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Has anyone tried out the Shadowhammer Compact battalion for a DoK army? The battalion ability seems really strong (choose one DoK and one SCE unit within 6" of each other, they can move, shoot or pile in and fight once in the hero phase)

The points cost is completely restrictive of playing DoK the traditional way of big blobs of aelves with character support, snake sisters and Morathi however I was wondering if a more shooting focused list would even be good.

It seems obvious that the blood stalkers and judicators are meant to be paired together for shooting, and that makes sense considering how similar their bows are. But it doesn't seem like it makes up for the "oomph" lost by not taking a blob of aelves with a ton of attacks a piece and bonuses to hits and wounds.

So I was thinking, the wording of the Crossbows and how the movement/shooting works might be good for pouring out the shots at close range. Normally they wouldn't be very good because of the range limitation and the necessity of movement, however being able to move in the hero phase and get 4 shots per bow still, or retreat out of melee in the hero phase and get 4 shots, or double time it and move 10" and still get 3 shots, all while slingshotting DoK units around the Judicators. They could also shoot twice for a ridiculous 72 crossbow shots out of one unit of Judicators in one turn. Plus the 2d6 Skybolt bow shots.

Maybe take the bone bridge to extend the Judicators reach even further on the opening turns.

There's still the rest of the list to consider as well. How to kit out the Prosecutors, how many witch aelves to take and whether they should have bucklers or daggers, what characters to bring (Medusa with Shadow Stone for Withering seems like a no-brainer with how many shots the Judis throw out) and what general/temple/command traits/artefacts to use.

So, terrible idea or interesting enough to make taking crossbows worth trying?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So here's an attempt at a list for this idea:

Temple: Draichi-Ganeth

Bloodwrack Shrine with The Withering and Shadow Stone

Hag Queen with Catechism of Murder prayer

Battalion:
Slaughter Queen, General, Mistress of Poisons command trait, The Darksword, Crimson Rejuvenation Prayer

2x10 Witch Aelves, Banner, Musician, Paired Daggers

2x5 Liberators with 1 Grandhammer per unit

1x10 Judicators with Thunderbolt Crossbows and Prime with Skybolt bow

1x10 Khinerai Heartrenders

1x6 Prosecutors with paired Celestial Hammers and 2x Grandaxe

1x5 Blood Stalkers

Soulscream Bridge

+1 purchased CP

Total: 1970