Here's a short guide I decided to whip up with some thoughts I had about making a Khorne army feasible in tournaments with the advent of the new codex!
The first thing to understand is the codex's weaknesses.
DISADVANTAGES 1. Delivery Into Combat This is a HUGE problem that plagues the entire codex. You have choppy units, but if you're facing a top tier army, you're going to be shot to shreds before getting in. Let's consider the main ways to get into combat:
Fast Units:
This is the main method most players use to get into combat fast. Just make the majority of your army fast as hell. Chaos Lords on Juggernauts, Flesh Hounds, Chaos Spawn, Maulerfiends, Heldrakes, Raptors, Warptalons (lol), Chaos Bikes, Bloodthirsters, Daemon Princes are all of the units that naturally can move 12"+ inches each turn. Limit the amount for opponent can shoot and take them down asap.
Land Raiders:
Have a slow unit that can obliterate another enemy unit, but it's slow as sloth on the field? Slap that bitch in a Land Raider and charge towards the enemy. Main problem with this? It's expensive, which is another issue I'll mention in the next codex weakness point.
Deepstriking
We've got a lot of daemons and deepstrikers in our codex, why not use this ability and appear in the opponent's back line? Well the main issue with this line of reasoning is the lack of shooting in a Khorne army. Aside from Skull Cannons and Bloodthirsters, none of the daemons can shoot when they deepstrike. You are a sitting duck for a turn and you will be fried off the board unless you have some tough as nails units, which even then are likely to be very expensive. Worst yet is the fact that winged DSers have to come in swooping and so are vulnerable for two turns! Such a waste. Terminators and Raptors can shoot, and so serve the purpose well, but they still are sitting in the open for a crucial turn. It's not a terrible option, but must be in a balanced army configuration.
HOWEVER:
An excellent point has been made that Bloodletters might be good choices to deepstrike in large amounts onto the field. They fill your troops slot, are inexpensive, can use their instrument to guarantee the rest of their friends' arrival, and a number of them might make it because the rest of your opponents army is shooting desperately at the incoming slaughter from your table half. They become relevant usually about the same time as troops in rhinos would be (damn that one turn of waiting after disembarking), but are much cheaper. These guy, cultists, and regular marines are the best options when it comes to troops. Zerkers a bit expensive.
Rhinos
A tough option, these guys are quick to move, but flimsy and don't allow your units to charge when they disembark. To make assault units in rhinos work, you need an "assault wave" approach where you have turn 2 assaulters,followed by turn 3 and turn 4. Your rhinos, if they make it, will be earliest turn 3, but very likely turn 4. That's a lot of turns of doing little to nothing. Possible, but I recommend sticking shooty units into these as lame as it is. You can also your your lovely inexpensive boxes as a mobile shield, granting cover to the units behind it (maybe tossing in some Belakor shrouding action on top), and blocking line of sight. Also they are one of the cheapest ways to get your delicious blood tithe flowing.
2. Overpriced Units There are many units that fall into this category. 7th edition rules allow overwhelming amounts of fire and slow assault rules, which means you need guys that are tough and inexpensive, because your units will die without doing anything. The general rule of thumb is to make your points back or more with a unit. A unit of warp talons, for example, die as easily as marines do to bolter fire/lasguns/auto cannons, but cost a lot more points and are almost always going to be out in the open. It's overpriced and flimsy.
Insanely Overpriced Units (nonviable): Warp Talons, Possessed Chaos Space Marines, Lord of Skulls, Bloodcrushers, Defiler
Overpriced Units (not nonviable though): Bloodthirsters, Daemon Princes, Berserkers, Forgefiends
A lot of units. Forget the nonviable.
3. Lack of Anti-Air We have Bloodthirsters, flying daemon princes, Soul Grinders, Heldrakes are our anti-air (not including allies and quad guns). Your thirsters, princes, and drakes are best spent on the ground and your Soul Grinder has a worse quad gun, and costs more points. He's a bit more flexible though.
4. Distance Disadvantage What do I mean by this? Well your opponent, assuming you face a shooty army, will almost always have the luxury of selectively killing the biggest threat to their army first. Maulerfiends and Rhinos are great targets and are pretty crucial as you want to pop tanks so your Infantry slaughterers can go to work.
HOW TO HANDLE THESE WEAKNESS Deal with Enemy Transports/Heavy Support. The key is simple against most armies: Open the tanks. I cannot stress this enough. You need these transports open and heavy support down so your assault army can go to work. Think about it. Dark Eldar, Eldar, Tau, Imperial Guard, and Necrons (some of the top tier armies), have high output transports. Kill them and you kill their maneuverability, a large amount of shooting against your army, and you can now get at the juicy insides with your assault units. The best ways to do this is termicide/raptorcide with meltaguns, or take allied CSM Havocs. Havocs have the best point to pen/glance value for lascannon and autocannon units. I recommend taking two autocannon units and use them to open tanks so your charging Daemonkin force doesn't get obliteratored.
Big, Tough, and Expensive Make powerful Units that can reach near invincibility. Juggernaut Stars is the most common way to approach this. Land Raiders with choppy warriors works fine too. One of my favorite and quite effective strategy is to take Belakor and use Shrouding and Invisibility. Park him, your juggerstar, thirster/prince, and maulerfiends behind a wall of rhinos and advance. Any winged units can jink for a 2+ cover with shrouding, your rhinos get 3+ cover when they pop smoke, and your Juggerstar and maulerfiend(s) gets 3+ cover behind the rhinos. You also get to make a unit of your choice invisible. Not bad.
Spam A classic strategy, pick your best, cheapest unit and spam it. Take 4 juggerlords and 6 maulerfiends! CHARGE!!!! Not a bad strategy either.
SPECIFIC COUNTERS
Monstrous Creatures (Riptides, Big Bugs, Wraith Robots, etc): Bloodthirsters of Insensate Rage (give them the D, can kill a riptide with a single charge), Khorne Hound Spam (roll those saves), Plasma spam (not great as it's expensive with your MoK marines), Axes of Khorne (instakill them! not a bad option as it can be taken by any champion, might be a secret technique we should try more), Maulerfiends (great option as its hard as heck for MCs to kill walkers, and they sure pack a punch. They also are one of Chaos' cheapest heavy support options and are speedy.)
Flyers: You need allies for this unless you just intend to ignore flyers and crush the ground forces (or spam soul grinders). Take Quad guns with allied havocs to work them.
Knights: Again, the Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage is good option here. It might even kill this mammoth with one charge and live. (hopefully not 6s on the stomps). Otherwise, your general anti-tank will have to do (Maulerfiends, meltaguns, etc).
Heavily Armored Tanks: Guess what? The Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage is great here again. 8 strength D attacks on the charge will obliterate a Land Raider or Leman Russ. That said, a Maulerfiend can do the same for far less points. But which can survive the longest?
Horde Troops: Not too hard to deal with, take a drake, soulgrinder, or if you really are having trouble, flamers. Generally speaking your assault units output a lot of attack, so it should be easily manageable. If you did end up taking autocannon havocs, these are also good horde killers.
CONCLUSION
Generally speaking, I recommend structuring your army to kill transports easily and early. Include flexible units that can destroy specific problem units (like Insensate Rage Bloodthirsters and Riptides, or Termicide Meltas and Leman Russes). Choose inexpensive, fast units for the bulk of your army. Avoid the formations, they are too expensive and the summoning is too slow thanks to the deepstriking rules. You will also get plenty of blood tithe points naturally.
Did I mention kill the transports? KILL THE TRANSPORTS.
Go forth and kick space ass fellow champions. Let the blood flow and gain victory so you can shed even more blood.
Not to be a prick or anything, but I think the strength D thirster is called Insensate Rage. Unfettered fury is the 250 point one that is identical to the old thirster. I still like the post, good food for thought about daemonkin. I am already committed to running a Blood Host with Khorne's bloodstorm myself (means I will be running "nonviable" possessed and warp talons), but I tend to worry less about winning and more about looking cool (I'm not good enough at the game yet to be super competitive even with a cheese list).
My 1850 point list I think I've finalized has 16 different units in it. I think that spamming small units is the way to go.
It features about half the army Deep Striking in, and the other half being mostly units that can move 12" in the Movement Phase. Speed is the biggest factor in configuring an effective army in my eyes.
If a unit isn't fast (12" inch move) or can't Deep Strike, it won't make it to my lists.
Ignatius wrote: My 1850 point list I think I've finalized has 16 different units in it. I think that spamming small units is the way to go.
It features about half the army Deep Striking in, and the other half being mostly units that can move 12" in the Movement Phase. Speed is the biggest factor in configuring an effective army in my eyes.
If a unit isn't fast (12" inch move) or can't Deep Strike, it won't make it to my lists.
MSU style seems to be best for KD.
You killed my dudes? Thanks for the Blood Tithe!
I wonder if KDCSM can take the Dreadclaw from IA13. They probably can't take it as Fast Attack (different Codex), but it says "can be taken as a Dedicated Transport for Chaos Space Marines".
As it stands our Imperial armour books, miniatures and their rules held within these supplements are not designed to be used alongside other supplement books such as the Daemonkin supplement or Tempestus Scions supplement by Games Workshop. They are designed to be an individual supplement for your chosen force’s main codex.
At the moment there is no firm “ruling” or “Do’s and Don’ts” but we at Forge World encourage the use of “house rules” so if you ask your opponents for permission to use Forge World miniatures in your Daemonkin Army and they are okay with it then boom! Got ya’ self some awesome Daemon force to be reckoned with.
Other than that I would recommend keeping your retinals scanners on the Forge World Newsletters and downloads section of www.forgeworld.co.uk for more updates and everything shiny in the Forge World Range
I hope this helps and if you need anything further please give us a call.
So yeah. Unless an errata change things it's just for house ruled games. (Though every game is starting to feel like it requires house rules so that's something)
I feel that these questions are becoming less "Ask GW/FW" and more "Ask the torunament/your friends". If someone asked me if they could, I'd say yes, since it's logical (same unit with just some restrictions, after all), but that's just me.
Deepstriking
We've got a lot of daemons and deepstrikers in our codex, why not use this ability and appear in the opponent's back line? Well the main issue with this line of reasoning is the lack of shooting in a Khorne army. Aside from Skull Cannons and Bloodthirsters, none of the daemons can shoot when they deepstrike. You are a sitting duck for a turn and you will be fried off the board unless you have some tough as nails units, which even then are likely to be very expensive.
Of the lists I have put together and seen elsewhere bloodletters are about the only things I can see deepstriking (besides summoned units). For these guys, with their low survivability, why not put them backfield? The only thing they have is offensive capability and maybe objective secured. If left untouched in the backfield they can wipe units, wreck tanks, or steal an objective. Putting them back there forces the opponent to deal with them, taking fire from something else. If they die or mishap, so what? One or two tithe points is earned (depending on how they are equipped and the reading of the rules).
One strategy I have gleaned is putting an instrument on bloodletters and pulling warp talons in with them, getting a guaranteed unit from reserve and making them more reliable when arriving. I don't think this makes them viable but it is something to consider.
Rhinos
A tough option, these guys are quick to move, but flimsy and don't allow your units to charge when they disembark. To make assault units in rhinos work, you need an "assault wave" approach where you have turn 2 assaulters,followed by turn 3 and turn 4. Your rhinos, if they make it, will be earliest turn 3, but very likely turn 4. That's a lot of turns of doing little to nothing. Possible, but I recommend sticking shooty units into these as lame as it is.
Nothing to disagree here really but I just think rhinos are super valuable given that they have Blood for the Blood god! special rule. I don't care if they all get popped first turn or after I have moved them flat out. In fact, I hope they die. And when my duded disembark, I am putting my SGT out front for that other point. I want my 3 points for FNP.
Lastly, I like bloodcrushers, but that is all I will say about them.
I disagree about Bloodletters being the only thing to Deep Strike. Roughly half of my army in the next tournament I am playing in will be Deep Striking.
Rhino wall providing a cheap LOS blocking moving wall that gives you bloodtithe points when they're killed then you give FNP to your army and charge in. You could even give them combimeltas for anti tank.
Of the lists I have put together and seen elsewhere bloodletters are about the only things I can see deepstriking (besides summoned units). For these guys, with their low survivability, why not put them backfield? The only thing they have is offensive capability and maybe objective secured. If left untouched in the backfield they can wipe units, wreck tanks, or steal an objective. Putting them back there forces the opponent to deal with them, taking fire from something else. If they die or mishap, so what? One or two tithe points is earned (depending on how they are equipped and the reading of the rules).
One strategy I have gleaned is putting an instrument on bloodletters and pulling warp talons in with them, getting a guaranteed unit from reserve and making them more reliable when arriving. I don't think this makes them viable but it is something to consider.
This is an excellent point. A fine alternative to Rhino walls or Cultist taxes. I believe those 3 options are about all we've got. I really wish we had the old berserkers and transport rules though.
I will also note that the rhinos make good inexpensive sources of blood tithe points, as well as being a decent delivery system and/or a LOS blocking + cover granting defensive system.
Another quick note I'd like to make is a spent a few hours today doing a bunch of math examining point value in relation to defensive durability (vs. lascannons, plasmaguns, bolters, autocannons, etc), and it's interesting to see that invisibility + shrouding behind intervening models can quadruple a unit's durability.
For example it would take on average 11.25 autocannon shots to kill a gliding bloodthirster. Give the thirster invisibility and keep him near Belakor while he casts shrouding behind some intervening models, and it now takes 180 autocannon shots to kill him.
Taking belakor if you intend to run large death stars is certainly something to consider. However I think just going regular juggerlords with hounds, bloodletters, maulerfiends, heldrakes, etc might be more consistent and less detrimental to the luck of the die.
Something we could also fool with is summon spamming. Allying with daemons and spamming bloodletters to fill our battlefield up might be a cool idea. A more fluffy way to do this is to use an unmarked Chaos Sorcerer. But these ideas have been proposed before somewhere else I'm sure.
It is when used right. Have him stay back , and give out buffs for the units about to charge. He gives hatred and rage, correct? That is something we can get with out using the blood tithe table.
Eldarain wrote: I sent them an email when the book was released.
Hi There
As it stands our Imperial armour books, miniatures and their rules held within these supplements are not designed to be used alongside other supplement books such as the Daemonkin supplement or Tempestus Scions supplement by Games Workshop. They are designed to be an individual supplement for your chosen force’s main codex.
At the moment there is no firm “ruling” or “Do’s and Don’ts” but we at Forge World encourage the use of “house rules” so if you ask your opponents for permission to use Forge World miniatures in your Daemonkin Army and they are okay with it then boom! Got ya’ self some awesome Daemon force to be reckoned with.
Other than that I would recommend keeping your retinals scanners on the Forge World Newsletters and downloads section of www.forgeworld.co.uk for more updates and everything shiny in the Forge World Range
I hope this helps and if you need anything further please give us a call.
Except that Deamonkin is a full fledged codex and not a Supplement, fether of a moron FW mail dude...
Ignatius wrote: I disagree about Bloodletters being the only thing to Deep Strike. Roughly half of my army in the next tournament I am playing in will be Deep Striking.
I'll let y'all know how it goes.
I am very interested to see the results. Please post a batrep.
Has anyone tried a bloodthrone. I was considering which hq to bring with a charnel cohort, but the daemon prince is too expensive with the points I have left. I don't have a good place to deliver skulltaker. I can take the normal herald on juggernaut, but I thought having another fast element that can do decent damage and buff nearby squads is good. It isn't super durable, but it is really fast.
Eldarain wrote: I sent them an email when the book was released.
Hi There
As it stands our Imperial armour books, miniatures and their rules held within these supplements are not designed to be used alongside other supplement books such as the Daemonkin supplement or Tempestus Scions supplement by Games Workshop. They are designed to be an individual supplement for your chosen force’s main codex.
At the moment there is no firm “ruling” or “Do’s and Don’ts” but we at Forge World encourage the use of “house rules” so if you ask your opponents for permission to use Forge World miniatures in your Daemonkin Army and they are okay with it then boom! Got ya’ self some awesome Daemon force to be reckoned with.
Other than that I would recommend keeping your retinals scanners on the Forge World Newsletters and downloads section of www.forgeworld.co.uk for more updates and everything shiny in the Forge World Range
I hope this helps and if you need anything further please give us a call.
Except that Deamonkin is a full fledged codex and not a Supplement, fether of a moron FW mail dude...
I don't have the codex in front of me but I seem to remember that on the back cover it says it is a supplement to Warhammer 40k. Not sure if that would make a difference.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Has anyone used a Lanraider and had success with it for the Daemonkin? I really want to put my bezerkers with a herald that has the hatred locus.
Soss wrote: I don't have the codex in front of me but I seem to remember that on the back cover it says it is a supplement to Warhammer 40k. Not sure if that would make a difference.
Ally in a sorcerer/lord on a bike/juggernaut. Give that character the Burning Brand of Skalathrax + whatever else. Slap him with some dogs and scout up the field! Now you can unleash your brand for a turn 1 torrent. See ya Eldar jetbikes/Tau Crisis suits. You can also break him apart turn 2 so your dogs can charge a different unit.
I think this might be a very effect and potentially inexpensive strategy! Is this viable? If so, how should you upgrade the Burning brand character? Sorcerer or Chaos Lord?
mixing in a sorceror on a bike is tempting. The brand would be icing on the cake. Its not Thaat good. Anything with a 3+ save worth killing will probably be protected.
That's why you have plenty of backfield guns to pop the transports. Step 1 of most battles, in fact probably all battles is to take out the transports. Not only are they usually loaded with some sizable amount of fire, but also they have everything we want to template/assault. Also, Crisis Suits and Eldar Jetbikes can't be in transports. Roast em for Khorne!!!
I think the key to have an effective assault army is not have everything be assaulty. Take your best assault units for that role, then focus on setting them up/protecting them with well rounded/ranged units.
The best units for poppin' transports from a distance that chaos has are Havocs. I did the math and they give the most value per pen/glance as opposed to a predator. Oblits are sweet, but don't put out that much firepower. Probably their best use would be deepstriking with their multi-meltas (note this is all assuming you're against high dakka armies).
For the bike sorcerer, I see two possible setups:
1. Cost-effective: Bike + Brand = 110 points. Roll on Telepathy for that sweet cheesy invisibility. If not take shriek and do some damage to a wraithknight/riptide.
2. Warlock of War: Bike, Mastery Level 3, Sigil of Corruption, Burning Brand, Spell Familiar, Force Axe = 200 points. Roll all Biomancy.
Now why would you roll all on Biomancy? Think about it. There are really no bad power here except Haemorrhage.
Endurance: Feel no Pain 4+ is obviously amazing.
Warp Speed: Also pretty damn good. 7 instant death attacks on the charge at strength 5? Sounds pretty damn good to me. You might just kill a riptide with a single blow.
Life Leech: Just awesome, think about it: Sorcerer is probably with a Juggerlord. You can heal any friendly models within 6". Make him immortal! Or do the same with your bloodthirster ))
Enfeeble: Goes without saying. This will make units melt to your charge, giving you more time to crush the next victim.
Iron Arm: Now your sorcerer is more like what a true possessed should be. 4 instant death attacks at strength 7? You might be able to fell a wraith knight with this guy. Kick fething ass.
Smite: Ew, but at least we have an alternative to Haemorrage.
There you have it. This sorcerer might be one of the most deadly threats when its put into a deathstar of scouting hounds. Toast units or slaughter non-closecombat/slow monstrous creatures!
If I take a Lord with the axe of Kor'lath and cash my 7 blood tithes turning him into a daemon prince do I generate the Daemon Prince and a Bloodthirster, if I pass my leadership test of course. Also, does my Axe remain with my daemon prince and if he is killed do I gain another bloodthirster, again if I pass the leadership? It seems like I would but looking for confirmation from others. Thanks
take 2 slaughtercults for 2 points per turn, that means you only need to find 3 on turn 1 to have 7 by turn 2
Then if it is a maelstrom mission fly the prince or BT towards an objective you need or a problem area of the board into gliding mode, maybe use them as cover or just a blocker.
Assault turn 4, 5 and 6.
Meanwhile your warlord is protected.
Also, you could send them towards your opponents warlord to make sure you get slay the warlord by turn 5...and if your lucky cash in one of the kill your opponents warlord cards.
Automatically Appended Next Post: He does lose d3 wounds each turn...BUT invuln save + feel no pain from blood tithe could help with this a lot
It's probably overkill having two Blood Host detachments, unless you are planning on attempting to summon something on your first or second turn. The Slaughtercult isn't bad, but being forced to then take two units of Possessed is a little tough (my Possessed have failed to have any impact on the games I've played - they haven't even at least been killed off to give me a Blood Point )
The games I've played so far with a Blood Host detachment, I've easily had 6+ Blood Points come turn 3 and 4 when units start disappearing from the board. I'm normally going for the FNP buff though, since that seems the best overall buff for getting stuck into CC.
Rhino for possessed not sure if it is too great since they can't shoot when they disembark and are kindof a glass cannon unit so one turn in the open spells death for them.
Dreadclaw problem is no guidance system so prone to misshaping, and if they end up being place by opponent on the back corner of the table they are totally useless (not sure though never actually used one) I don't like the idea of 100 point drop pod with no guidance (seems like a ripoff)
Landraider yes its expensive, but possessed isn't exactly a normal troop choice - they are kinda similar to genestealers in a sense that if they actually make it into combat they will destroy anything they assault.
Atleast you'd have a useful 380 point unit instead of a 150 point useless one.
Captyn_Bob wrote: Don't think of the dreadclaw as a drop pod. It's more of an assault flyer.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And yes land raider is great but another two troops in a CAD is a big investment
Automatically Appended Next Post: (I would rather ally one in )
Not too sure about allies without bftbg, with a Daemonkin CAD you could just take 2 minimum cultist squads not to mention bring your other toys you don't want to drag along entire formations for (I'm looking at you, heldrake).
Are you sure it doesn't have inertial guidance ? I don't have my rules with me. Anyways you can't assault the first turn so there should be no problem with conservative placement. The Bezerkers are more of a finisher unit, not first wave so it's not like it's robbing you anything.
Dreadclaws have the Drop Pod assault rule, Kharybdis are the ones with Inertial guidance.
Personally i would footslogg them behind my LR or one of my rhinos, since they don't shoot, you can make them run and reroll with Fleet anyway, disembark your stuff out of the LR and assault with both units.
Just a quick question I had: Is it really worth taking wings on a Daemon Prince in this codex? Other daemons (tzeentch, nurgle, etc.) can get psychic powers on their DPs and so wings work well for them, but for our melee-only DPs, are they worth the cost (especially summoned ones since with wings they have to wait a turn or two (depending on who you ask) to be able to hit anything)? I ask because I haven't put my DP kit together yet and I wonder if its worth putting wings on it.
DP can glide for 12" move and since they're not shooting, there's no need to hem and haw over when to jink them. a footslogging prince isn't really likely to do much worthwhile.
Personally something that has been in the back of my head but no one has even hinted at is the fact that the Lord of skulls is a war engine option meaning you could have up to 8 in a army, now that would never be the plan but I could see 2 being down right cruel on either side of a large obstacle in the middle of the board dropping twin apocalyptic blast with gnaw and two apocalyptic flamers going as well put your hoard behind that obstacle wip out a few fast to support the bloodletters your either moving to objectives or have deep striked. Or really a lot of other things too just saying more then one lord of skulls in the mix to me would be fun, 2500 points could get you 2 lords of skulls and a ton of bloodletters. Just keep the Blood tithe going and keep popping out more bloodletters
There's a reason noones mentioned it. Lord of skulls is 888+ points. That's the same point level as 3 knights, who absolutely trounce it comparatively. And 3 wraithknights turn it into a joke.
The one advantage of the LOS is you can hit it with invisibility or grimoire to make a LOW deathstar, but that effect only works if you have one.
Now have you ever used him, because I have and he is worth his points , and you can get 2 knights for that not 3. And if your going to compare any of the daemonkin book agenst the eldar well you might find a lot of things coming up short. But hey i understand lord of skulls are not many people's favorite guy and it's quite popular to see him as a model not worth taking but that's because most people don't use him, yes he is very expensive and really should be cheaper but if you have ever taken him he is usually quite worth it. Now of course any of what any one says is opinion so hey stop taking your own so seriously.
Ive used mine once, charged a IK. He got a lucky 6 on the D chart+ a 4, so he went bye bye. Next time I will just shot it or ignoreit and shot everything else on the field since he has some decent shooting
Is it possible to take a normal CAD of KDK and take formations like the biker/hound formation and still be battle forged? Also, would the bloodtithe bonuses be for everyone in the army?
Sorry, I'm coming back to 40k after not playing 6th or mucb of 7th.
Yes you can take a CAD and a formation and still be battle forged.
Blood tithe affects everyone in the army from the daemonkin book. As the rules currently are , it wouldn't effect Samus as he doesn't have the BFTBG rule.
I did a game recently with a bloodthirster of insensate rage, a daemon prince in blood-forged armor, belakor, and a lord of change along with 3 maulerfiends. Sadly, my jerk opponent stole the initiative (jk) and killed the bloodthirster, daemon prince, and one maulerfiend in the opening salvo. I was still able to win the game, but both times I've used the bloodthirster he's died before he dealt a single wound. The other game I used the bloodthirster in I lost the combat against an Avatar of Khaine. I did roll rather poorly, but not getting a single wound through was depressing... I even used one in a game of fantasy and watched him struggle against a frostheart pheonix the entire game. I love the model, so I expect I'll keep using him, but he's not done anything heroic or efficient for me yet.
I did a game recently with a bloodthirster of insensate rage, a daemon prince in blood-forged armor, belakor, and a lord of change along with 3 maulerfiends. Sadly, my jerk opponent stole the initiative (jk) and killed the bloodthirster, daemon prince, and one maulerfiend in the opening salvo. I was still able to win the game, but both times I've used the bloodthirster he's died before he dealt a single wound. The other game I used the bloodthirster in I lost the combat against an Avatar of Khaine. I did roll rather poorly, but not getting a single wound through was depressing... I even used one in a game of fantasy and watched him struggle against a frostheart pheonix the entire game. I love the model, so I expect I'll keep using him, but he's not done anything heroic or efficient for me yet.
This is mainly theory as I've yet to play a game with a bloodthirster (but I'm already looking forward to it as like you said it's a great model), but from reading the profile it seems that the D-thirster can be expected to be either a hero or a zero. Striking last in a fight hurts, as most worthy opponents (e.g. Imperial Knights) can squish him before he gets to swing. However, if he survives, whatever he attacks is most likely going to die. Not sure what went wrong for you against the Avatar of Khaine, though. Did you just roll too many 1's or something (I've had that kind of rotten luck before...)?
So I plan on running a small CAD of daemonkin to go with my fateweaver tzeentch CAD.
Basically min cultists, 2 heldrakes and a ball of flesh hounds. It seems like most people go with the Lord on jug as HQ, wouldn't a herald on jug with the hatred loci make the Hound star more stronger?
Now I know The Lord is more survivable than the herald but it costs more and I don't have a lot of points to spare. I just need the hound star kill majority of things it touches, plus I'll have a HoT nearby for that cursed earth.
This is mainly theory as I've yet to play a game with a bloodthirster (but I'm already looking forward to it as like you said it's a great model), but from reading the profile it seems that the D-thirster can be expected to be either a hero or a zero. Striking last in a fight hurts, as most worthy opponents (e.g. Imperial Knights) can squish him before he gets to swing. However, if he survives, whatever he attacks is most likely going to die. Not sure what went wrong for you against the Avatar of Khaine, though. Did you just roll too many 1's or something (I've had that kind of rotten luck before...)?
If I remember correctly, I missed with a fair number of attacks against the avatar, then failed to wound with another, and he made his invuln save for the 1 or 2 that I would have gotten through. It was fairly poor rolling, but that's the kind of stuff that can happen and it really sets you back when so many points are spent on the one model. The other game he was dropped by a single volley from sternguard out of a drop pod before I could get shrouding off with belakor.
For me, the strength of the Lord over a Herald is the ability to take a power fist, so you can smash through walkers and other hard blockers that a Herald and hounds could get stuck on. It a a big unit to risk getting stuck on one dreadnought.
Hey everyone, a few more thoughts/observations I've made after a little internet research.
First of all if anyone hasn't seen the sweet batrep by Long War on YouTube, you should. It features a list with Daemonkin allies, 2 sorcerers that can jump between 2 units of nurgle spawn and a huge pack of khorne dogs, as well as a D-thirster. You practically are guaranteed invisibility for the thirster at a not too expensive price with flexibility. Cool list.
Another is from a post I saw in the General discussion I think. Vindicare Assassins might make sense, as they can be far enough away to not incur the allies penalty, and almost guarantee a popped transport per turn (+1 point, oh yes khorne please).
It still seems no slaughter cult is the most competitive method and khorne dogs are almost an auto include. Is Kor'lath, Axe of Ruin viable? Or is it too slow?
crimson_caesar wrote: Hey everyone, a few more thoughts/observations I've made after a little internet research.
First of all if anyone hasn't seen the sweet batrep by Long War on YouTube, you should. It features a list with Daemonkin allies, 2 sorcerers that can jump between 2 units of nurgle spawn and a huge pack of khorne dogs, as well as a D-thirster. You practically are guaranteed invisibility for the thirster at a not too expensive price with flexibility. Cool list.
Another is from a post I saw in the General discussion I think. Vindicare Assassins might make sense, as they can be far enough away to not incur the allies penalty, and almost guarantee a popped transport per turn (+1 point, oh yes khorne please).
It still seems no slaughter cult is the most competitive method and khorne dogs are almost an auto include. Is Kor'lath, Axe of Ruin viable? Or is it too slow?
I've personally been fiddling around with an allied sorcerer running Biomancy. If you get Endurance off on the hounds...WATCH OUT. In my last game, my dogs ran through four units on their own. My opponent kept shooting them with everything under the sun, and by turn six had only killed about 15 of the twenty. The rest of my army was relatively unharmed.
As for the Vindicare, they do not get BftBG, so you wouldn't get any points besides first blood/slay the warlord. You're better off without him; you wouldn't even want him shooting sergeants.
I've had much success running the Slaughter Cult. The bonuses it confers are tremendous. Plus, the only real detriment is that you have to take Possessed. While expensive, they hit VERY hard! Don't pass them off.
With Kor'Lath, what do you mean by "is it too slow"? It strikes at initiative. From the general consensus, it seems for now that Blood Thirsters are forced to come in flying, which at first may seem like a detriment, but if it's your warlord who's been switched, then you've potentially denied your opponent Slay The Warlord. Think about it- they need sixes to hit if you come in flying, and you still get your invuln saves from your gear and FNP from Blood Tithe table, so you could probably keep him alive for at least two more turns. Plus, if you kill him via losing wounds, then your opponent doesn't get Slay The Warlord! Turn your warlord into the biggest distraction carnifex alongside 20 hounds and a Bio Sorcerer handing out a 4+ FNP and Eternal Warrior! Watch as your opponent throws buckets of dice at your beautiful deathstar
crimson_caesar wrote: Hey everyone, a few more thoughts/observations I've made after a little internet research.
First of all if anyone hasn't seen the sweet batrep by Long War on YouTube, you should. It features a list with Daemonkin allies, 2 sorcerers that can jump between 2 units of nurgle spawn and a huge pack of khorne dogs, as well as a D-thirster. You practically are guaranteed invisibility for the thirster at a not too expensive price with flexibility. Cool list.
Another is from a post I saw in the General discussion I think. Vindicare Assassins might make sense, as they can be far enough away to not incur the allies penalty, and almost guarantee a popped transport per turn (+1 point, oh yes khorne please).
It still seems no slaughter cult is the most competitive method and khorne dogs are almost an auto include. Is Kor'lath, Axe of Ruin viable? Or is it too slow?
I've personally been fiddling around with an allied sorcerer running Biomancy. If you get Endurance off on the hounds...WATCH OUT. In my last game, my dogs ran through four units on their own. My opponent kept shooting them with everything under the sun, and by turn six had only killed about 15 of the twenty. The rest of my army was relatively unharmed.
As for the Vindicare, they do not get BftBG, so you wouldn't get any points besides first blood/slay the warlord. You're better off without him; you wouldn't even want him shooting sergeants.
I've had much success running the Slaughter Cult. The bonuses it confers are tremendous. Plus, the only real detriment is that you have to take Possessed. While expensive, they hit VERY hard! Don't pass them off.
With Kor'Lath, what do you mean by "is it too slow"? It strikes at initiative. From the general consensus, it seems for now that Blood Thirsters are forced to come in flying, which at first may seem like a detriment, but if it's your warlord who's been switched, then you've potentially denied your opponent Slay The Warlord. Think about it- they need sixes to hit if you come in flying, and you still get your invuln saves from your gear and FNP from Blood Tithe table, so you could probably keep him alive for at least two more turns. Plus, if you kill him via losing wounds, then your opponent doesn't get Slay The Warlord! Turn your warlord into the biggest distraction carnifex alongside 20 hounds and a Bio Sorcerer handing out a 4+ FNP and Eternal Warrior! Watch as your opponent throws buckets of dice at your beautiful deathstar
I could never do this....But I try to stay fluffy and my group would not approve of the Psyker in a khorne worshiper army lol But I agree... It does sound nasty if you were able to get Endurance everytime.
How I see it is that my sorcerer is simply buffing himself in order to beat more faces in. He's not sitting back casting spells- he's right up there with the Lord and hounds! He's also basically Sindri Myr from DoW he uses what's available to reach daemonhood
I like to think of buffing sorcerers as "Blood Priests". They are naturally in tune with the warp, gaining combat strength as their rage rises and coursing raw power through their veins. Khorne's Holy warriors, very appropriate for the Daemonkin book.
What I meant by the Bloodhost detachment being not great was I don't think you need the points that quickly. In many games points come so fast, the bonuses might not be worth it, but I'm not sure yet.
With regards to Kor'lath being slow, I didn't mean the axe in combat itself. I meant the Thirster getting into battle. It would probably go down faster than yo mama against a Tau or Eldar army. Aside from that, it's an Axe of Khorne, which is good, but not nearly worth 60 points in a codex where the majority of the units are overpriced.
Does anyone think Goredrinker or the Blade of Endless Bloodshed are good? Maybe with proper targeting and casting from magical support. .
Honestly, I would love to be able to defeat Lords of War without owning one myself, but it looks like that's not what the game is allowing. A clever tactic by GW to get us to by these huge models that I think mess with the feeling of fielding an actual army comprised of soldiers. Man and I thought Riptides were bad.
I figure when it comes to blood points, the more the merrier, and the quicker the better. If I can summon a skull cannon on T2, I will! It would be great for T3 charges (unless it dies first). Indeed, I feel that this is probably the best way to use a skull cannon since the only formation it can be taken in (Charnel Cohort) has some hefty unit taxes (unless of course you are using a CAD instead of a Blood Host).
For me the demonkin har worked best with cad+gorepack letting me choose from all units and have lots of hounds to push forward tying things up before the heavy hitters come in. Sure the free tithe from bloodhost is good but i feel the extra cost for possessed and letters instead of cultists are to much, the army looses momentum. It's a real cc codex and if you go all out on that it works really good. MSU works.
IE 3 Maulerfiends, 2 strong HQs, and max gorepacks? You have no ranged?
Also is the Skull cannon really the best option? I'd think grounded Daemon Princes would be best, provided you're up close and against a not very mobile foe.
Maulers wont work. AV12 is just to easy to take out, flyrants, eldar, tau, etc. I use 3 grinders they have some decent shooting and can put down some early pressure, demonkin are low on anti-air, but with grinders there is a possibility to take some down. As for other shooting i use bikes with double meltaguns to open up transports if needed.
Hmmm... well the good thing about Maulerfiends is you can spam them relatively inexpensively, and they're good against Monstrous Creatures. My issue with Soul Grinders is how do you outfit them? The best weapon in my opinion is their phlegm cannon, but it does what the rest of your army is already excellent at: Killing infantry. I feel like there are better options for killing tanks, which is really what we need for the Heldrakes and the hounds to go to town on.
Heldrakes to deal with anti-air a bit, and we can always summon daemon princes for more support.
Also, could you guys tell me what you think of bikes? I haven't used them myself but I thought they'd go down like a ton of bricks with one wound, even with T5 and 3+. A squad of fire warrior could easily take them out. A clever opponent would at their earliest convenience.
I'm selling all of my current 40k off to have just one army and I'm seriously liking the idea of doing Khornekin but if anyone could spare some time I always have trouble getting into new codexes.
First of all apparently we are allowed these now:
The following units that are allowed:
Ferrum Infernus Chaos Dreadnought with Dedication of Khorne (Elite)
Chaos Contemptor Dreadnought with Dedication of Khorne (Elite)
Greater Brass Scorpion of Khorne (Lord of War)
Blood Slaughterer of Khorne (Heavy Support)
Chaos Decimator Siege Engine with Dedication of Khorne (Elite)
Chaos Reaver Titan with Daemon Titan of Khorne (Lord of War)
Chaos Warhound Titan with Daemon Titan of Khorne (Lord of War)
An'ggrath the Unbound (Lord of War)
Uraka 'The Warfiend' (HQ)
Spined Chaos Beast with Daemon of Khorne (Elite)
Just wondering what people thought of them?
Also whats a good base to start off this army, should I go Daemon Prince and a bunch of cultists and I believe fleshhounds are considered good?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh particularly interested in the Forgeworld Decimator just because it looks to freaking cool
I guess I'd go for barebones. Oh you could do Havoc Launchers xD
Mostly because with the battlecannon, you have to snap your Harvester. To be honest I think the Heldrake is much more effective at doing what the battle cannon does. Same with its torrent weapon.
If only it could take a reaper autocannon or two... :|
Mauler vs grinder.
For 30p more you gain
1 hp 1 attack
Av13 front, side
Av11 back
Anti-horde shooting
Anti-air shooting
.......
Disadvantage
6" move instead of 12"
Make that 5 more points unless you auto include the phlegm cannon.
Also Maulers get melta attacks, which makes its 12" move much more valuable. It can kill armor 13 tanks by turn 2 potentially, which a soul grinder has a lot less of a chance to do by that point. It has less of chance to glance than autocannon havocs, and costs 50 more points (with the phlegm cannon). Another valuable part of a Maulerfiend's movement is how it can tie up monstrous creatures easily if it gets into close combat. A riptide is going to struggle doing much to the fiend, and now I've locked him up in a fight for the rest of the game. Not something many units can do.
For the anti-horde factor, yeah the cannon is good. But the baleflamer is better. You can control it, maximize the number of kills, insure it does something before the drake dies (most of the time), and the drake is more survivable than the soul grinder.
Mauler in demonkin cost more than the csm version. Phlegm makes the grinder versitile its function is not to be in opponents deployment zone turn 2, thats what the hounds, spawns, bikes are there for. In a perfect game you will not get shot at, opponent wont refuse flank you, he will walk forward so you can reach him more easily, etc etc. Yeah maulers are great then. But take a look at the firepower other armies have, Av12 just dont survive long enough to make it worth it.
Grinders complete a demonkin army so well, its just that little shooting that is needed to force opponents to think about deployment, movement and their flyers. If you go all cc he just have to deploy good, move around and bubbelwrap, shoot, and so on.. No need to worry about casualties from shooting, and you will loose. I also use 1 helldrake in my list to give that extra shooting later in the game, good vs drop armies that think they can drop far away to take some obj.
Jaq Draco lives wrote: I'm selling all of my current 40k off to have just one army and I'm seriously liking the idea of doing Khornekin but if anyone could spare some time I always have trouble getting into new codexes.
First of all apparently we are allowed these now:
The following units that are allowed:
Ferrum Infernus Chaos Dreadnought with Dedication of Khorne (Elite)
Chaos Contemptor Dreadnought with Dedication of Khorne (Elite)
Greater Brass Scorpion of Khorne (Lord of War)
Blood Slaughterer of Khorne (Heavy Support)
Chaos Decimator Siege Engine with Dedication of Khorne (Elite)
Chaos Reaver Titan with Daemon Titan of Khorne (Lord of War)
Chaos Warhound Titan with Daemon Titan of Khorne (Lord of War)
An'ggrath the Unbound (Lord of War)
Uraka 'The Warfiend' (HQ)
Spined Chaos Beast with Daemon of Khorne (Elite)
Just wondering what people thought of them?
Also whats a good base to start off this army, should I go Daemon Prince and a bunch of cultists and I believe fleshhounds are considered good?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh particularly interested in the Forgeworld Decimator just because it looks to freaking cool
Where did this list come from?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Played a 5k game with mostly daemonkin.
Two rush units did very well. 20 hounds with a crimson slaughter juggerLord (2+ save) and 5 spawn with a DK jugger Lord (eternal warrior).
I found I only wanted army wide fnp , so a lot of blood points were wasted.
Not daemonkin , but the central rush of 3 blood slaughterers , land raider with legacy of 1st war of Armageddon(with slaughter cult possessed inside) and belakor providing invisibility, worked even better than I'd hoped. An entire dark eldar army bounced off.
10 Grey Hunters- Banner, 2 Plasma Guns, Combi Plasma- Drop Pod
5 Scouts, Sniper Rifles
6 Terminators, Wolf Claws and Power Fists dispersed in, Combi Plasmas, Arjac Rockfist
6 Long Fangs, 2 Lascannon, 3 Missile Launcher
Vanguard deployment. I put Juggerlord and Hounds on left flank, Possessed on right flank. Everything that can deep strike goes into reserves, the troops sit dispersed in the middle of the zone with the bikes.
He puts thunderlord and wolves in middle of deployment zone, long fangs in a building in his right flank, one grey hunter squad with scouts in middle/left flank, and his terminators in reserve.
Turn 1: I move my Lord and Hounds forward behind a building to shield themselves from Long Fangs. Possessed go forward as well in their Rhino. Autogun cultists move on top of a building on my right. Troops shuffle and bikes move straight forward.
He drops his pod with the Priest on my right flank, behind my Lord and Hounds and next to my chaos marines. Lays into them with his Grey Hunters, kills 6. Long Fangs kill nothing. I pass morale with marines.
Turn 2: My Bloodletters come on, pulling a squad of Bloodcrushers on as well. I also get both terminator squads and my raptors+Lord. I drop everything in his deployment zone and fortunately nothing scatters at all. Lord and Hounds move back towards the podded squad, as does the CC cultists and the 2 remaining Chaos Marines. Last, the Possessed disembark their Rhino and the Bike squads move up. Shooting sees all the Long Fangs dead, a couple Grey Hunters from both squads, and nothing done to the Thunderwolves. I charge the Grey Hunters with the Lord and Hounds, cultists, and Chaos Marines. One bike squad charges the back Grey Hunter squads, the other charges the scouts. I lose one to overwatch on the scouts, and two to overwatch on the Grey Hunters. Scouts only lose two models, Grey Hunters lose one and kill the last biker. The Rune Priest Grey Hunter squad lose 4 models, and I lose a couple cultists and nothing is done to the Lord and Hounds. I forgot- somehow- that I had Goredrinker, and didn't attack with the Lord for some reason. Blows my mind what happened on that part.
His turn he moves on his Terminators and Arjac from his table edge. They shoot and kill a couple raptors. Grey Hunters shoot at my Possessed, killing two. Thunderwolves charge and destroy my Bloodcrushers, Scout combat sees them kill a biker and I kill another scout. Rune Priest combat sees me kill them all (remembered the Lord's attack this time )
Turn 3: I get my other Bloodcrusher unit and put them down where the old unit was. I create a Daemon Prince out of my Axe of Ruin Lord, and so get the Prince without wings and the Melting Bloodthirster. Fortunately he didn't kill my Bloodletters and so I didn't scatter with them, and could cram both in his deployment zone behind his stuff. Shooting kills a couple terminators and a Grey Hunter. I charge his Thunderwolves with both Terminator squads, losing 2 (!) on overwatch against his bolt pistols. I charge his Grey hunters with my Bloodletters and Possessed. Charge the pod with my Lord and Hounds and blow it up. Results are a couple dead Grey Hunters (rolled poorly), a couple dead Bloodletters, two Possessed dead, my last biker killed by his scouts, and all but one terminator dead. Bloodthirster takes three wounds.
He kills the rest of the raptors in shooting, so can't charge with his terminators. Kills the last terminator and we exchange a few bodies in the Grey Hunter-Possessed-Bloodletter brawl.
Turn 4: I move the Lord and Hound up towards the swirling mass of combats in his deployment zone, who then charge the scouts. I charge his thunderwolves with my Daemon Prince and Bloodcrushers. Charge the Terminators with my Bloodthirster. Terminators get scared and run off the board after the Bloodthirster wastes a couple. Daemon Prince gets challenged and killed without doing anything. Bloodcrushers kill a couple. Possessed are wiped out, Bloodletters kill a couple Grey Hunters and are down to three guys. Lord and Hounds kill the scouts easily. Bloodthirster takes another wound, down to 1. Other Bloodthirster saves his wound.
The combats continue, I lose two Bloodcrushers. I kill the last Grey Hunters.
Turn 5: Finally use Feel no Pain. Everything charges the Thunderwovles. Stuff happens and he loses enough that he concedes.
It should be noted that I don't remember exactly how this game went down turn wise, as in some stuff might have happened a turn before or a turn after I said it, but everything that happened is stated here and everything that is stated happened. Anyways, great game, especially because it was my first with the Daemonkin. I had been theory crafting for almost a month, it was nice to actually get stuff on the table. The idea with the list- which worked well in this case, is to squeeze the opponents army between my non deep striking units and the deep strikers, who have just enough shooting to be effective. The Lord--> Daemon Prince--> Bloodthirster idea worked pretty good here, as he didn't have a lot of shooting to really threaten them. This game worked well in my favor in the end. My rolling early in the game was abysmal, but in the late stages I passed pretty much every Feel No Pain save I had to make. Definitely a good one to get, as expected. He was able to force me to commit my Lord and Hounds to a distraction unit, which freed him up to kill a lot of my other stuff. It all worked out in the end though. Though the Bloodthirsters can't assault for two turns, they are invaluable in the late game.
There are two more games that I will try and write up, but I'm quite busy this week with finals. So it might be a day or two.
Nice report, I think the daeminkin is a great codex and just needs some testing, but it is a great codex for long drawn out battles. The only army I think they would have the most trouble with would be Necrons, as they can deny alot of our Blood tokens (hardly no Characters and hard to kill). I would say use 2 Blood host formations to make up for it, If you ever do play against them.
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch, Disarming strike, another exarch power, and shimmershield+Diresword
Wave Serpent
10 Harlequins, shadowseer, death jester, 2 fusion pistols, all with harlequin's kisses
Wave Serpent
10 Swooping Hawks, Exarch, power sword, random exarch powers
10 Warp Spiders
Fire Prism
Wrathknight, sun cannon, shield
Aegis Line, quadcannon
Deployment: Vanguard, Crusade mission
He places the Swooping Hawks in reserve and infiltrates the Rangers. Aegis Line is in the back corner and the Dark Reapers are back there. Fire Prism and Dire Avenger Wave Serpent is on his right flank. Harlequin wave serpent is on his left flank. Autarch is in the middle of his field. I think the Wraithknight is deep striking.
I put everything I can into reserves to deep strike again. Lord and Hounds on my left again, with a unit of bikers and chaos marines. Other bikes, Rhino, and CC cultists are on the right. Autogun cultists are in the middle.
I fail to seize.
Turn 1:
I can't figure out why, but he moves both Wave Serpents as far as he can forward towards my lines. His shooting kills a couple marines, and all but one from the CC cultists.
I move my stuff towards his Wave Serpents. Shooting sees both explode from my melta bikes, with almost all the harlequin dying in the explosion. I charge the Dire Avengers and kill like 3. He fails morale but gets away.
Turn 2:
Wraithknight and Warp Spiders don't come on. Swooping hawks do. Grenade pack hits a few autogun cultists and I lose a lot of them. Harlequin shooting kills my bikes that blew up their transport. Fire Prism and Dark Reaper shooting kills a couple more marines and a bike. Rangers whiff everything.
My Bloodletters come on, as do both Bloodcrusher units, Lord+Raptors, and flamer Terminators. Melta Terminators don't come. Raptors and Lord come in right next to the Fire Prism, Bloodcrushers come next to the Dark Reapers, and Flamer Terminators come up next to the Rangers. Shooting fails to do anything to the Fire Prism- something about wargear and cover saves of some sort. Terminators use their combi bolters and kill a couple rangers. I charge the Dire Avengers, who apparently had joined with the Autarch the turn before. I'm not sure what happened here but I just know that they were joined when I charged them with my remaining bikes and Lord and Hounds. Chaos Marines move towards the harlequins. Possessed disembark.
Turn 3:
Wraithknight comes on, lands in the middle of the field. Warp Spiders come on next to one of the Bloodcrusher units. Swooping Hawks move towards my possessed. Harlequin move towards them as well. Fire Prism runs away straight at my lines, and uses some sort of wargear to be able to shoot this turn. Autarch splits from the Dire Avengers who move back and fire at the Lord, killing two hounds. Fire Prism kills all the raptors but the lord. One unit of Bloodcrushers loses all but one wound from the Dark Reapers. Other Bloodcrushers lose one base and a wound from the Warp Spiders. Swooping Hawks shoot the Rhino (I didn't question him) and do nothing. Wraithknight shoots the Chaos Marines and kills one. Harlequins charge the possessed and massacre them. The Bloodletters are dead at this point, but I'm not sure why.
My metla Terminators come in right behind the Fire Prism. I move the Jump Lord towards the Wraithknight. Flamer Terminators move into a good position to flame the Warp Spiders. One wound Bloodcrushers move towards Dark Reapers. Other Bloodcrushers move towards Warp Spiders. Shooting kills two Harlequins from the Rhino and remaining Chaos Marines. I flame his Warp Spiders and kill all of them. Chaos Marines charge and kill the Harlequins. I charge the Autarch with my Lord and Hounds, with combat drawn. Bikers charge the Dire Avengers, losing the champion to over watch and the other before he gets to attack. Jump Lord assaults the Wraithknight, and promptly dies terribly. One wound Bloodcrusher dies to over watch against the Dark Reapers. But my Lord's death spawns the Bloodthirster, who loses 3 wounds.
Turn 4:
Wraithknight moves towards Lord and Hounds. Swooping hawks move towards Chaos Marines. Dire Avengers move back towards the Dark Reapers. Rangers kill nothing. Dark Reapers kill the last Bloodcrushers. Swooping Hawks kill the Chaos Marines. Combat continues, and Lord kills the Autarch.
I summon a Bloodthirster out of my Terminator champion. Both Terminators move towards the Rangers. Melting Bloodthirster lands. Lord moves towards the Dire Avengers. Terminators charge the Rangers, killing them all and consolidates towards Wraithknight. Lord kills all the Dire Avengers, consolidates an inch from the Dark Reapers. Melting Bloodthirster takes a wound, having one left.
Turn 5:
He doesn't move at all. Wraithknight shoots the Lord unit, kill and the Hounds. Dark Reapers kill the melting Bloodthirster. Swooping Hawks kill a cultist unit.
I summon a squad of Bloodcrushers right next to his Swooping Hawks. Bloodthirster lands next to the Wraithknight. Terminators kind of move around a little. Lord charges the Dark Reapers, and kills them all.
Game continues.
Turn 6:
Swooping Hawks shoot the Bloodcrushers, putting two wounds on them. Wraithknight charges the Bloodthirster. Bloodthirster Instant Deaths the Wraithknight before he can swing.
I move my remaining cultist unit onto an objective, move the Lord onto an objective, move the Terminators on objectives, and the Rhino onto an objective. My Bloodcrushers charge the Swooping Hawks, killing them all.
Game over, with him being tabled. I had all the objectives, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord, and First Blood. He had nothing. So, with that victory I move onto the Champion table.
He had the units to beat me, but he made a HUGE mistake of moving his Wave Serpents straight at me. He also had some questionable target priority issues as well as strange Swooping Hawks decisions. I tried summoning a Bloodthirster straight this time, and boy did it pay off as it one shotted his Wraithknight. Really not pleased with the Possessed at all.
I was riding high from both the victory here, as well as winning best painted model at the tournament, which I've included on here because I haven't posted it anywhere and I want to show him off. (not based in the picture)
I can't stand his list. Really gives me a jaded idea of Tau. Last tournament I played this exact list again at the Champion table with my Be'Lakor nurgle Bike Chaos Marines and I was tabled in three turns. So I'm guessing this will be much of the same.
Deployment: Dawn of War, The Emperor's Will He puts his commander and the plasma suits into reserves, and infiltrates his Kroot. I only took one picture this game, which shows his deployment pretty well even though it was on turn three, and clearly shows his intent on playing. I'll summarize it here: Castle.
I put everything into reserves again. My bikers are split up, one on the left flank, one on the right flank. Lord and hounds are on the right. CC Cultists are on the Right as well. Possessed in the Rhino are in the middle with the Autogun Cultists.
He gets first turn. I fail to seize.
Turn 1: He doesn't move. Shooting kills a few Hounds, both biker units, my Rhino, a few autogun cultists and a couple marines.
I move my Possessed and run them straight up. Cultists shuffle. Chaos Marines move forward.
Turn 2: He doesn't get his commander. Shooting kills my Lord and Hounds, two possessed, the autogun cultists, and a few more marines.
I summon a Bloodthirster. I roll for reserves and get both Terminator units and my Raptors and Lord. My Flamer Terminators scatter into a building, which I thought they mishapped, he protested and said you can land on separate levels. I wasn't about to argue if it helped, and I'm quite sure he just felt bad at this point. Melta Terminators mishap and go into ongoing reserves. Raptors and Lord mishap and he gets to place them. He puts them at the back of my deployment zone, and I run them to space them apart. I move the marines up with the possessed. My terminators flame his pathfinders and kill all from one squad and all but one from another.
Turn 3: His commander comes on and land next to the Terminators. A squad of Missile Pod Suits moves up to kill the cultists. Shooting kills my terminators, the rest of the marines my Raptors and Jump Lord, and a few cultists. Cultists pass morale.
I roll again for reserves and get everything. Melta terminators pop up next to the Missile Pod Suits that ventured out. One Bloodcrusher unit comes right in front of the Aegis Line. The other scatters and mishaps, going into ongoing reserves. The Bloodletters scatter 12" and land pretty much in my deployment zone. Melting Bloodthirster flies forward and whips a Firewarrior to death. The other flies forward and whips another poor Firewarrior. Possessed move up. Melting Bloodthirster takes three wounds.
Turn 4: His Riptide moves towards my deployment zone. His shooting kills my other Terminators except for the champion, the Bloodcrushers, the cultists, the possessed the Melting Bloodthirster, and puts three wounds on the other one. He doesn't get grounded.
It's hopeless at this point but I summon another Bloodthirster with the Champion. I land the other Bloodthirster and whip something with both. Of course, he saves them with cover saves.
Turn 5: He kills both Bloodthirster.
Game over. I'm tabled. At least I lasted longer this time.
Well. It went about as well as I expected it would. The army isn't optimized clearly and I've got some reworking to do. It apparently handles mid tier armies pretty well, but against the higher tier it wavers a bit. There are two more tournaments coming up this month and I'll bring a different list to those and see what I can do. Maybe try out starting with a Bloodthirster on the board. To be honest, I'm not super impressed with the lords. I think just going straight CAD with two Bloodthirsters is the better option. I'm definitely bringing one Insensate Rage one next time. I can't wait to try him out.
Anyways, here's the Daemon Prince I did (Hopefully it works, I'm not good with pictures on here):
There are plenty of changes I'd make to such a list, you should take a close look at my article. The most obvious thing is your lack of flesh hounds. You need minimum 10 for your lord if you want to survive Tau.
crimson_caesar wrote: There are plenty of changes I'd make to such a list, you should take a close look at my article. The most obvious thing is your lack of flesh hounds. You need minimum 10 for your lord if you want to survive Tau.
That more was a factor of me only having 5 Flesh Hounds in the new style I run them as (cold ones, because daemon dinosaurs are awesome). But my hope is to eventually have 30 of them to use liberally in lists. Traditionally I've used a lot of them in my Daemons lists. Just haven't transferred them over yet.
Boy I hope so, I've invested in them already! I suspect Raptors will be decent with 2 meltaguns, we'll see about the Warp Talons. I'm going to run a Blood Host with a Bloodstorm formation in it (probably the best way to run Raptors/Talons since you can also get a Hellturkey!) next month if I can, I'll let you guys know how it turns out!
@Ignatius: I love that Daemon prince, kinda makes me wish I had used a few leftover bits from my Bloodthirster model for my Prince!
Doesn't need to be great, I'm gearing up mostly for apocalypse so looks > functionality - *but* not if the model is utterly worthless
Is there something else that would work as a profile for walking daemon prince looking creatures? Like spawn but without the randomness as it doesn't fit the model
Edit: While I'm here, I figured I'd get confirmation on something. Somebody said that you can attach CSM (etc) characters to the demon units from this codex because its lacking Daemonic Instability, is that true? I have a whole bunch of juggernaughts ready for vicious looking chaos lord riders if thats true...
perhaps this is not the place to ask, but given that "Lords of slaughter" is a formation in the daemonkin codex, can you take an army composed entirely of bloodthirsters?
Edit: While I'm here, I figured I'd get confirmation on something. Somebody said that you can attach CSM (etc) characters to the demon units from this codex because its lacking Daemonic Instability, is that true? I have a whole bunch of juggernaughts ready for vicious looking chaos lord riders if thats true...
Absolutely True. And a massive selling point of the DK list
Automatically Appended Next Post:
slamma wrote: perhaps this is not the place to ask, but given that "Lords of slaughter" is a formation in the daemonkin codex, can you take an army composed entirely of bloodthirsters?
The Lord of Slaughter selection isn't a formation, it's just a plug in for the blood host, but you are limited to one per Slaughter cult.
I think the list is flexible enough that you can take lots of Bloodthirsters if you really want to tho.
slamma wrote: perhaps this is not the place to ask, but given that "Lords of slaughter" is a formation in the daemonkin codex, can you take an army composed entirely of bloodthirsters?
The Lord of Slaughter selection isn't a formation, it's just a plug in for the blood host, but you are limited to one per Slaughter cult.
I think the list is flexible enough that you can take lots of Bloodthirsters if you really want to tho.
ah, so battle scribe has mislead me. haha. "war engine" must be the same way.
Dakkamite wrote: Thats pretty sweet. Not sure what I think about losing fearless but anything that lets me run numerous juggerlords is cool by me
Why would you loose fearless?
Automatically Appended Next Post: I just got to ask how the missions look like in your areas? Here in northern sweden we play with maelstrom missions combined different killpoints, secondary are often linebreaker, slay the warlord or first strike (1vp if you manage to take something out first turn. Applies to both players).
This often influence the list we make here. For us maelstrom has been the reason wh40k became fun again.
How do the blood tithe work, tactically, for you guys?
I only played two games with Daemon Kin yet.
First game I summoned a lot of blood crushers (didnt want to summon MCs because it was against DE with poison kabalite raiders), and also profited greatly from FNP and other bonuses + extra for slaughtercult.
The other game I summoned a bloodthirster pretty quickly (the blood tithes were only from my own units though, LOL). and had some minor buffs after that.
The BT managed to draw alot of fire and cut off a big tyranid monster head -chop!
I am myself sceptic of the summoning MC thing, because of late arrival and vulnerable landing time etc, but if the timing and opponent is right, it can work out well.
All in all, the blood points is gained more easily than i first thought they would, and has been a great (if not essential) part of the armys viability.
However, it make me think twice before I get lots of expencive crushers or that second skullcannon, because I might summon them.
Do you guys plan for summoning buffs, units or just take the bonus of blood tithes as/if they come by?
Summoned objective grabs?
Edit: @Ignatius, Thats a really well done Daemon Prince, and well deserved price winner!
I played the blood host a few times but the extra tithe didnt way up for the extra cost of the possessed. Worth it if you want to go heavy on warengines or double gorepack. You can still go pure demonkin with cad+gorepack, works perfectly. Depending on what am facing i go primary fnp secondary summon more hounds because of their durability and movement.
I love this codex but there are some questions on rules. Plus would it have killed GW to give us an upgrade to give Rhinos the assult vehicle rule. I mean we are an assult army. So a 25 point upgrade for a Rhino I would gladly pay.
scythewing wrote: I love this codex but there are some questions on rules. Plus would it have killed GW to give us an upgrade to give Rhinos the assult vehicle rule. I mean we are an assult army. So a 25 point upgrade for a Rhino I would gladly pay.
1. Khorne cares not if its the blood of an enemy or the blood of berzerkers trying to climb out of a transport.
2. GW aim to keep chaos players frustrated and bitter to get them "in the mood" of their chaos marines.
3. Just granting them assault rhinos would be really strange in a larger perspective.
But they might have done a formation (I think it is or used to be an apoc formation) where berserkers hang on to/climb around on a group of defilers and use them as (assault)transports.
Anyway, the plentitude of fast moving units in this codex, as well as the bonus when your units die, make the lack of assault vehicles a lesser problem than for ordinary CSM.
I'm also very old school and remember when you could assult out of a rhino. I was just hoping they might bring that back for a little boost for the armies of Khorne. But I forgot Chaos hasn't seen real GW love for quite some time.
After alot of games with demonkin i cant see myself go back to playing csm/demons. This codex got everything a cc junkie wants.
Just got back from a game vs tyranids where i won with 18-2. Almost a wipe, he had a flyrant with 3 wounds left. Great game against a really good tyranid player.
MVP = my 3 grinders
Khorne has been hard to play before demonkin since nurgle was so much better in csm and all other where better in demon codex. (1 unit of hounds with herald was the way to go then).
Dakkamite wrote: Thats pretty sweet. Not sure what I think about losing fearless but anything that lets me run numerous juggerlords is cool by me
Why would you loose fearless?
Automatically Appended Next Post: I just got to ask how the missions look like in your areas? Here in northern sweden we play with maelstrom missions combined different killpoints, secondary are often linebreaker, slay the warlord or first strike (1vp if you manage to take something out first turn. Applies to both players).
This often influence the list we make here. For us maelstrom has been the reason wh40k became fun again.
Looking at my daemon codex, fearless came from the instability rules. I've seen people mentioning "we lost instability and gained fearless" but haven't found that particular rule yet - not that the DK digital codex is particularly well formatted, nor am I particularly good with rules so please do point out how I'm wrong and my daemons get to be fearless again
Unit of 10-15 hounds + maybe a lord on jugg are good against D-scythe WG, they can survive the wall of death and tar pit them in combat for a few turns eventually killing the WG off.
Dakkamite wrote: Thats pretty sweet. Not sure what I think about losing fearless but anything that lets me run numerous juggerlords is cool by me
Why would you loose fearless?
Automatically Appended Next Post: I just got to ask how the missions look like in your areas? Here in northern sweden we play with maelstrom missions combined different killpoints, secondary are often linebreaker, slay the warlord or first strike (1vp if you manage to take something out first turn. Applies to both players).
This often influence the list we make here. For us maelstrom has been the reason wh40k became fun again.
Looking at my daemon codex, fearless came from the instability rules. I've seen people mentioning "we lost instability and gained fearless" but haven't found that particular rule yet - not that the DK digital codex is particularly well formatted, nor am I particularly good with rules so please do point out how I'm wrong and my daemons get to be fearless again
Instability was not exactly fearless. In Daemonkin, no unit has daemonic instability, but I think one of the two rules (cant remember witch) "skulls for the skull throne", or "blood for the blood god", grant daemons fearless instead (and the ability to mix daemon/marine as usual IC/units mix.
Im away from my dex at the moment and cant give a better answer though.
1.) I love the D-Thirster. Its weaknesses are obvious, but in one game that went very well for me one of my D-Thirsters (I ran 2) killed an Iron Hands chapter master with all the trimmings as well as a Knight Castigator (wah wah!) before getting shot to death.
2.) Spawn + FNP is awesome as long as they get tied up in combat ASAP. Bloodthirsters, Bikers, and Maulerfiends (in my limited playing experience) have drawn all the shooting, leaving the spawn free to move and charge as they will. I had an allied CSM Juggerlord with AoBF joined to them, and they were brutal.
3.) Hounds. I love hounds. I've only been able to use a unit of 5, but even that has been to great effect. Now that I have 35 assembled, they will be glorious.
4.) Bikers with meltaguns, though very fragile, can do some work. I struggle with using them properly at times, but with the right tactics and cover on the table I bet they will kill much more.
5.) Maulerfiends simply cannot be ignored. I take 3, and sometimes they all die on the first turn if I'm not lucky. That's okay, because it usually takes just about all the opponent's shooting to accomplish this, leaving the rest of my army free to charge. When the fiends do survive to reach the enemy vehicles, they tear through them wonderfully.
6.) I don't like the Slaughtercult. It is a great formation, but really not my cup of tea. I'm not a fan of power armored units right now due to their cost and effectiveness (not that they're all that bad). Honestly, I have yet to be short on Blood Tithe points so I'm not missing the free point per turn from the Blood Host (or whatever it's called). The double buff, for sure, is the best part. I'll have to try the formation sooner or later.
I found the slaughter cult a bit... Meh, as I wanted fnp on my hounds, so the cult could only benefit from options 1-2 on the chart , and most units already had furious charge/rage anyway. I think the SC spawn could be a good call. Fnp spawn with furious charge on top is nice
SonsofVulkan wrote: Unit of 10-15 hounds + maybe a lord on jugg are good against D-scythe WG, they can survive the wall of death and tar pit them in combat for a few turns eventually killing the WG off.
Helldrakes take care of a bunched up D-sythe WG unit very nicely. I like sacrificing units as much as the next khorne player but the drake has been excellent at solving the Wraith Guard. Eldar is an up hill battle regardless and MSU are a good way to go, keep spawning more. I wouldn't feed them multi wound units as you play right into the D.
played a maelstrom game against the eldar blah-de-blah detachment (the decurion style one), with seers on foot
stand outs for me were the melta bikers from the gore pack, 2 solo spawn, and oddly, a forgefiend.
though as well as the fiend did, i am curious to try a mauler. the fiend did little to draw enemy fire away from my jugger lord and his hounds, and switching to a mauler would free up points for more wounds in the hound unit. while the fiend got all its points back and more(??), the hounds were just a fire magnet who wrecked some guardians and then got shot to bits. 11 hounds is just not enough… though… long range shooting is nice to have.
the other thought is to drop the fiend altogether and grab a drake.
the axe of ruin guy being tithed for a prince and a bloodthirster drew some serious ire from my opponent… though the prince mis-happed and was foot slogging in the far corner, and the blood thirster managed to whiff all 7 attacks he got in one charge… (what a chump). also, he was alive at the end of the game.
i was amazed with the tithe points. not only is it a fun system, but result #2 was devastating on the turn i charged with 4-5 units, and the following game turn i racked up 11 points…
though i'm not sure what the most effective tithe method is just yet.
ps, this army was a lot of fun to play.
list i used here
Spoiler:
1500
lord, jugg, sigil, power sword, goredrinker
lord, jump pack, axe of ruin, combi-melta
I thought it was time to tell my side on the competitive side of Khorne Demonkin. I play in an enviroment with alot of maelstrom missions combined with different secondaries that really makes the games fun and interesting to play. This of course mould my lists into a certain way.
Blood host detatchement is a cool feature but after alot of games i have dismissed it as being competitive at this time.
The best way to run pure Demonkin for my part has been CAD + Gorepack and here are a few reasons why
2 hq, 3 fast, 3 heavy and still being able to put in 4 units of flesh hounds and up to 4 units of bikes, if thats not competitive nothing is =)
HQ. Lord on juggernaut, herald on juggernaut and the D-thirster are what works. The lord is a real beatstick with 7 attacks on the charge with 2 weapons, I have tried a few setups and the axe of khorne/power fist or L-claw/power fist works for me. Slap a sigil of corruption on him and he´s ready to rock and roll. The herald i usually use for the hatred and fearless he can bring to the table, other than that he is kinda poop. D-thirster is fun if the opponent doesnt know what threat he is if he can connect in cc, but in a competitive enviroment who doesnt. Still in the right list with alot of threats he can survive long enough to make a difference.
ELITE. I dont play with anything in this slot yet since i havent found anything that can boost the cc in a list. I have seen some big units of crushers with 2-3 characters but
it´s not my cup of tea.
TROOPS. Here are alot of options but a few are quite expensive for what they do. Bloodletters are nice because they can deep strike and are fearless so not that bad, Cultists are cheap but not fearless, here you can go either 8man or a big unit, both works. Marines and berserkers are cool but if your area doesnt play with FW then i wouldnt bother.
FAST. Ohh here is where it get interesting, we have bikes, spawns, helldrake, flesh hounds, really good stuff. All of these are very good and it is here you mould your list.
Helldrake with baleflamer has risen from the ashes, combined with the offensive pressure Demonkin has it fit perfectly in most lists.Bikes and flesh hounds I usually leave for gorepack but if I have the need for more i add it here. Spawns have always been a good unit in CSM and they fill a purpose here as well. I like to run small units of spawns that are big enough to survive for a couple of turns and even take out something in the process.
HEAVY. Landraider can be a fun thing but is a huge pointsink when going competitive, Maulerfiends are good, but not good enough with av12. they just cant survive in this meta with all that str 6 shooting. Melta version is cheaper but without lash its just another dreadnought who can move 12", so you have to go with lash and that makes them to expensive for that they can offer
What really stands out here is the soulgrinder, go torrent flamer on him and rush him up with the others, perfect for a second or third wave. Go phlegm and you have a way to thin out units with long range shooting that can take your units apart. The av13 makes it immune to flyrants, scatbikes and other str 6 shooting. In cc he is better than a mauler due to just av13 , 1 extra hp and 1 extra attack. In my eyes pure win.
There you have my take on how to make a competitive Demonkin. Once the tithe starts to kick in the army becomes unstoppable.
If you dont wanna go pure demonkin then mix in some Csm sorcerers that can make your thirster or hounds invisible, go crazy on biomancy and just kick ass, load up with some nurgle oblits for some shooting etc etc.
I want to finish with a list that I have been trying out for a few games that has been really fun and competitive ( at least where up here in the north)
Lord-jugg,sigil,axe of khorne, power fist, skullhelm
Herald - jugg, wrath
I want to finish with a list that I have been trying out for a few games that has been really fun and competitive ( at least where up here in the north)
Lord-jugg,sigil,axe of khorne, power fist, skullhelm
Herald - jugg, wrath
I am curious as to why you run the herald on a juggernaut with the cultists. I understand wanting to buff that big blob (and the herald with the wrath locus is pretty good for that!), but why pay for the jugg when you're just running with a slow footslogging unit like Cultists? I would think that a juggernaut is only worth it if you need speed (like running with flesh hounds/spawn/bloodcrushers). I know that it may be a stupid question, but as an up-and-coming KhorneKin player I am curious as to the reasoning here.
Also, does anyone think that it is worth taking a sword on a soul grinder? The cost is pretty steep for what it does, but it makes the model look pretty badass!
@Zergsmasher
Several reasons actually, in challenges he has more wounds, t5, +1 attack. He can move more freely, slingshot the blob if needed. And when the blob is almost dead he can leave them to join hounds and continue to give his buffs. The juggernaut gives him more options later in the game.
So khornes fist comes in around 700 pts.. but does let you accurately deposit 20 zerkers into the enemy centre, turn 1. With some supporting shooting, and a bonus D hit. Not bad. Potentially multiassault and lock up a whole chunk of army.
Can't recall if the kharybdis can take dirge casters.. that would help...
Yeah, though even if it doesn't it wouldn't matter too much. There are very few units in the game that can put a dent in 20 marines with overwatch fire alone.
After playing a fun CSM/Daemon Khorne list & getting stopped I was looking at seeing what this Daemonkin offers. It was against a Grey Knights list so I suppose that was to be expected. Not only do they have guns compared to my claws & chain axes they also are clearly better in the assault.
It seems from a quick glance that main benefit is getting 3 Blood Tide points for the army wide FnP. I don't own a Blood Thrister & don't want to be TFG who summons BT to crush little timmy.
I don't have the codex yet but I imagine that all the points & unit upgrades are more or less the same right?
Its a new supplement, Fall of angelus Prime or something like that, which is Khorne Daemonkin Vs Ultramarines.
Its a warhammer world exclusive (sigh). I don't know if its a campaign book or an apocalypse warzone.. all the formations look like apoc formation. In fact Khornes fist is the only one under 1000 pts.
Wow, I hope that book becomes legal for all games, that would be so sick! You're granted (practically) to kill two units on turn one. Talk about high pressure. You might even be able to make the berserkers invisible if you swoop Belakor close enough.
Now your opponent has 20 invisible Berserkers with more followers of Khorne coming up the field. GG
As silly as this sounds, using the Warptalon/raptor formation could have helped against Tau. The Bloodletters can pull the talons in and with a banner precision deep strike next to his castle to force initiative checks across his line. You also could use a Heldrake and definitely more hounds to keep the Lords alive to enter cc.
Also note that Talons are str 5 and +2 attacks on a charge base in the DK book. Still pricey but the serve a purpose.
Ignatius wrote: I was riding high from both the victory here, as well as winning best painted model at the tournament, which I've included on here because I haven't posted it anywhere and I want to show him off. (not based in the picture)
I can't stand his list. Really gives me a jaded idea of Tau. Last tournament I played this exact list again at the Champion table with my Be'Lakor nurgle Bike Chaos Marines and I was tabled in three turns. So I'm guessing this will be much of the same.
Deployment: Dawn of War, The Emperor's Will
He puts his commander and the plasma suits into reserves, and infiltrates his Kroot. I only took one picture this game, which shows his deployment pretty well even though it was on turn three, and clearly shows his intent on playing. I'll summarize it here: Castle.
I put everything into reserves again. My bikers are split up, one on the left flank, one on the right flank. Lord and hounds are on the right. CC Cultists are on the Right as well. Possessed in the Rhino are in the middle with the Autogun Cultists.
He gets first turn. I fail to seize.
Turn 1:
He doesn't move. Shooting kills a few Hounds, both biker units, my Rhino, a few autogun cultists and a couple marines.
I move my Possessed and run them straight up. Cultists shuffle. Chaos Marines move forward.
Turn 2:
He doesn't get his commander. Shooting kills my Lord and Hounds, two possessed, the autogun cultists, and a few more marines.
I summon a Bloodthirster. I roll for reserves and get both Terminator units and my Raptors and Lord. My Flamer Terminators scatter into a building, which I thought they mishapped, he protested and said you can land on separate levels. I wasn't about to argue if it helped, and I'm quite sure he just felt bad at this point. Melta Terminators mishap and go into ongoing reserves. Raptors and Lord mishap and he gets to place them. He puts them at the back of my deployment zone, and I run them to space them apart. I move the marines up with the possessed. My terminators flame his pathfinders and kill all from one squad and all but one from another.
Turn 3:
His commander comes on and land next to the Terminators. A squad of Missile Pod Suits moves up to kill the cultists. Shooting kills my terminators, the rest of the marines my Raptors and Jump Lord, and a few cultists. Cultists pass morale.
I roll again for reserves and get everything. Melta terminators pop up next to the Missile Pod Suits that ventured out. One Bloodcrusher unit comes right in front of the Aegis Line. The other scatters and mishaps, going into ongoing reserves. The Bloodletters scatter 12" and land pretty much in my deployment zone. Melting Bloodthirster flies forward and whips a Firewarrior to death. The other flies forward and whips another poor Firewarrior. Possessed move up. Melting Bloodthirster takes three wounds.
Turn 4:
His Riptide moves towards my deployment zone. His shooting kills my other Terminators except for the champion, the Bloodcrushers, the cultists, the possessed the Melting Bloodthirster, and puts three wounds on the other one. He doesn't get grounded.
It's hopeless at this point but I summon another Bloodthirster with the Champion. I land the other Bloodthirster and whip something with both. Of course, he saves them with cover saves.
Turn 5:
He kills both Bloodthirster.
Game over. I'm tabled. At least I lasted longer this time.
Well. It went about as well as I expected it would. The army isn't optimized clearly and I've got some reworking to do. It apparently handles mid tier armies pretty well, but against the higher tier it wavers a bit. There are two more tournaments coming up this month and I'll bring a different list to those and see what I can do. Maybe try out starting with a Bloodthirster on the board. To be honest, I'm not super impressed with the lords. I think just going straight CAD with two Bloodthirsters is the better option. I'm definitely bringing one Insensate Rage one next time. I can't wait to try him out.
Anyways, here's the Daemon Prince I did (Hopefully it works, I'm not good with pictures on here):
From a new supplement.. possibly limited edition- probably apocalypse only...
Awwww yes, that is so sweet. Thats Berserkers made 'viable' in an instant, if only because they're the only ones able to be in the real heavy hitter in that formation.
Wait, did we just get deep strike assaults? Or would they need to pull a bloodthirster on us - wait in the goddamn pod till the next turn *then* jump out.
Re; the other formations, can anyone tell me how many bloodthirsters are in the anggrath formation? I just got him and want to field him with 8 thirsters, would be so sweet to give them those bonuses (even if they're a bit gak)
Edit: Been looking for cheap ally psykers for the DK. Not to use for cowardly psychic powers - Khorne would not approve! - but purely as a way for more of Khornes servants to enter the battlefield via summoning. Anyone got suggestions? Something like the crappy psykers from the Vraks Renegades list, except that those can't take daemonology as far as I can tell, would be perfect
I *think* we did... The wording is a bit off.. the pod already has the assault vehicle rule, so it looks like a blanket permission to assault on the turn you disembark.
There definitely is such a restriction. The question would be if the new rule provides a blanket override to all restrictions. If it doesn't, then the rule does nothing.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The best allied psykers for summoning are probably horrors and tzeentch heralds. another alternative is flying Prince.
An allied chaos sorceror is probably a better choice, but not very good at summoning.
Eh looking more at humans and mutants. If I wanted tzeench scum I'd be playing vanilla daemons
Re; the assault from reserves;
"this unit may charge in the turn it disembarks from the dread claw"
+
You can disembark from the claw on the turn you land
+
Dread Claws are assault vehicles, so you can already charge when you disembark from them, ergo this is not a rule that merely turns the transport into an assault transport
=
Seems rather obvious that this is an assault from deep strike rule to me, especially considering the alternative is that the rule does nothing at all.
Not really because there is a specific rule overriding it that says you can't charge after arriving from reserve.
What it allows you to do is stay in the pod for protection the charge out of it as it is an assault vehicle.
Can't assault out of reserve.
Can Assault out of an assault vehicle
The pupose of the Assault Vehicle which is pretty damn tough with 5 HP is to protect your men before they disembark and charge. With clever placement away from Melta and a bit of LOS blocking nothing is stopping that vehicle.
Plus it can come down in a safe place first turn.
Then it can move 6 the units inside disembark 6 and charge an average of 7.
It gives you a tough dangerous deepstriking tank with more HP than a Landraider. That points tag makes it marginally uncompetitive but it gives you a way to launch berzerkers.
Edit: Been looking for cheap ally psykers for the DK. Not to use for cowardly psychic powers - Khorne would not approve! - but purely as a way for more of Khornes servants to enter the battlefield via summoning. Anyone got suggestions? Something like the crappy psykers from the Vraks Renegades list, except that those can't take daemonology as far as I can tell, would be perfect
heralds of tzeentch are pretty cheap, and can have a lot of mobility. horrors are cheap as well.
Jaq Draco lives wrote: Not really because there is a specific rule overriding it that says you can't charge after arriving from reserve.
What it allows you to do is stay in the pod for protection the charge out of it as it is an assault vehicle.
Can't assault out of reserve.
Can Assault out of an assault vehicle
The pupose of the Assault Vehicle which is pretty damn tough with 5 HP is to protect your men before they disembark and charge. With clever placement away from Melta and a bit of LOS blocking nothing is stopping that vehicle.
Plus it can come down in a safe place first turn.
Then it can move 6 the units inside disembark 6 and charge an average of 7.
It gives you a tough dangerous deepstriking tank with more HP than a Landraider. That points tag makes it marginally uncompetitive but it gives you a way to launch berzerkers.
If its already an assault vehicle then what does this special rule allowing you to assault when you disembark do?
Specific overrides general rules, if a specific rule is saying you can do X then it overrides the general rules saying you cannot. This rule either allows for deep strike assault or it does nothing at all, which doesn't leave much leeway in my mind for what its suppost to be doing
Edit: Have made a thread in the rules forum to see what they think. They'll dig up some rules nonsense preventing DSA and we can go about our business as though the formation doesn't exist.
Dakkamite wrote: Have made a thread in the rules forum to see what they think. They'll dig up some rules nonsense preventing DSA and we can go about our business as though the formation doesn't exist.
This is of course what will happen. Although I do feel pity for those who own a kharybdis and 20 bezerkers, and will have to go through this poorly written rules debate garbage everytime they wish to use it.
Haha emperor's lapdogs just got this exact formation, but they can shoot twice instead if they want, and it explicitly says they can charge in the assault phase on the turn they come down.
So its better, and clearer. Inb4 it gets ruled that the berserker formation cannot DSA but the loyalist one can.
Jaq Draco lives wrote: Not really because there is a specific rule overriding it that says you can't charge after arriving from reserve.
What it allows you to do is stay in the pod for protection the charge out of it as it is an assault vehicle.
Can't assault out of reserve.
Can Assault out of an assault vehicle
The pupose of the Assault Vehicle which is pretty damn tough with 5 HP is to protect your men before they disembark and charge. With clever placement away from Melta and a bit of LOS blocking nothing is stopping that vehicle.
Plus it can come down in a safe place first turn.
Then it can move 6 the units inside disembark 6 and charge an average of 7.
It gives you a tough dangerous deepstriking tank with more HP than a Landraider. That points tag makes it marginally uncompetitive but it gives you a way to launch berzerkers.
If its already an assault vehicle then what does this special rule allowing you to assault when you disembark do?
I just told you. You can sit in the vehicle protecting yourself and then move and charge out of it. It is after all a skimmer as well.
Its quite clear to me.
Specific overrides general rules, if a specific rule is saying you can do X then it overrides the general rules saying you cannot. This rule either allows for deep strike assault or it does nothing at all, which doesn't leave much leeway in my mind for what its suppost to be doing
The fact that it specifically doesn't over ride the rule means it isn't a specific over ride.
Hawehu@hotmail.com wrote: How good are the bloodcrushers and how to use them?
I just love the juggernoughts models, and i always wanted to run some with my juggerlord.
What can i use them for, and how to use them in relation to having terminators.,since they are in a formation together.
Bloodcrushers are utterly terrible. Overcosted, fragile, incredibly mediocre damage output, and they don't really do anything that you couldn't do better with something else. They're the pyrovores of the Daemon and Khorne codices.
@hawehu
Terminators are best to run as 3man with 3x combi-melta 1 power sword and 2 power axe. Bloodcrushers are not that good but if you run 9 of them with 2 juggerlords you might get something out of them.
Yeah i thought it would be so.
They look fragile with only 5++
But with the formation they get an extra attack in melee if there are more enemies than them, perhaps then, if they get the charge, and there are more enemies, wich it will almost always be if i run a 3 squad, they will have furious charge for S6 A5 ws5.
It seems strong, but not very resillient.
Had a game last night, vs tyranids. I faced a skyblight list that had 4 flyrants, 3 mycolids, 3x10 gargoyles, 2 harpies, 2 crone, 1 pod with a dakkafex.
8 flyers was hard to take down, but i dominated the board taking maelstrom obj, helldrake and grinders + he doing perils took down 2 flyrants, 1 crone, 2 harpes. I won the game 15-5. Once again grinders showed that they are so much better than maulers being almost immune to his shooting, he tried to haywire them down but was to slow.
Worked every game, now am trying to fit in a second helldrake. Wanna see if it makes a difference, i am guessing it can come in handy late game when most of my hounds and spawns are dead
Dakkamite wrote: Sorry mate, I don't really buy the "it does nothing" argument myself, like to think even GW isn't quite *that* incompetent.
There are countless examples that shows them being exactly that incompetent, and worse. I can think of examples just out of the latest edition before we get into codexes.
Depends who gets the charge. But even without doing the math consider this, or at least I did as I am building Khorne lists for the first ever time
15p per wound, 9 wounds across 3 models
T4
6+/5++
They've got some good stuff, if they get that extra attack which I think they do means 15 attacks on the charge and WS5 but other than that its just far to squishy. Deep Strike and fearless don't matter to me when I could be losing them so easily.
Compare them to a marine squad, well I'll take the durability, potential to carry a decent couple of weapons and bolters over a few extra CC attacks. I'll take that every time.
Hawehu@hotmail.com wrote: Oh well, i guess ill buy them then..
Cant believe i still want to buy and paint them...
Im games workshops golden consumer.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Can you think of some ways to use them?
I guess they will be like firemagnets unless i can let them come as melee finishers, and use some other cheap squad to start the bloodcrushing.
What units are good firemagnets for daemonkin? As in cheap and durable and people will actually prioritise shooting them?
I"m new to this as well mind but there seems to be some heavy debate between Soul Grinders which are slow but deep strike and AV13 or Maulerfiends which are brilliantly fast and AV12 Personally I'm leaning towards AV12 Maulerfiends. Put them on the front line x3 and wow thats an insane charge.
There is no debate that flesh hounds are great btw. Bloodletters being mandatory are also cheap.
But at present I'm thinking my list will look like 3x Maulerfiends, a couple of rhinos and some flesh hounds for a first turn in your face mass pile in charge. Lord on a juggernaut to go with the Flesh hounds....might be to squishy not sure. Mandatory possessed will go in one rhino.
I figure I've got about 700-800 points to buy and paint worry about the rest later.
I've been messing around with the lists a lot today, and I'm intrigued at a lot of the possibilities. My biggest hangup is how to deal with massed vehicles/armor. What are people thinking for Tau and Eldar opponents. You can't really give anyone in the army power fists, which makes tanks a bit trickier IMHO. Thoughts?
Kajaki War Pig wrote: I've been messing around with the lists a lot today, and I'm intrigued at a lot of the possibilities. My biggest hangup is how to deal with massed vehicles/armor. What are people thinking for Tau and Eldar opponents. You can't really give anyone in the army power fists, which makes tanks a bit trickier IMHO. Thoughts?
Take meltaguns. Raptors can take 2, CSM can take 2 if they have at least 10 men, bike squads can take 2 as well. Chaos termies can take powerfists and/or combi-meltas, but they are costly and if you're running a blood host you have to pay a tax of 2 bloodcrusher squads (not good...). Otherwise, maulerfiends w/magma cutters, helbrutes, and of course D-thirsters can wreck tanks reasonably well. Just my 2 cents.
You forget that you hit vehicles in the rear, only walkers fight with front armor. So you have to beat av10 against most vehicles. Magma cutters? When you have str 10 attacks on maulers, hounds will glance vehicles to death. They have str 5 on the charge so can take out vehicles with av 11 rear such as leman russ, ghost arcs etc.
Khorne Cultists are amazing against most vehicles - 4 Str4 attacks each on the charge makes them very likely to glance out any AV10 rear armour vehicle. The trouble is getting them into CC, however I've noticed alot of people tend to under-estimate those little Cultist squads. Flesh Hounds are also very good for the same reason - though they have 1 less attack on the charge, their 12" movement more than makes up for it.
It's only really AV13 walkers or Land Raiders you'll need to worry about. AV13 walkers are awkward to deal with since Krak Grenades can't hurt them in CC, and you'll need at least Str7 to glance them. Luckily there's plenty of places to take Melta and some of them are even fast moving (Bikes/Raptors).
doomarn wrote: Cultists are str 3 and has rage, countercharge, not furious charge. But with 2 tithe pts you can give them furious.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that you give them the Rage/Furious Charge reward to make them S4. Particularly effective in a Slaughtercult since you can get that reward for free.
Kajaki War Pig wrote: I've been messing around with the lists a lot today, and I'm intrigued at a lot of the possibilities. My biggest hangup is how to deal with massed vehicles/armor. What are people thinking for Tau and Eldar opponents. You can't really give anyone in the army power fists, which makes tanks a bit trickier IMHO. Thoughts?
Raptors or Warp Talons with Melta? Maulerfiends also are pretty good at this assuming they live.
Kajaki War Pig wrote: I've been messing around with the lists a lot today, and I'm intrigued at a lot of the possibilities. My biggest hangup is how to deal with massed vehicles/armor. What are people thinking for Tau and Eldar opponents. You can't really give anyone in the army power fists, which makes tanks a bit trickier IMHO. Thoughts?
Raptors or Warp Talons with Melta? Maulerfiends also are pretty good at this assuming they live.
Yeah I suppose this is the obvious answer. I've just had very little luck with the my Raptors with my Night Lords list. I suppose that since a metric ton of stuff is going to be appearing via deep strike, they are probably a lot less likely to get shot to hell in the turn they deep strike.
I'm also thinking about the Chaos Giant Spined Beas in place of Maulers. 4 wounds, T6, means it's not getting insta killed, MC will give it +1 to it's anti-armor roll, and a base of STR 7 means that it should be able to shred just about any tank. Plus the fact that they are deep striking demons gives only 1 turn for them to get shot at before the pain starts to flow.
Most importantly, I found some pretty sweet models that fit the fluff of what I'm thinking
Kajaki War Pig wrote: I've been messing around with the lists a lot today, and I'm intrigued at a lot of the possibilities. My biggest hangup is how to deal with massed vehicles/armor. What are people thinking for Tau and Eldar opponents. You can't really give anyone in the army power fists, which makes tanks a bit trickier IMHO. Thoughts?
Raptors or Warp Talons with Melta? Maulerfiends also are pretty good at this assuming they live.
Yeah I suppose this is the obvious answer. I've just had very little luck with the my Raptors with my Night Lords list. I suppose that since a metric ton of stuff is going to be appearing via deep strike, they are probably a lot less likely to get shot to hell in the turn they deep strike.
I'm also thinking about the Chaos Giant Spined Beas in place of Maulers. 4 wounds, T6, means it's not getting insta killed, MC will give it +1 to it's anti-armor roll, and a base of STR 7 means that it should be able to shred just about any tank. Plus the fact that they are deep striking demons gives only 1 turn for them to get shot at before the pain starts to flow.
Most importantly, I found some pretty sweet models that fit the fluff of what I'm thinking
That would have to be allied in though, its not in the allowed forgeworld lists I think? I did post a list earlier on but I'm not 100% without checking.
In terms of getting the Warp Talons to do what they need to do. Well there is craploads moving up the field but a smart player is going to take out your melta first anyway, they know the threats. Combine it with maulerfiends etc. though then the opponent can focus on one but there is a solid chance he'll lose it to the other.
Had another game today, this time against eldar. Omg they are tough, luckily i grabbed first turn so i was able to press 5 units of hounds + bikes in his face to give him hard choices. In his turn 1 he killed 4 hounds in 4 units with scatbikes and D-batteries. Wraithknight popped 1 grinder with D-shooting and wraithguards with flamers + 10 scatbikes killed 9 hounds in my 11 strong unit.. Talk about nasty shooting. I managed to get a draw after 6 turns, but the wk alone took out 1k pts of units with either shooting and cc. I managed to take 3 wounds from it total.
doomarn wrote: Had a game last night, vs tyranids. I faced a skyblight list that had 4 flyrants, 3 mycolids, 3x10 gargoyles, 2 harpies, 2 crone, 1 pod with a dakkafex.
8 flyers was hard to take down, but i dominated the board taking maelstrom obj, helldrake and grinders + he doing perils took down 2 flyrants, 1 crone, 2 harpes. I won the game 15-5. Once again grinders showed that they are so much better than maulers being almost immune to his shooting, he tried to haywire them down but was to slow.
My regular tyrnanid opponent runs something similar to this and I have yet to win a game. There's simply way too many flying monstrous creatures for me to kill. I'm never lucky enough for him to perils on his flyrants. How are you getting these kills? I can't find any sky fire in the book and it's heartbreaking to have to rely on vector striking with my bloodthirsters who are wasted in the air.
I get ignoring them and racking up points but we play non maelstrom game types up here. I'm just confused how to actually kill flyers with this codex.
Does anyone take a sword on their Grinders? I just bought a kit, and I think it will look cooler with the sword, but in the codex it seems pricey for what you get.
So how viable is a bike heavy min troop list with daemonkin? I have wanted to try this with CSM for some time but it seems rather weak. A biker lord with Axe of Khorne leading a squad of 4+champ with IoW and 2x melta sound good? Maybe two min CSM squads with plasma and rhinos? Throw in a helldrake and have a decent 1000p list. What does Dakka think?
They have to be allied in though, its not in the allowed forgeworld lists I think? I did post a list earlier on but I'm not 100% without checking.
I've seen them on yours and several lists. Seems to be primarily as a result of the fact that they can take the Mark of Khorne (for free no less).
The truly fun answer would be giant chaos spawn, since then they are only 80 points a model, but until FW does something more than 'MoK only' that sort of spam is just an evil pipe dream of mine.
Bikes are great as 3 with 2x melta. Cheap, expendable and if left alone can do some nice obj taking. I dont think making bigger units will be efficient since they cant take much more than those 2 melta anyway.
Flesh hounds is a better choice all day long.
The idea of a biker heavy chaos army is cool though but for competitive play it will not be any good.
I've only played 2 games with daemonkin but have seen some great things compared to CSM and some not so great. Beyond the obvious stuff some things that caught my eye were:
**Juggernaut points increase
**Terminator Champion options cost now the same as the rest of the termies, it sucks in CSM that you have to pay more for a combi-weapons, so the termicides here are nice
**Lack of Dirge Casters, if this is an all assault army why take them out?
**Land Raider not being able to get dozer blades, might not be as important, since not many people play LR but when you decide to give it a go and it gets stuck due to a 1 on your side of the table well... those 5 points on CSM at least gives a huge chance to avoid it
**As previously mentioned FnP is huge from the Blood Tithe and the slaughtercult being able to benefit from only the 1 & 2 results is terrible since more than half the units already have rage/FC, BUT, when your forces are getting thin down and you need to use you points for any summoning getting FNP on your marines/possesses/spawns/lord is awesome
Regarding the lists, I've been running a Slaugthercult + CAD. I know gorepack are the word but I really want to use my raptors I got 25 of them, and the raptor+warp talons formations isn't that good, so I stick to the CAD for fielding them.
My Chaos Lord from the Slaughtercult has a goredrinker, I'm completely against the Axe of Khorne, it is pretty expensive, and even thou the Ap2 at Initiative is great S4 that is also an specialist weapon, leave you with few attacks, that if facing a T5 model (and there are LOTS of them around) it makes it a waste of those points imho. I think that the best option is PF/LC for a jugger lord, however the goredrinker is pretty fluffy, and after a few wounds it is as good as the PF/LC combo. However a really important thing is that IF the lords gets in a tight spot, or is down to his las 1 o 2 wounds, you can give him daemonhood and the DP will now have axe, which removes the I1 penalty and as soon as he scores 1 wound you'll be a having a DP with S8 attacks, and probably rampage as well which will buff greatly its dmg potential.
The rest of the slaughtercult is pretty basic, 8 zerks, 10 CSM with meltas and possessed on rhino and the Maulferfiend for the Blood Host. The CAD runs the mandatory Herald Juggy with the Hatred Loci, 2 units of 8 cultists as troops, 2 units of 8 raptors with meltas, 15 hounds and a termicide with meltas/plasmas.
I used to field blood letters instead of the cultists but, if you aim to eventually field a DP or BT you need the mortal vessels, and if they are scattered all around the map the better, so... with the termicide you get to DS on enemy territory to use their combis, and whatever they do afterwards is a bonus, in the worst case scenario they'll give you 2 blood tithe points, if the champion is the last to survive it allows you to summon a BT on their back while your main force is probably already engaging the mid field in close combat, as well as the termies some cultists will allow you to summon daemons of even a BT out of the champion to defend your back.
I think dirge casters are considered to be a Slaanesh upgrade or something. If so, then it makes sense to not have them in the Khorne codex.
I played my first game with Daemonkin the other day (1000 point armies), but sadly we didn't get to finish since the store was getting ready to close, so we called it a draw. We forgot some rules and misinterpreted others (this was my opponent's first game of 40k against someone other than his friend that started learning the game with him), so I hardly can call it a game. My opponent was running Dark Angels using the contents of 2 DV starters with minor conversions. I was running a fluffy list using relatively tame units (decided mercifully to leave the heldrake at home lol). While the gameplay wasn't what it could have been had we been doing it right, it did show me just how powerful the Daemonkin codex is. Army-wide FnP is HUGE, and Possessed may be one of the most underrated units in the codex (They get so many attacks on the charge, especially if you get result 3 on their table like I did )! I look forward to my next tournament so I can see what this army can really do!
Hmmm how has goredrinker worked out for you, Lord Yayula?
Played a few sick games today, 750 points with a competitive list. It wrecked face. I find Kor'lath's axe to be a bit too slow to make much of a difference. My lord usually dies around turn 4 or 5, if at all, and I usually spent my blood tithe points on FNP. I guess it's pointless to take at less than 1000 points, but idk.
Also curious what you guys think of naked Spawn vs. naked Fleshhounds (no ICs).
Problem with the goredrinker is tje unwieldy. Often i find the flesh hounds to finish what i charge before the lord can strike. Because you want to run into squishy things to build his stats up beforw you take on something nasty like twc, mc and other deathstars.
The lclaw, pf combo is good but if you can afford the extra 15p i would recommend the axe of khorne /pfist combo, its really sad to have to fight a cc character with 2+ save like say an ironpriest on twc, since he will double out your lord with his str 10 at initiativ 1, and you want to kill him before that. (happened to me)
RAW… you don't really have to use gore drinker. (i know this isn't YMDC, i'm just saying)
i paired it up with a power sword for AP3 at initiative, and was psyched.
though, the PF/LC combo seems just all around… better. it'd be nifty if the axe was on your warlord and you daemon princed him...
We dont play goredrinker like that here, it feels like cheating same with 1 comma in the slay or slain in challenge crap. I play to win my games because i am a competative player and so are my friends but we dont exploit stuff like that.
Played a few sick games today, 750 points with a competitive list. It wrecked face. I find Kor'lath's axe to be a bit too slow to make much of a difference. My lord usually dies around turn 4 or 5, if at all, and I usually spent my blood tithe points on FNP. I guess it's pointless to take at less than 1000 points, but idk.
Also curious what you guys think of naked Spawn vs. naked Fleshhounds (no ICs).
I like the hounds better. With FNP on top of the invuln I've often found them to be tougher, especially when fighting armies with plentiful amounts str6 and 7. But this is just in my experience.
For the same cost as 1 spawn you get 2 hounds.
So lets compare that.
Spawn: t5, d6 attacks, str 5, ws 3, 3w,
no saves, rage.
2x hounds: t4, 4 attacks, str 4, ws 5, 4w, 5++ save, scout, furious charge.
....
The more we add the better the hounds get vs spawns. I am not saying spawns should not be played with, just that there is a place for everything.
As example when i run cad+gorepack i use small units of spawns to tie up stuff while the hounds do all the work.
In my bloodhost + csm i use a big spawn unit for my herald and sorcerer, screen with small units of hounds. There are lots of ways to play either.
Never noticed that. Sucks, but still, that price is pretty fantastic
And I don't see myself running an arch demagogue anytime soon. Hordemaster dude is where its at, pity running fat blobs of troops is so tiresome because that 2+ outflanking reroll is hilarious
Edit: Main reason its tiresome is spacing for blasts... but with 2+ respawn and outflank you want them to die. You want your opponents large blasts to target them, better to hit and kill 20 losers than one slightly more valuable unit, and the sooner they die the sooner they outflank. So just shovel them up the table or even put on densely packed movement trays.
doomarn wrote: Problem with the goredrinker is tje unwieldy. Often i find the flesh hounds to finish what i charge before the lord can strike. Because you want to run into squishy things to build his stats up beforw you take on something nasty like twc, mc and other deathstars.
The lclaw, pf combo is good but if you can afford the extra 15p i would recommend the axe of khorne /pfist combo, its really sad to have to fight a cc character with 2+ save like say an ironpriest on twc, since he will double out your lord with his str 10 at initiativ 1, and you want to kill him before that. (happened to me)
The Axe of Khorne/PF or even the LC/PF won't do any good against that iron priest, actually Axe of Khorne/PF would be the worst option, since if you get killed you are losing a model with 55 points worth of weapons, instead of 40 in the LC/PF or 30 with the Goredrinker. You score 1.55 wounds with the Axe of Khorne assuming you get the charge if you don't it goes down to 1.11 wounds, he would strike back with 4 S10 attacks if I'm not mistaken, again assuming the jugger got the charge the priest would score 0.8333 instant kill wounds with a 4++, so really it's a lost battle against him, those 25 extra points over goredrinker give you the slight hope that you get an instakill wound.
I've had just 2 games with the goredrinker, one where it shinned and another one where I didn't get to use any bonus. Against a DE army (1st game against the new DE), I let myself get charged by a HUGE unit of abominations? Can't remember the exact name, but are the ones with multiple wounds and insta-kill on 6s guided by a Homonculus, and charged by the archon and his incubbi bodyguard at the same time. The abominations made quick work of the hounds, and my Herald got pretty unlucky by being hit with the insta-kill blade of the archon on a 6. So, my jugger only managed to kill 5 incubbi, and then even thou he survived the instant death wounds from the archon there were lots of instant death from the abomination units, and eventually failed one of those. This was my first game with daemonkin, and I didn't give my army FnP on the first turn because I wanted to summon a unit of letters with instrument and blood banner, so that they could get my soul grinder into play. That was a huge mistake, with FnP I'd have survived the wounds with the hounds and hopefully kill the archon with 1 wound since the Lord was alrdy S6.
On my second game against marines/AM it shinned, the hound unit killed the command squad that were on bikes, giving the lord S6 and Rampage, after that I got charged by a unit of around 8 ogryns with shields, which tanked my hounds, sadly for them my jugger scored another 3 wounds and got the tally up to 6, so my next round was with S10 AP2, Rampage, destroyed the remaining ogryns with instant death and then went off to kill a unit of termies. Haven't been able to use the DP tally on him yet but against units like the Ironpriest from above it seems like a great option.
Has anyone got any definitive thoughts on the slaughtercult vs CAD quandary? I'm particularly interested for 1500pts (any higher and I'd probably run both).
Generally speaking, you can get FnP every turn after 1 without a slaughtercult at 1500. I believe the consensus is no cult unless you've got a particular angle with it that I haven't seen or herd of. I intend to experiment with it during my next battle.
So my last battle I struggled because my opponent brought an Imperial Knight. It just crunches through Soul Grinders and Maulerfiends before they can do anything (I didn't charge it with them, he charged me, the fast SOB). I guess mass melta is the way to go? My concern with bikers is that they die too fast. I did run a termicide melta squad, but they didn't come in before the knight was already on my side of the table. What do you guys think?
Have only played a little with DK myself, but from watching batreps I see people often getting 5+ tithe per turn. Cult allows you to get say, bloodletters or flesh hounds *and* FNP instead of just FNP. Or +1 attacks and FNP.
Or even FNP and adamantium will. Imagine how powerful and awesome that combination would be. Oh yes eldar fools tremble in fear, your scatterbikes are nothing compared to this
Once I get some possessed made up I'll be running the cult every game, but I only play larger than normal games where I can afford a little inefficiency in exchange for coolness
The problem is that only units specifically from the slaughtercult get the bonus blood tithe reward and many of the models you want to have the fnp or extra attack are outside of that formation.
To make the most of the slaughtercult bonus tithe reward, don't just run a minimum slaughtercult. Flesh it out a little (I plan to run mine with 2 bloodletter squads, a CSM squad, the mandatory Possessed squad, a 10-man Cultist squad, and a Lord with Blade of Endless Bloodshed) and you get more bang for your buck (i.e. more stuff gets FNP or +1 attack). How much you put in your slaughtercult would probably depend on the rest of your army.
One of my favorite strats is to have 2 LRs sitting in the back open up every transport along with 2 MFs and then disgorge 16 KBs with 2 fully kitted out CLs onto the waiting foe.
So i have had 2 more games, one on sunday and one last night. First game i went for a bloodhost+csm allies vs eldar + sw cad.
I had to few units pushing forward to threaten the eldar shooting and after first turn i had lost about half the army, his 2 units of twc + wk mopped up the rest, tabled in turn 4.. Game 2 i ran a demonkin cad+ gorepack vs decurion necrons. His dices was on fire and i couldnt kill anything. As an example, 5 tomb blades vs 5 flesh hounds + 3 bikes, i managed to kill them only after 8 combat turns. Lost 0-20.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Eldar has some serious alpha strike that demonkin cant handle very well. If you reserve they are dead the turn they come in since you cant charge anyway. Only possibility is to scout up into cover, hope for nightfighting to get better saves and load up on grinders to get those scatbikes jinking. I have found going extreme msu helps. Having 10-12 units able to charge turn 2 will let some survive the alpha to kill the scatbikes in cc.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Demonkin vs decurion necrons are easier than eldar , not so heavy alpha but hard as nails to kill. Use hounds or bikes to tie up deathstar and go in with the D-thirster (so 1 or 2 only hits the thirster) and he will clear them out.
Helldrake is good vs both eldar and necrons so i recommend at least 1 in any list. Been the mvp in every game.
I wouldnt mind a deathstar of our own but so far i havent found anything useful. If you have any ideas please share.
Just realized something. With a bloodhost detachment, it seems the only way you can get a landraider (besides taking an allied/second CAD or Bloodhost detachment) is taking it as a dedicated transport for terminators. There is no detachment for Landraiders. So no putting berserkers, for example, in your raider unless you take the formation with the terminators. This sucks.
I haven't asked yet but I mean what role really does the BT play here because it has lots of wounds and decent toughness but its not what I'd call truly resilient and for the points cost these days that ain't great.
So I'm wondering wha tthe practical experience on the Tabletop has been.
Jaq Draco lives wrote: I haven't asked yet but I mean what role really does the BT play here because it has lots of wounds and decent toughness but its not what I'd call truly resilient and for the points cost these days that ain't great.
So I'm wondering wha tthe practical experience on the Tabletop has been.
the axe of ruin thirster seems worth it as well. he's only 30 points really. (on top of axe of khorne)
crimson_caesar wrote: Just realized something. With a bloodhost detachment, it seems the only way you can get a landraider (besides taking an allied/second CAD or Bloodhost detachment) is taking it as a dedicated transport for terminators. There is no detachment for Landraiders. So no putting berserkers, for example, in your raider unless you take the formation with the terminators. This sucks.
Yep. This is why I've found it necessary to ally in a landraider. That way you can take dirge casters and legacies, so that's a bonus .
It's even worse that there's only one formation for the terminators to get the land raider and that it also requires two units of bloodcrushers. I wish the daemonkin formations were less restrictive like the ones the Eldar got in the Aspect Host. I think the way to go is to count on a CAD and support it with the formations, I'm starting to lean away from the special detachment myself but it does mean I can't do a maulerfiend heavy list like I wanted to.
If going mauler you need 5 or 6 to get the desired result because of their av12. Backed up by a gorepack and other threats it could work.
I am still looking for that big unit that can act as a deathstar. So far its 16-20 hounds with lord + herald on juggs, then second cad csm with axelord on jugg + sorcerer on bike. All characters in the big hound unit. Either go for biiomancy or telepathy on the sorcerer. Big spells being endurance, invisibility. A wk would still be able to go in without much trouble hoping to stomp the characters out and taking minimum damage.
Its very hard to find that go to unit, I think demonkin players might be better off letting go of that deathstar dream and stick to msu spam. Playtesting required
GoonBandito wrote: The Feel No Pain Blood Tithe reward is also extremely vital for the Bloodthirster. You'll almost always want to be choosing that reward.
I never considered that, Thirster with FNP becomes considerably more resilient.
I have had the chance to play a few games recently and some stuff has come up. First, demonkin get their ass kicked by eldar all day long. Maybe not these fluff eldar lists you see around the forum. I am talking about 2 sources, 2k pts that takes advantage of some good combos.
This list is what i have faced a few times and been tabled around turn 4.
Farseer-jetbike
Wraithknight
5x5 scatbikes
Space wolves cad
Battlebrother-twc, pf, shield
2x5 gh with melta in pods
2x3 twc, all with ss, pf ........
This list has the means to take apart your cc units with twc + wk and just annihilate everything else with 100 str 6 shots per turn.
So how do we demonkin players handle this list that kills 4 units of hounds per turn in shooting and kills the rest in cc??
My idea is to go mbu instead of msu.
MBU = multible big units
We go with cad + gorepack and load up with units that can survive 1-2 rounds of shooting and still be able to hit the eldar lines and take out those scatbikes. With bigger units it can work to outflank as well in case we go second.
Here is a list i am going to try against my eldar playing friend next time.
Lord-jugg, axe of khorne, pf, sigil
Lord-jugg, lclaw, pf, sigil
2x8 cultists
2x3 spawns
Helldrake-baleflamer
2x soulgrinders - phhlegm
Gorepack
2x3 bikes, 2x melta
2x10 flesh hounds
2x9 flesh hounds
We play modified maelstrom missions in case your wondering.
What do you guys think??
Alright boys, I might be updating my strategy guide.
There are many general battle plans players follow that vary based on their and their opponent's army composition. Here is a guide for one such plan, one that I think if Daemonkin use properly against shooty armies, they have an excellent change at victory.
I call this theHammer and Anvil strategy. Based in part on traditional ancient warfare, this strategy attempts to use the speed and power of the Daemonkin forces to reduce enemy fire and inflict maximum damage.
First understand that your army will be divided up into three parts:
1. The Anvil
2. The Hammer
3. The Cannon
Note that some units are flexible and can perform in more than one role.
The Anvil must get in combat with the most destructive parts of the enemy force as soon as possible. The survival and potency of the rest of your army depends on it. Once in, they need to be survive long enough for the support of the Hammer. The slower, but more powerful Hammer strikes the fixed enemy with crushing force, shattering their numbers and morale. When the Hammer of your force first hits is when the battle will sharply turn. The final optional part, but no less strong if well placed, is the Spear. These units can provide general support or direct assassination of a crucial enemy unit. They weaken the enemy army overall, allowing the Hammer to more easily do its job, and the Anvil to lose less soldiers.
The Anvil Units in this category are your fast, beefy models. They don't need to pack a powerful punch (though often do), but they must to get into combat as fast as possible. They just need to last but a single turn for your hammer to come and finish off the enemy in a single powerful charge. If they can tie up multiple units and still survive, they should do so.
Units that fall under this category:
-Maulerfiends (especially with Lasher Tendrils for extra tarpitting)
-Flesh Hounds (act as a Hammer unit as well with an accompanying HQ or enough hounds)
-Bikers (not the most resilient, but can fulfill this roll if need be. Usually is a Spear unit.)
-Chaos Spawn (cheap bloodtithe points and surprisingly nasty)
Recommended: Flesh hounds. These guys are cheap and take a lot of abuse. With their huge bases they can spread out, which increases their range, prevents strategic enemy movement, and grants cover saves.
The Hammer Units in this category are your finishers. They have lots of attacks or a few very powerful ones. They finish off your opponent, usually a single charge. These units can be highly specialized towards particular units or can be somewhat flexible in who they can charge. Speed and resilience are not these unit's strength, but power offence power is. Protect them with cover and/or transports and tie up the enemy with your Anvil as soon as possible. YOUR ANVIL IS CRUCIAL for these units to function, as they will be shot to pieces otherwise. A strong anvil is more important than a strong hammer.
Units that fall under this category:
-Chaos Space Marines (with a powerfisted champion and swapped bolters for CCWS + boltpistols, they can be suprisingly nasty)
-Khorne Berserkers (masters of charge, they can pointed at about anything and do the job).
-Possessed (similar to Berserkers, needed for a Slaughtercult)
-Bloodthirsters and Daemon Princes (yes, even though they can move very quickly they should be swooped most of the time turn one against shooty armies, land turn two, and charge turn 3. These bullet magnets need a ton of protection but can be devastating if used correctly)
-Bloodletters (if deepstruck they usually have the turn 3 speed of other units. A great value option.)
-Terminators (same as Bloodletters when deepstruct. When in a landraider, they are a quick striking Hammer, but very expensive)
-Helbrutes(a very slow Hammer with Anvil like capabilities. This unit struggle if not in a formation as they lack transportation and are about as sluggish as units get)
Recommended: Chaos Space Marines, Bloodthirsters, and Bloodletters.
CSM's flexibility is actually quite hand. Provided you have tied up the opponent's important units, they can disembark with relative ease and can do some serious damage. I have had units of ten with double meltaguns + a powerfist take out a healthy knight by themselves.
Regular Bloodthirsters are handy taking out more elite units quickly that resist normal combat. D-thirsters can demolish the toughest of units, just try to keep them as healthy as possible, but don;t compromise strategy in the process.
Bloodletters are value Hammers. They can satisfy the troops requirement in a battle forged army, and can lay down some serious pain for only 80 points. But they're toast if your anvil doesn't do its work.
The Spear The Spear: A weapon used best at ranged with a single sharp point. When directed into the weak chink of a suit of armor, it damage is crippling. Spear units provide support for the other two components of the army, either by raining shells from afar, or taking out tough enemy units with their small size. They are not essential for the army, but can be potentially powerful. Our codex does not sport many of these units, and Codex: Chaos Space Marines has a much better selection.
Units that fall under this category:
-Termincide (point and click a unit to destroy, Can be quite effective, but often late and inconsistent)
-Forgefiends(lots of S8 shots. suffers from low armor, high points, and guardsman accuracy)
-Skull Cannons (the low AP on this weapon makes it somewhat unremarkable. It's ok at removing a single hull point at a time from vehicles and walkers, and has reasonably close combat abilities. Good for a demon heavy army)
-Soul Grinders (A very sturdy unit, these guys can hit hard if they don't miss, but can be a bit slow into close combat if you need them. They have our only source of skyfire weapons, not bad in a pinch)
-Defilers (a more expensive, less sturdy grinder. I weep)
-Helbrutes (if taken for shooting, they can be decent, but are unfortunately fragile for their points and lack the firepower to be very effective during their usually short lifespan)
-Bikers (fast and reasonably tough, these guys are sometimes ignored for your scarier units, but armed with special weapons they can take out important parts to the army. Their speed grants them increased flexibility and power)
-Raptors (when used as Spears, raptors are essentially worse bikers/terminators. They lack the defense but gain a flexibility you don't really need. They are usually too expensive to be taken as a Hammer, and too fragile for an Anvil. Take them as cheaper bikes if you must.)
-Heldrake (while coming in a bit late, a Heldrake can protect your units from overwhelming fire from non-vehicle units as well as anti-air protection. Their offensive and defensive capabilities are legendary, but they can be unless in some matchups or simple arrive just a bit too late as your Anvil has done its work by tying up the enemy already)
Recommended: Bikers, Heldrakes, Soul Grinders. These boys are pretty tough and good value for their points. Make sure you have a good anvil first though.
The rest of the nnits I haven't mentioned due to their terrible value or are for primarily objective securing. This strategy is quite effective and will generate blood tithe points quickly, furthering your opponent's doom. Go forth and slaughter champions of Chaos.
........
This list has the means to take apart your cc units with twc + wk and just annihilate everything else with 100 str 6 shots per turn.
So how do we demonkin players handle this list that kills 4 units of hounds per turn in shooting and kills the rest in cc??
My idea is to go mbu instead of msu.
MBU = multible big units
We go with cad + gorepack and load up with units that can survive 1-2 rounds of shooting and still be able to hit the eldar lines and take out those scatbikes. With bigger units it can work to outflank as well in case we go second.
Here is a list i am going to try against my eldar playing friend next time.
Lord-jugg, axe of khorne, pf, sigil
Lord-jugg, lclaw, pf, sigil
2x8 cultists
2x3 spawns
Helldrake-baleflamer
2x soulgrinders - phhlegm
Gorepack
2x3 bikes, 2x melta
2x10 flesh hounds
2x9 flesh hounds
We play modified maelstrom missions in case your wondering.
What do you guys think??
i've never played a list as hard as the one you mentioned, so maybe this is N/A, but whatever. i have played a war host with seers on foot, and it wasn't that crazy of a game.
but some thoughts.
i think this has been mentioned before, but maybe dip into daemons as your second source. psychic powers, the grimoire! take advantage of having fearless instead of instability. daemonkin can also pack in characters that can hit much harder than a C:daemons khorne herald against armor and whatnot. i guess that MBU philosophy is the one behind the C:daemon multi-star lists.
I am about to go play bugeater with the below list.
Some key points: 1. 100 models....bring on the shooting, I got more models then you. 2. Cannons are the anti Eldar, I have three and a defiler lol. No jink save for you lamedar. (Also take like ten of those jetbikes to kill one.)
Bloodhost
Slaughtercult
Bloodthrone
Eight possesed
two cc cultists min squads
two blood letter min squads
war engine soulgrinder with phlem.
CAD lord with fun axe and stuff
two min shooty cultists
one 16 man shooty cultist to act as extra wounds for my lord.
three min squad hounds
three skull cannons.
I have a thirster and an extra blood letter squad for tithe.
So, I played a game today with my Khorne Daemonkin against my opponent's Grey Knights. I got my butt handed to me. My list was the following:
Blood Host
Slaughtercult:
DV Lord on foot with BoEB, Plasma Pistol and Sigil
5-man Possessed with Rhino (lord went with these guys)
8-man Bloodletters with Reaper and banner
10-man CSM with 2 meltas, Power Axe, and rhino
10-man Cultists with flamer
Khorne's bloodstorm:
5-man Raptors with flamer, plasma pistol, power sword and melta bombs
5-man Raptors with 2 meltas, power sword, and melta bombs
5-man Warp Talons
Baledrake
War Engine: DV Helbrute (multi-melta, powerfist with heavy flamer)
My opponent's list was a Nemesis Strike force with a Termie Librarian, a 10-man blob of termies, 2 dreadknights, Coteaz, and a regular Inquisitor. He also had a single Imperial Knight with RF Battlecannon. There were 3 servo-skull thingys that had little effect on the game as well (they went with either Coteaz or the inquisitor). Basically, I got krumped, badly (we played Maelstrom of War). My opponent told me that lack of AP2 on my melee units really cost me. He recommended that next time I should run a CAD and take a D-thirster (since I told him I had one). He also mentioned allying in Be'lakor, but I'm not sure I'm going to do that yet. I have a tournament tomorrow, so I was glad to get in a casual game so I could figure this stuff out. What are the best sources of AP2 for infantry? Axes of Khorne perhaps? Or powerfists?
Ap2 is the akilles heal of the demonkin. Best way to solve this is allying in something that has ap2 like ghaz bullyboys, csm, daemons and even necrons. I have found that going primary daemons and using a big gorepack formation works pretty well.
Other than that you can go with gorepack 4x3 bikes with double plasma or melta, spam some soulgrinders/maulers with bloodhost.
Based on my experience the other day (see this battle report: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/652613.page), it seems that Juggernauts are all the rage for lords and heralds. I don't have any, but the good news is that my opponent's were not official GW models, but rather custom ones made principally from Star Wars Miniatures Junk Golems. I own a few of these models myself, maybe I can make my own version!
Back on topic, what kind of units/tactics would be best when facing Daemons with KhorneKin? I felt like all of my opponent's units were far more durable than mine and they hit harder too. Is there a simple solution I overlooked (other than bringing a houndstar of my own or allying in something)? I probably need to put together my Soul Grinder for a start; it would have been much better than the stupid Helbrute.
Hit harder? Oh dear. Well the big weakness of daemons is instability, and fragility of support units. You need to use the extreme speed of KDK to multiassault weak stuff with the strong stuff, and pop the whole lot with instability.
FMCs are a big issue tho. No effective tools present themselves.
Captyn_Bob wrote: Hit harder? Oh dear. Well the big weakness of daemons is instability, and fragility of support units. You need to use the extreme speed of KDK to multiassault weak stuff with the strong stuff, and pop the whole lot with instability.
FMCs are a big issue tho. No effective tools present themselves.
The main thing that was hitting me hard and causing casualties was all those psychic powers. I also couldn't do much more than spit at the two FMCs, who were the ones casting most of the deadly psychic powers, but then anti-air is a weakness of the Khorne Daemonkin codex. If my Thirster had not gotten charged, I could have had him take to the sky to try to vector strike the FMCs. I think the only effective anti-air we have is our own FMCs (flying Princes, Thirsters), Heldrakes, and Soul Grinders.
I probably should have had my Possessed squad with the Lord use its Rhino to get into my opponent's backfield and start killing Pink Horrors. That would have reduced the opponent's psychic presence and lessened the sting of all those powers. As it was I only got the CSM and Warp Talons back there and they ultimately got tied down and destroyed. Lessons learned for next time, I guess.
sfshilo wrote: Cannons are the anti Eldar, I have three and a defiler lol. No jink save for you lamedar. (Also take like ten of those jetbikes to kill one.)
Why would something with a 3+ armor save jink an Ap 5 gun?
I guess the anti psycher relic could be worth including,?
Automatically Appended Next Post: I do like psychic fmcs.. they do have weaknesses..
Limited movement when swooping.
Cannot switch to assault in one turn
Tendency to ground themselves from perils
Reliant on squishy psychic batteries
Buttloads of points.
Generally speaking, I've found I crush the opponent's ground game and their flyers aren't much of an issue. Against flying MCs, I just make sure to direct my TL bolters from the Rhinos each turn to force some grounding tests. I usually take one flying MC myself and drake, then summon more flying MCs if I'm facing a lot of flying things. Our tithe table is such a flexible resource.
What have people found to be the most effective Thirster to use in most games? If I am dropping about $100 on a model I want to build the most useful one.
I would recommend the Insensate Rage one. That strength-D weapon is pretty awesome. If other people are worried about WYSIWYG, you should go with the Unfettered Fury since that is the one you can summon.
Just for clarification, Are the formations in the Blood Oath book official? I know the book was an "exclusive release", so id just like to double check. Recently started back up with 40k and I am revamping my standing Necron and World Eaters armies. My main opponent is a cheestastic Eldar player, and I thought i had found salvation in the "Fist of Khorne" formation until I just discovered that those Drop Pods cost more than a land raider......
So, there is a new LoW in town and it also has the BftBG rule. What do you guys think about the Khorne Knight? It certainly looks like the most useful mark and 5++ via the deamon rule is very good too!
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It would be great for T3 charges (unless it dies first). Indeed, I feel that this is probably the best way to use a skull cannon since the only formation it can be taken in (Charnel Cohort) has some hefty unit taxes (unless of course you are using a 
