Ser_namron

Big true, and if you want those snakes battleline your looking at 140-210.

It does indeed work as you are intending. I think thats a viable strategy, and i might try it out for sure. Stalkers not getting horde bonus is the killer though. you have 1160 points locked just in those 2 units. And once those stalkers get charged or shot you are scooping them away quickly. So i think its viable, but its a whole ton of eggs in one basket.

my 2 cents. They made the ability MUCH worse than it was. They didnt want us buffing the unit with MW, fair enough. But that was part of why Blood sisters had a spot in the army, they were reliable MW. They were the hammer among the thousand paper cuts. The new ability took so much away from the profile and the points stayed the same. GW has costed the unit as if it was the original profile when they nerfed the hell out of the original profile. And as far as the +1 attacks, as others have pointed out, only 1 is really viable, and thats on a 600 pt model. They shouldve at the very least dropped Blood sisters points to make up for the difference. The ability at the end of combat is terrible. Sure it's like kurnoth ability, but if we're trying to justify power levels by looking at sylvaneth units than were ****** lol. It is nowhere near the power level of what they've been putting out the past few tomes. Sure if they changed the way EVERYONES worked to be end of combat that could be justifiable. But its not, its a way worse version of what others ( eels/ evocators) have that was already a downgrade from the original crystal touch profile. GW takes a year to fix their ******, this change made the unit worse, flat out, with the only justification being you "MIGHT" buff them up to +1-3 attacks. But as we all know, to get those +2/3 attacks you need to make very sub optimal choices ( read; anti competitive/ shoot yourself in the foot) by taking a crappy temple, or a hero that would take 140 points in a list thats already hurting for points, and has one of the absolute worst mechanics to trigger that buff ive ever seen. OR by taking a 600 point model, which is in itself a huge investment. That shouldnt even factor into the stalkers base profile. So i think we're pissed because instead of us getting a competitive take on a snake army, we have a bunch of half baked mediocre rules that has boiled down to " well at least you can have fun losing with a full snake army like you've always wanted"

Honestly this would be huge lol. Those 2 things would help my salt levels.

Good insights overall on your post. I agree, at least we can fall back on DoK still being a contender with the tome we've had for 2+ years. It could be worse i guess lol. The problem is that the power level of the new tomes isnt going anywhere. GW keeps pumping out rules that are terribly overpowered and then they touch them 1x aftera a release and then brush up on them MONTHS later if at all. Pt increases/ decreases are not enough to tame some of the nonsense you will find inside the Lumineth or seraphon book. Petrifax didnt get taken care of for close to a year. It just sucks that to play this game you often have to just bide your time for GW to make their random decisions on power levels. And especially when we have been waiting for a new tome for 2+ years only to have them come up short purely by terrible rules writing that could be fixed with 2 sentences but that we KNOW wont be changed anytime soon. Make Ironscale have battleline snakes, make the Blood sisters ability happen at the start of combat. Done, that ****** easy. But it wont happen, and noone can tell me why because GW has absolutely 0 consistency with rules writing.

You make valid points. Im not sure if its worth it or not yet. I've only been able to play 1 game with new Morathi. WE are buff dependent to get full potential for sure, but 30 bodies with a 4+ save and 5+ FNP in hag-nar is , as we all know, nothing to scoff at. Idk if Morathis pure killyness makes up for the bodies you get in the grand scheme of the game. we run and charge WE, set up screens, take multiple objectives ( versus 1 objective with morathi that would still be lost if they had 2 enemy models in range of it). I think id rather keep taking 30 WE/hag/ shrine for 10 points more. That at least lets you take snakes battleline with points to beef up the army still. Idk, im thinking it might be time to just drop the Blood sisters all together and just go Morathi + WE + support. Blood sisters losing the MW touch is such a heavy hit im realizing. Thats how we got through high AS before, now we just dont have that without pure luck or an opponent that doesnt know how our ability works that will let snakes 1 in away without getting into combat. .

2 attacks each now, but went up 20 points to 140.

"how do you still have a job in game design" that's how i've felt the past year with GW lol.

Yup, unfortunately this is the take away. GW had a chance to switch up the army, and they missed the mark hard with poor rules writing in a half baked book instead of just giving us a new tome built from the bottom up. In the world of Lumineth/seraphon these changes are so underpowered its laughable. The MW at the end of combat is the biggest slap in the face yet. Only GW can completely ruin something for no reason. And tbh i wouldnt have felt that bad with buffable MW attacks. You bring a 600 pt model for +1 atk, and you bring a sub optimal temple for the other +1 atk , thats the trade off. As far as power levels go, i dont think thats far from recent releases. Ill give credit where credit is due for at least making stalkers usefull. Thats scrolls been dead so long i wasnt sure i'd ever bring a unit of them. And morathi changes are primo, but im still unsure if 600 pts is worth it. 60 WE or 1 morathi, thats alot of bodies that can accomplish a whole lot.

My bad, they all look the same when their chomping your face lol.

Morsarr eel are 4+ save base. They get an additional +1 cover bonus turn 1 from their allegiance, or a +1 bonus on the turn they charge. The new aura on the leviadon give units wholly within 12 " (15" with mount trait) +1 AS. So turn 1 as long as their wholly within 15" from the leviadon they have a 2+ armor. They also have an ability that lets them ignore rend, thats just on their scroll. so 2+ on turn 1 if their next to a turtle. turn 2 and beyond they need to charge to be 2+, otherwise they remain at 3+ ( while near turtle). So 2+/3+ unrendable reliably. They also have an allegience ability that makes it so enemies can only ever shoot the CLOSEST IDK model. So you put Morsarr eels out front, and your opponent HAS to shoot into 2+ unrendable eels. Its a bad time. They also have 14" movement and fly, so getting them up front is easy. Turtle Aura doesnt bracket like DoK cauldron aura, so its always a reliable 12-15".

I think it'd be more or less the same things we were running before. More bodies with the blood sisters being our hammer. Possibly blood stalkers instead as ranged support but without Morathi to hero phase activate them im not sure what the value will be out of them. Seeing as how noones used them in like 4 years haha. I personally dont see me taking the ironscale much since she doesnt unlock battleline and her extra attack bonus means giving up first activate. Maybe temple nest is viable now, but i dont see it replacing WE/SoS bombs.

Lol 2+ unrendable eels isnt good? 2+ on the charge in subsequent rounds? Pairing that unit with the allegiance ability to only have them be targets of shots is ridiculously good, and has only gotten better in the recent meta. The MWs are definitely nuts, especially when the opponent rolls 6s. I would never call eels bad, even after charge. They have a 14" move, you can easily retreat the unit and charge in with another, and now you have sharks that can REALLY help the survivability of eels by making units not pile in. Eels can get most places they want with a 14" fly and bonuses to charge. Eels by themselves are good, but paired with allegiance abilities and the new tricks IDK have are even better now. Theres a reason every IDK list is just eel spam for the past 2 years, and its not because eels were bad. The other scrolls were worse, dont get me wrong, but eels have never been bad, and they've only gotten stronger. with the new changes. I'll be gladly surprised if eel spam dies, but i expect eel spam + turtle now. Maybe a shark or two for the no piling in.

I think we're about to be seeing alot more IDK taking top spots in tournaments. The new units just made eels better, and eels were already too good. I dont think i truly got to test out Morathi so im holding my judgement, but i never ran her before because for her pts i could run 30-50 more bodies. Now for her cost i can run 60 WE. Its hard to match that value. I need practice with Morathi. You're list looks good, i forced the snakes battleline so i could grab a hefty blob of WE. 20 snakes + morathi is over half your points, so our options become pretty limited with that alone. Blood stalkers look interesting now, i will be checking them out for sure. But again, its hard to fit it all in right now. You either skimp on bodies or you skimp on leaders, and our leaders are pretty important.

No doubt, but thats also 930 points just for those 2 and you need 2 command points to do that. Pretty steep starting cost for the shenanigans lol.

So i played a quick 2k with my buddy to test out the new DOK/ IDK changes. Morathi- Mindrazor Shrine - General- Wither HQCB- Blessing of khaine/ iron circlet 30 WE w/ bucklers 20 Blood sisters 10 SoS w/ bucklers It wasnt really a good match to test stuff because IDK have some tricks up their sleeve that just render stuff useless. IDK changes are great for them. The turtle is incredibly good giving his eels 2+ non rendable on battle round 1. The Allopex nets are incredibly powerful, and honestly are a really lame and unfun mechanic to play against ( just has to HIT, on a 3+ from 18" away and you cant pile in with the unit. ). I could legit see allying in allopex for the nets. Turn 1 he let me go first, i kinda turtled in a corner and put monster morathi up front to soak the charge. Moved some WE up on the corner to make a charge next turn. Got BoK off on the blood sisters. His 1st turn he dropped eels 9" away, charged in with 2 units of 3 of the killy ones into the WE. Then he charged Morathi with 3 eels with the non rendable. The eels massacred the WE, i lost 24 models. That was with Hag nar 5+ and bucklers . Sharks also shot earlier making the WE not able to pile in. Funnily enough, he had piled into my Blood sisters from Morathi combat, and it allowed me to get my 20 dice to do MW on his unrendable eels. Got 13 MWs. So in this one niche situation, it actually worked out to my benefit lol. But i got lucky he piled in without realizing it worked that way. he won the double turn... always a bad time. He played it safe, charged his soulscryer with the orb artifact into morathi , and the sharks into the remaining WE and blood sisters. Both nets hit ( due to his battalion allowing him to reroll 1 dice per phase ) so neither could pile in. And the Soulscryer used the orb to negate combat from morathi ( hate that artifact) My turn 2 i hero phase activated the blood sisters, piled in and got 1 of the sharks and only had 1 attack into the scryer. Then i shot the soulscryer off the table and got the 1 remaining shark to 3. Charged Morathi into the turtle. I got a few attacks in to the allopex and killed em. Morathi into the turtle didnt go grea,t the turtle was a 2+ with some rerolls from a command point. So morathis damage couldnt really get through, i think only 1 heart render attack went through. The turtle doesnt bracket til 9 dmg. Turn 3.. i rolled a 6, and then he did. SO he got turn priority. Turn 3 he attacks first, pops 2 command points to give eels +2 attacks, charges 6 killy eels into the blood sisters, kills 16 of them ( they had 4+/5+5+ but rend -2 made them 6/5+5+) MOrathi attacked back for ****** and giggles, she was down 10 wounds by this point, and still got 6 dmg in with heart render. But ultimately i scooped with only the leaders in the back far far from the objective. So idk, wasnt a great testing game because IDK have some really imo cheesey rules and my friend who ran them played the new pile in perfectly and bided his time until turn 3 where you more or less lose to IDK. My thoughts- -Morathi caster is great, but +1 casting and we're looking for 7s isnt reliable. When mindrazor didnt go off turn 2 it REALLY hurt. I also rolled like garbage on my black horror spell and did 1 MW both times it cast. Same for bloodwrack medusa, needed a 7 for wither 0 mod. - The Morathi buff for melusai within 18" is really easy to activate and is certainly nice. With mindrazor melusai murder. But without it they are only ok. - Can we ally deepkin? If so allopex with nets could be amazing. making something not pile in, barely tagging it with Blood sisters and getting that after combat MW on the unit could be pretty gnarly. But just stopping a unit from piling in for 110 points in general is really good.

So blood sisters dont even get there MW attacks during any hero phase activates since its " at the end of combat phase" correct? If so this is the worst change ive ever seen. Completely neuters the ability because of when they decided to make it activate. Top tier rules writing as always.

your local meta must clench everytime you enter the store hahah. Thats awesome man! You've got good insights and you make valid points. Im skeptical the new temple will make people switch from Hag Nar, the 5+ / reroll turn 3 is just too good imo, and even more so if were going heavy on snakes who dont have the best defense. So i think taking the medusa on foot will still be a problem since we wont want to lose her. Like you said, were going off half baked info, so its all speculation. I've never been one to use Morathi because i hated her profile before this new scroll. so this is honestly new territory for me building around her. I've always just thrown more bodies in and have been happy lol.

No doubt, but it'd be nice to have a few and not an all eggs in one basket situation. The morathi command ability not needing her as your general is clutch, thats how it always should have been. I assume the same will happen to SQ if we get a new tome. Im more worried of needing to assemble the support leaders ontop of Morathi. Def want 1 or 2 hags brews, probably one of them needs to be a cauldron. You want Medusa as general for snek battleline, but if shes on foot in the current meta your gonna lose your command trait real fast, so she probably also needs to be on a shrine. Thats well over 1k points already. Blood sisters arent cheap either, even units of 5 to fill battleline will be pricy. Im having a hard time throwing in anything besides leaders and battleline in my first few lists.

Oof 600 pts is alot. It seems like she will be worth it though. Still need something else to make snakes battleline otherwise its gonna be a struggle to run a snake heavy morathi list with all the tricks.

Wheres the -3 come from? -1 base, prayer for another -1?

You make a really good point with last year vs this year. My playgroup keeps telling me shooting is the new meta, but i play KO in our group, and noone else is really running shooting heavy lists, so i guess my view might be skewed due to that. And i hear you with the not really needing that hero phase since most ranged units die in CC pretty easily. Definitely given me something to think about.

For sure, like all things in this game the variables change person to person. I just look back at the games ive played with DoK and the SQ hero phase activate is literally whats won me games so many times, verus my hags which usually survive because their bubblewrapped pretty heavily by bodies. I really like the new Morgwaeth kit, havent got to try it out but its a nice middle ground between a hag on cauldron and a hag on foot. Definetely going to find room in my list to test it out.

Doing an escalation with some friends, started at 1k, going to 2k, 250 pt increases. We also did some unit bans to spice it up. Endrinmaster w/ dirigible got banned 💔 ( there goes my baloon force 5 list of skywardens and endrinmasters). We each have 3 armies we are allowed to use so i cant quite predict what ill be facing. Anyway, heres my list for 1250. I've found myself loving Barak thryng, the rules are pretty much all good-great versus every other sky port having some garbage and mainly only wanting 1 or 2 of their options. Choosing 3 units to grudge is amazing, its like a better escort wing battalion ability. The endrinmaster is a friggin sleeper too, with the forced artifact he can dish out some seriously impressive dmg. My friends have started to be very wary of charging my ships because of him. The strategy is pretty simple, let the ArkCo run up to objectives ( 1 unit in the frigate to drop off where needed) and have 1 gunhauler/ 3 riggers be a little shooting strike force ( ive been rolling WAY to hot with drill cannons/launchers so i have been leaning into them. Hero sniping potential is next level. ). The frigate/1 hauler/ (2) 3 man rigger teams are for focusing targets. If need be i can drop the riggers off at objectives or call an audible and have them go to kill something minor thats either on a point or that is dangerous to let charge. Obviously my drops are incredibly high, but since we can park in the backline and just Fly high, i dont really mind. Just gotta watchout for crazy range like the mortek crawlers ( the source of all my salt can be traced back to these ****** abominations ). Only 1 navigator for a single unbind/dispell , but that ability to half a flyers movement is AMAZING. even better when it does D3 MW. But ya, any sugestions im open to them. My 1k list was very similar - 3 riggers and 1 gunhauler. Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords- Sky Port: Barak ThryngSpearhead10 x Arkanaut Company (90)- 1x Skypikes- 1x Light Skyhooks- 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns10 x Arkanaut Company (90)- 1x Skypikes- 1x Light Skyhooks- 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns10 x Arkanaut Company (90)- 1x Skypikes- 1x Light Skyhooks- 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns3 x Endrinriggers (100)- 1x Drill Launcher3 x Endrinriggers (100)- 1x Drill Launcher3 x Endrinriggers (100)- 1x Drill Launcher1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (130)- Main Gun: Drill Cannon- Great Endrinworks: Coalbeard's Collapsible Compartments1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (130)- Main Gun: Drill CannonMain BodyEndrinmaster with Endrinharness (100)- General- Command Trait: Supremely Stubborn- Artefact: GrudgeHammerAetheric Navigator (100)Arkanaut Frigate (220)- Main Gun: Heavy Sky CannonRearguardTotal: 1250 / 1250Extra Command Points: 0Wounds: 93 Post game edit- Didnt go well in my practice against LoN. The no rend from that army just reallllllly ****** us. That along with a necromancer that can bring back a 300pt unit for 1 CP its just an uphill battle. Tried to snipe the necromancer and rolled 2 6s for my drill cannons, but they shrugged off on a 4+ and death saved on 6+ more then i care to count lol.

I find it hard to leave home without bring a SQ on cauldron as general, that Hero phase activate is a game changer. Curious why people are leaving her out of most lists it seems? Just to have that Hag queen on Cauldron with some extra wounds?