AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness / Darkoath Discussion

[JackStreicher]

49 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

What is the size difference there? Marauders are on 25mm and Bloodreavers are on 32mm

Damn! I need to get more bases  plus bloodreavers look a bit weird on 25mm bases

[Chopper]

1 minute ago, JackStreicher said:

Damn! I need to get more bases  plus bloodreavers look a bit weird on 25mm bases

Finished building my Marauders earlier today. They are just Vikings. 

 

I have 5 tiers within my Chaos:

Marauders - basic Humans

Cultist - starting down the road

Warriors/Knights

Heros & Varanguard

Archaon

 

Thats how i explain why they are a bit smaller.

[JackStreicher]

Uh I just realized the Chaos War Mannoth has both, the Mortals and S2D keywords meaning it can benefit from pretty much all of the abilities in the book...

juicy 10 trampling attacks 3+, 2+ rerollable hits with -2 rend and D3 dmg incoming 😍

Edited December 8, 2019 by JackStreicher

[Asamu]

8 hours ago, Vanger said:

Anyone has an idea, how you can make Varanguard battleline in the new StD book? Is there some rule hidden away in the Host of the Everchosen that says that they get that? Or their formation? Or Archaon? Because on the point cost page there is nothing about them being battleline or if they are battleline if Archaon's the general...

All models in the list must be from the Host of the Everchosen subfaction. Which basically means they're battleline if you're bringing Archaon and not taking allies.

2 hours ago, Malakithe said:

What is the size difference there? Marauders are on 25mm and Bloodreavers are on 32mm

Bloodreavers are on 25mm bases as well. They're the same.

[GeneralZero]

So, according to new book, is there a way to make a (almost) competitive list WITHOUT the marauders? don't like them. Want knights/warriors/chariots (got 3) varanguards and mounted guys (on monsters)

 

[mmimzie]

8 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

So, according to new book, is there a way to make a (almost) competitive list WITHOUT the marauders? don't like them. Want knights/warriors/chariots (got 3) varanguards and mounted guys (on monsters)

 

Chaos knights are about as good as maurders. They basically do the same thing in my book. Both want sorcerer buff and to pile in twice against a target forced to attack last. 

 

Splintered fang want to be killer and have the whole unit attack and pile in using the dark path chieftain. 

 

Unmad are Abit weaker than maraudere, but can force unit to be stuck in combat with them. Allowing you to go in for a strong punch and keep the target unit locked down for a turn. 

 

4 daemon princes working together as one pusudoe unit are also pretty strong, and don't need much support 

 

 

29 minutes ago, Asamu said:

All models in the list must be from the Host of the Everchosen subfaction. Which basically means they're battleline if you're bringing Archaon and not taking allies.

This doesn't work. There is no way as far as I can see to make a StD with varanguard as battle line.

[Grimrock]

38 minutes ago, Asamu said:

Bloodreavers are on 25mm bases as well. They're the same.

Bloodreavers are definitely not on 25mm bases, they'd be much better if they were. They're 32, same as the Blood Warriors.

[Asamu]

8 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

This doesn't work. There is no way as far as I can see to make a StD with varanguard as battle line.

"Battleline in Slaves to Darkness army if all units are Host of the Everchosen."

Pick is probably from the GMG battletome review.

6 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

Bloodreavers are definitely not on 25mm bases, they'd be much better if they were. They're 32, same as the Blood Warriors.

Ah, my mistakes. I don't play Khorne and never bought them after the first starter set when they came on 25mm bases.

[Skavelynn]

6 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

So, according to new book, is there a way to make a (almost) competitive list WITHOUT the marauders? don't like them. Want knights/warriors/chariots (got 3) varanguards and mounted guys (on monsters)

 

From what I've seen so far, I think the best units are Archaon, marauders, chaos warshrine, and the sorcerer and chaos lord on foot. Warriors, horsemen, and knights are good too, but not as much as those 5. Nurgle daemon prince might be good too if the command ability does d3 mortal wounds on every 6, and not just once (FAQ please! 😅). The rest of the units are overpriced in points or have poor rules in my opinion 😞

Blobs of chaos knights might be an ok alternative to marauders, varanguard in sixth circle as well seem decent. Warriors are just tanks, I wouldn't expect them to kill much. I think marauder spam with Archaon and other supporting heroes + a wall of nurgle marked warriors buffed by shrine are probably going to be in the most competitive lists. Teleporting marauders rerolling everything, fighting twice, and fighting before being slain just seems better than most of the options in the tome.

[grucha]

39 minutes ago, Skavelynn said:

Teleporting marauders rerolling everything, fighting twice, and fighting before being slain just seems better than most of the options in the tome.

What gives marauders opportunity to teleport and fight twice?

[mmimzie]

4 minutes ago, grucha said:

What gives marauders opportunity to teleport and fight twice?

 marauders musiciangives +1 to charge, marauders also have an ability that lets you set the lowest die roll when charging to a 6.  One of the slaves to darkness spells lets you teleport a unit any where more than 9" away. The chaos lord command ability lets you fight twice.

[grucha]

5 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

 marauders musiciangives +1 to charge, marauders also have an ability that lets you set the lowest die roll when charging to a 6.  One of the slaves to darkness spells lets you teleport a unit any where more than 9" away. The chaos lord command ability lets you fight twice.

Sounds like I should buy 20 more poxwalkers to convert them to nurgle marauders

Thanks! Do you know how has hard is it to cast this spell?

[Argonoch]

What do people think of 10-15 marauder horsemen? 15 shots at 3+/3+/-1 seems decent and they arent terrible in combat anymore

[Argonoch]

4 hours ago, Redmanphill said:

With the Slannesh aura any rolls of six to hit generates two hits. How does this interact with the Cursed Warhammer that the Chaos Lord on Demonic amount has? It inflicts two mortal wounds on the roll of a six to hit with the combat sequence then ending. Does that mean he is inflicting four mortal wounds for each roll of a six to hit. That seems rather powerful.

No he inflicts the 2 mortal wounds and then continues with the extra attack generated. I remember this question came up when Hedonites came out. It says the attack sequence ends for that attack, but the extra attack from a 6 is counted as a seperate attack so doesnt inflict 2MW

[mmimzie]

2 minutes ago, grucha said:

Sounds like I should buy 20 more poxwalkers to convert them to nurgle marauders

Thanks! Do you know how has hard is it to cast this spell?

needs a 7+

2 minutes ago, Argonoch said:

What do people think of 10-15 marauder horsemen? 15 shots at 3+/3+/-1 seems decent and they arent terrible in combat anymore

I think the ruinbringer host giving marader horsemen  2+ d3 mortal wounds on the charge makes javalin horsemen a thing. I wouldn't take 10+ though i'd keep them at 5s to get more of that charge hits. A chaos lord of karkadrak + 4 mauder horsemen units could do 6d3 mortal wounds on the charge and shooting with those javalins before charging in. Letting you do some decent damage before combat starts. Give them all mark of slannesh so they can reroll those charge rolls and do extra hits on 6's  Then the karkadrak itself is pretty killy and can be buffed up just as a on foot marauder or chaos knight unit can be to go in swing to finish off whatever you multi charged, or to sneak in and kill heros behind a screen you just charged through. 

honestly, this is where i'm going for my battle line as it's none tax, gives CP, and the maurder horsemen looks actually decent. 
 

59 minutes ago, Asamu said:

"Battleline in Slaves to Darkness army if all units are Host of the Everchosen."

oh thanks a lot!! i was going by that image that was posted where the person had compile the points and text. Guess they missed this batta line bit.

[Acid_Nine]

Is it just me but does a chaos lord on manticore with the blade of symmetry on his lance, the mark of slaanesh and a chaos blade sounds like it could absolutely wreck face?

 

now the only question I got is if the mark gives 2 extra attacks or only one? Like if I got 3 sixes on his Lance, would I get 6 hits or 9?

 

honestly slaanesh’s mark seems really good for absolutely everything, but I may be biased.

[JackStreicher]

9 I guess if the blade grants extra hits as well

Edited December 8, 2019 by JackStreicher

[HollowHills]

Thoughts on the below list?

 

All marked nurgle
Cabalites Subfaction
Harbinger of Decay - Ally = 160 pts
Artefact - Thermal Rider Cloak
Chaos Sorceror Lord = 110 pts
Spell - Mask of Darkness
Chaos Sorceror Lord on Manticore = 260 pts
General
Trait - Mighty Ritualist
Spell - Binding Damnation
Chaos Sorceror Lord = 110 pts
Spell: Whispers of Chaos
Chaos Lord = 110 pts 
Daemon Prince = 210 pts
Artefact - Spelleater Pendant 
Spell = Call to Glory
Battleline Chaos Marauders  2 x 40 = 600 pts
Battleline Chaos Marauders 20 = 150 pts
Plaguetouched Warband = 180 pts
Darkfire Daemonrift = 60 pts
Extra CP = 50 pts
Total 1990
 

[Asamu]

1 hour ago, Skavelynn said:

Nurgle daemon prince might be good too if the command ability does d3 mortal wounds on every 6, and not just once (FAQ please! 😅).

Currently needs an Errata, not an FAQ.

Current wording is every attack can trigger the d3 mortal wounds, and you can stack it, since there's no limit to how many times it can be used on the same unit, which makes it completely broken.

"Until your next hero phase, if the unmodified hit roll for an attack that targets that unit is 6" - if they changed "an attack" to "any attacks", then it would only trigger once per unit that attacks, but as is, every single attack can trigger the d3 mortal wounds.

 

1 hour ago, Skavelynn said:

From what I've seen so far, I think the best units are Archaon, marauders, chaos warshrine, and the sorcerer and chaos lord on foot. Warriors, horsemen, and knights are good too, but not as much as those 5. The rest of the units are overpriced in points or have poor rules in my opinion 😞

Blobs of chaos knights might be an ok alternative to marauders, varanguard in sixth circle as well seem decent. Warriors are just tanks, I wouldn't expect them to kill much. I think marauder spam with Archaon and other supporting heroes + a wall of nurgle marked warriors buffed by shrine are probably going to be in the most competitive lists. Teleporting marauders rerolling everything, fighting twice, and fighting before being slain just seems better than most of the options in the tome.

Pretty much agree with this.

Though some other standout units I think will be thrown into lists a lot are:

Be'lakor - big middle finger to Nagash/Archaon or any big deathstars or super expensive heroes.

Khorne Daemon Princes - just 1 in a list is really good. Cutting charges in half for everything within 18" is an extremely powerful effect.

Iron Golems - They're just better than warriors; neither unit hits hard, but Iron golems get the save re-rolls in min-sized units, are 30 points cheaper per unit, and have more models.

Mindstealer Sphiranx - Making things strike last is good, and this is one of the most reliable ways in the entire game to cause the effect. At their low cost, it's fairly easy to throw 1-2 into a list for the utility.

 

As far as what sorts of list compositions we'll see in a competitive sense, I'm thinking:

Host of the Everchosen w/ Archaon, a sorcerer, a chaos lord, 1-2 Varanguard, some marauders, iron golems for holding objectives/screening. Nurgle/Slaanesh seem the best for this sort of list. Maybe marauder cav/furies for some more fast units to go for objectives.

Ravagers w/ 5 of the cheaper chaos heroes (at least 1 sorc), maybe Be'lakor or an ally hero like a bloodsecrator, marauders and such in a god-marked battalion, or  a Ruinbringer warband with a bunch of marauder cav/knights.

Cabalists with either marauder bombs (probably nurgle until they errata the nurgle DP command ability...) or some endless spells, specifically spell portal - with 3 spells for killing hordes, multiple control/teleporting spells, there's some merit to it, but I just can't see it being as good as something like hollowheart in CoS.

Despoilers (especially if there's a lot of shooting in the meta, because 1" visibility through terrain screws over shooting lists), with a Khorne Daemon Prince (Maybe a second one if you don't want to run the army as khorne, but the khorne one is probably the most useful to the sub-faction), Be'lakor, and at least 1 sorc lord (maybe on manticore), possibly with with 1-2 mindstealer sphiranxes, and maybe a ruinbringer warband or 2-4 slaughterbrutes (They're the best monster in the list for combat), or some sort of marauders/iron golems core for punching/sitting on objectives.

There's potential for a shooting list using a bunch of Fomorion crushers, but I don't think the output/range will be high enough to justify it. Crushers are pretty good regardless though averaging ~8 damage on your turns/4 on enemy turns in combat isn't bad for a 100 point monster, but it's probably not worth going all in on monsters even in a despoiler list.

10 minutes ago, Acid_Nine said:

now the only question I got is if the mark gives 2 extra attacks or only one? Like if I got 3 sixes on his Lance, would I get 6 hits or 9?

It's one extra attack. Each 6 to hit causes 2 hits total if the character is marked Slaanesh.

[Sinfullyvannila]

Do Pink Horrors generated from the Gaunt Summoner benefit from Split when summoned into a Slaves army?

Edited December 8, 2019 by Sinfullyvannila

[Acid_Nine]

@Asamu thanks! I was curious about that. I don’t know if I agree with the iron golems vs chaos warriors thing, as they would have to stand still to be able to get that buff, and in an aggressive list I do not know I’d that would be wise?

 

i think I would like to see some way to make chaos warriors work, maybe with support such as an undivided shrine backing them up, using great blades and possibly a slaanesh or nurgle hero behind them to boost damage numbers? A squad of 15 is still 30 wounds to chew through, and even units that do well on the charge would struggle trying to chew through them if their re-rolling save rolls and re-rolling to hit and to wound rolls?

[Freejack02]

Any thoughts on Fomorid Crushers and synergy? They seem not overly powerful, but pretty solid all around for 100 points. 

[Asamu]

53 minutes ago, Sinfullyvannila said:

Do Pink Horrors generated from the Gaunt Summoner benefit from Split?

Not outside of a tzeentch army. You need the Tzeentch summoning to be able to make blue horrors from them.

47 minutes ago, Acid_Nine said:

@Asamu thanks! I was curious about that. I don’t know if I agree with the iron golems vs chaos warriors thing, as they would have to stand still to be able to get that buff, and in an aggressive list I do not know I’d that would be wise?

Warriors are too slow to keep up with the list, and only get the re-roll in large units. As a screen, they're just a bit too expensive and don't cover enough area IMO. Besides, Iron Golems always get the save re-rolls in your opponent's turn, since it checks whether they moved in the same turn, and not whether or not they moved in their preceding movement phase. So unless they charged in the same turn, they get the save re-rolls.

I too, would like to see chaos warriors work, and it might for casual games, but... honestly, I can't see it being competitive. Everything else hits harder and faster, and for the most part, isn't that much less durable.

I guess they're okay in units of 15-20 but that's 300-400 points, and they just don't put out enough damage compared to other units in the price range, and they're too slow to get where you need them. I was surprised their points went up with the warscroll change. +1 to hit isn't worth a 25% bump for a unit of 30; I guess they're really banking on how you can stack the synergies on them.

I guess you could run a huge brick 30 or 2 of 15 with front line of great weapons and a second line of halberds with 2 warshrines and buff them. Marked Khorne with a bloodsecrator and/or wrathmongers and the other spell to pump some attacks into them, and put them in a bloodmarked warband so you can potentially give them +4 attacks. Then they're putting out some really solid damage, and probably still being mostly ignored by your opponent, since other things are more critical to kill early, so you can afford to not strike first with them, and then they can strike twice with the chaos lord command ability.  In that sort of list, the extra durability might pay off over the advantage in hitting power/speed/damage of knights/marauders, and if you're running Ravagers, you can muck up your opponent's shooting with 10 man marauder darts as you cross the board.

It might be worth trying such a list, but it's hard to see something so slow really being all that effective.

 

You could try running something like this:

Ravagers:

3x Chaos Lords - khorne, Eternal vendetta/Master of Deception/Unquestioned resolve - maybe mark of the high-favored on one of these, and maybe aetherquartz brooch or ignax's scales on another.

1x Sorc Lord - Bolstered by hate, general (changes every turn, and you don't want this one your general when you get into combat), Binding Damnation or Mask of Darkness

Bloodsecrator

1x Warshrine - khorne

2x15 Warriors - khorne (probably something like an 8/7 split halberds/great weapons is ideal)

3x 5 Marauder Horsemen - khorne

Doom-Sigil

Bloodmarked Warband

Extra CP

1870/2000

130 points to spare. Maybe a Sphiranx, a second bloodsecrator for redundancy, or another 5 warriors or marauder cav and a 30 pt endless spell; maybe drop one of the chaos lords down to an exalted hero to save 20 points and throw in a unit of wrathmongers.

There's some potential for a list like this to work.

Or you could go all in on their defensive power and combine the warriors into one 30 man brick and run Nurgle, then spam the daemon prince command ability on them (IMO, you do despoilers for this one so you can get more CPs and make all your heroes effectively immune to enemy shooting/magic by hiding them in terrain) while your opponent cries about how broken that is, since the mortal wounds get bounced on shooting attacks, too and the 30 Chaos warriors have 60 wounds with a 5++/6++ vs mortal wounds and a 4+(3+ with warshrine buff) re-rollable/6++ vs normal attacks

18 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

Any thoughts on Fomorid Crushers and synergy? They seem not overly powerful, but pretty solid all around for 100 points. 

In Despoilers they get healed for d3 on a 4+ every turn and can't be seen if they're hiding more than 1" of terrain, but they can see out and shoot. It's pretty neat, though will depend a lot on the base size (I'm guessing 50 or 60mm). Their output is comparable to normal monsters point for point, and they get a lot of wounds with no damage profile. As you said, they're pretty solid for 100 point monsters; it just might be hard to fit them in, since you need bodies for objectives and everything.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Asamu

[Skavelynn]

1 hour ago, Asamu said:

Though some other standout units I think will be thrown into lists a lot are:

Be'lakor - big middle finger to Nagash/Archaon or any big deathstars or super expensive heroes.

Khorne Daemon Princes - just 1 in a list is really good. Cutting charges in half for everything within 18" is an extremely powerful effect.

Iron Golems - They're just better than warriors; neither unit hits hard, but Iron golems get the save re-rolls in min-sized units, are 30 points cheaper per unit, and have more models.

Mindstealer Sphiranx - Making things strike last is good, and this is one of the most reliable ways in the entire game to cause the effect. At their low cost, it's fairly easy to throw 1-2 into a list for the utility.

Be'lakor and daemon princes are too expensive to be worth taking in my opinion 😕, their damage is not much on average and while Be'lakor has a very good ability, it's not even guaranteed. You'd be spending 240 points on a 66% chance once per battle ability. I think a nurgle daemon prince is the only potentially good daemon prince option, but if the nurgle command ability gets errata'd I'm not sure if it will even be worth the points to take a daemon prince, their other CA's aren't that great.

Iron Golems could be good, have to keep in mind that warriors have access to more buffs and marks though. They can become far more tanky than iron golems, but having more models and being cheaper is a big plus for the golems. 

Llamacat looks cool, I agree that throwing 1 or 2 into a list could be a good idea 😄

Looking at artefacts - a karkadrak with ethereal amulet could be a good beatstick, a slaanesh daemon prince with sword of judgement could be good too. But I still feel like both units are overpriced by like 40 points 😣

I'm really thinking Archaon, sorc and chaos lord on foot, warshrine, a blob of nurgle marauders, a blob of khorne or slaanesh marauders, warriors/golems, and then fill the rest of the list with llamacats, horsemen, or allies are the best competitive options for this army.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Skavelynn

[Freejack02]

50 minutes ago, Asamu said:

Not outside of a tzeentch army. You need the Tzeentch summoning to be able to make blue horrors from them.

Do you? Isn't the warscroll abilities of Blues/Brimstones independent of the Fate Points summoning of Tzeentch? It's been a while since I looked, but I can't think of anything that says they won't be able to either split into Blues or apply mortal wounds on death.