Games Workshop writing dodgy rules? Well I never!

When a new Codex comes out never takes long for someone to find a poorly worded rule and the gents at Bell of Lost Souls have spotted this one.

The question is in what circumstances the Khorne Daemonkin player picks up blood tithe points for their own characters dying. The offending rule reads as follows

A Blood Tithe point is generated each time one of the following events occurs ... A character with the Blood for the Blood God! special rule is slain, or slays an enemy character in a challenge.

Does this mean the character just needs to die of does he need to die in a challenge? My take is that the wording, specifically the placement of the comma, means that the character simply needs to die regardless of circumstance. However I doubt this was the author's intention. If it was I think they'd have separated condition into two sentences. Also this essentially doubles the effects of most units dying as pretty much every squad has a character upgrade and this seems a weirdly clumsy way of doing it (Yes, I know, it's GW). Finally, it makes more sense to reward players for getting their champions stuck into challenges than hanging around moping and getting shot.

So, until a hopeful FAQ from GW, I will be playing it as deaths in challenges only. Taking the less advantageous position has the added bonus of not needing discussions or arguments with my opponent (unless they are also playing Khorne Daemonkin but then it essentially cancels each other out) and we can get on with the slaughter.

Tom

The Blood Host

I'm not a tournament player so when putting together an army I normally look to design something that fits the fluff. Fortunately Codex: Khorne Daemonkin's very own detachment, The Blood Host, makes this fairly easy. Unfortunately it does mean that you need to take the occasional duff units to get at the good stuff. I can live with that. Possessed aren't good for their points but that doesn't mean they'll do nothing at all and the others are avoidable.

In any case I'm going to aim at the following list;

1 Blood Host Detachment

Core Formation: Slaughter Cult

1 Daemon Prince with The Blood Forged Armour and Daemonic Flight - 225points

1 Bloodreaper and 7 Bloodletters - 85 points

1 Berzerker Champion with Axe of Khorne and Meltabombs, and 7 Berzerkers with Chainaxes - 218 points

1 Possessed Champion and 7 Possessed  - 240 points

1 Cultist Champion and 7 Cultists - 58 points

1 Cultist Champion and 7 Cultists  - 58 points

Auxiliary Formation: Gorepack

8 Fleshhounds  - 116 points

1 Chaos Biker Champion with Axe of Khorne and Meltabombs, and 3 Chaos Bikers including 3 Meltaguns - 142 points

1 Chaos Biker Champion with Axe of Khorne and Meltabombs, and 3 Chaos Bikers including 3 Meltaguns - 142 points

Auxiliary Formation: War Engine; Soul Grinder with Phlegm Bombardment  - 165 points

Auxiliary Formation: War Engine; Soul Grinder with Phlegm Bombardment  - 165 points

Auxiliary Formation: War Engine; Maulerfiend - 130 points

1744 points total

I'll expand on some of my choices in further posts but a few points for now;

The codex makes it easy to takes squads in eights (ok the biker squads are in fours but there is two of them so I think it counts),

Like any self respecting Khorne warband the list relies on close combat but assuming the stuff gets across the board are units that should be able to deal with most things.

Getting there is a challenge for some of the units. I can't see a good way round this. Still I've got some pretty fast stuff, some ranged stuff, the cultists are really there just to die anyway, Possessed are compulsory and how can a Khorne list not have Berzerkers?

Multiple small units make picking up points for the blood tithe a easier so other than models for the list I'll need some daemons for summoning.

Comments or questions welcome.

Tom

A New, and Bloody, Beginning

I've been playing Warhammer 40K since the days of Rogue Trader and at one point or another I've at least started pretty much every army GW has published (except Tau, I've never had any love for the space manatees). I've even finished a few of them.

The last few years I've been too much distracted with the shiny baubles on offer from Forgeworld's Horus Heresy to pay much attention to the core game. This has though has all changed with the release of the latest Codex; Khorne Daemonkin.

Chaos is The Big Bad in 40K. All the others; Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, you name it; pale in comparison to Chaos. It's the dark reflection of humanity's soul and the irony of the whole setting is that beset by existential threats on all sides ultimately the Imperium will be the architect of it's own downfall as it's greatest heroes fall to their own desires.

And what have GW done with it's greatest of villains? Since the epic '3.5 codex' at least it's released a series of bland and underwhelming codexes and supplements focusing, where they had any focus at all, on bits of the fluff that frankly no one cared about. I mean Crimson Slaughter? What was that about?

I hope it's not too optimistic to suggest that with the release of Khorne Daemonkin that is about to change. One of the things I know I've wanted, and probably fair to say a large proportion of the community, is the ability to field viable single god themed lists (of course you could do this to some extent with Unbound but to me that option still feels akin to cheating) and here we have the first attempt at doing just that.

Of course the codex is not without it's problems; the units that underperformed still do (oh Bloodcrushers what did they do to you?), the Blood Host detachment, whilst fluffy, forces you to take some fairly ropey options and there is still no sign of cult terminators. But, with the Blood for the Blood God special rule now rewarding you for mass slaughter, even of your own troops, it's become easy to create lists that play like Khorne should; even if it's going to be challenging to actually win games against a lot of the other armies out there.

In any case it's inspired me to start a new army and, with the possibilities that Chaos represents, one that I'm hoping will be truly absorbing modelling and painting project.

Of course real life has a habit of getting in the way so we shall see if I get to the end. Either way I'm intending to use this blog to both chart my progress (or lack thereof) and share my ramblings on the 40k universe.

Until next time.

Tom