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The format is 600 points and only requires 1 HQ and 1 Troop choice. The plan is to go troop light and take an exalted reward - either Riftbringer if I roll that, otherwise the Portaglyph.

So I think the best options are either a Bloodthirster with exalted and greater (probably for the Blade of Blood) rewards for 300 points; or a Lord Of Change with exalted and lesser (for the Staff of Change) rewards and mastery level 3 for 295 points. Either will be nasty, but which is best?

If I could give the Lord of Change two greater and one lesser rewards, I think he's probably better than a Bloodthirster, but I can't, since I really need something to give me some extra troops.

My other unit are 12 Hounds and 12 Pink Horrors by the way. And I intend to use Daemonettes or possibly plaguebearers for any troops I'm able to create.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

At small point games the 3+ will probably save your life more ofteb than anything else. So a bt might actually be better.

One of the main advantages of the LoC is divination powers buffing all of your units; however, since you don't have many other units this isn't that big of a deal. I would go with the BT.

Abit off topic but I would recomend using plague bearers as the troops and summon horrors from the portal.

Even if you roll just one horror it has a shooting potential as 10. One plague bearer cant do much on the other hand.

 Makutsu wrote:
At small point games the 3+ will probably save your life more ofteb than anything else. So a bt might actually be better.

Yes sort of thinking that myself. With a couple of greater rewards on a Lord of Change, plus a couple of chances to get something useful from Divination (would still go with one roll on Change to get either the beam weapon or primeris), the Lord of Change would be quite durable. But with the need for an exalted reward, I don't think two chances to try and get Forewarning or Precognition are enough. And at this points level, I don't think much enemy shooting will be AP3 or better. So the Bloodthirster will probably be more durable.

Apart from fighting against T4 multi-wound models, the Bloodthirster is going to be better in close combat (9-11 attacks on the charge with the Blade of Blood if I'm outnumbered). And statistically one non-psychic S6 AP2 shot isn't much worse than 2D6 Flickering Fire shots against MEQ.

Biggest problem is the perceived threat of a Bloodthirster over the Lord of Change. Without playtesting, I'm not sure which works out best (otherwise I wouldn't be asking this question here), but most people would see the Bloodthirster as more scary and either cry cheese or target it with everything they've got. And if they do manage to kill it, its pretty much game over since I've invested half my points into the thing. Still, at least my Hounds will survive to charge in on turn two. Not too worried about the Horrors, since I'll probably be deep striking them from reserve on to an objective later in the game. Ideally in cover and area-terrain for a re-rollable 2+ cover save.


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 Vombat wrote:
Abit off topic but I would recomend using plague bearers as the troops and summon horrors from the portal.

Even if you roll just one horror it has a shooting potential as 10. One plague bearer cant do much on the other hand.

I didn't think horrors created this way got to roll for a power, since they don't exist when psychic powers are rolled up. So they turn up with nothing. Daft I know, and probably not what was intended, but until it gets FAQed I can't see it being played any other way.

So its either Daemonettes, so they can run somewhere useful or Plagebearers, so they can hide somewhere useful. Don't think Bloodletters would be useful in Portaglyph numbers, though with a good roll after Riftbringer goes off they might work, but very situational.

I say LoC everytime. The prescience or extra benefits from divinations will make up the difference in fighting power EASILY.

Think about if you prescience 2 other units that are attacking the bonus they get damage wise will easily outweigh the few extra attacks the bloodthirster has.

Even if you disagree with that youll realize that a prescienced LoC with a staff of tzeentch is pretty much just as effective as a bloodthirster (save perhaps blade of blood).

The LoC with 2 greater gifts and 1 lesser will be around as durable as the BT anyways. Plus if you can get the 4+ invuln from divination or even not take a herald on a disk or something and grimoire the LoC for maximum troll.

There is next to nothing in the game let alone low points games that can deal with a STR8 prescienced FMC with a 2++ re-rollable and psychic powers.

Lord of change for me, he is easily viscous enough to handle ANYTHING at this point level while granting buffs around and being a shooting threat with flickering fire. The amount of things the BT excells at vs the amount the LoC does pulls it in his favor for me.

I don't play demons, but since you're only doing a 600 point game, I don't think there's enough other units for the buffs to make a huge deal. I understand that the LoC is almost always better with higher point values, since you have other strong units to buff, but with only a unit of hounds to pimp out it doesn't sound that great.

I decided to go with the Bloodthirster and won all my five games. Games were against Chaos Space Marines (Chaos Lord, Korne Berserkers, Defiler), Dark Angels (Belial, Terminators, Tacticals), Space Marines (Chaplain, Scouts, Land Raider Redeamer, Assault Squad), Dark Eldar (some troops with a HQ, a Talos(?) Engine and Void Raven Bomber) and Eldar (Guardians, Avatar and Wraithknight).

Most of the damage ended up being done by the Flesh Hounds, though the Bloodthirster was invaluable against the nastier stuff I faced (Chaos Lord, Land Raider, Avatar, Talos Engine, etc). The Pink Horrors didn't do anything useful and I would have been better off using Daemonettes. The Bloodthirster was killed by Belial in the second game and by Daemonic Instability in the fifth game against the Eldar (part due to a bad Warp Storm roll, part due to combat res from the the Flesh Hounds getting slowly stomped by the Wraithknight in a big battle that also included the Avatar).

I managed to table my opponents in the first four games, but only just managed to scrape a win against the Eldar in the last game - the game ended on turn 5 and after playing it out, I would have lost on turn 7. By the end of that game (it was kill points) I had 4-5 Pink Horrors in combat against his undamaged Wraith Knight, but first blood got me the win.