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Slaves - The Good, the bad, the ugly?


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Hi Guys,

Building a Slaves to Darkness force and maaaaan oh man am I loving these guys. It's my third swaray into Chaos (first being Nurgle and second being the Skaven I aligned to them) but Slaves are something else. I have a shortcoming when it comes to well built lists and that is that I love aesthetics more than winning hahaha. But I want to know more about these guys and this forum is full of people like yourselves who know far more than I! So teach me! From your experience, what is the greatest thing about these guys (For me its the Warshrine and its awesomeness!), what do they have that makes them worth taking to the table as a primary force? What challenges will need to be overcome in using them? Best units? Worst units? strengths/weaknesses?

Anything you wanna share is welcome and appreciated.

Cheers and have a great day!

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I'm thinking of starting a Slaves to Darkness force myself. I'm thinking of buying a Lord of Chaos, Start Collecting Slaves to Darkness, Marauders box and after those are painted buy the Warshrine, some Marauder Horsmen and the Allies box.  Maybe some more Chaos Warriors and Chosen too...  What I really like about them is the Lord of Chaos model! He looks like a total badass. I also like the fake Viking aesthetic they have going for them. Game play wise being able to dedicate them to any God of Chaos is stellar and allying them to the armies of Khorne and Tzeench I already have for bigger games or new combinations is too good to pass up on. I could also upgrade them with Archeon and some Varanguard for an Everchosen force!!!

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I love my gorebeast chariot, it's a great kit with lots of useful spare bits and loads of potential. I have a plan to add an aspiring deathbringer as the guy on the back and maybe do one with juggernaughts pulling it. I also want to make a wrecked one as a piece of scenery/objective. The spare horses are good for conversions too, plus lots of heads and weapons and bits. I may well be buying the allies box once or twice.

its also really good with a blood stoker - whip, charge, smash ?

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I'm a huge fan of Chaos Knights since they became more fairly priced, either Khorne or Slaanesh. They have a proud fluff heritage, the minis look fantastic and can be easily customised with headswaps, and they're fast, deadly and love being buffed.

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Haven't tried it yet but there looks to be some cool Bravery shenanigans you can pull.  -1 Modifiers from the Knights, then there's potentially, -3 from traits and artifacts too! 

Only problem I've had with them in the past is the Warriors and Knights (w ensorcelled weapons) don't seem to do much damage. They can really soak up a lot of hurt, but they need something else to actually dish out some pain.

 

 

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1 hour ago, CyderPirate said:

Haven't tried it yet but there looks to be some cool Bravery shenanigans you can pull.  -1 Modifiers from the Knights, then there's potentially, -3 from traits and artifacts too! 

Only problem I've had with them in the past is the Warriors and Knights (w ensorcelled weapons) don't seem to do much damage. They can really soak up a lot of hurt, but they need something else to actually dish out some pain.

 

 

just try out Slaves with the Tzeentch Fatesworn Battalaion (where everybody gets Rend -1) and you should deal way more damage than before.

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1 hour ago, CyderPirate said:

Only problem I've had with them in the past is the Warriors and Knights (w ensorcelled weapons) don't seem to do much damage. They can really soak up a lot of hurt, but they need something else to actually dish out some pain.

 

My experience is the same (although that was with the old points cost) They were a expensive fast roadblock. Something I can work with but even with the spears and the double pile in from a Slaanesh lord on Daemonic mount they still don't feel like a hammer on the charge.

But still love the Slaves to Darkness. I'm going full slaanesh with it but in time I might add in some more generic Slaves to Darkness as well. 

As to units... They do lack something big in in the armies and sadly monsters of chaos are not listed as allies. I'm personally looking into the Warherds allies box to add some size to the army (mostly because they look cool ;) )

Modelling wise, I don't really like the chaos warriors but you could easily add a squad from every god by using, for example, blood warriors as Khorne Chaos Warriors, Kairic Acolytes as Tzeentch Chaos warriors. That would be really cool. 

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Very cool! Yeah I think we're looking at a completely different beast as before, I tippy toed into Slaves to Darkness with Khorne so can give some general experiences but this too was with the old costs. Due to me wanting to play Khorne anyway the step was really quickly made into Blades of Khorne and this is where I largely play with now anyway. However this also was the case before because a lot of the designs in Slaves to Darkness matched that of Blades of Khorne. 

Here's my thake on it now however, because I do think there is a larger difference between the two. Better put I think that the Slaves to Darkness Allegiance abilities are really good and offer something completely different. All the while the Tzeentch, Khorne and Slaanesh Allegiances are excellent aswell.
The prime strenght of Slaves to Darkness remains that you have a huge selection to choose from and arn't bound by a Mark of Chaos, which is sweet if you love to alter your army set up in tactical variance.

My thake on the Allegiance abilities of Slaves to Darkness:
Aura of Chaos Power is great and to me a prime reason as to why you likely want to use a Monster General, StD has a nice selection here and they all rock in my opinion so that's certainly something I intend to get at some point down the line.
- Khorne simply improves the output, to me this bump is what makes them relevant and not just inferior to Blades of Khorne choices too. As this guarantees a lot of hits.
- Slaanesh is okay but I do feel the Slaanesh Allegiance does more if your intend is to outspeed your opponent. Feels like a really minor bonus compaired to that of Khorne for example.
- Nurgle is on that same fine level as Khorne, these kinds of re-rolls are great.
- Tzeentch really adss to the prime strenght of StD to begin with. So if you want to run lower on Magic I'd say this is an fine pick. If you do want to run high on Magic the Tzeentch Allegiance offers much more though.
- No Mark isn't really why you play this army I believe.
Eye of the Gods is fun and never has been this good. With the option to forgo Spawndom by thaking wounds and having the option to not become a Daemon Prince nothing really random can happen to your General in a really negative way. All the more reason to run a Monster General in my opinion. 
Command Traits:
This is really where I love the StD options. I really like choice 5 and 6 as it does something usually benifiting how StD will play. 
Artefacts:
Another nice set of synergistic options is provided. Obviously a very good follow up to the Command Traits are 3 and 4 who allow for +3 or -3 to Braveries, awesome! Mark of the All-favoured is interesting but a little to much of a gimmick for me. The Desecrator Gauntles however are an excellent choice for a Wizard hunt. All in all enough reasons to thake a Chaos Lord on Manticore in my book.

Units:
- Chaos Marauders remain fantastic Objective holders and are one of those units I personally still think are somewhat underplayed by many Chaos players.
- Chaos Warriors have a better cost as they used to and they where allright before. 
- Chaos Warshrine remains a good buff supporter. Affordable at 180 aswell.
- Both Lords on Manticore for me are one of the prime reasons why I would consider this Allegiance at all. They are good, very well costed and a very nice centerpiece to any army.
- Chaos Chariots and Chosen are the secondary reasons why I think this Allegiance will do just fine now. Great units for their cost.
- Marauder Horseman and Knights are cool units.

Lastly you have acces to a ton of allies which I'd strongly consider making use of. Due to the way the army can be supported by other pieces like Khorne's Bloodsecrator, Wrathmongers, Tzeentch's Gaunt Summoner, Daemons or Blightkings. Hope this helps a bit to start an idea for a largely Slaves to Darkness model army.

Cheers,



 

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57 minutes ago, Kramer said:

My experience is the same (although that was with the old points cost) They were a expensive fast roadblock. Something I can work with but even with the spears and the double pile in from a Slaanesh lord on Daemonic mount they still don't feel like a hammer on the charge

Modelling wise, I don't really like the chaos warriors but you could easily add a squad from every god by using, for example, blood warriors as Khorne Chaos Warriors, Kairic Acolytes as Tzeentch Chaos warriors. That would be really cool. 

I'm gonna try out one of the battalions - can't remember the name off the top of my head, but you take a Lord on a Demonic Mount and a bunch of knights and chariots and they get to inflict mortal wounds on the charge (but I think its once per game). The warriors can tie up some units then, whilst the rest of the army does the heavy lifting. 

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4 minutes ago, CyderPirate said:

I'm gonna try out one of the battalions - can't remember the name off the top of my head, but you take a Lord on a Demonic Mount and a bunch of knights and chariots and they get to inflict mortal wounds on the charge (but I think its once per game). The warriors can tie up some units then, whilst the rest of the army does the heavy lifting. 

Yeah Ruinbringer Warband seems really cool to me aswell. Tons of models to pick and I think it's finally one of those armies that can do heavy Cavalry really well also this way. It's certainly different from the more footslogging Chaos armies we've come to expect now. Have fun!

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26 minutes ago, CyderPirate said:

I'm gonna try out one of the battalions - can't remember the name off the top of my head, but you take a Lord on a Demonic Mount and a bunch of knights and chariots and they get to inflict mortal wounds on the charge (but I think its once per game). The warriors can tie up some units then, whilst the rest of the army does the heavy lifting. 

Sounds good! What god will you go for?

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4 hours ago, CyderPirate said:

Only problem I've had with them in the past is the Warriors and Knights (w ensorcelled weapons) don't seem to do much damage. They can really soak up a lot of hurt, but they need something else to actually dish out some pain.

Always glaives mate. They're definitely a charging unit. 

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My experience with knights is limited strictly to Khorne mark, but within that framework, I've found knights perform well - as a platform for the multiple buffs that Khorne can stack.  While it's true that everything is good with enough buffs, the Knights are particularly receptive to it.  They're fast, so you generally get to pick your fights (and get the charge, which matters with the glaive option), they're fairly durable,  and (again on the charge) can do respectable damage as a baseline.  I can easily stack +1 to attacks, to wound, and to hit, turning them into units that can buzz-saw through anything not immune to -1 rend.  I've killed war-mammoths and monsters in one turn this way.

Once they're locked in, their damage potential drops off considerably, but they're durable enough to hold up the opponent while the rest of your guys get into position for your second strike.  They make solid alpha-strike and problem-removal pieces, provided you support them effectively.

 

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45 minutes ago, Fireymonkeyboy said:

My experience with knights is limited strictly to Khorne mark, but within that framework, I've found knights perform well - as a platform for the multiple buffs that Khorne can stack.  While it's true that everything is good with enough buffs, the Knights are particularly receptive to it.  They're fast, so you generally get to pick your fights (and get the charge, which matters with the glaive option), they're fairly durable,  and (again on the charge) can do respectable damage as a baseline.  I can easily stack +1 to attacks, to wound, and to hit, turning them into units that can buzz-saw through anything not immune to -1 rend.  I've killed war-mammoths and monsters in one turn this way.

Once they're locked in, their damage potential drops off considerably, but they're durable enough to hold up the opponent while the rest of your guys get into position for your second strike.  They make solid alpha-strike and problem-removal pieces, provided you support them effectively.

 

Sounds like good advice - what are you using to buff them? 

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I think that currently building a slave to darkness allegiance is going to be khorne based or tzeentch based.

Tzeentch has fatesworn and more staying power

Khorne on the other band needs to be focused on knights and on units that already have rend. Also chosen are a really really good choice with khorne.

Regarding Nurgle the fact that the allies cannot be the general means that your harbinger of decay will never go off. Same for tzeentch.

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3 hours ago, shadowgra said:

Go for tzeentch and fatesworn.

-1 rend on everything is just too good to pass up

Think it on gorebeasts. 

Do you also try to go understrength so you will get the Scions of Change ability? Tzeentch should be the easiest one with "9"

I'm actually building a nurgle list for chaos (Slaves of Darkness, Rotbringers and Chaos Daemons) don't know if I also want Pestilens. 

Would be nice to get the "Grandfather's Favour" effect in case of Nurgle but if I don't want to overprice them too much for going understrength I would have to take 14 models (paying for 15).

But actually I'm more an army builder than a player.

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Would you say that with a proper list building Slaves to Darkness (let's say as a Fatesworn Warband with -1 rend) would be able stand their ground against some of the more competitive lists out there? I'm going to play on the local scene, which is moderately competitive. Not overly so but there's some guys running  well thought out lists so not getting roflstomped in turn 2 would be great. Does anyone have any kind of experience against different armies.

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i honestly think that fatesworn can be pretty competitive.

and yes, always take units as 9, you get a warshrine for free basically. also don't forget that your non caster heroes can cast arcane bolt!

also you will be way tankier with the 6++ than with 2 more models.

i play nurgle and i can tell you that giving away 1-2 warriors for the second effect of the plaguetouched is absolutely worth it. outdamages the warriors 2/3 of the times roughly

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2 hours ago, CyderPirate said:

Sounds like good advice - what are you using to buff them? 

Juggerlord can give +1 to wound on the charge, Slaughterpriest can give +1 to hit.  You can pick up extra attacks all over - Bloodmarked battalion (the one from Everchosen), the Bloodsecrator, Aspiring Deathbringer's ability, etc.  It's not hard to get 4 attacks each (plus horses) hitting on 3s, wounding on 2s.  You can also pick up "re-roll 1" abilities in several places, like the Blood Stoker.  On the charge, with the glaives, you've got -1 rend and 2 damage per attack.  Plus horses.

FMB

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Great to see so much love for the slaves to darkness! I love the chariots, I love marauders in massive clumps with a warshrine behind it.  If you have a slaves army and no warshrine... GO GET ONE! lol.

Anyone find their slaves to darkness army are weaker vs specific factions/armies?

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