Okay, I'm game. Disclaimer: these kinds of conversations quickly degenerate into "if you did this, then
I'd do this" games of one-upsmanship which I'm not *terribly* interested in engaging in, but I do think you ask a series of interesting questions. I'll give you my honest shot.
- Would you win on pure brute strength? rulebook mission objectives? both?
The list in question I'd take is an Imperial Fists Gladius Detachment featuring a pile of Assault Centurions as a kind of mid-field wrecking ball and a lot of Vindicators, Predators, Lascannon Devastators, and enough Grav Cannons to keep somebody honest.
It would very probably blow your army off the board with *relatively* minimal casualties, and that because you don't really have the firepower to contest it. Especially not if I castle up a bit. On objectives it would do pretty well, too, given the number of Objective Secured units I'd have trundling around.
- Would you need to list tailor to win or can your standard list take it down?
Nope. Not especially, I don't think.
- What would you find most challenging to deal with in this list, what are you most concerned about?
The primary threat is the Defiler. Followed by the Bloodthirsters. Followed by the Maulerfiends. I don't consider the Soul Grinders nor the Cultists, nor the Chaos Lord to be much of a threat.
- How would you rate yourself as a 40k player on a scale of 1-10 (1 being a Novice brand new to the game, 10 international/global tournament winner (top )
I'd put myself at about a 7 or so. I don't play in many tournaments anymore, but I've won a few local ones in my day. I've been playing the game since the early 1990s.
About the ListThe issue with your list is that you don't have any real shooting to speak of. Three Harvester Cannons and a Defiler at 1850? That's almost nothing. In addition to that, you aren't fielding a lot of dangerous targets, either. The Bloodthirsters are of primary concern, but given that my army's chief assaulty unit stands a good chance of mulching them (Siege Drills going first are very, very nasty; add in doctrines...hmmmm..
.) and the reasonable odds I can strip wounds off them first, I'm not certain they'll last. It would require a bit of clever play on my part to keep them off me for a turn or two, but I'm reasonably confident.
Your primary advantage is mostly that you can use the Khorne Daemonkin special rules to summon more things for me to deal with. Right now you haven't got enough targets to really be problematic, but add, say, a third Bloodthirster in somehow, and then that's trouble.
As a final note: I don't really follow what the Soul Grinders (unupgraded, right?) are there to do. I guess you've got more bodies moving across the field, but I think you'd be much, much better served by 3 groups of bikes, preferably with some kind of special weaponry. Either that or find a way to shell out for the Phlegm Bombardment on all three of the Grinders to give your opponent something to worry about *besides* how to catch your Bloodthirsters off-guard.