TheArborealWalrus

They are treated as separate units for all rules purposes, so I'd say that's 2 blood tithes. Even if cannons don't have anything like blood. Not too much. The biggest draw back of ironweld things is that to remove their ability to hurt you just have to remove 3-4 6+ wounds. (IE the crew) Cannons might be a big threat to us, but there are so many ways for other armies to kill the crew it most likely still won't be used. I could be wrong though. We'll see. This would also make playing khorne less like a chess match where you are thinking several steps ahead of your opponent. Would let new bloods get punished for their mistakes less(and in general). They might give us this. Probably not, but I can hope.

May I ask the reasoning behind those thoughts? I'm trying to refine them further and since neither have had any hiccups I was looking for any possible improvements/flaws. Pretty simple. It serves two primary purposes. 1: The +2 attacks artifact that isn't dependent on anything other than KHORNE keyword so I can put it anywhere. 2: Both lists, but especially the first one, are trying to have independent murder trains running around, usually skullreapers. The main thing that reapers don't get rerolls against are heroes who will then be handing out rerolls of 1 if we (or they) decide to go frolicking. Plus many heroes are hanging around the front lines anyways. Other (smaller) factors: It was also more valuable to these lists than the gore tide or either daemon slaughterhost (although the always strikes first artifact tempted me to look at them). I wasn't really going to use either command ability so no real loss there. The goretide's command trait wouldn't help out as much as possibly landing a ton of blood tithes from explosions(for list 1), so another point to the skullfiends. I only like using goretide's artifact on models with a 3+ so without a worthy candidate in the lists that was another problem. Skullfiends was more arbitrarily chosen in the second list. Plus there, with a little luck, reroll 1s for everyone. Make some wicked chaos dwarf conversions. Even if the order cannons are bad. Sometimes rule of cool is king! I like the idea. (partially where my head was at with list 1(mostly MW spam)) I just feel like your army seems to have very vulnerable teeth. It's not hard to kill thirsters or even slaughterpriests and the crushers have felt more like an (actual) anvil to me rather than a hammer. Although the skullgrinder might have words with me regarding the possible applications of anvils.

Didn't know we had a teleport battalion. That's kind of neat. - I've got a tournament coming up on the 30th and was trying to decide between these 2 lists. I like them both, so I'm rather split. Help? List 1: 2,000pts, 7 drops, skull fiends tribe List 2: 2,000pts, 9 drops, skull fiends tribe

Castling to me is not a static tactic, it's a formational thing. Keeping the walls up while I move in. (Although this strategy is more accurately called bivouacking) In addition, when there are multiple objectives I can form multiple castles(bivouacs) to go after each one. Admittedly with my current list the 3rd castle would be the least powerful, so against scary teleports (idoneth, stormcast, ect) I wouldn't typically bother, better to sacrifice an objective for a turn or two to crush their piecemeal army. This thinking was initially my downfall when we were practicing for the last tournament because of the 2 hour time limit, but with less models it has done better. (you can't afford to do so against skaven and other super hordes though) 2 times did I win the later game but lose to the time limit while we were practicing. Ended up 2nd when the real deal happened though. I was using a minotaur list at the time. Had a couple of free movers to grab objectives in that list, but overall I was still castling(bivouacking). Scorched earth and other battleplans with 5 + objectives are rather challenging for my type of list, especially with all the teleportation abilities running around. These scenarios definitely reward armies that don't have/ need any buffs. Don't have any hard and fast rules for that though, it's situational on who you're fighting and how they teleport. I often do it like how I did in the FEC game. Put my foot in the door and wait to see who gets the turn. Against fellow slow movers I'll be sitting on that hairy edge of being able to be charged, and unless I hid the fast ones were going to catch me anyways. It also puts pressure on the enemy to come to me and prevent me from stacking points, which is exactly what I want. Maximum buffs with enemies to use them on. Having a central castle with lots of free agents could be a nice variation of the theme, it's just that I feel like Khorne doesn't have any units besides maybe skullreapers that don't need the support to do well on their own. I was using bestigors in that minotaur list and they did alright. Maybe use ally points on it? *shrug* Theoretical "Free Agents": T.L.D.R. : Castling is formational, not a movement strategy. It's just there to force you to take it even if you don't have formations. If they phrased it like "you must take x artifact if you are skull host Y" then some pedantic fool would argue that you can only take x and someone would want multiples of x and blah blah… They thought they were clarifying.

Alright, so we're doing a builder league type thing (no buy in though) with that new campaign book and I decided to play daemons to give the local newbies a kinder gentler khorne and … man. Daemons only is difficult. Probably not news to most (and a little too defeatist for my own preferences) but here's been my observations. : Played 3 games at 750pts and won 1. We're not allowed named characters (we're building OUR guys' stories) so there goes the low tier fighters of Karnak and Skulltaker, which left me feeling like only the thirsters were left to crush our enemies and as everyone has been saying, between their squishy nature and random damage, (5 d6 damage netted me 9 wounds (oof) and next 3 d6 got 15. Random whackyness!) the thirsters can be unreliable. Plus I only have one. I tried out blood letters, bloodcrushers, and flesh hounds and really only felt some use out of the hounds. Letters biggest problem was unsurprisingly the base size/range and pts cost. I might try larger unit of them next. See if that helps. The crushers just didn't have the punch to do much of anything. The best they did for me was win a grind match against 10 zombie dogs(over 3 turns). In lager games they might make an excellent chaff wall, or in larger units, battering ram. We'll see. The hounds mostly served as unbinds and chaff, which they did admirably, but a beat stick they are not. They'll beat things like min units of ungors and such, but if they weren't so pretty I'd probably look elsewhere for my battleline. Also I'd have to allow myself outside of daemons, but details, details. I shall continue experimenting lads. I'd love to be wrong, but alas I believe the stokers only work on mortal units. *shakes fist angrily at sky* I'm not overly familiar with the tyrants game plan, (beyond it's useful ability) but could reavers perhaps serve as cheap chaff in an attempt to protect all 3? Maybe a stoker or 2 to make them keep up? Otherwise it seems like an impossible task to keep them sufficiently screened. And shooting of course just doesn't care about our screens. I haven't played with the points values yet to see what's possible. I might take a look at it later. Fighting lizards is hard as Khorne. Made even harder if you're using daemons as a primary component to your list. Between the ridiculously powerful summoning and the constant teleports we will have a tough fight on our hands. We don't have any local (2nd edition) seraphon players so all of this is just theory crafting but … What you do depends on their army composition (and yours, as always). If they're focusing on bastilidons (and that reroll save battalion) I'd say that speed and mortal wounds are your only hope. You've got to catch them and drop the pain. That 4++ against mortals doesn't benefit from the reroll. Other than that, bastilidons seem to be an hard one to beat outside of luck. With that deep strike battalion castling is once again your friend, but even one bastilidon can kill a bloodthirster a turn. It's one of our weaker match ups, but they don't really have much in the way of staying power. Their infantry is generally weaker than ours and has lower wound counts (per model) so you might be able to just smash through if you're fast enough. Killing the slaan always helps, although he hits surprisingly hard in melee. Carnasaurs are very hit or miss in my experience. They look scary, but they either murder, or miss everything. They're much like thirsters in that regard. Blood warriors + goretide could work well, but if the thirsters are the game plan it's going to be a rough ride. I fought the courts 2 weeks ago. I'll lay that out in more detail, and My slaanesh buddy and I have been wanting to get a daughters vs Khorne battle in 2nd edition for quite a while. I'll try to push that ahead of the other games for ya'll. This is my best recommendation for fighting all of these melee death star armies: Castling. I know it's not glorious or honourable, but putting a wall of chaff makes them have to think about how to get to your tender bits. My experience with people playing "good armies" is that they tend to run on autopilot. They just smash their big murder stick into you and expect you to break. Overconfidence is a dangerous weapon. I know about it and I've still done it myself (reapers vs kurnoths). It's more common than you might think. Offer bait to draw them in and then strike. I feel that Khorne is a very strong beta strike army (I believe that's the term). We don't have any local stormcast players, so I can't offer insights into them, but this has worked against all of the tier 1 and s tier armies I've fought so far. Nagash I rarely fight, but I imagine it would mean aggressive castling(build on their front lawn!). In theory it should still work fine. Holding back doesn't quite work as well on skaven though. You've got to throw your brick at their walls as fast as possible (in my experience) to get at the nasty stuff. Sacrificing a hammer to their reprisals to do it is more than worth it. Unless they change objective scoring in GH19 you'll lose on objectives if you don't (once again in my experience) start thinning the swarm quickly. If your chaff game is on point, it doesn't matter what the opponent is using, it's fighting what you want it to fight. I feel this also works for the activation wars. You don't have to charge the always strikes first nasty, and it's own ability is it's downfall against the chaff, it has to kill them, revealing itself to the hammer. (which is where the double pile in nonsense comes in, but I'll find a solution for that eventually) Mind you, we CAN participate directly in the activation wars, but that's only with bloodthirsters (and a battalion) who are squishy and a bit unreliable. So I'd say not to bother. But that's just me. ( we also have blood tithe to occasionally surprise our foes in the activation wars) To be fair though, the ol' bait tactic shouldn't work on vets unless you put something sufficiently meaty for them out there. Make it look important to your plans or something. Not quite sure what we'd use, but my slaanesh buddy is using 10 chaos knights for such a purpose in his army. I haven't fought his current iteration yet though. Battle report: Battle for the pass. Terrain: (Think long ways) Center: my side had a forest and the altar(on the left of the forest) while his had his throne and a building. Left: a ruins section near the objective but otherwise empty. Right: Another ruin by the objective with not much besides that. Felt barren to me, but there it was. The armies: Report:

I used GW inks to blaze through about 80 or so blood reavers. Looks good and took me longer waiting for them to dry than it did to paint. Have to do it over a white or near white primer though. That's generally what my mortals lists have been doing. Working well so far, we'll see if it can survive the tournament on the 30th. I would personally swap out the gore pilgrims battalion and a unit of blood warriors for something else, like 5 more skull reapers, but what you're switching for is rather dependent on what you want out of the list .Example : I prefer having more chaff than my current list allows, but for now I just want to swing my bloodthirster around, so in he stays. My current list: 2,000pts khorne - skull fiends -

I would say that you shouldn't build the list around him, but he does make an excellent counter to the likes of morathi, nagash and any other suitably unkillable nasties on the table. I added one to my brass despoilers list specifically to deal with such ilk. I like adding the gorretide's artifact to make it more likely for him to survive poking the hornet's nest, but that's just an extra add on. That being said, his underwhelming damage has made it difficult to inflict the damage on his targets to delete them, so it's a bit of a gamble. I don't want to spam battle reports, so suffice it to say that I had a close battle with a rookie flesh eaters court player and am uncertain how I might compete with my mortals against them once he finds his footing. He was playing the blisterkin deadwatch (lots o' flayers) without a terrorgheist. I know about the double chaff wall strategy (too many points for not enough reward, especially with all the screaming possible) and striking back when you're slain isn't bad, but with the regen it feels negligible. I had enough hammers in my list that when he smashed into my castle my response was quick and brutal (I won the roll off for turn which meant I could respond to his attack) but I don't want to have to rely on this, especially when he decides to try the infamous always strikes first terrorgheist. So, any thoughts on how a mortal army can deal with these creatures? I'm probably overthinking this, but... What worked?: The slaughterborn battalion reduced the damage from the flayers from staggering to bearable (helped that he was whiffing a lot). Skullreapers were tougher than he expected and could get the upper hand on flayers. Probably a fluke, but the thirster did magnificently, even with failing to get any prayers off on him. Easily MVP of the match. Ignoring their armour was nice. Rend anything basically ended up ignoring his save, making him rely on the 6++ which can be dangerous for him to get close enough to use. Slaughterpriests' blood boil helped to cut his respawn heroes down to size. Zoning kept him out of where I didn't want him with those big bases (his long charge rolls neutralized this, but still). Theoretically works?: Without always strikes first, gheists aren't very durable (especially riderless ones)so killing them shouldn't be a problem. . Only one summon per king type, once they're used you can relax your rear guard (depending on where they went). What didn't work?: Blood warrior chaff. They got screamed off the board before he charged in with the flayers. I imagine with a gheist it'll be worse. Theoretical problems: Hordes. We were both using elite armies so his magic goblet didn't help him much, but with a lot of bodies on both sides, I see it as a potential problem. Teleporting was an issue, blisterkin gave him a command trait to teleport a flying units which he did onto objectives. On a long ways deployment with more objectives that could be scary. That it can be used anytime seems like more of an issue to me though.

Another report from the front lads. This time scorched earth in a crowded desert city. (cool map, but would never be seen in a tournament ) He was using the new kurnoth hunters warscroll with the arch revenant. I wanted to give the skull reaper horde another chance before I changed it. Not exactly an army people are afraid of, but it might offer some insight. I'm not going to go into exacting detail on this one though as it was fast, and I'm tired. The Armies: Terrain: There were streets and open fire lanes in the center but he clogged up the major arterial way with his wildwoods by the edge of deployment. I set up my altar to block more line of sight Deployment: All the kurnoths hung out in the center with the revenant and a wytch wile 2 spite squads grabbed each objective with the last wytch on my left. The thirster and 5 reapers, 5 mongers, and 5 blood warriors sat on the right, sitting next to the wildwoods. I dropped the rest of my army in an extended line, covering both the center and left objectives. The Battle: I won the roll off to pick sides and chose to steal his wildwoods. No free dryads for you! Also blocking line of sight from his shooters. and my opponent chose to go first. The battalion let him teleport a unit (6" away) and move 3 others, so he teleported the melee kurnoths directly in front of my right hand "castle" (more like a fort) and moved the shooters up. The revenant then chased the melee hunters and the shooters did 5 wounds on the blood warriors guarding the big block of reapers. Charge phase the hunters make it to the mongers (who were guarding the flank of the thirster) but most get stuck on the blood warriors in front. He uses the revenant to give them +1 attack. 4 easily kill the blood warriors who do a total of 3 wounds back. 1 only gets 1 attack through on the reapers doing 2 damage and 2 of them kill 3 mongers who finish off the wounded one. In return the thirster does 8 mortal wounds and 7 damage on the unit of hunters while the reapers + mongers kill all but one who is kept around with a command point. That 1 dude also did that evocator thing of mortals, but only in 1" and only 1 dice per model in the hunter unit, killing a reaper. Objectively worse than evocators, but still new. My turn I move up the big castle (who gets clogged on the streets/altar/buildings) who ran because they weren't going to get in range this turn. Plus he had a shooting line I didn't want to let him get the chance to unload shots with. Call it a gamble. The right hand reapers fell back towards the spites and the thirster finished the last hunter. We rolled off and I won it, choosing to go first. The thirster went after the enemy general and the big reaper blob moved on the shooting kurnoths with the small unit of reapers + blood warriors threatened the left objective. It was at this point that I overestimated the reapers. Or underestimated the durability of the hunters. The big blob charged 2 hunter units and captured the center objective. They outran the mongers and were only getting +1 attack. 4 reapers did 6 mortals and 1 wound to the first unit while the 3 did 5 mortals to the second unit. In return they killed 1 reaper with stomps. Meanwhile the arch revenant only got 1 attack through and did 2 wounds to the thirster who promptly did 15 wounds back, but she resurrected with 3 wounds on the spot. I expected him to retreat her onto one of my objectives, but the only ones who moved up were the spites who just sort of sat there warding off my attacks from his objectives. The great bows killed 2 reapers and injured another. In combat the revenant went first and did 6 wounds to the thirster, while the reapers killed 1 hunter form the first unit and did 2 mortals to the other. The wounded reaper was finished by stomps and the revenant paid for her temerity. I won the roll off for turn and my opponent decided to call it. That was a weird one. My opponent essentially threw himself upon my sword turn 1 and whilst I didn't quite manage to finish him there that was 600pts to kill blood warriors and tie up my smaller block for a turn. Losing the roll offs is what really finished him though. If it manages to get through the bows can be nasty, but with hitting on 4s they're not a great choice. I suggested using the second kurnoth bunch as scythes and playing less aggressively. Castling and all that. We'll see how that goes, he's sticking with the woods for a while yet. The mortals from the hunters are nice (for them), but not really game making, even with the bonus ones from the greatswords. Side note: Holy cow! my opponent only failed 2 saves from all of my big unit's attacks over 2 combat phases. Those were some hot dice. As for my thoughts on my army... I was really missing the priests this game. Getting trapped by that hunter was bad and being able to snipe things with them would have been nice. The thirster feels so vulnerable, I'm certain that if those 3 hunters had made it to him he would have been at death's door. Need to keep him wrapped. The reapers did a fine job, but I need to limit my reliance on them. Everything else worked as expected. I was a little surprised that I managed to keep that re-roll 1 aura from the enemy heroes who were hiding (mostly). Side note: that arch revenant is not to be trifled with. -2 rend always hurts. They definitely aren't useless to mortals. you just won't be using those command abilities on much. It's why the insensate rage is a popular choice of thirster. Besides being the least points he doesn't make you feel like you're wasting the command ability he has by not using it. Plus explosions. Explosions are always nice. The others aren't bad choices either, I just feel like you have to consider bringing more daemons if you're using them. Even if it's just more thirsters. Agreed. The only times I've summoned one, the game had been decided by then and he really didn't add much. Could be worth summoning if you're on a hero capturing scenario and happen to have the points. That's rather specific though.

Whoops! Re-roll charges. I remember thinking that it was situationally useful (summons), just the wrong one. Shows you how often I use my thirster. 😛 The other khorne player at the club often uses him in his bloodthirster formation. His biggest problem is that he's slow and susceptible to alpha strikes/ just getting stabbed a bunch. Not at all. I use the faction groups (forgot the official label) for the unique artifacts that aren't bound to anything but khorne. Like I said, it felt like all my units had a natural re-roll 1. Even with armies without a lot of heroes, they typically keep them close enough to the action to proc the ability. It purely helped the blood warriors and wrathmongers, whilst also helping the skullreapers against heroes and smaller units. The command ability things are just extra bonuses to me. I only have used the goretide's ability twice ever with the new book, so I didn't really feel the loss of no khorgies. That's fair. This list was all about the ridiculous # of skullreapers and then I decided to use the last 300pts on the thirster. If I had been building it around the thirster then I might have taken a deeper look at the daemon artifacts (I have almost no experience with our daemonic kin), but everything in the list is designed to be reasonably self sufficient if I need to just huck them at something. I figured the most reliable way to do that with the thirster was to just slap additional attacks on the guy. Plus more chances for explosions! More explosions is always best. I'd have liked to boost his hit rolls (man, would that be murderous) with a slaughter priest, but like I said, this one was about the reapers. Thinking about reducing the 10 man reapers into a priest and … something worth 80pts. Not sure how I feel about it. Thoughts?

Alright battlereport time. Only got one in, but it was against slaanesh again. I walked into this expecting to get enthralled and destroyed, (but I was fine with that,)so that may explain my more reckless behavior. Or that I had 20 skullreapers that were going to ruin someone's day. Take your pick. Scenario: Duality off Death (2 objectives, only heroes score if within 3") The armies: Terrain: A very large church (impassable/have to climb) occupied the center of the board with a forest in the center of my board and a hill on his center. Two towers sat on either edge of the board, limiting our space. Further hemming us in was rocks and various ensundry trees sitting by the corners of the church. The overall result was that it felt like two separate arenas to fight over the 2 objectives, while the church made a larger arena that encompassed the others. The objectives were on the middle line about 4-5 inches away from the church sides. Khorne Deployment: Left : blood warriors in front, bloodsecrator next to them on the line. Skull reapers in the second rank and mongers in the 3rd. Center : Bloodthirster awkwardly seeing if he needed to go and grab either objective ( a certain death sentence with his base size) Right : 2 blood warriors shielding their kin in front with the exalted (the heroes on both sides sat closer to center). The big block of skullreapers huddled around the hero close to the warriors, the smaller unit grabbed the furthest right side behind the other warriors. Mongers sat behind the lot of them. The altar was choking up my right hand deployment zone further. Slaanesh deployment: Center : Scenery on the hill looking thematic. General sat behind it waiting to see what happened. 30 block sat in front. Left: 40 block on the line, 2nd keeper lurking behind them. Right Other 40 block on the line with the epitome waiting behind near the center. The Battle: My opponent chose for me to go first. Not overly caring about the dangers, I moved my formations up onto the objectives, using a CP to get the secrator barely onto the zone. Both heroes were close enough to their "castles" that if they got charged the hammers could avenge them. The thirster edged up to the church and glowered at the enemy icons (both of them!). Slaanesh turn and he cast the mirror in front and did 1 mortal wound on the deathbringer. Movement phase and everything ran forwards. The smallest blob hugged the church while the other two got up into my face(heroes close behind). A CP was used to allow the daemonettes to get out of the left keeper's way and still charge in. General moved in front of the icon on the hill and watched its minions cavort. Right hand daemonettes roll a double 1 and fail the charge. He decides that the other side is more important and lets it lie. The left daemonettes get an 11 on their charge and set up a lovely runway for the keeper to come in and murder the secrator. The keeper needs a 7 to get in. He gets a 5 on the first roll and then gets a 3 on the 2nd. Oof. That was a devastating blow. Enraged the nettes pile as many as they can against the secrator but only manage 3 wound onto him and kill 4 of the 5 warriors, losing 2 to punchies. The last one attacks with the secrator and kill 5. Fully buffed and bloodthirsty the 5 skullreapers pile in and do just enough wounds to completely wipe out the daemonettes. Battleshock finishes the last blood warrior. Turn 2 and I win the roll off. The mirror to block my movements and does absolutely nothing (oof) to the deathbringer. Secrator hangs back while the rest of the left flank throw themselves at the keeper while the thirster moves in to both protect the secrator and tie down the central block of daemonettes (hopefully murder them too). The right is already about 6" away so they shuffle forward. Smart move would have been to retreat the exalted, but I wanted to see him in action, so the entire right flank charges (except the mongers who physically could not make it in).Skullreapers get enthralled and everyone but 1 blood warrior unit and the deathbringer get tranced by the mirror (his dice finally were helping him). I went with the mongers against the keeper and did 7-8 wounds. The right hand daemonettes went next and killed 5 skullreaper between the 2 units and took 5 mortals for their trouble. 1 blood warrior took a wound and did a mortal back. Next I went with the thirster who did 10 wounds to the center blob (no explosions) and then his keeper attacked whiffing at everything. Long story short the right hand blob gets annihilated (2 left) and the exalted gets attacked for 3 wounds from the epitome who is killed by him and a lone skullreaper (his name was forge). The skullreapers then finish the lone keeper on the left and the center blob does 1 wound to the thirster. 3 nettes are lost to battleshock. Slaanesh turn and the general stabs itself and then tries to heal but fails. He then casts arcane shield on himself before coming to reclaim the left flank. 2 heralds are summoned and 1 charges in with the general. The reapers are enraptured again and the wrathmongers get it from the herald. The general then kills the reapers and takes 8 mortal wounds in exchange (That was brutal). The thirster went next and killed another 10 with no explosions and would later suffer 3 wounds from the survivors. The general then piled in again with their command ability but only killed 3 wrathmongers (1 of whom was in range to do a mortal wound) they piled in and brought the wound count up to 12. The keeper then healed 3 wounds from the hand. 2 daemonettes fled from battleshock in center and the remaining right melted. I won the roll off for turn 3 and we decided to call it. Damn. That was a rough match for my opponent. He had a couple of chances to turn it around but the dice were rarely on his side. Those failed charges were devastating for him. I honestly felt bad at how one sided it was. (that feels like bragging, but I do mean it) He is rather upset at the accusations of his army being op at the club. I think that not enough of them have fought it yet for a calling. My initial feeling is that if you play careful and don't stumble into the locus, you can very easily murder them. We talked about trying to play to his strength in speed. His biggest mistake (for this scenario) was having me go first I feel. It let me se the field of engagement and start scoring, Putting pressure on him to act. Thoughts: Skullreapers are still terrifying. Wrathmongers seem to be my anti keeper unit (like the Spanish inquisition!). No spell defense feels like running around with a target on your back. Despite 18 attacks, the thirster didn't explode at all. Still did well enough though. Not sure if worth. With all the support heroes running around the skull fiends ability felt like all my units had a natural re-roll 1. Remember that the thirster can run and charge, could be helpful. Blood warriors did alright as meatshields, still not my favorite for the job, but usable. Exalted still feels not very threatening, but the spear could be very useful against stormcast and nighthaunt types. I have to precede this with a disclaimer: I fairly frequently fight 18 tzangor enlightened, so I need my chaff to stop 16 -19'' base move mobility. That usually means a larger surface area to catch them in the nets. So when I set up chaff I want them to stop anything and ideally die in the process. Blood tithe and now the 2nd rank hammer gets to crush the newly arrived enemy. No getting locked down by my chaff wall if I can help it. For those who don't know about enlightened, I've had 2 of them wipe out a 5 man unit of skullreapers (the survivors of the reapers' charge). So I don't want any of them touching my hammers. To that end I've got 3 go to units as chaff. 3: The hardy gors. While I wouldn't use ally points on them, the gors from brass despoilers battalion aren't a bad choice if you're bringing it anyways. 4+ in close combat, a low bravery, and the ability to run and charge lets you put them wherever you need them and they might actually survive a turn or two (also possibly a downside). Their expense and needing the battalion (also an upside) keep them lower on the list. 2: Ungors. Garbage save, lower bravery, and that nifty run and charge puts these guys in good stead. They're cheap too, but their 25mm bases and the inability to reduce their drops for us keep them out of the top spot. 1: The ubiquitous bloodreavers. No real armor, fairly low bravery and on 32mm bases. They are slightly faster then my hammers and have that +1 to run/charge letting them keep in or out of the way of whomever you want. Plus in a pinch you can turn them into a mini hammer. 4 -1 rend attacks go! With goretide they get boosted into the ideal platform with that speedy run and charge to tie up the enemy or a tasty blood tithe point. Their only real downsides for me are that they aren't a part of any of the battalions I want to use typically and they're a touch expensive. Not enough that I recommend they lower in points, but... Honourable mentions: Fleshhounds : faster, hurtier, and have nice cavalry bases to get maximum blockage out of them. A bit expensive, and I don't have many of them. Chaos hounds: Really fast, garbage save, and a bravery to match. The problem is that they are allies and can never use any of your abilities. They're also higher on points than I like for chaff ( and almost too squishy, 1 goes and potentially 3 more flee). Skullcrushers: fastish, tanky, massive bases. Put them where you want and watch the enemy bounce off. Unfortunately that applies to your guys too. Those bases are massive as well as the unit costing as much as a good hammer.

We need a resanguination for our brother stat! My khorne boys came in second in a local tournament the weekend before slaanesh came out. Beat some fireslayers and a fellow khornate before having the slaanesh game I reported the weekend after the tournament. Probably going to the club this weekend, I'll hopefully be able to report some glorious victories for you. Not knowing what is causing your problems I'm not sure if what I have to say will help. I don't mean what armies you're facing either. I mean what about how your army plays is bothering you? Also, sometimes you just have to give the army a break. I switched over to playing FEC (before the recent battletome) because I wanted something similar but with a different vibe. (I know, scandalous!) I liked the idea of "noble" knights going forth to repel horrid invaders to their lord's enlightened realm. It also offered me excellent conversion opportunities (which is my favorite part of the hobby). Switching things up isn't necessarily bad, variety is the spice of life after all. Now if you want to stick with Khorne … I've found that there are about 2 different overall strategies with variations there of when you're building a list. (Disclaimer: I'm not a guru or even a tournament buff, apply grains of salt liberally) You could try mixing, but that has been beyond my list building skills. 1:The Lawn Mower: Slap down chaff to catch nasty things before they reach your hammers. My personal preference is the close in formation, but you'll have to base your formations on who you're fighting. Sometimes you don't want to be close to your chaff, or you'll have to use them to ward off deep strikers. But the core of this style is defense and keeping everyone safely under the buff auras. Most often result if your opponent is foolish enough to charge the mower is that the chaff disintegrates and the offending arm is destroyed. You might be surprised at how many people think that their nifty hammer can survive the mower's blades. Certain units are more difficult to deal with than others (as with all things) This type of list is a bit more vulnerable to consistent outflankers and prolonged ranged barrages. Which is where I typically awkwardly switch to style 2. 2: The Rush: This typically involves selecting a variant of someone who lets you run and charge and hitting your opponent for maximum effect. We are far from the only one to use this strategy so most people will have something in mind to face it. We aren't dependent on first turn to use ours though, so it might be better to wait (*GASP!* Waiting!?) and throw the hatchet when your opponent's tender bits are exposed. You don't necessarily need to use the run and charge mechanic to use this strategy, you just have to be reasonably fast. I'd throw the brass stampede (and whatever it's daemon equivalent) into this idea as well, even with their 8" move. If you want I can go into more detail on my thoughts on these strategies (goes for whoever) but for now, that's what I got for help. Unless you're looking for conversion ideas, in which case I'm full of 'em.

Just a quick question for you folks, goliath gangers converted into skullreapers and/or wrathmongers? Probably a head swap and weapon swaps, but they are the right muscularity. A bit short though, so I was thinking of slapping them on some skulls or something to bring them up to proper height. Thoughts? Often, but not always. I usually find that I use the abilities before I get to the good summons unless I build for farming tithes(even then I don't always get to them before something else gets very helpful). The ability to move or attack in the enemy's hero phase makes us one of the more resilient armies in the game against double turns if we've got the tithes to respond to it. As well as those combat order shenanigans some armies do. If we could summon in the enemy's turn then I'd be more interested in summoning. Alas, most of the time when I get to summon stuff the game is already decided and the daemons would just be a formality. Definitely. Reading the blood flow is a skill that can boost your Khorne game massively. (excuse the pun) How does everyone else do their summoning? Are you fans of using the smaller units, or do you wait for the bigger blobs? Do you summon at all? How do you use your blood tithes?

I don't use daemons often, but from what I've seen an unfettered fury for the 6" pile in is the closest to a must (to get around various shenanigans that are out there) otherwise they each do something different and are all worth taking for different reasons. Insensate does splash damage, unfettered prevents retreat and has a ranged attack, wrath drops short range mortal wounds and has the run and charge command. Skarbrand can also be taken in the battalion, but everyone knows how deadly he is. (also don't know if he can be built out of the new base kit)

The reason I'm running it as skullfiend is to get that +2 attack artifact on the thirster. The only way I know of to get +2 innate attacks on a daemon hero is to combine a command trait and an artifact. Might get some other little bonus on top, but if there was one it didn't seem worth it to me. Why I decided against goretide was two fold. 1: the gorertide artifact is at it's best with a 3+ save not found in my list. it'd do something, but this list is more about murder, not survival. 2: I rarely ever used the goretide command ability as it broke up my nice little castles and unsupported bloodwarriors are not serving at their maximum potential. Ironically the command ability would serve me better in this list to throw them at far objectives. I might try both, we'll see how it goes. Korgoraths are an excellent hammer and made better by the command ability, but I used the points I might have otherwise used on them to get the thirster. I mostly wanted to try spamming skullreapers when I made this. I had 300pts left and thought to try the thirster. I did consider using them, but I almost never break out my bloodthirster. It was his turn in the sun. Plus I wanted a separate general to boost the deathbringer's damage up. I never leave for the battlefield without him. After my first 2 games with the new book I almost gave up on him, but as I tried more, I saw his value restored. Admittedly his success might have more to do with my opponents than any tactical brilliance on my part. He has only been targeted in about 20% of my games and since 2.0 he's been shot at even less. "Alright, what's his save? 3+? And there's a -1 to hit him? Right, might as well shoot what he's buffing then." His only real threats have been from mortal wounds that bypass those negatives to hit like the stardrake and that goblin or nurgle spell. When he got killed by the goblin's spell in my 2nd game with the new book I realized how important he still was. My army's damage output dropped significantly. It might also help that I've used him as bait for cannons and such in the past. I think he's a bit too expensive without the battleshock immunity, but he still helps hold the team together. As for specifics... I typically form two castles around the altar for priest buffs on whoever needs it, making placement of the altar even more important. (not in this new list, but still) Then from there I place him firmly between the two castles so that he gets the -1 to hit and if someone is foolish enough to charge him they get sandwiched between two blenders. (or put him on the altar to limit charges on him anyways) Plus he's reasonably tough, so they might not even kill him if he gets caught. It obviously depends on who/what you're fighting, but sometimes he's just excellent bait. Especially in this list where each part is more self reliant. I'm also usually very aggressive with my castles (knowing when to hold back is important too though) so my opponents might get distracted by the hammers and forget him. My plans often include bait. Plus my guys are often tightly packed, so he may also get lost in the crush, so that's another potential factor to his usual survival for me. Agreed, but for me their job is 1: to buff the hammers sitting in the second rank and 2: hit over the heads of the hammers when the chaff gets annihilated. That 2" reach makes them my 2nd/3rd line troops so that I get the multiple ranks of attacks with our big 'ol bases. Plus once my opponent thinks they've de-fanged me I can throw the mongers in as the finishing blow. They do a surprising amount of damage. Without my usual tactics I might try using them as human shields in this list. We'll have to see. Cheers all!

The skullfiend tribe feels a bit too specialized to me, like only taking it if you want to use the contents of the skulltake battalion. They're in an odd place. Was thinking of trying out an insensate rage thirster with the +2 attacks artifact from the skullfiends and maybe making him the general to hunt heroes. Theoretical list: My biggest problem with the list (besides feeling cheezy for all those reapers) is that it has no chaff. Whatever hits is going to more than likely hit the offensive arm of the army. Guarding skullreapers with bloodwarriors would be challenging just from the standpoint of their base size, never mind that they outnumber them in this list. The 10 man block is to deal with non slaanesh armies where a bigger hammer matters. Beyond that this is my standard castles around the wrathmongers for nice blendy action plan. The smaller castle will probably have both heroes to make up for the 10 man unit in the other. Also thought about switching the banner to mark of the destroyer on the deathbringer. Give him the spear for potential mortal wounds. I'd also like slaughterpriests in there, but most of the units don't need the boost from the priests. Plus I spent their points on the thirster. I can never decide on picking artifacts for my armies. They all seem okay, with no one that clearly shines above the rest. What are your thoughts on which artifacts are best for what? Cheers for any thoughts! It says that the locus and the ability neutralize each other, causing the unit/bearer to go normally. This isn't anything making them go first though. This is entirely dependent on another thirster going first that is a part of the battalion. Our thought process was two fold. 1: the rule says immediately afterwards, making it dependent on one going first, not the one being chosen to go next. 2: It's an ability that you have to pay for vs an innate ability. I feel like there is a precedent set by the artifacts trumping the idoneth's ability. Like I said though, other players might disagree. Definitely a discussion to have with your opponent before the game if you have the battalion. Besides that we just have to wait for the faq to sort out the questions about the locus and order of operations. There's a couple of armies/battalions that could use a clarification. Fair disclaimer: I rarely use bloodletters because I like to play mortals. Earlier on I believe that someone listed them as punchy battleline. You can definitely turn them into an alright hammer, but they would require careful management to keep them safe (5+ is squishy) and to keep them in bubbles of +1 attack (if you take a serious blob of them). Daemon heroes will also boost their accuracy. Battleshock is much less of an issue for them though, so you might be tempted to send them off on their own, but they need the support to shine as damage dealers. Otherwise bloodreavers are probably better for camping back at base. You'd have to ask our daemonic kin about whether msu or larger blobs are best though. Also, I dig the deathbringer. Rock on!

We actually had a discussion about the thirster battalion's interactions with the locus ability. Assuming you have the always strikes first artifact that will let you bypass the locus (also assuming you get the option to select it first. IE: your turn) that would let you ignore the locus affecting one of your thirsters (the battalion says immediately pile in) so you could get anywhere from 2- 3 (4 if you have that 4+ always strikes first artifact go off) depending on who gets enthralled. Select whoever can go first, then select whoever is enthralled to bypass it, then it's down to "normal" selections was my conclusion. Other slaanesh players might disagree though. I don't roll with thirsters so others will have to playtest that. I'll try to find solutions for our mortal kin. Thinking of trying a bunch of small skullreaper units next. Cheers!

It did. During the game we had been thinking that it was only wounds from the hand that healed. I probably should have checked since my opponent thought that locus only worked on heroes (had him check that since that sounded too good to be true), but I guess that means that slaanesh is a lot more dangerous than I had thought. So his keeper would have had 1+d6+d3+spells:(+d3+1) wounds when it came into range, making it unlikely that I would have killed it. Geez. Definitely a tough match up for us. I'll have to ask to fight him again so that I learn. Ironically he wasn't happy with his list and talked about using a bunch of heralds with daemonette hordes in that mortal wound battalion. Another friend is going to use slaanesh slaves to darkness since they benefit from the allegiance abilities as much as the daemons do. Hopefully I'll have more insight into this threat later. Cheers!

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: 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!

Also wanted to run a list by you all. I normally use the slaughterborn with my blood warriors and sort of just grind down the enemy (and generate as many blood tithe points as I can) until I or they are dead (usually both), but I wanted to try messing around with my beastmen. I had tried to use a large blob of bestigors once, but that didn't work out very well, so here's mark II. The bulls and their support staff (BS, 1G, 1SP,& 1Wm (so much support!)) grab a flank and end whatever is silly enough to fight them while the SR +Wm+ Chaff grab another flank Bestis go wherever and just muck around on their own, The skull grinder is a human missile launched at heroes while the ML serves as a distraction carnifex/anti morathi type things, using the torc to survive long enough to maybe use the axe. A good number of holes in the plan, but it seems okay. Really not sure about the prayers on the second priest, and I'm not happy with the # of drops. Thought about dropping the bestigors for the wrathmonger battalion, but I like the idea of free floaters who are there to plug holes. As long as I can stay focused enough to not go ballistic at the enemy if they give me first turn, the drops shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Howdy! I've been a lurker around here for a while now, and a devotee of the blood god for far longer than that. I seek the advice of this council. I mostly use the bloodbound occasionally supported by Khornate beasts of chaos. I'm also going to put out a short blurb of my thoughts on the issues I bring up too.

Royal Council! I bring news from the front! Whilst I cannot claim a total crushing defeat of our foes, I believe my men performed well. Over the course of several days of battle here are my reports. 6 of them in total. ( of note, I am borrowing a friend's army while I sort out what I want to get myself.) Sit yourselves down. This, will take a while.

My thanks for your vast wisdom fellow monarchs. I shall have to see how well it works out on our local gaming day this weekend. Now I must return to the field! *Bows and exits*

Greetings my fellow monarchs! I am a recent convert and seek advice for my fledgling court. More specifically with regards to allies. Does anything benefit us overly much? I hadn't seen it mentioned elsewhere in this thread, so I thought to ask. Our options are somewhat limited (even amongst this allegiance), but I was rather struck by the idea of Morghasts. The reason for this is two fold. 1: Thematically. Some of the flesh eater courts are supposed to revere Nagash as a beneficent quasi-Sigmar like figure. The morghasts are Nagash's enforcers, so to these courts I picture them being seen as holy angels supporting our righteous crusades. 2: Rend. So, we don't seem to have much in the way of rend. Especially not at the -2 level. Morghasts are reasonably fast (sitting between horrors and flayers) and if you take them as harbingers they're much more likely to make those long bomb charges. Especially against the likes of the (accursed) high save models they could provide that cutting edge … maybe. Am I crazy? (ironic here , I know) Thoughts your highnesses? TLDR: Are allies worth considering for FEC. If so, What?