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AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion


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I agree with your entire post, but its 160 points for ten wounds. Still, the fact that Liberators, one of the the most vanilla, old and average/bad units i can think of are way better than Painbringers should say a lot about the state they left them in. On the other hand, Sequitors are battleline and got a ward for their "reroll all saves" ability, but they lost their "reroll all 1s" and got nothing in return just to differentiate them from Libs.

Edited by Benkei
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I'd tried to be optimistic in the face of all the points hikes and nerfs but this FAQ really is another kick in the teeth after so many in a row. Summoning was deservedly nerfed, I don't think anyone could dispute that, but there have been so many other incremental nerfs -- Keepers losing their CA on themselves, the Fane getting nerfed, all points going up across the board (including Shalaxi getting what I think was the single biggest one-model increase in the game for no good reason), and now Myrmidesh, Shardspeakers and Shalaxi all take extra nerfs. If I need an anvil and I am still allowed to take Chaos Warriors (unclear on the coalition rules as they pertain to battleline), why on earth would I spend so much more on Painbringers when Chaos Warriors tank better than they do? Sure, I get mortal wounds and rend, but if I want damage-dealers I'll take Twinsouls (who are infinitely better than Myrmidesh now). 

It's the Shalaxi one that winds me up the most. Never has a unit been so repeatedly dunked on for no good reason. They're supposed to be the scariest hero-hunter in Age of Sigmar, and instead they're just a wasted model with an overcosted, confused mess of a warscroll that is patently worse than their generic counterpart's. 

Edited by LeonBox
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6 minutes ago, LeonBox said:

I'd tried to be optimistic in the face of all the points hikes and nerfs but this FAQ really is another kick in the teeth after so many in a row. Summoning was deservedly nerfed, I don't think anyone could dispute that, but there have been so many other incremental nerfs -- Keeper losing their CA on themselves, the Fane getting nerfed, all points going up across the board (including Shalaxi getting what I think was the single biggest one-model increase in the game for no good reason), and now Myrmidesh, Shardspeakers and Shalaxi all take extra nerfs. If I need anvil and I am still allowed to take Chaos Warriors (unclear on the coalition rules as they pertain to battleline), why on earth would I spend so much more on Painbringers when Chaos Warriors tank better than they do? Sure, I get mortal wounds and rend, but if I want damage-dealers I'll take Twinsouls (who are infinitely better than Myrmidesh now). 

It's the Shalaxi one that winds me up the most. Never has a unit been so repeatedly dunked on for no good reason. They're supposed to be the scariest hero-hunter in Age of Sigmar, and instead they're just a wasted model with an overcosted, confused mess of a warscroll that is patently worse than their generic counterpart's. 

#fixshalaxi

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7 minutes ago, LeonBox said:

If I need anvil and I am still allowed to take Chaos Warriors (unclear on the coalition rules as they pertain to battleline)

Depends how you want to play. The default is that they count as Battleline but the matched play rules in the General's Handbook make it so Coalition don't count towards Battleline for that battlepack. 

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For a bit of construction on what we can build, one of the best (if not the best) Slaanesh players is running with a list very different to any suggested here. Note, this person is a playtester and wrote the snips on the faction article; they have won (or at least podiumed) with our army before it got a battletome at all. They have a very different playstyle and a lot of their lists immediately make you think "wait, that's bad" but I think they're worth considering as they've done very well with them.

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Invader host
Command battalion
Belakor
Synessa 
Lord of pain- general- delusions of infallibility- icon of excess

Vanguard
Masque- general
11x blissbarb archers
11 x blissbard archers
5 x blissbard seekers

Hunters
10 x twinsouls
5 x helstriders

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Looks a fun list to be fair and agree quite different to what people have been posting so far. 

Hunters will definitely be a useful battalion for this next year. Protects certain key units (Twinsouls make lots of sense as you don't want them being neutered by Rampages in key combats) in what is going to be a monster centric meta for a bit at least. 

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7 minutes ago, Elazar The Glorified said:

Looks a fun list to be fair and agree quite different to what people have been posting so far. 

Hunters will definitely be a useful battalion for this next year. Protects certain key units (Twinsouls make lots of sense as you don't want them being neutered by Rampages in key combats) in what is going to be a monster centric meta for a bit at least. 

I'm hoping to test the list - I won't run it as well as them I can't imagine, but I want to see how it feels.

They like Syn for the toolbox and the rod (esp with unleash hell). However they have also said they really like Glutos and Fiends. If I were to run this list, I'd swap Belekor and some Blissbarb Seekers (these are the models I don't own) for him and probably the Wheels (the visage, while really good, isn't super useful in this list I don't think as the Twinsouls are the only real combat unit)

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Also, I'm having a 1k game today against a new player. They may well end up with more points than me and it'll probably be a made up narrative battleplan so I wouldn't be concerned about the winner, but I'm running 3 units of Painbringers. I want to see how bad (or good) they feel now; I'll report on that

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50 minutes ago, Enoby said:

For a bit of construction on what we can build, one of the best (if not the best) Slaanesh players is running with a list very different to any suggested here. Note, this person is a playtester and wrote the snips on the faction article; they have won (or at least podiumed) with our army before it got a battletome at all. They have a very different playstyle and a lot of their lists immediately make you think "wait, that's bad" but I think they're worth considering as they've done very well with them.

---

Invader host
Command battalion
Belakor
Synessa 
Lord of pain- general- delusions of infallibility- icon of excess

Vanguard
Masque- general
11x blissbarb archers
11 x blissbard archers
5 x blissbard seekers

Hunters
10 x twinsouls
5 x helstriders

List looks awesome and fun! Who is the dude?

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Just now, Nagashfan said:

List looks awesome and fun! Who is the dude?

His name's Michael Wilson (@Tzeentchmike on Twitter) :) He's very knowledgeable on Slaanesh and has one quite a few tournaments in the past (I don't think he's been to one this year). He actually is pretty positive about our new book - not that he likes everything, but he thinks there's some really strong play.

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I should also say that he thinks Twinsouls and Synessa are key to competitive Slaanesh. Twinsouls I think most agree are really good (and with rend being devalued with recent changes and rerolls going they're even better). Synessa on the other hand is a strange one - I assume they're for hero sniping. Definitely more experimentation required 

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2 hours ago, Enoby said:

I should also say that he thinks Twinsouls and Synessa are key to competitive Slaanesh. Twinsouls I think most agree are really good (and with rend being devalued with recent changes and rerolls going they're even better). Synessa on the other hand is a strange one - I assume they're for hero sniping. Definitely more experimentation required 

I think there’s lots of potential with her

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So besides Mark of Tzeencht Stormcast also got RR 1s on saves from the Castellant which makes their battlelines with All Out Defense either 3+/ignore 1 Rend/RR 1s or 3+/5+ ward/RR 1s. They are actually better than before with the combo.

Taking into account you need a LoP to make Painbringers Battleline and the 160 points they cost I think they could have let them keep at least RR 1s so they really felt like an elite unit. Shalaxi and Shardspeaker are just overcosted. 

 

Edit: I GOT IT ALL WRONG :D

Edited by Benkei
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14 minutes ago, Benkei said:

So besides Mark of Tzeencht Stormcast also got RR 1s on saves from the Castellant which makes their battlelines with All Out Defense either 3+/ignore 1 Rend/RR 1s or 3+/5+ ward/RR 1s. They are actually better than before with the combo.

Taking into account you need a LoP to make Painbringers Battleline and the 160 points they cost I think they could have let them keep at least RR 1s so they really felt like an elite unit. Shalaxi and Shardspeaker are just overcosted. 

Where's the re-roll 1 from the Castellant come from? Just asking because it's +1 save on the warscroll and I don't see it in the SCE FAQ? I'm playing one tomorrow so just want to make sure I've got it right it.

On an aside, has anyone experimented with using Daemonettes as Battleline in a starting army with the new rules/battletome? Sure, expensive at 140 points now, but they are still fast, have rend, and 25mm bases making getting those attacks in that bit easier. Reinforced, there's extra bodies for objective capturing as well. I'd kinda forgotten that the daemonette and seeker scrolls actually seem pretty good, because I'd spent so much time looking at the mortals. Just wondering if there might be legs in actually starting some daemon units, as most are going mortal to summon daemons in later - which I completely get and I'm very much on that path as well.

Or I was, kinda glad I held off pushing the button on spending £100+ on 4 boxes of Painbringers two days ago :D 

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9 hours ago, AngryPanda said:

I am familiar with the other changes, the concern I have is the lack of understanding for the differences between the individual armies that they have failed to take into consideration. To elaborate, a unit of Chaos Warriors losing their rerolls might sting, but they’re cheap enough to take in larger units and they still have MW protection. They won’t be killing anything, but a high number of bodies with a +3/+5 MW save is still going to do it’s intended job despite not having rerolls. Same with Chaos knights, Chaos Lords, etc. They’re still capable doing their intended job because they’re cheap enough to do so. 
 

Painbringers, by comparison, are now unable to do what they’re intended for. 160 points for five wounds was more understandable when they had reroll saves because it made them an elite option with high survivability. A unit of 10 Painbringers at 320 points holding off a horde of 60 Skaven is fluffy and made sense from a design choice, especially considering that their main weakness is mortal wounds. Now? They’re a worse version of Chaos Warriors. Sure, they could do more damage, but their damage output isn’t stellar. They’ve lost what made them special, and now they’re overpriced and can’t fill the role they were supposed to.
 

It just seems that GW doesn’t comprehend the changes that they’re making, especially when they make universal changes such as this. It is very lazy to not consider the individual armies that are being affected. It’s also not like Painbringers were smashing the tournament scenes. We’ve struggled to be a mid tier army since our relatively recent release in February, and they were one of the only options that were considered to be just ok. 

I'm not saying they're great (or even that I'm happy with it). They sit in an awkward position of paying for above average offence and always having +1 save in combat. However, whenever they change something like this it is impossible catch everything. However, however, they could have reduced the points more.

 

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21 hours ago, AngryPanda said:

I think I’m officially done with AoS for a while now. First the disappointment from our original release, then the price bump (which I was able to get over and even admitted wasn’t as bad as it seemed). Now the nerf to painbringers.... it doesn’t end lol 

I’m pretty much convinced that GW is trying to sabotage HoS at this point. Why keep nerfing us? What did we do to deserve it? It’s just awful design, and I’m not buying into it. 

I played a few games with the most recent rule update, I have to say that I am honestly speechless at this point. Hedonites just keep getting worse and worse. Every tournament player in my local meta who played them, jumped ship to other factions. Simply not worth the hassle. Generally, the online HoS communities all seem to agree that GW is completely destroying us.  

I will continue playing them sometimes, but Soulblight are going to be my primary faction from now. 

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I’m gonna make Slaanesh my elite army and my Khorne army is full of chaff, shooting and magic (don’t judge)! If you don’t believe me, head to the Blades of Khorne page and see my list. It’s obnoxious and all over the place enough that it just might work!

Slaanesh is going to focus on an Invaders list with Sigvald, Dex, three units of Hellstriders, a unit of 10 Twinsouls, a contorted epitome, and I’m not sure what else to round out with yet. Gotta see where I’m at. I want that keeper. I just don’t know if it works…

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I just had a 1k point game VS Soulblight; they were a new player so it was an overwhelming victory (not helped by the new players terrible rolls on some units - I didn't want to win that badly or win at all really!). 

My (very casual) list was:

Pretenders 

Lord of Pain, Rod of Domination, Monarch of Lies, Strength of Godhood (which I totally forgot because I am not used to Pretenders at all :P )

Shardspeaker (who was on strike for the entire game)

5 Painbringers

5 Painbringers

5 Painbringers

5 Twinsouls

Mesmerising mirror (not coming out on the Shardspeaker's watch!)

Their list was basically cursed city and 5 Blood Knights

Painbringers were actually nowhere near as bad as I thought they'd be. Not worth 160 points, but 3+ save in combat (ignoring -1 rend with mystic shield or a CA) was actually pretty good, allowing me to tank three rounds of combat with Bloodknights. No unit of Painbringers died (one was left on two). They did roll very well for damage - I'm talking consistent 4MWs and many saves. I wouldn't take their damage as sign of much besides my good luck

Twinsouls just murdered what they touched (so long as they weren't Bloodknights). Standard affair. 

Lord of Pain did decent damage but was just their for their general battleline.

Shardspeaker was on strike and did pretty much nothing all game - three 1s on her mirror for good measure :P

I got 25 DP over 3 turns at 1k points - Pretenders is actually pretty good at DP generation.

Also, Rod of Domination is very nice - it's both hero phases by the look of it that it can steal a CP, which are now super important. 

Tbh, I want to investigate more with Pretenders

Edited by Enoby
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10 minutes ago, Selpharia said:

Glad to hear there’s some play! Do you think it’s worth trying in a unit of 10 for command efficiency?

For Painbringers, I still think they're best in 5s, soley for board coverage :) Twinsouls on the other hand I much prefer in 10s due to how much damage they can dish out. 

I would very happily take Painbringers at 130-140 points. Yes, they were nerfed, but they're not all that bad :)

Also, I think I might like the Rod of Domination over the Rod of Misrule... 

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27 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Painbringers were actually nowhere near as bad as I thought they'd be. Not worth 160 points, but 3+ save in combat (ignoring -1 rend with mystic shield or a CA) was actually pretty good, allowing me to tank three rounds of combat with Bloodknights. No unit of Painbringers died (one was left on two). They did roll very well for damage - I'm talking consistent 4MWs and many saves. I wouldn't take their damage as sign of much besides my good luck

At this point, with all the changes that's going around I am going ignore everything that isn't explicitly tested in-game. Not because of my optimism (or me knowing better than anyone else) but because people have been so incredibly wrong about HoS leading up to 3rd. I'm more referring to the "wisdom" of youtubers than anyone else (some of them should be ashamed of themselves).

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56 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Painbringers were actually nowhere near as bad as I thought they'd be. Not worth 160 points, but 3+ save in combat (ignoring -1 rend with mystic shield or a CA) was actually pretty good, allowing me to tank three rounds of combat with Bloodknights.

Did your opponent do the Blood Knight thing where they retreat out of combat over the unit they are fighting and charge again in order to get those free mortal wounds and charge bonus every turn? Because if something can tank that for three rounds, I'm impressed.

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2 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Did your opponent do the Blood Knight thing where they retreat out of combat over the unit they are fighting and charge again in order to get those free mortal wounds and charge bonus every turn? Because if something can tank that for three rounds, I'm impressed.

They were charged once, but I tried to prevent as many charges/run overs into them as possible :) I charged them first to try knock one off, and the Prainbringers managed that doing exactly 3 wounds when all things were said and done (and took one casualty themselves). They were then charged which killed three of them, and then I retreated and charged summoned fiends into the knights (who killed one). The knights decided to charge the fiends, which were closer to the objective, but rolled like 7 3s to hit when they needed 4s (-1 to hit the fiends) and the fiends returned the pillow fight in kind. because a 2+ save stings On my turn I got a Painbringer back with the command ability and sent those brave two in to try finish the remaining knights. They tanked this round of combat too and killed a bloodknight (with the help of the fiends)

So they tanked 3 rounds of combat, but only one charge :) 

32 minutes ago, pnkdth said:

At this point, with all the changes that's going around I am going ignore everything that isn't explicitly tested in-game. Not because of my optimism (or me knowing better than anyone else) but because people have been so incredibly wrong about HoS leading up to 3rd. I'm more referring to the "wisdom" of youtubers than anyone else (some of them should be ashamed of themselves).

Yeah, I do think that's the best way to go tbh. I totally understand why people are upset - I'm not jumping with joy over some of the changes by any stretch. But sometimes it feels like people are just far too negative - not necessarily on this thread, but as you said, some YouTubers who probably haven't played a game of Slaanesh - or if they have, they have a prebuilt idea of how bad they are so they almost purposely lose. 

There was recently a battle report of HoS vs Skaven. The Slaanesh player said something along the line of "I'm taking three infernal enrapturesses even though they're the worse warscroll in the world and then I'm just taking multiple chariots with no game plan" - that's totally fine if they want to run a silly game with a silly list. But then when they inevitably lost because they didn't have a plan or a good list at all they then come out with "So basically this battletome is nerf 3. I didn't even want to buy the second battletome because it's so bad, as you could see here." 

It was very frustrating because they set up the Slaanesh list to fail... and then complained when it failed?

Same with the Dark Artisan and MWG saying that the book was terrible after playing awfully and forgetting all of the allegiance abilities. It's just so dishonest and they seem to use it as an excuse almost? I think I've seen a single battle report with a non-new player actually trying with a Slaanesh list. All of the others have been new players (which is totally fine, but there'll always be mistakes) or people who start or end the report with "and we know the Slaanesh battletome is rubbish, so we're just going to mess about for a bit".

Like I said, I totally understand the negativity. Some of the points changes are just baffling (I challenge anyone to convince me Slaangors needed the 10 extra points), and the nerf to Painbringers is disappointing. I totally agree. But on the other hand, I've already been nearly swept away by negativity before (when the 3e points came out) and I decided to try some games rather than pack my stuff away and I'm really glad I did. We're weaker in some ways than before, but on the other hand I haven't played a 3e game (even games I've lost) that I felt I lost because of Slaanesh being weak. In fact, I've really enjoyed every game. 

I guess all I'm asking is for people in this thread to give it a go (even with proxies). You may find it absolutely sucks - and if that's so, it's disappointing but understandable. However, from personal experience I'm really glad I didn't just pack in at the 3e points. There are so many people (again, not necessarily on this thread but on Whatsapp groups, Discords, and even around this site) who seem to have an unshakable belief of "Slaanesh bad" despite having little to no experience with Slaanesh or have made a list they believe is the best possible and then believe Slaanesh is bad when their best list loses rather than trying something else. 

We have some bad stuff about us - no question - but it's so easy to be swept up in negativity and to just give up without experimentation. That's not to say you should stay if you don't want to - if it's causing you more grief than it's worth, just take a break :) But if you're in the camp of "I wish I could like this faction but it's so bad", I'd really recommend trying a few games because I was very pleasantly surprised 

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