AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Enoby]

I really hope troops find a place in our lists again after this new release - they look too good not to include!

[KingChaos]

3 hours ago, Golub87 said:

Not going to give you a list, but general guidelines:

1. Do battlelines as cheap as possible. My start are 5 Chaos Warriors, but you can upgrade those to 10 Daemonettes if at the end of list building you have throwaway points. Daemonettes can be used as screens better, but are 20 pts more expensive. I fit in at least one block of 20 Marauders as they are best outflankers.

2. Heroes are stars of the show. Keepers of Secrets and Contorted Epitomes are best we have. Hero on Exalted Chariot is great vs chaff. If you are willing to dip into StDs, Manticore and especially Karkadrak are decent options. Some people roll with Archaon. Not my cup of tea, but I can see it.

3. Suballegiance that I find works best for me is Lurid Haze Invaders host from the Wrath of the Everchosen book. You get all the abilities from the regular Invaders Host. The artifact gives +1 wound, I just put it on a Keeper and toss it in the fane turn one for rrs to hit. General trait is... acceptable. Command ability is quite good, giving a unit +1 to save once per combat faze. The ability to outflank with d3 units is immense. I usually do that with Marauders and guarantee a first turn charge with them.  They usually cause enough distraction for really killy stuff (like Keepers) to get their charges on  turn 2. Sometimes those Marauders even kill support pieces.

4. Battalions and artifacts are mandatory I think. Supreme Sybarites is the best one and the artifact I pick up is the Rod of Misrule. We are CP hungry. Keepers give out double activations. Giving out armor saves, various re-rolls, making sure that charges happen... Very very CP hungry. Battalion and artifact are there to give you those CPs that you need. Also, battalion will make you a 4-drop army, most of the time (all heroes go in it and then you have three battlelines).

5. When it comes to summoning, Daemonettes and Seekers are best. 10 or 20 Daemonettes for that last minute objective grabbing, 5 Seekers a bit earlier (say turn 3), for their unparalleled mobility, allowing you to threaten stuff that is far away. Do not count on summoning Keepers unless you are playing SoBs or some other monster list.

In general, focus on heroes, forget about troops, except what you must take. I love the Fiend models, but they just don't cut it. Try to not get bogged down with enemy screens (that is why outflank is so important in my game plans), but to hit key pieces. This will situate you for a much better late game, as you will have more depravity to summon reinforcements to hold the objectives and kill enemy troops. Again, outflanking helps with this, as the opponent will leave some openings that you can exploit.

Cheers for the great advice, I think spreading towards the StD stuff is worthwhile. I have a Bela'kor that I sometimes add in, for armies with heavy hitters to nerf them a little so not against adding in StD. 

But yeah, I shall take all that advice on board, especially the outflanking advice.

 

[Benkei]

 

[Carnith]

It looks so fantastic. I'm so excited. 

[CeleFAZE]

Well, I think this confirms that we're getting something close to a full mortals release. At minimum 3 units (Twinsouls, Painbringers, Slaangors as hinted) and 2 leaders. If the possible blurry bowmen spotted in the background are a dual-kit with spear-dancers, and whatever that palanquin/chariot thing in the background is a unit rather than terrain, we're actually going to be in really good shape as far as god-armies go. I'm personally hoping that the weird blurry thing that was on the far left is a redone boobsnake lord, or even a boobsnake unit. It's too iconic of a design not to use.

The only downside at this point is COVID potentially delaying the release, considering what's happening with Deathguard for 40k.

It also just occurred to me, I wonder if Symbaresh and Myrmadesh are going to be two distinct ethos for the unit designs, similar to how the Idoneth have Akhelian and Namarti units.

Edited December 4, 2020 by CeleFAZE

[Popisdead]

I think GW also said there would be more units in the article.  Pretty exciting stuff.  Also looks like Mystweaver Saih was reborn into this caster.  a few years ago someone said he fully expected Mystweaver to be slaanesh based on symbols.  guess he was right in a way.

 

the Deathguard delay isn't surprising since there was a pretty solid rumour Orks were supposed to be in 2020 for 40k and some playtesters hinted 1st quarter of 2021.  

[Chumphammer]

[Lucentia]

Interesting profiles, actually kinda potent damage output for an Underworlds band.  Obviously you can't really extrapolate much from these sorts of warscrolls generally, but if the weapon profiles are similar for the expected full units they could be quite good.

[Enoby]

16 minutes ago, Chumphammer said:

They're... actually pretty good for a warcry warband, but perhaps more importantly for later units.

Assuming these translate over to our units (maybe not the harpoon as they normally have swords, but I could see a 2+ to hit being a thing).

Slaangors are going to pack a punch at 3 wounds, 4 attacks, 2 rend, and 2 damage...

The bow and glaive aren't half bad either, especially as warcry warbands who tend to have a worse version of their normal stats.

[Gorthor21]

The slaangors seem like they are going to be like the tzaangor enlightened.  Suppose they wanted a 3 wound infantry to go along with blightkings and skullreapers.  I hope they give the Sybarites a full kit with both weapon options here, that’s what they really need.  The universal rend is nice and fits with all the other slaanesh units profiles I can think of.

[Dankboss]

The underworlds warband for Gitz previewed what the new Squig profile would be, so I think it's fair to say the Slaangor is indicative of what they'll be like.

[JonnyTheKing]

The Underworlds warband are actually kinda great - Good damage profile, when you equate the law of average, they have 12 wounds, which makes them basically 10 points per wound which makes them fairly efficient! Very excited!

[AngryPanda]

I wonder what the shield does; there isn’t a description of its characteristics on the profile. Perhaps it’s going to be similar to a chaos warrior’s +5 to ignore mortal wounds? 

[Gorthor21]

I’m under the impression it’s in Vasillics defensive ability to negate wounds on a 4+.  You’re probably right in that they will function similar to chaos rune shields.

[Silphid]

New to chaos here; What is the consequence of using StD units and heroes with mark of Slaanesh in a Hedonites list? Marauders seem like a greats screen/alpha, why aren't they used more? (or are they?) Same with a Lork on Karkadrak; makes a great statline to use a boobsnake lord.

Thanks for clarifying!

[Golub87]

17 minutes ago, Silphid said:

New to chaos here; What is the consequence of using StD units and heroes with mark of Slaanesh in a Hedonites list? Marauders seem like a greats screen/alpha, why aren't they used more? (or are they?) Same with a Lork on Karkadrak; makes a great statline to use a boobsnake lord.

Thanks for clarifying!

Marauders are a staple in my lists. Combined with Lurid Haze suballegiance outflank ability they can tip the whole game.

Chaos Warriors can fulfill the role of a last minute cheap battleline for 90pts. Block of 15 can be very tanky, but I have not found the way to make it work, too expensive and you want as much points as possible in heroes, not troops.

Lord on Karkadrak is also quite good. I use him to tie up units with no rend. His good armor and regeneration will make sure he stays alive and his ton of attacks will munch trough the unit. Like the Hero on the Exalted Chariot, he is a good chaff killer, a bit more tanky but less killy.

Knights and Chariots are meh...
Warshrine is good, but not in Slaanesh lists, as you don't want too many troops to begin with.

Both Manticore variants are quite decent, though they do suffer from a bit of "jack of all trades, master of none" - not as good on the defense as Karkadrak, not as good on the offense as the Keeper.

Sorcerer on foot is decent, if you have a good StD Hero to buff.

Lord on foot is overshadowed by the Keeper who has better fight again command, since the Lord is limited to StD keyword.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Golub87

[Silphid]

47 minutes ago, Golub87 said:

Marauders are a staple in my lists. Combined with Lurid Haze suballegiance outflank ability they can tip the whole game.

Chaos Warriors can fulfill the role of a last minute cheap battleline for 90pts. Block of 15 can be very tanky, but I have not found the way to make it work, too expensive and you want as much points as possible in heroes, not troops.

Lord on Karkadrak is also quite good. I use him to tie up units with no rend. His good armor and regeneration will make sure he stays alive and his ton of attacks will munch trough the unit. Like the Hero on the Exalted Chariot, he is a good chaff killer, a bit more tanky but less killy.

Knights and Chariots are meh...
Warshrine is good, but not in Slaanesh lists, as you don't want too many troops to begin with.

Both Manticore variants are quite decent, though they do suffer from a bit of "jack of all trades, master of none" - not as good on the defense as Karkadrak, not as good on the offense as the Keeper.

Sorcerer on foot is decent, if you have a good StD Hero to buff.

Lord on foot is overshadowed by the Keeper who has better fight again command, since the Lord is limited to StD keyword.

Good info, but are there army synergies that do not work from using StD with hedonites, like generating depravity points?

[Golub87]

1 hour ago, Silphid said:

Good info, but are there army synergies that do not work from using StD with hedonites, like generating depravity points?

Not really, most Slaanesh stuff works with StD units. You absolutely will be generating DP with all the StD heroes.

Mortal spell lore of Slaanesh is bad, quite worse than StD one, so Sorcerer Lord will be of marginally less utility. His warscroll spell is very good, but can only target StD units. You CAN take StD endless spells if you have StD Sorcerer as well as the Slaanesh ones, so that is a nice bonus.

The problem with synergies is mostly coming from StD side. StD buffs tend to exclusively target StD units. For example, you will never use CA on Manticore or Karkadrak Lord.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Golub87

[Enoby]

3 hours ago, Silphid said:

Good info, but are there army synergies that do not work from using StD with hedonites, like generating depravity points?

Only a couple of things:

They don't have the Hedonite keyword so no locus of diversion from their heroes.

They are less killy and more tanky than some daemons (e.g. KoS) so don't generate depravity points as well

Edited December 5, 2020 by Enoby

[azdimy]

15 hours ago, JonnyTheKing said:

The Underworlds warband are actually kinda great - Good damage profile, when you equate the law of average, they have 12 wounds, which makes them basically 10 points per wound which makes them fairly efficient! Very excited!

How do you count 12 wounds? I only count 8 reading the warscroll

[JonnyTheKing]

1 hour ago, azdimy said:

How do you count 12 wounds? I only count 8 reading the warscroll

When you take into account the shrugs saving wounds it basically adds up to more wounds overall, I was wrong however and misread the rules. You only get the shrug on the leader to it equals to 9-10 wounds with the shrug. Still don't think they're bad at all really 

[Gorthor21]

How do re rolls equate to more wounds?

[Carnith]

So... We might have new cav. There's a video of a guy going through the new book. He skips the sybarites, but something gets spoiled. 

Edited December 5, 2020 by carnith

[shinros]

I suspect a reveal might be incoming for that model if we're lucky. It got leaked.

[Enoby]

Very interesting! I don't think we saw anything in the video that looked like them (besides maybe the big thing in the background), so maybe it's that? But I doubt so as warcry doesn't usually have huge base-sizes. 

This could mean we're getting more than expected in the video