AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion

[W1tchhunter]

15 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Right now there isn't one, the daemon weapons are just better.

I used Ensorcelled Weapons with slaanesh marked Varanguard using Arcane Tome and flaming weapon, they did alot of work. 

[NinthMusketeer]

Oh sure there are some niche builds that can squeeze better performance from the other options, I'm certainly not denying that. But if a weapon option is only viable with one unit, in a specific dammed legion, with a specific artifact, with a specific spell, I don't feel that qualifies as that weapon having a purpose.

Weapon options having a purpose is like when infantry units have a spear option that is a worse profile but longer range, so better for larger units while the regular hand weapon is better on small units. Or an option that deals less damage against light armor but has better rend to counter heavy armor. And so on.

[W1tchhunter]

Ah yeah I get what you mean. Tbf I think varanguard could do with just getting the blood knights treatment as well regarding weapons. Lance and demonblade in one profile but rend and damage changes on the charge. Keep the demonblade as is regarding 6s but maybe if they felt wild change it to 6s do MW on wounds if they don't change the slaanesh mark.  

Have the chaos knights do the same with there lances but keep the Ensorcelled weapons on them. That way all three weapons are still represented, but varanguard are still obviously superior.

 

Also just found out the stromcast ballista CREW have rend on there melee weapons 😜 what the hell are our chaos warriors swords made of?? Wood??

Edited September 13, 2021 by W1tchhunter

[Bibob45]

2 hours ago, W1tchhunter said:

I used Ensorcelled Weapons with slaanesh marked Varanguard using Arcane Tome and flaming weapon, they did alot of work. 

Dont think you can use arcane tome with varanguard..?

The Fists of the Everchosen rule states that Knights of the empty Throne Varanguard units can only choose artefacts and traits from their damned legion options

[Enwolved]

9 hours ago, Bibob45 said:

Dont think you can use arcane tome with varanguard..?

The Fists of the Everchosen rule states that Knights of the empty Throne Varanguard units can only choose artefacts and traits from their damned legion options

Yup, you are right on this. Arcane Tome isnt possible unfortunately. 

[W1tchhunter]

Ah ****** I thought the universal rule trumped it. Twas only in one friendly game cause the list i ran had alot of proxies :P.

 

Ignore me then, yeah Ensorcelled weapons suck 

[W1tchhunter]

Ah ****** I thought the universal rule trumped it. Twas only in one friendly game cause the list i ran had alot of proxies :P.

 

Ignore me then, yeah Ensorcelled weapons suck 

[Holy_Diver]

So white dwarf updates are online...

...and yeah, I suppose I've run too far with imagination 😅

ps: they are good anyway.

[DaCapo]

28 minutes ago, Holy_Diver said:

So white dwarf updates are online...

...and yeah, I suppose I've run too far with imagination 😅

ps: they are good anyway.

What do you mean they are online ?

[Enoby]

I've been playing a bit of Slaves to Darkness recently for a Path to Glory campaign and I'm really torn about this book. 

On one hand, I do like the buffing options available through the Lord and Sorcerer, as well as the focus on controll spells. Also, not that I'm using him in PtG, but Archaon has a very fitting warscroll which I appreciate. I also really like the summoning of the Ravagers combined with the Marauder charge rule to tie the enemy up. Gameplay-wise, Slaves to Darkness feels like a control/buff army and they're satisfying to do well with.

But on the other hand, the book reminds me of Blades of Khorne, which is that many Warscrolls just feel bad to use without buffs, and a lot of units don't feel like their lore. When I think of an army full of super powered vikings blessed by the most powerful and evil gods in the universe, I don't think "low damage, decent defence, control army that requires buffs to properly function". The Chaos Lord on foot does a pitiful average of 3 damage - they're there for their command ability, which is totally fine in a buff army, but a bit disappointing for what is meant to be a champion one step off immortality. The Daemon Prince is just as frustrating, having similarly low damage and only being a caster if Tzeentch (which doesn't really fit the lore of a Nurgle or Slaanesh sorcerer being able to ascend) - I hope in the future there's a daemon prince redo so they feel like the immortal champions on the gods, rather than just okay-beatsticks (Khorne CA notwithstanding as that is good). I think this is compounded by the Eye of the Gods table, which is really cool from a fluff perspective, but mostly commonly (roll of a 7) does nothing, and hardly goes off because the heroes with Eye of the Gods don't really want to be in combat or have the hitting power to reliably kill heroes. 

There's a load of super cool stuff in S2D, but so many of the warscrolls just feel meh, which makes Chaos as a whole feel meh. Chaos Warriors shouldn't feel like cheap spammable roadblocks, Chaos Knights shouldn't hit like marshmallows when not charging, Varanguard should be much stronger than they are currently outside of the circles (and should just have the warrior shield or at least a 4+ spell ignore) - it just seems a weird dissonance between the narrative and the rules. 

When I play Slaves (which isn't just PTG, I have played 2k quite a lot), I think they're fun, but it doesn't feel like I'm playing champions of the gods. Unless I'm bringing Archaon, Sixth Circle Varanguard, or a load of buffed Marauders, no one really fears my units. That's not to say you can't win, but it doesn't usually feel like an unstoppable army of Satan Vikings.  

[Charleston]

8 minutes ago, Enoby said:

But on the other hand, the book reminds me of Blades of Khorne, which is that many Warscrolls just feel bad to use without buffs, and a lot of units don't feel like their lore. When I think of an army full of super powered vikings blessed by the most powerful and evil gods in the universe, I don't think "low damage, decent defence, control army that requires buffs to properly function

You perfectly describe the main issues of S2D right now: Issues with internal balance and some discrepancy between lore and warscrolls.

S2D can be competetive minded but this mostly due to Archaon beeing a big god model, Belakor beeing a good controll piece and the ammount of buffs we have. For some weird reasons Marauders were also the most hitting unit ever. Meanwhile the other units are lackluster, especially when compared to other factions. 

Due to this the overall haptic of the book suffers. It feels like each choice in listbuilding could be a potential trap. There is little to no incent to try new units outside of thoose which are working fine. Having marauders hit harder than warriors feel unintuitive and bad as well. Also the buffs feel sometime like a minefield of potential traps: Some units are not affected by some buffs because they lack this or that keyword, in other cases potential synnergies turn into downsides. Also during listbuilding our hosts are quite limiting. But I really look forward to the 3.0 tome because the SCE and Cruleboyz one already showed that gw is about fixing thoose weird restrictions. 

[Holy_Diver]

21 minutes ago, DaCapo said:

What do you mean they are online ?

It means that I have seen the pages for the macthed from a private chat. Everything remains as it is now, with the following additions:
- Ogroid, chieftain, Warqueen, and cultists can have the mark. Cultists who have been given the mark become battlines.
- grand strategy: if there is a t least 1 friendly SLAVES unit wholly within each larga quarter of the battlefield, at end of the battle you score the strategy.
- one tactic for not have wihin 12"  any enemy from a obj and another for rollin in the eye of the gods table.

[Magnus The Blue]

9 minutes ago, Holy_Diver said:

It means that I have seen the pages for the macthed from a private chat. Everything remains as it is now, with the following additions:
- Ogroid, chieftain, Warqueen, and cultists can have the mark. Cultists who have been given the mark become battlines.
- grand strategy: if there is a t least 1 friendly SLAVES unit wholly within each larga quarter of the battlefield, at end of the battle you score the strategy.
- one tactic for not have wihin 12"  any enemy from a obj and another for rollin in the eye of the gods table.

Interesting but far from mind blowing.  Surprised they didn't use the opportunity for fix Mark of Tzeentch, such a negative play experience on any 3+ save unit (when combined with save stacking).

Any new Core Battalions?

[Holy_Diver]

7 minutes ago, Magnus The Blue said:

Interesting but far from mind blowing.  Surprised they didn't use the opportunity for fix Mark of Tzeentch, such a negative play experience on any 3+ save unit (when combined with save stacking).

Any new Core Battalions?

yep, two: 

-3/6 units of Varanguards for Unified or Expert
-1 Leader, 4/8 units (leader,behemoth,Varanguard excluded), 0/1 Behemot for Unified or Slayers

Edited September 14, 2021 by Holy_Diver

[W1tchhunter]

1 hour ago, Holy_Diver said:

It means that I have seen the pages for the macthed from a private chat. Everything remains as it is now, with the following additions:
- Ogroid, chieftain, Warqueen, and cultists can have the mark. Cultists who have been given the mark become battlines.
- grand strategy: if there is a t least 1 friendly SLAVES unit wholly within each larga quarter of the battlefield, at end of the battle you score the strategy.
- one tactic for not have wihin 12"  any enemy from a obj and another for rollin in the eye of the gods table.

Is that it... 🥺

[annarborhawk]

2 hours ago, Holy_Diver said:

It means that I have seen the pages for the macthed from a private chat. Everything remains as it is now, with the following additions:
- Ogroid, chieftain, Warqueen, and cultists can have the mark. Cultists who have been given the mark become battlines.
- grand strategy: if there is a t least 1 friendly SLAVES unit wholly within each larga quarter of the battlefield, at end of the battle you score the strategy.
- one tactic for not have wihin 12"  any enemy from a obj and another for rollin in the eye of the gods table.

Color me disappointed.  Like we really need two more snipable heros to see more play. /s.  I guess maybe flooding the board with MSU cultists FTW?  It's not going to make for fun games. 

[LordPrometheus]

Yeah it's really disappointing unless you like Cultists. Wheeeee....

[Boar]

Finally Ogroid with Mark, and Warqueen and Cultist too. Nice.

As could be expected looking at SoB WD changes we got strategy, tactic and battalions, and Mark of Chaos patch as extra. I honestly don't know why people were hoping for some indepth rewrite, there lies road to dissapointment.

[W1tchhunter]

8 minutes ago, Boar said:

Finally Ogroid with Mark, and Warqueen and Cultist too. Nice.

As could be expected looking at SoB WD changes we got strategy, tactic and battalions, and Mark of Chaos patch as extra. I honestly don't know why people were hoping for some indepth rewrite, there lies road to dissapointment.

Well alot of our stuff needs a good rewrite but probably doesn't warrant a full book release to fix, so a few pages in white dwarf could have really helped us out. Now we probably won't get a new book for another year and a half. This has led me to feelings of disappointment

Also cultists are all absolutely ass, having access to marks won't change that imo. Pretty much our whole army barring Archaon has no good rend and no good MW output, so if everything goes the new stormcast route giving things 3 saves we won't kill anything, and to top that off, the thing we was good at was staying alive and again if the stormcast book is anything to go by everything gets rend now so yeah.

What Enoby said was a brilliant write up about the army at the moment, and i just don't see us getting fixed any time soon. This white dwarf was kinda my last hope haha.

[Holy_Diver]

33 minutes ago, Boar said:

Finally Ogroid with Mark, and Warqueen and Cultist too. Nice.

As could be expected looking at SoB WD changes we got strategy, tactic and battalions, and Mark of Chaos patch as extra. I honestly don't know why people were hoping for some indepth rewrite, there lies road to dissapointment.

Cause the army doesn't match his background. Simply as that.

[Boar]

I get what you are all saying re: background/rules, but that's exactly why putting too much hope in WD patch seemed off. It just was stopgap measure (for additional battle tactic mostly), we saw just that with SoB.

[W1tchhunter]

1 minute ago, Boar said:

I get what you are all saying re: background/rules, but that's exactly why putting too much hope in WD patch seemed off. It just was stopgap measure (for additional battle tactic mostly), we saw just that with SoB.

Tbf since I started playing those two are the only white dwarf updates I've seen, and SOB are already really good and aren't in need of rules rewrites haha I expected just some battle tactics and battalions for them.

 

You're not wrong that I've totally hyped myself up for this, but my best friend is a stormcast player who keeps sending me pictures of the ballista crew and saying how sharp there sextants are 😜

[annarborhawk]

I'm only really disappointed if it's true this puts-off a 3.0 tome. If it doesn't effect are place in the que, fine. 

I guess I'm holding out hope because we still don't have individual kits for Warriors, Knights, and Crack Lord. Maybe when they get around to releasing those (where they obviously already have the molds ready to go) we can see that paired with a new tome. 

IDK, I guess what we got is Tzeentch Marked Iron Golems as a good battleline choice for holding objectives. Maybe incentive to go with hordes of cheap cultists to MSU area control the table. And the two new battle tactics will make it easier to score 5 per game. The battalions help reduce drops. 

Blah. Just more reason to play a passive, defensive game aimed at controlling two objectives all game and scoring 5 battle tactics, all whilst your more deadly opponent tries to kill your stubborn units. That's just not fun for anyone. 

[W1tchhunter]

57 minutes ago, annarborhawk said:

I'm only really disappointed if it's true this puts-off a 3.0 tome. If it doesn't effect are place in the que, fine. 

I guess I'm holding out hope because we still don't have individual kits for Warriors, Knights, and Crack Lord. Maybe when they get around to releasing those (where they obviously already have the molds ready to go) we can see that paired with a new tome. 

IDK, I guess what we got is Tzeentch Marked Iron Golems as a good battleline choice for holding objectives. Maybe incentive to go with hordes of cheap cultists to MSU area control the table. And the two new battle tactics will make it easier to score 5 per game. The battalions help reduce drops. 

Blah. Just more reason to play a passive, defensive game aimed at controlling two objectives all game and scoring 5 battle tactics, all whilst your more deadly opponent tries to kill your stubborn units. That's just not fun for anyone. 

Yeah tbf your not wrong with the last bit Wont tzeentch marked Iron golems pretty much always be a better choice than warriors now? Between coherency and just generally having bad weapon profiles they don't do any damage so survivability is there only thing. Iron golems will keep the plus 1 to save under 10 units and are much cheaper.

Edit: Well I guess warriors have 2 wounds each but your definitely paying for it.

Edited September 14, 2021 by W1tchhunter

[LordPrometheus]

2 hours ago, W1tchhunter said:

 

Also cultists are all absolutely ass, having access to marks won't change that imo. Pretty much our whole army barring Archaon has no good rend and no good MW output, so if everything goes the new stormcast route giving things 3 saves we won't kill anything,

I think the trend is going towards "normal" saves being 4+ and 5+. 3+ is for elites like SCE and heroes only.  At least that's what the scuttlebutt is.