AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[CeleFAZE]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

Someone on the S2D thread said this about their experience with new warriors:

"I played two games with a stack of 20 warriors yesterday, the loss of rerolls has ruined there survivability for sure. I usually kept the warriors on the table the entire game previously. I lost them all both games by turn 3. So they are literally useless now cause they still hit like wet noodles.

With things now having easy access to +2 saves there lack of sharp weaponry is just depressing. I sent 48 attacks 3s and 2s at a stone horn yesterday and did 2 damage"

So by the sound of it, warriors aren't too hot. Of course, you could try them and could get some better luck However, from previous experience with chaos warriors there's a good chance they'll tank a few rounds of combat, getting chipped off bit by bit, and then do nothing in return acting like a glorified screen

It's a bit like the Glutos "problem" but elevated. In big chunks they cost a lot of points (we'll go with 400 for 20), but have little active play due to low damage and their main purpose being to absorb hits. However, unlike Glutos they can't cast, don't provide a -1 to hit, don't provide some battleshock bonuses, don't do as much damage, and don't actually tank as well (assuming a 2+ save and his 5+ ward on Glutos). The only thing they have going for them is more models on objectives.

Without buffs, 20 chaos warriors with Halberds (each one getting in) do a rather measly 6.5 damage against a 4+ save. Considering 3+ saves are much more common, they're doing about 4.5, which isn't even killing a 5 wound hero who wants to live. 

If someone has better luck with them, great! I actually hope I'm wrong about them because I really like warriors, but every time I've tried them (for anything but cheap battleline) and from most battle reports I've read/watched, they've sat about twiddling their thumbs awaiting death. 

The new FAQ doesn't, to my knowledge, give them the Hedonite keyword so they don't benefit from exploding 6s. I think what it means by "benefit from allegiance abilities" is things like our host abilities, or anything that affects Slaanesh in general. 

And in GHB 2021, neither can be battleline as they're coalition. This may change in GHB 2022 as the core rules don't prevent it, but they can't currently be.

You've touched on some good points, but I really do see them as a glorified screen as it were. In my experiences in the last edition I found generally that killing power is a far more uphill fight than staying power when the two clash as well-supported strategies. Considering the new wealth of options for +'s to save to combat rend, any unit with a high built-in save with its own innate save bonus is primed to take advantage of this. With this in mind,  the offensive aspect of the unit really doesn't factor in to the paradigm all that much for me, as we have a great number of options for offense already.

As expensive as it is I think 30 is probably the best number to run them in, and may have been the problem for the player whose feedback you saw. In a unit of 20 you only have 22/40 wounds at 3+ vs 42/60, making the total number of - rend wounds needed to kill them 102, vs 162 at 30. The efficiency is definitely better at that point. They'll need battleshock support for sure to make this work at all however, as well as multiple sources of + to saves to ensure they remain largely unrendable.

Hopefully I'll have an opportunity to get some games in later this month, and I'll be sure to report back on whether this actually works out in practice.

[Selpharia]

Tried my list again battling some vampires, here are some thoughts:

Keeper: I really want them to work, but they’re a very delicate balancing act, needing to be close enough to the action to buff a key player without getting eliminated by a flying death beast of the Vhordrai/Morathi weight class. Still very swingy, and an expensive lottery ticket betting on 6s. Much as I hate the idea, Be’lakor has the kind of great support abilities I wish the Keeper had. 
 

Dex/Syn: No complaints, both did what I expected them to do, were only really hurt by having a hard time dealing with threat saturation. Syn was really nice for a cheeky Pavane zapping Neferata for 8 wounds in T1, even though the 3+ save on everything made their staff useless. Syn, in my experience, rarely does everything she can, but also tends not to come up empty. Would keep in another list.

Infernal Enrapturess: An absolute workhorse. She didn’t quite manage to intercede on Neferata giving Big V a 3++, which was unfortunate, but she did stop quite a few other spells that would have sucked had they gone off, and plunked a few wounds/camped the Fane like a boss. Solid, solid unit.

Twinsouls: Champions. Giving then mystic shield and all-out defense let them tank a Vengorian Lord and a block of knights hopped up on +2 Damage pretty well. Their output, however, was very swingy and they lost a fair bit to debuffs. I think they’ve definitely earned a spot.

Blissbarb Archers: Somehow every time I try these, they roll terribly and do almost no damage. Some nice depravity generation from a few plinks, but underwhelming for 180 points. If these were 150, I’d cheerfully take them. They’re still in for now, but that’s mostly because our battleline are in a hard place.

Hellstriders: Immensely hamstrung by the mission (Power Struggle) requiring holding objectives for two turns to score. Also had a rough time with everything having a 3+, so got relegated to point-holding. Nothing significant to report. 

Mesmerizing Mirror: This is another one I want to love, because in theory it’s so good. But again, it’s just too swingy. Failed to cast it T1 when it would maybe have taken the most flesh off of units, and then on T2, it went off, rammed into range of two heroes, and did 1 MW in total. I would like to replace it, but need to find the points, and a suitable alternative. 

Battalions: I’m fairly sure the Cameo wasn’t worth losing priority. But Hunters of the Heartland came in big to help the Twinsouls tanking.

Overall still underwhelmed by summoning and wish I had the option to ditch it. But otherwise the thing I’m finding difficult is that, while we want to drag out battles into marathons of depravity, the smaller board size and the ensuing ppopularity of 500+ point bosses who can rock up with a boosted save T1 are tough customers to delay with our fragile units. 

I still want to make it work, but I’m definitely feeling some strain. I feel a bit like I did playing Harlequins: my play has to be near-perfect, because I don’t have the durability to absorb mistakes. That and most of our good output seems very swingy and vulnerable to disruption. 

On the other hand, I’m still very much learning both the game and the army, and I think mobility armies like ours really require you to read the opponent’s battleplan, which is tricky after so long away for me, and with a new edition. I found myself wishing for  just one more unit to run interference with, but I’m hopeful I might eventually get that when our points drop

 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Selpharia

[Cambyses]

1 hour ago, Selpharia said:

Tried my list again battling some vampires, here are some thoughts:

Keeper: I really want them to work, but they’re a very delicate balancing act, needing to be close enough to the action to buff a key player without getting eliminated by a flying death beast of the Vhordrai/Morathi weight class. Still very swingy, and an expensive lottery ticket betting on 6s. Much as I hate the idea, Be’lakor has the kind of great support abilities I wish the Keeper had. 

 

 

My experience with the Keeper lines up with this unfortunately. I ran the double heal setup in Invaders along with Amulet of 5+++ and Flaming Weapons, but it felt pretty anemic for its cost.

No double attack means that you're reliant on the Flaming Weapons cast, but any opponent worth his salt will save an unbind for it, which means it is quite unreliable, meaning you're fishing for 6s to do meaningful damage.

On the durability front, 3+/5+++ is nice, but will die to dedicated aggression from any buffed units (in one game a 280pt unit of Varanguard with reroll hits was able to easily take it out in one round). For a 420pt unit, there's rarely a situation where it will kill its points worth before being folded like a omelette.

The third point is utility. The Keeper doesn't have other utility outside of the cmd ability, which means to make a return on the points you invest in it, it needs to get kills. So you're forced to commit to combat at some point unlike a Lord of Change or even a Great Unclean One with the bell setup, which can make its points back by offering DPS or consistent buffs at range.

[Selpharia]

I feel like the Keeper kinda went from good enough at everything to be a powerful threat to kind of too anemic on every front

[Enoby]

I've not used one at it's new points cost yet to test, but with a KoS being so easy to summon anyway, I think Dexcessa will be most people's monster hero of choice. I also think Glutos is a decent centerpiece too - pricey, but not at all anemic and you can almost guarantee he'll do his job.

Every time I've used him, even when I've felt he's not done much, my opponents have all said he felt oppressive. The -1 to hit and +1 to unbined helps a lot with that, as well as just taking every hit that comes his way. 

Hopefully, along with Painbringers, the KoS comes down a bit  

[Cambyses]

I feel like I'm missing something with Dexcessa - she has ok defensive tech and some bells and whistles, sure, but at the end of the day she still just maxes out at 12 damage (barring any exploding 6s), which is hardly earth-shattering.

Edited July 5, 2021 by Cambyses

[Elazar The Glorified]

2 minutes ago, Cambyses said:

I feel like I'm missing something with Dexcessa - she has ok defensive tech and some bells and whistles, sure, but at the end of the day she still just maxes out at 10 damage (barring any exploding 6s), which is hardly earth-shattering.

Well maxes at 12 on the first turn but that max increases by 4 each battle round after the first in combat for the Joyous Battle Fury rule. 

The main things for me though with Dexcessa from my use is they're self-sufficient. They do everything they need to natively and get a free command point to use on a Friendly Daemon (themselves) once per turn. They're a Monster and a Hero so all the benefits that come with that in 3rd edition (and with the extra opportunities for scoring and healing). They don't have a degrading profile and if you give them some support, such as a summoned Keeper you're doubling that and they're quite competitively pointed. 

[Enoby]

18 minutes ago, Cambyses said:

I feel like I'm missing something with Dexcessa - she has ok defensive tech and some bells and whistles, sure, but at the end of the day she still just maxes out at 12 damage (barring any exploding 6s), which is hardly earth-shattering.

Following on what @Elazar The Glorified has said, imagine them less like a Keeper or Mawkrusha or something massively explosive, and more like Sigvald - a solo piece who'll do well on their own and are fast enough to target something important.

You'll rarely be wow'd by their damage, but if you need someone to assassinate a low wound unit in the beginning of the game, they are fast and mobile enough to do just that. But unlike Sigvald, they don't get stuck in one place should they fail to kill a unit, and they can't be outran, get locus, and they don't need Lurid Haze to do their job. They then become much scarier later on. They're kind of the quintessential Slaanesh piece - they're fast, decent damage, fragile, and need to be used with finesse. 

 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Enoby

[Cambyses]

13 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Following on what @Elazar The Glorified has said, imagine them less like a Keeper or Mawkrusha or something massively explosive, and more like Sigvald - a solo piece who'll do well on their own and are fast enough to target something important.

You'll rarely be wow'd by their damage, but if you need someone to assassinate a low wound unit in the beginning of the game, they are fast and mobile enough to do just that. But unlike Sigvald, they don't get stuck in one place should they fail to kill a unit, and they can't be outran, get locus, and they don't need Lurid Haze to do their job. They then become much scarier later on. They're kind of the quintessential Slaanesh piece - they're fast, decent damage, fragile, and need to be used with finesse. 

 

Fair enough. I'm not expecting them to one-shot a terrorgheist or anything, but running the math here they need to pop Finest Hour to assassinate a 5-wound hero through All Out Defense or clear out a unit of 10 summoned dryads on average. This to me is kinda treading the line between finesse and incompetent.

YMMV though.

[Selpharia]

What would you take instead? All of our stuff is pretty pricy and pillowfisted, and 12” + adv + charge plus monster benefits + free cp isn’t awful mobility 

[Cambyses]

4 minutes ago, Selpharia said:

What would you take instead? All of our stuff is pretty pricy and pillowfisted, and 12” + adv + charge plus monster benefits + free cp isn’t awful mobility 

I guess that's the crux of it. I play against a lot of armies that like to put pressure on the table with a general advance of fast, decently tough units (think Lauka Vai + terrogheist lord pals, big units of goregruntas and ardboyz, 12 varanguard lists, etc.), and so far I haven't found any good solutions. It's easy to get people to over-extend or pull units out of position with Slaanesh, but nothing actually does enough damage to take advantage of that. I've used fiends to decent results, but they also tend to trade out about evenly or slightly down, which means I can deal with the first wave of threats, but fold to the second or third. Glutos is good but he's also just 1 model, and savvy opponents know he'll be chewing on the same unit for the entire game if they throw some wounds with decent saves his way. Summoning to control the board is fine in theory, but if you're losing on board control in the first place then all you're doing is stopping the bleeding.

 

Perhaps there will be some post from the think-tank here that can illuminate me, but I think I may have reached a dead end here.

[Selpharia]

I’ve been considering running Be’lakor to get reliable high value damage and disruption, good spells, and the ability to freeze a linchpin hero on a 3+

[Benkei]

It really is sad that half the proposals hinge on taking units from different battletomes and that just 4-5 of our units are decent enough to be playable. GW really did a number on the faction. 

[Enoby]

4 minutes ago, Benkei said:

It really is sad that half the proposals hinge on taking units from different battletomes and that just 4-5 of our units are decent enough to be playable. GW really did a number on the faction. 

Personally, I think we can do fine within our faction. I've never relied on outside help besides a few chaos warrior cheap battleline (which was never super important and was replaceable). I did do an Archaon game, but Archaon was killed turn 1 by being shot to death (in all fairness, it was very bad luck). 

No doubt, Belekor is good, but he's hardly necessary for a win - you could likely do really well with him, but he's just a useful tool. Though one thing to watch out for is that his save can't be improved (or made worse). The big issue you'd have would be keeping him alive as there's not much that helps him survive. At least the KoS can take an artifact and get a +1 save. 

Just curious, have you played many games? If so, how did they go? What did you struggle with?

[Nagashfan]

7 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Personally, I think we can do fine within our faction. I've never relied on outside help besides a few chaos warrior cheap battleline (which was never super important and was replaceable). I did do an Archaon game, but Archaon was killed turn 1 by being shot to death (in all fairness, it was very bad luck). 

No doubt, Belekor is good, but he's hardly necessary for a win - you could likely do really well with him, but he's just a useful tool. Though one thing to watch out for is that his save can't be improved (or made worse). The big issue you'd have would be keeping him alive as there's not much that helps him survive. At least the KoS can take an artifact and get a +1 save. 

Just curious, have you played many games? If so, how did they go? What did you struggle with?

I keep thinking on the list you posted that the top competitive guy will be running. Mostly all hedonites, loads of shooting, summoning focused and I really think if you want to play HOS you need to embrace that summoning is the way to go, at least how things are currently. Quick annoying units to farm DP as quick as possible then bring in keepers and demonettes to get up close.

[Enoby]

2 minutes ago, Nagashfan said:

I keep thinking on the list you posted that the top competitive guy will be running. Mostly all hedonites, loads of shooting, summoning focused and I really think if you want to play HOS you need to embrace that summoning is the way to go, at least how things are currently. Quick annoying units to farm DP as quick as possible then bring in keepers and demonettes to get up close.

Actually, I was talking to Michael (the guy) about exactly this and surprisingly (despite the list suggesting otherwise) he said do not focus on depravity as it tends to just lose you games when you overfocus. I think the shooting was there to do damage to priority targets - same as Synessa. 

If I can, I'll ask him to give me a run down of how a game would go because I'm really confused about the list! Currently has a 100% win rate against top tier armies though (baring in mind he is very skilled). 

[Nagashfan]

12 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Actually, I was talking to Michael (the guy) about exactly this and surprisingly (despite the list suggesting otherwise) he said do not focus on depravity as it tends to just lose you games when you overfocus. I think the shooting was there to do damage to priority targets - same as Synessa. 

If I can, I'll ask him to give me a run down of how a game would go because I'm really confused about the list! Currently has a 100% win rate against top tier armies though (baring in mind he is very skilled). 

Well ******, mike better put on a clinic for us then!

[Selpharia]

I do like the idea of lists with no center, the way Mike’s is. Aside from the Lord of Pain, there’s not a whole lot that’s asking for combos. Big B has two potential ways of stopping opponent movement, letting you have more time to do skirmishing and disrupting key buffs, and the Masque can drop a key locus or tank above her weight, and there are some units to speedbump aggressive chargers. 

I note that he doesn’t have any endless spells, and given how much anti-magic is present nowadays that makes sense

[LeonBox]

Had my first 3.0 match last night, and it was a crushing victory (due more to some poor choices on my opponent's part and great dice rolls on mine). 

My list, roughly: 

Lurid Haze Host

Leaders 

Glutos, Battle Rapture, Priestess still making up for like 5 failed ward save rolls 

Keeper of Secrets, Amulet of Destiny, Slothful Stupor, Claws of Utter Annihilation 

The Masque, Bodice of Sentinels' Worst Nightmare 

Infernal Enrapturess, Oil of Exultation,  just thrilled to be here sticking it to the pointy-ears' spellcasters really 

Battleline 

2 x Scourgestriders, all the bells and whistles 

1 x Blissbarb Archers

Endless Spells 

Dreadful Visage

Battalions: Warlord (extra enhancement), Battle Regiment (units in this are one drop). 

Points: 1975 Drops: 5

My opponent's list: 

2 x Pike dudes, healthy fear of Keepers and Sigvald 

1 x cow mountain guys, perpetual strike-last effect 

Weepy sad lady on the terrain piece 

Sevireth, Lord of Being Annoying and Impossible to Catch 

5 x Roo Riders 

5 x Auralan Knights

1 x Lakitu Wind Mage, spell of pew pew 

2 x 10 Sentinels, dead by dawn 

1 x Loreseeker 

The game 

We only got in a full two turns (3.0 will take a while to adjust to) but Slaanesh were comfortably ahead by that point. Our scenario had three objectives in the middle and you got points based on wiping out opposing enemy 'predator' units and controlling more objectives than your opponent. Some highlights: 

The Keeper did really well turn 1, wiping out a whole unit of pike guys with 15 unsaved wounds from the claws and putting like 5 on the cow hammer guys. She was then focused down by basically his whole army in his turn one. 

She also failed her roll to rubblify the annoying LRL terrain piece, as did her successor. 

The Masque got a clutch 12" charge off to hit a unit of archers behind the pike guys. She then spent the next two turns leisurely tearing them apart. The d3 heal is amazing on her. 

Glutos did his job, throwing his -1 aura around and summoning Dreadful Visage to mess with the central hammer guys, but was terribly pillow-fisted for most of the battle. Even with a Keeper double pile-in he did 0 damage in his first turn. 

Sigvald failed a 9" charge even with a re-roll turn one. He subsequently made up for this by solo'ing a unit of pikemen and killing Sevireth! (My opponent knew he'd lost and decided to try to brute-force wounds through on Sigvald to finish him off.)

Hellstriders were pretty solid -- they're bravery 8 with their icon and their save is decent. They didn't do much beyond babysit an objective and tank his Loreseeker's sneaky backline deepstrike, but that's all I needed them to do. 

The 5++ on the Keeper is absolutely amazing. There's nothing much that was gonna prevent her getting focused by his entire army turn one, but all that shooting focused on her meant that a lot of his other usual priority targets (like the Enrapturess) went untouched. 

Enrapturess forcing spell re-rolls is always amazing, but very much needed on Zaitrec LRL with their +1 to cast and LRL's endless supply of re-rolls to whatever they like. 

The Masque is baller af now. Healing d3 wounds every hero phase makes her high-unkillable unless she's focused. She had some great rolls for archer-shredding too, and fulfilled her most important role of keeping MW shooting off my other units like a boss. 

Blissbarbs killed 5 archers turn 1 which was great, then got wiped out by an Auralan knight charge that I couldn't really stop. They didn't do too much but getting rid of archers ASAP is always important. Their unleash hell took off a couple of knights too. 

First time facing Sevireth, and he is just pesky. 1d3 mortal wounds with his flyover attack twice a turn, very good shooting profile, and functionally uncatchable. Was extremely satisfying to carve him up with Siggy. 

Siggy was great. He's usually a priority target for focus fire from Sentinels, but I guess my Keeper was scarier. 

Total Eclipse is much less oppressive now given the extra command points floating around, but still something you wanna stop if you can. It made life much more difficult but wasn't as overwhelming as it was previously. 

All in all I'm optimistic about 3.0. The new monster/hero abilities are great additions and I love having something to do in my opponent's turn, as my opponent did in mine. 

Edited July 6, 2021 by LeonBox

[KrispyXIV]

Played two games today, and pulled out a win vs. Soulblight, and a draw (tied scenario, battle tactics and grand stratagems) vs. Sylvaneth.

What worked well - 

Synessa was reliable damage where I wanted it, and there's a lot of big scary things that REALLY don't like getting hit with Pavane of Slaanesh from across the table.  Plus, she's a big flying monster that doesn't like to expose herself who can reposition a long way to steal an objective your opponent pushed forward off of...

The Bladebringer on Exalted Chariot was a star in all ways, dealing absolutely excellent damage.  If there's additional tech here, I'd like to know it - but the extremely obvious gobs of mortal wounds and stacks and stacks of melee attacks is pretty awesome.

Infernal Enrapturess' - I ran two, and they did work.  They ruined so much casting, and did decent persistent damage all game.  They felt really good.

What did OK, maybe? - 

Dexcessa didn't really show up for me.  Her damage felt lackluster first turn, and she didn't prove survivable enough to really get rolling.  Dunno if it was just bad dice, or what, but she didn't feel so bad I don't want to run her again.

Blissbarbs did a lot of work, until someone noticed them and they all died.  I have to run something as Battleline, and of the options I've tried so far they seem to actually accomplish the most.

Seekers - decent offense, fast, didn't instantly die.  Seemed decent.

What was disappointing - 

Keepers of Secrets, and I didn't even pay for them.  Saying they feel pillowfisted is an understatement.  They were fine for getting in the way and dealing SOME damage, so they did what I really needed to when I summoned them... but their current offense just kindof feels bad, and a lot of that is just lack of attacks.

Daemonettes also felt... like they didn't do much.  Even 10 of them making it into combat wholly intact just don't do anything when they get there, it felt like.  Even knowing they're paying a tax for summoning, I wish they were a little cheaper more effective than they currently are.

 

The results of both games kindof hinged on summoning - the one I won, I got two KoS summoned and had them in the way preventing my opponent from pushing forward and taking objectives, while being at least apparent threats.  The second game I was way more limited on DP, but still managed to force the draw by being able to drop an extra 10 daemonette bodies on an objective, ensuring there was no reasonable way for my opponent to take it.  I have cool models for Keepers, but the 9 point Exalted Bladebringers seem like a total steal...

I had a lot of fun with the army's mechanics, and it didn't really feel completely awful at any point.  The army didn't feel nearly as strong as my DoK, but I had a lot more fun playing it.

[LeonBox]

45 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

Keepers of Secrets, and I didn't even pay for them.  Saying they feel pillowfisted is an understatement.  They were fine for getting in the way and dealing SOME damage, so they did what I really needed to when I summoned them... but their current offense just kindof feels bad, and a lot of that is just lack of attacks.

I agree with this assessment. I got super lucky with mine in my battle last night (rolled 2 6s followed by 2 6s and a hit for claws) but more often than not they whiff their 2 most important attacks, the claws. I feel like they need... something. Are they supposed to be horde killers or monster killers? Give them re-rolls or plusses to wound versus either monsters or hordes or something, because those claw attacks are make or break for their damage, and as it stands they fail to do anything so often. 3/3 just isn't cutting it. 

[ibel]

Hey guys with list u would prefer:

Allegiance: Slaanesh 9er Drop (90% of the time go second)
- Host: Godseekers Host
- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
- Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Keeper of Secrets (420) in Warlord
- General
- Sinistrous Hand
- Command Trait: Speed-chaser
- Artefact: Amulet of Destiny (Universal Artefact)
- Spell: Progeny of Damnation
Infernal Enrapturess, Herald of Slaanesh (140) in Warlord
- Artefact: Cameo of the Dark Prince
The Masque (135) in Warlord
Dexcessa, The Talon of Slaanesh (280)
Synessa, The Voice of Slaanesh (260) in Vanguard

Battleline
11 x Blissbarb Archers (180) in Warlord
5 x Hellstriders with Claw-spears (135) in Warlord
5 x Hellstriders with Hellscourges (135)

Units
5 x Blissbarb Seekers (220) in Vanguard

Endless Spells & Invocations
Dreadful Visage (90)

Core Battalions
Warlord

Vanguard

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1995 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 94

or maybe this One:

Allegiance: Slaanesh
- Host: Godseekers Host
- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
- Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Keeper of Secrets (420) in Warlord
- General
- Sinistrous Hand
- Command Trait: Speed-chaser
- Artefact: Amulet of Destiny (Universal Artefact)
- Spell: Progeny of Damnation
Infernal Enrapturess, Herald of Slaanesh (140) in Vanguard
The Masque (135) in Warlord
Dexcessa, The Talon of Slaanesh (280)
The Contorted Epitome (255) in Warlord
- Artefact: Cameo of the Dark Prince
- Lore of Slaanesh: Born of Damnation

Battleline
11 x Blissbarb Archers (180) in Warlord
5 x Hellstriders with Claw-spears (135) in Warlord
5 x Hellstriders with Hellscourges (135)

Units
5 x Slickblade Seekers (230) in Vanguard

Endless Spells & Invocations
Dreadful Visage (90)

Core Battalions
Warlord
Vanguard

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 92

[Enoby]

6 hours ago, LeonBox said:

Glutos did his job, throwing his -1 aura around and summoning Dreadful Visage to mess with the central hammer guys, but was terribly pillow-fisted for most of the battle. Even with a Keeper double pile-in he did 0 damage in his first turn. 

Thanks very much for the write up! 

Just touching on this point, I've found the exact same thing and I have no clue why. His average damage against a 4+ save without any buffs is about 10. If he goes all out with +1 to hit and +1 to wound, his average damage is 15~ against a 4+ save.

However, every single time I've used him he manages to defy expectations and fluff everything. A lot of other people have had this experience too. His damage is about the same as a Keeper's and yet he performs much worse every time.

Is this model cursed? 🤔

[Benkei]

9 hours ago, Enoby said:

Personally, I think we can do fine within our faction. I've never relied on outside help besides a few chaos warrior cheap battleline (which was never super important and was replaceable). I did do an Archaon game, but Archaon was killed turn 1 by being shot to death (in all fairness, it was very bad luck). 

No doubt, Belekor is good, but he's hardly necessary for a win - you could likely do really well with him, but he's just a useful tool. Though one thing to watch out for is that his save can't be improved (or made worse). The big issue you'd have would be keeping him alive as there's not much that helps him survive. At least the KoS can take an artifact and get a +1 save. 

Just curious, have you played many games? If so, how did they go? What did you struggle with?

I've played 3 games until now, and what i've found is this:

 

- i like the 3.0 changes for the game, just not for Slaanesh

- our Battleline selection SUCKS, which is frustrating (especially for me because i can't stand how ugly Hellstriders are)

- we are a glass cannon faction, just without the cannon bit

- and the most frustrating thing which will probably make me move to another army; i can't play interesting units, because we have almost none (our elite tanking units are just worse Chaos Warriors/Liberators f.e.), and now i can't play the miniatures i love because they are too expensive and either hamstring the rest of my army or prevent me from taking other miniatures i love (Keeper, Painbringers, Seekers)

 

The way i see it i'll maybe play Slaanesh from time to time, but the frustration when trying to build lists i like and play miniatures i esthetically love is just not worth it; everything (EVERYTHING) is just too expensive and the list of units that are decent (not even good, just decent) is so narrow i can't see myself playing the faction often. And i'm not going to buy any new kit like Dexcessa or Glutos after GW crapping on the faction time and again and again.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Benkei

[Enoby]

1 minute ago, Benkei said:

I've played 3 games until now, and what i've found is this:

 

- i like the 3.0 changes for the game, just not for Slaanesh

- our Battleline selection SUCKS, which is frustrating (especially for me because i can't stand how ugly Hellstriders are)

- we are a glass cannon faction, just without the cannon bit

- and the most frustrating thing which will probably make me move to another army; i can't play interesting units, because we have almost none (i don't have Glutos), and now i can't play the miniatures i love because they are too expensive and either hamstring the rest of my army or prevent me from taking other miniatures i love (Keeper, Painbringers, Seekers)

 

The way i see it i'll maybe play Slaanesh from time to time, but the frustration when trying to build lists i like and play miniatures i esthetically love is just not worth it; everything (EVERYTHING) is just too expensive and the list of units that are decent (not even good, just decent) is so narrow i can't see myself playing the faction often. And i'm not going to buy any new kit like Dexcessa or Glutos after GW crapping on the faction time and again and again.

That's fair enough

By the sound of it, it might be best you move on to another army (or game)? For now, Slaanesh will stay where it is until December or a surprise new battletome (which is unlikely). By what you've said on this thread, it sounds like it's causing you a lot of frustration, and unfortunately complaining about it here won't change anything. 

I'd recommend sending a polite email to GW about your feelings and that you're not buying any more, and then taking a break from the faction until it's in a better position for you