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For those who are unfamiliar here are the bonuses for each formation:

Gorepack
-move through cover
-preferred enemy psykers
-fleshhounds get hammer of wrath
-bikers get shred on hammer of wrath

Murderhost
-entire formation gets +1 attack
-formation benefits from loci within 12"

Now the gorepack is obviously good at running straight at the enemy and (literally) hammering them. Benefiting from BFTBG is also quite good.

On the other hand...

The murderhost has an insane number of attacks (minimum models being 41): 164 on the charge. With the heralds loci you can also give the formation hatred AND the herald may take one of the new relics which gives all units of Khorne within 12" +1 attack. It is also very easy to make this formation into a daemonic incursion detachment by simply adding Karranack, who will also give his unit rage!

The murderhost clearly has more potential but it does require the investment of 8 units of fleshhounds. What is Dakkas opinion?

Depends what you want, If you want Bikes and not forced to take 8 units then Gorepack is just as good.

If you are doing a Horde Army MSU with multi Loci then Murderhost is better

Gorepack doesn't actually require much investment, but is great to invest in at the same time.

 mrhappyface wrote:
For those who are unfamiliar here are the bonuses for each formation:

Gorepack
-move through cover
-preferred enemy psykers
-fleshhounds get hammer of wrath
-bikers get shred on hammer of wrath

Murderhost
-entire formation gets +1 attack
-formation benefits from loci within 12"

Now the gorepack is obviously good at running straight at the enemy and (literally) hammering them. Benefiting from BFTBG is also quite good.

On the other hand...

The murderhost has an insane number of attacks (minimum models being 41): 164 on the charge. With the heralds loci you can also give the formation hatred AND the herald may take one of the new relics which gives all units of Khorne within 12" +1 attack. It is also very easy to make this formation into a daemonic incursion detachment by simply adding Karranack, who will also give his unit rage!

The murderhost clearly has more potential but it does require the investment of 8 units of fleshhounds. What is Dakkas opinion?

The BIG bonus that Gorepack actually gets is Fearless. The difference in staying power is ridiculous.
Small hound packs don't actually do that much damage. A squad of 5 hounds without bonuses does ~2 casualties to a tactical squad and they do 1 back. After that you trade wounds 1-for-1 on average. If a tac marine gets in wound vs your none in one round, losing another whole model to instability is pretty likely.


Hammer of wrath is pretty comparable to +1 attack on the charge. You trade 1 S4 auto-hit for 1 WS5 S5 attack. (HOW works out ever so slightly better vs tac marines). It also can't be taken away from you - whereas the +1A from Murderhorde can be denied if your opponent takes out the dudes in the middle.


Overall I think it depends a lot on the rest of your army though. A KDK army wants to be 100% daemonkin. It gains shooting power and some resiliency over Daemons (FNP). A Daemons army has a lot more flexibility in other areas - screamers, heralds, daemon princes and psychic powers.

Trasvi wrote:


The BIG bonus that Gorepack actually gets is Fearless. The difference in staying power is ridiculous.
Small hound packs don't actually do that much damage. A squad of 5 hounds without bonuses does ~2 casualties to a tactical squad and they do 1 back. After that you trade wounds 1-for-1 on average. If a tac marine gets in wound vs your none in one round, losing another whole model to instability is pretty likely.


Hammer of wrath is pretty comparable to +1 attack on the charge. You trade 1 S4 auto-hit for 1 WS5 S5 attack. (HOW works out ever so slightly better vs tac marines). It also can't be taken away from you - whereas the +1A from Murderhorde can be denied if your opponent takes out the dudes in the middle.


Overall I think it depends a lot on the rest of your army though. A KDK army wants to be 100% daemonkin. It gains shooting power and some resiliency over Daemons (FNP). A Daemons army has a lot more flexibility in other areas - screamers, heralds, daemon princes and psychic powers.

Chiming in to say that KDK don't have daemonic instability.

Trasvi wrote:

The BIG bonus that Gorepack actually gets is Fearless. The difference in staying power is ridiculous.
Small hound packs don't actually do that much damage. A squad of 5 hounds without bonuses does ~2 casualties to a tactical squad and they do 1 back. After that you trade wounds 1-for-1 on average. If a tac marine gets in wound vs your none in one round, losing another whole model to instability is pretty likely.

The fearless is really good on the dogs, as you can use them as tarpit units. When I'm playing a Tetrad list, a squad of 20 dogs will tie up 1-2 princes for most of the game.

If the Murderhost is part of a Daemonic Incursion, and it should be -- then all unit's get to rereroll daemonic instability tests. This greatly lowers the negative effects of the daemonic instability - which means those losses of combat by 1 are not so bad. However, a daemon prince ID'ing 3 dogs a turn will still rip through a murderhorde.

Gorepack gets blood tithe so can summon some replacement hounds in late in the game doesn't it? That seems like a clear win to me!

 DoomMouse wrote:
Gorepack gets blood tithe so can summon some replacement hounds in late in the game doesn't it? That seems like a clear win to me!

Kinda. Blood Tithe only works if you have lots of units with BFTBG. If you are just adding a GorePack to a CSM or Daemon list, you probably won't be generating many blood tithe points, unless you field the max number of Hound units, at which point you may as well just go with the MurderHorde.

My suggestion is to build your models to use as both. Bunch of Hounds + a new box of 10 Chaos Knights for AoS (new oval bases)
With minimal conversion (i.e. magnetizing melta guns) you can use those Chaos Knights as Bikes for the GorePack, or Blood Crushers/Herald on Juggernaut in the Murderhorde.

I thought it'd usually be best to field max hound numbers? Adds to MSU for one, plus they're the best thing about the gorepack (those bikes are a little pricey). Should be able to summon in somethingif the enemy kills them all and they kill NOTHING which is a little unlikely?

That chaos knight suggestion sounds awesome though