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Interested in starting Khorne.

I would like to avoid deamons, and go purely mortal followers. One or two deamons are okay, but I am not a fan of the Bloodletter models. Any advice is welcome.

Our group is all brand new, we're mostly casual gamers, there is one playing Stormcasts and another playing Slannesh and a Nagash Ghosts person.

Get a starter half of the original AoS box set, get mighty skullcrushers, and people like the gore pilgrim list (I like Dark Feast, myself). Couple Bloodthirsters for blood tithe summoning might be good, and run minimum units of blood reavers to get them as quickly as possible.

Another option is to wait and see how the new Warcry and Slaves to Darkness releases shape up.

Warcry has dedicated chaos mortals fighting it out and several teams look very "khorne" or can be painted as such very easily. Furthermore its very likely that Slaves to Darkness will get a new Battletome at Some point in the nearish future (most are assuming it will come within a short span of time of warcry, but certainly this year).

That way you can build a mortal core and then bring in khorne specific chaos units into that.


Otherwise chaos khorne players might be able to advice, khorne certainly has a good core of mortal models so could well do it with just them alone in an army without needing many demons.

 Overread wrote:
Another option is to wait and see how the new Warcry and Slaves to Darkness releases shape up.

Warcry has dedicated chaos mortals fighting it out and several teams look very "khorne" or can be painted as such very easily. Furthermore its very likely that Slaves to Darkness will get a new Battletome at Some point in the nearish future (most are assuming it will come within a short span of time of warcry, but certainly this year).

That way you can build a mortal core and then bring in khorne specific chaos units into that.


Otherwise chaos khorne players might be able to advice, khorne certainly has a good core of mortal models so could well do it with just them alone in an army without needing many demons.

Thanks! We're planning a group escalation event starting on July 1, so I have a bit of time to wait. The idea is everyone ponies up the cash to buy 1 Leader, 1 troop and then we run each week adding more and more up to 2000 points. I am very interested in the warcry stuff to be honest, lots of potential there,


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 timetowaste85 wrote:
Get a starter half of the original AoS box set, get mighty skullcrushers, and people like the gore pilgrim list (I like Dark Feast, myself). Couple Bloodthirsters for blood tithe summoning might be good, and run minimum units of blood reavers to get them as quickly as possible.

Bloodthirsters are awesome! I defiantly want one or two of them! I just really don't like the skullcrushers, or the bloodletters all that much. Not really sure why, maybe aesthetics?

If you aren't playing competitively / tournament style, then the mortal side of the khorne army can be fun. If you have anyone with a competitive bend facing off against you, your nose will be rubbed into the table.

That being said the bloodthirsters are the corner stone of any AOS khorne army worth anything, backed by a bloodsecrator and a couple of priests.

Half of the original starter set will get you the bloodsecrator and some reavers and some blood warriors. You'll need to obtain the priests separately.

 auticus wrote:
If you aren't playing competitively / tournament style, then the mortal side of the khorne army can be fun. If you have anyone with a competitive bend facing off against you, your nose will be rubbed into the table.

That being said the bloodthirsters are the corner stone of any AOS khorne army worth anything, backed by a bloodsecrator and a couple of priests.

Half of the original starter set will get you the bloodsecrator and some reavers and some blood warriors. You'll need to obtain the priests separately.

I doubt we will be playing any tournament quality games. But out of curiosity, why will they get stomped?

Mortals don't have the damage output or the tanking ability. Khorne in general is middle of the road, but leans on the blood thirsters and demon tricks for its damage output.

In a competitive tournament quality game, if you bring mostly mortals (other than the mandatory bloodsecrator and dual priests) its akin to bringing a rock to a gun fight.

 auticus wrote:
Mortals don't have the damage output or the tanking ability. Khorne in general is middle of the road, but leans on the blood thirsters and demon tricks for its damage output.

In a competitive tournament quality game, if you bring mostly mortals (other than the mandatory bloodsecrator and dual priests) its akin to bringing a rock to a gun fight.

Strange...

I thought Khorne was all about the combat and killing..

They are. In the stories. In the rules they are about slap fighting with the exception of a couple of units. They are fine so long as you aren't up against someone powergaming with the big-3 (daughters of khaine, flesh eater courts, or skaven)

May I ask about some of the models? I can't get a copy of the book until the weekend.

Models I like:

Exalted Deathbringers
Skullgrinder
Skullreapers
Bloodreavers
Blood Warriors
Wrathmongers
Slaughter Priests
Flesh Hounds
Blood Thirsters

Are any of these units good?

All lists always have at least two if not three blood thirsters. They are the best unit in the book. Highly mobile, lots of damage.

Slaughter Priests are mandatory, people mostly always take two.

Flesh Hounds are ok.

Exalted Deathbringers are meh to garbage.
Skullgrinder - meh.
Skull reapers - meh.
Blood Reavers - can be useful in numbers for holding objectives.

Blood Warriors - highly disappointing considering their models are pretty cool. They are meh but the option to let them attack when they die is useful.

Wrathmongers - meh to borderline almost ok.

The biggest reason most of that is meh or garbage is that the damage output is not that good. Mainly due to lack of rend and lack of damage. Or paying too much for it in points and being highly unoptimal to the point where smart opponents will just pick those units out of your list first and the rest of your army can't stand on its own.

This is why blood thirsters feature in every competitive based army. They have good damage output and are highly mobile.

Which is a shame because I am a mortal chaos player and love the mortal factions but their rules have been almost entirely garbage since AOS dropped in 2015.

 auticus wrote:
All lists always have at least two if not three blood thirsters. They are the best unit in the book. Highly mobile, lots of damage.

Slaughter Priests are mandatory, people mostly always take two.

Flesh Hounds are ok.

Exalted Deathbringers are meh to garbage.
Skullgrinder - meh.
Skull reapers - meh.
Blood Reavers - can be useful in numbers for holding objectives.

Blood Warriors - highly disappointing considering their models are pretty cool. They are meh but the option to let them attack when they die is useful.

Wrathmongers - meh to borderline almost ok.

The biggest reason most of that is meh or garbage is that the damage output is not that good. Mainly due to lack of rend and lack of damage. Or paying too much for it in points and being highly unoptimal to the point where smart opponents will just pick those units out of your list first and the rest of your army can't stand on its own.

This is why blood thirsters feature in every competitive based army. They have good damage output and are highly mobile.

Which is a shame because I am a mortal chaos player and love the mortal factions but their rules have been almost entirely garbage since AOS dropped in 2015.

Set aside competitiveness for a moment, then how do they stack up. The group I'm going to be running is is a beer and pretzels type of group. They've outright banned the usage of realms, and none of them run optimized net lists.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Get a starter half of the original AoS box set, get mighty skullcrushers, and people like the gore pilgrim list (I like Dark Feast, myself). Couple Bloodthirsters for blood tithe summoning might be good, and run minimum units of blood reavers to get them as quickly as possible.

The thing being referred to is labeled as "Start Collecting! Khorne Bloodbound Goreblade Warband".
It includes literally everything that you got for Khorne in the AoS 1.0 starter. For $85.

And as silly as it may sound, I'd also suggest seeing about splitting a Wrath and Rapture with the Slaanesh player. Karanak is $35 by himself and Flesh Hounds are $50. Those two units alone will basically cover you two splitting it on your side, much like the Infernal Rapturess and the Fiends will cover his half--assuming you buy it at MSRP rather than discounted.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Get a starter half of the original AoS box set, get mighty skullcrushers, and people like the gore pilgrim list (I like Dark Feast, myself). Couple Bloodthirsters for blood tithe summoning might be good, and run minimum units of blood reavers to get them as quickly as possible.

The thing being referred to is labeled as "Start Collecting! Khorne Bloodbound Goreblade Warband".
It includes literally everything that you got for Khorne in the AoS 1.0 starter. For $85.

And as silly as it may sound, I'd also suggest seeing about splitting a Wrath and Rapture with the Slaanesh player. Karanak is $35 by himself and Flesh Hounds are $50. Those two units alone will basically cover you two splitting it on your side, much like the Infernal Rapturess and the Fiends will cover his half--assuming you buy it at MSRP rather than discounted.

Thanks, I can certainly try it. Having the deamons, even though I'm not a fan of the sculpts can still be good.

As I said above:

They are fine so long as you aren't up against someone powergaming with the big-3

I always assume the default language in forums is tournament competitive since that seems to be the normal inquiry, but preface with if you are not powergaming then you will be fine.

 auticus wrote:
As I said above:

They are fine so long as you aren't up against someone powergaming with the big-3

I always assume the default language in forums is tournament competitive since that seems to be the normal inquiry, but preface with if you are not powergaming then you will be fine.

Sorry! I got myself turned around.

What I meant to say was how likely am I to still get my teeth kicked in even in friendly games.

One of our group is running Nighthaunt, the other is running all of the Sacrosanct Stormcast stuff, and a third player has the new Slaanesh deamons. There is a dude who we all just met with Slayers, and his wife plays the new gobbos.

We're all hoping for a fun group, and I as well as them do not want to power game.

You were saying that priests are mandatory, why is that?

In friendly games where your opponents are running friendly, non adepticon style lists, you will have fun. You can have good games. Khorne is a middle of the pack "C" list. It suffers against min / maxing barring you running the default tournament config for them (mutliple blood thirsters, two priests, bloodsecrator core)

Priests are mandatory because of their buffing abilities plus they go well with the khorne terrain piece altar thing. They just synergize really well for the points.

I was running the numbers, and if your opponent has a KoS and you throw a BT against it, you will lose. And on top of that, even if you severely weaken it or kill it, he’ll likely have enough points to resummon it. You won’t have enough tithe points to though. The Slaanesh player sounds like your scariest matchup.

I would say Khorne is king of Min/Maxing. Every dead unit=a blood tithe point. 8pts gets you a thirsted. Swarm the board with Reavers at min unit size, watch them die, summon in better stuff. And if they live, they can steal objectives.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I was running the numbers, and if your opponent has a KoS and you throw a BT against it, you will lose. And on top of that, even if you severely weaken it or kill it, he’ll likely have enough points to resummon it. You won’t have enough tithe points to though. The Slaanesh player sounds like your scariest matchup.

I would say Khorne is king of Min/Maxing. Every dead unit=a blood tithe point. 8pts gets you a thirsted. Swarm the board with Reavers at min unit size, watch them die, summon in better stuff. And if they live, they can steal objectives.

He does have a KoS, but we don't ever summon in our games. We just pay the points to bring the model.