AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Xasto]

Midwest meltdown results are out and I see a couple Slaanesh in the top ten, notably the winner of the event. Anybody knows what these fine gentlemen ran this weekend?

[Enoby]

12 minutes ago, Xasto said:

Midwest meltdown results are out and I see a couple Slaanesh in the top ten, notably the winner of the event. Anybody knows what these fine gentlemen ran this weekend?

The number 1 Slaanesh list was pretty odd; one of those ones that uses models people consider a bit meh (e.g. Shalaxi, Syll'esske, and the Masque). Good to see that our army isn't cookie-cutter, at least when it comes down to heroes used.

[Rhellion]

3 hours ago, Enoby said:

The number 1 Slaanesh list was pretty odd; one of those ones that uses models people consider a bit meh (e.g. Shalaxi, Syll'esske, and the Masque). Good to see that our army isn't cookie-cutter, at least when it comes down to heroes used.

People are wrong.   A lot of people also rate Godseekers and Pretenders and don't rate Invaders.

It crushes the mirror match as well.

And the list is 10-0 in 2 weeks. I also won Rend 4 last weekend.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Rhellion

[Enoby]

3 minutes ago, Rhellion said:

People are wrong.   A lot of people also rate Godseekers and Pretenders and don't rate Invaders.

It crushes the mirror match as well.

And the list is 10-0 in 2 weeks. I also won Rend 4 last weekend.

Good to hear how would you say is the best way to use these units? Especially Shalaxi compared to just a normal keeper

[Rhellion]

8 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Good to hear how would you say is the best way to use these units? Especially Shalaxi compared to just a normal keeper

The key to using all those models is being Invaders. Ssyl'esske needs to be a General to be worth it and to use her as a General you need to be Invaders. Masque is a flanking suicide and harry piece, and when she dies you get another CP. She often pilled in from 6" to exactly 3" to tie in a deathstar unit and hold them in place for a few turns and maybe got a few extra DP. I also did this with the hellstriders and the battalion, which was amazing.

Shalaxi stayed near the keeper and one shot characters all weekend. She even ground out a bunch of Witches before dying in my DoK match up when I couldn't get to the Cauldron and it isn't worth trying to go after Morathi with her. She one shot Durthu, 2 different opponent's Magmadroths, and an ethereal Vampire on ZD... along with quite a few 5-6 wound heroes. Shalaxi is really good piling in twice per turn, every turn(if even needed) haha. It's hard to do that if you aren't generating 5 CP's per turn.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Rhellion

[CB42]

18 hours ago, Rhellion said:

Ssyl'esske needs to be a General to be worth it and to use her as a General you need to be Invaders.

How do you use Syll'Esske? It sounds like you've got Keeper/Shalaxi/Chariot/Syll'Esske as a deathball grouping, with the Epitome staying back to provide a CP farm and backup summoning platform, and the Hellstriders w/ battalion and The Masque serving to hold enemy units in place or take lightly defended objectives. Is that correct?

Also, what are your go-to summons? Do you tend to bring back Keepers, or do you summon in blocks of Daemonettes? Or other heroes?

[Rhellion]

13 minutes ago, CB42 said:

How do you use Syll'Esske? It sounds like you've got Keeper/Shalaxi/Chariot/Syll'Esske as a deathball grouping, with the Epitome staying back to provide a CP farm and backup summoning platform, and the Hellstriders w/ battalion and The Masque serving to hold enemy units in place or take lightly defended objectives. Is that correct?

Also, what are your go-to summons? Do you tend to bring back Keepers, or do you summon in blocks of Daemonettes? Or other heroes?

Syll is right behind or to the side of the group to use their command ability for 18” bubble Rerolls. I don’t worry about Aquiescence due to them and can focus on realm spells. They get in the mix most of the time but usually against chaff or secondary units.

i am about 50/50 on summoning keeper or 30 Daemonettes first depending on match up. They are 90% of my summoning though I have summoned back epitomes and chariots.

[Rhellion]

My Meltdown summoning count:

 

G1 v Fyreslayers, 2 Keepers, Epitome, 30 Daemonettes.

G2 v LoN, nothing.

G3 v Fyreslayers, 30 Daemonettes, KoS (end of the game).

G4 v Sylvaneth, KoS, 20 Daemonettes.

G5 v DoK, 30 Daemonettes.

Game 1 was the most I’ve ever summoned as it was against 2 monstrous beasts in Ghur, 2 magmadroths, loads of 2 wound Fyreslayers, and nearly my whole starting army died.

Game 5 was incredibly challenging as he killed all my heroes by turn 3 and I had to play turn 4 and 5 with 30+ depravity I couldn’t spend and command points that were useless.

 

Luckily I had weakened him enough that the ~20 Daemonettes and remaining 5 Hellstriders got Morathi.

 

[Poryague]

Why calvacade over sybarites? The calvacade 6in pile in can make choosing combat easier. While sybarites floods you with more cp and lower drops. Just kinda wondering how calvacade was a better decision.

[CB42]

13 minutes ago, Poryague said:

Why calvacade over sybarites? The calvacade 6in pile in can make choosing combat easier. While sybarites floods you with more cp and lower drops. Just kinda wondering how calvacade was a better decision.

Rhellion's list has both battalions.

[Poryague]

45 minutes ago, CB42 said:

Rhellion's list has both battalions.

Yup missed that

[PensivePanther]

20 hours ago, Rhellion said:

The key to using all those models is being Invaders. Ssyl'esske needs to be a General to be worth it and to use her as a General you need to be Invaders. Masque is a flanking suicide and harry piece, and when she dies you get another CP. She often pilled in from 6" to exactly 3" to tie in a deathstar unit and hold them in place for a few turns and maybe got a few extra DP. I also did this with the hellstriders and the battalion, which was amazing.

Shalaxi stayed near the keeper and one shot characters all weekend. She even ground out a bunch of Witches before dying in my DoK match up when I couldn't get to the Cauldron and it isn't worth trying to go after Morathi with her. She one shot Durthu, 2 different opponent's Magmadroths, and an ethereal Vampire on ZD... along with quite a few 5-6 wound heroes. Shalaxi is really good piling in twice per turn, every turn(if even needed) haha. It's hard to do that if you aren't generating 5 CP's per turn.

Thank you for the tactical advice! I had not considered using my 6" pile-ins like that before.  What a devious idea.

[Rhellion]

7 minutes ago, PensivePanther said:

Thank you for the tactical advice! I had not considered using my 6" pile-ins like that before.  What a devious idea.

It is the mvp in the list vs the tough match ups.

[Magnus The Blue]

On 7/29/2019 at 9:17 AM, Magnus The Blue said:

Got my first pure Hedonites 2k game tomorrow. Up until now I've had a mixed list with Beasts, using Pretenders for a God mode Keeper (Silverslash, Strongest Alone and Hunter of Godbeasts) which has been doing well but I want to got for something more subtle this time. Here is the list I'm thinking about, Invaders host:

Keeper of Secrets (Sinistrous hand, Progeny of Damnation)

Keeper of Secrets (Sinistrous hand, Song of Secrets)

Blade-bringer of Exalted Chariot  (Hysterical Frenzy, Rod of Misrule)

Infernal Enrapturess (Aetherquarts Broach, General: Glory Hog)

Seeker Calvalcade Battalion

5 Helstriders with Spear-claws (Icon)

5 Helstriders with Spear-claws (Icon)

5 Helstriders with Spear-claws (Icon)

10 Seekers (Icon + Banner)

10 Seekers (Icon + Banner)

2k on the nose.

Should be command point rich, so have only included 1 general to avoid getting them locked down. Seekers will act as an Alpha Strike and/or clear chaff. Helstrider will focus on objectives while the Keepers and Chariot will hunt down multi-wound units to get some depravity up quickly.

It's low model so might struggle wit board control if I don't get summoning quickly, but with Enratress, Invaders bonus depratity and two keepers hitting turn 2 at the latest that shouldn't be an issue.

Any thought on tweaks/improvements?

Well, that was brutal.  Ended up swapping the Aetherquarts broach for Thermalrider Cloak on a Keeper.

Played against Nightnaught with a focus on using Cogs and teleport to alpha strike. 

Better part of Valor mission and we didn't roll use realm rules.

I had less drops and opted to go second to get a chance at double turning to deal with his alpha strike.  As it turns out, completely unnecessary, the side to side deployment meant I could cluster up quite densely while covering all three objectives,  This combined with 6" pile in and Locus of diversion meant he couldn't isolate any part of my force and ended up fulling a keeper and almost all my non-heros into combat, it didn't end well for him.  I'd wiped out his alpha strike force before turn one was over then just wandered over the board to get his objective holders.  Lost 2 units of helstriders and didn't need to summon anything with the 20+ points I got from killing his characters.

 

[whispersofblood]

40 minutes ago, Magnus The Blue said:

Well, that was brutal.  Ended up swapping the Aetherquarts broach for Thermalrider Cloak on a Keeper.

Played against Nightnaught with a focus on using Cogs and teleport to alpha strike. 

Better part of Valor mission and we didn't roll use realm rules.

I had less drops and opted to go second to get a chance at double turning to deal with his alpha strike.  As it turns out, completely unnecessary, the side to side deployment meant I could cluster up quite densely while covering all three objectives,  This combined with 6" pile in and Locus of diversion meant he couldn't isolate any part of my force and ended up fulling a keeper and almost all my non-heros into combat, it didn't end well for him.  I'd wiped out his alpha strike force before turn one was over then just wandered over the board to get his objective holders.  Lost 2 units of helstriders and didn't need to summon anything with the 20+ points I got from killing his characters.

 

This is a pretty perfect example of how people will start to assume HoS are op. When in reality they massively misplayed the game. 

[Maddpainting]

Im pretty sure HoS will start to fall* off when more and more people learn how to play against them.  You'll need different deployment strategies and movement placements against HoS compare to many other armies.

Edited July 31, 2019 by Maddpainting
fix a word

[kozokus]

4 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

This is a pretty perfect example of how people will start to assume HoS are op. When in reality they massively misplayed the game. 

This is a bit harsh and you should probably experience facing Slaanesh as a normal army. You will see how one sided the game can be.

You can add elements that allows you to interact with your opponent outside of the combat phase where you have absolutely no chance but it makes you globally weaker against other armies.  Sure a big volley of namarti reavers is a danger for any keeper but a liability against anybody else

You are also forced to stay defensive because once 30 DP are scored the Slaanesh player can steal any unprotected objective he wishes by moving his 16 mov heroes and daisy-chaining summoning.

By having infinite movement you can dictate the combats where you can pile stacks of units to overcome basically anything and get stronger by farming DP.

It feels a bit like playing Idoneth and being on high tide every turn. (and get back your units when they get killed)

Once i played a game where by the end of turn 2 i have lost 1300 pts of army, and not thrown a single attack dice. Not the best game experience i had.

The main weakness of the faction, being squishy, is overcome by his greatest strengh, being unreachable in the most interactive phase in the game 

Edited July 31, 2019 by kozokus

[kozokus]

On 7/29/2019 at 9:46 PM, Rhellion said:

It crushes the mirror match as well

Forgive my lack of knowledge but what part of the mirror match does it beat?

[CB42]

12 minutes ago, kozokus said:

Forgive my lack of knowledge but what part of the mirror match does it beat?

Shalaxi kills keepers real well and the 6" pile in to tie up from 3" away presumably works quite well against 30 daemonettes. The list also has enough CP to continue fighting twice throughout the game, whereas some Slaanesh lists have enough CP to fight twice with several units turn 1 and then once a battle round after that, which means that when both sides summon a keeper and some daemonettes, Rhellion's list will be able to continue fighting twice.

[Rhellion]

2 minutes ago, CB42 said:

Shalaxi kills keepers real well and the 6" pile in to tie up from 3" away presumably works quite well against 30 daemonettes. The list also has enough CP to continue fighting twice throughout the game, whereas some Slaanesh lists have enough CP to fight twice with several units turn 1 and then once a battle round after that, which means that when both sides summon a keeper and some daemonettes, Rhellion's list will be able to continue fighting twice.

All this, plus it is two drops and most Slaanesh lists are not.

[whispersofblood]

2 hours ago, kozokus said:

This is a bit harsh and you should probably experience facing Slaanesh as a normal army. You will see how one sided the game can be.

You can add elements that allows you to interact with your opponent outside of the combat phase where you have absolutely no chance but it makes you globally weaker against other armies.  Sure a big volley of namarti reavers is a danger for any keeper but a liability against anybody else

You are also forced to stay defensive because once 30 DP are scored the Slaanesh player can steal any unprotected objective he wishes by moving his 16 mov heroes and daisy-chaining summoning.

By having infinite movement you can dictate the combats where you can pile stacks of units to overcome basically anything and get stronger by farming DP.

It feels a bit like playing Idoneth and being on high tide every turn. (and get back your units when they get killed)

Once i played a game where by the end of turn 2 i have lost 1300 pts of army, and not thrown a single attack dice. Not the best game experience i had.

The main weakness of the faction, being squishy, is overcome by his greatest strengh, being unreachable in the most interactive phase in the game 

I play several armies, they all have varying relative strengths and weaknessess. It may be harsh but the truth is not all armies do all things equally and pretending that isn't so just leads to disharmony. 

In this match the opponent decided that his army was strong enough to fight the entirety of a combat army, a strong one at that. Even if it was true that his army was strong enough to do that, its still a terrible choice of action as you leave yourself open to misplay or poor luck. 

Ignoring that NH aren't actually that vertically fast, or that strong a combat army. Trying to alpha without significant movement enhancers just stretches out your army or leaves you heroes open to retaliation, this is especially true against HoS who have Locus of Diversion but theoretically against BoC with the Taurus, or anything that fights start of phase. 

Further just because something is called a separate phase doesn't mean it in itself is a separate component of a mechanism. For most armies the combat phase is simply the resolution of the movement phase. That is where the majority of the interaction transpires, combat is just pile-in and dice rolling for the most part. But all the advantages and mechanisms that move the result in one way or another are determined in the movement phase.

Ignoring interactivity, better part of valour has 6 objectives and a 27" from the deployment line to the objective, the NH player's strategy was suicidal in a match where holding objectives that you can destroy, with an army with deep strike puts them at a strategic advantage. They traded that advantage for what? To pretend to be a alpha combat army?

Edited July 31, 2019 by whispersofblood

[kozokus]

3 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

I play several armies, they all have varying relative strengths and weaknessess. It may be harsh but the truth is not all armies do all things equally and pretending that isn't so just leads to disharmony. 

I reformulate.

I  play "competitively" five different armies with diferent degree of mastery/stupidity. I understand that everybody are not equal in this game, for the better.

What i denounce here is the degree of "unfun" a game can be against HOS. Compared to the vast majority of other armies, where you are asking yourself, how to win with your army, you are asking yourself how to not loose straitghtforward against HoS. Remember the clowncar? Quite unfun when you ran into it. You had to play defensively, screen properly, bet on the double turn, blahblahblah. This matchup is even worse. It doesn't matter that you double turn or not. Unless the opponent can apply ranged pressure, you are safe! On the countrary, getting double turned by HoS is a straight game over, no matter your strengh, positionnement,buffs.

I don't mind gettin' recked by Daughters of Khaine, they offer a fair game. Nor do i mind fighting 2+/4++ naked dawi. They can be occupied/beaten. However i mind fighting the opponent in my own turn, and having his whole army strike twice before you can even raise your sword (if you have one alive after that). And even if you traded unit with him, sometimes relying on some KoS fumbble, a Hos player can put half an army again pretty much anywhere he wants while you stand exhausted and bleeding, stealing half of your objectives.

Quite an unfun experience.

By the (Dark) Gods, i  am such a whiner. I should stop that quickly, apologies. Strangely, my most interesting games against HoS are with Khorne (also because i won and because Khorne is underestimated-after all, the best players continues to collect skulls, laughing at the grumbling of unexperienced players). Yet they where caused by a bunch of happy initiative rolls and "gotcha" moments.

[whispersofblood]

13 hours ago, kozokus said:

I reformulate.

I  play "competitively" five different armies with diferent degree of mastery/stupidity. I understand that everybody are not equal in this game, for the better.

What i denounce here is the degree of "unfun" a game can be against HOS. Compared to the vast majority of other armies, where you are asking yourself, how to win with your army, you are asking yourself how to not loose straitghtforward against HoS. Remember the clowncar? Quite unfun when you ran into it. You had to play defensively, screen properly, bet on the double turn, blahblahblah. This matchup is even worse. It doesn't matter that you double turn or not. Unless the opponent can apply ranged pressure, you are safe! On the countrary, getting double turned by HoS is a straight game over, no matter your strengh, positionnement,buffs.

I don't mind gettin' recked by Daughters of Khaine, they offer a fair game. Nor do i mind fighting 2+/4++ naked dawi. They can be occupied/beaten. However i mind fighting the opponent in my own turn, and having his whole army strike twice before you can even raise your sword (if you have one alive after that). And even if you traded unit with him, sometimes relying on some KoS fumbble, a Hos player can put half an army again pretty much anywhere he wants while you stand exhausted and bleeding, stealing half of your objectives.

Quite an unfun experience.

By the (Dark) Gods, i  am such a whiner. I should stop that quickly, apologies. Strangely, my most interesting games against HoS are with Khorne (also because i won and because Khorne is underestimated-after all, the best players continues to collect skulls, laughing at the grumbling of unexperienced players). Yet they where caused by a bunch of happy initiative rolls and "gotcha" moments.

I suppose if your idea of fun is running your army into the army who ever you so happen to be playing I guess that is one way to look at it. However AoS is a game about getting points on the board, the fun is in finding a way to stop your opponent getting points and stopping your opponent from stopping you from getting points. Different armies do that in different ways, and you need to be prepared to adapt to the ways different armies do this. 

HoS are pretty good at beating up the traditional elite bully unit, so maybe you need to switch up how you use those units in your HoS match up.

HoS are just asking a different set of questions then people are used to. And, in the normal human way that we always do when we encounter something that even slightly challenges our worldview, people are kicking up a fuss. When in reality the game was already moving into a more MSU direction to help deal with the offensive power becoming more and more prevalent in the game, and the increased focus on objective play.

[kozokus]

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

I suppose if your idea of fun is running your army into the army who ever you so happen to be playing I guess that is one way to look at it.

I guess everyone has his own definition of fun™. Mine would be, ending the game happy, regardless of the issue of the game, because you played the game. (And i am the kind of guy that loves to play with or against Dredge/Storm/SnT in MTG)

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

And, in the normal human way that we always do when we encounter something that even slightly challenges our worldview, people are kicking up a fuss. 

Sure, when Nagash hit AoS V2, it was called BATSHITOPWTFBBQLOL, yet it doesn't won that much tournaments and people adapted to the matchup by playing against the repop.  I really enjoyed trying idoneth vs 3++ dragonzombies and dusty hands grand daddy.  same happened for DoK and Dwarfs.

Yet i haven't found the solution for Slaanesh.  The "Learn to play" argument is a bit naïve and people often overestimate the importance of beeing a good general in this game compared to having an "overthetop" battletome. You might be Kasparov, you will never beat an average HoS player while playing a Destruction army (Except maybe that fancy endless-spell grot army).

Anyway, i am all ears on the subject to "How to beat SheWhoThirst" if you have any general advices to share, usable by anyone (other than"just-play-the-objectives, you grot").

[Arcce]

Win Con vs HoS seems to be assassinate their heroes and/or weather their attacks with tankiness and hit back hard (fyreslayers and maybe Nurgle).

Easier said than done.