AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Acid_Nine]

So is there any reason to have a slave to darkness focused hedonites army? Was wondering about it but it seems hard to make work. Are chosen good to have in this army?

[Enoby]

Just had a game against bloodwarrior focussed Khorne. As before, the game was over turn 2 (well halfway through) with 37 depravity points. 

I was using invaders and the only two units that did anything were the KoS (with skintaker and the thermalrider cloak) and 30 daemonettes. To keep a long story short, the KoS charged in and killed his slaughterpriest and skullreapers and the daemonettes got rid of bloodreavers. 

[Poryague]

28 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Just had a game against bloodwarrior focussed Khorne. As before, the game was over turn 2 (well halfway through) with 37 depravity points. 

I was using invaders and the only two units that did anything were the KoS (with skintaker and the thermalrider cloak) and 30 daemonettes. To keep a long story short, the KoS charged in and killed his slaughterpriest and skullreapers and the daemonettes got rid of bloodreavers. 

That thermal rider cloak is hard not to give to the keeper. Just jump the line and kill the hero's. For armies that rely on them this is a nightmare.  Right now there a lot of armies that need that hero synergy to work. I think thermal rider cloak works best in godseekers because you can get run and charge or retreat and charge. Forces a hard choice on opponents army and how the screen has to be made.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Poryague

[kenshin620]

1 hour ago, Acid_Nine said:

So is there any reason to have a slave to darkness focused hedonites army? Was wondering about it but it seems hard to make work. Are chosen good to have in this army?

I think if you want to run a lot of marauders, slaanesh works well. Exploding 6's with flails can stack on some decent hurt.

[Poryague]

1 hour ago, Acid_Nine said:

So is there any reason to have a slave to darkness focused hedonites army? Was wondering about it but it seems hard to make work. Are chosen good to have in this army?

Marauders make decent chaff and are cheap. Chaos warriors are decent objective sitters. Chaos lord on foot when marked slaanesh command ability grants run and charge to slaves to darkness. Marauders get +1 to run and charge so decent movement.

[Backbreaker]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

Just had a game against bloodwarrior focussed Khorne. As before, the game was over turn 2 (well halfway through) with 37 depravity points. 

I was using invaders and the only two units that did anything were the KoS (with skintaker and the thermalrider cloak) and 30 daemonettes. To keep a long story short, the KoS charged in and killed his slaughterpriest and skullreapers and the daemonettes got rid of bloodreavers. 

Yup, I'm getting a lot of feedbacks like this one... games ending at T2...

Honest question for everyone :

Did you lose any of your games with hedonites ? Apart against a reapers spam, I'm starting to really dislike this army...

 

 

[Poryague]

32 minutes ago, Backbreaker said:

Yup, I'm getting a lot of feedbacks like this one... games ending at T2...

Honest question for everyone :

Did you lose any of your games with hedonites ? Apart against a reapers spam, I'm starting to really dislike this army...

 

 

Just keep in mind new army new mechanics so people have to learn how to deal with it.  The problem sometimes in order to deal with new mechanics people may have to change there army. Sometimes players have to change the army drastically and end up playing it in a way they dislike in order to deal with certain armies. The majority of people suck at change and usually have to have there teeth kicked in in order to change sometimes multiple times.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Poryague

[Overread]

I think the big trick people have to learn playing against Slaanesh is learning to tackle Depravity generation. No matter if they are skaven with lots of 1 wound models or stormcast with nearly all multiwound; they've got to learn the threat that isn't visible is the leaders generating depravity.

So I figure there is going to be a learning curve as people aim to tackle things in a different way. Learning to focus attacks on a single leader far more so to take them down in one go - sure it generates depravity but it caps it at that leaders health value (minus 1 because the last kills and doesn't generate depravity); vs learning to throw a chunk of weaker units at a leader to not land wounds, but just tie them up for a bit. 

 

That said I wonder if people are loading up way more than GW guessed we would with regard to leaders. Rightnow I feel like the cornerstone of most Slaanesh forces is the mantra of filling the leaders limit and then throwing troops in with what is left. 

[Poryague]

30 minutes ago, Overread said:

I think the big trick people have to learn playing against Slaanesh is learning to tackle Depravity generation. No matter if they are skaven with lots of 1 wound models or stormcast with nearly all multiwound; they've got to learn the threat that isn't visible is the leaders generating depravity.

So I figure there is going to be a learning curve as people aim to tackle things in a different way. Learning to focus attacks on a single leader far more so to take them down in one go - sure it generates depravity but it caps it at that leaders health value (minus 1 because the last kills and doesn't generate depravity); vs learning to throw a chunk of weaker units at a leader to not land wounds, but just tie them up for a bit. 

 

That said I wonder if people are loading up way more than GW guessed we would with regard to leaders. Rightnow I feel like the cornerstone of most Slaanesh forces is the mantra of filling the leaders limit and then throwing troops in with what is left. 

Yeah find my list tend to be leader heavy. Though horde based builds are possible. The thing is do you like BoC or chaos marauders let alone playing a more horde army. 

[Acid_Nine]

3 hours ago, Poryague said:

Marauders make decent chaff and are cheap. Chaos warriors are decent objective sitters. Chaos lord on foot when marked slaanesh command ability grants run and charge to slaves to darkness. Marauders get +1 to run and charge so decent movement.

yea I was mainly looking at chaos warriors, chosen, demon princes and chaos lords for the main core, but It seems that I may as well play a straight slaves army if I don't have any demons?

[Poryague]

2 minutes ago, Acid_Nine said:

yea I was mainly looking at chaos warriors, chosen, demon princes and chaos lords for the main core, but It seems that I may as well play a straight slaves army if I don't have any demons?

Some of The books synergy is the headonite key word to get more out of it. Some spells, keeper command ability  and the locus are tied to that key word. Slaves dont have access to a battallion that is slaanesh like BoC. Part of the issue with slaves they have not had there update yet. Though there are some combos that can be useful. Its matter of figuring out what works and what doesn't. They do benefit and probably strongest when added to the slaanesh compared to other gods.

[CeleFAZE]

13 minutes ago, Poryague said:

Some of The books synergy is the headonite key word to get more out of it. Some spells, keeper command ability  and the locus are tied to that key word. Slaves dont have access to a battallion that is slaanesh like BoC. Part of the issue with slaves they have not had there update yet. Though there are some combos that can be useful. Its matter of figuring out what works and what doesn't. They do benefit and probably strongest when added to the slaanesh compared to other gods.

That being said, StD and BoC models are less expensive points-wise, as they don't have the abilities and summonability baked into their points cost like models with the Hedonite keyword do. It might be effective to run mostly mortals or beasts in the list itself alongside a keeper and epitome to use the locus and horrible fascination. Then you can summon demons as needed as you generate depravity, based on whatever it is you need at any given time.

Basically no matter what you run as your baseline you're going to at least be summoning demons, completely eschewing them is going to be a handicap.

[Enoby]

4 hours ago, Backbreaker said:

Did you lose any of your games with hedonites ? Apart against a reapers spam, I'm starting to really dislike this army...

I've not lost a game yet, and have had some opponents say they feel the army is too strong, but I think there's a learning curve to beat Slaanesh. People unfamiliar with the army will struggle to begin with and often find them overwhelming. 

Why do you dislike the army?

[Kasper]

4 hours ago, Backbreaker said:

Yup, I'm getting a lot of feedbacks like this one... games ending at T2...

Honest question for everyone :

Did you lose any of your games with hedonites ? Apart against a reapers spam, I'm starting to really dislike this army...

 

 

I got smoked by Seraphon with double Bastilladons at 1.500 pts. I played far from perfect and I should certainly have gone for thermal cloak on KoS to hunt the Slaan, but due to Bastilladons being tough as nails and the mass skink spam, I basically generated zero depravity. 1 shooting phase of the 2 Bastilladons basically wiped out a 30 man Daemonette squad too.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Kasper

[Poryague]

35 minutes ago, Kasper said:

I got smoked by Seraphon with double Bastilladons at 1.500 pts. I played far from perfect and I should certainly have gone for thermal cloak on KoS to hunt the Slaan, but due to Bastilladons being tough as nails and the mass skink spam, I basically generated zero depravity. 1 shooting phase of the 2 Bastilladons basically wiped out a 30 man Daemonette squad too.

This is why thermal rider cloak comes up in so many of my builds tag the slaan the army becomes signifacantly weeker. I cant help that conclusion it gives us more of a chance to get use out of the keeper before dies. If its going to die may as well take anything important with it.

[Carnith]

Played a quick 2k game vs ironjaws. No mission, just murder each other. 

I took, 

Pretenders

Keeper

-Strength from godhood

-Strongest Alone

-Silverslash

-Progeny of Damnation

Eptiome

-Phantasmagoria

Herald on Exalted

-Soulslice

Sorc on Manticore

-Dark Delusions

2 infernal enrapturesses

2x30 daemonettes

5 hellstriders. 

 

He took... 

Mawkrusha

+1 rend on a weapon

reduce rend by 1

Megaboss

+1 damage on weapon

2 warchantas

Ironfist

Goregruntas

2x5 brutes

1 10 man brute squad

 

It's one of the store runners at my gw, and played while the store didnt have new customers. He just wanted to see what things were like in the new book. He gives me first turn, so I move up a little bit with everything and end. He goes and makes several charges. Gore gruntas to my chariot, mawkrusha to my keeper, and 10 man brutes make a single daemonette, and brutes into hellstriders. I get the mawkrusha to attack last, and he activates the brutes with the hellstriders. He whiffs on his attacks, and this spells doom for the mawkrusha. I whiff my attacks, but second activation, i murder it in one go. I slowly grind down the rest of the units. I have 31 depravity on turn 1. (I stop counting depravity since I never bother to summon as I was already massively in the lead, but I could have summoned 2 more keepers of secrets)

The 6 wounds I lost on the keeper from Roar and maw krusha charge heal me to back to 1. and I move up, dealing some spell damage, and just engaging in more combats. I lost the epitome cause I just was joking around and ran her into combat, but she would've been totally safe. The wounds I took from brutes from smashing and bashing (IJ Ability that can circumvent out Locus), I rolled a 10 to heal 5 wounds, and with 2 from hand, I was brought back up to full. We called it there, but the store owner wanted to see how they played. 

[Kasper]

8 hours ago, Poryague said:

This is why thermal rider cloak comes up in so many of my builds tag the slaan the army becomes signifacantly weeker. I cant help that conclusion it gives us more of a chance to get use out of the keeper before dies. If its going to die may as well take anything important with it.

Certainly, I'll be going Thermal + Speed Chaser in the future. Im really liking the idea of going Godseekers with the hero batallion and think Pretenders might be bit of a trap

[Enoby]

3 minutes ago, Kasper said:

Certainly, I'll be going Thermal + Speed Chaser in the future. Im really liking the idea of going Godseekers with the hero batallion and think Pretenders might be bit of a trap

I think Pretenders is better in lower points, where armies would struggle to deal with a KoS with Sliverslash and the rest of the buffs - it's a terrifying thing to face that can take a huge chunk of the opponent's army out in one go, and they may not be able to recover from that. But in 2000 points the opponent is likely able to kill the KoS without much issue and the concentrated damage it does won't be as effective in the grand scheme of things due to more units being present.  

[Tasman]

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

I think Pretenders is better in lower points, where armies would struggle to deal with a KoS with Sliverslash and the rest of the buffs - it's a terrifying thing to face that can take a huge chunk of the opponent's army out in one go, and they may not be able to recover from that. But in 2000 points the opponent is likely able to kill the KoS without much issue and the concentrated damage it does won't be as effective in the grand scheme of things due to more units being present.  

I put Sliverslash on my Shaggoth. He made a real mess out of Khorne.

[Kairos Tejedestinos]

19 hours ago, Overread said:

I think the big trick people have to learn playing against Slaanesh is learning to tackle Depravity generation. No matter if they are skaven with lots of 1 wound models or stormcast with nearly all multiwound; they've got to learn the threat that isn't visible is the leaders generating depravity.

So I figure there is going to be a learning curve as people aim to tackle things in a different way. Learning to focus attacks on a single leader far more so to take them down in one go - sure it generates depravity but it caps it at that leaders health value (minus 1 because the last kills and doesn't generate depravity); vs learning to throw a chunk of weaker units at a leader to not land wounds, but just tie them up for a bit. 

 

That said I wonder if people are loading up way more than GW guessed we would with regard to leaders. Rightnow I feel like the cornerstone of most Slaanesh forces is the mantra of filling the leaders limit and then throwing troops in with what is left. 

To be honest, all that sounds well and dandy, but many armies don't have the magic/shooting support to deal with leaders efficiently in one volley. And in combat, thanks to the wonderful locus rule, that's even harder to accomplish to many armies withouth attack at the beginning of the combat phase.

Don't get me wrong, 1w MSUs actually deal well with Slaneesh shenanigans, and that's what i play, but i honestly think that slaneesh shouldn't be able to summon heroes. An exalted chariot costs you 15 Depravity points, but you are getting back 9 if it doesn't do a single thing. That's a steal. Removing 6 leaders before they get to summon more leaders is a self-defeating task, and you also have to score.

There is not much to say, people are trying to downplay how good slaneesh is right now because it kinda feels like it is "too soon".  You have the right to think that way, like i don't think you need to play 100 games to see that there are things fundamentally broken about how Slaneesh summoning works, most armies have some sort of caps on how many resources they can achieve to summon or how to use them. 

Edited May 19, 2019 by Kairos Tejedestinos

[Overread]

It would be neat if GW twisted it so that Slaanesh was designed to put down heroes and troops and then only summon troops to the table. Cheaper summons to start with so they can come more often and it would give fiends a place to fit in quite nicely. Right now I feel like everything wants you to focus on the leaders because if you summon more leaders you get more depravity access for more models. 

 

 

[Carnith]

I thought it would be a neat idea that you could use your summoning mechanic to summon your endless spells. Might be much with what we have, but a neat idea. 

 

Summoning more heroes is always silly but would make some choices help. As it is, I’m either summoning more enrapturesses or heralds on chariots for spells/depravity with maybe 10 man daemonette units for holding backfield. 

[Acid_Nine]

17 hours ago, CeleFAZE said:

That being said, StD and BoC models are less expensive points-wise, as they don't have the abilities and summonability baked into their points cost like models with the Hedonite keyword do. It might be effective to run mostly mortals or beasts in the list itself alongside a keeper and epitome to use the locus and horrible fascination. Then you can summon demons as needed as you generate depravity, based on whatever it is you need at any given time.

Basically no matter what you run as your baseline you're going to at least be summoning demons, completely eschewing them is going to be a handicap.

 

So having a keeper of secrets and epitome would be best to have in a mostly mortals Slaves list? how about a block of 30 chaos warriors with two handed weapons or such?

[Carnith]

The keeper and epitome are some of the best we have. A friend of mine with BoC wants to test out Slaanesh with a depraved drove and he's borrowing from me the Epitome, and the keeper as they are just hands down amazing. You might be able to get farther with some boc/std heroes as they don't cost as much. The beastlord is 90 points for 4 depravity, or exalted hero who is 80 points. You could take 3 exalted heroes for 240 points, vs 2 heralds at 120, as an idea. The sorcerer lord on manitcore is 200 points, for 11 depravity for it's death, its spell is decent for depravity generation, and can hand out a free mystic shield. All not bad things and worth considering as you can't get another sorc lord free.

[Poryague]

12 minutes ago, Acid_Nine said:

 

So having a keeper of secrets and epitome would be best to have in a mostly mortals Slaves list? how about a block of 30 chaos warriors with two handed weapons or such?

That's 480 point block thats a quarter of you army for 1 battline. If you want them for combat it would be good idea to take the chaos lord on foot so he can give out run and charge. That brings it to 620 points.  on average will be 7 may 10 of these guys getting in depending on the charge. You may want some shields in there just to tank mortal wounds. Its definitely a hard to shift unit.  May want to add enrapturess  to starter roster as well enarapturess and epitome can handle magic fairly well.

Edited May 19, 2019 by Poryague