The Slaves to Darkness march upon the Mortal Realms. Under their banners to dark gods they fight for eternal power at the cost of eternal damnation. Alongside the Everchosen Archaon, the Slaves to Darkness give their very souls for the chance of walking the Path to Glory.

The new Slaves to Darkness battletome is up for pre order today, and in this full review we’ll be checking out what is new, whats changed and what’s left the army – and checking out just what they can do on the battlefield!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us an early review copy to check out on the site. if you would like to support the site then why not order your copy through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also recently checked out the Stormcast Eternals and Skaven Battletomes, which you can read here on the website!

So let’s make our pledges to the Dark Gods as we dive into the pages of Chaos Battletome Slaves to Darkness!

Slaves to Darkness Battletome Review

The 4th Edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar has been with us since the summer, and today the 3rd battletome goes up for pre order hot on the heels of the Skaven and Stormcast. While there’s not much in the way of new models with this book (With just a new Chaos Sorcerer up for pre order alongside the book) this is the first battletome we’ve seen for this edition with some changes to the army mechanics themselves. Games Workshop did share that later battletomes would be seeing some larger departures away from the Faction Pack releases, and this gives them a chance to sand off some of the rough edges and in many ways make armies operate quite differently.

Like with the other Battletomes this edition, this is actually published in two different versions – the standard hardback Battletome, and also a small format “Gamer’s Edition” which is perfect for taking along to events (and also comes complete with a set of warscroll cards)

But before we get ahead of ourselves, what else is in this Battletome?

Lore & Presentation

The first half of the 130 page Battletome is dedicated to lore, and just like with the previous two battletomes the presentation here is gorgeous. From fold out sections detailing maps of various locations where the Slaves to Darkness can be found to gorgeous art work and miniature shots, the new Battletomes are a real feast for the eyes, being just as nice to flick through as they are to use for gaming.

I find that one of the things that get your hobby juices going is exploring all the rich lore and background of the various armies of the Mortal Realms, and I find that whenever I’m needing any hobby inspiration to start a new force one of the first things I do is dive into this background to see if anything jumps out at me.

One of my favourite things about the new Battletomes is that the bestiary sections now use photographs of the miniatures – I find that this really helps tie the lore to the models, and few newcomers it immediately gives them a sense of what the models are, what they do and how cool they are from a narrative point of view. As someone who plays for the story and the cinematic nature over any kind of highly competitive sense, I really like this and hope it’s something that we see to continue over the course of the edition.

With the photography now alongside the descriptions of each unit, a traditional miniatures showcase is now a thing of the past – these often didnt show the entire range, or only the newer models, so again I feel this fits so much better now alongside the lore.

The Rules

So here’s were we see the big changes to the Slaves to Darkness with their faction rules.

Battle Traits are similar to how they used to be, but there are sweeping changes here!

Firstly Eye of the Gods has been completely reworked. Previously, your units could earn rewards off a random chart by destroying an enemy unit. This has now been changed to represent a single heroes quest on the path to glory to ascend to Daemonhood.

At the start of the game you now select a single (non-unique) hero, and that hero gains D3 Dark Apotheosis points each time they use a fight action or contest an objective that is outside of friendly territory. Once they have accrued 8 points they can choose to either fully heal and gain a 5+ ward for the rest of the battle, or instead become a Daemon Prince. You replace the hero with a Daemon Prince and use that warscroll to replace them, but they still have access to any enhancements you gave them.

While the incremental buffs that you picked up over the course of a battle are gone, I did find that these could get a little silly sometimes with certain units getting a little over the top (Varanguard with massive rend for example). It’s also a much reliable way to turn your hero into a Daemon Prince, and a great incentive to take a cheap support hero and aggressively try and ascend him in the first half of the game.

Marks of Chaos are also gone – now replaced with Pledges to Chaos. Previously, during army construction most units could be given a Mark of Chaos in order to give them access to certain abilities. This has now been removed, with the only way of granting a unit a Pledge to Chaos being through the new Ensorcelled Banners Enhancement.

There’s 5 banners on offer, one without a god’s mark that stops enemy units from using commands when in combat with them, and 1 banner for each god. Each of these banners marks a unit as having a Pledge to a specific god, and also grants them an additional bonus. So for example if you take the Banner of Rage then that unit adds 1 to wound rolls, while the Banner of Screaming Flesh gives the unit +1 attacks on the charge.

In addition, once per turn in your hero phase you can grant one of your units a Pledge to Chaos – to do this you pick a unit and simply give them the relevant mark (Khorne, Tzeench, Nurgle or Slaanesh). This means that over the course of a game you can have 6 pledged units (One with your banner of choice, and then one per battle round)

Each Pledge grants a different ability that lasts for the entire game, and these have changed from the Marks in the Faction pack:

Khorne now gives units +1 attack (and this is all the time, they don’t have to charge)

Nurgle grants a 6+ ward (5+ if you already have a ward)

Slaanesh gives an extra dice to charges (3D6 charge Varanguard anyone?)

Tzeentch is very different and allows you to roll 2D6, pick a point that many inches and then teleport your unit within 6″ of that point, opening up lots of cool movement tricks!

It’s worth pointing out that if you take a banner you also get that Pledge ability in addition to the Banner ability, making Khorne banner units +1 attack and +1 to wound

I really like this change, as it let’s you pick Pledges based on how the battle is going and what is going to be most useful at that time. The fact it’s picked in your hero phase gives you full control over this, and can even be a great influence on how you pick Battle Tactics etc! Yes, you don’t start with them all at the start of the game, but I feel this is a more thematic way of doing things, with the units getting blessed by the gods as the battle continues.

Much of the other army rules remain the same – Like with Skaven and Stormcast we see the same Lores, Battle Formations and Artefacts of Power.

We do see a little change with the Heroic Traits however, with Favoured of the Pantheon now allowing your chosen hero to start the game with 3 Dark Apotheosis points, which can be a great head start for an Exhaulted Hero who fancies turning into a Daemon Prince.

Warscrolls

While the core army abilities have changed quite a lot, the majority of Warscrolls are exactly the same as they were in the Faction Pack.

Once change that did jump out at me however was the Centaurion Marshall – He can now only use his Marshall of the Legions ability on non-hero Daemons and Chaos Legionaries. Previously he could use this on any non-hero undivided unit, so things such as Darkoath miss out, however it does mean he can make Bloodletters in Belakor’s sub faction hit on 2s… More on this later…

We also see 4 warscrolls and models removed from the range.

Soul Grinders, Chaos Warshrines and Manticores of both flavours have gone. For the Warshrine and the Manticore I suspect that this is because they are now very old models that are part of the Old World range. We’ve seen a gradual move of older kits to Old World while AOS is getting brand new kits more in keeping with the theme of the range. I reckon this is something we will continue to see over this edition as we see a clear split in plastic kits across both games. For the Soul Grinder this doesnt really surprise me, as it’s more a 40k kit than an Age of Sigmar one, and again we’re probably going to get new daemon engines under Vashtar at some point.

Spearhead – Slaves to Darkness

Alongside this book there’s a great new Spearhead out, with rules in the Battletome. Containing a Darkoath Warqueen, a unit of Darkoath Savagers, a unit of Darkoath Marauders and a unit of Darkoath Fellriders it gives you a nice assortment of units, especially if you want to lean more into the Darkoath side of things.

One of things I really like about the Spearhead sections in these new books are the painting guides. You get a nice two page battle ready guide for putting together your spearhead, with lots of advice here that can easy be applied to other models in the range.

The Darkoath get an interesting mechanic where they can “bank” a battle tactic by completing it as an oath – they can choose to complete the battle tactic or instead can save it to one side as a fullfilled oath – this allows them to save the card to use the command but not have it take space in their hand – this can be an option if you want to be the underdog going into the next round, but you also want to cycle the objective deck a little

They look like a fun spearhead to use with lots of volume of attacks and bodies, and half of the units being recyclable too!

Anvil of Apotheosis

Returning after it’s glorious previous installments in Skaven and Stormcast is the Anvil of Apotheosis.

For those who have never used it before, the Anvil of Apotheosis is a way of creating custom characters for your Path to Glory games. These characters are created by using a currency called Destiny Points and are an amazingly cool way of crafting your very own special character, with their own rules and abilities and heaps of options. Each of these will also have a points limit so you can use them in your games too.

This is honestly one of the coolest things about Age of Sigmar, and I’ve had great fun using multiple different Anvil characters over the course of a campaign – with a model and rules for each of the 3 points levels available.

Want to make a Chaos Lord on a Dragon that bleeds molten vananite? Sure! What about a Chaos Sorcerer on a Chariot who is able to set terrain features on fire with his dark powers? Go for it! Or what about a Tzeentian Ogroid who is ravaged by mutations and gains different abilities each turn as his body warps into something new? These are all characters you can create using this toolbox, and there’s loads more on top of these. You are only limited by your imagination and the number of Destiny Points you have available to spend at every points threshold.

I’m really looking forward to every army having access to these, as I feel that when these are more widespread we’ll start to see them used more often in games – Hopefully the rest of the Battletomes are not too far behind!

Legion of the First Prince

In the Slaves to Darkness battletome we get an Army of Renown that excites me very much! Legion of the First Prince finally allows you to make a Be’lakor army filled with Daemons! It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to do this, and as a massive fan of Daemons this is something I’ve missed very much!

You actually get quite a lot you can play with here – Be’lakor, Daemon Princes, Eternus, Varanguard, Sorcerer Lords, Legionnaires, Furies, Centurions and Legion of the First Prince Daemons.

So what are Legion of the First Prince Daemons? This is a list of specific daemon units that you can take as part of the army, and the warscrolls are included in the book so there’s no need for multiple books or warscroll cards. Here’s what can be taken:

Bloodletters

Bloodcrushers

Screamers

Flamers

Plaguebearers

Beasts

Fiends

Hellflayers

This gives you a nice mix of different unit types with different roles. Want to shut down magic and make units strike last? Take some fiends! Want a resilient unit with a 5+ ward for objective duty? Take a big blob of plaguebearers. Want some fast units that can also pester heroes with mortal wounds? Then take some Screamers. The fact that you can also take powerful units like Varanguard alongside these makes this army even better and a great little tool box of units!

As an Army of Renown they gain some rules that replace the generic Slaves to Darkness ones. Be’lakor gains a 4+ ward while nearby a Daemon unit, passing off any passed wards as damage to that unit, which is great. He is also able to recycle a dead daemon unit once per turn, allowing you to play quite aggressively with them.

Eternus is well worth taking if you take any non-daemon units such as Varanguard, as once per game he can give himself and 2 friendly units +1 attacks. Combine this with Varanguard being able to fight twice and this makes for a very nasty combat push

Finally, every turn Be’lakor gets to pick a non hero unit and give them an extra 5 control and +1 save if they are a daemon and a 6+ ward if they are not a daemon.

Their heroic trait gives 3 friendly units +1 to charge, which is handy and their artifact of power allows you to take 1 damage in exchange for rerolling the casting roll of a spell.

They get access to a couple of new spells – Dark Cantrip is a low cast value spell that does a single mortal wound to 3 enemy units, which can be handy for finishing targets off and degrading profiles, while Shroud in Darkness is a really good spell that lets a unit move D6 in the hero phase and makes them not visible unless the enemy is within 12″ – brilliant for popping on some Screamers you want to zip across the board for objective duty.

I really like this Army of Renown and plan on putting an army together as soon as I have points values (At the time of writing this article the points values were not available – these will be on Warhammer Community on release)

Slaves to Darkness Regiments of Renown

We also get two new regiments of renown in the new book.

Godmarked Ascendant we’ve seen previewed on Warhammer Community and this acts as a way of granting Blades of Khorne, Disciples of Tzentch and Hedonites of Slaanesh with access to a Daemon Prince – which is a really nice way of implementing units that are seen in multiple armies

The other in here is Lord Skalidors Chosen. This consists of a Lord on Daemonic Mount, 5 Knights and 10 Warriors who get +1 to saves while contesting an objective they control and +1 to wound while contesting one they don’t control, making them a really versatile regiment! Each of the four God Armies plus Skaven can take them, which depending on points values will make them very handy indeed.

Summary

So what do I think of the new Slaves to Darkness Battletome? After Skaven and Stormcast were pretty much a straight port of the Faction Packs, it’s nice to see Games Workshop mixing things up with the army abilities on this one. While some people will complain about the buff collecting going, I personally am I big fan of this new version, it feels more like a single warlord trying to get the attention of the gods and a (very good) shot at becoming a Daemon Prince by the end of the battle, which is always fun to see.

The Path to Glory content is brilliant and the Legion of the First Prince is excellent and something I’ve wanted to see return for a long turn.

While some kits have been sent to legends, it’s older ones that have well served their time – but it does surprise me that we don’t get a Warhammer Underworlds unit turned into a new AOS unit like with the previous two books.

I’ve got high hopes for the Warhammer Age of Sigmar Battletomes that are on the way next year, and I can’t wait to see what we have in store in the future!

Chaos Battletome Slaves to Darkness is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 7th December.

Games Workshop provided Sprues and Brews with a free copy for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

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