AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Lord Slyght]

10 hours ago, Lord Caskey said:

Hi,

The enrapturess in combination with the epitome shut down pretty much all of opponents magic, and the shooting attack was useful for sniping wounds off characters through the games.

While the invaders artifacts seem strong on paper generally I was losing my keepers every game and summoning on more so you don't get full utility out of them. Godseekers gave me guaranteed depravity as you're always charging units each turn,  and the +1 to charge in combo with cogs meant my summoned units were very likely to make a successful charge the turn they came on and could therefore influence the game that turn.

The masque is surprisingly tanky with her 4++ and healing ability, and combined with her relatively quick movement she's perfect to use as your summoning point.  Don't underestimate the damage she puts out either,  she can take on support units no problem. 

Ben

Congratulations Ben! 

How did you find CP generation? My tow concerns with Godseekers are how to generate sufficient CP once some of your heroes go down, and whether the keeper is reliable enough in combat without any of the pretender/invader abilities/artifacts.

[spenson]

17 hours ago, Saiken said:

How would you guys scale this kind of list down to 1K point ?

Even if its sub-optimal, I'd love to get playing before I have a full 2k army ...

 

So at 1k points the 'core' of the army is this:

Allegiance: Chaos
Great Bray Shaman of Slaanesh (100)
10 x Ungors of Slaanesh (60)
10 x Ungors of Slaanesh (60)
30 x Bestigors of Slaanesh (300)
Depraved Drove (150)

Total: 670 / 1000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 200
Wounds: 55
 

It leave you only 330 points to add some stuff. It's a shame that you can play a KoS but the bestigors are really better at 30 than 20 (the last 10 are half price and the triple exploding 6 when >= 20 models)

I think the best would be to take 2 heroes (e.g. the epitome and a viceleader) with the remaining points. This list is not optimal at all but you'll be able to play.

Edited July 10, 2019 by spenson

[Lord Caskey]

6 hours ago, Lord Slyght said:

Congratulations Ben! 

How did you find CP generation? My tow concerns with Godseekers are how to generate sufficient CP once some of your heroes go down, and whether the keeper is reliable enough in combat without any of the pretender/invader abilities/artifacts.

Generally speaking fine. I had 4 or 5 turn 1 generally and it was unusual for games to go beyond t3 really to be honest. 

Ben

[Saiken]

19 hours ago, spenson said:

So at 1k points the 'core' of the army is this:

Allegiance: Chaos
Great Bray Shaman of Slaanesh (100)
10 x Ungors of Slaanesh (60)
10 x Ungors of Slaanesh (60)
30 x Bestigors of Slaanesh (300)
Depraved Drove (150)

Total: 670 / 1000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 200
Wounds: 55
 

It leave you only 330 points to add some stuff. It's a shame that you can play a KoS but the bestigors are really better at 30 than 20 (the last 10 are half price and the triple exploding 6 when >= 20 models)

I think the best would be to take 2 heroes (e.g. the epitome and a viceleader) with the remaining points. This list is not optimal at all but you'll be able to play.

Thanks a lot, that's kind of what I had in mind !
I'll figure something out for the remaining 330 points

[whispersofblood]

I forgot to post my list from Essex GT, it's still early days for me in terms of list construction, and the plan has changed since the weekend but here it is. I was the 4th placed Slaanesh player.

KoS w/ Hunter supreme, Thermalrider cloak, Soulslice shards

KoS w/ Girdle of the Realmracer, Song of Secrets

Contorted Epitome w/ Hysterical Frenzy

Doombull w/ Magmaforge Blade

2x 10 Ungor

1x 10 Hellstriders

2x 20 Ungor Raiders

1 CP

Depraved Drove

Supreme Sybarites

2000

[Lordneylon]

Dear Friends,

I am 100% new to slaanesh.

I would appreciate your advice for a 2.000 points pure daemons slaanesh army. 

I do not play competitive at all, but I would like to have a balanced list.

I own a Keeper of Secrets and a Shalaxi minis assembled and I would like to play both in the same 2000 points list.

Which host is best in this case? According to the host how I have to build the list (general advice)?

Thanks a lot for your support!

Edited July 14, 2019 by Lordneylon

[Maddpainting]

On 7/13/2019 at 7:05 AM, whispersofblood said:

I forgot to post my list from Essex GT, it's still early days for me in terms of list construction, and the plan has changed since the weekend but here it is. I was the 4th placed Slaanesh player.

KoS w/ Hunter supreme, Thermalrider cloak, Soulslice shards

KoS w/ Girdle of the Realmracer, Song of Secrets

Contorted Epitome w/ Hysterical Frenzy

Doombull w/ Magmaforge Blade

2x 10 Ungor

1x 10 Hellstriders

2x 20 Ungor Raiders

1 CP

Depraved Drove

Supreme Sybarites

2000

Why Magma Blade? Its not really good for the low attacks, i'd rather have Thermalrider Cloak from the same realm.

[whispersofblood]

50 minutes ago, Maddpainting said:

Why Magma Blade? Its not really good for the low attacks, i'd rather have Thermalrider Cloak from the same realm.

I do have Thermalrider cloak its on the General.

Magmaforge blade pairs well with the Doombulls CMD ability and I was swimming in CP general. It was mostly a random third artefact but it wasn't bad turned the low number of attacks into a decent source of additional MW. He was doing 2 additional MW on a wound roll of a 6 without any CP, and then on a CP he would be wounding on 2s, and an additional MW to his dmg on a 5+. Worked well when I had an emergency and needed to kill some Kurnoth Hunters who had made a dash to a lightly defended objective. 
I would generally be more in love with the Doombull if he would run and charge, but he is a decent fighter, and a pretty cheap source of 7 DP.

[Maddpainting]

AH i didn't see it on it, but i still would take it, so what if the Doombull may deal 2MW with 1 weapon, give him + to hit or wound, something else thats better, he is rend -2 3D, making him into combat is better or getting him more attacks and or better to hit will be better. Finishing for a 6 isnt that good on a low attacking unit IMO. Like the Onyx Blade, that would be better, 2+ to wound is nasty.

[whispersofblood]

21 minutes ago, Maddpainting said:

AH i didn't see it on it, but i still would take it, so what if the Doombull may deal 2MW with 1 weapon, give him + to hit or wound, something else thats better, he is rend -2 3D, making him into combat is better or getting him more attacks and or better to hit will be better. Finishing for a 6 isnt that good on a low attacking unit IMO. Like the Onyx Blade, that would be better, 2+ to wound is nasty.

Well to start with none of those are options between Godseekers and Aqysy. But also I explained why a) its not fishing for 6s and b) he innately comes with at least +1 to wound rolls that affects both his weapons. So the onyx blade doesn't do anything the model can't do better on its own. But really it's not a critically important decision, the choice was between something techy to help against models that ignore rend, or something like the Cameo of the Dark Prince. 

[Warheadsbylink]

On 7/13/2019 at 12:05 PM, whispersofblood said:

I forgot to post my list from Essex GT, it's still early days for me in terms of list construction, and the plan has changed since the weekend but here it is. I was the 4th placed Slaanesh player.

KoS w/ Hunter supreme, Thermalrider cloak, Soulslice shards

KoS w/ Girdle of the Realmracer, Song of Secrets

Contorted Epitome w/ Hysterical Frenzy

Doombull w/ Magmaforge Blade

2x 10 Ungor

1x 10 Hellstriders

2x 20 Ungor Raiders

1 CP

Depraved Drove

Supreme Sybarites

2000

How did you find soulslice shards, I assume that you took it for the depravity generation or was it also a bit of tech? I see most people take progeny of damnation.

Did the hellstriders work well in a group of ten, again I assume that they were there to be cheap and mobile?

Also interested in Hunter supreme, I keep thinking about taking it instead of speed chaser or thrill seeker as the cloak adds lots of mobility already. Did it even out your damage or did you miss the extra utility from some of the other traits?

[whispersofblood]

57 minutes ago, Warheadsbylink said:

How did you find soulslice shards, I assume that you took it for the depravity generation or was it also a bit of tech? I see most people take progeny of damnation.

Did the hellstriders work well in a group of ten, again I assume that they were there to be cheap and mobile?

Also interested in Hunter supreme, I keep thinking about taking it instead of speed chaser or thrill seeker as the cloak adds lots of mobility already. Did it even out your damage or did you miss the extra utility from some of the other traits?

Soulslice shards was terrible, I don't think I ever did any damage with it, when I summoned a KoS I usually went to Born of Damnation or Progeny of Damnation not sure which one I prefer at the moment though. I should have known better, but I was desperate to include some ranged threat.

I liked 10 Hellstriders, they are not a combat block, so your expectations need to be pretty low tbh on the killing things front. But, they block off a lot of space which I primarily used as dummy deployment. They can beat up units of similar cost because of euphoric killers and 3 dice per model and they are extremely fast, being able to move 20" on command is huge. Their best attribute was that they take actual effort to remove, 20 wounds behind a 4+ is not a joke. 

I wanted something to stabilise the potential my KoS was doing with 18" move and fly you get most of the advantages over run+charge. But nothing is worse than whiffing once you get there. Also it works on both pile-ins so I was almost always charging. I would say its an excellent combo, the event was the first time I took it tbf but I think it is my default Godseekers build.

[Xasto]

So, I just bought the start collecting slaanesh box, and as I understand it there's multiple options for the chariot. What is the usually better way to build that kit? And am I missing something with the daemonettes and seekers? Thanks!

Edited July 15, 2019 by Xasto

[Overread]

40 minutes ago, Xasto said:

So, I just bought the start collecting slaanesh box, and as I understand it there's multiple options for the chariot. What is the usually better way to build that kit? And am I missing something with the daemonettes and seekers? Thanks!

How do you mean "missing" when you talk about deamonettes and seekers?

 

As for the chariot the getting started set has two complete chariot kits which you can build into seeker chariots, hellflayer chariots (one of each or two of one) or use both kits to make an exalted chariot. Honestly all three are solid choices, it really depends what you want. The seeker chariots are cheaper and also count as battleline in one of the god armies. Meanwhile the exalted can be a good powerhouse of speedy death.

All three can also have a herald atop instead of just a regular deamonette, which does up the cost but also means they can count as a leader for depravity generation. Note that whilst you can model the deamonette to appear more like a herald or make the chariot appear special to denote it, the cost and size of chariots tends to mean most people just say which is which during the game with modest individuality markers on the chariots. If you keep to subtle markers you can always get another chariot kit later to make into a proper dedicated leader if you find you're "always using one" 

[Xasto]

13 minutes ago, Overread said:

How do you mean "missing" when you talk about deamonettes and seekers?

I meant am I missing something special to get the most value out of their kits. The way I see it tho they're pretty straightforward with banners and musicians. Was just wondering!

As for the chariots, they will primarily be used for summoning purposes. Is one of them generally seen as superior for summoning or is it more of a depends on the situation thing?

Thanks for your answers!

[Grimrock]

46 minutes ago, Xasto said:

I meant am I missing something special to get the most value out of their kits. The way I see it tho they're pretty straightforward with banners and musicians. Was just wondering!

As for the chariots, they will primarily be used for summoning purposes. Is one of them generally seen as superior for summoning or is it more of a depends on the situation thing?

Thanks for your answers!

The only trick to the daemonettes and seekers is to add the second banner/icon to the unit since they can take both at the minimum size. Oh, and all the bits are pretty interchangeable between the different kits so feel free to swap heads and claws for a little variety. It helps when you're building 30+ daemonettes haha.

For the chariot my favourite is the bladebringer on exalted chariot. More points to summon but it's damage is crazy good. I also made a viceleader with the extra Herald model and some claws off the seeker sprue. Just shaved one shoulder to roughly match the pose of the resin model.

Edited July 15, 2019 by Grimrock

[Maddpainting]

9 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Well to start with none of those are options between Godseekers and Aqysy. But also I explained why a) its not fishing for 6s and b) he innately comes with at least +1 to wound rolls that affects both his weapons. So the onyx blade doesn't do anything the model can't do better on its own. But really it's not a critically important decision, the choice was between something techy to help against models that ignore rend, or something like the Cameo of the Dark Prince. 

Just letting you know from my experience with playing the bull a lot, he isnt going to be using that relic much and you are not going to be wasting 1CP for his ability, 5 attacks to hope for 1 6 to deal 2MW isnt going to be as good as 2+ to wound on 3 damage weapons.

But i'll leave it at that, let me know if it worked out for you.

[Futa]

Anyone else feel Daemonettes are a bit ******? I find that they're only useful at 20+, and at that point they're already taking up too many points. I find I'd always rather fill out battlelines with Hellstriders and/or even Chaos Warriors.

Note I'm strictly referring to list-writing, and they're actually pretty good to summon in big blocks.

[Sobakaa]

On the topic of daemonettes - had my first actual games of AoS this past weekend. All seems fine but daemonettes really,  really suck at wounding stuff.  I wonder if it would be worth it to take Chaos Sorcerer Lord and his reroll of 1's just for that? If only he wasn't 160pts for basically that one spell...

[Overread]

I think part of the issue is that at present depravity makes a Slaanesh player want to load up on a lot of very expensive leaders. This tends to leave a lot fewer points for the troops and infantry section of the army, but deamonettes kind of are a troop and are made to be taken in larger blocks if they are to be effective. It's again an issue with how GW made depravity a property of leaders only, because now having 200 or 300 points in a single troop block feels like a waste when you could start thinking of taking a leader or keeper instead and having more depravity from attacks made to summon more models to the table. 

[Enoby]

14 minutes ago, Overread said:

I think part of the issue is that at present depravity makes a Slaanesh player want to load up on a lot of very expensive leaders. This tends to leave a lot fewer points for the troops and infantry section of the army, but deamonettes kind of are a troop and are made to be taken in larger blocks if they are to be effective. It's again an issue with how GW made depravity a property of leaders only, because now having 200 or 300 points in a single troop block feels like a waste when you could start thinking of taking a leader or keeper instead and having more depravity from attacks made to summon more models to the table. 

I think this is exactly the issue; imagine a unit of 30 daemonettes vs a KoS. 

Pro Daemonettes:

- pretty good damage, and consistent when rerolling 1s

- lots of wounds and very good bravery so they should stick around for a little while; can also take mortal wounds more comfortably

- can target multiple small units due to large footprint 

- can hold objectives 

- cheaper than a KoS 

Pros KoS:

- very high damage 

- very fast 

- can be consistent with the fane 

- amazing command ability

But the big pro is depravity points. Even if the KoS does literally nothing  and dies, it will produce enough to summon 10 daemonettes - 110 points. So the KoS, at worst, really costs 250 points outside of listbuilding - it becomes a very cheap model for what it does. Depravity from heroes means heroes are much 'cheaper' than they actually appear and much more versatile. 

[Tasman]

42 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I think this is exactly the issue; imagine a unit of 30 daemonettes vs a KoS. 

Pro Daemonettes:

- pretty good damage, and consistent when rerolling 1s

- lots of wounds and very good bravery so they should stick around for a little while; can also take mortal wounds more comfortably

- can target multiple small units due to large footprint 

- can hold objectives 

- cheaper than a KoS 

Pros KoS:

- very high damage 

- very fast 

- can be consistent with the fane 

- amazing command ability

But the big pro is depravity points. Even if the KoS does literally nothing  and dies, it will produce enough to summon 10 daemonettes - 110 points. So the KoS, at worst, really costs 250 points outside of listbuilding - it becomes a very cheap model for what it does. Depravity from heroes means heroes are much 'cheaper' than they actually appear and much more versatile. 

Truth. In a couple of games I've played, [notably v Nurgle and Khorne] I amassed 60+ DP by the end of turn one. Never got the chance to summon anything, as he pretty much rage quit at that point, but it was spectacular.

That being said, horde armies are a much bigger threat, as many have already stated here. Skaven, with their good mobility and shooting, Gloomspite gitz with their shenanigans, to name a couple, have been more of a challenge. The Thermalrider Cloak is very nice v these type armies, especially coupled with Godseekers. The Speed-chaser trait is especially fun against those huge screening units of clan rats or gitmobs. I can divert them, pile in on them twice, and if they are still there after all that,[even in a diminished size] move on to juicier targets, leaving them to be mopped up by daemonettes. I've actually never summoned a unit thus far, although I admit that's because I haven't been able to get in many games.

[Enoby]

It does raise the question, what should be done to make hordes worth it again (in HoS)? Most other armies have the opposite problem where hordes are just the best choice, and I feel our hordes are absolutely fine points wise (but maybe daemonettes could go back to 100); even our heroes seem pretty well priced, all being very expensive.  So maybe depravity points need tweaking? 

 

I was recently playing a  game with 30 bestigors and they absolutely wrecked a bloodthirster and a half turn one, before being blended to a fine red mist soon after. Taking into account the battalion, those bestigors cost about 330 points. A keeper of secrets could have done the same (and may have not died afterwards due to the locus), but would have had 33 depravity to show for it - a whole new keeper! It's not that the bestigors are too weak - they annihilated a bloodthirster - or that the KoS is too strong - it is a duelist, it should win in monster mashes when striking first - it's just that the summoning tips the balance.  

[Overread]

I think there's several ways to adjust it;

1) Add a depravity cap per turn. Whilst this actually reinforces taking leaders to hit the cap as much as possible, if the cap is low enough then once players find a happy medium point it might lower some leader pressure since they don't need to take all the leaders if they can only generate, say, 20 depravity in a single turn. This can also help balance out the unit generation in the game and the depravity costs might want adjusting a bit to reflect it. If you can only generate 20 in a turn and a keeper costs 60 then you know at best you'll get 2 keepers and most likely get only 1 per game if you go for summoning a keeper. That's purely an example of course and the numbers might vary a lot through actual balance testing.

2) Add depravity generation to regular units in some form. If units take or give damage. This weakens the reliance on using only leaders to generate depravity and spreads it out to the whole army. This puts leaders and regular units back on a level footing with each other so now you don't have to worry as much about leaders. Of course it might actually swing things the other way and now lots of deamonettes appears the best choice. So we could wind up going from taking all Keepers to suddenly taking all hoards - neither of which is really a good spot to be in in terms of army internal balance. 

 

 

Personally I'd welcome both ideas at once. Adding depravity generation to regular units in some form spreads out the generation of points over the whole army. That takes the pressure off taking only leaders and means you can go chariot heavy or troop heavy etc.... It broadens out the viable range of lists you can take and armies you can form. It also improves summoning because now you're also making choices on what to summon based on more than "leader leader for more depravity" 

Meanwhile adding in the cap per turn prevents it being abusive. It also levels the playing field against different armies. That skaven force with all 1 wound models now doesn't look as bad as that stormcast army with all multiwound models because you can still only generated X amount of depravity in a turn. IT makes the army feel fairer to fight against because now your opponent isn't being punished for bringing multi-wound models.

 

 

 

As we have it now there's no cap per turn and depravity is only generated by leaders. This places huge pressure on taking only the Battle-line tax in troops, then bulking out as much of the leaders tab as you can with as many high power leaders. It also means that players are encouraged to summon more leaders ot the table to keep snowballing the depravity generation. All this leads to a very top-heavy army that is full of leaders and rather empty of troops; or if you go troop heavy you're kind of leaving some depravity generation on the table unfulfilled. You're wasting army potential! 

This isn't even a min-max type of thing, its just basic core army building inherent in teh current style of the army. 

 

[whispersofblood]

The meta will resolve this for us. Everyone is out here crushing armies who have made limited to no changes to their armies. 

20, 4+/4+ shooting attacks are a risk to a KoS, we also have a horrible match up with DoK so expect them back if HoS meta representation gets too high. Once the shock and awe phase wears out I expect most HoS builds to include a ton more points invested in non-hero units.

It's all well and good thinking we are busted when you are beating up unrefined mortal Khorne lists. But I want more data against changehost, shootcast, IJ, and the new wave of meta builds before I put my sword on the alter of HoS OPness.

Now to be clear I only play tournament AoS, so maybe I'm expecting too much from garage hammer meta.