Age of Sigmar: ‘Slaves to Darkness’ Battletome Previews
Games Workshop is gearing up to unleash the chaos hordes in Age of Sigmar. The Slaves To Darkness are getting a rules preview today.
I had a funny feeling we’d be seeing this battletome soon. It was on the Roadmap for AoS before 2025, afterall. Today we’re getting a taste of what this battletome is holding for us on the tabletop. Let’s see what Archaon the Everchosen has cooked up for the Slaves to Darkness!
Slaves To Darkness Previews
“Battletome: Slaves to Darkness permits you to craft an army to represent any of these factions – and Be’lakor also receives his very own daemon-packed Army of Renown – but the mortal followers of the Dark Gods have received incisive changes from their faction pack. Eye of the Gods is still the primary Battle Trait, but you must now choose a single non-unique Hero as the focus of the burning gaze of the gods. “
The Eye of the Gods rule has changed from the previous edition. This time around, you can cash in those Dark Apotheosis points for a two different options:
This is a pretty big change overall. Getting 8 Dark Apotheosis points seems doable as long as the character in question stays alive. It’s really interesting to see the option to keep the character and just go for a heal with a bonus ward for the rest of the battle. Or, you can just swap them out for a Daemon Prince. I think this might make the Daemon Prince miniatures a bit more popular in the long run.
Daemonic Pledges
“What’s a Pledge to Chaos, you ask? Let us whisper dark promises in your ear… Once per turn, a Slaves to Darkness unit can swear their mortal soul to one of the four Chaos Gods to earn a passive benefit that lasts the rest of the battle. For instance, those Pledged to Khorne grain an extra attack, while warriors Pledged to Slaanesh can chuck an extra dice in with their charge rolls. “
These are a lot like the old “Marks of X” system from before. However, it does seem like the benefits have been tweaked. Slaanesh gets to add 1 to the number of the dice rolled for charges to a max of 3 now as an example. I’m curious what the rest of the “Pledges” turn out to be.
There’s also rules for Ensorcelled Banners. These provide boosts to units and have different benefits depending on which ones you take and which pledges you make.
Again, these banners have been tweaked from previous editions. And the changes seem interesting. The Nurgle one preventing critical hits by turning them into regular hits instead seems like it could be promising.
As a Chaos fan myself with a lot of games of Slaves to Darkness under my belt, I’m looking forward to finding out what’s up with my army. I’m trying to stay cautious about getting too excited. But I also really want to run my Varanguard list with Abraxia in the new edition with the new battletome.
What are you looking forward to with the new Slave to Darkness Battletome?
