40K Hobby Progress: Khorne Daemonkin and Other Hobby Stuffs

Get'n 'er done.
Finally after at least half of a year I've made solid progress on my hobby. Oh, it only took me about one and half months to get ten bloodletters done but progress is progress and I'm happy with the results. Now I've got 20 bloodletters painted for my Khorne army so can't be more happier than that - my army gets more Khorney by the day.

Redstone Rumble list must get done by October.
Yep, updating my Khorne army to this , as explained in my last posting because last year my Redstone list was CSM with Daemon allies but now I am all about the new Khorne codex. So ten new bloodleters done. Check. Now for the rest, heh.

To finish my update this is what is needing to be accomplished:

• Paint Heldrake (Goatboy)
• Assemble & paint six Khorne bikers.
• Buy, assemble & paint 17 flesh hounds.
• Paint wingless Khorne Daemon Prince.
• Optional: assemble (me) & paint three Bloodcrushers (Goatboy)
• Optional: paint Bloodthirster (Goatboy)

As you can see I've got my work still cut out for me and with options in case I want to have those models available for blood tithe summoning.

Wingless Daemon Prince
If I have the blood tithe available early enough in a game I sometimes like to bring in a wingless Prince so to assault the next turn. Of course he will get shot at a lot but that just means more of my other dangerous Khorney stuff doesn't get shot at so win - win.

Anyway, I like to tinker with models since I have tons of chaos bits laying around and so built the prince as you see in the pictures. He was a winged model that was siting around with some ugly neon powder blue half-ass paint job on him. Bought him from ebay last year for a Flying Circus army but that fell through when 7th edition hit. So I threw him into some Simple Green for two weeks, scrubbed off the lose paint and disassembled it.

I added the helm and dangerous looking tentacles to make him look more interesting, he is in beast mode! I think I am going to leave off the giant shoulder pads, thinking this model stands alone without the added distractions of over-sized shoulder boulders. And if anyone seriously claims that the prince is not WYSIWYG without the shoulder pads then I will poop on their heads because they are sh**heads and don't deserve another second of my valuable wargaming fun time.

Oops, I just saw that I forgot to put green stuff in whats left of the wing slots, will get that done before the model is primed. And normally I would send off large models for Goatboy to paint but I'm going to give this Prince a try for myself, it seems like it will be a fun challenge instead of the normal dread I feel when presented with a large model to paint (and paint it well).

The Game Room

Cue the failure music, WAH-WAH-Waaaaaaaaaaaa. Nah, it isn't that bad, just delayed for awhile. You see there is this thing called life and it decided to whammy me with many home repair bills all in a row. That and I've got to get my Redstone list done soon and then there is these other games I want to start investing in. Heh, the life of a gamer.

Actually the making of the game table won't cost me much - it is buying all the terrain for said table that will cost bunches. The whole idea of my game room is to make video battle reports on a biweekly schedule so it has to look good or nobody will want to watch because there is lots of batrep competition out there!

Other Wargaming Hobby Progress, Age of Sigmar

What? There are other games out there besides 40K? *shock*. Well, yeah, there is! Folks, we are living in a golden age of wargaming and there is so much to choose from which means the best eventually rises to the top over time and gets bigger from all the wargaming interest out there in the community right now.

So I split a box of Age of Sigmar with a club mate, of course I got the Chaos half! Those models are OMG beautiful, which is the main reason I bought them. The other reason being is that I wanted to try out this new GW game, it had impressed me with the beautiful models, simple rules and free living document rule set. So far it is a hit with my club, we got over half a dozen people diving into the new boxed set. This is all evidence for my theory that AoS was partially targeting 40K players from the get go - the models are gorgeous and they can all pretty much all be easily meshed into existing 40K armies because they are that accommodating to the look and feel of 40K.

We had a discussion about AoS on my club's last podcast, go give it a listen if you are interested, it is good listening material while you work on your hobby progress. SMG Podcast Episode 24

Even more new games. BOLT ACTION!

Yeah, stoked about this game. I am a long time WWII buff, from as far back when I was a kid watching WWII movies on the TV. The entire war and the historical period surrounding it just fascinates me to this day and I never get tired learning about it. So naturally I have progressed to wanting to play a WWII historical wargame and I have chosen Bolt Action by Warlord Games.. The only other real option would have been Flames of War but that is 15mm based which I don't care for, I like the 28mm heroic models to push around, it feels more real and exciting, and the models are beautiful when painted up well.

For those of you whom do not know, Bolt Action has been around for about three years now and it is gaining popularity. Warlord Games is doing right by this game and they already have a vast and colorful model range and not just for infantry and vehicles but also for terrain. And wow, the terrain! Most of it is from a company called 4Ground and I highly recommend them, such gorgeous terrain and it is affordable and some of it even pre-painted! Sorry, GW, your terrain is good but I'm going with 4Ground, it is even better.

Two more big reasons for wanting to start BA comes from the fact that Warlord Games wants to interact with their gaming community, they listen and give back. Huge props to them for doing this, it is the modern way a gaming company should treat it's customer base. The other reason is that the rules are what I call '40K light'. BA rules really are a compressed and simplified 40K ruleset, probably because one of the game designers was a former GW employee. It flows quickly and intuitively but it doesn't feel like you are giving too much realism away for a smooth flowing rule set. 40K players will recognize and pick up on BA game mechanics super quick.

I highly recommend this game and I have high hopes for it within my club. Can't wait! I will be writing more about Bolt Action in the future.

And you guys?

What are you guys working on? 40K still keeping you occupied or are you branching out to other games also?

All your game are belong to us.

40K Armies: Second Go at a Khorne Daemonkin Tournament Army

Hmm. Seems I have been away from the blog for about a month. Funny, as soon as I declared I was a casual player (mostly) my enjoyment of the game went up but my need to blog about it went down. Hrm, could it be that blogging about casual 40K isn't as entertaining for me? I don't think that is the case but we shall see as time goes by.

Well to kick me out of my blogging rut I am going to post up my new tournament army. Yeah, I know. I'm all casual playing now, but still, a lot of good friends in my club are competitive players and I want to travel to some events and have fun with them - which brings me to the Redstone Rumble 2015 in October. For the past two years that tournament was a blast and full of 40K and friendly fun. OK, so admittedly I am a rather laid-back person and having fun for me is probably a lot lower on the expectation dial than most. Still, fun is fun no matter what your personal tastes are.

A couple of months ago I posted up my Daemonkin tournament list. I have played it (or variations of it) now and then and have gotten a better feel for my army and the codex, but also, a lot has changed in the 40K meta of late. When the codex first came out I think it was a good codex, not great, but it could potentially play a spoiler on top tables at tournaments but probably not win any either. And now fast forward a few months and WHAM! GW is throwing powered up codices at us left and right. Make no mistake, the powered up codex trend is a real thing: Eldar, Skitari, Space Marines, Dark Angels, they are all powered up and making a mockery of the balanced codices that came before. So yeah, Khorne Daemonkin is today what I'd call an OK codex. It isn't going to wow anyone and in a serious tournament atmosphere it won't make it past the middle tables.

So all that being said (I'm not knocking Daemonkin at all, I still love the codex), I'm just being a realist. Anyway, I have been wracking my brain for the past few weeks while trying to put together a list that can compete at the best level that it can so I can have some fun at a competitive event. The list combines some of the best units of the codex and is a fairly balanced take-all-comers list, at least as close as I can get to a balanced list with a pure Khorne Daemonkin army. Heh.

I have spouted flowery girly words for long enough, here is the list already.

KHORNE DAWGAPALOOZA 1850 points

The Apostles of Murder Warband

COMBINED ARMS DETACHMENT: Khorne Daemonkin

HQ

Chaos Lord ( The Reaver Immortal)

- juggernaut, sigil of corruption, power fist, lightning claw, mb, blood-forged armor (relic)

Chaos Lord 

- juggernaut, sigil of corruption, power fist, blade of endless bloodshed (relic)

TROOPS

Bloodletters x8 - blood reaper

Bloodletters x8 - blood reaper

FAST ATTACK

Heldrake - baleflamer

HEAVY SUPPORT

Maulerfiend

Maulerfiend - tendrils

GOREPACK FORMATION

Chaos Marine Bikers x3 - melta-gun x2, melta bomb

Chaos Marine Bikers x3 - melta-gun x2, melta bomb

Flesh Hounds x15

Flesh Hounds x15

Flesh Hounds x7

=1849

Breaking it all down.

So I wanted a kick butt Khorne list but at the same time put some balance in to it and make it versatile because you never know what kind of lists you will be playing against in tournaments, especially in these crazy days of 40K.

Kick Butt Twins

The kick butt comes in the form of the two Chaos Lords. They are both pricey, because of the relics I gave them, but that Blood-forged Armor's Eternal Warrior is something I have been waiting for a long, long time and so worth it. I love Juggerlords and have been playing them for years, the biggest weakness they had with my play style is that they couldn't handle strength 10, I've witnessed too many of my juggerlords get punked by Instant Death - well no more! Now my warlord doesn't have to dodge those tough fights like a damn coward and can now just charge right in and do some major work on some chumps where needed and when needed.

The other juggerlord is carrying the Blade of Endless Bloodshed to get me some more Tithe points - delicious, delicious Blood Tithe! Do note how the Blade can generate a Blood Tithe even in your opponent's assault phase! This lord's job is to get stuck into combat ASAP and start killin' for the Blood God. I originally wanted to give this juggerlord the Axe of Ruin but eh, it is way pricey and in the games I ran the Axe it never came into play - the lord never died so no instant Bloodthirster. I think I would rather play on the side of caution and make sure my points give me something back because getting free Blood Tithe is certainly worth it.

Versatile Troops

I've written an article about Daemonkin Bloodletters and as explained there, I like them. These guys can deep strike where I need them for objective grabs, supporting units or setting up future attacks. Yeah, they are fragile to shooting but I can always summon more, right?

HellTurkey

This guy can be so damn helpful supporting my attack, grabbing late objectives and flaming units that I can't get to with my red tide. Vector striking is a boon, even against flyers, which is a weakness of this list, I really have no other way to fight flyers unless I summon in a Bloodthirster. With so many uses, the HellTurkey is a must include for balanced lists.

The Buster Twins

And yes, I really like Maulerfiends, I auto-include them in all my lists. These guys are really helpful against high armor vehicles, T 5, 2+ armor and Knights. The one-two punch of tendrils and magma-cutters can chop down Knights in one turn - if they survive the Knight's initial melee attacks which they should because of the helpful tendrils. I love 'feinds because they have so many uses and they scare the poop out of your opponents, making them, if nothing else, fire magnets so the rest of your army has a better chance to make it into assault.

Gorepackaplooza

If you play Khorne then you know how much we players like this formation, so useful.

While not the most economic, the required two biker units do bring much needed melta into the list, helping to balance out the list and deal with those pesky knights, armor 2+ and vehicles. Not only that but bikes are premiere objective grabbers - very important in games that use maelstrom objectives and a lot of the tournaments do, all the ones my club runs and plays at certainly do. 

And then there is the Flesh Hounds and we all know how good they can be. I'm running 37 in three packs. The little pack of 7 is a utility unit to run interference, grab objectives or eat overwatch. The other two packs of 15 are the independent character protectors, and arguably one of the best units in the game at doing so. They have one mission - to ram the juggerlords down the enemy's throat. The fact that they have Hammer of Wrath and Preferred Enemy Psykers from the formation is just the icing on the cake.

I have had success with Outflanking my Khorne dawgs and it is always a useful option to have, I like using Outflank when facing a horde wall or a potential crippling alpha strike.

Anybody have anything to contribute to the tweaking of the list? Anybody have experiences with lists like this? I'm eager to hear and to learn.