AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion

[Enoby]

Just wondering, what do people see as the problem in this army? Besides being a bit overcosted, I don't think the stats are too bad - the amount of rerolls you get is nice. 

I've actually found Chaos Chosen really good for Slaanesh, but I don't often see them talked about - any reason why? 

[KoalaSnok]

11 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Just wondering, what do people see as the problem in this army? Besides being a bit overcosted, I don't think the stats are too bad - the amount of rerolls you get is nice. 

I've actually found Chaos Chosen really good for Slaanesh, but I don't often see them talked about - any reason why? 

Try comparing them to Bestigors and Grimghast reapers or even Graveguard and you might see why. Those are just a couple examples of units in similiar role. They excel at nothing, and are just not punchy enough to grant them a spot in an army with few points to spare. 

[whispersofblood]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

Just wondering, what do people see as the problem in this army? Besides being a bit overcosted, I don't think the stats are too bad - the amount of rerolls you get is nice. 

I've actually found Chaos Chosen really good for Slaanesh, but I don't often see them talked about - any reason why? 

The over all dmg potential of the faction is quite low. Rerolls will smooth out your output but it it's just smoothing out a low output who cares. 

I feel like S2D are built for a game that doesn't actually exist on the tournament circuit. It might be fine in a close group though I suppose. 

There is a highly abusive Tzeentch cabalist build, but even that is based on the power of Horrors. 

[Salyx]

Instead of just whining, how bad Our army is, we should try to find the best possibly Setups available so that we can make the best of Our book. 

What are your best unit Setups? How do your units function best? 

I try to make a Start:

Chaos Warriors only have 1 viable setup in my opinion. They are an anvil unit, so they need to be as defensive as possible. For that purpose, they need the Mark of Nurgle and warshrine Support for that sweet re-rollable 3+ save. And they get a 6+ shrug on top! What other unit can Do that? I know... - _-

However, they also go ot their shields for MW protection and they can do some damage via the Nurgle Bataillon and if you want to add some fightiness, Support them with Festus. In top of that, they are super mobile with the mask of darkness. 

Marauders are good with any Mark but Tzeentch. However, Khorne seems to be slightly ahead for me, because Khorne improves their weak spot-wound rolls. Nevertheless, Slaanesh and Nurgle work pretty good as well. 

Marauders Horsemen are Not there to fight, so they do not need that much of a Mark. Perhaps undivided for battleshock immunity. Anyone got bettet ideas? 

Chaos Knights have two good Setups in my opinion. First one is Mark of khorne and ensorcelled weapons. With a command point, you have 3 attack hitting and woubding on 2s for a lot of secure - 1 Rend wounds. 

The other setup, is Knights with Lances and Mark of Slaanesh. They are Our only unit with a - 2 Rend, that for itself makes them interesting. Mark of Slaanesh improves the number of Hits, especially combined with Hit Re-rolls. If you have them pile in twice, even a unit of 5 can be dangerous to any unit out there. 

Chaos Chariots and Gorebeast Chariots are Not mark-dependant as well. However, the Ruinbringer Warband is a must have for them as it improves their Main purpose, dealing Mortal Wounds on the Charge. Ruinbringer Warband doubles their MW Output making them able to gang a scary Monster character. Have 3 Chariots Charge a Monster and they will tear it down or wound it very badly. 

Chosen can shine with every Mark. However, if you included Allies, Khorne is the best Mark for them, just for the sheer number of attacks. Otherwise, Slaanesh is viable for more-more attack Power. 

 

This is my opinion on Our units so far. Maybe I Provider you with a few ideas, Maybe you disagree or have other propositions. Let us find the best combos

 

[HMB]

6 hours ago, RandyRyan said:

Does anyone have assembly instructions for Varanguard? Just got a set but no instructions...

you could ask at support mail on official GW site

[Enoby]

2 hours ago, KoalaSnok said:

Try comparing them to Bestigors and Grimghast reapers or even Graveguard and you might see why. Those are just a couple examples of units in similiar role. They excel at nothing, and are just not punchy enough to grant them a spot in an army with few points to spare. 

I've used Bestigors before (in Slaanesh where 6s were 3 hits), and while great on a charge against a large unit, on their own they would have 21 attacks at 4/3/-1/1 for 120(?) points. Chosen have 16 attacks at 3/3/-1/1 (6s to hit are a MW in addition) for 140. So offensively they're rather similar at base, and then certain buffs can change the effectiveness greatly (e.g. a chaos lord or sorcerer, or a charge, or attacking a large unit, or just allegiance abilities in general). Movement wise bestigors win by a long shot, and that's probably their biggest difference. That said, I think chosen coming down to 120 would leave them in a comfortable spot. 

 

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

The over all dmg potential of the faction is quite low. Rerolls will smooth out your output but it it's just smoothing out a low output who cares. 

I feel like S2D are built for a game that doesn't actually exist on the tournament circuit. It might be fine in a close group though I suppose. 

There is a highly abusive Tzeentch cabalist build, but even that is based on the power of Horrors. 

I do agree that, on the whole, they aren't a particularly damaging faction (besides Sixth Circle Varanguard on a charge with Archaon), so I don't think they're top tier, but I think they're not bad - they can hold their own with the right buffs, and after playing Slaanesh for a long time, it's nice to have a faction that isn't guaranteed a win (tbh, wanting a tier S faction, at least for me, seemed to be a bit of a monkey's paw).

[Gistradagis]

38 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I've used Bestigors before (in Slaanesh where 6s were 3 hits), and while great on a charge against a large unit, on their own they would have 21 attacks at 4/3/-1/1 for 120(?) points. Chosen have 16 attacks at 3/3/-1/1 (6s to hit are a MW in addition) for 140. So offensively they're rather similar at base, and then certain buffs can change the effectiveness greatly (e.g. a chaos lord or sorcerer, or a charge, or attacking a large unit, or just allegiance abilities in general). Movement wise bestigors win by a long shot, and that's probably their biggest difference. That said, I think chosen coming down to 120 would leave them in a comfortable spot. 

 

I do agree that, on the whole, they aren't a particularly damaging faction (besides Sixth Circle Varanguard on a charge with Archaon), so I don't think they're top tier, but I think they're not bad - they can hold their own with the right buffs, and after playing Slaanesh for a long time, it's nice to have a faction that isn't guaranteed a win (tbh, wanting a tier S faction, at least for me, seemed to be a bit of a monkey's paw).

The problem is that they feel sort of half-assed. To win a given game, you want to either be strong enough to push through enemy defences, or resilient enough to get and hold objectives. STD does both ok, which at the same time means it isn't particularly good at either. At least, that's how it feels to me.

The units have good synergies, but it's difficult to combine them all. If you want to bank on, say, Nurgle or Khorne, you need a good deal of points invested in it. Daemon Prince for the Command, a Shrine if you want go to the Nurgle 'tank', perhaps allies for Khorne, etc. You end up having to decide on one style/trick and bet your all on it, which is kinda ironic since STD is supposed to be about Chaos in general (not just undivided, but also combinations), not mostly enforcing one god.

From all that I've seen, heard, and played, it's not that STD is bad, but GW kind of made sure they can't beat the armies with better synergies/stats. Like, Chaos Warriors are ok, and can be very resilient, but you have to invest a ton of ****** on them, same with Knights. Then you get to some units from Cities, or IJ, Fyreslayers, Ossiarch, and see units with similar points that are either better suited to do a specialized role, or just straight up superior. Personally, I think STD mostly reels from being overcosted. It might be too late to change something substancial like adding more rend or better saves on certain units, but stuff like Knights or Chariots could be worth less points, Cultists could get a Chaos Mark, etc.

2 hours ago, Salyx said:

Marauders Horsemen are Not there to fight, so they do not need that much of a Mark. Perhaps undivided for battleshock immunity. Anyone got bettet ideas? 

Maybe Tzeentch, and have them pepper the enemies with javelins while close to a sorcerer, so at least they get a better save?

8 hours ago, Kurrilino said:

Actually i play lances and only on units that are already entangled

How do they feel? A friend keeps telling me to run lances on my Knights, but they feel so inefficient... sure, you might get a sweet charge round, but every turn after that it's a weapon profile with terrible stats. And this only if you get an amazing charge (or the charge at all).

Edited February 3, 2020 by Gistradagis

[JackStreicher]

@Salyx my take on it:

Chaos Warriors - too expensive and low numbers for any purpose really. Needing 10+ models for their armour Rerolls a d not having any rend kills them for me.

Marauders - any offensive mark works like a charm

Knights - need to many buffs to be effective, I‘ll take them for style reasons edit: I am honestly shocked these don‘t have a 3+ save and a 3+,3+ even for lances

Shrine - great, works with every build

Varanguard - overcosted but they can work due to their speed and volume of attacks

DP - works everytime as well (if you‘re not stupid like me by reading the weapon setup wrong and thinking he could only have one weapon...)

War Mammoth - Distraction carnifex. Works great with Khorne and Slaanesh (or Nurgle for tankiness). It can easily wipe entire hordes with a double pile in and it denies a huge area (good for holding and blocking objectives), debuts bravery on the charge, which opens up combos.

Furies - situational but good for attack-fleeing onto objectives

Cultists - only IG and The Fang have some uses

Warcry heroes - skip these

chaos Lord on foot - the range is just too short, but he can work really well and is punshy as hell

Krakadrak lord - too expensive but has potential

Darkoath heroes - these are okay, sadly they lack any mark which makes them not synergising with their own faction.

Sphiranx - good effect but a bit expensive since the rest of the stats are just bad?

Chariot - hard skip (imo)

Manticore Lords - hard skip due to looking so bad I don‘t even want to touch the model

Gaunt summoners - awesome but only due to summoning undying horrors

Archaon - Great, has it’s uses as beatstick, but seems a little underpriced (well that‘s a first for the army)

Marauders horsemen - big meh, what exactly are they supposed to do?

chosen - fugly models, hard skip for me.

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by JackStreicher

[Gistradagis]

@JackStreicher Manticore Lords and Chosen are too ugly so use, but the worst offender of them all, Marauders, works like a charm? 😛

10 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

DP - works everytime as well (if you‘re not stupid like me by reading the weapon setup wrong and thinking he could only have one weapon...)

Manticore Lords - hard skip due to looking so bad I don‘t even want to touch the model

About DPs, do you mean their Talons? Or the Axe/Sword? Cuz you can only take either, afaik.

The Sorcerer on Manticore looks good enough for me to consider it!

Edited February 3, 2020 by Gistradagis

[Negativethac0]

3 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

...

There is a highly abusive Tzeentch cabalist build, but even that is based on the power of Horrors. 

Coming from someone who's pretty interested in playing cabalist and adding Tzeentch for the ride, could I kindly ask whether you could elaborate a bit on this build or whether you had a link to more information about it?

[Smooth criminal]

3 hours ago, Salyx said:

This is my opinion on Our units so far. Maybe I Provider you with a few ideas, Maybe you disagree or have other propositions. Let us find the best combos

Chaos knights of khorne, ally bloodstoker, Karkadrak, teleport.

Karkadrak gives them reroll charges, stoker gives them +3 charge. After teleport they will have +4 charge with reroll, so it becomes very easy for them to get the charge.

If teleport fails you still can charge very far if you play Despoilers for that 5" pre-game move.

Also works well with marauders, but knights just have the best charge in the faction.

 

I like your idea about Ruinbringer chariots a lot, there is something to work for here.  You can remove screens with chariots and karkadrak double dipping into mws on charge and then smash with the big knights unit.

[JackStreicher]

3 hours ago, Gistradagis said:

@JackStreicher Manticore Lords and Chosen are too ugly so use, but the worst offender of them all, Marauders, works like a charm? 😛

About DPs, do you mean their Talons? Or the Axe/Sword? Cuz you can only take either, afaik.

The Sorcerer on Manticore looks good enough for me to consider it!

I always played them without talons... (iirc in 40k you have either talons, and axe or an sword)...

[Blisterfeet]

Do the auras affect Daemon units allied into a STD army. My brain says no as they are not part of the Slaves to Darkness army and I'm sure I've been linked core book rules that says no (don't own the book).

Example ally 10 Daemonettes in Mark of Slaanesh STD do they get exploding sixes?

Trying to theory craft my list for tournaments and currently have this core from play testing but still unsure whether I should just jam Archaon in my Khorne list and be done with it. 

Spoiler

Host of EC 6th circle

Archaon - Mask of Darkness, general, Mark of Slaanesh

Sorcerer lord on foot - Binding damnation aura of Tzeentch (just for in built Mystic sheild on him)

Battleline

Varaguard - Ensorcelled weapons, Mark of Slaanesh X3

Varanguard - Ensorcelled weapons, Mark of Slaanesh X3

40 Mauraders - Axes and Sheilds, Mark of Slaanesh

Other

Untamed Beasts x1 

Discussion point - what fills the last points?

10 letters

10 nettes

10 bearers 

Or another 9 untamed beasts

 

[Grimrock]

9 hours ago, Enoby said:

Just wondering, what do people see as the problem in this army? Besides being a bit overcosted, I don't think the stats are too bad - the amount of rerolls you get is nice. 

I've actually found Chaos Chosen really good for Slaanesh, but I don't often see them talked about - any reason why? 

I think one issue is that certain units work better in allegiances other than S2D, which can be a little frustrating. For example big blocks of knights work great in khorne because they have access to extremely consistent buffs and speed boosts to help them maneuver. The limited range on auras in slaves and lack of consistent access to things like casting buffs means they can struggle to make the most out of units that the other allegiances have no issue with. This makes pure S2D feel clunkier to use.

However one of the things I've been finding while list building and playing is the army might have been intentionally designed to pull in support from chaos factions. Blue scribes for tzeentch marked armies, harbringer or maybe even a GUO for nurgle.  Bloodstoker from khorne. The army always seems to run better when it pulls in an ally or two. For anyone that hasn't done it yet and is struggling to get the most out of their units, try making a 2 drop list from one of the god marked batallions and your favourite buff pice from the relevant army. Seems to be a decent place to start.

Edit: Also people generally seem to have a bias against the single best unit in the book, marauders. Refusing to use them is a huge hit to how the army runs. 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Grimrock

[JackStreicher]

38 minutes ago, Blisterfeet said:

Do the auras affect Daemon units allied into a STD army. My brain says no as they are not part of the Slaves to Darkness army and I'm sure I've been linked core book rules that says no (don't own the book).

Example ally 10 Daemonettes in Mark of Slaanesh STD do they get exploding sixes?

Trying to theory craft my list for tournaments and currently have this core from play testing but still unsure whether I should just jam Archaon in my Khorne list and be done with it. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Host of EC 6th circle

Archaon - Mask of Darkness, general, Mark of Slaanesh

Sorcerer lord on foot - Binding damnation aura of Tzeentch (just for in built Mystic sheild on him)

Battleline

Varaguard - Ensorcelled weapons, Mark of Slaanesh X3

Varanguard - Ensorcelled weapons, Mark of Slaanesh X3

40 Mauraders - Axes and Sheilds, Mark of Slaanesh

Other

Untamed Beasts x1 

Discussion point - what fills the last points?

10 letters

10 nettes

10 bearers 

Or another 9 untamed beasts

 

They don‘t as they‘re not slaves to darkness. Also allies don‘t benefit from allegiance abilities.

it says „SLAVES TO DARKNESS Slaanesh units“ - a keyword daemons don‘t have.

Edited February 3, 2020 by JackStreicher

[Blisterfeet]

10 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

They don‘t as they‘re not slaves to darkness. Also allies don‘t benefit from allegiance abilities.

it says „SLAVES TO DARKNESS Slaanesh units“ - a keyword daemons don‘t have.

Thanks Jack, guess it's down to raw warscroll.

Daemonettes have run+charge

Untamed have 6inch pre move

Bearers are tanky backfield obj holders

Letters have mw output

Also like @Smooth criminal

Idea of mass knights (which I already own) with bloodstoker and buffs seems an idea to explore. Would want it in a low drop army though....

[Haldawe]

5 hours ago, Smooth criminal said:

Chaos knights of khorne, ally bloodstoker, Karkadrak, teleport.

Karkadrak gives them reroll charges, stoker gives them +3 charge. After teleport they will have +4 charge with reroll, so it becomes very easy for them to get the charge.

If teleport fails you still can charge very far if you play Despoilers for that 5" pre-game move.

Also works well with marauders, but knights just have the best charge in the faction.

 

I like your idea about Ruinbringer chariots a lot, there is something to work for here.  You can remove screens with chariots and karkadrak double dipping into mws on charge and then smash with the big knights unit.

Sadly the bloodstroker buff applies at the start of the movement phase, unless you conga line back to him, it will be imposible to buff the unit after the teleport

[Eldarain]

Can Ravagers Archaon be given a command trait with their subfaction rule?

[JackStreicher]

6 minutes ago, Eldarain said:

Can Ravagers Archaon be given a command trait with their subfaction rule?

no. A named character can never get a command trait or artefact.

[Eldarain]

Figured but was away from my books and wondered if the special rule got around it. Cheers.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Eldarain

[Julesborgi]

24 minutes ago, Haldawe said:

Sadly the bloodstroker buff applies at the start of the movement phase, unless you conga line back to him, it will be imposible to buff the unit after the teleport

Not evan that! 

Must be wholly within 8"...

[Kurrilino]

8 hours ago, Gistradagis said:

How do they feel? A friend keeps telling me to run lances on my Knights, but they feel so inefficient... sure, you might get a sweet charge round, but every turn after that it's a weapon profile with terrible stats. And this only if you get an amazing charge (or the charge at all).

This is because they are build to be charger and nothing else.

Entangle an enemy unit and charge in. Make sure you can defeat the unit first

[begleysm]

A nice improvement to the Knights would be to simply let them use the Lance on the charge and the Ensorcelled Weapons afterwards.   That's how Knights would actually operate anyhow: charge in with the Lance, drop it, pull your Ensorcelled Sword and fight on.  Hell, the sculpts are even modeled that way with swords in scabbards and lances in hand.

 

Maybe if that was too strong you could charge with the Lance once per battle (then it breaks/is dropped)

Edited February 3, 2020 by begleysm

[Mikeymajq]

On 2/2/2020 at 10:41 PM, JackStreicher said:

A subfaction which again only buffs varanguard.

I was honestly hoping for something more chaos warrior focused 😅😔

[Death1942]

10 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

Sphiranx - good effect but a bit expensive since the rest of the stats are just bad?

I disagree, it moves so fast, has a boat  load of wounds and the entire point is to not get it into combat unless you absolutely need to.  It sits right behind your battle line and ruins your opponents scary units while sitting just out of range to get dragged into combat.

Manticore Lords - hard skip due to looking so bad I don‘t even want to touch the model

Missing out here, they are really good with the healing monsters ability but I do agree that the model can look pretty hit and miss depending on the paints scheme.  Sorcerer lord on manticore is arguably one of our best heroes if you can fit him in.

Gaunt summoners - awesome but only due to summoning undying horrors

Also good because of how fast they are, being able to project your spells out is important.

Marauders horsemen - big meh, what exactly are they supposed to do?

One of the best screening units in the game, 90 points for fast and bulky models that can block off charge lanes easily.  Ontop of this they can get a rending ranged attack which is why they are one of the best screeners around.  They exist to die but before they do they harass the enemy and if they are left alone those ranged attacks can take a toll.