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AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion


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On 12/30/2021 at 9:49 AM, Skurrow said:

Hi, I'm new here and to playing AOS in general.  Though, I have been following the game for a while.  Watching batreps and such.  

I feel that I would be a horde player at heart, so its a little sad to see them falling out of vogue in AOS 3.0.

I've been looking at various horde options and was wondering how people felt about cultists now that they can gain God keywords? 

Did I miss something? When did this happen?

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2 hours ago, TerminusRex said:

Did I miss something? When did this happen?

You mean the cultists with god keyword? In the Tome Celestial from White Dwarf magasine #468. Cultists, ogroid, warqueen and chieftain can have a mark of chaos. ALSO, cultists with the same Mark of Chaos as the general count as battleline

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Absolutely. The Despoilers subfacrion is focused on Demon Princes and is quite strong at that. 

Khorne Demon Princes have one of the best command abilities in the game. However, the other Demon Prince's command abilities are rather meh. Tzeentch Demon Prince is also worth mentioning since He has a 3+ save rerolling ones. 

On top of that, Belakor can really mess up your opponent's Plan. 

So yes, Demon Princes are Not only worthwhile, they are really good. 

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I agree with Salyx. First of all DP's offer more than just Command Abilities. They are capable heroes that are fast, have a variety of usefull abilities and can provide quite a punch. While quite pricey on their own, despoilers lifts them to a solid tier.

Due to their Speed and "Always fights first" they are able to pick their fight and can always land a blow to weaken the foe before he can swing back at full power. So they provide even more control over the opponent in a faction that is good at this. The damage profiles are okay, especially as their to hit bonus allows to save that AOA on another unit. As mentioned Khorne is great. Leaving your opponent in front of you so you can charge whatever way you like it is a key ability. Tzeentch is really durable as mentioned and is therefore a great pick for the general. Also the CA is good as we have some really solid spells available. Belakor likes this buff, being a T2 Wizard. 

Also Despoiler Legion is just sweet:

  • Heal your Monsters and DP's each turn
  • Solid General Traits:
    • Radiance of Dark Glory provides you an CA for even more heal
    • Paragon allows you to move D3 units 5" before the game
    • Lightning Reflexes to help your Warlord from being sniped
  • Good Artifacts:
    • Helm of Many Eyes makes your Manticore- or Karkadrak-Lord punch with the deamons
    • Doombringer Blade is a great way to mark a God or Big Model for doom.
    • Crown and Armour provide even more durability
    • Mantle was great in 2.0 but didn't age well into the new Edition
    • Twistrune protects your own units from your Terrain Sheningans
  • Making Terrain Pitchblack messes up the LOS for many shooty and spellheavy armies assuming that you play on a board that has enough terrain.
  • 18" Aura of Chaos allows you far easier positioning with your general. This is especially sweet with a Tzeentch General who provides you with that nasty save reroll
  • 5+ for your genral, just because Tzeentch DP's were not hard enough to kill

I love to play Despoilers this with Khorne + Tzeentch DP, Belakor, Manticore (Sorcerer) Lord (because I have no Karkadrak) and some Knights/Marauder Horseman. I often take the Helm of Many Eyes on the Manticore and an Emerald Lifeswarm. Also, against Gods and such, the Doombringer Blade gives you a nice output. I do rarely use other monsters, from time to time a Soul Grinder as I like the model.

 

Edit: I forgot to mention the Spell Lore/Sorcerers: Call to Glory/Ruinous Vigour come nicely on Belakor. If you take a Sorcerer along you do not need to cast Mystic Shield but get it for free instead. Also the Sorcerer on Manticore brings a good Spell for Mortal Wounds. 

Edited by Charleston
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I only just came across the new darkoath savagers and my gut reaction is they are brokenly good in idolators.

Double reinforce two units and blob them around a sorcerer.

Opponent takes an objective, you teleport a unit and so long as you roll a 3+ on two dice to charge they take it and you have 30 wounds on a 5+ ward that actually smack well above what their warscroll suggests when you account for having 3 leaders in every 10 on damage 2 that you put in the front ranks.

 

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On 1/6/2022 at 12:18 AM, Bibob45 said:

You mean the cultists with god keyword? In the Tome Celestial from White Dwarf magasine #468. Cultists, ogroid, warqueen and chieftain can have a mark of chaos. ALSO, cultists with the same Mark of Chaos as the general count as battleline

This.  And the change appears to be an allegiance ability so, as I understand it at least, those units can't be coalition units for other Chaos factions (or be given a Mark of Chaos if allied into another army).

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30 minutes ago, Rors said:

I only just came across the new darkoath savagers and my gut reaction is they are brokenly good in idolators.

Double reinforce two units and blob them around a sorcerer.

Opponent takes an objective, you teleport a unit and so long as you roll a 3+ on two dice to charge they take it and you have 30 wounds on a 5+ ward that actually smack well above what their warscroll suggests when you account for having 3 leaders in every 10 on damage 2 that you put in the front ranks.

 

I don't think the charge thing works as Darkoath Savagers appear to be missing the Cultist keyword.

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On 1/2/2022 at 9:53 PM, oggurt_da_bog_zombie said:

Question for those here running cultist heavy lists, Idolators, etc. 

Has anyone ever experimented with a big block of Scions of the Flame for flame pot tossing? The exploding 6s on the pot throwing makes it almost seems meme-list worthy to have a reinforced unit of them, maybe add in the shrine rerolls or Daemonic Power buff to fish for more 6s.

Math hammer-wise, the damage is there, but obviously the problem is the 8" range which means no mask of darkness yeeting them across the board to then shoot in the following phase. If the Scions could move a bit faster to get into shooting position then they seem pretty good, but the 6" move with the 8" flame pot range seems to be the main limitation.

I was considering using them behind a unit of warriors or iron golems or something aka move up to an objective and when that tough unit gets charged and into combat they can start throwing their flame pots into the scrum to hurt the target. Not sure if it would really be effective even in casual games but would be fun, and feel like an appropriate use of grenadiers.

13 hours ago, Rors said:

Oh no! I saw it was a warcry band and I assumed they were thus another cult.

That's a shame, the charge would ha e made them really efficient objective grabbers.

It's a big shame they lack the cultist keyword! They actually seem like a cool little unit for their 100 points with their ability to gain a ward and the mortals on 6's. Awkwardly they also can't benefit at all from the Darkoath Chieftan or Warqueen as they target cultists and marauders, not darkoath XD I might still try and get a unit or two anyway just since they seem fun for their points and could be cool to include in path to glory.

 

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I mean, all Cultist Units feel a little like a mess anyway. Warcry has heavy vibes of being planed as an independent game like Necromunda at first, with all Warscrolls feeling like an aftertought to add to AoS. The S2D Tome feels similarly scattered all around different releases like the Chaos Space Marines Codex. We now even have core alligience changes that are not available to most players as it was published only in a single white dwarf. I really hope for an update in near future, but I fear that it might take up a serious amount of time until we see S2D ported to AoS.

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S2D is a complete mess right now spanning at least 5 publications. The battletome, Wrath of Everchosen (Knights of Empty Throne), 2 Broken Realms books (Legion of the First Prince and Idolaters), White Dwarf, as well as at least 3 scattered FAQ with critically important changes within them.

I dunno how many factions are in such a state of shambles but S2D needs an updated battletome badly and for all intensive purposes there doesn't seem to be one anywhere on the horizon.

The cultist really need an overhaul their extremely clunky to play in AoS proper, the warscrolls are barely playable if not for their extremely low point cost (which is not good game design). The White Dwarf changes to Warqueen ect and the new Darkoath warband dont jive telling me the WD is a bandaid at best.

It seems like Darkoath is truly intended to be its own sub faction but requires at least 2 more unit kits with 1 of them being dual build.

I could see the next book having much more separate subfactions with more strict rules as to what units are allowed and a clear line between what units work well with others. The new coalition rules as far as god armies are concerned seem like the first step in a direction to give S2D better warscroll mechanics and a more aggressive point cost but only time will tell i guess.

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Any people actually winning games with S2D these days without Archaon or Empty Throne? 

Played Maggotkin with pretty standard list, killed 4 Blightkings... no more. Buffed Varanguard and Knights on charge and double activation killed almost three... what’s going on, not even bad rolls. 

There is just no damage output. Terrible warscrolls...

My army (ravagers)

Belakor

Karkadrak

Sor Lord (master of magic and tome)

Darkoath Chief

30 marauders

10 warriors

5 lance knights

3 varanguard

warshrine

doom sigil

 

It may not be the most optimized list, but it is very much the S2D...and should be playable i casual games (it was not an optimal Maggotkin army).

 

Any advice? 

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16 minutes ago, Grimbok said:

Any people actually winning games with S2D these days without Archaon or Empty Throne? 

Played Maggotkin with pretty standard list, killed 4 Blightkings... no more. Buffed Varanguard and Knights on charge and double activation killed almost three... what’s going on, not even bad rolls. 

There is just no damage output. Terrible warscrolls...

My army (ravagers)

Belakor

Karkadrak

Sor Lord (master of magic and tome)

Darkoath Chief

30 marauders

10 warriors

5 lance knights

3 varanguard

warshrine

doom sigil

 

It may not be the most optimized list, but it is very much the S2D...and should be playable i casual games (it was not an optimal Maggotkin army).

 

Any advice? 

You hit the Nail: S2D has quite a low Damage Output. Varanguard and Marauders are beside Archaon out best bet. Knights can have their 5 minutes of Glory but need some buffs and a successfull charge for that.

What S2D is good at is upper mid tier durability and top tier control, paired with an okaish mid tier movement. Belakor, many of our Spells and Artifacts, Mindstealer Sphiranxes, all give us the chance to fight on our terms by making opponents fight last/denying them movement or similar sheningans. With that setup I wouldn't go for killing/tabling, especially not against durable armies like Nurgle. Instead distracting/controlling our opponent and going for the objectives seemed so far the best bet. Ravagers can harass with summoned Cultists, Cabalists try to spam some Endless Spells so your opponent looses interest in competing for certain objectives, Despoilers try to chump through your opponents hammer units before they can land their blow, LotFP and Empty Throne do stuff I never got into as I didn't bother buying Varanguards or Big Daddy A. 

In general your units look like a solid core for casual games. I would suggest you to plan ahead how you want to maximise your VP during the game. Depending on the mission you play consider how you can lure your opponent in a way in which you can maximise the primary objective. Keep and eye on units that synergize and try to not split them until you have a solid reason for that. Lord on Karkadrak and Knights for example can together get a huge damage output. A Tzeentch General can make your Tzeentch Varanguards a really tough Anvil that will pack also a solid punch in Combat due to the save reroll. If you have a Wizzard you still can teleport the 30 Marauders in your opponents backfield, forcing him to split his focus or keep some part of his army back to prevent you from teleporting. Sorcerer Lords are great utility heroes for their oracular vision alone: You get a free unbannable Mystic Shield cast for free atop of a great buff spell from his warscroll. The Arcane Tome can be great on other heroes as well: Lord of Karkadrak with Flaming Blade Spell or Call to Glory to take down Monsters/Heroes f.e.. As for the Warshrine I may not be it's biggest fan but I know that many other players won't leave home without one. You can use it's variety of buff prayers or even try to combine it with Curse and Marauders to fish for enough Mortals to take down serious tanky targets. Then, also, do not expect a lot of damage from your Warriors. They are great for holding some objectives but damage isn't really their job. Park them on some backfield or off side objective and support them if you need to.

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I have mark of khorne by the way. I have had some minor succes and wins with board control (while my army is getting killed) but still struggle to actually kill stuff and complete battle tactics. At some point you can’t avoid combat. 

 

Karkadrak and buffed knights, I don’t see it. It’s not that much damage...

Sor lord is fine, but getting those spells off and keeping up with the troops is hard. Really disappointed, looks good on paper, not happening on the table...

I have yet to see any lists without Archaon og Empty Throne in any list reviews, youtube shows, tournament results...is our win rate really an illusion and like below 30%, but Archaon taking it to 50%? 

So many trash warscrolls in that book (most imported from underworlds and warcry)....

Well, maybe just wait for a new book and hope for the best...

Grimbok

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7 minutes ago, Grimbok said:

I have mark of khorne by the way. I have had some minor succes and wins with board control (while my army is getting killed) but still struggle to actually kill stuff and complete battle tactics. At some point you can’t avoid combat. 

 

Karkadrak and buffed knights, I don’t see it. It’s not that much damage...

Sor lord is fine, but getting those spells off and keeping up with the troops is hard. Really disappointed, looks good on paper, not happening on the table...

I have yet to see any lists without Archaon og Empty Throne in any list reviews, youtube shows, tournament results...is our win rate really an illusion and like below 30%, but Archaon taking it to 50%? 

So many trash warscrolls in that book (most imported from underworlds and warcry)....

Well, maybe just wait for a new book and hope for the best...

Grimbok

Karkadrak Khorne General lifts Knights with the CA and Genral Aura to 3+(Reroll 1)/2+ -2 2 profile in Charge while also beeing a blender on it's own. Yes, it is still less than other factions have, but it can be a decent blow anyway.

Sorcerer Lord on Manticore may fit you maybe a bit better then the footslogger. It's faster, more durable and has a higher output. The Footslogger is mainly good for making your backline of Warrioirs more durable and to catapult the Marauders with Mask of Darkness

As for Arch, I belive that just because Batreps and competetive lists use him heavily you do not really have to. Yes, it is a good blender, but mostly because he was broken with other factions CA abilities. Issue is that competetive players, who mostly find the good stuff, have quite fast settled on Arch+Varanguard Spam and then dropped the faction. Casual player brew their own strategies and share them less often. 

As for the Warscrolls, yes, compared to other factions they really do look underwhelming and overprices. Period. Yet, S2D draw quite a punch from the Alligience Abilities and have some tools to get some games. But it leaves you almost always with some sort of uphill-battle-feeling.  

While I can tell you that for a casual meta S2D offer quite a lot of depth and as a faction also a lot of space to explore, I can understand frustration about the state of Warscrolls and the general messy kind of writing it has. If you really want to play a killy faction, the current iteration of the Tome is propably not what you are looking for.  Especially when you have to deal against opponents with more "auto-win" factions or just updated current battletomes like Nurgle or SCE. Trust me, when you browse through this thread you will find a lot of people waiting for S2D having finally some update that let them have a punch comparable to what they could do in WHFB times.

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Yeah, it’s unfortunate...

 

And a mess across many books. Had a look at Darkoath Savagers. Nice enough warscroll, but no cultist keyword and no mark of chaos then? How come my Darkoath Chieftain can’t buff Darkoath Savagers...

 

I do have a stormcast army though😀...

 

 

Grimbok

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Warning: im about to go on a rant but its cuz i love this faction and really care for some crazy reason about this.

S2D does well as a filthy casual army with a lot of viable combinations. It suffers against competitive list (even with archaon) due to many of its strongest force multipliers being 5 wound foot sloggers, and weak scrolls on avg.

Other armies also have this issue wich is multiplied when you consider that yet other armies are able to reach out and delete your buff bots. Who need to be wholly within painfully short distances. Couple that with the fact S2D have nearly no way to also just reach across the board, with either magic or shooting, and just delete the opponents 5 wound heroes when need be.

On the other hand S2D has access to stronger buff pieces in the sorcerer on manticore, and chaos warshrine, however these are hard to squeeze into competitively optimized list. Largely due to the fact the army depends on expensive and/or ineffective hammers.

Competitive statistics really skew reality in the casually competitive scene where it seems many people play. Im considering casually competitive as somewhere in between tournament and narrative player. In that i dont want to get completely crushed and i owe it to my opponent to give them a good battle, mixed with i put this unit in my army cuz i like the model/lore/aesthetic or, this its just what i own/assembled/painted.

In the casually competitive sense S2D has some very strong mechanics in its multiple ways to hand out buffs like +1 save, reroll hit AND wound rolls, fight twice, and fight last. Fight last i feel is underated considering there is at least 2 ways between spell lore and mindstealer cats making success very likely to at least one if not multiple enemies. Then you combine that with varanguad ability to fight twice or better yet, cheap snipable, foot slogging, chaos lords command ability (wait can varanguad fight 3 times before their target gets to?). 

But wait theres more!

I get to reroll all those hits and wounds untill my next hero phase? And there is two different ways to do that? And one is undeniable prayer and the other is rerollable? Thanks! Oh dont forget the khorne demon prince, who can stop the opponent dead in their tracks, paving the way for you to pick your choice of charges, and even fight at the top of combat.

Oh man all i gotta do is get everyone in range and set all my stuff off... Oh wait nevermind, everything i need is killed from across the board or just smashed to pieces by jank spam that hits harder and faster, with no buffs and zero effort. Thanks.

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@ChaosUndivided an excellent summary. 

We have average to poor warscrolls that are lifted up to good (not great) by the many buffs available.

Problem is those buffs are dependant on restrictive auras, spells with no bonuses to cast (outside cabalists which is a trap legion) or prayers (which can fail). It seems we are pointed if these buffs are on all the time but they rarely are. You also can't fit in everything you want so the army has the ability to do a lot of things but when you make a list you quickly find that you have to make a lot of sacrifices. i.e. Cabalists can be strong in magic but sacrifice melee power, and still get outmatched by true magic-dom armies. An all khorne nights and marauders melee list is strong in melee although needs to be in the general's aura and has no magic power or any of the control elements. A balanced list can be a jack of all trades but a master of none. 

If you don't get your buffs off when you need them you will bounce. Even when the buffs are up, best rend we can manage is 2 and there is very little of that, so in a save stacking meta we do very little damage. 

If you are someone who enjoys uphill tense battles every game then this is the army for you!

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Yup, outside of archaon and varanguard there lacks any real punch. A lot of the warscrolls are bland and underwhelming. There is clear rolls for various units but everything is avg at best. Also the point cost for things is high across the board except for cultist and the foot heroes. I think a lot of this stems back to AoS 1 and S2D being able to soup into the god armies, which is flavorful, but a nightmare to balance. 

With the save stacking more rend is needed in general across the entire game or we need an "ignore save modifiers" style attack to balance out mortal wounds power. But that goes right back to S2D weak magic which delivers little to no damage in instant mortal wounds. With the lack of any shooting or magic S2D is forced to crash through opponents front line in order to remove key targets or rely on archaon and/or levitating/6th circle varanguard.

I am really hoping that preview video for upcoming w+ subscribers does show a new chaos sorcerer and it has a different warscroll than current one with some d6 mortal dmg (or better) spell, but that still wont help much on yet another 5w foot hero. Its hard to complain tho when compared to other factions who also struggle. I think its best if S2D does essential become more "divided" (as it were) between other armies and also internally, so that the balancing isnt as tricky, and S2D warscrolls can become better at the specific rolls they are intended for.

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To be fair, Slaves still have the best horde killing spells in the game (Winds of Chaos & Infernal Flames). However, the Meta strongly advises against taking big infantry units or big units in general. The big weakness of StD is focused Mortal Wounds on one target. However, a Curse prayer can help wonders if you are going to send in Marauders or Halberd or Dual Weapon Warriors. 

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I have been having a decent amount of success with a StD list that is focused on board control and durability, though I need to make some adjustments after the last battlescroll changed the points on the Sorcerer Lord's.  Here is the list:

Ravagers
Sorcerer Lord on Manticore
Sorcerer Lord on Foot
Sorcerer Lord on Foot
Chaos Lord on Foot
Daemon Prince
20 Chaos Warriors
20 Chaos Warriors
10 Chaos Knights

Everything but the Daemon Prince has the mark of Tzeentch for the re-roll 1's to wounds.  However, with the update to the Sorcerers on foot going up 20 points each, this list is now at 2010 points, and I haven't figured out what I want to change yet to make it work... but swapping the Sorcerer Lord on Manticore for a Lord on Manticore has not been a success.  Next thing to test is swapping the Manticore out for a warshrine, as I rarely end up using all 4 ravagers summons anyways.

Obviously this list can't beat gargants (there is like, no DPS), and a recent game also shows that it will struggle against Dragoncast Eternals, but it has actually beaten a few competitive lists in Daughters of Khaine, Lumineth, and more annihilator focused stormcast lists.  Additionally, it can win more casual games without the opponent feeling like they are getting dumpstered.  The key thing to winning with the list is playing the objective game and deciding where to stack your saves to prevent your opponent from just running right through you, and finally figuring out where to summon to keep pressure on objectives.

To be fair, I don't think you can have a competitive StD list that can take all comers without Archaeon.  The roster is either trash (the various warcry warbands), too defensive (knights and warriors), or there are too many synergy pieces needed to get the most out of the units.  This means that you either have to bring Archaeon, or you have to accept the fact that your only real path to victory is attempting to outlast your opponent... which there are other armies that can do that better.  That being said, I'm not sure if there are any armies that can do save stacking as well as StD can, and it is fairly easy to get multiple units that are going to be ignoring rend -1 or -2, which can make it really, really hard for some armies to do much against.  Leaning hard into that has given me the best results in 3.0 (without archaeon), but again you just have to admit that some matchups are impossible (ex. gargants).

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Concerning DPS... Maybe the Soul Grinder is a hidden gem in our book. With a Tzeentch Mark, it can be pretty tanky for a Monster, however, if you add a Khorne Mark and ally in a Bloodsecrator or Wrathmonger, this guy can be damn strong, having up to 2 Extra attacks and hitting on 3s (Titanic Duel or All out attack) rerolling ones. And it adds some shooting. 

In a Despoilers list, these guys can even heal. Maybe that is something to consider. 

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I played Khorne Grinders with some buffs in 2.0. The main issue with it was the 4+ to hit on many profiles, which is just awfull for todays standards. While I have not tried it in 3.0 yet, I think that AllOutAttack is a great tool to stabilise the Damage output on the Grinder, especially with Khorne General Aura providing you a solid 3+ RR1 /2+ Profile. A Bloodsecrator and Wrathmongers are quite expensive buff pieces but when you take them in your army anyway you have nothing to loose here. Especially the chance to trigger the claw more than once seems like a good bonus.  

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Most, if not all, top tier competitive armies rely on a small handful of list and/or units. Take those out of the equation and their win rates plummet against armies that fair poorly at top tables (im looking at you skarbrand + 3 thirsters). If your going to battle against min/max net list then archaon and/or a slew of varanguard are your go to.

If you are gonna play casually there is a lot of viable options but mileage is gonna vary depending on how janky your opponents list is. In general S2D relies on a lot of buffs from easily removable pieces who need to stay close to the action in order to work.

I would like to see the god armies become coalition in a S2D list instead of the other way around. This makes more sense thematically as all chaos is under one banner (undivided) but would also make things like running slaughter priest in idolaters an interesting choice or tzeentch wizards in cabalist more interesting.

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