DJMoose

Hopefully it is not as essential to our damage output as it was previously, because ouch.

So assuming the flavor text is to be believed, The Bloodwrack Viper and The Bladewind are endless spells, and The Heart of Fury is an ENDLESS PRAYER!

Such as the new shiny endless spell with the Iron Heart of Khaine...

Explained better than my half-awake brain could formulate.

I probably just didn't explain what I meant properly. I just found it interesting that we will be having more temple abilities and CAs with specific unit keywords instead of generically like we have in the old battletome.

For me the most interesting thing about the Draichi Ganeth CA is that it has the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter keywords, following the example of the Zainthar Kai CA being specific to Melusai or Khinerai. So looks like the different Temples may not be as interchangeable as previously. But, this is still a welcome change for more variety and having a temple known for Sisters of Slaughter basically having to take them.

I imagine it would still work. At The Double is used after you make a run roll for a friendly unit within range and then the run roll is treated as being a 6. The Ironscale CA allows a Melusai unit within range to roll 2d6 instead of d6 when you make a run roll for that unit. While it would suck to have to use 2 command points to do this, I do not see why it would not work. Don't forget we still have the reroll 1s for runs for Quickening Bloodlust as well.

Considering how close we are to St. Valentine's Day and the rumor that the new Battletome will release close to the same time as the Slaanesh Battletome, do you think GW will pull some Daughters of Khaine Valentine's Day shenanigans? I think it would be hilarious if they did something like this again.

The Ironscale certainly has helped the mobility of snakes by also letting them run 2d6 and charge. But yes to more damage output. Without Mindrazor we definitely have trouble against certain armies. The lack of Mindrazor against armies with high bravery is always noticeable. Personally I do not mind a little bit of durability because DoK are already made of wet paper. That said I would rather have a bunch of crazed berserker chicks do more damage instead instead of the fanatical faith save. Or maybe have the ability to fight after they die like Fyreslayers. Unfortunately the answer to much of this speculation is "we shall see."

Imagine if Khaelibron did this. You could buff a unit and then teleport them. Maybe even without the within 3" of the enemy like the Shadowstalkers . Although part of me could see it staying as it is, just a longer wholly within range.

With the particular build I was trying I had 4 drops and the KO player had 3. He focused fire on my big snake unit and killed 14 of them in one turn. The dice were firmly against me that game and I was unable to roll armor saves. With lucky rolling on his part his Ironclad was able to stick around with a single wound until turn 2. He went first and I did not get the double turn. All around was a bad luck game despite my best efforts. It was a close game objective wise but it was literally my 2nd time facing the new KO, as they are a relatively new army in my group. Learned much from the two games I have played.

With the past couple of games I've played we certainly have a competitive edge against certain armies. But also since we have not been at the top of the meta for some time we have the advantage of players not knowing how dangerous our units can be. That said even with Khaelibron as my temple KO is a really tough match up due to their crazy mobility and unrelenting shooting. Even if I was using Hag Narr we simply cannot afford to be pushed into a war of attrition. Both of the games I played last Saturday I was able to cripple my opponents line with some first turn charges at key units. And also objective scoring, because that is still the name of the game. I do look forward to some tweaks to the temples in the new battletome. Putting all of the temples on an even footing will be great for variety of builds and tactics.

Currently wishful thinking unless you found a leak somewhere? Or was there a Warhammer Community preview already?

...Why did you do this to me. Cannot unsee. In other news, I played three games today and did rather well with my snakes. Two games were won by using my Ironscale's command ability to catapult my fully buffed 20 girl unit of Blood Sisters at my opponent 20-30 inches away.

Yeah Khinerai and Melusai have had their updates from the Shadow and Pain Box. Those warscrolls probably will not change. Also, maybe the release of this battletome is why we haven't gotten a FAQ on Broken Realms: Morathi yet. Then again I don't remember what the actual release schedule for FAQs was considering 2020 screwed everything up.

This. PLEASE. Or have the Ironscale make snakes battleline. Not that I don't mind using a Bloodwrack as my general considering the importance of Mindrazor. But I would like to have the Ironscale as my General and still be able to use snakes. Such a missed opportunity that hopefully will be rectified.

*Kowtows* Shadow and Pain was a pretty good indicator that we were getting DoK and Slaanesh. GW still managing to take more of my money.

I'm actually really excited that they put a Bow Snake on the cover of the Battletome. Maybe finally usable as battleline? Please GW? I'm more intrigued to know what they are going to do with the different temples. Or if they are going to bring sweeping changes to their core abilities or if we're just going to get a tweak here and there. Endless Spells! Finally! Although, part of me would love them to be Endless Prayers even more... Nice to see Bladewind come back though. That was a favorite spell of mine for my Dark Elves back in WHFB.

1. I believe after the faq the Temple Nest ability happens after rerolls but before modifiers. 2. Morathi-Khaine still gets a normal armor save and her Fanatical Faith save. If you fail your Fanatical Faith save, then you cannot by any means prevent the wound to Morathi-Khaine from going to the Shadow Queen. The advantage of course is Morathi-Kahine is effectively unharmed and the wound goes to The Shadow Queen. Also, The 3 wounds that can be inflicted from the Iron Heart of Khaine is still in effect. Morathi-Kahine and the Shadow Queen combiined can only suffer 3 wounds per turn.

I think it's more for the 12" range for generic command abilities instead of 6" that a hero would have.

Interesting. How did it play?

Ironscale is 140pts

The new warscrolls for the Stalkers and Blood Sisters are in the Shadow and Pain box. Clearly the Pain part of the box was Blood Sisters getting nerfed.

Alright, so I played two games yesterday to try and get a feel of the new rules. Long post ahead. First game was against *sigh* Nurgle. Opponent had Lord on Karkadrak, 5 knights, big blob of marauders and a Blightcyst Battalion (Basically a whole bunch of Blight Kings along with a Lord of Blights and it gives them -1 rend) along with a Nurgle sorceror and a Harbinger of Decay. My list was as follows: Zainthar Kai Temple Bloodwrack Medusa -General -Shadowstone -Mindrazor Ironscale -Bloodbane Venom Hag Queen -Iron Circlet -Catachism of Murder Hag Queen -Blessing of Khaine 10 Blood Sisters 10 Blood Sisters 10 Blood Sisters 5 Blood Stalkers 5 Blood Stalkers Scathborn Battalion +1 CP 1990pts Everything except the Hags and the Ironscale were in the battalion. We were playing Starstrike for the mission. I tied in drops with my opponent and decided to take the first turn. The game started fairly well, with one of my Blood Sister units getting buffed with Mindrazor, Catachism, and Wrath of the Scathborn, They went right up the center with my Ironscale and Medusa right behind them. My opponent had his Blightcyst Battalion across from them but I figured YOLO and might be able to tie them up and inflict some hurt before the objective came down next turn in the center of the board. Everything else moved up. Blood Stalkers are great and good at character hunting again! Put a ton of wounds on his Lord of Blights and Harbinger of Decay. Unfortunately despite needing only a 7 inch charge with my Blood Sisters I proceeded to whiff both my regular roll and my CP reroll. And thus began the entire day of my dice betraying me : /. The games results I feel will be skewed slightly due to my lower than average dice rolls. And Nurgle can be a tough match up for us sometimes. My opponent brought up most of his units with some in the back corners should the meteors fall back there, but he charged in a max unit of Blight Kings into my line of Blood Sisters and killed half the unit, suddenly reminding me of our fragility after not playing Daughters of Khaine for three months. I struck back and killed two Blight Kings. While the new Crystal Touch ability could certainly be worse, it is definitely felt when you have reduced numbers in the unit. Granted you actually have a good chance to inflict mortal wounds (I did 5 at once), but the fact that it is at the end of the combat phase really hurts. My opponent won priority and killed the rest of my snake unit, while also charging with his blob of marauders on my left flank. He finished off the rest of my first unit of Blood Sisters, leaving most of my characters exposed. On my turn I proceeded to flub any and all of my buffs or spells and sent another unit of Blood sisters along with my Bloodwrack and Ironscale to plug the hole in the middle. Bloodwrack stare did some work and slapped the unit with 4 mortal wounds before I charged everything else in. Took a risk with activating the Ironscale first in melee and the combo with the Bloodbane Venom is amazing. She inflicted two wounds and then slew a model from the venom, which then triggered her ability, giving my nearby Blood Sisters +1 attack. My opponent wisely attacked the Blood Sisters with his Blight Kings and luckily only killed two; his rolls were bad as well, especially on the exploding 6s. I popped the Zainthar Kai command ability with a CP onto the Blood Sisters and did 41 attacks with 8 models and killed 4 Blight Kings, leaving only 2 left in the unit. So there is definitely some tremendous killing power here in this Temple. I was still miffed that while the base Bravery of Blight Kings is 8, their banner makes it 9, so having Bravery 9 snakes still does nothing in the Mindrazor department : /. From what I remember the Marauders killed half of my Blood Sister unit on the flank and they proceeded to butcher something like 15 of them, which caused them to lose bigtime to battleshock. He eventually brought up his knights and charged them into that unit, wiping the snakes out. But not before I finished off the Marauders. The Lord on Karkadrak swung around and attacked my Ironscale and Medusa, finishing them off as the Blight Kings killed the rest of my Blood Sisters in the center. The 2nd objective came down in his back quarter and at the most I would have been able to run a unit of Blood Stalkers to go try to claim it. I did not win priority at all after the first turn, which was rough. So I conceded because I had so few units left. Takeaways: Zainthar Kai can definitely be good in tandem with the Ironscale ability and definitely Morathi's ability. However, the lack of durability is always a problem, and if you're like me and flub your armor saves we crumble pretty quickly, which is just what happens sometimes. Immunity to battleshock for basically all of my units (despite having two sources of witchbrew) was nice just to not have to worry about losing my few units to it. The game definitely could have gone my way had the dice been a little more in my favor, and had I been more aggressive at wiping out his marauders and knights and just sort of ignoring his Blight Kings possibly could have helped. But Nurgle is a tough match-up for us because we just can't kill them fast enough. Learned a lot from this game. Game 2 was against an assortment of Tzeentch with Scribes, Ogroid Thaumatuge, Magister on Disk, Bray Shaman, Tzaangor Shaman on Disk and 6 Enlightened, big blob of Tzaangors with mixed weapons, a unit of flamers and a great flamer, and 10 Pink Horrors. My list was a follows: Zainthar Kai Temple Morathi-Khane -The Withering Shadow Queen Bloodwrack Medusa -General -Shadowstone -Mindrazor Ironscale -Bloodbane Venom 10 Blood Sisters 10 Blood Sisters 5 Blood Sisters 5 Blood Stalkers 5 Blood Stalkers Vyperic Guard Battalion. Everything except the Blood Stalkers was in the Vyperic Guard battalion. Sadly had a third artefact that I couldn't use because I only had two non-named characters. The mission we were playing was Total Conquest. I had much less drops and chose to go first. With the way this mission is you have to be 9” from enemy territory, so I put The Shadow Queen front and center and massed behind it, with one unit of 10 Blood Sisters behind her and the Medusa. On the right flank I had the 10 other Blood Sisters with the Ironscale. Closer to my backline I had the five other Blood Sisters to babysit Morathi-Khaine and the Blood Stalkers were positioned as close as possible to shoot but also grab the left corner objective. First turn started off on the back foot with Morathi-Khaine flubing Black Horror of Ulgu which could have easily eaten an enemy character. Contemplated using Morathi's command ability but I only had 2 Cps so elected to save them. I did spend one on Wrath of the Scathborn to let my snakes on the right flank run (or slither!) that extra 2d6 to claim one of my opponent's back corner objectives. Got off Mindrazor on my 10 Blood Sister unit in the center and put Mystic Shield on them as well from Morathi-Khaine. Everything moved up, with The Shadow Queen threatening his front line. Blood Stalkers claimed left objective, Morathi-Khaine and friends sat on my objective and super speed snakes grabbed the far right objective. Shooting went fairly well, with The Shadow Queen staring the at the Tzaangor Shaman and bringing him down to 2 wounds. Blood Stalker shooting was meh due to my dice rolls but got the Ogriod Thaumaturge down to 1 wound. Forgot he had a Bray Shaman, which would become a huge issue later for not killing him instead. The only charge that was in range was The Shadow Queen, which I figured I would use her as the beatstick she is an charged into the unit of Pink Horrors, the Enlightened, and the Magister and tie them up. Unfortunately for my first time using Morathi and my first time fighting Pink Horrors having your tarpit fight a better tarpit is not so good. I killed all of his Pink Horrors in one turn which of course turned into blues and brimstones. But this unfortunately let him start to spread the horrors around and creep them toward the back objective my 10 Blood Sisters were holding. The horror's attacks were ineffective but with the Enlightened he was able to inflict Morathi's 3 wounds for the first turn. He went next and got off the Blue Scribe ability that lets him reroll failed casting. Despite having Morathi's two unbinds and my Bloodwracks one unbind I failed to unbind anything. He did six mortal wounds with the Thaumaturge's spell to my buffed unit of 10 Blood Sisters and they ate dirt from my inability to roll Fanatical Faith saves. This also healed the Thaumaturge. He also was able to bring all of his Pink Horrors back from another spell. Flamers toasted one of my units of Blood Stalkers and also the shooting from the Pink Horrors were able to kill 3-4 Blood Sisters holding the back objective, again due to my inability to make any of my armor saves. The Enlightened noped out of combat from The Shadow Queen and along with the Magister on Disk and went after the left objective held by my Blood Stalkers. The big blob of Tzaangors moved up to threaten Morathi-Khaine and my units in the center. The Shadowqueen splattered more Pink Horrors but they were able to inflict the 3 wounds for the turn, bringing her down to 6. And then my opponent won the double turn. And then proceeded to forget his destiny dice and flub all but one spell from his Bray Shaman, Devolve. To his credit it was one of the first times he ever played Tzeentch. He used Devolve to pull my remaining unit of Blood Stalkers into combat with his Enlightened by the left objective. More shooting killed most of the Blood Sisters I had left and also inflicted the 3 wounds for the turn on the Shadow Queen. He charged in his Tzaangors and surrounded Morathi-Khaine and my small unit of Blood Sisters. Unable to attack Morathi-Khaine or the Shadow Queen he wiped out my Blood Stalkers and the rest of the Blood Sisters, while Morathi-Khane killed four Tzaangors and The Shadow Queen killed all of six horrors due to bad rolling. At this point I conceded because even with my next turn I would not be able to catch up in points. Takeaways: New Morathi is good! I find her much easier to use now that you can plunk her different aspects on different parts of the board and have them do what they excel at, provided you can actually roll well. This game Zainthar Kai was utterly useless. Couldn't use the extra artifact, couldn't use the command ability (because my units were all dead), higher Bravery didn't help. And Vyperic Guard did nothing because aside from low drops, I had no chance to even use a command ability for free because of the double turn wiping most of my units. It is a shame that Blood Sisters still need to be in blocks of 20 to survive long enough to do anything worthwhile. Blood Stalkers are still great at what they do, but when running Morathi I would have rather had a mega unit of Blood Sisters and just had them run up with The Shadow Queen and wreck face. The lack of prayer buffs was felt as well, as I did not take any Hags. That was a mistake I feel as well. If I had survived long enough to use my command abilities it would have helped. Also hindsight I probably should have shot the Blood Stalkers in the hero phase just for the extra damage it would have done. Again, learned a lot from these battles. Given enough time we will figure out what works and what does not. Hope my insights were helpful!

@Graywater I mirror most if not all of your thoughts. I personally feel like the missing ingredient to make things work as the designers intended with all these updates is to either make Blood Stalkers battleline or the Ironscale makes Melusai keyword battleline. Feels like a huge oversight for this to not have been mentioned anywhere.