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Popularity of Daughters of Khaine


Maogrim

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Greetings, pious zealots of the many-faced Goddess of Murder!

I have pretty much settled on Daughters as my second Army, once I've managed to assemble and paint a playable Lumineth Force. And while looking through forum entries, Youtube videos and color schemes I noticed that there's a lot less ... engagement I'd say with Daughters in Khaine than with other AOS armies.

Here are some examples:

Google searches for Khelt Nar, Zainthar Kai or Khailebron didn't result in a lot of painted armies popping up who actually match said sects.

The new short story between Malerion and Morathi seemed to spark more discussion in the Lumineth forum than in the Daughters forum.

The TGA Daughters of Khaine subforum is a little quiet in general (based on the number of posts) when compared to other Order factions Cities of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals or even Lumineth Realm-Lords, last of whom are still pretty new.

This seems strange to me considering the Daughters are one of the original AOS armies (at least to my knowledge), seem to do well on tournaments, have a well-balanced Battletome that allows for different focal points without losing two much effectivity ... and is made up of bikini-clad murder babes, if you would pardon this display of sexist language.

So what do you think might the reason? Is it the model range? I think everything Melusai is awesome, pretty much everyone seems to agree that Morathi (or at least The Shadow Queen) is God tier levels of greatness, and even the older models like Cauldrons and Witch Aelfs seem to still hold up pretty well (at least in my view). Is it the cost of the army money-wise? Or do people just prefer their savage murder warriors to be male and clad in Chaos armor?

Thanks for reading, and I'm very much looking forward to your answers. :)

Murder for the Murder-Queen!

 

 

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1 hour ago, Maogrim said:

So what do you think might the reason? Is it the model range? I think everything Melusai is awesome, pretty much everyone seems to agree that Morathi (or at least The Shadow Queen) is God tier levels of greatness, and even the older models like Cauldrons and Witch Aelfs seem to still hold up pretty well (at least in my view). Is it the cost of the army money-wise? Or do people just prefer their savage murder warriors to be male and clad in Chaos armor?

Thanks for reading, and I'm very much looking forward to your answers. :)

To take a guess, I imagine they suffer mainly from two things:

- Witch aelves are very very expensive for a horde unit, and it seems even less justified as they're not a new to AoS model. The fact that they're very expensive but don't look amazing (they're not bad, but don't have the wow of the new models) likely puts a lot of people off starting them 

- Typically, very feminine armies don't tend to be as popular. For example, Slaanesh, DoK, and Sisters of Battle (in the past); that's not to say they can't be popular (e.g. Sisters of Battle in the present), but it does tend to be the case that more brutish or masculine armies are more liked (female or feminine models are still popular, just less so when they are the entire army)

There are other minor things, like their lore being pretty niche ('murder god' is covered by another army, and they don't seem to have much else going on about them to the casual viewer, though I'm sure this isn't true when reading into them), and being quite a tricky army to paint with so much skin and small detail. Also, while they have great rules, I've found that good rules don't tell a sell an army so much as bad rules turn people away from one, so at least you're not losing anyone there. 

That said, I wouldn't say DoK were super unpopular in the way that Fyreslayers are perceived to be. Their LE book may have had 200 fewer copies than Lumineth's, but it sold out on the day of release worldwide, compared to nearly a week afterwards in Lumineth's case. They are also popular enough that GW invests lore into them; when you look at DoK's involvement compared to Beasts of Chaos or Fyreslayers, they know there is at least an audience for it :)

At the end of the day it's very hard to judge a faction's popularity. While you can try figure it out with number of LE books available and time it takes to sell them, how many models you see on social media, how much they're seen in tournaments, and how large their discussion is on TGA, they're all only small parts of the picture that can have a lot of outside influence not related to popularity. 

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Not sure how popular/unpopular DOK is but one of the problems i have is that it doesn’t feel like a complete army to me. To me, it feels so weird when your battleline is some half naked elf with charging pose. 
 

Love the story and Morathis though. And it seems that the only personality this army have is Morathi herself. Almost no other named character here. 

Edited by KK in HK
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They have a small model range, price per model is high and I don't like the "fantasy novel cover" poses and (lack of) clothing.

Lore seems fine, even snakes seem fine. Hair is good. Have been close to purchase Melusai for D&D. Might still get the Underworlds set for that if I find it on very good clearance.

Between oversexualisation and price, I won't get into the model range all that far.

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1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

They have a small model range, price per model is high and I don't like the "fantasy novel cover" poses and (lack of) clothing.

Lore seems fine, even snakes seem fine. Hair is good. Have been close to purchase Melusai for D&D. Might still get the Underworlds set for that if I find it on very good clearance.

Between oversexualisation and price, I won't get into the model range all that far.

Hm. I'm not sure I'd agree when it comes to oversexualization. Sure the Witch Aelves don't wear a whole lot, but their faces appear fierce, not inviting, their poses are dynamic and aggressive, not submissive or overly unnatural, like in that infamous Spider Woman cover. Display of ****** or asses do not appear to be the focal points of the models. They come across as aggressive, able and dangerous, even if scantily clothed. So in my mind there is no real objectification here. Well, except if you think bikini armor automatically equals objectification and sexualization.

Price per model might be an issue, but there are quite a few armies that require a higher model count. Like the aforementioned Skaven or Cities of Sigmar.

And I do agree it's a little bit of a shame that the army is so low on named characters. Sure, the cult is centered around Morathi by her own design, but the sects are still more or less autonomous and have their own hierarchy.

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19 minutes ago, Maogrim said:

Hm. I'm not sure I'd agree when it comes to oversexualization. Sure the Witch Aelves don't wear a whole lot, but their faces appear fierce, not inviting, their poses are dynamic and aggressive, not submissive or overly unnatural, like in that infamous Spider Woman cover. Display of ****** or asses do not appear to be the focal points of the models. They come across as aggressive, able and dangerous, even if scantily clothed. So in my mind there is no real objectification here. Well, except if you think bikini armor automatically equals objectification and sexualization.

Price per model might be an issue, but there are quite a few armies that require a higher model count. Like the aforementioned Skaven or Cities of Sigmar.

And I do agree it's a little bit of a shame that the army is so low on named characters. Sure, the cult is centered around Morathi by her own design, but the sects are still more or less autonomous and have their own hierarchy.

Looking back it wasn't as bad as I remember it. Maybe the army I saw had a helping of Raging Heroes models in them. But still, they do stick their behinds out more than would be logical in motion, and while they don't have heels, all the (wytch elf) models are posed in a way that fits walking in heels anyway (and I mean all of them, all feet in line with the leg, so bent downward. Not a single foot flat on the ground).

But you are correct that they are not submissive or inviting and I should have taken a closer look before commenting.

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The recent TGA forum poll on favourite armies, ranked Daughters of Khaine with 10,6%. On the same level as eg. Idoneth. 
Checking the tournament activity, DoK are beeing played quite often, ranking with total games played somewhere in the middle
of all active factions (T3 EU tourneys). With a very successfull outcome (still).

That paints the following picture: A whole bunch of people likes the army and it is quite present on tournament level.
So the popularity of the army seems quite contradictory to the acitivity in our DoK forum. At first glance.

I would explain that by supporting the ideas above and adding, that DoK is rarely a beginners army.
It used to be (before BR:Morathi) a mass army for experienced and dedicated players. Both financially and time wise.
So after learning the basiscs with prominent starting-factions, you would dive into more complex/unusual factions like DoK.
Every local meta ist different, but I see that being the case in german-speaking countries. And experienced players like the 
ones described did their homework. They know how to build lists, understand syngergies and read rules appropriatelly.
So there is less to say or to aks in a forum, right? 

Regarding lore. I recently read the new DoK book - Blood Covens. Its great and a rare DoK novel occastionn. Providing a good idea of the social structure and
motivations of DoK. Not only being the Order blood factions aka Blades of Khorne, but far more complex in their behaviour and motivations. 
Its a pitty that GW often reduces DoK in the battletomes to a frenzy killing machine - ok thats what they are 😄 - but drops the
ritual and religous aspects of their story. BR: Morathi and the short story with Malerion are good start in a new direction, so hopefully that continious.

Edited by Milano
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1. Expensive to Collect

Before the new Battletome, the only competitive way to play them is to field hordes of Witch Aelves which are really pricey. They don't have a decent Start Collecting and even if you got the Batttleforce, you still need to supplement with boxes of troops which are expensive. The situation has improved recently with Melusai being viable and I do see more players starting DoK locally.

2. Difficult to Paint

Their models have a rather varied distribution of fabric, metal, skin and hair. You can't just spam contrast on them like Nighthaunts or rely on 2 colour scheme like Storrmcast Eternals. I have seen many aspiring DoK players who spent a fortune buying a complete army only to completely sell it off upon realizing how difficult they are to paint. :(

3. Meta Reputation 

They are one of the rare armies to remain at S Tier for a long time and it's hard to make friends when you murder them into oblivion. You see them in tournaments but in more casual setting people tend to play more palatable armies.

4. Diva Powerhouse

DoK is lead by a shrewd power hungry demi-goddess (now full goddess) supported by tons of murder queens navigating a man's world. This concept does not resonate well with the predominately straight alpha male Warhammer player base (cough... 40K Emperor and all-male Primarch cast). It does have it niche audience of power gamers, pro painters, girls, LGBTQ and kinks though. 😆

 

Edited by InSaint
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19 minutes ago, InSaint said:

1. Expensive to Collect

Before the new Battletome, the only competitive way to play them is to field hordes of Witch Aelves which are really pricey. They don't have a decent Start Collecting and even if you got the Batttleforce, you still need to supplement with boxes of troops which are expensive. The situation has improved recently with Melusai being viable and I do see more players starting DoK locally.

2. Difficult to Paint

Their models have a rather varied distribution of fabric, metal, skin and hair. You can't just spam contrast on them like Nighthaunts or rely on 2 colour scheme like Storrmcast Eternals. I have seen many aspiring DoK players who spent a fortune buying a complete army only to completely sell it off upon realizing how difficult they are to paint. :(

 

 

I will echo these two points. DOK are not a cheap army to get into, and they have a lot of flesh or details to paint. Also the range is a lot of stuff from WHFB with some new stuff. We also had a book update recently and only got endless spells. No warscroll cards, and 1 hero from a recently released mixed set. 

Yes Morthi-Khaine got a big push recently in terms of story but it kinda feels like we are in limbo atm. DOK are still a good army but its also not a forgiving army with the changes in witch brew and fanatical faith on Hagg Nar

One reason you wont find many painted options for other factions is because until the new book you only saw Hagg Nar with a splattering of Khelibron. Now with the new book some of the others are also a good choice. 

The forum might be quieter atm, but the whattsapp group is used often

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While I started my DoK recently I have to agree that finding content for them is a bit harder. Beside the mentioned facts (Expensive range, high power level, hard to paint, limited model range) I also think that DoK are written in a quite shallow way and lack reasons for sympathy. Morathi is the single pivot point of the faction. All units are so far described either as her loyal fanatics or her creations, with really not much surface to have sympathy for the faction. I would argue that most people play them for the powerlevel/killyness or for the look, but not many care for lore because there is simply not much.

 

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4 hours ago, Charleston said:

While I started my DoK recently I have to agree that finding content for them is a bit harder. Beside the mentioned facts (Expensive range, high power level, hard to paint, limited model range) I also think that DoK are written in a quite shallow way and lack reasons for sympathy. Morathi is the single pivot point of the faction. All units are so far described either as her loyal fanatics or her creations, with really not much surface to have sympathy for the faction. I would argue that most people play them for the powerlevel/killyness or for the look, but not many care for lore because there is simply not much.

 

I would agree that the faction does lack anchor points for sympathy and doesn't feature a lot of memorable characters apart from the queen b***h herself. But I quite like to imagine how it must look and feel if a sect marches onto the battlefield to rescue e.g. some Freeguild militia just when they feel those sick Hedonites will slaughter and enslave them..

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I would imagine that painting faces (and painting eyes) on a minimum of 50 models puts people off. It's easy to paint non human faces (like orcs, or ghouls or skaven) because our minds are less sensitive to deviations in how those faces look. Human faces, on the other hand - especially human faces that we expect to be beautiful - our minds are very sensitive to deviation there. If your paint gets chalky, or you end up with shadows not quite right, or you have googly pupils - those are infinitely more noticeable on a Witch elf face than, say, a skaven face. Consequently I think it's easy to give up early on in the painting process or decide that the army is not for you - simply because it's much harder to be satisfied with a paint job. 

Honestly I wish DoK was an elite army, with how much time it takes to paint them. 

Edited by Ggom
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1 hour ago, Ggom said:

I would imagine that painting faces (and painting eyes) on a minimum of 50 models puts people off. It's easy to paint non human faces (like orcs, or ghouls or skaven) because our minds are less sensitive to deviations in how those faces look. Human faces, on the other hand - especially human faces that we expect to be beautiful - our minds are very sensitive to deviation there. If your paint gets chalky, or you end up with shadows not quite right, or you have googly pupils - those are infinitely more noticeable on a Witch elf face than, say, a skaven face. Consequently I think it's easy to give up early on in the painting process or decide that the army is not for you - simply because it's much harder to be satisfied with a paint job. 

Honestly I wish DoK was an elite army, with how much time it takes to paint them. 

Luckily i started the army by shadow and pain box set so most of my army are melusai.

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2 hours ago, KK in HK said:

 

Luckily i started the army by shadow and pain box set so most of my army are melusai.

Yeap, that helps, and there's always the option to go masks on all the models. That being said - I would argue that even with masks, painting skin to tabletop level is much harder than painting armor to a tabletop level.

This is compounded if one chooses light colored skin tones!

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I’ve followed Warhammer Fantasy since it was “Chainmail”, because I’m older than dirt. Dark Elves have always been my favourite army.

I didn’t play much until AoS v2, and tried to use the generic Darkling Covens list, which regularly got mopped up by lists that actually contained synergy and interesting rules.

So, I was thrilled when I heard about the new DoK faction... until I did the math. $70 Canadian per 10 witch elves, and I’d need at least 60. Sneks were cool, but there were only five variations and the archers were pointless.

The viable lists were limited too. Hag Narr was very competitive, the others needed more skill and experience than I had as a super-casual.

And then Cities of Sigmar got released, and that meant I was drowning in Druuchii options again. Up-to-date rules that were interesting and had synergy and competitive, a plethora of options for cavalry and monsters and light or heavy infantry...

I switched over to an all Dark Elf CoS army in a heartbeat.

Now, with the new DoK book, I’m cautiously optimistic that I can put together a mix of doom warlocks and sneks and harpies and explore different sub factions  I don’t need a minimum of $400 of basic troops to be competitive, and I can paint a variety of models, not just the same witch over and over.

So, yeah; higher cost for basic troop which felt mandatory to be competitive, a book that was missing internal balance were my main complaints. I’m super excited about working with the new book.

A final thing convinced me to drop CoS for DoK; endless spells. At least in my mind, GW finally committing to making Dark Elf specific spells makes me think they are now a “real” army. Seeing beastmen getting spells and terrain, while the pointy spite-elves were left out made me think GA was still testing the waters with them.

 

 

 

C604220D-0143-4BC0-B7A5-6F49E688CBAA.jpeg

Edited by Ravenborn
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On 5/17/2021 at 9:45 AM, Milano said:

The recent TGA forum poll on favourite armies, ranked Daughters of Khaine with 10,6%. On the same level as eg. Idoneth. 
Checking the tournament activity, DoK are beeing played quite often, ranking with total games played somewhere in the middle
of all active factions (T3 EU tourneys). With a very successfull outcome (still).

That paints the following picture: A whole bunch of people likes the army and it is quite present on tournament level.
So the popularity of the army seems quite contradictory to the acitivity in our DoK forum. At first glance.

I wouldn't read too much into tournament data as that's an extremely narrow proportion of the playerbase who will buy any army so long as it's powerful. We know from multiple polls of close to 1000 people that Fyreslayers are at the bottom of popularity, but they have a decent showing on tournament numbers because they're quite a strong - the TGA thread is deader than some squat'ed armies (arguably that's because there isn't much to discuss with FS that hasn't been figured out but you'd still expect a decent amount of hobby posting). Daughters being competitive for all of 2.0's run and then some hasn't hurt the tournament scene's buzz about them - compare that to how talk of Ossiarchs nosedived with the Petrifex nerf unless it was people playing it because they... actually liked Ossiarchs generally.

Speaking of Fyreslayers, they share many of the same issues as Daughters do. Arguably they've got the benefit of being elves, which always cultivates at least a moderately sized following compared to dwarves but their more visually diverse range no doubt does them a lot of favours (naked elf women vs naked dwarf men, but at least the former have Snake Ladies, Altars and Harpies).

 

Edited by Clan's Cynic
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Fyreslayers seem to be an even more interesting case than Daughters. When they came out I thought they looked pretty cool, and those lava lizard things are awesome as well. and from what I've heard they are doing well too. Slayers seemed to be popular part of dwarf lore, and I'd thought the army would appeal to the classic male wargamer stereotype.

Doesn't exactly seem to be the case, and the very narrow and samey looking model range certainly doesn't help. Daughters in contrast are, as you've already mentioned Clan's Cynic, far more diverse by now, between bikini aelves, snake ladies, bat ladies and shadow assassins. I just for the life of me can't get into Doomfire Warlocks, but they aren't needed anyways.

And if you want to get into the Scathborn side it's not even that pricey, since they are included in the StartCollecting and the Shadow and Pain box.

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3 hours ago, Maogrim said:

Fyreslayers seem to be an even more interesting case than Daughters. When they came out I thought they looked pretty cool, and those lava lizard things are awesome as well. and from what I've heard they are doing well too. Slayers seemed to be popular part of dwarf lore, and I'd thought the army would appeal to the classic male wargamer stereotype.

Doesn't exactly seem to be the case, and the very narrow and samey looking model range certainly doesn't help. Daughters in contrast are, as you've already mentioned Clan's Cynic, far more diverse by now, between bikini aelves, snake ladies, bat ladies and shadow assassins. I just for the life of me can't get into Doomfire Warlocks, but they aren't needed anyways.

And if you want to get into the Scathborn side it's not even that pricey, since they are included in the StartCollecting and the Shadow and Pain box.

Even by itself, the Witch Aelves set has about as much diversity as the entire Fyreslayers range except the Magmadroth (but including its riders). That may have something to do with it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/16/2021 at 5:45 PM, Maogrim said:

And while looking through forum entries, Youtube videos and color schemes I noticed that there's a lot less ... engagement I'd say with Daughters in Khaine than with other AOS armies.

We are busy painting microscopic eye pupils and nipple shadows. No time to post on forms.

So here's a Sorceress sacrificing some male to gain someone +2 on paining motivation rolls.
image.png.4928437ae3ce090c6743113e05aaa6b4.png

 

I'm going with bluish skin tone on my DoK, red leather, some silver-iron metal sheets(actual armor/weapons), golden trims and accesories (like on Sorc).Violetish hair (redish for leaders). Half finished here in background.

image.png.24b54d3cb0214a435606715405121763.png

Even older. Face probably took me more time than painting entire liberator ;)

image.png.e846d250ad2472c3afa988ca6eb64ff6.png

As far as it goes, went into DoK since I liked older Dark Elves and it looked like they will compliment each other. Executioners should totally be able to just freely migrate from CoS to DoK as alegiance. I hope Malarion gets to just join Morathi and expand DoK line in new bigger allegiance of murder.... DoK + DarklingCoven + Privateers + Drakespawn + Malerion.

Motivations are mostly same here overall. Malerion just needs to bring proper dragons with him and that repeater bolt thrower artillery. I'm biased Carmine Dragon owner 😛

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/17/2021 at 10:55 AM, InSaint said:

1. Expensive to Collect

Before the new Battletome, the only competitive way to play them is to field hordes of Witch Aelves which are really pricey. They don't have a decent Start Collecting and even if you got the Batttleforce, you still need to supplement with boxes of troops which are expensive. The situation has improved recently with Melusai being viable and I do see more players starting DoK locally.

2. Difficult to Paint

Their models have a rather varied distribution of fabric, metal, skin and hair. You can't just spam contrast on them like Nighthaunts or rely on 2 colour scheme like Storrmcast Eternals. I have seen many aspiring DoK players who spent a fortune buying a complete army only to completely sell it off upon realizing how difficult they are to paint. :(

3. Meta Reputation 

They are one of the rare armies to remain at S Tier for a long time and it's hard to make friends when you murder them into oblivion. You see them in tournaments but in more casual setting people tend to play more palatable armies.

4. Diva Powerhouse

DoK is lead by a shrewd power hungry demi-goddess (now full goddess) supported by tons of murder queens navigating a man's world. This concept does not resonate well with the predominately straight alpha male Warhammer player base (cough... 40K Emperor and all-male Primarch cast). It does have it niche audience of power gamers, pro painters, girls, LGBTQ and kinks though. 😆

 

XD Witch elves are not, uh, feminism/lgbt friendly, leaning as hard as they do into negative tropes of women as temptress and manipulator and a lot of people who have hesitancy collecting them do so because of how much cheesecake they perceive in the army.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 6/17/2021 at 5:28 PM, stratigo said:

XD Witch elves are not, uh, feminism/lgbt friendly, leaning as hard as they do into negative tropes of women as temptress and manipulator and a lot of people who have hesitancy collecting them do so because of how much cheesecake they perceive in the army.

 

I think you are confusing the Daughters of Khaine with depictions of WHFB incarnations of Witch Aelves. The tome doesn't include anything about seduction and manipulation apart from Morathi herself. There are no mentions of any form of sexuality. The Daughters of Khaine are a matriarchic society that is built upon worshipping Khaine as a God of martial prowess and sudden assassination. All the higher ranks are held by women; all the manual labor and 'unclean' jobs are being performed by men.  

The sculpts reflect the daughters being able, athletic and agressive killers; none of their poses are submissive or seductive. So I, as a male mind you, cannot see any overt objectification or sexualization apart from their clothes basically being thong bikinis and thigh-high boots without heels. But the lore clearly states that they don't wear these things to tempt or seduce but to not be hindered in movement and because they enjoy the feeling of their enemies' blood on their skin. 

And why you are suggesting any of this would cause issues for LGBTQI+ folks out there ... I have no idea. 

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