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Me and a few friends are getting into AOS. We are the types that go all in. Having played a test game with a friends force, I think it will be a fun game. The army choices were tough as many factions have excellent models. I settled on Slaves to Darkness as Chaos undivided has always been appealing. I also wanted access to Archaon. My question is, how does the faction hold up against others. An army of heavily armored multiwound models seems good, but nothing seems to stand above and beyond. The getting started box seems uninspiring. What would I look to add to that box set? A unit of varanguard allies can be used to make a nice hammer unit if slaves are lacking an oomph unit.

Also, I was curious how to use Archaon. He can't be an ally meaning you are just general chaos allegiance? That is of course if you are not Everchosen allegiance which I don't plan to be. Guess what I am looking for is a summary of the faction overall.

I'm also a new player. So, i can't give a great answer.

It's been my experience that AoS is hyper swingy and any faction has a punchers chance against any other faction.

And if you thought models died fast in 40k...

Are you wanting to play competitively or just casually?

Competitively, slaves to darkness is going to be a tough one for you to experience.

Casually - they are a ton of fun and one of my primary factions.

Archaon is a ton of points for what he does and is very inefficient. He's a pretty model, but I haven't seen him on a table in over a year.

I think auticus summed it up pretty well. Slaves to Darkness are a ton of fun to play and have some really cool models, but they aren't going to stand up well against tournament lists. If you're in a casual environment like I am, you'll have a lot of fun with them. And yes. Archaon is a gorgeous model and was a blast to paint, but he's going to take up over a third of your points. I've played him in a couple gimmicky lists, but in most cases, I'd rather have more units on the board.

We have a silent agreement that this is for fun. But we are also tournament 40k players. It will naturally lean towards better performance. Thanks for the feedback so far. Are there specific units or combinations that work will with SoD?

One thing to keep in my is that Slaves to Darkness models can be give Chaos marks and thus be taken with a god-specific army. You could use them to beef up the durability of a Khorne army, for example. A couple units of Bloodreavers for the hammer, a blob of Khorne-marked Chaos Warriors for the anvil.

If you want a pure slaves to darkness army without Archaon get a Sayl the faithless and thirty warrior blob and a manticore lord and Sorcerer lord. All those combine well. You could ally in many different things and combine that with a mark of chaos for extra effects. Like a juggerlord and bloodstoker for example , or nurgle Harbinger of decay, or even Slaanesh lord on daemon steed for attacking twice. I’ve had decent luck at tournaments with that slaves combo. And it all still works with Archaon there and generic Chaos allegiance.

That is good advice, I'll take a look at those characters. Rather disappointed at the rend on the manticore lord. Is it actually good? I don't have experience using it.

The manticore lord is way killier than his statline would have you believe, and he's super tanky with a mark of Nurgle. He's one of my favorite secondary heroes to run any time I have the points left over.

What do you use for your general?

Darkoath Warqueen.

 EnTyme wrote:
Darkoath Warqueen.

I use the Darkoath chieftain havent tried the warqueen yet (but my buddy has a weird creepy cult like group mixing SoD with slaanesh) she calls it "50 shades of chaos", I try to kill it with fire (slayers)

So I got a manticore lord. His first game was rather disappointing after failing 2 rolls to mystical terrain in a row. But pleased in general. The question is with his command ability. It affects a warrior of chaos unit. No one has that keyword. I know that was their old fantasy name for the faction. Does it mean only chaos warriors? Anyone? Or is this Games Workshop QA team at their finest.

Are you looking at the legacy warscroll, or the Slaves to Darkness warscroll? The Slaves warscroll says Chaos Warriors.

On the AOS app it says warriors of chaos. I checked the download on the website however and it is as you say. That's how I played it, but it would be sweet if it affected any slaves unit.

Another newb question related to the army. The fatesworn and other battalions in the Everchosen battletome. If I fill an army of slaves units and utilize these battalions, can I still keep my slaves allegiance. Or do I have to use the chaos allegiance.

Honestly he is not really worth using. The only way i have seen him run semi sucuessfully is in a tzeentzch army, and you give him the spell that lets him pass off wounds on a 2+ to another unit, and you then run a 60 brimstone horror blob and keep passing wounds over to them to make him like a 60+ wound model.

You also take a slaanesh lord of steed to make him attack twice.

Archeon is cool, but overall he is kinda crappy because at 2k points he takes up almost half your army, and have a command ability that really only is useful if you spam units that also have command abilities.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bonachinonin wrote:
Another newb question related to the army. The fatesworn and other battalions in the Everchosen battletome. If I fill an army of slaves units and utilize these battalions, can I still keep my slaves allegiance. Or do I have to use the chaos allegiance.

Yes you can, since the requirement is only like, a god specific keyword and a number of units. IMO the best way to run a slaves army is to run it as another god spicific army, and utilize the slaves units. What i do, is i run a tzeentzch army that uses primarily slaves models with the tzeentzch keyword, but then i get access to all the cool tzeentzch heros and goodies.