AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Enoby]

24 minutes ago, Apinecone said:

Though why would you recommend the exalted hero? They really don't seem to offer much unless I am missing something, just as they are a cheap hero for the artifact?

Yeah, his entire purpose it to wave the rod and take damage from the fane when no one else is using it. If necessary, he can run out and act as a summoming point too.

The exalted hero is only good in these cases: 

- you have a hero that's unimportant to your strategy, and the saving of the points by switching to an exalted hero would help you elsewhere. In your case, swapping out the vice leader for an exalted hero would only be a good switch if the vice leader had no other purpose than to hold the artifact and you wanted those saved 40 points for an endless spell for Glutos to cast. If the vice leader serves a role and you don't care for an endless spell, then don't bother with the exalted hero. Another example (not in your case) would be needing 20 spare points to upgrade painbringers to twin souls, and you have a viceleader who doesn't do much - swapping her out for the hero would be worth it here

- if you have 100 points or less and have a spare artifact you can't give to anyone else. It's usually better to get the exalted hero and an artifact than 5 chaos warriors 

24 minutes ago, Apinecone said:

Also with your dp generation is the 12 you can use on turn 2 or 3? As if the keeper is your first summon and not doing much till turn 4 it feels like you could be doing better things. However I don't have much experience here so would be happy to be wrong.

I believe both were usable for turn 3 (as in, could summon then to be useful on my turn 3). The first game lasted until turn 4, and in that time I summoned fiends turn 2 and 30 daemonettes turn 4 (so 20 dp spent with some left). The second game, I had like 15 turn 3, but it was against Chaos Dwarves so I elected not to summon as I thought it'd be a bit unfair. 

In both games I totally forgot about the godseekers bonus dp for charging.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Enoby

[Panacea]

There is a lot of discussion at the lumineth board about new *theories* (definitely not leaks) about the new battletome. If accurate, it certainly seems that hedonites have been unfairly costed.  Swordmaster is 2w 4+ for 120 pts for example, and their shooting kangaroos is 150 pts.

 

[Enoby]

1 minute ago, Panacea said:

There is a lot of discussion at the lumineth board about new *theories* (definitely not leaks) about the new battletome. If accurate, it certainly seems that hedonites have been unfairly costed.  Swordmaster is 2w 4+ for 120 pts for example, and their shooting kangaroos is 150 pts.

 

Yeah, if it's true it means we've probably been so highly costed due to summoning, which obviously has some issues considering our options in non-Hedonite Slaanesh. However, points are easily fixed. 

Which reminds me, who is planning to write in about it? I was thinking the best tactic would be to have a number of polls (including on this forum). Not as a way to whine, but a bit more like a petition to show interest and to show a bit of solidarity when sending an email. 

I think it will be more effective and more useful to the rules team for us to be able to say 90% of people who answered the poll said they believed the majority of Slaanesh Hedonite units are overcosted than it is to just say "I think they are". Obviously it isn't a scientifically rigorous study (after all, only people who care about Slaanesh will answer so it's likely there'll be more on the 'overcosted' side), but it's better than nothing. 

If people are interested, I'll set up a poll on this forum and have a replica on Facebook groups and Reddit.   

[umpac]

1 hour ago, Panacea said:

their shooting kangaroos is 150 pts.

 

From those "theories" the Kangaroos are god awful for 150 though, significantly worse shooting than Bliss seekers. Ballista seemed very lacklustre as well. 

Edited March 26, 2021 by umpac

[TimeToWaste85]

So how worthwhile is it to run the Dread Pagent? I’ve seen that we have the only worthwhile Underworlds team in AoS proper. 

[Sorrow]

@Enoby

Excellent idea, that being said, let us wait a bit more until we get a look at Lumineth rules and their cost.

It is possible that Hedonites and Lumineth are a introduction to how rules will be written in AOS 3, so if that is the case,  that changes things a lot.

 

[AngryPanda]

2 hours ago, Enoby said:

Yeah, if it's true it means we've probably been so highly costed due to summoning, which obviously has some issues considering our options in non-Hedonite Slaanesh. However, points are easily fixed. 

Which reminds me, who is planning to write in about it? I was thinking the best tactic would be to have a number of polls (including on this forum). Not as a way to whine, but a bit more like a petition to show interest and to show a bit of solidarity when sending an email. 

I think it will be more effective and more useful to the rules team for us to be able to say 90% of people who answered the poll said they believed the majority of Slaanesh Hedonite units are overcosted than it is to just say "I think they are". Obviously it isn't a scientifically rigorous study (after all, only people who care about Slaanesh will answer so it's likely there'll be more on the 'overcosted' side), but it's better than nothing. 

If people are interested, I'll set up a poll on this forum and have a replica on Facebook groups and Reddit.   

100% for this, and I completely agree. I wrote a respectful email to GW about the day or two before the FAQ, but I’m not very faithful a single email will suffice in convincing them. I think a number of people expressing it, via a respectful petition or collection of emails, would be the best way to go. If you post a poll, I’d be down; I say we also have a single poll to represent the whole of the community and not individual polls on each platform. 

[Ragest]

40 minutes ago, Sorrow said:

@Enoby

Excellent idea, that being said, let us wait a bit more until we get a look at Lumineth rules and their cost.

It is possible that Hedonites and Lumineth are a introduction to how rules will be written in AOS 3, so if that is the case,  that changes things a lot.

 

I can tell you about wave 2 of lumineth.

We got more tricks, some nasty abilities (I think some of them are CAs instead of plain abilities) tons of movement and control of the board.

But, talking about the “core” of the warscrolls, salvations and damages, every new warscroll is sightly worse than we actually have.

I can see a tone down in damage (not in mechanics and abilities) in my new book, in your book and even in dok’s book aswell.

[AngryPanda]

1 hour ago, Ragest said:

I can see a tone down in damage (not in mechanics and abilities) in my new book, in your book and even in dok’s book aswell.

That’s interesting, in that case I’m sort of hoping we get a tone down of the damage or power of units within the next GHB, similar to what happened in 9th edition (point increases across the board and tighter lists). I sort of hope that the game plays similar to Total War: Warhammer in the context that it’s a prolonged battle, and not an activation-deletion war where first or double turns define the outcome of a game. 
 

2 hours ago, Sorrow said:

Excellent idea, that being said, let us wait a bit more until we get a look at Lumineth rules and their cost

I agree, after the Lumineth release it would be best to reevaluate the book before any petitions are made; but if it seems the Lumineth came out strong then I would be all for an organized communication to GW. 

[Sorrow]

@Enoby @AngryPanda

We will know the true state of Lumineth rules soon. After that, we can make some meaningful analysis and statistical data.  One voice is a meaningless gesture, if we have to send a letter to GW, far better option is to include as many people as possible.

@Ragest

I am seeing two trains of thought, one seems to agree with you, the other says that new Lumineth will still be leagues ahead of Hedonites. 

[herohammer]

To me it seems the new lumineth stuff is approximately in line with the new Slaanesh stuff just that they didn't change the points on the old stuff (which was already very good) unlike with Slaanesh where the old stuff went up (when it was just average). It is really a bummer as it means lumineth armies are unlikely to use any of the new stuff with a couple of exceptions until points change.

For example the kangaroos may have better melee than bliss barb seekers but are not as good as slickblades in melee and they are considerably worse at shooting than bliss barbs (12in range only for example). At 150 they are fine but only really shine in the subfaction that makes them BL and gives them +1A in melee.

[Ragest]

1 hour ago, Sorrow said:

@Enoby @AngryPanda

We will know the true state of Lumineth rules soon. After that, we can make some meaningful analysis and statistical data.  One voice is a meaningless gesture, if we have to send a letter to GW, far better option is to include as many people as possible.

@Ragest

I am seeing two trains of thought, one seems to agree with you, the other says that new Lumineth will still be leagues ahead of Hedonites. 

Talking about damage? Hm... I think you have more raw damage tbh, we don't have mortals in any attacks with the new profiles (i think just the regend does) and the damage keeps being 1 or D3.

Now I'm, going to say you the worst part, in points the difference is extreme. Lumineth is pretty cheap in almost everything (but the twins and maybe Lyrior) compared to Slaneesh

[Feii]

28 minutes ago, Ragest said:

Talking about damage? Hm... I think you have more raw damage tbh, we don't have mortals in any attacks with the new profiles (i think just the regend does) and the damage keeps being 1 or D3.

Now I'm, going to say you the worst part, in points the difference is extreme. Lumineth is pretty cheap in almost everything (but the twins and maybe Lyrior) compared to Slaneesh

you still get Lyrior nameless version for 150 just without the spear ranged attack which is not worth 60 points anyway. 


Then look at the warscrolls Lyrior reads like a Yugioh card and Slaanesgi units can be lucky if they have 2 okish rules on their profile. It is not about the points. Slaanesh needs a warscroll rewrite and a codex rewrite. (half of Slaaneshi army isnt even synergistic with its own codex lmao) 

[Enoby]

3 minutes ago, Feii said:

you still get Lyrior nameless version for 150 just without the spear ranged attack which is not worth 60 points anyway. 


Then look at the warscrolls Lyrior reads like a Yugioh card and Slaanesgi units can be lucky if they have 2 okish rules on their profile. It is not about the points. Slaanesh needs a warscroll rewrite and a codex rewrite. (half of Slaaneshi army isnt even synergistic with its own codex lmao) 

Just curious, have you played with current Slaanesh?

[herohammer]

the regular Vanari regent guy (and lyrior too) both have to successfully cast a 7+ spell to buff other units whereas an LoP can buff with a CA and a shard speaker can debuff just by being within 9 on 3+

They also only have 6 wounds (same as LoP) with no DPA unlike an LoP

 

In general the lumineth have very few things to spend CAs on. I don't think any of the new units have command abilities at all and they hardly ever use CA for bravery because of Cathalars.

[Benkei]

New Lumineth stuff being "slightly worse" than old Lumineth stuff doesn't get them to Slaanesh level because old Lumineth stuff was pretty amazing. 

Also, I'd rather have slightly worse units with funny tricks than the bland barren desert Slaanesh got for rules on most of their warscrolls (Glutos aside) 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Benkei

[Apinecone]

I will be honest the idea the slaanesh costs where due to it being a 3.0 book just doesn't track with how gw did any of the psychic awakening into 9th.  It seems more like they messed up costing units for the summoning, I would also assume the in book buffs only effecting hedonites rather than slaanesh units was to balance out the costs compared to the slaves units you can pull in.

Luckly other that the poor slaangors it is largely just point costs issues rather than really flawed warscrolls.

[herohammer]

I just hope that we get changed this year rather than having to wait for GHB 2022. GW have been really averse to changing much of anything in AOS recently despite the documented balance issues with certain armies like tzeentch and seraphon

Edited March 26, 2021 by herohammer

[Feii]

15 minutes ago, Apinecone said:

I will be honest the idea the slaanesh costs where due to it being a 3.0 book just doesn't track with how gw did any of the psychic awakening into 9th.  It seems more like they messed up costing units for the summoning, I would also assume the in book buffs only effecting hedonites rather than slaanesh units was to balance out the costs compared to the slaves units you can pull in.

Luckly other that the poor slaangors it is largely just point costs issues rather than really flawed warscrolls.

you sure is only the cost? New seeker units are absolutely amazing sculpts but you can see somehow inexperienced wrote the warscrolls and have half assed them. 

You get like 2 rules 1 is about being able too do something with movement and the second one is exploding 6. Seriously interns wrote the warscrolls. Points wont fix them. 

[Enoby]

9 minutes ago, herohammer said:

I just hope that we get changed this year rather than having to wait for GHB 2022. GW have been really averse to changing much of anything in AOS recently despite the documented balance issues with certain armies like tzeentch and seraphon

I think this would be the use of the suggested poll I'm not a GW designer, but from working in comms I can say a lot of talk goes on within community that never reaches company ears. To us, it may seem obvious, but you have to tell the company first before they know (or use their own tournament data, which isn't going to happen). 

Waiting until a week or so after Lumineth, I think we should make an organised, respectful push to see change in points. We can't just sit by and hope someone else does it if we want to see a change

[Jaskier]

4 hours ago, Feii said:

you sure is only the cost? New seeker units are absolutely amazing sculpts but you can see somehow inexperienced wrote the warscrolls and have half assed them. 

You get like 2 rules 1 is about being able too do something with movement and the second one is exploding 6. Seriously interns wrote the warscrolls. Points wont fix them. 

Can we please stop with this rhetoric? The Daughters of Khaine battletome came out at the same time as the Slaanesh one. Do you know how many abilities Blood Sisters and Blood Stalkers - the Daughters' elite units - have? One each, and they're both about dealing mortal wounds. The Slickblades and Blissbarbs actually have more complexity to them, especially when you factor in potential battalion abilities like the 6" pile-in. When it comes to warscroll complexity, Slaanesh is in line with other factions; Lumineth are the exception here, not Slaanesh. In what way does designing a simple warscroll that lines up with warscroll design for most factions indicate 'inexperienced' writers or interns wrote them? 

I'm sorry but denigrating the rules designers here is just petty and childish. The balance issues with our army come from the designers being conservative with points because of the potential of our summoning, not the warscrolls themselves. Lumineth clearly have a different design ethos compared to most/all other armies in the game; that's not indicative of anything regarding how our book was crafted. 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Jaskier

[Feii]

7 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Can we please stop with this rhetoric? The Daughters of Khaine battletome came out at the same time as the Slaanesh one. Do you know how many abilities Blood Sisters and Blood Stalkers - the Daughters' elite units - have? One each, and they're both about dealing mortal wounds. The Slickblades and Blissbarbs actually have more complexity to them, especially when you factor in potential battalion abilities like the 6" pile-in. When it comes to warscroll complexity, Slaanesh is in line with other factions; Lumineth are the exception here, not Slaanesh. In what way does designing a simple warscroll that lines up with warscroll design for most factions indicate 'inexperienced' writers or interns wrote them? 

I'm sorry but denigrating the rules designers here is just petty and childish. The balance issues with our army come from the designers being conservative with points because of the potential of our summoning, not the warscrolls themselves. Lumineth clearly have a different design ethos compared to most/all other armies in the game; that's not indicative of anything regarding how our book was crafted. 

is not childish if it is true. 


Let's do it then, DoK battletome came out at the same time and just compare the rules and see the descrepancy for ourselves. Snakes got an update to their warscroll as well and a huge one. I would look at that and see them correcting their mistake and bringing it up to date, I can tolerate them having bad warscroll which were written 3 years ago and the designers weren't so experienced/AoS wasnt so fleshed out. 

Meele snakes got an upgraded crystal touch which is better imo. Ranged snakes got an extra attack and a point cost decrease. Furthermore their subfaction which was introduced in BR Morathi got a buff. (not that you would play them in it FaQed khailebron and even the Hag nar seem stronger for them than the kobra kai subfaction BUT from a design perspective they were given a nice subfaction for newer players that says HEY YOU CAN BUILD SNAKE LADY ARMY IF YOU WANT, both DoK and LRL windcharger nation do that, seekers don't have that kind of faction) On top of that snakes have amazing synergy with your centerpiece model, meele snakes get an extra attack near the shadow queen and morathi has an amazing double shoot per turn CA for ranged snakes. Then let us talk about battalions, Vyperic quard is a nice battalion that allows you to get one free double tap per battle. If yo udont want to run the battalion or morathi you can still play with the new melusai ironscale CA and meele snakes. (ally in a ghurian battle mage and you have almost 30 inches threat range for charge with them haha) On the other hand allying other chaos guys to your slaaneshi army has become much worse, trivial rule gating behind the hedonites keyword is just plainly idiotic. I don't think there was a problem with people playing BoC in slaanesh (the problem is marauders nerf them thanks) you have this insane dichotomy where order armies get much better writers and everything is cool, let me ally rotarius net launchers sharks to my LRL/DoK but  apparently slaanesh hates chaos worshippers with the mark of slaanesh if they arent hedonites, mkaaay. 


Another thing is the quality of rules, crystal touch is a flavourful fluffy working rule meanwhile the seeker rules have in my opinion 0 interesting rules. (lore wise the new units are exalted seekers ridden by the best of the best hedonites who wander into the realm of chaos and "befriend"and exalted seeker with their feats etc. 2+ tough has an amazing lore video about them) I think all the exalted seeker units (which are 2 maybe 3 if you retcon pure seekers) should be able to run and charge and shoot. That should be their rules. Also why are the supreme champions of slaanesh so bland and MEH on their warcroll? I don't think twinsouls/painbringers should have almost the same statline as my sequitors. Wtf? There is a giant disconnect in this top down design between how the models look like and how are they in lore and what are their warscrolls. 


Slaanesh is not in line with other factions. Slaanesh has had their battletome released and quite honestly when we look at the competitivness of the army it's ******. So far there is one not ****** battalion in the whole book so everybody playing to win takes the seeker cavalcade and still those list are just not performing. 

I don't know how you can call a competitively bad, design wise underdeveloped, point wise overcosted, rules and synergy starved  battletome an average. 

[Sorrow]

Competitive aspect of new Hedonites aside, I was hoping for a lore flavored rules.

As @Benkei pointed out from the beginning, with the exception of Glutos, I too feel like our rules are bland and dull.

[LeonBox]

Seems to be a hell of a lot of fuss over the LRL release. Has anyone had a chance to look over the rumours, and if so, how's their costing looking compared to ours?

[Jaskier]

@Feii

It is childish because you're denigrating the rules designers without knowing the background of how and why the book was designed the way it is, especially when the original point you made was, at best, inaccurate. As you point out, the key reason you see more warscroll updates for Daughters of Khaine is because their battletome is from 2018, whereas ours is from 2019. Our book came out after AoS 2.0, theirs didn't, and the rules for both reflected that. Our warscrolls are already modern, theirs needed to be modernised. That's not indicative of laziness, or inept rules designers. That's the rules designers updating one faction to bring them in line with others. Ours was already at that point, hence the fewer updates, and consider this; our book was likely slated to come out in 2020 before COVID hit. The lack of changes really shouldn't be a surprise; most of the changes come from points, Euphoric Killers, our summoning mechanic and the Locus. 

I don't agree with them removing Euphoric Killers from non-Hedonites. You'll get no argument from me there. It's obviously to encourage more Hedonites in the army, or at least give Slaves/Beasts a different role to just killing stuff - they're still great for giving us tough or cheap bodies. 

On a fundamental level, our new summoning mechanic is better for the game than our old one. The old one, while stronger in most cases, was also lazier because it completely killed any incentive to run anything but big stompy heroes and minimum battleline. Our new summoning mechanic actually rewards taking everything or at least diversifying our lists; you can still min-max it, but you're no longer punished for running Fiends and so on. Now you will really start to see lists that make use of our various non-hero elites, and invest more into taking things other than Keepers. That's not lazy or bad rules design to me. That's an improvement from a rules design perspective. 

Then we get to our Locus. This is a rule that everyone hated. I've played a tonne of games with Slaanesh and never once played against someone who didn't hate that rule. There was counterplay of course, but even the people who could get around it still didn't like facing it, and plenty of Slaanesh players - myself included - didn't like how cheap it felt to not be punished for poor positioning thanks to a silly defensive net. Like our summoning mechanic, the old version is also stronger in most cases, but it was a special rule that was near universally panned. By comparison, the new Locus has some really strong applications for locking units in place, which good positioning can really make the most out of - whether to grab objectives or just to survive - and crucially, it doesn't leave the opponent feeling helpless while a big scary monster/unit fights twice and takes their models off the board before they get a chance to strike. Again, from a design perspective, I think it's an improvement - it's certainly more tactically rewarding, if quite a bit more limited in its uses. 

As both a DoK and Slaanesh player, the point about how 'interesting' the warscrolls for Melusai are doesn't track that much with me, personally. The Blood Sisters' mortal wound rule is a cooler, more unique way of dealing mortal wounds as compared to Slickblades, but it's still just another rule that does mortal wounds. Ditto Blood Stalkers, who have less flavour to them than Blissbarb Seekers, who get to run and shoot by default. I feel that the Slickblades' speed is represented at least nominally with their re-roll charges, something that Hellstriders don't have. I also don't mind regular Seekers being the fastest of the mounted units; they're daemonic riders and more lightly armoured/armed than the others. As for your comment on Myrmidesh and Twinsouls, remember that you're comparing them to Stormcast. The basic Stormcast is a superhuman warrior clad with the finest armour and weapons. The basic Stormcast isn't comparable to a basic human like a Marauder or Freeguild Guard, they are comparable more to the elites of other armies, like Chaos Warriors, Chosen and so on. Both Myrmidesh and Twinsouls are better than Chaos Warriors, and better or comparable to Sequitors. Why is that a bad thing exactly? Remember, these units - based on warscrolls alone - are quite a bit more powerful than something like a Liberator or Chaos Warrior, they just pay too much for those abilities. 

And that's where the disconnect comes in. Points. Let's preface this; your original post, the reason I commented, used Lumineth as a point of comparison to say how our warscrolls are dull, and that is thus indicative of lazy or inept rules designers, that Glutos is the only interesting one we have. I strongly disagree, even if we just keep it to the new mortals. Twinsouls have an alternating 'personality' bonus, boosting either their damage or durability, and force you to plan around when you want those buffs active. That's more interesting to me than just "here's this buff, use it" because it presents a tactical choice for the user. The Shardspeaker is a fragile wizard that wants to get close to make full use of their powerful offensive buff and debuff; both those abilities are amazing, but they are also dangerous to get full use out of. That's more interesting to me than just "pick a unit, that unit gets debuffed to the ground." Blissbarb Archers and Blissbarb Seekers offer surprisingly good ranged damage for what are supposed to be chaff infantry/cavalry, and are super fast to boot - they are fragile, but can cover ground quickly and their medium range means you similarly need to be aggressive to get the most out of them. Ranged units in general are also just intriguing for Slaanesh with the new Depravity system, as one unit of Blissbarbs can easily tag you two summoning points a turn without getting stuck into combat, but it comes with the trade-off of the units being more fragile than a lot of your equivalent melee options. That's more interesting to me than just sitting 30" away and rolling dice without having to actually think about positioning. Sigvald's Attacks characteristic being tied to his charge roll makes me think it represents how interested he is in fighting something; a low charge roll signifies he doesn't feel the opponent is worthy of his time, and the opposite is true of a high charge roll. It's a cool rule all around, and he gets to fight first on the charge and is one of the only models in that game that straight up ignores after-saves, which alone makes him incredibly unique. Myrmidesh and Slickblades are the most 'boring' units, but they fill their roles quite well - Myrmidesh are hard-hitting melee bruisers that are great for holding objectives, and Slickblades are fast cavalry that pack a heavy punch. Slaangors are...well, the less said about them, the better. 

Here's the thing; the warscrolls for these units (with one obvious exception) aren't inherently bad. I would also argue they aren't dull - especially the daemonic side of things. You also get really strong battalion abilities that completely change how certain units act, and our allegiances might not focus on specific units, but they nonetheless unlock cool combos that other sub-factions can't necessarily do - Sigvald in Lurid Haze, a Bladebringer with the Circlet, etc. The problem, and the reason this army is having competitive issues, is because of points. We all agree the army has a lot of over-priced units. Is that indicative of bad rules designers? I don't think so. I think it's indicative that the rules designers observed how the first Slaanesh book was on release, made sweeping changes to the summoning mechanic to encourage diversity in lists beyond Keepers and minimum Battleline (which is a huge improvement and sign of actual effort, but whatever) but were cautious of delivering another meta-breaking faction right out of the gate. I've played in two tournaments with the army so far, and even against S-tier factions I've not felt like I was completely shut out off the game from the get-go; I made mistakes that I could have corrected which could have made a difference. I don't think the army is garbage, I just think it's very different and what works and doesn't work isn't obvious yet. I felt that the army could use 'more' but only in the sense that the points do feel very tight.

I genuinely feel that people are conflating the points issue with bad rules design, and that's where I have a problem with calling out the rules designers as inept. The new Depravity shows that they gave a damn about the army, lest they wouldn't have changed it and we'd have had all these new units rendered completely moot by a hero-centric mechanic that completely neutered most of the choices in the book, and that the perceived weakness of our army - which is due more to points than anything else - is being attributed to bad design, and I think that's simply not the case. 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Jaskier