AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Jaskier]

53 minutes ago, Unit1126PLL said:

What do you guys think the intent is with the Syllesskan Host?

They don't have any real allegiance abilities, but they got FAQ'd in the latest FAQ and notably is the only Host that gives it's keyword to Coalition Allies (retaining the "All Units" wording rather than the new "All Hedonite Units" wording).

Here is the precise wording:

"All units in your army gain the SYLL’ESSKAN keyword and benefit from the following Battle Traits as well as the allegiance abilities they have for being a Hedonites of Slaanesh army."

With the middle clause removed, it reads:

"All units in your army ... benefit from ... the allegiance abilities they have for being a Hedonites of Slaanesh army."

Does this mean Coalition and allied units get the default HoS benefits (like Euphoric Killers and Locus of Diversion)?

 

Extending the default allegiance abilities to Coalition Allies seems like an even trade for having no enhancements (effectively saying: "your enhancement is that everyone in your army gets the allegiance battle trait").

Besides the fact it won't be relevant in a few weeks, the wording is just a relic of the old way allegiance abilities were worded. The rule doesn't specifically override the GHB/core rule that allies don't benefit from allegiance abilities, so no, it does not provide those units access to allegiance abilities. As for coalition units, keep in mind those units would still also lack the Hedonite keyword which is necessary to benefit from those particular rules. Unfortunately, Syll'Esskan Host was written well before the drive of Chaos factions to get reduced benefits from using coalition units compared to Order.

As someone who took Syll'Esskan Host to a number of events, the actual tradeoff of not having any artifacts or command traits was double depravity and a bunch of cool battalions, my personal favourite being the good old Daemonsteel Contingent. Once the current Slaanesh book came out, they changed double depravity to a much weaker bonus, then when 3.0 came out they nuked the warscroll battalions. Long gone are the days of 3+ save Soul Grinders and generating ~150+ (all the way over 200) depravity in one game. In 2023, there is no good reason to run it. That's just life. 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Jaskier

[Popisdead]

On 2/28/2023 at 7:31 AM, Big Kim Woof-Woof said:

Anyone else got a massive fondness for ye olde Slaanesh models? Here's a few that grace my collection... 

I sure do! and I've painted those models myself recently as Painbringers or the other ones.  They also work well on converted chariots.

Looks great thanks for sharing

[Beliman]

So, what are your wishlists about the new book?
What do you want to see fixed, improved, changed, redone, etc... and what should be the main focus of the whole faction?

As someone that wanted to start an army but avoided Slaanesh just because the rules, I just want to see a new direction of the army. More about excess, units doing a lot of tricks, special artifacts and traits and all kind of weird stuff and mechanics that people should not be aware how to deal with.

[zombiepiratexxx]

It would be great if it didn't suck! I'd like less focus on summoning, more uses for Depravity, some internal synergy between our models and some rend on some units so we have something that can open things up. I hope it doesn't just default to GW's normal "mortals on 6s". 

[Sonnenspeer]

Would be cool if summoning would become optional. Like you can only summon via the Fane of Slaanesh, but the Fane costs 300 points or something like this.

In general they should avoid that Slaanesh becomes a hord army. So back to higher point costs but more meaningful tricks in our sleeves.

 

[Unit1126PLL]

I want Keepers to be good individually.

In the first (ridiculous!) tome, Keepers were good in like, groups of 3, but one was extremely fragile.

In our most recent tome, keepers are just kinda bad.

I want them to be fearsome combatants, able to bonk a Bloodthirster reliably if used with skill and guile and or course plenty of panache.

[KrispyXIV]

Warscrolls that don't 'suck' because they have to be crippled or summoning can be too good.  

This applies to most Demons, who apparently had to be non-threatening since they can pop up for free?

But especially Daemonettes, and Keepers of Secrets - the KoS is so disappointing to play.  They consistently do nothing, except for the one time in a dozen when you roll a ton of sixes in proximity and they annihilate something with mortal wounds - which doesn't even feel good because your opponent is like, "That thing is awesome!  Why are you complaining about it?" while not having had to go through all the times when it just... did nothing.

[Lucentia]

Selfishly I would like Shalaxi to be actually playable for the first time, with rules that actually make them a reliable monster/hero hunter.

But in a more general sense I'd like to see a substantial rework of the core faction mechanics, if they remove depravity points entirely I really wouldn't complain.  Ideally the core identity of the faction, in my eyes,  should be ludicrous speed, accurate, high rend, but generally low damage output, with some manner of risk-reward options where you can push units to self-destructive excess, that reads as 'slaanesh' to me.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Lucentia

[KrispyXIV]

17 minutes ago, Lucentia said:

Selfishly I would like Shalaxi to be actually playable for the first time, with rules that actually make them a reliable monster/hero hunter.

But in a more general sense I'd like to see a substantial rework of the core faction mechanics, if they remove depravity points entirely I really wouldn't complain.  Ideally the core identity of the faction, in my eyes,  should be ludicrous speed, accurate, high rend, but generally low damage output, with some manner of risk-reward options where you can push units to self-destructive excess, that reads as 'slaanesh' to me.

I'm personally hoping for "finesse" more than speed, and honestly love the concept of temptations and "cursed gifts" shown off by the new hero.   

Dark Temptations on the current keeper is a amazing idea, with a terrible execution.  

There's a lot of ground where that could be used for cool design space.   

Imagine something like if if Dark Temptations granted a target unit +1 to its attack value, but 6s HAD to be triggered to deal the attacks damage value to the unit in MW - buffing it's damage in theory, but also turning off 6 triggers and dealing damage.  

Stuff like that could be... exciting. And risky.  

[Lucentia]

I would accept rules themed around finesse and redirection, sure.  However, speed-chasing and thrill-seeking are so prevalent in the fluff blurbs that at the very least slaanesh should be the fastest chaos army going.  More cynically, 'has fast movement' is a much easier thing to represent mechanically in rules terms without ****** up.

Edit.  Hah, that's a very mild word caught by filter, but I'm gonna leave it and let y'all use your imagination.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Lucentia

[JerekKruger]

I'd like to see summoning ditched, or severely reduced, so the rules writers don't have to find a way to balance the potential of fielding 3000+ points in a game and end up making Warscrolls weak or underpriced as a result. This seems to have been the primary cause of the last Battletome being so bad.

If speed is a defining aspect of (some) of the army, I'd like the rules writers to recognise that there are a lot of fast, flying units in the game already, so for non-flying units to be "fast", they need to be fast. That probably means high movement speed, but also rules like run and charge or other movement shenanigans to make up for not having much flying.

Ideally the army should hit hard, but be (relatively) fragile. That said, I'd like to see Myrmidesh be relatively tanky (I can't decide whether I want them to be Chaos Warrior or Chosen equivalents, they're more similar to Chaos Warriors in size, but they come in 5s and feel more elite, so perhaps Chosen?).

Sigvald to remain good please. He's an awesome mini and it would be a shame if he ceased being good.

Keeper of Secrets should be improved significantly too. They should cost something between 400 and 600 points and be worth it.

[MothmanDraws]

I personaly think the way to show speed for slaanesh is movement out of phase, like more redeploys or moving after shooting. Atm raw movement speed cant match just teleporting and if you make units too fast movement might aswell just teleport into base contact. Slaanesh should be fast but atm so much in aos is fast due to teleports or other stuff that its hard to be uniquely fast.

Edited March 10, 2023 by MothmanDraws

[Jaskier]

The summoning will 100% stay because it has for Nurgle and Tzeentch, it's clearly a "thing" for the monogod books. I bet it'll be brought in line with Nurgle in terms of 'speed' and usefulness, which is to say it'll still be important but not the defining aspect of the army. I expect some new allegiance rules to compensate, of course. 

[JerekKruger]

10 hours ago, Jaskier said:

The summoning will 100% stay because it has for Nurgle and Tzeentch, it's clearly a "thing" for the monogod books. I bet it'll be brought in line with Nurgle in terms of 'speed' and usefulness, which is to say it'll still be important but not the defining aspect of the army. I expect some new allegiance rules to compensate, of course. 

Yeah, you're almost certainly right that it's not being ditched, so I do hope they slow it down enough to make it not overpowered.

[Jaskier]

We can only hope!

[Lucentia]

I assumed we still had a little wait for the new book to hit, but I've rarely been happier to be wrong as it's showing up on pre-order next week.

Not to get too conspiracy board about things, but just looking at the preview image for the warscroll cards:Looks like a lot of familiar names are still around for the most part.  Interesting that they have tokens for 3 CP, I haven't bought any of the recent card sets so I don't know if that's a new standard or a sign that the book will have more CP generation than usual.  Phantasmagoria seems to have changed, as the old token set had a token for -1 to -6 bravery on them, maybe it'll just turn off Inspiring Presence/Rally, that's an increasingly common 'anti-bravery' effect these days.  Whispers of Doubt is new, I think?  Or at least it's not an ability name I recognise. 

[Selpharia]

It’s Synessa’s warscroll spell

[Lucentia]

Ah, right, right, I always forget the twins' stuff cos it's not printed in the book!

[Third]

1 hour ago, Lucentia said:

Not to get too conspiracy board about things, but just looking at the preview image for the warscroll cards:

Isn't it als onew, for there to be a token for 'Living Whip'? (here is hoping that we can meaningfully differentiate Keepers by changing their loadout!)

[Lucentia]

Yeah, I don't think it had a token before, so now maybe it's a more persistent effect?  But there are a lot of bad to useless 'grappled' effects in the game (see the Ogor Huskard's chaintrap, for example...) so fingers crossed.

Also potentially of note that there're no counters for depravity points visible, but obviously they could all just be on another sheet, so that may not mean anything.

[Beliman]

Rumors from Discord:

Temptation dice: roll 6 dice at the start of the game. You can offer this dice to your opponent. If he/she accepts, you get 6DPS, if he/she refuses, 1D3mw.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Beliman

[MothmanDraws]

I would need to see whole rule and interactions and if that is a side thing or our whole army ability. I am going to assume farming depravity is still going to be a thing for layered buffs.

 

Current rules its a nice buff, basically a free summon t1 or first turn 5+ rally, though you would probably need to offer a good dice for it, 4-5 being sweet spot, the only issue if it was just plugged into current army is slaanesh is so fragile you might just ****** yourself giving opponent a 100% long charge or armour save (assuming its basically a miracle dice). 

[AronQ_]

25 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Rumors from Discord:

Tamptation dice: roll 6 dice at the start of the game. You can offer this dice to your opponent. If he/she accepts, you get 6DPS, if he/she refuses, 1D3mw.

sounds cool! It would be wonderful to have more mechanics that fits Slaanesh faction

Edited March 13, 2023 by AronQ_

[Enoby]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

Rumors from Discord:

Tamptation dice: roll 6 dice at the start of the game. You can offer this dice to your opponent. If he/she accepts, you get 6DPS, if he/she refuses, 1D3mw.

I'd really love this if it were true - nice way to tie in the temptation side of Slaanesh in a very narrative rule that's still strong. 

Of course, the Rumour could be false, but let's hope not. I'll also try to watch the Battle Report on Wednesday and get the new stuff written down. 

[Lucentia]

I had heard a rumbling that something called 'temptation dice' existed, but I had been hoping they were going to be reverse destiny dice where you could sub out your opponents dice rolls, buuut that would probably be too busted!  I'm not sure quite how useful this version's going to be, I assume they probably won't let you offer all six at once on something inconsequential to nuke it for 6d6 mortals.  But it's an interesting idea, and could be impactful depending on how/if depravity has been reworked.