AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion

[Rors]

35 minutes ago, Kasper said:

I dont get why you keep comparing Chosen to Gotrek? Sure they are both a combat unit, costs about 500 points and same speed but Chosen have a waaaay bigger foot print than Gotrek and hence a way bigger threat range. Im assuming we are talking 2.000 pts armies here, which means you have other units in the army - Maybe a unit or two of Varanguard to chase up a flank and threaten shooting armies. At the end of the day, the opponent has to get to the objectives, which is where your Chosen will be, and if he spends 3 turns "kiting" your Chosen then thats an easy win. There are maybe 2-3 battleplans in the current GHB where the objectives are so far apart the movement will be an issue, but again - You have other units in the army. I find its really not a big deal, especially if you run them as Slaanesh. 

Well I make the comparison because I see gotrek and chosen as comparible, obviously not the same but similar in important ways.

Another comparison would be Kurnoth Hunters. Both are units that cost 250 points for 15 wounds on a 3+ save. both M5. Kurnoth can be teleported, chosen get marks.

The damage output is quite similar. Kurnoth will do slightly better in a straight comparison but both have access to lots of synergies.

Different books with different play styles but Kurnoth are frequently outshined by other options in that book and rely heavily on mobility support to work. If you removed that mobility from them, they'd likely never see play... And they'd still technically be better than chosen in many ways.

In terms of objectives, perhaps a comparison is mega gauagants, another unit of similar points cost with a unit of 10. They traditionally hold objectives really well and will also be a good counter to chosen with roar, their damage and battle shock, while also winning the objective for likely a couple turns even if they die. How do you defeat megas? Board presence - they can only be in a few places so you bring your forces to down on one a turn. If they have a M5 mega that's even easier because it's going to be so much harder for them to counter. Similarly, a 500 point unit of chosen NEEDS to be doing damage because it's not not across multiple objectives and while it's walking around, other units get ganged up on, or you castle the chosen to protect everything else but loose even more board pressure. Basically, if a 500 point unit of chosen sits on an objective and says come at me, you can just bring an extra 500 point down on something else, or again, just enjoy a 500 point lead after wiping them out with sentinels.

I don't think they're bad or unplayable, I just don't think they do enough for their points because they don't have consistent enough ways to be where they need to be or the defensive stats you need an investment that expensive to avoid hard counters like ranged mortal wounds.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Rors

[Ravinsild]

4 hours ago, Rors said:

He's referring to First Prince subfaction where one unit can gain a mark in addition to undivided each turn.

 

I’m aware and I’m explaining it doesn’t work like that. Only one unit can have an additional mark at the same time. So if you mark something else as Slaanesh but are in LotFP your Warshrine is still only marked undivided which means it can only use the undivided prayer. 
 

In fact I don’t think LotFP you can even issue the run and charge command for Slaanesh because it requires a Slaanesh marked hero and 2 things can’t change their mark at the same time. 

Edited December 19, 2022 by Ravinsild

[Halkbat]

You are not forced to be undivided in legion you just get extra benefit of additional options if you are.

You can have a slaneesh marked shrine or have a unit permanently nurgle for the banner it just won't be able to change.

[Biboune]

7 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

I’m aware and I’m explaining it doesn’t work like that. Only one unit can have an additional mark at the same time. So if you mark something else as Slaanesh but are in LotFP your Warshrine is still only marked undivided which means it can only use the undivided prayer. 
 

In fact I don’t think LotFP you can even issue the run and charge command for Slaanesh because it requires a Slaanesh marked hero and 2 things can’t change their mark at the same time. 

Well you are both right and the issue is quite my fault: I forgot to precise "undivided" when I spoke about the Centaurion Marshal because I was thinking of using it with undivided chosen, legionnaires etc. Then I had in mind a list where a undivided warshrine was used along marked units. It could be misleading.

I think that as the warshrine pray has 33% failure rate, the second idea is not good. A reinforced unit of varanguard of chosen can choose their mark once per turn an still roll the eyes of the gods as they stay undivided; could be fun.

Anyway, I don't think that LotFP will be played very often: the bonuses are few and lesser daemons don't look great in it.

 

[Ravinsild]

Can I ask why everyone has collectively decided the Gaunt Summoner on Disc is kind of ****** but rates the chaos sorcerer lord on manticore? 

[Rors]

8 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

Can I ask why everyone has collectively decided the Gaunt Summoner on Disc is kind of ****** but rates the chaos sorcerer lord on manticore? 

I've not played with either but the gaunt summoner has some big vulnerabilities. Very fragile, and he's crazy expensive, you don't just risk his points, you risk loosing the unit he can summon onto the board. If you bring something cheap to mitigate the risk you don't really get much value out of him but if he gets shot off and you loose a unit of varangaurd too because he hadn't dropped them, that's probably game over.

The manticor lord has a great anti-hoard spell, monster actions, is more survivable, better combat profile.

[Bayul]

7 hours ago, Rors said:

you risk loosing the unit he can summon onto the board

How? Why would you make that happen? Don't you ask your opponent about the thread range before deployment?

[Rors]

9 hours ago, Bayul said:

How? Why would you make that happen? Don't you ask your opponent about the thread range before deployment?

Sure, deploy out of range of those iron blasters...

[Bayul]

12 minutes ago, Rors said:

Sure, deploy out of range of those iron blasters...

That's your argument? Then you are aware of the range and don't use Silvered Portal. That's the point of assessing the threat range (and asking for the amount of drops).

His ability takes place in Deployment after deploying the Gaunt Summoner on Disc. You can still choose not putting a TZEENTCH unit into the Silvered Tower and deploy it as usual if the risk seems too high.

Nevertheless with proper terrain you might have an opportunity to hide him. Then fly over it in your movement phase with 16" Movement. He's even allowed to run and use Silvered Portal if you need the additional range. With a screen summoned next to him he benefits from Look Out, Sir!. A Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore is definitely more exposed to said Ironblasters turn 1.

[Grimrock]

The problem with the summoner is that a big chunk of his points are tied up in the silvered portal ability. If you're not using that you're left with a 2 cast wizard with good mobility, meh combat stats, and a so-so spell. He's not bad, but he's definitely not worth 240 points if you're not using the portal. He's expensive enough that you need to build around him a bit to get good use out of his abilities, but then against the wrong opponent you just have to not use those abilities. That puts you in the hole right from the start since you're paying points for nothing and having to re-organize your game plan. The manticore sorcerer is massively more resilient, has a solid combat profile, is a monster for stomp and roar, and has a much better spell (50% more range and 50% more damage). 

The other question is what are you putting in the portal? The summoner makes some sense in Tzeentch because you can put flamers in there; his 16" move gets them much further than they could on their own and they're still 100% effective outside of 9". In slaves there aren't really many ideal units to teleport. Chaos knights are probably your best bet, but even with their musician a 9" charge is far from guaranteed. To make matters worse your units will be off the table during the hero phase so no Daemonic Power or Daemonic Speed. On top of that you have to take the mark of Tzeentch which is almost entirely useless, and you could set up a pseudo portal anyway by using Warp Reality on a significantly cheaper hero. 

[Rors]

2 hours ago, Bayul said:

That's your argument? Then you are aware of the range and don't use Silvered Portal. That's the point of assessing the threat range (and asking for the amount of drops).

His ability takes place in Deployment after deploying the Gaunt Summoner on Disc. You can still choose not putting a TZEENTCH unit into the Silvered Tower and deploy it as usual if the risk seems too high.

Nevertheless with proper terrain you might have an opportunity to hide him. Then fly over it in your movement phase with 16" Movement. He's even allowed to run and use Silvered Portal if you need the additional range. With a screen summoned next to him he benefits from Look Out, Sir!. A Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore is definitely more exposed to said Ironblasters turn 1.

I mean if you like him then go for it. Yeah you can deploy out of range, then move into range and drop, but if it's dropped on the first move have you got somewhere that beneficial? sometimes maybe.. probably not if you had to start deployment out of range of any threats. or don't use portal and waste those points. For the cost and risk he involves I'd just look at taking the bridge endless spell.

Personally the unit has too many circumstances where it's handing your opponent easy points.

Anyway, I could be reading it wrong but your replies seem somewhat snarky and less conversational so I'll leave it at that. If you enjoy it and find it useful then great, I don't think it's great personally and in general, I'd say looking at what people run, he's not a popular choice and there's usually a reason when a nice looking model doesn't get much play.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Rors

[Ravinsild]

I think these are all valid points. Since I love chaos sorcerer lords and usually run 2 the built in 2 casts, knowing the entire lore, being +1 to cast, unbind and dispel were all appealing to me. Also the silver tower ability seems funny where you just banish something that did chip damage to him possibly. 
 

however I think I see what you mean about his ability to deep strike jacking up his points. On the other hand it’s one of our only ways to deepstrike outside of Corvus Cabal and the new Gnarlspirit underworlds band. 

[Bayul]

9 hours ago, Grimrock said:

The other question is what are you putting in the portal? The summoner makes some sense in Tzeentch because you can put flamers in there

You can bring Flamers in S2D as allies. Add an Exalted Flamer to buff them. Or Skyfires or Horrors or Kairic Acolytes. Everything with range >8" can fire right away.

I'd argue that the best S2D units to deep strike are slow units like Chosen or Chaos Warriors. Chaos Warriors might even get their bonus attacks with proper positioning. Chaos Knights don't need it. The Gaunt Summoner can cast Daemonic Speed with +1 to cast on them in the first hero phase, send them away and still do his trick with his units in reserve afterwards. 

edit: Why is the TZEENTCH keyword useless? You mentioned Warp Reality. A mobile hero is the best candidate to utilize it.  A Gaunt Summoner on Disc in the opponents flank can +1 cast Warp Reality > Deamonic Speed on Chaos Knights for example.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Bayul

[Grimrock]

5 hours ago, Bayul said:

You can bring Flamers in S2D as allies. Add an Exalted Flamer to buff them. Or Skyfires or Horrors or Kairic Acolytes. Everything with range >8" can fire right away.

But then you really are putting all your eggs in the silvered portal basket (so you're starting further in the whole if you run up against an opponent you can't use it against), and you're getting less out of it than you would if you were just playing straight Tzeentch. No Eternal Conflagration for the flamers and no Lord of Fate from the Fatemaster, and you can't bring 6 flamers to really pile on the hurt because you'd go over the ally limit. It's not a terrible idea and it would definitely be an interesting way to change up the Slaves playstyle, but you might be better off just going Disciples of Tzeentch and bringing Slaves allies at that point. Slaves as allies still have their rock solid base stats to carry them through and then you could really get the most out of the portal.

5 hours ago, Bayul said:

I'd argue that the best S2D units to deep strike are slow units like Chosen or Chaos Warriors. Chaos Warriors might even get their bonus attacks with proper positioning. Chaos Knights don't need it. The Gaunt Summoner can cast Daemonic Speed with +1 to cast on them in the first hero phase, send them away and still do his trick with his units in reserve afterwards. 

I was thinking about that and honestly I'm not really sure if it would be helpful with them. First off, it's obviously not a reliable alpha strike. Even with their +1 to charge it's too much of a coin flip. Also, like you said, we're not really hurting for alpha strike options so there's no need for it anyway. That means the goal would really be to put them somewhere they couldn't reach normally, but boards are pretty small and the objectives you'd be going for early game are typically in the middle. Unless the new GHB changes things up there are no mid field objectives warriors couldn't reach using a command point for a 6" run so you don't need the portal to get them into position. Beyond that if you end up going second you might be guaranteed to not be able to get the warriors on the objective if your opponent zones you out. You could hold the portal until turn 2 or 3 in order to threaten backline objectives but then you're significantly increasing the risk of your opponent surprising you and taking out the summoner before depositing his payload. You also have access to dirt cheap cultists that can do the same thing with none of the risk.

I can totally see the portal helping in some situations, it's just the question of whether it's worth the cost of the gaunt summoner to use it. Personally all the little interactions and risks push me away from wanting to use it but I'm pretty risk averse and I like a more steady/consistent game. Where exactly are you planning to put the warriors/chosen? Are you thinking of dropping them on an objective, or maybe trying to pin your opponent in their deployment zone? Or maybe something else?

5 hours ago, Bayul said:

edit: Why is the TZEENTCH keyword useless? You mentioned Warp Reality. A mobile hero is the best candidate to utilize it.  A Gaunt Summoner on Disc in the opponents flank can +1 cast Warp Reality > Deamonic Speed on Chaos Knights for example.

Sorry, I was just trying to say the base ability of the mark for the 6+ shrug on spells is really weak compared to the other marks. It was a half formed attempt at noting the opportunity cost of taking the mark of Tzeentch in order to use the Silvered Portal. For example if you're marking warriors to put them in the portal then they can't have the mark of Nurgle, so no -1 to wound and no banner for -1 rend. You're taking a big hit to their potential survivability in order to put them in the portal and you need to consider if that cost is worth it. Same for chosen losing access to Slaanesh or Khorne for the extra damage. 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Grimrock

[Bayul]

1 hour ago, Grimrock said:

Where exactly are you planning to put the warriors/chosen? Are you thinking of dropping them on an objective, or maybe trying to pin your opponent in their deployment zone? Or maybe something else?

It depends on the situation and mission I imagine.

I am probably biased as Nighthaunt player, but such slow units don't appeal to me if they don't have an early impact. From my perspective Chosen are questionable with the lack of mobility, not the Gaunt Summoner on Disc. I want to dictate the game with threats and obstacles and putting Chosen or Warriors plus a TZEENTCH missile unit plus a powerful caster on an unexpected spot gives me the illiusion of control through disruption.

[Rors]

8 hours ago, Bayul said:

It depends on the situation and mission I imagine.

I am probably biased as Nighthaunt player, but such slow units don't appeal to me if they don't have an early impact. From my perspective Chosen are questionable with the lack of mobility, not the Gaunt Summoner on Disc. I want to dictate the game with threats and obstacles and putting Chosen or Warriors plus a TZEENTCH missile unit plus a powerful caster on an unexpected spot gives me the illiusion of control through disruption.

Some other shenanigans are possible with tzentch and the spell portal. Cast warp on the unit through the spell portal then deploy them within 9 of the other portal that's 18 inches away. It's not wholly within either so you can cheese a lot of range out of it

[Bayul]

Spell Portal is very tempting, especially (or exclusively?) in Cabalists with Draw on Power. I can imagine that we will see a audacious Cabalists list in the future with Caster Pillow Fort in the backline harrasing the opponent via a Spell Portal.

...although I can't see a Gaunt Summoner on Disc in this concept. 

 

 

 

[Rors]

Tzentch + spell portal would make summoner a bit redundant but you could go for threat saturation. Shove 2 units of chosen in their face turn one. Archaon would be hard to fit but you could thrown him in their face. You can give him 3d6 charge before going through the portal too.

If you wanted to go all out you could go cabilists, 3d6 cast portal and soulseekr boat and the summon can get basically anywhere on the board and another unit has an effective 27inch + base size move.

It's a lot of points though and you'd need to work out what is it your going to throw at em.

Gnarlspirit pack can also deepstrike, and potential use warp reality if you went for first prince legion.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Rors

[Ravinsild]

Man I’m struggling to figure out best loadout for my Varanguard. I think I’m struggling with 3+ and 4+ saves most. I feel like any hero with a 3+ just becomes uncrackable without MW spam or something else, due to mystic shield, all our defense, finest hour etc. 

however for stuff like Myrmidesh Painbringers or ArdBoyz who can get +1 to +2 to save their pretty easily due to Warscroll stuff and all out  defense. Hard saves with 2 wound each and big blocks of them are really stalling my offense with knights who run out of steam after a charge or any counter charge or any prolonged combat. 
 

There’s Mortal Hedonites of Slaanesh running 30 Myrmidon Painbringers and 30 Blissbarb archers with a Lord of Pain, Glutos and Sigvald. 

Someone running Big Waaagh with about about 20 ArdBoyz, 6 Gore-Gruntas, several heroes and 6 Boltboyz. 

2 Sylvaneth players with those kiting fuckers who run away on a 2+ in melee, a bunch of Kurnoth Hunters and giant Tree Lords like Durthu all with 3-4+ saves. 

Irongut Ogors with leadbelchers and gluttons and all that. 

There’s a guy who plays Skaven but it’s all Stormvermin and Stormfiends and Archwarlocks and that kind of thing not a bunch or wimpy clan rats. 

Lumineth realmlords stoneguard hammer guys and the giant mountain thing. Etc

All shooting hiding behind tough ass screens or shooting with good saves… 

Edited December 24, 2022 by Ravinsild

[Rors]

Personally I've been a fan of khorne varangaurd with spears. Cracks open armour and you can catch people out with the double activate and the extra reach

[JackStreicher]

22 hours ago, Rors said:

Tzentch + spell portal would make summoner a bit redundant but you could go for threat saturation. Shove 2 units of chosen in their face turn one. Archaon would be hard to fit but you could thrown him in their face. You can give him 3d6 charge before going through the portal too.

If you wanted to go all out you could go cabilists, 3d6 cast portal and soulseekr boat and the summon can get basically anywhere on the board and another unit has an effective 27inch + base size move.

It's a lot of points though and you'd need to work out what is it your going to throw at em.

Gnarlspirit pack can also deepstrike, and potential use warp reality if you went for first prince legion.

I find myself being drawn to the cabalist nonsense- if I could roll above 4 when it comes to magic that‘d be helpful 🥲

[Rors]

Yeah I keep getting tempted with cabalist. It's a ridiculously strong su faction ability and it gets even better next season when we can have two heroic actions + the demon prince can also use one - 3 heroic actions seems potent, especially when one of them is buffing all your casters.

The struggle for me is that the spell lore is good but it's a list lacks damage.

[Ravinsild]

41 minutes ago, Rors said:

Yeah I keep getting tempted with cabalist. It's a ridiculously strong su faction ability and it gets even better next season when we can have two heroic actions + the demon prince can also use one - 3 heroic actions seems potent, especially when one of them is buffing all your casters.

The struggle for me is that the spell lore is good but it's a list lacks damage.

Well I think it’s more of an enabling list for the damage, such as daemonic strength and daemonic speed, chaos conduit for rolling on Karka Lord EOTG table to soup him up, a Karkalord or Daemon Prince takint Flaming Weapon, binding damnation to inflict fight last on their strongest thing, etc. it’s a play maker lore I think. 

[SpiritofHokuto]

14 hours ago, Rors said:

Yeah I keep getting tempted with cabalist. It's a ridiculously strong su faction ability and it gets even better next season when we can have two heroic actions + the demon prince can also use one - 3 heroic actions seems potent, especially when one of them is buffing all your casters.

The struggle for me is that the spell lore is good but it's a list lacks damage.

That's where Endless Spells come in I'd say. With a fistful of wizards that have a lot of casting attempts you can throw out a fair few and still have casts for your important buffs/debuffs. Also with the sheer amount of casts you can bait out your opponents unbinds, so you can land Spite Tongue Curse more reliably. That together with the new Gnarlspirit Pack's spell mean you can push out a very respectable amount of MW. 

[Bayul]

2 hours ago, SpiritofHokuto said:

Also with the sheer amount of casts you can bait out your opponents unbinds, so you can land Spite Tongue Curse more reliably.

A Chaos Lord can allocate MW of a failed Spite Tongue Curse to his retinue. If it's Chaos Warriors then they can use their Ward 5+.