AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Yoid]

34 minutes ago, Carnith said:

It does make me wonder, why did the protean form of Slaanesh end up making twins? 

I can't wait for previews (and I hope they do proper previews). I would hate to find out the night before new zealand preorders when they get spoiled in Italian and we pretty much know what they do minus points. 

Well, it make sense that they are more than one, as Slaanesh embrace way more complexity than the other Gods. Maybe Tzeench that is both change and scheming make sense as two beings too, and that is already represented in Kairos two heads if im not mistaken. Slaanesh is both the craving of extreme sensations (Dexcessa) and the manipulation of the extreme sensations in others (Synessa). There may be other lore reasons, like something interfering with the protean form in Kragnos, we don't know if someone will try to destroy it and instead split it in two or something. But in the end any lore reason can be just a mean to an end, that was to sell two different models.

Since they stop preorders for two weeks, we will be waiting like a month or so until Kragnos is released and we know the full rules.

[AngryPanda]

9 hours ago, Carnith said:

I'm really interested in seeing how these rumors bear out for the rest of the game. There are some huge implications if these are all true. 

I want to see what comes of the rumors for generic battalions and if it'll make our archers better or daemonettes better. 

I can't remember where I was reading it (could've been on TGA and I'm just forgetting), but AOS Coach had a playtester on who said he couldn't wait for players reactions to the twins, but I've been told this guy was also someone who said the Slaanesh Tome was very actually good and people just need to play different.

I’m still holding my breath, after the release of our battletome I have mixed expectations and don’t want to hype myself for an otherwise potential disappointment. Being that the Twins are the direct descendents of a chaos god, I would imagine them to be exceptionally powerful, but anything can happen with these types of releases. 

Edited April 25, 2021 by AngryPanda

[Jaskier]

7 hours ago, Carnith said:

I can't remember where I was reading it (could've been on TGA and I'm just forgetting), but AOS Coach had a playtester on who said he couldn't wait for players reactions to the twins, but I've been told this guy was also someone who said the Slaanesh Tome was very actually good and people just need to play different.

To clarify, he didn't sugar coat that the army has some glaring issues, namely points and some poor warscrolls (Slaangors, Shalaxi, etc) but his experiences line up with mine and others that it has the tools to be very strong in tournament play, and it is absolutely not supposed to be played like the old book was (mainly because of the Locus and Depravity changes.) 

When he says he can't wait for us to see the Twins' rules, there's no guarantee there was a positive connotation to it of course, but I feel like he wouldn't have called them out like that unless he wants us to get excited for their release. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if each individual one is in that 500-600 point range ala Morathi and Teclis. 

[Enoby]

Though I'm trying not to get myself too hyped or give any predictions that are almost certain not to come true, I'm really excited to see their rules. More than anything I want something unique and interesting - things like Morathi's Iron Heart and Teclis's auto casting which define the model. I don't know what ours could be, but I'm looking forward to it regardless. 

I had a game against chaos dwarves with my Twin Souls list. There's not too much to write up on other than the 10 twinsouls did 34 damage to the 4+ save bull centaurs and the entire army charged Glutos and only did 5 damage (a 2+/5++ is nothing to sniff at). It was called in their round three after failing to scratch Glutos.

It kind of confirms what we already know with Glutos and Lurid Haze, but it's good to see the damage twinsouls can pump out when rr hits and wounds.  

[CeleFAZE]

8 hours ago, AronQ_ said:

Hello friends! Maybe this daemon on birth of Newborn illustration  New Herald models? Kinda look cool, hope so.

I think most likely those two are meant to be stylized representations of the heralds riding the contorted epitome model.

 

8 hours ago, Carnith said:

It does make me wonder, why did the protean form of Slaanesh end up making twins? 

In terms of power, if we're moving to generic battalions, my initial idea of a battalion that was the two of them and they get some buffs might not work, unless those types of battalions are relegated to open play and narrative. 

So now I guess I wonder what do they do? Are they keeper power size (so 300-400) or will they be Teclis and Morathi power each since they direct shards of a Chaos god and the closest I think we will get to seeing a chaos god on the table? Or are they together the power of Teclis/Morathi/Nagash? 

 

I can't wait for previews (and I hope they do proper previews). I would hate to find out the night before new zealand preorders when they get spoiled in Italian and we pretty much know what they do minus points. 

Slaanesh has always been about duality, male/female (and those that are neither or both), daemon/mortal (Syll'Esske and twinsouls), corruption of self vs corruption of others, refinement vs extravagance. Even the location of Slaanesh's prison is a place of duality, located in the twilight space between two realms. With the increased prevalence of mirrors being a part a of the creative design space for us I think it makes perfect sense that we have equal yet opposite reflections of excess being taken to two different extremes. One being would dilute their dedication to a particular facet of excess by being dedicated to them all, so separate beings that each fully commit to one specific part of Slaanesh is a very on-brand way to represent that level of obsession.

[Enoby]

Some more work on the parasol 

[docofallplagues]

So I've finally decided on an ice theme for my hedonites, stemming from blue exhakted seekers with frostbitten slickblade riders with icy glaives. Ive already got some ideas like icicles dangling from Glutos' chariot but just for creative purposes, are there any other ideas you guys have that I might not come up with?

Edited April 26, 2021 by docofallplagues

[zombiepiratexxx]

Santa hat Daemonettes! 

[Enoby]

49 minutes ago, docofallplagues said:

So I've finally decided on an ice theme for my hedonites, stemming from blue exhakted seekers with frostbitten slickblade riders with icy glaives. Ive already got some ideas like icicles dangling from Glutos' chariot but just for creative purposes, are there any other ideas you guys have that I might not come up with?

You could try adding fur to the trims of the cape to give it a more 'wintery' look?

[pnkdth]

52 minutes ago, docofallplagues said:

So I've finally decided on an ice theme for my hedonites, stemming from blue exhakted seekers with frostbitten slickblade riders with icy glaives. Ive already got some ideas like icicles dangling from Glutos' chariot but just for creative purposes, are there any other ideas you guys have that I might not come up with?

Exploring different kinds of aurora borealis-effects for banners/icons/fane and bigger stuff like Glutos chariot. Could serve a contrast point and unify the army visually in subtle ways (like in detail work, ornaments, or jewellery/gems). For your daemonic units, represented in their eyes or perhaps claws. Doesn't have to be aggressively bright either, subtle glow effects are really effective too.

[docofallplagues]

29 minutes ago, pnkdth said:

Exploring different kinds of aurora borealis-effects for banners/icons/fane and bigger stuff like Glutos chariot. Could serve a contrast point and unify the army visually in subtle ways (like in detail work, ornaments, or jewellery/gems). For your daemonic units, represented in their eyes or perhaps claws. Doesn't have to be aggressively bright either, subtle glow effects are really effective too.

Well I was thinking of blue skin tones for all the daemon units and glowing blue eyes. Ive had a friend suggest using clear resin to get an ice encrusted look as well but that may be a tough beyond my skill level.

[Enoby]

So, here's a document with the survey results on in full if anyone is interested in reading them https://docs.google.com/document/d/1utDTsRtI_sZRHMUhDeTa0XDbIzhhxjpAsBAK5PhI_Z0/edit?usp=sharing

For those who would prefer just to look at the graphs, here they are  Note, the smaller percentage answers are only visible in the document. There were 333 responses overall - thank you all for your help 

 

The question is now how to present this to GW with a friendly and helpful email 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Enoby]

Finished Kyazu (will be called something different in my army's lore) nearly done with Vhyssk too 

[Popisdead]

On 4/23/2021 at 8:12 AM, Enoby said:

What do people think of the suspected AoS 3 rules? 

- Capping -1 to hit (though tbh, it's probably for the best - we also don't ever stack buffs so no loss there from capping +1 to hit too)

- No depraved drove anymore

- Deepstrike often comes from a battalion but ours doesn't

They so far are a single guy that to me is relatively unheard from?  That usually says playtester over "seen final rules".  

It hurts BoC pretty hard.  GW has shown, BoC are the dead fodder of lore and battletomes... 18 years of ****** that army up.  sigh... So no Drove is just,.. deflating.  

I think having a bonus to charge is good.  Will be good for CoS Aelves and I think Warherd.  

I suspect we will get Deepstrike akin to 40k where you get CP to do it.  I wonder more if CP will change to match 40k than current AoS.  

Another thing is currently in 40k Craftworld Eldar are terrible at primaries (as in,.. unplayable almost) but good at secondaries and with high mobility can dictate the flow of the game in a way they can compete more reasonable.  Slaanesh may end up being an army that is bad at capping objectives but good at doing some interesting denying, revoking, "secondary" means of play in AoS3*.

On 4/23/2021 at 5:50 PM, Overread said:

That said hints of the new lore from the upcoming expansion book suggest that they might be more in line with an ancient Slaan in terms of power (remembering that ancient Slaan are about the most powerful creatures save the Chaos Gods and one or two godbeasts).

How far back are you saying?  1987 lore of old ones?  AoS Lore?  8th ed/End Times?  I'm always keen to hear more of the lore side.  I haven't read the Seraphon book.  

 

The one thing I have to say is edition changes usually spark 6-8 months of fresh game play with discovering new options and overcoming different challenges.  On the heels of a BR book it should be a push towards a new direction of playing.

* have we ever really seen a 2.1 or 1.5 other than making it up as a community?  I find it amusing 25 years later we add "point oh" after numbers so often.  Things can change within an edition and it not need to be so granularly defined.  

[Sorrow]

@Enoby

Interesting data.

I knew Slaangors, Twin Souls and Painbringers were things that had a consensus among people.

But for example Slickblade Seekers and Blissbarb Seekers are basically very close to half people see them as costed too highly, half people see them as correctly costed.  I think they are correctly costed.

@AngryPanda

Data is here, now how to phrase a email that GW will take notice of, that is a another question entirely.

 

[Enoby]

2 hours ago, Sorrow said:

@Enoby

Interesting data.

I knew Slaangors, Twin Souls and Painbringers were things that had a consensus among people.

But for example Slickblade Seekers and Blissbarb Seekers are basically very close to half people see them as costed too highly, half people see them as correctly costed.  I think they are correctly costed

I think some of the data has to be taken with a grain of salt, a lot of people (79% to be pricise) think the book is too highly costed as a whole and so kind of let that bleed over. I reckon GW may ignore models that have a mostly even split and focus on the ones that are at least 60% and upwards, if not 70% upwards. 

I do hope this leads to a change in the points for Slaangors, Twinsouls, Painbringers, and Blissbarb archers. While I'd like to see the shardspeaker and LoP go down too, the units are more important.

2 hours ago, Sorrow said:

Data is here, now how to phrase a email that GW will take notice of, that is a another question entirely.

 

I'm going to be thinking of a draft soon - and would definitely appreciate some input.

I think an important thing is that a few people should send it in, on different days. It's harder to coordinate, but from being on a company inbox before it's easy for things to get forgotten about on a particularly busy day.   

[Carnith]

@Enoby, while watching the streamer HeyWoah on twitch, I mentioned the survey results. He went over them and discussed how he felt about the results. Kinda laughing how much people were on board for over costed units since he did largely agree with it. 
 

link to the VoD. 1 hour and 25 minutes in. I'm bad at time

Edited April 28, 2021 by Carnith

[Popisdead]

4 hours ago, Sorrow said:

@Enoby

Data is here, now how to phrase a email that GW will take notice of, that is a another question entirely.

 

GW is hiring lead developers.  With hopes they start engaging with the community who plays the army over people who just play tournaments.  

[Sorrow]

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

I think some of the data has to be taken with a grain of salt, a lot of people (79% to be pricise) think the book is too highly costed as a whole and so kind of let that bleed over. I reckon GW may ignore models that have a mostly even split and focus on the ones that are at least 60% and upwards, if not 70% upwards. 

I do hope this leads to a change in the points for Slaangors, Twinsouls, Painbringers, and Blissbarb archers. While I'd like to see the shardspeaker and LoP go down too, the units are more important.

I'm going to be thinking of a draft soon - and would definitely appreciate some input.

I think an important thing is that a few people should send it in, on different days. It's harder to coordinate, but from being on a company inbox before it's easy for things to get forgotten about on a particularly busy day.   

Honestly, if they changed points for Twinsouls and Painbringers and did a rewrite of Slaangor scrolls, I am beyond delighted.   🤩

I am hoping @AngryPanda comes in, we need to send this to GW asap, possibly from multiple people as you already said.

I am volunteering to be one of those people.  We all need to send same data and same message.

 

[Sorrow]

1 hour ago, Carnith said:

@Enoby, while watching the streamer HeyWoah on twitch, I mentioned the survey results. He went over them and discussed how he felt about the results. Kinda laughing how much people were on board for over costed units since he did largely agree with it. 
 

link to the VoD. 1 hour and 25 minutes in. I'm bad at time

How do you feel about our new rules? From cost to creativity?

@Popisdead

Let us hope we get a good development team to take a look at this survey.

[Popisdead]

On a lighter note, I was painting the skin on a Slaangor last night.  Man such great models to paint.  And the unit cannot get any worse right?  

[Enoby]

I'm trying to get some ideas for the email sorted out, here's the general ideas I've got going on at the moment:

- Attach and link the document with the exact stats

- Mention the general consensus on each unit (e.g. 88% of people think Slaangors are overcosted, and 77% think that they need a warscroll rewrite) 

- Mention a general consensus of opinions on the rules, keeping a positive spin but drawing attention to the number of people who asked for more combos or synergies

- Give a general overview of the what we would like to see in the future based on what is in this survey:

1. Most immediately, points decreases on Slaangors, Painbringers, Twinsouls, and blissbarb archers
2. Consider points decreases on the Lord of Pain and Shardspeaker 
3. In the future, greater synergies would be appreciated, including spells that directly buff units and more interesting host abilities
4. Consider revoking the change to Euphoric Killers to not effect Slaves to Darkness and Depraved Drove units
5. There is a general want to be able to play the army without summoning so it is mortal only 

Is there anything else we would want to mention here? Or anything else we should focus on? 

 

[CeleFAZE]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

I'm trying to get some ideas for the email sorted out, here's the general ideas I've got going on at the moment:

- Attach and link the document with the exact stats

- Mention the general consensus on each unit (e.g. 88% of people think Slaangors are overcosted, and 77% think that they need a warscroll rewrite) 

- Mention a general consensus of opinions on the rules, keeping a positive spin but drawing attention to the number of people who asked for more combos or synergies

- Give a general overview of the what we would like to see in the future based on what is in this survey:

1. Most immediately, points decreases on Slaangors, Painbringers, Twinsouls, and blissbarb archers
2. Consider points decreases on the Lord of Pain and Shardspeaker 
3. In the future, greater synergies would be appreciated, including spells that directly buff units and more interesting host abilities
4. Consider revoking the change to Euphoric Killers to not effect Slaves to Darkness and Depraved Drove units
5. There is a general want to be able to play the army without summoning so it is mortal only 

Is there anything else we would want to mention here? Or anything else we should focus on? 

 

There's little that comes to mind outside of those points. My only immediate thought would be to allow the shardspeaker's twisted mirror ability to affect shooting as well, but that may simply fall under the umbrella of synergies.

[Popisdead]

I was listening to Russ Veal on AoS Coach talk about Slaanesh and discuss a couple lists.  Russ is going towards Lurid Haze, Invaders, Sigvald, Keeper and,.. well stuff.  It was good to hear.

A sidebar Russ made was that when they are reached out to playtest he was busy with something else so he only got the PDF before the book and the comments were the design took into account that Slaanesh would have access to more than just the internal book so GW's direction was "people will take external stuff anyway so we set that as our baseline" kinda idea.  The other thing he mentioned was the first Slaanesh book is considered a Daemons of Slaanesh book, this is draft 1 of Hedonites of Slaanesh and how the army will operate going forward.  I assume putting together more than just internal options and the depravity and locus might not change much.

 

I'm not here to defend or slander the book, it was just good to hear what GWs intent was.  Right now 3 of my 4 armies are pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel (Sylvaneth, BoC, HoS). 

 

I also listened to HeyWoah talk about the AoS rumours posted on youtube recently.  It got me to thinking about Slaanesh.  With Covid no one really knows how drastically the release schedule changed, assuming, upwards of a year delay is probably not a bad idea but it might not be that drastic (it was 40k that was released last summer, AoS was more light until BR started showing up).  

So hoping Slaanesh was designed with some 8th ed in mind, a couple things HeyWoah mentioned came to mind.  6" pile ins will be good.  Fast movement will be good.  Objective changes for the 3rd turn priority roll change is a change against hard-to-shift objective campers if it goes against them (it's a roll still), summoning off a 9" charge with Godseekers particularly with heroes in Lurid Haze will be good (less room to charge reaction flee).  

 

Russ mentioned he felt Seekers, Daemonettes, Infernal Enraptresses and Seeker chariots being the good things to summon (I haven't had a change to play HoS yet).  He also liked the Soulgrinder.  I own two converted in the manner he described (they were really good in 8th ed WFB) and it gives me impetus to finish painting them finally.  Can't be worse than Slaangors

[Jaskier]

Well we're most definitely not Sylvaneth/Beasts of Chaos tier, we're very much either in the middle of the pack or towards the high end - and generally I think we lean higher. This book has issues but winning games isn't one of them - just don't expect to go 5-0 easily 

Also just speaking from experience, Soul Grinders are decent, but they graduate to fantastic in Daemonsteel Contingent - you have to use Syll'Esskan Host to unlock that battalion, but 3+ save Soul Grinders with +1 to-hit are one of, if not the best Depravity generators you can get.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Jaskier