Tactica: Khorne Daemonkin – Part 14 – Khorne’s Bloodstorm
Time to make it rain blood! Today is all about the Khorne’s Bloodstorm Formation. Get ready for another bloody installment of Tactica Khorne Daemonkin.
Hey guys! In this installment of Tactica Khorne Daemonkin I will be discussing the one of the Formations available to the Khorne Daemonkin and ways in which I feel it can be used to its utmost potential! I will do a separate article for each Formation so I can go into detail on army composition and tactics execution.
Khorne’s Bloodstorm
This formation is one of my personal favourites, it is not so powerful that your opponents will claim cheese but it is more than strong enough to hold its own, also being the only way to include a Heldrake in a Blood host detachment definitely adds to its appeal.
Special Rules
+1 strength on all Hammer of Wrath and Vector Strike attacks… fantastic! As you may recall from my last post on the gorepack I am a huge fan of Hammer of Wrath attacks, the ability to inflict a S5 Auto hit at I10 is a huge boost.
The main one for me is the Strength 8 Ap2 vector strikes from the heldrake! I know Vector Strike is only a single hit on ground targets but if you use it against swooping FMCs or Zooming Flyers you will now do D3 powerful hits! This is a nice boost to the Anti Air capabilities of your Daemonkin. And anti air has always been one of our weaknesses
2 – 4 units of Raptors
I love Raptors, I find they are very similar to Bikes in terms of application and battlefield role. I like to field 2-4 units of 5 with 2 melta guns in each.
For 125 points you now have a unit that can Deep Strike in with 2 Melta Guns and Scare the poop out of enemy armor, these guys can make an excellent solution to Imperial Knights, if you are lucky enough to get multiple units in the same turn from reserves you can drop one unit on each facing of the knight, this way he only gets his shields against 2 shots and the rest go strait through 🙂
These guys are fast so once you have dropped whichever vehicle you targeted you can jump pack off to the next vehicle, charge and enemy unit or hunt down whichever objective card you have drawn.
1 – 4 units of Warp Talons
No question that these guys are the tax unit in the formation, but they are far from useless and can definitely inflict plenty of damage if they can hunt down the right target .
When the Chaos Space Marine Codex dropped these guys where very quickly identified as over costed, with the introduction of Codex Khorne Daemonkin they did get a few boosts, mainly that the Daemon USR has been replaced with Daemon of Khorne. This gives them Furious Charge for free which makes them that much scarier when they charge into combat but that is not all!
Since they are Daemons Aligned with Khorne they can benefit from Icons of Chaos and Banners of Blood! This means if a unit of Bloodletters passes its reserve roll you can bring your Warp Talons in with no need to roll and no scatter required. This adds a huge amount of reliability to the unit as you can put them exactly where you want them.
Now combine the reliable arrival of your Warp Talons with thier Warpflame strike special rule (on arrival all enemies within 6″ take a blind test) and you can reduce specific enemy units to BS and WS 1, grav centurions got you worried? Wraithknights D-weapon threatening you? These Warp Talons might just buy you enough time to deal with those threats. This is also a handy way to get an advantage on an enemy deathstar – reduce them to WS1 then charge in with all you have got!
The issue I have with Warp Talons in a Khorne Daemonkin army is generally you will already have a plethora of Ap3 options that are much more cost effective, even a simple unit of Bloodletters can put out a very similar amount of damage for half the points. Not to mention the Heldrake in the formation which has arguably the best Ap3 weapon in the game. So with that in mind I recommend Warp Talons for those who want a Chaos Space Marine themed Daemonkin force, load your Slaughtercult with Berzerkers and or Marines and leave the Ap3 stuff to this formation
0 – 1 Heldrake
Ah the Helldrake, every Chaos player’s favorite toy and everyone else’s worst nightmare… use his vector strike to destroy enemy flyers (I love the image of a Heldrake swooping down from orbit to smash into the top of enemy aircraft, ripping them apart with its claws) and its baleflamer to make open topped transports, jinking bikes and dug in infantry cry! I recently had a game against a Dark Eldar Player who freaked out when my Heldrake vector striked and destroyed his Razorwing then proceeded to toast his Venom and all of the troops inside 🙂
While the Heldrake is a very powerful unit it does still require tactics, given it is no longer a turret mounted torrent weapon you must plan your moves a few turns in advance, organise its attack run so you can remain zooming and also BBQ units every turn. Do not forget if you get stuck you can enter hover mode and turn 180. I have never been a fan of leaving combat airspace to go into ongoing reserves as it is another turn you aren’t using the baleflamer.
Another use for the Heldrake and something I think most forget is that it can hold objectives while in hover mode, and since holding objectives is how you win the game it is definitely something to keep in mind.
There is a psychological element to entering hover mode too, since most of the game you will be zooming and most of your opponents force will have to snap shot you will notice that he will rarely target the Heldrake, in favor of your easier to target ground units. BUT if you have a particular unit that you need to survive (Hounds headed towards an objective,Bloodcrushers about to make a crucial charge etc) what you can do is enter hover with the Heldrake right near the unit you want to protect, give him clear view of your rear armour and more often than not your opponent will think “its now or never, open fire on the Heldrake!” And as a result he will not fire at the unit that you wanted to protect 🙂 sure you might lose your Heldrake but sacrifice is what Daemonkin is all about! Just weigh up the importance of the Heldrake and the unit you are protecting.
What are your thoughts on Khorne’s Bloodstorm? Can you think of any uses or tactics I might have missed? I would love to hear what you have to say 🙂
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.
