Introduction to Daughters of Khaine

[Overread]

Daughters of Khaine - Grand Alliance Order

 

Background and Lore of the faction: The Daughters of Khaine are a faction of Aelves founded by Morathi, a pristest come demi-god from the Old World that was. The Daughters of Khaine worship a fallen god from the Old World that was, Khaine the God of Murder. To him they make offerings of hearts and blood taken from those weaker and their enemies. To them the battlefield is their temple and their worshipping ground; where witch aelves unleash their years of training upon enemies. Though they wear little armour they are as quick as lightning, dancing and dodging blows that would otherwise cleave them in two. Dancing over the battlefield with blades and whips, tearing and slashing at their foes. 

The throws of battle are an extascy of worship to them and thus they have been known to even turn on allies when opportunity offers itself to them. Not out of baseless bloodlust, but out of a need and desire to match themselves against the strongest, for to a Witch Aelf strength and prowess in battle are all. The strong survive, the weak serve or die. 

Alongside these war pristesses slither mighty melusai, half snake half aelf born of the reforging of souls taken from Slaanesh's belly and gifted to Morathi from the Aelf allinance that imprisoned the Chaos God. Whilst overhead her other creation from these souls, agile and shadowy Khinerai, flit on thin wings to strike with surgical precision on the battlefield. This taint from chaos makes the entire faction a powerful enemy of Chaos and thus cements them as an ally of Order, even if many of their methods and ways are brutal, bloody and rather underhanded. 

Daughters of Khaine are a fast agile army built on internal synergies between units, and on the concept of being the first into battle and picking to make the charge against their opponents. They have few real ranged units with most bieng closer to skirmishers, ideally suited to ranged or close combat. 

Black Library stories/books containing DoK and Morathi: 

• Big Rule Book contains much of the early parts of the history of the Mortal Realms including how Morathi came to the Realms, founded her people and went on to imprisson Slaanesh. Much of this early lore is also repeated in the Battletome for the faction, though in the main book you also get to see how it fits in with the actions of other factions and forces in the Realms.

The Daughters of Khaine are in the following Malign Portents stories: https://malignportents.com/stories/

• Trespassers in the Land of Mist
• Lost Souls 
• Cause Celebre 
• The Scent
• A Rescued Soul (although it also includes reference to the shadow aelves of Malarion) 

Allies: Darkling Covens - Idoneth Deepkin - Order Serpentis - Scourge Privateers - Shadowblades - Stormcast Eternals

Rules: 
Daughters of Khaine Battletome - complete listing of the faction including its faction abilities, spell lore, prayers, artifacts, Blood Rites, battalions and all warscrolls for current units. 

Generals Handbook 2018 - contains updated Battalion points for matched play (also visible free on Warscroll Builder linked above)

Errata - adjustments to Battletome rules

Designers Commentary - clarification of Battletome rules and interactions with other rules/factions in the game.

Models:

Morathi

Cauldron of Blood

Bloodwrack Shrine - same model as Cauldron of Blood

Note all three individual leader units for Daughters of Khaine appear in the Cauldron of Blood kit
Bloodwrack Medusa

Slaughter Queen

Hag Queen

Witch Aelves

Sisters of Slaughter - Same box as Witch Aelves

Khinerai Heartrenders

Khinerai Lifetakers - Same box as Heartrenders

Doomfire Warlocks

Melusai Blood Sisters

Melusai Blood Stalkers - Same box as Blood Sisters 

 

[Hankster]

Thanks! I'm daughters of khaine curious. I'm currently painting up my Deepkin, but the game club I play with likes doing path to glory so I might start collecting DoK for that and gradually build up an army that way. 

Any suggestions on how to start? I'm tempted to run Morathi (I really like the two models thing.) and bunch of snake ladies with the glaves. But I wonder if it would be smarter to start with a cauldron and a bunch of witches. It seems like the a hoard is that way to go with the DoK.  

[Hankster]

On 9/30/2018 at 12:46 PM, Overread said:

Media: 

The Daughters of Khaine are in the following Malign Portents stories: 

Trespassers in the Land of Mist

Lost Souls 

Cause Celebre 

The Scent

A Rescued Soul (although it also includes reference to the shadow aelves of Malarion) 

 

Does anyone know of any novels or longer works focused on the Daughters of Khaine? I'd be curious to read more about them. 

[Overread]

@Hankster sorry for the late reply and many thanks for picking out the Malign Sorcery stories that feature the faction. I've added them to the post. 

As for getting started I'm sure you've already found some info by now. Snakes are actually quite powerful and several people are running armies made up almost entirely of Blood Sisters. Indeed Blood Sisters and a Bloodwrack Shrine (general) makes for a formidable army of fast heavy hitting close combat. If you took out a block of Blood Sisters and added Morathi I'm sure it could be a pretty deadly list to throw at enemies-  presenting a lot of powerful close combat potential coupled to Morathi's first form magical abilities. 

[Hankster]

7 hours ago, Overread said:

 

As for getting started I'm sure you've already found some info by now.

Yeah, I opted two tower cauldron build with a horde of witches. I wanted to try out a horde after playing with an elite deepkin army so this gives me the chance. I really like the Dark Aelf/DoK aesthetic and narrative so I may stick with the faction for a while and try out a snake army as well.

What are sort of list do you play? 

[Overread]

Right now the list of headless plastic! Which is to say mine is still in the very slow construction and then painting phase. A personal choice in that I want to really build a full painted army for once (instead of getting to undercoating and a few splatters and then moving on). So part of that is that I want to have a bulk of the models together so that when I start painting I can do a whole block in one go instead of in bits here and there. 

[zedatkinszed]

35 minutes ago, Overread said:

Right now the list of headless plastic! Which is to say mine is still in the very slow construction and then painting phase. A personal choice in that I want to really build a full painted army for once (instead of getting to undercoating and a few splatters and then moving on). So part of that is that I want to have a bulk of the models together so that when I start painting I can do a whole block in one go instead of in bits here and there. 

I feel your pain  I'm doing the same thing. 60-90 Witches is a hell of a lot of painting, building & converting!  I'm about 50 minis in and still haven't painted the Snake version of Morathi. 

[Overread]

2 minutes ago, zedatkinszed said:

I feel your pain  I'm doing the same thing. 60-90 Witches is a hell of a lot of painting, building & converting! 

Agreed, I've got up to 54 built, just got another 6 to go. Then I've got to decide on if I want another group of 30 bucklers or 30 duel daggers. My plan is to build up to 90 split into three groups then another 10 of which several will be used for conversions and then a couple for painting practice before hitting the huge block of 90 Witches.