AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Yoid]

10 hours ago, Enoby said:

I think good points have been raised about Syn and their potential in the next edition. 

While Syn was considered a caster, their title is the "Voice" and their description mentions them enthralling people, and commanding them. It might well be that they're not really meant to be a great caster (but they definitely should definitely have two spells), but instead more of a commander.

Let's be hopelessly optimistic for a second, and let's say that one of the generic command abilities in AoS 3 is +1 melee attack to another unit wholly within 6". A really good ability, but a very small range so many heroes will not be able to use it due to not being close enough. Synessa on the other hand could provide this from any distance. Of course, this is a made up ability, but hopefully it illustrates the potential use in the future - if generic command abilities are good buffs, then Synessa is a buff bot that can buff any unit of the field, which could be a fantastic role. But until we know more, we can't say much else.

Even if CAs dosn't change much but turn into area of effect/aura that would increse Syn utility by a lot. If other characters spend 1 CA for rerolling hit rolls of 1 (or it evolves into +1 to hit) They may be limited by the range to affect only one ally, but Syn can freely choose one friendly unit outside the range too. Would be effectively like having an extra command point.

They are already excelent to follow the Slickblades (12 movement with flying), now imagine if Syn only need to spend 1 CA to grant battleshock inmunity to both a unit near her and another unit anywhere on the battlefield.

Inspiring Presence is gonna get nerf for sure, but may still be worth. I bet is gonna be change to +3 bravery or something like that. It sucks for us because Blissbarbs and Slickblades got low bravery, but we still got Syl'Eskke if needed.

[azdimy]

The way inspiring presence currently work with Synessa is a game changer. I casually passed my battleshock test on a marauder unit using Synessa board wide ability to win my last game against Seraphon

[LeonBox]

It's a real shame she can't cast the healing spells with unlimited range. Their 6" range is extremely limiting. Why can't Slaanesh's holy number be 12? 

[TheArborealWalrus]

Alright, had a tournament yesterday and I thought I'd tell y'all about it. These won't be 100% accurate as it was a long day and some details are fuzzy. The important bits will be in there though. This was my list:

1960pts - godseekers - 3 drops - 112 wounds   (I could have gotten an endless spell but I thought the triumph was better(yay global buffs!))

Spoiler

- 140pts - seeker cavalcade

300pts - 2x5 scourgestriders

140pts - 5 clawstriders

390pts - 3 seeker chariots

400pts - 2x5 slickblade seekers

- 340pts - keeper of secrets - cameo of the dark prince (one time +1 command point)    -- spell: slothful stupor (enemy hero in 18" can't use command abilities, run, or charge) 

- 250pts - Bladebringer on exalted seeker chariot - general - speed chaser(retreat and charge), ??(no retreats and 3+ mortal wound within 3")     -- Spell: ?? (enemy unit wholly in 18" every model 6+ = d3 mortal wounds)

Game 1: Battle for the pass - realm of death    --   Vs Fire Slayers

His list:

Spoiler

 - Lords of the lodge

runefather

2 teleporting priests

banner guy

20 hearthguard berserkers

- 20 hearthguard berserkers

- 10 hearthguard berserkers

- grimwrath berserker

volcanic firespitter

Terrain/setup: A big mountain thing in the center forced 2 corridors of fighting. We each had a mushroom forest in our deployments with some stone pillars. There was also another forest on the right back center. Most of the terrain didn't do anything beyond the center mountain. I put a unit of whips  on my back to ward away more central deepstrikes while the rest sat on the line. My keeper went next to the shrine with the 10 slickblades and the chariot section went on the left with leftover striders in center. I had a bonus objective on the left where my opponent put all his not deepstriking units bar the grimwrath who took the right by himself. He had the 2 priests and both 20 bricks in reserve.

Spoiler

 

Turn 1: I had less drops and chose to let him go first, reasoning that I couldn't reach him and I'd rather react to his actions. He scooted up to the left with is hero blob and smaller unit while the right was taken by a teleporting unit. He dropped his last unit behind my lines on the right flank. They were the double pile in mortal wound dealers from his battalion. They made a charge into my guarding striders and wiped them. The other unit failed its charge. On my turn I sent the keeper to tie down his central blob while everything but the hellstriders went at the infiltrators. Both units were prevented from piling in and 13 died in the back with their hero and 5 died in the middle big blob. I lost a chariot and some wounds off the exalted in exchange. 6 fled from battleshock leaving 1 in my rear lines and 1 fled in the middle. I honestly didn't expect to do that much damage. We were both surprised. (I expected to bounce and die like with the trolls.)

Turn 2-3: I won the roll off for the double turn and basically sealed his fate. I got the 2 units of hellstriders into his backline objective and started to take apart his center. The keeper kept preventing him from piling in and then I'd hit both edges to shred them. The spell that prevents command abilities also stopped the strike first thing from doing bad stuff to my guys. On his turn he sent the berserker to save his right and his other unit to his home base. Some cheeky positioning prevented them from killing both units of striders and the berserker couldn't reach me past his guys. I won priority again and sealed his fate by finishing his center and summoning 30 daemonettes on his back objective. Major Victory.

 

 

Game 2:  - (I forget the mission name, but there are 4 corner objectives and you only win if you have all of them.) - realm of life     -- VS Cities of sigmar

Opponent's List: 

Spoiler

- Hamerhalian lancers

general on griffin - general, +1 armor, blood of the twelve

3x3 demigryph knights

- freeguild general

- mage on celestial huricanum    -- Spell: fly spell

- 40 freeguild guard - sword and shield

- 20 greatswords

Terrain/setup: My opponent had two walls, one on each side, with a forest. I had a couple of buildings and a forest on my side. I set up the keeper in the middle by the fane with a hellstrider unit. On the left was the chariots with another strider unit and the right had slickblades. My opponent put 6 demis on the left, his heroes were behind the 40 guard across the middle. The right was the greatswords.

Spoiler

 

Turn 1-2: I saw no benefit not to do so, so I chose to go second. He really only moved closer to the walls but otherwise stayed still. I moved up on the flanks, forgot to charge with my one unit in range, and that was my turn. I won the roll off (a trend) and took the double. I moved the keeper to support the chariots and held a hellstrider and slickblade unit back. My chariots moved up and crushed his demigryphs on the left (as well as a few of the guard) and the slickblades killed 11 greatswords. I return I lost a 2 slickblades and some wounds on my general. I finished up by moving the clawstriders to block off his front line's movement. He was fairly trapped in and so he tried a breakout. The general went after the right flank while his gryphs made for the center. He obliterated my damaged general with the huricanum and wiped out 3 slickblades and 5 striders on the right. Surprisigly the clawstriders killed a gryph and hld on with their last man. I continued to nibble at his guard. 

Turn 3/4: I won roll of and went first. To make this short I rolled up his left flank, killing his huricanum and most of his guard. 20 daemonettes screened out the slickblades and my right objective. On his turn he sent the griffon with the greatswords at the daemonettes and fled with the foot general. He couldn't get close enough to my objective to take it. I won roll off and we called it. Major Victory

 

 

Game 3:   forcing the hand - realm of light       - vs slaves to darkness

My opponent's approximate list:

Spoiler

Belakor      -- teleport spell

chaos lord on steed - khorne

daemon prince of Khorne - general

bloodsecrator

bloodstoker

chaos warshrine - khorne

20 marauders - khorne

3x5 chaos knights - khorne

2x10 untamed beasts 

Terrain and setup: It was actually the same map as game 1 so a big terrain piece in the center, but little else of impact (except a forest that was rather important later). The deployment zones were funky but the essence was, chaff, knights and lord on the right with prince, 2 knights, and the other beasts as screen. The rest of his forces hung back at the center. I did my usual thing, slickblades on one side, chariots on the other. Striders filling in gaps. This time keeper was central to go where needed.

Spoiler

 

Turn 1: This is taking a while, so I'm going to speed through this. I had less drops and made him go first. He buffed some knights and threw them at me but otherwise remained cautious. He did grab my forward objective though. My turn I stupidly charged the knights in cover who also were re-rolling saves from a prayer. I killed 1 knight and both untamed beast units in exchange for 3 slickblades.

Turn 2: My opponent won the roll off and moved his prince and knights to my left. The marauders likewise moved up and belakor moved in on the right. He snuck in a brief objective steal with his marauders too. I lost 2 chariots and 3 seekers for 1 knight and a couple wounds on the prince. My turn I retreated and charged with team chariot while the keeper tried to salvage the right with some hellstriders since he used belakor's ability on the slickblades. I whiffed generally this turn against the things that needed to die but did take 1 of his objectives. I killed 8 marauders, 2 knights for another chariot. 

Turn 3: I won roll off and snuck some hellstriders to grab another of his objectives and summoned 30 daemonettes on one of my threatened objectives while II reinforced the other with the slickblades. My general attempted to take his last home objective in a desperate gamble and the daemonnettes made it into the mostly undamaged knights on my left home objective. I lost both chariots and 5 daemonettes for the marauders, the chaos lord, and 8 knights total. On his turn he needed to take 3 objectives to tie it. He easily held his left, took his center/forward and had to make a gamble. Either wipe the right flank with belakor and the warshrine or move belakor into range of my forward objective and hope the warshrine survived the right hand blob. He opted for the latter and with a 1 minute extension I killed the shrine for a win.  Major Victory.

 

 

Phew. That was long to play and write. MVP is hard to call. Every unit did something clutch except for the normal chariots. I'll give it to the keeper for single handedly winning the first game. (although it was actually the striders who "won it") I feel like I played mostly right with no real glaring errors. I like them visually but the seeker chariots are mostly disappointing. Situationally very useful, but only against high armor foes(and only on the charge). Might keep them just for that. Might not be worth it. Who knows? It was a good time though. Friendly folks and such. We actually ran out of time in the 3rd game because of talking too much. (whoops ) In case anyone cares it was an 18 man tournament and I came in second place. The speed and okay hitting power are what I feel carried me through the battles.

Regardless: Hope everyone has a good week. Be safe out there.

Edited May 31, 2021 by TheArborealWalrus

[Ulfast]

Thanks for some great battlereports and congratulation to coming 2 in a tournament!  To bad about the chariots as I was planing to get some of them

[Yoid]

42 minutes ago, Ulfast said:

Thanks for some great battlereports and congratulation to coming 2 in a tournament!  To bad about the chariots as I was planing to get some of them

2 Exalted Chariots are cheaper in points and better in performance than 3 regular chariots while having the same amount of wounds and save. The problem is they cannot be in the Seeker Cavalcade to keep low drops.

[Enoby]

Thanks very much for the write up @TheArborealWalrus  Sounded like a really fun tournament

10 hours ago, Yoid said:

Even if CAs dosn't change much but turn into area of effect/aura that would increse Syn utility by a lot. If other characters spend 1 CA for rerolling hit rolls of 1 (or it evolves into +1 to hit) They may be limited by the range to affect only one ally, but Syn can freely choose one friendly unit outside the range too. Would be effectively like having an extra command point.

They are already excelent to follow the Slickblades (12 movement with flying), now imagine if Syn only need to spend 1 CA to grant battleshock inmunity to both a unit near her and another unit anywhere on the battlefield.

Inspiring Presence is gonna get nerf for sure, but may still be worth. I bet is gonna be change to +3 bravery or something like that. It sucks for us because Blissbarbs and Slickblades got low bravery, but we still got Syl'Eskke if needed.

Yeah, I think AoS 3 is really looking up for the twins. Not a silver bullet perhaps, but of the rules we've seen, they benefit from:

- More command points (Syn being able to spend them anywhere is really great)

- Heroic actions (both are heroes, though I think Dex will benefit more if the heroic abilities are more combat oriented)

- Monster abilities (they're both monsters, will probably benefit Dex more but maybe they're defensive)

- Potentially more ways to spend CP (good for both as Dex gets the free one and Syn can spend it anywhere)

- Reactions if they cost CP (good for Syn as it allows all units to take reactions rather than just the ones with heroes nearby)

Of course, these changes will help other armies and models, but the twins are heroes, monsters, have specific command point related abilities, and are cheap. They seem perfectly designed to be good if not great in AoS 3 

[CeleFAZE]

13 hours ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

Alright, had a tournament yesterday and I thought I'd tell y'all about it. These won't be 100% accurate as it was a long day and some details are fuzzy. The important bits will be in there though. This was my list:

1960pts - godseekers - 3 drops - 112 wounds   (I could have gotten an endless spell but I thought the triumph was better(yay global buffs!))

  Hide contents

- 140pts - seeker cavalcade

300pts - 2x5 scourgestriders

140pts - 5 clawstriders

390pts - 3 seeker chariots

400pts - 2x5 slickblade seekers

- 340pts - keeper of secrets - cameo of the dark prince (one time +1 command point)    -- spell: slothful stupor (enemy hero in 18" can't use command abilities, run, or charge) 

- 250pts - Bladebringer on exalted seeker chariot - general - speed chaser(retreat and charge), ??(no retreats and 3+ mortal wound within 3")     -- Spell: ?? (enemy unit wholly in 18" every model 6+ = d3 mortal wounds)

Game 1: Battle for the pass - realm of death    --   Vs Fire Slayers

His list:

  Hide contents

 - Lords of the lodge

runefather

2 teleporting priests

banner guy

20 hearthguard berserkers

- 20 hearthguard berserkers

- 10 hearthguard berserkers

- grimwrath berserker

volcanic firespitter

Terrain/setup: A big mountain thing in the center forced 2 corridors of fighting. We each had a mushroom forest in our deployments with some stone pillars. There was also another forest on the right back center. Most of the terrain didn't do anything beyond the center mountain. I put a unit of whips  on my back to ward away more central deepstrikes while the rest sat on the line. My keeper went next to the shrine with the 10 slickblades and the chariot section went on the left with leftover striders in center. I had a bonus objective on the left where my opponent put all his not deepstriking units bar the grimwrath who took the right by himself. He had the 2 priests and both 20 bricks in reserve.

  Hide contents

 

Turn 1: I had less drops and chose to let him go first, reasoning that I couldn't reach him and I'd rather react to his actions. He scooted up to the left with is hero blob and smaller unit while the right was taken by a teleporting unit. He dropped his last unit behind my lines on the right flank. They were the double pile in mortal wound dealers from his battalion. They made a charge into my guarding striders and wiped them. The other unit failed its charge. On my turn I sent the keeper to tie down his central blob while everything but the hellstriders went at the infiltrators. Both units were prevented from piling in and 13 died in the back with their hero and 5 died in the middle big blob. I lost a chariot and some wounds off the exalted in exchange. 6 fled from battleshock leaving 1 in my rear lines and 1 fled in the middle. I honestly didn't expect to do that much damage. We were both surprised. (I expected to bounce and die like with the trolls.)

Turn 2-3: I won the roll off for the double turn and basically sealed his fate. I got the 2 units of hellstriders into his backline objective and started to take apart his center. The keeper kept preventing him from piling in and then I'd hit both edges to shred them. The spell that prevents command abilities also stopped the strike first thing from doing bad stuff to my guys. On his turn he sent the berserker to save his right and his other unit to his home base. Some cheeky positioning prevented them from killing both units of striders and the berserker couldn't reach me past his guys. I won priority again and sealed his fate by finishing his center and summoning 30 daemonettes on his back objective. Major Victory.

 

 

Game 2:  - (I forget the mission name, but there are 4 corner objectives and you only win if you have all of them.) - realm of life     -- VS Cities of sigmar

Opponent's List: 

  Reveal hidden contents

- Hamerhalian lancers

general on griffin - general, +1 armor, blood of the twelve

3x3 demigryph knights

- freeguild general

- mage on celestial huricanum    -- Spell: fly spell

- 40 freeguild guard - sword and shield

- 20 greatswords

Terrain/setup: My opponent had two walls, one on each side, with a forest. I had a couple of buildings and a forest on my side. I set up the keeper in the middle by the fane with a hellstrider unit. On the left was the chariots with another strider unit and the right had slickblades. My opponent put 6 demis on the left, his heroes were behind the 40 guard across the middle. The right was the greatswords.

  Hide contents

 

Turn 1-2: I saw no benefit not to do so, so I chose to go second. He really only moved closer to the walls but otherwise stayed still. I moved up on the flanks, forgot to charge with my one unit in range, and that was my turn. I won the roll off (a trend) and took the double. I moved the keeper to support the chariots and held a hellstrider and slickblade unit back. My chariots moved up and crushed his demigryphs on the left (as well as a few of the guard) and the slickblades killed 11 greatswords. I return I lost a 2 slickblades and some wounds on my general. I finished up by moving the clawstriders to block off his front line's movement. He was fairly trapped in and so he tried a breakout. The general went after the right flank while his gryphs made for the center. He obliterated my damaged general with the huricanum and wiped out 3 slickblades and 5 striders on the right. Surprisigly the clawstriders killed a gryph and hld on with their last man. I continued to nibble at his guard. 

Turn 3/4: I won roll of and went first. To make this short I rolled up his left flank, killing his huricanum and most of his guard. 20 daemonettes screened out the slickblades and my right objective. On his turn he sent the griffon with the greatswords at the daemonettes and fled with the foot general. He couldn't get close enough to my objective to take it. I won roll off and we called it. Major Victory

 

 

Game 3:   forcing the hand - realm of light       - vs slaves to darkness

My opponent's approximate list:

  Hide contents

Belakor      -- teleport spell

chaos lord on steed - khorne

daemon prince of Khorne - general

bloodsecrator

bloodstoker

chaos warshrine - khorne

20 marauders - khorne

3x5 chaos knights - khorne

2x10 untamed beasts 

Terrain and setup: It was actually the same map as game 1 so a big terrain piece in the center, but little else of impact (except a forest that was rather important later). The deployment zones were funky but the essence was, chaff, knights and lord on the right with prince, 2 knights, and the other beasts as screen. The rest of his forces hung back at the center. I did my usual thing, slickblades on one side, chariots on the other. Striders filling in gaps. This time keeper was central to go where needed.

  Hide contents

 

Turn 1: This is taking a while, so I'm going to speed through this. I had less drops and made him go first. He buffed some knights and threw them at me but otherwise remained cautious. He did grab my forward objective though. My turn I stupidly charged the knights in cover who also were re-rolling saves from a prayer. I killed 1 knight and both untamed beast units in exchange for 3 slickblades.

Turn 2: My opponent won the roll off and moved his prince and knights to my left. The marauders likewise moved up and belakor moved in on the right. He snuck in a brief objective steal with his marauders too. I lost 2 chariots and 3 seekers for 1 knight and a couple wounds on the prince. My turn I retreated and charged with team chariot while the keeper tried to salvage the right with some hellstriders since he used belakor's ability on the slickblades. I whiffed generally this turn against the things that needed to die but did take 1 of his objectives. I killed 8 marauders, 2 knights for another chariot. 

Turn 3: I won roll off and snuck some hellstriders to grab another of his objectives and summoned 30 daemonettes on one of my threatened objectives while II reinforced the other with the slickblades. My general attempted to take his last home objective in a desperate gamble and the daemonnettes made it into the mostly undamaged knights on my left home objective. I lost both chariots and 5 daemonettes for the marauders, the chaos lord, and 8 knights total. On his turn he needed to take 3 objectives to tie it. He easily held his left, took his center/forward and had to make a gamble. Either wipe the right flank with belakor and the warshrine or move belakor into range of my forward objective and hope the warshrine survived the right hand blob. He opted for the latter and with a 1 minute extension I killed the shrine for a win.  Major Victory.

 

 

Phew. That was long to play and write. MVP is hard to call. Every unit did something clutch except for the normal chariots. I'll give it to the keeper for single handedly winning the first game. (although it was actually the striders who "won it") I feel like I played mostly right with no real glaring errors. I like them visually but the seeker chariots are mostly disappointing. Situationally very useful, but only against high armor foes(and only on the charge). Might keep them just for that. Might not be worth it. Who knows? It was a good time though. Friendly folks and such. We actually ran out of time in the 3rd game because of talking too much. (whoops ) In case anyone cares it was an 18 man tournament and I came in second place. The speed and okay hitting power are what I feel carried me through the battles.

Regardless: Hope everyone has a good week. Be safe out there.

Thank you for the writeups! I was already considering running a similar list for my next tournament at the end of June, though I'll probably swap out two of the seeker chariots for blissbarb seekers, and run just two units of clawstriders for the remainder of my battleline. Did you find the whips worth the extra points? I largely found myself regretting not using clawstriders during my last tournament, as with the cavalcade I was charging nearly as often as I was using the cheeky 6" pile-in, and the extra rend may have made a difference at times.

I had some good mileage from paths of the dark prince for a flying keeper, but did you feel that slothful stupor is a better spell? In retrospect I got lucky with my casts, and my plans would have turned a bit sideways if the cast failed or got unbound, so I've been considering a change. Slothful Stupor just seems like it might be more worthwhile to instead knock the strategic legs out from under my opponent, as you used it against the fyreslayers.

Also, did the enrapturing circlet do much for you? I was thinking about using the girdle instead on my bladebringer, as with the big base and relying so much on the charge the flight feels like it could provide some amount of utility.

[LeonBox]

Had a battle versus FEC last night which I surprisingly won despite some extremely poor rolls. My list: 

Lurid Haze

Leaders (6) 

Glutos, Dark Delusions, Priestess having a serious crisis of faith  

Keeper of Secrets, General, Sinistrous Hand, Progeny of Damnation, Lurid Haze item 

Sigvald the Magnificent, deathwish 

Contorted Epitome, General, Rod of Misrule 

The Masque, General, slayer of ghouls  

Vicebringer

Battleline 

2x5 Chaos Warriors, all the bells and whistles

1 x 11 Blissbarb archers 

Battalions 

Supreme Sybarites 

Endless Spells 

Dreadful Visage 

 

My opponent's list, roughly: 

No allegiance AKA that one that lets you pile in and attack again for free 1/round

Terrorgheist with dude on the back

Zombie dragon with dude on the back

20 x ghouls 

10 x ghouls 

Abhorrent Arch-Regent with +2 to cast, curious aversion to leaving his throne almost the whole battle

Another Abhorrent type, also determined to sit on the throne all day 

8 x Crypt Horrors

(Summoned) 2 x Varghulfs 

(Summoned) 10 ghouls 

(Summoned) 3 x Crypt Flayers 

 

The battleplan was "Take and Hold" (the two objectives directly opposite each other, take both simultaneously to win). My opponent castled up and put ghouls all around his castle to prevent Sigvald from deepstrike charging anything important. 

The battle in précis: 

Round 1 Slaanesh 

I took first turn, moved most things up and Lurid Hazed the Herald to block off deepstriking on one of my flanks. My original plan was to deepstrike Siggy, but he had not a single appealing target. The Keeper sacrificed the Lurid Haze artifact for +1 to hit. 

Blissbarb shooting represented, putting 3 wounds on a Horror and wiping out 7(!) ghouls from 10 shots. 

Round 1 FEC 

My opponent summoned in 3 Flayers and 10 ghouls on a chunk of real estate I'd unwisely left open in my backfield. Nothing else moved because he wanted to maximise his free summoning from the FEC terrain piece. 

Round 2 Slaanesh

I charged Siggy, probably quite stupidly, into 20 screening ghouls. My rationale was that it was a price worth paying to set up a counter-charge on the terrorgheist behind them. He wiped them out without needing a second activation from the Keeper sitting 12" behind him. 

A bunch of Aquiescence went off from the Herald (moving to deal with the backfield Flayers/Ghouls) and the Epitome. Despite this, my archers fluffed their 21 shots into the backfield flayers, dealing maybe 3 wounds. The Herald and 5 Chaos Warriors I'd had babysitting my objective charged in and killed 1 Flayer and 3-4 ghouls. 

Round 2 FEC 

Due to careless Blissbarb positioning, my opponent charged his Horrors into the screening Chaos Warriors and also managed to tie up the archers (I had left them just within 3"). The Chaos Warriors easily died and 3 archers went too. 

The Terrorgheist annihilated Sigvald despite my spending 2 command points to put him on a re-rollable 2+. My opponent also threw up a gravetide whatever gate thing to block the Keeper behind Siggy, and also screened out the Terrorgheist with 10 ghouls. I believe he also got off a re-roll wounds spell from the zombie dragon dude. 

Round 3 Slaanesh 

I dispelled his zombie fence and crippled the terrorgheist with much famishment from Glutos' warscroll spell. The depravity already overfloweth so I summoned a second Keeper in my backfield (foolishly, I did not place it in such a way that I could use it to re-activate my other Keeper). 

My archers were making up for their strong round 1 shooting now by failing to force even a single save on the Crypt Horrors. They were subsequently wiped out in combat. 

The original Keeper zipped across the battlefield to engage the Crypt Horrors on the left flank, far from the Terrorgheist but close to his zombie dragon. I put 10 wounds on them but 8 Horrors is so very many wounds (32, in fact). My opponent removed casualties so that they were no longer in combat with the Keeper. 

My herald and Chaos Warriors finally took his backfield lurkers out. 

Round 3 FEC 

My opponent charged the Keeper with his zombie dragon and a Varghulf, and the Epitome and Glutos with his Horrors. The zombie dragon did very little even with the free extra activation, and my Keeper disappointingly didn't kill the Varghulf (I fluffed the impaling claw attacks even hitting on 2s). 

The Epitome died, failing to get off Horrible Fascination but managing to prevent pile-ins with the Locus, which was good news for Glutos. The big boi brought the hurt, putting through 8-10 wounds on the Horrors. 

I believe my opponent moved the Terrorgheist back at this stage to make a charge on it harder (it was still famished so couldn't easily get to me). 

Round 4 Slaanesh 

Keeper #2 charged my opponent's other Varghulf, located just beyond the Glutos-Horror combat. Keeper #1, gamely holding on with 10 wounds taken, was still in combat with Varghulf #1 and zombie dragon. The Herald moved up and charged the zombie dragon. 

I summoned 30 daemonettes on my right flank, ready to defend if/when his Terrorgheist came forward. Glutos famished the poor beast again. 

Glutos killed the Horrors. Both Keepers continued to disappoint: Keeper #1 failed to kill Varghulf #1, leaving it on 7 wounds, and Keeper #2 put only a couple on his own (I got three hits through with her claws due to exploding sixes, then rolled three ones. Sigh.). The zombie dragon and Varghulf #1 killed Keeper #1. The Herald held on to lock the zombie dragon in combat. 

Round 4 FEC 

The Herald was killed by the zombie dragon's pestilential breath. The Terrorgheist charged the Masque (locked in her own private war with 10 ghouls for the past turn or so), needing to spend 2 CPs to do so thanks to crippling famishment. The now-free dragon charged Glutos. 

The Terrorgheist killed the Masque (12 mortal wounds from his maw!) and Glutos killed the zombie dragon. 

Round 5 Slaanesh 

The Keeper retreated from the Varghulf, up towards my opponent's backfield. Glutos moved up, failing to famish the Terrorgheist this time, but the Keeper got Slothful Stupor on it. At some point Varghulf #1 was killed but I don't remember how. 

The backfield Keeper summoned 20 daemonettes, who made their 9" charge into the 10 ghouls guarding his objective. My 30 daemonettes moved to my own objective, and after a double pile-in on the 20 daemonettes from the Keeper, it was game to me. 

 

A very, very close game that went right down the wire. Summoning was absolutely key for me (I wouldn't have had the bodies to win if not for it) -- I summoned 50 daemonettes and a Keeper over the course of the game. 

Learned some valuable lessons about keeping fragile units better screened. My archers were too close to their screening warriors and paid the price. 

Oh, and although it didn't really end up affecting too much, I failed Glutos' 2+ ward save four out of five times. Between that and the awful Keeper rolls, I really need some new dice as these ones are clearly cursed. 

Edited June 1, 2021 by LeonBox

[TheArborealWalrus]

7 hours ago, CeleFAZE said:

Did you find the whips worth the extra points?

Sometimes. There are 2 advantages of the whips. 1: 3" reach is not to  be sniffed at.  2: More attacks = more exploding 6s. Could what they did have been done by the clawstriders? Yes. I take them for speed mostly. Once the 3" reach came in handy, and twice the -1 to hit did. Both instances surrounded them needing to survive, but neither were exactly clutch. You could do fine either way probably. I had the points and didn't want endless spells, so I "upgraded." If there's a lot of low save, 1 wound units in your meta, the whips will probably be better. If armor is king and there's no coalesced, then the claws will be better. You will need to pay attention to maneuvering more from the 1" reach though.

Your list sounds good, but you'll need another battleline unit if you've got 2 clawstriders and no chariots. --- Whoops, misread. Yeah, your idea works fine.

7 hours ago, CeleFAZE said:

but did you feel that slothful stupor is a better spell?

Situationally, yes. A good number of armies in  my area are dependent on a hero wrecking stuff or using a command ability. Combined with the anti-horde spell it cave me a counter to opposite ends of the spectrum. Versatility is key at a tournament. If you feel you have an answer to monsters/heroes already, then you don't need the spell. It would have let me stop belakor from killing things not on my terms if I had got it to go off. 

Paths is a good spell, but is more of an enabler. It lets you get your keeper into the best places, but you lose out on tactical flexibility. I actually debated between the two spells before settling on the utility argument. It's good to have the tools to handle anything you might run into.

7 hours ago, CeleFAZE said:

Also, did the enrapturing circlet do much for you?

In these match ups? No. It however could save a game. Tag a big blob and they can't retreat? Super clutch. Prevent cav from running onto your backline? Beautiful. Get to the best murder hang out? Not happening. I also have never had my bladebringer survive past turn 3, so I didn't like the idea of reducing her wounds by 1. Flying is still a great utility though. I just prefer the extra tool in my pocket more than the movement.

I actually debated between all the things you listed. Exactly the 2 I considered for each choice. I didn't look at more exalteds because I don't even have 10, nevermind 20. I wish you luck in your tournament though!

Have a good week everyone!

Edited June 1, 2021 by TheArborealWalrus

[Enoby]

After my game on the weekend, it struck me that when I used fiends, I found them really good. Maybe it was just luck, but I didn't feel they got particularly lucky. 

I know the two complaints I tend to see are:

-No defence against shooting

-Slickblades are better against most enemies for only slightly more points

The former is true for most of our army (sans Glutos who is a massive tank with 'look out sir'), and many other armies too. But what they don't have in ranged defence they make up for in melee defence. 

The latter is more damning; a unit of 3 fiends gets 13 attacks at 3/3/-1/1 (rarely d3), and 3 attacks at 3/3/-1/*, whereas the slickblades are faster by 2", can fit in the battalion (though this may not stay), and have 16 attacks at 3/3/-1/1 (with MWs) and 10 attacks at 3/3/-/1, and importantly have 8 more wounds. The -1 to hit the fiends is nice and they are 20 points cheaper, and Slickblades are considered one of our best units.

Even if debuffs stop stacking, I think I'll try fiends out more - especially if these core battalions actually give them a bonus for once. 

[CeleFAZE]

2 hours ago, Enoby said:

After my game on the weekend, it struck me that when I used fiends, I found them really good. Maybe it was just luck, but I didn't feel they got particularly lucky. 

I know the two complaints I tend to see are:

-No defence against shooting

-Slickblades are better against most enemies for only slightly more points

The former is true for most of our army (sans Glutos who is a massive tank with 'look out sir'), and many other armies too. But what they don't have in ranged defence they make up for in melee defence. 

The latter is more damning; a unit of 3 fiends gets 13 attacks at 3/3/-1/1 (rarely d3), and 3 attacks at 3/3/-1/*, whereas the slickblades are faster by 2", can fit in the battalion (though this may not stay), and have 16 attacks at 3/3/-1/1 (with MWs) and 10 attacks at 3/3/-/1, and importantly have 8 more wounds. The -1 to hit the fiends is nice and they are 20 points cheaper, and Slickblades are considered one of our best units.

Even if debuffs stop stacking, I think I'll try fiends out more - especially if these core battalions actually give them a bonus for once. 

I've been finding recently that when it comes down to a choice between a mortal unit or a daemon unit for the same role I'm of the mindset that I'll take the mortal unit in the list and summon the daemon equivalent if I need something to fill that role mid-game. At the last tourney I had 3 fiends in my summoning case specifically in the event I needed a functional replacement for slickblades on the fly.

[MattyP]

So I had a small 1k game against Skaven this weekend and lost (I’ve never won against skaven whether i play Tzeentch or Slaanesh). 
my list 

Invaders host lurid haze 

syll’esske 

Masque 

Lord of pain 

10 chaos warriors 

5 myrmidesh pain bringers 

11 blissbarb archers 

I don’t know all the names of my opponents units but I think he had 

verminlord (scythe wielding one)

the big bell model 

30 Plague monks 

30 plague monks 

we played shifting objectives and right off he got onto all three (vermin lord on one, 30 monks on center and other units in the left one).

I was already struggling with how to beat him cause he had more units than I, and I couldn’t go after all 3, so focused on the center and the left one and ignored the corrupter. Though he was on the higher pointed objective but was also closer to two of the gnaw holes whereas there was only one near the other two objectives. 
 

I was able to whittle his plague monks down and eventually kill one of the units, but his big bell thing killed syll’esske in turn 2 I think. 
I was able to summon daemonettes in turn 3 but by that point he had 10 victory points and I only had 3. So we called it. 
I’m not used to Slaanesh so I was having to look up and check things a lot but was not encouraged when I saw it was skaven.  Anyways I’m trying to stay positive and get practice with the units I’ve got. 
I know it’s not the most detailed report but I’ll take any feedback I can get lol 😝 

[Yoid]

11 minutes ago, MattyP said:

So I had a small 1k game against Skaven this weekend and lost (I’ve never won against skaven whether i play Tzeentch or Slaanesh). 
my list 

Invaders host lurid haze 

syll’esske 

Masque 

Lord of pain 

10 chaos warriors 

5 myrmidesh pain bringers 

11 blissbarb archers 

I don’t know all the names of my opponents units but I think he had 

verminlord (scythe wielding one)

the big bell model 

30 Plague monks 

30 plague monks 

we played shifting objectives and right off he got onto all three (vermin lord on one, 30 monks on center and other units in the left one).

I was already struggling with how to beat him cause he had more units than I, and I couldn’t go after all 3, so focused on the center and the left one and ignored the corrupter. Though he was on the higher pointed objective but was also closer to two of the gnaw holes whereas there was only one near the other two objectives. 
 

I was able to whittle his plague monks down and eventually kill one of the units, but his big bell thing killed syll’esske in turn 2 I think. 
I was able to summon daemonettes in turn 3 but by that point he had 10 victory points and I only had 3. So we called it. 
I’m not used to Slaanesh so I was having to look up and check things a lot but was not encouraged when I saw it was skaven.  Anyways I’m trying to stay positive and get practice with the units I’ve got. 
I know it’s not the most detailed report but I’ll take any feedback I can get lol 😝 

You may want to try Symbaresh Twinsouls next time, they are the best at dealing with low armored hordes.

[Enoby]

45 minutes ago, MattyP said:

I’m not used to Slaanesh so I was having to look up and check things a lot but was not encouraged when I saw it was skaven.  Anyways I’m trying to stay positive and get practice with the units I’ve got. 
I know it’s not the most detailed report but I’ll take any feedback I can get lol 😝 

Looking at your list, I can see a few things that may have been an issue

I think the main thing I can see is that your list looks like the defensive part of a 2k points list - it has some staying power with Syll'Esske's battleshock immunity, the Myrmidesh and Chaos warrior's saves, and the Masque's pile in tricks, but it doesn't have a bite. I think at 1k, especially against big blobs of Skaven, you need teeth to cripple them before they get to you.

I'd recommend:

Swapping Syll'Esske with Sigvald (in Lurid Haze he can charge from behind and cause havoc - remember to give him a +1 save)

Having two units of 5 chaos warriors purely for objective control (one unit of 10 is good until they take two wounds - increased board presence is more useful)

Switching the Painbringers to Twinsouls (Painbringers can hurt, but they're more like a back up damager, despite their name - twinsouls tear through things)

With Sigvald, Blissbarbs, two units of Chaos warriors, and twinsouls, you have 770 points. You can keep this for the Masque (who is a good model), to go to 900. She will be good for keeping your units around with command abilities, which is why I'd recommend taking an extra CP.

Alternatively, don't take the masque or one of the units of Chaos Warriors, and take an Exalted Hero of Chaos and some Slickblade Seekers instead. The hero is just there for support.  

[TheArborealWalrus]

7 hours ago, MattyP said:

my list 

It looks like you're lack a hammer unit. None of your stuff does spike damage. Enoby and Yoid are right about twinsouls. Skaven don't have units durable enough to not get smashed by them. The only possible exceptions are the masterclan units with their 4+ aftersave. Maybe swap the warriors and painbringers for them? Not sure. Enoby had good suggestions though. You'll have to b careful tactically with the 2 big blobs of monks. If they get to hit your twinsouls they'll crumple. Go after the bricks one at a time and focus your fire. You should be able to crush them.

10 hours ago, Enoby said:

After my game on the weekend, it struck me that when I used fiends, I found them really good.

I've noticed the same thing. They do reasonable damage no matter who they're fighting and the base -1 to hit them is golden. My opponents admittedly didn't use their shooting on them when I used them. They were more focused on the various seeker types in their face. With battalions I struggle to fit them in. Without battalions? I think I'll be using them more. I don't have glutos, so I've never seen the -2 aura, but I think they'll still be fine.

[LeonBox]

15 hours ago, Enoby said:

After my game on the weekend, it struck me that when I used fiends, I found them really good. Maybe it was just luck, but I didn't feel they got particularly lucky. 

I know the two complaints I tend to see are:

-No defence against shooting

-Slickblades are better against most enemies for only slightly more points

The former is true for most of our army (sans Glutos who is a massive tank with 'look out sir'), and many other armies too. But what they don't have in ranged defence they make up for in melee defence. 

The latter is more damning; a unit of 3 fiends gets 13 attacks at 3/3/-1/1 (rarely d3), and 3 attacks at 3/3/-1/*, whereas the slickblades are faster by 2", can fit in the battalion (though this may not stay), and have 16 attacks at 3/3/-1/1 (with MWs) and 10 attacks at 3/3/-/1, and importantly have 8 more wounds. The -1 to hit the fiends is nice and they are 20 points cheaper, and Slickblades are considered one of our best units.

Even if debuffs stop stacking, I think I'll try fiends out more - especially if these core battalions actually give them a bonus for once. 

I use Fiends quite often for the simple reason that I have 3 painted up and I haven't done my Slickblades yet, and they're great. I've had the advantage of my opponents not really knowing enough about them to target them with shooting (or I've been against a non-shooty army) but they absolutely tear up multi-wound models and monsters. I've always run them with Glutos so the -2 has been key in keeping them alive. The -1 to cast is also fantastic, especially when coupled with an Enrapturess. It makes even LRL casting a dicey proposition. 

[CarkFish]

Hi chaps .... I've been constantly changing my mind about which faction to play going into third.... I adore the Slaanesh vibe.... but.. I've heard some pretty awful things said about the ruleset.... How bad is it really?

[LeonBox]

35 minutes ago, CarkFish said:

Hi chaps .... I've been constantly changing my mind about which faction to play going into third.... I adore the Slaanesh vibe.... but.. I've heard some pretty awful things said about the ruleset.... How bad is it really?

Hey there! I think the general consensus is that Slaanesh are actually in a pretty good place now rules-wise. Our biggest issue is that a lot of our stuff is over-pointed, but our rules are pretty flavourful and cool, and we have a lot of stuff that hits pretty hard (Slickblades, Fiends, Glutos, Twinsouls). We can also generate depravity points very quickly and so you'll find yourself summoning in a further 600-800 points' worth of stuff over the course of a battle. 

It's no longer point-click-delete for Slaanesh -- you have to think your plays through carefully, as we're squishy and a mistake can be very costly. But it's a really fun army to play. 

Edited June 2, 2021 by LeonBox

[CarkFish]

2 minutes ago, LeonBox said:

Hey there! I think the general consensus is that Slaanesh are actually in a pretty good place now rules-wise. Our biggest issue is that a lot of our stuff is over-pointed, but our rules are pretty flavourful and cool, and we have a lot of stuff that hits pretty hard (Slickblades, Fiends, Glutos, Twinsouls). We can also generate depravity points very quickly and so you'll find yourself summoning in a further 600-800 points' worth of stuff over the course of a battle. 

It's no longer point-click-delete for Slaanesh -- you have to think your plays through carefully, as we're squishy and a mistake can be very costly. But it's a really fun army to play. 

That's great thank you  .... How well does it synergise with Slaves To Darkness?... I love my knights and warriors

[LeonBox]

1 minute ago, CarkFish said:

That's great thank you  .... How well does it synergise with Slaves To Darkness?... I love my knights and warriors

Warriors are probably our best battleline right now in terms of cost effectiveness, as they make for great screens/objective campers and they're cheap. They don't benefit from our exploding sixes though, as they lack the 'Hedonite' keyword. I'm not sure knights are a great fit in Hedonites, because they're slow (compared to our native mounted options) and they don't hit very hard. 

[Yoid]

10 minutes ago, CarkFish said:

That's great thank you  .... How well does it synergise with Slaves To Darkness?... I love my knights and warriors

It synergise pretty well with those units if you play a tanky summon build. You get lots of wounds with good saves that dosn't hit too hard, so you gonna get a lot of Depravity Points from both you and your enemies in extended combats. Then summon blobs of Daemonettes to steal objectives and win.

[Enoby]

47 minutes ago, CarkFish said:

Hi chaps .... I've been constantly changing my mind about which faction to play going into third.... I adore the Slaanesh vibe.... but.. I've heard some pretty awful things said about the ruleset.... How bad is it really?

Hey, welcome! 

I think it's important to address the negatively. There are two main reasons that people's view on Slaanesh's ruleset is so poor, and this has been pushed by YouTube communities.

First things first, the initial reveals of the rules were handled terribly. You may have noticed this exact with Kragnos and co too. GW released next to no information on their rules, which got people nervous. Then the points were leaked, and the points were high - sometimes very high. People began to wonder what buffs things like Hellstriders have gotten to justify +50 points, or they wondered how strong these obviously elite 150 point Painbringers would be. Then, again without GW input, the rules were leaked - because of massive expectations from the models looking amazing and the very high points costs, what were "pretty good" warscrolls (ignore Slaangors) looked much much worse in the heat of the moment. As is tradition, hot takes from everyone began to fly and so the zeitgeist of Slaanesh rules was "absolutely awful". Most of this was negative hype - almost like a crash to what was shaping up to be a fantastic release, that was incredibly mishandled by GW at the end. There was a lot of good in the book that was ignored in favour of examining the Slaangors and wondering what arcane formula produced the points.

The second reason is that it's a very hard army to play. Not impossible, but there is no obvious win condition of a Slaanesh list - there is no "buff this unit through the roof and teleport down to kill their entire backline", nor are there any obvious synergies - and by that I mean, there is no "if you take this host, units with a move of 12" or more gain +1 damage on a charge". This disappointed people as synergy is fun, but it has its benefits (which I'll get to later), and also makes it hard to create a list as there is little to no handholding from the book. To add to this, as an army it's hard to get right; it has the speed to be "push up and kill" but it doesn't have the defense or the guaranteed offense that makes Alpha strike the viable option. But at the same time, it does not reward you holding back. It's a finesse army that relies on controlling the battlefield through your superior speed. Unfortunately the first two battle reports (MiniWarGaming and the Dark Artisen) were really poor; if you watched them you'd think Slaanesh was the worst army in the world. Truth is, both Slaanesh players didn't have a clue what they were doing - it was a very frustrating watch, but at the same time understandable. 

So is this negativity justified? In my opinion, no - certainly not to this extent. Is the ruleset perfect? Also no, there could be a lot more to it. But when talking to other players, we're actually no worse off than their armies - yes we pale in comparison to Lumineth's massive bloat of rules (which I think is a very fun book but it seems like 200% more effort went into it than any other) but quality-wise I don't think we're anywhere near as bad as some would have you believe. The book has issues (mostly that I think more could have been changed from 2019 - making hosts either stronger or at least more meaningful), and some of the warscrolls look plain (but seriously, go look at pretty much any other warscrolls outside of Lumineth and I think our Warscrolls are actually pretty nice - certainly better than Slaves to Darkness or Blades of Khorne, who I would argue have incredibly disappointing warscrolls). 

The true issue (again, ignoring the poor Slaangor) is points. Someone in the rules team had a strong fear of old Slaanesh, which is understandable, and so our points suffered preemptively for it. However, I think they just forgot we could take the really cheap Slaves to Darkness units. Thankfully points are also really easy to fix, and even with our bizarre points costings, we have some really nice units. Sigvald, Glutos, and Slickblades are pretty great at the moment. I personally love twinsouls for just how much damage they do. Painbringers are a few points drops away from being a great unit. 

And, most importantly, this is the most fun book I've played in AoS. Previously I've played IronJawz, Blades of Khorne, Slaves to Darkness, and I used to play Death ages and ages ago. All of these armies had problems, and even the apparently "very well designed" Slaves to Darkness battletome felt constricting to play due to the auras and how meh the warscrolls (sans marauders) were. Like I mentioned before, the lack of "synergy" (e.g. getting specific buffs from specific things) has the advantage of opening up list building; for example, if a host did exist that gave +1 damage to fast units, then all lists with a lot of fast units in would be that host. If a model existed that gave a +1 attack aura, you'd bet that every list would have one. The lack of synergy encourages more diverse armies imo - and I think it's why people are still coming up with creative lists today. When you have synergy, the list has to bend around that and it often ends up as spamming one particular unit that benefits most from the synergy. Without it, you have to look at every unit as a tool and plan what you want to do; you won't do well if every unit is Slickblades (despite them being very good) because they lack the defense to hold a point, but similarly if you make an entire list out of Glutos and tonnes of chaos warriors, you'll find yourself whittled down without hurting your opponent. 

In conclusion, the book suffered from a massive wave of negative hype that made a lot of people think it was the worst book ever, and so people went into the book with a very negative mindset. Now that's cleared a bit, I think we can look at the book more impartially. There are some issues (number 1 being points), and I'm sure everyone would have liked Lumineth level attention on the book, but it's actually a very fun battletome. It feels like building and playing a proper army that consists of multiple troop types, rather than falling back on the same synergies again and again.

I'd recommend giving it a try, even just with proxies I'm sure you'd be able to get good advice from everyone here (and I'd be happy to chip in with any listbuilding advice). 

[CarkFish]

2 hours ago, Enoby said:

Hey, welcome! 

I think it's important to address the negatively. There are two main reasons that people's view on Slaanesh's ruleset is so poor, and this has been pushed by YouTube communities.

First things first, the initial reveals of the rules were handled terribly. You may have noticed this exact with Kragnos and co too. GW released next to no information on their rules, which got people nervous. Then the points were leaked, and the points were high - sometimes very high. People began to wonder what buffs things like Hellstriders have gotten to justify +50 points, or they wondered how strong these obviously elite 150 point Painbringers would be. Then, again without GW input, the rules were leaked - because of massive expectations from the models looking amazing and the very high points costs, what were "pretty good" warscrolls (ignore Slaangors) looked much much worse in the heat of the moment. As is tradition, hot takes from everyone began to fly and so the zeitgeist of Slaanesh rules was "absolutely awful". Most of this was negative hype - almost like a crash to what was shaping up to be a fantastic release, that was incredibly mishandled by GW at the end. There was a lot of good in the book that was ignored in favour of examining the Slaangors and wondering what arcane formula produced the points.

The second reason is that it's a very hard army to play. Not impossible, but there is no obvious win condition of a Slaanesh list - there is no "buff this unit through the roof and teleport down to kill their entire backline", nor are there any obvious synergies - and by that I mean, there is no "if you take this host, units with a move of 12" or more gain +1 damage on a charge". This disappointed people as synergy is fun, but it has its benefits (which I'll get to later), and also makes it hard to create a list as there is little to no handholding from the book. To add to this, as an army it's hard to get right; it has the speed to be "push up and kill" but it doesn't have the defense or the guaranteed offense that makes Alpha strike the viable option. But at the same time, it does not reward you holding back. It's a finesse army that relies on controlling the battlefield through your superior speed. Unfortunately the first two battle reports (MiniWarGaming and the Dark Artisen) were really poor; if you watched them you'd think Slaanesh was the worst army in the world. Truth is, both Slaanesh players didn't have a clue what they were doing - it was a very frustrating watch, but at the same time understandable. 

So is this negativity justified? In my opinion, no - certainly not to this extent. Is the ruleset perfect? Also no, there could be a lot more to it. But when talking to other players, we're actually no worse off than their armies - yes we pale in comparison to Lumineth's massive bloat of rules (which I think is a very fun book but it seems like 200% more effort went into it than any other) but quality-wise I don't think we're anywhere near as bad as some would have you believe. The book has issues (mostly that I think more could have been changed from 2019 - making hosts either stronger or at least more meaningful), and some of the warscrolls look plain (but seriously, go look at pretty much any other warscrolls outside of Lumineth and I think our Warscrolls are actually pretty nice - certainly better than Slaves to Darkness or Blades of Khorne, who I would argue have incredibly disappointing warscrolls). 

The true issue (again, ignoring the poor Slaangor) is points. Someone in the rules team had a strong fear of old Slaanesh, which is understandable, and so our points suffered preemptively for it. However, I think they just forgot we could take the really cheap Slaves to Darkness units. Thankfully points are also really easy to fix, and even with our bizarre points costings, we have some really nice units. Sigvald, Glutos, and Slickblades are pretty great at the moment. I personally love twinsouls for just how much damage they do. Painbringers are a few points drops away from being a great unit. 

And, most importantly, this is the most fun book I've played in AoS. Previously I've played IronJawz, Blades of Khorne, Slaves to Darkness, and I used to play Death ages and ages ago. All of these armies had problems, and even the apparently "very well designed" Slaves to Darkness battletome felt constricting to play due to the auras and how meh the warscrolls (sans marauders) were. Like I mentioned before, the lack of "synergy" (e.g. getting specific buffs from specific things) has the advantage of opening up list building; for example, if a host did exist that gave +1 damage to fast units, then all lists with a lot of fast units in would be that host. If a model existed that gave a +1 attack aura, you'd bet that every list would have one. The lack of synergy encourages more diverse armies imo - and I think it's why people are still coming up with creative lists today. When you have synergy, the list has to bend around that and it often ends up as spamming one particular unit that benefits most from the synergy. Without it, you have to look at every unit as a tool and plan what you want to do; you won't do well if every unit is Slickblades (despite them being very good) because they lack the defense to hold a point, but similarly if you make an entire list out of Glutos and tonnes of chaos warriors, you'll find yourself whittled down without hurting your opponent. 

In conclusion, the book suffered from a massive wave of negative hype that made a lot of people think it was the worst book ever, and so people went into the book with a very negative mindset. Now that's cleared a bit, I think we can look at the book more impartially. There are some issues (number 1 being points), and I'm sure everyone would have liked Lumineth level attention on the book, but it's actually a very fun battletome. It feels like building and playing a proper army that consists of multiple troop types, rather than falling back on the same synergies again and again.

I'd recommend giving it a try, even just with proxies I'm sure you'd be able to get good advice from everyone here (and I'd be happy to chip in with any listbuilding advice). 

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this..... I have a TTS game tonight, so I might throw a list together and see how it goes  

[Enoby]

6 minutes ago, CarkFish said:

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this..... I have a TTS game tonight, so I might throw a list together and see how it goes  

No problem at all Do you have a list in mind?