AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Enoby]

Finished the game vs Tzeentch, had a lot of fun

A couple of things to note before the battle report:

- We did not use secondary objectives or battle tactics; this was simply because we had very little time and couldn't remember where they were (thinking back I think they're in the new CRB) and we couldn't remember them off by heart. These could well have changed the outcome of the game, so keep that in mind. I'm using this more as a proof of concept rather than a full report.

- The scenery I have is currently in a box with a load of other stuff piled on top of it, ready for moving. As such, we had no scenery. This was only a benefit to Tzeentch who had full LoS across the board. 

- We didn't have the time to finish, so the game ended the bottom of turn 2

The lists

Slaanesh

Invaders host (Lurid Haze)

Glutos, Battle Rapture

(General 1) Sigvald

(General 2) Lord of Pain, Lurid Haze stuff

Shardspeaker, the new flying spell, Rod of Misrule

5 Painbringers

5 Painbringers 

5 Painbringers 

10 Twinsouls

Gemnids 

Tzeentch

Eternal confligration

Loc 420
-bolt of tzeentch
-nexus of fate
-aspect of tzeentch
Fluxmaster 155
-firestorm
Magister 150
-fold reality
10 horrors 215
10 horrors 215
6 Flamers 350
Burning chariot 185
Exalted flamer 140

Burning sigil 85
Burning head 20
Ravanaks gnashing maw 55

1915

We both had 8 drops and Tzeentch got the roll off.

I decided to go for a risky set up, putting the shardspeaker forward in hopes I'd be given first turn so Sigvald could go in and wound the LoC on 2s and just kill it ASAP. There wasn't much use in screening as I doubted anything in their army wanted to go into combat with me, so I lined up the twinsouls facing the horrors and Glutos + Painbringers facing the other horrors. 

Lurid Haze allowed me to teleport 3 units, but I felt 2 was enough. I went with 5 Painbringers (just for a flank on a back objective) and Sigvald (to deal with the LoC or flamers). 

Turn 1 - Tzeentch

Tzeentch decided to take first turn, which wasn't ideal but was fine. They cast the gnashing jaws in front of the Twinsouls and blasted some MWs in various places. 

The flamers moved up, getting ever so slightly in range of the twinsouls, and the horrors moved on to the two side objectives. The LoC toed the middle but was hard to reach. I redeployed the twinsouls out of reach of the flamers.

The flamers shot into the Painbringers in front of Glutos instead, killing all of them (no rerolls on shooting hurts!) and the Shardspeaker was finished off by the exalted flamer. A wound was put on the twinsouls at some point

They took all objectives for 5.

Turn 1 - Slaanesh

While losing 5 Painbringers and a Shardspeaker hurt, I was confident Sigvald could dispatch of the flamers safely. Glutos cast Battle Rapture on the Twinsouls and dispelled the maw. I think this was the only spell he managed with the LoC's amazing unbinding.

I moved up with Glutos into the left Pink Horrors (mostly to charge and spread his aura) and the Twinsouls moved up to smack some horrors about. The Painbringers moved nearer the centre. Sigvald came down behind enemy lines near the Flamers, and the Painbringers game down near the chariot. 

I succeeded every charge, with Sigvald getting a 10 into the flamers. They unleashed hell and did a wound to him. While Sigvald could have killed the exalted and the flamers in hindsight, I decided to play it safe and just put all into the flamers to make sure they died. He strikes first and overkilled the Flamers. The Twinsouls were my first normal attack, and they killed 22 horrors (they were on +1/-1 to hit rerolling failed hits) and Tzeentch had no CP to stop them from running. I rather foolishly decided to attack the Lord of Change with the Lord of Pain - I wasn't scared of the bird's attacks (esp at -1 to hit), but I didn't realise he had an amulet that did damage back to me on a 3+. Still, the LoP did 6 damage to the LoC. The Painbringers did a little bit of damage (lots of fluffing) and took like 1 in return). Glutos tanked as he does, and killed 9 horrors (as well as taking some mortal wounds from them) as the Tzeentch player could bring them back with a destiny dice. 

I think I had 8 DP at this point. Tzeentch won priority.

I scored 2 VP.

Turn 2 - Tzeentch

Tzeentch did a few MWs this turn but not much else happened with the flamers gone. Glutos managed to dispell the magister, which was good. Pretty much the entire tzeentch army decided to kill the 5 Painbringers on the left. They succeeded, and I think some twinsouls may have taken some damage and something else must have died, bringing me up to 10dp. They retreated with the exalted flamer and the horrors.

They went to 8 VP. 

Turn 2 - Slaanesh

All of my spells were unbound, and seeing what the maw did I was happy to let it give me free DP. Sigvald moved up to kill the exalted flamer and the herald, Glutos got within 3 of these Pink Horrors again, the Twinsouls initially came around to deal with the chariot but things went astray...

Sigvald charge, but the exalted flamer (hitting on 5s) got 2 wounds through, Sigvald failed both saves, and they did 3 damage each. He then failed all 4+ after saves and died - ouch! The Twinsouls decided to go into the wizard instead (though a 5+ to hit with no rerolls meant that they were going to be swinging). I summoned an exalted chariot who failed both attempts at charging. Glutos went back into the horrors and fluffed nearly everything, but killed 4 of them - getting rid of the Pinks for good. The Twinsouls did kill the herald, thankfully. 

I scored 3 VP for 5 vs 8.

Tzeentch won the roll off but by then it was too late to complete the turn. 

Thoughts

Overall a tricky game, but definitely a good one for learning. It's hard to say who would have won. I think, eventually, I would have ground them down but I think Tzeentch would have won on objectives. 

Sigvald - Despite his embarrassing death due to a streak of very bad luck, he put in a lot of work and killed his points worth. I don't know if he'd have been as good without Lurid Haze to get him behind the enemy, but I think he's excellent within the Haze as a way to dispatch troublesome backline units.

Shardspeaker - Died too soon to say, but in the future I don't think I'd take the risk with them if the enemy has some good shooting.

Lord of Pain - Good for battleline, didn't do loads else - his damage wasn't bad, tbh, but nothing to write home about either. 

Glutos - A really weird one, if I'm being honest. He does his job excellently; he will tank, he will debuff, and he'll cast (against something that's not Tzeentch). But he doesn't do loads of damage and he costs loads of points. It's hard to say whether he's worth it because he does everything you'd want him to but it's a lot of points to pay for an immovable object 

Twinsouls - As always, they did great damage and tanked okay. They're expensive and I think I'd only want the one unit of 10, but that one unit of 10 puts in a lot of work.

Painbringers - This wasn't a good match up for them as 90% of Tzeentch's damage is shooting and mortal wounds, which are their weaknesses. They did fine, but I wouldn't say good - though this was a poor match up.   

Overall, I quite liked the list, but against Tzeentch a more aggressive playstyle would have helped a lot. That said, I don't think any unit let me down. 

[Nagashfan]

57 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Finished the game vs Tzeentch, had a lot of fun

A couple of things to note before the battle report:

- We did not use secondary objectives or battle tactics; this was simply because we had very little time and couldn't remember where they were (thinking back I think they're in the new CRB) and we couldn't remember them off by heart. These could well have changed the outcome of the game, so keep that in mind. I'm using this more as a proof of concept rather than a full report.

- The scenery I have is currently in a box with a load of other stuff piled on top of it, ready for moving. As such, we had no scenery. This was only a benefit to Tzeentch who had full LoS across the board. 

- We didn't have the time to finish, so the game ended the bottom of turn 2

The lists

Slaanesh

Invaders host (Lurid Haze)

Glutos, Battle Rapture

(General 1) Sigvald

(General 2) Lord of Pain, Lurid Haze stuff

Shardspeaker, the new flying spell, Rod of Misrule

5 Painbringers

5 Painbringers 

5 Painbringers 

10 Twinsouls

Gemnids 

Tzeentch

Eternal confligration

Loc 420
-bolt of tzeentch
-nexus of fate
-aspect of tzeentch
Fluxmaster 155
-firestorm
Magister 150
-fold reality
10 horrors 215
10 horrors 215
6 Flamers 350
Burning chariot 185
Exalted flamer 140

Burning sigil 85
Burning head 20
Ravanaks gnashing maw 55

1915

We both had 8 drops and Tzeentch got the roll off.

 

Thanks for sharing! Despite our points, the army doesn’t look completely overwhelmed at deployment and you had two units ambushing also. Do you think more hitting power would help versus the tank in glutos?

[Feorag]

Ouch, painbringers no longer reroll...

[Jaskier]

Yep, they nerfed Myrmidesh for no good reason and raised their points. What a joke. 

[Feorag]

I mean, between slaanesh and beasts I'm feeling a little hard done to. 

[Nagashfan]

24 minutes ago, Jaskier said:

Yep, they nerfed Myrmidesh for no good reason and raised their points. What a joke. 

Guess I ain’t buying any of them

[Yoid]

So they made Painbringers strictly worst than Twinsouls at tanking too... uh. The design of Slaanesh is all over the place in 3.0.

[Enoby]

So the Painbringer nerfs suck... would be fine if they were 120 points but, well, Twinsouls or Hellstriders (either end of the spectrum) are now the much better choice.

But all is not lost thanks to this random and rather very strong buff to the dreadful visage:

So I think this is now a hot condender for our best endless spell - it casts on a 7 (and we have decent casting) and gives always strikes last. This is pretty huge.

[Nagashfan]

Are rerolls to hit and save being changed across all armies or just us? If it’s all then maybe it’s not a huge nerf as everyone is getting it, but if it’s just us……we’ll that blows

[Jaskier]

There's quite a few changes I saw that remove re-rolls, so it's in line with how they're treating other armies.

Unfortunately, Myrmidesh were an aleady overpriced unit that got made more expensive AND weaker. Oh well. Still the coolest models. 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Jaskier

[Enoby]

6 minutes ago, Nagashfan said:

Are rerolls to hit and save being changed across all armies or just us? If it’s all then maybe it’s not a huge nerf as everyone is getting it, but if it’s just us……we’ll that blows

Okay, actually just looked at Slaves to Darkness and they've lost their rerolls to save too - it's not just us!

To take a guess, they don't want any easy 3+ rerolling saves.

With that in mind, we've kind of been buffed from the easy access to always strike last, so yay us?

[Nagashfan]

3 minutes ago, Jaskier said:

There's quite a few changes I saw that remove re-rolks, so it's in line with how they're treating other armies.

Unfortunately, Myrmidesh were an aleady overpriced unit that got made more expensive AND weaker. Oh well. Still the voolest models. 

They are cool, maybe points will come down in December 

[Enoby]

1 hour ago, Nagashfan said:

Thanks for sharing! Despite our points, the army doesn’t look completely overwhelmed at deployment and you had two units ambushing also. Do you think more hitting power would help versus the tank in glutos?

I'm not sure to be honest - in that list, I think I'd have preferred Dexcessa instead of 5 Painbringers and a Shardspeaker - the lack of aggression hurts

Also, as an aside for Glutos and Dex, while -2 to hit doesn't stack, it's still useful to negate any +1s to hit

[Selpharia]

That’s one of the things I’ve noticed in listbuilding: it’s really hard to justify units whose sole purpose is casting. Even against factions with mediocre wizards, the presence of denies cuts their effectiveness hard, and magic-specialist armies are so much better at it that I’d say they get cut to 1/4 value. The Epitome might be an answer, if it weren’t so highly costed. But for now I think our best options are “incidental Wizards,” units like the Bladebringer, a LoP gifted with the Tome, or a summoned entity. Our spells of greatest value are locked to Greater Daemons, or endless spells that everyone can cast if you pay the points

[Enoby]

13 minutes ago, Selpharia said:

That’s one of the things I’ve noticed in listbuilding: it’s really hard to justify units whose sole purpose is casting. Even against factions with mediocre wizards, the presence of denies cuts their effectiveness hard, and magic-specialist armies are so much better at it that I’d say they get cut to 1/4 value. The Epitome might be an answer, if it weren’t so highly costed. But for now I think our best options are “incidental Wizards,” units like the Bladebringer, a LoP gifted with the Tome, or a summoned entity. Our spells of greatest value are locked to Greater Daemons, or endless spells that everyone can cast if you pay the points

Hmmm, I'm not so sure about this. I do agree that we shouldn't just have a caster for no good reason - 100% agree there, because our normal daemon and mortal spells range from "okay" to "why does this exist?" and paying premium to cast them isn't worth it. But I think, if we take endless spells that are actually going to be used (and no just fill up points) you need either an epitome or Glutos (or use a enhancement to give reroll casting) otherwise there's a good chance that you'll not get that spell off at all. 

Casting value 7 is usually too much to ask reliable on a level 1 no bonus wizard, so if you take a good but expensive endless spell (like the new visage), I think you benefit from building towards it rather than paying premium for something that will probably never see the table.

On the other hand, you're right in that if we dedicate too many points to casting we don't benefit that much. It's one of Glutos's assets that he's a decent caster who adds other buffs and debuffs (as well as being a super tanky character). So if a list has no endless spells, or just has some random ones in to fill in a gap, I agree that a contorted epitome wouldn't manage to make its value because there just isn't enough to justify its cost.

[Fyrenn]

1 hour ago, Feorag said:

I mean, between slaanesh and beasts I'm feeling a little hard done to. 

Well, from the BoC perspective you can use the weird glass half full that we're literally not allowed to ally in or coalition in "Beasts of Chaos" Slaangors anymore, so we do not need to be salty that they did not get any sort of update regarding rules, etc....

right?

[Poryague]

So loss of reroll saves on painbringer for +1 save happened to chaos warriors. Chaos Sorcerer reroll got changed to +1save. Plaguebearer of nurgle reroll save rolls of 1 locus got changed to +1 to save rolls. Looks like reroll saves of any kind are just going away. 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Poryague

[Enoby]

1 minute ago, Poryague said:

So loss of reroll saves on painbringer for +1 save happened to chaos warriors. Chaos Sorcerer reroll got changed to +1save. Plaguebearer of nurgle reroll save rolls of 1 locus got changed to +1 to save rolls. Looks like reroll saves of any kind are just going away. 

Yeah, I think it's just a general AoS 3 change - we suffer from it, but it's not targeted.

I also think this one nerf may have clouded over people's moods, and so it's easy to miss the big buff we got on the visage which I genuinely think could have a massive impact on how we play. It can touch a unit first turn (12"+8" is 20" threat) and give them one of the most harsh debuffs in the game. I seriously think this is massive, and in a weird way a buff to Glutos/Epitome who are one of the few who can actually cast it reliably. It's massive help against Warclans and Sons of Behemat especially, who aren't great as unbinding and suffer from always strike last a lot.

[Selpharia]

Y’know upon review I think you’re right, there’s definitely space for magic-heavy that has a decent shot at getting off the big moves. Thanks for helping me reconsider

[azdimy]

The shardspeaker losing it s +2 save upon successfully casting is another unnecessary nerf

[Elazar The Glorified]

The Core Rules FAQ adds a little value to Synessa. Allegiance based Command Abilities can't be used by unit Champions so there's some merit in an infinite range Lurid Haze

They've also got some potential value in Monster heavy lists for Feral Roar on a key piece. Might be very fringe but I'm trying! 

All my lists in 3rd so far have been magic heavy. Using the Prized Sorcery Grand Strategy to go all in on that too. Might try an Infernal Enrapturess with the Arcane Tome as an extra wizard would they get access to Born of Damnation? 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Elazar The Glorified

[Enoby]

One thing that may be a nerf or could just be totally unintentional and unchecked rules writing is whether we can take Archaon any more as he is a coalition unit with the Khorne keyword. This applies to the other gods too - no clue if they don't want Archaon being used in those armies, but I'm guessing this may be an oversight.  

**Edit: Nope, they have this covered

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Enoby

[LeonBox]

Also I guess Shalaxi was getting way too powerful because their spell also lost re-rolls to hit and saves in favour of a flat +1. 

[Enoby]

1 minute ago, LeonBox said:

Also I guess Shalaxi was getting way too powerful because their spell also lost re-rolls to hit and saves in favour of a flat +1. 

I think this is just a disappointing byproduct of everyone losing rerolls to save I don't think it was looked at in any terms of balance but rather just a "Ctrl F" on rerolls and replacing them with +1s.

We should be thankful Twinsouls kept their rerolls

[azdimy]

Well DoK can still reroll their ward so totally fair