by Pat Nevan

“Yeah, well I guess they had it coming.” The Schoefield Kid

“We all got it coming, kid.” William Munny

Unforgiven

Khorne glorious Khorne, first faction in my heart, last in my win percentage. Unlike my last Khorne Battletome review I made the decision to actually get some games in before reviewing the 4th Ed index, in the hopes of producing a less egregious margin of error in my predictions this time around. I took the boys to an event so it’s time to make good on my pledge and deliver the Index review that almost nobody amongst the Craichouse Patreonage cares about. Pull up a throne of skulls and get comfortable, this is going to be a long one.

TLDR:

They’re kind of Meh, but meh in the right direction.

When I say right direction I mean away from the tedium of mechanistic board control, and towards the blood-spattered performance art of classic AOS Khorne. The elusive combination of list building, attacking strategy, buff-stacking savagery and inspired last-second trick plays that made me fall in love with them in the first place. Now the the cynics amongst you may be thinking this is a bunch of fine talk for Murder Lusting into your opponent in the movement phase instead of the hero phase. and it’s a fair point, but this article is for the true believers. If you want to have a cry about your precious battle tactics being denied take some notes from Uncle Baby Billy.

‘I ain’t got time to be distracted by your worthless chime ins. Go on now.”

The plan with the index review is not to dwell on the specifics of every warscroll (you can download the index here). My intention is take an overarching look at the whole mess, get some idea of what they are trying to achieve and try to figure out what will actually perform in 4th Ed AOS.

*** TRIGGER WARNING ***

For those unfamiliar with my routine I’m an old AOS Khorne hand who was entirely disgusted with the 3rd Ed battletome and the filth chasers who hauled themselves up on the easy-mode board control bandwagon and cranked out a few tunes on the well-thumped tub. I do fling a lot of shit in the direction of meta chasers so fair warning if you are a 40 Bloodletters and a Whipthirster guy, you are going to catch a few strays. There has been a pretty dramatic fall in win percentage for Khorne so a lot of the meta chasers have moved on, and good riddance to them. If you are a bandwagoner who hasn’t sold their Khorne yet, please believe I have no real beef with you. Spikes gotta Spike.¹ I just reserve the right to tip buckets of shit on you for laughs. It’s all in good spirit, if you want to take a pop at elitist holier-than-thou douchebags go ahead. As we say at the Cracichouse, “If you don’t like it get your own fucking blog.” Or better yet, head on out there and prove me wrong by pinning and winning your way to triumph with a bunch of 20-blob Bloodletters.

I was a bit reluctant to pour a lot of work into an index review that would probably be replaced by a more thorough battletome in fairly short order, but Gee Dub’s minimalist effort with the first Skaven release seems to indicate that we aren’t getting much more for our battletomes than the index plus a bit of old-fashioned price gouging, so away we go.

There are four distinct themes in the new index:

1. Well, we had it coming

3rd Ed Khorne was a sustained and oppressive NPE that drew filth chasers from across the gaming multiverse and left the faction and its player base despised by the greater AOS community. This thoroughly-deserved contempt filtered up the chain to the head design office in only a matter of years. Because Khorne isn’t an Order faction or the secret love child² of some sinister figure within the Design team we got a fairly nasty smackdown. In what can only be viewed as a deliberate choice, all the elements of the classic Khorne board control list got the bad touch: 2 x 20 blocks of Bloodletters, debuff Thirsters and Murderlust are all shadows of their former self. Second tier netlist choices like Skarbrand or Bloodcrushers caught the nerf bat. Even units that are ok in the Index like the Whipthirster play nothing like their former miserable, debuffing selves. The old ways of Board Control for the Board Control God are dead and well, we had it coming. At a guess, a lot of the early drop-off in Khorne’s win and participation rate is down to people trying the old techniques.

2. It Kind of Rocks

There is a lot to like about the Khorne index. For fans of the whole Blood and Skulls narrative style there is more Verisimilitude in this puny index than the last two battletomes put together. Someone in the writing team appears to have a rough idea about what somebody who buys a faction full of angry people with sharp weapons might like them to actually do on the tabletop. Bloodthirsters finally hit like big angry Daemons with giant axes as opposed to overgrown schoolchildren who were just concussed by a giant axe. Juggernaughts got rend and multiple damage on their mount attacks; there are still plenty of problems with the cav units, but it finally occurred to somebody that they weren’t just funny-looking horses after only 9 years of AOS. Skullreapers are the absolute blenders of the elite infantry class that they haven’t been since 1st Edition with some Khorne-appropriate drawbacks. The rules for Mortal heroes are so much fun that I took a Mighty Lord and 8 Gorechosen to an event. Sure, they were useless but I’ll take proper Khorne useless over board control efficiency anytime. Take these abilities for the Exalted Deathbringer:

All rules credit GW, you know the drill

Fight in a combat, opponent gets destroyed, heal all your damage and get a power up for the rest of the battle. Great rules writing, pure Khorne, gives you a reason and a reward for committing heroes to combat without being game-breaking or as shamefully easy-mode as the old Megaboss “Wound a unit in combat to get tougher” rule. Come to think of it, if any designers are reading this³, make this an ability for all Bloodbound heroes when the book comes out, it rules. The index as a whole kind of rocks. There’s enough there to convince the most jaded Khorne enthusiast that the writers have pulled their heads far enough out of their asses to see if they still have their earrings.

Take a moment

3. It Kind of Sucks

The half-assedry that has been the hallmark of Khorne writing is on full display in the index, and big chunks of the book range from ordinary to outright garbage. The faction abilities available in the index are pretty limited so it hurts more than normal when some units are woeful. Could they really come up with nothing better than a point of rend for a turn for 5 points of Blood Tithe? There aren’t that many units and either the warscrolls, the abilities or the costings are off with most of them except for the rare triple threat unit.⁴ The Mortals and Daemons are less integrated than ever. The decision to remove unbinds from everyone but the Slaughterpriest has left the army weirdly lacking in anti-magic tech for an army devoted to anti-magic. The launch price point of the army seems to assume Khorne still has access to their full suite of ass-kicking allegiance abilities from the last edition. As we will see, a lot of Khorne’s problems are pretty common across the index edition, but overpriced Great Unclean Ones don’t make overpriced Bloodthirsters suck any less.

4. ‘Yeah, but they did it to everybody.’

My other major takeaway from reviewing the Khorne index is that a lot of the faction’s problems are edition-wide. Plenty of armies suffer from a lack of viable builds. All of the true Gods got weak index abilities, over-priced units and no compensation for their lack of summoning.⁵ Lots of melee armies got stuck with the curse of hitting on 4’s and spend half of their time flailing around like top quality Australian Olympic Breakdancers. Everyone without access to the lore of Whorebid Conjuration fell off the competitive pace.⁶ Half the armies in the game have units with bewildering costing. Admittedly a lot of those units are bewilderingly cheap like comparing Gryphounds to Fleshounds, or Palladors to Bloodcrushers, but I digress. The good news about Khorne having the same problems as everyone else is that they can benefit from the same fixes. There are a few units in the index that need a complete rework but for the most part, nerf the Manifestation system, tone down the power factions, tweak the points and we are set to improve. We’ll address whether the balance patch hits those notes at the end of this article.

Index Specifics

Blood Tithe

In practice it kind of sucks without summoning. Murderlust will frequently be the best option available for your one use of Blood Tithe per turn, and it’s pretty common to finish a game with a heap of unspent points. For veteran Khorne players there is a lot of mental adjustment involved in realizing you aren’t going to be able to pull your fat out of the fire with a late-game summon. There is a solid argument for taking a Bloodthirster just to give you something to spend your Tithe on, to try and save the day when things inevitably go to shit in close games. They sure aren’t worth their points without the summon.

Murderlust – Moving this one to a flat 3 inches in the movement phase has opened up a world of possibilities. There is some question about whether it stacks with the Redeploy command but I can only put this down to a global decline in reading comprehension. Your opponents might wish you can’t, but you can. I feel the new Murderlust is a lot less oppressive than the old stand 3 inches away and lock them down in the hero phase routine. At least your opponent gets to move first in their turn. This one is just so versatile, creative and fun⁷, there is no end to the tricks you can pull with it. Preventing opposition charges and pinning opponents are the standards but it’s handy for moving units into buff range, retreating and charging, generally dicking around. My personal favorite trick is to yeet a General’s Bodyguard unit into combat, so you can still fight with them while benefiting from the neg 1 attack debuff for not charging.

Brass Skull Meteor – Is the other standout in a mediocre field. You won’t use it too much if you are saving for a Thirster, but it’s a pretty reliable 4 mortals to anything you don’t like the look of for an army with no ranged output to speak of. It stacks beautifully with early hero phase mortals from a Collar of Contempt or Witchbane Curse if you just want the satisfaction of nuking a support wizard. If you are going to use this one to take the last few health off an opponent’s key unit, be sure to do it last thing in your hero phase to give them hope that they will survive to Rally, it’s much more satisfying that way.

Battle Formations

Khornate Legion – Activate Mortals within 12 inches of Daemons once per combat phase. Within 12, not wholly within which makes this much more useful. An odd choice for an index with the most segregation between Mortals and Daemons in Khorne history, but still pretty cool. Chained attacks get the damage out before it comes back in, so this one is ok. There is some talk of chaining Bloodmaster-Bloodletter-Aspiring Deathbringer-Blood Warrior which is legal, and fair play to you, but feels like breaking out a case of Turd Polish to me. I’d be thinking Bloodthirster – Skullreaper myself.

Brass Stampede – Strikes First on an 8 + charge. Strictly for Masochists. Khorne cav exist to provide the exception to the rule that cavalry are good in AOS4. Having MSU cav would maximise the frustration of rolling a shitty d3 for charge mortals, striking first and driving yourself insane with your miserable combat damage. I’m pretty sure this one is here because the name Brass Stampede is a classic Khorne cool name but hey, prove me wrong.

Murder Host – Another classic cool name of Khorne. 5+ ward for Daemons that have fought. Bloodthirsters already have a 5+ ward so this one is for people unwilling to let go of that Bloodletter tarpit dream. What else are you going to take if you’re running Daemons?

Bloodbound Warhorde – Now we’re talking. +1 to hit against enemies contesting objectives you do not control. Two points to note:

• Your opponent doesn’t have to control the objective; and
• They don’t have to be wholly on the objective.

If you are running Bloodbound you will be cursed to hit on 4’s. Between this and a strategically-placed Realmgore Ritualist you will do most of you fighting at plus 1 or 2 to hit, cancelling out the inevitable debuffs and saving you a bunch of command points. Almost the only choice if you are running Skullreapers in my opinion.

And you should be running Skullreapers

Heroic Traits and Artefacts of Power

Most of these are clearly intended either for Bloodthirsters, or for anything else. You can put a 6+ Blood Tithe pile in on a Slaughterpriest if you want it to die quicker, or make a Bloodthirster a priest which will be really pad out its Obituary when it dies in turn 2, but it’s common sense with this stuff.

Trait – Firebrand – Not Thirster. Makes a hero a Priest, or gives a Priest a plus one to Banishment rolls. Why not make a Priest a level 2 Priest? Well those are reserved for the Factions that rely on Divine Power like everyone else with a prayer lore, except the DOK. This was my initial go-to and is still a strong default choice, but Prayers are a bit problematic in actual gameplay.

Trait – Relentless Hunter – Thirster. Turns a 3 inch Murderlust into a 6 inch Murderlust. Personally I use my Thirsters for turn one suicide plunges so I can’t guarantee having the Blood Tithe to even use Murderlust, so it’s a no from me. This one is great if you are running multiple Thirsters or using a more conservative strategy.

Trait – Favoured of Khorne – Anyone. I’m preferring this over the Priest lately as it gives you that all-important first turn Blood Tithe to prevent that enemy charge, or to shift that Bloodthirster 21 inches into your opponent’s front lines. Critical if you have a build that doesn’t include a Slaughterpriest for Blood Sacrifice.

Artefact – Argath King of Blades – Thirster – No hero ward saves. Really good on the big boys provided your opponent has a decent hero with a ward. Good luck predicting the tournament meta. The old version of this would have been sweet but it was a crucial part of the Letter/Whipthirster control build and well, we had it coming.

Artefact – Collar of Contempt – Not Thirster – An unbind that does d3 damage. For an army that really lacks unbinds this is good on a hero and great on a Slaughterpriest, as it works on both his unbinds.⁸ Combo’s well with Witchbane Curse or a Brass Skull Meteor for deleting wizards.

Artefact – Halo of Blood – Thirster – Low volume, high damage attacks ensure they are always on the verge of whiffing like Circus Clowns with a bucket of Whitewash. The Halo of Blood ignores all negative modifiers to Hit, Wound and Control Score ensuring that with a command point spent on All Out Attack, your Thirster takes care of business on 2’s and 2’s. Of course they’ll still whiff, or your opponent will make a freakish run of saves, but it gives the Big Boy his best chance of doing something. In the current meta with Gloomspite, LRL and Nighthaunt around I prefer this over Argath.

Prayer Lore and Manifestations

They kinda suck. I mean they’re not bad but a quick study of everyone else’s Priests, Prayer Lores and Manifestations makes it clear Khorne got the short end of the stick. Nearly everyone else gets a Level 2 Priest. Everyone else gets Prayer bonuses. Cities and Stormcast get the best Prayer Lores. Fyreslayer Manifestation Lores are infinitely superior to the situational stuff Khorne gets. The DoK have some pretty ordinary stuff, except their Priests hand out 5+ wards like candy. It’s not uncommon for a Khorne player to be left without a Prayer worth chanting.

As for Prayers themselves, they are proving to be very unreliable, particularly without a chanting buff. Witchbane Curse and Bloodboil aren’t too bad if you have anything to target, but the 10+ effect on Unholy Flames takes an average 3 turns of Prayer for one turn of buff, with way too many points of failure. Just not reliable enough for long term planning.

Prayer – Unholy Flames – Point of rend on a 5+, +1 to wound on a 10+. Garrison the Shrine for a 50% chance of getting the rend turn 1. Otherwise, whoever chants this needs to be mobile, as blocks of Skullreapers don’t do their best work standing around waiting to be buffed. The double effect is nice when it happens, but is probably a trap.

Prayer – Witchbane Curse – Wizard loses a power level on a 4+, 3 mortals on an 8+. Very Khorney with an easy to achieve double effect. This is surprisingly good for messing with your enemy’s plans and is hilarious when they take a level 0 wizard into a double. Remember a Wizard gets unbinds equal to their power level. If your opponent has one Wizard and you want to cast with Brands Oathbound, zap them with this first and laugh when they can’t stop your spellcasting.

Prayer – Blood Boil – Horde clearer, 5+ mortals per model on a 4+, 8+ neg 1 to wound as well. Another cheap Prayer and the only debuff in the army. Good if your opponent has hordes, great if you get the double effect on hordes of Nighthaunt. They just hate a neg 1 to wound debuff. The neg 1 to wound is on everything, so don’t hesitate to save up and slap it on shooting units.

Manifestation – Bleeding Icon – Enemy units within 8 inches that use a command point are denied it on a 2D6 roll of 8+. This one is interesting but hampered by a short 12 inch range. With the 18 inch range of say Shackles or every other stationary Manifestation in the general Lores, you could use it to mess with people’s covering fire, but it’s Khorne and it kinda sucks. Don’t pop it in front of your lines, because a good opponent will springboard their activations of it. Best to drop it in the middle of a crowded melee.

Manifestations – Wrath Axe – Classic dumb predatory Manifestation. Not too bad in combat, could do mortals to up to 3 units if you retreated with it I guess. Good one to summon out of the shrine.

Manifestations – Hexgorger Skulls – Each Skull within 8 inches means neg 1 to cast for Wizards. You summon them nine inches away. If you charge them into combat they will probably die, so you need a double to move them up to affect enemy casting in your opponent’s next turn. The can do damage in combat, but they’re unlikely to ever affect enemy casting and they don’t blow up anymore. One of the bigger 4th Ed disappointments, if you put this on the table I personally guarantee your opponent will roll nothing but natural 8’s for his spells just to remind you of how good they used to be.

“Wow, four 8’s in a row huh”

The Rest of It

The original plan was to review all of the warscrolls but it hit a couple of snags. Not only have I apparently become the busiest lazy man alive with work⁹, but I’m still playing and writing lists with the book and revising the article as I go. This Index review is already three weeks late and too long to read on the average trip to the toilet. Warscroll reviews tend to be repetitious anyway: Too Expensive, Too Whiffy, Too Khorgorath so I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out if Bloodcrushers are any good or not, and bring this bitch home with a few general points about Khorne in 4th ed.

Daemons Kinda Suck, Mortals Kinda Rock

This verdict will come as no surprise to both of the people that follow my writing. I’m a Mortal guy and always will be, but Daemons definitely got the classic Khorne treatment this time around. The separation between Daemons and Mortals is stronger than ever in this book to the point where only Prayers and the Khornate Legion formation ability affect both types of troops. Bloodthirsters can’t even take Mortals in their regiments unlike every other Greater Daemon, which just seems malicious. Of the three major Daemon troop units, one of them is an absurdity and the other two are fairly marginal.

The Daemon and Mortal strands have different design philosophies. Mortal armies get easily available quality buffs built into their warscrolls. The classic plus 1 attack from a Wrathmonger doesn’t affect Daemons anymore but has gone up to a whopping wholly within 12″ range.¹⁰ Good for elites like Skullreapers, great for high body count units like Blood Warriors. You also get a +1 to hit from the Bloodbound Warhorde formation and the well-placed Realmgore Ritualist bubble that you should be running. Ideally you can do you most important combats at +2 to hit, cancelling out the debuff meta and saving command points. Throw in the obligatory Bloodstoker for run and charge, possibly a Bloodsecrator for that Mighty Kamehameha turn and the occasional Unholy Flames. You are not only kicking ass, you are having fun applying power ups and rolling fistfuls of dice.

See Pete, I’m reaching out to these Gen Y dweebs

By contrast Daemons get next to nothing. A Bloodmaster that takes a point off wards, a Bloodthirster that gives +1 attack to other Bloodthirsters. You won’t even get one decent charge turn out of your Letters before you are stuck trying to bore people to death. I’ve got more to say about Bloodthirsters but for now they aren’t anything to build a competitive army around. You can slap Unholy Flames on your units but it won’t go on Fleshhounds and it won’t do a great deal for the 2 attacks from your Letters. Bloodcrushers exist only to provide the exception that proves the rule that Cavalry are good in 4th ed.

Outside of Thirsters there just doesn’t seem to be much point to Daemons, let alone a viable army. The Bloodletter model returning ability doesn’t scale up for reinforced units. Flesh Hound screens? Unless you are rocking loaded dice, a Skull Cannon averages one and a bit forced saves at +1 rend per shooting phase. The other Chaos Gods get their unit repop on reasonably chunky Greater Daemons, ours comes on a 10-wound Blood Throne waving a banner saying “Kill Me First.” It all feels very deliberate and well, we had it coming. I’m sure someone out there will prove me wrong and take an all-Daemon army to glorious victory at CousinCon 2025 or whatever, and good luck to them, but I’m not seeing how.

The Skullreaper Dilemma

Nothing is better at killing than Skullreapers. Skullreapers are good for nothing but killing.

When the time comes to figure out where the damage is going to come from, the best answer is always and inevitably Reapers. Ragethirsters whiff, Reapers don’t.¹¹ Bloodletters grind their foes down through attrition, Reapers pink mist them. There is a trick for taking a Mighty Lord to make an Aspiring Deathbringer fight first and bring in 20 Blood Warriors at + 1 to wound. Give them +1 to hit, attack and rend and they do as much damage as 10 Skullreapers. Or you could put the same buffs on 10 Reapers, save yourself 290 points of support hero and spend it on, oh I dunno, more Skullreapers.

Thanks to Stats Hammer as always

I could run a few other DPS comparisons but this one is about as close as it gets without bringing in Bloodsecrator banners for one-turn burns. Here’s what happens when we turn the buff tap off (and that will happen sometimes):

Blood Warriors are surprisingly ok but 10 Reapers are still vanishing 20 wounds of 3+ save enemy. Easily the best unbuffed unit in the Index and easily one of the hardest hitting infantry units in the game. You just can’t beat 2-damage Crit Mortals.

So what’s the problem? Ogor Gluttons occupy the same spot as the killingest unit in their book and the only issue with spamming them is facing the searing contempt of Gutbuster OG’s. Well, Reapers are slower and less resilient than Gluttons¹² and hopeless at board control thanks to this absolute peach of a rule:

Trial of Skulls is the single best Khorne rule written since the invention of Blood Tithe. All decent Khorne rules reward you for killing. Which is as it should be. But this takes it one step further and punishes you for not doing enough murder. In an edition that has become more standardized than ever, Trial of Skulls serves as a legitimate drawback/buff to separate Reapers from the herd. A unit of 10 Reapers that kill an enemy has a control score of 19, enough to take an objective off anything but a Mega-Gargant. The same 10 Reapers who fail in combat can’t outmuscle an asthmatic Grot fumbling for his inhaler. Talk about swingy and great fun for everybody. You won’t forget the time your one surviving Skullreaper took an objective off a Stardrake because he killed a Gryph Hound. Your opponent won’t forget the time Frank the Zombie fluked his last ward save and held off a screaming horde of Berserkers.

Even Frank thought that last 6 was some lucky bullshit

So the list builder’s dilemma is how much Reaper killing power do you give up to actually have a shot at playing the game properly. If you want something, fast, tough or capable of holding objectives you give up killing power. Wrathmongers are an obvious choice as they buff everything and make the best screens in AOS but beyond that list building gets very interesting.

Astute readers will note that a choice between killing and playing the game is pretty common for a lot of armies. Well, it’s new for us. In 3rd Ed, Khorne was firmly outside the top 10 of melee damage armies with the killing power of spray-on deodorant residue. You either went with the board control option or struggled to go better than 3-2. In 4th Ed we have one of the deadliest units¹³ in the game and a lot of hard choices to make about how to use them.

Thirsters Kinda Suck and Kinda Rock

As mentioned Bloodthirsters are in an odd spot. They finally got the damage and resilience upgrade they desperately needed, but they are horribly overcosted for their inherent whiffiness. Take the mighty Ragethirster. You can charge the big boy into a unit of 12 Gluttons, hit his Rampage, roll three 6’s when you land all three of his five attacks. The Gluttons get no save so you will do about 36 points of damage with enough splash damage to hopefully wipe out a couple of support heroes. Great return for a 470pt Monster.

The Bloodthirster version of Nothin’ But a Good Time by 80’s hair rockers Poison

In a way more common scenario, you put the same Ragethirster into a unit of 6 Karenguard. Whiff the rampage, hit one 6 on your five attacks, roll the usual number of ones and get 3 attacks through. Your opponent All Out Defences and rolls pretty well, so you get one hit through, but he spikes a couple of wards and you end up doing 4 points of damage. The remaining 6 Karens do the brushing dust of the shoulder gesture and proceed to tear your Ragethirster to shreds, leaving you with a Blood Tithe that cost 470 points.

The Thirster equivalent of the rest of Poison’s music catalogue ¹⁴

Something that costs 400 plus points and performs every once in a while has no place in a competitive list, so why take a Thirster? Cause they kinda rock when you spend the 8 Blood Tithe to return them fat, happy and ready to whiff all over again in the late game. Khorne is the only army that can return a full-strength monster in the enemy turn so take advantage of it. If you are going 2nd in the Battleround, enjoy the look on your opponent’s face when you bring the big boy on and park him out of harm’s way to move up in your turn. They tend to perform better late game as well. If you do want to summon a Thirster, you have to remember the golden rule:

YOU MUST HAVE 8 POINTS OF BLOOD TITHE

Getting to 8 Blood Tithe quickly is the difference between bringing your Thirster back in time to save the game, and bringing it back when you are tabled. I’d say you need an army with at least 8 units to guarantee bringing one back if things go really bad. As you rack up the Blood Tithe, keep the Murderlusting to a necessary minimum, it’s surprising how quickly it chips away at your tally. Don’t start thinking “You know what, I’ve got seven Blood Tithe and my Thirster is still on half health, I can get away with a Brass Skull Meteor.” That thought process ends with you being tabled with 7 Blood Tithe in the bank. Rack them up early and give yourself the option of bringing him back ASAP.

Conversely if you don’t run a Thirster, you can really spend Blood Tithe however you like. The 8 Blood Tithe army-wide plus 1 attack is more of an end zone celebration dance than a workable strategy. Chances are you will end the game with points to spare.

The Costings are Fucked

I know, they’re doing it to everybody. Still, the Index faction seemed to be costed of the strength of their old allegiance abilities. Somebody in the costing department seems to be think that Khorne can still slap a blob of 20 Bloodletters on the table whenever we get the urge. Probably the same somebody who didn’t notice that all Stormcast units got a 3+ save this edition. Khorne units tend to be be more expensive than their counterparts for no apparent reason.

Admittedly, after the last book, appealing for sympathy for Khorne is a bit like a Boomer going on TikTok to complain about the paperwork requirements for their 12 investment properties. Nevertheless the points are still kind of fucked. Can anyone tell me why Blood Reavers cost the same as Steelhelms or the new Darkoath guys? Or why the Fleshound is 30 points more expensive than the Gryphhound? It’s not for the unbind they lost, maybe its the sweet anti-wizard rend. As for Whiff Thirsters? They aren’t Wizards or Priests, they don’t buff anything, their output is nothing special, they don’t bring units back. Why do they cost so much? Leaving aside the mystery of hero prices, the only two properly-pointed units are Wrathmongers and Skullreapers. Everything else is “What! How the fuck are Claws of Karanak worth 15 points a wound?”

Still I rate the costings as good news, as things can only get better as downward points adjustments open up list building options.¹⁵ Nothing will save a warscroll as miserable as the Bloodcrusher, but Skullcrushers are two rounds of points drops away from being a decent option. Drop Reavers below the same cost per wound as Wrathmongers and I’ll run ’em to get some horde on the table. Are Bloodletters really worth 30 points more than Gutrippaz? They don’t last longer, hit harder or have better allegiance abilities. Sooner or later the points have to come down and my gut feeling is that if the faction keeps struggling in win rate and participation, we will see some workable drops by the 3rd Battlescroll. In the meantime, well, we had it coming.

Conclusion

So there it is. Sorry for leaving out the warscrolls but I feel I know my reader well enough to trust their judgement on the Khorgorath, and thinking about Skarr Bloodwrath just makes me sad. I know they’re doing it to everybody but did they have to get rid of his 3″ horde attack and his unlimited rez at the same time? My initial judgement of the power level of the index was meh and I’ll stand by it. The modern Khorne faction, shorn of its Allies, is effectively eight units of troops¹⁶ and if five of them are over priced and/or crap, you will need strong allegiance abilities to make up the difference. We had those abilities, lost ’em but are still paying the price, so things kinda suck.

Having said that if you are a real enthusiast for the faction things are heading in the right direction. I haven’t been this excited to play Khorne since 1st Ed. The design team has made some good decisions about the sort of rules Khorne players actually want to see. A good long spell near the bottom of the rankings will flush most of the filth mongering bandwagoners out of the system. There are interesting things happening in the lore. That perennial loser Khorgos Khul has had some sort of Daemonic transformation, so we can look forward to a new model when the battletome drops. Or having been removed from the Index he just vanishes forever, I’m good with either option. The future is looking brighter than ever. In the meantime if you are struggling to win games you can at least kill the hell out of things. Go out and get 10 Skullreapers, and if you’ve got 10 get another 10,¹⁷ and go out and hit some sixes.

Extensive testing reveals that singing singing snatches of Rock You Like a Hurricane while attacking with Reapers leads to rolling an above average number of mortal damage

Pretty much any classic Power Metal will do in a pinch

Postscript – The first big AOS 4 balance update

Unfortunately Editor Pete dragged the chain releasing this one and the first big AOS4 balance update came out before it was published. Given that the update came with a 100 point drop for Kragnos, it’s safe to say that a committed Destro-Sexual like Pete will be crankin’ it until nothing but bone marrow comes out, so who knows when this article will be published.

The update itself was ok, albeit an of expression of Deep Denial about how bad Manifestations are. Let’s hope putting the casting value on Suffocating Gravetide up stops 90% of competitive armies taking Morbid Conjuration. Khorne got a few rules tweaks: you can’t get in and out of the Shrine in the same turn because it was an exploit for Lumineth, and the Wrath Axe got a bit of a bump. The real good news for Khorne was a host of points drops:

This was as expected. All of the True Gods trended downwards on the grounds that they are pointed at their old allegiance abilities, and the new ones are noticeably worse. The other three all got a bump in their allegiance rules, so I won’t be surprised to see Khorne get something next patch as well. The points drops themselves fall into three catgories:

• Adjustments for overcosted units,
• The first of many adjustments for delusionally overcosted units,
• And mistaken reductions.

The Aspiring Deathbringer is probably the right price at 110. The Khorgorath has had the first of the numerous points drops on its way to the 100 or so it is worth. Wrathmongers on the other hand were already worth 150, not sure why they went down, but I’ll take it.

I still think we are about two updates away from any major impact on list building but there are a lot of drops for fun units here. Spamming Bloodbound heroes got a lot more affordable and the two Skarrs both came down a fraction. Three units that I consider very important for Bloodbound builds: Bloodstokers, Realmgore Ritualists and Wrathmongers all came down by a welcome 10 points. I may be flat out wrong with the Bloodbound thing, time will tell.

Other than that not much has changed. You still wouldn’t touch Skullcrushers at 250 but they become viable at closer to 200. Some of the unchanged units are a bit of a head scratcher. How does anyone think that 220 is the right amount for a Khorne Lord on a Juggernaut? Because it gives out plus 1 to charge? So does the Mighty Lord, and he dropped to 140 and he has a cool pet.

Still, like the Index itself, the update is another step in the right direction.

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1. Or Timmys, whichever one is the meta chasing jerkass. ↩︎
2. Give me another reason why LRL or Nighthaunt made it through playtesting, sorry “playtesting”. ↩︎
3. You might be surprised. A yearning for feedback, no matter how miserable, is a flaw of creatives. ↩︎
4. Khorgoraths and Skullreapers, from opposite ends of the spectrum. ↩︎
5. Except Tzeentch. 360pt Lords of Change, what a crock of shit. ↩︎
6. Yes I’m aware of Brands Oathsworn but whatever. ↩︎
7. For the Khorne player that is ↩︎
8. I can only assume whoever has dedicated their life to stopping Khorne from having nice things missed this one. ↩︎
9. New readers of Plastic Craic may be astonished to learn we aren’t paid full-time writers. ↩︎
10. Still six inches short of what it would take for Editor Pete to stop complaining, if this was a Destro army. ↩︎
11. Well mine don’t, they do underperform from time to time, but if yours whiff you did something wrong. ↩︎
12. Less run and charge, wound density and Ward access. Don’t @ me about armor saves, I play both armies competitively. ↩︎
13. Unfortunately not the easiest unit to use. Even with Murderlust, Reapers take more management than double pile in Karenguard, but that’s another article. ↩︎
14. Except for sentimental favorite Every Rose Has its Thorn, which deserves credit for rhyming the word Thorn with Song, and having the weakest guitar solo ever recorded. ↩︎
15. Or get worse with points rises but, you know glass half full. ↩︎
16. Plus Claws if you are counting Warcry but lets keep it at 8. ↩︎
17. I’m taking 30 to my next event. I’ll let you know how it goes. ↩︎

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