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Hi,

So after buying the AoS starter set, the khorne battleforce and the gorechosen boardgame I think I have some units to build a decente khorne army.

Heroes
1x Mighty Lord of Khorne
1x Bloodsecrator
1x Bloodstoker
1x Skarr Bloodwrath
1x Aspiring Deathbringer
1x Exalted Deathbringer
2x Slaughterpriest (both versions)

Units
40x Bloodreavers
20x Blood Warriors
2x Khorgorath
3x Mighty Skullcrushers
5x Wrathmongers

I play on vanguard mode (1000pts) and usually the list goes like this:

1x Mighty Lord of Khorne (140pts)
1x Bloodsecrator (120pts)
1x Bloodstoker (80pts)
20x Bloodreavers (120pts)
10x Blood Warriors (200pts)
1x Khorgorath (80pts)
5x Wrathmonger (180pts)
and Goreblade Warband (60pts) as battalion
Total 980pts

I think this list has some problems against ranged (weakness of khorne) and also has a low mobility, making it hard to have it competitive.
How can I improve this list (with what I already possess or getting some extra help)? Going for a more mobile crew with more Mighty Skullcrushers? Should I change the heroes used and have more units? Or do you think it's better to assume it's slow and weak against range and go for a more "strong" build, with 2 battlelines of 10x Blood Warriors each instead of Bloodreavers?

Example:
1x Mighty Lord of Khorne (140pts)
1x Bloodsecrator (120pts)
10x Blood Warriors (200pts)
10x Blood Warriors (200pts)
5x Wrathmonger (180pts)
3x Mighty Skullcrushers // 2x Khorgorath // any combination of 80pts hero/unit

Also, my experience with Wrathmongers is the best, they alone destroyed 2 units of Ironjawz Brutes in the same match, but what is your opinion of them? Are they worth the 180pts?
Regarding the improvements for the list, I would prefer to play with what I already have and stay in Khorne Bloodbound unless you tell me that Daemons have solutions for my weakness.

Thanks in advance.

Hey

So, that first list actually looks pretty solid for a 1000pt list.
As Khorne, you'll always be weak to ranged units. Just have to be strategic and sometimes just take it on the chin. Use cover if you can, when moving up to your opponent's line or if there is none then pray to Khorne and run at them with everything. Another good thing is to have a lot of things for the ranged player to prioritise. It will confuse them and they'll go for certain things you may be able to feed them and not mind loosing compared to other things. Luckily for Khorne, basically everything destroys when it gets stuck in so your opponent will have trouble picking who to kill first.
Fighting a player who has a full army of ranged units is tough to fight regardless of your army choice, so you'll probably never be able to make a good anti-ranged list as Khorne.
I'd say that, at 1000pts, a unit of 3 Skullcrushers could be handy for rushing behind the enemy lines to crush their ranged units, or at least distract them while the rest of your army move up.
If you keep your Wrathmongers close to your reavers, and have the secrator open, the reavers will make for a rather killy unit, especially at 1000pts. The two units of bloodwarriors is good too, but reavers are great if you want to use them, especially if you give them the -1 rend axes. They'll drop like flies but whoever makes it in, with the buffs from the secrator and mongers, will give your opponent a bad day with all those attacks.
Wrathmongers are great and totally worth the 180pts.
Adding daemons can be great but it's not necessary I don't think. Bloodletters can be very brutal but they don't really help you with your weaknesses. A Bloodbound list by itself is perfectly capable and I run a full Bloodbound army myself.
Also as a side note the latest book, the Blades of Khorne, has upped a few of the points costs but a couple of units have also been buffed. For example, the Khorgorath is now 100pts but his attacks now do 2 damage instead of 1, making him really good now.
Hope this helps, and don't forget to reap skulls and shed blood.

Hey,

Thanks for the tips. Guess i'll stick with only bloodbound since daemons don't have a good solution for ranged enemies. But you spoke of one of my doubts. Are Bloodletters, with that mortal wound, a good "replacement" for reavers? I know it's a bit more expensive (60pts vs 100pts), but that mortal wound, with a Bloodsecrator and Wrathmongers/Aspiring Deathbringer can devastate anything I guess...

Also, didn't knew about khorgorath... Now a unit of 2 could be pretty scary Thanks for the info.

If i want to go for a 2000pts army, where should I go next? A Behemoth? Skarbrand or one of the Bloodthirster?
And is the Bloodthirster good and cheap enough to be in a 1000pts?

Thank you

Bloodletters can definitely work as a good replacement for reavers. The 5+ save and the capability to do the mortal wound is more than worth it, especially in a squad of 20+ To get the mortal wound on a 5+ instead of 6.

I'm really tempted to take a unit of 2 Khorgorath's myself with that buff haha. They'd be very scary and a really fun unit I think.

For a 2000pt list, it depends what you like about your army and what you want to expand on or what new things you want in there. A few ways you can go is adding some bloodletters and a bloodthirster in (I find the Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage to be the best value of points), or adding some Skullcrushers.
Some more heroes is always handy, you seem to have a good collection of them and they're all pretty good, I find the slaughterpirest to be quite good, as he's our only real form of ranged capability. 4+ to cause d6 mortal wounds can be very good at taking out enemy heroes.

You can definitely fit a Bloodthirster into a 1000pt list, the Insensate Rage one especially. The only issue with placing big models like him into smaller point games is he becomes a much juicier target than when he's in a higher point game due to there being a lack of other scary things around to take attention away. But if he does get to hit, he'll hit like a train and be sweeping your opponent's army off the table pretty quickly

After reading a bit from the new battletome, i fell in love with Gore Pilgrims battalion. So, the current list stands as this:

General
Aspiring Deathbringer with Goreaxe and Skullhammer (80pts)
+ Disciple of Khorne
+ The Crimson Plate

Heroes
Bloodsecrator (120pts)
Slaughterpriest (100pts)
+ Gorecleaver
Slaughterpriest with Hackblade and Wrath-hammer (100pts)

Units
10x Blood Warriors (200pts)
+ Goreaxe and Gorefist
10x Bloodreavers (70pts)
+ Meatripper Axes
10x Bloodreavers (70pts)
+ Meatripper Axes
5x Wrathmongers (180pts)

Battalion
Gore Pilgrims (80pts)

I could make some adjustments, like having Mighty Lord of Khorne as general and a Khorgorath or Skullcrushers.

What do you think? I'll be testing this against Ironjawz soon enough.

Hey, looks great. The only thing I'd do is put the reavers together into a unit of 20 so you can attack with all of them instead of 10 at a time.

Also, unfortunately, the gorecleaver only gives more rend if the weapon already has rend. It needs to specify that a rend of "-" becomes "-1." But I believe the gorecleaver gives an addition -1 rend, rather than giving the weapon the rend quality. It's the same as armour saves. If a unit has no armour save, buffs and cover don't give them one, unless specified. It's a very annoying rule but it's there, I think in an FAQ.

Ok, thanks for the tip regarding the gorecleaver. I didn't knew that, I have to change that idea then.

I had the bloodreavers together but with the new blood tithe ability i decided to have two units instead of a bigger one. This way, if one of them is wiped it will generate a blood tithe. Not sure if it's the best decision but in the last match I used 20 reavers, 11 of them died in the first attack xD that would be enough to generate a blood tithe if they were separated. I'll try this, to see if it's worth it. If not, i'll put them together again.

Thanks for the help

That's actually a good idea. I'm still getting used to the new rules and things. I didn't think of it like that, good thinking *starts splitting every unit in half*

I like that list a lot, Vondrack. My only concern would be the Priests being restricted by the Secrator in order to increase his bubble, but only having 16" range on their nasties to support... not a lot of other units.

Even though it's a good fit for 1K points-wise, I reckon Gore Pilgrims might be better suited for 2K where we can make better use of the super-bubble.

Still, I'm totally gonna try it out in 1K. Rerolls on 4 different prayers and/or blessings per round is just plain awesome.

Roark wrote:
I like that list a lot, Vondrack. My only concern would be the Priests being restricted by the Secrator in order to increase his bubble, but only having 16" range on their nasties to support... not a lot of other units.

Even though it's a good fit for 1K points-wise, I reckon Gore Pilgrims might be better suited for 2K where we can make better use of the super-bubble.

Still, I'm totally gonna try it out in 1K. Rerolls on 4 different prayers and/or blessings per round is just plain awesome.

Do the Priests actually have to stay with the Bloodsecrator after the Portal of Skulls is opened? The way it reads, it appears its only when he opens the portal do you check how many Priests are nearby. Maybe I'm interpreting incorrectly.

Ha! You're absolutely correct. Please ignore everything I said about that then. This (plus a 30" bubble) makes me very happy.

Well, I guess they need to stay around at least, because in every hero phase you'll be opening the portal I guess. Even so, the prayers have a 24" from secrator (8" range to keep opening the portal plus 16" prayer range) which is not bad for a 1000 pts match and a 30" bubble seems cool. Unfortunately i still haven't tested this yet, so if any of you tests it, please share your results. Thank you!

The portal stays open every turn as long as you don't move, so as long as your priests are within 8" the first turn he opens his portal, they can then go wherever they want after that

You don't need to open the portal every turn?

Nope. Every turn after the first it counts as open. When he moves though it closes and needs to be reopened the turn after, which would need the priests to be close again for the extra range.

EDIT: That's what most people go off anyway, from what I've read and used myself

"In your hero phase, you can declare that this model opens the Portal of Skulls. If you do, until your next hero phase you may not move the mode, but it has the following abilities:"

From how I read this, both the no-movement and abilities last until the next hero phase, when you have to redeclare it open. Most people just play it as "if I don't so or act otherwise, it's open" because it's easy to forget to open it every time.