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I'm expanding my fluffy Khorne army and wanted to be able to summon daemons to plague my foes? How effective would summoning blood letters be?

I don't play CSM a lot, but from what I've seen of other people, it tends to be very effective, it's free troops really.

a crimson slaughter unmarked sorc with the daemon artifact and a spell familiar at lvl 3 is the best summoner (extremely efficient for points and effective) in the game.

The issue is not their ability to summon, its generating the warp charges needed to reliably summon.

Chaos daemons get warp charges on the cheap, that's what makes them so damn sweet.

The Crimson Slaughter sorc the42up mentioned works fantastically, as does summoning bloodletters strategically. Normally when I run a summoner, the two most important powers I want to get are (a) cursed earth and (b) summoning. Sacrifice is a bonus, incursion is meh (for me at least), and posession is generally a last ditch effort sort of thing. If I manage cursed earth on 1st roll, I'll do a second roll and primaris out if i roll a 2/3/5, then I'll either roll on sanctic hoping for hammerhand or vordex, or on telepathy for invis/shriek.

But yeah, though bloodletters are the 'worst' of the summoned units, they still can hit like a brick. 20 S5 hits will kill most vehicles in the game. They work even better with said cursed earth/summoning/sacrifice combo. cursed earth for no scatter DS on the letters. Summon the letters. Sacrifice and putt he wound on either a posessed (expensive choice) or a nearby cultist (better choice). Give the herald an aetherblade and a greater locus. Other way is to go for an exalted reward and take the poralglyph/grimiour.

Blood for the Blood God.

I tried summoning for the first time, with my CSM army, last weekend. Its a bit hit or miss. Summoning requires 3 warp charges, so you need to throw a lot of dice at it, to pull it off. I run a lv3 Terminator Sorcerer as my HQ, and brought an extra lv2 CMS Sorcerer for added warp charges, and to cast Demonology, without killing my own Warlord with Perils.

When using Demonology-Malefic, you get Perils on any doubles, not just double 6s, unless your Psyker has the daemon special rule.

Safest way is to summon Pink Horrors first, then to use them for summoning afterwards, to keep from killing your Psyker with Perils. As Pink Horrors have the daemon special rule, by the virtue of being demons, the only risk Perils on double 6s

Daemon Prince Lvl 3 with spell familiar lets you summon stuff in your opponents DZ fairly effectively and has the added defence of flying. Still, you do pay for it, but IMHO, he's worth the price of a pair of LvL 3 sorcerors. The only issue is getting enough warp charge to actually achieve something with him, so allying with a daemons force for some horrors is usually a bit of a win, but then, why not simply run primary Daemons?

It works best when you've got allied tzeenchian daemons, imo. You need some number of WC to start the summoning wheel.

I've tried this up in two games - both when i was testing Murderface Murderpack...btw, they're cool and unexpectedly effective when you support them properly.

The first game i ran a Crymson slaughter prophet of the voices bikersorc with spell familliar, ml3 accompanied by 5 possessed. Another WC came from a squad of 1000 sons. Sorc made 2 rolls on telepathy and 1 on summoning. I felt telepathy was essential to support brutes and i got shrowding + primaris and summoning.

My impression was that Crymson slaughter summoning sorc is too expensive. He's 155 pts for ML3, Spell familliar and prophet. Does need a bike and retinue imo. And when you tke minimum of what's needed - the squad's 310 pts. And it's not like they're super frightening to your opponent. If you go for a strong offensive squad, possessed are rather meh for that role.

Anywayz, i got lucky and managed to summon a bunch of daemonettes, khorne dogs and pink horrors. That blocked the enemy off till the brutes got the job done. In the end it proved to be quite effective.

Next game i've tried out a regular bikersorc with spawns and took a bunch of pink horrors + tzeench herald. Sorc focused on telepathy and herald focused on summoning. It proved to be much more effective as i've managed to summon a bunch of daemonettes and other heralds (sacrafice). Extra heralds pulled me ahead on the WC race against GK - and they're no stranger to stacking WC themselves while daemonettes blocked them off turn after turn. Helbrutes did their stuff, daemonettes blocked, heralds ran around and summoned.

In the end, i feel that the second list did better. TzHerald + horrors are quite durable and effective backfield unit that's capable of summoning themelves.

About khorne daemons. Khorne dogs are great, really. Summoning a bunch of dogs turn after turn is frightening for your opponent if he's more of a defensive side. If he's pushing, there's nothing better than summoning daemonettes imo. They got fleet and +3' to run. Means they'll effectively bauble wrap whatever needed the turn they arrive. Furthermore, they're quite choppy to cause a few casualties on the way down.

Haven't tried crushers or bloodthirsters yet. But i don't think bloodthirsters will be too effective due to starting in glide mode.

If you're looking at it from a CSM standpoint, i've got a feeling that a regular - non POTV - sorc will do it better. CS prophet of the voices requires so much investment. And you stil have high chances of perilling due to ML3. Why not accept that you'll peril and hope to roll 5+ instead. Maybe even put him in an artifact armor for IWND. You'll need something to generate WC to start the wheel cause otherwise, if you got just sorc, any psy army will block you off.