# Blood letters, not as bad as you might think.



## Juiceypoop (Jun 5, 2008)

This post is aimed at Daemon players. The general opinion over in the chaos Daemons army list section is that bloodletters are one of the weaker troop choices in the army when compared with horrors, and plague bearers. 

But I use bloodletters anyway, mostly because i really like the models. and in using bloodletters i've found that they arn't so bad.

reasons why people don't like bloodletters:

1. they die easily.

2. they have to get into assault before they can start earning their points back, and because they deep strike, there is a good chance your opponent will shoot them to bits before they get to do what they do best. 

with regards to issue 1. the bloodletter is deceptivly resilliant, lets say for example, that you deep striked 10 bloodletters within range of 10 space marines with bolt guns, and they rapid fired you, 20 shots, 13 hits, 6 wounds 4 failed saves. now lets compare the same scenario with a unit of 10 pink horrors, 10 space marines rapid fire, 20 shots, 13 hits, 8 wounds, 4 failed saves. with str5 or lower weaponry, bloodletters and horrors die at pretty much the same rate. Granted horrors, get to shoot as soon as they land, wich leads me to my next point.

Blood letters need to get into assault before they can do any damage. But oh what damage can they do! lets continue from the last scenario, the bloodletters have just been rapid fired by ten marines, and suffered 4 casualties, next turn, the blood letters assault. 6 blood letters, 18 attacks at I 5, 12 hit, 8 space marines die. the space marines return attacks might kill a blood letter if they're lucky. lets compare that to 2 turns of horrors shooting. 10 horrors, shooting twice is 60 shots, 30 hits, 15 wounds, and 5 failed saves. and thats assuming that no horrors died to return fire. 

Of course, blood letters may not always deep strike in charge range, and if your opponent focuses his fire power against a single unit of bloodletters, they'll get shredded (and he will, because bloodletters are scary), but if you make good use of your icons to get them in position, and take more than one decent sized unit of them and use them to screen each over for cover saves, then bloodletters can be an effective means of destroying your enemy. 

So next time your having a game at your mates house and trying out proxyed versions of your latest army list idea, why not give bloodletters a go, you might be pleasantly surprised.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

They are the nastiest offensive unit the daemons have... they are also the easiest to kill.
Personally I would take them as my game winners but they have to be defended- I would DS plaguebearers close to the enemy and have the bloodletters behind them- with the extra combat shield and distraction the bloodletters should get the charge while taking minimal casualities.


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## Juiceypoop (Jun 5, 2008)

I'd say the easiest to kill would be daemonettes. I wish they didn't make daemonettes look like ugly old trannys who look like they've just had a mouth full of vinnegar.


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## Neccies rule (Jul 14, 2008)

i like your description of the daemonettes :laugh:

I like bloodletters but you HAVE to get the charge. then they do serious damage.

i like to use ascreen of horrors when they land to get the cover save.

also take them in big units (i take 16) so that after they've been shot up you still have stuff to charge with. you only need half dozen to make a mess of a most units.

they also murder terminators.


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## CamTheApostle (Oct 31, 2008)

Oh, the horror and the glory I have had with my blood letters, who I love despite their fragility.

Horror
When assaulted, I generally lose the fight (most of my local players of MEqs). Sure, I kill a good many of them, but I just can never make those 5+ saves. No retreat is what usually gets me.

Glory
Remember that I mainly fight MEqs with these guys. That said, I have slaughtered squads of the Emperor's boy-scouts in a single assault. Just like that. 24 (assuming I only have 8 bloodletters) attack, 16 hits, 10 wounds, squad gone without retaliation. The look of shock and dismay on my opponents face (especially when i do something like that to terminators or death company) is worth all the pain and grief that comes with dying from No Retreat saves.

My experience with Bloodletters has resulted in my assessment that any combat they are in usually won't last past two rounds. Either they die quickly, or they kill very quickly.


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## bishop5 (Jan 28, 2008)

They are a good unit but you need to be able to screen them to get them in combat, something that's pretty difficult to do with a Deep Striking, random army like Daemons. 

The best way is to have them come in behind PB's with an Icon; no scatter, no fuss and a 4+ cover save to boot.


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## Dallas_Drake (Jan 26, 2009)

Hehe I actually had my Horrors beat up a Tactical Squad in combat & send them packing last weekend in a big 3000 point multiplayer. Serves them right for taking advantage of my poor deployment!

Re: Bloodletters, some nice points :so_happy: 

Sadly, as usual my Bloodletters got minced.

Why? Well there is something you failed to mention... When Bloodletters hit the table EVERY gun goes their way, for me that meant Battlecannons, Lasguns, Whirlwinds and Heavy Bolters; so they got wasted. Sure, if they get into HtH they do amazingly well (as long as they don't assault into cover against anything remotely good) but it's getting them there with a 5+ that hurts so bad!

- Dallas


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

To me it seems like one unit of Bloodletters aimed for the 2nd wave always can come in handy. They require some more tinkering to get something out of then Plaguebearers for example, but the reward is alot bigger when it strikes home:grin:
Then again its probably alot based on the other elements in your army. Certain units works well regardless of other components in the list, like a unit of 3 Flamers. Regardless of all other units these guys will do the same thing, DS down, kill something and then probably die. Plaguebearers will always excel @ acting fat on a objective but little other things and so on.
Correctly used Bloodletters will chew through their victims on a charge. Incorrectly theyll die to bolterfire, like for example when deployed on the middle of the board just ahead of the other players army:stop:


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## hockeydude16 (Apr 22, 2009)

Dallas_Drake said:


> When Bloodletters hit the table EVERY gun goes their way, for me that meant Battlecannons, Lasguns, Whirlwinds and Heavy Bolters; so they got wasted.
> - Dallas


Now remember what im about to say is comming from a someone who plays orks.... But Dallas is right, they will be minced by battle cannons,lascannons, and heavy bolters... but that the rest of your army isn't being touched. So while your opponent is blowing all there heavy fire on one unit it buys valuable time for the rest of your CC troops/elites to move in for the kill. Now I do realize that they are a bit expensive to be meat shields, but try to make the best out of every situation. To my knowledge dont they have Feel no pain? If so they might even survive all that fire. Definitly worth it in my book to carry them in an army.


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## englhockey (Mar 19, 2009)

i used bloodletters today a squad of 6 and a squad of 15 and they killed 2 tac squads like nothing, also they went on to kill a librian and attack bike. I think there 5+ inv. sv. isnt bad at all, especially when they come with power weapons with rending, imo. they are the best offenseive troopchoice in the codex, defense goes to the plague bears.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

hockeydude16 said:


> Now remember what im about to say is comming from a someone who plays orks.... But Dallas is right, they will be minced by battle cannons,lascannons, and heavy bolters... but that the rest of your army isn't being touched. So while your opponent is blowing all there heavy fire on one unit it buys valuable time for the rest of your CC troops/elites to move in for the kill. Now I do realize that they are a bit expensive to be meat shields, but try to make the best out of every situation. To my knowledge dont they have Feel no pain? If so they might even survive all that fire. Definitly worth it in my book to carry them in an army.


No FNP for non-nurgle daemons. 
It takes neither a lot of time nor a full army to kill a unit of bloodletters. If they've come down in the first wave then you are likely to be at a 2-1pts disadvantage of on-board models... if twice the pts worth of bloodletters are firing at them at close range without a covering unit then that unit is pretty wasted.
If they arent close then the other player can fire a few long range blast weapons at them and concentrate on closer models, knowing they'll have another turn to fire before you can assault

-I would always try to have plague bearers in combat with as much of the enemy line as possible before bringing on bloodletters. Not to kill the enemy just to stop them firing (same purpose as hormogants/raveners) so that the bloodletters are mostly unmolested.. and can then storm through the enemy lines without difficulty.


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## CamTheApostle (Oct 31, 2008)

hockeydude16 said:


> Dallas_Drake said:
> 
> 
> > Sadly, as usual my Bloodletters got minced.
> ...


I found the easiest way to draw fire from them is to deploy a large, intimidating looking model within 18" of your enemies more expensive models. You know, like a Soulgrinder and/or a Bloodthirster. Simply put, these beasts are just to large and powerful to be fully ignored. Especially when you can have them decimate any squad or smash any tank in assault. Scary stuff.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Yeah, if your playing me then place Ku'gath next to me and I'm gonna have to try hard to point my little warriors any other way... but then I have horrible luck vs him, and my opponent that uses his passes about 90% of his FNP (ugh how I hate him that 1 model)


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## Juiceypoop (Jun 5, 2008)

Thanks for the responses guys. I actually did mention that if you deep strike a single unit of bloodletters than allot of people will freak out and shoot everything they have at them until the unit is gone, wich is why I also said it's worthwhile taking more than one unit, and trying to screen them.

Another thing to consider (with regards to what tim\steve said) is that when you are deploying the first half of your army against your opponent you should deploy on his flank, so that your opponent has to shoot through most of his own units and reposition his army to get into range with all of it.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Indeed- that sort of tactical flexibility is demons strengths... doesnt help so muc if the oponent deploys in a corner and/or in transports for rapid redeployment (my personnal favourite).

If you can DS onto a weak flank of an enemy's army and then deliberatly move so that very few of your models are in the combat it may be possible to not wipe out the enemy unit... leaving you hiding in combat to charge again next turn... though in anhililation or capture & control missions this may just not be possible.


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