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Hello all,

I have been thinking of starting an army and I have two in mind, one of which is DoK.

I've looked at my LGS and online, and there's not a lot of models kicking around for DoK. Should this concern me? Will I be able to build an army or should I look elsewhere?

re: core, should I stick to Witch Aelves or get some Sisters of Slaughter too? What size, 10 or 30?

What units should I be looking at/for outside of core?

Lots of lesser point leaders or a few high point leaders (assume no Morathi).

Thanks in advance.

Are you looking to casual play, pick up play, or power tournament play?

Assume mostly casual/pickup with the odd tourney thrown in when I can. I'm also not too worried about meta as "the best" usually changes every now and again anyway.

If enough models is hard. A lot of AoS fractions are quite small. I find DoK ok, but Ironjaws to small while a friend I play with loves that about them.

90? Witch Aelves and some Khinerai Life Takers + and characters seems to be the base of several top turnament list. But seems to me like pretty much anything in DoK goes. I would say DoK is one of the few armies where building what you like the look of will not get you in trouble. Most of their book ranges from good to great.

If you're playing for casual pick up play, take what you want, in the numbers you want. Casual AoS where you're not min-maxing for power (especially with DoK), any army with any mix of units will do pretty well.

Once you start the tournament lean though and want to bring more competitive builds, there's a few key staples you'll want:

Morathi (duh, she's a beast)
Cauldron
30 Witch Elves (sword and board; I believe they get big unit bonus too)
Doomfire Warlocks

Bojigwe wrote:
I've looked at my LGS and online, and there's not a lot of models kicking around for DoK. Should this concern me? Will I be able to build an army or should I look elsewhere?

Assuming you're asking whether there's concern they'll be discontinued, the answer is no. They went from two to five kits with a Battletome, they aren't going anywhere in the near future.

re: core, should I stick to Witch Aelves or get some Sisters of Slaughter too? What size, 10 or 30?

In my opinion the sisters of slaughter work in small units covering a larger blob of witch aelves from the sides, let the witch aelves eat the counterattack then let the sisters move in with their 6 inch pile-in after the enemy can't fight back.

If your general is a medusa the blood sisters also become battleline and that can change the way the army is played.

What units should I be looking at/for outside of core?

Blood sisters make a good anchor melee unit and can often be counted on to bring up the rear after your witch aelves are depleted, Blood Stalkers I like less individually. Khinerai have some utility in small squads to head hunt backfield heroes and I prefer heartrenders to lifetakers in that respect.

More often than not though you're going to want to read the Battletome and base which of these you're taking based on temple and batallion choices, which in turn will affect how you plan to field them.

Lots of lesser point leaders or a few high point leaders (assume no Morathi).

All your heroes come from the blood cauldron kit so you're going to have everything available to you from the get go unless you kitbash.

Cauldrons essentially upgrade their respective hero's melee fight power and give them something to pray for when they're not actively in combat. I think a slaughter queen on cauldron with one hag queen on foot for every witch blob is a nice efficient way to do it but I've seen people run multiple hag queens on cauldrons and have a lot of fun with them.

Generally speaking the only really OP build for DoK is tied with Hagg Nar temple's command trait and if you use any one other temple (or even just don't particularly build too hard around that trait's benefits) you'll have a decently strong army that isn't going to make people want to pull their teeth out.

I'd say take at least 1 unit of Sisters of Slaughter for 1 reason: 6" pile-in. It's not a very common ability and your opponent might not be ready for it when setting up charges/defending against charges.

Blood Sisters are a strong elite infantry and can be Battleline if your General is a Medusa (who you should also bring for hoard clearing).

Doomfires have a great spell that does a straight 6 MW if you have 10+ models (plus they get crossbows now)

Here's the hard part; all the DoK HQs are tied into the Blood Cauldron kit, but you always get 3 (2 hags and 1 medusa with one always on cauldron/shrine). This kit's constnatly on back order so when you DO find some grab 2-3 if you can

2-3 Hags. 80pts of OP
SQ Cauldron. Command ability is OP.
30 witches with shields. 4+ save in combat with cauldron.
30 witches with dual blades. 120 attacks.
10 Heartrenders. Back or front terrors. With mindrazor rend 3 2 dmg if play correctly.
10 Doomfires. 6MW spell, shooting and movement range.
1 Medusa on foot. Spells and stare 5+ MW against horses in nice.

Best blessings and spells.
Witchbrew
Mindrazor
Blessing of Khaine