[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

28 minutes ago, Bululu said:

you can roll all 3 with one priest, i mean 1 judgement, one slaughter priest warscroll prayer and 1 khorne blessing prayer

Nice, thanks!

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

1 hour ago, Killax said:

I really like the large sum of this list. The only thing I think would improve it is dropping the Skulls and focussing on one or two big infantry units and/or that Skullcannon inclusion that is amazing with Wrathmongers.

A big hammer like 10 Skullreapers or 30 Bloodletters presents a massive distraction and tank that can plow through. A Bloodthirster is a great choice for this purpose too. Basically anything that forces your opponent to come seems like a key role in this newer slower Khorne. 

I agree, removing the skull crushers will be the first thing I change. I'm not a fan of the Skullreapers right now, too expensive for what they do outside of a focused list, but I might try 3 khorgoraths and use the skullfiend tribe. Smaller footprint for buffs, up to 7 attacks each, 3+/3+/-1/2, and rerolling everything would be pretty crazy.

A bloodthirster might work but I feel like they get the most out of the daemon focused batallions, so maybe take an Insensate (or Wrath of Khorne if they don't change the wrathmonger's ability), a unit of 30 bloodletters by dropping a few other units, and go with the Bloodlords or Reapers.

 

7 minutes ago, Xasz said:

Can priests still cast one warscroll player + one book prayer or is it one overall?

I'd love to know this too, and throw in the same question about judgements. If they can only cast one of the above it's going to make life a whole lot more difficult.

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

Actually I guess I'll just put up my other thoughts from my practice game. Here's my list:

Skullgrinder (general) 
- reroll attacks trait
- mark of the destroyer (just +2 attacks now)

Bloodsecrator 

Slaughterpriest 
- killing frenzy

Slaughterpriest 
- bronzed flesh

skarre bloodwrath 

bloodstoker 

hexgorger skulls 
wrath axe 

10 blood reavers x4 

5 blood warriors 

5 wrathmongers x3 

6 skull crushers 

bloodforged batallion
- wrathmongers, blood warriors, and skullgrinder
- after wrathmongers fight for the firs time that phase, if wholly within 8 of skullgrinder and within 3 of enemy, pile in and fight again

 

I was fighting against a nurgle blight cyst with daemon support in scorched earth. My impressions:

- skullgrinder with +2-4 attacks and reroll to hit can really put the hurt out, and he doesn't have to worry about turning into a spawn anymore. I was thinking of trying +2 attack trait and gorecleiver next game for the extra rend and possibility of hitting for 6 damage
- being able to place a relatively large piece of terrain is really nice, I used it to block off easy access to one of my outer objectives
- judgements were ok but the range was a serious issue, even when playing on a tight deployment like scorched earth. if you want the most of them you need to put the altar right near the middle of the board
- layers of blood reavers were great as screens and generated a lot of tithe (hasn't changed), and wrathmongers behind them were terrifying. one turn the wrathmongers attacked over a screen twice with buffs and almost totally wrecked a unit of blight kings before they got to attack
- skull crushers never got to charge since I got pinned early on, but even without it they felt much better. that extra attack actually really made a big difference and combined with hordes of wrathmongers and a bloodsecrator they were pretty scary (10 attacks each can be nasty)

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

I tried goofing around with a practice game, the wholly within bit on all the buffs is really difficult to deal with. My slaughterpriests regularly found themselves out of range for buffs while sticking to the altar, and the bloodstoker... I was base to base with a central model in a 6 man skullcrusher unit and it still couldn't whip them because one of the edge models was a half inch out. Positioning is going to be frustratingly important with this army. 

Surprisingly the bloodsecrator wasn't too bad since he can just run and chase the units you want to buff, but the reroll spells but didn't really come into play. 

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

One more idea, even with the nerf wrathmongers are super legit just based on their combat stats. Give them +1 to hit, +1 attack, reroll wounds, and 5 of them are putting out a ton of damage. Take the new battalion that lets them pile in and attack twice and you're looking at a unit that is punching waaay above its weight level at 140 points. You have to do some work to keep them in range of the skull grinder, but it's easy enough if you're parked behind a screen of blood warriors (also in the battalion) or blood reavers. 

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

From watching the GMG review I think I'm starting to get an idea of how the army is supposed to go together... but I'm not sure if I'm super happy with it or not. There has always been some level of tankiness in the army, and with most of the damage dealers being nerfed into the ground that might be what we have to fall back on. The army has lost most of its speed, and 'wholly within' makes buffing units almost impossible once they've started moving. I'm envisioning some sort of tanky brick that uses forward units to move up the board and body block for the slow-ish backline units that are still capable of putting the hurt out. Maybe something like this:

Bloodsecrator
Slaughterpriest x2
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster
Insensate Bloodthirster x2

10 bloodwarriors x3
5 wrathmongers

bloodthirster battallion
host that has the strike twice ability for daemons

Points are in the general area of 2k but it'd obviously need some tweaking. Hitting the enemy with 4 rounds of bloodthirster attacks that all strike before the opponent gets a chance to swing would be back breaking for most armies. 

One of the biggest issues right now is the army seems to have so few reliable ways of putting out damage. Only a few units have rend and most sources of mortal wounds are extremely dicey (hitting on sixes, needing to get a judgement off on a 5+, etc). It's a classic problem with Nurgle, except they at least have consistent ways to put mortal wounds into the backline (wheel and spells), and their tank is waaay better than ours. Skullcrushers/bloodcrushers are an obvious solution to put out highly reliable mortal wounds, but the models are just so freaking miserable to build and paint that I'd rather give up on the game entirely than try to put together a brass stampede. 

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

31 minutes ago, ChaosUndivided said:

I don't recall anyone jumping for joy when they announced new battletome. I thought most people already assumed it was probably not gonna be good news for an army that largely relied on pre 2.0 rules to be competitive.

I think regardless of what happens here that in the long run this book will bring Khorne in line with the future of AoS and down the road we will be better for it. Don't forget GHB 19 isn't far away.

I'm sure that Khorne overall will be decent once the book is out and people have had a fair chance to go through everything, but I just don't want to have to go out and buy a whole new armies worth of models to make things work. I've got a wrath of khorne bloodthirster that I  bought, built, and spent way too long painting because I was inspired by his command ability. He's pretty much a very expensive paperweight now with the new rules. Bloodletters were bought for a heavy alpha strike unit, skullreapers for a second wave cleanup... None of these units work the same way anymore. I didn't expect everything to stay the same, but I also wasn't expecting to see pretty much everything I own kicked in the pants either. 

Bleh. I'll stop complaining now and wait until I've seen the actual book. Gotta hope I'm missing something because as it stands I just don't understand how the army is supposed to function anymore.

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

Holy moly, well if all that's right... Here I was thinking I might spend a couple hundred dollars picking up a council of blood or some blood reavers or whatever. As is, yeah no. Unless there are some incredibly good clans that weren't mentioned I'm not even going to bother picking up the book. Going through the warscrolls there are... maybe 2 or 3 that got objectively better? The rest are either a sideways shift or worse. Blood warriors, some of the lamest infantry in the game, have gotten worse. Wrath of khorne bloodthirster is worse. Skullreapers are worse. I own hundreds of dollars of models that are now utterly irrelevant. Sigh.

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

6 minutes ago, Requizen said:

I can imagine the Axe being 100 points fairly easy. It compares quite well to Comet, Mushroom, or Warp Lightning Vortex (and way better than Purple Sun), and those see play fairly regularly.

I don't think anything compares well to the Warp Lightning Vortex... that thing slings out so much damage it's unreal and the board control is just plain stupid. 

That being said, I think the judgements are pretty solid. They've all got uses, strengths, and weaknesses. If they are pointed well I'll be super happy because none of them seem like an absolute auto include (the skulls are close, but they require your opponent to have wizards and are wasted points if they don't).

I'm really happy with the altar as well. It's providing a serious buff and I really wasn't expecting it to have an 8" aura for priests. Funny enough I don't think I'd ever actually put a priest on it, the most likely candidate would be a bloodsecrator for the cover bonus. 

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

9 minutes ago, andysonic1 said:

I'n my experience if you are playing with three Priests using Sacrifice every turn, and you've got min squads of Reavers, it's pretty easy to get to eight blood tithe at least twice a game. Even when I blobbed my Reavers into one giant 40 man unit I never had problems summoning multiple units a turn or getting to 8 tithe at least once. Sacrifice is an incredibly powerful ability made better with a nearby Chaos Spawn.

Fair enough, assuming that prayer is still around and we don't  get limited to one use per turn like daughters of khaine, then you could  definitely shoot for that. The new scenery would even help with rerolls. The big problem is you're trading off +1s to hit or save in order to kill your own models off and get a buff by maybe the 2nd or 3rd turn... Which I guess would take some play testing to decide if it's worthwhile or not. 

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

41 minutes ago, Mikeymajq said:

Wouldn't Slaughter triumphant make bloodletters deal 2 MW's on 6s? That with super easy access to reroll 1s sounds pretty nasty.

Unless the wording on bloodletters changed, no. The mortal wounds are in addition to hits, so a 6 would cause two hits and one mortal wound. It's still a great ability, daemonettes have something similar and it's amazing on them, but the biggest problem is you need 8 blood tithe to trigger it. Usually that either means you're winning so hard that the extra hits don't matter because you'll win either way, or you're losing so hard you don't have enough units left to take advantage it.

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

8 minutes ago, Bjornas said:

Curious to see what happens to the Skullreapers. 

From the description I assume that they'll drop the self damage portion and make it an unmodified 6 to hit instead of 6+. Makes sense, describing how they worked to my opponent was always a massive chore, but I hope they get a points drop if that happens. 

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

4 minutes ago, Oreaper84 said:

If you were hoping for God-Tier enhancements from the 1st post, then you were setting yourself up for disappointment.  Also in think maybe look a bit deeper into what was revealed. 

Locus of Fury - all deamon units NEAR heros and also those the ARE heros are rerolling hit rolls of 1.....all of em, skull cannons, Bloodthirsters, hounds, skulltaker, everything....that is massive

Reapers of Vengence - a faction with an unmodified 8+ auto unbind that bounces mortals,....not too shabby...

Skull crushers are now mortal wound monsters now...even in 3's....thats a reliable 3 mortal wounds per charge, 6 man units are just icing on the cake

 

I get that there were expectations and hopes for this release, but its not all doom and gloom...all is not yet revealed, but this teaser has me at least excited

 

I guess I should clarify that there are definitely good things in there, but nothing that addresses what I personally thought were issues.

Just to respond to a few points:

- reapers isn't an 8+ dispel, it's a hard 8. That's less than a 1/6 chance, and only from a single dispel roll from your general. It's really awful

- Skullcrusher damage was abysmal before, and they still sound weak with 3 man units now. 6 man units will be stupid amazing if they don't get a points increase, but then I'd have to buy more and doing the 3 I have was torture enough lol

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

Man that article just feels so... Bleh.  No mention of whether unspent tithe points are wasted, so I'm guessing that's staying the same. The new abilities are nice but really 1 and 8 aren't going to be used unless they fix the wasting part. 

Skarbrand doesn't just deal straight damage anymore so mortal wound saves and damage shuffling kick him right in the junk. Skulltaker is still stuck needing a 6 to hit with 3 base attacks. Skullcrushers need to be fielded in units of 6 to actually work properly but they came in units of 3 with all big box sets. Man the only thing I really liked was the khorgorath buffing sub-faction, but there's absolutely 0 indication of an actual khorgorath kit.  What a letdown, I hope the next few articles are a bit better.

[AoS 2 - Maggotkin of Nurgle Discussion]

5 hours ago, ReAnimate Studios said:

How does this list seem? Was unsure of what to give the Lord so thought the extra damage on a roll of a 6+ would be useful for churning out as many wounds as possible and the rebuff to bravery, or could give the GUO the wheel shenanigans trait?

 

I agree with Dreadmund, ghyrstrike on the Lord of Plagues gives decent odds of getting at least one 6+ every combat phase which is super good. I probably wouldn't bother with hideous visage since most of the nighthaunt will be bravery 10 anyway so it won't make a huge difference. I've always found a good use for grandfather's blessing though so I'd say go with that.

Otherwise the list looks solid, let us know how it goes! 

[AoS 2 - Maggotkin of Nurgle Discussion]

3 minutes ago, ReAnimate Studios said:

Is the battalion worth it? I keep trying to take a battalion but rather take a unit of plague drones instead.

 

They usually are, the reduced drops can make a huge difference because picking who goes first can swing the odds massively in your favor. Normally I'd say blight cyst is almost always worth it but nighthaunt ignores 90% of what it does, so plague cyst is the backup. Rerolling hits is pretty huge and the debuffs from nighthaunt make it more important, plus the chip mortal wound damage helps get around the etheral nonsense. 

[AoS 2 - Maggotkin of Nurgle Discussion]

9 minutes ago, Zplash said:

One Info I have just learned against nighthaunt... the festus spell minus 1 to saves doesnt work for ghost.

And also rustfang is useless = doesnt work in ghosts.

At least my last nighthaunt enemy told me so.

Yeah they're immune to anything that increases or decreases their save.

ReAnimate, I'd suggest swapping the Lord of Blights for a Lord of Plagues, then drop Festus and the balewind for the plague cyst batallion. I'd also love to get the cogs in for the gutrot blight kings but it's much tougher. You won't be as tanky without the Lord of Blights, but the mortal wound output of night haunt would ignore it anyway. Then maybe stick the witherstave on the GUO with the extra artifact, or the tome of 1000 poxes for spinning the wheel. Oh and grandfather's blessing rather than hulking physique for the same reason.

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

4 hours ago, Malakithe said:

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

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

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

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

4 hours ago, Roark said:

Nah, I mean like individual cults, philosophies or houses, like Kharadron and Daughters have. Sub-factions that have some character.

Based on the Warhammer community post I'm guessing it'll be similar to stormcast where they took the major battalions and just turned them into sub factions. Which I guess could make it exciting if you were already using one... But for me it's not a big deal. I went with a custom scheme and didn't really do a theme, so I'll probably just slot into whatever sounds like fun if I use any at all.

 

4 hours ago, ledha said:

A super cool way to make The Gorechosen playable, fun AND powerful would be to :

1 - bypass the limit number of 6 heroes (obviously)

2- Giving to ALL OF THEM a command trait (like the clawlord from Verminus Clan)

3 - All of them can have a magical item from the khorne battletome, bypassing classic limitations.

It sounds "too good" but if half the points of your army are in 8 models with 5 wounds and save 4+ in average, you need this to make them worthy.  Plus it could make a super cool scenario of some heroes vs an entire army. A grimdark and ironic retelling of the 7 seven samorais (with 8 khornate heroes) and the old Warhammer Fantasy Battle scenario where a few bretonnian heroes were pitted a whole army. Which could be a good hommage to some of Khorne's qualities, like bravery, determination, martial prowess and fighting against the odds.

Cool ideas, and yeah I think for what most of the heroes are now it might actually work. Honestly I just want a good excuse to put all those heroes I got in the board game on the table haha.

[AoS 2 - Blades of Khorne Discussion]

I'm guessing the axe is a predatory damage dealer, the giant bronze rune is some sort of anti magic (maybe like a suped up malevolent maelstrom or a once per turn brazen rune?) and the bleeding skull is a blood tithe generator.

For the book I'm hoping they make the generic mortal heroes viable somehow, I've got a couple that have barely ever been on the table. Maybe they'll make the gorechosen battalion something like the gobbapalooza? Let you field 8 heroes without actually taking up any hero slots so you can use it in a regular game. If they can do that, iron out the internal balance a bit, and make unused blood tithe stick around instead of disappearing I'll be pretty happy.