How to train your Skull Host of Khorne

The Mortal Realms are filled with a multitude of big gribbly beasties, horrific daemons and creatures of nightmare – but none are as simply massive and awe inspiring as Vorgaroth the Scarred & Skalok the Skull Host of Khorne. This Dragon and Warlord tag team rejoice in decimating the enemies of Khorne through axe and white hot fire, striking terror into their foes and claiming mountains of skulls for their patron. In this article I’ll be diving into how to best take the reins of the biggest dragon since the Age of Myth and how the Blades of Khorne battletome makes it even more awesome!

All eggs in one massive dragon shaped basket

Skalok is huge! Seriously, this thing makes Archaon look like a toddler in comparison! being a massive dragon certainly has some benefits – being able to gobble down an Ogor in a single mouthful being near the top of the list. However there are a couple of downsides to fielding this draconic force worthy of Khorne, most of all the fact he costs 1200 points! Yes, if you want to decimate all in your path with wings and anger it’s going to cost you 60% of your army! Is it worth it? Of course it is! While the duo are a lot of points, they more than make up for it in their stats.

How does 12 attacks with -2 rend and 2 damage sound? Yeah pretty good eh? How about every wound roll of a natural six causing D3 mortal wounds on top of any other damage? That’s a potential that’s 60 wounds that can be caused in a single attack! And brace yourself dear reader, as that is only the rider’s attacks! At her top tier Skalok can make up to 26 attacks each dealing 3 damage! Ouch. Even the biggest horde is going to evaporate in the face of that much destruction. And did I mention her shooting attack? Yes, shooting in a Khone army, and amazing shooting to boot! With her White-Hot Balefire she gets 3 attacks with -3 rend that wound on 2s and deal D6 damage each. your opponent can kiss goodbye to their screening units when they explode in flames!

Yes, Vorgaroth and Skalok can put out some serious hurt, however to get the best out of them you should invest precious points in some supporting units

Buffing the Beast

Khorne players will be no stranger to the host of supporting units that make your Khornate fighters even stronger, and these show their best when buffing something as monstrous as Vorgaroth and Skalok.

Bloodsecrators are a go-to choice for making things that hit hard hit even harder – remember all those attacks that this model gets? Well add another one to all those numbers with the Rage of Khorne ability! In the latest Battletome the Bloodsecrator can even move while still getting the benefit of it’s icon, making it much easier to ensure the dragon is wholly with the range.

Who would be mad enough to whip a dragon to make it even better at fighting and charging? A Bloodstoker that’s who! With their Whipped to Fury ability you can add 3 inches to it’s charge rolls and even give it the ability to re-roll wound rolls. And the it’s not just failed wound rolls, oh no, you can re roll those axe attacks that didn’t roll 6’s in order to try and maximise the mortal wound output!

Prayers and Judgements are very powerful in the Blades of Khorne Battletome, so why not bring along some Slaughterpriests to keep your dragon at it’s best? Bronzed Flesh can make sure your dragon is fighting fit by giving it a 2+ save, while Killing Frenzy gives it +1 to hit to maximise all those many, many attacks.

Staying Alive

Vorgaroth and Skalok are going to be drawing a lot of firepower, so how can you help keep them alive? One option is adding a Warshrine to your list. This can reduce damage to your centrepiece by giving it the ability to ignore wounds and mortal wounds on a six, think of it as a Khorne twist on Disgustingly Resilient!

With all the damage output you will be dealing make sure to take advantage of Crimson Rain as soon as you can. This can be used in any hero phase (Even your opponent’s!) and immediately heals D3 wounds, but that’s not all as this then kicks in every friendly hero phase for the rest of the game!

If Vorgaroth and Skalok are looking worse for wear however then desperate times call for desperate measures – during the hero phase you can choose to eat any friendly model within 3″ – roll a dice and if you equal or exceed that model’s wounds characteristic then the model is slain and Vorgaroth regains that many wounds! Perfect for when your dragon gets fed up with being whipped by that Bloodstoker and fancies a bite to eat…

Magical Mystery Tour

Khorne armies are great at dealing with magic, but this is even more so when Vorgaroth is in the army – all enemy wizards with 18″ have to subtract 3 from casting and unbinding. Combine this with the Skull Alter and the Hexgorger Skulls for an impressive -6 to cast. Even Nagash is going to struggle getting spells off against that!

Bringing it all together

So you have your dragon and a range of supporting units to make it fight even better! Next you need some battleline units, thankfully Khorne has access to a nice and cheap option of Bloodreavers. at 70 points for 10 these are ideal for filling out those battleline requirements while also giving you a unit that can take objectives or even sacrifice themselves for Blood Tithe points.

Unsurprisingly, the aim of this army is to get a fully buffed up dragon into combat ASAP – taken straight from the pages of the Duncan Rhodes book of tactics you want to get this thing charging turn one – luckily you can maximise this. Remember that +3 to charge from the Bloodstoker? Well why not make it +4 by giving him the Talisman of Burning Blood. Want to really make sure they get into combat? Well make one of the Slaughterpriests your general and give him the Violent Urgency command trait to maximise those #ChargeEverything moments! Then simply get all your prayers and abilities off, point your dragon at the scariest thing on the board and proceed to claim skulls for Khorne! And if the dragon falls? Khorne cares not, it’s still a Blood Tithe point..

Blood for the Blood God!

I hope that has sated your thirst for blood and encouraged you to lead the Skull Host to victory! Vorgaroth the Scared & Skalok the Skull Host of Khorne is available from Forge World. If you are a Warhammer TV subscriber on Twitch you can watch back the time I fielded Vorgaroth against the chittering hordes of Skaven – Spoilers, many rats died that day…

Watch BLADES OF KHORNE VS SKAVEN // BATTLE // WARHAMER AGE OF SIGMAR from Warhammer on www.twitch.tv

Published by Matt Crowther

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