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I'm hoping to add some daemon allies to my CSM army and settled on Khorne mostly because of the Bloodthirster however I'd like to hear how people are successfully using bloodletters. My first thought is simply deepstrike in a big squad of stock troops and get into assault fast.

I'm planning on going that route myself. It seems cheap and dangerous for the opponent. I have yet to try it out, so I suspect there will be a learning curve.

Aren't they T3 now
A big squad is probably the way to go.

That would scare the pants off me.

 Dancingwolf91 wrote:
Aren't they T3 now
A big squad is probably the way to go.

They are T3 but they're also a lot cheaper so big squads is definitely the way to go.

One of the big advantages with Bloodletters is that even a handful reaching close combat is typically enough to win against all but the toughest assault squads, so losing half of a squad to incoming fire doesn't mean the squad is powerless.

Minimum squad on an aegis.
Bloodletters are BS5 for some reason...
Although I don't do this myself.

I use a min squad
I find deepstriked ap3 makes a great speed bump against marines. Either that or use them as a counter charge unit - take a charge on plague marines, then counter with the 'letters

With one attack base, they actually suffer quite badly without a herald to give them extra attacks or rerolls to hit. If you take 20, i'd say about 12 will get into combat, and with them being toughness 3 with only a 5+ save, they can actually lose combat's at that stage, meaning they will take an instability test and likely lose more.

If I were you, I would take daemonettes instead, they do better without a herald than bloodletters from my experience due to the extra attacks.

blood letters are my favorite shock troops 100pts of im will kill your troop choice if you don't kill me first, great way to draw fire away from important stuff i find

 Evileyes wrote:
With one attack base, they actually suffer quite badly without a herald to give them extra attacks or rerolls to hit. If you take 20, i'd say about 12 will get into combat, and with them being toughness 3 with only a 5+ save, they can actually lose combat's at that stage, meaning they will take an instability test and likely lose more.

If I were you, I would take daemonettes instead, they do better without a herald than bloodletters from my experience due to the extra attacks.

12 bloodletters getting into combat with your avg MEQ would score 10.667 AP3 wounds killing a whole squad the MEQ would deal 2.44 to the bloodletters. If they are grey hunters like which means 2 attacks per marines 3 on the champ... that's 4.667 wounds on the BL, so anyone you see it a squad of BL charging any non assault dedicated unit will die horribly.

That being said, yes take 20, I have been fielding 10+Herald usually only the herald and 2-3 make it to combat and even like that they beat the crap out of CSM and hold a turn against loyalist MEQ damn their immunity to SA.

Just bought me the extra 20 so a squad of 20 with the herald will be quite deadly specially since the herald can accept pretty much any challenge and win it with I6 AP2 attacks and luckly some ID for the ICs

I use 10 (and sometimes a sergeant if points permit) in my khorne CSM/CD list. IF they get into combat, they're very brutal and will handily chop up any MEQ squad, which is nice for a 100pt unit. Of course, everyone knows this, so they tend to attract a lot of fire.
As allied daemons have limited HQ slots, and you've settled on the bloodthirster (as have I, he's awesometastc), you wont be able to support them with a herald, so don't expect miracles out of them. But they are a nice, cheap troop choice that can wreck face if it gets the chance. Careful not to throw them at hoards, because they just don't have enough attacks to deal with them (unless as stated earl, you have 20 of them with a rage/hated herald)

Here's some tricks I've found to using allied bloodletters:
-On foot behind foot squads of berzerkers or CSM. This creates a nice choppy blob, and the power armoured guys tend to suck up more fire when theyre up front. Use the marines to draw advance fire and overwatch fire, and then use the bloodletters to reinforce their combat and win. (you need faster things in your list like bikes, hounds, or spawn to act as the first assault wave though)
-Deepstrike in their backfield as reinforcements for faster assault elements (again, bikes, hounds, spawn) that hit their lines on turn 2, then use the letters to reinforce on turn 3. Hopefully you'll have enough baddies in their face that the bloodletters won't be sitting by themselves.

On my bloodthirster, I use the grimoir of true names and have found it to be invaluable to boosting my daemon allies survivability. Deepstrike with the letters, and pop a 3++ save on them. If it fails, whatever, theyre only 100pts and their 5+ wasnt going to help much anyways.
Works wonders for flesh hounds as well, who should easily be in assault on turn 2.

PredaKhaine wrote:
Minimum squad on an aegis.
Bloodletters are BS5 for some reason...
Although I don't do this myself.

I have considered that a few times. They will have a 4+ save, be resistant to any incoming assault , basically fearless and blast things out of the sky. All for the same price as 20 cultists.

 minigun762 wrote:

PredaKhaine wrote:
Minimum squad on an aegis.
Bloodletters are BS5 for some reason...
Although I don't do this myself.

I have considered that a few times. They will have a 4+ save, be resistant to any incoming assault , basically fearless and blast things out of the sky. All for the same price as 20 cultists.

If you plan on going this way better go with plague bearers, yeah they are BS3 but T4 & shroud means the are just like fearless termies against most range weapons and BS3 manning a quadgun still would hit an avg of 3 shots, compared to the 3.55 avg of a marine and 3.88 of a bloodletter it isn't that bad if you consider that they will outlast the letters instead of wasting their assaulty profile. They are cheaper iirc as well.

Are people having luck with smaller sized squads or do you need to bring 15-20 to get enough into combat to matter?

If you're bringing Daemon allies, just take some plagues and pop them behind your ADL for your 2+ cover.

Don't even bother with Bloodletters, they're unbelievable rubbish.

That's so disheartening Asmodai!

If you're set on bloodletters, don't try and deepstrike big blobs without a reliable icon to keep from mishapping.
Better yet, run them on the board with Karanak for the extra scout move and the blood banner. That extra 12" move will reduce the amount of time they're out in the open, i.e. being shot to death.

Another option is just minimum squads deepstriking with musicians and lesser rewards chain-striking on the board. Etherblades if you're facing terms, or switch out for the shooty attacks.

Bloodletters aren't awful by any means, they just have different roles from the other troops.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
If you're bringing Daemon allies, just take some plagues and pop them behind your ADL for your 2+ cover.

Don't even bother with Bloodletters, they're unbelievable rubbish.

Solid, well reasoned, open minded, and positive contribution to this thread. Please post again.