Age of Sigmar: Slaves To Darkness Better Be Good
The Slaves To Darkness are the Mortal Champions of Chaos under Archaon’s Banner and they had better be freaking awesome with their new book.
If you’ve been keeping up with the lore and background for the Age of Sigmar, then you’re probably painfully aware that Archaon has been…quiet lately. Of all the story events happening, Chaos, specifically Archaon’s forces, haven’t been super active – at least directly. The past couple events have had different focuses and have mainly involved Nagash and his plan to unleash havoc across the mortal realms. Sigmar’s Stormvaults have been exposed and Order has gotten a lot of love fairly recently as well. Plus Destruction is running amok with Ogors, Gitz, and Orruks lately, too.
Not that any of this is bad in any way! But it’s been odd that Chaos has been so silent through all this. Sure, sure, they technically did get a bunch of new models with the Warcry release and that was a very heavy focus on those Chaos Warbands, I’ll totally agree with that. But let’s remember that those warbands were all there trying to win the favor of someone very particular: Archaon.
Archaon is, in my opinion, the ultimate “Big Bad” of the Age of Sigmar and the Mortal Realms. He’s the one who rallied the forces of Chaos to his side and pushed forward with the End Times which destroyed the Old World. He’s the one that took over the Mortal Realms and forced the other gods of the realms into hiding. He’s the one who sent Sigmar packing back to Azyr! Archaon kicked everyone’s butt and had the Mortal Realms on lock-down. And the Slaves To Darkness are supposed to be his crew.
They are getting a new Battletome and it had better represent all that. Chaos has become the whipping boy of AoS and has been pushed back over and over again thanks to the Stormcast (if you’ve read their lore). Death has risen up and Nagash has reclaimed his realm from Chaos, too. Destruction has been smashing around everywhere – and chaos’ response has been be a tad lackluster. Sure, there are things happening in the background like Slaanesh is slowly breaking the chains of imprisonment and I’m sure the chaos gods are plotting, too – but where the heck has Archaon been?
This new release had better rectify that and showcase the Exalted Grand Marshall of the Apocalypse doing what he does best: Kicking everyone’s BUTT!
The new Start Collecting Box is a great start, too as all the models still maintain that classic Chaos Warrior look but are just more dynamic. I’m just hoping that their rules reflect how great they look because if you’ve been paying attention to the meta of AoS, they aren’t exactly tearing up the charts. I’m hoping that this new Slaves To Darkness book at least makes them scary again – I want these guys to have some teeth when they return. Not just because I happen to have a Chaos Warriors army…but because they are supposed to be the BIG BADS of AoS.
It’s hard to have a truly epic and heroic…hero without an equally powerful and terrible villain. Archaon and the Slaves To Darkness should be that in AoS. Here’s hoping that this new wave of Chaos Mortals crashes down pretty hard on the Mortal Realms just to remind everyone who the real bad guys are.
Yeah…Let’s Be Bad Guys.
