AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[CeleFAZE]

Going to be trying a minor alteration to the 5-0 list for an RTT in a couple weeks, here's what I'm considering:

Allegiance: Slaanesh
- Host: Lurid Haze Invaders Host (Host of Chaos)
- Grand Strategy: Beast Master
- Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Sigvald, Prince of Slaanesh (265)*
- Host Option: General
Synessa, The Voice of Slaanesh (260)*
- General
Be'Lakor, the Dark Master (360)*
- Allies

Battleline
11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)*
11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)*
11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)*

Units
5 x Slickblade Seekers (230)*
1 x Cockatrice (95)*

Behemoths
Chimera (220)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (45)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1985 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 360 / 400
Wounds: 102
Drops: 1

Does it seem like I'm hamstringing myself with the lack of seekers? I feel like I'm trading a bit of flexibility in the objective game for another monster with ranged MW potential, which I think is going to be a help with clinching "kill stuff" monster bonus points. Cogs will probably be cast by Belakor for Synessa to use for pavane and whispers, and then switch to the charge bonus once my summoning starts getting underway.

Still not sure how best to handle dragons here, but if I go first, slap them with Sigvald (if there's enough of a gap to make that happen) and spam ranged non-spell mortal wounds, then follow up with Belakor-ing the unit in the opponent's first hero phase, I may actually be able to clear even a 4-strong unit off the board by the time they're able to act unhindered. If it's spread over multiple turns that could end up being a fair amount of bonus victory points. Granted if it's a stormcast list with multiple units of battleline dragons I don't think I'll be able to do terribly much.

[Enoby]

Some good news, by the sound of it, is that KO had a Warscroll change in their White Dwarf - if we dare to be optimistic, we may see Slaangors saved.

[Jaskier]

2 hours ago, Enoby said:

Some good news, by the sound of it, is that KO had a Warscroll change in their White Dwarf - if we dare to be optimistic, we may see Slaangors saved.

Here's hoping! 

How do we rate the Krondspine in Slaanesh? Synessa seems like the no-brainer hero to pair with it, as she can globally use commands on it and gets +1 to-cast if she stays near it (though you likely don't want them sticking nearby each other after the first turn.) 

It gives us both Rend 2 and Rend 3 attacks, which we desperately lack otherwise, and is quite "tough" in a wonky sort of way. Seeing as a Keepers' command is pretty much reserved for Sigvald, the multi-use All Out Attack looks alright for us, and our many 14" move units all love that re-roll aura for runs and charges. 

400 points looks fair for what it does but points are at a premium in Slaanesh. I can see why it might not fit so well in that sense. 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Jaskier

[CeleFAZE]

5 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Here's hoping! 

How do we rate the Krondspine in Slaanesh? Synessa seems like the no-brainer hero to pair with it, as she can globally use commands on it and gets +1 to-cast if she stays near it (though you likely don't want them sticking nearby each other after the first turn.) 

It gives us both Rend 2 and Rend 3 attacks, which we desperately lack otherwise, and is quite "tough" in a wonky sort of way. Seeing as a Keepers' command is pretty much reserved for Sigvald, the multi-use All Out Attack looks alright for us, and our many 14" move units all love that re-roll aura for runs and charges. 

400 points looks fair for what it does but points are at a premium in Slaanesh. I can see why it might not fit so well in that sense. 

What I'm concerned about is how they word the way it takes damage. If wounds are explicitly allocated to it it will generate depravity, but if not it will be a rough thing to deal with, and we'll miss out on defensive depravity if we include one in a list.

Granted that's only 1 depravity per turn, but it's also 1 depravity per turn.

**EDIT** Disregard! It does take wounds, making this thing a magnificent choice if we're not otherwise taking Be'lakor. Definitely want it on Glutos or Synessa.

The upside however is if we focus-fire down the wizard it's bound to we do open up more avenues of depravity generation in the opponent's turn, though I expect we'll see them attached to very hard to kill monster wizards. Glutos in particular would be a great option for us, since he can wade into combat easily and with +2 overall to cast ends up being a fairly respectable caster.

Edited April 7, 2022 by CeleFAZE
new info

[CeleFAZE]

7 hours ago, Enoby said:

Some good news, by the sound of it, is that KO had a Warscroll change in their White Dwarf - if we dare to be optimistic, we may see Slaangors saved.

I'm mentally prepared for the worst, but I'd be ecstatic to see this happen.

[KrispyXIV]

As its an Enhancement, I'm 99.9% sure that unique Heroes can't bond it - ruling out Synessa and Glutos.

[CeleFAZE]

17 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

As its an Enhancement, I'm 99.9% sure that unique Heroes can't bond it - ruling out Synessa and Glutos.

Damn, I think you're right. I suppose it depends on if it's an army enhancement or an individual enhancement, but I expect it's the latter. The more I think about it, the less affected I think we are by the incarnate going wild. Though if that's a concern I think maybe a karkadrak lord with arcane tome might be a decently resilient host for it.

[Enoby]

I think the Incarnate looks interesting, and does add some much needed rend to our lists, but it comes with a few downsides:

- No retreating for a good chunk of our army, which is often necessary

- As it can't be bound to our Uniques, so it'll give Glutos and Synessa a -1 to cast

- We don't have a great Hero to bind to the incarnate - either we have to look to S2D, which have no synergy so this effectively becomes a 600+ point model, or we stick it on a Lord of Pain and hide him

- Competitively speaking, I believe (from memory so I may be wrong) that Be'lekor is an ally as he lacks the Slaanesh keyword, so it's either this or him

Overall, it's strong and would help us with damage. However, we don't really have a good hero to attach it to as all of our good heroes are uniques.

It's worth a test, but I think this will be better in other armies.

[Enoby]

One potential candidate would be the Contorted Epitome - not much survivability, but it's effectively immune to mortal wounds. 

If we give it the Arcane Tome, it can be a three spell caster, rerolling casts, with a +1 to cast; the daemon spell lore isn't great, but we do have the options of healing or horde clearing. Overwhelming Aquiesence is also good as it allows the Incarnate to reroll 1s.

[pnkdth]

2 hours ago, Enoby said:

I think the Incarnate looks interesting, and does add some much needed rend to our lists, but it comes with a few downsides:

- No retreating for a good chunk of our army, which is often necessary

- As it can't be bound to our Uniques, so it'll give Glutos and Synessa a -1 to cast

- We don't have a great Hero to bind to the incarnate - either we have to look to S2D, which have no synergy so this effectively becomes a 600+ point model, or we stick it on a Lord of Pain and hide him

- Competitively speaking, I believe (from memory so I may be wrong) that Be'lekor is an ally as he lacks the Slaanesh keyword, so it's either this or him

Overall, it's strong and would help us with damage. However, we don't really have a good hero to attach it to as all of our good heroes are uniques.

It's worth a test, but I think this will be better in other armies.

Given HoS' speed and the "wild" status not being that dangerous as we can quite easily make sure it is aimed in the right direction (run and charge + M12" the "must charge" range only applying at the start of the charge phase). Keep it bound as long as possible without sacrificing anything to your strategy and don't worry if it happens to turn wild.

The extra minus to casting and pinning units in place is another useful addition to our toolkit.

Being available to all won't be as big of a deal as I first assumed since the factions with strong units will have remove 400pts of units to make room wheras for HoS it is a net gain. Having the 'monster' keyword certainly doesn't hurt.

In the end, it is another non-hedonite unit which is better than what what we have. I think we'll see plenty of creative kitbashes to cause I'm sure heck not paying the insane price for the bone boi + terrain I'll never use. Oh, and you still have to buy the book too. As a box and release this really symbolises the worst instances of GW greed I've seen in AoS, so I am glad the team confirmed Thondia is separate from the GHB. The fact remains though, this pricing and release sets a very ugly precedent. While I enjoy more narrative stuff I hope the box itself (Incarnate + terrain) is a massive flop.

[CeleFAZE]

14 hours ago, Enoby said:

One potential candidate would be the Contorted Epitome - not much survivability, but it's effectively immune to mortal wounds. 

If we give it the Arcane Tome, it can be a three spell caster, rerolling casts, with a +1 to cast; the daemon spell lore isn't great, but we do have the options of healing or horde clearing. Overwhelming Aquiesence is also good as it allows the Incarnate to reroll 1s.

I think you've got the right of it. The epitome can take advantage of the casting bonus really well, and between fascination and locus we can abuse the no retreat quite well.

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

I'm finally gearing up to take my brood of blasphemies out for a proper game. I've come up with a list. It's probably tactically questionable, but I'm not particularly competitive... I just like the visceral fun of shoving an army consisting of the models with my favourite paint-jobs around a table. Slaanesh to the core! 

Host: Invaders

Dexcessa  280

Lord of Pain   155

Shardspeaker   150

Chaos Sorcerer Lord   135

11 Blissbarb Archers   170

5 Hellstriders   135

5 Seekers   140

10 Symbaresh Twinsouls   330

10 Chaos Warriors   200

Warshrine   215

Dreadful Visage   90  

 

That's 2000 points on the dot. And I've got 2 Keepersof Secrets, 30 Daemonettes, Infernal Enrapturess, a Bladebringer and more Seekers all painted up for summoming. 

Any glaring errors? I'm wondering if I should swap the Seekers for another hero. I've also got a Cygor who I'm rather fond of that I'd like to squeeze in. Thoughts? 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Big Kim Woof-Woof

[Carnith]

Took a win against sylvaneth today.
 

Allegiance: Slaanesh
- Host: Lurid Haze Invaders Host (Host of Chaos)
- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
- Triumphs: 
Bladebringer, Herald on Exalted Chariot (265)
- Artefact: Oil of Exultation  
Lord of Pain (155)
- General
- Command Trait: Feverish Anticipation  
Sigvald, Prince of Slaanesh (265)
22 x Blissbarb Archers (340)
- Reinforced x 1
5 x Myrmidesh Painbringers (145)
10 x Symbaresh Twinsouls (330)
- Reinforced x 1
5 x Slickblade Seekers (230)
5 x Slickblade Seekers (230)

Total: 1960 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 113
Drops: 8
 

all in a one drop. 
 

mission was tectonic interference. Killed Alarielle with chariot and sigvald. I lost a lot due to over commitment and bad charges. Thought the game was lost but sigvald was able to keep fighting every turn. I summoned 10 daemonettes as nothing was surviving combats for savage spear head. 
 

I was down to my archers, 4 myrmadesh, sigvald and 5 slicks. 
My opponent only had dryads and a branchwraith with all of his kurnoth dead and other heroes. 
 

 

[Jaskier]

Do we have a rough idea of when we will see the new White Dwarf rules? 

[pnkdth]

7 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Do we have a rough idea of when we will see the new White Dwarf rules? 

I noticed KO stuff appear all over the place around the 5-6th so probably in the beginning of may. May the forth be with us!

[Fellman]

In the Kharadron one the sey the nex whitedwarf is 20 may

18 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Do we have a rough idea of when we will see th new White Dwarf rules? 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Fellman

[Hannibal]

Hi,

 

what about Fiends of Slaanesh? Are they any good? I like the models and therefore I´m about to start a Slaanesh army built around them. Might this be a good idea?

Cheers, HTG

[Lucentia]

1 hour ago, Hannibal said:

Hi,

 

what about Fiends of Slaanesh? Are they any good? I like the models and therefore I´m about to start a Slaanesh army built around them. Might this be a good idea?

Cheers, HTG

They're not great, quite fast, but very fragile and with fairly low damage output, Slickblade Seekers are probably the strictly 'better' choice for a harassing unit most of the time.

That said the models are very cool, and they do provide some interesting utility with their -1 to hit and spell casting debuff.  I'm pretty sure I saw a tournament list do quite well recently with 2x3 Fiend units?  Honestly with the shape of Slaanesh right now if you like the models there's probably no harm in throwing a unit into a list and seeing if you can make them work.

[CeleFAZE]

On 4/3/2022 at 11:37 PM, CeleFAZE said:

Going to be trying a minor alteration to the 5-0 list for an RTT in a couple weeks, here's what I'm considering:

Allegiance: Slaanesh
- Host: Lurid Haze Invaders Host (Host of Chaos)
- Grand Strategy: Beast Master
- Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Sigvald, Prince of Slaanesh (265)*
- Host Option: General
Synessa, The Voice of Slaanesh (260)*
- General
Be'Lakor, the Dark Master (360)*
- Allies

Battleline
11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)*
11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)*
11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)*

Units
5 x Slickblade Seekers (230)*
1 x Cockatrice (95)*

Behemoths
Chimera (220)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (45)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1985 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 360 / 400
Wounds: 102
Drops: 1

Does it seem like I'm hamstringing myself with the lack of seekers? I feel like I'm trading a bit of flexibility in the objective game for another monster with ranged MW potential, which I think is going to be a help with clinching "kill stuff" monster bonus points. Cogs will probably be cast by Belakor for Synessa to use for pavane and whispers, and then switch to the charge bonus once my summoning starts getting underway.

Still not sure how best to handle dragons here, but if I go first, slap them with Sigvald (if there's enough of a gap to make that happen) and spam ranged non-spell mortal wounds, then follow up with Belakor-ing the unit in the opponent's first hero phase, I may actually be able to clear even a 4-strong unit off the board by the time they're able to act unhindered. If it's spread over multiple turns that could end up being a fair amount of bonus victory points. Granted if it's a stormcast list with multiple units of battleline dragons I don't think I'll be able to do terribly much.

So I ended up going 1-2. Got absolutely smashed by nurgle, extremely close game against Stormcast (I probably would've won had I not been nice and allowed a phase take-back on his first turn hero phase teleport+shooting that killed Belakor, but alas). Got the bye for round one, but earned it in a side game against Sylvaneth with someone tabled early by dragons, where I managed to win against an interesting triple Durthu list.

Nurgle is a rough matchup for us. While the tick damage is great for depravity it starts to add up FAST, especially in a fly heavy list.

The slickblades were actually amazing, hitting on 2's with all out attack is incredible, and those turns where you can use a triumph to get them going on 2's and 2's, with acquiescence is a beautiful thing to behold.

I'm looking forward to using the incarnate in future lists. It provides some punch that we desperately need and is a good counter to dragons, which are probably one of our more difficult matchups at present. I think with the all-out attack spreading to everything in dom range we could get some decent mileage out of slickblades and potentially myrmadesh as well, particularly when paired with acquiescence from an epitome (which I think is probably a stellar choice for binding to the incarnate anyhow).

[Enoby]

Some hopefully hopeful news is that someone from the Slaanesh community directly talked to the writer of our White Dwarf article as part of an interview and gave their stark opinions on our weaknesses, and the writer apparently took notes.

Even if the White Dwarf was already written, at least the message is getting through.

[Carnith]

If that this is what it took for them to finally notice, and not the myriad of posts/surveys/feedback, then I'm slightly worried that we aren't getting anything worth while with the white dwarf. 

Regardless of that, me and a friend have been discussing what we would even get. Maybe fight first on charge? I feel bonus on charge would be very Slaaneshi.

[Jaskier]

Hedonites being one of the few factions that gets extra bonus points as part of that battlescroll makes it very obvious GW is aware of how weak they are right now. 

I'm pre-emptively warning everyone here to not get too upset if the update doesn't offer drastic improvements, as it's almost certainly going to be the precursor to big points drops in the next GHB and would likely have been written with those future drops in mind.

Before anyone says "well we thought the same before 3.0 dropped" the difference now is the rules team know how weak Slaanesh are, whereas - to them anyway - new Slaanesh was still an unknown at that point. 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Jaskier

[Enoby]

I think you're right @Jaskier, in that we shouldn't get our hopes up too high. While they were taking notes, we have no idea if they'd even have time to put them into the article (if it's already written); they could have been taken for general interest, or for supplements in the future. Regardless, this White Dwarf may be very soft touch, with minimal changes and some close to useless allegiance ability (like "add 1" to pile ins after you complete a charge").

However, as said, it's well known by the team that Slaanesh is in a bad place by the team (hence the balance update specifically trying to help us). This will hopefully mean a large change in the GHB, in addition to future support in supplement books down the line. 

In addition, hopefully it will lead up to a Nurgle style rewrite of the battletome, where the new one revamps the entire faction. This could take a long time, but I don't think I've ever seen a battletome more negatively thought of as this one.

I do wonder if it will just be points drops in the GHB - almost certainly, but it would be nice to see a Slaangor rewrite.  

[zombiepiratexxx]

Yes, not getting hopes up for the WD update, after all, look what they did to Khorne! 

[azdimy]

White dwarf is a marketing tool for gw. I doubt they ll publish an interview that states Slaanesh is in a bad place so we suggest you play something else until we release a new battletome for it

Shoupdn t we see leaks of that white dwarf update in the coming days?