Grimrock

The thing I worry about on bloodwarriors is they're perfect targets for heroes. They give up lots of tithe points and probably won't do enough damage to a hero to kill it, so the slaanesh player has a chance to heal it back then repeat. I do agree that they handle the daemonettes really well though

Frankly I think Slaanesh is pretty terrifying for Khorne and I'm not really sure how we're supposed to deal with it. We have a few things in our favour, namely that we naturally run MSU and a big slaughterborn battalion will be a real tough nut to crack for an army that mostly relies on rend, but the locus of diversion just curb stomps melee armies. If you send a single unit at a keeper that unit is pretty much doomed. You can try to work around it with multiple units, but if the opponent is clever with positioning the Contorted Epitome even that might not work. They're incredibly fast, hit like a truck, and can summon 1k of points in a game if they build for it. Plus 'building for it' isn't like Seraphon where you need to sacrifice composition and combat to generate points. It just means the Slaanesh player is including loads of high damage heroes and running them straight at you to do what they would do anyway. The fact that all of our good models are multi wound doesn't help either, they're just depravity points in waiting. They're still new so it's all theoretical, but does anyone have any thoughts on a solid list to run into Slaanesh?

Basically copy and pasted this, along with one more: How is Syll'Esske's ability 'Deadly Symbiosis' meant to interact with the Keeper of Secret's command ability 'Excess of Violence'? Would it be possible to give a step by step example including which attacks receive rerolls?

Built my keeper model last night, it's a really fantastic kit from a technical perspective. So many neat little joints and ways the pieces stick together. Same with the epitome, absolutely incredible model. I'm not saying that the endless spell is a hero, but that it is cast by one. I looked at the depravity rules and they specifically say that mortal wounds caused to an enemy model by a SPELL cast by a slaanesh hero will generate depravity. Since an endless spell is a spell cast by the slaanesh hero it should generate depravity for all damage it causes to enemy models. I can understand the confusion because an endless spell both is and isn't a spell, so I agree that hopefully GW will FAQ it one way or another.

I believe you are both right and wrong here. If I remember correctly both spells and endless spells cast by your heroes count towards depravity points, they don't just become distinct from the caster after they're on the board. Not sure if that's in the depravity rules or if it was just mentioned in an article somewhere though, so I could be wrong. That being said, the depravity rules do say that a hero only generates points by receiving damage (from any source) or specifically damaging an enemy unit. So no double dipping on points if you use an endless spell on a friendly hero ('causing' and 'receiving' at the same time) or gaining points for hurting your own multi wound units.

Interesting point for the pendulum though: if you're in need of the last few points of depravity for a big summon you can hit your own heroes with it. A little risky for sure, but that extra 1 or 2 d6 can make a big difference.

Just as a word of caution on newer players and painting in sub assemblies: for the most part unless you're aiming for competition level painting it really isn't worth the effort and the risk of making a mistake. Generally if you can see it then you can reach it with a brush. That being said in the last 18 or so years of painting, the exalted chariot is the only model I've felt I needed to keep things separate to actually reach some areas. I assembled the chariot and steeds fully, did my basing, painted the frame and scythes on the chariot, glued the chariot down and painted the rest of it, then painted the riders and attached them. Definitely made life significantly easier getting at the back middle blades. Other than that, I don't really see any model in the range that can't just be fully assembled and painted, including the other variations of chariot.

Honestly I think Khorne just isn't intended to be a summoning army. It's there because we're chaos and it's a tool if you need it, but it isn't intended to be a core aspect of the army like Slaanesh or Tzeentch. Which is fine... unfortunate, but fine. The flexibility of the tithe table is still pretty great.

The reason is that it can take a very long time for an army to get an update, and it sucks pretty hard getting curb stomped for 2 years. Maybe with this new update schedule we'll get lucky and GW will update everything by the end of the year, but even then there's no guarantee that an update will actually buff an army significantly. If there are obvious ways to trim the DoK down to par with most others then it makes sense for GW to do it in the regular process.

Rules wise you really do have to build for Archaon, but if you do he can be a total beast. I love playing him about as much as I loved working on him, so if anyone is interested in trying him out here are my findings so far: First off, his biggest weaknesses are his sheer size (making it difficult to fit in all the places you want him to go) and his limited number of attacks (making his activations super swingy, a couple 1's come up and you have a bad time watching your 660 points do nothing). His strengths are having a variety of really good attacks, bonkers special rules for every occasion, surprising resilience, and of course the Slayer of Kings. Usually in list building you ignore the weaknesses and try to double down on strengths, but Archaon's issues really can cripple him to the point of uselessness so you'll need to look for a way to cover them somehow. Increased speed helps with the big base as it makes positioning easier. Buffs to hit/wound, increased attacks, or rerolls, help with the swingy-ness. After that anything you can do to capitalize on the strengths is just gravy. All four of the main armies can do something for him but of course some are better than others. Khorne is fantastic for him because it honestly does everything. It can speed him up, give him +3 attacks for each weapon, let him reroll attacks and wounds, make him more resilient, let him attack twice, heal, let him move in the hero phase... I could go on. Really the only bad thing I've found is the passive anti magic hits him as well, but yeah who cares lol. He's an absolute monster in a Khorne army built to support him. No clue if it's tournament competitive, but if I were taking Archaon to a tournament this is where I'd start. I think Tzeentch is second best of the 4 because of the spell Arcane Infusion (+1 to hit, +1 to wound), the mutation spell that gives +1 attack to a chosen weapon, and then destiny dice. Destiny dice are amazing because they pretty well auto trigger his sword on one chosen monster/hero which can be game changing. They also help guarantee charges which can be critical. Nurgle is third, but it's close. The biggest buff is insane speed, you can get up to +7 to move and +2 to charge with a run and charge, letting Archaon get pretty much anywhere on the board. You can also build for more resilience and extra attacks, and moving the wheel to +1 to wound is awesome for the Slayer. He's solid here but fitting him into a list is much trickier because Nurgle is naturally quite expensive. Slaanesh is a bit weird. It used to be strong by allowing him to pile in and attack twice, but now the mortal version of the command ability is gone and the daemon version only works on hedonites. It looks like the book mainly offers him some healing, the locus of diversion, and exploding 6's (which just exacerbates the swingy-ness). The biggest thing he brings to the book is the fact that he has 20 very resilient wounds, so he's a real depravity point generator. I'll be doing some testing on this soon if I can figure out a list I'm happy with.

*Cries in bloodstoker and bloodsecrator*

For the Revenant affecting the kurnoth, keep in mind that GW could just be testing out rules like they did with slaanesh and W&R. I believe the daemonettes gained a banner that allowed them to reroll 1s to hit there (which people really liked), and now with the new book the rule has been shifted over to spells instead. It's possible that when the sylvaneth book comes out the kurnoth might get the reroll 1s natively or part of some other special rule.

For sure, if they do it right then it's no problem. I think I'm just paranoid mostly... Transitioning physical media into video games has a rocky history and the dlc culture doesn't help at all. I hope I'm pleasently surprised though. Shadespire is a perfect fit into my favourite kind of video game.

I think the biggest thing that worries me with the shadespire video game is how they talked about the warbands. They said they'd start with a few and then release more in updates later, which makes it sound like you'll have to pay for the subsequent releases. That works well enough for miniatures but I'm not looking to get nickle and dimed every time they release a new warband for a video game. If it's something like 20 bucks a season then maybe, but even then I don't think it would bode well for the widespread popularity of the game.

Yeah in the last book you could build for it but with the changes to timing on most command abilities it's pretty useless now. I'm assuming he'll get an update around the next ghb or when darkoath/everchosen drop to make it work. Something like everyone gets to use a free command ability this turn or like thanquols ability but hopefully a bit stronger.

Got a battle in with Archaon tonight. Gore pilgrims for support, an Aspiring Deathbringer with hydroxskin cloak to keep up with archaon, bloodstoker, wrathmongers, skullreapers, and the hexgorger skulls. I was up against skaven with a bunch of nasty stuff... warpseer, bell, cannon, vortex, plague monks and furnace, hellpit, and clanrats for battleline. Won't go into too much detail, but Archaon with double pile in, +2 attacks to all weapons, +1 to hit, reroll 1's to hit, reroll all wounds just... destroys everything. Took out 40 monks and the furnace in one round of combat (and used the furnace to heal), killed an allied lord of blights and 40 clanrats the next turn, capped objectives, and killed the cannon. He was just untouchable. Also as a side note, skulls kicked the magic phase in the junk. While they were up I don't think my opponent got a single spell off. Great game.

One of my favourite models to build and paint by far. Took a really long time, but everything fit well and was well layed out. GW really knocked it out of the park with that model.

I wonder how locus of diversion interacts with the tyrants of blood ability. For example, you have the bloodthirster with halo of blood fighting some random unit, nowhere near a hero, and another bloodthirster near a greater daemon. The locus can go off on the non-halo bloodthirster, but that bloodthirster isn't technically under the effect of any rule that states he can fight at the start of the combat phase, just that they fight immediately after another bloodthirster (which just so happens to be at the start of the phase). So which takes precidence, fighting 'immediately' or always fighting last? Definitely going to need a faq. Either way, definitely a feels bad moment for people that are relying on halo of blood (or FEC for that matter), I'm glad I didn't splurge on the two bloodthirsters haha. Actually I think I might need to add to my rule: not only should I skip buying anything until after the 2 week FAQ/nerf, I should wait until the next book comes out to see if GW adds any direct counters to the best strategy. Don't forget slaanesh is getting a character greater daemon that is specifically built to hunt other greater daemons with khorne being singled out. Can't imagine that's going to be a good time either.

It specifically says 'all other Chaos Heroes in your army can use 1 command ability that is on their warscrolls and which can be used in the hero phase' (emphasis mine), so yeah. Just the ones that can specifically be used in the hero phase which isn't a lot. It was always really difficult to build for that ability anyway, and taking him as your general means you lose out on the command trait.

Keep in mind that khorne is the buffing faction, not BoC. As far as I know, beasts doesn't have access to a lot of what we do like +1 attack, +1 to hit, extra moves, etc. In a BoC list you have to rely a lot more on base stats, and honestly the bullgors are lacking there pretty hard considering their cost. Khorne can do some pretty crazy things with them though.

Archaon is indeed khorne, daemon, and mortal. I've got a list I'm hoping to try out this week with him: dark feast and a whole bunch of buffs. Killing frenzy, bronzed flesh, mystic shield, whip, +3 attacks for each weapon, rerolls from the locus, and a double pile in to top it off. His expected damage out from the sword alone is something like 21 wounds vs a 4+ save. The biggest problem for me with archaon has always been rolling a couple extra 1s and 2s and wasting all of that damage potential, but with the locus for hit rolls and the whip for wound rolls he should be hitting and wounding like 95% of his attacks. Not going to lie, I'm really excited to give it a shot.

Minor point, but the khorne terrain is jumping over to 40k and I believe the gnarlmaw did as well. I'd actually be pretty surprised if the slaanesh terrain was AoS only. I'd expect fulgrim and some noise marines, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw mortal cultists in AoS become 40k cultists with a different weapon sprue, just like they did with tzaangors.

You can still run them, they won't be as good as before but they're our only real long ranged option so there's still a purpose. For best results give them killing frenzy from a priest for +1 to hit and keep a daemon hero nearby for the locus. Maybe the host that allows rerolls of 1 to wound against hero's and monsters. If you get lucky you can use a pair to snipe out a buffing hero or wizard.

Plus wrathmongers. A bullgor with +2 attacks, +1 to hit, and reroll attacks from the battalion is pretty darn terrifying. The small unit size and good base speed also works well with the new wholly within rules. The bullgors weren't getting any speed from their book anyway, so I think khorne might be the best way to actually make them shine. I was thinking about a brass despoilers army last edition to get away from bloodletters and I still like how it looks.

Mathhammer warning: With the locus active you have about a 50/50 chance of hitting and wounding with each skull cannon shot. Assuming your opponent never makes a save, that gives them an average damage of about 1.75 per shot. You can increase the average damage to about 2.2 if you have a +1 to hit, but that's about it. So the question is whether or not 140 points, plus whatever you've taken to trigger locus, is worth about 2 damage per turn at range. Sure, there's more to the cannon than the gun, but having that ranged attack is the big draw and the only unique thing with the model. Everything else it does can be done better by something else. Personally I don't think it's worth the cost, but your mileage may vary.