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I went into my store yesterday to do some painting, but remembered the blades of khorne book has just come out. So I had a 'little' look in that.
Then bought a bloodthirster.

So what do people think? Any combos that are really good you've spotted yet? Any decent list ideas? I'm doing this faction as a precursor to the WE coming out, (yes they are coming out you can't tell me otherwise) so want to stick mainly with daemons.
Cheers in advance

Daemon side seems to be better on average, so you have that going for you. Bloodthirsters and 30-man bloodletter units are some of the stronger options in the book overall, 'thirsters in general are quite powerful. None of the daemon units are bad and all have pretty clear tactical roles which they perform as advertised. Skull cannons are the only unusual bit since they are support artillery but you also want to get them in melee, as Khorne does.

Skarbrand is also a tad counter-intuitive since while his role as a melee death machine is obvious the strategic use is taking choice away from your opponent. If Skarbrand is on the field your opponent needs to kill him, or he will kill them. It is not uncommon for Skarbrand to die before killing his points back because of that, but you have dictated the opponent's opening strategy and that alone is a significant benefit.

You'll want to dip into the mortal side for at least one bloodsecrator and at least one slaughterpriest, both of which are strong buff characters (the slaughterpriest has offense/disruption as well). The killing frenzy prayer on a big unit of bloodletters puts them to hitting on 2s, re-roll 1s from the locus, which has been a strong offensive combo for some time.

Its about what I expected it to be. Its a fun book but one that will get its face owned mostly against the tournament OP stuff barring you build very very specifically and eschew most of the book in favor for that certain build.

Against non tournament optimization, I think it sits alongside the gloomspite gitz book in terms of flavor and fun. Which is pretty good.

How many heroes can I run in 2k again? 6? 8?
Planning two ‘thirsters, a MLoK (as general), a Dark Feast, 9 man unit of Bloodcrushers, Wrathmongers and a bloodsecrator. If I can have 8 heroes, there are two exalted as well. If not, then more bodies.

1-6 Leaders in 2K points.

1-6 leaders and 0-4 behemoths at 2K points - since some leaders might also count as behemoth size as well and thus will contribute to both scores.

I'm not a fan. I found it to be a book full of nerfs and a handful of situational buffs. Sure the priests got a huge buff but the Bloodsecrators, Bloodletters (from Wrath and Rapture) and all our auras took a fair hit due to the "Wholly within" and "Unmodified roll of a 6" rules. Not to mention Wrathmongers being fairly worthless now since they lost the greatest special rule ever.

It's still fun to play, but GW really knocked these guys down the meta rating in my opinion.

Its a fun book. For fun. It'll be a hard choice to choose them as a powergamer min/max force and while I think externally the demon builds can still land top 10 tables, its definitely a bit more challenging than say skaven or FEC powergamer builds to do the same thing.

I posted in the tactics thread a bit of a review (from my POV). I think it got quite a bit weaker in a lot of regards, but got a few fun changes too.

I like it well enough. Some changes here & there, nothing I can't deal with. Other than adding the endless spells on occasion there's nothing here that'll change how I play.

Sumilidon wrote:
I'm not a fan. I found it to be a book full of nerfs and a handful of situational buffs. Sure the priests got a huge buff but the Bloodsecrators, Bloodletters (from Wrath and Rapture) and all our auras took a fair hit due to the "Wholly within" and "Unmodified roll of a 6" rules. Not to mention Wrathmongers being fairly worthless now since they lost the greatest special rule ever.

It's still fun to play, but GW really knocked these guys down the meta rating in my opinion.

That was a gimmicky/game breaking way to play (stack buffs on anything that procs on a 6+). It was brought in line with almost every new army, and new armies to come in the future. Its was a dumb mechanic and i couldnt be happier to see it go. Basically youre sad you didnt get a bent book like skaven.

Bloodletters got better overall. They lost hit buff gimmicks but penalties to hit used to neuter them, and the mortal wound is now in addition; you get the regular hit on top of that. Wrathmongers got more useable overall, while they can no longer murder big stuff with their own attack profile they no longer buff the attacks of non-khorne, and the aoe of the attack buff went up massively. Again, less gimmicky but better overall. Bloodsecrator went from within to wholly within but can now move freely, making it less gimmicky but better overall.

And that is the real improvement of this book. Khorne used to be able to do well using gimmicks but was pretty bad outside of them. Now Khorne lost those gimmicks but functions without them.

Saying a battletome is worse than top-tier is just saying "X place is not as high as 1st place."

Yeah, thats why I love this book. I HATE gimminicks. And people that says the book got worse because those are out, meh! Meh! I tell you!

Most of the changes in this book were QoL ones. Yeah they could have given more buffs to units like Blood Warriors, but I'll take this. Now playing Khorne is just much more smooth.

I think that even with gimmicks a Khorne player still needed to know what they were doing save a very casual level. Summoning tends towards being easymode until optimized lists come into play, but Khorne's is designed such that it competes with their allegiance rather than being a free upgrade (THANK YOU GW MORE OF THIS PLEASE) and with Khorne units themselves often being mediocre it meant just having the gimmicks was often not enough.

This means that even players a bit salty right now over those being lost will probably adapt in short order. Compare to the old Tzeentch where one needed little skill at all to win matches outside the upper ranks of a tournament, and a large number of those players simply evaporated.

I like the new book as - has been mentioned - it offers quality of life improvements. Things just feel more streamlined.

Khorne is going to be an incredibly hard counter to some magic reliant armies.

The book is streamlined, still hits hard (although some factions do it better), but it throws a massive spanner in the works for armies relying on magic to get their buffs.

Tzeentch can pretty much pack up and go home if they bring the flying chicken against a Khorne or Slaanesh army these days. What was it about Nurgle being his biggest enemy again? “Oh, you rolled a 4 and a 3? Both dice count as fours before +/- modifiers. Your spell failed, take D6 MWs”.
“Oh, you rolled a double? Your spell fails, take MWs.”
Poor chicken...

Its a lore thing as opposed to a mechanics thing.

I know. It was mostly a joke.
Also, I posted an army list with the new book; hoping for thoughts/constructive criticism. I’m NOT looking to take this to big tournaments. This is a “FLGS only” army. Although there’s probably one person there who will need a good whooping for being TFG (I posted about him before in a 4-player game gone wrong).

I very much agree that the book, to me, looks lovely and streamlined. Aren't very many gimmicky datasheets in there anymore.
It is very nice to open the book, as an aos beginner, and see a streamlined set of units.
So yes I am an aos beginner, but I kind of know how it works and things. I've managed to cook up a list utilising the tyrants of blood battalion, which seems just amazing to me.
Here it is:
Reapers of vengeance (for fight twice, and totally shutting down spells. Bloodlords is way better all around, and the cmd trait would be very good on a secrator)

Tyrants of blood 140
Skarbrand 400
Wrath of khorne thirster w reapers relic&cmd trait 320
Thirster of insensate rage with Ar'gath, or ghyrstike. 280

That battalion is ridiculous. Always fighting first, fighting twice w +1 attack skarbrand.

Then the rest of the list:
Slaughterpriest 100
Slaughterpriest 100
Bloodsecrator 140

However my battleline options are open:
40 bloodreavers 240
5 flesh hounds 100
5 flesh hounds 100
Axe 60
1980
Or
20 bloodreavers 140
10 bloodreavers 70
10 bloodreavers 70
5 wrathmongers 140
Skulls/icon 40
2000

What do ya think? Love this battletome.

I like it except I do feel Skullreapers had a lot of their flavour taken away.

Now every weapon bar one is the same profile and they lost the supremely satisfying trial of skulls rule :(

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Tzeentch can pretty much pack up and go home if they bring the flying chicken against a Khorne or Slaanesh army these days.

Well that isn't true, so...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
I like it except I do feel Skullreapers had a lot of their flavour taken away.

Now every weapon bar one is the same profile and they lost the supremely satisfying trial of skulls rule :(

Yeah, the simplification was needed but they went too far making all of them one option. A split between dual weild & great weapons would have been fine.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Tzeentch can pretty much pack up and go home if they bring the flying chicken against a Khorne or Slaanesh army these days.

Well that isn't true, so...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
I like it except I do feel Skullreapers had a lot of their flavour taken away.

Now every weapon bar one is the same profile and they lost the supremely satisfying trial of skulls rule :(

Yeah, the simplification was needed but they went too far making all of them one option. A split between dual weild & great weapons would have been fine.

Khorne has a ton of ways to kill a spell and cause MWs by doing so, and an Infernal Enrapturess neuters the chicken 100% of the time. So...it is true. That whole “double on the cast causes MWs and a fail” thing and all...

If they brought her and if she is in range, and she will not remain that way for long unless you make serious mistakes. A counter existing does not mean you pick up and go home, it means you play the game. I hate to use the 'git gud' argument but seriously... that is what counter-play is and why skill at doing so is an important element.

'Khorne might as well never bring the spelleater skulls against a LoC because one fate dice of 5, 6, or even 3 will allow a LoC to completely negate it.'

I bought the book because I trying to build a mini Khorne competitive list in 40k thisnt I can use in AOS (I’m a new player). For what I see is all the buff I can have with Khorne is AOS than I can have in 40k. Is just a fun book for playing two system with a few investment... btw, i didn’t see daemon prince in the book?

None of the factions have a demon prince in their books. It is in the generic slaves to darkness, though you can ally in the demon prince from slaves to darkness.

You can give it a god-specific keyword to make it a khorne daemon and eligible for all the relevant buffs.

I am happy Skar Bloodwrath gets to command Wrathmongers, always thought he should have something to do with them with the flail theme and all.

At first I thought all the battalions kinda sucked now, but after relooking they are simplified and changed a bit but can still be very potent, and the new Tribes we can take are also very interesting.

I like Khorgoraths, Skullreapers, and Wrathmongers, and those all got pretty good now that the Bloodsecrator can move/run behind them.

Had a few games in and enjoying the book throroughly. Skulltaker is a beast and Bloodletters are still good. I tested out the new Bloodsecrator and Gore Pilgrim and although it hurts to lose the morale immunity it's just so good to have that extra range for board control.