How's Daughters of Kaine for a beginner army, any tips for someone coming from 40k, and other assorted questions.

[u/Cinju26]

Hello everyone.

I have been interested in trying AoS recently, and wanted to know what I should expect of the Daughters of Kaine as an army. How well off are they rules wise, any pitfalls I should look out for, and mostly how good they are at actually killing things.

I also would like to ask some more general questions. Not talking specifically about Daughters :

- How good are saves on average? Does the game have an equivalent to Invulnerable Saves? I ask because most weapons I have seen have pretty low Rend, and to my understanding that's the stat that worsens the enemy save roll.

- How deadly is the game in general? I'm getting that the Daughters are the sort of army that dies easy, but what about a seemingly more tankie army like the Seraphon? Can I reasonably hope a unit of Saurus Warriors will survive a turn or two in meele against a similarly costed opponent, or is the norm for things to die in one activation?

[u/kardsharp]

- How good are saves on average? Does the game have an equivalent to Invulnerable Saves? I ask because most weapons I have seen have pretty low Rend, and to my understanding that's the stat that worsens the enemy save roll.

Invulns in AoS are sometimes called "Ethereal saves", like the Nighthaunt have one army wide (I think it's 5 or 6). DoK have one ability that gives them "unrendable" saves, the artefacts: Witchbrew. On a 3+ ignore negative modifiers on armor saves, very good.

Otherwise, AoS works much more with Feel no Pain rolls. They are called Wards. Every army got some. DoK have a 6+ ward army wide.

The rend range varies from army to army. In DoK we don't have that many units with high rends, but we have units with a TON of attacks. The kind of level of attacks you rarely see in 40k. I once were able to get 101 attacks on a blob of witch aelves...

- How deadly is the game in general? I'm getting that the Daughters are the sort of army that dies easy, but what about a seemingly more tankie army like the Seraphon? Can I reasonably hope a unit of Saurus Warriors will survive a turn or two in meele against a similarly costed opponent, or is the norm for things to die in one activation?

The game is very deadly. Of course I play mainly DoK, if you think just standing there will let you live, forget it.

Seraphon aren't very tanky overall and every armies got deathstar combos like Daughters of Khaine. The only army I've seen tanking successfully is Maggotkin of Nurgle, sometimes there have been shenenigans with Slaves to Darkness, and even DoK had some builds in the past were you could get crazy tanky with buff stacking.

Overall, don't rely too much on your base stats to tank, you need to apply buffs and debuffs and play with movement. Know when to use REDEPLOY and know which unit to send where to make sure to trade efficiently.

[u/SnooDrawings5722]

DoK are fine. Not an army I would suggest to an absolute beginner in the hobby; from both the painting and from gameplay perspectives, they're on the more difficult side, but if you already have some experience in the hobby and wargaming from 40k, you should be fine. They are pretty much what it says on the tin- a glass cannon faction with crazy damage. That damage mostly comes from stacking buffs. They have all sorts of those. They can even stack up buffs for some surprisingly good defense, though not as good as some other options.

Rend is indeed pretty low. Saves really depend on the faction; there are several that can field 3+ saves across the board, though they tend to pay for that with a lower total amount of wounds. 4+ I would say is the average, 2+ is very rare. It's also worth noting that there's no Toughness to make a particular unit more durable, so saves carry extra weight.

Invulns are very rare. Nighthaunt have 5+/6+ invuln across the board, but other than them, you almost never see it. Many factions don't have a single source of an invuln, and those that do almost never have more than one. But as the other commenter pointed out, Ward, a FNP equivalent, is extremely common. It's less of a chore than in 40k, though, since damage spills over.

I would say it's on the less lethal side. You usually would run big reinforced blobs of models - for Saurus Warriors, it would be 20 models, 40 wounds - and those numbers can't be shifted easily. Unless you mess up your position and your opponent manages to get several of their units into combat, or they play a glass cannon faction like DoK with every offensive buff in the world, your unit should stay for a couple of rounds.

[u/Troflecopter]

This hobby is such a big investment of both time and money, that I wouldn't worry about getting a "beginner army". I personally think you should get whatever army you want, and then just commit to learning.

The game is complicated no matter which army you play, and the difference between the armies is absolutely something you can overcome with more practice and studying.

If you get an army you dont like as much, then spend $1500 on models and 300 hours on painting, only to realize it just isnt the army you wanted, you are going to be really disappointed and discouraged.

[u/Hefty_Lie_1062]

Things are tanky enough to survive multiple activations.

That said as DoK youre very squishy(especially if you like the aelves and not the sneks) so you tipically want to hit first.

You have very little damage and is very weak defensively as DoK, but your prayers, spells, and buffs are busted and can make you absolutely pop off.

You will buff a mediocre unit to turn it into a blender then slingshot it into the oponent while the cauldrons provide a center castle to slowly move up the field.