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So I'm not even 100% sure this army is even legal. I'm sitting down with the books trying to suss out a Khorne themed fantasy army. I have a great conversion/modeling project with them and while the army might not be incredibly powerful I really like all the models and my conversion plans SHOULD come out pretty good. I just want to get some advice before I go in and drop the cash on all the models at once! The army comes out to 2170 and I'm aiming for 2250 which means there is 80 points of wiggle room before I have to start removing things to add them.

LORDS
450 - Bloodthirster. Love the model, just plain love it. I also hear it is a beast on the table top. I don't have any options chosen because I just don't quite know what is good for what yet. I have my suspicions but I'd rather leave the points open and choose them after I get advice from you guys.

HEROES
300 - 3 Heralds. I plan on putting them in the bloodletter squads... I can do that right? Again no options chosen (yet).

CORE
270 - 20 bloodletters with Musician, Bloodreaper and Standard Bearer. (Should I lose one in each squad to put the heralds in and make 4 full ranks?)
270 - 20 bloodletters with Musician, Bloodreaper and Standard Bearer.
270 - 20 bloodletters with Musician, Bloodreaper and Standard Bearer.

SPECIAL
350 - 10 Flesh Hounds of Khorne. Perhaps this needs to be broken into 2 units of 5.

RARE
260 - 3 Blood Crushers with Musician, Bloodreaper and Standard Bearer.

This is my current army list. It's very mutable. The final count is 77 models (88 would be better... for you know... luck). So what should I do from here?

Nobody has anything to say about this list?

Wow, you guys either REALLY hate daemons or I just accidentally invented the most awesome list ever -

While the list will be surprisingly powerful as is, I'd highly suggest dropping a few Hounds and/or the command part of the Crushers to give the Bloodthirster Insane Fury and Obsidian armour, and if you can Firestorm blade. 7 S7 flaming attacks that you can reroll every turn and having the ability to negate all magic weapons against him in combat is amazing, you can almost throw him at units by himself, note i do say ALMOST. Did that once, almost blew up to Grave Guard from combat res and a high instability roll...

Otherwise it's actually a very solid list, if the Heralds are in the Bloodletter units they dont really need any upgrades, and any givin are just icing on top of the cake.

I ran an all Khorne Daemon army for a while very similar to yours, but with my suggestions in there too and a couple tweaks and it absolutely slaughtered everything, so dont think it's at all underpowered!

oh, and Skulltaker is always a nice alternative to a Herald

- Bloodthirster gets the following gifts:

Obsidian Armor, Immortal Fury. Some people give him the Firestorm Blade, but thanks to High Elves, I avoid that now. You've got 25 points left to play with after that which can buy you Killing Blow, or a Dispel Scroll, or the Collar of Khorne for MR3. It's up to you to see what you like, but there is little point to running a BT without the Re-rolls gift (Immortal Fury). Obsidian Armor is arguable compared to Armor of Khorne, but it basically makes it so that almost nothing can kill your Bloodthirster in combat (not everything, but say 95%).

- Your Heralds should be mounted on Juggernauts and given the Armor of Khorne gift. It gives them a 0+ save in combat. You could spend more points to beef up their weapons, but they generally don't need it. Making one of them the Battle Standard Bearer is a good idea if you're going to run bigger blocks of Bloodletters. And since you have very little magic protection taking the Standard of Sundering is a good idea as well.

- Take say 2 units of 5 Furies to support your army. They kill Warmachines which will be your bane playing this force.

- You definitely want to split the Flesh Hounds into multiple units. Units of 5 hounds are great.

- Bloodcrushers aren't that great to be honest. I could give you a quantifiable rundown of why Flesh Hounds are better than the Crushers in just about every scenario, but if you want to run them go for it. I would recommend keeping them cheap if you can.

The current mainstream philosophy on how to kit your Thirster is as follows. Armor of Khorne, Firestorm Blade, Collar (or Spell Breaker) and Immortal Fury. If you go against a Highelf list use your hounds to deal with the princes. Another good kit is Awesome Strength and Immortal Fury You loose the Armor and the MR but you get a very effective Bloodthirster.

Anything that will survive the Bloodthirster's attacks will most likely have a weapon that neither Armor of Khorne nor Obsidian Armor Will help you with (i.e. Properly tooled Keeper of Secrets).

All heralds should have Juggernaughts, Armor of Khorne and Firestorm Blades.

Stay away from those Blood Crushers and use Furies as they can easily be a game winner.

Man, y'all are soft-balling this guy something fierce.

Well, I'll come out and say it. Bloodletters bite. Why would you have 60 in your army? They only have one attack, and they are t3. Empire State troops who get the charge will beat them. If you MUST have blocks of infantry, plaguebearers are the same cost, and much better in a fight, or heck, even Daemonettes have 2 attacks. If you MUST be Khornate, don't use blocks of infantry.

On the thirster: I'm not sure about Obsidian Armor. I've played a pure Khornate Daemon army for some time now, and out of approximately 20 games I needed the OA once. Go Armor of Khorne, and that lets you get your rerolls, your flame blade, AND your killing blow. Also, don't let folks talk you out of the flame blade, +1 strength and the ability to ignore regen is totally worth having to hide from a High Elf dragon. You won't see high elves after game 1, but VC with their regen banner can show up in any game. Plus, hilariously, most folks will presume Obsidian Armor on the thirster, so you get the benefit of sending their monster-killers running for cover, and save 35 points.

Bloodcrushers: Bloodcrushers really don't need a musician/standard bearer. They are going to win if they charge intact, or not otherwise. VB is probably right, a unit of 6 dogs is better in most cases, but I wouldn't entirely dismiss Bloodcrushers. If you want to run them, here are 2 ways I can think of to get them in the army.

1: Charge redirectors. A singleton Bloodcrusher (never gets mentioned that they can come in singletons, the Hound enthusiasts consistently overlook this point, almost like they've never played the list) can march out and stand at an angle in front of an enemy unit. If they don't charge they've been paralyzed by a 70 pointer, and if they do they're going to receive a flank charge from something Khornate. Fiends do this better, but if you are going Khornate you can't have Fiends. Singletons also make great assassins, just race in on a wizard/hero who needs whacking and take 4 shots at scoring a KB.

2: BSB posse: If you put a Herald in a Bloodcrusher unit, they get hatred. This is a big deal. You've got at least one Herald anyway, to bear the Grand Standard of Sundering, so you can put him in the unit. Take missile fire on him first and it helps with their glaring vulnerability to enemy missile fire, and run them as a second wave, coming in as a turn 3 charge on whatever is giving the Hounds trouble. This lets you keep your BSB up with your hound units without slowing them down or losing out on the Locus of Khorne gift.

I'll concur with everyone else and point out that not buying a jugger/armor for a Herald is a crime. 0+ armor save, 2 s5 attacks with ws 5 and KB, and the ability to charge 14 inches for that point cost? Not even a question.

The folks who recommend Furies always baffle me. You know what kills warmachines on turn 2? Flesh Hounds! A pure Khornate list is a blitz list. On turn 2 you are engaged all over the line, and the war machines are irrelevant. Furies don't get their till turn 2, so who cares about them? You can't even re-direct (the real use for flying units, see Harpies) with furies, as they are Immune to Psych skirmishers. Furies are just more points wasted on Core. A clincher is that they'll spoil your "Just Khorne" theme, and cost you soft scores.

I'll double down on VB's recommendation that you split the Flesh Hounds, though I always like 6 Dog units. How about you drop one Crusher for 2 dogs, so you have 2 units of 6 dogs, and split the remaining 2 crushers into a pair of singleton units? You'll still finish your deployment before most folks and the 2 charge foulers/redirectors are worth their weight in gold.