Warcry - Daughters of Khaine Discussion

[Kaleun]

The Daughters of Khaine are ready to bring bloodshed in the name of Khaine to the fighting pits of Eightpoints.

Our Roster consists of the Khinerai, Melusai, Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter in all flavours. The Daughters of Khaine come from the Lands of Ulgu, as do the Chaos Cultist Warband "Corvus Cabal".

So far we know the Daughters of Khaine as an army of many Witch Elves or Sisters of Slaughter backed up by offensive or defensive buffs or an army composition that rely on Melusai which makes them more elite. 

In Warcry the fast Khinerai Heartrenders and Lifetakers might me good for a quick grab on an objective. Warcry has only three turns (except the players are tied on victory points), so I personally see great potential of the Daughters, because of their speed and killing power. They are more of a glasscannon style though, but we will know more if we see the statlines of them.

What du you think of the Daughters of Khaine Warband for Warcry?

Edited July 25, 2019 by Kaleun

[Joseph Mackay]

Of the AoS factions, DOK is the most complete warband as aside from heroes, the whole army is available to choose from.

for me, I think I’m going to have to buy some Witches as I bet Melusai and Khinerai will be too expensive in points to run only those models

[Circus of Paint]

14 hours ago, Joseph Mackay said:

Of the AoS factions, DOK is the most complete warband as aside from heroes, the whole army is available to choose from.

for me, I think I’m going to have to buy some Witches as I bet Melusai and Khinerai will be too expensive in points to run only those models

Aside from Doomfire Warlocks.

I would agree with what you've said about the cost of Melusai / Khinerai.

[Rentar]

19 hours ago, Joseph Mackay said:

Of the AoS factions, DOK is the most complete warband as aside from heroes, the whole army is available to choose from.

for me, I think I’m going to have to buy some Witches as I bet Melusai and Khinerai will be too expensive in points to run only those models

*cough Flesh-Eater Courts cough*

Behemoths aside, of course, but those match the lack of Avatar/Doomfires. 

I'm hoping that Snakes are actually good, because they're criminally underrepresented in AoS, even after GHB2019. 

[Acid_Nine]

First thing you should do for your Blood sisters and Blood stalkers should be to get a restraining order against the Splintered Fangs.

[Circus of Paint]

The Melusai would make a bee line straight for that Aelven Venomblood.

Would be even worse if an Idoneth warband found out that Aelves have joined a Chaos Cult. 😂

[AsraiR]

The Gorgai looks great, I figure a few whip armed SoS for escort duty will be useful

 

 

[Kaleun]

On 7/28/2019 at 1:40 AM, Acid_Nine said:

First thing you should do for your Blood sisters and Blood stalkers should be to get a restraining order against the Splintered Fangs.

😄

[RaiderX]

DOK look like they can have more than 1 option for Leader.

[Kaleun]

actually on the unit card we can find 6 possible leaders. They have all the champions. I guess you only pick one of the Champions to be your leader and they have a slightly different fighter card. 

[Kramer]

LookIng forward to trying them. Agile and mobile force. Hopefully it will make me finally build some blood stalkers 😁

[Still-young]

I’ve just ordered the card pack. I should have included it in my original order anyway, but I didn’t realise they would be seemingly limited. I’ve loved the snake elves since they came out and this is an excuse to get some without starting a new army. 

Cards:

[Kaleun]

I still cant really read the last three abilities of the Fighter card.

[Ithlinne]

@Kaleun Slaughter's Strenght: Add result to strength value to attacks with range < 3"

Sacrifice to khaine: kill an enemy, other fighters within 6um add 1 Attack for attacks with range < 3"

The last one the same as other, bonus attack action with +1S... etc

[Kramer]

11 hours ago, Still-young said:

I’ve just ordered the card pack. I should have included it in my original order anyway, but I didn’t realise they would be seemingly limited. I’ve loved the snake elves since they came out and this is an excuse to get some without starting a new army. 

Cards:

How do you know they will be limited? 

I really hate when GW forces you these things on players. The special deal boxes like looncurse I’m fine with being limited. But by the time I got around to warhammer quest they stopped selling the adversary cards while shadows over hammerhal is still available 😒 hope this won’t be the same thing. Because I want to try some games before I buy into the expansions. 

[Overread]

Experience is that most of the Warscroll card sets are a one time order by GW from the printers. We don't know if the "magic card" pack style of the warcry sets is GW simply using it because there's far fewer cards in each pack; or because its part of a long term plan to have a means to order more through a system that the factories in China are more setup to do in repeat waves. 

 

One will hope repeat waves is what GW is aiming for, its the best for the game in the long run since it would mean that future gamers can get hold of cards to run their armies. However we really don't know GW's plans, but we can observe that them running out of cards for their card games is not in any way ideal for them nor us. 

[RaiderX]

Certainly these foil pack are cheaper than cardboard box, with shrink wrap.

[exliontamer]

I see what you're saying about historical comparison, but the cards seem pretty necessary to play the game at all. The other (non-Chaos) factions are not in the book, right? Or did I hear that wrong? Either way it would seem that the mylar packs are an attempt to print a ton of these and keep them in regular circulation.

That aside, I am kinda bummed out about Warcry in general, seems like they really bungled an amazing opportunity with amateurish rules writing. The few games I have played and watched played out predictably and didn't offer much in the way of tactical depth or replay value. And they really phoned in the narrative and campaign part of the game, but I knew that was going to happen so I wasn't as disappointed in that. Mordheim taught them that you can't make money when you sell one good book with all the rules right off the bat...

I do LOVE the attempt to add depth to the various human factions of Chaos. There's a lot of flavor there and a lot of promise. But none of the factions feel like they play different enough in-game (from the spoilers we've seen) to really hit it home.

That being said, if I do pick up any of the rules for Warcry it'll be for DoK. They seem the most deep roster-wise and the most fun. Plus I have a few un-built boxes of DoK lying around that I would love to paint up. I actually think Warcry could be great with a bit of homebrewing, I just don't know if I have the time to dedicate to that, nor a pool of people who would be interested in playtesting.

[Avindskjold]

Has anyone had the chance to use DoK yet? They're in an interesting spot - they can play like an elite army, with a band of Melusai or Khinerai, a horde, with ~10 WA/SoS, or somewhere in-between. 

SoS appear to be an upgrade over WAs, thanks to an extra point of crit damage and a 2" range, but you can fit nine WAs, a Gorgai and Lifetaker into a 1k list. The Gorgai's [Triple] ability will increase the output of the dual-knife WAs to five attacks each, so long as she kills something that turn (which is likely, given her own six attacks at 2/4 damage). I'm leaning towards the cheaper dagger versions of WA/SoS for more attacks: they seem like they really want to go for crit-fishing.

WA/SoS without bucklers are still only T3, so they'll tear like wet paper, but if used as screens for the Gorgai and other hard-hitters, and receive her buff, they might be worth their points. 

[Emissary]

So, I played 3 games with them today against the Legions of Nagash and went 2-0-1. 

I used the following list:

Blood Sister Gorgai
Kinerai Heartrender
6 Sisters of Slaughter with Whips and Daggers
2 Witch Aelves with 2 Sacrificial Knives

Some thoughts:

1) The name of the game is rolling 6s to hit for the all important crits.  With only a strength of 3 and 1 damage on a normal hit across the board on our non-leader models, its tough to take anything down without crits in a normal 3 turn game.  Even a normal skeleton with a shield and spear has 8 wounds with a toughness of 4.  This means hitting on a 5 for 1 damage or on a 6 for 3-4 damage.  

Because of this I really favor going with the dagger on the witch aelves or sisters over the buckler.  The +1 toughness can really help you stay alive, but it's even more important having the maximum number of attacks to fish for the crits if you want to really do anything in a 3 turn game.

2) In terms of sisters vs witches, when possible I like the sisters better.  10 points buys you +1" range on your whips, which can help when you're putting several models on one of theirs.  It's also nice with the 2" is if you stop outside of 1" on models with a 1" reach, that they will have to waste one action to move in and then fight.  Do remember, that you only get tied into combat at 1", so if you are 2" away, they can move away freely and not withdraw.  

Secondly, and more importantly, sisters have a crit of 4 while the sisters have a crit of 3.  This is a big difference.  When your lower end enemies have 8-10 wounds, 2 crits for a sister pretty much gets you there, while witches need more help, especially when they only have a 1" reach.  If you have the 10 points, always go with the sisters.  

3) The blood sister gorgai is a beast.  With 30 wounds, 6 s4 attacks at 2/4 damage and the massive move of 7, she's a fantastic leader.  I can't say enough about what she did.  I'll get into the Turned to Crystal ability in a minute.  I'm not nearly as sold on normal blood sisters though.  5 attacks at only s3 and a 1/4 damage is a big loss from the gorgai.  It's not much different than a sister of slaughter, but you can get 2 sisters for one of them.   It may be nice for a few more turned to crystal attacks, but I just don't think it will be.  I will say 30 wounds on the gorgai is a ton.  She didn't get close to killed during the game.  I know it can be done, but if you mind your foe it can be hard to deal with that in 3 rounds.

4) The Heartrender was nice, but not an autoinclude.  Large range on the spear (8") with no minimum range, decent s4 and 12" flying movement makes her a threat to grab the objective if your opponent dares to move off which keeps them very honest.   However they only have 2 attacks at s4 with 1-4 damage, do don't expect a ton.  They also can't make use of the Slaughter's Strength or Sacrifice to Khaine abilities.

5) For the abilities, 3 of the 6 are unit specific and the 4th is only for your leader.  This leaves 2 that your sisters and witches can use outside of the generics.  Slaughter's Strength is at best okay and will usually get you to hitting on 3+, but it's still only 1 damage (SS won't affect your ability to roll crits) unless you use it on your leader which does 2 damage.  Again the name of the game is crits so it's not that great, especially needing a triple.  Bathe in Blood is good though for only a double.  +1s and +1 attack is pretty good, but you do have to have a wounded enemy within 3".  NOTE: your attack target doesn't have to be the one wounded, so if they're packed together and one is wounded, you can use that against the others.  With wild dice, especially if you save them from round to round, you can ensure that 1-3 models can use it and it helps.

For the more specific abilities, the leader ability Sacrifice to Khaine is nice because it affects everyone within range and isn't driven off the dice value like others like Vanhel's.  +1 attack is great when you're fishing for crits.  Your models do have to stay within the 6" to get the bonus though.  One turn the Gorgai started the combat with 2 guys in range.  She attacked and killed one, popped the Sacrifice then had +1 attack against the 2nd.  Just remember you can't use Turned to Crystal if you take the Gorgai if you want to use the Sacrifice.

I didn't use Heartseeker because I have no Blood Stalkers (nor do I plan on it right now honestly).  

Death on the Wind was good the 2 times I used it.  Free move then you could use 3 shoot actions at 8" and S5.  It's still only 2 attacks though unless you are close to a leader with Sacrifice.  Nice though to fly her up and perch on top of terrain and rain down some javelins.  but there is a generic quad ability that is the same without the +1 strength if you moved over 6" and can be used on anyone.  I'm not sold that DotW's existence is enough to justify bringing a Kinerai over 2-3 sisters/witches.

Lastly, Turned to Crystal was nice.  It's reasonable at only a double and has a 6" range.  It allows you to pick off guys that have 1-2 wounds left as you can't split your attacks between enemies in one action.  Plus it ignores toughness which is good for those with a cover save or just naturally tough.  Lastly, if you really need it and have a high value double, you can do a lot of damage if you roll the crit, though you can't one shot guys as just about everything we saw had 8 wounds which necessitates double 6s to kill.  Clearing out those enemies that had 1-2 wounds was easily its best use and I did it several times across the 3 games.

6) Overall, what does it mean for the army?  Well, that's easy:  Maximize your chances for crits!  The army is fast and relatively cheap.  So it's pretty easy to build a fast horde with a bucket of attacks looking for crits.  But your girls will die, and die a lot if you aren't careful.  One very helpful thing is that if you are playing correctly with the shield, hammer and sword parts of your crew on a 3 turn game the fast move allows you to do things and react quickly which others cannot do.  Absolutely gang up on things.  Other than your gorgai, nothing in the army has a great chance of killing anything 1v1.  At best it was 50/50, even against things like skeletons with shields and spears. 

I'm really leaning towards using the following next:

1 Blood Sister Gorgai
4 Sisters of Slaughter with Daggers and Whips
7 Witch Aelves with 2 Daggers
1000 points exactly

Just more of a horde.  You could drop the 7 Witch Aelves for 6 Sisters of Slaughter (10 Sisters total) for the reasons above if you want one less body but have the extra range and crit.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Emissary

[Avindskjold]

1 hour ago, Emissary said:

-snip-

I haven't had a chance to play DoK yet, but my theories generally line up with your experience. Crit fishing will be the name of the game for our warband and daggers help our WA/SoS do this. SoS are a straight upgrade to WA, thanks to the range and extra point of crit damage (which is rough, as I was leaning towards building WA for full-scale AoS). 

I think the way to go will be a horde backed up by the Gorgai - as long as she's killing fighters, her triple will buff the friendlies around her. Five attacks each from 9+ WA/SoS is bound to add up. 

That said, I think there might be some value in taking at least one Khinerai for utility.  A Lifetaker can bomb objectives late-game with her quad if she needs to - 12 attacks, even at S3 (S4 if she moves 6" from her starting position), is bound to get a few crits. The Heartrender can skirmish from a distance and generally be a nuisance to a slower warband, cleaning up what the WA/SoS blob leaves behind. 

I'm considering something like this:

• Gorgai - 245
• Lifetaker - 165
• Witch  Aelves w/ knife x9 - 585

Total - 995

 I won't deny the advantages of SoS, but my idea was to pack in as many bodies I could while also having at least two specialized fighters.

(And I'm realising too late that I'm reiterating a lot of points I already made in my other post, oops!  )

Edited August 5, 2019 by Aristo

[Kaleun]

@Emissary

absolute awesome post. Big like to you Sir.

How do we fare in missions with the Daughters? Could the fast Heartrender grab a objective fast?

[Grimnir]

4 hours ago, Kaleun said:

@Emissary

absolute awesome post. Big like to you Sir.

How do we fare in missions with the Daughters? Could the fast Heartrender grab a objective fast?

Yes, 2 objective mission is so easy to win. And you can deploy marker on top of roof and use fly to scoring it. Ithink 1 flying girl is good choise.

[Emissary]

I feel like I'm the only one playing this army.  😎

Anyway, here are some more observations after more games:

1) I do well with them, but they're very much a finesse army with little room for error.  They don't hit hard, can't take a hit well and their abilities are pretty subpar.  However, they are a horde army and they are really quick, which is what you have to emphasize.  So to split this up:

1a) The army is also much more highly reliant on rolling 6s to hit then any other army I've come across.  If you're having a bad day rolling 6s, you're just going to have a bad day overall.  The only model in your army that won't be s3 and 1 damage will be your leader.  If you're trying to chase down someone carrying a chest or beat models off an objective you have to roll 6s.  If you're playing a game where you have to chase down a model in a turn or 2 in a 3 turn game it can be almost impossible.  Over the weekend, my first game against my opponent's Gloomspite Gitz, his leader on the squig came in turn 2 and was chosen to be the guy I had to kill to win the game.  Between his T5 and 24 wounds, 8" movement, only having 2 turns to get him and him coming in across the board from the heart of my crew, it was impossible.  The 4 sisters of slaughter over there weren't going to do it.   I think they did a total of 10 wounds to him in 2 rounds.  Even my Heartrender wasn't going to do much with only having 2 attacks doing 1-4 damage.

1b) Your leader is the by far the most important model in your crew, from what I've seen more then most other crews  This is mainly the fact that their minimum damage will be 2.  My Melusai Ghorgai has put in a lot of work the last few games.  30 wounds and a move of 7" and a 2" reach is huge.  If you roll a triple and can up it to a quad, pulling a rampage with her where she gets a free move, then gets a free attack and 2 more attacks will kill a lot of stuff with 18 attack dice across that.  Last game she managed to kill that Gloomspite Gitz Boingrot Bounderz leader in 1 round, take the really powerful quad the GG have from another Boingrot Bounder, then kill it the next turn.  I can't stress how good and how important she is.

1c) Our abilities are pretty bad honestly.  The Scent of Blood one needs a wounded model nearby and you get +1 attack and +1 strength.  If you're fighting something with t5 the strength bonus isn't important and even if you get some use from the strength, you still do 1 damage.  I've only found it to be good on my Melusai Gorgai.  On anyone else, most of the time it might as well be the +1 attack generic ability.

The bonus strength one is also at best okay.  Wounding ironjawz on 3s instead of 5s sounds nice until you realize the worst of them have 15 wounds.  It might do an extra 3-4 wounds if you get to attack twice, but that's just one crit.

Meanwhile the Melusai stare is okay to take out a guy with 1 wound left, but otherwise doesn't do much.  I never use the archers and the quad is just a rampage only for your flying girls that just gives them +1s.   The leader one is okay for the bonus attack, but you really have to attack with the leader first and then everyone has to stay close to her.  When you compare it to the free movement for ironjawz/legions of nagash or the quad on the gloomspite gitz, the abilities just aren't inspiring.  

2) Now that you're all depressed, time for the good news.  If you use them correct, you can still do really well.  I've won a lot more games then I've lost with them so far and it's mainly up to their speed and using them in mobs.  1-2 sisters may struggle to take down that model, but 3-4 can do it.  Then when they move in someone else to counter attack you might lose 1 girl, but you have several others ready to go.  Finish off models and don't spread the wounds out!  If you can keep the trading to less then 2 to 1 you'll be fine usually.  You can also swarm objectives well if they have a few tough models.  Finally, the sister's 2" reach is so good, especially against some armies like ironjawz.  Making them use 1 action to move up or use dice for charge to get in their attack can really help you.  Also, the Heartrender is really fast and the range on the weapon is 8".  You can perch her on a building and just be an annoyance and can grab or contest objectives late, especially if you have an activation advantage (which you will a lot).  Just don't expect her to kill a lot.  If she can get the treasure chest, some crews like ironjawz might as well just quit the game there.

Lastly, remember how fast you are.  You can react easily and with the 2" reach on sisters, you can dictate terms on where you will fight.  If you are canny about objective placement you can cause real headaches on your opponent or grab early objectives for points where your opponent cannot.

If I have time, I'll put up some more things later.

[Sleboda]

On 7/31/2019 at 9:56 AM, exliontamer said:

I am kinda bummed out about Warcry in general, seems like they really bungled an amazing opportunity with amateurish rules writing. The few games I have played and watched played out predictably and didn't offer much in the way of tactical depth or replay value. And they really phoned in the narrative and campaign part of the game

We can all have our opinions of course, and I certainly don't mean to criticise you for yours. That said, it runs counter to literally every single video I've watched and every single game I've played. I think this is one of GW's best games.