AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[MothmanDraws]

I feel that artifact is built for lord of hubris, get him in and tank a round of 1 attacks his ward might hold then

[AronQ_]

I hope that all subfacrions of Slaanesh will be redesigned, Godseekers are okay, but invaders and Pretenders need to be more interesting and playable 

[KrispyXIV]

24 minutes ago, AronQ_ said:

I hope that all subfacrions of Slaanesh will be redesigned, Godseekers are okay, but invaders and Pretenders need to be more interesting and playable 

Yes, I'm eagerly awaiting these.  The ideas between Invaders and Pretenders are good, but the rewards need to be good enough to match.  

Invaders could be three full blown Generals with no drawbacks and a command trait each, and it would probably be fine.  

If Pretenders is supposed to be a super general, it needs to be a super general.  

[Lucentia]

Invaders always felt like the weakest one thematically, having multiple vain generals bickering and refusing to work together is a cute idea, but it should probably have been flavoured the other way around, where if they're close to one another they get some sort of bonus as they try to outcompete one another.  My guess is in the new book it might allow you to futz around with multiple heroic actions, perhaps?

And I agree on Pretenders, if the subfaction gimmick is putting all your eggs in one basket, it should be at least be a basket with some bows on it.

[Poryague]

Tempt seems good if they refuse all game to take it potential average of 60mw

[Third]

.. snip ..

Leaks seems cool, saturday can't come soon enough!

Edited March 14, 2023 by Third

[Lucentia]

Thinking on things a little more, my main concern from what we've seen so far is that, although generating depravity is now done via a more flavourful and interesting system, the overall gameplan still seems to be focused around gaining a huge amount of DP to be used for buffs and summoning, and unless the summoning is heavily limited in some fashion (literally if you were only allowed to summon 1 unit per game I would be fine with that) then it runs into the same problem as previous books where hitting the right balance between how much DP can be generated and how much summoning can be done is extremely difficult.  Granted I'm being a little selfish, mostly I just don't want to have to cart around an extra army's worth of demons every time I want to play a game, and of course we don't have the full picture yet, but I was personally hoping the DP/summoning system would be downsized going into the new book, not upsized!

[Carnith]

So I think Temptation Dice are kinda fun. It seemed like it was 6 total from rumors. But 6 per battleround is spicy. that is on average 12 mws if they always deny it. Or its 21 depravity if you roll average if they always take the dice. That can be a good bit of damage, also if you use EK for around 10-20 dp if your hammer just murders a unit. You could be at a ward pretty quickly. 

 

[MothmanDraws]

Just now, Lucentia said:

Thinking on things a little more, my main concern from what we've seen so far is that, although generating depravity is now done via a more flavourful and interesting system, the overall gameplan still seems to be focused around gaining a huge amount of DP to be used for buffs and summoning, and unless the summoning is heavily limited in some fashion (literally if you were only allowed to summon 1 unit per game I would be fine with that) then it runs into the same problem as previous books where hitting the right balance between how much DP can be generated and how much summoning can be done is extremely difficult.  Granted I'm being a little selfish, mostly I just don't want to have to cart around an extra army's worth of demons every time I want to play a game, and of course we don't have the full picture yet, but I was personally hoping the DP/summoning system would be downsized going into the new book, not upsized!

I think the best approach is that depravity caps at 45, can only summon once per turn in movement and costs are like

10- daemonettes

15- 3 fiends and most flex pieces (infernal enrapturess/epitome)

30- block of daemonettes

40 -keeper

This would mean just brinigng in 10 daemonettes costs you 2 temptations worth and knocks a single buff off anything bigger eats more of your buffs with keeper taking it all, I think what most people want in summoning is to bring toolboxes or roadbumps. So while keeper is a big play you really are pulling it off turn 2 and loosing all your buffs for the vital 2nd and 3rd rounds, or if you are keeping your buffs you are bringing road bumps and smaller tailored summons like epitome. The thing that makes summoning bad is when its easy to get a ton of new stuff dropping every turn I think people will be happy being able to summon a little few things.

[Selpharia]

Under the guideline that the Greater Daemon should lose you all your Depravity bonuses, I’d expect the top line to be 36 DP, with the lowest at 12 DP. At that level, I feel like it’s nowhere near as bad as presently 

[KrispyXIV]

I think the Nurgle  and Tzeentch summoning charts are likely where we should look for comparisons.  The mortal wound output of Temptation dice is pretty comparable as a mechanic to Disease points in theory, though it seems like DP will still build faster than Corruption.  

Those both have cheap purchases between 8-12, and top out at 30 for a greater demon.  

I could see the costs being inflated a bit, but your opponent does have an apparent decent amount of agency in how fast we'll be generating DP - so maybe not.  

After all, if they feed us a 20 wound chaff unit (that can be killed by one hedonites unit) and accept a bunch of Temptations, well, really, they'd played themselves...

Edited March 14, 2023 by KrispyXIV

[Third]

Unless points and warscrolls are balanced around being close to or at max depravity..? We don't know, and while speculation is fun, I cannot get behind people already saying that the mechanic is too strong....

Rules seem flavourful and impactful, the rest can basically be fixed by increasing or decreasing point costs.

Win/win (now be Saturday already please!) 

 

On a separate note, in what discord is it that the rumors further up have been posted? 

[Jaskier]

Temptation dice are strong and given how strong the passive Depravity buffs are, people will absolutely not want to be giving us free Depravity points unless they absolutely have to. It's 6D3 mortal wounds/6D6 depravity points or any mix in between per battle round. Even in the worst case scenario where your opponent never accepts them, averaging 12 mortal wounds passively just for playing the army is pretty freaking great.

Also, we've now officially transitioned from the army that wants to keep enemy units alive and not focus them down (which in general AoS terms with stuff like Rally, objective play, etc was generally a bad idea) to the army that wants to focus things down so that they die to death. Hooray! 

[ibel]

Hey Guys,

Hej i think it could be very easy to get the full DP and heja the buffs are sweet. 

But...

the second buff and Mortals by hitting 6ses.... Did this mean there are no more exploding 6ses for more hits ?!?!

[Third]

32 minutes ago, ibel said:

Hey Guys,

Hej i think it could be very easy to get the full DP and heja the buffs are sweet. 

But...

the second buff and Mortals by hitting 6ses.... Did this mean there are no more exploding 6ses for more hits ?!?!

Most likely yes. Euphoric Killers, which gave the exploding 6s have been totally changed now 😉

[ibel]

34 minutes ago, Third said:

Most likely yes. Euphoric Killers, which gave the exploding 6s have been totally changed now 😉

Mhmm... i feel very confused if Hedonits Units than generate enough CombatPower. The Attacks are not very Strong.

Maybe u are forced to Power Up  the DP very quickly because of the Buffs, and if the Oppournent can deney this ure Army is very poor peforminc.

I am very afraid of a toothless tiger, so that your Army CAN be super strong on paper but will be a super lame Duck on the Battelfield. We will see 🤔

[Jaskier]

I mean if you look at other 3.0 tomes and compare old warscrolls to new ones in them, they generally got stat boosts. Our current book is very anaemic, and the scrolls were most likely held back by the basekit exploding 6s - with that gone, it'll necessitate improvements to the warscrolls themselves. I would not be surprised if both Khorne and Slaanesh units gain dramatic improvements to their output. 

[Koala]

Well this sounds nice.

All depending on units statlines and points, obviously. ( The last book mainly suffered from high cost, as most people here will remember)

But that temptation mechanic on the old keeper was my favourite (although mostly useless) rule in the book. 

As a faction mechanic it is both unique and flavourful. 

We shall see if it turns out a no brainer desicion ( offering temptation - accepting/denying) or Not.

I sure as hell will do some nice Mephisto impersonifications when playing

[MothmanDraws]

I think the army will be designed to ramp up depravity to attain peak performance, getting to 24 depravity by turn 2 will likely be the goal as then you have your -1 to hit and improved damage, so you will want to make some good offers for temptation dice. How fast you ramp will likely depend on enemy, armies with hordes or mortal saves will probably just tank your offers as they can either risk the mortals or dont care about 3 clanrats. But the horde armies are also weak to giving you a lot of depravity through euphoric killers. But I think most armies you should be able to get them to take 2-3 tempts by 2nd battle round atleast and have 1 round of EK depravity which I can see getting you at least 18 wounds.

At the moment the weakest match up will be mortal wound saves, decently good armour save melee armies (cant easily tempt their shooting, armour saves and any temps going through can be saved) but these armies are also going to be weaker vs stuff like lord of hubris or relying on movement to keep away from them. 

I think our strongest match up will be expensive shooting/melee hybrid units

We are lucky that the core mechanic is cool and is very easy to tweak in balance patches if too strong or weak 

Edit- One advantage we do have is the slaanesh unit roster is huge with alot of unique characters, if we keep summoning it might be very easy to buy a silver bullet to help in match ups, too much enemy magic go grab the epitomy, need more fight control get the masque. Mortal wound resistant enemies stopping your damage go grab high rend fiends

Edited March 15, 2023 by MothmanDraws

[CeleFAZE]

35 minutes ago, Koala said:

Well this sounds nice.

All depending on units statlines and points, obviously. ( The last book mainly suffered from high cost, as most people here will remember)

But that temptation mechanic on the old keeper was my favourite (although mostly useless) rule in the book. 

As a faction mechanic it is both unique and flavourful. 

We shall see if it turns out a no brainer desicion ( offering temptation - accepting/denying) or Not.

I sure as hell will do some nice Mephisto impersonifications when playing

That's the thing, really. What we have to go on now is largely dependent upon the wider context of the book. If we have ways to crack open tough armor saves then we have viable avenues of depravity generation on multiple targets through euphoric killers. However, that also assumes that euphoric killers and temptation dice are our only ways to generate depravity, which may or may not be true.

As it stands currently, the only things confirmed are a slim number of allegiance abilities, as well as the ability, though not the scroll or points, of one hero. Granted, that hero is a great piece to fit into what we've seen so far. He can dive into a horde unit, require they attack him, and open them up for block of daemonettes to come screaming in to reap a ton of depravity without fearing any return swings. Easily getting up to 12 perhaps, allowing them a degree of mitigation for any retaliation once the LoH is dead.

What's important to note about everything we've seen though is that there is already built in synergy. Once we get to 12 depravity, we're much harder to hit. Units that already suffer in that regard are going to struggle to land blows, and would be more inclined to take a 6 for a guaranteed hit. Once we reach 24, we're dealing mortal wounds with our 6's to hit in addition (think about this in terms of twinsouls, even if unchanged, basically becoming cheaper chosen at that point). Euphoric killers specifically states that it works with wounds and mortal wounds, making depravity generation that much easier, making it no problem to crest that final line into all of our units having at minimum plaguebearer levels of damage mitigation, in melee and at range. That acceleration will continue to bring us to excess depravity that we may be able to use for late game summons to gain the upper hand on board control.

All of this, even with our current scrolls is decent. But if we have solid warscrolls to go with it? That would solve the puzzle. It makes us basically like DoK, except we have some degree of control over how quickly we accelerate our buffs. But there's simply too little to go on to know if this is a nice bonus to strong warscrolls, or a fight to get up to momentum. I feel like the final truth is going to lie somewhere in the middle, and I think it's still a solidly better position than we were in.

We've got a battle report likely airing in just a few hours. We'll know more pieces of the puzzle soon, hopefully it's illuminating.

[Beliman]

I'm not sure if I like what I've seen.

Temptation dice are awesome if they are not OP (if the mechanic is broken, just limit a bit more how they can be used).

Euphoric killers is... boring? Yeah, attack, take DP. Until next turn!

Revel in depravity have nice bonus. But it remind me of Big Waaagh, and that's bad for an army that should be the opposite of orruks: elegant and graceful until they discover a weakness, then they become sadistic and obsessive. 

I don't know, I want to see some rituals, change artefacts each turn, burn artifacts or offer them to slaanesh (something like Fane of Slaanesh),... and let's be honest, from all AoS's armies, Slaanesh seems the best one for customization. I don't know how, maybe artefacts, new Aspects of the Champions, banners, tatoos or even perfumes. Anything seems good!

Don't get me wring, I'm excited for Slaanesh and I want an excuse to start the army.

[DoctorPerils]

I really like the look of the temptation dice, seems nice and fun, and rather than cutting out your opponents choices, it creates new ones for both players. I imagine it'll take a couple of games to learn when best to use them though.

 

Anyone know where to find a good slaaneshi depravity point counter?

[MothmanDraws]

13 minutes ago, Beliman said:

 

Revel in depravity have nice bonus. But it remind me of Big Waaagh, and that's bad for an army that should be the opposite of orruks: elegant and graceful until they discover a weakness, then they become sadistic and obsessive. 

 

See i view it as that 

Pre game- hedonits are lathargic and bored kinda weak and dont want to put effort in

First tier- they get first smell of action and start moving, get their -1 to hit as they begin acrobatics to get to action

2nd tier- mortal wounds they taste blood  and start to discover weak points

3rd tier- overcome with slaughter they stop noticing their own injuries 

[Jaskier]

Yeah I view the Depravity buffs as the Slaanesh host getting more and more excited by the violence and brutality as the fighting descends from orderly battle-lines meeting into a chaotic orgy of bloodshed. It's perfectly loreful. 

@DoctorPerils Honestly I would grab a D60 die or something like that at this rate 😅 Even just based off what we already know, our depravity generation is going to be many times faster than before (which given that we've heard repeatedly summoning is slower, and judging by the passive buffs having higher 'costs', the summoning costs will also be increased to offset this) and even using our current warscrolls as a barometer the army can pretty easily get to 24DP by the end of the second battle round. If Seekers, Exalted Seekers or Hellstriders are any good (and truth be told all three units are nearly there already) one unit of them is probably going to be mandatory just to use Euphoric Killers on turn one to get the farm going. 

[Jaskier]

Ok guys, the new Warhammer+ battle report is up, I don't have it so just relaying what others say on discord (I'll be editing extra details as they come in.) 
One of our grand strategies is to have 36 Depravity at the end of the game.
One of our battle tactics is to pick an enemy unit contesting an objective, pick them for Euphoric Killers and destroy them. 

Slickblade Seekers now have run and charge and Rend -2 glaives. Slickblades now have a 4+ save. Slickblade Seekers' 6s do mortals is now +1 Attacks with their glaives when fighting a unit with Wounds characters 3 or less. 

It looks like the Pretender general thing is now they get to issue the same command 3 times in the same phase, basically the Megaboss rule (no CP spent on the 2nd and 3rd uses.) 

Blissbarbs hit on 2s? Sounds like they natively hit on 2s, wow! At the very least they hit on 3s natively now, still 3s to-wound with the little guy too. 

The Shardspeaker spell is now Reflection Eternal; casting value 6, range 12". 1 enemy unit in range gets -1 attack to their melee weapons until your next hero phase. 
Her Twisted Mirror rule is now; once per turn in your shooting phase, pick 1 enemy unit within 9" and roll a dice. On a 4+, target unit has -1 save rolls until your next hero phase, and same unit can't be affected more than once by this ability. 
 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Jaskier