Pure Khorne Demons: What do I need to know?

[Fireymonkeyboy]

Hi all,

 

I'm in the process of expanding my AoS Blades of Khorne, adding a bunch of KDemons.  This means, happy day, I also have the beginnings of a Khorne Demon army.  While I'm not terribly concerned with peak efficiency tournament play, I'd like at least some advice on how they play, how to play them, and what to watch for.  It's a bit of a departure for me, in that while I've played cc armies before (orks are my main), I've not played anything with shooting quite this limited.  And unlike AoS, essentially giving up shooting and magic/ psykers doesn't seem to be compensated by the same degree of cc insanity.

 

I currently have a DP, foot Herald, 20 Bloodletters, 6 Bloodcrushers, and 2 Skullcannons, which works out to a little over 50 PP.   What do I need to know about playing pure Khorne demons?

 

FMB

[Strazhakov]

Lots of Bloodletters. The more the better. I run huge blobs of them and they have yet to dissapoint me. They are cheaper than ever and stil killy as ****. You won't regret it. Also Skarbrand is just plain unfair if you use him right. Deletes everything in front of him. Imho an absolute must-have in a Khorne army.

[Fireymonkeyboy]

How do you get past the relatively low number of attacks?  

[MasterDeath]

- Take some Fleshhounds. You have no magic on your own, so take at least 2x5 of these to counter Psyker. They are also quiet ok by themselves. 

- Get used to the summoning rules. Correctly used they can be a very useful tool.

- You want Bloodcrushers

- Think about either Soulgrinders or Skull Cannons for Anti-Tank purposes

 

How do you get past the relatively low number of attacks?  

 

More Bloodletters? They are dirt cheap at 7 points and can even take out light vehicles like Dreadnoughts on their own.

[Fireymonkeyboy]

So far so good.  I have 2x3 BCrushers, and 2x Scannons.  Playing in AoS, Khorne is generally about buff-stacking, and turning solid cc units into machines.  What's the play in 40k though?  We seem to lack much in the way of buffs (beyond passive S buffs).  How / by what means do we win?

 

FMB

[TheMuumio]

Not that pure, but I'm looking to run CSM Daemon Engines such as Maulerfiends to bring in added punch. They don't have Daemon Faction, but have the keyword so benefit from auras etc.

 

Also for reasons unknown, Obliterators in CSM codex have Daemon faction, likely a misprint but worth noting.

Edited September 10, 2017 by TheMuumio

[Fireymonkeyboy]

Not that pure, but I'm looking to run CSM Daemon Engines such as Maulerfiends to bring in added punch. They don't have Daemon Faction, but have the keyword so benefit from auras etc.

 

Also for reasons unknown, Obliterators in CSM codex have Daemon faction, likely a misprint but worth noting.

 

How do you mean , "don't have demon faction"?  While it may change when the demons codex comes out, there's nothing stopping you from building a detachment with the demons keyword.  "Faction" is only relevant now to the extent that special rules are sometimes attached to detachments with specific keywords.  Or am I missing something?

 

FMB

[TheMuumio]

 

Not that pure, but I'm looking to run CSM Daemon Engines such as Maulerfiends to bring in added punch. They don't have Daemon Faction, but have the keyword so benefit from auras etc.

 

Also for reasons unknown, Obliterators in CSM codex have Daemon faction, likely a misprint but worth noting.

 

How do you mean , "don't have demon faction"? While it may change when the demons codex comes out, there's nothing stopping you from building a detachment with the demons keyword. "Faction" is only relevant now to the extent that special rules are sometimes attached to detachments with specific keywords. Or am I missing something?

 

FMB

I mainly said that because I wasn't sure would you consider units from CSM dex. And just that they don't have Daemon as faction keyword but "only" as a keyword, although it doesn't matter currently. So yeah, there's nothing stopping you from including those. Edited September 10, 2017 by TheMuumio

[Fireymonkeyboy]

Thanks - and it looks like I have missed something.  Where do they spell out the difference between faction and non-faction keywords.  I find I still tend to "import" ideas from AoS without realizing it, so if they're drawing a distinction in 40k, I want to make sure I understand it.

 

FMB

[TheMuumio]

Faction keywords are used when building an army but after that they work like other keywords. You can for example build an army and/or detachment under faction keywords such as "Chaos", "heretic astartes", "daemon" or "Khorne". If building your detachment under faction keyword "daemon" you can't include maulerfiends because they only have it as "normal" keyword, but there is really nothing stopping you from just using "khorne" and/or "chaos" detachments as right now you don't get anything from fielding a "daemon" army.

 

Basically every unit must share at least one faction keyword.

 

Page 240, lower left, in the rulebook.

Edited September 10, 2017 by TheMuumio

[Fireymonkeyboy]

Yeah, somehow totally missed that.  So I can do a "Khorne Demons" list, for now, by having detachments of things that have the "Chaos" FK, but self-limit to the "Khorne" and "Demon" keywords for thematic purposes.  When the codex comes out, we're likely to see a more limited "Demon" or "Khorne Demon" list of units in faction - as with the Legion factions.  Thanks, The Muumio.

 

Got in a quick test game (against my son) this afternoon - 50PP.  Took what I had against a pile of mixed OS and Primaris small arms, a Libbie, a PCaptain, and a Predator.  A mix of poor deployment and cold dice on his part, and at least 3 Morale rolls of 1, meant I got into his line on Turn 2 mostly unscathed.  It was actually a little scary, and unit results more or less reflected what I've heard here.  Bloodcrushers and 'letters killed lots of stuff, the Demon Prince was as much fun in 40k as he is in AoS, and the Skullcannons had minimal effect on the game.  Given that I mostly play causal, I'll still likely take them, since a) I like the model, and b) completely giving up range seems limiting, but I do get how in a tournament, etc. they'd likely not pull their weight.

 

To be honest, the army felt a lot like playing orks, but even more one-dimensional.  The goal is to get across the table as fast as possible, as intact as possible, and spend as much time locking up shooting units as possible.  

 

That said. what if anything can we take as force multipliers?  Anything I don't know about that can give boosts to speed, etc.?

 

FMB

[Sonminiser]

I just recently started to collect and paint Khorne Daemons. I was very excited about playing them but have found them lack luster on the table top. I might be doing it wrong but not moving in order to summon letters or crushers seems difficult with a pure melee army. Does anyone have a list that they have found success with? Also do you think we will be getting any toys with the Daemon codex? Won't be more powers as psykers are for the weak, possibly a buff to attacks? 

[Stross]

I just recently started to collect and paint Khorne Daemons. I was very excited about playing them but have found them lack luster on the table top. I might be doing it wrong but not moving in order to summon letters or crushers seems difficult with a pure melee army. Does anyone have a list that they have found success with? Also do you think we will be getting any toys with the Daemon codex? Won't be more powers as psykers are for the weak, possibly a buff to attacks? 

For myself I plan to use them for summoning as a part of my CSM army. Pure demons now are not that good, as I can see, the worst one is Slaanesh. Even their Greater one is terrible compared to another. Tzeench's magic weak, but there are units like Changliing and Blue Scribes, but they are not win battles by themselfs. And Nurgle's are too slow. 

So we need codex, that will give us good artifacts, stratagems or anything, that allow demons to fight on their own, but even after that I will use my Khorne army as support of CSM (letters + Daemon prince (or Skulltaker) + herold (mounted or not))