Khorne marines vs Bloddletters

[Sgt. Eldri]

Hi there,

I was wondering what the different scenarios for Khorne marines vs. Bloodletters are. Both act as strong melee units, both have power melee damage. Bloodletters benefit from worship and have their teleport and wapshift, Khorne CSM have their health regen. So maybe Bloodletters are a little bit offensive?

In which cases do you go for Bloodletters, in which for Khorne CSM?
Or are they redundant?

[Torpid]

Neither are redundant on their own. Often though you will find if you get KCSM, BLs are redundant and if you get BLs, KCSM are redundant.

So, when do we go for BLs and when KCSM?

Let's answer that question bt looking at how these units differ:

Most importantly KCSM are not as expensive to field as bloodletters come T2 if you already have csm. BUT you reduce the outgoing ranged damage of your army by fielding them. So whenever you consider buying KCSM you need to ask yourself - is it worth forgoing the realiable 40 ranged dps of csm in order to give you that power melee presence in T2 for 70/30 (KCSM) or should I pay 400/40 to get BLs so I get the same power melee presence but get to keep that 40 ranged dps (note it is actually more expensive than just 330/10 to get BLs since the CSM will have upkeep too - but that's also another unit to cap with, but again, would they not be far better capping units with MoK since melee units are far stronger than ranged at soloing stuff, plus KCSM are faster!).

That's the first decision. So if you have a power float coming T2 and you need anti-melee ASAP you would get KCSM AND bloodletters after. If you only need some stronger melee to face off vs let's say T2 ASM but again, you lost too many tics in T1 so you are low on req, you will go KCSM over BLs BUT ONLY IF you feel you have enough ranged damage to deal with the rest of the enemy army.

You see, this is the biggest weakness of KCSM. Buying a squad of CSM in T2 just to ugprade them to khorne marines is only really worth it if your opponent is driving you mad with an autarch/other fast melee commander that backcaps all the time, since KCSM is a hard counter to these thigns. Otherwise, you will only get them by upgrading your csm from T1. Most of the time you only get 1csm in T1 anyway and even if you get two, chaos as a race still lacks ranged dps in general. For this reason KCSM synergise with plague marines amazing. Plague marines snare vehicles which KCSM can then finish off (especially alongside raptors) and they do enough ranged dps vs infantry to compensate for the loss of dps from no bolters on the csm. Then the KCSM guard the PMs from being tied up... Anyway, tangents...

As you can see this is a complex issue I'm not even started...

Other things to consider:
If you need anti-melee but are struggling vs suppression must you go BLs? No. Again, if req is more of a concern and not power why not go for MoK + a BC? It will deal with your suppression woes but give you a much stronger melee force while being cheaper in req and costing your opponent more to counter. If they kill your BC and thus have AV you now have to get BLs though - but only so long as they kept the suppression.

Does your opponent have obscene amounts of piercing ranged dps? For example are you vsing a tyranid with double raveners or an ork with lootas+2 fully upgraded shootas? Now, you might be and you want the anti-melee to stop those ravs being so annoying burrowing in and to kill the stormboys that the ork also got. But if you go bloodletters here they will never ever be able to leave worship or they will get shot to pieces by the piercing dps. KCSM are heavy infantry and thus they will take a lot less damage from piercing damage from big shootas/lootas/rav devourers. So you might want to get KCSM over BLs in these cases. For this reason too KCSM do great vs IG, at least before they get fully upgraded guardsmen, but even then. You can soak up so much fire with KCSM without losing models and chase your opponent off the map. Definitely more of a 1v1 tactic than 3v3, but it works for sure.

KCSM are also great vs transports. Let's say you went PC in 3v3 and went tic, csm, csm, nm. Great, you own in T1. Then T2 comes they get a vehicle and you're like uhhh. Because your plague marines that you get in T2 are not going to kill that transport alone - they are too slow. But one missle shot to snare it then the KCSM can get up close and they will get melee charge after melee charge, all the time shooting it with the melta pistol, plasma pistols and hitting it with power melee. It actually adds up very quickly on transports due to their low hp. KCSM are good soft AV and thus they work great with builds that lack raptors or havocs and thus have no other transitional AV. TCSM kind of do soft AV too, but the difference is TCSM cannot chase vehicles down. KCSM can. Something which BLs cannot do.

KCSM are the best T2 capping unit chaos has. When alone KCSM have more hp than bloodletters, do way more damage when chasing stuff away due to them having actually good ranged weapons rather than none and they are faster than bloodletters while having no abilities and thus requiring 0 micro other than a-moving. This makes them fucking perfect for side-capping the map. Very few unit can solo them. If you get lucky with specials banshees/sluggas can even lose and they will lose if they don't have full hp. But that's great. If they must dedicate banshees/sluggas to the side of the map to deal with your faster KCSM, then this gives your raptors/bloodletter sin the main fight much more free reign to slaughter the enemy ranged units after jumping into their blob. Raptors tend to synergise well with KCSM too.

All this said however. In a straight up melee brawl bloodletters under worship are a million times stronger than KCSM. Thta hp regen is insane and it negates pretty much all ranged fire anyway. Meanwhile bloodletters are doing 180dps compared to KCSM's 120dps power melee. So they do more damage too. So if you are getting a melee squad just to help you counter-initiate because you already dominate the ranged battlefield and want to keep it that way and punish your foe for trying to engage you up close - BLs are a better choice. So long as the melee fights happen near your tics BLs will always be a better choice. Because let's say you have TCSM, an autocannon, blastmaster havocs. Your foe will really struggle to win at ranged vs that. So they will get jump squads or artillery, or both. Guess what? Bloodletters counter both.

And then if you really really get sick of jump units/melee units you have another option in the khorne dreadnought which is the ultimate tool for crushing fools who try to disrupt your ranged firelines. It's more power expensive though, so you've got to consider whether that investment is worth it or not - chances are it won't be worth it unless you win all the firefights where your opponent cannot engage you in melee/tie up your ranged units.

[Sgt. Eldri]

Thanks for your explanation!

[Torpid]

Sorry for the huge answer haha.

But as you can see this game can get very complicated. It will be unnecessary to think of every single one of these factors when you are purchasing a unit most likely at your skill tier for now. But eventually you will get to a state where you consider everything I wrote subconsciously and can decide in seconds whether or not in a scenario you are in you would be better off with KCSM/BL. That's one of the greatest traits of high level players - note, it's nothing to do with micro.

But yeah, thanks for asking a question on the forums and good luck on the battlefield!

Heretic