Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Thanks for the report!

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Hmmm I thought his might be happening. I don't think you can apply the dead walk again stratagem to an embarked unit. I guess it's debatable.

I don't think it's usable either--the first turn he's disembarking. That stratagem is used at the start of the movement phase and the poxwalkers are still in the building at that point and can't be affected in any way due to the rules of transports.

I think these sorts of rules get allowed in tournaments simply because both players aren't always following all the steps in sequence, and the opposing player is unaware.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Hmmm I thought his might be happening. I don't think you can apply the dead walk again stratagem to an embarked unit. I guess it's debatable.

i guess judges let him did that

It's used at the start of the movement phase though, he can't use it on them since they're still in the Aquila.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 blackmage wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Hmmm I thought his might be happening. I don't think you can apply the dead walk again stratagem to an embarked unit. I guess it's debatable.

i guess judges let him did that

I doubt the judges were even made aware of the situation if the opposing player had no idea it was even illegal to do.

It's a toss up if its usable. I don't think it is usable since it says you can transport, and thus uses the transport rules for embarking/dismebarking. In such case units can't be effected by anything while embarked.

Reguardless I think the pink horrors are still a very powerful element. 30 powerful shooting model that are almost like character protected by 100+ brim stones and blue horrors. You definitly need 2cp in your pocket to throw down auto pass morale atleast once. The banner might also be worth something as you can force a morale check on your own turn by killing a brimstone in the psykic phase, giving you a 1 in6 chance to get even more pink horrors added to the squad.

Mchagen wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Hmmm I thought his might be happening. I don't think you can apply the dead walk again stratagem to an embarked unit. I guess it's debatable.

I don't think it's usable either--the first turn he's disembarking. That stratagem is used at the start of the movement phase and the poxwalkers are still in the building at that point and can't be affected in any way due to the rules of transports.

I think these sorts of rules get allowed in tournaments simply because both players aren't always following all the steps in sequence, and the opposing player is unaware.

Maybe swap out that Acquilla with that Nurgle Tree to achieve the same sort of list???

Sadly the tree only effects daemons, which poxwalkers are not.
With terrain and some redundancy you should be able to screen alpha strikes, but I can see why it'd be difficult at that level of play.
Deploying in a fort may still be a good option but you won't get the horde going until turn 2.. risky

mmimzie wrote:

orkswubwub wrote:
Realize that in an ITC list 20 letters gives up reaper very easily. Also if you lose even one letter on overwatch you will lose the hit bonus.

A 30 man blood letter unit give it up just about as easy, It's certainly 50% durability but once you start geting past 7 kills you are praying for 1s on the banner for morale. So you have sorta deminishing returns on them that way. not to mention they are a 7pt guardsman squad.

As for the hit bonus the blood letters are still hyper effective on the charge rivaling most of the big hitter melee squads out thier for damage out put with or with out the to hit bonus. I definitly lean more toward not bringing them as they need too much dedication for something that can very easily get counters by a screen, auspex scan, forewarning, etc.

I ran some numbers against three units (180~ points of each): Blood Slaughterer with Harpoon, 9 Berzerkers with Power Fist attacking twice, and 22 Bloodletters with Icon + Banner. I wanted to see how much damage they would do against Toughness 7/8 vehicles with 10 wounds and a 3+ in one fight phase, no rerolls or buffs of any kind (except what they have naturally).

The Blood Slaughterer and Berzerkers almost kill the vehicle, getting 9 - 9.5 wounds on average. The Bloodletters, reducing their numbers to 19 after taking overwatch, overkill it by 1-2 wounds on average.

It's a little flippin' ridiculous how powerful Bloodletters are right now simply due to -3AP and 2D on 6s. You need nothing else, whereas if you want your other melee units doing equal or more damage they will need outside help. Any outside help to Bloodletters makes them even crazier. This pretty much solidifies my 3x20 Bloodletter unit list. I'm also dropping the deep striking Herald idea since it is unnecessary. Someone on Bolter and Chainsword is pushing for Wingless Daemon Prince with Skullreaver and I'm starting to agree with him.

What about skarbrand to support?

mmimzie wrote:
It's a toss up if its usable. I don't think it is usable since it says you can transport, and thus uses the transport rules for embarking/dismebarking. In such case units can't be effected by anything while embarked.

Reguardless I think the pink horrors are still a very powerful element. 30 powerful shooting model that are almost like character protected by 100+ brim stones and blue horrors. You definitly need 2cp in your pocket to throw down auto pass morale atleast once. The banner might also be worth something as you can force a morale check on your own turn by killing a brimstone in the psykic phase, giving you a 1 in6 chance to get even more pink horrors added to the squad.

dont you plan to Ds pink horrors?

Captyn_Bob wrote:
What about skarbrand to support?

Was that to me regarding the mathhammer?

Mchagen wrote:
It's used at the start of the movement phase though, he can't use it on them since they're still in the Aquila.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 blackmage wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Hmmm I thought his might be happening. I don't think you can apply the dead walk again stratagem to an embarked unit. I guess it's debatable.

i guess judges let him did that

I doubt the judges were even made aware of the situation if the opposing player had no idea it was even illegal to do.

well he played 6 whole rounds, strange no one got aware, he almost made top 8

 andysonic1 wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
What about skarbrand to support?

Was that to me regarding the mathhammer?

Yeah. He can bring 3 auras into the mix.

blackmage wrote:
dont you plan to Ds pink horrors?

blackmage wrote:
well he played 6 whole rounds, strange no one got aware, he almost made top 8

I do plan to DS them. No reason to give out free kill on my horrors before i have had a chance to shoot with them. So it'd definitly a 4cp investment, but with daemons most of your CP is spent in list creation with deep strikes and such. While the horror unit is very good for ITC forcing your opponent to kill ~100 guys before they have get thier 2 reaper points or otherwise basicly isn't worth the effort to go for reaper, and appart from that the unit doesn't really participate in any of the other secondaries very well either.

When you play tournmanets its very easy to cheat of accidently cheat. No every opponent is like reading the rule book on every single thing you do or know your stratagems by heart. So getting called on something is kind of unrealistic. That said looking at the ladder board i don't see him in the top 25 so maybe he ended up getting disqualified anyway. I know thier was some points recording snaffu as well where he also wasn't really in the top 8 or something?/

 blackmage wrote:

Spoiler:

Mchagen wrote:
It's used at the start of the movement phase though, he can't use it on them since they're still in the Aquila.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 blackmage wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Hmmm I thought his might be happening. I don't think you can apply the dead walk again stratagem to an embarked unit. I guess it's debatable.

i guess judges let him did that

I doubt the judges were even made aware of the situation if the opposing player had no idea it was even illegal to do.

well he played 6 whole rounds, strange no one got aware, he almost made top 8

There's a lot of subtle language in the 40k ruleset. If he wasn't explaining the rule verbatim, it could easily be overlooked. Especially if people aren't fully aware of the transport rules--which are off on a side page in the rulebook. I think it was a bad idea to have the rules layout done in that format.

Yeah TBF we only have an account of the first game of the tourney


Automatically Appended Next Post:
His last game was changed from a narrow win to a narrow loss an hour after the fact due to a forgotten secondary which dropped him from the top 8 to ~ 35.

 andysonic1 wrote:

mmimzie wrote:

orkswubwub wrote:
Realize that in an ITC list 20 letters gives up reaper very easily. Also if you lose even one letter on overwatch you will lose the hit bonus.

A 30 man blood letter unit give it up just about as easy, It's certainly 50% durability but once you start geting past 7 kills you are praying for 1s on the banner for morale. So you have sorta deminishing returns on them that way. not to mention they are a 7pt guardsman squad.

As for the hit bonus the blood letters are still hyper effective on the charge rivaling most of the big hitter melee squads out thier for damage out put with or with out the to hit bonus. I definitly lean more toward not bringing them as they need too much dedication for something that can very easily get counters by a screen, auspex scan, forewarning, etc.

I ran some numbers against three units (180~ points of each): Blood Slaughterer with Harpoon, 9 Berzerkers with Power Fist attacking twice, and 22 Bloodletters with Icon + Banner. I wanted to see how much damage they would do against Toughness 7/8 vehicles with 10 wounds and a 3+ in one fight phase, no rerolls or buffs of any kind (except what they have naturally).

The Blood Slaughterer and Berzerkers almost kill the vehicle, getting 9 - 9.5 wounds on average. The Bloodletters, reducing their numbers to 19 after taking overwatch, overkill it by 1-2 wounds on average.

It's a little flippin' ridiculous how powerful Bloodletters are right now simply due to -3AP and 2D on 6s. You need nothing else, whereas if you want your other melee units doing equal or more damage they will need outside help. Any outside help to Bloodletters makes them even crazier. This pretty much solidifies my 3x20 Bloodletter unit list. I'm also dropping the deep striking Herald idea since it is unnecessary. Someone on Bolter and Chainsword is pushing for Wingless Daemon Prince with Skullreaver and I'm starting to agree with him.

it's not really owrth it to compare units accross aries. khorne berserkers have access to rhinos and veterans of the long war stratagems. Also point aren't just balanced on damage out put. The berserkers are more durable than the letters and considerably more so if they can find cover.

Despite how good they are i'm pretty over blood letters to be honest. Getting them into melee where you are really happy is very unrealistic against most competive opponents. It needs alot of support.

Captyn_Bob wrote:

 andysonic1 wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
What about skarbrand to support?

Was that to me regarding the mathhammer?

Yeah. He can bring 3 auras into the mix.

Yeah I mean everyone benefits from Skarbrand, even enemy units. He's a plug'n'play unit that boosts your army up, but you need to build around him.

Completely 100% from a Khorne Daemonkin perspective: It's good to look at all your options. Unbuffed and just deep striking in, Bloodletters are really really good. Equal points of Berzerkers need a Rhino or Drop Pod, or even just a big blob of 20, and if you're investing that much into them you'll want to add aura HQs to pump them up even more. Bloodletters are can function completely solo and do just as well if not better than Berzerkers. They do not need support.

I was looking at them purely from an offensive standpoint because Khorne units deal a ton of damage and then die. Yes, Berzerkers are tougher than Bloodletters, but point for point the Bloodletter will deal more damage and is almost guaranteed to get into close combat due to the 3D6 charge out of deep strike. Berzerkers require additional support and at the end of the day are heavily reliant on reroll auras and their Power Fist champ to do the heavy lifting. They work, but they are expensive. They have a purpose, however, since some opponents will attempt to deny you deep strike room. You need those Berzerkers or other units on the board to clear room for your Bloodletters. Screens and gunlines are still a problem for melee armies, but 60~ Bloodletters with 20~ Berzerkers in boxes close behind is looking real nice right now.

BTW why the heck would Berzerkers ever be in cover? I can see charging into a building or charging into cover, but I can't ever imagine a situation where I park my Berzerkers in cover or even care about their durability when outside a Rhino. MEQ are as paper as Bloodletters in the current meta, and being in cover doesn't help much right now. Khorne units kill and die, that's all.

The issue of using the stratagem was addressed with the judges during the tournament and readdressed multiple times throughout when it was brought up by players/opponents. At no point during the event was I attempting to mislead my opponents on the use of stratagems or abilities. Just an FYI.

If anyone is interested I would be more than willing to give a rundown on how I played the list and why I played/built it the way I did.

Just wanted to clarify that if it helps.

Can you explain how it's been interpreted as legal?

TwitchyReaper wrote:
The issue of using the stratagem was addressed with the judges during the tournament and readdressed multiple times throughout when it was brought up by players/opponents. At no point during the event was I attempting to mislead my opponents on the use of stratagems or abilities. Just an FYI.

If anyone is interested I would be more than willing to give a rundown on how I played the list and why I played/built it the way I did.

Just wanted to clarify that if it helps.

I'm really interested and would love a run down!

 andysonic1 wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:

 andysonic1 wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
What about skarbrand to support?

Was that to me regarding the mathhammer?

Yeah. He can bring 3 auras into the mix.

Yeah I mean everyone benefits from Skarbrand, even enemy units. He's a plug'n'play unit that boosts your army up, but you need to build around him.

Spoiler:

mmimzie wrote:

 andysonic1 wrote:

mmimzie wrote:

orkswubwub wrote:
Realize that in an ITC list 20 letters gives up reaper very easily. Also if you lose even one letter on overwatch you will lose the hit bonus.

A 30 man blood letter unit give it up just about as easy, It's certainly 50% durability but once you start geting past 7 kills you are praying for 1s on the banner for morale. So you have sorta deminishing returns on them that way. not to mention they are a 7pt guardsman squad.

As for the hit bonus the blood letters are still hyper effective on the charge rivaling most of the big hitter melee squads out thier for damage out put with or with out the to hit bonus. I definitly lean more toward not bringing them as they need too much dedication for something that can very easily get counters by a screen, auspex scan, forewarning, etc.

I ran some numbers against three units (180~ points of each): Blood Slaughterer with Harpoon, 9 Berzerkers with Power Fist attacking twice, and 22 Bloodletters with Icon + Banner. I wanted to see how much damage they would do against Toughness 7/8 vehicles with 10 wounds and a 3+ in one fight phase, no rerolls or buffs of any kind (except what they have naturally).

The Blood Slaughterer and Berzerkers almost kill the vehicle, getting 9 - 9.5 wounds on average. The Bloodletters, reducing their numbers to 19 after taking overwatch, overkill it by 1-2 wounds on average.

It's a little flippin' ridiculous how powerful Bloodletters are right now simply due to -3AP and 2D on 6s. You need nothing else, whereas if you want your other melee units doing equal or more damage they will need outside help. Any outside help to Bloodletters makes them even crazier. This pretty much solidifies my 3x20 Bloodletter unit list. I'm also dropping the deep striking Herald idea since it is unnecessary. Someone on Bolter and Chainsword is pushing for Wingless Daemon Prince with Skullreaver and I'm starting to agree with him.

it's not really owrth it to compare units accross aries. khorne berserkers have access to rhinos and veterans of the long war stratagems. Also point aren't just balanced on damage out put. The berserkers are more durable than the letters and considerably more so if they can find cover.

Despite how good they are i'm pretty over blood letters to be honest. Getting them into melee where you are really happy is very unrealistic against most competive opponents. It needs alot of support.

Completely 100% from a Khorne Daemonkin perspective: It's good to look at all your options. Unbuffed and just deep striking in, Bloodletters are really really good. Equal points of Berzerkers need a Rhino or Drop Pod, or even just a big blob of 20, and if you're investing that much into them you'll want to add aura HQs to pump them up even more. Bloodletters are can function completely solo and do just as well if not better than Berzerkers. They do not need support.

I was looking at them purely from an offensive standpoint because Khorne units deal a ton of damage and then die. Yes, Berzerkers are tougher than Bloodletters, but point for point the Bloodletter will deal more damage and is almost guaranteed to get into close combat due to the 3D6 charge out of deep strike. Berzerkers require additional support and at the end of the day are heavily reliant on reroll auras and their Power Fist champ to do the heavy lifting. They work, but they are expensive. They have a purpose, however, since some opponents will attempt to deny you deep strike room. You need those Berzerkers or other units on the board to clear room for your Bloodletters. Screens and gunlines are still a problem for melee armies, but 60~ Bloodletters with 20~ Berzerkers in boxes close behind is looking real nice right now.

BTW why the heck would Berzerkers ever be in cover? I can see charging into a building or charging into cover, but I can't ever imagine a situation where I park my Berzerkers in cover or even care about their durability when outside a Rhino. MEQ are as paper as Bloodletters in the current meta, and being in cover doesn't help much right now. Khorne units kill and die, that's all.

Sure.... reguardless your comparing unbuffed berserkers to.... bloodletter you are spending 2 or 3 cp on (which is a buff that requires either all your dp or atleast 3 other troops choice in a battalion). A buff that can by it's own use and aquaition of points could be game lose by giving away free point from brimstones to taking tax blood letter squads.

before i continue. Note i think blood letters are fantastic, but flawed in that for them to do what they do they they can be quickly countered by a 50-60pt investment or by spending a cp on auspex scan.

Now the blood letter deep strike thing is great, but your rather limited in thier execution as out line above. They need your prefered target to be sort of just out in the open or they need the rest of your army to clear things up for them. Once they hit the table as you said they evaporate unless you can get your opoonent to provide you an eternal combat for them to be locked into. All of this boils down to them droping down hard and then being abit useless against most competive list where you drop down and can only get into contact with a ranger squad, or abit slow where they don't get that turn one impact. For the reroll charge you need to take a khorne daemons detachment... which is problematic. Either your taking a patrol and thus are forced to take a daemonprince of khorne (because hes good and can catch up tot he bloodletter and provide buffs) or a blood master (becauses he's the cheapest option). IN which case you need to go rob CP from elese where in your list, or you make a full khorne battalion. In doing a khorne battalion your not realistically deep striking everything with out also robbing even more CP from else where in your list or bring tax blood letter.s

Alternatively you could not spend CP and spend just straight up points on a rhino or something to throw your berserkers in. Have them move around the table and walk past said deep strike impediments. All the while they are providing a function to your army as if they or thier transport is getting shot the rest of your army is being saved some bit of fire power that is not aimed thier way. In contrast the blood letters are doing nothing at all till they come on the table. If the blood letters try to do the walk up the table then you just have guardsmen that cost almost twice as much and dont benefit from cover, but do ignore rend.

So if you are interested in the best damage out put unit bloodletters do that, but you gotta get them there and no matter what you do they definitely need some investment to be good IE CP and maybe a khorne daemons detachment

TwitchyReaper wrote:
The issue of using the stratagem was addressed with the judges during the tournament and readdressed multiple times throughout when it was brought up by players/opponents. At no point during the event was I attempting to mislead my opponents on the use of stratagems or abilities. Just an FYI.

If anyone is interested I would be more than willing to give a rundown on how I played the list and why I played/built it the way I did.

Just wanted to clarify that if it helps.

Well obviously, we'd love a rundown! Such a unorthodox list!

TwitchyReaper wrote:
The issue of using the stratagem was addressed with the judges during the tournament and readdressed multiple times throughout when it was brought up by players/opponents. At no point during the event was I attempting to mislead my opponents on the use of stratagems or abilities. Just an FYI.

If anyone is interested I would be more than willing to give a rundown on how I played the list and why I played/built it the way I did.

Just wanted to clarify that if it helps.

Weren't you top 8 at the end of day 2? I checked briefly (nosily following up on how my opponents did) and you were WWWWWW, and then the next day it was updated to WWWWWL?

Also as a side note, TwitchyReaper was an extremely mannered opponent (there are a lot of rude people in tourny setting) and I had a blast even though I lost (really badly).

Also really disagree with bloodletters still - you are paying a hefty price to put banner and deepstrike on them (lets say you brought 3x20 - that's 6 CP) to probably charge a nothing unit (unless you are playing at FLGS for funnsies) and you will 100% lose probably all of them turn 2 - all they have is a 5 up invul - brutal morale check, and you've already burned a lot of CP! If you use morale save for one you will essentially be burning 4 CP for that unit to charge what... a 10 man cultist squad? Letters don't come out cheap if you run a reasonable number and losing 1/4 of your army turn 1 your opponent shoots back hurts - also give up Reaper extreeeemly easily.

This is obviously just my two cents, to each their own and of course there is no "one way" to play. Either way, blood for the blood god right?

TwitchyReaper wrote:
The issue of using the stratagem was addressed with the judges during the tournament and readdressed multiple times throughout when it was brought up by players/opponents. At no point during the event was I attempting to mislead my opponents on the use of stratagems or abilities. Just an FYI.

If anyone is interested I would be more than willing to give a rundown on how I played the list and why I played/built it the way I did.

Just wanted to clarify that if it helps.

what list did you play? im testing for etc, im intersted to know about demon lists.

Alright you got me there, you do have to invest 2-3CP per Bloodletter unit in order for them to live up to their full potential. It really comes down to a number of factors when list building: Who do you think you'll be facing? How much are CP worth to you? What are the roles of each of your units?

If you're going purely Codex Daemons than you would be better off with Horrors since they can shoot out of deep strike, costing less CP, and maybe mix in some Nurglings to deny alpha strike so you don't have to invest as heavily into screens. There are a lot of different ways to make Codex Daemons work alone and be competitive. My arguments are only really valid when you want to zero in on Khorne and mix Daemons with CSM. This brings up Bloodletters vs Berserkers very quickly since both units are doing the heavy lifting in these kinds of lists. In my case, when you have only a handful of units that are competitive, you notice CP isn't very important outside of the deep strike and 3D6 banner. Two battalions cover this CP cost without issue with a few to spare on either more deep strike or a reroll or two, which is fine.

I'd argue the Bloodletters are doing a whole lot before they come onto the table because your opponent knows they are coming and what they can do. If they extend forward to try and get points or move out of position, Bloodletters will be there next turn to rock their world. The threat that 3x20 Bloodletter units pose can't be taken lightly and positioning has to be on point in the opening turns or else key units are going to get charged.

Again it ultimately comes down to what you value more in your list: CP or points. It's difficult for me to justify bringing multiple units of Berzerkers in Rhinos when I can spend far less points and some CP on Bloodletters.

Which daemons do people find are performing well, specifically Khorne and Nurgle? I see a lot of buzz about the plague toads and bloodletters, interested because I'm thinking of taking a detachment.... also think I'm gonna take a 1k Sons detachment just for their Daemon Prince!

I mwan... I guess, but your opponent still has all of the control on who or what you can fight. I don't personally like that. I like the control of wha5 I fight in my own hands. This is why genestealer cult is kind of meh to me, and I think the genestealer cult have alot more control over who and whst they can charge thanks to either moving d6 or moving 8"+ and advance before charging thier target out of deep strike. They only hit abit softer than the blood letter do, and is say they work out to beable the same in. The form of durability.

Despite all of that the genestealers really don't rate high enough because even with all of thier flexibility your opponent has so much control over where you can go and what you cam charge.

As you have said I'm sure you can make a list where the blood letter are just better, but that requires more than I think I'm interested to do. While the khorne beserkers in my opinion you just throw so in a car and swish em luck. 2 or 3 of those squads 1 should make it into the party. But to each thier own.

If you're playing a melee army, you're giving your opponent tons of control already. The issue you bring up with Genestealers is the same issue Bloodletters run into which is the same issue Berzerkers are going to run into: screening units. At the end of the day the purpose of the melee alpha strike is to cause a disruption and split your opponent's fire while either eliminating the screen or punishing bad deployment. 3x20 Bloodletters accomplish this pretty easily by either dropping them in waves to peel away the screens or dropping them all together to overwhelm.

Your last point doesn't make much sense either. You would rather spend more points on less Berzerkers and hope they make it across the board instead of spending less points on more Bloodletters, investing a little CP, and knowing 100% they are going to make their charge and do something statistically more damage against more potential targets. Even against someone using two layers of screens in front of artillery, multiple waves of Bloodletters will punch holes in their defense and force them to take shift their attention. We can compare points, damage output, and durability all day long but at the end of the day Bloodletters will always get into combat out of deep strike and Berzerkers are an expensive gamble. I don't believe the solution is to pick one, I believe the solution is to pick both.

 andysonic1 wrote:
If you're playing a melee army, you're giving your opponent tons of control already. The issue you bring up with Genestealers is the same issue Bloodletters run into which is the same issue Berzerkers are going to run into: screening units. At the end of the day the purpose of the melee alpha strike is to cause a disruption and split your opponent's fire while either eliminating the screen or punishing bad deployment. 3x20 Bloodletters accomplish this pretty easily by either dropping them in waves to peel away the screens or dropping them all together to overwhelm.

Your last point doesn't make much sense either. You would rather spend more points on less Berzerkers and hope they make it across the board instead of spending less points on more Bloodletters, investing a little CP, and knowing 100% they are going to make their charge and do something statistically more damage against more potential targets. Even against someone using two layers of screens in front of artillery, multiple waves of Bloodletters will punch holes in their defense and force them to take shift their attention. We can compare points, damage output, and durability all day long but at the end of the day Bloodletters will always get into combat out of deep strike and Berzerkers are an expensive gamble. I don't believe the solution is to pick one, I believe the solution is to pick both.

i dont know my shining spear melee eldar list and my hurt rather melee heavy 3xDP +2x greater daemons list right now kind of can just charge and fight what ever they want. Thats because in the case of the spears they fly and don't care about your screens. Then the DPs also can fly and charge stuff or in the case of the greater daemons they can get closer than 9" away so that the screen can be cleared by my anti chaffe units, and the greater daemons can then charge in. Niether of which the blood letters or genestealer cult can do.

In the case of both genestealer cult and Blood letters they come in and are kind of restricted by being 9" away from enemy models. Thus even if that same turn you clear out the chaffe, that 9" bubble still has to be restricted. meaning if you clear my chaffe on turn 1, turn 2 i can sorta shuffle my line jsut a tiny bit so that you still ahve to respect my 9" bubble. That is sooo much control you give your opponent. You are still basicly a turn too slow to really make the charges you want to make. Genestealers are beter at it becuase they can get closer than 9" but with how random they are that 9" is still a big factor. Where as in the case of the daemons list. My GUO can just walk up his 7" and get in cuddle range of an enemy unit, and then the chaffe in it's way can be removed and allow the GUO to get at the juicy exposed target.

This is the reason the GUO makes the cut in my daemons list and the bloodletters have gotten that boot, and it's because getting them into combat is either too little to late or impossible.

BAsicly your opponent only need to do the smallest of things to react to your blood letters either put throw away units at the perimeter of thier force, or just spread out and then the blood letter bomb is wasted, as it will drop down, not kill enough to make it's points back and then die. The GUO at the very least will require an entire armies worth of focus fire to kill thus providing 'cover' for the rest of my force to get the job done.

I do think you can make an army built around drilling holes in chaffe so your BLs can deep strike and seal the deal. Looking at that winning eldar list how do you deal with all of those ranges and wave serpents parked in your way in a single turn to get at the dark reaper horde in the back corner of the table?? Because you have to kill a good number of rangers and wave serpents to get in there, and mono khorne sorta sucks at taking out both of those units in a timely fashion. Thats my primary concern. As i said my daemons list started out being horrors and flamers kill chaffe and then bloodletters go win the game, but it's very tough to keep alot of army on the table while your bloodletters are just collecting dust waiting for an opportunity to strike. I could easily be convinced by a few battle reports where the bloodletter get nice holes carved out where they can go make khorne happy.