AoS 2 - Slaves to Darkness 2 Discussion

[ChaosUndivided]

3 hours ago, oggurt_da_bog_zombie said:

Ya, I've definitely run a variation of my list above where I have both the manticore sorc lord and on-foot sorc lord. The players I've played against have generally been clever enough to go after the Chaos Lord or more often, go after the sorc lord (either version) so I don't have Oracular Visions anymore. This is sorta why I put the Amulet of Destiny on the manticore sorc lord, and also that I really don't know what else I'd put on him, so the marginal benefit of the 5+ ward makes sense for when my opponent does go after him (especially with battle tactics like Bring it Down, the manticore is easier than Archaon to kill), or when I have him in combat. For the Chaos Lord, since there isn't really another better artefact to take than the Arcane Tome, if I don't want to go for the teleport trick, I could put the Amulet of Destiny on the Chaos Lord and try to fit this in a battle regiment or something. However, I like having Hunters of the Heartlands so trying to win the drops game seems like a stretch.

The Mutalith in that above list is really for fun, I think theres an argument to be made to run a Warshrine instead, but I don't like the model so I roll with the Mutalith or could swap it for the on-foot sorc lord, and maybe a better endless spell than the Burning Head.

Your right about the battle tactic and the manticore. I like to just kite around with him and stay outta trouble but sometimes you gotta commit to an objective and of course there is shooting and magic which can pick him off. The same can be said about the warrior lord on foot which is a lot more squishy which is why i was considering the idea of swapping artifacts around.

I also was running warlord + hunters and your right about drops. Most people i play always go 2 drop, which sure, its doable in S2D especially with Arc but its one of those things where you either commit to low drop or forget about it and take your chances. Everyone i played chose to go first top of turn 1 which didnt really work out in any of their favor as it just put stuff in striking range of buffed Arc but i think they where a bit scared of what i might be able to do (14 fly + reroll charge) and wanted to cast some buffs and score whatever points they could. In reality if your gonna go first vs Arc at least have the ability to delete a buffer.

I got a slaughterbrute and warshrine and love them both. Before i got Arc my list usually had them + manticore, it wasnt gonna win a tournament but a lot of fun. The shrine actually has same buff as the foot sorc with reroll hits and wounds with a lot of versatility otherwise, i would strongly recommend. With all the cultist you have i would want to add anything to help with battleshock, maybe that myrmidon guy from warcry or the old darkoath heroes?

 

Edit: ah i see you got host of everchosen which negates battleshock.

Edited October 15, 2021 by ChaosUndivided

[LordDave]

Has anyone had any success with the Ogroid Myrmidon?  

Now it’s 5 less points and gets a mark I’m thinking could justify it?  The model is sooo nice, but can’t help feeling using him would be a constant feeling of “this is almost as good as a chaos lord on foot, but not quite…”

[Archion89]

I don't use him but I think that's comparing apples to oranges as they provide different roles.  You want your strongest units to fight twice you go with the Lord.  If you want a big block of iron golems to tarpit or to keep a big block of unmade fighting with the nightmare sickles longer you can use the Ogroid.  It depends on your list and goals and could be useful in Idolators since cultists are battleline.  The price reduction and Mark does make it more attractive too.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Archion89

[Orsino]

Trying to make a fun list, curious what people think, it's a little light on bodies but hoping that ravagers with 3 heroes, one of whom is a gaunt summoner, will let me put quite a few extra models on the table:

Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness

- Damned Legion: Ravagers

- Grand Strategy: None Chosen

- Triumphs:

LEADERS

One-Eyed Grunnock (470)

- Allies

Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore (270)

Exalted Hero of Chaos (90)

Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch (230)

UNITS

1 x Chaos Chariots (105)

- Greatblades

1 x Chaos Chariots (105)

- Greatblades

20 x Chaos Marauders (180)

8 x Scions of the Flame (75)

1 x Slaves to Darkness Chaos Spawn (50)

BEHEMOTHS

Chaos Warshrine (185)

Soul Grinder (235)

TOTAL: 1995/2000 WOUNDS: 132

LEADERS: 4/6 BATTLELINES: 3 (3+) BEHEMOTHS: 4/4 ARTILLERY: 0/4

ARTEFACTS: 0/1 ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS: 0/3 ALLIES: 470/400

REINFORCED UNITS: 1/4

 

 

[Salyx]

On 10/22/2021 at 9:35 AM, Orsino said:

Trying to make a fun list, curious what people think, it's a little light on bodies but hoping that ravagers with 3 heroes, one of whom is a gaunt summoner, will let me put quite a few extra models on the table:

Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness

- Damned Legion: Ravagers

- Grand Strategy: None Chosen

- Triumphs:

LEADERS

One-Eyed Grunnock (470)

- Allies

Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore (270)

Exalted Hero of Chaos (90)

Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch (230)

UNITS

1 x Chaos Chariots (105)

- Greatblades

1 x Chaos Chariots (105)

- Greatblades

20 x Chaos Marauders (180)

8 x Scions of the Flame (75)

1 x Slaves to Darkness Chaos Spawn (50)

BEHEMOTHS

Chaos Warshrine (185)

Soul Grinder (235)

TOTAL: 1995/2000 WOUNDS: 132

LEADERS: 4/6 BATTLELINES: 3 (3+) BEHEMOTHS: 4/4 ARTILLERY: 0/4

ARTEFACTS: 0/1 ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS: 0/3 ALLIES: 470/400

REINFORCED UNITS: 1/4

 

 

This army is really light on bodies. However, you have a lot of monsters who can score extra points. However, they ca grant your opponent extra VPs as well. Perhaps you could swap the Chariots with another unit of Marauders for some extra threat.

The Exalted Hero is in a somewhat weird spot as he is very unreliable at damage dealing and does nothing for the army.

He should rather be replaced by a Darkoath hero who can at least buff the Marauders or, if you replace your chariots with Marauders, you can get yourself a Chaos Lord who makes the Marauders much more threatening.

[Orsino]

On 10/23/2021 at 12:19 PM, Salyx said:

This army is really light on bodies. However, you have a lot of monsters who can score extra points. However, they ca grant your opponent extra VPs as well. Perhaps you could swap the Chariots with another unit of Marauders for some extra threat.

The Exalted Hero is in a somewhat weird spot as he is very unreliable at damage dealing and does nothing for the army.

He should rather be replaced by a Darkoath hero who can at least buff the Marauders or, if you replace your chariots with Marauders, you can get yourself a Chaos Lord who makes the Marauders much more threatening.

I might be wrong but what I think the exalted is doing for me is letting me bring in more marauders for free via the Rally the Tribes command ability? I wanted a cheap hero so I could get three heroes on the table which means I can be bringing on another 10 marauders each turn for the first three turns. Darkoath may be a better call though, I went Exalted mainly because I want to re-make the Wulfrik model 

[TheGrimKnight]

Working on a Greek styled city state in the Realm of beasts. I put this army on the back burner for a long while but decided to restart it. Saw the Idolators army and fell in love with having a chariot priest hero. 

These guys are my chaos warriors, I green stuffed shoulders and added a rim to the neck and back to make their chests bronze breastplates. I like to think its cursed bronze fused to their bodies. 

the Bestgor is what I'm going to use for my chosen unit. I really enjoy the look of beasts of chaos so I wanted to incorporate them into the force as slaves to darkness. Also fits the mythical greek style. 

[Tizianolol]

Guys if I play host of everchosen can I use archaon command ability to see who got the next turn, and after pick the battle tactic for the current turn? Thx!

[The World Tree]

6 hours ago, Tizianolol said:

Guys if I play host of everchosen can I use archaon command ability to see who got the next turn, and after pick the battle tactic for the current turn? Thx!

They both happen at 'The Start of the Hero Phase' IIRC, therefore as the active player you can choose the order of affairs. So, yes.

[JackStreicher]

On 10/19/2021 at 2:38 PM, LordDave said:

Has anyone had any success with the Ogroid Myrmidon?  

Now it’s 5 less points and gets a mark I’m thinking could justify it?  The model is sooo nice, but can’t help feeling using him would be a constant feeling of “this is almost as good as a chaos lord on foot, but not quite…”

My Myrmidon has slain like 40 Stormcasts on his own. I play him in Ravagers with the Flames of Spite CT and a Khorne mark. Boy, he wrecks face.

Let‘s not forget about the Lord on Karkadrak: With Eternal Vendetta, Khorne Mark and the Amulet he gets to god-levels of damage and survivability. It‘s bonkers - against order he will kill any foot hero and slaughter ~ 1k points on his own (my experience)

[Charlo]

Red Harvest Warscrolls are out:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/05/flex-your-muscles-and-weave-webs-all-over-the-mortal-realms-with-these-red-harvest-warscrolls/

Interestingly, the Darkoath don't have the Cultist key word... So fit into approximately ZERO strategies.

[Grimrock]

6 minutes ago, Charlo said:

Red Harvest Warscrolls are out:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/05/flex-your-muscles-and-weave-webs-all-over-the-mortal-realms-with-these-red-harvest-warscrolls/

Interestingly, the Darkoath don't have the Cultist key word... So fit into approximately ZERO strategies.

It just fits the StD design ethos so well... Have something that could possibly be decently good, but then throw in an arbitrary restriction to make sure nobody wants to use it. Because reasons. I mean if you can get all of them into combat then 21 attacks doing mortals on 6's to hit isn't bad for 100 points, although that's very dependent on their base sizes, but that's all they have. They go in, cause a couple mortal wounds, and then die to a stiff breeze. The spider people at least seem interesting as a strictly better version of the splintered fang in a cabalist army, but they're 110 points so I'm not totally sold. 

[Enoby]

Made a Chaos Sorcerer Lord for Path to Glory - Lord Skalig

[JackOfBlades]

On 11/9/2021 at 8:07 PM, Enoby said:

Made a Chaos Sorcerer Lord for Path to Glory - Lord Skalig

Sow the seeds of madness 😈

[Andrethegreat]

I was thinking that Darkoath Savagers would make good Chaos Marauders.

[readercolin]

On 11/11/2021 at 1:16 PM, Andrethegreat said:

I was thinking that Darkoath Savagers would make good Chaos Marauders.

If they fit on 25mm bases, I would agree with you.  I have a sneaking suspicion that they are going to be on 32's and kinda go over the edges/not fit well on 25's though.

[Painbringer]

I am playing my first Age of Sigmar 3rd edition game tomorrow, and I am also playing Slaves to Darkness for the first time after a long break (in general, I've played only a handful of games with StD). It will be a 1000 point game against SCE. I wanted to play the following Ravagers list:

- Chaos Lord on Karkadark (General, Enternal Vendetta)
- Chaos Sorcerer Lord (Bolstered by Hate as Ravagers trait, Blasphemous Curiass as an artifact and Binding Damnation as a lore spell)
- Chaos Warriors (10)
- Chaos Knights (5)
- Varanguard (armed with spears)

Everything has Mark of Tzeentch and all units are part of single-drop batallion. The idea is to stack various armour save bonuses (Oracular Visions, Mystic Shield and All-out defense) and try to win on attrition, while Varanguard and Lord on Karkadark try to deal damage (however, Kinghts can strike hard as well). What do you guys think?

Edited November 27, 2021 by Painbringer

[readercolin]

2 hours ago, Painbringer said:

I am playing my first Age of Sigmar 3rd edition game tomorrow, and I am also playing Slaves to Darkness for the first time after a long break (in general, I've played only a handful of games with StD). It will be a 1000 point game against SCE. I wanted to play the following Ravagers list:

- Chaos Lord on Karkadark (General, Enternal Vendetta)
- Chaos Sorcerer Lord (Bolstered by Hate as Ravagers trait, Blasphemous Curiass as an artifact and Binding Damnation as a lore spell)
- Chaos Warriors (10)
- Chaos Knights (5)
- Varanguard (armed with spears)

Everything has Mark of Tzeentch and all units are part of single-drop batallion. The idea is to stack various armour save bonuses (Oracular Visions, Mystic Shield and All-out defense) and try to win on attrition, while Varanguard and Lord on Karkadark try to deal damage (however, Kinghts can strike hard as well). What do you guys think?

There are a few things that I don't like about your list.

First, I'm not sure that I like this being ravagers.  With only 2 hero's, I'm not sure that this is a significant improvement for your army, as all of the warbands and marauders that you can summon aren't exactly adding a lot to your list.  On the other hand, you could instead run this as Knights of the Empty Throne, make that squad of Varanguard into a hero (so it can do heroic actions, spreads its own mark so can be more independent of another lord, and can issue commands to other units as well).  Finally, it would let you take a warlord battalion for an extra enhancement, which I find more usable than the one drop.

Second, your artefact of choice.  The Blashphemous Curiass gives you a 5+ ward vs mortal wounds.  I struggle to find any reason why you would ever run that over an Amulet of Destiny, which gives you a 5+ ward vs mortals AND normal wounds.  If you are wondering where that is coming from, the Amulet of Destiny is available in the Core rules.

Third, spell choice.  Binding damnation is an ok choice... but it suffers from a MASSIVE problem.  That problem? 12" range.  This means that you are basically already going to be engaged in combat for a full round without this spell.  Now, if we are going to be realistic, all you are casting anyways is Mystic Shield, or maybe daemonic power, so spell choice doesn't technically matter.  However, I find that if you are going to take a spell, you should just run Mask of Darkness, because the threat of the teleport will force your opponents to keep units back to protect objectives, even if you never actually try to cast the spell.

Fourth, battalion.  I have played around with my Slaves a good bit, and I find that having a 1 drop doesn't really help.  However, being able to run the Amulet of Destiny AND arcane tome, or Amulet of Destiny AND Grasping Plate, or something along those lines is significantly more helpful.  If we are being realistic, the one drop battalion is good if you are running a list that HAS to get its buffs off, or if you are running a list that can effectively get off an alpha strike.  Slaves to darkness... is neither of those (without Archaeon).  Everything is already durable enough that you aren't too worried about getting your buffs off if your opponent attempts to alpha strike you.  And the damage output of slaves is anemic enough that there is no way you are effectively doing an alpha strike.

Finally, warriors.  Let me be clear here - I do like warriors (with the mark of Tzeentch and backed up by a sorcerer).  I personally run 2 blocks of 20 of them.  However, I don't think that they are really worth running in a block of 10.  Your opponent has to clear off a mere 2 wounds to remove their +1 to save, which is fairly easy to do with some chip damage.  And they aren't offensive enough to reliably kill something (a squad of 10 can reliably expect to put out less than 5 damage before saves).  However, (you may have missed this, because it came in a white dwarf), as of white dwarf #468, cultists can now be battleline IF they have the same mark as your general.  So you could look to replace those 10 warriors with 2 units of... whatever cultists you have around (with your points, if you do 70 point units, you can even do 3).  Or look to replace the warriors with another squad of Knights.

Overall, with a minimum amount of changes, this is what I would look to run:

Knights of the Empty Throne
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak - general, mark of Tzeentch, master of Magic, Arcane Tome, Flaming Weapon
Chaos Sorcerer Lord - mark of Tzeentch, Mask of Darkness
3x Varanguard - Hero, mark of Tzeentch, Grasping Plate
10 Chaos Warriors - mark of Tzeentch
5 Chaos Knights - mark of Tzeentch
Warlord Battalion - extra enhancement -> extra artefact

[grimgold]

So I have a random doubles tournament coming up, since it's random who my team mate and opponents will be, I was thinking I'd pick one thing and do it really well. In this case a big blob of chaos warriors with the mark of Tzeentch, in an Idolator list.

Random Doubles StD
Chaos - Slaves to Darkness - 1,000pts
Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness: Idolators
Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
Core Battalion: Warlord: Extra Enhancement: Artefacts of Power

Leader
Chaos Lord [120pts]: Reaperblade and Daemonbound Steel, Tzeentch
Arcane Tome
+ Mask of Darkness, Smite, Arcane Shield
Detachment: Warlord - 2-4 Sub-Commanders

Chaos Warshrine [185pts]: Heal, Tzeentch
Detachment: Warlord - 1-2 Commanders

Idolator Lord - Gorebeast Chariot [130pts]: 4. Fiery Orator, Amulet of Destiny, Curse, General, Tzeentch
. Gorebeast Chariot: Chaos Greatblade
Detachment: Warlord - 2-4 Sub-Commanders

Battleline
Chaos Marauders [90pts]: 10 Chaos Marauders, Barbarian Axes and Darkwood Shields, Drummer, Icon Bearer, Tzeentch, 
Detachment: Warlord - 1-2 Troops

Chaos Warriors [400pts]: 20 Chaos Warriors, Chaos Hand Weapons and Chaos Runeshields, Hornblower, Reinforced, Standard Bearer, Tzeentch, 
Detachment: Warlord - 1-2 Troops

Splintered Fang [75pts]: 10 Splintered Fang, Tzeentch

 You guys think this will work out?

[Xasz]

What is the current standard/most competitive choice for Varanguard weapons atm?

Considering Sixth Circle, Empty Throne, 3man vs 6man, marks (Slaanesh vs Tzeentch usually) etc. (if the army setup even makes a difference)

I'd guess that Ensorcelled weapons are the most mathematically appealing and I think they were in AoS2 as well but it's hard to determine what ppl pick in tournaments as Warscrollbuilder doesn't care about that for some reason (and I had no luck finding a math-hammer post here, although I was certain there was one).

 

[Boar]

2 hours ago, Xasz said:

What is the current standard/most competitive choice for Varanguard weapons atm?

Deamonforge Weapons usually IIRC

[Xasz]

Another one, does Archaon make Cultist-units (Iron Golems, Untamed Beasts etc.) into Battlelines if he is the general?

Quote

If you give a Cultist unit a Mark of Chaos keyword, it has the Battleline battlefield role if it has the same Mark of Chaos keyword as the model that was picked to be the army's general.

From RAW I'd say no but it seems a bit weird and I've seen tournament lists where they were counted as being Battleline.

PS: Although the text under Aura of Chaos would imply that the Khorne, Tzeentch... keywords on his scroll are considered Mark of Chaos keywords, therefore he has to pick an Aura that applies for the game and furthermore the rule above should be active as well.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Xasz

[Bibob45]

23 hours ago, Xasz said:

Another one, does Archaon make Cultist-units (Iron Golems, Untamed Beasts etc.) into Battlelines if he is the general?

From RAW I'd say no but it seems a bit weird and I've seen tournament lists where they were counted as being Battleline.

PS: Although the text under Aura of Chaos would imply that the Khorne, Tzeentch... keywords on his scroll are considered Mark of Chaos keywords, therefore he has to pick an Aura that applies for the game and furthermore the rule above should be active as well.

As you pointed in your post scriptum, for me the rule clarification from the Aura of Chaos definition implies that the god keywords are Mark of Chaos keywords ("If you select a unit with more than one Mark of Chaos keyword to be part of your army, you must pick which one will apply to that unit for the duration of the battle.") Does this phrase of rule applies to any caracter other than Archeon?

[Sugar Maple]

Did the Idolators special units get removed from the WH AoS app? I can't find the specific heroes anywhere when trying to make a list

[Painbringer]

I played my first AoS 3E game last weekend (but also first S2D game after a long time). Here's the battle report: https://roosterhillknight.blogspot.com/2021/12/battle-report-slaves-of-darkness-vs.html