AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Kasper]

I mean Slaanesh obviously got a huge advantage over armies that just push across and want to punch you in the face, but what about armies like Shootcast or Skaven with a million endless spells? Anyone tried to face some of the current top contenders rather than just face smash armies?

[Enoby]

I think Slaanesh just really counters mistakes - one trip and the opponent can find their army the victim of a vanishing trick.    

[whispersofblood]

17 minutes ago, Arcce said:

I didn't think of that but then they also serve the function of surviving the hit back better than bestigors. 

How big are their bases? If they are fiend size maybe its just better to run fiends, who can be quite destructive and tanky ish. 

A squad of 20 knights get exploding attacks and tag a few units but how much space is that actually?

Think about the best units in the game. Then consider what about them technically makes them the best.

Lots of units deal dmg, but the best units can consistently deal dmg from the smallest of vectors.

Knights are relatively cheap but they need a ton of surface area to apply their dmg, and the 4+ to hit really makes them vulnerable to smart play.

[SwampHeart]

24 minutes ago, Kasper said:

but what about armies like Shootcast or Skaven with a million endless spells?

I've played against both at this point. The Skaven list is entirely unable to deal with the speed of HoS in my opinion. Now obviously this is build dependent but I'm running Godseekers with Cogs - 2 Flying Keepers and 30 Bestigors are just too fast for Skaven to reliably set up their rat trap on.  Even if the Skaven player deploys well back from the line once you've got the pressure up their endless spell nonsense is just irrelevant. The Skaven list I'm more concerned with is the slightly more mundane list that takes advantage of how undercosted plague monks are with the buffs they have available. Death Frenzy Plague Monks really hurt - especially an army like HoS because we rely on killing things before our opponent gets the chance to do so. 

Against Shootcast I've not had a ton of issues. I will say playing a Shootcast list is why I went with 2 Keepers, one is too vulnerable to being deepstrike popped. Against this match up board control becomes much more important. Ballista are only 18" for the high volume shot and given that they need to be 9" away when they drop in you can zone out areas to protect your characters but it requires a lot of forethought and examining what angles you want to have available. 

Edited May 20, 2019 by SwampHeart

[CB42]

2 hours ago, SwampHeart said:

I've played against both at this point. The Skaven list is entirely unable to deal with the speed of HoS in my opinion. Now obviously this is build dependent but I'm running Godseekers with Cogs - 2 Flying Keepers and 30 Bestigors are just too fast for Skaven to reliably set up their rat trap on.  Even if the Skaven player deploys well back from the line once you've got the pressure up their endless spell nonsense is just irrelevant. The Skaven list I'm more concerned with is the slightly more mundane list that takes advantage of how undercosted plague monks are with the buffs they have available. Death Frenzy Plague Monks really hurt - especially an army like HoS because we rely on killing things before our opponent gets the chance to do so. 

Against Shootcast I've not had a ton of issues. I will say playing a Shootcast list is why I went with 2 Keepers, one is too vulnerable to being deepstrike popped. Against this match up board control becomes much more important. Ballista are only 18" for the high volume shot and given that they need to be 9" away when they drop in you can zone out areas to protect your characters but it requires a lot of forethought and examining what angles you want to have available. 

What do you find is the best way to deal with heavy screens? Ex: 3x20 Clanrats spread across the board with plague monks 4” behind them. I’ve added a unit of 40 Ungors so that I can send it up the board to pile into an enemy screen and hopefully wipe their screen by forcing ~22 saves and then making them deal with this big pile of trash in their face, but I was wondering what your strategy would be. Suicide the bestigors to kill their screen? I know that charging keepers over the front line would work for trying to kill heroes, but sometimes there isn’t enough space to place a 100mm base even with fly.

Second question: How would you deal with a FEC king on gheist with fight first, fight twice, and Doppelgänger Cloak? Do you send in both keepers and accept that one will die? I’m considering putting a Doppelgänger Cloak instead of thermalrider for the sole reason of this one matchup, but I don’t love that decision.

[SwampHeart]

38 minutes ago, CB42 said:

What do you find is the best way to deal with heavy screens? Ex: 3x20 Clanrats spread across the board with plague monks 4” behind them.

Honest answer is its difficult to deal with. I've considered Ungor Raiders, especially with a pre-game move it isn't too hard to get 30 in range to shoot a hole in the screen but obviously that's a points investment. Right now my main game plan is usually putting Bestigors into the screen and understanding its a bad trade. The Bestigors will wipe out my opponent's screen, I know I'm going to get charged by Plague Monks so I atleast try to keep the Epitome near them for the chance to swing before they will before they get removed. Usually the goal against that build is to go full bore and just try to pin my opponent on his side of the table for the first two turns so I can get the upper hand on objective scoring, and then just try to keep pressure up via summoning. I have 2 very competent Skaven players in my local meta so I get to play this game pretty often. I'm able to win it more than I lose but its never an easy game and I'm usually picking up wins by slim margins.
 

48 minutes ago, CB42 said:

Second question: How would you deal with a FEC king on gheist with fight first, fight twice, and Doppelgänger Cloak? Do you send in both keepers and accept that one will die? I’m considering putting a Doppelgänger Cloak instead of thermalrider for the sole reason of this one matchup, but I don’t love that decision.

Really not something I've even thought about the counter on. I'm fortunate (or unfortunate from a practice standpoint) that I only have 1 FEC player in my local meta and they play Blisterskin rather than Gristlegore. Just trying to theory hammer it out I wonder if the GKoTG isn't the ideal prey for a Blademistress on Exlated Chariot? Or maybe an actual unit of Seeker chariots? Obviously this isn't a guaranteed match up but I think the opportunity to deal MWs before combat could be really beneficial at bracketing the TG. 

[Poryague]

1 hour ago, CB42 said:

What do you find is the best way to deal with heavy screens? Ex: 3x20 Clanrats spread across the board with plague monks 4” behind them. I’ve added a unit of 40 Ungors so that I can send it up the board to pile into an enemy screen and hopefully wipe their screen by forcing ~22 saves and then making them deal with this big pile of trash in their face, but I was wondering what your strategy would be. Suicide the bestigors to kill their screen? I know that charging keepers over the front line would work for trying to kill heroes, but sometimes there isn’t enough space to place a 100mm base even with fly.

Second question: How would you deal with a FEC king on gheist with fight first, fight twice, and Doppelgänger Cloak? Do you send in both keepers and accept that one will die? I’m considering putting a Doppelgänger Cloak instead of thermalrider for the sole reason of this one matchup, but I don’t love that decision.

First part you may need something to fly behind skaven lines to take out key support pieces. The model with Death frenzy is a key target. The warlock with more more warp power because you dont want a death frenzy unit or some of there shooting units with reroll hit and wounds. The main problem with skaven is that they have some powerful units and support units that at times feel under pointed. They can screen through bodies fairly easily. Even though they can run low bravery hordes they can ignor battle shock easily.

Second

Fec gristlegore 

Kos charge him get the locus off activate kos first to kill it may want to back it up with epitome horrible fascination on charge in case locus fails or  fail to kill in 1 activation because if both trigger he attacks last. Similar situation when he charges you kos and epitome together can push him to attack last need both to trigger. Can use spell mirror for slothful stupor and pavane of slaanesh. If stupor fails cast pavane through mirror you can soften it up. Pavane has potential to bracket it once slowing it down. Unfortunatly terrorghiest bracketing does little to reduce damage.

Edited May 20, 2019 by Poryague

[CB42]

40 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

Honest answer is its difficult to deal with. I've considered Ungor Raiders, especially with a pre-game move it isn't too hard to get 30 in range to shoot a hole in the screen but obviously that's a points investment. Right now my main game plan is usually putting Bestigors into the screen and understanding its a bad trade. The Bestigors will wipe out my opponent's screen, I know I'm going to get charged by Plague Monks so I atleast try to keep the Epitome near them for the chance to swing before they will before they get removed. Usually the goal against that build is to go full bore and just try to pin my opponent on his side of the table for the first two turns so I can get the upper hand on objective scoring, and then just try to keep pressure up via summoning. I have 2 very competent Skaven players in my local meta so I get to play this game pretty often. I'm able to win it more than I lose but its never an easy game and I'm usually picking up wins by slim margins.
 

Really not something I've even thought about the counter on. I'm fortunate (or unfortunate from a practice standpoint) that I only have 1 FEC player in my local meta and they play Blisterskin rather than Gristlegore. Just trying to theory hammer it out I wonder if the GKoTG isn't the ideal prey for a Blademistress on Exlated Chariot? Or maybe an actual unit of Seeker chariots? Obviously this isn't a guaranteed match up but I think the opportunity to deal MWs before combat could be really beneficial at bracketing the TG. 

I love Ungor Raiders but I would use them as MSU, where they’re less effective for killing screens but more effective for screening out enemies and holding territory, and I can spread them out around the board. I might fiddle around with using them in a larger group, see how that works out. It does have the benefit of allowing a Bestigors charge T1 instead of using a block of 40 Ungors to kill screens and not getting the Bestigors charge until T2.

Most FEC AGKoT with Doppelgänger Cloaks have a ton of built in healing - they automatically heal some wounds, they have spells to heal more, and an endless spell that is basically a full heal for one unit each turn (Chalice). And bracketing them doesn’t reduce their damage by much. So I don’t know if playing for the bracketing would be effective.

[CB42]

15 minutes ago, Poryague said:

First part you may need something to fly behind skaven lines to take out key support pieces. The model with Death frenzy is a key target. The warlock with more more warp power because you dont want a death frenzy unit or some of there shooting units with reroll hit and wounds. The main problem with skaven is that they have some powerful units and support units that at times feel under pointed. They can screen through bodies fairly easily. Even though they can run low bravery hordes they can ignor battle shock easily.

Second

Fec gristlegore 

Kos charge him get the locus off activate kos first to kill it may want to back it up with epitome horrible fascination on charge in case locus fails or  fail to kill in 1 activation because if both trigger he attacks last. Similar situation when he charges you kos and epitome together can push him to attack last need both to trigger. Can use spell mirror for slothful stupor and pavane of slaanesh. If stupor fails cast pavane through mirror you can soften it up. Pavane has potential to bracket it once slowing it down. Unfortunatly terrorghiest bracketing does little to reduce damage.

If there’s no space for a 100mm diameter base to land, a flying Keeper can’t assassinate the target. In my experience, Skaven tend to bunch up quite a bit at the beginning, when you’d be looking to assassinate their heroes early.

 

Doppelgänger Cloak means you can’t target the enemy with melee attacks until they’ve made melee attacks first. So if you send in a Keeper and Epitome, even if you force the AGKoT from fighting first to fighting at the end of the combat phase, you won’t be able to target it until it’s attacked first, and when it attacks first it also Feeding Frenzies. So it will likely kill the keeper and might also kill the Epitome. Slothful Stupor does seem like a good option to mitigate damage by preventing Feeding Frenzy. That said, I still don’t think any of these are great options - an AGKoT still has a solid chance of killing a Keeper with one activation even when slothful stupor’d.

[Magnus The Blue]

Sorry for the noob question, but what do you guys mean by bracketing?

[SwampHeart]

7 minutes ago, CB42 said:

If there’s no space for a 100mm diameter base to land, a flying Keeper can’t assassinate the target. In my experience, Skaven tend to bunch up quite a bit at the beginning, when you’d be looking to assassinate their heroes early.

Savvy players will see the flying keeper jumping the line plan and do exactly this. Its a great idea in theory to say just jump over them and kill the characters but Skaven are so wildly undercosted that they can truly bubble wrap characters to the point where even with fly you can't get into a position to damage them. I think either shooting their screens or possibly looking into Seekers is a solid idea. Seekers might actually be a pretty strong tool for clearing our chaff screens like dogs, clan rats, etc. They're more expensive than Raiders but faster with a more consistent damage output. Seekers as a whole are a tough one for me - I always want to use them but they're the first thing I cut.

I'm not 100% sure on what a solid answer is to the Doppleganger - maybe this is a case where you'd take the Exalted Keeper for the -1 to hit option? I don't like relying on magic as an answer ever, its too unreliable - especially given we lack any bonuses to cast. All that said maybe its a great target for an early Mesmerizing Mirror? Another idea is that since Doppleganger is once per game to see if you can bait it out with a strong charge from non keeper units paired with Locus support. I can tell you the GKoTG doesn't want 30 Bestigors beating on him anymore than he wants two keepers so there may be value in trying to get him to spend the cloak early or pin him in a bad situation. 

@Magnus The Blue - bracketing is a term meaning you move the monster down one of its wound brackets. 


 

Edited May 20, 2019 by SwampHeart

[CB42]

Just now, Magnus The Blue said:

Sorry for the noob question, but what do you guys mean by bracketing?

Large monsters generally have a degenerating stat profile on their warscroll. For example, for the Keeper of Secrets, the damage on the Impaling Claws goes from 5 all the way down to 2 at the lowest "bracket", and the Elegant Greatsword goes from 4 attacks down to 2 attacks. So dealing enough damage to force someone to be using a worse "bracket" profile is known as bracketing the monster. This impacts some more than others - it's pretty potent against our Keeper of Secrets because of how much it reduces our primary damage sources for the Keeper, but it doesn't have much of an effect on an Abhorrent Ghoul King on Terrorgheist (AGKoT) because their main sources of damage don't get touched.

[SwampHeart]

@CB42 not to choke up the thread too much but I think fiends look attractive against that setup. There are a myriad of problems with using Fiends as the solution for anything but from a purely theory based perspective I think the tandem -1 to hit and -1 to wound (assuming a large enough unit) plus their own potential damage output against a monster makes them an ideal answer to the GKoTG. Again I don't think this is practical unfortunately because Fiends are overpriced at current but they do seem ideally suited for the job. 

[CB42]

3 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

Savvy players will see the flying keeper jumping the line plan and do exactly this. Its a great idea in theory to say just jump over them and kill the characters but Skaven are so wildly undercosted that they can truly bubble wrap characters to the point where even with fly you can't get into a position to damage them. I think either shooting their screens or possibly looking into Seekers is a solid idea. Seekers might actually be a pretty strong tool for clearing our chaff screens like dogs, clan rats, etc. They're more expensive than Raiders but faster with a more consistent damage output. Seekers as a whole are a tough one for me - I always want to use them but they're the first thing I cut.

 

So I'm actually planning on featuring Seekers and Bestigors pretty heavily in my list for a tournament this weekend. Basic list: Godseekers, Depraved Drove (30 Besties, 40 Ungors, 2 x 10 Ungors, GBS), Keeper (run and charge, Doppelganger Cloak), Epitome (Sword of Judgment), 1 x 20 Seekers, Cogs, Prismatic Palisades (to fill out the last 30 points). 4 drop army, only one Keeper, but 20 Seekers will do about as much damage as 20 Bestigors - not super impressive on their own, but they will almost never fail a charge on a deployment 24" apart, they can be selected to fight twice, and if they survive the first round of combat, they jump up to 6 attacks each instead of 4 attacks each.

General game plan when not dealing with significant screening: Drop the Fane near where I'll place the Keeper, Epitome casts Cogs from outside unbind range, Bestigors are launched to murder everything on one side of the board, Keeper and Seekers are launched into the other side. One CP is saved for helping either the Besties or the Keeper run 6" to get into combat (whoever rolls lower on the run roll); the other one is used so that the Seekers can fight twice. One bestigor tags one unit so as to minimize the damage when that unit fights before the bestigors, and the rest of the bestigors set up shop 4.1" away from units they want to attack (to take advantage of the 4" pile in). Keeper goes in first into a unit that'll get Locus'd and the Seekers tag that unit and set up 3.1" away from everyone else they want to fight. Keeper fights first, then enemy has to fight the Bestigors with very few models being able to pile in to reach them, then Seekers fight, crippled units get to fight back against the Seekers, then Seekers fight again, then the Bestigors fight, and finally if any survived, the unit that got locus'd and hit by a Keeper and 2 sets of Seeker activations gets to fight. I think this type of Alpha strike can basically lead to turn 1 concessions from any army that didn't screen properly.

Against armies that are screening properly: Send in 40 Ungors turn 1 to fight the screen, and with rerolling 1s and 2s to hit and also 6s explode into 3 hits, 40 Ungors are expected to force about 22 saves - which is enough to seriously weaken or cripple most screens, especially as someone starts to move out onto the map. This forces the enemy to spend their turn still in their deployment zone killing my screen, and they will have limited screening potential for the turn 2 attack when the Bestigors and Seekers and Keeper enact game plan 1, just a turn later. It's not a perfect strategy, but I think it will be enough to give me a good chance at winning rounds at top tables.

Against armies that want to alpha strike me: I can use my 3 units of Ungors to screen my own army, hold my Seekers 1" back from my Ungors, and hold my Besties 4" back from my Ungors. That way, the Seekers can pile in to fight and kill a model so that on my turn they can wreck someone's day with 6 attacks, while the Besties can countercharge and get those sweet, sweet 3 attacks.

Unfortunately, my local scene doesn't have a ton of AoS players, so most of my tournament practice comes from, uh, playing in tournaments. Not an ideal practice strategy, but I've managed to see success (2nd place at an 18 player tournament a month ago) with pre-battletome Slaanesh - I expect that it will be significantly easier to place highly with post battletome Slaanesh.

[CB42]

6 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

@CB42 not to choke up the thread too much but I think fiends look attractive against that setup. There are a myriad of problems with using Fiends as the solution for anything but from a purely theory based perspective I think the tandem -1 to hit and -1 to wound (assuming a large enough unit) plus their own potential damage output against a monster makes them an ideal answer to the GKoTG. Again I don't think this is practical unfortunately because Fiends are overpriced at current but they do seem ideally suited for the job. 

Hm, I think I agree with you. And if you are able to Locus the GK and then charge it with the fiends, you force them to burn the doppelganger cloak with Fiends that they have a lower chance of wiping, which frees you up to try to finish them off with a Keeper later on once they no longer have the cloak.

I just.... uh. Spending 420 points on Fiends just feels bad - I don't like running them unless I'm building my army around them with the Wrath and Rapture battalion to give them +1 attack (I feel like they're too swing-y for their points and also only good against monsters/heroes/stormcast), and that locks you into Pretenders with a unit of Fiends and also a unit of Seekers... I was willing to do that when Fiends cost 360, but not now that they cost 420 points. I'd rather sacrifice my Thermalrider Cloak (and instead take a Doppelganger Cloak on my Keeper to deal with AGKoTG with a Doppelganger Cloak) than force a quarter of my army to be Fiends is what I suppose I'm saying.

Edited May 20, 2019 by CB42

[Poryague]

27 minutes ago, CB42 said:

Doppelgänger Cloak means you can’t target the enemy with melee attacks until they’ve made melee attacks first. So if you send in a Keeper and Epitome, even if you force the AGKoT from fighting first to fighting at the end of the combat phase, you won’t be able to target it until it’s attacked first, and when it attacks first it also Feeding Frenzies. So it will likely kill the keeper and might also kill the Epitome. Slothful Stupor does seem like a good option to mitigate damage by preventing Feeding Frenzy. That said, I still don’t think any of these are great options - an AGKoT still has a solid chance of killing a Keeper with one activation even when slothful stupor’d.

The answer to this is have a a cloak as well then nothing happens. You can use daemon princes to jump the que on him just tag him once with locus. Possibly use the battallion calvacde for the 6 in pile in and activation. You may have to send a block of 30 daemonettes to their death as an option to force it off him. The reality the cloak is there only real option against locus but we can still counter it.

[SwampHeart]

Just now, Poryague said:

The answer to this is have a a cloak as well then nothing happens.

Yeah but if you take your own cloak you give up Thermal Rider which is a big deal. A Keeper without fly isn't near as big a threat as a keeper with fly - that's why its such a hard trade to make. And even in the case where you have 2 Keepers with 2 artifacts you can't get Doppleganger and Thermalrider - you'd have to settle for the Godseekers girdle instead. 

 

[Poryague]

Just now, SwampHeart said:

Yeah but if you take your own cloak you give up Thermal Rider which is a big deal. A Keeper without fly isn't near as big a threat as a keeper with fly - that's why its such a hard trade to make. And even in the case where you have 2 Keepers with 2 artifacts you can't get Doppleganger and Thermalrider - you'd have to settle for the Godseekers girdle instead. 

 

there is the realm of metal has fly artifact and artifact that shuts off opponents artifact.

[SwampHeart]

2 minutes ago, Poryague said:

there is the realm of metal has fly artifact and artifact that shuts off opponents artifact.

Now that's a good call! Plus you get some additional (non DP generating) MW output out of the Keeper. Good for slicing a few wounds off a character or a light chaff unit. 

[Poryague]

1 minute ago, SwampHeart said:

Now that's a good call! Plus you get some additional (non DP generating) MW output out of the Keeper. Good for slicing a few wounds off a character or a light chaff unit. 

You can use it to pick out the warlock engineer in skavenn fly over it and use the enrapturess to shoot it doesnt matter if it is screened.

Our skavenn option

Spell portal hysterical frenzy, realm of shadow has an artifact that does mw on 6+  you roll a dice for every model in the unit one use only though. Our wheel endless spell is a good option with good range against there horde will do on average 5 mw to each unit it hits as there hordes have a save of 6. The problem with this is getting in position to use it without being killed. The exalted chariot helps as well. Though saying this you may only be able to get access to 1 maybe 2 hero's. Also depends on there list comp are they using skryre or/and plague as there support.

[CB42]

14 minutes ago, Poryague said:

Spell portal hysterical frenzy

Hold up one second. This is brilliant. Epitome with portal and Hysterical Frenzy is suddenly a threat to deal an average of 10 mortal wounds to a block of 30 models, or 13 mortal wounds to plague monks. And you can cast both the portal and Frenzy from outside unbind range.

Edited May 20, 2019 by CB42

[Poryague]

7 minutes ago, CB42 said:

Hold up one second. This is brilliant. Epitome with portal and Hysterical Frenzy is suddenly a threat to deal an average of 10 mortal wounds to a block of 30 models, or 13 mortal wounds to plague monks. And you can cast both the portal and Frenzy from outside unbind range.

Spell portal is cast on a 5 so you dont have to have her cast it you can use her second slot for another higher cast endless spell if needed. Yeah she has highest chance to cast it though.

[CB42]

Just now, Poryague said:

Spell portal is cast on a 5 so you dont have to have her cast it you can use her second slot for another higher cast endless spell if needed. Yeah she has highest chance to cast it though.

Sure, I'm thinking of having my Great Bray Shaman cast Spellportal, have my Epitome cast Cogs, and then have my Epitome cast Hystical Frenzy through the portal. Then next round, the Epitome can dispel the spellportal, activate Cogs for the extra spell, re-cast spellportal, and cast Hysterical Frenzy through it again.

[Enoby]

Spell portal also means acquiescence is available as a first turn spell, and it also lets heralds chill at the back to act as a 'safe' summoning locus near the fane and still cast spells like lash of Slaanesh 

[Poryague]

13 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Spell portal also means acquiescence is available as a first turn spell, and it also lets heralds chill at the back to act as a 'safe' summoning locus near the fane and still cast spells like lash of Slaanesh 

Can use it to cast slothful stupor from the keeper on Marathi or a terror ghiest turn 1. Also states it only counts the spell if it was successful to cast so if you whiff slothful stupor you could go for a different spell with proper positioning of wizards.

Also seen a list where they took fateweaver he knows all spells in the army within 18. This includes slothful stupor or whatever else you have. 4-1 at bobo lost to skaven failed a key locus and didnt do enough damage to the screen. To get to key target. Killed the warlock engineer with spell portal and fate weaver. didn't quit get to the verminlord warpseer. Also failed to kill the plague furnace. Got counter charged by 80 plague monks.

Edited May 20, 2019 by Poryague