AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[CeleFAZE]

38 minutes ago, ibel said:

I think he/she/it will buff the Bows of the Unit as Long as he/she/it is on the field/in the Unit. Remember there are Mechiks to Sniper a separat Modell fropm a Unit (like the Archer or Bowman by the LRL, there are as Long a Wizzard as the Champion life (fly in with a SCDrakestar, eat them and no longer mortals they spread)

I'm really interested to find out what kind of buffs it provides to the unit. I'd love for them to be a battlefield control element for us, handing out targeted debuffs like a malus to movement, hit, wound, etc., but I have a sneaking suspicion it will just be something boring like mortal wounds. Don't get me wrong, MW from archers can be a powerful mechanic, but it's so prevalent that it would just seem like lazy design at this point.

[ibel]

Jes Jes. MW woud be super boring.

I read anywehre somthing About Stimulanzien and drugs like this in the Arrows with the debuff, so i also hope an something like malus to move, hit, attacks or Maybe to saveroll.

Very weak wolud be malus to bravery but.... could also be. I thnik we will know more from around 10 of February to 21 of February with a Preorder at 21.02 for the End of February (28.02) or what u think ?

[Enoby]

I'd quite like to see it be a debuff rather than MW; I think a move debuff (the enemies becoming slowed and sluggish under drugs) would be nice and give us more battlefield control. 

It's not going to happen as it's too specific, but I'd like to see the choice be between 'depressant' (half movement) and 'stimulant' (move the enemy unit d6" in any direction).

[SorryLizard]

9 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I'd quite like to see it be a debuff rather than MW; I think a move debuff (the enemies becoming slowed and sluggish under drugs) would be nice and give us more battlefield control. 

It's not going to happen as it's too specific, but I'd like to see the choice be between 'depressant' (half movement) and 'stimulant' (move the enemy unit d6" in any direction).

There are essentially no abilities that let you move other people's models.

Some that encourage the enemy to move their own models out of range or give them a choice to move towards or away (like the Slanneshi endless spell for instance).

Part of the problem is that moving enemy models is hugely powerful and can create very negative play experiences in games not designed around it (e.g.: Malifaux) where you can lock the enemy out of doing anything useful by keeping them just one inch away or similar. Combine that with a game with such high lethality AND the random turn order and all it takes is that one inch to prevent your cool unit from ever contributing before tied up and killed.

They do sometimes let effects make the enemy move their own models in certain restricted ways such as the Alarith Stoneguard's shove ability...but that ability is so filled with loop holes and exploits that it's often actively an advantage to the enemy to get shoved 'back'.

[Enoby]

44 minutes ago, SorryLizard said:

There are essentially no abilities that let you move other people's models.

Some that encourage the enemy to move their own models out of range or give them a choice to move towards or away (like the Slanneshi endless spell for instance).

Part of the problem is that moving enemy models is hugely powerful and can create very negative play experiences in games not designed around it (e.g.: Malifaux) where you can lock the enemy out of doing anything useful by keeping them just one inch away or similar. Combine that with a game with such high lethality AND the random turn order and all it takes is that one inch to prevent your cool unit from ever contributing before tied up and killed.

They do sometimes let effects make the enemy move their own models in certain restricted ways such as the Alarith Stoneguard's shove ability...but that ability is so filled with loop holes and exploits that it's often actively an advantage to the enemy to get shoved 'back'.

Yeah, I think I've been playing too much Malifaux - thinking back, AoS doesn't tend to let you move enemy units. But halfing their movement fine, and I believe forcing a charge is also used sometimes.

New art by the way! 

[SorryLizard]

Oh that's cool art.

Excited for the reveals this week

[Enoby]

More new art from the community article

[Overread]

Love that new seeker art! It's also really interesting to see them take the seekers in a new direction. The old models were very much trumpet snouts with long wriggling tongues; yet the new ones with the open jaw seem to take the existing idea and adapt it without actually changing too much in the facial structure. It's a really interesting and neat change. 

[Popisdead]

So, the previews have started making me think Saturday should be preorder but I heard GW moved to an every 2-weeks.  So did Dark Angels just come out or go on pre-order?  I would say Slaanesh 2 weeks after in parallel.  

[PiotrW]

Having seen the art in the new article, I have to ask: what do you think that blueish monstrous thing with a spiked mace is? A weird artist's impression of a Lord of Pain? Or is it what the spawn of Slaanesh from BR: Morathi will look like, if it gets its own model?

BTW. Sigvald is a "Geld-Prince". Hmmmmmm. I shudder to ask, but does it mean that he's, uhm, anatomically incorrect?

[SorryLizard]

15 minutes ago, PiotrW said:

Having seen the art in the new article, I have to ask: what do you think that blueish monstrous thing with a spiked mace is? A weird artist's impression of a Lord of Pain? Or is it what the spawn of Slaanesh from BR: Morathi will look like, if it gets its own model?

BTW. Sigvald is a "Geld-Prince". Hmmmmmm. I shudder to ask, but does it mean that he's, uhm, anatomically incorrect?

Hell yes that screaming sky mouth thingy looks amazing.

Considering the number of tentacles in a typical chaos army I can't imagine many are actually anatomically correct.

As a Slannesh worshipper though if Sigvald needed additional body parts to engage in whatever excess caught his fancy then he'd find himself suitably endowed.

[PiotrW]

4 minutes ago, SorryLizard said:

Hell yes that screaming sky mouth thingy looks amazing.

Considering the number of tentacles in a typical chaos army I can't imagine many are actually anatomically correct.

As a Slannesh worshipper though if Sigvald needed additional body parts to engage in whatever excess caught his fancy then he'd find himself suitably endowed.

I was actually referring to the BDSMy guy with the mace that's going to be on new battletome cover. He might be a Lord of Pain, but the LoP model isn't as... mutated and monstrous?

As for Sigvald - in truth, I was wondering less about additional body parts and more about... the lack of certain parts. Considering what "gelded" means...

[Klamm]

On 2/1/2021 at 11:55 AM, CeleFAZE said:

Based on a comparison of the rim size in the overlap there, I'm fairly certain they're on 25mm, though there's a chance they could be on a weird new base size that's close. I think there's at least something on a 28mm, maybe in Warcry?

Looking at your mockup, I feel like this has to be 32mm base. As you can see below, Daemonettes are about the same height as Kairic acolytes (depending on posture). But they certainly aren't towering a full head over them, and you expect the Blissbarb archers to be in the same scale as Acolytes or Bloodreavers. If they're on 25mms they'd be almost as short as Arkanaut company, and I don't see GW scale creep backlashing that hard. 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Klamm

[Marius au]

I think the general view is that it is a styilised lord of pain.

[CeleFAZE]

43 minutes ago, PiotrW said:

I was actually referring to the BDSMy guy with the mace that's going to be on new battletome cover. He might be a Lord of Pain, but the LoP model isn't as... mutated and monstrous?

As for Sigvald - in truth, I was wondering less about additional body parts and more about... the lack of certain parts. Considering what "gelded" means...

I think that's the symbaresh unit leader on the cover.

[Gistradagis]

55 minutes ago, PiotrW said:

As for Sigvald - in truth, I was wondering less about additional body parts and more about... the lack of certain parts. Considering what "gelded" means...

Because he emasculates others, obviously!

[PiotrW]

13 minutes ago, CeleFAZE said:

I think that's the symbaresh unit leader on the cover.

Aaaaah, good point!

BTW. The Symbaresh look much scarier in the art than their miniatures... 😵😵😵

2 minutes ago, Gistradagis said:

Because he emasculates others, obviously!

... so, that's what his big sword is for. Ouch.

[Overread]

Looking at the shape and girth of the weapon I think its more of a morning star than a sword 

 

Also fun real life fact. When you see a mace/morning star with the spikes, the spikes are there in order to help the weapon dig in and connect/hold onto armour. Armour by its nature is designed to try and bounce/deflect a blow (esp when moved by a person inside the armour also aiming to deflect a blow). The spikes allow the weapon to have a degree of grip, thus allowing the real power of the morning star/mace to take effect, which is the bashing impact of the blow. 

 

 

As for their faces I bet that a few good painters will make them appear far more scary than the GW standard paint job. Just like GWs standard for Nurgle is quite plain and cheerful, yet give them to someone with some good skills and they can look pus oozing horrors. Of course part of that is that GW's marketing paint talent for box shots and the like aims for a standard that's good but not world-class so that its easier to emulate for regular hobbyists. 

[Popisdead]

3 hours ago, PiotrW said:

BTW. Sigvald is a "Geld-Prince". Hmmmmmm. I shudder to ask, but does it mean that he's, uhm, anatomically incorrect?

Hmmm guess it's a double entedre (sp).  I get the sense GW is good at finding old english words.  payment, tribute, to pay, money is the first definition for Geld in etymology but I bet they enjoyed the second being there,... or,.. not being there.  "why can't it be both?"

[Enoby]

I think the mace guy is a stylisation of this model

[Arzalyn]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

I think the mace guy is a stylisation of this model

Yeah, if you look at the full imagem it has the same mirror-thing in its back (just with different proportions).

 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Arzalyn

[Sorrow]

I have a mixed feelings on new art and lore.

Symbaresh and Painbringers look utterly amazing artwork.

I am truly hoping we get more artwork of Glutos model, for that one art piece, due to its artistic style, leave the entire palanquin model devoid of numerous details that actual palanquin model has.  If that is going to be the sole art piece for Glutos and palanquin model, that is a disappointment.

The art showing Exalted Steeds is good, though the Exalted Steeds come across as velociraptors, not the beautiful purple seahorses. 

Sigvald art is okay, I suppose. Model looks better.

Lore is rather strange, since I was hoping that big lore part of AOS 3 was going to be Slaanesh/Newborn, and Sigvald taking the fight to Nagash like Teclis is not particularly promising.

ALSO, my fellow Hedonites, not a single book dedicated to our faction has been announced. That is a great disappointment to me. Short stories of Slaaneshi around the Realms have been amazing but short and always end up with Hedonites loosing.

I am tagging the following users since I would really love to hear their opinion on my thoughts in this post.

@Enoby @CeleFAZE@Overread@Popisdead@SorryLizard@Klamm

Edited February 3, 2021 by Sorrow
Tagging users.

[Overread]

On the short story front I think BL is still reeling from the loss of Josh Reynolds who could put out volume and quality and clearly really got the setting at both the god end and the small person end of the structure. I think that right now AoS has a lot of newer authors and smaller names; at the same time the Daughters of Khaine short stories showed, to me at least, that GW's lore holders in-house (their editors and such) also need more experience with the setting. Eg Melusai should not have slipped the net changing name to Medusa nor should it have slipped that it was a spell to transform into them as opposed to the only way being made or having Morathi bite you (and then you're a bloodwrack not a melusai). 

Little things like that I think are holding hte lore back. One BIG bonus is that BL and GW are clearly far more open to every faction having stories if they can get writers for them. This is a big thing; even 

in Old World armies like Orks and such were often just the bad guys, mostly written in as enemies. So whilst they didn't have the mono-faction focus that 40K had (it was even mandated at one point that all stories were to be written from the Imperial perspective); it was still biased. AoS is VASTLY more open, but its going to take time to build a great team of writers with skill, care and understanding of the myriad of factions and such.

The new Seekers are very interesting. On the one hand they are clearly different to regular seekers and that makes sense on two counts. First they are exalted not regular; second they are able to manifest in the mortal realms more easily than regular seekers. 
Interestingly they are still strange, you say they look more raptor like and I think that comes down to two things

1) The poses are more dynamic than current seekers who are mostly all running in a straight line like a herd.

2) They have open jaws. Interestingly this is very neatly done as if you look at the close jaw versions they almost look identical to the current seeker mouths; suggesting perhaps that if the lore shifts a little then regular seekers might also have such jaws (or could have them).

3) They are a bit more raptor like and yet not. They actually have less raptor like hooves rahter than clawed toes like the regular seekers. 
Their bellies are less ridged (I purely take that as someone in design getting sick of cleaning seeker mould line bellies); but they've got the chest armour like the chariot versions so there's every chance that they still have their central row of teats (exposed on the regular seekers)

4) The riders are perched atop rather than staddled which makes the rider far more dynamic. It also harkens back to the old "Diaz" sculpts (which are very popular) where the deamonettes were also perched atop rather than straddled. I'm also hoping that the body of the seeker is perhaps a bit broader and larger; in the art seekers are BIG mounts. Yet in the models (esp hellstriders) they appear almost closer to ponies rather than big war mounts. I think part of that is simply the mechanics of plastic moulds and time - just like old regular GW horses were all very small but newer mounts are bigger by far and even some 3rd parties are buliding bigger and bigger mounts more relative to their riders. 

Don't forget compare the Slaanesh Keeper of Secrets GW sculpt to the Forgeworld Exalted version and you see differences there too. Exalted are a different breed apart within Chaos. It used to mean bigger (esp when the old keeper was metal and half the size); but now its not just a size thing but also a structure and form. 

Overall I'm excited for the new seekers! The current kits are good, the new are even better.

[SorryLizard]

For the lore, we're getting a new battletome so that should contain lots of stuff for us and from the way BR:M went and the general importance of Slannesh being out in the world I think we're going to find lots of stories and such with us in or with us mentioned as a relevant factor. The short stories are introducing named people who are hedonites which, even if they don't do much right now, become plot seeds they can pick up on reuse later.

For the art one thing I like in that picture with the Seekers is that they've used a filter that adds in 'brush strokes' like in an oil painting. It's not important but it's just something cool and seemingly decadent in an age where digital art is all the rage.

There are meant to be at least another few Broken Realms books, let those come out and reveal the direction the game is moving. I'd stop worrying about how what is revealed now feeds into AoS3 because it probably wont directly. Consider how much changed in just the Morathi book, the setting will probably look meaningfully different after the others in the series. My guess is AoS3 is a Destruction focus. Throughout BR we will get short stories about Orcs and Goblins and Ogres which will crystalise around Excelsis which becomes the AoS3 starter.

[SorryLizard]

What colour schemes are people thinking for the Hedonites once they get their hands on them?

I'm going to go silver, bone and blue and I really want ot know how they're getting that mid tone brown skin because I want to include that in my scheme too.