AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[Battlefury]

He cleary just sacrifised that reaver units for BT points and to summon stuff. There will 100% be some demon units, that he used, as he summoned units.

[ChaosUndivided]

There was 2x10 Reavers. You require 3 battleline Gore Pilgrims is 1 - 2 units of Reavers. I mean it makes sense why they are there in list. Im sure he did sacrifice them either with his Priest or just as likely road blocks to stop advancing hammers for a turn while you nuke them with blood boil or Thirsters.

But of all the battalions Gore Pilgrims is kinda most generic lack luster one now. Funny thing it that all the stuff in it, besides, Reavers are actually good on their own now.

Although Loathsome Sorcery is good and extended Rage range is nice, Gore Pilgrims best strength is it gives you 3 Priest, the Secrator, and your battleline in 1 drop, thats it. Everything that put in work (Thirsters, Priest,  Reapers) are gonna do well with or without any bonus from Gore Pilgrims.

[phizzco]

Can I get an explanation on the "drop" mechanic? whats the significance?

[shoutenraku]

40 minutes ago, phizzco said:

Can I get an explanation on the "drop" mechanic? whats the significance?

During deployment, you can put down a battalion/unit. Since deploying a battalion allows you to put down multiple units at one go, you benefit from finishing deployment first and getting your choice of going first or not by reducing the amount of drops you need.

However it depends on your opponent's amount of drops as well and your opponent may have more strategic drops as they can deploy counters e.g tarpit units for your hammers since you rush out your deployments for the benefit of going first.

Edited April 26, 2019 by shoutenraku

[TradeMark]

Hi folks my name is Mark, old fantasy player getting back into AoS. I play Chaos Warriors and daemons plus I found Blades of Khorne stuff relatively cheap so picked up some. 

I’m excited to play them and wanted to introduce myself on this thread.

also two small questions, the Magore’s Fiends and the Garrek’s Reavers, are those just obtained in the reavers and warriors box? Or are they a specific kit? And Riptooth, that’s just a black blood hound right? He doesn’t have a specific kit?

thank you all, may the blood you spill forever stain your axe. 

Edited April 26, 2019 by TradeMark

[Sneeto]

I think a small tweak or fix for reavers would be that they change up frenzy devotion. Make it easier for them to get their totem bonus attack. Wholly within 16 is tough for a big blob of reavers. If the extended range of gore pilgrims portal of skulls affects their frenzy devotion that’d be great. That way you get your 3 attacks per model much easier.

maybe that would make them too good though....

 

[Sneeto]

Just now, TradeMark said:

Hi folks my name is Mark, old fantasy player getting back into AoS. I play Chaos Warriors and daemons plus I found Blades of Khorne stuff relatively cheap so picked up some. 

Mom excited to play them and wanted to introduce myself on this thread.

also two small questions, the Magore’s Fiends and the Garrek’s Reavers, are those just obtained in the reavers and warriors box? Or are they a specific kit? And Riptooth, that’s just a black blood hound right? He doesn’t have a specific kit?

thank you all, may the blood you spill forever stain your axe. 

Welcome fellow aspiring deathbringer.

both sets can be obtained from the Warhammer underworld/shadespire boxes. Riptooth comes in Magore’s fiends. Alternatively you can “count as” any fleshhound easily 

[TradeMark]

1 minute ago, Sneeto said:

Welcome fellow aspiring deathbringer.

both sets can be obtained from the Warhammer underworld/shadespire boxes. Riptooth comes in Magore’s fiends. Alternatively you can “count as” any fleshhound easily 

Oh ok. I got the shadespire starter, is that Garrek? 

Thanks.

[Sneeto]

Yes that is Garek and the band!

[phizzco]

10 hours ago, Sleboda said:

In this battle me other heroes were Skarbrand, Wrath of Khorne, and Insensate Rage, so no command abilities that could work with his.

what were your battleline?

[MOMUS]

7 hours ago, ChaosUndivided said:

Thanks @Warbossironteef that was the army that took 2nd place i was talking about.

I was looking for this list. Im kinda suprised, not cuz of Thirster + Skull Reapers or that its mostly mortal with Reapers of Vengeance host but the Blood Warriors and Reavers. I did not see that coming. I mean most of us here have agreed for awhile Blood Warriors are actually good now but still surprising to see them now making it into top armies. But Reavers? Ok they are cheap, and they are bodies you can throw at the stuff you dont really want to fight, and i guess x10 of them do some amount of damage? I guess just any 70 point thing that fulfils a requirement is good enuff some times.

Interesting thing about a mostly mortal army with a deamonic war host is all the things you summon get benifit from the host.

Edit: Warriors and Reavers make sense if your running Gore Pilgrims, i guess thats what suprises me. But it is still a great way to fit your whole supporting cast into a single drop.

It's a very similar list to something I ran a few weeks ago, team event (came third).

Gorepilgrims is just cheap access to another artefact, all the units within are ok but mainly used for chaff. That's also the reason why it's reapers of vengeance although mainly mortal, the thirsters do all the heavy lifting. Skullreapers are a good addition as they require little support to be effective and don't crumble.

[Grimrock]

Got a battle in with Archaon tonight. Gore pilgrims for support, an Aspiring Deathbringer with hydroxskin cloak to keep up with archaon, bloodstoker, wrathmongers, skullreapers, and the hexgorger skulls. I was up against skaven with a bunch of nasty stuff... warpseer, bell, cannon, vortex, plague monks and furnace, hellpit, and clanrats for battleline. 

Won't go into too much detail, but Archaon with double pile in, +2 attacks to all weapons, +1 to hit, reroll 1's to hit, reroll all wounds just... destroys everything. Took out 40 monks and the furnace in one round of combat (and used the furnace to heal), killed an allied lord of blights and 40 clanrats the next turn, capped objectives, and killed the cannon. He was just untouchable. Also as a side note, skulls kicked the magic phase in the junk. While they were up I don't think my opponent got a single spell off. Great game.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Grimrock

[Praecautus]

Had my first battle with the new tome last night. Won star strike 20+ to 9ish. I played a Mortal Khorne list v legions of Nagash with Arkhan the black.

My list (see below) was my usual gore pilgrims plus alter and hexgouger skulls. I am pleased how it did as I expected it to fold with the new rules. Things I learnt

Daemon prince in this set up is a fast blender. In one round he moved 24 inch and made an 8 inch charge on arkhan and dealt 21 MW over his 2 pile ins. My opponent had to react or he wound have lost a hero a turn. Result arkhan gone and a load of good stuff aimed at a 160 point model.

Gore pilgrims is still useful. I can drop all my support and most of my troop units in 1 drop. It’s cheap and gets an artefact. 

Loss of battle shock immunity is not an issue. My list is light on command point uses and I can use inspiring presence.

Hex gouger are useful for board control, but didn’t get any 8s. 

Mageaster should have gone on a priest and not the prince. 

Skull reapers are immense. I need to tweak the list to get to 10.

I was rolling in blood tithe (4-5 a turn) and found the tithe table more useful, weirdly I didn’t summon a single daemon. 

Blood warriors are great and reavers have a viable spot. My strategy relied on feeding small units into his bigs units in sequential turns so they could not move while other stuff claimed objectives.

 

Reapers of vengeance 

Daemon prince - Mage eater and blade of judgement

Priest x3 (1 each of frenzy, skin and sacrifice)

Stoker

Secretor - skullshard

2x10 blood warriors

4x10blood reavers

5 skull reapers

Khorgorath

 Warshrine (resanguination)

 

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Praecautus

[MOMUS]

Next lists I'm working on for a tournament is probably going to be tyrants of blood with murder host this gives me two drops while being very flexible with the units I can choose.

Still tempted by manticore Lord, so could do tyrants, gore pilgrims and manticore, max out a unit of warriors to make the most of the command ability but I think it suboptimal compared to reapers instand double attack ability.

I hope the bloodbound mortals get some points drops in the next GHB.

[MOMUS]

On 25 April 2019 at 2:13 AM, ChaosUndivided said:

Thats interesting now that you mention it, you're right. I never hear anything about France. I hear UK, USA, Australia, Sweeden, and just recently Canada. I see they make battletomes in French tho so their must be a market there and players.

I think AoS is really just picking up now. All pre 2.0 feels like beta. I have to say i think GW did an excellent job promoting 2.0 and it was very well recieved, most people liked the new direction of game and rule changes. I seen a number of 40k players make the switch to AoS scince Soul Wars.

You don't hear a lot about other European countries tournaments because they mainly didn't adopt AoS, WHFB was massive across Europe they were heavily involved with the WHFB ETC style of play so decided to stick with that and that's how they created the 9th age project.

AoS 2 is a great product, looking back it makes the original launch look a bit of a shambles, no lore, no core book, no magic and no points. It's easy to see why so many were put off.

[Sleboda]

4 hours ago, phizzco said:

what were your battleline?

Three units of five Flesh hounds.

[TheArborealWalrus]

Howdy! I've been a lurker around here for a while now, and a devotee of the blood god for far longer than that.  I seek the advice of this council.  I mostly use the bloodbound occasionally supported by Khornate beasts of chaos.  I'm also going to put out a short blurb of my thoughts on the issues I bring up too.
 

Spoiler

 

The issues that have been plaguing me are thus :

2:  Hordes/chaffing. Not a problem that's been too bad, but with the increase in skaven players I've been running into it a lot more. Hacking through 40 wounds of battleshock immune chaff to get at the dangerous bits, whilst great fun, does make for quite the pickle for my men on the ground. Simultaneously they are also inconveniently standing  between my men and those tasty objectives. Very kind of them to offer their necks, but we did come to the field with a purpose. Besides "hit harder" and hope for a long bomb charge to get around I haven't quite found anything that neutralizes them yet. How have my fellow lords been dealing with these eager beavers and their more dangerous kin?

3: Longer range shooting: Not  a problem that I've been running into a lot, but I see it as a potential pit fall. Assuming that I don't get a double turn and my opponent is cunning enough to kite away from my units/behind more chaff I don't see many effective ways to handle them. Even the relatively limited range of 24" is farther than you often think. Between warp lightning cannons, skyfires, and those stormcast ballistae there are a number of potential dangers from shooting. to think about. The hero phase move (I don't have my book with me for the name) or our own cannons seem like the only options I can think of to counter a cunning use of shooting. Of course there's always the hide behind terrain trick, but hiding? Here? Bah! Perhaps I've missed something else?

4: Summoning: Seems like everyone and their mother gets the ability to summon these days. Besides just murdering the heroes that let it happen (often a feat in and of itself) it can be quite the challenge to handle. Especially from beasts of chaos and legions of nagash who can squirrel away their respawners in the corner somewhere. This one I feel would be especially helpful to the young bloods. Nagash is easier to counter since they have to come from those gravesights, so as long as you storm them then you're golden (a lot more challenging then I make it sound), but beasts can pop up anywhere on the edges. How have the warhordes been dealing with the nefarious summoning?

 

Spoiler

5: Being too damn pretty: I mean, just look at us. Fine looking models with conversion opportunities everywhere. Lots of details and concurrent model ranges to take from and black red and gold is a beautiful color pallet. Too many cool things you can do.

 

[Kaz]

15 hours ago, Sleboda said:

In this battle my other heroes were Skarbrand, Wrath of Khorne, and Insensate Rage, so no command abilities that could work with his.

Ahhh, so you were using him more for his combat potential... yeah I think it’s better to do that than try to build around his command ability. So this was a Tyrants of Blood+Archaon? Were your Bloodthirsters and Archaon a sufficient hammer? And what was your Slaughter Host? 

3 hours ago, Grimrock said:

Got a battle in with Archaon tonight. Gore pilgrims for support, an Aspiring Deathbringer with hydroxskin cloak to keep up with archaon, bloodstoker, wrathmongers, skullreapers, and the hexgorger skulls. I was up against skaven with a bunch of nasty stuff... warpseer, bell, cannon, vortex, plague monks and furnace, hellpit, and clanrats for battleline. 

Won't go into too much detail, but Archaon with double pile in, +2 attacks to all weapons, +1 to hit, reroll 1's to hit, reroll all wounds just... destroys everything. Took out 40 monks and the furnace in one round of combat (and used the furnace to heal), killed an allied lord of blights and 40 clanrats the next turn, capped objectives, and killed the cannon. He was just untouchable. Also as a side note, skulls kicked the magic phase in the junk. While they were up I don't think my opponent got a single spell off. Great game.

Interesting. So it seems Archaon is very potent with our Khorne bois. Still haven’t got him yet, though I’ve noticed nobody really use his command ability, which now that I think about it, actually makes sense... 

2 hours ago, Praecautus said:

Had my first battle with the new tome last night. Won star strike 20+ to 9ish. I played a Mortal Khorne list v legions of Nagash with Arkhan the black.

My list (see below) was my usual gore pilgrims plus alter and hexgouger skulls. I am pleased how it did as I expected it to fold with the new rules. Things I learnt

Daemon prince in this set up is a fast blender. In one round he moved 24 inch and made an 8 inch charge on arkhan and dealt 21 MW over his 2 pile ins. My opponent had to react or he wound have lost a hero a turn. Result arkhan gone and a load of good stuff aimed at a 160 point model.

Gore pilgrims is still useful. I can drop all my support and most of my troop units in 1 drop. It’s cheap and gets an artefact. 

Loss of battle shock immunity is not an issue. My list is light on command point uses and I can use inspiring presence.

Hex gouger are useful for board control, but didn’t get any 8s. 

Mageaster should have gone on a priest and not the prince. 

Skull reapers are immense. I need to tweak the list to get to 10.

I was rolling in blood tithe (4-5 a turn) and found the tithe table more useful, weirdly I didn’t summon a single daemon. 

Blood warriors are great and reavers have a viable spot. My strategy relied on feeding small units into his bigs units in sequential turns so they could not move while other stuff claimed objectives.

 

Reapers of vengeance 

Daemon prince - Mage eater and blade of judgement

Priest x3 (1 each of frenzy, skin and sacrifice)

Stoker

Secretor - skullshard

2x10 blood warriors

4x10blood reavers

5 skull reapers

Khorgorath

 Warshrine (resanguination)

 

 

10 Skullreapers seems best. Same with Wrathmongers, 10 also seem optimum. Do you think taking 15 Skullreapers is too excessive? I’m considering testing that in my next game. 

For your original list, I do feel the 4 Bloodreavers units could be downsized a bit (maybe to 2 units?), in exchange for more hammer units, noticed that you’ve only got a Daemon Prince, the 5 Skullreapers and the Khorgorath. In this case, taking 10 Skullreapers would be a good idea. Personally, I think taking 2 units of 5 seems best so they can run around killing things quite freely

1 hour ago, MOMUS said:

Next lists I'm working on for a tournament is probably going to be tyrants of blood with murder host this gives me two drops while being very flexible with the units I can choose.

Still tempted by manticore Lord, so could do tyrants, gore pilgrims and manticore, max out a unit of warriors to make the most of the command ability but I think it suboptimal compared to reapers instand double attack ability.

I hope the bloodbound mortals get some points drops in the next GHB.

Which Bloodbound mortals do you think should get points dropped? I feel Skullcrushers should get dropped. Skullreapers are great, tho I still feel they should get dropped a bit. Blood warriors imo could use a tiny drop. Bloodreavers feel ok where they are. Juggerlord definitely should get dropped tho. Same with khorgies.

I wonder if anyone feels that Wrathmongers are undercosted? 

As far as Slaves to Darkness are concerned, After reading this thread enough, the Daemon Prince seems great. 

Id say Manticore Lord is best if you’re playing Goretide specifically, for the command trait. While reapers would do more damage because of command ability, I do think there’s the opportunity cost of using that command point, while the Manticore Lord can keep his for more “utility” command abilities like the Goretide one.  

 

[TheArborealWalrus]

Also wanted to run a list by you all. I normally use the slaughterborn with my blood warriors and sort of just grind down the enemy (and generate as many blood tithe points as I can) until I or they are dead (usually both), but I wanted to try messing around with my beastmen. I had tried to use a large blob of bestigors once, but that didn't work out very well, so here's mark II. The bulls and their support staff (BS, 1G, 1SP,& 1Wm (so much support!)) grab a flank and end whatever is silly enough to fight them while the SR +Wm+ Chaff grab another flank Bestis go wherever and just muck around on their own, The skull grinder is a human missile launched at heroes while the ML serves as a distraction carnifex/anti morathi type things, using the torc to survive long enough to maybe use the axe. A good number of holes in the plan, but it seems okay. Really not sure about the prayers on the second priest, and I'm not happy with the # of drops. Thought about dropping the bestigors for the wrathmonger battalion, but I like the idea of free floaters who are there to plug holes. As long as I can stay focused enough to not go ballistic at the enemy if they give me first turn, the drops shouldn't be too big of a deal.
 

Spoiler

 

2,000pts Goretide

190pts - Brass Despoilers 

- 120 ptst - Doombull - General :Hew the Foe

-160pts - 10 x2 gors -shields

- 320pts - 6 bullgors - 2 handed axe

- 120pts - 10 betigors

140pts - Mighty lord of Korne - king slayer torc

140pts - bloodsecrator

200pts - x 2 slaughterpriests - killing frenzy, resanguination

80pts - skullgrinder - mark of the destroyer

70pts - 10 blood reavers - axes

280 pts - 5 x 2 wrathmongers

180pts - 5 skullreapers

          145 wounds, 10 -14 drops

 

 

[ChaosUndivided]

@MOMUS agree with everything you said. It was pretty obvious to me that Vengeance host with the 2 Thirsters was the main point of that whole list. Gore Pilgrims like you said does give you access bto cheap artifact but i guess what im trying to say about Gore Pilgrims is that - its good largely because you get a whole cast of characters who perform well with or without a battalion and you get battle line requirements so it just doesnt feel like tax. I try to point out that yes Reavers are chaff (not really for blood sacrifice) Chaff is good. Blood Warriors make even better chaff.

And yeah that makes sense that EU still prefer WHFB so we're not hearing as much from there. 

[Smooth criminal]

4 hours ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

The issues that have been plaguing me are thus 

Khorne has a universal tool to deal with chaff in blood tithes.  You charge and kill chaff, then use blood points to charge whatever is behind them or get to objective in the opponent's hero phase.

Shooting is generally a problem without clear answer. I think our best tools are goretide run+charge and use of slaughterborn battalion or skullcrushers for that high save.

I think the only problematic summoning is from LoN, since they can bring back huge bricks. Other factions bringing back understrength units will just give you more blood tithes. Just don't position in a way that they can tag and bog down your big units with a corner charge.

[Smooth criminal]

7 hours ago, Grimrock said:

Got a battle in with Archaon tonight. Gore pilgrims for support, an Aspiring Deathbringer with hydroxskin cloak to keep up with archaon, bloodstoker, wrathmongers, skullreapers, and the hexgorger skulls. I was up against skaven with a bunch of nasty stuff... warpseer, bell, cannon, vortex, plague monks and furnace, hellpit, and clanrats for battleline. 

Won't go into too much detail, but Archaon with double pile in, +2 attacks to all weapons, +1 to hit, reroll 1's to hit, reroll all wounds just... destroys everything. Took out 40 monks and the furnace in one round of combat (and used the furnace to heal), killed an allied lord of blights and 40 clanrats the next turn, capped objectives, and killed the cannon. He was just untouchable. Also as a side note, skulls kicked the magic phase in the junk. While they were up I don't think my opponent got a single spell off. Great game.

Aside from the lack of strike first ability Archaon does seem like the best single damage dealer we have.

With 5 attacks hit 2+ rr 1s and full reroll wound on the sword it's extremely easy to get two 6s and delete opposing monsters for free. And he can get up to 3 combats per turn with cp ability and blood tithes.

Ironically there doesn't seem to be a good use for his CP ability.

[Grimrock]

1 hour ago, Smooth criminal said:

Aside from the lack of strike first ability Archaon does seem like the best single damage dealer we have.

With 5 attacks hit 2+ rr 1s and full reroll wound on the sword it's extremely easy to get two 6s and delete opposing monsters for free. And he can get up to 3 combats per turn with cp ability and blood tithes.

Ironically there doesn't seem to be a good use for his CP ability.

Yeah in the last book you could build for it but with the changes to timing on most command abilities it's pretty useless now. I'm assuming he'll get an update around the next ghb or when darkoath/everchosen drop to make it work. Something like everyone gets to use a free command ability this turn or like thanquols ability but hopefully a bit stronger.

[Praecautus]

@Kaz agree with the thoughts in the skull reapers. In fact I am picking a box up on the way home from work tonight.

[Kaz]

1 hour ago, Praecautus said:

@Kaz agree with the thoughts in the skull reapers. In fact I am picking a box up on the way home from work tonight.

Sweet! Enjoy putting them together, they’re my favorite kit to assemble and paint!

Also guys, I’ve got a balrog I want to convert into a Daemon Prince, but I heard from some players that we can’t bring Lord of the Rings stuff into Warhammer games, especially tournaments, what are your thoughts on the matter? In friendlies, it’s perfectly fine, but not too sure about tournaments. 

And for Skullcrushers, if 6 dude units are so expensive, what do you guys think about using 3 dude units instead, as kind of an expensive roadblock? Maybe dump Bronzed flesh on them and tie up a big clanrats blob or something (in my case my crushers took forever to die and managed some surprising casualties against the rats)