AoS 3 - Daughters of Khaine Discussion

[KrispyXIV]

Did Morgwaeth and the Blade Coven get notably better?  9 wounds for the Blade Coven, with 4 attacks each... 

[Jaskier]

32 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

Did Morgwaeth and the Blade Coven get notably better?  9 wounds for the Blade Coven, with 4 attacks each... 

Yep, they gained an attack and wound per model, and Morgwaeth herself now does D3 Damage instead of 1. Seems like a no brainer if you're thinking of running a Hag Queen on foot and have the points spare to take them instead. 

[InSaint]

Seems like these are the possible ways to stack Blood Rites in the new Battletome, did I miss anything? 

HAG NAR (ALLEGIENCE ABILITY)

+1 Blood Rites throughout the ENTIRE GAME

TRUE BELIEVER (COMMAND TRAIT - HERO ONLY)

+1 Blood Rites throughout the ENTIRE GAME for that HERO

SCAREMENT OF BLOOD (PRAYER)

+1 Blood Rites until your NEXT HERO PHASE, this could mean 3 Turns if your opponent double turn you

WITCH BREW (ABILITY)

+1 Blood Rites until the END OF YOUR TURN

MELUSAI KIN (ABILITY)

+1 Blood Rites at the start of the COMBAT PHASE until the END OF THAT PHASE

[KrispyXIV]

13 hours ago, InSaint said:

Seems like these are the possible ways to stack Blood Rites in the new Battletome, did I miss anything? 

HAG NAR (ALLEGIENCE ABILITY)

+1 Blood Rites throughout the ENTIRE GAME

TRUE BELIEVER (COMMAND TRAIT - HERO ONLY)

+1 Blood Rites throughout the ENTIRE GAME for that HERO

SCAREMENT OF BLOOD (PRAYER)

+1 Blood Rites until your NEXT HERO PHASE, this could mean 3 Turns if your opponent double turn you

WITCH BREW (ABILITY)

+1 Blood Rites until the END OF YOUR TURN

MELUSAI KIN (ABILITY)

+1 Blood Rites at the start of the COMBAT PHASE until the END OF THAT PHASE

Isn't Melusai Kin start of YOUR combat phase?

[Chumphammer]

4 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

Isn't Melusai Kin start of YOUR combat phase?

Yeah Witch brew is your turn, Melusi buff if that combat phase (yours only)

 

[Rebluff]

Pointed out to me on facebook. Anybody else notice that RAW you can't use blessing to reroll the 5++? Blessing only let's you reroll fanatical faith and turn 5 doesn't improve fanatical faith, it adds a 5++ on top of it.

Technically you can still reroll the 6++ but that's worse than just taking the 5++.

[Mutton]

1 hour ago, Rebluff said:

Pointed out to me on facebook. Anybody else notice that RAW you can't use blessing to reroll the 5++? Blessing only let's you reroll fanatical faith and turn 5 doesn't improve fanatical faith, it adds a 5++ on top of it.

Technically you can still reroll the 6++ but that's worse than just taking the 5++.

I think Blessing of Khaine is going to be replaced in a lot of peoples' kits with Sacrament. I'd much rather get that +1 blood rites until the next hero phase.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Mutton

[Rebluff]

1 hour ago, Mutton said:

I think Blessing of Khaine is going to be replaced in a lot of peoples' kits with Sacrament. I'd much rather get that +1 blood rites until the next hero phase.

My general feeling is that, unless you're playing Hagg Narr, you kind of need both for either to be better than just throwing Curse on a unit and going for mortals. I've been taking blood sigil on a lot of my priests so I can have the option of going sacrement or Blessing myself when I'm in a witchbrew+haggnarr+Medusa combat phase. Alternatively, having both Blessing + Sacrement is the only reason I would bother with taking 2 priests.

If you can't reroll the 5++ it makes blessing pretty much worthless. Rerolling a 6 doesn't even give you 5+ odds of success. You're better off just going for straight DPS.

[Chumphammer]

Some new DOK vs KB action

 

[Chumphammer]

Night Haunt are going to hit the Meta hard. DOK will probably be in the same place, but after playing Nighthaunt last night (with Gitz I might add) they can really bring a lot to the table.

Their MW output is pretty low, but its the:

Retreat and charge

You can't take Inspiring presence in combat with them

The charge debuffs stack. 4 heroes charged Kragnos and he ended up with -2 Rend, -1 to hit and strike last. They took 17W off him and killed him

Spell debuff to help them wound you/AS/you to wound them

Ressing models back in combat

Ethereal is tough on a 4+, especially when able to give 2 units a 5++

Emerald host (which you will see alot) being able to do D3 MW to D3 of your heroes at the end of every batleround.

Many teleports

Shooting meta will stuck VS them 

High rend means nothing.

I really like them lol. But prepare for them as you will see them doing well 

 

[Mutton]

Any clues on how to counter them yet?

[KrispyXIV]

5 minutes ago, Mutton said:

Any clues on how to counter them yet?

Focus units until they're dead and hope to win on attrition, since their cost per wound is extremely high would be my thought.  

Their defenses should also be mediocre against volume attacks, which DoK should do in spades.

Hopefully. 

[The World Tree]

I'm thinking Zainthar Kai ends up being quite good vs them

[Chumphammer]

40 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

Focus units until they're dead and hope to win on attrition, since their cost per wound is extremely high would be my thought.  

Their defenses should also be mediocre against volume attacks, which DoK should do in spades.

Hopefully. 

yeah high rend means nothing so its about volume of attacks and yes, finishing off units. 

Cobra Kai/Blood sisters should do well with 3 attacks each plus the MW attack, then attack on death

WE/SOS also will do with volume of attacks

SInce you cannot pin them down (unless can really pin them with volume of bodies) as retreat and charge means they will keep cycle charging

Target heroes is good. My gitz had no shooting but a lot of the heroes only have 7W with a 4=/4++ so can be focused down 

[Leshoyadut]

Played a game with DoK today against new Nighthaunt, and managed a win with my aelves. My list was this:

Spoiler

Khailebron

Pillars of Belief

Warlord
Hunters of the Heartlands
Linebreakers

270 Hag Queen on Cauldron of Blood (Warlord)
Arcane Tome
Arcane Mastery
Blessing of Khaine

270 Hag Queen on Cauldron of Blood (Linebreakers)
Crown of Woe
Sacrament of Blood

110 Hag Queen (Warlord)
Catechism of Murder

90 High Gladiatrix (Warlord)

155 Avatar of Khaine (Linebreakers)

155 Avatar of Khaine (Linebreakers)

345 Witch Aelves (Hunters of the Heartlands)
Paired Sciansa

115 Witch Aelves (Hunters of the Heartlands)
Paired Sciansa

115 Witch Aelves (Hunters of the Heartlands)
Paired Sciansa

360 Blood Stalkers (Warlord)

My opponent played a mix of buff heroes, plus a Black Coach, a unit of Chainghasts, two units of Hexwraiths and two units of Harridans, all MSUs.

We played on Power Struggle. I won after round 3 when I had managed to get ahead on points through better positioning of my units over objectives, denying her from keeping more than one objective for two consecutive turns. I also left myself with some easy battle tactics left so that I wouldn't have an issue getting them in the last couple rounds, and she was running out of easy ones to do back given what was left on the board at that point. When I killed the Black Coach was the point where she conceded, given that her Hexwraiths were about to also die and the rest of her units were unfortunately balled up behind some rather large terrain pieces.

Thoughts on my list:

Spoiler

Against an army with some monsters, the Hunters of the Heartlands would have been great, but was useless in this matchup. Unfortunate, but it happens. Linebreakers didn't matter a great deal, given the Witchbrew and battle rites. Warlord felt kinda pointless since I was never really hurting for command points with Witchbrew making AOA effectively useless by round 2 (round 1 for the unit that got Sacrament) and Bloodshield+Mystic Shield generally made AOD pointless. Plus, I couldn't even inspiring presence with my units being terrified by the Nighthaunt units. The Arcane Tome was great (big one was a Steed of Shadows that got my Cauldron into a great position), and Crown of Woe was useless since everything was either super dead from Witch Aelf attacks or was a single model unit and didn't care about Inspiring Presence or Rally. Want to test against a monster-heavy list to see if I still want Hunters of the Heartlands, but I'm currently leaning toward just going double Battle Regiment for two drops to help get initiative.

As for the units themselves, they were...all just kinda great? The foot Hag was a great buffing tool for 110 points; never got her into melee (would have in the next turn or two if it went longer), but the extra prayer and Witchbrew was great. The High Gladiatrix took a little protecting, but a 12" wholly within bubble is honestly still pretty large considering how amazing her buff is even against an ethereal army. 3 attacks at 2+/2+ on turn one with a 30 block of WAs (even just getting 20ish in) is incredible, and she was a big part of enabling that. The Cauldrons were fantastic buffers that could wade into melee for good damage, themselves.  The Avatars were surprisingly durable and could do good damage when they got attacks through (unrendable saves hurt them here, but they still worked well enough), plus vomitting blood actually got a few important wounds on things. The Witch Aelves were obviously fantastically killy, and the MSUs were perfect screens/smaller damage-dealers. I think the worst performer was the Blood Stalkers, and that's just because I spread their attacks too much expecting more average save rolls from my opponent when she just kept rolling amazingly, so they'd only do two points of damage from their 20 attacks spread over two targets. Despite that, the bowsnakes still put enough ranged pressure on the field that they mattered, even if they didn't have the output to be worth their 360 points in this specific game.

Finally, my temple choice. Didn't end up using the teleport much in this game, but the threat of it put pressure on how my opponent felt she could move around, and it did let me reposition an Avatar to a more central and useful spot. Hagg Nar may have been solid, too, but I think those were my only two good choices with this list into this matchup. Draichi Ganeth would have obviously done nothing, Khelt Nar wouldn't have helped since I didn't really want to retreat anything at any point, and Kraith and Zainthar would of course have not been applicable since I didn't have Sisters or spear snakes.

Outside of specific performance, I gotta say that the army is just fun. There's a little bit of strategy to consider, of course, but it's still a lot of fun to unga bunga some buffed WAs into an enemy unit and do 60+ attacks. The variety of units is also great. I was able to have some shooting, both long and short range, a couple of cool elite units, a sizable horde, and lots of buffs to go through in the hero phase. The army has enough going on without any of it being particularly complex that it felt like I always had something useful to do while also not feeling like I had to be gigabraining every turn. Appealed to the Timmy in me, appealed to the Spike in me, it was just a great time.

[Mutton]

8 hours ago, Leshoyadut said:

Warlord felt kinda pointless since I was never really hurting for command points with Witchbrew making AOA effectively useless by round 2 (round 1 for the unit that got Sacrament) and Bloodshield+Mystic Shield generally made AOD pointless.

What about All-Out Slaughter? I'd be hitting that up every combat phase if possible.

[KrispyXIV]

2 minutes ago, Mutton said:

What about All-Out Slaughter? I'd be hitting that up every combat phase if possible.

I generally prefer AoA or AoD if they're available and relevant, but All-Out Slaughter is fantastic after AoA is crept by Blood Rites OR for "gambling".  

I really needed 5 heartrenders to kill a Sloppity in melee, and All-Out Slaughter had the potential to get me more than 6 hits - All Out Attack couldn't.

I got 3 sixes, which I'd say is a jackpot

[Leshoyadut]

25 minutes ago, Mutton said:

What about All-Out Slaughter? I'd be hitting that up every combat phase if possible.

It didn't feel super worth it to use on my Avatars since they only have four attacks and wouldn't even get one exploding die on average. I was only finally getting my Cauldrons into combat in round 4 (which we didn't play out) just because either the fight was in a confined space I couldn't fit them in, or I had a gazillion WAs in the way of the Cauldrons fighting. But even then, they have 16 attacks and would get, on average, 2-3ish exploding dice per combat, which translates into maybe 1 extra hit after To Wound rolls. Certainly not bad, but not huge, either.

For the WAs, I also had Catechism of Murder already. Could be a case for picking a different prayer, but it also gave me a backup in case I got two WA units into combat in the same turn, which ended up not really happening. Round 1, I got one unit of 10 in since they were screening for the 30 block, and the other 10 was just holding a back objective and preventing my opponent from snagging it with an Underworlds teleport. Round 2, the first unit of 10 was dead and I had Catechism on the 30; the second unit of 10 was still preventing Underworlds shenanigans. Round 3, I could have used it on the back objective 10, but they didn't really need it into the Hexwraiths they were engaged with and I forgot about using it there since 29 attacks (one died to the impact from the Hexwraiths) was a ton of damage already.

So, AOS could have been useful once in that battle, likely once or twice more if we had played out all five rounds, but only after AOA wasn't useful, anyways, so I had points to spare by that time and wouldn't have needed the Warlord point by then.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Leshoyadut

[Vasshpit]

Well hello there all you scantily clad murder Aelf lovers. Ive never been to this part of our lovely community before. 

Ive got a modeling question. Im assembling a Drow warband for Frostgrave and was wondering if the top half of the Melusai are compatible size wise to the basic witch aelf troop. Or are they just a teensy weensy bit bigger? Basically would a Melusai top half look good with witch aelf legs or would the proportions be too far off?

Thanks. Your chosen faction is sexy. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by Vasshpit

[Lucentia]

They look basically the same size to me, though the Melusai midriff does have a little sculpted detail to show the skin giving way to scales which you might want to cover up, and actually getting the torsos and legs neatly joined might require a bit of work just due to how the witch elf kit is laid our.

[foxicious]

Just a quick question: Am I missing something or does a Bloodwrack Medusa general not unlock Melusai as battleline anymore. Because despite having an ability called Melusai Kin, she does not have the Melusai keyword (at least in the app). 

 

Would be a real letdown 😕. Kind of understandable if they wanted to make Zainthar Kai more relevant, but a letdown nonetheless.

[hurben]

9 minutes ago, foxicious said:

Just a quick question: Am I missing something or does a Bloodwrack Medusa general not unlock Melusai as battleline anymore. Because despite having an ability called Melusai Kin, she does not have the Melusai keyword (at least in the app). 

True, you can't anymore unlock it.

[Maogrim]

I think that's a good change. Between Bloodwrack Medusa, Zainthar Kai and the Ironscale, unlocking Melusai was a little bit too easy. And of three, the Medusa kinda has the least to do with her non-magical kin. 

So it's the Ironscale for the other temples.

[The World Tree]

Not to mention, Bloodwrack Medusae are not Scathborn.

[KrispyXIV]

5 hours ago, Maogrim said:

I think that's a good change. Between Bloodwrack Medusa, Zainthar Kai and the Ironscale, unlocking Melusai was a little bit too easy. And of three, the Medusa kinda has the least to do with her non-magical kin. 

So it's the Ironscale for the other temples.

Agreed.  Its one of a bunch of little things that makes Morathi and Bow Snakes less efficient, as the most cost effective way to get them to be battle line is Zainthar Kai, which does nothing for them OTHER than make them Battle Line.