Rebluff

So wait....witch aelves only get +1 to wound from TOTEMS now? Wow...they really worked hard to make sure we'd be doing Morathi 15 snakes for another edition. There's basically no redeeming features for SoS or WE compared to Blood Stalkers or upgraded Blood Sisters. Also, I'm reading goonhammer's review and it seems like the guy didn't even look at the last battletome? Like, bloodrites haven't let BloodStalkers reroll ones for a LONG time.

Technically only 9 too because you can still do the 3 to Morathi-Khaine first. If that's the way the rules intended, the only way you don't lose Morathi by the top of turn 2 is if your opponent has literally 0 Magic or Shooting.

So, real quick: We can all agree that the intent of the Morathi rule change is probably NOT to make it so it's super easy to kill her in one turn, correct? (sidebar: The direct mechanism of allocation vs. negation is confusing and based on an interaction between the Slain Models subsection and the Ward Save subsection. My read of it is that the 'can only allocate 3 wounds' rule is the only part of that rule that actually has an effect and the rest is superfluous leftover from before ward saves and wound allocation had a unified timing. Also, technically, if a wound can't be negated it can still be allocated to a unit that's been destroyed by RAW. Not sure what gameplay implications that might have but it's pretty funny.) If the FAQ comes out and it turns out they DID mean for Morathi to be killed in one turn every game, that makes her DoA right? We're not paying 680pts for a unit with the defensive profile of a Hag Cauldron that can't be healed, right?

Do you remember where you saw the non-Morathi Bowsnake lists being successful? I've followed the tournament scene on and off since the book dropped and the only time I remember seeing competitive DoK lists without Morathi's Angelstm were theorycrafts from when the book first dropped. I'd be really interested in reading up on what the off meta people were doing. I know locally people were bringing other stuff and sometimes getting 3-0s or 2-1s but you could 3-0 a locals with 0 Depravity Slaanesh if had some good luck and your opponents had 1 too many lunch break Margaritas.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the Morathi+Bowsnakes build being nerfed, so I guess it's fine.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Duh. That's much worse then.

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How so? As far as I can tell you just have to rally first. Did I miss something in the wording?

As of right now it looks like the rest of the book is copy paste, rather than finely tuned. Our secondaries are pretty good though. We basically start the game with 3VP because of how easy Bloodthirsty Zealots is to score. Clash of Arms is easy, Tide of Blades is easy, Hatred of Chaos is easy for HaggNarr in that matchup. Unexpected attack is easy to get if you brought shadowstalkers. The other two exist.

I mean, against most armies you'll be losing a moderate number of models before combat really starts. Rallying back a handful of bowsnakes when going second seems pretty great. I'm not a huge fan of anything that revolves around your Non-Morathi character's personal combat efficacy. With Artefacts I usually stop reading after 'pick one of the bearer's melee weapons'. Arcane Mastery seems unnecessary unless there's an easy way to get more spell casts(Master of Magic is probably better), Bathed in blood is fine but unless you have a Cauldron General it doesn't really do much. Fueled by rage is good but in a snake list I would say Zealous is probably better in most cases. Master of Poisons is a meme. True Believer is kind of whatever. I guess if you're doing like an Aggro frontline cauldron it's decent. Sacrificial Overseer could be good. I'm not 100% sure how that works with the mount rules now, but fighting twice is almost always solid. Would probably rather still have a force multiplier ability though.

So just staple Zealous Orator to your general then?

Which I don't doubt, it's just classic GW to ****** up a copy paste. Remember the Shadow Queen's Schrodinger's Rend-2?

They completely unnecessarily changed one word in the rule and completely F-ed up it's interpretation. Also, with the changes to the way Ward Saves are worded now, they could have dropped everything beyond 'only 3 wounds can be allocated to this model' the OLD rule was to deal with non-uniform ward rules preventing wounds after being allocated.

The old rule was written in a really dumb way too, but because it says wounds beyond the 3 were ignored, it bypassed rules that ignored rule negation so it couldn't possibly create any issues. Now it does.

Shadowqueen warscroll leaked. Found the Morathi Nerf. They changed the last sentence of the first paragraph on the ShadowQueen's warscroll from 'any further wounds and mortal wounds that would be allocated to this model are ignored and have no effect.' to 'any further wounds and mortal wounds that would be allocated to this model are NEGATED. This means that wounds that come from Morathi-Khaine, which cannot be negated, ignore the Ironheart of Khaine rule now. So any army with decent spellcasting/shooting that can target out Morathi-Khaine can now kill Morathi in 1 turn. Maybe. The wording is goofy.

The problem is turn 1 shooting phase. Melee DoK lists didn't work in 3.0 because you'd lose half your Witch Aelves before you got to move against a lot of armies. Now it's something like 3/4ths. We more or less don't have army rules unless we're charging. And Morathi+Bow snakes is STILL probably our best list.

So there's no way to get the 5++ on your opponent's turn before turn 4? RIP. They did exactly what I hoped they wouldn't do. They buffed the army's output 20% without fixing the greater systemic issues relating to durability and utility. At least Morathi+Bow Snakes is still around.

Boo PTG preview Boo. Sorry PTG fans.

Does it matter, really? I don't know about you but I don't think I've had a cast go off unbound this entire edition. Between Croak, Teclis, and just failing the die roll, I've accepted that magic won't ever do much for me.

Draichi+Gladiatrix was already a thing though, wasn't it? That's the one combo that received almost no changes. It's interesting that your problem is output because historically, I haven't had any problem killing something once I got stuck in with it, I struggled having more than 4 witch aelves left at the end of my opponent's first shooting phase. 😔

So my theorycraft at this point is that not a whole lot is going to change. We'll be doing a lot of what we've already been doing but with a bit of a spin on it. If they don't want to nerf Morathi+BloodStalkers, I guess we can just continue to ride that 55-60% winrate train until it derails. If I had to build a list I would say something along the lines of: Hagg Narr: (Upon further reflection I think Hagg Narr is actually even further ahead of the rest of the field than it was. 5++>All) Morathi(Mindrazor) Medusa(relevant command trait, The Withering) Hag Queen (Blessing of Khaine, Relevant Relic) 15 Blood Stalkers 10 Witch Aelves 10 Witch Aelves 10 Shadowstalkers 5 Blood Sisters

Like I said, I'm definitely missing full context and it's different enough that we likely won't see the army reach its potential right away. I definitely think it offers a broader selection of builds that can all compete with one another. I just hope they'll also be able to compete with everyone else.

Some is rumors from the same source that chart is. The Mindrazor thing is me misreading Mirror Dance. Oops. 😬

My initial impression is that there needs to be some significant synergistic interaction that hasn't been spoiled or we might be in trouble. We obviously don't have the whole picture yet and even with the codex in hand it will take a couple of weeks to actually gauge the quality of the book, but this is pretty underwhelming thus far. Khinerai are even more 'min unit to deepstrike onto objectives and nothing else' than they were before. The fact that they're still 95 points is really sad. I see now what Chump was talking about as far as 'all will see play' goes. The bonuses are more minor now so it doesn't really matter which one you take. I imagine the teleport will be the most popular but I don't think any of them are standouts. The Mindrazor change is disappointing but minor. In my experience it only went off once every 3 or 4 games without getting unbound anyway. Morathi nerfs suck. The CA change is better than I was hoping for but a 20pt bump, losing +1 to cast, AND apparently having a worse damage table isn't great. Maybe hope to get her back under 600 after the next GHB? Witchbrew is better. I'm not sure you'd take a hag for it though. Hard to comment on Cauldrons without seeing the updated warscroll but +1 to prayer might be good? I haven't taken a priest in a DoK list since 2nd, but maybe? Bucklers change is better against shooting, worse against melee because they lost the mortal wound effect. Not sure how that balances out. Should be pretty similar. Need clarification on the Blood Sister thing works. If it's the same rule but at the end of their activation and a 2=, massive improvement. If the 1" range is per MODEL instead of per unit now, it's slightly better. The points look a little silly to me. The only warscrolls we know for sure about are WE, Gladiatrix, Morath, and Khinerai and 3 out of 4 of those seem significantly overcosted from the jump. Again, missing full context here but I'm not seeing anything that really says 'wow this will be cool/fun/strong!'. My first read is just taking Haggnarr and the Bloodrites bonus abilities and stacking them until you can get at least 1 big unit to 5++ turn one. So how it used to work in second but you without immune to battleshock and requiring more setup.

Is the faction heroic action good?