Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey guys. So I currently own a large collection of age of sigmar khorne models, nearly enough for a 2k army. However I've found myself not really playing them over the past few months, something about them never really clicked with me and I'm unsure if I want to continue sinking money and time into them. I know Khorne is really strong at the moment, but as someone who prefers to use mortals, the army just seems weirdly complex and confusing for what I get out of it. Like me disliking the demons and summoning aspect is removing a good chunk of my choices in how I play them.

How viable are slaves to darkness by comparison? I've always preferred chaos undivided for the flexibility it brings, but wasnt sure if the army is really useable in its current state.

Slaves to Darkness are in an odd spot right now and are basically looking like they might get the last Battletome for AoS 2.0.

Right now they don't have a Tome, which puts them at a serious disadvantage against a lot of the other armies right now who have tomes, stat updates and new abilities.


In their favour thought:
1) Their christmas battleforce is still up for sale so you can grab a nice chunky core of chaos warriors; knights; manticore and such all for a nice discount from GW or from many of the 3rd party stores (for less).

2) They have got all the new warbands from Warcry - that's 8 (6 currently released) really fantastic sets of miniatures. They also build into AoS really easily because the kits are very dynamic, but offer no varied choices that affect the composition of their AoS version - so you can build them how you like (baring in mind they don't have huge number of options) and they will work without fail in AoS with the same basic core stats (it won't influence your AoS abilities).

3) They have been, on the store page, merged with Everchosen - which makes sense as otherwise Everchosen is just two models - the huge leader on dragon and the varanguard.


Right now I'd say you could start collecting them and use some of the dicounted christmas boxes to get a really solid core of models. However it might well not be until Q1 of next year that you will see them get a Battletome to make the army work. I've heard a few hints that they were supposed to slip in at the end of 2019 but the delay on Sylvanath might have pushed things along by a month or more and thus pushed them into next year. Considering that Slaves are the last army without a Tome it makes sense that GW would have aimed to get them done originally this year - at least then all armies would have a Tome and they'd just have to update a few (Tzeentch, Seraphon, KO) next year.


Model wise its impossible to tel what might be removed when Slaves get updated. If I were a better person I'd say the exalted heroes will go (finecast); the Chaos Chosen "might" go (again they are finecast) and the marauders on foot might also go since the new Warcry Warbands are basically very similar in points and stats. The only diference right now is that Marauders have "Mark of Chaos" on their warscroll whilst the Warcry warbands don't however they do have a new keyword "cultist" and I'm expecting that to be used to replace marks so that GW only has to print the mark details once as an allegiance ability instead of something repeating on every warscroll.


Also note you can keep your Khorne and ally them into Slaves to Darkness so it might be as well to hold onto them and instead steadily expand a slaves collection (which can also ally into Khorne) for now. Spend this time building up a core and then see how thing shape up in a few months.

Note I don't expect to see Chaos warriors or knights replaced; however they are supposed to be the big enemy of Sigmar and that might give GW some justification to updating those older plastic sculpts to be as equals to the newer stormcast. But its REALLY hard to predict that at present as GW is up to their limit on production so a lot of very solid replacements and updates have just not happened in this round of updating Battletomes.

The thing is I can't really describe WHY I don't like the khorne army beyond it just "feeling" wrong when I play them. They seem very messy and complex for a god thats supposedly simple. And because I dislike demons aesthetically I feel like I'm missing a good chunk of the armys potential.

If you enjoy playing, slaves to darkness will make you drop the game. They are bar none the worst rules wise. Od wait to see if they get a book next year.

really? Even with archeon?

 kylesev wrote:
really? Even with archeon?

Archaeon is in the Everchosen, not Slaves unfortunately

Everchosen as a force is also without a tome - basically its just the bad luck of the draw that these forces are left without much at present. However it might not be all bad - Genestealer Cults got left to last in 40K from the main block and they got a fantatsic second wave with Sisters of Battle also getting an utterly amazing one for their forces.

So Slaves coming last might just mean they are getting a big launch - or it might be nothing at all its impossible to say.


For now I'd say splice in the slaves models for variety and use this time to slow grow an army in anticipation of a Battletome drop either at the VERY end of this year or within the first 3 or so months of next year (these are not certain dates there are just my estimations)

Id be very careful about using any legacy models. If it was a whfb model, id avoid spending money on it until after their book drops and you know its still there.

So many burnt on models getting culled from the line. At least know its a possibility that when the book drops youre potentially going to be stuck with models forced into legends status (rules but weak rules and no further support)

 auticus wrote:
Id be very careful about using any legacy models. If it was a whfb model, id avoid spending money on it until after their book drops and you know its still there.

So many burnt on models getting culled from the line. At least know its a possibility that when the book drops youre potentially going to be stuck with models forced into legends status (rules but weak rules and no further support)

I would expect the chaos warriors and knights to be perfectly fine in terms of a model that will remain - it might get an update; might get a base size change but otherwise the model itself should remain. Darkoath leaders; general plastic chaos leaders; the manticore etc.. I would expect to be fairly safe too.

Finecast and Marauders are where I'd be more cautious - esp since I'm sure that the marauders will just get repalced with Warcry warbands instead

Knights and varanguard are to me competing for the same role. Id be very surprised to see chaos knights carried forward.

 auticus wrote:
Knights and varanguard are to me competing for the same role. Id be very surprised to see chaos knights carried forward.

I'd rather see their roles shift or even Chaos knights replace marauder horsemen. To me the Varanguard are elites whilst Chaos knights are expensive as well as present; if they got a points drop and a stat adjustment they can easily provide a supporting cavalry role in the force.

I am with the OP on Khorne Mortals, just never could get a taste for them.

However, I think if you have them, keep the Slaughterpriests and Bloodsecrators, and do what I did, slap together a Brass Despoilers army, or use a bunch of Khorgoraths and 3 units of Fleshounds for battleline. It focuses on extra attacks and hating wizards, both very Khorne things, but has a different more beastly look.

Also, I wouldn't recommend focusing on summoning for Khorne, except maybe late in the game to nab an objective or something. I find the best use of Tithe points is to attack in the hero phase or shut down a key enemy spell if needed.

How about playing a khorne beasts of chaos army? StD are without a doubt the worst army rules/competitively speaking. So if you dont like khorne, dont worry. They are always in high demand and can fetch a decent price on the secondary market (dakka swap shop, reddit miniswap, FB groups, ebay...) Collect an army you like the aesthetic of. StD will get a book.

Also, Archaon CAN lead a StD army. He does unlock varanguard as battleline, so thats neat because they are a strong option. You can add in some StD units you like and bam youve got yourself an army!

Yeah I had the exact same issue with Khorne mortals too and ended up selling them. Really wanted to like them and had a heap but, no matter what I did with them, without daemons they just felt weird to play and never worked for me.

As others have said, StD are not good atm, but they’re almost certainly getting a book later and will be brought back up to speed. But as others have also said, I’d wait to buy anything for them as you never know what might be axed or redone.