Tactica: Khorne Daemonkin – Part 6 – The Bloodthirster
Welcome back for the sixth installment of Tactica: Khorne Daemonkin! It’s Bloodthirster time!
Brought to you by Blog for the Blood God
In tonights installment of Tactica: Khorne Daemonkin I will breakdown the various Bloodthirsters we have access to and sharing some thoughts / opinions / tactics on how to get the most out of these masters of bloodshed!
What is the difference?
As you know there are 3 different types of bloodthirster now, for the purpose of this post I will shorten thier names as follows
Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage = Rage
Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury = Fury
Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster = Wrath
they all have identical profile,
WS – BS – S – T – W – I – A – Ld – Sv – Type
10 – 10 – 6 – 6 – 5 – 9 – 5 – 9 – 3+ – FMC (Ch)
The difference lies in their wargear and special rules which I will go through now.
Fury: 250 points
This guy is your “standard” bloodthirster, the other two are simply upgraded versions of this guy. He comes equipped with an axe of Khorne (S user, Ap2, 6s to wound inflict instant death) and a Lash of Khorne (range 12″, S6, Ap2, assault 1).
Personally I would never pay points for this guy as you can get him for free in a variety of other ways (Summon via the Blood Tithe or Axe of Ruin) unless you want to use him to fill the manditory HQ slot in the Slaughtercult formation. Even then you are better off taking a lord with the axe of ruin as he is over 100 points cheaper.
Either way if you pay the points for him or summon him here are some tips on how to use Fury, these also apply to Wrath and Rage except where noted.
1. Fire Magnet: due to the imposing stature of the model and destructive capibility it will attract a lot of enemy attention. This can be paired with other units to ensure they are not the enemies primary target. We all know Bloodcrushers are as hard as marshmallow, but if you run them alongside a gliding Bloodthirster your opponent will likely attempt to sieze the opportunity to kill your FMC allowing your bloodcrushers to hit with thier full force! Little did your opponent know but against anything 0less than a 2+ a unit of 3 Bloodcrushers will likely do more damage than a Bloodthirster on the charge. Never fly your bloodthirster solo unless you plan on wasting 250+ points
2. The Beat Stick: If you do manage to get your Bloodthirster into combat (usually because your enemy did not fall for the fire magnet ruse) then he can be an extremely powerful unit, BUT, make sure you watch out as there are a few hard counters that will ruin your Bloodthirsters day fast! Walkers are a Bloodthirsters worst nightmare! With the exception of Rage all Bloodthirsters attack at S6, and most walkers will be around 12 AV on their front, meaning in combat you have two choices… A. attack with full number of attacks that glance on a 6 or B. perform a single S10 smash attack… personally I will always go with the full attacks as the chances of you getting lucky are higher. Either way make sure you stay clear of enemy Walkers as best as possible as they will most likely beat your Bloodthirster in one on one combat. Other units to look out for are large fearless blobs as they will bog you down for so many turns your Bloodthirster is no longer points effective and anything with invisibility cast on it as you will take forever to take them down.
Rage: 275 points
This is my personal favourite of the 3 different varieties, Rage is identical to Fury with the following exceptions:
1. He gains the Rage USR giving you +2 attacks on the charge instead of +1
2. Instead of the Axe of Khorne and Lash of Khorne Rage is equipped with the Great Axe of Khorne (and the award for original weapon names goes to….) this means he no longer has a ranged attack and now must strike and pile in at Initiative step 1 BUT he gains Strength D close combat attacks. on a model that has 8 x Weapon Skill 10 Attacks your can almost guarantee whatever you hit will die in a single round of combat. This guys is your insurance policy against Walkers, Super Heavies, Wraithknights, Imperial Knights, Characters with Eternal Warrior and almost any Deathstar. Any 6s to wound will inflict 6+D6 wounds/hull points and ignore invulnerable saves so bye bye pretty much anything! And any 2-5s to wound will inflict D3 wounds/hull points which will be more than sufficient to destroy most enemies!
Mathhammer has the average damage output something like this: 8 attacks > 6 Hits > 1 roll of 6 (6+D6 wounds) and 4 rolls of 2-5 (D3 Wounds) = 6+D6+4D3 = 17 wounds/hull points…. once your enemy discovers this he will put almost everything he has into dropping Rage, this makes Rage essentially a much more effective version of Fury as he is a better fire magnet and a better beat stick with less weaknesses and more reward should you manage to get him in combat.
Wrath: 300 points
This guy is your swiss army Bloodthirster, comparing him to Fury, for an extra 50 points we have the following changes:
1. Swap the Lash of Khorne for the bloodflail, so instead of a single S6 Ap2 attack you now get D3 S7 Ap2 attacks, so an average of +1 strength and +1 attack. both have 12″ range so no changes there.
2. You get Hellfire as an additional ranged attack, this is essentially a Heavy Flamer with Soulblaze (S5 Ap4 Template, Soul Blaze) which is quite handy at thinning out any infantry blobs you may get stuck attacking.
3. Adamanitium Will, helpful for denying enemy psykers but not a Huge boost considdering you can get army wide adamantium will for 1 Blood Tithe Point
4. Hatred (characters), this will help you guarantee the win on those challenges but to be honest so will Rage’s D-weapon and he is 25 points cheaper.
Personally I think Wrath is a little too expensive for what you gain, if Hellfire was a Torrent weapon it might be worth it but as it stands I do not feel Wrath is worth the points.
When to Swoop and When to Glide
This is the hardest part to get right and is also the most important thing to keep in mind at all times, since you cannot charge in the same turn that you change flight modes you need to be thinking 2 turns ahead with what you want your Bloodthirster to achieve. There are many way to go about this and what army your opponent has will play a huge role in how you use the different flight modes. For example if your opponent is an Ork player… do not even bother with swooping, he will be hitting you on 5s anyway with his shooting so you are better off getting into combat as fast as possible, same goes for if you are fighting a predominately assault based opponent. However if you are fighting Tau or Astra Millitarium you may consider Swooping, then factor in if your opponent has any skyfire? If they do they will hit you on normal BS anyway so you may want to forgo swooping to get into combat that turn earlier. There are litterally a billion different reasons you would use either flight mode so just make sure you go into the game with a plan on when you are going to use which mode and stick to it.
Double Team
One of the best ways to protect your Bloodthirster funnily enough is with another Bloodthirster! If you have 2 Rage Bloodthirsters gliding down the center of the table chance are your opponent will only be able to effectively deal with 1 of them, allowing the other to smash into his line with its D-weapon! just like to old multiple Vindicator trick… when taking Glass Cannons…. Take Lots!
Scare Tactics
This is probably my favourite use of the Bloodthirster, it works with all varieties but is best with Rage as players will truly fear his D-weapon. Simply Swoop into the enemy deployment zone (or arrive via deep strike reserve) right next to whatever unit you think your opponent wants to survive the most. The opponent will usually panic and respond to this threat before considering the rest of your army. I have seen good players throw their tactics out the window in a panicked effort to protect their favourite unit, whether this be their warlord, their super heavy or whatever. This will allow the rest of your force ample time to get into position, claim objectives and all the other game changing tactics you need the freedom to execute. You can ramp this up higher by throwing multiple bloodthirsters up into his back line in the same manner. Veteran players will likely see through this but your average player will have a knee jerk reaction that will upend his strategy.
Codex Chaos Daemons
While this is a Khorne Daemonkin article it is about the best way to optimise your Bloodthirster… and unfortunately for Daemonkin players the Bloodthirsters available to Codex Chaos Daemons is much stronger than the one in Codex Khorne Daemonkin… why? Chaos rewards that is why!
In the white dwarf that was released with the Bloodthirster kit there were datasheets for all of the new variants, it specified they were available for Chaos Daemon armies and they differ to those in khorne daemonkin with their ability to take up to 50pts worth of chaos rewards…
This is a massive boost as there are some fantastic rewards in there! Everything from re-rollable invulnerable saves to the ability to regenerate wounds or summon more daemons! You also have access to the grimour of true names and the portalglyph! It is a real shame that the Daemons in Codex Khorne Daemonkin do not have access to these upgrades as they really are one of the key selling points for a daemon army.
Thanks again for tuning in! Make sure you keep your eyes peeled for the next instalment of Tactica: Khorne Daemonkin! and while you are at it head over to Blog for the Blood God, give me a like, and join in on the other great content! Everything from Battle Reports to Hobby Tutorials, Rules discussions and tactics to Animated movies and 40k based comedy (wanna see a 15 thousand point per side apocalypse battle report?)
Thank you all for your time!
Dae’vros The Gorehound
Signing out!
