AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Gibs]

6 hours ago, Enoby said:

I totally agree with what else you've said, but I would kind of find it funny if they did this - not good in any way, but more just incredibly brazen from GW to just admit they're trying to sell us new stuff with rules

My biggest concern, besides not changing Depravity, is we get a Slaves to Darkness like book with loads of options, but most don't work with your own allegiance ability and only one unit is really worth taking most of the time.  I've played Slaves a bit and it feels like playing half an allegiance ability that's pretty much always worse than the normal Slaanesh allegiance. I mention Slaves because they're relatively new and also have a large roster that may struggle to work together. While we won't go to much into power creep, I think it's fair to say that battletomes tend to be good when new, but you occasionally get a few poor ones. 

The other concern is we get the Sylvaneth/Khorne treatment where they update the battletome but change very little except the fun stuff. I don't think this is *too* likely given that we're adding a lot of models, but still you never know. 

Agree, S2D had so much potential but now finds itself in a very awkward place with each of the Chaos allegiances having their own books  This is only compounded  by the fact most units in the S2D book can be used in the other Chaos lists anyway....personally I feel they should have fully embraced the 'undivided' option and used marks very sparingly with select few units where its needed.  

I have shelved my S2D book as the only interesting and unique thing about it is the Everchosen stuff,  Varanguard and Archaon are not exactly an army that is fun to play too often and is incredibly one dimensional to boot. More enjoyment is found just rotating between the other Chaos armies.

Like others it would be a disgusting if Marauder spawn somehow makes it into Hedonites of Slaanesh!

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by Gibs

[Popisdead]

On 1/6/2021 at 12:49 PM, Overread said:

Bad news - I've run out of "Corner Gas" episodes to watch whilst building the second box when it arrives. 

You just admitted to being Canadian   Have you tried ******$$ Creek and Kim's Convenience?  The former is steller, and I've heard the latter is good also. What about Letterkenny?

[Klamm]

6 hours ago, NorthernNurgling said:

On the topic of Marauders... Has anyone thought of any Slaanesh-y conversions for these guys? I was looking at just proxying Splintered Fang but I'd rather have the equipment on the models match the warscroll.

I've got some proxies I'm pretty happy with based on Namarti Reavers, though unfortunately the base size doesn't match so might not be an ideal solution. I mixed em with Tree Rev and Hellstrider bits.

Actually, Hellstriders have been a goldmine for conversion bits in general. I've used the shields as gutplates for my SlaanOgors. 

[Overread]

1 hour ago, Popisdead said:

You just admitted to being Canadian   Have you tried ******$$ Creek and Kim's Convenience?  The former is steller, and I've heard the latter is good also. What about Letterkenny?

I say old bean, I'm nothing of the sort, what. It's just that good old Amazon doesn't have such British classics as the good old Vicar of Dibley. Such a let down, but one can suffice one's own interests by viewing things made in the colonies. From time to time of course.

[Enoby]

13 hours ago, Gibs said:

Agree, S2D had so much potential but now finds itself in a very awkward place with each of the Chaos allegiances having their own books  This is only compounded  by the fact most units in the S2D book can be used in the other Chaos lists anyway....personally I feel they should have fully embraced the 'undivided' option and used marks very sparingly with select few units where its needed.  

I have shelved my S2D book as the only interesting and unique thing about it is the Everchosen stuff,  Varanguard and Archaon are not exactly an army that is fun to play too often and is incredibly one dimensional to boot. More enjoyment is found just rotating between the other Chaos armies.

Like others it would be a disgusting if Marauder spawn somehow makes it into Hedonites of Slaanesh!

 

While I disagree about the marks (it's nice to be able to play them in other armies), I do think undivided should have had a bigger bonus than it currently does - not just a bonus from the allegiance ability that all gods give, but an additional bonus that makes them worth not having a god mark.

Marauders are in a weird place at the moment, seeming to be the only unit that keeps StD afloat (Archaon and 6th Circle Varanguard are okay, but a bit of a one trick pony). While we're not in quite as bad a position as StD, I am concerned that with the removal of depravity from heroes (if it does happen) will have the knock on effect that marauders also become our best unit. 

For example, marauders are better than daemonettes at the moment; better attacks, same save, better charge, cheaper per 20 but slower.  The reason we don't use marauders that often is because we want min battleline with depravity as is. If this changes, and our mortal units aren't outstanding or have a very different role, I'm concerned marauders will find a dominant role in our army. That's not to say our new mortals can't be better, but if our Painbringers end up in the rut that is the 'two wound semi-elite' design (e.g. Liberators, Bloodwarriors, Chaos Warriors) we may struggle to find a place for them.  

To be honest, I'm optimistic that the Painbringers will be 3 wound proper elite which tend to fair a bit more kindly rules-wise.

[Grimrock]

6 hours ago, Enoby said:

Marauders are in a weird place at the moment, seeming to be the only unit that keeps StD afloat (Archaon and 6th Circle Varanguard are okay, but a bit of a one trick pony). While we're not in quite as bad a position as StD, I am concerned that with the removal of depravity from heroes (if it does happen) will have the knock on effect that marauders also become our best unit. 

For example, marauders are better than daemonettes at the moment; better attacks, same save, better charge, cheaper per 20 but slower.  The reason we don't use marauders that often is because we want min battleline with depravity as is. If this changes, and our mortal units aren't outstanding or have a very different role, I'm concerned marauders will find a dominant role in our army. That's not to say our new mortals can't be better, but if our Painbringers end up in the rut that is the 'two wound semi-elite' design (e.g. Liberators, Bloodwarriors, Chaos Warriors) we may struggle to find a place for them.  

Well I guess the easy solution to that would be to make more of the bonuses for slaanesh key off the Hedonite keyword rather than just Slaanesh. Not ideal mind you, I do like being able to use my StD models in Slaanesh freely, but breaking things up really seems to be the reason the keyword system was introduced in the first place. The exploding 6's could stay slaanesh, but if there are a number of new spell buffs or command abilities introduced that are solely for Hedonite then I could easily see the new mortals being more attractive. Maybe a base speed 6 with a move twice spell and a run/charge command ability? Couple that with double activations from the keeper and they might be interesting enough to pass over on marauders. 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Grimrock

[CeleFAZE]

6 hours ago, Enoby said:

While I disagree about the marks (it's nice to be able to play them in other armies), I do think undivided should have had a bigger bonus than it currently does - not just a bonus from the allegiance ability that all gods give, but an additional bonus that makes them worth not having a god mark.

Marauders are in a weird place at the moment, seeming to be the only unit that keeps StD afloat (Archaon and 6th Circle Varanguard are okay, but a bit of a one trick pony). While we're not in quite as bad a position as StD, I am concerned that with the removal of depravity from heroes (if it does happen) will have the knock on effect that marauders also become our best unit. 

For example, marauders are better than daemonettes at the moment; better attacks, same save, better charge, cheaper per 20 but slower.  The reason we don't use marauders that often is because we want min battleline with depravity as is. If this changes, and our mortal units aren't outstanding or have a very different role, I'm concerned marauders will find a dominant role in our army. That's not to say our new mortals can't be better, but if our Painbringers end up in the rut that is the 'two wound semi-elite' design (e.g. Liberators, Bloodwarriors, Chaos Warriors) we may struggle to find a place for them.  

To be honest, I'm optimistic that the Painbringers will be 3 wound proper elite which tend to fair a bit more kindly rules-wise.

I get the notion that marauders are in place for a fairly significant nerf, whether with this FAQ or a later update, I don't expect they'll keep their cost, charge buff, and/or rend. While I'd prefer GW to simply increase the rend of other S2D units and maybe alter marauder's charge rules, they seem to only be capable of heavy-handed or laissez-faire changes. Without changes they'll still have a role as a large damaging tarpit, but I'd prefer they not be our only viable option in that regard.

I have a feeling we'll be fairly powerful as a stand-alone force with this new book, and I really hope that daemonettes will have their time in the sun as our massed melee infantry choice. Personally I'm most looking forward to fielding massed archers and mobile hellstrider chaff, but my 120 demon ladies (seriously, it seems like every box we've received has a unit and they just keep piling up) need a good opportunity to see play too.

[Carnith]

Someone posted this in the aos discord I'm in and I can't stop laughing at it. 

[AngryPanda]

I’m really hyped about the Slaanesh release, and in preparation of the painbringers and Sigvald I decided to invest into the Vallejo Liquid Gold range. My plan is to paint a small and elite mortal force, then from their see what else I would want to add. 
 

I've never painted with this range before, and even after watching tutorials on how to use them, they’re still hard to get used to. I painted this number dial I’ll be using along with the coming Slaanesh units as a test run. 
 

I love the finish results, it legitimately looks like real gold; but using these paints is going to take some getting used to. I already made the mistake of pouring too much onto my pallet and lost a little bit of paint; because it’s alcohol based and is made from small pieces of metal it has a very low viscosity.  This means that even if I were to add it to my pallet slowly with caution, I have to be careful otherwise I might add too much and ultimately waste paint. 
 

 

[Thalassic Monstrosity]

2 hours ago, Carnith said:

Someone posted this in the aos discord I'm in and I can't stop laughing at it. 

Oh lord, even the face on the armor is-!

This may be in the top 6 things I've seen on the internet.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Thalassic Monstrosity

[Malakithe]

On 1/12/2021 at 3:26 PM, Carnith said:

Someone posted this in the aos discord I'm in and I can't stop laughing at it. 

I find myself making noises like a kid when the stick their tongue out lol but im making a mini game of it and trying to change the noises as fast as the faces change

[CeleFAZE]

On 1/12/2021 at 3:26 PM, Carnith said:

Someone posted this in the aos discord I'm in and I can't stop laughing at it. 

Not gonna lie, this has made the drought of rules previews just a little more bearable.

[Popisdead]

 

On 1/12/2021 at 6:01 PM, AngryPanda said:

I’m really hyped about the Slaanesh release, and in preparation of the painbringers and Sigvald I decided to invest into the Vallejo Liquid Gold range.

I have some Vallejo air silver and it's really good.  Maybe i'll pick some stuff up of what you showed here.

[Overread]

I've got some of that liquid metal paint too for the same purpose, I've still yet to use it! That said do pick up some alcohol to use with it since you can't use water with it when thinning and such. Also I've read that its generally best to use a synthetic brush or at least a brush just for it alone since you're working with a slightly difference chemical mix to regular acrylic paints. 

 

 

Also am I the only one feeling like my Slaanesh is all on hold! I can't even justify buying new models because of all the new things coming and no idea what of the old stuff will change. Gah its going to be a long long wait for next month to roll in and releases to happen! I just hope GW puts Slaanesh at the start of the month and not the middle or end. 

I also wish 3rd parties could get in on the coins, cause I've a feeling they'll be near impossible to get since nearly every store is locked down (UK)

 

[CeleFAZE]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

I've got some of that liquid metal paint too for the same purpose, I've still yet to use it! That said do pick up some alcohol to use with it since you can't use water with it when thinning and such. Also I've read that its generally best to use a synthetic brush or at least a brush just for it alone since you're working with a slightly difference chemical mix to regular acrylic paints. 

 

 

Also am I the only one feeling like my Slaanesh is all on hold! I can't even justify buying new models because of all the new things coming and no idea what of the old stuff will change. Gah its going to be a long long wait for next month to roll in and releases to happen! I just hope GW puts Slaanesh at the start of the month and not the middle or end. 

I also wish 3rd parties could get in on the coins, cause I've a feeling they'll be near impossible to get since nearly every store is locked down (UK)

 

Yeah, the wait is killing me. There really isn't anything to contribute to useful discourse beyond speculation, and I think that's pretty much played out about as far as we can reasonably take it without any solid rules previews to go by. Once the Deathguard release comes out I'm holding out hope that the hype train will go into full gear for us.

[Carnith]

I was given a keeper for christmas, so I just built her and started working on her cape. Going for the shield this time around. I have no problem going "this is a claw in sigmar" as I don't want to magnetize. All of my keepers will end up having each of the other weapons. Hoping in book 2, they make the other choices better so that it isn't just sinister hand o'clock.

[CeleFAZE]

I suppose I can go with one last round of (pessimistic) predictions, just for fun(?):

• Depravity will change to work on our units, but will otherwise be unchanged aside from point rebalancing. Keepers will go up to 75 points.
• Most of the abilities will be keyed to the hedonites keyword, though nearly all of them will be changed to mortal or daemon hedonites
• The keeper will be largely unchanged, except its command ability will be changed to hedonite daemon units
• Syll'Esske's command ability will be changed to affecting hedonites rather than chaos slaanesh.
• Most of the daemonic units will remain untouched, including fiends.
• Blissbarbs will have an ability to reroll 1's to-wound as long as the haemonculus is alive, and will not generate depravity.
• Myrmadesh will basically be chaos warriors with a 5+ damage shrug. No rend, 2 attacks each.
• Symbaresh will have a standardized spread of weapons with no real synergy between them, some with rend, some with reach, some with no rend but 2 damage. They'll be about 20-40 points overcosted for what they do, but will be battleline with Syll'Esske. They will have the benefit of both the daemon and mortal keywords, which would be great on something more focused to a specific role than they'll be.
• The blissbarb seekers will just have the same ranged output as a similar model count of blissbarbs, but with the added benefit of the exalted fiend attacks, which will probably amount to 3 attacks with no rend. They'll probably be relegated to the shelf for most people, but may end up seeing use as objective camping harassers.
• The spear seekers will outperform chaos knights per model though not on output per points, but be mostly the same in terms of role, defensive stats, and offensive punch, with the exception of baseline -1 rend on their spears. They'll be priced around 240 points for 5.
• Hellstriders are exactly as they are in the shadow and pain box, and will not have the option to become battleline.
• Glutos will have some kind of ability that allows him to gain from a set of 3-4 abilities after he kills a set number of models. They'll mostly be rerolls for himself, and he'll be outperformed by a keeper in most cases. He'll potentially have some weird corner-case use that people figure out how to abuse a month or two in, due to a bizarre wording of his abilities that do not work at all how they would intuitively appear to.
• The shardspeaker will have some kind of defensive ability for themself like -1 to be hit by ranged attacks and a debuff spell, but no access to bonuses to cast or to unbind, with one of each per turn.
• Slaangors will basically be hedonite bullgors, without too much to differentiate them. They'll lack the mortal keyword, which will create some frustrating breaks in synergy, but they'll have -2 rend on the leader's weapon, and turn out to be fragile though effective beatsticks. Their claw attacks will be identical to fiends.
• Locus will remain a 5+, keepers will lose their bonus, and it will be a daemon-only ability.
• The hosts will be largely unchanged, with no inclusion of the Syll'Esskan host, which will be removed with this book.
• Sigvald will be a beatstick character-hunter, but his weapon will only have -1 rend and 2 damage with about 5 attacks, rerolling to hit and to wound against characters and troggoths. He'll have a command ability that allows hedonite mortals to reroll wounds in the combat phase.
• Marauder hordes will be amazing with our book, and continue to outshine most of our other units.

I really hope they knock it out of the park and everything here massively undershoots compared to what we actually get, but the slaves to darkness book and the last few revisions we've received have tempered my expectations severely.

[NorthernNurgling]

Well that's a depressing set of predictions. I'd assume given the treatment the Lumineth and OBR got that Hedonites will be much better than you suggest CeleFaze - new faction, new range, OP rules so more people buy the models. It's the business model!

[Thalassic Monstrosity]

I just want a book that's internally balanced to the point where I have a good selection of viable options and externally balanced to the point where my performance in games is more reliant on my skill and decent fortune than on my choice of army.

While I'm at it, I'd like my unicorn to be sea-green with a nice white mane.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Thalassic Monstrosity

[CeleFAZE]

5 hours ago, NorthernNurgling said:

Well that's a depressing set of predictions. I'd assume given the treatment the Lumineth and OBR got that Hedonites will be much better than you suggest CeleFaze - new faction, new range, OP rules so more people buy the models. It's the business model!

That's the hope. I mostly see GW's rules to be more of a case of incidental incompetence when things are overpowered however, if they were attempting to drive sales selectively via rules they've done a poor job of that with a number of releases.

Apologies for being a wet blanket on the hype train.

Edited January 18, 2021 by CeleFAZE

[AngryPanda]

On 1/16/2021 at 9:09 PM, CeleFAZE said:

I suppose I can go with one last round of (pessimistic) predictions, just for fun(?):

• Depravity will change to work on our units, but will otherwise be unchanged aside from point rebalancing. Keepers will go up to 75 points.
• Most of the abilities will be keyed to the hedonites keyword, though nearly all of them will be changed to mortal or daemon hedonites
• The keeper will be largely unchanged, except its command ability will be changed to hedonite daemon units
• Syll'Esske's command ability will be changed to affecting hedonites rather than chaos slaanesh.
• Most of the daemonic units will remain untouched, including fiends.
• Blissbarbs will have an ability to reroll 1's to-wound as long as the haemonculus is alive, and will not generate depravity.
• Myrmadesh will basically be chaos warriors with a 5+ damage shrug. No rend, 2 attacks each.
• Symbaresh will have a standardized spread of weapons with no real synergy between them, some with rend, some with reach, some with no rend but 2 damage. They'll be about 20-40 points overcosted for what they do, but will be battleline with Syll'Esske. They will have the benefit of both the daemon and mortal keywords, which would be great on something more focused to a specific role than they'll be.
• The blissbarb seekers will just have the same ranged output as a similar model count of blissbarbs, but with the added benefit of the exalted fiend attacks, which will probably amount to 3 attacks with no rend. They'll probably be relegated to the shelf for most people, but may end up seeing use as objective camping harassers.
• The spear seekers will outperform chaos knights per model though not on output per points, but be mostly the same in terms of role, defensive stats, and offensive punch, with the exception of baseline -1 rend on their spears. They'll be priced around 240 points for 5.
• Hellstriders are exactly as they are in the shadow and pain box, and will not have the option to become battleline.
• Glutos will have some kind of ability that allows him to gain from a set of 3-4 abilities after he kills a set number of models. They'll mostly be rerolls for himself, and he'll be outperformed by a keeper in most cases. He'll potentially have some weird corner-case use that people figure out how to abuse a month or two in, due to a bizarre wording of his abilities that do not work at all how they would intuitively appear to.
• The shardspeaker will have some kind of defensive ability for themself like -1 to be hit by ranged attacks and a debuff spell, but no access to bonuses to cast or to unbind, with one of each per turn.
• Slaangors will basically be hedonite bullgors, without too much to differentiate them. They'll lack the mortal keyword, which will create some frustrating breaks in synergy, but they'll have -2 rend on the leader's weapon, and turn out to be fragile though effective beatsticks. Their claw attacks will be identical to fiends.
• Locus will remain a 5+, keepers will lose their bonus, and it will be a daemon-only ability.
• The hosts will be largely unchanged, with no inclusion of the Syll'Esskan host, which will be removed with this book.
• Sigvald will be a beatstick character-hunter, but his weapon will only have -1 rend and 2 damage with about 5 attacks, rerolling to hit and to wound against characters and troggoths. He'll have a command ability that allows hedonite mortals to reroll wounds in the combat phase.
• Marauder hordes will be amazing with our book, and continue to outshine most of our other units.

I really hope they knock it out of the park and everything here massively undershoots compared to what we actually get, but the slaves to darkness book and the last few revisions we've received have tempered my expectations severely.

It’s a good way of looking at it. I’m low balling my prospects  because despite believing that the Slaanesh release will be decent or above average, I want to be surprised on how awesome the rules will be. 
 

If it were 40k, I would have much lower expectations; for some reason GW has a very hard time updating codexes fairly and on time. Many armies in 40k have gotten very poor treatment with the new edition, and are desperate for updates (Tau, Greyknights, GSC, etc.) that sadly will probably not be released anytime soon. It’s such a volatile game system, that with the span of a few months your army can be top tier, only to end up at the bottom. 
 

From what I’ve gathered, Age of Sigmar is much more stable in terms of power levels, and GW seems to have a much better grip on balancing this system. I've been collecting Blades of Khorne since 2016, and to this day I feel my army is still very much useable and somewhat balanced. Even lower tier armies like Beasts of Chaos have the ability to punch way above their weight; this cannot be said for 40k. That’s not to say that there are certain armies and specified units that need to be buffed/debuffed, but generally I’ve been happy with how AoS has been balanced.  

Edited January 18, 2021 by AngryPanda

[CeleFAZE]

11 minutes ago, AngryPanda said:

It’s a good way of looking at it. I’m low balling my prospects  because despite believing that the Slaanesh release will be decent or above average, I want to be surprised on how awesome the rules will be. 
 

If it were 40k, I would have much lower expectations; for some reason GW has a very hard time updating codexes fairly and on time. Many armies in 40k have gotten very poor treatment with the new edition, and are desperate for updates (Tau, Greyknights, GSC, etc.) that sadly will probably not be released anytime soon. It’s such a volatile game system, that with the span of a few months your army can be top tier, only to end up at the bottom. 
 

From what I’ve gathered, Age of Sigmar is much more stable in terms of power levels, and GW seems to have a much better grip on balancing this system. I've been collecting Blades of Khorne since 2016, and to this day I feel my army is still very much useable and somewhat balanced. Even lower tier armies like Beasts of Chaos have the ability to punch way above their weight; this cannot be said for 40k. That’s not to say that there are certain armies and specified units that need to be buffed/debuffed, but generally I’ve been happy with how AoS has been balanced.  

If nothing else shooting is the least balanced factor in AoS at the moment, so as long as blissbarbs are decent we'll at least be competitive.

[Koala]

Well, the experience teaches that in AoS 2.0 "new ist always better". So i am less concerned with the viabity of the Army as a whole than the inner balance within the Battletome.

The current one is horrible at that. 

[Overread]

1 hour ago, Koala said:

Well, the experience teaches that in AoS 2.0 "new ist always better". So i am less concerned with the viabity of the Army as a whole than the inner balance within the Battletome.

The current one is horrible at that. 

Agreed. Right now the current tome just wants you to take multiwound leaders and not much else. 

I hope the new one doesn't end up "Well you can take demons but really you just want lots of mortals". 

The stats on most models in the current tome are not actually that bad, its just everything underperforms compared to multiwound leaders because of depravity.

 

 

Thing is even with the current roster, Slaanesh has some really neat themes within its force. You've got chariot and seeker forces; leader focused; demon infantry and monsters; a mix-mash. With the new additions an infantry heavy force with elite and swarm style infantry makes a foot slogging force very possible; plus the new cavalry lets you extend the performance of a seeker heavy/focused force with elite and ranged units. Heck a seeker heavy army is already pretty space demanding with bases so giving them some ranged units is a big boon for a force that could easily get stuck behind itself on a table. Being able to charge in chariots or seekers whilst having blissbarb riders behind harrying and able to fire over the top is a great way to run such a force. 

[Enoby]

I hope the battletome isn't as dire as CeleFaze's predictions; it feels like luck of the draw as to whether you get a strong battletome or not. By this I mean that Sons of Behemat and Slaves to Darkness are relatively recent but both lacking in rules; this is especially true for Slaves who had a massive roster but only one 'good' unit and the rest of the tome not working well together (for example, all of the Warcry units having practically 0 synergy with the tome). The worst that could happen is we get a Slaves type book where everything bar one or two units are subpar and feel disappointing to use. The second worst is if we stick where we currently are and add more troops to a battletome that doesn't use them. The third worst is if we uno reverse the last battletome and instead have the new stuff the only stuff that's worth using. 

As long as these three things don't happen, we should have a good book. Slaves to Darkness and SoB were pretty poor, but S2D especially already had very lackluster warscrolls that they improved across the board but still weren't good enough and SoB struggled because it was a very different type of army. 

 I think it's likely we'll get a strong book, but there'll be some losers in it; I think Painbringers and two souls will compete against one another, unless there's a conscious effort to make one about damage and one about defence. On the bright side, generally the new units seem designed to fit different niches and so hopefully we can have varied lists.