Blood Letters

[MYNAME]

I know blood letters were OP in Vanilla. 2 squads backed by heretics+ blood lust could destroy pretty much anything from termies all the way up to avatar.

In elite mod they got a nurf and now feel kind of underwhelming. Damage wise.

Do you guys feel like they are in a good place?

Pros.

They have decent melee skill and their specials are good.

Teleport: good at teleporting behind enemy lines and tying people up or forcing retreat.

Phase shift helps close the gap without taking too much damage or to heal up mid fight.

They rely heavily on heretics but put those together blood letters have decent staying power in a battle.

Cons

Damage feels low compared to other melee units.

One thing I do not like about the blood letter is its passive teleport. Its clunky and has caused me to not kill the last model of an enemy squad several times. I have to micro because if it teleports at a retreating unit it will never get a hit in.

Also Blood Letters are pretty damn slow without worship.

[Adeptus Noobus]

I suggest you read up on them first: https://dawnofwar.info/codex.php?page=elite/bloodletters
They deal 180 power melee dps as a squad according to the Codex. That is not "low". They do not have "decent" staying power. With worship they become a force to be reckoned with, even for T3 units. Most certainly for T2 units and heroes alike. They can shift out of phase, making them invulnerable, they can teleport, and the best of all: they are demons which means they regen health and energy faster under worship (hence above decent staying power).
Considering you have mentioned speed and bloodlust makes me think you are looking at them from a Chaos Lord perspective. In this case, Bloodletters become even more terrifying because with aforementioned buffs they can go to town on units and kill them in no time.

[MYNAME]

I suggest you read up on them first: https://dawnofwar.info/codex.php?page=elite/bloodletters
They deal 180 power melee dps as a squad according to the Codex. That is not "low". They do not have "decent" staying power. With worship they become a force to be reckoned with, even for T3 units. Most certainly for T2 units and heroes alike. They can shift out of phase, making them invulnerable, they can teleport, and the best of all: they are demons which means they regen health and energy faster under worship (hence above decent staying power).
Considering you have mentioned speed and bloodlust makes me think you are looking at them from a Chaos Lord perspective. In this case, Bloodletters become even more terrifying because with aforementioned buffs they can go to town on units and kill them in no time.

Thx for the notes man gonna read up on them.

[Black Maw]

I'm not Chaos master but Bloodletters are an extremely awesome unit and possibly my favourite for Chaos. But they are very micro intensive and simply a bad purchase against some army compositions. A few things that helped me and may help you:

The best targets for BL are units that suck in melee. You can wipe set up teams in a heartbeat, at higher levels it can be so quick that unless your opponent responds immediately they loose that squad. Stuff like tacs and slower units that will have trouble moving away fast are also good, I like to use them against SM and GK if I have the req.

Try not to loose any models ever. They can drain your economy if you loose one or two in every engagement and it's often a big risk to jump them in with less than 4 models, especially in T3 and in 3v3s. Levelling helps them a lot since you can teleport in and then phase shift immediately if you realise its a bad jump. They just need the energy so level up those bad boys and keep them safe.

Depending on what champ you've got, you can be clever. I'm more of a CS player so I use infiltration to hide them behind my army then jump them in - that way your opponents only warning is that little red summoning circle and that can get lost in explosions and effects. You can also just walk them forward while infiltrated and keep all that lovely energy for when you need it, then there isn't even that summoning circle! Just be careful, they are squishy.

The speed boost from Khorne worship will help you chase things down + that passive teleport. Helps with those slower units and set up teams I mentioned above. Not sure what you mean by clunky, it's certainly a pro. I assume that nurgle worship will help you with health regen more but I'm not sure, anyone know?

Hope I helped a bit. I think they are awesome but they take practice and are a risk but the rewards can be delicioussssssssss

[Adeptus Noobus]

Nurgle worship adds an extra 3.5 hp/s to the 10 hp/s regen rate.

Daemonic

Immune to suppression. Regains 10 health and 1.5 energy per second when worshipped by Heretics in addition to any other effects. Regains an additional 3.5 health per second when under Nurgle worship. Passive ability.

[Black Maw]

Nurgle worship adds an extra 3.5 hp/s to the 10 hp/s regen rate.

Daemonic

Immune to suppression. Regains 10 health and 1.5 energy per second when worshipped by Heretics in addition to any other effects. Regains an additional 3.5 health per second when under Nurgle worship. Passive ability.

Wow, that is silly levels of awesome. Thanks Noobus

I also find that they can become a little bit vulnerable and kinda useless if you wipe your opponents unit that you're trying to counter, even though that really means they have paid for themselves already. In this case, keep them the hell away from everything, wait for your opponent to retreat something and teleport them right into the retreat path. If there's nothing there to force them off, the melee damage increase from retreating plus their ridiculous melee damage can wipe squads and your opponent can do nothing about it. If they start taking damage, phase shift and just walk away like a boss. Also, they rape Zoans and often Malan'tais so guuuuuuuurd.

P.S. I love Bloodletters :3

[Nurland]

Letters are freaking awesome right now... They do not have heavy melee anymore so no more real AV damage. Other than that they are better than before. More hp, less pop cost, less req cost, more raw dps and a damage type that makes then absolutely destroy heavy infantry/super heavy infantry. They are way better against everthing else apart from vehicles while being cheaper than before.

[egewithin]

According to my experiance, Bletters are good for OM (Grey Knights), ranged Tyranids, general SM, enemy chaos without good micro.

-They are not good vs Orks becuse they basicially swarm on them. And Sluggaz / Nobz can eat them alive instanly.

-Not good vs Eldar because ( unless a Wraithguard ) there aren't many heavy infantrys around to counter. Also, they do a lot of damage generally. Still, a better jump squad then Raptors vs Eldar.

-Not good vs melee nids because you can't fight melee nids with infantry armor low hp untis.

[Nurland]

Gotta disagree about Nids. Low pop and will do great against Warriors (venoms and normal). Also great for catchibg Zoans (don't get demolished by Zoan blasts either due to worship regen) and help you force TG into shield wall. Strong against heroes as well.

[Aguxyz]

Bloodletters are part of anti T2 everything so they're op

[Torpid]

Letters are good vs melee nids but they suck vs ranged nids unless you have tzeentch marines and mutiple havoc teams to basically force them to to come to you. If you are going to them the BLs will end up out of worship range and get shot down by terms/ravs in an instant. Under worship though they are a whole different beast. And alongside all of chaos' awesome ranged weaponry come t2 they are great vs nids.

[MYNAME]

I'm not Chaos master but Bloodletters are an extremely awesome unit and possibly my favourite for Chaos. But they are very micro intensive and simply a bad purchase against some army compositions. A few things that helped me and may help you:

The best targets for BL are units that suck in melee. You can wipe set up teams in a heartbeat, at higher levels it can be so quick that unless your opponent responds immediately they loose that squad. Stuff like tacs and slower units that will have trouble moving away fast are also good, I like to use them against SM and GK if I have the req.

Try not to loose any models ever. They can drain your economy if you loose one or two in every engagement and it's often a big risk to jump them in with less than 4 models, especially in T3 and in 3v3s. Levelling helps them a lot since you can teleport in and then phase shift immediately if you realise its a bad jump. They just need the energy so level up those bad boys and keep them safe.

Depending on what champ you've got, you can be clever. I'm more of a CS player so I use infiltration to hide them behind my army then jump them in - that way your opponents only warning is that little red summoning circle and that can get lost in explosions and effects. You can also just walk them forward while infiltrated and keep all that lovely energy for when you need it, then there isn't even that summoning circle! Just be careful, they are squishy.

The speed boost from Khorne worship will help you chase things down + that passive teleport. Helps with those slower units and set up teams I mentioned above. Not sure what you mean by clunky, it's certainly a pro. I assume that nurgle worship will help you with health regen more but I'm not sure, anyone know?

Hope I helped a bit. I think they are awesome but they take practice and are a risk but the rewards can be delicioussssssssss

Yeah I love bloodletters and use them pretty beastly its just they are pretty frackin hard to use. LoL

[MYNAME]

Bloodletters are part of anti T2 everything so they're op

They are pretty guud at cuttin shit down. They were far worse in vanille though

[xerrol nanoha]

Why did blood letters lose heavy melee in Elite? Doesn't having power melee overlap too much with khorne marines?

When is it better to use one or the other?

[egewithin]

Why did blood letters lose heavy melee in Elite? Doesn't having power melee overlap too much with khorne marines?

Because back in vannillia, they could solo a Dreadnought. Heavy melee wasn't making sense neither lore nor balance so removing it was the best idea.

When is it better to use one or the other?

Blood Letters can perform much better than KCSM but that is an '' if ''. I holed a whole ranged GK army with level 4 BLetters with worship play. Jump - tear them apart- phase shift to recover your health and energy - NEVER LOOSE A MODEL - repeat. See, this is a good example of worship play. But if you don't support them with worship, they will generally go down.

I use KCSM for 1v1; in a 3v3 there are too much counters around to make them loose models. Unnecessery req bleed is bad for Chaos, specially Chaos. Also, KCSM has a speed bonus so they are an expensive capping unit. But, I use them as a flank assault unit.


-KCSM can chase units much better than BLetters, that is a big win.
-KCSM has a speed bonus, makes them much practical than BLetters.
-Melta pistol can finish off trasports in critical situations.
-They don't need too much micro as BLetters.
-They are much durable without support while BLetters can loose models intantly. 1 model drop from BLetters decreases their performance badly while KCSM can just continue.
-KCSM has a bonus +1 health regen while they are in comabt but I haven't seen any benefit of that.


-BLetters can wipe set up teams IN SECONDS if the enemy does not notice.
-They can teleport. Isn't it beatiful?
-They don't bleed as much as KCSM thanks to worship.
-Phase Swift is a big issue for enemy.
-They are useful for every kind of match type.
-They can not be suppressed.
-They jump into combat insted of charging, a good decreasement on incoming ranged damage with a trade of chase performance.
-Since they are normal infantry, enemys anti-armour weapons won't threat them as much as KCSM. Enemy will go for anti-armours because he is facing against Chaos, and that is an annoying advantage for BLetters I noticed.