I’M BACK!!!! THE ANGRY SEX ENRAGED PANDA IS BACK!!!!!!!!

I haven’t posted in a few days, mostly because I got caught up with two presentations in school. Who would of thought that in the first week of college, you would already have had three quizzes and two projects due? Well, the good news is that I was able to get them out of the way (with A’s), and now I’m back to working on what’s really important; writing articles for you beautiful people to enjoy.

However, if you don’t want to read the entirety of the article (which I highly recommend you do to get better insight), or you just want to reference specific points I’ve made, at the bottom I’m going to list key aspects of this tactica article.

As you can probably tell from the title, this is going to be about Age of Sigmar; specifically a tactics article on how to play and win with the Khorne Bloodbound. This blog post and many more to come are going to be part of a series of articles that relate to different tactical elements of playing the Khorne Bloodbound, and how I’ve found to maximize their potential. Since this is the first in the series of Khorne Bloodbound tactics I will be writing, you can find future posts regarding this under #AgeofSigmar, and the categories Age of Sigmar, Age of Sigmar Tactics, Hobbies, and Khorne Bloodbound.

On a side note, just because these articles are going to be dedicated to a specific army, doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t be able to learn from them. I always find that reading about another armies tactics is a sure fire way to learn about their advantages and disadvantages, and to ultimately counter and defeat them. Additionally, the Khorne Bloodbound tactics share many similarities with other armies, and reading this and what’s to come may give you insight on how to best maximize your armies strengths.

Just remember though that despite this being an article on improving your tactical strengths, the number one rule of any game is to always have fun. Winning isn’t always everything, and certainly not in a game where you move around tiny plastic toy soldiers and expect to blitzkrieg the living shit out of your five year old opponent who is still learning his ABCs. Just remember that just because you want to win, doesn’t mean you have to look ridiculous. The most important thing is to have fun, and look cool while doing so.

So why am I writing this? Well, to my surprise and shock, I have yet to find any articles online regarding AoS tactics that go into debt as to how to play the Khorne Bloodbound. Yea, there are hundreds of threads dedicated to general “AoS Tactics” that talk about and answer very specific question, but there are no general online threads that go into debt regarding the whole army. For example, what troop should you bring to the table top, and how do they compare to other units against other armies and within your own? What hero units should you include in your army build and how do you maximize potential on them? How do I best make synergy in my force with the units I have? If I’m starting off, what units should I purchase first?

Additionally, for all of the articles I have found online regarding Khorne Bloodbound tactics, the vast vast  majority are very outdated. Like, made in 2015 when AoS was first released out dated. Often, because the game had just been released at the time, this leads to many of these tactica threads being more theoretical then anything else. But after two years of players experimenting with their armies of choice, in addition to the added point costs and army restrictions of the General Handbook, you would think that there would be more updated and improved tactics articles out there for people to read.

Which is why in all my glorious nerdom that I have decided to write a series of blog posts dedicated to, from my personal experience, how to best play the Khorne Bloodbound using the general handbook, all of the formations, and all the units. It’s going to be a series that will not only cover the basic tactical aspects of playing AoS, but will also go in detail on where the Khorne Bloodbound excel and falter.

With further ado, let’s get started.

khorne-bloodbound-cover-art

This is going to be an intro to the Khorne Bloodbound; what makes them unique as an army compared to the other armies in Age of Sigmar; what their strengths and weaknesses are; and what sort of player would play an army like this. I will not be going into detail discussing the specific tactics, formations, and units the army has at its disposal. That’s for other blog posts in the future. Rather, this is just going to be a very important, but general intro into what the Khorne Bloodbound are like as an army. Perfect for new players looking to understand what this army is like, or for veterans to compare their current knowledge to mine. As always let me know what you think in the comments, or if you have any questions feel free to post them down below; I always respond.

The Khorne Bloodbound, like any other khorne themed army, are a melee concentrated force that focuses on drowning the enemy in a unholy amount of basic attacks as opposed to killing with lower, but higher valued attacks. This means that for the majority of your army, you will have little to no rending or mortal wound capability and will struggle to wound. But with so many attacks per base model, mathematically it wouldn’t matter if there is rending or not because you will be hitting so many times that it will ultimately obliterate your opponent.

That’s the general theme around this army: an ungodly number of basic attacks that drowns whatever you’re assaulting in overkill. However, you’re doing this without the support of magic or ranged combat. Khorne themed armies in general, and especially the khorne bloodbound, have no ranged support. No cannons (except the skull cannon, but that’s a Khorne Daemon unit), no bows and arrows, and no guns. Additionally, no matter what you choose to bring, you should try not including wizards of any sort; many of your primary needed abilities for boosting your army will force wizards to re-roll successful casting rolls on both you and your opponents sides. If you do decide to bring a caster, just be prepared to find him in some occasions useless as the Khrone themed maledictions that I’ve described do indeed stack, making casting very difficult. An exception may be the chaos dwarfs and their casting abilities, but I’ll get to that in another blog discussing who best allies with this army.

Being that this army is centered around melee combat and you essentially have no ranged or magic support, your primary goal is to reach combat as fast as possible before either your opponent charges you, or kills too many of your warriors with cheesy ranged weapons (though with the nerfs to ranged units, it’s a lot easier now to reach combat alive). But, as always, keeping a hero nearby with the right abilities can absolutely solve this problem.

The best way to do this, and this leads into another main strength of playing the Khorne Bloodbound, is with the use of your hero units. Your hero units are undoubtedly some of the best and highly praised units in the game; other armies would beg to have hero’s with as strong synergy and killing potential as the Khrone Bloodbound’s hero units. Knowing how to use your Hero’s abilities effectively with the rest of your army is a necessity to your success. These Hero abilities will aid you in reaching combat a lot faster, and will also boost your average attacks per base model to that ungodly number attacks I’ve mentioned before.

However, this comes with a major drawback: because your hero’s are essentially the center of your armies success, if you fail to protect them you risk the potential for your army to quickly fall apart. Your basic units that were buffed to a unreasonable number of attacks suddenly become average at best because your Aspiring Champion and Blood Secrator were quickly killed; your units that had a run roll of three dice with the choice of the two highest with an additional three added inches is suddenly reduced to below average because your opponent killed your Mighty Lord of Khorne and Bloodstoker.

Your units are also below average when it comes to leadership, and having a leader nearby to give them a boost is something of a necessity in this army. It’s not fun watching your 30 man unit of bloodreavers melt away in fear because your enemy decided to first target your Bloodsecrator, only to have your Bravery 5 unit run away in the next engagement.

Another aspect to note is that this army benefits significantly from the command benefits and artifacts found inside the General Hand Book. Having the ability to hit on +2 is a given gift, and with the right command trait can turn your horde of blood thirsty killers into an unstoppable killing machine. As for the artifacts, because your hero’s are already powerful as they are, the artifacts only serve to boost them into the stratosphere. A Skullgrinder with a rune forged weapon that’s hitting on +2 and wounding on +2 (with re-rolls to 1 with a nearby Bloodstoker) is awesome to observe on the battlefield.

The Bloodbound are a tactically engaging army to play, one I would recommend to players who enjoy putting a plan together and watching it unfold beneath their eyes. Compared to the more forgiving Stormcast, IronJawz, Sylvaneth, or any other armies, they are a force that demands a higher degree of tactical positioning between your heroes and your units.

To Summarize Key Points:

Khorne Bloodbound Strengths:

  • Very high number of attacks that either hit on a +2 or +3
  • Number of attacks can potentially obliterate other units in a single round of combat
  • Your Hero units are some of the best Hero choices in AoS
  • A high amount of anti-caster abilities that can nullify and downright deny enemy wizards
  • Some of the the strongest command and hero abilities in the game
  • A rewarding army that benefits from strong tactical play and engagement
  • Benefits significantly more then other Chaos armies from the artifacts and command traits found inside the General Handbook 
  • Can effectively ally with Khorne Daemons and Warriors of Chaos; sometimes Chaos Dwarfs are a good choice as well

Khorne Bloodbound Weaknesses: 

  • No ranged or magic support
  • Low Bravery across the army
  • little to no rending or mortal wound causing capability
  • Heavy reliance on hero units; if hero’s die your army may melt away
  • Requires a higher degree of tactical skill and unit positioning capability 

That’s all I have for you guys today as a quick intro to the Khorne Bloodbound. Stay tuned for next time, where I will be touching another aspect of this army!