Let's chat: Daughters of Khaine

[Lhw]

That's interesting, I hadn't thought of the fact that CC has to give you 1st turn, really.  Must be slightly meta dependent, I still seem to come up against mixed order shooting, with a hurricanum etc, fairly frequently, so the -1 seems preferably.

I think it might also be that I'm not willing to give up a teleporting ability from Sylvaneth mindset yet, haha!

[DantePQ]

No, I mean that CC  got to have first turn to have any chance against me so they can't go for double turn. And even tough it's uphill battle for them. 

Yeah but I said somewhere earlier that temple choice could be more dependent on meta then anything else. Against more shooting Kheliborn is amazing. 

[Azurious]

3 hours ago, DantePQ said:

@Lhw yep I used Khailebron recently and it's kind of too glass for me - I'd love this if AoS rules change to Wh40k rules for activation of charging units. Right know it's not optimal to make more then one charge with glassy units.  Also it depends how heavy shooting meta is. 

The thing that sells khalibron to me is the teleport, it offers that extra level of mobility.  Hag nar is potent but it can be pretty restrictive on board positioning if you are looking to maximise the defensive bonus.

[DJMoose]

7 hours ago, Azurious said:

The thing that sells khalibron to me is the teleport, it offers that extra level of mobility.  Hag nar is potent but it can be pretty restrictive on board positioning if you are looking to maximise the defensive bonus.

I can testify to the effectiveness of the Kahilebron Mistress of Illusion ability.  While of course the -1 to shooting is nice, the basically free teleport of a unit after buffing it up and then getting it to where you need it is fantastic.  Granted it does potentially rely on you getting a 9" charge, which is more likely during the second battle round and onwards due to Headlong Fury.  But having a bunch of Blood Sisters that smash into one enemy unit on the same turn is awesome.

[Lhw]

1 minute ago, DJMoose said:

I can testify to the effectiveness of the Kahilebron Mistress of Illusion ability.  While of course the -1 to shooting is nice, the basically free teleport of a unit after buffing it up and then getting it to where you need it is fantastic.  Granted it does potentially rely on you getting a 9" charge, which is more likely during the second battle round and onwards due to Headlong Fury.  But having a bunch of Blood Sisters that smash into one enemy unit on the same turn is awesome.

 Can you buff it up that well? Doesn't the rules say beginning of the hero phase? 

[DJMoose]

6 minutes ago, Lhw said:

 Can you buff it up that well? Doesn't the rules say beginning of the hero phase? 

At the start of your hero phase.  Whoops.  Looks like I was playing that wrong. 

Granted, it was my first game with Daughters of Khaine.  That changes things then.  It was amazing to be able to buff a unit and then send them off.  Still usable though. Now you just need to make sure your unit is in range of your buff spells after you move them.

I suppose another question is if your general can use the ability.  I certainly feel like they should be able to, as the general is a unit within 7."  It does not say "another" unit, only "a" unit, assuming they are more than 3" away from enemy models.

[Lhw]

I agree, it's still good. Quite a lot of the time you can string out so a lot of the buffs can still be got off.

Definitely can do it on your general too.

[WoollyMammoth]

Khalibron will give you a first turn teleport. After turn 1, with the insane mobility of your army should be able to easily get everything wherever you want, even closer than 9". The -1 to hit is very situational, but against heavy shooting armies it will be better than the 5++ which requires a lot of careful positioning. For me, Its not much of an issue conga lining and maximizing the 5++, then if you do the double save prayer, its insane. The army just wont die as fast as its killing.

A lot of people get excited for 9" ambushes but in most games, you ambush, then sit there and do absolutely nothing. Even with re-rolling 1s. Unless you can do it with multiple units and can re-roll your charges, its generally terrible. Then when you factor in all the ways your opponent can mess with you by blocking, bubble wrapping and screening, it's just plain bad. Sure, you can teleport 20 snakes and make a lucky charge and it will feel good and win you the game against a bad opponent, but it's not going to get you anywhere against good players. Mistress of Illusion allows you to go anywhere (not just table edge) but all that means is you can  walk right into the front of your opponents army, which is typically the most defended point.

Don't get me wrong, a 'deep strike' is an incredibly useful tool, but not the way most people typically use it for. Charging one unit into your opponents territory is generally very bad. But, it can make your opponent fumble with their deployment - trying to make sure everything is blocked out. The most important factor is ambushing onto undefended objectives mid-late game. The problem with Mistress of Illusion is, for 80 points you can take a unit that does that automatically. So you don't need to sacrifice a better temple to get these bonuses. 

In certain very specific situations, Khalibron is the best temple to have. Against mass shooting (Kunnin Rukk, Mixed Order, Free Peoples or Kharadron) then the -1 to hit is probably better than the 5++. Unfortunately with either, this level of shooting is probably going to take out what it shoots at regardless.  Also if you just don't want to play with Harpies or Morathi. If this is for you - you can buff up a unit of 30 witches and teleport it 9" - but this requires getting Mindrazor, a couple prayers, then making a 9" charge .. your odds are probably 30:1 here.

Otherwise, if you want to play with at least a couple harpies, you want to protect your investment in Morathi and you are a half decent at conga-lining your troops, the 5++ is going to be the thing that elevates your army to a solid competitive list.

 

[Lhw]

Not going to bother getting into an argument with you Wooly M. You clearly prefer Hagg Narr, that's far enough. I think you're massively underselling both the benefits of -1 and the teleport.

[Scythian]

I was able to fully exploit the sheer brutality of the Blood Sisters using the Draichi Ganeth +1 to hit ability. What I found lacking was the obvious lack of ranged attacks. I strongly suggest to my fellow DoK players using Vanguard Longstrikes rather than the Blood Stalkers. There’s just no comparison if you ask me. Adepticon showed me a lot about what was working and what I needed. I dumped two Medusa’s and put in 2 hag queens for the witchbrew. Had to lower one unit of Blood Sisters to 10 so I could bring in the 6 Longstrikes. I still have two Medusa’s for casting, have ranged attacks now that are devastating, and have the witchbrew to avoid the annoying battle shock loses. Overall, my snake army is a much more well rounded fighting force. 

[Burf]

7 hours ago, Lhw said:

Not going to bother getting into an argument with you Wooly M. You clearly prefer Hagg Narr, that's far enough. I think you're massively underselling both the benefits of -1 and the teleport.

I like khailebron with mirrordance to send a fully buffed (mind razor, BoK, Catechism, Sacrement) Morathi 3 inches away from basically anything you want first turn (I've talked about how this works before).

Statistically she does 25 damage to a 3+ save unit lower bravery than her and since the buffs last until your next hero phase, you can force your opponent to take a REALLY REALLY poor double turn.

It's more gimmicky than other lists but it's suuuuuuppppppeeeeerrrr fun.

[GammaMage]

I think that a lot of the Hagg Nar vs Khailebron argument comes down to playstyle and the kinds of armies you face at your local gaming store. Khailebron is better against armies with heavy shooting, and the teleport is great for maneuvering key units, and triggering Heartrenders. -1 to hit is always better than +1 to save - but, it's only against shooting, so Hagg Nar is better in melee combat.

[DantePQ]

It's very meta dependent and also a playstyle thing, with current Battleplanes I'm fine with HaggNar as I usually don't need that much mobility and againt my meta (Pheonixes, a lot of Changehost,Seraphon and Death + Nurlge, like one KO player and hardly any Mixed Order shooting I prefer HaggNar, but if your meta is more about mixed order, KO, maybe Kunin, heavy shooting SCE then Khailebron is better). But it's a good thing, as I loved what I've seen from from Niurgle - as both players in my gaming group are fielding different armies and Death - 4 players and they play also very different builds. I guess DoK is similar as in my opinion only Blood Stalkers are meh, even Lifetakers could be could in Shadowhammer or very fast for example Khailebron army with Cauldron Guard Battalion (+1 to run and charge is massive especially in turn 2)

Also worth considering is the fact that Idoneth Deepkin will be tough for shooty armies so we might see less strictly shooting armies in the future.(especially with the fact that recent Battletomes - Nurgle, DoK, Death and I guess ID dont't have possibilites to go with long-range heavy shooting. 

[GammaMage]

ID do have the bow namarti thralls, so they might have good shooting, we will have to wait and see. On the flip side, while our Stalkers are probably bad against them, unless they position very carefully we can still deep strike Heartrenders near their heroes.

[DantePQ]

With how GW writes armies I doubt they will have huge shooting I expect them to be average-good at shooting. 

BTW 

Another model for my army  

 

[Aranthir]

@DantePQ Wow that's a wonderful color scheme. !!!

[Trayanee]

That looks fantastic!

[zedatkinszed]

@DantePQ Great work! Well done - love the scheme.

[Scythian]

1 hour ago, DantePQ said:

With how GW writes armies I doubt they will have huge shooting I expect them to be average-good at shooting. 

BTW 

Another model for my army  

 

That model looks incredible, Dante! 

[zedatkinszed]

This is a battalion question.

I see a lot of people here (and I am myself) making lists with battalions but I'm looking at Greg Goede's DoK list from Adepticon and it doesn't use a battalion at all. And in fact, if you look at all the top 5 lists, by * battlepoint only*, the only ones using a battalion are the Tzeentch Change Hosts. 

I'm wondering does anyone have competitive experience with DoK without using battalions.

[DantePQ]

Thanks for all the kind words  I love that scheme that I came up with in about 3 weeks army will be ready. Got another crazy scheme in mind for Deepkins 

@zedatkinszed I usually don't use any battalions and I've played like 12 ultra comeptitive battles with DoK and I've used Battalions in only 3 of them. I used Slaughter Troupe as it's cheapest and I already use one unit of SoS and two of Heartrenders anyway. I guess I like because it's cheap, my army has less drops so I usually deploy first against non battalion armies, ability is quite good (especially with big unit or Slaughter Queen on Cauldron) and extra artefact. But it isn't anything mindblowing so sometimes for other build it's the first thing to cut down to get some extra points. 

[Twitch of Izalith]

Nice paint scheme @DantePQ I assume your friend is a commission painter? I really like the white highlights on some of the metals. Its not that common anymore -  with the big range of shades of metallic paint available -  but I think it looks really good. 

I wish I had half the patience and/ or skill needed to paint a whole army to that sort of standard! - particularly in a few weeks!

__

To comment on the whole - "which is the best temple?" discussion. I think that Draichi Ganeth, Khailebron and Hag Nar are all pretty equal actually. With Hag Nar and Khailebron being the safest tournament bets and easiest to use but a skilled player (more skilled than me anyway!) is going to be super dangerous with an optimesd Draichi/slaughter troupe list. The damage output and model count is so high you honestly don't need to worry about resilience - and the only penalty is that you have to choose a fixed artefact.

I think the main reason people are not talking about Draichi so much is that it is more difficult to play and nobody wants to purchase and paint 120 witch elf/ sos models - or cope with moving them multiple times per turn. Also Gaunt Summoners can be a problem so its a bit more of a gamble as a tournament build.

I started playing it becaause i had 60 painted witches and 20 painted SoS by the time the battletome came out so I kinda discovered how strong it is by accident. I would not be at all surprised to see it do very well if someone has the cahones to take it to a GT though.

Thats my thoughts anyway - mainly to say something different from everybody else  

[DantePQ]

@Twitch of Izalith yeah he is doing n commission and I love his style of painting, he painted my Game of Thrones white walkers winter style army and amazing Harlequins heavy Ynnari army. After DoK we will work on amazing conversion  heavyDeepkin army.

I like Slaughter Troupe a lot but isn't Cauldron Guard good as well in Draichi? 

[The Traitor]

I thought temple nest (or any blood sister heavy army) would be the best for Draichi Ganeth, as MW on a 3+/ 2+ on the champ from crystal touch should be amazing. However I prefer armies more gimmicky than that, as the only trick of that army would be dealing insane damage, and that's why I actually like Hagg Nar a lot, as it makes you be somehow conservative until turn 3 and gives you a surprisingly high durability to units your opponent didn't expect.

[Azurious]

Presumably slaughter troupe is good in draichi as you get 2 units of witch elves in the bat too, which is rock solid.