AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[jazman84]

@Battlefury

You make perfect points. Because the reality is: GW games aren't a subscription service. They're not MMO/MOBAs etcs. For them to make a buck, we need to buy more products. They don't want me to be successful with models I've had for 4 years plus. And I get that. They want me to buy more ******.

I had close to 5000 pts of BoK models prior to the book, and I wager most Khorne players were in a similar boat. We simply aren't their target consumer.

I'd love to know how many new BoK players they attracted with the new book. 

Edited July 14, 2019 by jazman84

[Battlefury]

22 minutes ago, jazman84 said:

@Battlefury

You make perfect points. Because the reality is: GW games aren't a subscription service. They're not MMO/MOBAs etcs. For them to make a buck, we need to buy more products. They don't want me to be successful with models I've had for 4 years plus. And I get that. They want me to buy more ******.

I had close to 5000 pts of BoK models prior to the book, and I wager most Khorne players were in a similar boat. We simply aren't their target consumer.

I'd love to know how many new BoK players they attracted with the new book. 

Thank you for being that honest!

From what I can say, in my local community we had 3 Khorne players. I am one of them, and then 2 more. Those 2 gave up on the army already, and one more guy came in for BoK. So we're like 2 now. But that one guy already switched to another army, wich is IDK, and just hold his Khorne models now for painting purpose. He isn't playing them anymore. So there is really just me, but I don't play anymore, as it is just frustrating.

[Xasz]

28 minutes ago, jazman84 said:

I'd love to know how many new BoK players they attracted with the new book. 

If they read this thread, probably none.

[jazman84]

25 minutes ago, Xasz said:

If they read this thread, probably none.

Hahaha

Don't get me wrong, I love Khorne because of the fluff, the idea of Khorne, the models look awesome and they are fun to model/convert  because there's pretty much no rules; cause you know, CHAOS!.

My own mistake is probably expecting too much from the Tome. I was looking forward to some period of strong stuff to play with that wasn't 30 Bloodletters in 2017. I'm not saying I wanted stuff like the newer books DoK, IDK, Skaven, FEC etc.

I mean things like -1 rend on Skullreapers and Blood Warriors, Skullcrushers and Mighty Lord getting Daemon keyword, reduced.cost on Blood Reavers and  a moving Bloodsecrator with none of this wholly within ******. None of these are game breaking. Just QoL stuff that make sense. 

[Xasz]

It's just... I get a lot of  you and I cannot refrain from typing out my frustration from time to time as well, but it gets old.

The problems with BoK can be considered common knowledge by now (i.e. no baseline for discussion anymore) and are not going away anytime soon. Therefore, you either move on from an army or attitude standpoint (i.e. acceptance).

Venting your opinion or frustration occasionally is fine and I'll most likely do that more frequent than I'd like to, but there are a couple of guys here that should just move on and switch armies. If for nothing else but their own sanity.

EDIT: As a side-note, I don't like overly and constantly sugarcoating things either.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Xasz

[Battlefury]

For me the lofical consequenc is atm, to switch to another game entirely. I do kind of have enough of the unprofessional business practice, that GW points out over and over again.

So I have sold my BoC, keeping my BoK, don't know what to do with those few SEC.

Done with the frustration, and I don't want to throw in my opinion over and over again. Because we know, we got screwed, as soon the "new" old book came out.

Cheers///

[MOMUS]

6 hours ago, Charleston said:

 

I will get a kit of Skullreapers/Wrathmongers today. I already have 1 of each and therefore with the new kit I can either play the Bloodforged or the Skulltake and Slaughterborn. Which of them is better in your opinion? 

I don’t really rate either, although I don’t rate many of the battalions. I only use them for the CP and deployment really, extra rules are a bonus.

Are you using the reapers second attack mainly on your bloodletters?

[MOMUS]

2 hours ago, Xasz said:

If they read this thread, probably none.

GW has a marketing department, we are not it.

This thread is for the debate and discussion  of the BoK book, if that involves critical feedback it’s GWs failure, not ours.

[Xasz]

4 minutes ago, MOMUS said:

GW has a marketing department, we are not it.

This thread is for the debate and discussion  of the BoK book, if that involves critical feedback it’s GWs failure, not ours.

That's not in the slightest my point.

[MOMUS]

Ok my dude, my reply was half in jest 

 

On a positivity note, BoK is one of the largest ‘new factions’ essentially combining bloodbound and daemons as well as having the STD and BoC units available. This is one of my favourite things about the army, I always have a new unit or character to paint/convert/build.

I feel some new factions have been really underserved by GW, they barely have more than a handful of units to actually play and here we are complaining they’re not balancing 30+ warscrolls.

I’m currently working on some skullcrushers, very tempted by a soul grinder as a big project.

Oh and if anyone is in the south west UK a new gaming venue + shop has opened in Weston-super-Mare, the games bunker has plenty of space upstairs and downstairs, pop down for a game!

[Darksteve]

10 hours ago, Troll.exe said:

My last game I ran reapers,

bloodsecrator, bloodstoker, 2x priests, skarr, bloodmaster(General)

2x 5 blood warriors

20x bloodletters 

5x wrathmongers

5x skullreapers 

6x mighty skullcrushers

skulls

Im still a little bit restricted with what I have available but managed to make do with the bloodmaster general just to get reapers and the bloodletters run with the wrathmongers and bloodsecrator to make them viable.

My opponent was Stormcast. He ran ballistas, evocators, sequitors, lord castellant and staunch defender etc. Formed up and I ran through him with ease in 3 battle rounds.

The game before that was 3k against nighthaunt. Chainrasps, grimghasts Lady Olynder, kurdoss, blackcoach, vampire lord allied in for the grimghasts. Guardian of souls etc, all the standard stuff. Nothing too scary.

I used much the same lineup, added more bloodletters, 20dogs, another bloodsecrator etc. Held the middle easily with all the anti magic. Almost tabled him, close on victory points though. 

 

I dont have any FEC, skaven, Slaanesh in my area so I’m yet to face them. Definitely going to be some painful lessons at some stage in the future lol. 

Looking at dropping the blood stoker, skullcrushers, bloodletters, bloodmaster for BoIR and WoKB that I’m working on currently.

 

 

 

The issue I've been having with Stormcast lists myself is that my big pieces like Bloodthirsters can get shot off the board before they hit combat.

On another note they did make sure that ROV doesnt work with all of Tyrants anymore. 

[kenshin620]

10 minutes ago, Darksteve said:

The issue I've been having with Stormcast lists myself is that my big pieces like Bloodthirsters can get shot off the board before they hit combat.

 

While it'll only protect one thrister and take up an artifact, maybe Ragged Cloak?

[Darksteve]

3 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

While it'll only protect one thrister and take up an artifact, maybe Ragged Cloak?

Its a good idea. Hopefully the one turn will be enough. Ill have to try it on the WOK thirster. IR always feels like he needs +1 to hit and Skar cant have it.

[whispersofblood]

I think this conversation typifies the difference between people play a faction because they love the faction and people who will play a faction they find a narrative appealing from a competitive mindset. If you are playing a faction competitively you accept that there are units, and combinations of units which are the best competitive load out, and the rest are irrelevant because they aren't fit for purpose. That purpose being for argument sake tournament gaming, and having the ability to win the majority of your games, even against the hardest loadouts. IMO Khorne has that ability. On the other hand if you are of the first set, you are going to struggle because you don't accept the premise that a tournament player will, some things just aren't good enough to be competitive with.

Personally I believe Khorne has all the tools of a top competitive faction, if does however have a lot of not useful warscrolls. Similarly the Battle Traits are not as straight forward as say HoS where its just a simple ability, and the Blood Tithe table is 100% a mechanism that requires immense skill, practice and experience to get the most out of. But I would argue that almost any summoning army requires more skill than people imagine, even HoS isn't just about summoning another KoS as soon as you have the Depravity points for it. I'm a bit of a Chaos fanboy and have played all the gods at some point so I have an interest in them all. I just haven't seen Khorne used to its full potential and often I find the play is just wasteful. 

[Bozly]

9 hours ago, jazman84 said:

@Battlefury

You make perfect points. Because the reality is: GW games aren't a subscription service. They're not MMO/MOBAs etcs. For them to make a buck, we need to buy more products. They don't want me to be successful with models I've had for 4 years plus. And I get that. They want me to buy more ******.

I had close to 5000 pts of BoK models prior to the book, and I wager most Khorne players were in a similar boat. We simply aren't their target consumer.

I'd love to know how many new BoK players they attracted with the new book. 

Im one of them. I play mostly dwarf factions. Havent played the new fyreslayers, but this army as compared to ko dispossesed and disspo heavy mixed order. This is so diverse. Just one game messin around with gore pilgrims and all the prayers i noticed how much  becomes available late game for khorne.  I was doing all kinds of funky movement shenanigans with blood tithe to sling shot fuckers onto objectives it was great. 

 

The thing i noticed too looking at the recent pro lists im curious why the negative comments about the book. I saw a comment saying they needed 3 blood thirsters to compete. The past 5 high ranking khorne lists i saw had 1 possibly 2 blood thirsters i didnt see any courts. The courts i saw were mostly mid range in the tournament almost like a weaker fec gristlegore. The better lists are all over the place. I have mortals models i found one list that won with gorepilgrims but a list i saw on a top table had a Demon prince with a sword of japan as the general and a 6 man unit of blood crushers (or whatever the demon version is called).

 

so as a new player to khorne im in I see an ocean of potential with this book. Im curious what you guys see

 

[Shad0wStormed]

Hi guys, been thinking about my second Khorne army idea and I want to try out flesh hounds and karanak. What would i take with them? And how do I use them effectively? Are they worth the points? Thanks in advance for any responses

[Darksteve]

1 hour ago, Shad0wStormed said:

Hi guys, been thinking about my second Khorne army idea and I want to try out flesh hounds and karanak. What would i take with them? And how do I use them effectively? Are they worth the points? Thanks in advance for any responses

I think fleshhounds are our best battleline atm and I believe Karnack is very good as well. Imo you use then as mobile screens for fast moving parts of the army like cav or BTs and to kill other screens

[Agent of Chaos]

Flesh hounds are the bomb and offer so much versatility.

Fast for nabbing objectives early or late.

Cavalry bases mean 5 of them can make a decent sized screen for more important units.

Each unit gives you another unbind opportunity (with +1 for units of 10).

Loads of attacks, great for clearing enemy chaff or ganging up on weak support heroes (who they can often reach with their speed to get around flanks).

Inbuilt reroll charge means you save command points and they are an excellent choice for summoning with two chances at the 9" charge.

High bravery means battleshock isn't an issue. 

Despite the above they pose a low threat to the opponent, for damage potential anyway, and so are often overlooked unless you suicide charge them.

And they are battleline!

Whats not to love???

[KhorgusCool]

Perhaps I missed it, I have been out of town, but it seems like the Slaughterbrute of Khorne has been removed from the Azyr app. Is it no longer available to be Khorne marked or do we think this is an oversight?

[MOMUS]

12 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

 

 IMO Khorne has that ability. On the other hand if you are of the first set, you are going to struggle because you don't accept the premise that a tournament player will, some things just aren't good enough to be competitive with.

Personally I believe Khorne has all the tools of a top competitive faction, if does however have a lot of not useful warscrolls.

I would say Khorne can be strong but we are simply not as powerful as the most competitive factions, they are just on another level.

If anyone is a new or old khorne player and wants to see an overview of factions within AoS I highly recommend watching  the honest war gamer.  He regularly does shows where he takes tournament results and complies them into a league table to see who is actually top

https://youtu.be/K0aLYf2GhpI

The link above is a GHB review with mark wildman ( a tournament player who recently has done well with Khorne).

 

The other thing that really matters is context, I always play 2000pts and GHB scenarios. Your views will always differ if your playing 900pts or 1500, home brew missions, intro games at the local GW etc as standard.

[whispersofblood]

4 hours ago, MOMUS said:

I would say Khorne can be strong but we are simply not as powerful as the most competitive factions, they are just on another level.

If anyone is a new or old khorne player and wants to see an overview of factions within AoS I highly recommend watching  the honest war gamer.  He regularly does shows where he takes tournament results and complies them into a league table to see who is actually top

https://youtu.be/K0aLYf2GhpI

The link above is a GHB review with mark wildman ( a tournament player who recently has done well with Khorne).

 

The other thing that really matters is context, I always play 2000pts and GHB scenarios. Your views will always differ if your playing 900pts or 1500, home brew missions, intro games at the local GW etc as standard.

So here is the thing about statistics. They are only representative of what is happening not what could or should be happening.

SCE are the perfect example of this. From a competitive pov (which is all that THG measures) if you are playing SCE you should be playing anti-meta, as in your build should counter that of your local meta,  it's the perfect toolbox to do that and also why its a hard army to take to a huge GT, like say LVO or Adepticon. On the other hand playing SCE as SCE (or trying to maximise your faction's on paper abilities) is actually kind of weak because the mechanics of the game don't give great returns on their narrative style. It's too highly a variable play style for use in a one off conflict. I can explain this more if need be.When I see SCE players doing well they are building counter-meta builds. 

How does this apply to Khorne? Simple. Khorne might not care from where the blood flows, but if you are a Mighty Lord of Khorne you sure as hell would prefer if it was the enemy army, not your army, and your army and not you own personal limited supply of blood. Yes 10 Blood Reavers give you 1 BTP, sure. But they are worth a whole lot more than that alive, so trading them as a speed bump + 1 Blood Tithe point (BTP) a priori in you mind is a losing strategy. Just the same way that as a HoS player I wouldn't ordinarily charge and think that Locus of Diversion will carry the day for me, or that summoning can do for me what I can't do with the models on the table. 

I think the proper mental shift around BTP is the same way that I think of Depravity points, as a reward for doing what I should be doing. But like most reward systems if you game the system you very quickly end up in a toxic place. I've lost games because I've summoned a KoS instead of 20 or 30 daemonettes, thinking that I can get even more depravity if I use the KoS well. That's the wrong attitude, my objective is the score enough points to win the game, not rack up as much depravity as possible in an attempt to summon more and cooler stuff. 

I still believe that Khorne's best build is some variety of MSU, mostly because the you still want to generate your resource, but also because it frees you from worrying too much about things like Battle shock, and gives you some defence against poor risk/reward assessments. For example Khorne can be very fast, but it is unidirectional, it moves forwards very fast, but can quickly outpace a) the things making it fast and b) the support structure that every AoS army needs to be powerful. Its how I usually beat Khorne armies, draw them out, run away/leave them on tiny islands of the board and beat up chunks of it. MSU limits by giving you smaller fractions to invest at a time, keeping your capital safe. 

The game is only sort of about killing stuff, but yeah Khorne likes to kill stuff. So we have a point of incompatibility here. I believe the book actually addresses this stuff, and how it addresses this stuff is actually why people don't like the warscrolls. Khorne units aren't that killy. Short of the BTIR the spike damage is actually pretty low, Khorne tends to run the line of decent durability, and decent offence. Which is hard to square away if you think Khorne is all about the offence. Which I don't think is true, they are aggressive but the same way that the Mongols were aggressive, they take ground quickly, make aggressive maneuvers, but the horse archer was a tank (in a longevity sense he killed enemies for a long period of time, and was self suffecient) as it was extremely difficult to pin them down and kill. Khorne is more traditionally durable, decent saves, numbers, and number of attacks per model. 

I think this is why I would push back against the Daemons are better argument. They are more obviously synergistic, but I'm not certain they are actually better at the game. Those synergies tend to focus on reliability, but focusing on reliability in an MSU build is not the right paradigm as MSU units are generally notoriously low damage, and therefor low threat. Where I find with mortals especially at min unit sizes have far more attacks, and the ability to push those numbers higher. The character support often focuses on giving the units the best platform to do damage. Skarr giving out 'No Respite' for example or Scyla's 8" pile-in move, the Stoker's whipped to fury buff, etc. Bloodthirsters are strong pieces, but I'm not certain they actually can carry the load of giving you the best platform to get points on the board. I think the BTIR is one of the best second wave models in the game, and a great defensive piece.

Edited July 15, 2019 by whispersofblood
more thoughts

[Battlefury]

@whispersofblood

Good sumamry, really like your approach though.

The issue with our army, at least what i see is, that we are an army of anvils, really.

As you mentioned, we are resiliant ( kind of, very dependend on unit choice ) and therefore potentially could play for opjectives.

In my experience, the reality looks alittle like this:

1. Have an army, that obviously is resiliant...a little bit ( Skullcrushers are good therefore and kind of "fast" )
2. Resiliant units are so expensive, they are few and therefore can't hold objectives against enemy units with more models, that do hit you ahrd ( Sequitors, Demonettes, etc. )
3. Switching those units to actual units, that are more numbers gives the resiliance instantly away.
4. Those are getting slaughtered on objectives far too easy

So where I am coming from is, that we don't have any hybrid, that is resiliant AND can do damage to even hold his resiliant point. That#s an inconsistency within the book imo.
The only unit I see, that is that hybrid, are Skullreapers. They are kind of good, but need a redn weapon deperately. otherwise they hit much, but don't do that good amount of actual damage.
It is correct, that we shuldn't play to destroy the enemy within melee, as we just can't do that.
But the essence is, that we have to be able to take and hold objectives. Just running there with big numbers and camp the objective won't work. If the enemy is already there, charging those with units, that have a lot of models, won't work either.
And then, as you told riht, we outrun our support. Wich basically is outrun even at the beginning, with that "wholly within" bollocks. Our small units often are just nor reliable, but when they're bigger, then outrange the support, by not being wholly within range then.

When the book released, I already saw it being flawed, because of the facts we all just mentioned. In the first weeks, people didn't understand why I was mad at GW. Now they do.

Of course, with that argument we won't go anywhere.

But why do we take this? This is an interactive hobby, with local and active communities. We are not dependent on GW's grace to give us rules.

Why don't we fix it on our own and balance it properly? I know we can do that, as a f**ckton of people do have a lot of experience. And to be honest, it is really easy to fix this book within a few steps.
Nowhere ever was written, that we can only play the game, by using the GW rules ONLY. We already buy their expensive models
( pricing is another discussion ), but we don't need to take what is obviously lousy designed.

Or would anyone of you buy a tricycle for 120.000€, just because it says "Mercedes Benz"?

Sry for being that ranty, but I donÄt know where to put the frustration at, as we jst can't blame our store managers, and GW itself won't listen to any of us.

[whispersofblood]

Honestly the best offensive tool in the book is multiple activations of models. I think people playing the army very expansively, that is to say they are unpacking and going after the opponent. When in reality I think Khorne excel at making the board very small, taking away room to maneuver and most importantly Khorne should always be doing things. 

So the first obvious thing is that Blood Tithe is in both hero phases, yours and your opponents. This is huge as it gives you the ability to get an affect early in the phase and start refilling the table through your opponent's turn leading into your own. 

Then we have command abilities like Valkia (Who is think is an excellent tactical piece and am frankly jealous of), who gives out debuffs to flying models (some of the most powerful models in the game) at 16" to their whole profile, Shooting and Melee.

Same with Skarr who can help mitigate the affects of things like Locus directly, but also make real issues for the opposing player. "Do I fight them first so they only fight once? But what does that mean for my other fights on the table?"

I like Skullreapers, they benefit from the same mentality I was discussing earlier, you want them to roll more dice to proc the MW dmg, and they are pretty good against the mob anyway. don't know if I would take them over something like say Skullcrushers but they do have a clear role, and a buff strategy.

Also, I like Wrathmongers for the same reason when paired with Skarr, they offer a real dilemma mentally to engage with, and again they offer a real diliemma. As the opposing player I want to kill them first to get rid of their aura, but then I let you activate them without using an activation, and potentially give you a BTP, and I might not kill them all, and they not only pile-in and attack the do MW to me. There is a long list of negatives, especially if I used a Locus of Diversion on them.

But, if you aren't actually leveraging these abilities properly then yes you units are on tiny islands getting swamped and killed by units with more easily defined benefits and synergies. 

Khorne is probably a faction that is best to start from a point of having zero models for it. Because, if I'm honest I find the Khorne daemons to be pretty garbage, which would match up with what you guys seem to be experiencing no?

[Smooth criminal]

On 7/13/2019 at 1:53 PM, whispersofblood said:

I have to be honest I'm very confused by Khorne's lack of success. It seems to have all the tools, and when I've played against them only having previous knowledge of the book has let me play against them well. 

Is it possible that the demographic that might be drawn to playing Khorne competitively are just too Khorne-like? Or does the faction inherently telegraph it's game plan making it easy to play against? Is there some sort of internal comp prohibiting players from building the true skew list for tournaments?

I'd like a really high level discussion, before jumping into points or warscrolls for a minute if possible. Maybe a discussion like this might help uncover places where you are struggling as opposed to where you have agreed the struggle is. 

Khorne has all the tools, but the they are spread around because of model variety so it's hard to make a cookie cutter competitive list.

Demons have the fight twice and strike first tools. Mortals have the important buffs and all the tankiness.

Even a simple concept like Tyrants list (the closest thing to nobrain power list we have) is hard to optimize because all the possible choices after taking the 3 thirsters.

 Meanwhile in FEC all existing units fit into 1 SC box for example.

The variety of the book backfired on the competitive side.

[Smooth criminal]

17 hours ago, Shad0wStormed said:

Hi guys, been thinking about my second Khorne army idea and I want to try out flesh hounds and karanak. What would i take with them? And how do I use them effectively? Are they worth the points? Thanks in advance for any responses

Check out the Karanak+WoK battalion. It has everything: the thirster general, the hounds battleline, the bloodcrushers hammer units. Probably should use the Reapers host.

Alternatively check out the battalion from Wrath&Rapture. It allows you to teleport Karanak and other stuff turn 1. Gimmicky, but can be fun army concept.