AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion

[Snakeb1te]

If I wanted to play a Slaves to Darkness army with better combat in general, would it make sense to play them with the Slaanesh allegiance? I feel like I wouldn't benefit from the depravity points at all though, unless I have demon models.

 

But I really like the combat allegiance benefits for this faction, as well as artifacts.

[Cambot1231]

1 minute ago, Snakeb1te said:

If I wanted to play a Slaves to Darkness army with better combat in general, would it make sense to play them with the Slaanesh allegiance? I feel like I wouldn't benefit from the depravity points at all though, unless I have demon models.

 

But I really like the combat allegiance benefits for this faction, as well as artifacts.

Probably the best new slaanesh ability is locus of diversion, which requires demons. This makes an enemy unit fight last. What I am doing is running slaves to darkness with one keeper of secrets and a big unit of daemonettes. They provide the hard punch units while the slaves anvil and grind behind them.

[CeleFAZE]

6 hours ago, Cambot1231 said:

Probably the best new slaanesh ability is locus of diversion, which requires demons. This makes an enemy unit fight last. What I am doing is running slaves to darkness with one keeper of secrets and a big unit of daemonettes. They provide the hard punch units while the slaves anvil and grind behind them.

Keep in mind the Contorted Epitome can provide a similar effect against multiple enemies while also giving a use of the locus. It might not be a bad support piece if you're otherwise running mortals.

Another thing to note is that the locus requires the Hedonite keyword, so daemon princes miss out on that ability despite being Slaanesh daemon heroes.

Edited May 16, 2019 by CeleFAZE

[Enoby]

8 hours ago, Snakeb1te said:

If I wanted to play a Slaves to Darkness army with better combat in general, would it make sense to play them with the Slaanesh allegiance? I feel like I wouldn't benefit from the depravity points at all though, unless I have demon models.

 

But I really like the combat allegiance benefits for this faction, as well as artifacts.

Would you be willing to use any daemons? Hedonites are built around them so, while mortals work, they're not as good with the battletome as daemons. Even things like a Contorted Epitome or Keeper of Secrets could really help improve the list.

[CeleFAZE]

8 hours ago, Snakeb1te said:

If I wanted to play a Slaves to Darkness army with better combat in general, would it make sense to play them with the Slaanesh allegiance? I feel like I wouldn't benefit from the depravity points at all though, unless I have demon models.

 

But I really like the combat allegiance benefits for this faction, as well as artifacts.

The combat buffs can be pretty good, but without some daemons you will be missing out on an entire portion of the allegiance abilities, and you won't get as much use out of your free terrain piece.

Looking at the StD allegiance abilities, yeah, you're probably going to get more out of Slaanesh allegiance between Euphoric Killers and your host abilities. You will definitely be more competitive if you have daemons for summoning though.

[spenson]

So I will be playing my first 2k game tonight against the blades of Khorne (gore pilgrims/murderhost IIRC).

i will be using this invaders list:

Allegiance: Slaanesh
- Host: Invaders Host
Keeper of Secrets (360)
- General
- Trait: Skin-taker 
- Artefact: Icon of Infinite Excess 
- Spell: Slothful Stupor
Shalaxi Helbane (340)
- Spell: Progeny of Damnation
Bladebringer, Herald on Exalted Chariot (220)
- Host Option: General (Invaders Host)
- Lore of Slaanesh: Pavane of Slaanesh
The Contorted Epitome (200)
- Artefact: The Rod of Misrule 
- Lore of Slaanesh: Hysterical Frenzy
30 x Daemonettes (300)
30 x Daemonettes (300)
5 x Hellstriders with Claw-spears (100)
Supreme Sybarites (120)
Chronomantic Cogs (60)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 115

I know shalaxi isn't that great but I love the model and I want to see how well it will do. I only took 2 generals because the epitome will stay at the center of my army and I can't use the command ability of the KoS on Shalaxi if they're both generals. i don't really know what to think about the chariot. 

I first though of a list with a depraved drove but I don't have enough ungors yet.

What are your thoughts on the list?

Edited May 16, 2019 by spenson

[Enoby]

21 minutes ago, spenson said:

I can't use the command ability of the KoS on Shalaxi if they're both generals.

Why is Shalaxi your general? You don't get much of a benefit from it do you? 

[Backbreaker]

Hey guys !

Am I the only one who think that this army is now far too powerful ? Most game end at T2 or 3, we don't even care about mission, just have to clear the table and we have tools do so easily... Except DoK, I don't see a single army that can win right now.

[Enoby]

3 minutes ago, Backbreaker said:

Hey guys !

Am I the only one who think that this army is now far too powerful ? Most game end at T2 or 3, we don't even care about mission, just have to clear the table and we have tools do so easily... Except DoK, I don't see a single army that can win right now.

From the two games (admittedly not much) I've had, I've "won" turn 2 and the opponent's not had the chance to strike back with anything meaningful. I don't believe we're too strong overall, but we are very punishing against casual melee lists.

[Overread]

Just as players learn how to play a new army, opponents have to learn how to play against it. Right now I figure many are having to learn how to shut down leaders and heroes or lock them in weak combat rather than actually dealing wounds to them. Or learning to deal wounds fast to kill them off - knowing it comes with a depravity cost, but knowing it also removes the leader from generating their own depravity from attacks. 

Armies like skaven with a lot of 1 wound models are also going to be tougher matches because you can't generate as much depravity, esp if the player is screening their multiwound models behind walls of one wound models. 

Meanwhile armies like gutbusters or Stormcast, with fewer models with more multi wounds are going to, in theory, be much easier for slaanesh because there's more potential to generate depravity points off them.

 

 

[Magnus The Blue]

1 minute ago, Overread said:

Just as players learn how to play a new army, opponents have to learn how to play against it. Right now I figure many are having to learn how to shut down leaders and heroes or lock them in weak combat rather than actually dealing wounds to them. Or learning to deal wounds fast to kill them off - knowing it comes with a depravity cost, but knowing it also removes the leader from generating their own depravity from attacks. 

Armies like skaven with a lot of 1 wound models are also going to be tougher matches because you can't generate as much depravity, esp if the player is screening their multiwound models behind walls of one wound models. 

Meanwhile armies like gutbusters or Stormcast, with fewer models with more multi wounds are going to, in theory, be much easier for slaanesh because there's more potential to generate depravity points off them.

 

 

Yup, this.  If you rely to heavily on heros (which our summoning pushes you to do) you'll have a really hard time against some armies (Grimghast spam, DoK and skaven come to mind) but absolutely decimate others and perhaps come to think out book is too powerful until you come up against a counter.

I can't think of any good counter to say 90 Grimghast reapers or 200 plague monks, except out playing them on objectives.

[Overread]

I do worry that in the way GW has tried to limit depravity they've also built a bit of limit into diversity of armies for Slaanesh and an abnormal elment of weighting most of the army into heroes - made somewhat worse by the fact that Slaanesh as a pure demonic army has very expensive heroes in general. So you can easily end up with near on 3/4 of your army in heroes and only taking the bare minimum of 3 seeker chariots for battleline. Which is somewhat opposite of how every other army functions. 

 

Right now I feel like they push players a bit too much toward taking more keepers and leaders - which is great that we can don't get me wrong - but it just feels a bit constricting. 

And, as noted, the way depravity is generated can result in matchups where the opponent has a much harder time depending on what army they bring. Bigger forces like skaven can even far - a big moulder army with lots of rat ogres is goin to fare worse than a swarm of clanrats. 

[Enoby]

I feel Hysterical Frenzy is meant to be our answer to hordes, but it's still a bad matchup for us. I do think daemonettes are our best horde killer due to sheer number of attacks, or just pushing in a load of KoS. 

It's weird, our book almost feels like we have too many good options, and our KoS are just great options. There's nothing that's a never take (which is great) but our heroes often feel like an always take.  

[Thor]

is it possible to build a bladebringer on hellflayer from the start collecting kit ?

[Enoby]

3 minutes ago, Thor said:

is it possible to build a bladebringer on hellflayer from the start collecting kit ?

Yes, I do believe all chariot variants are possible from the SC kit.

[Overread]

5 minutes ago, Thor said:

is it possible to build a bladebringer on hellflayer from the start collecting kit ?

A single chariot kit can build one of the following:

Seeker chariot
Seeker chariot with herald
Hellflayer chariot
Hellflayer chariot with herald 

The start collecting set contains two  complete chariot kits so you can build two above  in any combination or use both kits to build one of the following:

Exalted Chariot
Exalted Chariot with herald. 

Edited May 16, 2019 by Overread

[EMMachine]

11 minutes ago, Overread said:

A single chariot kit can build one of the following:

Seeker chariot
Seeker chariot with herald
Hellflayer chariot
Hellflayer chariot with herald 

The start collecting set contains two  complete chariot kits so you can build two above  in any combination or use both kits to build one of the following:

Exalted Chariot
Exalted Chariot with herald. 

The only thing to think off, is that in the start collecting box is only one 120x92mm Base (and only the assambly guide for the Exalted Charot), if you have both you can build two of the other chariots with the start collecting box.

[Tasman]

22 hours ago, SwampHeart said:

What were you not in range of? 

My KoS. I had thought that she'd be able to make them pile in twice.🤨 

When I removed my casualties, they ended up not being wholly within range of the keeper. Moot point, as they don't have the 'hedonist' keyword anyway. Just one of several blunders I made that cost me the game.

[Tasman]

Anyone else just a little underwhelmed by our Battalion choices? Also, did the Fiends really deserve such a huge point boost?

[Magnus The Blue]

29 minutes ago, Tasman said:

Anyone else just a little underwhelmed by our Battalion choices? Also, did the Fiends really deserve such a huge point boost?

By the number, yes. By the quality, not at all.

We may have only 5 Battalions (inc deprived drove), but three of them are solid choices in the right army.  Giving your universal bonuses that don't cost the earth is great. Compared to say stormcast with 20+ battalions any only 2-3 that are even mildly worth their point cost, we're doing alright.

Deprived drove is great, gives you access to some cheap battleline, solid hammer units, good value heros and some nice bonuses into the bargin when you go hero hunting. Obviously has a massive impact on how you put the army together.

Supreme Sybarite is great if you're running multiple Keepers and want to keep them double fighting (and why wouldn't you), or just want to reduce your drops and get command points/artefact into the bargain.

Seeker Cavalcade: fantastic ability for overlapping units of Seekers and hellstriders make it really hard to engage any of them without pulling in most of the battalion. Hellstriders with whips can pill-in and attack with models 9" away from the combat, which is hilarious (although not amazingly good since the whips are meh). This one has to be built around as well, not going to be worth it with 3 units of 5 seekers, but it your rocking more/bigger units, it definately worth considering.

Revelers is my least favourite of the regular battalion as it's the most expensive and buffs our worst units. Pretenders Daemonettes with the Revelers bonus  are decent (but a loose hard in comparison to Bestigors in a Deprived Drove).

The Hedonite Host is at least cheap, but given it needs 3 other battalions I wouldn't really consider it short of 3k+ games.

The problem I think we have with battalions if that you want lots of heros (duh) which means few wound for lots of points and battalions take more points away from having sufficient board presence, so often once you've added plenty of heros, some screens, battleline and a hammer or two you simply don't have points for battalions.

 

 

 

[Enoby]

1 hour ago, Tasman said:

Anyone else just a little underwhelmed by our Battalion choices? Also, did the Fiends really deserve such a huge point boost?

I love our battalions - I think they've done a great job of making sure they're usable. They're comprised of things you're likely to take anyway, so nothing ever feels like tax (I mean, they're all made out of battleline or hero modles) which tended to be the biggest killer of battalion viability in the past (where they were often 'take 1 useless hero along with everything else despite them adding nothing to the battalion).

[SwampHeart]

3 hours ago, Magnus The Blue said:

I can't think of any good counter to say 90 Grimghast reapers or 200 plague monks, except out playing them on objectives.

30 Bestigors with 25 in combat (not hard against a unit like GGRs) will do 24 wounds after saves, if you're limiting yourself to just Hedonites then 30 Daemonettes in Epicureans does 17 wounds. Those numbers also become staggering against a unit like Plague Monks.

We have the tools to handle hordes, well, especially given our speed. The key is balancing those units that handle hordes against our desire to load up on characters. I'd personally rather spend the 300 points on Bestigors than 360 on an 2nd keeper every time just because it means you aren't leaving a glaring weakness in your play to armies like DoK, Skaven, and GGR LoN. 

Edited May 16, 2019 by SwampHeart

[spenson]

3 hours ago, Enoby said:

Why is Shalaxi your general? You don't get much of a benefit from it do you? 

Don't you get a cp when you generals die in invader host?

[Tasman]

24 minutes ago, Magnus The Blue said:

By the number, yes. By the quality, not at all.

We may have only 5 Battalions (inc deprived drove), but three of them are solid choices in the right army.  Giving your universal bonuses that don't cost the earth is great. Compared to say stormcast with 20+ battalions any only 2-3 that are even mildly worth their point cost, we're doing alright.

Deprived drove is great, gives you access to some cheap battleline, solid hammer units, good value heros and some nice bonuses into the bargin when you go hero hunting. Obviously has a massive impact on how you put the army together.

Supreme Sybarite is great if you're running multiple Keepers and want to keep them double fighting (and why wouldn't you), or just want to reduce your drops and get command points/artefact into the bargain.

Seeker Cavalcade: fantastic ability for overlapping units of Seekers and hellstriders make it really hard to engage any of them without pulling in most of the battalion. Hellstriders with whips can pill-in and attack with models 9" away from the combat, which is hilarious (although not amazingly good since the whips are meh). This one has to be built around as well, not going to be worth it with 3 units of 5 seekers, but it your rocking more/bigger units, it definately worth considering.

Revelers is my least favourite of the regular battalion as it's the most expensive and buffs our worst units. Pretenders Daemonettes with the Revelers bonus  are decent (but a loose hard in comparison to Bestigors in a Deprived Drove).

The Hedonite Host is at least cheap, but given it needs 3 other battalions I wouldn't really consider it short of 3k+ games.

The problem I think we have with battalions if that you want lots of heros (duh) which means few wound for lots of points and battalions take more points away from having sufficient board presence, so often once you've added plenty of heros, some screens, battleline and a hammer or two you simply don't have points for battalions.

 

 

 

Yeah, Revellers is kinda 'Meh' as far as I'm concerned, especially since D'nettes have gone from what was once, arguably one of the best battleline units in the game, to a mediocre one, at best. Losing the -1 to hit banner on the Hellstriders really impacted the Nettes. Unfortunately, they'll be relegated to summoned troops, at least until I can figure out how I want to use them. I mean they've still got some good stuff going for them, but losing the re-rolls took a little more away from them as well. Of course they'll be included.... they're battleline. But I'm going to be trying some other builds where maybe just one unit of them, hellstriders for the other two, and then work in some fiends. I don't know yet. I've only got two games in so far and I'm still trying to figure out my best build with what I've got.

[Snakeb1te]

5 hours ago, CeleFAZE said:

The combat buffs can be pretty good, but without some daemons you will be missing out on an entire portion of the allegiance abilities, and you won't get as much use out of your free terrain piece.

Looking at the StD allegiance abilities, yeah, you're probably going to get more out of Slaanesh allegiance between Euphoric Killers and your host abilities. You will definitely be more competitive if you have daemons for summoning though.

Fair enough. I mostly just like the Daemonettes and crazy huge chariots. 

I love the idea of finally having a way to make Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights do 'some' damage, due to the allegiance ability allowing for 6s to multi-hit.