AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[kahadin]

60 point reavers would be nice. I'd also like to take 10 man marauder squads again.  

I wonder if that ten points would really make a big difference though.

[DarkProdigy]

As much as I’d hate to do it with my 100 painted ones, I feel like one of the best ways to “fix” reavers would be to rebase them to 25s, effectively doubling the number that can swing in a fight. 

Otherwise they are too reliant on other buffs to be any good. In perfect circumstances I think reavers are terrifying, I’ve had 40 man squads whipped/warshrined/killing frenzied with +3 or 4 attacks absolutely decimate big enemy units but it’s nearly impossible to get them to that point now with the “wholly within” changes to most buffs.

i don’t expect even a point cost reduction will meaningfully change their usage as their issue isn’t their price, it’s how unwieldy they are. Other horde units either buff themselves as they get larger, are plainly more self reliant, or can bring their numbers to bear with smaller base sizes.  Even the dark feast attack bonus is much harder to apply now. 

I have 2x40 and 2x10 reavers units and love them; they have been my favorite Khorne unit for the last couple years but they just don’t do what they used to. If I run any now I use them defensively to wrap my backfield units up and catch charges, at least that way staying close to most of our buff providers they can do some surprise work if they don’t get gutted on the charge completely as 10man units tend to.

Being a fan of hordes I’m experimenting with 30 blood warrior and bloodletter squads now, it’s promising but boy are they pricey compared to the old reavers 

[Praecautus]

I am struggling to see the point of lots reavers. The loss of battleshock has really hurt them. Sadly with GHB so close I don’t believe we will see a points change to any of our units.

Reavers still work as a handy unit to grab an objective, speed bump/screen or tithe, but taking more than 20 seems pointless - I’d rather put the points towards more warriors, reapers or, possibly, mongers. It makes me a bit sad as there was something about a horde of lunatics being literally whipped up to feeding frenzy and just piling in regardless of the cost.

Saying all that, I do wonder if taking 28 * 10 man units is a thing, but sadly too expensive to test 😀

[Battlefury]

2 hours ago, DarkProdigy said:

As much as I’d hate to do it with my 100 painted ones, I feel like one of the best ways to “fix” reavers would be to rebase them to 25s, effectively doubling the number that can swing in a fight.

I really wonder, why they in fact do hace 32mm bases. All other minor Battleline units do have 25mm. And the most equal unit to the reavers are the chaos marauders. And they do have 25mm bases too.

Unfrortunately, it is not allowed to change base sizes for competetive play. So they are handicaped, and will always be.
So for #competetiveplay there is not really a reason to take reavers anymore, expet for sacrificing them.

And thats is actually a bad design imo tbh.

[Xasz]

Base-sizes are determined by how big the models are.

Bloodreavers are significant bulkier than models that are still on 25mm.

It's not a perfect system and there are some edge cases but overall it's fine.

[Roark]

If Reavers were 10 for 60pts, and 40 for 200pts, I could see myself taking maybe a single massive regiment shadowed by a Warshrine in a Gore Pilgrims list, and probably still not in a tourney. Other than that very specific scenario, I don't think my usage would change much.

It's a bit sad because I really dig the models, especially the champion with his forked beard and fangs.

[Impa]

8 hours ago, DarkProdigy said:

As much as I’d hate to do it with my 100 painted ones, I feel like one of the best ways to “fix” reavers would be to rebase them to 25s, effectively doubling the number that can swing in a fight. 

Otherwise they are too reliant on other buffs to be any good. In perfect circumstances I think reavers are terrifying, I’ve had 40 man squads whipped/warshrined/killing frenzied with +3 or 4 attacks absolutely decimate big enemy units but it’s nearly impossible to get them to that point now with the “wholly within” changes to most buffs.

i don’t expect even a point cost reduction will meaningfully change their usage as their issue isn’t their price, it’s how unwieldy they are. Other horde units either buff themselves as they get larger, are plainly more self reliant, or can bring their numbers to bear with smaller base sizes.  Even the dark feast attack bonus is much harder to apply now. 

I have 2x40 and 2x10 reavers units and love them; they have been my favorite Khorne unit for the last couple years but they just don’t do what they used to. If I run any now I use them defensively to wrap my backfield units up and catch charges, at least that way staying close to most of our buff providers they can do some surprise work if they don’t get gutted on the charge completely as 10man units tend to.

Being a fan of hordes I’m experimenting with 30 blood warrior and bloodletter squads now, it’s promising but boy are they pricey compared to the old reavers 

I think the 30 blood warriors is a thing. I’m going to keep a bronzed flesh priest in range of them and save the rest of the buffs army wide for skullreapers.  I’m running a list with them this weekend. But unfortunately I think the 30 man bloodletter units are done. They’re just too squishy and you have to dedicate a bloodthirster or another daemon hero to them to be properly offensive. They can be great hammers. But they get shattered so easily once attacked back.  And no battleshock immunity can cripple a 30 man unit quite fast and loose their built in locus too fast. Man if they had 2 wounds it would be a different story! They’d be almost overpowered at that point probably though. So I’m just going to park a 30 man bronzed flesh bloodwarriors unit on one object. And send skull reapers/wrathmongers with aspiring deathbringer and priests to contest the rest of the board under the watch of a bloodsecrator and gorepilgrims with goretide. I’ve been slowly collecting data on my matches I’ll be posting here when I get a couple more games in. Let me know if you find you can swing these 30 man units and we can compare how the matches went. I’m excited to see if my bloodwarriors can be useful as a viable tar pit on an objective. I’d love to dedicate a war shrine to them aswell.  But Points get thin at that point. One question though. If your rolling for your 6+ after save do gorefists have a chance to bounce that wound back? Or is the bounce only on their initial save? Because now that I think of it. A double chance to bounce back mortal wounds may be a big deal. 

[kahadin]

It's an unmodified save roll, so I don't think things like the ward from the warshrine trigger it.

If you can you might want to squeeze in a blood stoker, those reroll wounds make the blood warriors pretty hot.

[Xasz]

3 hours ago, Impa said:

If your rolling for your 6+ after save do gorefists have a chance to bounce that wound back? Or is the bounce only on their initial save? Because now that I think of it. A double chance to bounce back mortal wounds may be a big deal. 

There is only one save, everything else (e.g. shrine, chaos shields...) are not saves and therefore Gorefists cannot activate on those.

These abilities don't have a specific name but are often referred to as "++" while saves are marked only with one plus. (dates back to WHFB and 40k, with armour saves and invulnerability saves). Example, Chaos Warriors have a 4+ and 5++ against mortal wounds in common forum/internet lingo.

[Impa]

22 minutes ago, Xasz said:

There is only one save, everything else (e.g. shrine, chaos shields...) are not saves and therefore Gorefists cannot activate on those.

These abilities don't have a specific name but are often referred to as "++" while saves are marked only with one plus. (dates back to WHFB and 40k, with armour saves and invulnerability saves). Example, Chaos Warriors have a 4+ and 5++ against mortal wounds in common forum/internet lingo.

Gotcha thanks. Then the warshrine will probably not be worth the points. Rather an extra priest and judgement. Cheers thanks for that. Although maybe buffing skullreapers with the shrine  giving them the re roll hits and after save could be an insane combo! My mathhammer is out of control  

 

36 minutes ago, kahadin said:

It's an unmodified save roll, so I don't think things like the ward from the warshrine trigger it.

If you can you might want to squeeze in a blood stoker, those reroll wounds make the blood warriors pretty hot.

Yes of course. But I like to dedicate the bloodstoker to the skullreapers. I feel like they benefit from it more. I’ve over buffed blood warriors before. And they just don’t seem to do it for me. In smaller blocks anyways. And trying to tuck one into a big horde to keep wholly within is difficult especially with lots of terrain on the board. 30 man blob of bloodwarriors with bronzed flesh I think is my plan. 10 sullreapers and 5 wrathmongers with aspiring deathbringer a priest and bloodsecrator. 2x 10 reaver screens holding the rear deepstrikes. Trying to keep the priests wholly within the units and still close enough to the shrine for buffs and re rolls. So many things dependent on one another lol. I’m excited though. 

Edited May 8, 2019 by Impa

[Zamik]

Going to be getting in a 1500-pt game with a friend soon, and I'm bringing a new friend with me--an Exalted Deathbringer with Impaling Spear!

[Saodexan]

Since the new Fyreslayer FAQ, they said there is a difference between "knows" and "attemps" to do a prayer. Do that means Slaughter Priest can only attemp 1 prayer and 1 judgement ? 

[Darksteve]

3 hours ago, Saodexan said:

Since the new Fyreslayer FAQ, they said there is a difference between "knows" and "attemps" to do a prayer. Do that means Slaughter Priest can only attemp 1 prayer and 1 judgement ? 

No and ill tell you why. The prayers we are limited in casting are cast using the bloodfuelled prayers ability. Blood blessings are cast using thier own, seperate ability with different timing and result rolls.

[AverageBoss]

Prayers are abilities. And a model can always make use of any and all abilities it knows, unless specified otherwise.

[Saodexan]

I was just wondering because Fyreslayer and BoK have the exact same wording for the priest/prayer. The Slaughterpriest ability said he can chant one prayer from his list, then the book said he can add another prayer to his know list. We though we could chant the prayer from the book because of the wording from the prayer that says " friendly model that knows this prayer can chant it. "  ( I'm missing something ? Is there anywhere else in the book where they said priest can chant 2 prayers ? )

But the new Fyreslayer FAQ said that knowing the prayer do not means you can automatically chant it. 



I don't know, sound like a heavy nerf to me. And i really hope i'm wrong.

[Bululu]

46 minutes ago, Saodexan said:

I was just wondering because Fyreslayer and BoK have the exact same wording for the priest/prayer. The Slaughterpriest ability said he can chant one prayer from his list, then the book said he can add another prayer to his know list. We though we could chant the prayer from the book because of the wording from the prayer that says " friendly model that knows this prayer can chant it. "  ( I'm missing something ? Is there anywhere else in the book where they said priest can chant 2 prayers ? )

But the new Fyreslayer FAQ said that knowing the prayer do not means you can automatically chant it. 



I don't know, sound like a heavy nerf to me. And i really hope i'm wrong.

This has nothing to do with khorne, i mean it applies on priest warscroll prayers for example you know both the bloodboil and the move the enemy unit one, and you can only chant one of those per turn. There is nothing new here.   The judgements and the bloodblessings are chanted apart due to their own warscroll rules, for a full explanation i will redirect to  a reply  i made long ago, i hope it helps you understand it.

https://www.tga.community/forums/topic/22132-slaughterpriest-bloodfuelled-prayers-and-blood-blessings/#comment-324483

[Saodexan]

On 4/17/2019 at 6:08 AM, Bululu said:

Bloodblessing: 1 friendly model who knows the blessing can chant it. This does nothing to do with slaughterpriest, even warshrine can get to cast it. this rule is attached to the blessing not to the model. So as it says it can be casted by 1 and only 1, so you can cast it together with the other (this one cant be spammed as only 1 gets to cast it, but nothing prevents you to cast a different one with each priest/warshrine)

 

( The Fyreslayer FAQ do not applies to priest warscroll prayers, it's for their "blessing table" , exactly like the blessing of khorne )

Thank you and I understand that you make the exact same point on your post, that I did here. Saying it's the wording of the prayer that make us cast it for free, in addition to the normal prayer. But with the new Fyreslayer FAQ, it clearly said that even if you knows it, that do not means you get a free cast ( that kind of override the "blessing" wording ). I don't know, maybe i'm overthinking it.  I just don't see myself explaining why i can chant 2 prayers anymore with the new FAQ. 

[Darksteve]

15 minutes ago, Saodexan said:

( The Fyreslayer FAQ do not applies to priest warscroll prayers, it's for their "blessing table" , exactly like the blessing of khorne )

Thank you and I understand that you make the exact same point on your post, that I did here. Saying it's the wording of the prayer that make us cast it for free, in addition to the normal prayer. But with the new Fyreslayer FAQ, it clearly said that even if you knows it, that do not means you get a free cast ( that kind of override the "blessing" wording ). I don't know, maybe i'm overthinking it.  I just don't see myself explaining why i can chant 2 prayers anymore with the new FAQ. 

I'll try this again. Blood blessing are not added to the known bloodfuelled prayers of the priest. They are an entirely seperate ability. Each prayer spells out the rules for casting it which, while similar to the bloodfuelled prayers on the warscroll are not the same. A few key differences are the timing (Bloodfuelled prayers are done during the hero phase where as Blood Blessings are at the start) and the effects of failure (Bloodfuelled prayers do d3 mortal wounds on a 1, blood blessings do 1). Taken together we see the difference from the referenced fyreslayer prayers as the have 1 rule for casting prayers and a list to pick those prayers from. All the prayers from the list are cast in the same way and are not called out as different abilities in the way that bloodfuelled prayer and Blood Blessings are. This ruling is roughly as cut and dried to have 0 effect on BOK priests as GW gets as it is currently written.

[Saodexan]

6 minutes ago, Darksteve said:

I'll try this again. Blood blessing are not added to the known bloodfuelled prayers of the priest. They are an entirely seperate ability. Each prayer spells out the rules for casting it which, while similar to the bloodfuelled prayers on the warscroll are not the same. A few key differences are the timing (Bloodfuelled prayers are done during the hero phase where as Blood Blessings are at the start) and the effects of failure (Bloodfuelled prayers do d3 mortal wounds on a 1, blood blessings do 1). Taken together we see the difference from the referenced fyreslayer prayers as the have 1 rule for casting prayers and a list to pick those prayers from. All the prayers from the list are cast in the same way and are not called out as different abilities in the way that bloodfuelled prayer and Blood Blessings are. This ruling is roughly as cut and dried to have 0 effect on BOK priests as GW gets as it is currently written.

You are right they have the same rules, they still call it prayer and blessing like BoK tho. But i think what you said make sense. Khorne prayer and blessing have very different rules but Fyreslayer prayer and blessing have the same rules. I hope this will be enought for my opponent. Thank you for your time !

[Smooth criminal]

I'd say the Fyreslayers FAQ means that if you get two prayers from the table you still can chant only one.

Currently priests don't have the wizard thing where all spells are pooled together.  In fact there is no such thing as "prayer" in core rules, they are all unique abilities either from warscrolls or from allegiance. The warscroll prayers and allegiance prayers are separate entities. 

Maybe they intend to make priests same as wizards, but then they should change it in next ghb or release global faq. This very specific answer for a very specific question about specific trait does not automatically translate to everyone suddenly getting robbed of their second prayer chant. It doesn't even make things clear about Fyreslayers themselves. Can they chant their base prayer+allegiance prayer? Who knows.

Edited May 10, 2019 by Smooth criminal

[CrabSlap]

How viable is a cavalry list made up mostly of a Juggerlord, Skullcrusher battleline and Chaos Knights? 

Seems like a fun idea but being new, I don't know how these units perform.

[ledha]

8 hours ago, Smooth criminal said:

I'd say the Fyreslayers FAQ means that if you get two prayers from the table you still can chant only one.

Currently priests don't have the wizard thing where all spells are pooled together.  In fact there is no such thing as "prayer" in core rules, they are all unique abilities either from warscrolls or from allegiance. The warscroll prayers and allegiance prayers are separate entities. 

Maybe they intend to make priests same as wizards, but then they should change it in next ghb or release global faq. This very specific answer for a very specific question about specific trait does not automatically translate to everyone suddenly getting robbed of their second prayer chant. It doesn't even make things clear about Fyreslayers themselves. Can they chant their base prayer+allegiance prayer? Who knows.

the fyreslayer faq say this about the battletome prayers (in the special case of a priest knowing 2 battletome prayers instead of one). It doesn't prevent a priest to use one prayer from his warscroll and a prayer from the battletome. 

Edited May 10, 2019 by ledha

[Lord Krungharr]

7 hours ago, CrabSlap said:

How viable is a cavalry list made up mostly of a Juggerlord, Skullcrusher battleline and Chaos Knights? 

Seems like a fun idea but being new, I don't know how these units perform.

I think a huge Brass Stampede is a very viable Khorne build.  Chaos Knights probably are too but should have that mounted Lord of Chaos with them too.  And Bloodstokers!  Bloodstoking all over the place.  I'm hoping that the Slaves to Dankness tome gives some battalions with the various god keywords like the Beasts of Chaos did; that would give many an old Warrior and Knight something new and exciting to be a part of.

[TheArborealWalrus]

I had an interesting game against slaanesh and I thought that you all might want to hear about it. Warning! Wall of text!

The Armies:

Spoiler

 

Khorne: Goretide

-Brass Despoilers 

doombull + general (hew the foe)

2X10 gors with shields,

10 bestigors,

6 bullgors with 2 handed axes

-Mighty Lord of Khorne + king slayer torc

-bloodsecrator

-skullgrinder + mark of the destroyer

-2 slaughter priests  both with killing frenzy

-2X5 wrathmongers

-10 bloodreavers

 

Hedonites of Slaanesh: Pretenders

2 keepers of secrets - one was general with the + 2 attacks artifact and 2 command traits (+ d3 damage and something else)

The named keeper (shalaxi I think) with the shield (6++)

The daemon prince herald duet

3X20 daemonetes

That mirror endless spell

The general and the daemon prince had healing spells. The other keeper had the depravity point generating spell. Don't remember the others

 

The Battle: Starstrike. (fair waning, I might misremember some things.)

Map: A large central building (a bit closer to the slaanesh players side) with 2 forests kitty corner from one another. There were 2 towers on the center line providing obstacles on the sides of the map.

Deployment: I placed the skull altar in the middle and formed 2 castles on either side of it with the bloodsecrator on the altar. One castle was the beastmen  with the bestigors and mighty lord on the far right. The other castle consisted of the mortals with the skullgrinder on the far left of the formation. My opponent set up the big ol' mirror on my left and planted his general and 2 blobs of daemonettes on either side of the keeper. His center was shalaxi and on my right was the duet + a blob with the final keeper holding the far right. He had less drops.

Slaanesh decided that I would take first turn. In response I only moved up cautiously, staying in formation. I didn't want to lose my army to the locus of diversion.  My right had moved up further than it should have, but that didn't  concern me too much. The mirror got dropped in front of my battle line and didn't murder anyone horribly. Also he stabbed his general for the re-roll.  My opponent then moved Shalaxi into a building  and scooted the left up a little . The right hand blob moved to flank the building and the duet stayed near them. The right keeper moved towards my mighty lord and his bestigors. He decided to not charge any of his models (they all were around the 12" range away). 

The meteor dropped into the central building and I won the roll off. I dragged Shalaxi to the edge of the building and failed to blood boil her(?). dispelled the mirror, bulls got the killing frenzy, and in we went. Mortal castle stayed in formation on the left of the building and didn't charge (they were to be the second wave). Bulls and doombull went  for Shalaxi  and the Mighty lord went with the bestigors after the lone keeper. Mongers just tried to keep up with the hammers. The locus went off on the doombull from Shalaxi and the locus failed to ensnare the bestigors. Wanting to have more bulls for the general I went with them first. Only 3 got in, but they did 17 wounds onto the named keeper, slaying it. My lord discovered the "gift" ability of the keeper and rejected it taking 2 mortal wounds. The claws went for him and the rest for the bestigors. He wiffed at the Bgors, doing nothing and getting 2 claws at the lord. 2 3+, easy right? … Sigh, one shot the boss. In retrospect taking the 4+ you die thing probably would have been better, but you'll see why. The bestigors did 13 of the 14 wounds the second keeper had. So close. Opponent's turn: Most of his spells failed to go off. He summoned a enchantress and 3 fiends behind his lines by the mirror. General and a blob went after the bulls while the blob on the left charged the mortal castle. Right hand  blob + duet crashed into my gors. The bulls got enthralled along with the bestigors.  First went the keeper on (now) 2 wounds who wounded the Bgors with 2 claw attacks and I didn't think that the claws went down in damage so I picked up the group of them. I chose the doombull who killed a total of 16 of them. Order gets fuzzy from here, but Gors killed 7 daemonettes  and 14 of them got murdered in return. 3 reavers died and 14 went from the left hand blob. The general piled in twice and picked up the entire group of bullgors. I spent a command point on keeping the gors there. Left daemoneetes rolled a 1 and got 3 back, center fled and 2 fled from the right. 

I won the roll off and the meteors dropped centrally on his side and on my left. I got 2 blood boils off on the general for 4 wounds and the skull reapers got killing frenzy. I wanted to get the skull reapers into combat with the general so I had them pile in and attack (possibly a mistake), freeing themselves from the daemonettes. Doombull fell back with the gors and the mongers went in with the reapers. The remaining reavers went to prevent more summoning from the scenery piece and skullgrinder grabbed the meteor on my side . The mortal all went in. The reapers then got enthralled by the enchantress and the first monger unit got it from the general. My only unit was  5 mongers, but they did it. they got all 10 of the remaining wounds from the keeper. Then his turn came about and he summoned another one (he could have summoned 2 but there wasn't enough space where he wanted it. The fiends charged the wrathmongers and killed all 5 with help from the remaining daemonette blob and the duet killed the gors. The daemonettes got finished by the other wrathmongers.  

He won the roll off and the duet and + new keeper came in and wrecked the reapers and wrathmongers as well as summoning another keeper. The wounded keeper (now on 5 wounds) came closer too. On my turn I blood boiled the wounded keeper off and charged the doombull in with the leftover heroes against the new keeper. The doombull got enthralled and butchered by the keeper and I lost a priest to the duet. Did 8 wounds against the keeper but it wasn't enough. I could have summoned something, but it was getting late so we called it.

Oof. Locus of diversion is nasty. I had to throw 2+ hammers in to kill 1 keeper. It could be worse (with hot dice on their side) with lots of smaller heroes. That being said, Their whole army is squishy as heck. I didn't expect just 10 bestigors (120pts) to almost do in a keeper. The daemonettes crumpled from any form of serious attention and the tankiest thing seemed to be the fiends with their -1 to hit. It certainly works differently to the  old slaanesh. Didn't get enough of an idea to give a real verdict, but big blobs of murder better beware the loci. MSU seemed to work well against them though. Cheers!

[ledha]

Slaneesh seems to have an insane summoning honestly. Basically summoning one/two units per turn in addition to allegiance abilities