AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion

[Lord Krungharr]

I love the big kitties!  They are very useful for letting a bunch of sub-optimal combat things strike all before the enemy.  They're great as allies for Beasts of Chaos too.  I always forget about the extra Monster VP thing, that will affect things with this Despoilers list I recently used vs a Living City with Dwarves, a Hurricanum, and all 3 types of big Treelords for a victory in Feral Foray:

3 Khorne DPs (general had Paragon of Ruin and Armor of Tortured Souls, and I advanced two kitties and a Fomoroid 5" before the game, another had Doombringer Blade)

Chaos Lord on foot

4 single Chaos Chariots

2 Fomoroid Crushers

2 Mindstealer Cats

1 Soul Grinder

allied Bloodsecrator and a Cockatrice

all Marks of Khorne where applicable.  The flock of Daemon Princes hitting on 2s/rerolling 1s when charging and wounding on 2s from the aura of the general AND all striking first AND all having a chance to heal in the hero phase is amazing, and the bunched up chariots going fast and charging things en masse are pretty good at softening things up if not outright smashing them when lucky, and the other monsters do their monstery tricks (Fomoroids can cause a surprising amount of MW with the terrain thing, including to our own army!).  Soul Grinder kinda sucks actually but meh, I have one.  Might switch that out for 10 Chaos Warriors, or a Gaunt Summoner on disc to summon Bloodletters (cuz Khorne), or maybe 2 allied Plague Priests?  Not Khorne but cheap Priests and decent prayers, though a Slaugherpriest is also good.  Feel like I need something to dispel pesky endless spells, eg: if the Scuttletide or Everblaze Comet gets cast on me, that's a problem.

Now that I look at this army, it offers up 9 extra VPs if all my stuff dies.  That's almost as much extra as my 4 megagargant army!  Hmmmm, risky business.  I must have long-Covid brainfog.

[Skarband]

Hi i really love Khorne but my Blades of Khorne Army od really bad 😔😔😔 i whant to start some STD full Khorne list can you help me? 

 - Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness
     - Army Type: Knights of the Empty Throne
LEADERS
Chaos Lord (120)
     - Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (225)
     - Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Varanguard (560)
     - Mark of Chaos: Khorne
     - Daemonforged Blade and Warpsteel Shield
     - Artefacts of Power: Grasping Plate
Bloodsecrator (125)
BATTLELINE
Chaos Knights (170)
Chaos Knights (170)
Chaos Warriors (400)
BEHEMOTH
Chaos Warshrine (215)
TOTAL POINTS: 1985/2000
Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App

[Kramig]

If you like khorne you should put a khorne demon prince, which now is one of the best choice from slave to darkness book

[Lord Krungharr]

On 4/14/2022 at 2:54 PM, Skarband said:

Hi i really love Khorne but my Blades of Khorne Army od really bad 😔😔😔 i whant to start some STD full Khorne list can you help me? 

 - Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness
     - Army Type: Knights of the Empty Throne
LEADERS
Chaos Lord (120)
     - Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (225)
     - Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Varanguard (560)
     - Mark of Chaos: Khorne
     - Daemonforged Blade and Warpsteel Shield
     - Artefacts of Power: Grasping Plate
Bloodsecrator (125)
BATTLELINE
Chaos Knights (170)
Chaos Knights (170)
Chaos Warriors (400)
BEHEMOTH
Chaos Warshrine (215)
TOTAL POINTS: 1985/2000
Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App

I have to agree, you want that Khorne Daemon Prince!  Just drop 10 Chaos Warriors and you'll have the points.  I know that's a big tanky unit with rerolling saves, but for just standing on objectives in the back and doing nothing anyways, 10 is good.  Or you could drop the Warshrine (I've heard good things about those, but never tried one).   

Hopefully the new GHB2022 won't mess stuff up for StD too much.  

Edited April 16, 2022 by Lord Krungharr

[acr0ssth3p0nd]

Heyo, I've been building up my Nurgle StD while I wait for Sylvaneth to get a new tome, and I have a couple thoughts bouncing my head that I'd love to get your opinions on.

- When the new Battletome comes out, what do folks think about having options to reward single-oath armies? There's a lot of neat units that lend Slaves to Darkness a distinctly-different flavor to the dedicated god books, so I think it's something I'd like to see explored. Obviously, I don't want to see "mix-and-match oaths" be made obsolete, but as someone who loves themey armies, running mono-god right now seems like a distinct disadvantage.

- How do you rate all the Maggotkin's Harbinger of Decay? Its main role is as a CP buff and CA debuff hero, and neither of those abilities lean on the MAGGOTKIN keyword. I love the model and will likely pick one up to represent a Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount, but the actual warscroll for the model has some interesting abilities as well.

[Hannibal]

Hi all,

 

is it now possible to run the Wqarcry Warbands as battleline in StD? I´ve seen a list doing so but I can´t find the appropriate rules.

[Lord Krungharr]

1 hour ago, Hannibal said:

Hi all,

 

is it now possible to run the Wqarcry Warbands as battleline in StD? I´ve seen a list doing so but I can´t find the appropriate rules.

Looks like the Warcry Warbands are Battleline in an Idolators army, which I think can be found in the Broken Realms? Or perhaps a White Dwarf magazine?  Can't remember...but also they can take a Chaos Chariot with a Lord as their General too.  

Faced my friend's Legion of Night Soulblight last night (Carstein Mortarch, Radukar the Beast, 40 zombies, 20 Graveguard, 10 Dire Wolves, 10 BloodKnights, Vampire Lord) in I think Survival of the Fittest mission? (had a weird deployment map and 3 diagonally placed objectives, with Predator units).  I used my Despoilers mostly Khorne mostly monster army with 3 Khorne Princes (Armor of Tortured Souls and Paragon of Ruin on the general, Doombringer Blade on the sword prince), foot Lord, 4 chariots, 2 Fomoroids, 2 Cats, Soul Grinder, and allied Bloodsecrator and Cockatrice.  I had 8 drops so he chose to go first.  I pre-game moved up a Fomoroid, Cat, and Soul Grinder to control the center objective.

Ended being a big long line of grind in the center diagonal.  Chariots crashed into the Blood Knights turn 1 and killed off at least 3 or 4 after the charge and combat.  The flock of Daemon Princes went up the center and eventually killed the Knights and bunches of zombies and a few Grave Guard.  I didn't bother trying to hit Carstein since he can just teleport away at the end of the charge phase.  Radukar is also a tough nut to crack.  

I kept the Bloodsecrator and one cat on the center objective, and then marched another Fomoroid, cat and cockatrice to my right objective, and they easily handled the skeletons and wolves over there.  But in the end he was able to net so many more VPs from all my Khorne DPs and monsters plus achieving the battle tactic turn 5 (where I couldn't) I think it ended at like 28-24 or so.  Great close game, much tighter than I had expected!

Fomoroids are very situational, I like their rock chucking and cheap monsterdom, but it's tough to properly use their terrain shaking MW thing.  Not sure I need 2 Mindstealer Cats either.  Soul Grinder is fairly crappy...even with the extra attack it got.  Just doesn't hit well enough.  I think another DP, or Cockatrice with Plague Priest or 2, or basically anything else would be better.  If the extra monster VPs go away with the new AoS 'Season' that would help my army build, but it's tough giving away all those extra VPs.  

I do like the massed chariot wall but they need to retreat after charging for a turn 3 re-charge.  Better than sticking them in for a grind.  Massed Khorne DPs with rerolling hits of 1 plus adding 1 to wound rolls from the general is pretty fun!  I like the activation wars.  Hard to get the cats to participate where you want them, might be good for the chariot wall actually.  

[Grimrock]

18 hours ago, acr0ssth3p0nd said:

Heyo, I've been building up my Nurgle StD while I wait for Sylvaneth to get a new tome, and I have a couple thoughts bouncing my head that I'd love to get your opinions on.

- When the new Battletome comes out, what do folks think about having options to reward single-oath armies? There's a lot of neat units that lend Slaves to Darkness a distinctly-different flavor to the dedicated god books, so I think it's something I'd like to see explored. Obviously, I don't want to see "mix-and-match oaths" be made obsolete, but as someone who loves themey armies, running mono-god right now seems like a distinct disadvantage.

- How do you rate all the Maggotkin's Harbinger of Decay? Its main role is as a CP buff and CA debuff hero, and neither of those abilities lean on the MAGGOTKIN keyword. I love the model and will likely pick one up to represent a Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount, but the actual warscroll for the model has some interesting abilities as well.

I think giving bonuses to mono mark armies doesn't really seem completely necessary. It's a nice thought, but the mono god armies already exist in the game and they have full access to almost everything in the StD book anyway. I think keeping the mixed flavour is key to making slaves unique and viable. Heck I'd be happier to see the bonuses from a hero affect all units regardless of what mark the unit has. 

For the harbinger I think you're definitely better off running it as a chaos lord on daemonic mount. As is it's already one of the worst units in the whole Maggotkin book, and at least there it gets a 5+ shrug, a heal, disease points, and access to traits/artefacts. In StD you'd be buying a hero that has no synergy with the rest of the army, does next to no damage, and is painfully slow. Sure it effectively has a roar monstrous action, but that's not worth the points. The fact that the ability to give some extra cp is only for the first round when you rarely ever need more than one or two is a real kicker. If that was every round then maybe it'd be worth running one with ravagers or despoilers, but as is there just isn't much point. 

[readercolin]

4 hours ago, Hannibal said:

Hi all,

 

is it now possible to run the Wqarcry Warbands as battleline in StD? I´ve seen a list doing so but I can´t find the appropriate rules.

There are 2 ways to run warcry warbands as battleline in Slaves.

First is Idolators, which came out in Broken Realms: Morathi.  In an Idolators list, all cultists MUST have the same mark as your general, but then they are battleline in the army.

Second is the update from the White Dwarf 468 (October 2021).  This white dwarf updated slaves to darkness and allowed various cultists to take the mark of one of the gods, AND it made it so that cultists that have the same mark as your general are battleline.  Note that this applies to every subfaction, so you can have cultists as battleline in your ravagers army, or your Knights of the Empty Throne list, or whatever other list you want.

Note here that if you run, for example, a knights of the empty throne list with some khorne marked varanguard, you can bring some khorne marked iron golems as battleline, and then some non-khorne marked untamed beasts to screen with, and you won't be giving up broken ranks if your opponent kills those untamed beasts.  However, if you run an Idolators list, your cultists MUST be the same mark as your general, which doesn't give you that option.

[Enoby]

What to people think about the new Daemon Prince leak?

Personally, I think it looks really weak unfortunately. The book could well change all that around with allegiance buffs, but it's still a massive disconnect from the lore wherein these are meant to be the strongest a chaos lord can ever reach. The pinnacle of power only bestowed upon a select few, with a price most could not hope to bear.  

In game, they're a beatstick hero who's about as good as the average lord character in combat, which is to say, not very good. 

... I have a bit of a bad feeling about this book from a narrative-rules standpoint.

[Boar]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

What to people think about the new Daemon Prince leak?

Personally, I think it looks really weak unfortunately. The book could well change all that around with allegiance buffs, but it's still a massive disconnect from the lore wherein these are meant to be the strongest a chaos lord can ever reach. The pinnacle of power only bestowed upon a select few, with a price most could not hope to bear.  

In game, they're a beatstick hero who's about as good as the average lord character in combat, which is to say, not very good. 

... I have a bit of a bad feeling about this book from a narrative-rules standpoint.

EDIT: no he only slighlty increased dmg

He roughly doubled his damage and is better than current Lord on Karkadrak, got 6+ ward and +2W. Will depend on points. He is not super hammer like some but could be decent still.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Boar

[Enoby]

27 minutes ago, Boar said:

He roughly doubled his damage and is better than current Lord on Karkadrak, got 6+ ward and +2W. Will depend on points. He is not super hammer like some but could be decent still.

Doubled his damage? Are you sure? He does around 3 on average against a 3+ save. 

Just to check, are you giving him claws and axe/sword? He only gets one option out of all of them now.  

[Boar]

27 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Doubled his damage? Are you sure? He does around 3 on average against a 3+ save. 

Just to check, are you giving him claws and axe/sword? He only gets one option out of all of them now.  

OUCH! Hell I missed that.

Well so it's more utility for cancelling wards with Nurgle one I guess. He is on par with Lord on Krakadrak without Karkadrak so yeah sadly he is on par with other heroes, and no one want to turn into Deamon with Eye of the Gods roll - same as it was.

As I like when lore is reflected in rules to some satisfactory degree this warscroll is disapointing from that POV.

As for book as whole we will have to wait and see, I wouldn't worry too much, it could just be miss and many other things hopefully will be hits.

[Lightbox]

I hope our new book keeps idolators... i havent had a chance to field my chariot lord kitbash yet 😭

Otherwise plastic model leaks look cool and hopefully we will get a buff in some scrolls.

[Grimrock]

1 hour ago, Lightbox said:

I hope our new book keeps idolators... i havent had a chance to field my chariot lord kitbash yet 😭

Otherwise plastic model leaks look cool and hopefully we will get a buff in some scrolls.

Well based on the way that new sub factions are structured it's not impossible, Nurgle introduced a weird hybrid unit in one. On the other hand I don't see idolators specifically in the list of damned legions so who knows. On the plus side you have until winter before the book is released so lots of time to enjoy it.

 

The leak definitely looks weak but there's so much we don't know that I can't really make a call yet. Marks could get better, and with the prince having access to traits and artifacts there's a chance he might be pretty great. That being said anything that buffs him will also buff the Lords on manticore and karkadrak, so it's tough to believe he's going to be the best choice. The malefic talons have the best chance due to the number of attacks and no rend, but we'll see how it goes. 

I'm hopeful for the book, there are a lot of problems with the current one that were identified almost immediately by the community. With any luck the developers will have heard the complaints at some point in the last couple years and will fix the problems. Dare to dream right. 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Grimrock

[Khendall]

Chaos Dwarves !

[Kramig]

New chosen are awesome! I like new demon prince miniature, but I don't love it... 

There seem to be new warbands from warcry and new heroes. Also a new ogroid! 

The lord on demonic mount finally has a miniature of the right proportion 

Maybe the demon prince will be double kit with a named character? 

[The World Tree]

45 minutes ago, Kramig said:

New chosen are awesome! I like new demon prince miniature, but I don't love it... 

There seem to be new warbands from warcry and new heroes. Also a new ogroid! 

The lord on demonic mount finally has a miniature of the right proportion 

Maybe the demon prince will be double kit with a named character? 

It appears that the daemon prince is a double kit with a 'blade of teh first prince' character.

[Sky Pirate]

10 hours ago, Khendall said:

Chaos Dwarves !

I can't see what is written. Is this real ?

[Agent of Chaos]

Eternus Blade of the First Prince is a lord on Mount keyword locked to Legion. Looks pretty handy...

 

received_983045799013815.webp

Edited April 30, 2022 by Agent of Chaos

[Agent of Chaos]

Hammers of Hashut are cultists, probably another warcry Warband. They don't have mark of chaos keyword so I wonder if we are back to cultists not taking marks or being battleline...

received_1007381953483549.webp

[Enoby]

It does seem like the other leaked units are a step above the daemon prince, so that's good news

(Though the prince was what I was hoping would be the most improved ruleset in the book )

[acr0ssth3p0nd]

I'm excited to see what changes have been made to Marks, personally. I've been slowly building up a Nurgle-themed force a la Vermintide, and I want to see how they've fared.

Edited April 30, 2022 by acr0ssth3p0nd

[Kaleb Daark]

@Maogrim  Now that's how you do a big hat properly.

Look and learn ya flappy eared stretch necks.

look and Learn.

Like your lot, as you can see, humans look er ..um.. up to the might of Hashut, however unlike your lot we don't need floating polyhedral dice to brainwash them.  We're much more honest... you're in or you're toast - very well burnt toast, we don't do anything but well done, and as you will observe, not a voluminous pantaloon or massive trooser in sight.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Kaleb Daark

[Maogrim]

I'm sorry @Kaleb Daark , I'm just not impressed. Someone needs to teach those brutes that horns go on the helmets, not on the shoulders. And who needs something as inadequate and insufficient as a 'flamehurler' of sorts if well-trained Sentinels or a storm of searing white light do a much better and far more elegant job?! And due to these ugly helmets one can't even tell whether they are smiling or not. 

As with all those pathetic mortals clamoring for the grace of insane gods these still have a lot to learn but unfortunately lack the mental capacity to do so.