This month is bringing a massive host of updates to Age of Sigmar as the setting transitions to Ghyran, the realm of life. Each army is getting two whole pages of additional rules and optional alternative warscrolls for you to use in your games and we are very excited about all of it! Before we get stuck in, a thank you to Games Workshop for providing us with these rules as an early release to review.
Daughters of Khaine have had a rough go of things since 4th started. Almost since its inception, Morathi and the Bow Snakes have been the goto terror, consistently good and sometimes even meta shaping. She hasn’t done as hot lately, since it’s a lot easier to keep her tied up (or risk taking D3 mortals on the retreat) and bow snakes now only being auto-wound instead of mortals.
There’s been the occasional moment here and there for the army but in general it’s been an uphill climb. Whether utilizing Morathi and Snakes or Krethusa and Aelves, both tend to struggle. This Scourge of Ghyran update seems to want to improve the aelf style of play with buffs to two of they important buff pieces the Bloodwrack Shrine and Krethusa. There’s also a new Prayer lore to play around and 2 new subfactions. Sadly if you’re a Morathi and the Spear/Bow Snakes fan, you’re a bit out of luck here.
Battle Formations
The battle formations of the Daughters are generally pretty good. Scathcoven if you want to run lots of Spear Snakes, and Slaughter Trope for Aelves, with the other 2 being more general for either.
The two given are buffs for Aelfs only, so basically Sisters of Slaughter, Witch Aelves or Shadowstalkers need apply here. On their own, the reliance on defense buffs is strange. Daughters of Khaine are delicate and it’s difficult to reverse that trend. The best way for them to survive is to get into combat and kill the enemy first. However, keep reading, there’s a lot of stuff in this pack that makes tarpitting a possible option.
Coven Zealots
Coven Zealots grant the Higher Purpose ability which lets a unit return D3 models to an infantry Aelf unit. A solid ability once the party is over, it’s not a lot, but in 4th edition any healing is worth its weight in gold
Arena Veterans
Graceful Elusion gives all your Aelf units a 5+ Ward for the turn until they fight. This can be a bit dicey to use since Daughters of Khaine tend to want to fight first and not give themselves a chance to get hit in the first place but sometimes you can’t manage that, or sometimes you have to manage multiple combats. If the enemy has to swing at you first there’s basically no downside as you can now swing back without punishment.
This probably plays a lot better into Sisters of Slaughter where they’re also -1 to be hit, really upping their survivability.
Prayer Lore – Bloodshadow Rites
The Prayer lore of Daughters of Khaine definitely did need some work. While the spell lore was solid the prayer lore could be easily skipped outside of the ability to buff Blood Rites for a turn. The new one does step up the game a fair bit, giving a solid suite of defensive and offensive options.
Shadowstep
Chant Value 3, pick an Aelf Infantry unit wholly within 12″ and move them 6″. This can bypass enemy units but they cannot end in combat. On a chant value of 8 you can pick 2 units.
This is just a very solid ability, it doesn’t count as removing from the battlefield so you can move in the movement phase. While the ability to bypass combat ranges isn’t great for getting through units since 6″ won’t give you much room to move, it is a way to escape combat and charge later.
This is an unlimited prayer, but you cannot pick a unit that’s already been affected so no chaining moves, either.
Scathscale
Chanting Value 3, target an Aelf Infantry unit wholly within 12″ and they’re -1 to be wounded. On a Chant Value of 8 it becomes an Aura to all friendly units wholly within 12″ of it.
A pretty good defensive buff especially if taken in tandem with Arena Veterans. It especially pops off with the supercharged version, put it on some Sisters of Silence and you can be -1 to hit, -1 to be wounded and a ward save. Now we’re talking defense.
Exultation of Murder
Chanting Value 4, pick an Aelf Infantry unit wholly within 12. Give them +1 to wound, and on a chant value of 9 grant them an extra attack too. Now that’s an offensive buff!
The Aelf half of the army’s biggest weakpoint is the awful 4+ to Wound, so getting that buff earlier than the Round 4 Blood Rites gives you is a huge deal. And that’s even before you supercharge it with the 9 cost version. Volume of attacks was already the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter’s strong suit, why not up the ante?
This easily makes this entire lore worth it and probably easily worth looking at over the base version if you’re going for a more horde heavy list.
Warscrolls
The two units they chose are interesting. Krethusa is interesting, since she does see play in the aelf style lists already. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement, however. The Bloodwrack Shrine definitely needs the help, as it’s pretty much ignored entirely for the Cauldrons of Blood.
Krethusa
I’m hard pressed to say the new Krethusa is a straight upgrade, but she puts up a pretty damn good argument. She losts her Burnt Offerings ability, which was powerful for the fact that it had long range and was very reliable. She also lost her prayer, but did get a new one (and it’s a lot better).
The new Krethusa is meant to get more up close than old one which kept a healthy distance. She has a slightly better combat profile, +1 attack and Auto-wound, not huge but she can more meaningfully contribute when charging alongside a block of Witch Aelves.
She’s a better priest now, able to chant two prayers per turn now. She also generates D3 ritual points on the enemy Hero Phase, which makes chanting the supercharged version of Exultation of Murder on Turn 1 possible very early on.
Her new warscroll Prayer is really good too, similar to burn offerings it offers 3 “prophecies” you can pick from, though now you must naturally go through the process of chanting the prayer. On a chant value of 3 you pick a friendly Aelf Infantry wholly within 12″ and get to pick from:
- Enemies cannot use commands when in combat with them
- Special effects from enemy weapons in combat with that unit other than Companion do nothing, so no auto wound, no crit mortals, etc.
- Subtract 1 from Ward Rolls against attacks made by target unit
The first option is pretty much always good, while the other 2 are situational to what are your facing. If you get a 9 on the chant roll you get all three. Melt through those Death and Nurgle units while shutting off their weapons and ability to All Out Defence.
A final nice touch is a command ability to bring back a dead Aelf Infantry unit at half strength. Recursion doesn’t exist in DOK so this is huge. Infantry lists also have a lot of units so that’s a lot of units you get to bring back over the course of the game.
Bloodwrack Shrine
The Bloodwrack Shrine has sort of struggled compared to the Cauldrons of Blood. While the Cauldrons help the defense of the blocks of Witch Aelves youre going to run with Krethusa, the Bloodwrack Shrine doesn’t really do that, and just pings some mortal wounds. You’re mostly bringing it for the wizard, which you can get on foot for much cheaper.
So what does it do now? A fair amount actually. It’s now a Wizard 2, giving it an actual upgrade over the foot version and its warscroll spell is situational but useful. When cast opponents cannot set up units or manifestations within 12″ of it. Put it in the middle of a big block of Witch Aelves and they won’t be caught off guard by some Stormcast trying to drop right into their business.
The new version of the ranged attack is situationally better. Instead of a horde clearer that does mortal wounds to large groups, its now 4 attacks at Rend 2 Damage 3 (ouch!) with Crit 2 Hits and Auto Wound. You also can pick a unit within 15″ (doesn’t need to be the one you shot now) and if you roll higher than their health characteristic you can reroll failed hit rolls against that unit for the rest of the phase. Throw a block of Witch Aelves with rerollable hits and they won’t survive the day.
Overall it’s a great change and I expect it to show up more. It’s also the one thing that doesn’t really require you run Witch Aelf spam since its bonuses don’t require those units.
Final Thoughts
It’s a bit unfortunate that this only seems to silo off to focus on a specific style of play for DOK and doesn’t show any love for the Snake half, but I also get it. The Aelf half has been struggling, it needed the help. I do love these changes as they encourage some very different styles of play that I actually do think come together in a way that will help the army go a long way.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.
