AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Neverchosen]

2 hours ago, Grimrock said:

Well I'm not sure where this book will fall, but I think the problem that upsets people is consistency. If people believed GW was going to turn over a new leaf and kick power creep to the curb then I'm sure pretty much everyone would be ecstatic. The problem is there's always the next broken army book one or two releases later. Usually when a nice, balanced, book comes out it just means people are going to be stuck with an uphill battle for the next few years.  

I don't disagree, but I feel we need some games under our collective belts to determine this. It could also end up being one of those factions that has certain powerful and certain underwhelming builds which may allow us to mix and match for some fun and memorable games. Kind of like how Ogres can be more or less competitive depending on how you choose to tailor your list.

[Icarion]

1 hour ago, azdimy said:

To some extent but  i can bring 5 chaos warrior for nearly half the cost of 5 painbringers or twin souls and generate the same amount of depravity with them without paying the in battletome tax

I don't really buy that though.

Yeah they look broadly similar in terms of warscroll, but for 60 points more, the Myrmidesh bring: better movement, better weapons with 3+/3+ that comes with a -1 rend, a more reliable save with constant rerollability, not tied to unit size. And mortals on 6's. That's just their warscroll in a void, they also have the hedonite keyword which chaos warriors in a slaanesh army wont have, so access to all the hedonite buffs that heroes command abilities and spells are throwing out. Best of all, they get euphoric killers for exploding 6's. Non hedonite mortals miss out on that too.

All of this seems like a great deal for 60 points more considering the rest of their warscroll is at least on par with chaos warriors. 

SO again, my point is warscoll to warscoll comparisons between armies is a poor metric for whether something is overcosted, because it doesn't include comparisons like all of the above. Internally to the slaanesh battletome, this unit looks just fine. 

[stratigo]

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

Tbh, I'd like it if all armies took a leaf from this book and toned themselves down. AoS would be a better place with books where all warscrolls are decent and what matters most is how you play them, rather than spamming one unit over and over. It could well be a new design philosophy that previous power levels of certain units are unsustainable. 

I guarantee someone is gonna figure out a way to abuse the summoning and hedonites will be rocking the top tables for a time.

 

2 hours ago, azdimy said:

To some extent but  i can bring 5 chaos warrior for nearly half the cost of 5 painbringers or twin souls and generate the same amount of depravity with them without paying the in battletome tax

 

Maybe by abusing this. and tossing a burning head through their 10 min sized units.

[Yoid]

Wheels were reworked to not damage Slaanesh units. So only one Endless Spell can retaliate now, and even it give +bravery to us and -bravery to the enemy. Seems like a good update similar to Endless Spells in more modern tomes.

[LeonBox]

Does anyone have exact descriptions of the changes in the spell lores? I keep hearing about the greater daemon lore having a fly spell now -- does this mean one of the other spells got axed? If so, which one? 

[Yoid]

27 minutes ago, LeonBox said:

Does anyone have exact descriptions of the changes in the spell lores? I keep hearing about the greater daemon lore having a fly spell now -- does this mean one of the other spells got axed? If so, which one? 

The one that generate DP changed to give the caster flying instead. Also casting difficulty of the other spells is now lower.

The spell lore of regular daemons is mostly unchanged except for the buff on the healing one (now easier to cast and always heal 1d3)

On other topic: They nerfed Strength of Godhood (now deal 1 wound instead of 1d3) and Sliverslash (now gives +1 attack instead of +2) That's not cool, Pretenders super heroes gonna be less super.

[yukishiro1]

It's gonna be really funny if the second half of the Lumineth book comes out and makes Lumineth even more powerful in even gimmickier ways right after they toned down DoK and Slaanesh gimmicks. 

[JackStreicher]

7 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Euphoric Killers is Hedonites only, and quite a few other buffs were changed to only affect Hedonites (such as those provided by Syll'Esske.) It sucks, no doubt, but I can see why they did it - they priced all the units in the book with Depravity in mind, whereas Slaves units obviously can't be because they're accessible by four (or more?) other factions. They made sure the units in this book got all the attention in the form of synergies and buffs to compensate. 

I partly agree though I have three complaints:

- It‘s cheap to just , basically cut S2D out entirely and make them worthless

- They want people to buy the new expensive toys with the... awesome warscrolls instead of using S2D

- If it causes so much frustration already, then why did they make Depravity as central to the army as it is? It‘s just causing confusion and unneeded debate. They could have kept the mechanic but tripled the DP needed for summoning and they could‘ve stopped the 4+ hit nonsense and depraved point costs. It‘s just so utterly stupid...

 

I also look at the prices: Myrmidesh plainly suck, since 5 glorified Chaos Warriors cost 45!€ what-the-hell?

Slaangors suck, yet 3 models are 40+ €? 
why would you pay that much for such a underwhelming game experience?

Would you buy 5 Sequitors for 45€? I doubt it.
 

I agree that GW is aiming to counteract powercreep. But this release is such a horrid mess. Too high prices for (basically) Liberators with one rend. Too high point costs. An army that’s so dead set on a mechanic that it Right out destroys synergies with itself and S2D/BoC. Have you ever read any Slasnesh lore in which the actual army was a pillowfisted joke and they were only able to scare their enemies by summoning a constant stream of Demons? - Summoning should be a bonus NOT the core rule that makes your army work unless, ofc, you are a Undead faction.

It‘s simply „what the hell?“ imo.

 

DoK were nerfed as well while making all the Temples really interesting. I love it! So what, by Dracothion‘s tail, Is This!?

 

I‘ll hope the first batreps that‘ll come out will prove me wrong....

Edited February 13, 2021 by JackStreicher

[LeonBox]

1 hour ago, Yoid said:

The one that generate DP changed to give the caster flying instead. Also casting difficulty of the other spells is now lower.

The spell lore of regular daemons is mostly unchanged except for the buff on the healing one (now easier to cast and always heal 1d3)

On other topic: They nerfed Strength of Godhood (now deal 1 wound instead of 1d3) and Sliverslash (now gives +1 attack instead of +2) That's not cool, Pretenders super heroes gonna be less super.

Ah makes sense the DP spell went with the changes. Have they not changed the utterly underwhelming mortal lore? 

Edit: managed to answer my own question in the meantime: 

Battle Rapture is unchanged; 

Judgment of Excess has replaced Hellshriek -- 5+,  pick an enemy unit within 12", do 1 MW per 5 models in the unit. 

Dark Delusions has a casting value of 4 but is otherwise unchanged. 

Edited February 13, 2021 by LeonBox

[Enoby]

I'm wondering, for those who are disappointed in the release, how would you feel if the new mortals (and some of the other models) dropped 50 points? So, for example, Painbringers were 100 and Slickblades were 150? 

I ask because, if you like the sound of this a lot more, then there's a decent chance this will happen if the army is performing poorly as points costs are easy to do. Maybe not a straight 50 drop to everything all at once, but they have very consciously priced these units highly (note, not necessarily too high until we see them in action) as seen by the increases to Hellstriders without a warscroll change and so I think they're aware that things may need to come down but they didn't want another new broken army shooting to the top of the meta. I think the high price is to counteract summoning (and that's why euphoric killers is hedonite only), but after some games and tournaments, if there's enough feedback points may see some changes as it's by far the easiest thing to edit. 

As for uncreative warscrolls, I agree that they're hardly imaginative, but I think this is a design choice for balance and our tricks are meant to come from battalions and allegiance abilities. I can't say yet, but from the sounds of it DoK got toned down too, so it might be a conscious effort across the board to have less crazy abilities on warscrolls to cause fewer issues in the game as a whole.

[umpac]

10 hours ago, Yoid said:

Slickblades deal around 10 wounds vs 4+ save (counting both exploding 6s and MW on 6s) you can round it up to 11 wound being extremely picky with the decimals, but that's it. They hit quite vanila compared to other units in the same price range without any extra tankiness. I gues you can count the 20 wounds as being tanky nowadays.

Are you sure you're counting with the mortals doing damage in addiition? Are you sure you're taking the new Euhporic killers into consideration (+2 attacks on 6s for smaller units, +3 for 20+)? Because it should come out to 13 that way.

 

Edit: Ah, turns out someone mistranslated, seeing the English version now I see Euphoric killers are the same. You're right its 10 wounds, which is okay but not great.

Edited February 13, 2021 by umpac

[Drazhoath]

3 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I'm wondering, for those who are disappointed in the release, how would you feel if the new mortals (and some of the other models) dropped 50 points? So, for example, Painbringers were 100 and Slickblades were 150? 

I ask because, if you like the sound of this a lot more, then there's a decent chance this will happen if the army is performing poorly as points costs are easy to do. Maybe not a straight 50 drop to everything all at once, but they have very consciously priced these units highly (note, not necessarily too high until we see them in action) as seen by the increases to Hellstriders without a warscroll change and so I think they're aware that things may need to come down but they didn't want another new broken army shooting to the top of the meta. I think the high price is to counteract summoning (and that's why euphoric killers is hedonite only), but after some games and tournaments, if there's enough feedback points may see some changes as it's by far the easiest thing to edit. 

As for uncreative warscrolls, I agree that they're hardly imaginative, but I think this is a design choice for balance and our tricks are meant to come from battalions and allegiance abilities. I can't say yet, but from the sounds of it DoK got toned down too, so it might be a conscious effort across the board to have less crazy abilities on warscrolls to cause fewer issues in the game as a whole.

I hope all next battletomes will left the power creep level. So I think the new HoS are a good start to make the game more interesting again😊

[JackStreicher]

7 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I'm wondering, for those who are disappointed in the release, how would you feel if the new mortals (and some of the other models) dropped 50 points? So, for example, Painbringers were 100 and Slickblades were 150? 

Wouldn‘t do it. I am not paying 45€ for a unit that I‘ll need at least 3 boxes of. They‘d need to make the prices more reasonable for what you are getting.

Atm it feels like buying a Sequitor for 9-11€ per Model.

 

And yes, DoK got toned down, yet the models still pull their weight and everything seems great. HoS however... well seems to be the prime example of how not to stoop powercreep. It‘s in the handbook of „toning down“ right under „uncreative, boring mess“

but that‘s just my opinion ^^

Edited February 13, 2021 by JackStreicher

[Enoby]

12 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Wouldn‘t do it. I am not paying 45€ for a unit that I‘ll need at least 3 boxes of. They‘d need to make the prices more reasonable for what you are getting.

Atm it feels like buying a Sequitor for 9-11€ per Model.

 

And yes, DoK got toned down, yet the models still pull their weight and everything seems great. HoS however... well seems to be the prime example of how not to stoop powercreep. It‘s in the handbook of „toning down“ right under „uncreative, boring mess“

but that‘s just my opinion ^^

That's fair enough I personally think they're okay pricing wise from GW (but GW prices jump all over the place so it's hard to say what's okay). I guess I don't mind the toning down and I think most of the proof in this army will be in playing it

 

Unrelated but fair warning to all, apparently the Slaanesh dice are selling out pretty quickly

[Feii]

12 hours ago, Benkei said:

I don't really mind if units are a little overcosted, but what gets me is the total lack of creativity and lore/stats relation with the exception of Glutos. It feels really lazy, the example with the Blissbarb arrows and the Symbaresh weapons being the most egregious one. 

Why couldn't most new units be more like Glutos and the Shardspeaker? Not powerwise but varietywise

Both battletomes (Hedonites and DoK) feel on the lazy side. 

 

I fear that GW thinks they can just patch this product in the future with a broken realm like release. Really weird that 40k battletomes change and tweak more than AoS ones these days.

 

DoK (ubderstandably) have lost their battalion with the stormcast but nothing new was added back. I would expect that a 3 billion company would come up with a battalion for DoK and CoS/Idoneth, 

 

PS I still think Hedonites might be a good army (not OP) but there are elements that will make longterm players feel bad when playing this army now and it is a very restrictive battletome for new potential players (rule wise, model wi$e)

[Yokai]

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

- If it causes so much frustration already, then why did they make Depravity as central to the army as it is? It‘s just causing confusion and unneeded debate. They could have kept the mechanic but tripled the DP needed for summoning and they could‘ve stopped the 4+ hit nonsense and depraved point costs. It‘s just so utterly stupid..

I guess they want to keep DP flowing (and thus need to balance mortal points accordingly) in order to make it mandatory for Slaanesh mortal players to make a hefty investment into demons as well. More money for GW and all that.

[shinros]

Got my pre-order, can't wait for my limited edition tome! 

[Benkei]

2 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

It's gonna be really funny if the second half of the Lumineth book comes out and makes Lumineth even more powerful in even gimmickier ways right after they toned down DoK and Slaanesh gimmicks. 

I have 0 doubts that's what's gonna happen. Hedonites mortals feel like just boring toned down LRL. 

By the way, if GW is so worried about power creep and broken armies (they aren't), how come they didn't release an AoS FAQ? 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Benkei

[Sprues&Brews]

Our full written review of the battletome is live!

https://spruesandbrews.com/2021/02/13/new-battletome-hedonites-of-slaanesh-2021-review/

As is our video flick through of the new book!

 

[SorryLizard]

Ash is live too with his video here:

I've ordered Sigvald, which is what I'd planned to do anyway. Time to watch more about NMM...

[Jaskier]

I saw comments earlier talking about denying Depravity points on turn one, but I don't understand exactly how - what am I missing? Is it just your opponent choosing not to attack your units on their first turn/playing keep away on yours? 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Jaskier

[Yokai]

The Goonhammer review is up, and they are quite happy with the tome.

[Enoby]

47 minutes ago, Jaskier said:

I saw comments earlier talking about denying Depravity points on turn one, but I don't understand exactly how - what am I missing? Is it just your opponent choosing not to attack your units on their first turn/playing keep away on yours? 

Yeah, I think it's that your opponent has more control on their turn so they can choose not to do chip damage, or to focus fire and wipe off units

[Jaskier]

31 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Yeah, I think it's that your opponent has more control on their turn so they can choose not to do chip damage, or to focus fire and wipe off units

Yeah fair enough, I figured that's all it was. Thanks!

Did another read through of the rules now that the reviews are up, and I am really glad I re-read Syll'Esske's Deadly Symbiosis rule. My first reaction to that particular change was "LAME!" because I somehow misread it as only affecting Mortal Hedonites (I was working on 3 hours sleep, leave me alone!) but knowing now it still affects all Hedonites (but not all Slaanesh, predictably) is very nice. So here's the thing; I rarely minded spending the CP to give an 18" re-roll hit rolls of 1 bubble, because that's an amazing command ability. Changing it to an ability with a gimmicky activation clause rubbed me the wrong way initially, especially considering the kinds of lists I want to run...until I read that it only forces you to count Mortal Hedonites and Daemon Hedonites. That means all those Chaos Warriors I plan on using to fill my Battleline slots don't count toward it, which works out perfectly given the lists I'm working up have a heavy mortal slant but not a heavy Hedonite mortal slant. It also means that even if your army starts off comprised mostly of mortals, losing said units and/or summoning daemons will help shift the balance, and you can purposefully move your units so you can get the benefit - even if it's just having Syll'Esske in range of a big unit of Slickblades! The only real problem now is the wholly within requirements and having no set activation point; this means you could have an even split, but if one unit in the bubble is destroyed it would block the ability. Given how strong of an ability it is and considering it used to cost a CP, I understand it having those activation clauses; it's not as restrictive or hard to work around as I initially thought. 

I'm also stoked about the changes to how they attack. Old Syll'Esske forced you to attack with one profile, then attack with the other at the end of the phase (a lot of people probably never noticed the end of the phase part) but gain re-rolls to hit on the second activation. This meant they got very little benefit from a Keepers' command ability, and their split activation meant their actual fighting prowess wasn't really worth the price of admission. Now it's a different story. No more split activation, but they get an enormous damage buff if they survive attacks that include any rolled 1s to-hit, and they now fully benefit from Excess of Violence! With the new Locus rules, triggering their revenge rule should be fairly safe to pull off (dependent on opponents' dice rolls, of course) and if you can set it up so that they are attacked prior to piling in at all, you can get potentially two pile-ins with +1 to-hit and +1 to-wound on all their attacks. That's nuts.

Finally, while their command ability still requires them to be the General and thus you'll pretty much only see them in Invaders builds as usual (assuming Syll'Esskan Host isn't updated) there's one big difference; in the old tome, a giant 18" battleshock immunity bubble wasn't really worth much because the playstyle of the army encouraged small units and big monsters. The rub here is that the new Depravity system keys off units that haven't been wiped out by the end of the Battleshock phase. All those cool new mortal units have low or mediocre Bravery. Syll'Esske absolves that problem, and thus has incredible synergy with our summoning mechanic. You also won't be spending as many command points in the preceding fight phase now that their re-roll buff (which was their best attribute before) is now just a regular ability. Subvert is also as awesome as ever, and Born of Damnation got an enormous buff and is the perfect lore spell for a 9 wound hero like them to have. 

I know Syll'Esske has never really caught on with most Slaanesh players - at my most recent tournament a few months back, all three of my opponents were clueless to what they do, and one of those players is a former GT winner who has played against Slaanesh dozens of times - but as someone who has run Syll'Esske in 2 GTs and plenty of smaller events, I'm absolutely stoked and encourage you all to give them a look if you do plan on adding any of the new mortals to your collection. 

Edited February 13, 2021 by Jaskier

[Enoby]

Interestingly, I think RAW the Syll'Esske host is still legal - enjoy our excessive summoning for the two weeks this is allowed