AoS 2 - Daughters of Khaine Discussion

[Joseph Mackay]

Thoughts on all snake lists and how to make them a bit less ‘glass cannon’ the biggest problem I’ve found is that they hit hard but can’t survive multiple rounds, so they need to kill the enemy outright or they die to the return attacks

 

also, Bloodwrack Medusa. It’s sold with a 40mm base, the base guide says 40mm, but there’s official gw images with her obviously on 50mm, and at one point they updated the base guide to 50mm (but reversed it when everyone complained because the model isn’t sold with that base). I personally think she looks better on the 50mm as I think the tails hang off the 40mm too much. Thoughts on this?

[Fred1245]

1 hour ago, DantePQ said:

Morathi is still the best "leader" model in the game - rend2 or rend1 - she was mainstay in DoK armies for years and at 120 extra you get 

- 3 casts every turn and 2 unbinds at +1 

- amazing CA to use everytime she's on a table

- two roadblocks vs 1 

- better "damage table" 

- endless spells and auot-kill stuff doesn't effect her 

- buffs to Melusai and Khinerai 

- always being a general (which is huge for some new CA in DoK book like Khailebron teleport) 

Sure rend2 on lance would be amazing but she is still such an amazing tactical piece. 

The problem is that without at least rend -2, the majority of the models that see competitive play don't care about her damage and it makes the fact that her damage table got better completely pointless.

Little Morathi's spells are nice(the 1 or 2 games out of 5 you don't run into teclis, nagash, LoC, etc and actually get a chance to fail a 7+ roll) but it can't make up for the fact that the 390pt shadowqueen now does roughly 4 damage on average to any model with 3+ save, and with the amount of stuff out there that can ignore rend -1, she's going to bounce off things constantly. Even with only being able to take 3 damage per turn, she loses to any unit or monster in the game of equivalent cost that has a decent armor save.

With how much better bloodwracks and blood stalkers are relative to everything else, there's really no room in the army for a 390pt model that can't kill 2 sequitors by herself. If you could take Morathi-Khaine by alone, it would be different, but you can't.

[Fred1245]

16 hours ago, jhamslam said:

Avatar of Khaine can improve the roll. take the iron circlet if the consistency bothers you. 3+ is plenty consistent in AoS for an uninteractable invocation

Can't take Iron Circlet without a battalion, did you forget? All the Battalions are trash.

And no it fething isn't when that roll decides whether or not you lose half your army this turn.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Fred1245

[jeremym]

33 minutes ago, Fred1245 said:

Yay, if you devote 1500pts of your list to them, your 130pts of blood sisters might end up being close to as good as 220pts of evocators!

The truth is that with this book, DoK have no significant melee threats any more. Witch Aelves ate multiple nerfs, Blood Sisters ate multiple nerfs, Morathi ate a severe nerf, all of our melee buffs got nerfed. Add in that the entire army got a mobility nerf due to the wholly within changes and there's really no point to trying to build melee DoK anymore.

Our best outlook for the future is to completely toss out melee. The less you can spend on the combat phase, the better. In my opinion, our best competitive list going forward looks something like this:

Hagg Narr

Hag Cauldron 220 Blessing of Khaine

Bloodwrack Shrine General 160 The Withering

Avatar of Khaine 130 (for+1 to prayer)

20 Blood Stalkers 520

5 Blood Stalkers 140

5 Blood Stalkers 140

5 Blood Stalkers 140

5 Blood Stalkers 140

5 Blood Stalkers 140

5 Blood Stalkers 140

Iron Heart Endless Prayer thing 80

CP 50

You'll never have less drops than your opponent but whether you go first or second doesn't really matter. 150 shots per turn should be plenty of damage against most armies. You have enough defensive buffs to castle on one or two objectives without issue, MSU blood stalkers give you flexibility for low investment capturing of objectives outside your bubble. You get to ignore how clunky everything is for the majority of the game. And when you finally get forced into combat (which DoK should avoid as much as possible) using the superfluous melee buffs they gave a shooting army for whatever reason, blood stakers can finish off units weakened by shooting. You know, should the roulette wheel decide you actually get to use those buffs this game.

your logic is sound, and but what bothers me most about you being right is it seems like GW is fully embracing Age of Shootmar. 

Its just getting out of hand and becoming an exercise in tabling the other person at a distance before they can do the same to you. 

 

Im personally going to still run Morathi, but the fact that the only other hammer we can put out reliably is the 20+ stalkers doesn't make me feel great about playing it casually 

[Fred1245]

15 hours ago, DJMoose said:

Oh believe me. I wish the Turned to Crystal ability was not at the end of the combat phase. But that's what it is, and we have to make the best of it. How do you make Blood Sisters scary? Buff them and then catapult them across the board at exactly what your opponent doesn't want to die on the first or second turn with the Ironscale. Currently has helped me win the last 4 games I have played. Also if you run snakes take the Scathcoven. We simply cannot afford to lose any models to battleshock when we're already as durable as wet paper.

The actual solution is: Don't bring blood sisters. Blood Stalkers are 10pts more expensive and are superior in just about every way.

You can't 'catapult them across the board' because you lose the majority of your buffs if they go that far. You also can't rely on actually GETTING any of those buffs so you'll likely be sitting for 2 or 3 turns with unbuffed snakes just waiting and hoping your opponent doesn't win the game while you keep pulling the lever on the old melee buff slot machine.

Daughters of Khaine are a predominately shooting army after this book. The sooner we all embrace that, the better off we'll be.

[Xil]

I had high hopes for the new Battletome...

Things I am disappointed with :

-Witchbrew: it's way to random, either you feel bad because it never goes off or your opponent feels bad whenever you roll great on it... 

-Heartrenders got no love: their Spears still do not matter. The special movement is, once again, way to swingy. Also still huge bases for such a fragile unit. 

-Lifetakers: they got a good buff for sure, but I don't think that's what they needed. They fly over the heads of the enemy! Give them 2" range on the sickle. Rend wasn't the issue. 

-Blood Sisters: Yes you know, the Crystal Touch. Why isn't it a 'the number of attacks for Crystal touch can't be modified' rule? The current version is just bad on a glass cannon unit. At the end of the combat pace is the culprit here... 

-Ironscale: Her ability is just not working out. No one, not even the most narrative player, will ever attack first with her to get the +1 attack. 

-Witch Aelves: the banner is a straight Nerf with the new wording. Yes the old one was basically a reroll too, But you were able to choose the dice. If you fail your Bravery on a 4 and decide to reroll it and get a 5, you fail harder. Before you just picked the 4 at least. 

-Battalions: no more special modifications by temples/sects. 

-Morathi: losing a Rend (I still hope it's a typo by copy 'n pasta from small Morathi) 

-Tempels/Sects: certain abilitys only working with Sisters of Slaughter (Kraith iirc). No dedicated Harpies sect. Hagg Nars CA to push the Cauldron 3" for a CP... Is this a joke? Other armies just move again for a CP. 

-Warlocks: Casting their signature spell with even smaller range (if AoS 3 moves magic to its own phase after movement it would be OK, like in 40k)

-Avatar: still needs to animate.. that's a no go (pun intended) 

-General: NO NEW Units! Where is my cavalry unit mounted on creatures made from the very fabric of shadows?!  Where are my beast units made also from shadows and beasts from Ulgu?! Where is the terrain piece/-s?! Where is our Khinerai Hero unit?! Why is the Mistweaver not moved in the Battletome?! Why is there no new Avatar model when you clearly describe it changing to Morathis appearance?!

-Artefact: unnecessary Nerf on shadow stone, especially in light of Teclis or Seraphon and Dot. Lame and redundant abilities on a lot of other artifacts. Nothing interesting, innovative new to be found. 

 

I am all for a more grounded, middle of the pack balancing. But quite a lot of decisions aren't helping the case. I wanted to be THE Melee army, not just another alpha shooting nonsense, no fun, go home after 10 minutes post setup army. I wanted flavor. I wanted Ulgu and shadows more incorporated, not just on Shadow Stalkers (I had high hopes of this direction). 

I cannot and want not to agree with the premise of a faster deadlier game GW is pushing for. If we are honest we take a day off for gaming anyway. It doesn't matter if the game takes 1,5 hours or 2!

Edited February 14, 2021 by Xil

[DantePQ]

23 minutes ago, Fred1245 said:

The problem is that without at least rend -2, the majority of the models that see competitive play don't care about her damage and it makes the fact that her damage table got better completely pointless.

Little Morathi's spells are nice(the 1 or 2 games out of 5 you don't run into teclis, nagash, LoC, etc and actually get a chance to fail a 7+ roll) but it can't make up for the fact that the 390pt shadowqueen now does roughly 4 damage on average to any model with 3+ save, and with the amount of stuff out there that can ignore rend -1, she's going to bounce off things constantly. Even with only being able to take 3 damage per turn, she loses to any unit or monster in the game of equivalent cost that has a decent armor save.

With how much better bloodwracks and blood stalkers are relative to everything else, there's really no room in the army for a 390pt model that can't kill 2 sequitors by herself. If you could take Morathi-Khaine by alone, it would be different, but you can't.

Such logic is flawed as you can't look at her as 390 as Morath-Khaine alone would never cost like 210 but 300+ for abilities and utility she provides. 

Also you're missing a point how Morathi is used in competitive play - she isn't damage dealer and never was, she is utility piece to control the movement and how opponent moves. Your argument about Sequitors is flawed as well -even with rend2 she won't be able to go through some units for example Ymmetrica Stoneguards. You can always find some stuff certain units won't go through - and Morathi isn't melee machine and never was, she has unique role in an army and she got massively better with new rules. For her role she is amazing and easily best leader in Age of Sigmar. Sure rend2 would make her better but to claim that you can't justify taking her in competitive play is just not true. 

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by DantePQ

[DJMoose]

1 hour ago, Joseph Mackay said:

Also, Bloodwrack Medusa. It’s sold with a 40mm base, the base guide says 40mm, but there’s official gw images with her obviously on 50mm, and at one point they updated the base guide to 50mm (but reversed it when everyone complained because the model isn’t sold with that base). I personally think she looks better on the 50mm as I think the tails hang off the 40mm too much. Thoughts on this?

I think I have my Bloodwrack on whatever base the Avatar of Khaine was supposed to use. Being my general often I liked her not having her snakes hanging off the base. My Hags ended up on larger bases as well due to the snake bodies I gave them. Majority of people I have played have been ok with it for rule of cool.

[Fred1245]

On 2/13/2021 at 6:11 AM, DantePQ said:

Every unit got better or cheaper. Battalions are still very useful for many reasons 

Cauldron Guard - cheapest way to get lower drop, extra CP, extra item and very good ability that makes your Lifetakers much better.

Slaughter Troupe - retreat and charge is massive, you don't need Hag Queen that much these days so Slaughter Queen slots nicely in to cast prayers and Heart of Fury 

Shadowpatrol - much better as Warlocks are cheaper and have +1 to cast while 5+ and Lifetakers are better. Also you can teleport units out of combat with it now 

Scathcoven -  free BS immunity and quite flexible organisation

Vyperic Guard - enables low drop Melusai army and for 140 it's bascially 1 extra CP and lower drops. 

Sisters of Slaughter - still amazing

Blood Sisters - much better compared to old book - as you have ways to have them buffed with extra attacks one of them (Morathi buff) is quite easy to achieve, also with Ironscale they are faster and cheaper 130 is very good. Horde discount is not an issue - they were 480 for 20 before, now they are 520 for 20, and any time you don't run 20 they are cheaper 

Doomfire - actually better, spell got a it but you almost never used them - now they are bascially a 10W spellcaster with +1 to cast, quite good. 

Morathi - still a boss, rend1-2 doesn't matter much she got such a huge warscroll boost anyway. 

Wholly within on HaggNarr stuff doesn't matter much as it won't impact how Hag Nar plays - you castle up, soak up dmg and they run&charge. Competitive wise it very similar, maybe change some army composition, but with better Morathi and how crazy Heart of Fury could be (as you can put it up on the board and move units into it's aura) HaggNarr will be much better - especially with how insane Shadowstalkers are. Lifetakers are another unit people sleep on  - extra rend and extra attacks thanks to Morathi is huge, 10 of them cost 160 can drop them anywhere near Morathi and they are +1rend, +1dmg on charge  and +1A from Morathi with possible upside of casting Mindrazor. 

Also other temples got buffs - Khailebron, Khelt-Ner could be amazing, Draichi Ganethas well. 

Like I've been playing DoK since old book was released won a fair share of tournaments (including London GT 2019) and this book is big buff. My go-to competitive list will be like this I think 

Morathi - Mindrazor 

Hag Queen on Cauldron - Blessing of Khaine, Ulfuri 

10 Witches with bucklers 

10 Witches with bucklers 

30 Sisters of Slaughter with bucklers/knives 

10 Stalkers 

9 Shadowstalkers

9 Shadowstalkers

Heart of Fury 

Extra CP 

But I have highly competitive Melusai list as well. 

So many exciting stuff, bascially the only thing that was nerfed is Witchbrew and Witches everything else got much better or cheaper or in some cases both. 

 

Cauldron Guard is basically the same, not a buff. The lifetaker buff is...fine. They're still one wound models with a 5+ save at best. They exist to deepstrike onto an objective and nothing else. If they actually have to fight anything that means you've either already won or are in dire straights.

Slaughter Troupe already did that, not a buff. Nobody used it before, with SoS getting nerfed, it's still not going to see any use.

Shadow Patrol needed to get much better to still be bad. Doomfires are better, but not enough.  The battalion and the unit never saw play and they're still not good.

We already had Scathcoven. No one used it.

We already had Vyperic Guard. No one used it.

Sisters of slaughter: Nerfed 60pts. Witch Brew nerf hurts more though.

Blood Sisters: Massively worse. The Change of Crystal Gaze made it just about useless, Morathi's +1 attack buff is irrelevant because of how expensive she is and how expensive Blood Sisters are to actually get any value out of. Not to mention that +1 attack isn't even enough of a buff to make up for how much worse crystal touch got. Also the miniscule range. The Ironscale's CA is nice but it's not balanced out by Blood Sisters going up in price now that they lost the large unit bonus (a double hit when you consider that their new Crystal Gaze is much more dependent on unit size being at the end of the combat phase.) Blood Sister were good in the old book, bad after shadow and pain, and worse now.

Morathi going down to Rend -1 means the Shadowqueen basically can't hurt anything with a 3+ save or better. Morathi-Khaine is still great but the Shadowqueen is a paperweight.

It massively matters and has a huge impact on how Hagg Narr plays. You used to be able to cover half the board and keep that buff, now you're lucky if you can maintain it into the second combat phase or across two objectives at the same time. Especially with how slow Cauldrons and Shrines are. You can't run and charge because that takes you out of the bubble range. Which considering you probably failed witchbrew just means that squad is dead. Morathi is also objectively worse than she was post Broken Realms. Fair enough on Shadowstalkers, they didn't require much and are still really good. But they're good because they DIDN'T change, not because anything in this book got better. Lifetakers get slept on because you can wipe out a unit of 20 of them with liberator prime and even at rend -1 2 damage they don't hit particularly hard. Mindrazor going to an 8 to cast means that between unbinds and just straight up failures, you'll be lucky to get it to go off once per EVENT, let alone once per game.

Other temples are irrelevant unless they affect shooting. For still trying to make melee DoK work, +1 to witch brew would make Hagg Narr the most powerful temple by itself. The rest is just gravy. Not having witch brew turn one is a death sentence, similar to how the nerf to witch brew is pretty much a death sentence for our ability to do melee. Sisters of Slaughter specifically are completely worthless with 2 attacks at 3+ 4+. You get more damage out of a liberator prime than an entire unit of sisters of slaughter, even including the mortal wound bounce.

 You claim 'every unit got better or cheaper' but then almost everything you say after that is combination of talking up stuff that hasn't changed at all or talking about how nerfs aren't actually that bad. You talk about 'exciting buffs' but then list a bunch of nerfs except for Lifetakers and Doomfires. You never even acknowledge Sisters of Slaughter getting HAMMERED losing their large unit bonus on top of witchbrew tanking.

The witchbrew change alone was enough to kill off Witch Aelves, Sisters of Slaughter, and Large units of Blood Sisters, the fact that each of those units were nerfed individually was just salt in the wound. The Nerf to Morathi killed everything else melee. If you put anything but blood stalkers and bloodwracks on the table, you're building a fluff list.

[Tzanna]

22 minutes ago, Fred1245 said:

Cauldron Guard is basically the same, not a buff. The lifetaker buff is...fine. They're still one wound models with a 5+ save at best. They exist to deepstrike onto an objective and nothing else. If they actually have to fight anything that means you've either already won or are in dire straights.

Slaughter Troupe already did that, not a buff. Nobody used it before, with SoS getting nerfed, it's still not going to see any use.

Shadow Patrol needed to get much better to still be bad. Doomfires are better, but not enough.  The battalion and the unit never saw play and they're still not good.

We already had Scathcoven. No one used it.

We already had Vyperic Guard. No one used it.

Sisters of slaughter: Nerfed 60pts. Witch Brew nerf hurts more though.

Blood Sisters: Massively worse. The Change of Crystal Gaze made it just about useless, Morathi's +1 attack buff is irrelevant because of how expensive she is and how expensive Blood Sisters are to actually get any value out of. Not to mention that +1 attack isn't even enough of a buff to make up for how much worse crystal touch got. Also the miniscule range. The Ironscale's CA is nice but it's not balanced out by Blood Sisters going up in price now that they lost the large unit bonus (a double hit when you consider that their new Crystal Gaze is much more dependent on unit size being at the end of the combat phase.) Blood Sister were good in the old book, bad after shadow and pain, and worse now.

Morathi going down to Rend -1 means the Shadowqueen basically can't hurt anything with a 3+ save or better. Morathi-Khaine is still great but the Shadowqueen is a paperweight.

It massively matters and has a huge impact on how Hagg Narr plays. You used to be able to cover half the board and keep that buff, now you're lucky if you can maintain it into the second combat phase or across two objectives at the same time. Especially with how slow Cauldrons and Shrines are. You can't run and charge because that takes you out of the bubble range. Which considering you probably failed witchbrew just means that squad is dead. Morathi is also objectively worse than she was post Broken Realms. Fair enough on Shadowstalkers, they didn't require much and are still really good. But they're good because they DIDN'T change, not because anything in this book got better. Lifetakers get slept on because you can wipe out a unit of 20 of them with liberator prime and even at rend -1 2 damage they don't hit particularly hard. Mindrazor going to an 8 to cast means that between unbinds and just straight up failures, you'll be lucky to get it to go off once per EVENT, let alone once per game.

Other temples are irrelevant unless they affect shooting. For still trying to make melee DoK work, +1 to witch brew would make Hagg Narr the most powerful temple by itself. The rest is just gravy. Not having witch brew turn one is a death sentence, similar to how the nerf to witch brew is pretty much a death sentence for our ability to do melee. Sisters of Slaughter specifically are completely worthless with 2 attacks at 3+ 4+. You get more damage out of a liberator prime than an entire unit of sisters of slaughter, even including the mortal wound bounce.

 You claim 'every unit got better or cheaper' but then almost everything you say after that is combination of talking up stuff that hasn't changed at all or talking about how nerfs aren't actually that bad. You talk about 'exciting buffs' but then list a bunch of nerfs except for Lifetakers and Doomfires. You never even acknowledge Sisters of Slaughter getting HAMMERED losing their large unit bonus on top of witchbrew tanking.

The witchbrew change alone was enough to kill off Witch Aelves, Sisters of Slaughter, and Large units of Blood Sisters, the fact that each of those units were nerfed individually was just salt in the wound. The Nerf to Morathi killed everything else melee. If you put anything but blood stalkers and bloodwracks on the table, you're building a fluff list.

Ok but the codex is this, stop whining and play more.

[Overread]

And deep breath people - and let it out slow

Lets give the tome a chance and see what comes out. Theory crafting can have the issue that its a very one-sided view where you tend to look at all your weaknesses and your opponents strengths. At times it can overplay itself and you end up so hyper focused on both that you miss your own strengths and the weak points of the enemy. Slaanesh also feels a bit weaker this time around and a lot of units got quite significant point increases without any gain in stats at all. Both tomes seem to be aiming for the middle row rather than the top, which is honestly exactly what we should want. Middle is best in terms of overall balance IF you can get every army to the same middle point. It flattens the balancing curve; it makes for more exciting games where the player is part of the process not just the list and it also tends to open armies up to choosing more  varied options within themsleves. Rather than relying on one or two powerful tricks. 

[Fred1245]

1 hour ago, DantePQ said:

Such logic is flawed as you can't look at her as 390 as Morath-Khaine alone would never cost like 210 but 300+ for abilities and utility she provides. 

Also you're missing a point how Morathi is used in competitive play - she isn't damage dealer and never was, she is utility piece to control the movement and how opponent moves. Your argument about Sequitors is flawed as well -even with rend2 she won't be able to go through some units for example Ymmetrica Stoneguards. You can always find some stuff certain units won't go through - and Morathi isn't melee machine and never was, she has unique role in an army and she got massively better with new rules. For her role she is amazing and easily best leader in Age of Sigmar. Sure rend2 would make her better but to claim that you can't justify taking her in competitive play is just not true. 

 

The point is that her utility isn't enough to justify taking up more than a quarter of your army without some ability to do damage at the same time. A model THAT expensive has to do BOTH to exceed the opportunity cost of just bringing something like 20 blood stalkers and the endless prayer instead. As for the sequitor thing, pick an example you would prefer then. Rend -1 to rend -2 is the single biggest breakpoint in the rending scale due to the sheer number of units with either built in +1 to save or ignore rend-1. It'd be better for her to lose 2 attacks again then that specific point of rend against most of the threats she'll face in the game today.

The bigger issue though is she doesn't really have much synergy with the way the army functions now. Since there's no real reason to bring mind razor anymore and The Withering isn't as difficult to cast(and +1 not being enough to really help against unbinds) a Bloodwrack will do just fine for casting while also allowing you to avoid having to take dead units like SoS or Witch Aelves. +1 attack for Snakes and Bats isn't exactly gamechanging considering DoK don't really care about the combat phase until late game, long after Morathi's been whittled away usually. Morathi-Khaine's CA is really good, but realisitically She'll only be able to use it maybe twice per game after the Khellebron change, and for the same price as her you could just have 20 extra bloodstalkers and change.

I've probably been a bit too harsh on Morathi as a result how unnecessary it was to nerf her less than 3 months after her new warscroll released, but I do stand by that the loss of rend on heartrender is a very significant hit that takes her from a 'yes absolutely' to a 'eh...maybe' inclusion.

[Fred1245]

37 minutes ago, Tzanna said:

Ok but the codex is this, stop whining and play more.

Maybe if the rest of you guys would stop lying so much, I could.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Fred1245

[Overread]

2 minutes ago, Fred1245 said:

Maybe if the rest of you guys would stop lying so much, I could. As it stands I spend too much time debunking your nonsense.

Lets leave insults out of this. 

Different people come from different backgrounds and experiences. Plus no one really has the book in hand so we are jumping from warscrolls to photos to "man reads book" screencaps and the like. Let the book settle; people have hardly had a full 24 hours to properly digest the information let alone try anything or such. Lets give it some time to settle. For people to (if they can do so safely at present) play and read and process. 

Different opinions and mistakes are perfectly normal and to be expected. 

[Fred1245]

19 minutes ago, Overread said:

And deep breath people - and let it out slow

Lets give the tome a chance and see what comes out. Theory crafting can have the issue that its a very one-sided view where you tend to look at all your weaknesses and your opponents strengths. At times it can overplay itself and you end up so hyper focused on both that you miss your own strengths and the weak points of the enemy. Slaanesh also feels a bit weaker this time around and a lot of units got quite significant point increases without any gain in stats at all. Both tomes seem to be aiming for the middle row rather than the top, which is honestly exactly what we should want. Middle is best in terms of overall balance IF you can get every army to the same middle point. It flattens the balancing curve; it makes for more exciting games where the player is part of the process not just the list and it also tends to open armies up to choosing more  varied options within themsleves. Rather than relying on one or two powerful tricks. 

I don't necessarily disagree but there are 2 big problems here. 1 is that a lot of the last handful of battletomes to come out have been built for the absolute top of the top. Seraphon, KO, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, all top tier contenders. Why did the 'build for the middle' philosophy wait until now?

Second, our options are less varied and rely more on one or two powerful tricks than before. Blood Stalkers are pretty much the be all end all of the book.

[Overread]

Well GW's balance is haphazard at best - some have theorized that they've two balance teams internally and one goes for top and one goes for the middle. Others think its part of some complex buy-sell pattern - others think its just random luck. 

[Xil]

49 minutes ago, Overread said:

And deep breath people - and let it out slow

Lets give the tome a chance and see what comes out. Theory crafting can have the issue that its a very one-sided view where you tend to look at all your weaknesses and your opponents strengths. At times it can overplay itself and you end up so hyper focused on both that you miss your own strengths and the weak points of the enemy. Slaanesh also feels a bit weaker this time around and a lot of units got quite significant point increases without any gain in stats at all. Both tomes seem to be aiming for the middle row rather than the top, which is honestly exactly what we should want. Middle is best in terms of overall balance IF you can get every army to the same middle point. It flattens the balancing curve; it makes for more exciting games where the player is part of the process not just the list and it also tends to open armies up to choosing more  varied options within themsleves. Rather than relying on one or two powerful tricks. 

I agree there, but it doesn't explain a LOT of weird/stupid decisions for the new Battletome for us and Hedonistes. 

[jeremym]

maintain optimism. Remember when KO and seraphon books came out and everyone thought it was trash? 

Not to be hyperbolic but there is going to be more nuance once people start thinking things through all the way 

Edited February 14, 2021 by jeremym

[Gecktron]

1 hour ago, Fred1245 said:

I don't necessarily disagree but there are 2 big problems here. 1 is that a lot of the last handful of battletomes to come out have been built for the absolute top of the top. Seraphon, KO, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, all top tier contenders. Why did the 'build for the middle' philosophy wait until now?

Second, our options are less varied and rely more on one or two powerful tricks than before. Blood Stalkers are pretty much the be all end all of the book.

Funny that you mention Kharadrons. The KO chat was full of people crying about them being trash, and nerfed into the ground when the book dropped last year, and look at them now. 
Just wait for a bit and play before saying its bad. 

[Blitzd]

3 hours ago, jeremym said:

your logic is sound, and but what bothers me most about you being right is it seems like GW is fully embracing Age of Shootmar. 

Its just getting out of hand and becoming an exercise in tabling the other person at a distance before they can do the same to you. 

 

Im personally going to still run Morathi, but the fact that the only other hammer we can put out reliably is the 20+ stalkers doesn't make me feel great about playing it casually 

 

3 hours ago, Fred1245 said:

The actual solution is: Don't bring blood sisters. Blood Stalkers are 10pts more expensive and are superior in just about every way.

You can't 'catapult them across the board' because you lose the majority of your buffs if they go that far. You also can't rely on actually GETTING any of those buffs so you'll likely be sitting for 2 or 3 turns with unbuffed snakes just waiting and hoping your opponent doesn't win the game while you keep pulling the lever on the old melee buff slot machine.

Daughters of Khaine are a predominately shooting army after this book. The sooner we all embrace that, the better off we'll be.

 I played DoK for a while and did pretty well, top 10/best order in a lot of events, and I'm kinda agreeing here that melee is dead, especially in the face of shooting domination. I'm actually looking at toying around with 3 bloodwrack shrines, 40 shooting snakes and 2 units of teleporty bois, going khelibron, I feel like I will be able to out shoot a lot of armies and the MW output is ludicrous. 

[Chumphammer]

As a top table tournament player I don't mind the changes. They are what they are and either deal with them nd adapt or play another faction

Having a tantrum about it isn't going to help

With 3.0 probably in Sept there might be some changes that make dok/slaanesh changes make more sense. Who knows 

With smaller table sizes like in 40k shooting armies will have to deal with that reduction, especially if double turn is removed

[Overread]

I should note GW hasn't changed table sizes, they just changed the minimum recommended size to match with boards they sell. That  doesn't mean every table has to match that size. Furthermore the size of table is sometimes less important compared to density of terrain and of line of sight blocking terrain. Sometimes people find smaller tables remove problems with the dominance of ranged armies, but only because the terrain setups they are using don't actually block or disrupt the ranged weapons all that much.

[Mutton]

I encourage people who are skeptical about the changes to watch HWG's look at the thing. It's a great, balanced book that we should be excited about.
 

[Fyrm]

Alright, I’m really annoyed by all the people doomsdaying. Seriously, every time there’s a release in interested in, it always seems like most people, or at least the loudest ones, are screaming that the faction is garbage now. I don’t care anymore. I’ll just be focused on having fun playing an interested game. Which means a snek list. 

[RedemptionUK]

On 2/13/2021 at 10:45 AM, Fred1245 said:

The thing is the old book was more competitive AND had a higher ceiling. Before there were all sorts of tricks you could pull in the movement phase. Now you have to stay within 12" of a hero or lose half your stats. It's both less engaging and less powerful than it was thanks to all the incredibly restrictive bubbles and adding even more 'coinflip' buffs.

It's pretty ironic that you'd say we get to play the same models without having a bunch of them go through a major nerf when a bunch of them just went through a major nerf. Honestly, Bloodwracks and Slaughter Cauldrons are the only units that didn't get worse either directly or through the witchbrew nerf.

Normally I'd be on the 'wait and play some games' side of the fence, but the book isn't any different. There's nothing new here, just restrictions and nerfs placed on old abilities.

Weclome to playng any other army.