Herald of Khorne – Daemons of Chaos Hero

One of the most capable hero class characters for Daemons of Chaos is the Herald of Khorne. There are a lot of good reasons to it and especially when you're fielding the herald with Bloodletters, the effectiveness of the unit. Here's a list of reasons why I would say that the Herald is a good character for your Daemons of Chaos army.

Herald of Khorne

 

Good Basic Stats

The herald comes with very good basic stats. High weapon skill, high strength, high initiative. These three stats are what is wanted for you to kill off your opponents effectively. High initiative means that a lot of times, you get to hit your opponent first. That means less chance for your opponents to hit you back especially in a challenge where you kill your challenger straight off. High weapon skill will enable you to make sure that you have a 66% chance of hitting your target. Don't forget, the herald also have the hatred rule, this enables you to re-roll the 33% that you missed! High strength does what it does best, wound you opponent easily. Don't forget the Killing Blow ability which could outright kill off a character and gives your victims no armour saves.

Abilities

• Hatred. The ability to re-roll missed to-hit rolls in close combat. You would want to maximize the number of hits by this guy. This is one of the big plus why you have to have him in your army.
• Locus of Khorne. Join the Herald of Khorne into a unit of Bloodletters or Bloodcrushers. The whole unit will now have the Hatred rule. Now the whole unit is really boosted up with the presence of the herald.
• Killing Blow. One of the most feared skills by characters and cavalry. It allows no armour saves and kills off the target regardless of how many wounds left. Unless your opponent is immune to killing blow, they would have this in mind when they face the herald.
• Magic Resistance (1). Although it doesn't seem much but if your herald is running alone, you'll need every single protection from shooting and magic missiles. This won't help you with shooting but it would increase your defence against magic by increasing your ward saves.

Chaos Gifts

• Armour of Khorne. Daemons normally do not have any armour saves but being under Khorne, the herald gets to equip himself with Armour of Khorne. This armour gives you 3+ armour saves which would enhance your survivability.
• Daemonic Robes. This gift is hardly used as it does not give any armour saves but gives your herald a better surviving chance against high strength opponents and against warmachines.
• Etherblade. This gift of a weapon ignores the target's armour saves but why need to spend additional points when you already have a killing blow that ignores armour saves? I would rather spend the points on other gifts or points for the army.
• Firestorm Blade. This is a fairly common gift that is given to the herald but it is also double edged as if your opponent is very sure that you would equip your herald with this gift, they could equip their characters against flaming attacks. This would render your herald ineffective against them. On the other side, you can negate regeneration and with strength seven, you could even slay monsters (only easier).
• Obsidian Armour. An expensive armour that negates magical weapons against him but also gives a good 3+ armour saves. I wouldn't recommend it due to the high costing value.
• Soul Hunger. The Herald of Khorne have only 3 attacks. So with high weapon skill, Hatred, strength six, Killing Blow, I think Soul Hunger would be overkill to ensure that all 3 attacks would wound.

Herald of Khorne

Battle Standard Bearer

The Khorne Herald can also be the army battle standard bearer. The reason is simple because it allows you to re-roll a sudden bad roll on a instability test and of course of the magical icons that you could carry with it. As the herald usually joins a unit of Bloodletters or Bloodcrushers, it is very useful to be able to re-roll bad rolls on instability tests. Especially when you lose combat, re-rolling those high rolls or even rolling doubles 1s would save the unit. The icons that the herald could carry are only five:

• Banner of Hellfire. It contains a bound spell of power 5 that deals D6 strenghth six hits to all nearby enemies. Sounds pretty awesome but at the cost of another herald! Apart from that, it would require you to use up 2 power dice to cast it (effectively unless you wish to try a single 33% dice roll). Too expensive to carry and eats up power dice which is important for your other wizards. This banner is meant for 7^th edition and before.
• Banner of Unholy Victory. In the days where you can now always attack in 2 or 3 ranks (horde), static combat resolution has not been very important. It would make a difference only if your opponent would be as destructive as your unit in close combat.
• Great Icon of Despair. My favourite icon. This icon has given a lot of opponents a lot of headache when they have to take fear tests at -2 to their leadership. Very useful against opponents with leadership value of 8 and below. Look at your opponent's face when they have to take their leadership at -2.
• Great Standard of Sundering. Another banner that is really good against opponents that would concentrate much on magic. Especially after deployment has been done, only that you reveal you have this ability. Reduces their ability to cast spells and oh... remember not to have your own wizards to have spell of light.
• Standard of Chaos Glory. A great banner if you wish to tarpit your opponent's unit. It costs a bomb but sometimes could help out with you have to slowly grind away your opponent. Otherwise if you would win in most close combat situations, this banner would be a waste.

Conclusion

The Herald of Khorne is always a good addition to your Daemons of Chaos army. Always put him either in a unit of Bloodletters or Bloodcrushers and he will not only help increase the effectiveness of the unit but also being able to survive and perform. He is not the most toughest character in Warhammer Fantasy Battles but he is certainly one of the most cost effective character.

Arch-Lector - Leading The Empire

One of the armies which I have collected for about 10 years is The Empire. Ever since the seventh edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, I had been using the Arch-Lector as the leader of my men. Here's an article of why the arch-lector has been the number one choice as the overall general of my army.

Arch-Lector

The army general would always be the arch-lector. The arch-lector provides a solid leadership to the units nearby, magic defense, support abilities and potential character killer. Here is a clearer explanation of what I've just said:

• Leadership - I usually would field him in the center among all the other units. This would enable him to provide his leadership of nine to all the troops nearby and the range is improved if he's mounted on the war-altar.

• Magic defense - When is dispel dice ever enough? The more dispel dice you can get, the better it is. The arch-lector provides two dispel dice on top of the dispel pool that you receive. He's not a wizard that provide any wizard level for dispelling but that's a job for Battle Wizards to handle. He did his part by just providing the two dice.

• Support abilities - Join the arch-lector into a unit and he'll cause the unit to have Hatred to all enemies. Empire troops don't have very good combat abilities. With Hatred rule, re-rolls are a big big help. The arch-lector could also "pray" during the magic phase which could buff the abilities of characters, make the unit that he joins unbreakable, heal or does direct damage to units in base contact. He could also pray for himself to have a 4+ ward!

• Character killer - Some inexperienced players might laugh when I say this but the Empire have one of the finest magic items available for their characters. Equip him with Van Horstman's Speculum(VHS) and your opponent's fighty character would avoid him. Ever heard of the cannon ball on a stick? That's one of the most scariest magic item the Empire could bring. The arch-lector relies on magic items to put him on par with other combat characters. I'll explain later on what sort of gear that I usually equip him with. He have only two attacks, average strength and toughness and pretty low weapon skill for a lord class character. So he have to choose his opponents wisely or he won't be able to be the character killer that he should be.

Sounds like he's an invincible character which wipes out all opponents in his path! Well, I wish that were true but almost every character have their weaknesses. The arch-lector have a few thorns at his sides which will be described as:

• Challenge Only- The arch-lector could only perform well when he's facing a one-on-one duel. If you get into a challenge, you would have a better chance (if you're equipped for it) but if the opponent could decline your challenge and still hit you well with their unit, the arch-lector would face a difficult time.

• Shooting Magnet - Your opponent may know that your arch-lector have only a toughness of four and would probably launch all manners of shooting at him. Of course you would have "look out sir!" protection from the unit you join him with but what if you field him on a war-altar? The 4+ ward save is nice but it's only fifty percent chance of saving your character.

• Power of Four - Sounds like something interesting right? Well, it's not. Though the prayers of Sigmar are easily cast, at four plus, is also easily dispelled. The remains in play prayers can be easily dispelled during your opponents phase. This means that the prayers won't last long unless your opponent or yourself have forgotten about it!

Okay, now that I've explained his benefits and weaknesses, you're now going to field him with your army but wait! What do we equip him? I would normally equip him based on the role which I would want him to do. If he was suppose to be the leader which won't require him to excel at close combat, I wouldn't need to spend so many points into his equipment. Sometimes just a great weapon and heavy armour would be enough. But but but... he's the general! You might say. I would reply that he's a cheap general that only need his leadership of nine. Okay, so if you want more protection for him, Armour of Meteoric Iron would be the best choice. So how would I equip him?

Arch-lector Mounts

• Mounted on barded warhorse. Dawn armour. VHS. Sword of Might. Shield. This setup is used when I field him in a unit of knights (inner circle or vanilla). Charge your opponent and issue challenge. The Dawn armor is to give you much needed reroll on armor saves (1+ in this setup). Sword of Might is just to give additional strength (moar is always bettar!) and VHS speaks for itself.
• Mounted on war-altar. Armour of Meteoric Iron. VHS. Sword of Sigismund. This is the most common setup which I field. I like having my general on the war-altar which is considered a large target and extends his leadership bubble to eighteen inches. Sword of Sigismund is to make sure he hits first and hopefully take out the opponent in the first round of combat. His task is to provide leadership in the early turns and then go character hunting. Greater Daemon's would hate to face him.
• Mounted on war-altar. Dawn Armour. Mace of Maelstrum. Shield. Cannonball on a stick. This is more of a risky setup but fun when you opponent knows that you deal a strength 10 D6 wound weapon. The Dawn Armour is there to help you survive longer although only with 2+ armour saves with this setup.
• Mounted on war-alter. VHS. Shield of the Gorgon. You exchange the number of attacks and reduce the number of attacks by 1. Imagine swapping your Arch-lector attacks with a Chaos Exalted Hero. Reduce further by 1 attack. See your opponent's face. Smile. You still have 45 points for choosing the right magic weapon in this setup.
• On foot. Armour of Meteoric Iron. Great Weapon. Simple setup. He's there to provide leadership and Hatred to the infantry that he joins and not to kill your opponent's general or character. Notice how cheap this general is.

So there you have it. A general worth fielding and depending on the army size, probably enables you to probably field another lord class character. The arch-lector is not the super killing machine (go Chaos if you want that) but like a mortal man, he's dependable and could give the support that the entire army needs.

Herald of Tzeentch Conversion

Tzeentch creatures have always been perceived as being weak in close combat but strong in magical ability. Thus having the common weak physique as everyone would think they “should” have. For this Tzeentch herald, I wish to have a different look and change all that perception about Tzeentch characters having a weaker body. What I had in mind, that this character, fluff wise, would have been able to take over a chaos warrior's mind and manifested itself from the body of this warrior's body. This enabled the herald to possess the strong physique of a chaos warrior. I didn't want to make this into a major conversion project and opted for a simple way gluing a few part together. Here is a list of what I used for the herald:

1. Warrior of Chaos body and back (includes the cloak)
2. Icon from Horrors of Tzeentch standard bearer
3. Head from Horrors of Tzeentch champion
4. Arm from Horrors of Tzeentch sprue
5. Tongue from Horror's sprue (cut out from one of the model's body)
6. PVA glue + water + tissue
7. Book from Empire flagellant sprue
8. Modeling file (for filing off unwanted parts)
9. Superglue
10. Plastic glue
11. Putty
12. Cutting knife

Out from the sprue

First off, I would start off would the base as it would take time for it to dry. My usual PVA glue + water + tissue base would be used for my whole Daemon's army so it would not be any different for this model. So while I am waiting for it to dry, I could start working on the body. Glue the warriors of chaos body together and then file off the feathery part of the cloak. This is actually not really important but I didn't want it to have too many parts resembling it's previous form of a chaos warrior. Then by using putty, form up the neck area similar to how they are done with the Horror's body. Quickly before letting the putty to dry, stick the tongue to the neck area. I had made sure that later, the head part would fit nicely before leaving it to dry and harden.

Next, I scrapped off some parts of the right arm from the warrior's body. This would allow the Tzeentch icon and the arm to be positioned higher and at a position where I would want them. The Tzeentch icon has two arms connected to it but I would only want only one. So the other arm had to be cut off and the shoulder part was also cut off. There is already sufficient upper arm area and the shoulder from the warrior body for me. For the left arm, I would just cut off the upper arm area leaving just the lower arm part. Next, I would glue both the arms to the body and that would almost complete the whole conversion. 

Finally painting all the parts as how would want them. The base is done first and that would follow the theme of my whole Daemon's army. The skin, I had already decided upon a purplish colour and the armour to have a mixture of blue and chainmail. For the cloak would also be a darker shade of blue and flaming colours added to the icon. All the smaller details would follow simple common colouring and finally the book from the Empire flagellant sprue. The book is then glued to the left arm completing the whole model.

A close look on the herald

Another look on the herald

Close look on the icon

The whole model