AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion

[JackStreicher]

30 minutes ago, Sinfullyvannila said:

Lances have 2” range. You can position a front rank with their side facing the opponent and then point the ones in back facing forward.

Doesn‘t change the situation, one sideways takes the area of 2,5 knights and 2 more could support him .

—-> the room for 3 is still occupied by 3 knights. Your suggestion would work if the enemy has a big enough frontage though

Edited January 3, 2020 by JackStreicher
Clarification

[Grimrock]

2 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

I don’t count on magic. Without exaggerating: in the last 5 AoS games I did manage to only get 3 spells off total while having an average of ~1,5 Sorcerers per list. By Sigmar I just can‘t manage to roll higher than 5 concerning magic.... (my Warshrine sucks as well he managed to not bless anything for 4 turns in a row...)

I think this is going to be a big issue for you playing slaves. Like it or not the army seems to be totally designed around the sorcerer and/or the warshrine, along with the aura buffs. It's a huge pain on turns where it doesn't work out, but pretty much everything other than the marauders are overcosted if you don't take buffs into consideration. 

You can try to mitigate the luck factor by having multiple sources, I'm planning to run a sorcerer and shrine together. Two chances at the full reroll should hopefully give me good odds on having a clutch buff up when it's needed. You could also look to allies that can buff without rolls. A bloodstoker gives +3 to charge and full wound rerolls to khorne mortals. Harbinger of decay helps with resilience. That sort of thing.

Also I'd disagree about the Knights with lances, but again it's mostly based on using buffs. The lances are the stronger attack by far on the charge, and putting buffs into the unit compounds that significantly. I've been testing a unit of 10 and while maneuvering is really difficult in a terrain heavy table, I haven't had too many issues getting 6+ knights into combat with units as long as I multi charge (which the gigantic base sizes actually make a lot easier). Also the lances can attack over screens which is a really neat bonus I didn't expect. 

[Rors]

I've yet to try it but I think units of 3 knights with lances are okay in ruinbringer betalions. They're not so much hammers as they are chaff clearers and blockers.

Still painting up my army so this is theory. However, 180 points to clear up charge lanes and work as your own screen is important to ensure you get your charges with the other stuff. I think of them as elite chaff, as opposed to elite cavalry.

The other way to think of them is as a 180 point missile. They could possibly be efficient going for suicide missions on high value non-unit targets. Enough damage to kill a fair range of casters if they get behind the lines or to knock a monster down a couple tiers and hold it in place for a turn.

More to the point about a few key units looking comparatively weaker to other armies, I think it's important to view individual units are part of a whole. Slaves may not have the best units in a straight up 1v1 fight, but we're one of the best armies at ensuring that we don't have to fight 1v1. Teleport hordes to bully weak flanks, deny enemy movement with spells or Korn demon princes. On top of that we a decent amount of stuff that fights first and a decent amount of of ways to defuff enemy units or cause them to fight last. All this says to me that it's an army that should dictate combat rather than just rely on muscles to win.
E.g. we should be looking for situations where we get 2 units on one of theirs, then pop the Korn dps cp so that they can't get support in and out always strike last on the unit you're dogpilling.

 

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Rors
clarification and additional thoughts

[Bloodmoon]

14 minutes ago, Rors said:

Slaves may not have the best units in a straight up 1v1 fight, but we're one of the best armies at ensuring that we don't have to fight 1v1

I feel the same way. There are a ton of tools in the book to make sure every fight is on your terms, and I think thats how its going to play as an army. 

[mmimzie]

Slaves are all buff dependent for sure. The reroll save being a free spell helps a lot. 

I think as @Rors says you can take the shrine/sorc combo to make sure you get the buff you need. It's redundant if you get one off, but you just need it to start punching at a good level. 

I think alternatively you can take cabalist.  Getting the bonus to cast is enough to make your spells reliable, and you only need to get a few of the peaces working to win a game as the slaves spell lore is so powerful. 

I think knights are good with lances and buffs. The 4+ rerolling save is pretty good, that can either go nurgle for more durability or slannesh for more punch.  You can easily fit 2 5 man squads into the army so if you do with the shrine/sorc you could buff 2 seperate units. 

I think on the topic of cav MSU marauders horsemen with darkoath warqueen support in ruinbringers is no joke. While the gorebeast chariot can potentialy hit hard its surface area and points increase don't get you very far. However the horsemen bring shooting attacks, access to similar movement buffs, and lots of wounds to the table.  Charging 6 horses into various targets after lauching those 60 tickle attacks addes up really fast.  It also doesn't even need any particular buff as the warqueen just lets you boost the range of the  charging power. Also it's very easy to get 6 horsemen units to connect with most other units.

[JackStreicher]

8 hours ago, Grimrock said:

I think this is going to be a big issue for you playing slaves. Like it or not the army seems to be totally designed around the sorcerer and/or the warshrine, along with the aura buffs. It's a huge pain on turns where it doesn't work out, but pretty much everything other than the marauders are overcosted if you don't take buffs into consideration. 

I figured as much... I guess I might ally the new Tzeentch hero on disc (so I can block enemy units by summoning a spawn into combat range). Yet a gaunt summoner seems the way to go.

 

[kenshin620]

Hmmm looks like theres going to be even more chaos stuff coming in soon with Souls War Wrath of the Everchosen.

 

Though I get the feeling it may be more like Legion of Grief where you "miss out" on most allegiance stuff, unless they learned their lesson from the last book. Legion of Grief is actually fine due to a few good tools, but Lethisian Defenders is almost a waste of Ink and Paper.

Edited January 4, 2020 by kenshin620

[Charleston]

Yeah, it somehow feels like a dirty move from gw in the case that there are really important rules for the faction hidden in another book. Like, why don´t call them "Battletome STD Half One" and "Half two"? But yeah, it is maybe too early to be angry about a book we do not know the contents.

The Tzeentchian Endless Spells are cool for Cabalists I guess. Althrough so far I haven´t seen any reports of cabalists around. In general the book seems to have a very low impact so far, I rarely see new batreps. I am curious what the tournament meta will say about StD. Meanwhile, it is still a neat army for fun games

[kenshin620]

10 minutes ago, Charleston said:

Yeah, it somehow feels like a dirty move from gw in the case that there are really important rules for the faction hidden in another book.

Well as I speculate, it could be "Funny Grand Allegiance" rules like the previous book. Maybe it's going to be a way to have different god mortals and daemons since thats so far not possible outside of GA Chaos/allies.

Edited January 4, 2020 by kenshin620

[Sinfullyvannila]

7 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

I figured as much... I guess I might ally the new Tzeentch hero on disc (so I can block enemy units by summoning a spawn into combat range). Yet a gaunt summoner seems the way to go.

 

The new Tzeentch endless spell Tome of Eyes would be pretty useful. You get to reroll casting rolls and it’s an auto-pass on snake eyes or boxcars.

[Grimrock]

Interesting notes from the tzeentch book. Foot gaunt summoner got the same summoning as the disk, lookalike the same spell, and also has the slaves keyword for 240 points. Splitting is confirmed to be on the horror warscroll now, and they cost 200 points. Still waiting for a clear shot of the warscroll to see how it all works, but it seems like even more of a no brainer summon now. 

[Smooth criminal]

On 1/3/2020 at 8:51 PM, RareDesire said:

Hallo. How do you get it to +2/+2? i only get it to +1/+2

+1 hit from Varangaurds own ability (Favoured of the everchosen)

+1 wound from Khorne Auro (if general is wholly 18') and re-roll 1 on hits

+1 wound +1 rend from Varangaurd charge (Impaling Charge)

how do you get the re-roll wound and +1 hits from Archaon?

They are 3+ hit base, if Archaon is present this gets them to 2+.

Host allows you to designate any unit that you will reroll 1s against with all you army.

[Smooth criminal]

1 hour ago, Grimrock said:

Interesting notes from the tzeentch book. Foot gaunt summoner got the same summoning as the disk, lookalike the same spell, and also has the slaves keyword for 240 points. Splitting is confirmed to be on the horror warscroll now, and they cost 200 points. Still waiting for a clear shot of the warscroll to see how it all works, but it seems like even more of a no brainer summon now. 

Yeah, summoners have ridiculous value now. 2 casts and a screen unit with 50 wounds.

[Coolwood]

I feel like warriors just got better value with the amount of mortal wound output tzeentch can kick out along with the shooting from KO. Warriors are going to be able to stand up to that punishment far more than marauders in my view. 

[Mutton]

Any thoughts on using a mostly Slaves force in the Tzeentch allegiance? It would mean having access to almost all of the same stuff, but then also Destiny dice, agendas, and better casters.

[Rors]

For a Tzeentch themed army unless you had something really specific planned you're pretty much always better of adding slaves as allies than the other way around I reckon. Tzeentch slave buffs have such terrible synergy/situationality.

 

[PONCHOGRANDE]

I think the synergies have significantly improved. Our durable powerhouses absolutely love the permanent buffs that Agendas hand out like candy (Marauders trigger Reckless Abandon with ease), and the Fatemaster now grants re-roll hits to all nearby Tzeentch units. Blocks of warriors with shields are also great targets for bouncing wounds off of with Bond of Treachery. Not to mention how good spells like Arcane Suggestion are at swinging combats in our favour.

Now if only StD Tzeentch DPs still had casting instead of that abysmal CA, then we'd have a proper stew going.

[Mikkl]

On 1/4/2020 at 7:22 AM, mmimzie said:

I think on the topic of cav MSU marauders horsemen with darkoath warqueen support in ruinbringers is no joke.

I may be wrong, but I'm not sure that the Warqueen command ability effects horsemen. It says "Chaos marauders and Cultists" The chaos marauder horsemen has a separate keyword ' Chaos marauder horsemen'.

[Filie]

I think it'll work since the CHAOS MARAUDER mention on the warqueen's scroll is bold, which usually means it applies to all variations of CHAOS MARAUDER.

[Mikkl]

43 minutes ago, Filie said:

I think it'll work since the CHAOS MARAUDER mention on the warqueen's scroll is bold, which usually means it applies to all variations of CHAOS MARAUDER.

Sure but the marauders don't share a marauder keyword, they each have a unique one and the Warqueen specifically mentions the standard marauder keyword.  Whilst all the cultist units share the Cultists keyword.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Mikkl

[Jonko]

I'm wondering how people who bought the new start collecting boxes deal with the equipment of the new chaos warrios and knights. I'm a little disappointed that the new units dont have any horn blowers and standard bearers that are like basic on 1 in every 5 units in the game. I've been thinking how to solve this, i don't know if the old bits from the old set will look nice and even fit the new models.

Any thought's ? 

[Coolwood]

Anyone got any ideas for chosen conversions? I was thinking of using deathshroud terminators and then converting them to get rid of the 40k stuff potentially. Any thoughts?

[Coolwood]

Just now, Jonko said:

I'm wondering how people who bought the new start collecting boxes deal with the equipment of the new chaos warrios and knights. I'm a little disappointed that the new units dont have any horn blowers and standard bearers that are like basic on 1 in every 5 units in the game. I've been thinking how to solve this, i don't know if the old bits from the old set will look nice and even fit the new models.

Any thought's ? 

I’m just going to take those bits and make them fit onto the models somehow. Even just glued to the side of the horses for example would be ok 

[JackStreicher]

10 minutes ago, Coolwood said:

I’m just going to take those bits and make them fit onto the models somehow. Even just glued to the side of the horses for example would be ok 

Same. For the Knights: glue the a standard to the back of a saddle for a little Samurai style.

[Jonko]

18 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Same. For the Knights: glue the a standard to the back of a saddle for a little Samurai style.

That's actualy not a bad idea thanks!