++Take Their Skulls! Daemons of Khorne Thread++

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

KDK with propper daemon engines might be a workable solution, but I can't say for sure. I'd probably focus more on Fiends than vindicators, but vindicators would certainly be an answer to units of 6+ plague marines if caught in the open. Possibly to the 8 wound DG tanks as well.

 

Personally, I don't own any CSM at the moment, and the force I have planned is jump pack Night Lords, but if you find any success there I'd be interested to hear. 

 

Also, on the note of Plague Marines, I have a buddy who runs them in rhinos as groupes of 7 with character support. Just 7 of them fully kitted out for melee with those damn flails in the squad can seriously mess up a khorne charge if they have the fight last guy behind them. And if that same 7 marines gets the drop of a blob of Bloodletters who have hit the table in an earlier turn, they still get 42 grenade shots on it before their charge, which we have no way to blunt. It's not an unbreakable wall, but against Bloodletters they're disproportionately effective for their cost. In fact, the three most common armies for me to face are Deathskull Orks, Slaanesh Daemons, and DG, so I've experienced a lot of the ways those armies can be a bear for Khorne to handle. All of them have some way to disrupt or endure what we dish out in one way or another, with Orks probably being the most fun matchup but still a challenge.

[Torbenos]

Brought a full on khorne daemon army to a local 1000p tournament and came in dead last, which was pretty expected with my lack of experience with them and 9th edition. Really just didn't want to be another guy bringing space marines as it looked to very dominated by them.

 

x2 Daemon Princes

 

x15 Bloodletters

 

x15 Bloodletters

 

x3 Bloodcrushers

 

x1 Soul Grinder

 

Bloodletters die like flies, as you might expect. And can hardly just sit back and hold objectives due to said squishiness. One game I lost 28 of them in turn one and only managed to score some points by having my daemon princes hide behind hills, but was good fun with good players. I only got to face space marines, so the T3 was a welcome surprise to a lot of them that expected letters to be tougher.

[Cheex]

So, I'm nearing the end of a Crusade campaign with my World Eaters, and am planning on putting aside that force for a while and instead running my Khorne Daemons. This is what I'm planning for my starting Order of Battle:

 

The Death Hound [skullmaster] - Devastating Blow - 5PL 1CrP
20 Bloodletters [bloodletters] - Instrument, Icon, Banner of Blood - 8PL 1CrP
20 Bloodletters [bloodletters] - Instrument, Icon, Banner of Blood - 8PL 1CrP
20 Bloodletters [bloodletters] - Instrument, Icon, Banner of Blood - 8PL 1CrP
3 Bloodcrushers [bloodcrushers] - Instrument, Icon, Banner of Blood - 7PL 1CrP
5 Flesh Hounds [Flesh Hounds] - 4PL
Soul Grinder [soul Grinder] - 10PL

 

Total: 50PL, 5 Crusade Points

 

My experience with 50PL games so far is that melee tends to happen very quickly, and I can reasonably expect to get into combat on T2. Opponents will be unlikely to move towards this horde, allowing me to cap objectives early on.

 

One of the great things about Crusade for Daemons is that I'm not having to spend 4CP on these Banners of Blood like I normally would. I'm instead effectively giving my opponent 2CP - definitely a worthwhile trade in my mind. It solves one of our problems of excessive pre-game CP expenditure.

 

I've got a couple of ideas in mind for characters to add to the list in the future, like a Daemon Prince with a custom weapon and an Exalted Bloodthirster. I didn't want to add them too early for narrative reasons, but I can't wait to start giving them Crusade Relics.

 

What are everyone's thoughts about using Khorne Daemons in Crusade? Any thoughts on the above list?

[Ulfast]

I tihnk using daemons is very nice in Crusade and you got several good units there. I would perhaps try to take away the soul grinder and get more flesh hounds and  bloodcrushers.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

Devastating Blow should probably be traded out for another trait. It can do a max of 1d3 mortal wounds, where as something like Rage Incarnate would allow reroll 1s to something like a Bloodletter bomb.

 

I also agree that either the Soul Grinder should be dropped for more crushers/hounds, or the crushers should be dropped for more hounds/letters. They're not a super great unit at low numbers, where as hounds work greas squads of 5. Soulgrinders fill Khorne's desperate lack of reliable multi damage weapons though.

[Cheex]

Reasoning on the Devastating Blow: in Crusade, each Warlord Trait can only be taken on one model at a time in your OOB, and I want to use Rage Incarnate on a Bloodthirster later on without having to delete this guy first. Plus, from a narrative point of view, my model for him has a big axe, so I figured an "executioner" option would be thematic.

 

That said, Immense Power (+1S) may be a better option for the Skullmaster. S8 on the charge is not half bad, and represents the big axe nicely.

 

Fair point on the Grinder; having two might work, but I don't think one is enough. Flesh Hounds may be good as replacements to nab objectives and dogpile (heh) weaker enemies, but I'm actually wondering if maybe a Daemon Prince would be better. I was planning on adding one later, but this way I can build the army's narrative around it, and adding it now would allow me to start levelling it up quicker.

 

Actually, a Daemon Prince with Skullreaver is very tempting. Drop the Warlord Trait off the Skullmaster and spend the Requisition on that instead. Hmm.

 

Honestly, the most exciting part of Crusade is being able to develop interesting characters. Daemons have a depressing lack of interesting upgrades, but all of the Crusade Relics could easily be "reskinned" as Chaos artefacts.

 

With that in mind, here's an updated starting Order of Battle:

 

Yk'shand [Daemon Prince] - Deathbringer - 9PL, 1CrP
The Death Hound [skullmaster] - 5PL
The Teeth of Death [20x Bloodletters] - Instrument, Icon, Banner of Blood - 8PL 1CrP
The Takers of Skulls [20x Bloodletters] - Instrument, Icon, Banner of Blood - 8PL 1CrP
The Warriors of Blood [20x Bloodletters] - Instrument, Icon, Banner of Blood - 8PL 1CrP
The Goregrinders [3x Bloodcrushers] - Instrument, Icon, Banner of Blood - 7PL 1CrP
The Fleshrenders [5x Flesh Hounds] - Gorehound - 4PL

 

Total: 49PL, 5CrP

 

I could drop the Bloodcrushers in favour of two more Flesh Hound packs...but I just love the idea of Bloodcrushers too much, even if they are kind of rubbish.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

Ah. That does make sense. I tend to give Rage Incarnate to heralds and save Oblivious To Pain for Thirsters, but either works.

 

 

 

And, what I meant to say is, a single Soulgrinder is fine, but a squad of 3 Crushers tends to fall flat.

 

 

 

Hounds taken in minimum squads are good, and I always take at least 2 for quick objective grabbing and psychic deny.

 

 

 

Crushers only really see the field for me if I want to use their 1 CP mortal wounds strat, and for that to be worth the investment I need like 6 of them. Taken at a minimum size they're a points sink that doesn't quite have enough punch to get anything done. Or they haven't in my experience. I personally feel that their horn attacks need to go up to 2 damage and -2 AP for 45 points per model and so little support from the army.

 

 

 

Soulgrinders work fine as a solo take because they have flat 3 damage weapons, and that's very important for Khorne. Every other high damage model in the army is an HQ choice, and either super fragile, super expensive, or both. Soulgrinders aren't super tough, but they're tough enough, and if you take the sword are a fairly good solo unit to send scuttling around causing mischief and drawing fire.

 

 

 

Still, you've got a solid enough base there, and you can afford to find out what works for you. Your flow might run a bit differently than my own. 3 squads of 20 Bloodletters and a Daemon Prince is enough of a Khorne army to let you play around with the rest. They'll be doing most of the work.

 

 

 

If you really like the Crushers, maybe consider dropping one squad of letters and buffing them up a bit. With +1 toughness and save, they might fill your roll of mid field recking ball better than 20 unmounted boys could. Then just put the 2 Letter squads into deep strike and have a really powerful option for turn 2.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Marshal Valkenhayn