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Tactica: Khorne Daemonkin – Bloodied Horde

5 Minute Read
Oct 8 2015
Warhammer 40K Hot story icon

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Bring forth the daemonic legions of Khorne! Today is all about the Bloodied Horde Formation. Get ready for this week’s 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.

The next few formations are available exclusively from Warhammer World in a campaign suppliment called Blood Oath. They are relatively unknown and very powerful so make sure you discuss it with your opponent first 🙂

The Bloodied Horde

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Special Rules

Army wide Rage. This is fantastic and meshes very well with Furious charge! Combine this with +1 from the Blood Tithe and you have some seriously powerful units on the charge.

The Bloodied Horde Unleashed forces the entire formation to begin in deep strike reserve, you make a single reserves roll (which you may choose to re-roll) and if successful the entire formation arrives! This is brilliant as it practically guarantees your entire formation will arrive turn 2. There is a downside however…. Since your entire formation must begin in deep strike reserves you cannot run this formation on its own, you have to include a secondary formation. In 2000 point games you have just enough room to include a Combined Arms Detachment with a couple of Bloodthirsters of insensate rage 🙂

Daemonic Tide is a fantastic rule that makes your daemonic reserves unlimited! Every time a unit of bloodletters or Bloodcrushers from this formation is killed roll a D6 and on a 4+ they instead go straight into ongoing reserve! This makes for an insanely fun game as you no longer care if your units die! This is the whole theme of the Khorne Daemonkin codex amplified to the extreme! Best part is you will no longer need to spend Blood Tithe to summon units as you will be recycling what you have, so use those blood tithe to give your units more attacks and watch the carnage unfold! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

8 Units of Bloodletters


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Thats right, not 2 – 8, straight up 8! This is a very large commitment to a single unit type! Luckily Bloodletters are bloody brilliant and this formation only makes them stronger! Use your Blood Tithe to give them all Feel No Pain on the turn they arrive from reserves to keep them alive then use the Blood Tithe to give them +1 attack next turn when you charge! Its now turn 3 and you have up to 64 Bloodletters with 4 attacks at strength 5 ap3 on the charge all ready to claim some skulls!

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Also make sure you equip a couple of units with a Banner of Blood, this way you will be able to deep strike without the scatter risk 🙂

Also do not forget every time a unit of Bloodletters is killed you roll a 4+ and if you pass the unit is placed in ongoing reserves! This combined with summoning from the Blood Tithe will have your opponent wondering why he even bothers 🙂

2 units of Bloodcrushers

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Like I have said a dozen times before, these guys are your tax unit. That being said they do get a boost in this formation that can make them slightly more useful as they gain rage and the ability to be placed into ongoing reserves when they are killed. For tips on how you use them best I suggest you read the Brazen Onslaught article from Part 13.

2 units of Skull Cannons

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I know I have said this before but I love the skull cannon! I think it is seriously under appreciated. They have quite a few uses, thier Strength 8 large blast is great at thinning out enemy infantry from range and also insant kills most T4 characters, combine this with ignores cover and Ap5 and all of a sudden those guardsmen who thought they were smart going to ground behind thier Aegis Defense Line are toast!  It also is fantastic at taking out Eldar and Dark Eldar vehicles that generally have light armour and rely on jink saves.

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We cannot talk about the Skull Cannon without mentioning thier unique rule, dreadskulls,  basically allowing any unit that declares an charge against a unit that was hit by the Skull Cannon the ability to ignore difficult terrain penalties to thier Initiative 🙂

I feel one of the Skull Cannon’s least used functions is its combat. Sure it has a large blast that ignores cover but it also puts out serious hurt up front and personal!  Being a chariot it can charge into combat getting D6 strength 7 Hammer of wrath hits (WOW I love HoW) and then a further 2 attacks at Strength 5 on Initiative step 4 if you charge. Plus if any of your HoW hits inflict an unsaved wound you get a hull point back. For me the D6 hammer of Wrath is a fantastic way to mop up a unit you blasted with your cannon.

Summary 

This formation is very VERY strong, the ability to recycle units that your opponent destroys is priceless! It alleviates the pressure to keep your units alive and truely encourages you to play the game like a mad Bloodletter would!

Remember though it does have downfalls… it is an extremely expensive formation that will usually wind up being 3/4 of your army. On top of this it MUST start in reserve and has no way to charge the turn it arrives meaning you can’t do much (if any) damage until turn 3 so those last couple of turns are crucial. Starting in reserves also means your opponent has free roam of the table and can grab objectives with little to no contest. If he gets some good cards he may get such a headstart that no number of daemons can turn it around.

Battle Report

If you want to see this formation in action check out this battle report against a battlesuit heavy Tau army. It shows just how powerful the Bloodied Horde can be!

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What are your thoughts on the Bloodied Horde? 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.

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Author: Dean Sinnbeck
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