AoS 2 - Daughters of Khaine Discussion

[Isabel]

Thank you!

So in the first list i could drop one unit of stalkers and id have enough points for up to two extra queens and i could just fuse the 2 5-girl units of sisters.

I may have to think about an alternate structure to implement this in the other two lists. It would break some of the requirements (either battleline or the units needed for the battalion)

[foxicious]

Hi Isabel and welcome to the Daugthers of Khaine.

Just a few tips to add to Chumphammers advices:

1. Blood Stalkers are generally seen as a suboptimal unit, because they do not bring enough value to the table for the amount of points they cost. Normally they are either not taken at all or just used to fill out the requirements for the Temple Nest battalion.
   You can of course take more if you like their aesthetics. Just don’t expect them to outperform Witches or Blood Sisters for example.

2. A lot of the Slaughter Queen’s value comes from her command ability, which she can only use if she is the general. If you don’t field her as the general I would probably rather take a Hag Queen instead. Again ignoring aesthetics and lore reasons here.

3. You are fielding a lot of small sized units, which is of course due to the fact that you are trying to fit two battalions into your first two lists. As Chumphammer already pointed out it is easier to buff up few larger units than a lot of small ones. Because of that I would try to focus on one battalion.

With this in mind, your starting list could look something like this:

Morathi

Bloodwrack Shrine (general)

Hag Queen

Hag Queen

10 Blood Sisters

10 Blood Sisters

5 Blood Sisters (Could potentially also be 10 Witches)

5 Blood Stalkers

5 Blood Stalkers

Temple Nest

This is a slight variation from your third list. Giving you an additional Hag Queen as well as two Blood Sister units of 10. This list, in my opinion, is a pretty fluffy snake list (especially if you convert the Hag Queens to be more snakey🐍), which also packs some punch. You could also replace Morathi with more Blood Sisters and another hero (e.g. second Medusa).

If you want to have a list with a higher focus on Witches and a few Khinerai, you could do something like this:

Slaughter Queen on Cauldron (general)

Bloodwrack Medusa

Hag Queen

Hag Queen

30 Witch Aelves

10 Witch Aelves

10 Witch Aelves

20 Blood Sisters

5 Lifetakers

5 Lifetakers

Cauldron Guard

+1 Command Point

This list is quite similar to the one Chumphammer posted a few pages earlier. I have just replaced the Slaughter Troupe battalion with a Cauldron Guard, since it contains more of your preferred units. In my opinion the second list is more competitive, but since I am still building up my DoK army, most of my claims are based on theoretical knowledge. So take that with a grain of salt

[Isabel]

Thank you, foxicious! I think this is valuable input. I might reduce the number of stalkers. I do like their aesthetics, but i was going to model the sisters with the unmasked stalker heads anyway so their look won't be lost. Their obvious strength seems to me that they're really the only thing in the army that can deal damage from more than 12" away without having to cast a spell. But i see that their damage potential is a bit limited.

As for slaughter queens, i wouldn't really take them for aesthetics. The model looks way too static for my taste and the hag queen is just prettier altogether in my opinion. Also for a while i thought i remembered them to be wizards, but i think i just remembered wrong from reading that they can unbind spells.

I like the first list you posted a lot, i might build off of that for a really pretty snake army.

The second one is fun too, I obviously like witches as well, and i have heard that they have a lot of punch (and I would think their hornblower's run and charge probably makes them effectively faster than melusai with their 8" base move, particularly with the cauldron guard bonus), but i don't want them to be the main part of the force.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Isabel

[Mark Williams]

I'm kind of curious how this army would do. I realize it has a few crippling lose conditions, but I can't help but think that with morathi's ability to make the stalker's shoot in the hero phase, it might be able to do some pretty crippling damage to enemies that don't expect it. The khailbron temple would add some protection from shooting and make it tougher to snipe out Morathi early in the game. Deployment would be key, but the range on the ability is pretty far, and you could keep morathi pretty far out of harms way with careful deployment. The witches would just be shields around the front lines to ward off any initial assaults.

Edit: I know the blood stalkers don't get mortal wounds in the hero phase, but I'm thinking in the grand scheme that wouldn't matter.

Also, the withering spell would be the goal to debuff whatever unit you want to shoot at, making the shots wound on 2s instead of 3s.

Allegiance: Daughters of Khaine
- Temple: Khailebron
Mortal Realm: Ulgu
Morathi High Oracle of Khaine (480)
- General
- Lore of Shadows: The Withering
10 x Witch Aelves (120)
- Pairs of Sacrificial Knives
10 x Witch Aelves (120)
- Pairs of Sacrificial Knives
10 x Witch Aelves (120)
- Pairs of Sacrificial Knives
20 x Blood Stalkers (560)
20 x Blood Stalkers (560)
Balewind Vortex (40)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 116
 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Mark Williams

[foxicious]

@Isabel

Yeah I also dislike the standard Slaughter Queen model and I am probably going to heavily convert mine.

The first list is going to give you some great looking models for sure, while also giving you a good base of units for anything Temple Nest related. While Temple Nest isn’t meta at the moment, it’s still not a bad battalion in my opinion.

 

 

@Mark Williams

I am really not in a position to tell anybody what is working and what is not, but I feel like a list like this is going to be suboptimal. Let’s have a look what this gunline can do:

• There are 40 Snakes shooting twice with Morathi’s command ability, so 80 shots hitting on threes, wounding on threes. This should give you an average of 6,67 mortal wounds and 31,11 normal wounds a battle round. So round about 38 wounds before saves.
• A unit of 30 double dagger witches close to a hero is able to do 120 attacks hitting on threes wounding on fours, which results in 40 wounds before saves.

I know it’s comparing apples and oranges, but it will help in explaining my point.

So let us look at the positives first:

• The snakes are ranged, so it might be easier to pick the targets you need to pick and they also don’t have to fear retaliation, like a melee unit would.
• The wounds caused by the snakes are more valuable, since they come with rend or are mortal wounds. So their damage output in the example above would probably be higher than what the witches can do.
• It probably requires more setup to get 30 witches in attack range than 40 bow snakes.
• Since they are ranged, the snakes don’t care about fighting first or last.

Now to the negatives of your list:

• In the example above the snakes cost a total amount of 1120 points, the witches only 300. Not counting Morathi or the support hero for the witches here, because they are also useful outside of this setup.
• While being ranged gives you a lot of advantages, it also means you can only shoot during your turn, while melee units can also potentially fight in the opponents turn. This means you will have fewer chances to apply your damage.
• Since your attack range is “only” 24”, you might not even be able to use Morathi’s command ability turn one, which means you are losing another bit of damage. This highly depends on setup, movement and going first or second of course.
• You are only fielding one hero. This fact alone will be a disadvantage at some missions, but it also means you don’t have any Hagg Queens to support your meat shield witches and no blood shield to bolster their saves. On top of that you are missing out on the opportunity to cast prayers.
• The lack of defensive buffs combined with the fact that you are running Khailebron and not Hagg Narr, means that your meat shield witches might be slaughtered in one turn of melee combat. This means that you would probably be able to only get out 2, maybe 3, volleys of shots before your snakes would be engaged in melee combat.
• Having Morathi as your only hero also means that you have to skip on command traits and artefacts.

• In the calculation above I did not take into account, that the witches could also be the target of Morathi's (or a Slaughter Queen's) command ability. While harder to pull of it would still result in even more damage. On top of that with access to witch brew and prayers, the witches could be buffed up even more.

That being said, there still might be a scenario where you are able to shoot off the enemies key heroes/models/units in time and just need to clear up the rest with the remaining witches or snake melee attacks (which are actually not too bad for a ranged unit). So I am not saying that this list is not going to work, but I think with how Blood Stalkers are priced at the moment this list would be at a disadvantage in comparison to a more standard melee list. But maybe someone is going to try it and prove me wrong, who knows 😅. I would actually really love seeing a list like this work.

Edited August 15, 2019 by foxicious

[Chumphammer]

Ok, so I am looking at two lists atm to use as a change from the old one, mainly as the change in local meta might need it.

List 1:

Hagg Nar
Morathi (Mindrazor)
Hag Queen (Catachism)
Hag Queen (Sacrament)
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron (General, Devoted Disciples, Blessing of Khaine, Glyphfeather pendant)
30 Witch aelves
30 Sisters of Slaughter
10 Witch Aelves
10 Blood Sisters
Malevolent Maelstorm


List 2:

Hagg Nar
Bloodwrack Medusa (mindrazor)
Knight Incantor
Hag Queen (Catachism)
Hag Queen (Sacrament)
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron (General, Devoted Disciples, Blessing of Khaine, Glyphfeather pendant)
30 Witch aelves
30 Sisters of Slaughter
10 Witch Aelves
20 Blood Sisters
Malevolent Maelstorm

I tired ironcirclet on the SQ but I missed the -1 to hit (****** skaven Jezzails)

I dropped having Khinaris as for 80 – 90pts for 5 5w low attacks I would rather than the extra core models

Local tournament top 10 recently saw 3 slaanesh, 3 Fec, Grotz, skaven tide and 2 stormcast

No DoK players and I didn’t attend this one.

[InSaint]

Just a few things about Blood Stalkers

• They cannot deal MW if shooting from Morathi's Command Ability, this is in the FAQ
• There is a new Command Ability to re-roll 1s on shooting!
• They rock in Meeting Engagement due to the way how the format counts VP

[Isabel]

I'm really wrestlig with the lists right now, i do love melusai, but making them basically the whole army might feel a little monotone. But I read about the vyperguard, and the all snake army could be just that. Not sure if melusai could realistically become hag queens, but maybe i can reflavor them to take their prayer power from morathi directly, since melusai know they arent really serving khaine.

Partially related question: is it a common strategy to deep strike Morathi via Mistress of illusion and then transform her to make the expansion of her footprint take her effectively closer to the enemy for a more likely charge?

[Lucentia]

9 minutes ago, Isabel said:

Partially related question: is it a common strategy to deep strike Morathi via Mistress of illusion and then transform her to make the expansion of her footprint take her effectively closer to the enemy for a more likely charge?

I don't know about 'common' necessarily, but it's certainly something you can do if you like, potentially combo with Chronomantic Cogs to make the charge more likely whilst boosting the speed of everything else on the table to boot.  There is also some value in teleporting small Morathi around to a safe spot as a flanking element for next turn, or to use her long range spell power to try and snipe out an otherwise hidden hero.

Also do note that due to the way Morathi's transformation is worded it is possible to deploy her in such a way that she is surrounded by your own models and the closest location she can be placed is in front of the deployment line, after which she can still move as normal (and potentially receive combat buffs to boost her swing-y damage before going in) which can be more reliable than the Mistress of Illusion teleport depending on where you need her most.

[Souleater]

Can we refer to little Morathi as Lessrathi or Minrathi? 🙂

[missing1leg]

Is there something I'm not seeing which would indicate when building my sisters of slaughter that I can't use both the masks and the hair?  It seems like the weapons are the only really defined part which would need to be accurate and the rest could be however I liked visually.  But I wanted to double check before I start building.  Thanks in advance for any help.

[Overread]

1 minute ago, missing1leg said:

Is there something I'm not seeing which would indicate when building my sisters of slaughter that I can't use both the masks and the hair?  It seems like the weapons are the only really defined part which would need to be accurate and the rest could be however I liked visually.  But I wanted to double check before I start building.  Thanks in advance for any help.

The mask heads and the hair are separate designs. The mask heads are an all in one part whilst the hair heads are a face section and hair as separate parts. You could mount the hair to the back of the mask faces pretty easily, though you might have to use a little greenstuff at the join area. The tricky part would be painting because the mask wraps around the whole head, so the hair would be going directly against the mask itself. Though if you worked a little raised lip of greenstuff it could easily show a "gap" in the mask through which hair would come out.

Other than that honestly you could use whichever head you want since they'll be armed with the whips which Witches cannot take. There is a very minor chance that in the future GW could allow witches to take the whips too, but I don't think so since then the only clear part would be the head; though if you've got the masks already on the model then it would still be fine. 

[missing1leg]

Thanks for the info!  I had not really looked at the sprues yet in detail so that is very helpful.

[Lucentia]

I glued the hair to the back of the masks to denote unit champions for my Witch Aelves (cos the default hag head is basically identical to the regular witch heads).  It fits well enough, but it comes out at a higher angle than the hair does on the witches, kinda more like a plume?  I don't know that anyone who wasn't familiar with the kit would notice.  But that said the hair/lack thereof is the main visual difference between the two units when viewed from a tabletop away, so make sure to keep things straight with your opponents!

Do you lot reckon DoK will get a look-in in the Cities of Sigmar book?  I'm assuming they'll be an allied option at the very least, but as far as I know the public facing side of the DoK are quite popular amongst the free cities, and of course they do fight alongside their armies in the fluff, so it wouldn't be against type if there were some sort of deeper integration...

[Overread]

I would say Daughters of Khaine will be allies, but the best would be a themed battalion; and honestly most of those we get for AoS Order tend to be with the Stormcast. Witches are pretty well populated within the Free Cities; however I think in part that's how GW lore wise, allows them to be as big as main armies when they don't have a whole nation to themselves. The cornerstone of their powerbase is a tiny corner of the Shyesh with main bulk being Malarion's Aelves (and others). 

I think its also because of the various Order forces they are one of the more dark, so I think having lots of story connections to the others helps make them part of Order rather than something to the side, which is really the position that (currently) Idoneth fit into. 

[Belper]

On 8/20/2019 at 3:20 PM, missing1leg said:

Is there something I'm not seeing which would indicate when building my sisters of slaughter that I can't use both the masks and the hair?  It seems like the weapons are the only really defined part which would need to be accurate and the rest could be however I liked visually.  But I wanted to double check before I start building.  Thanks in advance for any help.

I straight up used normal witch heads and just gave them the whips to differentiate them.

[tman3257]

So with the dominance of Slaanesh currently and the WE point increases I've been thinking Sisters might be the way to go right now.  The ability to essentially ignore their "go last" ability by running to within 6" and piling in later is huge.  They'd still get to swing but not until after you have, giving you a chance to take it out or severely weaken it.  I'd love to fit in a Slaughter Troupe but it doesn't seem possible currently to fit in all the hero support you need, plus morathi, plus 70 infantry and make it under 2k (comes to 2020 iirc).  So I've been thinking of going with a battalion.  

The artifact will be missed, but the increase in drops I'm not sure will make a huge difference right now.  Both Slaanesh and FEC have a very low drop count, likely lower than a Slaughter Troupe or Cauldron Guard list.  I think Morathi needs to stay because she's so key against KoS.

Proposed list is as follows:

Morathi
- Shroud of Despair
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood
- General: Devoted Disciples
-Blessing of Khaine
-Gryph-Feather Charm
Hag Queen
-Catechism of Murder
Hag Queen
-Sacrament of Blood
Bloodwrack Medusa
-Mindrazor

Sisters of Slaughter x30
-Knives
Sisters of Slaughter x30
-Knives
Witch Aelves
-Knives

Khinerai Heartrenders x5

Malevolent Maelstrom (10 pts leftover, optional)

50 pts for 1 extra CP.

All knives to make up for the swap from Witch Aelves to Sisters of Slaughter.  A lot of damage these days also comes from mortal wounds or high rend anyway, so not AS worried about having the bucklers.  Bloodwrack Medusa for the extra caster,  I plan on having Morathi in angry snek form most of the match.  Gryph Feather on the Cauldron for obvious reasons.  I feel the extra starting CP is mandatory just in case one of your 30 sisters units sustains heavy causalities before they can drink the kool-aid on top of turn 1.  Heartrenders for scenario threat.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

[Chumphammer]

Do skaven get their leadership bonus vs ours for purpose of mind razor?

[Mark Williams]

30 minutes ago, Chumphammer said:

Do skaven get their leadership bonus vs ours for purpose of mind razor?

It depends on the wording of the ability.

[tman3257]

34 minutes ago, Chumphammer said:

Do skaven get their leadership bonus vs ours for purpose of mind razor?

No.

Their bonus only applies during battleshock.

[Lucentia]

23 hours ago, tman3257 said:

So with the dominance of Slaanesh currently and the WE point increases I've been thinking Sisters might be the way to go right now.  The ability to essentially ignore their "go last" ability by running to within 6" and piling in later is huge.  They'd still get to swing but not until after you have, giving you a chance to take it out or severely weaken it.  I'd love to fit in a Slaughter Troupe but it doesn't seem possible currently to fit in all the hero support you need, plus morathi, plus 70 infantry and make it under 2k (comes to 2020 iirc).  So I've been thinking of going with a battalion.  

The artifact will be missed, but the increase in drops I'm not sure will make a huge difference right now.  Both Slaanesh and FEC have a very low drop count, likely lower than a Slaughter Troupe or Cauldron Guard list.  I think Morathi needs to stay because she's so key against KoS.

Proposed list is as follows:

Morathi
- Shroud of Despair
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood
- General: Devoted Disciples
-Blessing of Khaine
-Gryph-Feather Charm
Hag Queen
-Catechism of Murder
Hag Queen
-Sacrament of Blood
Bloodwrack Medusa
-Mindrazor

Sisters of Slaughter x30
-Knives
Sisters of Slaughter x30
-Knives
Witch Aelves
-Knives

Khinerai Heartrenders x5

Malevolent Maelstrom (10 pts leftover, optional)

50 pts for 1 extra CP.

All knives to make up for the swap from Witch Aelves to Sisters of Slaughter.  A lot of damage these days also comes from mortal wounds or high rend anyway, so not AS worried about having the bucklers.  Bloodwrack Medusa for the extra caster,  I plan on having Morathi in angry snek form most of the match.  Gryph Feather on the Cauldron for obvious reasons.  I feel the extra starting CP is mandatory just in case one of your 30 sisters units sustains heavy causalities before they can drink the kool-aid on top of turn 1.  Heartrenders for scenario threat.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

I ran a similar list at EGGS last weekend, but substituting one of the Sisters units for 20 Witches and 10 Lifetakers (Also I was using Khailebron so my cauldron took Crimson Rejuvenation over Blessing of Khaine).  I gave Morathi Mindrazor too, both as a backup and because she often ends up operating independently.

My theory was the same as yours, Sisters seem a solid counter to stuff like Slaanesh, Gristlegore, etc.  Unfortunately I didn't get much opportunity to test that in practice cos I pretty much only played against Skaven lists!  I only managed 2/5 wins, but my losses were all very close ones, so I think there is some merit to the list.  Being able to dictate the combat order to a degree with the Sisters is very valuable, but I did find myself missing the damage output of Witches, in two separate games the Sisters failed to put out enough damage to kill of key units where I suspect the extra witch attacks might have sealed the deal.

[tman3257]

4 minutes ago, Lucentia said:

I ran a similar list at EGGS last weekend, but substituting one of the Sisters units for 20 Witches and 10 Lifetakers (Also I was using Khailebron so my cauldron took Crimson Rejuvenation over Blessing of Khaine).  I gave Morathi Mindrazor too, both as a backup and because she often ends up operating independently.

My theory was the same as yours, Sisters seem a solid counter to stuff like Slaanesh, Gristlegore, etc.  Unfortunately I didn't get much opportunity to test that in practice cos I pretty much only played against Skaven lists!  I only managed 2/5 wins, but my losses were all very close ones, so I think there is some merit to the list.  Being able to dictate the combat order to a degree with the Sisters is very valuable, but I did find myself missing the damage output of Witches, in two separate games the Sisters failed to put out enough damage to kill of key units where I suspect the extra witch attacks might have sealed the deal.

Skaven can be rough! I should know since I play them as well lol.  There are so many list varieties that are all at least semi-viable.  I'd confidently say they have the largest variety of good units of any book in the game.  Luck being on their side can ****** you (or vice versa) as well.

Double Mindrazor was something I was thinking about as well.  It seems like a little bit of a waste but if you really need it early on Morathi does have the +1 to cast it compared to the Medusa and against armies like skaven with plenty of denies and low bravery it can be a game winning spell.  I get the idea of the shroud of despair + mindrazor combo but it seems pretty edge case.  You'd also have to get very lucky to drop any of the scary bravery 10 units (pretty much everything FEC and Slaanesh and LoN/LoG) down to 7 with it.  I'd feel much more confident in the Medusa if I could fit in a battalion and the Shadow Stone.   Sadly with the way our points are now it's just not possible to have all of that at once anymore.  

I've thought about the damage difference concern but I'm curious if 30 blobs of witches would actually output all that much more than 30 SoS w/knives in practice.  If we take a reasonable model frontage number of 10 and compare the two  units the number of attacks should be identical.  Assuming 20 are within 1" range (2 rows) that is 80 witch attacks and 60 sister attacks.  Sisters would get a 3rd rank though, bumping them up another 20 attacks to the 80.  Granted the math starts to shift one way or another when start getting more or less models in (though SoS should always be able to get at least as many, often more, models as WE due to higher pile in) and WE will always do more damage if you can get 100% of the models in (a rare occurrence for me when the unit is full at least).

[Lucentia]

I played against quite a lot of shooting/magic heavy armies that were able to whittle down large horde units before they could necessarily get into combat, so often it wasn't a case of comparing 30 witches to 30 sisters, but rather 10-15, where the Witches will often come out on top.  But of course if you are playing, like, Slaanesh or something then you're more likely to have mostly full squads hanging around when it comes to charge time!  Also note I was playing without the Hagg Nar re-rolls, so my expectations on damage output were probably a little miscalibrated!

[tman3257]

1 minute ago, Lucentia said:

I played against quite a lot of shooting/magic heavy armies that were able to whittle down large horde units before they could necessarily get into combat, so often it wasn't a case of comparing 30 witches to 30 sisters, but rather 10-15, where the Witches will often come out on top.  But of course if you are playing, like, Slaanesh or something then you're more likely to have mostly full squads hanging around when it comes to charge time!  Also note I was playing without the Hagg Nar re-rolls, so my expectations on damage output were probably a little miscalibrated!

That's fair.  Shooting skaven is strong but I'm finding it rougher to play in the meta right now, but that's a topic for the skaven forum.  

Hagg Narr would likely help with Devoted Disciples as well with being able to get more witches onto the front lines alive vs shooting.  I've found the difference between a 6++ and a 5++ to be massive, especially when Blessing of Khaine is active.  The other day I had Allariele smash a unit of sisters for 20 damage, only for me to lose a grand total of 4.

But your comment brings me to another build variation I've been toying with.  Cauldron Guard with 30/10 Witch Aelves and 30 SoS which sounds similar to what you were running.  You'd have to sadly lose the Medusa but you'd gain another artifact, Iron Circlet likely.  I think its probably a better list overall but worse vs Slaanesh/FEC where combat needs to be heavily controlled.  Losing the extra caster does hurt sometimes though.

[Xil]

I think with the points change to our units in conjunction with the lower costs of other battletomes we are getting forced into Hag Narr even more. There isn't much to gain, if at all, by taking other Temples. 

I kind of hope for a new Tome with some new units that give us some flexibility in list building. Also faction terrain and endless spell/prayers. 

I don't know if it fits the thread, but what do you think would be a cool addition?