AoS 2 - Daughters of Khaine Discussion

[Xil]

Yeah nice new models. But the Cauldron / Bowl from the rumors engine is still missing. Maybe there is more. I want it to be more

[Overread]

I love the queens pose, its such a brilliant take on a classic fantasy style stance. 

[Graywater]

The warband is worth it just for the queen. The stalker and one witch seem a little uninspired and I'm sure I will break that sister of slaughter in the first game I play. But that hag is great.

[zedatkinszed]

These are exactly what the DOK needed. Delighted with them.

[Nasrod]

30 bucks for:

An Underworlds band.

A Hag Queen without having to buy a Cauldron box.

An Archer snake for Warcry without having to buy a box of 5 that would otherwise be much better served as Halberd Snakes.

2 to 3 [Depending on your willingness to convert] unique sculpts for our horde infantry that, while great, suffer from looking very samey.

I'm glad Daughters aren't the hottest thing on the block right now because the incentives to pick this up are massive.  I'll be buying 2 for sure. 

[Chumphammer]

3 hours ago, Nasrod said:

30 bucks for:

An Underworlds band.

A Hag Queen without having to buy a Cauldron box.

An Archer snake for Warcry without having to buy a box of 5 that would otherwise be much better served as Halberd Snakes.

2 to 3 [Depending on your willingness to convert] unique sculpts for our horde infantry that, while great, suffer from looking very samey.

I'm glad Daughters aren't the hottest thing on the block right now because the incentives to pick this up are massive.  I'll be buying 2 for sure. 

Yeah, I will be buying 2 Boxes. 1 for the hags, but I can use the other models as unit champions (bar the snakes that can be more Scourgerunner chariots)

It will be interesting to see the units AOS rules as might be good

 

[Nasrod]

2 hours ago, Chumphammer said:

Yeah, I will be buying 2 Boxes. 1 for the hags, but I can use the other models as unit champions (bar the snakes that can be more Scourgerunner chariots)

It will be interesting to see the units AOS rules as might be good

 

I will laugh if this unit with its single ranged model is more viable than a unit of 5 Stalkers. 

It isn't a high bar to clear - more like the bar fell onto the ground and this unit just needs to gingerly step over it - but still. 

[Xil]

2 hours ago, Nasrod said:

I will laugh if this unit with its single ranged model is more viable than a unit of 5 Stalkers. 

It isn't a high bar to clear - more like the bar fell onto the ground and this unit just needs to gingerly step over it - but still. 

Slither over it ;D

[Keilerei]

I just bought into DoK by ordering the Book and the SC Box. But I wonder where to go next. Can I go around the big blocks Witch Aelves? I also play Gitz and I am not really interested in fielding another horde Style army. But I actually love all of the ranges models.  Any advice would  be helpful.

[Graywater]

11 hours ago, Keilerei said:

I just bought into DoK by ordering the Book and the SC Box. But I wonder where to go next. Can I go around the big blocks Witch Aelves? I also play Gitz and I am not really interested in fielding another horde Style army. But I actually love all of the ranges models.  Any advice would  be helpful.

Welcome to the club! Playing with a small number of models is not optimal, but definitely doable. We have 3 battleline options in sisters of slaughter, witch aelves, and blood sisters (if your general is a medusa). The sisters of slaughter and witch aelves come in units of 10-30 infantry, while the blood sisters come in units of 5-20 snakes. To minimize models, you'll either want min units of either elf unit, or go the snake route. 

You'll have easier decisions when it comes to heroes, as they're pretty much all useful as support pieces. Hags are incredibly useful for their ability to use prayers from the book and give out witchbrew to a unit nearby to them. Many lists run multiple of them. Slaughter queens are great investments if it is your general for the command ability. If she cannot be your general, it is better to go with a normal hag. Regardless, you'll want one of these on a cauldron for the +1 save aura ability. Medusa are great for access to a spellcaster. We have mind razor that is something you'll always want a cast on. Upgrading to a bloodwrack shrine isnt necessary, but definitely not a bad move if you have the points to spare. Lastly, morathi is useful for her disruptive ability. She doesnt do tons of damage but shes super useful as a bully. 

The other category is where we struggle. Foot avatar and the bow snakes are useless unfortunately. Then we have the harpies. The lifetakers can be surprisingly damaging, but need particular buffs to go off in order to be so. Heartrenders are great disruptive pieces with their ability to drop down from the sky and move after they shoot on a 4+. They're excellent at threatening backfield objectives. As of recent, their role has seen competition through the use of allies in shadow warriors. Scourgerunner chariots are also a great shout when it comes to useful allies, as they provide some ranged output that our army inherently lacks.

We have a few battalions that show up with some regularity, but the most common ones are built around our more hoard-y elf units. There is the temple nest battalion, but it does require bow snakes, which I think is fairly considered a tax.

I can give you some more focused feedback if you let me know some more info. Are you trying to be competitive, or just run an interesting list? Are you more into the snakes and harpies, or more interested in the typical elf models? What is your stance on morathi, or allies in general? Stuff like that.

[DantePQ]

19 hours ago, Keilerei said:

I just bought into DoK by ordering the Book and the SC Box. But I wonder where to go next. Can I go around the big blocks Witch Aelves? I also play Gitz and I am not really interested in fielding another horde Style army. But I actually love all of the ranges models.  Any advice would  be helpful.

Hi, there is a way to play more elite version of DoK. I played some games with lists like : 

Mortahi, Cauldron of Blood, Bloodwrack Shrine, 30 SoS with bucklers, 20 Blood Sisters, 10 Witch Elves and 5 Heartrenders. And I'm ultra competitive so such an army is still good enough to take it tournament if you want. 

In nutshell you will need those 40 Witch Elves/Sisters of Slaughter anyway. Starting from SC I would go : 

1. Another Start Collecting 

2. 2-3 boxes of witches

3. one box of khinerai

You can easily build decent 1-1,5k with it for example : 

SQ on Cauldron, Hag Queen, Medusa, 2x10 Witches, 10 Blood Sisters, 5 Heartrenders - 1170 points such lists can easily give you feel how DoK army plays with Heartrenders, Cauldron, how Hag Queen and Medusa works etc . And then expand into 2k : 

4. Morathi 

5. 1-2 boxes of witch elves (to have 40 in total) 

6. 2 boxes of Melusai (to have 20 Blood Sisters in total)

Morathi alone will make you army 2k ( SQ on Cauldon, Bloodwrack Shrine, Hag Queen, Morathi, 3x10 Witches, 10 Blood Sisters, 5 Heartrenders) so you can play some 2k games  and then extra 10-20 Witches and 10 Blood Sisters will be an awesome expansion. 

 

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by DantePQ

[Overread]

You can also ago with a swarm of snake ladies with spears - they backed up with a shrine, bloodwracks and Morathi would give you a more elite style army, but with the same powerful strike that the other forms of the army give. 

[Ggom]

Might be dumb question. I’m also coming back to Daughters after a hiatus (to be honest I didnt get very far my first time round.) At 2k points we need 3 battleline - doesn’t that mean that we will always need 3x 10 Witch aelves or SoS at a minimum? And then if we want to get any use out of buffs, at least one of those squads should get beefed up to 30, which makes the core of our list 50 Witch Aelves/SoS?

How do battalions interact with this? Lets say I took Cauldron Guard - does that mean that if I intend to add anything outside of Cauldron Guard, I would need another 3 battleline? Since Cauldron Guard has 2 Witch Aelf squads, does that mean that if I’m trying to add Morathi or any other unit not included in Cauldron Guard, I need to also add 3x 10 WE/SoS?

Coming from Horus Heresy, the list building in AoS seems waaaaaay more strict. I like painting WE but I don’t want to paint 5 squads of them just to throw in a Kharybdis or something cute. Like, is there a good way for me to run Cauldron Guard + some Blood Sisters + a Kharybdis? The Kharybdis just looks really cool and themey for DoK imo.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Ggom

[Overread]

You can also make a Bloodwrack Medusa your general which allows you to take Blood Sisters (snakes with spears) as battleline as well as the witches. 

In general making up the 3 Battleline units for 2K games isn't too hard in most armies and sometimes you might take minimum units, you'd just use them differently to how you'd use 30

 

Of course the army itself is a smaller one in terms of unit diversity (actually its one of the smallest in the AoS range at present - smaller still if you count kits as opposed to unit builds). So you'll always have a fairly similar core of either snakes, witches and snakes or witches. 

 

 

Also I can't recall if GW has updated it (its not in the errata), but DoK might not actually be able to take the Kharybdis at present since Cities of Sigmar aren't specifically listed as allies; whilst the old armies it was a part of have now basically sort of left the game (being absorbed into Cities of Sigmar). Personally as Cities can take DoK as allies I'd expect DoK can take Cities as allies and I'd not expect any pushback; but it would be nice for GW to update the allies list. 

[Ggom]

Thanks @Overread. But, do battleline taken as part of battalion requiremnts satisfy the 3x battleline requirement?

[Overread]

I believe they do still count. The only ones that wouldn't would be units that count as battleline in another army being taken in an allied battalion (which for DoK means just some stormcast). 

[Ggom]

10 minutes ago, Overread said:

I believe they do still count. The only ones that wouldn't would be units that count as battleline in another army being taken in an allied battalion (which for DoK means just some stormcast). 

Excellent. Sounds like I can accomplish what I want by taking a Medusa as general then. We could really use a second wave of models, although it feels like quite a few factions could say the same (Fireslayers, pure Ironjawz, perhaps Flesheaters to an extent.)  An alternative Behemoth would be really nice, besides Morathi - I don’t really like her in the lore.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Ggom

[Keilerei]

16 hours ago, Graywater said:

Welcome to the club! Playing with a small number of models is not optimal, but definitely doable. We have 3 battleline options in sisters of slaughter, witch aelves, and blood sisters (if your general is a medusa). The sisters of slaughter and witch aelves come in units of 10-30 infantry, while the blood sisters come in units of 5-20 snakes. To minimize models, you'll either want min units of either elf unit, or go the snake route. 

You'll have easier decisions when it comes to heroes, as they're pretty much all useful as support pieces. Hags are incredibly useful for their ability to use prayers from the book and give out witchbrew to a unit nearby to them. Many lists run multiple of them. Slaughter queens are great investments if it is your general for the command ability. If she cannot be your general, it is better to go with a normal hag. Regardless, you'll want one of these on a cauldron for the +1 save aura ability. Medusa are great for access to a spellcaster. We have mind razor that is something you'll always want a cast on. Upgrading to a bloodwrack shrine isnt necessary, but definitely not a bad move if you have the points to spare. Lastly, morathi is useful for her disruptive ability. She doesnt do tons of damage but shes super useful as a bully. 

The other category is where we struggle. Foot avatar and the bow snakes are useless unfortunately. Then we have the harpies. The lifetakers can be surprisingly damaging, but need particular buffs to go off in order to be so. Heartrenders are great disruptive pieces with their ability to drop down from the sky and move after they shoot on a 4+. They're excellent at threatening backfield objectives. As of recent, their role has seen competition through the use of allies in shadow warriors. Scourgerunner chariots are also a great shout when it comes to useful allies, as they provide some ranged output that our army inherently lacks.

We have a few battalions that show up with some regularity, but the most common ones are built around our more hoard-y elf units. There is the temple nest battalion, but it does require bow snakes, which I think is fairly considered a tax.

I can give you some more focused feedback if you let me know some more info. Are you trying to be competitive, or just run an interesting list? Are you more into the snakes and harpies, or more interested in the typical elf models? What is your stance on morathi, or allies in general? Stuff like that.

Thank you for your reply and for giving me more insight. 
 

I actually like the snake ladies a lot and very sadly the Stalkers are bad, coming from destruction I would have loved a supressive shooting Phase. Which is why I consider allying Scrougerunner Chariots.

I am fairly competitive. Even though the tournaments I wanted to go to, were cancelled due to the Rona. But I dislike „powergamers“ so I am naturally not drawn to the Most effective playstyle. Nonetheless I like beeing sneaky and cunning strats catching my opponents off Guard.

Thats why the slaughter Troupe battalion struck my eyes. Running charging retreating, piling in 6“ and deeptriking Harpies, Sounds pretty cool.

Even though the Witch Aelves are prettier und probably more killy, I like to field maybe 30-40 Sisters of Slaughter. For Numbers and objectives.

But I am kind of overwhelmed by my Hero choices (what goes on and off the carriage thingy, am I missing out not making the SQoC or Morathi my General but playing them either way) the covens are also a lot to consider.

Thanks again to all for the warm welcome and stay healthy!

[Lucentia]

2 hours ago, Ggom said:

Might be dumb question. I’m also coming back to Daughters after a hiatus (to be honest I didnt get very far my first time round.) At 2k points we need 3 battleline - doesn’t that mean that we will always need 3x 10 Witch aelves or SoS at a minimum? And then if we want to get any use out of buffs, at least one of those squads should get beefed up to 30, which makes the core of our list 50 Witch Aelves/SoS?

How do battalions interact with this? Lets say I took Cauldron Guard - does that mean that if I intend to add anything outside of Cauldron Guard, I would need another 3 battleline? Since Cauldron Guard has 2 Witch Aelf squads, does that mean that if I’m trying to add Morathi or any other unit not included in Cauldron Guard, I need to also add 3x 10 WE/SoS?

Coming from Horus Heresy, the list building in AoS seems waaaaaay more strict. I like painting WE but I don’t want to paint 5 squads of them just to throw in a Kharybdis or something cute. Like, is there a good way for me to run Cauldron Guard + some Blood Sisters + a Kharybdis? The Kharybdis just looks really cool and themey for DoK imo.

This is a bit of an unfortunate side-product of the DoK book being a bit on the old side, army construction that is naturally constrained by the number of available units becomes even more tightly restricted by the way the book is set up, a new book would probably fix up some of that even if no new units were added.

 

[Overread]

Thing is the only units that aren't battleline are Khinari, Doomfires and Bloodseekers. 

Khinerai don't really fit since they really work best starting off-table and flying in where needed; meanwhile Doomfires and Bloodseekers both fit a more elite role than core infantry role. Bloodsisters get a limited general system and they could have made it count with morathi added as well; however most armies can make use of a Bloodwrack Medusa so its not a huge issue. 

The limited option really is because there's just no more troops or infantry nor models for DoK to pick from. A second wave could be just the thing they need to help diversify.

[Ggom]

I think a new hero choice (I’m partial to the Khinerai for the sculpts) and a medium monster would be neat.

I hope we don’t just get folded into shadow elves when those come out.

[Graywater]

2 hours ago, Keilerei said:

Thank you for your reply and for giving me more insight. 
 

I actually like the snake ladies a lot and very sadly the Stalkers are bad, coming from destruction I would have loved a supressive shooting Phase. Which is why I consider allying Scrougerunner Chariots.

I am fairly competitive. Even though the tournaments I wanted to go to, were cancelled due to the Rona. But I dislike „powergamers“ so I am naturally not drawn to the Most effective playstyle. Nonetheless I like beeing sneaky and cunning strats catching my opponents off Guard.

Thats why the slaughter Troupe battalion struck my eyes. Running charging retreating, piling in 6“ and deeptriking Harpies, Sounds pretty cool.

Even though the Witch Aelves are prettier und probably more killy, I like to field maybe 30-40 Sisters of Slaughter. For Numbers and objectives.

But I am kind of overwhelmed by my Hero choices (what goes on and off the carriage thingy, am I missing out not making the SQoC or Morathi my General but playing them either way) the covens are also a lot to consider.

Thanks again to all for the warm welcome and stay healthy!

You and I think alike. My go to units are sisters of slaughter for the movement shenanigans and blood sisters for being cool snake ladies. 

Honestly you'll never run morathi as your general because you're probably going hag narr for the 5+ fanatical faith command trait, which you would lose out on with morathi as your general. Slaughter queen is only worth it if she is your general, otherwise just take a hag instead. If you are planning on running some battleline snakes with a medusa general, then the only questions you'll have to ask yourself is do I want to run morathi, or more snakes, and then how many hags do you want. 1 hag is nearly mandatory, as out blessing of khaine prayer to reroll the fanatical faith save is such a huge boon, not to mention witchbrew for reroll to wound and immune to battleshock. After that, a second one to throw out more witchbrew buffs is never a bad idea; we have other prayers like catechism of murder for 6s causing 2 hits, or sacrament of blood to boost the blood rites table up by one turn for a unit. We have a limited model pool, but there are at least some choices still to make. 

[Graywater]

1 hour ago, Ggom said:

I think a new hero choice (I’m partial to the Khinerai for the sculpts) and a medium monster would be neat.

I hope we don’t just get folded into shadow elves when those come out.

I'm right there with you on not getting folded into a book with malerion. I like playing a faction with a small number of players (call me a hipster), and there are going to be a lot of players thatll jump on shadow elves I'm sure. But shadow elves are too narrow of a concept to have two separate battletomes for factions of that race I suspect. So I dont see us staying autonomous unless malerions crew is going to be way beyond current expectations.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Graywater

[DantePQ]

There is like almost 0% chance of DoK being folded into Malerion's Aelves.

[Overread]

I'm sure the shadow aelves will be their own army entirely. DoK just need a second wave. Some new infantry; a new leader not in the cauldron kit (I'd love a khinerai leader model); perhaps some medium shadow beasts (morathi was partial to summoning/calling them to her) and then a dragon - cause freaking heck AoS needs more!