Wanna play Chaos but hate the current codex? Try Khorne Daemonkin, and make the Imperium great again!
Recently I was able to play in a local tournament by the name of “Blood for the Blood God…Errr, I mean, Making the Imperium Great Again!” at Event Horizon Games. With a name like that, I knew it would be a good time. I brought the following list:
| Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage, Warlord | |||||
| Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage | |||||
| Troops | |||||
| 8 Bloodletters | |||||
| 8 Bloodletters | |||||
| Fast Attack | |||||
| 5 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| 6 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| Gorepack | |||||
| 5 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| 5 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| 5 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| 5 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| 3 Chaos Bikes, Meltabombs | |||||
| 3 Chaos Bikes, Meltabombs | |||||
| Gorepack | |||||
| 5 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| 5 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| 5 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| 5 Flesh Hounds | |||||
| 3 Chaos Bikes, Meltabombs | |||||
| 3 Chaos Bikes, Meltabombs | |||||
Round 1:
This round was a combination of kill points and crusade objectives. I knew a lot would depend on my matchup in this game, as my army gives up a lot of kill points, but I was excited to try it out. My first round opponent was a nice guy name Nick, who brought an Eldar/Tau list that consisted of 24 jetbikes with scatter lasers, a riptide wing, and a wraithknight! He had a tremendous amount of shooting. When we rolled off, my warlord was able to get stealth ruins as his trait, and I won the roll to go first. My opponent did not seize the initiative and I rushed forward with everything I had. Had my opponent had some way of negating cover, or if he had gone first, this would have been a different game, but 3+ cover saves on flesh hounds was just too much for his army to deal with. I lost 7 hounds on his turn 1, and assaulted 3/4th of his army on turn 2. That was essentially the game. The wraithknight and riptides had to wait until the bloodthirsters arrived to take them out, but they were done shooting by turn 3. At the end of turn 5 my opponent had 1 riptide left, surrounded by hounds, and I was on every objective. I ended up winning this one 24-0.
Most memorable moment: D-Thirster killing a wraithknight but getting stomped out in the process! All the blood points!
Round 2:
After a great round 1, I got a chance to play against a good friend of mine named Brian who was out for revenge after our last tournament clash back at the War for Tots in December. He had a very interesting Eldar list with 30 warp spyders, a wraithknight with the FW melta cannons, 2 farseers, 2 units of shuriken catapult jetbikes, and a corpsethief formation. This game was a mix of end game objectives, and maelstrom objectives. Not modified maelstrom, but straight from the book maelstrom, which no one was happy about. This was a very tactical game that I could write in depth about for several pages, and truly great tournament game. When the smoke cleared on turn 6, my opponent held 2 objectives to my 1, and I had a minor win on maelstrom. We both had linebreaker, and my opponent had both first blood and warlord. This gave me a score of 8, which is never bad for KDK, and my opponent either a 16 or 17, which was not an accurate representation of just how close this game was. We both felt like each list had the tools to deal with the other, so it really came down to tactics, which is always great. We both look forward to a rematch that does NOT use maelstrom cards.
Most memorable moment: When a guided wraithknight did 4 wounds to a flying bloodthirster to get Warlord!
Honorable mention: D-Thirster with hound support killing the Corpsethief formation!!!
Round 3:
The last round of the day was an emperor’s will mission that also used Malestrom cards. My third round opponent was a great guy name Chris, playing a Super Deathstar combining SW and DA. He had 2 units of scouts and 2 units of bloodclaws, and then everything else was in the deathstar. It had Azrael, 4 runepriests, blackknight command squad, tons of iron priests and tons of cyberwolves. His powers proved very helpful in this game as he had endurance, invisibility, hammerhand, dominate, vortex of doom, prescience and more. I knew this would be a tough battle, but I felt like I had the tools to deal with it. Essentially what happened is that he went first and assaulted a squad of hounds I had scouted up the left flank. His assault roll was a 12, which meant the whole star then moved 15 inches toward the left flank, then piled in 3 more. He had all his powers up and running, so assaulting it was not the plan. In my turn I just moved up and tried to bubble wrap it with some hounds, and on the right flank other units of hounds pushed up to take his backfield. He punched a hole in my bubble wrap with psychic shriek and some plasma talons and managed to assault 3 units of hounds, killing all of them but 1 hound and he chose not to hit and run. I counter charged with 2 D-thirster and some flesh hounds, but more importantly, I turbo boosted my bikes around the star on 3 sides so that it could not hit and run. This is just about the only time I can remember that my D-thirster did not do much. Essentially, what happened from here is that my D-thirster both ended up dying, but I was able to keep the star locked in place until turn 5. But the time it broke out, I had gotten ahead on maelstrom, and was able to contest one of the emperor’s will and control the other. I ended with a minor win, getting 16 points. At the end of the game, I had lost 95% of my army, and my opponent had lost very little, but containing the star allowed me to win. It was a great game and I am sure Chris will be ready for a rematch next time.
Most Memorable Moment: 5 cyberwolves killing a full wound D-thirster before it could swing!
While maelstrom is not my favorite way to play, it was a great day of 40k. I thank the TO and Event Horizon for hosting the event. I ended up coming in 6th overall out of 28 and won the politically themed award “Deputy Secretary of Defense”, which was great. I loved having a chance to represent KDK(I was the only one) and look forward to the next one!
