AoS: Krethusa’s “The Croneseer’s Pariahs” Army of Renown is a Bloody Good Time
Morathi isn’t the only Queen of murder in town. The Kronseer’s Pariahs under the control of Krethusa may be a better choice than Khaine.
The fifth Dawnbringers book is on the horizon, Shadow of the Crone. It introduces one of the coolest Daughters of Khaine characters to date: the Croneseer. Krethusa is a gorgeous model, and her rules are certainly nothing to shake a staff at. She’s the first big alternative to Morathi for the DoK, and she takes us back to the Aelven roots of the army. Plus, it’s a nice remnant of the rivalry between Morathi and Hellebron.
The Croneseer’s Pariahs
As cool as Krethusa is on her own, however, one of the coolest things she brings to the table is her own Army of Renown. This new mini-faction, called “The Croneseer’s Pariahs”, represents those Aelves that have turned against Morathi and her Scathborn. They follow the Croneseer’s prophecies, looking into their future in the blood of their enemies (or sometimes their own). While you lose out on a lot of DoK goodies, you get a few new ones to balance it out, and they’re pretty crazy.
Battle Traits
One of the big things about the Pariahs is that you can’t include Medusas, Harpies, or Melusai. However, you get a lot of fun buffs for your Aelven warriors. Whenever you roll a 6 to hit, the model wounds automatically AND gets an extra point of Rend. That’s insane on any model, but for the amount of attacks the Daughters of Khaine get, it’s obscene. You also get Doomfire Warlocks as a Battleline, and they can skirmish out of combat when the enemy charges them. Perhaps coolest of all, the Croneseer’s visions give them all a bit of protection from wounds, giving them a 6+ ward save.
Your biggest winners, however, are your Cauldrons. Unlike the Khainite cauldrons, Croneseer Cauldrons start with no blood in them. However, should an enemy model be slain within 3″, the attendants can collect the blood to fill their Cauldron. While the Cauldron is full, its ward save increases to 4+ against shooting, and friendly models within its Bloodshield apply a -1 to shooting attacks against them.
While the Cauldron is full, the Croneseer can empty it to use her Burnt Offerings ability a second time. She doesn’t leave it in the lurch, however: the Pariahs give her a Heroic Action that allows her to slash one of the attendants, bleeding them into the Cauldron. The Cauldron suffers D6 mortal wounds and then becomes full on a roll of 4+. Just make sure you don’t splash anything out of the bowl.
Artifacts, Prayers, and Tactics
Like most Armies of Renown, the Pariahs only get a single artifact and trait choice, but they’re fairly decent. Blessings of the Crone forces your opponent to spend extra command points while they’re close to the general, and the Rune of the Weave artifact can help your Croneseer fill the Cauldron with her heroic action once per battle. There is nothing game-breaking here, but there are some interesting game mechanics. The prayers are very cool, letting you give your units some manner of protection, throw retaliatory strikes at your enemies, or let your units take to the sky.
The tactics are super easy to achieve, so you’ll likely be scoring them every turn. Once an enemy gets close to your Cauldron, it’s not hard to remove them, and your Command Trait will make it simple to use more abilities than your opponent.
Will you be using the new Army of Renown?
