AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[ibel]

On 7/28/2022 at 7:55 AM, ibel said:

What do u think? Did anyone played with the Krondspine allready?! Do u think there are any Competativ (lets say go 3-2 in a 2day Tournament) Hedonits list ?! (there is a Event i play in the end of Agust and i can play NurgleMassFly (stupid boring ) or Hedonits but i dont wont to be an the last place automaticlly  

So i played against a Nighthaunt with MAss Bladereaver, 3 Spirirts a few littel Heros and a Coach.

The Game was very, very close. I Started, make 2-3 DP too littel and was very offensiv. My Archers, The Mask and Siggi do not enough. In his 1. Turn 1 lost The Mask, Siggi and all Twins because of Battelshock. Than i try and go for it with the Krod but the Incarnation do... almoth Nothing just Holding 80% but in the End i Lose because of Missionpoints.

I dont really knopw if i like the Krod.It is good but it won't win u the game allone. Next time I Try a Glutos List (most of i have 90% painted by this List) 

Spoiler

Allegiance: Slaanesh
- Host: Lurid Haze Invaders Host (Host of Chaos)
- Mortal Realm: Ghur
- Grand Strategy: Tame the Land
- Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Glutos Orscollion, Lord of Gluttony (470)*
- Host Option: General
- Lore of Pain and Pleasure: Dark Delusions
Sigvald, Prince of Slaanesh (205)*
- Host Option: General
Shardspeaker of Slaanesh (135)*
- General
- Command Trait: Feverish Anticipation
- Artefact: Oil of Exultation
- Lore of Pain and Pleasure: Battle Rapture

Battleline
11 x Blissbarb Archers (140)*
11 x Blissbarb Archers (140)*
11 x Blissbarb Archers (140)*

Units
10 x Symbaresh Twinsouls (260)**
- Reinforced x 1
5 x Slickblade Seekers (230)**
5 x Myrmidesh Painbringers (120)**
1 x Slaves to Darkness Chaos Spawn (55)*

- Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh
1 x Slaves to Darkness Chaos Spawn (55)*
- Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh

Endless Spells & Invocations
Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (40)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 122
Drops: 4

The Gameplan:

Inviltrated with Siggi and the Sickblades, go for the Charge and make in my first round 10-14 DP. After this i try to controll the Middel with Glutos and Twinsouls. Or do u think The Mask would be better as the second littel Hero?!

 

[azdimy]

Going to give pure Slaanesh deamons a try again at a 1 day event this WE despite them getting very few point drops in this ghb

[ibel]

15 hours ago, azdimy said:

Going to give pure Slaanesh deamons a try again at a 1 day event this WE despite them getting very few point drops in this ghb

List ?

[Enoby]

I had a game with this list last night, but looking at it this morning I think it's an illegal list - despite the allowance on the AoS app, I'm assuming the Incarnate isn't allowed to be bound to named heroes. Regardless, I could have swapped out some Painbringers for a Shardspeaker. 

It was against Orruk Warclans with an alpha strike gore-grunta and Mawkrusha list, and ended up using a battleplan where you couldn't teleport. 

 - Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh
     - Army Type: Invaders
     - Subfaction: The Lurid Haze
     - Grand Strategy: Coveted Riches
LEADERS
Sigvald (205)
     - General
Glutos Orscollion (470)
     - Spells: Battle Rapture
     - Bonding:  Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur
BATTLELINE
Blissbarb Archers (140)
Blissbarb Archers (140)
Blissbarb Archers (140)
BEHEMOTH
Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)
OTHER
Symbaresh Twinsouls (260)
Myrmidesh Painbringers (120)
Myrmidesh Painbringers (120)
TERRAIN
1 x Fane of Slaanesh (0)
TOTAL POINTS: 1995/2000
 

Overall, thanks to some really poor luck from the Mawkrusha, it was a stomp in Slaanesh's favour. The Krondspire was very good and I can definitely see myself taking that again; Glutos was useful enough with his -1 to hit (which made a huge difference) but didn't do loads else. Sigvald destroyed some gore-gruntas after the pigs couldn't break through 5 painbringers. 

It's hard to say exactly how well it went as it ended up very one sided by the beginning of turn 2, however I was very impressed with the Twinsouls in Bounty Hunters. They split their attacks between a unit of 5 Arboys and 10 Gutripaz, and wiped the 10 out and left the 5 on 1. 

That said, I'm not a huge fan of Bounty Hunters as a battalion - mattered way too much in that game. 

The Blissbarbs will be my go-to choice for battleline from now on - they're a very good veteran unit who can support from a point. 

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

On 8/2/2022 at 5:12 PM, Jaskier said:

Yeah it's unfortunate, sadly almost all Chaos factions have very little synergy with each other despite the Coalition rules as theirs are far more restrictive compared to say Cities of Sigmar. 

This is my main peeve with the current iteration of the rules. I've got so many Slaves and Beasts models, lovingly painted up in the colours of the Dark Prince... but practically no incentive to take them into battle. 

Plus it'd add more variety to army compositions if Coalition units were being used more frequency, which is always a good thing in my wicked little book.

[Enoby]

3 minutes ago, Big Kim Woof-Woof said:

This is my main peeve with the current iteration of the rules. I've got so many Slaves and Beasts models, lovingly painted up in the colours of the Dark Prince... but practically no incentive to take them into battle. 

Plus it'd add more variety to army compositions if Coalition units were being used more frequency, which is always a good thing in my wicked little book.

It is odd how Order has a lot of rules for working with itself, despite the fact that Order is at war with itself quite frequently, but the Chaos Warrior who gets into a battle frenzy with their Lord next to them thanks to the power of Slaanesh, can't get into the same frenzy when they're surrounded by the Dark Prince's most favoured servants. 

I know our book is very sparse in the way of Allegiance abilities, but I'd love it if they rethought every Chaos god book to split their Allegiance abilities into "Coalition/Pure". So if we used our book, the Coalition ability would be Euphoric Killers, and the Pure ability would be the abilities gained from Depravity Points. Pure would still be better, but you wouldn't feel punished for taking S2D or BoC. 

I think, what's more, both S2D and BoC have relatively meh to bad warscrolls on their own (besides Archaon and Belekor), and require buffs and allegiance abilities to work. This is fine when they're in their own armies, but means you're punished even more for taking them as coalition unless you really invest in it, and then they're still much worse than in their own army. 

[CeleFAZE]

Got in my first game with this hilarious abomination of a list:

List name: Concubine Harvester Hoedown

- Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh
- Army Type: Godseekers
- Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
- Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS
Bladebringer, Herald on Exalted Chariot (265)*
- General
- Command Traits: Speed-chaser
- Artefacts of Power: Enrapturing Circlet
- Spells: Born of Damnation
Bladebringer, Herald on Seeker Chariot (185)*
- Spells: Born of Damnation
BATTLELINE
Seeker Chariots (375)*
Seeker Chariots (250)*
Seeker Chariots (250)*
OTHER
Exalted Chariot (195)**
Exalted Chariot (195)**
Exalted Chariot (195)**
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters
TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000

It's actually... not terrible? The truly prodigious amount of mortal wounds is exactly as good as it seems, and even better if you don't roll as many ones as I did. I went up against a 60-zombie soulblight list with a large unit of bounty hunter GV graveguard in the realmstone cache, and managed to kill almost the entire zombie unit turn one. I made a few boneheaded decisions, like not taking the opportunity to get my three-model unit out of combat through careful casualty removal to allow for a big rally in the next turn, for whatever reason opting to pile-in with the remaining chariot for reasons I can't explain. Also my choices for combat order were incredibly suboptimal, so I need to be a bit more careful with the order I do things. It's a bit like running gargants, where you have far fewer choices to make, but each one is proportionally far more important.

The purple sun felt like a bad choice until I finally brought it out on turn three, where it proceeded to eat a vamp, necromancer, and corpsecart in one go, and then gave me an opening for some weirdly punishing melee. I'm not convinced it's a terribly good choice, but there isn't really much else you could throw in with 90 points to spare, and at present it's an incredibly strong, if unreliable source of model removal. I entertained the thought of summoning an epitome to bring it on more easily, but with summoning being in the movement phase that basically means you won't have it on until turn 3, which is a long time to wait for that when there's more immediately useful things you can bring on instead.

Overall, it's a fun shakeup of a list, and the bones of it are capable of doing some work. Definitely worth the pain of assembling all those chariots.

[CeleFAZE]

At the last possible minute I was able to slip in a change to that list for a GT next weekend:

 - Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh
     - Army Type: Godseekers
     - Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
     - Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS
Bladebringer, Herald on Exalted Chariot (265)*
     - General
     - Command Traits: Speed-chaser
     - Artefacts of Power: Enrapturing Circlet
     - Spells: Born of Damnation
Bladebringer, Herald on Seeker Chariot (185)*
     - Spells: Born of Damnation
BATTLELINE
Seeker Chariots (375)*
Seeker Chariots (125)*
Seeker Chariots (125)*
Seeker Chariots (125)*
Seeker Chariots (125)*
OTHER
Exalted Chariot (195)**
Exalted Chariot (195)**
Exalted Chariot (195)**
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters
TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000
 

I think single chariots are probably the best way to go, but having one large unit gives me something big, distracting, and highly rewarding to rally while the the other 11 chariots run amok exactly where they need to go. Running more than one multi-chariot unit is a trap I think, as you quickly run out of frontage past a certain point, and if you're not getting your mortal wounds you're not getting the real value of the list. The other upside is forcing your opponent to split their attacks on multiple units, giving you a much better shot at having chariots live through at least one turn of combat.

Something else I discovered with chariots in such insane quantities is that you can actually clear chaff to open up charge lanes you otherwise couldn't, since the mortals happen immediately after you charge. Tag a blocker with a few seeker chariots on either side, and you can potentially wipe it in time to charge an exalted chariot into the more juicy prey it was guarding. It takes a bit of luck (and not rolling ones on the check for if you actually do the mortal wounds in the first place), but it gives an option that's fairly unique to Godseekers lists. It's important too, as you really want multicharges for the exalted chariots; there were times I was doing 7-8 mortal wounds to a single unit between excess of blades and pungent soulscent, and tagging at least three targets with PS to give the exalted 9 additional attacks, which could swing into a battleline unit at 2 damage each. If you want to try a similar list I cannot stress enough the importance of bringing a spare chariot base to use as a template so you don't end up angling wrong and ****** up your charges.

Another cool interaction is with our white dwarf buffs. The extra movement in particular is incredible for this, as it ups our threat range considerably. With retreat and charge on the seekers and the general that allowed me to slingshot pretty far back and deal a mess of mortals to a clump of 4 characters and a corpse cart, not to mention zoom the remaining member of the large unit back to relative safety. Also Godseekers is unique in that we get our bonus depravity before the combat phase, meaning you can tick up those last couple points to turn on the ward save without negatively impacting your summoning at all.

I'm hoping to get in at least 2 more practice games to fine tune my tactics, but I'm cautiously optimistic that I can at least go 3-2. The mission we tried (realmstone cache) for the first practice game was probably the one in the mission pack that's most difficult for us (fun fact: 12 chariots can actually fit pretty easily into even that tiny box of a deployment zone), but fortunately that one isn't until round 5.

[fessf]

 

I will be playing a 3000 point game against sylvaneth later today and i am feeling pretty excited about it. I have 5 units of blissbarbs to poke the big trees and lots of heroes to knock em down. 

Sylvaneth healing is amazing, so actually killing units instead of just hurting them is real important, which doesn't really work with Depravity farming. 

[fessf]

10 hours ago, fessf said:

 

I will be playing a 3000 point game against sylvaneth later today and i am feeling pretty excited about it. I have 5 units of blissbarbs to poke the big trees and lots of heroes to knock em down. 

Sylvaneth healing is amazing, so actually killing units instead of just hurting them is real important, which doesn't really work with Depravity farming. 

The game ended 14-11 for the Hedonites! 

My game started horrifying with 5 out of 7 spells failing and my enemy growing trees in good spots. My Belakor fell over dead without doing much but speaking his command and my Siegvald failed to kill a treeman who ended the phase with 1 health remaining (teleporting away afterwards). 

Things became better due to a double turn and Epitome going wild, finishing Alarielle off, killing a small wizard and lastly tearing down some Kurnoths. 

Glutos survived in the middle with 2 health remaining and combined with synessa and 2 summoned keepers the game was over Turn 4. 

Its incredible difficult to pick a MVP this game as so many parts of my army were absolutely necessary all the way to turn 4.

Purely points wise Epitome was insane, killing 1.220 worth of points in 3 turns, while the Blissbarb archers were real good for VP and poking. 

 

[azdimy]

Played this list at our local event 

 - Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh
     - Army Type: Pretenders
     - Subfaction: The Faultless Blades
     - Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
     - Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS
Bladebringer, Herald on Exalted Chariot (265)
     - Spells: Born of Damnation
Soulfeaster Keepers of Secrets (385)**
     - General
     - Command Traits: Contest of Cruelty, Inspirer
     - Artefacts of Power: Contemptuous Brand
     - Spells: Slothful Stupor
The Contorted Epitome (245)**
     - Spells: Hysterical Frenzy
BATTLELINE
Daemonettes (390)*
Daemonettes (390)*
Daemonettes (130)**
OTHER
Seekers (140)**
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (40)
TERRAIN
1 x Fane of Slaanesh (0)
CORE BATTALIONS
*Bounty Hunters
**Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1985/2000

It was not good and  I got tabled turn 3 by a not tournament veteran stormcast player using Gotrek. He had 2 units of 2 fulminators and gotrek in bounty hunters. A unit of 2 fulminators in bounty hunters  deleted 30 deamonettes on the charge.  He got the first double turn 2 to 3 which brought gotrek on my line after 2 6in run  and he tabled me top of 3. I was able to get to 18 dp bottom of turn 2 and get a 5+ ward on the army yet the army remained very fragile. Geminids is very good for DP generation but my opponent did also not understand it and never tried to dispell it. Looking back I probably should have given him the double turn 1 to 2 to avoid getting doubled when gotrek was in charge range

2nd game I faced a mortal Slaanesh army with blissbarb archers / twinsouls  and purple sun in lurid haze. He deleted my keeper on his first purple sun roll which made me sad. We played 5 turns but mortals and deamons in Slaanesh are on a different scale with the last point update and he finished like 10 points ahead of me after I had only one 30 deamonettes unit on the table.

If it wasn t for purple sun deleting my keeper we would have had a much closer game

  I dropped out of the event after my second game as I was getting really tired. After my event, I d say Slaanesh daemons remains in a terrible place despite the few point drops they got and the white dwarf update. They remain good summoning units but are not worth their point to start with them on the table. I can only hope we see some good change in the next point update for them

 

[zombiepiratexxx]

I don't believe that you can take 2 BH battalions, I think that they're restricted, so you got cheated if there was 2 of them. 

[azdimy]

2 hours ago, zombiepiratexxx said:

I don't believe that you can take 2 BH battalions, I think that they're restricted, so you got cheated if there was 2 of them. 

It was only one bounty hunter battallion with 2 units of fulminator and gotrek in it.

The mortal Slaanesh list had an exalted seeker chariot in bounty hunter which was a really solid choice I felt

[zombiepiratexxx]

20 hours ago, azdimy said:

It was only one bounty hunter battallion with 2 units of fulminator and gotrek in it.

The mortal Slaanesh list had an exalted seeker chariot in bounty hunter which was a really solid choice I felt

Gotcha! Reading it sounded like there were 2 battalions!  

[Enoby]

I do wonder when we'll get our new book. I'm certainly not expecting any time soon (definitely not this year) but I was wondering whether we'd get a 3rd edition book at all; on one hand, I'd hope for next year, but on the other I'd like them to have as much time as possible to improve our current book and warscrolls - looking at the time between our books, a year isn't enough to do more than a rushed job. 

I did have a game against Ironjawz last night (1000pts). Unfortunately my army died without rolling a single dice, besides priority (which I lost) and a 1 on redeploy. I tried to get as far away from them as possible, but they rolled high on their charge (and 32" move is hard to escape). Not really much to say about that one! 

It is dissapointing that we're not really that fast of an army. Certainly, our base movement speeds are fast, but unlike other armies, we don't have much movement manipulation (like move in the hero phase, a large number of run and charge, considerable charge bonuses) so we end up feeling middle of the pack. I hope, next book, we can actually call ourselves the fastest army...

[Erosharcos]

I played a casual game with my Slaaneshi daemons for the first time with them in a while. It was godseekers with 3x20 daemonettes and fiends as bounty hunters, KoS with Into the Fray, Epitome with tome, and a exalted chariot with flaming weapon. Took in off-meta khorne mortals. 
 

I’ve played off-meta Cities and on-meta Sylvaneth, and Slaanesh battle traits and scrolls just feels so nonbo now. We’re supposed to be a mobile glass cannon army but we’re not that mobile and not that much of a cannon… so we’re kind of just glass lol. 
 

I went all in on 3k worth of models when the first tome released and I found it really unenjoyable to play because of how brain-dead easy it was to win with our strike last effects and points efficiency relative to every other army… no reward or challenge, just move and roll and summon. GW put our new abilities at being bad in every direction it seems…it’s disappointing because I really love the aesthetic of our range. 
 

Anyways, I’m going to rebase my models and maybe re paint the big ones. I’m thinking a Circle of Avidity theme with gold pile bases using gold glitter and rhine stone. Any thoughts or tips? 

Edited August 11, 2022 by Erosharcos

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

18 hours ago, Enoby said:

I do wonder when we'll get our new book. I'm certainly not expecting any time soon (definitely not this year) but I was wondering whether we'd get a 3rd edition book at all; on one hand, I'd hope for next year, but on the other I'd like them to have as much time as possible to improve our current book and warscrolls - looking at the time between our books, a year isn't enough to do more than a rushed job. 

I did have a game against Ironjawz last night (1000pts). Unfortunately my army died without rolling a single dice, besides priority (which I lost) and a 1 on redeploy. I tried to get as far away from them as possible, but they rolled high on their charge (and 32" move is hard to escape). Not really much to say about that one! 

It is dissapointing that we're not really that fast of an army. Certainly, our base movement speeds are fast, but unlike other armies, we don't have much movement manipulation (like move in the hero phase, a large number of run and charge, considerable charge bonuses) so we end up feeling middle of the pack. I hope, next book, we can actually call ourselves the fastest army...

Replacing our existing locus with one that buffs movement or gives out run and charge like the 40k equivalent would be nice. I played in a tournament recently running mostly cavalry (was getting tired of twinsouls and geminids as crutch picks and it was a casual event) and man it showed how matchup dependent we are. I dominated Sylvaneth in round 1 against a friend of mine that I'd argue is one of the best local players. Outside of Alariel fight and fades, I got to pick nearly every fight on my terms and forced the win on top of round 3. Round 2 was against Idoneth and it was a close game, with me being tabled and him having 2 units left. We where similar in speed and tankiness outside of the shield eels, unfortunately sigvald got popped by reaver spam before he could kill the eidolon and I lost priority into round 3 so my opponent got the opportunity to build momentum. Round 3 was against Stonehorn spam mawtribes and I got wiped by top of 3. I killed 2 stonehorns total, because being mostly rend -1 1 damage and 5+ saves trades very poorly into 3+ 5++ monsters with multi-damage attacks, it's a similar problem going up against stormcast.

So if we get a new book and they want to keep our fast but fragile identity then I'd like more widely available and applicable debuff potential and better rend. Low damage is fine since pain is the point rather than killing but we need the rend to cause that pain in the first place. If we had options that where more mobile and reliable sources of -1 to hit, wound or attacks for decent costs we could offset our fragility without the fights last feelbads or the relative uninteractibility of high armour or ethereal. Alternatively a way to get fights first on multiple units could work. Right now our options are the unreliable shard speaker, Glutos whose tanky but doesn't punch his way out of moderately tanky enemies, fiends who don't do enough and need an unoptimal model count for full debuffs and some bad spells and artefacts that rely on a mere 2d6 vs bravery while be have too few sources of bravery manipulation to make it work.

My real dream mechanic tho is scaling buffs for our heroes based on damage taken. A power from pain mechanic that gives rr1s to hit, +1 to wound, fights first or other scaling buffs the closer to death the hero is. like 1-3 missing wounds for a rr1s to hit, 4-6 for +1 to wound and 7-9 for fights first and maybe a separate chart with different buffs for our larger wound count greater demons and glutos.

[azdimy]

Played a game today against the new Sylvaneth and man twinsouls are good once they have rend. I was running:

Allegiance: Slaanesh
- Host: Lurid Haze Invaders Host (Host of Chaos)
- Grand Strategy: Take What's Theirs
- Triumphs: bloodthirsty

Leaders
Glutos Orscollion, Lord of Gluttony (470)*
- Lore of Pain and Pleasure: Battle Rapture
Sigvald, Prince of Slaanesh (205)*
- Host Option: General
The Contorted Epitome (245)*
- General
- Command Trait: Feverish Anticipation
- Artefact: Oil of Exultation
- Lore of Slaanesh: Born of Damnation

Battleline
22 x Blissbarb Archers (280)*
- Reinforced x 1
5 x Hellstriders with Hellscourges (135)*
5 x Hellstriders with Hellscourges (135)*

Units
10 x Symbaresh Twinsouls (260)*
- Reinforced x 1
5 x Symbaresh Twinsouls (130)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (40)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 103
Drops: 1

The 10 twinsouls killed Allarielle turn 1 ( she came back turn 3 ) but it was a bloody battle. By the end of turn 5 I had Sigvald, the epitome, 5 hellstriders and a unit a 5 deamonettes left while my opponent had allarielle and his general (dude on foot with wings ) left 

It was weird fighting a treelord my opponent summoned, these guys have the old rules we used to have for our keepers (give asl on 3+) makes me hopefull we get some of our cool rules back. In the end i got the win getting my grand strategy and preventing him to get his ( we both had take what s theirs)

Edited August 15, 2022 by azdimy

[Enoby]

6 hours ago, azdimy said:

It was weird fighting a treelord my opponent summoned, these guys have the old rules we used to have for our keepers (give asl on 3+) makes me hopefull we get some of our cool rules back. In the end i got the win getting my grand strategy and preventing him to get his ( we both had take what s theirs)

Thanks for the write up

Personally I hope we don't get strike last back - at least personally, I found AoS 2 Slaanesh to be far too "easy" in that I just pushed my KoS up the board and killed with impunity thanks to strike last (I don't like it on the treelord either). However I do think the current locus is underwhelming and would like to see it replaced with something both more fitting and more useful, like some sort of command ability 'off' switch (even outside of the combat phase). Something that's useful but has to be used intelligently. 

I do think/hope our next book will be of much better quality so long as it has time to be written properly. I really hope the twins get a full rethink too - Synessa isn't bad, but they're not bad in a bad way - they're good for chip mortal wounds. It's very silly that the embodiment of Slaanesh's subtly and magic is worse at casting than a mortal with a special staff and a Contorted epitome. It's even more silly that they mixed up the weapon profiles of Dexcessa and Synessa's models, suggesting they were both a rushed job (with Dexcessa having the scourge attack profile but Synessa being the one with the actual scourge).

On a more positive note, our win rate has gone up from 29% to 45% thanks to the last GHB. Not that we're decimating tournaments, but the points drops were a big help.

 

[azdimy]

3 hours ago, Enoby said:

thanks to the last GHB. Not that we're decimating tournaments, but the points drops were a big help.

I think it s more the krondspine and the purple sun(giving us the extra rend we desperately need) than the point drops (while this helped as well) that are giving us more wins

On the always strike last being too easy comment, I think it hasn t been the case for a while with the quantity of shooting in the game and more armies having also access to asf/asl

While the treelord no pile in and always strike last worked to great effect for my opponent, I was still able to kill it while keepiing it engaged Units are a lot more resilient with all out defense and better armour saves in the game in general. Our old locus and the keeper being able to excess of violence itself to attack a second time would not be that scary with where the game s at

[Enoby]

20 minutes ago, azdimy said:

I think it s more the krondspine and the purple sun(giving us the extra rend we desperately need) than the point drops (while this helped as well) that are giving us more wins

On the always strike last being too easy comment, I think it hasn t been the case for a while with the quantity of shooting in the game and more armies having also access to asf/asl

While the treelord no pile in and always strike last worked to great effect for my opponent, I was still able to kill it while keepiing it engaged Units are a lot more resilient with all out defense and better armour saves in the game in general. Our old locus and the keeper being able to excess of violence itself to attack a second time would not be that scary with where the game s at

I definitely think they've helped too, though everyone else has access to them and we're not the most effective user of the Purple Sun (it helps us a lot, but our best caster is still not unbeatable by a long shot) so I don't know if we can attribute the full 14% boost to those alone (but I don't doubt they helped).

I suppose by "too easy" I didn't meant "too good", but rather "not cognitively involved". Old Slaanesh was far too strong because of its summoning combined with the locus, but I'd say the summoning was the biggest issue - hence why it beat other armies that had strike last. However I disliked our old locus because it felt like I was making incredibly safe moves every turn - I moved up my KoSs, made the enemy strike last, and hoped I killed them. I never felt particularly involved in wins as I didn't need to interact with what I'd consider AoS's most tactically complex stage - attack order. 

I'm fine with tactically conditional strike first/last, such as Sigvald (who needs to charge), but rolled for strike last felt very tactically uninvolved for me. I'd like our new locus to be useful (unlike currently) but not run up and smash (unlike before); something like:

"Subversion

Once per phase, when a command point is spent, you can attempt to subvert the command with a friendly Hedonite Demon Hero within 12" of the unit issuing the command. On a 3+, the command point is spent and the command is both issued and received, but the command has no effect. Add 1 to this roll if the Hero has the Greater Demon keyword. Each friendly Hedonite Demon Hero can only use Subversion once per battle round."

Something like this would be powerful (you could potentially shut down big plays or inspiring presence), it would be relatively unique and flavourful (with Slaanesh daemons whispering into the ears of the enemy to cause chaos), but you would have to think hard about when you used it - if you only had one demon hero, you may want to wait until a big inspiring presence is going to be used to save an opponent's elite unit, or try to stop a huge rally, or to cancel out an important command like Ravager's/FEC summon but you couldn't stop all of them. Balance-wise, this is probably a bit on the strong/oppressive side so it may need a further limit (such as not spending the command point), but the idea is to have a locus that is both strong but requires tactical choices from both opponents (for example, the opponent trying to trick you to use your once per phase Subversion on a command ability they don't care as much about). 

As a side-point, I'd love it if mortals got their own special allegiance ability. 

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

13 hours ago, Enoby said:

I definitely think they've helped too, though everyone else has access to them and we're not the most effective user of the Purple Sun (it helps us a lot, but our best caster is still not unbeatable by a long shot) so I don't know if we can attribute the full 14% boost to those alone (but I don't doubt they helped).

I suppose by "too easy" I didn't meant "too good", but rather "not cognitively involved". Old Slaanesh was far too strong because of its summoning combined with the locus, but I'd say the summoning was the biggest issue - hence why it beat other armies that had strike last. However I disliked our old locus because it felt like I was making incredibly safe moves every turn - I moved up my KoSs, made the enemy strike last, and hoped I killed them. I never felt particularly involved in wins as I didn't need to interact with what I'd consider AoS's most tactically complex stage - attack order. 

I'm fine with tactically conditional strike first/last, such as Sigvald (who needs to charge), but rolled for strike last felt very tactically uninvolved for me. I'd like our new locus to be useful (unlike currently) but not run up and smash (unlike before); something like:

"Subversion

Once per phase, when a command point is spent, you can attempt to subvert the command with a friendly Hedonite Demon Hero within 12" of the unit issuing the command. On a 3+, the command point is spent and the command is both issued and received, but the command has no effect. Add 1 to this roll if the Hero has the Greater Demon keyword. Each friendly Hedonite Demon Hero can only use Subversion once per battle round."

Something like this would be powerful (you could potentially shut down big plays or inspiring presence), it would be relatively unique and flavourful (with Slaanesh daemons whispering into the ears of the enemy to cause chaos), but you would have to think hard about when you used it - if you only had one demon hero, you may want to wait until a big inspiring presence is going to be used to save an opponent's elite unit, or try to stop a huge rally, or to cancel out an important command like Ravager's/FEC summon but you couldn't stop all of them. Balance-wise, this is probably a bit on the strong/oppressive side so it may need a further limit (such as not spending the command point), but the idea is to have a locus that is both strong but requires tactical choices from both opponents (for example, the opponent trying to trick you to use your once per phase Subversion on a command ability they don't care as much about). 

As a side-point, I'd love it if mortals got their own special allegiance ability. 

I like this, we already have a few spells that shut down commands that are hampered by being hero targetable only. Opening up some means of essentially getting roar on our demon heroes is good. Additionally I'd like to add ideas for specific monstrous and heroic actions. I'd like the keeper to get a monstrous action themed around it's speed, maybe strikes first on a 3+ or a -1 to hit. For a heroic action option it'd be cool to get the Fanes take a wound for +1 to hit, ****** make it d3 to balance it more and change the fane to something actually useful, it's seriously one of the most useless terrain pieces as is. I'd say as added incentive against summoning (quickly becoming my most hated mechanic and why I'm switching to bonesplittaz for the time being to get my glass cannon fix) make the Fane have an aura of +1 to save or some other buff to show the growing adrenaline and depravity empower the hedonites, and have the aura size grow with each bracket of depravity starting at 6", then 12" at 6DP, 18" at 12DP and 24" at 18DP.

[Erosharcos]

The strike last and KoS commanding itself to attack twice doesn’t seem like it would make Hedonites a top tier faction in the current game state. I would bet on a 55% win rate if that were the case. 
 

I don’t mind strike first/last effects, but what I don’t like is how lame it can be to just waltz around your opponents models, while they watch and wait while your murder their units. Even when models weren't getting outright deleted by our KoS and daemons, it just didn’t feel fun to play with or against. 
 

the trend with 3rd Ed Tomes is to have solid sub faction traits, toned down re-rolls and cheesy mechanics, and unit buffs. I would love to see a few different locus abilities in the form of sub-faction traits, and have additional traits to choose from, like Sylvaneth do with their seasons, only flavored with the Six Circles of Slaanesh. 
 

limited strike first/last effects would be cool to have, assuming they truly are limited and don’t feel lame in gameplay. 
 

There’s a 99.9% chance we get unique monstrous actions with KoS’. I really hope they move away from the Syll’Esk 50/50 mechanics. 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Erosharcos

[CeleFAZE]

Alright. So I ended up going 1-4.

Game 1: Thanquol and bridge double reinforced stormfiends 1-drop in Head-on Collision. Major loss.

I'm honestly kind of at a loss for how to deal with this. Thanquol is basically 3 200-300 point characters' worth of abilities in a 415 point trenchcoat. Fortunately the chariots were a really weird hard-counter to his warpflame throwers, but the stormfiends had no issue with that, and bridged up early to take out most of my force turn 1. I managed to zone out the bridge on my flanks, so he had to come at me for a frontal assault, but what I had left on the board just wasn't enough. Lost an exalted chariot to my own purple sun too, which was a terrible miscalculation.

Game 2: Vyrkos soulblight, 60 zombies and 30 grave guard on Prize of Gallet. Major victory.

This one went probably the best of any of my games. He deployed in a line at the front of his zone, and I hung back out of his VLoZD's charge range, opting to give him first turn. Missed some early charges turn 1, but managed to tie things down using single seeker chariots long enough to charge in turn 2 with my exalteds. Caught his graveguard on the two narrow flanks, and used the 2 damage to excessive effect. From there I systematically dismantled his line, and he just couldn't recover in time.

Game 3: ****** Thanquol and stormfiends again, with an incarnate on Realmstone Cache. Major loss.

Not much to say here. Early incarnate in my face,  stormfiends rolling incredibly hot on ratling guns, and his purple sun rolling a truly impressive number of ones. It was brutal.

Highlight of the game was a skitterleaped warlock unleashing the sun in my lines, and then proceeding to overcharge his rocket, roll 6 for his shots, then 4 1's to hit and explode.

I hate Thanquol.

Game 4: Gristlegore monstermash piloted by the only other woman at the GT. Major loss.

Early game, things were looking good, but a miscommunication on which chariot was being attacked led me to think I was outside of CA range for AoD, causing a dead chariot and a failed tactic. Perplexingly resilient ghouls managed to stay only mostly dead, which is still slightly alive, and a something of a problem for an army that can restore models as effectively as they can.

In the end, my exalted chariots, while making a great effort taking down a terrorgheist, the large ghoul unit and a group of crypt horrors, took two 6 mortal wound bites to the face and crumpled in the endgame, leading to a full tabling.

With the exploding hits, effective summoning, and impressive volume of attacks, FEC seems to be at a place where they do what melee Slaanesh wants to do, but more effectively.

Game 5: Silksteel nests vs nautilar. Major loss.

This one was great, up until around turn 3, where I lost my momentum and had problems coming back (though the enemy namarti squads didn't seem to have that problem). Got some great charges on eels, taking them and the akhelion king out fairly early, but the leviadon was a problem I could neither ignore, nor take down. High tide was a brutal turn, but things were looking okay until that turtle decided the party was over, one-shotting an exalted while his reavers offed my general.

Summoned a late game 30-daemonette blob, but once both bladebringers bit it there was no coming back, especially with chariots not being elite, leaving me no way to rally the 3-chariot unit from the one that was left.

My sun did go on a bit of a rampage here though, gulping down a battlemage and confusingly high number of namarti. Sadly it failed on about 4 attempts to eat the turtle, which would have basically won me the game.

----

Overall, the list was hilarious, and something none of my opponents knew how to deal with at first. It became quickly apparent however that chariots are each a few wounds shy of where they need to be to work on their own. Lack of elite status hurt the most, as I needed to be charging with my general to keep up on depravity, and in this list that meant overextending or missing out, which were both bad outcomes. The sun was a terrible choice for the list, which really needed the healing that lifeswarm could provide instead, but the big skull-faced doofus did manage to give me the most sun kills (combined both dealt and received) which won me a prize of a sorely needed case from tournament fun mini-game shenanigans. 

Would I run this list again? Not in its present form. Only chariots is just too frail in a shooting meta, and without  elite as well as run and charge we have too hard a time getting to the fight. However, the experience did leave me with some insights on how best we can use them, which largely amounts to summoning, but they're still not bad bounty hunters (though slickblades are probably better). Exalted chariots are very cheap at 7 depravity, for a distraction that can deal some decent damage and will probably hang around for at least a turn or two. Combining them with actual support pieces and ranged fire could work rather well.

Edited August 17, 2022 by CeleFAZE

[Popisdead]

On 8/10/2022 at 2:13 AM, Enoby said:

I do wonder when we'll get our new book.

I was wondering that too and since the battletomes in V3 AFAIK are generally in a good direction.  I've heard mixed about the Skaven.  A guy on The Honest Wargamer who played them before and liked that they kept it mostly the same but streamlined the book to be cleaner seems to be positive.

The problem I have projecting that onto Slaanesh is we don't need a streamline, but a re-write like Sylvaneth got.  The Sylvaneth big guys got a huge boost and are a blast to play.  That makes me hope the Keeper will be good again.  I don't want to see a return to the Rhelion days of lists but a list where your Keeper wasn't a fire-magnet that was useless in CC.