New to slaves to darkness

[Dracothjay]

Hi guys, long time death player here and I’m looking to start a 2nd army now. Still love death to bits, but variety is the spice of life right?

i need your advice/help in understanding slaves to darkness and what’s optimal/powerful for STD.

a few questions:

1) in terms of mark of chaos, is mark of the all favoured the best trait to take so you can change your marks every hero phase? 

2) almost everything is battleline if you take STD allegiance, so what’s our best choices. For example, do marauders have a place in the army? How many warriors and chosen make the list powerful and also how many in each unit? Chaos knights also look like a auto include in my eyes.

3) chariots. Are they worth it? Just look like a speed bump to me.

4) what’s the best general for STD?

a lot of questions, but I just need help in understanding the army.

also, another thing about STD that attracts me is I’m gonna put a Viking theme to them, which could look cool as ******!!

[Galdenistal]

Generally, pure StD armies struggle to kill things, they have tankyness and some speed but lack hitting power.

So  when deciding your mark, look at any support characters you might want to ally in from the other gods to boost your killing potential. I play Khorne marked StD and allying in a Bloodsecrator and Bloodstoker gives me an extra attack on all my guys and more speed. I don't care too much about the other gods to advise about their useful units

 

Marauders do have a place in the army, the models look at bit old these days, but you can't go wrong with a big unit to block table space.

Warriors for me are always taken with shields otherwise you might as well take Marauders, at that point its hand weapons for 10 man units and halberds for 30 man units so they can attack in 2 ranks.

Knights are great and work well if you take Sayl the Faithless to teleport them around, but to make those 9" charges you'll want to boost their charge range which is where my Bloodstoker comes into play.

Gorebeast Chariots  are worth it, but again you'll need a way to boost their charge range to proc their damage bonus.

I'd avoid the manticore heroes, especially the sorcerer version as you lose his awesome spell when he is mounted. The only instapick general is the Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount if you are running Knight and Chariots, the Lord of Chaos is also good along with the Chaos Sorcerer lord for his spell.

 

[flemingmma]

You've got to pick the mark for the units at the start of the game and it stays the same all the way through

[CyderPirate]

1) Depends on what you're planning to do - there's a few traits that are pretty handy (I like the ones that buff/nerf bravery)

2) Marauders die in droves, and really struggle to hurt anything, but they're really cheap and get a lot better with a few buffs. Warriors are sold. 15-20 man units are great. More gets too expensive, and units of 5-10 tend to get shot to bits. Marauder Cav. are quite tasty, but extremely squishy.  Knights are great, but not necessarily an auto-include. They're tough to kill, but don't dish out much damage on their own. 

3) Meh. They're not really worth it. As you said, they're a speedbump. Can't really hurt anything, but it'll hold up a unit for a turn. Gorebeast Chariots are much, much better for the 20pts extra. 

4) Depends on the build. I like a Lord on Manticore to boost a big block of sword/board warriors and to get some damage in. Lord on a Demonic Mount is great if you're going cav/chariot heavy. Standard Chaos Lord is useless, as he just does the same thing as the STD allegiance ability. 

[Agent of Chaos]

All of the god marks are viable so it depends what bonus you want from your supporting heroes (and any allied heroes as Galdenistal suggested above). As someone else noted the marks don't change throughout the battle. 

Marauders have a place as super cheap objective holders (units of 10) or as a big tarpit (units of 30-40, with shields,  in cover where possible). Warriors are also great for holding objectives and roadblocking but aren't cheap. Units of 20 with shields and mystic shield cast on them are tough to shift. Knights with glaives can do serious damage on the charge, especially when buffed. Basic chariots are ordinary at best but the gorebeast chariots can do a job. Some people swear by Chosen, others say they aren't worth the points. Seems they are mostly taken as a unit of 10.

I cant imagine a list without knights so the lord on daemonic mount is usually my general.

[Cambot1231]

The ruin bringer warband seems pretty good for a mounted army (your knights can be battle line  ) Mobile units make for good objective takers. You’de probably be looking at Chaos lord on Daemonic mount for your general.   Great mortal wound deflectors and bravery check shinanegans with the knights.

[Waiyuren]

19 hours ago, flemingmma said:

You've got to pick the mark for the units at the start of the game and it stays the same all the way through

Mark of the all favoured is an artifact that lets the hero change their mark each turn. Still not worth it, but that's what the op was talking about.

[flemingmma]

6 hours ago, Waiyuren said:

Mark of the all favoured is an artifact that lets the hero change their mark each turn. Still not worth it, but that's what the op was talking about.

i skim read like a dork, soz

[Dracothjay]

So I have been thinking khorne as I want to be combat focused! Ally in some khorne bloodbound heros/unit’s for extra synergy/power.

i love the mainstay of chaos warriors. Think I would want them to be my backbone. Have some marauders for screening as they are dirt cheap and Chaos knights for fast hitting troops coupled with a chaos lord on mount etc.

[Praecautus]

39 minutes ago, Dracothjay said:

So I have been thinking khorne as I want to be combat focused! Ally in some khorne bloodbound heros/unit’s for extra synergy/power.

i love the mainstay of chaos warriors. Think I would want them to be my backbone. Have some marauders for screening as they are dirt cheap and Chaos knights for fast hitting troops coupled with a chaos lord on mount etc.

If you want to be khorne then you can mark the whole army with khorne and mix in bloodbound and daemons to your heard content. It's also generally considered better to be mono god than a mixed std army as you have access to whole battletome s of artefacts, battalions etc plus a bigger selection of units.

Just be aware the khorne battletome is the oldest of the chaos gods and newer ones may be more competitive.

[Dracothjay]

So all khorne (for me) S2D is the way I should go with mixed units as allies, whilst keeping the allegiance abilities?

[Praecautus]

If you give the StD units a khorne mark you can freely mix and match with other khorne models and have a khorne alliegience army. The key thing is the common keyword. If you do this you can take advantage of the blades of khorne battletome. 

For example in my khorne army I play mainly bloodbound but I include some khorne marked slaves. As they have a khorne mark they don't count towards my allies pool. 

This can be fun as giving slave units a khorne mark allows them to be buffed with khorne hero buffs e.g. The extra attacks from the blood secrator, run buffs from the stoker.

Exploring all these possible synergies available from mixing the two names khorne a really interesting force if you want to make a fun army as you can mix in so many things. 

Want that lord on manticore with wrathmongers chaos knights and a blood thirster? Give the lord and knights a khorne mark and go for it.

 

similar mixing can done with other chaos gods but I prefer khorne ?

[Dracothjay]

So I could run STD allegiance and include loads of units from bloodbound that are khorne and not even tap into my ally pool?

[kenshin620]

17 minutes ago, Dracothjay said:

So I could run STD allegiance and include loads of units from bloodbound that are khorne and not even tap into my ally pool?

No, a StD Allegiance army is a StD army, not a Khorne army even if you equipped everyone with a mark of khorne. Generally pure StD armies are downright rare.

 

Also I just realized what a silly acronym slaves to darkness makes...

 

There are some other examples of Allegiance factions not crisscrossing such as a Tamukharn's Horde allegiance army can take Plague Ogors and Plague Toads as Battleline, but those are NOT battle line in a Nurgle army despite having the Nurgle keyword.

[Dracothjay]

2 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

StD armies are downright rare.

 

Yeah, I’ve been told pure STD is rather lacking. I suppose with allies they could become a bit better though right?

[Praecautus]

Your army would have to have khorne alliegience not slaves alliegience. To use the battletome and to freely mix in blades of khorne. However you can build it entirely from slaves models that you give a khorne mark too, as log as the models share a common key word e.g. Khorne. Apologies for not being totally clear above.

In terms of building an army. Khorne is an army built on synergy and often big units with some choppy heros. Maybe start with a manticore lord, some knights and a horde of marauders. Throw in a priest, blood secrator and blood stoker and maybe a unit of blood warriors. Then a slaughterbrute of khorne could be a fun list.

Sayl is forgeworld and his points are with the forgeworld points. 120 if I recall correctly.

[Blackspine]

On 5/8/2018 at 12:08 AM, Dracothjay said:

2) almost everything is battleline if you take STD allegiance, so what’s our best choices. For example, do marauders have a place in the army? How many warriors and chosen make the list powerful and also how many in each unit? Chaos knights also look like a auto include in my eyes.

3) chariots. Are they worth it? Just look like a speed bump to me.

4) what’s the best general for STD?

2: What is best completely varies with your goals and aims.  If you're making a fast list, Marauders may not have a place in your list, but battleline Knights, Chariots and M-Horses do.

 

3: They're ok. They're a VERY wide footprint. They can choke out an area, preventing the flow of action for a turn. (Personally, that's their real value to me) I'd recommend units of one, as they don't lose models from battleshock and one is the 'champion'. If you couple them with the command ability of the "Lord on demonic mount" they become a viable threat. Not one to throw into the front lines, but one to couple with another punch. (block of knights go in, the chariot on the EDGE of the combat, )

Gorebeast chariots are better at the same role, but they're 100 pts vs 80 and not battleline (S2D). Still, a chariot to clip in on the edge and maybe draw people into combat is handy.

 

4: Again, this depends on your list aims/goals. S2D heroes mostly got a price drop. They have synergy with a specific type of troop, usually one troop.  For instance, the Manticore lord. He buffs warriors quite well, meaning your list should center on 1-2 big anvils of warriors. Even a warshrine to help enhance them. 

 

S2D have very fun options and with the marks, you can add them to numerous allegiances. You're going to have fun playing around in what they can do.

 

[Dracothjay]

11 hours ago, Blackspine said:

S2D have very fun options and with the marks, you can add them to numerous allegiances. You're going to have fun playing around in what they can do.

 

Looking at all the warscrolls, they look like a very defensive army, equally offensive. But, I think they excel more in defence, except for knights and chosen, only sources of rend (beside the heros).

I’d really love to give them a whirl.

[Kramer]

10 minutes ago, Dracothjay said:

knights

Funnily enough knights have been my best tarpit unit  Just for context, I play a, mostly mortals, Slaanesh allegiance in which the knights function as first wave to tie up opponents so my daemonettes and warriors can choose what to charge in the second wave. 

Also, don't forget you could model one unit of warriors with great weapons for that -1 rend. (for me the daemonettes already supply that so it's less of an issue)

[Dracothjay]

8 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Slaanesh allegiance i

So how does this work then? Choose a god to fight for and all keywords/units unlock under that allegiance or are you running a STD allegiance but all slaanesh?

i seriously don’t know what I would want. Slaanesh is nice and fast to be honest, knights chariots etc would get into combat quicker.

[Praecautus]

I could see a similar khorne type mix of slaves and blood letters doing well too. Warriors to tank then throw the MW dealing blood letters up the table. Some knights to charge around smashing things and heros to spice. 

[Praecautus]

1 minute ago, Dracothjay said:

So how does this work then? Choose a god to fight for and all keywords/units unlock under that allegiance or are you running a STD allegiance but all slaanesh?

i seriously don’t know what I would want. Slaanesh is nice and fast to be honest, knights chariots etc would get into combat quicker.

If you give your slaves units a god mark e.g. Slaanesh, you can choose your army alliegience to be for the god as opposed to slaves to darkness or chaos. This opens up the battletome options to your army.

[Dracothjay]

12 minutes ago, Praecautus said:

battletome options t

What battletome is that? Sorry, not new to AOS but very new to chaos ?

[Kramer]

2 minutes ago, Dracothjay said:

So how does this work then? Choose a god to fight for and all keywords/units unlock under that allegiance or are you running a STD allegiance but all slaanesh?

At the moment you choose allegiance you check your whole list for a certain keyword during set up, for Slaanesh it's SLAANESH. So your chaos knights with mark of Slaanesh are eligible for the allegiance. But Varanguard gain their Keyword after the set up so they don't qualify for the allegiance. Same goes for Khorne and Nurgle. (Tzeentch I don't know. Depends if the keyword is Disciples of Tzeentch or simply Tzeentch). 

So that would free you up from the Slaves to Darkness ally restrictions, only those you set yourself within that allegiance. Maybe all mortals or something.  

[Kramer]

2 minutes ago, Dracothjay said:

What battletome is that? Sorry, not new to AOS but very new to chaos ?

I think @Praecautus meant the Allegiance abilities.