AoS: Broken Realms – Let’s Talk Zainthar Kai
Realms are breaking and gods are rising in the Age of Sigmar, but the Brides of Murder are living large!
If you’re anything like me, your wallet is going to be a good bit lighter come Saturday. With the release of Broken Realms, the Shadow and Pain battlebox, and the new sets for the other four featured factions, I imagine my FLGS will be very happy with me this weekend. As if we needed more reason to pick up the Morathi book, GW released some previews today for some of the rules changes and updates coming for the Daughters of Khaine faction in the new book, and they look awesome. So here’s my quick review of what we’ve seen so far for the featured armies, and what I hope to see on release day.
Daughters of Khaine
The Brides of Bloodshed are obviously the big focus of the new book, seeing as it primarily follows the intended ascension to godhood of their primary leader, and as such it’s no surprise they’re getting the lion’s share of the updates. DOK players are going to have access to a brand new subfaction in the Zainthar Kai Temple, a group touted as Morathi’s strongest weapon and consisting mostly of her Scáthborn creations. As such, the Melusai and Khinerai in the army will be getting some pretty significant buffs. First and foremost, thanks to the Khaine’s Essence faction ability, all Melusai and Khinerai will have their Bravery boosted up by 1.
This makes them excellent targets for the Mindrazor Spell, especially if you also happen to have a Cauldron of Blood nearby to buff their Bravery even further. And to make matters even more terrifying, you can make the already plenty aggressive monster gals into blenders with the Power in Blood command ability.
Now, all that combined, you can turn a group of Blood Sisters into a living delete button with just a few abilities. Have a Slaughter Queen as your general and a Shadewrack nearby, then hit the Sisters with a Mindrazor Spell and Catechism of Murder prayer. That will give a group of 10 snake ladies 40 attacks that hit and wound on 3+ (the leader will hit on a 2+) with -2 Rend and 2 damage against most non-Death armies and THEN 20 attacks that dish out mortal wounds, all with exploding 6s. If you have the command points and are feeling especially sadistic, you can also use the Slaughter Queen’s Orgy of Slaughter ability to let them do all that in the hero phase as well. I challenge you to find much that can stand up to all of that, and with the included battalion you’ll always have more. The aforementioned Shrine Brood will almost guarantee that your Bloodwrack Shrines see the end of the game, but of course, such power demands sacrifice.
I’m really hoping the new temple will make Melusai and Khinerai battleline so that I can pull that off without having to make the Shadewrack my general, but we’ll have to wait and see. Without the Slaughter Queen leading the charge, you lose access to Orgy of Slaughter, but I doubt it’s the end of the world. The new subfaction looks gorgeous either way, and I’ll definitely be cooking up a list for it.
“Why did it have to be snakes?”
