Juggernaut Lord and Bloodcrushers

[Warsmith Aznable]

Khorne Daemonkin lets CSM join Daemon units, I have been led to believe. The very first thing that popped into my head was Juggerlord with Bloodcrushers retinue. I very much want to do this, as I already have a "Berserkers on Juggernauts" unit I'm doing just for fun, and it would be nice to field them.

 

What do people think of Bloodcrushers? Is there a painfully obvious drawback to this over the ubiquitous Spawn retinue that I should be aware of?

[Gubnutz Da Grim]

I am just going to say that the fact that this will look completely awesome is enough fro me to say GO FOR IT.  That being said I am not really up on the rules having not played in some time but again.  It would be a great looking unit.

 

Gub

[Forté]

Sounds like it'll look pretty awesome on the table top though I'd hold of spending that little bit longer till the codex hits. Just to be sure ;)

[Slayer le Boucher]

The probleme with Bloodcrushers is their weak Thoughness stat and no armor save (yeah a6+ armor is as cood as no armor).

Also the fact that the Champ can't take any wargear, it hurts.

 

Now aside from this, Bloodcrushers isn't a bad unit, it suffers from what all CC units suffers from, but they are still hard hitting models, as long that you're not engaged with S8+ models, it should work.

[Khornestar]

I'd rather use them as bikers, myself. There are trade-offs, to be sure, but I like the guns and armor on bikes as opposed to more attacks at slightly higher strength.

[bozo69pd]

Obviously fleshounds would be the most amazing thing to be ablative wounds. I would be tempted to go unbound, call them all heralds of khorne, proxy lots of cheap chaos hounds as fleshhounds, get skulltaker on jugger as well, then have 3-4 houndstars and lots of cultists charge up the board to begin the murder. screw spells to make them durable. let the blood spray then resummon your dying fleshhounds every turn.

[Targetlock]

that would look very cool, but sadly bloodcrushers are weak in my opinion :( the spawn idea is a fun idea i hadnt heard of before (how many do you need to make it effective?) but im looking into the chaos hounds as flesh hounds ( i don't like the flesh hounds that much plus they are pricey) as flesh hounds seem great to me.

[Prodigal Son of Magnus]

Bloodcrushers are decent. They mulch Marines easily and have enough attacks to bring down hordes. They struggle against 2+ armor saves though. From a competative perspective, Fleeh Hounds are a better buy than Bloodcrushers.

[thraxdown]

I've never been able to get bloodcrushers in combat with large enough numbers to be effective.  They just die way too easy.  Flesh hounds on the other hand.... They've been the MVP of nearly every Daemon game I've played.  

[Khornestar]

Bloodcrushers without the riders (i.e. just juggies) make very cool Spawn. That's what I use as an escort for my Juggerlord. Looks super cool, and cheaper than the disgusting Spawn models anyway.

[Sception]

bloodcrushers are expensive models with low toughness and next to no save. Overwatch alone can be crippling to them, heaven help you if the opponent actually gets a shooting phase. Or if you have to assault through terrain.

 

They look cool, so if your army spends more time on the display shelf than the gaming table they're great. Otherwise, I'd only run them as minimum size units with no extra characters in armies with a lot of other threats.

[MaliGn]

Could you not screen the advance of juggerlord and bloodcrushers with flesh hounds, using the hounds to absorb overwatch etc? Like a traditional fox hunt? With a big enough pack of hounds you could even have them make a disordered charge on multiple units and then pick and choose which one to hit with the lord?

[Sception]

You could, except dogs are on relatively large bases, and prefer larger units. You could end up cutting off your own charge that way if you're not careful.

 

And, more to the point, if you're doing that you could just put the Lord in the dogs for superior protection, and just skip the crushers completely, or at the very least run them alone, separate from the lord/dogs, to spread your threats out more.

[the jeske]

What do people think of Bloodcrushers?

 

Bad unit is bad. Hight cost, low resilient , no frags, no ways to deal with higher T and no effective weay to deal with tanks[not vehicles] or low save stuff.

 

A chaos lord from the demonkin book is a sad excuse for a melee HQ, but you could run a normal csm or CS lord as an character to join them. problem is dogs[or bikers] are still better to put the lord in to.

[bozo69pd]

are the wargear upgrades for daemonkin chaos lords :cusse?

[incinerator950]

Mediocre at best, but the CS/BL relics weren't amazing to begin with.

[Sception]

Any of the daemon weapons, even the spineshiver, top out any of the KDK weapons, imo. And the CS sword is better, too.

 

Axes of Khorne are nice for champions and such, but at 30 points for a specialist weapon the cost is just too high.

[Slayer le Boucher]

Yeah that 30pts price hike is beyond me, its like making BA pays for power weapons 2x the points then any other SM chapter.

 

If the axe had an extra rule or something else , it would be ok-ish, but here?, its just stupid.

 

And the sad part is that you will take them, because you need AP2 weapon on init to go against most things and the decapitation rule still can be helpfull, but still, if it was like 15 or 20 pts i think it would have been smoother.

 

Also yeah i was thinking of taking either a CSM juggerAxelord or a CS JuggerSwordlord.

 

Whats also astonishing imo is the lack of any Deamon weapon in any of the Supplements and the Deamonkin codex, those are Artifacts yes, but the Only Deamon Weapon is the Axe of Fury..., in 4 books of the CSM faction...wow...

 

EDIT:

 

Oh wait now, i think the Spineshiver thingy in the BL supp is also a Deamon weapon, or not?

[Soldier of Dorn]

Also the Black Mace, but that's beside the point.

[Sheesh Mode]

 

Oh wait now, i think the Spineshiver thingy in the BL supp is also a Deamon weapon, or not?

 

It is. 

 

It is essentially a daemonic power sword that increases your initiative like the Mark of Slaanesh. For 30 points. 

[Kraytirous]

Boy did this conversation derail fast!

 

The rule of cool wins here as Bloodcrushers look badass as a unit with a Chaos Lord in their midst.

 

In terms of how powerful the combination is, you must consider what role the Bloodcrushers serve for the Chaos Lord.

Extra wound markers? Fleshhounds do a relatively better job and for cheaper as well as granting your Lord scout.

 

Brothers in slaughter? A better role for this retinue. Bloodcrushers are certainly capable of killing many things, but this also unfortunately leaves them at the unpleasant state of glass cannon.

 

Defensive retinue? Unfortunately their lack of save makes them less useful in this regard, although high toughness is always a plus.

 

A delivery system for your uber lord of slaughter? Sadly Fleshhounds win here again: scout is a powerful move.

My suggestion would be that if you're worried about the rules, you should figure out what it is that you want your unit to accomplish and tool them out appropriately.

 

If you do want your Bloodcrushers to be a glass cannon, then tool out your Chaos Lord to be the speartip with defensive equipment to deter firepower.

 

The usefulness of the unit also depends on the rest of your army. Do you have lots of fast threats? Do you have lots of vehicles? Do you have lots of monsters?

 

Bloodcrushers are fast and fragile, so if your opponent sees them in a footslogging army, they're public enemy number one. If your opponent sees them along with a handful of other threats (Big unit of Flesh Hounds, Spawn, etc) rushing at them just as fast, you'll find your opponent either foolishly focusing your Bloodcrushers or ignoring them.

[Sception]

The superior number of attacks per point for hounds, especially if taken in the formation that gives them hammer of wrath, probably has them winning out over crushers as offensive supplements to your lord as well as defensive supplements.

[Targetlock]

Hounds are so much cheaper and better in my opinion, though bloodcrushers do look cool though. but for the rule of cool, use what you want and wish you luck :)