Hedonites of Slaanesh

[Klamm]

4 minutes ago, Kramer said:

I think the deciding factor would be if they thought of cool models when the designers were busy. If they have cool mortal concepts they will release them. If not, they won’t. 

Yeah, this is how GW does seem to do it, which is fair enough.

That said, if they can't think of compelling mortal concepts for Slaanesh, the most philosophically interesting of the four, then they aren't trying. Just a few I've come up with recently:

• Quartzblind Knights: arrogant Slaaneshi warriors who accept a Daemonic cristal circlet which covers their eyes, becoming gradually more transparent the more they kill. It's a thematic mixture of a prideful 'I can do it with my eyes closed' attitude while also building rapturous anticipation for the glorious spectacle of battle: once they kill enough, they'll get the pleasure of seeing their bloody handiwork, before the quartz clouds again and they have to slaughter fo Slaanesh once more. 
• Unsated: roving packs of self-flagellating hedonists, their search for extremes having left them numb and impatient for sensation. Maybe they follow sense-blessed champions into battle, hoping these shepherds will help them feel again. 
• Soulwring Sommeliers: a cheerfully gluttonous buff-piece/wizard who makes wine out of captured souls.
• Valourbane Brigands: the Valourbane are epicurean devotees who are riddled with fear and scorned as cowards. Slaanesh augments their failings and gifts them with magical bows that feed on courage, shifting in range and power according to the strength of will of their target. The bolder the quarry the greater the spiritual reward reaped by both demonic bow and its wielder if they succeed in shooting them down, and so the Valourbane are spurred to seek out the most courageous foes and riddle them with daemon-blessed arrows, like courage vampires. 

While I am proud of these ideas, it's not like coming up with good Slaaneshi concepts is that hard. There are so many ways to go here. 

[Kaleb Daark]

the more I look at the keeper the more I like it.

It's elegant, and powerful and the pose is sublime.

I think the sculptor has done a great job in his less is more catwalk runway pose - there's a grace there that would have been lost if he'd have tried to turn a stance from the many artworks into a model with a dynamic snapshot in time pose, and the less is more has really worked for me.

the one I like least of all is the bloodthirster with its leaping kitty pose, never have liked it and probably never will. I like my greater daemons to have a certain 'weight' to them and the bloodthirster.. well - I'll stick with the forgeworld one.

I like the own skin thigh boots nod to the forgeworld keeper.

A part of me was hoping for the bovine head of the very first keeper of Secrets as an option, but that's because I fell to chaos when Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness came out all those years agon now, and Khorne and Slaanesh have always been a soft spot for me.

As always, I'm reserving judgement till I see it in the life, as I don't think the studio pics really show models off in the best light sometimes. Looking forward to the 360 on it.

If there was a named keeper there really can be no other than N'Kaari in the artwork below.  I'd pay money for that as a monopose model.

[Kramer]

3 minutes ago, Klamm said:

Yeah, this is how GW does seem to do it, which is fair enough.

That said, if they can't think of compelling mortal concepts for Slaanesh, the most philosophically interesting of the four, then they aren't trying. Just a few I've come up with recently:

• Quartzblind Knights: arrogant Slaaneshi warriors who accept a Daemonic cristal circlet which covers their eyes, becoming gradually more transparent the more they kill. It's a thematic mixture of a prideful 'I can do it with my eyes closed' attitude while also building rapturous anticipation for the glorious spectacle of battle: once they kill enough, they'll get the pleasure of seeing their bloody handiwork, before the quartz clouds again and they have to slaughter fo Slaanesh once more. 
• Unsated: roving packs of self-flagellating hedonists, their search for extremes having left them numb and impatient for sensation. Maybe they follow sense-blessed champions into battle, hoping these shepherds will help them feel again. 
• Soulwring Sommeliers: a cheerfully gluttonous buff-piece/wizard who makes wine out of captured souls.
• Valourbane Brigands: the Valourbane are epicurean devotees who are riddled with fear and scorned as cowards. Slaanesh augments their failings and gifts them with magical bows that feed on courage, shifting in range and power according to the strength of will of their target. The bolder the quarry the greater the spiritual reward reaped by both demonic bow and its wielder if they succeed in shooting them down, and so the Valourbane are spurred to seek out the most courageous foes and riddle them with daemon-blessed arrows, like courage vampires. 

While I am proud of these ideas, it's not like coming up with good Slaaneshi concepts is that hard. There are so many ways to go here. 

I like The blind knights concept! Maybe improving the hit or damage, like skulltakers (?) get better the more they kill. 

But yes, I fully fully agree that there should be concepts a plenty. Absolutely. 

[Kaleb Daark]

as for mortals - I do hope we get something.  there was always talk from the very first days about just how different a slaanesh mortals army looked. I hope they don't miss this opportunity to take advantage of that.

[marke]

Making nice slaanesh mortals can be challenging. The flavor "demands" them being lean.  GW product line is very bulky, and creating an elegant line of figures might stand out too much (?). I'm all for it and I doubt it's a technical challenge, but design can be tricky. The old Sigvald is a nice point of reference, but while a beautiful model, it's still a pretty clunky one in many ways. Especially after that KoS (which is IMO on another level), they have yet another hurdle to overcome design-wise.

[Enoby]

30 minutes ago, Kaleb Daark said:

as for mortals - I do hope we get something.  there was always talk from the very first days about just how different a slaanesh mortals army looked. I hope they don't miss this opportunity to take advantage of that.

I suppose the one hope we do have for mortals is that, when someone asks in a FB comment, the team replies with cryptic things along the line of "just wait to see what the future has in store..." I feel that they'd have just said "that's all for this release, but you never know what might come out in the future!" if everything had been revealed for this book. I could (and likely am) just grasping at straws, but it seems like a recipe for bad PR to lead fans on with ambiguous comments rather than just saying "nothing more yet" if there's nothing else to be released.

 

Also, from a business perspective, it seems really odd to release loads of champions and no troops. Maybe I'm missing something, but unless the KoS and mirror daemonettes are amazingly powerful and somehow battleline/cheap points-wise, the scenery piece, endless spells, and named heroes will likely likely limit the items in this release to one buy per person. Would just be really weird to have a relatively large release with new (not just resculpted) models and not have new troops for people to bulk buy. 

[Sete]

Slanesh needs to have mortals.

If they have falchions and shields like the keeper, I'm offering my soul to the prince of excess.

Absolutely love the Xerxes dude and the keeper. Shame there are no sexygors

[HollowHills]

There is a named Keeper of Secrets called something the depraved in the Idoneth book. It is credited with discovering the idoneth and telling Archaon. Plus the masque is responsible for taking Volturnous's eye. So I think that would be a good named option. 

[Fairbanks]

Just rewatched the video, and I know I didn’t see any Hellstriders, but, and I’m hoping I was just blind, but I don’t recall seeing any Seeker Chariots either.

Yes, there were seekers, they were just there for a second or so.

[ManlyMuppet88]

I would like to see Mortals released but I think they would have shown them.

They seem like they should be relatively easy to convert though - kit bashing some DOK with some Kairic Acolytes and Dark Eldar Wyches would probably be a pretty solid start.

Edited March 29, 2019 by ManlyMuppet88

[Enoby]

Anyone want to hazard a guess what this will do? Just such a bizarre model (not in a bad way, mind you!) 

[Nactigal]

Perhaps the scenery we got is made up of two parts. One is the base portal with the gold underneath. The other, this slithering portal that could move around and maybe be killed?

[Lucentia]

I don't think that thing is related to the scenery portal, though it could interact with it I suppose.

My guess based purely on the design would be that the scenery piece provides some rules to do with summoning, and probably some way to tempt or lure nearby enemy units?  Whilst this thing looks more like the attendants are beguiling people to look into the mirror for whatever reason, they also share some elements with the new Masque model (mostly the collar ruff I guess, and the carnival masks), so they're leaning more towards the theatrical side of Slaanesh?  I'm guessing some kind of de-buffing unit which, like, shows those who gaze into it their darkest desires, or paralyses them with vanity, or something.  Whether it's a hero unit or some kind of weird war machine I have no clue! 

I am curious to see the back of it to see how those segmented tails/tentacles attach, it's not a design piece that shows up particularly in the other Slaanesh models (though obviously it is reminiscent of the whips and barbed tails and such).

[Overread]

I would guess its likely a buff/debuff unit. Just as it might tempt or twist the enemy with visions it might inspire allies to greater feats in the name of Slaanesh. 

 

Also I don't think the tails connect to the deamons but to the mirror itself - if you look at the left side you can clearly see the end goes behind the mirror and terminates there. You can even see the regular tail of the one on the right curling up. Unless you mean as tails of the mirror itself - though I'd liken them more to the twin halves of its "legs/body" section

[NurglesFirstChosen]

19 minutes ago, Overread said:

I would guess its likely a buff/debuff unit. Just as it might tempt or twist the enemy with visions it might inspire allies to greater feats in the name of Slaanesh. 

 

Also I don't think the tails connect to the deamons but to the mirror itself - if you look at the left side you can clearly see the end goes behind the mirror and terminates there. You can even see the regular tail of the one on the right curling up. Unless you mean as tails of the mirror itself - though I'd liken them more to the twin halves of its "legs/body" section

I think the chains are meant to be an extension of the gods bindings. Which kinda implies that slaanesh is enjoying its imprisonment  

Edited March 30, 2019 by NurglesFirstChosen

[Skabnoze]

6 hours ago, ManlyMuppet88 said:

I would like to see Mortals released but I think they would have shown them.

Why would they have shown them all?  This was the first teaser model reveal.  Every large faction release wave that they have done since the community team got on top of their game over the last year has gone in waves of model reveals.  This has been for both 40k and AoS.  

In fact, they have just over the past weeks been doing a slow-burn model unveiling for 40k Chaos.  Why would Slaanesh be any different?  From what I have heard they said during the adepticon reveal that there are more models to come.  They said there are 3 allegiances so I highly doubt it is just a handful of demons and nothing else.

This release is probably a little ways off considering that most likely we are going to see at least Fyreslayers and Apocalypse come out before this.  The Looncurse box set may release before this army as well.

Be patient and I think everyone will be rewarded.

[ManlyMuppet88]

Just now, Skabnoze said:

From what I have heard they said during the adepticon reveal that there are more models to come. 

That’d be great.

I’m just skeptical because normally they put a “loads more coming” in the community article but there wasn’t anything like that for this one.

Fingers crossed though. I’m not a big fan of Daemons but mortals would definitely pull me into a Slaanesh army.

[Skabnoze]

19 hours ago, marke said:

Making nice slaanesh mortals can be challenging. The flavor "demands" them being lean.

Since when do they all have to be that way?  Slaanesh was never just about that in the past.  It is the god of excess and that means more than just sexuality and drugs.  They had a number of old fluff examples of fat gluttons as well.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and not all civilizations and time periods find the same things attractive.

Now I won’t be surprised if they take a very narrow view of the hedonism concept - but they don’t have to.  And not even everyone that strives for “physical perfection” is lithe and thin.  Take a look at Mr Universe contests. Arnold Schwarzenegger won it multiple times in a row and he was anything but thin.  But in that contest the idea was to have a lot of muscle mass while maintaining as close to a perfect body proportions as possible.  In fact, that contest is a quite an extreme and firmly in the domain of Slaanesh.  Point being that they can do a number of different things.  The new Keeper of Secrets implies that they are exploring those types of directions more as it has quite a muscular but athletic physique.

[Skabnoze]

4 minutes ago, ManlyMuppet88 said:

That’d be great.

I’m just skeptical because normally they put a “loads more coming” in the community article but there wasn’t anything like that for this one.

Fingers crossed though. I’m not a big fan of Daemons but mortals would definitely pull me into a Slaanesh army.

I get the impression that the release is still a ways off based on how they structured those teasers.  We know they don’t do simultaneous releases so all of that stuff will come in various windows.  Right now we are in the middle of a fairly large 40k model release cycle.  Fyreslayers will probably follow that up.  The community teams seems smart enough that they are saving something from each release in order to hype it up.

Also every Chaos faction to date has a contingent of mortals.  Why would Slaanesh be any different?  If anything Slaanesh should have arguably the easiest time recruiting.  I expect that as much as GW has been making a very big deal about Slaanesh in the lore that they will have a release at least as large as Gloomspite and that release was teased in multiple model release waves.  We were analyzing fuzzy images from the book in paused frames from the battletome video for a couple of weeks.  This will probably be the same thing.

[marke]

1 hour ago, Skabnoze said:

Since when do they all have to be that way?  Slaanesh was never just about that in the past.  It is the god of excess and that means more than just sexuality and drugs.  They had a number of old fluff examples of fat gluttons as well.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and not all civilizations and time periods find the same things attractive.

Now I won’t be surprised if they take a very narrow view of the hedonism concept - but they don’t have to.  And not even everyone that strives for “physical perfection” is lithe and thin.  Take a look at Mr Universe contests. Arnold Schwarzenegger won it multiple times in a row and he was anything but thin.  But in that contest the idea was to have a lot of muscle mass while maintaining as close to a perfect body proportions as possible.  In fact, that contest is a quite an extreme and firmly in the domain of Slaanesh.  Point being that they can do a number of different things.  The new Keeper of Secrets implies that they are exploring those types of directions more as it has quite a muscular but athletic physique.

You have a very good point, but my post wasn't a comment on beauty or fitness. Sorry if it came across that way.

I know next to nothing about fluff, but I've always associated slaanesh with elves, and elves seem lean. But you're absolutely right - they don't need to take such narrow design point and can still achieve slaanesh flavor.

[EccentricCircle]

8 hours ago, Enoby said:

Anyone want to hazard a guess what this will do? Just such a bizarre model (not in a bad way, mind you!) 

Daemonette weather forecast. So they know where the winds of magic are strongest! 

[strugglewithin1]

Gah! I just can't place the reference for the mirror thing. Is it a reimagined movie logo? 

I love it either way

[khadgar567]

36 minutes ago, strugglewithin1 said:

Gah! I just can't place the reference for the mirror thing. Is it a reimagined movie logo? 

I love it either way

mirror mirror on the wall whos the kinkiest them all. snow wight or sleeping beauty I guess. disaney used maleficent kinda multiple times.

[Jefferson Skarsnik]

11 hours ago, Enoby said:

Anyone want to hazard a guess what this will do? Just such a bizarre model (not in a bad way, mind you!) 

The mysterious eldritch energies contained within will ripple and whirl,  gradually forming a haunting image of what you could have won

[elfhead]

Looking at the cover of the battletome I can only see daemons... doesn’t have to mean anything but i’m worried we won’t get to see mortals with this release.

one of the warcry warbands might have a slaaneshi feel to them though. Allthough I think none of these warbands Will be God specific.

the upside to no mortals would be I need to convert Some. Helps to keep the creatieve juices flowing (which could be considered na aspect of Slaanesh too😛)