Chaos Daemons Review: Bloodletters of Khorne

The bloodletters of Khorne have lost 1T compared to the previous edition.  This is actually a serious detriment to bloodletters and their survivability.  To compensate, they've also become plenty cheaper.  But with a 5+ invulnerable save, they're frequently not going to make it to their target.

So what use are they?  Well, I'm still seeing them as a herald delivery system (or skulltaker delivery system).  They are simply there to soak up some wounds and be part of a large Khorne horde.  Their attacks are nothing to be ashamed of: AP3 is still powerful and on the charge, they are going to take care of space marines readily.

In terms of options, they can get plenty of extra members for their unit: clearly if playing horde this is a great option.  One member can also be upgraded to a bloodreaper, gaining an extra attack.  For a small investment of extra points, this is one that should always be taken (unless you're worried about challenges?  but you're playing Khorne - you shouldn't be!).  They can have lesser and greater rewards as well. As an option, the Axe of Khorne seems appealing as well.  The instrument is also a good option here.  For a khorne army, the icon is a good idea, as might be the banner of blood for extra charge range.

Here are a few sample builds.

10 bloodletters of Khorne, including 1 bloodreaper with an Axe of Khorne, instrument of chaos (125 points)
A distraction unit.  Used as a screen.  If it survives, it charges and makes a mess of space marines.

20 bloodletters of Khorne, including 1 bloodreaper with an Axe of Khorne, instrument of chaos, icon: banner of blood (245 points)
The fully upgraded unit.  And the price tag is still rather reasonable, even despite the low toughness models.

16 bloodletters of Khorne, including 1 bloodreaper with an Axe of Khorne (175 points)
A herald delivery unit, with a fluffy number of models.

Chaos Daemons Review: Herald of Khorne

The herald of Khorne is an enhanced bloodletter with a variety of options to select between. They can choose one loci form any of lesser, greater and exalted.  Of these, the greater (rage for the unit) and the exalted (hatred for the unit) are both strong options and one of them probably should be taken.

They can also have up to 30 points of lesser, greater or exalted rewards, taken in any combination.  The Axe of Khorne (AP2, decapitating blow) seems like an ideal and cheap option (for a lesser reward) and provides a good way to grant a little bit of anti-terminator strategy for the Khorne player.

The transport options are also strong. The juggernaut is a classic way of upgrading a herald and is still a great option.  The blood throne is a new option for a dedicated transport, and I'll review that separately.  Suffice to say, that I think the bloodthrone is also a good choice for the herald as it can transmit and loci to Khorne daemon units within 6".  This can make for several horrendous units in close connection to each other.  Consider playing this in concert with chaos space marines and other daemons for a fun multi-unit death star.

Let's have a look at a few potential builds:

Herald of Khorne, Greater Locus of Fury, Juggernaut of Khorne, Axe of Khorne (130 points)
Run with a unit of flesh hounds or bloodcrushers to devastate enemy forward lines.  Even a big unit of bloodletters might be an option as a "delivery" method.

Herald of Khorne, Exalted Locus of Wrath, Bloodthrone of Khorne, Axe of Khorne (165 points)
This is a mini-force-booster.  Surround him with friendly daemon units and use chaos space marines as a forward screen.  Charge in and enjoy!

Herald of Khorne, Exalted Locus of Wrath, Blade of Blood (100 points)
Cheap and unsubtle.  Run with a large mob of bloodletters in a low points army, or as a set of 4 heralds in a larger daemons (primary FOC) army.

Chaos Daemons Review: Skulltaker

Skulltaker remains a bloodletter's bloodletter - to use the phrase that I evaluated him with last time. He's still the great guy in the Khorne Army that all the lesser daemons look up to. They still just want to be like him.
Skulltaker is now unique in the whole of the daemons codex for possessing Eternal Warrior.  Seriously: he's the only guy with it.  Why? Because of all those skulls on his cape.  Why every other skull adorned daemon doesn't gets this (let alone greater daemons) remains one of those eternal mysteries.

He has lost rending, but still has instant death.  He has AP3 on his sword, and a 3+ armour save.  All round, he looks like a solid choice to me.  But he does suffer a couple of issues.  Firstly, he is only toughness 4 and dies like a marine captain to be honest.  And he's movement is "standard" fare to say the least.  These two points can be improved in one fell swoop by paying an extra 45 points for a juggernaut of Khorne for him to ride on in to battle with.  This gives an additional +1W,T,A to Skulltaker and is well worth it in my opinion.  Hide him in a squad of skullcrushers and go forth.  He's ideal in a small (under 1500 ... even under 1000 points) battle.  In larger points battles, I'd be first considering bloodthirsters.  But in low points games, he still has the potential to be amazing if played right.

Wargames Gallery: Bloodcrusher Battle

This one needs a caption!  

The terminators and librarian had charged the bloodcrushers, but are getting beaten back.  So why is the thunder hammer armed veteran looking the wrong way?

Bloodcrusher Icon Bearer Painted

The final plastic bloodcrusher from my collection has now been painted.  I like how the base has turned out on this guy: lots of debris scattered around a cluttered battlefield.  Some static grass might be added as a finishing touch later.  The highlighting of the bloodcursher might need a little tidying up (some of the extreme highlighting was done with a worn brush that resulted in lines that were too wide), but otherwise, I'm happy with this one -- he's tabletop ready and poised to take on the might of (yet more!) space marines in the next league battle! 

Bloodcrusher Standard Bearer Based

The final bloodcrusher of my pack has finally been based after much time has elapsed.  The reason for this is that I bought the old herald when it first came out in metal (you remember working with that medium, right?). 

The base of the bloodcrusher features a few bits from Hirst Arts (the column in white in the foreground, similar to the columns I've placed on my other bloodcrushers) which was cast with regular hobby plastercast (rather than dental grade material).  The rest of the base features bits from the 40k basing kit (in particular the space marine helmet in front of the column), and an etched brass cog to the rear.  This is augmented with scattered slate of small and medium sizes on the rest of the base.  Once painted, some flock of static grass will be added to the base for added detail.  I think this guy is going to fit in well with the rest of his pack...!

Wargames Gallery: Bloodcrusher // Blood Raven

Charging in to a squad of Blood Ravens, a Bloodcrusher lets out an unearthly battlecry as his steed's part-mechanical, part-deamonic feet cause the ground to tremble at every footfall.

World Eater Conversion: II. Painting.

I think I'll just post these images taken of the painted World Eater conversion I showed yesterday and not write too much else about them.  Enjoy!

World Eater Conversion: I. The Build.

Inspired by a posting from Adam over at Space Wolves, I decided to put together a conversion for a World Eaters character to lead a squad of Khorne Berzerkers.  Although I've already got Kharn and a neat looking possessee who could step in to the roles, I really wanted something that looked intimidating, could fit in with the other berzerkers and, frankly, old school looking.

Following Adam's post, I've used a chaos warrior body from warhammer fantasy which I chopped at just below the belt.  To that, I glued a pair of standard space marine legs. The arms are from a bloodletter (the hellblade will count as a power weapon for this character!) and a bolt pistol.  The only issue are the elbows: all four of them.  This can be disguised by some careful posing of the miniature though.  The head is a standard berzerker, whilst the backpack is taken from an old (and broken) warp hornets marine.   To attach the backpack, the cloak needed a small file-down so that the pack could sit flush against the shoulders. 

In the next post, I'll show the final painted version of this fellow.

Painted Bloodcrusher

This is the painted version of the bloodcrusher that was built at the start of the year.  The paint scheme follows my herald of Khorne, with the reds, blacks and bronzes being prominent, combined with wet-blending of the hell-blade's colours as per my bloodletter troops.

The highlighting of the bloodcrusher required some work, with lighter glints of the metalic hell-blade hilt, and around the gold / bronze metal bits (on the head, upper forelegs, and around the bronze edging just above the chainmail on the legs).  Additionally, orange highlights were applied to the red parts of the juggernaut and attention was paid to the scratch marks around the body of the juggernaut.

The base meanwhile, was painted in a modestly simple fashion -- drybrushing of metallic colours and bleached bone plus dheneb stone.  I decided not to add any grass to the base, but I might add just one clump to break up the urban decay feel.

Bloodcrusher Building

Amongst some new miniatures, I received a box of bloodcrushers of Khorne for Christmas.  These guys are awesome!  After spending a long time pinning and gluing my metal herald of Khorne together, these plastic bloodcrushers are simply a breeze to put together!

The top tip about putting these beasts together is to follow the instructions. Seriously!  The three bloodcrushers that one can build out of the boxed set are not entirely interchangable. Having said that, there are ways to customize the bloodcrushers since there are a variety of heads available (both juggernauts and bloodletters) as well as a variety of juggernaut necklace chains, plus a small selection of skulls on chains to add extra ornaments to the bloodcrusher.

I intend to add a bit of scenery to the base of my bloodcrushers.  Hence I intend to pin the rear legs of the bloodcrusher to the base.  One of the main reasons for this is that the front paws (feet? hooves?) of the juggernaut are raised off the ground on all of the models.  Pinning the rear legs to the base therefore adds a great deal of stability to the build and will enable me to insert a few neat looking additions to the base ... but that's a story for another day.

Statistics: How Many Bloodletters?

This week, I'm going to be writing a series of four articles looking at the troops choices for the four main chaos powers in Codex: Chaos Daemons in a similar way that I looked at the advantages of plague marines and noise marines in the past. Today, we're starting with Bloodletters of Khorne.Not so long ago, Raptor1313 wrote an article on how evaluating units by making their own points cost back is overly simplistic. So, what is it that I want bloodletters in my (mixed daemons) armies to do exactly? I personally think that the answer to that is to do what they do best: kill infantry quickly and efficiently. I'm not bothered if they don't make back their points. I just want to be certain that they do their job.

The situation.
Most commonly, I use bloodletters to take out squads of space marines. So in my considerations below, I will assume that I want my bloodletters to take on a squad of 10 marines. I will assume that one of the marines is a sergeant with a power fist. Perhaps one of the more typical set-ups that I come across is multi-melta plus flamer special weapons in these squads, so I will assume that as well.

In game terms, my bloodletters have to deep strike in. I will assume that this goes reasonably well and then I run them to ensure not too many bloodletters get whacked by templates and to get closer to their quarry. The marines will sit still and rapid fire them. After that, I will have my bloodletters assault the marines. (Of course, sometimes the marines may choose to charge them rather than the other way around, so this situation is necessarily simplistic!).

The question is this: how many bloodletters do I need to (statistically) achieve the goal of destroying the opposition (without having to rely upon them fleeing and the bloodletters catching up with them)?

Calculations.
The first step in this calculation is to determine how many wounds are caused by the space marines on the bloodletters before they can get in to combat. That's 8 rapid firing bolters, 1 flamer and 1 multi-melta. I'm going to assume that the flamer template hits 2 bloodletters (which may or may not be accurate in a real game - this is purely a thought experiment!).

How many hits do the bloodletters take on average from this volley? Firstly, there are 16 bolter rounds to consider. Two-thirds of them will hits -- meaning 11 hits (rounded up). We'll add 2 hits from the flamer, which makes for 13 strength 4 hits. I'm simply going to be pessimistic (from my bloodletter's point of view) and assume that the multi-melta also hits them.

How many wounds result from that? Well, half of the strength 4 hits will wound. That means approximately 7 wounds ... and we'll just assume the multi-melta causes a wound as well. So 8 wounds in total.

How many bloodletters survive? Their 5+ save is invulnerable, so they get a save from everything (just not a terribly good one). About 3 of those 8 wounded will survive.

For the win.
To fulfil my wants for the bloodletters, I must take out the entire marine squad in one round of combat. How many are needed?

The bloodletters on the charge have the benefit of the furious charge universal special rule. They're hitting and wounding on 3+. Moreover, they're killing on 3+ thanks to their hellblades. Moreover, they're charging, so they get 3 attacks each. That means 1.33 marines removed per bloodletter. I'd need 7.5 bloodletters to assure myself (statistically) that the marines would be removed entirely. Since they strike first (due to the higher initiative) the marines don't even strike back(!)

How many?
I lose about 5 bloodletters to the rapid firing marines. I need 7.5 to survive in order to wipe them out. Hence 5 + 7.5 = 12.5. Rounding up - this means about 13 bloodletters to achieve my aims. Although I will note that I've been pessimistic along the way (regarding the multi-melta which may not hit or wound, but I assumed it would!). Twelve bloodletters should be fine.

Shortcomings and caveats.
Of course, I've ignored the fact that sweeping advances could work just as well (against chaos marines!). Or if my opponent is near the board edge, they could certainly flee away and off the battlefield. And there could always be faults in my logic above! (let me know!). But overall, and from experience, I know that 10 bloodletters sometimes pulls up short, hence a unit of 12 or so bloodletters feels like it is about the right answer to my original question.

Painted Bloodletter Possessed Chaos Marine

The painted up possessed chaos space marine. There is lots of detail here ranging from red and black washes, gold highlighting, and a wet blended power weapon in frost brand colours. Some images of this guy in action can be found in this battle report. I'll say little more and let the images do the talking.

Bloodletter Possessed Chaos Marine

This dynamic miniature is a triple purpose miniature! The three roles that I have in mind for it are:

(a) Possessed Chaos Space Marine;
(b) Skull Champion (possibly armed with a power weapon?);
(c) Khorne Lord.

The miniature is mostly parts from a possessed chaos space marine. The right arm, however, is made from the old mutations sprue and features the spiked fist. On the top of the fist, I've attached a bolt pistol that I had sitting in my bits box. The left shoulder pad is the Khorne icon shoulder pad from the chaos marine set. The base is a resin one from back2basix and I have drilled and pinned the miniature to the base. The base should still be easy to paint given the pose of the miniature (I sometimes paint a resin base prior to pinning a miniature to it).

My original thinking for this chap was that this was a bloodletter possessed marine. This largely grew out of a consideration of the head which I think looks very much like a bloodletter's face -- the horns for me are very reminiscent of bloodletters. From therein it dawned on me that this guy could readily double up as a skull champion and it went from there. I'm looking forward to painting this one!

Khorne Daemons Kill Team

I thought that this might be a tough one to think about. Khorne gets a choice between bloodletters, bloodcrushers, and flesh hounds. Fundamentally, they're going to struggle if a rhino shows up to the battle. I therefore think that bloodcrushers, and perhaps even the fury of Khorne upgrade, are going to be a necessity.

It is then a question of bloodletters or flesh hounds. Bloodletters have power weapons (ahem: hellblades), so they probably have the edge. But then again, the flesh hounds are quite rapid. And Karanak helps out there as well. They could even run a rhino down with a little luck.

Here's a few lists:
5 flesh hounds with Karanak (110 points)
2 blood crushers of Khorne with fury of Khorne (90 points)

1 blood crusher of Khorne with fury of Khorne (50 points)
9 bloodletters (144 points) (perhaps purchase an instrument upgrade as well?).

I actually like list 1 here despite the low number of models. I feel it could be themed well (Khorne on the hunt!) and effective.
As Rushputin @ Warpstone Pile suggests, Khorne's weaknesses are a lack of staying power and slowness. Hence special rules such as fleet, hit and run and feel no pain will help out the greatest.

Bloodletter of Khorne with Shield

This fellow was a small project that I undertook a while ago with the idea being to enter him for a painting competition in the WFB category. I figured that I had already got plenty of possible entries for a W40k entry, but could do with something in the fantasy department. Happily, daemons can fulfil both categories very well with a change of base (indeed, daemons are supplied with both square and round bases for just this intention).The conversion work here was minimal: just the additional of a chaos warrior shield to the out-stretched hand of a standard bloodletter, based on a square base with a pile of skulls near the front from the citadel basing set.

The actual painting followed my established bloodletter scheme, along with the flaming hellblade. I did take my time on this one, carefully picking out each and every single bump along the back with my triple zero paint brush. Other than taking my time, nothing out of the ordinary was done here.

Overall I was pleased with the result; but sadly he didn't pick up any prizes.

GWpertinent Old School Minis Contest

Over at GWpertient, Tristan has issued a challenge to the community to see their oldest painted (40k) models. I was thinking about entering some old chaos renegades, or even chaos daemons. However, I managed to dig out an interesting pair of Eldar (gasp!) from the Rogue Trader era (1988 to be precise). Yes, I'm an old-school player! The picture below (my entry in the contest) shows these Eldar miniatures from 1988 alongside some of my older chaos renegades and chaos daemons.

From left to right, we have a Khorne Berzerker (Chaos Renegade number 02 in the 1988 citadel catalogue, designed by Michael Perry and Kevin Adams); a Bloodletter of Khorne from Realms of Chaos (number 022525, in the 1989 citadel catalogue but appearing in Slaves to Darkness, 1988); and the pair of Eldar crew (Left: Field Artillery Crew 01, designed by Jes Goodwin, 1988; Right: D-Cannon crew 17, designed by Jes Goodwin, 1988). A bit of a blast from the past!

Fury of Khorne Bloodletter, Frost Brand

A slightly different painting scheme to normal for this bloodletter eneables it to stand out from the crowd (potentially as a herald or an upgraded bllodletter with the fury of Khorne gift). The concept here was to use the same standard Khorne colours (red, black, and brass) and go for a different looking hellblade: a frostbrand.

A frostbrand, at least in dungeons and dragons (or similar) linguistics, is a magical sword made from ice. But, what would a hellbound daemon like a bloodletter be doing with a frosty blade rather than a super-heated one or a very jagged and serrated one? My answer to that is that in certain mythos, the concept of "hell" is not a modern biblical "hot" place, but a cold, freezing one. Hence, there is a narrative reason to suppose (in-game) that this bloodletter is simply feeding off that.

The painted frostbrand (above and in the other pictures) was created in much the same way as the other (hot) hellblades were: a quick blending of whites, through blues, down to blacks to suggest a supernatural freezing blade.

The bloodletter itself is also different to my normal troops. Instead of a red base colour, I've opted for black. This gives a good contrast for other highlights on the miniature such as the Khorne rune and the frosty hellblade.

The black of the base coat was drybrushed with a mixture of red and black to give an indication of where the contours lay. The contours themselevs were picked out in a blend of reds and blazing oranges. The little "bumps" on the back of the bloodletter were meticulously picked out individually using bleached bone. Final highlights included the rune and the nails. The toe nails are probably a little too bright as well, but that is correctable.

The miniature is based on a portion of a rhino door. The door is in a similar colour scheme to the bloodletter: deep reds covered with muck and highlighted with oranges. Whilst I did originally think this might be a Blood Angel's wreck, I stumbled across a funnier thought: Which World Eater summoned him from inside a rhino? Come on, own up.

Bloodcrusher and Herald of Khorne

This model was one of the ones in the Daemons codex that excited me and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and see what I could produce. It will serve one of two purposes quite readily: a herald of Khorne mounted on a juggernaut or a bloodcrusher of Khorne. Indeed, I've used the miniature in both guises. An army list with such a herald can be found here.

Aims and Model.
The model is pretty good looking - the herald is screaming out some orders at the top of his voice, his hellblade is held aloft, and he looks like he can't wait to get stuck in to some unfortunate real-space adversary. Putting the miniature together required some easy and some hard steps. I found the juggernaut to be reasonably easy to put together, apart from the collar which was just plain fiddly. The herald was slightly tricky to position on the back of the juggernaut, but once the correct placing was figured out, it wasn't so bad. The head of the herald required some pinning however. I think it must have taken me (maybe) upward of two weeks to construct this miniature before I even got around to the painting stage. I didn't want any conversion on the miniature either - just a classic looking bloodletter herald of Khorne on a juggernaut!

Painting.
After undercoating in black, drybrushed the mechanical looking parts of the juggernaut with some silver. Then, I basecoated the red areas of the model using mechrite red foundation paint. From here on in, my painting method followed my usual bloodletter painting scheme in the main part.

For the juggernaut, I was careful with applying the basecoat so that it left a thin line of black undercoat showing through around the edges. This can be seen on the side shots of the juggernaut where the red areas meet the gold / brass edging. Speaking of the gold, this was painting in pure shining gold with a steady hand around the edges. Highlighting of the gold was accomplished using a blend of gold with skull white, up to almost pure skull white. Highlighting of the red parts was done in a red / blazing orange blend (both on the juggernaut and the bloodletter herald).

The iconography was painted in pure skull white for a sharp, crisp looking contrast with the bulk of the red. On the body of the juggernaut, I started to paint on faint Khornate symbols - perhaps akin to what can be found in the main rules book for those Khorne Possessed Marine miniatures (which is what I used for some inspiration).

Basing.
On the base, I've used some pillars from Hirst Arts Castle Moulds range. If you've not come across Hirst Arts before, I'd encourage you to take a look - the parts that the moulds make look awesome and you can easily construct awesome looking fantasy and futuristic landscapes easily.

Significantly, they also paint very well. After undercoating in black, all that is required to to drybrush in steadily whiter colours to achieve a decent finished look. Very quick and easy in my opinion.

I've positioned the broken pillar to try to make the miniature look more dynamic. The idea being that the juggernaut has crashed in to the pillar with its left shoulder and toppled down further the ruins! Or maybe the herald has had a swipe with his sword? Either way, I like the way that the base has turned out. The rest of the base is covered in fine black lode stone. Some small amounts of green scatter finish off the scene.

Evaluation.
Positives: I really like this miniature and have used it extensively in my daemons armies. I'm particularly happy with the base and the overall feel that the miniature exudes!
Negatives: The faint orange Khorne symbols on the juggernaut need more work yet.

Skulltaker Painting

U'Zuhl, or Skulltaker to his mates (if he has many), is a bloodletter herald of Khorne special character in daemon armies. His points cost is very reasonable, and when embedded in a large squad of bloodletters he can prove to be a real asset for the daemons player, in either a mixed daemons squad or a mono-Khorne list. Moreover, I like the model!

Painting.
The colours of Khorne are typically black, brass and red - and those are the colours that I wanted to stick to for Skulltaker. After undercoating in black, I made a conscious choice to keep Skulltaker's cape black, but with white runes of Khorne stitched to the inside of his cape and brass metal bits. So, instead of worrying about the cape, I tackled the flesh of Skulltaker first.

The flesh was painted in mechrite red for the basecoat. I decided to follow my usual bloodletter painting scheme and go with an inking of red with a spot of black on top of the basecoat to give it some depth. The flesh was then drybrushed with blazing orange and highlighted (or overbrushed) with more solid orange colours on the raised portions. His "bumps" or "spots" (e.g. on his legs) were painted in a cream colour.

Next, I went on to the armoured portions. I didn't apply any basecoat here, but steadily drybrushed up from the black undercoat to a more grey colour. A very light application of skull white drybrushing finished the effect and then I carefully painted brass around the edges of the armour - e.g. the shoulder pads.

The skulls on the rear of the cape followed the shoulder pads and armour - progressive drybrushing up to a more skull white colour. The hooks that support the skulls were picked out brass. On other details, the hellblade has my standard bloodletter molten look; the tongue is done in a couple of blue colours; the flaming skull held in his hand has yellows and reds added to it, with flecks of black to suggest dying embers of heat; and the Khorne runes are picked out in pure skull white.

I've placed a genestealer sprue skull on the base - I'm fairly sure that Khorne doesn't discriminate between different species when it comes to skulls and blood (etc.). The rest of the base is going to get some attention at a later date.