Hey everyone, Reecius here with a battle report from the recent Hammer of Wrath GT held this passed weekend.

The event was held at Game Empire, which is a really cool store you should check out if you find yourself in the area. Frankie, Pablo and myself piled into the car and trekked up to Pasadena for a fun weekend of gaming with friends. It was also fun to play the old ITC missions one last time!

I brought a super fun army I have been playing around with in our local league (which has over 60 players in it!). It’s a Khorne army built around my old Khorne Daemonkin army. Here’s the list.

Khorne Daemon Battalion:

• Skarbrand
• Khorne Daemon Prince with Wings
• Bloodletters x 20: Icon, Instrument
• Bloodletters x 20: Icon, Instrument
• Bloodletters x 20: Icon, Instrument

World Eaters Battalion:

• Dark Apostle (Warlord): Brass Collar of Bhoroghaster
• Exalted Champion: Power Axe
• Cultists x 40
• Cultists x 25
• Cultists x 10

Super Heavy Auxiliary

• Renegade Knight: Double Battle Cannon, Iornstorm Missiles

CP: 13

The army is a blast to play! Seriously one of the most enjoyable armies I’ve put on the table in a while. It’s mobile, very hard hitting, relatively resilient and fun to play against as your opponent is wasting models wholesale which pleases Khorne, as he cares not from where the blood flows! Really a good time, reminds me of playing my Orks to a degree but with more blood and skulls, as is appropriate for our lord and master who sits upon the Skull Throne, horrifying be his name.

I’ve gotten in a few games with it and have been refining the list. I have found that playing the CSM Battalion as Iron Warriors for the Fearless Walord Trait is better but holy molly, when those World Eaters Cultists go in hard with Skarbrand shouting them to glory…they do Khorne’s work! So many attacks with re-rolls to hit and wound from the Dark Apostle and Exalted Champion it’s bananas. However, they usually die horribly before that happens, lol. Plus, I use the Blood Reavers from AoS as my Cultists who are very pleasing in the eyes of Khorne as they do many push-ups and have helmets with very manly looking horns and spikes on them. And, of course, the World Eaters are Khorne’s chosen legion. So in the end, my choice was a simple one!

Beyond their impressive abdominal muscles though, the Cultists also serve as invaluable board control units that score objectives and zone my opponent out.

Typically I give the Dark Apostle the Unholy Fortitude Warlord Trait to make him less appealing to all of the stupid Shieldbreaker Missiles flying around out there.

The Knight I use because it is what I have and I love the model. For his many years of service shedding blood and reaping skulls for Khorne, he’s been dubbed EL MASTADONTE! Not just the Spanish spelling of one my favorite metal bands, but also an appropriate moniker for him!

The way the army plays out typically (although it is quite flexible if needs be) is to keep the Bloodletters in reserves, each with a Banner of Blood upgrade. This plus the Instrument allows them to once per game charge 3D6+1″ and a re-roll if a Khorne character is nearby. This means out of reserves they only have to roll an 8 on 3D6, 1 out of 2 times (or if you roll 2 higher numbers and a 1, with a CP re-roll). The odds are quite good that you make the assault–even better if you play a band like Pantera very loud when you roll the dice as this music is pleasing to Khorne.

If my opponent has firepower to smoke Skarbrand on turn 1 before I can do anything with him (which in the current meta is a LOT of lists, lol) then you deepstrike him, too. If that is not the case, then you start him on the table to keep the rest of your army fearless and buffed up with an additional attack.

EL MASTADONTE hangs out in the best location relative to the current situation. Typically this means as faaaar back in the rear of my deployment zone as possible to avoid getting shot to bits, lol. However, in situations where this is not a major concern then you can deploy him on the line where he charges forward blasting his battlecannons into the enemy and then kicking puny weaklings into outer space as Khorne would have it. Usually though he just gets blown up before doing anything cool, haha.

He’s very hit or miss. Occasionally he has great games where he’s just awesome and then in some games he just does nothing and is a massive points sink. However, I wuv him and so I brought him along to see if we could compete in the current competitive meta.

Game 1

• Opponent: Jessica and her Necrons

Her list from memory:

• Cryptek with Cloak
• Cryptek with Cloak
• Overlord with Warscythe and Veil
• Immortals x 5
• Immortals x 5
• Immortals x 5
• Wraiths x 6
• Tomb Blades x 6 with a 3+ and twin Tesla Carbines
• Destroyers x 6
• Scarabs x 3
• Pylon

ITC Scenario 4

A tough list with some burly firepower in the Tomb Blades and Destroyers to take out Infantry, and particularly in the Pylon to waste my Knight and Skarbrand. This would be a tough game if I wasn’t able to chop-chop the really shooty units quickly.

Deployment was spearhead assault (deployment 1) which was tough for me as it gave my opponent so much real estate to put between us. And once again, for 9 games straight, I lost the roll to go first, lol, but then I seized the initiative! Huzzah! This meant poor EL MASTADONTE would get at least one round of shooting in before getting blasted by the Pylon! However, in his excitement to please our master Khorne his aim was off and he killed a grand total of 2 Immortals…..next time, buddy. Next time!

My Cultists rushed up the table confident that the Crons wouldn’t have enough units in range to kill 40 of them…and I was wrong. So very wrong, lol. Those Tomb Blades are vicious and between they, the Destroyers and some hot dice on the Immortals, I saw my 40 strong unit go down to zero, leaving me unable to use Tide of Traitors. Ouch. In retrospect I realize how dumb of a move that was. I should have just held them back out of range of the Crons and then used Tide of Traitors to teleport up the table on turn 2 when the rest of my army came in to overwhelm the Crons with targets instead of giving them a single, important target to focus all of their attention on. Lesson learned.

On my turn two, the heavy hitters arrived from deep-strike and all 60 Bloodletters, Skarbrand, the Daemon Prince and the unit of 25 Cultists made it into combat. When that happens….all you can say is: Khorne’s will was done. Crons just don’t have the ability to withstand that type of melee punch. Even the Wraiths just evaporated to that hay-maker. As an example of the degree of mayhem involved, each unit of Bloodletters (assuming they took no casualties to overwatch) could pack in 60 strength 5, AP-3 attacks, hitting on 2’s with a re-roll, dealing 2 damage on 6’s to wound. That is bananas. All the multi-wound Cron units just couldn’t take the double damage wounds and they quickly folded. From here the Crons just didn’t have the ability to resist the onslaught and the devotees of Khorne pushed in to take the backfield and then chop the Pylon into bits, too.

A good play from my opponent was using Veil to teleport a unit of Immortals and the Overlord into my backfield to nuke the 10 Cultists holding my objective…well, I won’t forget about Veil a second game! Khrone was not pleased with my shortsightedness, lol. My opponent also had terrible RP rolls, literally failing all of them. I was killing entire units frequently due to the amount of damage I did in melee, but when she could roll them they all came up short. I think if my opponent had used the units of Immortals sacrificially to create a buffer zone where I would be unable to deep strike in and charge the good units, she could have then hit me full strength with all of her firepower and really nuked me.

In the end, it was a victory for the Blood God!

Daemon of the Match: The Bloodletters this game went ham. They killed so much stuff it was crazy. Crons are particularly vulnerable to them and Khorne was pleased at the Necron oil that was spilt in his name.

Game 2

• Opponent: Salty John, who went 6-0 at the BAO and fought his way to 2nd place!

His list from memory:

LoW Detachment: House Terryn

• Knight Gallant: 2+ Armor
• Knight Gallant
• Knight Crusader

Super Heavy Aux: House Raven

• Knight Castellan: Relic Plasma

Astra Militarum Battalion: Cadia

• Company Commander: Kurov’s Aquilla, Grand Strategist
• Company Commander
• Infantry Squad: Mortar
• Infantry Squad: Mortar
• Infantry Squad: Mortar

ITC Scenario 6

I knew this was going to be a tough fight! John has been on the warpath with this list. Also, Knights have been drop-kicking 40k players in the nethers all over the world lately. So, I knew this would be a real test of my army’s abilities. Knowing Khorne was with me gave me strength!

We played deployment 1 again, which would be interesting for both of us as John had melee Knights and I had a melee army. I hoped it would give EL MASTADONTE some breathing room to avoid getting the Castellan in the face for a turn. So, once again I put Skarbrand and the Bloodletters (great band name!) into reserves and waited for the game to develop before bringing them in. I deployed my Cultists in position to pick up a few objectives if they moved and advanced but generally stayed out of range of John’s heavy hitters.

He went first and came at me, shooting what units he could but didn’t do too much damage. Annoyingly though, he blasted my Aspiring Champion with a Shieldbreaker missile on the first shot of the game. I hate that thing, lol. EL MASTAONDTE’s big contribution this game was barely killing a single unit of Guardsmen with his mighty Battle Cannons but luckily, it took them off of an objective and prevented my opponent from killing more units than me that turn and gave me the hold more objectives point. So, despite it being a puny kill in the eyes of Khorne, strategically it was a really solid play as the game ended up being so close. He survived the initial volley from the Castellan somehow and put some more wounds on the Crusader before getting blasted to bits.

From there we came towards one another and I got a lucky break when his Gallant failed a charge  on turn 2 after using the advance+charge strat, even with rolling 3d6 dropping the lowest result on his charge. Phew! That allowed me to counter-charge on turn 2 with my Bloodletters out of reserves and with my Daemon Prince who quickly established himself as an Imperial Knight’s worst nightmare!

A Daemon prince of Khorne with Skullreaver (relic Khorne Axe) is absolutely devastating to Knights. With 6 axe swings on the charge (plus his Malefic Talon, which I often forget to swing!) at strength 11, AP-4, D6 damage, hitting on 2’s, re-rolling 1’s, also re-rolling failed wound rolls against Titanic units AND dealing an additional D3 mortal Wounds on a 6 to wound! It’s savage, he kills a Knight in one round of combat. In this game he went into the Gallant, chopped him in half, then went in to the Castellan and did the same to him! Just obliterated them, it was glorious to watch and Khorne was greatly pleased.

It wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, though. Before getting cut in half by my Daemon Prince, the Castellan dropped EL MASTADONTE and Skarbrand like they were made of cardboard, earning Kingslayer. The Crusader was cutting through Bloodletters and Cultists like a buzz-saw, but with each Knight I took down John’s ability to fight back became greatly reduced. The Bloodletters overwhelmed the Crusader eventually, as their AP-3 attacks and double damage on 6’s cut him down and those who were left plowed into the Gallant. By turn 4 (as is often the case with this army) almost all of both armies were dead, Khorne be praised! However, strategically that meant neither of us had much left to work with. My Cultists were grabbing objectives and getting shelled by Guard Mortars, and were pushing up into my opponent’s deployment zone to try and grab some more objectives but I was falling behind on the scoreboard. I was losing my ability to score points and John started to pull ahead on me. It all came down to a few micro battles on the field to determine victory. I had been able to hold him off from getting his last Old School points by sacrificing Cultists to move block his Knights and managed to battle back to a draw on the scoreboard turn 6 when a unit of Cultists rolled a 2 on their morale check to stick to on the table longer than they had any right to with a single Cultist remaining (a roll of a 3+ saw the unit scooped!). This sealed a tie for me against all odds as it denied John the kill he needed to pull ahead of me. In the final action of the game, I had 2 Bloodletters fighting 3 remaining guard Infantry on an objective for all the marbles. If John kills them, he wins. If I kill them, I win. If we don’t, we tie. I had the “sarge” and a mook left, roll 3 dice, get 3 hits, then three wounds! Holy molly, the Bloodletters do it! All three remaining Guardsmen get cut down leaving me with one more objective and one more kill for a two point victory!

What an awesome ending to a great game.

Victory for the Bood God!

Daemon of the match: Daemon Prince! He cleaved two knights in half like a boss!

Game 3

Opponent: Derek and his Imperial Knights. Derek is the #8 ranked Imperial Knights player in the ITC!

His list from memory:

House Raven Super Heavy Detachment

• Knight Porphyrion
• Knight Warden
• Knight Warden

Cadian Battalion

• Company Commander: Kurov’s Aquila
• Company Commander
• Infantry Squad: Mortar
• Infantry Squad: Mortar
• Infantry Squad
• Earthshaker Platform

ITC Scenario 1

More Knights! Khorne must have been pleased with my victories to present me with such a worthy opponent in the Porphyrion! That thing is beastly, particularly with the strats and such available to it via the Knight dex.

So, yet again, my Knight didn’t have long to live, lol. However, as we rolled up Hammer and Anvil, this again put a lot of real estate between EL MASTADONTE and his inevitable death. And Skarbrand went into deep strike with the Bloodletters. I deployed very defensively again to avoid getting Gattling Cannon’d to death early game. Derek wisely moved one unit of Guardsmen to the front of his deployment to create a buffer zone to push back my Bloodletters back.

I won the roll to go first and I saw a chance for glory! EL MASTADONTE charged up the field to blast the Earthshaker Platform and, once again, blew it, lol! He totally whiffed. Son of a….

Shockingly though, EL MASTADONTE survived the first turn despite standing right in front of my opponent’s army and the insane firepower leveled against him. Khorne decided to give him a chance to redeem himself after his pathetic first turn, lol. In retrospect I absolutely should have killed the Guard squad Derek put out front as that would have cleared things up for my deep strikers coming in. As I blundered on that, I didn’t have a lot of good places to land to really deliver a killing blow to my opponent. Had I taken out the pesky little unit I would have gotten right into the guts of his army quite easily and just skewered everything. However, Khorne smiled on me despite my misplay as one of my Bloodletter units rolled an 18 on the charge from reserves, which with the +1 and the phantom inch meant they would touch any unit within 20″! That allowed me to reach waaaaay into his backfield. And, further luck saw Skarbrand also make his charge from reserves (that re-roll for charges from being all Khorne is awesome) and this allowed me to use my pile in and consolidate move to get his aura over the Knight I tagged with the Bloodletters. While I couldn’t hit him as I was too far away to declare him as a target of my charge, it did mean if he wanted to leave combat he had to pass a leadership test on 3D6…which he failed in my opponent’s turn! This meant that unit of Bloodletters was safe from shooting in combat and that Knight couldn’t then shoot as it was locked. Nice!

On the other flank, another unit of 20 Bloodletters hit the Porphyrion and did quite a bit of damage to him, also forcing him to pull back to avoid my third Bloodletter unit coming in turn 3.

This gave me some breathing room. My opponent’s movement lanes got all gunked up and many of my units couldn’t actually be shot. More importantly though, it kept him in his backfield for another turn letting me continue to milk my board control and wrack up points. The Knight Porphyrion though, was pissed, lol. He popped the House Raven strat and the absolutely lit up Skarbrand and EL MASTADONTE in the same turn, leaving nothing more than blood, oil and smoke in their stead. The un-locked Warden backed out of combat and ripped into one of my Bloofletter units with his gatling cannon then charged into one unit of Bloodletters killing more and the Porphyrion charged in and stomped on the other unit, too. Ouch. That was a lot of my army smushed in one turn, lol.

Turn 3 I brought in my last unit of Bloodletters to gobble up what remaining troops my opponent had. They also went in hard to the Porphyrion and did a lot of damage to it, bringing it under half strength. Further good luck that turn had also come my way. I took a risk and moved “Daemon Prince Knight Smasher” up very aggressively past any other units to screen him, hoping I’d make my charge from reserves with the last unit of Bloodletters so he wasn’t standing out in front with a giant “shoot me!” sign on him, which luckily I had done with the Bloodletters into the Porphyrion. This allowed him to charge one of the Knight Wardens already engaged with Bloodletters (also avoiding Overwatch) and then cutting yet another knight down with his axe! WITNESS ME, KHORNE!!

In his turn he backed out of combat and lit me up, yet again, leaving me with not so many Bloodletters left. However, I had dominating board control and was earning a lot of points. At this stage, had I played it smart I could have locked it up with a big win. However, that is not what I did, lol. I made one huge mistake: I used my last remaining Bloodletters to charge his Knights, dealing a good amount of damage but I forgot one big, important rule, lol. When Knights leave combat, they can walk over Infantry. I mistakenly thought I could charge AND move block them but all I did was allow the Porphyrion to walk over my remaining Bloodletters and then obliterate my Daemon Prince who was in position to charge in next turn and finish off the massive Knight as neither of them would be able to get around the Bloodletter screen and shoot or charge him. Doh! So….big mistake. Now, all of a sudden a sure victory was very much in doubt as my best weapon to kill the Knights was now dead and the Porphyrion was on the wrong side of my Bloodletter screen.

This left both my opponent and I with hardly anything on the table as is so often the case with my army. I had a few Cultists left, two CSM characters and that’s it. My opponent had a badly damaged Knight Porphyrion and a slightly less damage Knight Warden. I then used the last two CP I had been sitting on all game to use Tide of Traitors to send a unit of 40 cultists up to try and steal his last objective. It took the attention of his remaining Knight Warden for two turns to deal with them. With all of that though, turns out two banged up Knights is a lot better than some Cultists! I had to fall back and sacrifice unit after unit to preserve my lead trying desperately to stop my opponent from stealing victory from the jaws of defeat. By systematically sacrificing one unit after another I was able to deny him two critical Old School points and prevent him from scoring 4+ points a turn, thereby securing victory by 1 measly point with only my Warlord left standing in the very back corner of my deployment zone and a furious Knight Porphyrion about to deliver the Emperor’s justice upon him, lol! What a great game.

Result: Victory for the Blood God (with a single model remaining)!

Daemon of the match: Bloodletters rolling an 18 on their charge, lol, allowing me to tie units in combat and avoid a critical round of shooting.

Interlude…

So, a 3-0 day for the champions of Khorne vs. some vicious competition. A better result than many would have hoped for. I spent the night preparing for combat the next day by listening to metal as Khorne would have it.

Game 4

Opponent: Paul Bowmen and his Eldar soup.

His list form memory:

Harlequin Outrider Detachment: Soaring Spite

• Shadowseer: Twilight Pathways
• Solitaire: Kiss
• Skyweavers x 6: Haywire x 6, Zephrglaive x 3, Star Bolas x 3
• Skyweavers x 6: Haywire x 6, Zephrglaive x 31, Star Bolas x 2
• Skyweavers x 6: Haywire x 6, Zephrglaive x 31, Star Bolas x 2

Drukhari Spearhead Detachment: Black Hearts

• Archon: Labyrnthine Cunning, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Power Sword
• Ravager: Disintegrators x 3
• Ravager: Disintegrators x 3
• Ravager: Disintegrators x 3

Battalion: Alaitoc

• Farseer: Doom, Executioner
• Warlock: Quicken
• Guardian Defenders x 10
• Rangers x 5
• Rangers x 5
• Wave Serpent: Vectored Engines
• Shining Spears x 8: Star Lance

Having defeated his spouse’s Necrons, I knew this Bowmen was out for vengeance! Paul had an interesting list but one I felt confident I could defeat if I played well. Once again, poor EL MASTADONTE was living on borrowed time with all of those Haywire weapons. Poor guy, lol. But, the rest of my list was well equipped to take on the Eldar and chop them up on strength of numbers. Humorously, as he had Agents of Vect, I just blew every CP I could pre-game putting units in reserves, giving everyone a relic, etc. lol. Take that, Vect!

We were playing ITC Scenario 3, and rolled up Vanguard deployment which was great for me as it put a lot of distance between EL MASTADONTE and those Haywire weapons. Paul got first turn and took it and played exactly correctly, coming at me whole hog, leaving only his Shining Spears back to see how things developed. He kept me pinned back in my deployment zone as I fought to get the Solitaire and Bikers off of me. He also zoned me out very well, not giving me a lot of room to come in with my reserves (all of the Bloodletters, my Daemon Prince and Skarbrand). I was able to drop Skarbrand and a unit of Letters in my deployment zone which helped a ton to plow through all of the heat and keep my Cultists from running away, however, it gave Paul two turns to get the bonus point and score more objectives than me which was smart as he knew I’d break free eventually and then he’d be falling back as I swarmed him, grab Recon points and hold the objectives with him unlikely to take them back.

Interestingly, the Solitaire didn’t do as much as he usually does. The Cultists, who typically were fairly mediocre this tournament, kicked his butt! Just throwing a lot of attacks at him with re-rolls from the support characters overwhelmed him and thankfully removed him as a threat before he could jump behind them and try to assassinate one of my characters.

The game started to swing back my way on turn 3 as the rest of my army came in and the Bloodletters started to do their thing. Paul was running low on units and turn 4 it looked grim as my Daemon Prince killed the 6 remaining Shining Spears by himself in a single round of combat! EL MASTADONTE had actually survived the Haywire fusillade (barely) and was marching up field blasting and kicking things which was fun. This left my opponent with just a handful of models left and as my Cultists had surged forward with a full strength Skarbrand and the remaining Bloodletters, I controlled the middle of the table. However, lol, I made one, giant, huge mistake….I ran out of time! DOH!

The event organizers were using chess clocks on the top tables and I had just not played my time intelligently and I clocked out on turn 4 in a very strong position as I started killing more units every turn than him and would also start to hold more objectives each turn and get Recon, etc. All of that though, was not meant to be. Paul then, who still had over 30 minutes left (wow I was playing slow!) got to play out his last three turns and of course, easily beat me at that point. Le sigh. Khorne does not support the slow of mind!

So lesson learned, ouch. I will never time out again. I have to say though, I am glad it hapenned. Glad I lost? No, not at all. But I am glad I didn’t get to unfairly (and unintentionally) slow-play my opponent. I had half the time and I simply did not use it intelligently. Tough luck for me and well done to Paul who played through a very touch match-up to win!

Result: Victory for the Eldar!

Men of the match: Cultists! For the first time in a long time they had a really good game and as they had so many units thrown in their face they were able to overwhelm them with numbers and plow up the table.

Game 5

Opponent: Luc and his very nicely painted Death Guard+Magnus!

His list from memory:

Death Guard Battalion

• Daemon Prince: Suppurating Plate
• Sorcerer of Nugle on Palanquin
• Plague Marines x 5: Blight Launcher x 2
• Plague Marines x 5: Blight Launcher x 2
• Pox Walkers x 18
• Blightlord Terminators x 5: Bubotic Axes
• Deathshroud Terminators x 3

Super Heavy Aux

• Magnus

Super Heavy Aux

• Mortarion

The bash brothers! Ouch, that combo is tough to overcome, and the rest of the list was nothing to sneeze at, either. This would be a tough battle, but a fun game. Also, EL MASTADONTE didn’t have to worry about getting obliterated turn 1 for a change of pace. Huzzah!

We were playing ITC scenario 2 and we rolled Hammer and Anvil deployment. I luckily got first turn and had actually deployed Skarbrand on the table this time as there were no long ranged threats that could smoke him in a single shooting phase. Apparently EL MASTADONTE had been saving up all his mojo for the last game because he went HAM! First volley he lit Magnus up dealing a lot of damage and continued to hammer him, even through the various psychic buffs, managing to take him out by turn 3. WITNESS ME, KHORNE!!

The game was very fun, Luc was an awesome opponent and we both laughed that it was going to be very bloody as we both had essentially melee armies. Luckily for me though, his Plague Marines were kitted for shooting which is not nearly as deadly as melee Plague Marines whom are devastatingly good in combat with psychic support. Getting first turn allowed me to apply a ton of pressure early and jump on the middle objective with my 40 strong cultist unit.

However, amazingly, Luc killed them dead to the man turn 2 with psychic support, shooting and a charge from Morty. Yikes, I didn’t expect that! Luckily I had double covered the objective and I kept the heat on, sending in wave after wave of Bloodletters (starting on turn 3, as we were both being cagey early game) into Morty to keep him from moving into my lines. As stated above, Magnus had to fall back to try and avoid EL MASTADONTE due to taking too much damage early game but was unable to hide from him and me destroying him turn 3 was huge as I don’t know if I could have handeled he and Morty coming into my army full strength at the same time. However, Morty was just reaping my Bloodletters with ease and eventually Skarbrand had to roll up his sleeves and get in there in an epic fight worthy of Khorne’s attention! As both of these characters hit so flippin hard it really just came down to who charged whom. And a full strength Skarbrand into a wounded Morty is a bit of a foregone conclusion, leaving him dead at Skarbrand’s feet. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! Keeping Morty tagged in combat was critical as it prevented him from being able to charge where he wanted to go and kept him in his deployment zone most of the game.

From here, despite having lost over 100 models, lol, I had the upper hand and Luc was forced to play defensively, unable to get back in the game. Also good to note: my Brass Collar of Bhorghaster FINALLY came in handy, baby! This World Eaters relic is amazing as it allows you to Deny the Witch and if you do, they automatically Perils which when combined with the Daemonic Possession strat means the Psyker takes 2D3 Mortal Wounds! It kicked in twice in this game, helping me to take down Luc’s Daemon Prince.

The Deathshroud Terminators were very interesting, too. They soak wounds for Morty making him even more obnoxiously hard to kill which is one of the reasons why Morty was able to wade through 60 Bloodletters by himself, lol. The Blightlord Terminators had a rough game as my opponent had forgotten shoot them when the deep-struck in (I had totally forgotten about them too, to be fair, they were out of sight), leaving them open to getting pummeled by my Daemon Prince.

Also, having had the fear of clocking out put in me, I played lightening fast. I went through deployment and all 6 turns in one hour and 3 minutes, lol! So, even with a very high model count like my army, it can be done. The dice app helps a lot to resolve all of those attacks and I highly recommend it for an army like this when you attack with a big unit that throws a lot of dice.

In a very fun game the result is: Victory for Khorne!

Machine of the match: I never thought I would say this, but it was EL MASTADONTE! My little robot done did good!

Final result, Khorne goes 4-1! And, ironically and most importantly, finished in 8th place for battle points! Khorne’s number! I must have pleased him for such an auspicious placing!

What I learned:

Khorne armies are a blast to play, holy smokes. Everything is dying like crazy all over the board, exactly as it should be, haha. You have to think about what you are going to do in your opponent’s turn though, so that those long turns (2 and 3 when your units come in and hit combat) can go smoothly and don’t eat up too much time. You really need to be conscious of how you are going to get your heavy hitters into combat when you need them to, and to think about when to go all in and when to hold back a bit. Some games it made sense to go whole hog turn 2, some games like my last, I waited until turn 3 to bring anything in. And in other scenarios, it made sense to come in in waves.

As for the list, poor EL MASTADONTE struggles in the current meta where so many armies have the firepower to just blow him to bits. Also, the Rapid Fire Battlecannons, while cool and potentially devastating, are very swingy. I have considered dropping him but in a test game without him I found I really wished I had some threatening long ranged firepower. He is very useful for blowing through screens and forcing my opponent to deal with him. Plus, when he goes into combat, he’s no joke, particularly when paired with Skarbrand’s buff.

Skarbrand himself is super fun to play but he is very easy to kill in this current meta. I find that really you only need him for that turn you come in hard and that if he also makes his charge from out of reserves then it typically means curtains for the other team. If he survives into turns 4+, then you are likely smashing your opponent. But, even with multiple games him only lasting 1 turn, his impact on the game was significant.

The Cultists were OK. With World Eaters and Skarbrand they could potentially get a crazy number of attacks. But, they often just got obliterated before doing much, lol. Also, I have to have a character than makes them fearless or don’t bother using them. Unless you just run a bunch of 10 strong units, morale is a killer for them. It stinks to go away from World Eaters but I think I am going to have either use Abaddon or go Iron Warriors and use the Fearless Warlord trait. That way you actually keep them on the table and are able to use Tide of Traitors.

The Daemon Prince was absolutely an all-star! He hits so hard it is bananas. 4 Knights to his name that event and it should have been 5 had I not goofed. He also walked through the very tough Blightlord Terminators, Shining Spears, and anything else that stood before him. Easily my best unit. Second mention goes to the Bloodletters who were just so useful in being able to enter in to melee from reserves and deliver such a vicious punch.

I’d like to try out some other units, too. Karanak would be very useful for his ability to attempt to Deny the Witch twice in a turn and to grab objectives or jump into a fight where needed. Also, as this list is very CP starved, getting another Battalion in there for more CP would really help.

Great games and a mega fun event! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.

 

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