hit on either the sword or axe is pretty nice. 7 attacks total ... and a possibility up to ~24 wounds with really lucky dice...

A flyer would be handy to take out the pesky heroes hiding at the back. 

Maybe something like

Prince

Blood secrator

Priest

Priest

Gaunt summoner

Skarr

Blood reavers

Blood warriors

Blood warriors

Gorepilgrims

Other stuff to 2k

endless spell and or bale wind

 

It will be a lot of drops and I feel odd not having blood stoker and a third priest or even trying the aspiring death bringer. 

On plus side 

decent anti magic

ability to remove endless spell

some tithe built in

lots of bodies

I like gore pilgrims a lot

Summoner can bring 10 blood letters on each turn via realm gate for free

some of my other models could make up for the missing heros eg the shrine

 

 

Could be the starting point and then modify it 

Edited July 4, 2018 by Praecautus

[Biboune]

Hi,

I don't have to new general handbook and i am not sure to get some changes right:

According to the warscroll builder, are the Flesh Hound a battleline unit?

Karanak can summon 5 flesh hounds for free if he is within 8" of is prey?

 

[Xasz]

11 minutes ago, Biboune said:

Hi,

I don't have to new general handbook and i am not sure to get some changes right:

According to the warscroll builder, are the Flesh Hound a battleline unit?

Karanak can summon 5 flesh hounds for free if he is within 8" of is prey?

 

Flesh Hounds are battleline-ifs when the army has Khorne allegiance.

Yes, Karanak's summoning is for free.

[Biboune]

That is nice, they used to be batteline if Karanak was general, it was a shame to loose the general's trait on a named character (when you could have Slaughterborn on an Insensate Rage BT). 

I always like full daemon lists based on fast attack units. The only issue left is the bloodmaster required in the Skullseeker battalion: i think it is a mistake that should have been fixed by now...