# are bloodletters that overpowered?



## mcmuffin (Mar 1, 2009)

are bloodletters that overpowered? that is my question. i played 1250 points of space wolves today, and i had 9 grey hunters on an objective, and i got charged by bloodletters, and they destroyed my entire squad before i could even strike back. i had never played against daemons before, but he had 40 bloodletters, 3 flamers, a soul grinder and the fateweaver, and i had 2 squads of long fangs, 2 squads of grey hunters, 4 wolf guard and 2 rune priests. at the end of turn 6, my entire army was gone, how are daemons so powerful?


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## High_Seraph (Aug 28, 2009)

maybe you had bad rolling? or he had awesome rolling? a little more detail would be nice. what where his tactics how was the army played?


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## dthwish09 (Oct 15, 2009)

hrmm, where your hunters in cover that would have helped cause you could have attacked first, maybe bloodletters are just really good at assaulting units that are out in the open because of their assaulty statistics.


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## mcmuffin (Mar 1, 2009)

High_Seraph said:


> maybe you had bad rolling? or he had awesome rolling? a little more detail would be nice. what where his tactics how was the army played?


well, we rolled off in battle missions, and unfortunately, we rolled for the chaos daemons mission, invasion. he automatically got the first turn. in the first turn, his fateweaver and his retarded template attack killed 3 of my long fangs, who were in a building. then he turned another into a spawn. next turn, i fired my lascannon long fangs, immobilising his soul grinder. i also shot my heavy bolter and plasma cannon long fangs at the flamers, killing 1. next turn, the flamers killed my remaining long fangs lascannon long fangs. he entered from the portal and moved 6" then, next turn, they assaulted my grey hunters, and he hit on 3's, wounded on 3's, with no armour saves allowed. but, before he killed my entire squad, my GH killed about 9 of his bloodletters. by this stage, the fateweaver and the flamers killed an killed the other squad of long fangs. my second squad of grey hunters took out the bloodletters that were sitting on the objective that my previous GH were on, but then the fateweaver moved and used his retarded template again, taking out 6 of my grey hunters. the soul grinder used his blast weapon and caused another 2 of them, then the flamers bolt of changed my remaining rune priest and grey hunter, hilling my powerfist. i was charged by the fateweaver and caused him 1 wound with my runic weapon, but he ID'd my rune priest. finally, fateweaver moved and again shot his psychic attacks at my scouts, game over then. :cray:


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## Chumbalaya (May 17, 2010)

Bloodletters are T4 infantry with a 5+ save and no grenades. Shoot them with bolters and they die, then sit in cover and slap them around before they can hurt you.

Daemons are powerful individually because their army special rules are so debilitating. Deep Striking fragile infantry that have to walk into combat is made of so much fail.

Mech up, srsly. Daemons can't shut down mech effectively, at least most crappy Daemons armies you'll see (lol Fateweaver).


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## mcmuffin (Mar 1, 2009)

thanks for the advice man, i will prolly buy myself 2 more razorback kits, use them as either razors or rhinos. i might also buy an LR crusader. i bet ass can spam would work well against daemons. i shot lots of them, but there were 20 in each squad. i haven't bought any mech units yet, as i have only played 5 games of wolves, i am still finding my feet with them tactics-wise.i am getting my cyclone termie built this evening, so more ML are on the way. i was also unfortunate to roll 25 on the battle missions book, so i got fucked by that also. i also think he might have been cheating. i just looked at the rules for the fateweaver, and he was firing the same power twice as his second psychic shooting attack, but i cant see how this is allowed.


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## Grimskul25 (Feb 17, 2009)

They probably seem overpowered to you since they all have PW which ignores your precious armour save with you being MEQ player and all, that along with furious charge which can allow them to attack you before you can attack them and WS5 can seem a aunting prospect for any marine player. However the major weakness of all bloodletters is their survivability, for one thing they only have a 5+ invuln.save which means they die almost as easily as guardsmen from bolters, all you need to take down the masses of bloodletters is to make sure you have enough volume of fire to whittle them down to manageable levels. Flamers are also dangerous at range but are mediocre at melee so they are also vulnerable to small arms fire as well as assault so if you can catch them with melee before they attack they will be easily taken care of. I also have a question, did your opponent split his force in half when he deployed? Chaos Daemons have to send half of their force in first and the rest in later through deepstrike, so did the Daemonic Invasion mission change or alter this rule at all? If not you may be playing a no-good cheating git.


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## Warlock in Training (Jun 10, 2008)

mcmuffin said:


> thanks for the advice man, i will prolly buy myself 2 more razorback kits, use them as either razors or rhinos. i might also buy an LR crusader. i bet ass can spam would work well against daemons. i shot lots of them, but there were 20 in each squad. i haven't bought any mech units yet, as i have only played 5 games of wolves, i am still finding my feet with them tactics-wise.i am getting my cyclone termie built this evening, so more ML are on the way. i was also unfortunate to roll 25 on the battle missions book, so i got fucked by that also. i also think he might have been cheating. i just looked at the rules for the fateweaver, and he was firing the same power twice as his second psychic shooting attack, but i cant see how this is allowed.


Fate Weavers rules should allow him to use the same power twice. Like a Tzeenth Sorceror can cast GoC twice. Tzeentch is the Chaos God magic. Check his rules but unless its a shotting attack, you can use the same Psy power.


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## Chumbalaya (May 17, 2010)

Tzeentch "magic" is just a normal shooting attack, so he can only cast 1 per turn.


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## maddermax (May 12, 2008)

Chumbalaya said:


> Tzeentch "magic" is just a normal shooting attack, so he can only cast 1 per turn.


He can't use the same power more than once per turn, you are correct. But just to clarify for everyone else, he can use three shooting powers in a turn, all at different targets, as far as I understand it.




Grimskul25 said:


> However the major weakness of all bloodletters is their survivability, for one thing they only have a 5+ invuln.save which means they die almost as easily as guardsmen from bolters, all you need to take down the masses of bloodletters is to make sure you have enough volume of fire to whittle them down to manageable levels. Flamers are also dangerous at range but are mediocre at melee so they are also vulnerable to small arms fire as well as assault so if you can catch them with melee before they attack they will be easily taken care of.


The old advice of Choppa the Dakka and Dakka the Choppa. It's definitely good advice against demons, as their units tend to only excel at one or the other - take them out of their comfort zone, and you'll find the game much easier.


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## Forty Three (Jun 20, 2008)

you don't really need to gear your army towards being able to deal with daemons, a balanced army will beat them. What chumbalaya said is true, they cost one more point than a tactical marine and all have power weapons, but they only have a 5+ save and they have to walk at you after deep striking and having to sit there for one turn. This should give you enough time to shoot them to bits, especially if you're playing SW.

43


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

People still aren't playing mechanized armies? Jeez... 

Seriously, like Chumby said, mech up and your problems with Daemons will largely disappear.


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## NeonDante (May 14, 2009)

Dakka the choppas indeed! If you play to their strengths, the Deamons are going to paste you, same as any army. Even if you're not going to tailor your army list to fight him, use what you have, the advantages your army has, to hit him where he's weak. They can dish it out, but they can't take it, and you have bolters!

Also, mech up, not only will it give you great protection against limited shooting armies like demons, but manuverability and speed are always points in your favor! The right unit in the right place is more than worth two in the wrong ones!


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## Bocaj (May 10, 2009)

Yeh fateweaver can shoot 3 times a turn at diff targets. MC 2 shots, master of sorcery +1 shot, then we are legion allows you to shoot at different targets.

Well tbh bloodletters are fragile but if used well they can cause havok by mushing tacticals before they strike back. THe combat calculator at the top of this page says if 10 betters charge a unit of marines they will kill 13.333 marines. So i know that letters are fragile so i land them in cover or near other scary units so they dont get shot to pices.


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

I love Daemons because they are so random. Bloodletters are totally amazing and even a handful will make much of a MEq unit. Vs Mech they are very weak, but that is what the Soul Grinder is for, and Daemon Princes etc.


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## Funkadacious (Jun 5, 2010)

Sounds like something a whirlwind could handle. Large blast template should help with large numbers. 5+ invuln save only goes so far.


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## Syko515 (Jan 22, 2008)

large blasts are not the answer, not when the deamons can form the "conga line" of doom formation, you'll effectively only manage to get 3 or 4 at the most. i find deamons are a HUGE problem for my plague marines, but this is due to my mate running them in blocks of 20. with what bloodletters rock for weapons, and their basic stats, only 5 need to make it to you and your Marines, of anykind, are gribbled on the spot...o a turn later. 

honestly seeing them played week to week agenst various different armys, tourny or fluffy, and always either mulching their foe or at the very least stopping them from leaving thie board edge, its a wonder they're not a contender for top army. to rat out my buddy, we typically play the 2000 point mark and whomever he's faceing is having to deal with something like this. 

Skulltaker,

Slaanesh herald thingy

20 bloodletters

20 deamonettes

10 pink...or are they blue? horrors

10 plague bearers

5 flamers

5 flamers

2 soul grinders.

now i post this not to get off topic, everything in this list is a deadly distraction from the true game ending unit. the skulltaker bloodletter combo, typically lands behind cover atleast 12" away, making it hard to see, hard to shoot, and then hard stay awayfrom due to the rest of half of the army landing all around you effectivly building a large net.
at this point you have a smal bubble to work in and fight your way out of or its done. now, rhinos moving flat out can make it past this blockade style of play, but with the amount of attacks being thrown 6's to hit rear are bound to happen in spades. all they need are an immoblization result and its over for that unit. they either can get out and fire in to the deamon squad and then get gribbled because they can't kill enough, OR wait for the deaomns to auto hit rear and pop the tank the next turn, and to the same thing. preserves the unit for a turn or so, but doesn't effectivly stop the mass block of warp entities. now, once your stopped, i find its too easy for the skulltaker bloodletter squad to meerly march across the already swamped units and systematically take them all out one by one.

my answer to the bloodletters / deamonic menace as a whole? i haven't found one yet as even rapid firing bolters doesn't seem too effective agenst the large blobs. pray for a mishap? but then if the table has the proper amount of terrian , that prayer will probably go unanswered.


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## inigo montoya (Feb 1, 2009)

Wait till he breaks the bloodcrushers out on you.

Mechanize. Psycannons are great at killing daemons...


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## AAAAAAAAARRRGGHH (Apr 17, 2009)

No offense but that list is barely tough to beat. The 2 grinders should be meltadeathed easily with PM in Rhinos, deamonettes fall like flies to RF, the PB unit is unecessarily large, same with the horrors, flamers are always easy kill points (just don't let them flame you man.) and those letters can't stand concentrated fire.

To be perfectly frank, in a competitive enviroment, that list is pretty sucky. It's got nothing to kill mech (Which is how daemons usually lose) apart from the flamers and grinders. And only the grinders will actually kill tanks if it can hit them.

The answer is pretty simple. Run away. And then kill his units 1 by 1. It's not like he's presenting any difficult targets. The antitank guns goes at the grinders and the flamers should be killed first. Everything else can't take your full armys worth of firepower and can't really catch your transports.

Like it's been mentioned the easy answer to daemons is always mech. Not good enough? Just learn the your target prioritation. If that doesn't work either, change your list 
Seriously, everyone can beat daemons. It's just takes some getting used to their playstyle and their units capabilities.


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

Tbh, second wave make improve their chances. I know I have been waiting for Seekers for a few years now, they are really going to take people by surprise


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## when in doubt shoot! (Oct 19, 2008)

Bloodletters are on of those units that have great equipment (the hellblade) but aren't that great themselves statwise. Like tau (good weapons, not so good soldiers.) If they're wiping you out before you can attack, charge 'em as they come in? or pack into cover and counter charge them first. But you'll want to focus a lot of firepower on them, preferably stuff that'll take away that nasty invulnerable save from their box o' tricks.


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## Lord Reevan (May 1, 2008)

Thing with bloodletters I've always noticed is that they rely on the charge. you take the charge away from them they're weaker, slower and throwing out less attacks. standard assault squad, no special weapons, no characters anything can take out 6 blood letters(rough mathhammer) if they get the charge and that's not including bolt pistol fire or anything like that. take their bonus for charging away from them and they're not much better than crap save marines with power weapons. Hell Skulltaker and a 10 strong unit of bloodletters was taken out by an assault squad with a power weapon and a sanguinary priest. didn't lose any men myself. the charge is what's important so steal it from them.


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## Ishamael (Aug 26, 2008)

Undoubtedly it's already been preached enough, but Bloodletters cannot do squat when they have to assault into difficult terrain.

You sit in crater, dakka them, let them charge, they go at I1. Collect KP, get a soda.


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