“I’m gonna put a curse on you and all your kids will be borne completely naked.”

Jimi Hendrix

by Patrick Nevan

TLDR: Avoid anything that hits or wounds on 4’s unless it throws a lot of dice or does other stuff.

I put up a Khorne list the other day and some well intentioned soul was kind enough to suggest that I had forgotten to switch the Reaver Blades on my Blood Reavers to Meatripper Axes. I cordially thanked them for their keen attention to detail but pointed out that with the new accursed Battletome¹ all my Reavers were rocking two hand weapons. They argued that hitting on 3’s vs hitting on 4’s with neg 1 rend were pretty much the same in the grand scheme of things and what did it matter for a chaff screen anyway. I defended my position with some vigor stating, “Every point of damage matters and only a gaping asshole would take hitting on 4’s over 3’s, I told you hitting on 4’s is a curse clean the shit out of your ears and listen you abject moron!”

From there things got a bit out of hand and, long story short I’m not going to my Mum’s 70th but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about hitting on 4’s. Now a lot of people out there are might be thinking I know hitting on 3’s is better than 4’s you Deadshit why am I wasting my time reading this. Well, first of all you’re probably reading this instead of watching people play Fortnite in a hot tub so your time isn’t that important.² Second I’m not saying 3’s are better than 4’s I am saying 4’s are cursed and I can prove it.

For the rest of the article I will examine three units, the Bloodreaver, the Chaos Knight and the Zombie Dragon and attempt to demonstrate the folly of hitting on 4’s. I realize most of you with the sense to read this blog know this anyway but bookmark the article. Next time some genius bends your ear with talk of a Yheti spam Ogor army send them the link and at least try to save them some misery.³

Bloodreavers

Ah the Bloodreaver, one of the founding units of AOS, their noble souls and great hearts have been the backbone of Khorne for years, fulfilling the dual roles of chaff screen and mobile Bloodtithe points. Today they can teach us an important lesson about hitting on 4’s.

Last edition the starterbox welfare Bloodreavers had Reaver Blades while the expensive single box Reavers came with Meatrippers. I’ll leave it to you to guess which one was the better loadout. This time around things are not so cut and dried. Let’s have a look at 10 unbuffed Bloodreavers.

Using the awesome Statshammer for this article as always

On the face of it my mother was right there really doesn’t seem to be much difference. The options are equal at the 4+ mark, I would take Reaver Blades but I wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep over it. However when we apply a neg 1 to hit to the same units:

Ouch, there’s a noticeable drop off in performance for both profiles. They both lose 1.75 in overall output which is how math works but the rend advantage disappears pretty quickly. Once you apply a hit debuff it’s Reaver Blades all the way.⁴ What are your chances of getting a hit debuff?

In a five rounder you will get debuffed when it matters

For real, debuffs have become one of the inexorable features of power creep this edition. They sprout like mushrooms. Off the top of my head for the neg 1: Khorne Whipthirsters, All Tzeentch Demons, Slaanesh allegiance ability, Gobbapallooza spell, Firebelly spell, One-eyed Grunnock, Shining Company, Dryads, Stinking KO in their boats, Neferata, Krondys, Goofy ass Kruleboy shields, Thundertusks, plus who the hell knows what else with command traits, artefacts and spells. It’s going to be a factor.

You may be wondering what relevance this discourse on Bloodreavers has for you but taking the lower number to hit over just about anything else is a pretty standard principle now. Skullcrushers, Mournfang, Tzangors, any of those units with 2 inch reach on the spears. The only real exception I happened upon is Graveguard, who trade their 3 to hit for an extra point of damage on 4’s.

But what if you have no choice about hitting on 4’s? That brings us rather neatly to Chaos Knights.

Chaos Knights

Ah the Ironchad killers of the new STD line. Fast, tough and deadly with a subfaction 4 up rally to bring units back from oblivion 5 up rally option to return up to three knights and a dazzling array of customizable buffs for any occasion.

Sure they hit on 4’s but the theory goes that you can always buff them up with a plus one to hit to get them doing very respectable damage. Let’s have a look at the basic output of 5 chaos knights on the charge at plus 1 to hit, normal and neg 1.⁵

Mathematologically speaking the output is halved. In game terms if you send that unit in against itself, you go from killing three knights to killing one knight. You might be thinking if I can get my plus one to hit from AOA or a spell or whatever I’m at least going to be killin 2 knights aren’t I? Well, there’s the rub.

In a 5 Rounder your buffs will fail when it matters

They just will. Everything has a counter without accounting for plain old bad luck. Got a spell to add plus one to hit and wound, your opponent’s got an unbind. Got plus 5 to cast, your opponent has an auto-unbind. Your opponent has no unbinds, you roll a miscast. Got a reroll to casting, your wizard died last turn.

All Out Attack. even aside from good old fashioned Roaring and Nurgle fly lords fucking with command abilities is a feature of the new power creep. Every man and his KO sub-faction dog is denying them on a 5 plus or canceling them all together. It’s not quite as bad as using Inspiring Presence but you can’t rely on it.

Between hit debuffs and your own buffs failing, sooner or later you’re going to be fighting in miserable circumstances and the true horror of hitting on 4’s hits home. As we shall see with our next example.

Zombie Dragon

The Zombie Dragon, Terror of the Skies, is a classic big scary monster. Fast, good shooting and over 20 points of max output with no random damage rolls. Turns out they are about as good at dealing damage as I am at painting them.⁶ Why? Because their two melee profiles hit on 4’s. Let’s have a look at their unbuffed output at +1 to hit, normal and – 1 to hit.

Yikes, a Bloodthirster out works this thing. Even a plus one to hit bump is getting you less than half your max output. Throw in a -1 to hit and your opponent is doing the Brush dust of his shoulder gesture when you whiff at killing a Stormcast support hero. Once again we see a basic halving in damage across the spectrum. Now for the sake of argument let’s bump this loser’s base melee attacks to hitting on 3’s.

A bit better, the columns have shifted and you might get lucky killing that Knight Incantor after all. What’s interesting here is that the gap between its best results and worst results is narrower. 80%ish to 100% even. My esteemed colleague Theo could explain the math, but it’s fairly consistent.

The Curse of 4’s

So there we have it. If it hits on 4’s it’s cursed. Cursed with an straight up 50% reduction in overall output. We are playing Age of debuffs so that 50% will be reduced again by hit debuffs.⁷ The buffs you use to counter your crappy 50% output will fail on you. Rely on a unit hitting on 4’s for your output and at some point you will end up as the source of some jerk’s hilarious story about the time his Shardspeaker of Slaanesh tanked a Zombie Dragon for four turns.

Still not convinced, let’s compare the output of the Monstrous Gatebreaker Gargant with its Fortcrusha Flail landing on 4’s to the anemic Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster with it’s 8 1d3 damage attacks landing on 2’s and 2’s. Both with normal output and a hit debuff.

If that doesn’t convince you I don’t know what will.⁸

But wait a minute Zombie Dragons are crushing it

Yes they are⁹ which brings me to my final point. Hitting on 4’s sucks but it’s not the end of the world if you have a good enough reason to take the unit anyway. Maybe it throws a lot of dice doing mortals on 6’s. Maybe it has another battlefield role. The current Nefferata Legion of Blood dual Zombie Dragon build works because it comes with two unrendable healing platforms that can hit the important stuff on 2’s anyway. Monster Truck Stonehorn lists are making a comeback because they can easily push out over 20 charge mortals in a turn. Not because some genius has figured a way to stop their Rock-Hard Horns from whiffing.

AOS is a dynamic game and there aren’t any rules that don’t have a lot of exceptions. I’m not suggesting you leave the Pink Horrors on the shelf or lose the Squig Herd. They have other functions. Zombies are a damn useful unit and they hit on 5’s.

Crap options that hit on 4’s work themselves out of the game over time anyway. Chaos Knights have dropped into support/tarpit roles in most STD lists. Gatebreakers have gone missing from SoB lists. Mournfang have switched to culling clubs and you won’t find many Bloodreavers with Meatrippers in six months.

It’s just a useful thing to remember when you’re looking at new units or building a list. Take it from a man who is currently staring at 21 Icefall Yhetees that will probably never see the table again. Hitting on 4’s is a curse.

Notes

1. Which is performing better than I predicted but I stand by my criticisms. Read my review here.

2. Unless you are one of Plastic Craics Patreons. (Craicheads?) Their time is super important and they are way smarter than most people. Better looking too.

3. On the off-chance you have mastered time travel, be a mensch and send the article to me sometime during the lead up to Cancon 2023 when I was writing my Yheti/Bloodpelt spam list.

4. And for the “Who cares about a few lousy points of damage from your chaff” crowd, you should always try and work the numbers. For Bloodreavers in particular a few points of damage can be the difference between earning Bloodtithe and being Bloodtithe.

5. I know there are an assload of other buffs that can go on them but I’m trying to demonstrate a principle, not write a thesis on Chaos Knights. The two or three people who made it this far into the article have already given up enough Hot Tub twitch viewing time.

6. I wish i’d looked at the numbers on these things before I’d pulled the trigger on starting SBGL.

7. And debuffs to wound rolls as well, one of the more popular elements in power creep this edition.

8. This means Gatebreakers are shit, it doesn’t mean Bloodthirsters are good.

9. This was written before the SBGL FAQ, pour one out for that build.

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