AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Jaskier]

I'm a bit mixed on our chances of getting a new book soon. DoK have a new hero coming in a dual box ala how they were updated alongside us earlier, and there's no indication Slaanesh are due any new model releases. I think it's more likely, given Slaanesh' listing as a "weak" faction in that battlescroll, that we'll get significant points changes and possibly a White Dwarf update in the coming months. I certainly don't expect a new book this year. 

[Wordy9th]

Maybe not a book but I'd expect a fairly chonky white dwarf and some point changes, which, could make all the difference in bringing us to the 'fat middle'.

[zombiepiratexxx]

Let's definitely hope its more of a BoC White Dwarf update rather than a BoK update! 

[Lucentia]

I don't think that book releases are really driven by model releases these days, the majority of books for both AoS and 40k seem to be accompanied by single hero sprue releases and maybe half of a battle box.

That said I'm not necessarily expecting a 3.0 tome anytime soon, as nice (or even necessary to enjoy playing with the faction!) as that might be.  I'd put my bets on Khorne getting the next god-marked chaos release slot, and they don't traditionally put those too close together.  Then again I can't say I'm not crossing my fingers for a surprise book update every time the tome celestial is revealed to be not Slaanesh again!

[zombiepiratexxx]

BoK have just had a WD update so I wouldn't put money on them getting a new book soon. 

I reckon Skaven may be the next "Chaos" release. 

[Carnith]

On 3/16/2022 at 6:37 AM, Enoby said:

On the bright side, they've at least acknowledged that we're in a bad spot with the new update, which they didn't do for Khorne - if we get a bit dangerously optimistic, it may be that GW don't see a problem with Khorne (for some reason) and so didn't see a need to give them much help in the White Dwarf.

If we're lucky, we're viewed by the designers in the same way Beasts of Chaos are and they give us just as much of a helping hand. 

While I don't think the most recent victory points update did much for us at all, what it did do is give acknowledgement from GW that we're in a bad spot. Like I said, Khorne don't seem to flash on GW's radar as an issue so we'll hopefully get better treatment than them. 

They mentioned that if an army gets a rules update or any sorts, it's off the list. So Khorne and BoC both got WD updates, and therefore aren't eligible for the list of prime hunters. 

[Lucentia]

17 hours ago, zombiepiratexxx said:

BoK have just had a WD update so I wouldn't put money on them getting a new book soon. 

I reckon Skaven may be the next "Chaos" release. 

I'm aware, I meant the next god-aligned chaos faction to get a book, I'm thinking futher in the future here, it's not like the WD articles are the last updates these factions will ever receive.

[CeleFAZE]

On 3/19/2022 at 1:53 AM, Lucentia said:

I'm aware, I meant the next god-aligned chaos faction to get a book, I'm thinking futher in the future here, it's not like the WD articles are the last updates these factions will ever receive.

Considering the WD articles, I'd wager that Tzeentch is probably the most likely next god-marked army to get a book.

However, this relies on expecting consistency from GW, which is far from a sure bet.

[Enoby]

Just saw updated stats for AoS tournaments; I would share the image but the one I have is super blurry and would be illegible if compressed further. 

We're currenty at the bottom, sitting on a 34% win rate. While it's not the lowest ever seen (I remember pre-book Slaves to Darkness at 11%), it's still pretty bad. 

We at least know that GW looks at win rates. Whether they make the correct moves to balance is another question, but we can be confident that they know we're the bottom of the pack. We can only hope that means it's more likely we get a Beasts of Chaos style White Dwarf update (their win rate is now 45%).

I do wonder what the AoS rules writers think of our battletome. The one who wrote it has already left (not because of the battletome, mind), but I wonder if the others think it's sub par or if they think it's fine and people are just whining. 

Let's hope for a very significant drop in the GHB. Maybe, if we're very lucky, a Slaangor rewrite.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

43 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Just saw updated stats for AoS tournaments; I would share the image but the one I have is super blurry and would be illegible if compressed further. 

We're currenty at the bottom, sitting on a 34% win rate. While it's not the lowest ever seen (I remember pre-book Slaves to Darkness at 11%), it's still pretty bad. 

We at least know that GW looks at win rates. Whether they make the correct moves to balance is another question, but we can be confident that they know we're the bottom of the pack. We can only hope that means it's more likely we get a Beasts of Chaos style White Dwarf update (their win rate is now 45%).

I do wonder what the AoS rules writers think of our battletome. The one who wrote it has already left (not because of the battletome, mind), but I wonder if the others think it's sub par or if they think it's fine and people are just whining. 

Let's hope for a very significant drop in the GHB. Maybe, if we're very lucky, a Slaangor rewrite.

I think the good news for Slaanesh is that between points drops and a White Dwarf update, the army is quite fixable. I believe Slaanesh's good summoning is the reason that points are so high, so a de-tuned summoning table plus an alternative way to use depravity points would really be all it takes to end up with an army that can at least play the game. A lot of the warscrolls in the book are not bad and have clear roles, so except for Slaangor there isn't even much need to update them.

[Enoby]

10 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I think the good news for Slaanesh is that between points drops and a White Dwarf update, the army is quite fixable. I believe Slaanesh's good summoning is the reason that points are so high, so a de-tuned summoning table plus an alternative way to use depravity points would really be all it takes to end up with an army that can at least play the game. A lot of the warscrolls in the book are not bad and have clear roles, so except for Slaangor there isn't even much need to update them.

Yeah, I do agree with this. I think Slaanesh mortals actually have some of the best internal balance of any book; there's a good chunk I like about the army, and this is a big one.

I'd like to see depravity be taken down a peg if it allowed the army to work on its own - a lot of people have gone off Slaanesh when they realised they needed daemons to play (and Slaanesh daemons aren't everyone's cup of tea). 

At the moment, I think it's pretty evident that Depravity Points aren't strong enough to make up for the points handicap, so they don't absolutely need to reduce the power of Depravity if they reduce points. However, in the future, I'd like to see Slaanesh step away from being "the summoning army".

[Sonnenspeer]

Everything should go down like 10% in points. But the terrain should cost 200p and summoning is only allowed with the terrain. So you could play with and without summoning.

[Wordy9th]

Regarding internal balance I agree there are a lot of good choices, but those choices when it comes to external balance are definitely lacking. 

Rend and damage is an issue. Yesterday I played a game vs Stormcast (anecdotal evidence sure) and picked broken ranks against a unit of 8 vindictors. I attacked them with 5 symbaresh, Sigvald and 4 slickblade seekers all with +1 to hit and +1 to wound from shardseeker spells and abilities. With only all out defence they survived with 3 left and my rolls weren't even that bad. (2+ against Symbaresh on a 135 point battleline unit was like a hail of pebbles for all the good their damage did).

Anecdote aside, when you look at the new deepkin book you see an alternate reality of what Slaanesh could be. A fast, hard hitting army which is also fragile. Though they occupy completely different ends of the power spectrum. 

I love the summoning system. Conceptually it really works and is part of why I wanted to collect the army. Causing pain and suffering until pink clouds roil over the battlefield and demons of excess pour in reminds me a lot of the old school warhammer fiction I used to read. It's an absolute nightmare to balance for sure though, on the game side. The couple of games I've had which were sub 2k had summoning become extremely overpowered, where some situations felt that if I summoned anything I'd auto win, but if I didn't I'd auto lose. At 2k it's better for sure, but the issues can remain.

I think I'd preferentially like summoning to remain to some degree, but enough adjustments made to allow the army to compete more in the fat middle. More rend and damage via abilities, or indeed warscrolls would be welcome. Counting the depravity points at the end of the turn always feels great, and it'd be sad to lose that. But your mileage may vary!

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

22 minutes ago, Wordy9th said:

Rend and damage is an issue. Yesterday I played a game vs Stormcast (anecdotal evidence sure) and picked broken ranks against a unit of 8 vindictors. I attacked them with 5 symbaresh, Sigvald and 4 slickblade seekers all with +1 to hit and +1 to wound from shardseeker spells and abilities. With only all out defence they survived with 3 left and my rolls weren't even that bad. (2+ against Symbaresh on a 135 point battleline unit was like a hail of pebbles for all the good their damage did).

I think Twinsouls are not a bad warscroll, but they are not really good as elite offensive infantry in a metagame full of 3+ and 2+ saves. Their overall damage is not terrible, but it falls off too quick because of no rend. On the other hand, they are quite tanky and fast by infantry standards. I think they would make a really nice generalist choice. But a generalist unit is not worth 165 for 5. Vindictors are 130, and they play at about the same level.

This is the thing I was talking about in the other post. These guys could definitely be "fixed" with point drops. Let's see if GW finally feels comfortable handing out a few of those in the GHB.

[Enoby]

44 minutes ago, Wordy9th said:

Regarding internal balance I agree there are a lot of good choices, but those choices when it comes to external balance are definitely lacking. 

Yeah, I think this is the big issue. We probably have the strongest internal balance in the game, but it felt like a lot of effort was put into balancing the book (probably because of 2019), but most other books don't get this scrutiny.

I think it's left us with very few (if any) "wow" units - everything feels as if it's had someone take a look over it to double check nothing can be broken. 

In one hand, that's good and should be standard. On the other hand, it's bad because it feels like we're one of the few books that has been overbalanced so nearly every book ends up stronger.

[Enoby]

13 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I think Twinsouls are not a bad warscroll, but they are not really good as elite offensive infantry in a metagame full of 3+ and 2+ saves. Their overall damage is not terrible, but it falls off too quick because of no rend. On the other hand, they are quite tanky and fast by infantry standards. I think they would make a really nice generalist choice. But a generalist unit is not worth 165 for 5. Vindictors are 130, and they play at about the same level.

This is the thing I was talking about in the other post. These guys could definitely be "fixed" with point drops. Let's see if GW finally feels comfortable handing out a few of those in the GHB.

Twinsouls are a really weird one. If you look at their raw damage output, point-for-point, it's very high:

This is a unit of 10 rerolling hits, but with no further buffs. 

The problem is that, without rend, against a 2+ or 3+ save, they're very swingy. Now those good saves are more common, they've lost some of their value. On one hand, they could just be considered elite chaff clearers, but on the other, they're priced like elites that can fight everything. 

I agree that, in general, Slaanesh warscrolls are fine (for example, in Painbringers vs Chaos Warriors, I think Painbringers are a better example of what a Chaos Warrior should be), but they lack external buffs to make them more than fine but are priced very highly. Fittingly, Khorne has the opposite problem where they have very poor warscrolls but many external buffs.  

I think a reletively quick fix for Slaanesh would be a command ability that could give rend. It would be pretty thematic too as Slaanesh has been known for its rend. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

8 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Twinsouls are a really weird one. If you look at their raw damage output, point-for-point, it's very high:

This is a unit of 10 rerolling hits, but with no further buffs. 

The problem is that, without rend, against a 2+ or 3+ save, they're very swingy. Now those good saves are more common, they've lost some of their value. On one hand, they could just be considered elite chaff clearers, but on the other, they're priced like elites that can fight everything. 

I agree that, in general, Slaanesh warscrolls are fine (for example, in Painbringers vs Chaos Warriors, I think Painbringers are a better example of what a Chaos Warrior should be), but they lack external buffs to make them more than fine but are priced very highly. Fittingly, Khorne has the opposite problem where they have very poor warscrolls but many external buffs.  

I think a reletively quick fix for Slaanesh would be a command ability that could give rend. It would be pretty thematic too as Slaanesh has been known for its rend. 

 

Here are some numbers against other infantry, because I just had them open:

Save	Twinsouls	Greatswords	Grave Guard	Vindictors
2+	3.26	6.61	7	3.11
3+	6.52	8.17	9.33	4.67
4+	9.78	9.72	11.67	6.22
5+	13.04	11.28	14	7.78
6+	16.3	12.83	16.33	9.33
-	19.56	12.83	16.33	9.33

These are all for min-size units. Freeguild Greatswords are 150, Grave Guard 140.

Personally, I would feel a lot more comfortable with Twinsouls at a lower point cost, especially considering the buff potential stuff like Greatswords and Grave Guard have. +1 to hit/wound just for being near a hero, extra attacks, potentially fight twice... But giving them rend 1 would make them pretty competitive as elite infantry. They would be keeping up with the other can openers at that point.

[Enoby]

15 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

 

Here are some numbers against other infantry, because I just had them open:

Save	Twinsouls	Greatswords	Grave Guard	Vindictors
2+	3.26	6.61	7	3.11
3+	6.52	8.17	9.33	4.67
4+	9.78	9.72	11.67	6.22
5+	13.04	11.28	14	7.78
6+	16.3	12.83	16.33	9.33
-	19.56	12.83	16.33	9.33

These are all for min-size units. Freeguild Greatswords are 150, Grave Guard 140.

Personally, I would feel a lot more comfortable with Twinsouls at a lower point cost, especially considering the buff potential stuff like Greatswords and Grave Guard have. +1 to hit/wound just for being near a hero, extra attacks, potentially fight twice... But giving them rend 1 would make them pretty competitive as elite infantry. They would be keeping up with the other can openers at that point.

Yeah, coming down in point would help them a lot. I'm assuming in your calculation you didn't including the reroll and/or the exploding 6s? I always include the reroll just as it's built in (though not every turn) and the exploding 6s as it's the allegiance ability. 

Edit: Not that you'd be incorrect to look at them without buffs -  I was just wondering why our numbers were so different! I personally prefer with the basic built in buffs as I see it as a more 'realistic' performance, but I understand that some buffs aren't guaranteed so including them can give false power.  

Extra rend would do this to their damage (when rerolling):

As you can see, it does massively boost them - I'm not sure if it'd be too much even, considering they'd end up with twice the damage of Greatswords vs a 2+, 3+, 4+ save. 

I'd like them to get rend, but if they went down to around 140 points and got rend, maybe they'd end up too good? Or at least too damaging. 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Enoby
Addition

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

13 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Yeah, coming down in point would help them a lot. I'm assuming in your calculation you didn't including the reroll and/or the exploding 6s? I always include the reroll just as it's built in (though not every turn) and the exploding 6s as it's the allegiance ability. 

No, I have them factored in. The damage is just lower because it's only 5 models.

Everyone else only gets what's on their warscrolls, though, so no +1s or extra attacks from outside sources (even though they would realistically probably have them).

EDIT:

I don't think -1 rend would make Twinsouls too good. Here is what Grave Guard get up to in comparison in a unit of 20 with one hero supporting them with one command:

Save	Twinsouls	Grave Guard
2+	12.63	24.85
3+	18.94	33.89
4+	25.26	42.93
5+	31.57	51.96
6+	37.89	61
-	37.89	61

Of course, those guys move 4" and are made of tissue paper, but still.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Enoby]

3 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

No, I have them factored in. The damage is just lower because it's only 5 models.

Everyone else only gets what's on their warscrolls, though, so no +1s or extra attacks from outside sources (even though they would realistically probably have them).

Oh yeah, that would make sense! I think I've just defaulted to 10 because I never use five - oops!

Edit: With this in mind, I don't think the rend would be too bad - like I said, I mind-blanked when doing the stats and just included 10 as if that were normal numbers, so it's not quite as bad as I thought it was. 

I'm hoping we see a White Dwarf soon. I'd almost like to wait on a book, if only because I'd like the maximum amount of feedback and testing to go into the next book.

[Jaskier]

The lack of Rend -2 or better across the army is a big problem, especially as we can't really splurge mortal wounds like other armies can. 

[Enoby]

8 minutes ago, Jaskier said:

The lack of Rend -2 or better across the army is a big problem, especially as we can't really splurge mortal wounds like other armies can. 

I hope that, if Slaangors get a rewrite, they give them -2 rend and 2 damage. That on its own would make me consider taking them - maybe a few units for tin opening properties.

Now I've thought about Slaangors, the question of "why was the warscroll written to be this poor" comes back...

[azdimy]

If gw decides to reduce our summoning in order to lower the unit point cost accross the army, they really need to look at the deamon side of the army. Mine only see play from summoning as their warscroll are nowhere near where they are pointed and a 10-15% point reduction will not change that

[Wordy9th]

Some great numbers there guys. 

As an enjoyer of Grave Guard myself I can attest to their damage, and it's been right to point out the sheer power of how buffs can affect GG's performance.

As for warscroll rewrites, I can't say no to having a pip of rend on a unit. I've heard it from others that -1 rend might as well be no rend in this meta but I hard disagree (unless I'm fighting Petrifex in which case it's true xD). 

On the subject though we need look no further for a Slaangor rewrite than the Dread Pageant unit from Underworlds. That boy has 4 attacks, 4 to hit, 3 to wound, -2 rend and 2 damage with mortal wounds on hits in addition. That whole unit actually puts out serious damage for 130 points and also enjoys a 4+ ward on the main Harpoon dude. A few more warscrolls on the same line as these and we're going towards a better place.

[Jaskier]

I think Myrmidesh and Slickblades are fine staying as Rend -1 with 1/6 mortal wounds in addition, but things like Fiends, Slaangors and arguably Twinsouls (would require a few other changes) should be prime sources of Rend -2 attacks. Further, when you look at how strong the new Great Unclean One is, there's no reason a revised Keeper shouldn't have minimum Rend -2 on all attacks, up to Rend -3 (with more attacks/less variance) on the claws. They should also bring back the rule for Daemonettes that gives them extra Rend (-3/4) on 6s to-wound and apply that to all Daemonette-type models in the army (i.e. Seekers) with the hero-level Daemonettes (i.e. Heralds, Syll) having base Rend -2. That would solve our issues with low Rend across the army, and it would be consistent both with how Slaanesh has historically worked and how they currently work in 40K. 

If 3.0 has proven one thing it's that the Keeper should not be balanced around its command ability now that it can only be used once per phase and can't be used alongside other commands. Either make it a proper powerhouse or give it support abilities that we want to pay 400+ points for. Taking one in an army list currently is just like begging your opponent to win.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Jaskier