Grimrock

Khorne is all about murder and martial prowess which has definitely devolved into 'big angry dudes with big weapons go bonk', but there is a lot of room to build in the concept. Ninjas come to mind. A group of extremely skilled killers that strike from the shadows and leave nothing but headless corpses. For the gnarlwood they could be themed like the Predator with camouflage and trophies all over. Give them arm mounted blades and throwing glaives.

I like the bell and blade personally, but I might be a bit biased because that's the way mine is built haha. I usually play befouling host so the extra summoning point is helpful to stack with the extra tree. I usually put the nurgling infestation on him for the -1 to hit and just have him clog up the board. If you weren't running befouling host then I could totally see the sword and flail to max the combat potential, but really it isn't doing a ton of damage anyway. If I wanted a beatstick I think I'd just take a maggoth lord and a unit of blight kings instead.

I'm sorry, but honestly your whole post is just coming across as extremely condescending to someone who is struggling with the game and is looking for ways to improve it. Just because your gaming group is still working great doesn't mean you've found the secret sauce and everyone who does anything differently will struggle. If the gaming group moves on there's not much you can do about it and, trust me, just because your group is solid now doesn't mean it's going to be that way forever. I've been playing these games for... dang almost 23 years now and no group I've ever seen is immortal. I've never been able to get friends into the hobby, as hard as I've tried it just doesn't interest them. It's either too expensive, too complicated, too time consuming, or all three, so I rely entirely on a LGS to supply opponents. This has been working great for the last few years we have a thriving community with 15+ players regularly. Or at least we did. I've been on an involuntary break from the game since May, but I popped into the LGS for the first time in a few months the other day and it turns out while I was gone almost the entire gaming group migrated away from AoS to Marvel Crisis Protocol. This isn't the first time this has happened to me, but now it leaves me in a really tough spot. Back in the day I'd just migrate with the group to play the new game, or I'd bounce to a different store and try to get in with a group there. Unfortunately the next closest store is about 45 minutes away which just isn't viable with the gas prices lately, and honestly even though I like MCP I just want to play AoS at the moment. The only real hope I have at this point is people get bored with the new game in a few months or maybe they bounce back to AoS when the next GHB gets released. Edit: Rewrote the post so I'm not being so snarky. Sorry again, I just really want to start getting back to the old routine and playing some games but I've run smack into a brick wall here. Just sucks is all.

The Daemon Prince in the Slaves to Darkness army box is a re-sculpt of a plastic model. They aren't out yet but the chaos warriors and knights will also be updating old plastic kits.

Looks like a great idea for a conversion. If you're going to put him on a disk I think you'd be best running him as a gaunt summoner or a chaos lord on daemonic mount, otherwise it might get a little confusing on the table.

That's old old Archaon. In the new book he has to pick his mark after receiving the starting command points but before the start of the first turn. It's important to note though that the rule specifies he only gets the mark when taken in a Slaves to Darkness army, so if someone wants to take him in a Khorne army for example he won't get the Khorne mark, just Undivided. Also yes, when he picks Khorne he does get the keyword so for now the bloodsecrator, bloodstoker, and wrathmongers will all work on him. Pretty sure that'll all go away once the new khorne battletome comes out so enjoy it while it lasts haha.

The monstrous rampages are really nice, but they're part of what I'm saying about loss of flavour. Before you could do a Titanic Duel or a Roar AND pick a head ability, now you're forced into just one. It's not a huge deal, it's just a little loss in exciting and fun stuff you could be doing with your big stompy monster. Fight on death is indeed a lot better, but I'd counter that with saying things have also gotten a lot more resilient so it'll come up less often. The ideal pick for it used to be marauders as they combined an excellent combat profile (when buffed) with the ability to die in droves when the enemy looked at them sideways. Now that marauders are trash in combat (as they should be) you're looking at using it on chaos warriors or knights or chosen, but realistically how many of those do you expect to die in a given combat? I suppose it might be good on splintered fang for the mortal wounds, but the other issue is he lost his free command point every turn. Using the ability comes at a real cost now and if it's only going to let you attack with three or four models it might be better to skip it and do an Inspiring Presence or All Out Defense instead. Totally agree on Crown of Domination, the aura is huge. Shutting down Rally is of... questionable use since they can't do it in combat anymore but turning off Inspiring Presence will definitely come up often. It kind of sucks that the crown no longer provides any buffs for his own troops, but this is one of the few changes that actually just seems like a straight improvement. I'm not trying to say Archaon is trash tier or anything, he's still super hard to kill and if you don't roll a ton of ones his attacks can still bring a ton of hurt. It just feels bad reading through his scroll when pretty much every change has a negative. Trust me I want to play him and I'll be happy if he ends up being fun! I love the model, I loved building and painting him (all 40 hours that it took haha), and I love the way he looks on the table. He was the first thing I wanted to play last book and I was so excited to see all the synergy and possibilities he had, but this edition I just can't seem to get excited about trying him out.

Not much purpose outside of meme lists where you take 6 undivided ones and try to generate as many daemon princes as you can. He's a pretty good cheap wizard in a cabalist army I guess. Interesting note, since they made the dual axes 4+/4+ they actually have pretty much the same damage output as the weapon/shield (less if he gets his +1 attack for being near a hero/moster) so there's no reason to take dual axes. No idea why they didn't just leave them 3+/3+and let him be a half decent general fighter. Or make his Glory-Seeker something that benefits mass attacks instead of something that benefits higher quality attacks so he could be a hero hunter. Instead yet again we're left with one option that looks cool but is strictly worse than the other one. You'd think GW would have figured this out by now.

If you want a best-stick specifically I definitely wouldn't go for Be'Lakor. Due to his keywords/mark he has access to precisely 0 buffs from the army (legion of the first prince notwithstanding), and his base stats juts aren't good enough to carry him through. His average damage is about 4-6 against a unit with a 4+ save and all out defense so maybe, just maybe, he'll kill a 5 wound foot hero. If he's a little lucky. If you use all out attack on him then his damage goes up to passable levels but you're a lot better off using it on better units like knights or varanguard. If you're taking him you're taking him to use The Dark Master and that's about it, apart from that ability he's a mediocre monster that usually bounces off his first meaningful combat and dies ingloriously to a unit of chaff since high volume attacks just shred him. Don't get me wrong, he's a beautiful model. A joy to build and paint and perfectly acceptable to play. Just don't buy him thinking you're getting a combat monster like a mawkrusha because you'll be in for a world of disappointment.

Yeah Archaon is in a weird place right now. He's lost all the tools around him that made him really good without much to compensate. It is pretty big he can take slaanesh to run and charge or he can get a 3d6 charge from the spell, but once he gets stuck in he's not going to do a ton of damage against something with decent defenses. So he's fast and extremely resilient, but doesn't hit very hard. He just doesn't really provide anything for the army that you can't get cheaper and better elsewhere. For example a 10 man unit of knights has more wounds at the same save (albeit without the always on ward), is more than fast enough in legion of the first prince or with mark of slaanesh, hits way harder, and is about half the price. Personally I think he's no longer competitively viable. In theory that's fine because you dont need to only play competitive models right? Just play what's fun. The problem is he doesn't look fun anymore either. He lost a ton of his cool rules and a lot of synergy. Basically now he's just a huge bullet sponge that flies around the table being annoying and never dying. That doesn't sound fun for me to play or for my opponent to play against. Also as an aside I'm super annoyed that he can't get marks outside of S2D anymore. I originally bought him before I started slaves because I figured I could always find a use for him in at least one of my armies. Even if he was no good in slaanesh maybe he'd be good in khorne for example. Now without marks though he's essentially faction locked to slaves and it just sucks. I had a little while of him being mediocre but fun in a few armies, then the book came out and he was so overpowered I didn't want to play him because I'd feel bad for my opponent, and now he's just so... bleh and boring that I don't want to play him either.

Yeah the nerf to the shrine is probably my biggest disappointment in the new book. All they needed to do was get rid of the undivided prayer or limit it to only chant/target based on the warshrine mark. They didn't need to go and do all of that AND nerf the rest of the prayers into the ground. +1 to charge for a single khorne unit? Who in their right mind thought that was a valid buff? If it was +1D6 maybe, but as is it's not even worth the risk of maybe taking a mortal wound from rolling a 1, let alone the fact that you could put curse or heal on it instead. It's a shame too because it's a nice big centerpiece model for the army, but someone writing the book must have been done dirty by it in one too many games.

If I were you I'd wait on buying anything until after the book comes out and there's an errata/FAQ on the coalitions. Like @Agent of Chaos said technically the mark system is messed up right now. The current rules for the coalition are based on the old S2D book where the rules for giving marks were on the warscroll, but in the new book they moved over to allegiance abilities for the models and those specifically say that you only get the marks when you're taken in a Slaves to Darkness army. The coalition rules do say that you must give a S2D unit the mark when taken as coalition, but there's no legal way to do that right now. I totally expect them to just change the wording to say something like "2 in every 4 units in the army can be a coalition unit from the Slaves to Darkness faction that has the Mark of Chaos keyword. Those units gain the Khorne keyword" so it matches the beastmen rules, but it's not guaranteed. For example Archaon very specifically doesn't gain marks when added to the god marked armies (he doesn't have the Mark of Chaos keyword and he gains marks based off his warscroll rules, but only in a S2D army), so if they made him not get a mark maybe they'll do the same with the other units. I don't think he'll work particularly well in S2D. He's great in Khorne, but that's because he can easily get +2 attacks on Carnage and he can pile in/attack twice with the sub faction command ability. If you're taking him as an ally in S2D you won't have any ally points to take wrathmongers or the bloodsecrator so no attack boosts and obviously no double pile in. You're pretty much left with a slow, squishy, foot slogging monster that'll do 8 mortal wounds and then just die. Not overly exciting for 380 points.

Hard to say. He got a fair bit more resilient, but he lost a few things around him that pushed him over the top (oracular vision, daemonic power, and the chaos lord fight twice all got nerfed/removed). His turn command ability was also nerfed to once per game and is no longer secret and he lost his eye of sheerian ability for it. Marks also got weaker for him as he was always the general so he always had the full buff. Also lost the bonus command point for some reason. Overall I think it he's definitely gotten weaker, but it remains to be seen if he'll be worth keeping around or not. Personally I'm not overly excited to try him out. Losing most of his interesting/unique tech just makes him seem... kinda boring honestly. Pretty much every change he got was a nerf other than the wounds/ward. He'll be super hard to kill, but his offensive power will suffer as he's prone to whiffing and not doing enough damage without the re-rolls. If you have a good game where you roll well he'll still feel as good as before, but a couple 1's and you'll really start to wonder why you paid 860 points for him. I like the idea of stacking as much as you can into those 8 attacks, but I don't think the Eye of The Gods parts work on him. The Chaotic Conduit spell requires that the target have the EYE OF THE GODS keyword and the prince doesn't have it. Unfortunately the undivided mark only gives it to mortal and ogroid units. Yeah GW seems to have an aversion to making good combat characters in AoS. I tried a daemons army out the other day and ran a daemon prince not expecting much but he absolutely slapped. If you want the most egregious example I can think of look no further than Be'Lakor. In 40k he's an absolute terror, -1 to wound, -1 damage, no rerolling to hit, buffs for units, excellent spells, and his weapon can be either ap -4 damage d3+3 with no invlunerable saves or make twice as many attacks at ap -3 damage 1. Be'lakor in AoS is just such a disappointment combat wise. Better now than he was at the tail end of 2nd edition due to all out attack, but his overall damage output is really depressing. I would have much rather they nerfed/got rid of The Dark Master and leaned more into giving him a good profile.

The thing is the claws 8 attacks are definitely intended for dual claws, I don't think they're just going to give those to the other profiles because then the 2 claw loadout wouldn't make any sense. If they're going to change anything it'll probably be the heroic actions or command traits/artefacts.

I don't know, I think there's definitely some tech there. Maybe not top tier, but they obviously have some place in despoilers. A khorne prince that has the monster/+2 wound trait being 14 wounds with monstrous actions and healing while in combat is super tanky. If they let you take the 'hero only' artefacts/traits then conqueror's crown would combo nicely since he's so hard to kill. Follow him around with a Nurgle prince that has the healing trait and you're pretty much invincible. Sure you probably won't kill a ton, but you should win the attrition game 99% of the time. Also interestingly people have been fawning over karkadraks and chaos lords on daemonic steeds, but the prince compares pretty well to them. He's 25 points more than a lord on steed but he's faster, has fly, has a better attack (no mount though so probably a wash), has more wounds, has a blanket 6+ ward instead of a 5+ only against mortals, and trades the strike first/chain with knights for a unique hero ability that can be pretty powerful in the right circumstance. Compared to the karkadrak he's definitely worse in combat, but again faster and more resilient for 25 points less. In both cases princes have access to much better command traits and, currently, the same artefacts.

Yes, if you watch one of the reviews you can see the infernal treasures are in the 'Artefacts of Power' section of the book. They're on the page immediately after the Trophies of Conquest and Chaos Esoterica. The section is on the Facehammer review around 25:08. I definitely think it has a use in the late game for repositioning the slower troops, but on turn 1 I don't think it'll be very common. Since the unit can't move after being teleported now and the range is only 9" you can usually get similar movement with a run, and if there's a place you absolutely need to be you can always just spend a command point for the auto 6". The only exception I can think of would be taking advantage of a big flaw in my opponent's deployment (like they heavily overweighted one side of the board), but that probably won't come up very often.

One thing I think is getting overlooked for Tzeentch is the ability to move wizards in the hero phase. Taking a couple wizards and letting them reposition to get into range could be really strong, and even if we don't have the best lore we still have access to some good endless spells. I could definitely see a tzeentch sorcerer lord on manticore as a general with Master of Magic being teleported around to land Winds of Chaos. It does suck a bit that Tzeentch does next to nothing for units, but the mark you give your models doesn't have to line up with how they're painted. You can always just paint and convert them up to look how you like and then just give them whatever mark you feel is the most thematic for your force. Got a unit of warriors that prefers to sow change through assassination? Give them mark of Khorne to represent that. Got a unit that has been gifted wings or feathers or a disk of tzeentch? Give them the mark of Slaanesh to represent their increased speed. Tzeentch has gifted your knights with the finest armor? Take the mark of Nurgle to represent the way enemy attacks are mutated to be weaker on contact. All sorts of options as long as you don't get hung up on the technicalities of what's written down on your list.

Got a chance to get a game in so I figured I should share my experience. I ran knights of the empty throne with bounty hunters and a warlord battalion for everything else: Chaos Lord on Manticore 270 - General, Death Dealer trait - Conqueror Crown - Khorne Chaos Lord on Karkadrak 220 - Khorne - Arcane tome, burning blade Chaos Sorcerer lord 120 - binding damnation - Nurgle Bloodstoker 80 10 Knights 460 - Khorne - banner - bounty hunter 5 Knights 230 - Khorne 5 Knights 230 - Khorne Varanguard 290 - Khorne - ensorcelled weapons - bounty hunter Iron golems 100 I was up against a Nurgle army with 4 units of blight kings, two units of plaguebearers, one unit of nurglings, bloab, festus, and a lord of afflictions with the usual kit. Very slow but very tanky and can do a ton of damage on the counter strike. Mission was 'Won't back down'. I won't do a full report but some thoughts: - Knights of the empty throne feels amazing. I was running and charging all the time and it let me dictate my engagements. Of course this was against a footslogging nurgle list so it might be different against something faster, but I really felt in control of the game. It's cool to have a sub faction that opens up a totally different build/way to play. - Chaos Knights feel really amazing now. I don't love hitting on 4's, but they're super tanky and they can absolutely get the job done on the charge. Riders of Doom makes a 10 man unit work pretty much seamlessly and with a couple buffs there's almost nothing that can stop them. They absolutely felt like they should and I'm so happy they got this update. - Eye of the Gods was much more active this game and I got five rolls on it by turn three giving the karkadrak lord +2 rend and the manticore lord a 6+ ward, +1 rend, and a snub. Definitely an improvement from the old system. - It felt really nice to not have to worry about bubbles for the marks anymore. The extra attack on the charge actually made a pretty big impact throughout the game and multi profile units like the karkadrak and manticore just loved it - I was a little worried about the manticore lord but he turned out really solid. Speed 12 with fly and run/charge gave him a huge threat range and his attack profiles are really solid. I kept him back for the first turn then on the second gave him daemonic power and used the bloodstoker to launch him at a bloab sitting 25ish inches away. He proceeded to pretty much one shot bloab, then go on to wreck the backline. Iron-Willed Overlord even came up top of 2 where it turned a redeploy of a 2 into a 6 meaning a unit of blight kings was stranded for the rest of the game. I don't know if I'd take him outside empty throne, but he definitely has a place there - Daemonic Power is still stupid strong, but with the overall buff to the army it didn't hurt as much when I failed to cast it - The bloodstoker is just dumb with the army. Way too strong with Knights of the Empty Throne and I'm sure he won't be in there for long. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the winter errata changes the keywords on the stoker and bloodsecrator to only affect Blades of Khorne units. Enjoy them if you have them but I wouldn't be making any purchases. - On that note, the army definitely felt a bit overtuned. It hits like a truck and even the basic unbuffed 5 man knights were a threat and could pick their engagements very well. I used the speed to put all the pressure on the left flank and just sort of muscled my way through all opposition while retreating from the right. It left the slower force struggling to get any favorable combats in and stranded some units that just couldn't keep up. It was a probably a really bad matchup for the Nurgle player, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few nerfs going forward - Finally, it was so cool putting all that cavalry on the table and it's just night and day how much better this is to play compared to the last book. No worrying about finicky ranges, combos that actually work with no arbitrary restrictions, solid stats that get better with buffs instead of needing buffs to function at a basic level, army rules that were actually used... just so much better. This is a fantastic book.

I think you're ok with spawn in beasts for now. I'm pretty sure they got rid of the shared warscroll thing in third edition when armies started being reckoned by books instead of keywords. Pretty sure the beasts spawn won't change until the beasts book does. Be'lakor is a solid ally. I think he's pretty self contained since most of the slaves buffs are focused on mortals, and that hasn't really changed since he got the new model. Being able to just turn off something like Teclis or Archaon for a turn or two is super strong I've seen him taken in a number of different armies so you should be good to go if you want to run him.

It's not mind blowing, but for 175 points it doesn't really need to be. 16 wounds in despoilers and the top bracket command to really take advantage of that toughness seems pretty sturdy. The attacks aren't crazy good but assuming he kept the +1 to hit for being near his master I think it could do a good amount of damage. Also combining the khorne command for mortals on the charge, a stomp, and being out of range at the end of combat you could put out 3d3 mortals which is pretty solid for a single command point. All things considered I could definitely see taking one in a list.

Ok, that all sounds pretty decent. I was expecting marauders to go down to complete chaff so no surprises there. I'm just glad I only painted up one unit, people who bought 90-120 of them for the current book must be fuming at this point. Too bad about the myrmidon though, no synergy with the theridons should mean they lose out to chosen or varanguard most cases. I'm really happy to hear about the soul grinder though. Their points going down slightly and getting that much better is really intriguing. 230 points for 20 wounds is a pretty good deal by itself and throwing in nurgle would make them reasonably tanky for their cost. I haven't seen the new leaks but I think the biggest problem before was the 4+'s to hit, however now with all out attack and mark of khorne they could really slap. I don't know if I'll buy any as I just hate that the kit doesn't come with a base, but it does make Makes me slightly hopeful the Slaughterbrute/Mutalith Vortex Beast might see some improvements too. Edit: I was thinking more about the marauder horsemen and I'm really liking the change. Five man oval based units are pretty much the only viable screening unit type left in the game, but they're usually too squishy. Incidental ranged attacks can often kill a few models off and open up a charge around the screen. Giving the horsemen a -1 to wound from ranged is a really excellent buff for that screening role and means they might be able to survive long enough to ensure your key units don't get charged. I can definitely see taking one or two units in most lists.

Not a bad thought, but it should be mentioned that the rotmire are the exception not the rule. The majority of cultists were total throwaway units nobody took unless they were proxying for marauders. I'm hopeful that GW figured this out and have them all meaningful updates in the new book but only time will tell. I'd love to start seeing some warbands start making their way to AoS.

1) This is contended because spell lores are part of the allegiance abilities, so the question is whether the warscroll gives them access to the lores despite the fact that the model isn't being taken as part of the allegiance. I think the answer is absolutely yes and they should get the spells since the rule is on the warscroll and warscroll rules win in the case of conflicts (sidebar on section 1.6 of the core rules), but it wouldn't be terrible to get an FAQ to clear it up. 2) Yup, that seems correct assuming that adding the extra dice doesn't count as a modified roll. Also, holy moly I didn't realize that the shrine doesn't specify Slaves to Darkness as a target anymore, just the relevant mark. That makes them really interesting as an ally for Nurgle at least. That +1 to wound would be extremely effective on a number of Nurgle units. Edit: Added clarity on first point

Just a quick thought on this one, based on the images in the preview I'm thinking chosen are still on 32 mil bases. If I remember daemon princes are on 60, then ogroid would probably be 50 and in the pictures the bases look a fair bit smaller than the ogroids, so that would be 32 to me. It's tough to be sure though, but even if they aren't they finally gave them 2" on their weapons so it should be pretty easy to get them all to attack. I agree with your point though, need to get the models on the table and see how things play out. Edit: actually now I'm looking at them again and I'm less sure, they do seem a little small on the base of they're 32mil. You might be right and they're on 40's, still the reach should help but that does make things a bit trickier for 10 man units.

I'm not going to waste a ton of time digging up 3 rules for you, but I'll give you one simple one. Shooting a unit with ranged attacks. In the core rules you pick a unit in section 13.1. Then in 13.1.1 the first line of the second paragraph says: The target of a shooting attack must be within a number of inches of the attacking model equal to the Range characteristic. You don't pick up the target unit and put them into range of your ranged attack. The target doesn't magically change to be in range of the unit because the rule says they must be in range. The rule is saying they must be in range in order to proceed with the attack. Same thing with the coalition rules. There the rule is saying that the unit must be given the Tzeentch keyword, not that they are given the keyword. If they aren't given the keyword then you don't get to take them in your list using the coalition rules.