AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[TheArborealWalrus]

Reports from a one day tournament we had Sunday before last(2 weeks ago).  Keep in mind, this was pre points tweaks, ect. We did make the terrain restrictions 3" though for sake of balance.

My List: Khorne, Skullfiends tribe

Spoiler

 

- Slaughterborn 

Exalted deathbringer with spear + mark of the destroyer(+2 attacks)

3x5 blood warriors

3x5 skullreapers

- Blood Thirster of insensate Rage + general, crowncleaver(+2 attacks)

- Bloodsecrator

- 2 x slaughterpriests + killing frenzy, bronzed flesh

- 2x5 wrathmongers

 

Battle 1: Vs FEC, Starstrike

Spoiler

 

Opponent's list:  FEC, Blisterkin (or something like that)

- 2 x Arch Regents + general, fly spell, + wounds to movement spell

- 2 x crypt infernal courtiers

- 2x9 crypt flayers

- 2x10 crypt ghouls

 

I did my usual 2 bunkers of pain strategy around the center by my altar and he deployed opposite me in one mighty blob. I  still don't have any real strategies against my opponent using chaff screens against  me, but I knew the urge to use that ridiculous speed would work against him, so I chose to go second. He restrained himself and only sent forth a ghoul unit to obstruct my way, otherwise remaining where he was. In response I buffed up the thirster and just sort of shuffled forward, purposefully leaving a small enough gap to my thirster to be seen as a mistake. Just to see what he could do I threw the exalted at the ghouls and he killed them all with his bonus mortal wounds. Not bad, a little lucky, but still. We rolled off and he won it while the meteor fell right next to my deathbringer. He went and picked one of my castles to attack, but he couldn't resist getting at my thirster ( one base could fit in against thirsty) and stuck a dude in there, drawing in part of the second castle. The ghouls took the central objective but refrained from attacking the deathbringer. Two vargulfs were summoned to support the flayers and then it was combats. the overall result was 5 warriors, 5 reapers, 2 wrathmongers, and 8 wounds on the thirster for 10  flayers and 3 wounds on one of the infernals . We did manage to wipe out the one unit in contact with the second castle. Then it was my turn. It was rather all downhill from here, so I'll speed this along. I killed the second group of flayers and boiled the infernals to death while the deathbringer played with the regents. Also the ghouls were obliterated. I won the roll off and threw the reapers who took the central objective at the regents who managed to catch and kill them both while some blood warriors went to my meteor and the damaged castle stood in the way of the vargulfs. Result Khorne major victory.

Battle 2:  VS Seraphon, Battle For The Pass

Spoiler

 

My opponent's list: Seraohon

- Formation made up of saurus guard and their papa

2x20 saurus guard

5 saurus guard

Eternity warden + respawn artifact

- slann + general, cogs

- skink starseer (something like that) + cloak that lets him pray

- Engine of the gods

- 6(9?) kroxigor

 

I deployed in the center, essentially having one defensive triangle formation. The rear guard would hold my home base while the two wings would split and take the sides, hopefully punching through to his home objective. He sort of blobbed up, not really caring about formations or anything. He chose to go first and set up cogs and teleported the warden and one of the big units onto the central objective while the engine got a free unit of 20 skinks onto the other one.  The krox made their way down the center. I had few options but to march forwards so that's what I did. With my runs I would still have been out of charge range (man do you deploy far away from those central objectives now) and so I had absolutely no response, even the thirster couldn't have made it. My opponent won the roll off and chose to go first, teleporting the second unit of guard and the priest/seer at my back lines while switching cogs to increase movement/charge. He also summoned 10 skinks on his back line. The saurus got blessed wit -1 to be hit and charged in as did the kroxigor. The overall result was 8 dead guard, 3 dead warriors ( 2 front, 1 back) and all the kroxigor were slain. My turn, the unengaged units collectively advanced and made charges against all their targets.5 reapers, 5 mongers, the thirster and the deathbringer made it to the 20 guard at the middle while 5 reapers and 5 mongers made it to the skinks. 20 dead skinks, a total whiff from all of my units against the 2+ rerolling saurus, killing only 2 (so few mortals *cries*), 1 dead reaper, 3 dead mongers, 10 wounds on the thirster and 3 on the deathbringer. The rear saurus were annihilated in return. Turn roll off. If I won this, I could come back(in time) by grabbing his home objective and killing his heroes. Which means that I of course lost the roll off. In vengeance (although I would have done it anyways) I had the reapers pile in and attack, killing 16 of those silly saurus guards. Too little too late however. He summoned 4 units of 10 skinks to get between me and his home base and move the 10 he had before to take the right from me after killing a monger with mortals. Teleported his now solo heroes onto home base too. He scored and I couldn't win in time. Probably could have in the long run, but 2 hour tourneys, oh well. I went for kill points, but the only thing I could fight worth points was the engine and my reapers absolutely whiffed against it. was a sad moment for them. Did kill 24 of the skinks though. Result Seraphon major victory.

Battle 3: Vs HoS, Knife to the Heart
 

Spoiler

 

My opponent's list: Slaanesh, god seekers

- Beastman formation

shaman

3x10 ungors

4x10 bestigor

- 2 x keepers of secrets

- mirror twins

 

 I did my standard thing and he had a small chaff + bestigor group on the left while the rest of his army formed a formation against me He had me go first which was mostly just me re-shuffling my formations to better face his line. His turn he threw a bestigor unit at my lines to see the impact but otherwise shuffled about as well.  The bestigor did nothing and were all killed. I won the roll off but though I was too far away to properly reach his keepers so I had him go first. He slammed both keepers against a formation each and enraptured the reapers from both blocks. Unfortunately my thirster was too far to help. Or perhaps fortunately considering how this went. He went with his general first and it spiked hard. 15 mortal against my reapers, plus the normal damage, wiped them out instantly, although the warriors made out of it very well considering. I had the other blood warriors go and they did 4 wounds to her, not terrible. In return she did 10 mortals to my reapers and killed the warriors over the 2 pile ins. The general wiped out the warriors on its next pile in. Suffered 6 mortals from murdering my boys, the other suffered 2. Ouch. I had forgotten the 3" reach on those blasted claws. My turn I managed to boil one to 1 wound left and then finished off the both of them in combat. The deathbringer would be soloing against 10 ungors and 10 bestigor for the rest of the game on my left … although I might have sent 5 warriors to assist, I don't remember. Turn roll off. My opponent could have done a daisy chain of hero summons and then summon daemonettes onto my objective (something else I had forgotten about), but said that he felt that unfair and then summoned the two keepers I had just killed. (grinning like the cheeky ****** he is) Long story short(also because the details have gotten muddled in my head), I barely managed to pull out a win because I killed his beastmen off of his objective while his less powerful keepers played with my 2 thirsters (one of which was summoned) and my support crew. Result Khorne major victory.

[TheArborealWalrus]

So I've got a different question for you all. Everyone is afraid of the s tiers and such, but has anyone given any thought to how to fight ironjaws? With their book coming out sometime soonish and their allegiance ability is already designed against MSU armies which is kind of what we're about. How do you think we can handle them with an all comers build? Slaughterborn will help (not much above rend 1), but that's not a strategy. Thoughts?

 

On 7/21/2019 at 3:27 PM, Battlefury said:

Anyone to report some news / tweaks or anything found to have a solid structure to succeed in games?

I've still been having pretty good luck with my mortals. The new deployments (even with the tweaks on scenery) have been rough though. My army is physically too slow to keep up with a good number of foes on multiple objective maps and thus have been experimenting with faster lists recently. I still like my defensive formations though, regardless of anything else.

I been trying to make bullgors work, it's just that they're too expensive when compared to skullreapers to be in really competitive lists. Even if They still murder things right and proper. Been playing with using more beastmen. Tried it against FEC,  SCE (although he's a rookie I'm teaching how to use his units), and ogors. Worked well there, but shooting would be bad for it. Pretty sure that seraphon would kick it's butt. Might be able to pull something  against Idoneth though. Biggest concerns are squishiness, lack of heroes for such games where that matters, and not enough hammers for vs HoS and now Slyvaneth.

Current list: Khorne, skullfiends tribe, although I'm not set on it, thought about using the anti-magic goodies one.

Spoiler

 

- Brass Despoilers

Doombull + general + artifact

2x6 bullgor - 2 handed axes

3x10 gors - shields

2x5 centigor

- Bloodsecrator + banner of wrath

- Slaughterpriest + killing frenzy

hex gorger skulls

- 2x 5 wrathmongers

 

 

21 hours ago, Charleston said:

There are just armies that are better at doing Khorne Stuff then Khorne.

True. Although this has always been the case, you just have to out think them. And/or use their overconfidence against them! I continue to find Khorne has a whole mind game element that is not needed in other armies. Weird as it is to me, you can't run Khorne like how its displayed in the fluff. Screaming hordes are dead hordes. Tightly disciplined troops win Khorne the day. Rule writers why do? Or maybe it is accurate as you see the screaming hordes routinely crushed in the fluff... hmmmm … not sure if well played … 

On 7/22/2019 at 11:12 AM, Impa said:

I’ve been dropping my battalion on my mortal lists. I’ve run this at our local weekly AoS nights. We have 12-16 players every evening. I’ve played pretty much all the top lists in one form or another with victories at this point.  I find in bloodforged my skullgrinder gets auto targeted and same for gorepilgrims with my Bloodsecrator.  Why wouldn’t your opponent snipe your general or key hero running the battalion? So I find I loose my required hero and or an artefact carrier rendering the battalion useless. Priests and Skullreapers always take ranged attacks after that. I play against a lot of shootcast, and Skaven. So no one is safe.. so I’ve dropped the battalion and I think I’m happy with the results. Frees me up to bring more bloodwarriors and the judgements I want (axe/skulls) I also like going first. Putting those skulls where I want them to mess up the wizards. Just need to weather the storm and fish for those glorious 6’s with the Skullreapers and bloodboils. 

This looks very similar to what I ran at my local tourney. I had the slaughterborn battalion though. How have you been dealing with the depolyments that put you rather far from objectives? Especially against faster foes?

On 7/23/2019 at 8:25 AM, stus67 said:

Coming here as an SCE player. How the heck am I supposed to deal with 4 blood thirsters of incessant rage running tyrants of blood?

Thirsters are squishy, and as long as they don't have the always strikes first artifact, all you need to do is kill them off singlely. The battalion is designed for having multiple thirsters in combat at once. Remove that benefit and you're fighting normal thirsters. Shooting always works well too, but it's a must for handling a thirster with always strikes first. 

[Battlefury]

@TheArborealWalrusHow did your local tournament turn out for you?

[TheArborealWalrus]

2 hours ago, Battlefury said:

How did your local tournament turn out for you?

I came in 5th. First second and fourth were skaven with the seraphon player I fought grabbing 3rd. First and second were our veteran skaven players with the other two being new guys.

 

I had an odd thought, what do ya'll think of using some allied iron golems as home base babysitters? 70pts for 10 4+ potentially re-rolling saves wounds. Absolute garbage for damage and no synergies, but a thought. Also bravery 8. The murder turkeys are interesting as well. The potential -1 to hit from the cyphers could be interesting. Basically thoughts on the warcry units?

Edited July 25, 2019 by TheArborealWalrus

[Impa]

53 minutes ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

This  looks very similar to what I ran at my local tourney. I had  the slaughterborn battalion though. How have you been  dealing with the depolyments that put you rather far f rom objectives? Especially against faster foes?

I run goretide. So burn that first command point with whatever hero on one 10 man bloodwarrior unit. Then I decide if I’m dedicating the bloodstoker to it also for that long bomb. Or put him with the other 10 man and take my chances with a decent run roll +3” and no charge. Any objectives on middle ground are pretty well accessible with just the auto 6 run + potential charge or the run roll +3” from bloodstoker. Blood warriors at least have much better staying power than bloodreavers. Acts as a nice screen for your elites to come in as a second wave to add more bodies on objectives. Skullreapers and wrathmongers I find are such a great little combo. Send in the warriors to hold the line and sacrifice themselves in bloody glory while the rest mops up. 

[Zamik]

1 hour ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

I had an odd thought, what do ya'll think of using some allied iron golems as home base babysitters? 70pts for 10 4+ potentially re-rolling saves wounds. Absolute garbage for damage and no synergies, but a thought. Also bravery 8. The murder turkeys are interesting as well. The potential -1 to hit from the cyphers could be interesting. Basically thoughts on the warcry units?

I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, 11 wounds and a 4+ rerollable save for 70 points sounds decent. I'm also interested in the Furies being like little flying chaos skinks, running in and running away to cap an objective here and there.

[Agent of Chaos]

If you dont need bloodreavers for a battalion but still need a throwaway unit to sit on a home objective, screen your heroes/zone out deep strikers and/or to use blood sacrifice on then the Iron Golems look to be a solid option. 

The Untamed Beasts are decent for grabbing an objective first turn with their pre-game movement plus run & charge. They will die to the first thing that looks at them however so do bloodreavers so again if you dont need reavers for a battalion these guys might be worth considering.

However in either case I would probably just take reavers; if only for the potential synergies should they ever be needed, not to mention -1 rend.

[Battlefury]

6 hours ago, Zamik said:

I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, 11 wounds and a 4+ rerollable save for 70 points sounds decent. I'm also interested in the Furies being like little flying chaos skinks, running in and running away to cap an objective here and there.

If you want mobile units, that can move fast from objective to objective, then take the Chaos Marauder Horsemen witht the Javelins! They're just really nice for their points and can gain the Khorne keyword. So you don't need to spend any allied point to them

[DestroyerBirb]

On 7/1/2019 at 4:53 PM, Revan123 said:

So after a few months of testing I found the only way to play khorne competatively. 

Scarbrand 

Unfettered fury: artefact that allow you to fight first on 4+

Wrath of Khorne

Insensate rage: General with command trait and artefact of reapers of vengence

30xbloodreavers

Bloodsecrator

Slaughterpriest: blood sacriface

Wrath axe

So you have one command point in the pocket for 50 points. One for batallion. One at the start of your turn. Blood sacrifice will allow you to convert some blood points in command points during first turns.  That allow you to stack more points before actual fight. 

So it works that way: hide behind screen of reavers and then counter attack. Scarbrand will provide 32-64 mortal wonds depends on you rolls. Big axe thirster can spam mortal wound around. Wrath can give rerolls to Insensate rage and Scarbrand (others do not needed them). And Fury will not allow some units to retreat, allow others and himself to pile in one 6 inches (good against Slaanesh) and on 4+ even on enemy's turn you can fight first. And thirsted will hit one by another. 

In some ways it beat: 

Legions of Nagash

Nighthaunts 

Stormcast without shooting

Ghouls

Beasts of Chaos

Scaven

But there are still too many countermatchups and strong bound to 4+ roll and double turns. And everything around here is a glass cannon, mostly expensive one. But I don't know any other way to play Khorne now. 

I am making a similar list that consists around the three bloodthirsters and only daemons, as I recently found some amazing combos, including Tyrants of Blood battalion (3 any bloodthirsters, and all attack at once) and 4+ attack first Artefact. I play daemons and my friend plays mortals, and so far daemons seem to be slightly better. Just remember, just because a list looks competitive doesn’t mean it is. I made a super competitive army on accident including the following.

Bloodthirster of Fury

Chaos Lord on Mount

Chaos Sorcerer allied

Skulltaker

x10 Bloodletters 

x5 Chaos Warriors 

x5 Chaos Warriors

x5 Chaos Knights 

x3 Bloodcrushers

x1 Chariot

x1 Skull Cannon

(As you see, it is made of Daemon start collecting (Proxying a Skulltaker), Slaves start collecting, Bloodthirster, (Which I somehow bought it second handed for $10, and this is the newest version) and that chaos lord on Mount. Simple strategy. Calvary flank one side, Bloodthirster on the other causing a distraction, and the units getting objectives, and the heroes all around the battlefield, while the Cannon rains skulls. (Lol my Cannon is so inaccurate even in close combat against 20 rats)

[Smooth criminal]

On 7/24/2019 at 4:40 PM, THUNDERHAMMER said:

Well I made a warshrine! Now to actually make a list that uses it

Cool. You can have an alphaing blob of Goretide blood reavers with reroll hit/wound turn 1 with it.

[Smooth criminal]

14 hours ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

I had an odd thought, what do ya'll think of using some allied iron golems as home base babysitters? 70pts for 10 4+ potentially re-rolling saves wounds. Absolute garbage for damage and no synergies, but a thought. Also bravery 8. The murder turkeys are interesting as well. The potential -1 to hit from the cyphers could be interesting. Basically thoughts on the warcry units?

I think we need to wait a bit for StD new book release.

Warcry new warscrools imply nothing gets marked for free, but gets major stat boosts for it. I imagine marks will work like in BoC book, only for battalions, except BoC doesn't have a mortal keyword to enable a bunch of our buffs.

I think the new StD units will boost mortal Khorne lists a lot if they get an ability to be marked. Mortal keyworded run&charge for free dudes? 12" flying non-horde letters? 3+ rerollable save with priest on golems? Seems pretty good in theory.

Edited July 25, 2019 by Smooth criminal

[Titus]

Hi guys, i see few people talking about an artefact "4+ to attack first", but we already have something a bit similar in Bloodlords right? Attacking at the beginning of the phase.

Where is this artefact coming from? Why is it so much better than the bloodlords artefact? Am i missing something?

Skully yours, Titus.

[Charleston]

@Titus Khartoth the Bloodthirst is a Daemonic Weapon. It may be worse than the Bloodlords artifact, but is available to Reapers of Vengence Bloodthirsters, which is great with the "fight twice" command ability

 

Edit: ->Daemonic Weapon means the corresponding table on page 75, at least in the german version

Edited July 26, 2019 by Charleston

[Titus]

Ok got it, thanks man!

[twrightii]

49 minutes ago, Titus said:

Hi guys, i see few people talking about an artefact "4+ to attack first", but we already have something a bit similar in Bloodlords right? Attacking at the beginning of the phase.

Where is this artefact coming from? Why is it so much better than the bloodlords artefact? Am i missing something?

Skully yours, Titus.

Like Charleston said the big reason this is used is because it can be taken with the Reapers of Vengeance which has a great command ability of letting you attack twice and has great anti magic.

Has anyone been running both Slaughterhosts Tyrants of Blood? I've tried Bloodlords once, I don't recall much about it to be honest.  With the Reapers the anti magic part hasn't been huge and there have been times I've wished I could strike first with Tyrants of Blood more than attacking twice (although Skarbrand does love to attack twice).

[PivotalCar]

@twrightii

Since the FAQ only lets one of your bloodthirsters attack twice in reapers of vengeance, bloodlords is probably better. The +4" move is also helpful on our slow bloodthirsters, and I think we already have enough magic hate.

[Oreaper84]

51 minutes ago, PivotalCar said:

@twrightii

Since the FAQ only lets one of your bloodthirsters attack twice in reapers of vengeance, bloodlords is probably better. The +4" move is also helpful on our slow bloodthirsters, and I think we already have enough magic hate.

It only allows one of the interactions of "after a unit attacks for the 1st time"...still getting 4 activation's in a row (the last one goes twice)...its still a very very strong mechanic and often CP is the limited resource anyway

[AresX8]

Hey everyone,

After simmering in the background and not posting as much as I usually do, I finally launched my YouTube channel focused on our favorite bloodthirsty madmen. The channel is called Storm of Blood; I released the first video yesterday afternoon, which you can check out here: 

 

[Frost-W]

Hello there! 
Could you tell me? Can I take in Blades of Khorne army at the same time the Beasts of Chaos and Slave to darkness units? I can’t find the rules for alligences anywhere, but in the topic of Hedonists of Slaanesh people in a rosters take daemons and beasts of chaos like one army.
Sorry for my english and sorry for obviously stupid question :3

[DestroyerBirb]

On 7/27/2019 at 12:10 AM, twrightii said:

Has anyone been running both Slaughterhosts Tyrants of Blood? I've tried Bloodlords once, I don't recall much about it to be honest.  With the Reapers the anti magic part hasn't been huge and there have been times I've wished I could strike first with Tyrants of Blood more than attacking twice (although Skarbrand does love to attack twice).

I don’t have all 3 bloodthirsters yet, but I am already coming up with great synergies. The 4+ attack first will be horrifying as you might get to attack with 3 bloodthirsters on your opponents turn, you see how that goes. More damage etc. I am playing my army 1.5k/1k with only one bloodthirster, and I constantly win against these people. (The only people in my play group)

Beastclaw Raiders

Stormcast Eternals (When will we see the end of them?)

Skaven

Daemons of Nurgle

Kharadron Overlords

Nighthaunt (ish)

Sylvaneth 

Mortal Khorne (I play Daemons of Khorne and Slaves to Darkness. I cannot accept mortal khornians in my army)

In 2k/2.5k, the trio will be so evil, I most likely will be banned from my playgroup.

[Battlefury]

2 hours ago, DestroyerBirb said:

I don’t have all 3 bloodthirsters yet, but I am already coming up with great synergies. The 4+ attack first will be horrifying as you might get to attack with 3 bloodthirsters on your opponents turn, you see how that goes. More damage etc. I am playing my army 1.5k/1k with only one bloodthirster, and I constantly win against these people. (The only people in my play group)

Beastclaw Raiders

Stormcast Eternals (When will we see the end of them?)

Skaven

Daemons of Nurgle

Kharadron Overlords

Nighthaunt (ish)

Sylvaneth 

Mortal Khorne (I play Daemons of Khorne and Slaves to Darkness. I cannot accept mortal khornians in my army)

In 2k/2.5k, the trio will be so evil, I most likely will be banned from my playgroup.

With the List you mentioned above?

Bloodthirster of Fury

Chaos Lord on Mount

Chaos Sorcerer allied

Skulltaker

x10 Bloodletters 

x5 Chaos Warriors 

x5 Chaos Warriors

x5 Chaos Knights 

x3 Bloodcrushers

x1 Chariot

x1 Skull Cannon

[DestroyerBirb]

12 hours ago, Battlefury said:

With the List you mentioned above?

Bloodthirster of Fury

Chaos Lord on Mount

Chaos Sorcerer allied

Skulltaker

x10 Bloodletters 

x5 Chaos Warriors 

x5 Chaos Warriors

x5 Chaos Knights 

x3 Bloodcrushers

x1 Chariot

x1 Skull Cannon

Yes, as I put up there, I don’t have all 3 bloodthirsters yet, but it was an example of how even just one bloodthirster is bad enough, and 3 bloodthirsters that can attack all at once and possibly attack first in your opponents combat phase is scary. (But if the question was how I beat them, the answer is that I remember my stuff, or I have better 🎲)

Edited July 28, 2019 by DestroyerBirb
A more detailed explanation

[will pollock]

20 hours ago, Frost-W said:

Hello there! 
Could you tell me? Can I take in Blades of Khorne army at the same time the Beasts of Chaos and Slave to darkness units? I can’t find the rules for alligences anywhere, but in the topic of Hedonists of Slaanesh people in a rosters take daemons and beasts of chaos like one army.
Sorry for my english and sorry for obviously stupid question :3

Hello, for a blades of khorne army you can take daemons, khorne bloodbound and slaves to darkness no matter what, however if you run the khorne "brass despoilers" battalion from the beasts of chaos book you can take certain beasts of chaos units, hope this helps

[MOMUS]

My FLGS hosted a mini event this weekend two games of AoS under tournament conditions for all the regulars.

I used the attached list, won both games due to a bit of luck, had a blast.

i played mixed order with 4 ballista and tzeentch tzaangor coven.

 

[Smooth criminal]

Played a 4 round 1k Meeting engagements tournament.

List was:

Spoiler

 

Bloodlords
Spearhead:
2x5 skullreapers
1x5 dogs
1x bloodmaster

Main body:
1x UF thirster, +4" move, strike first
1x5 dogs

Rearguard:
1x Skullgrinder

 

Game 1 against Tzangor spam.
Diagonal mission with Main bodies deployed first.
Thirster died to 2 packs of tzangors after killing only 1 model with his first strike. Spearhead only made it to objectives on turn 3 out of 4.
Major loss.

Game 2 against brick of staunch defender sequitors.
The 4 objectives in quarters mission with Main bodies deployed first.
His army was very slow for such a mission since his main body of 10 sequitors and a hero couldn't control more than 1 point efficiently. On top of what thirster rolled saves like a God and practically soloed the hero and entire brick barely hanging on 1 last wound.
Major win.

Game 3 against 2x3 kurnoths and big tree dude.
That one mission where one player gets a Rearguard and other gets Spearhead. He won roll off so Skullgrinder had to face off against stuff with Main body arriving turn 1.
Thirster jobbed horrendously to 1 unit of kurnoths while taking down only 1 dude in 2 rounds of combat. Spearhead only made it to objectives on turn 3 out of 4 and left the big tree hanging with 1 wound because no rerolls.
Major loss.

Game 4 against Legion of Grief.
Random objective in the middle mission with Spearheads deployed first.
My loaded Spearhead crushed his weaker one (yay skullreaper rerolls) and objective randomly stayed where most of my dudes were. Very one sided.
Major win.

Overall result 2-2.

The observations:
1. For Meeting engagements neither Spearhead nor Rearguard should be overloaded. Main body should be the one with main punch (duh) since it's alway online turn 1 in every mission.

2. I think I'm okay with giving up on Rearguard since it matters only for 1 mission and only if you lose the roll-off. I think Rearguard (and every other part) definitely should have a hero for summon possibility.

3. Skullreapers suck in this format. They are slow, they match up badly against elite units of other factions who usually have high rend and low numbers.
I lost total of 20+ skullreapers over the course of the tournament and got exactly zero mws on death. I know it's very unlucky, but being such an unreliable ability does make it feel like it's not on warscroll for competitive purposes.
The better elite unit to use would probably be Skullcrushers, they have same 20x 3+/3+ attack output and some mws on a charge, but are way faster and tougher.

4. Thirster sucks in this format. Hero assassination isn't good enough for a 270pt model and he punches too weak for anything else.
Taking battalions is unreasonable so you can't have fight twice + some good artifact so fishing for 6s on IF is not an option.
Demon prince is the one to go with here. Or Valkia/Manticore lord if you want to play mortal host.

5. I liked Skullgrinder a lot. He didn't carry any of the games, but he punched for a ton when he connected (more than thirster in some cases), great pick for a 80pt hero slot filler. I wish I could take multiples in a battalion for the real formats.
Come to think of it, maybe spamming heroes is the way to go here since our elite units suck, and it also helps with BP.

6. Doggos were okay. Fast, lots of attacks, reroll charge is important (one game I lined up 4 units to complete the 9+ charge agenda and only on 7th or 8th roll made it), unbind matters. Pretty much best our battleline for this format.

7. BP mechanic surprisingly sucked hard. You would think it's good in a format where everyone plays msu, but it's not because armies come out in chunks and 1-2 combats happen simultaneously every turn at best so things die slowly. Basically without prayer you will have a meaningful 3-4 BP ability only on turn 4 reliably, turn 3 if one side is getting wiped out. Definitely needs a priest.

If I to play this again, the changed list would be:

Spoiler

 

Spearhead:
1x priest with sacrifice
1x3 skullcrushers
1x5 dogs

Main body:
1x Demon prince, +4" move, strike first
1x priest with bronze flesh
1x3 skullcrushers
1x5 dogs

Rearguard:
1x Skullgrinder

 

Another interesting consideration would be using main body of Goretide 10x blood warriors with bloodstoker to catapult them anywhere. Would require the full list rewrite, so I'm not ready to post that one.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Smooth criminal