Yes, IMO it’s best to think of reality checks as a supplemental tool that aids you in lucid dreaming regardless of which technique (MILD / WBTB / DILD / SSILD / WILD) that you employ. You can think of reality checks as that last thing that makes you completely certain that you are dreaming. That vague sense of “Is this a dream?” can quickly be washed away in the tides of sleep. Reality checks are for converting that vague, sleepy sense of “Hey… is something weird here?” into full-on lucidity.
An example is the phenomenon of the false awakening. The prelude to my most recent lucid dream was an extremely realistic false awakening where we were lying in bed in the early morning when one of our children entered the room, complaining of strange dreams. I found it odd that he used the word “vortex” in his speech (he’s 3) but it just wasn’t enough to make me lucid. My habit of RCing when odd things happen paid off, though – I nose-pinched, breathed, and then lucidity hit me like a bucket of cold water.
As for techniques, I have to once again recommend SSILD. It’s straightforward to execute, not difficult to perform, has a high rate of success, and the author himself is active on this forum. It’s when I adopted this technique that I became a regular lucid dreamer. It generally yields a big increase in false awakenings, too, so if you use this tech, keep working those reality checks. You’ll likely need them for the false awakenings.