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AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion


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On 10/8/2020 at 4:47 PM, Xasz said:

Thoughts on the list by Marc Brookes that won Hammertime III?

I thought about something similar, especially the grasping plate I thought was seriously underrated, so nice to see that make an appearance. That artifact really opens up some cheeky strategies with pile ins, you could severely limit exposure and perhaps opt to not even fight first with the big Varanguard unit by just keeping 1 varanguard in range of say a big blob of hearthguard to force them to do a poor pile-in and then do you own pile-in and attack twice.

The Bloodmarked warband is expensive, but it does make a lot of sense, the nullstone to cancel out a critical spell cast, an additional CP and the low drop alone could very well be worth it.  It does force a bit of a wonky build with the chaos lords and small warrior units, so I am not entirely sure that trade is worth it all, but it would be super interesting to see his positioning of the chaos lords and if he ever got them into range with their command. 

The list has a major weakness against anything that can tie it down though, there is no punch expect for the varanguards. With proper screening and even worse something like a Belakor, this list will have major problems.

 

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2 hours ago, Scurvydog said:

having 1/3 chance to ignore spells

Speaking of ignoring spells:

Let‘s say you have the Tzeentch Mark and the General is around AND you have the Warshrine buff: Can you roll twice to ignore the spell? (Same goes for Tzeentch Varanguard)

Edited by JackStreicher
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11 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Speaking of ignoring spells:

Let‘s say you have the Tzeentch Mark and the General is around AND you have the Warshrine buff: Can you roll twice to ignore the spell? (Same goes for Tzeentch Varanguard)

The anti stacking added in ghb2020 was specifically for things ignoring wounds taken, so that should not apply to this. I am not entirely sure though, but I have not been able to locate anywhere in the rules that states these effects do not all apply, they are separate abilities that trigger when the unit is affected by a spell, so unless someone can find anything stating different, I'd say you roll the dice for each ability:

Varanguard with Tzeentch mark in general range are affected by a spell, then that would trigger their warpsteel shields ability and also their mark of tzeentch, roll the dice for each and if any are a 5+ the spell is ignored. That is how I'd say it works, but I'd be interested in knowing if anyone found some designers commentary etc. that might say otherwise.

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5 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

The anti stacking added in ghb2020 was specifically for things ignoring wounds taken, so that should not apply to this. I am not entirely sure though, but I have not been able to locate anywhere in the rules that states these effects do not all apply, they are separate abilities that trigger when the unit is affected by a spell, so unless someone can find anything stating different, I'd say you roll the dice for each ability:

Varanguard with Tzeentch mark in general range are affected by a spell, then that would trigger their warpsteel shields ability and also their mark of tzeentch, roll the dice for each and if any are a 5+ the spell is ignored. That is how I'd say it works, but I'd be interested in knowing if anyone found some designers commentary etc. that might say otherwise.

Thanks! I couldn‘t find anything forbidding this as well, that‘s why I asked (you could in theory, get 4 spell ignores on one varanguard unit xD: Nullstone, Shields, Tzeentch Mark, Warshrine buff)

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13 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Thanks! I couldn‘t find anything forbidding this as well, that‘s why I asked (you could in theory, get 4 spell ignores on one varanguard unit xD: Nullstone, Shields, Tzeentch Mark, Warshrine buff)

The nullstone is just a once per game auto unbind, so the other effects would be pointless in that case. But with mark of Tzeentch general nearby, Warshrine buff and Wall of cursed iron trait, you would sit on 5+/4+/4+ to ignore spells. Watch Nagash cry his eyes out while the Varanguards chase him down xD 

Regarding the grasping plate, being eligible to fight within 6", would also make the unit able to simply move+run within 6" while fighting somewhere else and then activate them last, as the opponent is not able to activate a unit before they get within 3".

Edited by Scurvydog
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3 hours ago, MitGas said:

Concerning S2D vs. Teclis: sounds like a job for Be'Lakor IMO, really. 

Hey guys, i m going to face the lumineth and Teclis on friday and i was wondering if Belakor's trick is working on Teclis auto-spell?

So Teclis has to roll a 5+ before he wants to auo-cast??

 

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5 hours ago, Scurvydog said:

The nullstone is just a once per game auto unbind, so the other effects would be pointless in that case. But with mark of Tzeentch general nearby, Warshrine buff and Wall of cursed iron trait, you would sit on 5+/4+/4+ to ignore spells. Watch Nagash cry his eyes out while the Varanguards chase him down xD 

Regarding the grasping plate, being eligible to fight within 6", would also make the unit able to simply move+run within 6" while fighting somewhere else and then activate them last, as the opponent is not able to activate a unit before they get within 3".

Woof that's nasty. 

Empty throne is really cool - big unit of Varanguard with that can do crazy things. Especially when you combine with 3" no retreat, you can tag a lot of stuff with that then stop them from running away.

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Regarding Knights of Empty Throne, I still think you are better off with more 3x man units of Varanguard to maximize your chances with "Failure is not an Option." In my experience, hitting that 5+ (let alone multiple times a game) is a psychological back-breaker. They work soooo hard to kill a unit of varanguard, and then it comes back, but it doesn't really just come back - IT'S A NEW UNIT, it appears in the backfield, and because it's a new unit it gets that once-per-battle double pile-in and attack. It's really really really nasty.  

I get the idea of the 6 man unit having the grasping plate, and I'll admit I never tried that, but I would think positioning a 6 man unit to use that 6" pile effectively  would be pretty rough on most real-world tables.  

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There is an argument for MSU, but the list as it stands is build around buffing a big unit with as much stuff as possible.

Overall the list has legs, while not being without counters. I'd like to see someone recreate that performance in the coming weeks/months. Gives competitive StD players maybe some hope.

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Ive been running a Knights of the Empty throne list for a while now and its doing really well. I only started it as a bit of fun to have a fully mounted list. Consists of 5x 3 varanguard, 2x 5 marauders horsemen & 1x 5 Knights. These are then all in the plaguetouched warband which gives me a single drop and a nice MW output from people wounding me. I themed it with all units having spears, run the screen up the board with the varanguard behind them, screens then move away if i get the turn or it takes the brunt of it if i get doubled, i then just charge the varanguard in and pile in twice. As im so fast and i can take objectives, i genraly win by turn 3 as im to far ahead in points

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13 hours ago, Scurvydog said:

Despite the doom and gloom going about, StD does have some good elements to them for fighting Lumineth. As the main power of sentinels and wardens come from their mortal wound output, it helps quite a bit that chaos warriors and knights all have chaos runeshields providing a 5+ MW save, so you can tank this a bit better. If he brings Teclis you can use Tzeentch marks to counter this a bit, having 1/3 chance to ignore spells and then also 5+ save against mortal wounds will greatly reduce the damage he can do with spells and probably force him to go defensive, but you should be able to outpunch him then. Undivided can also be handy, as the Cathellars might force you to do unfavorable battleshocks.

Sentinels are very squishy and the army has expensive units. Ravagers marauder summoning potential will force him to protect his sentinels, if they are exposed and anywhere near any table edge, 10 marauders will easily win a fight against 10 sentinels. If he cheeses a lot, bring Belakor to your second game, he is rather nasty, so I wouldnt pull him out vs a friend unless they asked for it ;) 

Try to use fast moving units to pin down his wardens in unfavorable combat, if you can flank them and force them to split attacks the better. If he has dawnriders dont let them charge marauders or even chaos warriors, try to engage them with anything else, for example chaos knights and he will only have 1 attack and the chaos knights should easily win that skirmish.

Well, it's not about Gloom and Doom.

You supported the gloom and doom with your own post.

It's always 1/3 chance here and 1/3 chance there, if lucky you can get this stuff off and there is a special rule one per battle.

The problem is that other armies always get their stuff done because it's a build in ability while all our even weak stuff is random chance.

The book would be way better if our rules would just apply.

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On 10/9/2020 at 12:14 AM, kozokus said:

I wonder if squeezing it in Plaguetouched would'n be better.

Imagine

6 and 3 varanguard as before

chaos lord + sorcerer

15 and 5 warriors

20 maraudeurs / 5 knights

warshrine 

plaguetouched.

 

less dammage, but better surviability in shooting, one drop vs two, synergy with ennemy nurgle.

Yes, sounds great, but its 2090 Points :D

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15 hours ago, Kurrilino said:

Well, it's not about Gloom and Doom.

You supported the gloom and doom with your own post.

It's always 1/3 chance here and 1/3 chance there, if lucky you can get this stuff off and there is a special rule one per battle.

The problem is that other armies always get their stuff done because it's a build in ability while all our even weak stuff is random chance.

The book would be way better if our rules would just apply.

I really hate so say this and I know that this should be a friendly discussion here, but its really annoying to hear your negative attitude to almost every post that is made in this thread.

I know that it is hard to win against the top armies, but it is possible. And complaining about everything is not really helping anybody. I won two one-day tournaments with my S2D in August and I also had to play against KO and such, so with the right battleplan, attitude and a little bit of luck and practice, a lot is still possible with the rules we have. 
No question, I would rather have Chaos Warriors with rend and Chaos Knights who can swap their weapons after charging instead of stupid hordes of 40 Marauders who are apparently our "best unit", but you have to deal with the stuff GW does or just dont play the game.

Btw: Interesting to see Knights Of The Empty Throne having a little success, I will give it a try once again when I have more than only 3 Varanguard :( 

Edited by Enwolved
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Hello!

I have a question to yall. Since the new GHB you can only make 1 dice roll to negate a wound or mortal wound that your unit suffer.
My questions is about Archaon that has a +4 save against magic (The evervhosen ability) and 4+ (against mortal wounds).

Does "the everchosen" count as a save against mortal wounds or is that "before the save" so it doesnt count?

Thanks for replys!
 

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5 minutes ago, Howdyhedberg said:

Hello!

I have a question to yall. Since the new GHB you can only make 1 dice roll to negate a wound or mortal wound that your unit suffer.
My questions is about Archaon that has a +4 save against magic (The evervhosen ability) and 4+ (against mortal wounds).

Does "the everchosen" count as a save against mortal wounds or is that "before the save" so it doesnt count?

Thanks for replys!
 

You can roll to ignore a spell on a 4+, if that fails and the spell deals any mortal wounds to Archaon, you would be able to try to ignore those as well on a 4+, reflecting back on 6s.

StD does suffer a lot from this in general though, such as those mortal wounds ignore, like Archaons 4+ or the 5+ from chaos runeshields on warriors and knights do not stack with either chaos undivided or the warshrine aura.

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24 minutes ago, Enwolved said:

Yes, sounds great, but its 2090 Points :D

I am pretty sure it is 1980 points  (with an extra CP)

Anyway. I tested the list with

6 &3 Varanguard chaoslord and sorcerer

15 warriors and 2X5 knights

Warshrine plaguetouched.

Pretty interesting to have a 2+ reroll hit wound saves big varanguard unit that can obliterate everything and pile in twice at 6" (be careful to still have an ennemy at 3" the second time)

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The Everchosen is triggered each time Archaon gets Hit by a spell regardless of the ki d of spell. So it triggers as well if Archaon is Hit by a debuff spell. 

If the spell goes through and does Mortal Wounds, Archaon still gets his 4+ shrug against Mortals. 

These are two special rules, one is a magic resistance, the other one is a Mortal Wounds protection

Edit: OK, too late, Skurvydog was faster. 

 

Edited by Salyx
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This is probably less competetive than using more varanguards + battalion, but once I get my Warstomper this weekend, I will try this for my next Chaos horde. 40 points up in the air, but a triumph is probably better than any endless spells as the sorc will want to fail his casts on teleports or reroll hit/wounds:

 

Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness
- Damned Legion: Knights of the Empty Throne
Knights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 3 (280)
- General
- Command Trait: Wall of Cursed Iron
- Artefact: Grasping Plate
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Knights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 3 (280)
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (110)
- Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
- Spell: Mask of Darkness
5 x Chaos Knights (160)
- Ensorcelled Weapons
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
5 x Chaos Knights (160)
- Ensorcelled Weapons
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
15 x Chaos Warriors (270)
- Hand Weapon & Shield
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Warstomper Mega-Gargant (480)

Chaos Warshrine (170)
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Extra Command Point (50)

Total: 1960 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Wounds: 142

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  • RuneBrush changed the title to AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion

Thanks for your replies. Don't know if I should post this here or somewhere else, but you should be the people that know it the best. 

 

What is the general key/way/trick to defeat Archaon?

I have a Lumineth army that I'm thinking about getting teclis and then my friend would like to get Archaon for a thematic game.

I also have a cities of Sigmar army.

 

Your suggestions doesn't have to be to these two factions particular, but I'm generally interested  in his weakness. High rend for making it hard to save?

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3 hours ago, Howdyhedberg said:

Thanks for your replies. Don't know if I should post this here or somewhere else, but you should be the people that know it the best. 

 

What is the general key/way/trick to defeat Archaon?

I have a Lumineth army that I'm thinking about getting teclis and then my friend would like to get Archaon for a thematic game.

I also have a cities of Sigmar army.

 

Your suggestions doesn't have to be to these two factions particular, but I'm generally interested  in his weakness. High rend for making it hard to save?

 

You probably already nailed it. In the wrong matchup, Archaon gets toasted really easily, whereas in other matchup He shines. For examples, against Cities, he will totally get toasted by Irondrakes, because they have a lot of high Rend attacks, whereas the Sentinels will do very little with their long range shots, because they have to re-rolls All 6s to Hit and He has a 4+ Mortal wound shrug. The short Ranges shot could do a bit better, but that will not be enough to really endanger Archaon. 

So, many attacks with a Rend are your go to. Alarith are better suited against Archaon than Vanari, because they have access to more Rend, especially the Cows. The Stoneguard might hold Archaon for some time as well, but I would not totally count in that. However, the Stonemage spell will massively hinder Archaon.

Eltharion is also pretty well equipped to give Archaon some pain. Throw a Mystic Shield on him and He might Tank Archaon for some time and plink a few wounds off. 

Nevertheless, all the High Rend (-2 or better) Lumineth attackers have one weakness against him: The Kingslayer. You may have good results against Archaon with Eltharion or Avalenor. As soon as Archaon rolls 2 6s to wound, it's over. Archaon is a bad Matchup for Lumineth. Mortal wound protection and re-rolling 6s to Hit really hurt. If you go for your hard hitters, they might get smacked in one blow. 

If you want to play Teclis, magic must be your weapon. You can only hope to brittle Archaon down over time. In close Combat, you will most certainly perish and maybe do some damage before. 

So here's the deal: Try to slow him down as much as possible to exclude him from game. The Stone Mage spell will Come in Handy, halving his movement. 2 additional endless spells will help: Soulsnare shackles and Rune of Petrification. The shackles halve Archaon's movement and the Rune nets him a - 1 to run and Charge. The Extra spell from Zaitrec halves Archaon's movement once more. If you have used the Twinstone, and cast 4 spells from Teclis, you can cast the stonemage's spell with a +6 to cast. So if everything works fine, Archaon has a movement of 2 instead of 14 and fly. So you can completely avoid him. If you want, you can shoot at him with the 18" shots from the Sentinels. Now you have some time to take care of the remaining 1200 points ;)

Thinking about that, you do not have to take Alarith if you do not want to. If Archaon is out of the game, you can play anything you like. Even if ge gets into close combat:Give him a swing, retreat and let him chase again. That way, he will never make up his cost. 

Edited by Salyx
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To deal with archaon there is an easy way and it's called syar especially goading arrogance once archaon has charged something in your army you put your cathallar at 6 (with lightning speed she can move up to 18) to him you lock his pile in move with 2 models and he cant attack you :D

Else being an Archaon main player just kill archaon buffers to reduce his damages dont focus on Archaon it's pointless srsly (if you really want to know why i will explain) don't forget he counts only has 1 on objective ! Then just kill the rest of the army and try to play syar (cos well it's the most versatile nation not the easiest one to play tho) if you want to have an other weapon against archaon ! 

note that idk how lumineth plays against archaon khrone + 30 Blood warriors the main problem here is that archaon can pile in twice and deal an amount of absurd damages (+1 A reroll 1hit +1 save and +1 hit if needed) the only option here i think is him making an error and locking him with goading arrogance 

+ don't try to spell archaon mostly cos you have 1/2 chances to lose 1 spell for nothing and you don't want to lose any 

@Salyx you re forgetting everchosen the fact he can dispel, unbind and eat one endless per turn 🤔 

Edited by DaCapo
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