AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[CeleFAZE]

So, took my Slaanesh to a local GT with some amazing local players and had a blast, going 2.5/5 (one tie). Here are some observations from my games:

Hellstriders are pretty useful. Having resilience and the movement to be where you need to go is great, though I'm not sold on the scourges. With the cavalcade I'm not really charging with them, and to not get use out of their ability feels like I'm leaving points on the table by not taking the cheaper option of clawspears.

Keepers are still pretty good, though they're much better as support pieces to amp up slickblades. My keeper saved me in both games I won, and I'm not sure I'd want to leave home without one.

Slickblades are easily our best unit, but are way squishier than their wounds suggest. Definitely not a unit that can Rambo through and carry the game on their own. 

Blissbarb seekers are good, but swingy. They can also do okay in melee in a pinch, and my last game was actually won off the back of a desperate gambit of using the keeper double-attack on two units of blissbarb seekers to grind a unit of bullgors to death before they could push the center objective.

Blissbarb archers are fine. They died quick, but worked great to thin out chaff and open up charge lanes in combination with the bb seekers.

The epitome didn't actually do much, and I'm actually inclined to fit in a second keeper instead, due to the recent lack of unbinding rerolls.

The Scarlet Cavalcade bonus helped like, twice, but the radius is too small to be a reliable answer to our bravery issues, especially with the opportunity cost of what we give up to use it.

I don't know where we'll be if book battalions are lost. Our 6" pile-in is too clutch to what allows us to be competitive, and between hellstriders and exalted seekers of both varieties being able to use their pile-in to acrobatically reposition to sneak into radius on objectives and slap into choicer targets we lose a LOT if book battalions go.

Moving forward for the next event I'm considering experimenting with twinsouls, possibly in lieu of hellstriders. Hopefully I can get in some test games to try them out soon. Maybe also Glutos if I can swing that.

[JackOfBlades]

How much should the Soulfeaster Keeper cost?

[Ulfast]

Me who are new to Hedonites, what is special about the new butterfly daemons? In lore.

[Yoid]

2 hours ago, JackOfBlades said:

How much should the Soulfeaster Keeper cost?

The current warscroll is probably not legal, as it refers to DP in ways not intended by the new battletome.

But if it were somehow legal (and DP generation removed in a FAQ or something) probably around 250-280pts. This opinion may change if every other warscroll in the army go down in points. She hits a little less than an Exalted Chariot but have more wounds, is a double caster, and degrade with damage.

I think right now is more of a proxy for the regular KoS. Unless they update her warscroll again soon.

[Enoby]

4 hours ago, CeleFAZE said:

So, took my Slaanesh to a local GT with some amazing local players and had a blast, going 2.5/5 (one tie). Here are some observations from my games:

Hellstriders are pretty useful. Having resilience and the movement to be where you need to go is great, though I'm not sold on the scourges. With the cavalcade I'm not really charging with them, and to not get use out of their ability feels like I'm leaving points on the table by not taking the cheaper option of clawspears.

Keepers are still pretty good, though they're much better as support pieces to amp up slickblades. My keeper saved me in both games I won, and I'm not sure I'd want to leave home without one.

Slickblades are easily our best unit, but are way squishier than their wounds suggest. Definitely not a unit that can Rambo through and carry the game on their own. 

Blissbarb seekers are good, but swingy. They can also do okay in melee in a pinch, and my last game was actually won off the back of a desperate gambit of using the keeper double-attack on two units of blissbarb seekers to grind a unit of bullgors to death before they could push the center objective.

Blissbarb archers are fine. They died quick, but worked great to thin out chaff and open up charge lanes in combination with the bb seekers.

The epitome didn't actually do much, and I'm actually inclined to fit in a second keeper instead, due to the recent lack of unbinding rerolls.

The Scarlet Cavalcade bonus helped like, twice, but the radius is too small to be a reliable answer to our bravery issues, especially with the opportunity cost of what we give up to use it.

I don't know where we'll be if book battalions are lost. Our 6" pile-in is too clutch to what allows us to be competitive, and between hellstriders and exalted seekers of both varieties being able to use their pile-in to acrobatically reposition to sneak into radius on objectives and slap into choicer targets we lose a LOT if book battalions go.

Moving forward for the next event I'm considering experimenting with twinsouls, possibly in lieu of hellstriders. Hopefully I can get in some test games to try them out soon. Maybe also Glutos if I can swing that.

Thanks very much for the write up

I reckon we'll be okay without Cavalcade (most of my lists are without it, and it's been fine), it'll just mean we can't rely as heavily on Slickblades. They're still really good, just not quite "best unit in the army bar none" good

I'd recommend Twinsouls; they do die kind of easily, but their damage is really really nice even without support. A lot of people (like 75%) want them coming down in points, but I think they'll be too strong if they come down too much - they look worse than they are due to lack of rend, but their rerolling hits, exploding 6s, and three attacks each add up. 

Glutos is always an MVP - though I'd recommend him in Lurid Haze for that +1 save. While before I'd have said not to include him with a Keeper, I think it'd be a good idea just for that CA. 

2 hours ago, JackOfBlades said:

How much should the Soulfeaster Keeper cost?

I'd say about 300 at most, because lacking that command ability hurts a lot, and it depends on how/if the DP ability works.

59 minutes ago, Ulfast said:

Me who are new to Hedonites, what is special about the new butterfly daemons? In lore.

The twins are the children of Slaanesh, that came out of Slaanesh's "womb". They are effectively the actual children of a Chaos God, so we assume that they'll be stronger than the regular Keeper 

---

As for some good news, the rumoured prices aren't too bad for us:

Kroak £70
Kragnos £95
Slaanesh twin £65
Warsong revenants £32.5
Witch hunters £30

We are also likely to get a battalion box:

Broken Realms: The exquisite pursuit (Slaanesh) - 70€

But I'm guessing this will not be our new models

[Enoby]

Here's the box

[MothmanDraws]

its apparently

epitome

5 seekers

3 fiends

 

Kind of a wierd box

[Ulfast]

Thanks for the answer Enoby. Sounds very intersting that one of the chaos gods finally gives birth!

 

Does that meen in the future that the child will fight against the father/mother? Classic tale

[Enoby]

32 minutes ago, MothmanDraws said:

its apparently

epitome

5 seekers

3 fiends

 

Kind of a wierd box

It is a strange box (good for 40k though), but a good saving if you want what's in it. It'll cost £55 for about £75 of models, and is imo a good addition to the Start Collecting kit if you want daemons.

20 minutes ago, Ulfast said:

Thanks for the answer Enoby. Sounds very intersting that one of the chaos gods finally gives birth!

 

Does that meen in the future that the child will fight against the father/mother? Classic tale

I reckon we could see something like that, though I hope we see a lot more of the twins in this upcoming book

Personally, I'm hoping we'll see more of their warscrolls soon.

[azdimy]

I hope the twins are not sub faction locked. Based on those price leak they probably arent as tall as I though they were. I thought I d be able with one kit to build both variant using my useless forgeworld model but this may not work after all

[Chase]

On 5/23/2021 at 5:55 PM, Enoby said:

I like the Lord of Pain, but mostly with the troop models (Painbringers and Twinsouls); I like these lists, but they're less aggressive

What would you say is an ideal army of mortals as the bulk then? Because, honestly man, the new mortal line is stunning. I'd rather lean into that. I don't like the big guy though unfortunately, I'd rather use a keeper (there are too many incredible 3rd party STLs to pass up). On the daemon side I like the Keeper, Syll'Esske, the epitome and fiends.

I LOVE all of the mortal models minus Glutos (not a huge fan of the new diorama look they did with him and Katakros). 

I guess I'm only now discovering what I actually want. Which sounds like Mortal units led by mostly daemon heros. Any pointers to steer me in the right direction? 

I'm standing on the edge of the cliff. Palms sweaty as I glance between my wallet and the fall in front of me. 😂

[Enoby]

24 minutes ago, Chase said:

What would you say is an ideal army of mortals as the bulk then? Because, honestly man, the new mortal line is stunning. I'd rather lean into that. I don't like the big guy though unfortunately, I'd rather use a keeper (there are too many incredible 3rd party STLs to pass up). On the daemon side I like the Keeper, Syll'Esske, the epitome and fiends.

I LOVE all of the mortal models minus Glutos (not a huge fan of the new diorama look they did with him and Katakros). 

I guess I'm only now discovering what I actually want. Which sounds like Mortal units led by mostly daemon heros. Any pointers to steer me in the right direction? 

I'm standing on the edge of the cliff. Palms sweaty as I glance between my wallet and the fall in front of me. 😂

Thankfully there's a list going around that sounds like it has exactly what you want in it!

It's similar to lists I often use, though I use Glutos rather than the KoS and Syll'Esske (but they both work great).

Invaders (we'll not do Lurid Haze this time) 

Heroes

Lord of Pain, General no. 1 (the Rod of Misrule artifact, Glory Hog command trait) (150pts)

Keeper of Secrets (Progeny of Damnation spell OR Hysterical Frenzy) (340pts)

Syll'Esske, General no. 2 (Born of Damnation spell) (200pts)

Units

10× Symbaresh Twinsouls (340pts)

10x Symbaresh Twinsouls (340pts)

5× Myrmidesh Painbringers (150pts)

5× Myrmidesh Painbringers (150pts)

11× Blissbarb Archers (feel free to swap these for more Painbringers) (160pts)

Nobles of Excess Battalion (140pts)

1970/2000

This is a slower paced army that generates a lot of command points, usually to be used for Syll'Esske's command ability to prevent Battleshock and to double pile in with the Keeper. 

The twinsouls will be the major damage dealer in this fight, but don't sleep on Painbringers - with this battalion and one of the many CP spent from the LoP, they can dish out nasty damage. The KoS is more of a support piece to go in with another unit of Twinsouls and protect them with the locis. 

The blissbarbs are there for some depravity and ranged support, especially when sat on back objectives. Also, at least at the start of the game, this list will be able to do all special objectives as they have wizards, a behemoth, leaders, and lots of battleline.  

Edit: Also, you might want to watch for that new box coming out. For £55, you get fiends, an epitome, and 5 seekers. I really like summoning fiends, and an epitome can be good in any list you want to cast a spell to get the army to work; seekers are also really good to summon on the cheap for their rerolling charges

Edited May 24, 2021 by Enoby

[TimeToWaste85]

5 hours ago, MothmanDraws said:

its apparently

epitome

5 seekers

3 fiends

 

Kind of a wierd box

Well, this is a hard pass for me. Only thing I want in there is the fiends. And the twins are cheap. The cost of a start collecting box. Getting two boxes and a warsong revenant for my wife. Prices this go around are great for us. But it means twins are smaller than I expected. 3/4 the size of a GD, it sounds?

Edited May 24, 2021 by TimeToWaste85

[azdimy]

7 hours ago, Enoby said:

Thanks very much for the write up

I reckon we'll be okay without Cavalcade (most of my lists are without it, and it's been fine), it'll just mean we can't rely as heavily on Slickblades. They're still really good, just not quite "best unit in the army bar none" good

I'd recommend Twinsouls; they do die kind of easily, but their damage is really really nice even without support. A lot of people (like 75%) want them coming down in points, but I think they'll be too strong if they come down too much - they look worse than they are due to lack of rend, but their rerolling hits, exploding 6s, and three attacks each add up. 

Glutos is always an MVP - though I'd recommend him in Lurid Haze for that +1 save. While before I'd have said not to include him with a Keeper, I think it'd be a good idea just for that CA. 

I'd say about 300 at most, because lacking that command ability hurts a lot, and it depends on how/if the DP ability works.

The twins are the children of Slaanesh, that came out of Slaanesh's "womb". They are effectively the actual children of a Chaos God, so we assume that they'll be stronger than the regular Keeper 

---

As for some good news, the rumoured prices aren't too bad for us:

Kroak £70
Kragnos £95
Slaanesh twin £65
Warsong revenants £32.5
Witch hunters £30

We are also likely to get a battalion box:

Broken Realms: The exquisite pursuit (Slaanesh) - 70€

But I'm guessing this will not be our new models

In usd

Kroak $115
Kragnos $160
Slaanesh twin $110
 

Quite a pricey conversion rate for us Slaanesh players in the US

[TimeToWaste85]

10 minutes ago, azdimy said:

In usd

Kroak $115
Kragnos $160
Slaanesh twin $110
 

Quite a pricey conversion rate for us Slaanesh players in the US

That’s a hefty conversion rate since it should be the same as a SC box. But the same price as a Glottkin doesn’t sound absurd. Still better than what I was expecting (Kragnos’s price)

[AmonRa]

Anyone use any Slaves to Darkness units with their hedonites?

Given the general fragility of the army I'm thinking a block of 15 warriors with a base chaos lord might provide a good anvil. Thoughts or experiences?

 

[azdimy]

41 minutes ago, AmonRa said:

Anyone use any Slaves to Darkness units with their hedonites?

Given the general fragility of the army I'm thinking a block of 15 warriors with a base chaos lord might provide a good anvil. Thoughts or experiences?

 

They re ok. I run a block of 15 with a chaos sorcerer lord for deamonic power and glutos for the neg 1 to hit with some decent results. Without the sorcerer lord they are way less killy and lose the reroll save when below 10

[Enoby]

40 minutes ago, AmonRa said:

Anyone use any Slaves to Darkness units with their hedonites?

Given the general fragility of the army I'm thinking a block of 15 warriors with a base chaos lord might provide a good anvil. Thoughts or experiences?

 

I've used Chaos Warriors before, as well as a Chaos Lord and Chaos Sorcerer Lord and Chaos Chosen. In the past book, I've also used Chaos Knights and the Karkadrak lord, and can make a pretty good guess on marauders. I've used Archaon a lot too, but he's Hedonites as well as S2D, and also takes up half of your list. 

Chaos Warriors: Good in min units of 5 for cheap battleline or screens as they can stand up to minor pressure and some MWs. However, in larger units I think they end up being too much of a fluffy pillow; they can take a beating and, esp with Glutos + Lurid Haze, they last but they just don't do anything to the opponent. Their damage, even attacking twice and rerolling all hits and wounds with the halberds so all 15 get in, they do about 10 damage to a 4+ save (so 20 on the double pile in if none of them die and all get in). 20 wounds may sound like a lot, but that's relying on a spell being cast without any bonuses, and it's 490pts investment. Without the sorcerer lord, their average damage halves to only 5 on a pile in. Even just a single big block, while tanky, they're not tanky enough to survive a dedicated assault and won't really hurt the opponent that much. 

Chaos Lord: They're too slow to reliably keep up with anything but Chaos Warriors/Chosen and their own damage output is pretty pitiful. Due to their speed, their CA will only effect the aforementioned units, and of them only chosen will do damage.

Chaos Sorcerer Lord: A very nice spell and save ability, but I find the most use of them with Archaon where their spell can buff him immensely and the rerolling saves is almost mandatory. 

Chaos Chosen: I quite like chosen, but they're in competition with twin souls for 2 wound models that pack a punch. I think, if I wanted a two wound unit that hurts, the average damage on a 4+ save is 7.4 for chosen and 9.8 for twinsouls (though the difference is considerably higher at lower saves). So chosen can have a place in an army when you buff them, they just die quite quickly due to a total lack of MW save

Chaos Knights: Personally I think the knights aren't great. They're not fast enough to guarantee a charge, and with their swords only do 6 damage. They're stuck in a weird limbo where they're not cheap and tanky enough to compete with the battleline chaos warriors, but they're not damaging enough to compete with even something like fiends. They don't really do any particular role very well, and I've always been left disappointed by them 

So in conclusion, usually most S2D units feel pretty lacking in the damage department, and it can be frustrating that most combats with them go something like this:

15 chaos warriors get charged by something big, 5 die, they do 3 damage in return. Next battle round the chaos warriors either retreat or try tank it out if they have 10 models left, and are slowly whittled down, managing to accomplish very little in the grand scheme of the game besides a speed bump, and you find that while you did hold a lot of objectives at first, you've lost most of your army and done very little to your opponent, who proceeds to take the game. If I was running 15 Chaos Warriors, I'd really want to make sure there was something picking up the slack in the damage department. 

[Grimrock]

The price for the twins is very interesting, much lower than I expected. I wonder if they realized they overshot the mark with the new greater daemons and are reeling it back a bit? Or maybe they're just hoping most people will buy two kits and this is the best price for that. Either way I'm much more interested in them now, hopefully we get their full scroll soon like kragnos. 

[Arzalyn]

I wonder how different they are in size compared to a keeper. If they are more or less equal they can be a cheaper alternative for those on a budget.

[Yoid]

22 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

The price for the twins is very interesting, much lower than I expected. I wonder if they realized they overshot the mark with the new greater daemons and are reeling it back a bit? Or maybe they're just hoping most people will buy two kits and this is the best price for that. Either way I'm much more interested in them now, hopefully we get their full scroll soon like kragnos. 

Im pleased with the price of the Twins. They cost the same as Glutos here. I don't think this is because they are small as Glutos is quite big too (wide instead of tall, a lot of plastic). I think it got something to do with named characters being cheaper due the lack of alternate options. Even if it is a dual character, the only changes are the hands, the heads and the tip of the fin, not a lot of extra parts. It may be something related to the sprue design process. In any case they are quite affordable, lucky me. Even adquiring two is not that crazy (a little, but not that much).

Kragnos warscroll was exciting, I hope they reveal Dexcessa and Synessa stats soon too.

[Yoid]

8 minutes ago, Arzalyn said:

I wonder how different they are in size compared to a keeper. If they are more or less equal they can be a cheaper alternative for those on a budget.

We play budget armies in my group and are used to proxy things, my customized Fiend is usually a Daemon Prince and I use a Daemonette with extra arms as an Herald or Masque. My friends do the same using one of the regular troops of a unit as a hero. I'll probably buy one box of the twins and use it as both twins or the regular KoS in different games. One cool thing may be to play she as a named character and if she die summon her as a regular KoS. My group dosn't care too much about base sizes/shapes.

[azdimy]

My local game store is only getting 2 boxes of each of the new release. Gw doesn t consider the fact that the box includes 2 different kits. The Slaanesh kits have my name on it but common, the current release allocations are terrible!

[Jaskier]

I'm very happy with that price point for the Twins, the conversion to AUD can be fickle but at most/worst they look to be $180 per box, but hopefully closer to $150. It's quite low given they are special characters and roughly Keeper sized - the perfect recipe for being $200+ per box - but I think it probably is what someone already guessed in that they are priced that way to make buying both more enticing (which is great for me as I'm buying both, price be damned!) 

Just as an aside as I want to touch on that Nobles of Excess list, when writing it I was torn between Lurid Haze and regular Invaders, as ultimately that particular list has mobility issues which you can mitigate somewhat by going Lurid Haze, but it's also very CP hungry if you really want to extract as much value as possible out of each individual unit. I think if you put me on the spot as to which way is better, I'd lean to Lurid Haze for the flexibility (and that +1 save command ability can often come in clutch) especially as Movement 6 models get a lot more value out of an ambush than things like Slickblade Seekers (assuming they're in a Seeker Cavalcade.) Just swap the command traits, swap the Keepers' Icon to the Oil (which you sacrifice to the Fane for a permanent +1 to-hit buff) and you're set; you miss out on a lot of potential CP and a really strong once-per-game +1 to-hit aura, but I think the trade-off is probably worth it.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Jaskier

[Enoby]

6 hours ago, Jaskier said:

I'm very happy with that price point for the Twins, the conversion to AUD can be fickle but at most/worst they look to be $180 per box, but hopefully closer to $150. It's quite low given they are special characters and roughly Keeper sized - the perfect recipe for being $200+ per box - but I think it probably is what someone already guessed in that they are priced that way to make buying both more enticing (which is great for me as I'm buying both, price be damned!) 

Just as an aside as I want to touch on that Nobles of Excess list, when writing it I was torn between Lurid Haze and regular Invaders, as ultimately that particular list has mobility issues which you can mitigate somewhat by going Lurid Haze, but it's also very CP hungry if you really want to extract as much value as possible out of each individual unit. I think if you put me on the spot as to which way is better, I'd lean to Lurid Haze for the flexibility (and that +1 save command ability can often come in clutch) especially as Movement 6 models get a lot more value out of an ambush than things like Slickblade Seekers (assuming they're in a Seeker Cavalcade.) Just swap the command traits, swap the Keepers' Icon to the Oil (which you sacrifice to the Fane for a permanent +1 to-hit buff) and you're set; you miss out on a lot of potential CP and a really strong once-per-game +1 to-hit aura, but I think the trade-off is probably worth it.

Hopefully the twins have a kind conversion rate for you!

Yeah, I think either Lurid Haze or normal invaders work - Lurid Haze is better defence and can provide mobility (though I don't know if anything in this list would benefit much as they have no bonus to charge), but the important thing is the +1 to save. Normal invaders gives that +1 to hit bubble which is nice, but also Glory hog often translates to 1 or 2 extra CP a turn which can come in clinch. I'd probably steer towards Lurid Haze, but try both, but suggested normal invaders as it requires only one book for a new player

That said, if all new CP generation is a thing in AoS3, this will likely change it all. While losing battalions will suck, I think we have some really splashing command abilities, so this new CP generation could be a massive boon for us. For example, if it was ramped up to like 6 a turn, we could comfortably use each one to great effect.