Dead Lord Korotur vs Pedro Kantor and his Crimson Fists.

Finally got another game in with my Khorne Daemonkin.   This is my list.  This game and others coming after are part of a campaign.  Wins capture territory and can give bonuses.  There are a few factions, Imperium, Orks, and Chaos.  Other xenos players haven't come forward to participate.

This game was against an imperium player commanding a crimson fist army.  His list consisted of a CAD containing Pedro Kantor, devastator squads, sternguard, and scout squads.  Attached was a skyhammer annihilation force with meltas in one pod and grav in another.  One or two of the assault squads had an evisirator.  

Taking turn two I castled in my corner behind the rhinos and spreading out so no pod could land behind me.  The skyhammer and sternguard came down and did very little but killed a rhino a few bodies.  Enough to give me the blood tithe I needed.

My forces responded with overwhelming force but my dice rolled poorly.  This was to my benefit, however, as most of my key units stayed locked in combat.  Everything went on to assault units across the board.  Moving so fast is very powerful.

The game ending in a tabling for the Crimson fists.  This was the only way I could win, though, as with the mission a lucky pull got him a ton of points, in one case 6 points off of two cards.

Some of the best moments were my Khorne Lord's powering up thanks to Goredrinker.  Drop podding armies give him the perfect opportunity.  After killing one guy and just using the axe of Khorne afterwords I can still power up.  In the second round of combat he was up to 5+ wounds given and strength 10 as a result.  Thanks to the scenario he had two warlord traits which game him preferred enemy and +1 attack.  Rampage from goredrinker also is awesome at ramping up his abilities.  He can dish out a lot of death very quickly.  In this game he killed 5 squads of between 4 and 5 marines each with the finale of cleaving Pedro and his squad into a heap of limbs and shredded meat.

For the blood tithe all I need are 3 points to get feel no pain on everything and give rage/furious charge to the slaughtercult.  I run my lord with 5 chaos spawn.  Getting feel no paid up as well as running them through cover makes them almost as survivable as the demons.

Feel no pain also super buffs the flesh hounds.  The look on people faces when 3 bolter wounds only causes one unsaved wound and doesn't even kill a model is priceless.

Speaking of flesh hounds, they are the backbone of the army.  Scouting up and forcing decisions on a gunline, hanging back and taking up space for area denial just to counter charge, or moving fast a bogging down up other units just so the power houses can catch up are the primary things these guys are used for and lets everything else do all the heavy lifting.

Eight bloodcrushers and a herald on a juggernaut were also a big factor.  In this game their enormous number of attacks were able to kill some drop pods to secure the win for me.  The amount of wounds, combined with feel no pain, and the ability to move incredibly fast make them a huge threat.  If they are targeted then so what?  That means other stuff isn't being shot.

Khorne Daemonkin is powerful when used right.  When summoning blood thirsters, using overpriced wargear, or using glass hammer type units this army can run into a hitch.  The amount of wounds that can be had, the resiliency they can earn, and the ability to move really fast can give a lot of armies  a run for their money.

Coming soon will be a short battle report of this army versus a mechanized guard army.

Forgeworld Kytan - Shaker of the heavans

Got this in just last night and put some effort into it.

And a comparison to some other large Khorne things:

Goings on of July 2015

Grand Theft Auto V came out in April so between that and work I got behind on 40k.  In that amount of time a lot has come out for the game and I am pretty excited about it.

What I am most excited about is the Kytan Daemon engine (pictured right).  Check it out on Forgeworld's website.  This thing is one of the chaos answers to an Imperial knight.  It is more expensive points-wise, has a lot of special rules, and trades off some defensive capability for offensive power.  The most important of this trade off is WS5 and I5.  Given decent rolls or some psyker shenanigans and this will eat other knights, imperial or otherwise, for lunch.

I ordered this model as soon as it was available and am constructing a scenic base out of a cut apart dakka predator.  So far it is pretty fantastic and I am going to post up some pics as soon as I can.

In conjunction with the Kytan is a Chaos knight kit.  It is a bit more expensive money wise, on par with the regular knights, but is the same points-wise and can be upgraded to daemonic alignments.  These alignments give the same benefits as other chaos titans in older forgeworld books.  The close combat weapon also give +1 to the STRD result chart making it never fail obliterating models on a 5+.

The rules and points cost make these things pretty snazzy but I hate the way all of these knight titans look. The Kytan looks the best out of the two and suits my play style better, anyways.

All of these knew titans along with the recent release of the warlord titan got me pretty interested.  So interested in fact that I am selling a couple of guns that I never use in order to get some cash for these models.  I recently saw an unboxing video of the warlord titan and it seems like an incredibly fun model to put together and paint.  The rules for the titan are pretty insane as well.

I don't know what all I will end up with.  I haven't sold the guns, yet.  But whatever it is I plan on having a lot of fun.

Recently I completed to an acceptable level a bloodcrusher squad with blood-hunter and banner.  In progress are my super special chaos lord and a bloodthirster.  After that are a whole smattering of bloodletters.  Once all of this, along with the Kytan, are painted I intend to work on spawn, flesh hounds, bikers, and probably a helldrake or two.

Maulerfiends, Forgefiends, Soul Grinders, and Defilers in Khorne Daemonkin

I have no love for these daemon machines. It used to be that the only walkers Chaos Space Marines had access to was dreadnaughts and Defilers. Dreadnaughts are another topic; this one is about the big walkers.

With the 6th edition Chaos Space Marines codex Maulerfiends and Forgefiends were added. Soul Grinders were made available as a regular unit, as opposed to an ally, in the Khorne Daemonkin book. The fiends were added to the game around the same time Nemesis dreadknights, Tau Riptides, Eldar Wraithknights, and Space Marine centurions were added tot he game. I believe all of these models were added in response to the warmahordes game adding their collossal type models. Comparing the fiends to their opposition it is quite easy to see that they got the short end of the stick when it comes to creative rule making. All of the other large monstrous creature/walker types outclass the fiend in almost every way. The ones that can't move fast have serious defensive capabilities. I love the defiler model, a huge crab demon that is going to blow you apart and chop up the bits. The fiends and soul grinders look good as well but I don't own any of them yet. Once again, though, these chaos models can't hold a candle to the sleek lines and sheer awesomeness that the looks opposition models have.

The defiler is too expensive, too slow, gets killed too easy, and is trying to do too much stuff at once. For a few more points other factions get better, faster, and stronger models. In eldar's case, for 95 more points they get a toughness 8 gargantuan creature that shoots 2 strength D shots a turn.

The shooty fiend is trash. Too expensive and, depending on options, can overheat and kill itself while also suffering some other negatives I will discuss further down.

The soul gridner is probably the star of the show. For the points it has better front and side armor and, depending on options, can actually shoot decent things, one of them being skyfire. The model looks great also. Once again, however, it is just too slow. Also suffering from a ballistic skill of 3 makes this thing pretty underwhelming. The only thing going for it is the armor 13 and cost compared to these other walkers. When it finally gets to combat it can probably do something, but until then the performance is substandard.

The close combat maulerfiend is the star of the pack. It moves fast, can reduce attacks or blow vehicles up easier, is fairly cheap, and looks good doing it.

The downsides of all of these models make them mediocre. All have ballistic skill/weapon skill 3. Hitting on 4s everywhere with few attacks makes these things pretty anemic. Armor 12 on most of them, with only 3 hull points, makes them one trick ponies. That lucky lascannon shot or the squad with grenades getting an immobilized result or just outright blowing it up really sucks. One lucky shot and the models is toast; 130 plus points to the dead pile or easily avoided. What really makes this hurt is that the equivalent enemy beasties simply take a wound from one of these lucky shots. Take a squad of flesh hounds instead. They will run over the marines, only lose one model to the lascannon shot, and still get an invulnerable save.

Maulerfiends are the only one of these I would consider taking, albeit reluctantly. One thing Khorne Daemonkin have trouble with is vehicles with high rear armor. The maulerfiend is the best response to it. Being that these things are fragile and cracking these tanks in close combat is almost mandatory I would rather take a few melta bombs spread out on sergeants or on a lord.

 If you feel a maulerfiend is necessary, take two of them. Two is one, one is none. To the bin with everything else.

Army progress as of April 19, 2015

Greetings and thanks for viewing this blog.

After being on vacation for the last week I am looking forward to updating this blog.  I have been concentrating on painting some models and I want to get them all knocked out before I buy some more.  I developed a road map on what all I want to buy and it is going to get costly very fast.  Accounting for that I have made it a goal to get all that  I have for this army painted before purchasing more models.  This will allow some saving to accrue and the good amount of model already owned to be nice and painted up.

All last week, this week, and probably a couple more weeks I am focusing on and 8 man blood crusher squad, an extra banner bearer, and my Juggerlord.

The picture for this blog post is my progress so far,  Click here for a larger picture.

After painting that squad up there is the possessed to finish along with a standard blood thirster.  Once those are done I am going to alternate between Flesh hounds and Spawn.

Of the models I need to purchase are as follows:

• 20 Flesh hounds
• 5 to 10 spawn
• 18 Chaos bikers
• 2 maulerfiends
• 2 helldrakes
• 2 skull cannons/blood thrones
• 24 berzekers/Chaos space marines

For the bikers and berzekers/CSMs I plan on using all of the fogeworld torsos, heads, and shoulder pads while buying the legs/arms/backpack bits off of ebay.  Thankfully I only need two sets of bits because I already have 10 put together but not painted.

I am not too crazy about the maulerfiends and helldrakes but they might be fun in the Khorne Daemonkin codex.  I will post more on them later.

A fun list want to run is what I call "2 is one, one is none":

• HQ

  • Chaos Lord

    Axe of Khorne, Goredrinker, Juggernaut of Khorne, Power Armour, Sigil of Corruption, Warlord

  • Chaos Lord

    Juggernaut of Khorne, Lightning Claw, Power Armour, Power fist, Sigil of Corruption

• Troops

  • Bloodletters

    Bloodreaper, 7x Unit size

  • Bloodletters

    Bloodreaper, 7x Unit size

• Fast Attack

  • Heldrake

    Baleflamer

  • Heldrake

    Baleflamer

• Heavy Support

  • Maulerfiend

    2x Lasher Tendrils

  • Maulerfiend

    2x Lasher Tendrils

• Auxiliary

  • Gorepack

    • Chaos Bikers

      7x Bikers, 2x Meltagun

      • Biker Champion

        Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon

    • Chaos Bikers

      7x Bikers, 2x Meltagun

      • Biker Champion

        Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon

    • Flesh Hounds

      8x Flesh Hounds

    • Flesh Hounds

      8x Flesh Hounds

There are plenty of points to expand to 2000 or trim to 1850.  I would much rather run a slaughtercult but I just can't fit two possessed in there.  I think this list gives a ton of fast moving options that packs a punch and messes with target priority,

Are possessed really a tax for a slaughtercult?

The general consensus of the intertubes seems to be pretty negative concerning the mandatory inclusion of a unit of Possessed Chaos Space Marines in a Slaughtercult formation of Blood Host detachment.  I do not share these sentiments and here is why.

Yes, they are expensive, yes, they cannot shoot, but I have a hard time seeing these factors as making them so unattractive.  With both Daemon of Khorne and mark of Khorne I think the buff these guys provide is worth it.  Yes, they pay for these marks but never before had Demon of Khorne been available.  Previously if the unit wanted furious charge they would have to purchase a 15 point icon of wrath.  Factoring it all together these guys get furious charge for 10 points cheaper that the Chaos Space Marines codex albeit with the lack of the icon assault result benefits.  They are fearless so don't need it anyways.  

What's more, the icon in the Korne Daemonkin codex is 5 points more expensive and Possessed don't even need the icon; they have all the benefits already built in.


Necessary to the success of this unit is transportation. Options are rhinos and land raiders.  I hate land raiders, especially chaos ones, why oh why can't I get the flamestorm cannon variant?  Lets not go there just yet.

A bare bones unit clocks in at 185 points with a basic rhino.  I am not sure of I want to add anymore models but 5 are sturdy enough.  Run them up the board, flat out, and ram them down some poor soul's throat.  Not much more than that,just point and click.

One tactic I favor is, on the turn before assaulting, disembarking the models without moving the rhino, and in the shooting phase moving the rhino flat out to block line of sight.  This lets our possessed weather the enemy shooting phase, gives opponents a road block to walk and assault around, and if the rhino dies another blood tithe point is earned.  In other cases where the models can actually shoot something be sure and shoot them first before moving the rhinos flat out.  Don't forget their mutation table, strength 6 on the charge, and counter attack.


Thankfully I had some possessed from a long time ago, never assembled and waiting for this moment.  The aesthetics of the models are actually quite pleasing.  Before adding these models to your collection consider a kit bash or the Gal Vorbak from Forgeworld.  Those models are super nice and can double as a very powerful unit in a Word Bearers heresy list.


These guys aren't that bad.  Try them out, run them up, give them feel no pain, and earn those blood tithe points!

The Red Angel

When Forgeworld's Horus Heresy books were announced I was quite elated.  To my great pleasure the first primarch model released was Angron and I had him painted by my good friend, Brad Newman as soon as I could.  The model is shown in this blog post.

Compared to other primarchs Angron seems fairly mediocre.  He is quite the combat monster, but with so many other primarchs having a 3 plus invulnerable save an Angron himself only having a 4 plus invulnerable save I don't think he is going to get very far versus other primarchs.

My preferred delivery method for our beloved primarch is through some sort of drop pod.  I have had a great deal of fun with the Orbital Assault rite of war. I can put Angron right where I want and if he survives the shooting phase whatever he touches next dies.

During the narrative campaign of Texas Wargamescon of 2013 in Austin I delivered the Red Angel in a regular drop pod with his accompanying Praetor, command squad, and an apothecary.  They won the day defeating a squad of Space Wolves and reducing Bjorn the Fell Handed to smoldering junk (It really was quite spectacular, after poor rolling on my part and invul saves I was able to roll two 6's in a row thanks to the venerable roll and exploded Bjorn).  I think he then died to an invisible scimitar jet bike squad which anyone else would have as well.

Another tactic I am working on is delivering Angron with 8 Red Butchers and a Primus Medicae in a Kharybdis assault claw.  I have 5 of the butches and need to get the assault claw and the medicae, they are quite expensive.  But when I have them together a unit will be assembled that will handily survive almost any shooting phase.

One issue that developed was when Angron landed with his command squad the subsequent round of mass melta fire I landed into wiped the squad, including Angron.  Mass 4+ invulnerable saves, feel no pain, and two wounds per model will really help withstand a lot of terrible stuff.

Other folks recommend delivering a primarch in a spartan assault tank and I just don't like that option.  It seems there are too many things that can go wrong: immobilize on terrain, that extra lucky laser destroyer shot, your ally in an apoc game moving into your lane before you move the tank and more things I am sure I am forgetting.  With a pod of some type a great deal higher probability exists that I will get that turn two charge. The pod being destroyed is of little use; a lot less points are wasted.

In the end Angron is a great model with decent rules and is effective if he is delivered where he can best be utilized.  He is an extremely expensive beat stick and that is about it. Other primarchs boost their army in some way and all he does is give a 12" fearless bubble.  That is pretty nice, but not as good as other primarchs.