AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion

[Killax]

@Beulettor yep, thats very likely going to be the case, and in return because of that I think we'll get the option to basically recieve the super-massive-battalion bonus for free in this sub-faction. At the cost of not (perhaps) being able to mix and match as we want, but I also think they might leave a spot for us to basically ally Mortals/Daemons so you can mix and match in a more limited way.

However I will also say that IF we get those grand battalion bonusus for free the downside of 6 MWs is somewhat negated. As it basically translates to either gaining the movement buff (which we always needed) or hitting hard as nails with (Daemons) double combat with Bloodletter heroes or (Mortal) units that  double combat with enemy Heroes and Monsters. This would balance out that nerf reather well. 

In the end I do expect a large rework, not total, as this isn't really GW's approach to AoS or 40K or their games in general. I also expect the Bloodsecrator to be wholly within. The vision I believe GW has for Khorne is still rather the same but should allow us to thake more models, which likely means we basically get a free bonus of our choice (movement or harder combat hitting) but hand over the old MW and massive Bloodsecrator reach.

[Malakithe]

25 minutes ago, Beulettor said:

I realised something about the new book... Bad news for BT of Insensate Rage...

Abilities on 6+ to hit/wound are all being replaced by unmodified 6, in every new battletome since v2 is out. That way, lot of people already knew that Bloodletters would be "nerfed".

Here is a first list of other Khorne units that will, pretty sure, be nerfed :

• Juggerlord : Daemonic Axe will inflict 3 wounds on a 6. No more combo with his own ability. So, point reduction or abilities modifications ares expected.
• All deamons with bloodletters in it (Throne, Canon, BL heroes) will have decapitating blow on a unmodified 6.
•  Skulltaker : 3 MW on a 6+ to hit... Full rework of the warscroll, with rework of the model (pretty one).
• Blood Thirster of Insensate Rage : Outrageous Carnage on a flat 6, no more combo with Juggerlord or Ghyrstrike
• Skullreapers' Daemonforged Waepons : supposed to do MW on 6+ and get 1 MW on a 1.  Considering Trial of Skulls can allow rerolls...
• Skulltake battalion : add 1 damage on a flat 6. So, point reduction on battalion and/or abilities change
• Some others I haven't in mind ringht now...

Lot of nerfs are coming, so a lot of bonuses may come too... Or a total rework.

We can imagine some abilities will become "wholly within" too, but that's harder to know, since not every abilities are rewritten this way.

Those arent nerfs. They are full total game rebalancing. If every faction in the game gets the same treatment its not a nerf.

[Killax]

39 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

Those arent nerfs. They are full total game rebalancing. If every faction in the game gets the same treatment its not a nerf.

You can rebalance a game by buffing and nerfing. If GW chooses for Khorne not to be able to do mortal wounds below rolls of 6, it is a nerf.

This doesn't mean that the army has to be worse, but the ability in itself did become more limited, thus would be nerfed.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Killax

[Malakithe]

36 minutes ago, Killax said:

You can rebalance a game by buffing and nerfing. If GW chooses for Khorne not to be able to do mortal wounds below rolls of 6, it is a nerf.

This doesn't mean that the army has to be worse, but the ability in itself did become more limited, thus would be nerfed.

Thats still not a nerf. Thats a baseline core mechanic change. What your talking about is how GW is changing entire game mechanics across the board. Changing all auras/abilities/CA to wholly within and unmodified rolls of 6 isnt a nerf to Khorne if its being done to every since faction in the game.

That would be like saying its a nerf to Khorne if GW spontaneously changed all movement in every unit in the game to 3". Its not cuz its now baseline. Same thing as all wholly within and unmod 6rolls

[Oreaper84]

2 hours ago, Malakithe said:

Thats still not a nerf. Thats a baseline core mechanic change. What your talking about is how GW is changing entire game mechanics across the board. Changing all auras/abilities/CA to wholly within and unmodified rolls of 6 isnt a nerf to Khorne if its being done to every since faction in the game.

That would be like saying its a nerf to Khorne if GW spontaneously changed all movement in every unit in the game to 3". Its not cuz its now baseline. Same thing as all wholly within and unmod 6rolls

I think what is implied is that khorne was/is more reliant on legacy style rules interactions to stay relevant. If they take these interactions away it makes the army inherently softer, or nerfed. It is possible to nerf many armies at once with a rules style migration, but its a nerf. Now we have to wait and see if they revamp the rules to compensate for the changes.  

[Grimrock]

4 hours ago, Malakithe said:

Thats still not a nerf. Thats a baseline core mechanic change. What your talking about is how GW is changing entire game mechanics across the board. Changing all auras/abilities/CA to wholly within and unmodified rolls of 6 isnt a nerf to Khorne if its being done to every since faction in the game.

That would be like saying its a nerf to Khorne if GW spontaneously changed all movement in every unit in the game to 3". Its not cuz its now baseline. Same thing as all wholly within and unmod 6rolls

Core mechanic changes can still be a nerf to some armies and not others. For example, let's say flight was removed from the game. Some armies that don't use flight very much like dispossessed or beastclaw wouldn't be affected at all. Other armies that use it all the time like tzeentch or KO would become massively less effective. Khorne relies heavily on 6+ effects to be able to put out damage, so losing that is a much harder hit to us then, let's say, Tzeentch which gets most of its damage out of spells. 

[Malakithe]

4 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

Core mechanic changes can still be a nerf to some armies and not others. For example, let's say flight was removed from the game. Some armies that don't use flight very much like dispossessed or beastclaw wouldn't be affected at all. Other armies that use it all the time like tzeentch or KO would become massively less effective. Khorne relies heavily on 6+ effects to be able to put out damage, so losing that is a much harder hit to us then, let's say, Tzeentch which gets most of its damage out of spells. 

Thats a fair point

[Beulettor]

By the way, I didn't mean that it was a nerf to Khorne. I just meant that our allegiance isn't top tier, and we are receiving the rules update on flat 6 to MW that nerf a lot of our units, compared to their previous profiles.

I don't think GW will release a new battletome for an army low tier to only make it lower tier.

So, some profiles like Juggerlord or Skullreapers will be totally reworked, maybe  new mechanics on bloodsecrators, blood tiths, slaughterpriests, - new "battalions" as they announced ; and I'm so excited to get that new battletome.

But I wish the BT of Insensate Rage, skullreapers and juggerlord will still be ok.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Beulettor

[Kazimer]

Would a Cygor be worth it for Blades of Khorne brass despoilers? The anti magic is very Khorne, and more ranged is very welcome.

[phizzco]

At this point im not going to get suckered into buying old models because of meta

 

[Agent of Chaos]

@Killax I reckon you are close to the mark with those sub-factions. The abilities won't be OP and hopefully none of them is a more obvious choice over the others. My biggest concern is that choosing a sub-faction will force us to take a unique command trait and artifact. If the Stormcast book is anything to go by these generally range from OK to Meh! and that would be a shame for us as currently our command traits and artifacts are some of the best things about our allegiance. Things like Immense Power & Brazen Rune among several others are really powerful and I would have to think twice about losing access to these in exchange for weaker ones and free sub-faction abilities. Of course our current traits/artifacts might be reworked although I doubt the review will be that in-depth. 

[Killax]

14 hours ago, Malakithe said:

Khorne relies heavily on 6+ effects to be able to put out damage, so losing that is a much harder hit to us then, let's say, Tzeentch which gets most of its damage out of spells.

Exact. Plus it can also go the other way. Karanak was buffed, however due to cost increase we can't really benifit from it because paying 160 points for model with good damage output but a 4+ save and 5 wounds is a lot. Often too much for a melee centric army like ours who has to thake fast or cheap/buff heroes as is.

3 hours ago, Agent of Chaos said:

@Killax I reckon you are close to the mark with those sub-factions. The abilities won't be OP and hopefully none of them is a more obvious choice over the others. My biggest concern is that choosing a sub-faction will force us to take a unique command trait and artifact. If the Stormcast book is anything to go by these generally range from OK to Meh! and that would be a shame for us as currently our command traits and artifacts are some of the best things about our allegiance. Things like Immense Power & Brazen Rune among several others are really powerful and I would have to think twice about losing access to these in exchange for weaker ones and free sub-faction abilities. Of course our current traits/artifacts might be reworked although I doubt the review will be that in-depth. 

If GW matches their intended design for the great Battalions I think that we'd see a good mix of it all. As it basically allows us players to focus on 'the allready goodstuff Khorne Daemons but faster, 'Blood Heralds and very scary combat Bloodletters', 'the allready goodstuff Khorne Mortals but faster' and  'Mortals going berserk against Heroes and Monsters'. To me this would be an interesting split, as many of us indeed want either a faster army or heavier hitting. It also should be more or less what Khorne is about, in broad strokes.

I indeed would agree with you that it might be quite possible to see different Artefacts for different sub-factions. At the same time I also think that if you don't choose for one of these sub-factions (and thus mix freely at will) the same option remains. And as said, I think GW will allow some Khorne mixing and matching, but probably as allies that way, which then won't benifit from that sub-faction's rules, but should still work out very well.

To me it pretty much sets it all up to this. Afterall we allready have 2  different Artefact lists for Mortals (3 if you count Bloodsecrator's) and 2 different Artefact lists for Daemons. If GW really wants to push it we might see 8 sub-factions in total. It would be fitting, but I don't know if GW will put that much effort into it. Afterall, our cover art isn't new either  

[Retro]

2 hours ago, Killax said:

Afterall, our cover art isn't new either

If I have to choose between new art and new rules, rules wins every time 😉

[Holy_Diver]

21 hours ago, Grimrock said:

Core mechanic changes can still be a nerf to some armies and not others. For example, let's say flight was removed from the game. Some armies that don't use flight very much like dispossessed or beastclaw wouldn't be affected at all. Other armies that use it all the time like tzeentch or KO would become massively less effective. Khorne relies heavily on 6+ effects to be able to put out damage, so losing that is a much harder hit to us then, let's say, Tzeentch which gets most of its damage out of spells. 

I don't think so. Khorne must be able to compensate the lack of shooting and magic with the best melee units of the game, otherwise is a fluff army.

The point around the hard 6s: yeah, we can't stuck buffs to hit anymore, but now we are immune to debuffs too (and in the current meta there are an avalanche of those; some samples: goblins, idoneth, Lon, skaven, stormcasts after deepstrike, nurgle...).

If GW want to see more Khorne army around they must rethink the bloodthite (a new system for the evocations) and the possibility to stay in close combat on turn one. Bok it is not an army that will then allow itself to wait: we don't have anything that provide long range damage (blooboil without Gore Pilgrims is not so terrifying) or abilities to maintain units alive while running in front of the enemy (no fnp, no debuffs to shooting, no abilities to redeploy destroyed units).

So, I saw the path of this army from the beginning of Aos and I want, in the new tome, a lot of movement AND close combat buffs. 

[Malakithe]

12 minutes ago, Holy_Diver said:

So, I saw the path of this army from the beginning of Aos and I want, in the new tome, a lot of movement AND close combat buffs. 

They suffer from the same things as Fyreslayers and Ironjawz...one trick pony. Briskly jog up the field to get into combat. For factions that are so hell bent on wanting to get in peoples faces they sure are slow about it

[Oreaper84]

28 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

They suffer from the same things as Fyreslayers and Ironjawz...one trick pony. Briskly jog up the field to get into combat. For factions that are so hell bent on wanting to get in peoples faces they sure are slow about it

Fyre slayers have a once per game movement buff and their whole army shoots, IJ have random but at times amazing movement shenanigans in their allegiance ability and Ironfist battalion. Khorne has murder host and a single whipped unit...i think bc we dont have shooting and magic, we need to outclass all but the fastest in either out of sequence movement (like if you can pick 3 units instead of one with the lvl 3 tithe), durability (i dont like this option if im honest), or solid raw speed choices. Maybe a combo of all 3? 

[Coyote]

I’m still a newer AoS player but played WHFB since 2002.  I want to ask a different question- 

What is our current - UNBUFFED - Unit deleter?  

UNBUFFED meaning a unit engaging without a Priest prayer,  without Command Abilty, without Battalion ability etc.

What unit are we putting on the table that can square up with nearly every other unit in the game and consistently win combats, and Delete other units?

i don’t see one right now that - and that’s ok mind you - without having 1 - 3 other variables we have to add to unit to raise Close Combat phase win percentage.  (Buffs, terrain or environmental factors, and sheer tactics mismatch)

Without a strong unit deleter - we are a tactical army (much like the old Wood Elves, minus shooting and magic - ok nothing like the old WE 🙂 ) that needs to maximize the Maneuver phase of Warfare (see vin Clausewitz).

But again, i don’t see a unit (without Buffs) we can just move forward and engage with confidence against most enemy units and win most of the time.

 

[Malakithe]

4 minutes ago, Oreaper84 said:

Fyre slayers have a once per game movement buff and their whole army shoots, IJ have random but at times amazing movement shenanigans in their allegiance ability and Ironfist battalion. Khorne has murder host and a single whipped unit...i think bc we dont have shooting and magic, we need to outclass all but the fastest in either out of sequence movement (like if you can pick 3 units instead of one with the lvl 3 tithe), durability (i dont like this option if im honest), or solid raw speed choices. Maybe a combo of all 3? 

Yeah the complete lack of range and magic is hard to deal with

[Forrix]

Too be honest the Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage is horribly undercosted currently. Its just not super noticeable since the faction as a whole is kinda meh, same with Gore Pilgrims. I'll gladly continue to take him at 260 points if he no longer works with Gyrstrike. I'm just hoping the new battletome lifts the rest of the army up so we don't need these crutches to keep us going.  Considering recent battletomes I'm thinking that's a safe bet and I'm looking forward to not having to take Gore Pilgrims in every freaking list.

[Oreaper84]

2 hours ago, Forrix said:

Too be honest the Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage is horribly undercosted currently. Its just not super noticeable since the faction as a whole is kinda meh, same with Gore Pilgrims. I'll gladly continue to take him at 260 points if he no longer works with Gyrstrike. I'm just hoping the new battletome lifts the rest of the army up so we don't need these crutches to keep us going.  Considering recent battletomes I'm thinking that's a safe bet and I'm looking forward to not having to take Gore Pilgrims in every freaking list.

yeah every list I make, feels soft without the Pilgrims.... i hope the new book opens other options....maybe a mortal version of murderhost

[TheHarrower]

Dark Feast works really well. Especially when you ally in a Chaos Warshrine. Gore Pilgrims is amazing, but there are other ways to play Khorne currently that are effective. 

[Beulettor]

6 hours ago, Forrix said:

Too be honest the Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage is horribly undercosted currently. Its just not super noticeable since the faction as a whole is kinda meh, same with Gore Pilgrims. I'll gladly continue to take him at 260 points if he no longer works with Gyrstrike. 

Do people agree that after an outrageous carnage, the BT of Insensate Rage, continue the attack ?

Last game I one-turn killed a terrorghest with 2 dices on 5+ and the normal damages (full life BT with Juggerlord). We looked at the rules and nothing seemed to say that I shouldn't continue the attack sequence after the 6 MW.

Without the MW it was already a nice amount of damage ;).

[Agent of Chaos]

@TheHarrower You dont even need to "ally" in a warshrine if it has mark of khorne. Dark Feast is nice but its only buffing Reavers and doesnt help the priest become more reliable. The mortal wound output offered by Gore Pilgrims is unmatched at the moment. 

@Forrix The Insensate Rage Thirster is a bit swingy, needing 6's to wound with only 4 attacks, and dies easily so 260 is probably about right. 

@Coyote yeah pretty much no unbuffed unit deleter currently available. Even 30 x Bloodletters needed extra attacks, if not bonuses to hit, to really shine and that was when the mortals were on 6+. 10 x Skullreapers can do a job but hitting on 4's means they need their rerolls happening before they really shine. A Wraith of Khorne bloodthirster with +2 Damage (Immense Power + Death Dealer) can put out a heap of reliable damage without further buffs, especially if he can use the breath and whip before charging.  But why talk in unbuffed terms anyway? AOS is all about buffs and debuffs and its pretty rare, especially for a hammer unit, to operate without any buffs on them.

[Forrix]

1 hour ago, Beulettor said:

Do people agree that after an outrageous carnage, the BT of Insensate Rage, continue the attack ?

Last game I one-turn killed a terrorghest with 2 dices on 5+ and the normal damages (full life BT with Juggerlord). We looked at the rules and nothing seemed to say that I shouldn't continue the attack sequence after the 6 MW.

Without the MW it was already a nice amount of damage ;).

Yeah, you continue the attack. Abilities will specify if the attack sequence ends. My current record for my Rage Thirster is a Maw-Crusha, an orruk warboss, the grot harbinger guy, and 4 Gore Gruntas killed in one attack sequence from him. 

1 hour ago, Agent of Chaos said:

Forrix The Insensate Rage Thirster is a bit swingy, needing 6's to wound with only 4 attacks, and dies easily so 260 is probably about right. 

I'd agree 260 is about right with unmodified 6s. Being able to get off more outrageous carnages is just crazy powerful.

[Bjornas]

I for one can definitely see anti-magic becoming a strong(er) niche for Khorne in the new book, especially with the new endless spells things. 

Also as a mortals-only player who refuses to play Gore Pilgrims (because ****** mainstream) I'm feeling very hopeful with the prospect of redesigns of the batallions

Edited February 14, 2019 by Bjornas