Khorne is the Chaos God of war, blood, and anything to do with demolishing thousands in melee combat.
Playing as Khorne’s disciples is one of the most fun experiences you can have in Total War: WARHAMMER 3. Almost exclusively melee, other than one artillery unit, forces you to march your armies to meet foes in glorious battle.
Khornite melee units tend to have incredibly high stats and will handily beat almost any other melee unit in the game. Combined with supportive units and powerful monsters, enemy front-lines fall after just a few minutes of battle.
If this play-style sounds attractive to you and you’re looking to start up a Khorne campaign, you’ll need to know the best units to choose. This list will also be helpful for PvP scenario battles, maximising the cost-efficiency of your army compositions.
10) Chaos Furies (Khorne)
Chaos Furies are a great budget choice for any army composition, useful for supporting characters in duels against enemy single entities.
Best utilised for dealing with artillery or other ranged threats. 110 speed and the ability to fly grants them unrivalled mobility around the map.
Almost zero defensive stats makes them micro-intensive so a maximum of 2 units of Chaos Furies per army is recommended.
9) Soul Grinder of Khorne
Extremely high armour-piercing damage backed up by flaming and magical attacks makes this unit a beast for taking out single entity targets. Big monsters, powerful lords/heroes, or tough cavalry, they all fall to the Soul Grinder of Khorne.
It does have a missile attack too but it has low usability.
“Precursor Missile Weapon” means you cannot see its range or choose a ranged target, ordering an attack move will simply cause the Soul Grinder to charge into melee. As a result, the ranged capabilities of this unit isn’t as good as Soul Grinders spawned from other Daemon lords.
This unit can be pretty nice in the campaign due to how common single entity targets are, but there isn’t much justification for its cost in multiplayer.
8) Chaos Warriors of Khorne (Halberds)
Khorne’s premiere anti-large infantry, boasting considerable stats to stay in the fight.
Being a faction based around hard-hitting infantry has its drawbacks as cavalry can be devastating if brought en-masse. Halberds are always needed to fortify the flanks and backlines.
High armour, leadership and decent melee defence gives these warriors everything they need to fend off large units.
7) Flesh Hounds of Khorne
Overall, these are the best hound units in Total War: WARHAMMER 3. Crazy high offensive stats with 95 speed is no joke, flesh hounds can rack up hundreds of kills per battle.
Bring 3-4 of them per army, use them to finish off fleeing units, chew through ranged units, and cycle charge flanks.
6) Skullcannon of Khorne
Skullcannons are a particularly weird unit that seems to be hit-and-miss on the battlefield.
Sometimes I’ll use them to devastating effect, whereas other times they’ll miss most of their shots. Quite frustrating considering the low amount of ammunition it has.
Instead of being your typical cavalry unit, use its speed as best as you can to position the Skullcannon well.
If it manages to get an attack into a blob of infantry units, the mixture of flaming, magical, and armour-piercing damage will chew through their hit points.
Once it has run out of ammo, it can be used as a chariot type unit to support your infantry. Ammunition recharges while in combat and it can also fire while moving.
5) Exalted Bloodletters
Expensive infantry but well worth the price, slicing through most other infantry units in the game. Especially good in campaign where you can field 6 or more units per army.
I’ve yet to find a situation where Exalted Bloodletters aren’t effective, other than being focused by ranged fire, due to the lack of shields.
Otherwise, they will cut through every type of melee target you encounter, regardless of how well armoured they are.
4) Blood Shrine of Khorne
Blood Shrines are powerful magical chariots that provide significant bonuses to all allies around them. Every Khorne army should have a Blood Shrine upfront.
All surrounding Khorne units will receive a bonus of +5 melee attack and +4 leadership. Also, Blood Shrines regenerate health while in combat.
3) Skullcrushers
Wielding a huge charge bonus, tons of armour and plenty of melee stats, Skullcrushers are some incredible cavalry.
Fairly low speed for a cavalry unit requires you to utilise them in a less typical fashion. Rather than constantly mopping up ranged units, you’ll want Skullcrushers fortifying your front-line.
Cycle charges by a single Skullcrusher unit will constantly destroy entire enemy units and allow the rest of your army to mop up whoever is left.
2) Bloodthirster
High anti-large armour-piercing damage backed up by flaming and magical attacks.
As a Daemon, Bloodthirsters are entitled to an innate 20% physical resistance and 25% magic resistance.
Bloodthirsters are big targets for enemy ranged units though, especially with them only having 70 armour. So make sure you’re not blindly sending your Bloodthirsters into enemy front-lines and leaving them there.
1) Minotaurs (Great Weapons)
In terms of raw offensive power, no other Khorne unit comes close to Minotaurs with Great Weapons. Massive, bulking creatures wielding substantial battle-axes to carve through all but the strongest of foes.
Labelled as “anti-large”, don’t think they’re only useful against cavalry or monsters. Minotaurs (Great Weapons) will still dominate entire regiments of infantry.