Let's chat : Blades of Khorne!

[davidslv]

15 minutes ago, Nico said:

See page 99 of the Khorne Book, numbered point 4, final sentence. A Battalion can still be part of any allegiance that all its units have on their Warscrolls. So the Bloodmarked Warband can be Khorne or Chaos as all the 9 units have those keywords.

Quote

4. Allegiance: If a battalion has an allegiance, its units can be included in an army that has that allegiance even if they do not have the keyword on their warscroll. However, it's units only benefit from that army's allegiance abilities if they have the appropriate keyword on their warscroll. A battalion can still be part of any allegiance that all units have on their warscrolls.

It does seem to be the case indeed. My apologies!

(Sending email to GW to fix the Azyr App again)

[Aspirant Snaeper]

Theorhetically then, the Battalion could also be part of Battalion's like The Goretide as long as it's fully Bloodbound units.

Neat.

[Arkiham]

1 hour ago, Aspirant Snaeper said:

Theorhetically then, the Battalion could also be part of Battalion's like The Goretide as long as it's fully Bloodbound units.

Neat.

Hmmm that .might be stretching it lol

[Jharen]

6 hours ago, Nico said:

See page 99 of the Khorne Book, numbered point 4, final sentence. A Battalion can still be part of any allegiance that all its units have on their Warscrolls. So the Bloodmarked Warband can be Khorne or Chaos as all the 9 units have those keywords.

Ha! Nice.  That clears that right up.  Thanks.

[Killax]

Which clears things up! But as per previous page, I believe the moral is just there to say, pick one Alligiance and not multiple. Even if you'd be able to choose multiple based on your Keywords. Meaning that within 'own logic' a lot of things are possible. It's typical for Age of Sigmar but not typical for many other miniature games.

@Aspirant Snaeper we know that is not possible because Keywords arn't added or changed on the Battalion itself nor Units. The Everchosen Battalion does not become a Khorne Battalion just because it's made up of Khorne Units.
This works the same way the other way around. A Khorne Battalion will never become Mortal Battalion just because it's made up of Mortal Units.

The Goretide specifically states, Khorne Bloodbound Units and Khorne Bloodbound Battalions can also be added. Everchosen Battalions cannot become Bloodbound Battalions. 

[facelez]

I'm glad we've come to this conclusion...

Yesterday I tried this battalion out for fun. Here's the list I went with:

Spoiler

Allegiance: Chaos

Leaders

Bloodsecrator (120)

Lord Of Khorne On Juggernaut (140)

- General

- Command Trait : Berzerker Lord

- Artefact : Gorecleaver

Mighty Lord Of Khorne (140)

- Artefact : Mark of the Destroyer

Slaughterpriest (100)

- Bloodbathed Axe

- Blood Blessing : Bronzed Flesh

Slaughterpriest (100)

- Hackblade and Wrath Hammer

- Blood Blessing : Killing Frenzy

Units

10 x Blood Warriors (200)

-Goreaxe & Gorefist

10 x Blood Warriors (200)

-Goreaxe & Gorefist

20 x Bloodreavers (140)

-Reaver Blades

10 x Skullreapers (280)

-Daemonblades

Battalions

Bloodmarked Warband (80)

And here is what happened / what I think about the battalion.

We played Border War and I was facing Stormcast with a Hammerstrike Force or whatever this thin is called.

I have to admit that I made several horrible tactical mistakes because I was so eager to get my heroes in combat to generate those extra attacks... consequently my Mighty Lord got smashed to pieces by Retributors that were sent from the celestial Realm. Although I consider a tactical mistake you kind of have to live with those things when facing a Hammerstrike Force I gues... Ultramobile Retributors are pretty nasty...

Anyway, my plan was simply to split up the army in the big Skullreapers unit and a Blood Warriors unit plus the Reavers to capture the middle objecitves. I left the other Blood Warrior unit on my objective because Hammerstrike and backup.

Although we had several combats in turn 1 I wasn't able to get any Heroes to kill just one model... as said before, poor placement on my side. Mighty Lord got wrecked, Slaughterpriest whiffed and Juggerlord didn't get into combat. Also he made all the charges because Hammerstrike.

By turn 2 the Mighty Lord, one Slaughterpriest and most of the Reavers plus a big chunk of the first Blood Warrior unit were gone.

In turn 2 the battalion really came into play. I was generating blood tithe like there's no tomorrow with those cheap blood warrior heroes and I was finally getting kills with my heroes. I used the Blood Warrior Champions with Goreglaive as new heroes and it's just so much fun to play this:

I had my other Blood Warriors still in the back and that one dude in the unit just decides he's a Hero now and charges on his own. And he's not joking around... 5 attacks with the Goreglaive (2 base, plus 1 for Hero, plus 1 for Portal of Skulls, plus 1 for Battalion). Then he gets killed: attacks again plus blood tithe... by the end of turn 2 I had generated 8 blood tithe...

And on a side note: unfortunatley he positioned his weaker troops on the Skullreapers side. So in turn 2 the Skullreapers were up to +3 attacks because of two Hero-Kills and portal of skulls and they just sliced through a unit of Liberators and a unit of Judicators in just one Combat Phase. And in the next combat phase they took down the Lord Celestant on Dracoth.... A Hero with a Soultearer is no joke either...

So on top of turn 3 which would have been the Stormcast's phase we called it game. After my poor placement in the beginning I was really suprised about the outcome but he was also playing my game and gladly going into combat.

All in all that battalion is amazing and just fun to play! I'm really considerung it for the tourney. Not to a tournament winning list but fun and competitive.

I was again dissapointed by the slaughterpriests in combat. They didn't get a single kill but their buffs were still important. I might replace for a bit more killy Heros though...

[Nico]

Quote

In turn 2 the battalion really came into play. I was generating blood tithe like there's no tomorrow with those cheap blood warrior heroes and I was finally getting kills with my heroes. I used the Blood Warrior Champions with Goreglaive as new heroes and it's just so much fun to play this:

That's a good point. You're spam generating new heroes, which then die and generate Blood Tithe.

The main advantage of this Battalion would be on 3 places of power. if you get on the objectives first - you basically win as you have 80-100 wannabe heroes to play with.

[facelez]

I don't really see the advantage for three places of power. You want to hold the objectives with the same hero and not have him die. You only generate more points per objective if the same hero keeps holding the objective. You only eliminate the risk of not having any heros and not being able to score any points.

The battalion really is a blood tithe engine. Although it didn't help much in this game... I had 8 blood tithe on top of turn 3 and used them to move the Skullreapers on his objective. So although this was tactically a really important move it was hard throwing away 5 blood tithe. But that's not the way you should think about it I guess.

The fact that you always have 5 heroes at any point of the game can really cause some tactical issues for your opponent. At one point I charged his Prosecutors with my Blood Warrior Hero which was really important because he could have just used them to capture my home objecitve when I moved the second Blood Warrior unit away from it.

Plus I get feeling that Blood Warriors are just the best battleline in the game... I had them up +2-3 attacks and they chewed away 10 Retributors....

[Nico]

It's not as good as I first thought on 3 Places of Power. But it does mean that you'll never run out of heroes. They will need to kill your hero with a hero of their own within 3" to ever grab an objective off you - as they will never be the first to arrive if a new hero of yours is created next to the objective.

[Killax]

@facelez Great report, nice that you took the time to share. I think that your army set up is allready very good and killy. I still would (if you have them) try to bring in a unit of 40 Bloodreavers (or 2) because I really like the fact that due to it being a multitude of 8 you can really make Bloodreavers much more killy as before. Almost going from a functional 50% wounding to 60% wounding.

In regards to this:

Quote

All in all that battalion is amazing and just fun to play! I'm really considerung it for the tourney. Not to a tournament winning list but fun and competitive.

I was again dissapointed by the slaughterpriests in combat. They didn't get a single kill but their buffs were still important. I might replace for a bit more killy Heros though...

I completely agree that the Battalion is competative enough to give it a shot for tournament play. Like you I don't think it's easy to use and win tournaments with but there is one massive advantage this Battalion has over all others and that is the potetential Blood Tithe point generation. It's because of this that I think 40 Bloodreaver blocks are amazing because they are an extremely likely source for Heroes that will die relatively quick which in turn could give you 3-4 additional Blood Tithe points when compaired to regular other Khorne Battalions.
The simple fact of the matter is that somehow our heroes have to die. In my opinion Valkia is the best choice for this by far! As we know her first impact will leave an impression an opponent will have to deal with and she's flying and fast. Fast enough for opponents to remove her before she goes Hero-hunting. From this the "Blood Tithe production chain" of 'Bloodreaver Heroes' should be easy to create.

From my perspective Slaughterpriests are great with Gore Pilgrims but otherwise very dicey. Cool for regular and casual play, not what you'd want to rely on for a tournament because those 50/50 rolls will come back at you for that day. 
Other than that your list seems great! I think you should consider the following and you'll do great:
1. Do I have Valkia?
2. Do I have at least a block of 40 Bloodreavers?
To me these 2 units are the only Units required to ensure your investment into this Battalion returns. There is offcourse point 3. that forces you to have 1 hero + 8 Mortal Khorne Units but that's quite easy to archieve.

Lastly, for tournament play, make sure your list mentions it's Allegiance is Khorne or (Chaos) Khorne. If it just mentions it's Chaos like it does now some players might not realize what they are up for and call you out on it. Both are valid options for this army to choose from but as the BoK book states, you must choose. In our regular play that means it's clear to opponents even before the game begins. 

Cheers,

[facelez]

Thanks for the input!

You definitely have a point there...

 

unfortunately i have neither valkia nor 40 reavers.

does anyone have suggestions for alternative models for valkia?

[facelez]

Actually I already found a pretty neat alternative...

[Jharen]

@facelez Your list was far from what you'd want to be running in a Bloodmarked Warband battalion.  The most important thing to have in this list is strong melee heroes.  As mentioned in my previous post (and I believe Killax further pointed it out) Valkia is a great choice for this battalion.  But don't just stop with her.  Mighty Lords, Lords on Juggernaut, and any of the cheap 80 point killy heroes are going to be your friends in this battalion.  You want to take as many heroes as you're allowed in my opinion.  Slaughterpriests just serve no function in this battalion at all.

Warshrines are another great asset in this battalion if you have one available to you.  Bloodreavers I imagine can work (I know Killax seems to be a fan of them) though I feel this battalion works better for it's staying power through target saturation and hero multiplication and thus I tend to lean towards hefty models and units for it such as Bloodwarriors and Skullcrushers.  I feel like you also can go one of two extremes as far as unit make-up with the battalion.  Either run large blocks (as close to maximum models that you can get within the unit), or run multiple small units at minimum size to increase target saturation.

You want to be pretty aggressive with your heroes when running the battalion, but that doesn't mean you can be reckless.  Use your other units to screen/bubble wrap them if need be to prevent enemy units from dropping into melee on them.  Don't keep your heroes close together.  Spread them out as much as you can (keeping your bloodsecrator's range in mind ofc) so that your opponent can't single charge multiple heroes or lock them all up with one move.  Present threats from as many angles as you're able to.

[facelez]

As mentioned I was really disappointed with the slaughterpriests in combat although they got some important buffs off. I will most likely replace them with Valkia and a Skullgrinder.

I'll keep the rest of the units though. I'm not a big fan of running only three units. That leaves you with too few tactical options. The blood warriors and the skullreapers really delivered. So no need to change that. 

[Killax]

@Jharen I think you can really go both ways you know. The thing for me is that with Valkia you have a guaranteed chain of Heroes going on, by large because she is the type of model you need to remove (which doesn't always apply to our other Bloodbound guys). So with that you essentially turn on the Blood Tithe engine.
I completely agree with you that Slaughterpriests serve little to no use here. Had a whole debate on Slaughterpriest on Facebook aswell but my opinion of them is simple, great with Gore Pilrgims, otherwise, not so great. In all honesty even one of the worse Priests out there. 50% chance of succession, 17% to eat D3 Mortal Wounds, it's just not that great.

To me the biggest pro the 40 Bloodreavers offer here is that they are actually a damned fine deal. Sure you'll arrive with 20ish, but they still gain the re-roll 1's to Wound ability from the Battalion and that makes them more than okay in my eyes, especially because their body attack number can really become silly, especially if somehow your opponent ignores the block.

If anything I think/assume that not too many opponents will leave the 40 Bloodreavers alone, which is a fine thing as at 280 points they are actually a steal for their body count considering how much Blood Tithe points you can generate out of that. Maby 2 blocks of 40 are too much but I'd certainly go for 1 and Valkia .

---

On another non-Blades of Khorne Warscroll note!

I thake back what I initially said about the Slaughterbrute, especially when we factor in the speed and Rage of Khorne. Somehow I got it into my mind that he only moved 8", making him barely faster as a Khorgorath, but that's not really the case. At 200 points and 10" move I think he's a fantastic potential diversion model for his cost.
It's quite certain that he'll be removed but the beauty in it to me is that your opponent will have to go for this aswell, as he really shouldn't arrive at full health. The advantage gained there is that he still will scoot up and blunt the oppossing initial assault.

If anything I think there is a good excuse to get a Slaughterbrute. It's a pitty it didn't gain the Bloodbound Keyword, I think it would have had some amazing potential in The Goretide if it had recieved that Keyword. Plus the model is just very cool.

Cheers,

[Thomas Lyons]

Has there ever been any clarity on whether one can take a Gore Pilgrims battalion (using the third bullet point which allows any war scroll battalion) in a Skullfiend Tribe without taking 2 additional battalions from the 3-7 list?  Thanks!

[Killax]

37 minutes ago, Thomas Lyons said:

Has there ever been any clarity on whether one can take a Gore Pilgrims battalion (using the third bullet point which allows any war scroll battalion) in a Skullfiend Tribe without taking 2 additional battalions from the 3-7 list?  Thanks!

Reread what bullet point 3 says.

Gore Pilgrims is not a Keyword Bloodbound Khorne Battalion. It is a Khorne Battalion, named in 3-7.

You can add it outside of The Goretide in your army. Though thats a lot of points in Battalion.

[Thomas Lyons]

1 hour ago, Killax said:

Reread what bullet point 3 says.

Gore Pilgrims is not a Keyword Bloodbound Khorne Battalion. It is a Khorne Battalion, named in 3-7.

You can add it outside of The Goretide in your army. Though thats a lot of points in Battalion.

So what battalions are a Khorne Bloodbound army (beyond the fact that battalions don't have keywords)?

[Killax]

9 minutes ago, Thomas Lyons said:

So what battalions are a Khorne Bloodbound army (beyond the fact that battalions don't have keywords)?

There are currently two left, they can be found on the app and in the Battletome: Bloodbound.
They are:
- Goreblade Warband
- Bloodstorm

It can be a bit confusing but the 'hard rule' that isn't written down is that Keywords are never suddenly gained unless specifically stated as such (for example with Chaos Warriors and Daemon Prince). What The Goretide more or less boilds down to is:

1. You need a Mighty Lord of Khorne
2. You need a Slaughterborn Battalion (that will be part of The Goretide aswell) with a minimum of 3 Blood Warrior units

3. You can include 0-1 Gorechosen Battalion
4. You can include other X named Battalions but if you do so the minimum requirement to include is 3, the maximum is 7
5. You can include other Khorne Bloodbound Units and Khorne Bloodbound Battalions (who are Goreblade Warband and Bloodstorm currently)

An 2K army can still typically include The Goretide (and thus Slaughterborn) and Gore Pilgrims though due to the 3 minimum requirement for Gore Pilgrims to be part of The Goretide it's often left as a seperate secondary Battalion.
What makes things a little bit confusing is that The Goretide essentially can become a massive conglomeration of Battalions but in order to make those synergies not too crazy they seem to have added the 3+ requirement if you want to stack those abilities.

---

In general The Goretide allows you to run 10K+ armies who are all really fast.
This is in line with Khorgal Khul's narrative and the reason The Goretide can be so massive is because the narrative tells us that he has the largest Bloodbound army as we speak. The only oddity in all of this is that technically Khorgal Khul can't be played and always will just be a Mighty Lord of Khorne  .

 

 

[Killax]

Though it needs to be said, if your local playing group allows you to use older Warscrolls you can do so. I personally wouldn't go down this rabbit hole because there are just too many crazy Warscroll and Battalion mixes once you go down this road.

Just for the fun of it I made a small list that basically covers the most relevant Khorne Abilities that arn't on the Warscrolls so can be a lead to build your army around.

Blood Tithe:
1. Bloody Examplar; ideal reason to go Mighty Lord/Khorne Lord on Jugger and even Aspiring Deathbringer
2. Spealleater Curse; niche but the only way to Unbind anywhere on the board; which can lead to a reason to go for Blood Tithe point engines
3. Murderlust; move or charge is always good and in the hero phase can really allow for fantastic board control; remember we can do this in oppossing Hero phases
"5". Apoplectic Frenzy; additional attacks for a whole unit; a reason to include at least a single big block  
"7". Relentless Fury; basically our 'super turn' worth it to save up for but still hard to use. Can be cool with MSU but in my games I havn't found a reason to stack up for this yet. Apoplectic Frenzy is just too good for me  

Command Traits:
1. Slaughterborn; always good if you want to have a big Bloodthirster as your general. So far has not dissapointed ever, WoK doesn't need it ****** but even there it can be considered.
2. Disciple of Khorne + Mark of the Destroyer is still a reason for an opponent to focus on that character and that's really good for us. So the moment you want to go for that combination you'll know your General will be a target but in many cases this isn't actually a bad thing for us. As the vast mayority of our Infantry is the backbone.
3. Immense Power is very cool for the WoK!
4. Violent Urgency is just fantastic and likely the best if you happen to run heavy with Infantry and do not play Murderlust or The Goretide (or other speed up Battalions). Certainly can recommend this one unless you want to have a 'lightning rod' which is where 1-3 come in.

Mortal Artefacts:
1. Gorecleaver, just ideal for Khorne Lord on Juggernaut and Exalted Deathbringers or Slaves to Darkness Heroes. In general never a bad choice.
Bloodbound Artefacts:
1. The Blade of Endless Bloodshed can be really interesting for 'throw away' Heroes. We unfortunatly don't have too many of those Heroes due to how we still rely on Bloodsecrators but I'm still wanting to test it for something like The Goretide.
2. Mark of the Destroyer is still worth it if you want to go all in with your General. It will always lead to a Kamikaze move but so far this has been great and has got some unexpected reactions! The well known WTF  
3. Best of all support pieces still is our Talisman of Burning Blood, as it works on all Khorne units I generally find myself adding this to whatever guy will move with the army turn 1 aswell. Even the second Bloodsecrator is going along  
4. The Brazen Rune, best defensive Artefact we have but a bit more limited. As discussed here aswell, we can Unbind, but only if we could Unbind as it doesn't mention that it wouldn't follow all normal Unbind rules.
Daemonic Artefacts:
1. Deathdealer and Harvester of Skulls are both amazing allround choices for any of your Bloodthirsters. Now I have to chime in that Bloodthirsters in the grand scheme of things arnt the most reliable kings of combat but with one of these you'll certainly have a good shot at doing something painful.
In general I think Slaughterborn + any of these are a great way to run a non-WoK Bloodthirster General.
2. A'grath and Behemoth's Bane are there to specifically hunt down pieces. In general I think they can make or break your games based on meta calls.
3. The Crimson Crown, just as insane as you think it is. This is the prime reason why you'll see me with a Khorne Herald.
4. Mark of the Slayer, theoretically want to use it but havn't found a technical use for it just yet. Might come but in general we have a lot of attacks that the quality improvement isn't always required. If it is, it means you somehow havn't got a Bloodsecrator around and this still remains key asset number one.

Other than that, I still really like all the Bloodbound infantry units! I'm also really happy that Brass Stampede sticks around but so far Murderhost and The Goretide have been the most "easy acces" Battalions for me that pull their weight in any scenario. Especially Murderhost, especially Murderhost  

Cheers,

[RuneBrush]

Oddly I've enjoyed running a couple of Slaughterpriests in the 1500/1600 point games I've been playing recently.  Found they add an extra bit of utility otherwise missing from the army - ranged mortal wounds, ability to mess around with enemies position (great for pulling Stormcast out of their buff range) and quite a variety of additional prayers.  There's always a chance of rolling a 1 and their combat prowess isn't great (especially with that 5+ save), but I think what they bring makes up for it.  They do become significantly better in Gore Pilgrim and if they kill something in the previous turn (Blood Boil counts), but even at base you've two prayers with a 50/50 chance - so you're going to do something.

[Killax]

Oh its absolutely cool if you want that! Its just that these same techniques where you want to have that utility are the armies who can snipe them down, which is far from hard to do. Unless we factor in Houserules and such.

My concern isnt that Gore Pilgrims isnt good. My cocern comes from reviewers who claim it to be mandatory. To which I cant agree.

Moving units is great if you can do it within that 16" spectrum but we also have ways to move up faster ourselfs which do not require that 16" enemy unit to be around and a 4+ roll on a D6. Most opponents arnt sitting ducks. 

Ranged mortal wounds can certainly be excellent but if you want to ensure this happening a Skullcannon is a legit choice aswell, largely more legit due to having almost double the range and the option to shoot twice if you make it part of your second wave.

[RuneBrush]

4 minutes ago, Killax said:

Oh its absolutely cool if you want that! Its just that these same techniques where you want to have that utility are the armies who can snipe them down, which is far from hard to do. Unless we factor in Houserules and such.

My concern isnt that Gore Pilgrims isnt good. My cocern comes from reviewers who claim it to be mandatory. To which I cant agree.

Moving units is great if you can do it within that 16" spectrum but we also have ways to move up faster ourselfs which do not require that 16" enemy unit to be around and a 4+ roll on a D6. Most opponents arnt sitting ducks. 

Ranged mortal wounds can certainly be excellent but if you want to ensure this happening a Skullcannon is a legit choice aswell, largely more legit due to having almost double the range and the option to shoot twice if you make it part of your second wave.

Completely agree on this.  I played a 1k one-day event the other weekend and came rock bottom largely because of the core Khorne issues - vulnerability to hero sniping, lack of anti-magic/ranged and lack of movement.  Every opponent had ranged (and quite powerful ranged) in some form or another which a 16" prayer wouldn't have helped with.

I'd like to give Gore Pilgrims a play at some point (would need to paint up some 'reavers), but can't see it being so spectacular that I want to field it every game.

I've a Skullcannon in my list for Smash in just over a week - I've found it very mixed, some games it's been star of the show and others it's been a bit of a damp squib!

[Jharen]

Gore Pilgrims is a great battalion, but its far from mandatory.  If you plan to run a bloodbound army and want to include slaughterpriests in that army then its a no brainer, of course you take it, because it has all the stuff in it you're going to be running anyhow.  If you don't need slaughterpriests in your list or don't care much for them, then I certainly don't see the need to take this battalion - because that's what it's primary benefit is.  The extra range on the Bloodsecrator is nice to have but I think most Khorne players have learned how to play with the 18" range just fine so it's certainly not a must have.  I'll grant it can be very effective at disrupting magic heavy lists from across the table though.

In my opinion, saying Gore Pilgrims is now mandatory is like saying Slaughterpriests are now mandatory.  They are not, and it is not.  It's just one more tool we have for making a variety of good lists with different styles.

[Killax]

Absolutely, one of the best things about BoK is that you can really play the army however you'd like. Many of us don't care too much about the attrition options Slaves to Darkness offer us but this likely has more to do with the typical mindset of a Khorne player. Most don't mind the demise of models as long as you can thake out oppossing models aswell.

Thinking about my army again, will post a list later  It's anoying to have a idea 80% finished in your head.