AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion

[Gistradagis]

Just now, GeneralZero said:

The biggest argument: marauders are awful, warriors and knights are magnificent (especially the new ones). Period. lol

I'm gonna guess you mean the models, and not the profiles.

[PiotrW]

45 minutes ago, Gistradagis said:

I'm gonna guess you mean the models, and not the profiles.

I also do agree that Chaos Marauders are just... completely unappealing visually, to be polite.

Coincidentally, I also think that Chaos Knights with lances make zero sense. Which means that of the "core" StD units, only Warriors and Chariots are fieldable, at least for me. One of the reasons I'm not sure I'd want to play with this army...

[Gistradagis]

1 minute ago, PiotrW said:

I also do agree that Chaos Marauders are just... completely unappealing visually, to be polite.

Coincidentally, I also think that Chaos Knights with lances make zero sense. Which means that of the "core" StD units, only Warriors and Chariots are fieldable, at least for me. One of the reasons I'm not sure I'd want to play with this army...

I'd definitely play Knights over Chariot any day. You could make an argument for them before the FAQ, since units of 1 Chariot were less... terrible, let's say. Right now, though? 120 lost points, I'd say. While Knights are less than ideal, you CAN sort of make them work through buffs.

By the way, for Marauders I simply took 40 Kairic Acolytes, put them on the appropriate bases, and call them Marauders.

[Roark]

34 minutes ago, PiotrW said:

Coincidentally, I also think that Chaos Knights with lances make zero sense

What do you mean specifically mate? IMO Rend -2 is very handy and not common at all, albeit that they really need to choose their targets carefully. M10 helps with this.

If Chaos Knights were 160 I think I would take a unit of 10 every time. I know, it's kind of a pointless thing to say...

[Midjithero]

-2 rend is amazing!  They aren’t the toughest unit, but they do decimate a target and then get to move on.  Key is screening, like all of your powerfully punching units

[readercolin]

8 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

How are Chaos Knights and Chaos Warriors now? 

Used to keep wanting to use them for Khorne and people kept saying they were bad for one reason or another, but have they gotten any better these days? 

They still work with my Blades of Khorne book right and can count as Khorne and be part of a Khorne army supported by Khorne heroes...right? Love me some classic chaos warriors and knights. Been wanting to run them... Been told they're worse than Blood Warriors, etc.. too

Knights:

Playing as slaves to darkness, these models are currently the ones that are doing the most work for me.  That being said, I don't currently have marauders, so that isn't the fairest of comparisons.  I've run them in everything from a block of 5, to a block of 20, and tried with lances and without.  Overall, I find that you can run a block of 5 with lances behind your lines as a "counterpunch", where you hold them and attempt to charge with them after your opponent washes against (and destroys) a unit in front of them.  For any other use though, ensorcelled blades are better, and they are also arguably better as a counterpunch as well.  Additionally, I usually struggle to get more than 10 into combat at once, and the extra knights tend to be just extra wounds to take off before the killing power is affected.  A charging block with lances deals almost the exact same amount of damage to a 6+ save as blades do, and about 20% more damage on average to a 4+ save.  Once they are off the charge though, the damage just plummets too much, with lances doing half the damage as blades do to a 4+ save, and a bit less than 2/3 the damage to a 6+.  Do note though that the exact numbers will vary depending upon which mark you choose.

Playing them in a Khorne army, the biggest loss would be the loss of the Khorne Mark, as you will no longer have easy access to re-rolling 1's to hit, or the +1 to wound.  This is however made up for by the easier access to extra attacks.  Comparing them to Skullcrushers (the nearest Khorne unit to them), for 20 points more the block of knights is going to do more damage, but be a bit less tanky.  Note, this is including the mortal wounds on a charge. 

Either way that you are running them, I would highly recommend bringing a Chaos Lord (on foot), as the pile in and attack twice is a massive increase in their damage.  A Lord on Karkadark can also be a great boon, both because of its own killing power and due to its command ability giving +1 to hit and re-rolling charges.  Next, a Warshrine is a great tool in both armies - slaves because the 6+ FNP makes them even tankier, and the ability to give them re-rolling hits and wounds is great, and Khorne because you get the above AND you get to run the Khorne.  Lastly, a Sorcerer Lord is decent because of Oracular Visions, giving them re-rollable saves, which if you are running Khorne stacks really nicely with Bronzed Flesh (even if like me you don't use any of the spells... though my excuse is that my dice hate spellcasting, not that I don't make the attempt).

Warriors:

I have tried warriors in blocks of 5 to blocks of 20, and tried them with sword+shield and dual swords.  At this point, the only unit that I've been more disappointed by is Stormcast Liberators (sequitors are just soooo much better... also, stormcast have more killier options available than StD does...).  At small sizes, they don't really have enough models to contest objectives, and the lack of rend leaves them fluffing anything that they attack quite often (that being said, my meta has a lot of people who like running 4+ saves - or better, so your experience may differ).  At large sizes you look around and ask yourself, "Would I rather have 20 warriors, or 10 knights?"   My answer is the knights.  They at least will kill stuff - especially because it is so rare to be able to get all the warriors onto a single target.  Should you by some miracle find yourself facing someone without a lot of rend, warriors are decent.  This isn't even bringing the marauder comparison into it, because marauders just blow warriors out of the water by so much (like seriously, a block of 20 marauders deals more damage than a block of 15 chaos warriors, while costing half as much... and can get into an engagement easier as well with their charge bonuses).

As for the comparison with Blood Warriors, in blocks of 5 the chaos warriors actually do more damage, while being slightly tankier (due to the 5+ vs mortals).  Once you start looking at blocks of 10+, you find that they deal almost the exact same amount of damage (all thanks to the goreaxes), but now the Chaos warriors have a fully re-rollable save.  My initial pass also says that there are more ways to buff the chaos warriors (sorcerer's, warshrines, dual-blades, etc.) than there are to buff the blood warriors, as most of the blood warrior's buffs will also affect chaos warriors (ex. bloodsecrator, wrathmongers, etc.).  The only advantage Blood Warriors have is the Pile in and Attack on death, which overall makes blood warriors slightly more killy while chaos warriors are slightly more tanky. 

Either way that you take them... I would rather have Marauders.  I was contemplating Bloodreavers being the equivalent of marauders (though they actually do a bit less damage, while also being less tanky), but then I looked up the fact that Bloodreavers are on 32mm bases and I just decided to give up on them completely.  As far as tanking goes, a 4+ save on 30 wounds is actually the same amount of tankiness as a 5+ save on 40 wounds, which makes a pack of marauders as tanky as a block of blood warriors.  The re-rollable saves on Chaos Warriors does give them the lead in tankiness, but the fact that that unit can't really kill anything while the Marauders will still sells me on the marauders.

[PiotrW]

6 hours ago, Roark said:

What do you mean specifically mate? IMO Rend -2 is very handy and not common at all, albeit that they really need to choose their targets carefully. M10 helps with this.

Oh, I didn't mean statistics - just the whole concept of them being armed with *lances*. If I understand correctly, those lances work like any other melee weapon, right? Meaning, the Knights can fight multiple rounds with them in close quarters... which is not how lances worked in real world. Such lances were, as far as I know, more of a one-use weapon: the cavalry took up speed, they aimed their lances (long heavy poles, basically) at the enemy, they crushed into the enemy. Then, the lances got discarded and the knights used swords and other close-quarter weapons.

I know, AoS is fantasy, but there's just so much suspension of disbelief I can have strained...

BTW. Do you guys think we'll get new Chaos Knights with other weapons (their warscroll has them listed as an option)? Or Chaos Warriors with other weapons configurations?

6 hours ago, Gistradagis said:

By the way, for Marauders I simply took 40 Kairic Acolytes, put them on the appropriate bases, and call them Marauders.

You know, I looked at these guys and... you're right, they actually do work as alternate Chaos Marauders! They look definitely Tzeentchy, but with a different colour scheme...

... picturing these guys wearing tartan skirts now 😵

Edited February 18, 2020 by PiotrW

[Roark]

1 hour ago, readercolin said:

As for the comparison with Blood Warriors...

Good detailed post.

RE: Blood Warriors, it's worth noting that 1 in 10 has a unit superweapon of Rend -1 Dmg 2. When you get them up to 4 attacks each (as Khorne can easily do) this is like having a solid combat hero within the unit, damage-wise.

Anyway, back to StD.

[Ravinsild]

2 hours ago, readercolin said:

Knights:

Playing as slaves to darkness, these models are currently the ones that are doing the most work for me.  That being said, I don't currently have marauders, so that isn't the fairest of comparisons.  I've run them in everything from a block of 5, to a block of 20, and tried with lances and without.  Overall, I find that you can run a block of 5 with lances behind your lines as a "counterpunch", where you hold them and attempt to charge with them after your opponent washes against (and destroys) a unit in front of them.  For any other use though, ensorcelled blades are better, and they are also arguably better as a counterpunch as well.  Additionally, I usually struggle to get more than 10 into combat at once, and the extra knights tend to be just extra wounds to take off before the killing power is affected.  A charging block with lances deals almost the exact same amount of damage to a 6+ save as blades do, and about 20% more damage on average to a 4+ save.  Once they are off the charge though, the damage just plummets too much, with lances doing half the damage as blades do to a 4+ save, and a bit less than 2/3 the damage to a 6+.  Do note though that the exact numbers will vary depending upon which mark you choose.

Playing them in a Khorne army, the biggest loss would be the loss of the Khorne Mark, as you will no longer have easy access to re-rolling 1's to hit, or the +1 to wound.  This is however made up for by the easier access to extra attacks.  Comparing them to Skullcrushers (the nearest Khorne unit to them), for 20 points more the block of knights is going to do more damage, but be a bit less tanky.  Note, this is including the mortal wounds on a charge. 

Either way that you are running them, I would highly recommend bringing a Chaos Lord (on foot), as the pile in and attack twice is a massive increase in their damage.  A Lord on Karkadark can also be a great boon, both because of its own killing power and due to its command ability giving +1 to hit and re-rolling charges.  Next, a Warshrine is a great tool in both armies - slaves because the 6+ FNP makes them even tankier, and the ability to give them re-rolling hits and wounds is great, and Khorne because you get the above AND you get to run the Khorne.  Lastly, a Sorcerer Lord is decent because of Oracular Visions, giving them re-rollable saves, which if you are running Khorne stacks really nicely with Bronzed Flesh (even if like me you don't use any of the spells... though my excuse is that my dice hate spellcasting, not that I don't make the attempt).

Warriors:

I have tried warriors in blocks of 5 to blocks of 20, and tried them with sword+shield and dual swords.  At this point, the only unit that I've been more disappointed by is Stormcast Liberators (sequitors are just soooo much better... also, stormcast have more killier options available than StD does...).  At small sizes, they don't really have enough models to contest objectives, and the lack of rend leaves them fluffing anything that they attack quite often (that being said, my meta has a lot of people who like running 4+ saves - or better, so your experience may differ).  At large sizes you look around and ask yourself, "Would I rather have 20 warriors, or 10 knights?"   My answer is the knights.  They at least will kill stuff - especially because it is so rare to be able to get all the warriors onto a single target.  Should you by some miracle find yourself facing someone without a lot of rend, warriors are decent.  This isn't even bringing the marauder comparison into it, because marauders just blow warriors out of the water by so much (like seriously, a block of 20 marauders deals more damage than a block of 15 chaos warriors, while costing half as much... and can get into an engagement easier as well with their charge bonuses).

As for the comparison with Blood Warriors, in blocks of 5 the chaos warriors actually do more damage, while being slightly tankier (due to the 5+ vs mortals).  Once you start looking at blocks of 10+, you find that they deal almost the exact same amount of damage (all thanks to the goreaxes), but now the Chaos warriors have a fully re-rollable save.  My initial pass also says that there are more ways to buff the chaos warriors (sorcerer's, warshrines, dual-blades, etc.) than there are to buff the blood warriors, as most of the blood warrior's buffs will also affect chaos warriors (ex. bloodsecrator, wrathmongers, etc.).  The only advantage Blood Warriors have is the Pile in and Attack on death, which overall makes blood warriors slightly more killy while chaos warriors are slightly more tanky. 

Either way that you take them... I would rather have Marauders.  I was contemplating Bloodreavers being the equivalent of marauders (though they actually do a bit less damage, while also being less tanky), but then I looked up the fact that Bloodreavers are on 32mm bases and I just decided to give up on them completely.  As far as tanking goes, a 4+ save on 30 wounds is actually the same amount of tankiness as a 5+ save on 40 wounds, which makes a pack of marauders as tanky as a block of blood warriors.  The re-rollable saves on Chaos Warriors does give them the lead in tankiness, but the fact that that unit can't really kill anything while the Marauders will still sells me on the marauders.

Why would they lose the Mark of Khorne being in a Khorne army?

Also thank you for the detailed right up this is so exciting. 

[Eldarain]

Given the context around that mention I believe they meant Aura of Khorne from the Slaves Allegiance.

[GeneralZero]

11 hours ago, Gistradagis said:

I'm gonna guess you mean the models, and not the profiles.

What else?! 😉

[Nasnad]

Trying to make an army from 2 of the new start collecting! boxes, not sure about marks, artifacts and spells yet, but this is what i got so far:

 

Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness
- Damned Legion: Ravagers
Mortal Realm: Ulgu

Leaders
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (250)
- General
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (110)
- Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
Chaos Lord (110)
- Reaperblade & Daemonbound Steel
- Mark of Chaos: Nurgle

Battleline
10 x Chaos Warriors (200)
- Hand Weapon & Shield
- Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
10 x Chaos Warriors (200)
- Hand Weapon & Shield
- Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
10 x Chaos Knights (360)
- Cursed Lance
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne

Units
1 x Fomoroid Crusher (100)

Behemoths
Chaos Warshrine (170)
- Mark of Chaos: Undivided

Total: 1500 / 1500
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 112
 

[Jonko]

Hey,

What do you think of the new mindstealer sphiranx for competitive? I think its a great model with cool abilties BUT missing the mark of chaos keyword to choose from im not sure he fits in great, making it a easy shooting target in my nurgle aura lists. With a 5 save and no mortal wounds save to help him survive .

[Gistradagis]

20 minutes ago, Nasnad said:

Trying to make an army from 2 of the new start collecting! boxes, not sure about marks, artifacts and spells yet, but this is what i got so far:

 

Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness
- Damned Legion: Ravagers
Mortal Realm: Ulgu

Leaders
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (250)
- General
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (110)
- Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
Chaos Lord (110)
- Reaperblade & Daemonbound Steel
- Mark of Chaos: Nurgle

Battleline
10 x Chaos Warriors (200)
- Hand Weapon & Shield
- Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
10 x Chaos Warriors (200)
- Hand Weapon & Shield
- Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
10 x Chaos Knights (360)
- Cursed Lance
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne

Units
1 x Fomoroid Crusher (100)

Behemoths
Chaos Warshrine (170)
- Mark of Chaos: Undivided

Total: 1500 / 1500
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 112
 

2 units of 10 warriors is... kinda rough. I'd almost recommend running them as 5 and 15, so that at least one of these blocks can be more durable, and the other functions as a screening unit, or to leave behind on some objective.

[Nasnad]

19 minutes ago, Gistradagis said:

2 units of 10 warriors is... kinda rough. I'd almost recommend running them as 5 and 15, so that at least one of these blocks can be more durable, and the other functions as a screening unit, or to leave behind on some objective.

No problem changing that, just though that it might be needed if there are a couple of center objectives.

[Gistradagis]

2 minutes ago, Nasnad said:

No problem changing that, just though that it might be needed if there are a couple of center objectives.

Could be, but it's a risky manoeuvre. The moment you lose a single model, you no longer get the save rerolls for having 10+ models, so it's usually better to always try and run Warriors in blocks of 15 whenever possible.

[Vilge]

Hi,

I played three games with this list:

Archaon - slanesh

Chaos Sorcerer on manticore - slanesh

40 marauders - slanesh

3 varanguards  - slanesh

3 varanguards  - slanesh

Doom-sigil

 

Two games versus FEC - four terrorgaist plus two heroes and some summon. 

Both games was major win for me,  I killed all of his units. One unit of Varanguard was able to kill two terrorgaist in one turn. In other game 40 marauders charged three terrorgaist and put from 8 to 10 wounds to each of them before they were killed.

One game versus Osiarchs, it was even game and I lost in last round. I was able to counter this army better than with my Sylvaneth army. 

 

In the end I really like Archaon with his ability to give rerolls of ones on one unit evywhere on the board. Also auto dispell of endless spell is great.

[Nasnad]

13 minutes ago, Gistradagis said:

Could be, but it's a risky manoeuvre. The moment you lose a single model, you no longer get the save rerolls for having 10+ models, so it's usually better to always try and run Warriors in blocks of 15 whenever possible.

Ahh, you are right. Might drop the Fomoroid and the 5 man unit of warriors, then i have 200 points on another battleline unit

[Snakeb1te]

59 minutes ago, Gistradagis said:

2 units of 10 warriors is... kinda rough. I'd almost recommend running them as 5 and 15, so that at least one of these blocks can be more durable, and the other functions as a screening unit, or to leave behind on some objective.

Just a few thoughts - I don't play much but I spend way too much time reading and over-analysing, and I've read this thread in its entirety.

• Traits - Bolstered by hate add two wounds to your sorcerer, eternal vendetta (reroll wounds) for Chaos Lord, and Master of Deception (-1 to hit in melee) for Karkadrak.

 

• Unless you're deadset on the Fomoroid, keep in mind it isn't worth 100 points as it is.  It costs as much as a hero, but is lacklustre in melee, will probably only deal 2 damage per ranged turn, and whilst having 10 wounds, is only 5+, so anything with rend will decimate it in short order anyway. Its ability to damage units near terrain isn't meaningful either. At 80 points it could be worth a punt but not at 100. A Sphiranx would be better for those points.

 

• Option A - split the knights, join your warrior squads into one (to make it x20). That way you have a tanky anvil to drop buffs onto. Plus it is a little trickier to have all x10 knights having space to attack at the same time, whilst still keeping in range of the various buffs. As much as it'd be cool to buff the ****** out of a unit of x10 knights and have them go to town, I'd say it is better to split them up and bulk up your chaos warriors, who will then have many more turns of rerolling saves. You'll then be able to retreat out of combat with one unit of knights, whilst charging in with the other.

 

• Option B - split one squad of warriors, making one squad x15. That way you get a bit better of an anvil, whilst still having a backup squad for something. Not sure what a x5 of warriors will achieve on its own as they do very poor damage, but the idea is that you're taking option B if you really want to have a meaty lance charge with x10 knights.

 

• Why is the Warshrine Undivided? Read the ability carefully. The upgraded buff provided by the Warshrine does not depend on the mark it has, but the mark the receiving unit is. Therefore, make the thing Nurgle marked, in as it'll get a -1 to hit from shooting when near a hero, and in case it needs to buff itself, +1 to save. A mostly inconsequential change but still better than what you've picked currently.

 

• You have a massive choice for artifacts, I've heard the -3 rend on the Karkadrak is great - hard to argue unless you're against Nighthaunt.

 

• Remember that you'll be looking to summon in 3 units during this battle. You'll need to find a way to spare command points for that. Marauders or Marauder Horsemen seem like the best choice, but summon whatever you can, as long as you remember to get the models for this. 

 

Consider also one last thing. If you drop the Formoroid, split the knights, and have only one unit of x15 warriors, you'll have 300 points spare with 7 units. That means you can take the Plaguetouched Nurgle battalion. That means an extra command point and artifact, and turns your army into a one-drop, giving you a big advantage in picking the conditions of the first two turns. Obviously you'd have to mark all of your units as Nurgle though (losing out on the Khorne buff).

Battalions aren't usually worth it at lower point levels, but because you can summon units in through Ravagers, I think it is worth the trade.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Snakeb1te

[Nasnad]

28 minutes ago, Snakeb1te said:

Just a few thoughts - I don't play much but I spend way too much time reading and over-analysing, and I've read this thread in its entirety.

lot of good feedback, thanks! .. will try to go with 1 unit of 15 or 20 warriors and 2 units of 5 knights, and drop the Fomoroid (thoughi really love the model)
and then find something else to use the last 100-200 points on.

About the warshrine, that was an error on my part, should have had the mark of nurgle.

 

Edited February 18, 2020 by Nasnad

[Snakeb1te]

Glad you liked the feedback. Go for the batallion  I'm not sure how to better spend those 100 or 200 points than a batallion which provides a command point to a starved army, and with a nice MW bounce back ability to a block of tanky warriors and knights.

Otherwise you could consider a squad of marauders, and start the game with an extra CP.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Snakeb1te

[Nasnad]

1 minute ago, Snakeb1te said:

Glad you liked the feedback. Go for the batallion  I'm not sure how to better spend those 100 or 200 points than a batallion which provides a command point starved army, and with a nice MW bounce back ability to a block of tanky warriors and knights.

yea like the idea of the Battalion, but would i not need 1 more unit for it? 1 hero, and 7 units?

[Snakeb1te]

1. Karkadrak
2. Sorceror
3. Lord
4. x15 Warriors
5. x5 Knights
6. x5 Knights
7.  Warshrine

Boom. Heroes count as units.

[Gistradagis]

1 minute ago, Snakeb1te said:

1. Karkadrak
2. Sorceror
3. Lord
4. x15 Warriors
5. x5 Knights
6. x5 Knights
7.  Warshrine

Boom. Heroes count as units.

If that's for the Nurgle battalion, then it's not enough. It's a hero + 7 units, meaning 8 in total with the Mark, I believe?

[Nasnad]

3 minutes ago, Gistradagis said:

If that's for the Nurgle battalion, then it's not enough. It's a hero + 7 units, meaning 8 in total with the Mark, I believe?

This is how i read it? .. but it does makes sense if it is only 7 units in total, given the number of nurgle.