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I recently got given Archaon as a Birthday present and he's amazing, but he's feeling a bit lonely sitting on my shelf without an army. So I'm considering getting into a force of Everchosen. The imagery of these monstrous, black-clad Knights riding in at night causing death and destruction everywhere, lead by the Marshal of the Apocalypse himself and a gaunt summoner whispering plots and schemes into his ear from the background seems amazingly awesome to me.

Are they good by themselves? I'd probably ally in a unit of Chaos Knights to back them up, but it's still an insanely elite army, and the Varanguard are very pricey money wise, so I wanted to know if they can hold their own before I invest in them.

Cheers

No they are one of the weakest turds in the barrel currently, largely because they are grotesquely overcost in points.

If you are looking to compete with people bringing tournament hotness, this will stain your soul blacker than the blackest black with sadness.

Chaos knights are also largely turds floating down here with Georgie. (IT reference). A mix of them being too expensive plus them doing very little damage. They cannot fulfill their role at all, unless their role is to be a jobber for your opponent and making your opponent look good by killing your guys. I'm hoping the slaves to darkness book, whatever they want to call it, addresses all of this because this is one of my favorite factions and I have to keep them shelved unless I enjoy being crotch kicked for 2 hours.

Give this a read: Masterclass: Darren Watson on Archaon.

The jist being that Archaon is a beast, and amazing at what he does, but the Everchosen, not so much. So back him up with other things!

Here's the list Darren ended up with after several iterations:

Archaon, General, Plague Squall
The Glottkin, Blades of Putrifecation
Lord of Blights, Carrion Dirge
Harbinger of Decay-Witherstave
Festus-Gift of Corruption
40 Marauders with Axes, Shields, Damned Icon
10 Marauders with Axes, Shields, Damned Icon
10 Marauders with Axes, Shields, Damned Icon

He breaks down all the synergies and combos that the list can pull in the article. It's an interesting read, for sure.

Is it the most competitive list out there? No. Nagash + Legions, and Daughters of Khaine sit at the top.

But I think you'll have a lot of fun and it can certainly hold its own!

You'll have to excuse auticus. Hyperbole is his native language. He is right about Everchosen being severely overcosted right now, though. The big rumor is that they're going to be rolled together with Slaves to Darkness and the rumored Darkoath Barbarians later this year, so hopefully their issues are ironed out in that book. Until then, you have a really nice model you can use in semi-casual games.

They aren't totally viable as an army by themselves due to varanguard being sub-par, but Archaon is so strong you could get away with it in casual games.

I still think as a faction they are pretty much the poster boys of what Tier 3 looks like. I don't think there's much argument to be had there.

In casual games anything can be valid. Provided you and your opponent sit down and construct your lists knowing that one of you is going to have a serious handicap. If you reside in any form of even semi-competitive meta though you had better be ok with the losiing end of the game often.

Archaon has all four of the god keywords, so he could be the centre piece of any of the armies that rely on those keywords rather than everchosen.

auticus wrote:
I still think as a faction they are pretty much the poster boys of what Tier 3 looks like. I don't think there's much argument to be had there.

Everchosen is one of those 'not an army' factions; it has 3 units. I think it is unrealistic to judge them as an army because while they can technically be run on their own there is no support or tools to do so. All-troll armies have more to draw from than they do!

I'm more judging the entire slaves to darkness faction as a whole. Archaon and his beautiful yet totally worthless varanguard included.

Archaon is pretty good by himself yes. but a slaves to darkness army is flat out bottom tier even with archaon in it.

I jumped to the entire slaves to darkness faction as OP mentioned chaos knights as well.

Oh, yeah kinda poster boys for tier 3. Most of the units aren't bad but imo they get shafted with really high prices for heroes that are central to making the allegiance work.

I get triggered by StD characters. Why is a chaos lord a 4+!? Come on, a megaboss gets a 3+, stormcast get a 3+, an arch warlock gets a 3+, but not a chaos lord? These guys are supposed to be badass. And don't get me started on the daemon prince; supposed masters of chaos who are only worth 160 pts because they can fly (oh yeah, there's the 'option' to have them with a slower move and no fly but pay for the wings anyways). Speaking of that, a sorcerer lord should not cost that much even when paying for the horse (which is still baked into the cost when using the actual model that is on foot) yeah daemonic power is good but it isn't THAT good. And why is an exalted hero an 80-point wimp!? A loonboss is 70 points and is better. A snobby little goblin hero is apparently a better combatant than the guy who slaughtered countless hundreds over the course of centuries.

Sorry, triggered.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Oh, yeah kinda poster boys for tier 3. Most of the units aren't bad but imo they get shafted with really high prices for heroes that are central to making the allegiance work.

I get triggered by StD characters. Why is a chaos lord a 4+!? Come on, a megaboss gets a 3+, stormcast get a 3+, an arch warlock gets a 3+, but not a chaos lord? These guys are supposed to be badass. And don't get me started on the daemon prince; supposed masters of chaos who are only worth 160 pts because they can fly (oh yeah, there's the 'option' to have them with a slower move and no fly but pay for the wings anyways). Speaking of that, a sorcerer lord should not cost that much even when paying for the horse (which is still baked into the cost when using the actual model that is on foot) yeah daemonic power is good but it isn't THAT good. And why is an exalted hero an 80-point wimp!? A loonboss is 70 points and is better. A snobby little goblin hero is apparently a better combatant than the guy who slaughtered countless hundreds over the course of centuries.

Sorry, triggered.

Old book vs newer books. Slaves to Darkness should put them back on an even playing field.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Oh, yeah kinda poster boys for tier 3. Most of the units aren't bad but imo they get shafted with really high prices for heroes that are central to making the allegiance work.

I get triggered by StD characters. Why is a chaos lord a 4+!? Come on, a megaboss gets a 3+, stormcast get a 3+, an arch warlock gets a 3+, but not a chaos lord? These guys are supposed to be badass. And don't get me started on the daemon prince; supposed masters of chaos who are only worth 160 pts because they can fly (oh yeah, there's the 'option' to have them with a slower move and no fly but pay for the wings anyways). Speaking of that, a sorcerer lord should not cost that much even when paying for the horse (which is still baked into the cost when using the actual model that is on foot) yeah daemonic power is good but it isn't THAT good. And why is an exalted hero an 80-point wimp!? A loonboss is 70 points and is better. A snobby little goblin hero is apparently a better combatant than the guy who slaughtered countless hundreds over the course of centuries.

Sorry, triggered.

The sad reality is that right now, the best way to run Slaves to Darkness is giving them a mark and running them as part of a god-specific allegiance. In that regard, some of the units are actually worth their points.

This is a real shame. I was excited to use non-god specific chaos. I ran Khorne for a while and had hardly any luck with them (in a casual scene! Surely I must've just been unlucky?) and I ended up falling out of their look as well. I much prefer a brooding, evil knight kind of vibe. My friends collect Tzeentch and Nurgle as well, so I'm happy seeing their models through them.

I'll have to just paint him up and have him as an awesome model until his Knights get updated.

Slaves to Darkness are among the safe bets for a battletome this year, so there is reason to be optimistic. Plus if you start them now and then they turn out to be super OP you can claim to have played them before they were cool.

Hmm this is true, but I'm also tight for money. After recently getting a force of Grots, my budget mostly has room for Light Aelves when they eventually come out and a little left for either a small 40k force or something like these guys. So I may wait and save some money until I know I want them.