AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[CeleFAZE]

20 minutes ago, Selpharia said:

Since we’re likely to get a book sometime in the coming year, I don’t expect big changes. I’d bet on a 15-20 point reduction for the exalted seeker units, and maybe some other small boost, but nothing grand.

I've heard that some of the non-English versions of our book are no longer available at this point. Could be a sign that we're in the queue.

[Popisdead]

On 10/10/2022 at 11:15 AM, CeleFAZE said:

I've heard that some of the non-English versions of our book are no longer available at this point. Could be a sign that we're in the queue.

Are they still changing the books from hard cover to soft cover?

I know in AoS 2 they were doing that with an internal printer instead of massive order from china.  I wonder if they will go more print-on-demand internally.

 

However I hope i'm wrong and a new book is coming and all my daemonettes and seekers and are viable...

[Enoby]

20 minutes ago, Popisdead said:

Are they still changing the books from hard cover to soft cover?

I know in AoS 2 they were doing that with an internal printer instead of massive order from china.  I wonder if they will go more print-on-demand internally.

 

However I hope i'm wrong and a new book is coming and all my daemonettes and seekers and are viable...

I've not seen soft cover books for a while, so I don't think ours is being reprinted in soft cover. We can only hope it means a new battletome, though I would worry that if one came out so soon we'd have minimal changes (like Lumineth). 

[Popisdead]

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

 We can only hope it means a new battletome,

me too

[Beliman]

On 10/10/2022 at 7:54 PM, Selpharia said:

Since we’re likely to get a book sometime in the coming year, I don’t expect big changes. I’d bet on a 15-20 point reduction for the exalted seeker units, and maybe some other small boost, but nothing grand.

I hope you are wrong. I wanted to start an Hedonites army after the reveal of the mortal side, but I couldn't with their rules. Imho, they are not enough interesting for an army that should be exotic, unique, with a lot of rare and special things, and again, interesting.

 

[Enoby]

2 hours ago, Beliman said:

I hope you are wrong. I wanted to start an Hedonites army after the reveal of the mortal side, but I couldn't with their rules. Imho, they are not enough interesting for an army that should be exotic, unique, with a lot of rare and special things, and again, interesting.

 

I think this was the case for a lot of people, in all honesty - it's a shared sentiment by many on this board and on FB groups. I do think the rules (alongside SBGL) botched the Slaanesh release and made it much less popular than it could have been. 

I've been thinking about the potential for us to get a new book, and to be honest, the more I consider it the more I don't want it to happen until they've definitely had enough time to not just do a "tidy up" style book. 3e's battletomes have in general been pretty good, but there have been many that have just been boring re-hashes. The worst thing that could happen to Slaanesh is that they double down on their current design - as you said, it doesn't play anywhere near as interesting as you'd hope it would. I'd like them to do a Nurgle style reboot that consists of chucking most of the old book out and starting from 0. 

Also, I think Khorne needs a book before us - I've not seen a book that has caused so many people to quit AoS.

[zombiepiratexxx]

IMO Khorne has similar issues to Slaanesh, they don't actually play on the table in a way that is consistent with how they appear in the lore. Khorne are depicted as frothing berserkers, who, once their rage is kindled become lost to the fury of combat and the ability to tell friend from foe evaporates, for Khorne only cares that the blood flows! I don't think it would be that hard to depict that in Army Traits rather than everything having to be within a certain range of a buff piece to get the most out of them. Blood Tithe I understand but again, that could use tweaks too. You want things to feel like rage is building up. 

You could give them a Rage mechanic that works like the tally of Nurgle (not sure if that's even a thing anymore). The more wounds that are caused, and taken, add up and you get bonuses on a tier system kind of like depravity, but you don't pay for it so it's more like a Big Waaagh! To start off with it could be +1 attack when charging, at the end it could be something like all 6's to hit cause mortal wounds, however those wounds MUST be allocated to a model, if no more friendly models remain to allocate wounds to, those wounds must be allocated to friendly models starting with the unit that caused them. 

This just feels more fluffy to me than what they have now, or you could choose to spend those points to summon in some Daemons. 

Slaanesh needs to lose the focus on summoning, it needs to be fast, no issue with it having poor saves to balance things, but they need to be able to hit hard. I'd say remove the double hits on a 6 to be a more Slaaneshi "Any 6 to hit increases the rend of that attack by 2" to show the success of the attacker finding that weak spot and caressing them with a beautiful, artful killing stroke. Doesn't get overpowered to start with, can be mildly negated by high armour enemies but also gives you a nice punch if you can get it. 

[azdimy]

Man, looking at these Slaves to darkness leaks. So good! 3+ base save, rend 9n everything Going to run a marked Slaanesh s2d with Sigvald as an ally until we get a new tome I think

[Enoby]

The Chaos Warshrine has an ability that triggers on anything with a "Slaanesh" keyword, and gives a 3D6 charge. 

So, Sigvald's Power of Vainglory lets him use the unmodified charge value as the attack characteristic. 

Modifiers, from what I can tell, are +/-s to the dice. 

So, if Sigvald rolls 3D6, does that become his attacks characteristic? Would be some nice synergy if so.

[azdimy]

45 minutes ago, Enoby said:

The Chaos Warshrine has an ability that triggers on anything with a "Slaanesh" keyword, and gives a 3D6 charge. 

So, Sigvald's Power of Vainglory lets him use the unmodified charge value as the attack characteristic. 

Modifiers, from what I can tell, are +/-s to the dice. 

So, if Sigvald rolls 3D6, does that become his attacks characteristic? Would be some nice synergy if so.

He would get the 3d6 you rolled. Yes

[KrispyXIV]

Anyone considering Ogroid Theridons for a proper hammer unit?

[Jaskier]

3 hours ago, KrispyXIV said:

Anyone considering Ogroid Theridons for a proper hammer unit?

I did some maths and saw some other comparisons, it looks like Khorne marked Chaos Knights and Varanguard are straight up stronger than them (and faster and tougher) which leaves them in a bit of an odd spot. The points squeeze had me looking at them for a two hero Archaon list but that's about it. I think their best attributes are their damage isn't reliant on charging (which depending on the list could be highly relevant) and they have a smaller footprint than the other two aforementioned units. 

[KrispyXIV]

1 minute ago, Jaskier said:

I did some maths and saw some other comparisons, it looks like Khorne marked Chaos Knights and Varanguard are straight up stronger than them (and faster and tougher) which leaves them in a bit of an odd spot. The points squeeze had me looking at them for a two hero Archaon list but that's about it. I think their best attributes are their damage isn't reliant on charging (which depending on the list could be highly relevant) and they have a smaller footprint than the other two aforementioned units. 

I mean, from an allied/Coalition perspective of bringing units into hedonites, khorne marked units aren't really relevant

It's matter of whether they outhit our good options - like twinsouls. 

[Jaskier]

Woops, for some reason I thought this was the Slaves forum 😅 I think in that case they do hit harder at least, assuming All Out Attack for both units, Knights average 7 -2 2 Damage and 3 1 Damage wounds on the charge, whereas Theridons average 6 -2 3 Damage wounds (up to 7-8 if they use their once per game +1 attack rule) so they are quite punchy. I'd probably run them over Fiends for example. They'll do armor busting better than anything in the actual Hedonites book so they've absolutely got a place. 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Jaskier

[Carnith]

Warshrine may need to work its way into our lists. Giving Sigvald 3d6 charge can help him eliminate targets better. I like Theridons as while clearly them being marked is tied into their costs, slaanesh wasn't giving them as much so they would be doing just as well in a hedonite army. 

[KrispyXIV]

9 minutes ago, Carnith said:

Warshrine may need to work its way into our lists. Giving Sigvald 3d6 charge can help him eliminate targets better. I like Theridons as while clearly them being marked is tied into their costs, slaanesh wasn't giving them as much so they would be doing just as well in a hedonite army. 

Eh, the Sigvald thing is almost 200 points for a chance  at an extra (average) 3.5 attacks on sigvald, of which not even all of them will land and deal damage... 

I can't imagine taking that over another unit, like Twinsouls (or even Theridons!).  Its a neat interaction, but it'd be far more interesting to me on a platform that was closer to 100 points than 200.

[zombiepiratexxx]

Lots of points drops in the latest update. Daemonettes are now 110pts which I think makes them viable for cheap battleline, but probably not in this GHB but then I guess a lot of Slaanesh is fragile once GV and BH is gone though there may be some more viability for Slaanesh or we may have had a new tome by then! 

[KrispyXIV]

28 minutes ago, zombiepiratexxx said:

Lots of points drops in the latest update. Daemonettes are now 110pts which I think makes them viable for cheap battleline, but probably not in this GHB but then I guess a lot of Slaanesh is fragile once GV and BH is gone though there may be some more viability for Slaanesh or we may have had a new tome by then! 

Its good to see them working through things, bringing down costs to at least 'reasonable'.  Just gotta wait for them to get to everything

The only change in the current batch that I think 'matters' really is the cost reduction for Glutos - the rest still have better options to take instead, but they're at least more worth considering now.  Its a definitive move in the right direction for 'internal' balance.

I tried running 30 daemonettes today in a game where I knew there wasn't going to be any bounty hunters today, and they were still held back by their lackluster offensive and defensive capabilities.  But at least they were cheap-ish...

[Sonnenspeer]

Im still struggling to understand coalition units. If I include a Slave to Darkness Unit what I know so far from various sources:

- the can use enhancements (Slaanesh Errata)

- they don't count as battle line but count to limitations like max number of leaders (Slaanesh Errata)

-they don't get the host keyword (wrath of the Evershosen Errata)

They gain the mark of Slaanesh. Is that equal to the keyword? Do they get the Battle Trait like Euphoric Killers for example?

Please help! 😅

[Elazar The Glorified]

7 minutes ago, Sonnenspeer said:

Im still struggling to understand coalition units. If I include a Slave to Darkness Unit what I know so far from various sources:

- the can use enhancements (Slaanesh Errata)

- they don't count as battle line but count to limitations like max number of leaders (Slaanesh Errata)

-they don't get the host keyword (wrath of the Evershosen Errata)

They gain the mark of Slaanesh. Is that equal to the keyword? Do they get the Battle Trait like Euphoric Killers for example?

Please help! 😅

So they still count as Battleline but they won't count against your minimum requirements if that makes sense. Important in this season of the GHB as if they're Battleline infantry they will count as Galletian Veterans for example. They get just the Slaanesh keyword but they won't gain Euphoric Killers or the Host keyword or rules.

So essentially you're looking for units that can operate well solo of the Hedonites rules and their own allegiance abilities if taken in Slaves to Darkness. Thankfully, I think there are a few units that will very much fit the bill and there's even some fun bonus synergy with the Warshrine's Slaanesh prayer to explore. Chosen, Varanguard and the Ogroids look like they could fill a role for us and then Warshrine and Sorcerer Lords stand out as maybe having some value to support them depending on how deep you want to go. My gut is the Warshrine whilst potentially funny isn't going to cut it but the Sorcerer buffing a block of Chosen look very good for tackling things our Twinsouls would rather avoid. The Ogroids could offer a bit of a glass cannon that can put out some decent damage into armoured units too.

To confuse it you also have some units that might have some play as Allies (because they can't get the Slaanesh word to join us as coalition units) such as some of the Cultists for screening and chaff etc.

I'm excited to try out some new stuff with their new book and our old one!

[azdimy]

With 2 chaos battletomes being released in the spring, new being releasedthis winter and only Khorne and Slaanesh not having a 3rd ed  update after, looks like we only have 3-6 .onth to wait!

[Enoby]

4 hours ago, azdimy said:

With 2 chaos battletomes being released in the spring, new being releasedthis winter and only Khorne and Slaanesh not having a 3rd ed  update after, looks like we only have 3-6 .onth to wait!

Really hoping the two and a bit years will give them time to rethink the rules! 

[Selpharia]

I actually think they’ve got a pretty good starting point, they mostly just need to change the scrollls, abilities, and subfactions to actually enable multiple playstyles, and if they’re keeping Depravity, decouple it a bit from summoning. I think by incorporating stuff from the grab bag of elven abilities we’ve seen so far, Slaanesh could be made a highly technical offensive board control and buff/ability management army that would feel very rewarding

[zombiepiratexxx]

Looking at the latest metawatch post on Warhammer Community, somehow, even with points drops Slaanesh gets worse! Let's hope next years Battletome does something to address what has consistently been a F Tier army since the second Hedonites tome landed. 

[basement dweller]

Good evening,

I have been painting my hedonites for about 6 months now it is time to use them....despite the flaws and challenges.  I will embrace our weaknesses and use them as an excuse when i lose, as opposed to my mistakes and forgetting half the rules.

I am in an escalation league over the next few months that starts at 1000 points and then cimbs to 1500 and then 2000.  Ive been following this forum for a while and other groups and discussions to help me decide what to use.

Similar to what many have suggested, i am thinking the following at 1000:

Sigvald

Synessa

2x 11 blissbarb archers

2x 5 painbringers

Leaning towards lurid haze to get sigvald in alive to mess with things and genetally make me more mobile than i am.

Just wondering peoples thoughts on this list and even jumping to 1500 then 2000.  I have most models and can get some allies if need be, especially monsters/beasts as i love them too. 

We had some point drops but didnt feel that made the models more worth it.  I played 1500 with a jabberslyth and he did 11MWs from just dying on durthu.....that was awesome for 150 points.  The chimera still feels useful with his mortal would breath and plus to charge.  Cockatrice okay despite the extra points?  Exalted chariot hero feels okay but fragile and so still feels like a summons.  Mindstealer Sphiranx, cygor, fomorian crusher...nothing game breaking but maybe still worth a try?

For actually killing things...twinsouls my best option?  Slickblades?

Endless spells?  Anyone having success?  Feels like a nice source of chip damage, especially with the contored epitome and the dual cast/rerolls.  

Thank you.  I know many of these discussions have come up before, but just wondering if there is a shift or something new worth trying.  Im fine to be a bit more risky and try things...helps if it feels slaaneshy....