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As per the title, I play daemons and am having trouble keeping up with my playing group's recent purchases of superheavies and gargantuans. I just can't kill them, and ignoring them often ends quite badly. I feel a bit dirty when I use the belakor/dthirster combo, and was wondering if a lord of Skulls might help me out in this regard?

Looking at the points cost and the cost in real dollars makes me cringe, though. I really can't tell if the thing is worth it's points or if I would have buyer's remorse. It looks good on paper, but I have a suspicion it might under perform compared to knights/wraith knights and the like.

Just for context, my meta is about 50/50 competitive/casual. Doesn't need to be tournament material but can't suck too bad either in order for it to be a worthwhile purchase.

I know my friend with scatterbikes won't appreciate a str9 ap3 hell storm template.

I played against one once, it kills hard and is very tough itself but I changed my strategy to avoiding it while playing to the maelstrom objectives and killing the rest of his army. At 888 points that's almost half your army tied up in one model. Think long and hard about whether your playing opponents that can counter one big, sorta slow model.

Daemons can, I believe, take the Kytan Daemon Engine, which is like a Lord of Skulls but cheaper and can stomp. It doesn't get any upgrades, and it doesn't have the "more attacks as you lose hullpoints" but it does have a bunch of fun rules and, again, it can stomp.

Lord of Skulls works best when teaming up with Belakor for invisibility shenanigans. I wouldn't take one under any other circumstances.

I think it could be worth it. The thing wrecks face in CC (at least in my experience) and if it gets damaged it gets to attack more. The big sticking point (in my opinion) is the massive points cost

I agree, the only thing keeping me from buying one is that points cost. It occurred to me that nothing is stopping me from cursed earth + grimoire-ing this thing to a 2++, is there?

The thing that worries me is that I put a bunch of guns on it and then get bogged down in a unit of 30 boys or gaunts or something similar. That would be the worst since I can't break, I have 4 attacks, and anything that can't hurt me in cc won't give me more attacks. I can use the hell storms to help against that, but those weapons aren't really costed for hitting gaunts..

Are chaos knights better? Does the kytan perform better for the points against today's meta?

Its not worth it in any form.

888 points nets you a terribly over costed model that by all rights will die the same as its counterpart the Kytan, to Eldar and enemy D ranged weapons. The only difference being that the Kytan is actually GOOD and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

the Kystan rules specifically state that in any place a Lord of Skulls can be taken, you may take a Kytan instead.

Definitely not worth it. Get An'ggrath if you want to spend that many points. Get a Chaos Knight if you want to spend 420 or so points and have it do good things. Grim/CE/Be'Lakor and enjoy.

Convert an Imperial Knight to look chaosy.

The Lord of Skulls is ok, but he is over-costed for what he brings. His worse offense is his inability to do Stomp attacks. Without stomps, he can be tied up by tarpit units. However, I love his flamer weapon, especially as it is one of the few weapons in the Chaos arsenal that can Ignore Cover.

Overall, if you are looking at Competitive Chaos, go for the Kytan or a Chaos Knight instead. If you want to play more for fun, then the Lord of Skulls is ok.

Is he worth the price tag? Competitively, no. In fluffy games he can be a lot of fun though. 

I used to own a Lord of Skulls but sold the model, as ultimately it was way overcosted. Without bashing the Eldar per se, when I compared the new Wraithknight stats/points with the Lord of Skulls, that was the final straw. 

I found the main drawbacks to using him on a reasonably competitive basis was the lack of Stomp attacks, meaning it was too easy for it to get tarpitted by horde units, essentially taking him out of the game for at least a while. And when that many points are nullified, even temporarily, it's a big problem. Ideally you want him to be slaughtering infantry units with his ranged weapons and chopping up expensive tanks and other super heavies in combat. 

Another issue was that he was getting severely damaged or taken out far too easily by dedicated counter-units like fire dragons. And when he costs around 900 points that's another big problem. 

On the positive side he can be a lot of fun, especially in fluffier games. His skullhurler weapon has to be one of the coolest in 40k, after all it's a cannon that shoots giant skulls at the enemy, which explode into lots of little skulls, which then proceed to bite any survivors! Awesome! In terms of gameplay it's also fun using the apocalyptic blast and hellstorm templates, which can be devastating in the right conditions. 

Overall it depends what sort of gaming you play as to whether it's worth getting one. If you mostly play competitive games you'll probably end upfrustrated with him. If you mostly play fluffy or large point games he can be a lot of fun. Or if you want a models as a display centrepiece hhe'd certainly fit the bill there.

I bought a Chaos Knight instead after selling my Lord of Skulls, which is a much better choice imo in terms of value for points. As others have said the Kytan looks decent too.

Thanks for all the input, lots of good advice. Definitely leaning towards a kytan or chaos knight. My group is kinda iffy on forge world, which is unfortunate, but maybe I have to try and burst that bubble.

I read somewhere in another thread that there is no restriction on using the thunderblitz table when locked in combat, which would help him out with hordes alot, but is that actually the case? The Lord of skulls would be the only model I know of who both has thunderblitz and can be locked in combat so it might be a case of "no actual rules for the circumstance."

Would make sense to me, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to drive over things at ground level if they're trying to chop him up.

kytan is the best option if you can afford the points.
khorne knight is about 100 points cheaper but not as destructive or resilient.

a buffed kytan is a real nightmare to deal with.
youre on the right idea with grimoire and cursed earth. trolltastic

You can only perform a Thunderblitz when you perform a Tank Shock or a Ram. Can you TS/ram while locked in close-combat?

I don't know the answer to that question, and don't have my rulebook handy.

I'm guessing the answer is no, though.

Lord of Skulls is fun with Belakor. Other than that, it's a bit overpriced for what it does, but can be still cool.

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I don't know the answer to that question, and don't have my rulebook handy.

I'm guessing the answer is no, though.

And you would be correct.

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
Thanks for all the input, lots of good advice. Definitely leaning towards a kytan or chaos knight. My group is kinda iffy on forge world, which is unfortunate, but maybe I have to try and burst that bubble.

Do it. There is nothing wrong with forgeworld, and their units are almost always better balanced than what gw puts out.

If your group allows wraithknights, they should have no problem with a kytan.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Lord of Skulls is fun with Belakor. Other than that, it's a bit overpriced for what it does, but can be still cool.

To be clear, though, literally anything works while Be'Lakor is doing his shenanigans. You could run Kharn as a solo unit and things would still die to him. And now I want to try that

Yeah, anything functions infinitely better when it's under Invisibility. It really shouldn't be taken into account for a unit's effectiveness.