AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Enoby]

20 minutes ago, AngryPanda said:

Just wanted to point out something strange: in the recent info video for the reveal of Kragnos, the designer talked about his excitement for all the new centerpiece models, except for the upcoming Twins.
 

I find it strange, considering leading up to our release we didn’t get much love either; GW couldn’t even find time to mention the birth of a God’s offspring. 
 

Link to video

Yeah that was a bit strange - it kind of seems like they just forgot, but if I were to take a guess it may mean we're getting no additional rules besides the warscrolls. Which I suppose was to be expected, though perhaps a little disappointing. 

[Sorrow]

34 minutes ago, AngryPanda said:

Just wanted to point out something strange: in the recent info video for the reveal of Kragnos, the designer talked about his excitement for all the new centerpiece models, except for the upcoming Twins.
 

I find it strange, considering leading up to our release we didn’t get much love either; GW couldn’t even find time to mention the birth of a God’s offspring. 
 

Link to video

I do not find it strange, Slaanesh has always been the GW least favorite Chaos God and that has been shown systematically throughout their work across all games and all lore.

I am honestly amazed we got such a beautiful model line, but absence of any new novels for such a massive and beautiful release was truly sad event. Lumineth are on their third full novel, we nothing. Considering that imprisonment of Slaanesh was set up as big plot device from start of Age of Sigmar, the fact that actual children of Slaanesh are walking the Realms should be a massive deal.

Also, I hope that the Twins are not in Broken Realms Kragnos book only to be stomped to ground by Kragnos or Kroak.

[Enoby]

34 minutes ago, Sorrow said:

I do not find it strange, Slaanesh has always been the GW least favorite Chaos God and that has been shown systematically throughout their work across all games and all lore.

I am honestly amazed we got such a beautiful model line, but absence of any new novels for such a massive and beautiful release was truly sad event. Lumineth are on their third full novel, we nothing. Considering that imprisonment of Slaanesh was set up as big plot device from start of Age of Sigmar, the fact that actual children of Slaanesh are walking the Realms should be a massive deal.

Also, I hope that the Twins are not in Broken Realms Kragnos book only to be stomped to ground by Kragnos or Kroak.

To be fair, our treatment has improved massively considering we were once thought to be at risk of getting squatted and now we're sat on the best looking AoS release ever. 

We're sparse on novels but have had a lot of lore involvement - I think the true release of Slaanesh will likely net us something too.

That said, our community articles for the preview were bad - like something was up behind the scenes kind of bad.

[AngryPanda]

44 minutes ago, Enoby said:

To be fair, our treatment has improved massively considering we were once thought to be at risk of getting squatted and now we're sat on the best looking AoS release ever. 

We're sparse on novels but have had a lot of lore involvement - I think the true release of Slaanesh will likely net us something too.

That said, our community articles for the preview were bad - like something was up behind the scenes kind of bad.

Putting on my tin foil hat, in the somewhat recent AoS Coach interview with Russ Veal, he mentioned the reason for the apparent nerfs and high point costs were because of “some disgruntlement behind the scenes” that he can’t disclose. 
 

Honestly, I have a slight suspicion that someone in the rules team dislikes Slaanesh, or the bad backlash from the first book left a very bad tastes for some of the rule designers. Whichever the case is, I really hope it doesn’t carry into the Twins; it isn’t a good rule design philosophy. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by AngryPanda

[Sorrow]

11 minutes ago, AngryPanda said:

Putting on my tin foil hat, in the somewhat recent AoS Coach interview with Russ Veal, he mentioned the reason for the apparent nerfs and high point costs were because of “some disgruntlement behind the scenes” that he can’t disclose. 
 

Honestly, I have a slight suspicion that someone in the rules team dislikes Slaanesh, or the bad backlash from the first book left some very bad tastes for some of the rule designers. Whichever the case is, I really hope it doesn’t carry into the Twins; it isn’t good rule design philosophy. 

I saw this suspicion mentioned multiple times on multiple locations by various people. It is possible, I guess.

On the good side, I am 99% sure that sculpting department of GW loves Slaanesh.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Sorrow

[Jaskier]

Russ also said he can't wait for Slaanesh players to see the Twins' rules, so I don't think you should be worried about them. 

If I had to guess, the real reason they weren't talked about in that interview is either they'll get a video dedicated to them later - besides Kragnos himself, they're the most important characters introduced in Broken Realms - or they aren't as involved in the overarching plot of the book compared to the other characters, and have more of a side-plot that didn't warrant a fifth Broken Realms book. 

It's a complete non-issue though. Slaanesh (in AoS; I'm not counting 40k as Emperor's Children have yet to be updated) has gotten more new model releases than both Tzeentch and Nurgle, and with the Twins they're pretty even with Khorne too. There's only one finecast model left in the range, and it's a model that can alternatively be built using spare riders from the chariot kit.

Just because we didn't get some rules previews and the book has issues - like every other book GW has ever done (and besides, we're still in a good spot competitively) - doesn't mean they're 'neglecting' us. Bar a select few, other factions can only dream of getting the love Slaanesh has gotten in the past two years.

If anything, Russ' comment just shows the rules designers didn't want a repeat of when our first book dropped and annihilated the tournament scene (which is the likely explanation for our points being the way they are) not that the rules designers have a 'grudge' against the faction. If they had a 'grudge' against us, they wouldn't have bothered to rework Depravity and the Locus to the extent they did. 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Jaskier

[Enoby]

6 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Russ also said he can't wait for Slaanesh players to see the Twins' rules, so I don't think you should be worried about them.

I'm really excited to see their rules too - it's unusual that you get a specific shoutout about rules so I'm expecting something quite special, though trying not to get myself too excited for it just in case

8 hours ago, AngryPanda said:

Putting on my tin foil hat, in the somewhat recent AoS Coach interview with Russ Veal, he mentioned the reason for the apparent nerfs and high point costs were because of “some disgruntlement behind the scenes” that he can’t disclose. 

It could be like @Jaskier said that there were discussions about summoning and the last battletome and they decided to play it very safe this time around, which other designers may not have agreed with. If anything this acknowledgement is good for us as it means the designers were aware of the points being controversial and so are likely to be more open to changing them. 

Hopefully the survey and the emails help prompt this change. I don't think the rules team hates us, but I can imagine they were almost embarrassed of the strength of our last book and were much more worried of a repeat this time than having to reduce points a bit later on.

[Enoby]

I've sent my email off   I'm not expecting a reply (they've said so in the automated reply that they don't give them), but I'm hoping that they'll read the email and consider it.

Out of curiosity, who else has sent an email? Just wondering to guess how likely they'll have seen the results of the survey; it's easy to miss one email, but not 5. Just if we can get a good number of people sending something in then we can at least say for sure that they will know of the survey and can take that into account if we do or don't get any points changes in the future. I can't imagine we'll get to know from them if the survey actually had an effect, but we can at least know it didn't if there aren't any points changes in both the next FAQ and the winter FAQ (though this will feel like a long time to wait). 

Until then, it's just a waiting game. I think these twins are going to be really interesting and while I don't expect much more in additional rules to come about, we may get a new host/sub host or battalion. Personally, as a pipe dream, I'd love to see Pretenders reworked so it's not just two command traits, but also (or instead of) a written bonus for the general so it could work on named characters too. At the moment, pretenders is rarely used and restrictive, offering very little benefit to most lists. Even if they had rr1s to hit and wound for units wholly within 12" of the general it would have been a better host as a whole. It reminds me of Hellstriders being one of those things that was nerfed for no real reason even after looking at the last book 

[pnkdth]

The thing which is working against us is the army is functional. It could be better, yes, but we're still fairly comfy as a strong mid tier army. As a result of that, we're probably not a priority since GW rarely act swiftly unless the army in question is breaking the game in a very obvious way. It so good that they're getting the results though since constructive feedback helps in the long run.

I'm also curious about what kind of rules comes with BR:Kragnos and the twins. In particular, what happens with the WotE sub-factions if there are updated versions (like how they updated Belakor's legion).

Then there's the 3rd edition which might just turn the entire meta upside down.

[Sorrow]

@Enoby

I have sent the email and received a reply from GW.

Quote

Good morning,

Thank you so much for taking the time to put down your thoughts in this email and for sending over the results of your survey.

We do take all feedback very seriously from our customers, so this email has been passed on to the relevant heads of departments to look into. Whilst I cannot guarantee a reply from them, or any changes, I assure you that your email will be looked into.

Thanks again for your email, and should you need anything further, please let me know.
Kind regards

 

[Enoby]

7 minutes ago, Sorrow said:

@Enoby

I have sent the email and received a reply from GW.

 

Thanks very much - this actually looks very promising Hopefully with the heads of department looking into it there'll be some movement. Like they said, there's no guarantee, but with 333 people answering the survey I'd hope that they give it some thought and maybe at least a preliminary cautious points drop next FAQ (e.g. 10 points off most things to see how it goes)    

[Sorrow]

1 minute ago, Enoby said:

Thanks very much - this actually looks very promising Hopefully with the heads of department looking into it there'll be some movement. Like they said, there's no guarantee, but with 333 people answering the survey I'd hope that they give it some thought and maybe at least a preliminary cautious points drop next FAQ (e.g. 10 points off most things to see how it goes)    

Absolutely, you did a excellent job with survey.

Personally, I think there are very big chances that this survey could lead to very good feedback from GW.

[Popisdead]

Did you guys notice a  Slaanesh army went 6th in a tournament?  I think it was a fiendstar and glutos with some support.  It's been around on twitter.  And by fiendstar I mean,. only 6.  Sylvaneth players are so used to taking 6-9 for Treekin plus more units wouldn't suprise me to see someone try 2x6 (Treekin have a 2" reach when kitted properly)...

[Enoby]

11 minutes ago, Popisdead said:

Did you guys notice a  Slaanesh army went 6th in a tournament?  I think it was a fiendstar and glutos with some support.  It's been around on twitter.  And by fiendstar I mean,. only 6.  Sylvaneth players are so used to taking 6-9 for Treekin plus more units wouldn't suprise me to see someone try 2x6 (Treekin have a 2" reach when kitted properly)...

I saw that too - meant to mention it here but it's a cool but strange list

[Popisdead]

that's the one.  I thing the thing about Slaanesh is anything that can reliably get 1-2 wounds reliably is valid.  The Contorted are good but while the Entraptress is 150 points she's got a shooting attack with range.  

Stems from the same idea as a couple Soulgrinders.  16W and 4+ so they'll stick around and chip off a wound or two per round, maybe get lucky with the two shooting attacks and have maybe 3 Depravity a turn.  

[Enoby]

Speaking of unusual lists, this one went 4-1 and came 5th out of 60 

[azdimy]

5 hours ago, Enoby said:

Speaking of unusual lists, this one went 4-1 and came 5th out of 60 

It s the list posted above in the thread that finished 5th. This one finished 25th out of 60

Edited May 5, 2021 by azdimy

[Jaskier]

9 hours ago, Enoby said:

I saw that too - meant to mention it here but it's a cool but strange list

This list conceptually fits the competitive archetype I've been following for my Slaanesh lists; Glutos + Fiends, some fast options (either Hellstriders or Slickblades), some objective campers, a few support heroes and then 1-2 ranged units. Exalted Flamers are a great shout as with 6 shots each and their in-built bonuses to hit against big units, you can comfortably split fire to get 1-2 DP points per turn from 18" away - their 9" move ensures they will be in range turn one in almost every scenario. Another nice touch is that if they are caught and killed in melee, they are extremely likely to generate another DP by reflecting mortal wounds back at the enemy (in much the same way as a Lord of Pain does) and even outside of DP generation they're just a solid shooting unit. 

I go in a bit of a different direction with my typical lists as I use Blissbarbs and either Hellstriders and Chaos Warriors to get my ranged units/battleline sorted, and I don't invest as much into support heroes but it lets me run 2 units of Slickblades in Seeker Cavalcade. Overall idea is the same though, get those early DP from afar and smack things down in combat with the super tough Glutos/Fiends combo, and at a guess I'm assuming they also were ideally looking to summon a Keeper early. Lurid Haze is perfect for this kind of list, though interestingly without a battalion this list would not have had the Rod of Misrule, something I'm always trying to fit into all my Invaders lists because it's just too good not to take. 

Edited May 5, 2021 by Jaskier

[Stormy1486]

Trying to build a list around basically only new models. The list doesn't have to be amazingly compeditive, but since I can't fit everything in 2000 points happy to be flexible.

I want minimum glutos:

Glutos

Sigvald

Shardspeaker

Battleline:

2 x 10 blissbarb

5 x chaos warriors (converted from cypher lords)

Then I was hoping to take a combination of either:

10 slickblades

5-10 painbringers

3-6 fiends.

For summoning what is the bare minimum to mostly make DP points work. I have an KoS ready to go, but I really don't know if i want to paint 30 demonettes. Is 20 enough and 3 fiends? I don't want to do chariots or daemonic cavalry.

Will this range of models come together to make a sort of ok list. Or is it a bit too all over the place?

[Enoby]

1 hour ago, Stormy1486 said:

Trying to build a list around basically only new models. The list doesn't have to be amazingly compeditive, but since I can't fit everything in 2000 points happy to be flexible.

I want minimum glutos:

Glutos

Sigvald

Shardspeaker

Battleline:

2 x 10 blissbarb

5 x chaos warriors (converted from cypher lords)

Then I was hoping to take a combination of either:

10 slickblades

5-10 painbringers

3-6 fiends.

For summoning what is the bare minimum to mostly make DP points work. I have an KoS ready to go, but I really don't know if i want to paint 30 demonettes. Is 20 enough and 3 fiends? I don't want to do chariots or daemonic cavalry.

Will this range of models come together to make a sort of ok list. Or is it a bit too all over the place?

I think this list could actually work really well You'll be glad to know that Glutos is an MVP so you'll find no issues with having him in the army - last game I had he tanked two treelords and drycha for three combat phases. 

The 10 Slickblades will probably do best out of them, and 6 fiends are also good with Glutos - the painbringers are a bit overcosted at the moment, but once they come down in points they'll be great. Currently twin souls are better 90% of the time for a similar cost, but that's a points issue

I don't think you'll need 30 daemonettes - I tend to summon a keeper at 12 anyway thanks to the double pile in even when it doesn't make the charge. 10-20 daemonettes will be enough in most circumstances for summoning.  

[Enoby]

7 hours ago, azdimy said:

It s the list posted above in the thread that finished 5th. This one finished 25th out of 60

Thanks - that makes sense I found the google docs of the lists and this was the only Slaanesh one I saw, so I assumed it was the 5th place one

[Sorrow]

Today is Black Library day!

I am hoping we get something.

Maybe a Hedonite novel?

[pnkdth]

20 minutes ago, Sorrow said:

Today is Black Library day!

I am hoping we get something.

Maybe a Hedonite novel?

Could it be a novel about the newborn due the lack of a mention on Monday? Heard it mentioned there might be some model reveals for characters represented in different books and stories. Wouldn't really be a reveal as such, but it seems they're mixing known and unknowns in these reveals this week. 

Here's to hopes, hype, and disappointment! 

[Enoby]

I really hope we see a Slaanesh novel considering how much we have going on narratively - would be a wasted opportunity if not 

[TimeToWaste85]

I completely forgot about allying in Tzeentch. Lol. 
Three Bladebringers on exalted seeker chariots

two Slaanesh soul grinders

two flaming chariots of tzeentch

Three units of Chaos Warriors w/ MoS

One unit of Slickblades 

mesmerizing mirror

fane

 

heavy shooting, solid impact hits, a couple small units for holding objectives with decent saves and the mirror for control shenanigans. If battalions are a thing of the past, I’m rocking it! Lol