Detachment Focus: Blood Legion

Merry Grotmas! Games Workshop releases a new series of detachments – one per army, every day until Christmas. In this series, we’re looking at these new detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games.

If there’s one group of bloodthirsty daemons begging for their own Detachment, it was Khorne’s lot – and they got it this Grotmas with the Blood Legion Detachment. As any good Khorne Detachment should, this one heavily encourages you to push forward into your enemy’s lines and take what is theirs. It rewards you for being near your opponents and also wants you to kill them on their objectives. Did they finally make Flesh Hounds durable? Did they make it so Be’lakor wasn’t an auto-take in every daemon’s army? Are we finally branching out into a world where Bloodletters are worth taking?! Let’s find out!

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes.

Detachment Overview

The BLOOD LEGION focuses on pushing towards your enemy as quickly as possible, taking objectives and locking in control as you bear down on your enemies. This game plan isn’t much different than any other one we’ve used already, but the rules, Enhancements, and Stratagems in this Detachment are all designed to augment Khorne Infantry and Cavalry, creating a bit more of a pull towards those units. It needs to do plenty of work, because you’re giving up a lot when you lose the 6” Deep Strikes of the Damonic Incursion, but luckily there are some fun tools here.

The Video Version

If you’re too angry to sit and read this article, you can watch a video version instead. you’ll find the video version here:

Detachment Rules: Murdercall & Blood Tainted

When an enemy unit ends a Normal or Advance move within 6″ of one or more Legiones Daemonica Khorne unit, the Murdercall rule lets you you can make a Surge move toward that enemy unit with one of them. You roll a D6 and your unit can move up to that many inches, but when moving must end the move as close as possible to that enemy unit, and when you make this Surge move, you can end up within Engagement Range of that enemy unit. This ability cannot be used on a unit that’s already in Engagement Range (and is subject to game-wide limitations on only being able to do one per phase per unit, and not while Battle-shocked).

Blood Tainted adds a Khorne spin on sticky objectives. At the end of a phase where our Legiones Daemonica Khorne destroyed an enemy unit that started the phase on an objective, as long as you now control, it remains under your control till the opponent controls it at the end of a phase.

Both the rules are… nice? I guess? They can both be quite niche in when they apply, and both give your opponent a bit of control over when they’re relevant, but there’s some definite uses. Murdercall can be very disruptive to your opponent’s scoring plans – Bloodletters hiding behind a wall can restrict where they can safely go, or a big threat on an objective can make it unsafe for them to try and out-OC you. A combat Surge move is always interesting though note that your units are always limited to one Surge move per phase.

Blood Tainted can be very helpful when used on a flank objective against shooting armies – if you manage to clear your opponent off of it, then it no longer matters if they shoot you straight off in turn, unless they can scramble something to flip it. It also isn’t limited to the Fight Phase, so if you’re using a Soulgrinder or Skull Cannons, you can shoot something that’s contesting an objective with one of your units off, sticky the objective, then be free to send those Daemons charging off to do violence elsewhere.

Enhancements

The enhancements in this Detachment are pretty great. I could see myself taking almost every single one of these, as they provide such great value  Two of them can only go on Monsters, i.e. Bloodthirsters and Daemon Princes.

• SLAUGHTERTHRIST (Aura)  (35 points) – Legiones Daemonica Khorne only. Become a fighter jet made out of biceps. While a non-Monster Legiones Daemonica Khorne is within 6” of the bearer, weapons equipped by models in that unit have Lance. Talk about an excellent upgrade for units we can hide, like a Bloodmaster strategically placed behind a wall. If you feel more powerful, a Skullmaster surrounded by Juggernauts would also be a great use of this, although the horn attacks have this built-in anyway. Most Khorne melee attacks are only S5, so this lance buff could go far. Also quite funny with the free Heroic Intervention on Flesh Hounds.
• Fury’s Cage (20 pts) – Legiones Daemonica Khorne Monster only; you can activate this enhancement each time the bearer is selected to fight. If you do, your model will take D3+1 mortal wounds, and until the end of the phase, you can re-roll all hits and wounds for the monster. Let’s be honest; this screams for use on a Bloodthirster or a Daemon Prince with Wings you want to trade up with while using their Malefic Destruction ability.
• Brazenmaw (15 pts) – For a minimal investment, any Legiones Daemonica Khorne character can add 2 to the charge rolls of their unit. S tier. S+ Gold Ultra Plus tier. When combined with a Skullmaster leading a Bloodcrusher unit, who gets +1 to charge via the unit’s Instrument of Chaos? That’s 6” charges out of Deep Strike. “But Gunum,” I can hear you saying, dear reader, “they are still Cavalry? You can’t even go through walls…” Well, sit tight because we’ve got a fix for that.
• Gateway Unto Damnation (10 pts) – Legiones Daemonica Khorne Monster only, explode on a 2+, and if you’ve killed one or more enemy units this battle, then when you explode you do D3+3 mortal wounds. Are you a Daemon prince who only blows up for D3? Nah. D3+3. Are you a Bloodthirster who blows up for D6?! Nah. D3+3. Is this good? Nah. But it’s priced to move, so that’s something! The other three options are just so good; I can’t see this being taken unless you are truly looking to die in the middle of your enemy’s army.

Stratagems

The stratagems for this detachment are all useful. Every one of them reflects the flavor of detachment and does help you accomplish the goals you’re looking to do, whether engaging your opponent quickly or keeping them in the fight. We have some ways to keep our smaller units alive, but we’ll mostly look at units like Juggernauts as the primary focus of much of our strategy and spending. Skulltaker is in a unique position now, providing us with some extra CP as he’s our only real option to allow us quicker access to higher costs. I’m going to do some old-school grading here!

• Wrath Undeniable (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP)  – A classic Fight on Death stratagem. You’ve seen it. You use it rarely. Fight on death on a 4+ if you have not already fought, with no way to buff it. This is typically the version of Fight on Death you get for 1 CP (it costs 2 to get guaranteed fight), which means this is something you’ll mostly want to use on Bloodletters, who have the numbers to make fighting on death meaningful.
• Gore-Hungry Onslaught (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP)  – Remember back in Brazenmaw when I said we had a fix to that Cavalry keyword issue? Here it is. In your movement or charge phase, for the bargain of 1 CP, any Legiones Daemonica Khorne unit can move through terrain features. That’s right team, it’s BLOODCRUSHIN TIME! Go through walls with your fantastic Blood-rhino-robot-dinosaurs or whatever Juggernauts are! Don’t forget that in the Charge Phase, you can pop this after you roll your charge and see if you have the distance.
• Skulls Beget Blood (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP)  – This is a grenade for a Legiones Daemonica Khorne infantry or Mounted unit. It’s an excellent stratagem, with lots of use cases. Pick an enemy unit within 8”, throw six dice skulls, and for every 4+ do a mortal.
• Blood Beget Skulls (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – You thought one S-tier charge stratagem was all we would get? What about a second S-tier charge stratagem? Advance and Charge have been moved alongside our index and into the Khorne-verse. Any Legiones Daemonica Khorne unit from your army that advanced can be selected to charge without the rider of having to be in Shadows of Chaos.
• Fools’ Flight(2 CP)  – The use case for this will be rare, but it’s exciting. For a premium price, after an opponent has fallen back, you can activate this stratagem to have any Legiones Daemonica Khorne within 6” of the unit that fell back declare a charge on it if your unit is eligible to declare a charge. You do not get your charge bonus for completing this charge. This is a sick stratagem, as the unit you charge with does not have to be the unit that your enemy ran away from. They could run away from your Bloodthirster, to suddenly be covered in Bloodletters. There is a reason this costs 2 CP, but I’ll be so busy spending all of my CP on going through walls and Advance and Charge I’m not sure when I’d use this guy. Wings: Worth considering that if you are playing Tactical Objectives, you can guarantee having the 2CP for this in your opponent’s turn if you discard an objective at the end of yours. It’s expensive, but definitely think about when you want to tee it up.
• Sheathed in Brass (1 CP)  – In your opponent’s shooting phase, give any Legiones Daemonica Khorne unit a 3+ armor save just after being selected as a target. Well. I can say that my Bloodletters finally get to feel what a cover save feels like. If this is GW’s way of trying to get me to play some of my 200 Bloodletters in hopes that they might be able to survive a shooting phase, well. I guess it worked.

Playing This Detachment

Setting up for Charges/Murdercalls through a wall are a key part of this detachment, making good staging essential. Khorne wants to punch, but to ensure you can punch hard enough when you get there, you need to avoid getting shot. Movement, accurate deployment, and charging enemy units on exposed objectives, trading our unit for theirs – all of this is the path to victory. Another thing to remember is that though we are playing a Khorne Detachment, we are not locked into choosing only Khorne units. Being open to splashing in some Tzeentch units for objectives or Nurglings to support our melee combats will shore up our lists if we feel we are missing something. Of course, Be’lakor is right there as well. We don’t have to worry about getting shot if the Shadow King keeps hiding us.

One key challenge for Khorne Daemon armies is durability. Khornate units simply need to be more durable to actually do the job they’re intended for, and without heavy armor that means you need the numbers to make it happen via cheap bodies. That’s a problem when Bloodletters are still 110 points with no way to make them more durable nor any solid delivery mechanism for them. This Detachment really makes us wish they could once again be brought in units of 20.

Strengths

• CHARGE THROUGH WALLS: Every Khorne unit can go through walls for 1 CP. It’s cheap. It’s suitable for Khorne Cannons to Bloodthirsters—something our kind of faction has always needed.
• ADVANCE AND CHARGE!: Another incredible thing for our army is that our red lads must function. Juggernauts can run off on their own to push a proper alpha strike
• New Bloodsurge: Though people can play around our Detachment rule, it can be used to zone out important areas of the board. I plan to use it as a free heroic intervention and threaten the middle of the table with Bloodletters.

Weaknesses

• You’re Khorne: Khorne gets shot. Not only does it get shot, it has very little to deal with being shot. Our core battleline unit, the humble Bloodletters, is still expensive at 110 for a unit that can just get decimated by some Intercessors.
• Loss of Close Deepstrikes: Losing the 6” deep strike from the index detachment changes our play style slightly. This has been something I have relied on with Bloodthirsters and Be’lakor.
• Loss of Key Stratagems: Losing the Realm of Chaos stratagem, which allows us to pull some units off the table and come back down, was a real loss for another key strategy of the Daemons’ armies. We will fundamentally need to adjust how we’ve delivered our units into our enemies’ lines.

A Sample List

Gunum: This army list is all about making the most of a Khorne Detachment while keeping things flexible for whatever the battlefield throws at us. Khorne is great at melee combat, so getting our movement, deployment, and charges right will be the key to winning. I plan to use Khorne’s powerful attacks to target enemy units on vulnerable objectives to trade effectively and stay in control of the battlefield when I throw bloodletters away.

To mix things up, I’ve added units from other Gods, like Tzeentch for controlling objectives and Nurglings to support our melee fights by standing nearby to give us that sweet -1 to be hit in melee. These additions help cover any gaps in the list while sticking to our primary strategy. I also included the Blue Scribes for some useful lone-op options. Khorne cannons give me something to fill my backfield while supporting my forward attackers. Daemon Princes could find some actual use in this Detachment; I expect to use mine like the Smash Captins of old.

The Skulls We Made Along the Way - click to expand

Final Thoughts

Khorne want to trap foes in a bloody slaughter until only one side is left standing, and this Detachment gives you plenty of tools to do that, so it’s a big win. There are quite a few solid buffs here to help you do an intense amount of murder on the battlefield, and while Khornate armies tend to be pretty one-dimensional in terms of what they’re drying to do, this gives you some solid movement tools, including the three pieces you really want. Most importantly it looks like a legitimate competitor to the Daemonic Incursion and worth some competitive testing.

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