Let's chat: Daughters of Khaine

[Burf]

2 hours ago, Ekrund Oath Splitters said:

I think she looses her command ability and the ability to cast when she goes snake modebdue to the wording on the community page 

Based on the wording she might just lose her bonuses to casting.

[Aelfric]

13 minutes ago, Skinnyboy said:

It says in the article that the monstrous form also benefits from the heart of khaine

Thanks, went back and read it again -  more carefully this time.

 Still there are a fair number of instant death abilities or items in the game now, so she's not invulnerable.

Now I shall have to start re-basing more models - oh well, it's in a good cause.

[Keldaur]

The point is that if you pay 600 points for a model (just throwing a random number... well not so random but who knows), you actually get to play it instead of being instagibbed turn 1 by harpoons. In fact, many people complain about shooting against characters being too strong, but i prefer way more the wound per turn limitation than the 40k system. It also punishes way more shooty/magic lists than combat ones, simply because there are 5 shoot/hero phases rather than 10 combat phases.

[Richelieu]

21 minutes ago, Burf said:

Turn is Igo, Round is IgoUgo, deepstrikers are going to be terrifying for her queen form.

Unless she automatically transforms when she dies in human form,  in which case those deepstrikers are well and truly dead.  Regardless, I am never afraid of anyone who relies on a double turn, because that is poor play and if they make the poor decision to bet the game on a 50/50 shot, then they're probably going to make many other poor decisions throughout the game.   The only time it is good play to rely upon a double turn is when you believe you have less than a 50/50 shot of winning the game otherwise. 

[Richelieu]

1 hour ago, Azurious said:

Technically correct based on what we've seen but I'd be very very surprised if that was not faq'd or further langauge allowed it to happen.  She would be an auto include if this is how it actually went live.

Technically correct is what makes a rule a rule.  I am not making a normative statement about what should be, simply what is.  Now, if they change the wording in an FAQ, then that's totally acceptable, but if they simply say it works one way when the text of the rules say it should work another way, then I have a problem with that.

As an aside, this rule is nowhere near as egregious as the interaction of Nagash, deathless minions, his mortal wound save, his battalion redirect and the Morghast Archai mortal wound save, all of which occur when a mortal wound is allocated.

[BURF1]

36 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

Unless she automatically transforms when she dies in human form,  in which case those deepstrikers are well and truly dead.  Regardless, I am never afraid of anyone who relies on a double turn, because that is poor play and if they make the poor decision to bet the game on a 50/50 shot, then they're probably going to make many other poor decisions throughout the game.   The only time it is good play to rely upon a double turn is when you believe you have less than a 50/50 shot of winning the game otherwise. 

They don't really have to rely on a double turn if they wrap her up. They can kill her in your combat phase. Although if her transformation can bail her out of that situation then she should be fine, and you still have your own combat/shooting to try and free her up.

[jazzy128]

Though we can only speculate now,  and the rules will be revealed shortly. I want to speculate!

Morathi seems incredibly strong. Though we don’t know the medusas’ shooting capabilities, doubling two units output seems really really strong. I hope they have at least 18” range. Perhaps they also have a shorter gaze range.

Powerful shooting will also force a lot of armies forward which hopefully should play to our strength.  At least to Morathi’s! Without knowing her full stats, those partially spoiled today will make her immensely strong, almost no matter what the * stands for.

I concur that her survivability, magic, command ability and combat strength at a minimum should put her at 4-500 pts. From what we know so far, she looks stronger than Alarielle to me, so 600 wouldn’t be impossible.

[BURF1]

1 minute ago, jazzy128 said:

Though we can only speculate now,  and the rules will be revealed shortly. I want to speculate!

Morathi seems incredibly strong. Though we don’t know the medusas’ shooting capabilities, doubling two units output seems really really strong. I hope they have at least 18” range. Perhaps they also have a shorter gaze range.

Powerful shooting will also force a lot of armies forward which hopefully should play to our strength.  At least to Morathi’s! Without knowing her full stats, those partially spoiled today will make her immensely strong, almost no matter what the * stands for.

I concur that her survivability, magic, command ability and combat strength at a minimum should put her at 4-500 pts. From what we know so far, she looks stronger than Alarielle to me, so 600 wouldn’t be impossible.

Couple of more things I've noticed:

1. Keeping her in her human form until the start of your turn 3 seems to me to be the most efficient usage of her, assuming she's not in danger. By that point your normal troops have started to get whittled down enough for her CA to lose some of it's value and power from pain has really started layering on the buffs.

2.  Iron Heart of Khaine causes her to benefit from what I like to call 'The Celestine Conundrum'. Models like Morathi and Celestine(40k) that have unconventional survivability bonuses tend to punish very good players and very new players. A new player over-commits to damaging the resilient model and puts themselves into a very bad position. A very good player sees just how inefficient it is to attack a model that can either resurrect itself or only take 3 total damage regardless and will have a hard time justifying expending resources on attempting to remove it. Especially considering a good run of saves is all your opponent needs to ****** up your plans and force an over-commitment. (TLDR she'll get left alone a lot cause attacking her punishes YOU.)

3. Envenomed tail likely has some form of additional ability tied to it. Crown of serpents might possibly as well.

4. She appears to still be able to cast while a serpent, just without any bonuses. This is conjecture based on the wording though.

 

 

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

21 minutes ago, BURF1 said:

Couple of more things I've noticed:

1. Keeping her in her human form until the start of your turn 3 seems to me to be the most efficient usage of her, assuming she's not in danger. By that point your normal troops have started to get whittled down enough for her CA to lose some of it's value and power from pain has really started layering on the buffs.

2.  Iron Heart of Khaine causes her to benefit from what I like to call 'The Celestine Conundrum'. Models like Morathi and Celestine(40k) that have unconventional survivability bonuses tend to punish very good players and very new players. A new player over-commits to damaging the resilient model and puts themselves into a very bad position. A very good player sees just how inefficient it is to attack a model that can either resurrect itself or only take 3 total damage regardless and will have a hard time justifying expending resources on attempting to remove it. Especially considering a good run of saves is all your opponent needs to ****** up your plans and force an over-commitment. (TLDR she'll get left alone a lot cause attacking her punishes YOU.)

3. Envenomed tail likely has some form of additional ability tied to it. Crown of serpents might possibly as well.

4. She appears to still be able to cast while a serpent, just without any bonuses. This is conjecture based on the wording though.

 

 

I think the bows will be range either 18" or 24". Skyfires are 24" and kurnoths are 30". Skyhooks are 24" and longstrikes are 30" when stood still? I can engine these being in the 24" bracket. They aren't Gobbo short bows there using haha! 

 

Also if the bloodwrack Medusa in her current rules (not a hero) has 5 wounds do you think each melusai will have 4-5 aswell or just 3?

[BURF1]

1 minute ago, Ekrund Oath Splitters said:

I think the bows will be range either 18" or 24". Skyfires are 24" and kurnoths are 30". Skyhooks are 24" and longstrikes are 30" when stood still? I can engine these being in the 24" bracket. They aren't Gobbo short bows there using haha! 

 

Also if the bloodwrack Medusa in her current rules (not a hero) have 5 wounds do you think each melusai will have 4-5 aswell or just 3?

I think melusai could come in anywhere from 2-4 depending on what the rest of their abilities are. They're supposed to be spies so maybe they have something crazy going on there.

[Aelfric]

Do you think that, like Nagash and the Mortarchs, that if you include her in your army she has to be your general?  Will be interesting to see what other heroes will be available as alternative generals, and traits.

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

They could have a changling mechanic  or add +1 to priority haha! 

 

I'd probably guess they get a reform type move at the beginning of the game.

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

2 minutes ago, Aelfric said:

Do you think that, like Nagash and the Mortarchs, that if you include her in your army she has to be your general?  Will be interesting to see what other heroes will be available as alternative generals, and traits.

Hmm it'll be interesting what command traits they have to offer, as she can't get one. But her command ability is 100% better than the cauldrons one as they effectively get to pile and attack again without being hit back with 2 units or fire twice with the melusai (who I assume will have poison tipped arrows?).

As a lowly death hag is no match to the queen

[Aelfric]

4 minutes ago, Ekrund Oath Splitters said:

Hmm it'll be interesting what command traits they have to offer, as she can't get one. But her command ability is 100% better than the cauldrons one as they effectively get to pile and attack again without being hit back with 2 units or fire twice with the melusai (who I assume will have poison tipped arrows?).

As a lowly death hag is no match to the queen

It would be nice to have options that are viable and that do not rely on Morathi.  If Morathi is expensive, then you're looking at a small model count elite army; without her a large model count horde.  It would make it an army with variety of playstyles and therefore longevity.

[Richelieu]

20 minutes ago, BURF1 said:

I think melusai could come in anywhere from 2-4 depending on what the rest of their abilities are. They're supposed to be spies so maybe they have something crazy going on there.

Judging by the various pictures that have been posted they appear to come in units of 5, in which case I would expect a wound count of 2 or 3 at the most.   A unit with missile weapons with a wounds characteristic of 4 would be a little ridiculous...oh wait, we live in a world of Skyfires.

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

10 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

Judging by the various pictures that have been posted they appear to come in units of 5, in which case I would expect a wound count of 2 or 3 at the most.   A unit with missile weapons with a wounds characteristic of 4 would be a little ridiculous...oh wait, we live in a world of Skyfires.

Well the melusai are quite big, they are stockier than a blood wrack Medusa and she has 5 wounds. The cc variant ones are even armoured!  3 for the archers and 4 for the lancers would be my guess. 

[Burf]

5 hours ago, Aelfric said:

Do you think that, like Nagash and the Mortarchs, that if you include her in your army she has to be your general?  Will be interesting to see what other heroes will be available as alternative generals, and traits.

With how bonkers that command ability is I don't think it'll be much of an issue tbh.

[DantePQ]

It depends how expensive she is, there could be better army builds without her, especially with new lores of magic, command traits etc , maybe horde army back up by shooting and magic could be a thing?

BTW my FW Avatar of Khaine with Spear is being painted  along with 30 metal Witches, Cauldron and some Doomfire Warlocks  

[Redbaron]

Can anybody think of any other factions that can be put together to have horde builds or elite builds? Are they a relatively common possibility in AoS overall?

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

Kharadron Overlords can, Disciples of Tzeentch and Maggotkin of Nurgle Aswell.

[DantePQ]

Yes there are few armies that can do that, I am happy because it seems that DoK are first army that can be build comfortably around big model like Morathi, but I guess there could be more viable competitive builds. 

We will se today a preview of Medusai which is very interesting. Also guy who wrote DoK lore ( there is video on YT) said that there are few males in there as well, so maybe we will get more then Doomfire Warlocks I could see Shadowblades along with Tenebrael being floded into this (but it's only my wild guess) Tenebrael would look amazing next to DoK units. 

Also DoK will be quite a "big army" in terms of warscrolls/option

Morathi, Death Hag, Bloodwrack Medusa

3 types of Witche Aelves (Witches, Sisters and 3rd build shown on multiple images)

2 types of Harpies

2 types of Medusai

2 version of Shrine

Doomfire Warlocks 

Statue of Khaine 

so we need to see more heroes I guess I think some kind of spellcaster (or 2) + Tenebrael would make it 5-6 leaders. 

[Killax]

Yeah DoK will be a fleshed out on themselves standing Allegiance without issues. 'Big' is perhaps not totally true by Chaos comparison but for Order this Allegiance leaves a lot of options to the players. Certainly more as Fyreslayers or Kharadron Overlords but on the other hand it's likely a bit smaler as Stormcast or Seraphon. But not by too much to worry about it.

All in all I can only say I remain very excited by the prospect of it all. I think that the basis for DoK Warscrolls is allready very well executed so it's great to know more and more will come and like Maggotkin of Nurgle and Legions of Nagash I think that Daughters of Khaine will be easily capable to play a part in the competitive scene.

At the same time one of the only downsides of this army are the costs involved. Though it's not un-typical of Order to work out this way either. By comparison Fyreslayers and Kharadron Overlords are costly armies also and I have a good feeling Daughters of Khaine will be like it in terms of costs involved. Luckily though a Start Collecting Box does lower the costs and not every unit is very expensive. 

@DantePQ I think there are only two forms of Witch Aelves to be honest but I do think their wargear options might have been expanded. We saw this with the Morghasts in Legions of Nagash also.

[DantePQ]

@Killax yeah it's probably another weapon option but still nice thing to have. Also I hope we will have those 5 leaders choices minimum. Morathi, Hag, 2 Spellcasters, some kind of assassin (Tenebrael please as he is all about hiding in the shadow in the lore) and Medusa would be perfect ! 

. I am very curious about Medusai and Harpies  

[Azurious]

15 hours ago, Richelieu said:

Technically correct is what makes a rule a rule.  I am not making a normative statement about what should be, simply what is.  Now, if they change the wording in an FAQ, then that's totally acceptable, but if they simply say it works one way when the text of the rules say it should work another way, then I have a problem with that.

As an aside, this rule is nowhere near as egregious as the interaction of Nagash, deathless minions, his mortal wound save, his battalion redirect and the Morghast Archai mortal wound save, all of which occur when a mortal wound is allocated.

I think I misscommunicated my point.  I agree that as the rule stands 'albeit incomplete and not necessarily free from further qualification on the warscroll' it functions as you have said.  My point was merely that I don't see it lasting that way post errata.  Maggotkin had similar issues with the use of the term allocated creating nearly identical mechanical issues which were subsequently faq'd to change the word allocated to suffered.  I fully expect this to be the same.

 

As an aside while Nagash's multi save is certainly more complex the ability to only ever be assigned 3 wounds a turn which can still potentially be negated is much more powerful unless her points cost is in the stratosphere.

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

If they go off the points cost of the LoC and GuO instead of the old monsters like the Gordrakk or Alarielle she may be in the 400 to 500pts range. I'll happen a guess at 520pts give or take on other in-game mechanics she has up her snakeskin sleeves