AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[frenk_castle]

Do people think there is a chance of Blood Warriors going to 10 man squad minimum? Cause the box is 10 models and special weapon and banner can be added for every 10 models.

Given the new reinforcement rules on one hand it seems appropriate to move them to 10 man. But then they can have max 30. By that logic Blood Reavers could go to 60 models max. On other hand they can reduce the requirement for goreglaive and banner to 5 man which also has a problem of not having enough in the box. Or they could leave number rules as is but that also looks odd to me.

[drkrash]

I'm less interested in wondering about what changes the new rules will provoke for a new battletome because it's safe to say that we'll be playing with these rules for probably a solid 8-12 months before seeing a new book.  I'm thinking about how to play the warscrolls we have with the rules we're seeing.  The smaller board size slightly mitigates the shooting issue and I think magic has always been less of a problem for us.  The question that remains for me is: will there be some Command Ability that benefits melee armies against shooting?

The leaked rules about Reinforcement points, combined with Coherency rules, will greatly affect mortal lists.  Daemon lists will be largely the same except for the loss of Tyrants (and no good replacement among the generic battalions).

[AresX8]

 

4 hours ago, frenk_castle said:

Do people think there is a chance of Blood Warriors going to 10 man squad minimum? Cause the box is 10 models and special weapon and banner can be added for every 10 models.

Given the new reinforcement rules on one hand it seems appropriate to move them to 10 man. But then they can have max 30. By that logic Blood Reavers could go to 60 models max. On other hand they can reduce the requirement for goreglaive and banner to 5 man which also has a problem of not having enough in the box. Or they could leave number rules as is but that also looks odd to me.

 

It'll certainly be confusing for Blood Warriors, as take a look at the unit size from 1st Ed starter: 5 models. Bloodreavers are 20 in that starter and in the multipart box so I can totally see the unit going to 20 models minimum.

 

3 hours ago, drkrash said:

I'm less interested in wondering about what changes the new rules will provoke for a new battletome because it's safe to say that we'll be playing with these rules for probably a solid 8-12 months before seeing a new book.  I'm thinking about how to play the warscrolls we have with the rules we're seeing.  The smaller board size slightly mitigates the shooting issue and I think magic has always been less of a problem for us.  The question that remains for me is: will there be some Command Ability that benefits melee armies against shooting?

The leaked rules about Reinforcement points, combined with Coherency rules, will greatly affect mortal lists.  Daemon lists will be largely the same except for the loss of Tyrants (and no good replacement among the generic battalions).

From what I've seen All-Out Defense does seem to work in the opponent's shooting phase, which is quite handy.

The coherency rules only affects Bloodreavers and Bloodletters for the most part, as big units of Blood Warriors wasn't quite handy to keep them in our wholly within bubbles. 

The questions I keep having I believe will be covered in GHB 2021 and/or the first wave of erratas.

Some of these are:

- Does Blood Tithe reset after being used once?
- How is Reapers of Vengeance Leave None alive being reworded... can 30x Bloodletters finally fight twice without super Rube Goldberg machine shenanigans?

[LordRhulak]

We're the last faction to get a faction focus before the new edition. Normally that space would be reserved for an important faction in the narrative / a new battletome. Maybe there is a chance?

Probably a little hopeful. 

Edited June 11, 2021 by LordRhulak

[frenk_castle]

Hi guys,

I will be playing a game of AoS in a week with a friend. I will give him my Stormcast and I will play my Bloodbound Mortals. Could you please go over the lists I made for us and tell me if they match ok against one another?

 

++ Pitched Battle 2,000 (Chaos - Khorne) [2,000pts] ++

+ Uncategorised +

Skull Altar

+ Leader +

Bloodstoker

Mighty Lord of Khorne, Bezerker Lord, Gorecleaver, General

+ Other +

Khorgorath
3 Mighty Skullcrushers, Ensorcelled Axe

+ Battalion +

Battalion: Gore Pilgrims [700pts]: Gore Pilgrims
. Blood Warriors: 5 Blood Warriors, Goreaxe and Gorefist
. Bloodreavers: 2x 10 Bloodreavers, Hornblowers, Reaver Blades
. Bloodsecrator: 1. Banner of Rage
. Slaughterpriest: 1. Bronzed Flesh, Hackblade & Wrath-hammer
. Slaughterpriest: 5. Killing Frenzy, Bloodbathed Axe

Battalion: Slaughterborn [720pts]: Slaughterborn
. Blood Warriors: 5 Blood Warriors, Goreaxe and Gorefist
. Exalted Deathbringer with Impaling Spear: 5. Mark of the Destroyer, Impaling Spear
. Skullreapers: 5 Skullreapers
. Skullreapers: 5 Skullreapers

+ Allegiance +

. Allegiance: Khorne

+ Game Options +

Game Type: 2000 Points - Battlehost

+ Malign Sorcery +

Judgement: Bleeding Icon [40pts]

Judgement: Wrath-Axe [60pts]

++ Total: [2,000pts] ++

++ Pitched Battle 2,000 (Order - Stormcast Eternals) [2,000pts] ++

+ Leader +

Knight-Incantor [120pts]: 

Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-charger [200pts]: General

Lord-Castellant [120pts]: Faithful Gryph-hound

+ Battleline +

Sequitors [240pts]: 2x 5 Sequitors, Redemption Cache, 4x Stormsmite Greatmace, Stormsmite Maul and Soulshield

Sequitors [120pts]: 5 Sequitors, 2x Stormsmite Greatmace, Stormsmite Maul and Soulshield

Sequitors [120pts]: 5 Sequitors, 2x Stormsmite Greatmace, Stormsmite Maul and Soulshield

+ Other +

 5 Evocators, 5x Tempest Blade and Stormstave

 5 Retributors

+ Battalion +

Battalion: Hailstorm Battery [580pts]
. Castigators: 3x 3 Castigators
. Celestar Ballista
. Lord-Ordinator:  Astral Grandhammer

Endless Spell: Everblaze Comet [100pts]

I will let him choose his own Stormhost or no stormhost, trait, artefacts, spells but these are the models he will be playing and the list I will be playing.

Do they look ok? I am hoping for us to have an even game.

[Smooth criminal]

The thirster-based khorne seems to have gotten much stronger in the 3ed with the new hero/monster buffs and ability to protect themselves from shooting with command abilities. Also the 6" pilein prevents unleash hell usage.

The std-based one seem to have gotten a bump too with shrines and unit leaders able to give commands. You don't need to play easily snipeable heroes for buffs now, just a bloodsecrator hugging a cover with a defensive artifact should be enough. Marauders costing 1 reinforce to max out is great, you can flood the table with up to 160 of them and they can make themselves immune to battleshock. Knights are great in msus. Warriors can throw +1 save on themselves with reroll but cost a ton of reinforce.

Khorne has one of the easiest CP generation in the game with blood point exchange each phase, you just need to time correctly. More msus on the table improves the blood point generation. The +1 hit/save prayers straight up save you a CP now, keep that in mind.

Gore pilgrims and tyrants are gone but both thirster and std lists moved on from them anyway.

 

Bloodbound seem super dead. Big warrior units and 6+ crusher units have gotten much worse. Bloodletters still dead. Big wrathmongers are probably still good with their 2" reach but probably not enough to carry the army.

[Grimrock]

I think we can definitely have some play but a lot depends on where the points go. Priests only being able to chant a single prayer and no repeat prayers are big hits to our best unit and devastating to their mortal wound output. Being able to move through invocations is a big hit to their effectiveness for screening. Reavers definitely seem dead, doubly so if they bump their minimum size to match their box. Blood warriors could still work if they don't bump their size, but I like flesh hounds much much more for the basic battle line/screening unit. Wrathmongers and Skullreapers should work fairly well if MSU takes over as they can pack a lot of punch into a small package, especially with the new command abilities. Thirsters are OK, but without tyrants or easy artifacts from battalions I don't think 3 or 4 are going to work nearly as well. Maybe 2 might be the sweet spot? Along with some bloodcrushers to tie up ranged units with Rejoice in the Slaughter. 

Smaller boards and smaller no mans lands help. Redeploy could help by letting us push forward onto objectives that we're normally too slow to reach. Marauders are still as good as ever. Being able to mix and match daemons and mortals together in the same core battalion is certainly nice. Easily attained +2 to saves helps a lot against high rend attacks. It's really hard to say where we'll be at in this edition. I don't think it'll be much better, but maybe not much worse either. 

Edited June 14, 2021 by Grimrock

[Perturbato]

4 hours ago, Smooth criminal said:

The thirster-based khorne seems to have gotten much stronger in the 3ed with the new hero/monster buffs and ability to protect themselves from shooting with command abilities. Also the 6" pilein prevents unleash hell usage.

The std-based one seem to have gotten a bump too with shrines and unit leaders able to give commands. You don't need to play easily snipeable heroes for buffs now, just a bloodsecrator hugging a cover with a defensive artifact should be enough. Marauders costing 1 reinforce to max out is great, you can flood the table with up to 160 of them and they can make themselves immune to battleshock. Knights are great in msus. Warriors can throw +1 save on themselves with reroll but cost a ton of reinforce.

Khorne has one of the easiest CP generation in the game with blood point exchange each phase, you just need to time correctly. More msus on the table improves the blood point generation. The +1 hit/save prayers straight up save you a CP now, keep that in mind.

Gore pilgrims and tyrants are gone but both thirster and std lists moved on from them anyway.

 

Bloodbound seem super dead. Big warrior units and 6+ crusher units have gotten much worse. Bloodletters still dead. Big wrathmongers are probably still good with their 2" reach but probably not enough to carry the army.

Look the Vince Venturella warhammer weekly about the oval bases : it's still possible to use them as 6 and be able to charge in a line. But maybe the unit size will change. And the Skullcrushers will count as 2 model on objectives now as 5+pv model will count as two models on objectives. Monsters will count as 5 !

1 hour ago, Grimrock said:

I think we can definitely have some play but a lot depends on where the points go. Priests only being able to chant a single prayer and no repeat prayers are big hits to our best unit and devastating to their mortal wound output. Being able to move through invocations is a big hit to their effectiveness for screening. Reavers definitely seem dead, doubly so if they bump their minimum size to match their box. Blood warriors could still work if they don't bump their size, but I like flesh hounds much much more for the basic battle line/screening unit. Wrathmongers and Skullreapers should work fairly well if MSU takes over as they can pack a lot of punch into a small package, especially with the new command abilities. Thirsters are OK, but without tyrants or easy artifacts from battalions I don't think 3 or 4 are going to work nearly as well. Maybe 2 might be the sweet spot? Along with some bloodcrushers to tie up ranged units with Rejoice in the Slaughter. 

Smaller boards and smaller no mans lands help. Redeploy could help by letting us push forward onto objectives that we're normally too slow to reach. Marauders are still as good as ever. Being able to mix and match daemons and mortals together in the same core battalion is certainly nice. Easily attained +2 to saves helps a lot against high rend attacks. It's really hard to say where we'll be at in this edition. I don't think it'll be much better, but maybe not much worse either. 

Until we have a new battletome, our current one is still valid and our slaughterpriests can still chant benedictions prayers and jugements in addition to warscroll payers can't we ? 

 

in overhaul without the consideration the unit size will change we won't see many changes to bloodreavers : they were only here to screen and if they disappear when we sneeze on them it won't change many things with the actual use of them .. maybe will we use them more to counter deep strike in our back now.

 

32mm 1" unit were mediocre, now they are worse but it won't change a lot. 40mm 1" base will suffer more but i always use my skullreapers by 5 ..

My biggest loose is the loose of the slaughterborn battalion (i had a 30 bloodwarriors and 3x5 skullreapers that decreased rend of 1 it was super tanky !)

I will play them but now i will go quicker about painting the STD and the bloodthirsters i own ! 

[Grimrock]

1 hour ago, Perturbato said:

Until we have a new battletome, our current one is still valid and our slaughterpriests can still chant benedictions prayers and jugements in addition to warscroll payers can't we ? 

Hard to say honestly. The issue is in section 20.0 the core rules specifically say that a priest can chant 1 prayer that they know. I don't have my battletome on me, but I thought the wording was something like they can chant a blood blessing in addition to the prayer on their warscroll. In the old rules it never gave rules for how many prayers you could chant, the rules for that were typically on the warscrolls themselves, so the khorne rules don't completely make sense anymore. I'm hoping that we get to chant the blessings and warscroll prayers, but I'm not holding my breath. I believe we can definitely summon a judgement (called an Invocation in the core rules now) in addition to prayers. I'm also sure that you can't chant a given prayer more than once per phase, so even if we can chant a warscroll prayer and a blood blessing, we'll still only get a single instance of blood boil and a single instance of blood bind per turn. 

Either way I think we're going to need a FAQ to clean things up for our priests. For example, all priests can now suffer what they call 'Divine Wrath' and take a mortal wound if they roll a 1 on their prayers. As it stands right now that'll double up with our prayers and we'd take D3+1 mortals if we get a 1 on our warscroll prayers. In addition all priests can now attempt to dispel endless spells. I'm not sure if that means that ours can attempt to dispel two endless spells each (one from the warscroll and one from the core rules), or if we're still only supposed to dispel 1. 

Edited June 14, 2021 by Grimrock

[Perturbato]

5 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

Hard to say honestly. The issue is in section 20.0 the core rules specifically say that a priest can chant 1 prayer that they know. I don't have my battletome on me, but I thought the wording was something like they can chant a blood blessing in addition to the prayer on their warscroll. In the old rules it never gave rules for how many prayers you could chant, the rules for that were typically on the warscrolls themselves, so the khorne rules don't completely make sense anymore. I'm hoping that we get to chant the blessings and warscroll prayers, but I'm not holding my breath. I believe we can definitely summon a judgement (called an Invocation in the core rules now) in addition to prayers. I'm also sure that you can't chant a given prayer more than once per phase, so even if we can chant a warscroll prayer and a blood blessing, we'll still only get a single instance of blood boil and a single instance of blood bind per turn. 

Either way I think we're going to need a FAQ to clean things up for our priests. For example, all priests can now suffer what they call 'Divine Wrath' and take a mortal wound if they roll a 1 on their prayers. As it stands right now that'll double up with our prayers and we'd take D3+1 mortals if we get a 1 on our warscroll prayers. In addition all priests can now attempt to dispel endless spells. I'm not sure if that means that ours can attempt to dispel two endless spells each (one from the warscroll and one from the core rules), or if we're still only supposed to dispel 1. 

yeah we will probably see the "count as a wizard for dispell or unbind" line disapears on the warscroll.

And it will be just common sense to agree with the opponent if we take 1 or D3 mw on a 1. I'd say that i keep my warscroll prayer + benediction prayer + jugement because khorne needs its identity. But in addition i take D3 MW on a 1 for khorne identity 😛

 

And we need the warscroll changed to "warscroll prayers can be only chanted once per hero phase" until that i'll continue to spam blood boil 😛 But if we can't we would have blood boil + other new prayers (bless, curse .. etc ..)

bless (+6 fnp) and that not such a waste to have FNP in khorne bloodbound (FNP on bloodsecrator is not that bad !)

 

[LordRhulak]

6 hours ago, Perturbato said:

And we need the warscroll changed to "warscroll prayers can be only chanted once per hero phase" until that i'll continue to spam blood boil 😛 But if we can't we would have blood boil + other new prayers (bless, curse .. etc ..)

 

I think this eliminates blood boil spam.

You cannot chant the same prayer more than once in the same hero phase, even with a different Priest. 

The way I read it, we'll get the judgements in addition to other prayers but we will have to choose between bless, enhancement/ blood blessings and blood boil/bind. 

A lot of the prayers seem to be on 5s. We get a big advantage there with our rerolls. The CP generation one and the 6+ ward are nice. 

Our prayer lore also got expanded but I'm not sure if I'll take any over what we already have other than curse. It just gives a unit a more extreme plague touched warband effect. Then again it is very short range. 

The 5+ ward generic artefact on a sectator is looking very good. 

Edited June 14, 2021 by LordRhulak

[frenk_castle]

Currently how it seems is one priest can chant one prayer, one blessing one judgement per turn but they can not be repeated by other priests. So one can do Bronzed Flesh, Blood Boil and Wrath Axe and then another can do Killing Frenzy, Blood Bind and Bleeding Icon for instance. This will probably be changed with a new battletome but it is published or there is and FAQ RAW this is how it seems to work.

[LordRhulak]

Quote

In addition to any other prayers they can chant, each PRIEST in a Khorne army knows one blessing from the Blood Blessings of Khorne.

The wording just says that they know the prayer, not that they can chant an additional one. The rules never let them chant an additional prayer. RAW I would say that they can't. RAI, I suppose we wait and hope for an FAQ?

Edited June 14, 2021 by LordRhulak

[frenk_castle]

16 minutes ago, LordRhulak said:

The wording just says that they know the prayer, not that they can chant an additional one. The rules never let them chant an additional prayer. RAW I would say that they can't. RAI, I suppose we wait and hope for an FAQ?

But these are not prayers they are blessings. Or maybe I am just splitting hairs. I hope they clarify this in an FAQ or GHB so I do not have to guess.

[LordRhulak]

You might be right. The rule ends with the sentence : Each Blood Blessing of Khorne can only be chanted once per turn, regardless of how many PRIESTS know that prayer.

So maybe they are one and the same - at the very least they are interchangable. Guess we're waiting for an FAQ. 

Watertight...

[Skarband]

Hi how about mighty skullcrushers? Its over to bring more than 3x? What's od your opinion i love khorne hevy cavalary army but i scare about new coherency i need your opinion 😭😭😭😭

[drkrash]

12 hours ago, frenk_castle said:

But these are not prayers they are blessings. Or maybe I am just splitting hairs. I hope they clarify this in an FAQ or GHB so I do not have to guess.

I'm confident that this is a game vocab that is going to officially change to everything being a "prayer."  They all use the same mechanics, after all.

I'm disappointed that our Invocations can be dispelled AND they still often disappear at the end of the round.

I don't recall if they move in each Hero Phase like an Endless Spell.

[LordRhulak]

6 hours ago, Skarband said:

Hi how about mighty skullcrushers? Its over to bring more than 3x? What's od your opinion i love khorne hevy cavalary army but i scare about new coherency i need your opinion 😭😭😭😭

On warhammer weekly it was explained how units of 6 oval bases will be fine for coherency. Haven't watched it yet but it could mean that MSCs will be fine. 

A couple of 3s could work well with the All Out Defence command ability to give them a 2+ save. With the heal prayer and rally, they could stick around for a long time. 

 

[frenk_castle]

5 hours ago, drkrash said:

I'm confident that this is a game vocab that is going to officially change to everything being a "prayer."  They all use the same mechanics, after all.

I'm disappointed that our Invocations can be dispelled AND they still often disappear at the end of the round.

I don't recall if they move in each Hero Phase like an Endless Spell.

I am sure they will and I will play them as such until there is a new battletome or FAQ. I am positive that is the "intent" but I am not sure about RAW currently.

Edited June 15, 2021 by frenk_castle

[Troll.exe]

From our faq designer commentary

“Q: If a Priest knows more than one prayer, can it attempt to chant each of them?
A: Yes, as long as no other restrictions apply.”

 

Pretty sure the 1 prayer per phase rule would count as a restriction. Can’t see any way around that. 

[Agent of Chaos]

Seems the intent is clear that priests are limited to 1 prayer per turn, which includes an Invocation (Judgement) & a Blood Blessing.

The wording (20.0) is that all Priests can chant 1 prayer that they know. It then goes on to say that Priests know the generic prayers (bless & smite), the prayer(s) on their warscroll and on the warscrolls of invocations in the same army. It also says that Invocations are summoned by "chanting the prayer on its warscroll" (20.3). 

As someone who did not want this change, it seems clear to me that the invocation is considered a prayer and so is not chanted in addition to a warscroll/generic prayer. Blood Blessings would also appear to be considered as prayers however they might be FAQ'ed as their own unique benefit to Khorne priests which we can do in addition to a regular prayer as it currently reads in the battletome (somehow doubt this will happen but one can hope).

However it likely means Slaughterpriests will know up to 5 different prayers, plus any judgements you bring, but can only attempt one per turn (and thats only if they didnt sacrifice their one prayer to attempt to banish an opponent's invocation). Im also guessing with the emphasis on priests and new hero abilities in this edition they will actually go up in points, if not stay at 100.  

Given that Judgements no longer block movement, can disappear themselves in addition to your opponent being able to banish them, It makes our priests and especially judgements very questionable as they are too unreliable and limited.

[Agent of Chaos]

I for one will now be looking at completely different lists. 

Flesh Hounds are by far the battleline of choice. Decent movement, extra unbinds for all those endless spells, rerolling 1's to hit from deamon locus is now a much more important ability. They can really hold their own in an MSU meta and thanks to new coherency rules, provide the biggest screen for their min unit size.

Back up the hounds with some slow moving MSU of skullreapers and wrathmongers with Bloodsecrator/Bloodstoker support, maybe even an Aspiring Deathbringer now that there are enough CP to use his ability. 

Sprinkle on some Bloodthirsters and theres an interesting list brewing. 

[Perturbato]

9 hours ago, Troll.exe said:

From our faq designer commentary

“Q: If a Priest knows more than one prayer, can it attempt to chant each of them?
A: Yes, as long as no other restrictions apply.”

 

Pretty sure the 1 prayer per phase rule would count as a restriction. Can’t see any way around that. 

that's the shadowest answer possible .. "yes except if no"

[Perturbato]

3 hours ago, Agent of Chaos said:

I for one will now be looking at completely different lists. 

Flesh Hounds are by far the battleline of choice. Decent movement, extra unbinds for all those endless spells, rerolling 1's to hit from deamon locus is now a much more important ability. They can really hold their own in an MSU meta and thanks to new coherency rules, provide the biggest screen for their min unit size.

Back up the hounds with some slow moving MSU of skullreapers and wrathmongers with Bloodsecrator/Bloodstoker support, maybe even an Aspiring Deathbringer now that there are enough CP to use his ability. 

Sprinkle on some Bloodthirsters and theres an interesting list brewing. 

Maybe one day they will make Karanak usefull .. like being able to sumon Flesh hound ww 18 instead of 12 and not in the hero phase

[Grimrock]

10 hours ago, Agent of Chaos said:

I for one will now be looking at completely different lists. 

Flesh Hounds are by far the battleline of choice. Decent movement, extra unbinds for all those endless spells, rerolling 1's to hit from deamon locus is now a much more important ability. They can really hold their own in an MSU meta and thanks to new coherency rules, provide the biggest screen for their min unit size.

Back up the hounds with some slow moving MSU of skullreapers and wrathmongers with Bloodsecrator/Bloodstoker support, maybe even an Aspiring Deathbringer now that there are enough CP to use his ability. 

Sprinkle on some Bloodthirsters and theres an interesting list brewing. 

Pretty much exactly what I was thinking for list building. The thing I'm running into is the list will chew through MSU like nothing, but it has some trouble against the one or two deathstars that the opponent is likely to bring. Wrathmongers and Skullreapers are great but they just don't do enough damage to chew through something with a 1+ save and I'm not sure if the bloodthirster will do enough to compensate. Need to play a few games and see how it goes I guess, but tossing in at least one priest might be mandatory to try and get a wrath axe on the table.