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I'm curious to hear views on this, as over at the living rulebook we're using them as a basis to compare the other core daemons to.

It's proving interesting as certain units seem to be paying a considerable amount for the Daemonic special rule, where other units are getting it practically free.

So specifically looking at only the Bloodletters, do you think that is a balanced core unit for 12 pts/model? That's balanced externally against other armies.

No. It should cost more.

What stats does a bloodletter got?

Actually 12 points is not bad for a blood letter. I played them for awhile. Blood letters are pretty good but if they get charged are crap they have nothing going for them. Even with the Herald there only so good giving them hatred. There one of the more balanced troops in daemons.

They should cost more? Seriously?

They are utterly noncompetative. Anyone who takes them is doing it wrong. They don't need to cost more!

Ah, but are they non competative only because of internal balancing, rather than for what they actually are?

I don't know what they cost in 40k, but I am only talking about fantasy here.

Hypothetically they could be 12 pts, 14 with the locus ability.

The other core units could have adjustments to make them more equally matched.

Let's see what you get for 12 pts:

Positives
WS, S and I 5
5+ ward save
cause fear
Oh...KILLING BLOW

Negitives
T 3

SO you do the math 12 pts not likely

ItP as well, no?

+ITP and Fear, magical attacks and instability. Movement 5 could be considered important as well.

well look at dark elf executioners as they are equal points, and both have killing blow,
executioners- +1 S, +1 LD get hatred always

Bloodletter- MR(1), Fear, ItP, Daemonic, 5+ ward instead of 5+ save.

are they equal... no probably not, but compared to everything else the daemons offer its not too bad. The Bloodletters cannot flee (blessing and curse), but i would argue that against killing tough infantry executioners are better, while bloodletters are better against cavalry (more survive)

EDIT to be nicer:

I don't think you are comparing two similar units. Bloodletters are table quarter holders, or redirectors at best. Executioners are assassin hiding places. Also, when comparing infantry units you need to...to be continued in a later post.

Ya I'd say blood letters are decent but being T3 sucks so much that's what makes them not broken the fact that they have to take a 5+ ward everytime a stiff wind passes by

the problem of comparing any two units is that it is not any single unit that make something broken, it is how it functions in the army. Do bloodletters offer a unique and different role than executioners in each army? Yes, assassin holding/asf executioners are killers, are bloodletters used for killing, no why would you, use flesh hounds instead it is much simpler yet they can kill and if the rest of the daemon army was not so OT then they might be used as a killing unit. Still i was trying to compare two units of similar stats/points and show that they are not too far apart, which is pretty good for daemons. Is my comparison flawed and not take much, well practically anything except stats of unit, into account? Yeah, but i dont know how else to do it relatively simply.

Basically, the worthiness of the Bloodletter is in question because it is fighting infantry, and the game doesn't cater to fighting infantry.

Bloodletters are designed, per the tactics bit in the Daemons book, to fight enemy heavily armored units. Their s5 and KB were supposed to help them do that. Obviously, that doesn't work.

#1: Bloodletters don't get the charge on heavily armored enemies. They are m5, and ITP, and most critically they are in an army that doesn't shoot terribly hard. Daemons can't sit back and wait for the foe, aside from their Flamers their points are wasted in such a case. The Bloodletters have to advance into the foe, and that means that the enemy will get the charge.

#2: s5 w/KB isn't all that killy vs heavily armored foes. Ask Ogres, s6 is about the min to consider yourself a heavy armor popper. Further, ws 5 isn't as big of a deal as it might be, as heavily armored enemies tend to have that very same ws. KB might give you an extra kill in a given CC (6 attacks, 4 hits, one KB? Sounds abou right), but it's not anything to write home about. It certainly won't kill a char, because as previously pointed out, chars don't get charged by Bloodletter units, and if they charge them, theirs no one left to strike back.

#3: Bloodletters have a large base size. This hasn't been mentioned yet, but it's a flat out problem for infantry, and particularly for infantry that are supposed to be killing enemy's with their attacks.

So there's the reason that Bloodletters don't work as they are supposed to.

Why don't they work at all?

The roles of modern infantry are pretty limited.

#0: Static res. You can survive a char/dragon charge, sometimes. A char/dragon charge with an infantry block helping out is typically irresistable.

Bloodletters are too expensive to get static res with. Their banners are also rubbish, compared to real army banners. The Daemon army doesn't need static res. If it does, it can get plaguebearers for the same price as the Bloodletters, who have good banners and can actually avoid giving up CR if someone puts attacks on them.

#1: Character bunkers: Mages like to hang out in 10 man units while they blast, killy characters like some static res to offset their bad rolling rounds. Characters like to hide in units.

At first it seems like Bloodletters have found their niche. After all, their guy, a Herald of Khorne, even gives them Hatred, which is a titanic improvement. Thing is, he's going to want to be on a Jugger, for the 0+, and that innately means he's got better things to do than hang with footsloggers. He's one of the best chars in the game, he's not going in a common choice. He'll be with Flesh Hounds or Crushers. The other chars are prevented by the Locus rules from hanging out.

#2: Redirectors: It's more common with fast cav, but the occasional infantry unit gets used this way.

Bloodletters, with their inability to flee, are even bad at this. Further, the Daemonettes do this better due to higher move, and the Pink Horrors give dispel dice. Theirs even furies, for the flier redirect, as rare as it is for ITP skirmishers to have a role here.

#3: Fighting unit: Some folks persist in using fighting infantry. It's a sad fact, but a true one. Plaguebearers are so much better than Bloodletters at this that it's low comedy.

The purpose of this thread seems to be to compare BL's to other fighting infantry.

If that's the case, even there they fall down. They are equal points with Tomb Guard/Grave Guard, who can be raised and danse/urgency'd. They are equal points with Executioners, but between the banner of ASF, the assassin, and the Hatred the executioners would mop them up in any imaginable contest, and even they aren't considered worthwhile.

Bloodletters are rubbish. Saying they need to cost more is blatantly wrong. There's currently an improper state. GW is making a model (a new plastic kit) that no one is using. If you raise their points everyone will continue to not use them.

I use bloodletters them all the time... in 40k
But i do agree with your points, i am probably biased towards infrantry as i play HE, so ASF ignores one of the two biggest problem that infantry have. Now i do agree that Plaguebearers are better for static CR, but i personally think they might be a bit broken...
I guess where your opinion and mine differ is that i believe they could find their nitch if the rest of the army was not so amazing.

Bloodletters, like all Daemons, are undercosted. Put it this way a glade guard is 12pts. Who would you take??

probably glade guard, since it would kill a bloodletter before it ever got close

Big weakness of Daemon infantry is high volume, low str shooting...a 5+ save aint so hot when you need to roll 7-8 of em.

40kenthusiast did you even play against a Bloodletter?

I've fielded them many times (min blocks of 10 for my Khorne themed army), and faced them (big blocks w/BSB, big blocks alone and min blocks).

So specifically looking at only the Bloodletters, do you think that is a balanced core unit for 12 pts/model? That's balanced externally against other armies.

I think the thread is starting to veer off-topic. In order to answer the OP's question we need to compare the Bloodletter against other armies core units. How do they stack up to other core infantry in terms of cost, effectiveness, usefulness, synergy with rest of army, etc.?

Sure, let's compare them to the fighting infantry core of other armies (considering in all cases a fighting block):

Elfs:
High Elf spearmen: Bloodletters lose in combat and are more expensive
Dark elf spearmen: Bloodletters lose in combat and are more expensive
Wood elf Glade Guard: Bloodletters have no shooting attack, combat result is determined by charge, BL's are more expensive

Dwarfs:
Dwarf Warriors: Bloodletters win in combat given the charge, and are more expensive
Chaos Dwarf Warriors: Bloodletters win in combat given the charge, and are more expensive

Mans:
Bretonnian Peasants: Bloodletters win in combat given the charge (and maybe w/out the charge, hitting on 5's is a pain), but are dramatically more expensive
Empire blocks: Bloodletters lose in combat and are more expensive (detachment system makes this a mockery)
Marauder blocks: Bloodletters win or lose based on charge and are dramatically more expensive
Chaos Warrior blocks: Bloodletters lose and are cheaper

Beasts:
Beast herds: Bloodletters win or lose based on the charge, and are dramatically more expensive
Ogre Bulls: Bloodletters lose if they get charged, outcome is coint toss if they charge, hard to compare points
Ogre Ironguts: Bloodletters lose, Bloodletters proportionately less expensive
Skaven Clanrats: Bloodletters win/lose based on the charge, dramatically more expensive

Undead infantry:
Bloodletters win or lose based on the charge, but are more expensive and can't be danse/urgencied and raised

I think that's about the size of it. Basically they stack up badly vs. most everyone. At their job (anti-dwarf/knight) they are adequate if they can get the charge. Against ranked infantry in basically every other case they lose if they get charged, and are more expensive. In some cases they can't win even if they get the charge.

Put it this way. A Bloodletter block is as expensive as 3 Marauder blocks. Aside from catastrophic morale failure I can't envision a scenario where a Bloodletter unit beats 3 Marauder blocks, or even one titanic block made of doubles its #'s in Marauders all tarted up. Causing Fear/ITP/Daemonic break tests are awesome, no doubt, but Bloodletters are overpaying for it.

Edit: Sorry, I misread the request and compared them in terms of fights. In terms of usefullness/synergy the BL's get even worse. They are fighting infantry in a list that basically doesn't fight with infantry, and that has a better class of fighting infantry if it wants to.

I'm a demon player. I think for what you potentially get for 12 points, in addition to the different ways you can help them IE heralds, banners, untis size, 12 pts is fair.

High WD, good initiative, always 5+ save, fear, killing blow, mr 1, locus of khorne. If you figure your average statline is a spearman from empire, costing 5-6 pts, your getting about a pt per ability, and statline increase. In the meta game, yes 12 pts is fair. Unfortunately, there are a variety of factors, they die to str 3 shooting from models who can always avoid combat. But that's the life of a demon player, its a combat army, it will almost always do well.

Grimstonefire wrote:
I don't know what they cost in 40k, but I am only talking about fantasy here.

16 points but they're mad powerful. They get CC weapons that ignore armor saves as standard.

If you really want something that is under priced look at the flesh hounds

To put fuel on the fire, are Bloodletters worth 12 points without a herald. Are they worth more than 12 with a herald? If so how much more?

Agh, are you even reading this?

Giving them Hatred has nothing to do with why they aren't worthwhile. Their attacks are fine. It's just that they have no way to get the charge on anyone, and when they get charged they get owned.

Flesh hounds and Blood Crushers, by contrast, can frequently get the charge with their large movement rate, and when they get charged they've got the wounds/toughness to get counterattacks.

If you put a Herald in a Bloodletter unit it fights harder, but it doesn't move any faster or suddenly become able to flee. The Herald might be able to singlehandedly keep em in the fight by slaughtering the enemy on his lonesome (on a jugger a HoK is the best fighting hero in the game), but he could have done that without the joes standing around giving his enemy CR, and he'd be much faster.

To be fair (to myself?) there are people in this thread who have said they should be more expensive, and those who have said they should be cheaper.

What you are saying is that their points cost is irrelevant, that even if they were dirt cheap they would still be useless because of internal balancing issues (other things can cover their role better).

I wasn't really intending to extend this into looking at everything else in the list simply to balance the bloodletters, or indeed to change their basic rules and/or profile (though I would be interested to hear suggestions on this by pm if you wanted).

Shame you have to take core units at all really.

You CAN speed them up with the D6 to first charge banner. With the you have have a 11-16 inch charge. That can give you a 2nd turn charge with a large amount of your demon army IE flesh hounds, fiends, seekers, furies, bloodcrushers with a D6 charge banner.

Regarding the 12 pts. I think its the correct amount of points for what they get. If they were less expensive IE 10 pts, how could you justify things like Saurus warriors, and Dwarf warriors with shields or great weapons? If they were more expensive 16 pts, then you really need to look at them being T4.

um saying that any daemon unit has no ability get a charge is... well wrong, they have the best holding units in the game. A bloodletter squad can charge in after the squad is stuck in combat. Also M5 is very useful to get a charge, not against calvary, but against other infantry it is pretty good. So by your comparisons they should win a large amount of their battles. Also when you say that you fail to mention that they all need to take fear tests to be able to charge and you are paying for that ability along with being daemonic and the bloodletters do pay for it unlike perhaps other daemonic units. Also you talk about ItP as if it is a bad thing, which, in my mind it is well worth a point or two.

This is how i feel they might break down:
1 for ItP
1 for fear
1 for MR(1)
3 for 5+ ward (2pts for heavy armor, 1 to make it a ward)
1 for a great weapon (so only s3)
1 for KB
4 For stats (better than bare marauders which cost 4)
that means they get the daemonic ability and possibility of hatred for free, (as it should be, because heralds are never in the unit anyways)

Another ability that i think you underestimate is their ability to survive magic missiles, and high strength shooting, something that many other infantry struggle with.

Now i do agree with the fact that there should not be a price difference between bloodletters w/herald and bloodletters without.

Are you saying the hellblade should be a great weapon and reduce them to S3?

Sorry to be pedantic, but

4 For stats (better than bare marauders which cost 4)

If they are better than a marauder would they not cost more?