AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[Battlefury]

2 hours ago, Tiberius501 said:

So, I sold my huge Khorne collection a while back, due to losing every single game with them (like... 6 years of losses every week) and getting sick of painting red. But, against my better judgment, I’m considering starting up another small force of these duders.

How do the blood and skull loving bros do these days? Can you play them without taking 3x Bloodthirsters? Or is that a must? I like Mortal style armies with chaos.

I absolutely feel your experience there. I played the army from the beginning of AoS and even then is was not easy to win. But since GW decided to control the meta via rules and therefore adjusts the pricing ( what is better in the rules will cost more ), I skipped totally on playing and sold the stuff.

 

14 minutes ago, Hannibal said:

Well, these days you can simply run Archaon with some support and have a nice time.

 

Would there be an example for a list? I am coming back after a long time and have no idea of that possibility.

[Hannibal]

1 hour ago, Battlefury said:

Would there be an example for a list? I am coming back after a long time and have no idea of that possibility.

I´m not that deep into the rules, but the basics seem to be:

• Bloodsecrator for +1 to attack and kind of magic defense
• Bloodstoker for increasing the charge distance as well as giving rerolls to wound
• Slaughterpriest for +1 to hit as well as +1 to save
• there is a command ability of one of the Bloodthirsters that gives you 6" pile in if an opponent is within 6"

 

You can see a battle report here:

 

 

[Tiberius501]

Would this be an alright list?

heroes

- Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (General)

- Chaos Lord

- Bloodsecrator

- Aspiring Deathbringer 

Battleline

- 10x Chaos Warriors

- 10x Chaos Warriors

- 30x Bloodletters

- 5x Flesh Hounds

- 5x Flesh Hounds

Other

- 10x Knights

- 3x Varanguard

2000/2000pts

Any suggestions? And also which sub-faction should I go?

[Hannibal]

4 hours ago, Tiberius501 said:

Would this be an alright list?

Any suggestions? And also which sub-faction should I go?

heroes

- Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (General)

Most often seen with Gorecleaver (artifact weapon)

4 hours ago, Tiberius501 said:

- Chaos Lord

It´s only useful for its double pile in and fight ability. Maybe on the Knights. But on the other hand, you almost get another 5 Knights for this dude.

4 hours ago, Tiberius501 said:

- Bloodsecrator

- Aspiring Deathbringer 

I guess you should have a look at the Slaughterpriests. They are the best tools in your toolbox.

4 hours ago, Tiberius501 said:

Battleline

- 10x Chaos Warriors

- 10x Chaos Warriors

I´d made them 15 and 5 if you really want to run that many Warriors. 15 will get their "reroll saves" longer, 5 is enough to stay near your back objective.

4 hours ago, Tiberius501 said:

- 30x Bloodletters

I´d drop these. IMO they are nothing but a gamble. Though you´ll need some to summon.

 

Take everything with a grain of salt.

 

[Grimrock]

5 hours ago, Hannibal said:

I´m not that deep into the rules, but the basics seem to be:

• Bloodsecrator for +1 to attack and kind of magic defense
• Bloodstoker for increasing the charge distance as well as giving rerolls to wound
• Slaughterpriest for +1 to hit as well as +1 to save
• there is a command ability of one of the Bloodthirsters that gives you 6" pile in if an opponent is within 6"

I'll add that taking him in Reapers of Vengeance to give him the ability to attack twice is pretty great. I also recommend the chaos warshrine as the prayers can be pretty massive for Archaon and it can reroll off the skull altar for more consistency. Including a blob of 40 marauders works pretty well too since they're excellent targets for his command ability and they can benefit from any support you take for Archaon. I usually run something like this:

Allegiance: Khorne
- Slaughterhost: Reapers of Vengeance
Archaon the Everchosen (800)
Bloodsecrator (120)
- Artefact: Skullshard Mantle
Slaughterpriest (100)
- General
- Command Trait: Mage Eater
- Blood Blessing: Killing Frenzy
Bloodstoker (80)
- Artefact: Talisman of Burning Blood

10 x Bloodreavers (70)
- Meatripper Axes
10 x Bloodreavers (70)
- Meatripper Axes
10 x Bloodreavers (70)
- Meatripper Axes
40 x Chaos Marauders (320)
- Axes & Shields

Chaos Warshrine (170)
- Blood Blessing: Bronzed Flesh

Dark Feast (110)
Hexgorger Skulls (40)

Total: 1950 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 118
 

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Grimrock

[LordRhulak]

Khorne Archoan is probably our best build right now. Morten Winkle has been having great success with Khorne Archaon on TTS, placing 4th and 8th in two big tournaments with this list:

Spoiler

Allegiance: Khorne
- Slaughterhost: Reapers of Vengeance

Leaders
Archaon the Everchosen (800)
Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (270)
- General
- Command Trait: Mage Eater  
- Artefact: The Crimson Crown  
Bloodstoker (80)
- Artefact: Skullshard Mantle  
Slaughterpriest (100)
- Blood Blessing: Blood Sacrifice

Battleline
10 x Bloodreavers (70)
- Meatripper Axes
10 x Bloodreavers (70)
- Meatripper Axes
10 x Bloodreavers (70)
- Meatripper Axes

Behemoths
Chaos Warshrine (170)
- Blood Blessing: Bronzed Flesh
Chaos Warshrine (170)
- Blood Blessing: Killing Frenzy

Battalions
Dark Feast (110)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Hexgorger Skulls (40)
Bleeding Icon (40)

It looks really fun to play and can obviously be very successful. I would say that the Unfettered Fury thirster is essential. It effectivly gives Archaos retreat and charge, meaning that he can't be tied up. He didn't have easy matchups either (Seraphon Fangs, Lumineth Syar). 

Edited April 9, 2021 by LordRhulak

[Agent of Chaos]

@LordRhulak I really like the double warshrine in Morten's list. +1 to hit and save from the bloodfuelled prayers and then the warshrine buffs on top.

Seeing as Archaon is getting reroll wounds from the stoker, do you know which warshrine prayers were being chosen? My guess would be khorne prayer for reroll hits and charges with tzeentch prayer for reroll saves, although Nurgle prayer to give him a 1+ save looks tasty 🙂

[THUNDERFISTS]

15 minutes ago, Agent of Chaos said:

@LordRhulak I really like the double warshrine in Morten's list. +1 to hit and save from the bloodfuelled prayers and then the warshrine buffs on top.

Seeing as Archaon is getting reroll wounds from the stoker, do you know which warshrine prayers were being chosen? My guess would be khorne prayer for reroll hits and charges with tzeentch prayer for reroll saves, although Nurgle prayer to give him a 1+ save looks tasty 🙂

Usually Nurgle+Tzeentch combined with Bronzed Flesh to give him a 1+ re-rollable save and two procks to ignore spells on 4+’s. It’s awesome. 

[Sharklone]

Khorne friends.

Can confirm, Lumineth are real strong - versed lumineth and got absolutely creamed. Was a fairly ****** game play experience wise. Teclis had the portals and between him and searing white light and the archers I lost my secrator, both slaughterpriests and my general before I had a turn. Was also -2 to bravery and had to use 2CP to save units so nearly every unit lost models.  Having 1 exalted deathbringer and the remnants of my other units left before I had a turn, I suggested we re-rack and try again.

He gave me first turn to try make it a bit more competitive, but it didn't matter. I just lost in turn 2 instead because I was able to spread out and avoid some searing white light damage. Highlight of this game was him auto teleporting his cathalr chick to 9 away from my unit of six skullcrushers. doubling the horses speed, charging them, they killed 1 skull crusher. I killed 8 dawnriders, then all 5 of my skullcrushers ran away cause of her ability. 

Now I consider myself a fairly decent player and a few days prior I managed to beat a competitive shooting DoK list, but what is the answer here? I have been tabled quickly before, but usually because of dice or my own dumb mistakes. These games i was powerless to do anything about it. I couldn't even hope for the spells to fail because they just dont. I couldnt hide my heroes cause the archers don't need line of sight. It was brutal.

Any ideas?

[Agent of Chaos]

@Sharklone its pretty messed up and has me feeling there is no point bringing khorne to a tournament I'm attending in a few months. 

Best guess for handling Lumineth is an anti magic army. Wraith of Khorne bloodthirster as the general of a Reapers of Vengeance army gives you 2 unbinding rolls at +2 so maybe a chance of unbinding one of teclis' autocast on 10 spells (if the natural 8 comes up, all the better).
 

Fill your battleline with flesh hounds and take 3 x slaughterpriests so you at least have heaps of unbinding attempts. Hexgorger skulls are an absolute must to get amongst their lines given they have so many wizards. The reapers artifact is great for making at least one hero near impossible to kill with magic.

If you can work a battalion in there then a daemon hero could take Crimson Crown so at least one command ability can go off without needing CP.

Of course none of this does anything against their archers who dont need line of sight. At least with all your unbinds you might prevent them from casting the spell to do mortals on 5+ to hit. 

[Perturbato]

Don't play versus OP LRL lists it will teach them what they choosed. In the hands of a expert wargamer the LRL are invulnerable and not funny at all to fight with.

 

But what i would do would be to bring a lot of msu mortals to tank range attacks with HP and counter the moral shenanigan.

 

Do you think Belakor will be a possible usefull ally ?

[Battlefury]

8 hours ago, Sharklone said:

Now I consider myself a fairly decent player and a few days prior I managed to beat a competitive shooting DoK list, but what is the answer here? I have been tabled quickly before, but usually because of dice or my own dumb mistakes. These games i was powerless to do anything about it. I couldn't even hope for the spells to fail because they just dont. I couldnt hide my heroes cause the archers don't need line of sight. It was brutal.

Any ideas?

I am afraid to say, that due to my knowledge ( also tournament player and TO in my city ) there is no reliable way to counter certain armies. The choice we have with BoK is either to counter magic, but then we lack battle resilience. The other way is to go for combat itself ( although our army is not good at it ) but then we lack magic counters.

Within that we didn't even concider the ranges of our hero abilities, wich are restricting our amry very much.

If you bring the popular Thirster / Archaon lists, they will just stay back for 1 turn and then shoot & magic your worthy models, so you will be pretty much done by that moment.

AoS has a BIG problem, wich is SHOOTING. And as we know, BoK has basically nothing against that.

[LordRhulak]

On 4/12/2021 at 1:24 AM, THUNDERFISTS said:

Usually Nurgle+Tzeentch combined with Bronzed Flesh to give him a 1+ re-rollable save and two procks to ignore spells on 4+’s. It’s awesome. 

Yeah, that was what was used most of the time. The great thing about the warshrine is that the buffs are so flexible. You can adapt to almost every situation. 

I think that book is in  a very sad position, especially due to the fact that our best lists don't really use any key pieces in our own book. The Archaon list as discussed above is our best list, and yet over half of it is made up of units of from the S2D book. To take that to the next level, Khorne list won in Australia quite recently with all S2D units (again using Archaon).  A few people that I know have even held off from starting the army because of its weak power. I suppose all we can do is hope for a nerf to shooting in AoS 3 and some love from Broken Realms. 

On 4/12/2021 at 10:33 AM, Perturbato said:

Don't play versus OP LRL lists it will teach them what they choosed. In the hands of a expert wargamer the LRL are invulnerable and not funny at all to fight with.

 

But what i would do would be to bring a lot of msu mortals to tank range attacks with HP and counter the moral shenanigan.

 

Do you think Belakor will be a possible usefull ally ?

Even if he can be allied (due to points) I think that he might lose a lot of his value. Even if his signature rule stays, he will go up in points, most likely too expensive to justify taking him. He won't even be able to benifit from blood tithe. (Look at the price tag as well £95 here in Britain). 

An unlikely possibility that I had thought about, is that Be'lakor's ultimate goal is to achieve the blessing of all of the gods (ie get to Archaons level). Seeing as both of the subjects of the two books have achieved their goals, might we see Be'lakor get back to the level he started at? If so, he might have all of the god keywords like Archaon. I really hope that this does happen, even if it is exceptionally unlikely. 

[ogarrah]

Quick question about a WoK 'thirster and the RoV command trait. So the WoK already has an unbind attempt in the hero phase due to his rune crown of khorne ability that also gives him +2 to unbind, with the RoV Mage Eater Command trait, does this mean that he gets an additional unbinding attempt that does d6 Mortals to the caster on an unmodified 8, or do they combine to get 1 unbind attempt with a +2 modifier that does d6 mortals to the caster on an unmodified 8?

TL:DR: How the heck does the Reapers of Vengeance Command Trait interact with a WoK 'thirster

[drkrash]

On 4/13/2021 at 2:17 PM, ogarrah said:

Quick question about a WoK 'thirster and the RoV command trait. So the WoK already has an unbind attempt in the hero phase due to his rune crown of khorne ability that also gives him +2 to unbind, with the RoV Mage Eater Command trait, does this mean that he gets an additional unbinding attempt that does d6 Mortals to the caster on an unmodified 8, or do they combine to get 1 unbind attempt with a +2 modifier that does d6 mortals to the caster on an unmodified 8?

TL:DR: How the heck does the Reapers of Vengeance Command Trait interact with a WoK 'thirster

They are two separate effects.: one at +2 and one that can make people blow up.  You have to declare which you're using.

[ogarrah]

8 hours ago, drkrash said:

They are two separate effects.: one at +2 and one that can make people blow up.  You have to declare which you're using.

Gotcha, so that means he only gets 1 unbind attempt and you choose which effect you want?

[Salyx]

The Wok Thirster can unbind 2 spells, as per Errata. As far as I read the rules, the Wok Thirster gains +2 to unbinding rolls, which would mean all unbinding rolls. So he gets two unbind, the First one is always the one to blow up, and both gain +2.

[drkrash]

I never noticed it before, but after re-reading it, I would agree with Salyx that both rolls get the +2.  This is interesting.  In the past when I ran Tyrant Reapers, I'd make my Rage Thirster the General so I'd spread around the units that could Unbind.  That's still a viable idea, but knowing that both Unbinds get a +2 is a strong incentive to make WoK the General.

[Warbossironteef]

Noob question, how does Archaon get to use the Reapers of Vengeance Command Ability? Doesn't it requires another daemon to be within 8 inches of him and he cant take because he's a named character? 

Does someone mind explaining how it works?

[Drib]

Named characters are only restricted to get a Command Trait or Artefact of Power.

They can still use Command/Allegiance Abilities.

[Warbossironteef]

3 minutes ago, Drib said:

delete

 

So you need a Daemon hero with the Reapers command ability within 8 inches of Archaon at the start of the combat phase?

Edited April 18, 2021 by Warbossironteef

[Grimrock]

2 hours ago, Warbossironteef said:

So you need a Daemon hero with the Reapers command ability within 8 inches of Archaon at the start of the combat phase?

Archaon is a daemon hero with the command ability and he is always within 8" of himself, so he can just use the command ability on himself with no need for anyone else. It's pretty awesome and I think the best way to run him. 

[Charleston]

Quite interesting with the WoK Thirtser and the RoV trait. With the German wording you would actually get +2 and the damage on all Unbinds

[SchleuderMann2]

On 4/12/2021 at 8:23 AM, Agent of Chaos said:

@Sharklone its pretty messed up and has me feeling there is no point bringing khorne to a tournament I'm attending in a few months. 

Best guess for handling Lumineth is an anti magic army. Wraith of Khorne bloodthirster as the general of a Reapers of Vengeance army gives you 2 unbinding rolls at +2 so maybe a chance of unbinding one of teclis' autocast on 10 spells (if the natural 8 comes up, all the better).
 

Fill your battleline with flesh hounds and take 3 x slaughterpriests so you at least have heaps of unbinding attempts. Hexgorger skulls are an absolute must to get amongst their lines given they have so many wizards. The reapers artifact is great for making at least one hero near impossible to kill with magic.

If you can work a battalion in there then a daemon hero could take Crimson Crown so at least one command ability can go off without needing CP.

Of course none of this does anything against their archers who dont need line of sight. At least with all your unbinds you might prevent them from casting the spell to do mortals on 5+ to hit. 

I think Archaon should perform quite well too. With potentially skulls secrator and reapers bann it isnt too unprobable to bann the mortals on a 5+ And Mortals on a unmodified six will naturally be rerolled against him. Against spells he  has at least 1 4+ ignore if not 2 ( Tzeentch Wrashrine buff) and if any mortals go through he has a 4+ mw safe. 

[The Red King]

Just a small battle report as I finally got my first game in with my BoK (Beasts of Khorne) brass despoilers list against HoS. Bearing in mind this was my first game with the army and his second so it probably isn't the best example.

 

My list was

Slaughterpriest ×2

Bloodsecrator

 

Brass despoilers

Doombull

10 bestigor ×3

10 gor ×3

Tuskgor chariot ×3

Ghorgon ×2

6 bullgor

 

Opponent was 

Glutos

Sigvald

Keeper

Shardspeaker

5 chaos warriors ×3

5 blissbarb seekers

5 slickblade seekers 

Seeker cavalcade?

 

So he was pretty top heavy and I out dropped him so I knew I'd be able to give him turn 1 and deployed accordingly. I forgot he was playing the deep strike sub faction however and did NOT deploy accordingly. We were playing shifting objectives I think it was, with the small deployment zone and the 3 objectives that randomly alternate which is worth more.

 

Skull altar with all my characters was central with 20 gors, 6 bullgors center right and 10 bestigor plus a chariot center left behind the gors. Left flank was 10 bestigors a ghorgon and a chariot while right flank was 10 bestigor, a ghorgon and a chariot, screened by 10 gors.

 

Opponent deployed all the seekers to my left flank, shardspeaker to the right, and glutoa plus warriors center.

 

Turn 1 he deep strikes sigvald plus keeper and made both long charges into my right flank hitting mostly goes but tying up a chariot, ghorgon, and 10 bestigor as well (oops bad spacing). However he flubbed some rolls and messed up some rules and ended up killing like 6 or 7 gors with sigvalds first 10 attacks and forgot he could attack again with the keepers CA immediately so my undamaged ghorgon put 5 wounds onto sigvald and he panicked and put his second 10 attacks into the 4 remaining gor cause he didnt want to lose the last wound. Then his keeper knocked my ghorgon down to 5 wounds and took maybe 2 or 3 wounds from the other units chipping in. He did score 5 points from moving up onto objectives but pretty much traded sigvald for 70 points of gors so I considered it a solid win. Oh he also killed 5 bestigor with shooting from the blissbarb.

On my turn 1 I blood boiled sigvalds last wound off as well as maybe some off the keeper and then moved up. The left flank got in position to charge the slick blades and try to take the objective while the right flank was mostly locked in combat with the keeper but I moved the bulls to rectify that. Everything else moved up central enough to take the objective but didnt charge because I didnt want to give him the extra combat phase against my unsupported gor. On the left flank the ghorgon killed the slickblades but didnt get enough through to take the objective from the blissbarb so I only scored 2 points, but my bullgors utterly obliterated the keeper meaning he was down 600 points at the start of turn 2.

 

Hedonites turn 2 I was forced to burn my 5 blood tithes points to prevent him summoning the mesmerizing mirror directly on all 4 of my heroes but other than that he retreated the seekers and plinked some wounds off the left hand ghorgon while moving the warriors and glutos to thoroughly control the center. He charged and killed most of the 2 units of gors with his warriors/glutos. Scored 3 points making it 8 to 2.

My turn I moved everything towards the center but the ghorgon and a chariot chasing the seekers. My bullgors ended up making a long charge into his shardspeaker hiding in a building instead of the warriors in the center and without surprise butchered her. My left flank failed to charge the seekers but the objective was mine. In the center a unit of 10 bestigor and the doombull joined in but mostly bounced off the chaos warriors with their 4+ save and the -1 to hit aura from Glutos. I again scored 2 points making it 4 to 8 but I won the priority roll for a double turn with my opponent 1 DP shy of summoning a keeper and so be conceded at that point reasoning he would have nothing left when the bulls got to Glutos.

 

I know this isn't the best competitive example but I was pleased that my army worked in a casual setting at least. The Ghorgons are huge and mildly scary and kept my bulls from being targeted while they tore apart everything the touched. The bestigor underperformed but then the only real work they got to do was under the -1 to hit aura and plus my opponent was neither order nor did he have any units with 10 or more models so it wasn't an ideal situation for them. I'm contemplating swapping 10 bestigor and a chariot to bring 5 wrathmonger and a judgment (probably the hexgorger skulls to help shut down casters but the icon could be good?)

 

And that was my first victory for Taurok Gorefeast's Skullfray. I intend to get some hedonites bits to make a trophy commemorating it to hang on his armor or base.