Hunker down in your bunker fellow nerds, as today we’re taking a look at the Blood God’s lieutenants: Heralds.
Cheap HQ. units with a bit of bite, Heralds can really free up your points to allow you to strengthen the rest of your army. Bloody and nasty, these units are excellent at giving your army a cheap leader. If you’re looking for ideas to help you get the most out of your forces, make sure that you check out the Tactics Corner!
Overview:
Clocking in at a very affordable and attractive 55 points, Heralds are respectable and can be used as an excellent supporting character. Roaming with a very impressive Weapon and Ballistic Skill of 7, Strength 5, Toughness 4, Wounds 2, Initiative 6, 3 Attacks base, Leadership 8, and a 6+ Armor Save, though you’ll often be enjoying the 5++ Invulnerable Save instead. That’s a pretty nasty stat line for a simple supporting character. Don’t mistake the Blood God’s warrior as a combat monster though, keeping them cheap and humble is an important aspect to getting the most out of this Herald. We’ll look at some great uses for him in the tactics portion of this article.
Wargear:
- Hellblade, has AP 3 and is the user’s Strength. Standard, useful power weapon.
Special Rules:
- Blood for the Blood God! Let’s him generate Blood Tithe points, quite handy.
- Daemon of Khorne, all kinds of nice aggressive buffs.
- Deep Strike, probably won’t ever get used, but handy to have.
- Fearless, not caring about Morale is always a good thing.
- Independent Character, this is the bread and butter.
- Skulls for the Skull Throne! If possible, you must accept and declare challenges. These are the kind of Special Rules that are just awful and GW really needs to stop making army special rules that weaken armies.
Options:
Tactics:
Keep this guy super cheap. I don’t advocate giving him anything, and if he makes it into combat then you’ll have to rely on his limited combat prowess to win or delay the enemy long enough for backup to arrive and save the day.
Obviously, you’ll be wanting to stick this guy into a unit. The only real question is, which one? There aren’t actually very many good pairs for him when it comes to the KDK book. Bloodletters are an obvious choice, and honestly, probably the best one. Though, I think we can find a MUCH better place for this guy.
I think one of the greatest KDK book’s benefits is that it pairs very well with any of the other Chaos forces. In my humble opinion, the strongest is the Lost and the Damned army list from Imperial Armor. Sticking a Herald into an Earthshaker battery or unit of Thudd Guns is a fantastic use of our Herald for a multitude of reasons. First, is that he gives the unit Fearless, negating perhaps the largest weakness of the Lost and Damned list. Second, is that any time that unit kills something, you gain a Blood Tithe point. Do you know how easy it is to kill something with a unit of Thudd Guns or a couple Earthshakers? In a world of Battle Companies, Eldar jetbikes, and MSU being common, it is extremely easy to do so. Even throwing him into rapier batteries will do the same, cracking open transports with ease. These easy Blood Tithe points not only reduce the enemy’s effectiveness, but they will obviously boost yours. Third is that the Herald will also act as a minor assault deterrent protecting vulnerable units that have critical killing power to the success of your army.
If you hope that these Heralds may aspire to something other than babysitting traitors, well, you may be somewhat disappointed. Another option for him is to hop into a good backfield camping unit and man a fortification’s gun. BS 7 isn’t insignificant, and this guy rocking a Quad Gun or something similar isn’t necessarily a bad use of his time.
Even throwing him into a unit of Deep Striking Obliterators is a good option, if only to have another unit that’s good at generating you more Blood Tithe points. All of the Meltas and Plasmas will spell doom for MEQs and armor and crank you up some points that you can cash in for a goodie like a unit of Flesh Hounds.
If you use him in a Slaughtercult detachment, make sure that you’re putting him into a unit that can help to benefit from the bonus to your Blood Tithes. By and large though, this won’t likely be the detachment you’ll be using, as it doesn’t really benefit the unit that much.
Cons:
The Herald is not a combat character. It will basically never really be able to beat anything that is above average in combat or anything that has a 2+ Armor Save. Even getting locked into combat with Centurions can be a bad thing for the Herald, while it may prevent the Marines from shooting, the Herald will likely be killed in combat. Assuming of course this is a vacuum and they’re the only two units around, which is honestly a pretty terrible way to analyze units, but we’ll indulge if for now.
The Herald is pitifully easy to kill with shooting. Bolters will make extremely short work of this warrior of Khorne, which is never a good thing when an extremely common weapon is death to your HQ.
You’ll never really have the chance to make this guy your Warlord, which isn’t that big of a deal really, but is somewhat of a disappointment.
Consensus:
The Herald is total and complete supporting character in every sense of the word. Which is something that can really help the KDK out. It pairs well with killy non-demon units, which is fantastic as the options here are endless and many are very good. Think of Heralds as a means to cash in on more units while smashing up your opponent, Blood Tithes are how KDK live and die; and in the game of 7th edition, where allies are necessary, you need to be able to get the most out of your Special Rules. Heralds are by far the best means of doing this. If you’re not bringing in big guns through your allies, leave your Heralds as home, you might as well be taking something else.
What do you think of the Herald? Are there more uses for it besides hanging out in allied units? Tell us below in the comments? And remember, Frontline Gaming sells Games Workshop and other models and gaming products up to 25% off everyday!
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