AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[whispersofblood]

Waiting for GM to reveal points costs so I can start figuring out what to take. But I fully expect Daemon Prince, Archaon, and Marauders to probably cost a bomb now.

[Enoby]

I think Soul Grinders may be worth a look now with our battlion, being only 210 per SG they could be pretty good.

[CeleFAZE]

I'm kinda mixed on the new rules. Everything seems more resilient, but the synergy has been limited significantly since hedonites and S2D work off mostly different keywords for buffs, so you're going to have to work with two sets of moving parts in a combined list like the Syll'Esskan host. My opinions could change drastically when we see the points costs, though.

The karkadrak lord seems like a good choice for us, he's like a smaller, resilient character chariot.  I imagine he was probably what the designers had in mind for the required mounted character in the Syll'Esskan battalion. He also buffs knights, which seem a bit better now. The warshrine has a larger radius, but is now wholly within, so I'm kind of split on its usefulness. Marauders seem better, with more streamlined weapon choices and minimum 7" charges which is wickedly awesome. Marauder horseman still seem useful for double duty as retreat-chargers for godseekers and mobile ranged support, now with longer range. The warriors are better, but are apparently 100 pts for 5, so got a little more expensive. All the warcry stuff can't be marked, which is really upsetting, but I might still ally in some unmade to pin down key enemy units.

All in all it looks playable if the points are right, but you're probably going to be most competitive going pure daemons still. To be fair though, this divide existed even when we still had our mounted lord and foot lord, so it's nothing we haven't already had to adapt to before.

[Poryague]

Marauders seem to be a good glass canon.  With a chaos sorcerer you can have them rerolling saves, hits and wounds. Hoard bonuses get them +1 to hit and rend 1. Axes are 2 attacks now. One thing slaanesh lacks is that reroll on wounds. So they can punch above their weight. 

[Enoby]

24 minutes ago, Poryague said:

Marauders seem to be a good glass canon.  With a chaos sorcerer you can have them rerolling saves, hits and wounds. Hoard bonuses get them +1 to hit and rend 1. Axes are 2 attacks now. One thing slaanesh lacks is that reroll on wounds. So they can punch above their weight. 

That said, they're much more expensive now at 300 points for 40 (or 150 for 20). Not that they're bad, but it's worth considering now. For a 410 investment (with sorc), they'd have to be used carefully

[Poryague]

8 minutes ago, Enoby said:

That said, they're much more expensive now at 300 points for 40 (or 150 for 20). Not that they're bad, but it's worth considering now. For a 410 investment (with sorc), they'd have to be used carefully

Could add or swap in a chaos lord on foot for double activation.

[Enoby]

8 minutes ago, Poryague said:

Could add or swap in a chaos lord on foot for double activation.

True - which might be worth it with some decent damage for not too many points. I think, unfortunately, we're still stuck in a situation where our heroes still reign supreme over troops.

[Poryague]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

True - which might be worth it with some decent damage for not too many points. I think, unfortunately, we're still stuck in a situation where our heroes still reign supreme over troops.

 I dont think std changes the hero situation but we can now have heroes that synergies with troops. Maruaders lack run and charge but can now hit harder then daemonettes because of synergies.

The new lord on the lizard thing may work in pretenders. He has the toughness to actually use the dp mechanic in pretenders. 

[Enoby]

2 minutes ago, Poryague said:

 I dont think std changes the hero situation but we can now have heroes that synergies with troops. Maruaders lack run and charge but can now hit harder then daemonettes because of synergies.

The new lord on the lizard thing may work in pretenders. He has the toughness to actually use the dp mechanic in pretenders. 

That's true. I think, with reroll saves, he should last at least a turn or two. Tbh, while unoptimal, I think we could make some really interesting lists with the battalions attached to the Sylle'Esske host (even without using the host). I especially want to try out new chaos knights when fully buffed by a sorcerer, lizard lord, and normal lord having lances hit on 3s, rerollings hits and wounds, as well as the boosted damage, double pile in, 3d6 charge (from battalion), and extra hits on a 6. I don't know exactly how good they'll be, but I'm hoping they'll be at least decent.

In addition, it looks like the pleasurebound warband is back; it was pretty awful last time, but hopefully it's seen some changes and we'll be able to use it.

[Poryague]

16 minutes ago, Enoby said:

That's true. I think, with reroll saves, he should last at least a turn or two. Tbh, while unoptimal, I think we could make some really interesting lists with the battalions attached to the Sylle'Esske host (even without using the host). I especially want to try out new chaos knights when fully buffed by a sorcerer, lizard lord, and normal lord having lances hit on 3s, rerollings hits and wounds, as well as the boosted damage, double pile in, 3d6 charge (from battalion), and extra hits on a 6. I don't know exactly how good they'll be, but I'm hoping they'll be at least decent.

In addition, it looks like the pleasurebound warband is back; it was pretty awful last time, but hopefully it's seen some changes and we'll be able to use it.

Pleasure band is not great its 160

1 hero std marked slaanesh mortal

6 std. Marked slaanesh mortal

Dont remember what it does but its not great.

[Poryague]

With archaon having the hedonite key word and our heroe centric play. Hee may get some mileage. He can self heal we can cast heal on him as well. His command ability givs std death frenzy. His second one lets you spend a command point when your opponent spends a command point to use the first one again is successful on a 2+ and refunds the command point. He gives a command point each round he is on.

[Enoby]

1 hour ago, Poryague said:

With archaon having the hedonite key word and our heroe centric play. Hee may get some mileage. He can self heal we can cast heal on him as well. His command ability givs std death frenzy. His second one lets you spend a command point when your opponent spends a command point to use the first one again is successful on a 2+ and refunds the command point. He gives a command point each round he is on.

I'm on the fence about Archaon - on one hand, he is better than he was (for the reasons you said) - but on the other hand he's 800 points which could be spent on Keepers. In a Slaves based force, without keepers, I'd say he's good.

[Poryague]

24 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I'm on the fence about Archaon - on one hand, he is better than he was (for the reasons you said) - but on the other hand he's 800 points which could be spent on Keepers. In a Slaves based force, without keepers, I'd say he's good.

If using him your going to have a lot of slaves. The kos and a Lord of chaso both have the ability to give him double activation and he can have on death activation. In the syleske host he is worth 38 dp if positioned correctly. He can live long enough for some heals. He is going to be edge case builds. If used correctly he can get his points back. Again its still throw heroe across board and get as much dp and damge in as possible.

[Enoby]

3 hours ago, Poryague said:

If using him your going to have a lot of slaves. The kos and a Lord of chaso both have the ability to give him double activation and he can have on death activation. In the syleske host he is worth 38 dp if positioned correctly. He can live long enough for some heals. He is going to be edge case builds. If used correctly he can get his points back. Again its still throw heroe across board and get as much dp and damge in as possible.

I do wonder, after our nerfs, if the Syll'Esske host will be the way to go with powerful mortals in battalions. If depravity points get increased in a way where double depravity is like depravity now, and KoS are upped in points so we can only take one, having some mortal muscle may be really quite useful. 

[CeleFAZE]

5 hours ago, Enoby said:

... interesting lists with the battalions attached to the Sylle'Esske host (even without using the host). ...

The Syll'Esskan battalions require that you use the host.

14 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I do wonder, after our nerfs, if the Syll'Esske host will be the way to go with powerful mortals in battalions. If depravity points get increased in a way where double depravity is like depravity now, and KoS are upped in points so we can only take one, having some mortal muscle may be really quite useful. 

I'm not convinced we'll receive that harsh a nerf, especially considering the strength of recent releases. That being said I do enjoy the Syll'Esskan host on a conceptual level, and I really want to try and make it work better with the new book.

[Enoby]

7 hours ago, CeleFAZE said:

The Syll'Esskan battalions require that you use the host.

I may be missing something obvious, but where does it say this? The host says it can only contain a selection of battalions, but the other hosts do not have that restriction. 

[whispersofblood]

3 hours ago, Enoby said:

I may be missing something obvious, but where does it say this? The host says it can only contain a selection of battalions, but the other hosts do not have that restriction. 

It's the last sentence in the paragraph. 

[Dolomyte]

Archaon, keeper, syllesske, sorcerer lord on manticore

2x 10 daemonettes and 1x 20 marauders. 

syllesske host.

that is not going to be fun to see on the table 

[tamthethird]

21 hours ago, Poryague said:

Pleasure band is not great its 160

1 hero std marked slaanesh mortal

6 std. Marked slaanesh mortal

Dont remember what it does but its not great.

I dunno, 6” pile in is pretty darn good in the Seeker cavalcade and this ability is basically that. Albeit it’s triggered off something in the battalion dying, but that’s typically not much of an ask! 😄

[Poryague]

Kinda ok.

Ex.

 if 2 units charge the same unit and 1 of them kills the unit you charged and you trigger the 6" pile in. Your second unit could pile in 6" to the next nearest unit.

Also larger blocks of large bases can benefit as well.

 It is flexable about what we can just shove into it thats a plus

[Rivener]

On 12/8/2019 at 7:35 AM, whispersofblood said:

It's the last sentence in the paragraph. 

What artifacts can you use then?

[whispersofblood]

7 hours ago, Rivener said:

What artifacts can you use then?

For Ssyl'esske host? Only Maligned Sorcery.

[CeleFAZE]

New thought, between the following we can have anywhere from -6 to -13 bravery to an enemy unit, outside of battleshock:

Horrorghast -1-2

Dreadful Visage -1

Mindstealer Sphiranx -2 (Allies)

Chaos icon -1 (Not allies if marked)

Unmade -1 (Allies)

Phantasmagoria -0-6

Is Soulslice Shards a viable offensive option now? Even against bravery 10 on average you're putting out 3 mortal wounds, assuming the lowest possible debuff. You can then follow up with cacophony, which should reliably deal its damage to everything in radius. The horrorghast is a little risky since it affects us too, but for the slaanesh units the visage should offset that fairly well. Against anything that can be hurt by battleshock you could throw in knights for the additional -1, and if only one hero is in range use Syll'Eske to lock them out of command abilities.

The new book is presenting some interesting options.

[Sobakaa]

From my initial look at the book StD don't have any amazingly powerful units but my god do they ****** over fireslayers with all the movement debuffs.

Funnily enough Syll's host doesn't really benefit from new StD book all that much. Battalions are garbage, the whole point of this Host is to take strong heroes with many wounds and try to generate a lot of depravity. The only way i see it being run competitively is with Archaon who will benefit from ASL and 3 activations. He alone is still not enough to punch through buffed fenixes or berzerkers, though.

More "normal" hosts, however, have potential - you just take mortal heroes in Sybarites. That'll give you 4 drops which is a lot by slaanesh standards but still good overall. Take a slab of 30 chaos warriors, some marauders, all buffed by their wizards and hero, finish off with a keeper, epitome, etc. Maybe even allied chaos shrine of nurgle/tzeench, since slaaneshi one is ******. Not to forget decently good endless spells you can also bring with any StD sorcerers. Even pretenders which are kinda dead may be useful if you pimp not a keeper but a Chaos Lord on Karkadrak.

Essentially trading depravity generation for staying power which tbh is something i'm missing more and more with all the slayers, fenixes and bonereapers around.

All that assumes that i'm not missing something crucial in all my excitement, so please correct me if i'm wrong.

EDIT: Unfortunately warshrine still cannot affect units with a different mark than he has, i misread that. That Nurgle buff would've been amazing on chaos warriors.
EDIT2: Then again, why even bother with chaos warriors when you can just take bestigors who'll have more attacks on charge and better to-hit and you'll be able to take 60 for the price of 30 chaos warriors. Any battalion/shaman savings would be negated by 40+40 discount from Gors compared to a normal 100pts troop choice we otherwise take. And while lord on karkadrak or sorcerer lord offer impressive damage output, they aren't hedonites so you can't make them fight twice, unless they're also in a 12" aura of a fairly slow chaos lord on foot.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Sobakaa

[Grimrock]

4 hours ago, Sobakaa said:

EDIT: Unfortunately warshrine still cannot affect units with a different mark than he has, i misread that. That Nurgle buff would've been amazing on chaos warriors.

Where do you see that? I've been looking at the scroll on the AoS app and as far as I can see all of the prayers can be used by a shrine regardless of its mark, and they can target any S2D unit regardless of their mark. The only condition is the stronger effect is reserved for a unit whose mark matches the prayer. 

As far as bringing units into the army, I think a blob of 40 marauders and a chaos sorcerer might have some merit. 410 points so it's not nothing, but using the spell on them puts their damage output to absolutely ridiculous levels. Perfect for clearing screens and letting keepers into the big stuff behind. They've also got a minimum 9" charge in godseekers which makes them more than fast enough. Something to keep in mind if they nerf depravity into the ground and we need to start making a more standard army.