The book says they get a +2 Damage buff per enemy killed in an encounter, How does this interact with Hordes? Also, if you have a few slaves, could you butcher them as a sacrifice to Khorne before combat starts?

Khorne and his followers venerate combat and strength in combat, not slaughter for the sake of slaughter. If it were my choice as a GM I would say no, you can't 'charge' a Hellblade before hand by killing off some worthless slaves. Besides, that is just making an annoyance of yourself.

I would agree for balance's sake; but remember "Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows."

The real question was on how it interacted with hordes.

I'd consider hordes to be too insignificant for their blood to amount to anything. Killing your minion during a lull in combat (killing him before the combat even starts won't accomplish anything since only deaths inflicted during the same combat grant bonuses) on the other hand side would IMO count. Note: Minion, not random flunky.

Well, Tim got back to me, He said that each point of Magnitude removed counted as a "kill" So case closed.

Fenrisnorth said:

I disagree. Why would he care about the skulls of those that aren't even worth fighting. I'm not saying they would live because he doesn't care, but that they mean much less than the skull of a warrior. The greater the warrior the better, obviously.

"Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows" is kinda a famous tagline. Yes, he is the god of combat, but he is also the god of slaughter. So don't give me this "Why would he care…" junk. He would care because it's blood, blood for the blood god, and another skull for his throne.

Fenrisnorth said:

holy frikkin crap

That's insane. First, 1 Mag loss and 1 death are different. Second you're going to get up to +50 damage.

@fenrisnorth

"Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows" is kinda a famous tagline. Yes, he is the god of combat, but he is also the god of slaughter. So don't give me this "Why would he care…" junk. He would care because it's blood, blood for the blood god, and another skull for his throne.

The quote has two interpretations - one being that it's actually irrelevant who you're killing, the other being that it's irrelevant whose side the guy you're killing is on. Khorne doesn't care whether you kill a Space Marine Champion or a World Eater Berserker, although the death of the latter ostensibly weakens his own forces. However, BC took great pains to ascribe certain positive traits to each Chaos God and Khorne's is martial bravery. Khorne gives positive Corruption if you kill a superior foe, not if you slaughter pawns (core rules, page 289).

Fenrisnorth said:

I agree, but I would suggest if the horde's magnitude is low like 1-3, I wouldn't count it then. But if the horde is strong enough then I would count getting bonuses off it.

The main reason is fluff/reasoning. If your pit off against a horde of small creatures or humanoids, like nurglings or snotlings, the blades is not gaining strength off their souls (much like eating potato chips). But if you fighting let's say a horde of Orks or Imperial Guardmen, then you can qualify for the gaining the bonus (as the blade gorges on the feast of many souls.)

Im OK with that 1 mag = 1 kill, but I would restrict that to one "kill" per attack. You just have to deal at least one magnitude damage in this attack.

bogi_khaosa said:

Which will do you no good at all against a Horde, and if the Horde is fighting alongside a more powerful enemy, then by the time you've "charged up" by slaughtering the Horde the more powerful enemy is probably either dead or killing you.

Chastity said:

was going to point out something along these lines as well.

My take is, if you manage to get your hands on a Hellblade (and your GM isn't letting you have one easily) then sure, a kill is a kill. Aside from certain Daemonweapons, the Hellblade is the cream of the crop.

Chastity said:

This… doesn't make sense. You fight the Horde, get your + 50 damage, then run over and slice the tank in half that your other party members are fighting.

Ferrous82 said:

Until you need that hand to do something else and can't pass the WP test to put the **** sword away. Makes it hard to even use ranged weapons in the other hand if they need to be reloaded and grenades are likely problematic too.

@Chastity

Which will do you no good at all against a Horde, and if the Horde is fighting alongside a more powerful enemy, then by the time you've "charged up" by slaughtering the Horde the more powerful enemy is probably either dead or killing you.

Why wouldn't I switch targets? Let's say I spend two turns attacking a horde and roll relatively well. I've got Whirlwind of Death (t2 talent), a WS of 52 and no reason not to go all-out since I can't evade a horde anyway. I roll a 30 and a 60. That means I have six DoS on the first and three DoS on the second roll. I thus deal four magnitude hits from the damage and six from the Whirlwind. My hellblade now inflicts 1d10+36 P10 damage (+6 standard, +10 SB with power armour, +20 for ten kills).

So… either my friends kill everything remotely note-worthy within these two rounds or I kill it in the third.

May I state the question whether that's actually your opinion?

Ranged weapons? What are those? Can you take skulls with them? I am doubtful.

Ferrous82 said:

Ranged weapons are what you use against flying opponents - like many Eldar, Dark Eldar ,and Tau units and even some of the Necrons. For that matter, there are many daemons that fly too, and not all of them are friendly. Khorne's Berserkers may not care for ranged attacks, but they are only a small group of extremists - most followers of Khorne love shooting their opponents.

HappyDaze said:

Perhaps my sarcasm was not detected. I would think that the occurrences of an individual that is NOT aligned with Khorne, using a Hellblade, would be exceptionally rare. I know that if I was GM'ing, and a Tzeentchian aligned character tried to pick one up, I would have Khorne reward his audacity with an especially foul gift. The Ruinous Powers are neither blind, nor forgiving of trespasses. This is Black Crusade.

Ferrous82 said:

I was specifically talking about all of those Khorne-aligned warriors that still believe that guns are a worthy way of felling opponents. Not every Khornite is a berserker.

Cifer said:

You've spent two turns fighting a Horde to get +20 damage Had you spent those two turns fighting whatever thing your 1D10 + 36 P10 damage is now going to be targeted at. Depending on what your stats are, what your target is, and what its armour is, you may or may not do more damage than you would have done by just attacking your original target for three turns straight. It might also be non-trivial to get through the Horde to the other target, or to switch targets.

1D10 + 36 damage is enough to one-shot most Elites, but so are most other Very Good Weapons (and the Hellblade is certainly a Very Good Weapon) and it will take a decent chunk out of most Masters, but I'm not sure what's *wrong* with that.

All you seem to have demonstrated is that a character armed with a very powerful melee weapon and specifically specced to use that weapon optimally under a particular set of conditions can do a lot of damage under those conditions.

Can a Hellblade be used with Terminator armor? Daemon weapons and regular power swords can.

I don't see why not.