Following on from Danny and Phil’s excellent chat about the new Slaves to Darkness Battletome, we thought it would be great to give you an option for a beginners army based on the new Vanguard: Slaves to Darkness.
Vanguard: Slaves to Darkness
This new boxed set priced at £85 through Games Workshop comes with 17 models in total to give you an (almost) complete beginners army. I say almost, the total points in this set amounts to 680 points.
Included in the box you have:
- 1x Chaos Lord (115 points)
- 10x Chaos Warriors (220 points)
- 5x Chaos Knights (230 points)
- 1x Gorebeast Chariot (115 points)
But we want a full 1,000 point army that we can start playing with, so to add to the above I’d possibly look at buying a Chaos Sorcerer Lord, a Darkoath Warqueen and a set of Darkoath Savagers.
What will it all cost?
- Battletome: Slaves to Darkness £32.50
- Vanguard: Slaves to Darkness £85
- Darkoath Warqueen £21
- Darkoath Savagers £35
That’s total of £173.50 at Games Workshop prices for everything you need to play at 1,000 points with Slaves to Darkness.
You can of course get these cheaper through your local retailers. Element Games in the UK offer between 15-25% off on these prices. Why not use our affiliate link below to start your army today?
The List
Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness
– Subfaction: Host of the Everchosen
LEADERS
Chaos Lord (115)
– General
– Mark of Nurgle
– Reaperblade and Daemonbound Steel
– Command Trait: Death Dealer
– Artefact: Hellfire Sword (Reaperblade)
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)
– Mark of Nurgle
– Lore of the Damned: Daemonic Speed
Darkoath Warqueen (100)
BATTLELINE
10x Chaos Warriors (220)
– Mark of Nurgle
– Murderous Weapons
– Retinue
5x Chaos Knights (230)
– Mark of Nurgle
– Cursed Flail
– Ensorcelled Banner: The Eroding Icon
10x Darkoath Savagers (100)
OTHER
1x Gorebeast Chariot (115)
– Mark of Khorne
– Lashing Whip & Chaos War-Flail
TOTAL POINTS: 1000/1000
This army is tough! and it has fast elements which can also pin units in place while you bring your Chaos Warriors and Darkoath Savagers to bear. We’ve gone for Host of the Everchosen as our subfaction, this will allow us to bring back slain models on 5+ instead of 6+ with our rally ability. This only applies to the Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights, but these two units with the Mark of Nurgle are already going to be blighters to shift anyway, this will just make it even harder for our oppposition!
How it could play
Chaos Lord
Our general for this particular list. He’s tough and hits like a hammer. Giving him the Mark of Nurgle means the enemy have to subtract 1 from their wound rolls that target him when using melee weapons. It also gives him the ability to use the Command Ability: Bestow Contagion. This will allow our other Nurgle Marked units (Chaos Warriors and Knights) a chance to cause D3 mortal wounds to enemy units within 3″ on a 3+.
We’ve got Death Dealer as our Command Trait, and this will allow our General to fight for a second time in the fight phase once per battle. Admittedly it’s with the Strike-last effect, but even so, well worth having.
With Chaos Lords you’re also allowed to choose a retinue which you can pass wounds off to on a 3+ (the reasons for this shown in the Chaos Warriors section), for this I’ve chosen the Chaos Warriors, as really he should be sticking to them like glue throughout the game. The other benefit from being retinue is they can fight immediately after our Chaos Lord if they haven’t fought yet. Essentially giving you two fight activations for the price of one!
As an artefact, I’ve gone for Hellfire Sword, which will allow our Reaperblade to cause two mortal wounds for each hit roll of 6.
Giving him the Reaperblade and Daemonbound Steel does mean that the damage output is slightly better than that of the Daemonbound Flail when you also take into account the mortal wounds caused by Hellfire Sword:
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Reaperblade | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Daemonbound Steel | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
TOTAL | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Daemonbound War-Flail | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Chaos Sorcerer Lord
This lovely fellow is a good buff to your forces. He’s a single cast and single unbind wizard which isn’t anything to write home about, but what he does provide is his spell Daemonic Power. With a casting value of 6 and a range of 18″ it should be fairly easy to cast each turn, and when you do you’ll be able to give ANY of your other units in this list +1 to hit and +1 to wound for their melee attacks. That’s nothing to be sniffed at!
As well as this he can give a 6+ ward to one of your other units in this list until the next hero phase. Hopefully you’re starting to see the tankiness of those Chaos Warriors now with their Mark of Nurgle (-1 to wound them) and a 5+ Ward Save against mortals and 6+ Ward against everything else.
Darkoath Warqueen
I absolutely love this model, which is mainly why I’ve chosen it (never discount rule of cool!). Like the Chaos Lord, this unit can allow the Darkoath Savagers to fight immediately after herself (as long as they haven’t already fought), another twofer!
She has an ability where if issuing the inspiring presence command while inside the enemy territory she can give it up to 2 Darkoath or Cultist units. We only have one for this list, but perhaps consider buying one of those awesome Warcry warbands when you look to expand to 2k?
Chaos Warriors
The first of our three battleline units. Keep these near your Chaos Lord so that they can benefit from the Retinue rule and fight immediately after the Chaos Lord in the fight phase.
With a 3+ save, a 5+ ward against mortals and a 6+ ward against everything else using the Chaos Sorcerer Lords Oracular Visions, AND the ability to have slain models return from the rally command on 5+, this unit is going to take A LOT of punishment before it goes away! In fact they would need an average of 72 damage from zero rend weapons to be allocated to them before saves, for the enemy to have a chance of destroying them.
By getting the Chaos Sorcerer Lord to cast Daemonic Power on them as well you’ll soon see their average damage output after saves is not to be ignored:
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Murderous Weapons | 14 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 7 | 5 |
Murderous Weapons (Enemy Territory)* | 21 | 21 | 18 | 14 | 11 | 7 |
Darkoath Savagers
Another unit I absolutely love. These guys have an added benefit of causing mortal wounds on hit rolls of 6 when in combat. This is the perfect unit to try and take objectives with, because if you manage to claim one previously held by the enemy then this unit will get a 5+ ward save until the end of the game. They won’t stand up to much punishment though, so if you’re going to commit them make sure you can win!
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Darkoath Weapons | 8 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
Chaos Knights
Another tanky unit. They also benefit from the 5+ ward save against mortal wounds. We’re also giving them Mark of Nurgle (who is Mark anyway?) so the enemy is at -1 on their to wound rolls.
These guys are quick as well, we’ve given our Chaos Sorcerer Lord the spell Daemonic Speed. This will allow to roll 3D6 for their charge rolls when within 18″.
We’ve also chosen to give these chaps The Eroding Icon Ensorcelled Banner, this will worsen the rend of melee weapons used against them by 1, making them even harder to kill!
You’ll want these guys quickly claiming objectives and tying up units you want to hold in place ready for your Chaos Warriors to pummel.
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cursed Land (Charging) | 8 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 4 |
Cursed Lane* | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Cursed Flail* | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Trampling Hooves* | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
TOTAL* | 10 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
Gorebeast Chariot
Another flanker unit for our army. We’ve given this the Mark of Khorne which allows us to add 1 to the attacks of its melee weapons when it charges.
Don’t forget that at the end of the combat phase it can make a normal move even if still within 3″ of the enemy. If it does so, it can cross across models with wound characteristics of 4 or less as though it can fly. If you do so, pick a unit that this model passed over and roll a dice, on 3+ that enemy suffers D6 mortal wounds! You’ll probably do an average of 3 or 4 mortal wounds… And it only costs 115 points! Bargain!
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lashing Whip | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Chaos War-Flail | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Crushing Fists | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
TOTAL | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
Where to go next?
Everything in this book looks cool and you certainly couldn’t go wrong by possibly buying a second Vanguard box! If not, have a look at the Varanguard and Chosen, both heavy hitting units if that’s what you like. There’s also a certain bloke named Archaon…
Painting Mephrit Dynasty Necrons
I wasn’t planning on starting the new year with a new army, but I wanted to test out a colour scheme before I started work on the Hierotek Circle Kill Team and then Games Workshop went and teased the rules for Boarding Actions. Thus I found myself gluing together the Necrons from the astonishingly good value Warhammer 40,000 Recruit Edition and picking out a colour scheme which started out by selecting the shiniest of metals to really push the Terminator vibe.
I’m pretty happy with the result, which took me about a week of short bursts in the evening and then a chunk of my Saturday (which was mostly devoted to edge highlighting). Here are the paints I used:
- Army Painter Speed Paint – Fire Giant Orange
- Citadel Contrast: Apothecary White
- Citadel Layer: Flash Gitz Yellow
- Citadel Nuln Oil
- Citadel Technical: Armageddon Dunes
- Liquitex Pro Acrylic Ink – Titanium White
- Vallejo Gloss Black Primer
- Vallejo Metal Color Chrome
- Vallejo Model Color 838 – Emerald
- Vallejo Model Color 906 – Pale Blue
- Vallejo Model Color 950 – Matt Black
- Vallejo Model Color 951 – White
- Vallejo Model Color 976 – Buff
I started by priming using the Gloss Black, and then base coating the entire mode with Chrome. I used an airbrush or both of these stages. It’s a tool that lets me prime indoors and without fear of problems from temperature or humidity, and apply the Vallejo Metal Color range as a base coat quickly and smoothly. Substitute your preferred rattlecan or brush on black primer and then brush on the Chrome if you don’t have access to an airbrush.
Next up, give a light coat of Nuln Oil to the whole model to give it some depth. You can skip over the gun and other parts where the metal will be painted over.
Paint the gun Black, then gently dab White Ink into the recesses where the orange glow will come from. This is to give a bright colour to apply the orange to. Ink flows very easily so you can use capillary action instead of carefully painting the tiny gaps. Just add more ink until it flows into the next chamber. Do the same thing with the recesses between the ribs.
The various bits of wiring (such as the connection between the gun and the body and some damaged cables hanging from some of the torsos) also needs a white coat as do the scarabs’ central balls, but they don’t lend themselves to the ink method; use the regular White paint instead.
Once dry, apply the Fire Giant Orange to the white areas. It’s a speed paint, so use the same capillary action method for the guns and use a generous amount elsewhere. Finally use a tiny dot of Flash Gitz Yellow to create a point highlight.
Use Emerald for the face masks, the scarab wings, and the shoulder plates as well as the panels that make up the Royal Warden’s cloak (take care to leave the connectors in plain metal). Apply a tiny amount of Nuln Oil to the masks to shade the eyes and mouths so they have definition. Then go in and edge highlight with the Pale Blue. Use the Pale Blue to paint the stripe up the Royal Warden’s face too.
All the remains are the bases. I used Buff to base coat them, then applied Apothecary White to the rocks before covering the surfaces with Armageddon Dunes which I then highlighted by dry-brushing with Buff. Watch out for the single, tiny scarab that one of the warriors has perched on their tactical rock. Use the same paint scheme as the rest of them for that little fella’.
Add your preferred varnish to protect your paint job, and magnetise the bases for storage and transport if you are so inclined and you can call these Necrons done.
Gallery
12th Day of Squig-Mas
On the 12th Day of Squig-Mas my gaming buddies gave to me…
12 Squigs a-Biting
11 Snotlings Scoring
10 Chainrasps Rasping
9 Netters Netting
8 Gitz a-Gaming
7 Orcs a-Bashing
6 Snufflers Searching
5 Gold Sigmaaa-rites
4 Ogor Guns
3 Rippa’s Wolves
2 Biggest Stabbas
and a Mangler Squig painted by me!
I hope you’ve enjoyed our jaunt through the days of Squig-Mas…
Happy New Year
— Declan & Eeyore
11th Day of Squig-Mas
On the 11th Day of Squig-Mas my gaming buddies gave to me…
11 Snotlings Scoring
10 Chainrasps Rasping
9 Netters Netting
8 Gitz a-Gaming
7 Orcs a-Bashing
6 Snufflers Searching
5 Gold Sigmaaa-rites
4 Ogor Guns
3 Rippa’s Wolves
2 Biggest Stabbas
and a Mangler Squig painted by me!
I hope you’ve enjoyed our jaunt through the days of Squig-Mas…
— Declan & Eeyore
For those who missed it, day 10 is here!
10th Day of Squig-Mas
On the 10th Day of Squig-Mas my gaming buddies gave to me…
10 Chainrasps Rasping
9 Netters Netting
8 Gitz a-Gaming
7 Orcs a-Bashing
6 Snufflers Searching
5 Gold Sigmaaa-rites
4 Ogor Guns
3 Rippa’s Wolves
2 Biggest Stabbas
and a Mangler Squig painted by me!
I hope you’ve enjoyed our jaunt through the days of Squig-Mas…
— Declan & Eeyore
Missed day 9? Don’t worry it’s here!
9th Day of Squig-Mas
On the 9th Day of Squig-Mas my gaming buddies gave to me…
9 Netters Netting
8 Gitz a-Gaming
7 Orcs a-Bashing
6 Snufflers Searching
5 Gold Sigmaaa-rites
4 Ogor Guns
3 Rippa’s Wolves
2 Biggest Stabbas
and a Mangler Squig painted by me!
Ah nets… hopefully they’ll be used again in the new year with the new book promised! Onward to day 10!
Talk about a net list!! If you want to catch up then day 8 Here
— Declan & Eeyore
8th Day of Squig-Mas
On the 8th Day of Squig-Mas my gaming buddies gave to me…
8 Gitz a-Gaming
7 Orcs a-Bashing
6 Snufflers Searching
5 Gold Sigmaaa-rites
4 Ogor Guns
3 Rippa’s Wolves
2 Biggest Stabbas
and a Mangler Squig painted by me!
There’s a distinct Greenskin view on most of Squigmas so far… but what do you think day nine will bring?
— Declan & Eeyore
Happy New Year. If you’ve missed the previous days, say 7 is Here!
7th Day of Squig-Mas
On the 7th Day of Squig-Mas my gaming buddies gave to me…
7 Orcs a-Bashing
6 Snufflers Searching
5 Gold Sigmaaa-rites
4 Ogor Guns
3 Rippa’s Wolves
2 Biggest Stabbas
and a Mangler Squig painted by me!
I hope you’re enjoying our jaunt through the days of Squig-Mas join us tomorrow for day 8.
— Declan & Eeyore
Well after the shock of a non AoS model appearing, if you’d like to view day 6 it’s Here!
6th Day of Squig-Mas
On the 6th Day of Squig-Mas my Gaming Buddies gave to me…
6 Snufflers Searching
5 Gold Sigmaaa-rites
4 Ogor Guns
3 Rippa’s Wolves
2 Biggest Stabbas
and a Mangler Squig painted by me!
Join us tomorrow for the next verse – Do you know what I’ll get for Day 7?
— Declan & Eeyore
5th Day of Squig-Mas
On the 5th Day of Squig-Mas my Gaming Buddies gave to me…
5 Gold Sigmaaa-rites
4 Ogor Guns
3 Rippa’s Wolves
2 Biggest Stabbas
and a Mangler Squig painted by me!
Join us tomorrow for the next verse – Do you know what I’ll get for Day 6?
— Declan & Eeyore