AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[TimeToWaste85]

Honestly, I’m of the opinion that on paper, Khorne is in a better place than ever. Points went up heavily for everyone, but Khorne suffered minimally. MSU is encouraged and even FORCED, to an extent. Khorne loves MSU for the tithe. We have two characters and a Bloodthirster that allow for 6”-8” pile in to ignore Unleash Hell/Retreat. 

We can throw a 30 man (60 wound) unit of Blood Warriors 24”-30” across the table in a conga line to hit MULTIPLE units at the same time (if opponent isn’t prepared for Goretide) that can re-roll hits and wounds. 
 

I see the doom and gloom, but I don’t share it. I love Khorne’s options in 3.0. 

[Zamik]

As the edition develops, I don't doubt that we'll find viable strategies; I can't help, however, feeling a little adrift right now when our previous coping strategies have been undermined by the new core mechanics.

I have to admit, I don't see the value in 630 points of Blood Warriors. They'll get where you want them to go fast, and then do what? There's the reroll of ones to wound but that's wholly within 12" of an objective, and that's a tight squeeze; and the reroll of ones to hit for paired axes. It sounds a little optimistic to me.

[Charleston]

Had a 1000pts game with Khorne Mortals vs Soulblight (Red Keep with Manfred). It was a fun game and a really awesome chad I played against so I don't bother with the result but daaaaamn I see not much hope for Khorne until the Tome will be reworked. To be fair, I played a Reaver/Wrathmonger heavy list which aimed to get Curse out and then get as many hits on the target as possible, which really didn't go off at all. I failed almost all prayers so no curse->no mortals->no way to deal with his 2+ save. Biggest value came from Mighty Skullcrushers. 1+/2+ with skin prayer and all out defense is pretty fine. I totaly see them as the best choice for battleline for us. If I had access to the models I would play 3x3 Skullcrushers and fill the remaining points with Bloodthirsters. 

[TimeToWaste85]

1 hour ago, Zamik said:

As the edition develops, I don't doubt that we'll find viable strategies; I can't help, however, feeling a little adrift right now when our previous coping strategies have been undermined by the new core mechanics.

I have to admit, I don't see the value in 630 points of Blood Warriors. They'll get where you want them to go fast, and then do what? There's the reroll of ones to wound but that's wholly within 12" of an objective, and that's a tight squeeze; and the reroll of ones to hit for paired axes. It sounds a little optimistic to me.

Bloodstoker gives re-roll to wound along with +3 to run and charge. It’s a huge blob that can do 61 attacks (again, spread out), reroll wounds, reroll hits (needs a command, cuz you want the fist), and then when attacked back by numerous units, they do MWs on 6’s and attack when they die. It is 100% a blaze of glory attack that should be hilariously epic, do a lot of damage, then get followed up by multiple charging chimeras, knights, DP, etc. it’s “wave 1”.
 

That unit can potentially do 122 attacks (assuming death of unit), PLUS MWs on 6s to save before even getting a single bonus attack. Weight of dice. If you’d like 122 attacks swinging your way, you’re a better man than me. 

and a Bloodsecrator, Wrathmongers and Aspiring Champion nearby all increase the amount of hits too. 

Edited July 29, 2021 by TimeToWaste85

[Zamik]

7 minutes ago, TimeToWaste85 said:

Bloodstoker gives re-roll to wound along with +3 to run and charge. It’s a huge blob that can do 61 attacks (again, spread out), reroll wounds, reroll hits (needs a command, cuz you want the fist), and then when attacked back by numerous units, they do MWs on 6’s and attack when they die. It is 100% a blaze of glory attack that should be hilariously epic, do a lot of damage, then get followed up by multiple charging chimeras, knights, DP, etc. it’s “wave 1”.
 

That unit can potentially do 122 attacks, PLUS MWs on 6s to save before even getting a single bonus attack. Weight of dice. If you’d like 122 attacks swinging your way, you’re a better man than me. 

I think coherency rules with their 32mm base and 1" weapon reach will halve that number of attacks. This also just seems like an example of the Khorne Trap: if I take thirty of these guys, multiple support heroes, spend several command points, and nothing goes wrong, I could pull off some real damage here!

[Charleston]

For real, Khorne is a joke right now and it really feels like noone in GW Developement Team cares for the faction:

• Khorne wsas just 1.0's generic baddie faction
• Lore is so badly written that you can break down each single khorne related lorebit to "Angry man kills stuff"
• 2.0 Battletome was just a loveless wording correction and added just the "necessary" new features like Judgements and Suballigiences.

I imagine this to be also the reason why we won't see a real update for Khorne in the future as simply noone at GW's has a cool idea what to do with this faction. They would have to add some new lore, rewrite a lot of stuff and this is something you don't do when you can't stand the faction anyway. If GW devs perceive Khorne as bland, they will keep making it a bland faction. 

3 hours ago, TimeToWaste85 said:

I’m of the opinion that on paper...

So go for it and play some games! I can only recommend it as it helps to see our faction more in a context within the game. 

[Perturbato]

How do you score various battletactics with 30 bloodwarriors stucked in a area of the map ? How do you kill thing with those bloodwarriors ? And how do you handle the flying monsters going across your pack ? They have no rend ! They deal only mortal wounds on save and guess what ? There is less saturation now than before, and the adversary are focusing on MW dealing.

They are slow, there are 8 scenery on the map so good luck moving efficiently with them .. no : when i want tanky battleline i take mighty skullcrushers. 

And a nice redeploy and your bloodwarriors are sitting happily in the middle of the map and your heroes are naked in the back. If you don't have rend -2 or mortal wound you won't be efficient here. The nice thing with the bloodwarriors gore fist was versus big spam of chad unit .. and it's msu or monsters now as you say. 

I agree our units are ok .. but everyone else is rocking so we can't compete. 

Khorgos khul (i never know where to put the "h" in his name) is the mightiest of all bloodbounds and should compete at the level of Sigvald ! He has nice skills but when someone look at him he dies.

Skullreapers were awesome and even more awesome when hitting big pack of chad units .. now there are less likely to reroll their hits and they are very expensive. Bloodreavers can't do their screening job properly with their idiotic 32mm base and can be efficient now with curse but for it to properly work you have to get five moons aligned.

I mean i don't want to be like Beastclaw raiders because i like having to struggle to be efficient. But it's more likely we have no clear way to go and one error is battlelost. Other armies are power overwhelming when they succeed the right combos and we are only surviving when we manage ours.

[Perturbato]

As i said, it's thoses bikini wearing b*tches that stole our jobs ! meeeeeh

 

Blood lovers, better fury in battle, real glass canon, better priestess, and are more efficient versus the order than us 

Edited July 29, 2021 by Perturbato

[Zamik]

26 minutes ago, Charleston said:

I imagine this to be also the reason why we won't see a real update for Khorne in the future as simply noone at GW's has a cool idea what to do with this faction. They would have to add some new lore, rewrite a lot of stuff and this is something you don't do when you can't stand the faction anyway. If GW devs perceive Khorne as bland, they will keep making it a bland faction.

Sam Pearson shows off his Khorne collection in the Core Book, so there's some love for the faction there clearly; though so far that love hasn't translated into a compelling battletome.

[TimeToWaste85]

 

30 minutes ago, Charleston said:

For real, Khorne is a joke right now and it really feels like noone in GW Developement Team cares for the faction:

• Khorne wsas just 1.0's generic baddie faction
• Lore is so badly written that you can break down each single khorne related lorebit to "Angry man kills stuff"
• 2.0 Battletome was just a loveless wording correction and added just the "necessary" new features like Judgements and Suballigiences.

I imagine this to be also the reason why we won't see a real update for Khorne in the future as simply noone at GW's has a cool idea what to do with this faction. They would have to add some new lore, rewrite a lot of stuff and this is something you don't do when you can't stand the faction anyway. If GW devs perceive Khorne as bland, they will keep making it a bland faction. 

So go for it and play some games! I can only recommend it as it helps to see our faction more in a context within the game. 

I’d love to. Two babies at home, combined with the pandemic not really being over (yes, I do take Delta seriously)…yeah, games are tough to come by. Even on a simulator. List crafting and posting are my hobby time (aside from building/painting). 

Edited July 29, 2021 by TimeToWaste85

[Troll.exe]

The issue isn’t that Khorne isn’t any good in 3.0, the issue is that only a few select units are good. People don’t want auto includes, to have to paint up a complete new 2k list because nothing they have is usable.

Archaon in Khorne is a close second behind Tzeentch marked. He’s essentially unkillable and pumps out the damage.

Khorne daemon prince is miles ahead of the other marks. One of the best CAs in the game.

I have no doubt that Khorne will be competitive with these two. But that leaves us with Reapers as our slaughterhost every battle. And that’s the first 1100ish points gone straight off the bat. Not a lot of room to experiment. 

[CrimsonKing]

7 hours ago, TimeToWaste85 said:

 

I’d love to. Two babies at home, combined with the pandemic not really being over (yes, I do take Delta seriously)…yeah, games are tough to come by. Even on a simulator. List crafting and posting are my hobby time (aside from building/painting). 

I'm still stuck at home with a 3 year old. though double vaxxed now but just painting and armchair general for the last year.
Did the super-nerdy thing of setting up a battle for myself vs. myself to properly walk through 3.0+Khorne army interactions.

Absolutely blown away by the insensate rage mortal wounds but of course not much to drop his wound tracker before combat playing against khorne (myself)

If he can be guaranteed to take down 1.5x his points each combat phase that has to be top tier no?
Also skullcrushers+lord crusher charge buff+slaughterpriest 'curse' on target pushed out 4-5 charge mortals (with lord), then crushers did 10 wounds and 4 more mortals vs 4+ save unit. But priest getting 9" curse off AND that unit being double-charged is unlikely in real terms. Of course that is like 440 points right there, but happy if my core feels useful.

Next time I will try proxying some opponent forces, either Lumineth or Gravelords, to understand if the various scenarios hold weight vs 'better' armies. If I play real games soon will be likely vs. zombie-dragon heavy undead, so good to see beforehand.

As Perturbato said; We look cool until we look at other armies. Hence putting in the work to see for myself.

Edited July 30, 2021 by CrimsonKing

[Charleston]

Okay, to maybe cheer up the general tone in this threads: What Units do you think have some use on their own within Khorne? 

My vote goes for Skullcrushers. While moderately fast with 8" I really like the combination of 5 Wounds at 3+ save. As long as you don't face many mortals you can use 3 of them quite well to hold objectives. With a Jugger-Lord they make up the most usefull battleline choice in my opinion.

Skullreapers may be expensive, but they bring the toolbox we actually need in this edition: Mortal wounds and a lot of attacks to trigger thoose. 

 

[LordDave]

51 minutes ago, Charleston said:

Okay, to maybe cheer up the general tone in this threads: What Units do you think have some use on their own within Khorne? 

My vote goes for Skullcrushers. While moderately fast with 8" I really like the combination of 5 Wounds at 3+ save. As long as you don't face many mortals you can use 3 of them quite well to hold objectives. With a Jugger-Lord they make up the most usefull battleline choice in my opinion.

Skullreapers may be expensive, but they bring the toolbox we actually need in this edition: Mortal wounds and a lot of attacks to trigger thoose. 

 

I still really like Khorgoraths, I’d use more (than 2) if it weren’t for the monopose issue.  Also, I do wonder whether given restrictions on Inspiring Presence we can do something with bravery de-buffs - from Icon, Khorgoraths, Bloodletter musician, reapers trait, coalition knights etc.  although not sure how easy to pull off the combo…

Edited July 30, 2021 by LordDave

[Perturbato]

We it's coalition unit but i'm using a Chaos lord on daemonic mount with mark of the slayer linked to a slaughterbrute and for 320 points it's really nice. Both are tanky enough, 3+ reroll 1 on slaughterbrute is super efficient versus 4+ or 5+ enemies. Slaughterbrute base move is 10" and bracket profile pretty forgiving. The lord can deal a few mortal wounds. You can link the slaughterbrute to a daemon prince if you want but i prefer giving him tanky artefact than mark of the slayer.

I used him in a game with 9 Skullcrushers with bloodglaive for 4+ reroll 1 without CP and it was quite effective and the slaughterbrute was doing his things on border of fights ^^. 

Juggerlord is the only Bloodbound tanky enough general worth it. I prefer one big pack of 9 to be able to launch 5 or 6 Mightyskullcrushers in front and when they finally clear the pack in front of them we can use rally. Unit cohesion is really easy with oval bases.

Until they FAQ Skulltaker he is a beast in bloodlord army (+4 move and halo of blood :p)

Bloodthirster of IR with argaht king of blade in RoV is really someone not to mess with i always take a priest to heal him and bless him if he is full life. I manage duel and kill 3 Keepers of Secret versus slaanesh for the last game with a few help from other units(my msu list was a blast for my opponent and he spawned 3 keepers ...).

For RoV juste be mindfull that the enemy car roar at your BT so he can't use CP ..

[Perturbato]

(We were last in the Faction presentation for AOS v3, and we didn't show up in Broken Realm .. my hopes that it is because we are the next battletome are bad because poor BoK and Nurgle are older)

[Zamik]

6 hours ago, LordDave said:

I still really like Khorgoraths, I’d use more (than 2) if it weren’t for the monopose issue.  Also, I do wonder whether given restrictions on Inspiring Presence we can do something with bravery de-buffs - from Icon, Khorgoraths, Bloodletter musician, reapers trait, coalition knights etc.  although not sure how easy to pull off the combo…

If the new tome gives Khorgoraths the MONSTER keyword, I'd be incredibly happy. It would be a good start!

Edited July 30, 2021 by Zamik

[Perturbato]

3 hours ago, Zamik said:

If the new tome gives Khorgoraths the MONSTER keyword, I'd be incredibly happy. It would be a good start!

agree, khorgoraths have a nice khorne mutation identity, like the slaughterbrute. 

[Darksteve]

20 hours ago, Perturbato said:

Until they FAQ Skulltaker he is a beast in bloodlord army (+4 move and halo of blood )

What do you think they will FAQ?

[Perturbato]

2 hours ago, Darksteve said:

What do you think they will FAQ?

Probably bé named unique again so no artefact or trait

[Battlefury]

I have 8 Khorgoraths to use in my army 😅

For anyone, who wants to use his army properly until we get a potential update, I highly recommend try this:

https://onepagerules.com/portfolio/age-of-fantasy/

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZhbciIW3Tr4JARHF0VRV081NyTOfgc0I/view

 

 

[Battlefury]

These are the army books ( including Khorne mentioned as "Havoc Warrior Disciples" )

Have fun

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15XasmVSfFCASeLysRlyjXdx6qA3WKLlf

Edited July 31, 2021 by Battlefury

[NinthMusketeer]

My bud has been doing Khorne at 1500 points and it's going fine. Reapers of Vengeance to have a thirster attack twice is as strong as it's always been, and the amulet of destiny gives serious durability that they've never had before. Combined with heroic recovery on a bravery 10 model and it's just really hard to put down.

But then my friend runs almost all daemons with the only bloodbound being a slaughterpriest and bloodsecrator. The mortal side of khorne is not in a good place right now (seriously wth is with that point cost on skullreapers) but the daemon side is still kicking hard. RR 1s to hit combines really well with the new all put attack, in particular.

He's gunna add Skarbrand as part of moving up to 2k. Bloodsecrator + RoV means he can roll up and do an automatic 32 MWs to something round 2 (plus regular damage) for the cost of 1 CP and I expect the threat of that possibility will put serious tactical pressure on opponent's positioning.

[Fuchur]

I`m curious, do you think that Reapers is still the best Slaughterhost from a competitive point of view? I mean, of course it can be devastating on Skarbrand or an Insensate Rage Thirster, but it can only be used on 1 unit per turn and if you attack a monster your opponent can turn it down with "roar" on a 3+. Wouldn`t be Baleful Lords with 4 Thirster worth considering? Or even Bloodlords?

[Charleston]

The point about Roar is that it targets only a single unit. As soon as you have 2+ Thirsters you are fine to go as you can still issue the CA to another one. 

As for the other Hosts: I don't know about the Wrath of the Everchosen Slaughterhost, but for the in the Battle tome I can say that the Skullfiend Tribe is more affected by Roar shutting down the Khorgorath CA while the reroll is rather lackluster. Goretide shines through Hew the Foe but as people don't see much use for Bloodwarriors I don't know if we will really see much of it (althrough on paper slingshotting onto an objective to contest it seems quite fine). Bloodreavers are too weak to use them for anything but Bloodtithe and as roadbumbs. In theory they should be fine in Bloodsecrator range to hit stuff that has Curse on it, but Curse is too unreliable so Skullreapers are better suited for this Job as they have the MW proc on default online but still profil from Curse on a target...althrough I currently became more carefull about Curse as a damage source. The last remaining Slaughterhost was always only taken for the Halo of Blood iirc, so we could fight first with all the Bloodthristers in half of the cases. This lost impact due to the Warscroll Battalion for Bloodthirsters beeing gone. Also combat priority seems less important for the meta than it was in mid 2.0