AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Nullius]

I do love the idea of the blissbarb archers or what have you firing arrows seemingly ineffectively at multiple units just causing a bit of damage here and there but wracking up a ton of pain and suffering in the process. That feels cool.

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, CeleFAZE said:

The hugest nerf I've noticed from the leaks thus far is euphoric killers being tied now to the hedonite keyword. This sucks the wind out of nearly all S2D and beast heavy slaanesh lists.

Yup, I won‘t be getting into HoS then ^^

I wonder why GW hates S2D so much

If the wording for depravity is correct the whole summoning is even more broken than in the HoS 1 book.

Edited February 12, 2021 by JackStreicher

[Enoby]

1 hour ago, CeleFAZE said:

The hugest nerf I've noticed from the leaks thus far is euphoric killers being tied now to the hedonite keyword. This sucks the wind out of nearly all S2D and beast heavy slaanesh lists.

This is a big shame, but at the same time Slaves to Darkness effectively have our ability in their own battletome, so if anyone (like myself) has a lot of Slaves then at least the same feel can be got in their book.

That said, it'd be a very very easy change if a lot of people didn't like it. Just changing the keyword from Hedonite to Slaanesh would do it, so it's within the realms of an errata or extra ability. 

Edit: I can imagine the Beasts of Chaos battalion would have a decent possibility to be erratad to give the hedonite keyword. 

Edited February 12, 2021 by Enoby

[CeleFAZE]

1 minute ago, Enoby said:

This is a big shame, but at the same time Slaves to Darkness effectively have our ability in their own battletome, so if anyone (like myself) has a lot of Slaves then at least the same feel can be got in their book.

That said, it'd be a very very easy change if a lot of people didn't like it. Just changing the keyword from Hedonite to Slaanesh would do it, so it's within the realms of an errata or extra ability. 

My hope would be a White Dwarf rehash of the Syll'Esskan host which extends Euphoric Killers to S2D Slaanesh units if not granting them the Hedonite keyword outright. It would also be a much better effect for the Slaanesh BoC battalion than what they have currently, and with Slaangors being introduced it would be a prime opportunity to revise the Depraved Drove in light of the changes.

[CeleFAZE]

40 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Yup, I won‘t be getting into HoS then ^^

I wonder why GW hates S2D so much

If the wording for depravity is correct the whole summoning is even more broken than in the HoS 1 book.

If the points from Shadow and Pain still stand, having an army of small units of hellstriders backed by blissbarbs could presumably cause quite a lot of damage to units without wiping them out, possibly enough by your 2nd turn to throw down a keeper or two, or a big pack of daemonettes. The new locus preventing pile-in for enemies on a 4+/(3+ w/KoS) is also amazing at preventing full unit wipes.

Edit: I also find it interesting that depravity is very similar to my wishlist version of it. Just on a turn by turn basis rather than phase by phase. Being capped at one point per unit per turn is a mitigating factor, though it does give us a tough choice between larger units for Euphoric Killers vs MSU to maximize depravity.

Edited February 12, 2021 by CeleFAZE

[Enoby]

16 minutes ago, CeleFAZE said:

My hope would be a White Dwarf rehash of the Syll'Esskan host which extends Euphoric Killers to S2D Slaanesh units if not granting them the Hedonite keyword outright. It would also be a much better effect for the Slaanesh BoC battalion than what they have currently, and with Slaangors being introduced it would be a prime opportunity to revise the Depraved Drove in light of the changes.

Yeah, I think you're right - it's an easy 'fix' and I would't put it passed them to jump on the ability to have special rules available at a later date

I'd recommend, to anyone who cares, to write in about the depraved drove. I don't think they did this maliciously, but rather out of worry that our own units would be upstaged by marauders etc. I really like Slaves to Darkness and how they can be taken in any god army, but at the same time it's probably a balancing nightmare so I understand why they wanted to scale it back. Let's face it, the only none-Hedonite Slaves to Darkness worth taking on a competitive level was marauders (with Arcaon being a Hedonite) so this isn't going to be a massive competitive blow. Our other abilities (such as the +1 to wound) still effect anything, meaning we still have unique ways to boost normal Slaanesh marked things.

If I'm being honest, Hedonites should be at base better than just marked units in their own book, and this is from someone with a massive collection of Slaves to Darkness and Beasts of Chaos for my own army. They can still bring unique things, such as massive tankiness for depravity (choas warriors are good for something), easy first turn charges with bestigors and the shaman, and very cheap battleline. We will probably have other ways to buff them too, as well as the ways to buff them in their own army (e.g. the Chaos Sorcerer lord in Slaanesh makes any S2D unit in our army much better).

Edited February 12, 2021 by Enoby

[Jaskier]

Losing Euphoric Killers ain't gonna dissuade me from running Chaos Warriors. They're way too tanky not to have around with these new Depravity rules! Gonna mix them with Myrmidesh and either Hellstriders or Blissbarbs in my mortal lists. 

[CeleFAZE]

12 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Yeah, I think you're right - it's an easy 'fix' and I would't put it passed them to jump on the ability to have special rules available at a later date

I'd recommend, to anyone who cares, to write in about the depraved drove. I don't think they did this maliciously, but rather out of worry that our own units would be upstaged by marauders etc. I really like Slaves to Darkness and how they can be taken in any god army, but at the same time it's probably a balancing nightmare so I understand why they wanted to scale it back. Let's face it, the only none-Hedonite Slaves to Darkness worth taking on a competitive level was marauders (with Arcaon being a Hedonite) so this isn't going to be a massive competitive blow. Our other abilities (such as the +1 to wound) still effect anything, meaning we still have unique ways to boost normal Slaanesh marked things.

If I'm being honest, Hedonites should be at base better than just marked units in their own book, and this is from someone with a massive collection of Slaves to Darkness and Beasts of Chaos for my own army. They can still bring unique things, such as massive tankiness for depravity (choas warriors are good for something), easy first turn charges with bestigors and the shaman, and very cheap battleline. We will probably have other ways to buff them too, as well as the ways to buff them in their own army (e.g. the Chaos Sorcerer lord in Slaanesh makes any S2D unit in our army much better).

Yeah, I'm really glad that marauders aren't our go-to anymore. They're still strong in lurid haze presumably, but no longer the be-all-end-all they used to be. I definitely would have preferred a buff to something else to make it more attractive than a nerf to usability for something already strong however.

[Enoby]

4 minutes ago, CeleFAZE said:

. I definitely would have preferred a buff to something else to make it more attractive than a nerf to usability for something already strong however.

Oh yeah, it's still a shame - I'd have preferred it if the Hedonite keyword locked 6s being 3 hits (but not 2) to encourage more Hedonite hordes.

Ah well, I don't think it's the end of the world for Slaanesh marked non-Hedonites - it's a blow, but if we have other buffs in our book then it may be relatively unnoticeable. I'll still write in about the depraved drove because that feels more like an accidental casualty.

On the bright side, these big changes to our most maligned allegiance abilities makes me hopeful for fiends    

[Ragest]

Well, after the leaks im buying Slaneesh.

Hello my new friends.

[CeleFAZE]

3 minutes ago, Ragest said:

Well, after the leaks im buying Slaneesh.

Hello my new friends.

Welcome to the club!

[Beliman]

It seems that you can only summon 1 unit in each of your turns

[Enoby]

1 minute ago, Beliman said:

It seems that you can only summon 1 unit in each of your turns

To be honest, that's totally fine - I don't think anyone wants to go back to the times of summoning three keepers a turn. 

[Yokai]

12 minutes ago, Ragest said:

Well, after the leaks im buying Slaneesh.

Hello my new friends.

We're all friends with benefits here at Slaanesh's. Welcome to the excess!

[CeleFAZE]

1 minute ago, Beliman said:

It seems that you can only summon 1 unit in each of your turns

Oh, that's definitely a mitigating factor. That certainly influences my list building when maximizing depravity, though honestly a keeper a turn is still amazing, even without chain summoning.

[Ragest]

Keepers are fine, but a unit of 30 daemonettes in turn 3/4/5? That wins matches alone.

[Enoby]

Already have a member from my gaming group decrying Slaanesh to be OP! 

[Ragest]

Just now, Enoby said:

Already have a member from my gaming group decrying Slaanesh to be OP! 

I like Slaneesh now because I think they are not the classic turbo OP new army, It looks pretty fair for me, not a top tier but a good army.

Maybe I'm wrong and when we see the full picture Slaneesh is busted, but not now.

[Enoby]

1 minute ago, Ragest said:

I like Slaneesh now because I think they are not the classic turbo OP new army, It looks pretty fair for me, not a top tier but a good army.

Maybe I'm wrong and when we see the full picture Slaneesh is busted, but not now.

Yeah, from what I can tell they look fine - depravity looks strong but not turbo OP like they were before.

Though, providing that our blade wheels stay the same, I wonder if it would be worth taking some cheap allies to run them over... 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Sigvald looks pretty fun! I like how they pulled off designing him in such a way that he's good against stuff that is normally hard to kill, but kind of bad against easy to kill chaff. I'd love to see more of this, and less units that are just good against everything.

[Gistradagis]

Man, I was waiting for the leaks to decide, and I'm definitely doing Slaanesh with Sigdaddy, hopefully with mortals if they don't suck. Although it's a pity that Sigvald is not a daemon, so the sort of thematic leader of the faction doesn't have access to the Locus of Diversion, somehow.

[JonnyTheKing]

Leaks for the mounted archers are out:

3 shots each, 3s, 4s -1 rend 1 damage, can run and shoot, mortal wounds on 6s to shoot, move 14, 4 wounds, 5+ save, 6 bravery 

[Dankboss]

7 hours ago, Yoid said:

Im reading the leaks and Oh My God. Summoning builds revolving around shooting and tanking are gonna be broken. As it reads you generate DP at the end of the battleshock phase (Both yours and the enemy) 1 point for each unit (both your and your enemy) that suffered a wound or mortal wound or have less models than at the start of the turn.

6pts to summon 10 Daemonettes

10pts to summon 20 Daemonettes

12pts to summon 30 Daemonettes or a Keeper of Secrets.

It is so hard to wound (and not completely remove) 6 enemy units with Blissbarb Archers and Infernal Enrapturess and Seeker Chariots charging in a turn? Because that mean you can easily summon a Keeper of Secrets each turn, you just need some tank frontline to survive until the points are banked, and if they hit your frontline you get even more points now.

The numbers seems... broken. I can foresee a future nerf to the values same history as our old Battletome.

But, the good thing is hero hammer is gone for good. In fact probably big heroes are gonna underperform in the Depravity system ¿400pts to generate just 2DP one from you and one from your enemy? Nah, 4 MSU of 100pts to generate 8 seem way better. Of course most MSU are gonna explode if the enemy retaliate or charge.

Still exploding 6s go to triple hit when you are at 20+ models, but MSU is better for Depravity Point generation now. Different lists, different playstyles. Maybe MSU and then summon blobs of 30 daemonettes. I don't know, is so exciting!

Why warhammer community didn't hyped this? Where they mad?

Locus goes in a 4+ in regular heroes (and 3+ in the Keeper) but now only prevent the pile in move. I like the change, i was mad about locus being useless in small heroes, now it got a good use, you can avoid a big chunck of retaliate with it, but the other player will probably enjoy the fight too.

The change to depravity does give it clear counter play fortunately, if you can focus down a unit to prevent points.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

6 minutes ago, Gistradagis said:

Man, I was waiting for the leaks to decide, and I'm definitely doing Slaanesh with Sigdaddy, hopefully with mortals if they don't suck. Although it's a pity that Sigvald is not a daemon, so the sort of thematic leader of the faction doesn't have access to the Locus of Diversion, somehow.

Unless I missed something, he also does not get a command ability or benefit other units in any other way. Which, personally, I am fine with. You don't usually want named characters as your general anyway. Sigvald's rules make him feel more like a selfish duellist type, who shows up to join your Slaanesh army as he pleases, does his own thing, and then leaves whenever he's had enough. Which I really think is a great role for him.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, Dankboss said:

The change to depravity does give it clear counter play fortunately, if you can focus down a unit to prevent points.

I also like that it's really thematic, because it encourages Slaanesh players to sadistically keep opponents alive and while killing them slowly over several turns.

 

8 minutes ago, JonnyTheKing said:

Leaks for the mounted archers are out:

3 shots each, 3s, 4s -1 rend 1 damage, can run and shoot, mortal wounds on 6s to shoot, move 14, 4 wounds, 5+ save, 6 bravery 

Do we know the reach of their ranged attack? Althought even if it's 9", they have a threat range of, like, 24" or so easily.