In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at the Cult of Blood from the World Eaters.

Are you sick of running Berzerkers? Like Khorne but don’t like running power armor sickos or painting gold trim? Well, you’re in luck, because the Cult of Blood Detachment lets you play even more mortal servants of the Blood God, building armies around Jakhals and Goremongers, all huddled around immortal Daemon Princes and Titanic Lords of Skulls for emotional support.

Detachment Overview

In this Detachment your Jakhals and Goremongers become BATTLELINE and your MONSTER and TITANIC units – Daemon Princes and the Lord of Skulls – gain powerful auras that buff Jakhals and Goremongers. This leads to a specific build style where you take a horde of regular goobers supported by a few large monster/vehicle units to turn weak datasheets into insanely strong ones that can punch up or weather more damage.

Detachment Rule: Idols of Khorne

At the start of your Command phase, pick one of the three Idols of Khorne abilities. You can only pick each one once per battle. While they’re active, their effects apply to all World Eaters Titanic and Monster units from your army. All three of them are auras that buff your Jakhal and Goremonger units.

• Idol of Infinite Rage (Aura) – Friendly Jakhal and Goremonger units within 6” (or 9” if the unit is TITANIC) get +1 to hit and +1 to wound with all attacks.

• Idol of Burning Wrath (Aura) – Friendly Jakhal and Goremonger units within 6” (or 9” if the unit is TITANIC) get +1” to their Move characteristic and +1 to Advance and Charge rolls.
• Idol of Blessed Blood (Aura) – Friendly Jakhal and Goremonger units within 6” (or 9” if the unit is TITANIC) get a 4+ invulnerable save.

These are three very good effects that can do a lot of heavy lifting when you remember that Jakhals can come in units of 20 models. Only being able to use these once per game means you’ll have to be judicious about their use, though there is a way to double up.

Enhancements

Two of these can only go on a Daemon Prince, while a third is more forgiving and the fourth lets an Infantry character join a unit of Jakhals or Goremongers. This kind of highlights how there’s a missing “Jakhal character” model in the range, but the Daemon Prince on foot is good enough that you likely wanted to take one anyways.

• Chosen of the Blood God – Monster model only. Add 3” to the range of the model’s auras.
• Butcher Lord – Infantry model only. During the Declare Battle Formations step, you can attach this unit to a unit of Jakhals or Goremongers. If you attach him to a Goremongers unit, he gains Infiltrators.
• Brazen Form – Monster model only. The bearer gets +1 Toughness and Feel No Pain 5+.
• Strategic Slaughter – After both players have deployed you can pick up to three Jakhals and/or Goremongers and redeploy them. When you do so, you can put them in Strategic Reserves, even if you already have too many points in reserves.

Stratagems

All but two of these Stratagems are used primarily on Jakhal and Goremonger units, and the ones that don’t are still focused on buffing those, i.e. Brazen Idol and Bloody Vengeance.

• Bloody Vengeance (Epic Deed, 1 CP) – Used in any phase when one of your MONSTER or TITANIC unit is Destroyed. For the rest of the battle, your Jakhal and Goremonger units can re-roll hits against the unit that destroyed your monster/Titanic unit. This seems decent but you will lose one of the machines that lets your army work so I don’t expect to see this used nearly as much as you would want it to be.
• Drawn to the Slaughter (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used in any phase on a destroyed Jakhals unit to add a new one to your army in Reserves. This is going to be your bread and butter and one of your Daemon Princes will make sure this costs 1CP.  20 man units of Jakhals love to come back and be a pain in the butt.
• In the Shadow of Brass Idols (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s shooting or fight phase after they pick a Jakhal or Goremonger unit as targets. That unit gets Feel No Pain 6+, or 5+ if they’re within 6” of a Monster or 9” of a TITANIC unit. Hey do you need your Jakhals to survive while sitting on an objective.  Are they near your Lord of Skulls.  Stack this up with the 4+ inv save Idol power to be a real pain in the butt.
• Bloodthirsty Horde (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in the Fight phase on a Jakhal or Goremongers unit that’s within Engagement Range of an enemy – any models within 3” of an enemy model are eligible to fight. Guess what if you are playing this army you will have 20 man units of Jakhals so getting a 3” punch you in the face range will be used.
• Fail Not the Blood God (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in the Fight phase to re-roll hit rolls of 1 with a Jakhal or Goremongers unit, or all hit rolls if you’re within 6” of a Monster or 9” of a Titanic unit. You will be playing a Lord of Skulls in this army so having a way to get full rerolls for your Jakhals or Goremongers will be amazing.  Oh reroll to try and get Sustained Hits, Lethal Hits, and Devastating Wounds vs Infantry all seem like a good thing to use with this Stratagem.  It’s what you call super duper Strategic.
• Brazen Idol (Epic Deed, 2 CP) – Used in your Command phase. Pick an Idol of Khorne ability to be active for a single Monster/Titanic unit from your army instead of any other Idol ability, even if you already used it. You can only use this once per battle. This is a big effect, but only getting it once per battle means you need to put some real thought into whether you want to use it to double up on aura effects at the same time or re-use one – and the smart play says you’ll be using this to re-use an idol ability later in the game. I expect to see the invulnerable save power used twice to help your guys stay alive and clogging up the middle of the field. Hopefully one of your Daemon Princes are alive and you can get this down to 1CP as your opponent groans at having to deal with your Jakhals unit rocking an invulnerable save with a Feel No Pain from In the Shadow of Brass Idols. 

Playing This Detachment

Do you like to play a ton of Jakhals? Do you want to take a long time to move the army or use a ton of movement trays? How about rolling a lot of crappy attacks and hoping for rerolls to get Lethal/Sustained hits? Oh how about trying to roll a ton of Devastating Wounds when the big daddy Lord of Skulls is looking at you?  Do you want to play a Lord of Skulls that really is a Lord of the Jakhals?

And that’s ultimately the rub here – your list basically writes itself, in that you need three Daemon Princes and one or two Lords of Skulls and then a ton of Jakhals, filling any leftover points with support units like Forgefiends.

Strengths

• Bodies. Jakhals are pretty solid Battleline units, and in this Detachment you can field 120 of them. That’s a lot of beef to chew through, and they can become a real problem. Speaking of which…

• Durability Buffs for Cheap Bodies. The benefits you can throw to those Jakhal and Goremonger units are pretty spicy, and a 4++ on a unit of 20 Jakhals with a 5+ Feel No Pain will make them feel like Terminators. 

• Melee Buffs. The melee buffs here are pretty great too – re-rolling all hit rolls is huge for units that hit on a 4+ or 5+, and when you combine that with +1 to hit and Wound, you can do some insane damage with your Jakhals. 

Weaknesses

• Limited Use. Only getting access to one of your auras at a time, and only once per game means you’ll have to put a lot of planning to make sure you aren’t caught out at a key moment. Likewise, you’ll want to manage your single use of Brazen Idol carefully – know when you’ll want two effects active vs. re-using a key effect.

• Limited Range. Needing to stay within 6”/9” of the monsters/Titanic Units in your army means that you’ll be hard-pressed to range far from your Daemon Princes and Lords of Skulls. 
• Other units. This is straight-up a Detachment about Jakhals and Goremongers. The Daemon Princes and Lords of Skulls are important pieces, but they benefit very little from being here. Likewise, any other units you add get nothing out of this Detachment.

A Sample List

How will this list work?

You got a ton of stuff that sits in the way, you utilize your Daemon Princes to activate a bunch of your rules, and hopefully you wreck things with Jakhals.  The Lord of Skulls is there as he activates a ton of other rules too as well as he might actually be good.  I know the weapon load out isn’t the best but it is what I actually have – well, actually have three of.

The redeploy enhancement seems really powerful with how you can redeploy your Goremongers back into infiltrate places.  This is easily one of the best ways to “mess” with your opponents avenues of damage potential and just lets you be a pain in the butt.  The Forgefiends are there because they are good and any World Eaters player should go grab at least two, paint them red, and get ready to hear your friends complain when they hit way too many times.

Oh the Slaughterbound joining the Jakhals seems like a funny little bully to “surprise” an opponent with a model that can “punch” up when they get to close.  I think he ends up being better than a Master of Execution as he just punches a bit harder. 

Final Thoughts

The biggest issue with the Cult of Blood is painting a ton more Jakhals than anyone would every realistically want to paint. The good news is that if you are that level of crazy there are a ton of boxes for World Eaters that come with Jakhal models. The Cult of Blood gives you a giant board control army that runs a few Monsters that hide behind their devoted followers and hope that your opponent can’t chew thru that many blood crazed models.  The army feels like it can work but it also feels like a chore to build, paint, and play thru a few rounds of an event. 

Any army that allows you to regrow a 20 man unit is something to think about as we know “free” units can lead to issues.  A few discounted CP regrown units, a lot of dice rolling, and hopefully a few shooting phases with the Lord of Skulls should put a hurt on just about any army.  It is hard to kill these jabronis that will easily cover an objective, make it sticky, and maybe even kill you if you get too close.  Or their daddy Daemon Prince will come in and punch you.

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