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I'm working on a 2k Tournament list and was planning to use a Skulltaker on Jugg and maybe a herald on a blood throne for HQ choices. Should I add normal heralds on foot? do they help much? Should I get a couple to stick with some blood letter units? At first I wanted them for their look but I'm thinking I can buy one later to model and wasn't sure if I really needed one or two in my list. What do you folks think? To Herald or not to Herald? (oh and the one on the blood throne is so I can take a blood throne).

I think that heralds on foot are a bit too easy to kill unless you're running tzeentch heralds (even then they are easy to kill, they just give you cheap warp charges). If you take them you want them mounted on a steed (which you've got with skull taker) or on the throne.

From the way you're talking about your list it sounds like you are running khorne. If that is the case I would save the points on the foot-heralds and use them on more things like fleshhounds and the like. You really don't wanna be spending more points than you have to on blood letters. Honestly, bloodletters are pretty underwhelming. I use them because I run khorne themed lists, but they generally don't do anything impressive.

Okay... cool... I thought there was some kind of 'gotta include' aspect to them like some sort of boost or help that they give (well I guess Loci but I'm getting that from the Skulltaker and other blood throne herald anyway).

Yeah... I'm going mono-khorne but I'm wondering if maybe I should mix it up... get a 'Blood and Fire' theme going and add some Tzeentch stuff like flamers.

They are your Swiss Army Knife unit. Not only because they're 4 per HQ slot, but because they can be configured to any one of multiple roles.

They're not "auto-include" but adding a complimentary Herald to any unit will definitely increase power or utility.

My only regret is you can't give a Nurgle Herald a Plague Drone and only a Palanquin, because there would be some awesome stuff that could be done with that!

Honestly there's an auto-include herald, which is the Slaanesh one IF you are using 20 Daemonettes or a unit of Seekers. That many rending attacks are painful for everyone... but with an Herald with the correct Locus you have that many RE-ROLLING to hit rending attacks. Devastating. Tested it many times with and without... really, no reason whatsoever to not take it. A must.

The tzeentch herald on disc is an auto-include also if you take 9 Screamers.

Finally an Herald of Khorne on Juggernaught with the Axe of Khorne is almost an auto-include for a unit of Flesh Hounds: with the Herald you can safely charge units such as Terminators and Meganobz without being locked in combat for the whole game. It's like 5 S6 VP2 attacks on the charge, enough to kill 2-3 terminators per round.

All others Heralds in all other builds are not strictly needed competitively-speaking. And often they're not even worth taking, at least IMHO.

Does anyone pay to upgrade the heralds they take to psyker 1 &/or 2?
Tzeentch ones I presume yes, but Nurgle and Slaanesh?

I've recently started using plaguebearers and Herald of Nurgle with my CSM army, and the Herald adds enough to the unit that I wouldn't take them without anymore.

In 7ed now its viable to make the other heralds psykers as they aren't depending on crappy Ld8 to cast powers. Probably wouldn't bother on Nurgle heralds though because other then endurance they just aren't going to get any meaningful powers for what they are doing.

Slaanesh can work because telepathy spam is powerful. At the very least you get a lot of psychic shriek but it also gives you a chance to get shrouding and invisibility. Still suffers from being very fragile and ends up being a lot of points invested in something not durable.

Also if you are focusing on psyker heavy lists and already have those heralds its a cheap way to get WCs in your list since its 25pts per level

Karanak with Bloodletters is an option if you're deadset on running Bloodletters. Karanak has Scout, which helps alot with the difficulties Bloodletters have in getting across the field.