Tag Archives: Khornate Daemons

Bloodthirster vs. Daemon Prince

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More than anything, this is really just a heads-up to people I might play.  I’d like to document what I’m doing and why.

What

For pickup games, or pretty much any game that isn’t a tournament (and unless I’m running a Khornate Daemon list that includes both Bloodthirsters and Daemon Princes), I am going to use the Daemon Prince models I’ve converted as Bloodthirsters.

With a tournament, when I’m lugging around my huge display board and all that other stuff, things’ll be different… but on an arbitrary Tuesday, this is how it’s going to be.

Why

Although I rather dislike the Bloodthirster model, that’s really not why I’m doing this.

Practicality drives this.  Bloodthirsters are big, top-heavy and metal.  While I keep the majority of my army magnetized to plastic drawers, I’ve got a separate little foam thing I have to pack my Bloodthirsters in.  This isn’t crippling or anything, but it is annoying.  (Don’t get me started on my Soul Grinders.)

My Daemon Princes are plastic, light, and can be transported in the same drawer as my Bloodcrushers.  By using them instead of the Bloodthirster model, I reduce the amount of space my army consumes during transport by nearly half.

Also, they’re converted.  Not heavily converted or anything, but a little.  Enough to make them personal.  I like the models more, and that’s worth a lot!

How

I think I can justify this.

The Bloodthirster has enormous wings, yes.  Huge wings.  Its wings account for twice of its height.  The wings on the Daemon Prince aren’t very big, but that’s okay.  The wings don’t count..

Line of sight must be traced from the eyes of the firing model to any part of the body of at least one of the models in the target unit (for ‘body’ we mean its head, torso, legs and arms). Sometimes, all that may be visible of a model is a weapon, an antenna, a banner or some other ornament he is wearing or carrying (including its wings and tail, even though they are technically part of its body). In these cases, the model is not visible. These rules are intended to ensure that models don’t get penalised for having impressive standards, blades, guns, majestic wings, etc.

– Warhammer 40K, pg 16

So, wings and such are to be ignored for the purposes of Line of Sight.  We can ignore them.

Look at the bodies.  They’re very close to being the same size.  For game purposes, the Minotaur model and the Bloodthirster model are the same size.  They’re on the same size base (60mm) and are very close in terms of height and width.

So, when I put the Minotaur Princes on the table as Bloodthirsters, I do so because they’re just about the same size.  It’s a hair shorter, but negligibly so.  Besides, I don’t think drawing line-of-sight to a Bloodthirster has ever been a problem for my opponents.

(And I’m talking the current Bloodthirster, not the classic Greater Daemon of Khorne who is, I think, about the size of a terminator.)

Conclusion

Like I said, this’ll just be for pickup games, and for games that I don’t plan on running both Bloodthirsters and Daemon Princes.  And, hell, once I stop agonizing over ordering some Battlefoam, everything’ll be packed in together, and it’ll be a non-issue.  But, until then…

IFL 2nd Quarter RTT

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We had the IFL 40K RTT yesterday.

The format was… imperfect.  Due to the excessive squeaking of a couple of squeaky wheels, the format was changed at the last minute to something that was pretty clearly put together by a Fantasy player without much familiarity with 40K.  Given that that’s what the TO was (non-40K-playing fellow council member Ben was doing the 40K playing council members a solid and running the 40K tournament so they could all play), this isn’t enormously surprising.

That’s not to say that it was a bad format.  Just not perfect.

All of the games had a special scenario rule.  Victory conditions were based entirely on Victory Points (with a margin of >= 300 points required for a win vs. a draw), and there were a couple of bonus victory points.

The problem with relying on VP is that they remove all of the checks that KP impose on the game.  They might not be perfect, but they really do provide a disincentive to loading up on transports and minimum strength units.

Also, it was at 1,800, which is a weird points level.  I’m quite certain this wasn’t intentional: just a non-40K player quickly trying to change tournament rules while 1) annoyed and 2) on vacation.

My List

HQ
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might

Elites
Bloodcrushers x4 – Fury of Khorne, Icon, Musician

Troops
Bloodletters x16 – Fury of Khorne, Icon
Bloodletters x8 – Fury of Khorne, Icon

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x8 – Karanak
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury of Khorne

Heavy Support
Soul Grinder – Phlegm
Soul Grinder – Phlegm

In each game, I blew every single Powers of Chaos roll, and ended up with my Reserves Wave coming in at the beginning of each game.  Once is odds.  Three times is just goofy.  The scatter dice made up for it, though, as I nailed an unbelievable number of Deep Strike rolls: I think I don’t think I scatter more than twice in a single game.

Game 1

vs. Jeff Payne’s Eldar

HQ
Eldrad
Yriel

Elites
Striking Scorpions x10 – Exarch w/ Stalker & Scorpion Claw
– Wave Serpent – TL Shuriken Catapults, TL Shuriken Cannon, Spirit Stones

Troops
Storm Guardians x11 – Warlock w/ Embolden & Singing Spear, Fusion Gun x2
– Wave Serpent – TL Shuriken Catapults, TL Bright Lances, Spirit Stones
Storm Guardians x11 – Warlock w/ Destructor, Flamer x2
– Wave Serpent – TL Shuriken Catapults, TL Bright Lances, Spirit Stones
Guardian Jetbikes x8 – Warlock w/ Embolden, Singing Spear, Shuriken Cannon x2, TL Shuriken Catapults x4

Fast Attack
Vyper – Scatter Laser, TL Shuriken Catapults

Heavy Support 
Fire Prism – Holo-Field, Spirit Stones
Fire Prism – Holo-Field, Spirit Stones

Scenario rules involved a single Night Fight-style roll that affected all units on the table and got progressively worse as the game progressed.  Turn 1 was 6d6+6″ on down to Turn 7 as d6+6″.

It’s weird; every time I have a Disagreement with another IFL member, it turns out that within a couple of weeks, I’m at a tournament at Game Parlor Woodbridge playing them and the game proves theraputic.

Jeff and I had a very good game that, given the circumstances, was much closer than it should have been.

Mechanized is something that gives my army heartburn, and mechanized Eldar is even worse.  Jeff decided to throw caution to the wind and get in my face with the Guardians.  This actually worked quite well: a 5+(i) is still only a 5+ save, after all.

There was a lot more back and forth than there needed to be in that game, and I’m thankful for it.  It certainly made it a fun game.

I lost, of course.

Game 2

vs. Frank Abel‘s Space Marines

HQ
Shrike
Librarian – Terminator Armor, Epistolary, Avenger, Null Zone, Storm Shield

Elites
Assault Terminators x6 – Lightning Claws x1, Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield x6
Venerable Dreadnought – Multi-Melta, DCCW w/ Heavy Flamer, Extra Armor

Troops
Tactical Squad x10 – Meltagun, Lascannon
– Razorback – TL Assault Cannon, Dozer Blade, Extra Armor
Tactical Squad x10 – Meltagun, Lascannon
– Razorback – TL Assault Cannon, Dozer Blade, Extra Armor
Tactical Squad x10 – Flamer, Plasma Cannon

Heavy Support
Land Raider Crusader

Scenario was especially weird: all movement was cut in half, even fleeing, running, and the assault fall-in.  Also, all line of sight was reduced to 20″.  Think about that.

Frank is really my kryptonite.  I don’t think I’ve ever beaten him; it’s weird.

The range restriction on shooting didn’t handicap him nearly as much as it could have because I was all up in his face as quickly as possible.  The movement penalty was a huge problem for me, though.  Early on his Librarian and the Terminators assaulted the Bloodthirster, who pasted the Librarian as quickly as possible.  (Null Zone bad!)

The terminators, and then Shrike, ended up chewing their way through the small unit of Bloodletters before getting stuck in with the large unit in a combat that lasted the rest of the game.  Bloodthirsters died to massed fire, which is usually what kills them.

In the end, it was a pretty close game.  Had my last Bloodcrusher survived long enough to toss some attacks on Shrike in the last round, we’d probably have drawn.  A very good game, though.

Game 3

vs. Scott Ripley’s Blood Angels

(probably going to get this wrong, but we’ll try)

HQ
Company Captain – Combi-melta, Power Weapon

Elites
Furioso Dreadnought – Librarian, Blood Lance, Sanguine Sword, Extra Armor, Magna-Grapple
Furioso Dreadnought – Blood Talons, Extra Armor, Magna-Grapple
Sanguinary Priest – Powerfist, Meltabombs
Corbulo

Troops
Scouts x 5 – Sniper Rifle x5
Tactical Squad x10 – Missile Launcher, Power Sword, Plasmagun
– Rhino – Extra Armor
Assault Squad x10 – Hand Flamer, Power Weapon
– Razorback – TL Lascannon, Extra Armor

Fast Attack
Vanguard Veterans x5 – Power Weapon, Meltabombs, Plasma Pistol

Heavy Support
Devastator Squad x5 – Lascannon x2, Missile Launcher x2
Storm Raven – TL Lascannon, TL Multimelta, Extra Armor, Locator Beacon

Scenario involved d3 Strength 6 meteors falling from the sky and hitting non-vehicle units on a 6 and vehicles on a 5 and a 6.  Ultimately, they really didn’t cause anything to happen, though.

This game was… not great.  Scott’s models weren’t even in the neighborhood of WYSIWYG.  I’m down with the occasional, “This Stormbolter is really a Heavy Flamer,” sort of thing.  This was altogether different.  Guys had weapons that they didn’t have, all sorts of things.

Also, he started his entire army in Reserve.  Now, I get that this sounds a little hypocritical coming from a Daemon player (trust me: I’d love to be able to bring them all in at the beginning of the game), but I’ve found that keeping your entire army in reserve is a great way to start the game off on the wrong foot.

Finally, his converted Storm Raven was… let’s charitably call it enormous.  Built out of a Star Wars shuttle with a Rhino stuck on the front, it was at least 4″x12″.  That would probably be okay, except then he stuck Corbulo with his aura effect in it… that aura had a range that covered something like a third of the table!

I wiped out his Devastators with a Soul Grinder in the second turn, which meant he really didn’t have anything with which to deal with my Bloodthirsters.  He threw his Dreadnoughts at them.  This was, in a word, awesome.  Khorne created Bloodthirsters with the express purpose of completely bitchifying Dreadnoughts.  The Furioso wouldn’t even get the chance to think about swinging before the ‘Thirster would vomit five penetrating hits into its face.  The sheer pwnitude involved in ‘Thirster-on-Furioso action was enough to really improve my attitude about the game.

Overall, I made it out of the day 1/2/0, which isn’t anything to complain about.  I had two good games, plus a third that ended on an up-note.

More significantly, I won the Player’s Choice award!  It was supposed to be a conflation of all of the various soft scores, but it looks like it worked out to be mostly an Appearance ranking thing.  I’m very flattered and proud about this.  Honestly, I think the display board is what pushed it over the edge: there were a lot of really awesome armies there (like Doug’s and Kevin’s, which were my two favorites).

Khornate Daemon Display Board

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So, it’s done!

Painting happened faster than I expected: as tedious as the edge highlighting on the stones was, it only took a couple of episodes of Deadliest Catch to blow through.

I airbrushed the whole thing brown; craft paints, a tone that was pretty close to Bestial Brown.  I wanted it to look just like the bases on my models, so I hit everything with a very, very heavy drybrush of Shining Gold.  Then, I picked out the edges with Burnished Gold.

I smeared Devlan Mud across the whole thing.  That ended up looking like crap, so I went back and brushed Devlan Mud into the cracks, with better effect.

Faces and the Khorne symbol are Boltgun Metal with Mithril Silver highlights and Badab Black.  I decided at the last minute to paint the area around the symbol red (Scab Red basecoat, several very thin layers of Blood Red); originally, I had planned to leave it brass.  Water Effects make the blood work really well, I think.

Nothing special here.  The obelisk is done the same way, except the stone is black with Coal Black highlights.

Finally, what’s the point of a display board if you’re not going to put minis on it?

Display Board WIP

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I’m just about ready to slap some paint down on the display board I’ve built for my Khornate Chaos Daemons.  Not a bad idea to snap a few pics before then.

The board is 3/4′ MDF, cut to be ~17″ x ~26″.  I needed a 15″ x 24″ board, but wanted room for the border (which I knew I needed to help keep things from falling off).  The raised parts are pink insulation foam.

All of the flat surfaces are covered in the same textured plasticard I used to make my bases.

The dais in the center is textured plasticard, plus some extra plasticard cut into an octagon and a Khorne symbol.  Nothing fancy there, I suppose, but I put a lot of work into cutting it out, so I’m proud of it.

I’ve had an Arcane Ruins set since GW released them that I’ve done nothing with… I got a lot of use out of it on this.  The skulls and faces on the edges of the raised platforms are from it, as is the obelisk in the back center.  I’ve tarted up the obelisk with some ForgeWorld etched brass Khorne symbols.

I originally tried gluing the skulls and faces on with E-6000 for some ridiculous reason.  That was a mistake: the glue ate through the foam like a hippo through marbles.  I ended up filling in the holes and gluing on the faces with wood glue.

The board rests on a breakfast tray.  This idea is blatantly stolen from Matt Hoell, who uses one as his display board.  I needed more room than the tray’s surface offers, however: hence the MDF.  I need to affix the board to the tray, though: I want to lift the board off the table, but I don’t want to make it that much easier to be knocked over.

So, there’s a bolt that goes through the board and through the tray.  There’s only one, because I wanted it to be removable, and there’s really only one spot I can hide a bolt: under the obelisk.  I’ll lift and carry the board by the tray, not the by the board.

Because it’s removable, 1) I’ll be able to reuse the tray with other display boards and 2) be able to store the whole mess more easily.

Also, the bolt is metal, which allowed me to glue a magnet to the inside of the obelisk.  That’ll keep it in place… but be easily removed and stored.  (I might even turn it into a fifth objective marker.)

EDIT: I’ve finished this!  You can find some pictures of the finished product here.

Got My Game On

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I managed to get in several games this week!

Battle Missions

Tuesday, I met up with Jeff to throw down some Battle Missions.  (My first time actually using the book.)

He was running his very cool Gue’vesa IG army: everything’s converted up to be Tau-ish, from his Valkyrie converted from Devilfish, Piranha and Valk parts to his robotic Sisters of Battle built from Necron and Tau bits.  Both games were at 2,000.

I was running the same 2,000 point Khornate Daemon list I ran at Battle for the Cure.

Warp Rift

We decided to kick things off with a Chaos Daemon mission: I rolled for it and got Warp Rift.  (12″ around “rift” in the center of the board.  Defender deploys anywhere 12″ away from the rift.  Daemons can Deep Strike as normal, or can “walk on” the table from the rift.)

I lost, by kind of a lot.  I had trouble getting past the leafblower: something would get to one of his squads, obliterate it and then get blown away by the squad behind the freshly deadified squad.  Still, it was a neat mission, and was a fun game.  I’ll definitely have to build a Warp Rift terrain piece to use for this in the future.

War of Attrition

We had time for another game before closing and we’d decided that it was only fair to play an IG mission.  Two of the missions looked… bad for us due to the nature of my army.  We weren’t going to get a good game out of Bloodletters slogging a quarter of the way across the board before being blasted away by lasguns, so we settled on War of Attrition: deployment zones that put us near each other and the ability to recycle Troops choices.

I fiddled with my list a bit, as I don’t consider my 2K list to be very good: split up the 16 ‘Letter squad into 2×8 ‘Letter squads and swapped out two Daemon Princes for two Soul Grinders.

Suprisingly, this game felt closer, though I still got my teeth kicked in.  It ultimately boiled down to one side of the board seeing us trade a Bloodletter squad for two infantry squads each turn (because the Bloodletters would come on close enough to assault that turn and the Guardsmen would come on close enough to rapid fire them into nothingness; rinse and repeat) and big nasty things trashing tanks and being blown away on the other side.

Again, also a lot of fun.

Conclusion

I’m definitely sold on Battle Missions.  They’re fun, thematic and don’t require custom army lists.

One thing that I noticed is how differently they played from the core missions despite the changes being relatively subtle.   There’s a lesson here: a light touch.  There’s an inclination in scenario writing to throw a lot of different things in, and I think this does a great job of showing how just a few small changes makes for a significantly different game.

I expect that my default 40K setting for the next several months (at least) will be, “Let’s try some Battle Missions.”

Malifaux

The next day, I met Thalaric at Game Parlor to have him walk me though how to play Malifaux.  I don’t really process or understand rules until I see them in action and, frankly, Malifaux system is so different there’s no way I could have grokked them without having someone sit down with me and answer a question every 30 seconds.

I was running the Witch Hunters crew I picked up at Madicon, Chris started out running the Cult of December.

The first game probably doesn’t even qualify as a game.  More a matter of going through the motions.  “There’s no reason to cast Flaming Bullets on Samael, but I’m going to do it because I need to understand how it works.”  That sort of thing.

Second game was a bit more of the same, but it progressed much more smoothly.  Also, it became clear that Sonia Criid vs. Rasputina is not a good matchup, as the former is really pretty much designed to kick the latter in the face, hard.

Third game was more of an actual game.  Chris switched over to his Viktorias crew.  The game was surprisingly close… a very close win for me.

The game was interesting enough for me to decide to buy a few more minis for it, though my opinion of the game remains… complex.  I’d like to get in a few more games before I write up a full post about the game.

Ecumenical Khorne – Tzeentch

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Themes: flying, shooty, armor-penetrating.  A successful result will look like it does what it’s supposed to do in-game.
This is the hard one.  Tzeentch units will, I think, involve the most actual conversion… and the most discipline. Everything I’ve brainstormed eventually transforms into something very Skaveny: dangerous looking, but madcap and zany.  That’s sort of thing is great for Skaven, but not so much Daemons.   Or, at the very least, not the sort of Daemons I done so far.  So, that’s the trap to avoid.
Horrors will likely see some table-time at some point.  That I run an army with next to no shooting is kind of crazy.  What I’m likely to do here is up in the air.  
Flamers, I have a clear vision for.  Bloodletter base, with the horns that sprout from the head shaved down (so it looks less dangerous than the Daemonettes and Bloodletters and brainier).  The Hellblade forearm is replaced with some rigid plastic tubing and capped with one of the heads from the Chaos vehicle sprue (because it shoots things).  Wings from the Gargoyle sprue (because it’s a jump troop).

Ecumenical Khorne – Slaanesh

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Themes: fast, pinchy, rending.  A successful result should like speedy and deadly, while remaining distinct from the actual Khorne units.
My plan for Daemonettes is either incredibly lazy or incredibly clever. I’m not sure. Basically, I want to just continue to roll with the Bloodletter body and replace the hands with Daemonette claws.
It still looks fast and deadly. It looks a lot like a Bloodletter (clearly) which is good, because 1) the Bloodletters are easily the sharpest looking models in my army and 2) I probably won’t take any when I start pulling in Plaguebearers and Daemonettes… but still different enough from a Bloodletter to avoid any confusion.

Fiends, I have got two ideas for.  The easy route (which means the one I’m likely to take) would be to use Dark Elf Cold ones.  I’d have to remove the saddles, which would require some sculpting, and might add bigger horns… but otherwise, that’s it.
In fact, I’d been planning on doing just that for my Bloodcrushers (someone else did this, with amazing results, but I cannot find the link) until I started stumbling across some really amazing deals on actual Bloodcrusher models from different people.
Anyway, this is almost certainly the option I’m going to take.  It’ll also better facilitate converting up Seekers than anything else I can think of.
The other option, which isn’t really one (and I’ll come to why in a second) is to use the Mouth of the Abyss model from Hell Dorado.
When I first saw this sucker, I thought, “Man, that would make a badass Juggernaut.”  Unfortunately, when time came to start up the Khorne army, I’d forgotten all about him.  I could always come back and use it as a Fiend, instead of a Bloodcrusher (it certainly looks faster than a Juggernaut, at least).
It’s a non-starter, though: it’s tough to justify $25 a model (vs. $25 for five Cold One models), especially when I’d be looking at a handful as Fiends and a double-handful as Seeker mounts.  Making this even more complicated is the fact that it looks like it’s backordered everywhere… so I’m not likely to find a second one (I’ve had one since it was released), much less eleven more.
Maybe I could have him pull a chariot?  Probably not.
Seekers of Slaanesh will be utterly straightforward: Daemonette conversion sitting on a Fiend conversion.

Ecumenical Khorne – Nurgle

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Themes: slow, resilient, hard to kill, poisonous.  So, a successful result should look like a Khornate daemon that’s hard to kill.  “Poisonous” might be hard to do while feeling Khorne-y.
Plaguebearers are a must.  They specifically address a significant weakness in the mono-Khorne list: survivability.  I’m almost certainly going to build these out of Gors/Ungors/Bestigors.  Exactly what kit, I’m still trying to settle on: I like the Ungor heads for this, but like the burlier Gor and armored Bestigor bodies.  (So it’ll likely be Ungor heads on [Besti]Gor bodies.)
Also, in the interests of science: sticking a different head on a Bloodletter body.  I’m planning to use the Bloodletter body with Slaaneshi units, so there’s consistency involved… but I don’t believe I care for the results at all.  It won’t be distinct enough from the Bloodletters, and won’t actually accomplish what I want accomplished.
Finally, there’s always putting a Bloodletter head on a Gor’s body.
In fact, the more I look at it, the more I like the Gor body.  I think the Bestigor body is just… too busy.  Given that they’re ~$4 a pop, I think I’m okay with that.  Also, putting a Gor head on an Ungor doesn’t look too shabby, either.  I can give them all shields, and maybe carve up some Hellblade-lites for them: swords that are thematically similar to Hellblades… but don’t look like they ignore armor saves.  Maybe not.
I also kinda like the ‘Letter head (ha!) on the Gor Body (lower left).  I don’t think I care for it as much as the Ungor head (which I really like), but it would just fit a lot better with the rest of my units.  This will require a lot of thought.
The point is, they should look resilient.  Bloodletters look deadly, but Plaguebearers need to look like they’re hard to kill.
Beasts of Nurgle, I don’t see myself ever being called to run.  If I did, I’d probably just use the GW model: it’s not particularly Khorne-y, but I think it’d look pretty cool with my paint scheme.
Nurglings just ain’t gonna happen.

Ecumenical Khorne – HQ, Heavy Support

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I’m grouping these together because either A) I don’t know which god I’ll be doing anything with or B) the models aren’t god-specific.
As soon as I add some more mobile units and/or tank killing units, I can drop one of the Bloodthirsters.  I could probably drop both, but I’d like to keep at least one: what’s Khorne without a Bloodthirster?
That means swapping him (or is it her?) out for one or two Heralds.  I haven’t done much thinking about what type of Herald I’d take, but… I can’t see myself bothering with a Herald of Nurgle, but I can imagine a place for Heralds of Khorne, Slaanesh and/or Tzeench.  
I’m pretty sure that I’d mount them in a chariot, regardless, which means any conversion would be driven by 1) how I convert the Troop-level Daemon (and it him up) and 2) how I convert the Elite-level Daemon pulling the chariot.
Soul Grinders are Soul Grinders.    Done.
Daemon Princes are only a little trickier.  For the time being, I think I can run the ones I’m in the process of painting as whatever type is called for.  Longer-term, if I settle on a build I really like, I can convert up something new: almost certainly based on the Minotaur kit.  I love those models.

Ecumenical Khorne

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Something I’ve been eyeballing for a bit is making my Khornate Daemons list… less Khorne and more competitive.
The monogod thing is fun, but it really is a bit of a paper-rock-scissors list where it generally does pretty well or pretty poorly.  I can’t even play against Tyranids, for example.  While I’m okay with that, I expect it will get old after a bit.  I really like my paint scheme, though, and I like screaming “Khornination!” and such… so as I pull in non-Khorne units, I’m going to try very hard to Khornify them while retaining the themes that will make what the models count-as clear.
Over the next week of so will see something of a stream-of-consciousness, thinking out loud thing.  Mostly documenting where I’m looking to go with this.  I think I have a clear idea of what I want, even if I have trouble articulating it.
Feedback is more than welcome!