Darkrich

This saturday was a local tourney as well in preparation for LVO. I ended up taking first out of 12 with my Vanguard chamber force. Some lucky scenarios helped as well. Played a gavriel bomb list first round. But the mission was total commitment. Sorry bud. He had a hailstorm battery as well, but my shooting took out his many sequitors while my maneuverability jumped around the table taking out his shooting. His 10 man evo and gavriel were stuck with holding an objective or forgo that to try and kill me. Second game was against BCR with double frostlord on stonehorn and double thundertusk. My comet did 15 mortal wounds turn one and both thundertusks had like 2 wounds left. He had a good double turn on turn 2->3 which put him up quite a few points, but he was tabled on turn 4 at which point I passed him in points again. Last game was against deepkin in duality of death. He took first and pushed eidolon with thrall screen onto one of the points and volturnos and 2 sets of eels on the other. Evocators were able to make the charge against the eidolon after I shot the screen away killing it. With proper bubble wrap myself, I kept the 6 man morsarr unit from showing up in an ideal place. We were trading even points at this time, but he was way down in units lost. Finally I jumped half my army over to volturnos and killed him on turn 4. With no way to get the Aquilor on the other point it was game. Overall a fun event.

I was under the impression that you cannot combine stormhosts. Gavriel is Hammers and can only affect other Hammers units. If you take Gavriel in a Anvils list, he can use his command ability but only other Hammers keyword models will use it (pretty much himself). The dropping evocators are anvils and cannot benefit from it.

Haha. It's still a work in progress. I just felt the gavriel bombs were too one dimensional, and was looking at alternate ways to approach.

With the clarification on aetherwings a page or two back, I'm always going to include one to stop things live gavriel bombs or eels. Just hop them into melee range and laugh righteously. On the other hand gryph hounds are so expensive. I have yet to try them, but it's hard to do so. They form a similar role of shielding and protecting from deep strikes. The only thing I can imagine is stringing them out throughout your back field, since 6 at max coherency will cover alot of ground. When the deepstrike happens and they are in range to call, your entire back line will be wholly within at least one hound.

I hear what you're saying. It's difficult to judge because the style of army doesn't fight the standard way, mano y mano. Rather it tries to take advantage of positioning and exploiting enemies weaknesses. After many test games with this list, it really shows it's strengths and failing based on the mission rather than the list. Missions with lots of objectives, like scorched earth, are fairly simple. In these, you can steal all the objectives forcing the opponents strong units to debate between killing or holding the objectives. The fewer the objectives, the harder it becomes as it forces me to fight the opponent head on. I chose the Astral Templars as my army is painted in their colors. But I've become quite fond of it. The +1 to hit monsters is almost always relevant. They can also spend cp to get +1 to wound on hero's. Turn's out most monsters are heros too. I wish the command trait or artefact were better, but it's not worthless. I did try anvils of the heldenhammer with long strikes before, but I found I had to choose between extra shooting or jumping around the board too often, as CP is limited. Also, one of my opponents is a beastclaw player, and frost wreathed breath makes me reconsider putting my eggs in one basket. I can look into adding a big unit of sequitors, evocators, or a unit of dracoths to absorb hits. SD is tough because the aquilor is never there to support the shield wall. But them and liberators can hold them back long enough to swing the game.

I have a local tourney coming up in a few weeks. I have the general idea of my list made, but looking for ideas that may cover all the bases. I run a vanguard themed army. I find many armies have a hard time fighting all over the board like vanguard can (except deepkin, those jerks). My list so far: Stormhost: Astral Templars Leaders Lord Aquilor - General, Dauntless Hunters, Godbeast Plate Lord Arcanum - Lightning Blast Battleline Vanguard Hunters x5 - sabres Judicators x5 - bows Liberators x5 - grandhammer Artillery Celestar Ballista Other Vanguard Palladors x3 - javelins Longstrike raptors x3 Longstrike Raptors x3 This is 1480 right here. I have about 500 points to add to it and have pretty much any option available. The idea is to not have any critical piece of my army, save the aquilor. So as I lose units, it's not a "crucial" blow. I typically included a venator or azyros and a relictor for supporting. Sequitors filling a similar role as the liberators, hold objectives and speed bump. Aetherwings have been useful too. Neave works well too. I was thinking of trying evocators or upgrading the arcanum to a tauralon so I can cast the comet every turn. Anyways, let me know what you think.

I have a question about the aetherwings watchful guardians rule. I looked around but there was never a conclusive answer. Can you use it to hop them into melee?

I feel like, if I am running a big block of anything I'm gonna want a castellant to buff them. The 20 sequitors would love that +1 armor buff. I would try to squeeze him in. Plus it gives another option for a relic.

Honestly no. I like the idea of stormcaller. But in practice, it's hard to cast and may not do anything. Chain lightning sounds cool, but is hard to cast and only does a couple wounds in the end unless his whole army is there. I wish there were more utility spells. The fact that his arcane bolt is good and he can heal gives him flexibility, but he doesn't buff anybody. I may just take the first spell, so if he is far away, at least he can participate. The arcanum hasn't impressed me too much. His melee is ok. His defense is ok. His spell casting is ok. He has to be the general for sequitor goodness. I may end up cutting him for an incantor.

So I just had a game against a friend, and want to recant my experience and maybe improve on the list. I really like the vanguard chamber and want to keep the theme as much as possible. Plus the special snowflake in me wants to mix it up from every sacrosanct list out there. My list is as follows: Stormhost: Astral Templars Leader: Lord Aquilor - General Lord Arcanum - either stormcaller or chainlightning Lord Relictor - translocate Knight Venator Battleline: Liberator x5 - Grandhammer on prime Vanguard Hunters x5 Judicators x5 - bows Artillery: Celestar Ballista Other: Vanguard Raptors w/Longstrikes x3 Vanguard Raptors w/Longstrikes x3 Vanguard Palladors w/Javelins x3 Aetherwings x3 Neave Blacktalon Sequitors x5 - 2 greatmaces It's a very mobile list and it does very well exploiting enemies weak spots. My friend played a Nagash list. He had Nagash, Arkhan, necromancer, 2 units of 40 skellies, 1 min unit of zombies, spell portal, geminids. We played the better part of valor which is an excellent mission for my army. I will preface it with I end up losing, but the game was a dice roll in my favor from being mine multiple times throughout. He out drops me and has a unit of skeletons in the graveyards. He takes first and lets loose with a flurry of spells, going infinite with curse of years on the liberators. Geminids hit my long strikes. His skeletons appear 9 inches from both long strikes but fail their charge. Nagash got a double cast of the increased movement spell and makes it to my far right objective, previously held by my aetherwings now dead. Talk about pressure. His other unit of skeletons and necromancer are holding the back middle and right objective and zombies are alone on the left (not for long). In my turn, his rolling is hot and arkhan lives with 5 wounds. He is on mystical terrain which is annoying. I ride the winds to his side of the table with the gryphchargers and neave. Aquilor jumps to the zombies where the hunters show up and a longstrike unit goes into the back corner of his side to shoot from safety. Sequitors also drop behind the back skeletons and necromancer. I proceed to win the double turn and Arkhan lives with one wound after it's all said and done (throw me a bone). The skeletons in his back all die, but the necromancer makes it. I burn both of his objectives and the hunters now hold the zombie objective. I also burn my central objective his skeletons were very close to. His turn, he hand of dusts my aquilor. Brings back the 40 man skeletons on the aetherwing objective so nagash can go fight. He ends up making two 10 inch charges which put me in a troublesome spot. Then wins the double turn. Had I won the roll. I would have won the game there. Turn three I kill arkhan and get nagash down to 1 wound (again...) but he managed to get enough skeletons around my last objective and with nagash surviving where he was, I was forced to burn the other objective early. I was never able to recover from there. It was very close and there were many moments that could have swung the game. I have about 500 points I am working with that seem malleable. The relictor, as much as I like him, not sure if it works with this army. But his prayers are really good. I am iffy on the venator, but he is a pretty consistent 2-4 wounds a turn from relative safety. The ballista is similar. It's really cheap though and shoots so far, but it never really does that much. The astral templars stormhost ended up being very effective. The +1 to hit countering the debuff spell and the geminids multiple times. I chose it figuring, most armies have monsters. And every army has heroes.

Do you mean with a Sword of Judgement?

Cool, I am mainly looking at Neave Blacktalon. She seems so much better than a standard Knight Zephyros

Do I have to be hammers of sigmar to use one of the named characters in my list?

Played a couple games since last time. Trying out the godsworn champions battalion with the following list: Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount - ethereal armor Chaos Sorcerer Lord Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore - wraithbow 20 warriors 40 marauders 10 knights with glaives 5 chosen varanguard godsworn champions of ruin battalion Seeing if the battalion is worth the cost. I do get the command point and relic and occasionally a free fight phase. Played Disciples of Tzeentch, Stormcast, and Legions of Nagash. Rolled over the disciples player. Having a save against mortal wounds and a good double turn killed a lot of his power. Highlight was the sorceror lord on manticore doing 11 mortal wounds to Fateweaver. The stormcast game was close, and his plucky judicators managed to get the final wound in on my lord on duality of death. That was the last chance he had to stop me from winning. Star drake and the comet on the same turn was brutal. The comet alone did like 20 mortal wounds to my army. This was a good close game. Also evokators are too good. Lastly, good ol Legions of Nagash. I still have no idea how to beat skeletons. I basically get no spells off, my units can't fight from all the debuffs, and I take 200 skeleton attacks from a single unit in a single combat phase. And StD are just tough enough to survive a while so it's a slow and agonizing defeat. I've come to the conclusion that this army can't handle skeletons and Legions are popular. Looking into alternatives to try to bridge that gap.

I hear what you're saying. That makes sense logically, but that's not what it says. Aided by the Gods: If a Lord of Chaos uses this ability, pick a Slaves to Darkness unit within 10" that has the same mark of Chaos as the Lord. Until your next hero phase, that unit receives the same benefits as the Lord of Chaos receives for his Mark of Chaos. I think it's just a case of GW not really looking at any warscrolls when the update happened to edit it. And in the end it would really just be like casting of demonic power, but I would be a fan of it.

That's a good point. My group is in the mind that Mark of the All Favored applies all the bonuses of each mark for the characters. That seems to be the intention at least. I was looking at his command ability again. Does he pass those bonuses to a similarly marked unit? The criteria seems to be met. A khorne marked unit shares the keywork with him, so he passes his mark bonuses to them.

What are people running for the general and why? The lord of chaos has such a cool model, but damage is pretty meh and his command ability is stupid. It's almost worthless since it's the same as his allegiance ability.

I haven't tried varanguard yet either. Slaves are pretty good at taking hits, so a strong unit like varanguard might do it.

How do you guys manage to fight skeletons. I'm running into the issue where the faction lacks some power. I hit skeletons and can kill 20 or so, but then they come right back. And the spells that hit us, like -1 to hit or attacks just mean I get drowned in attacks by the skeletons I can't kill. I would like to kill the casters to stop the support, but as a melee army, I have to go through the front. I allied in a gaunt summoner to help, but Arkhan is a better caster and saves his dispel attempts to shut down the gaunt summoner.

I've been playing Slaves to Darkness for a while now and wish to stick with the allegiance if possible as I like the undivided idea. The army has some nice units, but after many games I've noticed it's lacking in certain aspects. Mainly, the army is very resilient, but lacks power. One of my main opponents is a Legion of Nagash player. Slaves cannot power through 40 man skeleton blocks. There are other issues, like lack of good command traits. Lord on Daemonic mount is a great model, but he only helps knights and chariots. I like the Lord of chaos on foot, but I hate that his command ability is worthless. It's basically the allegiance ability. With the new changes, I am not sure if I can stay slaves to darkness allegiance and use a fatesworn or plaguetouched warband. At leasy the Azyr app doesn't allow it. What successes have people had with the army. I don't mind allying something in, but I am trying not to switch to a main 4 army.