AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness / Darkoath Discussion

[Infernalslayer]

1 hour ago, Charleston said:

Yeah, I somehow fear it. But a lot of our range is still plastic and should remain untouched.

I am currently in a weird mood about the Darkoath Tome. Chaos was always a main enemy and Slaves/Warriors were an iconic enemy in the World that was. I love the idea of mortals gaining unholy strength and power from dark gods. And the loss of identity that follows up. My biggest fear is that they leave a wide part of the Slaves to Darkness untouched. This would be the worst case scenario: Imagine cool new Darkoath/Everchosen Units and then Chaos Warriors remaining the same trash profile they are right now. The Darkoath/Slaves Tome will be a different thing for gw as they have to buff the faction a lot to get them out of the current miserable position they are in right now. This could lead straightforward to gw keeping it conservative and releasing one of the weakest AoS 2.0 tomes so far.

 

Worst Case scenario for the Chaos Warriors would likely be if they get the Hellstriders of Slaanesh treatment.

Two different warscrolls that only correspond to the options you get in the box. One warscroll for hand weapon and shield, one for double weapons, but both warscrolls bland and unbuffed.

Resin upgrade packs get axed from GW Store and warscrolls in the trend of decreasing resin from  their catalogue.

I do fear that the complaints for the recent powercreep in some of the battletomes could indeed keep GW from buffing Slaves to Darkness to a respectable degree, unless the battletome is already finished.

Nonetheless, i am very eager to see this update and hope the army gets bolstered with a few new minis like Varanguard and Darkoath.

[Agent of Chaos]

GW has put itself into a difficult position with Slaves to Darkness...

Having most of the units able to take a mark and join a god-specific army is popular with players, fits with the fluff and adds flexibility to those other factions which are all good things. The consequence of this is if GW buff chaos warriors, knights and chariots to be effective in their own right within a Slaves allegiance then those units can quickly become ridiculous in god-specific armies. For example Khorne can easily give extra attacks, extra movement, bonuses and/or rerolls to hit and wound which makes for a very punchy unit of chaos knights or chosen. If their base warscroll was to become even stronger it could get crazy and people would start running them over Blood Crushers or Skull Crushers. Of course any increase in power could come with a point increase however I'm pretty sure the last thing Slaves players want is for their units to cost more! Therefore it might be kind of necessary for slaves units to remain relatively average to ensure they don't surpass the options within other factions.

The way to rectify that would be to leave the unit warscrolls as is but with some really nice Slaves Allegiance Abilities that provide buffs  equal to those found within god-specific armies without ridiculous limitations (i.e. having to be WHOLLY WITHIN 6" to get the Slaanesh buffs is a joke). A slaves to darkness spell lore would also be handy although the spells would have to be pretty good to be cast over Daemonic Power. Then Slaves would be a powerful army in its own right and I long for the day when its actually a toss up to run Khorne or Slaves allegiance.

The other major problem is that Slaves have been one of the staple warhammer armies since the beginning, by one name or another. 20 odd years ago they were just called Chaos Warriors and I still have a ton of models from those days as I'm sure many old players do, while new players can probably easily find hundreds of old plastic knights and warriors on ebay at a reasonable price. The point is that releasing a shiny new battletome may not do anything for sales of Slaves stuff other than the new tome itself. Being a business first, GW would know this and may decide a Slaves tome is not a priority (maybe not ever needed) or is not worth putting a whole lot of thought and effort into meaning what we do get is barely an improvement on the GHB abilities.

One solution to this issue is to release some shiny new models with the new tome. Plastic Chosen (or some equivalent of Varanguard on foot) has been mentioned a lot in these pages and would be a popular choice. Endless spells seem like an obvious option and it would be very interesting to see what they come up with for generic chaos endless spells. Coupled with that could be a lesser Chaos Sorcerer (i.e. keep the current Sorcerer Lord but give us a second, cheaper option without the automatic mystic shield, a less powerful base spell but with access to the new spell lore and endless spells). Another cool idea would be to go back to the days of Chaos Lords and Sorcerers being able to ride in chariots (and if we are really dreaming then the option to have their chariot pulled by the daemonic steeds of the hero's chosen chaos god). With chariots as battleline in a slaves army this allows for the possibility of an all chariot army which would surely excite some people. They wouldnt even have to produce a new model; just make it possible and let people buy the kits separately and convert away. I've wanted to convert a Khorne Lord riding a chariot pulled by juggernaughts forever and now I have the means but the unit doesnt exist 😞

 New battalions might also get people interested in Slaves; something that encouraged an all cavalry army with bonus movement for example. Nothing crazy or OP, just usable and interesting. 

Anyways hopefully GW sees enough commercial benefit in Slaves to produce a decent battletome without wasting our time or negatively affecting the other chaos factions. One can hope!

[Infernalslayer]

When they update the warscrolls with a new battletome they can get around to buffing Chaos Warriors, Knights etc without affecting them in god marked armies.

Simply add a unique ability to each warscroll that is only active if you chose not to mark the unit at the start of the game. Similar to how the Daemon Prince works at set up.

[Requizen]

Anyone playing with Ruinbringers? I'm interested in nice fast armies, and a Knight, Marauder Horsemen, and Chariot based army sounds pretty cool.

[Charleston]

7 hours ago, Requizen said:

Anyone playing with Ruinbringers? I'm interested in nice fast armies, and a Knight, Marauder Horsemen, and Chariot based army sounds pretty cool.

They look like a decent way of playing chaos knights.The charge gives some mortal wounds that slaves lack in general. The downside is, that it is hard to pull of as the ability is once per game if I recall correctly, during your charge, and we also lost one of the better support heroes (Lord on Slaanesh Mount) to support Chaos Knights

[Charleston]

Well,out of boredom I created a magic lore, some new artifacts and traits for StD. Would like your opinion on thoose ideas and mechanics and what you could imagine for StD as a matching alternative:

Spell-Lore of Ruinous Power

1. Soothing Darkness
   The March of the wicked Legions is always backed up by an balefull darkness.
   This Spell requires a cast roll of 6+. Reduce the range of all ranged weaponsby 6", up to a minimum of 2" until your next hero phase
2. The Voice of a Legion
   It is hard to focus on a spell with the voice of thousends of deamons in your ear.
   Cast this Spell on a cast roll of 6+. If this spell was sucessfull, reroll all sucessfull casting rolls for all wizzards within 18" until your next hero phase
3. Descend into Madness
   It is a long way to ruin, but it only takes a few steps into madness
   Cast Roll of 7+. If this Spell is sucessfull, select a unit within 18". Target unit suffers D3 Mortal Wounds. Then you can decide to deal D3 Mortal Wounds to the Caster. If you do, the Target Unit suffers D3 wounds. Repeat this process until you decide to stop the madness, or until the caster or target unit is destroyed
4. Infernal Protection
   Fear thoose whom you can´t hurt the most.
   Cast Roll of 6+. When this Spell is sucessfull, target a Model wholy within 12" of the caster. Until your next Hero Phase rolls a dice for each Wound and Mortal Wound suffered by target model. On a roll of 5+ the wound is negated.
5. Sowing Despair
   Extinguish the flame of valor and you will find fertile ground for dread
   Cast Roll of 7+. If the spell is sucessfull, select a unit within 24" of the caster. Until your next Hero Phase, target Unit has to make a battleshock test in the battleshock phase. The unit cannot be affected by "Inspiring Presence" or another ability that would skip a battleshock test. In addition, reduce the bravery of target unit by 1
6. Sap Life
   Take from the weak. Give to the worthy.
   Cast Roll of 5+. If the Spell is sucessfull, target unit suffers a Mortal Wound. Remove one wound from a unit within 3" of the caster.

Unholy Relics

1. Grimoire of the Voiceless
   The pages are filled with secrets, invocations and screams of thoose silenced.
   Once per turn the model can choose to unbind a spell. Do not roll for the unbind. Instead, the bearer of the Grimoire suffers D3 Mortal Wounds and the Spell is automaticaly unbound.
2. Madmans Coin
   Death and immortality, both just a coin flip away.
   At the begining of your Hero Phase roll a D6. On a 1-3 the bearer suffers Mortal Wounds equal to the roll. On a roll of 4+ the Bearer removes that many wounds
3. Soulscreamer Plate
   Screams and bloodstains stick alike to this armour.
   Reduce the bravery of enemy models within 3" by 1. In addition, if any models were slayed by the bearer this turn, reduce the bravery of enemy units within 3" by 1 more until the end of the turn.

Weaponary of Ruin

1. Writhehammer
   It does worse things to the souls of its victims than to their bones.
   After a model failed a save roll against this weapon for the first time in a turn, roll 2D6. The target models unit suffers a mortal wound for each point the roll exceds its bravery
2. Shadowstrain
   To parry this weapon means nothing. To stife its shadows means pain.
   Whenever the bearer rolls an unmodified hit roll of 1 with this weapon in the combat step, the attack sequence for this roll ends and the target unit suffers 1 Mortal Wound.
3. Worldender
   It is sayed that this mace was used to eqtinguish stars and even to end the existence of minor realm of magic.
   Improve the Rend of the Weapon by 1. On an unmodified wound roll of 6 double the damage charasteristic of this weapon.

[Agent of Chaos]

I love Descend into Madness! Really cool idea for a spell! In fact they are all pretty cool and well thought out without being overpowered, except maybe the first one is a little too good against specific opponents. Reducing the range to 12" and/or increasing the cast roll would balance it a little better.

The weapons/artifacts are pretty cool too, very fluffy. However Worldender and Grimoire are clear autopicks over the rest of them.

At least you've proven it isn't that hard a thing to do and GW should pull their finger out and gives Slaves an assist!

[Coyote]

No love for the new Warcry?  All units are now keyword Slaves of Darkness...

[shadowgra]

I was stoked for the Possibility of using undivided chaos again. 

GW disappoints me every time. How much do we have to wait for a battletome??!?? It's not like STD is a meaningless army, but they do not seems to care.

Harbingers bringing an army with them? Well maybe for the other 3, darkoath warqueen is still alone. 

Salt.

[Charleston]

1 hour ago, shadowgra said:

I was stoked for the Possibility of using undivided chaos again. 

GW disappoints me every time. How much do we have to wait for a battletome??!?? It's not like STD is a meaningless army, but they do not seems to care.

Harbingers bringing an army with them? Well maybe for the other 3, darkoath warqueen is still alone. 

Salt.

While I think we all can agree of the StD Taste of the Day, Salty, as StD seem to be the best, I think that we shouldn´t loose all hope. While we have to wait even longer, I think that we will get a good load of stuff. I tought GW will use Warcry as Story-Bumber to make a jump into Chaos afterwards, but it doesn´t seem so. Instead they actively work on the Narrative. Heck, we had Malign Sorceries as a great global campaign that set the beginning that went into the Necroquake. Since them we have an ongoing narrative. Alliances break or are redone as we see in the Souped Battletomes. We had just with Forbidden Power another Narrative Step that gave us a new antagonist who was freed by the Legion of Grief. Also we know that the lore gets more and more mixed, with the great Alliances getting weaker. Sylvaneth, IDK and DoK are already quite unhappy with Sigmar. Meanwhile Chaos is in the back, gathering Power which is shown by Warcry itself.

Therefore Slaves to Darkness/Darkoath will come, and we can expect a release with new models, more than just souped up StD/Everchosen. It just is not time for us yet.

[Charlo]

So with Orruk Warclans and Cities of Sigmar coming soon, I honestly think we may well see something like "Chaos Hordes" as a future book; wrapping up Slaves to Darkness, Darkoath and who knows, maybe even Everchosen too as a single big chaos book focused on undivided mortals. They'll probably make "Undivided" a proper thing and mean you cannot use KHORNE marked dudes in an UNDIVIDED allegiance etc too.

Who knows?!

[decker_cky]

5 hours ago, Charlo said:

So with Orruk Warclans and Cities of Sigmar coming soon, I honestly think we may well see something like "Chaos Hordes" as a future book; wrapping up Slaves to Darkness, Darkoath and who knows, maybe even Everchosen too as a single big chaos book focused on undivided mortals. They'll probably make "Undivided" a proper thing and mean you cannot use KHORNE marked dudes in an UNDIVIDED allegiance etc too.

Who knows?!

This has been expected for a long time. The separation of slaves to darkness and everchosen has felt a bit artificial since the GHB released and factions started using allegiance abilities. Adding a pile of units through warcry only makes the approach more obvious. 

[Charlo]

18 hours ago, decker_cky said:

This has been expected for a long time. The separation of slaves to darkness and everchosen has felt a bit artificial since the GHB released and factions started using allegiance abilities. Adding a pile of units through warcry only makes the approach more obvious. 

Seeing as the Untamed Beasts seem to be really good ruleswise,  a faction formed of the Warcry lot and all the standard StD minis would be amazing.

[Xasz]

To be honest, the moment Warcry was announced for summer there was no way that a battletome would drop around the same time frame, at least for me ("rival" product that might take sales away from the boxed game, now chaos enthusiasts have to buy Warcry to get their fix). End of 2019 is now a pretty good guess I would assume. Some build up with a couple of "good" armies and then Archaon starts his campaign.

Concerning squatting, I think StD and Everchosen stuff is rather save thanks to Warcry, art and books, at least the non-resin part.

[whispersofblood]

The Warcry stuff is great have you guys taken a look at the warscrolls?

[Xasz]

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

The Warcry stuff is great have you guys taken a look at the warscrolls?

Furies and Untamed Beasts have something going for them but I don't see them being an auto-include or something like that.

[Battlefury]

The issue is, at the moment we can not predict anything coming from GW. They stick their heads more and more into narrative supplements. that they will bombard us with to actually just fill their pockets.

I have doubts, that the actual StD / Darkoath Battletome will be great, because we where often proven wrong by thinking this. Don't know where AoS is going to atm, to be honest.

[GeneralZero]

Only  4 month (technicaly 5 but december rarely shows new things) for the promised Chaos missing tome of 2019, which is presumably the StD one. That means that in only one trimester max, we will know.

[Xasz]

No point in being senselessly negative.

We know nothing and considering the current state of StD/Everchosen it can only get better.

The only difficult part is the wait, it is entirely possible that a book is not even coming this year but early 2020.

[whispersofblood]

My suspicion is that warscrolls will lose marks and the book will include warscroll battalions that give the mark keywords to the units inside. Much like BoC do, this gives the rule writers some constraints they can use to limit the number of unintended interactions.

Thus they can give StD a lot of their power through battle traits,"tribe" rules, and warscroll battalions. While leaving the unit warscrolls themselves rather more plain and competitive against the god specific warscrolls. 

What we want is a situation where a chaos warrior in a StD army is comparable to a Blood warrior in a Khorne army. But, taking a Chaos warrior in your Khorne army via the battalion isn't much worse than taking your Blood warrior.

I would consider letting Heroes have marks that unlock abilities that only work on units with the StD or Mortal keyword.

I would also love if the 8 tribes in Warcry because the 8 tribes in the book, and let each unit become battleline. Because... Well 8.

[Xasz]

What they do with the marks will be interesting.

I can see them retiring it completely, similar to what you suggested.

Another option, that I already posted here I think, would be adding a fifth mark for Archaon/undivided. Only an undivided army would be eligible for the allegiance stuff from the book and so on.

The newer stuff e.g. Darkoath or Warcry cannot be marked at all. Which might indicate that marks are going away, that just low corruption chaos cannot be marked  or that the marking mechanic comes from allegiance stuff/battalions.

Overall, I'm really interested in what they decide to do with it. There are a lot of possible design decisions and a considerable amount of freedom compared to god-specific armies.

[Charlo]

I think keeping StD/ Darkoath as "unmarked" in general but adding very flexible battalions (ala Beasts of Chaos) to gain marks would be an excellent way of doing it.

It means you can write a more focused ruleset with internal synergy, as opposed to having to worry about every unit having a unique interaction with 5 different marks across four other main allegience abilities.

[Xasz]

Personally I am not a fan of how BoC handled it.

I hope they explore something different or enhance the existing system as I don't want BoC and StD to feel samey.

[Frowny]

I think the furies have some potential. Skinks are very very strong battleline, and while these are less cheap per wound defensively, and aren't battleline, they are much faster, can fly, and can actually light kill things in combat if needed. 

I'm imagining using them as a screen in front of knights. If charged they can Fallback over their target and out of the way and guarantee a juicy charge while also setting themselves up to hit a backline caster or ranged unit. It just fall back 3 inches and keep screening. Don't underestimate that ability.

[Battlefury]

10 hours ago, Xasz said:

We know nothing and considering the current state of StD/Everchosen it can only get better.

That's what we thought with BoK too ;D