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AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness / Darkoath Discussion


Gaz Taylor

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1 hour ago, Midjithero said:

Correct it is Knights and not Varanguard.

Speaking of Varanguard though, even if their warscroll doesn’t change, how do people build them?  Or is it more dependent on (currently) god selection??

I've built mine with the daemon blades, helmet and mount I think matches Tzeentch, Nurgle and Khorne closest.

The Tzeentch one has the helmet with two long horns and one eye covered wielding the axe in the shape of Tzeentches symbol and riding on the beaked mount. While the Khorne one has the helmet that looks similar to the Blood Warriors ones wielding the sword that looks a bit like the bloodletters weapon and the mount that has similar design elements to a juggernaut. And finally the Nurgle one is wielding the blade that looks like a plague sword, the helmet is the one with a single horn and the mount is also horned.

Now I have no idea if the daemonic weapons are actually any good since I've never had the chance to play them but they're certainly thematic. If I were ever crazy enough to buy another unit (which if they're really good I just might be) I'd probably use the unarmored heads and maybe the fell spears.

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10 hours ago, Midjithero said:

Correct it is Knights and not Varanguard.

Speaking of Varanguard though, even if their warscroll doesn’t change, how do people build them?  Or is it more dependent on (currently) god selection??

Currently, Varanguard are probably best with the lances, though there's an argument for Daemon blades if you have Archaon, access to re-rolls to hit, and/or additional bonuses to hit, or ensorcelled weapons if you think you might not be able to get the charge. With just Archaon, Daemon blades are slightly better than ensorcelled weapons in terms of output vs a target with a 4+ or better save, but are otherwise worse, and if Archaon dies,  or you don't bring him, they're strictly worse; Lances off the charge are the worst (if you have Archaon), but perform the best on the charge, having the same output as ensorcelled weapons, but with better rend, and with the ability to attack twice once per game, you can potentially double up on that charge damage. 

If you have re-rolls to hit or an additional bonus and Archaon, Daemonblades probably end up the best as long as you aren't suffering any penalties to hit. 

The warscroll is probably changing a bit in the new tome though, so it's hard to say for certain. If Daemon blades go up to 6 attacks at 3+/4+/-1/1 with mortal wounds on natural 6s to hit,  and no downside (as I sort of suspect will happen unless there are much larger warscroll changes), they might end up the best for all situations.

In a Khorne army, I'd probably always go lances because of the access to re-rolls/bonuses to wound and charge, though there's an argument for daemon blades with Killing frenzy; same with Nurgle. In Slaanesh, maybe esorcelled weapons, as there's very limited access to hit bonuses. In Tzeentch, maybe Ensorcelled weapons, since fate points would be used for Archaon.

In Slaves to Darkness/generic chaos with a warshrine, probably lances, though daemon blades have potential with the re-rolls from the warshrine and the hit buff from Archaon.

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It would be nice to keep the risk element of demon blades, but the rewards need to be higher and it would be good to move them to the actual hit roll rather than adding an extra dice rolling step. Something like 1 self mortal on a 1 or 3 mortals to target on a 6.

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I like building my Varanguard with lances, I recently tried them in a 6 man unit (no archaon but managed to get hit bonuses from generic chaos command trait and reroll 1's from unmarked shrine) and they did some damage for sure! Would have done more if I'd remembered about the pile in twice when I charged XD

I haven't tried demonic weapons or ensorcelled but ensorcelled kinda looked better though I was building a demonic weapon unit because they look gorgeous so will have to try them with archaon sometime tbh. Honestly I think they have a decent warscroll, I'd like to see demonic blades get a buff for sure but the ability to get allegiance abilities with new slaves to darkness will really help them, especially if they can end up getting the buff from the chaos sorcerers spell (would need either std keyword or the spell to be changed to affect them too) I think they could maybe see a points drop but depends on how good allegiance is, they have a lot of potential for sure.

Archaon I really want to see changed, currently the best thing he does for me is give +1 hit to varanguard (which really really helps their spear damage output hitting on 2's) and gives god keywords to varanguard (great for +1 attack from bloodsecrator on those charging lances) I'd like to see him made worth his high points cost or get a fair amount cheaper. 

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4 hours ago, Asamu said:

Currently, Varanguard are probably best with the lances, though there's an argument for Daemon blades if you have Archaon, access to re-rolls to hit, and/or additional bonuses to hit, or ensorcelled weapons if you think you might not be able to get the charge. With just Archaon, Daemon blades are slightly better than ensorcelled weapons in terms of output vs a target with a 4+ or better save, but are otherwise worse, and if Archaon dies,  or you don't bring him, they're strictly worse; Lances off the charge are the worst (if you have Archaon), but perform the best on the charge, having the same output as ensorcelled weapons, but with better rend, and with the ability to attack twice once per game, you can potentially double up on that charge damage. 

If you have re-rolls to hit or an additional bonus and Archaon, Daemonblades probably end up the best as long as you aren't suffering any penalties to hit. 

The warscroll is probably changing a bit in the new tome though, so it's hard to say for certain. If Daemon blades go up to 6 attacks at 3+/4+/-1/1 with mortal wounds on natural 6s to hit,  and no downside (as I sort of suspect will happen unless there are much larger warscroll changes), they might end up the best for all situations.

In a Khorne army, I'd probably always go lances because of the access to re-rolls/bonuses to wound and charge, though there's an argument for daemon blades with Killing frenzy; same with Nurgle. In Slaanesh, maybe esorcelled weapons, as there's very limited access to hit bonuses. In Tzeentch, maybe Ensorcelled weapons, since fate points would be used for Archaon.

In Slaves to Darkness/generic chaos with a warshrine, probably lances, though daemon blades have potential with the re-rolls from the warshrine and the hit buff from Archaon.

When I "mathed it out" it seemed that Lances were better in most situations (given you are running them with Archaon). Ensorcelled weapons were close behind, but deamon weapons as the scroll has them now were  the worst of the three. 

 But I was looking at it from an (admittedly sub-competitive) list of Archaon and 5x3 Varanguard list. The thing would only work anyway (and even then probably not) if you get the charge in and tap the double activation. The lances get their bonuses for the entire turn  on which they charged, so it works for the double activation as well. Obviously if you fail the charge, you'd have been better off with ensorcelled weapons, but they are not that much better that it would not have been worth it to equip everyone with Lances given you are going to attempt to charge with every unit. 

(That said, I've seen some run a unit with 2xLances and 1xEnsorcelled, but IMO when you are playing all-elite, I feel hedging just decreases your all ready low chance of winning. You've got to fully commit to being all-out aggressive). 

 

Anyway, my 2 cents. 

Edited by annarborhawk
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8 minutes ago, annarborhawk said:

Geez, do I hope Varanguard can still be Batteline if Archaon is your General. I'm in the middle of a big project trying to do my best paint job with 15 varanguard working on that assumption.....🙄 

I'm sure it will. I hope it will be good elite unit in non-Archaon army, as that will make more people actually buy it.

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12 minutes ago, annarborhawk said:

Geez, do I hope Varanguard can still be Batteline if Archaon is your General. I'm in the middle of a big project trying to do my best paint job with 15 varanguard working on that assumption.....🙄 

Cripes do you play many 2500 point games?

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3 minutes ago, michu said:

I'm sure it will. I hope it will be good elite unit in non-Archaon army, as that will make more people actually buy it.

My hopes as well. For the price of them it would be wonderful for them to be a very useful unit to have for sure.

 

If they remove the battleline option it would be a really big blow for the everchosen fans for sure. And make them harder to include in archaon lists with having to balance battleline too.

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Archaon will be tricky unless they remove his ability to play in god marked armies. For example he's already really strong in a khorne army, so a big power boost would make him insane there. I'm not expecting him to get a lot of warscroll changes or a huge point drop. I assume most of his improvements will come through allegiance abilities, spell lores or the endless spells. 

For example, there could be a spell that makes the caster fight first and an endless spell that gives plus 1 attack to all models within a range. Or maybe they move the varanguard fight twice ability over to a 'clan' command ability so Archaon can benefit from it too. Lots of possibilities.

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38 minutes ago, decker_cky said:

GW will have to ramp up the Slaves allegiance abilities significantly, otherwise either Slaves will be underpowered, or the units will be abusive in the best available marked army. 

They did say in the Blood and Glory article that they will be at their best in a StD army so I'd say there are some significant changes to their allegiance abilities coming. That said we won't really know whether they really do make StD units work best in their own army until people actually get some games in though.

Edited by Dirtnaps
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1 hour ago, Graftonianman said:

I doubt the warscrolls will change at all. Instead, there will be effects from characters which only affect S2D units and significant allegiance abilities. Perhaps a mechanic like that in Cities where units gain keywords for being a part of the army. 

Almost every recent army has had significant changes to their warscrolls when they get a book. 

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What we know:

- we have a 100%new (mouted) hero

- new endless spells

- new battletome

- and a whole (amazing) range of miniatures, synergies, possibilities in chaos.

Look at what GW just did with a more stand alone with almost no super magic (no ES) , the Ogors. From the bottom of the barrel, they are now a good army. Not crazy good. But they can compete. Superb job done here. And almost without changing the warscrolls! Even better: the CoS.

I am confident that a super iconic army like StD will be excellent. (almost) Without changing the warscrolls, just add little thingies here and there. With a nice tome full of synergies, good battaillons, nice traits and relics...Add a good points balancing and you get a winner. Example: the new mounted hero with some nice commands, a bit of adjustments on varanguards and archaons, some agressive spells, some specific marks of chaos to give some personality/game play for several factions...

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8 hours ago, Tiberius501 said:

Yeah he seems like a really tricky dude to balance. Which is a shame. Hopefully at the very least he’ll get better rend on some of his weapons. 

Apparently rend -2 on slayer of kings was confirmed?

In a StD army, assuming they keep their current allegiance abilities from the GhB, he gets re-roll 1s to hit, wound, and save and re-roll run/charge rolls just for being part of the army, and passes those bonuses along to units with the relevant marks. I don't think they'll change that part of the allegiance abilities much (though hopefully they increase the range or make it also work off of unit champions like OBR), and they'll probably keep the eye of the gods table and get another ability or two for the basic allegiance + subfactions. 

Nurgle/Khorne get something out of him partly because of the current command ability, which I'd sort of expect to change, since it's so difficult to make use of as is.

3 hours ago, Graftonianman said:

I doubt the warscrolls will change at all. Instead, there will be effects from characters which only affect S2D units and significant allegiance abilities. Perhaps a mechanic like that in Cities where units gain keywords for being a part of the army. 

I think it's pretty much certain that we'll see some warscroll changes, even if they aren't all that significant. At the very least, the StD heroes will have their command abilities adjusted. The manticore lord only being able to use the command ability on basic warriors of chaos sucks, and the foot lord command ability and mark benefits are redundant with the allegiance ability, which will obviously be changed.

The new models for chaos warriors make me think they'll see -1 rend baseline, but there's obviously no guarantee.

Just now, GeneralZero said:

- new endless spells

Did they confirm that? There wasn't anything about endless spells in the reveal, though I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did get some.

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