AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[mastercrafted]

Another noob question sorry. I'm not sure where its covered in the rules, but does the slaughterborn command trait apply to all the generals attacks? Ie. A juggernaut or Flesh hound? 

[mastercrafted]

3 hours ago, mastercrafted said:

Another noob question sorry. I'm not sure where its covered in the rules, but does the slaughterborn command trait apply to all the generals attacks? Ie. A juggernaut or Flesh hound? 

Ok so i found the bit in the rules that says artefacts and traits don't effect the mount (juggernaut),  does the mlok Flesh hound count as a mount?

[TheOtherJosh]

12 minutes ago, mastercrafted said:

Ok so i found the bit in the rules that says artefacts and traits don't effect the mount (juggernaut),  does the mlok Flesh hound count as a mount?

It isn’t explicitly defined (at this moment) in the BoK Book. And isn’t discussed in a faq.

However, in the description it mentions that the MLoK is “accompanied by” the Fleshhound. i.e. it is not the general himself.  So, in this case it would be best to treat the fleshhound “as a mount” even though they aren’t actually called out as being treated as one.

The intent of the rule is to define the attacks of the hero and separately anything that accompanies them. (Mount, crew... etc.) Given that the fleshhounds attack’s are called out explicitly as being theirs, in the same way as a mounts attacks were prior to the most recent set of battletomes, that appears to be rules as intended.

[mastercrafted]

Many thanks @TheOtherJosh, trying to get these things straight in my mind before i play tonight 

[medivouk]

Played escalation from Main rulebook vs night haunt last night.

I ran:

Lord on demonic steed with violent urgency,

blood stoker and brazen rune bloodsecrator,

2x5 khorne knights with glaives,

10 chaos warriors with halberds,

40 khorne marauders,

5 flesh hounds,

5 skullreapers,

30 allied bestigor and bray shaman with malevolent maelstrom and inferno blades (house rule to pick a single spell from home realm).

he had:

knight of shrouds (foot) general.

wizard with big scythe spell

random buff dude in chains

teleporty cavalry character

10 ish scythe ghosts

10 ish horse ghosts

5 hexwraiths

9 spirit hosts

8 banshees

black coach

I ended up winning the game on vps, but the game could have gone very differently. My opponent failed to roll any power ups on the black coach for three full turns, he also failed a massive combo charge into the marauders, which proceeded to eat the hexwraiths, heavily damage the black coach and then polish off 10 of the scythe wielding spooks.

however, a single unit of 9 spirit hosts killed all the bestigor in a single turn, then proceeded to eat both knight units (rubber lance syndrome)and then lurk on the far objective. We did make a mistake with the ghosts mortal wounding on a 5-6 with buffs, that was pointed out to be wrong later.

skullreapers one shot the banshees, then run over the horse ghosts. The marauders camped the middle objective and the chaos warriors camped the near objective

thoughts on the game:

bestigor feel like a waste, for 20 points more, I can get blood letters.

marauders are really scary when whipped and you roll a 6+ for their barbarian horde rule

knights + mlodm felt really lackluster. Granted, they ran out of the bloodsecrator range, but eevenwith damage 3 on the charge they did nothing.

I am tempted to swap the bestigor and endless spell for 30 blood letters and then knights+ lord on demonic mount for WOK 'thirster and Lok on jugger.

[seraphor]

Noob question here, just getting into AoS after a 10 year break and looking at a Khorne army and trying to get Flesh Hounds and Karanak, but they're nowhere to be found (except for way overpriced on ebay)

I take it they're not in production anymore. Do we know if they will be soon?

I gather they were all finecast so they could be releasing plastic versions at some point, right?

[Grendel]

6 minutes ago, seraphor said:

Noob question here, just getting into AoS after a 10 year break and looking at a Khorne army and trying to get Flesh Hounds and Karanak, but they're nowhere to be found (except for way overpriced on ebay)

I take it they're not in production anymore. Do we know if they will be soon?

I gather they were all finecast so they could be releasing plastic versions at some point, right?

They're direct only from GW. 
Still in production, just not available from distributors.

[Mikeymajq]

Chaos knights are amazing with a buff and a charge. Against a unit with not too great saves. But after that unless you retreat them they kind of just sit there.  :)

Edited August 8, 2018 by Mikeymajq

[Agent of Chaos]

On 8/7/2018 at 2:01 AM, AngoraDemon said:

FYI just finished a BOK battle report for 2.0 don't forget to like and sub!

 

@AngoraDemon I watched this last night. Looked like a fun game. Cool to see the Doppelganger Cloak on the Bloodthirster in action. However some of your tactical mistakes did my head in! You gotta screen your Priests and Bloodsecrator man!!! Soooo lucky the big cabbage whiffed its attacks. Also, was it intentional for you to not attempt an unbind on the cogs or did you want the extra movement as well?

[AngoraDemon]

3 hours ago, Agent of Chaos said:

@AngoraDemon I watched this last night. Looked like a fun game. Cool to see the Doppelganger Cloak on the Bloodthirster in action. However some of your tactical mistakes did my head in! You gotta screen your Priests and Bloodsecrator man!!! Soooo lucky the big cabbage whiffed its attacks. Also, was it intentional for you to not attempt an unbind on the cogs or did you want the extra movement as well?

Haha, you're right (100%), but it was Connor's second game with IJ. You have to understand that in a lot of these videos I try to make the game fun to watch and not just let my opponent get steam rolled.

[Agent of Chaos]

Totally understandable! Also pretty hard to predict the maw crusher moving 28" in a single turn! Would have been very interesting if he had killed off the priests and bloodsecrator though. Also interesting to see your use, or lack of use, of blood tithe. Sure you dropped 20 bloodletters but that was turn 4 or 5, they did nothing and then immediately got charged and almost wiped out to a man. And pretty obviously you would have won regardless of them being summoned. Not exactly a feather in the cap of the khorne allegiance ability however lucky for you it wasn't a factor in that game. Will you be doing some games with experienced opponents?

[AngoraDemon]

10 minutes ago, Agent of Chaos said:

Totally understandable! Also pretty hard to predict the maw crusher moving 28" in a single turn! Would have been very interesting if he had killed off the priests and bloodsecrator though. Also interesting to see your use, or lack of use, of blood tithe. Sure you dropped 20 bloodletters but that was turn 4 or 5, they did nothing and then immediately got charged and almost wiped out to a man. And pretty obviously you would have won regardless of them being summoned. Not exactly a feather in the cap of the khorne allegiance ability however lucky for you it wasn't a factor in that game. Will you be doing some games with experienced opponents?

So, I would live to play against more experienced players in a live setting on a regular basis and on camera. The issue is that I really want painted models on camera and some of the better players just don't have their ****** painted. We are in upstate NY so if you ever want to come play, hit us up on Facebook or comment on YouTube. 

Also, I know that summoning those bloodletters wasn't the best, but again I didn't do it to "win". I summoned them just to show players what you can do in AoS 2.0. I'm currently painting 15 hounds so I can have them on camera at some point in the near future.

[Agent of Chaos]

I'm in Australia so won't be joining you for a game in upstate NY anytime soon unfortunately! Will look forward to more battle reports in future. 

[Ravinsild]

So uh today I had the saddest day in the hobby of all time. I ended up playing a game against myself using my best Ironjawz list and tested out my Insensate Rage BT. 

I could tell you some things I learned but mostly I’m just sad it came down to running both sides of the table because I have no friends and I guess everyone in the area hates me. 

 

[mastercrafted]

Sooo i played 1000 pts last night against slaanesh slaves to darkness, with this list

Bloodsecrator [140pts]

Bloodstoker [80pts]

Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut [140pts] 3. Slaughterborn, 4. The Blade of Endless Bloodshed, General

Blood Warriors [100pts]: 5 Blood Warriors, Goreaxe and Gorefist

Bloodreavers [70pts]:

Bloodreavers [70pts]

Bloodcrushers [150pts]

Chaos Warriors [90pts]

Chaos Knights [160pts]:5 Chaos Knights, Chaos Glaive,

1000 pts on the nose.

We played duality of death, but neither had any interest in going for the objectives. I won the roll off and gave my opponent the first turn, with both of us tentatively moving our forces up the board. Then i won priority getting the double turn, and charged in with my knights, crushers, lord and a reaver unit. The knights ran through a small unit of chaos warriors, losing 1 in return, the reavers killed a few warriors and were wiped out in return. The lord and opponents daemon prince took bites out of each other, and the crushers killed a few gors. In their turn 2 the remaining warriors charged my reavers, which was a stalemate and his foot lord charged my bloodstoker and failed to do a single wound! My lord managed to wipe out his gors, which netted me 2 blood tithe giving me 4 to use in my next turn. So i summoned 2 units of 5 bloodletters, 1 of which got the charge and joined the melee in the middle of board. My chaos warriors charged his lord, taking him down to a wound and my knights ran down his daemon prince losing 2 in return. My opponents 3rd turn saw him use depravity points to summon 5 daemonettes and a Herald chariot, which got the charge off on my blood warriors killing 2 of them. My reavers finished off the last of his warriors, and my warriors finished off the lord. This left 1 chaos knight and a sorcerer, along with the freshly summoned daemons so my opponent called it there.

You learn more from defeat than victory as they say, but my takeaways were 

1. My army had a lot of bonuses for charging, so that double turn that allowed me to get 4 charges off was massive i think. Along with the bloodsecrator, my guys had a lot of buffs running which my opponents army did not.

2. Loved the Glaive knights! As long as they keep charging, the 2 dam -1 rend is very effective. Suited this list, and i need more! 

3. I geared my list towards summoning, but in the end it had no impact on the game. I did generate 7-8 blood tithe, so a Bloodthirster was on the cards which i may have to attempt at some point. 

4. Wasnt that impressed with the slaanesh rules tbh. Heroes were unable to use command abilities if they were too close to one another, and depravity points seemed a bit fussy to me. Give me blood tithe any day. 

5. 2nd game running i've been disappointed with blood warriors. I'm not sure why they cost more than chaos warriors, perhaps i'm missing something? 

Enjoyed this list, as it suited my aggressive style so can't wait to use it again. Not sure if my opponent enjoyed it, bit hes given me plenty of pastings in 40k so i don't feel too bad!

[AngoraDemon]

6 hours ago, mastercrafted said:

Sooo i played 1000 pts last night against slaanesh slaves to darkness, with this list

Bloodsecrator [140pts]

Bloodstoker [80pts]

Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut [140pts] 3. Slaughterborn, 4. The Blade of Endless Bloodshed, General

Blood Warriors [100pts]: 5 Blood Warriors, Goreaxe and Gorefist

Bloodreavers [70pts]:

Bloodreavers [70pts]

Bloodcrushers [150pts]

Chaos Warriors [90pts]

Chaos Knights [160pts]:5 Chaos Knights, Chaos Glaive,

1000 pts on the nose.

We played duality of death, but neither had any interest in going for the objectives. I won the roll off and gave my opponent the first turn, with both of us tentatively moving our forces up the board. Then i won priority getting the double turn, and charged in with my knights, crushers, lord and a reaver unit. The knights ran through a small unit of chaos warriors, losing 1 in return, the reavers killed a few warriors and were wiped out in return. The lord and opponents daemon prince took bites out of each other, and the crushers killed a few gors. In their turn 2 the remaining warriors charged my reavers, which was a stalemate and his foot lord charged my bloodstoker and failed to do a single wound! My lord managed to wipe out his gors, which netted me 2 blood tithe giving me 4 to use in my next turn. So i summoned 2 units of 5 bloodletters, 1 of which got the charge and joined the melee in the middle of board. My chaos warriors charged his lord, taking him down to a wound and my knights ran down his daemon prince losing 2 in return. My opponents 3rd turn saw him use depravity points to summon 5 daemonettes and a Herald chariot, which got the charge off on my blood warriors killing 2 of them. My reavers finished off the last of his warriors, and my warriors finished off the lord. This left 1 chaos knight and a sorcerer, along with the freshly summoned daemons so my opponent called it there.

You learn more from defeat than victory as they say, but my takeaways were 

1. My army had a lot of bonuses for charging, so that double turn that allowed me to get 4 charges off was massive i think. Along with the bloodsecrator, my guys had a lot of buffs running which my opponents army did not.

2. Loved the Glaive knights! As long as they keep charging, the 2 dam -1 rend is very effective. Suited this list, and i need more! 

3. I geared my list towards summoning, but in the end it had no impact on the game. I did generate 7-8 blood tithe, so a Bloodthirster was on the cards which i may have to attempt at some point. 

4. Wasnt that impressed with the slaanesh rules tbh. Heroes were unable to use command abilities if they were too close to one another, and depravity points seemed a bit fussy to me. Give me blood tithe any day. 

5. 2nd game running i've been disappointed with blood warriors. I'm not sure why they cost more than chaos warriors, perhaps i'm missing something? 

Enjoyed this list, as it suited my aggressive style so can't wait to use it again. Not sure if my opponent enjoyed it, bit hes given me plenty of pastings in 40k so i don't feel too bad!

Summoning is super strong in the current meta. I think you could have made your list even better by giving your general "Violent Urgency". I'm not sure if Gore Cleaver works right anymore.

[mastercrafted]

5 hours ago, AngoraDemon said:

Summoning is super strong in the current meta. I think you could have made your list even better by giving your general "Violent Urgency". I'm not sure if Gore Cleaver works right anymore.

I did consider it, but i went with slaughterborn to try and make the most of the blade of endless bloodshed. Only netted me 1 blood tithe in the end so possibly not worth it.

I'm having a mad idea of trying a couple of slaughterpriests with blood sacrifice, and a cheap "blood bank" unit for even more blood tithe. 

[Mikeymajq]

I had blood sacrifice on 1 slaughterpriest and my general with blade of endless blodshed. Then a bunch of 10 man reaver units. After my turn 3 (I got priority turn 3) I had 8 blood tithe points. Granted the tzeentch player fed me 2 pts by spawning a unit of 2 tzaangors ans then 1 brimstone horror.  On the other hand, blood sacrifice only went off twice so bringing 2-3 priests with it and/or maybe gore pilgrims and those daemons will be bursting out.

[Aspirant Snaeper]

@AngoraDemon

So there I was, watching your battle report, and as soon as I saw that Cabbage charge your Bloodsecrator I just skipped ahead to see how things turned out... only to see it suspiciously absent and your Bloodsecrator still standing. "Wait, WHAT?! Rewind!"

"I thought that was the turning point for you"

"It was!"

"And then it wasn't."

 

[Agent of Chaos]

@mastercrafted your mate is crazy if he is using the "Invaders" Slaanesh Host, especially in a low points game where they were always likely to be within 12" of each other. That Host was good when only the general could use a command ability but now that any Hero can it is a completely pointless host. If you want a more competitive rematch tell him to use one of the other hosts next time.

[Ravinsild]

I had an interesting game today, but I’m also sort of at a pressure point of frustration with the entire hobby. 

So today I kind of got double information, but not quite the information or results I was looking for. The past few weeks have been a string of frustrating games, that I will liken to any competitive video games ranking structure. 

The past 2-3 weeks where I’ve been looking to stress tests some lists have turned into pain points that have me wondering what I’m even doing with my life right now. My opponents are either, to follow up on my promised analogy, either diamond/master rank players that give extremely one sided games where I get absolutely wrecked and basically don’t even get to roll dice because “my lulzy cheese list tables you turn 1” and/or level 1 noobs/bronze players who don’t even know how the game works. 

I would say I’m probably a strong silver to low tier gold, to use idk Starcraft, League of Legends or whatever’s rating system. Every game has either been under 2,000 points, or turned into multiple opponents/team Games, or people cancel, and so forth. 

I’ve spent 1000’s$ on armies already and yet I can’t find any just decent good opponents where I can stress test some lists. 

All of this is a preface for today’s game in which, once again the only person who offered to play me at all is yet another noob who had the unfortunate habit of wanting to be a ****** rules lawyer AND HE HASNT EVEN READ THE RULES. It’s ****** 16 pages my man can you not spare 10-20 minutes to just read every word? 

Constantly calling anything I did even mildly in my favor as, “really dumb” when he murdered some large number of my Bloodreavers and I pulled in a line starting from the left models as they were slain, then his other unit (my unit) of brutes was out of range and thus unable to attack. 

I digress, but it took almost 3 hours for 2 ****** turns at which point i had to go because dude wants to challenge me on every single ****** thing in a game he hasn’t even played yet, mixing first edition rules with 2nd edition because of “some forum I read” and “a battle report I watched”. I asked him how well he understood the rules and how familiar he was with them and he said, “I’m pretty familiar” yet knew almost nothing except the names of the phases... “Can I run and charge in the same turn?” *pushes models up directly next to mine in movement phase* “hey you can’t end your movement within 3” of my models.” “Why not?” “It’s in the rules for movement phase.” “Oh.” 

Like I get ok, you’re new to the hobby and excited but literally don’t argue over trivial ****** when you haven’t even read a basic 16 page rule set which is tiny compared to most board games. Like have you seen a PHB for D&D? Btw I’ve read 3rd edition through 4th page to page cover to cover twice. Don’t @ me with rules. 

Anyway. I’m done raging about lackluster opponents and games: 

Today I tested my SKARBRAND list against my best IJ list which is Bloodtooth Battalion. 

He got first turn and let me tell you, be very, very wary of Ironjawz for they can haul ass. He used his first hero phase to put Frenzy of Violence from both Warchanters onto his two units of 3 Gore-Gruntas, was able to cast Cogs far enough back I couldn’t unbind them, and rolled very well for his Mighty Destroyers and Ironfist roles, pushing his GG’s up exactly 8.01” away from my right line (of 20 Bloodreavers and 5 Skullreapers plus a mighty Lord of Khorne). 

He tentatively moved up his Megaboss on Maw-Krusha and ran ahead quite some distance with his Warchanters, Fungoid Cave Shaman, and 3 sets of 5 brutes + Megaboss on Foot. 

He charged and his Gore-Gruntas easily made it, having used 1 Waaagh! To give 1 unit +1 attack and +1 to hit from Frenzy of Violence. They did an extra D3 damage on their Fanged Hooves and Teeth due to the charge distance with a mighty +4 on the charge (+1 Eager for Battle, +1 Bloodtoofs, +2 Cogs). 

These Gore-Gruntas destroyed my entire right flank wiping a unit of Bloodreavers and injuring my Skullreapers down badly. They ran from battleshock. 

My turn I planted my banner, cast Killing Frenzy on 20 Bloodreavers, Blood Sacrificed on SKARBRAND and did 3 damage to him, then healed him with Resanguination up to 12. I then used Blood Boil x3 hitting all 3 and knocking off a brute and bringing one down to 1 wound and killing a Gore-Grunta or two. 

He was incandescent from not fighting at all last activation. During my activation last turn I killed maybe 1-2 pigs. This turn I moved my left flank forward to engage the brutes, moved SKARBRAND over to engage the Gore-Gruntas and then rolled for charges. 

I got the charges off but got in an awkward position of getting almost all my Bloodreavers into the fight but consequently only getting maybe 1 Blood Warrior in and entirely unable to get my Skullreapers in. 

Skarbrand had 1 pig left to kill period which was so trivial and disappointing because it had 1 whole wound because my Mighty Lord of Khorne did work before he went out. Like one whole pig of 6 was left after it was all said and done. 

Overall I keep waffling on Bloodreavers. Out of 52 attacks I did 4 whole wounds to brutes with a +1 to hit and -1 rend... And I just wonder why I bring them. It seems like it requires a lot of heroes, buffs and investment to make them ANY good otherwise they’re literally worthless,  but then half the games so are my Blood Warriors so I can’t seem to find the sweet spot for my Battleline units... whether to invest in more Blood Warriors or just MSU reavers or what. 

I’ll just fast forward and at the end of my 2nd turn after he went first all that was left was SKARBRAND, a Bloodstoker, 3 Slaughterpriests and a Bloodsecrator. 

All he had remaining was 8-10 brutes (can’t quite remember), a Fungoid Cave Shaman and 2 Warchanters - SKARBRAND deleted a completely healthy MBOMK, and Blood Boil did work on the Megaboss on foot as well as some Skullreapers doing some mortal wounds both in attacks and in their death throes with Blood Boil finishing off the remaining pigs. 

Everything was almost dead and who knows if SKARBRAND + support could have killed the remaining brutes and heroes. 

I think next time I’ll do two Killing Frenzy, and drop a Blood Sacrifice. I have no summoning at the moment and I was waiting to pull a clutch charge or fight in the hero phase with Blood Tithe but I didn’t use it in all 2 turns... even though I think I was capped already. 

I missed the +1 to wound from on the Charge LoKoJ and it’s entirely possible I could replace Footboss with juggerboss. I’m at 1980/2000 points. 

I don’t know if I’m in love with the Bloodreavers but maybe Ironjawz is just a hard matchup for them. Maybe next time against Ironjawz more Blood Warriors is the answer or MSU Reavers or something. 

I didn’t get to see as much of what SKARBRAND is really capable of as I would have liked - but apparently IJs are not to be messed with, they are scary even in the hands of a noob (I suggested ways he could maximize his smashing and bashing and generally tried to actually give me a good game since for all intents and purposes I may as well have been playing myself again). 

So overall I don’t know. I would like better games and better opponents and full games played with objectives and strategy and actually see what SKARBRAND can do and what my list would be like. 

Sorry for the frustrated rambling rant. 

[mastercrafted]

9 hours ago, Mikeymajq said:

I had blood sacrifice on 1 slaughterpriest and my general with blade of endless blodshed. Then a bunch of 10 man reaver units. After my turn 3 (I got priority turn 3) I had 8 blood tithe points. Granted the tzeentch player fed me 2 pts by spawning a unit of 2 tzaangors ans then 1 brimstone horror.  On the other hand, blood sacrifice only went off twice so bringing 2-3 priests with it and/or maybe gore pilgrims and those daemons will be bursting out.

Its a large investment, for maybe 1 or 2 extra blood tithe a turn, but could be a lot of fun and the slaughterpriests are still increasing the portal range as well. Being able to constantly pop new units all over the place is great for objective grabbing too

[mastercrafted]

@Ravinsild i view my reavers as nothing more than blood tithe atm, stick a few buffs on and fling them in there. Watch them die, collect the tithe, and fling another one in.

I'm currently only taking blood warriors cos they look awesome, and i have a them. If i started again, id probably just go with chaos warriors 

[Mikeymajq]

@mastercrafted Yeah it is, I probably would have taken blade of endless bloodshed too just to compound on getting more tithe. Probably not super competetive but could be fun. I usually find, with my lists, that I get enough blood tithe points, but maybe getting enough a turn sooner would be great.  

 

Yeah just take a few min units of reavers and put them infront of your scary stuff. I don't even expect mine to get to swing, they are chaff/screens and blood tithe. If their gore gruntas or whatever smashes into 10 reavers instead of a good unit it's such a win for you. Next turn just hit them with something that'll hurt them on your terms after they've killed th reavers and gotten you a blood tithe point.  
Yesterday I played a Dark feast list and just had a bunch of reavers, a warshrine and some skullcrushers behind 'em. But reavers just melt, but those that lived long enough to swing did it with 4 attacks each with either rerolls to hit or +1 to hit. But I had one unit of 20 and that just instantly felt like a mistake, 14 died before they got to swing
If that was just two units of 10 there would actually have been less dead reavers, and another blood tithe for me. 
I've played 3 games with BoK in 2nd Ed, and by turn three I've had between 6-8 blood tithe points. I usually just drop a bunch of bloodletters on an objective and take the lead. 

I've played with Skarbrand once and he died almost instantly. But he did kill a unit of 5 stormcast paladins in one go (that's 15 wounds on a 4+ save), so when he gets to swing it's hilariously lethal

 

Edited August 10, 2018 by Mikeymajq

[TheAdequateWargamer]

@Ravinsild said stuff

I feel for you! When i started playing aos it was impossible to get a 2000pt game. The club i went to wanted to run 1000pts games to let new people play without a big barrier to entry and then ran a couple of big 4-8 player games with 750 pts each (4 teams of 2x750pts). First 2k game I played was at a tournament. Eye opener!

If youre playing people who are gold tier, make sure you debrief with them afterwards! Ask what you should have done differently. If youre not learning from a loss, youve probably wasted a game.

Always ask your opponent what their effective range is. Whats the max distance they can move + shoot. Or move + charge. Its not a crime to castle up or deploy on your back board edge. 

Imo playing khorne at 1k / 1.5k and 2k  or more than 2k are completely different experiences. Very much reliant on buffing characters to supercharge units. Characters are a big investment in a small game, and battallions should probably be out of the question. You can only really choose one or two types of buff giving you a very one dimensional army. Allegience ability relies on killing units. Smaller games, fewer units, less potential tithe points. However, big games above 2k crazy good for bloodtithe points.

Rather than trying out every list/battalion to see what is the best, figure out which units you enjoy the most and have a playstyle you like and stick with them until you know them inside out.

Agreed with @mastercrafted

Reavers are just ablative fodder. Their blood isnt fit for drinking, merely spilling.

The biggest decisions with them should revolve around:

A) Do i place a unit behind them to counter pile-in when they get charged and die or do I place my unit more than 3" away? (For example if you know someone can double pilein, or if you are going to be charged by two killer units or if you think shooting/magic will remove the reavers before combat.

B) If the unit behind the reavers piles in after they die, will it still be in range of any buffing characters come the start of my next hero phase? 

C) If they get charged, will the opponents unit be within 16" of a slaughterpriest? Just because the reavers rolled a 6 to run doesnt mean you should pelt them forward the full distance. you could totally setup reavers as range finders for bloodboil.