Tactica: Khorne Daemonkin – Part 11 – The Slaughtercult
Today is all about the Slaughtercult! Get ready for another bloody installment of Tactica Khorne Daemonkin.
Hey guys! In this installment of Tactica Khorne Daemonkin I will be discussing the Formations available to the Khorne Daemonkin and ways in which I feel they can be used to their utmost potential! I will do a separate article for each Formation so I can go into detail on army composition and tactics execution.
The Slaughtercult / Blood Host Detachment
A Fantastic starting point for any Khorne Daemonkin army! The Slaughtercults ability to have two effects from the blood tithe in effect simultaneously is a massive MASSIVE boost to the effectiveness of these units! When building a Khorne Daemonkin army aim to have as many units in your Slaughtercult as possible to really get the most out of the Blood Tithe! Lets take a look at the units available:
1 – Lord, Daemon Prince, Herald, Blood Throne, Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury or the Skulltaker
There are a lot of options here for fantastic Warlords, I see three stand out selections…
A. Chaos Lord with Kor’lath the Axe of Ruin (read “part 1 – triple threat” of this series for tactics on this loadout)
B. Herald of Khorne with Exalted Loci of Wrath and the Blade of Endless Bloodshed, attach him to your Possessed to give them Hatred on top of thier plethora of rules 🙂
C. Blood Throne with Exalted Loci of Wrath has a similar effect as the herald but on a larger scale. The only downside is it can be individually targeted unlike the herald in the Possessed so it really is personal preference. My vote goes to the herald.
2 – 8 units of Berzerkers, Marines or Bloodletters in any order
For this I suggest multiple units of bloodletters. The Bloodletters are one of my favorite units in the entire codex, once you get some blood tithe buffs these little 10 point troopers can put out a serious amount of damage even to vehicles or MCs. Make sure you put a Bloodreaper in each unit for extra Blood Tithe opportunities.
1-4 units of Possessed
A lot of people would have you believe this is your “tax” but I am here to show you how you can make these guys into a fist! The size of the unit is entirely up to you but the bigger the unit the more milage you will get out of the attached herald’s loci (assuming he was your HQ choice) that being said I think 1 unit is plenty and would never get more than 1 (I will explain why later)
Just to give some perspective on the power Possessed wield I have a couple of scenarios for you. A unit of 5 possessed with attached herald with loci costs 230pts (less than a Bloodthirster)
This unit could charge with up to 6 attacks per Possessed (2 base + 2 for Rage + 1 from blood tithe + 1 from vessels of chaos) giving you 30 Strength 6 attacks (5x a Bloodthirster) all of which are I5 and have hatred! Unless you roll a 1 or 2 on the vessels of chaos which would give you Shred or Ap3 respectively. But for simplicity sake lets stick with the 3rd result.
Against MEQ that would be around 6 dead marines. And thats before the enemy get to attack! Greatly decreasing the enemies damage output!
Against a vehicle with rear Av10 you are looking at 12 hull points inflicted or a Walker with Av12 would be 3 hull points.
Against a Monstrous Creature lets say Daemon Prince with no upgrades you are looking at around 7 wounds
All of these are in a single round of combat and on top of that you include the Heralds attacks as well (likely to polish off the rest of the MEQ or Monsterous Creatures remaining wounds! Just don’t forget the Hatred conferred by your herald 🙂
0-2 cultists
Fantastic back field campers and also a great source of Mortal Champions for summoning Bloodthirsters to the table. As soon as you have used the champion you can either leave the unit on an objective or sacrifice it for more blood tithe points.
0-2 Chaos Spawn
These guys are fantastic when taken in units of 1. Here is why:
A. Too insignificant of a threat for your opponent to target, as a result these guys can run around claiming objectives while the bulk of the enemy fire is on your other units.
B. Fast! They can dart from 1 objective to the next with extreme ease.
C. Cheap Blood Tithe point if your opponent does decide to fire at them!
The Blood Host Detachment
When taking a Slaughtercult Formation you can upgrade to a Blood Host Detachment by adding 1 – 8 of the other formations available in the codex, there is also 2 formations unique to the Blood Host, The Lord of Slaughter which is a Bloodthirster or Lord of Skulls and there is the War Engines which is a Maulerfiend, Forgefiend, Defiler , Soulgrinder or Helbrute.
If you are doing this on the cheap you can add a Helbrute for 100pts. I recommend adding the Lord of Slaughter and getting a Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage. This will add some serious punch to your Slaughtercult and also because you have met the criteria for the blood host you will generate an extra Blood Tithe point at the start of every turn.
Multiple Blood Hosts.
The reason a said never take more than 1 Possessed per slaughtercult is because if you take multiple blood host detachments you will generate multiple blood tithe at the start of each turn! This can add up very fast! So if you take a second unit of Possessed make sure you split your forces into two blood host detachments. Here is an example of how a list might look….
BLOOD HOST DETACHMENT
SLAUGHTERCULT FORMATION
110 – Herald of Khorne, Loci of Wrath, Blade of Bloodshed
150 – 5 Possessed
85 – 8 Bloodletters, Bloodreaper
85 – 8 Bloodletters, Bloodreaper
58 – 8 Cultists
58 – 8 Cultists
32 – 1 Spawn
32 – 1 Spawn
LORDS OF SLAUGHTER FORMATION
275 – Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage
875 points total
That is just the base, depending on the size of the game you have 3 options….
1. Double up and add on a second Blood Host Detachment. This brings you to 1750 points and gives you two Blood Tithe points at the beginning of each turn.
2.Fill out the Slaughtercult, just keep adding Bloodletter units until you run out of points 🙂 trust me once you give your Bloodletters 5+ FnP and +1 attack from the blood tithe they become extremely powerful. A 5+ invulnerable save followed by a 5+ FnP is almost as good as a 3+ invulnerable save. And a model with essentially a 3+ invulnerable save that puts out 3 S5 Ap3 attacks on the charge is amazing for 10 points!
3. Add in any of the other formations available. I will go through each Formation one by one in the next few articles but since we are talking about the BloodHost detachment I have to mention the War Engine Formation, Maulerfiends and Soul Grinders are the two stand out choices here. Maulerfiends make great partners with Bloodthirsters and Soulgrinders are fantastic support units (you can read about Soulgrinders in “part 5 – Spam grinders” of this series)
Whichever option you choose if you have a strong Slaughtercult at the heart of your Blood host you will be spilling blood in no time!
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.
