Goatboy’s 40K Thoughts: KHAARNN!!! Where are you? I’m Lonely.
Goatboy here again and it looks like we might have an interesting Khorny month after all. Here’s why!
The new Khorne Daemonkin book is about to rear it’s ugly head and after that follows the rumored Admech/Skitarri/RoboJerks book as well. This leaves us with a lot of new things to digest as the continued season of 40k moves along. Let’s jump into the Khorne nonsense and see if there is anything worth wile.
Blood Tithe
The biggest thing I find interesting from the new book is the Blood Tithe rule. For those in the dark the rule is that every unit killed (by opponent your yourself) generates a Blood Tithe point you can use to do something… Khorney. A quick peruse of the rumors shows the following as the Blood Tithe table. To used these rules you have to have Blood for the Blood God rule. That might not be the direct name and truthfully I am not surprised if it ends up getting called Murder Points for Murderface Punching. Whenever you use the rule all the points you saved up goes away – so if you have 8 pts and just use FNP rule – you lose 5 pts. Max you can hold is 8 pts.
1 – Adamantium Will
2 – Rage and Furious Charge
3 – Feel No Pain (Pretty spicy I think and the one most commonly used I bet)
4 – +1 Attack (Man I wish that Kharn Dataslate had the rule to use the Blood Tithe)
5 – Summon 8 Bloodletters or 5 Flesh Hounds
6 – Summon 3 Blood Crushers or Skull Cannon (That might be interesting)
7 – Character becomes a Daemon prince after passing a LD test or a Spawn if they fail
8 – You get to spend a $115.00 dollars for a Bloodthirster
Overall I think this Blood Tithe table is pretty neat. I think rules wise it isn’t too clunky and the lack of random nature is a bonus. Could you imagine if it was just d3 plus the turn number. Don’t use that GW because it is stupid please. Still I think overall this rule is pretty interesting and feels fluffy and still useful.
The other little tidbit that seems interesting is that Daemons lost their instability. This is a pretty big change and if true this could allow for some interesting Daemonkin + CSM armies. Those Juggernaut lords – while loving the Chaos Spawn could do a lot more damage attached to some Flesh Hounds. I also think the idea that you could do some massed Blood Thirster armies mixed with some characters attached to dogs might be worth it. This is just spitballing some ideas.
The artifacts seem alright with the best one being the armor that gives you Eternal Warrior and FNP in my mind. Their is a helmet that gives you the old Axe of Khorne ability as well. Some of the others are looking to be expensive weapons with added book keeping elements. I would go over them but it just doesn’t sound like they will be useful enough to warrant chatter on them.
The Daemonkin Units
The Units available in the codex looks like a mash up of all the “khorne” like units in the game.
HQ’s: are 1 Chaos Lord, 1 Herald of Khorne, 1 Bloodthirster from the 3 new ones (wonder if the info on gifts for them works within this book), Skulltaker (no Kharn?), Bloodthrone, and a Daemon Prince. Overall this is all things you expected except for missing Kharn. Like I said earlier I would hope a quick update would make the new Kharn Dataslate have the Blood Tithe using rule.
Elites: are Terminators, Blood Crushers, and Possessed. Where are the chosen? Oh yeah we don’t want them having more access to guns. Still this slot will be ignore in most army builds unless they do the decurian like attachment.
Troops: are Cultists (free Blood Tithe points), Blood Letters, Khorne Berzerkers, and Chaos Space Marines. If a valid army comes out of this look for a ton of cultists left out there to die and generate better things.
Fast Attack: is Flesh Hounds (Probably the best), Chaos Spawn (Please used 3 Blood Tithe points), Chaos Bikers, Raptors, Warp Talons (What are these guys again? Oh yeah bits to make cooler marines), Heldrake (Still good), and Rhinos. Just expect Flesh Hounds from this slot and maybe a Heldrake.
Heavy Support: has Maulerfiends (Love these models), Soul Grinders (Suck it Defiler), Defiler (This is the only walker with It Will Not Die), Helbrute (Shouldn’t I be elite to get some shooting?), Land Raider, and the Skull Cannon. I am all for lots of Flesh Hounds with Mauler Fiends as it just seems interesting. Skull Cannons will be summoned at best.
Lord of War: is the Tonka Skull Crusher Robo man thing! I wish the points were less on this one as the Brass Scorpion is just better in all ways.
Overall it appears it is a copy and paste type of book which leaves me thinking that the Chaos Space Marine book will just have extras slapped on instead of an actual fix/update/etc. Again this book looks fun. Sure you could have games where you just get there, kick butt, and take skulls back to Khorne but I don’t expect this type of book to really shift up the scene. They removed all the gift upgrades available to the Daemons and instead just give you the option for an Axe of Khorne. If the chatter on gaining Fearless over Instability shows to be 100% true then I do get a bit more excited. There is also a formation add on for a Single Bloodthirster which again could be fun. Heck think of this army.
Obligatory Goatlist:
HQ: Wrath of Khorne Blood Thirster (I get some shooting attacks yay!)
HQ: Wrath of Khorne Blood Thirster (I must Whip it!)
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
Troops: Cultists X 10
FA: Flesh Hounds of Khorne X 20
FA: Flesh Hounds of Khorne X 20
Formation: Wrath of Khorne Blood Thirster (I got Spikes on my Butt!)
Will this list win anything? Probably not but it would be a lot of fun to run at someone. Something is bound to make it and die. I went with the expensive Thirsters because I had points to fill and they had some kind of shooting. Plus they come in with a ton of attacks. I don’t like the D thirster too much as going at I 1 is pretty rough and it doesn’t help you versus Knights etc. This list is just goofy and unless you have a ton of old Blood Thirsters lying around not really worth it. But it would allow you to scream about Khorne and demand skulls for the Skull god.
I really think they should have used some of the new Fantasy Khorne models as additions to this book. With the flux of Fantasy it feels it is a shame to not use those 80’s heavy metal inspired models. I could see the Khorne twirlers getting used as Spawn if you feel inclined to make a ton of spawn for this type of army. I do wish the ballet dancer Zerkers got a new kit as well but as the mold for plastic is already done I don’t expect GW to waste time/money on updating it.
Future of Chaos?
With this in mind what do you think will see for the other combined Chaos Books? Nurgle might be interesting if you add the things we see in this one with the survivable nature of Nurgle. I would expect to see Obliterators in there and the Tzeentch book. The Tzeentch book sounds the most interesting as they have the psychic potential to be powerful as well as have a ton of options. I secretly hope the Slaanesh book ends up being the best but with no rumors pointing to this getting completed I will just have to wait.
Next week look for Admech to get released. I expect this army to be a Harlies style codex. Lots of neat rules attached to rough army creation taxes (points, unit types, etc). I feel it is more an add on book for other Imperial releases but will see. I think my lack of excitement for the rules comes from me not finding a valid setup with the Clown elves. T3 Models that cost over 20 points is just not exciting in a world full of Twin Linked Bolter bikers. I grabbed a Deathjester to paint for a buddy as I love how the models look and just didn’t want to spend 30 bucks on a plastic desk piece. If you saw my nerd room you would understand I don’t need anymore desk plastic dudesmen.
~What do you want out of future Chaos power books?
