Be'lakor! Tips and tricks for using the Dark Master!

Today I am going to be talking about the Dark Master himself and some of the best ways to run him.

When I started the hobby 15 years ago, Be'lakors old model is what drew me to Daemons (even though you couldn't use him in 40k). I have a big soft spot for Belly and I am going to share my tactics and combos you can use to really get the most out of him.

His Stats:

Let's start with his stats line, 12" move with fly is great for a big monster. It means he is harder to move block and you don't have to worry about terrain features.

He's -1 to hit with no re-rolls and -1 to wound at T7 which makes him quite tanky, pair that with his -1 damage at range and his 4+ Daemon save and you a have a monster that can just tank anything your opponent throws at him. You can also get him to T8 with Boon of Change from a Tzeentcher psyker if you manage to get the toughness buff, making melta wound him on a 5 is so good!!

 

Stratagems:

Since Be'lakor has all four god keywords, he can benefit from all the god specific set of Stratagems so long as he has the right keywords corresponding to said Stratagems. I think the most powerful strat combo with Belly is Impossible Elegance, a 1CP Slaanesh strat that makes unmodified hit rolls of 1-3 automatically fail in combat. Pair that with his innate no re-rolls and he can be real hard to bring down in melee. Thirst for Souls is also great into the Aeldari match up letting a Slaanesh unit re-roll hit and wound rolls vs any Aeldari unit. 

You can also use him to deny a psychic power on a 4+ within 24" using the Khorne Contempt for Sorcery strat for a CP, which is great to stop those psychic secondaries or those key buffing powers.

One of my favourite Stratagem combos to use on Be'lakor is mixing the Pestilent Inspiration strat which allows a Nurgle psyker to know all of the warprot powers for a phase, and the Magical Boon Tzeentch stratagem, which Let's a Tzeentch psyker cast one additional power in a psychic phase. As blasphemous as that sounds, being able to just cast powers like shrivelling Pox, Malodorous Pall and Nurgles rot in one phase from Belly can be amazing.

Warpstorm abilities:

Again since Be'lakor has all four god keywords, he can be affected by all the warpstorm abilities, once again opening up some good buffs for the big man.

Fury of Khorne is a simple +1 attack for khorne models, giving him 7 attacks that ignore ivuls or 14 sweep attacks which is pretty decent, you can also use him to tag multiple units and then use overwhelming Rage to stop units falling back on a 4+ making him untouchable in the shooting Phase outside of the units he is in combat with.

Sorcerous Winds is an ability that gives Tzeentch psykers +1 to cast, another cheeky little combo to play alongside Pestilent Inspiration making a power like Malodorous Pall which is normally an 8 to cast, abit more manageable on 2d6.

Mesmerising Dance is awesome giving Slaanesh units fights first, which can really cause your opponents issues knowing they have say Belly and a Keeper with a free interrupt! 

We all know the pain of needing a 7" charge and rolling a 6 on 2 dice, lighting speed helps though by giving that +1 to advance and charge rolls. It's helped me get Be'lakor stuck in on a few occasions and can also give you that extra movement needed to tag other close by units.

There is one Nurgle ability that can come in handy if you have access to his warpstorm abilities, swarming insects gives your nurgle stuff +1 to hit which can help Belly counter any -1 to hit rules.

Strategies: 

The most obvious and widely used strategy for Be'lakor is to get him up the field and using his Undivided Warp Locus to just spit units 6" away from your opponent, great for Bloodletters, greater daemons etc... using the Tzeentch Warp Portal Stratagem for 2cp is great to teleport him in the movement Phase 9"away from your opponent and then dropping those reserves right onto your opponents doorstep early on.

Let's also remember his Dark Master ability allowing all your units (not just core, but excluding vehicles) re-roll 1's which is brilliant on those Bloodthirsters and Keepers who hit on 2's and need as many of those big attacks to land as possible.

Let's also remember he has both Daemonic terror and Lord of torment which stack for -2 leadership and combat attrition, which is great especially in combination with the primeval terror warpstorm ability for -3 leadership, making those drops from reserves even closer!

Noctic Discipline:

We won't be going over all 6 of the powers here, just the best ones.

I genuinely always go for the same two powers on Belly.

Pall of Despair which is a great tool box power. You roll 3d6 and have to beat the leadership value of a visible enemy unit within 18" (and yes the reductions from daemonic terror and Lord of torment do affect this!). If you beat the leadership, you apply an effect on that unit that lasts until your next psychic phase. Either removing an aura ability off of their datasheet, stop the unit performing any actions and fail any action they are currently performing, or applying fights last to that unit.

Of course the outright most power effect here is fights last, allowing you to charge multiple key combat threats in one turn and worry less about any big interruptions. Taking away an aura ability is also fantastic to remove such abilities like obsec auras, fights last auras etc....

Being able to turn off the ability to perform actions/fail current actions is also potentially huge to stump your opponents scoring, especially if they have a secondary that doesn't complete until the following turn.

The other power I love is Shrouded Step, which is being able to teleport an infantry unit 9" away from your opponent in the psychic phase, this can get you charges with your bloodletters on the turns after they drop against units that were on the other side of the board, give your Flamers range and line of sight on obscured units and far away units. Or Just simply getting units onto objectives across the board late game.

Betraying Shades is also not a bad power, picking an enemy unit within 18", adding up the total number of attacks of 6 models and rolling that many dice.  For every 6 (5+ if the psychic test result was 11 or more), you cause a mortal wound up to 6 maximum. Can be decent vs units like Possessed which have 5 attacks each and 6 on the Champion.

Penumbral Curse is also ok, which applies -1 to wound in combat for a visible enemy unit in combat, and -1 ap in combat (which means nothing if you're running mono daemons).

I still think Be'lakor is an amazing unit to have in a Daemon list, as he offers so much synergy with his Warp Locus, re-rolls and his psychic Powers. Not to mention he can also soak up alot of damage leaving the rest of your army fairly untouched while being able to cleave through those bigger and tougher targets.