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Hey guys, kinda a new player here, my opponents are necrons and eldar, and after painting up my CSM and getting destroyed game after game I have shifted to the KDK book, to which I am having great success.

Top preface this, I'm not a very good painter, I have a condition that makes my hands shake a lot, and I'm also partially colorblind lol, so painting models that look good is a huge challenge. Enter the Thirster, who I spent countless hours painting up to look good, and I really love him, but I can't seem to keep him alive against these heavily shooting armies. Now, if we play high points I ally in Be'lakor to give him invis and her can do work against the necrons, eldar always cancel out my stuff =(. But I would like to know some tactics not using be'lakor, because I like to play fluffy and Khorne doesn't really like psychic stuff.

Every time I have used him without be'lakor, he dies very easily. I can't really hide this big model anywhere, so he either dies t1 or 2. We play with a lot of ruins but I only have one big los blocking building in the middle of the board. If I swoop him all game he is golden but then he just flies around being worthless. If I drop him t2 and go for the charge he never makes it. What could I do to make this guy actually kill something? I got him into combat in one game outta 3 so far, and striking at i1 pretty much sealed his death in that combat.

The only good thing about him dying is all that fire is off of my other units, which is awesome, but I really wanna d something lol, considering my wife's eldar shoves all kinda D in my face(hehe) and the necrons also rock some d, I just wanna get in on the party lol!

Unfortunetly for people who like to play fluffy mono-Khorne armies Bloodthirsters don't last long against shooting armies, come to think of it most big things don't last long.
If you really want to keep him alive then piling on psychic buffs and Grimoire is all you can do.

So the following suggestion is throwing out all sense of Khorne hating magic:
Ally with Daemons, bring a Lord of change with Grimoire and a unit of pink horrors. Add Be'lakor into your primary. Make the LoC roll on malefic for cursed earth.
With all of this you can make your D-thirster invisible with a 2++ invulnerable.

If you want to stay in KDK there isn't much you can do to protect your thirster besides bringing other scary units that make your opponent think twice about pumping all their fire power into one MC.

like.. you don't have to deploy him. He could swoop in. Sure, you're not getting into combat quickly, but if you can tie the enemy up with the rest of your army, then the D-thirster can be brought in for specific problems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Without mixing in daemons.. A bastion to hide behind, or a void shield generator could help./

The tricky thing about leaving him in reserves or otherwise keeping him out of harm's way until your other units have tied up the opponent in close combat is that it will be a long time until you can get him to combat.

Ideal scenario - turn 2, Khorne dogs charge things and tie up two or three units. Bloodthirster comes in from reserves (or from behind a really big rock) and isn't able to charge until turn 4. Maybe if you have a really great placement on that big rock you could charge turn 3.

Realistically, I would tend to fly him turn 1 so that your opponent needs 6's to hit him. Turn 2 you stop flying. You can't charge, but you should be getting a squad or two at least into close combat since your hounds can scout. Turn 3 should be ok since you have the big guns tied up.

Really, though, psychic support is the best way to keep him alive by far

Just to cover all the bases, the only other tactic I haven't seen mentioned here is target saturation and redundancy.

I typically give my lord an Axe of Run and wings/jetpack/bike (anything to increase his speed) and throw him into the grinder. He'll earn you at least a bloodpoint or two before he dies, and if you are using a Blood Host, its entirely possible to have enough Tithe points before he kicks it to nominate him as the target of your Bloodthirster summoning result, netting you 2 Bloodthirsters for the price of one! Granted one will hemorrhage wounds each turn, but with some lucky invul save rolling he'll last a few turns (long enough to draw fire, or snap up a unit in assault).

With 3 BTs on the board, suddenly shooting your D-Thirster becomes less attractive if there is a pair of regular thirsters on the doorstep.

But that is a bit of a gamble. Like others have said, reserves and psychic tricks are probably your best bet.

I wonder if anyone has tried a 2 or 3 D thirster list? Clearly they would need be'lakor for support but with a grim and some decent greater rewards, you could mulch quite a bit. With 3 thirsters and Be'Lakor, that's 1305 points, including 2 greater rewards on the thirsters, plus a greater and the grim on another one. You should never fail to cast shrouding, and invis is very possible as well (especially with a little more psychic support). Unless someone ignores your cover with a lot of AP 2/3, your guys are going to get where you need them to. You could even shave 100 points off if you want to be thrifty and do no greater rewards. A decent amount of them aren't worth it, to be fair. So 1205 points for 3 D thirsters, a grim and be'lakor? Bears trying out if you ask me

 luke1705 wrote:
I wonder if anyone has tried a 2 or 3 D thirster list? Clearly they would need be'lakor for support but with a grim and some decent greater rewards, you could mulch quite a bit. With 3 thirsters and Be'Lakor, that's 1305 points, including 2 greater rewards on the thirsters, plus a greater and the grim on another one. You should never fail to cast shrouding, and invis is very possible as well (especially with a little more psychic support). Unless someone ignores your cover with a lot of AP 2/3, your guys are going to get where you need them to. You could even shave 100 points off if you want to be thrifty and do no greater rewards. A decent amount of them aren't worth it, to be fair. So 1205 points for 3 D thirsters, a grim and be'lakor? Bears trying out if you ask me

I did the math, although not very fluffy you can throw in a tallyband with all nurglings and an un-upgraded herald and some chaos furies of khorn with the 3 D thirsters and Belakor and you have a daemonic decurion all with 2+ saves from shrouded (belakor) and a grimoire to top it off. Have fun killing those lol

all depend what else you play, i played 2 thirsters in murder horde and with 43 dogs on table, is hard your opponent have time to focus on thirsters, if he do and did not kill him, is game over because you overrun him with all your dogs and thirsters anyway, you should give lot of threats so he can have hard time choose the right target. That was the list

2 D thirster 2 greater rewards
herald of K juggernaut, crimson crown, lesser reward exalted locus
5x7 hounds
2x5 hounds
4 bloodcrushers champion with lesser reward
karanak
Actually i am playing a chaos knight over the 2nd thirster and less hounds

Unless I'm missing something, isn't the new Daemoncurion better than KDK? Even a Murderhorde, with 7 dog units, a crusher squad with a herald, your Dthirster, Belakor, and Karanak is a pretty swanky list,

I suppose blood tithe is nicer than the warp storm table, but you will never get 2 and 4 In a daemoncurion. (3 sucks, but is not as bad as the other two.)

i just use it like example about multiple threats, i know this is a KDK thread but you can do same as murderhorde with KDK. I dont know if K decurion is better than KDK, i just know it can perform pretty good

So the game last night I ran more dogs and a demon prince warlord And a blood thirster. Eldar have a lot of shooting, but she couldn't deal with everything And he lived and did some work. Now to test against the necrons tonight to see if he can survive all of their shooting!

Thanks for the replies guys I will update!

I've never been a big fan of D thirster in a pure Daemonkin list, although the protection tactic of target saturation fits their style well. For more reliable protection you're going to have to look for Daemon allies. Grimoire and Cursed Earth to improve the inv save or invisibility are obvious buffs.

Alternatively, run the thirster as part of the Daemon detachment and take two greater rewards. If you get lucky these can seriously improve the survivability of the thirster just by themselves. If you use the buffs above as well he will start becoming seriously unkillable. The only drawback really is that you lose the BFTBG rule if he isn't Daemonkin.