And finally, we’re at the last list I wanted to make: a Snake heavy Daughters of Khaine force. This list will lack monsters, the whole army does, but the aesthetic of the Melusai units plays into my love of Greek mythology so well that this concept sorely tempts me.

 

Goal:

Monstrous women all over the place, stabbing you to death while cackling maniacally. Yeah, that sounds goods.

Research:

First up, can the Melusai be battleline? Without that, then the army would simply not fit the goal. Luckily, not only is the answer yes but the new book has expanded the options. Now both Bloodwrack Medusa and Melusai Ironscale can be taken as general, and they make both Blood Sisters and Blood Stalkers battleline (previously, it was just the Medusa/Stalkers).

Next question is to Morathi or not? It is tempting, the serpent-model is possibly the best in the AoS range (yes, like the Light of Eltharion) but that is part of the reason I think I’m going to say no. First, if I have that the rest of the army will suffer for attention, second Morathi is more than a quarter of the army in points. When a model takes up that much of your points allocation, you have to build the army around it and may well pull us away from our goal.

Last thing to check out before starting the list is what subfaction I want to use, in this case listed as Temples. Zainthar Kai is dedicated to snakes (and Khinerai) so the obvious go to for the army. I’d definitely try them out, but my attention was first grabbed by Khailebron. This temple makes the army more resilient to shooting (-1 to hit), gives the same to the general in melee and can teleport a unit near the general around the battlefield.  

Battalions?

Scathcoven requires a Medusa or Ironscale, sisters, stalkers and maybe some Khinerai. The benefit is immune to battleshock, which seems pretty damn awesome if you ask me.

Building the list:

As usual when building to a battalion, my first stop is to fill out the basics of that battalion: We’ll start with a Melusai Ironscale for the character and one unit each of Blood Stalkers and Blood Sisters. Now for this army I already have an image in mind of a Bloodwrack Shrine with a full 20 strong unit of Sisters around it, with some Stalkers skulking around picking off shots and Khinerai ready to swoop down.

Turn 1, and the 20 strong unit teleports to an inconvenient location (like the back of a Volkswagen) while the Medusa casts steed of Shadows and the Shrine flies away 14”. 

 

I like this plan a lot, so we’ll expand the Blood Sisters by another 15 and add in another 5 Blood Stalkers (to round out the battleline), along with the Shrine. Let’s round off things for now with one each of the Khinerai units (both look useful).

That brings us to 610 spare! Wow, okay. Now Melusai are fragile, with just a 5+ save and two wounds, but the new Invocation (Heart of Fury) reduces incoming damage by 1 for units within 12”. Couple that with the defence against shooting and picking my target via teleporting/deep striking and I’m a happy camper. We’ll add that to the list.

It’s a prayer, and prayers need priestesses to invoke. We’ll have two spare (I think?) from the Bloodwrack Shrine, but I’m going to opt for the more expensive option by grabbing Morgwaeth from Underworlds as, for now at least, she’s criminally undercosted (and her band includes a snake!).

Finally, I’m going to wrap things up with more snakes (10 more Stalkers, so there’ll be 20 in total now), a Slaughter Queen and a Hag Queen to bring us to a round 2000. I’d really like a second Bloodwrack Medusa, but would have to buy a second Cauldron of Blood kit for that alone, so I’ve opted to use the priestess models already owned.

The Army:

Bloodwrack Shrine

Hag Queen

Slaughter Queen

Melusai Ironscale

Morgwaeth

10 Blood Stalkers

10 Blood Stalkers

20 Blood Sisters

10 Khinerai

This is 59 models plus one endless spell, but working out the price is where it gets interesting. The Shadow and Pain box set gives us 10 Blood Sisters/Stalkers, 5 Khinerai and 1 Melusai Ironscale plus a load of Slaanesh models that I don’t want. I’m going to assume that I can/will sell those, so count it as half the cost of the new box. The Start Collecting set covers the Shrine, both Queens and 5 more Snakes. This means that two lots of Shadow and Pain with one Start Collecting nets me most of the army, and assuming the Slaanesh models sell, picking up a third S&P box is actually cheaper than grabbing the Melusai boxes separately.

Overall, I figure this would cost £290 RRP after selling the Slaanesh halves for exactly half RRP.

 

Pros:

Similar model count to one of the other contending armies (dwarves) but significantly more variety in the models that I’d be painting. The four extra models are probably easier to build/paint than a second magmadroth too.

It’s managed to stay in theme pretty well, unlike those same dwarfs, and works out cheaper than almost all other armies, save the Stonehorn heavy Beastclaw Raider list.

Cons:

There is no stomping in this list. Like at all. And I feel it is flimsy, even for a DoK list (as they normally take the Cauldron to help with saves). One bad move and I could lose a game very quickly.

 

Next up, I had planned to write up my final thoughts and actually make a choice. That’s not going to happen, because yet another list has caught my eye and, while I don’t think I’ll pick it, I have got to see what it can do.