The steam train of Age of Sigmar releases rolls on, as this weekend sees the preorder of not just one Sigmar Battletome, but two.

For the purposes of this article we’ll be taking a deep dive into the Order army, the Daughters of Khaine.

Matt has been busy typing up his review of the second Battletome up for preorder this weekend, the Sylvaneth, which you can check out here.

In this review we’ll be checking out the Battle Traits, Artefacts and Warscrolls of the Daughters, as well as taking a closer look at the brand new minis which are accompanying the release.

If you fancy preorder the new DoK Battletome or any of the accompanying minis then why not check out our affiliates over at Element Games? Not only will you save cash VS RRP, but you’ll also be doing us a solid, and help us to continue doing what we are doing!

Right, with all the prelims out of the way, let’s get stuck in!

Unboxing the New Models

Fancy checking out the full unboxing of the brand new unit, the Blood Hags, and the scenery piece, the Shrine of Dark Tribute? Of course you do!

We get two new kits in this wave, the Blood Hags (£37) and the Shrine of Dark Tribute (£42.50)

It seems that a lot of factions are getting both terrain and endless spells when they are missing from the range, and the Daughters of Khaine are no different now getting their very own terrain piece! We’ll chat a little more about what it does later, but the kit was really quick to build up and paint!

There’s a few cool things with the Shine – the main feature being that you can dedicate it to Morathi or the Krone-hag. There’s no rules difference here, but some subtle changes such as swapping out the icon on the top arch of the terrain piece and swapping out the blood cauldron for a flaming brazier.

I had great fun painting this one up and I’d be tempted to pick up a couple to use as Places of Power on the battlefield.

Next up we have the Blood Hags – now I enjoyed painting these up, but they are very very fiddly to build – If I was building any more I’d probably lose my patience with the hair being in multiple parts and then connecting to the head on a very specific point. My advice would be to take your time with these and make sure that each assembly is fully dried before trying to build the next, otherwise the vapors from the plastic glue may cause them to come apart.

That said though, they are a very cool unit and it’s a nice change of pace painting something up with lots of armour!

That’s the models that are up for pre order today, but what about the new Daughters of Khaine Battletome? Let’s take a look…

Battle Traits

It’s great to see the DoK with a new book, as I know rumours had them being potentially moved on or merged with another faction, but nope, they are back!

So, what’s changed since the Faction Pack from the start of the addition? I’m going to try and call out the changes, but I’ll also be treating this review as if this is the first time you are coming across this faction.

The overall rules for the Daughters are mainly split between two key abilities, Anointed and Blood Rites. Let’s run through all the abilities now:

• Anointed Ritualist: At the start of the first battle round you choose one of your Non-Unique Daughters of Khaine Heroes. That Hero gains the Anointed keyword. They keep this keyword even if they are destroyed. Anointed units treat Exalted abilities on their warscrolls of friendly Anointed units that have been destroyed as if they were on their warscrolls. This ensures you always have some key abilities active even when key characters get taken out.
• Bloody Succession: Each time a friendly Anointed unit is destroyed, then you get to immediately pick another unit to become Anointed, as per the rules for Anointed Ritualist.
• Strident War Cry: A Once per turn ability you can use on a Anointed unit that has declared a Charge. You can then pick a friendly unit within 12″ and Charge with them too. This grants said unit a free reroll and importantly calls out that you can use this ability even if it isn’t your Charge phase.
• Blood Rites: You perform a Blood Rite when one of a number of things happen which include one of your friendly Anointed units dying, destroying a unit holding an objective or dealing damage with an Anointed unit.
• Blessings of Khaine: Once per turn, at the end of any turn (so yours or your opponents) you can pick a blessing from an extensive list. Whilst a blessing is active it affects all of your Daughters units. You can only activate a blessing once, however you can have multiple different blessings up at the same time. Their are some very strong abilities in here, as you can see in the table below:

+1 to Hit Rolls in Combat	+1 to Wound in Combat
Add 3″ to Movement	5+ Ward Save fir any unit that charged
-1 to Hit from Shooting Attacks	Can Retreat then Shoot or Charge

Battle Formations

When you decide to create a Daughters list, you get to choose from one of the four available Battle Formations. Each of these lean into a particular aspect of how the Daughters can be taken, as you’ll see below:

• Breath of Khaine: Your models are not visible to an enemy unit unless they are within 9″, so long as you are contesting an objective.
• Heretic’s Bane: At the start of your enemies turn you select one wizard or priest in your opponent’s army. You then roll a dice for each objective you control. For each 3+ your opponent subtracts 1 from casting and chanting rolls for the rest of the turn.
• Bloody-Handed Worshippers: This is a wordy one, but in short you select a non-hero unit that is within the combat range of an Anointed unit. You can choose to Fight straight after the Anointed unit. Not only that, but you can Crit (Auto-Wound) too, or Crit Mortals should the unit already have Auto-Wound.
• Final Frenzy: Pick each friendly Daughters unit that is contesting an objective (it doesn’t mention any cap, or any particular unit type). You get to return D3 slain models to each target that has a Health Characteristic of up to 2. Alternatively return one slain model to each target that has a Health characteristic of 3+.

Normally I only like 1 or 2 of the most recent Battletome’s Battle Formations, but all four are really good in this one. The weakest is probably the Bloody-Handed Worshippers one, as you’ll only have one Anointed unit kicking round and it requires some careful positioning and charging, but has a great trade-off.

I actually really like the Heretic’s Bane Formation, as it’s a fun mechanic and could really scupper your opponent’s plans, in particular if they only have one or two casters.

Heroic Traits

Moving on to Heroic Traits, and again, lots of changes here. Already we are seeing a very different set of rules compared to the Faction Pack from the launch of the edition.

So what have we got now to dish out to our heroes?

• Shadow-Blooded: Ths trait kicks in when you issue a Redeploy within 12″ of this unit. If you roll a 1-3, then you can use a value of 4″ instead to move.
• Hand of Khaine: This one kicks off in the combat phase. Pick an enemy hero in combat with this hero. Roll 2D6. If the roll exceeds the target’s Health characteristic then the enemy hero is destroyed. If this happens, then your hero can fight twice, but has Strikes Last on the second turn of fighting.
• Murderous Duellist: Again a combat phase ability. Roll pick an enemy unit that has no more than 1 model and is in combat with this model. Roll 2D6. If the roll exceeds the target’s Control characteristic, for the rest of the turn if this unit is in combat with the target when the target is picked to use a Fight ability, all of the target’s attacks must target this unit. Basically a Taunt ability.

Hand of Khaine is clearly, for me, the winner here. Shadow-Blooded is also very handy, whilst the Murderous Duellist has a use, but would be third choice for me.

Artefacts of Power

Time to check out the Artefacts.

Again, no returning items here, all brand new. Let’s check them out:

• Crimson Draught: Gives your unit re-roll charges. Simple. Effective.
• Darkling Elixir: An End of Turn ability, where you can pick a friendly Daughters unit within 12″ and roll a dice. On a 3+ the target unit can Retreat as if it was your Movement phase.
• Witchbrew: This one is usable in your Hero phase, and allows you to pick a non-Hero unit. On a 3+ they ignore negative modifiers to save rolls until your next turn.

All solid choices. It’s great to see Witchbrew back, a classic Artefact for the Daughters of Khaine!

Spell Lore & Prayer Lore

Now then, two spells are back, sort of.

Steed of Shadows now only needs a 5 to cast, but has the same effect, the ability to Run and Charge. Mindrazor is back, down to 7 to cast, but now does +1 damage on the Charge.

The brand new spell, Black Horror of Ulgu, goes off on a 6. You pick a point on the battlefield and pick up to 3 enemy units within 3″. If the spell goes off then the chosen targets cannot Run.

Moving over to the Prayers, and Covenant of the Iron Heart returns, but has now changed to a Control Score buffing prayer (and also allows you to ignore the first point of damage if it goes off on a 6+).

Catechism of Murder grants a unit Crit (Auto-Wound) on a chant roll of 3, and on a 7+ the target’s attacks crit on an unmodified 5+ rather than a 6+. Dance of Doom grants an extra Attack for melee weapons on a 4, but on a chanting role of 10+ the selected unit can fight twice (Strike Last for the second Fight action).

Warscrolls

The one a lot of you have been waiting for, the Warscroll changes.

Now, I’m going to try and pick out the key bits that have changed, so this isn’t a comprehensive list of changes. Apologies if I miss anything key out.

• Morathi-Khaine: Her abilities have completely changed. She no longer auto dies if The Shadow Queen is taken out. She gets an extra benefit when a blood rite is performed which you can choose from a great list of buffs including Heal (D6) this unit or The Shadow Queen, a teleport for this model and allowing the Shadow Queen a Move or Retreat. Can grant herself or a friendly unit +1 to cast/chant.
• The Shadow Queen: Lost her ranged attack. She’s lost her Iron Heart ability, however once per battle, so long as you’ve had 3 blessings active during the game, you can pick either The Shadow Queen or Morathi-Khaine who has been slain and bring them back on to the battlefield, within 3″ of a friendly Morathi-Khaine or The Shadow Queen. You can do this ability even if The Shadow Queen has already been slain. She can now Constrict enemy units, which allows you to roll 5 dice, adding 2 to the roll if the unit is constricted. For each 5+ you get to pick a debuff from a list of rules, which inclues -1 to hit for the targets attacks and inflicting D3 mortal wounds. You cannot pick the same ability twice in a turn though.
• Krethusa the Croneseer: Her abilities have also changed. Her main ability is The Croneseer. Everytime you perform a Blood Rite, immediately after the ability the destroyed a unit has been resolved, give this unit a 1 prophecy token.Whilst this model has 2 tokens, she cannot be targeted by Spells or shooting attacks. Whilst holding 3 or more you can reroll unmodified chanting rolls of 1. Finally, if she has 4 or more tokens hit rolls of 1-3 against her auto fail. She also has a spell, Omen of Doom, which has multiple effects including granting a unit a free Move, stopping a unit from scoring crits and subtracting 1 from Power levels.
• Bloodwrack Shrine: Can now summon an Avatar of Khaine (which is now a Manifestation!) with a 6 to cast spell (cannot have more Avatars of Khaine than you have Bloodwrack Shrines). Enemy Manifestations cannot be set up within 12″ of this model.
• Melusai Ironscale: Lost her ranged attack. Now just has the one ability. Ironscale Fury has the potential to dish out mortal wounds to enemy units if any of your non-Hero Daughters units are slain with combat range of this unit on a 5+, adding two to the roll if you have Blood Sisters or Blood Stalkers in combat range.
• Hag Queen on Cauldron of Blood: Again, lost her ranged attack. Again, total changes to abilities. Can give a 5+ Ward to a friendly unit that has been charged by an enemy unit. She can also (on a 3+) stop your own manifestations from being Banished.
• Bloodwrack Medusa: More changes, and yet again the loss of a ranged attack. It does now however have a Shooting phase attacks that potentially can do D3 mortal wounds, which, if it kills a model with this, then does even more mortal wounds (equally to the Health characteristic of the model).Gets +1 to Summon and +1 to Banish
• Hag Queen: Gains an additonal attack with her Blade of Khaine (5 instead of 4) but has lost Crit Mortals. Lost her Witchbrew ability, but has an ability to give a ritual point to a nearby friendly Priest if a nearby Daughters unit uses the Fight ability.
• Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood: Her melee profile has been scaled back to just her Shrine Guardian Blades (9 attacks, 3s, 4s, Rend 1, Dmg 2) and the Avatars Sword (same statline as previous). More changes, as this model can now give D3 rally points to a nearby Daughters unit and gives +1 to save rolls for units of Daughters unit 12″, which is brilliant.
• Slaughter Queen: Can grant a nearby unit an additional blessing for the turn. Lost her additional attack ability.
• High Gladiatrix: Paragon of Slaughter has been buffed, giving an addiitonal point of Rend to a nearby unit without a dice roll so long as this model is in combat. If this model isn’t in combat, then this ability needs a 3+ on a dice roll.
• Doomfire Warlocks: Removed, no longer in the Battletome.
• Sisters of Slaughter: Now just one profile. Dance of Death gives a debuff of -1 to hit and wound against an enemy unit who has charged this turn. Now only has a 6+ save.
• Witch Aelves: Again, now just one profile. Still gets an extra pip of Rend if this unit charged.
• Blood Stalkers: Ability has changed. Has the potential to make an enemy unit charge on 1 dice rather than 2 using their shooting attacks. Also now Health 3, rather than 2.
• Blood Hags: The new ladies on the block. They get a 10″ ranged attack (3s, 4s, Rend 1, Dmg 1) and the melee weapon profile has 3 attacks, 3s, 4s, Rend 1, Dmg 1. Whlst this unit is within 12″ of a friendly Hag Queen on Cauldron, Slaughter Queen on Cauldron or Shrine of the Dark Tribute, this unit gains Anti-charge (+1 Rend). An ideal road block for your shrines.
• Khinerai Heartrenders: Lost Auto-Wounds on their ranged attacks. Has kept Fire and Flight (but can now move 2D6) after shooting, but have lost the other two abilities.
• Blood Sisters: Finally! A profile with no changes! Well, apart from now being Health 3, rather than 2.
• Khinerai Lifetakers: Fight and Flight is back, but now potentially does D3 mortal wounds after the free move and the unit can move 12″ rather than D6. Has lost the other two abilities.
• Khainite Shadowstalkers: Can still teleport in the Movement phase. Have gained Rend 1 on their melee profile.
• Bloodwrack Viper: Gains an extra attack. Has kept the Strike-Last ability, but has gained a new ability which allows Crits on 4+s if the target unit is Striking Last.
• Bladewind: Lost Crit (2 Hits). Ignores Ward rolls when it attacks, so long as it has charged.
• Heart of Fury: No changes
• Avatar of Khaine: Now a Manifestation. Has 3 Melee attacks (3s, 3s, Rend 2 and Dmg 3). This Manifestation gets the benefits of the armies Blessings and gets X amount of extra attacks where X equals the number of times you have used the Blessings of Khaine ability.
• Shrine of Dark Tribute: The new scenery piece. Can switch Blessings in your Hero phase and grants reroll 1s to cast and chant for nearby wizards/priests.

Spearhead: Khainite Shadow Coven

We move on in the Battletome now and have a quick focus on the Spearhead section of the book.

To coincide with the new Battletome the Daughters of Khaine are getting a new Spearhead which will include:

• Khainite Shadowstalkers
• Bloodwrack Medusa
• Slaighter Queen on Cauldron of Blood
• Sisters of Slaughter
• Hag Queen

The book helps you to paint your new Spearhead with a comprehensive painting guide.

All of the rules to play your Spearhead in games of, well, Spearhead are within here, with overal faction rules and unique Warscrolls just for games of Spearhead.

Path to Glory

A section I’ve really enjoyed in these new Battletomes are the Path to Glory Build-A-Hero section (aka the Anvil of Apotheosis).

The Daughters get the same treatment, with lots of options for creating your own Hero. You can have an Ironscale character, a Bloodwrack Sorceress…a Champion of the Arena. The choice is yours!

You can then go to town equipping them with abilities, mounts, etc.

Lots of potential kitbashing potential here.

Once your Hero is taking to the battlefield you can then follow down one of two tech trees, levelling up your character as they gain experience.

Army of Renown: Champions of the Arena

As we step closer to the end of the Battletome we come to the Army of Renown options available for the Daughters of Khaine.

Army of Renown rules allow you to field your ladies in a completely different way, trading in the Battle Traits, Spells, Prayers, Artefacts and Heroic Traits for the ones listed in the Army of Renown rules that you have chosen.

The first one, Champions of the Arena, restricts you to taking only the following:

• High Gladiatrix
• Haq Queen
• Slaughter Queen
• Blood Hags
• Sisters of Slaughter
• Witch Aelves

You cannot take Regiments of Renown.

Instead of Blessings, the main rule mechanic here is called Arena of Slaughter, which grants buffs to your army as friendly and enemy units are destroyed in battle.

• 1 Unit Killed: +1 to Run rolls
• 2 Units: +1 to Charge
• 3 Units: +1 to Hit
• 4 Units: +1 to Wound
• 5 Units: +1 Attacks

You also gain an ability called Frenzied Restoration, which allows you an the End of Any Turn to return a Hero to the battlefield, wholly within 12″ of a Shrine of the Dark Tribute, but 9″ away from enemy units.

You get a unique Heroic Trait and Artefact. You also get 3 unique prayers and the ability to summon your manifestations.

Army of Renown: Zainthar Kai

Like the snake-ladies of the Daughters of Khaine? Then this could be the army of renown for you, as it looks you to the following Roster options:

• Morathi-Khaine (must be included)
• The Shadow Queen (must be included)
• Melusai Ironscale
• Blood Sisters
• Blood Stalkers
• Khinerai Heartrenders
• Khinerai Lifetakers
• Bloodwrack Medusa
• Bloodwrack Shrine

Again, you cannot take Regiments of Renown.

As you may imagine, the core mechanics of the way this army works revolve around Morathi and The Shadow Queen.

Dark Majesty for example, means Morathi-Khaine can only be hit on a 5+. The Blood Saints is a Passive abilities which gives The Shadow Queen and nearby non-Hero units a 5+ Ward.

Matriarch of the Zainthar Kai is a very cool ability which allows your Morathi-Khaine to pick 1 of a list of abilities, which are as follows:

• Gives Morathi-Khaine Movement 12″ and Fly
• Can use the Iron Heart of Khaine ability as if she has performed a Blood Rite.
• Stops a unit getting Crits
• Setup a replacement non-Unique Hero that has been destroyed within 3″ of this unit.

Again, you gain a unique Heroic Trait and Artefact. You also can still use Manifestations and have 3 unique spells.

Regiment of Renown: The Crimson Lash

Finally, it’s time to check out the two Regiments of Renown that are available to other Order armies.

The first one, The Crimson Lash, includes 1 x High Gladiatrix and a unit of 10 Sisters of Slaughter.

They gain a cool rule where you can pick an objective outside of your territory. That objective gains the Ampitheatre keyword. This unit, whilst in range of said objective, gains Crit (Mortals) and can only be hit on a 5+.

I’m not a fan of the new profile for the Sisters of Slaughter, however they power up in this regiment, so long as they pile on the Ampitheatre.

Regiment of Renown: Khinerai Death Flight

This Regiments includes a unit of Lifetakers and a unit of Heartrenders.

They basically have an ability which plays off each other, which can give one of the units Crit (Auto-wound), should the other unit in the Regiment slay an enemy unit.

Not the greatest of Regiments if I’m honest.

Summary

And so we come to the end of the Battletome, so what are my thoughts?

The book has a lot of changes compared to the Faction Pack, with most ranged options being removed. Melee statlines however have almost completely been left alone, with only a very few being tweaked. The same cannot be said for abilities on a large number of the warscrolls, with lots have been removed or changed.

This said, I really like a lot of the abilties and mechanics available to this army. I actually thought we may see some of the older on foot characters disapper, however they are all here, with only the Doomfire Warlocks being removed from the book. This is unfortunately in keeping with the slow move away from the old Fantasy models.

I’m a big fan of the Avatar of Khaine becoming a very badass Manifestation. This IMHO is a great change.

I like Morathi’s Army of Renown, and would be tempted to collect and run the army in that way, but I feel the draw to this army is the various shrines and such, so still feel the best way of running the army is using the vanilla Battle Traits.

It’s a much changed Battletome, and I cannot wait to see how it performs on the tabletop.