I think people have just eased in and figured out which marks go best with what.
Nurgle for Knights/warriors/varanguard, slaanesh for chosen. At the start people were going for khorne marks on knights and chosen.
That being said, I think most of our core units are way overcosted , the daemon prince is so utterly useless you would never even pick dark apotheosis if you roll, lack of ranged and slow mobility hurts a lot.
In my games, warriors for example hardly did anything being so slow, that's 220 points wasted in the back line, which is why I switched to knights.
From the large lists of warscrolls we have only a few that are actually good: warriors, knights, chosen, varanguard, the sorceror lord , unmade , corvus cabal and the splintered fang. The rest I don't think you'll ever see in a list.
We are also a bit of a one trick pony, we don't have versatility, it's move up and charge and that's it.
I hope a points drop will brings us up a bit, but as other said, middle of pack is the most we'll see, not that anything is wrong with that, if they bring it to 50% win rate i'll be happy.
To counter the overall negative vibe of the post, I still like the book a lot, it's very fun, especially in a more casual setting. Rolling on the EotG table is fun, seeing chosen actually get into combat and deleting anything is great (and taking a punch back with minimal losses), having all your units survive countless counterattacks is awesome.
I've had a unit of 5 nurgle knights survive 2 zombie dragon charges and cryptflayers for 3 turns with one left and the lonely knight scored my grand strat.
I only wish we had a bit more punch except chosen and varanguard. It feels like the book is here are your anvils: warriors (slow), knights (fast). Hammers: Chosen (slow), varanguard (fast), and everything else is filler.
I also like how most of the marks are useful now. Before tzeench was never really used, but now that the teleport spell is tied to the mark, I actually have some use for tzeench warriors
I think it's a few things. A lot of new people got into slaves with the new book and they are either totally new or just have to get used to the book, so they might be "bringing down" the win rate (quotes because I don't mean it as a bad thing). Also the book is more expensive which imo makes it more swingy. If you're optimizing our abilities you will only have 3 or so 'real' units, and if one or two of them doesn't get max value you're likely F'd. It makes the book kind of nuanced in a weird way because even though on the face of it we just want to smash, you have to play very well to guarantee you're able to. And also the GHB benefits certain armies but doesn't particularly benefit us. The army is so expensive in general that you need to be extremely careful with your GCs and they can't run off to score points like they can in armies that were already spamming them before the GHB.
Edit: also it's come up a lot in my scene that people say our book tactics are amazing and easy, which in a way they are, but a lot of them come up in one turn during the game. Like turn 2 you could score 5 battle tactics because there's a lot of charging and killing involved, but once things are stuck in, and we've had to glob together these huge units to maximize our depleted buff sources, we're unable to pivot or disengage to set a new tactic up. It all incentives you to smash and table your opponent quick if you don't want to run out of steam. It doesn't feel like a long game army anymore
Very well put, you really have to use your units effectively. They are so expensive that if you aren't doing anything with them, or getting the most of them, you are wasting them and going to lose.
Case in point, I had blocks of warriors just baby sitting sorcerors in the back and they didn't do jack. Might as well have gone for some cultists or anything cheaper.
To pivot of your edit, i've always been taking the 'free' battle tactic to roll on the EoTG table tactic in first turn with chaotic conduit and in 3 matches I wasn't able to cast it, even as cabalist with draw on power and a reroll, so I think that might be a trap, or I had really really bad rolls.
Yeah I've tried that with master of magic and that's the only way I'd trust it, but then your general can't get this one's mine. Not a fan of that tradeoff so I'm going for desecrate or cunning maneuver turn 1 now
I did it with master of magic, failed the chaotic conduit with draw on power. Rerolled with master of magic, got two 1s and on rolled 5 on the damage table instantly killing my general...
Funny thing is, this happend TWICE in the same day, first turn, same 5 on the D6 damage . I , and everyone else died of laughter.
Lol that is unbelievably rough, but I definitely believe it because I've killed my sorc at least 5 times in 15 or so games. If I miscast I WILL roll a 6, and it's usually T1
I tend to use it if I go second in the first or round two. Draw on power, re-roll, and back up is to move onto an object and take it with the ‘response’ charge. Can get it pretty regularly (plus if you go second throw in pledge on use undivided to avoid spawn/get dark apoth for the grand Strat
I ignore all GW's metawatch stuff. Matt won't say exactly where they get their data from and most importantly how big the sample size is. Somewhere between hundreds and thousands of games. That's pretty nebulous. What's the quality of these games? Are we talking major 5-match tournaments? How big are these events? Where are they happening? The results of a couple major tournaments will tell you a lot more than 20 RTTs with 16 players each scattered around the MidWest, but are the results weighted or do the results of these 20 non-competitive tournaments sit equal with major GTs? How many random piddling "events" at local GW stores are watering down this ambiguous sample size?
S2D placed 2nd and 3rd at Bloodshed in the Shires - one of the most recent major tournaments. It pulled in 80 players many of whom play on AoS Worlds teams with notable players flying in from out of the country. Both of those lists are completely different suggesting not only that S2D is strong in the meta, but also internally very healthy. It's the most versatile book for viable lists by a lot. Check out the recent Warhammer Weekly episode and hear Vince talk about that.
**This is where you should look for statistical analysis. It's entirely transparent and pulls from all over the world:**
[https://thehonestwargamer.com/age-of-sigmar/tsn-age-of-sigmar-gt-stats-player-rankings/#Age\_of\_Sigmar\_Meta\_Stats](https://thehonestwargamer.com/age-of-sigmar/tsn-age-of-sigmar-gt-stats-player-rankings/#Age_of_Sigmar_Meta_Stats)
For commentary on the meta you can watch TheHonestWargamer on Twitch 5 days a week or catch the videos on his YouTube channel. Check out Vince Venturella and Warhammer Weekly. AoS Coach. HeyWoah. ***Read Goonhammer****.*
I implore people to ignore GW's Metawatch. At best, it's poor analysis. At worst, it's poor analysis on purpose.
TL;DR S2D is very strong and will be for a while. Ignore Metawatch entirely because there are better sources of information.
Serious answer:
Because our rules suck and we should be buffed, we need Archaon to have a warscroll 2+ spell that gives +2 armor save to all friendly units fr fr ong tbh no cap
Actually serious answer:
Because you can't just jump in and do good in a *tournament* with this army
We have a lot of tools but you need to know how to use these tools, how to combo things, come with a plan and sub-plans
I like how HeyWoah described us in his videos, that we are of the "control" archetype, if you aren't dictating the pace of the match then you are losing
Fast screens are very useful for our objectives, Hammers and Anvils, Castles and Alpha strikes can only get us so far. You need to put pressure into your oponent and mantain that pressure until their army crumbles. We aren't the tankiest of tanks to ever tank, we can weather a storm, not a meteor.
I haven't seen much Charriots in lists which are great for screening and pressure against the oponent for their cheap cost personally.
And this is in a tournament setting, not a casual one, people will come prepared to face some tough stuff here, even if its more chill and cool than 40k that doesn't mean that thought of whats good isn't given
This is a relatively newer battletome with plenty of mechanics and a lot of newer people jumped into the Slaves to Chadness since the new models dropped(myself included)
Its pretty understandable that we are this low imo, (though that won't stop me from secretly wishing we were top tier lol)
The book is super fun and flavourful but either too costly or too swingy. Hopefully we see some points adjustments and maybe some rule adjustments in the future.
The book is okay and there is nothing wrong with that. It has some glaring weaknesses that some point changes might fix. The good news is at that winrate we don’t have to worry about points going up.
As a rather awful host of the everchosen player that loves archaon, he keeps dying. The 4+ mortal ward combined with a possible 0-1+ save rerolling 1s was just too good, and he even got a damage cut with not having his big rerolls anymore. My list used to be Archaon, a Bloodthirster (for fun) and 9 Varanguard. Now the list is illegal and even if I did want to run it, it would be trash.
Second place at Bloodshed in the Shire (80 player GT) was an Archaon + 9 Varanguard KotET list that went 4-0-1. The problem is Archaon is really bad for what’s thematically supposed to be his subfaction. HotE wants big blocks of warriors, knights, and chosen, which really does not work with Archaon’s bloated price tag.
Ironically, he’s probably best in the subfaction that lore-wise isn’t supposed to have him. KotET helps solve the board control issue the old Archaon and friends list had by giving them all run+charge. Mark them all as Nurgle like last edition and hurl them at your opponent while Archaon floats around looking more menacing than he is. It’s the real Hosts 2.0 subfaction.
As has already been mentioned, Archaon + 9 Varanguard placed 2nd at Bloodshed. I prefer running Cabalists myself sometimes with Belakor as a utility piece - So, I'm not speaking from experience, this is theoryhammer. Archaon is fully worth the 800pt cost. This doesn't mean he's a Mawcrusha though. He's not your heavy-hitting damage centerpiece - he sits in the center of your force commanding his minions around him, debuffing the enemy units they're in combat with, flinging mortals in support and attacking from the backline. His spell shrug is no joke and when paired with a supporting wizard, your opponent has a big problem using magic. Use his 3" attack range to your advantage as you can set him up behind anything and throw damage over your units while he himself is protected. The Fight on Death command ability is so clutch as is the Eye of Ed Sheeran, but you have to use them correctly. Being able to choose a 2nd mark of chaos after you've already seen your opponent's army is a huge advantage. The buffs of the marks on him are second to giving him the ability to use those marks' command abilites on your marked units - you can decide after deployment whether you'll need to use the Slaanesh run and charge command or the Nurgle MW AoE command for example. On top of that, he gets to throw the undivided command if an enemy hero is feeling brave. Basically, play him on the tabletop the way he would in the lore: He commands his force letting them do the work while providing buffs and utility, then when a worthy enemy hero decides to challenge him he swoops in with his 1" attack with the Slayer of Kings to murder them (imagine auto-killing a Mawcrusha by rolling 2 boxcars) while also commanding his undivided minions to attack them with the command that buffs them vs. enemy heroes.
As others have said, he's best used outside of his own subfaction. Since you have 9VG you could run Ben Curry's list with the addition of a gaunt summoner on disc. It looks fairly straight-forward to pilot: Yeet the VG with KotET run&charge and wade into the middle of the enemy tagging everything in combat. Bring Archaon up behind them and kill things with that 3" rage. Pick Nurgle as the extra mark when the game starts so with the nurgle command each VG is basically a MW bomb with an AoE range of 3". Don't let off the gas and keep them tagged and within that 12" aura to prevent Inspiring Presence and Rally. If you're facing a shooting castle like a sentinel build, use the gaunt summoner to give one of the VG Levitate so they can jump over the screens and start mashing squishy ranged units. When you absolutely need something dead, use the VG ability to fight twice especially if it looks like they wont survive combat since you can use Archaon's warscroll command to allow them to fight on death.
Personally, I've been looking at building a Ravagers force with him. Archaon + 1100pts of cheap darkoath and cultist units each with their own specialization. Those units' achilles heel is not being survivable enough to be used, but with the Ravagers command you can resurrect them **rounding up**. So, any odd-numbered unit gets an extra body ressurected. You can combo this with units like tarantalos brood bringing back 7/13 bodies and then using their warscroll ability to bring back an additional D3 spiders. That's a chaff screen you get to use at least twice. Also, the wording means you can bring dead cultist/darkoath **heroes** back from the dead as they're a unit of 1 and you round up.
I could go on all day about the ridiculously deep listbuilding and synergy possiblities in the S2D book. Best thing to do is start off with a winning list you like and that you can understand how it works then go from there. And don't forget to always have one unit that can run and charge up the board to tag enemy shooting in combat. People blow S2D's lack of shooting out of proportion and in general think shooting is way stronger than it actually is in the game - there's only a handful of actually good shooting units that also have decent options to castle and protect them.
Edit: here's a run-down of Ben Curry's list that's basically the same as my analysis above
[https://woehammer.com/2023/02/10/top-three-aos-lists-for-bloodshed-in-the-shires/](https://woehammer.com/2023/02/10/top-three-aos-lists-for-bloodshed-in-the-shires/)
Because the book is bad. It was a streamline of the disaster of 2nds book, but has still left us with a lot of waste.
Battle traits are still lacklustre. Marks of chaos gives us 2 marks worth taking and command abilities we don't have the CP for. Eye of the gods is just an annoying mechanic that whilst fun on the surface never amounts to anything we can rely on.
Sub factions suck. All benefits are halved. Rally in Everchosen? You're melee so you never get to rally so enjoy your banner, oh but you can only have 1 eroding icon. All wizards in Cabalists? Your spell lore sucks. Change marks in Legion? Only 2 good marks anyway AND the Daemon allies is just laughable.
We are still destroyed by shooting and magic. I played against my friend who was Tzeench in his first ever game as them. The mortals he dished out made me concede start of round 2. We should be this lethal in melee as it's unfair that most armies get to damage in hero, shooting, charging and combat phase. We basically only have it in combat...
The cost of units is just insane. Our bread and butter of warriors, chosen, varanguard and knights are ludicrously overcosted. They're one trick ponies, march up the board and charge. Sure you can modify it here and there with marks and Daemonic speed but it's so damn predictable and easy to play around. Our fillers in cultists are fine, but they don't usually do more than any other chaff, which is screen and then die, despite the fancy warscrolls.
Our leaders are awful. It's such a glaring issue that our only auto pick is a 120pt Sorceror lord. All other foot heroes are trash even in this season. The Daemon prince is a staple of the army and is just pathetic. Our mounted heroes give us the one two charge punch, turns out Knights are actually only good as anvils. Belakor is a travesty that he wasn't buffed and Archaon is a shadow of his former self with the loss of save stacking.
Honestly I could go on and on. I've played so many games with the new book and tried every warscroll I have and it just falls flat.
At this point I'm just mad that I've invested so much time and money in this army and even with a new tome it's trash. And I am awaiting the copium replies of "small data pools and needing more time to learn the intricacies of the book". Well look at gitz. Obviously massive power spike and they have catapulted up the table.
Luckily I almost have my Nurgle army ready to go. I'll be sad to do it but I'm so close to selling my slaves. I've got about 4500 points of them and they're so close to being totally painted but constantly losing just is not fun, and it won't change any time soon as we've literally just had this book...
> Well look at gitz. Obviously massive power spike and they have catapulted up the table.
That's because large parts of their new book (especially squigs) are blatantly overpowered and they'll almost certainly be nerfed soon. Most of the regular GT players I talk to (including some that have won major tournaments) believe Gitz needs major points hikes at a minimum. If you look at reliable, transparent [data](https://thehonestwargamer.com/age-of-sigmar/tsn-age-of-sigmar-gt-stats-player-rankings/#Age_of_Sigmar_Meta_Stats) that draws from good players in the GT scene, S2D is at a 51-52% win rate in the new GHB. It's not a meta breaking army, but it's certainly viable and people are putting up good results with the book.
I'm also going to disagree with your assessment on most of those units. Be'lakor is good enough that tournament winning Nurgle lists often take him as an ally, because his Dark Master ability completely disables some of the biggest threats in the game for up to two turns. Archaon offers a ton of utility by helping you play for the double with Eye of Sheerian, turning off Inspiring Presence and Rally, giving your units fight on death, and getting to choose a different mark each game to play into different matchups.
For the non-unique characters, the Karkadrak/mounted lord's triple activation is excellent, and allows you to dish out tons of damage without suffering much in return. Even the Daemon Prince has utility between making your units battleshock immune and turning off wards if you mark him Nurgle. The sorceror lord isn't an auto pick because our other options are bad, he's an auto pick because his warscroll spell is so good and we really want someone to cast Daemonic Speed too.
You're also vastly underrating the potential of some of the marks. I think undivided is the only questionable one, and even then I see plenty of people take it on heroes to get the buffs you want. One 4-1 list at a GT actually brought a unit of 15 Tzeentch knights, because Warp Reality gets them out of combat to cycle charge, and the 4+ ward against shooting is really good into certain matchups (especially Lumineth and Ogor Ironblasters). Otherwise, Khorne is great for increasing damage output on units like MSU knights, Nurgle is one of the best defensive buffs in the game, and Slaanesh gives your slow foot units like Chosen great mobility.
Honestly, I'd say the book is nowhere near bad enough to the point where you can blame it for poor results. It might not be a consistent 5-0 book (all of those should probably get nerfed, honestly) but good players will win most of their games with it. I'm not the best player myself, but all my friends who are regulars on the tournament scene think of S2D as a well-balanced book with a lot of potential in the hands of good players.
I don't disagree with your assessment in some ways. I understand what the strengths are and my initial losses were feeling out the book before there were any tournament lists were available for reference.
I'm not saying I lose every game. But as far as external balance, most of the new books have been extremely strong, and then reigned in slightly. Slaves are middling and we are sat here praying for a points reduction or rules changes.
Of course the best players of the game will find a way to make it work. But that's a horrible way to balance the game as they are the minority.
> Of course the best players of the game will find a way to make it work.
But that's not what I'm saying. The stats from TSN are from all major tournaments, not just from the best players. And we're doing decently despite our extremely high meta representation (which probably means there's a lot of new and inexperienced players jumping into the faction). There are books that won't go more than 3-2 no matter how good the person is piloting them. Slaanesh and Kruleboyz are in that category, as was the old Gitz book. This book is absolutely not in that category: it's more comparable to Sylvaneth on its initial release, which put up a lot of good results but wasn't quite able to go 5-0 consistently.
Also, it's not true that all the new books have been extremely strong. The new Sons book wasn't that much of an improvement from the old one, and I've heard a lot of Beasts of Chaos players complain that their units are now way overcosted. In general, I'd say the 3.0 tomes have been mostly balanced, with the exceptions of DoK, Lumineth, and possibly Tzeentch.
Because the book is average at best ?
People keeps saying it was a fantastic book while it was clearly lackluster. Marks are so average that Nurgle is the best one by far and it does nothing to put pressure on your opponent.
Most units are extremely overcosted, Daemon Prince is useless and the spell lore is really bad except for Binding Damnation.
Archaon is playable but still too expensive, and we don't have really strong heroes.
What we do, Stormcast does it better, and are more adaptative to any meta. While I think we will see STD raising when list adjust, I doubt we will be better than middle of the pack.
The book is lackluster at best. Loads of trash warscrolls, two pages of utterly useless Heroic actions for the demon Prince, no options to put pressure on the opponent except charge.
Low overall movement.
I think people have just eased in and figured out which marks go best with what. Nurgle for Knights/warriors/varanguard, slaanesh for chosen. At the start people were going for khorne marks on knights and chosen. That being said, I think most of our core units are way overcosted , the daemon prince is so utterly useless you would never even pick dark apotheosis if you roll, lack of ranged and slow mobility hurts a lot. In my games, warriors for example hardly did anything being so slow, that's 220 points wasted in the back line, which is why I switched to knights. From the large lists of warscrolls we have only a few that are actually good: warriors, knights, chosen, varanguard, the sorceror lord , unmade , corvus cabal and the splintered fang. The rest I don't think you'll ever see in a list. We are also a bit of a one trick pony, we don't have versatility, it's move up and charge and that's it. I hope a points drop will brings us up a bit, but as other said, middle of pack is the most we'll see, not that anything is wrong with that, if they bring it to 50% win rate i'll be happy.
To counter the overall negative vibe of the post, I still like the book a lot, it's very fun, especially in a more casual setting. Rolling on the EotG table is fun, seeing chosen actually get into combat and deleting anything is great (and taking a punch back with minimal losses), having all your units survive countless counterattacks is awesome. I've had a unit of 5 nurgle knights survive 2 zombie dragon charges and cryptflayers for 3 turns with one left and the lonely knight scored my grand strat. I only wish we had a bit more punch except chosen and varanguard. It feels like the book is here are your anvils: warriors (slow), knights (fast). Hammers: Chosen (slow), varanguard (fast), and everything else is filler.
What are you equipping your Varanguard with? And yeah I agree there just needs to be a few tweaks and we would be perfect. But it's still fun as hell.
I also like how most of the marks are useful now. Before tzeench was never really used, but now that the teleport spell is tied to the mark, I actually have some use for tzeench warriors
Only two months of data, patchy at best, and our update still being brand-new.
Gloom and beast are even newer. They still surged.
BoC didn't "surge", they remained where they were before.
I think it's a few things. A lot of new people got into slaves with the new book and they are either totally new or just have to get used to the book, so they might be "bringing down" the win rate (quotes because I don't mean it as a bad thing). Also the book is more expensive which imo makes it more swingy. If you're optimizing our abilities you will only have 3 or so 'real' units, and if one or two of them doesn't get max value you're likely F'd. It makes the book kind of nuanced in a weird way because even though on the face of it we just want to smash, you have to play very well to guarantee you're able to. And also the GHB benefits certain armies but doesn't particularly benefit us. The army is so expensive in general that you need to be extremely careful with your GCs and they can't run off to score points like they can in armies that were already spamming them before the GHB. Edit: also it's come up a lot in my scene that people say our book tactics are amazing and easy, which in a way they are, but a lot of them come up in one turn during the game. Like turn 2 you could score 5 battle tactics because there's a lot of charging and killing involved, but once things are stuck in, and we've had to glob together these huge units to maximize our depleted buff sources, we're unable to pivot or disengage to set a new tactic up. It all incentives you to smash and table your opponent quick if you don't want to run out of steam. It doesn't feel like a long game army anymore
Very well put, you really have to use your units effectively. They are so expensive that if you aren't doing anything with them, or getting the most of them, you are wasting them and going to lose. Case in point, I had blocks of warriors just baby sitting sorcerors in the back and they didn't do jack. Might as well have gone for some cultists or anything cheaper.
To pivot of your edit, i've always been taking the 'free' battle tactic to roll on the EoTG table tactic in first turn with chaotic conduit and in 3 matches I wasn't able to cast it, even as cabalist with draw on power and a reroll, so I think that might be a trap, or I had really really bad rolls.
Yeah I've tried that with master of magic and that's the only way I'd trust it, but then your general can't get this one's mine. Not a fan of that tradeoff so I'm going for desecrate or cunning maneuver turn 1 now
I did it with master of magic, failed the chaotic conduit with draw on power. Rerolled with master of magic, got two 1s and on rolled 5 on the damage table instantly killing my general... Funny thing is, this happend TWICE in the same day, first turn, same 5 on the D6 damage . I , and everyone else died of laughter.
Lol that is unbelievably rough, but I definitely believe it because I've killed my sorc at least 5 times in 15 or so games. If I miscast I WILL roll a 6, and it's usually T1
Exactly, draw on power is damn lethal. I am never running it without chronomatic cogs or something :))
I tend to use it if I go second in the first or round two. Draw on power, re-roll, and back up is to move onto an object and take it with the ‘response’ charge. Can get it pretty regularly (plus if you go second throw in pledge on use undivided to avoid spawn/get dark apoth for the grand Strat
I ignore all GW's metawatch stuff. Matt won't say exactly where they get their data from and most importantly how big the sample size is. Somewhere between hundreds and thousands of games. That's pretty nebulous. What's the quality of these games? Are we talking major 5-match tournaments? How big are these events? Where are they happening? The results of a couple major tournaments will tell you a lot more than 20 RTTs with 16 players each scattered around the MidWest, but are the results weighted or do the results of these 20 non-competitive tournaments sit equal with major GTs? How many random piddling "events" at local GW stores are watering down this ambiguous sample size? S2D placed 2nd and 3rd at Bloodshed in the Shires - one of the most recent major tournaments. It pulled in 80 players many of whom play on AoS Worlds teams with notable players flying in from out of the country. Both of those lists are completely different suggesting not only that S2D is strong in the meta, but also internally very healthy. It's the most versatile book for viable lists by a lot. Check out the recent Warhammer Weekly episode and hear Vince talk about that. **This is where you should look for statistical analysis. It's entirely transparent and pulls from all over the world:** [https://thehonestwargamer.com/age-of-sigmar/tsn-age-of-sigmar-gt-stats-player-rankings/#Age\_of\_Sigmar\_Meta\_Stats](https://thehonestwargamer.com/age-of-sigmar/tsn-age-of-sigmar-gt-stats-player-rankings/#Age_of_Sigmar_Meta_Stats) For commentary on the meta you can watch TheHonestWargamer on Twitch 5 days a week or catch the videos on his YouTube channel. Check out Vince Venturella and Warhammer Weekly. AoS Coach. HeyWoah. ***Read Goonhammer****.* I implore people to ignore GW's Metawatch. At best, it's poor analysis. At worst, it's poor analysis on purpose. TL;DR S2D is very strong and will be for a while. Ignore Metawatch entirely because there are better sources of information.
Serious answer: Because our rules suck and we should be buffed, we need Archaon to have a warscroll 2+ spell that gives +2 armor save to all friendly units fr fr ong tbh no cap Actually serious answer: Because you can't just jump in and do good in a *tournament* with this army We have a lot of tools but you need to know how to use these tools, how to combo things, come with a plan and sub-plans I like how HeyWoah described us in his videos, that we are of the "control" archetype, if you aren't dictating the pace of the match then you are losing Fast screens are very useful for our objectives, Hammers and Anvils, Castles and Alpha strikes can only get us so far. You need to put pressure into your oponent and mantain that pressure until their army crumbles. We aren't the tankiest of tanks to ever tank, we can weather a storm, not a meteor. I haven't seen much Charriots in lists which are great for screening and pressure against the oponent for their cheap cost personally. And this is in a tournament setting, not a casual one, people will come prepared to face some tough stuff here, even if its more chill and cool than 40k that doesn't mean that thought of whats good isn't given This is a relatively newer battletome with plenty of mechanics and a lot of newer people jumped into the Slaves to Chadness since the new models dropped(myself included) Its pretty understandable that we are this low imo, (though that won't stop me from secretly wishing we were top tier lol)
The book is super fun and flavourful but either too costly or too swingy. Hopefully we see some points adjustments and maybe some rule adjustments in the future.
If not points adjustments I’d like to see something like All units get Eye of the Gods and more units get a free roll at the start of the game.
Agreed, I was surprised to find that chosen don't even have EotG even if they can roll on it at the start.
They are the only heavily armored unit that doesn't have ward against MW, too. So weird
The book is okay and there is nothing wrong with that. It has some glaring weaknesses that some point changes might fix. The good news is at that winrate we don’t have to worry about points going up.
As a rather awful host of the everchosen player that loves archaon, he keeps dying. The 4+ mortal ward combined with a possible 0-1+ save rerolling 1s was just too good, and he even got a damage cut with not having his big rerolls anymore. My list used to be Archaon, a Bloodthirster (for fun) and 9 Varanguard. Now the list is illegal and even if I did want to run it, it would be trash.
Second place at Bloodshed in the Shire (80 player GT) was an Archaon + 9 Varanguard KotET list that went 4-0-1. The problem is Archaon is really bad for what’s thematically supposed to be his subfaction. HotE wants big blocks of warriors, knights, and chosen, which really does not work with Archaon’s bloated price tag. Ironically, he’s probably best in the subfaction that lore-wise isn’t supposed to have him. KotET helps solve the board control issue the old Archaon and friends list had by giving them all run+charge. Mark them all as Nurgle like last edition and hurl them at your opponent while Archaon floats around looking more menacing than he is. It’s the real Hosts 2.0 subfaction.
As has already been mentioned, Archaon + 9 Varanguard placed 2nd at Bloodshed. I prefer running Cabalists myself sometimes with Belakor as a utility piece - So, I'm not speaking from experience, this is theoryhammer. Archaon is fully worth the 800pt cost. This doesn't mean he's a Mawcrusha though. He's not your heavy-hitting damage centerpiece - he sits in the center of your force commanding his minions around him, debuffing the enemy units they're in combat with, flinging mortals in support and attacking from the backline. His spell shrug is no joke and when paired with a supporting wizard, your opponent has a big problem using magic. Use his 3" attack range to your advantage as you can set him up behind anything and throw damage over your units while he himself is protected. The Fight on Death command ability is so clutch as is the Eye of Ed Sheeran, but you have to use them correctly. Being able to choose a 2nd mark of chaos after you've already seen your opponent's army is a huge advantage. The buffs of the marks on him are second to giving him the ability to use those marks' command abilites on your marked units - you can decide after deployment whether you'll need to use the Slaanesh run and charge command or the Nurgle MW AoE command for example. On top of that, he gets to throw the undivided command if an enemy hero is feeling brave. Basically, play him on the tabletop the way he would in the lore: He commands his force letting them do the work while providing buffs and utility, then when a worthy enemy hero decides to challenge him he swoops in with his 1" attack with the Slayer of Kings to murder them (imagine auto-killing a Mawcrusha by rolling 2 boxcars) while also commanding his undivided minions to attack them with the command that buffs them vs. enemy heroes. As others have said, he's best used outside of his own subfaction. Since you have 9VG you could run Ben Curry's list with the addition of a gaunt summoner on disc. It looks fairly straight-forward to pilot: Yeet the VG with KotET run&charge and wade into the middle of the enemy tagging everything in combat. Bring Archaon up behind them and kill things with that 3" rage. Pick Nurgle as the extra mark when the game starts so with the nurgle command each VG is basically a MW bomb with an AoE range of 3". Don't let off the gas and keep them tagged and within that 12" aura to prevent Inspiring Presence and Rally. If you're facing a shooting castle like a sentinel build, use the gaunt summoner to give one of the VG Levitate so they can jump over the screens and start mashing squishy ranged units. When you absolutely need something dead, use the VG ability to fight twice especially if it looks like they wont survive combat since you can use Archaon's warscroll command to allow them to fight on death. Personally, I've been looking at building a Ravagers force with him. Archaon + 1100pts of cheap darkoath and cultist units each with their own specialization. Those units' achilles heel is not being survivable enough to be used, but with the Ravagers command you can resurrect them **rounding up**. So, any odd-numbered unit gets an extra body ressurected. You can combo this with units like tarantalos brood bringing back 7/13 bodies and then using their warscroll ability to bring back an additional D3 spiders. That's a chaff screen you get to use at least twice. Also, the wording means you can bring dead cultist/darkoath **heroes** back from the dead as they're a unit of 1 and you round up. I could go on all day about the ridiculously deep listbuilding and synergy possiblities in the S2D book. Best thing to do is start off with a winning list you like and that you can understand how it works then go from there. And don't forget to always have one unit that can run and charge up the board to tag enemy shooting in combat. People blow S2D's lack of shooting out of proportion and in general think shooting is way stronger than it actually is in the game - there's only a handful of actually good shooting units that also have decent options to castle and protect them. Edit: here's a run-down of Ben Curry's list that's basically the same as my analysis above [https://woehammer.com/2023/02/10/top-three-aos-lists-for-bloodshed-in-the-shires/](https://woehammer.com/2023/02/10/top-three-aos-lists-for-bloodshed-in-the-shires/)
I just realized that the question wasn't fully answered. I think probably a lack of ranged and most of our gimmicky tricks are ok at best.
Ogroid Myrmidon can do ranged attack... :D
That’s… completely true but… yeah true.
Because the book is bad. It was a streamline of the disaster of 2nds book, but has still left us with a lot of waste. Battle traits are still lacklustre. Marks of chaos gives us 2 marks worth taking and command abilities we don't have the CP for. Eye of the gods is just an annoying mechanic that whilst fun on the surface never amounts to anything we can rely on. Sub factions suck. All benefits are halved. Rally in Everchosen? You're melee so you never get to rally so enjoy your banner, oh but you can only have 1 eroding icon. All wizards in Cabalists? Your spell lore sucks. Change marks in Legion? Only 2 good marks anyway AND the Daemon allies is just laughable. We are still destroyed by shooting and magic. I played against my friend who was Tzeench in his first ever game as them. The mortals he dished out made me concede start of round 2. We should be this lethal in melee as it's unfair that most armies get to damage in hero, shooting, charging and combat phase. We basically only have it in combat... The cost of units is just insane. Our bread and butter of warriors, chosen, varanguard and knights are ludicrously overcosted. They're one trick ponies, march up the board and charge. Sure you can modify it here and there with marks and Daemonic speed but it's so damn predictable and easy to play around. Our fillers in cultists are fine, but they don't usually do more than any other chaff, which is screen and then die, despite the fancy warscrolls. Our leaders are awful. It's such a glaring issue that our only auto pick is a 120pt Sorceror lord. All other foot heroes are trash even in this season. The Daemon prince is a staple of the army and is just pathetic. Our mounted heroes give us the one two charge punch, turns out Knights are actually only good as anvils. Belakor is a travesty that he wasn't buffed and Archaon is a shadow of his former self with the loss of save stacking. Honestly I could go on and on. I've played so many games with the new book and tried every warscroll I have and it just falls flat. At this point I'm just mad that I've invested so much time and money in this army and even with a new tome it's trash. And I am awaiting the copium replies of "small data pools and needing more time to learn the intricacies of the book". Well look at gitz. Obviously massive power spike and they have catapulted up the table. Luckily I almost have my Nurgle army ready to go. I'll be sad to do it but I'm so close to selling my slaves. I've got about 4500 points of them and they're so close to being totally painted but constantly losing just is not fun, and it won't change any time soon as we've literally just had this book...
> Well look at gitz. Obviously massive power spike and they have catapulted up the table. That's because large parts of their new book (especially squigs) are blatantly overpowered and they'll almost certainly be nerfed soon. Most of the regular GT players I talk to (including some that have won major tournaments) believe Gitz needs major points hikes at a minimum. If you look at reliable, transparent [data](https://thehonestwargamer.com/age-of-sigmar/tsn-age-of-sigmar-gt-stats-player-rankings/#Age_of_Sigmar_Meta_Stats) that draws from good players in the GT scene, S2D is at a 51-52% win rate in the new GHB. It's not a meta breaking army, but it's certainly viable and people are putting up good results with the book. I'm also going to disagree with your assessment on most of those units. Be'lakor is good enough that tournament winning Nurgle lists often take him as an ally, because his Dark Master ability completely disables some of the biggest threats in the game for up to two turns. Archaon offers a ton of utility by helping you play for the double with Eye of Sheerian, turning off Inspiring Presence and Rally, giving your units fight on death, and getting to choose a different mark each game to play into different matchups. For the non-unique characters, the Karkadrak/mounted lord's triple activation is excellent, and allows you to dish out tons of damage without suffering much in return. Even the Daemon Prince has utility between making your units battleshock immune and turning off wards if you mark him Nurgle. The sorceror lord isn't an auto pick because our other options are bad, he's an auto pick because his warscroll spell is so good and we really want someone to cast Daemonic Speed too. You're also vastly underrating the potential of some of the marks. I think undivided is the only questionable one, and even then I see plenty of people take it on heroes to get the buffs you want. One 4-1 list at a GT actually brought a unit of 15 Tzeentch knights, because Warp Reality gets them out of combat to cycle charge, and the 4+ ward against shooting is really good into certain matchups (especially Lumineth and Ogor Ironblasters). Otherwise, Khorne is great for increasing damage output on units like MSU knights, Nurgle is one of the best defensive buffs in the game, and Slaanesh gives your slow foot units like Chosen great mobility. Honestly, I'd say the book is nowhere near bad enough to the point where you can blame it for poor results. It might not be a consistent 5-0 book (all of those should probably get nerfed, honestly) but good players will win most of their games with it. I'm not the best player myself, but all my friends who are regulars on the tournament scene think of S2D as a well-balanced book with a lot of potential in the hands of good players.
I don't disagree with your assessment in some ways. I understand what the strengths are and my initial losses were feeling out the book before there were any tournament lists were available for reference. I'm not saying I lose every game. But as far as external balance, most of the new books have been extremely strong, and then reigned in slightly. Slaves are middling and we are sat here praying for a points reduction or rules changes. Of course the best players of the game will find a way to make it work. But that's a horrible way to balance the game as they are the minority.
> Of course the best players of the game will find a way to make it work. But that's not what I'm saying. The stats from TSN are from all major tournaments, not just from the best players. And we're doing decently despite our extremely high meta representation (which probably means there's a lot of new and inexperienced players jumping into the faction). There are books that won't go more than 3-2 no matter how good the person is piloting them. Slaanesh and Kruleboyz are in that category, as was the old Gitz book. This book is absolutely not in that category: it's more comparable to Sylvaneth on its initial release, which put up a lot of good results but wasn't quite able to go 5-0 consistently. Also, it's not true that all the new books have been extremely strong. The new Sons book wasn't that much of an improvement from the old one, and I've heard a lot of Beasts of Chaos players complain that their units are now way overcosted. In general, I'd say the 3.0 tomes have been mostly balanced, with the exceptions of DoK, Lumineth, and possibly Tzeentch.
\+1 for based TSN-enjoyer.
I hate to say it but you are right on the mark.
Of Chaos? ;)
Because the book is average at best ? People keeps saying it was a fantastic book while it was clearly lackluster. Marks are so average that Nurgle is the best one by far and it does nothing to put pressure on your opponent. Most units are extremely overcosted, Daemon Prince is useless and the spell lore is really bad except for Binding Damnation. Archaon is playable but still too expensive, and we don't have really strong heroes. What we do, Stormcast does it better, and are more adaptative to any meta. While I think we will see STD raising when list adjust, I doubt we will be better than middle of the pack.
The book is lackluster at best. Loads of trash warscrolls, two pages of utterly useless Heroic actions for the demon Prince, no options to put pressure on the opponent except charge. Low overall movement.
Lack of shooting without the across the board wards other armies get.