AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Overread]

Whispers - my view is more toward how much freedom the rules give Slaanesh players when building lists and armies. To my mind good Battletomes are ones which have several varied approaches toward building capable lists. Right now it feels like there's too much pressure to take leaders for depravity. You can see it in how things like fiends, which are not badly priced, feel really hard to put into lists because where do you put them. They are as much as a leader and the fiend won't generate depravity and doesn't count toward Battleline requirements. Fine summon it, but again it costs a good chunk and you can still get a leader for that amount. 

[Magnus The Blue]

Personally I like the way depravity makes you focus on Heros, feels right for Slaanesh and makes list building a very different beast than in other alliances. What I don't like is how much it changes how good our army is depending on the opponent. Armies with lots of multi-wound models just get blown away while horde armies are usually a real uphill battle.   But I suppose balancing this out is the art of making a good slaanesh army. Spend 1200+ points on heros and your always going to struggle with 200 clan rats/ungor/Gobbos, but not enough and you lose out on one of our strongest abilities.

The main problem right now is that the Beasts battalion means you can get the best of both words by getting some relatively cheap horde units (Ungor and Bestigor) and back them up with out strong hero choices (thanks to depravity): compounded by the fact exploding sixes combine soooo well with those horde units. I don't think anyone wants to play against 3 Keepers backed up by 120 Ungor.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Magnus The Blue

[Magnus The Blue]

This got me thinking, so I did the maths on those 40 Ungor units, dam they are scary.

Hard to kill: 200 points, 40 wounds and 5+ save in combat.

Fast: Run and change, +1" run, +3" move from Shaman, reroll charge if in 12" of a hero with an artefact, max 27" threat range, before Cogs and Godseekers.

Hard hitting: On average 40 (with blades)  will do over 18 wounds to a 5+ save unit. Assumes all of them are fighting which isn't very likely but with small bases and 4" pile in you should get lots of them in most of the time.

Great at holding objectives: How many models!!

Is I had the time and inclination to paint them, 200 Slaanesh Ungor look like an amazing base to an army, depravity be dammed (1250 points including a Shaman and Battalion).

[whispersofblood]

43 minutes ago, Overread said:

Whispers - my view is more toward how much freedom the rules give Slaanesh players when building lists and armies. To my mind good Battletomes are ones which have several varied approaches toward building capable lists. Right now it feels like there's too much pressure to take leaders for depravity. You can see it in how things like fiends, which are not badly priced, feel really hard to put into lists because where do you put them. They are as much as a leader and the fiend won't generate depravity and doesn't count toward Battleline requirements. Fine summon it, but again it costs a good chunk and you can still get a leader for that amount. 

Fiends are badly priced though. Our focus on hero models is a combinations of factors.

One depravity is a hero dependant allegiance ability.

Two our battalions really aren't that attractive, and Supreme Sybarites is internally reinforcing. We need to lower drops so you have to take a battalion, one you take one you generally max it out, and generating CP requires heroes to use those CP of which the KoS offers the best return.

Pretenders is the worst host overall, so the incentives to taking one very strong hero aren't really there.

There aren't that many warscrolls that synergize with the KoS (which lets be honest the model is amazing everyone is going to take it). There are only 4 warscrolls with the hedonite keyword, that aren't heroes themselves or for a small point bump have the hero keyword. 

Our only model with a shooting attack is a hero.

Our only unit that does mortal wounds natively also a hero.

Lack of fly means our units can get effectively walled off from taking objectives.

That is just internally, which means there is no meta influence yet. I would still argue there are several builds available. The BoC build, pretenders build, and the generalist build, that is a lot of highly competitive builds. There are also many more casual builds which are quite good.

Generally the meta at the moment is focused on killing certain models at the exact time and place you need to kill them. And, battleplans further entrench these pressures onto army construction.

Our heroes do those things better than our units, and given that the fewer heroes you take the harder it is to generate depravity decreasing generation or increasing the amount needed will only further encourage taking heroes. Until of course you make summoning impossible to do realistically. So change depravity points all you want, but these pressures will remain the same and list will spend the majority or at least half their points on heroes. And, that is fine not every faction needs to play and look the same way. 

 

[Arcce]

Yeah I play Khorne and Slaanesh and beating a Khorne army up is just part of it being a massively bad matchup for khorne. Also Khorne is a bottom mid tier army. Slaanesh has it good but there will be comps made to destroy us just like every other army that gets up into the meta. 

[Grimrock]

I do think it's a little funny to see people hating on daemonettes in one breath and the saying that we struggle vs hordes with the next. That's what daemonettes are there for. Give them reroll ones and they'll blender almost any horde unit out there. Seriously, per activation daemonettes with reroll 1s unit puts out about 30 rend 1 wounds. If that's somehow not enough, just activate them twice. They have an absolutely insane damage output for a battleline unit.

[SwampHeart]

57 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

I do think it's a little funny to see people hating on daemonettes in one breath and the saying that we struggle vs hordes with the next. That's what daemonettes are there for. Give them reroll ones and they'll blender almost any horde unit out there. Seriously, per activation daemonettes with reroll 1s unit puts out about 30 rend 1 wounds. If that's somehow not enough, just activate them twice. They have an absolutely insane damage output for a battleline unit.

Bestigors do it better though. 

[Tasman]

56 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

I do think it's a little funny to see people hating on daemonettes in one breath and the saying that we struggle vs hordes with the next. That's what daemonettes are there for. Give them reroll ones and they'll blender almost any horde unit out there. Seriously, per activation daemonettes with reroll 1s unit puts out about 30 rend 1 wounds. If that's somehow not enough, just activate them twice. They have an absolutely insane damage output for a battleline unit.

Daemonettes are ok. The only real problem as far as I'm concerned is that when the built in re-rolling ones was removed, their points went up. Further taxing a unit that now is just average. Well, maybe slightly better than average. Having to rely on a spell for the re-rolls is not in any way making them as good as they used to be, and surely doesn't justify a point hike.

[Lucentia]

My issue with Daemonettes is coming from playing mainly with DoK, where Witch Aelves are the primary damage dealer and capable of chewing through most things in the game, but that's a Witch Aelf problem more than a Daemonette one!

I still feel  like a block of 30 Daemonettes is a good investment if you're not running depraved drove, you need something for board coverage and threatening objectives if nothing else, and as fantastic as a KoS is they're not gonna do it on their own.

[Grimrock]

38 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

Bestigors do it better though. 

For sure, but you're also paying the points for the batallion and swapping out a hero that does work for the support shaman. The herd is awesome,  don't get me wrong, but if people think there's nothing that pure hedonites can do against hordes then they're mistaken. 

39 minutes ago, Tasman said:

Daemonettes are ok. The only real problem as far as I'm concerned is that when the built in re-rolling ones was removed, their points went up. Further taxing a unit that now is just average. Well, maybe slightly better than average. Having to rely on a spell for the re-rolls is not in any way making them as good as they used to be, and surely doesn't justify a point hike.

But they were never just an average unit, they were always one of the best battleline units in the game. The wrath and rapture buff was absolutely bizarre considering how good they were before it. I get that the perception of value drops when a unit gets nerfed, and a double nerf makes that even worse, but daemonettes are far from average. With no support at all they still average 25 rend 1 wounds! Most armies would kill for something that good.

[SwampHeart]

11 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

With no support at all they still average 25 rend 1 wounds! Most armies would kill for something that good.

40 Ungors, at a lower cost, do 22 wounds with 10 more bodies with the same lack of support. Daemonettes can't be considered in the vacuum of 'only available battle line infantry unit'. 30 Gors do 29 wounds with a better save. Daemonettes are a very underwhelming choice and require a considerable amount of support to be made viable in the current meta. 

[Grimrock]

1 hour ago, SwampHeart said:

40 Ungors, at a lower cost, do 22 wounds with 10 more bodies with the same lack of support. Daemonettes can't be considered in the vacuum of 'only available battle line infantry unit'. 30 Gors do 29 wounds with a better save. Daemonettes are a very underwhelming choice and require a considerable amount of support to be made viable in the current meta. 

They both lack rend though, which can be a big deal in some matchups. They also lack the hedonite keyword so can't get a double activation, don't have innate reroll charges and don't generate models on a lucky battleshock roll. I'm not trying to say the beastherd options aren't good, they are, but the comparison isn't that cut and dry. Plus all beastherd come with the extra costs associated with the battalion that you can't simply ignore.

Edit: Your math appears to be assuming getting all 30 gors into combat as well, which is a pretty massive stretch. I've used large bases and getting more than 20 in is much more difficult than 30 small based models. Not to mention maneuvering them up the board.

But you know what? It's all just my personal experience and intuition. If daemonettes don't work for you, don't use them. If all you own is beastherd then the choice is obvious. If you're struggling with hordes, maybe give them a shot. You might be pleasently surprised.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Grimrock

[Tasman]

16 hours ago, SwampHeart said:

40 Ungors, at a lower cost, do 22 wounds with 10 more bodies with the same lack of support. Daemonettes can't be considered in the vacuum of 'only available battle line infantry unit'. 30 Gors do 29 wounds with a better save. Daemonettes are a very underwhelming choice and require a considerable amount of support to be made viable in the current meta. 

While I love using the Depraved Drove, the downside there is:

A. There will be no double pile in for any of the Bestigors, ungers etc, as they lack the Hedonite keyword, 

and,

B. The large footprint of most of these units [unless running MSU], will also interfere with the double pile in, and this applies to Daemonettes as well. Wholly within 12" can be problematic at times factoring in things such as terrain etc.

I've usually found room for Daemonettes in my starting force, as well as using them for summoning. They really seem to do some good work when they're dropped in later.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Tasman

[whispersofblood]

Anyone have any in game experience with Ssyl'esske? 

[Trayanee]

How many Daemonettes justify going for a Revellers battalion? Two max units should be enough, right?

[SwampHeart]

@Tasman @Grimrock I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you that based on the expected outcomes BoC units out perform daemonettes at their points value. Daemonettes are a high value summon because you get a good wound to depravity return and when you aren't paying any points for them daemonettes are an exceptional unit. If you're having issues with hordes you should likely be taking any of the following: Blademistress on Exalted Chariot, Bestigors, Ungors, possibly Seekers. All of the aforementioned units are most cost effective at dealing with body counts than Daemonettes are for their points. Once you're able to summon in Daemonettes they become a very valuable tool set to deal with hordes later in the game after your first wave has gassed itself. 

If you want to take Daemonettes please be my guest, I'm simply stating that they are the least cost effective method the book has access to for dealing with large body counts. Yes they can be double piled in, yes you must take a drove for BoC options, neither of those are relevant to the core discussion of unit performance as it deals with models on the table. The battalion cost is less than the battalion cost for Epicureans (which is genuinely a requirement for Daemonettes to be actually useful when paid for) and the double pile in requires wholly within 12" and is usually better suited for a unit with a greater suite of re-rolls or specific damage potential.  

To be clear here as well, this isn't just me playing the game with math hammer. This is the end result of roughly 50 games played with HoS with a fairly huge variety of lists. I've run pure HoS, I've run mixed BoC/HoS, hero and infantry heavy. My sample size isn't gigantic but I've played against enough different army types at this point to feel confident in my assessment of Daemonettes vs. other battle line options. Daemonettes are, again, one of the best summons in the book. They have clear value, its just a question of how you include them in the list. 

Edited July 17, 2019 by SwampHeart

[Overread]

Fellow Hedonites I need your help. I need you to open up to me and expose your cases! 

Yep I need some thoughts on transporting and what better way than to see what your cases look like and how you pack things in. I'd be especially interested if you've got KR Multicase or Battlefoam; but honestly anything and everything is welcome ! 

[SwampHeart]

43 minutes ago, Overread said:

Fellow Hedonites I need your help. I need you to open up to me and expose your cases! 

Yep I need some thoughts on transporting and what better way than to see what your cases look like and how you pack things in. I'd be especially interested if you've got KR Multicase or Battlefoam; but honestly anything and everything is welcome ! 

I use the TableWar large case, while expensive its hands down the best thing I've found for transporting the variety of minis an AoS army may have. 

[Trayanee]

I use some hobby shop tool case with steel sheet in the bottom/top and have all my bases magnetized.

[Magnus The Blue]

 

43 minutes ago, Trayanee said:

I use some hobby shop tool case with steel sheet in the bottom/top and have all my bases magnetized.

Similarly I use magnets on bases, but then just have an Ikea breakfast tray with flexible ferrous sheet to make them stick.  perfect size for 2k points and has legs so can sit over the table if you short for space.  Never have to pack up models, just pop the tray in the car and go.  Obviously not a solution for public transport 😉, but cheap and minimal hastle.

[Trayanee]

Anyone tested new contrast paints for Hedonites? Which one resembles daemonette flesh best?

[Popisdead]

 

On 7/15/2019 at 2:57 AM, whispersofblood said:

I would generally be more in love with the Doombull if he would run and charge, but he is a decent fighter, and a pretty cheap source of 7 DP.

That is probably the larger of the issues with Warherd in general.  Even with Dark Walkers they are harder to get into CC fast.

2 hours ago, Trayanee said:

Anyone tested new contrast paints for Hedonites? Which one resembles daemonette flesh best?

I got the voluptuous pink for my old Juan Diaz seekers.  I zenithal primed them and one coat looked nice.  I'll go shade and highlight them next.  Doing 20 at once was pretty dark appealing.  If only they made contrast for highlights

[Rock Lobster]

On 7/16/2019 at 6:06 AM, whispersofblood said:

The meta will resolve this for us. Everyone is out here crushing armies who have made limited to no changes to their armies. 

20, 4+/4+ shooting attacks are a risk to a KoS, we also have a horrible match up with DoK so expect them back if HoS meta representation gets too high. Once the shock and awe phase wears out I expect most HoS builds to include a ton more points invested in non-hero units.

It's all well and good thinking we are busted when you are beating up unrefined mortal Khorne lists. But I want more data against changehost, shootcast, IJ, and the new wave of meta builds before I put my sword on the alter of HoS OPness.

Now to be clear I only play tournament AoS, so maybe I'm expecting too much from garage hammer meta.

The meta can easily solve hedonites in general. I think anyone who is not playing hedonites and is playing a combat army feels we are at the top tier. However, I think anyone with experience of the army (i.e. all of us) knows that it is the most weak of any of the top tier books to shooting, hands down - we just arnt seeing shooting. I would be confident with my experience of using HoS to build a karadron overlord or even freeguild army that annihilates HoS in a tournament setting.

Against the right builds keepers a 360 points dissolve with only 14 wounds and a 4+ save, they are as resilient as 7 ironjawz ardboyz which is 98 points worth of models. In those matchups, none of your characters will survive turn 1/2, you will lose all deprativity and be back to just troops. Those are the times you will be happy to have 60 bestigor in a pretenders host with rerolls 1s to fight which your characters cower or die.

[CB42]

On 7/16/2019 at 7:42 AM, Enoby said:

It does raise the question, what should be done to make hordes worth it again (in HoS)? Most other armies have the opposite problem where hordes are just the best choice, and I feel our hordes are absolutely fine points wise (but maybe daemonettes could go back to 100); even our heroes seem pretty well priced, all being very expensive.  So maybe depravity points need tweaking? 

 

I was recently playing a  game with 30 bestigors and they absolutely wrecked a bloodthirster and a half turn one, before being blended to a fine red mist soon after. Taking into account the battalion, those bestigors cost about 330 points. A keeper of secrets could have done the same (and may have not died afterwards due to the locus), but would have had 33 depravity to show for it - a whole new keeper! It's not that the bestigors are too weak - they annihilated a bloodthirster - or that the KoS is too strong - it is a duelist, it should win in monster mashes when striking first - it's just that the summoning tips the balance.  

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that the bestigors will feel underwhelming if you can't get all of them into combat, but absolutely dominate when you can spread them nice and wide and get them into a whole bunch of enemies. It's part of why I use Cogs even when I don't need to cast it to get the bestigors into combat - the extra movement and the extra charge distance allows for more spreading out to get from about 19 models wide (to stay wholly within 12" of my GBS) up to 30 models wide.

Let's take an enemy bloodthirster with an artifact, plus 20 Blood Warriors (4+ save, 2 wounds each).

A Keeper of Secrets fighting twice will average 17 damage to whichever one it charges, but it can't really effectively fight both at the same time - 17 damage is enough to kill a third of the blood warriors or enough to kill a bloodthirster, on average, but there's a pretty solid chance the thirster survives with 1-5 wounds and hits back hard enough to cripple or kill the Keeper. And the surviving unit can continue to do terrible khorne things.

10 Bestigors into the bloodthirster and 20 bestigors into the Blood Warriors will average 21 wounds onto the bloodthirster (14 wounds if the bloodthirster doesn't have an artifact) and 27 wounds onto the blood warriors - almost 2/3 of the blood warriors. And because bestigors throw so many dice at the table, they have less volatility - they're more likely to be hitting their averages, and their averages absolutely destroy enemy units. This forces the Khorne player to CP their blood warriors to avoid losing the unit.

Basically, I think Bestigors should ideally be swinging into 2 units, not 1 unit, and they'll be able to wipe both units. A keeper has a much, much lower damage potential than the bestigors, but can easily get all of it into combat; the bestigors need a lot more planning and movement support (GBS, cogs). But the payoff is way higher from an alpha strike perspective for the bestigors.

Final note: Taking Depraved Drove means you can get to 4 drops without taking Sybarites or Epicurean, plus you can take 3 x 10 ungors for 180 points, which are some of the cheapest sources of screening and objective holding that we have access to. And while the Great Bray Shaman is a 100 point tax to make Bestigors go fast and get access to the battalion, the GBS can hang back and guarantee that your heroes don't all die before you can spend your depravity points. The GBS also can stay out of unbind range for spells like Cogs. If the tradeoff is taking 730 points in 3 x 10 Ungors, GBS, Depraved Drove, and 30 Bestigors than taking 810 points in 3 x 10 Daemonettes plus Supreme Sybarites plus a second Keeper, I think the first works a lot better in an alpha strike heavy list and the second works better in a hero-heavy summoning focused list.

[CB42]

On 7/17/2019 at 6:52 AM, Tasman said:

While I love using the Depraved Drove, the downside there is:

A. There will be no double pile in for any of the Bestigors, ungers etc, as they lack the Hedonite keyword, 

It's worth noting that 30 daemonettes fighting twice does the exact same amount of damage as 30 Bestigors on the charge without fighting twice... but if the Bestigors are attacking 10+ models, or heroes with artifacts, the bestigors now outdamage the Daemonettes fighting twice significantly (by 20% against units with 10+ models, or by 50% against heroes with artifacts. Bestigors are also 4 inches faster than daemonettes and can pile in 4 inches instead of 3, which has come in handy for me in the past. And you can solve most of the issues with fighting in one rank by spreading out in deployment and using Cogs to get them even more movement so that they can spread out 30 models wide from the 19 wide during deployment.