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AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion


Gaz Taylor

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3 hours ago, JMShan88 said:

Even without the hero keyword, he's still labeled as a leader and takes up a slot. Scyla is in the same boat.

So on one hand, its all the list design cost (takes up 1/6 leader slots)

but with none of the benefit. (You cant use him to claim and objective in two places of power for instance).

However, scyla is mortal, so include him in the bloodmarked warband, he can one of the models you promote to a hero with +1A.

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14 hours ago, Sieggi858 said:

Even though things don’t look great so far for Khorne this edition, I’m going in on an army anyways since my LGS has the old Slaughterstorm box for a great price. 

Do you think buying a Khorne Daemon SC box would supplement a Mortal List well, or should I just go full Mortals and pick up either the Bloodbound SC or the StD SC?

Good man, as much as there is criticism on Khorne (myself included), I think most Khorne players will agree they are one of the most fun armies to play. Their aggressive play-style and bad ass background law make them a lot of fun to collect and play. You can see from these threads how passionate we are about them so you will not regret buying them :) 

And the Khorne Daemon SC box is a very good purchase. I run a 90% Khorne mortal army, I have the Daemon SC for the options of summoning should I choose it. 

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1 hour ago, TheAdequateWargamer said:

In the other thread I asked about wizard options for khorne a while ago. Not sure about this one, but had a thought. StD Daemon prince, but with tzeentch mark. Would that work? Cant remember exactly what we can/cant ally

And that may even hange with the incoming ghb'18 update

The blood secretor will cause issues for any wizard though. 

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9 hours ago, kozokus said:

i am not that pessimistic.

I realy think that Khorne summoning is a thing.

Here is what i suppose

-Khorne alligeances blessings will get the same tratment as Khaine's aka "rule of one" except for the D6 dammage and the "run toward me"

-Each player will still play the usual 10-13 unit armies which means that there is 20-26 BT points to harvest.

-Skaar and Karanak will become almost mandatory in each lists just for beeing opressive recursing or lowrisk-medium reward items

-Playing  bloodmarked can become popular, even at 200 points, still less drops, +1 artefacts and +1 command point.

-Just poping a Bloodthirster/20 Letters still nets you an excess of ~240-300 points compared to the ennemy. That is not nothing. I know a lot of you are frowning at the unbuffed Bloodthirster, but he is still present where he shouldnt be.

-How to get to 7-8 BT points at least twice in a game? Yes, we all saw the trick of the Bloodmarked/Bloodblessing but the Rule Of One Is Coming for sure. yet there is a ton of unseen artifacts that sleeps in the codex that nets you extra BT points. I mostly thinks about the Daemon weapon that needs you to make 8 dammage, quite easy on a Immensely powered Bloodthirster and also the Endless bloodbath weapon that need you to kill at least one model to get a point (Bloodbound weapon)

-The mark of the destroyer still nets you a chaos spawn ?

 

I somewhat expect another hard nerf for Khorne through a not so distant warscroll change or an FAQ update.

If the prayers are somehow capped, Khorne will not happen within the competitive scene at all. (not like they looked particular enjoyable to begin with in AoS2.0) Prayers are what keeps Khorne and especially Khorne Mortals afloat atm.

When I theorycrafted the blood factory I spent quite a lot of time thinking about blood tithe. It is ridiculously wasteful and conditional and there is not much you can do about it but it is important to understand its dynamics. 

You have to always remember that you can only summon at the end of your movement phase. Meaning you get only 5 chances to summon in one game. You will generally not be able to summon turn one and especially not with your lineup. If you go first on turn two, there is a good chance that you will not summon this turn either (exception might be a novice player or an unlikely aggressive game but even then you might not be able to summon something substantial). Summoning on turn 5 doesn't really matter, at least not in terms of WHAT you summon and more WHERE you summon it. This leaves us with turn 3 and 4 to summon something with a normal setup, that can somehow change the game. Remember that new units are summoned AFTER you could have buffed them and a 9" charge is still dicey(even with reroll from e.g. Violent Urgency ). So your new fancy unit you spent several turns to finally summon could just be standing about for another turn...

Now to why this systems is so wasteful. The most important lesson here is, that the lower your static blood tithe gain is, the worse the system behaves. The reason for this is again that you can only summon a very limited amount of time and you will tend to save up points if you cannot summon something you'd like. A blood tithe spike in the rest of your turn and the opponents turn will most likely go over the cap and waste several points. You cannot use the normal blood tithe abilities either, as they would lessen the reliability of having enough points when your chance to summon finally arrives.

As for the blood tithe specific items, I looked through them the first time I had the idea and they are not good. They just increase the spike but as outlined earlier you have only very limited control over blood tithe gain through combat. (the only one remotely worthwhile is the 8 wounds weapon for daemons)

This outlines the reason why Khorne summoning is so 'meh' and why it would be so much better if the cap was gone. It would be a whole lot less awkward. (and maybe not all points could be gone when using abilities but that might be asking too much).

The reason why the blood factory would work is that it can summon reliably EVERY turn. Turn one you'll get 2-6 blood tithe. If you've got less than 4, you'll save up or spend them to maybe a counter spell in your opponents phase (assuming you go first). Which you can do without a second thought because you have the luxury of knowing that you will generate enough points through your next hero phase that you'll be able to summon again. In the worst case scenario only a small amount of points will be wasted. If you got lucky in the first turn, you can get a Skull Cannon or something in the medium range and still be confident to summon following turn.

The ability to fill up and use points reliably is what makes the blood factory concept good. Not the summoning itself.

As a reminder, the idea behind my summoning list:

Spoiler

But how do we exploit summoning? Welcome to the Blood Factory.

  • Gore Pilgrims with maxed heroes and min. units 
  • Bloodmarked Warband with Skarr (or another weak hero if his ability is changed)
  • this basic setup costs 1050 points
  • we still have to fulfill the Mortal Khorne Unit requirement for BmW
  • add a Warshrine and cost efficient StD/Khorne units of your choice
  • all priests take Blood Sacrifice and kill Skarr asap
  • now the fun/recursion begins, you spawn 1 wound hero units which are instantly killed by following prayers
  • Blood Sacrifice is now worth 2 points instead of one, permanently and Skarr can still come back
  • joyfully summon a WoK by turn two and something big in each subsequent turn

If the wording of some warscrolls does not change, this should be possible and I pretty much ignored units dying normally. There is a good chance this is god-awful or a less focused list might be better but it sounds abnormally funny. :D  (something to remember, this whole army would be immune to battleshock while having a good 6++ coverage. There would be several small units to threaten objectives or clog them up and although squishy this can be really obnoxious. Especially if killing them would mean helping your opponent doing their thing, ergo summoning)

And as another reminder, casual player will have as much fun with Khorne as they had in the previous iteration of AoS. You opponent just has to tweak his list a bit if it gets awkward but the models are still great and fluffy to play with. My perspective is a bit more competitive, so if this does not interest you in the slightest, you should happily ignore me.

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9 minutes ago, Xasz said:

the only one remotely worthwhile is the 8 wounds weapon for daemons

Hmm, strongly disagree with this. The Blade of Endless Bloodshed generates Tithe way easier than the Mark of the Bloodreaper.

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2 minutes ago, Roark said:

Hmm, strongly disagree with this. The Blade of Endless Bloodshed generates Tithe way easier than the Mark of the Bloodreaper.

That's true.

Sadly, the bottom is that they are all bad and you would be better off taking killy stuff instead.

Edited by Xasz
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Also, i think its unfair to talk about the impact of malign sorcery in terms of just tzeentch and death.

Our position vs those two doesnt really leave us worse off than any other faction that has to play against them. Nagash/Arkhan with an umbral spellportal is a sicker thought than anything a balewind ever accomplished.

We have an abundance of access to unbind, with +2 (wok), unbind +1 (flesh hound unit of 10), rr to dispel (fleshhounds), rr to casting (secrator), auto unbind (brazen rune)

And then there is resiliance to magic- skullcrushers/lokoj (4+ ingore magic mw's), chaos warriors/knights (5+ ignore mortals), brazen rune (2+ ignore magic mw's)

 

Blade of endless bloodshed - expect this will be seen a lot more now

talisman of burning blood: a well placed model will give +1 to charge on summoned units. Going from a 9 to an 8 doubles your odds of a successful charge). Then add in a 1cp reroll.

Armour of scorn: 5+ ignore magic mortal wounds

mark of the bloodreaper: not sure about this. It would have to go on a bloodthirster. Would normally choose to make them hero killers, and kitting one with this would take from their ability to be killy against big things.

Chain summoning- run a hero up the board (stoked/command point for a 6" run etc) 4 bloodtithe points gets you a herald a further 12" away then you have another 12" bubble to put a screen of bloodletters down in. 

If you are playing Nagash a lot locally, Be'lakor could be a good shout to shut him down for a turn. Not sure how well pointed he is to be worth taking in just a standard face all foes list though.

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Just now, Xasz said:

That's true.

Sadly, the bottom is that they are all bad and you would be better off taking killy stuff instead.

Yeah, bingo. We can't seem to just play our "natural game" with how things stand at the moment.

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5 minutes ago, Roark said:

Yeah, bingo. We can't seem to just play our "natural game" with how things stand at the moment.

The blood tithe artifacts and abilities only amplify the issued I tried to outline above.

The system needed an overhaul with the new edition. Instead they just stapled whatever the intern came up with on his lunch break onto the existing system. They didn't even have the decency to tweak it a little, so it could at least outweigh the nerfs Khorne received to some degree.

If our priests get hit, there will be no (competitive) game at all for Khorne.

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10 minutes ago, TheAdequateWargamer said:

Be'lakor could be a good shout to shut him down for a turn. Not sure how well pointed he is to be worth taking in just a standard face all foes list though

Sadly, we can't ally Be'lakor...

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Putting Khorne being good or bad aside.

Murderhost: in the bloodletter hero slot, what is more survivable or useful, a blood throne or a skulltaker?

7wounds, possibility of regen with maw vs 5 wounds, rr failed saves?

Then, Armour of scorn of crimson crown

Blood throne has a big base so extra range to buff stuff

Skulltaker can give a surprising good punch if the dice are right

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17 minutes ago, TheAdequateWargamer said:

Putting Khorne being good or bad aside.

Murderhost: in the bloodletter hero slot, what is more survivable or useful, a blood throne or a skulltaker?

7wounds, possibility of regen with maw vs 5 wounds, rr failed saves?

Then, Armour of scorn of crimson crown

Blood throne has a big base so extra range to buff stuff

Skulltaker can give a surprising good punch if the dice are right

I really dig Skulltaker. He's very nasty for 100pts. But you can't put a Crown on him coz he's named. Never played a Throne before, but I'd like to.

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2 minutes ago, Roark said:

I really dig Skulltaker. He's very nasty for 100pts. But you can't put a Crown on him coz he's named. Never played a Throne before, but I'd like to.

Well, glad I asked before making that mistake.

Refined Q: Throne + crown, Thrown + scorn or skulltaker?

Maybe wait until battleplans are released. If there is something about heros with artifacts of power getting scoring precedent, the Q has been answered.

Not a fan of the model. In an army of daemons having a motor powered throne (or wheelchair of khorne as i overheard someone call it in jest a while ago) doesnt quite fit the aesthetic to me.

Currently trying to convert it so its more like a chariot being pulled by a jugger, but then also replacing the juggers head with the big maw part. Not sure if my greenstuff skills are good enough to do it justice

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What could have make the khorne summon system good would have been to gain 1 "blood summon" point for each blood tithe point used.

So the more you use blood tithe, the more you can summon. It's lore-friendly, efficient without being broken (it's hard to gain blood tithe against some armies) and, like tzeentch or slaneesh or nurgle, doesn't stop you to use your allegiance ability/army playstile but instead encourage you to use it and exploit it as much as you can.

Seriously, why would i summon a bloodthirster for 8 points when i can make my entire army strike after being killed for 7 ?

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From the perspective of mortal Bloodbound battleline how do Blood Warriors and Bloodreavers compare to the other Khorne battleline options? (Bloodletters in large blocks are great, are they more beneficial at smaller unit sizes than the Mortal Khorne battleline?)

What are the best ways to run them? Both tactically and equipment wise.. from a tactical perspective what kind of deployment would want to do for them? (Forward to get stuck in quickly, back to travel across the board behind the first strikers?)

From a modeling/equipment perspective, for Bloodreavers, if you’re “stuck” with (or happen to have) the models with Reaver Blades is that a seriously worse combination than Meatripper axes?

Is there a significant benefit to Blood Warriors with paired Axes? As opposed to Axe and Gorefist?

With the change towards Blood tithe and what we know about the new summoning, is there more merit to a multiple small unit style of force (to allow your units to die and generate a BT) or running larger units (and hoping to kill your opponent) and generate blood tithe there?

Edited by TheOtherJosh
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3 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

From a modeling/equipment perspective, for Bloodreavers, if you’re “stuck” with (or happen to have) the models with Reaver Blades is that a seriously worse combination than Meatripper axes?

Is there a significant benefit to Blood Warriors with paired Axes? As opposed to Axe and Gorefist?

RE: Reavers: people generally prefer to have Rend than reroll 1s to hit. It is mathematically better for scoring unsaved wounds. Having said that, I've still got 40 starters with blades, and I don't think it's worth losing sleep over. Also, you could maybe take that Secrator special banner that turns reroll 1s into reroll all hits, and take advantage of having a huge unit with 32mm bases that can camp near him for that bonus while simultaneously stretching out toward the enemy.

RE: Blood Warriors: I think the difference is negligible. Sometimes those Gorefists produce  mortal wounds, and sometimes double axes will give you rerolled 1s that translate into successful wounds.

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I use bloodhound exclusively and bloodwarriors and bloodreavers have done quite well for me. 

For bloodravers, I exclusively run them with meatripper axes. I have 40 from the starter set modeled with reaver blades but have never run into any problems using them as axes and I doubt you will unless you want to play in a tournament. I tend to use them either unsupported in small squads for objective holding and cheap screens or with a bloodsecrator in large units to maximize attacks and be able to do damage while screening. You can invest a lot to support them to make them really good, but they are very weak to ranged attacks.

Bloodwarriors are my personal go to battleline. They are more durable than bloodreavers or bloodletters and their ability to attack after dieing means that I am more comfortable letting them be attacked first so I can choose more important or fragile units to fight first. I use gorefists but they tend not to do much and are not as good of your opponent had rend or relies on mortal wounds to do damage.

 

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7 hours ago, TheAdequateWargamer said:

Not a fan of the model. In an army of daemons having a motor powered throne (or wheelchair of khorne as i overheard someone call it in jest a while ago) doesnt quite fit the aesthetic to me.

Currently trying to convert it so its more like a chariot being pulled by a jugger, but then also replacing the juggers head with the big maw part. Not sure if my greenstuff skills are good enough to do it justice 

Greenstuff a Bloodletter playing a flaming guitar instead and go full Mad Max! Stipple a little Runefang Silver around all your model's mouths and wrap a few with tiny leather harnesses and masks... this is sounding like a better and better idea. Putting a Bloodthirster in a gimp suit isn't going to make him less scary.

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