AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion

[JackStreicher]

44 minutes ago, rosa said:

Updated Honest Wargamer stats show a winrate of 50.5% for slaves, which is pretty solid. What do you guys wine about?

It is one kind of List that wins while the rest is just bad. Win rates say nothing about the health a book/army, the only statement it makes is that the army has at least one viable combo (which has been discussed thoroughly in this thread).

Edited February 27, 2020 by JackStreicher
spelling

[JackStreicher]

If anybody feels like testing the rule-suggestions as well, which I'll from now on call "The Mortal Legions of Chaos", then feel free to use these rules:

[rosa]

It is not just one list... Slaves have more tools than a lot of other armies and the latest lists were different from each other's.

Of course certain builds are more valid than others, but this is a problem pretty much every faction has.

I don't wanted to be disrespectful, I just see a lot of complaints in this thread... Pretty much from two persons

The army is quite good and allows a lot of different builds.  I just don't understand this negativity. I enjoy this book a lot!

Edited February 27, 2020 by rosa
Typo

[JackStreicher]

21 minutes ago, rosa said:

The army is quite good and allows a lot of different builds.  I just don't understand this negativity. I enjoy this book a lot!

We 2. yet the design does not allow to play a nice list that is strong. Or that is not Nurgle/Khorne heavy.

do you have a link to the different lists?

Edited February 27, 2020 by JackStreicher

[Midjithero]

31 minutes ago, rosa said:

It is not just one list... Slaves have more tools than a lot of other armies and the latest lists were different from each other's.

Of course certain builds are more valid than others, but this is a problem pretty much every faction has.

I don't wanted to be disrespectful, I just see a lot of complaints in this thread... Pretty much from two persons

The army is quite good and allows a lot of different builds.  I just don't understand this negativity. I enjoy this book a lot!

To concur, all books are bottlenecked to certain types of builds, specifically for competitive reasons, like you said.  
 

My gripe is that the awesome units we have are soooo much more consistent and effective in other books than our own.  The Aura system seems rushed and is PRIMARY ability, yet requires a hero fully within 12” where all the other books primary abilties are natural.  The Eye of Gods is a very fluffy and fun ability , but is completely non-competitive due to 1) requires heroes killing hero/monster and 2) is a hugely random table that has a significant chance to do...nothing (7 being the most common number in 2d6).

I love the units, variety of the book, and the synergies that it offers, but it feels rushed and unimportant.  So yah, were a bit defensive   I don’t want to be S tier just take Petrifex Elite or the Lodge Hermdar type One trick pony 80% win rate book, hell no   
 

but I want to have a competitive reason to take S2D faction over Hedonites or DoT or BoK with the same exact models.  To me, it’s like dating twins...they look exactly alike (the units themselves) but one has a great personality and super jovial and the other is kinda meh...which do you choose??

I second others that think Cabalist are probably our most strongest/broken build once someone figures them out.  

[NJohansson]

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

It is one kind of List that wins while the rest is just bad. Win rates say nothing about the health a book/army, the only statement it makes is that the army has at least one viable combo (which has been discussed thoroughly in this thread).

You keep implying this (that the majority of the book is garbage), based on what? When looking at win rates - STD have pretty average to good win rates (if going by statistic). Based on placings at tournaments - they seem to be frequently in the top field consistently. Based on diversity - there are many different builds floating around, some magic heavy, some summoning, some fast and killy. The only major factor seems that the absolute majority of competitive builds are centered around a base of marauders as core.  Other than that STD seems to have more various builds than most other factions. Now, I would also like warriors to be better but that does not make the army weak or bland. Majority of strong armies tend to include the same type of units. Tzeentch - Changehost, Horrors and flamers or loads of casters and Summoners Guild, Slaanesh - KoS, Fyreslayers - HGB, Flesheaters - Vampiers on flying monsters (two kinds)... The list goes on and on, most top armies have a couple of strong builds based on just slight variations (1000+ points are usually the same across the board). 

As to flavor or how fun the army is to play - have you considered playing a different one? Not trying to be rude - just curious - the army may simply not be to your play style.  You might enjoy playing OBR or any other elite infantry based army much more? It took me going through Orcs, Vampire Counts and Chaos Dwarfs before finally settling och Chaos -about 15 - 20 years ago:)

Personally I find big hordes of marauders, powerful sorcerers and corrupted monsters very colorful and fitting for chaos. Chaos has always been about overwhelming numbers of warriors and daemons where the forces of light face a night impossible task in stopping the endless legions. Just read any of the old novels (or new ones) - Chaos have powerful warriors but they are a horde. Going by AoS (was not the case in WFB) they are also usually less powerful than their Sigmarite counterparts one on one. So an elite army that is outnumbered is not very chaotic but 100+ charging marauders - backed up by some very deadly elite heroes - definitely is (IMHO) 

 

[JackStreicher]

20 minutes ago, NJohansson said:

As to flavor or how fun the army is to play - have you considered playing a different one?

Words in capslog are not meant to be shouting, they‘re meant to be a visual focus:
IT IS FUN TO PLAY. I stated that over and over and over.

The rest of the book also isn‘t garbage and tournament statistics, again, say NOTHING about how healthy a book is. Or would you call IDK, a healthy, well rounded and fun book? It places well at tournaments yet the army has few variations and almost forces one play style and a lot of intended playstyles, like Namartii just don‘t work due to design flaws.

it‘s quite similar with S2D. You either go Nurgle with a Khorne DP (with slight variations) or you spam Gaunt summoners. The book is by no means in a healthy state. And again, we might complain YET we enjoy playing the army, though it does not stand a chance VS certain factions in a non conpetetive environment.

There are quite a too many situations in which the book feels badly made and that is what we are complaining about. Also our units are way better in other mono god Chaos Battletomes compared to our own, which really should make you think „what by Sigmar went wrong here“.

I hope that was clear now ^^

 

cheers

jack

Edited February 27, 2020 by JackStreicher
Grammar

[jackmcmahon]

Y'all crazy if you don't think this book is s-tier.  Once my 7 fomoroids and multiple penumbral engines arrive my opponents will die of laughter before t2.

[Sneedlewoods]

14 hours ago, Midjithero said:

So I have a couple comments:

first and foremost...you are trying to run a Khorne list...yet your name is Slaanesh?!?!  Heresy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok all kidding aside, what’s your strategy?  I like the core of the army, but feel you can maximize its potential better...when fighting a turn 1 alpha strike melee army, who do you screen with?  My guess is the knights, so first thing I’d do is combine them to 1x5 Ensorcelled and 1x10 Lances.  

Are both Daemonic Mount and Manticore necessary in your list?  Think about what they both bring to the table, in terms of their command abilities, and how many actual CP you have to spend...will you be summonin as Ravagers?  If so, your list requires 5 cp per turn and you have 2 to start the game...

Karkadrak NEEDS -3 rend (Rune ir Dimensional Blade) to maximize his potential.  He’s a scapel, and -1 to hit him isn’t going to make him more tanky...

if Ravagers is not necessarily your sub for summoning, I would drop the Manticore and Daemonic Mount for a Khorne Demon Prince, Sorcerer Lord of whatever flavor, and spawns to fill out the Bloodmarked requirements (3 if you also combine the knights).  Then make your DP the general, run Despoilers, give him the Diabolical Mantle and Paragon of Ruin.  You are then a 3 drop, so gives you some flexibility when setting up, and should net you choice of first turn at least 3 or 4 games.  With the DP, he fights first, so you can kill a model with him, then give the Karkadrak the +1 attack from your battallion.  Khorne is also the best command ability for DPs in my opinion.

Unfortunately the battalion needs mortals -  your DP idea would sounds nice but woulnd't be valid. As well as the Sorcerer Lord 🤷‍♂️ Khorne hate's magic - so CSL can't be Khorne marked. 😞 Karkadrak with -3 rend axe should kick some a** 🙂 

Not sure if you lack models to hold/capture objectives, so Ravagers might not be a bad idea.

[whispersofblood]

17 hours ago, rosa said:

Updated Honest Wargamer stats show a winrate of 50.5% for slaves, which is pretty solid. What do you guys wine about?

50% is the bottom of what THWG suggest is the sweet spot, just to be clear. Also, winrate is a pretty uninspired measure of if a faction is good, it doesn't even do that. It only measures the ability of the book to produce lists capable of being played in a competitive sense, in abstract. 

[whispersofblood]

duplicate

Edited February 28, 2020 by whispersofblood

[Slaanesh]

19 hours ago, Midjithero said:

So I have a couple comments:

first and foremost...you are trying to run a Khorne list...yet your name is Slaanesh?!?!  Heresy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok all kidding aside, what’s your strategy?  I like the core of the army, but feel you can maximize its potential better...when fighting a turn 1 alpha strike melee army, who do you screen with?  My guess is the knights, so first thing I’d do is combine them to 1x5 Ensorcelled and 1x10 Lances.  

Are both Daemonic Mount and Manticore necessary in your list?  Think about what they both bring to the table, in terms of their command abilities, and how many actual CP you have to spend...will you be summonin as Ravagers?  If so, your list requires 5 cp per turn and you have 2 to start the game...

Karkadrak NEEDS -3 rend (Rune ir Dimensional Blade) to maximize his potential.  He’s a scapel, and -1 to hit him isn’t going to make him more tanky...

if Ravagers is not necessarily your sub for summoning, I would drop the Manticore and Daemonic Mount for a Khorne Demon Prince, Sorcerer Lord of whatever flavor, and spawns to fill out the Bloodmarked requirements (3 if you also combine the knights).  Then make your DP the general, run Despoilers, give him the Diabolical Mantle and Paragon of Ruin.  You are then a 3 drop, so gives you some flexibility when setting up, and should net you choice of first turn at least 3 or 4 games.  With the DP, he fights first, so you can kill a model with him, then give the Karkadrak the +1 attack from your battallion.  Khorne is also the best command ability for DPs in my opinion.

Hmm yeah you got some good ideas, but I like to have all the fighty characters inside the battalion to get some use out of the battalion. But like most of the choices is because I wanted to fit the army inside the battalion. And like I play for the 5 rounds mostly so I feel no pressure to use all the command points each round. Mostly I buff one of the knights with the karkadak/demonic mount buff, the one that charges. And summon only when I need to steal and objective. So maybe 2-3 times per game.

But my tactic is mostly leaving turn 1 to my opponent then trying to get good fights with my knights. And avoid to take the double turn until i really have to. It is a pretty fun list to play actuly. Also I use the karka as a small tank hero mostly. Using -2 to hit, 3+ save and +5 mortal save to survive.

I tried playing the knights in units 10 but I felt that it was a bit unecesary and that most of them didnt get to fight anyway. And its better to charge in turns to not get locked in cc. Also it was harder to get 9 mortal khorne units for the battalion.

But like this is obviously not super competative army since I dont play with many of the great stuff in slaves. But as a 1 drop bloodmarked warband I think its pretty good at using the battalion buff and the extra command traits. I'll tell you how the tournament went laterz

[Koala]

I must say StD did not feel weak the few times i played them ( and i went for Oldschool Warriors+Knights+Heroes, so just the weak stuff according to some ppl here).

BUT the whole battletome feels... Bland.

There are really few exiting units/rules. The Marks do not Grant flavour. Just some bonus for the mathhammer. ( And the mathhammer is strong in this Army! )

The new units, while great sculpts, are pretty "meh" on the rules side.

( Also cultists are a lost chance. I honestly feel they should have replaced the barbarians with them instead of giving every single warband its own underwhelming warscroll)

[JackStreicher]

4 minutes ago, Koala said:

The new units, while great sculpts, are pretty "meh" on the rules side.

Something we agree upon as it seems. ^^

imo the „weak“ units are just weak compared to what you’d expect of them (at their price tag as well) and compared to Marauders

Edited February 28, 2020 by JackStreicher

[NJohansson]

7 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

50% is the bottom of what THWG suggest is the sweet spot, just to be clear. Also, winrate is a pretty uninspired measure of if a faction is good, it doesn't even do that. It only measures the ability of the book to produce lists capable of being played in a competitive sense, in abstract. 

But that is actually what all armies should strive for. If the game would be fully balanced then all armies would have 50 percent win rate (+- minor variations for skill/list matchup). If an army has a win rate of 60-70 percent then another must have a win rate of just 40-30 (naturally it can be deluded among several armies) so the best armies (for the game) are those with an even win/loss rate.  STD statistic is therefore really great - the armies that need to be changed are the ones with a 55+ win rate or less than high 40.

Disclaimer - The above is very simplified.

Edited February 28, 2020 by NJohansson

[amysrevenge]

I've been playing at 1000 and 1500 in a pretty non-competitive environment (slow-grow league in a 40k stronghold) and winning pretty handily most of the time.  Doing Undivided Cabalists (but never using any Rituals because I don't have any Marauders and everything else is too expensive to sacrifice haha).

Really digging Bel'akor, really digging the Sorc Lord on Manticore with a second Sorc Lord and Warshrine - I do a *lot* or rerolling, and a lot of 6+ ignore wounds.

The Sorc MantiLord with Ethereal Amulet, Oracular Visions, Warshine aura, Undivided general aura and Bolstered by Hate is very durable (mine survived 4 rounds of shooting from a KO list).

But I'm not fooling myself that I'd enjoy as much success in a more competitive environment.   I'd still bring my FEC to a tournament.

Edited February 28, 2020 by amysrevenge

[Gistradagis]

49 minutes ago, NJohansson said:

But that is actually what all armies should strive for. If the game would be fully balanced then all armies would have 50 percent win rate (+- minor variations for skill/list matchup). If an army has a win rate of 60-70 percent then another must have a win rate of just 40-30 (naturally it can be deluded among several armies) so the best armies (for the game) are those with an even win/loss rate.  STD statistic is therefore really great - the armies that need to be changed are the ones with a 55+ win rate or less than high 40.

Disclaimer - The above is very simplified.

You're ignoring a bit of an important detail, here. Most armies that sit above average, like you said, tend to have a couple winning lists that obliterate most competition, while armies lower on the tables tend to be just not all that strong overall (tends to be populated by armies in dire need of generalized updates or the yearly points changes). StD, however, does have these 1-2 lists that are kind of strong/cheese, but still sits at a vert average win ratio. What this tells us, is that the army itself is actually nowhere close to the 50% mark, while a couple of strong lists bumps it up there. This is why looking at % and statistics can be really misleading.

Most "strong" lists tend to be so due to some impactful combination or some units that are sitting really strong in the meta. StD only achieves this through a very particular combo, and smth like the Gaunt Summoner cheese list, meaning it's not a result of certain units or tactics being strong. Hence, most complaints you see here; it feels like the StD book itself doesn't play well with its own units. A very much repeated example are the Marks of Chaos, which somehow are designed to work only with a hero around. This is the one, true common theme across the different factions in the book, and it doesn't even affect the units, only the heroes. This means that in a game, if you lose a hero or have problems of positioning (due to objectives or whatever), your basic units basically work like an allied unit, as if they didn't quite belong, which is kind of a bizarre design, even more so for Chaos.

Or a different example, one I've pointed out a couple times: why does the Despoiler faction synergize so horribly with its own army? I believe there's literally only one warband that takes in DPs and none for monsters (the book really wants you to play mortals), and the faction abilities of Despoilers contain almost no synergy: 50% chance for D3 heal in your turn, better aura and FNP for your general, and blocking los with rare MWs. A faction such as this would usually either work for synergy or brute force. Synergy is a clear no-no; the improvements are sort of "selfish" buffs for DPs and monsters. Brute force, then? Well, here's the problem. If would make sense for the Despoilers faction to push through daemonic force, but you don't really get that. If the FNP was for all your DPs and/or monsters, then we would have a good case for a faction that invests on brute force as its backbone, then surrounds itself with some mortal units for objectives and the like; works both mechanically and for fluff (and explains why so many reviewers just took for granted that the FNP was generalized, because it made for sense). And yet, we don't get any such thing. It's another case where it feels like the design sort of stopped halfway through. Why is there literally nothing in Despoilers that makes me want to play on their strengths (a statistical heal of 4-6 wounds in the entire game is not impressive), or to synergize with any single unit in the book?

 

Also, as an extra note: I'm seeing people come and say "well I've tried it and they don't feel all that weak!" That's not something we've said. We've said that the design is faulty, and that a number of units are overcosted, which together create a feeling of our lists aaaalmost managing to compete head-to-head with others, but falling short here and there. Of always thinking "if only I had 5 more Knights" or "if only the Warriors that a bit of damage", "if only the cultists had a mark", etc. Most of these things are not us saying "we reject StD, GW!", but things easily fixed with some tweaks to either mechanics or points. If StD managed to afford some more units (and truly be the Chaos HORDE), most problems would be fixed, and the same can be said if instead we got some changes to the marks and abilities (like the Despoilers, or Knights getting an effect on charge like most cavalry units and then using only ensorcelled weapons). It's actually hilarious how some units (like Knights) work better in other armies than their own...

 

Sorry for the long post, but most "counter-complains" I've been reading kind of either ignore the points we were making, or use faulty logic to not tackle the actual complaints.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Gistradagis

[Cambot1231]

I've been having a great time with this list

3 sources of threat 

You have to play without any mistakes against the top tier stuff but overall the double fighting Archaon can be pretty brutal.  The list does struggle a bit against slaanesh summoning. There are extra saves against magic with Chaos Rune Sheilds, and Archaon's Tzeentch head dispells.  If facing against shooting I go full nurgle Keyword, but otherwise I've had great success with the slaanesh Keyword so that I can reroll the charges on the Varangaurd. The Chosen in a block of ten can ussually take a punch and still do great at half capacity and amazing if they are all allowed to charge in. Also they are a great unit to deepstrike in with Mask of Darkness spell.   

[Gistradagis]

6 minutes ago, Cambot1231 said:

I've been having a great time with this list

3 sources of threat 

You have to play without any mistakes against the top tier stuff but overall the double fighting Archaon can be pretty brutal.  The list does struggle a bit against slaanesh summoning. There are extra saves against magic with Chaos Rune Sheilds, and Archaon's Tzeentch head dispells.  If facing against shooting I go full nurgle Keyword, but otherwise I've had great success with the slaanesh Keyword so that I can reroll the charges on the Varangaurd. The Chosen in a block of ten can ussually take a punch and still do great at half capacity and amazing if they are all allowed to charge in. Also they are a great unit to deepstrike in with Mask of Darkness spell.   

Is the list complete? There's no faction (although I can guess it), and half your army doesn't have a mark.

Good idea to bring the Chosen as 10, though, and double-fight.

[Kurrilino]

On 2/27/2020 at 9:08 AM, rosa said:

Updated Honest Wargamer stats show a winrate of 50.5% for slaves, which is pretty solid. What do you guys wine about?

I can't tell if serious.

Those guys put random matchup into a table which includes something like Idoneth have 50% win and Tzennch 47% winning rate.

At this point you already know the data is flawed. You also ignore the meta% which shows you how popular at tournament is and we get a whopping 3.22%

So we know that StD are one of the most popular faction but one of the least chosen army for tournaments.

If that is not telling you something then i don't know what to say.

 

Yes, you can maybe squeeze somehow an army into 2000 points, but do people have fun or chose them to play??? Answer is a big NO. Mostly caused by people have written the book who have no clue what WoC are actually are and how do marks work. They somehow  paired that with being as uninspired as possible.

This is what people complain about.

[rosa]

Ahh, you again

Tzeentch is stated with a 66% win rate, not 47%. Please read the statistic correctly.

Furthermore, 3.22% is quite ok for the metal?

They are in the range of armies like Sylvaneth,  Nurgle, Overlords, Seraphon, Gitz and Nagash. 

And besides, the winrate is even more impressive with the rather small amount of players with this army...

Again, maybe it is you who have no clue what Slaves actually are, and not the authors (I just recited your words). A lot of people have fun with this army. Who are you and whom do you speak for?

I am out of this discussion now (ignore).

Good luck.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2020 by rosa

[Gistradagis]

26 minutes ago, rosa said:

Again, maybe it is you who have no clue what Slaves actually are, and not the authors (I just recited your words). A lot of people have fun with this army. Who are you and whom do you speak for?

I am out of this discussion now (ignore).

Good luck.

 

 

 

 

Maybe you shouldn't have come at all, honestly... you've been majorly irrational and uncommunicative, cherry picking the things you wanted to discuss and ignoring everything else in favour of straw manning us as StD-haters.

It's one thing to disagree, as some have, but another to outright misrepresent other people's words and lack any politeness at all.

[JackStreicher]

37 minutes ago, rosa said:

And besides, the winrate is even more impressive with the rather small amount of players with this army....

It‘s a percentage so it does not matter whether it‘s ten players or 1000. so how is this impressive?

[Grimrock]

Listen guys, this keeps going round and round and it's getting ridiculous. We get it, there are people who expected the book to be different and wanted it to be focused on the chaos warriors or monsters or warcry stuff, but it isn't. I understand that's a let down and it pushes you away from the faction, but that doesn't mean you need to come on here and constantly keep complaining about it. Complaining won't make the book work the way you want it to, it won't magically make GW publish a massive sweeping errata that reworks the faction. All it's doing is restricting productive conversation and bumming people out. Please just take a break and let it go.

There are competitive ways to play the faction if you want them, and if they're not to your liking then there are other factions that can scratch that itch. Worst case take a step away from the faction until the next book release, GW always rotates what's strong in a faction from book to book so I'm sure warriors and knights will be in vogue whenever that happens. 

[Kurrilino]

2 hours ago, rosa said:

Ahh, you again

Tzeentch is stated with a 66% win rate, not 47%. Please read the statistic correctly.

Again, maybe it is you who have no clue what Slaves actually are, and not the authors (I just recited your words). A lot of people have fun with this army. Who are you and whom do you speak for?

I am out of this discussion now (ignore).

Good luck.

 

 

 

 

You are welcome