Let's chat: Daughters of Khaine

[Nico]

4 hours ago, BURF1 said:

This actually alludes to another problem with the list in the long run, attacking  a Dracoth with the Castellant buff(which is silly anyway) is basically an easy way to guarantee you run out of time. For anyone who doesn't know, when using a Castellant buff on a unit if you roll the saves in groups you apply heals first and then damage, which means if you just roll out 120 saves or whatever, you're still probably going to lose some wounds even through a 2+ rerollable. SO it is entirely within that players right to roll out each save individually and can't even be considered slow playing as it is technically the 'correct' way to resolve the damage.

That is not how you apply this mechanic. You only allocate the wounds after all of one unit's attacks are done including saves. The healing only affects previously suffered wounds (from an earlier attack or in an earlier phase).

[Chris Tomlin]

Well done @James Ramsay,

It is good to see Daughters of Khaine as an army doing well (Just like it was cool seeing Fyreslayers and Slaanesh up there at the end). Nice finish.

I have to say that I do think the Bloodshield thing is currently broken (as in, it doesn't work properly); it's not necessary OP but you have to say it has slipped the net in terms of stacking buffs due to its wording and I think the scroll overall could do with a bit of an errata. Denying stacking, but having it effect the entire unit targeted would be much more in line with current AoS.

That said, I could only rule for the weekend as currently presented. I have to commend James on his approach, by DMing me before the event we were able to have a good conversation and establish exactly how it would be played and what the expectations were. This resulted in zero questions or queries from any of James' games across the weekend. So say what you will about his choice of army (and I have my opinions on it), he went about it in exactly the right way and I can't fault him for that. Good pre tournament etiquette  

Chris

[Burf]

1 hour ago, Nico said:

That is not how you apply this mechanic. You only allocate the wounds after all of one unit's attacks are done including saves. The healing only affects previously suffered wounds (from an earlier attack or in an earlier phase).

Having read through it again I realize I was applying the FAQ to the way 40k distributes wounds, not Sigmar. Unfortunately that makes Castellants significantly less useful but oh well.

[zedatkinszed]

16 hours ago, James Ramsay said:

As an update, I came 14th out of 80ish, ran into a stardrake unfortunately on the new places of power mission and couldnt kill it, my doomfires were useless, didnt cast a spell until turn 4 due to poor rolls! Was a great event, the list is bonkers with 4 shields, can expect a nerf soon I guess. No one else I played really touched me won 4 and lost 1 as mentioned. Had to play really hard with the positioning, with time pressure its intense and you have to roll so many dice so was playing as fast as physically possible and every game came down to 10-15 minutes left. 

5

Well done man. I had a weekend of crying into my paint trying to paint 10 Witches' faces to an acceptable standard (for me) - so kudos to you a) for your performance and b) for fielding an army with 102 of those damned difficult to paint, but lovely all the same, Witch Aelf models.

I'd be expecting a significant change to the Cauldron soon. But if they do they'll need to adjust the Witches themselves and maybe the Sisters.  +1 to the Sisters' and Witches' existing saves and a non-stacking blood shield would be fine by me.

[Thomas Lyons]

1 hour ago, zedatkinszed said:

Well done man. I had a weekend of crying into my paint trying to paint 10 Witches' faces to an acceptable standard (for me) - so kudos to you a) for your performance and b) for fielding an army with 102 of those damned difficult to paint, but lovely all the same, Witch Aelf models.

I'd be expecting a significant change to the Cauldron soon. But if they do they'll need to adjust the Witches themselves and maybe the Sisters.  +1 to the Sisters' and Witches' existing saves and a non-stacking blood shield would be fine by me.

Witches don't have a base save and can't get one.  This means that Cauldrons are literally their only form of defense.  They have nothing else.  The scrolls would need to be redesigned if stacking is removed.

[James Ramsay]

19 minutes ago, Thomas Lyons said:

Witches don't have a base save and can't get one.  This means that Cauldrons are literally their only form of defense.  They have nothing else.  The scrolls would need to be redesigned if stacking is removed.

This is what i've said to Chris. If stacking is removed, DoK are not competitive anymore, and you won't see them at events as 5+ save is not enough against all the damage around for their cost. You cant sit them in cover, or give them mystic shield so there isn't really anything you can do about it. I'd play them at fun events still. 

Also remember I paid 800 points for that defence and offence boost to my witches (the cauldrons do little else in the games themselves bar dispel magic), sacrificed any other behemoth allies to improve 810 points of witches. I had no shooting, only 2 magic user units to do any form of ranged damage (the doomfires killed nothing all weekend really anyway but I still wouldnt drop them as you need something), no rend at all. 

Yes the witches are very durable to mortals and big damage, but they still died if people put enough shots into them (which many people aren't taking, things like skyfires do a fair amount of damage, a kunnin rukk would be very difficult or a mixed order gunline), its basically a 2+ save. The witch did alot of damage with their knives but 1600 points should be able to kill things right? 

Sedge's 30 man tzaangor unit charged 30 witches and actually killed them in 1 round, he had mystical terrain and damned buff and made me take 70 saves and hey guess what, the 10 or so that were in range of 4 cauldrons died, then the rest all vanished in a red mist with little saves at all.

For example:

I had 30 witch elves, with about 10-12 models in range of 4 cauldrons charge an in my face mourngul, VLoZD (with cursed book) and terrorghist  all together to stop them getting into my objective. I had a damned buff on the witch elves, 2 stacks of khaines fury, witchbrew and the command ability. About 15 elves got into combat (the rest were conga lined or sitting in the bubble), I did 10 wounds to the terrorghist in the first round, then killed it with my 2nd round of attacks as it was the squishiest target. I got a double turn here and killed the mourngul next, and finally the vampire finished the unit off in his turn. The vampire then died to a 2nd unit of witches who had killed some zombies nearby.

My opponent couldn't believe that 270 points of elves had killed 2 big monsters and tanked his vampire as well, but I explained that it wasn't just 270 points of elves, but also 800 points of cauldrons sitting 10 inches away, so really the points were about the same. Had he not rushed me but sat back and made me stretch I would have had less attacks and also most likely not been able to charge and double turn so get 4 rounds of combat before he wiped them out.

I think something like this DoK army has a unique place in the meta and is very beatable, but you can't just run into it and expect to punch it out, or take first turn and alpha it off the board. It's relatively slow, can't clear chaff easily and has a few big weaknesses to popular models around. It encourages you to think a bit differently about how to play against it as your usual plan of shooting 18 skyfires and wiping it out doesn't work.

[Thomas Lyons]

4 minutes ago, James Ramsay said:

This is what i've said to Chris. If stacking is removed, DoK are not competitive anymore, and you won't see them at events as 5+ save is not enough against all the damage around for their cost. You cant sit them in cover, or give them mystic shield so there isn't really anything you can do about it. I'd play them at fun events still. 

Also remember I paid 800 points for that defence and offence boost to my witches (the cauldrons do little else in the games themselves bar dispel magic), sacrificed any other behemoth allies to improve 810 points of witches. I had no shooting, only 2 magic user units to do any form of ranged damage (the doomfires killed nothing all weekend really anyway but I still wouldnt drop them as you need something), no rend at all. 

Yes the witches are very durable to mortals and big damage, but they still died if people put enough shots into them (which many people aren't taking, things like skyfires do a fair amount of damage, a kunnin rukk would be very difficult or a mixed order gunline), its basically a 2+ save. The witch did alot of damage with their knives but 1600 points should be able to kill things right? 

For example:

I had 30 witch elves, with about 10-12 models in range of 4 cauldrons charge a mourngul, VLoZD (with cursed book) and terrorghist all together to stop them getting into my objective. I had a damned buff on the witch elves, 2 stacks of khaines fury, witchbrew and the command ability. About 15 elves got into combat (the rest were conga lined or sitting in the bubble), I did 10 wounds to the terrorghist in the first round, then killed it with my 2nd round of attacks as it was the squishiest target. I got a double turn here and killed the mourngul next, and finally the vampire finished the unit off in his turn. The vampire then died to a 2nd unit of witches who had killed some zombies nearby.

My opponent couldn't believe that 270 points of elves had killed 2 big monsters and tanked his vampire as well, but I explained that it wasn't just 270 points of elves, but also 800 points of cauldrons sitting 10 inches away, so really the points were about the same. Had he not rushed me but sat back and made me stretch I would have had less attacks and also most likely not been able to charge and double turn so get 4 rounds of combat before he wiped them out.

One way they could do it is just say that multiple Bloodshield increase the effectiveness of the save, and instead of allowing flat stacking, give them a +1 to the save, to a max of +2 (4+) or +3 (3+), instead of the effective 2+ save they're currently getting from 4.  

They would need to be careful, since if they limit it to 4+ (+2 max), then they're simply bad phoenix guard with no rend and no base armor save.  One way to counter this might be to let WE keep their free +1 for being Witch Aelves, but then allow the stack from multiple Cauldrons to stack on other DoK units.  This means that Witches hit that cap more easily but could also incentivize using the other units as well.

[James Ramsay]

Yes something simpler would be fine, taking 70 saves with that bloodshield rule, even with 7 different coloured sets of dice was not  fun and took about 10 minutes which is a sign of a bad mechanic.

[zedatkinszed]

On 9/4/2017 at 2:31 PM, Thomas Lyons said:

One way they could do it is just say that multiple Bloodshield increase the effectiveness of the save, and instead of allowing flat stacking, give them a +1 to the save, to a max of +2 (4+) or +3 (3+), instead of the effective 2+ save they're currently getting from 4.  

They would need to be careful, since if they limit it to 4+ (+2 max), then they're simply bad phoenix guard with no rend and no base armor save.  One way to counter this might be to let WE keep their free +1 for being Witch Aelves, but then allow the stack from multiple Cauldrons to stack on other DoK units.  This means that Witches hit that cap more easily but could also incentivize using the other units as well.

2

I think this highlights how much GW need to make a couple more units for forces like the DoK and give them a full battletome.  Part of the problem with the Cauldrons is the battalion - the army is something of a 1 trick pony. If there was another battalion and even a single character (with a named and a generic building option) and 1 troop box (with two different assemblies), the DoK would be as large a force as Fyreslayers (excluding heroes that is) and could have more diverse options for builds.

The Witches, Warlocks, Sisters and Medusae are crying out for magical warpaint rules. Different covens/houses of the Daughters with different woad/warpaint would also be a fun modeling project (might also incentivize different colour schemes). Different icons/aspects of Khaine: the scorpion, the bloody hand, the riven heart,  the severed head (Morai-Heg in 40K but could just be a Medusa in AOS) etc. The lore is already there it just needs packaging. This plus the kind of rules for the CoB Tom outlines above would make a great Aelf force and all it needs is 2 releases and 1 book.

Plus in terms of artefacts, all they need to do is go back to one of the older Dark Elf books and copy over the poison weapon and witchbrew rules that already exist. Seriously this is an easy win.

[Dead_Ghost]

Slight divergence. 

Cauldon of Blood - just building one up now, did anyone sub assembly theirs? 

Looks like it will otherwise be a bit of a pig to paint when it's all built up. 

Cheers

[Siegfried VII]

8 hours ago, Dead_Ghost said:

Slight divergence. 

Cauldon of Blood - just building one up now, did anyone sub assembly theirs? 

Looks like it will otherwise be a bit of a pig to paint when it's all built up. 

Cheers

Yep. I painted seperately the 3 Ladies and the Cauldron without having it glued on the base as it is a nightmare to paint, especially if you don't use metallic paints...

[Dead_Ghost]

Nearly two weeks with no more posts on here! 

How are folks finding the Daughters now they've had some time to play them under the new points? 

Any particular units /models /model counts standing out? 

What are folks taking as allies if anything? 

[Kaleun]

honestly I wouldnt bother taking them as Allies. You may fit a cauldron and a unit of witches into 400 points, but I dont see great advantage in them. Better play them as your main army.

[Dead_Ghost]

4 hours ago, Kaleun said:

honestly I wouldnt bother taking them as Allies. You may fit a cauldron and a unit of witches into 400 points, but I dont see great advantage in them. Better play them as your main army.

I meant, is anyone taking allies with their daughters army? If so, what units. 

Executioners for example! 

 

 

[Twitch of Izalith]

Only been on TGA a few days so I have only just found my way in here. Its great to see a few other people are playing DoK or at least talking about them. They probably weren't the wisest choice for my first AoS army (putting together some Darkling covens and order serpentis too so I can do an old school dark elf army with GA order allegiance)  but I never got around to a Dark Elf army in fantasy so what the hell. My current 1000 point list is:

CoB , Deathsword, Phoenix stone, Obstinate Blade - 200

Death hag, witch brew - 60

Bloodwrack Shrine - 140

30 Witch Aelves - 270

10 Sisters of Slaughter - 140

5 Doomfire Warlocks - 160

Total 970 points

My plan to take it to 2000 was honestly just same again with an extra death hag! Maybe swapping the second shrine for a medusa on foot and getting the extra 20 points for an assassin or sorceress ally instead of the second death hag. The assassin is kinda ****** but his ability to disrupt the combat sequence is  cool - and its thematically nice.

It was interesting to read the whole stacking bloodshield debate. It seems logical to me that it would stack - there is actually an FAQ question confirming that the Bloodwrack's aura of agony does stack so why not the bloodshield. If you paid the points for 4 cauldrons you should get the benefit of 4 cauldrons.

What is kinda sad is that you have to resort to such things to make the army competitive. I really don't want to take 4 cauldrons, or even 2 CoB's and 2 shrines but i don't want to lose all the time either and medusae die too easy without the shrine.

As others have said a couple of tweaks and a couple of extra units would make this army really great to play. I would like to see the sisters save just become a standard 4+ ward against all attacks (with a 20 to 40 point cost increase) the witches should get their poison weapons back (6's cause mortals) at maybe 110/270 - same as Bloodletters. The warlocks need to drop even more in points or they could turn Doombolt into a shooting attack so all units get to use it.

I would love to see Harpies added to the allegiance with a solid stat line and some rend! Some kind of Avatar of Khaine Behemoth model would be a really nice centerpiece and add the punch required for dealing with Stardrakes etc - Just upscale the statue from the CoB.

Easy Win GW. they already got my money but i'm sure loads of people would like to play this army.

 

[Yeled]

I'm a little unclear about the Cauldrons and the non-stacking. The way I read the rules, if you have 4 Cauldrons within range of a unit of Witch Aelves, they get 4 x 5+ saves for each wound or mortal wound they suffer.  So if you suffer a wound roll a dice. Get a 5+ and you ignore it. Fail and you roll again. Repeat until you miss four times or you get a save. Is that right?

[Twitch of Izalith]

@Yeled - Yeah thats how I have been playing it. Except with 2 cauldrons..

 

[Chris Tomlin]

13 hours ago, Yeled said:

I'm a little unclear about the Cauldrons and the non-stacking. The way I read the rules, if you have 4 Cauldrons within range of a unit of Witch Aelves, they get 4 x 5+ saves for each wound or mortal wound they suffer.  So if you suffer a wound roll a dice. Get a 5+ and you ignore it. Fail and you roll again. Repeat until you miss four times or you get a save. Is that right?

Currently this is correct, @James Ramsay had a pretty elegant timesaving solution with different coloured dice at BLACKOUT. He may wish to share this.

[Twitch of Izalith]

I hope they don't nerf it because the DoK don't have too much else going for them at the moment!

If they do they need to nerf everything with area affects - like those Slaanesh banners that give -1 to hit - the enrapturing banner though I think the wording on that is clear it says in range of "any banners" plural - not of each banner but some people are claiming it stacks

 

[Yeled]

12 hours ago, Twitch of Izalith said:

@Yeled - Yeah thats how I have been playing it. Except with 2 cauldrons..

 

 

10 hours ago, Chris Tomlin said:

Currently this is correct, @James Ramsay had a pretty elegant timesaving solution with different coloured dice at BLACKOUT. He may wish to share this.

Thank you both!

[James Ramsay]

Yes I used 8-9 sets of different coloured dice that I kept in sets of 4 on the side ready to use for saving throws. Was handy when having to take lots and lots of saves as could count easily how many I was doing.  

I'm going to be using the witch elves at the GT final in a few weeks and possibly blood and glory and have been furiously improving the painting, can't wait to get them on the table again. Been thinking about list changes and if its worth having more bodies or more ranged/mortal output.

[Twitch of Izalith]

On 26/09/2017 at 8:37 AM, James Ramsay said:

Yes I used 8-9 sets of different coloured dice that I kept in sets of 4 on the side ready to use for saving throws. Was handy when having to take lots and lots of saves as could count easily how many I was doing.  

I'm going to be using the witch elves at the GT final in a few weeks and possibly blood and glory and have been furiously improving the painting, can't wait to get them on the table again. Been thinking about list changes and if its worth having more bodies or more ranged/mortal output.

Have you got Medusae in the list? The witch elves are good at shredding hordes anyway but that ability to hit every model in a 40 stong unit from 10" away is pretty cool if you can stay alive. I started as a fan of the shrine but now I'm taking them on foot for the extra movement and being easier to hide / get cover.

[James Ramsay]

51 minutes ago, Twitch of Izalith said:

Have you got Medusae in the list? The witch elves are good at shredding hordes anyway but that ability to hit every model in a 40 stong unit from 10" away is pretty cool if you can stay alive. I started as a fan of the shrine but now I'm taking them on foot for the extra movement and being easier to hide / get cover.

I currently don't use them but I have 3 painted that I have tried and like using. Found the problem is they don't deal mortal wounds to the units I have problems dealing with (dragons, treemen, 2+ reroll stuff) however I was going to give them another shot with slayers, big units of liberators, swordsmen etc getting popular. They are a huge fire magnet, and a good target for mystic shield. Unfortunately 3 with an allied wizard 90 elves and 4 cauldrons don't fit !

 

[Twitch of Izalith]

2 hours ago, James Ramsay said:

I currently don't use them but I have 3 painted that I have tried and like using. Found the problem is they don't deal mortal wounds to the units I have problems dealing with (dragons, treemen, 2+ reroll stuff) however I was going to give them another shot with slayers, big units of liberators, swordsmen etc getting popular. They are a huge fire magnet, and a good target for mystic shield. Unfortunately 3 with an allied wizard 90 elves and 4 cauldrons don't fit !

 

Yeah those types of unit are really tough. One of my main opponents plays slyvaneth and always shows up with Treelord, TL Ancient & Spirit of Durthu. and all I have  is arcane bolt and doombolt to get semi reliable damage on them! I'm going to try spamming more Death Hags into my witch units ( for the prayer). I'm only running 2 cauldrons though so I have room for 4 extra Hags

Looking forward to see how you get on with them at the next comp.

 

[Lord_of_Khaine]

I played my first game with sisters of slaughter earlier tonight (1000 points) , here is my list:

• Cauldron of Blood (General, Master of Defense, Phoenix Stone) Witch Brew
• Death Hag (Witch Brew)
• Death Hag (Witch Brew)
• 1x Bloodwrack Medusae
• 5x Doomfire Warlocks
• 10x Sisters of Slaughter
• 10x Sisters of Slaughter
• 10x Witch Aelves

 

My opponent was playing Khorne bloodbound, here is his list:

• Bloodsecrator (The Crimson Plate, Banner of Blood)
• Blood Throne (General, Slaughterborn)
• 20x Blood Reavers
• 20x Blood Reavers
• 20x Blood Reavers
• 1x Skull Cannon
• 1x Skull Cannon

My turn 1:

We played the 1st battleplan in the 2017 version of the path to glory book, Altars of the Gods (there is a shrine in each corner of the table, you win if you table your opponent or control 3 shrines at the end of your turn).  I won the roll off and deployed and went first.  I sent my doomfire warlocks running towards the shrine on my right, while sending the rest of my army to the left.  I moved a single unit of sisters of slaughter onto the left most shrine and left them there.  The rest of my units ran towards the shrine directly above that.  

Opponent Turn 1:

He moves the two skull cannons and the throne towards my encroaching forces, along with 20 bloodreavers.  The other 40 blood reavers and bloodsecrator rush to the opposite side of the board to the empty objective and my warlocks.  During shooting he manages to kill 5 of my Sisters of Slaughter.

 

Roll off for Game Turn 2: I win

 

My turn 2:

Warlocks mystic shield themselves and sit on objective.  Sisters of slaughter in the back hang out on objective.  I buff up all I can with my shrine and prayers and witch brew on all my closest units, used my command ability to pile in and attack twice on the witch elves.  I then move them up towards the shrine directly in front of them.  The medusa's gaze deals 7 mortal wounds to the group of 20 blood reavers.  I send the witch elves straight into the reavers and they clean them all up with the exception of 1 with their first attack.  I had charged a skull cannon with a unit of sisters of slaughter that only had 5 models left, they managed to deal a few wounds, and suffered 1 casualty.  Then my witch elves piled in again and finished off the reaver.  

 

At this point I had technically won the game because I controlled 3 objectives at once, but we decided to keep playing because whats the fun in that.

Opponent turn 2:

He leaves one unit of blood reavers opposite my warlocks, and runs the other unit towards my warlocks.  He then moves his cannon and Blood throne towards my witch elves.  The cannon blows away half of the witch elves and is finished off by the blood throne.  My sisters of slaughter manage to bring the cannon they have in combat down to 1 wound.  Fortunately I was within 3" of his cannon and blood throne with my medusa and 2 death hags so they were able to clean house on the cannon and kill it.

 

Roll off for Game Turn 3: Opponent wins

 

Opponent turn 3: 

No real movement of note, other than advancing his bloodreavers into charge range of my warlocks.  
He shoots my cauldron of blood with the remaining skull cannon and managed to deal a few wounds

He charges my warlocks but rolls double 1s, ouch!

In melee my sisters of slaughter in combat with cannon are reduced down to the champion and standard bearer, but manage to finish off the remaining cannon.

His blood throne managed to kill off a death hag and inflict some wounds on the other.  I deal a few wounds back.
 

My turn 3:

I shoot a doom bolt at his blood reavers and manage one measly mortal wound, they then run and roll a 6 and book it 20" away from them.  

I leave a single death hag on the objective and charge my medusa and cauldron of blood into the blood throne and kill it in combat.  

 

At this point in the game I have a unit of 10 sisters of slaughter on 1 objective

A unit of 5 doomfire warlocks that in midfield that will never be caught by bloodreavers

A damaged death hag holding an objective, with a supporting cauldron of blood and medusa nearby

 

My opponent has a unit of 20 blood reavers on one objective and a unit of 19 on the other, with a bloodsecrator splitting the distance between them.

  We decide to call the game at this point because neither of us will be able to get across the board and clear the other off the objectives they are holding before the end of the game.

 

Some things I learned from the game:

• Witches Elves and Sisters of Slaughter fall over very easily.  I initially thought sisters of slaughter were far superior to witch elves, I take that back as now I think witch elves are the better unit. 
• As powerful as the doomfire warlock spell is, I find them cumbersome to use, I think they are better off in units of 10.
• The army lacks a good unit to scout objectives and hold them, I am considering some cold one knights or possibly a chariot as a solid yet quick unit to take and hold objectives as a possible ally.
• Taking max squads of witch elves seems like a really strong idea

 

Thanks and let me know what you think of this post and if you'd like more / any changes you'd like to see.  Also any C+C on my list would be great.