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Since the two Chaos tactica threads are more generalized I thought I'd make one specifically for Khorne and the bountiful options we now have. With the release of the FW books, fast Khorne armies just got even faster with Blood Slaughterers (M10, always advance 6, 6 attacks +2 against infantry, 180 points total). Hordes of Bloodletters with Heralds, Skulltaker, and a Deamon Prince might not be tough but they will murder anything they roll over. Bloodcrushers are now viable anti-horde options with their 13 attacks on the charge min squad plus 9 mount attacks (toss in a Herald why not to beat on tougher units). Skullcannons are still pretty great and even deadlier in close combat due to mortal wounding "hammer of wrath". The Kharybdis Assault Claw is probably the funnest thing I've ever laid eyes on, dishing out 8 S9, AP-2, D2 attacks at full strength, and potentially regenning wounds when it removes a model.

My list so far consists of the Kharybdis filled with 16 Berzerkers, Kharn, and a Dark Apostle. The rest of the list is 3 Blood Slaughterers, a Deamon Prince to run behind them giving them rerolls to 1, and a number of Chaos Spawn screening. Two units of Cultists fill out the battalion detachment to sit on objectives for 7CP total. Low number of drops (7-8), might be able to go lower with larger units of Chaos Spawn.

I really did want to try out the 30 Bloodletter blob boosted with HQs, but it gets really expensive. The Giant and Spined Chaos Spawn are also pretty pricey but nuts on the tabletop. Oh, Samus and Uraka are both HQs now and pretty hilarious. Zhufor is a 150 point Terminator Lord on steroids. THERE'S TOO MANY GOOD CHOICES NOW WTF ARMY AM I EVEN PLAYING!?

Yeah lots of good options.
The hard part with khorne is boosting durability and speed, very few options.

Icon of wrath = great.
Warptime = great (but magic boo hiss)

Here to learn lol

Dude. An'ggrath. Or at least a Brass Scorpion. If Khorne can forgive you, Magnus is a great way to get the Brass Scorpion booking it across the battlefield. With only a 16" move, An'ggrath probably won't be making a turn 1 charge but definitely turn 2, and he has enough attacks plus his whip to chew through pretty much anything in a round of combat or two

Played a smaller (1250pt) game against a Nid army yesterday, went better than expected.

Skulltaker
World Eater Termie Lord w/ bolt pistol & power axe
DP w/ wings & sword
3x World Eater Bezerkers w/ chainaxe + chainsword (9 zerks + champ)
1x Bloodletters (18 letters + 1 reaper)
1x Bloodcrushers (2x crushers + 1 hunter)


If I recall correctly, he had :

Flyrant
Tyranid Prime
1x Warriors (group of 3)
1x Genestealers (20x)
1x Hormagaunts (30x)
1x Termagaunts (28x)

1x Trygon Prime
1x Carnifex

My list had no ranged, his list had smites from the Flyrant, and 1 stranglethorn cannon on a warrior.

He spent the first half of the game running from my stuff marching up the board, with the exception of the flyrant he used to contest an objective. 1 unit of bezerkers in aura range of the termie lord charged the flyrant on turn 1 and did 4 wounds in the first turn (between the 2 fight phases they get because bezerkers are awesome, and re-rolling 1's when you need 3's is pretty good). Zerkers only lost 3 in return to the flyrant. Next Combat saw only 2 wounds to the flyrant, and 2 more dead zerkers. My turn I charge in Skulltaker & Termie lord, thinking they'll help finish off the last 4 wounds. Nope, Invuln saves really rain on the parade of Skulltaker (Termie lord failed to even wound). The bezerkersact like the HQ guys aren't there are clean up 4 more wounds because they are nuts.

Which would matter more if the Tervigon & genestealers didn't deepstrike in at the top of turn 3, charge, and kill both Skulltaker & Termie lord.

Other half of the game consisted of my winged prince eventually catching, then murdering the
1)Tyranid Prime (1 turn of combat, 2 unsaved wounds = 6 damage one shotting it)
pile-in move moved it into base combat with the 3 Warriors, so on my opponents turn
2)Warriors fail to wound the prince, while it wipes the squad
3)Cleans up the carnifex which was fighting the blood crushers in addition to the hormaguants. Except the gaunts lost 18 models to killing 3 zerkers the same turn my prince killed the warriors. Which saw the gaunts wipe from morale.

The blood crushers moderately well against the carnifex (5 wounds), but lost 2 models in the process(6 wounds). As that their rules seem to really favor what they do when they charge, I think they would perform better against GEQ/MEQ, but I didn't have too many good options with how my opponent was positioning/terrain.

I win mostly out of good luck (win close combat & kill the warlod objectives rolled the turn I'm already in close combat with flyrant, etc.) on my objective rolls, while my opponent consistantly got objectives that were more or less impossible. That said it was enormously fun to play. The people I play against typically favor having a decent amount of terrain on the board (minimum 2 bits every 2' x 2'), so I don't worry so much about being able to safely march up the board. My opponent tried to get me to spread out accross the entire board to thin me out and collapse on a half with deep-striking, but I pretty solidly contained that by having my Bloodcrushers & DP in the middle, which he was constantly worried about due to their killi-ness.

I really liked how the Bezerkers performed, especially with Chaos Lord buff. I think they are definitly our "anti-horde" choice if we kit them for CC. Didn't do shabby against Flyrant either, since the invuln save it had made volume of attacks better than higher AP. I felt their weakness was definitly stuff like the Trygon Prime. T6 12 wounds 3+ armor was losing alot with the toughness & saves..

Like people in the other threads have noted, DP are nuts, and definitly worth the investment for wings. Next time i run the list I'll cut the sword and get the additional attacks from a pair of claws (that'll be 8 S7 attacks at AP -2 D2 .

Ya, berzerkers seem like a much needed unit from games i have watched.

Does anyone think Bloodthirsters are going to be good? I think at the very least they will be a good distraction, drawing heavy weapons fire from other units. They are really expensive though, so I'm not sure how often I'm going to use one.

Not looking forward to tearing arms off my zerkers to give them chainswords in addition to the chainaxes :(

Should I keep the plasma pistols on them?

Agreed given i'd not long finished a group of aos bloodwarrior zerkers :(

TzeentchNet wrote:
Not looking forward to tearing arms off my zerkers to give them chainswords in addition to the chainaxes :(

Should I keep the plasma pistols on them?

God, tell me about it, I just finished another 10 zerkers with plasma and bolt pistols then the rules dropped and the chainsword/chainaxe is just sooooo much better it's frustrating. I was considering just getting some chainswords and sticking them to the backpacks and saying the pistols are all out of ammo so they grab their swords in close combat. I live in a pretty chill area so I don't think anyone's going to give me gak for it. I mean I also have two berzerkers holding the severed heads of Deamonettes from the Purifier kit like they just cut them off, so I'm not breaking those arms off. I also took the severed Plaugebearer heads and stuck them to their hips like trophies.

I've been debating between three units of 5 berzerkers in the kyribdis or one unit of 16 and I think after watching a few battle reports and seeing one of my zerker units fail a charge out of the thing I am going with the larger squad. It will live longer, do more damage, and spread out further increasing my chances of sticking into combat like I need them to.

---

Anyone else kind of disappointed with Kharn? He was always a glass cannon but now it feels like his survivability went down even with a 4+ invul. Zhufor seems like he will do way more than Kharn in a battle. Let's compare:

Kharn - 173 points
M6 | WS2 | BS2 | S5 | T4 | W5 | A6 | LD9 | SV3+ / 4++

Wargear
Kharn's Very Angry Plasma Pistol - It's a plasma pistol that's always angry, deals a mortal wound when it's angry at Kharn.
Gorechild - S+1 | AP-4 | D3 - Weapon always hits on 2 regardless of modifiers. Make's shiny elves cry.
Grenades - what the heck are these and why do I have them? My angry pistol is very upset that I'm looking at these.

Abilities
To hit rolls of 1 MURDER nearby unfortunate friendly soul. Don't even act like someone isn't going to die if Kharn rolls a 1, they will.
Fights twice in combat. Good.
World Eaters within an inch get to reroll hits in any phase. GOOD.

Overall: A glass cannon. Kharn will kill most anyone he gets to baring FnP shenanigans. 12 attacks in a single fight phase with a AP-4 weapon is no joke. The only problem with Kharn is he is one guy so he has trouble sticking in combat to avoid getting shot to hell and back and hell and back and hell and back again. Heck of a guy, that Kharn, could be a little cheaper in my opinion. Kharn plus Berzerkers are a solid choice for ripping and tearing for the blood god but don't expect them to last more than a few turns before getting focused down. They can't take a punch as good as they can give it.

Zhufor - 150 points (LOL WUT)
M5 | WS2 | BS2 | S5 | T4 | W7 | A5 | LD9 | SV2+ / 4++

Wargear
Bolter+1 - it's a rapid fire2 bolter with AP-1 with 24 inch range. LOL WUT
Claw of Power Fist - it's a power fist.
Skulltaker Axe - S-user | AP-2 | D2 - When you attack a character, wounds of 6+ are AP-4 and D3 because you just skull-took them.

Abilities
Skulltaker legion reroll hits of 1 within 6 inches.
Deep strike cause he's in termie armor.
Gets to deny 1 psychic power per phase. (WHY DOESN'T KHARN HAVE THIS?)
Enemy units within 6 inches add 1 to their morale test.

Overall: Kharn is like a Chaos Lord+1, Zhufor is like a Terminator Lord+2. Not only is he cheap for what he does, he provides MORE for your army, allowing you to deny that clutch power and fire some scary bolter shots into the enemy. Sure he does less damage than Kharn overall, but he's got a better armor save and more wounds plus he can deep strike. Zhufor is the perfect HQ to compliment your deep striking Terminators or Warp Talons (oh yeah and charging Raptors that ALSO add 1 to Morale tests), not only providing rerolls but making enemy morale tests even deadlier. Zhufor makes your opponent think twice before they heroic intervention (make sure to declare you are charging the HQ as well so you can attack them in combat). Again, not as killy as Kharn, but provides a lot of utility on a pretty tough platform that can hide behind bodies.

Kharn is a much more killy HQ with less survivability, Zhufor is a less killy HQ with more survivability and utility (and cheaper). Anyone have any thoughts on this?

My army rules for Khorne are simple:

Must have Mark of Khorne (spawn are ok though).
No psykers!

Unit choices:
1) If it can take a close combat weapon it must.
2) If it can't take a close combat weapon then it doesn't qualify.
3) Exceptions to rule 2) if it can transport units closer to the combat.

This means I miss out on some powerful shooty units and some tanks but oh well.

Is there a niche for cultists in the new edition of Khorne armies?

They used to be objective holders. How do people intend to run them today?

 Darkseid wrote:
Is there a niche for cultists in the new edition of Khorne armies?

They used to be objective holders. How do people intend to run them today?

Objective holders. Honestly I don't replace their autoguns with melee weapons since there is no "Khorny" benefit to them at the moment, they will just die in overwatch. They're the cheapest objective holders we got. I'm sure when Khorne gets its "cult cultist" like Tzeench and Nurgle got we will see a return of melee cultists, but for now just sit them on an objective and forget they exist.

Double Talons Prince seems like a great beatstick option in 8th.

I have warmed to using double talons on Khorne Princes instead of the hellforged sword. 180 points if you give it wings.

8 S7 AP-2 D2 attacks that hit on 2+ and re-roll 1's (because its a friendly khorne demon within range of itself). This is incredibly good cutting something expensive open. In a platform thats moving 12", and has 8 T7 wounds behind 3+/5++? Its not bad at all.

The blood slaughterer is probably too fragile to be competitive but god damn if it doesn't look fun. I want to charge it into a horde and see what happens.

 andysonic1 wrote:

Kharn is a much more killy HQ with less survivability, Zhufor is a less killy HQ with more survivability and utility (and cheaper). Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I agree with most of your assessment. One thing that might be worth considering is that Zhufor has Skulltakers and not World Eaters keyword. Therefore he can't give his rerolls to World Eaters Berserkers, and only World Eaters Berserkers can be troops rather than elites. The difference between troops and elites is negligible with the current rules, but it's still worth bearing in mind depending on your army composition. Generally speaking I'd prefer to keep as many of my models with the <LEGION> as possible to maximise their ability to receive buffs - this may be especially important if units get pulled away from characters by consolidation etc - so some overlap might be worthwhile.

I'm a total heretic and will be running my Berserkers alongside a CSM Slannesh prince or two. They'll not be World Eaters (just using <LEGION> for now for my own homebrew warband). I own a lot of Slannesh daemons as well, so the DP will be able to replace the Chaos Lord in providing re-rolls 1 to the Berserkers, while also providing them to the Daemons. Daemon prince might also be acting as a summoning locus in the latter stages of the game, which could be quite interesting. The Princes being Slannesh just gives them so many more tools - not only are they able to summon actually useful daemons, they will also have access to Warptime/Prescience and Smite. Definitely outweighs +1 attack in my opinion. At this point I'm still slighting torn on whether I'll go with a Rhino rush or just try foot-slogging. With Rhinos at 70+ points they're hardly the throw away options they used to be, and against the game's fastest assaulters, they may just prove to be deathtraps for larger squads.

One thing I'm toying with right now though - do you go with 5 man Berserkers or 10 man?
Pros of MSU
1) More flexibility
2) Better resistance to morale damage
3) More champions = more power fists!
4) Easier to get the whole unit in cover
5) More units to hold objectives

Cons of MSU
1) More difficult to apply buff auras
2) More drops at deployment reduces the chance of going first (can be counteracted by loading everyone into a Rhino)
3) More icons are less points efficient (flat cost of icon divided between fewer models)
4) Gives away more kill points
5) More units to activate in fight phase - for me this is the biggest problem. Berserkers fighting twice rule appears to require that you activate them each time it fights, so you're already going to have a lot of activations for your opponent to exploit. Couple this with smaller squads and there's a real posibility that units might be destroyed before they can fight once, let alone twice, on turns when they're not charging.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The blood slaughterer is probably too fragile to be competitive but god damn if it doesn't look fun. I want to charge it into a horde and see what happens.

Honestly you'd be hard pressed to find a melee dread as survivable for the points. 3+/5++ with T7 with 10W, regaining a wound every turn, is a pretty tough model. Anti-tank will remove it, sure, but that's why you take three of them. Khorne armies have never been very tough, that's Nurgle's department. You have to expect your models are going to die a lot.

@Asura: While I understand the desire to keep everyone one <LEGION>, on the tabletop you aren't always going to have the luxury of keeping all your units together. CSM don't have an "uber-unit" like the Bloodletter blob plus HQs. There isn't a huge benefit to having every single HQ able to buff every single unit because your backfield HQ is buffing your Havocs while your front line HQs are buffing your assault troops. They will most likely never be near one another. Thus, Zhufor buffing Skulltakers is fine because he'll be dropping in with a unit of deep strike goodness anyways. He and his unit should be acting as an elite unit complimenting your other front line units, not necessarily buffing them. Hell, you most likely will be dropping Zhufor and friends somewhere away from your other troops to pull the enemy forces apart. It's true that the ideal situation would be for all your forces to combine, cutting a swath through the enemy ranks, but it is more often than not with Khorne that you will be fighting an uphill battle from Turn One. Your units will be subject to a rain of hellfire wherever they roam, titans will smash your troops to paste, and hordes of greenskins and corpse lovers will impede your charge. We have to use every advantage we can get, and Zhufor is a very powerful HQ with lots of utility. I would not count him out just because he doesn't benefit your entire army.

Wait what is this 3+/5++ of which you guys speak?

 luke1705 wrote:
Wait what is this 3+/5++ of which you guys speak?

Daemon princes have a 3+ armour save and a 5++ invulnerable save.

So what about all those units that were great in the KDK codex: Hounds, Bikes, Spawn and Grinders.

Are they still seeing use in a 8th edition Khorne army?

 Darkseid wrote:
So what about all those units that were great in the KDK codex: Hounds, Bikes, Spawn and Grinders.

Are they still seeing use in a 8th edition Khorne army?

Hounds are more expensive and seem to compete with Spawn for the slot. It's a tough compitition that mathammer will have to decide on. I think if you want something tougher and have auras for them, Spawn win. If you want faster and have the auras for them, Hounds win.

Bikes are now shooting platforms, purely shooting platforms. Don't get me wrong, they're great shooting platforms because of how fast they move and the weapons they have access to. They get expensive really fast now so don't get too crazy on the plasma or melta and, again, keep them out of melee.

Grinders I have no comment on. Never took them in my KDK army. Maulers are now outclassed by Blood Slaughterers, however, and melee Helbrutes are amazing now.

Bruh, Berzerkers. Get you a unit or two of these bad bois. Two units, BAM, that's your anti-infantry. Couple of Blood Slaughterers, BAM, that's your anti-tank. Heldrake for distraction, rhinos for speed.

I don't think we're going to see big units of Khornedogs like we used to see in some Khorne Daemons lists. They'll be run more like how I used to run them in KDK: units of 5. I'm not sure they are terrible, either. We can probably approximate the glory days of the Gorepack by running an Outrider detachment with hounds and bikes. Saying which, are meltas still a good option for bikes? Mine are all modeled that way because that was a good setup for 7th, but meltas got expensive in 8th. My first impression is that a fast source of potential d6 damage shots is good, but the cost could be prohibitive.

I really like Skarbrand. Not having to worry about morale on large blobs of bloodletters is really good. I don't mind if he dies because in my limited experience bloodthirsters and the like soak up a ton of firepower, leaving other units to charge up and remove bodies. I don't think he may last though, as the game evolves he will be swatted too easily.

I know he isn't Khorne, but Be'lakor is a freaking beast. Ap-5 and doing 3 damage each, re-rolling saves. He lasts and is able to move up and snipe people with smite. Really good.

Played two games yesterday with my World Eaters, one against Grey Knights+Death Watch and the second against pure Death Watch.

First game list:

DP wings two claws
Kharn
Apostle
Cultists x10 x 2
Zerkers x 16
Helbrute fist+scourge
Kyribdis (filled with the zerks, apostle, and kharn)
Chaos Spawn x3 x3
Bikes x5 double flamer combi flamer

This list went against his Grey Knights+Death Watch. The zerkers+kharn failed their charge out of the drop pod, his Dreadknight punched the gak out of my drop pod, and the Helbrute never saw combat because I tried running him up the side of the board. The bikes also all died in CC because I'm dumb and charged them in. Overall this list was not good, lots of wasted points on spawn that didn't do much (they screened but that was all) and the apostle. He won easily. He had Draigo and a whole bunch of terminators plus the death watch bois.

Second game list:

DP wings axe
Kharn
Zhufor
Helbrute fist+scourge
Cultists x10 x2
Zerkers x15
Kyribdis
Warp Talons x5
Bikes x8 flamers combi flamer
Flesh Hounds x10

This list was against his Death Watch and it was a bloodbath. The huge unit of Bikes did really well, their toughness and 2 wounds keeps them around a long time. They are gak in close combat though unless you bring like a chaos lord on a bike or give the champ a power axe or something. They dish out a TON of shots when they get close, and they will get close. The Flesh Hound screened the Deamon Prince well and I may do this strategy again. I did have to spend CP on insane morale though which was a pain in the ass since these guys only have leadership 7. Again, my zerkers and kharn failed their charges, with rerolls. Zhufor and warp talons failed their charge as well. It didn't hurt me too bad but it sure didn't frickin help me. Zhufor is one tough son of a bitch though, love that my opponent had to shoot so much into him to drop him. The Warp Talons were meh, I'll be switching to Terminators so I can give them an icon to reroll charges. The game came right down to the wire but I won.

OVERALL: if you want your assault army to work you need multiple large threats rolling up the board and dropping in. Big units of Bikes works OK, I mean get close to the enemy and you're shooting buckets of dice at them. The Flesh Hounds are meh, their low leadership really kills them but they're such a fast screening unit that I want to like them. Chaos Spawn just don't compete with their speed at all but good luck killing an equal number of Spawn in one turn without using your entire army. Kharn is ruined by the enemies invul saves unfortunately, making him and even Zhufor not good against tough units.Their escorts, zerkers and terminators, are far better at that than they are.

I feel like Flesh Hounds will be best in MSU rather than in larger blobs. You perhaps should have run them as two units of 5 so that morale would be less of an issue. Warp Talons do look to be kind of meh like before, unfortunately, but I would think that if they could make a charge against two different units on the turn they drop they could at least lock some stuff down for a turn, perhaps keeping that pesky Land Raider from shooting at your stuff. Since they can't be overwatched, there's no risk. I also think you should keep trying those two lists, as it seems like some bad luck kept you from seeing their true potential.

Try out Lord of skulls. Very mean killing machine. And it attracts a ton of fire. If you bring it, just about everything else will be spared attention.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I feel like Flesh Hounds will be best in MSU rather than in larger blobs. You perhaps should have run them as two units of 5 so that morale would be less of an issue. Warp Talons do look to be kind of meh like before, unfortunately, but I would think that if they could make a charge against two different units on the turn they drop they could at least lock some stuff down for a turn, perhaps keeping that pesky Land Raider from shooting at your stuff. Since they can't be overwatched, there's no risk. I also think you should keep trying those two lists, as it seems like some bad luck kept you from seeing their true potential.

Eeeehhhh Flesh Hounds, I want to like them but again the Morale is such a pain for them. I really like them as escorts for my Deamon Prince though. I think I'm going to go with Termies with base equipment and an Icon of Wrath so they have a better chance of getting into combat and being more of a pain in the ass in general. I do agree that my Zerkers would have done a lot more had they made their charges and the dice just betrayed me there.

I've been looking at how to play a bit more strategically. I believe that holding off on deep strikers, forcing your opponent to deep strike first or move closer to you instead of you weathering the table, is a better tactic than moving up the board and dropping everything turn one. I've been playing with the idea of Renegade Militia and Mutant Rabble to create a large home base that fires off heavy weapons while being difficult to assault. The Militia can get two lascannons and up to four flammers, so having all that on the front line with 11-14 other bois able to die for the cause could be pretty strong. A nearby Enforcer in cover (until they FAQ the Character keyword on him) will keep them alive for a turn, longer if they're in cover. Two-three units of Militia and one Enforcer nearby makes for a good fire base. If your opponent assaults they get mass flamers to the face. You let your opponent break themselves on your weak unis before dropping in from reserves turn two-three and wiping them out. Not too bad a strategy but one that requires 40+ Militia, heavy weapons and special weapons.

Militia squad with two laz and two flamers = 130 points
Enforcer = 30 points

2x Militia + 1 Enforcer = 290 points
3x Militia + 2 Enforcer = 450 points

Interesting idea to say the least. The main idea, again, is to wait out your reserves but also force your opponent closer and/or to extend their troops. Nids, Orks, and other foot assault armies will come right to you, and if you deploy far back then even shooting armies will need to move up out of their comfort zone. Of course things like Knights and other super heavies will just blow your units away, but they're so cheap it hardly matters.

Quick question: can you use Be'Lakor psychic powers in a Khorne CSM/Daemon army? For example case Warptime on my Khorne Berzerkers or Warp Talons? I know the rules prevent a Khorne character from having psychic powers, but I assume this rule doesn't apply to Be'Lakor.

Nothing stops psychic powers being cast on khorne units (except the Brass scorpion)


If you take belakor in a detachment then it's not a "khorne detachment" but at the moment that's a meaningless distinction.