Recently I played in an event that encouraged players to do more than just bring a list designed only to smash. So how the KDK do Bringing the Hobby Back?
As much as I like to play in purely competitive 40k tournaments, I love playing 40k in all of its many forms. Narrative play, Apocalypse, and campaign games are all tons of fun.
This event had composition scores, and heavy sportsmanship scores, which really encouraged players to think twice about what they brought and to play nice. I thought for a long time and decided I would bring a list very different from my usual Flesh Hound Spamming Red Wave KDK army, and instead bring a much more diverse list that utilized a little bit of everything.
I knew that for sure I wanted to use the Bloodhost Detachment, and I came up with the following list:
| Khorne Daemonkin Bloodhost Detachment | |||||
| Slaughtercult | |||||
| Herald on Juggernaut, Warlord | 100 | ||||
| 8 Bloodletters, champion | 85 | ||||
| 8 Bloodletters | 80 | ||||
| 5 Possessed | 150 | ||||
| 5 Spawn | 160 | ||||
| 5 Spawn | 160 | ||||
| Gorepack | |||||
| 5 Hounds | 80 | ||||
| 5 Hounds | 80 | ||||
| 3 Bikes, melta bombs | 81 | ||||
| 3 Bikes, melta bombs | 81 | ||||
| Brazen Onslaught | |||||
| 3 Terminators, 3 Combi-melta | 119 | ||||
| 3 Terminators, 3 Combi-melta | 119 | ||||
| 3 Juggernauts, champion | 140 | ||||
| 3 Juggernauts, champion | 140 | ||||
| Lord of Slaughter | |||||
| Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage | 275 | ||||
| 1850 | |||||
Some of you may look at this and think, “Hey, that is a hardcore assault army!” and yes, that is true. But it is diverse, and tries to cover all the bases of the codex, bringing together the often unused units of Possessed, and Bloodcrushers. I thought that such a combination would show my goal of playing for the love of KDK, as well as trying to build an effective army list. Composition scores were done at the end of each round by your opponent, and you could receive a score between 0 and 8, with 8 being the best and 0 being the worst.
This tournament used missions from The NOVA Open, but was a pure battle points tournament.
Round 1: 6 end Game Objectives vs Tyranids!
My first round opponent was a newer Tyranid player with a pretty diverse tyranid list. He had 2 units each of termagaunts, hormagaunts, and warriors. We also had a flyrant, 2 venomthropes, a hapry, a crone, a zoanthrope, some genestealers, and 2 broods of 2 carnifexes. I knew this game would get blood quickly. My opponent won the roll and decided to go first. He then moved and ran his whole army straight at me, with the exception of his shooty units of course. This turned out to be a huge mistake. Having run straight toward me, he walked right into my assault range and then got hit by all of the hounds, bikes, crushers, and spawn on the same turn. We battled it out for 5 more turns, but the game was decided on turn 2. Had my opponent forced me to go first, or protected his carnifexes a bit better this could have been a very tough game for me. As it was, I got 18 out of 19, winning primary and all secondary, but only getting 3 of 4 tertiary. The tertiary at NOVA is to kill a unit on game turns 2-5. I was unable to do so on turn 5, because all my opponent had left was flying FMCs!
MVP: The Bloodcrushers! If not for them I would have had a lot of trouble with the carnifexes.
Round 2: progressive board control vs Ravenguard!
In this game there were 5 objectives. One in the center, and 1 in the center of each quarter. You could score points 3 ways: holding the center, holding both the objectives on your table side, and holding more objectives than your opponent. Since Both of us Lacked Objective secured, I excepted this to be a real battle! My Opponent was a very good Raven guard player using the ravenguard strike force. He had something similar to the following:
Pinion Battle company
Captain with artificer armor, special jump pack, swiftclaw and murder
2 units of 5 scouts with ML and Bolters, land speeder storm
1 unit of scouts with camocloaks and sniper rifles
2 units of tactical marines with melta, combi-melta, drop pod
1 unit of 5 tactical marines with Grav cannon, combi-grav, Imperial Space Marine
5 devastators with 2 las cannons
Stormwing Formation with 1 land speeder typhoon and 2 storm talons
Shadowstrike kill team
2 units of scout bikers
2 units of 5 vanguard vets with jump packs, 1 power axe, 1 power maul and storm shield, and 3 pairs of lighting claws
My opponent was set to go first, so I deployed my D-Thirster back, in order to protect him and had all my daemons out front. He brought in his two melta pods on turn 1 dropped onto objectives and moved his assault marines up to threaten the relic, but he did not move onto it, as that would be inside my assault range. Between pods, scouts, and speeders I took a handful of casualties but not much. My turn 1 I moved forward and killed both melta squads and 1 drop pod, and I flew my D-thirster off the table to avoid the stormtalons that will automatically be coming in turn 2. My opponent’s second turn really surprised me. My opponent chose to bring in everything he had from reserves, and between assaults from shadowstrike kill team and shooting from the stormtalons and everything else I lost 5 units! At this point I knew I was in trouble and had to do something drastic. So, at the start of my turn 2 I created a bloodthirster!
I kept him flying and advanced the summoned bloodthirster, and my D-Thirster directly toward the stormtalons so they could not be shot. The rest of the game was a bloody exchange, with each of us throwing everything we had at the objectives in an attempt to score points on the primary objectives, but alas, it was contested every turn. My D-thirster ended up getting gunned down, but the summoned thirster made it into combat with the enemy warlord and was able to take him and the vanguard vets out, however, I was unable to kill a unit on turn 4 due to failing some critical charges on a combat in the center, so my opponent pulled ahead.
The game ended on turn 5 with 9 points for me, and 10 for my opponent. A turn 6 would have been bad for the Ravenguard, but luckily for them it ended! It was a very close and super bloody game. Im glad I could play it and I was super happy to see that there really are times when making a Bloodthirster is a good call.
MVP: Summoned bloodthirster. He took out the enemy warlord, and vanguard vets.
Round 3: Progressive table quarters vs Space Wolves!
In this game, points were earned each turn based on the number of table quarters you controlled, and controlling a quarter was based on the number of units you had in a quarter. My opponent had the new Space Wolves Detachment, and he was using the Ironwolves formation. He had 5 or 6 Razorbacks with bloodclaws and grey hunters, some long fangs, some land speeders, and some wolfgaurd terminators in a land raider crusader with Arjac, and a wyrdstorm brotherhood with Njal. This list had me pretty worried. He rolled veil of time on Njal, and I knew he could pull off a turn 1 assault with his terminators using the land raider.
This could be devastating, as he could rush up and lock down most of my assault units. However, I was able to go first and change the course of the battle. I advanced and moved my bikers as far as possible toward his LR and then turbo boosted to directly in front of it. This was important because it acted as a wall to lock the LR in place. He could have tank shocked through it, but there is no disembark after tankshock, so I knew I was safe for a turn. The rest of my army pushed up to threaten the rest of his army and set up turn 2 assaults. Essentially, I had too many little assault units for my opponent to stop.
He hopped out of the LR to assault the bikes, and shot and killed a few bloodcrushers, but little else. My turn 2 let me assault and kill 4 units, and also lock down his terminator and runepriest unit as well as land the bloodthirster that had flown up a flank on turn 1. From here, the hounds and spawn just went on a rampage and killed more and more of his army, and I was able to get the D-thirster into combat with the termies. When the smoke cleared on turn 6 the D-thirster was dead, but all my opponent had left in his whole army was Njal and a Wolf Lord. Khorne was very happy and I got 14 of 19 possible points.
MVP: D-Thirster. He powered through re-rollable 3++ saves on Arjac and laid his low with the Dirty D!
And so, at the end of the day I had had 2 major wins and 1 super close loss with an amazingly fun army. Having no more than 2 of any unit was really fun and made the list quite balanced. I was 4th in battle, but ended up winning the tournament overall because all of my opponents gave me a perfect comp score of 8, as well as good sportsmanship scores. It was a great day of rolling dice and I was happy to see that not only can a diverse KDK army do well, but everyone is happy to see it on the tabletop! I continue to be surprised by the lack of KDK at the tournaments I go to.
Every time I play with them I reflect on just how well put together the codex is. I can only hope that the word will spread and more people will jump into 40k’s most fun army: Khorne Daemonkin!
(Blood for the Blood God!)
About the Author: Horton Doughton
